Releases from September–October 2022

Great albums from around the world

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Find releases from 2023 | 2021.

Also check out some of the great reissues of classic albums.

 

The hottest pre-sale releases

Pre-sale of the week is The Art of the Lie by John Grant, out on 14 June.

Special pre-sale offer: Paul Weller – 66Special pre-sale offer: Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds – Wild GodSpecial pre-sale offer: Richard Hawley – In This City They Call You LoveSpecial pre-sale offer: Taylor Swift – The Tortured Poets DepartmentSpecial pre-sale offer: Michael Head & The Red Elastic Band – LoopholeSpecial pre-sale offer: John Grant – The Art of the LieSpecial pre-sale offer: Goat Girl – Below the WasteSpecial pre-sale offer: Richard Thompson – Ship to ShoreSpecial pre-sale offer: St. Vincent – All Born ScreamingSpecial pre-sale offer: Lucy Rose – This Ain’t the Way You Go Out

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Jump to: 28 October  |  21 October  |  14 October  |  7 October  |  30 September  |  23 September  |  16 September  |  9 September  |  2 September

 

Releases for 28 October 2022

First out of 28 October’s box of delights is Old Kind Of Magic, the most sweepingly expansive and delicately intimate album to date from Native Harrow – who will be playing tracks from the album in-store on 19 November at 2pm – that takes in folk-rock, soul-jazz balladry, psychedelia and string quartet writing. A Night of A Thousand Vampires brings back to vivid life the immersive musical and theatrical experience at the London Palladium in 2019 featuring The Damned with Hammer House of Horror and the cast of Circus of Horrors – an evening of shock, awe and a fierce live rampage through their rich 40-year catalogue. Triggered! adds twists of tough punk and twinkles of yacht rock to Massive Wagons’ electrifying no-nonsense rock recipe, and it includes tracks destined to become huge anthems in the live arena. Durham indiepop-punks Martha return with their fourth album, Please Don’t Take Me Back, and it’s the work of a band in the form of their life – an instant classic that’s both smartly prescient and warmly addictive. Singer-songwriter Tom Odell left his major label in 2021 and embarked on a new, independent chapter of his career in which he reclaims control and takes back the reins of his acclaimed artistry, and The Best Day Of My Life shows a stripped-back, incredibly vulnerable side of his soul.

Our release of the week can only be Revolver, the 1966 album by The Beatles that changed everything. Spinning popular music off its axis and ushering in a vibrant new era of experimental, avant-garde sonic psychedelia, Revolver brought about a cultural sea change and marked an important turn in The Beatles’ own creative evolution. With Revolver, the Fab Four set sail together across a new musical sea. A super-deluxe special edition includes a wealth of extras.

  • The Beatles - Revolver
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    • The Beatles  Revolver 
  • Revolver is the 1966 album by The Beatles that changed everything. Spinning popular music off its axis and ushering in a vibrant new era of experimental, avant-garde sonic psychedelia, Revolver brought about a cultural sea change and marked an important turn in The Beatles’ own creative evolution. With Revolver, John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr set sail together across a new musical sea.
  • The super-deluxe special edition contains either 5 CDs or 4 half-speed-mastered 180g LPs and a 7", housed in a 12.56" x 12.36" slipcase, and features a new mix by Giles Martin and Sam Okell, plus the original mono mix, a 4-track EP, 31 session takes and home demos, a 100-page book with a foreword by Paul McCartney, an essay by Questlove, detailed track notes, photos and ephemera including handwritten lyrics, tape boxes and extracts from Klaus Voormann’s graphic novel on the making of the cover art.
  • The Beatles – Revolver super-deluxe box set
  • Native Harrow - Old Kind Of Magic
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    • Native Harrow  Old Kind Of Magic 
  • ★ Native Harrow will be playing in-store on 19 November at 2pm ★
  • Old Kind Of Magic, the fifth long-player from Native Harrow, arrives two years into their new life in Sussex. In this new place, they have self-produced a work that is simultaneously their most sweepingly expansive and delicately intimate album to date. The songs on the album move dramatically from the opening field recording of the Brighton seaside to Laurel Canyon-esque folk-rock, piano- and Rhodes-tinged soul-jazz balladry, oud- and harpsichord-driven ’60s technicolour psychedelia, dense modernistic string-quartet writing and wide-as-the-western skies panoramic pedal steel with sepia-toned 12-string.
  • The Damned - A Night Of A Thousand Vampires
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    • The Damned  A Night Of A Thousand Vampires 
  • On 28 October 2019, The Damned took to the stage at London’s prestigious Palladium Theatre for a very special immersive musical and theatrical experience. A Night of A Thousand Vampires teams the band with The Hammer House of Horror and the cast of The Circus of Horrors for an evening of shock, awe and a fierce live rampage through their rich 40-year catalogue. A night to remember for those of us among the living … and the undead!
  • Massive Wagons - Triggered!
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    • Massive Wagons  Triggered! 
  • Having grown from beloved local heroes – becoming the first ever Lancashire band to achieve a UK Top 40 album with their UK #16 album Full Nelson in 2018 – to national treasures within the New Wave of Rock’n’Roll, Massive Wagons have crafted an all-new album of heavy-duty rock’n’roll that stays true to the band’s influences while pushing past the boundaries of what fans have experienced on previous albums. Triggered! adds twists of tough punk and twinkles of yacht rock while keeping the iconic lyricism of frontman Barry ‘Baz’ Mills and the band’s electrifying no-nonsense rock recipe, and the album proffers tracks destined to become huge anthems in the live arena.
  • Martha - Please Don’t Take Me Back
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    • Martha  Please Don’t Take Me Back 
  • Durham indiepop-punks Martha return with their fourth album, Please Don’t Take Me Back, and it might just be their best one yet. With their endlessly radiant hooks dialled up to maximum setting and paired with another heart-rending and relatable lyric sheet that reflects on the universal scars of the pandemic years, Please Don’t Take Me Back is the work of a band in the form of their life. It’s also an instant classic – one that’s both smartly prescient and warmly addictive.
  • Tom Odell - The Best Day Of My Life
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    • Tom Odell  The Best Day Of My Life 
  • Having fulfilled his major-label record contract in 2021, singer-songwriter Tom Odell began to look ahead to a new era, a new way of working, and embarked on a new, independent chapter of his career in which he reclaims control and takes back the reins of his acclaimed artistry. The Best Day Of My Life is the start of this new chapter, showing a stripped-back, incredibly vulnerable side of his soul.
 

 

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Releases for 21 October 2022

The first of 21 October’s sparklers is Midnights, a collection of music written in the middle of the night: the stories of 13 sleepless nights scattered throughout Taylor Swift’s life. Direction Of The Heart finds a rejuvenated Simple Minds at their most confident, anthemic best – it’s an inspired celebration of life that manages perfectly to encapsulate the essence of this iconic band. Buoyed by the success of their acclaimed debut, South London-based Dry Cleaning follow up with Stumpwork, on which they display a fresh sense of freedom and openness to explore beyond an already rangey sonic palette, and a newfound confidence in their creative vision. Loyle Carner explores a central question on hugo: “I’m young, Black, successful and have a platform – but where do I go next?”, and this epic scream of a third album is both a rallying war-cry for a generation forged in fire and a study of internal personal conflict. Formidable psychic warriors, the ever-mysterious Goat return with Oh Death, on which folk-haunted incantations and free-jazz skronk are buoyed by raucous energy locked into a delirious gnostic groove that threatens to throw the whole shebang spiralling into orbit.

Our release of the week can only be The Car, which follows 2018’s Tranquility Base Hotel + Casino and finds Arctic Monkeys running wild in a new and sumptuous musical landscape that contains some of the richest and most rewarding songwriting and vocal performances of Alex Turner’s career.

  • Arctic Monkeys - The Car
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    • Arctic Monkeys  The Car 
  • The Car is the seventh studio album from Arctic Monkeys. The album features ten new songs written by Alex Turner, and it was produced by James Ford and recorded at Butley Priory, Suffolk, La Frette, Paris and RAK Studios, London. The album, which follows 2018’s Tranquility Base Hotel + Casino, finds Arctic Monkeys running wild in a new and sumptuous musical landscape and contains some of the richest and most rewarding vocal performances of Alex Turner’s career.
  • Taylor Swift - Midnights
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    • Taylor Swift  Midnights 
  • Taylor Swift’s new studio album, Midnights, is a collection of music written in the middle of the night: a journey through terrors and sweet dreams. The floors we pace and the demons we face – the stories of 13 sleepless nights scattered throughout Taylor’s life.
  • Simple Minds - Direction Of The Heart
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    • Simple Minds  Direction Of The Heart 
  • Direction Of The Heart is the first album of new material from Simple Minds since 2018’s outstanding UK Top 5 album Walk Between Worlds. Throughout its nine tracks, Direction Of The Heart finds the band at their most confident, anthemic best on a record that is an inspired celebration of life and that manages perfectly to encapsulate the essence of Simple Minds past and present, a band whose recent reascent has seen them once again capture the magic and critical praise of their early days.
  • Dry Cleaning - Stumpwork
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    • Dry Cleaning  Stumpwork 
  • South London-based Dry Cleaning’s debut, New Long Leg, became a huge critical and commercial success, reaching #4 in the UK Album Charts and featuring in best-of-2021 polls across the board. Buoyed by its success, Nick Buxton (drums), Tom Dowse (guitar), Lewis Maynard (bass) and Florence Shaw (vocals) returned to the iconic Rockfield Studios in rural Wales in late 2021, partnering once more with producer John Parish and engineer Joe Jones to produce Stumpwork. Working from a position of trust in the same studio and with the same team, imposter syndrome and anxiety were replaced by a fresh sense of freedom and openness to explore beyond an already rangey sonic palette, and a newfound confidence in their creative vision.
  • Loyle Carner - hugo
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    • Loyle Carner  hugo 
  • In hugo, there’s a central question that Loyle Carner keeps coming back to: “I’m young, Black, successful and have a platform – but where do I go next?” The answer is explored in this epic scream of a third album. With urgent delivery and gloriously widescreen production, Carner confronts both the deeply personal (“You can’t hate the roots of a tree and not hate the tree. So how can I hate my father without hating me?”) and the highly political (“I told the black man he didn’t understand, I reached the white man he wouldn’t take my hand.”). Cinematic in scale and scope, hugo is both a rallying war-cry for a generation forged in fire and a study of internal personal conflict.
  • Goat - Oh Death
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    • Goat  Oh Death 
  • Formidable psychic warriors, channellers of the mystic and proponents of a spiritual quest that transcends this realm, Goat remain a band shrouded in mystery. Travelling from their inscrutable origins in the Swedish village of Korpilombo across the stages and festivals of the world in the last decade, this band has created their incendiary music entirely according to their own co-ordinates. The eternal cycles of rebirth have triumphantly produced Oh Death – a ceremonial conflagration as powerful as any this band has made, and a party to which all are welcome. Folk-haunted incantations and free-jazz skronk here find common ground, buoyed by relentless forward motion and raucous energy. Yet all of the above is locked into a delirious gnostic groove that threatens to throw the whole shebang spiralling into orbit.
 

 

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Releases for 14 October 2022

Our six crackers for 14 October start with Here Is Everything, the dazzling second album from brilliant London band The Big Moon, who have an acute ear for melody and knack for writing smart, sharp and infectious indie-pop knockouts. FOREVERANDEVERNOMORE, the 22nd solo studio album from Brian Eno, is a sonically beguiling, ultimately optimistic exploration of the narrowing, precarious future of humanity and our planet: “We need to fall in love again, but this time with nature, with civilisation and with our hopes for the future.” Hard-rock titans Alter Bridge have found a new fire and heaviness, and their seventh album, Pawns & Kings, adds ten unforgettable new songs to their catalogue. Rival Consoles produce driving, experimental electronic music that makes synthesisers sound human, and Now Is is more playful and melodic, seamlessly blending synthesisers and acoustic instruments. Being Funny In A Foreign Language is the fifth studio album from The 1975, who have established themselves as one of the defining bands of their generation with their distinctive aesthetic, ardent fan base and unique sonic approach.

Our release of the week is Return Of The Dream Canteen – the Red Hot Chili Peppers’s second album of 2022, hot on the heels of the platinum-selling chart topper Unlimited Love, which debuted at #1 in the UK in April. It is also the band’s second Rick Rubin-produced album of 2022, and reinforces their reputation as a band at their absolute peak, riding the crest of an undeniable creative wave.

  • Red Hot Chili Peppers - Return Of The Dream Canteen
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    • Red Hot Chili Peppers  Return Of The Dream Canteen 
  • Return Of The Dream Canteen is the Red Hot Chili Peppers’s second album of 2022, hot on the heels of the platinum-selling chart topper Unlimited Love, which debuted at #1 in the UK in April. It is also the band’s second Rick Rubin-produced album of 2022, and reinforces their reputation as a band at their absolute peak, riding the crest of an undeniable creative wave.
  • The Big Moon - Here Is Everything
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    • The Big Moon  Here Is Everything 
  • The last time you heard The Big Moon was when you welcomed the release of their dazzling second album, Walking Like We Do, back in January 2020, when life was very different to how it is now. That was a coming-of-age record: bold songs for Saturday nights and sad songs for Sunday mornings. So much has changed, continues to change, and promises to change some more. And in this world of constant change, we yearn for the familiarity of a constant. Thankfully, one constant remains the unique, jubilant, unassailable bond that sews this brilliant London band together and what that does for their music, too. Another such constant is their collective ear for melody and knack for writing smart, sharp and infectious indie-pop knockouts, as shown admirably on Here Is Everything.
  • Brian Eno - FOREVERANDEVERNOMORE
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    • Brian Eno  FOREVERANDEVERNOMORE 
  • FOREVERANDEVERNOMORE is the 22nd solo studio album from Brian Eno and his first in more than five years. Eno recorded and produced the 10-track album at his studio in West London, and sings on the majority of tracks. It’s a sonically beguiling, ultimately optimistic exploration of the narrowing, precarious future of humanity and our planet. As Eno himself concludes, “Briefly, we need to fall in love again, but this time with nature, with civilisation and with our hopes for the future.
  • Alter Bridge - Pawns & Kings
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    • Alter Bridge  Pawns & Kings 
  • Since 2004, Alter Bridge has been one of the most consistent bands to successfully represent the rock and metal communities with their driving melodies, blazing guitar riffs and topical lyrics that resonate with fans around the globe. Their seventh album, Pawns & Kings, shows a new fire and heaviness, and adds ten unforgettable new songs to their catalogue.
  • Rival Consoles - Now Is
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    • Rival Consoles  Now Is 
  • London-based musician and producer Ryan Lee West, aka Rival Consoles, creates driving, experimental electronic music that makes synthesisers sound human. His consistent desire to create a more organic, living sound leads him to create pieces that capture a sense of songwriting behind the machines. Now Is marks a new chapter in an ongoing quest for refinement and evolution. More playful and melodic, the album draws from much experimentation in minimalist songwriting and seamlessly blends synthesisers and acoustic instruments. “There are some pieces that are influenced quite strongly by the isolation and anxiety of these times. There are also pieces which are more optimistic and vibrant, which I think is a consistent attitude of my records, as I want art to express many aspects of life.
  • The 1975 - Being Funny In A Foreign Language
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    • The 1975  Being Funny In A Foreign Language 
  • The 1975’s fifth studio album, Being Funny In A Foreign Language, was written by Matthew Healy and George Daniel and recorded at Real World Studios in Wiltshire and Electric Lady Studios in New York. Since their formation in Manchester in 2002, The 1975 have established themselves as one of the defining bands of their generation with their distinctive aesthetic, ardent fan base and unique sonic approach.
 

 

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Releases for 7 October 2022

We open 7 October’s six scorchers with As The Moon Rests, the second album by London-based singer-songwriter A.A. Williams: a brilliantly dramatic fusion of post-rock and post-classical, by turns glacial and volcanic, blissful and violent, with moments both of disarming quiet and explosive volume, equally appealing to alt-rock and metal camps. N.K-Pop is the fifth studio album by Paul Heaton & Jacqui Abbott, both formerly members of The Beautiful South, which follows 2020’s No.1 album Manchester Calling and adds another clutch of deliciously barbed pop songs to Heaton’s Ivor Novello Award-winning song collection. Bonny Light Horseman is a band working at the edge of modern folk, and the original songs on Rolling Golden Holy take the spirit of the traditional tunes that they cherish to new frontiers, the sounds and situations of history given the gravity and shape of now, and the trio’s chemistry shines through every note. Alvvays & forever! What a time to be alive. These dream-pop delights have taken their time to create a third album well worth the wait – expect indelible melodic hooks and shimmering walls of synth and guitar reverb on Blue Rev, where classic indie-pop dynamics meet sweetly dark lyrical turns for an album that improves with each listen. Welcome back Alvvays, we’ve missed you! And Our Roots Run Deep captures Kodaline live in a stripped-down acoustic show at Dublin’s Olympia Theatre in early March 2022 that they put on as a thank-you to the audience that they have built such a symbiotic relationship with, and it’s a spectacular showcase for the purity of their artistry and the profound musical impact they’ve had on a generation.

Our release of the week come from Courtney Marie Andrews, who found self-love and her voice in a beach shack on the honey shores of Cape Cod, walking for miles each morning and meditating on her life, perusing old memories and mental patterns like browsing a used bookshop. After more than a decade on the road, she finally had the space to process all the highs and lows of a life of constants. She was finally ready to make a record of triumph, while not completely forgetting the years that made her. Loose Future is that record.

  • Courtney Marie Andrews - Loose Future
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    • Courtney Marie Andrews  Loose Future 
  • In a beach shack on the honey shores of Cape Cod, Courtney Marie Andrews found self-love and her voice. Every morning, she’d walk 6 to 8 miles around the back trails of an island and meditate on her life, perusing old memories and mental patterns like browsing a used bookshop. After more than a decade on the road, the Phoenix-born songwriter, poet and painter finally had the space to process all the highs and lows of a life of constants. She was finally ready to make a record of triumph, while not completely forgetting the years that made her. Loose Future is that record.
  • A.A. Williams - As The Moon Rests
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    • A.A. Williams  As The Moon Rests 
  • London-based singer-songwriter A.A. Williams returns with As The Moon Rests, the follow-up to 2020’s debut Forever Blue, a brilliantly dramatic, unique and intimate walk on the dark side that fused bold and smouldering hues of post-rock and post-classical: by turns glacial and volcanic, blissful and violent, with moments both of disarming quiet and explosive volume, equally appealing to alt-rock and metal camps. As The Moon Rests is heavier and softer, with more texture and weight, plus a string ensemble – it’s Forever Blue times ten!
  • Paul Heaton & Jacqui Abbott - N.K-Pop
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    • Paul Heaton & Jacqui Abbott  N.K-Pop 
  • N.K-Pop is the fifth studio album by Paul Heaton & Jacqui Abbott, both formerly members of The Beautiful South. The release follows previous studio album Manchester Calling, which reached No.1 in March 2020, and adds another clutch of deliciously barbed pop songs to Heaton’s Ivor Novello Award-winning song collection. Earlier this year Heaton received nationwide coverage when he marked his 60th birthday by putting £1000 behind the bar at 60 pubs across the UK.
  • Bonny Light Horseman - Rolling Golden Holy
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    • Bonny Light Horseman  Rolling Golden Holy 
  • The songs on Rolling Golden Holy, all originals, follow the paths of the traditional tunes that Bonny Light Horseman cherish to new frontiers, the sounds and situations of history given the gravity and shape of now. This is a band working at the edge of modern folk. After the release of their debut, Anaïs Mitchell, Josh Kaufman and Eric D. Johnson began discussing their next steps, loosely planning on writing and recording stints. Those sessions were delayed for all the unpredictable but now-familiar reasons until spring 2021, when the trio reconvened, with their families in tow, in upstate New York. Their chemistry, thankfully, remained intact.
  • Alvvays - Blue Rev
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    • Alvvays  Blue Rev 
  • Alvvays & forever! What a time to be alive. These dream-pop delights have taken their time to create a third album well worth the wait – expect indelible melodic hooks and shimmering walls of synth and guitar reverb on Blue Rev, where classic indie-pop dynamics meet sweetly dark lyrical turns for an album that improves with each listen. Welcome back Alvvays, we’ve missed you!
  • Kodaline - Our Roots Run Deep
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    • Kodaline  Our Roots Run Deep 
  • When Kodaline stepped on stage at Dublin’s cozy, sold-out Olympia Theatre in early March 2022, the beloved Irish quartet also felt a sense of release. Two years of pandemic-related separation, from each other and from the audience they had built meticulously since 2011, had underscored how essential that symbiotic relationship really is.
  • This album is something we’ve wanted to do for a very long time, it’s also something entirely new to us,” explain the band. “It’s a stripped-down acoustic show with no click, which basically means, it’s very raw and unfiltered. We wanted to try and capture the energy and atmosphere of the night as best we could. It was an intimate show recorded in one of our favourite venues in the world, in Dublin City at home in Ireland. We hope you enjoy it as much as we enjoyed playing it.
  • Our Roots Run Deep is a spectacular showcase for the purity of their artistry and the profound musical impact they’ve had on a generation. Their next step is around the corner, till then, this is Kodaline – unguarded, simple, essential.
 

 

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Releases for 30 September 2022

Our picks for 30 September start with Fossora, the astonishing 10th album from Björk: an organic, spacious work of depth and tenderness, inspired by thoughts of landing on the earth and digging feet into the ground. Angels & Queens Part 1 is the first of a two-part debut album from the undeniably ethereal, soulful LA/UK-based pop trio Gabriels, which follows a triumphant summer featuring sold-out shows and festival performances. The opener to John Fullbright’s new record, The Liar, details piano-playing as a refuge, from childhood right up to the present day, counteracting those of his songs that speak explicitly about mining one’s angst in order to make music; Fullbright is still thinking about his songwriting, but not in quite the way he was before. Iowan thrash icons Slipknot’s widely anticipated new album, The End For Now, was produced by the band and Joe Barresi and includes last year’s surprise single, ‘The Chapeltown Rag’, and follows the widely celebrated We Are Not Your Kind. And Yeah Yeah Yeahs have a thunderstorm of a return in store for us on Cool It Down, their first studio album in 9 years and one bound to be a landmark in their catalogue – it’s an expert distillation of their best gifts that impels you to move, and cry, and listen closely.

Our release of the week is Doggerel, the new album from the iconic Pixies. It’s a mature yet visceral record of gruesome folk, ballroom pop and brutal rock, haunted by the ghosts of affairs and indulgences, driven wild by cosmic forces and envisioning digital afterlives where no god has provided one. And all the while, right there on the news, another distant storm approaches.

  • Pixies - Doggerel
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    • Pixies  Doggerel 
  • Doggerel, the new album from the iconic Pixies, is a mature yet visceral record of gruesome folk, ballroom pop and brutal rock, haunted by the ghosts of affairs and indulgences, driven wild by cosmic forces and envisioning digital afterlives where no god has provided one. And all the while, right there on the news, another distant storm approaches.
  • Pixies forged an influential path for alt-rock during their first era, while their post-2004 reunion has seen them alchemise more sophisticated dark arts – a return since which they have added another three UK Top 10 albums to the three they achieved on their first run.
  • Björk - Fossora
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    • Björk  Fossora 
  • Björk returns with her 10th album, Fossora, whose title is the feminine form of the Latin word for digger. “Each album always starts with a feeling that I try to shape into sound; this time around the feeling was landing on the earth and digging my feet into the ground,” she explains. The album is organic, spacious and has depth and tenderness. It’s an astonishing piece of work that is both complex yet easy to digest with a dream-like quality. Björk once again gives her body and soul to this stunning album.
  • Gabriels - Angels & Queens Part 1
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    • Gabriels  Angels & Queens Part 1 
  • Angels & Queens Part 1 is the first of a two-part debut album from the undeniably ethereal, soulful LA/UK-based pop trio Gabriels. The release of the album follows a triumphant summer featuring a sold-out headline show at Koko, support tour with Celeste and festival highlight performances at BST with Elton John and on Glastonbury’s Park Stage.
  • John Fullbright - The Liar
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    • John Fullbright  The Liar 
  • “If you can’t say it, you don’t have to,” sings John Fullbright on ‘Bearden 1645’, the opening track to his new record, The Liar. The song details Fullbright finding refuge in playing the piano, from childhood right up to the present day. For fans, it may feel like a bit of a rebuttal to ‘Happy’, the opener from 2014’s Songs, one of several in his repertoire that speak explicitly about mining one’s angst in order to make music. In that way, ‘Bearden 1645’ is also a firm nod to the fourth wall: Fullbright knows you’re thinking about his songwriting. He is, too – but not in quite the way he was before.
  • Slipknot - The End For Now
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    • Slipknot  The End For Now 
  • Iowan thrash icons Slipknot’s widely anticipated new album, The End For Now, was produced by the band and Joe Barresi and includes last year’s surprise single, ‘The Chapeltown Rag’. The album follows Slipknot’s widely celebrated 2019 album, We Are Not Your Kind, which marked the band’s third consecutive number 1 on the Billboard 200 and debuted at #1 on the UK Album Chart.
  • Yeah Yeah Yeahs - Cool It Down
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    • Yeah Yeah Yeahs  Cool It Down 
  • It could only be called alchemy, the transformative magic that happens during Yeah Yeah Yeahs’ most tuned-in moments in the studio, when their unique chemistry sparks open a portal out of which comes a song like ‘Maps’ or ‘Zero’ or the latest addition to their canon, ‘Spitting off the Edge of the World’ (featuring Perfume Genius) – an epic shot to the heart of pure beauty and power. A thunderstorm of a return is what the trio has in store for us on Cool It Down, their fifth studio album and their first since 2013’s Mosquito. The eight-track collection, bound to be a landmark in their catalogue, is an expert distillation of their best gifts that impels you to move, and cry, and listen closely.
 

 

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Releases for 23 September 2022

23 September’s aural fireworks start with a bang as Mercury Prize-nominated trio The Comet Is Coming create a musical landscape that is as cerebral as it is physically enthralling on Hyper-Dimensional Expansion Beam, leaning further into heavy dance-hall themes and hypnotic electronic soundscapes over a jazz base. Vieux Farka Touré (aka ‘the Hendrix of the Sahara’) joins with Khruangbin to pay homage to his legendary father Ali, recreating some of his most resonant work and putting new twists on it while maintaining the original’s integrity to form a fitting tribute. In These Times is a collection of polytemporal compositions inspired as much by broader cultural struggles as by Makaya McCraven’s personal experience as a product of a multinational working-class musician community, including contributions from more than a dozen musicians and creative partners from his tight-knit circle of collaborators. Gulp! is the second studio album from one of Britain’s most exciting breakthrough bands of recent years, Sports Team – a band, according to NME, that you’ll either love or hate – and it signposts a bold and ambitious new era for them. Finally, Denim & Diamonds embraces a more rock-oriented sound with the gritty guitar and machine-gun snare of ’70s rock added to highway queen Nikki Lane’s trademark outlaw country sound and stylised story-telling, making a record that sounds both new and old, both familiar and surprising.

Our release of the week is the latest and possibly greatest yet from Beth Orton, who rediscovered music as a tethering force in the past few tumultuous years, stripping back the sound on Weather Alive to nothing more than her voice and a ‘cheap, crappy’ upright piano installed in a shed in her garden, conjuring a deeply meditative atmosphere that remains long after the final note has evaporated.

  • Beth Orton - Weather Alive
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    • Beth Orton  Weather Alive 
  • Many musicians turn inward when the world around them seems chaotic and unreliable; reframing one’s perception of self can often reveal new personal truths both uncomfortable and profound. For Beth Orton, music has re-emerged as a tethering force in the past several years even when her own life felt more tumultuous than ever. Indeed, the foundations of the songs on Orton’s stunning new album, Weather Alive, are nothing more than her voice and a ‘cheap, crappy’ upright piano installed in a shed in her garden, conjuring a deeply meditative atmosphere that remains long after the final note has evaporated.
  • The Comet Is Coming - Hyper-Dimensional Expansion Beam
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    • The Comet Is Coming  Hyper-Dimensional Expansion Beam 
  • The Comet Is Coming returns with their second full-length album on Impulse! Hyper-Dimensional Expansion Beam, the newest effort from King Shabaka, Danalogue and Betamax finds the Mercury Prize-nominated trio creating a musical landscape that is as cerebral as it is physically enthralling. While containing elements of jazz throughout, this release leans further into heavy dance-hall themes, providing hypnotic electronic soundscapes to dance to while keeping you intellectually stimulated.
  • Vieux Farka Touré & Khruangbin - Ali
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    • Vieux Farka Touré & Khruangbin  Ali 
  • Ali Farka Touré trekked the world, bringing his beloved Malian music to the masses. He was dubbed ‘the African John Lee Hooker’ and there were strong connections between the two: both employed a style of play with gritty textures that express calm and fury in equal measure. While the influence of American blues music remained strong, Touré created a West African blend of ‘desert blues’ that garnered Grammy awards and widespread reverence. Ali’s musical legacy lives on through his son, Vieux Farka Touré (aka ‘the Hendrix of the Sahara’), an accomplished guitarist and champion of Malian music in his own right. On Ali, his collaborative album with Khruangbin, Vieux pays homage to his father by recreating some of his most resonant work, putting new twists on it while maintaining the original’s integrity. The result is a rightful ode to a legend.
  • Makaya McCraven - In These Times
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    • Makaya McCraven  In These Times 
  • In These Times is a collection of polytemporal compositions inspired as much by broader cultural struggles as by Makaya McCraven’s personal experience as a product of a multinational working-class musician community. With contributions from more than a dozen musicians and creative partners from his tight-knit circle of collaborators – including Jeff Parker, Junius Paul, Brandee Younger, Joel Ross and Marquis Hill – the music was recorded in five different studios and four live performance spaces, while McCraven engaged in extensive post-production work at home.
  • Sports Team - Gulp!
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    • Sports Team  Gulp! 
  • Gulp! is the second studio album from one of Britain’s most exciting breakthrough bands of recent years, Sports Team, and it signposts a bold and ambitious new era for the band. Of lead track ‘R Entertainment’, the band explain that it explores “the packaging down of all human experience into entertainment, prompted by the infinite scroll through social feeds and the manic formlessness of the images we are hit with every day. Graphic news interrupted by ads for season 17 of The Bodyguard, news as a rubbernecking, passively waiting for the next drop of horror as we flick through recipes.
  • Nikki Lane - Denim & Diamonds
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    • Nikki Lane  Denim & Diamonds 
  • On Denim & Diamonds, produced by Joshua Homme (Queens of the Stone Age), highway queen Nikki Lane embraces a more rock-oriented sound while still maintaining the heartfelt outlaw country sound she has developed over her previous three releases. Denim & Diamonds still has the fuck-off flare for which Nikki has come to be known and her stylised story-telling lyrics are all there as well as her catchy country hooks, but the outlaw country sound is now balanced out with a gritty guitar and a machine-gun snare that echoes the sound of ’70s rock. Nikki Lane has made a record that sounds both new and old, both familiar and surprising.
 

 

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Releases for 16 September 2022

First of 16 September’s smashers is The Beths’ new album, Expert In A Dying Field, on which Elizabeth Stokes’ songwriting positions her somewhere between novelist and documentarian, with character sketches of relationships and their aftermaths: the shapes and ghosts left in absences. Wilderness Of Mirrors expertly refines The Black Angels’ psychedelic rock attack alongside a host of intriguing sounds and textures, with melancholy acoustic experiments, keyboards and strings joining classic blasts of fuzzed-out guitars. Death Cab For Cutie entered the ranks of the definitive bands of the 2000s, fuelled in large part by the remarkable power of Benjamin Gibbard’s complex, often bittersweet songcraft, and Asphalt Meadows finds them exploring further into their own unique sound. Midnight Scorchers is Adrian Sherwood’s ‘sound system’ take on the original sessions for Horace Andy’s critically acclaimed album Midnight Rocker, featuring new tracks, radical dancehall re-works with MC interjections from Daddy Freddy and Lone Ranger, and stripped-back instrumental excursions in classic dub-reggae style – it’s a powerful album in its own right. And the new, self-titled album from The Mars Volta finds them at their most mature, concise and focused – channelling their sound and fury to great effect and distilling all the passion, poetry and power at their fingertips, this album is the most accessible music the group have ever recorded.

Our release of the week is the brand-new album from Suede. As the band began work on the songs that would become Autofiction, they decided to go back to basics. In a move that recalled their formative days, the five band members schlepped to a rehearsal studio in deserted Kings Cross to collect a key, humped their own gear, set up and started playing. Brett Anderson calls this their ‘punk’ record, with no whistles and bells.

  • Suede - Autofiction
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    • Suede  Autofiction 
  • As Suede began work on the songs that would become Autofiction, they decided to go back to basics. In a move that recalled their formative days, Brett Anderson, Mat Osman, Simon Gilbert, Richard Oakes and Neil Codling schlepped to a rehearsal studio in deserted Kings Cross to collect a key, humped their own gear, set up and started playing. Speaking about Autofiction, Brett Anderson said: “Autofiction is our punk record. No whistles and bells. Just the five of us in a room with all the glitches; the band themselves exposed in all their primal mess.
  • The Beths - Expert In A Dying Field
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    • The Beths  Expert In A Dying Field 
  • On The Beths’ new album, Expert In A Dying Field, Elizabeth Stokes’ songwriting positions her somewhere between being a novelist and a documentarian. The songs collected here are autobiographical, but they’re also character sketches of relationships – platonic, familial, romantic – and, more importantly, their aftermaths: the shapes and ghosts left in absences. The question hangs in the air: what do you do with how intimately versed you’ve become in a person once they’re gone from your life?
  • The Black Angels - Wilderness Of Mirrors
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    • The Black Angels  Wilderness Of Mirrors 
  • Wilderness Of Mirrors expertly refines The Black Angels’ psychedelic rock attack alongside a host of intriguing sounds and textures. There are classic blasts of fuzzed-out guitars meant to simultaneously perk up the ears and jumpstart the mind, alongside melancholy, newfound acoustic guitar-driven experiments. Mellotron, other keyboards and strings also play a more prominent role on Wilderness Of Mirrors than ever before.
  • Death Cab For Cutie - Asphalt Meadows
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    • Death Cab For Cutie  Asphalt Meadows 
  • Formed in Bellingham in Washington state in 1997, Death Cab For Cutie almost immediately entered the ranks of the era’s definitive bands, fuelled in large part by the remarkable power of co-founder, vocalist, guitarist and lead songwriter Benjamin Gibbard’s complex, often bittersweet songcraft. Asphalt Meadows, their tenth studio album, finds them exploring further into their own unique sound.
  • Horace Andy - Midnight Scorchers
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    • Horace Andy  Midnight Scorchers 
  • Midnight Scorchers is a companion to the critically acclaimed Horace Andy album Midnight Rocker – in fact, it’s Adrian Sherwood’s ‘sound system’ take on the original sessions, featuring new tracks, radical dancehall re-works with MC interjections from Daddy Freddy and Lone Ranger, and stripped-back instrumental excursions in classic dub-reggae style.
  • Continuing the series that Sherwood began with Heavy Rain, his re-working of Lee ‘Scratch’ Perry’s Rainford album, Midnight Scorchers is both an essential sequel to Midnight Rocker as well as being a powerful album in its own right.
  • The Mars Volta - The Mars Volta
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    • The Mars Volta  The Mars Volta 
  • This self-titled album is The Mars Volta at their most mature, most concise, most focused. The Mars Volta channels their sound and fury to greatest effect, with Omar Rodríguez-López’s subterranean pop melodies driving Cedric Bixler-Zavala’s dark sci-fi tales of the occult and malevolent governments. Distilling all the passion, poetry and power at their fingertips, this album is the most accessible music the group have ever recorded.
 

 

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Releases for 9 September 2022

Kicking off 9 September’s peaches is How Do You Burn?, which finds The Afghan Whigs in peak form and making the most thrilling music of their lives and reaches corners of sound that, twenty-six years on, take them to an apex. One of the UK’s most exciting bands, The Amazons, release the stratospheric, anthem-packed How Will I Know If Heaven Will Find Me?, formed from the songs Matt Thomson wrote for his girlfriend during the long months spent apart in lockdown. London-based duo Jockstrap release their hotly anticipated debut full-length record, I Love You Jennifer B, each track of which is pretty singular sounding – there should be something that speaks to each listener and says “I’m a banger.” Grammy-nominated Scottish musician KT Tunstall has followed 2016’s KIN, her ‘soul’ record, and 2018’s WAX, her ‘body’ record, with the ‘mind’ record NUT; on it, she tried to shake things up and push into something new to make an exciting, meaningful record while having fun doing it. Flood finds Stella Donnelly wading into uncharted territory on a record of rediscovery: the product of months of risky experimentation, hard moments of introspection and a lot of moving around while paying closer attention to the natural world around her.

Our release of the week is the anniversary version of Manic Street Preachers’ classic album Know Your Enemy, which has been entirely remixed and reconstructed from the original tapes that Nicky Wire had made in the studio during recording sessions to form the two separate albums, Solidarity and Door To The River, that the band had originally planned to make. The new mixes would bring a clarity to each record, losing extraneous studio effects and orchestration to let the songs and the band’s performance shine through.

  • Manic Street Preachers - Know Your Enemy
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    • Manic Street Preachers  Know Your Enemy 
  • The anniversary version of Manic Street Preachers’ classic album Know Your Enemy has been entirely remixed and reconstructed to form two separate albums. While going through the band’s archive in preparation for this anniversary edition, Nicky Wire found the original tapes of Solidarity and Door To The River, the two albums the band had originally planned to make, that he’d made in the studio during recording. When he put forward the idea of recreating those records, James Dean Bradfield agreed on the condition that he could remix the entire record with the band’s long-time studio partner Dave Eringa. The new mixes would bring a clarity to each record, losing extraneous studio effects and digital noise from the Solidarity songs and stripping away unnecessary orchestration and embellishment from the tracks that made up Door To The River.
  • The Afghan Whigs - How Do You Burn?
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    • The Afghan Whigs  How Do You Burn? 
  • How Do You Burn?, the ninth studio album from The Afghan Whigs, finds the band in peak form and making the most thrilling music of their lives. The album is virile, ready for action, and frontman Greg Dulli is as swaggering, enigmatic and darkly charismatic as ever, and singing up a storm. The album reaches corners of sound that, twenty-six years after the band’s inception, take them to an apex.
  • The Amazons - How Will I Know If Heaven Will Find Me?
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    • The Amazons  How Will I Know If Heaven Will Find Me? 
  • Following two huge Top 10 records and sold-out shows across the globe, The Amazons – one of the UK’s most exciting bands – release their stratospheric, anthem-packed new album, How Will I Know If Heaven Will Find Me?. The album was inspired largely by the long-distance relationship Matt Thomson has been in over the last couple years and, more specifically, the 7 months spent apart in 2020, and the songs that went on to make up this record were originally only to be shared with his girlfriend. Writing and sharing music became a way for him to feel that he retained some power to bridge the distance between them.
  • Jockstrap - I Love You Jennifer B
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    • Jockstrap  I Love You Jennifer B 
  • London-based duo Jockstrap (Georgia Ellery and Taylor Skye) release their hotly anticipated debut full-length record, I Love You Jennifer B. They previously hinted at the record’s impending release with their previous singles ‘50/50’ and ‘Concrete Over Water’, both of which were playlisted by BBC Radio 6 Music and were the subject of universal acclaim in the national and international press. Ellery and Skye have said about the album: “I Love You Jennifer B is a collection of Jockstrap tracks that have been 3 years in the making. Everything on it is pretty singular sounding so we hope there is a track on there for everyone and something that speaks to you and says ‘I’m a banger.’
  • KT Tunstall - NUT
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    • KT Tunstall  NUT 
  • Over the past few years, Grammy-nominated Scottish musician KT Tunstall has expanded on her musical selves by focusing on a trilogy of records, each of which zeroes in on a single concept: soul, body and mind. The first, 2016’s KIN, was the ‘soul’ record; 2018’s WAX was the ‘body’ record, and the new NUT is the ‘mind’ record. KT says of the new album: “It was necessary in the circumstances to make NUT completely differently from any other record I’ve made. But I was excited and ready for that. The reason I pursued music was because I had to avoid a repetitive job. I need to feel a constant sense of exploration in life. I’ve realised you can easily fall into repetition even in this job. And so for NUT, I was like, ‘Come on, let’s do what we said we were going to do. Let’s push into something new.’ What’s always most important is making an exciting, meaningful record that I love, and to have fun while I’m doing it.
  • Stella Donnelly - Flood
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    • Stella Donnelly  Flood 
  • Like the many banded stilts that spread across the cover of her new album, Flood, Stella Donnelly is wading into uncharted territory. Here she finds herself discovering who she is as an artist among the flock, and how abundant one individual can be. Flood is Donnelly’s record of this rediscovery: the product of months of risky experimentation, hard moments of introspection and a lot of moving around. Donnelly’s early reflections on the relationship between the individual and the many can be traced back to her time in the rainforests of Bellingen, where she took to birdwatching as both a hobby and an escape in a border-restricted world. By paying closer attention to the natural world around her, Donnelly recalls, “I was able to lose that feeling of anyone’s reaction to me. I forgot who I was as a musician, which was a humbling experience of just being: being my small self.
 

 

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Releases for 2 September 2022

2 September’s sensational six start with This Is Midpoint, the first album in which Tom Chaplin presents his whole self: as writer, singer, husband, an artist with a past and, now, a middle-aged man, and it’s a beautiful collection of songs of reflection and imagination, full of warmth and empathy. Megadeth’s explosive new album The Sick, The Dying … And The Dead will melt the minds of fans of the heavy worldwide with twelve blistering new tracks from the titans of thrash metal! Yungblud is the self-titled third album by the 24-year-old rock’n’roll poster child of Gen-Z, who fearlessly advocates for the weirdos, the freaks and the marginalised in the world, and it’s a reclamation of his own narrative and the consolidation of his artistic identity. In Pulse Of The Early Brain, the fifth in their ‘Switched On’ series of retrospective albums, Stereolab have taken another trip through their entire back catalogue, pulling out some more choice releases in need of a good re-airing alongside some ear-opening rarities. Rounding up, David Sylvian’s classic Manafon – an intimate, dynamic, emotive, democratic and economical work on which Sylvian brought together some of the world’s leading musical improvisors and innovators – is lovingly issued on vinyl for the first time.

Our release of the week is Jerry Jeff, held over from last week, on which Steve Earle & The Dukes follow tributes to mentors Townes Van Zandt and Guy Clark with a 10-song collection of songs written by the gypsy songman Jerry Jeff Walker to which they have given the full-band treatment. Definitely not one to be missed!

  • Steve Earle & The Dukes - Jerry Jeff
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    • Steve Earle & The Dukes  Jerry Jeff 
  • Steve Earle has been creating intimate and personal music for well over four decades now. His songwriting has wound itself along a path from Texas to Tennessee and his education came in the form of learning from the best: 2009’s Grammy-nominated Townes was a tribute to his dear friend and mentor, Townes Van Zandt; and, ten years later, Earle released Guy, an album paying homage to the late Guy Clark and the indelible friendship that they had formed in stories told through song. 2022 welcomes the release of Jerry Jeff, a 10-song collection of songs written by the gypsy songman Jerry Jeff Walker. Featuring hits like ‘Mr Bojangles’ and ‘Gettin’ By’, Earle & The Dukes honour the late Texan by amplifying the concept and sound of each song with a full-band recording.
  • Tom Chaplin - Midpoint
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    • Tom Chaplin  Midpoint 
  • This Is Midpoint is the first album in which Tom Chaplin presents his whole self: as a writer, a singer, a husband, a world-beating artist with a past – and all the ups and downs that come with it – and, now, as a middle-aged man. It’s a beautiful collection of songs of reflection and imagination, warmly produced by Ethan Johns (Laura Marling, Paul McCartney), empathetically played by a small group of hand-picked supporting musicians and recorded in six productive weeks at the end of last year in studios including Peter Gabriel’s Real World in Bath and Paul Epworth’s The Church in North London.
  • Megadeth - The Sick, The Dying … And The Dead
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    • Megadeth  The Sick, The Dying … And The Dead 
  • Megadeth’s explosive new album The Sick, The Dying … And The Dead features twelve new tracks from the titans of thrash metal! Produced by Dave Mustaine and Chris Rakestraw, the band’s follow-up to the critically acclaimed, Grammy-award winning album Dystopia will melt Megadeth fans’ minds worldwide with tracks like ‘We’ll Be Back’, the new hit ‘Killing Time’ and ‘Night Stalkers’ – the last of which features icon Ice T.
  • Yungblud - Yungblud
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    • Yungblud  Yungblud 
  • Yungblud is the self-titled third album by 24-year-old singer/songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Yungblud (Dominic Harrison). Following the success of 2018’s 21st Century Liability and 2020’s weird!, his third record is a reclamation of his own narrative and the consolidation of his artistic identity. Yungblud is an artist of a type that rarely comes along, and he has undeniably become Gen-Z’s rock’n’roll poster child. Fearlessly advocating for the weirdos, the freaks and the marginalised in the world from the ground up, Yungblud has amassed legions of dedicated fans all over the world, who flock to his sold-out shows and scream every word along to his songs as if their lives depend on it.
  • Stereolab - Pulse Of The Early Brain
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    • Stereolab  Pulse Of The Early Brain 
  • In Pulse Of The Early Brain, the fifth in their ‘Switched On’ series of retrospective albums, Stereolab have taken another trip through their entire back catalogue, pulling out some more choice releases in need of a good re-airing, alongside some ear-opening rarities.
  • David Sylvian - Manafon
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    • David Sylvian  Manafon 
  • David Sylvian describes his second solo album for his own Samadhisound label, now lovingly reissued on vinyl, as being “a modern kind of chamber music. Intimate, dynamic, emotive, democratic, economical.” Recorded in London, Vienna and Tokyo, the 8 songs and 1 instrumental on Manafon bring together some of the world’s leading improvisors, and innovators – artists who explore free improvisation, space-specific performance and live electronics – including Evan Parker, Keith Rowe, Christian Fennesz, Sachiko M, Otomo Yoshihide, John Tilbury and members of Polwechs.
 

 

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Other releases for 2022

Find releases from 2023 | 2021.

 

 

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