REAL ESTATE - 'S/T'

Formats

• WOODSIST034 - LP

  655035003412

• WOODSIST034CD - CD

  616822087527

Details

REPRESSED ON BLACK VINYL  Real Estate waft in on vibes of hazy summers past. The New Jersey quartet of Martin Courtney IV, Matthew Mondanile III, Etienne Pierre Duguay and Alex Bleeker cut the sleeves short and the pop smooth to shade you from the midday heat. Every song works its way to that part of your consciousness that reveled in the fleeting waves of freedom that eked in once classes broke and the sun lingered a little longer over suburban roofs. And with three quarters of the band holding down Garden State roots its no surprise that a bit of Jersey indie-pop heritage sneaks its way into their sound, lifting the most sun streaked moments from The Feelies and Yo La Tengo and filtering them through the kaleidoscope of memories aimless drives through parched neighborhood streets. Martin Courtney's songwriting has a way of wrapping up the immediacy of youth with the ennui of age for the perfect shade of bittersweet bliss, mind you though, much heavier on the sweet than the bitter. Add to this Mondanile's (Ducktails/ Predator Vision) shimmering guitar strains full of equal parts sea foam and beer foam, pepper in the boardwalk clatter of Duguay's drums Bleeker's staccato low end and the perfect afternoon is just a lawn chair and boom box away.-Andy French/raven sings the blues

Tracks

1. Beach Comber

2. Pool Swimmers

3. Suburban Dogs


4. Black Lake

5. Atlantic City

6. Fake Blues

7. Green River

8. Suburban Beverage

9. Lets Rock The Beach

10. Snow Days

Press

4/5 review in UNCUT. One of the best records to come out at the tail end of 09.

Audio & Video

KEVIN MORBY - 'STILL LIFE'

Formats

• WOODSIST075G - LP (COLOURED)

  655035047515

• WOODSIST075CD - CD

  655035047522

Details

**TRANSPARENT GREEN VINYL** Still Life is the second solo album from Kevin Morby. The namesake of the record is an art piece by Maynard Monrow entitled “Still Life with the Rejects from the Land of Misfit Toys.” The album’s title has several meanings. On the surface, it refers to Morby’s change in lifestyle that came with moving to Los Angeles from New York in August of 2013. But he also admits that the title is ironic. The songs from Still Life were written during yet another period of tour and travel for Morby, as he spent almost all of 2013 on the road with Woods (with whom Morby parted ways amicably last year), The Babies (who are currently on hiatus) and as a solo artist. The album reflects both this time in transit and the quiet confines of his new home in Montecito Heights. Scenes of performers, audience expectations and the paradoxical confines of a roving individual perpetually caught in a crowd percolate the songs, notably in “The Jester, The Tramp & The Acrobat,” and “Parade.” (Morby calls the latter an elegy of sorts for one of his major influences, Lou Reed.) Violent fates, wrestling with destiny and the nature of death creep into songs like “The Ballad of Arlo Jones,” “Bloodsucker” and “Amen.” Even Morby’s more obvious love songs like “All of My Life,” “Drowning” and “Our Moon” are highly bittersweet; the characters seem to never quite find each other, but perhaps they find themselves. As with Harlem River, Still Life is produced by Rob Barbato (Cass McCombs, Darker My Love) who adds his signature guitar and bass playing to the album. The album was engineered and mixed by Drew Fischer, who also worked on Harlem River and The Babies’ second full-length album Our House on the Hill, and recorded between March and June of 2014 at Barbato and Fischer’s new studio, Comp’ny. Morby is also once again joined by Justin Sullivan (The Babies) on drums and percussion. Sullivan is a fixture in Morby’s live band, which completed a full US tour in January of 2014, supporting Cate Le Bon. Solo artist (and Le Bon guitarist) H. Hawkline handled bass duties for Morby on the tour and contributes bass to three songs on the record that were a live staple. Multi-instrumentalist Will Canzoneri (Le Bon, Cass McCombs, Jessica Pratt), who also performed live with Morby on the tour and who was a contributor on Harlem River, performs piano and organ on the album.

Tracks

Press

Audio & Video

WOODS - 'CITY SUN EATER IN THE RIVER OF LIGHT'

Formats

• WOODSIST085CD - CD

  655035048529

• WOODSIST085R - LP (COLOURED)

  655035048512

Details

**REPRESSED: RED VINYL**"Woods have always been experts at distilling life epiphanies into compact chunks of psychedelic folk that exists just outside of any sort of tangible time or place. Maybe those epiphanies were buried under cassette manipulation or drum-and-drone freakouts, or maybe they were cloaked in Jeremy Earl’s lilting falsetto, but over the course of an impressive eight albums, Woods refined and drilled down their sound into City Sun Eater in the River of Light, their ninth LP and second recorded in a proper studio. It’s a dense record of rippling guitar, lush horns, and seductive, bustling anxiety about the state of the world. It’s still the Woods you recognize, only now they’re dabbling in zonked out Ethiopian jazz, pulling influence from the low key simmer of Brown Rice, and tapping into the weird dichotomy of making a home in a claustrophobic city that feels full of possibility even as it closes in on you. City Sun Eater in the River of Light is concise, powerful, anxious—barreling headlong into an uncertain, constantly shifting new world." -Sam Hockley-Smith-Deluxe Gatefold LP jacket includes digital download

Tracks

1.Sun City Creeps
2.Creature Comfort
3.Morning Light
4.Can't See At All
5.Hang It On Your Wall
6.The Take
7.I See In The Dark
8.Politics Of Free
9.The Other Side
10.Hollow Home

Press

MOJO, UNCUT

Audio & Video

LIPSTICK KILLERS - 'STRANGE FLASH: STUDIO & LIVE 78-81'

Formats

• GUWDM0009RED - 2xLP (COLOURED)

  5060446125021

• GUWDM0010 - CD

  5060446125038

Details

**RED VINYL REPRESS**  HIGH ENERGY GARAGE-PSYCH(O)-PUNK FROM SYDNEY’S STOOGES-INSPIRED UNDERGROUND! ALL THEIR LEGENDARY RECORDINGS, PLUS LOADS OF UNRELEASED STUFF! “The Lipstick Killers were easily one of the greatest live bands I've witnessed in my 65 yrs. on this planet” – Keith Morris (Black Flag/Circle Jerks/Off!!) HINDU GODS ARE CALLING YOU!!! Grown Up Wrong! Records is thrilled beyond belief to present the LONG-AWAITED anthology of material by the legendary Lipstick Killers, who blazed a trail in late ‘70s post-Radio Birdman Sydney before gigging with the likes of the Gun Club and the Flesh Eaters in Los Angeles where they crashed and burned in 1981. The Lipstick Killers released just one single in their life time – the perfect ’79 Deniz Tek-produced pairing of “Hindu Gods of Love” and ”Shakedown USA” on their own Lost in Space Records and Greg Shaw’s Voxx Records - but a posthumous live album and a couple of archival releases followed. It was all incredible. All that material is included here, as is a plethora of additional stuff, all from the best-available sources (mostly original tapes). The Lipstick Killers’ enigmatic and high-energy sound – heavily inspired by the Stooges and the ‘60s psychedelic punk sounds of bands like the Thirteenth Floor Elevators and the Chocolate Watchband – bridged the gap between Radio Birdman and subsequent Sydney groups like the Sunnyboys (whose first-ever show was opening for the Lipstick Killers), Lime Spiders, Hoodoo Gurus, the Screaming Tribesmen and the Psychotic Turnbuckles. And of course they anticipated generation after generation of other bands with similar things in mind, right up to today’s ‘60s-inspired freaks like The Straight Arrows, The Living Eyes and Thee Oh Sees. 

Tracks

Press

4/5 Mojo 4/5 Shindig 8/10 Vive Le Rock

Audio & Video

ICHIKO AOBA - 'WINDSWEPT ADAN'

Formats

• BING169 - 2xLPs

  600197016916

Details

REPRESS, ***NOTE NEW PRICING**** Ichiko Aoba’s albums have only been available as expensive Japanese imports, until now. In November, Ba Da Bing will release Windswept Adan on 2xLP in North America, Europe and the United Kingdom, with deluxe packaging. After creating her label, hermine, last year to celebrate her tenth anniversary in music, Aoba released the most complex and rewarding work of her career, 2020’s Windswept Adan. While audiences in the west are only just learning she exists, her accomplishments are unquestionable; she contributed to the soundtrack for The Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening, was cited by Owen Pallett as an inspiration (“I’ve never been so blindsided by a musician as I was by Ichiko Aoba”), and has collaborated with the likes of Haruomi Hosono, Cornelius (who met her only two years after she first picked up a guitar and was blown away), Ryuichi Sakamoto, and recently Mac DeMarco. Ichiko Aoba’s iconic voice and classical guitar playing are immediately recognizable, timeless sounds. Windswept Adan, envisioned as a soundtrack for a fictional film, builds its own world with sweeping co-production and arrangements from Taro Umebayashi, which “recall the Wes Anderson scores of Mark Mothersbaugh or the cinematographic swells of American composer Jherek Bischoff” (Bandcamp). It’s the story of a young girl sent to the island of Adan, a place where there are no words. While international listeners of Aoba may not understand the words she sings, and despite the central importance of lyrics in her writing, it’s a testament to the power Aoba wields that one can resonate so deeply with her work. No matter the breadth of her sonic palette, and on Adan her scope is as wide and encompassing as Joanna Newsom’s on Have One On Me, Aoba manifests an intimacy that makes one feel in the room with her. Ichiko Aoba’s work gained greater exposure in the past year as the need for comfort grew while the world sequestered in solitude. She has a rare musical gift that is matched only by her ability to hone it into meticulous craft. Her music embraces and elevates alone time to a generous and tranquil place. In it, listeners are invited to feel a sense of consolation and possibility. The magic she imparts yields articles like “Ichiko Aoba and the emotion of space during the pandemic;” in other words, her effect is singular. UK/IRE TOUR DATES:  14 Southampton, MAST, GB 15 Bristol, Strange Brew, GB 16 Manchester, Burgess Foundation, GB 17 London, Kings Place, GB (SOLD OUT) 18 London, Rough Trade East (Instore Show), GB 19 Cork, Coughlans, IE 20 Dublin, The Workman's Cellar, IE

Tracks

1. Prologue
2. Pilgrimage
3. Porcelain
4. Horo
5. Easter Lily
6. Parfum D??toiles
7. Kirinaki Shima
8. Sagu Palm?s Song
9. Chinuhaji
10. Chi No Kaze
11. Hagupit
12. Dawn In The Adan
13. Ohayashi
14. Adan No Shima No Tanjyosai

Press

Domestic release of famed Japanese
artists acclaimed 2020 release
Has worked with Haruomi Hosono,
Cornelius, Ryuichi Sakamoto, and
Mac Demarco

Audio & Video

PENGUIN CAFE - 'A MATTER OF LIFE ...2021'

Formats

• ERATP149LP - LP

  3700551784363

• ERATP149CD - CD

  3700551784455

Details

Penguin Cafe are back with a lovingly produced 10th anniversary reissue of their debut album, titled A Matter of Life… 2021. Besides being completely remastered and pressed on vinyl for the very first time, the record also features a brand new 2021 recording of lead single Harry Piers, a song commemorating Arthur Jeffes’ late father and Penguin Cafe Orchestra founder Simon Jeffes. “I originally wrote Harry Piers to play at my dad‘s memorial service 24 years ago, and I played it at the end of pretty much every gig (and soundcheck) we’ve done since, so I’ve probably played it hundreds if not thousands of times since we originally released A Matter of Life... So when we decided to reissue the album, Robert and I both felt it would be fun to record an up-to-date version of this song, because it has changed over time and it continues to evolve. So while this is still very much the same tune, I think it has a lot more nuance and detail that reflect the years that have passed since 2011,” Arthur explains. A Matter of Life… 2021 is a chance for a classic example of the beauty that’s found in collaboration to reach fresh ears, and an opportunity to breathe new life into fan favourites. The album, performed by a mix of personalities — including Neil Codling of Suede and, on percussion, Cass Browne of Gorillaz — incorporates the aesthetics of the original PCO, seasoned into a confident and redefined style, maintaining that quintessentially English sound, but adding a fresh direction and a sense that they are evolving into something new and very much their own. Arthur says “it’s been really lovely to come back to these old friends — and with this re-issue we’ll be bringing them all out to play live again. Now four albums on, and with our new home at Erased Tapes, it makes a lot of sense for us to go back and pull this record out and brush it off for today”. The cover artwork also received an update in the shape of a beautiful photograph taken by the UK photographer and long-time collaborator Alex Kozobolis, who was sent to visit Arthur in his second home in Tuscany. Raths’ concept for this was to not only reenact the original painting by Emily Young, but to express the generational change by putting Arthur and his daughter in place of the little boy and the emperor penguin figure that suggest father and son. 

Tracks

1. That, Not That
2. Landau
3. Sundog
4. The Fox and the Leopard
5. Finland
6. Pale Peach Jukebox
7. Harry Piers 2021
8. Two Beans Shaker
9. From a Blue Temple
10. Ghost in the Pond
11. Coriolis

Press

Remastered and first time on vinyl

Audio & Video

CRIME - 'SAN FRANCISCO'S DOOMED'

Formats

• SV178 - LP

  857661008780

Details

The legend of CRIME looms large among punk aficionados the world over. Formed in the mid-1970s, the band's dual-guitar sound, confrontational image and sleazed methodology still serve as inspiration decades later. With only a handful of singles released during their active lifespan, CRIME's legacy grew significantly as archival recordings began to trickle out in the early 1990s. Of all these excavations, San Francisco's Doomed was one of the first and certainly one of the most powerful. Culled from 1978-79 studio demos and rehearsal tapes, San Francisco's Doomed captures the frenzy of CRIME's sound in a fittingly loose, devil-may-care framework. Side one is a gloriously unpolished assault of classic, gutter-level punk with vicious live set staples like "Feel The Beat" and "Piss On Your Dog" taking marquee placement over the more well-known singles tracks. Side two finds CRIME taking aim at the so-called New Wave, augmenting their attack with ripped odes that bear the direct influence of science fiction and rockabilly on the group. Few recordings from US punk's first wave match the raw intensity heard on San Francisco's Doomed. As Michael Stewart Foley writes in the liner notes, "Unimpressed with the once idealistic counter-culture and all the bands associated with it, CRIME declared itself San Francisco's First And Only Rock 'N' Roll Band. Dressed in police uniforms and driving sonic ice picks through listeners' eardrums with the volume cranked past 10, they looked more like a street gang that might take your wallet and slash your face with a switchblade just to watch you bleed. But despite the band's best efforts to stand apart, CRIME could have come from nowhere else, at no other time."

Tracks

Frustration
Crime Wave
I Knew This Nurse
San Francisco's Doomed
Rock 'n' Roll Enemy No. 1
Piss On Your Dog
Feel The Beat
I Stupid Anyway
Twisted
Murder By Guitar
Instrumental Instrumental
Flyeater
Rockabilly Drugstore
Dillinger's Brain
Flipout
Emergency Music Ward
Monkey On Your Back
Yakuza
Rockin' Weird
Samura

Press

Audio & Video

CONTORTIONS - 'BUY'

Formats

• SV176 - LP

  857661008766

Details

Soon after their 1978 debut on the Brian Eno-produced No New York, a compilation that defined the No Wave scene, James Chance’s group Contortions had already evolved—getting sharper, tighter and just plain faster. Despite the loss of keyboardist Adele Bertei and bassist Geoge Scott (who refused to sign a new contract demanded by Chance and his then partner, band manager Anya Phillips) Contortions were firing on all cylinders, and their first full-length album, 1979’s Buy, is a marvel of hot-wired energy. Led by the brash yelps and free-sax squawks of Chance, Contortions spit out fiercely rhythmic tunes charged by the wiry guitar lines of Jody Harris and the dizzying slide guitar of Pat Place. With drummer Don Christensen slipping in pointillist beats and David Hofstra’s infectious basslines, the songs on Buy crackle with both precision and abandon. Opener “Designed to Kill” shoots sparks of sound in all directions, while “Contort Yourself” is a nihilistic dance number wherein Chance instructs listeners to twist into knots, physically and mentally. “It’s better than pleasure, it hurts more than pain,” he snarls, later imploring, “You better try being stupid instead of smart.” Heavily influenced by the showman funk of James Brown (whose “I Can’t Stand Myself” the band had covered on No New York) Contortions coined a downtown dance-punk sound that had immediate influence on subsequent No Wave bands—including Place’s Bush Tetras and Bronx trio ESG—as well as the burgeoning disco movement. On Buy, Contortions’ self-invented template is imprinted so hard into the grooves that it sounds like they’re about to break, capturing a combustible band in all its fiery fury.

Tracks

Design To Kill
My Infatuation
I Don't Want To Be Happy
Anesthetic
Contort Yourself
Throw Me Away
Roving Eye
Twice Removed
Bedroom Athlete

Press

Audio & Video

OTHA TURNER AND THE RISING STAR FIFE AND DRUM BAND - 'EVERYBODY HOLLERIN' GOAT'

Formats

• BMR127 - 2xLPs

  607287012711

Details

The trance blues stylings of Otha Turner and his Rising Star Fife And Drum Band should be a music classification unto itself, a whole new primitive take on drum and bass. This music is the oldest still-practiced post-colonial American music, and Turner was one of its greatest artists of the 20th century. Blowing the cane fife with a band of drummers as back up, The Rising Star Fife And Drum band was legendary in the hills of Tate County, Mississippi, where they would perform during the yearly goat picnics on Turner’s farm. These tracks were recorded by Luther Dickinson during such picnics and released when Turner was ninety years old. Everybody Hollerin’ Goat shows first hand the hypnotic and rhythmic style of fife and drum music at its best—raw and beautiful. It is every bit as essential a document of America’s folkmusic heritage as anything Harry Smith or Alan Lomax ever offered up for posterity. Turner’s band included some of his children and grandchildren that have gone on to continue the fife and drum tradition since his death in 2003. This first ever vinyl release of Everybody Hollerin’ Goat contains a whole side of unreleased recordings from one night of the picnic and is intended to bring the experience of hollerin’ for goat in Senatobia, Mississippi to the living room. Dancing around the plants is recommended (but don’t eat the pickled eggs). The entire album is remastered by legend Gary Hobish.

Tracks

1. Shimmy She Wobble
2. Bounceball
3. Short?nin? / Henduck 4. Too Slow
5. Shimmy She Wobble
6 . Station Blues 7. Shake ?Em
8. My Babe 9. Boogie
10. How Many Mo? Years
11. Roll & Tumble
12. 2-Stepping Place
13. Granny, Do Your Dog Bite?
14. Shimmy She Wobble
15. Glory, Glory, Hallelujah!
16. Memory Of A Goat Picnic

Press

'One of the top five blues LPs from the 90s.'
David Fricke, Rolling Stone

Audio & Video

THE SECRET STARS - 'S/T'

Formats

• SHR60 - LP

  733102723811

• SHR60CD - CD

  733102724924

Details

The Secret Stars debut was a cassette-only release issued by Shrimper Records in 1995. Geoff Farina and Jodi Leo would record two more full length releases on Shrimper in the mid to late ’90s along with some seven-inch singles and scattered tracks. Geoff Farina would continue to write and record both solo and in the band Karate. Leo has recorded some solo records in the years since The Secret Stars disbanded. This reissue of the first cassette has never sounded so good. It has been painstakingly mastered from the original cassette by Carl Saff. The vinyl pressed at Smashed Plastic Pressing, the CD and digital taken from this mastering. Attention has been paid to detail, making the experience of listening analog or digitally reminiscent of the cassette experience. The tracks are banded as two tracks, side one and side two on the LP and as track one and two on the CD. The first press of the LP is on limited edition clear vinyl with a tour poster reproduction insert. The CD press is in a digipack. Both include new liner notes by Dennis Callaci.

Tracks

1. Auto Reverse (Arcane 17)
2. Court
3. Our Voices Are Getting Higher
4. Shoe In
5. Math=Vacuum
6. Polaroid Prints
7. Tag Yours
8. Dating Is Stupid
9. September

Press

Reissue of 1995 low-fi folk debut of band
featuring Geoff Farina (Karate)

Audio & Video

BOB LIND - 'SINCE THERE WERE CIRCLES'

Formats

• ASH102 - LP

  857661008087

Details

Singer-songwriter Bob Lind will forever be immortalized by his 1965 hit, “Elusive Butterfly,” but his career is so much more interesting than the fading wonder of that one hit. Once a hard-partying buddy of Charles Bukowski, Lind was the inspiration for the character “Dinky Summers,” a down-on-his-luck folk singer in Bukowski’s 1978 novel Women. Lind also doubled as a writer, penning a number of novels and plays as well as serving as a long-time staff writer at the lowbrow tabloid Weekly World News. If that wasn’t enough, Lind is also responsible for one of the greatest major-label “loner” albums of all time, 1971’s Since There Were Circles. After several years languishing without a second hit for the World Pacific label, Lind signed to Capitol and went into the studio with some of the biggest names in the LA country-rock scene including Doug Dillard, Gene Clark, Bernie Leadon and legendary session bassist Carol Kaye. While the record was wellreceived critically, it sold poorly and marked Lind’s bitter departure from the music business for several decades. The intervening half-century has been incredibly kind to Since There Were Circles, and it is now regarded as a cult masterpiece that pairs perfectly with Gene Clark’s No Other, Bobby Charles’ self-titled Bearsville album and Lee Hazlewood’s Cowboy In Sweden. Lind’s songwriting here is vastly darker and more self-reflective than anything from his folk-pop period, and the production is simultaneously loose and rootsy, yet lushly orchestrated and occasionally bombastic. Lind somehow manages to bring it all together with wry delivery and literate detail.

Tracks

1. I Love To Sing/Sweet Harriet
2. City Scenes
3. Love Came Riding 4. Loser
5. Not That I Would Want Her Back
6. Theme From The Music Box
7. Anymore 8. Spilling Over
9. She Can Get Along
10. Up In The Morning Me
11. Since There Were Circles

Press

Originally released in 1971 on Capitol
Records
Singer-songwriter cult masterpiece
Recorded at the Record Plant with Doug
Dillard, Gene Clark, Bernie Leadon and
Carol Kaye
Recommended for fans of Gene Clark?s No
Other, Bobby Charles self-titled album and
Lee Hazlewood's Cowboy In Sweden

Audio & Video