LOS CAMPESINOS! - 'ALL HELL'

Formats

• HS004LPSS - 2xLP (COLOURED)

  5061041821004

• HS004CD - CD

  5061041820496

Details

**Repressed on 'Shooting Star Glitter' coloured vinyl** The UK’s first and only emo band Los Campesinos! return with their highly-anticipated seventh album, All Hell. It is perhaps their most ambitious and assured album yet, whilst simultaneously recalling everything we’ve come to love about LC! over their faultless discography. Recorded between October 2023 and February 2024, it is the first album to be wholly self-produced by band member Tom Bromley (having co-produced previous albums Sick Scenes and NO BLUES). The album is also self-released on the band’s own Heart Swells record label. In the band’s words All Hell is an album about… Drinking for fun and drinking for misery // adult acne // adult friendship // football // death and dying // love and sex // late-stage capitalism // Orpheus // day dreaming // night terrors // the heart as an organ and as a burden // suburban boredom // Tears of the Kingdom // the punks on the playlist // increments of time // climate apocalypse // the moon the moon the moon /// Los Campesinos! have become one of the most important and influential cult acts in the UK since they formed in the mid-2000s. Starting out in the Cardiff indie scene and soundtracking Budweiser adverts, the seven-piece’s musical evolution since then has been slow, steady and remarkable. From the frenzied chaos of debut album Hold On Now, Youngster… (2008) through 2010 breakthrough Romance is Boring and the self-mythologising of latter day highlights NO BLUES (2013) and Sick Scenes (2017), their discography is an interconnected web of niche references, big swings and unflinching honesty. Making self-professed sleeper hits for weeping dipshits, they’re as influenced by The Beautiful South as they are US emo, with emotional intensity and connection always at the core. Their lyrics are a treasure trove of football references, tales of romantic woe and painfully frank exorcisms, which have been tattooed across hundreds of fans’ bodies and served as comfort and insight during that break-up you had (there’s a reason the band’s tagline is “your ex-girlfriend’s favourite band”). Now with the release of All Hell, Los Camp! approach their third decade as a band more brilliant, more potent and more vital than ever.

Tracks

Tracklist: 1. The Coin-Op Guillotine / 2. Holy Smoke (2005) / 3. A Psychic Wound / 4. I. Spit; or, a Bite Mark In The Shape Of The Sunflower State / 5. Long Throes / 6. Feast Of Tongues / 7. The Order Of The Seasons / 8. II. Music For Aerial Toll House / 9. To Hell In a Handjob / 10. Clown Blood/Orpheus? Bobbing Head / 11. kms / 12. III. Surfing a Contrail / 13. Moonstruck / 14. 0898 HEARTACHE / 15. Adult Acne Stigmata

Press

8.5 Best New Music - Pitchfork |
UK Chart position: 14 |
#48 THE GUARDIAN'S AOTY 2024 |
#10 STEREOGUM'S AOTY 2024 |
#40 THE LINE OF BEST FIT'S AOTY 2024

Audio & Video

CUNEIFORM TABS - 'AGE'

Formats

• W25-19 - LP

  850051035045

Details

Quickly on the heels of their astounding debut, Cuneiform Tabs return with Age, an LP that takes a massive leap forward in both melodic sensibilities and inventiveness. Bathed in late night psychedelia, the group's experimental penchant remains, yet this time wrapped around tunes too sweet to be denied. In pulling back a little of the crackle and haze that made their first album so inviting, the Tabs have revealed more of their pop instincts. Happy to let a picked acoustic guitar stand alone like a Vashti Bunyan home recording and sit deep in the looping repetition of a drone sample like a bedroom My Bloody Valentine. The overall effect is of a perfect set of early Animal Collective demos or Syd Barrett attempting a Television Personalities cover at 3am. The duo of Matt Bleyle and Sterling Mackinnon continue their system of trading songs back and forth across the Atlantic. A furtive correspondence between the Bay Area and the UK building, layering and blurring as they grab whatever instrument is needed until these sonic nuggets are fully formed. While these songs are very much the product of the Tascam and rudimentary software that is integral to the band, this album is truly the embrace of their melodic songwriting talents – not unlike the recent breakthrough of labelmate Cindy Lee. With the dream-like strum of "Ivy," the slow shimmer of "Orbital Rings" and enchanting madcap swirl of "Blended Medal," this is hypnagogic pop at its finest. Age is the record Bob Pollard hears in his head every time he heads down to the basement to pick up a guitar. This is the sound of riding in an elevator hearing McCartney singing "Blackbird" in the distance, only to have it draw closer and closer with each floor as you finally race down the hallway, putting your ear to each door searching for the source. This is Leonard Cohen smoking in the middle of the street outside of a Suicide show. If all of this sounds phenomenal, it is.

Tracks

1. Flush In The Cheeks 2. Crow Speech 3. Feiform Tabs 4. So Light 5. Orbital Rings 6. Ivy 7. Taoist Face Wash 8. Blended Medal 9. Alyosha 10. Flintstone Meal

Press

Recommended for fans of Animal Collective, Syd Barrett and Cindy Lee

Audio & Video

GANAVYA - 'NILAM'

Formats

• LTR051 - LP

  4066004674643

Details

New York-born, Tamil Nadu-raised singer and transdisciplinarian GANAVYA – “among modern music's most compelling vocalists,” according to the Wall Street Journal – has announced details of a new album, Nilam, due May 23, 2025. It follows last year’s Daughter Of A Temple, Gilles Peterson’s BBC 6 Music Album of the Year, similarly declared one of 2024’s Top 10 Best Global Albums by The Guardian, who applauded GANAVYA’s ability to harness “the power of communal harmony to touch something deeper than song.” Co-produced by Nils Frahm at LEITER Studio in Berlin’s Funkhaus complex, the new album by “the singer whose work,” says the New York Times, “feels like prayer…with listeners hanging onto her every word” will be released by LEITER on vinyl and via all digital platforms. Listening to the remarkable Nilam, it seems implausible now that its inception might ever have been in doubt. So astonishing is its stillness, so profound its communication of sentiment, it feels as if it was always meant to be. A celebration of the ties that bind, and possibly the most tender-hearted music we’ll hear this year, it’s intimate and honest, a poignant expression of gratitude for the blessings which keep us grounded, if only we’ll recognise and welcome them. Indeed, it could have been transmitted directly from soul to stereo, from the way ‘Not A Burden’ lifts a weight off the world’s shoulders to the peaceful ‘Sees Fire’, with ‘Land’’s gentle groove full of space, ‘Nine Jeweled Prayer’ serenely precious, and, throughout, GANAVYA’s vocals like ripples on a lagoon. Yet the truth is it owes its existence to chance – an entity, like truth, to which GANAVYA is forever faithful – and the few days between her 2024 Berlin sold out debut and another sold out performance at London’s Union Chapel. This opportunity, she was persuaded by LEITER’s co-founder Felix Grimm, could be exploited to capture at last songs she had often performed live. And so, accompanied by long-time touring companions, bassist Max Ridley and harpist Charles Overton – with whom she’s toured over a decade, describing them as “two of [her] most precious friends and teachers” – she entered the hallowed Funkhaus with Frahm behind the desk. Nilam’s central theme, GANAVYA confesses, is “doing what we need to do to keep carrying on.” This perhaps isn’t surprising given her touring not one but two albums in a single year. Earlier in 2024, she’d released the equally acclaimed like the sky i've been too quiet, recorded with Shabaka Hutchings, and a debut single for LEITER, ‘Draw Something Beautiful’, arrived soon after in July. “I feel like I barely made it out this past touring cycle,” she says. “Some days are good, and some days are bad. But the actual singing is always good. I realised, with every bone in my body, that unless you absolutely, absolutely want to be a musician, there's just no sense doing this professionally. And still... I wake up every day and I am certain that I want to keep singing.” Nilam takes its title from “nil”, the Tamil word for ‘land’, a decision made instinctively, and not just because firm ground was what she was seeking during a difficult period of touring. “The word ‘nil’ can be a command either to move or to stay still,” GANAVYA points out. “To the person being senselessly quiet, it is a command to stand up for what is right. To the person being senselessly loud, it is a command to stand still. To me, it is balance, the heart of the true rhythm of life, of change, of land, of landing.” All the same, the word perfectly describes these songs she’s played, on and off, across the years with Ridley and Overton. “The world changes and shifts and everything becomes dizzying as the earth keeps disappearing from under you,” she concludes, “but these songs have always been a place for me to stand, a place for us to be in a way that I don't really know how to describe. Music has always been the one true land...”

Tracks

1. LAND 2. SONG FOR SAD TIMES 3. NOT A BURDEN 4. SINATHAVAR MUDIKKUM 5. NINE JEWELED PRAYER 6. PASAYADAN 7. SEES FIRE

Press

Audio & Video