The Fat Angel Sings

After years spent living on opposite sides of the Atlantic world events threw Laura Mary Carter and Steven Ansell of Blood Red Shoes back together into what has become the must fruitful era of their 17 years together.

“It’s been a loooong time since we both lived in the same city”, explains Steven. “I mean we actually wrote this album in LA at Laura’s place, then came to the UK to record it…and then everything went nuts”.

Realising very quickly that they wouldn’t be able to release the album or tour until the world returned to some kind of normality, the band found their energies quickly spilled over into other projects. Laura-Mary started a podcast, Never Meet Your Idols, with her best friend in LA, interviewing everyone from Zack Snyder to Mark Lanegan to Chvrches. It is now about to start its third season. Steven started applying his love of electronic music by writing and producing other alternative artists like Circe, ARXX, Aiko and XCerts, racking up millions of streams in the process.

Having worked together on Laura–Mary’s forthcoming solo mini album “Town Called Nothing” and restless from the lack of touring, the duo started jamming out in rehearsal rooms, which led to the light-speed writing, recording and release of the impossibly-titled “Ø” EP in the summer of 2021. Which concludes what the band call an “off year”.

And that brings us back to “Ghosts on Tape”. It appears that like David Lynch’s The Lost Highway, nothing is linear in the world of Blood Red Shoes. Written and recorded before their most recent EP, “Ghosts on Tape” is a huge jump into new terrain for the band. Musically and emotionally their most mature work, it is a complex, imaginative, and very gothic development on their sound. Musically, it leaves almost no trace of their former selves.

“We’ve always been outsiders right from the very beginning” says Steven. “This album is really about us asserting ourselves as our own little island”, he adds. “We have made an entire career out of being told what we are “not”, of being rejected, of not fitting in, and this album is us deliberately pushing into all of our strangeness, emphasising all of the things that make us different”. Obsessed by true crime and murder podcasts, many songs on the record are told in character and explore the dark psyche of those at the pinnacle of outsiderdom: serial killers. “Ghosts on Tape” paints a picture of a dark and unsettling world. It is the sound of a unified and confident duo who know exactly who they are, even if the wider world doesn’t really get it. The sound of two people who have spent their entire adult lives making music together and who, more than ever, are finding new pathways for their creativity.

“Ultimately this album is an invitation”, explains Steven. “It’s us saying, this is our world, these are our darkest thoughts and feelings – our ghosts – caught on tape. You are welcome to join us. Come and embrace the strange”.

The album from BLOOD RED SHOES.

released January 14th, 2022

Written and performed by Laura-Mary Carter and Steven Ansell

Chester indie-pop trio Peaness release their long-awaited debut album “World Full Of Worry” through the band’s own label, Totally Snick Records. The album is a total joyous nugget of wholesome and charming indie pop with songs that stick in your head on first listen. For those that miss Allo Darlin, Heavenly and Girls At Our Best and need a new band to obsess about. Bring on summer and roll on the good times.

Whenever I hear a Peaness song I always think it’s really good and must be their best song… until I hear another and find it’s just as good if not better. Great band!

New single “How I’m Feeling” taken from their debut album “World Full Of Worry” out May 6th. Directed, filmed and edited by Marieke Macklon.

Damian O’Neill is the founding member and guitarist of Northern Irish punk-pop legends The Undertones. He’s also an accomplished multi-instrumentalist. composer and co-founder of the Dimple Discs label.

The long-awaited third solo album from multi-instrumentalist Damian O’Neill (The Undertones, That Petrol Emotion, The Everlasting Yeah) is an exquisitely inventive collection of largely instrumental tracks, mixed by veteran producer Paul Tipler (Stereolab, Placebo, Julian Cope, House Of Love). The title “an crann” is Irish for “The Tree”, a symbol of growth and inspiration.

As Damian himself explains…”If someone listened to this record without knowing anything about me, they’d probably never guess that I started life in a punk band. I unashamedly wanted to present instrumental pieces that are emotional, evocative and personal and offer to the listener textures and layers of music that can be melodic, childlike and even melancholic at times. There’s obviously Irish folk traditional influences as well as French, Japanese, American and British. I’m playing virtually all the instruments myself, with added percussion on a couple of songs. It was recorded mainly at home over the last couple of years in the loft of our house on a laptop with an array of instruments such as electric and acoustic guitars, mandolin, bass, organ, vibraphone, toy marimba and glockenspiel, melodica, mouth organ, squeezebox, kalimba, bells and various percussion and human voices.”

released November 25th, 2022

Following the huge success of their top 3 debut album in 2020, one of the UK’s finest bands, Sea Girls, release their enthralling, highly-anticipated new album “Homesick” on Polydor.

A band well and truly into their stride, “Homesick” sees Sea Girls, Henry Camamile, Rory Young, Andrew Dawson and Oli Khan, deliver thirteen measures of guitar driven pop brilliance including 2 bonus Deluxe tracks. A deeply personal record, lead singer Henry Camamile returned to his childhood home in Lincolnshire at the wake of the pandemic, finding himself having to address and reflect on events from his past, both good and bad. A cathartic process, Henry leaves nothing to the imagination with his astute storytelling and candid lyrics. Delving into some of his darkest moments, the uplifting album comes as a sense of relief, a gratefulness for survival. Lyrically raw and packed to the brim with hooks, the band step into new realms with an added sense of maturity and a bigger ambitious sounding record.

Teaming long-term producer Larry Hibbitt with Grammy Award winning Producers Jacknife Lee, Jonny Coffer and Cass Lowe to co-produce the record, Henry reflects on the process: “Imagine us locked down in the studio in rainy Brixton working with the producers remotely on the album in California’s Topanga Canyon. That clashing of worlds is the sound of this record, the DNA. Making an album this way, remotely and 5000 miles apart, was a crazy idea and shouldn’t have worked, but it did”

Sea Girls, one of the most exciting guitar bands to have emerged in recent times,are the torchbearers for the next wave. Delivering sing-along anthems for the masses, the band’s journey is well and truly on its way.

released October 13th, 2022

“The Lost Duets” are the Delines on a desert vacation: mariachi influenced horns, pedal steel, and accordion are the back drop for the first ever Delines duets between lead singer, Amy Boone, and songwriter and guitarist Willy Vlautin. Welcome to the world of romance Delines style.

“We both love singing duets,” says guitarist and songwriter, Willy Vlautin. “I’ve written a few but so far they haven’t fit on any of our records. The wrong place at the wrong time sorta thing. The Golden State leans on our cowpunk roots but I brought it to the band when we had already drifted away from that sound. My Blood Bleeds The Darkest Blue has a real Lee Hazelwood/Morricone orchestrated desert feel to it but at the time we were working on The Sea Drift, songs set along the Gulf Coast, so that one didn’t fit either. But once we had The Sea Drift done we recorded the duets as a present to ourselves. Both are songs we really love but songs left orphaned along the way and we thought we better give them a proper home.”

The Delines are:

Amy Boone-vocals
Cory Gray-keyboards, trumpet
Sean Oldham-percussion
Freddy Trujillo-bass
Willy Vlautin-vocals, guitar

Tucker Jackson: pedal steel
Jenny Conlee-Drizos: accordion

releases October 6th, 2022

John Mellencamp showed a propensity for deftly writing about hopes, dreams, and values of average working folk during “Pink Houses” in 1983. Two years later, he expanded upon that theme with “Rain on the Scarecrow” and “Small Town” from the excellent “Scarecrow”. One of the singer/guitarist’s most successful albums, it spun off five top 30 pop singles and fared even better at Album Oriented Rock radio. Drummer Kenny Aronoff really proves his mettle here. Special guests include singer Rickie Lee Jones and slide guitarist Ry Cooder. 

What’s inside: The 2-CD+LP+Blu-ray+7” vinyl in the Super Deluxe edition box set comes with a lift off lid. It includes the remixed and remastered original album which sounds stronger than ever, a Blu-ray with Dolby Atmos and hi-resolution stereo mixes, a half-speed mastered LP and 7” single of “Small Town.”

Among the rare and previously unreleased demos, rough mixes, and other songs: “Carolina Shag” and “Smart Guys” would’ve made worthy additions to the original release, “Small Town” (acoustic) is riveting, and fun covers of tunes popularized by the Drifters and James Brown (“Under the Boardwalk,” “Cold Sweat”) find Mellencamp sharing vocal duties with his touring band. Additionally, there is a poster, art cards, a booklet with an essay by Rolling Stone’s Anthony DeCurtis and a new Mellencamp interview. 

Originally released in 2012, “A Postcard from California” marked the solo debut album from Al Jardine, co-founder of the Beach Boys.

After previously being released digitally, the album has been made available in an expanded and remastered edition on CD today, December. 9th. It features two bonus tracks: “Waves of Love,” highlighted by one of the last-recorded vocal tracks from Carl Wilson, and “Sloop John B (A Pirate’s Tale),” which Jardine first released to accompany his acclaimed children’s book of the same name.

“I can’t believe it’s been twelve years since “Postcard” came out and I thank everyone involved in the production and creation of this album to help me get my songs out there,” said Al Jardine in a statement. “Brian’s advice to aspiring young songwriters has always been ‘finish your songs’ so I took it to heart and I hope everyone who has listened to “A Postcard from California” feels my excitement and enthusiasm for this great land and sea of ours and our need to protect it forever. Thank you for all your support over the years, it is greatly appreciated and I will continue to dedicate Postcard to all the pets we love and who love us back!”

As you might imagine, Jardine was joined in the studio by a number of his musical colleagues for this effort:

“A Postcard from California” was largely penned by Jardine who enlisted a slew of his famous friends to help him bring this album to life, including Alec Baldwin, David Crosby, Dewey Bunnell and Gerry Beckley of America, Flea, Glen Campbell, John Stamos, Neil Young, Richie Cannata, Stephen Stills, and Steve Miller. The album also served as a reunion of sorts for The Beach Boys as it brought Brian Wilson, Mike Love and Bruce Johnston, along with a lead vocal by Carl Wilson, together on the song “Don’t Fight The Sea” several years before the band would reunite for an album and tour in celebration of their 50th anniversary in 2012. Jardine’s sons, Adam and Matt Jardine, also sing on the album, which was co-produced by musicians Stevie Heger and Scott Slaughter.

Lemonheads’ seminal album It’s A Shame About Ray, lovingly reissued for it’s 30th Anniversary. The long overdue reissue includes a slew of extra material, including an unreleased ‘My Drug Buddy’ KCRW session track from 1992 featuring Juliana Hatfield, B-sides from singles ‘It’s A Shame About Ray’ and ‘Confetti’, a track from the ‘Mrs. Robinson / Being Round’ EP, alongside demos that will be released for the first time on vinyl.

This reissue celebrates their prestigious fifth album, these deluxe bookback editions feature new liner notes and unseen photos.

Described by music journalist and author Everett True as “A 30-minute insight into what it’s like to live hard and fast and loose and happy with like-minded buddies, fuelled by a shared love for similar bands and drugs and booze and freedom.”. ‘It’s A Shame About Ray’ had a considerable impact back in those heady, carefree days of ’92, the record perfectly captures Dando’s ability to effortlessly encapsulate teenage longing and lust over the course of a two-minute pop song.

Singles such as ‘My Drug Buddy’ and the breezy perfect pop of the title track might stand out (plus the add-on of ‘Mrs. Robinson’ which later copies included), but the album’s real strength lies in the tracks in-between; the truly fantastic ‘Confetti’ (written about Evan’s parents’ divorce), and the eye-wateringly casual acoustic cover of ‘Frank Mills’ (from the “hippie” musical Hair), a version that seems to resonate with every ounce of pathos and emotion felt for the lost 1960s generation.

Released in June of 1992, the album was the band’s fifth overall but second for Atlantic Records, eventually being certified gold in the US, the UK, and Australia. Its 30th-anniversary deluxe edition, courtesy of Fire Records, offers the remastered record plus B-sides, demos, and covers.

The 30th-anniversary reissue includes demos of nine of the album’s 12 songs. They sound like exactly what they are, and most of the songs benefit from studio production, but they also plainly show what a gifted songwriter Evan Dando is. The raw material here is so strong that it’s a shame about “Mrs. Robinson”, the band’s breakout Simon & Garfunkel cover that features an audible bong rip and is easily the most disposable track on the record. Recorded to celebrate the 25th anniversary VHS release of the 1967 film The Graduate, the song was tacked on to a re-release of “It’s a Shame About Ray” after it became a massive hit. (The first Lemonheads single with a semi-wide audience was another cover: their 1989 version of Suzanne Vega’s “Luka”.)

To hear Evan Dando sing lines like ‘I love him/but it embarrasses me/To walk down the street with him/He lives in Brooklyn somewhere/And he wears his white crash helmet’ is to truly appreciate how wonderful and tantalising pop music can be. Then, there’s the rush of insurgency and brattishness on the wonderfully truncated ‘Bit Part’; the topsy-turvy ‘Ceiling Fan In My Spoon’... this was male teenage skinny-tie pop music on a level of brilliance with The Kinks, early Undertones, Wipers.

If you were ever a follower of the band XTC, you’ll know that they continually got the short end of the stick business-wise. Under Virgin, the band’s earnings were so bad that they eventually went on strike just to get out of their contract. So when you saw a flurry of XTC reissues after their disbandment, you could tell it was mostly to create the payday that they deserved but never received. Like their 1986 masterwork “Skylarking”, XTC’s initial idea for the cover art to 1983’s “Mummer” was shot down by their label.

“Mummer” is the eleventh in a series of XTC classics to be issued on 200g vinyl.  Unavailable for decades on LP and with its original, but never used, sleeve art restored, the album has been mastered by Jason Mitchell at Loud Mastering with input from Andy Partridge. Unavailable for decades on Vinyl and with its original, but never used, sleeve art restored.

XTC’s sixth album, “Mummer” was another turning point for the band as it marked their first release as a studio only band. evolving from the brash, post-punk/pop of their first two albums “White Music” and “Go2” into one of the most highly regarded of british bands of the era via a trio of essential albums – “Drums and Wires”, “Black Sea”, “English Settlement” – which showcased the increasing versatility of both band and the twin songwriters, Andy Partridge & Colin Moulding. but even the comparatively quieter/more considered “English Settlement” was very much an album of songs written with one ear for the studio and another for how they would work live.

“Mummer” was different. freed from the constraints of ‘the road’ this was XTC in widescreen – experimenting with songs, arrangements and the expanded sonic palette that studios can provide when there is no afterthought as to how to reproduce the material in a variety of theatres, university halls and other venues few, if any, of which were built with rock groups in mind. and, just as the mummers’ plays involve people travelling from place to place in a village enacting tales of the cycle of life (albeit in disguise), XTC travelled the best of the uk’s studios recording, mixing and re-mixing their songs cycle to exacting standards. released as the follow-up to their most successful uk album to date and with a new record label in America, band and record company hopes were high – three of the album’s first four songs were issued as singles – but were to remain unfulfilled.

Fans loved it, the press was positive but radio was changing, especially in the UK, and with no touring it failed, as sometimes happens with bands adopting a new approach, to cross over to that wider audience. as also happens with such records, its reputation (and sales) have, over the years, grown far greater than its initial reception indicated and it can now be seen, in retrospect, to have been an important first step towards the sort of expansive approach to writing and recording that would yield much greater commercial results later in the same decade with “Skylarking” and the albums that followed.

Still for me the best track off the vastly underrated “Mummer” album from 1983 & this has always fascinated me & I never liked the wild ending for years but of late I sounds strangely satisfying!! The Dukes were definitely on the horizon…. Colin’s bass & vocal is outstanding here.

Featuring the sublime “Love On A Farmboy’s Wages“, Mummer represented another turning point for XTC as it marked the first release as a studio only band. Andy Partridge’s vision of having the members of the band pose as actors in a mummers’ play on the cover of their most pastoral album has become a reality. Although this reissue of “Mummer” does not come with the six bonus tracks like the 1990s Geffen edition on CD, this 200G vinyl remaster coaxes the nuances out of the mix, helping “Mummer” take its rightful place among XTC’s finest works.

The singles “Love on a Farmboy’s Wages”, “Wonderland”, and “Great Fire” are still worthy of any greatest hits collections, but it’s the deep cuts on “Mummer” that truly demonstrates the band’s majesty, like “Ladybird”, “Deliver Us from the Elements”, and “Funk Pop a Roll”.