Archive for the ‘MUSIC’ Category

The full October 1969 recordings from Studio Charcot in Paris have never before been released in their entirety. The full October 1969 recordings from Studio Charcot in Paris have never before been released in their entirety. During this historic session, John Lee Hooker was joined by acclaimed blues musicians Lowell Fulson, Carey Bell, and S.P. Leary to craft a collection of electrifying blues and boogie tracks in a single, one night studio session. Now, for the first time, the complete session is presented in its entirety on a deluxe 3LP set.released December 13, 2024

Now, for the first time, the complete session is presented in its entirety on a deluxe 3LP set. Electric Blue vinyl, exclusively for RSD25.

Record Store Day 2025 Exclusive vinyl featuring all five of Queen’s early demos, recorded at De Lane Lea Studios in December 1971 and January 1972. Queen began life in early summer 1970, but took their first steps in the studio after vocalist Freddie Mercury, guitarist Brian May and drummer Roger Taylor recruited a nineteen-year-old bass guitarist, John Deacon, in March 1971.

In 1971, De Lane Lea opened a new studio complex in Wembley, and needed a band to help them test the mixing desks and the acoustic qualities of the different rooms. Brian and Roger’s pre-Queen group, Smile, had recorded at De Lane Lea’s previous location in London’s Kingsway and volunteered their ‘new’ band Queen for the job. The band spent time helping at the studio on various occasions between late August to early December 1971 – “a massive thrill” Brian recalls. They were repaid with a five-song demo, recorded between December 16th 1971 – Jan 7th 1972 by De Lane Lea engineer Louie Austin, and containing “Keep Yourself Alive”, “The Night Comes Down”, “Jesus”, “Liar”, and “Great King Rat”.

Although these demos were intended to be hawked around to procure a recording contract, the band, says Brian, always felt the performances had more spontaneity and sparkle, as well as the benefit of more natural sounds compared with the final album versions.

The Jesus Lizard have released “I’m Tired of Being Your Mother,” the final post-Rack digital single and the last preview of the band’s three-song Record Store Day exclusive EP, “Flux”.

“When a friend of mine was about eight years old, living outside of New Orleans, his mother once said to him, in a slow, dull drawl, ‘Im tired uh bein’ yo mutha’,” David Yow shares. “That really struck me. The lyrics are actual quotes of awful things mothers have said to their children. Heartbreaking!!”

Post-hardcore/noise rock legends The Jesus Lizard returned in 2024 as sneering and caustic as ever on their first album in 26 years, “Rack”, and there’s more where that came from. They’ve been rolling out other equally-great songs from the sessions and now they’ve compiled those tracks for this new RSD-exclusive EP.

The band recently wrapped up sold-out tours across the Eastern U.S. and the U.K., with additional U.S. and European dates kicking off in May. The Guardian called their performances a “growling, spit-flecked fusion of pummelling songs and acerbic wit,” while Mojo described the band “as titanium-tough and gimlet-sharp as ever.” WXPN simply summed it up as “absolutely feral.”

The Jesus Lizard, whose influence on music remains undeniable. With its relentless energy and razor-sharp musicianship, the album has garnered widespread acclaim from critics and fans alike. The collection has earned four star reviews from MOJO, Record Collector and The Observer as well as praise from The Associated Press (‘the Jesus Lizard’s intensity never went away”), The New York Times (“… a raucous record that recaptures the lunging momentum, stealth nuance and unhinged Yow-isms of their best work”) and Brooklyn Vegan (“…as delightfully gnarly as they have ever been, and just as lively as all of the younger bands that have come in their wake”).

Since their inception in Austin in 1987, the Jesus Lizard has thrilled audiences all over the planet. The impeccable rocket-thrust rhythm section of bassist David Wm. Sims and drummer Mac McNeilly was the perfect launchpad for guitarist Duane Denison’s jagged yet clean-toned riffing and vocalist David Yow’s mercurial vocalizations manifesting as everything from panicked citizen, reality escapee or wounded sea mammal. The Jesus Lizard’s fury has carried on through six studio albums, two live recordings and a brace of singles and EPs, with the band’s seventh album,

Available on black vinyl with an etched B-side, “Flux” also features “Cost of Living” and “Westside.”

Arcade Fire, who have kept a low profile since multiple sexual misconduct allegations were leveled against frontman Win Butler in 2022, will return on May 9th with their seventh studio album, “Pink Elephant,” released on Columbia Records. The 10-track album is preceded by the single and video “Year of the Snake,” 

Comprising 10 new songs “of cinematic mystical punk,” according to the announcement, the album was produced by Butler, his wife and bandmate Régine Chassagne and Daniel Lanois (U2, Bob Dylan, Emmylou Harris) and was recorded at the band’s Good News Recording Studio in New Orleans.

While the announcement states that the term “pink elephant” refers to “that paradoxical effect where the effort to suppress a thought leads to it being impossible to avoid,” it does not mention that the term is also an old-school reference to alcoholism-induced hallucinations.  The video prominently features Butler and Chassagne being affectionate and playfully romping around New Orleans during Mardis Gras and a Houston rodeo with Jeremy Gara, Tim Kingsbury and Richard Reed Parry, and briefly visiting with Willie Nelson at his Texas ranch.

Taken from the new album ‘Pink Elephant’

MOTHERS – Erdington Birmingham

Posted: April 8, 2025 in MUSIC

Led by musician and author Craig Dyer, release their twelfth studio album ‘Décollage’ The Berlin-based post-punk band The Underground Youth, led by Blackpool-born musician and author Craig Dyer, return with their twelfth studio album ‘Décollage’. Self-written, recorded and produced by Dyer, the album is an exercise in artistic deconstruction in both name and form, marking a decisive musical shift. “‘Décollage is the art of creating an image by ripping, tearing away or removing pieces of an original existing work’.

My idea was to apply this technique to music”, he explains. “I built walls of static coated hip-hop drum samples, layers of Lee Hazlewood style string arrangements and Serge Gainsbourg inspired mellotron melodies, then I began tearing away at these beautiful, chaotic walls of noise, exposing a new sound for The Underground Youth.”

The result, Dyer says, is “a trip-hop infused soundtrack to a collection of lyrics dealing with adoration, ancestry, originality, hallucinations of revolution and a hope that something better can be born from the ashes of the horror that exists in our world.” From moments of ghostly minimalism to sweeping crescendos of noise and melody, there is a shadowy, dreamlike quality to the songs here. If its predecessor ‘Nostalgia’s Glass’ (2023) mined a more introspective nostalgia, ‘Décollage’ feels more hauntological in nature – tearing apart and re-transforming what once was in search of a future left spinning from reel-to-reel on warped and distorted old tape.

Alongside Dyer, The Underground Youth is comprised of drummer and visual artist Olya Dyer, guitarist Leonard Kaage (who also assisted with post-production on the record) and bassist Samira Zahidi. Initially formed as a solo project by Dyer in 2008, the band has sinced released 11 – now 12 – studio albums and 4 EPs, evolving a unique sound that has over the years ranged from cinematic lo-fi psychedelia and raw melancholic post-punk to gothic folk-noir. Throughout they have maintained a devoted global following continuously built upon by the band’s extensive touring through Europe, Asia and North America. 

released April 4th, 2025

“Keep Me In Mind Sweetheart” is available on vinyl for the first time, pressed on 180g black vinyl as a Record Store Day Exclusive. Featuring five gems from the Sunday at Devil Dirt that were too good to be left behind, and the title track that did feature on the album. The recordings capture the haunting chemistry between Campbell’s delicate, ethereal vocals and Lanegan’s rugged baritone. Blending folk, blues, and country influences, and cut for vinyl at Abbey Road.


This lush, country-tinged combination of two very distinctive and very different artists produced two superb albums: the Mercury Music Prize-shortlisted “Ballad of the Broken Seas“, and “Sunday at Devil Dirt”. This six-song selection, available for the first time on vinyl, featured the brand new title track as well as five songs from the “Devil Dirt” sessions that the duo felt were too good not to share. DIY magazine called the title track “restrained magic”.

Domino Recordings are proud to present “Yesterday Is Not Here a fascinating collection of Pete Shelley solo sessions. The album features a recording for Manchester’s Picadilly Radio in 1979 while Pete was still a member of Buzzcocks and is made available on vinyl here for the first time. On the flip side are two sessions recorded for BBC Radio One’s Kid Jensen Show, respectively in December 1981 and February 1983. These two sessions were recorded after the break-up of Buzzcocks, in support of Shelley’s Homosapien and XL-1 albums.

Pete Shelley is one of the stars of the punk scene: the Buzzcocks singer and subsequent solo artist was a huge influence on so many of our musical heroes , and this is a fascinating collection of radio sessions spanning the spiky guitar pop of Buzzcocks and the synth-pop of his “Homosapien” and “XL-1” albums. There are three radio sessions collected here: one from Manchester’s Piccadilly Radio in 1979 when Shelley was still one of Buzzcocks, and two solo sessions from Radio One in 1981 and 1983.

The LP is pressed on super limited-edition clear vinyl with full colour insert featuring new liner notes from Clinton Heylin and unreleased photos.

Stone Temple Pilots “Live in New Haven 1994” was recorded at Veterans Memorial Coliseum on August 23rd, 1994, only a month after their sophomore album “Purple”, released July 1994. The set list features live versions of hits such as “Vasoline”, “Plush”, “Interstate Love Song“, and more. 

For sheer enjoyability, Stone Temple Pilots’ “Purple” is among the favourite albums ever recorded, not to mention proof that 1994 was one of the best years for music. It’s one of the albums I had on repeat in my car back in the grunge days, enjoying heavy rotation alongside the likes of Radiohead’s The Bends and a Feeder Greatest Hits album. Hey, it was a different time.

“Live in New Haven 1994” was actually released on August 23rd, 1994, a month after “Purple” had hit shelves, so it’s not surprising to see the setlist packed with fan favourites from the band’s sophomore effort. “Interstate Love Song”, “Meatplow”, “Still Remains”, “Vasoline”, “Silvergun Superman”  they’re all there, while heavy-hitters from the group’s debut “Core” also feature.

17 live tracks on two separate LPs courtesy of one of the finest grunge outfits ever? 

MJ Lenderman writes songs that are amorphous and elastic, rising to fill the venue they’re in, generous to accommodate the number of players on stage, less concerned with replicating the studio version than they are with meeting the crowd where they’re at On “And the Wind (Live and Loose!)” the Asheville-based MJ Lenderman handles most of the playing, but with The Wind, it’s a multi-headed beast.

This isn’t just MJ Lenderman playing songs from his “Ghost of Your Guitar” (2021) and “Boat Songs (2022) live as they appear on the album; this is the breakthrough Asheville singer-songwriter giving extra vigour and vitality to those songs on stage through energetic re-imaginings and a hearty backing band that includes fellow Wednesday bandmates Ethan Baechtold (bassist) and Xandy Chelmis (pedal steel guitar/tamborine).

His often sparse and lo-fi songs are now caffeinated, full-band jams and grooves that rollick from one to the next. There’s a whole new dimension to the distorted, whisper-quiet “Live Jack”, while the sober “Catholic Priest” works better with its added instrumental expression.

Never once does this collection of amped-up performances, recorded in Chicago’s Lincoln Hall and Los Angeles’ Lodge Room in 2023, feel anything other than ‘in the moment’. This is a very present live album worth not only hearing but also owning.

This live album is culled from sold-out summer 2023 shows on a brief headline run during what some might call a wild-ass couple of months. It captures a near-euphoric moment in time – dizzying and exhausting and, most of all, having some real true-blue fucking fun with your best friends. It’s 90s college rock meets Americana hootenanny, an electrifying piece of the MJ Lenderman lore that needs to be experienced live with a light beer in-hand but in the interim, “And the Wind (Live and Loose!)” does its best to commit the scene to tape.

Anyone who was enrapt in the widespread critical acclaim of 2024’s breakthrough indie hit LP “Manning Fireworks” will no doubt want to check out the ragged glory of Lenderman’s 2023 live album, previously available only as a limited-edition cassette and making its debut on vinyl for RSD. Recorded while on tour in support of his 2022 studio debut “Boat Songs”, this 15-song set bristles with pure electricity and spirit. And in addition to his own original tunes that reference Jack Nicholson, Lightning McQueen and Dan Marino, Lenderman delivers a righteous rendition of the seminal murder ballad “Long Black Veil” that’s more Pavement than The Band.