Back catalogue:

Review: 3 Men Gone Mad were an independent group formed in Blackburn and Darwen in the UK. They fused electronic sounds with rock and were prolific in the 1990s when they became cult favourites amongst those who know. You Try is a much sought-after collection that has been restored by Utopia Records many years after it made its way onto John Peel's 1991 Festive 50. He heard in it a mix of The Clash, Joy Division and Talking Heads and that still rings true. The main mix has a raw energy that captures the angst of Britain at the time - and still today, frankly. A spaced-out dub brings a fresh feeling of euphoria and an extended B-side mix draws out this record's undeniable pleasures.

Review: The story of this one revolves around San Diego native Anthony "Antone" Williams. He was one day alone in a studio, messing about with the gear and before he knew he it lay down the haunting rhythm that underpins the tune now presented here by the good folks at Athens of the North. It's a sinister, restless one that got released as a hugely limited 7" on Unity Records with otherworldly soul production and a pained vocal up top. Post punk soul, some call it, and that's a fitting descriptor. A remix appears on the flip but the allure of the original is hard to beat.

Review: Experience two of Joy Division's iconic post-punk tracks like never before with exclusive 7" vinyl from Numero Group. Codeine's 1994 rendition of 'Atmosphere' captures the essence of solitude with a melancholic yet melodic twist that marked the iconic Manchester band's poignant farewell. Meanwhile, Bedhead from Dallas offers a fresh perspective on 'Disorder' and transforms it into vibrant indie rock. Encased in a sleek black and silver sleeve adorned with embossed braille lettering, these twin readings pay homage to Joy Division's enduring legacy while inviting listeners to explore new interpretations of their timeless classics.

Review: Continuing the label's special 7"s releases that capture the nascent 80s post punk, dub, funk and pop - as examined on releases by The Jellies, Woo, Phantom Band, 4AM and more - here a discovery of unheard demos from Dislocation Dance's Midnight Shift album.
As part of the eighties Manchester scene, the band's pop and jazz sensibilities have continued to garner attention, offering a rightful place in the city's rich music history.
With the closure of Richard Boon's New Hormones label in 1982, they came to the attention of Geoff Travis' Rough Trade. Creating a home studio in the basement of an old rambling farmhouse in Withington, Ian Runacres (guitar, vocals), with lyricist Paul Emmerson (bass), set to work creating demos to garner a deal.
Inspired by the funk-disco of Dr Buzzards Original Savannah Band debut album, Here Comes Love was written using Roland TR-606 drum machine, guitars, bass and (cheap) keyboard, its magical and lo-fi charmed quality melts hearts.
On Mr Zak, the fun Runacres had is evident. Written as an "indie" song, but with Aztec Camera and Burt Bacharrach on his mind, with Andy Diagram (trumpet) and Kathryn Way (vocals), hides a structure matching the album version, but which in its rudimentary instrumentation and production is unique and outshines the later version, to encase a specific period and innocence, of time.

Review: Hot on the heels of his acclaimed sophomore album A Lover Was Born, Kelly Finnigan makes a quick return with this soul-packed 7". The A-side, 'Get A Hold Of Yourself,' is a Northern soul-inspired stomper that channels the raw emotion of Memphis soul with heavy drums, syncopated guitars, bold horns and Finnigan's impassioned vocals. It tells the story of a rocky relationship where emotional strain disrupts physical connection then the B-side is a fresh bonus cut from the A Lover Was Born sessions inspired by Barbara & The Browns' Stax classic 'Hurts Me So Much'. It's a moody groove with gospel-infused vocals.

Review: Two of the likeliest lads from Manchester team up for the first day release of their new collaborative project. And its something of a full circle moment, with Oasis frontman Liam Gallagher previously citing Stone Roses hero John Squire in a list of formative teenage musical inspirations, who, in turn, first encountered the former when both bands were working the same studio, respectively recording Definitely Maybe and The Second Coming. The pair first shared honours three years after that, co-writing 'Love Me & Leave Me' for Squire's relatively short-lived outfit, The Seahorses, in 1997. Skip forward to 2022 and Squire joined the Gallaghers et al on stage at Knebworth, reprising his appearances for renditions of 'Champagne Supernova' at the band's 1996 shows, spurring the idea to do something together again. Here's the result - and it's precisely what the duo should sound like together.

Review: The Goa Express are bright young hopefuls in the arena of bombastic British indie pop. Following in the footsteps of Coldplay, Keane et al, these lads from Manchester have a sound which is made for radio play and massive stages - they're destined to be huge. Following up their Second Time single for Ra-Ra-Rok Records, they're back with this new song which plays out like a rallying call for unity in a distinctly un-united world. 'Everybody In The UK' has soaring choruses and a bright, hopeful sound which will surely send the band further down the road to stardom.

Review: There are seemingly no limits to the music Emotional Rescue will put out. This time they look back to the post punk scene of Bristol in the early 80s. Mouth was a short-lived outfit that put out just a couple of releases, but each one blazed a trail though leftfield percussive sounds, wave, weird jazz and electronics. Andy Guy and Rob Merrill were the main members with the likes of Nellie Hooper also in the band's orbit. This record is packed with tribal drumming and floating horns, broken dubs and avant-jazz but all with a proudly DIY attitude. It's packed with heady moments and wild steppers that havent aged a bit and still sound future.

Review: Emotional Rescue returns to early 1980s Manchester with the previously unreleased music of Michael James Pollard and his beautiful distillation of indie pop in Too Confusing and bedsit cover version of Ashford and Simpson's Surrender.

While studying photography at Manchester Polytechnic, (MJ) Pollard lived and played in a band in a ramshackle house in Walley Range. In the cellar studio he would write and record his own songs using their guitars, fretless bass and keys, as well as his own Casio VL-Tone VL-1 and Simmons Clap Trap to augment his drums onto a 4 track TEAC.

By 1983, and now solo, he was recording out of Dislocation Dance's studio (ERC111), had secured a Peel Session and via Factory Records' Lindsay Reade, was discussing with Fundacao Atlantica about releasing an album.

Working with singer Sioux Goddard as a duo, they put down 8 songs in 2 weeks in summer '84. However, Fundacao Atlantica's financial difficulties and soon closure meant the songs were lost until now.

Recovered off the original tapes and lovingly restored, Too Confusing captures the optimism of the sessions, a summer love melody of forlorn youth. Surrender accompanies, recorded back in that cellar in '81, with friend Stephanie Danziger on vocals, its lo-fi simplicity is a perfect take on an all-time classic, making this a newly prized gem of British indie pop history.

Review: Based out of Brooklyn, New York, The Still Brothers is a group made up of two childhood friends, Andrew LeCoche of Ula Ruth and Evan Heinze from The Shacks. They started their musical adventure way back in the 6th grade. In the decade since they have managed to record and tour with their own respective groups, as well as work on their own distinctive brand of indie together. Here they tap up Sloshy for a feature on a new 7" that comes via Lewis. 'It's Not Over' is a dreamy cut lush vocal harmonies and lo-fi drums making for a beautifully melancholic sound. 'Crazy' has slightly more primate drum breaks and the Shoshy is just as smooth.

Review: The latest short form offering from Scottish alternative indie rockers Teenage Fan Club will do nothing to dissuade fans the Glaswegians remain at the cutting edge of their sound. After a four year hiatus, they've returned to hit us with catchy, upbeat, sweet and jangly aural sugar that masks the rather melancholic lyrical content. 'Home' bounds along with summer seemingly pouring from every guitar chord, while Bellshill's finest sing of dejection, frustration and longing.

Then we are told 'Everything's Falling Apart' through harmonious vocal delivery on the B-side: an understatement of epic proportions given the current global situation, it's indicative of the band's well-established modus. Packing suggestion and inference beneath easily-accessible instrumentation is a sure fire way to make as many people as possible stop for a long, hard think.

Review: On his fourth album as Fleet Foxes, Shore, Robin Pecknold has decided to celebrate life and death - a theme that no doubt was inspired in part by the ongoing global pandemic. The New York based artist sets his stall out immediately via lusciously orchestrated, choir-sporting opener 'Wading in Waist-High Water' and the similarly gorgeous 'Sunblind' - where he namechecks many of his dead musical heroes - before continuing on a similarly warm, jangling and opaque musical theme. That means soaring chord progressions, emotion-rich vocals, fluid piano lines and plenty of melancholic musical flourishes. It's soft-touch Americana for hard times; confirmed fans and newcomers alike should find plenty to savour.

Review: Quebec City-based singer/songwriter Margaux Suave and collaborator/producer Louis-Etienne Santais earned plenty of praise for their first album as Ghostly Kisses, 2022's Heaven, Wait. It framed the project as a new iteration of dream-pop, with the pair drawing inspiration from melancholic synth-pop, downtempo, hazy indie-pop and lo-fi soul. Sophomore set Darkroom continues in this vein while subtly expanding the pair's sonic horizons. Throughout, they shuffle attractively between string-laden trip-hop ('There Is No More Space'), dreamy two-step pop ('Golden Eyes'), slow-motion, Balearic-tinged synth-pop ('Lonesome Hero'), twinkling deep house-pop ('Calm Down') and orchestrated ambient pop ('Silver Screen').

Review: A warm welcome back to perennial genre-benders Hot Chip, who return to stores after three long years with their eighth album, some 21 years after making their debut. Freakout/Release is no dramatic change in direction, but instead a further distillation of what has always made the band so appealing - a trademark fusion of synth-pop, loved-up house sounds, lilting and sometimes melancholic lead vocals, loose-limbed organic drums, nods to Prince and an ability to craft killer hooks. There are highlights aplenty, from the gravelly live hip-hop funk of 'The Evil That Men Do' (where rapper Cadence Weapon delivers a star turn) and the subtly post-punk influenced, saucer-eyed brilliance of 'Hard To Be Funky' (featuring Lou Hayter), to the classic Hot Chip sing-along flex of 'Time' and the krautrock-tinged 'Out of My Depth'.

Review: With the tragic, untimely passing of lead vocalist Chester Bennington in 2017, it naturally appeared to be the end for nu-metal/alt rock juggernauts Linkin Park, until recently shocking their fans with the confirmed news that Dead Sara vocalist Emily Armstrong would be taking Bennington's place, while new drummer Colin Brittain would step in to replace Rob Bourdain who decided not to join the reformation. Serving as the follow up to 2017's pop focused One More Light, the band's upcoming eight full-length LP From Zero takes its title from their original early day name Xero whilst highlighting this newly defined creative origin the members have found themselves cornered into, bearing clear signs of a desire to celebrate their nu-metal beginnings without undoing the decades worth of progression they have accomplished since. With 11 tracks and just over a half-hour runtime, it's evident the project appears to be prioritising brevity and a succinct introduction to this new era without losing site of what sonically drew their legions of fans to them in the first place. It's a brave, delicate time for Linkin Park with From Zero championed as the heralding of this new chapter, aiming to hopefully bridge and appease listeners from all spectrums of their back catalogue.

Review: Dream pop loving indie rockers The Pains of Being Pure at Heart announced their reformation last year, having previously called it a day at the end of 2019. While we wait for new music, former label Slumberland Records - the imprint that first pushed the New York combo into the international spotlight - has offered up this slender retrospective focusing on the band's formative years at the tail end of the noughties. Atmospheric, with a uniformly 'big' (if lo-fi) sound (they loved reverb back then), the collected cuts sound like they were recorded at the turn of the nineties rather than at the end of the noughties. Highlights are plentiful though, with our picks including jangly anthem 'Side Ponytail', the brilliantly titled 'Kurt Cobain's Cargidan' and the effortlessly upbeat and life-affirming swell of 'Higher Than The Stars'.

Review: After the natural commotion that surrounded the sudden news of an eighth Radiohead album available for immediate download - and some loose limbed moves from Thom Yorke last month, the band finally appease their fans that prefer a tangible product. The King Of Limbs sees Thom Yorke and company continue the sonic experimentation that has characterized the latter part of their career. Those expecting a full-on Aphex Twin style electronic assault may, though, be disappointed. While it's all densely layered and impressively textured see the droning guitars, electronics and tape loops of "Bloom" or the atmospheric dubstep of "Lotus Flower" there are still plenty of authentic experimental rock moments, not least the uptempo "Little By Little" and semi-acoustic dreamscape "Give Up The Ghost".

Review: By the time they released Tarantula in 1996, Ride had run out of road. The band split shortly before the album's release and would not reform again for almost two decades. At the time, the album was panned by critics, but listening to this remastered reissue, it's hard to see why. Sure, the dense, dreamy and heady shoegaze sound they'd pioneered at the turn of the 90s was long gone, replaced instead by a nostalgic late 60s rock sound that doffed a cap to the Beatles and those Britpop era bands that emulated their sound (hello Oasis). The sound is authentic - all blazed vocals, alternately jangling and heavy guitars, dependable bass and wide-eyed audio effects - and the songs entertaining. Perhaps it will be judged more sympathetically this time round.

Review: Although his solo work has not been as celebrated as those of some of his Radiohead bandmates - most notably Thom Yorke - Philip Selway has nevertheless delivered a handful of excellent albums since making his debut in 2010. A songwriter since his youth, Selway often offers up far more 'traditional' material than one might expect (his debut, for example, was heavily acoustic). Interestingly, he doesn't drum on 'Strange Dance', his first album since 2017; instead, he sings, produces (Valentina Magaletti takes the sticks instead), and conjures a distinctive, effects-laden sound that he has described in interviews as "a Carole King record if she asked Daphne Oram to produce it". In effect, that means glassy-eyed vocals, prominent drums, guitar, bass and strings aplenty. It's an alluring combination.

Review: Despite the style's influence and enduring legacy, shoegaze has not been celebrated with a raft of compilations and retrospectives. Waves of Distortion attempts to set the record straight via two discs of classic (and occasionally overlooked) shoegaze gems recorded and released at different points between 1990 and 2022. It offers a neat overview of the sound and some its greatest practitioners, flitting between the glistening, reverb-laden dream pop of Slowdive, the bowl cut-sporting loved-up swagger of Ride, the densely layered country-shoegaze haziness of Telescope, the jaunty jangly-ness of AR Kane and Spirea X, the psychedelic heaviness of Ringo Deathstarr, the tactile bliss of Beach House and the slow-burn, post-rock majesty of Mogwai.

Review: Skep Wax's first Under The Bridge compilation, released in 2022, reunited the bands, songwriters and producers who populated cult early '90s indie label Sarah Records. This hotly anticipated follow-up repeats the trick, presenting 20 recently recorded cuts from the Bristol-based imprint's original roster of artists. It too, is a hugely successful - and understandably nostalgic - exercise, with hi9ghlights including the bright-and-breezy indie jangliness of Action Painting's 'Just Who Are The Cockleshell Heroes', the shoegaze-influenced dream pop haziness of Soundwire's 'Everything Is Real', the near Balearic soft focus shuffle of 'Double Nine' by GNAC, and the saucer-eyed excellence of The Orchids' 'A Final Love Song'.