Back catalogue: All genres

Review: Andy Partridge, of legendary Swindon post-punk players XTC, here delivers a brand new solo outing for his own simian shelter (and by extension, label), Ape House. By way of four noisy, grinding, discordant yet emotive sonic 'trading cards', Partridge sings of love and its winding ups and downs, nailing the janky and rocky emotions felt therein. Lo-fi yet sprawling in its proggy indie jazzy ambition, we're forced to agree that Love Is, indeed, The Future.

Review: Pigeon only debuted back in 2022 with their well recorded Yagana EP and it soon won the five-piece band plenty of fans. They now serve up something equally as fresh and that develops their sound further. It is still rooted in Afro-disco but with elements of rock, new wave, synth pop, no wave, jazz and electro. Synths and drum machines define the sounds but with plenty of DIY spirit, all of which has won them continued support from tastemakers as diverse and influential as Gilles Peterson, Elton John and Iggy Pop. These are cultured and authentic summer sounds perfect for days dancing in the rays.

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: London retro soul specialists PREP almost feel lost in the 2020s. Everything from their sound, which is pretty unique in today's musical landscape, to release and merchandise artwork screams mid-late-20th Century modernism, owing as much to the crimson and purple-hued aesthetics of classic Miami iconography as anything more recent years have offered us. Meanwhile, aurally speaking, their output straddles lines between funk, soul, synth pop and yacht (those who know, will know), all of which have an ability to conjure strong images of easier, simpler times gone by. 'As It Was', a cover of the Harry Styles pop anthem, takes things into particularly seductive, slap bass and sax infused atmospheres, the air thick with intimate suggestion, which may or may not conjure thoughts of George Michael's 'Careless Whisper' letting loose at a boat party.