Back catalogue: All genres

Review: Happenstance can be a fortuitous element. A union-funded single discovered in a dusty store, a long disbanded band found, leads to unreleased post punk dubs in a box of unreleased demos.

Formed during the mid-80s in the downbeat town of Walsall, their music is a blend of disparate influences from 50's crooners, blues and reggae to Killing Joke and The Bunnymen; Ron's Neighbours were out of step with the perfect pop of the C86 indie generation.

Their only single - "To The Fight" - a split 7" was supported by the Trade Union Resource Centre, while many gigs were benefits for striking miners, leading to a loyal local following.

Engineered by Ozzy Osbourne's brother Tony, tracks were recorded at an 8 track bedroom / home studio, while a terraced house served as rehearsal space. Here Ron Next Door was born. When a tape recorder was left running it captured the long-suffering neighbour for posterity. His outburst gave the band and song, its name.

Experimenting with drum machines, the resultant jam track, here in its "Alternative Mix", languished unheard until now. Ron's 'Black Country' tones lead to driving bass / percussion against crashing Stratocasters and repeating, refrained vox - a post punk dub turned symphony.

The B side, Sitting On Top of the World, is an indie anthem, becoming their theme, a blend of grandiose and banal that characterised their songs.

Review: "In Rainbows", Radiohead's seventh album, finally gets a physical release! It's one thing downloading this landmark album, but to actually hold this is something special. Not only do you get increased sound quality, but you also get the amazing artwork from Stanley Donwood. This album includes "Nude", a live favourite for many years that was originally written during the "OK Computer" sessions. More minimal that their "Kid A" period, "In Rainbows" does something that very few albums have done - its sound is distinct from previous Radiohead albums, but is still clearly Radiohead. Hail to the kings, they are back on top form.

Review: Twenty years ago it sounded like an oddly poignant evocation of pre-millennial tension. Two decades later it stands as an eerily prescient glimpe into the technological alienation and dislocation of of a new era. Yet more importantly, OK Computer is no more or less than a sparkling, dramatic and moving collection of songs that haven't lost any of their impact in the interim. The sound of a band stubbornly refusing to follow up the stadium-strafing stylings of its predecessor The Bends - and instead bursting headlong into experimentation and wild creativity -is portrayed in still more vivid colours by the alarmingly strong collection of out-takes and B-sides collected herein, Yet there's no getting away from the chill and spark that marked out OK Computer from everything surrounding it in the post-Britpop malaise, and continues to do so in the pre-Brexit counterpart.

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: The latest of Radiohead's reissues is an utter avalanche of material. 'Kid A Mnesia' itself is an 'album mashup' between their two albums Kid A and Amnesia; both projects are remastered and released side-by-side on the same LP. It doesn't stop there: for the fanatics, there's an exclusive third disc, Kid Amnesiae, which contains formerly unheard material both recording sessions, as well as Kid Amnesiette, a cassette of B-sides. This ultra-deluxe edition is, decidedly, one for the ultra-fans. Besides the radical electronic fever dreams making up both projects, this version contains the never-before-heard song 'If You Say The Word' on the bonus CD. Remastered on vinyl and cut at half the speed of the original LP, it's an audiophile's banquet. Also watch out for the exclusive booklet of drawings that come with the special edition of this special edition.

Review: "In Rainbows", Radiohead's seventh album, finally gets a physical release! It's one thing downloading this landmark album, but to actually hold this is something special. Not only do you get increased sound quality, but you also get the amazing artwork from Stanley Donwood. This album includes "Nude", a live favourite for many years that was originally written during the "OK Computer" sessions. More minimal that their "Kid A" period, "In Rainbows" does something that very few albums have done - its sound is distinct from previous Radiohead albums, but is still clearly Radiohead. Hail to the kings, they are back on top form.

Review: Rag'n'Bone Man, born Rory Charles Graham, is "embracing joy and balance in his life" as he releases his new album What Do You Believe In?. Known for his gravelly blues vocals, the British singer gained global recognition with his 2016 debut Human, which went platinum four times in the UK and multi-platinum in 27 other countries. Now, supported by family and newfound confidence, Rag'n'Bone Man's latest work blends personal growth with vibrant hooks and takes fans on an uplifting musical journey with title track setting the tone in superb fashion.

Review: Red Hot Chili Peppers have found some good form of late with a new album Unlimited Love earlier in the year now followed by a surprise second new album. Anthony Kiedis and co's Return of the Dream Canteen is a second Rick Rubin-produced album. The group said of the album "We went in search of ourselves. A beautiful bit of chemistry meddling that had befriended us hundreds of times along the way. Once we found that slipstream of sound and vision, we just kept mining." This one sounds like classic Chilis with plenty of funk and big riffs as well as great songwriting.

Review: During the 1980s, The Redskins became a celebrated English band. Next to their highly danceable indie output, they were also known for left-wing politics and a bold skinhead image. This new compilation, as the title suggests, brings together some rarities and hard to find tracks from their heyday. Elements of soul, rockabilly, pop and punk rock all inform their tracks and breath new life into the new wave and post punk forms they work in. Highlights include the strident 'Reds Strike The Blues' and fierce 'Young & Proud.'

Review: The Redskins released just one studio album, their well received debut Neither Washington Nor Moscow in 1986. It came on London Records and now for the very first time since the first time, it reappears on vinyl and CD with new sleeve notes by bassist Martin Hewes. The album came just two years after the band formed but already their soulful songs were packed with passion and political undertones as a result of the band all being members of the Socialist Workers Party. Highlights include 'Bring It Down! (This Insane Thing)' which was the band's only Top 40 hit. The band split the same year this was rebased.

Review: What you see before you ranks among the most mythologised live albums (n)ever released. Like the title suggests, it was originally recorded in 1972 at Parisian rock institution Le Bataclan, a legendary venue which would later gain notoriety after a group of armed gunmen opened fire on a crowd in 2015, killing 90 people. But that grisly recent history belies its status as one of the most respected concert halls in the French capital, and this not-quite-Velvet Underground show has contributed to that legacy. Showcasing the stop-you-dead qualities of Nico's staggering (and unique) vocal timbre, the surreal, immersive qualities of the Cale and Reed's legendary art-rock tones, this time capsule had been bootlegged and bootlegged until 2004, when it finally got an official release. Now it's back.

Review: This special 25th Anniversary edition of REM's New Adventures in HIFi album comes on limited heavyweight vinyl in a replica of the original gatefold LP. The Grammy wining and Rock And Roll Hall of fame inductees are one of the most revered American bands of their era thanks to their singular mix of brash tunes, poetic lyrics and very singable choruses and never was that more obvious than on this album. First released in 1996 when the band were on a near-constant tour of the world, it experiments with various sonic textures, haunting effects and dissonant notes with singles like 'E-Bow' and 'Electrolite' all featuring.

Review: Indie-pop miserbalists REM are indeed rock legends and this live album from Santa Monica back in 1991 - a time when lead singer Michael Stipe still had hair, it is interesting to note - is the perfect example of why. It's an electric set that takes in many of the American band's most iconic tunes, from the wonderful dour 'Losing My Religion' which is perfect lo-fi and ramshackle here, the dark meditation that is 'Half A World Away' and even a cover in the form of 'Love Is All Around'. A great reminder of a great band.

Review: Heavy duty stuff in all senses, The Residents channelled feeling following the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on the US into this three-part concept album. Divided into 'Loss', 'Denial', and, finally, 'The Three Metaphors'. It's as powerful a listen now as it was back in 2002, when it landed on the ears of art rockers and others shellshocked by one of the most significant political events of the post-Cold War period. While there's always been a melancholy to The Residents, this is particularly audible here, although it's delivered through fascinating juxtapositions - the 1980s funk-esque of 'Wolverines', the Parisian pop of 'The Weatherman', the eerie soundscapes on 'Ghost Child', the Broadway balladry of 'The Car Thief'. A fantastic, dense listening experience, which is only elevated by the true meaning and message.

Review: The self-described "world's most famous unknown anonymous art-concept multimedia pop group" return with one of their most expansive, daring, absurd and bad taste visions to date. Doctor Dark is a project over two years in the making while the concept has been in inception for decades with its overarching theatrical narrative inspired by the real life case of James Vance, the young man from Reno, Nevada who tried to commit suicide with a shotgun in 1985 after listening to Judas Priest and the subsequent unsuccessful, infamous 1990 court case that followed. Combining this with the life of the real "Doctor Death" - Jack Kevorkian; the Armenian-American pathologist and proponent of physician-assisted euthanasia, said to have assisted in the deaths of 130 terminally ill people between 1990 and 1998, you get the culmination of an orchestra-backed punk-opera written in collaboration with co-producer/conductor Edwin Outwater and the San Francisco Conservatory of Music. Detailed as "a journey into the greasy world of euthanasia, drug abuse and an unhealthy obsession with heavy metal", revolving around "a couple of heavy metal kids (Maggot and Mark) and an insomniac Russian physician (Dr. Anastasia Dark)", the three-act modern theatre piece offers a head-melting sonic concoction of abrasive art-punk stylings emboldened by complex brass and horn work, with a deft balancing act of chaotic yet controlled punk and classical arrangements. With both CD and vinyl versions including a "read-along libretto", with listeners encouraged to read as they listen to the album, as well as a stage adaptation apparently in the works to follow upcoming live tour dates, this just might be The Residents' piece de resistance of avant-garde art-punk multimedia absurdity.

Review: For fans of Iron & Wine, Michael Nau, and Leonard Cohen, Reverend Baron's Overpass Boy offers a surely irresistible meditation on Los Angeles. Danny Garcia, formerly a pro skater and Drugdealer band member, created this album with a spontaneous mindset. It has worked to date with over 4.4 million streams and 135.4k monthly listeners on Spotify which proves his blend of soul, doo-wop, and East LA grooves is loved far and wide. This album was recorded at various LA locations and tells the story of a young wanderer through poetic observations and longings. Featuring stacked harmonies, gentle percussion, and Garcia's own instrumentals, it captures the city's essence and emotional depth and comes on limited Coke bottle clear vinyl.

Review: The Alexander Technique is the most intimate album to date from Rex Orange County in that it truly reflects his personal and artistic evolution. Initially intended as an exploration of new writing perspectives, it evolved into a deeply confessional and heartfelt work that combines stripped-down r&b and indie-folk and Rex's signature orchestral richness to mark a pivotal shift in his career. Described by Rex as a personal diary, it captures his growth and the complexities of life since his 2022 release, WHO CARES? with a longer duration and diverse musical styles. The Alexander Technique is Rex's most candid and ambitious project to date.

Review: Finish dub techno powerhouse Joachim Spieth welcomes UK artist Rhubiqs to his well-regarded Affin label for a debut appearance that sinks you into a widescreen world of ambient lushness. His Aegis of Silence album takes cues from divergent sounds like post-rock and soft ambient as well as drone and even modern classical. It's an ever-shifting soundscape with smeared pads and nostalgia dreams, half-remembered thoughts and a sense of mood that ranges from escapist and blissed out to more ominous and paranoid.

Review: There have been some incredible movies made about memory over the years. We had Arnold Schwarzenegger missioning to Mars to find his brain (well, the remembering part anyway) in Total Recall, and a piss poor reboot a few decades later. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind asked us all to really think about the value of memory and its ability to hurt and heal. Overboard positioned Goldie Hawn as amnesiac getting a lesson in humility from the carpenter she was horrible to. We can add to that The Almond & The Seahorse, a 2022 film that focused on two couples coping with their inability to make new memories. Weird, at times wonderful, by drafting Gruff Rhys in for the score the producers were guaranteed a soundtrack that would be every bit as unique as the plot. Form haunting, melodic pianos to touches of 1960s pop rendered raw and rough.

Review: Where will Griff Rhys take us next? Rising to a household name during his tenure at the front of the Super Furry Animals, since the indie pop soundtrack began to fade he has established himself as one of the UK's most transportive singer songwriters, building worlds through music. Sadness Sets Me Free is just the latest evidence of his greatness. Sliding in on a country-esque tip, talking about snorting coke in cloak rooms, lamenting pain and suffering, across this record he straddles lines between desperate and miserable, everyday commentary, twisted forms of joy, and, ultimately, the human condition. A skill few musicians have cracked, cementing Rhys' membership in the inner circle of timeless greats that can turn songs about mundanity into gloriously emotive epics.

Review: Marlene Ribeiro's cult status has already guaranteed copies of this will be flying out faster than you can say "first album under own name after years as Negra Branca, a member of GNOD, and collaborations with luminaries from Valentina Magaletti to Thurston Moore". And her first offering as herself, as it were, rockets straight to the pinnacle of career highs to date, a record that's so full of ideas yet consistent and complete.

Produced between Ireland, Portugal, Madeira and Salford, partly inspired by Ribeiro's grandmother, Emilia, introducing her to the concept of "recording things, here and there". The result is this incredible combination of hallucinatory dream pop, found notes and captured moments, resulting in a vivid tapestry of hook-laden songs that are meditative yet catchy, late-night but bright and breezy.

Review: Shoegaze legends Ride are on a reissuing roll, having announced a re-release campaign of almost all their early classic albums on Wichita Recordings. 'Nowhere', of course, is their magnum opus. Helicoptring in out from a tundric seascape and Hemingway hazes, Ride's sound is massive, sonically honest and remarkably different to some of their later works. In keeping with the iconic wave depicted on its front cover, this new vinyl reissue comes in the form of a blue 12" housed in a see-through inner sleeve.

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 it didn't receive quite as rapturous reviews as its predecessor, 1990's Nowhere, Ride's sophomore album Going Blank Again remains one of the finest shoegaze sets ever recorded - a dense, psychedelic, glassy-eyed, heavily layered set whose immersive sound, harmony vocals and droning textures come together to create a heavy, immersive and enveloping masterpiece. This remastered reissue replicates the format of its 2001 predecessor, expanding the set to include a quartet of bonus tracks plucked from singles and EPs released in the same period. These include the glistening, dancefloor-ready dream-pop swell of 'Going Blank Again' and the wall of sound that is 'Grasshopper'.

Review: Shoegaze legends Ride are on a reissuing role, having announced a re-release campaign of almost all their early classic albums on Wichita Recordings. 'Going Blank Again' is the patrician's choice, being one of their most acclaimed and praised. Unlike contempories a-la My Bloody Valentine, Ride's sound at this point was clear and crisp; it was drowned in sonic light, not vacuum fuzz, and carried with it a cheerier edge that predicted the sounds of later bands like Weezer. Don't miss this orange vinyl bundle version.

Review: Shoegaze legends Ride's reissuing roll reaches their first four EPs; the first here, simply titled 'Ride', was emblematic of the band's sound and, outside of that sphere, paved the way for an entire genre. After that, and before 'Nowhere', came the subsequent EP's 'Play', 'Fall' and 'Today Forever', which make up this sprawling blue vinyl boxset. Once again, you can now bask in the shimmering waves that lap at this jolly band's feet, and ours.

Review: Here's something new from one of Japan's leading nu jazz outfits Nautilus. Already seriously accomplished across their back catalogue, on this occasion they chose to tackle some evergreen jazz standards and give them a crisp modern lick. From Herbie Hancock's 'The Eye Of The Hurricane' to Bobby Hutcherson's 'Little B's Poem' plus pieces from Billy Taylor, Duke Ellington and more, the band's signature sound is all over the renditions (check the super funky slap bass coursing through the Hutcherson cover) but you can hear the original material coming through in all the right ways.

Review: British rock twosome Royal Blood had a famously speedy ascent, with their self-titled debut album appearing little over a year after the duo started working together. That album is now ten years old, hence this lightly expanded anniversary edition. The original ten-track album - a raw, rugged, energetic and at times insanely loud fusion of red-raw metal guitars, Ben Thatcher's thunderous drums and Mike Kerr's yelped vocals and booming bass - remains as thrilling and jaw-dropping as it did a decade ago, making it a genuine British alt-rock classic. This time round, we also get six bonus tracks (B-sides and EP bonus cuts), an alternative remix of 'Ten Tonne Skeleton' and a quintet of live recordings from 2015.

Review: This cult classic disco album is now a full four decades old, so what better time to reissue it in a special 40th Anniversary Edition? Spittle Dependance out of Italy have done that here and it is an alluring listen all these years on that kicks off with the proto-house sounds and echo-laden slow-motion grooves of 'Fire' before 'Sexual Desire' get tinny and analogue and cold, 'Marry A Bad Girl' plays with some more colourful synth sequences and nice deadpan vocals and 'It's Not Too Grand' is a real low slung disco chugger. A wonderful album if you ask us.

Review: Surprisingly, Arthur Russell's first posthumous collection of music, 1993's Another Thought, has never before been released on vinyl. With this gatefold double-album, Be With Records has finally set the record straight. It's well worth picking up, not least because the set, which was initially put together after raiding the legendary cellist-turned-producer's archive of unreleased recordings, is little less than superb. Full of hard-to-pigeonhole songs in Russell's unique style - effects-laden blends of cello, acoustic guitar, emotive vocals, twangy double bass and so on - Another Thought contains some of Russell's most refined and emotional recordings, including such classics as 'How We Walk on the Moon' and 'In The Light of a Miracle'.

Review: Those with an intricate knowledge of the sadly cut-short career of the late, great New York experimentalist and leftfield disco specialist Arthur Russell will happily tell you that his most celebrated solo album, World of Echo, was not only developed over several years, but also utilised edited and chopped-up recordings of shows he performed in his home city in 1984 and '85. This release presents both of those performances in full, with Russell - performing songs to his own effects-laden cello motifs and little else - delivering sparse (but effortlessly emotive) early versions and 'sketches'. These are a mix of lesser-known songs and familiar favourites, including a haunting take on 'Let's Go Swimming', a medley of 'Hiding Your Present From You/School Bell', and the inspired 'Sunlit Water'.