Deluxe Issue Twenty-Five

Hello, friends.

This is the 25th Deluxe newspaper, a new edition with albums for consideration and listings of our many highlights from the last year in music. Written chronologically, this is what we were listening to and when. In these times of seemingly ever-faster tumultuous change, as a record shop, we have a job and are here to focus on the records on the wall, the records on turntables, records in the post, records over the counter and all the great sonic experiences they bring. We take this responsibility seriously, we are proud to be a conduit, an enabler and an amplifier to these many remarkable sounds. We are a cog, and whether the machine is small or large, we are vital, as are you.

We sincerely hope that you enjoy reading about the amazing albums that have soundtracked 2022 for us, and that this edition helps you find something that moves you.

Best of 2022

Kurt Vile Watch My Moves

Nick Mulvey New Mythology

Best Albums Of 2022

- NME, BBC 6Music, Esquire, The Times, The Quietus

“an indelible chapter in the story of one of contemporary pop’s most intriguing minds” - CRACK Magazine

Best Albums Of 2022 NME, BBC 6Music, Esquire, The Times, The Quietus “an indelible chapter in the story of one of contemporary pop’s most intriguing minds” CRACK Magazine

ANUARY

R ECORD OF T HTNOMEH Jan

SILVERBACKS

Archive Material

Full Time Hobby

JOur January Record of the Month was Archive Material, the second studio LP from (mostly) Dublin-based art-rock quintet Silverbacks. It’s a bloody corker. Silverbacks are brothers Kilian O’Kelly (guitar), Daniel O’Kelly (vocals and another guitar), bassist and vocalist Emma Hanlon, drummer Gary Wickham and (another!) guitarist Peadar Kearney. Archive Material was produced with Daniel Fox (Gilla Band) and it retains all the humour and irreverence of Fad, whilst cranking through the propulsive gears to really euphoric effect. Triple guitars that wrap around one another like Television at their most frenetic, Silverbacks make dense and complicated songs sound light and airy. Vocally, both Daniel and Emma are ear-catching and offer up some great changes of pace throughout the album. With big plaudits at Stereogum and Bandcamp, they are clearly ones to watch, and Archive Material has been a big part of the Drift year.

‘Bringing slick 00’s indie to the bleakness of the now’ - NME

BILL CALLAHAN AND BONNIE ‘PRINCE’ BILLY Blind Date Party

Drag City

One of the most glorious collaborative works we can remember in a very long time. Released on Drag City and headed up by (arguably) their roster’s most enduring sons - Bill Callahan and Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy - the party features (deep breath): Azita, Matt Sweeney, Alasdair Roberts, Matt Kinsey, Sean O’Hagan, Dead Rider, George Xylouris, Bill MacKay, David Pajo, Mick Turner, Meg Baird, Ty Segall, Cooper Crain, Cory Hanson, Six Organs of Admittance, David Grubbs, Cassie Berman, Emmett Kelly and Sir Richard Bishop. Wow. Some glorious moments and some deliciously deranged avenues too.

DEEP THROAT CHOIR

In Order To Know You

Bella Union

The second album from the east London female and non-binary vocal collective Deep Throat Choir. Founded by Landshapes member Luisa Gerstein, the richness of the vocal tones here is really delicious, sweeping and euphoric while avoiding maximalism just for the sake of it. Their debut was predominantly cover versions, but on In Order To Know You the songwriting is excellent, both in making the most of the many voices and also in terms of the craft of each song.

JAKE XERXES FUSSELL Good And Green Again

Paradise Of Bachelors

A bittersweet new LP from Georgia’s Jake Xerxes Fussell. His fourth, it’s produced by James Elkington and features guest players including Casey Toll, Libby Rodenbough, Joe Westerlund and Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy. It is an absolute masterclass in pastoral bliss; nostalgic, sad, uplifting and expansive songs that he delivers with effortless warmth. They make traditionalism sound so dynamic, a real beauty.

MOLLY NILSSON

Extreme Night School

Swedish synth-pop auteur Molly Nilsson returned early this year with Extreme, and it has some serious vibes. A euphoric energy, with flashes of melancholy through the synths and clicking drums. Maybe it takes ten albums to get to the point where you know exactly what you want to do … the pace of it all, it’s impressively distinct.

BONOBO Fragments

Ninja Tune

Simon Green’s expansive seventh album under the Bonobo moniker. Everything from the production through to the pacing and especially the artwork is just so luxe. Guest appearances from Jamila Woods, Joji, Kadhja Bonet, Jordan Rakei, O’Flynn and Miguel Atwood-Ferguson keep the mood vibrant on what are some of the hardest and genuinely grooving tracks in his discography.

EELS Extreme Witchcraft

E Works

The inimitable Eels returned this year with their fourteenth studio album, Extreme Witchcraft, on their own E Works label. It was co-produced with John Parish and is a real throwback to the fuzzed-up garage rock sonics of their Souljacker period. It has great energy and E really is in fine (and very amusing) voice. It’s not all endorphin-drenched poppers, but there are plenty of messy bangers here.

GROUP LISTENING

Clarinet & Piano: Selected Works, Vol. 2

Prah Recordings

The second volume of the selected works for clarinet & piano from the brilliant Group Listening duo of Stephen Black and Paul Jones. Sublime throughout, this really is a beautifully meditative set. Mostly slower than the first volume as it carefully unfolds, the balance between considered and organic is just perfect. Lots of touchstones across slow and ambient music - they have truly found their own space, and it is majestic.

The first album in seven years from Nottingham’s retro futurists. They are a band who eschew fads and trends that come and go, instead focusing on a honed sonic palette that blurs woozy psychedelia, immersive grooves and tropical pop to rich and hallucinogenic effect. Wilds is more muscular than their previous albums, with tripped-out motoriks that drive through the bubbling and sunshine-burned landscapes. It’s a blissful listen.

SUNN O)))

In late October 2019, the lauded Sunn O))) entered Studio 4 of the BBC Maida Vale on the invitation of Mary Anne Hobbs to record a live session for her BBC 6Music show, broadcast on Samhain. It is true testament to their sonic power that one of the world’s loudest and undeniable acts would be broadcast in full on daytime radio. Atmospherics from the inspiring to the outright threatening, the power is truly awesome. Flashes of Anna Von Hausswolf’s guest vocal really take this somewhere too, a genuinely iconic session.

FEBRUARY

R ECORD OF T HTNOMEH Feb

CATE LE BON Pompeii Mexican Summer

Pompeii is the excellent follow-up to 2019’s Mercury-nominated Reward and finds Le Bon playing every instrument except drums and saxophone. Very much a product of lockdown, it was recorded largely by herself with long-term collaborator and co-producer Samur Khouja in Cardiff, Wales. The songs of Pompeii feel suspended in time, both of the moment and instant but reactive and Dadaesque in their insistence to be playful, satirical and surreal. A singular writer, Cate Le Bon is in such graceful and inventive form on Pompeii, an album as complex and engaging as any of her previous work.

‘Cate Le Bon’s wondrous sixth album exists in a waking dreamscape whose locked-in grooves approach the unknowable at slanted angles.’ - Pitchfork

‘The Welsh musician’s sixth album encapsulates feelings of lockdown with a nod to mid-70s Bowie.’ - The Guardian

BLACK COUNTRY, NEW ROAD

Ants From Up There

Ninja Tune

Still glowing in the white heat of their Mercurynominated debut, the young band return with a new album as weird and provoking as their fine debut, while also searching for new space, and sounding comfortable with some altogether more conventional structures. There is something of Jarvis Cocker’s frenetic honesty in the vocal delivery, against soundscapes that move from sparse through to contemporary klezmer. It is nothing if not rammed with ideas.

BIG THIEF

Dragon New Warm Mountain I Believe In you

4AD

Dragon New Warm Mountain I Believe In You is the absolutely massive return of Big Thief. The bandAdrianne Lenker, Max Oleartchik, Buck Meek, and James Krivchenia - spent five months across four recording sessions in upstate New York, Topanga Canyon, the Rocky Mountains and Tucson, Arizona to record an epic 45 songs. Revised down to a svelte collection of 20, it really is a rich album, with both intimate moments and some big sections too. Might well be the best thing they’re done.

HOLODRUM Holodrum

Gringo Records

Holodrum is the self-titled debut LP from the Leedsbased super-seven-piece. Disco-infused synth-pop, with hugely gratifying grooves to get locked into. There are sounds both gloriously old and weirdly modern amongst the controlled euphoria, excellent stuff.

CAROLINE caroline

Rough

Trade Records

The quite stunning debut from the experimental eightpiece caroline. As regular readers will know, we’ve been raving about them for a good year or so now, so this is a record that we had long been waiting for. Each track, and even more so the album as a whole, feels brilliantly sculpted; long pieces - with influences in Appalachian folk and post-rock - that evolve and unfold. Somewhere between slowcore and outside folk, this honestly is a marvellous album.

LOS BITCHOS Let The Festivities Begin!

City

Slang

Let The Festivities Begin! is the super-fun new LP from the London-based pan-continental group. Produced by Franz Ferdinand’s Alex Kapranos, the band fuse unabashedly retro tones whilst avoiding lounge bar cosplay. South American rhythms and Turkish psychedelics that bubble with exotica, it is proper fun.

THE REDS, PINKS AND PURPLES

Summer at Land’s End

Summer at Land’s End is a glorious new set from the prolific and quite remarkable Glenn Donaldson as The Reds, Pinks and Purples. So few people manage to capture the intricacies of music that is overwhelmingly sunny and overwhelmingly maudlin. A great writer, and across the many excellent and standout tracks here, the biggest victory is the enduring haze that the album leaves behind.

MITSKI

Laurel Hell

Another massive return with Mitski releasing Laurel Hell. Album number six finds her getting better and better. As is her way, it’s a full and dense pop album, but the nuance is quite amazing. The smallest gestures create such vibes, and she really is at the peak of her powers.

KEELEY FORSYTH

Limbs

The Leaf Label

Limbs is the second album from musician and actor Keeley Forsyth and it is quite simply spectacular. Her chilling vibrato is right at the heart of the album, like a beacon through the icy waters of orchestration. Her debut knocked us sideways, this one sent us through the floor; about as far from easy-going as you can get, but a genuinely remarkable experience.

THE ORDER OF THE 12 Lore of the Land

Group Mind Records

The Order of The 12 is a psych folk group formed in Lewes, Sussex, and man alive are we into their debut album. They are Rachel Thomas, multi-instrumentalist Stuart Carter, and musician, writer and producer Richard Norris (the Grid/Beyond The Wizards Sleeve). Warm, hypnotic vibes with odd psychedelic cues. There is something weird and wonderful in the woods!

Tough Love

Dead Oceans

NAIMA

KIWI

FRANKIE COSMOS

R ECORD OF T HTNOMEH Mar

HUERCO S Plonk

Incienso

Plonk is the first album in six years from Kansas-based producer Brian Leeds under the name Huerco S, and it really is a pensive and strangely beautiful set. A tour de force of influences and genres, mostly played out in a brooding slow motion. The ten tracks (and parts) that make up Plonk are titled simply I to X, designed very much as one piece - minimal music playing out across one long arc with fragmented beats, snippets of ambiguous dialogue and brilliantly focused energy. Right up our street admittedly (with Leo especially bringing this one to the table), but Plonk is highly recommended both for those of you that consider yourself an ambient head, and also those open to a highly engaging sonic adventure.

‘... the Kansas musician trades his customary ambient textures for an hour’s worth of intricate, off-center head trips.’ - Pitchfork

ILL CONSIDERED Liminal Space

Liminal Space is the first fully produced studio album from free-rolling improvisors Ill Considered, and it really is a rich trip. They have self-released nine albums between 2017 and 2019, and whilst this new album sounds controlled, it retains the explosive experimentalism. The core lineup of Idris Rahman (saxophone), Liran Donin (bass) and Emre Ramazanoglu (drums) is joined by Tamar Osborn of Collocutor, Steam Down saxophonist Ahnanse, tuba player Theon Cross and percussionist Sarathy Korwar. Pure fire.

ALDOUS

HARDING Warm Chris

The excellent and ever evolving fourth album from New Zealand singer-songwriter Aldous Harding. Working again with producer John Parish, there is an understated confidence that gives the album such space to ebb and flow. Vocally she sounds so relaxed, her voice bouncing around with warmth and supreme lightness. Definitely more of a grower than her previous work (which has always had an arresting quality), Warm Chris is about repeat listens and finding all the weird and wonderful little gestures. A brilliantly sculpted album.

Marathon Artists

IBIBIO SOUND MACHINE

Electricity Merge Records

Electricity is the all-new Hot Chip-produced LP from electro Afro-funk ensemble Ibibio Sound Machine. As you can imagine, it is really scorchin’. The drive is phenomenal, a supercharged and shimmering hybrid of vintage dancefloor bangers and futuristic funk. Eno Williams also sounds amazing, a brilliant central focus.

BODEGA Broken Equipment

What’s Your Rupture?

The glorious return of NYC post punks Bodega. The band’s second full album is inspired by literature and philosophy, all acting as a fascinating framework for their humour and allowing their smartness to shine. Retains all the tightly wound energy of their debut (and excellent) Shiny New Model EP, whilst expanding their sonic palette with an ever-propulsive drive. Killer stuff.

THE WEATHER STATION

How Is It That I Should Look At The Stars

Fat Possum

In many ways a sister album to last year’s amazing Ignorance album, How Is It That I Should Look At The Stars stands on its own as another deeply personal and fascinating record from Tamara Lindeman. She is a very human and giving songwriter anyway, but the vulnerability at the heart of so much of this set is quite overwhelming. It’s all about love and sorrow and she just tells it straight.

JENNY HVAL Classic Objects

A really beautiful trip through all the public places Norwegian songwriter Jenny Hval missed throughout lockdown, alongside the dreams of future places to visit and imagine. It is full of hallucinations, with waves of shimmering electronic music and art-pop under her voice as a dream-like semi-conscious monologue. Clearly personal, but universally intriguing and quite blissful.

WIDOWSPEAK

The Jacket

Captured Tracks

We have always raved about the excellent Brooklyn duo Widowspeak, and The Jacket - their sixth LPis an excellent and quite different addition to their discography. Slower (mostly) in pace and slightly more traditional in arrangement, it is all about space. Molly Hamilton’s languorous and seductive vocals are a beautiful counterbalance to Robert Earl Thomas’s minimalist twangs. Simplicity and control, a super cool vibe.

CHARLOTTE

ADIGERY

& BOLIS PUPUL Topical Dancer

Because Music

The high-gloss banger from Charlotte Adigery & Bolis Pupul. Their debut studio record is co-written and coproduced by Soulwax (and released in partnership by Because and Soulwax’s Deewee label) and it positively oozes with the lushest synth tones. It is just super-fun throughout - inventive production flourishes and some killer beats to lock into.

BOGDAN RACZYNSKI

ADDLE

Planet Mu

ADDLE is the first album of new music in fifteen years from Bogdan Raczynski. A full change of gear from the high energy of his revered Rephlex releases, ADDLE is stripped back to free-floating ambience. The production bubbles along with gentle syncopations at a gloriously slow paced techno. Way less simple than it would seem, this really is a treasure.

JAMESZOO Blind Brainfeeder

The most excellent Jameszoo (Mitchel van Dinther) returns to Brainfeeder with Blind, a new LP embarking on further adventures on the fringes of jazz and electronica. Synth heads... Brainfeeder heads... This really has it going on, moving between frenetic and somewhat serene with hugely impressive dexterity. Complex and engaging, highly recommended.

R ECORD OF T HTNOMEH Apr

DANIEL ROSSEN You Belong There Warp

You Belong There is the exceptional full solo debut LP from Daniel Rossen, co-frontman and multi-instrumentalist of the magnificent Grizzly Bear. Everything about this swoons, opulent instrumentation builds up into rich suites. He primarily uses guitars and they truly sing like golden, shimmering light. These songs explore the uncharted territory of adulthood, including the troubles left behind and the possibilities that wait ahead. He is such an empathetic writer, each song is so enthralling and the tone of his voice is so evocative. Although ambitious in its scope and scale, there is a beautiful intimacy to the songs, with the arrangements creating hypnotic and transportive headspaces. A graceful and very special record indeed.

‘With intricate guitar playing, vulnerable songwriting, and a surprising turn toward free jazz exploration, the Grizzly Bear multiinstrumentalist reintroduces himself on his full-length solo debut.’ - Pitchfork

‘An album rich in moments of beauty and wisdom, even as it confesses that there are no easy answers.’ - Uncut

HONEYGLAZE

Honeyglaze

Speedy Wunderground

The absolutely glorious self-titled debut album from Honeyglaze. It has such a lush pace and delivery, their confidence in their hushed, sort-of lofi soul is just so alluring. One of the most exciting young bands around, this is a brilliantly distinctive debut. It’s pure gold as ever from Speedy Wunderground!

ASTREL K

Flickering i

Duophonic Super 45s

Astrel K is Rhys Edwards of Ulrika Spacek, and Flickering i is a mutable and absorbing debut. Some gorgeous cinematic flourishes alongside driving analogue strums and bleeps. There is a breezy quality to the more pop moments and a dark angst to the heavier sections, with pensive instrumental landscapes to join them. Wonky pop of the highest order.

MARKET

The Consistent Brutal Bullshit Gong

Western Vinyl

You shouldn’t judge a book by its cover, they say, but I think that this one gives away more than a little with its title. The Consistent Brutal Bullshit Gong is the new LP from Market, the band led by New York-based multi-instrumentalist and recording engineer Nate Mendelsohn. Although retaining the lofi sound of their previous albums, this new LP was recorded at Figure 8 in Brooklyn and co-produced by Katie Von Schleicher. Slow, heavy, not without its moments of catharsis, this is an addictively slouchy listen and a really great set of songs.

HANNAH PEEL & PARAORCHESTRA

The Unfolding

Real World

Hannah Peel - the Emmy and Mercury Prize nominee, broadcaster and all-round beacon of musical excellence - collaborated with the virtuoso players of Paraorchestra, and it really is a remarkable set. Soothing and inspiring with swooping orchestrations and incredibly evocative synths, Victoria Oruwari’s vocals are just overwhelming. A truly wonderful listening experience, a work of high art.

FONTAINES D.C.

Skinty Fia

Partisan Records

Skinty Fia is the bittersweet, provoking and enthralling third LP from Dublin post-punks, Fontaines D.C. Tell you what, it’s absolutely massive. The energy is so nuanced, so many dark shades whilst remaining direct and propulsive. It is a brilliant set of songs and deliveries, and the production (from Dan Carey) has distilled all of the energy into something utterly transfixing.

KATHRYN JOSEPH for you who are the wronged

Rock Action

An absolute bruiser, the sort of record that has such supreme beauty that you let down your guard; only for it to pull you in close and tell you the hard truth, turning you inside out. for you who are the wronged is the genuinely remarkable new album from Kathryn Joseph, an astonishing songwriter and a weaver of pure sonic magic. The intensity here is amazing, and the songs so skilled in their subtlety. An exceptional listening experience.

WET LEG Wet Leg

Domino

Recording Company

When a band appears seemingly out of nowhere with multiple impeccable and totally irresistible singles, there is always the worry that the LP will buckle under the weight of expectation. Wet Leg’s self-titled debut LP is marvellous fun and well and truly justified of all the hype. Jacked up, funny and euphoric radio singles sit perfectly with wonky and idiosyncratic bangers. It’s so much more than the bits that you’ll have already heard.

GHOST POWER

Ghost Power

Duophonic Super 45s

Released on the Duophonic Super 45s label is Ghost Power, the collaborative debut from Jeremy Novak (Dymaxion) and Timothy Gane (Stereolab / Cavern of AntiMatter). It is an album of gratifying studio experimentalism, hugely inventive music that rattles along with bubbling synths and snapping drums. One part controlled euphoria and one part mad scientists, the production is pretty masterful - this is consistently great vibes.

SPIRITUALIZED Everything Was Beautiful

Bella Union

The ninth studio album from the always vital Spiritualized. In many ways a companion piece to 2018’s And Nothing Hurt, it is so incredibly full, an orchestrated set with maximal production. Jason Pierce’s composition is dazzling, the complexity and density of the sonics and tones and buzzes and melodies are truly to be marveled at. The coherence in how it all comes together to sweet or euphoric effect is, well, intrinsically Spiritualized-y.

TOMBERLIN

i don’t know who needs to hear this…

Saddle Creek

An album focused on transience, i don’t know who needs to hear this… is the second studio LP from Sarah Beth Tomberlin, mononymously as Tomberlin. There is a palpable sense of restlessness, although this new set is sweeter and more approachable than the album and tracks that precede it. She covers all the biggest emotions without dwelling unnecessarily, it’s optimistic in that way, and her voice really is wonderful.

WHATEVER THE WEATHER

Whatever The Weather Ghostly International

The sublime new self-titled project from Londonbased producer Loraine James. In contrast to her club music sensibilities, Whatever The Weather embraces ambience through vocal experimentation and keyboard improvisations. The album works in degrees (°C), with subtle changes that move the timbres through a variety of club tones. This is a brilliantly thoughtful album and it feels like it’s living and changing as you listen to it.

R ECORD OF T HTNOMEH May

KEVIN MORBY

This Is A Photograph

Dead Oceans

There’s always a sense of timelessness to Kevin Morby’s work, like you are listening to one of the best records from the 1970s for the first time. His seventh studio LP (I think we counted that right) began with him absentmindedly flipping through a box of old family photos in the basement of his childhood home in Kansas City. Just hours before, his father had collapsed in front of him and had to be rushed to the hospital. That night Morby still felt the shock and fear lodged in his bones. So he gazed at the images until a picture jumped out at him: his father as a young man, proud, strong and filled with confidence, posing on a lawn with his shirt off. This was in January 2020. As the months went on and the world changed, Morby felt an eerie similarity between his feelings of that night and the atmosphere of those spring days - fear, anxiety, hope and resilience churning together. Such a personal set of songs, but Morby’s writing is so smart and universally alluring that when he sings, it’s about collective feeling. Collective joy, collective grief and lots of memory. This Is A Photograph is a fantastic album, and not just because it’s so grounded in his own experiences, but because he’s a brilliantly human songwriter who sure knows how to build some drive. In a career already full of special moments, these might well be some of his finest.

‘...an earnest, ambitious collection that touches on family, nostalgia, and mortality.’ - Pitchfork

PORRIDGE RADIO

Waterslide, Diving Board, Ladder To The Sky

Secretly Canadian

The searching and adventurous second album from Porridge Radio. Its ambition is matched by the emotional sincerity, with no two songs sounding the same. Retaining the sense of honest catharsis of the albums that precede it, there is much blunt and plainspoken heartbreak from frontwoman Dana Margolin as she repeats lines like mantras to gripping effect. It can be pretty brutal stuff, but it’s essential listening.

ROLLING BLACKOUTS COASTAL

FEVER

Endless Rooms

Sub Pop

Endless Rooms is the glorious return from Melbourne’s Rolling Blackouts Coastal Fever. We’ve always fallen head over heels for their jangles and this new LP is drenched in their signature sonics, but it’s darker, more focused and just the best kind of expansive. Another album with quite a pointed angst lyrically, just focus in past the easygoing euphorics.

PORTRON PORTRON LOPEZ

Ice Cream Soufi

PL Records

You might not know the name yet, but once you hear them you’ll not forget it. Parisian-founded trio Portron Portron Lopez are a phenomenal live band. Save a few well-placed wails and whoops, the band play tightly wound instrumentals that loop and build like psych rock ragas, with pounding drums and guitars that whip and crack through desert rock riffs. Plenty of nuance for repeat listens, but nothing compares to locking into their hypnotic grooves. An absolute riot.

QUINQUIS SEIM

Mute

SEIM is the sublime Mute label debut from Émilie Tiersen as QUINQUIS. The album is brilliantly structured, so many organic tones that all interweave, and her ethereal voice is lush. Her use of the Breton language is also magical, it’s the only Celtic language still in active use on the European mainland and hearing it sung is truly unworldly. SEIM plays out like a beautiful dream.

WARPAINT Radiate Like This Virgin / Heirlooms

Radiate Like This is the first album in some six years from Warpaint and it’s both fantastic and totally worth the wait. Retains all of their spooky and extramundane energy, but it’s the band’s most in focus album yet and they sound absolutely amazing in unison. The vocals especially are brilliantly structured. A really glorious return and so much to find on repeat listens.

THE STROPPIES Levity

Tough Love

Question, do you like jangle pop? Well oh boy, you’re gonna flip! Melbourne’s The Stroppies return with the tight and focused Levity LP and it is an absolute joy. The pacing is brilliant, each track hooks you in and keeps you there with lush guitar tones, stacks of effortless harmonies, great hooks and just great songs. This in the sunshine is a proper euphoric experience.

ALEX IZENBERG I’m Not Here

Weird World

The sumptuous third album from Los Angeles songwriter Alex Izenberg. Rich in the 1970s songwriter vibes of John Lennon or Randy Newman, these ornate chamber pop songs are really moving. Swooning and woozing string and woodwind arrangements courtesy of Dirty Projectors’ Dave Longstreth adds to the heart-string pulling. Really sad, really gorgeous.

JUST MUSTARD Heart Under Partisan

Records

Heart Under is the deliciously dark second album from much-hyped Dundalk five-piece Just Mustard. Shoegaze intensity, but more rooted in noise with industrial cranking to the guitars, cavernous pounding to the drums and a ghostly whisper to Katie Ball’s eerie vocals. Each track keeps building, never obviously reaching a crescendo and instead just holding the intensity. Powerful and vital.

SUNFLOWER BEAN

Headful of Sugar

Lucky Number

Headful of Sugar is the long-awaited third album from New York trio Sunflower Bean. It’s not a total reinvention, but they’ve really taken what they do somewhere totally new. There is a darkness in tone and plenty of commentary on the complexities of life in 2022, but it all sounds carefree and almost ramshackle in its off-kilter delivery.

DIATOM DELI Time~Lapse Nature

RVNG INTL

It’s always the way that the ones that are easy to miss hit the hardest. Time~Lapse Nature is an absolute beauty, a calming and almost dreamlike set from the New Mexico multi-instumentalist and vocalist Diatom Deli. Intricate layers of field recordings, with tenderly plucked strings and her voice like a lullaby. Patient slow builds to hallucinatory effect, just gorgeous.

R ECORD OF T HTNOMEH June

VINTAGE CROP Kibitzer

Upset The Rhythm

The brittle, frenetic and rollocking fourth album from Geelong punks, Vintage Crop. Upset The Rhythm are one of those labels who get our full attention with every release. We’ve also long been admirers of Vintage Crop, so when we had the opportunity to work with them both on a Dinked Edition, we bit their bloody hands off. Melodic, funny, poignant and full of ripping energy, Kibitzer hurtles along. Impressively, it was recorded in just one day with Jasper Jolley (of the much-hyped Melbourne band Bones and Jones), before being mixed and mastered by Total Control’s Mikey Young... You know, for the full Antipodean-royalty sparkle!

‘Capturing both the anticipation and the disorientating change of pace which, when sufficiently invested in, also characterise Vintage Crop’s best moments.’ - Loud & Quiet

‘Sharp and sarcastic as ever, the Geelong punks make quick work of corporate culture and ruminate on wars both figurative and literal’ - NME

ROBOCOBRA QUARTET

Living Isn’t Easy

First Taste Records

The absolutely mega debut LP from Northern Irish bandcum-art-collective Robocobra Quartet. Flashes of punk angst and the frenetic pace changes of a jazz set. Not without a sense of humour, but this one is hard and pretty essential listening. The best kind of undefinable genre smashing; rarely has exploring the absurdity and mundanity of modern life been so gripping.

THE SMILE A Light For Attracting Attention

XL Recordings

We know that you know, but A Light For Attracting Attention is the debut LP from The Smile, a super-group comprising Thom Yorke and Jonny Greenwood from Radiohead, with Tom Skinner from Sons of Kemet. They all bring their best game here: riffs, great drive, some lush space and all the dynamism of Thom’s distinctive vocals. In the best possible way, it’s pretty much what you’d hope for and expect, but the delivery really is special. A great record.

HATIS NOIT

Aura

Erased Tapes

Aura is the absolutely stunning debut LP from Japanese vocal artist Hatis Noit. She really doesn’t sound like anyone else, this is such powerful music. The emotional resonance is thrilling and although it’s far from easy going, if you can get lost in the remarkable sonics there is so much to discover in this hugely impressive album.

TV PRIEST My

Other People Sub

The pounding second LP from post punks TV Priest. The London four-piece retain their drive and grit, but the nuance here is fantastic, it’s such a sonically smart album. They are reminiscent of dozens of dark and gloomy post punkers, but there is a real charm in what they do. It has integrity, they are singing what they know and that really rings through.

AKUSMI Fleeting Future

Tonal Union

Akusmi is the new project moniker of French-born, London based composer, multi-instrumentalist and producer Pascal Bideau. Fleeting Future is a hallucinatory, genre-defying blend of minimalism and cosmic jazz. Each piece is based around the hypnotic riffs used in gamelan, building and evolving with an almost mathematically rigid repetition. An inventive and inspirational debut.

KELLY LEE OWENS

The epic third album from Kelly Lee Owens. Working with Norwegian avant-noise artist Lasse Marhaug, it has the same dense layers as her previous work, but whereas those albums floated ethereally, the tone here is much harder and more industrial. The patience in each track’s construction is really inspiring stuff, poignant music whether loud or quiet.

Melodic Washington D.C. punk band Flasher returned this summer with a glorious reinvention. Formerly a trio, the band are now a duo (Taylor Mulitz and Emma Baker), and sonically shifted into purring guitars, a breezy space between new-wave and post-punk frenetics. There is a strange sort of jubilance in the melancholy and plenty of dynamic changes throughout.

JOAN SHELLEY The

Spur No Quarter

The contributors to this album, recorded in rural Kentucky, are superb. James Elkington serves as coproducer alongside Shelley, plus collaborations with Bill Callahan, Meg Baird and the British novelist Max Porter, along with Shelley’s musical partner and husband Nathan Salsburg. All that said, it’s Joan’s voice that knocked us out. The rich and verdant music frames her beautiful vocals, and she really does sound luscious.

FORGIVENESS Next Time Could Be Your Last Time

Gondwana Records

The debut album by Forgiveness, the combined forces of Jack Wyllie, JQ and Richard Pike. The collaborative nature of the music is key, influences in new age, jazz and electronic music that build and flow through tranquil and rich musical landscapes. There is such an understated craft in what they are doing, whilst still sounding like three people improvising and bouncing off one another. Real bliss.

HORSEGIRL

Versions of Modern Performance Matador

The absolutely mega debut LP from Chicago trio Horsegirl. Very much using the language of shoegaze and jangling alt rock, it sounds gloriously old without falling into the pitfalls of lightweight magpies. There is clearly a lot of authenticity here and the strength of the songs marks this as an instant classic. When you first check this one out, it might seem quite unfathomable that you haven’t already heard it, a proper belter.

ANGEL OLSEN Big Time

Jagjaguwar

As regular readers will well know, we’re huge admirers of Angel Olsen. We think it’s fair to say that she simply hasn’t put a foot wrong across her impressive career. Her sixth studio album is utterly wonderful. Steeped in country music through the ages, yet so brilliantly focused around Angel and her direct and unflinching songwriting. This is a classic country album, very much through the Olsen gaze. She’s a treasure.

LAURAN HIBBERD GARAGEBAND SUPERSTAR

DIGGA D NOUGHTY BY NATURE REMA RAVE & ROSES

VIAGRA BOYS

Cave World

Hold onto something… anything! Cave World is the thunderous return of Stockholm post-punks Viagra Boys. It brims with life, a rich spectrum of laughs and grunts that finds the idiosyncratic punks in both bullish and wry form. Although there is much fun to be had - with muscular riffs and a thick and dirge-drenched drive - and genuinely funny, it’s clear this is no joke. They have swagger, but they are not pulling any punches. Sleaford Mod Jason Williamson even pops up with the obligatory spot of fierceness on Big Boy. Surreal, striking, sinister, strange, sexual, Swedish… it’s a hard one to pin down, but that’s part of the charm. It’s just very good … trying to overthink what or why could break the spell.

‘The production is cleaner than Viagra Boys’ first two albums, bringing their ever-present drive to the fore.’ - Pitchfork

‘Viagra Boys stamp a great big watermark over this album as they engrave their aesthetic right down to its core. ‘Cave World’ sees them bounce back with another grandiose LP just a year after their last – true miracle workers.’ - Clash

GWENNO Tresor

Heavenly Recordings

The Mercury Prize-nominated third solo LP from high queen Gwenno. Tresor is her second album almost entirely in Cornish (Kernewek) language, written in St. Ives just prior to the Covid lockdowns of 2020. This is beautifully pastoral psychedelia, she makes such incredibly timeless music, sounding both ancient and weirdly futuristic. Instant bangers and beautiful, flowing language. This really is a wonder.

KATY J PEARSON Sound Of The Morning

Heavenly Recordings

A real swooner from the Bristolian singer-songwriter. You all know very well that we’re firm fans, but her sonic and creative expansion between her debut and this new LP is super-impressive. There is such maturity to the writing. It would appear to be relatively simple, but the way it weaves through styles and genres without getting stuck down any furrows is most skilled. She has a country lilt to her voice, but the whole experience is richer and fuller, with some out-there production to match her ambitious writing.

NAIMA BOCK

Giant Palm Sub Pop

The excellent solo debut from London singersongwriter and former Goat Girl, Naima Bock. She has such a gorgeous voice, an assured and whispered hush. It’s a real soother, with strings, organ and woodwind in melodic layers. Thoughtful compositions that wrap around her deliciously laconic voice, with Latin flourishes that pay tribute to her Brazilian heritage. A fantastically produced album.

TRAAMS

personal best

Fat Cat

personal best is the absolutely pounding return of TRAAMS after a seven year absence. Such a great hurl to it, with kosmische via drum machines and dark layers of guitars, but it’s the density of the layers that gives it such a dark energy, vocally especially. Also features performances by Liza Violet (Menace Beach), Soffie Viemose (Lowly) and Joe Casey (Protomartyr) to keep the tones changing. One of the year’s most played albums over here.

PHIL COOK

All These Years

Psychic Hotline

New solo LP from Phil Cook (of the much-loved band Megafaun, and collaborator with the Blind Boys of Alabama, Bon Iver and Hiss Golden Messenger) and it is gorgeous. A sublime solo piano album of huge imagination that just floats. Graceful stuff with a timeless quality and echos of Randy Newman. It really is a corker.

INTERPOL

The Other Side of Make-Believe Matador

The Other Side of Make-Believe is the seventh fulllength studio release from New York rock band Interpol, and it really does cast an impressive shadow. Paul Banks’ vocals are so distinct that they will inevitably sound like Interpol, but this new album is a more refined version of that younger band. They sound so comfortable, the confidence is as alluring as the dark and gleaming production.

BLACK MIDI Hellfire

Rough Trade Records

Bloody hell fire! black midi in proper ferocious form. The band’s third studio LP establishes them as genuine musical polymaths, explorers, and a band as distinct as any that has come before. Hellfire is chaotic and explosive, also theatrical and crooned with crazed abandon. Such a thrilling band, Hellfire is consistent in its totally fearless and provoking drive.

COLA

Deep In View

Fire Talk

Appearing phoenix-like from the flames of the amazing Ought band, Cola are Tim Darcy (vocals, guitar) and Ben Stidworthy (bass) alongside Toronto’s go-to drummer Evan Cartwright (U.S. Girls / The Weather Station). Such good pace to it, a unique mix of driving and leisurely, with everything locking into a hypnotic wooze. Darcy still brings high drama with his phrasing and this really is an impressive and alluring debut.

WORKING MEN’S CLUB

Fear Fear

Heavenly Recordings

We were delighted to welcome back Yorkshire synthpoppers Working Men’s Club this summer with the massive new Fear Fear LP. The production is beautifully observed, timbres and tones from electropunk and rave wound tightly around Syd MinskySargeant’s commanding centre point in the middle of the stage and the mix. Although dark and quite sinister at times, it’s a big step forward and destined to bring the band to an ever wider audience.

OOG BOGO

Plastic God?

LA four-piece Oog Bogo released Plastic on the Drag City / Ty Segall-operated God? record label and it really is mint! A brittle and bouncing set of garage bangers with loads of glam sparkle. There is a darkness to it, but the way it hurtles along is just too irresistible not to let them on in!

R ECORD OF T HTNOMEH Aug

THE LOUNGE SOCIETY Tired of Liberty

Speedy Wunderground

Another of the young leading lights from the bustling Hebden Bridge scene, The Lounge Society released Tired of Liberty, their superb debut LP. Following their breakthrough Silk For The Starving EP and the blink and you’ll miss it 7” single Generation Game, the West Yorkshire post punks have built up a fine thing with producer Dan Carey and the immaculate Speedy Wunderground label. As soon as we heard them, the band’s angular pop had us thinking Talking Heads and Television, but impressively they sound distinctly British. Politically driven, they sing about social inequalities and injustices in a way that makes them really stand out from the rabble. Empathy, not ranting, that is musically tight, thoughtful and seasoned well beyond their years.

‘The Lounge Society may be a generational talent.’ - Loud & Quiet

‘When they embrace the full flood of their influences, they shine.’ - DIY

DANGER MOUSE & BLACK THOUGHT Cheat Codes

BMG

If you want to talk about a hype collaboration, how about the inimitable Danger Mouse and Black Thought of The Roots! Cheat Codes is Danger Mouse’s first hip-hop album in 17 years and Black Thought’s only full length collaboration beyond his pioneering music in The Roots. Honestly, this is so so so good; confidence, energy and such a flow to it. Not only this, it features guest appearances from Raekwon, Run The Jewels,

ELAINE HOWLEY

The Distance Between Heart And Mouth Touch Sensitive

A genuinely special album, a slow-burning collection of textures that feels like you’re thumbing through someone’s diary. The album is built around 4-track cassette tapes that Elaine kept between 2019 and 2022, a woozy and varied collection of influences and inspirations. But this is no hazy by numbers mixtape, the pacing is amazing and the way it ebbs and flows is stunning. A total privilege to spend time with.

RICH RUTH

I Survived, It’s Over

Third Man Records

Recorded under a loft bed in the guest bedroom of his Nashville home, I Survived, It’s Over is the new LP on Third Man from Rich Ruth, AKA Nashvillebased multi-instrumentalist Michael Ruth. Serene, evolving, ambitious - a beautiful set of neo-spiritual jazz compositions. It really does provide the sort of headspace that’ll make you want to float.

JULIA JACKLIN

Pre Pleasure

Transgressive

The third studio LP from Australian singer-songwriter Julia Jacklin really is assured, a bold, introspective and confessional set of songs. Her lyrics are quite amazing, micro couplets that are arresting, sad and funny from verse to verse. It is dense in tone but full of high pop hooks, and the production frames her brilliantly.

OSEES

A Foul Form

Castle Face

One of these days, as they say, John Dwyer’s OSEES will deliver an album that doesn’t blow off the top of our lids, wrap our faces in a toothy grin and give us the full body shakes. This time though folks, is not one of those times. A Foul Form is an absolute slab of jacked up rock. Turning down the psych, ramping up the metal, it is full on, frenetic and a total rush. ‘Brain stem cracking scumpunk recorded tersely in the basement of my home’, as the main man himself explains.

BELIEF Belief

Lex Records

The self-titled, collaborative debut album from producer Boom Bip and drummer to the stars (and Warpaint permanent fixture) Stella Mozgawa. Using early 90s techno and acid house textures, this one is so evocative. It is bass-heavy, but there is a real lightness to the production. It really floats along, and arrived just in time to be ever-present on the Drift office summer bangers playlist!

SZUN WAVES Earth Patterns

The Leaf Label

The spectacular return of trio Szun Waves, three virtuosos pushing each other to dive deeper and push further into the spaces between jazz, ambience and sound design. Producer Luke Abbott, saxophonist Jack Wyllie (Portico Quartet) and drummer Laurence Pike (PVT/Liars) have again found amazing and inspiring sonics that all evolve in loops, very much like the organic earth patterns of the album’s title.

THEE SACRED SOULS

Thee Sacred Souls

Daptone

The summer-smooth eponymous debut LP from San Diego’s Thee Sacred Souls. Sweet soul and grooving R&B, the chemistry here is just so damn legit! We were lucky to hear this one early (working with the band on a Dinked Edition) and played it on beaches, balconies and headphones throughout the early summer. Impeccable style, and full of sweet, honest soul.

R ECORD OF T HTNOMEH

JOCKSTRAP

Love You Jennifer B

Rough Trade Records

Love You Jennifer B is one of the year’s most-hyped debut albums, and one that absolutely warrants all that attention. London-based duo Jockstrap (Georgia Ellery of Black Country, New Road and Taylor Skye) present an experimental waltz through timbres and tones. An album of sublimely disorientating pop music that pushes boundaries and largely sounds unlike anything else released before it. What thrilled us the most about this fine debut is how it surprises at every opportunity. It is a brilliantly sculptured trip through genres with such genuine excitement. Three years in the making, it feels like a coming of age record and destined to capture the hearts of any listener. Smart and fun, this is a corker.

‘Unquestionably one of the best debut albums of the last five years.’ - Loud & Quiet

‘A record creaking and groaning under the weight of its ideas.’ - DIY

YEAH YEAH YEAHS Cool It Down

Secretly Canadian

The first new LP in close to a decade from the trio. It’s funny to have an album that both sounds very like them, but also distinctly not like them. The euphoria remains closely controlled through the orchestrated builds and drops, but they have almost entirely stripped away all of the trademark yelping and frenetics. A really measured set.

MAKAYA MCCRAVEN

In These Times

XL Recordings

Seven years in the making, I n These Times is the hugely impressive new album from prolific drummer, composer, producer and jazz vanguard Makaya McCraven. Recording at multiple studios and spaces, McCraven interwove the performances with his stunning beatmaking. With contributions from over a dozen musicians and creative partners from his tight-knit circle of collaborators, it is powerful and inspiring music that sounds not very much like anything else at all. It is a passion project that plays on both his beat-making and production strengths, and highlights most of all his seemingly limitless imagination.

SARAH DAVACHI Two Sisters

Late Music

Spread across a double pressing, Two Sisters is a sublime collection of nine extended compositions for chamber ensemble and solo pipe organ. Cavernous drones that sound ancient, these are deeply evolving tones and movements from the Canadian experimental musician and composer. She is always inspiring, but my word, this is truly special stuff.

SUDAN ARCHIVES

Natural Brown Prom Queen Stones Throw

Natural Brown Prom Queen is the absolutely glorious return of Sudan Archives. It is pure scale! A hugely ambitious listen across its 18 tracks, swooping between fast and slow modes with club beats, cinematic strings, R&B energy and traditional music shapes, and managing all of this whilst remaining essentially post-genre. She is a thrilling voice,not to forget a hugely accomplished violinist, and this is an expansive progression from her fine debut LP.

DUSTER Together Numero

Together is the fourth studio LP from San Joseformed trio Duster, and we have to be honest: it knocked us sideways! Slow, distorted, sad music that has such thick production, you can almost wear it like a shawl. A strange sense of peacefulness, it is massively evocative and has a brilliantly controlled pace throughout.

MARINA ALLEN Centrifics

Fire Records

We’ve talked quite a lot about Marina Allen over the last few years, and if you listen to her voice for more than a few seconds, it’s easy to see why. Such magic, a beautifully winding and earthy voice that echoes the landscape of Laurel Canyon. Carefully bending folk and jazz structures, Centrifics is her full album debut and it is very, very good indeed.

PALE BLUE EYES

Souvenirs

Full Time Hobby

A band very close to us at the shop and one entwined with the Drift machine for as long as we can remember. Souvenirs is a document of the band taking a wide set of inspirations and riding the motoriks into their own unique pastures. Think of the euphoric melancholia of Echo And The Bunnymen and the always-controlled drive of New Order.

GEMMA CULLINGFORD

Tongue Tied Elmo Recordings

Tongue Tied is the second solo LP from Gemma Cullingford of Sink Ya Teeth. It is a lush combination of the homespun (entirely self-produced from Gemma’s humble home studio in Norfolk) and richly observed, with tones across new wave, electroclash, acid house and all the experimental clunks in between. Her vocals also are superb, holding it all together in a very human way.

BJÖRK Fossora

One Little Independent

Fossora is the tenth studio album from creative polymath and cultural Icon, Björk. In a nutshell, it’s hugely ambitious, dazzling in its complexity, and just a wild sonic experience from one of the most thrilling artists to ever do it. There is a real sense of motion to it, a hallucinogenic trip through an otherworldly landscape.

DITZ

The Great Regression Alcopop! Records

Debut LP from the Brighton-based, five-piece band, and it is absolutely one of the year’s most thrilling new albums. Dark and dangerous music, it is just so primal. Finding new space in punk is never easy but they really have, the sonic shifts between what everyone is doing are just amazing. We had them play live in Totnes this year for Sea Change back in May, and they were a force of nature to behold.

CHRIS FORSYTH

Evolution Here We Come

No Quarter

The new long-player from the absolute hero of the six string! His albums are always must-haves and utter sonic treats, but it has to be said, this really is a euphoric new set for the old and new heads alike. Motorik drives, floating synths (right out of the Stereolab playbook) and a hell of a lot of riffs. Always gratifying, never bloated, this really is mint!

LAMBCHOP

<insert obligatory line about how we could listen to Kurt Wagner singing the phone book> …It is true though! The mighty Lambchop released addition to their hugely impressive discography. Lots of vocoder in the mix again and flashes of disco keep this one moving through shades of jazz, country and a whole lot more.

BETH ORTON Weather Alive

Partisan Records

Weather Alive is the first new album from English singersongwriter Beth Orton in six years and it is a slow-burning treat. Her voice, as you’d well expect, sounds glorious; frail but graceful, and so honest. It’s like you’re being sung to directly. As the nights turned more autumnal, god only knows how often we played this.

BITCHIN BAJAS Bajascillators

Drag City

Bajascillators is the first new full-length record in some five years from the brilliant Bitchin Bajas. This is an extraordinary head space, a suite of bleeps and chimes that build and evolve beautifully. It is a real album listening experience, with the gaps between ‘songs’ hard to decipher, echoes and gestures reappearing as the pace keeps shifting. We just can’t rave enough about what a special sonic trip this is.

AOIFE NESSA FRANCES

Protector Partisan Records

Recorded in a small house in County Kerry with producer Brendan Jenkinson, Brendan Doherty (drums), Ailbhe Nic Oireachtaigh (string arrangements) and Conor O’Brien (horn arrangements), Protector is the second LP from Aoife Nessa Frances and spotlights what a genuinely wonderful voice she has. In spring of 2020, Aoife moved out of the city for the first time in her life and moved to rural County Clare on the west coast of Ireland. There, amidst the stillness, she worked on the songs that would become her second album. The resulting body of work deftly juxtaposes golden hours and arguments, affection and alienation, and above all marks a crucial transformative period of her life that left her wiser. An instant classic, an album both timeless and strangely modern.

‘A triumphant return’ - Uncut Magazine

‘The arrangements are endlessly enchanting, with heavenly flourishes of harp and an irresistibly smooth interplay of keys, strings and guitar that can lull you into a dreamlike state.’ - DIY

BILL CALLAHAN

Drag City REALITY

His solo output in the last decade (Dream River, Have Fun with God, Shepherd in a Sheepskin Vest and Gold Record) has seen an artist who could already be considered quietly iconic, find new and subtle ways to excite and devastate with each new album. His voice is miraculous, his turn of phrase inspiring. YTI⅃A is another gorgeously warm addition: funny, kind, surprising and just a treat from start to finish. Absolutely wonderful.

DRY CLEANING Stumpwork

4AD

Picking up very much where their breakout debut New Long Leg left off, with tightly wound riffs and rhythms that wash around the (gloriously) distinctive drawl of Florence Shaw’s voice. She is in commanding form: funny, dry, surreal, with a constant flow of consciousness and semi-inner monologue. Musically it is so inventive too, removing the shackles of any of the contemporary post punks and Sprechgesang lightweights, this is a fiercely experimental set of songs. Much to discover, an album as impressive and ambitious as their fine debut.

PVA BLUSH Ninja Tune

The striking debut from South London-based threepiece PVA. From the shimmering electro pop to the industrial bangers, this is a hugely impressive release. They bring in so much sonically (it can be menacing and euphoric in the same song) whilst keeping it all ever moving forward with an electro strut. Such dancefloor energy, but the introspective moments make this feel as much a post-club album too.

SORRY Anywhere But Here

Domino Recording Company

Sorry follow up their brilliant 2020 debut album 925 with the experimental poppin’ Anywhere But Here. Whilst successfully retaining their hand-crafted and homespun wooze, this new LP is a massive sonic progression. For all of the curveball creative directions, there is an immediate quality to the production and delivery that is so inventive, and makes for addictive listening

GILLA BAND Most Normal

Rough Trade Records

Most Normal was the eagerly anticipated new album from Dublin’s Gilla Band (formerly Girl Band). We’d normally be telling you about them being ‘post punks’, but the most striking, most thrilling and most instantly clear thing about Most Normal is that it is a complete deconstruction of their previous work, a gnarled and industrial album of visceral noise. Far from easy going, but thrilling in its unrelenting energy.

PEEL DREAM

MAGAZINE

Pad

Tough Love

Pad is the new LP from Peel Dream Magazine and brilliantly, it bears very little in common with the scorching Agitprop Alterna that preceded it. Joe Stevens moved from NYC to LA, and the driving waves of reverb have almost entirely washed away into sunny bossa nova-like

SURPRISE CHEF Education & Recreation

Big Crown Records

Education & Recreation is the cinematic return of Melbourne’s funk and soul journeymen Surprise Chef. Their third album is a real trip, a vivid and flowing set that pulls in 70s cinematics, laidback soul, jazzing frenetics and oozing funk, all slow cooked into a hazy headspace. It’s an album that really keeps giving, the more time you spend in their sun-blazed landscapes.

LORAINE JAMES

Building Something Beautiful For Me

Phantom Limb

The latest full-length release from London-based producer Loraine James (alongside April’s stunning eponymous Whatever the Weather) is inspired by revered and pioneering minimalist composer Julius Eastman. The album re-interprets and reimagines his work, with a light and airy soundscape that truly floats. There is still anger, and the stabbing beats (when they puncture through the ambience) are especially arresting.

THE ORIELLES

Tableau

Heavenly Recording

Halifax’s The Orielles’ third studio album (or fourth, depending on how you specifically categorise the excellent La Vita Olistica soundtrack) is self-produced and feels very much like a band who’ve realised they are limited only by their own imaginations. Flowing freely through genres and styles, it is both disorienting and hugely impressive in its scope. A proper ‘album’ experience of sonics and emotions.

DAPHNI Cherry

Jiaolong

Dan Snaith (aka Caribou) returned as Daphni with the high energy Cherry via his own excellent Jiaolong label. It is an album rich in vintage house and disco energy, with lush sections of sonic meandering, and the way that he controls the pace with the bpms is masterful stuff indeed. It’s all about cutting loosehugely good fun.

DISTRICTS, ROADS, OPEN SPACE

Castles in Space

The excellent third album from Gordon Chapman-Fox as Warrington-Runcorn New Town Development Plan. The pacing is languorous and slowly evolving through analogue tones. It explores the impact of new-town planning on the human spirit, in part influenced by atomising effects of the lockdown under which it was created. Not many people can make an ode to concrete sound so affecting.

DRUGDEALER Hiding In Plain Sight

Mexican Summer

The production (from founder and primary songwriter Michael Collins) is always so deliciously thick, a sunshinesmoked sort of melancholic fug. Deceptively smart pop songs and just so many brilliant little nuances in the mix. Guests include: Tim Presley, Kate Bollinger, Bambina, Sasha Winn, Sean Nicholas Savage, Video Age and John Carroll Kirby. Highly recommended.

GOAT

Oh Death Rocket Recordings

The re-emergence of formidable psychic warriors, channellers of the mystic and proponents of a spiritual quest that transcends this realm. Goat’s fourth studio album is rich in Afro-rhythms and fuzzed out riffs, it has such a great drive and the tribalistic walls of wailing vocals still whoop up quite the hysteria.

RIVAL CONSOLES

Now Is Erased Tapes

Although arguably more minimal than ever before, there is such a lightness on Now Is, the return of organicelectronic extraordinaire Rival Consoles. There is a palpable sense of solitude as each piece unfolds and builds. Few people can remain so meticulous in the beat-making whilst bringing bounce, slow builds and genuine euphoria.

DUNGEN En Är För Mycket och Tusen Aldrig Nog

Mexican Summer

Be still our autumnal beating hearts! En Är För Mycket och Tusen Aldrig Nog (‘One is too many and a thousand is never enough’) is the first studio LP in some seven years from the Stockholm princes of psychedelia. It weaves a beautiful and evocative path through the band’s esteemed discography, swooning orchestrations with coruscating guitar licks like light through smoke. Such a special band.

R ECORD OF T HTNOMEH

SARATHY KORWAR KALAK

The Leaf Label

A rich and celebratory album focused on South Asian culture. This truly is an ambitious and evocative return from Sarathy Korwar and his collaborators. One of the most compelling voices in the jazz scene, Sarathy Korwar is a US-born, Indian-raised, London-based drummer, producer, composer and bandleader. This, his third studio LP, is an extraordinary album, an indefinable new work that is high in spirituality. The album was created in collaboration with electronic producer Photay and the sound design is extrasensory; synthesisers that undulate, layered horns both mournful and euphoric, and all sorts of sonics and field recordings that weave into a dense soundscape. Guests include Magnus Mehta, Tamar Osborn, Alistair MacSween and the mighty Danalogue. For all the impressive production (it is, it really is), the drive of Korwar’s ever-present percussion is just thrilling. Both his technique and sensibility are truly to be marveled at. Recorded live in less than two days and reconstructed from the improvisations, the performances are virtuosic from everyone involved.

‘Flute, horns, synths and tabla accompany Korwar’s undulating percussion in the drummer’s hypnotic fourth album’ - The Guardian

‘Percussionist serves up an Indo-futurist manifesto via sophisticated and intense rhythmic investigations’ - Mojo

EZRA COLLECTIVE

Where I’m Meant To Be Partisan Records

Where I’m Meant To Be is the new LP from UK jazz outfit Ezra Collective, and it’s really good fun! They have always shown such musical flex and unity, but this latest LP welcomes in guests including Sampa The Great, Kojey Radical, Emile Sandé, Steve McQueen and Nao to really keep things rolling. It’s a party album, infectious pop hooks and trips through style and genre. They make it all sound easy when it’s a lot less obvious and carefree than it feels. Super fun.

RICHARD DAWSON The Ruby Cord

Weird World

Knowing that the album’s opening track - The Hermitspans 40 minutes, and its accompanying short film by James Hawkins premiered in art cinemas, you get a fairly good idea of the scope and scale of Richard Dawson’s latest epic. The Ruby Cord is the final part of his trilogy that started with Peasant and continued in his modern day classic 2020, based somewhere in a near or parallel future of discombobulation. A singular talent, his song structures and storytelling are thrilling and the density of this album is positively overwhelming. His voice is so arresting, this requires the attention of a novel. Stunning stuff.

BREANNA BARBARA

Nothin’ But Time

Fuzz Club

Six years on from her cathartic debut, NYC-based artist Breanna Barbara returns with her second solo album and a real trip through psychedelic rock and blues. Without disappearing into stylistics, there is a richly analogue and retro haze and half the album sounding like glorious long-lost nugget 45s. There is a real duality to her vocal, with both celestial tinged emotions and some real fierceness too.

GOLD PANDA

The Work

City Slang

The Work is the first album in some six years from Drift favourite Gold Panda. It is thematically based around introspection and ‘the work’ as part of self help and self growth. He remains such an emotive music maker, washes of texture and tone with cut-up samples bubbling in and out of focus. There is a dream-like quality, but very much the restorative end of the spectrum. This is a triumphant set.

FENELLA

The Metallic Index

Fire Records

The second album from the Jane Weaver-led trio (with Peter Philipson and Raz Ullah), diving ever further into waves of psychedelia. It’s a concept album loosely based on a genuine story recounting the short-lived abilities of a young psychic nurse in 1920s London. The Metallic Index is such richly textural music, analogue hues in pop and long flowing sections of ambience and hypnagogic drones with flashes of ethereal blooms.

SPECIAL INTEREST Endure

Rough Trade Records

Endure is the Rough Trade Records debut for New Orleans no-wave punk band Special Interest and it’s a total riot! Self-produced, it broadly inhabits a space between punk and clattering dance music with proper high energy. Wide-reaching social and political commentary in the songs, they use the power of the music to create an inclusive and embracive vibe as the pop, disco and house all melts into a raucous strut.

HEATHER TROST

Desert Flowers

Ba Da Bing!

The new solo LP from American violinist, singer and founder of Balkan folk band A Hawk and a Hacksaw. As she put together the album, she imagined herself sitting out on the mesa amidst the arid climate and sand, where even with such little water to survive, wildflowers bloom! Although the tone is more nuanced than just ‘celebratory’, the songs are high on angular avant pop, deliciously futuristic retro sounds and some crunching drives.

PANDA BEAR & SONIC BOOM

Reset

Domino Recording Company

Noah Lennox (Panda Bear) and Peter Kember (Sonic Boom) have combined forces for this joyous and jubilant album, a retro-tinged and dreamy treasure. Full of woozed-out samples, it’s a tribute to 60s sunshine pop, with loops culled from the intros of rock’n’roll 45s from the late 50s and early 60s. The dreamy fragments build and rattle hypnotically, panning across the stereo to dizzying

TOM SKINNER

Voices of Bishara

Brownswood Recordings

The really beautiful new album from drummer and producer Tom Skinner, formally of Sons of Kemet and currently on duties with The Smile. Recorded in just one day, it’s very much Skinner’s vision but the collaborators truly complement and overlap to remarkable effect. Featuring saxophonists Shabaka Hutchings and Nubya Garcia, bassist Tom Herbert and cellist Kareem Dayes, this is such inventive playing, high in spiritual energy.

WEYES BLOOD

And In The Darkness, Hearts Aglow Sub Pop

The latest album from Natalie Mering as Weyes Blood, and my word does she create a vibe. Her voice is more central and present than ever before, both in a tranquillisation hush and as a commanding balladeer. The songs sound strangely familiar, like known classics, but one of her great hooks is making them all slightly off-kilter, as if you’re remembering them slightly wrong in a dream. For all the calming and washing synths, there is a certain uneasiness to her chamber pop, an alluring darkness that bleeds through the background. Features guest appearances from Meg Duffy, Daniel Lopatin, and Mary Lattimore. A hugely accomplished record, this really is a belter.

DANIEL AVERY Ultra Truth

Phantasy Sound

Daniel Avery truly is in a purple patch. Including the lush Illusion of Time collaboration with Alessandro Cortini, his latest album - Ultra Truth - follows Love + Light and Together in Static as his fourth release in two years. The production is just amazing, incredible

TREVOR BEALES

Fireside Stories (Hebden Bridge circa

1971-1974)

Basin Rock

Well this is pretty special. An album of never-before-heard 70s British folk by unknown teenager Trevor Beales, recorded alone in the attic of his family home in Hebden Bridge, sometime between 71-74. This posthumous set - Trevor Beales died suddenly and unexpectedly on March 29th 1987, aged just 33 - is a wonderful listening experience, new songs to devour about all the big themes in life from a commanding baritone voice. He is reminiscent in tone to Michael Chapman or John Martyn, but with regional traditionalism giving him his own distinct space. There is a real sadness to some of the songs that is eerily reminiscent of Jackson C Frank, himself a mysterious character celebrated outside of his lifetime. Fragile, full of melancholy and fleeting like sunlight through cobwebs. The release of the album itself is a really beautiful story too, with Hebden-based label Basin Rock lovingly bringing together the songs and stories from tapes and reels. A time capsule and a real treasure.

‘Ace Todmorden label makes a significant discovery on its own doorstep: a superb cache of ‘loner folk’ songs recorded in the early-70s by Hebden Bridge’s answer to Nick Drake’ - Uncut

KING GIZZARD & THE LIZARD WIZARD

Ice, Death, Planets, Lungs, Mushrooms and Lava

KGLW

What’s that? Oh, just King Gizzard delivering a highly conceptual album, their third of the year and what is probably their 21st studio set in the last ten years. It follows the Made in Timeland and Omnium Gatherum albums from earlier in the year, and chronologically arrives in between the Laminated Denim and Changes albums, illustrating their ferocious work ethic and a frankly dazzling new mode of work. The album was mostly recorded in the space of a week, with all six band members improvising in a different musical key and tempo each day, with all seven modes of the major scale represented. This is no idle cleverness for cleverness’ sake, like a jazz session of old, they made parameters and they went on a trip. This year alone they’ve touched on 70s prog, rock, jazz, Turkish folk, Ghanaian highlife, tropicalia and psychedelia, but it’s their constant inventiveness and unbridled passion that always makes them such an engaging listen.

LELAND WHITTY Anyhow

Innovative Leisure

Anyhow is the debut solo album from multiinstrumentalist and member of BADBADNOTGOOD, Leland Whitty. Written and arranged by Whitty himself, it features guest appearances from BBNG’s Chester Hansen and Alexander Sowinski, as well as Julian Anderson Bowes, Matthew Tavares and Whitty’s brother Lowell, who patters across the drum kit with great invention. Cinematic vibes, with swooping strings and layered horns, it’s full of invigorating cosmic energy.

REISSUES

Ever more at Drift, we find ourselves looking backwards for inspiration. To be totally honest, we could easily run out a full magazine about all the things this year that have been freshly repressed, lovingly restored and newly discovered.

The once furtive Record Store Day has become a conveyor belt of needless matter (with some remarkable exceptions this year like the eponymous The Rationals album on Prudential Music Group, Freddie Hubbard’s Music Is Here via Wewantsounds, Vampisoul’s excellent reissue of Mulata Vamos A La Salsa from Luciano Luciani Y Sus Mulatos, and Rob’s mononymous Rob on Mr Bongo), and removing the RSD novelty aspect of reissues, there has been a massively developed scope and awareness for reappraised music. As this newly extended section testifies, it’s been helluva year for it!

The diligent amongst you will notice a notable lack of jazz in this year’s reissue section, but fear not, your pedantry will be richly rewarded with a special online feature that we just couldn’t possibly print. Scan the QR code (or just visit us online at driftrecords.com , we’ll make it obvious) for a feature length audio-literary appraisal of all the amazing and mind blowing jazz reissues we’ve had the pleasure to stock.

LEO NOCENTELLI Another

Side

Light In The Attic

The. Best. Grooves. An absolutely essential pressing of the first-ever solo album by legendary guitarist Leo Nocentelli of The Meters. At just 16, Leo Nocentelli was backing up Otis Redding. Soon after, he was playing on hits for Lee Dorsey, The Supremes, and The Temptations. He was also an original member of The Meters, writing the classics Cissy Strut and Hey Pocky A–Way. Recorded at Cosimo Matassa’s Jazz City Studio in New Orleans in the early 70s and then lost to the ages, this one has such good vibes and sounds utterly superb.

HORACE TAPSCOTT QUINTET

The Quintet

Mr

Bongo

Pure magic from Mr. Bongo with The Quintet, an absolute peach from 1969 and the Horace Tapscott Quintet. Produced by the iconic Bob Thiele, pianist and composer Horace Tapscott was regarded as one of the most unique and important figures in LA’s jazz world, and this deep set pays testament to that. It floats through a remarkable sonic landscape and gets up to quite the drive. Lush new artwork, this really is highly recommended for any of you that get the chills from Floating Points.

YAMASH’TA & THE

HORIZON Sunrise From West Sea

We

Want Sounds

An absolutely essential reissue via We Want Sounds, with the extraordinary Sunrise From West Sea. A truly cosmic performance, recording live at Yamaha Hall in Tokyo on April 18, 1971. The all-night concert was recorded in front of an invite-only audience of friends and musicians. It is a hypnotic treasure, each musician truly bringing their powers in full flight. Awesome.

FERRY DJIMMY Rhythm Revolution

Acid Jazz

Put this bio in your pipe and smoke it... One of Afrobeat’s most mysterious and rare records by a former schoolteacher, boxer, friend of Fela Kuti and Muhammad Ali - later Jacques Chirac’s bodyguard - and Beninese musical visionary: Ferry Djimmy. A truly unique Afrobeat record, it channels Fela Kuti with a harder rocking edge. Honestly, we can’t rave about this one enough.

REISSUES

STEREOLAB

Pulse Of The Early Brain

[Switched On Volume 5]

Duophonic / Warp

Pulse of the Early Brain is the fifth instalment in the Switched On compilation series from our most favourite art-poppers, Stereolab. The new set gathers material not found on the studio albums right across their formidable career, with the earliest tracks dating back to 1992 and through to the band’s recording hiatus in 2008. It is a comprehensive portrait of their developments, and flows superbly from the whipping and cracking motoriks through to the more experimental ambience. Seriously, what a band. What a band!

NANCY SINATRA AND LEE HAZLEWOOD

Nancy & Lee Light In The Attic

As part of the continued Nancy Sinatra and Lee Hazlewood appraisals on Light In The Attic, the duo’s iconic Nancy & Lee gets a fresh 2022 pressing. Surprisingly this is the first ever reissue of their infamous debut set of duets. So genuinely iconic, few voices have ever complemented one another with such delicious tone and embracive support.

‘Full of vivid detail and imagination, this defining 1968 album by Nancy Sinatra and Lee Hazlewood gets its first official reissue, highlighting their peculiar alchemy and otherworldly sound.’ - Pitchfork

YUJI TORIYAMA

Choice Works 1982-1985 [2022 Repress]

Time Capsule

We spent a lot of time this year with Yuji Toriyama’s Choice Works 1982-1985 reissue on the Time Capsule label. The collection was originally compiled and released in 2018 and quickly sold out. Now back in print (no digital, only available on 45rpm loud cut 12” vinyl) it really is a treat, beautifully warm fusion with the producer and guitarist touching on electro-pop, boogie, jazz and ambient. Such great energy.

CHARLES STEPNEY Step on Step

International Anthem Recording Co.

Step on Step is an absolutely fantastic set of rare home recordings from the late Chicago producer, arranger, musician and composer Charles Stepney. Much revered, his orchestral arrangements feature on works by Minnie Riperton, Howlin Wolf, Terry Callier, Earth, Wind & Fire, Rotary Connection and many more, earning him the reputation moniker of ‘baroque soul’. This debut LP features 23 bare-bones, demo-style home recordings, most of which are Stepney originals that were never again recorded by him or any other artist. The click of the drum machine is super evocative and there is such a lush squelch to this. Really highly recommended.

REISSUES

THE BEATLES Revolver

Apple Corps

Turn off your mind, relax and float down stream. Released in August 1966, Revolver is the seventh studio LP from The Beatles, and it remains a fascinating (and lofty) point in their creative evolution. Arriving a year after the raw and melodic Help! and Rubber Soul albums, it still has that deeply ingrained four-piece dynamism, but with gestures towards Indian influences and some pretty innovative studio explorations; it hinted at the following year’s Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. I Want to Tell You rolling into Got to Get You into My Life at the tail end of the second side are some of the finest moments they ever recorded… and we’re not open for discussion. To celebrate its 56th Birthday, the album has been revisited and newly mixed by producer Giles Martin and engineer Sam Okell in stereo and Dolby Atmos. It’s all sourced from the 1966 mono master tapes and it has to be said: for a fan, it’s a pretty emotional experience, it just sounds amazing. Welcome to the start of their studio wizardry phase, this is essential listening.

STAPLES JR. SINGERS

When Do We Get Paid

Luaka Bop

An astonishing 1975 funk, soul and blues rich set from The Staples Jr. Singers. They were a family of musicians from Aberdeen, Mississippi. A.R.C. Brown, his sister Annie and brother Edward began singing in the early 70s, first playing school talent shows, front lawns and local churches, later travelling across the Bible Belt in the family van as their reputation grew. Such swagger.

RYO KAWASAKI

Juice

Mr Bongo

Juice, the legendary jazz-funk record from the late, and exceptionally great Japanese guitarist Ryo Kawasaki. It’s a sick package from Mr Bongo and this one is a vinyl exclusive, so don’t rush to the digital streamers, just buy yourself a copy right now … and get your stereo purring. Thank us later! Free flowing with amazing tones, this is a proper gem.

LOU REED

Words & Music, May 1965

Light In The Attic

Produced in cooperation with Laurie Anderson, the inaugural title in Light In The Attic’s ongoing Lou Reed Archive Series is special stuff. The set captures Reed in his formative years with a previously unreleased collection of songs - penned by a young Lou, recorded to tape with the help of future bandmate John Cale, and mailed to himself as a ‘poor man’s copyright’ - that had remained sealed in its original envelope and unopened for nearly 50 years.

I’m Waiting for the Man, Heroin, Pale Blue Eyes really special stuff. The packaging is also so brilliantly delivered, this really is a very high watermark for the series’ debut.

REISSUES

HAROLD BUDD

The Pavilion Of Dreams Superior Viaduct

The second album from minimalist composer Harold Budd is nothing short of breathtaking. He began the ‘extended cycle of works’ in 1972, and with producer Brian Eno, recorded them in 1976, releasing them two years later on Eno’s own Obscure Records label. Featuring saxophonist Marion Brown and multiinstrumentalists Gavin Bryars and Michael Nyman, The Pavilion Of Dreams is an absolute masterclass in languorous timbres and shimmering textures. The four pieces are just sublime, the most exquisitely paced hush that slowly floats through space with long calming notes and tinkling and dreamlike flashes. There is such a lightness of touch, it’s like being slowly guided through dreams. An absolutely astonishing album.

PHAROAH SANDERS Moon Child

Tidal Waves Music

Tidal Waves Music reissue Pharoah Sanders’ Moon Child, a rare set of French recordings from 1989 that has been out of print since release. Sanders plays with an all-star line-up consisting of Stafford James (Sun Ra) on bass, William Henderson (Roy Ayers) on piano, and Eddie Moore (Sonny Rollins) on drums. He had largely withdrawn from the kind of screeching avantgardism on which he at first staked his reputation, here instead presenting cosmic vibes and a more focused set of improvisations. Really special stuff from one of the all time icons, who sadly died back in September.

HOT CHOCOLATE Hot Chocolate

Numero Group

The esteemed Numero label this year took us back to Cleveland in the 70s to reinvestigate the Lou Ragland catalogue, perhaps best known as a late period lead vocalist for the famed Ink Spots.

Not to be confused with English commercial funk outfit, Lou Ragland’s Hot Chocolate powered out of Cleveland’s fertile R&B scene with a straight-up grooving self-titled LP. After a solid year on stage, the group had many originals in their repertoire, and the album has such a killer live sound, they really were cooking. Ignoring the radio-friendly three minute rule,

LOU RAGLAND Is The Conveyor “Understand Each Other” Numero Group

The second part of the story is Ragland’s spiritual magnum opus with the soul set Is The Conveyor “Understand Each Other” (more often referred to as The ConVeyor, with that uppercase V intentional but unexplained). His voice is just amazing and the cinematic orchestral flourishes (courtesy of the massive Cleveland Orchestra) are right up there with anyone else recording in the 70s. A set of socially conscious soothers.

REISSUES

VARIOUS ARTISTS

Erased Tapes 十五

Erased Tapes

Not a reissue, but a killer album that celebrates the label’s 15 year history. 十五 is a compilation featuring hidden gems and previously unreleased material; the two hour cross-section really is hugely impressive, coherent and focused, whilst bringing in a huge set of contributors. The collaborative element is also pretty thrilling, with The Bug and Hatis Noit launching proceedings, and other unique pairings that include The Art Ensemble of Chicago featuring Moor Mother, Bell Orchestre interpreted by Colin Stetson, Douglas Dare joined by The London Contemporary Orchestra and Ben Lukas Boysen remixed by Kiasmos.

WILCO

Yankee Hotel Foxtrot Nonesuch

With an epic and exhaustive box set of demos and alternate takes, Nonesuch celebrated the 21st anniversary this year of Wilco’s iconic fourth studio album, Yankee Hotel Foxtrot. Revisiting it - that we did quite a lot this autumn - it really has stood the test of time, a wistful and surprisingly progressive set. There is a beautiful balance to the energy, maudlin but quietly anthemic as the band paint observations of America in 2001/2002. Ever building euphoria from whispers, a real classic.

NEW LIFE TRIO

Visions Of The Third Eye Finders Keepers

A rare pressing of New Life Trio’s Visions Of The Third Eye. I remember having to listen to this on YouTube when we really got into Steve Reid. This tremendous collaborative effort between the late great drummer Steve Reid, guitarist Brandon Ross and bassist David Wertman is an absolute spiritual jazz classic, recorded in just one day back in 1979. Amazing rhythms, amazing builds, it’s a pure hypnotic glory.

MAGICIAN Magician

Trunk

This is the first ever repress of the eponymous Magician, a near mythical 1978 progressive funk jazz LP. On release it disappeared without trace (the legend is that it sold only a dozen copies) and has remained lost in the shadows since. Enter Trunk! It was named after the TV show (with Bill Bixby) because someone in the band realised that their music was a bit like the music that played when The Magician performed illusions. We’d guess that this marvellous album has been one of the year’s most played on our stereo, a fantastic and hugely addictive six-track album of groove-oriented fusion, funking horns and other woozed up British jazz sounds.

REISSUES

STEVE REID

Odyssey Of The Oblong Square

Soul Jazz Records

Soul Jazz Records re-release Odyssey Of The Oblong Square, the rarest of deep heavyweight jazz by the iconic Steve Reid and The Master Brotherhood. The six-piece (with Reid behind the drums) builds up some incredible rhythms and the horns really scream, it’s a gloriously out-there set. Released originally on Reid’s own Mustevic Sound record label, this is a rare and captivating thing.

DREXCIYA Neptune’s Lair Tresor

An essential piece of tech/house, with Berlin’s uncompromising Tresor records starting a series of special reissues of the entire Drexciya and related projects catalogue. Drexciya was an American electronic music duo from Detroit, Michigan, consisting of James Stinson and Gerald Donald. 2022 marks the 20th anniversary of the passing of James Stinson, a poignant time to revisit these seminal works that undoubtedly inspired generations. Neptune’s Lair has it all! Drive, change of pace, tone, texture, squelch; it’s just an entire world in a record. Amazing stuff. Detroit-based contemporary artist Matthew Angelo Harrison has re-conceptualised the covers, and this reissue feels like a proper artefact.

VARIOUS ARTISTS

Earl’s Closet: The Lost Archive of Earl McGrath 1970–1980

Light In The Attic

Something very special here, with a deep dive into the literal closet of art dealer, jet setter and record man, Earl McGrath. We’ll paraphrase the story to get you interested and ready to follow the path for yourself, but following McGrath’s death in 2016, celebrated journalist Joe Hagan was invited to the estate and discovered a literal cache of reel-to-reel tapes squirrelled away in a closet. The results are this fine double album, including unheard music by Daryl Hall and John Oates, David Johansen, Terry Allen, Delbert McClinton, Warhol ‘superstar’ Ultra Violet, Detroit sax legend Norma Jean Bell, Jim Carroll, and an eclectic cast of undiscovered gems of artists across folk, rock, country, funk and R&B that virtually no one has heard in decades. A proper time capsule and such a vibe.

KIKAGAKU MOYO

House in the Tall Grass

Guruguru Brain

A long-awaited repress from Kikagaku Moyo, Tokyo’s masters of psychedelic-folk. It’s such a subtle album, not always in pace or power, but just the way the mix gets fuller and the songs ebb and flow. It’s a heady meeting of pastoral folk, motorik beats, psychedelic ragas and some surprisingly gnarly rock squawks.

“Hello, Hi” is one of Ty’s most lean and focused albums to date. But the closer you get, the more you spot its idiosyncrasies. Heartfelt and playful, homespun and surreal, down in the dumps and head-over-heels in love: here is Ty Segall in all his wonderful contradictions” - Uncut

“It’s gauzy visions suggesting some rediscovered private press folk oddity from the ‘70s, Segall’s faultless melodic instincts lent an edge by Bolan-esque warble, inwardlooking lyrics and, on Saturday Pt 2, wild saxophone duets.” - Mojo

holographicsticker and a ‘Hello, Hi’ slipmat from Drift Records :

R ECORD OF T EH RAEY 2022

TY SEGALL

Hello, Hi, Drag City

Our 2022 Record of the Year is Hello, Hi, the absolutely glorious return of Ty Segall.

He’s no stranger to the top of the Deluxe album poll, with Harmonizer (2021), Fuzz III (2020), First Taste (2019), Freedom’s Goblin (2018), Ty Segall (2017), Emotional Mugger (2016), GØGGS (2016), Fuzz II (2015), Manipulator (2014), Sleeper (2013), Fuzz (2013), Slaughterhouse (2012) and Hair (2012) all appearing in respective end of year editions. Thirteen top 100 albums in a decade is impressive going in any discography, and illustrates perfectly that Segall is not only prolific, but consistently thrilling and always restless.

His fourteenth (we think) studio LP under his own name is an absolute gem, an acoustic trip through the Californian valleys. Whilst being directly a product of the great lockdown, it is also the perfect antithesis to the ‘lock down album’, never focusing on the confinement of four walls but instead presenting a rich tapestry of fuzzed tones and rhythms that fill every second of the opulent analogue space across the two sides of the album. He used the time to commit something personal, expansive and genuinely special to tape. There is no idle introspection, this is serious time spent and although arguably some of his most simple or stripped back moments, they are doubtless some of

the most commanding songs he has written. There is such a lush haze to the album, with acoustic guitars and vocals humming beautifully in harmony with themselves; the lesser the sonic palette available, the more inventive he has become as both writer and voice. Save the occasional noisy squall, it is just Ty and a handful of instruments, and that gives the album such an evocative retroism, reminiscent most perhaps of the otherworldly vulnerability of Tyrannosaurus Rex. The album’s penultimate track - Saturday Pt.2 - contains some of the finest four minutes of music he’s produced to date. There is brood, there is melody, there are hooks, there are weird (positively drunk crescendos of saxophones) instrumentations; it is a remarkable (nearly) conclusion to the album and a new career high water mark.

Across all those albums, all those tracks and all those collaborations, he has proved himself time and time again to be a hugely characterful writer, but Hello, Hi presents the most personal document of Ty as the man. It is an album full of offbeat prettiness, trippy melodies and great songs. Something genuinely special from one of the most prolific creators in all of rock’n’roll.