***Today we introduce CHARLES HOWL, a London-based Brit-psych group with a thrillingly melodic sound. Charles Howl release their debut album Sir Vices with a dozen tracks that deliver. Comprised of CHARLES HOWL and BOBBY VOLTAIRE (both of THE PROPER ORNAMENTS), they elected to record at Syke Lane's warehouse studio on the outskirts of Leeds, utilizing the foggy and remote atmosphere. Locked away Howl honed his songwriting, and production skills, slowly bringing in a team of friends, including CHRIS HICKS (TALONS) on bass and WESLEY PATRICK GONZALEZ (LET'S WRESTLE), who laid down a lead line on track 5 while round for a cup of tea. As some of the last children of the ‘80s and with a Britpop upbringing, it’s no wonder Charles Howl has produced an album that sounds like The Modern Lovers channeling The Stone Roses while maintaining its contemporary charm. It makes for an album that is outward looking with tight rhythms tying down whirling guitars and lustrous textures bouncing off melodies.
LP $19.85
05/26/2015
***“CORNERSHOP reinvent their debut album. In 1993 Cornershop went into the studio to record their first album proper. Given the praise the album is getting now, especially in America, it’s hard to believe the group had to dispense with the producer half way through, but with the financial restraints of being based on a small label in the basement of the Rough Trade Record Shop off Portobello Road they had to persevere to get it finished. This was the Riot Grrrl era and Cornershop were the only all male band to be a part of it. With a few chords and a bag of political spanners they managed to create a standpoint of the UK as getting on the verge of getting it on—a lesson that went unheeded to its peril. The variety of melodies in this instrumental update is testament to the strength of sound and originality of vision which made Hold On It Hurts a main contender of Cornershop’s back catalogue to be presented in a chiffon-swinging stride. Version. Sit back and let life that can be difficult and at times hurt, become something that is instrumentally an easy —Clara Stafford Agnesi (Biographer and Head of Humanities, University of Chicago, Illinois) “Think Henry Mancini, as well as the music of Johnny Harris”—The Guardian
LP $22.25
03/03/2015
***Most modern-day garage rock bands aim to sound as hard as possible, but THE YOUNG SINCLAIRS from Roanoke, VA, USA, in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia are a ‘60s influenced group who've sworn allegiance to the jingle sound of classic folk-rock and early stirrings of psychedelia. The Young Sinclairs emerged from the Magic Twig Community, like-minded musicians operating their own recordigng studio, deep in the woods where they have produced and engineered all their recordings. This release is a collection of various compositions that demonstrate the spectrum of The Young Sinclairs' sound. RIYL: The Band, The Left Banke, The Las.
LP $22.00
11/25/2014
***Ample Play Records release a heavy duty collection of RICHARD NORRIS’ recent TIME AND SPACE MACHINE mixes. A man of many guises, he has operated as a du0—as THE GRID with Dave Ball, as BEYOND THE WIZARD’S SLEEVE with Erol Alkan—but when it's time for some solo sonic action, he records and remixes as The Time and Space Machine. We find him at it here: The Way Out Sound From In, reworking the most cosmic beat combos around into hitherto unheard psychedelic shapes. WARPAINT, TAME IMPALA, JAGWAR MA, PSYCHEMAGIK, TEMPLES, THE SUFIS, and more fall into the Time and Space Machine and come out the other side with wider grins and shinier eyes. It's The Way Out Sound From In... all aboard. 2xLP limited to 500 copies. "It's about time someone got together a killer compilation of Time And Space Machine Mixes. From start to finish this is a full set of end to end burners... The perfect soundtrack to those phased-out psychedelic summer nights."—Rough Trade Shops
CD $16.00
09/30/2014
2XLP $28.95
09/23/2014