Welcome back to our round up of new music for the coming month. There are some real gems coming up in August! From classic reissues by The Bluetones, Oasis and groundbreaking hip hop/jazz fusion from Guru to new music by C Duncan, Pale Waves, Danger Mouse and Dub War, not to mention to eagerly anticipated return of Muse, Hot Chip and Kendrick Lamar, there's something for everyone here.
C. Duncan - Alluvium
Due 5th August 2022
‘Alluvium’ is the fourth album from C Duncan, Glasgow’s classically trained multi-instrumentalist and singer-songwriter, released through Bella Union. After the haunting raptures of Architect (2015), the Twilight Zone-inspired reveries of The Midnight Sun (2016) and the richly melodic Health (2019), Alluvium is a sublime palate-refresher for Duncan (C for Christopher), brimming with revitalised fluency: a warming dispatch from the daylight zone, if you like.
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Dub War - Westgate Under Fire
Due 5th August 2022
The triumphant return of the original Ragga-Metal dons... DUB WAR! First new album of new material in over 26 years after originally signing to Earache Records in the mid 90s. Features 13 tracks of politically charged hip-hop infused punk metal. Spearheaded by frontman Benji Webbe, who also fronts the hugely successful metal band SKINDRED. Benji is widely renowned as one of the best live front men in metal and has won multiple awards. 'Westgate Under Fire' is named after 1839 revolutionary South Wales uprising. Lead single 'Blackkk Man' lights the fuse for a powerful record armed with truth bombs. Including a lyric video featuring the George Floyd murder by US Policeman Derek Chauvin. DUB WAR have enlisted some comrades help on this album with features from Mike Bordin (FAITH NO MORE), Roy Mayorga (STONE SOUR), Tanner Wayne (IN FLAMES), Ranking Roger (THE BEAT), Spike T Smith (KILLING JOKE), Dave Chavarri (ILL NINO) & Mikey Doling (SNOT).
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Neil Young and Promise of the Real - Noise and Flowers
Due 5th August 2022
Noise and Flowers documents a 9-date tour that began just two weeks after Young’s lifetime friend and manager of more than 50 years, Elliot Roberts, passed away at the age of 76. Performing alongside a photograph of Roberts taped to his road case, Young approached each show as a celebratory memorial service to honour his late friend. It’s a trek the legendary singer/songwriter describes as “wondrous.” In the album’s liner notes, Young says, “Playing in his memory [made it] one of the most special tours ever. We hit the road and took his great spirit with us into every song. This music belongs to no one. It’s in the air. Every note was played for music’s great friend, Elliot.” In paying tribute to the manager who guided Young’s career for over a half-century, ‘Noise & Flowers’ explores all corners of his vast discography. It balances all-timer anthems (‘Mr. Soul’, ‘Helpless’, ‘Rockin’ in the Free World’) with rarely aired ‘70s deep cuts (‘Field of Opportunity’, ‘On the Beach’) and ’90s gems (‘From Hank to Hendrix’, ‘Throw Your Hatred Down’). His frequent backing band since 2015, Promise of the Real effectively bridges the extremes in Young’s sound, infusing his raging rockers and country serenades with their casual brilliance and telepathic intuition. The companion film (directed by Bernard Shakey and dhlovelife) emphasizes both the intimacy and ecstasy of these performances. Noise and Flowers is entry No. PS 21 in the Neil Young Archives Performance Series of live releases – a special addition to a robust, and still-growing catalogue.
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OSEES - A Foul Form
Due 12th August 2022
"Osees don’t seem to mutate or morph so much as remain extraordinarily open to what moves them to do next and capable of getting music done that’s consistently good. What motivated the band to turn loose this hyperconcentrated slightly less than 22 minute burst of meteor density somewhat punkazoidal music? When it comes to the Osees, that’s at best a mediocre inquiry as they just do the next thing, genre, prevailing tastes or whatever influence might guide a lesser unit are not even a consideration. A Foul Form is a cool pivot from their 2020 studio efforts Metamorphosed, Panther Rotate and Protean Threat. A Foul Form vigorously shakes the Oseesetch a sketch clear so whatever comes next (which will probably be sooner than later) will likely be something completely different yet again. As far as a potential inspirational indicator, you might notice the final track on A Foul Form is a cover of Rudimentary Peni’s Sacrifice, which can be found on their Farce 7” released in 1982. A fitting way to blow out this rad slice." HENRY ROLLIINS.
Brain stem cracking scum-punk
recorded tersely in the basement of my home.
After a notoriously frustrating eon the knee-jerk song path was aggressive and hooky.
This is an homage to the punk bands we grew up on.
The weirdos and art freaks that piqued our interests and pointed us on the trail head to here/now.
Bad times make for strong music is something I agree with.
I would say that is evident by the past few years of output from the underground.
Transmissions have been all over the map.
scanning…
searching…
sweeping out in the darkness looking for a foot hold.
A Foul From represents some of our most savage & primal instincts.
Fight or flight.
And the importance of a sense of humor in the darkest hour.
Nothing wrong with keeping it snappy in the meantime.
For fans of Rudimentary Peni, Crass, Bad Brains, Black Flag, Screamers, Abwarts, Stooges and all things aggressively tilted towards your face.
You can lean back but don’t flinch…it’s a brief foray into the exhausting pogo pit so stiffen your back and jerk with your knees.
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Guru - Jazzmatazz (2022 Repress)
Due 12th August 2022
Guru's Jazzmatazz 1, originally released in 1993, is one of the first albums to combine a live jazz band with hip hop production and rapping. Guru had a vision and brought together a diverse group of jazz cats both old and new school; Lonnie Liston Smith, Branford Marsalis, Ronny Jordan, Donald Byrd and Roy Ayers and vocalists like Carleen Anderson, N'Dea Davenport (Brand New Heavies) and French rapper MC Solaar have cooperated on this classic album. Jazzmatazz proved to be a highly influential album and a huge commercial success.
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Coil - Constant Shallowness Leads to Evil
Due 12th August 2022
The turn of the millennium ushered in an apex visionary phase for English esoteric duo Coil. Relocating from the city to the coastal quiet of Westonsuper-Mare freed them to follow even more fringe obsessions, fully untethered from peer influence. During a single six-month stretch in 2000 they released the devious underworld sequel to Music To Play In The Dark, arcane drone summit Queens Of The Circulating Library, and a malevolent hour-long synthesizer exorcism prophetically titled Constant Shallowness Leads To Evil. This latter work remains one of the group’s most miasmic and mind-expanding creations, on par with Time Machines – a sustained divination of shuddering, psychoactive noise, rippling with the motion sickness of an all-seeing eye.
Thighpaulsandra characterizes the album as “an exercise in brutality,” born from a thorny patch of his Serge modular unit that Peter “Sleazy” Christopherson found entrancing. Processing this sliver of electronics into a ravaged labyrinth was a trial and error process, aided by Christopherson’s visual sense of sound, stretching and manipulating it for maximum spatial disorientating. Frequencies nauseously crawl across the stereo field, burrowing into the ear like a sinister brainwashing experiment. An outlier / centerpiece is the 13-minute alien tribalist sea shanty, “I Am The Green Child,” guided by John Balance’s sung-spoken free verse concerning vengeance, oblivion, and insanity, culminating in the memorable refrain, “We're swimming in a sea of occidental vomit.” But the rest of the record seethes in unhinged instrumental chaos, divided into 18 micro-movements of a composition called “Tunnel Of Goats.” Intended to scramble the functionality of a CD player’s shuffle mode, the piece throbs, thrashes, and flatlines in compressed frenzies of twisted synthesis, at the threshold of some bottomless purgatory, forbidding and unknown.
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The Bluetones - Luxembourg
Due 12th August 2022
Released in 2003, and the first on their own label Superior Quality Recordings, “Luxembourg” was the band’s fourth album and features the singles “Fast Boy”/”Liquid Lips” and “Never Going Nowhere”. As The Guardian review said at the time, “You can't fault their ever-lush harmonies, though, or the garage-band scrappiness that gives ‘Here It Comes Again’ its appeal”. Now issued on vinyl for the first time since 2003 (on translucent purple vinyl), the inner sleeve features all the lyrics and credits, photos, and a beautiful drawing by Scott Morriss.
Also rereleased on the same date is the band's fifth album, The Bluetones, featuring the singles “My Neighbour’s House”, ”Head On A Spike” and “Surrendered”.
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Danger Mouse and Black Thought - Cheat Codes
Due 12th August 2022
Cheat Codes is Danger Mouse’s first hip-hop album in seventeen years - since his 2005 DangerDOOM collaboration with the late, great MF DOOM - and Black Thought’s only full length collaboration beyond his pioneering music in The Roots.
Finally putting an end to years of swirling rumors and speculation, the collaboration is now officially announced: Danger Mouse & Black Thought bring us their debut album Cheat Codes.
The natural chemistry between Brian (Danger Mouse) and Tariq (Black Thought) comes through in the ease with which the artist and listener move through this album. Moreover, it’s an album untethered to any genre, era or trend — uncategorizeable and timeless. It is the sound of the pair observing their own culture and asking questions they still may not have the answers to.
Brian Burton (AKA one half of Gnarls Barkley, Broken Bells, and Karen O & Danger Mouse — and universally regarded as the most versatile producer in modern music) has found a formidable new partner in the incomparably prolific rapper Tariq Trotter - rapper, MC & co-founder of The Roots, film and theater actor, producer, writer or, as Hypebeast sums up: "one of the best lyricists in hip-hop history."
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Pale Waves - Unwanted
Due 12th August 2022
A fiery, confident kick-back against convention, Pale Waves’ third record Unwanted sees the group building on the promise of last year’s UK Top 3 album Who Am I?, and staking their claim as British rock’s most dynamic young group. “It’s bold and unapologetic, and that’s what the Pale Waves community is about,” says frontwoman Heather Baron-Gracie herself. “We don’t need to fit a perfect mould, we don’t need to apologise for being ourselves, and we won’t change for anyone. That acceptance is what connects us.” Led by riotous lead single “Lies”, Unwanted is a record that reaches out to the passionate community of misfits and LGBTQI+ fans around the band, tapping into darker emotions than ever before while also striking a fresh tone of defiance.
Released on indie exclusive pink vinyl.
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Oasis - Be Here Now (25th Anniversary Edition)
Due 19th August 2022
Arguably the most anticipated British album release of all time, ‘Be Here Now’ was recorded with producer Owen Morris at Abbey Road Studios, Ridge Farm Studios, and Air Studios between October 1996 and May 1997. Originally mastered by Mike Marsh at The Exchange; the album was then remastered in 2016 by Ian Cooper at Metropolis Studios. Originally released at midnight on Thursday August 21st 1997, ‘Be Here Now’ sold 700,000 copies in just 3 days and remains, to this day, the fastest selling UK album on release. To date it has sold over 8 million copies worldwide. Now, for its 25th anniversay the album is presented on double silver vinyl housed in a gatefold sleeve.
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Hot Chip - Freakout / Release
Due 19th August 2022
Freakout/Release is another dizzying high in a multi-decade career that’s seen Hot Chip continuing to innovate and develop a rich, resonant songcraft. And while they continue to operate at peak form, the album also feels like a new chapter for the group—a collection of flesh-and-blood songs that finds the band reaching into the darkness to emerge as a true creative unit, their gazes fixed positively on the future ahead. The album features Canadian rapper Cadence Weapon, British DJ & musician Lou Hayter & production work from Soulwax.
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Kendrick Lamar - Mr Morale and the Big Steppers
Due 26th August 2022
Mr. Morale & the Big Steppers is the fifth studio album by American rapper Kendrick Lamar. The album is his first release under his newly founded label imprint PGLang; and after four albums with the label, the double album serves as Lamar's final project with TDE, of which he was one of the flagship artists.
The album features narration by Whitney Alford and Eckhart Tolle, and guest appearances from Blxst, Amanda Reifer, Sampha, Taylour Paige, Summer Walker, Ghostface Killah, Baby Keem, Kodak Black, Sam Dew, Tanna Leone, and Beth Gibbons of Portishead. Lamar, who produced on the album under the pseudonym Oklama, reunited with frequent collaborators Sounwave, J. Lbs, DJ Dahi, and Bekon for the majority of the album's production.
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Muse - Will of the People
Due 26th August 2022
Grammy Award winning English rock band Muse will release their long-awaited ninth studio album Will Of The People on August 26th via Warner Records. Of the album, Muse frontman Matt Bellamy says, “Will Of The People was created in Los Angeles and London and is influenced by the increasing uncertainty and instability in the world. A pandemic, new wars in Europe, massive protests & riots, an attempted insurrection, Western democracy wavering, rising authoritarianism, wildfires and natural disasters and the destabilization of the global order all informed Will Of The People. It has been a worrying and scary time for all of us as the Western empire and the natural world, which have cradled us for so long are genuinely threatened. This album is a personal navigation through those fears and preparation for what comes next.” With Muse being Muse, there is NO bowing to any singular genre. The album’s title track “Will Of The People” brings playful provocation to a dystopian glam-rocker while there is an innocence and a purity to the nostalgic electronic textures of “Verona.” From the visceral thrill of “Won’t Stand Down,” to the industrial-tinged, granite heavy riffs of “Kill Or Be Killed,” or the lightning-bolt rush of “Euphoria,” the album concludes with the frenetic finale of the brutally honest “We Are Fucking Fucked.” On the band’s new single “Compliance,” Bellamy says, “‘Compliance’ is about submission to authoritarian rules and reassuring untruths to be accepted to an in-group. Gangs, governments, demagogues, social media algorithms & religions seduce us during times of vulnerability, creating arbitrary rules and distorted ideas for us to comply with. They sell us comforting myths, telling us only they can explain reality while simultaneously diminishing our freedom, autonomy and independent thought. We are not just coerced, we are herded, frightened and corralled to produce a daily ‘2 minutes of hate’ against an out-group of their choosing and to turn a blind eye to our own internal voice of reason & compassion. They just need our Compliance.” “Compliance” is immediately addictive, embellished with sleek synths and elements of off-kilter alt-pop. As Bellamy sings, “We just need your compliance / You will feel no pain anymore / No more defiance / Just give us your compliance,” the crashing of the drums and intermittent bass cause the song to swell with power. The accompanying video (directed by Jeremi Durand and shot in Poland) was inspired by the film ‘Looper’ and follows three children wearing masks destroying their future selves in order to escape a dystopian and oppressive world. Watch HERE. Will Of The People was produced by Muse. Key collaborators include mixing on eight tracks by the multipleGrammy Award winner Serban Ghenea; mixing from Dan Lancaster on “Won’t Stand Down,” and additional mixing on “Kill Or Be Killed” from Aleks von Korff.
Preorder your copy here...
Remember these are just some of what's coming this month, you can check out the rest of August's new releases here.
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