Top 10 Record Store Day 2015 Releases for Amazing Radio

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Record Store Day – Must Have Purchases

Thursday, April 16th, 2015

Saturday 18th April marks the 8th annual Record Store Day, when independently owned record stores up and down the country come together with artists and labels to celebrate music. Exclusive vinyl releases and rarities will be released on the day, and we asked Olivia Swash to pick out 10 essential purchases.

1. SENSIBLE RECORD LABELS (Compilation) by Various Artists

This corker of a compilation is a ten-part collaborative effort from the UK’s best indie labels. From FatCat to Bella Union and Alcopop!, ten labels at the forefront of new music have offered up never-before-heard exclusives from their rosters to create this extra special limited release. The likes of Alvvays, Joanna Gruesome and Menace Beach grace each of the 500 unique colour-splattered LPs, along with a download card featuring hundreds more songs. At just a tenner, this is an unmissable RSD bargain!

2. HONEYBLOOD – No Big Deal/The Black Cloud

This double A-side 7″ from the Glaswegian duo is brimming with jangly riffs with a fuzzy, grungy sound. Both songs have a more energetic buzz than their debut album,  was released last summer. Watch Honeyblood in session for Amazing Afternoons

3. COURTNEY BARNETT – Sometimes I Sit and Think, and Sometimes I Just Sit

A new addition to the RSD list, Courtney Barnett’s fantastically witty, debut album, perfectly showcases her introspective story-telling and observational humour. You’ll no doubt recognise her Aussie drawl and distorted guitars from Pedestrian at Best along with ten other tracks all packaged neatly into a double LP on orange heavyweight vinyl.

4. SHURA – Indecision (Jungle Remix)

One of Amazing Radio’s tips for 2015, Shura has handed over her breathy synth-pop singleIndecision to funk giants Jungle. The product of such a pairing could only create something brilliant. The catchy melody is enhanced by touches of Jungle’s signature bass and riffs thatNile Rodgers would be proud of. This heavyweight 12″ also has Shura’s original version on the B side.

5. DENAI MOORE – Blame

After we tipped her for 2014, Denai has spent the past year making a name for herself having played our stage at The Great Escape and releasing her Saudade EP. Blame is a heart-wrenching track with stunning harmonies showing Moore’s maturity beyond her young age. The release is a blue coloured 12″ with a Mr Mitch Remix on the flip side.

6. THE WYTCHES & HOOTON TENNIS CLUB – Wastybois/Barstool Blues

Heavenly Recordings bring us this gem of a split double A side, with Amazing Radiofavourites The Wytches putting their dark surf-psych to 7″. Label-mates Hooton Tennis Club’s slack-rock cover of Neil Young’s Barstool Blues is on the flip side.

7. RUN THE JEWELS - Bust No Moves E.P.

Also known as El-P and Killer Mike, the US hip hop duo release a four track picture disk featuring the unreleased Bust No Moves featuring SL Jones,Pew Pew Pew (European edition of their self-titled debut album), Love Again (second album) andBlockbuster Night Pt. 2: a bonus track from Run the Jewels 2 Feat. Despot and Wiki.

8. FIELD MUSIC – Music For Drifters

Mercury Prize nominated brothers Peter and David Brewis bring to the table a cinematic score composed to accompany Scottish filmmaker John Grierson’s pioneering 1929 silent film Drifters, which followed fishermen in the harsh conditions of the North Sea. The concept was originally commissioned by Berwick Film & Media Arts Festival a couple of years back, and audiences can soon experience the accompaniment to the documentary live in cinemas around the UK. Alternatively just pop on this silver coloured LP and let Field Music’s two sides of rhythmic instrumental wash over you.

9. JAGAARA – In The Dark

London based Jagaara offer up this brand new track on black 7″, with the haunting vocals of sisters Ruth, Jane and Cat echoing Kate Bush. The B side is a remix of the stunningHeartbeats by Edwin from Foals.

10. SLOW CLUB – I Swam Out To Greet You

We’ve supported Slow Club since the very beginning, and following the success of their album Complete Surrender last summer, we’re eager to hear that Sheffield duo Rebecca Taylor and Charles Watson are releasing a collection of exclusive covers put to 12″ black vinyl. We’re most excited for their interpretations of Pulp’s Disco 2000; The Eagles Desperado and Future Islands Seasons (Waiting on You).

Let us know your Record Store Day finds on Twitter or Facebook

Words: Olivia Swash

Review for TLOBF: Tubelord – R O M A N C E

thelineofbestfit.com  Record Review  Tubelord - R O M A N C E

Happy-go-lucky Kingston-based rockers Tubelord return with their second studio full-length, along with a fourth band member and a newly honed rhythmic maturity that last year’s Aztec-inspired EP Tezcatlipōca narrowly lacked. R O M A N C E is a collection of jittery noise-pop ditties brimming with a sprightly energy, neatly encapsulating early Biffy riffs with the childlike optimism of Dananananaykroyd.

The growth from a twee fidgety trio through to a fledged and tangible electro foursome is reflected through the concept behind the album. Not that R O M A N C E can be described as a ‘concept album’ per se: there is no overt mystical vein or grand operatic tale running throughout, but the album’s methodical compilation is subtly intriguing. Lead vocalist Joseph Prendergast has rejected a conventionally emotive writing stimulus in favour of a complete lack of personal attachment to the lyrics. Rather than using egocentric references to relationships or even vague abstract depictions of events that hold meaning to him, the words are a hotchpotch of borrowed and adopted references from female poets throughout history. Prendergast defines this emotional disconnectedness as putting himself in the position of reader rather than writer.

But although it could be considered a lazy method of penning lyrics, the words as an essentially meaningless device means that Prendergast’s distinctive voice plays the part of just another instrumental layer in the unpredictable swoops of spacious intervals. The jigsaw of words, sometimes ‘re-wind and double-check that’s what he actually said’ phrases drawing you in (“Sun-tusk haze of golden / east will swallow your Comic Sans lover” – These lines alone cite the works of 6 poets over 3 decades, in case you wondered).

tubelord ≈ my first castle by tubelord 

 The new presence of fourth member and producer James Elliot Field is clear throughout, as the zany and sometimes theramin-reminiscent synths (‘My First Castle’ bordering on Clangers-esque blips and bloops) add a woozy Nintendo level, distinctly separating the sound from their debut Our First American Friends.

For the Poirot wannabes amongst you, the band have created a secret password-protected online index citing the references of dozens of writers from Sylvia Plath to Carol Ann Duffy alongside the lyrics. Only the eagle-eyed fans who spot the details hidden amongst the album artwork will be able to access the expansive appendix and figure out just where those odd lyrics you thought you heard have come from.

While edgy and chipper for the most part with a few deliciously dreamy lulls (’4T3′), the album is never boring. With the help of fans trusting enough to preorder so that the band could afford to create the album, it is the first release from Pink Mist – a collaborative music group made up of Scary Monsters, Holy Roar Records and Blood & Biscuits.

(Oooo!)

Published by NME

Record Store Day: The Movie raising money for UK cinema release

'Sound It Out' is currently appealing for funding from fans

TRAILER: SOUND IT OUT - A documentary by Jeanie Finlay from Jeanie Finlay on Vimeo.

A film charting the daily goings-on in an independent record shop in the North East of England has been chosen as the official film of Record Store Day 2011.

Sound It Out, which offers a fly-on-the-wall look at the last surviving record shop inTeesside, was originally screened back in March at South By South West festival in Austin, Texas. The people behind the film have launched a crowd-funding campaign in order to fund the nationwide UK cinema release. Click here for more information.

Originally a small project by Jeanie Finlay, the documentary - billed as "High Fidelity with a Northern accent" - portrays not only the vinyl obsessions of punters but also store owner Tom Butchard's personal rapport with a host of regulars.

Despite the slump in physical album sales in the download era, some independent shops have clung on - though Butchard is puzzled as to why his store, also called Sound It Out, has weathered the storm.

"It’s a poor area in Stockton so I don’t really know why it’s the only record shop in the area to have survived," he tells NME. "But people want to come in and see what isn’t in the charts."

Butchard is passionate about only stocking independent and unusual music: "Downloading has killed off a lot of shops. Over the years people have told me to sell chart stuff, but if I’d started I would have closed by now."

Adding to the plucky underdog theme is the fact that Sound It Out is not the product of a Hollywood studio; it is entirely fan-funded. Over 250 members of the public contributed towards getting the documentary to Austin, Texas for its world premiere. "Joe public has paid, and it’s incredible," says Tom.

But the store isn't likely to stray far from its North Eastern roots any time soon. Tom assures us: "I want to carry on as we are. People have been coming here for 20 years so I wouldn’t relocate, Stockton is home!"