Matador Records are excited to share a special surprise from Belle & Sebastian, their 12th studio album Late Developers. Recorded in the same sessions as A Bit of Previous, Late Developers doesn’t feel like a collection of lesser-than songs that weren’t good enough to go on the “real” record. Rather, it’s an embrace of the freedom that comes with a jumbo-sized canvas, skilled students left unsupervised to paint whatever picture they feel like. Late Developers takes you on a journey as the band floats through genres with ease – from the frantic Billy Bragg-with-hella-flute-energy of the opening track and what I think might be Stevie Jackson’s best song, into a legit all-out radio-ready dance party in the third quarter of the record which includes a Belle & Sebastian first, a co-write with young pop composer Pete Ferguson. They then unearth a 1994-era pre-Belle and Sebastian tune, with the help of Camera Obscura’s Tracyanne Campbell right before they bring you home at the end with a true bop.

Circa Survive – Two Dreams LP (Rise)

Indie exclusive pink vinyl. Two Dreams compiles both of their last two EPs – ‘A Dream About Love’ and ‘A Dream About Death’, with unique artwork and packaging.

Fela Kuti – Shakara LP 50th Anniversary Edition (Knitting Factory)

Shakara is the 6th in the series of celebratory Fela 50th Anniversary reissues. Like its predecessors in the series, this version will be on color vinyl and the LP will be wrapped in a gold foil obi strip with a brief essay on the album and Fela’s global impact on music. Like Fela’s other early 70’s releases, he used each side of his LPs to create a deep groove that pulls the listener in and follows with metaphoric lyrics that call out and critique the corrupt hangover of colonialism.

James Yorkston, Nina Persson and the Secondhand Orchestra – The Great White Sea Eagle CD/LP (Domino)

The Great White Sea Eagle is the follow up to James Yorkston and The Secondhand Orchestra’s The Wide, Wide River – a Guardian Top 10 Folk Album of 2021. Yorkston and Sweden’s The Secondhand Orchestra had no real plans to do a follow up, but as James visited his studio in Cellardyke, Fife everyday in early 2021, he began to start writing songs on the piano as opposed to his usual guitar as he gazed upon the sea outside his window. After sending the first five or six songs to Karl-Jonas Winqvist (the leader/conductor of TSHO), they began to discuss working on the music together. With Yorkston’s shift from guitar to piano, they thought about what other changes they could make to their process which led to the involvement of a guest singer and the legendary Nina Persson (The Cardigans) was brought into the fold.

Fountains of Wayne – Out Of State Plates LP (Real Gone)

Led by the scintillating songwriting team of Chris Collingwood and the late, great Adam Schlesinger, power pop maestros Fountains of Wayne put out a number of absolutely brilliant albums. The 2005 odds ‘n’ ends 2-CD set Out-of-State Plates, remained reportedly among the closest to the heart of Schlesinger, who died tragically of COVID in 2020. A mixture of demos, B-sides, live performances, and unreleased tracks. For its vinyl debut, we’ve created a fetching gatefold featuring the duo’s commentary inside, and pressed this 2-LP set in “Junkyard Swirl” vinyl to match the cover photo. Rummage around the collective psyche of one of the greatest indie rock acts of the last 30 years!

Velvet Negroni – Bulli CD/LP+MP3 (4AD)
Bulli is a record that trembles with a slick and polished new intensity following a relatively tumultuous life period. It glimmers with an almost-uncomfortable pop sheen, with the lead single “Sinker” whirring with a strutting positivity and rich instrumentation that is at stark odds with the lyrics (“Wake up and do pills like I’m dying of cancer”). Touchstones of leftfield electronic sounds meld with nods to alternative rock, power pop, even tender R&B and deft hip-hop. It’s a record that holds something anticipatory, at times almost frantic and manic, occasionally even sexy. Bulli is a deeply accomplished album which swirls with fragmentary soundscapes pushing ever forward into somewhere that feels new and vital.

Mumford & Sons – Babel [Reissue/2012] LP (Glassnote)
A limited edition 180gm cream colored vinyl pressing of Mumford and Son’s much-loved album Babel, in celebration of its 10th anniversary. The album features alternate artwork and includes the hit singles “I Will Wait” and “Lover Of The Light”.

Coil – Queens Of The Circulating Library [Reissue/2000] CD/LP (Dais)
Queens Of The Circulating Library stands alongside Time Machines and Nurse With Wound’s Soliloquy For Lilith as a post-industrial pinnacle of sensory-warping long-form drone. Crafted by the distilled duo of Thighpaulsandra and John Balance, the 49-minute piece unfurls in swirling, cyclical waves, tidal as much as textural, channeling the spirit of levitational minimalism pioneered by La Monte Young. Touted as the first part in “a continually mutating series of circulating musickal compositions” upon its initial release in 2000, the album remains a compelling case study in Coil’s exceptional capacity for mutation and extremes.

Kid Cudi – Entergalactic LP (Republic)
Recently released on CD – now available on vinyl featuring the bonus track “Burrows”. Kid Cudi takes you Entergalactic with his (final?) 10th studio and 8th solo album. The music inspired the new Netflix special while framing the story of two young, ambitious artists falling in love. The multi-hyphenate stars in and serves as the exec producer with Kenya Barris for the critically acclaimed animated event. Features for the 15-track album include castmate Ty Dolla $ign, Don Toliver and 2 Chainz with Steve Aoki and Dot Da Genius credited for the bonus track “Burrows”. 

Charles Manson – Live At San Quentin LP (Survival Research)
Following his 1971 conviction for the murder of seven people, including the actress and model Sharon Tate, the notorious cult leader, Beach Boys associate and failed singer-songwriter Charles Manson was sentenced to death, later commuted to life imprisonment. Recorded with just an acoustic guitar in his jail cell, Live At San Quentin dates from 1983 and is probably the most poppy of Manson’s improvised far-out folk songs ever committed to tape, with flushing toilets and background conversations adding to the gritty low-fi realism.

In 2006, Israeli garage-nik Charlie Megira took a sonic turn while partnered with Israeli multi-instrumentalist Michal Kahan. The duo wasted no time forging a new path, swapping Megira’s trademark reverb for echo, and guitar-noir for new wave. Their third album together, Charlie Megira Und the Hefker Girl is an unabashed continuation of gothy ’80s archetypes employed by Joy Division, The Jesus and Mary Chain, and The Cure. With little impedance, the album fits into Megira’s ageless world of cross-pollinated genres and styles. Originally self-released on CD-R, we’ve remastered the 12-track disc for maximum smart phone speaker crush. On “Tomorrow’s Gone” Megira achieves the feat of being so far back in time that he’s somehow living in the future and waiting for the rest of us to arrive. Hear two favorite cuts in back-saving, crate-flavoring 7″ format ripe and ready for the dive bar sound system hosting your favorite BYOV night. [Limited-edition colorways are available.]

Love and Rockets – Seventh Dream of Teenage Heaven LP reissue (Beggars Banquet)

An unashamedly psychedelic adventure, far removed from the dark, angular soundscapes of Bauhaus. Yet they had to fight hard to avoid being branded ‘goth’, citing Syd Barrett, Marc Bolan and the later period Beatles as primary influences. The Quietus revisited the album on its 35th anniversary in 2015 and said “it’s its own thing, ruined elegance, sculpted beauty, sometimes sharp without being angry, often inspiring without being sappy, able to capture even slow dull moments in an attractive fashion.”

Love and Rockets – Express LP (Beggars Banquet)

Love And Rockets released their second album EXPRESS in 1986. It is a unique, mystical and transcendental travelogue of sorts. The original press release for the album said that “the balance of light and dark, positive and negative, yin and yang, is a recurring theme”. In 2020, NPR, referring to the album, stated that their “psychedelic train ride laid the foundation for alt-rock”.

NOFX – So Long And Thanks For All The Shoes [Reissue/1997] LP (Epitaph)
Limited 25th Anniversary Neapolitan ice cream-color vinyl pressing. So Long And Thanks For All The Shoes is the seventh studio album by punk rock band NOFX, originally released in 1997.

Phish – LP On LP 04 (Ghost 5/22/00) LP (Jemp)
Limited-edition orange & red w/ yellow splatter color pressing. The fourth volume in the LP On LP vinyl series is Ghost from the second of two Radio City Music Hall shows. These were the first full-length Phish shows in five months, falling at the end of a week of promotional appearances celebrating the release of Farmhouse. The set is a kaleidoscopic dance party that lit up the room with millennial intensity.

Nathan Salsburg – Landwerk No. 3 2xLP (No Quarter)
The third volume of the Landwerk series by guitarist, archivist and 78 collector Nathan Salsburg. After releasing three acclaimed acoustic guitar records from 2011-2018, Salsburg pivoted with the first volume of Landwerk in 2020. Alone on a tree farm in rural Kentucky, he put on an old 78 by the Jewish cantor Yossele Rosenblatt one winter night and was struck by an organ chord. He sampled it, looped it, and began playing guitar alongside it. It was like “conversing with a ghost” he told Uncut Magazine in 2021. Landwerk No. 3 contains six new compositions across two LPs.

The Selecter – Celebrate The Bullet [Reissue/1981] 3xCD/LP (Chrysalis)
The Selecter’s second album, Celebrate The Bullet was released in February 1981 as the follow up to the successful 2 Tone debut album Too Much Pressure, plus the hit singles “On My Radio”, “Three Minute Hero” and “Missing Words”. Switching labels to Chrysalis Records, the band returned to “On My Radio” producer Roger Lomas, moving into a more melodic slower pace, whilst keeping their lyrical commentary on racial and social issues. Original members Desmond Brown and Charley Anderson departed before the recording began, with Lomas and Norman Watt-Ray (Ian Dury) helping on bass before new members James Mackie and Adam Williams joined to complete the recording. Due to the unfortunate timing of the original release, the title of this album was misunderstood because of the recent murder of John Lennon and an assassination attempt on Ronald Regan. This meant radio stations didn’t support the single or album and the release was largely ignored. Available on single-disc clear vinyl and deluxe, expanded three-CDs.

COMING NEXT WEEK!
JOHN CALE – Mercy CD/LP
LADYTRON – Time’s Arrow CD/LP
MAC DEMARCO – Five Easy Hot Dogs CD
B52s – Whammy LP reissue
BAD BRAINS – Youth Are Getting Restless LP reissue
SYLVAN ESSO – No Rules Sandy LP
BRANIAC – Predator Nominate EP LP
CLOUD NOTHINGS – Attack On Memory LP
GUIDED BY VOICES – La La Land LP
KMFDM – Hyena LP reissue
KYUSS – Muchas Gracias; Best Of LP
RISE AGAINST – Nowhere Generation II LP
SPRINGTIME – Night Raver LP
WE ARE SCIENTISTS – Lobes LP
JID – Never Story LP
WILCO – Cruel Country CD/LP
BOY HARSHER – Burn It Down LP