Manchester’s The Slow Readers Club return with their fourth album, The Joy Of The Return. Opening to an energetic blend of driving drums and infectious guitar lines, the opening track builds through evocative verses and anthemic choruses, imbued with their idiosyncratic brand of insightful and confronting lyricism and set against relentlessly danceable and energy-provoking instrumentation. “‘All I Hear’ is about a lack of agency and an inability to affect change. That there’s something happening, and you have no choice but to go along with it,” explains singer Aaron Starkie.
The soundtrack to a smoky late night bar in Chicago, or a hot Sunday afternoon down at the Popcorn. If you feel the cold sweat of soul, and the cool chills of haunted crooners singing out their final swansong, or the sinful shakes of R&B in it's twilight years, then you have a bad case of Slow Grind Fever! This is a collection of haunting, hungry, heartbroken humdingers full of swing, sway and sleaze. With obscure B-sides sitting next to some of these great artists' last outings on wax. –Stag-O-Lee Records
Gerry & the Pacemakers are fated to eternal comparisons to the Beatles, their onetime Merseybeat rivals who rapidly eclipsed the quartet in popularity and accomplishment, leaving them as something of a pop culture punchline. In the wake of the Beatles, it was hard to look back at Gerry Marsden and his irrepressibly cheerful music and think it was in the same league as the Fab Four, or any of the British Invasion groups that followed. That may be true, but Gerry & the Pacemakers shouldn't be judged against such R&B-schooled rockers as the Rolling Stones, the Animals, and the Kinks but rather against the stiff, starched rock & roll of pre-Beatles Britain. Compared to this prim, proper pop, the skiffle beats and bouncy melodies of Gerry & the Pacemakers seem fresh, almost serving as a bridge between formative English rock and the bright blast of the Beatles…
Hipnotic Earth is an electro-acoustic ambient soundscape project birthed from a deep need for quiet, slow motion music; from a carnal urge toward silence. California, USA based artist Cosmos Rennert’s project began dramatically when in 2015 the scheduled release of his debut album ‘Essence’ was missed when his home in the hot springs of Harbin, Northern California burned down in a sudden wildfire which swept the community. His home, studio, possessions, work place and the tiny town in which he lived succumbed to the flames. He is now deeply grateful to be able to continue recording and we’re pleased to present, a record which sees a departure from Cosmos’ usual style of sleepy drones.
Following an unsatisfying three-year stint at Mercury Records, Chuck Berry returned home to Chess in 1969, just like Phil Chess predicted. Heading home didn’t necessarily mean retreating, as the four-disc Have Mercy: His Complete Chess Recordings 1969-1974 illustrates. During his time at Mercury, Chuck followed the kids wherever they went, aligning himself with the psychedelic ‘60s in a way none of his peers did. This shift is immediately apparent on “Tulane,” the very first song he cut upon his return to Chess. An ode to a couple of kids who dealt dope underneath the counter of a novelty shop, “Tulane” puts Chuck on the side of the counterculture, and over the next five years, he never strayed back to the other side of the fence, often singing about getting stoned, dabbling with a wah-wah pedal, rhapsodizing about rock festivals, cheerfully telling smutty jokes.