Heavenly 黑胶唱片和CD

Review: So Tough was Saint Etienne's second album, and it properly broke the band into the wider public consciousness thanks to their canny blend of house music, Balearic and melancholic indie. To date it remains the highest charting of their albums, helped no doubt by Sarah Cracknell becoming a permanent member of the band, the free-spirited nature of independent music in the early 90s and the success of the single 'Youre In A Bad Way'. Some 30 years on from its original release, So Tough is getting the luxury reissue treatment in the form of a triple-vinyl pressing, a 7" and a 28-page booklet - surely essential for any of the band's devoted fanbase.

Review: ***B-STOCK: Outer box damage, otherwise in perfect condition***


So Tough was Saint Etienne's second album, and it properly broke the band into the wider public consciousness thanks to their canny blend of house music, Balearic and melancholic indie. To date it remains the highest charting of their albums, helped no doubt by Sarah Cracknell becoming a permanent member of the band, the free-spirited nature of independent music in the early 90s and the success of the single 'Youre In A Bad Way'. Some 30 years on from its original release, So Tough is getting the luxury reissue treatment in the form of a triple-vinyl pressing, a 7" and a 28-page booklet - surely essential for any of the band's devoted fanbase.

Review: Mildlife's reputation has soared since the release of their last studio album, 2020's Automatic, with the Melbourne trio's every musical move now being watched with bated breath by a global fanbase. Chorus is built on a concept of sorts - "a coming together of disparate elements" and "cosmic compatibility and chemistry" according to the band - but as ever it's the quality of the music on offer that really hits home hard. Warm and optimistic, with nods to West Coast jazz-rock as well as space rock, kosmiche, blue-eyed soul and jazz-funk, it sounds more nuanced, sonically detailed and wide-eyed than their previous work. Highlights include, but are in no way limited to, the yacht rock-leaning 'Yourself', the cosmic disco-influenced wonder of 'Musica', and epic recent single 'Return to Centraus'.

Review: After a long emergence in and adjacent to the South London underground music scene, producer, singer, performer and outlandish mask donner Lynks returns to the fore with the announcement of their debut album, Abomination. Moving between the well-paired, current twinnings of post punk, art pop, and rubbery electronica, Lynks lays down a whopping debut full-length here, commenting on casual hookup culture and queer psychic contemporaneity amid a brash and ironically relentless weirdo rave faux-schlock.

Review: David Holmes' first solo album since 2008's The Holy Pictures, Blind On A Galloping Horse now comes to Heavenly Recordings. A politically-charged LP full of sonic interrogations of political disaster and turmoil, Holmes here joins the cast of artists using their art to provide solace to music fans suffering at the hands of the Uncertainocene. With updated versions of the previously released singles 'Hope Is The Last Thing To Die' and 'It's Over If We Run Out Of Love', as well as a recording of an unreleased song by Holmes' late friend Andrew Weatherall, we're reminded of conflict, migration and othering, as all manner of voices combine to form a diverse but unified whole against a backdrop of leftfield post-punk - be they the spoken word accounts from Afghan and Ukrainian refugees now welcomed as residents in Belfast, or the French and Irish observers of the UK's turmoil of recent years.

Review: French dream pop breakthrough Halo Maud follows up her debut record Je Suis Une Ile (I Am An Island) with her second ever LP, Celebrate, which lives up to its name in fantastic fashion. Evidently less introspective than her last, the sonic palette throughout this dozen sunbursts suggests Maud has found her inner John Donne; indeed, opener 'Terres Infinies' is a massive crasher of a three-pronged shoegaze, synthwave and art pop sensibility, and both sonically and titularly suggests a new, deterritorial antithesis to the first album's sense of introspection. Organic, well-rounded instrumentation hears Maud traverse infinite terrains of bright tambourines and detuned synths thereafter.

Review: French dream pop breakthrough Halo Maud follows up her debut record Je Suis Une Ile (I Am An Island) with her second ever LP, Celebrate, which lives up to its name in fantastic fashion. Evidently less introspective than her last, the sonic palette throughout this dozen sunbursts suggests Maud has found her inner John Donne; indeed, opener 'Terres Infinies' is a massive crasher of a three-pronged shoegaze, synthwave and art pop sensibility, and both sonically and titularly suggests a new, deterritorial antithesis to the first album's sense of introspection. Organic, well-rounded instrumentation hears Maud traverse infinite terrains of bright tambourines and detuned synths thereafter.

Review: Although it didn't make huge waves commercially on its initial release in the early 90s, East Village's sole album, Drop Out, has long been considered a cult classic by observers of British indie music in the pre-Britpop era. Listening back three decades on, it's easy to see why. The band's sound was simultaneously nostalgic and contemporary, combining wide-eyed late 60s psychedelic pop flavours, minor chord-heavy 80s alternative jangliness and nods to soul-inspired Mod stompers with the distinctively loose, funky and loved-up MDMA-pop so beloved of indie bands at the turn of the 90s. This anniversary reissue does a great job in celebrating both band and album, with the original ten-track set coming with a bonus disc of singles and alternative versions. Throw in on-point sleeve notes by Jon Savage and you have an irresistible package.