Today Only: Indie/Alternative sale vinyl

Review: Dot Allison debuted in 1999 with her Aftergow album and ever since has kept fans old and new enthralled with her voice. Heart-Shaped Scars was a follow-up 12 years later than won plenty of plaudits and now the label it came on serve up this bonus 7" with two new cuts. There is the rather bleakly but beautifully alluring 'Ghost Orchid' and then 'Love Died in our Arms' which is a reference to a past musical life in which Dot made trip hop. It also comes with a download code to unlock a third and final bonus cut named 'Heart-Shaped Scar.'

Review: Entering his fourth decade of service it's probably fair to call Andy Bell - guitarist with Ride, Oasis bassist and an increasingly renowned solo artist - an indie icon and round legend. After an EP of covers of tunes that inspired his last album this month, 'The Grounding Process' features four stripped down versions of tracks from 'Flicker'. Bell says 'World of Echo' was written at the height of an obesession with Scouse indie/skifflers The La's, while 'She Calls The Tune' was penned on tour wioth Oasis in 1999, particularly dear to Bell as it ended a long period of writer's block.

Review: This new album from Benny Sings comes in various different formats - a blue vinyl included, while this version is a straight back wax copy. It features Amsterdam-based artist Benny Sings - who recently had his ART album reissued on Sings - returning with an all new and new eighth solo studio album. For the first time, it is one that finds him working with a single producer throughout - and that producer is the well known beatmaker Mr Kenny Beats. It was a partnership that came together after a chat over social media and the pair immediately felt comfortable with each other. Benny instructed Kenny that he wanted to make the biggest record he has to date and that's what they have done.

Review: The always superb Sounds Of The City comes through here with some freshness and newness here via their newly minted 'Sounds Of The City, Dark' series. It finds the French outfit Catalogue debuting on the label with a sound that brings a different perspective to the new post-punk movement. Their sound is a mixing pot of an array of different influences and what you get is music that will get you nodding to the grooves while your mind gets lost exploring synthetic elements, angular guitar riffs, robotic rhythms and lovely deep bass.

Review: Film De Geurre aka Fred Laser, Max Whiteshoe, Victor Chon and Xenia dropped their self titled dark wave, post punk and minimal synth masterpiece back in 1981. It has become a cult classic ever since and is their one and only ever album. It now comes reissued with a 24"x24" poster & original insert with lyrics courtesy of Mental Groove. The rhythms throughout are stark but compelling, with jangling guitars layered up over the chilly synths and dark, deadpan vocals delivered up top in a matter of fact style. It has a steady pulse that keeps you locked in as the guitar strings ping about and the mood changes from curious and beguiling to more moody and direct

Review: Pedestrian Verse is a critically acclaimed album by Frightened Rabbit, whose rapidly blooming career was cut short by the death of singer Scott Hutchison in May 2018. It has now been a full decade since the band dropped the mini-masterpiece and so it gets remastered at half speed and reissued by Atlantic with the full and original 12-track album on LP next to a bonus 12" with 11 extra tracks. This was the band's fourth studio album and the only one to feature guitarist and keyboardist Gordon Skene. The record is inspired in part by a break up and finds each of the members of the band stepping up their contribution to the songwriting. It's a great piece of modern indie history.

Review: Much more than just a solo indie project by an alt-music darling (though it does fall under that bracket), Priests' former punk frontgirl Katie Alice Greer presents her first full-length solo LP, 'Barbarism', following a slew of EPs detailing her crazed new electronic sound. An interesting sonic take on the absence of culture or civilization, the LP is a rapturous, entirely unique bridge between indie, art and noise rock, and is packed with rippling nuances and details that make Greer's voice sound quite literally drowned. A strange, dreamy and breathtaking take on a sound that Greer's built up over years.

Review: Before the release of their highly anticipated new full-length, 'Please Don't Take Me Back'; set to drop this October, Durham City's favourite emo/pop-punk outfit, Martha, offer a taster of what's to come with this 7" single, featuring the upcoming LP's opening cut, 'Beat, Perpetual'. While a sonically light-hearted yet earnest ode to the road and world of touring, the lyrics weigh up the isolated nature of the past two years that completely changed the core members working dynamic and livelihoods, while the b-side boasts a rapturous cover of 'Dreaming Out Loud', by Wisconsin indie group Tenement. A short sweet single to wet beaks and fan anticipation before the real deal arrives come autumn.

Review: Mr Bongo serves up the new collaboration here from Mandaworld (bereft known as Amanda Hicks) and partner Matthew Tavares, who is Matty of the much loved jazz outfit BADBADNOTGOOD. The pair have a magical musical synergy that really shines through here as they interweave and uplift one another. 'Warm You' is a real classic that fits in the canon of timeless ballads. It is a dreamy pop song doused in oodles of reverberating guitars and mellow shoegaze vibes that evokes a world of nostalgic feelings. 'Spoonfeed' is just as warm and lush but a little more subdued.

Review: Hot on the heels of the release of his critically acclaimed autobiography, long-serving pop experimentalist Momus delivers his 29th solo set, Vivid - an album that's already being praised as one of his finest in years. It's certainly an enjoyable set, with the Scottish singer-songwriter musing on a variety of topics - many related to the current global Coronavirus pandemic - over eccentric, soft-focus musical backdrops notable for their varied and in some cases unusual blends of instruments (think lo-fi drum machine rhythms, wayward jazz horns, snaking electronics, accordions, folksy string quartets etc.). It's a hard album to pin down, but with Momus on top form lyrically and vocally, that's no bad thing.

Review: There are seemingly no limits to the music Emotional Rescue will put out. This time they look back to the post punk scene of Bristol in the early 80s. Mouth was a short-lived outfit that put out just a couple of releases, but each one blazed a trail though leftfield percussive sounds, wave, weird jazz and electronics. Andy Guy and Rob Merrill were the main members with the likes of Nellie Hooper also in the band's orbit. This record is packed with tribal drumming and floating horns, broken dubs and avant-jazz but all with a proudly DIY attitude. It's packed with heady moments and wild steppers that havent aged a bit and still sound future.

Review: It has been 26 years since people had their first taste of New Found Glory. Emerging from Coral Springs, Florida, in the height of the pop punk second wave (Stateside at least), back then they were hailed by many as pioneers of a re-energised sound, offering rowdy, speedy, unrelenting and immediately sing-along-worthy anthems by the bucketload, referencing alternative rock and hardcore without putting off anyone eyeing them up for chart targeting marketing campaigns.

Make the Most of It certainly clarifies that praise was not simply the dew-eyed ramblings of people caught in a moment. Having created the blueprint for their sub-genre, here they strip all that away without damaging the emotional quality, offering a rousing and - it has to be said - evocative acoustic record that lays bare their lyrical and instrumental talent.

Review: Olden Yolk are fresh psychedelic pop-rock-folk and downbeat-pop duo Shane Butler and Caity Shaffer outta New York. Bringing together stomp boxing guitar rhythms with synthesized sounds, space echoes and other trippy textures, the band's work finds itself in a middle ground that's somewhere in the midst of The Go-Betweens or Yo La Tengo. "Living Theatre" presents the pair with their second album and it follows last year's self-titled LP, this time delivering hypnagogic folk and kosmische rhythms, expanding and refining Butler's work with former band Quilt. Our picks being the dreamy episode in "Meadowlands" and the shoegazing surf folk of "Grand Palais".

Review: Legendary Blackpool post-punk, later electronic band Section 25 - consisting of brothers Larry and Vin Cassidy - first formed in 1978. Initial associations with Factory Records and frequent touring partners Joy Division were more than enough to propel them into the limelight, and the ensuing glory translates well into the modern day - as evidenced by Retrofit, their seventh album. First released in 2010, the album features new versions of some of their classic songs, such as 'Looking From A Hilltop', 'Dirty Disco' and 'Girls Don't Count'. A nostalgic, dreamy, and honest Northern electro/synth sound predominates, harking back to an unmistakable golden age. Now reissued on Factory's Belgian counterpart Factory Benelux, we hear a fresh LP remaster and a new track, 'Uberhymn'.

Review: London's krautrock, prog, electronica, free jazz and funk rock fusion specialist returns with his fourth full length for the mighty City Slang! "Depayse" remains fully laced with Ahmed Abdullahi Gallab's subtle Sudanese flair, singing praises and the word of love in "Everyone". The title track sees ambient jazz percussion give a giant runway for a massive guitar solo to take flight while album closer "Mango" delivers something of a West London-Caribbean vibe. In between is an album full of dips and climbs through the hill tops of a sunny afternoon somewhere in the feel-good malaise of Sinkane's multi-instrumental talents.

Review: Independent radio institution NTS has a lot to answer for. Not least introducing its legions of loyal listeners across the world to the mighty (or, perhaps more appropriately, curious Staalfagel). The result of some serious crate digging, as per usual for the platform, the Swedish post punk and New Wave outfit - Erik Fritjofsson, Petter Brundell and Micke Kjell - reflect how broad the digital station's music policy can be, and how important it is for things to be rediscovered and saved from obscurity.
Forming in 1980, the three piece only released two full length records in their time, alongside a handful of singles and EPs. Utan Rymddrakt Pa Uranus is among the most enigmatic and delightful, here presented in two parts with an edit by Gary The Tall. As early adopters of synths and drum machines, the cosmic dance-pop sound here might be rudimentary today, but also has this real sense of adventure and breaking new ground about it.

Review: Philadelphia band Stereo League (which is comprised of childhood friends Alex Savoth and Dan King) always looks to discover new genres whether working alone or with like-minded collaborators. This latest 7" is another on the synth and soul label Eraserhood Sound and features two more timeless sounds. The opener 'Operator, Please' a delightfully seductive and reminiscent of 70s soul and funk, while on the back, 'Seasons of Trouble' layers in the Philly soul, with fancy funk sounds and classic yet compelling grooves.

Review: Based in London, UK, but originally hailing from Argentina, Malena Zavala is nothing if not disinterested in picking a style and sticking with it. Following on from her 2018 debut album, 'Aliso', 'La Yarara' again sees her combining some bold and often disparate genres, and playing with language - Spanish and English - to dazzling effect. The result being a record that's devastatingly effective and equally original. 'What If I' is a positive, upbeat and hypnotic pop lullaby. 'Compay' is saturated in a bluesy atmosphere, melding this with downtempo electronica. 'I'm Leaving Home' is a lackadaisical, whispered slice of reflective chill out. The title track is South American exoticism, canned and then opened on record. A huge talent diving deeper into sonic possibilities, and following what sounds good rather than familiar.