Back catalogue: Psych/Garage Rock

Review: Here be monsters. Less than twelve months after their debut on Ty Segall's God? Label, this bunch of LA-based miscreants have delivered a punishing and potent sermon of super-heavy psyched-out garage rock that effortlessly sidesteps the more yawnsome cliches of recent times in favour of an incandescent assault of speaker-blowing riffage and cosmically-aligned songcraft that is as damaged by Melvins and Electric Wizard as it is by the Flaming Lips and the aforementioned Mr. Segall. Equally adept with both glam-tinged melody and black-cloud ampstack dementia, 'Golem' is a wild ride to starry oblivion.

Review: It's amazing to think the now-legendary Fred Cole and his Weeds comrades were forced to change their band name for fear of marijuana references. Rising to prominence in the mid-late-1960s, long before the main man would find himself on the honorary list of garage rock greats (not that this period didn't contribute to that), management and labels deemed it a much better idea to release his music under The Lollipop Shoppe, which is how Just Colour saw the light of day.
One quick listen proves how unsuitable that decision was, with the contents of this highly sought after boxset anything but the bubblegum those misguided but powerful minds wanted to cash in on. Presented with two reconfigured 7" singles alongside the full album - the idea being to give fans all the essential cuts in one - it's a stunning way to remember we should never, or rarely, listen to The Industry.

Review: Where do you start with 'Wild' Billy Childish? A true enigma, and a figurehead of the eccentric, anti-establishment British arts scene known for advocating amateurism, non-conformity and free emotional expression through creativity since the 1970s, co-founder of the Stuckism figurative painting movement, concerned with supposed Remodernist ideals which push back against the post-modern, it's almost easy to forget about his recording career in and among the book publishing, exhibitions, poems and Super 8 movies.

Thankfully, then, we have The Fighting Tameraire in our new releases pile to remind us that he's fundamentally a deft hand at writing, arranging, singing and performing lo-fi semi-traditional garage folk stuff that has one foot in the English pubs of bygone ages and another in contemporary alternative rock. This collection is rousing, emotive, witty, and thoroughly human in a way that feels increasingly rare today.

Review: Zamrock, anyone? Often stylised as W.I.T.C.H, WITCH were one of the leading musical lights of post-colonial Zambia, a band that rose to prominence during the early-1970s, a particularly fertile period in the East African nation during which hopes for the future were incredibly bright. Independence leading to the blossoming of homespun ideas, culture, art and creativity. The story takes a tragic turn as the decade reached its final years, the economy collapsing and policymakers turning increasingly authoritarian. Like many in the 'scene', WITCH would fade, almost into obscurity, although the psychedelic rock-hued legacy they left survived, and then experienced a resurgence from 2012, when they reformed amid renewed interest. Kuomboka represents the group at the height of their fame, an album that still sounds packed with optimism, despite insidious changes in the air when it landed in 1976.

Review: Some 20 years into their existence, Brooklyn band Woods are truly in control of their destiny. Headed up by Jeremy Earl, this twelfth studio album took shape from his loops which were then passed around the other band members to build upon, with guitarist Jarvis Taveniere piecing the end results together. It's a kaleidoscopic listen which folds in easy listening whimsy, brain-fried psychedelia and pastoral wonder - all impressive for a band more typically associated with New York. Already widely hailed as one of their finest works, this vinyl edition comes via the band's own Woodsist label.

Review: Woods are in bloom again, inviting you to disappear into a new spectrum of colors and sounds and dreams on Perennial. Formed in Brooklyn in 2004, Woods have matured into a true independent institution, above and below the root, reliably emerging every few years with new music that grows towards the latest sky. Operating the Woodsist label since 2006 and curating the beloved homespun Woodsist Festival for the musical universe they've built, Perennial is the sound of a band on the edge of their 20th anniversary and still finding bold new ways to sound like (and challenge) themselves. The album's resulting 11 songs, four of them instrumental, are in the classic Woods mode - shimmering, familiar, fractionally unsettling - but with the half-invisible infinity boxes of Earl's loops burbling beneath each like a mysterious underground source.