…2025 Kevin Vanbergen remaster.
Serving as an introduction to the U.S. market, Gala compiles the band’s first three EPs and adds a couple outtakes. One thing that went overlooked about Lush was their ability to veer from violent and edgy noise breaks to pop effervescence. They were always capable of spewing out Saturday morning glow and Sunday evening doom from song to song. Their early reliance on sheets of distortion, buried vocals, and production issues didn’t help this situation. As a result, their out-the-gate raw talent went rather unnoticed, evidenced on their earliest works. Scar demonstrated their under-appreciated diversity immediately. “Thoughtforms” is an example of their heavenly pop greatness, with the vocals sweeter and…
Tag Archive: 4AD
…remastered by Kevin Vanbergen.
By developing a flair for tight, melodic hooks on Star, Tanya Donelly unexpectedly achieved the crossover success with Belly that eluded her with the Throwing Muses and the Breeders. Evidently inspired by such success and eager to prove that Belly was a full-fledged band, not just a solo project, Donelly and company made a bid for stardom with their second album, King.
Veteran producer Glyn Johns gives the band an appealingly punchy sheen, and with the assistance of Tom Gorman and new bassist Gail Greenwood, Donelly cuts away her remaining arty preciousness, concentrating solely on big pop songs. While some fans will miss the occasional detour into spacy dream pop, Belly’s makeover is…
…The new edition was remastered at Abbey Road Studios.
John Darnielle is a compulsive writer forever clutching his stomach as songs pour out uncontrollably into whatever recording device is in front of him. What sets him apart from other prolific artists in the indie rock world (Conor Oberst, Ryan Adams, Stephin Merritt) whose records and side projects can’t keep up with the flow of their pens is his almost alarming gift for pairing quantity with quality. After dropping the devastating Tallahassee — a record that followed in gory detail the imagined demise of a Florida couple’s marriage — in 2002, he turned his focus inward, taking an almost autobiographical stance on the follow-up, We Shall All Be Healed,…
If Big Thief are now ostensibly a trio, how come they have never sounded as big as they do on Double Infinity? It’s paradox that reflects one of the central themes of this, their sixth studio album – how people change over time, how the present is simply a bridge between the infinite experience of the past and possibilities of the future. Double Infinity is a dense, deep, fluid album that pushes their exceptional rate of development into new areas thanks in part to a roster of New York musicians, who collectively add layers to the band’s songs, shifting them into unexpected directions, but without overwhelming the essence of Big Thief’s trade: making music from raw emotion. “Gonna turn it all, into rock and roll,” sings Adrianne Lenker on “Grandmother”,…
If any artist truly believes in what they are trying to accomplish, this belief can usually squash any fear or worry about a new idea or project and help it come to fruition. Meg Remy of U.S. Girls has made some great albums over the last twenty years of being an artist and on her new album Scratch It, things couldn’t be further from the artistic statements she has produced previously. Born from a special one-off gig in Hot Springs, Arkansas where Remy put together a crackerjack band of Nashville professionals, Scratch is a special blend of gospel, country, garage rock and soul all distilled together through her unique perspective. After the gig went so well, Remy took the band to Music City itself and, after a whirlwind ten-day live off-the-floor recording session, Scratch It…
Remastered and expanded, featuring ‘Cry Wolf’ b-side ‘The Mirror Is Gone’ and the 5-track pre-cursor EP ‘Inconsiderate Bitch’.
With 1994’s Geek the Girl, Lisa Germano found the perfect balance of her work’s inherent contrasts. On songs like “My Secret Reason,” soft, intricate arrangements surround her raw, whispery vocals and unflinching lyrics, making it even easier for them to get unsettlingly close to you. A largely autobiographical album about a girl’s emotional and sexual coming of age, each of Geek the Girl‘s songs — particularly the title track — fairly tremble with awkward sadness and self-discovery. Shimmering, hesitant songs like “Trouble” sound like they might float off the album, but Germano’s delivery of lyrics like “Little by little…
…this new edition runs over two discs with the album being packaged with the ‘Fine Friend’ EP and a great selection of previously unheard tracks and demos as handpicked by the band.
A letdown can still be a strong record. Pale Saints’ second LP In Ribbons (1992) was an instantly memorable gilded masterwork, as texturally splendid as it was jarring and creative. But then enigmatic singer Ian Masters walked, taking his songwriting and bass playing with him, as evidenced by his moody and momentous LP Spoonfed Hybrid. Slow Buildings is nonetheless proof that Pale Saints were wise to carry on with Meriel Barham stepping up to full-time vocalist and former Heart Throbs member Colleen Browne joining on bass. No question, Masters is missed.
Fight Fascism with Trash Music was a working title Tune-Yards were considering for their new album at one point. In the end, they opted for Better Dreaming, but their pro-democracy and anti-authoritarian stance is evident throughout the record. The music, however, is anything but trash.
Autocracy, hatred, persecution – the world in 2025 isn’t a happy place. It wouldn’t have been much of a challenge to make a dark, hopeless record that reflects these bleak times, but Tune-Yards never take the path of least resistance. On Better Dreaming, they focus on a brighter future instead, one where we can all thrive both as individuals and as a collective. In keeping with this agenda, the music is energising and joyful, while acknowledging the roadblocks up ahead.
Xmal Deutschland had an extraordinary impact on British audiences in the early Eighties, having cast a spell through staccato rhythms, unmediated channels, and mysterious (to most at the time) language, further carried by the unique vision and strength of the women involved.
Commemorating their ‘4AD years’ (1983-1984) forty years on, the mysteriously enchanting group returns now with a brand-new release entitled Gift: The 4AD Years. The limited-edition 3xLP boxset contains 2025 Abbey Road remasters of their two albums released with the label (the feverish Fetsich and titanic Tocsin), as well as tracks off other related releases and EPs including Incubus Succubus II and Qual, creating a package pulsating with power and poise.
Norwegian musician, artist and novelist Jenny Hval release her new album, Iris Silver Mist. Iris Silver Mist is named after a fragrance made by the nose Maurice Roucel for the French perfume house Serge Lutens. It’s described as smelling more like steel than silver. It is cold and prickly, soft and shimmering, like stepping outside on an early, misty morning, your body still warm from sleep. A perfume, with its heart notes and scented accords, shares its language with music. Both travel through air, simultaneously invisible and distinct.
Rather than begin with music, Iris Silver Mist began with the absence of it. As the pandemic led to no live music, the smell of cigarettes, soap, and the sweat from warm stage lights and shared bathrooms was replaced by unphysical…
In addition to hosting an acclaimed morning show twice a week on NTS Radio, Maria Somerville makes dreamy, abstract songs that fuse shimmering ambient textures with melodies influenced by pop music and Irish folk. Following a sublime self-released 2019 debut LP, she signed with 4AD and released ethereal versions of songs recorded by Unrest and Pale Saints during the ’90s. Luster, her first full-length for the label, arrived in 2025, after Somerville had relocated from Dublin back to the West Coast region of Connemara, where she was originally from.
The album feels more fully developed and detailed than her previous work, certainly benefiting from an increased recording budget, yet it also maintains the intimacy of something…
…Adrianne Lenker releases her intimate 120-minute album entitled Live at Revolution Hall. The generous 43-tracks were recorded over 3 days during her 2024 Bright Future tour and features live performances of fan favourites, deep cuts and unreleased gems, including five previously unreleased songs: “Happiness,” “Oldest,” “Ripples,” “I Do Love You,” and “No Limits.”
4AD and Engineer Andrew Sarlo highlighted the intimacy and presence of the recordings, describing the listening experience as lifting the listener’s feet to float cinematically, at times onstage with Lenker, Nick Hakim (piano) and Josefin Runsteen (violin), then over the crowd, through walls, and even out the door.
Sarlo shared: “It was impossible to do this…
… Having just clocked 30 years, 4AD and the band are revisiting it to present the limited, celebratory double album of Perfect Teeth + Extra Teeth; the album remastered plus a bonus album of EP tracks, singles and rarities.
Borrowing their name from a Henry Cow record, Unrest formed in 1983 at Wakefield High School in Arlington, Virginia (just outside of Washington, D.C.). Beginning as an improv instrumental band, they were soon perfecting genre-hopping eclecticism and issuing recordings (often in cassette form) via frontman Mark Robinson’s DIY label TeenBeat, as well as on notable labels such as 4AD, Caroline, and Matador.
Their last album, Perfect Teeth features the latter year classic line-up of founding members…
Bartees Strange was raised on fear. His family told scary stories to teach life lessons, and at an early age, Strange started watching scary movies to practice being strong. The world can be a terrifying place, and for a young, queer, black person in rural America, that terror can be visceral.
Horror is an album about facing those fears and growing to become someone to be feared. Throughout the record, Strange lays down one difficult truth after another, all over a sonic pastiche of music he loved as a kid. His dad introduced him to Parliament Funkadelic, Fleetwood Mac, Teddy Pendergrass, and Neil Young. Those influences merged with Strange’s interest in hip-hop, country, indie rock, and house, culminating in a record that feels completely original.
Celebrating the first anniversary of their latest album, Stereo Mind Game, Daughter announces Live at Middle Farm Studios, a 7-track filmed performance. The session sees the trio of Elena Tonra, Igor Haefeli and Remi Aguilella return to the intimacy of Middle Farm Studios near Dartmoor, England – where much of Stereo Mind Game was recorded – to perform those songs live for the first time, including the singles ‘Be On Your Way’, ‘Party’ and ‘To Rage’.
…Their first studio album in seven years, Stereo Mind Game was released in April 2023 and was made Rough Trade Shop’s Album of the Month. Daughter’s only live show to support Stereo Mind Game took place at the indie retailer’s east London flagship store. The trio’s third studio…
…Kevin Vanbergen having expertly remastered the album from its original analogue studio tapes.
With the sprawling double album Teenager of the Year, Frank Black builds on the clever, carefully crafted pop he forged on his solo debut and moves even farther away from his work with Pixies. Even more eclectic than Frank Black, it spans full-throttle rockers like the one-two blast of “Thalassocracy” and “Whatever Happened to Pong?” to the strummy, bouncy “Headache” and the piano-driven lullaby “Sir Rockaby,” the latter of which is a far cry from the work of his former band. Despite its 22-song length, most of Teenager of the Year‘s tracks are keepers; its first nine songs are among Black’s catchiest with or without Pixies. “(I Want to Live on an) Abstract…
The National brings an abundance of energy for a brooding, middle-aged indie rock band, as evidenced on their new live album, Rome.
The 21-track, two-LP album — recorded in concert at the Parco della Musica auditorium in Italy’s capital in June — is a fan-friendly sing-along that strings together some of the best sounds of their 25-year career.
Eight of the band’s 10 studio albums are represented in Rome, releasing Friday from this Ohio-born and New York-based quintet fronted by the gravel-voiced Matt Berninger and fueled by two sets of brothers: Aaron and Bryce Dessner and Bryan and Scott Devendorf.
The opener, “Runaway,” is one of a handful of deeper cuts, this one from the lyrically dreary…
Remastered at Abbey Road.
…Cass McCombs is an intriguing man. His songwriting abilities are undeniable but weirdly de-emphasized. His reedy voice is either awfully affected (he sounds like Procol Harum’s Gary Brooker, or like a male Maria McKee) or poised to become one of our Great Acquired Tastes alongside Robert Smith’s meow and Stephen Malkmus’s yawn.
A, while a fine album, is full of head-scratching choices; just as its harsh lyrics policy can’t be explained by financial reasons, some of the production touches are just as odd. But it does make you suspect that we’re dealing with a genius — one that has yet to be properly framed.
This music, designed to resist classification, is…
While peers like former Pixies bandmate Frank Black and fellow Daytonian Robert Pollard revel in their productiveness, Kim Deal prefers the slow-drip approach. Her band The Breeders have released a mere five albums over the 35 years since they formed, while her sole side-project, The Amps – a stopgap outfit founded during a temporary feud with twin-sister and Breeders bandmate Kelley – folded after one album, and her first solo album under her own name has been over a dozen years in the making.
…The path to her first solo album began with Deal – who believed that the disruption of the internet had left the music industry so impoverished that “nobody could afford bands anymore” – starting up her own cottage industry in her hometown…
Thea Gustafsson is a jack of all trades. Writing, recording, and self-producing under the moniker Becky and the Birds, she has recently turned a new leaf, entering an era of creative freedom and emotional release with her debut album, Only music makes me cry now.
Gustafsson – who kickstarted her musical career as Becky and the Birds in 2016 after taking on production with sheer self-determination and a vision – began laying the groundwork for her upcoming album in 2021. At that time, her creative process was largely informed by a wide array of sources, including: insight from past collaborations with Dijon, Seinabo Sey, and Lapsley; obscure Bandcamp deep-dives; visits to live sets at clubs and dive bars across…
Thanks a lot!