Singer/Songwriter

For a decade, Maxine Funke has cut an idiosyncratic path as a singer-songwriter, all the while avoiding the parochial retreads of that worn-out label. Funke's music is intimate and deeply intelligent, buoyed by a sense of effortlessness that belies

Ltd. Gold Vinyl

Deluxe edition 2xLP set includes two exclusive tracks + a reworking of Don't Let My Marigolds Die. Bill Fay returns with the third album in the celebrated second phase of his recording career. A prime Fay song is a deceptively simple thing which c

There are records with empathy, records which are your friends and then there's the others... There might be little difference between them, a certain "je ne sais quoi", an "almost nothing but still something" which makes the difference between almost pointless and vital records. Despite, or rather thanks to his cynical despair, Matt Elliott's music never holds up a moralizing mirror to us - on the contrary, it creates a compassionate dialogue with listeners like the rhythm of two steps that synchronize to become as one. In 2016, Matt Elliot brought out his seventh solo album The Calm Before whose obscure title is neither exactly threatening nor comforting... the calm before what? Before the storm for sure but maybe also before the great record, the immediate classic we felt might be coming for a long time in the dual discography of the Bristol-born artist working under his own name and his electronic alias Third Eye Foundation. The elegant details and perspectives of Little Lost Soul (2000) already hinted at the upcoming masterpiece from the English singer-songwriter. The Mess We Made (2003) was Matt Elliott's first solo album and portrayed a universe in a kind of flight towards Balkan horizons made up of visceral despair. With the Songs trilogy, he put aside the electronic side of his work to continue working with a minimalist, stark and lucid style of writing. The Broken Man (2012) was full of tears and long laments sometimes carried by Katia Labèque's piano on a record which painted new shades of grey. On this record Matt began working with the producer, arranger and multi-instrumentalist David Chalmin (La Terre Invisible) who has kept on collaborating with the Bristol-born singer since then. Their partnership continued on Only Myocardial Infection Can Break Your Heart (2013) and The Calm Before (2016). Stéphane Grégoire is the head of the Ici D'Ailleurs label which has accompanied Matt Elliott since 2005 and perhaps he describes this album the best: "This new record by Matt is without a doubt his best album to date, a record that takes him into another dimension where he fully asserts himself as a songwriter and singer of the calibre of artists like Bill Callahan, Leonard Cohen or Johnny Cash." Matt Elliott's other records all seemed like empathic links between each other. Farewell To All We Know is an instant classic based on the sensitive piano and superb arrangements of David Chalmin, the sensitive cello of Gaspar Claus, the subtle bass of Jeff Hallam (who has also played with Dominique A and John Parish). There is a clear form of alchemy in all of this and still we find Matt Elliott's usual atmospheres and scenery, the same Eastern European folk music, long songs that take time to settle over time. Everything is the same but also is transfigured. By making his music stark and purifying and redefining the subject matter, Matt Elliott's work became so much more delicate. However this work is never frail nor really turned in on himself and thus becomes like a vital tune that vibrates and unfolds. The opening song Farewell To All We Know seems torn between the fear of what tomorrow may bring, inevitability and hope for the future in a permanent and progressive dramatic tension expressed by his Spanish guitar, the impressionist style piano and Matt's voice teetering on the edge of whispers. A funereal tribute to endless twilights and the dawns we all dream of seeing. There are touches of Leonard Cohen from Songs from a Room or Thanks For The Dance in The Day After That with Gaspar Claus's counterpoint cello. There is no spirit of resignation in Matt Elliott's work - life's path has to be followed against all odds. We have to follow the river's flow to reach the immense ocean and its infinite freedom. The haunted instrumental Guidance Is Internal harks back to the atmospheres of Howling Songs (2008) with its guitar parts full of scansions and muted threats. The music is transcendental but never seems afraid of the risk of falling. This is also what Bye Now tells us with its quasi-obsolete simplicity and sunburst melancholy reminiscent of the work of Luiz Bonfá, Bill Evans on Peace Piece or laidback crooners of the 50s. In Farewell To All We Know, Matt Elliott incessantly alternates between the dual desires to face up to the world or to protect himself from it. Hating The Player, Hating The Game is a lucid statement about the dullness of our daily lives sometimes, our right to get out of the game and no longer want to be part of it. Matt Elliott is tender but spares no one, particularly himself. Aboulia speaks of the tiredness of living and of looming death while Crisis Apparition says that there is always a time for reconstruction after chaos. This is like initially wearying wandering in the ruins of Aleppo with the slow dilution of the melody into a hallucinated drone. However the smell of great fires always fades and the earth always regenerates. Matt Elliott seems to suggest that the survival instinct is stronger than any cold winds could ever be. Matt Elliott never sings of certainties and prefers possibilities. Possibly the worst is over? Maybe... Maybe the storm has passed and devastated everything, now we just have to rebuild and live again. Farewell To All We Know shows us the distance that still needs to be walked and he walks next to you - right next to you, he is the friend who doesn't spare you the truth like all true friends really do.

Under Moving Skies' is the second album by Dublin based singer-songwriter Eileen Gogan and features guest appearances from musical luminaries such as Sean O'Hagan, Cathal Coughlan, Damian O'Neill, Terry Edwards and Stephen Ryan. Self-produced by Gogan, the record showcases the skills of this talented artist. The follow-up to the concise and sparkling 'The Spirit Of Oberlin', her acclaimed debut, 'Under Moving Skies' is drawn from a much wider sound palette. Clearly relishing her role at the mixing desk, Gogan has written a collection of songs that take her far beyond previous boundaries. Among eight self-penned songs are acoustic based pop nuggets such as the dreamily wistful 'More Time', the doughty 'I Don't Mind' and the mandolin-adorned 'Yes, Music Does Have The Right To Children', plus ventures into more spatial, widescreen territory with the evocative and eerie 'San Fran 1997', the spectral 'Sweet Alice' and the album's first single,'Don't Let Me Sleep', a classic soul update that drifts into another world mid-song. By contrast, 'Echo' is a suitably bare-boned meditation on a troubled and troubling relationship, while the infectious 'Malibu Stacy' is all lip-gloss and Latin swagger. Adding further variety is a glistening instrumental by Undertones legend Damian O'Neill (who also provides the crackling guitar break on 'Don't Let Me Sleep') and album closer 'Celebration', an a cappella version of a poem by Nuala Ni Dhomhnaill for which Gogan has created a haunting air, providing the perfect showcase for the singer's pure and unaffected singing style. Eileen Gogan's voice has invited comparisons with Sandy Denny and Kirsty MacColl, while her sound - a blend of glistening guitar and vintage keyboards - draws on a range of influences that include Richard and Linda Thompson, Neil Young, Can, Patti Smith, REM and Yo La Tengo

Ltd. Smoky Vinyl. Now, 17 years after its initial release, David Dondero's cult classic 2003 album The Transient (originally released on CD by Future Farmer Recordings) is finally being released on 180gram vinyl. This first pressing includes 500 limited copies on black vinyl. The album was recorded by Mike Mogis (Bright Eyes, Jenny Lewis, Rilo Kiley) at Presto! Recording Studios in Lincoln, Nebraska. Mastered for vinyl by Carl Saff. David Dondero is a songwriter's songwriter who's flown under the radar for years, even though he often logs 200 shows a year, touring with the likes of Pedro the Lion and Against! Me. "This is the sound of a man on fire. Smart, funny and honestly out of his mind; but he comes back long enough to sing about it. One of the best singer/songwriters I've ever heard."-- Bob Boilen, NPR "Dondero is this generation's Townes Van Zandt, a peripatetic tumbleweed casting across the country's highways and dirt roads searching for truth and love. His reedy tenor shuffles through clever verbal forays, over raga-muffin folk, brightened by Dondero's road-wizened stoicism"-- Houston Chronicle

RARE RADIO & TV SESSIONS FROM CAT STEVENS FROM 1970 & 1971 Born Steven Georgiou on 21 July 1948 in London, the man who became world famous as Cat Stevens was the youngest child of a Greek Cypriot father and a Swedish mother. At age 15, inspired by the popularity of the Beatles, the young aspirant became interested in playing guitar. He soon discovered he had some talent as a songwriter, after listening to songs and albums by Bob Dylan, Nina Simone, blues artists Lead Belly and Muddy Waters, Biff Rose Leo Kottke and Paul Simon. He also sought to emulate composers of musicals, like Ira Gershwin and Leonard Bernstein. In 1965 he signed a publishing deal with Ardmore & Beechwood and recorded several demos, including The First Cut Is the Deepest . In 1966, at age 18, he was heard by manager/producer Mike Hurst, who arranged for him to record a demo and helped him get a record deal. Stevens' first few singles were hits: I Love My Dog reached number 28 on the UK Chart, and Matthew and Son , the title song from his debut album, and rose to number 2. His second LP, New Masters, failed to chart in the United Kingdom, but remains notable for his song The First Cut Is the Deepest , which he sold for £30 to P. P. Arnold. The song became a massive hit for her, and later for a number of others. Steven s third album Mona Bone Jakon, a folk rock based set for Island Records, with whom he signed in 1970, featured the hit single Lady D Arbanville , and a few months later he released his breakthrough record, Tea For The Tillerman, which featured classic like Wild World and Father And Son . Now hugely popular across Europe and in the USA, Stevens performed a number of sessions for TV and Radio at this time. Three such performances feature on this CD, with a 1970 show for French TV in 1970, one in the US in June 1970, and another in the UK in November 1971, shortly after the release of Stevens fourth record, Teaser & The Firecat.

Singer/Songwriter

Singer/Songwriter

Singer/Songwriter

Singer/Songwriter

Singer/Songwriter

Singer/Songwriter

Singer/Songwriter

Singer/Songwriter

Singer/Songwriter

Singer/Songwriter

Singer/Songwriter