Single: Bat For Lashes
‘Laura’/’Marilyn’ (Parlophone)
Bat For Lashes has released a special 7” for Record Store Day every year since 2010, and this time around it’s a conceptual coupling of two tracks from last year’s ‘The Haunted Man’. You’ll already know the inescapable and beautiful ‘Laura’, finally making its appearance as a vinyl single. ‘Marilyn’, from Vogue’s online Love Songs Sessions, gets an entirely different, simple and propulsive arrangement with Natasha Khan’s reverberating guitar chords leading the way.
Single: The Leisure Society
‘Fight For Everyone’ (Full Time Hobby)
Taken from The Leisure Society’s new album ‘Alone Aboard The Ark’, ‘Fight For Everyone’ is a brighter than usual pop tune tugged along by a snappy 70s keyboard line straight off a Chicory Tip record. The group’s organic, brass and piano embellished sound is still present and correct, with leader Nick Hemming calling his Olympian-inspired vocals in from a retro radiogram set. This RSD 7” comes on blue vinyl.
Album: Metronomy
‘Pip Paine (Pay The £5000 You Owe)’ (Because Music)
Metronomy’s album debut finally gets a belated vinyl pressing for RSD, a double LP edition in a green fabric casing (matching the cloth packaging of the sought-after original CD edition). Far removed from their later incarnation as a sly dancepop group, ‘Pip Paine’ was an assemblage of Joe Mount’s bedroom electronic sketches, taped at home in Devon from 2002-06 and released while he was making his name as a resident on the Brighton scene. Pip Paine, where are you now?
VARIOUS: Tru Thoughts
Tru Thoughts’ RSD offerings include a new 7” from Rodney P from Sleepin’ Giantz/London Posse. The suave ‘Success’ finds him joined by soul vocalist Harleighblue and the Renegade Brass Band, with a first time on vinyl appearance for reggae groove ‘Live Up’ on the flip. Harleighblu reappears on the latest in Tru Thoughts’ Black Gold promo series with the unreleased ‘Enough Now’. A new take on Alice Russell’s ‘Breakdown’ and a couple of lush tracks from Hot 8 Brass Band and Natural Self round out
the 12” EP.
VARIOUS: FAT CAT
FatCat’s RSD selection includes a 2LP repress of Frightened Rabbit’s breakout second album ‘The Midnight Organ Fight’, coupled with its boisterous live companion set ‘Quietly Now’. Fellow Scots Twilight Sad and the pairing of jazz musician Bill Wells and Arab Strap’s Aidan Moffat reinterpret each other’s songs on a moody split 7”. Finally, London art-rave group Breton release a casually brilliant remix of ‘Population Density’ by Magnetic Man’s Artwork, coupled with one of ‘Governing Correctly’ by Ed Banger boss Busy P, on 12” purple vinyl.
