... CD

... LP, Vinyl record album

... 12-inch, Vinyl record

The Cure in a pretty unique period, and they have a pretty wild record to show for it! The Top spins in some interesting directions – from keyboard psychedelia, to boisterous pop, to some to trademark Cure mood pieces laced with Middle Eastern and other points global touches – there's no other Cure album like this one! It came just after the psych-steeped side project The Glove and while Robert Smith was also recording as a guitarist with Siouxsie And The Banshees, so there's a lot going on here stylistically – making it one of the weirder Cure albums, and definitely a keeper! Includes the forever great single "The Catapillar" plus "Shake Dog Shake", "Bird Man Girl", "Wailing Wall", "Piggy In The Mirror", "Bananfishbones", "The Top", "The Empty World" and more. LP, Vinyl record album

Titles include "Strangelove", "The Things You Said", "Nothing", "Pimpf", "I Want You Now", "To Have & To Hold", "Never Let Me Down Again", and "Sacred". LP, Vinyl record album

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After big success on the Batman soundtrack, Danny Elfman turns his talents to another comic character – Dick Tracy, as portrayed by Warren Beatty in the 1990 film that's not nearly as good as its music! While the movie was filled with over-the-top characterizations that completely went against the brilliance of the original strip, Elfman's score is a brooding masterpiece of understatement – rejecting all the cartoony elements of the film, and instead furthering Elfman's growing talent for orchestral scoring. Titles include "Slimy DA", "Meet The Blank", "Breathless Comes On", "Crime Spree", "Rooftops", "Blank Gets The Goods", "Showdown/Reunited", and "After The Kid". LP, Vinyl record album

... LP, Vinyl record album

... LP, Vinyl record album

... LP, Vinyl record album

... LP, Vinyl record album

... LP, Vinyl record album

... 12-inch, Vinyl record

... CD

... LP, Vinyl record album

... 7-inch, Vinyl record

A really tremendous album from The Talking Heads – and a set that moves far past their already-great early records, to really show a rhythmic complexity we never would have expected! Brian Eno is helping the group in the studio again here, and the record really shows both David Byrne and Eno's late 70s fascination with global rhythms – elements that are often used in spare, simple little ways to really help inflect the tunes with a playful imagination that goes way beyond the colder post-punk and new wave of most of their contemporaries! The balance of previous aesthetics with these new grooves is wonderful – heard to great effect on the classic club cut "I Zimbra" – but brewing up strongly underneath on gems that include "Mind", "Paper", "Cities", "Life During Wartime", "Memories Can't Wait", "Air", "Heaven", "Animals", "Electric Guitar", and "Drugs". LP, Vinyl record album

9 tracks in all, including the big hits "And She Was", "Road To Nowhere" and "The Lady Don't Mind", plus "Television Man", "Perfect World", "Creatures Of Love" and more. CD

Some of the most compelling grooves the Talking Heads ever recorded – a set that sparkles with imaginative touches, and railroads forward on a wave of complicated rhythms! The sound is brilliant throughout – a genre-less approach that sheds the group's earlier art nerd aesthetic for one that's clearly influenced by late 70s funk and club – but takes that influence in a whole new direction! The whole thing's even fresher than some of the artier downtown moments that bubbled around at the time – as David Byrne and the group actually managed to cross over big with the record – hitting not only urban markets, but also getting some play from the classic rock crowd too. Brian Eno produced, and co-wrote the songs with the group – and some great Green World-esque electronics bubble through the mix, and hold the whole thing together beautifully. Titles include "Houses In Motion", "Once In A Lifetime", "The Great Curve", "Crosseyed & Painless", "Born Under Punches (The Heat Goes On)", "Listening Wind", "Seen & Not Seen", and "The Overload". LP, Vinyl record album

David Byrne brings his love of funk and soul to the forefront – tightening things up a bit from before, but still staying strongly in a classic Talking Heads groove! The record's possibly the last of the group's initial classic run, and has a surprisingly soulful feel at times – a hybrid of early 80s funk and club modes, played by guests who include Wally Badarou on synth, Bernie Worrell on keyboards, and Steve Scales and David Van Tieghem on percussion. Nona Hendryx sings a bit of backing vocals too – and Byrne really steps up to the grooves without ever going too far over the top. Titles include "Burning Down The House", "Making Flippy Floppy", "Girlfriend Is Better", "Slippery People", "I Get Wild/Wild Gravity", "Swamp", "Moon Rocks", "Pull Up The Roots", and "This Must Be The Place (Naive Melody)". CD

David Byrne brings his love of funk and soul to the forefront – tightening things up a bit from before, but still staying strongly in a classic Talking Heads groove! The record's possibly the last of the group's initial classic run, and has a surprisingly soulful feel at times – a hybrid of early 80s funk and club modes, played by guests who include Wally Badarou on synth, Bernie Worrell on keyboards, and Steve Scales and David Van Tieghem on percussion. Nona Hendryx sings a bit of backing vocals too – and Byrne really steps up to the grooves without ever going too far over the top. Titles include "Burning Down The House", "Making Flippy Floppy", "Girlfriend Is Better", "Slippery People", "I Get Wild/Wild Gravity", "Swamp", "Moon Rocks", "Pull Up The Roots", and "This Must Be The Place (Naive Melody)". This special edition features artwork by Robert Rauschenberg. LP, Vinyl record album

Part of the great 80s run from The Smiths – and a record that has them continuing to grow, continuing to express new ideas – yet still find a way to hang onto all the charm and catchiness that made them so great in the first place! Morrissey's definitely stretching out a bit with his songwriting, and Johnny Marr's guitar finds lots of lovely places to show us why he was such a standout talent in his generation – and production, as always, is wonderfully uncluttered – none of those too-smooth or too-commercial modes that held back so many Smiths contemporaries once they started raising in fame. Titles include "A Rush & A Push & The Land Is Ours", "Last Night I Dreamt That Somebody Loved Me", "I Won't Share You", "Stop Me If You Think You've Heard This One Before", "Death Of A Disco Dancer", and "Girlfriend In A Coma". LP, Vinyl record album

... 12-inch, Vinyl record

... 7-inch, Vinyl record

... 7-inch, Vinyl record

... 12-inch, Vinyl record

... LP, Vinyl record album

Titles include "Hurricane", "Isis", "Joey", "Romance In Durango", "Sara", and "One More Cup Of Coffee". CD

... LP, Vinyl record album

A real standout from Polly Jean Harvey – a set that somehow manages to have all the intensity of her previous records, but which hones things down to a mode that might well be called mellow at times – but which, to us, also seems to really give the music clarity, and maybe a more timeless vibe overall! The restraint is wonderful – and it's never commercial at all – as there seems to be even more of a focus on just the right balance between expression and songwriting, given added help in the studio by Flood. Titles include "No Girl So Sweet", "The River", "Catherine", "A Perfect Day Elise", "My Beautiful Leah", "The Wind", "Angelene", and "Electric Light". LP, Vinyl record album

Demo versions of every single track that appeared on the PJ Harvey album Is This Desire – maybe even more of a match for some of the songs on the record than previous demo releases, given that the standard record has a nicely stripped-down vibe at times! Yet there's also a strong difference here – a to-the-core sound that shows how much PJ Harvey could sometimes hide behind the larger mix of a record, even when she was sounding emotive – as there's a very personal, intimate quality here. Titles include "Angeline", "The Wind", "The Sly Lit Up", "A Perfect Day Elise", "Is This Desire", "The Garden", "No Girl So Sweet", and "My Beautiful Leah". CD

Demo versions of every single track that appeared on the PJ Harvey album Is This Desire – maybe even more of a match for some of the songs on the record than previous demo releases, given that the standard record has a nicely stripped-down vibe at times! Yet there's also a strong difference here – a to-the-core sound that shows how much PJ Harvey could sometimes hide behind the larger mix of a record, even when she was sounding emotive – as there's a very personal, intimate quality here. Titles include "Angeline", "The Wind", "The Sly Lit Up", "A Perfect Day Elise", "Is This Desire", "The Garden", "No Girl So Sweet", and "My Beautiful Leah". LP, Vinyl record album

... LP, Vinyl record album

A great early record from Rod McKuen – maybe more of a beat poetry record than some of his later work – with jazzy backings by Paul Gray, and a group that features Tiny Timbrell on guitar and Phil Sobel on flute! LP, Vinyl record album

... CD

... CD

A fantastic album from trumpeter Ambrose Akinmusire – a set that really kicks his career up to the next level, and which is easily the most powerful record he's ever given us! The music finds Ambrose in many moods, all of them righteous – sometimes blowing hard and fierce in a small combo, sometimes issuing out more personal statements in a more stripped-down setting – working with players that include Harish Raghavan on bass, Justin Brown on drums, and Sam Harris on piano – plus vocalist Genevieve Artadi on one especially beautiful number that features Akinmusire on Fender Rhodes! We've loved the music of Ambrose for many years – and this is one of those faith-rewarding sets that always makes it so wonderful to follow the career of any key jazz musician – as we hope you'll also find on titles that include "Roy", "4623", "Moon", "Tide Of Hyacinth", "Cynical Sideliners", and "Mr Roscoe". CD

A fantastic album from trumpeter Ambrose Akinmusire – a set that really kicks his career up to the next level, and which is easily the most powerful record he's ever given us! The music finds Ambrose in many moods, all of them righteous – sometimes blowing hard and fierce in a small combo, sometimes issuing out more personal statements in a more stripped-down setting – working with players that include Harish Raghavan on bass, Justin Brown on drums, and Sam Harris on piano – plus vocalist Genevieve Artadi on one especially beautiful number that features Akinmusire on Fender Rhodes! We've loved the music of Ambrose for many years – and this is one of those faith-rewarding sets that always makes it so wonderful to follow the career of any key jazz musician – as we hope you'll also find on titles that include "Roy", "4623", "Moon", "Tide Of Hyacinth", "Cynical Sideliners", and "Mr Roscoe". LP, Vinyl record album

One of the leading lights of the ECM Records scene in the early 80s – bassist Marc Johnson, working here with his successful Bass Desires group! The lineup features some wonderful interplay on stringed instruments – Johnson's bass, and guitars from both John Scofield and Bill Frisell, the later of whom also plays a bit of guitar synthesizer, in very ECM-shaped lines. Drums are from Peter Erskine, who's well-heard when the moment allows – and titles include "Samurai Hee Haw", "Mojo Highway", "Thanks Again", "Bass Desires", and "Black Is The Color Of My True Love's Hair". CD

... 12-inch, Vinyl record

The tenor of Ivo Perelman often sounds best in a more unusual setting – and that's definitely the case here, as he works in a trio with Gordon Grdina on oud and Hamin Honarai on tombak, daf, and percussion! The set definitely has some of the Mid East currents you'd expect from the instruments – but this is less of a "jazz meets world" setting, than it is a record that has Honari and Grdina improvising in free jazz modes on instruments with much different roots! If anything, the angular notes of Perelman might well be some of the most conventional sounds on the record – and if you know Ivo, you know that he's hardly anything but conventional. Titles include "Bridge To The Soul", "Purity Of Desire", "Music Of A Distant Drum", "Love Is A Stranger", and "Light Upon Light". CD

Sweet sax from the great Tom Scott – two early 80s Columbia albums in a single package! Desire is proof that Scott could still make an electric jazz album sound more soulful than most of his mainstream contemporaries! There's a really great sense of balance here – production that's certainly polished, but instrumentation that's never sleepy at all – those always-sharp reeds we love from Tom, especially on alto and soprano sax – plus some great keyboard work from Victor Feldman, who has a similar sense of space and timing ot match Scott's groove! The set's got a feel that's a bit like some of the few really great albums from Dave Grusin – and some cuts have vocals, although mostly of the backup type. Titles include "Desire", "Sure Enough", "The Only One", "Stride", "Chunk O Funk", and "Meet Somebody". Target features a wide range of styles from saxophonist Tom Scott – some tracks that are in the funkier fusion he scored with in the 70s, but others that have some soul and pop touches as well! Scott's horn is still nice and sharp when he gets to step out in the solo spotlight – more so on the instrumental tracks, but a bit less so on the vocal ones – which feature singers who include Maria Muldaur, Kenny James, and Lee Ving. Other players include Harvey Mason on drums, Ernie Watts on tenor and alto, Victor Feldman on keyboards, and Paul Jackson on guitar – and titles include "Burundi Bump", "The Biggest Part Of Me", "He's Too Young", "Aerobia", "Target", and "Come Back To Me". CD