Hailing from northeast England, Fender is a British songwriter with a penchant for euphoric, hard-hitting guitar anthems. Bursting onto the scene with a BRITs Critics’ Choice win in 2018, his first two albums, Hypersonic Missiles (2019) and Seventeen Going Under (2021), both debuted at Number 1 on the UK’s Official Albums Chart and earned Platinum status. With over two billion global streams, Fender has headlined stadiums in Newcastle, toured arenas across the UK and Ireland, and headlined at major festivals like Reading/Leeds, while also supporting icons like The Rolling Stones and Bruce Springsteen. If Seventeen Going Under – Fender’s sophomore album and second to debut at Number 1 on the UK’s Official Albums Chart – was his “coming of age” album, his forthcoming work is his next step – colorful stories and observations of everyday characters living their everyday, but often extraordinary, lives. Sam produced People Watching alongside bandmates Dean Thompson and Joe Atkinson over two years, working first in London in 2023 with producer Markus Dravs, and then earlier this year in Los Angeles with Granduciel. See below for track listing.

Sunny War, also known as Sydney Ward, found inspiration for her latest album Armageddon In A Summer Dress while living in her late father's 100-year-old house in Chattanooga, TN. She initially thought the house was haunted. Eerie sounds and visions led her to write the song "Ghosts." However, she later discovered that hallucinations were caused by gas leaks, shifting her understanding of those experiences but not her artistic focus. Armageddon In A Summer Dress explores themes of memory, loss, and the ghosts of past selves. After the success of her 2022 album, Anarchist Gospel, Sunny spent more time touring with artists like Bonnie Raitt and Mitski. To avoid falling back into past struggles with alcohol, she channeled her energy into music, crafting intricate demos and experimenting with sound. This process involved shifting from acoustic to electric guitar, aiming for a fuller band sound. Tracks like "One Way Train" and "No One Calls Me Baby" highlight her blend of punk and roots influences, emphasizing the rebellious spirit shared by both genres. A notable collaboration on the album is with Steve Ignorant from Crass, whose participation in "Walking Contradiction" reflects Sunny's admiration for the band and its critique of modern society. Armageddon in a Summer Dress serves as a reflection on identity and choices, balancing heavy themes with empowerment. Sunny War encourages listeners to live authentically and resist societal pressures. Committed to continual growth, she sees every performance and song as an opportunity for exploration. Through her music, Sunny War captures the complexities of life, loss, and the transformative power of creativity.

"So Close To What” is the third studio album by Tate McRae. This LP represents the journey of growing up when the road ahead feels infinite and the destination increasingly elusive.

Powerhouse vocalist Jordan Smith invites listeners to church with a dynamic collection of Gospel standards. Produced by Tommy Sims and Colin Linden, The People's Hymnal showcases stirring arrangements that are familiar yet reimagined by "The Voice" winner. Featuring "How Great Thou Art," "Oh Happy Day" and more, the contemporary Gospel, pop-tinged recording spotlights Smith's effortless vocals that are pristine yet uninhibited, as he skillfully chronicles his influences with heart and soul.

When it comes to songwriting, less is more and simplicity is strength. Just ask Paul Thorn, who’s spent three decades turning soulful grooves and small syllables into songs that pack a big wallop. Maybe he learned the power of minimalism from his years as a pro boxer, maybe it just comes naturally. But whether he’s targeting heads, hearts, hips or the occasional funny bone, he somehow manages to condense large nuggets of wisdom into tight little mantras, the kind embroiderers stitched onto pillows before internet memes existed. Thorn’s new album, “Life Is Just a Vapor, contains some beauties. “Life is a vapor, let’s live it while we can”; “tough times don’t last, but tough people do” (from “Tough Times Don’t Last”); “any mountain up ahead is just a hill” (from “Old Melodies”). They’re words of advice, comfort, support, encouragement, often meant to uplift, especially in times of struggle. “I like for people to be touched by music and get something from it, something that they can take with them throughout the day,” Thorn says. “Every song on this album, there's a message in it of some sort about how to live life.” American Blues Scene writer Don Wilcock calls Thorn “an everyman (who) addresses things we all think about, but few can articulate with the kind of candor, humor and folksy truth that immediately endear him to almost everyone lucky enough to hear his music.”

Irish rock band The Murder Capital Return with their third studio album, Blindness, recorded in Los Angeles earlier this year with producer John Congelton (St Vincent, Angel Olsen, Sharon Van Etten) and featuring the recently released single ‘Can’t Pretend To Know’ and coming single ‘Words Lost Meaning’. Blindness is the vividly realised, clear-sightedly ambitious new album from The Murder Capital. A record that’s both momentous and charged with momentum. That’s intimate and simultaneously expansive. Eleven songs that don’t hang about in terms of grabbing the listener.

Sunny War, also known as Sydney Ward, found inspiration for her latest album Armageddon In A Summer Dress while living in her late father's 100-year-old house in Chattanooga, TN. She initially thought the house was haunted. Eerie sounds and visions led her to write the song "Ghosts." However, she later discovered that hallucinations were caused by gas leaks, shifting her understanding of those experiences but not her artistic focus. Armageddon In A Summer Dress explores themes of memory, loss, and the ghosts of past selves. After the success of her 2022 album, Anarchist Gospel, Sunny spent more time touring with artists like Bonnie Raitt and Mitski. To avoid falling back into past struggles with alcohol, she channeled her energy into music, crafting intricate demos and experimenting with sound. This process involved shifting from acoustic to electric guitar, aiming for a fuller band sound. Tracks like "One Way Train" and "No One Calls Me Baby" highlight her blend of punk and roots influences, emphasizing the rebellious spirit shared by both genres. A notable collaboration on the album is with Steve Ignorant from Crass, whose participation in "Walking Contradiction" reflects Sunny's admiration for the band and its critique of modern society. Armageddon in a Summer Dress serves as a reflection on identity and choices, balancing heavy themes with empowerment. Sunny War encourages listeners to live authentically and resist societal pressures. Committed to continual growth, she sees every performance and song as an opportunity for exploration. Through her music, Sunny War captures the complexities of life, loss, and the transformative power of creativity.

Featuring what may be his only recordings on the Prophet keyboard, these once lost performances expand the omniverse of Ra across a stellar set of lengthy cuts! All recorded in a single day and finally making their terrestrial debut, pressed on red vinyl and packaged with a Prophet keyboard brochure plus notes from Ranthropologist Brother Cleve! What happens when a Prophet meets a Prophet? The answer lies within these grooves. Amongst the hundreds of recordings issued by Sun Ra and his Arkestra, under their various guises, the majority were recorded in concert or in makeshift studios such as their early 1960s set-up at NYC's Choreographer's Workshop. Beyond those, roughly 22 albums were recorded at Variety Recording Studio in New York's Times Square. However, on August 25, 1986, Sun Ra and cohorts entered Mission Control, a state-of-the-art 24-track studio north of Boston, which was teeming with electronic keyboards and otherworldly sound generators. Nestled within that arsenal was a brand-new digital ultra keyboard - the Prophet VS ("Vector Synthesizer"). Of all the keyboards Ra played throughout his half-century career, the Prophet was one of the most sophisticated. There's no evidence that he had played either of the instrument's earlier incarnations, the Sequential Circuits Prophet-5 and Prophet-10. Created using microprocessors, a then-new technological advance, under the auspices of engineer Dave Smith in 1978, the Prophet-5 revolutionized electronic music as the first polyphonic and, most importantly, programmable synthesizer. Ra was intrigued by the Prophet (surely by the instrument as well as by the name). Recorded during a single day, it's about time that these once lost performances have now been found.

Double blue colored vinyl LP pressing.

This self-titled work published album by singer-songwriter and master guitarist Ted Lucas has achieved an almost mystical reputation among aficionados and collectors. Ted Lucas is a seamless marriage of moody odes and raga style instrumentals regarded by many to be, simply put, the greatest private press folk/psych album ever recorded. Lucas was a fixture in the Detroit rock scene of the sixties and seventies. His first band, The Spike Drivers, was one of the very first true psych bands, the Motor City’s answer to Jefferson Airplane and The Byrds. Following that band's collapse, Lucas paid bills doing session work with Motown. And there he recorded, in 1972, the demo for Warner Brothers which would become Ted Lucas, released in two private editions in 1975 and known informally to friends and family as The OM Album, after Lucas' own label. The album was released with artwork by the legendary Stanley Mouse originally created for Jimi Hendrix.

Edwin McCain is back with Lucky, his first album of new material in 15 years. Produced by Lee Brice, Lucky features classic Edwin McCain songwriting and soulful performances, as well as guest vocal appearances by Brice, Matt Ramsey of Old Dominion, and Rebecca Lynn Howard. Called a “street corner prophet” by the USA Today, an “aching tenor” by Slate Magazine, and a “great American romantic” by the New York Times; Edwin rides a career wave created by recording two of the biggest love songs in the history of music (I’ll Be and I Could Not Ask For More), producing and starring in a tv series (Flippin’ Ships on Animal Planet), and touring the world singing and spinning stories. Edwin’s fans are clamoring for more, so Edwin McCain is back at full throttle. Not that Edwin’s music ever slows down. “American Idol” and “The Voice” contestants turn to Edwin’s ballads every year to help them win over judges and fans. Millions more have been turned on by pop icons Justin Bieber and Charlie Puth who have both covered Edwin’s songs. And look for a TV appearance or two by the artist himself very soon. Fresh off a summer of touring with friends Hootie and the Blowfish and Collective Soul, Edwin McCain will be on the road everywhere in 2025!

Back to the roots or back to the future? No matter how you call it, Grave Digger record the first album of their career completely without keyboard passages. With new axeman Tobias Kersting, the band finds its way back to long forgotten trademarks. Raw, brutal, honest and yet catchy, songs like "Bone Collector" or "Made of Madness" thunder out of the speakers. Groovemonsters like "Riders of Doom" or "Mirror of Hate" come across like a steamroller and the band also quotes the good old stadium rock times in the form of "The Devils Serenade". "Bone Collector" is a manifesto of German Heavy Metal, old-school at its best, without rust and patina, no self-copying and always authentic, this is how the band's new work can be described. Rarely has the band sounded more versatile than in these days. Energetic, fresh, multifaceted ... brings it to the point.

Limited white colored vinyl. Fred Again's upcoming album, "Ten Days", follows his successful Actual Life series and features a collection of tracks inspired by ten significant days in his life over the past year. Fred Again has described these songs as reflections on "small, quiet, intimate moments," with some capturing intensely joyful experiences and others representing more challenging emotions. The album includes collaborations with a variety of artists, such as Anderson.Paak, Sampha, Skrillex, Four Tet, and Emmylou Harris, among others.