Pompeii (Yellow Vinyl)
Availability: In stock
£21.00
Availability: In stock
Indie exclusive translucent sun yellow vinyl LP.
Pompeii, Cate Le Bon’s sixth full-length studio album and the follow up to 2019’s Mercury- nominated Reward, bears a storied title summoning apocalypse, but the metaphor eclipses any “dissection of immediacy,” says Le Bon. Not to downplay her nod to disorientation induced by double catastrophe — global pandemic plus climate emergency’s colliding eco-traumas resonate all too eerily. “What would be your last gesture?” she asks. But just as Vesuvius remains active, Pompeii reaches past the current crises to tap into what Le Bon calls “an economy of time warp” where life roils, bubbles, wrinkles, melts, hardens, and reconfigures unpredictably, like lava—or sound, rather. Like she says in the opener, “Dirt on the Bed,” Sound doesn’t go away / In habitual silence / It reinvents the surface / Of everything you touch.
Pompeii is sonically minimal in parts, and its lyrics jog between self-reflection and direct address. Vulnerability, although “obscured,” challenges Le Bon’s tendencies towards irony. Written primarily on bass and composed entirely alone in an “uninterrupted vacuum,” Le Bon plays every instrument (except drums and saxophones) and recorded the album largely by herself with long-term collaborator and co-producer Samur Khouja in Cardiff, Wales. Enforced time and space pushed boundaries, leading to an even more extreme version of Le
Bon’s studio process – as exits were sealed, she granted herself “permission to annihilate identity.” “Assumptions were destroyed, and nothing was rejected” as her punk assessments of existence emerged.
The songs of Pompeii feel suspended in time, both of the moment and instant but reactionary and Dada-esque in their insistence to be playful, satirical, and surreal. From the spirited, strutting bass fretwork of “Moderation”, to the sax-swagger of “Running Away”; a tale exquisite in nature but ultimately doomed (The fountain that empties the world / Too beautiful to hold), escapism lives as a foil to the outside world. Pompeii’s audacious tribute to memory, compassion, and mortal salience is here to stay.
You may also like...
- Quick ViewAdd to basket
Aerial (Goldy Locks Vinyl)
£42.00Kate Bush
Reissue – 2 x LP on Goldy Locks Vinyl with 24 page booklet, re-sealable poly sleeve with sticker. Originally released 2005.
Music Has The Right To Children (Vinyl)
£25.00Boards of Canada
The magnificent, wierd and wobbly debut. Remastered 2 x black vinyl LP.
Syd Barrett 50th Anniversary Poster
£12.99Original price was: £12.99.£9.00Current price is: £9.00.Syd Barrett
Limited Edition A3 poster celebrating 50 years since the ‘The Madcap Laughs’ and ‘Barrett’. Numbered edition of 100 copies.
- Quick ViewAdd to basket
Mordechai (CD)
£8.99Khruangbin
Weaving far-flung musical languages like East Asian surf-rock, Persian funk, and Jamaican dub into mellifluous harmony.
- Quick ViewAdd to basket
Weird Walk Issue 6
£5.50Weird Walk
Weird Walk Zine Issue Six. 48 page A5 zine. Here we come a-wand’ring, So fair to be seen.
Building A New Town (Splatter Vinyl)
£24.00Warrington-Runcorn New Town Development Plan
New 12″ EP on deluxe gold and autumn-leaves splatter vinyl. The music filters through inspirations such as Pentangle, Mike Oldfield and early Tangerine Dream.