XTRA MILE US TOUR FEATURING WILL VARLEY AND BEANS ON TOAST OCTOBER 2016

Xtra Mile Recordings and London-based singer-songwriters Beans On Toast and Will Varley are excited to announce their upcoming fall US tour. Coming on the heels of both artists’ supporting slots for labelmates Frank Turner and Skinny Lister throughout Europe and the UK, the run will begin on 4 October at Hotel Café in Los Angeles, CA. Tickets and dates for the upcoming tour can be found here. The poster below says it all.

Drunk folk singer, barefoot troubadour and cult legend Beans On Toast has been around the block more times than he cares to remember. With seven studio albums in his back catalogue, Beans On Toast provokes thought on subjects from Prince Harry to popcorn, from friendship to fracking, from romance to riots, from childhood songs to cartoons, and from current events to getting off your head. These are simple songs with no-holds-barred honest lyrics and quick wit. 

Beans On Toast's unique art of songwriting is entirely present on his latest album, Rolling Up The Hill, an album Billboard deemed “nothing if not lyrical – a zany, idiosyncratic alt-folk sermon on life’s more awkward moments” and Rocksound declaring it “possibly his most accessible and immediate album to date.” Beans On Toast will release the follow-up to Rolling Up The Hill this year on his birthday, December 1, as he does every year. Buy Rolling Up The Hill.

Produced by Tristan Ivemy and mastered at Abbey Road by Frank Arkwright (Arcade Fire, Blur) Will Varley’s debut album, Postcards From Ursa Minor, pushes the boundaries of the 'one man and a guitar' format. From rowdy drinking songs with sprawling chaotic arrangements to his sparse solo performances, he covers a range of subjects with his trademark sprinkling of social commentary, politics and wry humour. Observing the world and the plight of humanity as if perched cross-legged on the edge of the moon, Varley’s existential themes cover the planet’s lonely existence within the universe as well focusing in to tackle the everyday minutia of human life. Varley is currently writing songs for his follow-up album. Buy Postcards From Ursa Minor.

Beans On Toast and Will Varley will be making the following U.S. appearances together during October 2016. Tour dates below.

OCTOBER
04 – Los Angeles, CA – Hotel Café 
05 – Santa Barbara, CA – Velvet Jones
08 – Chicago, IL – Beat Kitchen
12 – New York, NY – Rockwood
13 – Manchester, NH – Jewel 

facebook.com/beansontoastmusic / Twitter @beanstoast / 

facebook.com/willvarleymusic / Twitter @WillVarleyMusic

RECREATIONS 'BEACHES AIN'T SHIT' TOUR // WATCH 'PIPE DOWN' VIDEO // 'LIVE AT LUX' EP OUT 9 SEPTEMBER 2016

Following a summer of festival performances, Recreations (Sam Duckworth, formerly Get Cape. Wear Cape. Fly.) will embark on a tour of south coast seaside towns throughout October, in what will be a celebration of these provincial British holiday destinations.

The run comes after two very special performances in his hometown of Southend On Sea – one at legendary venue Chinnerys and the other at the end of Southend Pier as part of the Estuary Festival. At both gigs, Recreations will play Get Cape. Wear Cape. Fly.’s debut gold-selling album The Chronicles Of A Bohemian Teenager in its entirety before putting the mouthful of a moniker to bed forever with a Viking funeral. 

Full dates are:

OCTOBER
01 Southend @ Chinnerys
02 Southend @ Pier
13 Bournemouth @ Anvil
14 Worthing @ Bar 42
15 Ipswich @ South Street Studio
20 Hastings @ Observer Building
21 Ramsgate @ Music Hall
22 Eastbourne @ Printers Playhouse

Coinciding with the announcement of these dates, Recreations has made available a live EP recorded in Hamburg earlier this year. Live At Lux EP – out 9th September 2016 - features ‘Pipe Down’, ‘Red Spex’, ‘Built To Last’ and ‘Shake It Off 2’ showing how incredible his one-man performance is in the live arena. Watch a live performance of the single ‘Pipe Down’ which is currently soundtracking the summer by being blasted out across 6Music courtesy of Steve Lamacq and Radio X on the Xposure Playlist. Watch the live performance video below.

Recreations released the self-produced debut album Baby Boomers 2 back in April. It’s a collection full of wide-eyed, big-dreaming, conscientious pop songs that are undeniably /him/, but delivered with looser funk, crisper electronics and notably less tubs to thump on. In more ways than one, it sees Duckworth get his groove back. 

Never one to rest on his laurels, Recreations’ creative output continues apace with an EP of brand new tracks to be released very soon. More information to follow.

facebook.com/getcapewearcapefly / Twitter @recreations2k / musicglue.com/recreations

SKINNY LISTER NEW SINGLE AND VIDEO 'GEORDIE LAD' // NEW ALBUM 'THE DEVIL, THE HEART & THE FIGHT' OUT 30 SEPTEMBER

The unstoppable, wide-eyed, rump-shaking force of Skinny Lister continues apace with new single ‘Geordie Lad’ – a jubilant anthem focusing on past friendships. The track is taken from their forthcoming third album The Devil, The Heart & The Fight to be released on 30th September 2016 through Xtra Mile Recordings. Preorder now on CD, vinyl or download. Digital preorders will get both 'Geordie Lad' and album opener 'Wanted' right now.

Watch the video below.

Frontman Daniel explains: "‘Geordie Lad’ is a very personal track that we hope also chimes on a more universal level. Written about an ex-member of Skinny Lister, it’s an ode to the breakdown of a friendship and drifting apart. It’s for anyone who’s ever wondered what an estranged friend is up to now. It's also a little nod to the traditional song 'Geordie Hinny' that we used to perform in our early days." 

If their folk debut album (Forge & Flagon, 2012) celebrated the sticks and their punkier second (Down On Deptford Broadway, 2015) blinked in the bright lights of London, their rocked-up third, The Devil, The Heart & The Fight, sees them go global. Pieced together while on the road, and recorded over five weeks in Newcastle Under Lyme’s Silk Mill Studio in May 2016 with producer Tristan Ivemy (Frank Turner, The Holloways), it is Skinny Lister’s most far-reaching, exciting and accomplished album yet. It’s a full-on rock record that splashes even more punk vigour and eighties pop elements across their fervent folk canvas, taking in hints of Adam Ant and The Clash. 

A mature, vibrant and varied record, it mingles classic Skinny folk romances with epic rock takes on rafter-rattling shanties and hearty Dexys-style tributes, plus a hitherto unseen darker side. ‘The Devil, The Heart & The Fight’ is like Skinny’s previous albums gone backpacking; expanding its horizons, full of adventure, discovering itself and doing things it regrets in the morning. Have heart, ye devils, join the fight.

TRACKLISTING
1. Wanted
2. Geordie Lad
3. Tragedy In A Minor
4. Devil In Me
5. Injuries
6. Reunion
7. Beat It From The Chest
8. Hamburg Drunk
9. Grace
10. Charlie
11. Fair Winds & Following Seas
12. Carry

facebook.com/skinnylister / Twitter @SkinnyLister / skinnylister.com

NON CANON SELF-TITLED DEBUT ALBUM OUT 28 OCTOBER 2016 // PREORDER ON VINYL, CD AND DOWNLOAD // STREAM 'SPLINTER OF THE MIND'S EYE'

Xtra Mile Recordings will release the self-titled album by Non Canon, another side of Barry Dolan AKA Oxygen Thief. It is out on 28 October 2016 on vinyl, CD and download. Preorder via our XMR shop or download through iTunes.

Stream the first track to be taken from the album ‘Splinter Of The Mind’s Eye’ here.

'Splinter Of The Mind's Eye' is taken from Non Canon's eponymous debut album released on 28th October 2016. Pre-order here:

Non Canon exists apart from the story we know and love. A concurrent storyline, a different perspective, the world we experience through someone else's eyes; familiar but insightful for its new dimension.

In another life entirely, Non Canon gathers maelstroms of guitar noise and feeds them with caustic, yelled, (a)stringent sentences, calling himself Oxygen Thief. Having spent ten years deftly swerving expectation at every measure as Oxygen Thief, Non Canon turns things on their head again. He threads cello where there may have once been feedback, places a third chord where two key changes could have lain, and repeats a chorus line where a scream may have broken the silence instead. He's returned to his acoustic beginning, that’s true, but he’s torn that up and refused to retain his previous self-taught lessons.

'Splinter Of The Mind's Eye' sets out the manifesto: “I'm afraid of sad songs, afraid of what they'll do...so I made a firm decision that I'd hardly ever listen and I’d never sing them to myself or you.” But we're through the looking glass, and what he’s afraid of is now what drives him. As if in defiance of the sad song, fiddles create eddies through repeatedly chiming guitar, a cello building underneath for maximum undertow. 'Eponymous' sticks flags in this untouched territory, boldly declaring “I've got reservations, I'm not sure I'll get away with this, I've got no expectations, I'm not sure my heart is even in this” – we couldn't be further from the bold, antisocial thrash of his other self. Deliberating on a blank book alongside a collection of prolific authors ('A Study in Emerald'), daydreaming about him and his wife meeting  younger ('Crayola'), and memorised reality versus physical and mental regeneration ('Memory Beta'), Non Canon charms a narrative and converses with considered wordplay. 

“It started as a little challenge to myself to see if I could write something other than the loud riffy stuff I've always done with Oxygen Thief and previous bands I was in,” says Barry. “It's kind of snowballed from there really – I never really expected it to be anything other than a bunch of songs I could look at with a sense of achievement at finishing, and then I'd get on with the next OT record.” Having received support from close friends, his wife and Xtra Mile, he set about recording in February 2016 with some of the songs done at home and some in OneCat Studio in Brixton. All the strings, piano and drums were written on an iPad before being sent to musicians to learn and play on recordings. Chris T-T's piano playing stand out on 'Bad Twin', while Ben Marwood and Charlie Barnes (a touring member of Bastille) contributed backing vocals, along with Gareth from My First Tooth playing drums, and the guitarist from Barry’s first ever band playing violin and viola.

Non Canon is a new story, but it’s a story of its own, one that we will soon know and love with its own history, character and setting.

Tracklisting:

1. Splinter Of The Mind’s Eye
2. Eponymous
3. The Book Of Jasher
4. Bad Twin
5. Home Alone 3
6. A Study In Emerald
7. Crayola
8. 1999 In Roman Numerals
9. Memory Beta
10. Holiday Special

Tour – more dates to be confirmed:

SEPTEMBER

30 Newport @ Le Pub w/Chris T-T

OCTOBER

17 Leicester @ Firebug w/Sad Song Co
18 Derby @ The Maypole w/Chris T-T & Sad Song Co
19 London @ The Monarch, Camden w/Sad Song Co
20 Chippenham @ Old Road w/Sad Song Co
22 Manchester @ Star & Garter (TBC) w/Sad Song Co
23 Swindon @ Baila Coffee & Vinyl (early show)
     Bristol @ Stag & Hounds w/Sad Song Co
24 London @ Tram & Social, Tooting w/Ben Marwood
27 Cheltenham @ Frog & Fiddle w/Chris T-T
28 Sheffield @ Regather at Lamplight Club
30 Nottingham @ Bodega w/Chris T-T
31 Bath @ The Nest w/Chris T-T

Twitter @noncanon555

THE LION AND THE WOLF SIGNS TO XTRA MILE // NEW ALBUM 'THE CARDIAC HOTEL' OUT 7 OCTOBER 2016 // WATCH VIDEO 'FIND THE TIME'

Xtra Mile Recordings is very pleased to announce the signing of The Lion and the Wolf – tender-voiced songwriter Thomas George. Xtra Mile will release his second album The Cardiac Hotel on 7 October 2016. Preorders are now available on CD and download through our shop or download from iTunes, with digital orders receiving the track ‘Find The Time’ instantly. There are also t-shirt and album bundles available. Watch the lyric video for 'Find The Time' below. 

Xtra Mile’s first contact with The Lion and the Wolf was back in 2014 as Rob Lynch’s choice for Xtra Mile High Club Vol.5: Smokin’ (Signed vs Unsigned) where XMR artists chose their favourite unsigned acts to join them on this huge label compilation (buy that here). Impressed by his DIY outlook and mesmeric songs, XMR followed Thomas’s journey up to this point.

Since quitting the kind of life lived by the rest of us in January 2014, Thomas has played over 300 shows, supporting labelmates Rob Lynch, Northcote and PJ Bond, among others, as well as appearing at Slam Dunk, Isle of Wight Festival, 2000trees, Blissfields, Fest and Hevy. He released his debut album Symptoms late 2014, a full-band affair crafted from analogue sounds. Comparisons to Elliot Smith and Simon & Garfunkel followed, as well as more shows and more opportunities to revel in community and friendship.

Second album The Cardiac Hotel was expedited and creatively driven by Thomas's dad getting sick, the songs pouring forth as they tend to do when a loved one's future is uncertain. It's hard not to listen to The Lion and the Wolf's second album and not feel a little of that seismic shift yourself. If you don't feel it in the billowing organ chord that begins 'Don't Fail Me Now', then it'll fill you on 'Myfatherseyes'. The reverb weight blurring the edges, seemingly disintegrating Thomas's voice, brings pathos to the urgent, searing sounds that brew underneath.
Violins, brass and lyrics that break upon the softest ears and hearts like waves, particularly on 'The Pinching Point' (“All the time struggled to breathe, now she doesn't have to grieve at the finish line”), while pianos and seething strings seem to bellow over the gentle finger picking and clicking drums on closer 'Find The Time'. 

It feels fragile while wrapping itself in strength of heart, a certain courage needed to bare the soul or strip down to honesty. The Cardiac Hotel is still warm though, never feeling disconnected from the listener, probably because of the lack of digital interference. And that's important because The Lion and the Wolf is all about intimacy and understanding.

You'll never be alone with The Lion and the Wolf, and you'll never have to feel that way now you're part of the pride and pack.

TRACKLISTING
1. Don’t Fail Me Now
2. Heaven Forbid
3. My Father’s Eyes
4. The Hospital Floor
5. Walk On The Moon
6. The Pinching Point
7. Barstools
8. December
9. Past The Point Of Fair
10. Witness
11. Find The Time

"An elegantly understated and wistfully melancholic collection of prime-cut songs in the singer-songwriter vein" – Musical Melting Pot on Symptoms (92%)

“...filled with emotion, beautiful vocals and wonderful melody” - Alt Corner.

"‘Symptoms’ is an accomplished album from one of the most underrated singer-songwriters in the UK today. It’s poignant, mature, and the perfect soundtrack for the long winter ahead” - Punktastic

"A wholly autumnal, acoustic-led slice of melancholy…one of the UK’s most promising singer-songwriters.” – Rock Sound

“Gentle vocals and lilting drive call to mind Elliot Smith and Simon and Garfunkel” - The Independent

facebook.com/thelionandthewolf / Twitter @TLATWuk

AGAINST ME! NEW ALBUM 'SHAPE SHIFT WITH ME' OUT 16 SEPTEMBER 2016 // PREORDER VIA XTRA MILE // LISTEN TO NEW SINGLE '333'

Celebrated American rock band Against Me! will release its highly-anticipated forthcoming new album Shape Shift With Me on 16 September 2016. The follow up serving as the follow up to the critically acclaimed Transgender Dysphoria Blues, you can now preorder Shape Shift With Me from XMR, your local indie shop or digitally via iTunes. Download preorders will receive the album’s lead single, ‘333’ instantly. Listen to '333' below.

Recorded, mixed and engineered by Marc Jacob Hudson (Taking Back Sunday, Saves The Day) at Rancho Recordo, Shape Shift With Me, Against Me!’s seventh full length album, has the distinction of the first album frontwoman Laura Jane Grace has written truly from the heart, with no metaphorical cloaks cast over the lyrics. It’s an album about love, that deceptively complex emotion we all struggle with yet has somehow eluded most of Grace’s songwriting for the past 20 years.

“Tonnes of people have written about love. But while love is cliché, it’s infinitely relevant,” Grace says. “For me, having always been in a punk band that was expected to be political, I never felt like I had that option to write about feelings in that way. That’s what I ended up being drawn to this time. It’s writing in a way I thought I could never write before, and not giving a shit about expectations.”

As such, Shape Shift With Me is a loose concept album about travelling the world and falling in and out of love, with Grace serving as the narrator. But even though she was opening herself up to new songwriting topics, she knew what her mission was from the start.

“Is there a record that is about relationships from a trans perspective?” she asks rhetorically. “There needs to be more records about trans rights and everything like that, but feeling like I already did that, I wanted to move on to write commentary on living from a trans perspective. I wanted to write the transgender response to the Rolling Stones’ Exile On Main St., Liz Phair’s Exile In Guyville and The Streets’ A Grand Don’t Come For Free. All those records are relationship records. There’s been an infinite amount of records talking about what love means from a cisgender perspective. I wanted to present the trans perspective on sex, love and heartbreak.”

With Grace’s new motivation came a new outlook on the band as well. Previous albums found the songwriting process to be a largely solitary experience, but she embraced the spirit of collaboration for Shape Shift With Me – so much so that when Cody Votolato of The Blood Brothers sent her some demos of songs he was working on for another project, she became inspired and ended up co-writing 'Boyfriend' and 'Norse Truth', two of the album’s most memorable tracks, with him.

“It was just about opening up to whatever comes my way karmically,” Grace says. “Whatever everyone in the band is willing to offer, I just wanted to be open to it. I didn’t want it to be like what it was in the past where it may have felt closed. I want it to be different.”

In a career already full of classic punk records, Shape Shift With Me feels like the definitive Against Me! album – it’s poppy and catchy ('Rebecca', 'Suicide Bomber'), aggressive and in-your-face ('ProVision L-3', 'Dead Rats'), sentimental and longing ('Crash', 'All This (And More')). Moreover, it’s the culmination of four years of existence as Laura Jane Grace—there’s no going back now, so she might as well embrace it.

“While I’ve always wanted the moon and the stars, I have a certain amount of humbleness,” she admits. “I just want to play shows and make records and write songs. That’s what I’ve always wanted to do. Of course I always want the biggest and best things for those shows and records and songs, but when it comes down to it, I just love doing it. I have no other ambitions or career goals.”

Against Me! will be touring extensively throughout North America with headline appearances as well as touring with Bad Religion and Dave Hause this fall. Then, in December, the band head over to the UK and Europe for a headline run of shows – dates are:

DECEMBER
06 Birmingham @ O2 Academy 2
07 Manchester @ Academy 2
08 London @ Electric Ballroom
09 Glasgow @ Garage
10 Bristol @ SWX
11 Nottingham @ Rescue Rooms
13 Amsterdam @ Melkweg
14 Brussels @ Magasin 4
15 Zurich @ Dynamo
16 Munich @ Backstage Halle
17 Leipzig @ Conne Island
18 Vienna @ Wuk
19 Linz @ Posthof
20 Cologne @ Live Music Hall
21 Hamburg @ Fabrik
22 Berlin @ So 36

Shape Shift With Me tracklisting:
1. ProVision L-3
2. 12:03
3. Boyfriend
4. Crash
5. Delicate, Petite & Other Things I'll Never Be
6. 333
7. Haunting, Haunted, Haunts
8. Dead Rats
9. Rebecca
10. Norse Truth
11. Suicide Bomber
12. All This (And More)

Frontwoman Laura Jane Grace recently announced the release of her upcoming memoir titled TRANNY: Confessions of Punk Rock’s Most Infamous Anarchist Sellout. Set for release on November 15, 2016 through Hachette Books, TRANNY is a searing account of Grace’s search for identity and true self. The highly-anticipated book also reveals the struggles and victories that the artist experienced in her quest for gender transition. Written with Noisey editor Dan Ozzi and illuminated by Grace’s never-before-published journal entries reaching back to childhood, TRANNY is an intensely personal and revelatory look inside her struggles with identity and addiction. Grappling with everything from sex, drugs, failed marriages, music, and soul of a punk rock star, this memoir paints a vivid portrait of one of the most revolutionary transgender icons of our time.

facebook.com/againstme / Twitter: @againstme / www.againstme.net