Our stock unit runs its eye over the best of the new music releases for June:
Music to reserve and collect
Lazaretto by Jack White
Born the youngest of 10 children, raised in Southwest Detroit and a resident of Nashville since 2005, Jack White is one of the most prolific and renowned artists of the past fifteen years.
White has constantly reinvented himself, forming a “new band of old friends” the Raconteurs in 2006 and their debut album Broken Boy Soldiers showed a markedly different side, most notably one where songwriting, vocal and guitar duties were shared.
In 2009 White took to his original instrument, the drums, and started the Dead Weather with members of the Kills, Queens of the Stone Age and the Greenhornes. Releasing two albums in two years and unleashing a dark, captivating live show, the Dead Weather further-cemented Jack White’s musical versatility and range.
In 2012 White released his debut album Blunderbuss. You never quite know what to expect with a Jack White album. Why not borrow it and find out?
More modern classics by Paul Weller
A follow up to Modern Classics, this is a neat catch up for fans who may not have bought all his recent work
Contains tracks from the past 15 years and two new releases, including Brand New Toy, recorded for Record Store Day 2014.
Whispers by Passenger
Mike Rosenberg has been busking and serenading bar customers as Passenger since he dropped out of school at 17.
He’s travelled across Europe and released a slew of independent albums, this is the follow up to mega hit Let Her Go.
Disgraceland by The Orwells
Recent Arctic Monkeys’ supporters The Orwells are an indie/garage band from Elmhurst, Chicago. Their second album features production from Dave Sitek (Yeah Yeah Yeahs, TV On the Radio), Chris Coady (Beach House) and Jim Abbiss (Arctic Monkeys).
Stay gold by First Aid Kit
More amazing folk harmonies from Swedish sisters Klara and Johanna. If you like folk music with gorgeous harmonies you really should listen to this.
Revival by Bellowhead
Britain’s most successful traditional folk act are back! Expect their unique sense of drama and theatre, instrumental virtuosity, verve, humour and blind cheek that has seen them spearhead the new folk boom.
One of the best live acts the UK has produced in recent years, they’re a key fixture on the festival scene.
Winners of the BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards Best Live Act an amazing 5 times, as well as Best Group twice. They’ve also been Artists in Residence at London’s South Bank Centre for 5 years, hosted a Christmas special for BBCTV, launched their own real ale(!) and, at the request of the producers, recorded new versions of the theme tunes for The Archers and The Simpsons.
Music for streaming and download
Mystery Girl Deluxe by Roy Orbison
This release brings together the album’s original 10 songs, including the worldwide smash single You Got It, in addition to premiering 9 previously unreleased studio and work-tape demos.
Among these is The Way Is Love, featuring a newly restored Roy Orbison vocal track layered with contemporary guitar, drum and vocal accompaniment by Roy’s three sons, Roy Jr., Alex and Wesley.
Xscape by Michael Jackson
Xscape is the second posthumous compilation album of previously unreleased tracks by Michael Jackson.
Within 24 hours of its official release, the album became number one in over 50 countries.
A Thousand Hearts by Cara Dillion
Cara Dillon, one of folk’s leading lights, returns with a captivating album on her own Charcoal Records in partnership with Sony Music.
A Thousand Hearts follows 2009′s Radio 2 Folk Album of the Year Hill of Thieves.
Produced and arranged by husband Sam Lakeman, the album features guest vocals from Timothy B Schmit (The Eagles), American singer/songwriter Aoife O’Donovan and English folk musician John Smith.
The 11 songs are an eclectic mix of the traditional and contemporary, loosely themed around affairs of the heart. They include Avalanche a stunning cover of the Shawn Colvin song and River, Run a cover of little known 90’s indie pop act Suddenly Tammy!, a beautiful song about River Phoenix.
X-men: Days of Future Past (original motion picture soundtrack) by John Ottman
The composer John Ottman is no stranger to this epic movie series and the superhero genre. He’s the musical right-hand man of Bryan Singer, with whom he collaborated on The Usual Suspects, Jack the Giant Slayer and Valkyrie, and for whom he wrote the soundtrack of X2, the second in the X-Men series.
Une Seule Fois Live 2013 by Celine Dion
From humble beginnings in a rural French Canadian home town, Celine Dion has risen to international superstardom.
The premier contemporary pop vocalist of the 1990′s, Celine was presented the World Music Award for the Best-selling Female Pop Artist of All Time in 2004. Over the course of her career, she has earned music industry accolades from around the world.