Ace Vinyl & CDs

Review: .Following the success of his Sunday Morning, Coming Down compilation, Ace Records has asked Bobby Gillespie to put together a follow-up. This time round, the Primal Scream frontman has decided to showcase tracks he turns to "for solace, comfort and empathy" during the Scottish band's various tours. Offering a mix of country, blues, Americana, psychedelia and soul, the selected songs - including inspired efforts by Willie Nelson, Lee Hazelwood, Al Green, the Chi-Lites, Ry Cooder and Kate & Anna McGringle (whose 'Heart Like a Wheel' is a genuinely tender and heart-aching affair) - more than deliver on the album's conceptual premise, offering equal amounts of emotion and entertainment.

Review: House music exploded in the UK in 1987 and continued to blow up in the ensuing summers. But with all the high energy parties and ever more visceral rave sounds, people needed a break, and so it was that in February of 1990 the KLF invented new slowed down after-sounds on their Chill Out mix. This collection gathers best sub 100bpm cuts form that time, as assembled by Saint Etienne's Bob Stanley. Fun fact - the artwork for the LP is a picture from the new book on acid house by photographer Dave Swindells which is well worth copping if you can.

Review: Saint Etienne's Bob Stanley and Pete Wiggs have more than proven their music knowledge across a stellar run of prior compilations, including The Daisy Age, Fell From The Sun and English Weather. This time around, they're tapping into the freeform climes of the late 70s and early 80s, as punk exploded and a myriad of bands channelled the unique, downcast mood of Britain into wildly creative, nervously urgent songs. Across four sides we take in all manner of cult selections and outer limits largely in the loose fit realm of post-punk. It's flawlessly selected and programmed - another reminder of how immersive a proper compilation can be.

Review: On his latest compilation for Ace, St Etienne's Bob Stanley has chosen to evoke memories of the summer of 1976, when Britain sweltered under a heatwave and those under the age of 16 felt like the school holidays went on forever. Stanley's vision is undoubtedly a nostalgic one, with many of his on-point musical selections seemingly coming with their own opaque, easy listening-tinged sepia hue (see Lynsey de Paul's 'Sugar Shuffle' and Jefferson Starship's hazy 'Miracles'). Highlights are plentiful, from the jammed-out Clavinet solos of Simon Park's 'Stoned Out' and the soul sweetness of Shuggie Otis's 'Inspiration Information', to the Bob James style jazz-funk of John Cameron's 'Liquid Sunshine', and the bubbly Brazilian bliss of Azymuth's 'Montreal City'.

Review: And the award for most apt compilation title of the year goes to... While on face value it may seem like the USA's Pacific North West and UK's English North West have very little in common, this collection of tracks confirm there are similarities. And they go further than the damp conditions both regions often have to endure. Cheshire-born Burgess and West Coast native Stanley have been friends for 30 years, and their respective homelands collide here. Tim Peaks Diner, established by the former as a festival pop up, apparently owes much of its stylings to "Twin Peaks", and that series-cum-movie-cum-legend has inspired much of the soundtrack to said eatery. New Wave (The Chills), opiate folk (Gwenno), psychedelic country (Blue Orchids) and plenty more help capture the mood of a fantastical waypoint on some fictional road trip.

Review: Although most associated with punk thanks to his now canonical history of the movement, England's Dreaming, Jon Savage has always had far broader taste than most - not to mention an acute sense that the late 1970s were aa genuinely exciting musical free-for-all that paved the way for much of what came next. This excellent double-disc compilation gives a taste of what he was listening to in that period, moving between reggae, dub (the Revolutionaries, Joe Gibbs & The Professionals), throbbing Euro-disco (Space, Giorgio Moroder), American garage-rock (Iggy Pop), spaced-out spoken word eccentricity (John Cooper Clarke), formative new wave synth-pop (The Normal, The Human League), industrial (Cabaret Voltaire), punk (and lots of it), and much more besides.