‘It’s About Time’ is now out and you are able to download it. Please do. It’s a really clever record, filled with inventive beats and smart rhymes and is certainly more than worth some of your, ahem, time.

Dominic Fox is the author of the frankly brilliant Cold World that is forthcoming from the marvelous Zero Books. Via Hopkins and Coleridge as well as Ulrike Meinhof, it is a work that considers the positive political aspects of sadness, seeing dejection as a force capable of unhooking someone from the world in order to think a better one.

In celebration of the book’s release we are pleased to be putting out a record by Spiral Jacobs, one of Dominic’s music projects, entitled Prolegomenon, which will serve, indeed, as a musical prolegomenon to the work. The following video gives a hint of what to expect when it arrives in late September: spiralling blackened ambience drifting through withered forests, investigating ‘unholy minimalism’, an attempt to use the techniques of minimalist composers like Arvo Pärt but with disharmony and in the spirit of Burzum and Xasthur. Fascinatingly bleak and utterly unlike anything we have put out before.

Don’t forget, ‘It’s About Time’ by Talk Less, Say More comes out tomorrow.

Indie pop geniuses wot-we-were-very-pleased-to-put-their-album-out We Show Up On RadaR have a delicious new record in the pipeline, put out by the excellent Hello Thor Records who are also home to the marvelous Fists. It’s a double A-side single on limited-edition perfect pink vinyl featuring two ditties, Mountain Top and A Spider On A Thread, and is out on the 17th of August. The former features a Speak & Spell, which always marks a work out for my attention and is a song which captures the difficulties of getting someone to fall in love (with you) brilliantly. It is highly lickable and can be pre-purchased via the Hello Thor website.

If you go down to Nottingham Central Library on the 15th of August you are sure for a big surprise, as We Show On RadaR will be cranking out their tunes among the stacks of books – wine and cake will also be in evidence. Could get cakey, worth a punt, RSVP on Facebook.

We are proud to announce that you can now pre-order the physical version of the new album by Les Étoiles, To Leave A Mark. The packaging is wonderful and is well worth the mere £8 you will have to part with as it contains lyrics, photographs and three additional songs not on the download version.

The record will be released both as this version and in the usual download formats on the 18th of September. We are having an album launch party on that day at Jam Café in Nottingham starting at about 8 pm. Dave will be playing naturally, and will be supported by EL Heath. The two will likely engage in some kind of live collaboration, which could be very special indeed. It will be free entry and feature a display of the album artwork and we’ll get someone with taste to play some songs in between bands and a jolly time should be had by all. Let us know your coming at Last.fm and Facebook.

We are very proud to announce the release of the long awaited album from Talk Less, Say More – ‘It’s About Time’ on the 15th of August.

Jell has turned out an incredible record of utterly unprecedented abstract hip-hop. It considers the mysteries of time, space, quantum mechanics and personal relationships through shimmering futuristic production recalling Bone Thugz and Harmony, Timbaland, eDIT, Company Flow, Rustie and Flying Lotus. As ever, Talk Less, Say More effortlessly connects the abstract with the concrete through deft rhymes and inventive, twisted beats reading the hip-hop rule book as much as the Copenhagen Interpretation. Contains the absolutely gorgeous Song For Ludwig Boltzmann which I commend to you all as honestly one of my favourite songs of all time (over egging the cake a bit, but it is very good). Artwork comes from Danny Pig.

Please download the one sheet, and contact us at press@recordsonribs.com if you are a blogger or from the press and want a copy in advance for review. Or are just really anxious to get hold of it.

This will be followed by I Dont Know Where I Am, I Dont Know What I’m Doing, a collection of additional tracks and remixes that complements last year’s critically acclaimed Go Lucky.

Wind, Thee Wind by EL Heath is now out. Apologies for the delay. It’s a wonderful release, so please download it. Note that downloading of our releases by torrent is integrated into the site now, just download in the usual way and select the torrents at the bottom of the page should you wish to use them.

The new record Last Rites from All The Empires Of The World has been released (also as a torrent – mp3, flac and ogg files). Apologies for the slight delay on this one. It’s a really wonderful record, so please download it.

Just to note, you can follow us over at Twitter, or at the open source alternative Identi.ca. All the various happenings on this site are recorded there, so you’ll never miss an update.

We are pleased to announce the forthcoming release of the second album form Les Étoiles entitled To Leave A Mark.

Like it’s predecesor, To Leave A Mark is an album of hesitation and sadness, memory and realisation, fear and acceptance, comfort and sorrow, all expressed with great beauty, simplicity and grace – an organ, a simple drum machine, a guitar, a hushed vocal, a moment of silence, a distant radio playing. To Leave A Mark was recorded by Les Étoiles during a period of stay in his home town and is a tribute to the places found there, many of which provided direct inspiration for the music.

The album will be available for free download and as an exclusive and gorgeously detailed limited edition boxed set. The boxed set will include the album itself as well a lyric sheets, photographs, maps, postcards and mysterious objects. Each boxed set will be individual and handmade by Les Étoiles himself. Pre-orders are now open.

This record will be the first release from Les Étoiles this year. The second as yet untitled record will feature unheard compositions by Les Étoiles finished in collaboration with Records On Ribs artists EL Heath and Talk Less, Say More as well as others. A project that is very exciting indeed.

Stand by for further updates and details of three forthcoming releases from Records On Ribs.

One of the things we say in our manifesto is that anyone could do what we are doing. This post (below the fold) describes the technical nuts and bolts of how this site works so you can maybe do the same. In particular it describes the genesis of the software that runs this site – Ribcage. We get a fair bit of e-mail about it, which I am always very pleased to answer.

Myself and The Fabulous Mr Eric Lee are going to host the first annual ROR hackathon in January – the intention being twofold. First to expand Ribcage beyond its current parameters – to interface with Last.fm and Musicbrainz properly, to add details of gigs for our various artists, to allow users to be informed of updates more easily. Secondly and more vitally, it is also to make Ribcage a WordPress plugin that anyone can install and use. The implication is, we hope, obvious: anyone who can run a blog will be able to run a download label. With the new WordPress 2.7 allowing plugins to be installed direct from the repository without messing around with FTP and the like, this means that you could go from a standard blog to a label blog in less than five minutes – imagine the possibilities!

Photo by flickring.

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Since the start of Records On Ribs we’ve been without a logo and the above header has laboured under a Web-safe font. Eagle-eyed readers among you will have already noticed our lovely new logo that has replaced it. Here it is big, click it for bloody huge.

Wayne Pashley, who also designed the sleeve for Talk Less, Say More‘s ‘It’s About Time’ EP and the collaboration So How Does It Feel To Be Educated?, put this together for us, and naturally we can’t thank him enough for this brilliant hard work. At some point we’ll maybe coerce him lightly into doing a guest post on how the concepts came about. Here is another version of the logo.

Expect T-shirts, mugs, hats and other various wares to wing their way to you presently. For now, sate your appetite by downloading this collection of lovely wallpapers, including one for the iPhone. Want to know which one to use? Then find out your screen resolution.