Encore Records

Gorillaz

Plastic Beach

Deluxe CD/DVD edition includes a bonus DVD that contains a 45 minute documentary on the ‘making of’ the album hosted by Murdoc but featuring creators Damon Albarn and Jamie Hewlett.

Long awaited 2010 album from the genre-defying animated musical collective.

Five years on from the release of Demon Days, Murdoc Niccals and Co. return with Plastic Beach.

The band have taken up residence, recording on a secret floating island deep in the South Pacific, a plastic beach HQ, made up of the detritus, debris and washed up remnants of humanity.

This plastic beach is the furthest point from any landmass on earth; the most deserted spot on the planet.

As the world’s biggest animated band, Gorillaz formed in 1998, and have since sold 12 million copies over two albums!

Pet Shop Boys

Pandemonium Live

Two disc (CD + NTSC/Region 0 DVD) live release from the veteran British Synth Pop/Electronic duo.

Captured on their sold-out worldwide Pandemonium tour, this release sees the Pet Shop Boys at the height of their powers.

Featuring songs from 2009’s critically acclaimed Yes album plus all their greatest hits including ‘West End Girls’, ‘Being Boring’ and ‘Heart’, Pandemonium is the definitive live Pet Shop Boys experience; shot in HD and mixed by Stuart Price.

The DVD also features three music videos and two exclusive live encore tracks performed at the 02 - including a cover of ‘My Girl’ by Madness.

Last, but by no means least, is the spectacular BRITs performance from 2009 when the Pet Shop Boys were honored with the prestigious Outstanding Contribution to Music Award. This performance features both Lady Gaga and Brandon Flowers from The Killers.

Also included is a brand new audio commentary from Neil and Chris together with the show’s creative director Es Devlin.

Magnetic Fields

Realism

Singer-songwriter Stephin Merritt originally conceived Realism, The Magnetic Fields’ third Nonesuch release, due out January 26 on CD and February 9 on vinyl, as a companion to the group’s brash 2008 Distortion, though the more tremulous listeners among us can rest assured they won’t have to frantically reach for the volume-control knob this time.

Realism, at least on its decorous surface, comes across as a flipside to Distortion, the aural opposite of that clangorous homage to industrial pop of the Jesus and Mary Chain.

“I thought of the two records as a pair,” Merritt reveals, “and I kind of wanted them to be called True and False. But I couldn’t decide which I wanted to be called True and which I wanted to be called False. They both have to do with the notions of truth and falsehood in recording and music—not particularly with the lyrics but with the production style. Distortion went as far as one could really go in the direction of stylized noise-pop, which is probably the limit of stylization in rock before it turns into some other genre.

And Realism is folk, although I couldn’t really bring myself to go all the way with folk. I can’t stand the sound of an acoustic guitar for more than three minutes at a time. So I didn’t go really, really folk, I thought I would go in a ‘variety folk’ format, like a Judy Collins or a Judy Henkse album. Most of my favorite records are variety records. Distortion was one monolithic production idea and Realism is a more kaleidoscopic approach to a genre.”