Yoo hoo: This week at South

The Durutti Column return with Renascent, their first new studio album in more than fifteen years, finding Vini Reilly's unmistakable guitar work surrounded by warm ambient textures, subtle electronics and guest vocals from Caoilfhionn Rose. It's a beautiful, understated record that feels both unmistakably Durutti Column and quietly forward-looking. Alongside it, we also have a welcome reissue of Vini Reilly, originally released in 1989 and produced by Stephen Street. Featuring favourites including Love No More and Otis, it's been newly mastered, presented in its original sleeve and expanded with an eight-page booklet. Shintaro Sakamoto follows 2022's Like A Fable with Yoo-Hoo, another effortlessly distinctive collection that draws together blues, mood kayō, surf instrumentals, 1960s soul and funk into something entirely his own. If you've enjoyed Haruomi Hosono, Connan Mockasin, or Sakamoto's previous solo records, this is an easy recommendation. Heavy rock fans should take a look at Leaf Hound's Growers of Mushroom, the band's hugely influential 1971 debut, now cut all-analogue by Alex Wharton at Abbey Road. Once overlooked, it's since become one of the defining underground hard rock records of its era, with its huge riffs helping to shape generations of stoner and heavy rock bands. Flamin' Groovies' Shake Some Action also returns in a superb new edition, mastered by Kevin Gray from the original 1976 master tapes and pressed at RTI on limited green vinyl. Produced by Dave Edmunds, it's a record that perfectly captures the band's love of British Invasion melodies and power-pop hooks, and remains one of the finest guitar-pop albums of the 1970s. Finally, Tyler, The Creator returns with Don't Tap The Glass, another confident, unpredictable album from one of modern hip hop's most consistently inventive artists. Packed with adventurous production, memorable hooks and Tyler's unmistakable personality, it's another reminder that few artists continue to evolve while remaining so immediately recognisable. As always, you'll find all of this week's new releases in the shop and online now.

→ Recommended

If you're looking for one album that captures the moment hardcore punk began evolving into something bigger, New Day Rising is hard to beat. Released in 1985, just months after the groundbreaking Zen Arcade, Hüsker Dü refined their ferocious energy with stronger melodies and more ambitious songwriting without sacrificing any of their intensity. Songs like Celebrated Summer, The Girl Who Lives on Heaven Hill and Books About UFOs helped lay the foundations for alternative rock, influencing countless bands that followed. More than forty years on, New Day Rising remains one of the essential American guitar records of the 1980s—raw, melodic and every bit as exhilarating as when it first appeared. UK first pressing right here.