You may have noticed the pretty banners decorating the front page of our website. Hint: they look like this.

Or you may have ventured here from our social media. Hopefully you haven’t failed to notice the January sale emblazoning our web presence. That’s stage one sorted. Stage two is the tricky bit: deciding what to apply the 20% discount to.

Sure I know you’ve already got some in mind or you might've already bought some. But just like the olden days of record shop advice, those experts standing there and mildly judging your initial choices but then coaxing you towards the true gems, we’re here to help you make the most of this sale (and indeed our back catalogue). Yes. We want you to spend money in our shop because that’s what we’re here for - shilling our wares like any business trying to survive - but you will also save money on things you probably will end up buying anyway. Remember that every purchase helps our artists, and us, so that we can keep bringing you the quality you want and (probably) deserve. Let’s see now. You say you’re into…

Vinyl upgrade / retrograde?

No recommendations as such here but while it’s really nice having music on the move, streamable or downloaded to a device to filtrate your morning commute. And perhaps you enjoy the superior audio quality of FLAC or the higher-res sheen of compressed audio files on a compact disc. But vinyl is something you can admire in its large, beautiful sleeve, the actual vinyl itself sometimes adorned with bright, vibrant colour (though honestly, standard black just looks and feels right). With different audio qualities to digital - you may have heard the adjectives ‘warm’ and ‘authentic’ - it’s a completely different experience to tinny earphones or expensive headphones. While we try and remove stuff from our lives, as our living spaces get ever smaller and our income diminishes in real terms, vinyl can be neatly stacked on display and make you feel and look like a music fan. It signals to other such people that you care about how you curate your collection. Not that it means you’re better than other music fans mind you, but if you’re going to collect something, this isn’t just a set of possessions: they’re solid experiences stamped onto plastic. With all that in mind, why not grab some of your favourite albums on vinyl right now with 20% off? 

Hidden gems

We’ve released a lot of music over the 10 years, a lot of it being great. You may have missed out, whether because you’re new to Xtra Mile or just hadn’t got round to checking out our family of artists. Often, artists you know have guested on other musicians’ records, and you may not have realised so you find a new favourite. There’s also just some releases which were one-offs that just aren’t like much else around either now or at the time they came out. Some of these might have got lost in the shuffle. We’ve got a few of these, and this is them

HalfNoise - HalfNoise

This one kind of came out of nowhere at the time. Zac Farro, the current drummer of Paramore, left the band back in 2012 and immediately launched himself into a largely-solo project which was completely different from his previous dayjob. Though he's now gone back to Paramore, surely a tough thing to resist as a jobbing musician, he kept up music-making with two albums as HalfNoise in the five years he was apart from Hayley and her crew. We were fortunate enough to get the chance to release the first HalfNoise EP on 10” vinyl and CD. It's a
Billy the Kid - Horseshoes and Hand Grenades
Dartz! - This Is My Ship

Stapleton - Rest and Be Thankful
Straight Lines - Freaks Like Us
Oxygen Thief - The Half-Life of Facts
I Am The Avalanche - Avalanche United
The Retrospective Soundtrack PLayers
Esmé Patterson - Woman To Woman
The newest releases?
One of the huge benefits of having a month-long sale with a code applied at checkout is that you can pick up any preorders, pay ahead of their release and get them cheaper before they’re due to arrive. There are also brand new albums from the last couple of months that you can pick up if you didnt have the cash over Christmas. Here’s some brilliant new things to get.
Get Cape. Wear Cape. Fly – Young Adult (out 19 Jan)
The first album under the Get Cape moniker since 2014’s London Royal (released by our good friends on Alcopop! records), it’s the manifesto of a more politically-focused and musically-inspired Sam Duckworth, having refined his vision as Recreations in 2016. It's a feast for the ears: beginning with the appropriately melancholy 'Adults' with just a hint of synth and a horn-backed outro - almost a micro journey map for the entire album -  into the acoustic declaration of division on 'DNA', letting the slow-burn nightclub brood of 'Always' to leave dark embers on your memory halfway through, later thrusting a blatant fuzz-laden burst of absurdity at you on 'VHS Forever', and then onto the upbeat reframing of negativity on 'Just A Phase'.

There are five more songs to embrace too in Get Cape's signature synthesis of indie-folk and electronic and dance influences - a copious grasp of the UK music scene over the past 30 years dished lovingly into ten songs fired into existence by political uproar and personal turmoil. It's the album we've wanted for the times we wished we weren't seeing and hearing. Listen and feel empowered. 
Will Varley – Spirit of Minnie (out 9 Feb)
The solo songwriter has assembled a band for his fifth album
Ducking Punches – Alamort (out 16 Feb)
Gaps in your collection - classics to fill your gaps
Chris T-T – The Bear (or maybe the Best Of)
Ben Marwood - Outside, There’s A Curse
Jamie Lenman - Muscle Memory
Dive Dive - Potential

Future of the left - the plot against common sense

Recreations - Baby Boomers 2
Mineral - The Complete Collection
Million Dead - Harmony No Harmony
Against Me! - Transgender Dysphoria Blues
Your Favourite Frank Turner album