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LISTINGJason Isbell's songs are filled with ghosts. They're haunted by spirits both welcome and unwelcome, by the personal and historical legacies that make us who we are. Nowhere Is this more evident than on his 2013 breakthrough album Southeastern. Isbell offers confessions. reflections. and promises that contront and make communion with those who have come before and remain wIth us still. Its twelve tracks represent an extended meditation on the concept articulated by another celebrated southern storyteller, author William Faulkner: "The past is never dead. It isn't even past."
Wilco’s thirteenth studio album, Cousin, was recorded in the band’s legendary Chicago studio – The Loft – over a period of two years. The ten new tracks are written by band leader Jeff Tweedy and feature musical performances by the longtime lineup of Nels Cline, Mikael Jorgensen, Glenn Kotche, John Stirratt, Pat Sansone and, of course, Tweedy on lead vocals.
After a short detour back into their country-influenced roots via last year’s Cruel Country double album, Cousin sees Wilco back in their more familiar progressive and experimental rock territory. Tweedy’s singular songwriting voice is in full evidence, with lyrics weaving across a variety of topics – from the iconoclastic to the introspective.
Adding a unique and new element to the recording process was the attachment of Welsh singer/songwriter Cate Le Bon as producer – the first time an outsider has been actively involved in a Wilco recording session for more than ten years, since Yankee Hotel Foxtrot. Le Bon brought her unique musical perspective to the band’s trademark sound and provided them with an inspiring new challenge to push their musical boundaries.
“I imagine myself playing these songs in a small club that is slowly burning,” says A. Savage of his second solo record, Several Songs about Fire. After more than a decade in New York, the co-frontman of Parquet Courts has left the city, marking his exit with a masterpiece of maturity and a worthy corollary to his first solo venture, 2017’s Thawing Dawn. “Fire is something you have to escape from. This album is a burning building, and these songs are things I’d leave behind to save myself.” Produced by John Parish on a 1” 16-track in just ten days in Bristol and studded by the support of Cate Le Bon and Jack Cooper (Modern Nature, Ultimate Painting) as well as saxophonist Euan Hinshelwood (Cate Le Bon), drummer Dylan Hadley (Kamikaze Palm Tree, White Fence), and violinist Magdalena McLean (Caroline), Savage’s outsize gifts as a lyricist and observer – a quality Parish calls “an emotional openness guarded by a laconic wit" – shine. Worrying questions of wealth and poverty, self and other, Savage displays the poet’s gift of knowing when to narrate and when to vanish, leaving the listener to their own emotional privacy rather than instructing them how to feel. The end result is tantamount to psychic odyssey, with “Elvis in the Army” placing us in a subterranean venue where the livid, ratifying cymbal raises the room’s blood pressure and “Mountain Time”, evoking an austere waltz playing in a desolate house, returning those listening to life. Influenced by Sybille Baier and Townes Van Zandt, Savage joins a canon of songwriters constantly dilating aperture and perspective. In rendering the signage of laundromats and threats of debt collectors as glistering and totemic as the scope of mountains, rivers, seas, and skies, Savage finds hopes and curses in equal measure.
Hiss Golden Messenger
Jump For Joy [Indie Exclusive Limited Edition Black & Orange LP]
Vinyl: $23.98 Buy
Toro y Moi’s Sandhills is both a tender love letter to Chaz Bear’s hometown of Columbia, South Carolina, and a poignant, bittersweet acceptance that one can never really go back home. Recalling Sufjan’s Seven Swans or Karen O’s soundtrack work for Where The Wild Things Are, these loping folk-pop songs are themselves a sort of Saturn return, reminiscent of Bear’s first handmade CD-Rs as Toro y Moi. Bear gave them out to friends in the earliest days of the moniker, the releases stuffed in the Case Logic visor of their cars, and each listen brings a little more of that detail to life: the mall after which Sandhills is named; the teenaged friends spending aimless hours there, full of big ennui and bigger dreams; the late-capitalist decline and empty big box stores of Sandhills today.
20th anniversary reissue of Jerry Cantrell's critically acclaimed second solo album with reimagined cover art and packaging, 12" 28-page booklet, and exclusive colored Halloween orange and brown color vinyl. First pressing in the U.S. since 2002.
Tyler Childers
Rustin’ in the Rain [Indie Exclusive Limited Edition Green Blend LP]
Vinyl: $23.98 Buy
Rustin’ in the Rain is the eagerly anticipated new album from singer-songwriter Tyler Childers. This collection of new songs is Childers’ sixth studio album, and the follow up to his critically acclaimed release Can I Take My Hounds to Heaven?.
Rustin’ in the Rain is produced by Childers alongside his longtime band The Food Stamps, and the album features the heartfelt single “In Your Love,” which Tyler first teased to fans earlier in 2023 during his Bonnaroo Music Festival performance.
Might As Well: A Round Records Retrospective presents a collection of Jerry Garcia’s most beloved solo studio recordings and collaborations with Grateful Dead lyricist Robert Hunter. The compilation contains 16 remastered, original recordings of fan favorites including “Sugaree,” “They Love Each Other,” “Rubin & Cherise” and “Cats Under The Stars,” among others. It highlights the performances that helped enshrine the Grateful Dead and Jerry Garcia in the Songwriters Hall of Fame.
Indie Exclusive * BRAD, which featured Stone Gossard (of Pearl Jam) and Shawn Smith (of Satchel and Pigeonhed), reissue is a classic from 1993. This 30th Anniversary album has been remastered. Recorded in October 1992 in 17 days at Avast Recording in Seattle Washington. featuring soft, nocturnal rock, giddy rhythms and glossy funk jams. Smith is an unusual vocalist even without the grunge influences of Brad’s circle of friends, like Gossard and Jeff Ament’s Green River or Regan and Andrew Wood’s Malfunkshun, Smith’s honeyed falsetto starts to sound like the song of another species altogether.
Joanna Sternberg is one of the great songwriters of the day, with a unique ability to make the listener feel emotional and often joyous, while conveying universal human difficulties of anxiety and insecurity. A virtuosic musician, Joanna played every instrument on their brilliant new album, I've Got Me, out June 30th.
A defining album of the 90s, Last Splash by The Breeders turns 30 this year. To celebrate, the band have returned to the original tapes to give it its first-ever remaster, and by doing so have also unearthed two lost tracks that will delight fans.
Recorded by the ‘classic’ Breeders line-up of Kim Deal, Kelley Deal, Josephine Wiggs and Jim Macpherson and featuring singles ‘Cannonball’ and ‘Divine Hammer’, Last Splash was “an alt-rock classic” (Pitchfork’s Top 100 Records of 1990s) on release; a fast seller too, quickly attaining Platinum status in the US.
Despite having had the boxset treatment on its 20th birthday, the album was still left to be remastered so 10 years on, the original ½” tapes were taken out of the archives and have been lovingly worked on by Kim Deal, Benjamin Mumphrey and Miles Showell (Abbey Road).
Never sounding so good, the album for its 30th anniversary, it’s getting the ultimate vinyl pressing. Entitled Last Splash (the 30th Anniversary Original Analog Edition), this new version has been cut at half speed at Abbey Road by Miles Showell, now spanning two LPs and running at 45rpm.
This edition contains an exclusive, one-sided etched 12” which features two previously unreleased tracks – ‘Go Man Go’ and ‘Divine Mascis’ (‘Go Man Go’ is a track that Kim co-wrote with Black Francis while ‘Divine Mascis’ is a different version of ‘Divine Hammer’ with Dinosaur Jr.’s J Mascis on lead vocals). Both tracks originate from the original sessions and were left forgotten until the sessions were exhumed to create this new master.
The attention to detail continues to the album’s art, which equally celebrates Vaughan Oliver’s iconic sleeve. With Vaughan sadly no longer with us, his long-time design partner Chris Bigg has gloriously reimagined the album’s sleeve for this new version.
Following it’s surprise digital release, Sigur Rós’ first new studio album in ten years, ÁTTA, is their most intimate and emotionally direct record to date. Few bands cut through the noise and distractions of the world to bring you a pure elemental truth or feeling like Sigur Rós. As you hear on ÁTTA, there’s a new compulsion and drive to the band that comes with the new formation of the line up. Multi-instrumentalist Kjartan Sveinsson is back in the fold – having left the band in 2012 – to join frontman Jónsi and bassist Georg Holm. Recorded across multiple continents - in the band’s Sundlaugin studio in Iceland, the legendary Abbey Road in the UK and a number of studios in the US - ÁTTA leans heavily towards the orchestral, and touches on everything that has made Sigur Rós one of the most ambitious and acclaimed bands of recent times, with close to ten million albums sold, whilst signposting an exciting and expansive possibility for their future. ÁTTA prominently features the London Contemporary Orchestra conducted by Robert Ames, alongside brass performed by longtime Icelandic collaborators Brassgat í bala. It is mixed and co-produced by another frequent collaborator Paul Corley, alongside the band."
You’re The One is singer/songwriter/multi-instrumentalist, Rhiannon Giddens’ 5th album and first full band release in over 6 years. The album, which is her first album of all original songs (all written or co-written by Giddens), was produced by Jack Splash (St. Paul and the Broken Bones, Valerie June, Solange) and features guest appearances from Jason Isbell, Leyla McCalla, and Eryn Allen Kane.
Over the course of her career, Rhiannon Giddens has established herself as one of the most important artists in the world. Her mission has been to lift up people whose contributions to American musical history have previously been erased, and to work toward a more accurate understanding of the country’s musical origins. That work has led to massive press recognition and multiple GRAMMY wins; a McArthur “Genius” grant, hosting various podcasts and tv shows, amongst countless other initiatives
Donald Byrd
Electric Byrd [Indie Exclusive] (Blue) [Colored Vinyl] [180 Gram] [Indie Exclusive]
Vinyl: $49.98 Buy
A sense of optimism infuses Penguin Cafe’s fifth studio album Rain Before Seven… not the braggadocious, overconfident kind, but more a blithe, self-effacing optimism in keeping with the national character. Even when all signs point to the contrary, it operates within the certainty that things are going to be alright. Probably. The title comes from an old weather proverb with the rhyming prognostication — fine before eleven — hinting at a happy ending, irrespective of the science: “I found it in a book and I'd never heard it before,” says Arthur Jeffes, leader of Penguin Cafe. “It has faintly optimistic overtones and I quite like it. It's fallen out of usage recently but it does describe English weather patterns coming in off the Atlantic.”
Rodney Crowell
The Chicago Sessions [Indie Exclusive Limited Edition Denim Blue LP]
Vinyl: $29.98 Buy
Take a look at the cover of Rodney Crowell’s brilliant new album, The Chicago Sessions, and you might recognize a familiar callback to the legendary songwriter’s 1978 debut.
“In a lot of ways, this album feels like that very first record to me,” Crowell reflects. “When my daughter Chelsea suggested we lay the artwork out similarly, the connection made perfect sense. There’s something very simple, very innocent about it. It’s just me and the band in a room together, loose and live and having fun.”
Produced by Wilco’s Jeff Tweedy, The Chicago Sessions is indeed a throwback to Crowell’s early days of making records, but it’s no nostalgia trip. The songs here are vital and timely, touching on everything from love and mortality to race and religion, and the performances are nothing short of intoxicating, fueled by raw guitars, honky-tonk piano, and tight, punchy drums. Tweedy wields a light touch as a producer, his influence subtle yet unmistakable, and engineer Tom Schick’s mixes are dynamic and alive, alternately lush and spacious in all the right places with a spotlight fixed firmly on Crowell’s warm, weathered vocals throughout. Put it all together and you’ve got a masterful, cross-generational collaboration that manages to feel both fresh and familiar all at once, an incisive, engaging collection that balances careful craftsmanship with joyful liberation at every turn.
Molly Tuttle & Golden Highway
City of Gold [Indie Exclusive Limited Edition Light Blue LP]
Vinyl: $24.98 Buy
City of Gold is the follow up to last year’s GRAMMY-winning Best Bluegrass Album, which also saw her nominated for Best New Artist. The album, which was produced by Bluegrass legend Jerry Douglas, and features a guest appearance from Dave Matthews, presents a band of top notch musicians, fronted by Tuttle, firing on all cylinders. The songs are rooted in Bluegrass, but expand on Tuttle’s ability to add elements of Indie Rock, Folk and Americana. Lyrically, the songs range from the personal (“The First Time I Fell In Love”) to the political (“Down Home Dispensary”) along with tributes to Alice in Wonderland (“Alice In The Bluegrass”) and her birth state of California (“San Joaquin”). Tuttle is one of the most exciting young voices/players in Bluegrass/Americana/Folk and 2023 is shaping up to be another big year for her with non-stop touring including stops at Bonnaroo, Newport Folk Festival, New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival, not to mention opening slots on a run of dates with Dierks Bentley, along with some dates on Willie Nelson’s Outlaw Music Fest Tour.
Freddie Gibbs
$oul $old $eparately [Indie Exclusive Limited Edition Neon Yellow LP + Flexi Disc]
Vinyl: $31.98 Buy
A lot of people don’t realize that Freddie has actually been in the game for over a decade and came in on the same Freshman XXL cover as Meek Mill, Nipsey Hussle etc…
Yet he was the only one with no major Label Backing or Artist Affiliation and his partnership with Warner is his very first solo Major Label deal.
With that being said, he feels as if he has made it thus far in his career without compromising his morals, Creative Integrity and Principals as a Man all while resisting temptations ….Hence the title “$oul $old $eparately."
Phil Ranelin / Harrison / Younge / Muhammad
Phil Ranelin & Wendell Harrison Jid016 (Blue) (Uk)
Vinyl: $28.98 Buy
At long last, the classic Steely Dan catalog is back on vinyl. Led by Walter Becker and Donald Fagen, Steely Dan released 7 albums from 1972-1980. The vinyl series continues with Countdown to Ecstasy, the band's sprawling 1973 sophomore LP with standouts such as "Bodhisattva," "Show Biz Kids" and "My Old School." 180-gram vinyl.
Created between Palm Springs, California and Hilo, Hawai'i, V is the first double album from the Hawaiian-New Zealand singer-songwriter, multi-instrumentalist and producer Ruban Nielson's Unknown Mortal Orchestra band. Designed to play as one continuous movement and road-tested on dry California freeways, V is the definitive Unknown Mortal Orchestra car record. It's also the fifth full-length album Ruban has released in twelve years. Across fourteen sunbleached songs - written solo or with his brother Kody - Ruban draws from the rich traditions of West Coast AOR, yacht rock, weirdo pop and Hawaiian Hapa-haole music. Over a laidback blend of singalong anthems and cinematic instrumentals, he evokes blue skies, afternoons spent lounging by hotel swimming pools and the alluring darkness that lurks below perfect, pristine surfaces. It's a duality expressed in the dilapidated sunset blues and the saltcorroded soul Ruban explores through tracks like 'Layla' and 'Nadja. ' During the pandemic's early days, Ruban reunited with Kody at a cousin's wedding in Hawai'i. With assistance from their father, Chris Nielson (saxophone/flute) and longstanding Unknown Mortal Orchestra member Jake Portrait, they brought everything Ruban had been thinking about together. The result was V, due for release on March 3, 2023, through Jagjaguwar. When they talked about records that moved them in that spine-shivering manner, Ruban started thinking about the 70s AM radio rock and 80s pop songs that had lurked on the edge of his subconscious mind for most of his life. He wanted to write his version of records like that, leading to the two glorious uptempo singles Unknown Mortal Orchestra released in 2021, 'Weekend Run' and 'That Life'. However, the golden good times never last forever. Not long after, health issues began to plague his extended family. Putting his recordings aside, he helped his mother and his uncle move home from New Zealand and Portland to Hawai'i, and began dividing his time between Hawai'i and Palm Springs. During this period he reconnected with his relatives, reassessed his past, and started to look at things with fresh eyes. Hawai'i brought back memories of the darker side of his parents' lifestyle as entertainers. On those trips, he heard those classic AM radio rock records everywhere. They were inextricably intertwined with the palm trees, swimming pools, and glamorized hedonism he'd internalized from his childhood. There's a type of music in Hawai'i called Hapa-haole (Half white). You can hear it expressed in signature Unknown Mortal Orchestra style through the humid guitar-led atmosphere of V's penultimate song, 'I Killed Captain Cook'. Although the songs are presented in a traditional Hawaiian manner, they're mostly sung in English. Having been influenced by Hawaiian music since Unknown Mortal Orchestra's first album, Ruban saw a space for himself within the tradition. When he reflected on his success, he realised he had the responsibility and platform to represent Hapa-haole music on the global stage.
"‘In Times New Roman...’, the 8th studio album from Queens of the Stone Age is raw, brutal & rough around the edges but with a refinement that reveals itself further with each successive listen — and QOTSA founder Joshua Homme’s lyrics are as witty and withering than ever. The results are instantly identifiable ; QOTSA’s sonic signature, expanded and embellished with new and unprecedented twists in virtually every song, a live in-a-room recording that showcases a band at the height of their creative powers.
‘In Times New Roman...’ is a party for the obscene and the clean, the outcasts and the weirdos, and anyone and everyone in between. One of the most important bands in recent rock history is B A C K but it’s no exaggeration to call this album a devastating rebirth."
Definitive edition of the 1985 studio album Low-Life. The collection includes an LP (180g), x2CDs, x2DVDs, a book and features unreleased and rare material across the different formats.
CD 2 contains previously unreleased mixes and alternative versions, including Love Vigilantes and Sub-Culture instrumentals, Sooner Than You Think Full Length Unedited.
The two DVDs include an unreleased performance from The Manhattan Club, Belgium and rarely seen footage from Rotterdam Arena (Netherlands), International Centre (Toronto, Canada) and a BBC filmed Whistle Test at The Hacienda, 1985.
NEW ORDER: LOW-LIFE DEFINITIVE EDITION
"‘In Times New Roman...’, the 8th studio album from Queens of the Stone Age is raw, brutal & rough around the edges but with a refinement that reveals itself further with each successive listen — and QOTSA founder Joshua Homme’s lyrics are as witty and withering than ever. The results are instantly identifiable ; QOTSA’s sonic signature, expanded and embellished with new and unprecedented twists in virtually every song, a live in-a-room recording that showcases a band at the height of their creative powers.
‘In Times New Roman...’ is a party for the obscene and the clean, the outcasts and the weirdos, and anyone and everyone in between. One of the most important bands in recent rock history is B A C K but it’s no exaggeration to call this album a devastating rebirth."
Written from 2020 to 2022 in between London and Liverpool, ‘Space Heavy’ took shape over the course of Archy’s commutes between the two cities where he was splitting his time. Befitting an album quite literally written on the commute between the two places he called home, Archy found himself fascinated by the notion of “the space between” – the space haunted by dreams of love, touching a narrative of lost connection, losing people and situations to the guillotine of the universe. ‘Space Heavy, indeed.’ The result is an album that inhabits the deepest reaches of the subterranean sonic world that Archy has constructed over the course of his career as King Krule. In it you hear a generational artist stepping into the height of their artistic powers – the auteurism apparent on his debut ‘6 Feet Beneath The Moon,’ the shapeshifting sonic palette of ‘The OOZ’ and the primality of ‘Man Alive!’ all coalesce into a wizened, dynamic body of work that reveals new elements with each listen. In line with Archy’s interest in the space between, it is an album wherein the negative space demands the same attention as the positive space. If one is willing to wade into the mire the reward is rich.
Fruit Bats
A River Running To Your Heart [Indie Exclusive Limited Edition Opaque Blue & Bone LP]
Vinyl: $22.98 Buy
A River Running to Your Heart represents the fullest realization of Johnson's creative vision to date. It's a sonically diverse effort that largely explores the importance of what it means to be home, both physically and spiritually. Self-produced by Johnson-a first for Fruit Bats-with Jeremy Harris at Panoramic House just north of San Francisco, A River Running to Your Heart is Fruit Bats' tenth full-length release. The album finds the project in the middle of a people-powered climb leading to the biggest shows, loudest accolades, and most enthusiastic new fans in Fruit Bats history! It's hard to pinpoint a single reason for this mid-career resurgence. But after two decades of making music, hard-earned emotional maturity has clearly seeped into Johnson's already inviting songs, resulting in a sound that's connected with audiences like no other previous version of the band.
Nimrod, Green Day’s fifth studio album, was originally released on October 14 1997. The Billboard Top 10 LP declared “Green Days best!” by Kerrang was driven by the hit singles “Hitchin’ A Ride”, “Redundant”, “Nice Guys Finish Last” and “Good Riddance (Time of Your Life)” the latter of which has sold 5 million copies in the US alone. The song was written as a spiteful ballad and has evolved into the soundtrack of everyone’s seminal life moments; even being featured in the Seinfeld series finale. The album has sold over 3 million copies in the US (triple platinum) and has been certified multi-platinum, platinum, or gold in several other countries, including the UK, Japan, Canada, Australia and Spain.
This 25th Anniversary Edition includes the original album, one disc of previously unreleased Nimrod demos, and a live set from Philadelphia recorded one month after Nimrod was released.
The 14 track demos disc includes two unreleased Green Day tracks (“You Irritate Me” and “Tre Polka”), plus a cover of the classic Elvis Costello song “Allison” (previously unreleased).
The live album was recorded at The Electric Factory in Philadelphia on November 14 1997. The 20-song set includes several songs from Nimrod, plus fan favorites from their previous albums and singles.
Nonesuch Records releases Your Mother Should Know: Brad Mehldau Plays The Beatles on February 10, 2023. The live solo album features the pianist and composer’s interpretations of nine songs by John Lennon and Paul McCartney and one by George Harrison. Although other Beatles songs have long been staples of Mehldau’s solo and trio shows, he had not previously recorded any of the tunes on Your Mother Should Know. The album ends with a David Bowie classic that draws a connection between The Beatles and pop songwriters who followed. Your Mother Should Know was recorded in September 2020 at Philharmonie de Paris.
“There is an undisputed universality to The Beatles,” Mehldau says. “Their music cuts across cultural and generational lines, as new listeners continue to discover it. There is an immediacy and integrity to their songs that draws everyone in.
“When I was getting started at the instrument, The Beatles were not on my radar yet, but a lot of the enduring piano-pop music I heard on the radio grew out of them. That music became part of my personality, and when I discovered The Beatles later, it all tied together. Their music, and its wide influence on other artists, continues to inform what I do.”
A Wednesday song is a quilt. A short story collection, a half-memory, a patchwork of portraits of the American south, disparate moments that somehow make sense as a whole. Karly Hartzman, the songwriter/vocalist/guitarist at the helm of the project, is a story collector as much as she is a storyteller: a scholar of people and one-liners. Rat Saw God, the Asheville quintet’s new and best record, is ekphrastic but autobiographical and above all, deeply empathetic. Across the album’s ten tracks Hartzman, guitarist MJ Lenderman, bassist Margo Shultz, drummer Alan Miller, and lap/pedal steel player Xandy Chelmis build a shrine to minutiae. Half-funny, half-tragic dispatches from North Carolina unfurling somewhere between the wailing skuzz of Nineties shoegaze and classic country twang, that distorted lap steel and Hartzman’s voice slicing through the din.
Rat Saw God is an album about riding a bike down a suburban stretch in Greensboro while listening to My Bloody Valentine for the first time on an iPod Nano, past a creek that runs through the neighborhood riddled with broken glass bottles and condoms, a front yard filled with broken and rusted car parts, a lonely and dilapidated house reclaimed by kudzu. Four Lokos and rodeo clowns and a kid who burns down a corn field. Roadside monuments, church marquees, poppers and vodka in a plastic water bottle, the shit you get away with at Jewish summer camp, strange sentimental family heirlooms at the thrift stores. The way the South hums alive all night in the summers and into fall, the sound of high school football games, the halo effect from the lights polluting the darkness. It’s not really bright enough to see in front of you, but in that stretch of inky void – somehow – you see everything.
The songs on Rat Saw God don’t recount epics, just the everyday. They’re true, they’re real life, blurry and chaotic and strange – which is in-line with Hartzman’s own ethos: “Everyone’s story is worthy,” she says, plainly. “Literally every life story is worth writing down, because people are so fascinating.”
72 seasons. The first 18 years of our lives that form our true or false selves. The concept that we were told ‘who we are’ by our parents. A possible pigeonholing around what kind of personality we are. I think the most interesting part of this is the continued study of those core beliefs and how it affects our perception of the world today. Much of our adult experience is reenactment or reaction to these childhood experiences. Prisoners of childhood or breaking free of those bondages we carry.”
-James Hetfield
Green Day
Nimrod: 25th Anniversary Edition [Indie Exclusive Limited Edition Silver 5LP Box Set]
Vinyl: $124.98 Buy
Nimrod, Green Day’s fifth studio album, was originally released on October 14 1997. The Billboard Top 10 LP declared “Green Days best!” by Kerrang was driven by the hit singles “Hitchin’ A Ride”, “Redundant”, “Nice Guys Finish Last” and “Good Riddance (Time of Your Life)” the latter of which has sold 5 million copies in the US alone. The song was written as a spiteful ballad and has evolved into the soundtrack of everyone’s seminal life moments; even being featured in the Seinfeld series finale. The album has sold over 3 million copies in the US (triple platinum) and has been certified multi-platinum, platinum, or gold in several other countries, including the UK, Japan, Canada, Australia and Spain.
This 25th Anniversary Edition includes the original album, one disc of previously unreleased Nimrod demos, and a live set from Philadelphia recorded one month after Nimrod was released.
The 14 track demos disc includes two unreleased Green Day tracks (“You Irritate Me” and “Tre Polka”), plus a cover of the classic Elvis Costello song “Allison” (previously unreleased).
The live album was recorded at The Electric Factory in Philadelphia on November 14 1997. The 20-song set includes several songs from Nimrod, plus fan favorites from their previous albums and singles.
The two full-length records that Jeff Mangum made as Neutral Milk Hotel sound both in and out of time. Like translations of a shared subconscious, 1996's On Avery Island and 1998's In the Aeroplane Over the Sea give voice to the perennial spirit of youthful epiphany, of beginning to see the world clearly, to process and express it- no matter when you encounter them. With lo-fi indie rock, accordion, singing saw, tape collages, the so-called "zanzithophone" and beyond, Neutral Milk Hotel created an eternal entry into their Elephant 6 scene and an enduring feeling of possibility. Contents: Black matte box is a 2-piece telescoping casewrapped package. Outer shrink wrap includes a front sticker with "Neutral Milk Hotel," and a back sticker listing box contents. In the Aeroplane Over the Sea LP is 11 tracks pressed 33RPM to black vinyl in a gatefold jacket. On Avery Island 2-LP is 12 tracks pressed to double black vinyl in a gatefold jacket + 11 x 11 printed insert. Sides A, B and C pressed 45RPM. Side D pressed 33RPM. Live at Jittery Joe's 12-inch picture disc is 11 tracks pressed 33RPM to a full color picture disc in a heavyweight poly jacket. Ferris Wheel on Fire 10-inch is 8 tracks pressed 45RPM to black vinyl in a printed jacket + postcard insert. Everything Is 10-inch is 7 tracks pressed 45RPM to black vinyl in a printed jacket + postcard insert. "Little Birds" 7-inch is 2 tracks pressed 45RPM to black vinyl in a printed jacket. 7-inch housed in a heavy weight poly jacket. "You've Passed" 7-inch is 2 tracks pressed 45RPM to black vinyl in a printed jacket. 7-inch housed in a heavy weight poly jacket. "Holland, 1945" 7-inch is 2 tracks pressed 45RPM to black vinyl in a printed jacket. 7-inch housed in a heavy weight poly jacket. 2 folded posters, each printed one side and each 24 x 24 inches when flat. 1 postcard, printed front and back with box set information and sized 3.75 x 5 inches.
Acclaimed self-titled debut by legendary soul man and titan of R&B, Curtis Mayfield. Written and produced by Mayfield for his own label Curtom Records, this chart-topping album releases in a new limited edition light blue LP and features some of his timeless classics like “Move On Up”, "If a There's A Hell Below…" and “The Makings Of You.”
The New Pornographers
Continue As A Guest [Indie Exclusive Limited Edition Opaque Green/Translucent Blue LP]
Vinyl: $22.98 Buy
Did you know that there's a tunnel under Ocean Blvd is the ninth studio album from acclaimed singer-songwriter Lana Del Rey, comprising 16 tracks and interludes with features including Father John Misty, Tommy Genesis, Jon Batiste, Bleachers and more. It follows the prolific artist's 2021 albums Chemtrails Over The Country Club and Blue Banisters.
Cruel Country–Wilco’s universally-acclaimed 12th studio album will be available for the first time on vinyl and in a standard retail CD format via dBpm Records on January 20th. The double-disc packages are comprised of 21 Country Music inspired tracks, recorded at the band’s Chicago studio–The Loft.
Originally released in May 2022 (digital only) and in a limited “pre-release” CD edition for the June RSD drop, lead tracks “Falling Apart (Right Now)” and “Tired Of Taking It Out On You” have already become staples on non-commercial, public and AAA radio. Cruel Country songs and graphics have been featured throughout the band’s June European tour and August/September/October North American tour.
A new music video for “A Lifetime To Find” will be released in conjunction with the pre-order announcement.
Bandleader Jeff Tweedy has commented a length on the concept and recording process of Cruel Country in numerous podcasts, online interviews and print articles:
“There have been elements of Country Music in everything we’ve ever done. We’ve never been particularly comfortable with accepting that definition, the idea that I was making Country Music. But now, having been around the block a few times, we’re finding it exhilarating to free ourselves within the form, and embrace the simple limitation of calling the music we’re making Country.”
Jon Pareles in The New York Times wrote: “Wilco makes an understated magnum opus. Its tone is naturalistic and understated; the album was recorded largely with Wilco playing live in the studio as a six-man band, quietly savoring the chance to make music together after pandemic isolation.”
Jon Dolan in Rolling Stone wrote: “Their latest is a beautifully rootsy album with a broken sense of patriotic concern.” ****
Tagged in multiple publications’ mid-summer Best of Albums of 2022 (so far) Lists including
Variety, Rolling Stone, Spin, Uproxx and Paste.
30th Anniversary Edition of the Cure’s best-selling, Grammy-nominated album ‘WISH.’ Newly remastered by Robert Smith and Miles Showell at Abbey Road Studios. Featuring the hit singles “High,” “Friday I’m In Love,” and “A Letter To Elise”
Featuring four instrumentals taken from the 'Wish' sessions, recorded at the Manor Winter 1991. Strictly Limited to 3500 copies worldwide.
Grateful Dead
Wembley Empire Pool, London, England 4/7/1972 (Live) [RSD Black Friday 2022]
Vinyl: $124.98 Buy
Available for the first time on vinyl, the Grateful Dead opened their fames Europe ’72 tour at the sold-out, cavernous Wembley Empire Pool in London. Including performances of their best-known songs, a healthy dose of music from the Skull & Roses album, and more than a half dozen songs from Jerry Garcia and Bob Weir’s respective 1972 solo albums.
Childish Gambino’s 2014 EP, Kauai, is a paradise-found exploration of nostalgia and the complex anxieties of romance, decadence and passion. From the pure pop brilliance of “Sober” to the cool closer “Late Night in Kauai”, Kauai is an essential postcard from the world of Childish Gambino. This edition is featured on classic black vinyl.
Jazz and blues pianist/vocalist/composer Mose Allison has been described as "one of the finest songwriters of 20th century blues." This 1978 live recording features Allison playing his usual repertoire, in a trio with bassist Tom Rutley (bass) and drummer Jerry Granelli (drums). Since Allison only recorded one album during the years 1973 to 1981, this well-recorded live set is quite valuable.
Most of the material is fairly familiar, but the singer's spirited delivery and interplay with the audience make this recording rare. It ain't about technology, it's about these transcendent versions of Allison classics performed with sidemen who get it, for people who dig it -- the real deal. Highlights include "Wildman on the Loose," "Swinging Machine," "I Live the Life I Love," "I Ain't Got Nothin' But the Blues" and "Your Mind Is on Vacation." Recorded Live March 26, 1978 at the Showboat Lounge, Silver Springs, MD.
Side One
1) Lost Mind
2) Wildman on the Loose
3) Your Molecular Structure
4) It Feels So Good
5) Swingin’ Machine
6) You Can Count on Me to My Part
7) I Live the Life I Love
Side Two
1) If You’re Going Up to the City
2) Hey Good Lookin’
3) Meet Me at No Special Place
4) Seventh Son
5) Your Mind Is on Vacation
6) Wildman/Show Closer
In just three remarkable solo albums Margo Price has cemented herself as a force in American music and a generational talent. On her fourth full-length Strays, recorded in Topanga Canyon and produced by Jonathan Wilson, the singer and songwriter presents a clear-eyed mission statement delivered in blistering rock and roll. Margo Price has something to say, and nothing to prove.
Thanks to Foo Fighter Dave Grohl and friends, DREAM WIDOW lives.
DREAM WIDOW is the malevolent creation of Dave Grohl (handling vocals, guitar, bass and drums) and lead guitarist Jim Rota of Fireball Ministry renown. Assisted on a few tracks by keyboardists Rami Jaffee and Oliver Roman, Grohl and Rota make good on the sinister promise to blur the lines between reality and darkest fantasy.
The name and mythos of DREAM WIDOW will be familiar to those who’ve laughed and screamed watching Foo Fighters’ horror-comedy feature film, STUDIO 666. In the film, Foo Fighters attempt to record their newest album in the same house where the legendary — and fictional — DREAM WIDOW met its tragic and untimely end — with hilariously horrifying consequences.
The vinyl version of this eight song collection is a limited pressing exclusive to independent record stores for RSD Black Friday.
SIDE 1
1. Encino
2. Cold
3. March of the Insane
4. The Sweet Abyss
5. Angel With Severed Wings
SIDE 2
1. Come All Ye Unfaithful
2. Becoming
3. Lacrimus dei Ebrius
Jerry Garcia Band
Pure Jerry: Coliseum, Hampton, VA, November 9, 1991 [RSD Black Friday 2022]
Vinyl: $89.98 Buy
Regarded as one of several standouts from the band’s landmark fall ‘91 tour, this stop in Hampton is certainly worthy of its lore. In addition to having all the hallmarks of a quintessential latter era Jerry Garcia Band performance, this night featured a very special guest: Virginia’s own Bruce Hornsby, joining on electric piano for the first and only time. The setlist is typically well-balanced, mixing road-tested staples, like the show opening “How Sweet It Is (To Be Loved By You)” and “The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down,” along with more recent additions to Garcia’s songbook like Van Morrison’s “Bright Side of the Road” and the show-closing “What A Wonderful World.” Playing with Hornsby always seemed to ignite a spark within Garcia and this proved to be no exception with their potent chemistry fueling lively versions of “Ain’t No Bread in the Breadbox,” “You Never Can Tell (C’est La Vie)” and “Midnight Moonlight.”
The collection is pressed to five 180gram LPs in a limited edition of 7,500 and housed in a deluxe clamshell box featuring new artwork by Graham Yarrington.
Disc 1 (Side A):
1. How Sweet It Is
2. He Ain't Give You None
Disc 1 (Side B):
1. You Never Can Tell (C'est La Vie)
2. Run For The Roses
Disc 2 (Side A):
1. The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down
2. I Second That Emotion
Disc 2 (Side B):
1. My Sisters and Brothers
2. Ain't No Bread In The Breadbox
Disc 3 (Side A):
1. Bright Side of the Road
2. Shining Star
Disc 3 (Side B):
1. Waiting For A Miracle
2. Think
Disc 4 (Side A):
1. I Shall Be Released
Disc 4 (Side B):
1. Don't Let Go
Disc 5 (Side A):
1. Midnight Moonlight
2. What A Wonderful World (Encore)
Released in 1974, Aqua is the first solo album by Tangerine Dream's frontman Edgar Froese. It is known as his most influential release as his entire advance was invested in the acquisition and development of the then-unknown sequencers and modular synthesisers. “Aqua is a work of creation that has opened many doors to the sound exploration and to the parameters in a fusion between abstract and harmony". This release has been out of print on vinyl until now. This deluxe package includes a 2005 bonus track and new album art that has never been released on vinyl. Blue smoke vinyl with an an OBI strip, gatefold album jacket, printed inner sleeve, and replicas of the original record labels.
Aqua | Panorphelia | NGC 891 | Upland
Coryell is the classic 1969 studio album, known as the “Best Sounding” Larry Coryell release. Out of print on vinyl until now. This deluxe package includes an OBI strip, single album jacket, printed inner sleeve, original record labels and special crystal clear rose color vinyl.
"Play this loud and your life might change forever." –Rolling Stone
Sex | Beautiful Woman | The Jam with Albert | Elementary Guitar Solo #5 | No One Really Knows | Morning Sickness | Ah Wuv Ooh
This RSD Black Friday release brings together four studio demo sessions from The Heartbreakers (Johnny Thunders, Walter Lure, Billy Rath & Jerry Nolan) from 1976 and 1977, compiled onto one album for the first time.
Two sessions were recorded in 1976 in New York, including four tracks in their early incarnation with Richard Hell, and later six tracks after Billy Rath had joined on bass. In London in 1977, they recorded one session just prior to signing with Track Records, and another after L.A.M.F. had been released, with The Clash’s Terry Chimes on drums replacing the newly departed Jerry Nolan.
Pressed on transparent magenta vinyl, this release comes with a 12” poster of the Roberta Bayley cover photo, an outtake from the L.A.M.F. cover session, and an inner bag with Walter Lure interviewed by Johnny Thunders’ biographer Nina Antonia in 2005. The album shows the development of the band building towards their classic 1977 ‘L.A.M.F.’ album (recently reissued with a newly found original master), and further points to the direction they would have gone had they not split up.
SIDE ONE
Born Too Loose
Chinese Rocks
Let Go
Can’t Keep My Eyes On You
I Love You
It’s Not Enough
Do You Love Me
Take A Chance
SIDE TWO
Born To Lose
I Wanna Be Loved
Going Steady
Flight
Pirate Love
Give Her A Great Big Kiss
Too Much Junkie Business
London Boys
Shortly after Jay Dee’s younger brother Illa J’s solo debut, Yancey Boys, was issued on Delicious Vinyl, the label and the artist knew the next step in honoring Jay Dee’s legacy was to issue the complete instrumentals from Yancey Boys as a stand-alone release.
This mother lode of (at the time) previously untouched beats dates as far back as Jay Dee’s time working on the Pharcyde’s sophomore album “Labcabincalifornia” (1995). As Delicious Vinyl owner Michael Ross explains, “From ‘95 through ‘98 Jay Dee was my go-to guy for hot beats and remixes. He was always making beats, always. So there was a select amount of tracks that he composed for me during that time, tracks as good as anything he’d done, only they never got used.” Once these beats were used for Illa J’s Yancey Boys they were presented to the public on Yancey Boys Instrumentals.
For RSD Black Friday Delicious Vinyl presents this key material from Jay Dee’s output in a never-before-issued and not-to-be-repeated colored vinyl pressing.
A Side
1. Timeless (Instrumental)
2. We Here (Instrumental)
3. R U Listenin'? (Instrumental)
B Side
1. Alien Family (Instrumental)
2. Strugglin (Instrumental)
3. Showtime (Instrumental)
4. Swagger (Instrumental)
C Side
1. DFTF (Instrumental)
2. All Good (Instrumental)
3. Sounds Like Love (Instrumental)
D Side
1. Everytime (Instrumental)
2. Illasoul (Instrumental)
3. Air Signs (Instrumental)
This rare and underappreciated 1973 Impulse! title features a host of influential L.A. musicians and was an important element in the label’s ‘West Coast contingent' of the early 1970s. The album's distinct L.A. sound and energy continue to resonate in modern music circles, from the West Coast Get Down to Carlos Gabriel Niño to Mark de Clive-Lowe. Saracho became disillusioned and left the music business not long after this album was released. Now, his remarkable story and music are re-emerging, ripe for re-evaluation, with this 180g reissue.
SIDE A:
1. Sunday's Church
2. Happy, Sad
3. Rose For A Lady
SIDE B:
1. Señor Baker
2. Conquest De Mejico
The story of Stark Reality… Discovers The Hoagy Carmichael Music Shop begins with Hoagy Carmichael’s son, Hoagy Bix Carmichael. Nearing 30 and working on Wall Street, Bix wanted to do something more worthwhile. He relocated to Boston and started working at WGBH, one of the country’s most innovative PBS stations. There he met Monty Stark, WGBH’s resident “music man.” When Bix set out to create an all new WGBH program, Hoagy Carmichael’s Music Shop, a children’s show revolving around his father’s 1958 children’s album Hoagy Carmichael’s Havin’ A Party, Stark was tapped to do the music. The resulting reimagination of Hoagy Carmichael’s recording was used for the show, and issued on jazz pianist Ahmad Jamal’s AJP label. The recording features Monty Stark on vibes, saxophonist Carl Atkins, Phil Morrison on bass, Vinnie Johnson on drums and John Abercrombie on guitar.
For RSD Black Friday, Now-Again Records debuts a fresh reissue of this fascinating link between the great American song book, the jazz rock movement of the late ‘60s/early ‘70s and even hip-hop, being that Stark Reality… Discovers The Hoagy Carmichael Music Shop has been sampled by artists such as the Black Eyed Peas, Large Professor, J-Live and Madlib.
Includes 12” booklet with details, history and rare photos.
A Side
1. Merry Go Round
2. Junkman's Song
3. Thirty Days Hath September
4. The Whale
5. The Old Prospector
B Side
1. Grandfather Clock
2. Cooking
3. Shooting Stars
4. Rocket Ship
C Side
1. Dreams
2. Blue Pillow
3. Swing High
4. Clouds
5. Traveling
D Side
1. Bustin' Out Of Doors
2. Comrades
3. All You Need To Make Music
Everyone’s favorite Record Store Day tradition, Jazz Dispensary, is back with a surreal compilation exploring the furthest depths of outer space and one’s mind. Buckle up and lean back, the weather is about to get groovy. Featuring moon shots by Flora Purim, Mongo Santamaría, Barbara Lewis and more. Pressed on pink splatter vinyl.
SIDE A:
1. THE CANNONBALL ADDERLEY QUINTET – “PHASES”
2. WOODY HERMAN – “LA FIESTA”
3. MCCOY TYNER – “DESERT CRY”
4. FLORA PURIM – “SILVER SWORD”
SIDE B:
1. MONGO SANTAMARÍA – “LOS INDIOS”
2. CAL TJADER – “MINDORO”
3. GENE AMMONS – “STRANGE FRUIT”
4. BARBARA LEWIS – “WINDMILLS OF YOUR MIND”
Soundtrack to the award-nominated documentary about music legend and original Beach Boy Brian Wilson. Pressed on colored vinyl and available first at indie record stores for RSD Black Friday.
01. Right Where I Belong -Brian Wilson, Jim James
02. I’m Goin Home
03. It’s Not Easy Being Me
04. Must be a Miracle
05. Slightly American Music
06. It’s O.K.
07. Rock & Roll Has Got a Hold On Me
08. The Night Was So Young
09. Honeycomb
10. Long Promised Road
11. In My Room Live from the Ryman Auditorium
12. I’m Broke
Lee Fields
Sentimental Fool [Indie Exclusive Limited Edition Sentimental Orange LP]
Vinyl: $27.98 Buy
Lee Fields is arguably the greatest soul singer alive today. In an age when the shelf life of an artist largely depends on posturing and trends, he has proven to be an unassailable force of nature. His prolific, decade-spanning career continues to reign supreme on the modern soul scene.
In early 2022, Lee reunited with Daptone Records and producer Gabriel Roth to record Sentimental Fool, a deep, blues-tinged, wholly-conceived soul album. From his first line to his final plaintive lyric, the beauty, power, and raw humanity of Lee’s voice is on full display here; the culmination of an astounding career that has seemed to defy gravity, rising to only greater and greater heights.
At long last, the classic Steely Dan catalog is back on vinyl. Led by Walter Becker and Donald Fagen, Steely Dan released 7 albums from 1972-1980. The vinyl series kicks off with Can’t Buy a Thrill (celebrating its 50th-anniversary) which features the band’s breakthrough hits, “Do It Again,” “Reelin’ in the Years,” and the recently viral, “Dirty Work.” 180-gram LP.
"As long as I can remember I wanted to make a record with my dad,” Billy Strings says. The dream to make a proper studio album is finally realized. Me and Dad, out November 18, is a collection of 14 classics that Billy and his dad, Terry Barber, know like the back of their hands. It's the music that made Billy the musician and human he is today. The album represents a lifelong goal finally achieved and a way for the Grammy-winning musician to honor the man who taught him how to play guitar.
Esteemed hip-hop artist Vince Staples follows up his intimate self-titled album with RAMONA PARK BROKE MY HEART. “There’s a direct correlation,” Staples says of the two records. “They were kind of created at the same time. I was in a similar state of mind. This album will make even more sense if you heard the previous one, but this one has more answers.” Long Beach’s Ramona Park neighborhood is dear to Vince’s heart. “It’s symbolic of home,” he says of why he dedicated the album to it.
The members of the legendary original 1990s Joshua Redman Quartet—Redman (saxophone), Brad Mehldau (piano), Christian McBride (bass), and Brian Blade (drums)—reunited after twenty-six years for 2020’s RoundAgain; they return now with LongGone, featuring six original songs by Redman, due September 9, 2022 on Nonesuch Records.
RoundAgain, the group’s first recording since 1994’s MoodSwing, debuted at No. 1 on the Current Traditional Jazz Albums chart in the US and at No. 1 on the Jazz & Blues chart in the UK. The album received two Grammy nominations. NPR called it “a flawless effort,” stating that the four musicians have “only gotten better in that time” and are each “at the very top of his game now.”
Can I Take My Hounds to Heaven? is the highly anticipated new album by Tyler Childers and his longtime band The Food Stamps. This unique collection is separated into 3 parts, each with a different sonic perspective, but all part of one album vision. “Hallelujah” is a pared-back version of the music featuring Tyler and his band only, “Jubilee” is full band including strings, horns, bgvs and a touch of sitar, and an exciting new sound in “Joyful Noise.” From Tyler Childers’ vision, it’s a genuine concept album meant to showcase the incredible musicianship of The Food Stamps.
Only The Strong Survive is the new album from Bruce Springsteen, and his first new studio album since 2020’s Letter To You. The album is a collection of soul music gems, that celebrate the legendary songbooks of Gamble and Huff, Motown, Stax and many more.
Only The Strong Survive features vocals from Springsteen and instrumentation primarily from his longtime producer Ron Aniello. The album also features guest vocals from Sam Moore, as well as contributions from The E Street Horns, full string arrangements by Rob Mathes and backing vocals from Soozie Tyrell, Lisa Lowell, Michelle Moore, Curtis King Jr., Fonzi Thornton and Dennis Collins.
Taylor Swift’s new studio album Midnights is available everywhere on October 21st. It’s a collection of music written in the middle of the night, a journey through terrors and sweet dreams. The floors we pace and the demons we face - the stories of 13 sleepless nights scattered throughout Taylor’s life.
DOMi & JD BECK release their highly anticipated debut album NOT TiGHT on Anderson .Paak’s new label, APESHIT INC in partnership with Blue Note Records. Featuring special guests Anderson .Paak, Snoop Dogg, Busta Rhymes, Herbie Hancock, Thundercat, Mac DeMarco, and Kurt Rosenwinkel, the album exemplifies their trailblazing take on jazz. The New York Times hailed them as simultaneously "freakishly complex and virtuosic" and "relentlessly melodic.”
From “Taxman” to “Tomorrow Never Knows,” The Beatles’ REVOLVER has been newly mixed by producer Giles Martin and Sam Okell, and sourced directly from the original four-track master tapes with audio brought forth in stunning clarity with the help of cutting-edge technology developed by the award-winning sound team at Peter Jackson’s WingNutFilms Productions Ltd. Now available on 180g vinyl.
Sex Pistols
Never Mind The Bollocks Heres The Sex Pistols [Rocktober Limited Edition Neon Green LP]
Vinyl: $24.98 Buy
Original album reissued on 140g Neon Green vinyl.
Can I Take My Hounds to Heaven? is the highly anticipated new album by Tyler Childers and his longtime band The Food Stamps. This unique collection is separated into 3 parts, each with a different sonic perspective, but all part of one album vision. “Hallelujah” is a pared-back version of the music featuring Tyler and his band only, “Jubilee” is full band including strings, horns, bgvs and a touch of sitar, and an exciting new sound in “Joyful Noise.” From Tyler Childers’ vision, it’s a genuine concept album meant to showcase the incredible musicianship of The Food Stamps.
25-year-old GRAMMY-nominated artist Marcus King prepares to release his new album, Young Blood, produced by Dan Auerbach of The Black Keys via Rick Rubin's American Recordings/Republic Records. He has toured with The Marcus King Band for over 10 years, as well as tours with Chris Stapleton, Greta Van Fleet, and Nathanial Rateliff. He’s released 3 LPs with The Marcus King Band before his GRAMMY-nominated 2021 solo debut LP, El Dorado. Indie Exclusive Yellow LP.
10th anniversary silver deluxe vinyl release of Mac Miller's 2012 mixtape, Macadelic, featuring an embossed cover, 2 silver LPs, and 11x17 poster.
Arctic Monkeys will release their new album, entitled The Car, on Friday, October 21st. The band’s seventh studio album, The Car features ten new songs written by Alex Turner, produced by James Ford and recorded at Butley Priory, Suffolk, RAK Studios, London and La Frette, Paris. Following 2018’s Tranquility Base Hotel + Casino, The Car finds Arctic Monkeys running wild in a new and sumptuous musical landscape and contains some of the richest and most rewarding vocal performances of Alex Turner’s career.
As lockdown approached in 2020, Chicago-based singer Lili Trifilio was wrapping up a tour in support of Beach Bunny's debut album, Honeymoon. Suddenly, she found herself back at her parents' house, coping with her new reality. To deal, she retreated into sci-fi stories and her always-active imagination. She envisioned new places to travel in her mind, thus dreaming up big, bombastic pop sounds to construct Beach Bunny's highly anticipated sophomore album, Emotional Creature. Simultaneously about personal growth, Emotional Creature is a collection of highly relatable songs that capture the highs and lows of new relationships, the joys and vulnerabilities of letting someone in, the gut-wrenching realities of experiencing anxiety, leaving toxic relationships, and seeing yourself through the eyes of the one you love. These complex feelings are expertly contrasted with ultra-poppy melodies, anthemic choruses, and a slight punk edge. 'The songs have grown with me over time,' Trifilio explains. 'Some of them were written in various stages of life, and I think as we go through different experiences and hardships, you come out stronger. I've grown as a person, so the songwriting reflects that.' With its openhearted, vulnerable themes and progressive, hook-filled take on pop rock and pop punk, Emotional Creature only further cements Beach Bunny and Trifilio's well-earned reputation as a leading voice of their generation.
Celebrating the 50th Anniversary of the Grateful Dead's iconic Europe '72 Tour with the original Europe '72 album, newly remaste red.Plangent Processes tape restoration and speed correction, with mastering by GRAMMY® Awardwinning engineer Dave Glasser, Produce d for Release by David Lemieux. 180-Gram, Black Vinyl. -In another industrydefying move,the Grateful Dead followed up theirfirst Gold Record, the 1971 liveshowcase SKULL ROSES , with another live album, one that to most fans and critics surpassed even the excellence of the previous offering. From April 7 to May 26, 1972, the Dead performed and recorded 21 live concerts, plus a set in a television studio, with every night being an exceptional display of the magic that was uniquely the live Grateful Dead. These concerts and this tour, 50 years later, are still considered one of the highest of high points in the Grateful Dead's performing career. In an era whena double album was rare enough,the Dead outdid even their own lofty standards by producing a 3 LP masterpiece that to this day is considered one of the finest live albums ever produced. Remastered from the original analog tapes, the album has never sounded better.
From the first bass note within the driving drum beat you can tell something is different about the new record from Nikki Lane. The backbeat feels like a gutsy strut while the lead guitar feels like a revved up engine shifting gears. Denim & Diamonds comes out firing, spit shining the cowboy boots and tossing on a jean jacket. Produced by Joshua Homme (Queens of the Stone Age), Denim & Diamonds has the Highway Queen embracing a more rock-oriented sound while still maintaining the heartfelt outlaw country sound she has developed across her previous three releases. Denim & Diamonds still has the fuck-off flare of which Nikki has come to be known. Her stylized, story-telling lyrics are all there as well as her catchy country hooks. The outlaw country sound is now balanced out with a gritty guitar and a machine gun snare that echoes the sound of 70’s rock. Nikki Lane has made a record that sounds new and old. Familiar and surprising. She embraces where she has come from, (“First High”, “Born Tough”) the lessons learned along the way, (“Good Enough”, “Try Harder”) all while doing things her way, (“Denim & Diamonds”, “Black Widow”).
Nirvana
Nevermind: 30th Anniversary [Super Deluxe 8 LP/7in Single]
Vinyl: $259.98 Buy
Super Deluxe contains 8 LPs on 180-gram heavy vinyl showcasing the newly remastered album from the original analog tapes along with 4 complete concerts on the Nevermind Tour from Amsterdam, Melbourne, Tokyo and Del Mar, California. Also included is a first-ever 7-inch for “Endless, Nameless” with B-sides “Even In His Youth” and “Aneurysm,” and a 40-page hardcover book with unreleased photos.
Kendrick Lamar released his first album in 5 years, Mr. Morale & The Big Steppers. Available on physical CD on
May 27, 2022.
For the first time on vinyl, this live concert featuring guest saxophonist Pharoah Sanders comes to record stores on numbered color vinyl as part of Record Store Day.
“The Ring” /”Intro to Africa”/”Sketches of MD”/”Wayne's Thang”/”Happy People”
Soccer Mommy
Sometimes, Forever [Indie Exclusive Limited Edition Pink/Black Splatter LP]
Vinyl: $25.98 Buy
Sometimes, Forever, the immersive and compulsively replayable new Soccer Mommy full-length, cements Sophie Allison’s status as one of the most gifted songwriters making rock music right now. The album finds Sophie broadening the borders of her aesthetic without abandoning the unsparing lyricism and addictive melodies that made earlier songs so easy to obsess over. To support her vision Sophie enlisted producer Daniel Lopatin, whose recent credits include the Uncut Gems movie score and The Weeknd’s Dawn FM.
Welcome 2 Club XIII, DBT’s 14th studio album, marks a sharp departure from the trenchant political commentary of their last three records.
A reckoning with the dualities of the things that make you alive and how they sometimes can kill you. A life affirming flashlight for the dark nights of one’s soul. The title track is a tongue in cheek homage to a local dive that founding members Cooley and Hood played in the early days. As they say in the song “Our glory days did kinda suck”.
Darlene Love
Darlene Love: The Many Sides of Love - The Complete Reprise Recordings Plus! [RSD 2022]
LP: $29.99 Buy
50 years of criminally overlooked recordings by one of the greatest R&B and rock vocalists ever! Darlene Love's work for Phil Spector gets most of the ink, and understandably so, but this 15-track collection captures her rare singles for the Reprise label with the vocal groups The Blossoms and The Wildcats, plus her own solo work. And the bonus tracks are priceless: you get her 1985 Elektra recording of "River Deep, Mountain High," her 2014 duet with Bette Midler on "He's Sure the Boy I Love," and two 1990 recordings for the Sire label! None of this material has ever been on LP, and this release comes with a 4-page insert featuring photos and extensive liner notes. An essential addition to the Darlene Love discography, pressed in teal vinyl limited to 3,500 copies worldwide!
SIDE ONE
1. TV Commercials – Barney Kessel and His Orchestra (featuring Darlene Love)
2. What Are We Gonna Do In ’64? – The Wildcats
3. 3625 Groovy Street – The Wildcats
4. That’s When the Tears Start – The Blossoms
5. Lovin’ – The Blossoms
6. Lover Boy – The Blossoms
7. My Love, Come Home – The Blossoms
8. Let Your Love Shine on Me – The Blossoms
9. Deep Into My Heart – The Blossoms
SIDE TWO
1. If – Darlene Love
2. Too Late to Say You're Sorry – Darlene Love
3. River Deep, Mountain High – Darlene Love
4. Mr. Fix-It – Darlene Love
5. He’s Sure the Boy I Love – Bette Midler & Darlene Love
6. Mr. Fix-It (1930s Version) (Bonus Track) – Darlene Love
Slang is the brainchild of Dave Schools (Widespread Panic) and Layng Martine III (Bill Laswell). Their music stems from decades of friendship and the intertwining of exprimental musical sensibilities. Slang blends a collage of rock, electronic, psychedlelic, and jazz to create a singular sound. Side A features the legendary singer-songwriter Vic Chesnutt and Side B features a remix from Dirty Dozen Brass Band.
A1. Escalator (featuring Vic Chesnutt) B1. Charlie D (featuring Dirty Dozen Brass Band
Harry’s House is the third solo studio album from Grammy award-winning global superstar Harry Styles. The 13-track full-length album was recorded in multiple locations across the UK, Los Angeles and Tokyo from 2020 to 2021. It was written by Harry alongside frequent collaborators Kid Harpoon, Tyler Johnson, and Mitch Rowland.
The Smile
A Light for Attracting Attention [Indie Exclusive Limited Edition Yellow 2LP]
Vinyl: $39.98 Buy
"Not The Smile as in ha-ha-ha, more The Smile as in the guy who lies to you every day"... so speaks Thom Yorke on the inspiration behind the name of the new trio consisting of himself, his Radiohead bandmate Jonny Greenwood and drummer Tom Skinner of UK jazz outfit Sons of Kemet. The description is borne out by The Smile's acerbic first single "You Will Never Work In Television Again," a 2:48 blast of ragged, raw energy that moved The New York Times to rave: "Over a bruising 5/4 beat and flailing guitars climbing through three chords, Yorke snarl-sings his avenging fury at 'some gangster troll promising the moon' who'd devour 'all those beautiful young hopes and dreams,' and you can almost feel the spittle flying."
Additional singles "The Smoke", "Skrting the Surface" and "Pana-Vision" - which epically closed the series finale of hit show Peaky Blinders - followed with equal critical acclaim; all are collected on The Smile’s first album, A Light For Attracting Attention, produced by Nigel Godrich.
Originally released in May 1982, ‘Combat Rock’ is the final album from The Clash of Joe Strummer, Mick Jones, Paul Simonon and Topper Headon. Featuring two of the band’s most well-known songs, ‘Should I Stay Or Should I Go’ and ‘Rock The Casbah’. Now re-released as a 180g 3LP special edition, with an additional 12-tracks compiled by The Clash.
Having returned to London following their pivotal 17-show residency at New York’s Bond’s Casino in 1981, the band rehearsed and recorded at The People’s Hall in the squatted Republic of Frestonia near Latimer Road in London and from there they embarked on a tour of the East and South East Asia, during which the album sleeve image was captured by Pennie Smith in Thailand.
The tracks on ‘The People’s Hall’ chart the period from what was their last single Radio Clash right up to the release of Combat Rock, including unheard, rare and early versions of tracks.
Also includes rare Pennie Smith images + history of Frestonia essay by Tom Vague.
The Rolling Stones
More Hot Rocks (Big Hits & Fazed Cookies) [50th Anniversary] [RSD 2022]
Vinyl: $54.98 Buy
This iconic collection is a must-have release by the world’s greatest rock n’ roll band. More Hot Rocks (Big Hits & Fazed Cookies) offers hits, some of their best deep cuts, and a whole LP side’s worth of rarities previously unavailable in the U.S. when it was originally released in 1972. This indispensable 25-track compilation features covers of “It’s All Over Now” and “Not Fade Away,” the psychedelic “Dandelion,” “She's a Rainbow,” “Have You Seen Your Mother, Baby, Standing in the Shadow?” “Out of Time,” “Tell Me,” and “We Love You.” Rarities include their 1963 debut single “Come On,” early R&B covers of “Fortune Teller” and “Bye Bye Johnnie,” the soulful 1966 U.K. B-side “Long Long While,” and a cover of Muddy Waters’ “I Can’t Be Satisfied,” featuring great slide guitar recorded in stereo at Chess Studios. Also included is the stereo version of “Child of the Moon,” the psychedelic non-LP B-side that was previously only heard on mono prior to 1972.
50th Anniversary Limited Edition. 180g Glow-in-the-Dark vinyl. Gatefold Jacket. Includes set of Gered Mankowitz photo prints. Remastered by Bob Ludwig.
LP 1
SIDE 1:
1. Tell Me
2. Not Fade Away
3. The Last Time
4. It's All Over Now
5. Good Times Bad Times
6. I'm Free
SIDE 2:
1. Out Of Time
2. Lady Jane
3. Sittin' On A Fence
4. Have You Seen Your Mother, Baby, Standing In The Shadow?
5. Dandelion
6. We Love You
LP 2
SIDE 3:
1. She's A Rainbow
2. 2000 Light Years From Home
3. Child Of The Moon
4. No Expectations
5. Let It Bleed
SIDE 4:
1. What To Do
2. Money
3. Come On
4. Fortune Teller
5. Poison Ivy
6. Bye Bye Johnny
7. I Can't Be Satisfied
8. Long Long While
R.A.P. Music, the fifth studio album by rapper Killer Mike was originally released in 2012 and is finally back in print. Production was handled by rapper and producer Jamie "El-P" Meline; the album was the first collaboration between Killer Mike and El-P, who would later form the critically acclaimed duo Run the Jewels. R.A.P. Music received widespread acclaim from music critics. It landed on the Year End Best Album lists of Entertainment Weekly, Consequence of Sound, Complex, Chicago Tribune, Paste, NPR, Pitchfork, Rolling Stone, Stereogum, Spin, Vulture, Village Voice, and many more. Killer Mike's breakthrough LP, R.A.P. Music is being reissued by Adult Swim / WaterTower Music.
Originally released in 1968 as an LA studio concept album, this instrumental album is a remarkable fusion of the psychedelic sounds of sitar and mellotron with angular guitar riffs and hard drum breaks. Featuring a lineup of Ry Cooder, Jim Gordon, Mike Deasy, and The Wrecking Crew (Los Angeles' top studio session musicians). The band recorded only this one album and most of the personnel went on to greater achievements. The quintessence of psychedelic rock in its full-blooming 1968ness. Features original cover artwork by Rick Griffin (Grateful Dead, Jimi Hendrix, Neil Young). Pressed on clear blue vinyl. Limited edition of 2000 copies
Aton I , Aton II
"Fresh grief, like fresh love, has a way of sharpening our vision and bringing on painful clarifications. No matter how temporary we know these states to be, the vulnerability and transformation they demand can overpower the strongest among us.
Then there are the rare, fertile moments when both occur, when mourning and limerence heighten, complicate and explain each other; the songs that comprise Angel Olsen’s Big Time were forged in such a whiplash.
“I can’t say that I’m sorry / when I don’t feel so wrong anymore,” the record begins, her voice softer and more open than ever, as if she’s singing through a hard won smile. “All the Good Times”, a twangy banger with nods to JJ Cale, starts the album on a triumphant and bright note. The title song, “Big Time”, follows and continues the warm optimism. “Guess I had to be losin’ to get here on time,” she sings, a fearless love song co-written with her partner.
Big Time is an album about the expansive power of new love, but this brightness and optimism is tempered by a profound and layered sense of loss. During Olsen’s process of coming to terms with her queerness and confronting the traumas that had been keeping her from fully accepting herself, she felt it was time to come out to her parents, a hurdle she’d been avoiding for some time.
“Some experiences just make you feel as though you’re five years old, no matter how wise or adult you think you are,” she writes of that time. After that tearful but relieving conversation, she celebrated with her partner, their friends, oysters, and wine. “Finally, at the ripe age of 34, I was free to be me.”
Three days later, her father died; his funeral became the occasion for Olsen to introduce her partner to her family. Though she was fearful their presence as a newly out queer couple would be “an additional symbol of loss,” those days went peacefully, yet only two weeks later Olsen got the call that her mother was in the ER. Hospice came soon after, and a second funeral came quickly on the heels of the first. Another trip back to St. Louis, another grief to face, another deepening and intensification of this still-new love.
The shards of this grief—the shortening of her chance to finally be seen more fully by her parents—are scattered throughout the album. “It’s a hard time again,” she sings on “This is How It Works”, pushing against the irrevocability of death, “Tell me a story that will make me forget.” “Go Home”, which begins with an almost numbed calm, slowly builds up to a wailing that comes up straight from the ground: “I want to go home, go back to small things. I don’t belong here. Nobody knows me.”
“You can’t plan grief, you can’t organize it or schedule it or know how you’ll feel when it comes. It just happens, and when it does sometimes it’s not what you thought it would be.” Three weeks after her mother’s funeral she was in the studio, recording this incredibly wise and tender new album.
Loss has long been a subject of Olsen’s elegiac songs, but few can write elegies with quite the reckless energy as she. If that bursting-at-the-seams, running downhill energy has come to seem intractable to her work, this album proves Olsen is now writing from a more rooted place of clarity. She’s working with an elastic, expansive mastery of her voice—both sonically and artistically. These are songs not just about transformational mourning, but of finding freedom and joy in the privations as they come.
Playful bits of Tammy Wynette and Kitty Wells are here, too, but so are the complex orchestrations of her genre-bending 2019 record, All Mirrors. While that record was full of dramatic shifts and twists, here the surprises come in their simplicity—a slow swell of strings, instrumentation that cycles like a storm, or sparkling horns in a light-flooded break-up ballad.
While the spritely nature of her last EP, Aisles, may have signaled Olsen’s turn deeper into the electronic direction of her last All Mirrors, there’s hardly a synth in sight here. Jonathan Wilson, served as co-producer and also mixed the tracks, while Drew Erickson played piano, organ, and scored the string arrangements. Emily Elhaj, Olsen’s longtime bandmate, was a consistent collaborator as well, on the bass throughout.
“And I can’t fit into the past that you’re used to, I refuse to,” she sings as a wraithlike piano scaffolds her hopeful voice on “Ghost On”. “Forget the old dreams,” she rejoices on “Go Home”, “I got a new thing.” Darkness inherently suggests depth, but it takes a much wiser writer to find meaning and complexity in the luminous place that Big Time occupies. “Chasing the Sun” ends the record in a smiling, romantic place, a verdant crescendo rising as she pines: “Write a postcard to you / when you’re in the other room/ I’m just writing to say that I can’t find my clothes / If you’re lookin for something to do.”
The burning of her earliest work is still here, of course, but this time she’s “freed from the longing / for one moment to last” and she’s ready to “walk through the fires / of all earthly desires.”
—Catherine Lacey
Oaxaca, February 2022"
The legendary show was recorded in 1983 at the Greek Theater in Los Angeles and originally released as a single disc highlights album in 1984. This Complete Captured Live Record Store Day release features all fifteen songs performed that night, including fiery versions of “Equal Rights/Downpressor Man,” “African,” and “Get Up, Stand Up” on two colored vinyl LPs, the first solid yellow and blue, the second solid yellow, red, and orange. Available for the first time since 2002.
Arlo McKinley
This Mess We're In [Indie Exclusive Limited Edition Marbled Opaque Orange LP]
Vinyl: $24.98 Buy
In 2019, Arlo McKinley played a show at the High Watt in Nashville. While he had years of such gigs on the DIY singer-songwriter circuit behind him, this night was different. In the audience was one of his musical heroes, John Prine. When they met briefly beforehand, Prine, who never gave praise lightly, told Arlo he was a fan.
McKinley recalls, “Just that moment, if that's where it ended, it would've been one of the coolest things that ever happened to me, something I remembered forever.”
But it didn't end there. Shortly after, he was signed to Oh Boy Records, Prine's indie label. Arlo came into 2020 with the momentum of a new album on deck - his first with a producer and a street team - and an international tour booked. Then things took a strange turn for the world..
As McKinley visualizes the year ahead, he's optimistic that touring will be easier , and that he'll get to play Europe for the first time this summer. When asked what he hopes listeners will get from This Mess We're In, he says, “I hope they can identify with things they're too ashamed to talk about or feel. There's such a stigma that goes along with things like addiction and mental health. I just want them to know that I go through all of that stuff too. I would just like to make them feel a little less alone. At least for the 47 minutes of the album, you can remove yourself from the world and just let everything disappear for a bit.”
Originally released in 1990, Boy Child gathered the very best Scott Walker-penned solo material from his first five solo albums for Philips Records. While the original 20-track CD has gone on to become the definitive introduction to the artist’s early work, Boy Child was only available for a short time as a single vinyl LP with a truncated track list. This expanded 2LP set features the full collection with additional classics such as “Always Coming Back to You” and “30th Century Man,” “Angels of Ashes,” and the rare non-album track, “The Rope and the Colt.” The album artwork also includes the original liner notes by Marc Almond from 1990, Neil Hannon’s notes from 2000, and brand-new notes from Jarvis Cocker (which are exclusive to this edition). Pressed on 180g white vinyl.
Side A:
1. Montague Terrace (In Blue)
2. Such A Small Love
3. The Plague
4. Always Coming Back To You
5. The Amorous Humphrey Plugg
6. The Girls From The Streets
Side B:
1. Plastic Palace People
2. The Bridge
3. It's Raining Today
4. Copenhagen
5. Big Louise
6. 30 Century Man
Side C:
1. We Came Through
2. The Seventh Seal
3. On Your Own Again
4. Angels Of Ashes
5. Boy Child
6. The Old Man's Back Again (Dedicated To The Neo-Stalinst Regime)
Side D:
1. Prologue
2. Little Things (That Keep Us Together)
3. Time Operator
4. Thanks For Chicago, Mr. James
5. The Rope And The Colt
6. Epilogue: The War Is Over
Acclaimed singer, songwriter and musician Molly Tuttle will release her anticipated Nonesuch Records debut, Crooked Tree, April 1 (on CD and digital. LP will be May 13) with her new bluegrass collective Golden Highway.
Recorded live at Nashville’s Oceanway Studios, Crooked Tree was produced by Tuttle and Jerry Douglas and features collaborations with Sierra Hull, Old Crow Medicine Show, Margo Price, Billy Strings, Dan Tyminski and Gillian Welch. The album explores Tuttle’s love of bluegrass, which she discovered through her father, a music teacher and multi-instrumentalist, and her grandfather, a banjo player. Across these thirteen tracks, all of which were written/co-written by Tuttle, she honors the bluegrass tradition while also pushing the genre in new directions.
“I always knew I wanted to make a bluegrass record someday,” Tuttle says. “Once I started writing, everything flowed so easily: sometimes I’ve felt an internal pressure to come up with a sound no one’s heard before, but this time my intention was just to make an album that reflected the music that’s been passed down through generations in my family. I found a way to do that while writing songs that feel true to who I am, and it really helped me to grow as a songwriter.”
In celebration of the new music, Tuttle and Golden Highway—Bronwyn Keith-Hynes (fiddle), Dominick Leslie (mandolin), Shelby Means (bass) and Kyle Tuttle (banjo)—will embark on an extensive headline tour beginning tonight with shows at Seattle’s Tractor Tavern (two nights), Portland’s Mississippi Studios (two nights), Los Angeles’ Roxy, Salt Lake City’s State Room, Boulder’s Fox Theatre, Asheville’s The Grey Eagle and Nashville’s Station Inn, among several others. Full details can be found at mollytuttlemusic.com/tour.
In addition to Tuttle (vocals, guitars), Douglas (dobro), Keith-Hynes (fiddle) and Leslie (mandolin), Crooked Tree also features musicians Darol Anger (fiddle), Ron Block (banjo), Mike Bub (upright bass), Jason Carter (fiddle), Viktor Krauss (upright bass), Todd Phillips (upright bass) and Christian Sedelmyer (fiddle) with additional harmony vocals from Tina Adair, Lindsay Lou and Melody Walker.
Bonnie Raitt is a singer, songwriter and guitarist whose unique style blends blues, R&B, rock, and pop. After 20 years as a cult favorite, she broke through to the top in the early 90s with her GRAMMY-award winning albums, Nick of Time and Luck of the Draw, which featured hits, “Something to Talk About” and “I Can’t Make You Love Me” among others. Raitt’s widely acclaimed 2012 independent release Slipstream sold over a quarter-million copies, making it one of the top selling independent albums, and earned Raitt her 10th Grammy Award (Best Americana Album). In February 2016, Raitt released her highly anticipated 20th album, Dig In Deep (Redwing Records). On tour for much of 2017-2019, Raitt and her band performed in Australia, New Zealand, and Canada before touring as support for James Taylor in stadiums and arenas across the U.S., United Kingdom and Europe. As known for her lifelong commitment to social activism as she is for her music, Raitt has long been involved with the environmental movement and continues to work on safe energy issues, environmental protection, social justice, human rights, and blues/music education.
Joshua Hedley
Neon Blue [Indie Exclusive Limited Edition Coke Bottle Clear LP]
Vinyl: $24.98 Buy
Joshua Hedley is “a singing professor of country & western,” he declares on his raucous and witty new album, Neon Blue. It might sound like a punchline, but it’s not. An ace fiddle player, a sharp guitarist, and a singer with a granite twang, he’s devoted his entire life to the study of this genre. Ask him about it and he’ll explain: “When all my friends went off to college, I went to Nashville. I was 19 years old playing honkytonks and getting an education.” His 2018 debut, Mr. Jukebox, showcased his deep knowledge of country’s history, in particular the beery ballads of the 1950s and ‘60s. His mentors were George Jones, Ray Price, and Glen Campbell, but his most remarkable accomplishment was putting his own spin on their style.
Neon Blue, on the other hand, examines a very different, often forsaken era: the early 1990s. “The last bastion of country music,” says the professor, “was the early 1990s, roughly 1989 and 1996. You could turn on the radio and immediately know you’re hearing a country song. You could still hear steel guitar and fiddle. But there was a hard fork around 1996 or ’97, when country veered off into pop territory. Neon Blue asks, What if that fork had never happened? What if country kept on sounding like country?”
That era may have been dismissed by traditionalists at the time as slick or overproduced, but Hedley finds something exciting in that old hat-act sound, and Neon Blue plays up the excitement of bigger-than-life choruses, the relatable emotions of those sad-eyed ballads, and the inventiveness of the lively production. “The sound is modern,” he says, “but it’s still discernibly country.”
"On Silver color vinyl. Toro y Moi’s seventh studio album, Mahal, is the boldest and most fascinating journey yet from musical mastermind Chaz Bear. The record spans genre and sound—encompassing the shaggy psychedelic rock of the 1960s and ‘70s, and the airy sounds of 1990s mod-post-rock—taking listeners on an auditory expedition, as if they’re riding in the back of Bear’s Filipino jeepney that adorns the album’s cover. But Mahal is also an unmistakably Toro y Moi experience, calling back to previous works while charting a new path forward in a way that only Bear can do.
Mahal is the latest in an accomplished career for Bear, who’s undoubtedly one of the decade’s most influential musicians. Since the release of the electronic pop landmark Causers of This in 2009, subsequent records as Toro y Moi have repeatedly shifted the idea of what his sound can be. But there’s little in Bear’s catalog that will prepare you for the deep-groove excursions on Mahal, his most eclectic record to date.
The second the album begins we’re immediately transported into the passenger seat, jeep sounds and all, ready for the ride Chaz and company have concocted for us. Seeds of some of Mahal’s 13 songs date back to the more explicitly rock-oriented What For? from 2015. Mahal was mostly completed last year in Bear’s Oakland studio with the involvement of a host of collaborators, Sofie Royer and Unknown Mortal Orchestra’s Ruban Neilson to Neon Indian’s Alan Palomo and the Mattson 2.
“I wanted to make a record that featured more musicians on it than any other record of mine,” he explains. “To have them live on that record feels grounded, bringing a communal perspective to the table.” As a result, Mahal is lush and surprising at every turn, from the cool-handed “The Loop,” which recalls Sly and the Family Stones, to the elastic psych rock of “Foreplay” and the dizzying Mulatu Astatke- recalling of “Last Year.”
Lyrically, the album zooms in on generational concerns, picking up where the Outer Peace standout “Freelance” effectively left off. Bear seems to be surveying the ways in which we connect with technology, media, each other, and what disappears as a result. Cuts like the squishy “Postman” and the “Magazine” take a deep dive into our relationship with media in a changing digital world. “It’s interesting to see how we adapt to this new age. We’re so connected, but we’re still missing out on things,” Bear ruminates while discussing the album’s themes.
It’s not all introspection. Bear cools things down near the album’s end with the Mattson 2-featuring “Millennium,” a laid-back jam with tricky guitar licks about ringing in new times even when everything else seems upside down. “It’s about enjoying the new year, even when it’s been shitty,” Bear explains. “There’s nothing else to do.” Finding a sense of joy in the face of adversity is embedded in Mahal’s DNA, right down to the jeepney that literally and figuratively brings the music out into the community. “We know that touring is messed up for now, and large gatherings are a fluke,” he explains. “It’s about the notion of us going out to the people and bringing the record to them.” And with the wide-open atmosphere of Mahal, Toro y Moi stands to connect with more listeners than ever before."
Daniel Rossen knew there was a lot to learn if he was finally going to finish his debut solo album. For nearly two decades, Rossen had been a crucial component of Grizzly Bear, the era-epitomizing act whose shared harmonies and interlaced textures meant he was responsible for only part of a whole. But Rossen left the close-knit nest of Brooklyn many years ago, first for an isolated patch of land in upstate New York and then for the high desert climes of Santa Fe. The whole, as it were, was now his. So Rossen bought an upright bass (one of his instruments as a kid) and played all the parts himself, along with the cello. Best known as a guitarist, he took up woodwinds, too, buying several cheap student models and learning just enough to understand the rudiments. And then, largely at home in Santa Fe, he slowly built the world that is You Belong There, a riveting 10-song reintroduction to a voice that sounds both entirely familiar and fully reenergized by the act of unfettered expression.
Spiritualized will release "Everything Was Beautiful" via Fat Possum on 2/25/22. It is the ninth studio album from Spiritualized and it comes 30 years after the debut album. This is the follow up to 2018's "And Nothing Hurt". Jason Pierce performs 16 different instruments across the album. It is recorded at 11 different studios and includes more than 30 musicians across the album. There will be an indie exclusive Pink vinyl inserted into a gold foil sleeve, housed in a high gloss UV Jacket that includes a removable pill box with braille inlay. Some assembly required. Designed by Farrow Design.
Old Crow Medicine Show
Paint This Town [Indie Exclusive Limited Edition Clear LP, 3 Random Covers]
Vinyl: $23.98 Buy
On Paint This Town, Old Crow Medicine Show offer a riveting glimpse into American mythology and the wildly colorful characters who populate it. Co-produced by OCMS and Matt Ross-Spang the album pays homage to everyone from Elvis Presley to Eudora Welty while shedding a bright light on the darker aspects of the country’s legacy. Fueled by Old Crow's freewheeling collision of Americana, old-time music, folk, and rock & roll, Paint This Town turns razor-sharp commentary into rapturous sing-alongs.
Jack White
Fear Of The Dawn [Indie Exclusive Limited Edition Astronomical Blue LP]
Vinyl: $24.98 Buy
Fear of the Dawn is the fourth studio album from Jack White, founding member of The White Stripes, The Raconteurs, and The Dead Weather. True to his DIY roots, this record was recorded at White's Third Man Studio throughout 2021, mastered by Third Man Mastering, pressed to vinyl at Third Man Pressing, and released by Third Man Records. Pressed on limited astronomical blue vinyl, only available at independent record stores
North Mississippi Allstars
Set Sail [Indie Exclusive limited Edition Gotham LP - Alternative Packaging + Bonus Tracks]
Vinyl: $25.98 Buy
This is a color LP that features alternative packaging from the standard LP. The LP package also includes a download of the full album that includes two exclusive bonus tracks.
Luther and Cody Dickinson started North Mississippi Allstars in 1996 as a loose collective of like-minded second-generation musicians who shared a local repertoire and regional style. Over the years the lineup shifted by design, and each NMA record offered up a different combination of collaborators. Set Sail finds the brothers working with Jesse Williams on bass and Lamar Williams, Jr. for the first time.
Set Sail, North Mississippi Allstars’s thirteenth album, follows 2019’s Up and Rolling, which was nominated for a Grammy Award for the Best Contemporary Blues Album in 2021. Set Sail continues the band’s tradition of creating roots music that displays remarkable variety. With their latest record, NMA are able to build upon their self-described sound of Primitive Modernism - a melding of the new and the old, traditional and futuristic, crafted lyrics and improvisational music.
Kurt Vile
(Watch My Moves) [Indie Exclusive Limited Edition Translucent Emerald 2LP]
Vinyl: $39.98 Buy
On his first album in partnership with Verve Records, Kurt Vile pulls his talents as a singer, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, and producer in unexpected directions — and the result is a vibrant, yet meditative record propelled by laid-back charm and curious spirit.
Genesis of Genius: The Contemporary Albums combines legendary Jazz saxophonist Ornette Coleman's albums for Lester Koenig's Contemporary Records. This deluxe box set features Coleman's first albums as a bandleader, Something Else!!! and Tomorrow is the Question!. Both albums were originally recorded by legendary engineer Roy DuNann & have been newly mastered by Bernie Grundman. Includes 32-page booklet with photos & extensive new liner notes by GRAMMYr Award-winning music historian Ashley Kahn.
Calexico occupy their signature sound on the new album, El Mira- dor; riding the continental divide between dream pop, Mexican folk and Americana. If any band understands how to expand their sound without losing the brilliant essence of the band, it’s Calexico. Their songs run the gamut from retro-tinged alt-rock, to sentimental folk to southwestern tracks with an impressive display of vision and expertly honed skills. With vocals that intertwine English and Spanish, El Mirador embraces the musical heritage of the southwest, and features guest artists from all musical genres including: Sam Beam (Iron & Wine) who drops backing vocals on “Harness the Wind”, Jairo Zavala of Depedro is featured vocalist on “Cumbia Peninsula” Gaby Moreno and Mexican Institute Of Sound are featured on “Cumbia Del Polvo”.
St. Paul & The Broken Bones
The Alien Coast [Indie Exclusive Limited Edition Gold Nugget LP]
Vinyl: $23.98 Buy
A fever dream in sonic form, The Alien Coast is the first album St. Paul & The Broken Bones recorded in their hometown of Birmingham. Produced by Matt Ross-Spang (Drive-By Truckers, Margo Price) - the bands fourth full-length is a dizzying convergence of rock & roll and R&B, psychedelia and stoner metal, gospel and jazz-funk. At turns explosive, elegant, and thrillingly unhinged - it makes for a majestic backdrop to the groups visceral exploration of the strangest dimensions of the human psyche.
Acclaimed singer, songwriter and musician Molly Tuttle will release her anticipated Nonesuch Records debut, Crooked Tree, April 1 (on CD and digital. LP will be May 13) with her new bluegrass collective Golden Highway.
Recorded live at Nashville’s Oceanway Studios, Crooked Tree was produced by Tuttle and Jerry Douglas and features collaborations with Sierra Hull, Old Crow Medicine Show, Margo Price, Billy Strings, Dan Tyminski and Gillian Welch. The album explores Tuttle’s love of bluegrass, which she discovered through her father, a music teacher and multi-instrumentalist, and her grandfather, a banjo player. Across these thirteen tracks, all of which were written/co-written by Tuttle, she honors the bluegrass tradition while also pushing the genre in new directions.
“I always knew I wanted to make a bluegrass record someday,” Tuttle says. “Once I started writing, everything flowed so easily: sometimes I’ve felt an internal pressure to come up with a sound no one’s heard before, but this time my intention was just to make an album that reflected the music that’s been passed down through generations in my family. I found a way to do that while writing songs that feel true to who I am, and it really helped me to grow as a songwriter.”
In celebration of the new music, Tuttle and Golden Highway—Bronwyn Keith-Hynes (fiddle), Dominick Leslie (mandolin), Shelby Means (bass) and Kyle Tuttle (banjo)—will embark on an extensive headline tour beginning tonight with shows at Seattle’s Tractor Tavern (two nights), Portland’s Mississippi Studios (two nights), Los Angeles’ Roxy, Salt Lake City’s State Room, Boulder’s Fox Theatre, Asheville’s The Grey Eagle and Nashville’s Station Inn, among several others. Full details can be found at mollytuttlemusic.com/tour.
In addition to Tuttle (vocals, guitars), Douglas (dobro), Keith-Hynes (fiddle) and Leslie (mandolin), Crooked Tree also features musicians Darol Anger (fiddle), Ron Block (banjo), Mike Bub (upright bass), Jason Carter (fiddle), Viktor Krauss (upright bass), Todd Phillips (upright bass) and Christian Sedelmyer (fiddle) with additional harmony vocals from Tina Adair, Lindsay Lou and Melody Walker.
Eric D. Johnson, the creative force behind Fruit Bats, doesn't spend a lot of time looking in the rearview mirror. But with the 20th anniversary of his first Fruit Bats release (2001's Echolocation) on his mind, it seemed as good a time as any to take stock of his work-and he's doing so in the form of Sometimes a Cloud Is Just a Cloud: Slow Growers, Sleeper Hits and Lost Songs (2001-2021), a two-disc collection that tracks the history of Fruit Bats from it's earliest days to right now. Thoughtfully compiled by Johnson himself, this set is split in two distinct halves. Set in reverse chronological order, the first disc cherry-picks from Fruit Bats' official releases, including fan favorites-"Humbug Mountain Song" from 2016's Absolute Loser and "The Bottom of It" from his 2019 Merge debut Gold Past Life-alongside some of Johnson's more personal choices like "Glass in Your Feet" from Echolocation.
One of the most striking and strangely moving moments onJake Xerxes Fussell’s gorgeous Good and Green Again—an album, his fourth and most recent, replete with such dazzling moments—arrives at its very end, with the brief words to the final song “Washing-ton.” “General Washington/Noblest of men/His house, his horse, his cherry tree, and him,” Fussell sings, after a hushed introductory passage in which his trademark percussively fingerpicked Telecaster converses lacily with James Elkington’s parlor piano. That’s the entire lyrical content of the song, which proceeds to float away on orchestral clouds of French horn, trumpet, and strings, until it simply stops, suddenly evaporating, vanishing with no fade or trace, no resolution to its sorrowful minor-key chord progression, just silence and stillness and stark presidential absence. It feels like the end of a film, or the cold departure of a ghost, and is unlike anything else Jake has recorded.
The song provides an apt metaphor for the record as a whole and for Fussell’s artistic process itself. He appropriated the text from an early 20th century hooked rug by an anonymous Virginian artist depicting exactly what its red-stitched all-caps headline text and caption declares: Mount Vernon, a horse, a cherry tree, and the big man himself, cartoonishly grimacing (or is it wryly grinning? there’s not much mouth, just a red-thread wrinkle). George sits cross-legged in foppish leggings and slippers on a blue bestarred chair, with a perfect arch of snow-white wig haloed around his noble head. The rendering of this folk-art artifact ignores perspective and punctuation: every object in the lineup is the same size, and the list of the General’s stuff includes no commas or line breaks, a kind of accidental concrete poem that democratizes the supposedly great democratizer, reducing him to the same prosaic level as his diminutive crib, his prancing pony, and his tart cherries (maybe he is grimacing after all). The image may have been intended as a tribute, maybe even a reverent one—if we forget the fact that it’s a rug, and that we’re meant to walk all over it—but it hits as satire in its contemporary context, like a textile version of one of those all-caps cat caption memes. (I CAN HAZ CHERRIES?) The “noblest of men” looks a bit pathetic here, a little childish with his big-boy toys, a little goofy and alone—a little like how the rest of us often feel.
(Now, Jake is certainly no apologist for George Washington, nor for the myriad atrocities of American history, but he recognizes the deep wells of American song are filled from headwaters both fresh and vile. Within its ambiguities, “Washington” is, for Fussell, a placid protest song that elevates an artist and her rug above a general in his splendor. It’s a fragment of the broken ways we speak about history and power, a satirical shard sent to pierce and deflate our pernicious, endlessly regurgitated national mythologies. As such, it’s adeeply sad song. It’s not the only one here.)
Fussell carefully considers such contradictions in his studious choice of songs. He’s distinguished himself as one of his generation’s preeminent interpreters of traditional (and not so traditional) “folk” songs, a practice which he approaches with a refreshingly unfussy lack of nostalgia and preciousness, utterly devoid of folkie cosplay. By re-contextualizing ancient vernacular songs and sources of theAmerican South, he allows them to breathe and speak for themselves and for himself; he alternately inhabits them and allows them to inhabit him. His mesmerizing performances reveal the beauty of calling things by their true names, of coaxing old texts and recordings gently through the telescope of time, thereby transmuting them, through his own ineffable alchemy, into something approachably intimate and immediately relevant, something both his and ours.
In all his work Jake humanizes his material with his own profound curatorial and interpretive gifts, unmooring stories and melodies from their specific eras and origins and setting them adrift in our own waterways. The robust burr of his voice, which periodically melts and catches at a particularly tender turn of phrase, and the swung rhythmic undertow of exquisite, seemingly effortless guitar-play-ing—here he plays more acoustic than ever before—pull new valences of meaning from ostensibly antique songs and subjects. What’s different about “Washington” is that it’s one of four original compositions on the album—the others are the three instrumentals—a career first for Fussell, who has heretofore been content to remain a vitreous vessel for existing, often anonymous, songs. On Good and Green Again, Jake not only ventures beyond his established mastery of song catching and song making into songwriting, but likewise navigates fresh sonic and compositional landscapes, going green with lusher, more atmospheric and ambitious arrangements. The result is the most conceptually focused, breathtakingly rendered, and enigmatically poignant record of his wondrous catalog. It’s also his most deliberately premeditated album, representing his fruitful return to a producer partnership after two self-produced projects, What in theNatural World (2017) and Out of Sight (2019) (William Tyler produced his friend’s self-titled 2015 debut.) This time James Elkington produced and played a panoply of instruments, bringing to Jake’s arcane song choices his own peerless sense of harmony and orchestration, balance and dramatic tension, honed from collaborations with artists such as Michael Chapman, Steve Gunn, Joan Shelley, Richard Thompson, and Jeff Tweedy. Jake knew after a 2018 Midwestern tour together that he wanted to work with Jim, appreciating his open ears, unorthodox influences, and flexibility in following instincts.
The pair enlisted a group of formidable players hailing from Durham,North Carolina (where Fussell lives) and elsewhere, including regular band members Casey Toll (Mt. Moriah, Nathan Bowles) on upright bass, Libby Rodenbough (Mipso) on strings, and Nathan Golub on pedal steel. They were joined by welcome newcomers Joe Westerlund (Megafaun ,Califone) on drums, Joseph Decosimo on fiddle, Anna Jacobson on brass, and veteran collaborator and avowed Fussell fan Bonnie “Prince” Billy, who contributes additional vocals.
Together this crew is uncannily able to pinpoint that magical place on Jake’s musical map where melancholy, quietude, and head-nodding, foot-stomping joy commingle and transcend—places like, on previous albums, “Raggy Levy,” “Jump for Joy,” and “The River St. Johns.” Album opener “Love Farewell” (featuring some beautiful singing by Bonnie “Prince” Billy) rings that bell with an elliptical tale of the folly of war, set to the world’s most heartbreaking goodbye march for a lover left behind. “Carriebelle” and “Breast of Glass” each similarly concerns, in its own way, romantic love and leavings. All three songs highlight Jacobson’s diaphanous, understated brass parts, tying them together in a true lover’s knot. “Rolling Mills Are Burning Down,” with its distant keening strings and capacious sense of space, observes and mourns the loss of work and community in the wake of elemental disaster. Nine-minute tour de force “The Golden Willow Tree,” the sole explicitly narrative song herein, is a hypnotic, minimalist rendering of a tragic maritime ballad about scuttling an enemy ship in exchange for wealth and glory—and a captain’s inevitable betrayal. It’s a rejoinder to “Love Farewell”’s naïve cheer in the face of imminent violence.
If overallGood and Green Again sounds a little sadder and slower than Fussell’s past records, well, maybe we’re all a little sadder and slower these days. A smoldering mood of regret and loss pervades, a distinct vibe of vanitas. But three airy instrumentals, all Fussell originals—“Frolic,” “What Did the Hen Duck Say to the Drake?,” and “In Florida”—punctuate the program, offering respite and light in the form of crisp, shuffling play-party tunes, each in turn somewhat more hopeful and exuberant than the last. Their resemblance to lullabies is, perhaps, not coincidental. Fussell and his partner welcomed their first child into the world during the making of Good and Green Again. These lovely songs bear that promise in letters of bright gold.
Sarah Shook & The Disarmers
Nightroamer [Indie Exclusive Limited Edition Sky Blue LP]
Vinyl: $19.98 Buy
“I’m starting to realize that being an outlier and a weirdo––it doesn’t have to be a bad thing,” says Sarah Shook. Shook pauses, then adds with a grin, “It can be whatever you want it to be.”
Shook is home in North Carolina, talking about Nightroamer, the hotly anticipated new album from their band, Sarah Shook & The Disarmers. Backed by white-knuckle playing from Eric Peterson on guitar, Aaron Oliva on upright bass, drummer Jack Foster, and Adam Kurtz on pedal steel, Shook has pulled from Hank Williams, Elliott Smith, the Sex Pistols, and Shook’s own inquisitive, open, outlying self to create pop-savvy, honky-tonk punk that’s both an escape and a reality check––a re-opened wound and a balm. Relationships and life-changing realizations are dissected with honesty and humor, three tight minutes at a time.
When Sarah Shook & The Disarmers released Sidelong four years ago, the irreverent quintet’s debut turned heads around the world. Then 2018’s follow-up Years hooked everyone from Rolling Stone to Vice. “This ain’t no country for hipsters or posers,” said No Depression. “It’s real, raw, mean-and-evil-bad-and-nasty bidness.” Then, the first two albums turned into a tease: The pandemic shut down the world, just as The Disarmers finished recording Nightroamer in Los Angeles. The band has had to sit on the album––until now.
Nightroamer is worth the wait. This is still a band whose recordings beg to be heard live, either in a punk-rock hole in the wall or honky-tonk roadhouse. Shook’s voice is crystalline––but boozy, too, with a cadence that sounds comfortable resting in the pocket before lagging, jumping, or cozying up to the offbeat. What initially may feel like a slip is actually a stroke––and listeners cannot get enough.
Produced by Pete Anderson, Nightroamer is the confident next step fans hoped The Disarmers could take. “I think this record is different than ones we’ve done in the past. It feels every bit as expansive as I wanted it to feel,” says Shook. “I didn’t want there to be a shocking, jarring difference, but I definitely wanted it to feel like things are opening up. It’s a bigger feeling experience.”
Asked what they hope listeners experience, Shook is clear. “Music is one of the ways we can connect to other people,” they say. “That’s my hope: That people feel seen and they feel connected to something that brings them a sense of peace.”
Brent Cobb follows in the footsteps of his country music heroes with his new gospel album, And Now, Let’s Turn to Page…. By offering eight familiar hymns alongside an original song written with his wife, the collection feels reverent as well as rowdy—and completely in his comfort zone.
Although the album has been a long-time dream for Cobb, it has only come to fruition now due to a near-death experience in July 2020, when the vehicle that he was driving, with his young son inside, got T-boned at a rural four-way stop. Following the crash, Cobb found himself with a renewed outlook on life, remembering, “You just start piecing together how everything is sort of intentional…I’d always had it in the back of my mind to make a gospel album. That moment of clarity, of almost getting killed, made me think I should just make the gospel album now.”
Produced by Dave Cobb in RCA Studio A in Nashville, And Now, Let’s Turn to Page… continues a tradition established by legends such as Jerry Lee Lewis, Willie Nelson, and Elvis Presley, who could invoke their spiritual side without losing sight of their musical foundation. “I’ve always wanted to make a southern gospel album because it’s what I come from, but also it used to seem like a rite of passage for country singers to make a gospel album,” Brent says. “It all comes from gospel music. That’s where country music came from. I’m just trying to carry that torch.”
Born and raised in Georgia, Brent returned to his home state a few years ago after establishing a career as one of Nashville’s most creative and compelling songwriters. He explains that he considers each of his past albums like a message to his kids: Keep ‘Em on They Toes explores his thoughts, Providence Canyon describes the people who influenced his life, and the Grammy-nominated Shine on Rainy Day reveals who he is. For the gospel album, he adds, “this is what I believe in.”
Grammy-nominated singer, songwriter and musician Brent Cobb will release his debut gospel album, And Now, Let’s Turn To Page…, January 28 via his own label, Ol’ Buddy Records.
Jenny Hval is an Oslo-based musician, composer and writer. Multidisciplinary and transgressive are words often employed to describe her art, but Jenny Hval'spolyphonic artistry is in fact seamlessly interwoven between musical, literary, visual and performative modes of expression. She has released several solo albums and novels, including 2018's Paradise Rotand 2020's Girls Against God, both published via Verso Books.
Cat Power returns with Covers, Chan Marshall’s third album of her celebrated reinterpretations of songs by classic and contemporary artists.
On Covers, Marshall reaches back to songs that have affected her from childhood to the present, connecting each with a deeply personal memory. She recalls her grandmother’s love for Billie Holiday’s “I’ll Be Seeing You” and finding a box of cassettes as a teenager that led her to discovering Kitty Wells’ “It Wasn’t God Who Made Honky Tonk Angels.” She remembers getting chills hearing Iggy Pop’s “Endless Sea” in the 1986 Michael Hutchence film Dogs in Space and being a broke artist in her twenties in New York City spending her last dollar to play the Replacements’ “Here Comes a Regular” on the jukebox at Mona’s. She recorded the Pogues’ “Pair of Brown Eyes,” which she calls one of her favorite songs of all time, after it reminded her of one friend who passed from cancer and turned to Bob Seger’s “Against the Wind” to help her heal from the loss of another.
Alongside covers of rock-and-roll icons from Nico to Nick Cave, Marshall brings her inimitable vocal power and elegant arrangements to songs by contemporary artists, capturing the defiance of Dead Man’s Bones’ “Pa Pa Power” and the dreaminess of Lana Del Rey’s “A White Mustang.” And the album opens with a dazzling cover of Frank Ocean’s “Bad Religion,” of which she says, “I believe in whatever God is called… But I think that the wretched men that have come in history to implement horror on humanity in the name of these religions is something that should be looked at universally.”
Finally, Covers finds Marshall, an artist of constant evolution, reworking “Hate,” a song from her 2006 LP The Greatest on which she sang “I hate myself and I want to die.” Marshall says she has always felt “antsy” about the track and reimagined it as “Unhate,” a new version that looks back on the raw devastation of the original track in the rearview. “We all have bad days,” she says. “We all have shit, trauma, something. There are times when you feel like that. But I needed to make it right.”
Marshall self-produced all of Covers; it was recorded in Los Angeles at Mant Studios with Rob Schnapf, who mixed and engineered.
Bill Fay has always sung about attempting to understand the most universal questions: those of nature, spirituality, humanity. His songs are “calming hymns for another chaotic time”, he says. His influence can be traced through many artists’ work, and so it only seemed right to celebrate this with a collection of newer voices interpreting his timeless tracks. Originally released in2010 by David Tibet (Current 93), Still Some Light was released as a double CD, made up of70’s album demos (Disc One) and 2009 home recordings (Disc Two). This year, for the first time, this collection of recordings will be pressed to vinyl and released digitally, presented alongside contemporary reimaginings of the tracks by Kevin Morby, Steve Gunn, Julia Jacklin and Mary Lattimore. Bill Fay’s words and melodies remain unaffected by the passing of time and changing trends; and here alongside the original recordings, these reinvented versions still calmly guide us through another moment of chaos.
In the afterglow of her acclaimed 2020 album Silver Ladders (a year-end favorite of NPR, Pitchfork, The New Yorker, and others), Los Angeles-based harpist Mary Lattimore returns with a culminating counterpart release, Collected Pieces: 2015-2020. The limited-edition LP features new and previously unreleased material, Bandcamp-only singles, and other obscurities alongside standouts from her 2017 tape Collected Pieces. Beyond the vinyl compendium, an expanded tracklist on the cassette/digital version brings more of Lattimore’s archives together for the first time. Lattimore has described the process of arranging these releases as akin to “opening a box filled with memories,” and here that box continues to populate, accessible for both the artist and fans. Evocative material separated by years, framed as a portrait of an instrumental storyteller who rarely pauses, recording and often sharing music as soon as it strikes her. Seemingly in constant forward motion for the last five years since her Ghostly debut, Lattimore glances back for a breath, inviting new chances to live in these fleeting moments and emotions; all the beauty, sorrow, sunshine, and darkness housed within.
Opening the cassette version is “Mary, You Were Wrong,” which mirrors an author’s bout with a broken heart. “It’s about how you have to keep on going even if you make some mistakes,” she says. The bittersweet refrain cycles throughout, a little brighter every time, slowly, like the way time tends to heal.
Unreleased track “Sleeping Deer” came together during Lattimore’s artist residency on a cattle ranch in Wyoming. She remembers, “a small deer whose mother I think had been run over by a car would hang out in the yard. I called him Lollipop and would leave vegetable scraps out.” Lollipop returned daily to eat, rest, and wait for more. The music this vision inspired is patient and droning, with light plucks giving way to deeper, vibrating tones, permeating with a sense of anticipation.
Next is a newer single, “We Wave From Our Boats,” which she improvised after walking her neighborhood during the early days of lockdown in 2020, and shared on her Bandcamp. “I would just wave at neighbors I didn’t know in a gesture of solidarity and it reminded me of how you’re compelled to wave at people on the other boat when you’re on a boat yourself, or on a bridge or something. The pull to wave feels very innate and natural.” The heart of the track is somber loop, over top which Lattimore’s synth notes ruminate, each a gentle shimmer of optimism in the most anxious and absurd of days.
Also recorded in 2020, “What The Living Do” is inspired by Marie Howe’s poem of the same name, which reflects on loss through an appreciation for the mundane messiness of being human. The echoed, slow-marching track has a distant feel to it, as if the listener is outside of it, watching life play out as a film. “Princess Nicotine (1909)” scores actual footage, a dream sequence Lattimore imagined for J. Stuart Blackton’s surreal silent film Princess Nicotine; or, the Smoke Fairy. She adopted the same approach for “Polly of the Circus,” explaining it was the name of one of the old silent films discovered in permafrost in the Yukon [featured in the documentary Dawson City: Frozen Time], “the only copy that survived and it kind of warped in the aging process.”
A trove of pieces are collected here, most recorded in the moment, just Lattimore and her Lyon and Healy Concert Grand Harp, contact mics, and pedals. There’s the one about the American astronaut’s homecoming (“For Scott Kelly, Returned To Earth”), the Charlie Chaplin-like character who lost their glasses (“Be My Four Eyes”). Like her most affecting work, these songs showcase Lattimore’s gifts as an observer, able to shape her craft around emotional frequencies and scenes. Her power as a musician is rooted in how she sees the world: in vivid detail, profoundly empathic, with deep gratitude for nature and nuance.
Nils Frahm’s double album 'Old Friends New Friends' gathers together 23 solo piano tracks recorded between 2009 and 2021, almost all hitherto unreleased but omitted from previous albums and projects for one reason or another.
The album was pieced together during the pandemic as Frahm used the time to arrange his archives, conscious of the sheer number of recordings he’d accumulated. Having selected his favourites, he realised how, when he listened to them together, they offered “a different spectrum of freedom for me. I forgot that some tracks are ten years old, some two, and they’re all played on different pianos. Instead I remembered how, as a fan, I love albums like this. With a lot of my records there’s a point where you feel, ‘This is the centrepiece,’ but here I wasn’t really worrying about that. It still feels like my universe, though, and I’m proud that all these things which I never found a way to unite before now work together. It’s like I tossed flowers indiscriminately into a vase and then realised it looked exactly right.”
The 140g vinyl records come housed in a single-pocket cardboard jacket, and protected by premium anti-static inner sleeves.
Live from Blackalachia is a live album and movie composed of dynamic band arrangements from Moses Sumney's first 2 albums. It was recorded in the Blue Ridge Mountains in the summer of 2020, on a stage built on a hill nestled within a 72-acre ranch.
In January 2020, Moses Sumney and band gathered in Western North Carolina to design festival-ready versions of songs from Aromanticism and ˆ. After the world shut down and tour was canceled, Moses maintained a desire to share the show, but in a new way. Not just a live stream or recording. A film. A concert film. So in the summer of 2020, the band re-convened in Asheville, and designed the show for Live From Blackalachia. Moses directed the conceptual concert film, and decided to release it in both audio and visual formats.
There’s A Riot Goin’ On, Sly And The Family Stone’s influential masterpiece of darkly psychedelic funk turns 50 in 2021 and to celebrate, there will be a new limited edition version on red vinyl. The album marked a shift in the band’s tone, striking a more political and militant vibe while showing Sly Stone’s disillusionment with the promise of the 60s. At the same time, it was also a big commercial success, hitting #1 on the album charts while the single “Family Affair” topped the singles charts. Its influence rang throughout the 70s as all of the funk innovators took their cues from this seminal album, and its songs became a favorite for hip hop artist mining sampling gold decades later. It came in at #81 on Rolling Stone’s Greatest Albums Of All Time and besides “Family Affair,” the album features the tracks “Just Like A Baby” and “Africa Talks To You (“Asphalt Jungle”).”
Cat Power returns with Covers, Chan Marshall’s third album of her celebrated reinterpretations of songs by classic and contemporary artists.
On Covers, Marshall reaches back to songs that have affected her from childhood to the present, connecting each with a deeply personal memory. She recalls her grandmother’s love for Billie Holiday’s “I’ll Be Seeing You” and finding a box of cassettes as a teenager that led her to discovering Kitty Wells’ “It Wasn’t God Who Made Honky Tonk Angels.” She remembers getting chills hearing Iggy Pop’s “Endless Sea” in the 1986 Michael Hutchence film Dogs in Space and being a broke artist in her twenties in New York City spending her last dollar to play the Replacements’ “Here Comes a Regular” on the jukebox at Mona’s. She recorded the Pogues’ “Pair of Brown Eyes,” which she calls one of her favorite songs of all time, after it reminded her of one friend who passed from cancer and turned to Bob Seger’s “Against the Wind” to help her heal from the loss of another.
Alongside covers of rock-and-roll icons from Nico to Nick Cave, Marshall brings her inimitable vocal power and elegant arrangements to songs by contemporary artists, capturing the defiance of Dead Man’s Bones’ “Pa Pa Power” and the dreaminess of Lana Del Rey’s “A White Mustang.” And the album opens with a dazzling cover of Frank Ocean’s “Bad Religion,” of which she says, “I believe in whatever God is called… But I think that the wretched men that have come in history to implement horror on humanity in the name of these religions is something that should be looked at universally.”
Finally, Covers finds Marshall, an artist of constant evolution, reworking “Hate,” a song from her 2006 LP The Greatest on which she sang “I hate myself and I want to die.” Marshall says she has always felt “antsy” about the track and reimagined it as “Unhate,” a new version that looks back on the raw devastation of the original track in the rearview. “We all have bad days,” she says. “We all have shit, trauma, something. There are times when you feel like that. But I needed to make it right.”
Marshall self-produced all of Covers; it was recorded in Los Angeles at Mant Studios with Rob Schnapf, who mixed and engineered.
Animal Collective
Time Skiffs [Indie Exclusive Limited Edition Translucent Ruby 2LP]
Vinyl: $34.98 Buy
Time Skiffs’ nine songs are love letters, distress signals, en plein air observations, and relaxation hymns, the collected transmissions of four people who have grown into relationships and parenthood and adult worry. But they are rendered with Animal Collective’s singular sense of exploratory wonder. Harmonies so rich you want to skydive through their shared air, textures so fascinating you want to decode their sorcery, rhythms so intricate you want to untangle their sources. Here is Animal Collective's past two decades, still in search of what’s next.
On October 8th, Matador Records will celebrate the 25th anniversary of the quintet's long out-of-print second album and label debut, Amanita, with a newly remastered 2xLP reissue.
Formed in 1991, Philadelphia's Bardo Pond have spent some thirty years mapping guitar music's outer limits ' dialing into extremes of noise, chaos, and harmony in free-form compositions that now unfurl across 12 full-length records and a near-limitless body of EPs, cassettes, and CD-Rs Recorded by the lineup of John Gibbons (guitar), Michael Gibbons (guitar), Isobel Sollenberger (voice, flute), Clint Takeda (bass), and Joe Culver (drums), Amanita is the place where the band's spontaneous collective creativity blazed into maturity.
'Amanita was a manifesto of everything we were trying to do,' says Michael Gibbons. It was really a template for everything we did later. We were a real unit ' just so creative, just making up riffs. There were songs, but they were still rooted in our free-improv base. We had a beauty, but we also had a really strong impulse to be dissonant.'
Curtis Harding
If Words Were Flowers [Indie Exclusive Limited Edition Strawberry Shortcake Splash LP]
Vinyl: $26.98 Buy
Sturgill Simpson
The Ballad of Dood and Juanita [Indie Exclusive Limited Edition Natural LP]
Vinyl: $22.98 Buy
In a career marked by risk-taking and rule-breaking, Simpson has previously challenged genre conventions with 2016’s soul-inflected A Sailor’s Guide to Earth, which won the Grammy award for Country Album of the Year and was nominated for Album of the Year, and 2019’s Sound & Fury, which was nominated for Rock Album of the Year.
* THE OHIO PLAYERS/ FRIDAY MUSIC 180 GRAM AUDIOPHILE VINYL SERIES BEGINS!!! * CELEBRATE YOUR HOLIDAYS WITH THE RETURN OF THEIR MULTI-PLATINUM FUNK MASTERPIECE "FIRE" * FIRST TIME EVER 180 GRAM AUDIOPHILE VINYL * FIRST TIME EVER SUPER LIMITED TRANSLUCENT RED VINYL * STRIKING ORIGINAL GATEFOLD COVER ART OUT OF PRINT FOR YEARS * PRODUCED BY THE OHIO PLAYERS * MASTERED IMPECCABLY BY JOE REAGOSO (OHIO PLAYERS/EARTH WIND AND FIRE) FROM THE ORIGINAL MERCURY RECORDS TAPES * FEATURES SMASH HITS: "FIRE" "I WANT TO BE FREE" "SMOKE" "RUNNIN' FROM THE DEVIL" & "TOGETHER"
THE OHIO PLAYERS: Leroy "Sugarfoot" Bonner, Clarence "Satch" Satchell, James "Diamond" Williams, Billy Beck, Marvin "Merv" Pierce, Marshall "Rock" Jones and Ralph "Pee Wee" Middlebrooks 1974 was a magical year for The Ohio Players, after years of hard work, a plethora of fine recordings and tours, their sixth album "Fire" would become all the things you would want for a hit album- multi-platinum hit songs, multi #1 chart sales in both pop and r&b, and multiple radio formats all over the dial. "Fire" was just the song everyone was looking for in 1974. It had the full fledged funk sound of their many years of stewardship to the soul crowd, as it also brought in first time rockers, pop listeners and a major push from radio and massive television exposure with shows like "In Concert" "Midnight Special" and "Don Kirshner's Rock Concert," The chart topping album was filled with more great fare like "I Wanna Be Free" "Smoke" as well as the soul balladry of "Together" which would all become instant classics which have stood the test of time now for over four decades. Featuring the guitar and vocals of the late great front man Leroy "Sugarfoot" Bonner, his guitar and vocal wizardry along with the keyboard and vocals of the great Billy Beck, along with the musical geniuses of Clarence Satchell, James "Diamond" Williams, Marvin Pierce, Marshall Jones and Ralph Middlebrooks, the Ohio Players were surely on top of their game and for a very long time afterwards thanks to the songs and musicianship displayed on this red hot album. Friday Music is very pleased to announce the first in a series of super limited 180 Gram Audiophile Vinyl releases from the great Ohio Players with their chart topping masterpiece "Fire." The first time ever 180 Gram Vinyl release will also be manufactured for a super limited run on smokin' hot red vinyl and it will also be featured in the striking gatefold album cover artwork not seen in years. Produced by The Ohio Players and mastered impeccably by Joe Reagoso (Ohio Players/Earth Wind and Fire) from the original Mercury Records tapes, this fine album will become one of the more important funk album revisits in many years. So, please join us in welcoming the legendary Ohio Players to the Friday Music label where we are celebrating their classic masterwork "Fire" album ....right in time for your holiday season listening and gift giving.
The latest chapter in Columbia/Legacy's highly acclaimed Bob Dylan Bootleg Series shines fresh light on the provocative new musical directions Dylan was taking as a songwriter and a recording artist from 1980 through 1985. In the early 1980s, while the music industry was grappling with the arrival of new trends and technology, from MTV to compact discs to digital recording, Bob Dylan was writing and recording new songs for a new decade, creating an essential new chapters in his studio catalog. Bob Dylan - Springtime In New York (1980-1985) celebrates the rich creative period surrounding Dylan's classic albums Shot Of Love, Infidels, and Empire Burlesque with previously unreleased outtakes, alternate takes, rehearsal recordings, live performances and more.
In his liner notes for Bob Dylan - Springtime In New York, Damien Love writes, "And that's the real story of this gloriously untrammeled collection. The songs. The songs stripped free of trappings, tampering, passing tastes, and judgements. The songs broken down to the sound of people really doing this, right now, acting on instinct. The songs rough and rowdy, bruised and tender, joking and crying, nagging and striving and yearning. The songs were always there, and here they are still, keeping pace with us."
James McMurtry
The Horses and the Hounds [Indie Exclusive Limited Edition Slate Grey 2LP]
Vinyl: $29.98 Buy
In James McMurtry’s new effort, The Horses and the Hounds, the acclaimed songwriter backs personal narratives with effortless elegance (“Canola Fields”) and endless energy (“If It Don’t Bleed”). This first collection in seven years spotlights a seasoned tunesmith in peak form as he turns toward reflection (“Vaquero”) and revelation (closer “Blackberry Winter”). Familiar foundations guide the journey. “There’s a definite Los Angeles vibe to this record,” McMurtry says. “The ghost of Warren Zevon seems to be stomping around among the guitar tracks. Don’t know how he got in there. He never signed on for work for hire.”
The Horses and the Hounds is a reunion of sorts. McMurtry recorded the new album with legendary producer Ross Hogarth (Ozzy Osbourne, John Fogerty, Van Halen, Keb’ Mo’) at Jackson Browne’s Groovemaster’s in Santa Monica, California. Hogarth recorded McMurtry’s first two albums, Too Long in the Wasteland and Candyland and later mixed McMurtry’s first self-produced album, Saint Mary of the Woods. Another veteran of those three releases, guitarist David Grissom (Joe Ely, John Mellencamp, Dixie Chicks), returns with some of his finest work.
The Spaceman Reissue Program edition of Ladies & Gentlemen We Are Floating In Space promises to give those recordings the fullest spectrum audio and physical treatment they’ve deserved since the original release. It will be the third in this series of 180g double albums with the lacquer cut from original sources by Alchemy Mastering, presented in a gatefold jacket adorned by reworked art by Mark Farrow, and available in both a standard black vinyl pressing and limited edition Neptune Blue vinyl, as well as CD.
Charles Mingus
The Black Saint And The Sinner Lady (Verve Acoustic Sounds Series) [LP]
Vinyl: $39.98 Buy
Long-considered Charles Mingus' masterpiece, The Black Saint And The Sinner Ladyrepresents high-water marks in both jazz composition and orchestration. An essential work in the history of jazz, this extended work has been performed as a ballet and features original liner notes by Mingus' psychotherapist. Verve's Acoustic Sounds Series features transfers from analog tapes and remastered 180-gram vinyl in deluxe gatefold packaging.
"Woke up singing a dead man's song..." is the opening line from the Warren Haynes original "Heavy Load," a line of imagery that feels like the beginning of dirt. Blues. On this album, the iconic American band puts their unique musical stamp on an incredible collection of Blues covers and originals. Haynes, the leader of Gov't Mule, hails from a Southern rock tradition of scruffy virtuosity. Gov't Mule is Warren's show, and the Blues is the informing foundation, personal and universal.
Over the last four decades, Bela Fleck has made a point of boldly going where no banjo player has gone before, a musical journey that has earned him 15 Grammys in nine different fields, including Country, Pop, Jazz, Instrumental, Classical and World Music. But his roots are in bluegrass, and that's where he returns with his first bluegrass tour in 24 years, My Bluegrass Heart. My Bluegrass Heart is the third chapter of a trilogy which began with the 1988 album, Drive, and continued in 1991 with The Bluegrass Sessions. The project features a who's who of some of the greatest instrumentalists in bluegrass music's history alongside some of the best of the new generation of players mandolinists Sam Bush, Sierra Hull, and Chris Thile; fiddlers Michael Cleveland and Stuart Duncan; celebrated multi-instrumentalist Justin Moses, bassists Edgar Meyer and Mark Schatz, and the amazing Bryan Sutton and Molly Tuttle on guitar.
Courtney Barnett
Things Take Time, Take Time [ALL EYES ON THE PAVEMENT BLUE LP]
Vinyl: $26.98 Buy
Things Take Time, Take Time is an assured leap forward for Barnett; a breakthrough really. This is Barnett at her most relaxed, creative and joyful. An exquisite look at the intimate, private world created by Barnett and drummer/producer Stella Mozgawa (Warpaint, Cate le Bon, Kurt Vile). It's consequently her most beautiful and intimate record to date.
My Morning Jacket
My Morning Jacket [Indie Exclusive Limited Edition Orange Crush w/ Lemon Splatter 2LP]
Vinyl: $29.98 Buy
On their new full-length - the first new music since The Waterfall (2015) - My Morning Jacket reaffirm the rarefied magic that has made them so beloved, embedding each song with moments of discovery, revelation and ecstatic catharsis. It comes after a near permanent hiatus for the band until performing four shows in summer '19 left them with a new energy. Jim James engineered/produced at 64 Sound in LA where the band spent weeks in intentional seclusion emerging with their self-titled 9th album.
Parquet Courts' thought-provoking rock is dancing to a new tune. Sympathy For Life finds the Brooklyn band at both their most instinctive and electronic, spinning their bewitching, psychedelic storytelling into fresh territory, yet maintaining their unique identity. Built largely from improvised jams, inspired by New York clubs, Primal Scream and Pink Floyd and produced in league with Ro- daidh McDonald (The xx, Hot Chip, David Byrne), Sympathy For Life was always destined to be dancey. Unlike its globally adored predecessor, 2018"s Wide Awake! the focus fell on grooves rather than rhythm. 'Wide Awake! was a record you could put on at a party,' says co-frontman Austin Brown. 'Sympathy For Life is influenced by the party itself. Historically, some amazing rock records have been made from mingling in dance music culture ' from Talking Heads to Screamadelica. Our goal was to bring that into our own music.'
One of the top emerging artists across all genres of music, Billy Strings has made his most ambitious album to date with Renewal, a 16-song collection that effortlessly positions him as a singular talent—one who reveres the history of the acoustic music that inspired him, while pushing it forward into new spaces and audiences through his incredible live shows.
Serving as a reflection of Strings’ diverse musical influences, Renewal reaches well beyond bluegrass with elements of heavy metal, jam bands, psychedelic music and classic rock—even though it’s still primarily an acoustic record. The album follows his Grammy Award-winning project, Home, as well as industry recognition ranging from Pollstar’s Breakthrough Artist of the Pandemic to the International Bluegrass Music Association’s Guitar Player of the Year and New Artist of the Year.
“I’ve learned, you’ve just got to let the song do its thing,” shares Strings. “So that’s what I try to do—write songs and let them come out however they do.”
Spiritualized
Let It Come Down: Reissue [Indie Exclusive Limited Edition Ivory LP]
Vinyl: $29.98 Buy
Let It Come Down is the fourth album by the rock band Spiritualized, released in 2001. It was recorded and produced at Abbey Road and AIR Studios. It took Jason Pierce, Spiritualized's lead singer, guitarist and sole constant member four years to write, perform, produce and release. The album utilizes 115 session musicians, including orchestra and London Community Gospel Choir.
In a career marked by risk-taking and rule-breaking, Simpson has previously challenged genre conventions with 2016’s soul-inflected A Sailor’s Guide to Earth, which won the Grammy award for Country Album of the Year and was nominated for Album of the Year, and 2019’s Sound & Fury, which was nominated for Rock Album of the Year.
For the Grateful Dead's second live album, released two years after its predecessor LIVE/DEAD, the band delivered an equally magnificent, but entirely different, Grateful Dead sound. Whereas LIVE/DEAD was a perfect sonic encapsulation of the band at the peak of their Primal Dead era, SKULL & ROSES captures the quintessential quintet, the original five piece band, playing some of their hardest hitting rock 'n' roll (`Johnny B. Goode,' `Not Fade Away'), showing off their authentic Bakersfield bona fides (`Me & My Uncle,' `Mama Tried,' `Me & Bobby McGee'), and some originals that would be important parts of the Dead's live repertoire for the next 24 years (`Bertha,' `Playing In The Band,' `Wharf Rat'). Of course, the Dead were never defined by one specific `sound' and amongst the aforementioned genres and styles the band brought to this album, they also delved deeply into their psychedelic, primal playbook with an entire side dedicated to their 1968 masterpiece `The Other One.' This is one of the most deeply rich and satisfying tracks preserved on an official Grateful Dead album, up there with LIVE/DEAD's `Dark Star' and EUROPE '72's `Morning Dew.' SKULL & ROSES sounds as fresh today as the first time I heard it in 1985, and as fresh as it was upon its spectacularly well-received release in 1971." - David Lemieux
Not only did SKULL & ROSES serve up supremely fine tunes, it was also the one that scored the Grateful Dead their very first Gold record, introduced the world to the iconic skeleton babe Bertha, and asked the questions - Who are you? Where are you? How are you? - giving birth to the first official generation of Dead Heads.
DEAD FREAKS reunite on June 25th for the release of the remastered original album on 180-gram 2LP. We've got exclusive black & white propeller colored vinyl - limited to just 5,000 units. Get it here.
Various Artists
The Daptone Super Soul Revue Live! At the Apollo [Limited Edition Translucent Tie-Eye Teal 3LP]
Vinyl: $48.98 Buy
Daptone celebrates 20 years of soulful music with the release of The Daptone Super Soul Revue "LIVE at the Apollo". Performed and recorded over three nights in front of a sold-out crowd at The World Famous Theater in Harlem, NY (December 4th - 6th, 2014), this album brings the electrifying performances that helped put Daptone on the map directly to your living room! Featuring live sets from Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings, Charles Bradley and his Extraordinaires, Naomi Shelton and the Gospel Queens, Antibalas, The Budos Band, Menahan Street Band, Saun & Starr, The Sugarman 3, as well as our em-cee, Binky Griptite. This album is lovingly dedicated to the memory of our dear friends Sharon, Charles, Naomi, and Cliff.
SUSTO
Time In The Sun [Indie Exclusive Limited Edition Translucent Orange LP + Autographed Poster]
Vinyl: $22.98 Buy
Translucent Orange Vinyl, comes with an autographed 11x17 poster
Time In The Sun is the 4th full length album from Charleston, SC band Susto. The album was written and recorded in the midst of a lot of life changing events for lead writer/singer Justin Osborne. Like everyone around the world, Osborne was navigating the global issues felt from the pandemic while normal life continued with its own blessings and challenges.. "We were navigating the global and national issues that everyone else was dealing with, but also I became a father and also lost my father. There was a lot of contemplation going on in my brain, a lot of personal evolution going on in my life, and songwriting was my way of working through it all. The title Time in the Sun is meant to be a monument to my own human existence and also a tribute to the human experience in general. I wouldn’t claim to understand what it means to be a human, from the countless different perspectives of the world, but I do have my own experience to reflect on and I want to be able to express and explain that in some way. I guess this album is an attempt at that. At the core though, it’s just a collection of songs about my life and my feelings." Time In The Sun is set for release on October 29, 2021 via New West Records.
Blues music is revered for its timelessness. The best blues–no matter how old sounds as fresh and visceral today as it did when first recorded. The high-energy electric blues trio GA-20 –guitarist Matt Stubbs, guitarist/vocalist Pat Faherty, and drummer Tim Carman –know this well. The band’s dynamic self-penned songs sound and feel as fresh and real as the old blues they love and perform, including songs by Otis Rush, J.B. Lenoir, Howlin ’Wolf, Junior Wells and especially their favorite, Hound Dog Taylor.
Legendary six-fingered Chicago bluesman Theodore Roosevelt “Hound Dog” Taylor always knew how he wanted to be remembered, declaring, “When I die they’ll say, ‘he couldn’t play shit, but he sure made it sound good!’” His first full length recording in 1971 was also the first album on now world-famous Alligator Records, Hound Dog Taylor & The House Rockers. In fact, label president Bruce Iglauer founded Alligator for the sole purpose of recording and releasing that album. Now, Colemine Records–working in partnership with Alligator Records–will release GA-20’s new full-length album, Try It...You Might Like It! GA-20 Does Hound Dog Taylor, featuring 10 songs written or performed by the Chicago blues legend. From the fiery first single and album opener “She’s Gone” to the blistering “Sadie” to the all-time Hound Dog classic “Give Me Back My Wig”, GA-20 deliver one electrifying track after another. As a follow-up to their Billboard-chart-topping Lonely Soul LP, a full worldwide tour will accompany this release, surely to galvanize the blues scene around GA-20!
The War On Drugs
I Don’t Live Here Anymore [Indie Exclusive Limited Edition Translucent Blue 2LP]
Vinyl: $44.98 Buy
The War On Drugs announce I Don’t Live Here Anymore, their first studio album in four years, out October 29th on Atlantic Records. Over the last 15 years, The War on Drugs have steadily emerged as one of this century’s great rock and roll synthesists, removing the gaps between the underground and the mainstream, making records that wrestle a fractured past into a unified and engrossing present.
Just a month after A Deeper Understanding received the 2018 Grammy for Best Rock Album, the band retreated to upstate New York to jam and cut new demos. It was the start of a dozen-plus session odyssey that spanned three years and seven studios, including some of rock’s greatest sonic workshops like Electric Lady in New York and Los Angeles’ Sound City.
The War On Drugs’ 2022 tour takes the band to some of the largest venues they’ve ever played, including their first headlining show at MadisonSquare Garden, as well as Los Angeles’ Shrine Auditorium, the Bill Graham Civic Center in San Francisco, the Ryman Auditorium in Nashville, two nights at the Chicago Theatre, Philadelphia’s Metropolitan, the House of Blues in Boston, and beyond.
Alabama Shakes
Sound & Color: Deluxe Edition [Red/Black/Pink Mixed Color-in-Color 2LP]
Vinyl: $34.98 Buy
Deluxe edition of the groundbreaking, genre-defying second album by Alabama Shakes. Certified gold and the winner of four Grammys, Rolling Stone called "Sound & Color” a "weirder, woozier, fiercer and sexier record than their debut in nearly every way.” This repackaged set features revised artwork, new photos, and seven bonus tracks pulled from unreleased studio material, b-sides and live songs cut at the world renowned Capitol Records Studio A.
Country Funk Vol. 3 1975-1982 / Various (Clear Wax
Country Funk Vol. 3 1975-1982 / Various (Clear Wax
Vinyl: $43.98 Buy
The Beatles
Let It Be: Special Edition [Super Deluxe 4LP + 12in EP Box Set]
Vinyl: $199.98 Buy
Newly mixed by Giles Martin and Sam Okell in stereo as guided by the original "reproduced for disc" version by Phil Spector.
The Super Deluxe Edition includes 27 unreleased session recordings, a 4-track Let It Be EP, the 1969 unreleased 14-track "Get Back" stereo LP mix by Glyn Johns, and a 100-page hardback book with an intro by Paul McCartney, track-by-track recording information, and many unseen photos, notes, and more.
A slipcase box set houses the 4 LPs, 12" EP, and hardbound book.
The scenery of Thorn’s rural South is changing. The trailer parks, gravel roads around Tupelo and high school beauty queens flicker in the rear-view mirror. Two years ago, Thorn returned to his early gospel roots with the release of “Don’t Let the Devil Ride.”
In contrast with earlier work that riffed on short-term love affairs, as well as “kissing the right one good-bye,” the writing on Thorn’s upcoming release, “Never Too Late To Call” features music from a man who is with the “right one” and is happy to be there.
This offering, seven years in the making, features all original material, some songs written by Thorn, others co-written with his friend and longtime manager Billy Maddox. The album was recorded at Sam Phillips Studio in Memphis and produced and engineered by Grammy winning wunderkind Matt Ross-Spang.
In the case of what is arguably the album’s most tender composition, “Sapphire Dream,” Thorn teamed up with his daughter Kitty Jones, who co-wrote the song and accompanies her dad on vocals:
Jeweled birds fly under crushed velvet skies
And the blue rain don’t fall on me
The sun is on our face; it’s a perfect place
And the one I love is here with me, in my sapphire dream
Particularly poignant is “Breaking Up For Good Again.” On this track, Thorn is accompanied by his wife Heather. Their harmonizing is not only lovely, but resonates with a ring of truth known to two who have driven together that rutted, bumpy road every married couple must travel.
“There’s a theme running throughout the record about people needing each other and reaching out to each other,” Thorn said.
As is the case with all of Thorn’s songs, the album’s title track, “It’s Never Too Late to Call,” comes with a story.
He wrote the song for his sister Deborah who died in 2018. When Thorn was on the road, he’d long to talk to someone after his shows, hours after the members of his immediate family were asleep. But his sister, a night owl, would often stay up all night.
“I could call her and she’d always be awake,” Thorn said. “I wrote that song about her.”
The song is one more example of a distinguishing characteristic of Thorn’s work — a quality his fans love — the intensely personal nature of his lyrics. Thorn’s music has always been a reflection of where he’s been or where he is in his life. On “Never Too Late to Call,” we find mellower Paul Thorn. The razor wit and the gently humorous commentary on life’s existential questions are in evidence, but here there is a peace about his life’s journey. Or, to put it in his words, “I’ve been such a lucky boy. I’m crying two tears of joy.”
Asleep At The Wheel is celebrating their 50th Anniversary with the release of Half A Hundred Years. The nineteen tracks feature original band members, current band members and guest artists. The special guest artists are Lyle Lovett, George Strait, Lee Ann Womack, Willie Nelson, and Emmylou Harris. Tracks 1 - 11 are new songs featuring the original band members. Tracks 12 -16 are old songs featuring the current band members and Asleep At The Wheel alumni. Tracks 17 - 19 are songs from the vaults that have never been released and track 14 features the current and the two previous female band members.
The seven studio albums from 1979-2017, including Bad Love which will be on vinyl for the first time, all pressed on black vinyl and together as part of RSD Drops.
The Metallica Blacklist celebrates the 30th anniversary and enduring influence of the iconic Black Album, with one of the most ambitious projects ever conceived by the Metallica team: An unprecedented 50+ artists spanning an unbelievably vast range of genres, generations, cultures, continents and more, each contributing a unique interpretation of their favorite Black Album song. All profits from The Metallica Blacklist will be split evenly between the All Within My Hands Foundation and 50+ charities chosen by the artists who play on the album. All music overseen by executive producer Giles Martin.
The seven LPs will be housed in die-cut jackets with a booklet in a library-style slipcase. Comes with an MP3 download card.
Back by popular demand, the critically acclaimed release by tenor saxophone icon Charles Lloyd, is available once again as a deluxe, limited edition180g, 2LP 2nd pressing - newly remastered by Kevin Gray at Cohearent Audio, cut at 33 1/3 RPM and pressed by RTI.
This album features guitarist Gábor Szábo, Ron Carter and drummer Pete La Roca captured live in 1965 at Judson Hall and Slugs in New York City. The extensive booklet includes essays and rare photos.
Disc One (Judson Hall):
Side A
1. Sweet Georgia Bright (17:49)
2. How Can I Tell You (11:57)
Side B 1. Lady Gabor (12:50)
Disc Two (Slugs’):
Side C
1. Slugs’ Blues (12:57)
2. Lady Gabor (13:53)
Side D 1. Dream Weaver (15:25)
Strand Of Oaks
In Heaven [Indie Exclusive Limited Edition Translucent Pink LP]
Vinyl: $21.98 Buy
To say In Heaven is about conquering grief would be oversimplifying everything Tim Showalter has achieved on the eighth studio album from Strand of Oaks. A stunning, hopeful reflection on love, loss, and enlightenment, In Heaven is a triumph in music making, and a preeminent addition to the Strand of Oaks discography.
In late 2018, Showalter’s wife, Sue, lost her mother in a car accident. Soon after, Stan, the cat they both adored, was diagnosed with terminal cancer. Showalter quit drinking so he could take better care of his wife and help rebuild the life they shared. And within months, they decided to pack up and move across the country from Philadelphia to Austin, Texas. It was an irrational decision made at the height of a terrible time, but it’s one that shaped so much of what In Heaven is about.
In Heaven was recorded in October 2020 with Kevin Ratterman at Invisible Creature in Los Angeles. Carl Broemel (My Morning Jacket) is featured on guitar throughout the record, while James Iha (The Smashing Pumpkins) contributed vocals and guitar for “Easter.” Bo Koster (MMJ, Roger Waters) provided keyboards, Cedric LeMoyne (Alanis Morrissette, Remy Zero) bass, Scott Moore violin, and Ratterman monstrous drums. Showalter also played a lot of synth on this record, which he hasn’t done since 2014’s HEAL. With clean sounds, Jeff Lynne-esque acoustics, and sophisticated songwriting, he approached In Heaven in a more poised and pop-leaning way than his past releases.
“I wanted to strive for something greater than what I thought I was capable of.”
The result is something extraordinary, as Showalter has crafted a poignant narrative that transcends his personal experiences and achieves a universality rooted not only in loss but joy, celebration, and newfound strength. The gorgeous opener “Galacticana” finds him telling us “I don’t want to drag you down,” a reassurance that his intentions lie in uplifting. But there’s a duality present throughout In Heaven that is palpable, as felt on “Easter,” an exuberant pop anthem featuring jaunty guitar and ethereal vocals courtesy of Iha, that both celebrates Showalter’s new life and references his efforts to “stop the boat from sinking.” It’s a powerful sentiment echoed in slow burner “Hurry,” which showcases some exceptional shredding by Broemel, and beyond, as Showalter explores mortality and a heightened sense of his own existence, intensified by a world where he no longer uses alcohol to cope.
Pairing smart, imaginative lyrics and striking arrangements, tracks like “Carbon” and its magnificent violin stand out, as does “Sister Saturn” with its funky, sinuous groove, and the sublime “Horses at Night,” which features one of Showalter’s most exquisite melodies to date. There’s also a discernible current running through In Heaven of homage to some notable losses in music—John Prine, Jeff Buckley, and Jimi Hendrix all play a part—for In Heaven is about moving beyond sadness or anger to a state of gratitude that we ever had these people to begin with. And while every song provides some clue to Showalter’s personal heaven, the jubilant “Jimi and Stan” says it all, wherein Hendrix and his beloved cat Stan are hanging out, going to shows, and looking at stars together.
And as our musical odyssey ends in the warm embrace of “Under Heaven,” the weight of everything Showalter has manifested—the beauty, and the sadness, and the immensity of it all—hits with tremendous impact. But any sense of hopelessness or melancholy yields to a different feeling entirely, just as he intended. Perhaps we’re feeling stronger, more prepared for something. Or maybe it’s just a reminder: call your parents, text your friends, hug your pets. Listen to your favorite records. And think about what it means to be alive.
Presented for the first time ever on vinyl! Audiophile 180g pressing of the seminal 1995 Cris Cross albums showcasing Brad Mehldau & Mark Turner. Remastered from the original tapes. "Consenting Adults" captured all of us when we were right at the beginning of developing our own voices" - Brad Mehldau
Side A:
1. Belief
2. Little Melonae I
Side B:
1. Phantasm
2. Afterglow
Side C:
1. Limbo
2. Consenting Adults
Side D:
1. From This Moment On
2. Peace
3. Little Melonae II
Focusing on their craft, staying out of the fray, and holding fast their faith to find new ways to express the discord and delight of being alive, to turn the duality of existence into hymns we can share, Low present HEY WHAT. These ten pieces—each built around their own instantaneous, undeniable hook—are turbocharged by the vivid textures that surround them. The ineable, familiar harmonies of Alan Sparhawk and Mimi Parker break through the chaos like a life raft. Layers of distorted sound accrete with each new verse - building, breaking, colossal then restrained, a solemn vow only whispered. There will be time to unravel and attribute meaning to the music and art of these times, but the creative moment looks FORWARD, with teeth. HEY WHAT is Low's thirteenth full-length release in twenty-seven years, and their third with producer BJ Burton.
They look like we do, and may live somewhat the same. Yet, they are multiplied. Where once was Superwolf, now are Superwolves. What world, REALLY are Matt Sweeney and Bonnie 'Prince' Billy from? A place of all-music, knowing no borders, no morals other than natural tribal lines to be violated in the name of love and light, for all together.
Says the band in a new statement: "This past year has been the first time we’ve stayed still since we were 21, and the pause gave us the opportunity to sit with ourselves and set intentions. We have long been burdened by the dichotomy between our band name and the music we strive to create—if you’ve heard the songs, you know they are personal. Now that we can see a future where music is a shared experience again, we're defining the space we share with you on a stage or in your headphones, and making it one that welcomes our creativity and anyone who wants to listen."
8 LPs on 180-gram vinyl collects 70 tracks, including 47 (42 previously unreleased) demo recordings, session outtakes, and studio jams. Slipcase packaging contains a 60-page scrapbook by Olivia Harrison and a replica of the original album poster.
In celebration of the 50th Anniversary, George Harrison’s All Things Must Pass is being celebrated with a suite of new releases highlighted by a stunning new mix of the classic album by Grammy Award-winning mixer/engineer Paul Hicks, overseen by executive producer Dhani Harrison.
Recorded live at Bethel Woods Center for the Arts, Bethel, NY during Phish's tech rehearsal on May 26, 2011.
Paul McCartney
McCartney III Imagined [Indie Exclusive Limited Edition Gold 2LP]
Vinyl: $34.98 Buy
Hailed upon its release last year as "vital and comfortable taking new chances” (Rolling Stone) and “cheery, resilient, forever looking forward” (The New Yorker), Paul McCartney’s McCartney III, which topped album charts across the world, is now literally moving into the future in the form of McCartney III Imagined. Personally curated by Paul, McCartney III Imagined features an A-List assortment of friends, fans and brand new acquaintances, each covering and/or reimagining their favorite McCartney III moments in their own signature styles. The result is a kaleidoscopic reinterpretation of an album Rolling Stone accurately tagged “an inspiration to us all”—one that serves as an extension of the instantly beloved McCartney III while standing on its own as brilliant and adventurous milestone in the McCartney discography.
Arab Strap
As Days Get Dark [Indie Exclusive Limited Edition Clear & Black LP]
Vinyl: $24.98 Buy
'It's about hopelessness and darkness,' says Aidan Moffat. 'But in a fun way.' The Arab Strap frontman is speaking about the band's 7th studio album and their first since 2005's The Last Romance . The band who bought you the classic and legendary "The First Big Weekend" return with new music for the first time in 15 years. 'It's definitely Arab Strap, but an older and wiser one, and quite probably a better one.' The first track lifted from the new album 'The Turning of Our Bones' saw a much welcome return to form and proved very much that Arab Strap are back from the grave and ready to rave! As the bands Malcolm Middleton told the Guardian newspaper when they profiled the band upon news of their return, 'There's no point getting back together to release mediocrity.'
This LP finally brings a Clipping fan-favorite, 2016’s Wriggle, onto vinyl in an improved, expanded version that features new art, previously unreleased remixes, and a track that’s exclusive to the vinyl format.
The original, digital-only Wriggle EP was six tracks that weren’t finished in time to make it onto the group’s 2014 Sub Pop debut, CLPPNG. For “Shooter,” Clipping recorded themselves firing fifteen dierent guns, the sounds of which exclusively constituted the beat’s drums, augmented only by a synthesized tone-row. The verses referenced the well-worn technique of “hashtag rap,” but instead of using it to boast about the rapper’s personal wealth and masculine prowess, Clipping put forth imagistic narratives of three violent encounters. True to much of the group’s music, “Shooter” was an attempt to reframe a familiar style and test the limits of its formal capabilities. “Hot Fuck No Love” contains what might be the most explicit verse to date from Clipping’s favorite New Jersey rapper Cakes Da Killa. The EP’s title track, “Wriggle,” was built around a sample of the influential power-electronics song “Wriggle Like a Fucking Eel” by Whitehouse, transforming William Bennett’s torturous imperative into a instructional dance-floor banger. “Wriggle” and “Shooter” have become classic Clipping tracks and staples of their live show.
With this vinyl edition, Clipping fans old and new - and there are many new fans thanks to their breakout 2020 album, Visions of Bodies Being Burned, and Daveed Diggs’ thriving acting career - get the vinyl version of Wriggle they’ve been clamoring for.
The perfect complement to the film available as a 5-LP 180-gram black vinyl set for the Zappa completist. Showcasing 69 total songs, with 12 previously unreleased recordings from archive along with the 1978 Saturday Night Live performance; 24 additional Zappa songs from the catalog spanning 4 decades; songs from Zappa's labels Straight / Bizarre Records; 2 classical compositions by Edgard Varese and Igor Stravinsky; and 26 Original Score cues newly composed by John Frizzell for the documentary.
T. Hardy Morris
The Digital Age of Rome [Indie Exclusive Limited Edition Coke Bottle Clear LP]
Vinyl: $22.98 Buy
He scrapped the demos and began a collection of songs in quarantine where the unprecedented times and topics were unavoidable. He wanted to document the era sonically and lyrically in some way.
Paul & Linda McCartney
RAM [Indie Exclusive Limited Edition 50th Anniversary Half Speed Master LP]
Vinyl: $35.98 Buy
To mark the 50th anniversary of the release of RAM, the album will be pressed from a master cut at half speed using the original master tapes at Abbey Road.
The only album credited to both Paul and Linda McCartney, RAM reached Number 1 in the UK and stayed in the US Top 10 for five months. Recording after he’d left The Beatles and before the formation of Wings, Paul initially flew with Linda to New York to record the songs they’d written but arrived without a band. As Paul recalls, “We were thinking of forming a group at that time, Wings. We went to New York, found a really grotty little basement somewhere and auditioned a bunch of people. We got someone to throw a lot of drummers at us, out of which we picked Denny Seiwell who’s one of the best, and his personality fitted. Then we went in, worked with him, Hugh McCracken, Dave Spinozza, a couple of New York session men, and did RAM.” To avoid arousing too much interest, the auditions were held under the guise of a session for a commercial jingle. As well as Paul’s lead vocals there are harmonies from Linda. “I gave her a hard time, I must say, but we were pleased with the results. Elton John later said somewhere that he thought it was the best harmonies he’d heard in a long while. It was very much the two of us against the world at that point.”
Hiss Golden Messenger
Quietly Blowing It [Indie Exclusive Limited Edition Metallic Blue LP]
Vinyl: $20.98 Buy
Quietly Blowing It is an intimate and introspective offering that finds M.C. Taylor ruminating on themes of growing up, alienation, obligation, hope, purpose, family, class, self-discovery, healing, and rebuilding, fashioned with impressionistic tones. He says the record "feels like the most personal album that I've made because I'm not trying to explain anything to anyone except myself." Taylor reckons with these turbulent times in deeply personal terms and seeks to inspire listeners to do the same. Musically, the new songs are steeped in gospel, Southern soul, indie folk, and alt-country with tinges of blues, rock, and jazz influences running throughout. Highlights include the minimalist R&B of "It Will If We Let It," the rolling country groove of "The Great Mystifier," and the heartfelt, smoky lament of "Painting Houses" (co-written with Gregory Alan Isakov). Quietly Blowing It features special guests that include Griffin and Taylor Goldsmith of Dawes, Zach Williams of The Lone Bellow, Nashville guitar great Buddy Miller, and producer/musician Josh Kaufman of Bonny Light Horseman.
One of the original releases on Impulse! when the label debuted in 1961, the album emphasizes Ray Charles as a jazz instrumentalist. He also switched from his usual electric piano to a Hammond organ, brought in Count Basie's band and used Quincy Jones' hard-blowing arrangements. The success of the album and its single "One Mint Julep" helped put Impulse! on the map. Verve's Acoustic Sounds Series features transfers from analog tapes and remastered 180g vinyl in deluxe gatefold packaging.
Even if we weren’t living through extraordinarily troubling times, there is nothing quite like a Teenage Fanclub album to assuage the mind, body and soul, and to reaffirm that all is not lost in this world.
Endless Arcade follows the band’s ninth album Here, released in 2016. It's quintessential TFC: melodies are equal parts heartwarming and heartaching; guitars chime and distort; keyboard lines mesh and spiral; harmony-coated choruses burst out like sun on a stormy day.
In the 1990s, the band crafted a magnetically heavy yet harmony-rich sound on classic albums such as Bandwagonesque and Grand Prix. This century, albums such as Shadows and Here have documented a more relaxed, less ‘teenage’ Fanclub, reflecting the band’s stage in life and state of mind, which Endless Arcade slots perfectly alongside. The album walks a beautifully poised line between melancholic and uplifting, infused with simple truths. The importance of home, community and hope is entwined with more bittersweet, sometimes darker thoughts - insecurity, anxiety, loss.
Sleater-Kinney's 10th studio album was recorded in Portland, Oregon during the summer of 2020 ' against a backdrop of social unrest, devastating wildfires, and a raging pandemic. It's music for an imagined togetherness. This marks the first Sleater-Kinney album produced by the band members themselves.
There's early work with Eric Dolphy and McCoy Tyner in Charles Mingus' Jazz Workshop, work with Max Roach and Abbey Lincoln, a stint in Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers, and also one with Miles. There's his groundbreaking and highly influential Ntu Troop albums of the early 70s and his jazz-funk work including two classic albums with the Mizell Brothers, one of which supplied A Tribe Called Quest with a sample that was smooth like butter. That's not to mention appearances on beloved albums by Pharoah Sanders, Donald Byrd, Norman Connors, Roy Ayers, Gene Ammons, Phyllis Hyman, Jackie McLean and many others. This is what Gary Bartz brings to the Jazz Is Dead project and as can be expected, his questing spirit fits the JID style like a glove and has produced an album that's a cutting-edge addition to his immense canon as he effortlessly interfaces with a new generation.
In the midst of the thick New Orleans summer of 2017, Chris Lyons of garage punks Bottomfeeders found himself sitting on a small batch of songs that didn’t quite fit the fuzzed-out pileups of that band. The new songs were more chiming, driving but relaxed, full of little corners begging to be filled with classic pop harmonies and wayward country licks. He called in his trusted confidants: Bottomfeeders drummer and longtime musical partner Lucas Bogner—the two started playing music together at the tender age of 15—plus bassist Pete Campanelli, and Kunal Prakash (Jeff the Brotherhood) dug the songs and signed on, and the quartet started playing in earnest, hunkering down in the practice space.
By the time the band played its first gig in late 2018 at the opening of Nola’s ManRay Records, the songs had multiplied and the members of the newly christened Silver Synthetic had become genuine rock & roll craftsmen. In a world that doesn’t seem capable of swaying, Silver Synthetic’s self-titled debut shakes and boogies.
It makes sense that the band’s first gig was in a record shop ‘cause folks, this is record nerd-core in a major way, evocative of the LP's first golden era, as the late sixties oozed into the strange 1970s, with the requisite T-Rex stomps, Britfolk twists and turns, and dueling Verlaine/Lloyd guitars. It’s about warmth, and you can practically smell the gently glowing amp tubes on “In the Beginning,” which wafts along on a gust borrowed from Lou Reed’s beatific Coney Island Baby breeziness. With “Chasm Killer,” the boys lean into jammy heartland rock, almost approaching Silver Bullet Band territory at one point! Even when the band kicks into charging lean rock-n-roller, like on the Kinksy “Around the Bend,” there’s a laid-backness that allows more room for the spirit.
You could call Silver Synthetic rock & roll formalists, but the truth is they're more like minimalists, stripping away tired clutter and unnecessary bloat and just zooming in on the essential.
Single LP on black vinyl in double gatefold jacket w/ matte coating & printed dust sleeve. Includes coupon for full download
Describing the Durham-basedHiss Golden Messengeris like trying to grasp a forgotten word: It’s always on the tip of your tongue, but hard to speak. Songwriter and bandleader M.C. Taylor’s music is at once familiar, yet impossible to categorize: Elements from the American songbook—the steady, churning acoustic guitar and mandolin, the gospel emotion, the eerie steel guitar tracings, the bobbing and weaving organ and electric piano—provide the bedrock for Taylor’s existential ruminations about parenthood, joy, hope, and loneliness—our delicate, tightrope balance of dark and light—that offer fully engaged contemporary commentary on the present. And then there’s an indescribable spirit and movement: Hiss Golden Messenger’s music grooves. There’s nothing else quite like it.
A surprise cassette released April 2020, Songs for Pierre Chuvin is the Mountain Goats’ first all-boombox album since 2002’s All Hail West Texas. After selling over 4000 cassettes in a matter of minutes, the avid Mountain Goats fanbase has demanded more and we are happy to acquiesce! Songs for Pierre Chuvin will be available on CD and LP on March 26, 2021.
INDIE EXCLUSIVE RED : "This vinyl variant is red, one of the colors representing Justin's favorite team, The Chicago Cubs"
On August 20, 2020 the world lost an amazing light with the passing of Justin Townes Earle. Justin was a vibrant songwriter who could play the blues, country, and rock n roll all in the same song. In his short career, Justin released eight albums and one EP that all manage to sound classic and yet inventive.
Justin's father, Steve Earle, pays tribute to his son by recording an album of songs written by Justin titled, J.T. The album consists of ten Justin Townes Earle songs as well as one song written by Mr. Earle shortly after Justin's passing. J.T. features fan favorites such as "Harlem River Blues," "Far Away In Another Town" and "Champagne Corolla" along with lyrically heavy songs like, "The Saint of Lost Causes" and "Turn Out My Lights."
J.T. is a loving tribute to a loved son and beautiful songsmith who left this earth too early. But in his wake, Justin left a wealth of beauty. All proceeds from this release will be put into a trust for Justin’s 3 year old daughter, Etta.
Daddy’s Home, the sixth album from St. Vincent, is the latest facet of an ever-evolving artist regarded by many as the most consistently innovative and intriguing presence in modern music. The album was pro-duced by Annie Clark and Jack Antonoff, recorded by Laura Sisk, mixed by Cian Riordan, and mastered by Chris Gehringer. The music was performed by Annie, Jack, Cian, Thomas, Evan Smith, Sam KS, Greg Leisz, Daniel Hart, Michael Leonhard, Lynne Fiddmont and Kenya Hathaway.
"Daddy's Home collects stories of being down and out in downtown NYC. Last night's heels on the morning train. Glamour that's been up for three days straight.”—St. Vincent
Just as STATE'S END summons the gamut of Godspeed's constituent sonic trademarks, so the album artwork spans the entirety of the band's visual history: the grainy monochromatic photography of recent releases finds its way onto the inner sleeves, while the gatefold cover art harkens back to the iconic graphics of earlier classic records like Slow Riot For New Zero Kanada and Lift Your Skinny Fists Like Antennas To Heaven. STATE'S END features illustrations by William Schmiechen, with the front cover taijitu flowers and back cover tear gas canisters rendered in raised thermographic black ink on the double-vinyl album jacket. The illuminated cross from Godspeed's debut F#A#8 also makes a reappearance on the inside gatefold drawing, in recurrent homage to the electrified hilltop landmark crucifix of the band's Montreal hometown.
STATE'S END was recorded and mixed in Montreal in October 2020 at the group's homebase studio Thee Mighty Hotel2Tango by Jace Lasek, the veteran award-winning indie producer (and co-founder of The Besnard Lakes) who works with Godspeed for the first time on this recording.