Nobody cared about their old heads, because the new ones work just fine now, don't they?.... they have the same size mouth and eyes.

The song “Old Heads” is a sci-fi space anthem to technology that constantly replaces itself, proving both necessary and unnecessary at the same time. It’s also a jangly pop gem, a trip through the fantastical that is ultimately warm and relatable. 

For an album that’s about “not feeling comfortable with really anything,” as VanGaalen says, Light Information is nonetheless a vivid, welcoming journey through future worlds and relentless memories. The rich soundscapes and sometimes jarring imagery could only come from the mind of a creative polymath--an accomplished visual artist, animator, director, and producer, VanGaalen has scored television shows, designed puppet characters for Adult Swim, directed videos for Shabazz Palaces, Strand of Oaks, METZ, Dan Deacon, and The Head and the Heart, and produced records for Women, Alvvays, and others.

While alienation has always been a theme of VanGaalen’s music, Light Information draws on a new kind of wisdom--and anxiety--gained as he watches his kids growing up. “Being a parent has given me a sort of alternate perspective, worrying about exposure to a new type of consciousness that's happening through the internet,” he says. Throughout the dark-wave reverb of Light Information are stories of paranoia, disembodiment, and isolation--but there’s also playfulness, empathy, and intimacy.

The product of six years’ work, going back even before 2014’s Shrink Dust, Light Information emerged from the experimental instruments that fill VanGaalen’s Calgary garage studio. As always, VanGaalen wrote, played, and produced all of the music on Light Information (save Ryan Bourne’s bass part on “Mystery Elementals” and vocals on “Static Shape” from his young daughters Ezzy and Pip), and designed the cover art.

TRACK LISTING

Mind Hijacker’s Curse
Locked In The Phase
Prep Piano And 770
Host Body
Mystery Elementals
Old Heads
Golden Oceans
Faces Lit
Pine And Clover
You Fool
Broken Bell
Static Shape

Talk Tight is Rolling Blackouts Coastal Fever’s first release, and it was originally released on CD in March of 2016 on Ivy League Records in the band’s home country of Australia. Talk Tight – a mini-album, or extended EP, if you will – garnered the band critical acclaim in their home country and in the US, where Pitchfork gave the record an 8.0 and described it like so:
Seven rip-roaring tracks that move by their own logic, any one of which could be a single and all of which leave you wanting more in the best way possible... Listening to these seven tunes, you can easily trace a national lineage: the relentlessness of Radio Birdman, the pop literacy of the Go-Betweens, the rambunctious energy of the Easybeats, and the belief—shared with Courtney Barnett—that guitars are not just crucial to the message but might very well be the message themselves.

This release is the first time Talk Tight has been available worldwide, and the first time it is available on vinyl anywhere. The band released their Sub Pop debut, The French Press EP, in March of 2017, and they are currently working on their first full-length album.

TRACK LISTING

1. Wither With You
2. Wide Eyes
3. Heard You’re Moving
4. Clean Slate
5. Tender Is The Neck
6. Write Back
7. Career

"I must confess that I’ve always shied away from album introductions citing the usual "dancing to architecture" cop out. Speaking to their own work is uncomfortable for many artists, but I’ve made a new album called Beast Epic which is important to me and I wanted to take a moment to talk about why. I’ve been releasing music for about fifteen years now and I feel very blessed to have put out five other full lengths, many EPs and singles, a few collaborations with people much more talented than myself, and made contributions to numerous movie scores and soundtracks. This is my sixth collection of new Iron & Wine material and I’m happy to say that it’s my fourth for Sub Pop Records.

It’s a warm and serendipitous time to be reuniting with my Seattle friends because I feel there’s a certain kinship between this new collection of songs and my earliest material, which Sub Pop was kind enough to release. In hindsight, both The Creek Drank the Cradle (2002) and Our Endless Numbered Days (2004) epitomize a reflective and confessional songwriting style (although done with my own ferocious commitment to understatement, of course.) I have been and always will be fascinated by the way time asserts itself on our bodies and our hearts. The ferris wheel keeps spinning and we’re constantly approaching, leaving or returning to something totally unexpected or startlingly familiar. The rite of passage is an image I've returned to often because I feel we’re all constantly in some stage of transition. Beast Epic is saturated with this idea but in a different way simply because each time I return to the theme I’ve collected new experiences to draw from. Where the older songs painted a picture of youth moving wide-eyed into adulthood’s violent pleasures and disappointments, this collection speaks to the beauty and pain of growing up after you’ve already grown up. For me, that experience has been more generous in its gifts and darker in its tragedies.

The sound of Beast Epic harks back to previous work, in a way, as well. By employing the old discipline of recording everything live and doing minimal overdubbing, I feel like it wears both its achievements and its imperfections on its sleeve. Over the years, I’ve enjoyed experimenting with different genres, sonics and songwriting styles and all that traveled distance is evident in the feel and the arrangements here, but the muscles seemed to have relaxed and been allowed to effortlessly do what they do best.

I’ve been fortunate to get to play with some very talented musicians over the years who are both uniquely intuitive and also expressive in exciting ways. This group was no different. We spent about two weeks recording and mixing but mostly laughing at The Loft in Chicago.

To be honest, I’ve named this record BEAST EPIC mostly because it sounds really fucking cool! However, with that said and perhaps to be completely honest, “a story where animals talk and act like people” sounds like the perfect description for the life of any of us. If not that, then it’s at least perfect for any group of songs I’ve ever tried to make. I hope you enjoy it." - Iron & Wine

The United States’ myriad inequalities, hatreds and phobias are painfully evident in 2017, offering proof that the age-old dichotomy of “political bands” versus “apolitical bands” simply doesn’t exist. Either you are comfortable and unfazed by the current reigning power structures, or you use your music as a vehicle for the dismantling of oppression and the creation of something better. No matter what your songs are about, you are choosing a side.

The position of Providence, RI’s Downtown Boys has been clear since they started storming through basements and DIY spaces with their radically-minded rock music: they are here to topple the white-cis-het hegemony and draft a new history. Downtown Boys began by combining revolutionary ideals with boundless energy and contagious, inclusive fun, and their resolve has only strengthened as their sound and audience have grown.

Cost of Living is their third full-length, following a self-released 2012 debut and 2015’s Full Communism on Don Giovanni Records. They recorded it with Guy Picciotto (Fugazi; producer of Blonde Redhead, The Gossip), one of indie-rock’s most mythological figures, in the producer’s chair. Picciotto fostered the band’s improvisational urges while pulling the root of their music to the forefront: unflinching choruses, fearlessly confrontational vocals, and the sense that each song will incite the room into action, sending bodies into motion that were previously thought to have atrophied.

Downtown Boys are keenly aware of the increased visibility and credibility that comes with signing to a corporate-media conglomerate such as Sub Pop. They’re using this platform as a megaphone for their protest music, amplifying and centering Chicana, queer, and Latino voices in the far-too-whitewashed world of rock. In just one example, album-opener “A Wall” rides the feel-good power that drove so many tunes by The Clash and Wire as it calls out the idea that a wall could ever succeed in snuffing the humanity and spirit of those it’s designed to crush.

Compared to previous efforts, Downtown Boys have shifted from a once-meaty brass section to the subtler melodic accompaniment of keyboards and a saxophone, coloring their anthems with warm, bright tones while singer/lyricist Victoria Ruiz spits out her frustrations and passions. Some might say it shows a sense of maturity, as Downtown Boys have undoubtedly smoothed down some of their earlier edges, but there is no compromise to their righteous assault and captivating presence. Like the socially conscious groups of years past, from Public Enemy to Rage Against the Machine, Downtown Boys harness powerful sloganeering, repetitive grooves, and earworm hooks to create one of the most necessary musical statements of the day. We should all do well to take notice!

- Matt Korvette, Pissed Jeans

TRACK LISTING

1. A Wall
2. I'm Enough (I Want More)
3. Somos Chulas (No Somos Pendejas)
4. Promissory Note
5. Because You
6. Violent Complicity
7. It Can't Wait
8. Tonta
9. Heroes (Interlude)
10. Lips That Bite
11. Clara Rancia
12. Bulletproof (Outro)

Twinned with "Quazarz Vs The Jealous Machines", this companion album from Shabaz Palaces also shines and growns under the crushing weight of the future. Imbued with the energy and ideas from all the creative embers floating in the atmosphere like fireflies, Shabazz Palaces recorded this entire album over the course of two weeks with Blood in Seattle. New gear and new equipment disintegrated comfort zones into dust and a new path appeared in the rubble - aurally evident thoughout this painfully visionary album. "Born on a Gangster Star"  continues the intrepid and unfathomable quest through cosmic-rap, a genre that SP is practically inventing. The beats wobble and ricocheting as if unaffected by gravity, while Palaces' vocals are hushed, ushered and delivered with a biting effeciently which has had me previously drawing comparisons to Dean Blunt / Hype Williams and Earl Sweatshirt. Appearing here, in body or in spirit, are Julian Casablancas, Thundercat, Darrius Willrich, Gamble and Huff, Loud Eyes Lou, Thaddillac, Ahmir, Jon Kirby, Sunny Levine, and Blood. This, my friends, is the sound of the near future. 

TRACK LISTING

Since C.A.Y.A.
When Cats Claw
Shine A Light (feat. Thaddillac)
Dèesse Du Sang
Eel Dreams (feat. Loud Eyes Lou)
Parallax (feat. The Palaceer Lazaro)
Fine Ass Hairdresser
The Neurochem Mixalogue
That's How City Life Goes
Moon Whip Quäz (feat. Darrius)
Federalist Papers

"Quazarz Vs The Jealous Machines" is one of two new albums by interstellar hip hop enigma Shabazz Palaces - aka Ishmael Butler (who, in another galaxy, performs in Digable Planets) - and Tendai Maraire. "Quazarz Vs The Jealous Machines" and its simultaneously released companion "Quazarz: Born On A Gangster Star" were both produced by Knife Knights (i.b e.b.) and mixed by Blood. We've loved Shabazz Palaces here at Piccadilly ever since Michael Riley would burst into the shop at the start of a weekend shift exclaiming - "WAT A SATADEE MAARNIN!!" - instructing us of the delights of this cosmic-rap poster boy. Occupying the same interstellar recesses as Dean Blunt / Hype Williams, Earl Sweatshirt and, (tenuously) to perhaps Ratking; this is the true new school folks, abandoning hip-hop and rap's tried traditions, ditching all that's come before it for something completely new and invigorating, more in common with Burnt Friedman and Mark Ernestus than the ghosts of rap music's past. Still gritty and streetwise, but unfathomably futuristic and wrapped in celestial space dust, the album works as a whole journey, beautifully sequenced and elegantly constructed. Essential music for the right now. Recommended.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: Crisp futuristic hip-hop beats, clicking trap snares and stellar production make this duo of outings a forward-facing and revolutionary take on the ol' hip-hop game. Part 'hop, part 'tron and fully embracing the future, this is but one half of todays hip-hop revolution.

TRACK LISTING

Welcome To Quazarz
Gorgeous Sleeper Cell
Self-Made Follownaire
Atlaantis
Effeminence
Julian's Dream (ode To A bad)
30 Clip Extension
Love In The Time Of Kanye
Sabonim In The Saab On 'em
The SS Quintessence
Late Night Phone Calls
Quazarz On 23rd

“Divination/Cleromancy/Comes the card that I refused to see” – The Afghan Whigs, “Oriole”  

“Cleromancy” isn’t a word one normally finds in rock lyrics. Then again, In Spades – the new album by The Afghan Whigs, from which the new song “Oriole” hails – is defined only by its own mystical inner logic. The term means to divine, in a supernatural manner, a prediction of destiny from the random casting of lots: the throwing of dice, picking a card from a deck. From its evocative cover art to the troubled spirits haunting its halls, In Spades casts a spell that challenges the listener to unpack its dark metaphors and spectral imagery.  

On the one hand, In Spades is as quintessentially Afghan Whigs as anything the group has ever done – fulfilling its original mandate to explore the missing link between howling Midwestern punk like Die Kreuzen and Hüsker Dü, The Temptations’ psychedelic soul symphonies, and the expansive hard-rock tapestries of Led Zeppelin and Lynyrd Skynyrd. At the same time, this new record continues to push beyond anything in the Whigs’ previous repertoire – another trademark, along with the explosive group dynamic captured on the recording.  

Indeed, the chemistry of the lineup – Dulli, guitarists Dave Rosser and Jon Skibic, drummer Patrick Keeler, multi-instrumentalist Rick Nelson, and Whigs co-founder/bassist John Curley – set the tone for In Spades’ creation. When it came to follow up the band’s triumphant return to recording – Do To the Beast (Sub Pop 2014), which was the band’s first ever Top 40 album, – the die was cast. “This is the first time since Black Love [the Whigs’ 1996 noir masterpiece] that we’ve done a full-blown band album,” Dulli says.  

The joys, sorrows, and upheavals of innocence and experience echo throughout In Spades: it powerfully documents where The Afghan Whigs have been, and where they might go next. For Dulli and Curley, it’s a journey that, since their origins as one of the first Sub Pop acts to be signed from outside the label’s Pacific Northwest base, has spanned decades. Dulli notes they were barely in their twenties when they first started the band, and yet here they are, fulfilling dreams long held and frequently realized. “Having a break from the Whigs helped me remember what made it so rewarding,” Curley says. “Over the course of a lifetime, there are constants, and there’s also change. You see who’s dropped off the vine – who’s going in reverse, and who’s still by your side. It’s interesting to see where life takes you, and where it doesn’t. That’s the journey and it hasn’t stopped.”

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: Encompassing aspects of stoner, psych and indie-rock, Afghan Whigs have always veered towards the art-rock end of the spectrum, but this is their most direct and cohesive offering yet. Heavy but highly melodic, full of anthemic highs and measured restraint. A brilliantly formed tornado of rock and/or roll.

TRACK LISTING

Birdland
Arabian Heights
Demon In Profile
Toy Automatic
Oriole
Copernicus
The Spell
Light As A Feather
I Got Lost
Into The Floor

In early 2016, the release of ‘Talk Tight’ put Rolling Blackouts Coastal Fever on the map with glowing reviews from SPIN, Stereogum and Pitchfork, praising them as stand outs even among the fertile landscape of Melbourne music. Chock full of snappy riffs, spritely drumming and quick-witted wordplay, ‘Talk Tight’ was praised by Pitchfork “for the precision of their melodies, the streamlined sophistication of their arrangements, and the undercurrent of melancholy that motivates every note.”

The band was born from late night jam sessions in singer / guitarist Fran Keaney’s bedroom and honed in the thrumming confines of Melbourne’s live music venues. Sharing tastes and songwriting duties, cousins Joe White and Fran Keaney, brothers Tom and Joe Russo and drummer Marcel Tussie started out with softer, melody-focused songs. The more shows they played, the more those driving rhythms that now trademark their songs emerged. Since then, Rolling Blackouts Coastal Fever rode that wave from strength to strength. Touring around the country on headline bills and festival slots all the way to BIGSOUND, the entrenched themselves with their thrilling live shows while prepping their next release.

‘The French Press’ levels up on everything that made ‘Talk Tight’ such an immediate draw. Multi-tracked melodies which curl around one another, charging drums and addictive basslines converge to give each track its driving momentum. Honed through their live shows, this relentless energy carries the record through new chapters in the band’s Australian storybook. Rolling Blackouts Coastal Fever’s songs have always had all the page-turning qualities of a good yarn and ‘The French Press’ is no different. Somewhere between impressionists and fabulists, lyricists Fran Keaney, Tom Russo and Joe White often start with something rooted in real life - the melancholy of travel on ‘French Press’, having a hopeless crush on ‘Julie’s Place’ - before building them into clever, quick vignettes. The result is lines blurred between fiction and reality - vibrant stories which get closer at a particular truth than either could alone.

Blending critical insight and literate love songs, ‘The French Press’ cements Rolling Blackouts Coastal Fever as one of Australia’s smartest working bands.

TRACK LISTING

French Press
Julie’s Place
Sick Bug
Colours Run
Dig Up
Fountain Of Good Fortune

Seattle MC Porter Ray comes correct on his Sub Pop debut with a mesemeric and multi-layered set of spectral, sub-driven hip hop. "Watercolor" is a snapshot of Porter’s life and the lives of his friends growing up in Seattle. The album captures a specific time period, before things began rapidly changing around their neighborhoods, and it delves into the experiences that shaped Porter, the situations he and his friends survived, and how they overcame the adversity they faced. Porter’s influences – including hip-hop classics like Nas’s Illmatic, Common’s Be, and Mos Def & Talib Kweli’s ...Are Black Star – shine through in both the beats and production, and his deeply personal lyrics. Porter was born and raised in and around Seattle’s Central District/Capitol Hill/Columbia City/Beacon Hill neighborhoods. He wrote short stories and poetry before he began writing rhymes in middle school and early high school, and started recording music towards the end of high school. "Watercolor" follows a string of acclaimed, self-released mixtapes -- Electric Rain, Nightfall, Fundamentals, BLK GLD, WHT GLD, RSE GLD -- all of which have been available as free downloads via Bandcamp. Featuring world beating singles “Sacred Geometry”, “Lightro [Looking for the Light]”, “Arithmetic” and "Bulletproof Windows", the album also includes performances from Jus Moni, Debra Sullivan, and Chimurenga Renaissance. "Watercolor" was recorded in various studios in Seattle, mostly mixed by Erik Blood (Shabazz Palaces, THEESatisfaction, Tacocat), with a few songs co-mixed by Vitamin D (Macklemore, Abstract Rude, Black Sheep). Watercolor was produced by B Roc, with additional songs produced by DJ El Grande, KMTK, and Tele Fresco.

TRACK LISTING

1. Waves
2. East Seattle
3. Bulletproof Windows Ft. Nate Jack
4. Past Life Ft. Cashtro + Black
5. Everybody [Interlude] Ft. Fly Guy Dai [Shabazz Palaces] 
6. The Mirror Between Us Ft. JD + JusMoni 
7. Sacred Geometry Ft. Cashtro + The Palaceer
8. Arithmetic Ft. Infinite + Stas Thee Boss
9. Navi Truck
10. Lightro [Looking For The Light]
11. Dissolving In A Daydream
12. My Mother’s Words Ft. Debra Sullivan
13. Beautiful Ft. Aslan T. Rife + The Palaceer
14. Sacred Geometry [CONSTELLTION MIX] Ft. Cashtro + The Palaceer *LP Bonus Track
15. Vanilla Coke *LP Only Bonus Track
16. Sacred Geometry [Instrumental] *LP Only Bonus Track
17. Brothers [Instrumental] *LP Only Bonus Track
18. Arithmetic [Instrumental] *LP Only Bonus Track

Pissed Jeans have been making gnarly noise for 13 years, and on their fifth album, Why Love Now, the male-fronted quartet is taking aim at the mundane discomforts of modern life—from fetish webcams to office-supply deliveries. "Rock bands can retreat to the safety of what rock bands usually sing about. So 60 years from now, when no one has a telephone, bands will be writing songs like, 'I'm waiting for her to call me on my telephone.' Kids are going to be like, 'Grandpa, tell me, what was that?' I'd rather not shy away from talking about the internet or interactions in 2016," says frontman Matt Korvette.

Pissed Jeans' gutter-scraped amalgamation of sludge, punk, noise, and bracing wit make the band—Korvette, Brad Fry (guitar), Randy Huth (bass) and Sean McGuinness (drums)—a release valve for a world where absurdity seems in a constant battle trying to outdo itself. Why Love Now picks at the bursting seams that are barely holding 21st-century life together. Take the grinding rave-up "The Bar Is Low," which, according to Korvette, is "about how every guy seems to be revealing themselves as a shithead. It seems like every guy is getting outed, across every board of entertainment and politics and music. There's no guy that isn't a total creep."

No Wave legend Lydia Lunch shacked up in Philadelphia to produce Why Love Now alongside local metal legend Arthur Rizk (Eternal Champion, Goat Semen). "I knew she wasn't a traditional producer," Korvette says of Lunch. "I like how she's so cool and really intimidating. She ended up being so fucking awesome and crazy. She was super into it, constantly threatening to bend us over the bathtub. I'm not really sure what that entails, but I know she probably wasn't joking.” The combination of Lunch's spiritual guidance and Rizk's technical prowess supercharged Pissed Jeans, and the bracing Why Love Now documents them at their grimy, grinning best. While its references may be very early-21st-century, its willingness to state its case cement it as an album in line with punk's tradition of turning norms on their heads and shaking them loose.

TRACK LISTING

1. Waiting On My Horrible Warning
2. The Bar Is Low
3. Ignorecam
4. Cold Whip Cream
5. Love Without Emotion
6. I'm A Man
7. (Won't Tell You) My Sign
8. It's Your Knees
9. Worldwide Marine Asset Financial Analyst
10. Have You Ever Been Furniture
11. Activia
12. Not Even Married

Jesca Hoop’s new album ‘Memories Are Now’, out on Sub Pop Records, wastes no time in making clear its confidence, confrontation and craftsmanship.

The stark and reverberant title track opens the album with “a fighting spirit,” says Hoop, serving as an anthem to push through any obstacle and put forth your very best work. She has done that here unequivocally, with an album of stunningly original songs - minimalist yet brimming with energy, emerging from a wealth of life experience, great emotional depth and years of honing the craft of singing.

As riveting as it is reflective, the album, produced by Blake Mills (Fiona Apple, Alabama Shakes), is a fresh debut of sorts for Hoop, as the first of her solo records made outside of Tony Berg’s Zeitgeist Studios where she and Mills were mentored. Says Hoop, “Blake is so utterly musical and emotionally intelligent in his expression. I wanted to see what we could do, just he and I out from under Tony’s wing.” Mills pushed her to strip away layers, keeping it as close to the live experience as possible, using whole live takes and working very quickly. “It’s still covered in embryonic fluid, for lack of a better way to put it,” says Hoop.

‘Memories Are Now’ covers a great deal of ground, showcasing every edge and curve of Hoop’s captivating voice, with sounds and themes ranging from the mythic to the deeply intimate. She sings of the religion that weighs heavily on her past and the world, of the imagination of myth, of the cruel nature of life and love.

The defiance that permeates ‘Memories Are Now’ is both a product and necessity of a career that has been independently driven and self-funded from the beginning. “All of my successes have been won on the grassroots level, with handshakes and hugs from great people who believe in me,” says Hoop, more than a decade into her career and with new paths to forge. As she sings in the title track, “I’ve lived enough life, I’ve earned my stripes. That’s my knife in the ground, this is mine.”

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: Hypnotic pastoral folk, swooning Americana and Hoop's characteristic beautiful vocal style. Wonderfully emotive, beautifully produced and an essential addition to the collection of any lover of Americana / folk / country. Lovely.

TRACK LISTING

Memories Are Now
The Lost Sky
Animal Kingdom Chaotic
Simon Says
Cut Connection
Songs Of Old
Unsaid
Pegasi
The Coming

‘Live In Paris’ is the first official record of Sleater-Kinney’s famously blistering stage performance.

The thirteen track album, which features Carrie Brownstein, Corin Tucker, Janet Weiss and touring member Katie Harkin, was captured on March 20th, 2015 at the Paris’s historic La Cigale venue during the band’s sold out international tour in support of their acclaimed eighth album, 2015’s ‘No Cities To Love’.

‘Live In Paris’ includes songs from nearly every Sleater-Kinney album, including ‘No Cities To Love’, ‘The Woods’, ‘One Beat’, ‘The Hot Rock’, ‘Dig Me Out’ and ‘Call The Doctor’.

The recording was mixed by John Goodmanson at Avast and mastered by Greg Calbi at Sterling Sound.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: I know live records can sometimes get a bit of a tough rep, but this one has none of that shaky sound or hefty interval nonsense associated with it, it sound like their trademark technical melodic indie fare but with the overwhelming energy and vibes of a live show. If you like Sleater-Kinney, it's an essential, only slightly more essential that if you simply like a good old-fashioned rock-out.

TRACK LISTING

Price Tag
Oh!
What’s Mine Is Yours
A New Wave
Start Together
No Cities To Love
Surface Envy
I Wanna Be Your Joey Ramone
Turn It On
Entertain
Jumpers
Dig Me Out
Modern Girl

TAD was a mighty force in the late-‘80s/early-‘90s Seattle scene. Their heavy, churning rock/metal/punk buzz was a crucial part of Sub Pop’s early years, and, along with peers like Mudhoney, Nirvana, and Soundgarden, they defined the sound that reinvigorated the rock world in the early ‘90s. TAD was led by the physically imposing yet incredibly sweet singer/guitarist TAD Doyle, with bassist Kurt Danielson (ex-Bundle of Hiss), drummer Steve Wied, and guitarist Gary Thorstensen. With an image that sometimes cast the band as deranged lumberjacks, and influence from Head of David and Killdozer, TAD put a uniquely rain-and-fog-coated Northwest spin on ‘80s underground rock. The band released two albums and a few EPs on Sub Pop between 1988 and 1991, all of which are now lovingly remastered by the band’s friend and engineer Jack Endino (Soundgarden, Nirvana, Mudhoney, Screaming Trees) and repackaged with bonus tracks and expansive liner notes.  

After their 1989 debut album, God’s Balls, TAD continued to write and record, releasing a string of singles and the Salt Lick EP between 1989 and 1990. Salt Lick features the single “Wood Goblins,” the video for which MTV banned because it was, to the delicate eyes of MTV programmers, “too ugly.” The sounds of Salt Lick are, indeed, wonderfully ugly, thanks in part to the involvement of noise-rock technician Steve Albini (Big Black, Shellac, Nirvana, The Jesus Lizard), who recorded the EP. The band continued to release singles and gain momentum in the press. As TAD himself puts it: “Lyrically we had a lot of subject matter that was meant to be tongue in cheek from the beginning but had been presented by Sub Pop and ourselves as true-to-life. As a result, the press had taken it all seriously and began to feed on and ravenously devour the mythology that we had created.”  

This reissue of Salt Lick includes tracks from the “Wood Goblins” single, a split 7” with Pussy Galore, and the “Loser” 7”. This material has been out of print on vinyl/CD for many years, and this is its first digital release.

‘The Winding Sheet’ is Mark Lanegan’s 1990 solo debut. It showcases his adept skills as a lyricist and his deep, soulful voice.

Highlights include ‘Mockingbirds’, ‘Ugly Sunday’ and the haunting ‘Wild Flowers’.

The late Kurt Cobain lends vocals to ‘Down In The Dark’ and for the folk classic ‘Where Did You Sleep Last Night’ Cobain contributes guitar and vocals and Krist Novoselic plays bass. Nirvana would later also cover ‘Where Did You Sleep Last Night’ on their ‘Unplugged’ album.

‘The Winding Sheet’ was produced by Jack Endino, Lanegan and Mike Johnson.

TRACK LISTING

Mockingbirds
Museum
Undertow
Ugly Sunday
Down In The Dark
Wild Flowers
Eyes Of A Child
The Winding Sheet
Woe
Ten Feet Tall
Where Did You Sleep Last Night
Juarez
I Love You Little Girl* (Vinyl Only Extra Track)

‘Hidden Driver’, the opening track of LVL UP’s third album and Sub Pop debut ‘Return To Love’, never stops moving. What starts with unassuming guitars and vocals adds new lines, depths and intensity, until its unrestrained, triumphant finish. “God is peeking, softly speaking,” repeats the chorus, working through the relationship between spirituality and creative inspiration and introducing a band that is always pushing further.

LVL UP - guitarists Mike Caridi and Dave Benton, bassist Nick Corbo and drummer Greg Rutkin - are a true collaboration, a band that takes the stylistically distinct ideas of four members and brings them together into something new. Caridi, Benton and Corbo write and sing equally, bringing their work to the group to be fully realized, resulting in an album built on different perspectives but a common drive. “We have very different inspirations across the board,” says Benton, noting his own admiration for the writer and documentarian Astra Taylor, Corbo’s interest in the mystical and the occult and Caridi’s attention to personal storytelling. The music itself grows from a shared melodic and experimental sensibility, as well as a nod to iconic influences like Neutral Milk Hotel and Mount Eerie.

LVL UP were formed in 2011 at SUNY Purchase as a recording project between Caridi, Benton and their friend Ben Smith, with the original intention of releasing a split cassette with Corbo’s then-solo material. They instead released that album, ‘Space Brothers’, as one band and Rutkin joined shortly afterwards for the group’s first show. Smith left the band for personal reasons just before the release of second album, ‘Hoodwink’d’, a joint release on Caridi and Benton’s labels Double Double Whammy and Exploding In Sound. Double Double Whammy also put out records from other artists in the tight-knit community that launched the band.

Also part of that university community was ‘Return To Love’s producer Mike Ditrio, who mixed LVL UP’s previous records and “was basically a fifth member of the band,” says Corbo. “He played a huge role in developing the sound, without butting in too much. He also navigated our personal dynamic really nicely.”

TRACK LISTING

Hidden Driver
Blur
She Sustains Us
Spirit Was
Pain
The Closing Door
Five Men On The Ridge
Cut From The Vine
I
Naked In The River With The Creator

Clipping formed in Los Angeles in 2009. Initially conceived as a remix project, Jonathan Snipes and William Hutson began pairing noise and powerelectronics inspired tracks with (stolen) vocals by commercial rap artists. Jonathan and William did this mostly to amuse each other and the duo earned very few fans. However, the band began in earnest in early 2010, when rapper and friend Daveed Diggs joined the group. Clipping was their first project as a trio, building on both their long friendship and their many shared obsessions: rap, experimental music and genre fiction, among others.

Clipping released ‘Midcity’ on their website in 2013 and signed with Sub Pop three months later. The band described their debut as “party music for the club you wish you hadn’t gone to, the car you don’t remember getting in, and the streets you don’t feel safe on.” In 2014, they released their Sub Pop debut, ‘CLPPNG’, omitting the ‘I’ in the title and lyrics to vacate rap of its traditional centre, revealing instead a collage of recurrent rap themes. 2016’s ‘Wriggle’ EP, released after Daveed’s Tony award for his role as Marquis de Lafayette and Thomas Jefferson in the acclaimed Broadway musical ‘Hamilton’, included ‘Shooter’, which used gunshot sounds as the beat for an imagistic narrative of three different violent encounters.

Since the release of ‘CLPPNG’ things have changed for the band - William finished his Ph.D. in Theater & Performance Studies with a dissertation on experimental music, Jonathan composed scores for the films ‘Starry Eyes’, ‘The Nightmare’, ‘Excess Flesh’ and ‘Contracted: Phase II’ and Daveed hit Broadway. Their activities outside Clipping have always influenced their work in the band but never as much as in the creation of ‘Splendor & Misery’.

‘Splendor & Misery’ is an Afrofuturist, dystopian concept album that follows the sole survivor of a slave uprising on an interstellar cargo ship and the onboard computer that falls in love with him. Thinking he is alone and lost in space, the character discovers music in the ship’s shuddering hull and chirping instrument panels. William and Jonathan’s tracks draw an imaginary sonic map of the ship’s decks, hallways and quarters, while Daveed’s lyrics ride the rhythms produced by its engines and machinery. In a reversal of HP Lovecraft’s concept of cosmic insignificance, the character finds relief in learning that humanity is of no consequence to the vast, uncaring universe. Ultimately, the character decides to pilot his ship into the unknown - and possibly into oblivion - instead of continuing on to worlds whose systems of governance and economy have violently oppressed him.

TRACK LISTING

Long Way Away (Intro)
The Breach
All Black
Interlude 01 (Freestyle)
Wake Up
Long Way Away
Interlude 02 (Numbers)
True Believer
Long Way Away
(Instrumental)
Air ‘Em Out
Interlude 03 (Freestyle)
Break The Glass
Story 5

More structured, crafted and polished than its predecessor (like the difference between "Smell The Magic" and "Bricks Are Heavy"), though no less tough, street-ready, anthemic, and from the heart, their second record recreates the frenetic energy of CSS's renowned live shows.

Produced in Brazil by the band’s own Adriano Cintra and mixed in Los Angeles by Mark ‘Spike’ Stent (whose credits include Madonna, Bjork, Massive Attack, U2, M.I.A. and Arcade Fire), ‘Donkey’ is tough and street ready and recreates the frenetic energy of their live shows.

Hailing from São Paulo, one of the world's hottest cities (in both temperature and abundance of beautiful people), CSS's debut album "Cansei de Ser Sexy" (Portuguese for 'Tired of Being Sexy') is a total assault on the senses. After every turn is another track filled with things that make you go 'mmmm', where sex-crazed lyrics ride over crunchy guitar riffs and hip-shaking beats. A revelation live (gig of the year when they toured around the albums release in 2006, for the lucky Piccadilly Records staff who blagged their way in), sounding like The Slits seen through the kaleidoscopic eyes of The DFA.

It could be said that The Shins’ third album, ‘Wincing The Night Away’, was one of the most heavily anticipated record of 2007. Post ‘Garden State’ notoriety, the band have reached beyond their indie-darling status to something approaching mainstream recognition.

TRACK LISTING

Sleeping Lessons
Australia
Pam Berry
Phantom Limb
Sea Legs
Red Rabbits
Turn On Me
Black Wave
Split Needles
Girl Sailor
A Comet Appears

Acclaimed Kiwi novelty band Flight Of The Conchords followed the release of their six-track Grammy Award-nominated CD EP ‘The Distant Future’ with their full length record album debut, the conveniently titled ‘Flight Of The Conchords’ (which, not at all coincidentally is also the name of their HBO television series). Still going strong, with their cult comedy continuing to sell out arenas.

Originally recorded over three sessions with producer Jack Endino at Seattle’s Reciprocal Recording Studios in December 1988 and January 1989, ‘Bleach’ was released in June 1989 and remains unequivocally / unsurprisingly Sub Pop’s very favourite Nirvana full length. The album initially sold 40,000 copies but was brought into the international spotlight following the release and worldwide success of their 1991 sophomore effort, ‘Nevermind’. Subsequently ‘Bleach’ went on to sell 1.7 million copies in the US alone.

The invocation of classic west coast psychedelia that permeates Morgan Delt's Sub Pop debut LP feels like a continuous sunrise, never concealing its influences yet perfectly putting its songs through a gauzy lens that blurs and obscures. Is such a thing even possible after witnessing umpteen reverb-jockeys creating their own take on the genre? Can anything truly different be done in the realm of being both original and reverent, wearing favorite records and artists' moves on one's sleeve? Definitely the case with our man here. After releasing a 6-song cassette in 2013 followed by a full length for the Trouble In Mind label, the California native now fine-tunes his sound world outwardly rather than honing in on a specific trajectory, allowing all of said influences to coexist together in a unique yet undoubtedly Californian vision.

The resulting 10-song collection, performed entirely by Delt, recorded in his Topanga Canyon studio, and mastered by JJ Golden, is a home-fi construction with a more subtle, brain-tickling character than its predecessor, and somewhat reflects a realist take on the flower power fantasy of 1967. Doused in echo and haze, slow chords lap in like Pacific waves, flanked by gentle whispers of multi-tracked, cooing vox, phased guitars and fuzz that calmly surrounds the listener's head less than it jabs at the cortex.

The great thing about Delt's approach to such history is (and sorry to sound harsh) that unlike too many of his so-called L.A. psych-rock peers, there's no costume involved, no application of a conjured identity to match a specific image. He's no psychedelic Civil War re-enactor, so to speak. It's subtle and tactful revisionism without using psychedelia as a crutch/easy marketing tool and letting the sounds come out and make their own case.

It takes a creative mind to make psychedelic rock music – tablas, drones, hallucinatory vocal effects, and all – without slipping into cliché, but Delt can transport what would normally be a dark-n-druggy blanket into a much more optimistic and friendly listening experience. Despite his voice being channelled through hallucinatory effects, it's warm and inviting, projecting a sense of hope (particularly in “Some Sunsick Day,” which evokes the hopeful “We'll Meet Again” as the world explodes at the end of Dr. Strangelove, later covered by the Byrds). It's more or less just an invite to watch the sun rise too. -Brian Turner, WFMU

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: Hazy Late-60's tinged psych on the newest LP from hippie music maestro Morgan Delt. Swirling whirs of analogue synths, torn speaker-fabric fuzz and twangy guitars intersperse with sunny blissed-out guitar and delayed falsetto vocals. Mellow, warming summer feels. Lovely.

Andy says: I loved Morgan's debut but this ups his game tenfold! Still with that fuzzy, warm, home-made feel, but so much deeper and better and with stronger songs all round, this is the perfect soundtrack for your hazy Indian Summer.

TRACK LISTING

I Don’t Wanna See What’s Happening Outside
The System Of 1,000 Lies
Another Person
Sun Powers
The Age Of The Birdman
Mssr. Monster
A Gun Appears
The Lowest Of The Low
Escape Capsule
Some Sunsick Day

Seattle singer-songwriter Damien Jurado’s second album for Sub Pop, ‘Rehearsals For Departure’, is now available on vinyl and cassette for the first time.

The album was originally released in 1999 and it has sold over 15,000 copies.

The album boasts a sharper, more streamlined songwriting approach than his debut, ‘Waters Ave S.’, combining finger-picked acoustic guitar tracks with a number of full band songs.

‘Rehearsals For Departure’ was produced by The Posies’ Ken Stringfellow, who also played a variety of instruments on the album.

LP format includes a digital download code.

Sometimes you have to rip it up and start again. It was a tough call for Dee Dee. Dum Dum Girls was her guise for most of a decade, an outlet through which she’s crafted a resonant, instantly identifiable body of work. Over the course of three albums, four EPs and an array of singles, Dum Dum Girls morphed from the girl-group-gone-bad moves of their 2010 debut, ‘I Will Be’, to the plush noir-pop of 2014’s ‘Too True’, a dark heart burning bright but as her music evolve she found that for many she would be forever refracted through the prism of Dum Dum Girls’ early work: retro-leaning female harmonies, a backdrop of lo-fi, fuzzed up guitars.

In 2015 she decided to shed her skin, ditching Dee Dee for Kristin, her real name and adding Kontrol. It was a spontaneous idea that resonated. The challenge was to start fresh, go further back into her relationship to music. Sweep all her loves together into one genreless experience. “The first music I felt was mine was classic 80s pop and 90s R&B, from Tiffany, Janet Jackson and Madonna to TLC, SWV, and Aaliyah,” she says. “But for years I was hellbent on the rock ‘n’ roll thing, revering Joan Jett, Patti Smith, Chrissie Hynde,” - a rebellion against her classical vocal training - “but I was like, fuck it, I’m just going to try it all. I’m going to pretend I’m Kate Bush covering Mariah.”

Refocused and inspired, Kristin wrote 62 songs, whittled the list to ten for ‘XCommunicate’ and finished the album with the help of new producers Kurt Feldman (who had produced her ‘On Christmas’ single a few years back) and Andrew Miller (who played guitar on the first Dum Dum Girls album and had joined the band in its last incarnation).

Arguably the biggest shift, beyond the music itself, is that as Kristin Kontrol she tells her stories using a sonic palette splashed with bold pop melodies, her vocals showcasing a range hitherto unexplored on record. The songs that emerge from Kristin’s universe - a menagerie of new wave and R&B, European synth pop and experimental disco - are both familiar and unique, using genre rather than adhering to it, with a distinct nod to the present. It may be a leap into the unknown, but “little risk means little reward,” as Karen O once counselled her. “I feel free. I kind of excommunicated myself. Even if I have to rebuild my whole career, I’d rather work hard than feel stagnant. I feel excited again, and that's priceless.”

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: I was born in the early 80's, It was a time (allegedly) when cheesy synth washes and digital synthesis was at it's peak. I was unfamiliar with the musical trends of the time, I was unemployed and partially useless. I was heavily reliant on others. What I should have been doing instead of lolling about at my parents gaff was getting a head-start on what would, 30 years later become my go-to cheer-up genre of choice. Gated synths and reverse-reverbed drums are in abundance, they use a LOT of chorus. They're not afraid of chorus' (chorii?) and verses. Feel-good retro synth-pop with a modern twist. Thoroughly surprised me this one, but i'm glad it did.

TRACK LISTING

Show Me
White Street
(Don’t) Wannabe
X-Communicate
Skin Shed
Drive The Night
What Is Love
Face 2 Face
Going Thru The Motions
Smoke Rings

Singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Kyle Craft releases ‘Dolls Of Highland’, his Sub Pop label debut.

The twelve track album features the singles ‘Lady Of The Ark’, ‘Eye Of The Hurricane’, ‘Future Midcity Massacre’ and ‘Black Mary’.

‘Dolls Of Highland’ was written, recorded and produced by Craft, mixed by Brandon Summers and Benjamin Weikel of The Helio Sequence at the Old Jantzen Building in Portland and mastered by Greg Calbi at Sterling Sound.

Billboard says of Kyle Craft and ‘Lady Of The Ark’: “Craft admits his voice sounds a good deal like Bob Dylan’s, and that his muse has come to him many, many times. Still, ‘Lady Of The Ark’ hints that Craft’s music is so full of its own weird singularity that he’s on to something far beyond idol worship.”

TRACK LISTING

Eye Of A Hurricane
Balmorhea
Berlin
Lady Of The Ark
Gloom Girl
Trinidad Beach (Before I Ride)
Future Midcity Massacre
Black Mary
Pentecost
Dolls Of Highland
Jane Beat The Reaper
Three Candles

‘Three Men And A Baby’ is the new album by Mike (Kunka, bassist / vocalist of godheadSilo) and The Melvins.

In 1998, Mike and his friends The Melvins - who at that time were King Buzzo (guitar / bass / vocals), Dale Crover (drums / vocals) and Kevin Rutmanis (bass / vocals) - started making a record at Tim (The Champs) Green’s Louder Studios. Complications occurred and the incomplete recording sat until 2015, when everyone reconvened and finished the damn thing at Sound Of Sirens in LA with Toshi Kasai.

The results are worth the wait. Mike’s signature bass crunch and vocals are all over it and The Melvins are in fine form. The album has everything from hefty noise rock churn to a Public Image Ltd. song to cough syrup blues to deconstructed black metal.

TRACK LISTING

Chicken ‘n’ Dump
Limited Teeth
Bummer Conversation
Annalisa
A Dead Pile Of Worthless Junk
Read The Label (It’s Chili)
Dead Canaries
Pound The Giants
A Friend In Need Is A Friend You Don’t Need
Lifestyle Hammer
Gravel
Art School Fight Song

Former Smith Western frontman Cullen Omori releases his debut long player, ‘New Misery’, through Sub Pop Records.

The album, which features the highlights ‘Cinnamon’ and ‘Sour Silk’, was recorded by Shane Stoneback (Sleigh Bells, Fucked Up, Vampire Weekend) at the now defunct Treefort Studios and was mastered by Emily Lazar (Sia, HAIM, Vampire Weekend, Arcade Fire, Bjork) at The Lodge.

In early 2014 Omori began working on the solo material that has now fully materialized as ‘New Misery’, a collection of 11 songs building upon his own musical past while reaching towards the future of what guitar rock could be. His songs marry dark yet blissful pop with vocal melodies and hooks that are at once immediate yet demand to be heard again and again.

Along with Omori, ‘New Misery’ features additional bass and keyboards from Ryan Mattos, drums from Loren Humphrey and James Richardson on guitar. Unlike the more distributed roles within the Smith Westerns, Omori wrote, played and oversaw nearly every part of the new album, beginning a true new chapter of his long-term creative growth.

Cullen Omori knows it’s a false cliché to say there are no second acts in American lives but after the 2014 breakup of his acclaimed band the Smith Westerns living that cliché was his greatest fear. His solo debut is a direct challenge to that anxiety: an album that goes beyond the glam punch of the Smith Westerns to new sounds, new sources of inspiration and greater self-awareness.

TRACK LISTING

No Big Deal
Two Kinds
Hey Girl
And Yet The World Still Turns
Cinnamon
Poison Dart
Sour Silk
Synthetic Romance
Be A Man
LOM
New Misery

Heron Oblivion are Meg Baird (Espers), Noel Von Harmonson (Comets On Fire, Six Organs Of Admittance, Sic Alps, The Lowdown), Ethan Miller (Comets On Fire, Howlin’ Rain, Feral Ohms), and Charlie Saufley (Assemble Head In Sunburst Sound).

Listening to Heron Oblivion’s album feels like sitting in a lovely meadow in the shadow of a dam that’s going to burst any moment.

Members of this new San Francisco combo have put in time in both raging and relatively tranquil psychedelic sound units. This is the premise and the synergy behind this very unique and special new album.

The group first properly gigged in April of 2014 opening for War On Drugs. They finished the record independently then inked a deal with Sub Pop in early 2015. Most recently they toured the West Coast with Kurt Vile and Cass McCombs.

‘Heron Oblivion’ was recorded at The Mansion in San Francisco by Eric Bauer.

“Expressive guitar lines laced with feedback sprawl out again and again without trailing away too far. Meg Baird’s serene voice harkens back to ’60s folk singers, subdued in a way that lends special gravity without being bombastic. Frankly, the group sounds exactly like what psychedelic rock should sound like” - Stereogum

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: In parts, Heron Oblivion perfectly juxtapose eastern influenced guitar stanzas with almost ghostly and ethereal vocal lines. Elsewhere, fuzzy minor-key pop with soaring melody lines. Think Sonic Youth meets Low via Grails. Unsettling and clangy, acerbic but impeccable. Low-fi beauty at it's best.

TRACK LISTING

Beneath Fields
Oriar
Sudden Lament
Rama
Faro
Seventeen Landscapes
Your Hollows

“We’re a band named after a YouTube video. I like that.” Nathan Rodriguez, of Seattle’s So Pitted, is referring to a viral clip of a surfer, standing on the shore in front of mountainous morning waves, relaying to a reporter the glory of the ocean conditions from which he has just emerged. To most, the clip is a funny nugget of Spicoli brah-speak but to Rodriguez and his bandmates Liam Downey and Jeannine Koewler ‘So Pitted’ is way more than just that gung ho, slacker-speak catchphrase. “That surfer gets carried away talking about what he loves, because to him that’s all that really matters,” says Rodriguez. “I don’t surf, but to this surfer ‘so pitted’ is following through instead of bailing. You can take that abstraction and repurpose it to anything you like.”

So Pitted are every bit an experiment in social partnerships as they are a noise outfit. They bonded over a shared love of alternative music - Rage Against The Machine, Smashing Pumpkins, Nine Inch Nails, The Mars Volta. Rodriguez is a self-taught quick study who learned music theory on Wikipedia; Downey is a new wave fanatic who sticks pipe cleaners in his brain to speak to extraterrestrials; Koewler is a longtime ballet dancer whose love of aesthetes and bands like Cocteau Twins is a strong influence on her bandmates. Roles and positions have never been important to So Pitted: Rodriguez and Downey often switch instruments and both sing, while Koewler plays her guitar through a bass amp. Together, the trio just fits, a perfect balance for one another’s quirks, strengths and shortcomings.

Enter ‘neo’, So Pitted’s debut album some years in the making. These eleven tracks are lean and snarling rebukes, torch songs not in the traditional, unrequited-love sense but songs that will torch your house down. It’s fuzzy, angular, throbbing, pounding, yet catchy. Songs crash over and over, turning under themselves like waves but, as the measures tick off, the dog-eared melodies arise.

For all its power, growth, and complexities, ‘neo’ is but a slice in time. It stands for anything new and the necessity of revisiting ideas - nothing is above an update. In Rodriguez’s words, “Our whole process is not perfect, but I don’t think it’s supposed to be. That’s not the point.”

‘neo’ was co-produced and mixed by So Pitted and Dylan Wall and recorded at The Old Fire House, Media Lab, Spruce Haus, the band’s practice space and Tastefully Loud in Seattle. ‘neo’ was engineered by Wall at Tastefully Loud and mastered by Eric Boulanger at The Bakery in Los Angeles.

TRACK LISTING

Cat Scratch
Pay Attention To Me
Woe
Holding The Void
No Nuke Country
The Sickness
Feed Me
I’m Not Over It
Rot In Hell
Get Out Of My Room
Chop Down That Tree

After nearly ten years as the creative force behind much-loved New York rock outfit Hooray For Earth, Noel Heroux had lost his way. “I was constantly cutting corners and phoning everything in,” he says. “I was super depressed. I was creatively frustrated. I was emotionally unavailable to the people I really, really wanted to be there for - and no matter how much I cared, I just couldn’t change. But when I realized that I needed to the end the band and just try again, my head cleared and the clouds parted. I’d been derailed somehow,” he adds

“So I allowed myself to return to the beginning.”

This year marks the release of ‘Mass Gothic’, the Massachusetts-bred, New Yorkbased singer / songwriter’s self-titled Sub Pop debut. Written and recorded at home over four months during the winter of 2013 - 2014, it’s a stunning reminder of not just Heroux’s own remarkable talents as singer and songwriter but how unbridled creativity can sound and feel: before Hooray For Earth had quickly become a fullyfunctioning band it began as a solo project. Not pressure or compromises, just Heroux, a four-track and an irrepressible urge to “jot down all of the noise and music floating around in my head” and make it available to other people. “All I wanted to do was whatever I do when I’m alone and I’m unconcerned with what anyone else wants or expects,” he says. “I did my best to let go, and what came out was pure, uncut. It reminded me of the first few times I made music, when I was a young kid. I didn’t set any rules and I had zero expectations.”

The result is an expansive, often exhilarating set of guitar-driven pop that required very little editing when it was done. Additional mixing was provided by Chris Coady (Beach House, TV On The Radio) with mastering done by Greg Calbi (Father John Misty, Tame Impala) at Sterling Sound. The album was engineered by Wall at Tastefully Loud and mastered by Eric Boulanger at The Bakery in Los Angeles.

From the iridescent doo-wop of ‘Every Night You’ve Got to Save Me’ to the skyward crescendo of ‘Mind Is Probably’ to the falsetto-streaked clatter of ‘Want To, Bad’, it’s a radiant retelling of Heroux’s starting over, with ‘Nice Night’ as its cathartic, electrifying centrepiece.

“A lot of these songs are more or less a really dramatic, loud apology / thank you note,” he says, referencing his partner, collaborator and future tour mate, Jessica. “It didn’t matter where any of the sounds came from. I just cared that it sounded big and heavy, and that it was moving when it was done. It’s a clean slate entirely - and I’m so relieved.”

TRACK LISTING

Mind Is Probably
Own The Road
Want To, Bad
Pier Pressure
Nice Night
Every Night You’ve Got
To Save Me
Money Counter
Territory
Soul
Subway Phone

Low’s Alan Sparhawk had this offer about the new album: “In our 20+ years of writing songs, I've learned that no matter how escapist, divergent, or even transcendent the creative process feels, the result is more beholden to what is going on at the moment. It's hard to admit that one is so influenced by what is in front of us. Doesn't it come from something magical and far away? No, it comes from here. It comes from now. I'm not going to tell you what this record is about because I have too much respect for that moment when you come to know it for yourself.

“I will, however, tell you about how we made it. BJ contacted us a few years ago and invited us out to the studio where he works with Justin, Lizzo, and other artists. The studio is close to our home in Duluth, so it seemed tempting. Months later, I worked with BJ, producing the recent record by Trampled by Turtles. We got along and seemed to have similar curiosity about the possibilities for Low, so time was booked and songs finished. We tracked under the soft glow of laser discs playing lost classics like Point Break and Speed. Glenn Kotche from Wilco was there one day working on another record, so we had him in to play hand-percussion on a couple songs. Working 2 or 3 days at a time, leaving it with BJ, then back again for more, we don't have the time or money to second-guess or pick from a pool of possibilities. This is the whole thought - the untamed truth. This is now. This is everything.”

STAFF COMMENTS

Andy says: A more rhythmical undercarriage brings a more dynamic sound to this exceptional band.

TRACK LISTING

1. Gentle
2. No Comprende
3. Spanish Translation
4. Congregation
5. No End
6. Into You
7. What Part Of Me
8. The Innocents
9. Kid In The Corner
10. Lies
11. Landslide
12. DJ

When Deaf Wish found themselves in a room together for the very first time, they agreed on a guiding philosophy: “Let’s not make anything that’s going to last. If we’re together for just two shows, then that’s what it is.” They’ve deviated since.

Over the course of eight years, the Melbourne foursome bassist Nick Pratt, drummer Daniel Twomey and guitarists Sarah Hardiman and Jensen Tjhung - with each member contributing vocals - have instead amassed one of rock’s most exhilarating bodies of work, a concise run of seven inches and white-knuckle albums whose legendary live translation has been most accurately described as ‘unhinged’. All this despite their being scattered across multiple continents, with no way of getting to know one another outside of intermittent touring. “We didn’t really know what this band was,” says Tjhung. “We had something, but it wasn’t clear - we had to figure out what that was.”

This year marks the arrival of ‘Pain’, the first music they’ve written since coming together again semi-permanently in Melbourne and their appropriately titled first full length for Sub Pop. It is a miraculously dissonant, wonderfully immediate display of Deaf Wish at their mightiest, alive with the same wild chemistry and sense of possibility that made their first recordings so vital.

With more time together than they’ve ever had before, they’ve found themselves confronted with ideal (yet foreign) conditions. Twominute freak-outs like ‘Eyes Closed’ share airspace with the meditate squall of ‘On’ and the guitar-born majesty of ‘Calypso’. Everything was captured in three takes or less, in a bleak, nondescript studio on the lifeless outskirts of Melbourne. ‘Pain’ was mastered by Mikey Young (Eddy Current Suppression Ring, Total Control).

TRACK LISTING

The Whip
Newness Again
They Know
Sunset’s Fool
Eyes Closed
Pain
Sex Witch
On
Dead Air
Calypso

The self-titled sixth album by Portland, OR’s The Helio Sequence is a renewed push forward for the band, depending on an effortless kinetic energy.

After creating their previous album, 2012’s ‘Negotiations’, through a long, introspective, the band wanted to try a new, open and immediate process.

There’s a delightful candour to The Helio Sequence, an openness that is rare for a band about to enter its third decade. The album was recorded and produced by the band in their Portland studio.

Seattle duo Stasia Irons and Catherine Harris-White return as THEESatisfaction with ‘EarthEE’, the follow up to their acclaimed 2012 debut ‘awE naturalE’.

The album, led by highlights ‘Recognition’, ‘Nature’s Candy’ and the title track, was recorded in Seattle and Brooklyn and features guest appearances from Shabazz Palaces' Ishmael Butler, Meshell Ndegeocello, Porter Ray and Taylor Brown. The set features Stas and Cat rapping and singing over sublime soul-jazz, SA-RA style wonkiness and spacious psych-funk textures, creating a seductive album that draws you in.

‘EarthEE’ was produced by THEESatisfaction and Erik Blood, mixed by Blood at Protect And Exalt Studios: A Black Space and mastered by Adam Straney at BreakPoint Mastering in Seattle.

TRACK LISTING

Prophetic Perfection
No GMO
Planet For Sale
Blandland
Fetch / Catch
Nature’s Candy
EarthEE
Post Black Anyway
Universal Perspective
WerQ
Sir Come Navigate
Recognition
I Read You

“We sound possessed on these songs,” says guitarist / vocalist Carrie Brownstein about Sleater-Kinney’s eighth studio album, ‘No Cities To Love’. “Willing it all - the entire weight of the band and what it means to us - back into existence.”

The new record is the first in 10 years from the acclaimed trio - Brownstein, vocalist / guitarist Corin Tucker and drummer Janet Weiss - who came crashing out of the 90s Pacific Northwest riot grrrl scene, setting a new bar for punk’s political insight and emotional impact.

Formed in Olympia, WA in 1994, Sleater-Kinney were hailed as “America’s best rock band” by Greil Marcus in Time Magazine and they released seven searing albums in 10 years before going on indefinite hiatus in 2006.

However, the new album isn’t about reminiscing. It's about reinvention, the ignition of an unparalleled chemistry to create new sounds and tell new stories. “I always considered Corin and Carrie to be musical soulmates,” says Weiss, whose drums fuel the fire of Tucker and Brownstein’s vocal and guitar interplay. “Something about taking a break brought them closer, desperate to reach together again for their true expression.” The result is a record that grapples with love, power and redemption without restraint.

Produced by longtime Sleater-Kinney collaborator John Goodmanson, who helmed many of the band’s earlier albums including 1997 breakout set ‘Dig Me Out’, ‘No Cities To Love’ is indeed formidable from the first beat.

Sleater-Kinney’s decade apart made room for family and other fruitful collaborations, as well as an understanding of what the band’s singular chemistry demands. “Sleater-Kinney isn't something you can do half-assed or half-heartedly,” says Brownstein. “This band requires a certain desperation, a direness. We have to be willing to push because the entity that is this band will push right back.”

“The core of this record is our relationship to each other, to the music, and how all of us still felt strongly enough to about those to sweat it out in the basement and to try and reinvent our band,” adds Tucker. With ‘No Cities To Love’, “we went for the jugular.”

TRACK LISTING

Price Tag
Fangless
Surface Envy
No Cities To Love
A New Wave
No Anthems
Gimme Love
Bury Our Friends
Hey Darling
Fade

“Sleater-Kinney is America's best rock band” - Greil Marcus, Time (2001)

Sleater-Kinney is an acclaimed American rock band that formed in Olympia, Washington in 1994.

The band's core lineup consists of Corin Tucker (vocals and guitar), Carrie Brownstein (guitar and vocals), and Janet Weiss (drums).

Sleater-Kinney were known for their feminist, left-leaning politics, and were an integral part of the riot grrrl and indie rock scenes in the Pacific Northwest.

‘Call The Doctor’ is Sleater-Kinney’s second studio album. It was produced by John Goodmanson and released on March 25, 1996 by Chainsaw Records.

The album is often considered to be Sleater-Kinney's first proper album because Tucker and co-vocalist and guitarist Carrie Brownstein left their previous bands, Heavens to Betsy and Excuse 17, at the time of its recording.

The line-up featured Corin Tucker (vocals, guitar), Carrie Brownstein (guitar, vocals) and Lora Macfarlane (drums, vocals).

‘Call the Doctor’ appeared at number three in The Village Voice's ‘Pazz & Jop’ critics' poll for 1996.

In 2010, the album was ranked number 49 in the list of the 100 greatest albums of the nineties by the editors of Rolling Stone.

“Trades sex-worker role-playing, doll parts, gender-bending, and other common female-rock tropes for stories of everyday struggle [...] Sleater-Kinney proves that punk still offers new ways to say no" - Johnny Ray Huston, SPIN

The album has been freshly remastered by Greg Calbi for this release.

TRACK LISTING

Call The Doctor
Hubcap
Little Mouth
Anonymous
Stay Where You Are
Good Things
I Wanna Be Your Joey Ramone
Taking Me Home
Taste Test
My Stuff
I'm Not Waiting
Heart Attack

“Sleater-Kinney is America's best rock band” - Greil Marcus, Time (2001)

Sleater-Kinney is an acclaimed American rock band that formed in Olympia, Washington in 1994.

The band's core lineup consists of Corin Tucker (vocals and guitar), Carrie Brownstein (guitar and vocals), and Janet Weiss (drums).

Sleater-Kinney were known for their feminist, left-leaning politics, and were an integral part of the riot grrrl and indie rock scenes in the Pacific Northwest.

‘One Beat’ is the sixth studio album from Sleater-Kinney, originally released on August 20, 2002 by Kill Rock Stars.

It was produced by John Goodmanson and recorded between March and April 2002 at Jackpot! Studio in Portland, Oregon.

The album peaked at number 107 in the United States on the Billboard 200 and entered the Billboard Top Independent Albums at number five.

"[Sleater-Kinney’s] sharpest statement yet" - Caryn Ganz, SPIN (#12 in SPIN’s Albums Of The Year 2002).

“Years at the top haven't dulled their willingness to take risks, and that's just what they do, spectacularly, on ‘One Beat’” - Brendan Reid, Pitchfork (9.1). · The album has been freshly remastered by Greg Calbi for this release.

TRACK LISTING

One Beat
Far Away
Oh!
The Remainder
Light Rail Coyote
Step Aside
Combat Rock
O2
Funeral Song
Prisstina
Hollywood Ending
Sympathy

“Sleater-Kinney is America's best rock band” - Greil Marcus, Time (2001)

Sleater-Kinney is an acclaimed American rock band that formed in Olympia, Washington in 1994.

The band's core lineup consists of Corin Tucker (vocals and guitar), Carrie Brownstein (guitar and vocals), and Janet Weiss (drums).

Sleater-Kinney were known for their feminist, left-leaning politics, and were an integral part of the riot grrrl and indie rock scenes in the Pacific Northwest.

‘Sleater-Kinney’ is the first effort from the group, recorded by Nick Carrol at 486 Victoria Street in Melbourne, Australia, and produced by Tim Green and the band at the Red House in Olympia, Washington.

The album was originally released in 1995 by the independent queercore record label Chainsaw Records.

The line-up featured Corin Tucker (vocals, guitar), Carrie Brownstein (guitar, vocals) and Lora Macfarlane (drums).

“While their same-sex one-on-ones aren't exactly odes to joy, they convey a depth of feeling that could pass for passion” - Robert Christgau, Consumer Guide (Grade: A-).

The album has been freshly remastered by Greg Calbi for this release.

TRACK LISTING

Don't Think You Wanna
The Day I Went Away
A Real Man
Her Again
How To Play Dead
Be Yr Mama
Sold Out
Slow Song
Lora's Song
The Last Song

'Sleater-Kinney is America's best rock band' - Greil Marcus, Time (2001)

Sleater-Kinney is an acclaimed American rock band that formed in Olympia, Washington in 1994.

The band's core lineup consists of Corin Tucker (vocals and guitar), Carrie Brownstein (guitar and vocals), and Janet Weiss (drums).

Sleater-Kinney were known for their feminist, left-leaning politics, and were an integral part of the riot grrrl and indie rock scenes in the Pacific Northwest.

‘The Hot Rock’ is the fourth studio album by Sleater-Kinney, originally released on February 23, 1999 by Kill Rock Stars.

It was produced by Roger Moutenot and recorded at Avast studio in Seattle, Washington in July 1998.

‘The Hot Rock’ reached number 181 on the U.S. Billboard 200 chart and number 12 on the Heatseekers Albums chart, becoming the first Sleater- Kinney album to enter the charts.

‘The Hot Rock’ appeared at number 23 in The Village Voice's ‘Pazz & Jop’ critics' poll for 1999.

Similarly, Spin placed The Hot Rock at number 18 in its list of 'The Top 20 Albums of 1999'.

In 2002, Rolling Stone ranked the album at number 17 on its list of 'Women in Rock: The 50 Essential Albums'.

“The expansive new sound gives Sleater-Kinney room to experiment with their Husker Du-style storytelling... They've earned the right to keep reinventing themselves” - Rob Sheffield, Rolling Stone.

“Tucker explores what her voice can do when it's not in overdrive, stretching vowels like a religious supplicant or spewing prosody like Patti Smith. At the same time, Brownstein blossoms as a singer herself [...] braiding lines with Tucker so artfully the result sounds like the voicings of a single restless mind” - Will Hermes, Entertainment Weekly (Grade A).

The album has been freshly remastered by Greg Calbi for this release.

TRACK LISTING

Start Together
Hot Rock
The End Of You
Burn, Don't Freeze!
God Is A Number
Banned From The End Of The World
Don't Talk Like
Get Up
One Song For You
The Size Of Our Love
Living In Exile
Memorize Your Lines
A Quarter To Three

'Sleater-Kinney is America's best rock band' - Greil Marcus, Time (2001)

Sleater-Kinney is an acclaimed American rock band that formed in Olympia, Washington in 1994.

The band's core lineup consists of Corin Tucker (vocals and guitar), Carrie Brownstein (guitar and vocals), and Janet Weiss (drums).

Sleater-Kinney were known for their feminist, left-leaning politics, and were an integral part of the riot grrrl and indie rock scenes in the Pacific Northwest.

‘The Woods’ is the seventh and final studio album from Sleater- Kinney, released on May 24, 2005 by Sub Pop.

It was produced by Dave Fridmann and recorded from November 2004 to December 2004 at Tarbox Road Studios in Cassadaga, New York.

‘The Woods’ reached #80 on the US Billboard Top 200 chart and #2 on the Independent Albums chart.

The album appeared at number four in The Village Voice's ‘Pazz & Jop’ critics' poll for 2005.

“They bash Eighties nostalgia, tell a feminist fairy tale and even quiet down for a couple sensitive love songs – needed breaks from music so intense you wonder how they can contain its explosiveness” - Rolling Stone (100 Best Albums of the 2000’s).

“To survive these days, you have to be either suicidal or superficial. Sleater-Kinney, meanwhile, get by simply sounding fucking supersonic” - Stephen Deusner, Pitchfork (9.0).

The album has been freshly remastered for this release.

TRACK LISTING

The Fox
Wilderness
What's Mine Is Yours
Jumpers
Modern Girl
Entertain
Rollercoaster
Steep Air
Let's Call It Love
Night Light

“Sleater-Kinney is America's best rock band” - Greil Marcus, Time (2001)

Sleater-Kinney is an acclaimed American rock band that formed in Olympia, Washington in 1994.

The band's core lineup consists of Corin Tucker (vocals and guitar), Carrie Brownstein (guitar and vocals), and Janet Weiss (drums).

Sleater-Kinney were known for their feminist, left-leaning politics, and were an integral part of the riot grrrl and indie rock scenes in the Pacific Northwest.

‘All Hands On The Bad One’ is the fifth studio album by Sleater- Kinney, originally released on May 2, 2000 by Kill Rock Stars.

The album was produced by John Goodmanson and recorded from December 1999 to January 2000 at Jackpot! Studio in Portland, Oregon and John & Stu's Place in Seattle, Washington.

Upon release, ‘All Hands On The Bad One’ reached number 177 on the US Billboard Top 200 chart and number 12 on the Heatseekers Albums chart.

‘All Hands On The Bad One’ appeared on several end-of-year lists and received a nomination for Outstanding Music Album at the 12th Annual Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation Awards.

The Village Voice placed it at number 10 in its 2000 ‘Pazz & Jop’ Critics' Poll.

“The band's most melodic, playful, sarcastic, and punchy album to date” - Brent DiCrescenzo, Pitchfork (8.3).

The album has been freshly remastered by Greg Calbi for this release.

TRACK LISTING

The Ballad Of A Ladyman
Ironclad
All Hands On The Bad One
Youth Decay
You're No Rock N' Roll Fun
#1 Must Have
The Professional
Was It A Lie?
Male Model
Leave You Behind
Milkshake N' Honey
Pompeii
The Swimmer

Sub Pop reissue Pissed Jeans’ 2005 full length punk classic along with their ‘Throbbing Organ’ single.

‘Shallow’, Pissed Jeans’ beautiful mess of a debut record, came out in 2005 on the Parts Unknown record label. It was the reason why Sub Pop initially fell in love with the Pennsylvania foursome.

‘Shallow’ has long been out of print on vinyl format and has been considered an eBay treasure for years.

King Tuff’s new record is called ‘Black Moon Spell’. It was produced and recorded by Bobby Harlow at Studio B in Los Angeles, California, in the hot winter of 2014.

There were many strange occurrences during the recording session - Dracula landlords, flashes of mysterious light, haunted microphones, songs that mixed themselves, demonic vortexes swirling in coffee cups, etc. Under the ‘Black Moon Spell’ you may experience euphoria, demented visions, wet dreams, bouts of backwards laughter, and dazed confusion resulting in primordial dancing.

Los Angeles, full of its screaming coyotes and creeping helicopters, surely slathered its sexy, twisted, hairy, polluted spirit all over ‘Black Moon Spell’.

Listen to ‘Black Moon Spell’ and give your ears what they’ve been begging for all year; a heavily weird, heavenly dark, hysterically magical rock & roll sexperience.

J Mascis’ Tied to a Star, the follow up to his acclaimed Sub Pop debut 'Several Shades of Why'. The album, led by the songs “Every Morning” and “Wide Awake,” was recorded and produced by Mascis and mixed by John Agnello at Bisquiteen in Amherst, MA.

'Tied to a Star' also features guest appearances from musicians Ken Maiuri (Young@Heart Chorus), Pall Jenkins (Black Heart Procession), Mark Mulcahy (Miracle Legion) and Chan Marshall (Cat Power).

STAFF COMMENTS

Andy says: J seems to write prettier songs the older he gets. This is another gorgeous, mellow, mainly acoustic record, but with his trademark, sweetly melodic electric lead runs, occasionally making an appearance.

TRACK LISTING

1. Me Again
2. Every Morning
3. Heal The Star
4. Wide Awake
5. Stumble
6. And Then
7. Drifter
8. Trailing Off
9. Come Down
10. Better Plane

There is a defiant air of unflinching bravery in Mirel Wagner’s carefully chosen words and the skeletal chords of her acoustic guitar. Her songs are like smooth, polished pebbles, thrown into a cold bottomless pond, drops of life that set the darkness rippling.

Squeezing the last drop of life from a worn out genre, her acoustic balladry is as far as you'll get from clichéd coffee house folk. It has more to do with the primeval darkness of Swans than the folksy bonhomie of Bob Dylan.

Her background couldn't be more normal: a relatively sheltered childhood in one of the better-off suburbs of Helsinki, teenage years spent rummaging around the blues section of her local library, fumbling around with her brother’s acoustic guitar. She is wary of speaking of her Ethiopian origins (Wagner was adopted at 1½ years of age) and sees herself as Finnish. Her art is all the more astonishing considering this cultural context, all the more shocking in its strangeness because it stems from something so normal.

‘When The Cellar Children See The Light Of Day’ was recorded at Shark Reef Studios in Hailuoto by electronic music producer Vladislav Delay (Luomo, Uusitalo). Delay fleshes out Wagner’s sound, adding subtle production touches that give her songs a newfound vastness and gravity, while keeping the winning formula that garnered critical acclaim for her self-titled debut.

The new album also features Academy and Grammy award winning Scottish composer Craig Armstrong.

“Sanity, a visage of my wealth
Lost but always found before the idols that I’ve knelt
Strategy, the only way to cry
Keep it do or die and always think in terms of I
Reverie, some legend futures past
Revelry, instead for it renders hella fast
Capitol, a sound that’s on the rise
It’s slaking unrealized until essence has been razed
Sepulcher, a stage enlived by ghosts
Floating off with bags of the blood encrusted dough.”

- “They Come In Gold” (from “The Phasing Shift” suite)

Herein bumps and soars 'Lese Majesty', the new sonic action of Shabazz Palaces. Honed and primal, chromed and primo. A unique and glorified offering into our ever-uniforming musical soundscape. 'Lese Majesty' is a beatific war cry, born of a spell, acknowledging that sophistication and the instinctual are not at odds; Indeed an undoing of the lie of their disparate natures.

'Lese Majesty' is not a launching pad for the group’s fan base increasing propaganda. It is a series of astral suites, recorded happenings, shared. A dare to dive deep into Shabazz Palaces sounds, vibrations unfettered. A dope-hex thrown from the compartments that have artificially contained us all and hindered our sublime collusion.

These reveries were sent to Palaceer Lazaro and Fly Guy ‘Dai in the year of gun beat battles in excess; In a succession of days, whilst walking in dreams and in varied transcendental states….(every minute of every day is filled with observation and composition. In action). Songs are committed and gathered by robots at Protect and Exalt Labs, a Black Space in Seattle, Washington.

TRACK LISTING

Dawn In Luxor
Forerunner Foray
They Come In Gold
Solemn Swears
Harem Aria
Noetic Noiromantics
The Ballad Of Lt. Maj. Winnings
Soundview
Ishmael...
Down 155th In The MCM Snorkel
Divine Of Form
#CAKE
Colluding Oligarchs
Suspicion Of A Shape
Mindglitch Keytar TM Theme
Motion Sickness
New Black Wave
Sonic Mythmap For The Trip Back

In a world where instant gratification is the norm, patience has become a rare commodity. For Zoë Randell and Steve Hassett, who make up indie-folk duo Luluc (pronounced Loo-LUKE), letting things unfold in due time not only defines their career trajectory, it also works as a pretty good description of their approach to making music. Music that Sub Pop co-founder Jonathan Poneman describes as “bracing, subtle, tender and magnificent.”

So while it may seem like Randell and Hassett’s history is littered with all kinds of good luck - from their initial meeting to their relationship with The National’s Aaron Dessner to opening slots with artists like Lucinda Williams, Fleet Foxes and José Gonzàlez; to their deal with Sub Pop; to grabbing the attention of Nick Drake’s producer - being in the right place at the right time isn’t just about fate. It’s about knowing when something feels right and having the confidence that people will respond when they’re ready.

There’s no question that everything these Australians (who split their time between Melbourne and their adopted hometown of Brooklyn) have done in their lives has been leading up to this summer’s ‘Passerby’, their second album overall and first available worldwide. Passerby is a gorgeously crafted 10-track album full of beautiful, slow-burning melodies and delicate harmonies, which drip out of their mouths like honey. The attention to detail is unmistakable and highlights like ‘Reverie On Norfolk Street’ and ‘Early Night’ are as haunting as they are hummable.

Unadorned guitars and voices make up the bulk of the dreamy sound, though the power of the added instrumentation can’t be overstated, with well-placed piano, percussion, double bass, sax, trumpet, trombone and more adding colour to the cosmopolitan atmosphere. Band favourites like Simon and Garfunkel and Gillian Welch (and of course Nick Drake) can be felt throughout ‘Passerby’, while the poignant restraint aligns them well with labelmates Low.

Co-produced by the band and Dessner, ‘Passerby’ shows off all of Luluc’s best qualities, retaining the gentle beauty of the duo’s debut while adding textures built with a cadre of impressive players. It’s the trophy celebrating Luluc’s airtight case that good things really do come to those who wait. The wait is over. The world is ready to hear Luluc quiet and clear.

“clipping. makes party music for the club you wish you hadn’t gone to, the car you don’t remember getting in, and the streets you don’t feel safe on” (Press release for clipping.’s debut, ‘Midcity’, September 2012).

Since the above was written, things have changed for clipping. The band found that listeners were more ready for them than they’d first imagined. Before 2013’s ‘Midcity’, the trio of rapper Daveed Diggs and producers Jonathan Snipes and William Hutson did not expect to find an audience for their abrasive brand of rap music. The project was initially a remix project, an aside to the members’ main occupations - Diggs is a stage actor, while Snipes composes music for film and Hutson is an established noise music artist (Snipes and Hutson collaborated on the score to 2013’s IFC documentary ‘Room 237’). However, since the formation of clipping., the field of commercial music enlarged ever so slightly, making room again for noisier, more adventurous elements in electronic production (though clipping. insist they simply make rap music).

‘CLPPNG’ is a much more ambitious project than ‘Midcity’. The album features guest verses from some of the band’s strongest influences, including Gangsta Boo (formerly of Three 6 Mafia and currently of Da Mafia 6ix), Guce (longtime Bay Area mainstay, member of Bullys Wit Fullys), King T (all-around West Coast gangster rap legend, founder of the Likwit Crew and mentor to Xzibit and Tha Alkaholiks). For the track Work Work’ clipping. joined up with Cocc Pistol Cree, a newcomer from Compton best known for her appearance on DJ Mustard’s mixtape ‘Ketchup’ and her song ‘Lady Killa.’

‘CLPPNG’ stretches the band’s experimental sounds to fit a wider emotional range. ‘Midcity’ had anger and aggression figured out, but ‘CLPPNG’ fits the group’s harsh electronics to club tracks, slow jams, songs to strip to and more. Relying heavily on musique-concrète techniques, the trio built many of the tracks out of field recordings and acoustic sounds. The beat for ‘Tonight’ (featuring Gangsta Boo) evokes a nasty, late night encounter with its fleshy slaps and squishy, biological noises, while ‘Dream’ utilizes natural ambiences to create a bleary, hypnagogic mis-en-scène. The band hasn’t gone soft, however; the album’s intro is likely the most uncompromisingly brutal piece of music they’ve yet recorded and ‘Or Die’ (featuring Guce) is as mean as anything on ‘Midcity’. ‘CLPPNG’ is an album that demonstrates the variety of sounds available when the ‘rules’ of a genre are wilfully questioned.

Calgary, Alberta’s Chad VanGaalen’s blood flows by unrestrained creative impulses. He has never worked in a commercial recording studio. By his hands alone, one line, sound, shape or word leads organically to the next. Over the last ten to fifteen years, Chad has been producing living maps in songs, drawings, modified instruments, animations and performances - shifting forms pointing to another world, infinitely more liveable, maybe hidden just under the surface of our own ever-disintegrating reality.

In ‘Shrink Dust’, Chad’s fifth full-length album under his own name, we have a new window into his world. The album is, in Chad’s view, a country record. It is also partially a score to Chad’s soon-to-be released animated sci-fi feature, ‘Translated Log Of Inhabitants’ (“It’s like Bob and Doug McKenzie in space,” says Chad).

Always a fan of esoteric instruments, Chad taught himself to play an aluminium pedal steel guitar. His experiments with this instrument unify the album, along with themes of death, transformation, fear, benign evil and the eccentricity of love. A newfound affection for The Flying Burrito Brothers, and the scifi mysticism of the 1980s graphic novel ‘The Incal’ by Alejandro Jodorowsky and Moebius, also drove the album.

Somehow, with all of its disparate influences and components, ‘Shrink Dust’ might be one of the most accessible moments in Chad VanGaalen’s creative life, simply because it is more apparent than ever how much fun he is having blurring the lines between the vivid worlds of his creation and the world his audience inhabits. For those who are open to it, Chad’s adventures in music and art illuminate a path that is more colourful, playful and sustainable than those commonly available to us. A path that is, most importantly, always changeable.

‘Do To The Beast’ is the first new album by The Afghan Whigs in over a decade and a half. Founded in Cincinnati, Ohio, in 1988, the band has long stood out from its peers, with their savage, rapturous blend of hard rock, classic soul, and frontman Greg Dulli’s searing angst and obsessions.

The new album is both a homecoming - it marks their return to Sub Pop, for whom the Whigs were the first signing from outside the label’s Northwest base - and a glimpse into the future of one of the most acclaimed bands of the past twenty five years.

‘Do To The Beast’ is an appropriately feral title for one of the most intense, cathartic records of Dulli’s entire career. It adds fresh twists to The Afghan Whigs canon: there’s the film noir storytelling of ‘Black Love’, the exuberance of ‘1965’, the brutal introspection of ‘Gentlemen’. However, the album exudes a galvanized musical spirit and rhythmic heft that suggest transcendence and hope amidst the bloodletting.

Recorded in LA, New Orleans, Cincinnati, and Joshua Tree - a virtual map of the band’s past and present homes, the album features Whigs co-founders Greg Dulli and John Curley, along with the core band of guitarists Dave Rosser and Jon Skibic, multi-instrumentalist Rick Nelson and drummer Cully Symington. Also featured are soul iconoclast Van Hunt, Mark McGuire (Emeralds), Johnny ‘Natural’ Nagera (Usher’s musical director), Alain Johannes (Queens Of The Stone Age, Arctic Monkeys), Clay Tarver (Bullet LaVolta, Chavez), Dave Catching (QOTSA, Eagles of Death Metal), among others.

STAFF COMMENTS

Laura says: Greg Dulli and co return in fine style with this swaggering blend of rock'n'roll angst, classic r'n'b and soul. A dark and uncompromising tour de force.

Sometimes the best course of action is to find your path and stay focused, which is the approach that shaped Lyla Foy’s debut album, ‘Mirrors The Sky’. Everything changed for the 25-year-old London songwriter one day in early 2012, when she cancelled her evening plans to work on music at home. After years of collaborations, she decided to go it alone, and that night produced the gorgeously stripped-down ‘No Secrets’, which she eventually shared with the world under the moniker WALL. “When I first started writing for the project, I wanted everything to be really focused on the melodies, but also really simple and minimal,” says Foy. “Just using a lot of bass, and simple drum patterns. I wanted to try something new, and that one song felt like the beginning of something.”

The reaction to ‘No Secrets’ confirmed Foy’s suspicion that she’d stumbled onto something pretty special. The track led to an appearance on British web-series Black Cab Sessions, and the Black Cab folks formed a label to release WALL’s debut single, ‘Magazine’. The English accolades poured in via glowing reviews and radio spins - BBC Radio’s Steve Lamacq went so far as to call ‘Magazine’ his favourite song of the year - and by the end of 2012 Pitchfork was giving her props for her haunting cover of Karen Dalton’s ‘Something on Your Mind’, and spotlighting the title track from 2013’s ‘Shoestring’ EP.

Foy has now decided to come out from behind her WALL and adorn ‘Mirrors The Sky’ with her given name. She’s still in the same musical mindset that produced ‘No Secrets’ and she still plays with the guys - Oli Deakin (bass, keyboards), Andy Goodall (drums), and Dan Bell (guitar, keyboards) - who helped bring WALL’s songs to the stage.

For a project that began as a single song in a London bedroom, Lyla Foy’s hypnotically hushed songs have come quite a long way over the past two years, figuratively and literally, as her worldwide deal with Sub Pop will find her spending quality time supporting ‘Mirrors The Sky’ around the globe.

TRACK LISTING

Honeymoon
I Only
Impossible
Rumour
Easy
No Secrets
Only Human
Feather Tongue
Someday
Warning

The fact that Joel Thibodeau’s slender, winsome voice is at once so comforting and so unsettling might be the greatest of his many strengths. Reed-thin but sturdy, youthful but somehow ageless, its deep benevolence is also slightly eerie, and the way he gently walks the line between intense feeling and contemplative remove lets him sing from a timeless place where he evokes the beauty of vanished people and places, sweetness too profound for words, loss too great for tears.

Like Nico’s, Jimmy Scott’s, or Phil Elverum’s, Joel’s is a voice that demands its own sonic and lyrical world, and with ‘Island Intervals’, his third record as Death Vessel (and second for Sub Pop), we're treated to the sound of him finding a rich and strange new home among new friends in Iceland who probably saw him as a long-lost relative.

For his first album since 2008’s acclaimed ‘Nothing Is Precious Enough For Us’, Joel traveled to Reykjavík on an invitation from Sigur Rós singer Jónsi and producer Alex Somers, where they spent three months together conjuring an album that’s both a song cycle and a window into a mysterious and singular landscape.

‘Island Intervals’ wraps Joel’s voice and furtive guitar in sounds that evoke not so much a band playing as elemental forces of earth and water; Pete Donnelly (The Figgs, NRBQ), Samuli Kosminen (Múm) and Thorvaldur ‘Doddi’ Thorvaldsson assist Somers in creating a rich and multi-layered world that sounds, at times, like a well-tuned forest sighing and bending in a gale, or the deep cracks and booms of a glacier calving its way to the sea. Jónsi also joins Joel on vocals for the track ‘Ilsa Drown’.

‘Island Intervals’ lives in the spaces between running away and letting go, and finds its author embracing a life whose most solid, real moments loom and vanish, like a range of mountains that emerges from a bank of low clouds, and just as suddenly slips away.

TRACK LISTING

Ejecta
Velvet Antlers
Triangulated Heart
Mercury Dime
Ilsa Drown (ft Jónsi)
Island Vapors
We Agreed
Loom

From the depths of the Sub Pop archives comes a reissue of Soundgarden’s thunderous opening salvo, ‘Screaming Life’, plus bonus tracks from the ‘Fopp EP’ and ‘Sub Pop 200’ compilation.

This reissue marks the first time these tracks will be available digitally, and their first appearance on vinyl since the original, late 80s pressings (notwithstanding a longgone, late 90s repress of ‘Screaming Life’).

All tracks have been remastered by Seattle studio wizard and producer of the original ‘Screaming Life’ and ‘Sub Pop 200’ sessions, Jack Endino, who had this to say about it: “Ah, ‘Screaming Life’, Soundgarden's debut, and one of the first real records I made for anyone outside my own band. Soon after opening Reciprocal Recording in July 1986, there I was with Soundgarden, trying to make the most of our eight tracks. Somehow, we found room for all of Matt Cameron’s ‘bonus tubs’, Hiro’s primordial Fender bass, and a whopping four tracks to share between Kim Thayil's mad guitar psychedelia and Chris Cornell's still-expanding voice. ‘Nothing To Say’ was the song that made us all look at each other and go ‘uh, holy crap, how did we do this?’”

Stuff started happening. A&M came calling. SST agreed to put out their next record. But Soundgarden were not finished with Sub Pop. They contributed ‘Sub Pop Rock City’, about Seattle’s then-rising ‘grunge’ scene, to the ‘Sub Pop 200’ comp, and they threw everyone a curveball with Steve Fisk-produced Ohio Players and Green River covers on the ‘Fopp EP’.

The glorious vistas of a major label future awaited them. To quote Kim from an old interview, “It was karma, it was dogma, it was dog breath.”

Obits are a four-piece band who currently live in Brooklyn, NY, and whose music is probably considered an occupant of the rock music genre, specifically in the areas of garage, punk, surf, surf-punk, and garage-punk.

On this new album, ‘Bed & Bugs’, they’ve also covered a song (‘Besetchet’) from Volume 23 of the excellent ‘Ethiopiques’ series. So much for tidy categorization. · This is the third full length album by Obits, following their 2011 album ‘Moody, Standard And Poor’, which itself followed their 2009 album ‘I Blame You’.

‘Bed & Bugs’ was recorded by Nikhil Ranade, Eli Janney and Geoff Sanoff.

The discerning listener may well note more than a passing similarity to such bands as Hot Snakes, Edsel, Drive Like Jehu, Girls Against Boys, Pitchfork, and possibly Television or the Wipers. This is un-coincidental - with the exception of those last two, Obits share members with all of those bands.

TRACK LISTING

Taste The Diff
Spun Out
It’s Sick
This Must Be Done
Pet Trust
Besetchet
Operation Bikini
Malpractice
This Girl’s Opinion
Receptor
I’m Closing In
Machines
Double Jeopardy (For The Third Time)

Ruthless Sperm. What’s in a name? A whole hell of a lot, actually. Sperm can ruin everything. Persistent little shits that fight their way to the prize. If just one soldier gets ahold of its egg of choice, things will break apart, bubble and mutate. A microscopic violence that leads to thirty plus pounds of sludge and flesh. Still, beauty tends to be the outcome after all this splashy mess and most parties find a happy, rewarding ending. Most parties. To the unfortunate others, the outcome can be more terrifying than anything dreamed up in a Polanski flick.

Italy’s His Electro Blue Voice follows a similar path to creation. Once the choice is made, it’s guaranteed the trip will be violent and unrelenting. Only the band doesn’t tell you up front which crooked path is gonna lead you to the finish line (at first, they may not even know). But whether it’s slathered in a thick glaze of neo-gothic guitar, an unexpected electronic pulse or leveled under a death trip full of panic inducing terror shrieks, His Electro Blue Voice have become masters at building soundscapes that leave brave listeners spent, soiled and with nothing positive on their mind.

On Ruthless Sperm – His Electro Blue Voice’s debut full-length, after a string of collectible singles/EPs and an appearance on the Sub Pop 1000 compilation – they set their trajectories on a Kraut-driven rhythm; a haunting, cinematic wash or a mechanically-sound industrial thump. Thirty-plus minutes of shock-horror blasts, blaring cyber-synth attacks and that gloriously-repetitive Stoogeoid-meets-Killing Joke throb. The end result is a platter that’s as direct as it is deadly. Yet for all the bombast and bummer, His Electro Blue Voice still bring forth euphoric hooks and shards of shoegaze, if only to leave them strewn about within the mechanical wreckage. You can almost hear the sounds of the early 4AD roster in the grooves, left teetering between warped indie sensibility and creepy-crawl madness. Crazy sounding, but damned if it doesn’t stick in your head.

Ruthless Sperm by His Electro Blue Voice: subtle as a construction site and precise like a leather gloved killer. This is the apocalypse. This is end times. Thankfully we get a decent soundtrack to go with it.

TRACK LISTING

Death Climb
Spit Dirt
Sea Bug
Tumor
The Path
Born Tired
Red Earth

With An Object, their fourth full-length album, No Age has forgone the straight and narrow route, landing in a strange and unexpected place, feet planted in fresh, fertile soil. This new LP finds drummer/vocalist Dean Spunt exploding from behind his kit, landing percussive blows with amplified contact mics, 4-string bass guitars, and prepared speakers, as well as traditional forms of lumber and metal. Meanwhile, guitarist Randy Randall corrals his previously lush, spastic, sprawling arrangements into taught, refined, rats’ nests. Lyrically Spunt challenges space, fracturing ideological forms and complacency, creating a striking new perspective that reveals thematic preoccupations with structural ruptures and temporal limits.

As the title An Object suggests, these eleven tracks are meant to be grasped, not simply heard. Whether in the fine grit of Randall’s sandpaper guitar scrapes on “Defector/ed,” or Spunt’s percussive stomp and crack on “Circling with Dizzy” and “An Impression,” these are songs that pivot on the sheer materiality of music-making, incorporating the process every step of the way. Still, this is hardly a work of avant garde noise music. These songs are hummable, political, recognizably rooted in underground rock, and informed by an understanding of sound as a material to be shaped, handled, and worked over. It is an aesthetic in which the relationships between guitar, percussion, and vocals—as well as those between rhythm and melody—become relationships between things.

These relationships are built into An Object at every level. In collaboration with friend and Grammy-nominated designer Brian Roettinger (5 EP‘s, Nouns, Losing Feeling, Everything In Between), the band prepared and assembled the physical packaging of An Object, including jackets, inserts, and labels, fusing the roles of manufacturer, artist, and musician into one. It is this sense of the total work of art that underlines An Object as the culmination of two years of touring, writing, and performing, finding No Age moving into new terrain at the height of their powers.

An Object was recorded by longtime No Age collaborator Facundo Bermudez and No Age at Gaucho’s Electronics in Los Angeles.

The name is Daughn Gibson - rhymes with Jaughn, or Raughn.

He first entered the daydreams of the general public in 2012 with his acclaimed debut, All Hell. Armed with modern technology and a pile of thrift-store records, Daughn shook the ghosts out of scratchy Christian folk records and baptized them as fierce Americana with his booming baritone voice.

It's on Daughn's second album and Sub Pop debut, Me Moan, that he truly reveals himself to the world. If All Hell was a gritty black-and-white movie, Me Moan is a widescreen IMAX 3D extravaganza. While the roots of All Hell’s sample-based music remain, these songs are performed live, lushly detailed and richly orchestrated. Live drums, guitars (by John Baizley of Baroness and Jim Elkington of Brokeback), pedal steel, horns, house strings, bagpipes and organs appear on this record,

Like Cormac McCarthy or Robert Altman, Daughn Gibson is a uniquely American artist who throws his soul into his work, free of compromise, possessed by unique vision and so damn intense that he constantly teeters on spontaneous combustion. It's not out of line to consider Me Moan as his Blood Meridian; his Nashville. All that's left is for you to let Daughn in.

TRACK LISTING

The Sound Of Law
Phantom Rider
Mad Ocean
The Pisgee Nest
You Don't Fade
Franco
Won't You Climb
The Right Signs
Kissin On The Blacktop
All My Days Off
Into The Sea

The notion that there is nothing new under the sun can be both a blessing and a curse to musicians. On the one hand, it absolves artists from any nagging sense that they have to reinvent the wheel with every new project. On the other, it makes innovation seem like a fool’s errand. Seattle songwriter Chris Cheveyo embraces this blessing, but, with his compatriots in Rose Windows, he also defies the curse. The band follows Western traditions in their instrumentation, using the basic tools employed in past decades of American and British rock music. Elements of The Band’s folk-infused rock, The Doors organ-driven psychedelia, and Black Sabbath’s blues-based dirges can be heard in Rose Window’s debut album The Sun Dogs. But the septet’s curiosity goes much further than a few well-chosen classic rock records. The band devoured Persian, Indian, and Eastern European music, and incorporated the revelations learned into Rose Windows’ sound. The Sun Dogs challenges the assumption that all creative territories have been mapped out and charted. While Rose Windows aren’t interested in making music of the future, one reviewer was wise enough to note “a sound like this would not be possible in any other time.”

Rose Windows began in late 2010 in a house in Seattle’s Central District, where Cheveyo found himself tiring of the limited palette of his prior heavy, post-rock project. Starting with a few rough demos by Cheveyo alone, Rose Windows took shape as the band amassed members from their circle of musician friends. Rose Windows began playing out, fluidly sharing the stage with underground art-metal bands one night and popular indie Americana acts the next.

In November of 2011, the band began working on The Sun Dogs with local producer Randall Dunn (SunnO))), Boris, Earth, Master Musicians of Bukkake). Dunn’s penchant for musical anthropology proved the perfect match for the band, with their mutual curiosity and artistic ambition broadening the scope of the album. Dynamics were expanded. Boundaries were pushed.

STAFF COMMENTS

Darryl says: Seattle's awesome Rose Windows present their wonderful debut album. 'The Sun Dogs' combines mystical Eastern flavours with the psyche-folk of the Espers, and the full on guitar riffage of Wooden Shjips. You need this in your life!!

Age and four full-lengths haven’t mellowed Pissed Jeans; they can still unleash a blare that will exfoliate your cochlea. Formed in Allentown, Pennsylvania, Pissed Jeans released Shallow, their first album, in 2005 on Parts Unknown Records. The band relocated to Philadelphia seven years ago, and Sub Pop released Hope for Men in 2007, and then King of Jeans in 2009. The latter was recorded by Grammy nominee Alex Newport, who also recorded Honeys.

Age and experience have, however, refined Pissed Jeans. Their ideas and execution have become more subtly focused. The songs on Honeys are direct without being obtuse, evocative without being vague, personal without being indulgent. They also rock like nobody’s business. Forget all the claptrap you’ve heard about other bands delivering the goods. If you want bloodthirsty, you’ve got it… At times Honeys is the sound of being bashed over the head with a snow shovel. At times the band slows down and sounds like waking from a nightmare you can’t quite remember. The songs are catchy, but in a way that would appeal to mental patients who only understand colors.

Honeys stews on the kind of mundane, niggling things that keep you up late at night. It’s an ode to the misery and shackles of being a responsible adult, and the shame of one’s own narcissism. Pissed Jeans trucks in menacing songs about insecurity, and nobody has ever done it better.

Canada’s Metz are a return to everything that’s good about loud, ecstatic live music - a frantic nod to Nation Of Ulysses, Shellac, The Pixies, The Jesus Lizard, and Public Image Ltd. at their most vicious - while carving out some heavy new business as well.

Metz have been around for over three years, sharing stages with Mission Of Burma, Mudhoney, Oneida and NoMeansNo.

‘Metz’ was produced by Graham Walsh (Holy F*ck) and Alexandre Bonenfant.

With this, their debut album, Metz articulate with deafening clarity what we’ve known for some time: The world of good music needs a new power trio, and this is it.

STAFF COMMENTS

Ryan says: A ferocious release from Toronto based Metz, they don't mess around, you could be forgiven for mistaking the song 'rats' for something off Nirvana's bleach. This is punk done right.

‘End Of Daze’ was recorded in 2011 and 2012 with Sune Rose Wagner of The Raveonettes and Dee Dee’s longtime producer Richard Gottehrer, whose track record includes the Brill Building, CBGB, and Sire Records.

‘End Of Daze’ offers a bracing, daring sonic example of an artist evolving in her understanding of the world.

‘End Of Daze’ flows from a pair of bombastic opening tracks, through the simmering, plaintive cover of Strawberry Switchblade’s ‘Trees And Flowers’, to the regretful ballad ‘Lord Knows’, in which Dee Dee’s voice remains rich yet crystalline, a gorgeous, toned instrument revealing an awareness of fear and misstep.

Closing the mini album is ‘Season In Hell’, a raucous and practically joyful closing of the book on past pains, and, perhaps more importantly, a looking forward (“Doesn't the dawn look divine?”) to the future.

‘The Tarnished Gold’ is the work of the classic Beachwood Sparks lineup: singer / guitarist Chris Gunst, singer / bassist Brent Rademaker, singer / multi-instrumentalist Farmer Dave Scher, and singer / drummer Aaron Sperske, with invaluable support from guitarist and longtime friend Ben Knight (The Tyde).

For the sessions, the band expanded to seven pieces, with guitarists Knight and Neal Casal (solo artist and former member of Ryan Adams and The Cardinals), with Dan Horne on pedal steel in place of Scher, who opted to play organ, key, Flying V guitar and electrified melodica. Also lending a hand were Gunst’s wife Jen Cohen, Beachwood Sparks’ very first drummer Jimi Hey, Brent’s brother Darren (leader of The Tyde) and LA indie-rock maestro Ariel Pink. Producer Thom Monahan returned to his familiar spot behind the console.

The world has caught up with Beachwood Sparks since they came out of nowhere in 2000 with their self-titled debut album, bringing new life to what Gram Parsons famously described as “cosmic American music”, and recapturing LA’s laidback but vibrant heyday back in the late 60s and early 70s. At the time, this kind of harmony-rich, irony-free music was rare.

After their second album, 2002’s trippier ‘Once We Were Trees’, and the decidedly offbeat 2003 EP ‘Make The Cowboy Robots Cry’, Beachwood Sparks called it quits. But during the subsequent half decade, the indie music scene began to change with the appearance and wholesale acceptance of multi-voiced throwback groups from Fleet Foxes to Bon Iver to Grizzly Bear.

STAFF COMMENTS

Andy says: A band that splits up for ten years and comes back with the best thing they've ever done? Beachwood Sparks break the Rules Of Rock with this beautiful album.

When Jaill nonchalantly stepped into the room with 2010’s ‘That’s How We Burn’, the group had already turned out a small catalogue of selfrecorded and self-released albums and EPs.

SPIN said of ‘That’s How We Burn’, “What elevates their [Sub Pop] debut beyond your average tweepunk rager is the gentle psych dabblings: extra delay on a guitar solo, an errant ‘ooh-ahh-ooh,’ a dubby Panda Bear flourish, and the swirling noise that murmurs through the background.”

Recorded throughout 2011 in Kircher’s crummy, poorly lit basement, with minimal gear and a control room of thrift store afghans, and mixed at NY’s Rare Book Room by Nicolas Vernhes.

Milwaukee-based psych-pop three-piece confronting a malfunctioning universe with an inventive, lean 11-song album.

STAFF COMMENTS

Ryan says: Jaill have stuck with their jangly 90's anti-anthems since their last release but this time round, it all feels more confident and honed. Each track is a winner in it's own right!

TRACK LISTING

1. Waste A Lot Of Things
2. Everyone's A Bitch
3. Perfect Ten
4. Horrible Things (Make Pretty Songs)
5. I'm Home
6. House With Haunting
7. Madness
8. Million Times
9. Ten Teardrops
10. While You Reload
11. Stone Froze Mascot

First King Tuff album for Sub Pop, and his second album overall.

‘Was Dead’, King Tuff’s 2008 debut, captured the attention of the rock underground and quickly blew through its limited pressing.

Produced by Bobby Harlow, of The Go and Conspiracy Of Owls, and recorded during a furious two-week run in Detroit.

Dum Dum Girls’ second full length ‘Only In Dreams’ is a great leap forward for a gifted songwriter and an equally gifted band.

‘Only In Dreams’ more than fulfils the promise of 2011’s acclaimed and fast-selling ‘He Gets Me High’ EP. It retains Dum Dum Girls' signature blend of the girl-gang eyeliner punk of The Shangri-Las, the trashy propulsion of The Cramps, and the moody atmospherics of Mazzy Star.

For the first time, all four Dum Dum Girls play and sing on the album.

‘Only In Dreams’ was recorded at Josh Homme's Pink Duck Studios, and Richard Gottehrer again produced, this time with Sune Rose Wagner from The Raveonettes.

STAFF COMMENTS

Andy says: With elements of trash, garage/psych, girl-group pure pop and generally all things classic, it's fitting that this is produced by the guy from the Ravonettes. If you dug the Mary Chain and all their cool references then here's another band to fall in love with all over again!

David says: The album Best Coast should have made!

Ryan says: Garage tinged, 60s-style girl group pop, with suggestions of the Pretenders and a strong hint of classic influences throughout. The Girls have moved away from the home recorded ethos of their debut album “I Will Be” and introduced a carefully crafted and polished sound for “Only In Dreams”. Kristen’s songs like “Coming Down” and “Bedroom Eyes” touch on the issues of break ups and time away from partners whilst on tour, but stay true to the Dum Dum Girls’ tried and tested melodic style. The album offers catchy pop gems from start to finish. With walls of reverb-drenched distortion, ear-burrowing melodies and Penny's distinctive vocals it's easy to see why this record has received so much attention so far. A must have for any fans of Best Coast, Vivian Girls or La Sera, this masterpiece is another album you will easily find yourself falling in love with this year.

‘American Goldwing’ is Sub Pop’s third full-length release with Portland’s Blitzen Trapper and the band’s sixth full-length overall.

On ‘American Goldwing’ Blitzen Trapper let their loves and influences – hard guitar rock, country picking and pawn-shop Casio aplomb – hang out for all to see.

‘American Goldwing’ is the band’s first foray into direct, outside influence in the creation of a record, with mixing by Tchad Blake and coproduction by Gregg Williams.

Male Bonding is a noise-pop trio from London’s Dalston neighborhood.

‘Nothing Hurts’, the band’s 2010 debut was described by Pitchfork as “the sound of a fast, fuzzy rock band racing from hook to hook, plowing happily through breakdowns and guitar blasts, springing through scrappy melodies with style. It's one of the happiest surprises of the year so far”.

This new Male Bonding album, ‘Endless Now’, was recorded at Dreamland Recording Studio in Woodstock, NY, the converted 19th century church that birthed such classics as The B-52s’ ‘Love Shack’ and Dinosaur Jr.'s 1993 full-length ‘Where You Been’.

The band worked with producer John Agnello (Kurt Vile, Thurston Moore, Dinosaur Jr.)

Eleven tracks – plus a wee reprise –’ Endless Now’ is 36 minutes of songs tailor-made to anchor your mix tapes and playlists - if you can stand to separate them from the whole album.

The answer to the question, “Are Obits ‘indie rock veterans’?” is yes and no. Yes, they are accomplished musicians who once fronted Drive Like Jehu, Edsel, Hot Snakes, and Pitchfork. But also; No, they are not active or retired members of the United States military. It’s good to get these things sorted out.

What of Obits’ new record? Well, for starters, it’s their second full-length, and it’s called "Moody, Standard and Poor". It was recorded at Brooklyn’s Saltlands Studio by Eli Janney and Geoff Sanoff.

And how will "Moody, Standard and Poor" make you feel? The short answer is: great. Not Smoking-An-Eightball-Of-Coke great. But Alive-To-New-Listening Experiences great. The long answer is that these twelve songs will take you on a series of emotional road trips. Some will be as brief as a walk to the fridge. Others will be epic pilgrimages to the shady hinterlands of your subconscious. Great records can do this. "Moody, Standard and Poor" is no exception.

First ever studio acoustic album from Dinosaur Jr’s J Mascis.

In the quarter century since he founded Dinosaur (Jr), J Mascis has created some of the era’s signature songs, albums and styles. The laconically-based roar of his guitar, drums and vocals have driven a long string of bands - Deep Wound, Dinosaur Jr, Gobblehoof, Velvet Monkeys, The Fog, Witch, Sweet Apple - and he has guested on innumerable sessions.

But "Several Shades Of Why", recorded at Amherst, Massachusetts’ Bisquiteen Studios, is J’s first solo studio record, and it is an album of incredible beauty, performed with a delicacy not always associated with his work. Nearly all acoustic, "Several Shades Of Why" was created with the help of a few friends. Notable amongst them are Kurt Vile, Sophie Trudeau (A Silver Mount Zion), Kurt Fedora (longtime collusionist), Kevin Drew (Broken Social Scene), Ben Bridwell (Band Of Horses), Pall Jenkins (Black Heart Procession), Matt Valentine (The Golden Road), and Suzanne Thorpe (Wounded Knees). Together in small mutable groupings, they conjure up classic sounds ranging from English-tinged folk to drifty, West Coast-style singer / songwriterism. But every track, every note even, bears that distinct Mascis watermark.

STAFF COMMENTS

Andy says: It was about time he turned down the volume a bit, and with his songwriting fully restored to its former glory, as evidenced on his last (and so loud it had to be re-mastered quieter!) record, now was the right time to do it. Excellent.

David says: When you’re renowned the world over for immediately identifiable, ear-shredding, guitar solos and having pretty much nothing to say about pretty much - well, pretty much everything really, then releasing a solo, acoustic album is probably the only thing you could do as an artist to both confuse and confound your audience in equal measure. For 26 years Mascis has been happy to let his guitar do the talking and who can blame him? There are very few guitarists who can lay claim to so easily a recognizable style and sound, making the decision to turn down the volume from 11 and let his voice be heard, all the more inspired. His weathered, campfire slacker drawl has a delicate compassion that has rarely, if ever, survived the sonic onslaught that is a Dinosaur Jnr album and the guitar playing too, rejoices in its new found simplicity making “Several Shades Of Why” the surprise record of 2011.

TRACK LISTING

1. Listen To Me
2. Several Shades Of Why
3. Not Enough
4. Very Nervous And Love
5. Is It Done
6. Make It Right
7. Where Are You
8. Too Deep
9. Can I
10. What Happened

The fifth album from Greg (Afghan Whigs / Gutter Twins) Dulli’s Twilight Singers collective, and the group’s first in five years.

The Twilight Singers’ previous release, the acclaimed confessional opus "Powder Burns", came out in 2006.

"Dynamite Steps" is clearly the next chapter, a whole new level of catharsis and progress, evocatively cramming all the highs and lows of the maverick singer-songwriter’s past half-decade into unexpected sonic trapdoors.

'Shot on location' at various locales significant to Dulli’s life, you can hear the sense of place emanating up from the grooves of "Dynamite Steps". Here, the weary nighttime decadence of New Orleans rubs up against the oppressive sunshine of Los Angeles and the desolation of Joshua Tree’s desert vistas.

"Dynamite Steps" explores the thin line between life and death, mortality and immortality, resignation and celebration—that mythical moment when your life flashes before your eyes, drawn out here over the course of eleven songs.

The album’s forty-three minutes prove an unflinching odyssey through the dark side, but one that’s ultimately redemptive in its scope and power.

Various guests contribute to the new album, including: Ani DiFranco, Joseph Arthur, Petra Haden, Carina Round, Nick McCabe (The Verve) and Mark Lanegan.

Formed in Glasgow in 1987, The Vaselines released two singles and one album and then split up in 1989 (the same week their album was released). They might have faded into obscurity but for the intervention of a certain band from Seattle.

Nirvana covered three Vaselines songs, helping to fuel a growing after-the-fact appreciation of their seedy, two-and-a-half chord garage pop manifesto.

"Sex With An X" was recorded outside Manchester at the Analogue Catalogue studio in Mossley with Julie McLarnon engineering, and produced by Jamie Watson (who also produced that first album Dum Dum). The Vaselines ca. 2010 is Eugene and Frances with guest musicians Stevie Jackson and Bob Kildea from Belle & Sebastian on guitar and bass, and Michael McGaughrin from the 1990s on drums.

An exploration of American music that spans from the 60s folk movement to the country sounds of the 70s, to the pop balladry and prog rock of the 80s, has earned notice ranging from Rolling Stone magazine to late night  network television. But there is more to Blitzen Trapper than those traditions. More than anything, the band credit their music to their Pacific Northwest home.

"Destroyer Of The Void" was recorded with Portland musician and studio engineer Mike Coykendall (Bright Eyes, M Ward, She & Him).
Preternatural musical siblings Peter Broderick (Horse Feathers, Efterklang) and Heather Woods Broderick (Efterklang) wrote the album’s string arrangements and Alela Diane lent her angelic vocals to the duet "The Tree".

Dum Dum Girls churn out blissful pop that falls somewhere between The Ramones and The Ronettes.

Their debut album ‘I Will Be’ was recorded at home by Dee Dee and mixed with the help of Richard Gottehrer (Strangeloves, Voidoids, Blondie, The Go-Gos, The Raveonettes).

A decidedly medium-fi record, at just under thirty minutes and with eleven songs, it’s a concise tribute to love, fun and the classic pop form of the ‘60s girl groups and early punk rockers.

While Flight Of The Conchords first hammered out their reputation from behind the relative safety of acoustic guitars, blithely billed as a 'folk comedy' act, nowadays their musical style runs rampant, unchecked. Judging from the range displayed on their sophomore album "I Told You I Was Freaky", Flight Of The Conchords have yet to unearth a genre which can withstand their artistry. Unflinching in their lyrical stance, sophisticated with their arrangements, crafting melodies which always lodge firmly in the frontal lobe: Flight Of The Conchords have here created 13 best-selling ringtones, humbly masquerading as songs. Their rhymes are fearless, their thesauruses dog-eared. Only cool, confident specimens of manhood such as these could drop three-dollar vocabulary busters like 'dungarees' and 'pantaloons' while still mesmerizing the ladies with their undulating "Sugalumps". Vivid imagery? Check: The ardent "Angels" should spur listeners to think twice the next time they consider catching a snowflake on their tongues. Better still, the amorous odyssey of the album's zenith, "We're Both In Love With A Sexy Lady", unfolds before the listener's very ears in real time; Flight Of The Conchords are making history.

One of three albums from Mudhoney, all lovingly remastered and pressed on coloured vinyl, sounding as fresh as they did on release. Aside from a brief re-release of "Superfuzz Bigmuff" in 2000, none of these albums have been available on vinyl since the early 1990s. Each is remastered from the original tapes, as the original masters have been lost. "Mudhoney" includes a poster and improved graphics.

'Delivering on the promise Sunny Day Real Estate showed on their 1994 debut Diary, the following year's self titled album (aka "The Pink Album", for its entirely pink cover) also felt like a posthumous work left by a brilliant writer. Shortly after recording it, the band spontaneously imploded: Enigk emerged born-again as a Christian, and the rhythm section, Nate Mendel and William Goldsmith, headed off to join Dave Grohl in Foo Fighters, seemingly sabotaging that once-limitless future. As tragic as the turn of events was for fans, the album proved how special the band was and underscored just how lamentable their too-early demise was.'

One of three albums from Mudhoney, all lovingly remastered and pressed on coloured vinyl, sounding as fresh as they did on release. Aside from a brief re-release of "Superfuzz Bigmuff" in 2000, none of these albums have been available on vinyl since the early 1990s. Each is remastered from the original tapes, as the original masters have been lost. "Superfuzz Bigmuff" and "Mudhoney" include posters and improved graphics. The "Every Good Boy Deserves Fudge" LP sleeve featurea the two paintings that accompanied the original CD and vinyl covers.

Collecting songs ranging from out-of-print to never-before-released, "Around The Well" spans Iron and Wine's earliest sessions which yielded the band's debut (2002's "The Creek Drank the Cradle") through to material recorded for 2007's "The Shepherd's Dog". The "Around The Well" collection is broken up into two sections. The first half is an assortment of hushed home recordings, unedited and raw, and the second highlights moments captured in the confines of proper studios with the help of other musicians, friends and engineers. The album's title comes from a line in the song "The Trapeze Swinger", a fan favourite which was written for and included in the movie 'In Good Company'. Three more songs written and recorded for the film finally make their appearance here as well: "Belated Promise Ring", "God Made The Automobile" and "Homeward, These Shoes". "Around The Well" also brings together hard-to-find covers such as The Flaming Lips' "Waitin' for a Superman" and New Order's "Love Vigilantes", along with one of Iron and Wine's earliest originals, "Sacred Vision".

'Though the Afghan Whigs were still about a year away from hitting the peak of their powers in the studio, their second album, 1990's "Up in It", was a major improvement over their self-released debut, and it was their first recording to suggest that they would mature into one of the best American rock bands of the 1990s. As a songwriter, Greg Dulli was starting to really get in touch with his self-loathing, and "Retarded," "White Trash Party," and "I Know Your Little Secret" offer a powerful and sometimes disturbing look into one man's obsessions. Just as importantly, the band had finally learned to make the most of their musical muscle; Greg Dulli's nicotine-laced growl merged 'heavy-alternative' bellow with a soul man's sense of phrasing, while the guitars of Dulli and Rick McCollum and the rhythm section of John Curley and Steve Earle managed to combine bruising power with a remarkable sense of drama and dynamics.'

Band Of Horses 2006 debut, "Everything All The Time" was a big favourite here at Piccadilly and so naturally we're very excited about this follow up. For a lot of reasons, "Cease to Begin" is the perfect title for this record. Not only do the songs themselves weave this theme through the record, but stopping and starting anew is also a reflection of the past year and a half for Band Of Horses. Though they worked with producer Phil Ek again, as they did on "Everything All The Time", much has changed between the fairly recent then and now. There have been band members who have come and gone, including Mat Brooke, who left the band to pursue other interests and his own band. For core members Ben Bridwell, Rob Hampton and Creighton Barrett, there has been a move from Seattle, WA to Mt. Pleasant, SC, a relocation that had been planned for some time so that they could all be closer to their families. And, close friends and family have come and gone-some far too early. Necessarily shot through with these experiences, the songs on "Cease To Begin" are strikingly beautiful, if less elliptical and more straightforward, with more sophisticated arrangements than the last record. It certainly doesn't disappoint.

TRACK LISTING

Is There A Ghost
Ode To LRC
No One’s Gonna Love You
Detlef Schrempf
The General Specific
Lamb On The Lam (In The City)
Islands On The Coast
Marry Song
Cigarettes, Wedding Bands
Window Blues

‘Whiskey For The Holy Ghost’ is the second solo album from Mark Lanegan, originally released in 1994.

The album builds upon the roots-music foundation Lanegan established with his debut ‘The Winding Sheet’.

Released during the grunge explosion of the early 1990s, ‘Whiskey For The Holy Ghost’ showcases Lanegan’s growing maturity as a songwriter and vocalist. Lyrically, Lanegan continues to delve into the darker side of the human experience on songs like ‘Borracho’ and the biblical ‘Pendulum’.

Dan Peters of Mudhoney guests on the album, playing drums on the songs ‘Borracho’ and ‘House A Home’.

TRACK LISTING

The River Rise
Borracho
House A Home
Kingdoms Of Rain
Carnival
Riding The Nightmare
El Sol
Dead On You
Shooting Gallery
Sunrise
Pendulum
Judas Touch
Beggar’s Blues

As you probably already know, Low formed in 1993, in Duluth, Minnesota, and features Alan Sparhawk on vocals and guitar, Mimi Parker on vocals and drums, and Matt Livingston on bass and vocals. "Drums And Guns" is the band's eighth full-length album and second for Sub Pop. It's also, after 2005's "The Great Destroyer", the second album they've recorded with producer Dave Fridmann. It features a number of songs that ardent Low fans will recognize from the band's recent live shows. These songs appear here in substantially altered forms, as though they've been taken apart and reassembled in striking new ways, or seen with new eyes. Or, given the lyrical emphasis on murder and death, a more insightful interpretation might see the band killing these songs and bringing them back to life anew. There's no contrivance here, however. While these songs feature new elements (looped vocals, drum machines, etc.) and are thoroughly, radiantly contemporary, they remain undeniably Low's. "Drums And Guns" possesses the unique, subtle beauty and power we've come to expect from Low, but the record is also profoundly exciting in ways that it's easy to forget music can be.

After 2004's critically acclaimed "Blue Cathedral", one might have expected Comets on Fire to blast off into the cosmos in an infinite flurry of lysergic spasmodicism. Surprising, then, that they should turn in an earthy, more accessible and downright beautiful album as their follow-up. Then again, it is a completely logical progression, but in reverse, sort of. On "Avatar", their astonishing new album, Comets display development in every direction: as musicians, as songwriters, as arrangers and as singers (?!), without sacrificing one ounce of the intensity that is expected from our heroes. As on "Blue Cathedral", the diversity of the material is staggering. "Avatar" veers from swinging, bluesy explorations to piano-laced, progressive power balladry, to pure tribalism, evoking everyone from the Allmans, to Quicksilver, to Procol Harum, to some insane Fela/Sun Ra/Crazy Horse hybrid, yet remains wholly Comets on Fire. Though they play cleaner and clearer, their firepower is evident and abundant. They have shifted gears and opened themselves up completely.

TRACK LISTING

Dogwood Rust
Jaybird
Lucifer’s Memory
The Swallow’s Eye
Holy Teeth
Sour Smoke
Hatched Upon The Age

‘Scraps At Midnight’ is the third solo album by Mark Lanegan. It was produced by Mark Lanegan and longtime collaborator Mike Johnson. ‘Scraps At Midnight’ could arguably be considered the final instalment of a trilogy of albums (preceded by ‘The Winding Sheet’ and ‘Whiskey For The Holy Ghost’) which feature the songwriter’s interpretation of American roots music set to troubling lyrics that explore themes of loss, sin and redemption.

TRACK LISTING

Hospital Roll Call
Hotel
Stay
Bell Black Ocean
Last One In The World
Praying Ground
Wheels
Waiting On A Train
Day & Night
Because Of This

Folks, you don't need to buy any records by My Morning Jacket, Flaming Lips or Mercury Rev anymore, Seattle's Band Of Horses have combined all three and only gone and made one of the albums of the year! These are huge, emotive, yearning songs. The sound is reverb-drenched and lonesome: enormo guitars chime whilst Ben Bridewell whacks out his vocals like Perry Farrel's little, lost brother. OK, they sound very similar to M.M. Jacket, but there's a directness here that's exhilarating. The whole record flows, but there's some absolute anthems lurking amidst the drift and echo. It's a towering, beautiful thing.

TRACK LISTING

The First Song
Wicked Gil
Our Swords
The Funeral
Part One
The Great Salt Lake
Weed Party
I Go To The Barn Because I Like The Monsters
St. Augustine

Mudhoney is a four piece rock group from the old, weird Seattle. For 27 years they have plugged into wall sockets all over the world, proving to be one of the most consistently electrifying acts to survive the grunge implosion, whatever that was. The wolfish howls of singer Mark Arm, soulful splatterings of guitarist Steve Turner and frenzied fills of drummer Dan Peters have produced nine albums to date, most of which are considered neo - garage classics. "Under a Billion Suns" is the band's new longplayer and it's performed with the same amplified urgency of their previous work.

"Our Endless Numbered Days" is the second full-length album from Iron and Wine and it was recorded both at Sam's Miami home and in Chicago's Engine Studios with Brian Deck. On it, Sam is aided and abetted by regular touring and recording conspirators: his sister Sara Beam, Patrick McKinney, Jeff McGriff, EJ Holowicki, and Jonathan Bradley. No grand gestures here, instead the record is filled with tiny moments, little windows into our shared mortality in a way that serves to sharpen the hunger for love and connection over time rather than dull or defeat it. Listening to "Our Endless Numbered Days" makes plain Sam's deft touch with words and melody; one that allows him to turn out stories about love, loss, faith, or the lack of it that are at once personal and universal, set to music that is sweetly haunting and timeless.

Quite a departure from their "Oh Inverted World" debut. Gone is the 60s Beach Boys / Byrdsian low key production, "Chutes Too Narrow" has a much more updated sound. The same off-kilter songs are still there, but the vocals are brought right up front, and give the whole album a crisp, bright feel, while in the background, guitars jangle and backing harmonies intertwine beautifully.

TRACK LISTING

Kissing The Lipless
Mine’s Not A High Horse
So Says I
Youg Pilgrims
Saint Simon
Fighting In A Sack
Pink Bullets
Turn A Square
Gone For Good
Those To Come

Ace angular, new wave / punk, taken from their "Make Up The Breakdown" album.

Iron And Wine the recorded word of one Samuel Beam, Miami, Florida; is one of those one-guy-and-his-tapedeck affairs. "The Creek Drank the Cradle" is filled with hushed, restrained vocals, affecting lyrics from a naturalist's perspective, exploring relationships and the hope born from them, all of which come across as though whispered to you personally, accompanied by guitar, banjo, slide guitar. Taken as a whole, "The Creek Drank The Cradle", Iron and Wine's debut CD, is an ode to an older South; a part of America that is defined by 'traditional values', pastoral imagery and arcane manners. Or maybe that's just what we want to hear.

The Catheters bring real energy back to a genre all too often plagued by bands simply going through the motions. For fans of The Dwarves, Dead Boys, Murder City Devils & The Germs...

Currently creating a bit of a fuss Stateside, this Seattle band merge Mudhoney, The Stooges and Sabbath with good old punk rock!

A long overdue retrospective from the kings of Antipodean Punk Rock & Roll.

‘Field Songs’ is the fifth solo album by Mark Lanegan, released in 2001.

TRACK LISTING

One Way Street
No Easy Action
Miracle
Pill Hill Serenade
Don’t Forget Me
Kimiko’s Dream House
Resurrection Song
Field Song
Low
Blues For D
She Done Too Much
Fix

Compilation of hardcore, thrash, grind and metal from the North West of the USA.