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FAT POSSUM

Cover of Blood Visions by Jay Reatard.

Jay Reatard

Blood Visions

Fat Possum

    In the late 90s, 15-year-old Jay Lindsey, living right outside Memphis, played all of the instruments on a demo tape by his newly-minted performing moniker of “The Reatards”. This cassette was sent to Eric Friedl of the Oblivians, who had used the Goner Records imprint on a couple of releases. His next would be a 7” by The Reatards, followed shortly by a full length LP, "Teenage Hate" (Goner, 1998).
    After quickly building a reputation for an anything-goes live set, and releasing another excellent full length "Grown Up, Fucked Up" (Empty, 1999), Jay Reatard shoved what was previously a side project to the forefront and started raising eyebrows with something other than live mayhem: Songwriting and an ear for breaking ground.
    Jay’s first title under the solo “Jay Reatard” moniker, "Blood Visions" was released in early 2006 on In The Red, and it politely sat on the shelves for over six months until the live act brought up the rear and things started to happen. More singles for more labels, a handful of mind-bending SXSW performances, nonstop touring, a bidding war…that’s right, a bidding war…and the first quarter of 2008 found Jay Reatard on Matador Records.
    "Blood Visions" is now re-released on legendary label Fat Possum and available at a new lower price.

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    Cover of RMBLR by RMBLR.

    RMBLR

    RMBLR

    Fat Possum

      RMBLR are members of Din’s Boys and ex-Sleigh Bells.

      A tough punk 7” from a band that definitely can lose.

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      Cover of Friendship Music by Surfbort.

      Surfbort

      Friendship Music

      Fat Possum

        Fat Possum and Julian Casablancas' Cult Records are partnering to release NY Punks Surfbort record, "Friendship Music". Surfbort, a four-piece punk band from Brooklyn, New York made up of David Head, Alex Kilgore, Sean Powell and led by Dani Miller, channels inspiration from the 80’s punk scene to produce rousing, explosive music. Surfbort’s live experience is visceral and confrontational. Their feedback-strafed, guitar-shredding punk music says no to a digital age full of intolerance; they radiate love and friendship. All are welcome in the SURFBORT FREAK FAMILY! In the last three years they have supported acts such as The Dickies, Thee Oh Sees, Fat White Family, White Fang, Martin Rev, The Garden, Tijuana Panthers, The Mystery Lights, Tomorrows Tulips, Sunflower Bean, DIIV, GOGGS, The Dune Rats, Leftover Crack etc, Meatbodies, Ex-Cult, Hinds among others…

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        Cover of Unknown Mortal Orchestra (Reissue) by Unknown Mortal Orchestra.

        Unknown Mortal Orchestra

        Unknown Mortal Orchestra (Reissue)

        Fat Possum

          Unknown Mortal Orchestra (U.M.O.) was conceived as a home recording project by Ruban Nielson after spending years playing and touring in an award-winning New Zealand punk band (on the legendary Flying Nun label). The band broke up after re-locating to Portland, OR and Ruban was ready to move away from his nomadic past. His recordings as U.M.O., mainly created for his personal amusement, have now taken on a life of their own. 

          Ruban’s vision of creating “junkshop record collector pop” culminated in the creation of sprawling Beatles-esque guitar melodies over hammered out break-beats, spliced with an individual touch of gentle weirdness. The results deliver a surprisingly unified fusion of several influential elements - classic psychedelic rock, Krautrock rhythms and proto-hip hop beats – all interacting to create a cohesive album. 

          Though the songs were never intended to be performed live, the last six months has seen the project gather pace behind a wave of critical acclaim. A sold-out limited edition EP lead Ruban to construct a live band consisting of skilled producer Jake Portrait on bass and a brilliant teenage drummer named Julien Ehrlich.

          FORMAT INFORMATION

          Coloured LP Info: Independent record store exclusive on Sky Blue vinyl. Limited to 1,500 units worldwide.

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          Cover of Karaoke For One: Vol 1 by Insecure Men.

          Insecure Men

          Karaoke For One: Vol 1

          Fat Possum

            In case you don't know by now, Insecure Menare led by Saul Adamczewski (Fat White Family) and his schoolmate Ben Romans-Hopcraft. There debut album was a glorious mess of  exotica, easy listening, lounge and timeless pop music.They now return with this 10 track covers record, feat. takes on Bruce Springsteen, The Pogues, The Carpenters, Peter Andre et al.

            STAFF COMMENTS

            Barry says: It's a completely bizarre but thoroughly brilliant re-working of some karaoke classics from Insecure Men here, including the Police, the Denny's and PETER BLOODY ANDRE. WTAF / This is brilliant. Special shout-out to the Pogues' 'A Rainy Night In Soho'.

            FORMAT INFORMATION

            Coloured LP Info: Blue Moon coloured vinyl limited to 500 copies.

            Coloured LP includes MP3 Download Code.

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            Cover of I'm On Fire by Soccer Mommy.

            Soccer Mommy

            I'm On Fire

            Fat Possum

              A two track 7" from Soccer Mommy featuring a cover of Bruce Springsteen's classic single 'I'm On Fire,' and a rework of an old Soccer Mommy song, 'Henry.' Available in limited quantities on vinyl.

              At just 20 years old, Nashville native Sophie Allison is already well-known for the raw emotion she demonstrates as Soccer Mommy. Not only did she put together a poignant collection of songs for her Clean debut, but she consistently delivers a stirring live show. That’s especially true when she performs her cover of Bruce Springsteen’s “I’m On Fire”, a frequent concert staple. Now, she’s transferred that heart-rending power to a studio version of the track.

              Broken down to little more than a sadly strummed guitar and Allison’s layered, reverberating vocals, the sparseness highlights the innate loneliness of The Boss’ work. “I wanted to make a version of ‘I’m On Fire’ that connected with the sadness of the song,” Allison said in a press release. “I think that doing a more stripped down version allowed me to make something that feels emotionally raw


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              Cover of The Visitor by Kadhja Bonet.

              Kadhja Bonet

              The Visitor

              Fat Possum

                “The newly signed, genre defying Kadhja Bonet has announced the release of her debut The Visitor. On the album, Kadhja – pronounced “kod-ya” – invites us into a world not wholly our own, where past and future meet in a parallel, yet far lovelier, present. In anticipation of the release, Gorilla vs. Bear has shared the first track “Honeycomb”. Now available for streaming and free download, the song drifts listeners into a timeless, unplaceable realm of Kadhja’s own making. Fat Possum and Fresh Selects, two respected labels from different genres, have joined forces to bring us this transcendent debut – available in full on October 21.

                The Visitor opens with an awe you’d expect from the golden age of cinema. In its half-mythical atmosphere, “Earth Birth” offers keys and choirs science-fictionally echoing down from deep space. This overture fades and Kadhja’s voice velvetly emerges on “Honeycomb” with a timelessness sending listeners scrambling to find her nearest genre. After running through classical, jazz, soul, folk, and even psychedelia, you find it ultimately impossible to comfortably place her. This is all by Kadhja’s design. For if she were “folk” it would only be the folk of some future aeon, a thousand hears hence. If her rich instrumentation of strings and wind strikes us as a “classic,” it’s not because it harkens to any past era, but because Kadhja paints perennial imagery that could as much be now as then as any other time.

                Kadhja stays pretty mum – if not a little mysterious – about her own life story. She insists that her audience convene with her on imaginative and musical planes, instead of through byword associations with any scene or venue, be it in Los Angeles or on the beaches of Rio De Janeiro. What we do learn and should know about Kadhja is her early and formal training in classical music quarters, where she mastered violin and viola, learned flute and guitar, and gained the sharp compositional talents that frame every note and curve of The Visitor.

                All writing and arrangement— except for the Jaco Pastorius melody put to her words on Portrait of Tracy— is entirely of Kadhja’s creation. While calling in friends like Te’amir Yohannes Sweeney for drums, as well as Low Leaf, Peter Dyer, Randal Fisher, and Itai Shapira for harp, synth, flute, and bass, Bonet still plays a good half of the instruments herself, including guitar, violin, flute, and the backup vocals that fill up the skies of her music. Kadhja also produced The Visitor, though with much of its mixing and engineering handled by her assistant producer Itai Shapira, one of the few souls trusted behind the curtains of her musical process.

                The Visitor is an opus unpolluted by the mixed advice or overproductions that plague other albums. It plays through like one individual’s lucid dream in what is sometimes an all-too-dreamless musical landscape. Once we hear it, we recognize it as something that’s been harder and harder to find in the last thirty or forty years, though so badly missed. Kadhja has humbly learned from her predecessors while following their signs ever forward.” 

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                Cover of A Quality Of Mercy by RVG.

                RVG

                A Quality Of Mercy

                Fat Possum

                Debut album from Australian band RVG drawing on an array of influences from Echo and the Bunnymen, The Psychedelic Furs, and The Go Betweens. A Quality of Mercy is made up of Eight songs. Classic songs. Songs recorded by the band, live off the floor, at Melbourne’s iconic rock’n’roll pub, The Tote. Songs that leant on the band’s heroes —the Go-Betweens, the Soft Boys, the Smiths— whilst never sounding like homage or pastiche. Songs hitting that sweet spot between light and dark, employing guitars both angular and jangling. Songs passionately sung by Romy Vager, the eponymous leader of a band once called, in full, Romy Vager Group. All of the songs on A Quality Of Mercy find Vager trying to move beyond ego, beyond the simple confessional of the songwriter, hoping to find perspective on both world and self. In such, these songs are at once personal and universal, intimate and grand, timely and timeless. They’re classic songs. And there’s eight of them. Adding up to a perfectly-formed debut that says so much, yet gets out in under half-an-hour.

                STAFF COMMENTS

                Barry says: Displaying a perfect mix between jangling guitars and evocative vocal aesthetic (there's definitely a bit of Jarvis in there somewhere), RVG manage to switch from syncopated rhythmic psychedelia to soaring anthemic post-punk without batting an eyelid. Perfectly produced, and brilliantly immersive throughout.

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                Cover of Childqueen by Kadhja Bonet.

                Kadhja Bonet

                Childqueen

                Fat Possum

                Kadhja Bonet’s second album, Childqueen is something of a Hero’s Quest. In the opening Procession, above a muted drummer’s march, an unseen oracle announces to you, the listener: “every morning is a chance to renew, a chance to renew.” This is your first clue, setting you upon a path not to treasure, nor a grail, nor even a long lost love, but highest of all, what Kadhja has christened the “childqueen,” that innermost self that you were truthfully and instinctively before the press of the world came crushing in.

                As with her 2016 debut The Visitor, the songs on Childqueen are never casual, never ditties. Instead they invite us into a world not wholly our own, a half-mythical atmosphere where past and future meet in a parallel, yet faraway, present. The lyrics and melodic lines nudge us along a path of self-discovery— or act as breadcrumbs along her own path. Everything that you hear on Childqueen was written, played, produced, and even mixed by Kadhja, who has always produced all her own music, insisting on a total vision that is nearly as difficult to co-create as a dream. The result is a soundscape the listener sinks into, a sound that combines softer enchantments with an ever-listenable experimentalism, unplaceable in genre and decade from beginning to end.

                STAFF COMMENTS

                Millie says: This precious album ‘Childqueen’ is entirely created by Kadhja Bonet from start to finish. Her beautiful vocals are submersed in a lovely swoony softness. It’s unlike anything I’ve heard, her style is truly unique and a joy to listen to.

                FORMAT INFORMATION

                Coloured LP Info: Indies exclusive flume coloured vinyl.

                Coloured LP includes MP3 Download Code.

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                Cover of Clean by Soccer Mommy.

                Soccer Mommy

                Clean

                Fat Possum

                  Following on from last years compilation “Collection”, Nashville based Sophie Allison aka Soccer Mommy now brings us her debut album proper. Produced by Gabe Wax (Deerhunter, War On Drugs, Beirut), the new album is a huge step up from her earlier bedroom recordings. The fuller sound works perfectly with Sophie’s finely crafted, bitter-sweet pop songs that have a world weary quality beyond her 20 years.

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                  Cover of Insecure Men by Insecure Men.

                  Insecure Men

                  Insecure Men

                  Fat Possum

                    In many ways Insecure Men - the band led by the fiercely talented songwriter and musician Saul Adamczewski and his schoolmate and stabilising influence, Ben Romans-Hopcraft - are the polar opposite of the Fat White Family. Whereas sleaze-mired, country-influenced, drug-crazed garage punks the Fat Whites are a “celebration of everything that is wrong in life”, Insecure Men, who blend together exotica, easy listening, lounge and timeless pop music, are, by comparison at least, the last word in wholesomeness.

                    The band originally formed in 2015 in the cramped confines of The Queens Head pub, Stockwell, in the Fat White Family’s notorious South London ‘practice space’. Saul recorded all of the songs he wrote at The Queens Head onto tape at Sean Lennon’s studio in upstate New York. This tape, recorded on his own in a corridor onto an ancient Tascam while in a foul mood with his mates, essentially became Insecure Men’s self-titled debut album as more layers were dubbed over the top until nothing of the original demos remained.

                    Saul lists some of the influences on their sound, mentioning the exotica of Arthur Lyman, the early electronic pop of Perrey and Kingsley, the supreme smoothness of The Carpenters, the songwriting chops of Harry Nilsson and the hypnagogic uncanniness conjured up by David Lynch, describing what they do as “pretty music with a dark underbelly to it”.

                    FORMAT INFORMATION

                    Coloured LP Info: Indies exclusive yellow coloured vinyl.

                    Coloured LP includes MP3 Download Code.

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                    Cover of Popular Manipulations by The Districts.

                    The Districts

                    Popular Manipulations

                    Fat Possum

                    The Districts are a band that never stops moving. Popular Manipulations is an accurate representation of how much Robby, Braden, Connor, and Pat have grown, individually and as one solid unit. They’ve fallen in love and had their hearts broken and put back together again. They’re not the young underage band anymore, they’ve stepped out of their comfort zone and have come face to face with things that are so much bigger than them.

                    Popular Manipulations is life in the present. The way Robby belts from the depths of his chest compliments Pat’s crooning guitar while Braden and Connor lock in with a rhythm section so thick you could slice it with a knife. The songs are so visceral and compelling they make you like you’re experiencing every emotion at once. You can wade through the lyrical themes of manipulation, possessiveness, and anxiety or float among their dark and dreamy arrangements. Each song stands alone on its own but the synergy between them as a whole is explosive

                    STAFF COMMENTS

                    Barry says: Soaring melancholic indie anthems are underpinned by a staggeringly precise rhythmic backbone of hammering percussion and rolling bass. Slightly grungy in places and brilliantly emotive and perfectly produced throughout. Brilliant stuff.

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                    Cover of Collection by Soccer Mommy.

                    Soccer Mommy

                    Collection

                    Fat Possum

                    Quietly catchy & surprisingly confrontational. Soccer Mommy is the project of Sophie Allison, a nineteen-year-old Nashville native & musical wunderkind. Collection compiles the best of Sophie’s DIY Bandcamp work as well as a few new songs.

                    Sophie sings of toxic relationships & infatuations. Or, as Sophie describes her subject matter, “crush stuff with a hint of bad to it.” The songs can be sweet, they can be happily melancholic or melancholically happy, but they always cut deep. They belong on playlists & mixes, to be shared among friends & belted out during road trips.

                    ‘Allison,’ a gorgeous meditation on the bittersweet feeling of hurting someone you love while pursuing your own dreams, showcases Sophie’s talent for home recording, with multitracked vocals layered to perfection. On ‘Out Worn,’ a searing takedown of the desire for male validation, is relatable & anthemic, striking the perfect balance between anger & sugary pop bliss.

                    As long as records like Collection exist, there will be no shortage of young artists bashing their hearts out on guitars for years to come. “You can’t say indie rock is dead,” says Sophie. “It’s just being taken over by women.”

                    STAFF COMMENTS

                    Laura says: Lovely heartfelt melancholic pop songs from this Nashville singer songwriter. I have to admit I knew nothing about her before this release but this is really great. If you like Chastity Belt, Big Thief, Girlpool etc. then check it out.

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                    Cover of Routines by Hoops.

                    Hoops

                    Routines

                    Fat Possum

                    Hoops' full-length debut, Routines is a bittersweet and honest record that sounds both warmly familiar and jarringly distinctive. Whereas their previous releases were recorded on four-track tape machines in living rooms and basements (both their own and their parents’), Routines marks the band’s first sessions in an actual studio - namely, Rear House Recording in Greenpoint, Brooklyn with Jarvis Taveniere (Widowspeak, Quilt). Those sessions, however, were just one step in the band’s careful creative process. After a few months of touring, they returned to Indiana to set up their gear in Krauter’s parents’ basement and began experimenting with the studio-recorded tracks. Some songs they only tinkered with, others they scrapped completely and rebuilt from the ground up. They were determined to make a record that sounded like Hoops. The result is Routines, the sharpest and clearest delineation of the band’s sound thus far, drawing from and emphasizing each members’ distinctive influences and personal styles: four guys making music that is larger than themselves.

                    RIYL: Real Estate, Deerhunter, Unknown Mortal Orchestra, Ariel Pink, John Maus, Wild Nothing, Mac DeMarco, Twin Peaks, Whitney, Tennis

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                    Cover of Blue by Communions.

                    Communions

                    Blue

                    Fat Possum

                    Communions are a four-piece from Copenhagen, made up of brothers Martin and Mads Rehof, Jacob van Deurs Formann and Frederik Lind Köppen.

                    ‘Blue’ is Communions’ debut album, following a series of singles over the last two years. ‘Blue’ makes the most of everywhere Communions have been. Through all of this the stakes have changed but the sensitivity and craft with which the band takes risks has bloomed. An eloquence now shines through and you can take it or leave it.

                    Discarding some of the moodiness found in their previous recordings, ‘Blue’ tells us what was always natural to Communions. It’s about love and taking chances. It’s about trying something and it still doesn’t matter if there’s apprehension.

                    FORMAT INFORMATION

                    Coloured LP Info: Exclusive blue smoke coloured vinyl available to independent retailers.

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                    Cover of Goodbye Terrible Youth by American Wrestlers.

                    American Wrestlers

                    Goodbye Terrible Youth

                    Fat Possum

                      ‘Goodbye Terrible Youth’ is the second album from St Louis-by-way-of-Scotland songwriter, Gary McClure.

                      Performing under the name American Wrestlers, Gary’s second record sees him taking bedroom recordings onto a bigger stage without sacrificing the intimacy that makes them so attractive.

                      If his self-titled album showed Gary’s knack for stringing together addictive guitar lines - the shimmer of shoegaze mixed with the emotional fist pump of power pop, ‘Goodbye Terrible Youth’ amplifies that energy with a roadtested band. Literally breaking out of the home studio - the Tascam mixer McClure had been recording on has fallen apart from overuse - he’s embraced a bigger sound and stage on ‘Goodbye Terrible Youth’, his rueful yet propulsive songwriting only becoming sharper.

                      “This [‘Amazing Grace’] is, quite simply, one of the most beautiful songs I’ve heard in 2016. All swirling guitars and plinking pianos, the song builds to a real moment of triumph. ‘I am waiting for that moment to arrive,’ Gary McClure sings, and then they hit you with those crunchy, soaring guitars, and you know it has” - USA Today

                      KEXP named ‘Amazing Grace’ their Song Of The Day, saying “When the guitar solo kicks in towards the final minute, it’s almost enough to make you pick up that matchbook and light the edge of that ever-expanding todo list on fire.”

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                      Cover of Pearls To Swine by Adam Torres.

                      Adam Torres

                      Pearls To Swine

                      Fat Possum

                        ‘Pearls To Swine’ maps Adam Torres’ complicated history as a songwriter and musician: it’s the sound of someone who discovered the value in his own devotion to music and how songs and writing are extensions of his own journey. He embeds his own folklore within his high-lonesome sounding, deeply felt and moving brand of folk music.

                        ‘Pearls To Swine’ was recorded over eight days in January at Austin’s Cacophony Recorders, which overlooks the Colorado River valley. Working alongside co-producer and mixer Erik Wofford (Bill Callahan, Black Angels, M. Ward, Okkervil River), Torres chose the analogue route, recording and mixing directly to tape to allow for more finality and less overthought. This method in turn lends a natural, warm and almost magical realism atmosphere to the songs - like a high stakes live show captured in a fantastical setting.

                        The core rhythm was captured live and augmented by a few overdubs and Torres is joined on the album by the players in his band: Thor Harris (of Swans; on conga drums, vibraphone and percussion), Aisha Burns (violin) and Dailey Tolliver (bass / piano), with drum kit performances by Matthew Shepherd and Rodolfo Villareal III.

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                        Cover of One Sock Missing by The Grifters.

                        The Grifters

                        One Sock Missing

                        Fat Possum

                          The Grifters were a 1990s indie rock band based in Memphis who released albums on Doink, Sonic Noise, Shangri-La Records and Sub Pop Records. The band originally formed in the late 1980s as A Band Called Bud, with vocalist / guitarist Scott Taylor, bassist Tripp Lamkins and drummer Dave Shouse. After being renamed The Grifters (after the novel by Jim Thompson) Shouse joined Taylor on guitar, with Stanley Gallimore taking over on the drums. Songwriting duties were shared between Shouse, Taylor and Lamkins. For several years in the 1990s the band recorded primarily at Easley McCain Recording and were closely affiliated with Memphis’ Shangri-La Records label for a time. Jeff Buckley was a vocal supporter of The Grifters and was close friends with the band.

                          FORMAT INFORMATION

                          LP includes MP3 Download Code.

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                          Cover of A Youthful Dream by Yung.

                          Yung

                          A Youthful Dream

                          Fat Possum

                          Yung frontman Mikkel Holm Silkjær is a Danish DIY figurehead who has left a catalogue of cassettes and selfproduced songs in his wake. Since he began to record music as a teenager (his father put him behind a drum set when he was four), slow hasn’t been his preferred speed. Writing and performing songs filled with gritty guitar and driving rhythms that snap like a live wire, he’s been busy channelling the electric drive of youth, creating brief, flashing sonic portraits of his life in Aarhus, the country’s gritty, industrial second city.

                          That makes the music on the reflective ‘A Youthful Dream’, the debut album from Yung, such a revelation. Angst makes space for wisdom, youthful exuberance begins channelling road-tested experience and a blur of basement shows and self-produced bromides becomes something more. Silkjær showcases a new degree of songwriting craft and sonic experimentation and a new perspective on everyday life and young adulthood.

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                          Cover of Get Gone by Seratones.

                          Seratones

                          Get Gone

                          Fat Possum

                          ‘Get Gone’, the potent debut album by Shreveport, Louisiana natives Seratones, makes a strong case that this little-known corner of the state is fertile ground, musically speaking. AJ Haynes (vocals), Connor Davis (guitar), Adam Davis (bass) and Jesse Gabriel (drums) serve up a combination of Southern musicality, garage rock ferocity and general badassery.

                          Seratones’ music, created with collaborative songwriting and spontaneous creativity, is certainly their own, due perhaps in part to Shreveport’s unique sonic geography. The city sits at a nexus roughly equidistant from Memphis soul, Mississippi Delta Blues and New Orleans jazz, with Texas swing located just over the nearby state border. The band’s sound draws from those touch points and more, ranging from Black Sabbath’s ‘Paranoid’ to ‘Kind Of Blue’.

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                          Cover of Sunday Nights: The Songs Of Junior Kimbrough by Various Artists.

                          Various Artists

                          Sunday Nights: The Songs Of Junior Kimbrough

                          Fat Possum

                            THIS IS A RECORD STORE DAY 2016 EXCLUSIVE, LIMITED TO ONE PER PERSON.

                            Artists of note cover songs from legendary Fat Possum artist Junior Kimbrough – includes contributions from The Black Keys, The Stooges, Spiritualized, Mark Lanegan, Jim White and many more.

                            “Though the world doesn’t need another tribute record, it does need to know about Junior Kimbrough and this is an excellent start. If you would like to hear the original compositions from the man himself, pick up ‘You better Run: The Essential Junior Kimbrough’ on Fat Possum” – Matthew Johnson.

                            Clear 180g double LP with download card.

                            First time on vinyl

                            Limited to 500 copies.

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                            Cover of Human Ceremony by Sunflower Bean.

                            Sunflower Bean

                            Human Ceremony

                            Fat Possum

                            Sunflower Bean find magic within friction. The New York trio’s full-length debut album, Human Ceremony [Fat Possum Records], emerges at the intersection of dreamy modern psychedelica and urgent fuzzed-out bliss. That push-and-pull colours the aural tapestry of these three musicians—Jacob Faber [drums], Julia Cumming [vocals/bass], and Nick Kivlen [vocals/guitars].

                            “Everything comes from a conflicting interest,” affirms Nick. “We love dream pop, but we also really love rock ‘n’ roll. It’s those two spectrums.”

                            “You’re allowed to obsess over Black Sabbath as well as The Cure,” adds Julia. “It’d be boring if everything was just one way or the other.”

                            That diversity defined the group’s approach since Nick and Jacob started jamming back in high school. They would hole up in Jacob’s Long Island basement for hours on end, channelling this vast cadre of influences. Julia’s addition would only expand that creative palette further in 2013. Through constant gigging around New York, Sunflower Bean sprouted into a sonic enigma, boasting a fiery musical call-and-response that serves as a centrepiece, giving the music what Jacob refers to as a “lyrical aspect” between the guitars, drums, and bass.

                            They transferred this multi-headed energy into their 2015 Independent EP, Show Me Your Seven Secrets. At the same time, this distinct alchemy enchanted ever-growing audiences live. By the time, they entered the studio for Human Ceremony, Sunflower Bean had a lively aural cauldron from which to draw.

                            They took the summer of 2015 off and retreated to Jacob’s basement to write together. Taking the ideas out of the basement, they hit a Brooklyn studio with producer Matt Molnar [Friends] and tracked eleven tunes in just seven days. Whereas the EP was recorded after Sunflower Bean played 100 shows in one year, Human Ceremony showed the band’s studio side with richer soundscapes, overdubs, and music that had yet to be debuted live.

                            On the lead track “Easier Said,” Julia’s delicate vocals glide over a lilting clean guitar that spirals off into a vibrant hum.

                            Sunflower Bean’s spell is cast on Human Ceremony.

                            “When you’re in a band, you always dream about the first record,” Julia concludes. “It’s that moment where you explore everything that’s been inspiring you.”

                            STAFF COMMENTS

                            Andy says: Dreamy psych, fuzzy garage and blissed-out janglers make this a really impressive debut album.

                            FORMAT INFORMATION

                            Indies Exclusive LP Info: Limited edition red vinyl.

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                            Cover of Insecurity / Water & Wines by Los Angeles Police Department.

                            Los Angeles Police Department

                            Insecurity / Water & Wines

                            Fat Possum

                              Under the moniker Los Angeles Police Department, Ryan Pollie makes the kind of homespun bedroom pop that excels in its quiet intimacy, while retaining its emotional weight under sparse instrumentation and soft delivery.

                              On his 11-track self-titled debut album (released September 2014) Pollie wrote and recorded each song in a day, allowing for small imperfections and spurts of urgency found throughout the record. It’s a creative process Pollie has now become accustomed to: “This project really changed an important misconception for me. It was that music that I was making, which wasn’t recorded in a studio with a band, was illegitimate or not real for some reason.”

                              These 11 tracks, pared down from 30 and recorded in a house in Hollywood, became personal anecdotes to a specific time and place: following a burgeoning relationship until its untimely end. At times shaken and hazy and at others affront with exhaustion, Pollie is able to weave a tapestry of pop songs that is the perfect distillation of where the project is currently at and where it could be taken in the future.

                              “The album’s first half represents as strong a collection of songs as will appear on any debut LP in 2014, maybe the best of its variety since the debut Youth Lagoon record” - Impose Magazine

                              “Gloriously arranged with a late-summer-light country rock haze” - Pitchfork

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                              Cover of I Can Do No Wrong by American Wrestlers.

                              American Wrestlers

                              I Can Do No Wrong

                              Fat Possum

                                American Wrestlers, the alias of an as-yet-unnamed Scottish-born, Missouri-based artist, announces his signing to Fat Possum with debut single ‘I Can Do No Wrong’, an appropriately titled first glimpse at this promising Midwest America-based singer-songwriter.

                                Now based in Missouri, the Scotsman’s journey is something of wonderment. Born and raised in Glasgow, he then found his way to Manchester where he recorded some demos under a different name and posted the songs online. It was then that his now-wife first got in touch and after becoming enraptured with one another, he moved across the Atlantic to get married.

                                The move to Missouri saw American Wrestlers take form, recording in a tiny, remote house on a Tascam 8-track and “the cheapest pawn shop instruments [he] could afford.”

                                ‘I Can Do No Wrong’ sees shimmery guitar work draw upon that feeling of a Midwestern Summer’s stifling heat. Driven along by a crackling beat; a stripped back approach to garage rock that focuses on melody and avoids the alltoo- common desire to drench everything in layer-uponlayer of fuzz.

                                “I like to write real songs that survive all on their own,” he explains of the sound. “One human and one instrument. Just the human even.” Melodic and hazy, its ramshackle surface hides an attention to detail that leaves the ‘lo-fi’ tag dead in the water.

                                “The lo-fi thing was all unintentional,” he confirms. “This was me trying my hardest to keep all the different sounds and layers under control. Make the reverbs and chorus sound nice and get just the right amount of overdrive from the multi-track’s inputs, while at the same time trying to make sure I kept the natural sounds and feels of the real sources the music was coming from.”

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                                Cover of Candy Mountain by Dilly Dally.

                                Dilly Dally

                                Candy Mountain

                                Fat Possum

                                Katie Monks and Liz Ball started Dilly Dally in 2010 while living in a cockroach-infested apartment near Toronto’s Kensington Market. The two shared a love for dreamy guitars, weed and karaoke. Turning to good friends Corey Marshall (drums) and Michael Guiliani (bass), the four piece spent the next three years playing any bar or basement with a PA, building a solid fan-base in Toronto and sharing the stage with notable bands such as Born Ruffians and Tokyo Police Club.

                                By 2014 the band had recorded their first full length record with producers Leon Taheny (Owen Pallett, Austra, Dusted) and Josh Korody (Fucked Up, Beliefs, Greys) at Candle Studios in Toronto, capturing a collection of songs that had been written over the course of three years. The track ‘Next Gold’ was released independently as a single: “Katie Monks sings the way drunk people do at weddings - loudly, messily, and with absolute conviction. You can make out about five words total on ‘Next Gold’, the first track from Dilly Dally’s forthcoming debut, but the Toronto four-piece’s Pixies-style grunge pop is no less riveting for being incomprehensible.” - Pitchfork, May 2014



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                                Cover of Melbourne by Jackson Scott.

                                Jackson Scott

                                Melbourne

                                Fat Possum

                                Fat Possum are excited to announce the European release date of Jackson Scott’s debut album, ‘Melbourne’. The album is a refined bedroom pop record which pitches Jackson somewhere amidst the otherworldly stargazing of Sparklehorse and the determined singularity of Neutral Milk Hotel and Mellow Gold-era Beck.

                                Jackson Scott has developed out of a weird audacity; bending spoons with apocalyptic melodies, sugared with solipsistic textures. How did the world conceive this young cosmonaut? A college dropout with a 4-track and a one-track mind. A listener and a conceiver. His voice, whether pitched up or androgynous, speaks of a still life. But painting is meaningless, songs irrelevant, aura outdated if you are a revivalist. Jackson is not.

                                The upcoming debut ‘Melbourne’ - conspired it out of isolation, deprivation and hunger - shows we’re all alone together, sharing the same tragedies, ecstasies and phenomenon.

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                                Cover of Love Now by Mean Lady.

                                Mean Lady

                                Love Now

                                Fat Possum

                                Mean Lady is the duo of Katie Dill and Sam Nobles from Delaware. They’ve written a bunch of songs about lust and innocence and vulnerability, coming out on Fat Possum Records as an album called ‘Love Now’.

                                Through bubbly synths and rhythmic production, Dill and Nobles have managed to cobble together a timeless, concise pop record. It’s a finished product that could only exist when kids from Delaware grew up, trashed all their soul records and then got high some time after DJ Shadow reached his peak but probably before J Dilla died.

                                ‘Lonely’ chronicles the emotions behind loving someone and not being near - that nasty burn, the powerless, physical feeling, the one that makes you dry heave on a dirt road somewhere outside the city limits. It sucks, but Mean Lady makes it better with their music.

                                ‘Love Now’ is deep and rich. The sound is Sam’s wonderfully abrupt sampling and skipping drum beats underneath the band’s live instruments. All of this is anchored by Katie’s songwriting and sharp, but sweet vocals. Take heed - this is an important debut for a young band.

                                [ + ]
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                                Cover of Believers by AA Bondy.

                                AA Bondy

                                Believers

                                Fat Possum

                                  Much to the singer’s amusement, Guitar Player magazine turned down the chance to talk to A.A. Bondy about his third and best solo album ‘Believers’ on the grounds that it’s “too quiet”. It’s their loss - this languorous, sometimes clangourous set, coproduced by Rob Schnapf (Elliott Smith’s ‘Either/Or’ and ‘Figure 8’) with a sparse line-up of Macey Taylor on bass and Ben Lester doubling up on drums and impressively expressive pedal steel, is decidedly electric.

                                  Bondy himself says his guitar style is fundamentally the same as showcased on his previous records, though he deliberately used flatwound strings, notorious for their lack of sustain.

                                  “‘Believers’ is nothing short of divine” - 4/5 Q;
                                  “A beautifully paced and structured album, with a powerfully singular mood” - 4/5 Uncut

                                  STAFF COMMENTS

                                  Darryl says: Sparse and intimate Americana with a desolate warmth, reminds me of early Ryan Adams. Highly recommended!

                                  Laura says: Every year an amazing album arrives too late to feature in our end of year charts. This year, it's this album. It would most definitely made my top 10!

                                  [ + ]
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                                  Cover of Wasteland by Swanton Bombs.

                                  Swanton Bombs

                                  Wasteland

                                  Fat Possum

                                  For those not au fait with wrestling vernacular, the Swanton Bomb is a manoeuvre, popularized by the three-time world champion Jeff Hardy, that involves leaping off a top rope, flipping your body over and landing back-first upon your opponent. So what does it have to do with Swanton Bombs, the band? “Absolutely nothing,” concedes singer and guitarist Dominic McGuinness. “We just thought it was pretty cool.”
                                  Their sound is a visceral, unvarnished blend of blues and punk, underpinned by rich narratives and resolute melodies, and informed by McGuinness and drummer Brendan Heaney’s admiration for The Clash, Television, The Ramones and Richard Hell along with the moody, blues-rock stylings of Randy Newman, Tom Waits and Nick Cave.
                                  This limited edition two tracker on Fat Possum features "Wasteland", "Swanton Bombs Who's Asking".


                                  STAFF COMMENTS

                                  Laura says: Two more great slices of blues punk rock from this two piece. Limited edition on Fat Possum.

                                  [ + ]
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                                  Cover of Hologram Jams by Jaguar Love.

                                  Jaguar Love

                                  Hologram Jams

                                  Fat Possum

                                    Blood Brothers may have betrayed their blood oath by breaking up, but the spirit of that raucous Seattle act lives on in Jaguar Love. Having already caught the eye of Queens Of The Stone Age, who took them on tour for a spell last year, Jaguar Love have since inspired the folks at Matador Records, who signed one album and an EP, as well as fat Possum, who have signed them to a worldwide deal.

                                    [ + ]
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