Cat Power returns with "Jukebox", her second album of cover songs and a tribute to the great vocalists who have influenced her over the years. Recorded in Dallas, Memphis and Miami with Stu Sikes (who also worked on Loretta Lynn's Grammy-winning "Van Lear Rose"), it contains twelve tracks, eleven of which are covers and one, "Song To Bobby", is brand new and a suitable inclusion as she wrote it about meeting Bob Dylan for the first time (it also precedes her version of "I Believe In You" on this record). This is the first record she has made with her band Dirty Delta Blues – the quartet of Dirty Three's Jim White, Delta 72's Gregg Foreman, Jon Spencer Blues Explosion's Judah Bauer and Lizard Music's Erik Paparozzi – and they make up a big part of this album. Also making guest appearances on the record are Spooner Oldham (Neil Young, Janis Joplin), Larry McDonald (Toots & The Maytails, Taj Mahal), Teenie Hodges (Al Green, Memphis Rhythm Band) and Matt Sweeney (Chavez). Time Out once wrote that Cat Power was 'a master of interpretation' and "Jukebox" highlights just that. Although her second album of covers, it's not really the sequel to "The Covers Record" (2000), instead a fascinating new chapter in Chan Marshall's artistic arc.

TRACK LISTING

New York (Frank Sinatra)
Ramblin (Wo)man (Hank Williams)
Metal Heart (2008 Version) (Cat Power)
Silver Stallion (Highwayman)
Aretha, Sing One For Me (George Jackson)
Lost Someone (James Brown)
Lord, Help The Poor & Needy (Jessie Mae Hemphill)
I Believe In You (Bob Dylan)
Song To Bobby (Cat Power)
Don't Explain (Billie Holiday)
Woman Left Lonely (Janis Joplin)
Blue (Joni Mitchell)

Recorded at the close of two years spent touring the globe following the release of 2019 breakout ‘Afrique Victime,’ 'Funeral For Justice' captures the Nigerien quartet in ferocious form. The music is louder, faster, and more wild. The guitar solos are feedback-scorched and the lyrics are passionately political. Nothing is held back or toned down. The songs on ‘Funeral For Justice’ speak unflinchingly to the plight of Niger and of the Tuareg people. "This album is really different for me," explains Moctar, the band’s singer, namesake, and indisputably iconic guitarist. "Now the problems of terrorist violence are more serious in Africa. When the US and Europe came here, they said they're going to help us, but what we see is really different. They never help us to find a solution."

"Mdou Moctar has been a strong anti-colonial band ever since I've been a part of it," says producer and bassist Mikey Coltun, who has been playing with Moctar since 2017. "France came in, fucked up the country, then said ‘you’re free.’ And they’re not." The song ‘Oh France’ tackles this head on: “France veils its actions in cruelty/ We are better without this turbulent relationship/ We must understand their endless lethal games.”

On the lead single and title track, Moctar addresses African leaders directly, bidding them: "Retake control of your countries, rich in resources / Build them and quit sleeping”. The song ‘Sousoume Tamacheq’ deals with the plight of the Tuareg people to which the band belong, and who are mainly spread across three countries: Niger, Mali and Algeria."Oppressed in all three/In addition to lack of unity, ignorance is the third issue." Another song, ‘Imouhar’, calls on the Tuareg to preserve their Tamasheq language - it's at risk of dying out, and Mdou is one of the few in his community who knows how to write it. "People here are just using French," laments Mdou. "They're starting to forget their own language. We feel like in a hundred years no one will speak good Tamasheq, and that's so scary for us."

Mdou Moctar in its current iteration is first and foremost a band. Alongside Moctar, it consists of rhythm guitarist Ahmoudou Madassane, drummer Souleymane Ibrahim, and American bassist and producer Mikey Coltun. The band got their start performing at traditional weddings. These are high energy events – amps are dialed up to 11 and the whole town is invited to attend. "I grew up in the DC punk scene and this is no different," explains Coltun. "It’s a DIY punk show: people bring generators, they crank their amps. Things are broken, but they make it work."

Conveying that energy and feeling of community to a new audience has been an important goal for the band. Their first concerts in the US were sometimes, mistakenly, organized to be tame seated affairs. That’s no longer the case. Over 100s of shows, they’ve proven themselves as one of the world’s most vital rock bands – a group rooted in Tuareg tradition, but undeniably its own singular organism. An Mdou Moctar concert is now recognized to be a place for dancing, if not full-force moshing.

"‘Ilana’ was the gateway album, saying that this is a raw rock band. And ‘Afrique Victime’ was a summation of that vision,” says Coltun, who recorded the entire record over five days in a mostly unfurnished house in upstate New York. “With ‘Funeral For Justice’, I really wanted this to shine with the political message because of everything that's going on. As the band got tighter and heavier live, it made sense to capture this urgency and this aggression – it wasn't a forced thing, it was very natural.”

In July 2023 – after ‘Funeral For Justice’ had been completed – Niger’s democratically elected government was deposed in a military coup. The president was placed under house arrest and the nation plunged into a state of chaos and uncertainty. The French have withdrawn. The area continues to be threatened by terrorism. The band – then on tour in the US – was, for a time, unable to return to their families.

"I don't support the coup," explains Mdou, "but I never in my life liked France in my country. I don't hate France or French people, I don't hate American people either, but I don't support their manipulative policies, what they do in Africa. In 2023 we want to be free, we need to smile, you understand?"

TRACK LISTING

1. Funeral For Justice
2. Imouhar
3. Takoba
4. Sousoume
5. Imagerhan
6. Tchinta
7. Djallo #1
8. Oh France
9. Modern Slaves

2023 marks the 30th anniversary of Liz Phair’s beloved debut record, Exile In Guyville, which was first released on 22nd June, 1993 via Matador. To mark this, Matador Records will reissue the album on limited edition purple vinyl.

An 18-track double album loosely framed as a song-by-song reply to The Rolling Stones’ Exile on Main St., Exile In Guyville was dubbed a classic upon arrival. The album’s profile has only risen in the ensuing years. It is now regarded as an iconic work and a feminist landmark, recently cracking the top ten of Pitchfork’s “Best 150 Albums of the 1990s” (#4) and the top 100 of Rolling Stone’s “Best 500 Albums of All Time” (#56).

Liz Phair has continued to defy expectations and break barriers. She has released five albums, sold over five million records, composed music for television, and received two Grammy ® nominations. In 2019, she published a memoir titled Horror Stories. On her most recent full-length, Soberish (2021), Phair reunited with Exile in Guyville producer Brad Wood.

Today, three decades after the release of her debut, Phair’s influence in contemporary music – and particularly over female voices – resonates more strongly than ever.

TRACK LISTING

1. 6’1”
2. Help Me, Mary
3. Glory
4. Dance Of The Seven Veils
5. Never Said
6. Soap Star Joe
7. Explain It To Me
8. Canary
9. Mesmerizing
10. Fuck And Run
11. Girls! Girls! Girls!
12. Divorce Song
13. Shatter
14. Flower
15. Johnny Sunshine
16. Gunshy
17. Stratford-On-Guy
18. Strange Loop?

bar italia, the London trio of Nina Cristante, Jezmi Tarik Fehmi and Sam Fenton, have announced details of their new album ‘Tracey Denim’, which is released on Matador Records.

‘Tracey Denim’ was recorded and produced by bar italia with mixing from Marta Salogni. It features the single “Nurse!” which was released in March to acclaim, and described as “a hypnotic post-punk ballad” (The Guardian) and “narcotically arresting” (Pitchfork).

Over the last two years, bar italia have released two albums, an EP and several singles on Dean Blunt’s World Music label, leading to much word-of-mouth, sold out headline shows, and festival performances at Pitchfork Music Festival London, by:Larm, OUT.FEST, Le Guess Who?, and End Of The Road.

STAFF COMMENTS

Ethan says: On ‘Tracey Denim’, bar italia sound like a 90s underground-American-indie outfit that miraculously discovered Britpop one day, and then were immediately whisked through time and space to a pristine recording studio in the 2020s. And the result is absolutely brilliant!

There’s a ‘slacker’ approach to this band’s whole aesthetic, with their loose performances and inconsistent lower-case approach to titling. That is, in everything except the immaculate production, where they manage to pull off some incredibly unique drum sounds and edgy guitar tones while still remaining light and gentle. There’s the silvery hi-hat powering through “guard”, the guttural bass defining “Horsey Girl Rider”, and fuzz-tinted power chords on “Punkt”. Everything here has a definite Sonic Youth edge, or maybe a more-relaxed Modest Mouse would be more appropriate. It’s all wrapped up in a very tongue-in-cheek gen-z humour, best exemplified through their digs at Kate Nash through Track 7’s stupidly-long title.

All this gushing about the band and I haven’t even mentioned what sets them apart from all the sub-par 90s throwback bands. Their unique selling point is the Beatles approach to vocals, which is to say lead vocals are distributed between all band members at a fairly equal rate. “Missus Morality” is a beautiful exchange between Nina Cristante’s alto range and Jezmi Tarik’s deeper, tenor timbre. The two then duet on tracks like “changer”, and the band even bring in Sam Fenton for a trio on tracks such as “Friends”.

TRACK LISTING

1. Guard
2. Nurse!
3. Punkt
4. My Kiss Era
5. F.O.B
6. Missus Morality
7. Yes I Have Eaten So Many Lemons Yes I Am So Bitte
8. Changer
9. Horsey Girl Rider
10. NOCD
11. Best In Show
12. Clark
13. Harpee
14. Friends
15. Maddington

Kicking off Matador’s Revisionist History Series for 2023, we celebrate the 30th anniversary of Bettie Serveert’s debut album, ‘Palomine’. Heralded in its original four-star review by Rolling Stone as "untamed and free as pop gets,” this 1993 classic will see its first pressing by Matador since the album's original release.

“Looking back on recording the Palomine album, we were as green as grass,” say the band’s Carol van Dyk and Peter Visser, “but we loved music and most of all, we loved playing our own songs. When we started our band in the summer of ’91, we never had any ambitions, never thought about a 'career' in music, beyond maybe playing a gig to two. But then Matador Records responded to our 1st demo, offering us a record deal, which started the ball rolling and it changed our lives for ever! ‘Pal o’ mine’ will always be like a dear friend to us and even after 30 years, we still enjoy playing those songs.”

TRACK LISTING

1. Leg
2. Palomine
3. Kid's Allright
4. Tomboy
5. Under The Surface
6. Balentine
7. This Thing Nowhere
8. Healthy Sick
9. Sundazed To The Core
10. Palomine - Small
11. Brain-Tag
12. Smile
13. Maggot
14. Get The Bird

Formed in 2019, Lifeguard are Asher Case (bass, vocals), Isaac Lowenstein (drums, percussion), and Kai Slater (guitar, vocals). At its core, Lifeguard is a punk band. Their music is loud and energetic. It’s also, at its core, visceral and hypnotic. For the Chicago-based trio that can include repetition and blasts of speaker cone-shredding feedback. Their songs adeptly balance melody and chaos, rhythm and drone. Hooks and noise are held to the same standard. Both have to stick.

They’re a young band, but they’ve already found a place at the forefront of an important emerging music community in their hometown. They are quite prolific. In just three years, Lifeguard has put out a full-length, two EPs, and two 7” singles.

Crowd Can Talk and Dressed in Trenches are closely related. They were recorded in separate sessions, but at the same studio (Electrical Audio) and with the same engineer (Mike Lust) and within the space of 12 months. Each finds the band refining its voice – honing songs that are succinct, hooky, and propulsive. There's a newly disciplined attention to detail. Lifeguard write together through collaboration and improvisation, but they’ve learned to streamline their sound, to make each hook, beat, and gesture purposeful.

On each record, there are echoes of underground guitar bands from decades past. This is not record-collector music, though. It’s the product of a present-day community. Lifeguard are, first and foremost, a performing band and the songs are written to stand up in that moment.

“More than old records – before that, before anything – we’re influenced by live shows and people around us,” explains Slater. “The inspiration comes from playing shows with people and having that mind-blown moment of seeing some friend play at Schubas or Book Club,” adds Lowenstein. “It’s happening on these tiny little scales of seeing kids play live and [knowing] this is something new and interesting.”

TRACK LISTING

Crowd Can Talk

New Age (I’ve Got A)
I Know I Know
Fifty Seven
Typecast

Dressed In Trenches

17-18 Lovesong
Alarm
Ten Canisters (OFB)
Shutter Shutter
Tell Me When

Queens of the Stone Age have announced their long-awaited 8th studio album, In Times New Roman… 

In Times New Roman... is raw, at times brutal and not recommended for the faint of heart. And yet, it’s perhaps the most beautiful and definitely the most rewarding album in their epic discography. Founder Joshua Homme's most acerbic lyrics to date are buoyed by the instantly identifiable QOTSA sonic signature, expanded and embellished with new and unprecedented twists in virtually every song. With In Times New Roman… we see that sometimes one needs to look beneath scars and scabs to see beauty, and sometimes the scabs and scars are the beauty.

Feeling a bit out of place, and having difficulty finding music they could relate to, the members of QOTSA did as they are wont to do: In Times New Roman… is the sound of a band creating the music its own members want to hear, while giving the rest of us a sonic forum in which to congregate. “The world’s gonna end in a month or two," sings Homme, begging the question: What do you want to do to with the time you’ve got left? Homme, Troy Van Leeuwen, Dean Fertita, Michael Shuman and Jon Theodore may not be able to save us, but they’re giving us a place to ride it out.

In Times New Roman… was recorded and mixed at Homme’s own Pink Duck (RIP), with additional recording at Shangri-La. The album was produced by Queens of the Stone Age and mixed by Mark Rankin.

Artwork and double LP gatefold packaging designed by long time collaborator Boneface.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: QOTSA return for their most cathartic outing yet, dealing with Homme's cancer treatment, the loss of friends and the 'new normal' we find ourselves in. It's a quintessentially QOTSA LP, but pushed to 11, with the quiet moments all the more menancing, and the loud interludes (of which there are many) all the more incendiary. Superb.

TRACK LISTING

Obscenery
Paper Machete
Negative Space
Time & Place
Made To Parade
Carnavoyeur
What The Peephole Say
Sicily
Emotion Sickness
Straight Jacket Fitting

“The world got shook”

So Algiers formed a crew. The band - who have built one of the most exciting catalogs and cult followings of recent years - gathered a posse of like-minded artists to create their fourth album, Shook. Stacked with guests spanning icons through to future stars, Shook is a lightning rod for an elusive yet universal energy and feeling. A plurality of voices; a spiritual and geographical homecoming; a strategy of communion in a burning world; the story of an end of a relationship; an Atlanta front porch summer party. Ultimately, it's a 17-track set of the most mind-expanding and thrilling music that you are likely to hear anytime soon.

Algiers have always been unflinching, but Shook is at the same time notably joyous and celebratory. It was born when Fisher and Mahan found themselves back in their native Atlanta for several months, reeling from growing pressures and burnout as touring musicians. This triggered an intense period of beatmaking, reconnecting as friends over hours immersed in episodes of Rhythm Roulette and Against the Clock and descending deep into alt-rap YouTube rabbit holes. A revisit of DJ Grand Wizard Theodore’s 1970s punk-infused New York City rap masterpiece ‘Subway Theme’ served as a spiritual moodboard for the album’s cross-pollination of urban and counter-culture styles. Across the seamlessly flowing set, including spoken vignettes and ambient instrumental segues, the band pay respect to a sprawling lineage of rap and punk iconoclasts from DJ Premier, DJ Screw and Dead Boys to Lukah, Griselda and Dïat – chopping and screwing beats on a dusty SP-404 and a Sequential Circuits Tempest, building imagined sample libraries from scratch.

The accomplishment of this record is made all the more impressive by the fact it was made by a band who were falling apart and on the verge of breaking up. But instead they have produced an extraordinary, transformative record born from a shared sense of place and experience.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: Part electronic industrial, part post-punk. Algiers have always managed to dodge genre constraints, with an off-kilter angular groove and uncompromiosing electronic intensity. It's impressive then that their diverse range of guests only serves to further widen the boundaries of their sound.

TRACK LISTING

1. Everybody Shatter (ft. Big Rube)
2. Irreversible Damage
3. 73%
4. Cleanse Your Guilt Here
5. As It Resounds (ft. Big Rube)
6. Bite Back (ft. Billy Woods & Backxwash)
7. Out Of Style Tragedy (ft. Mark Cisneros)
8. Comment #2
9. A Good Man
10. I Can’t Stand It! (ft. Samuel T. Herring & Jae Matthews)
11. All You See Is
12. Green Iris
13. Born (ft. LaToya Kent)
14. Cold World (ft. Nadah El Shazly)
15. Something Wrong
16. An Echophonic Soul (ft. DeForrest Brown Jr. & Patrick Shiroishi)
17. Momentary (ft. Lee Bains III)

Belle and Sebastian hit the ground running in 2023 with new album Late Developers.

Arriving almost back-to-back to 2022’s Top Ten album ‘A Bit of Previous’, ‘Late Developers’ comes on like its predecessor’s sun-kissed cousin. It is a full-hearted embrace of the band's brightest tendencies that is not only fresh and immediate but possessing of that Belle and Sebastian je ne sais quoi of a group that will always be there for you with the perfect word or melody for the moment, while admitting tunefully that “Every girl and boy / each one is a misery” (“When The Cynics Stare Back From The Wall”).

“Juliet Naked” channels frantic Billy Bragg-energy with rugged electric guitar and a football stadium worthy chant from Stuart Murdoch. The aforementioned “When The Cynics Stare Back From The Wall” is an unearthed 1994-era pre-Belle and Sebastian gem, with help from Camera Obscura’s Tracyanne Campbell. "So In The Moment” is breathless psychedelic pop that is arguably one of Stevie Jackson’s best ever songs. “When We Were Very Young” is Smiths-esque jangle rock that is bittersweet, devotional and yearning: “I wish I could be content / With the football scores / I wish I could be content with my daily chores / With my daily worship of the sublime”.

TRACK LISTING

1. Juliet Naked
2. Give A Little Time
3. When We Were Very Young
4. Will I Tell You A Secret
5. So In The Moment
6. The Evening Star
7. When You’re Not With Me
8. I Don’t Know What You See In Me
9. Do You Follow
10. When The Cynics Stare Back From The Wall
11. Late Developers

More than a quarter century since its primal emergence from the Desert, Queens Of The Stone Age has elected to give three of its landmark albums the upscale re-release treatment, including limited edition color vinyl pressings, exclusive new and restored artwork, and more.

Villains is reissued in a special 5th Anniversary package featuring etching, obi-strip, and a brand new poster by Boneface, and as a limited edition opaque white vinyl.

TRACK LISTING

Feet Don't Fail Me
The Way You Used To Do
Domesticated Animals
Fortress
Head Like A Haunted House
Un-Reborn Again
Hideaway
The Evil Has Landed
Villains Of Circumstance

Lucifer on the Moon is the anti-gravity companion to Spoon’s Lucifer on the Sofa. A top-to-bottom rework of the Austin band's tenth album, it was created by On-U Sound founder and UK dub icon, Adrian Sherwood.

Moon first took shape as a few heady remixes for the singles from Lucifer on the Sofa. Frontman Britt Daniel offered Sherwood two suggestions: “Avoid things that would not be possible on tape” and “Add whatever you want to add, the less modern the better.” The collaboration shouldn't come as a surprise: dub-inspired production is wound through Spoon’s classic tracks, from "Finer Feelings" to "Inside Out." Sherwood is a proven collaborator whose resume includes partnerships with seminal artists like The Fall, Jah Wobble, and Mark Stewart. The initial results pleased both parties and Sherwood was invited to work on additional songs. And then a few more. “I got into the melody and the thoughts it evoked in me,” the producer explains. “It just evolved and we eventually found ourselves with a whole album.”

Moon flips Lucifer on the Sofa’s rhythm tracks inside-out, and often rebuilds them wholesale. Sherwood supplied extensive additional instrumentation via On-U’s extended family of session players, including bassist Doug Wimbish and drummer Keith LeBlanc (both of whom performed in Sugarhill Records’ early ’80s in-house rhythm section). He dug deep into the album’s multi-tracks, surfacing forgotten details and elements not present in the final album mixes.

The result airlifts Spoon’s trademark melodies into lush alien terrain, replete with vibrant echo and rumbling low-end. “It wasn’t just a thing where you pick apart this and that and you stay on the grid and you add a delay,” explains Daniel. “He added so much more instrumentation to the tracks that they became completely different versions of the songs. Not just remixes, but companion pieces. A ‘Part II.’”

Released in February, Lucifer on the Sofa is Spoon’s purest rock ’n roll record to date. Texas-made, it is the first set of songs that the quintet has put to tape in its hometown of Austin in more than a decade. Written and recorded over the last two years – both in and out of lockdown – the songs mark a shift toward something louder, wilder, and more full-color. "It’s the best thing they’ve ever done,” wrote Rolling Stone. “More than exceeding their usual quotient of fire guitars, killer choruses, and crafty rock-history updates.” The band has hit the road hard this year and recently wrapped a coast-to-coast co-headline US tour with Interpol. NJ.com called Spoon’s Asbury Park performance a “70-minute foil of raw emotion and bounding humanity.”

TRACK LISTING

1.  My Babe
2.  On The Radio
3.  Held
4.  The Devile & Mister Jones
5.  Lucifer On The Sofa
6.  Astral Jacket
7.  Feels Alright
8.  Wild
9.  The Hardest Cut
10.  Satellite

As part of Matadors Revisionist History series, “Kill The Moonlight” will be released on white vinyl, the first ever coloured vinyl pressing for the albums 20th anniversary.

TRACK LISTING

Small Stakes
The Way We Get By
Something To Look Forward To
Stay Don't Go
Jonathan Fisk
Paper Tiger
Someone Something
Don't Let It Get You Down
All The Pretty Girls Go To The City
You Gotta Feel It
Back To The Life
Vittorio E.

This 30th Anniversary Edition of the Pavement full-length debut marks the beginning of Matador Revisionist History 2022, a catalog series that includes releases from Yo La Tengo, Interpol and Spoon this year. 

In 1992 "Slanted And Enchanted", arguably the first and best release of 90s 'slacker rock', felt like a compendium of all the very best post-punk moments from the previous fifteen years as well as a surprising new combination of wit, absurdism, noise and pop. All these years later, the album is still fresh, still exciting and still makes most of the competition sound derivative and lazy. So to summarise; still slanted, still enchanting.

STAFF COMMENTS

Laura says: It's easy to forget just how different Pavement sounded to their 'indie' contemporaries back in '92 when this LP was first released. Their angular, abstract art rock and Steven Malkmus' witty, absurdist lyrics were a breath of fresh air and have subsequently influenced a whole heap of bands down the years.
30 years on and it still sounds as fresh as it did back then and is there a more perfect soundtrack to the summer sunshine than "Summer Babe"?
Check out that splatter vinyl too!!!!

TRACK LISTING

Side A
1. Summer Babe
2. Trigger Cut/Wounded-Kite At :17
3. No Life Singed Her
4. The Mouth A Desert
5. Conduit For Sale!
6. Zürich Is Stained
7. Chesley's Little Wrists

Side B
1. Loretta's Scars
2. Here
3. Two States
4. Perfume-V
5. Fame Throwa
6. Jackals, False Grails: The Lonesome Era
7. Our Singer

If fate didn’t quite ordain the circumstances for Interpol’s seventh album, it was at least fortunate that the band had happily concluded their Marauder cycle on stage in front of 30 thousand-odd Peruvian fans. Rather than be sent scrambling like so many other musicians on tour or promoting new music, when lockdown clamped in March 2020, Interpol quickly got into a productive mood.

Coming from a group whose early work was characterised by Polish knife-wielders and incarcerated serial killers, you might expect Interpol’s pandemic record to be an emotional tar pit — doubly so, given the presence of towering producer-engineer duo Flood and Moulder on the boards. But Banks felt the call to push in a “counterbalancing” direction, with paeans to mental resilience and the quiet power of going easy. “The nobility of the human spirit is to recover and rebound,” he says. “Yeah, I could focus on how fucked everything is, but I feel now is the time when being hopeful is necessary, and a still-believable emotion within what makes Interpol Interpol.”

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: Interpol are back for their seventh outing, recalling the superb melodic moments of their early years (Something Changed for example is classic Interpol) but with a more scattered, world-weary stagger. As ever, wonderfully engaging, aided by legendary production duo Flood and Moulder. Dream team.

TRACK LISTING

Toni
Fables
Into The Night
Mr. Credit
Something Changed
Renegade Hearts
Passenger
Greenwich
Gran Hotel
Big Shot City
Go Easy (Palermo)

The music of Ugly Season was written for Perfume Genius and choreographer Kate Wallich’s immersive dance piece, The Sun Still Burns Here. The work was commissioned by the Seattle Theatre Group and Mass MoCA and was performed via residencies in Seattle, Minneapolis, New York City and Boston throughout 2019. During this time, Perfume Genius shared two of the dance project’s compositions – ‘Pop Song’ and ‘Eye in the Wall’. “It’s the sound of dancefloor euphoria,” said Pitchfork. “The color of lights flashing as you move through a crowd, the touch of skin damp and warm against everyone else’s.” Now the entirety of the project’s original music can be heard in Ugly Season. The album was produced by Perfume Genius and GRAMMY-winning producer and long-time collaborator Blake Mills and was created in collaboration with Mike Hadreas’ (Perfume Genius') long-time partner Alan Wyffels.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: Another brilliantly evocative and perfectly produced outing from the super talented Perfume Genius here, this time conceptually based around a dancefloor which ends up warping and shifting into a multi-sensory rollercoaster. Fleeting melodies and angelic vocals, crisp synths and lots of strings. Lovely.

TRACK LISTING

1. Just A Room
2. Herem
3. Teeth
4. Pop Song
5. Scherzo
6. Ugly Season
7. Eye In The Wall
8. Photograph
9. Hellbent
10. Cenote

Penelope Lowenstein (guitar, vocals), Nora Cheng (guitar, vocals), and Gigi Reece (drums) - the best friends comprising Horsegirl - do everything collectively, from songwriting to trading vocal duties and swapping instruments to sound and visual art design. The warmth and strength of their bond crackles through every second of their debut. With lyrics intentionally impressionistic and open-ended, and a sound that ranges with joy and enthusiasm across a range of styles, Versions of Modern Performance offers many pathways.

Following last year’s one-off ‘Billy’, lead single ‘Anti-glory’ is elastic and propulsive. The accompanying video, directed by Erin Vassilopoulous, exudes confidence, putting Horsegirl front and center, their uncanny ability to layer sound on full display. “We wrote Anti-glory almost by accident, while messing around with an old song during rehearsal. The song fell into place immediately, and looking back, we have no idea how we wrote it,” the band explains. “As always, this song and album are for Chicago, our friends, our friend’s bands, everyone who can play the guitar, and everyone who can’t play the guitar.”

The friendship of these three goes far beyond Horsegirl. Reece and Cheng, college freshmen, and Lowenstein, a high school senior, learned to play—and met—through the significant network of Chicago youth arts programs, and they have their own mini-rock underground, complete with zine distros, that they describe as somewhat separate from the “adult shows” that take place at bars and DIY spaces they don’t have access to. They’re exultant about their friends’ talent, noting that any of the bands from that scene could have been (or might still be!) plucked up the way they were.

Versions of Modern Performance was recorded with John Agnello (Kurt Vile, The Breeders, Dinosaur Jr.) at Chicago’s Electrical Audio. “It’s our debut bare-bones album in a Chicago institution with a producer who we feel like really respected what we were trying to do,” the band says. Across the record, Horsegirl expertly play with texture, shape and shade, showcasing their fondness for improvisation and experimentation. One can hear elements of the ‘80s and ‘90s independent music the band love so deeply and sincerely—the scuzzy melodicism of what used to be called “college rock,” the cool, bubbly space-age sheen of the ‘90s vamps on lounge and noir; the warm, noisy roar of shoegaze; the economical hooks and rhythms of post-punk. There’s even a bit of no wave mixed in for good measure. But as Horsegirl fuse all of this together, it feels not like a pastiche or a hacky retread but something as playful and unique as its predecessors.

They’re best understood as part of a continuum, but they’re building something for themselves.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: From the opening moments of the LP, it's clear that Horsegirl are here to stay. Gritty post-punk atmospheres clash headfirst with bright melodies and soaring, rich grooves. A perfect follow up to their smash 7" 'Billy', and sure to be just as well received.

TRACK LISTING

1. Electrolocation 1
2. Anti-glory
3. Beautiful Song
4. Live And Ski
5. Bog Bog 2
6. Dirtbag Transformation (Still Dirty)
7. The Fall Of Horsegirl
8. Option 8
9. World Of Pots And Pans
10. The Guitar Is Dead 3
11. Homage To Birdnoculars
12. Billy

A Bit of Previous is the tenth studio album by Belle and Sebastian and their first full-length in seven years. This may be surprising to anyone following the recent life pursuits of the Glasgow 7-piece: a trilogy of EPs; a soundtrack for the directorial debut of The Inbetweeners’ Simon Bird; The Boaty Weekender – a 3000 capacity star-studded four-day music festival on a cruise liner sailing the Mediterranean; a live album showcasing the band’s present-day iteration as savvy main stage entertainers; and in 2020 a collaborative project with fans called ‘Protecting The Hive’. But in all these idiosyncratic endeavours, as intrinsic to the band’s DNA as the stage invasion at the end of each of their shows, a full-length has eluded us.

A Bit Of Previous was recorded in Belle and Sebastian’s hometown of Glasgow when plans to fly to Los Angeles in spring of 2020 were scrapped due to the pandemic. Says Murdoch in the liner notes: “We did it together, us and the city. This record was the first ‘full’ LP recording for B&S in Glasgow since Fold Your Hands Child, 1999. We clocked in every morning, we played our songs, we wrote together, we tried new things, we took the proverbial lump of clay, and we threw it every day.”

A Bit Of Previous is a classic Belle and Sebastian album preoccupied with songs and melodies that won’t leave your head and lyrics that can make you smile and ponder and sometimes be melancholic. The result is one the most diverse, hands-on and thrilling entries in the bands catalogue, self-produced and recorded (with contributions from Brian McNeill, Matt Wiggins, Kevin Burleigh and Shawn Everett). ‘Young And Stupid’ is a stuttering folk rock earworm that faces the passage of time with wry ennui, ‘Come On Home’ with its warm fireside piano evokes a handing over of the generational baton, while the deceptively feelgood, choir-backed ‘If They’re Shooting At You’ reads like a poignant ode to defiance and survival.

A Bit of Previous is also scattered with big, occasionally delirious pop moments. ‘Unnecessary Drama’ rips through a cacophony of overdriven riffs and a droning harmonica that borders on the unhinged and is one of the band’s heaviest outings since, well, ever. The 140+ bpm ’Talk To Me Talk To Me’ is ablaze with euro synths and keyboard horns as the voices of Murdoch and Martin intertwine on a breathless chorus. ‘Working Boy in New York City’ exists in a parallel universe where the band did in fact make it to California – such is the escapist bliss of its sloping flute and bittersweet funk. On the other side of the spectrum are some of Belle and Sebastian’s most moving ballads. Tender finger-picked paean to a lover ‘Do It For Your Country’ and doo-wop-inflicted ‘Sea Of Sorrow’ showcase Murdoch’s tenor at its most bare and affecting, while Stevie Jackson contributes lovelorn country waltz ‘Deathbed of My Dreams’.

So what is a A Bit of Previous? It’s a bit of everything, and a lot of what makes Belle and Sebastian so special and enduring. It’s a band tackling age and growing older with grace, irreverence, musical bravado and lyrical exactitude and emerging as an endless source of energy and reinvention.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: I famously adore Belle & Sebastian, but this is definitely one of my favourites of theirs thus far, and goes some way to cementing their place on the greatest bands of all time list. Swimming melodies, clever progressions and heartfelt lyricism make for a classic Belle & Sebastian LP.

TRACK LISTING

1. Young And Stupid
2. If They're Shooting At You
3. Talk To Me Talk To Me
4. Reclaim The Night
5. Do It For Your Country
6. Prophets On Hold
7. Unnecessary Drama
8. Come On Home
9. A World Without You
10. Deathbed Of My Dreams
11. Sea Of Sorrow
12. Working Boy In New York City

7” (Indies Only)
1. A Bit Of Previous
2. Sometimes

Terror Twilight: Farewell Horizontal is an exhaustive 45-track reissue of the band’s much-loved fifth and final album. The new special edition compiles the remastered original album, B-sides, home demos, rehearsal tapes, era-appropriate live recordings, and even the rough tracks from Pavement’s scrapped session at Sonic Youth’s Echo Canyon studio. Altogether, it features 28 unreleased tracks.

Originally released in 1999, Terror Twilight marked a departure from Pavement’s established operating methods. Which is to say that it was recorded with a big-time producer in an expensive studio. However, for all the talk of “polish” and “precision” it’s still very much a Pavement record. And a great one. Like every Pavement album that preceded it, Terror Twilight thrills and confounds. Often at the same time. Twenty-two years on, the songs remain moody, strange, and eminently deserving of re-celebration.

The 4xLP and 2xCD editions include a book with never-before-seen photos and commentary/context from band members Mark Ibold, Stephen Malkmus, Bob Nastanovich, Spiral Stairs, and Steve West as well as producer Nigel Godrich (Radiohead, Beck).

TRACK LISTING

LP Tracklisting

Side A
1) Platform Blues
2) The Hexx
3) You Are A Light
4) Cream Of Gold
5) Ann Don’t Cry

Side B
1) Billie
2) Folk Jam
3) Major Leagues
4) Carrot Rope
5) Shagbag #
6) Speak, See, Remember
7) Spit On A Stranger

Side C
1) The Porpoise And The Hand Grenade
2) Rooftop Gambler
3) Your Time To Change
4) Stub Your Toe
5) Major Leagues (Demo Version)
6) Decouvert De Soleil

Side D
1) Carrot Rope (SM Demo) #
2) Folk Jam Moog (SM Demo) #
3) Billy (SM Demo) #
4) Terror Twilight [Speak, See, Remember] (SM Demo) #
5) You Are A Light (SM Demo) #
6) Cream Of Gold Intro (Jessamine) #
7) Cream Of Gold (SM Demo) #

Side E
1) Spit On A Stranger (SM Demo) #
2) Folk Jam Guitar (SM Demo) #
3) You Are A Light (Echo Canyon) #
4) Ground Beefheart [Platform Blues] (Echo Canyon) #
5) Folk Jam (Echo Canyon) #

Side F
1) Ann Don’t Cry (Echo Canyon) #
2) Jesus In Harlem [Cream Of Gold] (Echo Canyon) #
3) The Porpoise And The Hand Grenade (Echo Canyon) #
4) Spit On A Stranger (Echo Canyon) #
5) Be The Hook #

Side G
1) You Are A Light (Jackpot!) #
2) Terror Twilight [Speak, See, Remember] (RPM) #
3) Rooftop Gambler (Jessamine) #
4) For Sale! The Preston School Of Industry (Jessamine) #
5) Frontwards (Live) #

Side H
1) Platform Blues (Live) #
2) The Hexx (Live) #
3) You Are A Light (Live) #
4) Folk Jam (Live) #
5) Sinister Purpose (Live) #

#= Previously Unreleased

2xCD Features 1999 Album Sequence

On new single “Billy”, Horsegirl push their singular brand of innovative guitar music a step further, expanding their already enveloping wall of sound with three-part harmonies, swelling, overdriven guitars and unexpected tempo changes. Produced by the band and legendary producer John Agnello (Dinosaur Jr., Sonic Youth, Kurt Vile), the electrifying new track not only marks a significant evolution for the young band, but further solidifies Horsegirl as the exciting new bastions of alternative music.

TRACK LISTING

Billy
History Lesson Part Two

A nine-track compilation gathering David era-appropriate rarities and B-sides, all of which were previously available only on 7”.

TRACK LISTING

1. Queen Of Hearts (Demo)
2. What Would You Do
3. Do All Words Can Do
4. Into The Light
5. Byrdsdale Garden City
6. What They Didn't Know
7. The Truest Road
8. Remember Me
9. Octavio Made The Bomb

Formed in 1991, the Philadelphia-based quintet have spent some thirty years mapping guitar music’s outer limits ­– dialing into extremes of noise, chaos, and harmony in free-form compositions that now unfurl across 12 full-length records and a near-limitless body of EPs, cassettes, and CD-Rs Recorded by the lineup of John Gibbons (guitar), Michael Gibbons (guitar), Isobel Sollenberger (voice, flute), Clint Takeda (bass), and Joe Culver (drums), Amanita is the place where the band’s spontaneous collective creativity blazed into maturity.

TRACK LISTING

Limerick
Sentence
Tantric Porno
Wank
The High Frequency
Sometimes Words
Yellow Turban
Rumination
Be A Fish
Tapir Song
RM
Clean Sweep
Brambles

In 2011, Toronto’s Fucked Up delivered an album that chafed the edges of punk rock’s conceptual boundaries –a set of songs that splayed freely into unexpected instrumentation, psychedelic drift, and situationist philosophy. Its ambition was limitless and its run time opulent.

Which is to say, they made a concept album.

On December 10th, Matador Records will celebrate the 10th anniversary of Fucked Up’s titanic 78-minute early ’10s masterpiece, David Comes to Life, with a limited-edition 2xLP reissue on lightbulb-yellow vinyl.

David Comes To Life is a story of lost love, global meltdown, depression, bombs, guilt and madness. Or is it? A modern-day morality tale set amid the dour backdrop of a British industrial town in the late ’70s, it’s a four-part play that follows the dark moods and inner psyche of the titular hero. At the same time, the reliability of the narrator gets called into question. The tables are turned, responsibility shifts, and the story goes meta. Of course,you could always ignore the backstory and just listen to a fiercely imaginative double album of blistering, melodic rock'n'roll shot through with all manner of psychic weirdness.

TRACK LISTING

1. Let Her Rest
2. Queen Of Hearts
3. Under My Nose
4. The Other Shoe
5. Turn The Season
6. Running On Nothing
7. Remember My Name
8. A Slanted Tone
9. Serve Me Right
10. Truth I Know
11. Life In Paper
12. Ship Of Fools
13. A Little Death
14. I Was There
15. Inside A Frame
16. The Recursive Girl
17. One More Night
18. Lights Go Up

On her 2018 debut album Lush, seventeen-year-old Lindsey Jordan sang “I’m in full control / I’m not lost / Even when it’s love / Even when it’s not”. Her natural ability to be many things at once resonated with a lot of people. The contradiction of confidence and vulnerability, power and delicacy, had the impact of a wrecking ball when put to tape. It was an impressive and unequivocal career-making moment for Jordan.

On Valentine, her sophomore album, Lindsey solidifies and defines this trajectory in a blaze of glory. In 10 songs, written over 2019-2020 by Jordan alone, we are taken on an adrenalizing odyssey of genuine originality in an era in which "indie" music has been reduced to gentle, homogenous pop composed mostly by ghost writers. Made with careful precision, Valentine shows an artist who has chosen to take her time. The reference points are broad and psychically stirring, while the lyrics build masterfully on the foundation set by Jordan’s first record to deliver a deeper understanding of heartbreak.

On “Ben Franklin”, the second single of the album, Jordan sings “Moved on, but nothing feels true / Sometimes I hate her just for not being you / Post rehab I’ve been feeling so small / I miss your attention, I wish I could call”. It’s here that she mourns a lost love, conceding the true nature of a fleeting romantic tie-up and ultimately, referencing a stay in a recovery facility in Arizona. This 45-day interlude followed issues stemming from a young life colliding with sudden fame and success. Since she was not allowed to bring her instruments or recording equipment, Jordan began tabulating the new album arrangements on paper solely out of memory and imagination. It was after this choice to take radical action that Valentine really took its unique shape.

Jordan took her newfound sense of clarity and calm to Durham, North Carolina, along with the bones of a new album. Here she worked with Brad Cook (Bon Iver, Waxahatchee). For all the album’s vastness and gravity, it was in this small home studio that Jordan and Cook chipped away over the winter of early 2021 at co-producing a dynamic collection of genre-melding new songs, finishing it triumphantly in the spring. They were assisted by longtime bandmates Ray Brown and Alex Bass, as well as engineer Alex Farrar, with a live string section added later at Spacebomb Studios in Richmond.

Leaning more heavily into samples and synthesizers, the album hinges on a handful of remarkably untraditional pop songs. The first few seconds of opener and title track ‘Valentine’ see whispered voice and eerie sci-fi synth erupt into a stadium-sized, endorphin-rush of a chorus that is an overwhelming statement of intent. “Ben Franklin”, “Forever (Sailing)” and “Madonna” take imaginative routes to the highest peaks of catchiness. Jordan has always sung with a depth of intensity and conviction, and the climactic pop moments on Valentine are delivered with such a tenet and a darkness and a beauty that’s noisy and guttural, taking on the singularity that usually comes from a veteran artist.

As captivating as the synth-driven songs are, it’s the more delicate moments like “Light Blue”, “c.et. al.” and “Mia” that distill the albums range and depth. “Baby blue, I’m so behind / Can’t make sense of the faces in and out of my life / Whirling above our daily routines / Both buried in problems, baby, honestly” Jordan sings on “c. et. al.” with a devastating certainty. These more ethereal, dextrously finger-picked folk songs peppered in throughout the album are nuanced in their vocal delivery and confident in their intricate arrangement. They come in like a breath of air, a moment to let the mind wander, but quickly drown the listener in their melodic alchemy and lyrical punch.

The album is rounded out radiantly by guitar-driven rock songs like “Automate”, “Glory” and “Headlock”. Reminiscent of Lush but with a marked tonal shift, Jordan again shows her prowess as a guitar player with chorus-y leads and rhythmic, wall-of-sound riffs. “Headlock” highlights this pivot with high-pitched dissonance and celestially affected lead parts – “Can’t go out I’m tethered to / Another world where we’re together / Are you lost in it too?”, she sings with grit and fatigue, building so poignantly on her sturdy foundation of out-and-out melancholy. On Valentine, we are taken 100 miles deeper into the world Jordan created with Lush, led through passageways and around dark corners, landing somewhere we never dreamed existed.

Today, in the wake of recording Valentine, Jordan is focused on trying to continue healing without slowing down. The album comes in the midst of so much growth, in the fertile soil of a harrowing bottom-out. On the heels of life-altering success, a painful breakup and 6 weeks in treatment, Jordan appears vibrant and sharp. “Mia, don’t cry / I love you forever / But I gotta grow up now / No I can’t keep holding onto you anymore” she sings on the album closer “Mia”. She sings softly but her voice cuts through like a hacksaw. The song is lamenting a lost love, saying a somber goodbye, and it closes the door on a bitter cold season for Jordan. Leaving room for a long and storied path, Valentine is somehow a jolt and a lovebuzz all at once.

- Katie Crutchfield

TRACK LISTING

Side A
Valentine
Ben Franklin
Headlock
Light Blue
Forever (Sailing)

Side B
Madonna
C. Et Al.
Glory
Automate
Mia

‘-io’ is the sixth album by vocalist and composer Haley Fohr, best known as Circuit des Yeux. A celebrated figure in Chicago’s music community, she has released acclaimed albums via De Stijl, Thrill Jockey, and Drag City and toured throughout the world. However, '-io' is Circuit des Yeux’s most ornate and elaborate work to date – a set of compositions that nest Fohr’s otherworldly four-octave voice amid a 24-piece string, brass, and wind ensemble.

The album was put to tape last fall by Cooper Crain at Chicago’s Electrical Audio studio and mixed by Marta Salogni (Bjork, Holly Herndon) with Fohr acting as arranger and producer. Written in the wake of personal loss and recorded in the midst of the pandemic, '-io' maps a geography of grief – a place where “everything is ending all the time.” While Fohr’s music has never been short on ambition, these songs are striking in their brilliance and strangeness. On '-io', Circuit des Yeux has delivered a work that is vivid, immense, and fully illuminated.

TRACK LISTING

Tonglen | In Vain
Vanishing
Dogma
The Chase
Sculpting The Exodus
Walking Toward Winter
Argument
Neutron Star
Stranger
Oracle Song

Acclaimed songwriter and Piccadilly favourite, Steve Gunn returns this summer with the follow up to his wonderful 2019 album  "The Unseen Inbetween".

Recorded in Los Angeles with Grammy Award winning producer and engineer Rob Schnapf, Gunn sought to create an album that would push his melodic and compositional sensibilities to thrilling new heights. The resulting tracks find Gunn pushing his cosmic Americana to exciting new dimensions encompassing elements of prog, jazz, and contemporary classical music.

The album also features contributions from Mary Lattimore, Juliana Barwick, Bridget St. John and Jeff Parker.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: We all loved The Unseen Inbetween in the shop, and 'Other You' i'm sure will go down just as well. It's quintessentially Gunn, with soaring melodies and perfectly poised guitar sitting wonderfully in the mix beneath Steve's unmistakeable husky vocals. A gorgous work once again from one of the greatest in the 'biz.

TRACK LISTING

Other You
Fulton
Morning River
Good Wind
Circuit Rider
On The Way
Protection
The Painter
Reflection
Sugar Kiss
Ever Feel That Way

DARKSIDE is an American rock band formed in Providence, Rhode Island in 2011. The group consists of Chilean electronic musician & vocalist Nicolás Jaar and American multi-instrumentalist Dave Harrington. Jaar and Harrington first met while studying in Providence through their com- mon friend and saxophonist Will Epstein. In the summer of 2011, they toured Europe and Australia in support of Jaar’s breakthrough debut album Space Is Only Noise.

Upon returning to Providence, they continued to write together, releasing their self-titled EP in 2012 and their critically acclaimed debut album Psychic on Matador Records in October 2013. The album was met with glowing reviews, including a 9.0 from Pitchfork and The New York Times calling it “the soundtrack to a lost David Lynch sci-fi movie.”

In the summer of 2018, Harrington and Jaar rented a small house on Lenni-Lenape territory, which is present-day Flemington, New Jersey. The group spent a week there, making a song a day. While it would take another year and a half to complete their second album, six songs from the band’s new record Spiral were written and recorded during this initial session.

“From the beginning, DARKSIDE has been our jam band. Something we did on days off. When we reconvened, it was because we really couldn’t wait to jam together again,” says Jaar. Harrington echoes this, “It felt like it was time again,” he said. “We do things in this band that we would never do on our own. DARKSIDE is the third being in the room that just kind of occurs when we make music together.”

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: Jaar & Harrington's Darkside project has never quite gone with convention, and their latest outing 'Spiral' brilliantly toes the line between drone music and gothic, eastern-influenced folk with ease, via all manner of geographical pit stops. Otherworldly vocals seamlessly ride atop grooving percussion in some places and in others, eschewed entirely for a focus on shifting drone and tectonic modulation. As baffling and brilliant as ever.

TRACK LISTING

Narrow Road
The Limit
The Question Is To See It All
Lawmaker
I’m The Echo
Spiral
Liberty Bell
Inside Is Out There
Only Young

Since forming in high school, Brisbane band The Goon Sax—the trio of Riley Jones, Louis Forster, and James Harrison, best friends who take turns writing, singing, and playing each instrument— have been celebrated for their unpretentious, kinetic homemade pop. Mirror ll, The Goon Sax’s first album for Matador, is something else entirely: a new beginning, a multi-dimensional eclectic journey of musical craftsmanship that moves from disco to folk to no wave skronk with staggering cohesion. Gone are the first-person insecurities of their school days—they’ve been made expansive, more universal, more weird.

Mirror II is intense, the sum of everything that has always made The Goon Sax great: robust sprech- gesang, raw lyrical candor, ascending guitar pop structures that would make the most storied jangle bands blush, elevated into their newfound narra- tive verisimilitude and expanded sonic xperiment- tations. Each member’s idiosyncratic style comes across on record: Riley’s bubblegum noise is more present than ever before, Louis’ moody, super- natural avant-pop, and James’ psychedelic folk.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: We love a bit of Goon Sax in the shop, and this really is the quintessential document from this talented band. Rapid changes in timbre or pace do nothing to dull the pure groove on display here, brilliantly toeing the line between high energy post-punk and jangling, swooning indie rock.

TRACK LISTING

In The Stone
Psychic
Tag
Temples
The Chance
Bathwater
Desire
Carpetry
Til Dawn
Caterpillars

THIS IS A RECORD STORE DAY 2021 EXCLUSIVE AND WILL BE AVAILABLE INSTORE ON SATURDAY JUNE 12TH ON A FIRST COME FIRST SERVED BASIS, LIMITED TO ONE PER PERSON.

IF THERE ARE ANY REMAINING COPIES THEY WILL BE MADE AVAILABLE ONLINE AT 6PM ON THE SAME DAY (SATURDAY JUNE 12TH).

IMMEDIATELY Remixes, a companion album to Perfume Genius' Set My Heart On Fire Immediately, remixed in original running sequence by Boy Harsher, Jenny Hval, A. G. Cook, Actress, Danny L Harle and many more. The 2xLP will be pressed onto metallic silver vinyl, limited to an edition of 2,500 exclusive to indie record stores as part of Record Store Day. 

TRACK LISTING

 Side A 1. Whole Life 2. Describe 3. Without You Side B 1. Jason 2. Leave 3. On The Floor Side C 1. Your Body Changes Everything 2. Moonbend 3. Just A Touch Side D 1. Nothing At All 2. One More Try 3. Some Dream 4. Borrowed Light

With Afrique Victime the prodigious Tuareg guitarist and songwriter rips a new hole in the sky ­– boldly reforging contemporary Saharan music and “rock music” by melding guitar pyrotechnics, full-blast noise, and field recordings with poetic meditations on love, religion, women's rights, inequality, and Western Africa’s exploitation at the hands of colonial powers.

The music listeners are the beneficiaries of the staggeringly powerful do-it-yourself musical ethic of Mdou Moctar – the man and the band – who’ve worked so hard to bring the spirits of families and communities in Niger to the West. Afrique Victime sounds and feels like a Tuareg hand reaching down from the sky, and we are very lucky for this chance to get lifted.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: As far as Tuareg music goes, things don't get much more incendiary than this. Soaring, rolling bass and gymnastic guitar screams perfectly blend into a brain-melting mixture of groove and grit. A thoroughly bracing and riotously exciting listen.

TRACK LISTING

Chismiten
Taliat
Ya Habibti
Tala Tannam
Untitled
Asdikte Akal
Layla
Afrique Victime
Bismilahi Atagah

Guided By Voices’ long out-of-print ninth studio album repressed on vinyl - originally released in 1996 as the follow up to the breakthrough Alien Lanes, Under The Bushes Under The Stars further cemented GBV as one of rock music’s most lauded contributors

TRACK LISTING

Man Called Aerodynamics
Rhine Jive Click
Cut-Out Witch
Burning Flag Birthday Suit
The Official Ironmen Rally Song
To Remake The Young Flyer
No Sky
Bright Paper Werewolves
Lord Of Overstock
Your Name Is Wild
Ghosts Of A Different Dream
Acorns & Orioles
Look At Them
The Perfect Life
Underwater Explosions
Atom Eyes
Don't Stop Now
Office Of Hearts
Big Boring Wedding
It's Like Soul Man
Drag Days
Sheetkickers
Redmen And Their Wives
Take To The Sky

Little Oblivions is the third studio album by Julien Baker. Recorded in Memphis, TN, the record weaves together unflinching autobiography with assimilated experience and hard-won observations from the past few years, taking Baker’s capacity for storytelling to new heights. It also marks a sonic shift, with the songwriter’s intimate piano and guitar arrangements newly enriched by bass, drums, keyboards, banjo, and mandolin with nearly all of the instruments performed by Baker.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: Julien Baker returns for another beautifully rich set of crescentic rock, coloured with an unmistakeable country hue. It's a delicate balance and is accomplished here with a beautiful warmth and comforting melodicism. Another wonderful journey, full of emotional duality and songwriting genius from Baker.

TRACK LISTING

1. Hardline
2. Heatwave
3. Faith Healer
4. Relative Fiction
5. Crying Wolf
6. Bloodshot
7. Ringside
8. Favor
9. Song In E
10. Repeat
11. Highlight Reel
12. Ziptie

Bailter Space’s ‘Wammo’ is back in print for the first time since the album’s release 25 years ago.

Formed in Christchurch, New Zealand in 1987 as Nelsh Bailter Space, the band’s musical family tree touches on some of the nation’s most revered weirdo luminaries - including Flying Nun mainstays like The Skeptics, The Clean and The Gordons.

Bailter Space embraced chaos but celebrated precision, finding melody amid networks of brooding noise and feedback. After relocating to New York City, the band - who by then included Alister Parker, John Halvorsen and Brent McLachlan - arrived on Matador in in time for the US release of ‘Robot World’ (1993).

‘Wammo’ was the trio’s third and final full-length with the label (their fifth album overall). At the time, music scribes were a bit puzzled by the record’s “accessibility.” In retrospect though we can recognize ‘Wammo’ for the perfectly melancholy and drone-laced brain-zap that it is.

TRACK LISTING

Untied
Splat
At Five We Drive
Zapped
Colours
Retro
Glimmer
Voltage
D Thing
Wammo

Originally released in 1994, this was Pavement's second album, and it signaled the end of Pavement seeing themselves as a recording experiment and the beginning of Pavement as a full time touring band. One of the casualties of this change was the eccentric and usually drunk drummer Gary Young (included here are eight tracks of pre-album Gary Young sessions), whom was replaced by Steve West who bought a greater stability to the line up. The new line up recorded "Crooked Rain Crooked Rain" in NYC, and it proved to be an instant indie classic, packed with superb tracks including singles such as the awesome "Cut Your Hair", "Range Life" and "Gold Soundz".

TRACK LISTING

Silence Kid
Elevate Me Later
Stop Breathin
Cut Your Hair
Newark Wilder
Unfair
Gold Soundz
5-4=Unity
Range Life
Heaven Is A Truck
Hit The Plane Down
Fillmore Jive

‘Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain: LA’s Desert Origins’ 2CD Bonus Tracks:
Camera
Stare
Raft
Coolin' By Sound
Kneeling Bus
Strings Of Nashville
Exit Theory
5-4 Vocal
Jam Kids
Haunt You Down
Unseen Power Of The Picket Fence
Nail Clinic
All My Friends
Soiled Little Filly
Range Life
Stop Breathing
Ell Ess Two
Flux = Rad
Bad Version Of War
Same Way Of Saying
Hands Off The Bayou
Heaven Is A Truck (Egg Shell)
Grounded
Kennel District
Pueblo (Beach Boys)
Fucking Righteous
Colorado
Dark Ages
Flood Victim
JMC Retro
Rug Rat
Strings Of Nashville
Instrumental
Brink Of The Clouds
Tartar Martyr
Pueblo Domain
The Sutcliffe Catering Song

"Wowee Zowee", originally released by Matador in April 1995 on the eve of Pavement's infamous mud-bespattered mainstage appearance at Lollapalooza, began life as a controversial release. Fresh off the success of "Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain" with its chart topping Modern Rock hit "Cut Your Hair", the band went into the studio and came out with a deliberately chaotic and eclectic album that sounded nothing like its predecessor. With influences from the Groundhogs to the Frogs, Captain Beefheart to the more obscure mid- 80s central California hardcore bands featured on Maximum Rock'n'Roll comp "Not So Quiet On The Western Front", "Wowee Zowee" confused critics and alienated fans. How fantastic, then, that it went on to scan 122K copies and became many fans' fave Pavement album. A return to their pre- Crooked cacophony, the songs have a darkness that now seems appropriate, and with Bryce Goggin at the mixing desk, the production was the band's most rocking to date.

TRACK LISTING

We Dance
Rattled By The Rush
Black Out
Brinx Job
Grounded
Serpentine Pad
Motion Suggests Itself
Father To A Sister Of Thought
Extradition
Best Friend's Arm
Grave Architecture
AT&T
Flux = Rad
Fight This Generation
Kennel District
Pueblo
Half A Canyon
Western Homes

Wowee Zowee: Sordid Sentinels Edition’ 2CD Bonus Tracks:
Sordid
Brink Of The Clouds
False Skorpion
Easily Fooled
Kris Kraft
Mussle Rock
Give It A Day
Gangsters & Pranksters
Saganaw
I Love Perth
Sentinel
Sensitive Euro Man
Stray Fire
Fight This Generation
Easily Fooled
Soul Food
It's A Hectic World
Kris Kraft
Golden Boys/Serpentine Pad
Painted Soldiers
I Love Perth
Dancing With The Elders
Half A Canyon
Best Friend's Arm
Brink Of The Clouds/Candylad
Unfair
Easily Fooled
Heaven Is A Truck
Box Elder
No More Kings
Painted Soldiers
We Dance

Remastered by Bob Weston, ‘Mountains’ comes back to us as a gold foil-embossed gatefold double LP and includes the previously unreleased original takes of ‘Return to Pirates’, ‘Poison Moon’ and ‘Killed by the Telephone’, which were delivered along with the original master tapes 20 years ago but were omitted from the final album.

The record is completed by a newly recorded orchestral version of ‘Valley of One Thousand Perfumes’ produced by composer Joe Wong (Russian Doll, Midnight Gospel) and mixed by Dave Fridmann.

At the turn of the Century, Timony (Ex Hex, Wild Flag, Hammered Hulls) was already a celebrated presence in American underground music - a fixture of D.C. and Boston rock ’n’ roll via her work in Autoclave and Helium respectively. By 1998, though, Helium was drawing to a close and Timony was feeling uncertain about the future. “I had never been good at the rock ‘n’ roll business, and making a living from being in a band just didn't seem like it was in the realm of possibility for me,” she writes. “I just knew I wanted to make another record because that was the part of being in a band that I liked the most.”

TRACK LISTING

Dungeon Dance
Poison Moon
I Fire Myself
The Bell
Painted Horses
The Hour Glass
13 Bees
The Golden Fruit
Whisper From The Tree
1542
Valley Of One Thousand
Perfumes
Tiger Rising
An-deluzion
The Fox And Hound
Rider On The Stormy Sea
Return To Pirates (Kingston St. Session)
Poison Moon (Kingston St. Session)
Killed By The Telephone (Kingston St. Session)
Valley Of One Thousand
Perfumes (Orchestral Version)

Where 1997's "Brighten The Corners" saw Stephen Malkmus and his merry band of indie rock pranksters shine a light on the band's rock-centric qualities, "Terror Twilight" harkens back to 95's "Wowee Zowee", when Pavement were all about the shambolic sprawl of Alternative possibility. Of course, four years later the context is entirely different - the band's fate as rock's (commercially unsuccessful) great post-Nirvana hope is nearly sealed. And maybe that's where both the terror and the twilight come into play - in the realization that preaching sprawling possibility to the converted is more a noose than an open field, that failed expectations are a setting sun.

So, a downbeat spirit pervades "Twilight"'s songs. And in this gloom, Malkmus looks for and finds soft, dark, melodic wonders: "Spit On A Stranger" turns its eye towards relationships, "Major Leagues" towards a careerist's self-worth, and "Ann Don't Cry" tries to be an anthem for outsiders while visibly flashing its own lonely tear. It's not until the closing "Carrot Rope", a sunny bit of mid-tempo Pavement-pop-foolery with two competing and overlapping vocals, that a major-key ray of light is cast upon the proceedings. Let's hope that this little light is enough to get them through the night.

TRACK LISTING

Spit On A Stranger
Folk Jam
You Are A Light
Cream Of Gold
Major Leagues
Platform Blues
Ann Don't Cry
Billie
Speak, See, Remember
The Hexx
...And Carrot Rope

In 1992 "Slanted And Enchanted", arguably the first and best release of 90s 'slacker rock', felt like a compendium of all the very best post-punk moments from the previous fifteen years as well as a surprising new combination of wit, absurdism, noise and pop. All these years later, the album is still fresh, still exciting and still makes most of the competition sound derivative and lazy. So to summarise; still slanted, still enchanting.

TRACK LISTING

Summer Babe
Trigger Cut/Wounded-Kite At :17
No Life Singed Her
In The Mouth A Desert
Conduit For Sale!
Zürich Is Stained
Chesley's Little Wrists
Loretta's Scars
Here
Two States
Perfume-V
Fame Throwa
Jackals, False Grails: The Lonesome Era
Our Singer

Our Love to Admire marked a critical and commercial breakthrough for the band. Recorded at New York's Electric Lady and the Magic Shop studios with producer Rich Costey (Muse, Death Cab for Cutie), the album boasts an expansive, cinematic sound that drove home such notable songs as The Heinrich Maneuver, Pioneer to the Falls, No I In Threesome, Mammoth and Rest My Chemistry. Upon its release, the album debuted in the Top Five in both the U.S. and the U.K. Interpol formed in the late 1990s and quickly established a dense, intoxicating sound featuring layers of guitar, bass and synthesizers. The band came up through the vibrant New York scene, alongside such notable contemporaries as the Strokes and the National, but gained crucial early attention in Britain, where they recorded a prestigious live session for legendary BBC DJ John Peel.

TRACK LISTING

Pioneer To The Falls
No I In Threesome
The Scale
The Heinrich Maneuver
Mammoth
Pace Is The Trick
All Fired Up
Rest My Chemistry
Who Do You Think
Wrecking Ball
The Lighthouse

Belle and Sebastian present twenty-two live performances featuring songs from across their 25 year career. The recordings showcase the Scottish septet at the height of their power during their 2019 tour, including tracks performed on the band's own Mediterranean cruise, "The Boaty Weekender."

TRACK LISTING

1. The Song Of The Clyde
2. Dirty Dream Number Two
3. Step Into My Office, Baby
4. We Were Beautiful
5. Seeing Other People
6. If She Wants Me
7. Beyond The Sunrise
8. Wrapped Up In Books
9. Little Lou, Ugly Jack, Prophet John
10. The Boy Done Wrong Again
11. I Can See Your Future
12. Funny Little Frog
13. The Fox In The Snow
14. If You’re Feeling Sinister
15. My Wandering Days Are Over
16. The Wrong Girl
17. Stay Loose
18. Poor Boy
19. Dog On Wheels
20. The Boy With The Arab Strap
21. I Didn’t See It Coming
22. Belle And Sebastian

‘Quarantine The Past: The Best Of Pavement’ spans the entirety of Pavement’s career from 1989 to 1999, from the scratchy and mysterious sounds of their early vinyl-only releases to the rich, multi-layered warmth of their final recordings.

TRACK LISTING

Gold Soundz
Frontwards
Mellow Jazz Docent
Stereo
In The Mouth A Desert
Two States
Cut Your Hair
Shady Lane/J Vs. S
Here
Unfair
Grounded
Summer Babe
Range Life
Date W/ IKEA
Debris Slide
Shoot The Singer (1 Sick Verse)
Spit On A Stranger
Heaven Is A Truck
Trigger Cut/Wounded-Kite At :17
Embassy Row
Box Elder
Unseen Power Of The Picket Fence
Fight This Generation

Pavement's fourth proper LP seems to be a direct response to anyone who thought 1995's "Wowee Zowee" sealed a downward spiral from indie-pop heroes to incomprehensible, in-joke nonconformists. On "Brighten The Corners", the rock hero in Pavement re-emerges as the dominant stereotype, making the lyrical idiosyncrasies on which critics of the band like to harp into witty window-dressing. Nowhere is this dichotomy better heard than on the electrifying opener, "Stereo", which rages with anthemic power-chords and a rock-star chorus ('Hey! Listen to me! I'm on the stereo'), while also pondering the longest-standing mystery in rock, the voice of Rush singer Geddy Lee ('how did it get so high/I wonder if he speaks like an ordinary guy').

Musically, "Brighten The Corners" extends the rock tradition to the other side of Sonic Youth's dissonant discoveries while staying free of grunge's self-defeatist mentality. No longer a group of lo-fi pranksters, Pavement has tightened up into a mighty ensemble, able to jam like psychedelic maniacs (the closing "Fin") or fly by night like punks on speed ("Embassy Row"). Lyrically, Stephen Malkmus and co-conspirator Scott Kannberg (aka Spiral Stairs) have started questioning where they belong in a late-90s world seemingly devoid of secrets and mysteries. Their declarations present yet another yin-yang to the Pavement whole: Kannberg's answers seem to lie in emotional stability, Malkmus' in the never-ending search itself. These uncertainties of dealing with one's unrecognised worth play out like an Irvine Welsh novel: the chapters full of spunky glee, the ending steeped in melancholy.

TRACK LISTING

Stereo
Shady Lane/J Vs. S
Transport Is Arranged
Date W/IKEA
Old To Begin
Type Slowly
Embassy Row
Blue Hawaiian
We Are Underused
Passat Dream
Starlings Of The Slipstream
Fin

‘Brighten The Corners: Nicene Creedence’ 2CD Bonus Tracks:
And Then (The Hexx)
Beautiful As A Butterfly
Cataracts
Westie Can Drum
Winner Of The
Birds In The Majic Industry
Harness Your Hopes
Roll With The Wind
Slowly Typed
Cherry Area
Wanna Mess You Around
No Tan Lines
And Then (The Hexx)
Harness Your Hopes
The Killing Moon
Winner Of The
Embassy Row Psych Intro
Nigel
Chevy (Old To Begin)
Roll With The Wind (Roxy)
Oddity
Type Slowly
Neil Hagerty Meets Jon Spencer In A Non-Alcoholic
Bar
Destroy Mater Dei
It's A Rainy Day, Sunshine Girl
Maybe Maybe
Date W/IKEA
Fin
Grave Architecture
The Classical
Space Ghost Theme I
Space Ghost Theme II

Westing is a compilation of Pavement's early singles and rarities, that shows the band growing from the initial "Slay Tracks" EP through to the singles and EP's from their first two albums.

TRACK LISTING

You're Killing Me
Box Elder
Maybe Maybe
She Believes
Price Yeah!
Forklift
Spizzle Trunk
Recorder Grot
Internal K-Dart
Perfect Depth
Recorder Grot (Rally)
Heckler Spray
From Now On
Angel Carver Blues/Mellow Jazz Docent
Drive-By-Fader
Debris Slide
Home
Krell Vid-User
Summer Babe
Mercy Snack: The Laundromat
Baptist Blacktick
My First Mine
My Radio

Continuing with their ever-expanding Revisionist History series, Matador Records announce a 25th anniversary reissue of Yo La Tengo’s 1995 album Electr-o-pura. Now in a gatefold sleeve and cut from the original 58-minute master, the new reissue is pressed for the first time on two LPs to ensure the highest quality of audio the album has had on vinyl to date.

On their seventh studio album, Yo La Tengo would further expand on the venturous songwriting established on their previous album Painful with stunning craft and a deepened exploration of contrasting textures, moods and atmospherics. Chock full with moments of pop gold like “Tom Courtenay,”melancholic ballads such as the heartbreaking “Pablo And Andrea,” and sweeping, feedback-laden jams like the show-stopping “Blue Line Swinger”, Electr-o-pura is a thrilling document of one of America’s most beloved bands hitting their creative stride and remains one of the most sublime records the band has released in their uninterrupted 36-year career.

TRACK LISTING

Decora
Flying Lesson (Hot Chicken #1)
The Hour Grows Late
Tom Courtenay
False Ending
Pablo And Andrea
Paul Is Dead
False Alarm
The Ballad Of Red Buckets
Don't Say A Word (Hot Chicken #2)
(Straight Down To The) Bitter End
My Heart's Reflection
Attack On Love
Blue Line Swinger

Muzz, the new project of Paul Banks (Interpol), Josh Kaufman (producer/multi-instrumentalist and one third of Bonny Light Horseman), and Matt Barrick (drummer of Jonathan Fire*Eater, The Walkmen, and Fleet Foxes’ touring band),  announce their self-titled, debut album.

Muzz was born out of longstanding friendship and collaboration. Banks and Kaufman have known each other since childhood, attending high school together in Spain before separately moving to New York. There, they independently crossed paths with Barrick while running in similar music circles. They kept in touch in the following years: Barrick drummed in Banks + Steelz and on some of Kaufman's production sessions; Kaufman helped on Banks’ early Julian Plenti solo endeavour; various demos were collaborated on, and a studio was co-bought.

The self-titled debut album, written, arranged and performed by all three, is dark and gorgeous, expansive and soulful. No matter the sonic direction, Muzz goes there effortlessly and with maximum emotional charge.

TRACK LISTING

Bad Feeling
Evergreen
Red Western Sky
Patchouli
Everything Like It Used To Be
Broken Tambourine
Knuckleduster
Chubby Checker
How Many Days
Summer Love
All Is Dead To Me
Trinidad

Created over the course of four years, Making a Door Less Open is the result of a fruitful “collaboration” between Car Seat Headrest, led by Will Toledo, and 1 Trait Danger, a CSH electronic side project consisting of drummer Andrew Katz and Toledo’s alternative persona, “Trait.” To realize this, the band recorded the album twice: once live with guitars, drums and bass, and once in a MIDI environment using purely synthesized sounds. During the mixing process, the two approaches were gradually combined using elements of each, with additional overdubs.

In this way, Making A Door Less Open sees Toledo embarking on new and imaginative roads to songwriting and recording, placing emphasis on the individual songs, each with its own “special energy,” rather than attempting to draw a coherent storyteller narrative through the album as he has in the past , resulting in his most dynamic and open-ended work to date.

Comprised of Will Toledo, Andrew Katz (drums), Ethan Ives (guitar) and Seth Dalby (bass), Car Seat Headrest has either released 11 or three albums to date, depending on the way you look at it. A prolific songwriter, Toledo took his moniker from making early recordings in the private environment of his family’s car, releasing a dozen self-recorded and produced albums on Bandcamp and building a tight-knit following. Toledo has since gone from an empty five-seater to selling out tours and filling festival main stages. 2015’s Teens of Style was a collection of songs from his early years. The band’s proper Matador debut, Teens of Denial, followed in 2016 and catapulted them to overnight commercial success and widespread critical acclaim, as well as highlighting Toledo as a prodigious lyricist. 2018’s Twin Fantasy, an epic re-imagination of an album originally released in 2011, demonstrated newfound scale, depth and ambition.

TRACK LISTING

Vinyl
Weightlifters
Can’t Cool Me Down
Hollywood
There Must Be More Than Blood
Hymn
Deadlines
Martin
What’s With You Lately
Life Worth Missing
Famous

CD
Weightlifters
Can’t Cool Me Down
Hollywood
Martin
Hymn (Remix)
There Must Be More Than Blood
Deadlines
What’s With You Lately
Life Worth Missing
Famous
Deadlines (Alternate Acoustic)
Hollywood (Acoustic)

‘The Greatest’ is the seventh studio album by indie rock artist Chan Marshall, a.k.a. Cat Power.

The album debuted at #34 on the Billboard 200, her highest charting album at the time.

Backing band The Memphis Rhythm Band includes Teenie Hodges, Steve Potts, Dave Smith, Rick Steff, Doug Easley, Jim Spake, Scott Thompson and Susan Marshall. String arrangements were contributed by Harlan. T Bobo and Jonathan Kirkscey.

‘The Greatest’ won the 2006 Shortlist music prize, making Marshall the first woman to win the honour. It was also named Number 6 Best Album Of 2006 by Rolling Stone Magazine.

Chan Marshall's wonderful album of cover versions from 2000, including her unique renditions of songs by Lou Reed, The Rolling Stones, Bob Dylan, Smog and more.

Days of the Bagnold Summer began life as a 2012 award-winning graphic novel by Joff Winterhart, was turned into a feature film and the directorial debut of Simon Bird (The Inbetweeners, Friday Night Dinner), and is now a wonderful, rich, bittersweet, and warmly welcoming original soundtrack album by Belle and Sebastian on Matador Records.

The album features eleven brand new Belle and Sebastian songs, as well as re-recorded versions of classics 'Get Me Away From Here I'm Dying', originally appearing on 1996's If You’re Feeling Sinister, and ‘I Know Where The Summer Goes’, from 1998's This Is Just a Modern Rock Song EP.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: Whether they're writing stand-alone albums, performing live or soundtracking, Belle And Sebastian have a pedigree that can't be denied. 'Days Of The Bagnold Summer' is in the latter camp, but works perfectly as a standalone album too, showcasing exactly why they're one of the most beloved bands on the indie circuit and have been for a great many years.

TRACK LISTING

Sister Buddha (Intro)
I Know Where The Summer Goes
Did The Day Go Just Like You Wanted?
Jill Pole
I'll Keep It Inside
Safety Valve
The Colour's Gonna Run
Another Day, Another Night
Get Me Away From Here I'm Dying
Wait And See What The Day Holds
Sister Buddha
This Letter
We Were Never Glorious

Available in its first pressing for Matador Records, Snail Mail’s debut EP “Habit” serves as a nascent example of Lindsey Jordan’s extraordinary talent as a songwriter, singer and guitarist. The seven song disc features the six original 2016 tracks as well as “The 2nd Most Beautiful Girl In The World,” penned by K Records Band Courtney Love and recorded by Snail Mail in 2018, available on record for the first time. The EP features a full-color cover as it had originally been designed, and has been remastered by Dave Cooley at Elysian Masters.

TRACK LISTING

01. Thinning
02. Habit
03. Static Buzz
04. Dirt
05. Slug
06. Stick
07. The 2nd Most Beautiful Girl In The World

The final Matador album from Dayton, Ohio’s legendary geniuses Guided By Voices which, at the time, was set to be their last ever. After twenty- odd years, twenty-odd line ups and twenty-odd albums, EPs, singles, triples, stolen bases, misdemeanour convictions and broken hearts, Dayton’s fortunate sons took a leave of absence only to re-emerge in 2010 at a certain label’s 21st birthday celebrations in Las Vegas. Back in print for the first time since 2008!

TRACK LISTING

Everyone Thinks I’m A
Raincloud (When I’m Not
Looking)
Sleep Over Jack
Girls Of Wild
Strawberries
Gonna Never Have To Die
Window Of My World
Closets Of Henry
Tour Guide At Winston
Churchill Memorial
Asia Minor
Sons Of Apollo
Sing For Your Meat
Asphyxiated Circle
A Second Spurt Of
Growth
(S)Mothering And
Coaching
Huffman Prairie Flying

Back in print for the first time in ten years on split black & white vinyl. All profits donated to St. Jude Children's Research Hospital. #MatadorRevisionistHistory #JayReatard

TRACK LISTING

Jay Reatard – “Hang Them All”
Sonic Youth – “No Garage”

Spanning a career well into its third decade, Spoon returns with a ‘Best Of’compilation, ‘Everything Hits At Once: The Best of Spoon' In addition to the 12 fan-adored tracks making up this single LP, Spoon return with the bold new single “No Bullets Spent.” How many rock bands from the past 25 years could get away with a greatest-hits album? Spoon stand alone, with a career-spanning retrospective culled from all over their unique songbook. It’s a flawless compilation of their best-known, best-loved tunes, yet it’s still full of surprises—the only thing you could expect from a band that’s spent their whole career taking people by surprise.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: For a mindblowing nine albums worth of material, it's hard to collate a 'Best Of' that accurately represents a band who have consistently and reliably smashed it out of the park. There are none of the big hits here that I wouldn't expect to be here, The Underdog sounds every bit the proto punk-folk clanger it was back in 2007, 'I Turn My Camera Off' kicks things off and I honestly couldn't think of a better appetiser than that. This is a brilliantly diverse and essential summary of a great band at a ridiculously good price. Get on it!

TRACK LISTING

I Turn My Camera On
Do You
Don't You Evah
Inside Out
The Way We Get By
The Underdog
Hot Thoughts
I Summon You
Rent I Pay
You Got Yr. Cherry Bomb
Got Nuffin
Everything Hits At Once
No Bullets Spent

Body/Head, the duo of Kim Gordon (CKM, Sonic Youth, Free Kitten) and guitarist Bill Nace (X.O.4, Vampire Belt, Ceylon Mange), release their second studio album, ‘The Switch’, on Matador Records.

Their debut album together as Body/Head, ‘Coming Apart’, from 2013, was more of a rock record - heavy, emotional, cathartic, spellwork in shades of black and grey. ‘The Switch’ is their second studio full length and it finds the duo working with a more subtle palette, refining their ideas and identity. Some of it was sketched out live (if you’ve not had the fortune of seeing them in that natural environment yet, see 2016’s improvisational document ‘No Waves’) but much of it happened purely in the moment.

On ‘The Switch’, their vision and focus feel truly unified. If ‘Coming Apart’ was dark magic, ‘The Switch’ works with light, though it never forgets that these approaches are two sides of the same coin and that binaries - black/white, near/far, emotion/analysis, body/head - are made to be broken open and that the truth of things is in the energy between.

STAFF COMMENTS

Matt says: Stained with biker grease and fried on the engine heat, this basically drum-less excursion into exhaust fume biker blues hits like a spice-laced cigerette in Piccadilly Gardens. Y'ouch!

TRACK LISTING

Last Time
You Don’t Need
In The Dark Room
Change My Brain
Reverse Hard

Beyondless radiates joy. It’s an album that shows Iceage finally catching up with their ambition, all the while retaining the rich character of the band’s brash beginnings. It’s important to pay attention to the journey, from New Brigade (2011), a juvenile delinquent take on post-punk, full of cold, distant condemnation, and onto the ecstasy of You're Nothing (2013), shedding the more aggressive hardcore influence and dragging in more light, a tendency followed on Plowing Into The Field Of Love (2014). Throughout their career, the band’s charm has rested in their running ahead of themselves with blind confidence; on Beyondless, they are treading with a disarming assurance, but no loss of charm.

The album was produced by the band with Nis Bysted, and recorded all-analog by Mattias Glavå at Kungsten Studios in Göteborg, Sweden, and mixed by Randall Dunn at Avast Studios in Seattle. The album was played entirely by Iceage with additional performances by Nils Gröndhal (violin), horns by Kasper Tranberg (trumpet), Lars Greve (saxophones) and Morten Jessen (trombone).

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: Switching from nodded-out psychedelic shambling melodies to driven garage-rock interludes, Iceage are brimming with spirit and equally matching their loosely laid melodic foundations with a relaxed but effective approach to songwriting.

TRACK LISTING

Hurrah
2. Pain Killer
3. Under The Sun
4. The Day The Music Dies
5. Plead The Fifth
6. Catch It
7. Thieves Like Us
8. Take It All
9. Showtime
10. Beyondless

2018 marks the 25th anniversary of Liz Phair’s landmark Exile in Guyville album. On May 4th, Matador Records will reissue the album on vinyl and CD. Re-mastered by Emily Lazar at The Lodge, the album is set for a remembrance worthy of its greatness. In addition to the straight reissue, Matador is also releasing Girly-Sound To Guyville, an extensive vinyl box set to celebrate the anniversary.

Originally released in 1993, Exile In Guyville is a seminal album and a feminist landmark. Its legendary status has only grown over the years. It’s continually included in countless lists…Rolling Stone’s 500 Greatest albums of all time + 100 best albums of the 90s, Pitchfork’s Top 100 albums of the 90s, etc. Numerous essays and think pieces have been written about it and the number of accolades piled on is endless.

Since the release of Exile in Guyville, Liz Phair has continued to defy expectation and break barriers. She has released five albums, and is currently working on a new one with Ryan Adams. She has also composed music for television shows and received awards for that work. In November, it was announced that she would be fulfilling a longtime dream to be an author, having received a two-book deal with Random House. Her first book will be called Horror Stories which focuses on “heartbreak, motherhood, and everything in between.

TRACK LISTING

1. 6'1"
2. Help Me Mary
3. Glory
4. Dance Of The Seven Veils
5. Never Said
6. Soap Star Joe
7. Explain It To Me
8. Canary
9. Mesmerizing
10. Fuck And Run
11. Girls! Girls! Girls!
12. Divorce Song
13. Shatter
14. Flower
15. Johnny Sunshine
16. Gunshy
17. Stratford-On-Guy
18. Strange Loop

Harking back to their 1997 release of three consecutive EPs (Dog On Wheels, Lazy Line Painter Jane, and 3.. 6.. 9 Seconds Of Light), Belle and Sebastian have kicked of 2018 with three new EPs under the umbrella title How To Solve Our Human Problems. The EP trilogy culminates with this beautifully packaged limited edition vinyl box set containing all three EPs.

TRACK LISTING

1. Sweet Dew Lee
2. We Were Beautiful
3. Fickle Season
4. The Girl Doesn’t Get It
5. Everything Is Now
6. Show Me The Sun
7. Same Star
8. I’ll Be Your Pilot
9. Cornflakes
10. A Plague On All Other Boys
11. Poor Boy
12. Everything Is Now (Part Two)
13. Too Many Tears
14. There Is An Everlasting Song
15. Best Friend

Harkening back to their 1997 release of three consecutive EPs (Dog On Wheels, Lazy Line Painter Jane, and 3.. 6.. 9 Seconds Of Light), Belle and Sebastian will release three new EPs under the umbrella title How To Solve Our Human Problems, with the first EP coming out on December 8th, the second on January 19th, and the third on February 16th.

Just as those three early EPs are at the very heart of the Belle and Sebastian canon, so these three new releases deserve to be treated not as a stopgap, but as definitive releases in their own right. How To Solve Our Human Problems is both an era of its own, and part of a long, rich history. How To Solve Our Human Problems is, if you like, Belle and Sebastian Redux.

Harkening back to their 1997 release of three consecutive EPs (Dog On Wheels, Lazy Line Painter Jane, and 3.. 6.. 9 Seconds Of Light), Belle and Sebastian will release three new EPs under the umbrella title How To Solve Our Human Problems, with the first EP coming out on December 8th, the second on January 19th, and the third on February 16th.

Just as those three early EPs are at the very heart of the Belle and Sebastian canon, so these three new releases deserve to be treated not as a stopgap, but as definitive releases in their own right. How To Solve Our Human Problems is both an era of its own, and part of a long, rich history. How To Solve Our Human Problems is, if you like, Belle and Sebastian Redux.

TRACK LISTING

1. Show Me The Sun
2. Same Star
3. I’ll Be Your Pilot
4. Cornflakes
5. A Plague On All Other Boys

Julien Baker releases her highly anticipated second album, ‘Turn Out The Lights’, via Matador Records.

‘Turn Out The Lights’ arrives nearly two years to the day after Baker’s debut album, ‘Sprained Ankle’, which was widely acclaimed by outlets including The New York Times, Pitchfork, Rolling Stone, Noisey, and MOJO, among others.

Recorded at the legendary Ardent Studios in Baker’s hometown of Memphis, TN, ‘Turn Out The Lights’ expands upon the sound and vision of ‘Sprained Ankle’ while retaining the haunting, confessional songwriting style for which she has become known. Throughout the album, Baker reflects on experiences of her own and those closest to her, exploring the internal conflicts that wrestle inside us all: how we deal and cope with our struggles and how it all impacts both ourselves and our relationships of all kinds. The result is a deeply empathetic album that embraces the greys and complex truths of humanity and mental health.

‘Turn Out The Lights’ was written and produced by Baker and mixed by Craig Silvey (The National, Arcade Fire, Florence & The Machine).

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: 'Sprained Ankle' went down a storm in here (was it really that long ago?) and I have no doubt this will surpass that. More heartfelt lyrics, cleverly constructed melodies and introspective moments, all wrapped in that warm veneer of Baker's spellbinding voice.

TRACK LISTING

Over
Appointments
Turn Out The Lights
Shadowboxing
Sour Breath
Televangelist
Everything That Helps
You Sleep
Happy To Be Here
Hurt Less
Even
Claws In Your Back

Harkening back to their 1997 release of three consecutive EPs (Dog On Wheels, Lazy Line Painter Jane, and 3.. 6.. 9 Seconds Of Light), Belle and Sebastian will release three new EPs under the umbrella title How To Solve Our Human Problems, with the first EP coming out on December 8th, the second on January 19th, and the third on February 16th.

Just as those three early EPs are at the very heart of the Belle and Sebastian canon, so these three new releases deserve to be treated not as a stopgap, but as definitive releases in their own right. How To Solve Our Human Problems is both an era of its own, and part of a long, rich history. How To Solve Our Human Problems is, if you like, Belle and Sebastian Redux.

“The title Villains isn’t a political statement. It has nothing to do with Trump or any of that shit. It’s simply 1) a word that looks fantastic and 2) a comment on the three versions of every scenario: yours, mine and what actually happened… Everyone needs someone or something to rail against—their villain—same as it ever was. You can’t control that. The only thing you can really control is when you let go."—Joshua Homme

Hundreds of epic shows, memory lapses, unexplained injuries, one yearlong detour with Iggy Pop and multiple Grammy nominations later, Queens Of The Stone Age re-emerge from the desert newly scarred and somehow strangely prettier with lucky seventh album, Villains.

Produced by Mark Ronson and co-produced by Mark Rankin and mixed by Alan Moulder, Villains is the first full album offering from Queens Of The Stone Age since 2013’s …Like Clockwork gave the band its first #1 album in the U.S. Like the stunning artwork of returning illustrator Boneface, the sonic signatures of the line-up that took …Like Clockwork around the world and back are as unmistakable as ever, though coexisting with sufficient new twists to induce recurring double takes. As Homme himself puts it, “The most important aspect of making this record was redefining our sound, asking and answering the question 'what do we sound like now?' If you can’t make a great first record, you should just stop—but if you can make a great record but you keep making records and your sound doesn’t evolve, you become a parody of that original sound."

Of his role working within such a closed and confident ecosystem as Queens Of The Stone Age, Ronson says, "Queens are and have always been my favourite rock n roll band ever since I walked into Tower on Sunset and bought Rated R in the summer of 2000, so it was incredibly surreal to be welcomed into their secret, pirate clan—or the ‘jacuzzi’ as Josh likes to call it. There were moments during the making of the album in which I was aware I was watching my musical heroes craft something that was sure to become one of my moments on any Queens album. And to have some part in that felt like being in a dream--a very heavy, dark, wonderful dream.”

Long-time Queens cohort co-producer Mark Rankin added, "After the baptism of fire that was …Like Clockwork, I was excited to get into the studio again with the challenge of pushing the sound for this record, especially with the addition of Ronson into the creative mix… What we’ve made is forward looking yet unmistakably Queens."

STAFF COMMENTS

Darryl says: ‘Villains’ finds the QOTSA boys in fine rockin’ form. Heavy sonic riffage with an added groove appeal too, no doubt courtesy of Mark Ronson in the producer’s chair.

TRACK LISTING

Feet Don’t Fail Me
The Way You Used To Do
Domesticated Animals
Fortress
Head Like A Haunted House
Un-Reborn Again
Hideaway
The Evil Has Landed
Villains Of Circumstance

“Ebbs and flows between moments of gritted-teeth tension and furious release, its solemn, confession-booth ruminations offset by heart-racing, steeple-toppling rave-ups.” - Pitchfork

“These new songs, seven of them in the end, are fantastic - running the gamut between funk basslines, rolling piano, hissing booms, insidious Vatican shadow rattles and BBC Radiophonic Workshop if they did goth ballads.” - The Quietus

Matador Records present Algiers’ second album, ‘The Underside Of Power’, recorded largely in Bristol and produced by Adrian Utley (Portishead) and Ali Chant and mixed by Randall Dunn (Sunn O)))), with post-production by Ben Greenberg (The Men, Hubble, Uniform).

Touchstones on the uncompromising and impassioned album run from Southern rap to Northern soul, gospel to IDM, industrial to grime to Italo.

More pertinent than ever before, ‘The Underside Of Power’ follows Algiers’ 2015 eponymous debut which received praise from the NY Times, Pitchfork, The Quietus and others. The record touches on oppression, police brutality, dystopia and hegemonic power structures. Its fiery lyrics encompass TS Eliot, the Old Testament, The New Jim Crow, Tamir Rice and Hannah Arendt, while carried by soulful and visceral songs, meditative moments and personal reflection.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: Dense, textured rock and roll hooks, grooving chorus' and snarling vocal crescendos. It's bold in parts, delicately electronic in others and as visceral as you'd expect from Algiers. Euphoric synth leads sweep into foot-stomping majesty in the blink of an eye. An enthralling and bracing journey throughout.

TRACK LISTING

Walk Like A Panther
Cry Of The Martyrs
The Underside Of Power
Death March
A Murmur. A Sign.
Mme Rieux
Cleveland
Animals
Plague Years
A Hymn For An Average Man
Bury Me Standing
The Cycle/The Spiral: Time To Go Down Slowly

Perfume Genius, nom de poster-wraith of musician Mike Hadreas, will release his fourth album, No Shape, May 5 on Matador Records. The album was recorded in Los Angeles, produced by Blake Mills, mixed by Shawn Everett.

Perfume Genius’s 2014 breakout album Too Bright— featuring seismic anthem ‘Queen’ — marked a musical and performative leap that sounds unlike anything before or since. With his new songs, Hadreas goes even further, merging church music, makeout music, R&B, art pop, krautrock, and queer soul into his take on stadium anthems, completing the journey from critically acclaimed underground hero to fully fledged pop auteur.

Of the album, Hadreas says: “I pay my rent. I’m approaching health. The things that are bothering me personally now are less clear, more confusing. I don’t think I really figured them out with these songs. There’s something freeing about how I don’t have it figured out. Unpacking little morsels, magnifying my discomfort, wading through buried harm, laughing at or digging in to the embarrassing drama of it all. I may never come out the other side but it’s invigorating to try and hopefully, ultimately helpful. I think a lot of them are about trying to be happy in the face of whatever bullshit I created for myself or how horrible everything and everyone is.”

TRACK LISTING

1. Otherside
2. Slip Away
3. Just Like Love
4. Go Ahead
5. Valley
6. Wreath
7. Every Night
8. Choir
9. Die 4 You
10. Sides (feat. Weyes Blood)
11. Braid
12. Run Me Through
13. Alan

Produced by Spoon and Dave Fridmann, Austin’s most esteemed rock ambassadors have created the bravest, most sonically inventive work of their illustrious career.

Reuniting the band with the label that released their 1996 debut, ‘Telephono’, and following on Spoon’s streak of three consecutive US Top 10 albums—‘Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga’ (2007), ‘Transference’ (2010) and ‘They Want My Soul’ (2014)—‘Hot Thoughts’ is nothing short of epic. Listening to ‘Hot Thoughts’, it’s instantly apparent why Spoon are considered one of the most critically acclaimed acts of the first decade of the new millennium. 

Within the space of 10 captivating songs – all written by Britt Daniel- ‘Hot Thoughts’ creates a musical universe all its own, with individual worlds ranging from the kaleidoscopic opening/title track through the gargantuan stomp of “Do I Have To Talk You Into It” and ubiquitous wiry hooks of “Can I Sit Next To You" to the bittersweet “I Ain’t The One” and beyond.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: As addictive, funked up rhythms give way to distorted bursts and effervescent vocal melodies, this sonically fascinating but brilliantly accessible LP twists and turns break into pulsing synth pop and grooving head-nodders.

TRACK LISTING

1. Hot Thoughts
2. WhisperI’lllistentohearit
3. Do I Have To Talk You Into It
4. First Caress
5. Pink Up
6. Can I Sit Next To You
7. I Ain’t The One
8. Tear It Down
9. Shotgun
10. Us

Body/Head, the duo of Kim Gordon (CKM, Sonic Youth, Free Kitten, etc.) and guitarist Bill Nace (X.O.4, Vampire Belt, Ceylon Mange, etc), will release ‘No Waves’ via Matador Records.

Recorded on March 24th, 2014 during Big Ears Festival in Knoxville, TN at the Bijou Theater, this high quality live recording captures Gordon and Nace at peak chemistry, clearing pathways of possibility using great waves of amplification and voice, during the tour supporting 2013’s critically lauded ‘Coming Apart’.

Instead of presenting ‘tracks’ or ‘songs’ from the record, this album should be considered a ‘moment’, one pinnacle set that was beautifully caught in time. World-renowned artist and longtime friend of Gordon’s, Raymond Pettibon, has made an original piece of art for the cover of the album.

“‘Coming Apart’ was arguably the heaviest record of 2013 and received with open arms and blown minds across the world. The fact that a record steeped so heavily in non-traditional structures and improvisation could touch so many people was not a surprise to anyone who had seen Body/Head in a live setting. ‘No Waves’ captures that raw improvisation and harnesses the power into a listening experience of pure, unmediated intensity.” - Ben Chasny (Comets On Fire, Six Organs Of Admittance)

Richmond, VA-based songwriter Lucy Dacus is the latest addition to the renowned Matador Records roster.
Lucy Dacus's No Burden is full of surprises—sharp lyrical observations, playful turns of musical phrase, hooks that'll embed themselves in your frontal lobe for days. But the most surprising thing about this album might be the fact that it's a debut; it has a keen sense of self about it, and it nearly glows from the self-possession held by the woman at its core.

The 21-year-old Dacus grew up in Richmond; she was adopted at a young age, an experience that informed her curious, openhearted songwriting. "When my parents were explaining what adoption was—which was very early on in my childhood—they always said that my birthmother thought I was worthwhile even though she couldn't be my mom," she says. "And so from essentially infancy, I was taught that life was innately worthwhile because a bunch of people had worked together to set me up with one.”

Dacus started playing around Richmond while in college, opening for local acts and eventually meeting Jacob Blizard, a guitarist who invited her to make a record for a college project of his. No Burden, which originally came out in February on the Richmond label EggHunt Records, opens with the forthright, almost brutally honest "I Don't Wanna Be Funny Anymore," the last song Dacus wrote before the album's day-long recording session at Starstruck Studios in Nashville. Dacus delivers scalpel-sharp observations about resisting pigeonholing over chunky guitars, ticking off ideals of femininity and youth until the track's not-quite-resolution.

These themes extend to the lyrics of songs like "Strange Torpedo," a whirling portrait of a friend whose "bunch of bad habits" who, Dacus sings, has "been falling for so long… [and hasn't] hit anything solid yet." "I've been that friend watching a loved one do what they know is bad for them and not understanding why," says Dacus. The song offers a simple message: "I love you, why don't you love you? You're the one in your body so you get to choose what to do with it, but if I were you I'd treat me differently.”

The rest of No Burden, which was produced by Collin Pastore, puts Dacus's voice center stage, allowing the glinting poetry of her lyrics to shine even more brightly. "Trust," which Dacus wrote in late 2013, showcases her alone with her guitar, her faint vibrato floating over strummed chords as she sings of self-redemption. And the diptych "Dream State…" and "…Familiar Place," which revolve around Dacus repeating "Without you, I am surely the last of our kind/ Without you, I am surely the last of my kind," capture disappointment and loss in a jaw-dropping way; the music trembles around her while her voice stays steady, anticipating whatever might come next.

No Burden is a forthright, disarmingly catchy statement. And while it's a sterling debut, it only hints at the potential possessed by this passionate, thoughtful young woman.

Teens of Denial is the thirteenth album in Car Seat Headrest’s (aka 23-year-old Will Toledo) oeuvre, second on Matador, and first to be recorded in a proper studio with a full band and producer (Steve Fisk).

On Denial, Toledo moves from bedroom pop to something approaching classic-rock grandeur and huge (if detailed and personal) narrative ambitions, with nods to the Cars, Pavement, Jonathan Richman, Wire, and William Onyeabor. By turns tender and caustic, empathetic and solipsistic, literary and vernacular, profound and profane, self-loathing and self-aggrandizing, he conjures a specifically 21st century mindset, a product of information overload, the loneliness it can foster, and the escape music can provide.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: Boisterous and catchy college-rock anthems with a nod to melancholic folk, skate-punk and everything in between. Teens of Denial is a further expansion of singer-songwriter Will Toledo's already extensive back catalogue. Exciting and heartfelt, and another fantastic outing for Car Seat Headrest.

TRACK LISTING

1. Fill In The Blank
2. Vincent
3. Destroyed By Hippie Powers
4. (Joe Gets Kicked Out Of School For Using) Drugs With Friends (But Says This Isn't A Problem)
5. Just What I Needed/Not Just What I Needed
6. Drunk Drivers/Killer Whales
7. 1937 State Park
8. Unforgiving Girl (She's Not An)
9. Cosmic Hero
10. The Ballad Of The Costa Concordia
11. Connect The Dots (The Saga Of Frank Sinatra)
12. Joe Goes To School 

“How does a questing psychedelic guitarist transform themselves into classic singer-songwriter? By compromising, in many cases. Brooklyn’s Steve Gunn, however, is managing the transition with uncanny elegance.” - Uncut

Steve Gunn’s music has always embraced expanse and movement, springing from the simple and profound relationship between humans and their environment. ‘Eyes On The Lines’, his Matador debut and follow-up to the pastoral and highly acclaimed ‘Way Out Weather’, is Gunn’s most explicit ode to the blissful uncertainty of adventure yet.

Accompanied by a full band - Nathan Bowles (drums, banjo, organ), Hans Chew (wurlitzer), James Elkington (guitar, lap steel, dobro), Mary Lattimore (harp), Jason Meagher (bass, guitar, flute), Paul Sukeena (guitar), Justin Tripp (bass, keyboards), John Truscinski (drums) - ‘Eyes On The Lines’ presents Gunn embracing his urban surroundings through a series of songs that showcase his extraordinary ability to match inventive hooks to deftly constructed melodies full of personality.

Gunn’s songwriting on ‘Eyes On The Lines’ tells vibrant and evocative tales through a series of both imagined and real life characters and moments but throughout he is more narrator than diarist.

STAFF COMMENTS

Andy says: Beautiful rocking, interwoven guitar melodies make this Gunn's most direct record yet, even sounding like the more melodic side of Sonic Youth's Lee Ranaldo on a few numbers.

Barry says: Melodic country-tinged folk might not necessarily be something you would associate with former psych-rock great Steve Gunn, but that is exactly he has managed to write, and with great effect. This is absorbing and interesting, full of catchy melodies and imbued with a plethora of influence, from both sides of the pond. Intricate and comforting. Brilliant.

Spoon’s classic ‘Gimme Fiction’ celebrates its 10th anniversary with a deluxe version released on Matador Records.

The reissue contains the original album newlyremastered by Howie Weinberg from the original tapes, a second disc with 12 previously unreleased demos from the era, a digital download of nine additional bonus tracks and a full colour book containing photos and an extensive oral history of the making of the album by The AV Club’s Sean O’Neal. The deluxe LP package also includes tipped sleeves, a 24” x 36” poster and a digital download of all songs.

‘Gimme Fiction’ dragged the sonic pointillism of ‘Kill The Moonlight’ further into dub-influenced weirdness as the increasingly confident Spoon went crazy in the studio, experimenting with everything from warped hip hop samples to horse whinnies. Whatever digging or strange alchemy had to go into it, they only produced more gold.

‘Gimme Fiction’ deserves special recognition as the album where Spoon took creative and stylistic quantum leaps that resulted in classics ‘I Turn My Camera On’, ‘The Beast And Dragon Adored’, ‘My Mathematical Mind’, ‘I Summon You’ and so many more. 10 years later, ‘Gimme Fiction’ gets the deluxe release it so richly deserves.

TRACK LISTING

The Original Album
The Beast And Dragon, Adored
The Two Sides Of Monsieur Valentine
I Turn My Camera On
My Mathematical Mind
The Delicate Place
Sister Jack
I Summon You
The Infinite Pet
Was It You?
They Never Got You
Merchants Of Soul

Home Demos
I Summon You (First Demo)
Was It You?
I’ve Been Good Too Long
Sister Jack (Piano Demo)
The Beast And Dragon, Adored
My Mathematical Mind
They Never Got You
The Two Sides Of Monsieur Valentine
The Delicate Place
The Infinite Pet
Merchants Of Soul
Dear Mr. Landlord

Digital Bonus Tracks (With Vinyl Only)
The Beast And The Dragon, Adored (Rehearsal)
Sister Jack (Up Demo)
I Turn My Camera On (First Demo)
My Mathematical Mind (First Rehearsal)
The Delicate Place (Vanderslice & Solter Version)
I Wanna Go (Demo)
Tear Me Down (Demo)
I Summon You (Electric Demo)
My Mathematical Mind (Vanderslice & Solter Version)

Matador Records are thrilled to announce the signing of Car Seat Headrest and the release of ‘Teens Of Style’, with ‘Teens Of Denial’ to follow soon after in 2016.

This prolific artist (also known as Will Toledo) comes to Matador having already crafted an 11-album catalogue of staggering depth, all self-released digitally, gaining him an obsessive following and over 25,000 downloads - all without the muscle of a manager, label, agent, or publicist - until now.

Car Seat Headrest began in 2010 in Will Toledo’s hometown of Leesburg, Virginia. Needing a place of solitude (and soundproofing) where he could record vocals undisturbed, a 17-year-old Toledo set up shop in the family car. Toledo’s catalogue is sharp, literary and culturally omnivorous as it touches upon youth and death, love and depression, drunken parties and 2nd Century theologian. Ever surprising, his lyrical imagery ranges from playful to sexually frank to sorrowful, often within the same song.

After relocating to the Seattle suburbs in 2014, Toledo assembled a line up with bassist Ethan Ives and drummer Andrew Katz. ‘Teens Of Style’ is the first Car Seat Headrest album recorded with a full band and the sound is vibrant and powerful with a wide stylistic range.

On ‘Teens Of Style’ Toledo has taken material from the first three years of the band’s existence and reworked it to generate some of the most realized arrangements to date. Drawing material from ‘3’ (2010), ‘My Back Is Killing Me Baby’ (2011) and ‘Monomania’ (2012), ‘Teens Of Style’ provides a concise overview of the band’s many sonic and emotional facets, with the songs ranging from electronic psychedelia to punky anthems to melancholic acoustic numbers.

The longest track on ‘Teens Of Style’, ‘Times To Die’ is just under seven minutes, applying breakbeat cut-ups and ‘Low Rider’ horns to a groove-driven neo-psych jam with lyrics about Judaism, Hinduism and the record business. Similarly, ‘Maud Gone’ is a wistful 60s-inspired pop number paying homage to Yeats’ unrequited love, while the intricate party track ‘Los Borrachos’ borrows its title from the Diego Velasquez painting.

Car Seat Headrest’s conceptual ambition and stunning songwriting has been apparent since its early days of laptop recording, the scale of Toledo’s vision going far beyond the constricting ‘lo-fi’ term. Now on his Matador Records debut we witness Toledo presenting his intricate ideas with more clarity and refinement than ever, delivering an enthralling collection of songs destined for wide acclaim.

“Toledo’s commitment to giving listeners a direct line to his inner monologue is the kind of thing that inspires hardcore fanhood - the ability to get lost in Toledo’s work is the entire point.” - Pitchfork

“Crazy impressive - catchy, thoughtful, and inventive” - Brooklyn Vegan

“A major new talent… his music is beguiling and easy to get lost in” - NME

TRACK LISTING

Sunburned Shirts
The Drum
Something Soon
No Passion
Times To Die
Psst, Teenagers, Take Off your Clo
Strangers
Maud Gone
Los Borrachos (I Don't Have Any Hope Left, But the Weather Is Nice)
Bad Role Models, Old Idols Exhumed (psst, teenagers, Put Your clothes Back O)
Oh! Starving

Majical Cloudz return with their eagerly anticipated sophomore studio album ‘Are You Alone?’, released on Matador Records.

In 2013, the Canadian duo, comprised of principle songwriter and vocalist Devon Welsh and producer Matthew Otto, made a lasting impression with their debut full length ‘Impersonator’, which garnered praise from tastemaker and mainstream media alike as one of the year’s best and most notable albums. The band have since been fastidiously crafting their second studio album while simultaneously touring the world with their own shows as well as opening for Lorde on her North American tour.

‘Are You Alone?’ sees the expansion of Majical Cloudz’ sonic and narrative scope in adventurous new directions while retaining the unmistakable building blocks that have singled out the musical-performance art project as a unique proposition. Simple yet emotionally confounding lyrics showcasing a raw vulnerability which explore love and friendship, heartbreak and sadness, delivered in Welsh’s arresting baritone and filled out by minimalist yet evocative production and instrumentation, bringing the songs’ underlying emotional core to stirring realization. Throughout 12 poignant and resonant compositions Welsh and Otto have created a soulful and cinematic novella, continuing their artistic evolution at the forefront of brave and uncompromising musical performance.

Written and recorded between Montreal and Detroit, ‘Are You Alone?’ features drum, viola and piano support from Canadian composition auteur Owen Pallett, known for his work with Arcade Fire, Grizzly Bear, Death From Above 1979 and Alex Turner of the Arctic Monkeys.

Following early releases as well as collaborations with artistic kin Grimes, Majical Cloudz broke into recognition with their ‘Turns Turns Turns’ EP in 2012 and soon after signed to Matador. In addition to being nominated for the 2013 Polaris Music Prize, ‘Impersonator’ received critical praise from Rolling Stone, Pitchfork, Stereogum, VICE and NME among others. In 2014 the duo were personally selected by teenage pop phenomenon Lorde as the opening act for her North American tour, taking their intimate stage setup to theatres across the continent.

Their incredible conceptual live performance - stark and direct yet with moments of Pagliacci-esque silliness - gained plaudits from Billboard, Grantland, and Pitchfork and was described by Lorde as “one of the most simple and moving things I have seen, ever.” The 2014 tour with Lorde was captured in in the Majical Cloudz documentary ‘A Lot Of Humans’, directed by Neil Corcoran with an original soundtrack by the band. They were further highlighted with a summer cover story feature on Pitchfork.

TRACK LISTING

Disappeared
Control
Are You Alone?
So Blue
Heavy
Silver Car Crash
Change
If You're Lonely
Downtown
Easier Said Than Done
Game Show
Call On Me

'b’lieve i'm goin down…' is Vile’s sixth album, and shows Kurt both deeply introspective and briskly self-assured. As longtime fan Kim Gordon wrote in her bio for the album: “Kurt does his own myth-making; a boy/man with an old soul voice in the age of digital everything becoming something else, which is why this focused, brilliantly clear and seemingly candid record is a breath of fresh air.

Recorded and mixed in a number of locations, including Los Angeles and Joshua tree, b’lieve i'm goin down… is a handshake across the country, east to west coast, thru the dustbowl history (“valley of ashes”) of woody honest strait forward talk Guthrie, and a cali canyon dead still nite floating in a nearly waterless landscape. The record is all air, weightless, bodyless, but grounded in convincing authenticity, in the best version of a singer songwriter upcycling.”

TRACK LISTING

1. Pretty Pimpin
2. I’m An Outlaw
3. Dust Bunnies
4. That’s Life, Tho (Almost Hate To Say)
5. Wheelhouse
6. Life Like This
7. All In A Daze Work
8. Lost My Head There
9. Stand Inside
10. Bad Omens
11. Kidding Around
12. Wild Imagination

B’lieve I’m Goin Down *
Less Talk (More Walkin Away) *
Nicotine Blues *
Bad Omens (No Faders) *
No Stranger To The Ball Bust *
Sax Omens (J Turbo) *
* = Bonus Tracks On Deluxe LP Only.

Algiers release their self-titled debut album on Matador Records. Steeped in radical politics and deeply indebted to postpunk’s sonic trailblazing and gospel’s spiritual bloodletting, the album imbues neo-modernist hymns with caustic social sentiment and explosive noise.

Algiers comprises singer / guitarist Franklin James Fisher (deemed “one of the most powerfully guttural vocalists in rock today” by SPIN), guitarist Lee Tesche, and bassist Ryan Mahan.

From the militant stomp of ‘Remains’ to Fisher’s commanding presence on the gospel no wave blowout ‘Black Eunuch’, Algiers channels righteous fury into an incisive, innovative assault that Vice Noisey calls “intense… right on the beat of the current cultural climate.”

A trio of émigrés of the American Deep South, now split between New York and London, Algiers synthesize their eclectic influences, from Nina Simone and PJ Harvey to Suicide and Public Enemy, into frightening new forms.

“Gospel spook… a double-edged sword of religion and politics to slice through the pasty, vapid mess of pop culture in America.” - Stereogum

“While Nick Cave channeled Old Testament fury in order to explore evil with uncomfortable intimacy, Algiers employ it politically, in an effort to name the sound of dispossession.” - Ad Hoc

“Mesmerizing… really sucks you in with its weird power.” - The Wire

“Dark stuff, but good grief they’ve got soul.” - The Guardian

“Insane... Rowland S Howard vs Nitzer Ebb vs politics vs Southern Gospel.” - The Quietus

“Sounds like the end of the world.” - Line Of Best Fit

Breakup albums mark a turning point for a band: the moment when their sound completely changes and reaches a new level of emotional clarity. All that heartbreak and malaise condensed into any single record often makes for a defining piece of work, no matter the genre. The best records explore the nooks and crannies of sadness, learning it inside and out - celebrating it.

Ceremony's fifth studio album, The L-Shaped Man, uses singer Ross Farrar's recent breakup as a platform to explore loneliness and emotional weariness, but it is by no means a purely sad album. Rather than look inward, Farrar uses his experience to write about what it means to go through something heavy and come out the other side a different person.

In order to tell Farrar's story, Ceremony have almost completely stripped back the propulsive hardcore of their previous records, turning every angry outburst into simmering despair. "We've always tried to be minimalists in writing, even if it's loud or fast or abrasive," says lead guitarist Anthony Anzaldo. "It's really intense when I hear it. Not in a way where you turn everything up to ten. Things are so bare, you're holding this one note for so long and you don't now where it's going-to me, that's intensity." That intensity is apparent on "Exit Fears," the first full song on the record. It meticulously pairs Justin Davis' loping bassline, which pulls the track along, with Anzaldo's icy, minimal guitar work. It brings to mind some alternate version of Joy Division that hasn't quite lost all hope. It gets close to exploding, but instead plays the shadows, never quite rising above a nervous simmer.

"A lot of the content has to do with loss, and specifically the loss of someone who you care deeply about," Farrar says. "There is no way for you to go through something like this artistically and not have really strong emotions of loss and pain. There's not really any way to hide that." Farrar, for his part, is singing with a new kind of intensity, his baritone swooping and retreating from stressed angst to unsettling near-mutter as he sings, "You told your friends you were fine/ you thought you were fine too..." and later, "nothing is ever fine/ nothing ever feels right/ you have to tell yourself you tried." It's the first of many lyrically direct moments, and it should be hard to listen to, but Ceremony have so effortlessly nailed the sound of sadness that it feels great to live inside for awhile.

The sound is abetted by producer John Reis, who honed his sound in seminal bands like Rocket from the Crypt, Drive Like Jehu, and Hot Snakes. Much of the gravelly aggression he experimented with in those bands is present on The L-Shaped Man.

There's a story behind the title too. "I was speaking to our driver Stephen while on tour," Farrar says. "We were talking about men in general and what shape they are...their body type. I said, 'I guess men are in the shape of an L. The torso is straight. Vertical. And then you have the little feet at the end.' There's this painter named Leslie Lerner who was living in San Francisco in the '70s and '80s and made these beautiful paintings. He died on my 21st birthday. A lot of the record is about the similarities in our ideas. In what we're trying to make. Things that have to do with love and losing love."

TRACK LISTING

1. Hibernation
2. Exit Fears
3. Bleeder
4. Your Life In France
5. Your Life In America
6. The Separation
7. The Pattern
8. Root Of The World
9. The Party
10. The Bridge
11. The Understanding

Recently, The Quietus published an interview with Stuart Murdoch and Richard Colburn which gives a hint of what to expect from "Girls In Peacetime Want To Dance". The album opens with “Nobody’s Empire,” which Stuart said “is absolutely the most personal [song] I’ve ever written.” About the beginnings of his lifelong struggle with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome which led to his first forays into songwriting, it is easily one of his most musically and emotionally epic songs.

What it doesn’t indicate is how fun the album is. Produced and mixed at Maze Studios in Atlanta by Ben H. Allen III, best known for his work with Gnarls Barkley, Animal Collective, and Raury, among others, the band – who have been listening to things like vintage Detroit techno and Giogio Moroder – have brought a dance-party element (and a disco song about Sylvia Plath) into their gorgeous tales of sensitive souls navigating a world gone awry. It is perhaps the most inspired and wide-reaching album Belle and Sebastian have ever made.

TRACK LISTING

1. Nobody's Empire
2. Allie
3. The Party Line
4. The Power Of Three
5. The Cat With The Cream
6. Enter Sylvia Plath
7. The Everlasting Muse
8. Perfect Couples
9. Ever Had A Little Faith?
10. Play For Today
11. The Book Of You
12. Today (This Army's For Peace)

Recently, The Quietus published an interview with Stuart Murdoch and Richard Colburn which gives a hint of what to expect from "Girls In Peacetime Want To Dance". The album opens with “Nobody’s Empire,” which Stuart said “is absolutely the most personal [song] I’ve ever written.” About the beginnings of his lifelong struggle with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome which led to his first forays into songwriting, it is easily one of his most musically and emotionally epic songs.

What it doesn’t indicate is how fun the album is. Produced and mixed at Maze Studios in Atlanta by Ben H. Allen III, best known for his work with Gnarls Barkley, Animal Collective, and Raury, among others, the band – who have been listening to things like vintage Detroit techno and Giogio Moroder – have brought a dance-party element (and a disco song about Sylvia Plath) into their gorgeous tales of sensitive souls navigating a world gone awry. It is perhaps the most inspired and wide-reaching album Belle and Sebastian have ever made.

TRACK LISTING

Side 1
1. The Party Line

Side 2
1. The Everlasting Muse
2. The Power Of Three
3. Today (This Army's For Peace)

Side 3
1. Enter Sylvia Plath

Side 4
1. Born To Act
2. Two Birds
3. Ever Had A Little Faith? (Extended Version)

Side 5
1. Play For Today

Side 6
1. Nobody's Empire
2. Piggy In The Middle
3. The Book Of You

Side 7
1. Perfect Couples (Extended Version)

Side 8
1. Allie
2. A Politician's Silence
3. The Cat With The Cream

Vinyl reissue of Chavez’s 1995 debut album - ‘Gone Glimmering’.

Cult favourite album, back in print after over ten years.

Chavez were formed from the ashes of Wider, inspired by the sonic approach of math rock pioneers Slint and post-punk outfit Mission Of Burma. Chavez utilize angular, asymmetrical riffs and dramatic dynamic shifts. The band are fronted by guitarist Matt Sweeney, who was previously a member of Skunk and Wider and played with Guided By Voices. Drummer James Lo also came from Wider and the band are rounded out by guitarist Clay Tarver (Bullet Lavolta) and bassist Scott Marshall.

Chavez never officially broke up but they released no new material and played few shows between 1999 and 2006. In 2001, during Chavez’s period of inactivity, guitarist Matt Sweeney went on to join Smashing Pumpkins frontman / guitarist Billy Corgan and Slint guitarist David Pajo to form Zwan. Most recently, Sweeney teamed up with Will Oldham (under the moniker Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy) for the 2005 album ‘Superwolf’, as well producing and playing on Early Man’s debut record for Matador, ‘Closing In’. He also played guitar on Johnny Cash’s ‘American VI’, released posthumously in 2010.

Clay Tarver has kept himself busy directing various television commercials as well as writing the script for the movie ‘Joy Ride’.

The band were chosen to perform at the I’ll Be Your Mirror festival organized by ATP and Portishead in September 2011 in Asbury Park, New Jersey.

“Some of the most exciting rock songs of the last decade” - Pitchfork

“Probably weren’t the first mid-90s band to have their knotty guitar textures and algebraic time signtures called ‘math rock’, but they might have been the best” - Entertainment Weekly

Brill Bruisers is the first new release in four years from the acclaimed supergroup, who have been called, “Virtually peerless in the world of power-pop and indie-rock” by NPR Music. Additionally, the New Yorker describes the band’s music as “Magnificent and clever” while Stereogum proclaims “In recent history, no group has featured so much formidable established talent, collaborating on a regular basis.”

Of the album, lead-singer and main songwriter AC Newman comments, “This is a celebration record. After periods of difficulty, I am at a place where nothing in my life is dragging me down and the music reflects that. I’m grateful.”

Produced by band-members John Collin (bass) with Newman, the 12-track album was recorded primarily at Little Blue in Woodstock, NY and at JC/DC Studios in Vancouver B.C. with additional recording in Austin, Brooklyn and Vermont.

Fucked Up are a punk band. They were a punk band when they started in Toronto more than a decade ago and they’ve remained a punk band even as they’ve ascended to career heights that their younger selves never could’ve imagined. But how do you remain a punk band when you’re on magazine covers, or sharing stadium stages with the Foo Fighters? How do you stay true to your 15-year-old self when you’ve got a career to maintain and families to support? Those are the questions that Fucked Up asks on ‘Glass Boys’ and they ask those questions in the form of a blazing, titanic, ultimately triumphant rock album. 

The last two Fucked Up albums were sweeping, defining, monolithic gestures. On 2008’s ‘The Chemistry Of Common Life’ they tested hardcore’s capacity for stylistic innovation, for seven-minute songs and unconventional arrangements and they won Canada’s prestigious Polaris Music Prize in the process. With 2011’s ‘David Comes To Life’ they offered up a full-blown rock opera, coming with one larger-than-life hook after another and that made them even bigger and further away from the Toronto hardcore scene that nurtured them. ‘Glass Boys’ isn’t a retrenchment or a back-tobasics move - it’s too ambitious and complex for that - but after those last two albums it’s tight and concise and direct, an album of real and direct sentiment rather than artifice. 

Musically, ‘Glass Boys’ carries echoes of some of the more ragged and adventurous bands from America’s punk past (Husker Du, Dinosaur Jr.) but it also has some of the anthemic charge of The Who and the guttural intensity of Negative Approach. Singer Damian Abraham still growls like a demon but he’s found more range and depth in his bark. Drummer Jonah Falco does something innovative on the album, adding two separate drum tracks, one of them in half-time, adding a psychedelic, disorienting feel. 

The triple-guitar battalion of Mike Haliechuk, Ben Cook and Josh Zucker still builds symphonies out of feedback and powerchords but this time around there’s less emphasis on world-crushing riffs and more on world-creating textures. Bassist Sandy Miranda is now even more a part of that storm, her instrument blurring in with that overwhelming guitar roar. 

If the album’s lyrics concern the quest to stay true to your younger self, the music pulls off the trick beautifully. ‘Echo Boomer’, like ‘Son The Father’ and ‘Let Her Rest’ before it, makes for a powerful album opener, a surge of catharsis that gives a strong idea of what's to come. ‘Sun Glass’ builds from acoustic strumming to bleary pummel and stays pretty the whole time. ‘DET’ has one of those world-annihilating choruses that demands a full-room singalong and the album-closing title track is a blast of epic catharsis as grand and forceful as anything this band has ever done. After two monumental concept-driven concept albums, Fucked Up have made another heartexpanding, life-affirming piece of work, and this time, they’ve done it by shooting straight from the heart. 

TRACK LISTING

Echo Boomer
Touch Stone
Sun Glass
The Art Of Patrons
Warm Change
Paper The House
DET
Led By Hand
The Great Divide
Glass Boys

A lower-than-low priced compilation LP highlighting some of Matador’s most exciting 2013 moments, including (but not limited to) previously unreleased versions of songs from Queens Of The Stone Age, Yo La Tengo and Savages.

The perfect stocking stuffer, particularly if you own a 12” square stocking.

120g vinyl includes MP3 coupon.

Exclusively available to independent retailers.

“A solo record works best when you feel like you’re opening a window into somebody’s life, experiencing the things they’re going through or thinking about, places they’re seeing, through their eyes. At its best, you find a universality in it.” - Lee Ranaldo

Lee Ranaldo and his family were among the lucky Manhattanites left relatively unscathed by Hurrican Sandy in 2012, but for a week, they had no electricity, running water or heat. He did, however, have an acoustic guitar and, as has been the case of late, some new songs began spilling out of it, reflecting a prolific period imbued with eerie uncertainty. · Ranaldo had finished work on his last album, Between The Times And The Tides’, before Sonic Youth went on hiatus in the Autumn of 2011. The record followed an informal period of songwriting, borne of acoustic guitar fiddling and more direct lyrics from a poet known for emotive abstraction. His plans to record a low-key acoustic album soon evolved and many friends (Steve Shelley, Alan Licht, Nels Cline, Jim O’Rourke, Bob Bert, John Medeski, wife / artist Leah Singer) dropped by to conjure a vaguely psychedelic pop-rock sound that served Ranaldo and SY fans well.

A core unit came together, getting tighter after some roadwork, and soon Steve Shelley (Sonic Youth), Alan Licht, and bassist Tim Lüntzel became The Dust. The band dug in at Echo Canyon West through the winter, evolving a new set of songs with a decidedly more group dynamic. Yet even though he was tracking new songs with the band (plus the always-welcome Medeski), Ranaldo wanted to present songs that were even more personal and adaptable to various live contexts.

The songs on this album are darker, longer, and more intense than those of its predecessor, which was comparably upbeat. Despair and rage ripple through its atmosphere, but are held at bay, never quite able to touchdown. Ranaldo lives near Zucotti Park, which was HQ for NYC’s Occupy Wall Street movement. He has visited Occupy encampments in Toronto, São Paulo, and wherever else he can, often bringing his kids with him so they can witness left wing, non-violent democracy in action. Unlike his last record’s ‘Shouts’, there is no specific tribute to OWS, but there is a yearning for some real, societal shift. “Every time I wait for the revolution to come,” Ranaldo sings on ‘Home Chds.’ “Every night I think it?s here and then it?s gone.”

At the same time the songs on ‘Last Night On Earth’ reveal a guarded optimism. The term ‘hope’ has been politically co-opted and devalued but it’s a key element on ‘Last Night On Earth’. Ranaldo sings of land and water and love and certainty - external life forces that can turn on us at any second - from an exploratory, inviting place of coexistence.

Lee Ranaldo is a founding member of Sonic Youth, now in 32nd year. Although songwriting and performing with his band The Dust (Steve Shelley, Alan Licht, Tim Lüntzel) is his current focus, Lee also premiered a new work, ‘Hurricane Sandy Transcriptions’, for Berlin-based string ensemble Kaleidoskop (with Lee on guitar) at the Holland Festival in June 2013, with more performances to follow in spring 2014. Lee continues to perform experimental events with partner Leah Singer as well. Their recent live performances have been large scale, multi projection quadraphonic sound & cinema events, with Lee performing suspended electric guitar phenomena.

STAFF COMMENTS

Andy says: Lee Ranaldo surprised with the classicist nature of his debut album in 2012. Here he stretches out, getting darker and deeper, with some inspired guitar playing and moodier songs. It's excellent.

Darkside is the collaborative duo of guitarist Dave Harrington and electronic producer Nicolas Jaar. The two musicians have vastly different backgrounds, but over the course of several years of touring together they found common ground: Darkside. Dave and Nico use each other as mediums, working on primal instinct and summoning a hybrid of electronic music and psychedelic rock with the kind of artistic depth and breadth for which the term ‘progressive’ was coined.

Darkside unveil their debut full length, ‘Psychic’, to the world via Jaar’s own Other People label under license to Matador.

Nicolas Jaar came of age in New York City’s underground minimal techno scene, releasing a string of unearthly dance singles that brought the then-18-year-old producer quick renown. Lushly textured and almost subversively slow, 2010’s landmark ‘Time for Us’ EP (Wolf + Lamb) and 2011’s full length ‘Space Is Only Noise’ (Circus Company) dismantled and restructured dance music into heady new forms and garnered impressive reviews from both the electronic and rock press. He soon began weaving rock music into his own output, remixing acts like Grizzly Bear and Brian Eno, and performing with a live band.

Dave Harrington started out in New York City as a young bass player studying experimental jazz and sneaking into late night jam sessions as a teenager. He eventually moved into composition and performance art, creating commissioned works for theatre and film, directing a rendition of John Zorn’s ‘Cobra’, and integrating lap steel, guitar, keyboard, and effects into his arsenal. After joining the Nicolas Jaar live band in 2011 on guitar and electronics, Harrington began experimenting with dance music, remixing and DJing. Eventually, Harrington and Jaar started experimenting in their studio, and Darkside emerged.

Darkside’s ‘Psychic’ is a watershed moment for the duo, a quantum leap forward from their three song debut, 2011’s ‘Darkside’ EP (Clown & Sunset). ‘Psychic’ is a ritualistic song cycle, exploring rock’s cosmic outer edges through the immersive, body moving framework of 21st-century house and techno. Album opener ‘Golden Arrow’ is a microcosm of the album entire, charting an 11-minute journey from the desert to the stars: The song begins as a barren landscape where organs and static crackle on the horizon. But as ‘Golden Arrow’ builds toward its climax, guitars poke pointillistic patterns in the sky and the blackness rips open, revealing a lumbering sub-bass groove that rises out of the fissure. It’s mesmerizing and immediate, desperate and triumphant - and it sounds like nothing either has made before.

Darkside aren’t dancefloor producers taking a stab at rock music; nor are they a rock band paying homage to their new favourite techno 12”s. They’re deep listeners and creators of both who see little need for distinction between their favourite sounds. The result is ‘Psychic’, an album of uncompromising creative vision from two artists working at the peak of their powers.

Body/Head are an electric guitar duo comprised of Kim Gordon (CKM, Sonic Youth, Free Kitten) and Bill Nace (X.O.4, Vampire Belt, Ceylon Mange). They began working together in various loose formats a few years ago, but the Body/Head concept evolved more specifically in early 2012.

Initially their approach was largely instrumental - lattices of interwoven feedback rainbows, with bits recalling everyone from Heldon to Keiji Haino. They often performed against a backdrop of slow-motion film projection, creating a dream narrative of undeniable power and visionary reach. Kim’s voice began creeping more into the mix, and the vocals are now an intrinsic part of their musical architecture. They have even started writing and playing ‘songs’, compositionally distinct from their purely aleatory origins, but still featuring lots of built-in improvisational space.

Body/Head have recorded a single for Dennis Tyfuss’ Ultra Eczema Editions, a tour EP for Nace’s own Open Mouth Productions, and released a collaboration with Dead C’s Michael Morley through Feeding Tube Records.

‘Coming Apart’, their debut album, is released by Matador Records.

“A call-and-response of healing, oceanic feedback.” - Jon Caramanica, New York Times

“Some of the most courageous and emotive singing of Gordon’s career, and some of the most fantastically elastic music currently being produced, shifting form and formlessness without batting an eye.” - Matt Krefting

Queens Of The Stone Age announce their sixth studio album, ‘...Like Clockwork’, on Matador Records. The band have also unveiled the new album’s stunning artwork by UK artist Boneface.

Described by Queens principal Joshua Homme as “an audio documentary of a manic year,” ‘...Like Clockwork’ is the band’s first full length collection of all new material since 2007’s ‘Era Vulgaris’, as well as the band’s debut release on new label partner Matador.

‘...Like Clockwork’ was produced by Joshua Homme and QOTSA, and recorded by Mark Rankin with additional engineering by Justin Smith, at Josh’s Pink Duck studio in Burbank, California.

TRACK LISTING

1 Keep Your Eyes Peeled 
2 I Sat By The Ocean 
3 The Vampyre Of Time And Memory 
4 If I Had A Tail
5 My God Is The Sun 
6 Kalopsia 
7 Fairweather Friends 
8 Smooth Sailing 
9 I Appear Missing 
10 ...Like Clockwork

Majical Cloudz is the voice of Montreal songwriter Devon Welsh, exploring the negative space within electronic music, using his powerful vocals to say “no” to the infinite possibilities digital instruments provide and instead choosing to focus his attention inwardly.

Joined by Matthew Otto to collaboratively produce and perform his songs, the 2012 debut album ‘II’ and the ‘Turns Turns Turns’ EP released on Arbutus / Merok in December gained praise for their simplicity and honestly. Now, ‘Impersonator’ brings Welsh’s songs into even sharper focus as the expressive power and swagger belie the extremely minimal music. These are intensely lyrical songs about death, patience, family, friendship and desire, with Welsh’s rich vocals atop quiet looped waves of white noise, filtered synths and sparse thuds.

Welsh expounds on how he came to his personal, minimal brand of electronic music: “In the last few years there’s been a massive explosion of amazing music made with electronic equipment. I love that kind of music but it also started to overwhelm me, I wasn’t cut out for the maximalist expressions of that style. So I took a break from music, and when I started again it was to make music that barely existed and felt like stillness more than movement. Where the songs could be more about humanness. The easiest way for me to do that is try to make something without obvious movement; where the music isn’t overstuffed sonically or referentially, it’s emptied out as much as possible. So the vision for ‘Impersonator’ was to communicate a lot with as little as possible. It’s not meant to energize and turn you out to the world, it’s meant to do the opposite; it’s more like a cocoon.”

Most of ‘Impersonator’ was written at Welsh’s father’s house in rural Ontario, in the basement after he went to sleep. He says, “One day I realized I had fifteen to twenty songs, and they made me feel like I had overcome the dead end I thought I was in. I started realizing that I could say anything I want in a song.”

Welsh cites Elliott Smith and Arthur Russell as the two biggest influences on his song writing. While ‘Impersonator’ sounds like neither, Smith’s lyricism is evident, as is Russell’s ability to distil a number of seemingly contradictory stylistic ideas into a single focussed statement. Other records Welsh listened to while writing the album point to the diversity embedded in ‘Impersonator’s deceptively simple approach: Drake’s ‘Take Care’, Oneohtrix Point Never’s ‘Replica’, Kurt Vile’s ‘Smoke Ring For My Halo’, Grouper’s ‘AIA’, Kraftwerk’s ‘Trans-Europe Express’, Paul Simon’s ‘Paul Simon’, John Lennon’s ‘Plastic Ono Band’.

While Welsh and Otto work collaboratively in the studio, live Welsh is front and centre on the mic, as Otto creates the musical atmosphere. “I put forward songs and big ideas, and he pushes me to look at the little details,” says Welsh. “Live it’s a similar dynamic, he gives me the platform to stand on musically.” The songs are made with relatively low-tech means, allowing for spontaneity and experimentation, both live and in-studio. For Welsh, the track ‘This Is Magic’ works as a metaphor for the album as a whole: “That song functions with very minimal arrangements, very straightforward lyrics, it operates on a loop, and the message is that there is strength, rather than weakness, in being vulnerable.”

Though they stand stylistically apart from other artists in their Montreal scene - which includes Grimes, Doldrums, Blue Hawaii, Mac DeMarco, and others - Majical Cloudz are proud beneficiaries of its camaraderie. “The waves that are being made internationally by Montreal musicians really started in the fall of 2009, so the fact that it is finally happening is unbelievable and I’m euphoric about it,” says Welsh. “I don’t think I could find an art / music scene as rewarding to me anywhere else, because it takes a while to get comfortable being vulnerable in front of a whole community.”

Five and a half minutes into ‘Was All Talk’, the third track off his new album Wakin On A Pretty Daze, Kurt Vile murmurs in his beatific, laconic burr, “Makin’ music is easy / Watch me”. If that sounds like an empty boast it’s likely you’ve just not listened to enough of Vile’s music yet, as the way Kurt’s songs fall into place suggests that his art is entirely and convincingly effortless. That these songs zero in on a hazy perfection with such laser-guided precision shows that behind this veneer of lackadaisical creativity, beavers a songwriter toiling hard to make music so beguilingly laid-back.

Kurt Vile (his real name) is one of ten children, born in 1980 and raised in the city of brotherly love, Philadelphia. As a teenager, his bluegrass-lovin’ father gifted him a banjo, when what Kurt truly craved was a guitar. So, with a ‘can do’ spirit that’s a boon to any independent musician, he simply played it as if it were a guitar. Along with his passion for the 4-track-toting titans of early 90’s indie-rock, Vile also harboured a love for classic rock of substance – Creedence, Tom Petty, Neil Young, artists with their roots in ‘Roots’, but with enough vision to carve out an Americana of their own. Within the footprints he was following, Vile began carving a path of his own, making an art of dipping from introspective mellow rambles, to sky-scraping anthems; eager to rock out, equally unafraid to sing low and sweet.

Fast-forward some years and with The Violators in tow (the Heartbreakers to his Tom Petty, if you will) barnstormers like ‘Freak Train’ from the full-length Childish Prodigy [2009] were contrasted with more reflective and sun-dappled tunes from his break-through album Smoke Ring For My Halo [2011], as Kurt quietly became one of the great American guitarists and songwriters of our time.

Wakin On A Pretty Daze, Vile’s fifth full-length, is an album that builds on all Kurt has done before, that makes sense of the supposedly contrary impulses of his previous work. Learning whilst ascending, he’s crafted an album that would have sounded great 30 years ago, sounds great today and will still sound great 30 years from now.

Realising he’s in no rush to prove anything to anyone, songs on Wakin On A Pretty Daze unfurl at their own extended and unhurried pace, but not a second of this loveliness is wasted or surplus. The likes of ‘Air Bud’, ‘Was All Talk’ and ‘Gold Tone’ could keep on ringing out, exploring every possible wrinkle in its chord sequences and expounding with wisdom on the simple pleasures of a beautiful day, for as long as Kurt could stand to play them. These aren’t jams; these are songs that glide as they unwind, with a natural charm that’s enough to convince you that, yes, for Kurt, Makin’ music is easy. So, seriously: Watch him.

TRACK LISTING

1. Wakin On A Pretty Day
2. KV Crimes
3. Was All Talk
4. Girl Called Alex
5. Never Run Away
6. Pure Pain
7. Too Hard
8. Shame Chamber
9. Snowflakes Are Dancing
10. Air Bud
11. Gold Tone

Chelsea Light Moving is the current group led by Sonic Youth founder Thurston Moore. He is the songwriter and plays over-amped hyper electric guitar and sings with raw-glam-destructo vocals. The band is a four piece featuring Samara Lubelski, who has played violin with TM on his last two solo LPs (Demolished Thoughts and Trees Outside The Academy) and with Chelsea Light Moving plays deep psyche pop metal bass guitar. Keith Wood, who records under the aegis Hush Arbors, plays electric guitar with a pick forged from angel wing and John Moloney, aka “Pegasus”, approaches the drums like an asteroid hurtling toward Earth. The first  self-titled album was recorded in two spurious sessions with engineer Justin Pizzoferrato in Sone Lab, a killer studio in Easthampton Massachusetts. The band is ready to detonate any birthday party, wedding or hullabaloo in any country, planet or stratosphere that doesn’t support right wing extremist NRA sucking bozo-ology.

STAFF COMMENTS

Darryl says: Thurston Moore of Sonic Youth fame presents his new group, Chelsea Light Moving. Taking cues from early Sonic Youth guitar overloads like 'Sister' and 'Evol' but adding grungey noise detonations this four piece destroys all before it!

Dispelling any burden of ‘the difficult second album’, Esben And The Witch have comprehensively transcended any such slump or curse with ‘Wash The Sins Not Only The Face’, a majestic, haunting and triumphant work that is not ‘difficult’ in the slightest.

Their second full-length brings to fruition concepts that glimmered on their first, 2011’s acclaimed ‘Violet Cries’, but there are no laurels being rested upon here. To make their second album, Esben And The Witch questioned, challenged and rewired their past to find the way to their future and have produced their first masterpiece.

To quote Daniel Copeman, “We had a clearer idea of what we wanted to achieve on this album, and how we could achieve it. We’re more focused, more confident.”

Their first album took them on the road, and the road took them all over the globe. It was on these journeys, during van-held conversations, that their second album began to take shape, the band happening upon an ancient Greek palindrome ‘Nipson anomēmata mē monan opsin’ which, when translated, gave ‘Wash The Sins Not Only The Face’ its title.

They wanted the album to unfurl like a journey, like a day, where opening songs are possessed of a brightness, an optimism that ebbs away over the record’s course. The radiant glide of opener ‘Iceland Spar’, gives way to the bleak lonesomeness of ‘Yellow Wood’, the moment where the sun sets, with closing track ‘Smashed To Pieces In The Still Of The Night’ ending proceedings at a peak of drama and intensity.

Previously, lyrics were written more collaboratively between the trio; this time Rachel assumed the sole responsibility herself, honing her words and stories. The lyrics are inspired by TS Eliot and Sylvia Plath, by the works of Vladimir Nabokov and Philip Pullman, Salvador Dali and the surrealist movement; that, and van conversations questioning what it would be like to meet your doppelganger thousands of miles from home.

The result is an album that finds new shades within the Esben palette, and when placed alongside ‘Violet Cries’, feels like a fuzzy image that’s pulled successfully into focus.

All of this makes you wonder where this road will take them next. More to the point, it makes you want to savour where Esben And The Witch are at now, because ‘Wash The Sins Not Only The Face’ is a sublime experience, an album whose mysteries and riddles will entrance.

TRACK LISTING

Iceland Spar
Slow Wave
When That Head Splits
Shimmering
Deathwaltz
Yellow Wood
Despair
Putting Down The Prey
The Fall Of Glorieta Mountain
Smashed To Pieces In The Still Of The Night

‘Fade’ is the most direct, personal and cohesive album of Yo La Tengo’s career. Recorded with John McEntire at Soma Studios in Chicago, it recalls the sonic innovation and lush cohesion of career high points like 1997’s ‘I Can Hear The Heart Beating As One’ and 2000’s ‘…And Then Nothing Turned Itself Inside Out’. ‘Fade’ is a tapestry of fine melody and elegant noise, rhythmic shadow play and shy-eyed orchestral beauty, songfulness and experimentation.

‘Fade’ attains a lyrical universality and hard-won sense of grandeur that’s rare even for this band. It weaves themes of aging, personal tragedy and emotional bonds into a fully-realized whole that recalls career-defining statements like ‘Blood On The Tracks’, ‘I Want To See The Bright Lights Tonight’ or Al Green’s ‘Call Me’.

“Nothing ever stays the same / Nothing’s explained”, the band sing in unison on the reflective opening track ‘Ohm’. “We try not to lose our hearts / Not to lose our minds” - a straightforward sentiment for a band that prefer private intimation to forceful expression, making the song’s resistance to resignation feel that much more earned.

This is the first time Yo La Tengo have collaborated with producer John McEntire, best known for his work in post-rock band Tortoise as well as his work with such artists as Bright Eyes, Stereolab and Teenage Fanclub. He has helped the band hone a set of songs as multifaceted as they are seamless, flowing from the low key shimmy of ‘Well You Better’ to the muted motorik kick of ‘Stupid Things’, to the cozy distortion of ‘Paddle Forward’ and right through to the cagey groove, horns and strings of the gorgeous album closer, ‘Before We Run’, in which the band’s Georgia Hubley and Ira Kaplan sing “Take me to your distant lonely place / Take me out beyond mistrust.”

‘Fade’s emotional core sits at its very centre with two songs, one sung by Kaplan and one by Hubley. The tender, raw, Kaplan-sung ballad ‘I’ll Be Around’ pivots around a circular guitar figure set against James McNew’s calm, pulsating bassline. The song’s simplicity and starkness stand like a beacon against the emptiness.

‘Cornelia And Jane’ features Hubley gently singing “I hear them whispering, they analyse, but nobody knows what’s lost in your eyes / Sending the message that doesn’t get to you, how can we care for you?”, supported by whispering cushions of horns and delicate vocal harmonies. The effect is both heartbreaking and reassuring.

“In the best possible sense, Yo La Tengocan feel less like a band and more like a beloved national trust” - Stereogum

STAFF COMMENTS

Andy says: Modern-day Velvets do it again.

As Interpol’s front man, Paul Banks has largely been a cipher; while certainly not lacking in charisma, his sardonic manner and dry sense of humour often polarised and confounded listeners and critics alike.

Banks’ first solo album found him assuming the alter ego of Julian Plenti, but he’s now jettisoned this for ‘Banks’, credited to Paul Banks (as was its preceding EP).

Whereas 2009’s Julian Plenti ‘Is…Skyscraper’ album was culled largely from songs pre-dating Interpol, ‘Banks’ is a vivid documentation of Banks in the here and now, and may be his most personal work to date. “Yeah, I suppose I wanted to simplify things this time around,” he explains. “Julian Plenti was something that I had to do, but once it was done, I didn't need to hold on to it. I'm just making music and hoping to let it speak for itself.”

Here Paul delivers some of his most disarming and heartfelt lyrics to date, far removed from his often detached anomie with Interpol.

Produced by Paul Banks and Peter Katis (Interpol, Jónsi, The National).

Sun is the new studio album from Cat Power. Six years after her last album of original material [The Greatest, 2006], Chan Marshall has moved on from her collaborative forays into Memphis soul and Delta blues. She wrote, played, recorded and produced the entirety of Sun by herself, a statement of complete control that is echoed in the songs’ themes.

Marshall calls Sun “a rebirth,” which is exactly what this confident, ambitious, charismatic record feels like. “Moon Pix [1998] was about extreme isolation and survival in the crazy struggle,” she says. "Sun is don't look back, pick up, and go confidently into your own future, to personal power and fulfilment."

The music on Sun employs a sweeping stylistic palette: There’s the classic Cat Power haunting guitar and provocative vocal hook in ‘Cherokee’ (“marry me to the sky… bury me upside down”); the irresistible Latin-sounding nine-piano loop of ‘Ruin’; upbeat, almost dancey electronic anthems like ‘Real Life’ and ‘3,6,9’; and the stirring, 8-minute epic ‘Nothin But Time,’ featuring a vocal cameo by Iggy Pop. The swagger of ‘Silent Machine’ brings to mind mid-70s Jagger, contrasted with the unusual, sparse production of ‘Always On My Own’. The narrative arc of the record is deeply optimistic; the music is defiantly modern and global.

Though devoid of grave bedroom confessionals, Sun is possibly Cat Power’s most personal album to date. For all its layered expansiveness, it is as handcrafted as her debut, and never has a Cat Power album so paralleled her personality and state of mind – channelling her humour, anger, deep empathy, musical inspirations, technical skill, and spiritual inquiry into an album that’s both surprising and comforting.

Those versed in the Cat Power discography will detect elements of 2003's landmark album You Are Free, which experimented with vocal forms and beats borrowed from urban music, and the spellbinding authority of songs like ‘American Flag’. Sonically, however, with credit to mixer Philippe Zdar (Phoenix, Chromeo, Beastie Boys), Sun is incredibly fresh, reflecting its forward-looking mindset.

Sun was recorded over the past three years in Malibu (in a studio she built herself), Silver Lake (in the Dust Brothers’ studio The Boat), Miami (South Beach Studios), and Paris (Motorbass), where she mixed with Zdar in Spring 2012.

STAFF COMMENTS

Darryl says: Chan Marshall aka Cat Power returns with her first album of original material in six years. 'Sun' strides confidently over a sonic palette of swaggering guitars, electronic beats, haunting melodies and vocal hooks aplenty all swept along with a fresh multi-layered production.

TRACK LISTING

1. Cherokee
2. Sun
3. Ruin
4. 3,6,9
5. Always On My Own
6. Real Life
7. Human Being
8. Manhattan
9. Silent Machine
10. Nothin But Time
11. Peace And Love

‘I Am Not Afraid Of You And I Will Beat Your Ass’ is the eleventh full-length album by Hobokonbased alternative indie band Yo La Tengo, originally released on September 12, 2006. It is their sixth album released on Matador.

The title of the album is rumoured to be a (paraphrased) quote by NBA player Tim Thomas. Sitting on the bench together during a game, Thomas was caught on tape by the MSG Network in a profane exchange with another player: “Everyone in this organization is afraid of you, but I’m not, and I will beat your ass.”

‘You Are Free’ is the sixth album by American singer / songwriter Chan Marshall, a.k.a. Cat Power.

The album was released in 2003 on Matador Records. Dave Grohl of Nirvana and The Foo Fighters plays the drums, Eddie Vedder of Pearl Jam provides backing vocals on two tracks, and Warren Ellis played violin on two songs.

‘Moon Pix’ is the fourth album by American singer / songwriter Cat Power (a.k.a. Chan Marshall). It was originally released in September 1998 on Matador records.

The album features Mick Turner and Jim White from Dirty Three, on guitar and drums respectively.

According to Cat Power, several songs on the album - ‘No Sense’, ‘Say’, ‘Metal Heart’, ‘You May Know Him’ and ‘Cross Bones Style’ - were written “in one deranged night” following a hallucinatory nightmare Marshall had in 1997 while alone in the South Carolina farmhouse she shared with thenboyfriend Bill Callahan. “I got woken up by someone in the field behind my house in South Carolina,” she explained, “The earth started shaking, and dark spirits were smashing up against every window of my house. I woke up and I had my kitten next to me... and I started praying to God to help me... so I just ran and got my guitar because I was trying to distract myself. I had to turn on the lights and sing to God. I got a tape recorder and recorded the next sixty minutes. And I played these long changes, into six different songs. That's where I got the record.”

Sonic Youth guitarist Lee Ranaldo puts out his first proper, song-oriented studio album this March. Recorded with longstanding Sonic Youth producer John Agnello, the album is a shimmering and melodic tapestry of rock sounds.

Ranaldo’s trademark alternate-tuning guitar work is at the forefront, but it is amplified by brilliant leadwork from Wilco’s Nels Cline on every track.

The all-star line up also includes Sonic Youth’s Steve Shelley on drums, Alan Licht on guitar, and John Medeski on keyboards.

There are also cameos from original Sonic Youth drummer Bob Bert and producer and instrumentalist Jim O’Rourke.

‘Between The Times And The Tides’ is equal parts smart, confident and loose in a manner that recalls some of our favourite rock ‘n’ roll projects …yet sounds like a fantastic new band that was apparently being assembled right under our noses.

With lyrics plumbing Ranaldo’s childhood and adolescence, it’s a fascinatingly approachable song collection from one of rock’s greatest guitarists.

“Sonic Youth’s Dark Horse finally emerges into a role that plenty of SY fans wish he’d embraced earlier. '60s and ‘70s Los Angeles rock is a fine reference point for Ranaldo's music, even with the chiming guitars that are strictly New York” - Village Voice

STAFF COMMENTS

Darryl says: I know what you're thinking - a Lee Ranaldo solo album, experimental and difficult - but you couldn't be further from the truth. ‘Between The Times And The Tides’ is packed full of melodic gems, with angular chiming guitars aplenty, as you'd expect from the Sonic Youth man. Highly recommended!

The rock opera: the final word in decadent capitalist-pig rock. The kind of tediously long, navel-gazing fodder from which faded rock dictators cling onto power by their filthy fingernails. Breaking with rank unsurprisingly, then, come Fucked Up, one of the most vital punk bands around and people who aren’t scared of a challenge.

Following up their Polaris Prize winning breakthrough, ‘The Chemistry Of Common Life’, their third album ‘David Comes To Life’ is no less monumental. Split across four acts, it sees increased female vocals work in perfect contrast to Damian Abraham's wounded bull growl. The band, meanwhile, provide more space for the flourishes and imaginative song-writing that entwine their love of fey British indie pop with heavy riffing, amidst some genuinely twisted turns. Perhaps most grippingly, the triple-guitar interplay between Mike Haliechuk, Josh Zucker and Ben Cook has risen to symphonic levels. Together, they channel the energy of musicians ranging from Angus Young, Pete Townshend and Noel Gallagher, to Bob Stinson and Lyle Preslar, displaying a consummate ease and ferocity.

Then there comes the story that ties it together: ‘David Comes To Life’ appears to be a parable of lost love, global meltdown, depression, war, guilt and madness. Or is it? A modern day morality tale set to the dour backdrop of a British industrial town in the late 70s, the narrative follows the dark moods and inner psyche of its titular hero. At the same time, the reliability of the narrator is called into question, the tables are turned, responsibility shifts, and the story takes on a meta twist. It’s a fantastically complex concept that somehow works as a coherent narrative, while the mind-altering subject matter sits perfectly with the intense music.

Of course, you could always ignore the back-story and instead listen to a fiercely imaginative, powerful 78 minutes of blistering, melodic rock ‘n’ roll, crossed with all manners of psychic weirdness.

Kurt Vile has a way of tying time in knots. You can hear it on his new album "Smoke Ring For My Halo" from the get-go – the pinwheeling guitars and reaching atmospheres of "Baby’s Arms" are as strange as they are familiar: a demonstration of how Kurt can put worn methods and sounds through himself and end up with something that isn’t emotionally or sonically obvious. Instead we’re left with a record that contains traces of the past but doesn’t waste precious time in the now being reverent.

Once compared to Leonard Cohen, Tom Petty, Psychic TV and Animal Collective in the same review, Kurt can bring to mind anything from Suicide to Leo Kottke to My Bloody Valentine, Bob Seger, Nick Drake and Eastern ragas. Still, he pieces together these disparate elements so seamlessly and unpretentiously that such reference points are rendered pointless by the singularity of his sound. Kurt Vile might belong to a long lineage of classic American songwriters, but he’s the only one who’s alive and in his prime today.

This is the fourth time Kurt Vile has put an album’s worth of songs together and stuck a name on it, but in a sense "Smoke Ring For My Halo" is his first real album - every flinching guitar arpeggio and vocal wander was made to be here, made with this record in mind, to sit alongside another in situ and in sequence. It’s a record that is perfect for any given day during whatever season, to satisfy all moods in every possible scenario, be that first thing in the morning or last thing at night; today, tomorrow or five years from now.

TRACK LISTING

1. Baby’s Arms
2. Jesus Fever
3. Puppet To The Man
4. On Tour
5. Society Is My Friend
6. Runner Ups
7. In My Time
8. Peeping Tomboy
9. Smoke Ring For My Halo
10. Ghost Town

In between his two albums, Jay Reatard has released two compilations of 7" singles for In The Red and Matador respectively (both 2008) and has also been busy with his own Shattered Records label (home to acts like Box Elders, Useless Eaters, Jeffrey Novak and Hunx). When people call him prodigious, they might be underselling him somewhat. For his second studio album, "Watch Me Fall", Jay has moved beyond his roots and recorded an album chockful of irresistible melodies and cascading with joyous hooks. He would not be Jay Reatard, however, if there wasn't a certain aggro negativity, and the song titles and lyrics do much to undercut the pop sensibility: "I'm Watching You", "Hang Them All", "Can't Do It Anymore", "Wounded" and "It Ain't Gonna Save Me", amongst others.

Interpol's lead singer, lyricist and guitarist Paul Banks releases his debut solo album under the name Julian Plenti. Julian Plenti began composing music in 1996 in New York City. He first played solo acoustic shows in and around Manhattan, at venues like Tobacco Road, Pete's Candy Store, The Knitting Factory, The Living Room, and the Sidewalk Cafe's Wednesday Night Anti-hoot with Latch. In 2001, he stopped performing, though he continued writing and doing occasional engineering work, he essentially went on sabbatical until 2006 when he acquired Logic Pro, which allowed him to compose for multiple instruments and to create beats. The first step was to resurrect early acoustic work such as "Girl On The Sporting News", "On The Esplanade", "Fly As You Might" and "Fun That We Have" and to refurbish them with beats and string arrangements. The resulting recordings bred newer enthusiasms and were the catalyst for this record. "Skyscraper" was born. In the fall of 2008, Plenti went to the Seaside Lounge Studio in Brooklyn to work with studio co-owner and engineer - and college classmate - Charles Burst (former drummer of The Occasion and now a solo artist). Burst engineered much of the record and plays drums on a number of tracks. Session musicians were hired to perform the arrangements for strings and horns, and Plenti called on friends like Mike Stroud of Ratatat, Sam Fogarino of Interpol and Striker Manley of Stiff Jesus to contribute to tracks on the album.

"Challengers" continues The New Pornographer's signature multi-layered sound with greater epic sweep and wider sonic diversity. Less frenetically jaunty than its predecessors but still encapsulating pure summer joy, this album will impress the existing fans and convert the uninitiated. Recorded for the first time largely outside bassist John Collins' Vancouver JC/DC Studio, "Challengers" is their most organic-sounding record, reflecting a conscious decision to use less 'beepy synth' and almost entirely 'real' instruments (in addition to those listed above, they recruited an entire string section – who have played with Sufjan Stevens - plus harp, flute, and more).