On her kaleidoscopic second album, 'The Starrr Of The Queen Of Life', Debby Friday defines success on her own terms. “I want to be a starrr, I can't hide that desire,” she says. “But what I don't want is to live someone else’s dream or to follow a pre-set path.” For the Nigerian-Canadian polymath, to be a starrr is to live at the extremes: public versus private, hubris versus humility, flying versus falling.

Being a starrr means embracing the apocalyptic hedonism of an all-night rave—finding communion in the “dark room, girls in line for the bathroom” on the buzzing house anthem 'All I Wanna Do Is Party'. It means swapping lines about bottles on ice and getting freaky on the dance floor with Detroit techno prodigies HiTech on 'In The Club'—while admitting that she is, in fact, “barely on the dance floor these days.” It’s the sound of discovering what comes after the kind of success most artists only dream about—how to burn brightly without burning out. Across 11 songs, 'The Starrr Of The Queen Of Life' showcases Friday’s chameleonic vocals. From the sparse, gossamer beauty of the lovelorn 'Leave.' to the locomotive post-punk of 'Darker The Better'.

Winning the Polaris Prize in 2023 for her debut LP, 'GOOD LUCK', only made Debby Friday want to grind harder: “I’m tryna see more/ Man, I want the payoff” she raps over laser-like synths on the effortless copycat kiss-off 'Lipsync'. But life on the razor’s edge can only be sustainable for so long: During a nonstop tour schedule in support of the album, she fell violently ill. The diagnosis? Stress-induced shingles. That experience forced Friday to turn her focus inward. The next year saw a change in management, in her routine and priorities.

To help bring her vision of radical honesty on the dance floor to life, Friday recruited Australian producer Darcy Baylis (Wicca Phase Springs Eternal). Returning to their de-facto homebase in London in between touring, the pair traded ideas in the studio from morning until midnight. Layered with meaning, The Starrr Of The Queen Of Life is brimming with coded, if-you-know-you-know references—weaving love letters and innuendos from the names of it girl perfumes, French cognac, and Hellenistic prophetesses who speak in tongues. It reads like a manifestation of Friday’s pursuit of an experimental pop sound that still feels distinctively hers.

“This album is about the idea of reaching towards something,” she says. “It’s about seeing the signs and following that impulse, always with the potential of either flying into the sun or falling back to earth.” On 'The Starrr Of The Queen Of Life', Debby Friday takes flight, fastening her wings, following the sound of her own voice.

TRACK LISTING

1. 1/17
2. All I Wanna Do Is Party
3. In The Club Featuring HiTech
4. Lipsync
5. Alberta
6. Higher
7. Ppp (Interlude)
8. Arcadia
9. Leave.
10. Bet On Me
11. Darker The Better

There’s one thing Forth Wanderers want to make clear as they prepare to release their third album 'The Longer This Goes On': “We’re not back,” guitarist Ben Guterl says emphatically. It’s perhaps an unexpected sentiment to pair with the band’s first album since they parted ways seven years ago, but the band insists it’s an honest answer—they came together to record the ten intricately constructed gems that make up this new record, and they’re still figuring out what being in Forth Wanderers means to them. Listening to these songs, each a glittering celebration of vocalist Ava Trilling’s urgent and intuitive lyrics and the band’s natural musical chemistry, though, it’s hard to feel like there’s much of anything left unsaid. Filled with spit-shined melodies, chiming vocal harmonies, and slinky, slanted rhythms, the album is more expansive than just a return to form. The band isn’t afraid to take the scenic route to a hook, layering instrumental flourishes to fill in the empty spaces, creating room for Trilling’s haunting range, or repeating a riff or a lyric until it becomes a Zen koan. On 'The Longer This Goes On', Forth Wanderers sound more self-aware and self-assured than ever before. Just don’t call it a comeback.

The road to 'The Longer This Goes On' began in a Brooklyn coffee shop in the summer of 2021. There, Guterl and Trilling met for the first time since Forth Wanderers’ dissolution in 2018. The three years they’d been apart had deflated some of the pressures the band felt when they were touring their previous music: “We all felt free to mess around and have fun,” Guterl says. Reconnecting with bassist Noah Schifrin, guitarist Duke Greene, and drummer Zach Lorelli made playing feel “the best it had between us since we had started the band. It felt like we were in high school again.”

The band reimagined the way they were used to working. “This is the first time where a lot of the music was formed organically,” Schifrin explained. “All five of us really contributed to the writing process in ways that we hadn’t before in the past,” Guterl added. The resulting album, produced under the watchful eye of Dan Howard, captures the band at their most present and unburdened, creating their sound in real time for the very first time. The lyrics are packed with confessionals broad enough to make anyone lost in the mess of an uncertain romantic limbo feel understood, yet so precisely written that it must have clearly come from lived experience. This is exactly what made Forth Wanderers both so universally relatable and specifically felt. On 'The Longer This Goes On', they’ve deepened that ability to pull at potent threads of romantic ennui with minimalist lyrics and lush instrumentation.

Forth Wanderers aren’t sure what’s next—they’re not sure if they’ll continue to record new music or if they’ll ever perform these songs live. These recordings, then, are ten fleeting yet invaluable impressions of the time spent as a band; rekindling of friendships between high school buddies whose dreams catapulted them into the spotlight before they were old enough to drive; songs that capture the uncertainty of the future as much as their music cements their own self-confidence in the present. On 'The Longer This Goes On', Forth Wanderers are making music on their own terms.

TRACK LISTING

1. To Know Me/To Love Me
2. Call You Back
3. Honey
4. 7 Months
5. Spit
6. Springboard
7. Make Me
8. Barnard
9. Bluff
10. Don’t Go Looking

'Different Talking', the sixth and, so far, best album by NYC indie-rock four-piece Frankie Cosmos, seems to exist across time and space, as we all kind of do. It’s a collection of fragments and memories, remembered places, and reinterpreted feelings that adds up to a lucent, humming whole: a sturdy, worldly indie-rock record about aging and the passage of time that nonetheless manages to feel sharply current. Frankie Cosmos’ lead singer, guitarist, and songwriter Greta Kline has long been heralded as one of contemporary indie music’s most deft and most necessary writers, but on 'Different Talking', her lyrics soften out slightly, the wry cynicism that defined recent records now giving way to an acknowledgment of the awesome, and necessary, fallibility of the human brain and heart.

To classify 'Different Talking' as a return to form, or at least a return to the lush directness of earlier Frankie Cosmos records, would be rude but also wholly incorrect: as 'Different Talking' makes clear, you can never return to the comfort and bravery of your early twenties, but that person always kind of lives inside you, no matter how much you change. 'Different Talking' is about finding that person, honoring them, and learning from them. “A lot of the album is about being grown up and figuring out how to know yourself – like, ‘What is moving on?’” says Kline. “How do we move on when we’re addicted to a cycle of haunting our own past? Writing songs is just the way through that.”

Kline has been a fixture of the American indie underground since her late teens when her prolific Bandcamp releases and 2014 indie-label debut Zentropy led her to be dubbed “the poet laureate of New York City DIY.” A tag like that is a lot for young shoulders to take on, but it’s hard to deny the singular influence she has had on contemporary pop music. If the idea of a young woman picking up a synth in her bedroom, putting a couple of songs on the internet, and quickly becoming a superstar is now de rigeur, it’s because Kline and her peers normalized and exalted (female) DIY genius long before they were pinned to moodboards in major-label marketing offices.

A lot has changed since then: after going through a handful of different permutations over the past decade, Frankie Cosmos is now a four-piece featuring Kline, Alex Bailey, Katie Von Schleicher, and Hugo Stanley. Kline is the only constant, but Stanley, Bailey, and Von Schleicher are crucial collaborators, and to use the names “Greta Kline” and “Frankie Cosmos” interchangeably would be incorrect. Kline remains the primary songwriter, and the music on Different Talking is arranged by the band as a whole, but this is the first album to be self-tracked and self-produced by the band. Not coincidentally, it feels like a purer, more distilled take. “It does feel like the best version of what I’ve wanted to make since I was a teenager,” says Kline. “Although this was recorded in a living room, it’s as high fidelity as anything we’ve made in the studio.”

TRACK LISTING

1. Pressed Flower
2. One Of Each
3. Against The Grain
4. Bitch Heart
5. Porcelain
6. One! Grey! Hair!
7. Vanity
8. Not Long
9. Margareta
10. Your Take On
11. High Five Handshake
12. You Become
13. Joyride
14. Tomorrow
15. Wonderland
16. Life Back
17. Pothole

The Bug Club are back, again, for their annual appointment at the garage rock makers’ market, where they’re flogging yet another pedigree record. LP number four, 'Very Human Features', arrives hot on the heels of the band’s first Sub Pop release, 2024’s 'On the Intricate Inner Workings of the System'. That record saw the band continue their love affair with BBC Radio 6, start up a new one with KEXP thanks to a session with them, and crop up in the pages of the NME. Anything else from the bucket list? Oh yeah, festival slots including packing home ground Green Man’s Walled Garden to its non-existent rafters. Then shows across the US in those venues us Brits tend to only hear about.

This record - a new batch of typically playful, riff-laden, smart Bug Club tunes - gives the band an excuse to continue their never-ending tour and feed their baying fans, engorged and expectant thanks to this band’s relentless record-releasing hot streak. “Have you ever been to Wales?”, asks the band in the album’s lead single. ”If not, why not? It’s good." A new, discordant national anthem, if they didn’t already have a decent harmonious one. Oh, to be from a country where national pride is something other than the mark of a tosser. Starting as a classic, chugging chantalong, it’s interrupted by what sounds like an alien choir before they let rip. Think Dinosaur Jr. with a job at the tourist board. And Welsh. Definitely Welsh. On 'Very Human Features' The Bug Club have continued in their habit of presenting as a collective mind. Two-in-one. Rarely do you find a band with two creative forces that have such a singular, shared perspective, sense of humour and knack for a pop melody. In 'Beep Boop Computers' vocalists Sam (also on guitar) and Tilly (on bass) swap between “I”s, “my”s and “we”s as if there isn’t any difference between the lot, all the while skewering interpersonal relationships and experiences in a glorious, glam rock dismantling of the human aspects the album’s title references. Staying on topic, 'How to Be a Confidante' does that-thing-The-Bug-Club-really-know-how-to-do where they, again speaking as two voices from the same mind, pluck out common aspects of how we all live and make them sound ridiculous. The surreal is in the familiar, not in ignoring the familiar - The Bug Club know this and that understanding joins an unrelenting bassline in forming the backbone of this garage rock-infused belter. Having gained an appropriately beefed-up stateside following thanks to the beefy slab of garage-punk on 'On the Intricate Inner Workings of the System', and the band’s subsequent US tour, The Bug Club’s fruitful partnership with Sup Pop gets even tastier with 'Very Human Features'. An assured and endlessly witty whirlwind of literary, self-referential, good-humoured rock ‘n’ roll, the new record sees the band riding their ever-swelling wave of popularity as if it’s a quick whizz around the Caldicot Aldi carpark on a pair of rollerskates. Long may it continue.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: Fuzzy, jangling indie-rock that lets up just long enough to show how truly melodic and groove-led The Bug Club can be before launching into another harmonised burst of soaring distorted garage rock and thumping, snappy choruses. Cleverly written lyrics and wonderfully presented, brilliant.

TRACK LISTING

1. Full Grown Man
2. Twirling In The Middle
3. Jealous Boy
4. Young Reader
5. Beep Boop Computers
6. Muck (Very Human Features)
7. When The Little Choo Choo Train Toots His Little Horn
8. How To Be A Confidante
9. Living In The Future
10. Tales Of A Visionary Teller
11. The Sound Of Communism
12. Blame Me
13. Appropriate Emotions

No one can help you build something beautiful quite like those who know you best. Alan Sparhawk knows this well. In his years in Low, he built decades of stirring music with his wife and lifelong creative partner Mimi Parker. In recent years, he has performed around Minnesota with his son Cyrus in DERECHO Rhythm Section, a funk band that also frequently features his daughter Hollis on vocals. There’s an irreplaceable naturalism that comes with this kind of dynamic. Those who know you understand you. They love you. They want to help you bring your greatest passions to fruition. So it made sense that Sparhawk would turn to fellow Duluth musicians Trampled by Turtles to realize his latest record. As friends and mentees of Low’s, taken under Sparhawk and Parker’s wing from their earliest days as a bar band, Trampled by Turtles have performed with Sparhawk countless times over the years. The Duluth ties run deep: “There’s a certain vibe that has to do with underdog syndrome, coming from a small town,” Sparhawk muses. “Some of it is the weird grind and slackness that being at the mercy of Mother Nature puts in you. It humbles you.” The two artists hold the kind of ironclad bond.

Following Parker’s passing in 2022, Trampled by Turtles invited Sparhawk to join them on tour to give him a space to be surrounded by friends. Occasionally, he would join them onstage. The outpouring of love was palpable every time they played together, a surge of warmth. When playing together is that powerful, why stop there? In winter, 2024, Sparhawk and Trampled by Turtles created With 'Trampled by Turtles', a record exactly as its name implies: Collective. Communal. Fraternal. Empathetic. A vessel for comfort, a reminder of the harmony that can exist when surrounded by those closest to you. 'Where White Roses, My God', Sparhawk’s last album, plunged headfirst into electronica and radical vocal modulation, With 'Trampled by Turtles' leans into the folk and bluegrass stylings of its backing band, Sparhawk’s voice now completely unvarnished. With Trampled by Turtles is far more than just Alan Sparhawk and Trampled by Turtles. It’s an affirmation of all the people who have been vital in Sparhawk’s life and music, and an opportunity to hold each of their gifts into the light. It’s producer Nat Harvie, who has been collaborating and performing with him for years. It’s Sparhawk’s daughter Hollis, who duets with her father on 'Not Broken'. And it’s Mimi Parker, too: 'Too High', 'Princess Road Surgery', and 'Not Broken' were all tracks she and Sparhawk had been working on in the last few years. These songs finally found a setting that stirringly commemorates them, bolstered by a full ensemble to make every note sing. Their presence is a kind of eternal connection to Parker, a way her musical grace will keep flourishing.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: A beautifully familiar sounding album that reminds me of the most celebratory pieces in Low's famously expansive and stunning catalogue, but with a loose ensemble feel and flickering bucolic chill. Sparhawk's voice will forever be tied to Low for me (no bad thing), but this is a wonderful way to continue hearing his superbly written songs in a full band setting.

TRACK LISTING

1. Stranger
2. Too High
3. Heaven
4. Not Broken
5. Screaming Song
6. Get Still
7. Princess Road Surgery
8. Don't Take Your Light
9. Torn & In Ashes

Yuno’s full-length debut 'Blest' finds the enigmatic indie-pop visionary transforming the emo-tinged suburban malaise of his 2018 'Moodie' EP into more expansive, widescreen pop drama — suited for big moves and bigger stages. The kaleidoscopic sound he devised as a millennial hermit in his childhood bedroom in Florida has since broadened his horizons, taking him on tour with Unknown Mortal Orchestra and Superorganism, and soundtracking various series for Netflix and HBO. Imbued with elements of dream-pop, rock, trap, and psychedelia, his eclectic songs serve as bids for love and connection, which especially in the fractured era of social media, have resonated with many listeners who find solace in his vulnerability.

Yuno's superpower lies in the way he mines a multitude of genres for their pop potential and surfaces with a tapestry that feels novel and fresh. Take, for instance, 'Blest', the immediate, blissful, and bright title track, which is inspired by Rich Harrison-breakbeats and Neptunes-esque jangle. Or the breezy single, 'True', in which Yuno moderates a lover's quarrel with slick, trap percussion. Amid the breakbeated dream-rock of 'Gimme Ocean', he introduces his guitar solo with a searing emo scream, run through an EarthQuaker Devices pedal. Don't let his sanguine aura or his sherbet pink wardrobe fool you; he can shred as hard as he wants to when he wants to.

All songs on 'Blest' were written and performed by Yuno, co-produced by Yuno and Frank Corr (Morning Silk), who also contributed keyboards, drums, and guitar throughout the record, with additional production and instrumentation by Patrick Wimberly (Chairlift) at The CRC in Brooklyn, and Nick Sanborn (Sylvan Esso) at Betty’s in Durham, NC. 'Blest' was mixed by Steve Vealey and mastered by Joe La Porta.

TRACK LISTING

1. Blest
2. We Belong
3. Massive
4. Unfair
5. Perfect Pear
6. Fall Apart
7. Worst Of Times
8. True
9. Gimme Ocean
10. Blitz!

Lael Neale’s minimalist drone pop draws inspiration from the Transcendentalists, the alienation of modern life, and a rich array of musical influences—ranging from Dionne Warwick and John Lennon to primitive American gospel and Spacemen 3. Her expansive new record, 'Altogether Stranger' was written and recorded in the early morning quiet of Los Angeles. Clocking in at just 32 minutes, the 9-song LP covers an unexpected breadth of musical and lyrical terrain—from garage rock nursery rhymes and creation myths to Motorik dance dirges and solitary Omnichord meditations.

A brilliant lyricist, Neale has a unique ability to uncover the extraordinary within the mundane, tackling themes of polarity that recur throughout her work—country vs. city, humanity vs. technology, isolation vs. society. This album is her third collaboration with producer Guy Blakeslee who helps expand the tonal palette while staying true to Neale’s commitment to the raw immediacy and hand-made intimacy of home recording. 'Altogether Stranger' - a stunning album filled with dreamlike reverie, Neale’s crystalline voice, and echoes of the Velvet Underground - was conceived after four years of oscillating between rural solitude and urban chaos. It finds Neale perched at the piano in a hilltop bungalow, looking down on a rare curve of Sunset Blvd. Here, in this daily ritual of writing, singing, and painting—what David Lynch referred to as “the Art Life”—she creates the space for her most adventurous work to date.

Born and raised in Virginia’s idyllic countryside, Neale brought the high-lonesome sound of her home state with her when she moved to California to pursue music. After years of writing songs on guitar and playing small venues in Los Angeles, she discovered the Omnichord in 2019, which sparked a new creative direction. This led to her 2021 Sub Pop debut album, 'Acquainted With Night'. That album’s 2023 follow-up, 'Star Eaters Delight', deepened the collaboration with Blakeslee, infusing minimalist soundscapes with a heightened electric energy. The album found a devoted audience, and Neale’s subsequent tour included sold-out shows in Los Angeles, New York City, London, and Paris, multiple trips across Europe, and a West Coast run supporting kindred spirit Weyes Blood. This marked yet another return to Los Angeles. Indeed, Los Angeles is not just the backdrop of 'Altogether Stranger' but a lead character. The album’s accompanying film - created with Neale's faithful Sony Handycam - builds on her ongoing series of videos, telling the story of Neale as an alien in a suit of mirrors stranded on Earth. Wandering through modern-day LA, she finds both absurdity and beauty in our fragile, untenable way of life. Over the long year it took to write Altogether Stranger, Neale vacillated between childlike optimism and existential melancholy. While she may not have been able to reconcile these opposing states, Altogether Stranger represents an ambitious breakthrough for this singular, self-sufficient artist.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: Brittle, otherworldly pop music that has echoes of modern indie but drifts and crackles like a long forgotten tape reel from the 50's. Neale's vocals have echoes of the staggered unease of Syd Barrett's solo work but imbued with a meticulous thematic and structural approach.

TRACK LISTING

1. Wild Waters
2. All Good Things Will Come To Pass
3. Down On The Freeway
4. Sleep Through The Long Night
5. Come On
6. Tell Me How To Be Here
7. New Ages
8. All Is Never Lost
9. There From Here

For the last 24 years, Tunde Adebimpe has largely been known as the co-founder, co-vocalist and principal songwriter for TV On The Radio. The mostly-black art-rock band triumphed through two decades of volatile cultural change to become one of the most beloved, enduring and influential groups from New York City’s early-2000s rock scene. Though Tunde’s poetic songwriting and towering vocals are central to TV On The Radio, the band will always be a collaboration between a group of musicians. Tunde’s personal story exists on a parallel path, as a sort of creative polymath. He is a musician but also an illustrator and painter. He’s a former animator and stop-motion filmmaker (Celebrity Deathmatch). He is a television and film actor, with roles in Jump Tomorrow (2001), Rachel Getting Married (2008), Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017), Twisters (2024) and Star Wars: Skeleton Crew (2024).. And now he is also a solo artist, with his first-ever solo album, 'Thee Black Boltz'.

Tunde initially conceived of the album in 2019, while TV On The Radio was on a break. Two years later, as the world emerged from the Covid pandemic, he started a notebook of words, illustrations and ideas, forming what he calls, “mixtape of emotions the music could evoke. A feeling map of sorts.” It is how Tunde begins most of his projects, and in 2011 he started translating those ideas into music with the help of multi-instrumentalist Wilder Zoby (Run The Jewels), with whom he shares a studio with in Los Angeles.

'Thee Black Boltz' is not a TV On The Radio album. But the excitement of doing something on his own ignited a similar spark in Tunde as the early TV On The Radio days. The songwriting process is the same, but without his TVOTR bandmates Tunde “didn’t have that scaffolding to hang on. That was both terrifying and exhilarating.”At the heart of the album is its title, a nod to Tunde’s propensity to write and sing about the human condition, in all its forms, under all its stressors, both big and small. It is his response to the macro unease of a post-pandemic world careening towards violent authoritarianism and the personal grief that has come from loss in recent years, specifically the sudden passing of his younger sister while making this album. 'Thee Black Boltz' is Tunde’s desperate grasping of small moments of joy amidst the dissonance and sadness, any way he can. “It was my way of building a rock or a platform for myself in the middle of this fucking ocean.” As Tunde writes in his notebook, “The sparks of inspiration /motivation/ hope that flash up in the midst of (and sometimes as a result of) deep grief, depression or despair. Sort of like electrons building up in storm clouds clashing until they fire off lightning and illuminate a way out, if only for a second.” “Also,” he adds. “It’s a good name for a cool metal band, and I think that most people would describe me as akin to a very cool metal band.”

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: TVOTR's Tunde Adebimpe brings us a beautiful mix of shimmering synth-pop, clattering electronica and raucous hands-in-the-air rock business. Brilliantly heartfelt, wildly melodic and packed full of moments of genuine euphoria.

TRACK LISTING

1. Thee Black Boltz
2 .Magnetic
3. Ate The Moon
4. Pinstack
5. Drop
6. ILY
7. The Most
8. God Knows
9. Blue
10. Somebody New
11. Streetlight Nuevo

Almost as soon as Σtella Chronopoulou began writing Adagio, her fifth album as Σtella, she knew the time had finally come to sing in Greek, her native tongue. It would be a first.

She started the record almost by accident in 2019, during an 11-hour boat ride to the island of Anafi. Σtella had recently gone through a patch of personal turmoil and needed a break from home. On the ferry, she pulled out her cell phone as the boat clipped through the Mediterranean and began with a simple melody, steadily piecing together a rough instrumental. As psychedelic keyboards twinkled and swayed above staccato drums, the track suggested some deep exhalation, as if Σtella were letting go of long-unnecessary baggage.

For a spell, she set the instrumental aside. She wasn’t ready yet, or in a rush. Σtella, after all, grew up in a slow place. During her youth in a relatively rural suburb of Athens, Greece, she and her friends played unfettered in empty streets, not worried about cars or permission, and living felt easy. But in the last decade life has steadily become busier for Σtella, now based in the heart of Athens. She has become one of modern Greece’s most popular musical exports, with three sophisticated, playful pop albums rendered with international élan.

After her Sub Pop debut, Up and Away, in 2022, she catapulted beyond three million monthly Spotify listeners. That success was a blessing, but Σtella sometimes found herself pining for the slower pace of her youth. That longing is the thread that loosely binds together her fifth album, the entrancing Adagio. Borrowing its name from the term for music that’s meant to be played slowly, Adagio is a pop record that feels like a very warm blanket, its nylon-string guitars and featherlight percussion swaddling its listeners for three minutes at a time.

Written and recorded over the span of five years, with a consortium of international collaborators including !!!’s Rafael Cohen and British songwriter Gabriel Stebbing, Adagio is a 27-minute meditation on love and desire, rest and time. Though the bulk of it is sung in English, Σtella delivers her first two songs in Greek here—“Omorfo Mou,” the one that began on the boat, and a cover of a 1969 cult classic of the Greek New Wave, Litsa Sakelariou’s “Ta Vimata.” It is a sign of the self-assurance that radiates throughout these tender and smitten little tunes. Start to finish, Σtella sounds more at ease and comfortable than she’s ever been on Adagio. These fetching songs will not slow her career or grant her that title track’s wish. But, for half an hour, Adagio adds a measure of warmth to the world, with time loosening its grip even if it doesn’t slow down.

TRACK LISTING

1. Adagio
2. Ta Vimata
3. Omorfo Mou
4. Baby Brazil Feat. Las Palabras
5. Can I Say
6. 80 Days
7. Too Poor
8. Corfu
9. Caravan

Bria Salmena’s debut solo album 'Big Dog' chronicles a story of transformation–a deeply personal exploration of resilience and a declaration of artistic independence forged through collaboration. Long celebrated as the frontwoman of Canadian post-punk outfit FRIGS and as a vocalist in Orville Peck’s live band, Salmena culminates her artistic evolution on 'Big Dog'.

Anchored by her commanding voice—alternately tender, raw, and defiant—the album traverses the terrain of vulnerability and connection, marking the arrival of an artist boldly coming into her own. 'Big Dog' is a record of big emotions and big ambitions. Musically, the record takes elements of hypnotic krautrock and shimmery shoegaze, opulent goth and pulsing darkwave, with a smearing of electronic textures for a sophisticated and often uncanny sound. Amidst this vast sonic landscape, Salmena’s potent lyrical imagery and gorgeous vocals stand dead center, perfectly in focus. For Salmena, it is impossible to unlink the personal journey represented by 'Big Dog' from the collaborative relationships that went into its creation. Salmena worked with producer and multi-instrumentalist Duncan Hay Jennings in both FRIGS and Orville Peck’s band. Jennings, who is not only Salmena’s closest creative collaborator but also her closest friend, wrote Big Dog with Salmena over several years, during which Salmena was based in LA and Jennings in Toronto. Before Big Dog, the two gave classic and modern Americana songs a goth-y dream pop treatment on Salmena’s Cuntry Covers EPs. Graham Walsh (Holy F**k, METZ, Debby Friday, Alvvays) helped the pair further refine their budding mix of rock and electronic music, while Meg Remy (of critically acclaimed experimental pop project U.S. Girls) focused primarily on Salmena’s vocals. Remy helped coax out the unforgettable performances that lie at the center of Big Dog through a series of cathartic meetings, pushing Salmena to dig even more deeply into the meaning of her lyrics and really think about different ways of using her voice. As Big Dog came together, it became apparent that Salmena’s songwriting had taken a raw and intimate turn, going well beyond her and Jennings’ work on their prior EPs.

'Big Dog’s sound hovers between two worlds, gritty punk honesty always simmering below gleaming atmospherics, impossible to ignore. There are alternative rock touchstones—you’ll hear Live Through This, The Distillers, Mazzy Star —and one genuine alternative rock icon in Lee Ranaldo, who contributes guitar to "See'er.” But there’s also a sleekness that’s just as much a callback to ‘80s coldwave as it is to ecstatic forms of dance music. Salmena’s rich voice is ever-present, a constant warm glow within a mesh of mechanical sounds. At its core, 'Big Dog' is more than just a record about discovering who you are by processing painful experiences. It’s a record about discovering that you are never really alone. 

TRACK LISTING

1. Drastic
2. Backs Of Birds
3. Closer To You
4. Hammer
5. Radisson
6. Twilight
7. On The Line
8. Stretch The Struggle
9. Rags
10. See'er
11. Peanut
12. Water Memory

Sub Pop proudly teams up with long-running Canadian punk icons Fucked Up for a limited-edition 7” single featuring two brand new, exclusive songs. 'Disabuse' and 'Self-Driving Man' are unlikely light-speed cuts of pure hardcore from Fucked Up. These tracks bleed off the record, having been born from the indelible stamp of Poison Idea’s 1990 anti-oppression anthem 'Discontent' and Japanese punk legends Paintbox’s 'The Door'. Sitting at the chaotic crossroads of punk, hardcore, and grunge, the two songs have found the most fitting home possible: a Sub Pop single. 'Disabuse' is a song Damian wrote for his daughter, who experienced bullying and intimidation at school, while 'Self-Driving Man' wrestles the out of control automation of our world onto the pavement and into the abyss of faceless progress.The 7” comes on translucent emerald vinyl, and includes a lyric sheet. • Two brand new, exclusive songs from long-running Canadian punk icons Fucked Up.

Both tracks are thunderous, rapid-fire hardcore-punk songs, drawing inspiration from Poison Idea’s muscular thrash (in particular, their 1990 anti-oppression anthem “Discontent”), and the eclectic power of Japanese punk legends Paintbox.

TRACK LISTING

1. Disabuse
2. Self-Driving Man

On 'Dead Channel Sky', Clipping texture-map the twin histories of hip-hop and cyberpunk onto an alternate present where Rammellzee and Bambaataa are the superheroes of old; where Cybotron and Mantronix are the reigning legends; where Egyptian Lover and Freestyle are debated endlessly, and Ultramag and Public Enemy are the undeniable forefathers; where the lost movements of 1980s and the 1990s are still happening: rave, trip-hop, hip-house, acid house, drum & bass, big beat—the detritus of a different timeline, the survivors of armed audio warfare. Clipping are no strangers to sci-fi: two of their records were nominated for Hugo Awards (one of science fiction’s top literary prizes), and a novella spun-off from their music was nominated for a third. On 'Dead Channel Sky', Clipping’s co-conspirators include everyone from the guitarist Nels Cline, to their labelmates Cartel Madras, rapper/actor Tia Nomore, and wordsmith Aesop Rock. Diggs is known for intricate lyrics and rapid-fire rapping, and the tracks that Snipes and Hutson build in the background are no less complex. All of the above serves to give us a glimpse of an adjacent possible present, where hip-hop and cyberpunk are one culture.Binary stars are often perceived as one object when viewed with the naked eye. Like those twin sun systems, it’ll take some special equipment and some discerning attention to pull the stars apart on this record. As Diggs barks on the fire-starting 'Change the Channel': Everything is very important!

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: A blazing new transmission from raucous noise-hop electronic powerhouse, Clipping. Startling political and societal discourse atop snaps of industrial glitch and roaring, hi-nrg acid. A hell of a return.

TRACK LISTING

1. Intro
2. Dominator
3. Change The Channel
4. Run It
5. Go
6. Simple Degradation (Plucks 1-13) (with Bitpanic)*
7. Code 8.Dodger
8. Malleus (with Nels Cline)
9.Scams (ft. Tia Nomore)
10.Keep Pushing
11."From Bright Bodies" (Interlude)*
12.Mood Organ
13.Polaroids
14.Simple Degradation (Plucks 14-18) (with Bitpanic)*
15.Madcap
16.Mirrorshades Pt. 2 (ft. Cartel Madras)
17."And You Called" (Interlude)*
18.Welcome Home Warrior (ft. Aesop Rock)
19.Ask What Happened

*CD-only

In the middle of July 2023 in a Los Angeles studio, Deep Sea Diver mastermind Jessica Dobson took a guitar solo but somehow felt nothing. Just days earlier, her Seattle band played a series of semi-secret shows for devotees at a hometown bar, de facto rehearsals for cutting a new record. The sets had gone well, but, almost immediately, the sessions didn’t. The songs’ essence seemed muddled, Dobson’s conviction lost somewhere in the 1,000 miles between Southern California and the home studio she shares with partner, drummer, and frequent cowriter Peter Mansen. On that first night in Los Angeles, she broke down, wondering what she was doing there, what her band could do to fix it. For the first time ever, Deep Sea Diver retreated, heading home without an album. Did they need to scrap it all, to begin again with new material?

Not at all: Following a brief break, Dobson found a renewed sense of self, a trust in her vision for her band and songs and her ability to capture them. After that Los Angeles hiccup, longtime collaborator Andy Park asked Dobson how the new stuff was going over an early fall dinner. She admitted she needed help. In that humbling confession, she soon found ways of working that helped her reimagine and reinvigorate Deep Sea Diver and led directly to the power and brilliance of Billboard Heart, Deep Sea Diver’s fourth album and first for Sub Pop. It is a coup, a triumph over self-doubt in which what first felt like failure became an opportunity to find new freedom, belief, and strength. You can hear it in each of these 11 songs, the beating heart that makes everything here feel like a new anthem for finding your own way forward.

The cocksure Bad Seeds swagger of “Shovel,” the tender mercies of “Loose Change,” the serpentine machinations of “Let Me Go,” where Dobson tangles with fellow guitar dynamo Madison Cunningham: Billboard Heart immediately puts Deep Sea Diver in the company of St. Vincent, TV on the Radio, and Flock of Dimes, bands that have found newly ornate and magnetic ways to make indie rock by discarding notions of how it must sound or what it must say. Dobson punches through her past here. As she howls during Billboard Heart’s rapturous title track, she is “welcoming the future by letting go of it.”

Exactly three years before Dobson’s galvanizing dinner with Park, Deep Sea Diver issued its third album, 2020’s Impossible Weight, via ATO, the colossal indie imprint that has helped My Morning Jacket, Alabama Shakes, and King Gizzard build careers across the last quarter-century. It was a significant step up for a band that had self-released its first two LPs. The surge of resources resulted in a groundswell of exposure, even a spot on Billboard charts.

That success, though, caused Dobson to doubt her impulses, to begin thinking about what an idea’s impact or reception might be as much the strength of the idea itself. During this period of second-guessing, she and Mansen sat near the wide windows of their Seattle living room, with her on piano as he hammered a guitar nearby. “See in the Dark”—a song about coveting your own notions, despite the occasional sense they’re slipping away—emerged in that single sitting, its gothic elegance and pop grandeur proffering a blueprint for what else could come.

That moment of domestic creation proved essential for several reasons. Before Impossible Weight, Dobson and Mansen wrote many of Deep Sea Diver’s songs together; this was a return to that bond, which carried over to more than half of Billboard Heart. What’s more, the pair began recording more at home, too. They borrowed microphones and a small clutch of essential gear to capture guitars and vocals in their basement. When talks later began in earnest with Park following the Los Angeles debacle, Dobson began revisiting those earlier recordings, realizing that she had captured so much of that ineffable spark at home, where the atmosphere was of her own design. Mansen and Park helped convince her these weren’t just good enough to use but riveting in their realness. These early versions became templates and blueprints to build upon and frame, plus a way for Dobson to believe again in the material and, most important, herself.

And from end to end, the material on Billboard Heart is astonishing. The title track is the one song Deep Sea Diver actually finished in Los Angeles. It’s a radiant and magnificent thing, the billowing synths of member Elliot Jackson and tunneling pedal steel of guest Greg Leisz pushing up an anthem for fearlessly advancing into the future, as best you can. “Emergency” links hardcore’s famous vim to electroclash’s instant allure, Dobson’s italicized voice racing like a gust of wind. Her brief guitar solo at the end is an all-timer, a few hiccupping notes suddenly moving like a sports car in terrifyingly tight corners. Tender and vulnerable, “Tiny Threads” is a sweeping anthem for anyone trying to hold anything together—life, love, themselves. “If it haunts me, let it haunt me,” Dobson sings softly over a stillness framed only by bass and noise. She lets her guitar careen into feedback, then steadily sculpts it into something tuneful. It’s a lifetime of anxiety and sublimation, crystallized into 10 seconds. Billboard Heart feels that way at large.

For a minute there, Dobson let that mix of art and commerce we call the music industry cloud her judgment and interfere with her impulses, a common enough story for anyone whose decades of work suddenly yield success. She found her way out of that wormhole by embracing newness, whether that meant practicing songwriting as if it were collegiate homework, believing in her skills recording at home, or playing bass herself because the band had blown so much money during those aborted Los Angeles sessions. (N.B. The big but elastic bass lines are a consistent highlight here, so: good choice.)

Mostly, she let go of the fear that comes when we think about our jobs, no matter what they are, and remembered that making music is less work than a way of reckoning and playing with the world, of healing and finding other ways forward. Billboard Heart emerged when Dobson trusted her instincts, a personal breakthrough that prompted an artistic one. It is, in turn, the best Deep Sea Diver album yet, a defiant and brilliant exclamation mark at the end of a long period of wandering. 

TRACK LISTING

1. Billboard Heart
2. What Do I Know
3. Emergency
4. Shovel
5. Tiny Threads
6. Loose Change
7. Always Waving Goodbye
8. Let Me Go (feat. Madison Cunningham)
9. Be Sweet
10. See In The Dark
11. Happiness Is Not A Given

Father John Misty’s landmark 2015 sophomore album, I Love You, Honeybear, is back on vinyl, remastered and repackaged as a single LP (It was originally released as a double LP).

The now-classic album includes fan favorites “Chateau Lobby #4 (in C for Two Virgins),” and the title track, “I Love You, Honeybear.” On release I Love You, Honeybear earned a Pitchfork Best New Music, a perfect score from Exclaim!, and rave reviews from NME, Mojo, Q, Spin, and more. It was hailed as one of the best albums of 2015 by Pitchfork, Billboard, The A.V. Club, NME, and Stereogum. I Love You, Honeybear was produced by Josh Tillman and Jonathan Wilson, and mixed by Phil Ek. This 2024 edition was remastered in 2024 by Adam Ayan at Ayan Mastering.

TRACK LISTING

1. I Love You, Honeybear
2. Chateau Lobby #4 (in C For Two Virgins)
3. True Affection
4. The Night Josh Tillman Came To Our Apt.
5. When You're Smiling And Astride Me
6. Nothing Good Ever Happens At The Goddamn Thirsty Crow
7. Strange Encounter
8. The Ideal Husband
9. Bored In The USA
10. Holy Shit
11. I Went To The Store One Day

Mia Zapata was the greatest rock singer of her time. She may have likely been the greatest blues singer in punk rock history, the woman who married the 78 and the ’78. Tragedy did not make this true. Mia Zapata made this true, and the ferocious, spring-loaded shrapnel frame that was built around her by Andy Kessler (guitar: metronomic and furious), Matt Dresdner (bass: fluid, punching, beat-addicted and melodic), and Steve Moriarty (drums: martial and explosive) - who, with Mia, combined to form The Gits - made it true.

The Gits were formed at Antioch College in Yellow Springs, Ohio in mid-1986, grabbing and swapping pieces of art, thrash, noise, punk rock, classic rock, and all the sorts of magical silly and bookish jingle bells that an old-school liberal arts education handed you; for the next few years they worked on turning it all into something tough, sensitive, both brutal and kind. Andy, Matt, Mia, and Steve moved to Seattle in middish 1989, landing in a house on Capitol Hill where they (and fellow travelers) wood-shedded and rehearsed for the next few years. The Gits put out three EPs in 1990 and ’91 before signing with C/Z Records and releasing their first full-length album,' Frenching the Bully'. Seattle quickly claimed the quartet as their own and embraced the Gits blend of ferocious fangs and soft heart, the slug/slap of the guitars, and the gorgeous, soft underbelly of the poetic emotions. These qualities not only fit in with the doe-eyed/sharp-clawed grunge ethos but earned the Gits the respect of their peers, including Nirvana, who tapped them to open a major local show in 1990. Then other stuff happened, and their frantic, confessional barbed-heart snowball began rolling up hill very, very fast; the Gits “quickly” (hah! After half a decade learning to implode and explode hearts and stomping their boots on manifold beer-softened, Marlboro-weeded wood stages!) inspired rapture, awe, and the levitation that happened when peak emotion meets peak grindage in front of amps spitting out something that sounded like the mad marriage of Bolan swagger and Dischord tension… all fronted by a genuinely incomparable woman who held her heart in her mouth and shared it, in all its celebration and fear, without hesitation. The Gits were an angry, inflamed slinky fully in tune with and tuned by the Bessie Patti Smith of her time, truly the only singer who could summon Joplin, Poly Styrene, Sam Cooke, Iggy Pop and Ian MacKaye all in the same goddamn song.


In 1993, less than four weeks after accepting an offer from Atlantic Records, Mia died. I leave it at that, because this is not about death; it’s about an extraordinary life. I do not say, “You should have been there,” I say, “We are lucky so many of us were, and I am so glad we have this extraordinary evidence of the power and gifts of Mia and the Gits that you now can hold in your hands.” And I note that Frenching the Bully, this extraordinary testament to the soul, shock, fury and feeling of the Gits, has been long out of print on vinyl and CD, and this new edition - remastered by legendary Seattle engineer Jack Endino - joyfully rectifies that.

TRACK LISTING

1. Absynthe
2. Another Shot Of Whiskey
3. Insecurities
4. Slaughter Of Bruce
5. Kings And Queens
6. It All Dies Anyway
7. While You’re Twisting I’m Still Breathing
8. A
9. Wingo Lamo
10. Spear And Magic Helmet
11. Cut My Skin It Makes Me Human
12. Here's To Your Fuck
13. Second Skin

• This tribute compilation features renditions of Margo Guryan songs by TOPS, Rahill, Clairo, June McDoom, MUNYA and Kainalu, Frankie Cosmos and Good Morning, Kate Bollinger, Pearl & the Oysters, Bedouine and Sylvie, Empress Of, Barrie, and Margo Price.

• Margo Guryan was a singer, songwriter, pianist, and composer who released her first and only album, Take a Picture, in 1968. While the album had little commercial success at the time, both the album and Margo became cult classics in the following decades, and are now considered a definitive part of the sunshine-pop canon.

Most of our stories about cult musicians who make an album or two and then seem to vanish are framed by grief, despair, and frayed ambition. Not so with Margo Guryan, an ardent jazz anomaly who disdained pop music until hearing “God Only Knows” in 1966, opening a window onto the wonders that form could contain. Only two years later, she released her own set of little pop symphonies, Take a Picture, to great praise and expectation. But, having already divorced the hard-gigging valve trombonist Bob Brookmeyer, she declined to tour or even talk about it all that much, content even if her reticence meant Take a Picture was soon consigned to discount racks and cutout bins. She wrote and recorded for years to come, even collaborating with Neil Diamond’s band, but mostly she seemed satisfied by her relatively private life.

As befits music so stunning and subtle, Guryan, who died in 2021, has enjoyed several renaissances during the last six decades. And now, it’s happening again: Soon after her near-whispered and lovelorn hymn “Why Do I Cry” made her a TikTok star in 2021, the same year she passed, Numero Group launched a reissue campaign, resulting in the acclaimed 2024 set, Words and Music. And now, a dozen artists—none of whom were born when Take a Picture was made, most of whom weren’t even born for a crucial early reissue by Franklin Castle—have reinterpreted and reimagined that entire album (plus one bonus track) for Like Someone I Know: A Celebration of Margo Guryan. Empress Of, Margo Price, Clairo, June McDoom: They all affirm Guryan’s sharpness as a songwriter and the brilliance of an album that has far outstripped whatever promotional cycle Guryan rejected so long ago.

Guryan was born to a sprawling family in Far Rockaway, when the place was still mostly framed by trees. While a composition student at Boston University, Guryan stumbled into a gig playing piano between Miles Davis Quintet sets, signed a songwriting deal with Atlantic Records, and botched a session with Nesuhi Ertegun. But she wasn’t looking to be a singing star. In 1959, she headed to the Lenox School of Jazz in the Berkshires to write for Ornette Coleman and Don Cherry, earn the attention of instructor Max Roach, and find a longtime mentor and friend in Gunther Schuller. She became an accomplished lyricist, writing not only for Coleman and Nancy Harrow but also for Harry Belafonte and Gary MacFarland.

But it was that subsequent encounter with the Beach Boys that opened the trap door for Guryan to Take a Picture and scores of other super songs, many of which appear on Words and Music. Take a Picture is a sophisticated survey of mid-20s romance and indecision, from the flirty romp of “Sunday Morning” and falling-for-you affirmation “Can You Tell” to the desperate helplessness of “What Can I Give You.” Her perpetually soft voice, audacious songcraft, and complete candor: Guryan, in 1968 and beyond, was making daring music, no matter how gently those sounds seemed to move.

With a portion of proceeds being donated to providing and advocating for affordable reproductive health services, Like Someone I Know reinforces the strength of Guryan’s songs by allowing a dozen different artists to take them for trips of their own. The core always remains, unwavering. McDoom stretches static and harmony beneath “Thoughts,” as if they’re spinning on a dub plate beneath her arcing vocals. Rahill lets “Sun” unfurl over harmonium drone and entrancing percussive ticks, digging into Guryan’s interest in the surreal. Frankie Cosmos and Good Morning take a country shuffle through “Take a Picture,” entwined vocals falling over the rhythmic skips with perfect romantic relish. Over the last few decades, it has become increasingly clear just how good Guryan was, how sturdy her songs have been amid varying tides of taste. Like Someone I Know offers absolute validation, a testament to the enduring relevance and brilliance of Guryan’s work.

This album was produced by Izzy Fradin and Jonathan Rosner.

TRACK LISTING

TOPS - "Sunday Morning"
Rahill - "Sun"
Clairo - "Love Songs"
June McDoom - "Thoughts"
MUNYA & Kainalu - "Don't Go Away"
Frankie Cosmos & Good Morning - "Take A Picture"
Kate Bollinger - "What Can I Give You"
Pearl & The Oysters - "Think Of Rain"
Bedouine & Sylvie - "Can You Tell"
Empress Of - "Someone I Know"
Barrie - "Love"
Margo Price - "California Shake"

Sub Pop and Mudhoney celebrate the barnstorming self-titled debut album by Seattle punk/rock/fuzz/g****e legends Mudhoney, originally released in 1989, with a fresh colored-vinyl pressing. This classic album contains 12 tracks of roaring rock music, including the megahits “This Gift” and “Here Comes Sickness.” Mudhoney frontman Mark Arm says “Turn up the tape hiss!!” Band are about to start a European tour…

This special 35th anniversary edition is on Petrol coloured vinyl! YES PETROL! It looks mighty fine.

TRACK LISTING

This Gift
Flat Out Fucked
Get Into Yours
You Got It
Magnolia Caboose Babyshit
Come To Mind
Here Comes Sickness
Running Loaded
The Farther I Go
By Her Own Hand
When Tomorrow Its
Dead Love

Alan Sparhawk of Low’s solo debut for Sub Pop is at once a bold new, electro-pop-infused adventure, and an extension of the innovation and experimentation that drove his work as a member of Low. It is his first album since the tragic 2022 loss of his wife and partner in Low, Mimi Parker.

Alan Sparhawk has always been a prolific, protean musician. A restless soul eager to explore unfamiliar sonic and psychic terrain. Though he’s obviously (and justifiably) best-known for his thirty years as frontman of the legendary band Low, a look at Sparhawk’s many side projects across that same span of time shows him experimenting with everything from punk and funk to production work and improvisation. Low itself never settled for a set sound or approach. The band was always a collaboration—a conversation, a romance—between Sparhawk and his wife, Mimi Parker, who was the band’s co-founder, drummer, co-lead vocalist, and its blazing irreplaceable heart. To take the journey from Low’s hushed early work, through the tremendous melodies of their middle period, all the way to the late lush chaos of their final albums, is to witness heads, hearts, and spirits in an act of perpetual becoming. Parker passed away in 2022 after a long battle with cancer, and there is no question that WHITE ROSES, MY GOD is a record borne of grief. You can hear it in the title, as well as tracks such as “Heaven”, in which Sparhawk describes the afterlife, wrenchingly, as “a lonely place if you’re alone.” You can sense it too in Sparhawk’s decision to create this thing entirely on his own: every note, every lyric, every programmed beat. It would be reductive, even foolish, to see grief as the sole source or the final limit of this taut, brilliant, provocative, thrilling album, whose bold experimentation is powered by profound lyrics and propulsive beats.

“Can you feel something here?” Sparhawk asks on “Feel Something.” The line repeats over and over, evolving first into “I want to feel something here” and then “Can you help me feel something here?” Meanwhile the musical means he’s chosen to convey this message—especially the pitch-shifter—might seem at first like they’re making it harder to access that very something he wants us (and himself) to feel. Isn’t the vocoder a barrier between us and the deep emotionality we’ve long associated with an Alan Sparhawk vocal? Maybe, maybe not. Probably not. But even if it is, then it’s a barrier worth breaking and the music itself is the hammer. Sparhawk conjures forth the ghosts trapped inside these machines. WHITE ROSES, MY GOD is an exorcism whose purpose is not to banish the spirit but to set it free. In many ways WHITE ROSES, MY GOD feels like a hard break with the past, almost a debut. And yet there’s incredible continuity with Sparhawk’s past work and his traditional ways of working. He’s pathbreaking, yet again, invested as ever in the endless process of becoming himself. As he puts it on “Station”: “I can please myself with the things I seek out.” Us, too. We are lucky to be here to hear it as it happens.

TRACK LISTING

Get Still
I Made This Beat
Not The 1
Can U Hear
Heaven
Brother
Black Water
Feel Something
Station
Somebody Else's Room
Project 4 Ever

Most of the writing of Naima Bock’s second album, Below A Massive Dark Land, was a solitary affair. It may not sound like it – it’s made up of strong, purposeful arrangements with a huge host of musicians, filled with cradling space and warm light. This will also come as a surprise to anyone who has seen Naima perform in the time since the release of her 2022 debut Giant Palm, which was undoubtedly a communal experience. But there’s power in the solitary, too. Giant Palm was arranged with collaborator Joel Burton, but going this one alone in search of something that was truly hers, Naima found she was capable of more. “After me and Joel stopped working together”, she remembers, “it was an impossibility to even fathom doing arrangements myself but then I started learning violin and it was possible”. Finding that she could go it alone was incredibly powerful for Naima: “I think I needed it, to be able to feel proud of something”. Beyond the writing process, however, the record is not a stark, stripped back affair. Below… still has the majesty that made Giant Palm so remarkable. Having tugged the first record down from the skies and spreading it across the earth, Naima finds a newfound vocal power and confidence born from hundreds of hours on stage, and the music sounds fuller, more tangible, and no less enveloping.This can be heard on the album’s lead singles: “Kaley” feels fresh and surprising in its rug-pull choppiness but is distinctly Naima in its swinging, jubilant choruses. The accompanying “Further Away” takes a different tack, drawing you in with its simplicity. Finally, the hazy, luxurious beauty of “Feed My Release” draws on the sepia-toned traditions of The Roches, John Prine and Loudon Wainwright III and imbues them with the kind of stark confessional songwriting of Mount Eerie. These are ambitious, rich arrangements that reach deeper and darker lyrically than Giant Palm.

Below a Massive Dark Land was predominantly produced by Jack Osborne (Bingo Fury) and Joe Jones, and recorded at The Crypt in north London, with additional production and arrangement by Oliver Hamilton (caroline, Shovel Dance Collective) and Naima herself. Six of the tracks on Below… were mixed by Jason Agel, with the remainder done by Osborne and Jones. The album was mastered by Kevin Tuffy.

TRACK LISTING

Gentle
Kaley
Feed My Release
My Sweet Body
Lines
Further Away
Takes One
Age
Moving
Star

Suki Waterhouse’s music sounds like a collage of her inspirations, experiences, and emotions stitched together by honeyed vocal delivery, bright-eyed melodies, and evocative storytelling. It doubles as a mirror image of her life as a consummate creative, artist, actress, model, and mother, yet it also breaks the glass to unveil raw truth. She leans on an ever-evolving sonic palette to convey what she’s feeling—whether it be folky Americana, nineties alternative, turn-of-the-century indie, or handcrafted otherworldly pop. You’ll hear Suki’s longing in a swooning chorus, fearlessness in a crunchy chord, elation in a danceable waltz, and wonder in a soft coo befitting of a lullaby.

She faithfully followed a lifelong passion for music to her 2022 full-length debut, I Can’t Let Go. Adorned by “Moves” and “Melrose Meltdown,” it incited widespread critical applause from Variety, Nylon, NME, The Line of Best Fit, and more. Between headlining shows and touring with Father John Misty, “Good Looking” surged online, generating nearly a billion streams, going RIAA platinum, and paving the way for the Milk Teeth EP. Simultaneously, she absorbed inspiration from a season of change earmarked by unforgettable moments a la gracing the stage of Lollapalooza 2023, performing on multiple continents, becoming a mom, and closing out the Gobi Tent at Coachella in 2024. Everything just set the stage for the gold-certified songstress to assert herself as a versatile, vibrant, and vital presence on her 2024 double-LP, Memoir of a Sparklemuffin.

TRACK LISTING

Gateway Drug
Supersad
Blackout Drunk
Faded
Nonchalant
My Fun
Model, Actress, Whatever
To Get You
Lullaby
Big Love
Lawsuit
OMG
Think Twice
Could've Been A Star
Legendary
Everybody Breaks Up Anyway
Helpless
To Love

The way you’re saying it, “prolific” isn’t the right word for The Bug Club. You’ve got to say it with the trademark Welsh lilt and pay due homage to this inimitable band’s origins in the renowned hit factory of Caldicot, South Wales. Do that, and you’re about right with how to summarize a group who’ve released ten singles, two albums, two EPs, three things nobody knew how to describe, and an album under a different band’s name, all since 2021, and while playing 200+ gigs a year.

Initially comprising the songwriting core of Sam Willmett (vocals/guitar) and Tilly Harris (vocals/bass) with Dan Matthew (drums), The Bug Club started plying their trade in 2016. They were signed by UK label Bingo Records in Autumn of 2020. BBC 6 Music’s Marc Riley was an early champion, hammering the single, booking the band in for a session as soon as it was allowed, and rightfully praising songwriters capable of singing the whole alphabet in a two-minute song and making it work.

Third LP On The Intricate Inner Workings Of The System - their first for Sub Pop - sees the band serve up a beefy slab of their speciality Modern-Lovers-meets-Nuggets garage rock. There’s B-52’s call-and-response fun mixed with AC/DC power chord grunt. Leaning towards fast-paced punk, opening double salvo “War Movies” and “Quality Pints” sets out the stall: duel vocal piss-taking, surreal takes on everyday topics that go full circle and become profound, riffs all day long and then all the next day too. “Quality Pints” deals with the pressing concerns of any conscientious touring outfit, taking to heart the rule of the three R’s as penned by renowned fellow pints fan Mark E. Smith of The Fall. Repetition, repetition, repetition. If it’s that important, which it is, it’s worth saying again. “War Movies” dresses distorted chugging with a comprehensive ‘best of’ list for the genre, with Sam Willmett offering a solo casually chucked out in a way that will make your dad promptly give up any resurgent guitar playing ambitions. And “A Bit Like James Bond” tackles the UK’s sleaziest undercover export at the same time as the embarrassing ego problem that besets much of its population - but it’s only heavy(ish) in the fun, loads-of-riffs sense. 

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: It's hard not to love a track called 'Quality Pints', and this slab of well-humoured garage rock, punky drive and snarling vocal hooks more than lives up to the brilliant title. It's fun all round, and brilliantly done. Brings to mind the Lovely Eggs or CTMF, a top outing from one of the hardest working bands in the business.

TRACK LISTING

1. War Movies
2. Quality Pints
3. Pop Single
4. Best Looking Strangers In The Cemetery
5. A Bit Like James Bond
6. We Don't Care About That
7. Lonsdale Slipons
8. Better Than Good
9. Actual Pain
10. Cold. Hard. Love.
11. The Intricate Inner Workings Of The System

Long out-of-print 1993 debut album by beloved indie-rock band Velocity Girl back in print with a new, band-approved mix, and a full album of bonus tracks compiling singles, outtakes, and the band’s 1993 Peel Session.

Formed in 1989, Velocity Girl were one of the leading lights of 1990s indie-pop, fusing the hooks of Britpop with the fuzzy guitars of shoegaze. They released three albums on Sub Pop between 1993 and 1996, and reached the mainstream with a song on the platinum-selling soundtrack to the classic teen film Clueless.

In 1992 the band began work on their debut album, Copacetic, at Easley Studios - once home base to the Bar-Kays and other classic soul bands - in Memphis with Bob Weston (Volcano Suns, Shellac) at the helm, and then mixed the album with Weston in Chicago. While the album had strong songs - pop tunes like “Audrey’s Eyes,” “Pop Loser,” and “Living Well” alongside ambitious explorations like “Pretty Sister” and “Here Comes” - the band had little experience with production and lacked the skills to “drive the boat” in the studio. As a result, the album turned out to be a rather stripped-down affair, lacking the lushness of their prior recordings. To the band’s ear it was jarring, and they soon realized this wasn’t the record they hoped to make. Bob Weston had done exactly what was asked of him and captured the sounds, but the band didn’t do its part to articulate a clear vision. But the band’s slot in the studio was over, and Polvo had just showed up to work on their album, so off Velocity Girl went to shoot the video for “Audrey’s Eyes.”

Copacetic came out in 1993 and people seemed to like it just fine, but within the band there was a sense of disappointment to the point where most members couldn’t stand to hear the record. Between then and now, the band learned a lot about recording, and Archie Moore developed a career in audio work, and the band finally decided to revisit Copacetic. After extensive digging, the 2” tape reels appeared in Jim’s ex-wife’s mother’s house, and in the spring of 2023 Archie began working on a remix. Song by song the new mixes emerged just as the band envisioned them. Soaring vocals from Sarah (who studied opera in college), chiming lead guitar, juicy fuzzed out rhythm guitars and clear pounding drums. The pop songs are much poppier. The sonic blasts are more powerful, and the record hangs together as a cohesive document that flows from song to song. The approach was not to make a 2024 sounding record but rather to go back to the 1992 mindset and create the record the band should have made then.

The result, UltraCopacetic (Copacetic Remixed and Expanded), is an exciting alternate history of Copacetic. And, while they were at it, the band dug up and refreshed the rest of their studio material from the era: Ultracopacetic includes “Warm/Crawl” from the Velocity Girl/Tsunami split 7”, “Creepy” from the Crazy Town 7”, “Stupid Thing” from the Audrey’s Eyes 7”, and the unreleased album outtake “Even Die.” Topping it all off is the band’s complete five-song 1993 John Peel session, including two tracks that haven’t been heard since the original broadcast. UltraCopacetic is truly the definitive version of Velocity Girl’s first record. 

TRACK LISTING

Pretty Sister
Crazy Town
Copacetic
Here Comes
Pop Loser
Living Well
A Chang
Audrey’s Eyes
Lisa Librarian
57 Waltz
Candy Apples
Catching Squirrels
Warm/Crawl
Creepy
Stupid Thing
Even Die
Here Comes (Peel Session Version)
Always (Peel Session Version)
Crazy Town (Peel Session Version)
57 Waltz (Peel Session Version)
Copacetic (Peel Session Version)

To experience Justin R. Cruz Gallego’s pulverizing Sub Pop debut is to get burned down to ashes and burst forth, born anew. Grim Iconic...(Sadistic Mantra), the Tacoma-based artist’s second album, is driven by opposing forces: noisy abstractions and tightly structured beats, anguish and dissolution at the outside world and empowerment within, apathy and catharsis. Grim Iconic...(Sadistic Mantra) weds scouring electronics to hooky songs and Gallego’s powerful drumming in a way that feels visceral and new.

It’s his most personal statement to date, at once playful and intent, driven and combustible, total fucking chaos mixed into glints of broken-glass beauty. Born in Tucson, Arizona, Gallego experienced culture shock as a child after relocating to the frigid climes of the Pacific Northwest.

He found solace in the Seattle punk scene centered around Iron Lung Records and has since remained a fixture in the underground community. “I see this record as first and foremost a musical statement,” Gallego says. “I grew up in punk and DIY subcultures, but before that I had Latin music playing in the background through my childhood and every phase of adolescence. It was surprisingly natural to incorporate. I realized I wanted to go deeper into these rhythms. I wanted to make a record that felt as experimental as much as it felt from the perspective of a Latino. When I got a glimmer of that possibility, it felt exciting.”

Lead single “Dogear” is a face-melting party starter that sounds like someone forced Talking Heads and Rudimentary Peni to share a practice space. “I wanted a song that felt playful in the way it attempted to be dissonant without taking itself too seriously,” Gallego says. “Cholla Beat” is even more ambitious, an anthemic mix of WAR and Wire led by unruly synthesizers spiraling down a labyrinth of production. Gallego’s influences for the album are vast, ranging from British documentary filmmaker Adam Curtis to electric Miles Davis to audio miscreants like Demdike Stare and Oneohtrix Point Never. But it’s Gallego’s assured sonic vision that resounds the loudest. And, while J.R.C.G. is a solo project, conceived and executed primarily in Gallego’s home studio, he found strength in opening the project to others, starting with Seth Manchester as co-producer. Manchester’s penchant for bone-rattling frequencies, as seen in his production work with The Body, Battles, and Mdou Moctar, made him a natural fit for Gallego.

Together, they retained the intimacy of Gallego’s home recordings while taking advantage of the hi-fi stylings of his Machines With Magnets Studio in Rhode Island. The closing song, “World i,” offers a glimpse into the live experience of Grim Iconic...(Sadistic Mantra), with upwards of seven band members blasting off. The album features a fascinating mix of supporting players, many of whom cycle through J.R.C.G.’s live lineup: Morgan Henderson (The Blood Brothers, Fleet Foxes), Jason Clackley (Dreamdecay, The Exquisites), Jon Scheid (Dreamdecay, U Sco), Erica Miller (Casual Hex, Big Bite), Veronica Dye (Terminator) Phil Cleary (U Sco), and Alex Gaziano (Dreamdecay, Kidcrash, Science Amplification).

Taken as a whole, G.I.S.M. is a whirlwind of sound, pummeling, and cleansing. It’s a sweaty, thrilling aural adventure and, like a great basement show, it’ll leave you breathless, exhausted, and wanting to repeat it all over again. As any good mantra should.

TRACK LISTING

1.Grim Iconic
2.34
3.Dogear
4.Drummy
5.Liv
6.Party People (Heaven)
7.Junk Corrido
8.Cholla Beat
9.World I 

In one sense, it’s easy for artists—songwriters, specifically—to express their feelings in their work. After all, that’s what the lyrics are for! But it’s much harder to convey emotional energy in how you play, slash at the guitar, and the structure of the music itself. That’s precisely why Girl and Girl’s Sub Pop debut, Call A Doctor, feels like such a vital, electrifying shock to the senses. Not since the early work of Car Seat Headrest or Conor Oberst’s widescreen emotional brutality as Bright Eyes has indie rock managed to come across as this intimate and grandiose, as the Australian quartet led by Kai James lay a lifetime’s worth of woes—mental health, the human race’s planned obsolescence if you’ve been living on this cursed rock you know what we’re getting at—across a canvas of indie rock that feels both timeless and in-the-moment.

An audacious and aggressively tuneful blast of a record, Call A Doctor is an unforgettable first bow from Girl and Girl, whose origins lie in James and guitarist Jayden Williams jamming in his mother’s garage in the afternoon after school. One afternoon, James’ Aunty Liss headed down to their practice space after walking her dog and asked if she could sit in on drums. “It sounded really great,” James recalls. “We begged her to stay, and she said, ‘I’ll stay until you find another drummer.’ We wore her down, and she eventually became a permanent member.”

After bassist Fraser Bell joined to round things out, Girl and Girl hit the road and began to make a name for themselves beyond the Australian bush, eventually signing to Sub Pop off the strength of word of mouth. Call A Doctor came together quickly soon after, largely recorded in marathon sessions in a two-story industrial complex over the course of two weeks. “That added to the intensity of the album,” James says about the frenzied creative process overseen by producer Burke Reid. “I can hear the stress in the record, which is good because that’s what it’s about—being tense, tied up, and in your own head.”

Call A Doctor’s eleven songs—spanning sweeping guitar epics and wry acoustic shuffles to spiky punk maneuvers and the type of raw, adoringly unvarnished indie-pop associated with legendary PacNW label K Records—are literally plucked from James’ personal history, as he reworked older recordings with newer lyrics reflecting his past struggles as well as new anxieties that emerged prior to the album’s recording. "I've struggled with mental health for a lot of my life," he explains, “and I went through a particularly difficult patch when we were making the album; the band had started to get some attention, and I felt an enormous amount of pressure to live up to it.”

“This record is about an individual who’s too far in their head, trying to get out,” James continues while discussing Call A Doctor’s overall outlook—specifically the snapshot it offers of its creator. But even though this record deals with uneasy topics we all know well from within ourselves, it’s important to emphasize how teeming with life Girl and Girl’s music is. There’s a brazen, bold sense of humor to this stuff, an undeniable brightness to the darkness that makes it impossible not to be drawn in as a listener. Feeling down never sounded so goddamn good.

TRACK LISTING

Intro
Call A Doctor
Hello
Maple Jean And The Anthropocene
Oh Boy!
Suffocate
Mother
You’ll Be Alright
Comfortable Friends
Our Love (Ours Only)
Outro

With 'Death Jokes', for the first time since the project's incarnation in 2006, the spiritual reflections and meditations of Amen Dunes are turned away from himself, and out sharply towards the world. The album is also a drastic turn musically and thematically, rooted in the electronic music of raves and of rap music he grew up with but never imagined himself able to make, playing like a scathing electronic essay on America’s culture of violence, dominance, and destructive individualism.

The work on 'Death Jokes' began just weeks before the first word of the pandemic came in the winter of 2019; it was completed three years later as we began to emerge from the worst. The album's meaning morphed as the pandemic went on, first a reflection on our attachment to form, and to ourselves, and then shifting into a solemn indictment of our culture’s blind spots as we misjudge and attack, veiled self-centeredness and self-importance masquerading as morality.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: Amen Dunes is without a doubt entering his purple patch here, with the brilliant 'Death Jokes' taking all of the woozy songwriting and soaring melodicism of his early work but rendering it in bold brushes of echoic 80's electronica and jagged, blended electronic fragments.

TRACK LISTING

1. Death Jokes
2. Ian
3. Joyrider
4. What I Want
5. Rugby Child
6. Boys
7. Exodus
8. Predator
9. Solo Tape
10. Purple Land
11. I Don’t Mind
12. Mary Anne
13. Round The World
14. Poor Cops 

Pissed Jeans has never been a band that goes halfway—they’re known for their feral vocals, biting lyrics, buzzsaw guitars, and unhinged live shows, and their sixth album, Half-Divorced is no exception. These songs skewer the tension between youthful optimism and the sobering realities of adulthood, and when viewed through frontman Matt Korvette’s scowl, everything takes on a level of violent absurdity.

Pissed Jeans’ notorious acerbic sense of humor remains sharper than ever as they dismember some of the joys that contemporary adult life has to offer, from helicopter parents to stolen catalytic converters to being $62,000 in debt. On “Seatbelt Alarm Silencer,” Korvette growls, “Call it a death drive but that ain’t fair / Drive implies I’m headed somewhere.”

Korvette, Brad Fry (guitar), Randy Huth (bass), and Sean McGuinness (drums) weren’t in any rush to finish Half-Divorced, which was recorded by Don Godwin at Tonal Park in Takoma Park, Maryland. “We’re not the kind of band that bangs out a new record every two years,” Korvette said. “Pissed Jeans is truly like an art project for us, which is what makes it so fun.” This lack of restraint rages within the songs that unexpectedly veer into classic hardcore punk territory—often coming in at under two minutes long and erupting like the “butane tank explosion” Korvette sings about in “Junktime.”

In the last song, “Moving On,” Korvette sneers, “Cheesing into my camera phone / Pretending that I’m not alone / Life’s the first thing that we all postpone.” One gets the sense that Pissed Jeans refuses to “postpone” life in quite the same way—life, like art, is something that happens now, not later.
-Chelsea Hodson.

TRACK LISTING

Killing All The Wrong People
Anti-Sapio
Helicopter Parent
Cling To A Poisoned Dream
Sixty-Two Thousand Dollars In Debt
Everywhere Is Bad
Junktime
Alive With Hate
Seatbelt Alarm Silencer
(Stolen) Catalytic Converter
Monsters
Moving On

This 2023 edition of The Shins’s beloved second album, Chutes Too Narrow, celebrates the album’s 20th anniversary with a fresh remaster by Adam Ayan, supervised by band leader James Mercer, and lovely new packaging for the vinyl. Following The Shins’s breakout 2001 debut, Oh, Inverted World, singer/songwriter/guitarist James Mercer and drummer Jesse Sandoval moved from Albuquerque to Portland, OR and bassist Neal Langford was replaced with Dave Hernandez (ex-Scared Of Chaka), who played bass on the stand-out track from the first record, “New Slang.” Chutes Too Narrow, their heavily anticipated follow-up, was recorded in James’ basement home studio, with later mixing assistance from Phil Ek (Built to Spill, Modest Mouse, David Cross, Les Savy Fav, etc.). And, with 10 songs, clocking in at just over 30 minutes, Chutes Too Narrow is a brief yet entirely scintillating glimpse at chiming, reflective and perfectly skewed pop innovation. It was released to widespread acclaim in 2003, garnering Pitchfork’s Best New Music, four stars from Rolling Stone, and raves from the New York Times, MOJO, the Village Voice, SPIN, and tons more. It subsequently made best-of-the-decade lists from The AV Club, NME, Paste, Pitchfork, and Uncut.

TRACK LISTING

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

The Japanese band CHAI cast a spell on the world in 2017 with their debut album, PINK, a collection of songs that introduced their singular brand of playful pop. The enthusiastically feminist follow-up, PUNK, raked in accolades from the music press and fellow artists. That led to WINK, which CHAI made via remote Zoom sessions, a limitation that became a strength by allowing MANA (lead vocals and keys), KANA (guitar), YUNA (drums), and YUUKI (bassist-lyricist) to collaborate with artists abroad to create a work that found catharsis in their international community.

Unlike WINK, the band’s new self-titled album finds CHAI returning to their roots, drawing inspiration from their Japanese heritage and the music that raised them. “Everything reflected in the lyrics expresses our experience as Japanese women,” MANA says. CHAI’s ethos is one of inclusion, and lead single “We The Female!” – recorded live to honor the band’s riotous performances – beckons listeners into the mission. “We are human and were born as female, but we have both female and male aspects in each of our souls, each with our own sense of balance,” CHAI said in an accompanying statement. “We can’t just label ourselves into clear-cut, simple categories anymore! I’m not anyone else but just ‘me,’ and you are no one else but just ‘you.’ This song celebrates that with a roar!”

During their post-pandemic touring, performing for enormous crowds in cities like Santiago, Buenos Aires, and São Paulo made CHAI realize they had unlocked a global audience. CHAI wrote the new record on the road, finding time to record in the days between shows at Stones Throw Studio in LA, Ometusco Sound Machine in Mexico City, and Grand Street in New York. As they realized their liberatory, empowering message applied to people outside of Japan, CHAI considered what facets of their upbringing might resonate with audiences outside of their home country.

On CHAI, the band draws directly from city pop, a Tokyo-born sound popularized in the ‘70s and ‘80s. City pop was a Japanese take on Western lounge music, borrowing from jazz, boogie, funk, and yacht rock to create a sound that straddled two cultures. While city pop has recently found a US audience via TikTok and YouTube, CHAI grew up on the genre. For production, they tapped previous collaborator Ryu Takahashi, who shared their love of city pop, eurobeat, and the melodies of J-pop artists like Maria Takeuchi. “They wanted to dig into their Japanese identity, not in a traditional sense, but in this filtered Western way,” Takahashi says. Working well-equipped studios allowed them to experiment with aesthetics as-yet-unheard on a CHAI album. For example, at Stones Throw Studio, CHAI recorded “GAME” with the sole intention of writing something listeners will recognize as new wave, riding on a house synth line and minimalist production that recalls the eurobeat influences most recently associated with Robyn’s Honey. “GAME” might be the perfect distillation of CHAI’s ethic, as it urges listeners to keep moving through this life with joy and passion. Per MANA: “It’s not about winning or losing as competition, but about what you need to do, personally, to feel you’ve won.”

TRACK LISTING

MATCHA
From 1992
PARA PARA
GAME
We The Female!
NEO KAWAII, K?
I Can't Organizeeee
Driving22
LIKE, I NEED
KARAOKE

Lucky For You is Bully’s most close-to-the-bone album yet. It’s an album that’s searing and unmistakably marked by its creator’s experiences, while still retaining the massive sound that Alicia Bognanno has become known for over the last decade. Her fourth album draws from personal pain and the universal struggle that is existing, learning, and moving on—and it’s all soundtracked by Bognanno’s rock-solid melodic sensibilities and a widescreen sound that’s impossible to pin down when it comes to the textures explored.

These ten songs are simply the most irresistible Bognanno’s put to tape yet, making Lucky For You her greatest triumph to date in a career already packed with them. Work on Lucky For You began last year, when Bognanno brought some in-progress demos to producer J.T. Daly in his Nashville studio to see if they could strike creative kismet. “Authenticity is always on my mind, without even knowing it,” she explains while discussing their recording process together. “It was great with J.T., because I could tell he was a genuine fan who wanted to emphasize what’s actually good about my writing instead of changing it. I could tell how much he cared about the project, and it meant alot to me.” The album came together over the course of seven months, the longest gestation process for a Bully record to date, but that time allowed inspiration to emerge in new ways.

The result is a kaleidoscopic rock record spanning punk’s grit, the crunchy bliss of shoegaze, explosive Britpop, and the type of classic anthems Bully has been known for. Lucky For You’s thematic focus zooms in on grief and loss: The record is largely inspired by Bognanno’s dog and best friend Mezzi passing away, at a time when her life already felt as if in metamorphosis. The oceanic first single “Days Move Slow” was written shortly after Mezzi’s passing, reflecting the persistence of Bognanno’s incisive wit in the face of adversity. “There was nothing I could do except sit down and write it, and it felt so good.” And then there’s the passionate opening track “All I Do,” which kicks in the door with huge riffs atop her lyrical reflections on three years of sobriety.

"Once I stopped drinking, I felt like I was still haunted by mistakes and things that had happened when I was drinking, and it’s still taking me a long time to forget about that while existing in this house. How do I shed the skin from a path I’ve moved on from?” In that vein, Lucky For You is a document of perseverance in the face of the big and the small stuff. “I’m so overly emotional and sensitive, it’s a blessing and a curse” she says with a laugh, but there’s no downside to her expressions of vulnerability on this record; it’s the latest bit of evidence that nothing can hold Bognanno back.

TRACK LISTING

1. All I Do
2. Days Move Slow
3. A Wonderful Life
4. Hard To Love
5. Change Your Mind
6. How Will I Know
7. A Love Profound
8. Lose You (feat. Soccer Mommy)
9. Ms. America
10. All This Noise

Lael Neale still has a flip phone and there were no screens involved in the creation of her new record Star Eaters Delight. The album is her second for Sub Pop and reveals an expansion of her sonic collaboration with producer and accompanist Guy Blakeslee. In April of 2020, in the wake of transformations both personal and global, Lael moved from Los Angeles back to her family’s farm in rural Virginia. Looking at the world from a distance and getting in tune with her own rhythms, she wrote and recorded steadily for two dreamlike years, driven by a need to make order out of chaos. Forged in isolation, Star Eaters Delight is a vehicle for returning, not just to civilization, but to celebration. She says, “Acquainted with Night (recorded in 2019, and released in 2021), was focused inward, amidst the loud and bright Los Angeles surrounding me. It was an attempt to create spaciousness and quiet reverie within. When I moved back to the farm, I found that the unbroken silences compelled me to break them with sound. This album is more external. It is me reaching back out to the world, wanting to feel connected, to wake up, to come together again.” Album opener and lead single “I Am The River” melts the ice with a dynamic explosion of minimalist transcendental pop clearly descended from the Velvet Underground’s branch of modern music’s family tree.

Blakeslee’s spare yet cinematic arrangements create an ambient space in which Neale’s clear and unaffected voice can explore familiar themes in an unexpected way. Subtle but potent references to Shakespeare, Emerson and the Bible (which she hasn’t read) swirl together with deeply personal musings and touches of wry humor, always more optimistic than cynical. While this is a record about polarities- country vs. city, humanity vs. technology, solitude vs. relationship - the deeper intention is to heal; to come to terms with our differences and put the broken pieces back together again. Lael’s affinity with the Transcendentalists has to do with her quest to hold onto sovereignty over her own mind. In a time when our devices are constantly flooding us with information, opinions and propaganda, Lael is intentional about what she takes in - hence the flip phone and the cassette recorder. Neale identifies as a minimalist “not because I don’t like things, but because I value freedom more.”

TRACK LISTING

I Am The River
If I Had No Wings
Faster Than The Medicine
In Verona
Must Be Tears
No Holds Barred
Return To Me Now
Lead Me Blind

The world is filling up with trash. Humanity remains addicted to pollution. People are downing horse dewormer because some goober on television told them it cured COVID. The apocalypse is stupider than anyone could’ve predicted.

Fortunately, the absurdities of modern life have always been prime subject matter for Seattle-based foursome Mudhoney, and the band take aim at all of them with typical barbed humor and muck-encrusted riffs on on 11th studio album, Plastic Eternity, which was recorded over nine days at Crackle & Pop! in Seattle with longtime producer Johnny Sangster.

From taking on climate change from the perspective of the climate if the climate tried to play guitar like Jimi Hendrix (“Cry Me An Atmospheric River”) to a driving rock and roll song about taking drugs meant for livestock (“Here Comes the Flood”) to a classic punk attack on treating humans like livestock (“Human Stock Capital”), Plastic Eternity is a run through all the proto-genres of guitar rock with a keen eye on the inanities of the world in the 2020’s. It also contains a genuine love song in closing track “Little Dogs,” an ode to the simple joys of hanging out with tiny canines.

Mudhoney (vocalist Mark Arm, guitarist Steve Turner, bassist Guy Maddison, and drummer Dan Peters) remain the ur underground group, their gnarly primordial punk stew and Arm’s sharply funny lyrics as potent a combination as they’ve been since the band’s formation in the late 1980s. When asked why they continue making records nearly four decades after forming, Arm’s answer is simple.

“We like each other, and we like being in a band together,” says Arm. “Some people have poker night or whatever the fuck, and they have the excuse to get together with their friends. For us, this [band] is that. This is what we do.”

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: You know you're in safe hands with Mudhoney, and on their 11th LP in 35 storied years, they've not lost any of the grungy grit and political drive that made them so popular in the first place. Aiming their sights at all manner of recent events has meant there's little shortage of material, and Mudhoney manage to tackle it all with wit and aplomb. Brilliant.

TRACK LISTING

Souvenir Of My Trip
Almost Everything
Cascades Of Crap
Flush The Fascists
Move Under
Severed Dreams In The Sleeper Cell
Here Comes The Flood
Human Stock Capital
Tom Herman's Hermits
One Or Two
Cry Me An Atmospheric River
Plasticity
Little Dogs

Breaking the Balls of History is Quasi’s tenth record, landing ten years after their last record.

Sam Coomes and Janet Weiss have become Pacific Northwest icons, and Quasi has always felt so steadfast— their enduring friendship so generative, their energy infinite, each album more raucous and catchy and ferocious and funny than the last. But we were wrong to ever take Quasi for granted. For a while, they thought 2013’s intricate Mole City might be their last record. They’d go out on a great one and move on. Then in August 2019 a car smashed into Janet’s and broke both legs and her collarbone. Then a deadly virus collided with all of us, and no one knew when or if live music as we knew it—the touring, the communal crowds, the sonic church of the dark club—would ever happen again. And with the obliterated normal came an unexpected gift: uninterrupted time, hours every day, to make art. Quasi couldn’t go on the road, so they got an idea: they would act as if they were on tour and play together every single day. Each afternoon, Sam and Janet bunkered down in their tiny practice space and channeled the bewilderment and absurdity of this alien new world into songs. Janet’s strength returned and rose to athlete-level stamina The incredible result of those sessions is Breaking the Balls of History, recorded in five days and produced by John Goodmanson at the legendary Robert Lang Studios in Shoreline, WA. Here are two artists at their prime, each a human library of musical knowledge and experience, entirely distinctive in their songcraft and sound. In Quasi-form, the band becomes alchemically even greater than the sum of its parts: Janet’s galloping drums and Sam’s punk-symphonic Rocksichord and their intertwining vocals make something gigantic, anthemic. In the thick of a cataclysmic social and political moment, they’ve crafted exquisitely melodic songs that glitter with rage and wild humor and intelligence, driven by a big bruised pounding heart.

While it reflects the darkness of our time, Breaking the Balls of History surges with energy and pleasure and joy. “It felt so life-affirming. I can hear in the music how happy I am to be there and to be playing at that level again,” Janet said. “I get to exist.” Sam and Janet have lived through enough to understand that nothing is permanent, and that when your faith in humanity sinks, you turn to the life force of what you can rely on: the people you trust, the community that claims you, and what you can create. You can’t control the time. But you can make a record of a time. And luckily for us, Quasi has again.

TRACK LISTING

Last Long Laugh
Back In Your Tree
Queen Of Ears
Gravity
Shitty Is Pretty
Riots & Jokes
Breaking The Balls Of History
Doomscrollers
Inbetweenness
Nowheresville
Rotten Wrock
The Losers Win

There are times in our life when we feel magic in the air. When new love arrives, or we find ourselves lost in a moment of creation with others who share our vision. A sense that: this is who I want to be. This is what I want to share. It’s a fleeting feeling and one that Kyle Thomas, the singer-songwriter who records and performs as King Tuff, found himself longing for in the spring of 2020.

But knowing he couldn’t simply recreate this time in his life at will, Thomas—who hails from Brattleboro, Vermont—set out to write a love letter to those cherished moments of inspiration and to the small town that formed him. The one where he first nurtured his songwriting impulses, bouncing ideas off other like-minded artists. The kind of place where the changing of the seasons always delivered a sense of perspective and fresh artistic inspiration. Where he felt a deeper connection with nature and sense of community that had once been so close at hand. And so, Thomas seized upon his memories, creating what he calls “an album about love and nature and youth.”

The result is Smalltown Stardust, a spiritual, tender and ultimately joyous record that might come as a shock to those with only a passing knowledge of the artist’s back catalog. On Smalltown Stardust, Thomas takes us on his journey to a place where past and present collide, where he can be a dreamer in love with all that he sees. References to his Brattleboro upbringing abound, but at the core of Smalltown Stardust is Thomas’s desire to commune with nature on a spiritual level. Images of the natural world, from blizzards to green mountains to cloudy days, fill the songs. “I consider nature to be my religion,” he explains, and Smalltown Stardust is nothing if not a spiritual exploration.

While so much of Smalltown Stardust invokes idealized traces and places of Thomas’s past, the album’s recording process made his communal vision a reality. Thomas’s Los Angeles home in 2020 formed a micro-scene of sorts, with housemates Meg Duffy (Hand Habits) and Sasami Ashworth recording their own heralded albums (2021’s Fun House and 2022’s Squeeze, respectively) at the same time. A shared spirit dominated an era spent largely on the premises, with Thomas serving as engineer and contributor to both records, and Ashworth working as co-producer on Smalltown Stardust. Ashworth’s contributions are vital to the album: she co-wrote a majority of the record and contributed vocals, arrangements, and instrumentation to each song.

In the end, Smalltown Stardust is not merely a nostalgia trip. Thomas not only conjured a special time in his life, he found new inspiration, surrounded by collaborators and a sense of love and wonder for nature. If the first King Tuff record was content to merely state Thomas was no longer dead, Smalltown Stardust is a paean to what that life means. A statement of belief and a hymnal to the magic still to behold all around us.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: Smalltown Stardust is at it's heart an exploration of psychedelia but it's so joyously presented, effortlessly lurching from 60s psych to folky minimalism, via clashing garage rock. There are snippets of uplifting synths and pristine production but it never sounds less that thoroughly organic and wholly absorbing.

TRACK LISTING

Love Letters To Plants
How I Love
A Meditation
Portrait Of God
Smalltown Stardust
Pebbles In A Stream
Tell Me
Rock River
The Bandits Of Blue Sky
Always Find Me
The Wheel

Hot Hot Heat’s classic debut album, filled with smart, energetic, dance-punk hits, returns to vinyl with this fully remastered LP edition. AllMusic called the album “an addictive, densely packed pop gem that ranks among 2002’s best albums,” and Pitchfork agreed, including it on their list of the best albums of 2002. Following closely on the heels of their critically-acclaimed Knock Knock Knock EP, Make Up the Breakdown is Hot Hot Heat's first full-length, recorded with Jack Endino at Vancouver, BC’s Mushroom Studios (with engineering help from Chris Walla of Death Cab for Cutie). SPIN Magazine had this to say about Knock Knock Knock: “Some retro new wavers hang themselves on their own skinny ties. While their peers lip-sych to Cure 45s, these Canucks take subtler cues from early-‘80s synth disco. It’s not new-wave worship, it’s the sound of punk teaching itself to dance.” Make Up the Breakdown delivered on the promise hinted at on the EP. Hot Hot Heat (along with peers like Radio 4 and The Rapture) blended angular post-punk twitch with danceable pop, effectively (and finally) persuading white dopes on punk to get on the good foot in the early 2000s.

TRACK LISTING

Naked In The City Again          
No, Not Now              
Get In Or Get Out         
Bandages     
Oh, Goddamnit              
Aveda (Remastered)                 
This Town (Remastered)                         
Talk To Me, Dance With Me                        
Save Us S.O.S.                
In Cairo            
Apt. 101            
Move On

Long-awaited follow-up to Weyes Blood’s 2019 breakthrough album Titanic Rising.  And In The Darkness, Hearts Aglow was co-produced by Weyes Blood and Jonathan Rado, with engineering by Andrew Sarlo (Big Thief), and additional instrumentation by Meg Duffy (Hand Habits) and Mary Lattimore. 

Technological agitation. Narcissism fatigue. A galaxy of isolation. These are the new norms keeping Weyes Blood (aka Natalie Mering) up at night and the themes at the heart of her latest release, And in the Darkness, Hearts Aglow.  The celestial-influenced folk album is her follow-up to the acclaimed Titanic Rising. (Pitchfork, NPR, and The Guardian admiringly named it one of 2019’s best.) While Titanic Rising was an observation of doom to come, And in the Darkness, Hearts Aglow is about being in the thick of it: a search for an escape hatch to liberate us from algorithms and ideological chaos. “We’re in a fully functional shit show,” Mering says. “My heart is a glow stick that’s been cracked, lighting up my chest in an explosion of earnestness.” And in the Darkness, Hearts Aglow opens with the wistful, winsome “It's Not Just Me, It's Everybody,” a song about the interconnectivity of all beings, despite the fraying of society around us. “I was asking a lot of questions while writing these songs. Hyper-isolation kept coming up,” Mering says. “Our culture relies less and less on people. Something is off, and even though the feeling appears differently for each individual, it is universal.” Other tracks follow in kind. The lullaby-like “Grapevine” chronicles the splintering of a human connection. The otherworldly dirge “God Turn Me into a Flower” serves as allegory about our collective hubris. “The Worst Is Done” is an ominous warning, set against a deceivingly breezy pop melody. “Chaos is natural. But so is negentropy, or the tendency for things to fall into order,” she says. “These songs may not be manifestos or solutions, but I know they shed light on the meaning of our contemporary disillusionment.” 

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: The wonderful Weyes Blood returns for her most expansive and musically accomplished outing yet. Hazy, mid-century Americana meets smoky lounge bars and wistful folk music in a stunningly evocative and quintessentially Weyes Blood work. From strength to strength (including a stint as JOMF's bass player no less!), Mering pulls out all the stops for 'And In The Darkness', and it's come out a treat.

TRACK LISTING

It's Not Just Me, It's Everybody
Children Of The Empire
Grapevine
God Turn Me Into A Flower
Hearts Aglow
And In The Darkness
Twin Flame    
In Holy Flux
The Worst Is Done
A Given Thing

Several things happened before a warm day when I met the four members of Frankie Cosmos in a Brooklyn studio to begin making their album. Greta Kline spent a few years living with her family and writing a mere 100 songs, turning her empathy anywhere from the navel to the moon, rendering it all warm, close and reflexively humorous. In music, everyone loves a teen sensation, but Kline has never been more fascinating than now, a decade into being one of the most prolific songwriters of her generation. She’s lodged in my mind amongst authors, other observational alchemists like Rachel Cusk or Sheila Heti, but she’s funnier, which is a charm endemic to musicians.

Meanwhile Frankie Cosmos, a rare, dwindling democratic entity called a band, had been on pandemic hiatus with no idea if they’d continue. In the openness of that uncertainty they met up, planning to hang out and play music together for the first time in nearly 500 days. There, whittling down the multitude of music to work with, they created Inner World Peace, a collection of Greta’s songs changed and sculpted by their time together. While Kline’s musical taste at the time was leaning toward aughts indie rock she’d loved as a teenager, keyboardist Lauren Martin and drummer Luke Pyenson cite “droning, meditation, repetition, clarity and intentionality,” as well as “‘70s folk and pop” as a reference for how they approached their parts. Bassist/guitarist Alex Bailey says that at the time he referred to it as their “ambient” or “psych” album. Somewhere between those textural elements and Kline’s penchant for concise pop, Inner World Peace finds its balance.

The first order of business upon setting up camp in Brooklyn’s Figure 8 studios was to project giant colorful slides the band had made for each track. Co-producing with Nate Mendelsohn, my Shitty Hits Recording partner, we aimed for FC’s aesthetic idiosyncrasies to shine. The mood board for “Magnetic Personality” has a neon green and black checkerboard, a screen capture of the game Street Fighter with “K.O.” in fat red letters, and a cover of Mad Magazine that says “Spy Vs. Spy! The Top Secret Files.” On tracks like “F.O.O.F.” (Freak Out On Friday), “Fragments” and “Aftershook,” the group are at their most psychedelic and playful, interjecting fuzz solos, bits of percussion, and other sonically adventurous ear candy. An internal logic strengthens everything, and in their proggiest moments, Frankie Cosmos are simply a one-take band who don’t miss. When on Inner World Peace they sound wildly, freshly different, it may just be that they’re coming deeper into their own.

Inner World Peace excels in passing on the emotions it holds. When in the towering “Empty Head” Kline sings of wanting to let thoughts slide away, her voice is buoyed on a bed of synths and harmonium as tranquility abounds. When her thoughts become hurried and full of desire, so does the band, and she leaps from word to word as if unable to contain them all. As a group, they carry it all deftly, and with constant regard for Kline’s point of view.

Says Greta, “To me, the album is about perception. It’s about the question of “who am I?” and whether or not the answer matters. It’s about quantum time, the possibilities of invisible worlds. The album is about finding myself floating in a new context. A teenager again, living with my parents. An adult, choosing to live with my family in an act of love. Time propelled us forward, aged us, and also froze. If you don’t leave the house, who are you to the world? Can you take the person you discover there out with you?”

- Katie Von Schleicher

TRACK LISTING

Abigail
Aftershook
Fruit Stand
Magnetic Personality
Wayne
Sky Magnet
A Work Call
Empty Head
Fragments
Prolonging Babyhood
One Year Stand
F.O.O.F.
Street View
Spare The Guitar
Heed The Call

Since its inception in 1992, Built to Spill founder Doug Martsch intended his beloved band to be a collaborative project, an ever-evolving group of incredible musicians making music and playing live together. “I wanted to switch the line-up for many reasons. Each time we finish a record I want the next one to sound totally different. It’s fun to play with people who bring in new styles and ideas,” says Martsch. “And it’s nice to be in a band with people who aren’t sick of me yet.”

Following several albums and EPs on Pacific Northwest independent labels, including the unmistakably canonical indie rock classic, There’s Nothing Wrong With Love, released on Sub Pop offshoot Up Records in 1994, Martsch signed with Warner Brothers from 1995 to 2016. He and his rotating cast of cohorts recorded six more, inarguably great albums during that time – Perfect From Now On, Keep It Like a Secret, Ancient Melodies of the Future, You In Reverse, Untethered Moon, There Is No Enemy. There was also a live album, and a solo record, Now You Know. While the band’s impeccable recorded catalogue is the entry point, Built to Spill live is an essential FORCE of its own: heavy, psychedelic, melodic and visceral tunes blaring from amps that sound as if they’re powered by Mack trucks.

Now in 2022, Built to Spill returns with When the Wind Forgets Your Name, Martsch’s unbelievably great new album (and also his eighth full-length)... with a fresh new label. “I’m psyched: I’ve wanted to be on Sub Pop since I was a teenager. And I think I’m the first fifty year-old they’ve ever signed.” (The rumours' are true, we love quinquagenarians…)

TRACK LISTING

1. Gonna Lose
2. Fool’s Gold
3. Understood
4. Elements
5. Rock Steady
6. Spiderweb
7. Never Alright
8. Alright
9. Comes A Day

Solo debut by Bret McKenzie, one half of New Zealand’s most popular comedy folk duo, Flight of the Conchords.

‘Songs Without Jokes’ harkens back to the greats of the 1970s singer- songwriter era, with songs reminiscent of the finest work of Harry Nilsson, Randy Newman, and even a touch of Elvis Costello.

The Conchords landed McKenzie and Jemaine Clement a hit HBO TV show, a BBC Radio series, chart-topping records, world tours, a Best Comedy Album Grammy, and a 2018 ‘reunion’ special. McKenzie transitioned to Hollywood, writing songs for 2011’s ‘The Muppets’ (winning a Best Original Song Oscar for ‘Man or Muppet’), 2014’s ‘Muppets Most Wanted’, and films in the ‘Pirates!’ and ‘Dora’ canons.

While he enjoyed and excelled at the work, he wondered where his songs might go if set free of all that plot-bound specificity. And so, while in Los Angeles a few years back, recording movie music with a crack assemblage of legendary session musicians, McKenzie started playing around with a tune or two he had written simply as songs - songs without any external direction, songs without plot-pushing concerns, songs without jokes.

The results reveal McKenzie’s talents on multiple instruments (he’s a veteran of several non-comedy bands in New Zealand back in the day, most notably the reggae-based fusion group The Black Seeds), and his affinity for wry, literate artists like Harry Nilsson, Steely Dan, Randy Newman and Dire Straits.

While the album may be free of traditional punch lines, it doesn’t lack a sense of humour. It showcases a new stage of McKenzie’s career, to be sure, but one that isn’t so far removed from his past work and true artistic self. Like Jim Henson before him, who made a career of blending the silly with the sincere and the playful with the profound, McKenzie also aims to connect rainbows to the ridiculous.

TRACK LISTING

This World
If You Wanna Go
Dave’s Place
Here For You
That’s L.A
Up In Smoke
Carry On
A Little Tune
America Goodbye
Tomorrow Today
Crazy Times

Smash cut to Kiwi Jr.’s third album, Chopper, overseen by trusted pilot Dan Boeckner (Wolf Parade, Handsome Furs) on storied Sub Pop Records. Turning nocturnal with necks mock turtle, our Local Kiwi Jr. takes neon flight off the digital cliff - like The Monkees starring in Blade Runner; like Michael Mann directs Encino Man. Ten songs with synth shimmer, zen gongs with yard strimmer. The signs along the highway read “LESS BAR, MORE NOIR AHEAD.” Ah, those late summer, Joe Strummer, Home on the Range Rover Blues. There's a melancholy to all forms of flight, and the view out the Chopper is as hazy as it gets: mission-oriented, both stealth and self-realized. This album is decidedly (yet almost secretly) anti-patio-sunscreen-Beach Boys bachelor cruise sing-a-long. Sure, these songs let a little light through the blinds, but they sting insomnia, corrupt mayors, Kennedy Curses, sex tapes, and deer rifles. Chopper is the bird's eye view of the big event - a real nighttime character of oil stain, film grain, search light, night flight. It is muscular and fragile; loud yet quiet: both an observer and somehow the observed spectacle itself. What was slack in the slacker phase, got tauter, with lacquer glaze. Slick gloss, rightened wrongs; murdered boss, promoted pawns. With Boeckner transmitting high-voltage shocks upon every reach for a familiar instrument, Kiwi Jr. expands the palette with string machine song, synthesizered oblong, and Dentyne Classic Menthol vocals from area soprano Dorothea Paas (US Girls, Badge Epoch Ensemble) like the missing piece all along. Kiwi Jr. brings the Chopper to a new space, demilitarizing the technology just like flasks, aviators, and cargo shorts. Graceful in the air above, but when the Chopper lands, there's chaos on the ground. Kiwi Jr. shout, “Look Out!” When it gets close, it'll blow the hat right off of your head.

Hold onto your hats, Babies.

Kiwi Jr. is Jeremy Gaudet vocals and guitar, Brian Murphy guitar, Mike Walker bass, Brohan Moore drums, and everybody played a little bit of keyboard.

TRACK LISTING

Unspeakable Things
Parasite II
Clerical Sleep
Night Vision
The Extra Sees The Film
Contract Killers
The Sound Of Music
Downtown Area Blues
Kennedy Curse
The Masked Singer

“I’ve been playing since I was 11 years old,” says Charlie Gabriel, the most senior member of the legendary Preservation Hall Band, “I never did anything in my life but play music. I’ve been blessed with that gift that God gave me, and I’ve tried to nurse it the best way I knew how.” While he’s faced plenty of challenges nursing that gift for more than 78 years, none likely rank with last winter’s passing of his brother and last living sibling, Leonard, lost to COVID-19. For the first time ever, Gabriel put down his horn, filling his days and weeks instead with dark reflection, a stubborn despondency broken now and then by regular chess matches in the studio kitchen of Hall leader Ben Jaffe, working overtime to bring his friend some light. One such afternoon also included Joshua Starkman, sitting off in a corner playing his guitar and half-watching the chess from a distance. When Charlie returned the next day, he brought his saxophone. “I was just inspired to try it, to play again. It had been a long time, and a guitar makes me feel free. I do love the sound of a piano, but it takes up a lot of a space, keeps me kind of boxed in.”

That day was to be the first session for 89, almost entirely the work of Gabriel, Jaffe and Starkman, recorded mostly right there, in the kitchen, by Matt Aguiluz. Charlie Gabriel’s first professional gig dates to 1943, sitting in for his father in New Orleans’ Eureka Brass Band. As a teenager living in Detroit, Charlie played with Lionel Hampton, whose band then included a young Charles Mingus, later spending nine years with a group led by Cab Calloway drummer J.C. Heard. While he’s also fronted a bebop quintet, played and/or toured with Ella Fitzgerald, Tony Bennet, Aretha Franklin and many more, this is the first time his name appears on the front of a record, as a bandleader.

Since 2006, Gabriel has been a member of the Preservation Hall Jazz Band, featuring prominently on That’s It, So It Is, and Tuba to Cuba. 89 was different, and not simply due to a smaller ensemble. “We had no particular plan, or any particular insight on what we were gonna do. But we were enjoying what we were doing, jamming, having a musical conversation,” Charlie says, further musing, “Musical conversations cancel out complications.” 89 includes six standards and three newer pieces on which Gabriel is a writer: “Yellow Moon,” “The Darker It Gets” and “I Get Jealous.” The record also marks Charlie’s return to his first instrument, clarinet, on many of the tracks. “The clarinet is the mother of the saxophone,” he says. “I started playing clarinet early in life, and this [taught me] the saxophone.”

Finally, 89 includes three tracks of Charlie singing. “I always sung, but it wasn’t my forte to become a singer,” he says. “The truth is, people often develop a real relationship with a song once they hear the words. Sometimes I enjoy singing them.”

TRACK LISTING

Memories Of You
Chelsea Bridge
I'm Confessin'
The Darker It Gets
Stardust
Three Little Words
Yellow Moon
I Get Jealous

The roots of Naima Bock’s music are far reaching. Born in Glastonbury to a Brazilian father and a Greek mother, Naima spent her early childhood in Brazil before eventually returning to England and various homes in South-East London. This heritage combines with more recent pursuits in Naima’s music. From the Brazilian standards that the family listened to while driving to the beach, to the European folk traditions she tapped into on her own, and the pursuits that interest her today – studies in archaeology, work as a gardener, and walking the world’s great trails – Naima’s music draws from family, the earth and music handed down through generations.

Naima’s debut album Giant Palm is undoubtedly infused with the Brazilian music of her youth and regular family visits. She found inspiration in “the percussion, the melodies, chords - and particularly the poetic juxtaposition of tragedy and beauty held within the lyrics.” By the age of 15 Naima was embedded in the music scene of South-East London, eventually forming Goat Girl with school friends and touring the world. After six years playing bass in Goat Girl, Naima left the band to try something new. She set up a gardening company and started a degree at University College London in archeology because, as she jokes, “I liked being near the ground.” During this time she wrote music, played guitar, learned violin, worked with ever-shifting South-London collective Broadside Hacks, and met producer and arranger Joel Burton through Memorials of Distinction label head Josh Cohen. Joel’s burgeoning interest in Western classical music, global folk music, experience in large scale arrangement and orchestration informed the collaborative process that eventually culminated in Giant Palm.

Recorded with the help of over 30 musicians (including Josh Cohen on synth/electronics) by Dan Carey of Speedy Wunderground at his studio space in Streatham, South-East London, and engineered by Syd Kemp, the songs on Giant Palm represent a snapshot of a specific feeling, of brief moments in Naima’s life that make up a larger whole. The expansive yet delicate arrangements highlight Naima’s love for the collectivist values of traditional folk music, in which songs belong to everyone, and singing can take on countless forms without the need to exactly replicate something. “All the other representations that I’d had of singing felt so unattainable” she recalls. Giant Palm finds Naima bucking these expectations to let her unique voice and sense of communal creativity flourish. 

TRACK LISTING

Giant Palm
Toll
Every Morning
Dim Dum
Working
Natural
Campervan
Enter The House
Instrumental 
O Morro

Σtella makes her Sub Pop debut with the mesmerizing Up and Away, an old-school pop paean to the pangs and raptures of love. From the Greek folk-inflected get-go, we’re swept up in Σtella’s world – and it’s quite the captivating place to be.

The singer-songwriter joined forces with artist and producer Tom Calvert (aka Redinho), and it was a match made in Athens; the results are heavenly. Tom caught one of Σtella’s gigs on a visit to the city. He reached out, they started hanging out, and the pair soon clicked creatively. Both mention chemistry when asked about their collaboration and it’s clear, from what we hear, they had it in spades. The meld is seamless. Σtella’s songs have always riffed on American and Greek mid-century pop but Up and Away doubles down on the vintage aesthetic. Tom says he styled the record “as if it was a rare gem from the ’60s found in a box of records in Athens,” and Σtella notes she was ready for a more “deeply Greek touch – it felt comfortable and right, smoothly fusing with the pop.” The bouzouki appears on a full five tracks played by Christos Skondras who, she says, “was brilliant at improvising,” while Sofia Labropoulou on the kanun “brought an insane amount of dreaminess to the last two songs. Having these amazing musicians play for Up and Away – I couldn’t be more grateful.”

While not exclusively a confessional artist, Σtella is always intimate – when she sings, it’s personal. She writes “about things I feel passion for. Stories about me, about others, about all that’s there in love and war.” Σtella was “in a very emotional state at the time, which came through in the lyrics and vocals.” And it’s true, her honeyed voice – layered in those unmistakable harmonies of hers – thrillingly runs the gamut from tender to terse, by turns bracing and smitten, aching and forlorn. But it’s the lyrics that feel key. Across her output, Σtella has proven herself a strong storyteller, and Up and Away is no exception (the guise of the medieval bard she assumes on the cover is telling).

Past releases have been studded with gem-like vignettes – a diverse array of stories set tightly together to form non-linear narratives unified by emotion. Her latest feels singular in that it seems to trace a longer-form tale across songs, with each track escalating the record’s erotic arc. By the end of the album, Up and Away’s core concerns are clear: the conflicting and conflicted emotions inherent in love, that live on in ways we can’t always understand or control. Love is like this record: when it’s over, you still feel it for time to come.

TRACK LISTING

Up And Away
Nomad
Manéros
Charmed
Another Nation
Black And White
Titanic
The Truth Is
Who Cares
Is It Over

Rolling Blackouts Coastal Fever return in 2022 with Endless Rooms, the Melbourne quintet's third album proper. Described by the band – comprised of Fran Keaney, Joe White, Marcel Tussie and brothers Tom Russo and Joe Russo – as them "Doing what we do best: chasing down songs in a room together", Endless Rooms stands as a testament to the collaborative spirit and live power of RBCF.

While initial ideas were traded online during long spells spent separated by lockdowns, the album was truly born during small windows of freedom in which the band would decamp to a mud-brick house in the bush around 2hrs north of Melbourne built by the extended Russo family in the 1970s.

There, its 12 tracks took shape, informed to such an extent by the acoustics and ambience of the rambling lakeside house that they decided to record the album there. The house also features on the album cover. For the first time, the band self-produced the record (alongside engineer, collaborator and old friend, Matt Duffy), creating their most naturalistic and expansive document yet. The result is a collection of songs permeated by the spirit of the place; punctuated by field recordings of rain, fire, birds, and wind.

"It's almost an anti-concept album," say the band. "The ‘endless rooms’ of the title reflects our love of creating worlds in our songs. We treat each of them as a bare room to be built up with infinite possibilities."

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: Aaah, there's nothing quite as satisfying as a new RCBF album. Their latest definitely sounds like them, with the roaring angular guitar lines and post-punk vocal sneer but is somehow softened into a more crepuscular, thoughtful selection of pieces. It's by no means a mellow record, but their usual drive is tempered a little, and all the better for it. A lovely record.

TRACK LISTING

Pearl Like You
Tidal River
The Way It Shatters
Caught Low
My Echo
Dive Deep
Open Up Your Window
Blue Eye Lake
Saw You At The Eastern Beach
Vanishing Dots
Endless Rooms
Bounce Off The Bottom

If you’re looking for a raw, sugary blast of distorted pop, look no further than Weird Nightmare. The debut album from METZ guitarist and vocalist Alex Edkins contains all of his main band’s bite with an unexpected, yet totally satisfying, sweetness. Imagine The Amps covering Big Star, or the gloriously hissy miniature epics of classic-era Guided by Voices combined with the bombast of Copper Blue- era Sugar—just tons of red-line distortion cut with the type of tunecraft that thrills the moment it hits your ears. 

These ten songs showcase a new side of Edkins’ already-established songwriting, but even though the bulk of Weird Nightmare was recorded during the COVID-19 pandemic some of its tunes date back to 2013 in demo form. “Hooks and melody have always been a big part of my writing, but they really became the main focus this time” he explains. “It was about doing what felt natural.” 

To be clear: Weird Nightmare is not a “pandemic album,” but an album—some of which had been gestating for quite a while—that just so happened to be recorded during the pandemic. “I had always planned on finishing these songs, but being unable to tour with METZ, and forced to lock down, really gave me a push.” After days spent homeschooling his son, Edkins would drive to the METZ rehearsal room and tinker deep into the night on these songs’ deceptively simple structures and rich, static-laden textures. “It was a godsend for me,” he states about the creative process. “The hours would disappear and I would get lost in the music and record. It was a beautiful escape.”

Weird Nightmare is, in its own way, a study in extremes: Edkins’ melodic instincts and penchant for dissonance are both turned up to the max throughout, the latter reflecting not only the barn-burning tendencies of METZ, but Alex’s own sonic predilections. “It doesn’t sound right to my ears until it’s pushed over the edge.” He also cites other artists who are masterful at mixing the sublime and the punishing—Kim Deal and Scout Niblett among them—as influences on his own songwriting. “My favorite songs are the simple ones,” he explains. “I’ve never been attracted to virtuosity or technicality. Certain songs have the power to lift your spirits like nothing else can. I wanted to create that type of song.” 

A few guests pitch in on Weird Nightmare: Canadian alt-pop genius Chad VanGaalen adds his unmistakable touch to the ever-escalating “Oh No,” while Alicia Bognanno of Bully lends her distinctive pipes to the thrashing “Wrecked,” a collaboration that effectively saved the song. “I almost didn’t put it on the album because I thought it was missing something,” Edkins explains. “I sent it to Alicia and she lifted it way up.” 

And taking risks and reaching out of Edkins’ comfort zone was the name of the game when it came to making Weird Nightmare. “I found myself doing new things I didn’t have the guts to do before, recording everything by myself and trusting all of my musical instincts,” he states. “I think when music manifests quickly, a certain amount of honesty automatically comes along with it. When it is a purely instinctual creation, there is no opportunity to obscure the truth.”

TRACK LISTING

Searching For You
Nibs
Lusitania
Wrecked (feat. Bully)
Sunday Driver
Darkroom
Dream
Zebra Dance
Oh No (feat. Chad VanGaalen)
Holding Out

Nowadays, voice memos, videos, and pictures chronicle our lives in real-time. We trace where we’ve been and reveal where we’re going. However, Suki Waterhouse catalogs the most intimate, formative, and significant moments of her life through songs. You might recognize her name or her work as singer, songwriter, actress but you’ll really get to know the multi-faceted artist through her music. Memories of unrequited love, fits of longing, instances of anxiety, and unfiltered snapshots interlock like puzzle pieces into a mosaic of well-worn country, ‘90s-style alternative, and unassuming pop.

She writes the kind of tunes meant to be grafted onto dusty old vinyl from your favorite vintage record store, yet perfect for a sun-soaked festival stage. Her first album for Sub Pop, I Can’t Let Go, is a testament to her powers as a singer and songwriter. In Suki’s words: “The album is called I Can’t Let Go because for years it felt like I was wearing heavy moments on my sleeve and it just didn’t make sense to do so anymore. There’s so much that I’ve never spoken about. Writing music has always been where it felt safe to do so. Every song for the record was a necessity. In many ways, I’ve been observing my life as an outsider, even when I’ve been on the inside. It’s like I was a visitor watching things happen.”

Growing up in London, Suki gravitated towards music’s magnetic pull. She listened to the likes of Alanis Morissette and Fiona Apple, and Oasis held a special place in her heart. She initially teased out this facet of her creativity with a series of singles, generating nearly 20 million total streams independently.

Nylon hailed her debut track, “Brutally,” as “what a Lana Del Rey deep cut mixed with Joni Mitchell’s ‘Both Sides, Now’ would sound like.” In addition to raves from Garage, Vice and Lemonade Magazine, DUJOR put it best: “Suki Waterhouse’s music has swagger.”

Suki is constantly consuming artists of all stripes, and, in the lead-up to making I Can’t Let Go, she was particularly drawn to the work of Sharon Van Etten, Valerie June, Garbage, Frazey Ford, Lou Doillon, and Lucinda Williams. After falling in love with Hiss Golden Messenger’s Terms of Surrender, she reached out to its producer Brad Cook (Bon Iver, War On Drugs, Snail Mail, Waxahatchee) to help define the sound of I Can’t Let Go.

On I Can’t Let Go, Suki not only catalogs her life up to this point, but she also fulfills a lifelong ambition. “When I’ve been stuck or feel out of touch with a sense of inner meaning and outer purpose, I’ve found both through searching my memories and finding those events buried in the shadowy areas of the psyche where they were ignored,” she says. “So many times of change in my life have required return visits—especially at the transitions through to the next stages. The album is an exploration of those moments when there is nothing left to lose. What is left and can’t be thrown away is the self.”

TRACK LISTING

Moves
The Devil I Know
Melrose Meltdown
Put Me Through It
My Mind
Bullshit On The Internet
Wild Side
On Your Thumb
Slip
Blessed

Dig deep enough inside yourself -- start treating your body as your sanctuary rather than your enemy -- and eventually you'll find yourself blooming right back out into the sun. That's the transformation Guerilla Toss trace on their newest album Famously Alive, their effervescent Sub Pop debut. After a decade sprinkling glitter into grit, building a reputation as one of the most ferociously creative art-rock groups working, the upstate New York band have eased fully into their light. This is Guerilla Toss at their most luminescent -- awake, alive, and extending an open invitation to anyone who wants to soak it all up beside them.

Singer and lyricist Kassie Carlson, multi-instrumentalist Peter Negroponte and guitarist Arian Shafiee wrote Famously Alive at home in the Catskills during the pervading quiet of the pandemic year. The uncertainty of COVID-19 lockdowns and the total disruption of routine forced Carlson to negotiate with herself in new and challenging ways. "You have to be with yourself all the time during the pandemic," she says. "I had to figure out a way to manage my anxiety. The pandemic was hard, but it helped me get comfortable inside my own body. My peace of mind came out of being thrust into the deepest shit. This album is all about being happy, being alive, and strength. It’s meant to inspire people."

The album's title derives from a poem written by a close friend of the band, Jonny Tatelman, who supported Carlson through the early stages of her recovery from opiate addiction. The poem comprises the entirety of the lyrics to the title track, an exuberant ode to loving your own survival and charting a course into unconditional self-acceptance. "The song 'Famously Alive' is about living with purpose and excitement whether you’re famous or not, accepting your strangeness and thriving even if your successes look different than other people’s," notes Carlson. Negroponte adds. "I also like to think of it as a way to describe living through something traumatic and coming out of it a stronger, wiser person."

Throughout the record, Guerilla Toss meet themselves with curiosity, generosity, and acceptance even for the harder parts of being alive. Together with guitarist Arian Shafiee, Carlson and Negroponte cultivated a sound that spliced together psychedelic texturing and Krautrock syncopation with the gloss and glow of contemporary pop music. Carlson’s voice, its range now broadened by a recent venture into formal training, puts playful, searching vocal melodies and lyrics about reaching for yourself and holding fast in your own love atop ripples of Auto-Tune.

Famously Alive finds Guerilla Toss coming into the fullness of their power, celebrating their prismatic idiosyncrasies from a place of optimism and abundance. It is a joyous album, equal parts bizarre, accessible, and fun.

TRACK LISTING

1. Cannibal Capital
2. Famously Alive
3. Live Exponential
4. Mermaid Airplane
5. Wild Fantasy
6. Pyramid Humm
7. Excitable Girls
8. I Got Spirit
9. Happy Me
10. Heathen In Me

Bria is an intimate and incisive labour of love from multi-instrumentalists Bria Salmena and Duncan Hay Jennings. Catapulted by a deep sense of dread and confusion in the depths of 2020, Salmena decided to forgo writing her own music. “I wanted to listen for what might reflect my life back to me,” she says, “six tracks that could be my mirror.” The result is a pointillistic knockout of an EP that weaves a landscape both luscious and a little rogue; showing us exactly what good songs can do.

Bria’s internal turbulence seemed to mirror last year’s external instability. When Jennings and back-up singer Jaime McCuaig moved to The Outside Inn, a hobby farm in Hockley Hills, Ontario, Bria soon joined. The farm’s living-room-turned-studio proved an ideal setting for the long-time friends to compile a record of handpicked country covers. They went searching for songs that could speak to our everyday loneliness; outside and in. Cuntry Covers Vol. 1 houses it all: well-worn favourites and lesser-known gems. The record opens with “Green Rocky Road,” as performed by Greenwich Village legend Karen Dalton. Jennings’ twangy guitar carries Bria’s original inflection and richly textured vocals, complete with dreamy overlay. “Dreaming My Dreams With You,” a rendition of the Waylon Jennings hit, is followed by John Cale’s “Buffalo Ballet,” a lyrical journey through Abilene, Texas, the endpoint of the Chisholm Trail. Engineered and mixed by Jennings, each song brings desire and sexuality front and centre, with all the swagger you’d expect  – and more.

Bria hopes the record will be understood as a small contribution to the subversion of a genre with deep patriarchal roots. Mistress Mary’s “I Don’t Wanna Love Ya Now,” from the 1969 album Housewife, served as the original inspiration. “It was the first song Duncan and I worked on,” Bria notes. “It definitely set the tone for the other tracks we picked.” Bria’s voice – described as wavering between “sultry and howitzer” – shines on “Fruits Of My Labour,” written and performed by country great, Lucinda Williams. The Walker Brothers’ “The Sun Ain’t Gonna Shine Anymore” is a harmonic (and hypnotic) standout. A musical explorer who moves fluidly between styles, Bria doesn’t consider herself a country artist: “I feel as though I’m a visitor here, paying respect to a style that has informed a part of my musical identity. Country music, as much as any other art form, should be an arena for representation, expression and provocation. I have a ton of reverence for artists who came before me and challenged the primarily white-heterosexual status quo.”

Salmena and Jennings have toured for years as members of Toronto four-piece FRIGS, whose 2018 debut Basic Behaviour was long-listed for the Polaris Music Prize. Making a mark in diverse genres from country to punk, both play as permanent members of Orville Peck’s band. Cuntry Covers was recorded on the territories of the Anishnaabe, the Haudenosaunee, the Wendat and the Mississaugas of the Credit. The release also features contributions from FRIGS drummer Kris Bowering and vocals by Ali Jennings. Bria's first release is a gorgeous debut, a homage to the songs that brought solace and relief in the stillness of last year. - Zoe Imani Sharpe

TRACK LISTING

Green Rocky Road
Dreaming My Dreams With You
Buffalo Ballet
Fruits Of My Labour
The Sun Ain't Gonna Shine Anymore
I Don't Wanna Love Ya Now

Aeon Station’s ‘Observatory’ is an epic statement more than a decade in the making, with miles of timeless melodies and the kind of overpowering songwriting that will reaffirm your belief in life itself.

Band leader Kevin Whelan co-founded and was a key songwriter for New Jersey indie-rock legends The Wrens. The Wrens’ landmark 2003 album, ‘The Meadowlands’, received a 9.5 Pitchfork review and made Pitchfork’s Albums Of The Year list. Since that album, fans and press have been eagerly awaiting new material from The Wrens members.

Whelan’s scope of musical vision on ‘Observatory’ is wide open and free with possibilities - at once recalling the reflective wisdom of Bruce Springsteen, Broken Social Scene’s huge anthemic burn, and the Wrens’ own pulsing-with-life take on rock music. Above all, this is music not only for dreamers but for those who realize and appreciate the enormity of every moment. “It’s about never letting go about those dreams and your passion,” he states. “The album starts from a place of realizing that everything is temporary, what we love eventually changes or leaves us, and regardless we continue to search and find our way back home.”

If you’ve ever caught air in your lungs or felt your heart beating in your chest, there’s no doubt that you’ll find some level of connection with ‘Observatory’’s openhearted, instantly classic-sounding rock.

TRACK LISTING

Hold On
Leaves
Fade
Everything At Once
Move
Queens
Empty Rooms
Air
Better Love
Alpine Drive

Geist feels like a window - or a mirror - into possibilities of the self and beyond. Shannon Lay’s new album is tender intensity, placeless and ethereal.  It exists in the chasms of the present -- a world populated by shadow selves, spiritual awakenings, déjà vu, and past lives. “Something sleeps inside us,” Lay insists on the opening track, and that’s the guiding philosophy throughout. A winding, golden, delicate thread of intuition that explores the unknown, the possibility. Its title, Geist, the German word for spirit, is rife with an otherworldly presence, the suggestion of another. The promise that you are never alone. Lay tracked vocals and guitar at Jarvis Tavinere of Woods’s studio, then sent the songs out to multi-instrumentalists Ben Boye (Bonnie Prince Billy, Ty Segall) in Los Angeles and Devin Hoff (Sharon Van Etten, Cibo Matto) in New York; trusting their musical instincts and intuition. She then sent those recordings to Sofia Arreguin (Wand) and Aaron Otheim (Heatwarmer, Mega Bog) for additional keys, while Ty Segall contributed a guitar solo on “Shores.” As a whole, Geist is both esoteric and accessible. Songs range from a concise, pared-back cover of Syd Barrett’s tilt-a-whirl-esque “Late Night,” to the meditative Dune-inspired "Rare to Wake,” to the mostly a-cappella  “Awaken and Allow,” which channels Lay’s deep Irish roots, a moment of reflection, before a drop happens -- its intensity mirroring the anticipation and anxiety that come with taking the first step to accepting change for yourself. And the title track “Geist,” a song about the power living in all of us, is a love song to the possibility of healing, an ode to falling into the arms of what you’re becoming. It’s a glimpse into the parts of yourself you have yet to meet. But you can, if you want to.

TRACK LISTING

Rare To Wake
A Thread To Find
Sure
Shores
Awaken And Allow
Geist
Untitled
Late Night
Time's Arrow
July

Focusing on their craft, staying out of the fray, and holding fast their faith to find new ways to express the discord and delight of being alive, to turn the duality of existence into hymns we can share, Low present HEY WHAT. These ten pieces—each built around their own instantaneous, undeniable hook—are turbocharged by the vivid textures that surround them. The ineffable, familiar harmonies of Alan Sparhawk and Mimi Parker break through the chaos like a life raft. Layers of distorted sound accrete with each new verse - building, breaking, colossal then restrained, a solemn vow only whispered. There will be time to unravel and attribute meaning to the music and art of these times, but the creative moment looks FORWARD, with teeth.

HEY WHAT is Low's thirteenth full-length release in twenty-seven years, and their third with producer BJ Burton.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: 'Hey What' follows on nicely from 'Double Negative', continuing the dedication to avant-noise drone tempered with the majestic vocal accompaniment of Parker and Sparhawk. This time they move the sound forwards with a clever and unique mixture of that shadowy drone and the more pop-focused melodies of their early work. Stunning.

TRACK LISTING

White Horses
I Can Wait
All Night
Disappearing
Hey
Days Like These
There's A Comma After Still
Don't Walk Away
More
The Price You Pay (It Must Be Wearing Off)

The second volume of music from the hit Fox TV show ‘Bob’s Burgers’. The Emmywinning, top-rated show was named one of the 60 Greatest TV Cartoons of All Time by TV Guide.

In addition to the show’s cast, the album features high-profile guests including Adam Driver, Tiffany Haddish, Jenny Slate, Daveed Diggs, Max Greenfield, Toddrick Hall, Aparna Nancherla and Matt Berninger (of the National).

The ‘Bob’s Burgers’ audience is wide-ranging: strong performance with 15-25 year olds, median viewing age of 37, 35 share among males 35-54 and a 16 share of females in the same group.bCampaign will include promotion from the cast and show production team.
‘The Bob’s Burgers Music Album Vol. 2’ includes nearly every single musical morsel from Seasons 7 through 9.

This 90-song smorgasbord will feature the Belcher family - Bob (H. Jon Benjamin), Linda (John Roberts), Tina (Dan Mintz), Gene (Eugene Mirman) and Louise (Kristen Schaal) - as well as the show’s numerous recurring and special guests.

For fans of the show, enjoying the music of Bob’s Burgers on its own is both an irresistible to-go bag and ultimately a world unto itself. Lose yourself in the strangely epic disco celebration ‘Hot Pants Rain Dance’, sing along with the musical theatre gem ‘The Wedding Is My Warzone’, or do whatever you’re gonna do to ‘Sexy Little Tiger’ but don’t miss ‘The Bob’s Burgers Music Album Vol. 2’.

By going back to basics with Every Good Boy Deserves Fudge, Mudhoney flipped conventional wisdom. Not for the first time – or the last – they would be vindicated. A month after release in July 1991, the album entered the UK album chart at Number 34 (five weeks later, Nirvana’s Nevermind entered at 36) and went on to sell 75,000 copies worldwide. A more meaningful measure of success, however, lay in its revitalisation of the band, casting a touchstone for the future. The record is a major chapter in Mudhoney’s ongoing story, the moral of which has to be: when in doubt, fudge it.

The album began at Music Source Studio, a large space equipped with a 24-track mixing board - downright futuristic, compared to the 8-track setup that birthed the band’s catalytic 1988 debut, “Touch Me I’m Sick.” The Music Source session quickly turned into a false start when the results, in guitarist Steve Turner’s words, “sounded a little too fancy, too clean.” Lesson learned, the band went primitive and got to work at Conrad Uno’s 8-track setup at Egg Studio. Named after the cartons pasted on the walls in an optimistic attempt at sound-proofing, Egg boasted a ’60s vintage 8-track Spectra Sonics recording console, originally built for Stax in Memphis.

So it was that, in the spring of 1991, Mudhoney made Every Good Boy Deserves Fudge. The resulting album is a whirlwind of the band’s influences at the time: the fierce ‘60s garage rock of their Pacific Northwest predecessors The Sonics and The Lollipop Shoppe, the gnashing post-hardcore of Drunks With Guns, the heavy guitar moods of Neil Young, the lysergic workouts of Spacemen 3 and Hawkwind, the gloomy existentialism of Zounds, and the satirical ferocity of ‘80s hardcore punk. The quartet’s special alchemy meant these fond homages never slid into pastiche. Ultimately, Every Good Boy Deserves Fudge epitomised the best of Mudhoney: here was a band reconnecting with its purest instincts, and in the process reinventing itself.

This 30th anniversary edition, remastered by Bob Weston at Chicago Mastering Service, stands as testimony to the creative surge that drove them in this period. The album sessions yielded a clutch of material that would subsequently appear on B-sides, compilations, and split-singles. This edition includes all those tracks, and a slew of previously unreleased songs, including the entire five-track Music Source session.

TRACK LISTING

Generation Genocide
Let It Slide
Good Enough
Something So Clear
Thorn
Into The Drink
Broken Hands
Who You Drivin' Now?
Move Out
Shoot The Moon
Fuzzgun '91
Pokin' Around
Don't Fade IV
Check-Out Time
March To Fuzz
Ounce Of Deception
Paperback Life (alternate Version)
Fuzzbuster
Bushpusher Man
Flowers For Industry
Thorn (1st Attempt)
Overblown
March From Fuzz
You're Gone
Something So Clear (24-track Demo)
Bushpusher Man (24-track Demo)
Pokin' Around (24-track Demo)
Check-Out Time (24-track Demo)
Generation Genocide (24-track Demo)

Oh, Inverted World, the earth-shattering, indie-rock-redefining 2001 debut album by The Shins, is presented here in its finest form, dressed up all nice for its 20th birthday. The classic tunes get new life by way of a full remastering job under band leader James Mercer’s watchful eye, the art is given a little extra zest via a die-cut jacket and a classy inner sleeve, and the package is rounded off with a big ol’ booklet with vintage photos, handwritten lyrics, and more.

The music, of course, is obviously essential. Aside from a friendly reminder that this is the album with the smash hit “New Slang,” as heard in the hit movie Garden State, we just need to note that the remastering job truly makes this the album James Mercer always wanted it to be. Never quite satisfied with the sonics of the original, Mercer took the 20th anniversary of the album as his opportunity to finally set the (literal!) record straight. And the results sound stellar: great for new fans, and well worth the attention of those already on board!

For old times’ sake, here’s what we had to say about this record back when it came out: Hailing from Albuquerque, NM, The Shins sprung from the ashes of Flake/Flake Music in 1997 (though those previous incarnations date back nearly a decade) – same members, different instruments, different approach. Counterpoint guitars have given way to a single guitar pitted against calculated keyboard passages; swarming indie rock machinations led to pop-based melodic endeavors (who knew?).

TRACK LISTING

Caring Is Creepy
One By One All Day
Weird Divide
Know Your Onion!
Girl Inform Me
New Slang
The Celibate Life
Girl On The Wing
Your Algebra
Pressed In A Book
The Past And Pending

Since breaking out in 2018, CHAI have been associated with explosive joy. At their live shows, the Japanese four-piece of identical twins MANA (lead vocals and keys) and KANA (guitar), drummer YUNA, and bassist-lyricist YUUKI have become known for buoyant displays of eclectic and clever songwriting, impressive musicianship, matching outfits, delightful choreography, and sheer relief. At the core of their music, CHAI have upheld a stated mission to deconstruct the standards of beauty and cuteness that can be so oppressive in Japan. Following the release of 2019’s second album PUNK, CHAI’s adventures took them around the world, to music festivals like Primavera Sound and Pitchfork Music Festival, and touring with indie-rock mainstays like Whitney and Mac DeMarco.

Like all musicians, CHAI spent 2020 forced to rethink the fabric of their work and lives. But CHAI took this as an opportunity to shake up their process and bring their music somewhere thrillingly new. Having previously used their maximalist recordings to capture the exuberance of their live shows, with the audiences’ reactions in mind, CHAI instead focused on crafting the slightly-subtler and more introspective kinds of songs they enjoy listening to at home—where, for the first time, they recorded all of the music. Amidst the global shutdown, CHAI worked on Garageband and traded their song ideas—which they had more time than ever to consider—over Zoom and phone calls, turning their limitations into a strength.

Their third full-length and first for Sub Pop, WINK contains CHAI’s mellowest and most minimal music, and also their most affecting and exciting songwriting by far. While the band leaned into a more personal sound, WINK is also the first CHAI album to feature contributions from outside producers (Mndsgn, YMCK) as well as a feature from the Chicago rapper-singer Ric Wilson. CHAI draw R&B and hip-hop into their mix (Mac Miller, the Internet, and Brockhampton were on their minds) of dance-punk and pop-rock, all while remaining undeniably CHAI. Whether in relation to this newfound sense of openness or their at-home ways of composing, the theme of WINK is to challenge yourself.

WINK is a fitting title then: a subtle but bold gesture. A wink is an unselfconscious act of conviction, or as CHAI puts it: “A person who winks is a person with a pure heart, who lives with flexibility, who does what they want. A person who winks is a person who is free.” YUUKI noted that “With this album, we’re winking at you. We’re living freely and we hope that when you listen, you can wink and live freely, too.”

CHAI came to see the album—with its home-y feel—as a collection where each song is like a new friend, something comforting to rely on and reach out to, as the album was for them throughout 2020. This impulse towards connection is in WINK’s title, too. After the “i” of their debut album PINK and the “u” of PUNK—which represented the band’s act of introducing themselves, and then of centering their audiences—they have come full circle with the “we” of WINK. It signals CHAI’s relationship with the outside world, an embrace of profound togetherness. Through music, as CHAI said, “we are all coming together.” In that act of opening themselves up, CHAI grew into their best work: “This album showed us, we’re ready to do more.”

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: A vibrant mix of deep, grooving disco beats and perfectly effervescent production has come to characterise the CHAI experience, and 'Wink' is absolutely the peak of this aesthetic. Brilliantly playful but ram-packed with moments of sheer synthy perfection, CHAI really are one of the most exciting bands around at the moment.

TRACK LISTING

Donuts Mind If I Do
Maybe Chocolate Chips (feat. Ric Wilson)
ACTION
END
PING PONG! (feat. YMCK)
Nobody Knows We Are Fun
It's Vitamin C
IN PINK (feat. Mndsgn)
KARAAGE
Miracle
Wish Upon A Star
Salty

Archive Series Volume No. 5: Tallahassee is the lost-in-time debut album from Iron & Wine. A collection of songs recorded three years prior to his official Sub Pop debut, The Creek Drank the Cradle (2002). A period before the concept of Iron & Wine existed and principal songwriter Sam Beam was studying at Florida State University with the intent of pursuing a career in film. Tallahassee documents the very first steps on a journey that would lead to a career as one of America’s most original and distinctive singer-songwriters.

Creek arrived like a thief in the night with its lo-fi, hushed vocals and intimate nature, while almost inversely Tallahassee comes with a strange sense of confidence. Perhaps an almost youthful discretion that likely comes from being too young to know better and too naïve to give a shit. The recordings themselves are more polished than Creek and give a peak into what a studio version of that record might have offered up.

Tallahassee was recorded over the course of 1998-1999 when Beam and future bandmate EJ Holowicki moved into a house together. Beam had not been performing publicly, however he was known for playing an original song or two in the early morning glow of a long night. Holowicki also in the film program and who would go onto a career as a sound designer at Skywalker Sound, had a mobile recording device and after some prodding convinced his friend to record these late-night meditations.

Together they would record close to twenty-four songs, ideas and sketches, with EJ on bass and Sam on vocals, guitar, harmonica and drums. The recordings – all captured in the house where they lived – have a “live in the room” feel akin to say Neil Young’s Harvest or Nick Drake’s Five Leaves Left, rather than the homespun lo-fi 4-track home recording experiment taking place at the time.

These recordings, minus one track, have never been made available and were instead left preserved on a hard drive for the last twenty years. The one track that floated out there, called “In Your Own Time” was shared without a title to childhood friend Ben Bridwell (Band of Horses) at some point. The song became known as the “Fuck Like A Dog” song and Ben shared it with more than a few folks during the golden era of mix cd’s. Two of those folks were Jonathan Poneman from Sub Pop and journalist Mike McGonigal, who included it on his best songs of 2001 mix cd, passed out to friends and acquaintances. And for many that is where the Iron & Wine story begins, until now…

Tallahassee is the foreword to your favorite book that you’ve somehow skipped over time and time again. It’s an alternative history mixed with some revisionist history told over the course of eleven songs. It’s also the debut record by Iron & Wine some twenty years after the fact. 

TRACK LISTING

Why Hate The Winter
This Solemn Day
Loaning Me Secrets
John's Glass Eye
Calm On The Valley
Ex-Lover Lucy Jones
Elizabeth
Show Him The Ground
Straight And Tall
Cold Town
Valentine

Band founder, Nicholas Galanin is one of the most vital voices in contemporary art. His work spans sculpture, video, installation, photography, jewelry and music; advocating for Indigenous sovereignty, racial, social and environmental justice, for present, and future generations. Indian Yard is a compelling document of humanity centered in an Indigenous perspective. Created by one of the world’s foremost Indigenous artists, the irrepressible Indian Yard is an intense illumination of feeling and interconnectedness. On the groups’ debut offering, "Close the Distance”, Galanin “reflects on the universal need for connection and the expression of desire across distances. The official video, directed by Stephan Gray (Shabazz Palaces “Dawn In Luxor,” “Deesse Du Sang”), extends beyond human experience to consider physical expressions of desire in biological, mechanical, and celestial forms."

TRACK LISTING

Knives (feat. Portugal. The Man)
Light The Torch
Born Into Rain (feat. Rum.gold & Tunia)
At Tugáni
Get Yourself Together
Close The Distance
We Just Sit And Smile Here In Silence
A Feeling Undefined (feat. Nick Hakim & Iska Dhaaf)
Synthetic Gods (feat. Shabazz Palaces & Stas THEE Boss)
Gently To The Sun (feat. Tay Sean)
Back In That Time (feat. Qacung)

Father John Misty is the nom-de-plume of Josh Tillman, who has been recording and releasing solo albums under his own name since 2003 and who recently left Seattle’s Fleet Foxes after playing drums with them from 2008-2011.

When discussing Father John Misty, Tillman paraphrases Philip Roth: “‘It’s all of me and none of me, if you can’t see that, you won’t get it.’”

‘Fear Fun’, Father John Misty’s album from 2012 and now available again through Sub Pop, began gestating during what Tillman describes as an “immobilizing period of depression” in his former Seattle home, when he had lost interest in songwriting and wound up finding his voice by writing a novel. After breaking from Seattle and settling in a spider-infested Laurel Canyon treehouse, Tillman spent months demoing songs, eventually liberating himself from his creative impasse. With the help of LA producer/songwriter/pal Jonathan Wilson, a wealth of talented musicians kicking around LA and producer Phil Ek (who everyone knows has worked with Built to Spill, Modest Mouse, Band of Horses, Fleet Foxes), ‘Fear Fun’ blossomed into a fully-formed expression of Tillman’s unrestrained vision.

‘Fear Fun’ consists of such disparate elements as Waylon Jennings, Harry Nilsson, Arthur Russell, All Things Must Pass and Physical Graffiti, often within the same song. Tillman’s voice has never been better and often sounds like Roy Orbison at his most joyous, while the music maintains a dark, mysterious yet playful, almost Dionysian quality.

Lyrically, his absurdist fever dreams of pain and pleasure elicit, in equal measures, the blunt descriptive power of Bukowski or Brautigan, the hedonist-philosophy of Oscar Wilde and the dried-out wit of Loudon Wainwright III.

TRACK LISTING

Funtimes In Babylon
Nancy From Now On
Hollywood Forever Cemetery Sings
I’m Writing A Novel
O I Long To Feel Your Arms Around Me
Misty’s Nightmares 1 & 2
Only Son Of The Ladiesman
This Is Sally Hatchet
Well, You Can Do It Without Me
Now I’m Learning To Love The War
Tee Pees 1-12
Everyman Needs A Companion

On her second full-length record, Head of Roses, Jenn Wasner follows a winding thread of intuition into the unknown and into healing, led by gut feelings and the near-spiritual experience of visceral songwriting. The result is a combination of Wasner’s ability to embrace new levels of vulnerability, honesty and openness, with the self-assuredness that comes with a decade-plus career as a songwriter, producer, multi-instrumentalist and prolific collaborator.  Simply put, Head of Roses is a record about heartbreak, but from a dualistic perspective. It’s about the experience of having one’s heart broken and breaking someone else’s heart at the same time. But beyond that, it’s about having to reconcile the experience of one’s own pain with the understanding that it’s impossible to go through life without being the source of great pain for someone else.

“Part of the journey for me has been learning to take responsibility for the parts of things that are mine, even when I’m in a lot of pain through some behavior or action of someone else. If I’m expecting to be forgiven for the things I’ve done and the choices I’ve made and the mistakes that I’ve made, it would be incredibly cowardly and hypocritical to not also do the work that’s required to forgive others the pain they caused me.” Showcasing the depth of Wasner’s songwriting capabilities and the complexity of her vision, Head of Roses calls upon her singular ability to create a fully-formed sonic universe via genre-bending amalgamation of songs and her poetic and gut punch lyrics. It’s the soundtrack of Wasner letting go – of control, of heartbreak, and of hiding who she is: “I think I’ve finally reached a point in my career where I feel comfortable enough with myself and what I do, that I’m able to relax into a certain simplicity or straight forwardness that I wasn’t comfortable with before.” Head of Roses puts Wasner’s seismically powerful voice front and center. Those vocals help thread it all together -- it’s a textured musicality, quilted together by intentionality and intuition. Wasner and producer Nick Sanborn (Sylvan Esso, Made of Oak) assembled Head of Roses in the same way you’d put together a mixtape, painstakingly and carefully melding disparate parts into a whole, transcending genre to weave a story of heartache and healing together.

And in the same way a homemade, painstakingly-crafted mixtape plays out, with the maker’s fingerprints left all over its songs – so goes Head of Roses. Carefully curated and culled from the depths of Wasner’s heartbreak and healing, it’s deeply, intensely personal. But just as we change ourselves by embracing the pain of loss and uncertainty, so too are the purpose of these songs changed through the act of creating them. Having succeeded in healing the person who made them, they now exist for those who find them in their own moments of need. Always in motion, the original spirit of creation has already flown from this place—but it’s left behind a blueprint, a tool for you, to lean on, too.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: Wasner's wonderfully evocative style of songwriting encompasses all of the melodicism and movement in her partnership with Any Stack for Wye Oak, but with a superb audible palette of influence seeping into the sound. Echoes of 80's synth and classic rock mix with soaring guitars and funky rolling bass. A wonderful triumph, and most importantly a great listen.

TRACK LISTING

1. 2 Heads
2. Price Of Blue
3. Two
4. Hard Way
5. Walking
6. Lightning
7. One More Hour
8. No Question
9. Awake For The Sunrise
10. Head Of Roses

It’s tempting to think that you have all the answers, screaming your gospel every day with certainty and anger. Life isn’t quite like that though, and the debut album from London four-piece TV Priest instead embraces the beautiful and terrifying unknowns that exist personally, politically, and culturally.

Posing as many questions as it answers, Uppers is a thunderous opening statement that continues the UK’s recent resurgence of grubby, furious post-punk music. It says something very different though – something completely its own.

Four childhood friends who made music together as teenagers before drifting apart and then, somewhat inevitably, back together late in 2019, TV Priest was borne out of a need to create together once again, and brings with it a wealth of experience and exhaustion picked up in the band’s years of pursuing ‘real life’ and ‘real jobs’, something those teenagers never had.

Last November, the band – vocalist Charlie Drinkwater, guitarist Alex Sprogis, bass and keys player Nic Smith and drummer Ed Kelland – played their first show, to a smattering of friends in what they describe as an “industrial freezer” in the warehouse district of Hackney Wick. “It was like the pub in Peep Show with a washing machine just in the middle…” Charlie laughs, remembering how they dodged Star Wars memorabilia and deep fat fryers while making their first statement as a band.

Unsurprisingly, there isn’t a precedent for launching a band during a global pandemic, but among the general sense of anxiety and unease pervading everything at the moment, TV Priest’s entrance in April with the release of debut single “House Of York” - a searing examination of the Monarchy set over wiry post-punk and fronted by a Mark E. Smith-like mouthpiece - served as a breath of fresh air among the chaos, its anger and confusion making some kind of twisted sense to the nation’s fried brains.

It’s the same continued global sense of anxiety that will greet the release of Uppers, and it’s an album that has a lot to say right now. Taking musical cues from post-punk stalwarts The Fall and Protomartyr as well as the mechanical, pulsating grooves of krautrock, it’s a record that moves with an untamed energy. Over the top of this rumbling musical machine is vocalist Charlie, a cuttingly funny, angry, confused, real frontman. Uppers sees TV Priest explicitly and outwardly trying to avoid narrowmindedness. Uppers sees TV Priest taking musical and personal risks, reaching outside of themselves and trying to make sense of this increasingly messy world. It's a band and a record that couldn’t arrive at a more perfect time.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: The latest in a long run of bands riding the new punk revival, TV Priest mix the breathy off-kilter vocal musings of idles with the machinated percussion of the Sleaford Mods and add a healthy dash of grungy dissonance. A heady concoction indeed.

TRACK LISTING

The Big Curve
Press Gang
Leg Room
Journal Of A Plague Year
History Week
Decoration
Slideshow
Fathers And Sons
The Ref
Powers Of Ten
This Island
Saintless

Kiwi Jr. is a phenomenal “rock” and/or “punk” and/or “indie-rock” (whichever you like more) band from Canada, made up of Jeremy Gaudet (mic, guitar), Brohan Moore (drums), Mike Walker (bass), and Brian Murphy (guitar). Cooler Returns is their second album, and their first for Sub Pop. Despite being a snapshot of the pandemic-infused beginnings of this decade, Cooler Returns is truly a whole lot of fun.

RIYL indie-pop from down under, things that are smart / exuberant / catchy all at once. Buildings burning in every direction; macabre unknowns in your friendly neighbor’s basement; undecided voters sharpening their pencils: under pressure we could call Kiwi Jr.’s Cooler Returns “timely.” But what year is it, again? On Cooler Returns, Kiwi Jr. cycle through the recent zigs & looming zags of the new decade, squinting anew at New Year’s parties forgotten and under-investigated small town diner fires, piecing together low-stakes conspiracy theories on what’s coming down the pike in 2021. Put together like a thousand-piece puzzle, assembled in flow state through the first dull stretch of quarantine, sanitized singer shuffling to sanitized studio by streetcar, masked like it's the kind of work where getting recognized means getting killed, Cooler Returns materializes as a sprawling survey from the first few bites of the terrible twenties, an investigative exposé of recent history buried under the headlines & ancient kings buried under parking lots. 

Not so long since their debut Football Money in archaeological time, unending gray eons later in the dog years of quaran-time, spiritually antipodean Canadians Kiwi Jr return to disseminate this year's annual report to the shareholders, burying the incriminating numbers in the endless appendices of a longform narrative record, a 3,000 word tract for stakeholders to pore over. These stories - memories of Augusts past, unrepressed & transcribed fast - go down easier thanks to meaningful changes enacted in 2019’s KiwiCares Pledge: delivering on a promise to transition from Crunchy to Smooth by 2021, the caveman chug of Football Money has been steamed & pressed with the purifying air of a saloon piano - operated with bow-tie untied - and a spring green side-salad of tentatively up-tempo organ taps & freshly fluted harmonica. A chronically detuned spin of the dial through swivel-chair distractions & WFH daydreams, an immersive ctrl-tab deluge cycling through popular listicle distractions like the unentombing of Richard III, or the deja vu destruction of the Glasgow School of Art, Kiwi Jr. sing this song to an indoor audience, crisscrossing canceled, every other prestige distraction source wrung dry, only songwriting remaining to deliver engrossing tales to the populace, just how I imagine it worked in the old days.

Fixing loose ingredients into a sturdy whip, Kiwi Jr. beam in live from the 9-5, striding into 2021 with a mastered brainwave that comes equally from the back room of the record store as the penalty box. And how do we, left holding this box of deliberate entanglements, sign off to those as yet uninitiated, undecided, uncertain, unseen, absent return coordinates -  Best Wishes, Warm Regards, Good Luck? Cooler Returns, Cooler Returns, C o o l e r  R e t u r n s ! Cooler Returns was produced by Kiwi Jr., mixed and engineered by Graham Walsh (METZ, Bully) in Toronto, and mastered by Phillip Shaw Bova at Bova Labs in Ottawa, Ontario.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: Sounding not unlike a modern version of The Strokes, Kiwi Jr mix the unhurried punky aesthetic and mild, modern fuzz with cleverly measured heft and undeniably clever songwriting.

TRACK LISTING

Side A
1. Tyler
2. Undecided Voters
3. Maid Marian's Toast
4. Highlights Of 100
5. Only Here For A Haircut
6. Cooler Returns

Side B
1. Guilty Party
2. Omaha
3. Domino
4. Nashville Wedding
5. Dodger
6. Norma Jean's Jacket
7. Waiting In Line

In the horror genre, sequels are perfunctory. As the insufferable film bro Randy explains in Scream 2, “There are certain rules that one must abide by in order to create a successful sequel. Number one: the body count is always bigger. Number two: the death scenes are always much more elaborate—more blood, more gore. Carnage candy. And number three: never, ever, under any circumstances, assume the killer is dead.” Last Halloween, Los Angeles experimental rap mainstays Clipping ended their three-year silence with the horrorcore-inspired album There Existed an Addiction to Blood. This October, rapper Daveed Diggs, and producers Jonathan Snipes and William Hutson return with an even higher body count, more elaborate kills, and monsters that just won’t stay dead.

Visions of Bodies Being Burned is less a sequel than it is the second half of a planned diptych. It turns out, Clipping took to the thematic material of horrorcore like vampires to grave soil. Before the release of There Existed an Addiction to Blood, Clipping and Sub Pop Records divided the material up into two albums, designed to be released only months apart. However, a global pandemic and multiple canceled tours pushed the release of the project’s “part two” until the following Halloween season.

Visions of Bodies Being Burned contains sixteen more scary stories disguised as rap songs, incorporating as much influence from Ernest Dickerson, Clive Barker, and Shirley Jackson as it does from Three 6 Mafia, Bone Thugs-N-Harmony, and Brotha Lynch Hung. Clipping’s angular, shattered interpretations of existing musical styles are always deferential, driven by fandom for the object of study rather than disdain for it. Clipping reimagine horrorcore—the purposely absurdist hip-hop subgenre that flourished in the 1990s—the way Jordan Peele does horror cinema: by twisting beloved tropes to make explicit their own radical politics of monstrosity, fear, and the uncanny.

The album features a host of collaborators: Inglewood’s Cam & China, fellow noise-rap pioneers Ho99o9, Tortoise guitar genius Jeff Parker, and experimental LA drummer Ted Byrnes. The final track, “Secret Piece,” is a performance of a Yoko Ono text score from 1953 that instructs the players to “Decide on one note that you want to play/Play it with the following accompaniment: the woods from 5am to 8am in summer,” and features nearly all of the musicians who appeared on both albums.

Since their last album, Daveed Diggs—the group’s Tony and Grammy Award-winning rapper—has starred in the TNT science fiction series, Snowpiercer, voiced a character in Pixar’s Soul, and portrayed Frederick Douglass in Showtime’s The Good Lord Bird. Writer Rivers Solomon’s novella based on Clipping’s Hugo-nominated song “The Deep” has been nominated for the Nebula, Hugo, and Locus Awards, and won the Lambda Literary Award for best LGBTQ SF/Fantasy/Horror novel. Clipping’s song “Chapter 319”—a tribute to George Floyd (AKA Big Floyd) the former DJ-Screw affiliated rapper who was murdered by police officers in May of 2020—was released on Bandcamp on June 19th and raised over $20,000 for racial justice charities. A clip of the song also became a popular meme on TikTok, generating over 50,000 videos in which teenagers rapped the song’s lyrics (“Donald Trump is a white supremacist, full stop…”) directly into the frowning faces of their conservative parents. The band also contributed a Skinny Puppy-esque rework of J-Kwon’s “Tipsy” to Save Stereogum: An ‘00s Covers Comp.

TRACK LISTING

Intro
Say The Name
Wytchboard (Interlude)*
'96 Neve Campbell (feat. Cam & China)
Something Underneath
Make Them Dead
She Bad
Invocation (Interlude) (with Greg Stuart)*
Pain Everyday (with Michael Esposito)
Check The Lock
Looking Like Meat (feat. Ho99o9)
Drove (Interlude)*
Eaten Alive (with Jeff Parker & Ted Byrnes)
Body For The Pile (with Sickness)
Enlacing
Secret Piece

*CD/digital/cassette-only Tracks

A very old saying goes that no one saves us but ourselves. Recognizing and breaking free from the patterns impeding our forward progress can be transformative — just ask Bully’s Alicia Bognanno. Indeed, the third Bully album, SUGAREGG, may not ever have come to fruition had Bognanno not navigated every kind of upheaval imaginable and completely overhauled her working process along the way.

“There was change that needed to happen and it happened on this record,” she says. “Derailing my ego and insecurities allowed me to give these songs the attention they deserved.”

SUGAREGG roars from the speakers and jumpstarts both heart and mind. Like My Bloody Valentine after three double espressos, opener “Add It On” zooms heavenward within seconds, epitomizing Bognanno’s newfound clarity of purpose, while the bass-driven melodies and propulsive beats of “Where to Start” and “Let You” are the musical equivalents of the sun piercing through a perpetually cloudy sky.

On songs like the strident “Every Tradition” and “Not Ashamed,” Bognanno doesn’t shy away from addressing “how I feel as a human holds up against what society expects or assumes of me as a woman, and what it feels like to naturally challenge

But amongst the more dense topics, there’s also a lightheartedness that was lacking on Bully’s last album, 2017’s Losing. Pointing to “Where to Start,” “You” and “Let You,” Bognanno says “there are more songs about erratic, dysfunctional love in an upbeat way, like, ‘I’m going down and that’s the only way I want to go because the momentary joy is worth it.’”

The artist admits that finding the proper treatment for bipolar 2 disorder radically altered her mindset, freeing her from a cycle of paranoia and insecurity about her work. “Being able to finally navigate that opened the door for me to write about it,” she says, pointing to the sweet, swirly “Like Fire” and slower, more contemplative songs such as “Prism” and “Come Down” as having been born of this new headspace. Even small changes like listening to music instead of the news first thing in the morning “made me want to write and bring that pleasure to other people.”

An unexpected foray into the film world also helped set the table for Sugaregg when Bognanno was asked to write songs for the 2019 movie Her Smell, starring Elisabeth Moss as the frontwoman of the fictional rock band Something She. “It got me motivated to play music again after the last album,” she says. “I loved reading the script and trying to think, what music would the character write? People asked if I’d play those songs with Bully but the whole point was for them to not be Bully songs. It was nice to get my head out of my own ass for a second and work on a project for someone else,” she says with a laugh.

A highly accomplished engineer who ran the boards herself on the first two Bully albums, Bognanno was ready to be free “from the weight of feeling like I had to prove to the world I was capable of engineering a record, and wanted to be content knowing for myself what I can do without needing the approval of others to validate that.”

So for SUGAREGG, she yielded recording and mixing responsibilities to outside collaborators for the first time and trekked to the remote Pachyderm Studios in Cannon Falls, Minn., an unexpected return to her home state. Behind the console was John Congleton, a Grammy-winner who has worked with everyone from St. Vincent and Sleater-Kinney to The War on Drugs and Modest Mouse. “Naturally, I still had reservations, but John was sensitive to where I was coming from,” Bognanno says. “He was very respectful that I’d never worked with a producer before.”

The studio’s rich history (classics such as Nirvana’s In Utero, PJ Harvey’s Rid of Me and Superchunk’s Foolish were recorded there) and woodsy setting quickly put Bognanno’s mind at ease. Being able to bring her dog Mezzi along for the trip didn’t hurt either. “I had never tracked a record in the summer, so waking up and going outside with her before we started each day was a great way to refresh,” she says.

SUGAREGG features additional contributions from longtime touring drummer Wesley Mitchell and bassist Zach Dawes, renowned for his work on recent albums by Sharon Van Etten and Lana Del Rey. Dawes and Bognanno met at Pachyderm to work on parts just two days before tracking, “but it ended up being so much less stressful than I had expected and I loved it,” she see says. “Zach wanted to be there to help and make my vision happen.”

With 14 songs on tape, Bognanno and friends left Pachyderm thinking SUGAREGG was done. But once back home in Nashville, she realized there was more to be written, and spent the next five months doing exactly that. Moving to Palace Studios in Toronto with Graham Walsh (Alvvays, METZ, !!!), Bognanno and Mitchell recorded “Where to Start” and “Let You,” which proved to be two of the new album’s key tracks.

Ultimately, SUGAREGG is a testament that profound change can yield profound results — in this case, the most expressive and powerful music of Bognanno’s career. “This is me longing to see the bigger picture, motivated and eager for contentment in the best way,” she says. “I hope the happy go lucky / fuck-it-all attitude shines through some of these songs because I really did feel like I was reentering a place I hadn’t been to in a while and was excited to be back there.”

TRACK LISTING

Add It On
Every Tradition
Where To Start
Prism
You
Let You
Like Fire
Stuck In Your Head
Come Down
Not Ashamed
Hours And Hours
What I Wanted

Washed Out is Atlanta-based producer/songwriter/multi-instrumentalist Ernest Greene. Over three enchanting, critically-lauded albums and an EP, his music has proved both transportive and visual, each release inviting listeners into immersive, self-contained universes. With Purple Noon, his fourth album, and his return to Sub Pop, he delivers the most accessible Washed Out creation to date.

Life of Leisure, Washed Out’s 2009 debut EP, set the bar for the Chillwave era, shimmering in a warm haze of off-the-cuff Polaroids and pre-IG filters. Within and Without, his 2011 full-length debut on Sub Pop, morphed into nocturnal, icy synth-pop and embraced provocative imagery. 2013’s Paracosm was Greene’s take on psychedelia, with a full live band and kaleidoscopic light show, and saw him playing to the largest audiences of his career. The sample-heavy Mister Mellow (2017, Stone’s Throw) delivered a 360 audio/visual experience, with cut-n-paste and hand-drawn animation to match the hip-hop influences throughout the album. With each release, Greene has approached his evolving project with meticulous detail and a steadfast vision.

For Purple Noon, Greene again wrote, recorded, and produced the entirety of the album, with mixing handled by frequent collaborator Ben H. Allen (Paracosm, Within and Without). Production of the album followed a brief stint of writing for other artists (most notably Sudan Archives) which enabled Greene to explore genres like R&B and modern pop. These brighter, more robust sounds made their way into the songs of Purple Noon and mark a new chapter for Greene as a producer and songwriter. The vocals are front and center, tempos are slower, beats bolder, and there’s a more comprehensive depth of dynamics. One can hear the luxuriousness of Sade, the sonic bombast of Phil Collins, and the lush atmosphere of the great Balearic beat classics. Mediterranean coastlines inspired Purple Noon, and Greene pays tribute to the region’s distinct island culture - all rugged elegance and old-world charm - and uses it as a backdrop to tell stories of passion, love, and loss (Purple Noon’s title comes from the 1960 film directed by Rene Clement and based on the novel The Talented Mister Ripley by Patricia Highsmith). Much like romantic Hollywood epics, the melodrama throughout is strong: a serendipitous first meeting in “Too Late”; a passionate love affair in “Paralyzed”; disintegration of a relationship in “Time to Walk Away”; a reunion with a lost love in “Game of Chance.” Purple Noon adds a layer of emotional intensity to the escapism of Washed Out’s oeuvre, taking the music to dazzling new heights.

TRACK LISTING

Too Late
Face Up
Time To Walk Away
Paralyzed
Reckless Desires
Game Of Chance
Leave You Behind
Don't Go
Hide
Haunt

After years spent looking out at landscapes and loved ones and an increasingly unstable world, Rolling Blackouts Coastal Fever have turned their gaze inward, to their individual pasts and the places that inform them, on their second full-length, Sideways to New Italy.

Led by singer-songwriter-guitarists Tom Russo, Joe White and Fran Keaney, the guitar-pop five-piece returned home to Australia after the relentless touring schedule that came following their critically regarded 2018 debut Hope Downs. Feeling the literal and metaphorical ground under their feet had shifted, the band began grasping for something reliable. For Keaney, that translated into writing "pure romantic fiction" and consciously avoiding the temptation of angsty break-up songs, while Russo looked north to a "bizarre place" that captured the feeling of manufacturing a sense of home when his own had disappeared.

The New Italy of the new album’s title is a village near New South Wales’ Northern Rivers – the area drummer Marcel Tussie is from. A blink-and-you'll-miss-it pit-stop of a place with fewer than 200 residents, it was founded by Venetian immigrants in the late-1800s and now serves as something of a living monument to Italians' contribution to Australia, with replica Roman statues dotted like alien souvenirs on the otherwise rural landscape. The parallels to the way the band attempted to maintain connections and create familiarity during their disorienting time on the road was apparent to Russo. "These are the expressions of people trying to find a home somewhere alien: trying to create a utopia in a turbulent and imperfect world."

The record's geographic identity emerged from the band losing their grip on their own, whether that was through the pressure of touring, the dissolution of relationships, a frustrating distance from their daily lives – or some combination of all three – that came from being slingshotted all over the world, playing sold-out headline tours and festivals including Coachella, Governors Ball, Primavera Sound, All Points East, and Pitchfork Music Festival.

The notion of crafting, in Russo’s words, “a utopia of where your heart’s from,” permeates Sideways to New Italy, in which early attempts at writing big, high-concept songs about The State of the World were abandoned in favor of love songs, and familiar voices and characters filter in and out, grounding the band's stories in their personal histories. There’s something comforting, too, in knowing the next time they’re buffeted from stage to stage around the world, they’ll be taking the voices of their loved ones with them, building a new totem of home no matter where they end up.

STAFF COMMENTS

Darryl says: It’s been well documented that we love the sunshine rich sound of The Rolling Blackouts Coastal Fever here at Piccadilly; two EOY Top 10 entries with 2018’s ‘Hope Downs’ and 2017’s mini-album ‘The French Press’ speaks for itself. And now the Australian quintet have returned with ‘Sideways To New Italy’, a superbly crafted and exceptionally well produced album that’s easily on par with their previous releases.

Kicking off the album with the timeless “The Second Of The First” it’s clear that they’ve lost none of their songwriting wizardry, all the key RBCF elements are here; interlocking jangling guitars, pristine melodies, a driving rhythm section and hooks that’ll earworm their way around your head for months on end.

Track after track of effortless sunkissed indie-pop follow including the standout “Cars In Space” where the intertwining triple guitars really hit their peak, layers upon layers of blissful golden soundz over an infectious motorik beat. This is RBCF at their best, where all five members click into a groove that you’ll never want to end.

‘Sideways To New Italy’ is the sound of a band that’s happy to be back in the confines of their studio again having spent around 18 months touring the world; finding warmth in the familiarity of their setting, but wiser for the adventures and tribulations that they’ve encountered so far. Here’s hoping the next album is just as good!

TRACK LISTING

The Second Of The First
Falling Thunder
She's There
Beautiful Steven
The Only One
Cars In Space
Cameo
Not Tonight
Sunglasses At The Wedding
The Cool Change

Honus Honus (aka Ryan Kattner) has devoted his career to exploring the uncertainty between life’s extremes, beauty and ugliness, order and chaos. The songs on ‘Dream Hunting In The Valley Of The In-Between’, Man Man’s first album in over six years and their Sub Pop debut, are as intimate, soulful and timeless as they are audaciously inventive and daring, resulting in his best Man Man album to date.

The 17-track effort, featuring ‘Cloud Nein’, ‘Future Peg’, ‘On the Mend’, ‘Sheela’ and ‘Animal Attraction’, was produced by Cyrus Ghahremani, mixed by S. Husky Höskulds (Norah Jones, Tom Waits, Mike Patton, Solomon Burke, Bettye LaVette, Allen Toussaint) and mastered by Dave Cooley (Blood Orange, M83, DIIV, Paramore, Snail Mail, clipping).

‘Dream Hunting In The Valley Of The In-Between’ also includes guest vocals from Steady Holiday’s Dre Babinski on ‘Future Peg’ and ‘If Only’ and Rebecca Black (singer of the viral pop hit ‘Friday’) on ‘On the Mend’ and ‘Lonely Beuys’.

The album follows the release of ‘Beached’ and ‘Witch’, Man Man’s contributions to Vol. 4 of the Sub Pop Singles Club in 2019.

TRACK LISTING

Dreamers
Cloud Nein
On The Mend
Lonely Beuys
Future Peg
Goat
Inner Iggy
Hunters
Oyster Point
The Prettiest Song In The
World
Animal Attraction
Sheela
Unsweet Meat
Swan
Powder My Wig
If Only
In The Valley Of The In-Between

Shabazz Palaces’ Black Up, the group’s Sub Pop debut, was recently hailed as one of the best albums of the decade by outlets like Pitchfork, Gorilla Vs Bear, and Variety. Pitchfork summed it up thusly: “Black Up is drowned in murky instrumentals and bombastic, introspective rhymes. The sounds flirt with jazz but also root themselves in a firm understanding of silence, or the sparse magic of simplicity. The songs teem with unexpected climaxes...From great mystery exploded an album of impossible vision.” That “impossible vision” has continued to confound and engage Shabazz Palaces fans over the course of four acclaimed albums and two EPs. Each release feels like an evolution, letting the music speak for itself, while slowly revealing more about its creator. With The Don of Diamond Dreams, the group’s fifth album, that spirit remains, this time embracing modernism in hip-hop and rap.

Featuring 10 tracks in 43 minutes, the album features the highlights “Fast Learner (ft. Purple Tape Nate),” “Chocolate Souffle,” “Bad Bitch Walking (ft. Stas THEE Boss), and “Thanking The Girls.” It also features contributions from singer/keyboardist Darrius Willrich, Seattle’s OCnotes (who collaborated with Shabazz leader Ishmael Butler on the Knife Knights project), Los Angeles musician Carlos Overall, and bassist Evan Flory-Barnes. The Don of Diamond Dreams was recorded throughout 2019 and produced by Shabazz Palaces at Protect and Exalt: A Black Space in Seattle, mixed and engineered by Erik Blood at Studio 4 Labs in Venice, California, and mastered by Scott Sedillo at Bernie Grundman Mastering in Los Angeles.

TRACK LISTING

Portal North: Panthera
Ad Ventures
Fast Learner Ft. Purple Tape Nate
Wet
Chocolate Souffle
Portal South: Micah
Bad Bitch Walking Ft. Stas THEE Boss
Money Yoga Ft. Darrius
Thanking The Girls
Reg Walks By The Looking Glass Ft. Carlos Overall

What happens when an abrasive rock trio trades guitars for synths, cranks up the beats and leans into the everyday anxieties of simply being a functioning human in the 21st century? The answer is Uneasy Laughter, the sensational second Sub Pop release from Los Angeles-based Moaning.

Vocalist/guitarist Sean Solomon, bassist/keyboardist Pascal Stevenson and drummer Andrew MacKelvie have been friends and co-conspirators amid the fertile L.A. DIY scene for more than a decade. They are also immersed in other creative pursuits — Solomon is a noted illustrator, art director and animator, while Stevenson and MacKelvie have played or worked behind the boards with acts such as Cherry Glazerr, Sasami and Surf Curse. On Uneasy Laughter, they’ve tackled challenges both personal and universal the only way they know how: by talking about how they’re feeling and channeling those emotions directly into their music.

“We’ve known each other forever and we’re really comfortable trying to express where we’re at. A lot of bands aren’t so close,” says MacKelvie. Adds Solomon, who celebrated a year of sobriety during the Uneasy Laughter sessions, “Men are conditioned not to be vulnerable or admit they’re wrong. But I wanted to talk openly about my feelings and mistakes I’ve made.”

Moaning’s 2018’s self-titled Sub Pop debut featured songs mostly written in practice or brought in already complete by individual band members. It garnered acclaim from Pitchfork, Stereogum and Los Angeles Times, who observed, “Moaning craft anxious music for an increasingly nervous local scene.” But Uneasy Laughter is a collaborative breakthrough which significantly brightens Moaning’s once claustrophobic sound, again abetted by producer/engineer Alex Newport (At The Drive-In, Bloc Party, Melvins). The trio points to first single “Ego,” which features a costume-heavy video directed by Ambar Navarro, as an embodiment of this evolution.

Solomon admits Uneasy Laughter could have gone in quite another direction had he not gotten sober and educated himself on such core subjects as gender and mental health. “I did a lot of reading in the tour van — authors like bell hooks, Mark Fisher, and Alain de Botton, all really inspired me. I don’t want to be the person who influences young people to go get high and become cliche tragic artists,” he says. “What I’d rather convey to people is that they’re not alone in what they think and how they feel. ‘Ego’ specifically and the album overall is about those themes — letting go of your bullshit so you can help other people and be present.”

“We want to be part of a community,” he adds. “I wrote online about being sober for a year, and I had kids from all over writing and asking for advice. One of them said, ‘For the first time I can remember, I didn’t drink last night.’ I thought, for once, maybe we did something besides sell a record. That’s a win. That’s incredibly exciting.”

TRACK LISTING

1. Ego
2. Make It Stop
3. ///
4. Stranger
5. Running
6. Connect The Dots
7. Fall In Love
8. Coincidence Or Fate
9. What Separates Us
10. //////////
11. Keep Out
12. Saving Face
13. Say Something

The Big Exercise, the second album by Dutch band The Homesick, and their first for Sub Pop, finds the group keenly second-guessing their core chemistry as a live unit, imbuing their angular post-punk workouts with baroque elements such as piano, acoustic guitar, percussion, and even clarinet. “It’s the opposite of trying to translate recorded music to the stage,” guitarist Elias Elgersma comments. “We were already playing these songs live for quite some time, so for this album, we wanted to unlock the potential of these songs further in the studio.” Opening track “What’s In Store” was in part inspired by bassist Jaap Van der Velde’s unprompted deep dive into the world of national anthems, making his own attempt to conjure a similarly timeless melody. The song seamlessly bleeds into the chivalrous prance of “Children’s Day” and the fragmented “Pawing,” righteously encouraging Erik Woudwijk’s nimble, cerebral drumming to become the band’s driving force.

The headstrong wanderlust of The Big Exercise is fitting, given The Homesick’s exodus as a small-town Dutch band ready to trot the world. Contrary to the quest for belonging, roots, and provenance found on their debut album, Youth Hunt, the band’s creative trajectory is now dictated by a sense of otherness and imagination. The sharp contrasts are ever-present; the music’s new sonorous depth is underpinned by wry meditations on family ties, alternate realities, and commonplace encounters. As the band’s chief lyricists, Elgersma and Van der Velde deliberately keep each other in the dark, allowing the syntax of words and music to entangle in surprising – sometimes delightfully absurd – ways. “I Celebrate My Fantasy,” for example, summons a mirage of creeping pianos, sylvan clarinet flourishes and cartoonish sprawls with mock-paranoia, as Elgersma documents a macabre vision he had during a mild case of sleep paralysis. True to the band’s method of holding the more mundane, fleeting moments under a magnifying glass, closing track “Male Bonding” pulls a wide range of movements out of the top hat: the album’s rare heavy burst is promptly mediated by almost medieval-sounding prog rock-flirtations. The Homesick have made a record impregnated with impressions that still fit neatly under the pop umbrella. The album title’s nod to Scott Walker - “the big exercise” is a phrase pulled from a passage in Walker’s biography, Deep Shade of Blue - isn’t an aberration either: straddling pop sonority and the cacophonous fringes is something well worth aspiring.

TRACK LISTING

What's In Store
Children's Day
Pawing
I Celebrate My Fantasy
Leap Year
The Small Exercise
The Big Exercise
Focus On The Beach
Kaïn
Male Bonding

Wolf Parade - Dan Boeckner, Spencer Krug, and Arlen Thompson are releasing Thin Mind, the group’s fifth album for Sub Pop. Thin Mind has sci-fi, post-apocalyptic and dystopian narratives interwoven throughout. These themes emerged while working at Risque Disque, which Boeckner jokingly describes as a Dutchman’s failed utopia, a problematic structure with a post-apocalyptic vibe: the studio is housed in a stone barn hand-built by the Dutchman in the middle of the woods, using local materials and based on his memory of a building he loved growing up in the Netherlands. Thin Mind finds the core members of Wolf Parade working as a trio, as they did on past albums Apologies to the Queen Mary and At Mount Zoomer, with songwriting duties evenly split between singers Dan Boeckner and Spencer Krug. The album includes the singles “Forest Green,” “Julia, Take Your Man Home,” and “Against the Day,” the latter of which features a rare, co-vocal performance from Boeckner and Krug.

TRACK LISTING

Tracklisting:
Under Glass
Julia Take Your Man Home
Forest Green
Out Of Control
The Static Age
As Kind As You Can
Fall Into The Future
Wandering Son
Against The Day
Town Square

The legendary Preservation Hall Jazz Band present the soundtrack to ‘A Tuba To Cuba’, the critically acclaimed documentary directed by TG Herrington and Danny Clinch. The film follows Ben Jaffe of New Orleans’ famed Preservation Hall Jazz Band as he seeks to fulfil his late father's dream of retracing their musical roots to the shores of Cuba in search of the indigenous music that gave birth to New Orleans jazz. ‘A Tuba To Cuba’ celebrates the triumph of the human spirit expressed through the universal language of music and challenges us to resolve to build bridges, not walls.

Preservation Hall Jazz Band’s Ben Jaffe said of ‘Kreyol’ from the soundtrack: “Every evening in Havana people gather along the waterfront to socialize. I’ve always been taken by the tempo at which people stroll, like New Orleans, there’s a very particular rhythm to their walk. That rhythm was the inspiration for ‘Kreyol’. In fact, ‘Kreyol’ is the Cuban spelling of ‘Creole.’ You can feel that same Creole influence in New Orleans, it’s one of our many shared connections with Cuba.”

At a moment when musical streams are crossing with unprecedented frequency it’s crucial to remember that throughout its history New Orleans has been the point at which sounds and cultures from around the world converge, mingle and resurface, transformed by the Crescent City’s inimitable spirit and joie de vivre. Nowhere is that idea more vividly embodied than in the Preservation Hall Jazz Band, which has held the torch of New Orleans music aloft for more than 50 years, all the while carrying it enthusiastically forward as a reminder that the history they were founded to preserve is a vibrantly living one.

TRACK LISTING

Yesteryear
Tumba
I Am
Descarga Del Son
Keep Your Head Up
Corazon
Elegguà
Kreyol
El Manicero
Solitude
Las Palomas
Malecón

Experimental hip-hop group Clipping’s “The Deep” is a dark sci-fi tale about the underwater-dwelling descendants of African women thrown off slave ships, based on the mythology of Detroit electronic group Drexciya. The song was originally commissioned for a This American Life about Afrofuturism in 2017. The track earned Clipping a nomination for a 2018 Hugo award, and the band constructed a sound installation based on “The Deep” at the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art. This release comes on the heels of the November 5th release of The Deep, a novella by Rivers Solomon (with Clipping credited as co-authors) inspired by the title track and published by Saga Press. The vinyl and digital versions include two otherwise-unreleased extra tracks – including “Aquacode Databreaks,” which features Shabazz Palaces – and the vinyl edition includes instrumental versions of all three tracks. 

TRACK LISTING

The Deep
Aquacode Databreaks (ft Shabazz Palaces)
Drownt
The Deep (Instrumental)
Aquacode Databreaks (Instrumental)
Drownt (Instrumental)

Enter Networker, the new album by Omni and first with indie giant Sub Pop Records. Their sound is still defined by sparse drums, locked-in bass, blistering guitar, and nonchalant, yet assured vocals, but from the first notes of "Sincerely Yours" you'll immediately notice that Networker sounds much cleaner and more "HI-FI" than their prior two albums, Deluxe (2016) and Multi-task (2017). The departure in fidelity suits the new record and allows the listener to enjoy the nuances of their meticulous arrangements. Don't worry, the riffs of Gang of Four and Wire are still present, but the production is more lush and the harmony is even more expansive.

Despite nods to the sounds of the ’70s and ’80s what comes through is a record fully rooted in the here and now. Thematically, this is apparent on the title track "Networker" taking a candid snapshot of the “digital you” aspect of life in the age of the internet. The otherwise fun romp “Skeleton Key” also acknowledges the “direct message and obsessive” side of social media with lines like “if you don't like what you see, the pretty face on the screen, scroll on by...”  Networker was written half between tours and half during recording sessions. The band, Philip Frobos on bass/vocals and Frankie Broyles on guitars/drums/keys, returned with longtime collaborator Nathaniel Higgins to the studio in South Georgia where they also recorded Multi-task and most recent single "Delicacy." In this case, the “studio” is a cabin near Vienna, GA (pronounced Vye-anna) that was built by Frankie Broyles’ great-grandparents in the 1940s. The band completed four sessions between November 2018 and April 2019.

Omni hit their stride in the cabin with songs such as "Moat,” which cruises along at a nice mid-tempo clip with sounds that are maybe piano or maybe the “behind the bridge” strings of a Jaguar a la Sonic Youth or This Heat. "Blunt Force" provides a nice contrast to some of the more upbeat cuts, getting jazzy with it’s less traditional arrangement and psychedelic outro. Overall, Networker is simultaneously fun, catchy, and contains some truly impressive musicianship. This combo is especially hard to pull off as bands that are great players often don’t have great or memorable songs. Omni and Nathaniel Higgins have done a stellar job of reigning in their diverse influences into a cohesive record by curating their sounds into a tight package that leaves you just on the cusp of understanding where the band is coming from, while still feeling like you’re hearing something totally fresh. While their earlier records had more of a “post-punk” sound, Networker is an amalgamation of the best sounds of the ’70s and ’80s, all arranged with (mostly) guitars, bass, and drums for our contemporary age, and it really works! There are hooks everywhere, vocal and instrumental, that will leave you humming along, even during the first listen. As Philip Frobos says in “Present Tense,” “guess who’s on my mind right now?” Well, Omni’s on mine and will be on yours soon.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: Omni's sound has been gradually gathering momentum since their superb 2016 LP 'Deluxe' (almost definitely since before then, but 2016 was my entry point). What we've ended up with is a brilliantly confident and swaggering combination of technically superb guitar riffage and off-piste rhythmic hooks all coated in those relaxed vox, delievered perfectly but with the minimum of fuss. Effortlessly cool.

TRACK LISTING

1. Sincerely Yours
2. Courtesy Call
3. Moat
4. Underage
5. Skeleton Key
6. Genuine Person
7. Present Tense
8. Blunt Force
9. Flat Earth
10. Networker
11. Sleep Mask

Corridor are a group from Montreal and their Sub Pop debut, ‘Junior’, was made just yesterday. The rock & roll band had barely inked their record deal when they surfed into studio, racing against time to make the most dazzling, immediate and inventive album of their young career: 39 minutes of darting and dodging guitars, spiralling vocal harmonies and the complicated, goldenrod nostalgia of a Sunday mid-afternoon.

‘Junior’ is the band’s third full-length and their third recorded with their friend, producer (and occasional roommate) Emmanuel Ethier. However 2015’s ‘Le Voyage Éternel’ and 2017’s ‘Supermercado’ were made languorously, their songs taking shape across whole seasons. This time Dominic Berthiaume (vocals/bass), Julian Perreault (guitar), Jonathan Robert (vocals/guitar/synths) and Julien Bakvis (drums) permitted themselves no such indulgence.

Singers, two guitars, bass, drums: the timelessness of the setup underpins the timelessness of the sound, a rock & roll borrowing from each of the past six decades - punk and pop, psych and jangle, daydream and swoon. This is music that’s muscular, exciting and full of love, its riffs a kind of medicine.

Whereas Corridor’s past work could sometimes seem overstuffed, twenty ideas to the same song, the new work is hypnotic, distilled. “Part of the beauty of the thing is that we didn’t have time to think about it,” says Berthiaume. Six of ‘Junior’s 10 tracks were conceived during a single weekend. The words to ‘Bang’ were written on the eve of the sessions, as Robert began to panic: “Je payerai tôt ou tard,” he sings: I’ll pay, sooner or later. Fewer jams, fewer overdubs - no fortnight in the countryside secluding themselves in a chalet. Even the artwork came in the nick of time: in spite of other, meticulous, masterpieces, Robert’s “shitty last-minute collage” (of an egg saying hello) was the one his bandmates went for.

Sub Pop have never before, in their 33-year history, signed a Francophone act. Maybe the band’s magic springs from their ingenious hooks, their topaztinted vision. Maybe it’s the panache of Québec’s insurgent underground scene, or the camaraderie of Robert and Berthiaume, who have played together since they were 14. Maybe it’s their name - a hallway crossed with a toreador. Probably it’s all of these and none of them: ‘Junior’ is a joy, a hasty miracle, because it’s so much damn fun to listen to.

TRACK LISTING

Topographe
Junior
Domino
Goldie
Agent Double
Microscopie
Grand Cheval
Milan
Pow
Bang

Morning in America consists of 7 songs that were recorded during the sessions for Mudhoney’s 2018 album, Digital Garbage (“…an astute, politically relevant and commendably fired-up garage punk belter of an LP,” – The Quietus). The tracks include "Let's Kill Yourself Live Again" (an alternate version of the Digital Garbage stand-out “Kill Yourself Live,” and the bonus track for the Japanese CD version of that album), "One Bad Actor" (a new version of Mudhoney’s track on the limited-edition, and now very sold-out, SPF30 split 7” single w Hot Snakes), album outtakes “Snake Oil Charmer,” “Morning in America” and “Creeps Are Everywhere,” plus "Ensam I Natt" (“So Lonely Tonight,” a Leather Nun cover) and "Vortex of Lies" from a very limited EU tour 7". The songs were mixed at Johnny Sangster’s studio Crackle & Pop!

TRACK LISTING

Vortex Of Lies
Creeps Are Everywhere
Ensam I Natt
Morning In America
Let's Kill Yourself Live Again
Snake Oil Charmer
One Bad Actor

Close It Quietly is a continual reframing of the known. It’s like giving yourself a haircut or rearranging your room. You know your hair. You know your room. Here’s the same hair, the same room, seen again as something new. Close It Quietly takes the trademark Frankie Cosmos micro-universe and upends it, spilling outwards into a swirl of referentiality that’s a marked departure from earlier releases, imagining and reimagining motifs and sounds throughout the album. The band’s fourth studio release is a manifestation of their collaborative spirit: Greta Kline and longtime bandmates Lauren Martin (synth), Luke Pyenson (drums), and Alex Bailey (bass) luxuriated in studio time with Gabe Wax, who engineered and co-produced the record with the band. Recording close to home— at Brooklyn’s Figure 8 Studios— grounded the band, and their process was enriched by working closely with Wax, whose intuition and attention to detail made the familiar unfamiliar and allowed the band to reshape their own contexts. On opener “Moonsea,” an unaccompanied Greta begins, “The world is crumbling and I don’t have much to say.” Take that as a wink and a metonym for the whole album, as her signature vocals are joined by Alex’s ascending bassline and Lauren’s eddying synths, invoking a loungey take on Broadcast or Stereolab’s space-disco experimental pop. There’s much more than “not much” to say here, and it's augmented and expanded by experimentation with synth patches, textures, and other recording nuances courtesy of Wax. As the lineup has solidified into the most permanent expression of full-band Frankie Cosmos, the bandmates have felt more comfortable deviating from their default instruments and contributing bigger-picture ideas to continue pushing the sound forward.

The band’s closeness and aesthetic consistency freed its members to take more risks, notes Luke: "Everything will sound like Frankie Cosmos because Greta has such a distinct voice (literally and figuratively). We have so much latitude to experiment with the instrumental music, and this time around we really took advantage of that." Without losing any intimacy of prior albums, Close it Quietly is different, is outer. The album functions as a benign doppelganger, a shadow self of past releases; where other Frankie Cosmos records shine brightest looking inward, Close it Quietly refracts the self into the world, and vice versa, miraculously echoing Thoreau’s assertion that “when I reflect, I find that there is other than me.” Reflection--and refraction--isn’t tidy. “Flowers don’t grow/in an organized way/why should I?” Greta sings on “A Joke.” Growth isn’t linear. Change happens in circles. While recording the album, Alex says, “I closed my eyes a lot.” Stand in the sun, listen to Close it Quietly, and do the same.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: Frankie Cosmos deliver a whimsical but meaningful journey through indie-pop, jangling and melodic but with a beating heart of seriously solid songwriting and a stunning musicality. Encompassing aspects of late-90's grunge and shimmering pop-punk, 'Close It Quietly' will be on the player for some time to come. Lovely stuff.

TRACK LISTING

Moonsea
Cosmic Shop
41st
So Blue
A Joke
Rings (On A Tree)
Actin' Weird
Windows
Never Would
Self-destruct
Wannago
I'm It
Trunk Of A Tree
Last Season's Textures
Even Though I Knew
UFO
Marbles
Did You Find
A Hit
With Great Purpose
This Swirling

There is an entire sub-genre of poetry devoted to rivers and their persistent, meditative flow. Emily Dickinson’s ‘My River Runs to Thee’ compares them to the cycle of life, while Alfred Tennyson’s ‘The Brook’ deems them eternal and Kathleen Raine’s ‘The River’ muses on the dream-state they evoke. For transcendent folk pop artist Shannon Lay, the river is all of the above: It’s the metaphor driving her latest album, the exquisitely uplifting ‘August’, which doubles as an aural baptism renewing her purpose for making music. “I always picture music as this river. Everyone’s throwing things into this river, it’s a place you can go to and feed off of that energy,” she says, “and feel nourished by the fact that so many people are feeling what you’re feeling. It’s this beautiful exchange.”

The album’s name, ‘August’, refers to the month in 2017 when Lay quit her day job and fully gave herself over to music. This was her liberation as an artist and the album is devoted to paying that forward to her listeners. Lay may be the most chilled-out artist you’ll ever meet. Despite fronting her tranquil solo act and being a guitarist/singer in the indie rock band Feels, she never pressures herself to overachieve. Nonetheless, she regularly does: in a glowing review, Pitchfork anointed her last album, ‘Living Water’, “captivating.”

‘August’ was mostly written in three months, during Lay’s first solo tour for ‘Living Water’. “For the most part, all of the songs were just guitar and voice,” she says. In keeping with the humbled, contemplative nature of ‘August’, most tracks clock-in at three minutes or less. She saved indulgence for the production. “Some songs as they were had this room to grow,” says Lay, who recorded the album with her longtime friend, musician Ty Segall at his home studio on the East Side. “I believe whoever you record with tends to affect the mood of music and Ty really brought this jovial sense that I hadn’t really explored yet,” she says. Also in the mix is Mikal Cronin, who played saxophone on the album’s opener, ‘Death Up Close’. “A lot of my friends who are really tough have admitted that they shed a tear when they hear my songs, and I think that really speaks to the visceral aspect of folk music,” Lay says. “It’s this ancient form of expressing yourself.”

Think of ‘August’ as a warm hug for your psyche. “I want to create as much music as I can,” she says, “and leave this spot by the river where people can go sit and enjoy.”

TRACK LISTING

Death Up Close
Nowhere
November
Shuffling Stoned
Past Time
Wild
August
Sea Came To Shore
Sunday Sundown
Something On Your Mind
Unconditional
The Dream

Give me a minute or three to extol the virtues of The Gotobeds, the modern rock and roll sensation that has always sounded like they love to play. Never maligned by having the world’s weight on their backs, The Gotobeds - Cary, TFP, Eli and Gavin - return to the fray with their third full lengther, ‘Debt Begins at 30’. The esprit de corps and anxiety-free joy that permeates their other LPs and EPs remains intact. The octane is high-test, the engine still has knocks and pings and the battery is overcharged. The Gotobeds - as Pittsburgh as it gets, the folk music of the Steel City - have more tar for us to swallow.

‘Debt Begins At 30’ is an old-fashioned blast furnace and the liquid iron flows. ‘Debt Begins At 30’ is not ‘pub sop’ in any way or shape. Though I never considered The Gotobeds a band that needed assistance from their peers, ‘Debt Begins At 30’ features outside contributors on every track. The album’s first single, ‘Calquer The Hound’, includes local buddy Evan Richards, and Rob Henry of Kim Phuc. ‘Calquer The Hound’ has euphony, a sly bridge, plenty of trademark bash, and a spacey outro. It’s a sanguine album opener, more Al Oliver than Starling Marte. On ‘Twin Cities’, the lads tap Tracy Wilson, formerly of Dahlia Seed and currently of Positive NO!, to share the vox, and the result is an exuberant pop song proving The Gotobeds benefit from women ruling the scene.

"Twin Cities" is more Dakota Staton than Don Caballero. ‘Debt Begins At 30’, the title trackular, includes the wizardry of Mike Seamans and legend Bob Weston. It’s a brooding romp with tribal beats and slash-and-burn guitar, more Rocky Bleier than Le’Veon Bell. Unsurprisingly, The Gotobeds called partners-in-rock-crime Protomartyr a coupla times, with Joe Casey bolstering ‘Slang Words’ and hook-fiend Greg Ahee shredding on ‘On Loan’. ‘Slang Words’ is a savory wrecking ball with a crunching bite, more of a soft shell crab sandwich from Wholey’s Market than a 4am slop feast at Primanti Brothers. ‘On Loan’ is an anthemic janglefest with high-arcing fret work, more Karl Hendricks (rest his soul) than ‘Weird Paul’ Petroskey. Silkworm guitarist Tim Midyett is tapped on ‘Parallel’, a grand song that enters a world of whimsy, melodic and uncomplicated, more Jaromir Jagr than Sidney Crosby.

The likes of 12XU label boss Gerard Cosloy, Tre Orsi’s Matt Barnhart, the wonderful Victoria Ruiz of Downtown Boys, Pittsburgh wordsmiths Jason Baldinger and Scott MacIntyre, and yours truly strut stuff on other tracks. In my case, I just scream “dross” on ‘Dross’ several times. Good judgment on the part of The Gotobeds to know that’s the best I can do, more Max Moroff than Andrew McCutchen. Anyways, The Gotobeds have quickly reached the veteran stage, but, based upon ‘Debt Begins At 30’, their best days are ahead of them. It’s a pleasure to be associated with such an excellent band.”

TRACK LISTING

1. Calquer The Hound
2. Twin Cities
3. Slang Words
4. 2:15
5. Poor People Are
6. Revolting
7. Debt Begins At 30
8. On Loan
9. Dross
10. Parallel
11. Bleached Midnight
12. Debt Begins At 30 (Alt)

METZ, the widely-adored and delightfully noisy 3-piece punk band from Toronto (ON, Canada), have been laying waste to stages around the globe for over 10 years. During that tumultuous chunk of time METZ, comprised of Alex Edkins, Hayden Menzies, and Chris Slorach, have cemented their reputation as one of the planet's most exhilarating live acts and trusted providers of bombastic outsider rock. Along the way, they’ve earned enthusiastic support from The New Yorker, Mojo, NPR, The New York Times, KEXP, Pitchfork, Stereogum, The AV Club, Q, Uncut, Exclaim, and a bunch of others. Referring to the trio's tireless tour regime and unquenchable thirst to bring their music to the people, John Reis (Hot Snakes, RFTC, Drive Like Jehu) once said, “your ambition is really unflattering, chill out.”

They did not listen. Instead, their love of the road and passion to create uncompromising and challenging music remains unwavering and has only grown over time. Their recorded output to date, a cornucopia of pop-inflected noise punk and damaged fuzz anthems, includes 3 critically-acclaimed LPs with Sub Pop, as well as a plethora of limited-edition releases, collaborations, covers, and rarities. Which brings us to Automat, a collection of non-album singles, B-sides, and rarities dating back to 2009, available on LP for the first time, and including the band's long out-of-print early (pre-Sub Pop) recordings.

Included here are the band’s first three 7” singles, recorded 2009-2010 and originally released by We Are Busy Bodies Records; a demo version of “Wet Blanket,” the explosive single from 2012’s METZ; two tracks from the limited-edition bonus single that accompanied preorders of METZ; “Can’t Understand,” originally released in 2013 by [adult swim]; and both tracks from the band’s 2015 single on Three One G.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: Clashing, rawkous punk-rock guitars and huge percussion meet noise-rock production and hardcore screaming in a clattering maelstrom of fiery chord changes and snarling vitriol. Absolutely insane, and unfathomably packed with huge swathes of razor-sharp distortion and heft.

TRACK LISTING

Soft Whiteout
Lump Sums
Dry Up
Ripped On The Fence
Negative Space (7 Inch Version)
Automat
Wet Blanket (Demo)
Dirty Shirt
Leave Me Out
Can’t Understand
Pure Auto
Eraser
Pig*
I’m A Bug*
M.E.*

*vinyl-only Bonus 7” Track

Kyle Craft and his now solidified backing band, dubbed Showboat Honey, reflect the sturm und drang of life with their self-titled album, the contemplative yet restless ‘Showboat Honey’. “This is basically an album centered around bad luck and good fortune hitting at the same time,” Craft explains “Then, out of nowhere, I find love. Everything went to shit except that. I guess that’s how life works.”

The sticky-sweet title of the album is lifted from the brightly choral ‘Buzzkill Caterwaul’: “I wanted to make something that sounded like a raucous collision of Leon Russell and Patti Smith,” he says, “But ‘Buzzkill Caterwaul’ was the only tune that ended up showcasing that vision.” Though aesthetics veer from song to song, ‘Showboat Honey’s steadfast formula remains the same. Drummer Haven Mutlz holds down the machine with a 60s/70s fast-molasses groove that locks in with the slinky rolling bass of Billy Slater. When Kevin Clark isn’t bouncing across the piano, his mellotron strings swell in and out of frame. Jack of all trades Ben Steinmetz’s organ parts well up from the deep of the songs, while lead guitarist Jeremy Kale’s solos rip through them like electricity. On top of it all, sits the tongue-in-cheek phantasmagoria created by Craft’s lyrics, in which perspectives shift to imbue life into a cast of intriguing, mysterious characters, à la Bob Dylan. (“There is not a single thing in my life that has affected me more than the first time I heard Dylan,” says Craft. “It immediately changed my life.”)

Craft started writing about as soon as he could play the guitar at the age of 15. He grew up in the isolated Mississippi River town of Vidalia, Louisiana where his chops weren’t honed in a woodshed but rather an old, dingy meat freezer that was out of commission. After years of touring, two albums with Sub Pop Records and solidifying the band, he’s grown into a prodigious songwriter, to say the least. The band recorded ‘Showboat Honey’ - co- produced by Craft, Clark and Slater - at their own Moonbase Studios in Portland over 2018. “We approached this record differently for sure,” Craft says. “I’d make a demo, and after putting the songs together, shoot it to the band for ideas.” Kyle and the members of Showboat Honey worked at such a feverish wine-fuelled pace that they actually ended up with two completely different albums. At the end of the day, they decided to combine the two into what is now ‘Showboat Honey'.

TRACK LISTING

Broken Mirror Pose
O! Lucky Hand
2 Ugly 4 NY
Blackhole/Joyride
Bed Of Needles #2
Deathwish Blue
Blood In The Water
Buzzkill Caterwaul
Sunday Driver
Johnny (Free & Easy)
She’s Lily Riptide

At a moment when musical streams are crossing with unprecedented frequency, it’s crucial to remember that throughout its history, New Orleans has been the point at which sounds and cultures from around the world converge, mingle and resurface, transformed by the Crescent City’s inimitable spirit and joie de vivre. Nowhere is that idea more vividly embodied than in the Preservation Hall Jazz Band, which has held the torch of New Orleans music aloft for more than 50 years, all the while carrying it enthusiastically forward as a reminder that the history they were founded to preserve is a vibrantly living history.

‘So It Is’ (2017) finds the classic Preservation Hall Jazz Band sound invigorated by a number of fresh influences, not least among them the band’s 2015 life-changing trip to Cuba. A visit to the island, so integral to the evolution of jazz and New Orleans culture in general, had long been in the works when President Obama’s diplomatic opening suddenly allowed for a more extensive journey than had originally seemed possible. Producer David Sitek, a founder of art rock innovators TV On The Radio who has helmed projects by Kelis, the Yeah Yeah Yeahs and Santigold among others, offered both a keen modern perspective and a profound respect for the band’s storied history.

TRACK LISTING

So It Is
Santiago
Innocence
La Malanga
Covergence
One Hundred Fires
Mad

When Seattle band Tacocat—vocalist Emily Nokes, bassist Bree McKenna, guitarist Eric Randall, and drummer Lelah Maupin—first started in 2007, the world they were responding to was vastly different from the current Seattle scene of diverse voices they’ve helped foster. It was a world of house shows, booking DIY tours on MySpace, and writing funny, deliriously catchy feminist pop-punk songs when feminism was the quickest way to alienate yourself from the then-en vogue garage-rock bros. Their lyrical honesty, humor, and hit-making sensibilities have built the band a fiercely devoted fanbase over the years, one that has followed them from basements to dive bars to sold-out shows at the Showbox. Every step along the way has been a seamless progression—from silly songs about Tonya Harding and psychic cats to calling out catcallers and poking fun at entitled weekend-warrior tech jerks on their last two records on Hardly Art, 2014’s NVM and 2016’s Lost Time.

This Mess is a Place, Tacocat’s fourth full-length and first on Sub Pop, finds the band waking up the morning after the 2016 election and figuring out how to respond to a new reality where evil isn’t hiding under the surface at all—it’s front and center, with new tragedies and civil rights assaults filling up the scroll of the newsfeed every day. “What a time to be barely alive,” laments “Crystal Ball,” a gem that examines the more intimate side of responding emotionally to the news cycle. How do you keep fighting when all you want to do is stay in bed all day? “Stupid computer stupor/Oh my kingdom for some better ads,” Nokes sings, throwing in some classic Tacocat snark, “Truth spread so thin/It stops existing.” Despite current realities being depressing enough to make anyone want to crawl under the covers and sleep for a thousand years, Tacocat are doing what they’ve always done so well: mingling brightness, energy, and hope with political critique.

This Mess is a Place is charged with a hopefulness that stands in stark contrast to music that celebrates apathy, despair, and numbness. Tacocat feels it all and cares, a lot, whether they’re singing odes to the magical connections we feel with our pets (“Little Friend”), imagining what a better earth might look like (“New World”), or trying to find humor in a wholly unfunny world (“The Joke of Life”). It’s a delightfully cathartic moment and the cornerstone of the record when they exclaim, in “Grains of Salt:” “Don’t forget to remember who the fuck you are!”

Producer Erik Blood (who also produced Lost Time) brings the band into their full pop potential but still preserves what makes Tacocat so special: they’re four friends who met as young punks and have grown together into a truly collaborative band. Says Nokes: “We can examine some hard stuff, make fun of some evil stuff, feel some soft feelings, feel some rage feelings, feel some bitter-ass feelings, sift through memories, feel wavy-existential, and still go get a banana daiquiri at the end.”

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: Embodying the spirit of 90's grunge, but with more of an emphasis on melody than on fuzz, Tacocat craft a completely immersive and endearing suite of punky bangers. Wholly modern but with a comforting musical nod to the past.

TRACK LISTING

Hologram
New World
Grains Of Salt
The Joke Of Life
Little Friend
Rose-Colored Sky
The Problem
Crystal Ball
Meet Me At La Palma
Miles And Miles

The phantom zone, the parallax, the upside down—there is a rich cultural history of exploring in-between places. Through her latest, Titanic Rising, Weyes Blood, a.k.a. Natalie Mering, has designed her own universe to soulfully navigate life’s mysteries. Maneuvering through a space-time continuum, she plays the role of melodic, sometimes melancholic, anthropologist. Tellingly, Mering classifies Titanic Rising – which was written and recorded during the first half of 2018, after three albums and years of touring - as the Kinks meet WWII or Bob Seger meets Enya. The latter captures the album’s willful expansiveness (“You can tell there’s not a guy pulling the strings in Enya’s studio,” she notes, admiringly). The former relays her imperative to connect with listeners. “The clarity of Bob Seger is unmistakable. I’m a big fan of conversational songwriting,” she adds. “I just try to do that in a way that uses abstract imagery as well.” The Weyes Blood frontwoman grew up singing in gospel and madrigal choirs. (Listen closely to Titanic Rising, and you’ll also hear the jazz of Hoagy Carmichael mingle with the artful mysticism of Alejandro Jodorowsky and the monomyth of scholar Joseph Campbell.) “Something to Believe,” a confessional that makes judicious use of the slide guitar, touches on that cosmological upbringing. “Belief is something all humans need. Shared myths are part of our psychology and survival,” she says. “Now we have a weird mishmash of capitalism and movies and science. There have been moments where I felt very existential and lost.” As a kid, she filled that void with Titanic. (Yes, the movie.) “It was engineered for little girls and had its own mythology,” she explains. Mering also noticed that the blockbuster romance actually offered a story about loss born of man’s hubris. “It’s so symbolic that The Titanic would crash into an iceberg, and now that iceberg is melting, sinking civilization.” Today, this hubris also extends to the relentless adoption of technology, at the expense of both happiness and attention spans. But Weyes Blood isn’t one to stew. Her observations play out in an ethereal saunter: far more meditative than cynical. To Mering, listening and thinking are concurrent experiences. “There are complicated influences mixed in with more relatable nostalgic melodies,” she says. “In my mind my music feels so big, a true production. I’m not a huge, popular artist, but I feel like one when I’m in the studio. But it’s never taking away from the music. I’m just making a bigger space for myself.”

STAFF COMMENTS

Andy says: A classy drift from psych-tinged folk to warm, honeyed West Coast soft rock; gorgeous early-70's singer-songwriter territory with the occasional whiff of Karen Carpenter, and all the melancholic sweep and drama you might expect. A surprising and beautiful return.

TRACK LISTING

A Lot's Gonna Change
Andromeda
Everyday
Something To Believe
Titanic Rising
Movies
Mirror Forever
Wild Time
Picture Me Better
Nearer To Thee

The story of Seattle's rise to global rock supremacy in the late '80s and early '90s begins with Green River. Made up of Jeff Ament (bass), Mark Arm (guitar/vocals), Bruce Fairweather (guitar), Stone Gossard (guitar), and Alex Shumway (drums), the quintet put out three 12”s and a 7” single during its brief existence. Green River's influence on Seattle's music scene spread far and wide thanks to the members' dispersion into bands including Pearl Jam, Mudhoney, and Love Battery, as well as the punk-glam-sludge-rock songs they left behind.  "By '83, '84, there was definitely a movement that was happening within hardcore, like Black Flag slowing down for My War," says Arm. "The Replacements and Butthole Surfers were rearing their heads, and they're very different bands, but they're not hardcore—the Replacements are pretty much straight-up rock, and Butthole Surfers were God knows what. Sonic Youth's Bad Moon Rising was around, and a lot of really interesting post-hardcore things were happening."

Green River, which formed in 1984, was part of that evolution, with a sound that straddled a lot of different genres—blues, punk, bloozy straight-ahead rock. The mini-LP Dry As A Bone, which came out in 1987, and the band's lone full-length Rehab Doll, which came out in 1988, were released as a single CD with a few bonus cuts, including their sneering cover of David Bowie's "Queen Bitch" and their marauding version of Dead Boys' "Ain't Nothin' to Do," in 1990—but they've been unavailable on vinyl for years. Now, these slices of Seattle music history are not only back in print, they're accompanied by items from the vaults that had been forgotten about for decades.  Dry As A Bone was recorded at Jack Endino's Reciprocal Recording in 1986, and it shows the band in furious form, with Arm's yowl battling Fairweather and Gossard's ferocious guitar playing on "This Town" and "Unwind" opening as a slow bluesy grind then jump-starting itself into a hyperactive chase. The deluxe edition includes Green River's cuts from the crucial Seattle-scene compilation Deep Six, as well as long-lost songs that were recorded to the now-archaic format Betamax.Rehab Doll, recorded largely at Seattle's Steve Lawson Studios., bridges the gap between the taut, punky energy of Dry As a Bone and the bigger drums and thicker riffs that were coming to dominate rock in the late '80s. This new edition of Rehab Doll includes a version of “Swallow My Pride” recorded to 8-track at Endino's Reciprocal Recording, which features a more accurate depiction of how the band sounded when they played live. "When I listen to these mixes, I think, 'This is how we actually sounded—this is the kind of energy we had,'" says Shumway.

Green River's place in American music history is without question, but these recordings paint a more complete picture of the band—and of rock in the mid- to late-'80s, when punk's faster-and-louder ideals had begun shape-shifting into other ideas. 

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: There could be few pre-supergroups more influential in the Seattle sound than Green River, and of these two reissues, 'Dry As A Bone' is the most snarling punky outing, including the rock pomp of 'Baby Takes' and the punk snarl of the superb 'Bleeding Sheep'. Totally essential.

TRACK LISTING

This Town
PCC
Ozzie
One More Stitch
Unwind
Baby Takes
Searchin’
Hangin’ Tree
Together We’ll Never
Ain’t Nothin’ To Do
Bleeding Sheep
Bazaar
Thrown Up
This Little Boy
10000 Things
Your Own Best Friend (Deep Six)

Sam Beam, aka Iron & Wine, released "Our Endless Numbered Days", his second in March of 2004. It followed his hushed, literate, intimate, melodic, 2002 debut album, "The Creek Drank the Cradle", a quiet treasure which, with its unaffected candor and depth, found fans all over. "Our Endless Numbered Days" was recorded both at Sam’s Miami home and in Chicago’s Engine Studios with Brian Deck (Red Red Meat, Modest Mouse, Ugly Casanova, etc.) On it, Sam is aided and abetted by his then touring and recording conspirators: his sister Sarah Beam, Patrick McKinney, Jeff McGriff, EJ Holowicki, and Jonathon Bradley. Listening to "Our Endless Numbered Days" makes plain Sam’s deft touch with words and melody; one that allows him to turn out stories about love, loss, faith, or the lack of it that are at once personal and universal, set to music that is sweetly haunting and timeless.

This reissue features the original album, plus eight previously unreleased demo versions and a 12-page booklet with an essay about the album by Amanda Petrusich.

TRACK LISTING

On Your Wings
Naked As We Came
Cinder And Smoke
Sunset Soon Forgotten
Teeth In The Grass
Love And Some Verses
Radio War
Each Coming Night
Free Until They Cut Me Down
Fever Dream
Sodom, South Georgia
Passing Afternoon
Naked As We Came (demo)
Cinder And Smoke (demo)
Teeth In The Grass (demo)
Love And Some Verses (demo)
Free Until They Cut Me Down (demo)
Fever Dream (demo)
Sodom, South Georgia (demo)
Passing Afternoon (demo)

Combining the lulling ambience of shoegaze with the iconic melodies and vocal prowess of classic American country music, enigmatic outlaw cowboy Orville Peck croons love and loss from the badlands of North America. The resulting sound is one completely his own, taking the listener down dusty rose-coloured desert highways, through a world where worn out gamblers, aloof road-dogs and lovesick hustlers drift in and out of his masked gaze.

Orville’s debut album, ‘Pony’, delivers a diverse collection of stories that sing of heartbreak, revenge and the unrelenting tug of the cowboy ethos. Warm lap steel guitars and echoing drums move through dreamy ballads, campfire lullabies and sometimes frantic buzzsaw tunes, all the while paying homage to his country music roots.

Orville’s music has been featured by Nylon magazine, i-D mag, Vice, The Needle Drop, as well as numerous playlists. He has also had magazine features in New York’s Hello Mr. and the UK’s Notion.

TRACK LISTING

Dead Of Night
Winds Change
Turn To Hate
Buffalo Run
Queen Of The Rodeo
Kansas (Remembers Me Now)
Old River
Big Sky
Roses Are Falling
Take You Back (The Iron Hoof Cattle Call)
Hope To Die
Nothing Fades Like The Light

In October of 2018, ten years after the launch of their hit HBO series, musical comedians Bret McKenzie and Jemaine Clement returned to HBO for the all-new comedy special. Live in London was taped before a live audience at the Eventim Apollo and featured the Conchords performing songs from the sold-out UK and Ireland edition of “Flight of the Conchords Sing Flight of the Conchords Tour.” 

TRACK LISTING

Father And Son
Band Reunion
Iain And Deanna
Inner City Pressure
New Zealand Symphony Orchestra
Summer Of 1353
Complimentary Muffin
Stana
Stuck In A Lift
Foux Du Fafa
Seagull
Mutha'uckas - Hurt Feelings
One More Anecdote
Back On The Road
Thank You London
Bowie
Bus Driver
Tuning
Robots
Shady Rachel
Carol Brown*
The Most Beautiful Girl (In The Room)*

*Bonus Tracks (not Included In The TV Special)

Luluc released their debut album, Dear Hamlyn, in 2008; the songs were written following the death of Randell's father. Dear Hamlyn eventually gained a large group of influential admirers. Peter Blackstock co-founder of No Depression Magazine, wrote of the album, "The most beautiful album I've heard in ten years." In 2011, Nick Drake's producer, Joe Boyd, also taken by Dear Hamlyn, invited Luluc to feature in his Nick Drake tribute tour. They contributed the tracks "Things Behind the Sun" and "Fly" to the live tribute album, Way to Blue: The Songs of Nick Drake in 2013. Luluc went on to sign with Sub Pop Records and release the critically acclaimed albums Passerby (2014) and Sculptor (2018). This edition of Dear Hamlyn is the first time it has been available on vinyl.

TRACK LISTING

I Found You
Little Suitcase
The Wealthiest Queen
Black Umbrella
Body On The Water
Warm One
Gillian
One Day Soon
Abigail & The Whale (The Blue Queen Of The Deep)
A Whisper
My Midnight Special

Sometime in 2016, just as the Polish singer and producer Tobiasz Biliński began to find success through the dim and fractured electropop of Coldair, he knew it was time for a radical change. The songs on The Provider, Coldair’s much-lauded second album, had been an exorcism of sorts. Laced with songs about early death, chronic disappointment, and clouded minds, the record was, as he puts it now, his earnest attempt to “get all this old shit out.” That mission accomplished, he needed something new, a restart—the unabashedly radiant and unapologetically complex pop of Perfect Son, delivered in 10 perfect shots on Biliński’s Sub Pop debut, Cast.  In the past, Biliński’s music has flirted with and explored the darkness, first in a sort of Transatlantic freak-folk and then with the gothic refractions of Coldair.

But on Cast, Perfect Son steps boldly into the light without sloughing off emotional weight or depth. With powerful, sweeping production that recalls the best pop beats of Matthew Dear and arcing melodies that conjure the majesty of Shearwater, Perfect Son animates sensations of lust, belonging, and newfound trust with tumescent electronic arrangements that threaten the safety of any sound system. Biliński sings about falls throughout Cast, but also about picking yourself back up, about pressing on despite or perhaps because of the bruises. In the process, he is lifted by music that feels unabashedly motivational, built to remind us that the best times are hopefully to come.   Perfect Son, it should be said, is Sub Pop’s first Polish artist, the result of an extended interest in Biliński’s work and the country itself from label co-founder Jonathan Poneman.

Several years ago, Biliński applied to play at South by Southwest as Coldair.  Poneman saw his performance, and was impressed. The two stayed in touch, with Poneman eventually signing Coldair to a publishing deal. “I bugged him about releasing my stuff constantly,” Biliński admits with a laugh. “And I guess he admired my persistence.” When Cast was finally finished, Poneman didn’t need more convincing. These songs, after all, are magnetic, with the searching harmonies and deep drums of “Promises” and the rhythmic intricacy and serial synths of “Wax” pulling you close on first listen and holding you there for the foreseeable future. These songs and this story are about the power of human perseverance and deliberate reinvention, of knowing that you can confront and come to terms with the darkest angels of your being. Cast is a testament to the possibilities of the future, brilliantly disguised as 10 grandiose and undeniable pop anthems.

TRACK LISTING

Reel Me
Lust
It's For Life
Old Desires
So Divine
Promises
High Hopes
My Body Wants
Wax
Almost Mine

Near the end of Reagan's first term, the Western Massachusetts Hardcore scene coughed up an insanely shaped chunk called Dinosaur. Comprised of WMHC vets, the trio was a miasmic tornado of guitar noise, bad attitude and near-subliminal pop-based-shape-shifting. Through their existence, Dinosaur (amended to Dinosaur Jr. for legal reasons) defined a very specific, very aggressive set of oblique song-based responses to what was going on. Their one constant was the scalp-fryingly loud guitar and deeply buried vocals of J Mascis.

A couple of years before they ended their reign, J cut a solo album called Martin + Me. Recorded live and acoustic, the record allowed the bones of J's songs to be totally visible for the first time. Fans were surprised to hear how melodically elegant these compositions were, even if J still seemed interested in swallowing some of the words that most folks would have sung. Since then, through the reformation of the original Dinosaur Jr lineup in 2005, J has recorded solo albums now and then. And those album, Sings + Chant for AMMA (2005), Several Shades of Why (2011) and Tied to a Star (2014) had all delivered incredible sets of songs presented with a minimum of bombast and a surfeit of cool. Like its predecessors, Elastic Days was recorded at J's own Bisquiteen studio. Mascis does almost all his own stunts, although Ken Miauri (who also appeared on Tied to a Star) plays keyboards and there are a few guest vocal spots. These include old mates Pall Jenkins (Black Heart Procession), and Mark Mulcahy (Miracle Legion, etc.), as well as the newly added voice of Zoë Randell (Luluc)  among others. But the show is mostly J's and J's alone. He laughs when I tell him I'm surprised by how melodic his vocals seem to have gotten. Asked if that was intentional, he says, “No. I took some singing lessons and do vocal warm-ups now, but that was mostly just to keep from blowing out my vocal cords when Dino started touring again. The biggest difference with this record might have to do with the drums. I'd just got a new drum set I was really excited about. I don't have too many drum outlets at the moment, so I played a lot more drums than I'd originally planned. I just kept playing. [laughs] I'd play the acoustic guitar parts then head right to the drums.”

There is plenty of drumming on the dozen songs on Elastic Days. But for those expecting the hallucinatory overload of Dinosaur Jr's live attack, the gentleness of the approach here will draw easy comparisons to Neil Young's binary approach to working solo versus working with Crazy Horse. This is a lazy man's shorthand, but it still rings true. Elastic Days brims with great moments. Epic hooks that snare you in surprisingly subtle ways, guitar textures that slide against each other like old lovers, and structures that range from a neo-power-ballad (“Web So Dense”) to jazzily-canted West Coasty post-psych (“Give It Off”) to a track that subliminally recalls the keyboard approach of Scott Thurston-era Stooges (“Drop Me”). The album plays out with a combination of holism and variety that is certain to set many brains ablaze. J says he'll be taking this album on the road later in the year. He'll be playing by himself, but unlike other solo tours he says he'll be standing up this time. “I used to just sit down and build a little fort around myself -- amps, music stands, drinks stands, all that stuff. But I just realized it sounds better if the amps are higher up because I'm so used to playing with stacks. So I'll stand this time.” I ask if it's not pretty weird to stand alone on a big stage. “Yeah,” he says. “But it's weird sitting down too.” Ha. Good point. One needs to be elastic. In all things. - Byron Coley

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: One of the more tender outings from J Mascis of Dinosaur Jr fame, 'Elastic Days' beautifully encompasses a wide variety of J Mascis' leanings including folk, Americana and classic rock to brilliant effect. Heart-wrenching in places but ultimately optimistic, this is yet another display of how versatile and talented this man is. Superb.

TRACK LISTING

See You At The Movies
Web So Dense
I Went Dust
Sky Is All We Had
Picking Out The Seeds
Give If Off
Drop Me
Cut Stranger
Elastic Days
Sometimes
Wanted You Around
Everything She Said

This reissue celebrates the tenth anniversary of The Helio Sequence’s landmark album Keep Your Eyes Ahead with a full remaster of the original album, plus a second album of demos, alternate versions, and outtakes from the same era.After 3 albums and ten years of touring and recording, The Helio Sequence (Brandon Summers and Benjamin Weikel) recorded their most dynamic, extraordinary album, Keep Your Eyes Ahead. Keep Your Eyes Ahead married the Portland duo’s signature layered keyboards and impossibly big guitars with crisp songwriting and a relatively minimalist approach. The finger picking on “Shed Your Love” is backed by exquisite strings and ambient noise, but Summers’s serene, self-assured delivery remains front and center. While songs from the band’s early releases spanned up to 7 minutes, even the longest, lushest, catchiest track on Keep Your Eyes Ahead (fiery anthem “Hallelujah”) clocks in at 4 and a half minutes, evidence of just how refined their craft had become. Vocals were recorded spontaneously in bedroom closets and living rooms, which may explain the haunting urgency you hear in Brandon’s voice, especially on the driving title track.

Produced by the band, Keep Your Eyes Ahead confirms in The Helio Sequence an energy and a range that continues to defy narrow categorization. Unapologetic pop and folk meld seamlessly to create songs that are bigger, more epic and polished than anything they’ve ever done. Keep Your Eyes Ahead is the sound of a band and a decade-old partnership that’s been invigorated. And that’s exactly how the songs will make you feel: invigorated.
 

TRACK LISTING

Lately
Can't Say No
The Captive Mind
You Can Come To Me
Shed Your Love
Keep Your Eyes Ahead
Back To This
Hallelujah
Broken Afternoon
No Regrets (Electric)
Turn The Page
Up Against Time
Heart Disease
No Regrets
January
No Regrets (Keyboards)
All Of These Things
Almost Morning (Demo)
Broken Afternoon (Solo)
April (Demo)
No Regrets (Acoustic)

Since the late '80s, Mudhoney – the Seattle-based foursome whose muck-crusted version of rock, shot through with caustic wit and battened down by a ferocious low end – has been a high-pH tonic against the ludicrous and the insipid. Thirty years later, the world is experiencing a particularly high-water moment for both those ideals. But just in time, vocalist Mark Arm, guitarist Steve Turner, bassist Guy Maddison, and drummer Dan Peters are back with Digital Garbage, a barbed-wire-trimmed collection of sonic brickbats. Arm's raw yawp and his bandmates' long-honed chemistry make Digital Garbage an ideal release valve for the 2018 pressure cooker. "My sense of humor is dark, and these are dark times," says Arm. "I suppose it’s only getting darker."
Digital Garbage opens with the swaggering "Nerve Attack," which can be heard as a nod both to modern-life anxiety and the ever-increasing threat of warfare. The album's title comes from the outro of "Kill Yourself Live," which segues from a revved-up Arm organ solo into a bleak look at the way notoriety goes viral. Arm says: "people really seem to find validation in the likes—and then there's Facebook Live, where people have streamed torture and murder, or, in the case of Philando Castile, getting murdered by a cop. In the course of writing that song, I thought about how, once you put something out there online, you can’t wipe it away. It’s always going to be there—even if no one digs it up, it’s still out there floating somewhere.“ Appropriately enough, bits of recent news events float through the record: “Please Mr. Gunman," on which Arm bellows "We'd rather die in church!" over his bandmates' careening charge, was inspired by a TV-news bubblehead's response to a 2017 church shooting, while the ominous refrain that opens the submerged-blues of "Next Mass Extinction" calls back to last summer's clashes in Charlottesville. Mudhoney's core sound—steadily pounding drums, swamp-thing bass, squalling guitar wobble, Arm's hazardous-chemical voice—remains on Digital Garbage, which the band recorded with longtime collaborator (and Digital Garbage pianist) Johnny Sangster at the Seattle studio Litho. The anti-religiosity shimmy "21st Century Pharisees" builds its case with Maddison's woozy synths, which Arm says “add a really nice touch to the proceedings.” Digital Garbage closes with "Oh Yeah," a brief celebration of skateboarding, surfing, biking, and the joy provided by these escape valves. "I would’ve really just loved to write songs about just hanging out on the beach, and going on a nice vacation," says Arm. "But, you know, that probably doesn’t make for great rock.“ Mudhoney, however, know what does make great rock—and the riffs and fury of Digital Garbage will stand the test of time, even if the particulars fade away. "I've tried to keep things somewhat universal, so that this album doesn’t just seem like of this time—hopefully some of this stuff will go away," Arm laughs. "You don’t want to say in the future, 'Hey, those lyrics are still relevant. Great!'”

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: Mudhoney, one of the pivotal grunge forces of the late 90's return with their most propulsive outing yet. Tackling heavy political issues and societal ills with their unmistakable thrashing drive and distinctly melodic swagger. It's a punky blast rarely seen nowadays and perfectly brings the loose grungy sound into the modern day. Awesome.

TRACK LISTING

Nerve Attack
Paranoid Core
Please Mr. Gunman
Kill Yourself Live
Night And Fog
21st Century Pharisees
Hey Neanderfuck
Prosperity Gospel
Messiah's Lament
Next Mass Extinction
Oh Yeah

In 2018, Low will turn twenty-five. Since 1993, Alan Sparhawk and Mimi Parker—the married couple whose heaven-and-earth harmonies have always held the band’s center—have pioneered a subgenre, shrugged off its strictures, recorded a Christmas classic, become a magnetic onstage force, and emerged as one of music’s most steadfast and vital vehicles for pulling light from our darkest emotional recesses. But Low will not commemorate its first quarter-century with mawkish nostalgia or safe runs through songbook favorites. Instead, in faithfully defiant fashion, Low will release its most brazen, abrasive (and, paradoxically, most empowering) album ever: Double Negative, an unflinching eleven-song quest through snarling static and shattering beats that somehow culminates in the brightest pop song of Low’s career.

To make Double Negative, Low reenlisted B.J. Burton, the quietly energetic and adventurous producer who has made records with James Blake, Sylvan Esso, and The Tallest Man on Earth in recent years while working as one of the go-to figures at Bon Iver’s home studio, April Base. Burton recorded Low’s last album, 2015’s Ones and Sixes, at April Base, adding might to many of its beats and squelch and frisson beneath many of its melodies.

This time, though, Sparhawk, Parker, and bassist Steve Garrington knew they wanted to go further with Burton and his palette of sounds, to see what someone who is, as Sparhawk puts it, “a hip-hop guy” could truly do to their music. Rather than obsessively write and rehearse at home in Duluth, Minnesota, they would often head southeast to Eau Claire, Wisconsin, arriving with sketches and ideas that they would work on for days with Burton. Band and producer became collaborative cowriters, building the pieces up and breaking them down and building them again until their purpose and force felt clear. As the world outside seemed to slide deeper into instability, Low repeated this process for the better part of two years, pondering the results during tours and breaks at home. They considered not only how the fragments fit together but also how, in the United States of 2018, they functioned as statements and salves.

Double Negative is, indeed, a record perfectly and painfully suited for our time. Loud and contentious and commanding, Low fights for the world by fighting against it. It begins in pure bedlam, with a beat built from a loop of ruptured noise waging war against the paired voices of Sparhawk and Parker the moment they begin to sing during the massive “Quorum.” For forty minutes, they indulge the battle, trying to be heard amid the noisy grain, sometimes winning and sometimes being tossed toward oblivion. In spite of the mounting noise, Sparhawk and Parker still sing. Or maybe they sing because of the noise. For Low, has there ever really been a difference?

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: Never one to shy away from a new direction, the ridiculously superb Low return with their most shadowy electronic affair yet. Bathed in distortion and rich, saturated ambience, it's a testament to their skill as songwriters and their overwhelmingly familiar 'Sound' that this still comes across as one of the best releases of their career. Mindblowing stuff.

TRACK LISTING

Quorum
Dancing And Blood
Fly
Tempest
Always Up
Always Trying To Work It Out
The Son, The Sun
Dancing And Fire
Poor Sucker
Rome (Always In The Dark)
Disarray

Knife Knights were born of the love of mystery. From the start of Shabazz Palaces – the groundbreaking project launched in 2009 by former-Digable Planets leader Ishmael Butler – confidentiality seemed essential: Butler wanted Shabazz Palaces to stand on its own strength, not his outsized reputation, so he adopted a nom de plume for himself. As the project’s network expanded, though, he needed new monikers for his partnerships. Knife Knights is the name he gave to his work with Seattle engineer, producer, songwriter, and film composer Erik Blood, a vital force in the Shabazz Palaces universe.

Now, after more than a decade of collaboration and the development of a rich friendship, Butler and Blood have made a proper full-length record together as Knife Knights: 1 Time Mirage, an eleven-track odyssey that finds the pair and a cast of their friends weaving together a singular world of soul and shoegaze, hip-hop and lush noise, bass and bedlam. 1 Time Mirage represents a playground for Butler and Blood, a free space for unfettered exploration, and a radically adventurous start to something much more than a mere production duo or side project.

Recorded in three fertile sessions interrupted by Shabazz Palaces tours and Blood’s recording projects, 1 Time Mirage is a profound fulfilment of the partnership, realized at the crossroads of Butler’s and Blood’s mutual enthusiasms. Their shared interests have been split into pieces and fused together with enviable imagination. In the decade since Butler launched Shabazz Palaces and first christened his partnership with Blood as Knife Knights, much of the external mystery has, of course, fallen away. And 1 Time Mirage is a very public step forward for the pair. The early sense of secrecy has given way to a spirit of friendship and creative candor, to the doors of experimentation being thrown open by old pals thrilled by the prospect of testing new ideas.

Still, these eleven songs retain a core of intrigue and, indeed, mystery; each listen reveals yet another connection between infinite and interlocking pieces. To wit, Robert Beatty’s brilliant cover for 1 Time Mirage depicts a futuristic vehicle, being coolly steered with one hand into some great, mildly ominous unknown. That’s how these songs feel, too—confident conquests of the dark that unlock sounds and spaces you have yet to imagine.
  

TRACK LISTING

1. Bionic Chords (feat. OC Notes & Darrius Willrich)
2. Drag Race Legend
3. Give You Game (feat. Marquetta Miller & Stas Thee Boss)
4. Light Up Ahead (Time Mirage) [feat. Porter Ray, Gerald Turner, Darrius Willrich,
5. OC Notes & Shabazz Palaces
6. Seven Wheel Motion
7. Low Key (feat. Shabazz Palaces)
8. My Dreams Never Sleep (feat. OC Notes, Marquetta Miller & Shabazz Palaces)
9. Light Work (feat. El Mizell)
10. Can't Draw The Line (feat. OC Notes)
11. Come On Let's Go (feat. OC Notes & Marquetta Miller)
12. Mr. President

Iron & Wine follow up their 2018 Grammy-nominated full-length Beast Epic with Weed Garden, a collection of material that began about three years ago. The six-song EP features songs that were part of the writing phase for Beast Epic, but went unfinished. They were part of a larger narrative for principal songwriter Sam Beam, who ran out of time to get them where they needed to be for inclusion on Beast Epic. Weed Garden also includes the fan favorite “Waves of Galveston.”

While on tour last fall, the final pieces of material took shape and a sense of urgency prevailed in bringing these characters full circle. To resolution. To completion. In January, Beam and company hunkered down in Chicago at The Loft recording studio to capture these six songs.  No more, no less.
Weed Garden joins the good company of previous Iron & Wine EP’s – The Sea and Rhythm, Woman King, In the Reins – and in 2018’s attention-span challenged world that's not a bad thing.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: If you've heard Iron & Wine before, you'll be well aware of Mr. Beam's capability for weaving a rich acousticana tapestry, and 'Weed Garden' is exactly that, beautifully played organic instrumentation with a strong melodic sensibility, relaxing and transportative. (Iron &) Wine-not give it a go.

I've Tortured You Long Enough is the tongue-in-cheek title of Mass Gothic's second album. Husband/wife duo Noel Heroux and Jessica Zambri have always dipped in and out of each other's creative spaces, advising on their respective outputs and supporting one another. But, until this record, they had never completely committed to doing an entire album as a duo, sharing an equal load. The result is a record packed with the tension, chaos and beauty of a fluid and cathartic two-way conversation. In a universe that increasingly threatens our abilities to communicate and coexist, their creative union isn't just inspired but important.

When Heroux put out Mass Gothic’s 2016 debut, following the end of his prior band, Hooray for Earth, he did so as a solo entity. Plagued by insecurities and anxieties, Heroux wasn't ready to deal with putting his trust and confidence into another shared project. So what changed? He can't exactly pinpoint when the phrase “I've tortured you long enough” came to him, but it became a mantra, almost a premonition. He had tortured his own psyche long enough, and was particularly in need of forcing himself out of his comfort zone and letting go of that prior stubbornness. And the phrase has a broader application, too. “It covers so many bases but it's taken on extra meaning in the past couple of years when everybody is at each other's throats, frustrated and confused all the time,” Heroux explains.

Heroux and Zambri wrote I’ve Tortured You Long Enough while bouncing around the country without a place to call home. From working in a rented cabin in upstate New York, to living out of a car with a duffel bag of clothes, to crashing with their co-producer Josh Ascalon in LA, to ditching a mixed version of the album and rerecording the whole thing, the band worked tirelessly while their lives were totally in flux. “Maybe we wouldn't have been able to do it if we were anchored at home. We were forced into it. Jess was trying to open me up and if we could have just sat on a couch and thrown on the TV it probably wouldn't have worked.” The album was ultimately recorded in Brooklyn with Rick Kwan, and Chris Coady mixed the record and Heba Kadry mastered it.

The final product recalls the frantic energy of Animal Collective and the celestial torch-bearing of Bat for Lashes, and reveals a remarkable arc. It begins from a place of uncertainty, disquiet, and self-doubt, and concludes with the comfort in knowing that you can be both independent and successful in a relationship.

TRACK LISTING

1. Dark Window
2. Call Me
3. J.Z.O.K.
4. Keep On Dying
5. How I Love You
6. I've Tortured You Long Enough
7. New Work
8. The Goad
9. Big Window

Cullen Omori’s path to his second album ‘The Diet’ wasn’t an easy one. After the release of his first album, ‘New Misery’, he had to deal with busted vans, crashed cars, mangled relationships and other trials that can leave one feeling like the world is playing a cosmic joke. From the guitar that drops out of the sky on the opening track ‘Four Years’ all the way through the fade-out of kaleidoscopic closer ‘A Real You’, ‘The Diet’ is a powerful modern indie rock album that is buoyed by warped, analogue pedals / transistors and tailor-made guitar tones. Omori’s winsome vocals crisscross 70’s art rock and classic songwriting all within the span of 40 minutes.

Omori crafted ‘The Diet’ as a series of what can loosely be defined as love songs that metaphorically channel the frustrations and ruptures of his turbulent 2016-2017 into unforgettable compositions with abstract yet sharply rendered lyrics. Omori’s version of the love song medium goes far beyond the la-la-love-you template: “Only a few deal with loving or falling out of love with an actual, physical person,” says Omori. “Then there are, like, love songs to my antidepressants or whatever I thought my life would be like at 27.”

After relocating from Chicago to Los Angeles in 2016, Omori re-examined his whole artistic process. “Whereas on ‘New Misery’ I was locked in a room with a producer for a month tinkering away, this time around I wanted the sessions to be a revolving door of musicians: different people, different aesthetics. I pushed against my inner nature by actively pursuing collaborators.”

‘The Diet’ was recorded at Velveteen Laboratory with Taylor Locke, whose talents wound up being well-suited to the intricacies of the songs that would become ‘The Diet’. “He can sing, he is a multi-instrumentalist. On top of that, he is also a producer. Working with him really lent itself to my process of songwriting,” says Omori.

‘The Diet’ represents a new chapter for the former Smith Westerns member, one in which he stretches out his songwriting chops and uses his life experience to craft loose-limbed, hook-filled songs that combine pop appeal with finely sutured lyrics. “I spent my early 20’s saddled with the ill-conceived, romantic notion that the best songs are written through suffering. The process of trying out a completely different persona and approach in ‘New Misery’, and then facing my negative experiences and the shortcomings of that persona, clarified where I wanted my music to go. While making ‘The Diet’, my songs were constantly presenting themselves to me, and when I got a chance to listen back and read my song journals I saw what a truly beneficial and cathartic event had taken place.” ‘The Diet’s collection of 12 songs has Omori well on his way.

TRACK LISTING

Four Years
Borderline Friends
All By Yourself
Happiness Reigns
Master Eyes
Quiet Girl
Black Rainbow
Natural Woman
Millennial Geishas
Last Line
Queen
A Real You

There’s an inherent flaw in the perennially alternating “rock is back” and “rock is dead” arguments: they are based on the idea that rock music is a logic-based choice a person consciously chooses to make. Contrary to the critics who are looking to suss out cultural trends and movements, the decision to play loud, distorted, unabashed guitar-rock isn’t a strategic move but a higher calling (or curse, depending on one’s point of view). Some might say the pursuit of rocking out via deafening amplifiers, crusty drums and a beer-battered PA is a spiritual one, an affliction that either strikes or doesn’t. Few groups today embody this sentiment like Melbourne’s aptly-named Deaf Wish.

They’re more likely to ask a fellow musician what they do for their “real” job (for one, guitarist Jensen Tjhung works as a builder) than talk shop about publicists, ticket counts and online promotions. They’re a grisly rock group and they’ve already signed to Sub Pop, which is to say they’ve already succeeded beyond their wildest dreams, so anything that comes after (performing in strange new cities, meeting like-minded souls, maybe even selling a t-shirt or two) is a bonus. And if they come to your town, you would be wise to clear your calendar.

Lithium Zion is their fifth full-length album (and second for Sub Pop following 2015’s Pain), and, while it’s a rare case that a group’s fifth album is their best, it may in fact be Deaf Wish’s finest. Their previous albums were recorded in makeshift studios - a wise choice for capturing the hazardous riffing, chemically-stained vocals and fiery rhythms conjured by a group such as this - but this step toward a slightly more professional sound only enhances their power. The record opens with “Easy”, a languid rocker in the rich Australian tradition of groups like X and The Scientists. From there it’s onto “FFS”, a moody downhill rocker sung by guitarist Sarah Hardiman that confirms Deaf Wish’s relation to fellow Sub Pop employees like feedtime and Hot Snakes. “The Rat Is Back” is tense and epic; “Hitachi Jackhammer” pays a brief and noisy tribute to Hitachi’s second most notable device (you’d be forgiven for assuming this song is about vibrators). Lithium Zion is a veritable buffet of garage-punk energy, post-punk pathos, sardonic wit and the fearlessness that comes with Aussie rock, a natural consequence for anyone living on a continent teeming with grapefruit-sized spiders and man-eating mosquito swarms.

As has always been the case, the whole group shares vocal duties, even drummer Daniel Twomey (you know the band is slightly unhinged if they’re letting the drummer sing). Hardiman and Tjhung are as ragged and hairy as ever, chugging along as though krautrock was trying to speed past the late ‘70s but got caught in the sticky grasp of punk. Such is the way of Deaf Wish, a group destined to write songs that are simultaneously stupid and sublime, vulnerable and ferocious, and play them with the unbridled intensity they demand. Anyone serving a life sentence to rock will surely concur.

TRACK LISTING

Easy
FFS
Metal Carnage
The Rat Is Back
Ox
Hitachi Jackhammer
Lithium Zion
Deep Blue Cheated
Birthday
Afraid For You
Through Smoke

"We spray our hair into submission, upright to attention. Marching to no orders, imagination has no borders. Well lucky that."  

“Me and Jasper,” from Luluc’s third album Sculptor, is a confident challenge to small-town insularity, lilting yet vigilant, and championed by a defiant guitar solo from the band’s friend J Mascis. It’s a reflection on a common pitfall of adolescence: limitless possibility battling constant obstruction. “My own experiences as a teen were often fraught” says songwriter and vocalist Zoe Randell. “The small town I grew up in provided a great study in gossip, scandal, character assassination, and the willingness of people to go along with it.” It’s a song about fighting for agency on an album that is in many ways about volition, potential, and how people can navigate difficulties and opportunities to create different paths.  

Sculptor can be consumed loud, because while Luluc's music is at times masterful in it’s minimalism, it is anything but quiet in impact. There’s a turning point people experience when hearing Luluc. Janet Weiss of Sleater-Kinney says “it’s music that, once you hear it, you can’t live without it.” The National’s Matt Berninger said that for months, Passerby was “the only album I wanted to listen to.” “What first hits is that voice,” writes Peter Blackstock (No Depression), “a peaceful serenity that reaches deep into the heart.” When NPR’s Bob Boilen named 2014’s Passerby his album of the year, he wrote: “I've listened to this record by Australia's Luluc more than any other this year. These songs feel like they've always been.” Legendary producer Joe Boyd, who discovered Nick Drake, told BBC radio he exclaimed “Who the hell is this?!” when he first heard Luluc’s debut, Dear Hamlyn.

 That gripping quality pulses through Sculptor. Randell writes with more experimentation and possibility. “Broadly speaking, with these new songs I was interested in the difficulties that life can throw at us - what we can do with them, how they can shape us, and what say we have,” she explains. Sonically, the band have broadened their palette. Multi-instrumentalist, singer, and producer Steve Hassett mastered a spectrum of instruments to fully realize the album’s expansive and daring vision. Randell and Hassett did nearly all of the writing, recording, and producing themselves, but their vision is far from insular. In addition to Mascis, Sculptor features contributions from Aaron Dessner (The National, and producer of Passerby), Jim White of Dirty Three, Matt Eccles, and Dave Nelson. Recording took place in Luluc’s new Brooklyn studio, which they built themselves.  

That everyone has control of their own story is at the core of Sculptor. For Hassett, it’s illuminated by the last line of the album: “The most beautiful, serene sculpture my hands could make, could trace, could break.” “All of the songs are playing with those ideas,” he says. “Life is something you get, and you can get sidetracked for years and even destroy it, or you can remember that you've got some control over your life.” But listeners of Sculptor may yield some of that control, even if for a short time, to the mastery of the music itself.

TRACK LISTING

Spring
Heist
Kids
Controversy
Cambridge
Me And Jasper
Genius
Moon Girl
Needn't Be
Sculptor

It's rare that a band's debut album sounds as confident and self-assured as Rolling Blackouts Coastal Fever's Hope Downs. To say that the first full-length from the Melbourne quintet improves on their buzz-building EPs from the last few years would be an understatement: the promise those early releases hinted at is fully realized here, with ten songs of urgent, passionate guitar pop that elicit warm memories of bands past, from the Go-Betweens' jangle to the charmingly lo-fi trappings of New Zealand's Flying Nun label. But don't mistake Rolling Blackouts Coastal Fever for nostalgists: Hope Downs is the sound of a band finding its own collective voice.

The hard-hitting debut album is a testament to Rolling Blackouts C.F.’s tight-knit and hard-working bonafides. Prior to forming the band in 2013, singers/guitarists Fran Keaney, Tom Russo, and Joe White had played together in various garage bands, dating back to high school. When Rolling Blackouts C.F. started, with Joe Russo [Tom’s brother] on bass, Marcel [Tussie, Joe White's then-housemate] on drums, the chemistry was immediate. After a split EP with You Yangs (another Russo brother's band), released in the form of a frisbee, they self-released Talk Tight in 2015, which Sydney-based record label Ivy League gave a wider release the following year. Talk Tight garnered plaudits from critics, including legendary rock scribe Robert Christgau. In 2017, Sub Pop released The French Press EP, bringing the band's chugging and tuneful non-linear indie rock to the rest of the world as they settled into their sound with remarkable ease.

Hope Downs was largely written over the past year in the band's Melbourne rehearsal room where their previous releases were also written and recorded. The band's core trio of songwriters hunkered down and wrote as the chaos of the world outside unavoidably seeped into the songwriting process. "We were feeling like we were in a moment where the sands were shifting and the world was getting a lot weirder. There was a general sense that things were coming apart at the seams and people around us were too,” Russo explains. The album title, taken from the name of a vast open cut mine in the middle of Australia, refers to the feeling of “standing at the edge of the void of the big unknown, and finding something to hold on to.”

With the help of engineer/producer Liam Judson and his portable setup, the band recorded Hope Downs live, and co-produced ten guitar pop gems over the course of two weeks in Northern New South Wales during the winter of 2017. Hope Downs possesses a robust full-band sound that's all the more impressive considering the band's avoidance of traditional recording studios. If you loved Talk Tight and The French Press, you certainly won't be disappointed here—but you might also be surprised at how the band’s sound has grown. There's a richness and weight to these songs that was previously only hinted at, from the skyscraping chorus of “Sister's Jeans” to the thrilling climax of album closer “The Hammer.”

Hope Downs is as much about the people that populate the world around us—their stories, perspectives, and hopes in the face of disillusionment—as it is about the state of things at large. It's a record that focuses on finding the bright spots at a time when cynicism all too often feels like the natural state. Rolling Blackouts C.F. are here to remind us to keep our feet on the ground—and Hope Downs is as delicious a taste of terra firma as you're going to get from a rock band right now.

TRACK LISTING

An Air Conditioned Man
Talking Straight
Mainland
Time In Common
Sister's Jeans
Bellarine
Cappuccino City
Exclusive Grave
How Long?
The Hammer

Yuno – aka 27-year-old Carlton Joseph Moodie – is in a New York state of mind. He was born there in the Bronx, but from the age of nine months spent his entire life in Florida, and particularly Jacksonville. He's dreamed of returning to New York to live ever since. New York is what inspires his creative streak, even though he's only visited the big city four times. “I plan to move here one day,” he says defiantly, from a cafe in New York. The exotic lure of bright lights, brighter city, is one of the most relatable of tales, and it certainly makes a lot of sense once you've wrapped your ears around Moodie – Yuno's first EP, released via Sub Pop. Moodie is such a New York record. It veers from Tame Impala psych-pop to wonky Vampire Weekend college rock via backpacker hip-hop and, well, Len's “Steal My Sunshine.” It's a collection of songs that chimes with pop's increasing lack of concern for genre. It's the opposite of tribal, as multi-cultural and diverse as a ride on the New York City subway, across all five boroughs. It can't be attributed to one particular origin of sound or vision.  Yuno writes all his music alone at home, self-producing and engineering, playing all the instruments. “I don't really go anywhere in Jacksonville,” he says, drowsily. “I don't drive. I spend a lot of time in my bedroom.” The six-song collection thus sounds like a collage of bedroom posters. “So Slow,” for instance, would be a Washed Out flyer sat next to a piece of Kid Cudi artwork, whereas “Why For” with its squealing Wavves guitars would probably be represented by a big weed sticker or some Sleigh Bells ticket stubs. It's deeply creative and visual.

Sub Pop found Yuno via Ish Butler of Shabazz Palaces, who A&Rs for the label. He stumbled on Yuno on Soundcloud and kept a keen eye on him. Like Ish, Yuno is encouraged by the genre-bending age we're in, citing Lil Uzi Vert and Young Thug as sources of influence. The EP's title clearly relates to his surname, but it's also channeling the emotional variety of the tracks. “It covers all the different feelings you have at the end of a relationship,” he notes. “Sometimes you're really happy to be moving on, other times you're really upset to see something go.”  New York, however, was the major muse. “Being here really changed things for me,” he says. “It feels like my pace here. All these things are in one place in New York. There's so much to experience.” Moodie is written from the perspective of being back in Jacksonville, missing the Big Apple. And while it plays out like longing, it's not all doom and gloom. Yuno's major hope is to make music that fills people with happiness. “That will make me happy,” he says, with a light laugh.

STAFF COMMENTS

Laura says: Genre bending pop collages that meld left field hip hop beats with mellow guitars and reverbed vocals that bring to mind the likes of the debut Panda Bear album and early Grizzly Bear.

TRACK LISTING

Amber
No Going Back
Fall In Love
Why For
So Slow
Galapagos