Throughout their career, MONO has ascended consistently in both popularity and critical acclaim, with record sales and live show attendance corresponding. But still elusive to the Japanese quartet has been the successful translation of their powerful and violently beautiful live performances to their recordings. Despite their albums' masterful subtleties and majestic walls of noise, the consensus has remained that their transcendent live show is simply incomparable. If there is any chance of breaking that spell, it lies in You Are There, without a doubt the prime contender to unite the live and recorded worlds of MONO. Once again captured to tape by Steve Albini at his Electrical Audio studios in Chicago, IL, the album extends the cinematic drama of 2003's Walking Cloud and Deep Red Sky, Flag Fluttered and the Sun Shined (also recorded by Albini), while surpassing the sinister heaviness of 2002's lauded One Step More and You Die. If Walking Cloud was a nuclear winter, then You Are There is the post-war rebirth; steeped in an ominous creation-via-destruction atmosphere not heard since Neurosis' landmark Enemy of the Sun defined the sound more than a decade ago. You Are There disproves the myth that an increased focus on intricate song structures and string arrangements comes at the expense of youthful energy and inspired aggression. With You Are There, MONO's representation of tragedy comes with an inherent joy, delivered with the hope that in all dark there is equal parts light. They're not heavy like Black Sabbath, they're heavy like Beethoven.

Originally released at the tail end of summer in 2001, Explosions In The Sky’s second album, Those Who Tell the Truth Shall Die, Those Who Tell the Truth Shall Live Forever was a visceral, speaker-destroying escalation from the modest minimalism of their debut, How Strange, Innocence.

Remastered with subtle grace by Bob Weston at Chicago Mastering Service, Those Who Tell the Truth Shall Die, Those Who Tell the Truth Shall Live Forever – Anniversary Edition is beautifully packaged with restored original full-color artwork and heavyweight full-color inner sleeve. Exquisitely pressed onto colored vinyl for the first time ever, this is Those Who Tell the Truth at the absolute peak of its ineffable power.

TRACK LISTING

1. Greet Death (7:19)
2. Yasmin The Light (7:04)
3. The Moon Is Down (10:03)
4. Have You Passed Through This Night? (7:19)
5. A Poor Man’s Memory (6:05)
6. With Tired Eyes, Tired Minds, Tired Souls, We Slept (12:05)

Originally released in the fall of 2003, The Earth Is Not A Cold Dead Place was a watershed moment for Explosions In The Sky, and a landmark album for underground and experimental music. Its iconic sound would become a touchstone in film and television as it inspired a generational sea change towards introspective art rock in lieu of traditional orchestral scores.

Artfully remastered by Bob Weston at Chicago Mastering Service, The Earth Is Not A Cold Dead Place Anniversary Edition is packaged in a stunning triple gatefold with restored and expanded original artwork, housed in a heavyweight slipcase. Exquisitely pressed onto colored vinyl for the first time ever, this is the soundtrack to our everyday lives in full panoramic wonder.

TRACK LISTING

1. First Breath After Coma (9:34)
2. The Only Moment We Were Alone (10:14)
3. Six Days At The Bottom Of The Ocean (8:43)
4. Memorial (8:50)
5. Your Hand In Mine (8:17)

Anches En Maat is the first new album from Grails in over a half-decade following the masterful Chalice Hymnal in 2017 and their first album recorded with all members in the studio together since Doomsdayer’s Holiday in 2008. With every Grails album released since Doomsdayer’s Holiday being a sprawling double-album endeavor, Anches En Maat was conceived as a return to the comparatively efficient single LP runtime. With that, Grails set out to craft the same sonically dense world that their longer albums showcased, while trading singular indulgences for live collaborative interplay.

The core group of founding members Alex Hall and Emil Amos (Om, Holy Sons) joined Jesse Bates, Ilyas Ahmed, and AE Paterra (Zombi, Majeure) in Atlanta, GA to record Anches En Maat together a novel event for a band who had become so accustomed to recording separately and then labouring in post-production for months or even years on end. An improbable blend of melted 1980s softcore and daytime soap opera soundtracks, cosmic minimalism, aching Westerns, melancholy electronic pulses, and massive soul-disco strings, Anches En Maat is one of Grails’ most ambitious albums of their 20+ year career. Through continually refining and maturing their vision as a band, Grails have stumbled upon a reprogramming of their internal logic and come out the other side with a new defining statement.

TRACK LISTING

1. Sad & Illegal (5:05)
2. Viktor’s Night Map (5:03)
3. Sisters Of Bilitis (5:32)
4. Pool Of Gems (3:10)
5. Evening Song (3:48)
6. Black Rain (4:49)
7. Anches En Maat (12:38)

Second album from the electronic lounge-jazz-dance hybrid of William Basinski, Preston Wendel (Shania Taint), and Gary Wright.

1969. Two gorgeous young interns in the film industry get invited to a glamorous A-list Hollywood party in the

Trousdale Estates in one of those fabulous pavilion-style mid-century modern homes at the top of Beverly Hills. They go in their best mod clewths. Eyes popping at the technicolor scene of Hollywood stars smoking and drinking in the sunken living room, they do as instructed and have some punch and watch wallflower style as drama ensues...oh, and the the house is owned by Foxy, the pimp and drug dealer who everybody there owes munty, hunty...and he’s ready to get paid! Oh yeah, and the punch is dosed with LSD25.

They manage to make it home, panties and purses and shoes intact and will never forget this party for as long as they live.

TRACK LISTING

1. Have Some Punch (3:00)
2. Here Comes Trouble (3:45)
3. Foxy (3:25)
4. The Punch! (8:37)
5. Bitch Fight (3:47)
6. Oh Yeah (3:05)
7. Slip And Slide (3:09)
8. We Were There (4:59)

Lambent Material is the debut album by Eluvium, the moniker for composer Matthew Robert Cooper’s sonic experiments and explorations. First released in May of 2003, Lambent Material was immediately recognized as much for its artful simplicity as it was for its deceptive complexity – an album of melodic austerity, alien transmissions, and titanic waves of cathartic noise.

Previously only available on vinyl as part of Eluvium’s Life Through Bombardment Vol. 1 box set (a 7xLP collection released in 2008 that has been sold out for well over a decade), Lambent Material – Anniversary Edition finally gets its first standalone vinyl release.

It is packaged in a full-colour jacket and heavyweight inner sleeve with fully restored original artwork.

TRACK LISTING

1. The Unfinished (4:38)
2. Under The Water It Glowed (5:10)
3. There Wasn’t Anything (4:41)
4. Zerthis Was A Shivering Human Image (15:35)
5. I Am So Much More Me That You Are Perfectly You (5:50)

MONO’s first-ever feature-length motion picture soundtrack.

My Story, The Buraku Story is a new feature-length documentary film that explores the discrimination against a group of people – commonly called “the burakumin” who were classed into lowly groups and segregated from the rest of Japanese society. This discrimination is not by race or ethnicity, but rather by place of residence and bloodline, and has existed for centuries – albeit very rarely acknowledged or discussed in Japan. When director Yusaku Mitsuwaka imagined the exemplary score for such a culturally sensitive and significant subject, he idealized MONO to help tell this story through their legendarily cinematic music.

Following their recent experiments with electronic textures infused into their trademark dynamic rock compositions, My Story, The Buraku Story finds MONO at their most understated and elegiac. The songs that make up My Story, The Buraku Story are largely built around piano, strings, synths, and choral vocal loops. As one might expect from MONO, the arrangements are masterworks of understated execution with oversized emotional resonance. By far MONO’s most delicate album, it is a fitting document of the band’s first-ever full-length film soundtrack.

TRACK LISTING

1. Doumyaku (4:33)
2. Watashi (3:31)
3. Kokyo (2:31)
4. Yurameki (2:36)
5. Gohon No Yubi (3:34)
6. Kioku (3:27)
7. Kattou (3:48)
8. Chinmoku (3:39)
9. Himitsu (4:28)
10. Songen (5:47)
11. The Place (4:28)

Deluxe 20th anniversary edition of the defining album from innovative UK trio, Fridge. Restored and remastered by founding member of Fridge, Kieran Hebden (aka Four Tet). Formed in 1996 by schoolmates Kieran Hebden, Adem Ilhan, and Sam Jeffers, Fridge were astonishingly prolific in their early years – releasing ten singles and four albums in just their first four years together. After a brief stint with a major label imprint – which saw the trio release their most focused album to date (Eph, 1999) Fridge delivered their fourth album, Happiness.

Originally released in 2001, Happiness was a sprawling, pastoral masterpiece – an innovative mix of acoustic clatter, electronic exploration, hip-hop production techniques, and experimental rock arrangements. Along with Hebden’s blossoming solo project, Four Tet, Happiness dragged the most compelling elements of the typically self-serious electronic, indie, and avant-rock of the 1990s and married them to eclectic folk and spiritual jazz for the new century. More remarkably, they did it without an ounce of pretense, imbued with an earnest and intimate execution that stood in stark contrast to virtually every comparable album of its time.

Happiness – Anniversary Edition is the 20th anniversary reissue of Fridge’s career-defining gem. Meticulously restored, reconstructed, and remastered from the original master tapes by Kieran Hebden, the album’s sound quality honors the original recordings like never before. The vinyl was cut by award-winning archival mastering engineer, Kevin Gray, and pressed onto 125-gram audiophile-quality vinyl by Record Technology Inc. (RTI). The exquisite heavyweight old-style tip-on gatefold jacket was printed and assembled by hand at Stoughton Printing Company, to complete this masterful reissue of this momentous album. 

TRACK LISTING

1. Melodica & Trombone (6:02)
2. Drum Machines & Glockenspiel (13:18)
3. Cut Up Piano & Xylophone (2:35)
4. Tone Guitar & Drum Noise (4:46)
5. Five Four Child Voice (9:22)
6. Sample & Clicks (2:56)
7. Drums Bass Sonics & Edits (7:27)
8. Harmonics (4:00)
9. Long Singing (9:13)
10. Five Combs (Bonus Track) (9:45)

June McDoom’s eponymous debut EP is a collection of songs that collage virtually everything important to her. Growing up in South Florida in a Jamaican household, McDoom was raised around reggae music, which echoed throughout every room of her childhood home. Later, she discovered and nourished her own deep love for folk music and songwriting of the 1960’s and 70’s. While studying in NYC for a degree in Jazz Performance, her musical palette expanded to include the more intricate influences of jazz and early soul. Realizing that her favorite vintage folk music lacked artists with similar identities as her own, it became increasingly important for McDoom to carve a unique musical space to push folk music towards a new and different audience.

Following the release of her debut single, “The City” – mixed by Gabe Wax (Soccer Mommy, Spoon) – June

McDoom was eager to take the reins on the production of her debut EP. Recorded and mixed entirely from home with collaborator Evan Wright, McDoom found herself enthralled with the analog recording process, which began a textural exploration that defines this record. Experimenting with a mixture of vintage analog and modern digital recording, McDoom learned profound new ways to marry the seemingly contrasting genres and style that had individually shaped her.

June McDoom’s debut EP is steeped in self-discovery, and self-acceptance. Its magic lies in its ability to weave the influences of such seemingly disparate icons as Joan Baez, The Delfonics and Alton Ellis into a new, seamlessly crafted tapestry.

TRACK LISTING

1. Babe, You Light Me Up (5:33)
2. Piano Song (4:50)
3. On My Way (3:33)
4. Stone After Stone (4:07)
5. By June (4:43)

When Italian composer Bruno Bavota and Dutch songwriter Chantal Acda first met several years ago, they knew almost instantly that they wanted to make music together. Bavota was already a fan of Acda’s dreamy, orchestral folk, and in Bavota’s intimate, picturesque piano compositions, Acda saw a potential for collaboration that was begging to be explored. As it would happen, the inherent loneliness and isolation of the COVID-19 pandemic would provide a most unusual opportunity to craft an album together without ever being ion the same room. Originally conceived as a brief two- or three-song EP, A Closer Distance is the result of a month of seemingly endless and effortless creative connections between Bavota and Acda.

Spawned from the opening piano phrase that became the album’s title track, the nine songs that make up A Closer Distance were written and recorded by Bavota and Acda in their respective homes. No stranger to long-distance collaboration having worked with an array of artists from Alan Sparhawk and Mimi Parker of Low to guitar legend Bill Frisell even Acda was surprised by the ease and pace with which A Closer Distance came together: “This all came so weirdly natural. It woke up a part of me that had been asleep for a while.” Mostly built around Bavota’s solitary piano arrangements and Acda’s layered, ethereal vocals, the songs on A Closer Distance reflect the intimacy and tranquility of their conception. It is a magical collection that connects to the listener with the same air of comfort and familiarity that inspired its creation. 

TRACK LISTING

1. Connecting Dots (2:58)
2. Sirens (3:38)
3. Still I (3:06)
4. Closeness (2:54)
5. Slowmotion (3:28)
6. Days Like These (3:15)
7. Her Eyes (2:48)
8. Lullaby For Loved Ones (3:43)
9. Everything Collides (3:33)

Party Dozen are a duo from Sydney made up of Kirsty Tickle (saxophone) and Jonathan Boulet (percussion and sampler). Since forming in 2017, they have become renowned in Australia for their incendiary live shows, touring and playing with acts such as LIARS, Tropical Fuck Storm and Viagra Boys.

Exactly what Party Dozen are is completely up to the listener. Doom. Jazz. Hardcore. Psychedelic. No-wave. Industrial. Although largely instrumental, their sets are punctuated by Kirsty’s unique “singing” style, screaming into the bell of her saxophone which itself goes through a bevy of effects pedals. Intensely independent in everything they do, the duo write, perform and record everything themselves.

2022 will see the return of Party Dozen, first in April with the 7” release, Fat Hans Gone Mad, for the Sub Pop Singles Club, and then in July with their third album, The Real Work, with a new label partner in New York’s Temporary Residence Ltd.

The Real Work succeeds in exploring new directions but also features some familiar Party Dozen touches. Perhaps most notable is the first-ever appearance of a guest other than Kirsty or Jonathan on a Party Dozen track, with Nick Cave ad-libbing a very memorable contribution to the album’s second track, “Macca The Mutt.”

TRACK LISTING

1. The Iron Boot (3:36)
2. Macca The Mutt (feat. Nick Cave) (4:01)
3. Fruits Of Labour (4:25)
4. The Worker (3:42)
5. Earthly Times (4:36)
6. The Big Quit (3:45)
7. Major Beef (3:08)
8. Balance (3:28)
9. Risky Behaviour (4:27)

Originally released in 2002, The Language Of Cities was Maserati’s second album – and their last before Jerry Fuchs joined the band. Out-of-print and unavailable for over a decade, The Language Of Cities finally gets reissued on all formats to commemorate the band’s 20th anniversary. Remastered from the original master tapes by Josh Bonati, The Language Of Cities featured Maserati’s original lineup of Coley Dennis, Matt Cherry, Steve Scarborough, and Phil Horan, and remains the most sprawling and contemplative album of the band’s decades-long career.

TRACK LISTING

1. Ambassador Of Cinema (6:05)
2. The Language (7:48)
3. Moving With Heavy Hearts (8:00)
4. Keep It Gold (2:54)
5. Being A President Is Like Riding A Tiger (7:58)
6. Cities (6:55)
7. A Common Interest In Silence (2:50)
8. There Will Always Be Someone Behind You (7:07)

Originally released in a very limited capacity in 2001, Maserati’s debut album finally gets reissued on all formats to commemorate the band’s 20th anniversary. Remastered from the original master tapes by Josh Bonati, 37:29:24 featured Maserati’s original lineup of Coley Dennis, Matt Cherry, Steve Scarborough, and Phil Horan, and includes many of the most placid and medicative moments in Maserati’s storied catalog – a darker, more pensive night drive than they would come to be known for on their later albums.

TRACK LISTING

1. A Border Dispute (8:20)
2. I Have A Dagger, It's Shaped Like A Lightning Bolt (4:56)
3. The Width Of The Atlantic (6:26)
4. We Blew Up The Arch And Now St. Louis Is Boring (5:28)
5. Swimming Versus Fatigue (5:24)
6. When The Third Wheel's A Brat (6:57)

Following nearly two years of global touring in support of their adventurous and acclaimed album, The Wilderness (2016), Explosions In The Sky paused on the future to reflect on the past. Celebrating their 20th year as a band with a pair of remastered reissues of early beloved classics – How Strange, Innocence (2000) and The Rescue (2005) – they embarked on a memorable series of anniversary concerts in 2019. It was around then that Explosions In The Sky was approached to craft the score to a new documentary about a place with which, as native Texans, they were very familiar: Big Bend National Park.

That documentary, Big Bend: The Wild Frontier of Texas, premiered on PBS in the United States as well as on a variety of networks in other countries in early 2021. The hour-long film intimately follows the lives of native animals amid expansive aerial views of the iconic desert landscape that makes up one of the grandest natural wonders in the world. The band set these sights to an inspired, melodic, and meaningful blend of acoustic guitar, slide guitar, strings, piano, bells, and drums that feels as alive and diverse--and vast and lonely--as the place it depicts.

Big Bend (An Original Soundtrack for Public Television) takes that mesmerizing score and recontextualizes it as a standalone album. Those brief cues have been expanded and transformed into a thoughtful, gorgeous full-length album that recalls some of the band’s most magical and memorable moments from their storied history.

Big Bend: The Wild Frontier of Texas is a film that explores the past and present of the vast, complicated landscape that still holds countless mysteries yet to be uncovered. In Big Bend (An Original Soundtrack for Public Television), Explosions In The Sky pursue a similar approach to their own past and present, and find inspiration in all that has yet to be discovered.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: I'm a BIG EITS fan, and one of my favourite soundtracks of all time was their Prince Avalanche OST, so it's with no small joy I get to add this one to the collection. It's a beautifully majestic and uplifting set of acoustic / post-rock vignettes, rich in texture and wonderfully brought together.

TRACK LISTING

1. Chisos (4:11)
2. Climbing Bear (3:19)
3. Woodpecker (2:05)
4. Spring (2:38)
5. Flying (3:03)
6. Camouflage (2:29)
7. Swimming (1:05)
8. Stories In Stone (2:36)
9. Summer (3:14)
10. Nightfall (2:22)
11. Owl Hunting (2:15)
12. Sunrise (3:30)
13. Big Horns (2:11)
14. Autumn (2:41)
15. Cubs (1:54)
16. Pallid Bats (2:56)
17. Rains Legacy (2:28)
18. Bird Family (2:10)
19. Winter (3:17)
20. Human History (6:08)

In a musical history that spans nearly four decades, Ken Brown (aka Bundy K. Brown) was a member of noise-rock trio Bastro (along with David Grubbs and John McEntire) and a founding member of that group’s evolution into Gastr del Sol, before departing to form the iconic Chicago band, Tortoise. In 1995 Brown exited Tortoise to pursue a number of projects, including the group, Directions. After releasing one album on Thrill Jockey, the band went inactive, with Brown completing one final Directions release on his own before retiring the moniker. That record – a scarcely limited 12” called Echoes – would resonate with a diverse array of artists and producers, most notably Kieran Hebden, who would call Echoes “the blueprint for the Four Tet thing,” explaining to prominent UK broadcaster Gilles Peterson, “it’s basically where I got the idea for everything from…it changed my life, this record.”

Available for the first time since its original release in 1997, Echoes – Anniversary Edition includes the two original side-long tracks, and has been expanded to also feature the nascent 1995 demo of “Echoes”, as well as a brand new remix by Deadly Dragons – the 1990s Chicago DJ crew whose members included Brown, John Herndon, Casey Rice, and Daniel Marcellus Givens, among others. Briefly reunited during COVID lockdown specifically to craft this new Directions remix, Deadly Dragons separately but collectively contributed a new 9-minute pastiche of spiritual jazz, hip-hop, and dub.

TRACK LISTING

1. Echoes (Continental Drift Version) (9:24)
2. Echoes (The Asymmetrical Excursion) (7:14)
3. Echoes (1995 Demo Version) (5:06)
4. Echoes (Deadly Dragons Remix) (8:36)

Tangents formed in Sydney in 2010 and released their debut album “I” in 2013, a recording of their first ever meeting and live show. Follow-up albums Stateless (2016) and New Bodies (2018), and linked singles and EPs, explored a style of post-produced live improvisation that marked the group’s distinct blend of electronic, jazz, rock and new music-inspired styles. Amidst other international recognition, New Bodies was nominated for the Australian Music Prize in 2018. Their latest release, Timeslips & Chimeras, continues their studio recording journey after a detour into intensive live performance (idiosyncratically captured in a cramped radio studio on the Risk Reaps Reward EP) and a major digital art installation, Spiral, at the Powerhouse Museum, Sydney. The record continues their relationship with New York label Temporary Residence through the challenges of music production in the Covid-19 era. Tangents are Ollie Bown, Evan Dorrian, Peter Hollo and Adrian Lim-Klumpes. Sia Ahmad is a former member whose work continues through the Timeslips & Chimeras production period.

TRACK LISTING

1. Exaptation (6:49)
2. Vessel (5:59)
3. Old Organs (6:35)
4. Survival (5:38)
5. Debris (6:19)
6. Bylong (8:01)
7. Lilliputian (7:11)
8. Ossicles (6:24)
9. Lost Track (5:14)
10. Timeslip (5:11)

A vibrant electronic fusion of lounge, jazz, and disco is maybe not the first (or fifth) thing you would expect to hear from one of the world's most renowned modern composers and ambient tape loop pioneers, but upon first listen, it makes so much sense that one wonders why it didn't happen sooner.

After years of producing and mentoring slews of young artists in 1990s Williamsburg, Brooklyn, William Basinski moved to Los Angeles. There he hired a young studio assistant, Preston Wendel, who eventually introduced his own works to the curious composer. That spawned a creative partnership that inspired Wendel to persuade Basinski to haul out his saxophone. Five years later, SPARKLE DIVISION has arrived with their enchanting debut album, To Feel Embraced.

Produced by SPARKLE DIVISION at Basinskiís Musex International in Los Angeles, the duo were joined by a few notable friends: Mrs. Leonora Russo (who Basinski affectionately calls "the true Sicilian Sparkle Division, my Brooklyn Mom, the Queen of Williamsburg") offers her sparkling voice to ìQueenie Got Her Bluesî; fabled free-jazz icon and genuine bodhisattva, the late Henry Grimes, contributed upright bass and violin to the aptly-named "Oh Henry!" ("Lotta babies gonna be born from this one," Henry and Margaret Davis Grimes playfully declared); and London vocalist Xeli Grana offers her ethereal voice to the albumís meditative title track.

TRACK LISTING

1. You Go Girl!
2. You Ain't Takin' My Man
3. For Gato
4. Oh Henry!
5. To The Stars Major Tom
6. Oh No You Did Not!
7. To Feel
8. To Feel Embraced
9. Slappin’ Yo Face
10. Mmmmkayy I'm Goin' Out Now And I Don't Want Any Trouble From You!
11. Queenie Got Her Blues
12. Sparkle On Sad Sister Mother Queen
13. No Exit

The players: Zac Nelson, Kenseth Thibideau, Tim Goldsworthy. Quickly following their debut full-length, Prints return to stir the pot with a little more pop, their usual dose of psychedlia and an intoxicating amount of dance. It only takes about ten seconds to know how this 20-minute ride goes, but the charming anything-goes aesthetic that is quickly becoming a Prints trademark is firmly intact. Once again produced at home by multi-instrumentalists Zac Nelson and Kenseth Thibideau, the songs here were originally conceived as B-sides for a proposed single for "Too Much Water" from the group's eponymous debut. By the time three new songs were completed, they stood too strong on their own to be pushed out as B-sides, so the decision was made to forfeit the single and instead offer the songs as a stand-alone EP. Meanwhile, DFA co-founder and Hercules And Love Affair producer Tim Goldsworthy fired up his new alter-ego Thee Loving Hand for an epic super-funk remix of a pair of Prints tracks, "Pretty Tick" and "Meditation" (featuring, among other things, the funk bass skills of !!!'s Tyler Pope). To top it off, acclaimed visual artist Toben Seymour directed an eye-popping video for "Too Much Water", which is included here on the Enhanced CD portion of the disc.