“Into The Blue is the clearest portrait of who I am as an artist. It’s me through and through,” says multi-instrumentalist Aaron Frazer. A daring blend of soul, psychedelia, spaghetti western, disco, gospel and hip-hop, Into the Blue represents the impressive range of Frazer’s sonic talents. Frazer maintains the unmistakable falsetto and classic songwriting he’s known for, but plants Into the Blue firmly in the now with a hip-hop mentality at its core, weaving together genres and production techniques to form something new.

Into The Blue was conceived, like so many classic records, out of actual heartbreak. Frazer moved cross-country from Brooklyn to Los Angeles and embarked on a journey that’s reflected in the album’s themes of grief, loneliness, and searching for healing. “Into The Blue really means heading into the unknown. That has been the last year of my life and I’m still in the blue,” Frazer explains. “But there are also songs here that celebrate love and the giddiness of a new relationship and all that. That’s part of a breakup to me, processing the whole thing, remembering the things that were right as much as the things that were wrong.”

Frazer wrote on every track and played several live instruments on the album. The title track, “Into The Blue”, is a haunting, resolute anthem, combining cinematic strings and tough-as-nails breakbeats as Frazer heads west. “Here I go, to a place where the broken heart knows,” he sings. “It’s all I can do. Back into the blue.” “Payback” is an explosive dancefloor heater, featuring shimmering tambourines and driving bass lines. Northern soul drums meet snarling fuzz guitar, hurdling towards its epic conclusion.

The album features moments of towering arrangements, recalling David Axelrod and Ennio Merricone, balanced by rawness, incorporating iPhone recordings and one-take vocals. For Into the Blue, Frazer enlisted Grammy-winner Alex Goose as coproducer, known for his crate-digging samples and collaborations with hip-hop artists like Freddie Gibbs, Madlib and Brockhampton. Frazer also experimented with samples for the first time on a record, drawing from unexpected sources like 90s R&B group Hi-Five. Though Into the Blue is born out of heartbreak, Frazer hopes it leaves listeners with a sense of optimism. “You know, you can still laugh on a day when you’re grieving,” he says, “there’s no peaks without valleys,” he says, but Into The Blue sees Aaron Frazer at new heights.

TRACK LISTING

Side A
1) Thinking Of You
2) Into The Blue
3) Fly Away
4) Payback
5) Dime Feat. Cancamusa
6) Perfect Strangers

Side B
7) Time Will Tell
8) I Don’t Wanna Stay
9) Play On
10) Easy To Love
11) The Fool

It's only fitting that Khruangbin’s first-ever official live releases would be double albums paired with their tourmates: artists whose music they love and admire, friends who’ve become family along the way. Khruangbin’s ‘Live At’ series of live LPs traces just one small slice of the band’s flight plan through the years: it’s a taste of some of their most beloved cities, stages and nights. Each release comes with a limited-edition unique album cover exclusive for the recording’s home turf, just a little something extra for the fans that bring a little something extra. Most of all, Khruangbin’s ‘Live at’ series ignites both sides of the band’s magic: the warm, prismatic feeling of their albums and the bewitching energy of their performances.

‘Live at The Fillmore Miami’ features performances by Toro Y Moi and Khruangbin.

Sometimes, Mitski says, it feels like life would be easier without hope, or a soul, or love. But when she closes her eyes and thinks about what’s truly hers, what can’t be repossessed or demolished, she sees love. “The best thing I ever did in my life was to love people,” Mitski says. “I wish I could leave behind all the love I have, after I die, so that I can shine all this goodness, all this good love that I’ve created onto other people.” She hopes her newest album, The Land Is Inhospitable and So Are We, will continue to shine that love long after she’s gone. Listening to it, that’s precisely how it feels: like a love that’s haunting the land.

“This is my most American album,” Mitski says about her seventh record, and the music feels like a profound act of witnessing this country, in all of its private sorrows and painful contradictions. In this album, which is sonically Mitski’s most expansive, epic, and wise, the songs seem to be introducing wounds and then actively healing them. Here, love is time-traveling to bless our tender days, like the light from a distant star.

The album is full of the ache of the grown- up, seemingly mundane heartbreaks and joys that are often unsung but feel enormous. It’s a tiny epic. From the bottom of a glass, to a driveway slushy with memory and snow, to a freight train barreling through the Midwest, and all the way to the moon, it feels like everything, and everyone, is crying out, screaming in pain, arching towards love. Love is that inhospitable land, beckoning us and then rejecting us. To love this place — this earth, this America, this body — takes active work. It might be impossible. The best things are.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: Mitski turns her considerable talents away from the confessional intensity and jagged production of 2018's 'Be The Cowboy' and brings us her own unique version of country music. Full of wry confessionals, intimate diarising and her unmistakable, beautiful vocals.

TRACK LISTING

SIDE A:
01 Bug Like An Angel
02 Buffalo Replaced
03 Heaven
04 I Don’t Like My Mind
05 The Deal

SIDE B:
06 When Memories Snow
07 My Love Mine All Mine
08 The Frost
09 Star
10 I’m Your Man
11 I Love Me After You

One of the things that struck Oberst as he and the band went through twenty-plus years of music is that he may in fact have been writing the same song this whole time. Not sonically, of course, but conceptually. This last wave contains, in Noise Floor, early Bright Eyes songs so raw Oberst never even released them back in the day, as well as, in Cassadaga and The People’s Key, the band’s most polished and sophisticated albums. When Bright Eyes toured Cassadega they performed an epic 7 sold-out nights at NYC’s Town Hall. What’s more grown-up rock- star than that? And yet ...“Thematically those early songs are not that different than the songs I make now,” Oberst says, shaking his head. “There’s something affirming and disheartening about it. It’s like, have I really changed or grown? But maybe it’s just that I knew what I wanted to write about from the beginning.

TRACK LISTING

1. Firewall
2. Shell Games
3. Jejune Stars
4. Approximate Sunlight
5. Haile Sellassie
6. A Machine Spiritual (In The People’s Key)
7. Triple Spiral
8. Beginner’s Mind
9. Ladder Song
10. One For You, One For Me

One of the things that struck Oberst as he and the band went through twenty-plus years of music is that he may in fact have been writing the same song this whole time. Not sonically, of course, but conceptually. This last wave contains, in Noise Floor, early Bright Eyes songs so raw Oberst never even released them back in the day, as well as, in Cassadaga and The People’s Key, the band’s most polished and sophisticated albums. When Bright Eyes toured Cassadega they performed an epic 7 sold-out nights at NYC’s Town Hall. What’s more grown-up rock- star than that? And yet ...“Thematically those early songs are not that different than the songs I make now,” Oberst says, shaking his head. “There’s something affirming and disheartening about it. It’s like, have I really changed or grown? But maybe it’s just that I knew what I wanted to write about from the beginning.

TRACK LISTING

1. Jejune Stars (Companion Version)
2. Firewall (Companion Version)
3. When You Were Mine
4. Approximate Sunlight (Companion Version)
5. A Machine Spiritual (The People’s Key) (Companion Version)
6. Beginner’s Mind (Companion Version)

Ever since their inception, up and coming German outfit OCEANS have dropped jaws everywhere they went. With an unique sound ranging somewhere between nu-metal, progressive, post and death metal and putting mental health on top of their agenda, the four piece became a known constant in today’s metal universe quickly. Innovation and to experiment with different sounds and genres and even other artists’ work (covering Alessia Cara’s “Scars To Your Beautiful” may not be your average metal band’s idea) and collaborations with prominent musicians (MACHINE HEAD’s Robb Flynn or CALIBAN’s Andy Dörner can be heard on OCEANS’ latest EP “We Are Not Okay”) are high up on the band’s agenda which makes OCEANS one of a kind and even a pioneer in their own kind of genre. Having released two EPs in 2019, their debut album in 2020 and another EP in 2021, the band featuring visionary mastermind Timo Rotten can easily be described as one of Europe’s hardest and also fastest working bands in the genre. Enter 2022, great and out of the ordinary things can be expected from OCEANS once again.

TRACK LISTING

The Big Picture
Method Acting
False Advertising
You Will. You? Will. You? Will. You? Will.
Lover I Don’t Have To Love
Bowl Of Oranges
Don’t Know When But A Day Is Gonna Come
Nothing Gets Crossed Out
Make War
Waste Of Paint
From A Balance Beam
Laura Laurent
Let’s Not Shit Ourselves (to Love And To Be Loved)

TRACK LISTING

The Big Picture
You Will. You? Will. You? Will. You? Will.
Laura Laurent
Nothing Gets Crossed Out
November
Waste Of Paint

TRACK LISTING

SIDE A:
1. If Winter Ends
2. Padraic My Prince
3. Contract And Compare
4. The City Has Sex
5. The Difference In The Shades
6. Touch

SIDE B:
7. June On The West Coast
8. Pull My Hair
9. A Poetic Retelling Of An
Unfortunate Seduction
10. Tereza And Tomas

TRACK LISTING

SIDE A:
1. The Difference In The Shades
2. The City Has Sex (feat. Waxahatchee)
3. Contrast And Compare (feat. Waxahatchee)
SIDE B:
4. Kathy With A K’s Song (feat. M Ward)
5. St. Ides Heaven (feat. Phoebe Bridgers)
6. June On The West Coast (feat. Becky Stark)

Mary Lattimore’s version of 'Love Is The Tune' alongside Bill Fay's original.

TRACK LISTING

Mary Lattimore - Love Is The Tune
Bill Fay - Love Is The Tune

Born in 1999, Charlie Hickey grew up in South Pasadena, just minutes from Downtown Los Angeles. Raised by two singer-songwriter parents, Charlie’s second language was music since day one. As early as grade school, he was making sense of the world through songwriting, and by middle school he was writing, recording and performing songs that attracted a community of collaborators and could silence a room.

A turning point for Charlie came at around the age of thirteen, when he covered a song by then up-and-coming artist Phoebe Bridgers, who was still in high school herself. The two quickly became friends and collaborators, setting Charlie on an exciting new musical path. Years later, Bridgers introduced Charlie to songwriter, drummer, producer and her bandmate Marshall Vore, who noticed something special about Charlie. The two began writing and recording songs together, and soon Charlie dropped out of school to work on his music full-time.

Charlie Hickey’s first proper single is “No Good At Lying.” The Marshall Voreproduced track introduces us to Charlie’s evocative storytelling and features Phoebe Bridgers on backing vocals. “I’m no good at lying / on my back or through my teeth / but I’m good at dreaming / I can do it in my sleep,” he sings over hushed guitars and a whimsical banjo, searching for truth as his unconscious mind runs wild and bleeds into reality. It’s a slow, quiet, and understated peek to the world of Charlie Hickey, who is barely of legal drinking age, but taps into such universal themes that showcase a wisdom beyond his years and exudes promise for what’s to come

TRACK LISTING

SIDE A:
1. No Good At Lying
2. Count The Stairs
3. Two Haunted Houses

SIDE B:
4. Seeing Things
5. Ten Feet Tall
6. Notre Dame

Friends! I am so pleased to announce A Night At The Little Los Angeles - the 4-track version of Sundowner. Recorded at home and in my back shed - aka The Little Los Angeles - in suburban Kansas during the summer and winter seasons of 2017 and 2018. This is quite simply the sound of me alone in a room with a four-track to catch my songs as they fell out of my mouth. When I later went into a proper studio to make Sundowner my goal was to capture the essence of these initial recordings, and here you will now have access to the very essence I was chasing. In many ways, this feels like a proper album to me, as it’s my initial attempt to capture the Kansas sunset and put it into sound, where as Sundower was an attempt of an attempt. I love and am proud of them both, of course, but am happy to - for the first time - share this vulnerable side of my songwriting process with the public. Many of my favorite recordings have been made inside of an artist’s home without regard of the outside world, but instead deep in their own world that they’re creating in real time. And with that - I’d like to invite you into my own little world here and now and ask you to please....step inside of....and spend A Night At The Little Los Angeles! - Kevin Morby

****** Sundowner is Morby’s “attempt to put the Middle American twilight -- its beauty profound, though not always immediate -- into sound.” Released in fall 2020 on Dead Oceans, Morby’s distinctively conversational and reflective writing style was received with open arms and was beloved by fans and critics alike. Pitchfork lauded it as “a vision of the Midwest that feels mythical and enormous.” Sundowner’s vision was further fleshed out in comprehensive features in Vanity Fair, New York Magazine, Stereogum, The FADER, Vice, Aquarium Drunkard, and more. In addition to traditional music publications, Morby appeared on Adult Swim’s Fishcenter and Office Hours with Tim Heidecker. Morby also made his network television debut on CBS This Morning, where he performed the songs “Campfire” and “Sundowner” as part of a special joint performance with his partner and fellow songwriter Katie Crutchfield, aka Waxahatchee.

TRACK LISTING

1. Campfire (4-Track Version)
2. Sundowner (4-Track Version)
3. A Night At The Little Los Angeles (4-Track Version)
4. Wander (4-Track Version)
5. Velvet Highway (4-Track Version)
6. Valley (4-Track Version)
7. Brother, Sister (4-Track Version)
8. Don’t Underestimate Midwest American Sun (4-Track Version)
9. Provisions (4-Track Version)
10. U.S. Mail (4-Track Version)

Private Space, the group’s third album, is a previously untapped vibe at the heart of The Indications. Pushing beyond the boundaries of the funk and soul on their previous releases, Private Space unlocks the door to a wider range of sounds and launches boldly into a world of synthy modern soul and disco beats dotted with strings. It’s an organic, timeless record that’s as fresh as clean kicks and familiar as your favorite well-worn LP.

Developed after being apart for much of the year, Private Space is creatively explosive and delights in upending expectations. Its 10 tracks are both an escapist fantasy and a much-needed recentering after a tumultuous 2020. Throughout, The Indications highlight a collective resiliency – as well as the power of a good song to be a light in the darkness.

Durand Jones and The Indications have long provided the soulful soundtrack for such deep thoughts, both on stage and on your turntable. But as the world slowly resets from the chaos of the past year, Durand Jones and The Indications’ Private Space is arriving at just the right time.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: It was always a brilliantly inventive maelstrom of sound emanating from a Durand Jones release, bridging the (admittedly small) gap between funk and soul, but this time sees them broaden their horizons into a wonderfully realised and perfectly weighted groove-laiden disco masterpiece. A stunning and completely essential outing.

TRACK LISTING

SIDE A:
1. Love Will Work It Out
2. Witchoo
3. Private Space
4. More Than Ever
5. Ride Or Die

SIDE B:
6. The Way That I Do
7. Reach Out
8. Sexy Thang
9. Sea Of Love
10. I Can See

A lone pair of footsteps meanders down a street in omaha, into the neighborhood bar and then into a near-imperceptible tangle of conversations – about wars, sleepless nights – a surrealist din pushing against the sound of ragtime. Then, as the background quiets, a line rings out clearly: “i think about how much people need – what they need right now is to feel like there’s something to look forward to. We have to hold on. We have to hold on.”

Thus we enter the fitting, cacophonic introduction to bright eyes’ tenth studio album and first release since 2011. Down in the weeds, where the world once was is an enormous record caught in the profound in-between of grief and clarity – one arm wrestling its demons, the other gripping the hand of love, in spite of it.

The end of bright eyes’ unofficial hiatus came naturally. Conor oberst pitched the idea of getting the band back together during a 2017 christmas party at bright eyes bandmate nathaniel walcott’s los angeles home. The two huddled in the bathroom and called mike mogis, who was christmas shopping at an omaha mall. Mogis immediately said yes. There was no specific catalyst for the trio, aside from finding comfort amidst a decade of brutal change. Sure, why now? Is the question, but for a project whose friendship is at the core, it was simply why not?

The resulting bright eyes album came together unlike any other of its predecessors. Down in the weeds is bright eyes’ most collaborative, stemming from only one demo and written in stints in omaha and in bits and pieces in walcott’s los angeles home. Radically altering a writing process 25 years into a project seems daunting, but oberst said there was no trepidation: “our history and our friendship, and my trust level with them, is so complete and deep. And i wanted it to feel as much like a three-headed monster as possible.”

As a title, as a thesis, down in the weeds, where the world once was functions on a global, apocalyptic level of anxiety that looms throughout the record. But on a personal level, it speaks to rooting around in the dirt of one’s memories, trying to find the preciousness that’s overgrown and unrecognizable. For oberst, coming back to bright eyes was a bit of that. A symbol of simpler times, vaguely nostalgic. And even though it wasn’t actually possible to go back to the way things were, even though there wasn’t an easy happy ending, there was a new reality left to work with.

And here, there is a bleary-eyed hopefulness – earnest, emotive recommitments to love appear on “dance and sing” and “just once in the world.” And throughout, down in the weeds features snippets of oberst’s loved ones speaking, in late-night conversations. The fleeting loveliness of intimate moments punctuates the bleakness of the record’s existential crisis, crackling like lightning bugs illuminating the long night.

Down in the weeds is a distillation of a prolific, enduring canon. It’s immediate and urgent, the product of its creators’ growth across a decade apart, as well as the need to make a record together to find solace from loss. Through deliberate, fearless experimentation in process, the trio made the truest bright eyes sound: the sound of a deep bond, of a band coming home, but also a seamless continuation, like bright eyes never went away. It’s the impossible, sprawling mess of human experience that bright eyes has always sought to put to tape, since the beginning – the sound of holding on. Why now? Why not?

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: It's been far too long since the last Bright Eyes album, and this one shows why we've missed him so much. Beautifully tender melodies, orchestral swoon and soaring crescendos aplenty. This is a new journey for Oberst & crew, but also warmingly familiar.

TRACK LISTING

Pageturners Rag
Dance And Sing
Just Once In The World
Mariana Trench
One And Done
Pan And Broom
Stairwell Song
Persona Non Grata
Tilt-a-whirl
Hot Car In The Sun
Forced Convalescence
To Death’s Heart (in Three Parts)
Calais To Dover
Comet Song

In 2012 Durand Jones left his small-town in Louisiana, alto saxophone in tow, for the Jacobs School of Music at Indiana University. “Being a singer was never part of the plan,” Jones admits. But soon enough he found his way in front of a rowdy rock-n-roll band belting out a rambunctious rendition of “Dock Of The Bay,” to a basement full of drunken undergrads. That rowdy band unfolded into The Indications which includes founding members Aaron Frazer (drums, lead vocals) and Blake Rhein (guitar).

Inspired by a handful of dusty and obscure 45s bearing names like The Ethics, Brothers of Soul and The Icemen, The Indications set out to make a record steeped in heavy drums, blown-out vocals, and deep grooves. Gathered around a Tascam 4-track cassette recorder and a case of Miller HighLife, the group spent their Sunday evenings recording into the early hours of the morning. The result is their modern soul masterpiece Durand Jones & The Indications (Dead Oceans/Colemine Records).

With comparisons from Charles Bradley, Lee Fields to Al Green, this young band are now at the forefront of 60’s soul revival. Their sweaty, fiery live shows have earned them a reputation for giving it their all each night which can be witnessed on Durand Jones & The Indications Live Vol. 1. Available for the first time on limited translucent blue vinyl, the album includes tracks from their debut and deep cut soul covers fans have become accustomed

TRACK LISTING

Side A
1. I Can’t Do Without You [Live From Bloomington, IN]
2. Make A Change [Live From Bloomington, IN]
3. Can’t Keep My Cool [Live From Bloomington, IN]
4. Groovy Babe [Live From Bloomington, IN]
5. Should I Take You Home [Live From Bloomington, IN]
6. Dedicated To You [Live From Boston, MA]

Side B
7. Now I’m Gone [Live From Boston, MA]
8. Is It Any Wonder? [Live From Boston, MA]
9. Smile [Live From Boston, MA]
10. Giving Up [Live From Boston, MA]

“A dusty plain, a red sky, sand in your teeth - ‘I don’t feel so great’ - a post-apocalyptic hooptie jeep-jammer. ‘Why is everything in ruins? There must be others like us out here somewhere…’

“This fine sizzling grease pit of cyber punk comes to us from psychic veteran Rick Pelletier (of Six Finger Satellite, Landed, La Machine), always bringing an interesting, bent and lurid account of visions to wax for the hungry ear bone. This time around the equipment scavenged is guitar, drums, synth and vocals. The beat goes full lotus climbing out of the goo, like men with sap gloves slapping the hulls of the remaining clubs, keeping the peace during live actions, gorgeous nauseating synthesized harmonies blowing through the ceiling vents, frickle-fried guitar belly slish and vocals delivered over the P.A. at Barter Town (sometimes from the workers in the pit, in unison).

“Picture a bucket of molten metal with gobs of scalp sizzling and sinking away-dance music for the infected. Be sure to double up on your dose before driving around on this one so you can wipe the chum smear off your wind screen.” - John Dwyer.

TRACK LISTING

1. Hope Will Pass
2. Baby Chiffon
3. Sully
4. I'm On A Roll
5. Borderline
6. Bill Fill
7. Shazzamatazz
8. Blowin My Mind

On her sophomore LP, The Best of Luck Club, 26-year-old Melbourne, Australia native Alex Lahey navigates the pangs of generational ennui with the pint half-full and a spot cleared on the bar stool next to her. Self-doubt, burn out, break-ups, mental health, moving in with her girlfriend, vibrators: The Best of Luck Club showcases the universal language of Lahey’s sharp songwriting, her propensity for taking the minute details of the personal and flipping it public through anthemic pop-punk. Lahey’s 2017 debut I Love You Like a Brother encases Lahey’s knack for writing a killer hook and her acute sense of humor delivered via a slacker-rock package and, in a way, The Best of Luck Club picks up where that record left off.

Lahey co-produced the album alongside acclaimed engineer and producer Catherine Marks (Local Natives, Wolf Alice, Manchester Orchestra), and dives headfirst into a broader spectrum of both emotion and sound through polished, arena pop-punk in the vein of Paramore with the introspective sheen of Alvvays or Tegan & Sara. Here, Lahey documents the highest highs and the lowest lows of her life to date. After a whirlwind of global touring in support of breakout debut I Love You Like a Brother, Lahey wrote the bulk of her follow-up in Nashville during 12-hour days of songwriting. There, she found the inspiration for The Best of Luck Clubís concept: the dive bar scene and its genuine energy.”Whether you’ve had the best day of your life or the worst day of your life, you can just sit up at the bar and turn to the person next to you - who has no idea who you are - and have a chat. And the response that you generally get at the end of the conversation is, "Best of luck", so The Best Of Luck Club is that place.

TRACK LISTING

1. I Don’t Get Invited To Parties Anymore
2. Am I Doing It Right
3. Interior Demeanour
4. Don’t Be So Hard On Yourself
5. Unspoken History
6. Misery Guts
7. Isabella
8. I Need To Move On
9. Black RM’s
10. I Want To Live With You

Durand Jones & the Indications aren’t looking backwards. Helmed by foil vocalists in Durand Jones and drummer Aaron Frazer, the Indications conjure the dynamism of Jackie Wilson, Curtis Mayfield, AND the Impressions. Even with an aesthetic steeped in the golden, strings-infused dreaminess of early ‘70s soul, the Indications’ sophomore LP, American Love Call, is planted firmly in the present, with the urgency of this moment in time.

The Indications’ 2016 self-titled debut was the product of friends who met as students at Indiana University in Bloomington, In., recorded for $452.11, including a case of beer. American Love Call, the band’s sophomore LP is instead the record the Indications dreamed of making, fleshed out with strings, backing vocals, and a newfound confidence in songwriting.

Blending a slew of influences from years spent crate-digging, guitarist Blake Rhein says the Indications approach songs in the same way hip-hop producers do, as likely to pull inspiration from ‘70s folk-rock or classic R&B as they are Nas’ Illmatic.

“Did I expect to do this shit once I got out of college? Hell no,” Jones relays, laughing. “Totally not. But this is what God is telling me to do – move and groove. So I’m gonna stay in my lane.”

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: A brilliantly emotive and smoothly contrasting duo of voices over this classic soul, brought to the modern day with crisp, clean production and the perfectly sunny songwiting Durand Jones has become known for. From mournful, lost-love ballads to swinging, dancefloor ditties, this is yet another mindblowing LP from Jones & co.

TRACK LISTING

1. Morning In America
2. Don’t You Know (feat. Aaron Frazer)
3. Circles
4. Court Of Love (feat. Aaron Frazer)
5. Long Way Home
6. Too Many Tears (feat. Aaron Frazer)
7. Walk Away
8. What I Know About You (feat. Aaron Frazer)
9. Listen To Your Heart
10. Sea Gets Hotter (feat. Aaron Frazer)
11. How Can I Be Sure (feat. Aaron Frazer)
12. True Love

On ‘The Lillywhite Sessions’, Ryley Walker and the similarly indebted trio of drummer Ryan Jewell and bassist Andrew Scott Young cover Dave Matthews’ infamously abandoned 2001 art-rock masterpiece of the same name, a record where he and his band indulged a new adult pathos and a budding musical wanderlust.

With a delicate rhythmic latticework and vocals that ask you to lean in, ‘Busted Stuff’ recalls Jim O’ Rourke’s golden Drag City days. Emerging from a wall of distortion, ‘Diggin’ a Ditch’ becomes a power trio wallop à la Dinosaur Jr, shaking off existential malaise like twenty-something pals writing rock songs in the garage. Walker’s ‘Grace is Gone’, the most faithful take here, is a testament to his unflagging love for the music that helped make him a musician.

This end-to-end interpretation of youthful fascination is a collective reminder that we are all just kids from somewhere, reckoning with our upbringing the best we can. Walker has stepped through the door long ago opened by the Dave Matthews Band to find a world teeming with musical possibilities. On ‘The Lillywhite Sessions’, he has, in turn, created his own.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: As well as being a VERY good follow on the ol' Twitter, Ryley Walker is also a superb chap and undeniably brilliant songwriter and musician. Although the songwriting doesn't really get a look in on this release (it being entirely covers), it is clear that his laid-back style and impeccable vocal performance is only improving. Even if you've never heard this Dave Matthews Band release before, I implore you to hear Walker's take on things. Stunning.

TRACK LISTING

Busted Stuff
Grey Street
Diggin’ A Ditch
Sweet Up And Down
JTR
Big Eyed Fish
Grace Is Gone
Captain
Bartender
Monkey Man
Kit Kat Jam
Raven

Bunnymen Classics Transformed & New Songs With Strings & Things Attached.

‘I’m not doing this for anyone else. I’m doing it as it’s important to me to make the songs better. I have to do it.’ Ian McCulloch

This new studio album sees The Bunnymen, still lead by the indominable Ian McCulloch and Will Sergeant, revisit some of their greatest songs to rearrange and transform them with co producer Andy Wright…and strings and things. Also included is two brand new tracks to accompany the classics.

Echo & the Bunnymen's dark, swirling fusion of post-punk and The Doors/The Velvets-inspired pop psychedelia has brought the group twenty top 20 hits and nine top 20 albums in the UK so far in their 40 year career. The band have come a long way from the group's infamous first concert as a three-piece with a drum machine in 1979 at the legendary Erics club in Liverpool, The Bunnymen still perform sell-out concerts across the world today.

Their seminal albums 'Crocodiles', 'Heaven Up Here', 'Porcupine' and 'Ocean Rain' have been a major influence for acts such as Coldplay, The Killers and The Flaming Lips whilst later albums 'Evergreen' and 'What Are You Going To Do With Your Life?' and 'Siberia & Meteorites' demonstrate what an amazing body of work the band have.

The Bunnymen are still revered by those in the best of popular culture. In the past year alone, the highly acclaimed and culturally phenomenal Netflix series 'Stranger Things' has used the song 'Nocturnal Me' whilst the equally comparable '13 Reasons Why' has used 'The Killing Moon', a song also used on another Netflix show, 'Dead of Summer'. 

TRACK LISTING

Bring On The Dancing Horses
The Somnambulist
Nothing Lasts Forever
Lips Like Sugar
Rescue
Rust
Angels & Devils
Bedbugs & Ballyhoo
Zimbo
Stars Are Stars
Seven Seas
Ocean Rain
The Cutter
How Far?
The Killing Moon

Hailed as the new vanguard of indie rock following the breakout success of 2016’s Puberty 2, Mitski returns with Be The Cowboy, via Dead Oceans.

Mitski’s carefully crafted songs have often been portrayed as emotionally raw, overflowing confessionals from a fevered chosen girl, but in her fifth album, Mitski introduces a persona who has been teased before but never so fully present until now—a woman in control.

“For this new record, I experimented in narrative and fiction,” comments Mitski. Though she hesitates to go so far as to say she created full-on characters, she reveals she had in mind “a very controlled icy repressed woman who is starting to unravel. Because women have so little power and showing emotion is seen as weakness, this ‘character’ clings to any amount of control she can get. Still, there is something very primordial in her that is trying to find a way to get out.”

In Be The Cowboy, Mitski delves into the loneliness of being a symbol and the loneliness of being someone, how it can feel so much like being no one. Lead single “Geyser” introduces us to a woman who can’t hold it all in any more. She’s about to burst and unleash a torrent of desire and passion that has been building up inside. While recording the album with her long-time producer Patrick Hyland, the pair kept returning to “the image of someone alone on a stage, singing solo with a single spotlight trained on them in an otherwise dark room. For most of the tracks, we didn’t layer the vocals with doubles or harmonies, to achieve that campy ‘person singing alone on stage’ atmosphere.”

There is plenty of buoyant swagger on Be The Cowboy, but just as much interrogation into self-mythology. Throughout these 14 songs, the music swerves from the cheerful to the plaintive. Mournful piano ballads lead into deceptively uptempo songs. “I had been on the road for a long time, which is so isolating, and had to run my own business at the same time. A lot of this record was me not having any feelings, being completely spent but then trying to rally myself and wake up and get back to Mitski.”

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: We aren't the only ones who've been eagerly awaiting a new Mitski album, with the news on this outing being VERY warmly received online, and listening to it, it's no surprise. Forward thinking synth-pop progressions, beautifully balanced song structures and Mitski's unmistakeable vocals. Superb stuff.

TRACK LISTING

SIDE A
1. Geyser
2. Why Didn't You Stop Me?
3. Old Friend
4. A Pearl
5. Lonesome Love
6. Remember My Name
7. Me And My Husband

SIDE B
8. Come Into The Water
9. Nobody
10. Pink In The Night
11. A Horse Named Cold Air
12. Washing Machine Heart
13. Blue Light
14. Two Slow Dancers

The album, which was originally released in 2016, received praise from The Philadelphia Inquirer, who called it, “Smartly restrained music steeped in the Deep South” and Paste, who said, “With a tingling rasp that screams James Brown and coos Otis Redding, Jones simply has to be heard to be believed on these vintage R&B pleas.” Detroit Metro Times furthered, “Modern soul that pulls with as much power as Lee Fields and Charles Bradley.” Of their debut, the band reflects, “Three years ago we spent every Sunday in our basement with a 4-track tape machine and a goal: record an album inspired by not only the ubiquitous titans of soul music but also the should-have-beens and the never-weres. With that modest target in mind, we released the record and booked one show marking the occasion. The reception we saw was both humbling and invigorating, and what started as a recording project, became a touring unit with larger aspirations.”

STAFF COMMENTS

Laura says: Boy can these guys sing! Timeless sweet soul music.

TRACK LISTING

Make A Change
Smile
Can't Keep My Cool
Groovy Babe
Giving Up
Is It Any Wonder?
Now I'm Gone
Tuck 'N' Roll

Phoebe Bridgers wrote her first song at age 11, spent her adolescence at open mic nights and busked through her teenage years at farmers markets in her native Los Angeles. By age 20, she’d caught the ear of Ryan Adams, who listened to her perform her song ‘Killer’ in his LA studio, inviting her to come back and record it there the next day. The session blossomed into the three song ‘Killer’ EP, released to much acclaim on Adams’s Pax-Am label in 2015. In the two short years since, Bridgers has toured or played with Conor Oberst, Julien Baker, City And Colour, Violent Femmes, Mitski, Television and Blake Babies among others.

Now Phoebe Bridgers releases her debut full-length, ‘Stranger In The Alps’. From the weeping strings and ‘Twin Peaks’ twangs of opening track ‘Smoke Signals’, to the simple heartbreak of ‘Funeral’ and melancholic crescendo of ‘Scott Street’, ‘Stranger In The Alps’ is a swooningly beautiful record with a gothic heart.

‘Stranger In The Alps’ features guest vocals by Conor Oberst and John Doe.

TRACK LISTING

1 Smoke Signals
2 Motion Sickeness
3 Funeral
4 Demi Moore
5 Scott Street
6 Killer
7 Goergia
8 Chelsea
9 Would You Rather
10 You Missed My Heart

Dark Bird Is Home, the fourth album from The Tallest Man On Earth, doesn’t feel like it came from one time, one place, or one tape machine. The songs and sounds were captured in various countries, studios, and barns, and they carry a weather-worn quality, some dirt and some grit.

Early in Dark Bird, toward the end of the opening track, we hear other voices and sounds backing Kristian Matsson’s own. One of them, later credited in the liner notes with Angel Vocals, shows up several times throughout the record, adding new color to the familiar palette. And so the story grows and expands. That first song has horns and a piano, keyboards, synthesizers, and other modern noisemakers . . . and by track two you’ve got The Tallest Man on Earth as full-throttle rock and roll.

While Dark Bird is The Tallest Man at his most personal and direct, deeper and darker than ever at times, it’s also an album with strokes of whimsy and the scent of new beginnings — which feels fresh for The Tallest Man on Earth, and well timed. Reliably, the melodies and arrangements are sturdy and classic, like old cars and tightly wound clocks. The lyrics and their delivery are both comforting and alarming, like tall trees and wide hills.

The other musicians and layers on this recording put a wide lens on familiar themes. Fear and darkness, sleep or lack of it, dreams in the dark and in the light. Moving, leaving, going. Distance and short stops, long straight lines, temporal places. More hopefully, a grateful nod to a traveling partner, a healing mind. Maybe a little forgiveness needed. Definitely some things to forget.

TRACK LISTING

01. Fields Of Our Home
02. Darkness Of The Dream
03. Singers
04. Slow Dance
05. Little Nowhere Towns
06. Sagres
07. Timothy
08. Beginners
09. Seventeen
10. Dark Bird Is Home

Ask Bill Fay about his relationship with his instrument and he says something revealing, not ”Ever since I learnt to play the piano,” but “Ever since the piano taught me…”

What the piano taught him was how to connect to one of the great joys of his life. “Music gives,” he says. And he is a grateful receiver. But, it makes him wonder, “Who is the sender?”

Fay - who after more than five decades writing songs is finally being appreciated as one of our finest living practitioners of the art – asserts that songs aren’t actually written but found. He recorded two phenomenal but largely overlooked albums for Decca offshoot Nova in 1970 and 1971. After 27 years of neglect, people like Nick Cave, Jim O’ Rourke, and Jeff Tweedy were praising those records in glowing terms. Recorded in Ray Davies' Konk Studios, North London, Who Is The Sender? sees Bill expanding upon themes he has touched on from the beginning, spiritual and philosophical questions, observations about the natural world and the people in the city he has lived in all his life.

Mark McGuire was previously a member of the critically acclaimed drone band Emeralds.

From the mid-western underground consciousness, guitarist / producer Mark McGuire emerges with his forthcoming ‘Along The Way’ album. The conceptual album details the inner journey of an individual seeking definition and enlightenment.

For those following McGuire’s musical ascent thus far, the record is a culmination of a prodigious and prolific artist.

Playing with a wide variety of instruments and styles on ‘Along The Way’, McGuire presents his unique vision of modern psychedelia. Using electric and acoustic guitars, a Talkbox, drum machine, a mandolin and lots in between, McGuire conducts a sonic exploration of the inner self.

Animator, opens with ‘Montuno’, a 9-minute account of a hallucination about the repetition of days, the split seconds that define us, and the strangeness of the certainty of death.

There's something almost supernatural to the feel of this album: “‘Animator’ is supposed to be some weird resuscitation. The animator’s job is to create the semblance of movement in things that cannot move themselves. The musician’s is to make us feel like something is happening with a sound,” explains singer and multi-instrumentalist Jessie Stein.

Recorded and produced at the Treatment Room by band member and experimental brass player Pietro Amato, and mixed by Jace Lasek of The Besnard Lakes at his Breakglass Studios in the band’s hometown of Montreal, ‘Animator’ is a cathartic sophisticated collection of songs.

As melodically compelling as it is artistically rich, ‘Animator’ is intuitive, seductive, moody and textural. It slowly unfolds its beauty and trusts the listener to stay with it.

TRACK LISTING

Montuno
Fifty Fifty
The Quiet Way
Face
Your Name’s Mostly Water
Earth Turner
Talking Mountains
Traces
Crimes Machine
Channeling

Hugely anticipated, The Tallest Man On Earth returns with ‘There’s No Leaving Now’.

The sense of urgency that fuelled his previous work remains, and the results are paralyzing – drums, piano, baritone guitar, woodwinds and pedal steel combine with songwriting so detailed and captivating.

Since his last album, ‘The Wild Hunt’, The Tallest Man On Earth has sold out Shepherds Bush Empire two months in advance of the show, performed on ‘Later With Jools Holland’ and now lands at the start of this campaign with a sold out London Hackney Empire show, with fans desperate to hear his new material.

‘Onwards To The Wall’ packs every bit of the searing sonic maelstrom listeners have come to expect from A Place To Bury Strangers. Yet, the adroit songcraft that’s always been there is brought more the fore, pop hooks are repurposed and more instantly recognizable.

Now joined by bassist Dion Lunadon, formerly of The D4, in whom the band have found a crucial companion in pulling timeless melodies from their jet engine textures.

Standout ‘So Far Away’ takes all the pure pop perfection of The Box Tops’ ‘The Letter’ and shoots it through with a barely-harnessed dark energy and snarling propulsion. The title track carries a similar balance of classic, 60s pop hooks and doomed-out vibes, employing a boy-girl vocal trade off that’s at once both sexy and menacing.

A handful of contemporary bands are currently exploring the new limits of loud. And here, A Place To Bury Strangers prove that they have not only been leading that charge for some time now, but that they are also evolving and maturing on those front lines.

‘Onwards To The Wall’ is a fresh, complete artistic statement. It’s a new chapter, a prelude for what awaits on the horizon. It is a taste of greatness to come.

‘The Clearing’ is Bowerbirds’ third album - a much bigger, bolder and broader record than the first two records could even hint at.

Recorded with Brian Joseph (Bon Iver) in Wisconsin.

From the first song onwards, this is a band willing to make a statement and develop all the finest moments heard on the previous two records. The band sing of the best and most important moments in life and, in turn, create new ones.

In this blistering world, these songs are the rarest sort of balm. A record sure to turn this much loved and well kept secret into one of the most acclaimed bands of 2012.

A picture-perfect collection of echo-drenched space-age pop songs, "Too Beautiful To Work" buzzes and pops into retro-futurist sonic bliss.

The Luyas enlisted the help of many friends on "Too Beautiful To Work". These friends happen to double as world-class musicians. Owen Pallett plays the violin and arranges the strings. Colin Stetson adds saxophone and clarinet. Sarah Neufeld (who plays in Arcade Fire) also plays violin. John Marshman adds some cello, Daniel Tavis Romano plays the bass, Lisa Chisholm brings the bassoon and Leonie Wall plays the flute.

"Too Beautiful To Work" was recorded by Jeff McMurrich, whose fingerprints can be found on fantastic recordings by Tindersticks, Constantines, Owen Pallett and countless others.

TRACK LISTING

1. Too Beautiful To Work
2. Worth Mentioning
3. Tiny Head
4. Moodslayer
5. Canary
6. Spherical Mattress
7. Cold Canada
8. What Mercy Is
9. I Need Mirrors
10. Seeing Things

The Good Ones is a trio of Rwandan genocide survivors who play joyous, acoustic love songs written in the ancient local Kinyarwanda street dialect of their nation's capital, Kigali.

Adrien Kazigira, Stany Hitimana and Jeanvier Havugimana recorded the songs collected on "Kigali Y’ Izahabu" over the course of one summer evening on the back porch of a friend's home. The primary obstacle to recording the group was that the musicians showed up with only one guitar for two players, and that guitar was missing two strings. Hitimana ‘played bass’ on the 4-string and a beat-up acoustic was located for the second guitarist, the sullen, primary songwriter Kazigira, who interweaves intricate harmonies with cosinger Havugimana.

In a style often referred to as ‘worker songs from the streets’, these simple, direct and plaintive love songs speak more to the healing power of peace than a thousand academic treatises or preachy goodwill ambassadors ever could.

The Tallest Man On Earth released "The Wild Hunt" this year to widespread acclaim. The live reaction that the Tallest Man On Earth (aka songwriter Kristian Matsson) generates from his fans is a sight to behold. He has performed around the world, headlining Euro festivals and selling out prestigious club venues.

Matsson is the rarest of performers, charismatic and captivating. At many of the Tallest Man on Earth shows this year, Matsson closed his set with a new song titled ‘Like The Wheel’. It quickly became a fan favourite, with YouTube videos spreading virally, and the sets closing on a high note night after night.

STAFF COMMENTS

Darryl says: A five track mini-album and another example of his superb widescreen late night Americana songwriting skills.

TRACK LISTING

1. Little River
2. The Dreamer
3. Like The Wheel
4. Tangle This
5. Trampled Wheat
6. Thrown Right At Me

While it has only been 18 months since Mt. St. Helens Vietnam Band's self-titled debut, they have traveled what feels like thousands of miles. "Where The Messengers Meet" is in real time, an expansion of the sound of the band's eponymous debut. They take the same frantic and skewed elements and stretch them out, giving them room to breathe and blossom.

Thematically, "Where The Messengers Meet" is an exercise in contrasts: the delicate and gentle, the dark and furious. Mt. St. Helens Vietnam Band collects powerful compositions into one cohesive whole held together with lush production and a haunting atmosphere. They are imperceptibly inching away from an angular style influenced by Modest Mouse and Wolf Parade, instead incorporating an epic sound recalling both the modern masters such as Arcade Fire, and classic pioneers, like Pink Floyd.

When fans lined up to see the sold-out Bon Iver performances at New York City's Town Hall in late 2008, few of them went with any expectations of the opening act. But the audience that night, and on every other night of Bon Iver's tour that December, were introduced to something special, something unforgettable: The Tallest Man on Earth. This was the first of several tours for the Tallest Man on Earth (aka Kristian Matsson), with obsessive crowds growing each step of the way.

It is impossible to discuss The Tallest Man on Earth's music without acknowledging Bob Dylan. The seemingly effortlessness, the melodic sensibility and the deft lyricism all recall Dylan's early years. But when you witness the Tallest Man on Earth perform live, you are watching a man possessed. The energy pours out with every word. Full of intensity and raw emotion, he paces the stage, bringing the audience into the palm of his hand, completely lost in his songs.

This brings us to the reason you are reading this. With unbridled excitement, we bring you The Tallest Man on Earth's second LP, "The Wild Hunt". It is all here: The words. The voice. The melodies. Ten perfect songs. "The Wild Hunt" picks up where "Shallow Grave" left off, with Matsson doing what he does best. It is unmistakably The Tallest Man on Earth, from the urgent strums of "You're Going Back" and the sweet melodies of "Love is All," to the playful lyricism of live favourite "King of Spain" and the subtle hook on "Burden of Tomorrow". "The Wild Hunt" isn't just another folk album; this is acoustic rock 'n' roll from a man with a story to tell.

STAFF COMMENTS

Darryl says: Ace singer/songwriter with a desolate, stripped down acoustic Americana vibe that brings to mind early Dylan.

The Donkeys are best friends from southern California, with songs steeped in the music of their state – part Beach Boys, part The Byrds, part Pavement. "Living On The Other Side" is about rolling the windows down, cranking the stereo up and hitting the open road.

Evangelicals follow up 2006's "So Gone" with their expansive yet restrained second album. According to the band, "The Evening Descends" is their 'answer to Prince's "Around The World In A Day", but from the perspective of someone crashing at Pee-Wee's Playhouse.. who happens to have a chainsaw slowly gnawing through his leg.'

2006 was a big year for Bishop Allen. The band recorded and self-released an EP every month of the year. Fifty-eight songs later, they completed one of the most ambitious recording projects in recent memory. With the EPs, Bishop Allen's pop smarts sound timeless, escaping the indie-pop idiom and revealing a language informed by the Kinks, Dylan, and the Zombies. "The Broken String" includes nine reworked tracks from the EPs along with two previously unreleased tracks. These are not just re-recordings: Bishop Allen has stepped out of the home studio and created definitive versions of songs that were originally conceived within the constraints of a monthly deadline. Benefiting from the earlier recordings and several tours, the songs' arrangements have grown, the production is lush, the lyrics are front and centre, and the band's evolution has reached a new level.