50 Foot Wave– Bath White CDEP/12” (Happy Happy Birthday To Me)

50 Foot Wave is a side-project to Throwing Muses, created in 2003 to satisfy the noisy, mathy side of Kirstin Hersh’s creativity without throwing the Muses off course. They achieve their sixth release with Bath White, which sounds as energized and free-flowing as ever.

Band Of Skulls – By Default CD/LP+MP3 (BMG Rights Management)

Gritty English trio Band Of Skulls craft bluesy and ballsy slabs of atmospheric indie rock that echo the work of contemporaries like the Kills, Duke Spirit, and the Black Keys. Their latest album, By Default, was produced by Gil Norton (Pixies, Foo Fighters).

Big Thief – Masterpiece CD/LP+MP3 (Saddle Creek)

Big Thief’s music, rooted in the songs of Adrianne Lenker, paints in vivid tones “the process of harnessing pain, loss, and love, while simultaneously letting go, looking into your own eyes through someone else’s, and being okay with the inevitability of death,” says Lenker.  Masterpiece, Big Thief’s debut album, is filled with characters and visceral narratives, songs that pivot in the space of a few words. Adrianne’s voice and guitar playing speak of rich emotional territory with grace and insight. In her words, the record tracks “the masterpiece of existence, which is always folding into itself, people attempting to connect, to both shake themselves awake and to shake off the numbness of certain points in their life. The interpretations might be impressionistic or surrealistic, but they’re grounded in simple things.”

Catfish and The Bottlemen – The Ride CD/LP/Cassette (Capitol)

No difficult second album here. Just blistering, swashbuckling tunes. Fittingly for a band that earned notoriety playing car parks outside other bands’ gigs, there’s a fearlessness to the Welsh four-piece’s follow-up to 2014’s rollicking The Balcony. Its first half is a masterclass in exuberant, let-tonight-last-forever indie—“Twice” and “Soundcheck,” in particular, were built for raucous festival crowds—before two gems glisten on the home straight. “Glasgow” and “Heathrow” are both gorgeous and reveal a softer, melodically-piercing side to a band breaking confidently into its stride.

Miles Davis & Robert Glasper – Everything’s Beautiful CD/LP (Sony Legacy)

Everything’s Beautiful brings Miles Davis’ sound into the 21st century, blending a diverse group of master takes and outtakes from across Miles’ incredible tenure with Columbia Records (1955-1985) with original reinterpretations. Jazz pianist Robert Glasper recruited a legion of diverse guest artists to add to the magic of the project including familiar collaborators like R&B musicians Erykah Badu, Ledisi, Bilal and KING. They are joined by British soul singer-songwriter Laura Mvula; hip-hop producer Rashad Smith; Grammy-nominated Australian neo-soul quartet Hiatus Kaiyote, rapper/producer Illa J; jazz guitarist John Scofield, who collaborated with Davis; and the legendary Stevie Wonder.

Earthless/Harsh Toke – Acid Crusher/Mountain Swan CD/LP+MP3 (Tee Pee)

Sound-sculpting San Diego heavy psych titans Earthless and Harsh Toke have joined forces on this two track, 35-minute split release. 

Flume – Skin CD/2xLP (Mom + Pop)

Harley Edward Streten, also known by his stage name Flume, is an Australian electronic music producer/beatmaker who released his first self-titled debut album in 2012, having previously remixed songs by Lorde, Sam Smith, Disclosure and Arcade Fire. His second album, Skin, features guest appearances from Beck, Raekwon, Vince Staples, Vic Mensa, Little Dragon, AlunaGeorge, Allan Kingdom, and others.The 16-track album has a broader spectrum of sound than his self-titled debut record released almost four years ago. “There’s some really chilled out, ambient stuff, and there’s some really high energy, festival moments. There’s also some more poppy moments and there’s some really weird, dark moments, too.” [Limited purple colored vinyl LP pressing with custom artwork inserts also available.]

Enjoy – Another Word For Joy CD/LP+MP3/Cassette (Burger)

Solo project from Wyatt Shears of The Garden. “…A project which embodies all the high-energy, fuzz-packed punk of The Garden, but with an added dose of romance and melody, a sound that sees Shears embrace introspection and intimacy alongside the propulsive chaos that he’s made his name with. It’s a style not often heard in punk – a genre that can be as sneering as it is brash – but Shears’ music emanates all the sun-splashed optimism and charm of his native California, and the result is incredibly contagious.” – Dazed

 

Gold Panda – Good Luck And Do Your Best CD/LP+MP3 (City Slang)

Gold Panda’s new album is as kaleidoscopic as ever with its warm electronic anthems, warped beats, straight bangers and musical explorations.

Holy Fuck – Congrats CD/LP+MP3 (Innovative Leisure)

The psychedelic Toronto quartet return with their first album in six years. “Working in a proper recording studio with a streamlined array of equipment has led them to create their most cogent release to date, forming driving, rhythmic tracks that chug along in a perfectly groovable fashion, all the while keeping the anarchic flavor that warrants the use of the expletive in their name. For fans of Ratatat and Animal Collective.” — KCRW

Kristin Kontrol – X-Communicate CD/LP+MP3/Cassette (Sub Pop)

Kristin Welchez is best-known as Dee Dee, leader of the gauzy garage-rock gang Dum Dum Girls. X-Communicate was inspired by the ’80s pop Welchez listened to as a kid, with touchstones including Debbie Gibson, Tiffany, Janet Jackson, and Madonna.

Mark Kozelek – Sings Favorites CD (Caldo Verde)

Mark Kozelek sings a few of his favorite songs, plus favorites of friends and loved ones. Accompanied by piano, Mark sings songs by 10CC, David Bowie, Modest Mouse, Bob Seger, Waylon Jennings, and others. Guest singers include Mike Patton and Low’s Mimi Parker.

My Morning Jacket – It Still Moves [Deluxe Edition] 2xCD (ATO)

New deluxe edition of My Morning Jacket’s 2003 album It Still Moves, completely remixed, remastered and expanded with three unreleased songs and James’ original demo versions of 10 of the album’s 12 songs, plus brand new artwork and photos. According to James, the band’s intense touring schedule at the time forced My Morning Jacket to hurriedly complete the album, which left the band feeling as though It Still Moves was “unfinished.”Speaking to the New York Times, James referred to the original version of It Still Moves as the band’s “wet blanket” album, a joke about the LP’s muffled sound. “It Still Moves is really the only record in our catalog that I’ve always felt I wanted to remix,” James said. “Part of the fun of that record was that we recorded it all to tape, and it was all super-duper organic. But when we mixed it originally, we didn’t have enough time. We thought we were happy with it, but there are certain things that bothered me when I would listen to it, like, ‘Oh my God, you can’t hear that guitar solo.’”

The Myrrors– Entranced Earth CD/LP (Beyond Beyond Is Beyond)

“Arizona seems to have a particular quality that creates inspired rock bands with slightly fried edges or more, whether it’s long-running stalwarts like the Meat Puppets or underground psych legends like the Black Sun Ensemble. Call it the harsh environment—or the fact that it’s better to practice inside away from the heat and dust, even while feeling it through the walls.The Myrrors are a strong young Arizona band keeping that tradition alive on their third album Entranced Earth. It places them with other equally powerful acts in psych/drone’s newest generation, such as Japan’s Kikagaku Moyo, Canada’s Shooting Guns and the UK’s Cult of Dom Keller and Haikai No Ku—all with their own sounds and aesthetics, but all dedicated to being enthralled by head-nodding waves of feedback and general zoning out.” – Noisey/Vice

Beth Orton – Kid Sticks CD/LP+MP3 (ANTI-)

Beth Orton has been one of the most unique and beguiling voices in music for the past two decades. Her folktronica sound, mixing elements of folk and electronica, has re-emerged as she began experimenting with a series of electronic loops that would eventually come together in this career-redefining new album, Kidsticks. Co-produced by Beth and Andrew Hung (Fuck Buttons), Kidsticks reframes Beth’s unmistakable voice inside ten pure, audacious, playful and kinetic songs. A resolutely focused album, it represents a rare chance to hear an established artist get plugged in and completely rework the songwriting process with wide-eyed, open-minded glee.

Sonny And The Sunsets – Moods Baby Moods CD/LP+MP3 (Polyvinyl)

On this outing we find the Sunsets, along with producer Merrill Garbus of tUnE-yArDs, repurposing early ‘80s funk and new wave with rap beats and collages from both sides of the ocean (be it Niles Rogers, Jah Wobble, The Gap Band, Orange Juice, Trans-era Neil Young or The Tom Tom Club.) These are songs that juxtapose the haze of today with a vibrant and colorful explosion of sounds and 180 degree turns.

Summer Cannibals – Full Of It CD/LP/Cassette (Kill Rock Stars)

FREE STINKWEEDS INSTORE with Summer Cannibals June 17th! Stay tuned for details. “For their third album, Portland’s Summer Cannibals signed to the legendary local label Kill Rock Stars. KRS president Portia Sabin has said that the band ‘take us back to our roots,’ and in songwriter/guitarist Jessica Boudreaux, the four-piece have an insurrectionist frontwoman worthy of the label’s well-populated hall of fame. But on Full Of It, Summer Cannibals toughen up their assault and hark back to the heavy scene that the Pacific Northwest punks killed off in the late 1980s. Their wailing riff-o-rama, double-tracked guitars, and sharp arpeggios soundtrack Boudreaux’s frustrations with a dead-end relationship, wielding (and subverting) machismo rock tropes against a domineering, unavailable guy. The 11 songs on Full Of It barely break the three-minute mark, and wed incendiary fretwork to bottom-end that rolls like a boulder down a marble run. Summer Cannibals balance the abjection of their lyrics by playing like they’re auditioning to ride the flame-belching rig in Mad Max: Fury Road.” – Pitchfork

Thrice – To Be Everywhere Is To Be Nowhere CD/LP+MP3 (Vagrant)

After a three-year break from writing and touring, the Southern California quartet are back with their first studio album in almost five years.

Travis – Everything At Once CD/CD+DVD/LP (Caroline)

“Scottish four-piece Travis have spent a lifetime trying to live with the ‘safe’ tag – they are the boys every mom wants their daughter to date; they’re vanilla ice-cream; they’re, well, ‘pleasant’. It’s a shame that this is used as a taunt, for on Everything At Once, their eighth studio album, they continue to produce breezy melodies with confident aplomb. Singer Fran Healy had previous spoken about this record being more short and succinct, and it’s true the record’s ten songs come and go in quick fashion, none outstaying their welcome. Take ‘Magnificent Time,’ which meshes a saccharine, but satisfying, R.E.M.-style jangle with deceptively melancholic lyrics. The title track, where bassist Dougie Payne takes center stage on the chorus, is a garbled, gleeful rocker, while ‘Animals’ shimmers and glows.Everything At Once serves as a neat compendium for all of Travis’ plus points, and while ‘pleasance’ is surely on there, that’s certainly no bad thing” – Louder Than War. [CD is available in Regular and Deluxe editions. Deluxe adds a DVD containing a film directed by band leader Fran Healy.]

Various Artists [Dâm-Funk] – DJ Kicks CD/LP (!K7)

Dâm-Funk’s addictive brand of post-Prince analog funk has seen him rise through the ranks, from dropping 12”s on Stones Throw to collaborating with none other than Snoop Dogg. Now he’s taking his exhaustive appetite for tunes to !K7 with a mix for their long-running DJ-Kicks series. The mix explores his patented “modern funk”, which according to the artist is a combination of sounds: “funk, boogie, electro, house, modern-soul, ambient tones… a push and pull of nostalgia and progressiveness…”.

Various Artists – Boombox: Early Independent Hip-Hop, Electro and Disco Rap 1979-82 CD/3xLP+MP3 (Soul Jazz)

Soul Jazz Records’ latest compilation, Boombox, features some of the many innovative underground first-wave of rap records made in New York in the period 1979-82, all released on small, independent, often family-concern record companies, at a time when hip-hop music still remained under the radar. Rare, classic and obscure tracks released in the early days of rap.

Fujiya & Miyagi – EP1 12” (Impossible Objects)

Brighton-based Fujiya & Miyagi have now been making expansive, experimental and multifaceted electronic-driven music for over fifteen years. As an outfit they have been as successful in their investigations into bleep as they have elongated Krautrock wig outs, and creating breathy electro pop as fiercely as they do post-punk indebted scratchy dance. EP1 feels like an amalgamation of all of these factors, condensed succinctly into four tracks, the first of three planned EPs which will accumulate in a new album in early 2017.

Goat – I Sing in Silence b/w The Snake of Addis Ababa 7”+MP3 (Sub Pop)

Elastic guitar lines, woodblock percussion, and flutes which “I Sing In Silence” are enveloped by one of the strongest vocal deliveries by the bands enigmatic singers, resulting in a powerful and catchy psych-pop number. The B side, an instrumental called “The Snake Of Addis Ababa,” is a looping, North-African mantra played on a teasing, fuzzed guitar, underpinned by a djembe groove.

Kendrick Lamar – untitled. unmastered. LP (Top Dawg Entertainment/Aftermath/Records)

Recently released on CD – now available on vinyl. Kendrick Lamar’s surprise new release features studio versions of the untitled songs he performed on The Colbert Report, The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon and the most recent performance at the 58th annual Grammy Awards show.

Quasi – R&B Transmogrification [Reissue1997] LP+MP3 (Up/Domino)

Quasi – Featuring “Birds” [Reissue1998] LP+MP3 (Up/Domino)

Indie rock had seen power duos before: Guv’ner, Royal Trux, Buckingham-Nicks, the Carpenters – but they’d never sounded like Quasi. Drumming like a controlled detonation; mutant blues coming out of an electric harpsichord or guitar by turns. Backwards through the backwoods of AM pop and Pebbles psych to create a new form: bar-room baroque. Honey-golden multitracked vocals and some of the bleakest, black-eyed, black-hearted lyrics put to paper since Lou Reed woke up in a bad mood. And all played with the kind of ramshackle ease that only comes from weeks of practice, months in the van, and serious chops.