Jake Bugg – On My One CD/LP (Island)

Raised on a steady diet of the Beatles, Bob Dylan, Jimi Hendrix, and the brothers Gallagher, English singer/songwriter Jake Bugg blends the melodious, working-class swagger of the La’s and the primal, bluesy simplicity of the White Stripes with the wry, weathered romanticism of Jens Lekman. Born in Nottingham, Bugg picked up the guitar at the age of 12, and within a year he was composing his own songs. Disinterested in the hip-hop and grime that dominated the listening habits of his peers, he turned to the classics for inspiration.

Will Butler – Friday Night CD (Merge)

Friday Night is a live album of performances from Will Butler’s tour supporting Policy, his first album. It was recorded mostly at Lincoln Hall in Chicago on June 4, 2015. Five of the songs are from Policy, two are songs Will wrote for the Guardian newspaper last year, and five are new. “We started almost every show with ‘You Must Be Kidding.’ Not only does it build nicely, but the chorus lyric is literally ‘It’s only just begun.’ The blend of humor, Lord Of The Flies, and the end of the world also set the right tone for the show to come. But I thought the album should start in medias res to welcome the listener into a sweaty room with a tired, happy band and a loose crowd. So the album starts with the encore ‘Tell Me We’re All Right’ which was only ever played once, and this is the recording of it. We never soundchecked it. It wasn’t even written yet (you might be able to tell).” – Will Butler

case/lang/veers – case/lang/veers CD/LP+MP3 (ANTI-)

case/lang/veirs = Neko Case, k.d. lang, and Laura Veirs. Full of stunning harmonies and spellbinding rhythms, case/lang/veirs travels through aches and eras, torch songs and tributes to the undersung.

Converge – You Fail Me (Redux) [Reissue/2004] CD/LP+MP3 (Deathwish, Inc.)

Never quite content with the original mix, You Fail Me Redux was remixed by guitarist Kurt Ballou at his God City studios. The release was also remastered by Alan Douches (Motörhead, Mastodon), and repackaged by vocalist/artist Jacob Bannon.

FAWNN – Ultimate Oceans CD/LP (Quite Scientific)

Lead single “Galaxies” features FAWNN’s signature hooky boy/girl harmonies, melodicguitar interplay and undeniable rhythm grooves, but like many of the more immediate cuts on Ultimate Oceans, the band has added a John-Hughes-era-credit-sequence chorus that is sure to have you fumbling for the “repeat” button. [Limited color vinyl edition also available.]

Gojira – Magma CD/LP+MP3 (Roadrunner)

It has always been hard to put a tag on Gojira, one of France’s most extreme bands the country’s musical pallet has ever known. But then again, the band has never really sought out such a tag, instead letting the music do the talking, preferring introspection and intelligence over preconceived notions and preexisting tags. Ever since the 1996 formation in town of Bayonne in the southwest of France, Gojira has been an ever-evolving experiment in extreme metal ultimately built upon a worldly, ever-conscious outlook with roots firmly-planted both in the hippie movement and an environmentally-conscious, new age mentality.“Magma is a record that envelopes you with its overtly dark drama, but within its haze, its crushing catharsis makes it one of the most special metal records to be released in some time. It may not be the relentless assault many fans wanted from the album – and that’s not to say it is barren of those moments – yet, as a vehicle for emotional cleansing, as a eulogy and an obituary for a woman who shaped the personalities that drive this act, it is staggering.” – The Sludgelord

Sarah Jarosz – Undercurrent CD/LP (Sugarhill/Concord)

On singer/songwriter/mandolinist Sarah Jarosz’s fourth album, the impact of being a full-time artist living in New York City is palpable. A gifted instrumentalist, singularly expressive vocalist and songwriter of rare insight, Jarosz anchors her new record with a haunting quartet of songs written and performed solo: “Early Morning Light,” “Everything To Hide,” “Take Another Turn” and “Jacqueline.” She expands her palate from the swampy defiance of “House Of Mercy” to the nostalgic “Back Of My Mind.”Undercurrentcaptures the process of personal evolution and discovery as well as the inspirational nature of change. The album features contributions from Guster’s Luke Reynolds, Parker Millsap, and her I’m With Her bandmates Sara Watkins and Aoife O’Donovan, among others.

Søren Juul – This Moment CD (4AD)

Juul’s first album under his own name, having previously recorded under the moniker Indians. “The Danish singer-songwriter Soren Juul isn’t afraid to mix things up. After scoring a solo hit in 2013 with the album ‘Somewhere Else,’ recorded under the pseudonym Indians, Juul returns this summer with his first album under his own name,This Moment. “With a moniker, it’s kind of like you’re protecting yourself,” says Juul, whose spare yet evocative songs have garnered comparisons to Bon Iver and M83. ‘I don’t really need the safety net anymore.’” – New York Times

Low Anthem – Eyeland CD (Razor & Tie)

The Low Anthem are not only musical artists, they live their lives as art. The band creates constantly for themselves and others in their home base, The Columbus Theater in Providence, Rhode Island. This new release is the realization of a musical dream come to life in the form of songs and a soon to be developed play. Eyeland is multi-dimensional, future folk.

Mitski – Puberty 2 CD/LP/Cassette (Dead Oceans)

Ask Mitski Miyawaki about happiness and she’ll warn you: “Happiness fucks you.” It’s a lesson that’s been writ large into the New Yorker’s gritty, outsider-indie for years, but never so powerfully as on her newest album, Puberty 2. “Happiness is up, sadness is down, but one’s almost more destructive than the other,” she says. “When you realize you can’t have one without the other, it’s possible to spend periods of happiness just waiting for that other wave.” On Puberty 2, that tension is palpable: a both beautiful and brutal romantic hinterland, in which one of America’s new voices hits a brave new stride. “Mitski Miyawaki is only 25 years old, but she’s already on her fourth album, and she’s developed an emotional vocabulary light years beyond almost anyone else working right now. With her new Puberty 2, Mitski has made one of the year’s best indie rock albums: An auteurist piece of profound, personal lo-fi music that finds sharp ways to say serious things. The album veers in different stylistic directions, but it’s also cohesive enough to get lost in.” – Stereogum. [Limited white color vinyl copies also available.]

Mogwai – Atomic: A Soundtrack By Mogwai CD/LP (Temporary Residence)

Atomic is composed of reworked versions of the music recorded for the soundtrack to director Mark Cousins’ acclaimed documentary Atomic: Living In Dread And Promise, which first aired on BBC Four last summer. Constructed entirely of archive film, Atomic is an impressionistic kaleidoscope of the horrors of our nuclear times — protest marches, Cold War sabre-rattling, Chernobyl and Fukishima — but also the sublime beauty of the atomic world, and how x-rays and MRI scans have improved human lives. Mogwai’s soundtrack encapsulates the nightmare of the nuclear age, but its dreamlike qualities too. It is the latest in the band’s series of impressive soundtracks and scores, following acclaimed albums Les Revenants (The Returned) and Zidane: A 21st Century Portrait. Mogwai’s Stuart Braithwaite says: “The Atomic soundtrack is one of the most intense and fulfilling projects we’ve taken on as a band. Ever since we went to Hiroshima to play and visited the peace park this has been a subject very close to us. The end results, both the film score and the record are pieces I’m extremely proud of.”

Mumford & Sons with Baaba Maal, The Very Best & Beatenberg – JohannesburgCD/10” (Glassnote)

Mumford & Sons’ new mini-album, Johannesburg, is a product of their South African tour recording in the title city. The release features their touring partners Baaba Maal (a Senegalese music legend), Beatenberg (a South African pop group) and The Very Best (a London-based, Malawi-inspired jazz/ hip-hop act).The mini-album was recorded over the course of two sessions in Johannesburg that the band have described as “all day and all night,” as part of a sizable South African tour undertaken in January and February this year. The song which opens Johannesburg, “There Will Be Time,” is a belter. Tender but not shackled by any sense of restraint. It has that special inference of yearning that Mumford & Sons do so incredibly well, and when combining that with the musicianship of Baaba Maal’s glorious crew and his vocals which interweave mesmerizingly with that yearning thing, you’ve got something really quite otherworldly.

Odonis Odonis – Post Plague CD (Felte)

Toronto underground staple Odonis Odonis broke out in 2011 with their scrappy, blown out debut, Hollandaze. The dynamic trio instantly began turning heads with their signature “industrial surf­gaze” sound. Their post-apocalyptical thems construct scenes of sci-fi horror and saturate them with industrial strength synth beats. [Vinyl version dueJuly 8.]

Parlour – Parlour CD/LP+MP3 (Temporary Residence)

On Parlour’s self-titled fourth album, the band pushes ferocious, dynamic guitar rock to the brink with hypnotic repetition and shifting, stabbing rhythms. In fierce Parlour fashion, the driving crunch of guitars is punctuated with shimmering buzz of synths. The difference here, though, is Parlour has shed their trademark woodwinds in favor of a leaner, heavier aesthetic. With a reduced instrumental palette and increased focus on beats and riffs, the songs are more naked and intense — equal parts crashing krautrock, and crushing prog-rock.

Radiohead – A Moon Shaped Pool CD/2xLP+MP3 (XL)

“With their ninth studio album, Radiohead move beyond the existential angst that made them music’s preeminent doomsayers, pursuing a more personal—and eternal—form of enlightenment” [9.1] – Pitchfork. [Limited opaque white vinyl edition also available.]

Red Hot Chili Peppers – The Getaway CD/2xLP (WB)

“It’s been a long wait, but the Red Hot Chili Peppers are finally back with their first albumin five years, The Getaway. The album is the band’s second with guitarist Josh Klinghoffer, and first with Brian ‘Danger Mouse’ Burton producing. “Title track ‘The Getaway’ is a good indicator of the album’s experimental sound. Kiedis’ melodies and lyrics are familiar, but the arrangements and instrumental textures push the Red Hot Chili Peppers into uncharted territory. The harmonies on ‘The Getaway’ at a highlight. John Frusciante’s harmonies were an integral part of the Red Hot Chili Peppers’ success in the ‘90s and 2000s, and Anna Waronker’s backing vocals here add a new vocal element to the band.” – Alternative Nation

Sonic Youth – Spinhead Sessions 1986 CD/LP (Goofin)

Previously unreleased studio recordings from 1986, made between the band’s EVOLand Sister albums.

Swans – The Glowing Man 2xCD/2xCD+DVD/3xLP (Young God)

Billed by Michael Gira as “the final recording from this configuration of Swans,” The Glowing Man completes a period that began with the band’s revival in 2009 and has seen the release of four albums including 2012’s epic The Seer. “Whatever the force is that has led us through this extended excursion, it’s been worthwhile for many of us, and I’m grateful for what has been the most consistently challenging and fulfilling period of my musical life,” Gira writes.“Going forward, post the touring associated with The Glowing Man, I’ll continue to make music under the name Swans, with a revolving cast of collaborators. I have little idea what shape the sound will take, which is a good thing.” [CD is available in Regular and Deluxe editions. Deluxe adds a DVD of a Swans live performance from 2015.]

The Tragically Hip – Man Machine Poem CD/LP (Caroline)

Man Machine Poem is the 14th studio album from The Tragically Hip, one of Canada’s most acclaimed and beloved bands. The album takes its name from a track on their last release, Now For Plan A, and was recorded at The Hip’s home studio The Bathouse, produced by Kevin Drew (Broken Social Scene) and Dave Hamelin (The Stills). Prior to the album’s release, the band announced that lead singer Gord Downie was diagnosed with brain cancer in December 2015. The cancer has responded favorably to treatment but is not fully curable, and the band is expected to tour in summer 2016 to support the album on what may be the final tour of their career.

Various Artists – Eccentric Soul: Sitting In The Park CD/LP (Numero)

Hear the document of one man’s passion crossing over into obsession. Chicago radio disc jockey and soul archivist Bob Abrahamian was deeply devoted to celebrating and documenting unknown Chicagoland group harmony music. Upon his untimely passing in 2014, he left behind hundreds of radio programs and a daunting collection of 35,000 carefully-selected 45s. Our collection borrows its title from Abrahamian’s long-running and acclaimed WHPK radio show, and it spins a tale that’s cautionary, inspiring, and set to the sounds of the impossible-to-find tracks that made Bob Abrahamian’s on-air playlist and animated the radio programs that were his life’s work..

VHS – Gift Of Life CD/LP+MP3 (Suicide Squeeze)

Gift Of Life, the first proper full-length by VHS, follows in the footsteps of their previous EPs, with the band self-recording their amalgam of Lost Sounds’ trashy discontent, early Big Black’s treble-y guitar stabs, and Only Theatre Of Pain-era Christian Death’s black reverberations.

Weaves – Weaves CD/LP (Kanine)

In a little over two short years, Weaves has gone from a collection of voice memos on Jasmyn Burke’s iPhone to establishing themselves as one of the most stridently individual acts to emerge from Toronto’s fertile and multifaceted DIY scene. Led by the collaborative efforts of Jasmyn Burke and Morgan Waters, the band has built a devoted audience while capturing the attention of the international media with a brand of ebullient, art-damaged pop music as difficult to categorize as it is to ignore. Their eponymous debut is an album that traverses the band’s history, exploring every facet of their always adventurous approach to pop music and leaving no idea unexplored. Filled beyond bursting with hooks and possibilities, it’s the sound of a band propelled forward by the thrill of discovering the limits of their sound and gleefully pushing past them.

Wolves In The Throne Room – Diadem Of 12 Stars [Reissue/2006] CD/2xLP/Cassette (Artemesia)

Remastered reissue of Wolves In The Throne Room’s out-of-print 2006 debut full-length. Re-imagining black metal as an ode to rain storms, wood smoke and the wild energies of the Pacific Northwest, Wolves In The Throne Room craft a unique melancholic atmosphere. Diadem of 12 Stars is about lunar sorcery on Cascadian mountaintops and encounters with wild spirits. In contrast to the icy, razor sharp soundscapes of their ’90s Norwegian forebears, Diadem Of 12 Stars is lush and ethereal, dripping with rain-soaked moss and lichen.

 

David Bowie – The Rise And Fall Of Ziggy Stardust And The Spiders From Mars[Reissue/1972] 2xLP (Rhino/Parlophone)

David Bowie – Live Santa Monica ’72 [Reissue/1973] 2xLP (Rhino/Parlophone)

HQ-180gm vinyl reissues now available.

John Carpenter – Assault On Precinct 13 b/w The Fog 12” (Sacred Bones)

John Carpenter – Halloween b/w Escape From New York 12” (Sacred Bones)

The cult of John Carpenter rolls on with a pair of newly recorded versions of a few of his culty themes, this time with son Cody Carpenter and godson Daniel Davies in the mix.

King Gizzard And The Lizard Wizard – Nonagon Infinity 2xLP (ATO)

Limited edition double picture disc vinyl edition in a gatefold sleeve. Coming only six months after the softer, folksy Paper Mache Dream Balloon, Nonagon Infinity finds King Gizzard And The Lizard Wizard returning to form on this relentless psychedelic shred fest.

Neurosis – A Sun That Never Sets [Reissue/2001] 2xLP (Relapse)

Neurosis – The Eye Of Every Storm [Reissue/2004] 2xLP (Relapse)

Limited vinyl reissues of the doom metal band’s seventh and eighth albums.