Staff Picks
Lindsay – Japanese Breakfast and Gary Louris  
Dario – Strong Love Comp
Zach- Czarface & MF DOOM, Beachy Head, and Night Beats
Kimber – Art Blakey   

 

Available on limited edition, clear with yellow swirl vinyl. From the moment she began writing her new album, Japanese Breakfast’s Michelle Zauner knew that she wanted to call it Jubilee. After all, a jubilee is a celebration of the passage of time-a festival to usher in the hope of a new era in brilliant technicolor. Jubilee finds Michelle Zauner embracing ambition and, with it, her boldest ideas and songs yet. Inspired by records like Bjork’s Homogenic, Zauner delivers bigness throughout – big ideas, big textures, colors, sounds and feelings. At a time when virtually everything feels extreme, Jubilee sets its sights on maximal joy, imagination, and exhilaration. It is, in Michelle Zauner’s words, “a record about fighting to feel. I wanted to re-experience the pure, unadulterated joy of creation… The songs are about recalling the optimism of youth and applying it to adulthood. They’re about making difficult choices, fighting ignominious impulses and honoring commitments, confronting the constant struggle we have with ourselves to be better people.” Throughout Jubilee, Zauner pours her own life into the universe of each song to tell real stories, and allowing those universes, in turn, to fill in the details. Joy, change, evolution-these things take real time, and real effort. And Japanese Breakfast is here for it.

Super What? is the second collaborative album by American hip hop supergroup Czarface and British-American rapper MF DOOM. This is a follow-up to their 2018 collaborative project Czarface Meets Metal Face, and is the first posthumous release since DOOM’s death. The album contains features from Run-DMC’s DMC, Del the Funky Homosapien, Kendra Morris, and That Handsome Devil’s Godforbid.

RostamChangephobia CD/LP (Matsor)

Available on Crystal Clear color vinyl. Changephobia is the 2nd full-length solo record from Grammy Award-winning songwriter, producer, and composer Rostam Batmanglij. An adventurous new direction for Rostam, the songs collected on Changephobia are deeply personal, yet universal for anyone who has ever experienced doubt. In addition to being a founding member of the seminal New York Indie Rock Band, Vampire Weekend, Rostam has been described as “one of the great pop and indie-rock producers of his generation.” Rostam has produced & co-written critically heralded recent albums by Clairo and Haim, as well as singles from Maggie Rogers, Solange, Charli XCX, Frank Ocean, Santigold and others

RED FANG return with their highly anticipated new album, Arrows. This is their first album in five years, everyone’s favorite beer-crushing, zombie-killing, air-guitar-contest-judging metal heroes are back in action, doing what they do best- AND MORE. Ltd to 1000 neon yellow with heavy neon magenta splatter vinyl.

On their new album, Nowhere Generation, Rise Against draws a line in the sand with its blazing and aggressive punk rock, with lyrics that shine a spotlight on younger generations’ social and economic struggles in pursuit of The American Dream. Indie Exclusive Flame Colored LP.

KhruangbinPurple Label 12″

Super limited series of 12″s. 5 different releases. This is the fifth, with a purple label. Super limited. Available in-store only.

Mndsgn Rare Pleasure CD/LP (Stones Throw)

Limited yellow colored vinyl LP pressing. As Mndsgn’s first approach to a traditional studio album, Rare Pleasure weaves itself in many forms as the album’s evolving theme, blending root stylings of R&B, soundtrack/theme-music, psychedelia and jazz into a sonically rich score of self-actualization. The title itself, Rare Pleasure is an appreciation of sharing life, inward reflection and the gift of joyful catharsis in the face of inevitable discord. As Mndsgn describes it, “We are beings living this human life that’s only going to happen this way once and only once, every moment infused with a magical impermanence, a rarity.”

Beachy HeadSelf Titled LP (Graveface)

Debut full length of this shoegaze “supergroup” featuring Christian and Rachel from Slowdive, Matt from The Flaming Lips, Steve from The Soft Cavalry and Ryan Graveface from The Casket Girls/Dreamend. FFO Slowdive, Mojave 3, Monster Movie etc.

Bad Brains Into The Future LP (Megaforce)

Considered to be the “holy grail” of punk rock, Bad Brains stand as one of the definitive American punk groups on par with the likes of the Sex Pistols, Black Flag, The Ramones and The Clash. Their long awaited 2012 album, Into The Future marked their first since 2007’s Build A Nation and featured the classic lineup of H.R., Darryl Jenifer, Dr. Know and Earl Hudson. It served as a true return to form for a band that helped define American punk and hardcore music. “This album takes us back to self-produced record shines with Bad Brains’ true sense of freedom and musical experimentation, with blends of soulful backgrounds meshed with blistering hardcore and metal riffs, with classic dub,” exclaimed Jenifer while Dr. Know called Into The Future “the purest Bad Brains recordings since the ROIR cassette.”

Art BlakeyWitch Doctor LP (Blue Note)

Recorded in 1961, but not released until 1967, The Witch Doctor features one of Art Blakey & The Jazz Messengers’ all-time great line-ups: Wayne Shorter on tenor saxophone, Lee Morgan on trumpet, Bobby Timmons on piano, and Jymie Merritt on bass. Shorter and Morgan each contribute two tunes, with Timmons penning one. Highlights include Morgan’s spectacular 6/8 modal piece “Afrique” and Shorter’s minor masterpiece “Those Who Sit And Wait.” Bobby Timmons brings the deep soul goods on his composition “A Little Busy,” and the album closes with a fleet-footed romp through Clifford Jordan’s tune “Lost And Found.” Blue Note Records’ Tone Poet Audiophile Vinyl Reissue Series is produced by Joe Harley and features all-analog, mastered-from-the-original-master-tape 180g audiophile vinyl reissues in deluxe gatefold packaging. Mastering is by Kevin Gray (Cohearent Audio) and vinyl is manufactured at Record Technology Incorporated (RTI).

Crowded House Dreamers Are Waiting CD/LP (BMG)

Iconic band Crowded House led by Neil Finn returns with new music after almost 10 years.

Night BeatsOutlaw R&B CD/LP (Cooking Vinyl)
Available on limited edition colored vinyl. Night Beats, the Texas-born brainchild of Danny Lee Blackwell, are releasing their fifth full-length album Outlaw R&B via Fuzz Club. Made during the height of the California wildfires (where Danny now resides), rioting in the streets and a nation in lockdown, Outlaw R&B deals in a psychedelic and R&B-infused garage-rock sound that’s “bathed in post-apocalyptic bliss”. With four albums now behind them – Night Beats have garnered a reputation as one of the finest purveyors of contemporary rock’n’roll hedonism around.

Liz Phair Soberish CD/LP (Chrysalis)

Liz Phair brashly but effortlessly drops lyrical nuggets into her melody-driven, lo-fi songs. Over a decade since her last record was released, Liz Phair now returns with another bagful of fireworks already fizzing to be let off in the shape of new album Soberish. Liz maintains the sass that propelled her to become such a critical darling, and that innate ear for melody and razor sharp way with words.” Hey Lou” is the record’s opening gambit, a mischievous ode to Lou Reed and Laurie Anderson, and Liz’s jaunty lament back into our ears. Welcome back Miss Phair, we’ve missed you.

UnsaneImprovised Munitions & Demos LP (Lamb Unlimited)

Improvised Munitions is the unreleased first Unsane album originally slated to be released in 1989 by Circuit Records. Following the band’s approval of the test pressings, Circuit folded. A huge letdown at the time, Unsane managed to use a couple of tracks for singles and re-recorded some of the tracks to put on the first full length for Matador. Years went by when a rumor that someone actually had a copy of the test pressing. Unsane were able to copy and remaster it, and have included 4 tracks of the earliest Unsane material that Chris Spencer used to go around to clubs like CBGB’s, ABC No Rio and the Pyramid to try to get shows before they had a record out. Spencer states “for what it’s worth, this is the very beginning of the band Unsane…” 11 tracks featuring the 7 songs from the original concept of Improvised Munitions and 4 songs from a cassette demo. Additionally, the slides for original artwork for Improvised Munitions created by original Unsane bassist Pete Shore and photographer Jens Jurgensen (also member of Boss Hog) has also been found, thus the fully original concept of this album has finally come to fruition.

Wolf AliceBlue Weekend CD/LP (RCA)

Blue Weekend is the highly anticipated third album from one of Britain’s most revered bands, Wolf Alice. Blue Weekend is the follow-up to the band’s 2017 Mercury Prize-winning album Visions of a Life. Personal storytelling is at the core of Blue Weekend, an album that sees Wolf Alice embrace a newfound boldness and vulnerability in equal measure.

Yelle L’ere Du Verseau CD/LP (Recreation Center)

Yelle knows how to surprise us, every time. Every release is different, interesting, yet recognizable and “catchy”. Yelle has this unique way of getting us, even when we don’t get a word, we do get the vibe, and what a vibe! L’Ère du Verseau (Age of Aquarius) is like visiting a house where each room is fascinating, rooms where you want to dance, rooms where you want to think, even a room to cry! This 4th album confirms again that we can trust this band. Trusting Yelle is good for your health.

Mike Cooley/Patterson Hood/Jason Isbell  – Live at the Shoals Theatre 4LP (Southeastern)

Jason Isbell reunited with former Drive-By Truckers bandmates Mike Cooley and Patterson Hood for a benefit concert at Shoals Theatre in Florence, Alabama on June 15, 2014. 4LP, indie exclusive colored vinyl.

Chris ThileLaysongs CD/LP (Nonesuch)

The album is his first truly solo album: just Thile, his voice, and his mandolin, on new recordings of six original songs and three covers, all of which contextualize and banter with his ideas about spirituality. Recorded in a converted upstate New York church during the pandemic, Laysongs‘ centerpiece is the three-part “Salt (in the Wounds) of the Earth,” which was inspired by C.S. Lewis’s The Screwtape Letters. The album also features a song Thile wrote about Dionysus; a performance of the fourth movement of Béla Bartók’s Sonata for Solo Violin; “God Is Alive, Magic Is Afoot” based on Buffy Sainte-Marie’s adaptation of a Leonard Cohen poem; a cover of bluegrass legend Hazel Dickens’ “Won’t You Come and Sing for Me;” and an original instrumental loosely modeled after the Prelude from J.S. Bach’s Partita for Solo Violin in E Major.

Gary Louris Jump For Joy CD/LP

Written, performed and produced entirely by Gary Louris (The Jayhawks) himself, Jump For Joy is The Jayhawks founder’s first solo release since 2008’s Vagabonds and features cover art illustrated by his son, Henry Louris. Lyrically, it’s my view on the world and how only when we ‘stand still, watch time passing around you’ can one truly be here now.” Available on limited colored vinyl.

Various ArtistsStrong Love: Songs Of Gay Liberation 1972-1981 LP (Chapter)

On limited Baby Pink vinyl. Originally released on CD in 2012, Chapter’s landmark compilation of 70s gay musical pioneers gets a vinyl release for the first time ever – and on pink vinyl to boot! Strong Love explores the first wave of openly gay songwriting, emerging after New York’s Stonewall Riots kickstarted the modern gay rights movement in 1969. It took just a few years for the defiant chanting and interlocked arms of early 70s pride marches to reverberate onto record, and Strong Love begins with the earliest known example, 1972’s A Gay Song by London hippie collective Everyone Involved. Across 15 tracks, the compilation takes in disarmingly personal folk, uplifting soul, outsider country and dark synth-rock.

COMING NEXT WEEK!

JESSIE WAREWhat’s Your Pleasure (Platinum Pleasure Edition) CD/LP
JULIAN LAGESquint CD/LP
AFIBodies CD
GARBAGE No Gods No Masters CD/LP
SPIRITUALIZEDPure Phase CD
RYAN ADAMS Big Colors CD
BAD BRAINS Self-Titled CD/LP
DAUGHTERSCanada Songs LP
GREEN JELLY –  Garbage Band Kids LP
OF MONTREALSunlandic Twins LP reissue
PORTUGAL THE MAN Oregon City Session CD/LP
ALBUM LEAF – OST LP
ISLANDSIslomaian CD/LP
RHIANNON GIDDENSThey’re Calling Me Home LP