New Releases & Staff Picks – 10/8/21
Staff Picks
Lindsay – Liam Kazar, BadBadNotGood, and Kit Sebastian
Dario – Jaime Branch and Kit Sebastian
Zach – James Blake, Lala Lala, BadBadNotGood, and Kit Sebastian
Kimber – BadBadNotGood
BadBadNotGood – Talk Memory CD/2xLP (XL)
On Talk Memory, the trio of Alexander Sowinski (drums), Chester Hansen (bass) and Leland Whitty (guitar/woodwinds), return to their instrumental beginnings and pay homage to the musicians, composers, innovators and influences that first informed their work. As a result, the album is an aural odyssey about collective balance and harmony, with all the sense of psychedelic narrative that entails. With guests that include the iconic Brazilian producer and musician Arthur Verocai alongside Laraaji, Terrace Martin, Karriem Riggins, Brandee the Younger, plus the legendary Russell Elevado (D’Angelo’s Voodoo) at the mixing helm, BadBadNotGood have created a heartfelt expression of joy for the music and community they feel lucky to inhabit. Available on black and limited edition white vinyl.
Billy Strings – Renewal 2xLP (Rounder)
Recently released on CD – now available on vinyl. One of the top emerging artists across all genres of music, Billy Strings has made his most ambitious album to date with Renewal, a 16-song collection that effortlessly positions him as a singular talent; one who reveres the history of the acoustic music that inspired him, while pushing it forward into new spaces and audiences through his incredible live shows. Serving as a reflection of Strings’ diverse musical influences, Renewal reaches well beyond bluegrass with elements of heavy metal, jam bands, psychedelic music and classic rock – even though it’s still primarily an acoustic record. The album follows his Grammy Award-winning project, Home, as well as industry recognition ranging from Pollstar’s Breakthrough Artist of the Pandemic to the International Bluegrass Music Association’s Guitar Player of the Year and New Artist of the Year.
Atmosphere – WORD? CD/LP (Rhymesayers)
Steering back toward their signature sound, the album further highlights producer Ant’s undeniable talents as the project leans into the classic boom-bap aesthetic, bringing a unique energy out of Slug’s wisdom, wit and delivery.
Bad Brains – Rock For Light [Reissue/1983] CD/LP (Org Music)
CD and vinyl reissue of the second full-length album by the Washington D.C. hardcore punk band. This reissue marks the fourth release in the remaster campaign, re-launching the Bad Brains Records label imprint.
James Blake – Friends That Break Your Heart CD/2xLP (Republic)
With over two years having passed since the release of his critically acclaimed 2019 album Assume Form, UK singer, and electronic musician James Blake returns with his fifth studio album Friends That Break Your Heart. Said to be a concept album, it features 12 tracks including collaborations with SZA, JID, SwaVay, and Monica Martin. As the first taste of the album, the projects lead single “Say What You Will” hooks listeners into what Blake has to come. The song’s deep production glides in and out as the focus of the track to make room for Blake’s stunning vocals. “The song is about finding peace with who you are and where you’re at regardless of how well other people seem to be doing,” Blake says. “Comparison really is the thief of joy.”
Goat – Headsoup CD/LP+7” (Rocket Recordings)
When a mysterious masked collective called Goat first emerged in 2012, armed with an incendiary debut single ‘Goatman’ and a backstory for the ages – the band’s anonymous members claimed to hail from the remote and cursed village of Korpilombo in northern Sweden, where inhabitants had for centuries been devoted to a form of voodoo introduced by a travelling witch doctor – there was no one else on earth quite like them. Their mythology enticing, their music full of sinuous grooves and manic explosions of fuzz, Goat were outliers from the very beginning. [A limited-edition cyan color vinyl pressing is also available.]
Sleigh Bells – Texis CD (Mom + Pop Music)
Sleigh Bells’ sixth album Texis is the sound of the duo letting go of all hang-ups and inhibitions and allowing themselves to embrace making the sort of loud, colorful, genre-melting music only they could make. “We stopped worrying about whether or not we’re in or out of our comfort zone, or if we were being repetitive or formulaic,” says guitarist and composer Derek Miller. “In the past we were pretty obsessed with tearing up the rule book and starting from scratch for every record as a means to do something new or different,” he says. “For Texis we didn’t worry about any of that stuff, we just pushed the first domino and hoped that something exciting and inspiring would happen.” [Vinyl edition due February 18.]
We Are Scientists – Huffy CD (Masterworks)
Jet-skis ripping across a jewel-green bay. Piña Coladas on ice, shredded in the blender. An alligator drops into a sick-ass guitar solo, then takes the last chorus up a notch with an unusual harmony you simply didn’t see coming. This is Huffy, the brand-new studio album from We Are Scientists. Ten tracks recorded and produced by the band, and mixed by ear-athlete Claudius Mittendorfer, in a package that only you can complete. [Vinyl edition due October 29.]
Snoh Aalegra – Temporary Highs In The Violent Skies LP (Roc Nation)
Recently released on CD – now available on vinyl. Snoh won Best New Artist at the 2020 Soul Train Awards and Best New R&B Artist at the iHeartRadio Music Awards. The artist is also a known commodity in the fashion space having worked with some of the biggest brands and designers in the world.
Domingæ – Æ LP (Sacred Bones)
Musician and filmmaker Domingæ is probably best known as the founder of experimental psych band Föllakzoid. Written whilst stranded in Mexico and Tokyo on her way to a world tour with Föllakzoid, her new debut solo album has taken the decompositional system she devised for the band and added the depth of inner exploration and a symbiotic relationship with musical craft.
Liam Kazar – True North LP (Woodsist)
Liam Kazar makes joyful rock songs so irresistible they feel timeless. Just ask Jeff Tweedy. “I love everything about Liam. His voice, his songs, the way he plays instruments, his smile, his cooking… Everything,” says Tweedy.
Lala Lala – I Want The Door To Open CD/LP (Hardly Art)
Limited clear colored vinyl LP pressing. Coming off of 2018’s acclaimed The Lamb, an introspective indie rock album recorded live with a three-piece band, West knew she was ready to make something sonically bigger and thematically more outward-looking than anything she’d done before; a record that would be less a straightforward documentation of her own personal struggles and more like a poem or a puzzle box, with sonic and lyrical clues that would allow the listener to, as the title says, open the door to the greater meaning of those struggles. The result is I Want The Door To Open, a bold exploration of persona and presence from an artist questioning how to be herself fully in a world where the self is in constant negotiation.
Minus The Bear – Infinity Overhead [Reissue/2012] LP (Dangerbird)
Limited pink color vinyl reissue: part of the Ten Bands One Cause initiative that has raised over $250,000 for Red Door Community, an organization that provides community support for both those diagnosed with cancer and their caretakers. Minus the Bear’s fifth studio full-length album, 2012’s Infinity Overhead, marked not only a return to form in direction, instrumentation and creation but also one of the band’s most aggressive and confident records to date.
Mono – Beyond The Past – Live in London with the Platinum Anniversary Orchestra 2xLP+MP3 (Temporary Residence)
Beyond The Past – Live In London With The Platinum Anniversary Orchestra documents Mono’s extraordinary performance from the Beyond The Past event that celebrated the band’s 20th anniversary, which took place at the historic Barbican Centre in London, England on December 14, 2019. For that once-in-a-lifetime event, Mono selected a memorable lineup of old and new friends, including fellow Japanese underground icons, Boris and Envy, as well as French post-metal legends, Alcest, and UK collaborators A.A. Williams and Jo Quail. [A limited color vinyl pressing is available.]
Kevin Morby – A Night At The Little Los Angeles Sundowner 4-Track Demos LP (Dead Oceans)
“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.” [A limited silver color vinyl pressing is also available.]
The Notorious B.I.G. – Ready To Die [Reissue/1994] 2xLP (Bad Boy)
Vinyl reissue of the debut studio album by the legendary rapper.
Slothrust – Everyone Else [Reissue/2016] LP (Dangerbird)
Limited clear vinyl pressing. Above all the overriding ethos of Slothrust’s Everyone Else is its sense of inclusiveness: all people, every feeling, quiet, loud, any time signature. The band’s 2012 debut Feels Your Pain, and its successor 2014’s Of Course You Do, established the band as a breed apart, serving up deceptively clever epics that veer satisfyingly between incandescent riffing and pop hooks, winsome anxiety and powerful heft.
Full flight capture of the full Fly or Die suite, parts 1 & 2 compounded & flawlessly communicated in a singular epic of raw cosmic brilliance.
Follow-up album to cult-classic debut, Mantra Moderne. Melodi is the second album from captivating duo Kit Sebastian (aka Kit Martin and Merve Erdem). Those familiar with the band’s cult classic 2019 debut record Mantra Moderne will instantly recognise their unique sound that blurs boundaries of world music, jazz and psychedelia. Not to be content replicating the same album, sonically the feel of Melodi is a maturation. It is more diverse and provides glimpses into many different worlds from the Italian Riviera to the mountains of the Caucasus, the beaches of Bahia to the city streets of Istanbul and Paris. This joyous merging of soundscapes evokes a borderless planet with music as an international language, belonging everywhere and nowhere. Melodi is imbued with Kit Sebastian’s love of vintage records and world cinema, but it is not a retro homage. It celebrates its influences but is very much a modern record, being simultaneously brand new and retro.
This debut album from Galactic finds them at their beginning – raw, funky, and adventurous. Includes a full 20+ minutes of previously unreleased bonus material recorded during the original Coolin’ Off sessions.
Kansas City trio BUMMER mirror the absurdity of modern life with a balance of dark humor, dejected nihilism and righteous fury. Their music spills out in torrents of skull-crushing riffs, gargantuan bass and caustic howls delivered at breakneck speed with gleeful abandon. Following their split 7” with longtime friends The Body which teased a more focused, lean sound for the group, Dead Horse hones BUMMER’s auditory desolation and scathing gaze to laser-point precision. In eleven short vignettes the quartet lay waste to everything in their path, penning a vitriolic overview of life in the American Midwest, a surprising blend of one-star Trip Advisor review and insightful cultural critique.
Former 4AD labelmates Ian Masters (Pale Saints) and Warren Defever (His Name Is Alive) use a classic song by the 13th Floor Elevators as a starting point and over the course of a record see it disintegrate as they beam into the heart of the sun. RIYL: Flying Saucer Attack, Texas psych, Matsuo Ono, A.R. Kane, Toru Takemitsu, Hawkwind, Taj Mahal Travellers, astral projection etc. Originally released as a very limited lathe cut in Japan and now being made more widely available as part of Disciples R.A.T.S. series. Clear vinyl. Includes two-sided full colour newsprint poster designed by Alexander Tucker (Thrill Jockey) and download card.