New Releases & Staff Picks – 11/19/21
Staff Picks
Lindsay – Andy Shauf, Helvetia, Colter Wall
Zach – Beach Fossils
Kimber – Beach Fossils and Andy Shauf
Caleb – Helvetia
Dario – Andy Shauf and Charles Mingus
Few artists are storytellers as deft and disarmingly observational as Andy Shauf. The Toronto-based, Saskatchewan-raised musician’s songs unfold like short fiction: they’re densely layered with colorful characters and a rich emotional depth. Like he’s done throughout his career, Shauf wrote, performed, arranged, and produced every song on his new album Wilds at his studio space in the west end of Toronto.
Helvetia – Essential Aliens CD/LP (Joyful Noise)
Helvetia is the solo project of Jason Albertini from Duster. Essential Aliens distills and simplifies the Helvetia sound. Reverb and delay are absent, replaced by warm fuzz and intimate room sounds. Progressions morph with stoner repetition and end in head scratch. Drums distort, muted bass lines prop up acoustic guitars blown out on a cassette four-track. Cheap electric guitars are barely in tune and recorded direct, almost painfully in your face. The songs are short blasts of psychedelic chill, unrooted by genre, a rummage around an alien radio dial. [A limited-edition clear vinyl pressing is also available.]
Available on CD, 2LP 180 gram gatefold jacket and indie exclusive LP with alternate cover art! In 2007, Robert Plant & Alison Krauss released Raising Sand, one of the most acclaimed albums of the 21st Century. It was an unlikely, mesmerizing pairing of one of rock’s greatest frontmen with one of country music’s finest and most honored artists, produced by the legendary T Bone Burnett. Now, after 14 years, they return with Raise the Roof, 12 songs from a range of traditions and styles that extend this remarkable collaboration in new and thrilling directions.
CD and Cassette now, LP Jan 14th. Inspired by a love of artists such as Bill Evans, Lester Young, Chet Baker and Vince Guaraldi, Dustin Payseur reimagines some of his greatest hits from the Beach Fossils catalog alongside a group of formally trained jazz musicians. A rich and mellow mix of piano, saxophone, upright bass and brushed drums explore the contours of familiar songs, soaring Payseur’s melancholic harmonies to new heights.
Aesop Rock – Labor Days [Reissue/2001] 2xLP (Block Block Chop)
Limited color vinyl pressing of the third studio album by Aesop Rock, originally released by EL-P’s Definitive Jux label in 2001. The 14-track double album is regarded as Aesop’s definitive collection, featuring production work from Blockhead and Omega One and guest appearances from the likes of Illogic and C-Rayz-Walz. Dark dense beats and intricate rhyme flows weave in and out on this conceptual album about work.
King Gizzard And The Lizard Wizard – L.W. Live In Australia LP (We Are Busy Bodies)
Live, bootlegger version of L.W. compiled from 2021 Australian performances. Mastered by Noah Mintz of Lacquer Channel Mastering. The album features a reverse groove and is pressed on clear vinyl.
The Weeknd – The Highlights LP (XO Records)
Double vinyl LP pressing. 2021 release, a career-spanning album from The Weeknd pulling together a collection of his biggest songs from the last ten years.
Wiz Khalifa – Rolling Papers LP reissue (Atlantic)
Cold War Kids – New Age Norms 3 LP (Cwktwo)
Lucinda Williams – Lu’s Jukebox Vol. 5: Have Yourself A Rockin’ Little Christmas With Lucinda CD/LP (Highway 20)
While the first four installments of Lu’s Jukebox found Williams tackling Tom Petty, southern soul, Bob Dylan, and ‘60s country classics, Lu’s Jukebox Vol. 5 sees the Grammy-winner spreading a little Christmas cheer with takes on “Run Run Rudolph”, “Merry Christmas, Baby”, “Please Come Home For Christmas”, and “Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas” among others.
Cody Jinks – Mercy LP (Late August)
What Cody Jinks has become is arguably the preeminent independent artist in all of country music. Sure, you could also cite Tyler Childers, or maybe Sturgill Simpson as candidates for that position. But both had their dalliances with major labels, while Cody Jinks has now gone completely independent, with no label support at all. In fact, this new release didn’t even employ a publicist to help promote it. It’s just Cody, and his fans. Available on black and opaque white vinyl.
Charles Mingus – The Black Saint and the Sinner Lady (Verve Acoustic Sounds Series) LP (Verve)
Described by Mingus himself as “ethnic folk-dance music,” The Black Saint & The Sinner Lady is a single song cycle rather than a traditional jazz album of separate tracks. The intricate arrangements and raw emotional swings of the piece make it a highlight of Mingus’ career, and one of the most compelling listens in jazz.
Converge – Bloodmoon: I CD (Epitaph)
CD now, limited-edition indie store exclusive vinyl due June 24. Converge release their new album with Chelsea Wolfe, her frequent collaborator and bandmate Ben Chisholm, and Cave In’s Stephen Brodsky. It’s called Bloodmoon: I and was produced by Converge’s Kurt Ballou, and the musicians began collaborating for the prospective project in 2016. “The project stretched my vocals in new ways,” Wolfe said in a statement. “It’s so different from what I normally sing over that I was able to open up and be vulnerable with my vocals.”
Jackie Mittoo – The Keyboard King At Studio One [Reissue/2001] 2xLP (Soul Jazz)
20th anniversary special one-off pressing blue color vinyl gatefold sleeve edition. This compilation features music Mittoo recorded as a solo artist (as opposed to the numerous singers that he accompanied). Most of these are taken from his recordings in the mid-‘60s where he was recording on an almost daily basis at Studio One’s Brentford Road studios developing the funky reggae sound that was his trademark.
Sharon Van Etten – Silent Night b/w Blue Christmas 7” (Jagjaguwar)
Clear blue color vinyl single. “Silent Night“ was recorded in 2018 for the Holiday Short Film, The Letter by Eric Paschal Johnson and received a Vimeo Staff Pick Award and is now available on vinyl for the first time. The B-side is Van Etten’s cover of the holiday classic “Blue Christmas,” which was originally recorded for a benefit album called Do You EAR What I Ear in 2009 for the Association to Benefit Children, an outstanding New York-based service dedicated to permanently breaking the cycles of abuse, neglect, sickness and homelessness among disadvantaged children and their families.
Various Artists [Coldcut] – @0 2xLP (Ahead Of Our Time)
@0 is a collection of ambient tracks – curated by Coldcut – to benefit mental health, featuring some incredible names in the ambient world including Sigur Rós, Julianna Barwick, Ryuichi Sakamoto, Suzanne Ciani, Laraaji, Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith, A Winged Victory For The Sullen, and many more.
Thrice – Horizons / East LP (Epitaph)
With Horizons/East, Dustin Kensrue and his bandmates address, with candor and courage, the fragile and awkward arrangements that pass for civilization, while inviting us to dwell more knowingly within our own lives. Without surrendering any of the energy and hard edge of their previous albums, they’ve given us a profoundly meditative work which serves as a musical summons to everyday attentiveness.