Robert Glasper – Black Radio III CD/2xLP (Loma Vista Recordings)
Four-time Grammy Award-winning artist and producer Robert Glasper delivers his highly anticipated third installment to the Black Radio album series. Black Radio III, much like both of its predecessors (2012’s Black Radio and 2013’s Black Radio 2), is a cultural moment that celebrates black love and resilience, features an eclectic group of talented collaborators, and is composed by Glasper who the New York Times proclaims is “probably the most prominent jazz musician of his generation.” [A limited-edition indie store exclusive lime green w/ yellow marble color vinyl pressing is available.]

Sturgill Simpson – The Ballad Of Dood & Juanita LP (High Top Mountain)
Released last August on CD – now available on black and limited edition “natural colored” vinyl. Inspired by such classic concept albums as Willie Nelson’s Red-Headed Stranger, Sturgill Simpson’s The Ballad of Dood & Juanita is the Grammy-winning singer/songwriter’s third album in twelve months, and his most ambitious project to date. Written and recorded in less than a week and featuring the same ace musicians who played on 2020’s Cuttin’ Grass albums, the record tells a classic American story of a Civil War-era couple torn apart by violence and reunited by love – what Sturgill calls “a simple tale of either redemption or revenge.” The Ballad Of Dood & Juanita is Simpson’s first album of all new original music since the release of 2019’s Grammy-nominated Sound & Fury. Special guest Willie Nelson is the featured lead guitarist on the track “Juanita.”

Lo Moon – A Modern Life CD/LP (STRNGER Recordings)
Like pausing a VHS tape, music freezes the frenetic motion of daily existence. Even if just for an instant, it calms the feedback loop of routine, engages respite, and provides perspective. Siphoning guitar transmissions and a dynamic vocal push-and-pull through a lens of cinematic production, Lo Moon deftly balance expansive soundscapes and eloquent songcraft. The Los Angeles based quartet ultimately use music to make sense of each day on their sophomore offering, A Modern Life. Following a tour with CHVRCHES, the musicians entered the studio with producer Yves Rothman (Yves Tumor, Miya Folick) to record what would become their next body of work. Their old friend Chris Walla (Death Cab For Cutie), who co-produced their debut, eventually joined them for some of the finishing touches on the album A Modern Life. [A limited-edition indie store exclusive clear vinyl pressing is available.]

Johnny Marr – Fever Dreams Pts 1 – 4 CD (BMG)
CD now, LP soon. In the wake of his time leading The Healers, Johnny Marr’s solo career has given rise to three UK Top Ten albums – The Messenger (2013), Playland (2014) and 2018’s Call The Comet. He now returns with his most expansive work to date, Fever Dreams Pts 1 – 4. It was created during the long, uncertain period that followed the arrival of the UK’s first lockdown, when his focus was pushed into both his interior life and evoking the emotional states of others. “It’s an inspired record, and I couldn’t wait to get in and record every day,” he says. “But I had to go inwards.” The new album reflects his multi-faceted past but takes his music somewhere startlingly new. “There’s a set of influences and a very broad sound that I’ve been developing – really since getting out of The Smiths,” he says. “And I hear it in this record. There are so many strands of music in it. I think it’s the most ambitious solo record I’ve done.”

Puscifer – Existential Reckoning: Live At Aconsanti 2xLP (BMG)
On October 30, 2020, Puscifer held a limited streaming event of a pre-recorded, pre-edited concert film featuring the band performing their newest album Existential Reckoning in its entirety at Arcosanti, Arizona. Here is a recording of that release. Limited!

Deerhoof – Actually You Can LP (Joyful Noise)
Released last October on CD – now available on olive green color vinyl. Over eighteen boundless albums as experimental as they are pop, Deerhoof has continuously quested for radical sounds and daring storytelling. 2020’s Future Teenage Cave Artists explored fairytale visions of post-apocalypse, welding intrinsic melodies with absurdist digital recording methods. It’s sequel Love-Lore, a live covers medley, channeled futurist mid-century artists – Parliament, Sun Ra and Stockhausen, to name a handful – into a patchwork love letter to the anti-authoritarian expressions that inspire the band. Galvanized by the challenge of unifying many styles of music, Deerhoof landed on their next record’s concept: baroque gone DIY. Actually, You Can is a genre-abundant record that uses technicolor vibrancy and arpeggiated muscularity to offer a vital shock from capitalism’s purgatorial hold.

Carson McHone – Still Life CD/LP+MP3 (Merge)
Carson McHone’s new album, Still Life, quivers like a tightrope, with songs about existing within the tension of the in between and surviving beyond the breaking point. These are stories of sabotage, confusion, and surrender. The album is a testament to the effort of reaching, sometimes flailing, for understanding and for balance. Still Life invites us to gasp at our own reflection and acknowledge the unsettling beauty in this breath. McHone wrote the songs of Still Life in quiet moments between tours in her hometown of Austin, then recorded in Ontario with Canadian musician and producer Daniel Romano. The phrasing and tones recall John Cale, The Kinks, Richard and Linda Thompson – like-minded artists of the late ’60s and early ’70s, another era of transition and innovation. [A limited-edition indie store exclusive purple color vinyl pressing is due March 11.]

The Moldy Peaches – Origin Story: 1994–1999 CD/LP/Cassette (ORG Music)
Adam Green and Kimya Dawson originally crossed paths at an open mic night in Mount Kisco, New York in the early ‘90s. From there they went on to record a surplus of home recordings with various friends under the moniker The Moldy Peaches, and eventually became staples in the NYC anti-folk scene of the late ‘90s/early 2000s. After releasing several albums that gained traction in the US and UK, the group broke into the mainstream when their song “Anyone Else But You” appeared in the hit indie film Juno (2007). Origin Story: 1994–1999 is a collection of songs, unreleased demos, live tracks, and poems from the early years of The Moldy Peaches and outlines the tale of how the band came to be. Liner notes written by Adam and Kimya detail the stories behind each track and rare photos included in the packaging help to illustrate the life and times of the duo when they were young.

Superchunk – Wild Loneliness CD/LP+MP3 (Merge)
Like every record Superchunk has made over the last thirty-some years, Wild Loneliness is unskippably excellent and infectious. It’s a blend of stripped-down and lush, electric and acoustic, highs and lows. On Wild Loneliness you’ll hear echoes of Come Pick Me Up, Here’s To Shutting Up, and Majesty Shredding. After the justifiable anger of What A Time to Be Alive, this new record is less about what we’ve lost in these harrowing times and more about what we have to be thankful for. It feels like the band is refocusing on possibility here, and possibility is built into the songs themselves, in the sweet surprises tucked inside them. The “secret ingredient” – is always surprise. [A limited-edition indie store exclusive green and yellow color vinyl pressing is available.]

Tears For Fears – The Tipping Point CD/LP/Cassette (Concord)
Some forty years into one of music’s most impactful partnerships, Tears For Fears has arrived together at The Tipping Point – the group’s ambitious, accomplished and surprising first new studio album in nearly two decades. An inspired song cycle that vividly recalls the depth and emotional force of the group’s earliest triumphs, The Tipping Point is the bold, beautiful and powerful sound of Tears For Fears finding themselves together all over again. The Tipping Point sees Orzabal and Smith joined by longtime collaborator Charlton Pettus, along with producers and songwriters Sacha Skarbek and Florian Reutter. “Before everything went so right with this album, everything first had to go wrong,” says Roland Orzabal. “It took years, but something happens when we put our heads together. We’ve got this balance, this push-me-pull-you thing – and it works really well.” [Indie store exclusive editions of the CD (digipak), vinyl (green color) and cassette are available.]

Gang Of Youths – Angel In Realtime CD (WB)
Gang Of Youth’s new music fuses their knack of soaring melodies, indelible hooks, and dynamic rock uplifts with a love of neoclassical, minimalist composers and experimental sampling. They’re embarking on the most vital phase of their career so far. Although the album is eclectic – influences range from American minimalism and contemporary classical, to drawing upon the legacy of Britain’s alternative/indie scenes, from drum ‘n’ bass to the most transcendent moments of Britpop – it’s equally rooted in David Le’aupepe’s Samoan heritage, with most tracks featuring samples from David Fanshawe’s recordings of indigenous music from the Polynesian islands and the wider South Pacific. [A limited-edition indie store exclusive pink color vinyl pressing is due March 18.]

Blood Incantation – Timewave Zero CD (Century Media)
Spawned in 2011, Blood Incantation has spent the past decade establishing a reputation for creating powerful atmospheric death metal with progressive elements, while gradually incorporating more psychedelic and ambient components with each new release. Epitomizing their cosmic essence and experimental nature, Timewave Zero reveals an alternate dimension for experiencing the mind-bending songwriting of Blood Incantation´s dense otherworldly sonic landscapes – beyond the limitations of genre and free to travel among the stars. Echoes of Tangerine Dream, Pink Floyd, Lustmord, Popol Vuh and Dead Can Dance synthesize in an archaic planetarium soundtrack, taking the listener on a cinematic journey.

Dashboard Confessional – All The Truth That I Can Tell CD (Hidden Note)
Dashboard Confessional’s ninth studio album, All The Truth That I Can Tell, is both a remarkable renewal and fortunate step forward for the band’s songwriter, front man, and founder, Chris Carrabba. All The Truth That I Can Tell stands among Carrabba’s finest – a strikingly potent musical look at himself through a rediscovered keyhole, both an achievement of vision and a vital burst of artistic clarity; less like reading someone’s diary and more like reading their eyes.

Sasami – Squeeze CD/LP+MP3 (Domino)
Sasami (Sasami Ashworth) releases her second studio album. Squeeze hammers home a sentiment of ‘anti-toxic positivity’ and showcases her vicious honesty and brutally uncompromising vision, partially inspired by the Japanese y’kai folk spirit called Nure-onna (translation: wet woman), a vampiric deity that has the head of a woman and the body of a snake. [An indie store exclusive vinyl pressing is available.] Huge departure from her previous work.