Staff Picks
Lindsay – Lee Fields, Preoccupations
Caleb – Guided By Voices
Dario – Roland Kirk reissue
Zach- Drugdealer, Soccer Mommy reissue, Faye Webster
Kimber – Ghost Funk Orchestra

Built to Spill’s beloved second album There’s Nothing Wrong With Love is getting a limited-edition reissue on silver marble vinyl! Originally released on Sept. 13, 1994 via Up Records, There’s Nothing Wrong With Love features a lineup of Doug Martsch, bassist Brett Nelson and drummer Andy Capps with Phil Ek producing.

 

SIOUXSIE AND THE BANSHEES – All Souls LP (Geffen)
All Souls is a collection of Siouxsie and the Banshees tracks curated by Siouxsie Sioux to reflect the supernatural and more macabre side of their music. Mastered at Abbey Road Studios with Siouxsie (who personally oversaw the audio process) and cut at half-speed on 180-gram vinyl. This collection also features new and unique artwork (again overseen by Siouxsie) that will marry the audio and visual aesthetic.

 

LEE FIELDS – Sentimental Fool CD (Daptone)
CD now, LP next week! Lee Fields reunites with Daptone Records and producer Gabriel Roth to bring us Sentimental Fool, a deep, blues-tinged, wholly-conceived soul album. From his first line to his final plaintive lyric, the beauty, power, and raw humanity of Lee’s voice is on full display here; the culmination of an astounding career that has seemed to defy gravity, rising to only greater and greater heights.

 

DEATH CAB FOR CUTIE – Photo Album LP reissue (Barsuk)
Limited 180gm clear vinyl LP pressing. Includes digital download. The Photo Album is the third studio album by Death Cab for Cutie, originally released in 2001. The albums spawned three singles: “A Movie Script Ending”, “I Was a Kaleidoscope”, and “We Laugh Indoors”. Also available as a deluxe version with a bonus EP.

 

PREOCCUPATIONS – Arrangements CD/LP (Preoccupations)
Canada’s Preoccupations return to the post-punk, post-pandemic world with Arrangements. Their 4th studio album finds them restoring their roots with the singular, guitar driven, dissonant yet anthemic washes of intricate noise that has brought them international acclaim since their basement beginnings. For lovers of all things Bowie, Branca, Spacemen 3 and MBV, progressive punk, jangle rock and mangled goth. Arrangements sees Preoccupations finally and confidently inhabiting the dystopia that they have been carefully creating from their musical genesis. They are in a room with taped up windows, except for a tiny pinprick of light beaming from the otherworld onto the far wall, upside down and blurred, it’s recognizable enough to fill you with warm familiarity and nostalgia of unknown origins.

 

GHOST FUNK ORCHESTRA – A New Kind Of Love CD/LP (Colemine)
Each song on Ghost Funk Orchestra’s 3rd album, A New Kind of Love, resonates like the soundtrack to a scene from an imaginary movie. The music could score a romantic drama, an action thriller, or a modern twist on a classic film noir. The spare, cascading vocals accentuate the lush instrumental orchestrations composed, performed, arranged and produced by multi-instrumentalist Seth Applebaum, whose latest brainchild was conceived and conceptualized during The Great Pause of 2020, a time of tension, bewilderment and isolation.

 

GUIDED BY VOICES – Scalping The Guru CD/LP (GBV inc)
Scalping The Guru is an archival Guided by Voices release, envisioned and sequenced by Robert Pollard as a cohesive album, featuring select tracks from four GBV EPs released in 1993-1994 by Domino, City Slang, Siltbreeze and Engine Records. These hard to find records are essential for fans of Vampire On Titus and Bee Thousand, with classics including “My Impression Now,” “Matter Eater Lad,” and “Big School.” They feature the line-up that includes Robert Pollard with Tobin Sprout, Mitch Mitchell, Kevin Fennell, Jim Pollard, Dan Toohey, Greg Demos, and Larry Keller. Recorded on four-track cassette by Tobin Sprout, with some songs lovingly fucked with by Mike Hummel.

 

HAMMERED HULLS – Careening LP (Dischord)
Hammered Hulls’ debut LP, Careening, may very well be the last record to be recorded and mixed at the famed Washington, D.C. area recording studio, Inner Ear. Engineered by studio owner Don Zientara and produced by Ian MacKaye, Careening was started right before the pandemic lockdown and completed in summer/fall of 2021. A new band of long-time players, Hammered Hulls’ music hews close to some of their early influences. Alec MacKaye is the voice, Mark Cisneros is the guitarist, Mary Timony takes a nimble and rarely-heard turn as bassist, and Chris Wilson commands the drums. Each of them bring their individual imprint to the total sound. This concussion of strength upon strength, unified by vulnerable songs, only barely contained, is the signature sound of Hammered Hulls.

 

KYUSS – Blues For The Red Sun LP colored reissue (Elektra)
Limited edition, colored vinyl repress. Blues For The Red Sun was the second studio album by American Stoner Rock band Kyuss, released in 1992. The album incorporates Acid Rock, Grunge, Psychedelic Rock, Space Rock, and Doom Metal, and has been compared to such acts as Black Sabbath, Hawkwind, Blue Cheer, and Alice in Chains. The album is considered a pioneer to the Stoner Metal genre.

 

FUJIYA AND MIYAGI – Slight Variations LP (Impossible Objects of Desire)
Limited blue colored vinyl LP pressing. “We like the idea that if someone were new to us and they played this record it would convey everything that we are about.” To convey the almost 20-year career of the band is to take a deep dive into all forms of electronic music – from pop to house to disco to acid – along with nods to 1970s Germany, psychedelia, funk and art pop. And that’s exactly what this record does, while also capturing the duality of a band who can craft meticulously constructed studio music as seamlessly as they can lock into unpredictable yet infectious grooves on stage.

 

DRUGDEALER – Hiding In Plain Sight CD/LP (Mexican Summer)
The third and most seasoned Drugdealer album, Hiding In Plain Sight, almost didn’t happen at all. Frustrated and insecure with his own singing voice prior to the pandemic, Drugdealer founder and primary songwriter Michael Collins was nearly ready to throw in the towel. While attending Mexican Summer’s annual Marfa Myths festival, a chance encounter with artist and composer Annette Peacock changed his outlook. Collins says, “I told her my plight, then I played her a song, and she told me I wasn’t singing high enough for my speaking voice. When I returned to LA, I started coming up with new progressions, which I’d modulate up three half steps. It forced me to find a new way to sing.” Taking inspiration from a canon of gruff but soulful rock vocalists like Phil Lynott, Nick Lowe, or even Van Morrison, Collins looks back on his nocturnal meanderings through LA’s warrens of bars and clubs. He’s right up front in the mix, detailing a search for love in all the wrong places. AM Gold, down-hard love songs, cosmic country and Rhodes-driven grooves result in the most joyful and fully-realized Drugdealer album to date.

 

DEAD CROSS – II LP (Ipecac)
When Dead Cross released their self-titled debut in the Summer of 2017, Mike Patton, in conversation with Rolling Stone, said “I’m not some young tough guy trying to prove a point anymore. For me to make a record like this, it’s entirely a musical adventure. I just think it’s fun, and it makes me smile a lot.” Visually, and audibly, Dead Cross is a snarling beast from some of music’s most experimental and dare we say, hardcore, musicians: Dave Lombardo (drums), Michael Crain (guitar), Justin Pearson (bass) and the aforementioned Patton on vocals, but at it’s core it’s a group of friends having fun, paying homage to the music they love and asking music fans to come along for the ride. It’s that very friendship that brought the band members back together once again and gave us II, their new release.

 

FOO FIGHTERS – The Essential LP (Sony)
Double vinyl LP pressing in gatefold jacket. 2022 collection. The Essential Foo Fighters is a collection of 21 tracks. Pulled from their studio album discography, the compilation includes a selection of fan favorites and hit singles including “Everlong,” “Best of You,” “All My Life,” “Walk,” “These Days” and many more.

 

Soccer Mommy – Sometimes, Forever,  the immersive and compulsively replayable Soccer Mommy album – cements Sophie Allison’s status as one of the most gifted songwriters in rock today. It finds her broadening the borders of her aesthetic without abandoning the unsparing lyricism and addictive melodies that made earlier songs so easy to obsess over. Sophie enlisted producer Daniel Lopatin whose credits include The Weeknd’s Dawn FM. Limited Edition Indie Exclusive Violet LP.

 

INXS – Shabooh Shoobah LP reissue (Atlantic)
INXS – The Swing LP reissue (Atlantic)
Limited edition colored LP reissues.
 
STOOGES – Self Titled LP reissue (Elektra)
Limited edition colored LP reissue.

 

Finally available on vinyl. And limited edition red vinyl!  Home, Before and After is Regina Spektor’s eighth studio album and most quintessentially “New York” in years. Recorded in upstate New York, produced by John Congleton and co produced by Spektor, the album is Spektor at her most inspired, heralded by “Becoming All Alone, ” a surrealist ballad that swells with arrangements and comes alive in your head.

 

ROLAND KIRK – Here Comes The Whistleman LP (Modern Harmonic)
Limited orange colored vinyl LP pressing. Sightless, peerless, multi-instrumentalist, Roland’s Kirk’s 1967 debut for Atlantic is a monster of a live set from ’65 featuring pianists Lonnie Liston Smith and Jaki Byard, bassist Major Holley and drummer Charles Crosby- all put to tape in Atlantic Studios NYC. Cut all analog.

 

CRYSTAL METHOD – The Trip Out LP (Ultra)
2022 Album Release. This is the 7th full length album of TCM who have been around for 25+ years. The Crystal Method are from the Las Vegas area and originated as a duo featuring guest appearances. The Crystal Method now only consists of Scott Kirkland and this is his 2nd studio album on his own.

 

CHRIS ISAAK – San Francisco Days LP (Sun)
The fourth studio album by rock legend Chris Isaak was originally released in 1993 and subsequently certified gold in the US, Canada and the United Kingdom. Dedicated to the memory of sound consultant Louie Beeson, the album includes the title track “San Francisco Days” in Isaak’s modern blues style, “Two Hearts”, “Can’t Do a Thing” and a cover of Neil Diamond’s “Solitary Man”. The lush, guitar-heavy record features James Calvin Wilsey, Rowland Salley, Danny Gatton, Jeff Watson and Tom Brumley.

 

YANN TIERSEN – 11 5 18 2 5 18 LP (Mute)
Limited double clear vinyl LP pressing with etching and embossed jacket. Reprogrammed, resampled and reimagined, 11 5 18 2 5 18 is a collection of 9 tracks that serve as a translation of Tiersen’s live show, taking songs from his 2021 release Kerber plus additional tracks from his catalog, completely restructured to present a brand new album. With a mesmerizing mix of piano patterns, swirling electronics and dancefloor-ready grooves, these songs continue an exciting new chapter in his career.

 

SEX PISTOLS – Nevermind The Bullocks LP reissue
Limited edition, colored vinyl reissue.

 

APOLLO BROWN + GUILTY SIMPSON – Dice Game LP reissue (Mello Music Group)
Limited edition reissue on splatter vinyl. Apollo Brown is one of the best producers doing classic sample-based hip-hop today. He manages to flip soul samples with boom-bap drums in a way that never sounds anachronistic or tired. Guilty has made a name for himself with his brutal if sometimes inelegant Detroit take on gangsta rap, spitting rough, rugged and raw rhymes about committing crimes, sleeping with your girlfriend, and generally being the scariest dude in the room.

 

TOM WAITS – Alice LP (Epitaph)
Limited 180gm metallic gold colored vinyl LP pressing. 20th Anniversary Edition. Alice is the fourteenth studio album by Tom Waits, originally released in 2002. The album contains most songs written for the play Alice. The adaptation was directed by Robert Wilson, who Waits had previously worked with on the play The Black Rider, and originally set up at the Thalia Theatre in Hamburg in 1992. The play has since been performed in various theatres around the world. The album was co-released with Blood Money, an album containing songs from Wilson and Waits’ 2000 musical Woyzeck.

 

FAYE WEBSTER – Car Therapy Sessions LP (Secretly Canadian)
EP of new and re-imagined songs by Webster recorded at Spacebomb Studios with a 24 piece orchestra. “I have a vivid memory of walking around London in 2018 listening to a mix of Jonny, which I had just written. I remember thinking “I want to perform this song with an orchestra”. I truly have had my heart set on it since then, always talking about it and figuring out how or when to make it happen,” says Webster. On the EP, Webster reimagines three songs from her critically acclaimed 2021 release I Know I’m Funny haha and 2019’s Atlanta Millionaires Club. The songs “Kind Of”, “Sometimes” and “Cheers” take on a cinematic and glimmering new sheen. In addition to the title track -“Car Therapy” – she also shares a sprawling and emotional work – “Suite: Jonny” – which combines fan-favorites “Jonny” and “Jonny (Reprise).” The two songs originally appeared on the Atlanta Millionaire’s Club track-list, two different views on the same narrative.

 

DINOSAUR JR – Beyond LP reissue (Baked Goods)
Celebrating the 15th anniversary since it’s original release, Dinosaur Jr. is reissuing Beyond on limited edition colored vinyl with a special edition white vinyl 7″ featuring album bonus tracks “What If I Knew” / “Yer Son”. With J Mascis on guitar & lead vocals, Lou Barlow on bass and vocals, and Murph on drums, the 2007 album was the first from original lineup Dinosaur Jr. since 1988’s “Bug,” kicking off a Dinosaur Jr. reunion which has lasted longer than the band’s original run.

 

ZOMBIES – Odessey and Oracle LP reissue (Varese Vintage)
Limited edition psychedelic swirl reissue. Odessey and Oracle is a landmark recording that follows Sgt. Peppers’ Lonely Hearts Club Band as among the most influential British rock records from the 1960’s. Mostly recorded at Abbey Road, (using some of the Beatles’ instruments leftover from the Peppers sessions), the album features “Time of the Season” which went to #1 in both the U.S. and Canada.  The album has been cited as a favorite by Dave Grohl, Paul Weller and Tom Petty, who wrote the foreword to The Odessey: The Zombies in Words and Images, a hardcover coffee table book on the album released in 2017.  Odessey and Oracle is an essential record by any measurement and directly responsible for The Zombies’ induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2019.

 

VARIOUS ARTISTS – Bound For Hell LP (Numero)
Bound for Hell is early ’80s L.A. rock as it actually was: a California cataclysm of drunk and horny headbangers, dressed in sharp, shiny, leather androgyny and fire, kicking crowds in the teeth to clear the way to that one big shot. Featuring 21 tracks by 21 of the Sunset Strip’s most razor-sharp heathens. Available as a 2LP box set with an ephemera-stuffed gatefold and 144-page hardbound book.

 

LOU REED – Transformer LP reissue (RCA)
Limited edition colored LP reissue.

 

RIVAL SCHOOLS  – United By Fate LP (Run For Cover)
Rival Schools and Run For Cover Records have teamed up to reissue the band’s iconic 2001 album United By Fate, arriving this fall. Available on vinyl for the first time since 2015, this is the definitive version of United By Fate – a special record that has defined an entire genre of music in the two decades since its initial release.

 

TRAMPLED BY TURTLES – Alpenglow CD/LP (Banjodad)
Produced by Wilco’s Jeff Tweedy, Alpenglow is the Minnesota-based sextet’s tenth album. The album, named after the optical phenomenon that takes place when the sun casts a reddish glow across the mountains at dawn and dusk, opens with the wistful beauty of “It’s So Hard To Hold On”. 10 of the 11 tracks on Alpenglow were written by lead singer Dave Simonett, whose introspective and literate songwriting is the foundation of the unwavering connection the group’s music has with its fervent and ever-growing audience.

 

COMING NEXT WEEK!
FIRST AID KITPalomino CD/LP
PJ HARVEY – B-Sides and Demos + Rarities CD/LP
PHOENIX Alpha Zulu CD
IRIS DEMENT Infamous Angel LP
TINARIWENAmar Iman LP
TINARIWENImidiwan Companions LP
TINARIWENKel Tinariwen LP
DANIEL AVERYUltra Truth CD/LP
SETH AVETT Ultra Truth CD/LP
BAD BRAINSRise LP
LONE BELLOWLove Songs For Losers CD/LP
MENZINGERSOn The Impossible Past LP anniversary edition
NINA NASTASIARiderless Horse LP
SLOPPY JANE + PHOEBE BRIDGERSMy Misery Will Bury You 7″
TURNOVERMyself In The Way CD/LP
LEE FIELDSSentimental Fool LP
VINCE STAPLESRamona Park Broke My Heart LP
JUNIOR BOYSWaiting Game LP
CALEB LANDRY JONESGadzooks CD/LP
WILLIAM FITZSIMMONSCovers Vol 1 LP
TIM KASHERMiddling Age LP
SPOONLucifer On The Moon LP