Staff Picks
Lindsay – Neko Case and Kieran Hebden & William Tyler
Caleb – Kieran Hebden & William Tyler
Dario – Jonny Benavidez
Zach – Arthur Russell, Alex G, and Spirit of the Beehive reissues
Kimber – Neko Case

NEKO CASE – Wild Creatures CD/LP (Anti)
Wild Creatures is a career retrospective album containing twenty-three of Neko Case’s most impactful tracks from her discography, plus one new, exclusive track. Available on CD and 2 LP, black and indie exclusive colored.  With a career spanning over twenty years, she has famously collaborated with The New Pornographers and Case/Lang/Veirs in addition to releasing many critically acclaimed solo albums, including Fox Confessor Brings The Flood, Middle Cyclone and most recently 2018’s Hell-On. Gathering power year after year, Neko sings with the fierce abandon of a newborn infant crying in a basket in the woods. Since escaping the labels of country and Americana, the gorgeous train-whistle vocals of her early career sit submerged in her later style, where their ghost can appear any minute. When her voice jumps an octave, it’s almost visible, like sparks at night.

ARTHUR RUSSELL – Picture Of A Bunny Rabbit CD/LP (Audika)
In 1986 Arthur Russell was diagnosed with HIV, that same year he released his career-defining masterpiece World of Echo, the first and only solo album issued during his lifetime. Arthur had found his voice and a fresh direction with a set of new, transformative material, unlike anything he or anyone else had previously released. His illness ensured that the artistic growth and sense of exploration encapsulated in World of Echo would be tragically curtailed. Within six short years he was gone. His final years were filled with a renewed commitment to creativity and unceasing live and recording work. Picture of Bunny Rabbit features nine previously unreleased performances from this era compiled from completed masters culled from two unique test pressings. A further four tracks were discovered in his tape archive. The bulk of the material was recorded with engineer Eric Liljestrand at Battery Sound Studios NYC and at Arthur’s apartment studio in the East Village.

LUCINDA WILLIAMS – Stories From A Rock n Roll Heart CD/LP (Highway 20)
Lucinda Williams, a celebrated singer-songwriter known for her powerful storytelling and emotional authenticity releases her 15th studio album titled, Stories from a Rock N Roll Heart. The album features guest appearances from Bruce Springsteen, Margo Price, and Angel Olsen among others. This album features an all star cast of musicians as well, featuring members of Tom Petty’s Heartbreakers and The Replacements. Throughout her career, Lucinda has been honored with numerous accolades, including three Grammy Awards, a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Americana Music Association and induction into the Louisiana Music Hall of Fame. Rolling Stone describes her as “one of America’s best songwriters.”

FRANK ZAPPA – Funky Nothingness LP (Zappa Records)
Funky Nothingness is the “lost album” sequel to the iconic Hot Rats (1969). Primarily recorded at The Record Plant studio in 1970, it contains mostly unreleased compositions and jams featuring Don “Sugarcane” Harris and newcomer Aynsley Dunbar. Titled by Zappa himself, this compilation contains vintage FZ mixes with modern mixes by Craig Parker Adams. The 2 LP set is mastered by John Polito with lacquers cut by Chris Bellman on 180-gram black vinyl.

SUN RA – The Space Age is Here to Stay LP (Modern Harmonic)
Modern Harmonic proudly presents The Space Age Is Here To Stay, the very first collection of Sun Ra’s vocal tracks — two albums’ worth of mind-blowing tunes from the mind of the Man from Saturn himself. Your choice of CD or 2LPs wrapped in a gorgeous package featuring artwork by the king of space-age art himself, Chesley Bonestell. Includes extensive liner notes from Charles Blass of Sun Radio. Cue this one up and get ready to visit other worlds in Sun Ra’s jazz rocket ship!

KHRAUNGBIN & NUBYA GARCIA – Live at Radio City Music Hall LP (Dead Oceans)
Live at Radio City Music Hall features performances by Nubya Garcia and Khruangbin. It’s only fitting that Khruangbin’s first-ever official live releases would be albums paired with their tourmates: artists whose music they love and admire, friends who’ve become family along the way. Khruangbin’s series of live LPs traces just one small slice of the band’s flight plan through the years: it’s a taste of some of their most beloved cities, stages and nights. Each release comes with a limited-edition unique album cover exclusive for the recording’s home turf, just a little something extra for the fans that bring a little something extra. Most of all, this series ignites both sides of the band’s magic: the warm, prismatic feeling of their albums and the bewitching energy of their performances.

THE BODY – I Shall Die Here / Earth Triumphant  LP (RVNG)
I Shall Die Here / Earth Triumphant is an expanded edition of the fourth full-length album by The Body, first released to widespread acclaim, and terror, in 2014. Sharing their moribund vision with Bobby Krlic, aka The Haxan Cloak, the tried and true sound of The Body is mutilated by process and re-animated in a spectral state on I Shall Die Here. This double album set is expanded with the previously unreleased Earth Triumphant, a full-length companion album that would become I Shall Die Here, showcasing The Body’s brutality in its most primal form. With both albums revisited  by The Body and  Seth Manchester at Machines With Magnets and remastered by Matt Colton at Metropolis Studios, this is the definitive edition of a shocking classic of unbridled bleakness and innovation.

KIERAN HEBDEN & WILLIAM TYLER – Darkness, Darkness / No Services 12” (Psychic Hotline)
“Darkness, Darkness” and “No Services” are two songs performed by Kieran Hebden and William Tyler. This is the first collaboration between Hebden, the producer and electronic musician also known as Four Tet, and Tyler, the Nashville-based guitarist and composer. William Tyler’s guitar parts for “Darkness, Darkness” were recorded by Jake Davis at Huge Planet in Nashville; his performance for “No Services” was recorded at The Tank in Rangely, CO. The lacquer for this release was cut by acclaimed mastering engineer Kevin Gray and pressed by Citizen Vinyl in Asheville, NC.

BODY OF LIGHT – Bitter Reflection CD/LP (Dais)
The latest by Arizona desert brotherhood Alex and Andrew Jarson aka Body Of Light further hones their smoldering strain of tempestuous synth-pop into a transformative suite of anthems, reveries, and reckonings: Bitter Reflection. Written in the wake of 2019’s neo-EBM classic, Time To Kill, they sifted inspiration from hidden moments within their own arcana – childhood tapes, home movies, abandoned demos – asking themselves the question: “How can we make this grow?” Sampled snippets of voice, noise, synth, and field recordings flicker in the periphery of these 11 tracks, murmuring like nostalgias half-forgotten, or displaced memories. It’s music pulled between twin flames of truth and desire, romanticization and reality, catharsis and control, born of a bond sealed by years, dreams, and blood.

GRIAN CHATTEN – Chaos For The Fly CD/LP (Partisan)
Chaos For The Fly is the debut solo album from Grian Chatten, vocalist of Dublin’s critically-acclaimed band Fontaines D.C. Rare moments of respite from a relentless touring schedule afforded Chatten the opportunity to start work on something for himself, occupying a completely different headspace from his hugely successful work within Fontaines D.C. Co-produced by the band’s longstanding producer Dan Carey, the album is arguably the most poetic we’ve heard from Chatten. Each song here has a sweep of color and textures that breathe life into his lucid tales. Over its nine tracks, Chaos For The Fly is a record that takes in all of life’s rich emotions, transporting the listener to a place you not only want to visit, but will find yourself returning to again and again.

WILL OLDHAM AND LORI DAMIANO – Shorty’s Ark BOOK (Drag City)
Shorty’s Ark is a book for young readers, a collaborative effort between singer Will Oldham and graphic artist Lori Damiano, based on work by Oldham and musician Matt Sweeney. Drawing inspiration from the story of Noah, Shorty’s Ark names and pictures a wild variety of species to inform and engage an equal variety of young minds with the diversity that can be found around this great planet of ours. The flood stands as a metaphor for current impending changes in our planet, and the story works as a springboard for understanding concepts of interdependency, diversity and extinction. Colorfully illustrating as many creatures and their places as possible, Shorty’s Ark is an earth-affirmative vision meant to stimulate the curiosity and passion of those who encounter it.

ALEX G – Live From Union Station LP (Domino)
Super limited, in store purchases only! Hand numbered, limited to 3500.
The album features live renditions recorded over the course of Alex’s three sold-out hometown shows at Philadelphia’s Union Transfer that capped off his 2022 fall headlining tour in November 2022; the 14-song tracklist includes much of his universally acclaimed 2022 album God Save the Animals as well as a selection of favorites from his past catalog.

THE HEAVY – Amen CD/LP (Bad Son)
The Heavy return in 2023 with their sixth album AMEN, an exhilarating maelstrom of ‘60s R&B riffs, horns, and gospel harmonies, which is set to be the freshest and most revitalized record in their canon yet. Their corrupted R&B power is unstoppable and, revived to full blast from the pandemic lull, they’re hurtling into 2023, whipping and writhing with seditious blues drama, soul and gospel passion, the crunch of prime hip-hop and garage punk’s visceral electricity pulsating through  AMEN.

NEU! – NEU! 2 Picture Disc (Groenland Records)
After the considerable success of their self-titled debut album, Klaus Dinger and Michael Rother set out ambitiously to record a follow-up. Virtually everything went wrong. The first of the artistic and personal differences that existed between them not only began to surface, but to flourish in the face of a nearly impossible studio deadline and overly tight budget. While the basic Neu! sound was not an issue, how to augment it was.

KING GEEDORAH – Take Me to Your Leader LP Reissue + 7” (Big Dada)
On the conceptual classic Take Me To Your Leader, MF DOOM takes the form of a giant three-headed lizard from outer space to give you “Geedorah’s alien perspective on humans”. This reissue includes Take Me To Your Leader on 2LP Black Vinyl + “Anti-Matter” on 7” Black Vinyl as a bundle package. For the 20th anniversary edition, we’ve gone for the original red and white artwork, gatefold sleeve. The 7″ is also in original 7″ artwork. 13 tracks all produced, written, recorded, arranged, mixed and mastered by the Metal Fingered Villain himself, MF DOOM. A generation of musicians have grown up in awe of DOOM – he’s influenced and worked with Flying Lotus, Earl Sweatshirt, Madlib, Clams Casino, Danger Mouse, RZA, Ghostface Killah, De La Soul and more.

10,000 MANIACS – Twice Told Tales LP (Cleopatra)
With more than 10 million albums sold, 10,000 Maniacs are proud to present the most ambitious album of their career – a full-length album of interpretations of traditional British Isle folk songs! This unique project combines old world melodies and lyrics with the much loved 10k Maniacs sound as heard on the standout tracks “Misty Moisty Morning,” “Canadee-I-O,” “She Moved Through The Fair” and more! Founding member John Lombardo returned to the fold for this project, contributing guitar to the recording session!

GALACTIC – Tchompitoulas LP (501 Record Club)
Tchompitoulas once again sees Galactic enlisting a diverse array of talent that includes their own vocal powerhouse Anjelika “Jelly” Joseph along with Afro-Cuban rockstar Cimafunk. Also featured on the EP are south Florida rapper Eric Biddines, trumpeter Eric Gordon, and fellow New Orleans legend Glen David Andrews. “In the true collaborative spirit of Galactic, we approached this EP as a way to connect with some of our new favorite singers and rappers including our new (Ish) singer Anjelika ‘Jelly’ Joseph,” says Galactic co-founder/bassist Robert Mercurio. “Recording with a different artist influences our songwriting and can bring out some exciting results. This also gets our creative juices flowing. Only 1500 Made. 180 Gram, Opaque Cafe Au Lait Colored Vinyl

GRANDADDY – Sumday LP [Reissue/2003] (Dangerbird)
Limited white colored vinyl LP pressing. Sumday is the third studio album by indie rock band Grandaddy, originally released in 2003.

GRANDADDY – Sumday: The Cassette Demos LP (Dangerbird)
Complete 4-track demo version of Sumday recorded by Jason Lytle. Available for the first time as part of the Sumday 20th anniversary. [A limited-edition white colorway is available.]

JAPANESE HOUSE – In The End It Always Does LP (Dirty Hit)
Critically acclaimed artist The Japanese House has announced details of her long-awaited sophomore album, In the End It Always Does. Featuring recent single “Boyhood,” much of the album lives in the contradictory: beginnings and endings, obsession and mundanity, falling in love and falling apart. Four years after her widely celebrated debut, Good at Falling, this album sees Amber Bain lean even further into the pop realm whilst elevating her signature sound.

JANELLE MONÁE – The Electric Lady [Reissue/2013] 2xLP (Atlantic)
Janelle Monáe’s The Electric Lady album is pressed on two clear LPs (a one-time pressing). A part of Atlantic Records’ 75th Anniversary vinyl collection.

PHISH – Farmhouse [Reissue/2000] 2xLP (Jemp)
Double vinyl “Northern Lights” pressing housed in foil embossed gatefold jacket. 2000 release, Phish’s ninth full-length studio album. Most songs on the album, including the title track, were derived from 1997 writing sessions at Vermont farmhouses. Farmhouse was recorded and mixed by John Siket in fall 1999 and winter 2000 at The Barn studio in Vermont. Trey arranged the horns for “Gotta Jibboo” (Dave Grippo, Jen Hartswick, Andy Moroz) and strings for “Dirt” and the acoustic instrumental “The Inlaw Josie Wales”, which included Béla Fleck on banjo and Jerry Douglas on dobro.

A PLACE TO BURY STRANGERS – Live At Levitation [Reissue/2021] LP (The Reverb Appreciation Society)
New York City’s loudest band have had their intense live performance captured and immortalized directly to 12″ wax. The post-punk legends are the ninth in the Live At Levitation archival vinyl series. [An indie store exclusive clear w/ pink splatter colorway is available.]

CARRTOONS – Saturday Morning LP (Wichita Recordings)
By public demand – the first physical release for Saturday Morning – the classic mixtape which has been streamed over 10 million times! Saturday Morning is Carrtoon’s debut full length and introduced us to Rae Khalil, Joanna Teters and Julia Zivic who appear on the classic “Homegrown”. After selling out numerous shows in London, Los Angeles and New York and recently touring with Mac Ayers, Carrtoons will be making his Montreal Jazz Festival debut on July 4th followed by a nationwide US tour in October!

SPIRIT OF THE BEEHIVE – Hypnic Jerks LP [Reissue/2018]  (Tiny Engines)
SPIRIT OF THE BEEHIVE – Pleasure Suck LP [Reissue/2017] (Tiny Engines)
Limited-edition color vinyl reissues (translucent orange and pink, respectively). Spirit Of The Beehive have a wide sonic palette within every song, pop rock rhythms and sweet melodies supporting dolefully sung detachment pair with atonal, crushingly heavy noise rock crafted perfectly to necessitate repeat listens. The band often alter their songs live to fit the personal experience of the show itself, and such obsession with mood has proven to be one of their most prevalent strengths.

HAYDEN PEDIGO – The Happiest Times I Ever Ignored LP (Mexican Summer)
Purchase comes with free bowling pin stress ball, while supplies last.
Hayden Pedigo returns with The Happiest Times I Ever Ignored, the West Texas, multi-hyphenate artist’s follow up to his acclaimed 2021 album Letting Go. Produced by Trayer Tryon (Hundred Waters), The Happiest Times finds Hayden crashing the New Age guitar of Windham Hill and John Renbourn into the art provocations of Harmony Korine.

JONNY BENAVIDEZ – My Echo, Shadow and Me LP (Daptone)
In collaboration with Timmion Records, Daptone is proud to present My Echo, Shadow and Me, the debut album from the soulful Chicano brother, Jonny Benavidez. Hailing from San Diego (via El Paso, TX), Jonny’s desire to sing was influenced by his grandfather, John Lorenzo Guzman, who as a teen in the early sixties spent some time harmonizing with groups in El Paso–most notably Sonny Powell and the Night Dreamers. When he was 13, Jonny was given a record player and a box filled with R&B, Doo-Wop, and Soul 45s that he studied obsessively, employing the harmonies and melodies therein to cultivate his own unique voice. After a chance encounter with the legendary Dimas Garza, Jonny’s career began to blossom and soon he would find himself singing alongside stars like Eugene Pitt and Archie Bell–garnering the interest of Timmion Records. 

LOS AMIGOS INVISIBLES – The New Sound of the Venezuelan Gozadera LP [Reissue/1998] (Luaka Bop)
This is a limited anniversary edition of The New Sound of the Venezuelan Gozadera in a celebratory colored vinyl version. We’re calling it 25th-Anniversary-Pot-At-The-End-Of-The-Rainbow Gold. (This 2LP comes in a gatefold jacket.) When Los Amigos Invisibles first released The New Sound—exactly a quarter of a century ago!—it was the ultimate party album. Time has passed, but the party has kept on—and this party music, full of non-stop funked out grooves, is a journey deep into the pants of rhythm. (We won’t even mention the old sound of the Venezuelan Gozadera).

COMING NEXT WEEK!
PJ HARVEY – I Inside The Old Year Dying CD/LP
LOCAL NATIVES – Time Will Wait For No One CD/LP
LITTLE DRAGON – Slugs Of Love CD/LP
ANOHNI + THE JOHNSONS – My Back Was A Bridge For You To Cross CD/LP
VARIOUS – Endless Coloured Ways: Songs Of Nick Drake CD/LP
BETTIE SERVEERT – Palomine LP reissue
CAAMP – Lavender Days LP reissue
CAAMP– By and By LP reissue
CRANES – John Peel Sessions (89-90) LP
DONNAS – American Teenage Rock n Roll Machine LP reissue
DONNAS – Self Titled LP reissue
KING GIZZARD + THE LIZARD WIZARD – Petrodragonic Apocalypse LP
LIFEGUARD – Crowd Can Talk CD/LP
LOVE BATTERY – Confusion Au Go GO LP
TAYLOR SWIFT – Speak Now (Taylor’s Version) LP