This Week’s New Releases & Staff Picks – 9/7/18
STAFF PICKS
Kimber – Eric Bachmann
Lindsay – Eric Bachmann
Dario – Idles, Mirah
Paula – Mirah, Spiritualized
JUST ANNOUNCED PRE-ORDERS
Charles Bradley – Black Velvet (pre-order)
Bikini Kill – The Singles (pre-order)
Phosphorescent – C’est La Vie (pre-order)
Molly Burch – First Flower (pre-order)
THIS WEEK’S NEW RELEASES
Ghostland Observatory – See You Later Simulator CD/LP (Trashy Moped)
“It’s called See You Later Simulator,” Aaron Behrens says of Ghostland Observatory’s first new album in eight years. “I’ve always been on the sci-fi edge of things, which is just a reflection of being a child of the ‘80s and growing up with video games and computers, but also remembering a time before those things were common. I think all of that comes into play on this record. It’s a real comment on what’s going on right now, and on trying to figure out what’s reality and what’s a simulation.” See You Later Simulator finds Behrens and longtime partner Thomas Ross Turner bouncing back from an extended hiatus to create music that ranks with their most ambitious and timely work with tracks like “Paradise Lost”, “Permanent Vacation” and “Miss Abyss” delivering both uplifting electro-dance-rock and a loose but absorbing storyline.
Paul McCartney – Egypt Station CD/2xLP (Capitol)
Sharing a title with one of Paul McCartney’s own paintings, Egypt Station is the first full album of all-new McCartney music since 2013’s NEW. True to the inspiration behind its title, Egypt Station’s 14 songs combine to convey a unique travelogue vibe. Between the opening and closing instrumentals “Station I” and “Station II”, each song finds Paul capturing a place or moment before transporting the listener seamlessly to the next destination. Stops along the way include an acoustic meditation on present day contentedness (“Happy With You”), a timeless anthem that would fit on virtually any album of any McCartney era (“People Want Peace”), and an epic multi-movement closer clocking in at seven minutes with a song suite structure harkening back to the days of Paul’s previous combos (“Despite Repeated Warnings”). The result is a kaleidoscopic journey through myriad musical locales and eras, yet firmly rooted in the here and now – with Paul’s singular unmistakable melodic and lyrical sensibility serving as a guide. [Deluxe 180gm vinyl pressing with concertina trifold six-panel gatefold packaging also available.]
Pig Destroyer – Head Cage CD/LP (Relapse)
After six long, harsh years of absence, the mighty Pig Destroyer has reassembled to eradicate eardrums and split skulls with their highly anticipated sixth full-length opus, Head Cage (named after a grisly medieval torture device). A visceral vortex of animalistic rage and extreme sonic brilliance, Head Cage is a true work of extreme metal art, that with the addition of a bass player, is one their most dynamic and heaviest recordings. Across 12 tracks, Pig Destroyer weave together harrowing tales of philosophical dualities, touching on mortality and depression, fear and violence, and the darkest complexities of the human condition, all told through the distorted lens of delightfully transgressive vocalist/lyricist JR Hayes. Musically, the band continues to push the boundaries of metal, grindcore, noise and punk, ramping up the intensity and leaving you bludgeoned in a state of utter shock, all in less than 33 minutes.
The Posies – Frosting On The Beater [Reissue/1993] 2xCD (Omnivore)
Double-CD reissue remastered from original tapes and expanded with 31 bonus tracks—15 previously unissued. “We began our career exactly 30-years prior by releasing a home-recorded cassette called Failure, which to our complete surprise became an instant favorite around the Northwest, earning us critical accolades, radio airplay, and major label interest, all in a very short time. We were lucky to find ourselves living just a few doors down the road in Seattle from Arthur “Rick” Roberts and Mike Musburger, who agreed to join our band on bass and drums, respectively. Signed to Geffen Records, we recorded three releases, 1990’s Dear 23, Frosting On The Beater in 1993, and Amazing Disgrace in 1996. The trio of albums remain beloved by our fans; our most popular, most often cited, most requested works. However, over the years, they have either been long out of print or not issued at all depending on the territory. [Vinyl edition due October 5.]
Paul Simon – In The Blue Light CD/LP (Legacy/Sony)
Legendary songwriter, recording artist and performer Paul Simon returns with his fourteenth studio album, In The Blue Light. The album features a talented cast of musicians who have joined Simon to lend fresh perspectives on 10 of the artist’s favorite (though perhaps less-familiar) songs, drawn from his unparalleled body of work. Revisiting his repertoire, Simon has selected songs originally appearing on There Goes Rhymin’ Simon (1973), Still Crazy After All These Years (1975), One-Trick Pony (1980), Hearts And Bones (1983), The Rhythm Of The Saints (1990), You’re The One (2000) and So Beautiful Or So What (2011), refreshing and transforming the compositions through new arrangements and collaborations. Among the many musicians joining Simon on the album are trumpeter Wynton Marsalis, guitarist Bill Frisell, and drummers Jack DeJohnette and Steve Gadd.
Spiritualized – And Nothing Hurt CD/LP+MP3 (Fat Possum)
From the opening lullaby of “A Perfect Miracle” through to the Morse Code fadeout at the close of “Sail On Through”, on And Nothing Hurt, Spiritualized wrap layer upon layer of gloriously transcendent sound together to create a mesmerizing and cinematic collection of songs. There are points where the waves of blissful noise are almost overwhelming – the thunderous climax of “On The Sunshine”; the spectral waltz of “The Prize”; the towering guitar solo on “I’m Your Man” – where one can imagine the studio’s speakers vibrating themselves off of the walls. Which is an incredible feat when you discover that the album was conceived and recorded almost entirely by one man – Jason Pierce aka J.Spaceman – in an upstairs room in his east London home. With no grounding in digital recording, Jason had to learn everything from scratch. [Deluxe white colored vinyl pressing with 24-page booklet and custom two-piece outer box packaging also available.]
Swamp Dogg – Love, Loss, And Auto-Tune CD/LP (Joyful Noise)
In 1970, the Southern soul music maverick Jerry Williams, Jr. made the most radical move of his career. Frustrated with music business politics Williams reinvented himself as Swamp Dogg, an irreverent anti-hero smashing the conventions of commercial R&B music. Swamp Dogg’s debut release Total Destruction To Your Mind featured a post-apocalyptic take on the Muscle Shoals’ sound, with lyrics inspired by the revolutionary politics and psychedelic drugs of the late ‘60s. The music on Total Destruction To Your Mind stood worlds apart from the formulaic pop tunes Williams started cutting in 1954 under the name Little Jerry, and Swamp Dogg hasn’t looked back since. Now, nearly fifty years after his debut release, Swamp Dogg stands on the precipice of another radical reinvention. His latest creation, Love, Loss, and Auto-Tune, is a nine song collection that finds Swamp Dogg’s bluesy southern soul colliding head-on with 21st Century electronic music production techniques.
Idles – Joy As An Act Of Resistance CD/LP (Partisan)
Joy As An Act of Resistance is the follow up to Bristol, UK five-piece Idles’ debut album Brutalism, self-released in 2017. Produced by Space and mixed by Adam Greenspan and Nick Launay (Nick Cave, Kate Bush, Yeah Yeah Yeahs), the 12-track collection takes aim at everything from toxic masculinity, nationalism, immigration, and class inequality – all while maintaining a visceral, infectious positivity. Singer Joe Talbot summarizes: “This album is an attempt to be vulnerable to our audience and to encourage vulnerability; a brave naked smile in this shitty new world. We have stripped back the songs and lyrics to our bare flesh to allow each other to breathe, to celebrate our differences, and act as an ode to communities and the individuals that forge them. Because without our community, we’d be nothing.”
St. Paul & The Broken Bones – Young Sick Camellia CD/LP+MP3 (Records LLC/Red Music)
With Young Sick Camellia, Paul Janeway has created an album based on a concept all-too familiar to him: family, and how we love them despite our differences. Originally envisioning the project as a trio of EPs, each from the perspective of the three generations of Janeway men, he realized he had enough material in the first volume – written from his own vantage – to make a full-length record. Assigning himself the image of a camellia, the Alabama state flower, Janeway uses his lyrics as a conduit for interpersonal conversation and excision, in addition to pieces of an actual conversation with his grandfather he recorded months before his unexpected death. From the opening space-opus of “Convex” to the snappy, buoyant charm of “Apollo” and the intensely personal bent of “LivWithoutU” and the album-ending “Bruised Fruit,” it’s clear that this is a dark, cerebral affair. Young Sick Camellia embraces a variety of sonic experiments and blurs boundary lines, but its focus remains sharply on the titular frontman and his bold, intensely personal and brave examination of his own family tree and how it has shaped him. [Limited brown colored vinyl pressing also available.]
William Elliott Whitmore – Kilonova CD/LP+MP3 (Bloodshot)
Alt-country/folk/blues singer/songwriter William Elliott Whitmore follows up his 2015 album Radium Death with a collection of 10 select cover songs that have influenced his 15+ year career. From The Magnetic Fields, Bad Religion, ZZ Top, Johnny Cash, Bill Withers, Captain Beefheart, Dock Boggs, to Bill Withers and more, each song offers a glimpse into how his attitude and aesthetic were formed, like a series of tattoos and scars.
Eric Bachmann – No Recover CD/LP+MP3 (Merge)
There was something sinister about Crooked Fingers, both the name of the project and the music that Eric Bachmann wrote at the helm of its ever-shifting lineups over 15 years. He retired the moniker a couple of years ago, but with his third album under his own name, the transformation feels gorgeous and final and irreversible: No Recover. The drunken louts and red devil dawns are a thing of the past now, monuments to a different time. Bachmann, husband and recent father, has some new lenses through which to view the world. [Limited colored vinyl pressing also available.]
Clutch – Book of Bad Decisions CD/LP (Weathermaker Music)
Clutch’s twelfth studio album was recorded over three weeks at Sputnik Studios in Nashville, TN with four-time Grammy winning producer Vance Powell (Seasick Steve, The White Stripes, Arctic Monkeys). No stranger to the road, Powell spent three days on tour with the band in order to get a feel for what they do best, watching first from the front of house and then from the stage, checking out the live sound and how Clutch connect with their audience. With each band member contributing riffs to the album there was no shortage of material, each song road-tested long before it reached the studio. [Deluxe edition CD features a 24-page hardcover Clutch art-book package. Limited picture disc vinyl pressing also available.]
Alice Coltrane – Spiritual Eternal–The Complete Warner Bros. Studio Recordings 2xCD (Real Gone Music)
After the death of John Coltrane, Alice Coltrane embarked upon a solo career that was marked with the same uncompromising vision, spiritual probing, and formal innovation as that of her husband. Her first seven solo albums were recorded for the Impulse! label, home to John during the latter part of his career; those records saw her branch out in unexpected ways, introducing new instruments (harp, Wurlitzer organ), new styles (raga, modern classical), and new approaches to recording, even incorporating classical string sections into a “free” musical environment. By the mid-‘70s, however, the Warner Bros. label was aggressively pursuing a number of Impulse! artists, with Alice at the top of the list.
Escape-ism – The Lost Record CD/LP+MP3 (Merge)
“A classic, destined to bewitch the minds, hearts, and dancing shoes of any rock ‘n’ roll fan who happens to discover it, for as long as such creatures exist. Without the high-octane hype machine of the mind-control minstrels who hypnotize the hapless through the mass media, The Lost Record is bound for inevitable obscurity, but – with its timeless tunes, poignant message, and innovative sound – rediscovery and immortal status is equally assured!” [Limited colored vinyl pressing also available.]
Jeff The Brotherhood – Magick Songs CD (Dine Alone)
Magick Songs marks a departure from Jeff The Brotherhood’s previous sound. Elements of ‘80s Japanese experimental music meld with Indonesian Gamelan forms, clever improvisation and abundant hand percussion, and synthesizer. Later, it’s dreamy and ethereal, evoking psychedelic rock and ‘90s indie styles. [Vinyl edition due October 12.]
Lenny Kravitz – Raise Vibration CD/2xLP+CD (BMG Rights)
With his eleventh studio album Lenny Kravitz continues to transcended genre and it promises to be one of the most eclectic of the multi-Grammy winner’s nearly 30-year career. “Low”, the song that got the whole process started, developed into a smooth funk showcase; what Kravitz calls “my Quincy Jones school” complete with horns and a string arrangement. The title track is lean power-trio rock, while the ballad “Here To Love” features Kravitz backed only by his piano and a string section. “Johnny Cash”, inspired by an encounter with the late legend, is what Kravitz calls “psychedelic funk meets country.” As usual, Kravitz plays most of the instruments himself, with longtime guitarist Craig Ross. [Deluxe CD and colored and picture disc vinyl editions in special packaging also available.]
Black Joe Lewis & The Honeybears – The Difference Between Me & You CD (Black Joe Lewis) [Vinyl edition due October 12.]
Sonically inspired by the hill country blues of Junior Kimbrough, cowpunk style of The Gun Club, and the southern soul of Stax, The Difference Between Me & You charts new territory with a heavy stream of lyrical consciousness. Mining his first decade of experience on the road, the record is influenced by a deep repertoire of sounds: the heavy grooves of Albert King, punked-up blues of R.L. Burnside, the storytelling of Bobby “Blue” Bland, and the soulfully layered horns of the Stones, are all omnipresent throughout.
Mirah – Understanding CD/LP (K Records)
Mirah’s sixth full length solo record is a conscious return to her early unconventional recording process – an embrace of spirited imperfection and rawness inclusive of rough takes, natural room sounds and a fair amount of broken equipment. Bathed it he sparkles of disco ball light, Mirah recorded demos with vocals, guitar, organ and percussion in a former army barracks gymnasium at The Headlands Center for the Arts where she spent four weeks as an artist in residence. Once home in Brooklyn, Mirah teamed up with her frequent co-producer Eli Crews (tUnE-yArDs, The Julie Ruin, Son Lux) and invited Deerhoof’s Greg Saunier to join them in the studio. The collaboration sparked new textures and ideas. Building on top of Mirah’s vibrant original tracks they used MIDI to transform a marimba into a distorted farfisa melody, drastically lowered the pitch of vocals until they morphed into sub-bass lines and added layers of distinct timbres from Crews’ extensive vintage synth collection, a mellotron and an ‘80s era Soviet drum machine.
Mothers – Render Another Ugly Method CD/2xLP+MP3 (ANTI-)
Sophomore album from the indie rock band. They describe their new record as “an assemblage of personal vignettes and imagine scenarios that examines consent, escape of the body, power & powerlessness, and the act of making.” [Limited yellow colored vinyl pressing also available.]
Waxahatchee – Great Thunder CDEP/12”+MP3 (Merge)
Katie Crutchfield’s ever-shifting musical project Waxahatchee returns with the Great Thunder EP. Featuring a collection of songs written with now-dormant experimental recording group Great Thunder while Crutchfield was also writing the Waxahatchee albums Cerulean Salt and Ivy Tripp, the original recordings have mostly faded into obscurity. Unearthing and re-imagining them with producer Brad Cook at Justin Vernon’s April Base studio in Wisconsin was a cathartic experience. On the heels of 2017’s critically acclaimed Out In The Storm, Crutchfield found herself looking to take a sharp turn away from the more rock-oriented influences of her recent records towards her more folk and country roots. [Limited colored vinyl pressing also available.]
David Bowie – Zeroes (Radio Edit) b/w Beat Of Your Drum 7” (Rhino/Parlophone)
In anticipation of the David Bowie Loving The Alien box set, Parlophone issues a special 7” vinyl picture disc of “Zeroes” from the newly ‘re-produced’ version of 1987’s Never Let Me Down which is included in the box set.
Colleen Green – Casey’s Tape / Harmontown Loops LP (Infinity Cat)
Many moons ago, Infinity Cat released an EP from L.A.’s own Colleen Green. Referred to by Green as Ramones-Core, this concise collection evoked the spirit of old-fashioned rock ‘n’ roll, applying a heavy layer of classic punk influence to the songwriter’s well-known pop confections. The limited edition tape sold out immediately, and after years of emails, tweets, and letters, Infinity Cat is proud to present Casey’s Tape on vinyl for the first time. Featuring newly recorded versions of the OG cassette on side A and never-before-released tracks created for feral audios Harmontown podcast on side B. Allow yourself to be taken back to a simpler time when the Brill Building bustled and teen punks hustled; when pop music was more about craft than commercialism.
Punch Brothers – All Ashore LP (Nonesuch)
Recently released on CD – now available on vinyl. Punch Brothers’ first self-produced album, All Ashore, includes nine original songs written by the contemporary bluegrass quintet featuring guitarist Chris Eldridge, bassist Paul Kowert, banjo player Noam Pikelny, mandolinist/lead singer Chris Thile, and fiddler Gabe Witcher. As Thile says, the album is “a meditation on committed relationships in the present day, particularly in the present political climate. We were hoping to create something that would be convincing as a complete thought, in this case as a nine-movement, or nine-piece, thought. Though it’s rangy in what it’s talking about, and in the characters who are doing the talking…” Punch Brothers returned to the same room at United Recording Studios in Hollywood (formerly Ocean Way) where they had recorded both 2015’s The Phosphorescent Blues and their 2010 Jon Brion-produced Antifogmatic. Thile says they felt they had “established a rapport” with the space; the same “level of trust and love that breeds confidence” also led them to produce the album themselves, for the first time.
Screaming Trees – Sweet Oblivion [Reissue/1992] LP (Sony)
Vinyl reissue of the 1992 album from the alt-rock band considered to be one of the godfathers of grunge. Although they were one of the best Seattle bands of the early ’90s, they never achieved the commercial success of bands like Nirvana, Pearl Jam and Alice in Chains. Lead singer Mark Lanegan started a very successful solo career after the Screaming Trees, working with the likes of Queens of the Stone Age, Greg Dulli (Afghan Wigs), Isobel Campbell (Belle & Sebastian) and UNKLE.
NEXT WEEK’S NEW RELEASES