Steve Gunn – Other You CD/2xLP+MP3 (Matador)
The sixth studio album by American singer Steve Gunn, Other You, was recorded during two visits to Los Angeles. The relocation was in a way more than geographical – the surroundings, warm climate and tight-knit studio team encouraged Gunn to tap into new approaches, techniques and emotional reservoirs, casting off established notions, habits and hang-ups. A featherlight touch coasts through the album – from the classical guitar and piano interplay and soulful baritone of the title track, nimble drum brush swing at the heart of “Fulton” and “The Painter”, slow-burn kosmische rock of “Protection”, electric piano pulses and majestic tremolo stabs of “Reflection”, to the cascading harps of “Sugar Kiss” – it is easily Gunn’s brightest and most life-affirming work to date. He is assisted by contributions from friends and fellow artists including Juliana Barwick, Mary Lattimore, Bridget St. John, Jeff Parker, Bill MacKay, Ben Bertrand, drummer Ryan Sawyer (TV On The Radio, Thurston Moore, Gang Gang Dance), and others.

J. Cole – Off-Season LP (J. Cole/Dreamville)
Recently released on CD – now available on vinyl. The sixth studio album from the Grammy Award winning recording artist features contributions by 21 Savage, Morray, Bas, Lil Baby and 6LACK.

Halsey – If I Can Have Love, I Want Power CD/LP (Capitol)
“This album is a concept album about the joys and horrors of pregnancy and childbirth. It was very important to me that the cover art conveyed the sentiment of my journey over the past few months. The dichotomy of the Madonna and the Whore. The idea that me as a sexual being and my body as a vessel and gift to my child are two concepts that can co-exist peacefully and powerfully. My body has belonged to the world in many different ways the past few years, and this image is my means of reclaiming my autonomy and establishing my pride and strength as a life force for my human being.”

Yann Tiersen – Kerber CD/LP (Mute)
Kerber is a new chapter in Yann Tiersen’s career. If Portrait was revisiting and reassessing the past, Kerber draws a line under that and looks to the future. Both a follow up to EUSA and an album unlike any Yann has made before. Kerber takes its name from a Chapel in a small village on Ouessant. Influenced by the close geographical area around him, each track is tied to a place, mapping out the direct landscape around Yann’s home. Rather than being a reflection on isolation, the record is an expression of being conscious of your own direct environment and your place within it. The album takes the solo piano themes from EUSA and marries them with electronics. The electronic samples are enhanced by the acoustic elements – it’s the reverse process to what Yann has done before. This is a piano-centered electronic album.

Boris – Flood [Reissue/2000] 2xLP (Third Man)
Formed in 1992, Boris boldly explores their own vision of heavy music, where words like “explosive” and “thunderous” barely do justice. Using overpowering soundscapes embellished with copious amounts of lighting and billow smoke, Boris has shared with audiences across the planet an experience for all five senses in their concerts, earning legions of zealous fans along the way. Boris continues their bountiful output with two monumental vinyl versions of their milestone releases: 2000’s Flood and 2020’s NO on Third Man Records. Flood was originally released in Japan on CD only. Delivered in four equally important movements, Flood is simultaneously delicate, dense, undulating, devastating, emancipating, hypnotic and triumphant. On Flood, Boris broadens their vision of musical possibility, with a notable and imaginative influence from visionary American minimalist Steve Reich, weaving in prog, drone and slowcore into a multifaceted symphony. [An indie store exclusive vinyl pressing is available.]

Boris – NO LP (Third Man)
Hailed as Boris’s “most compelling album in more than a decade” (Pitchfork), NO was was furiously recorded in the early days of the Covid-19 pandemic and “surprise” released in July of 2020. Initially released digitally (with a very limited vinyl run), the album was met with immediate and widespread praise. Meant to serve as a mirror that redirects the negativity of the global lockdown to something more positive, the content on NO can be characterized as “extreme healing music.” Musically, NO draws from influential noise-heavy hardcore group Gudon, even including a cover of their song “Fundamental Error”. NO is a classic hardcore thrash record and is one of the band’s strongest efforts. [An indie store exclusive vinyl pressing is available.]

Big Red Machine – How Long Do You Think It’s Gonna Last? CD/2xLP (Jagjaguwar)
The generous spirit and desire to push music forward has never been more deeply felt than on Big Red Machine’s How Long Do You Think It’s Gonna Last?, the second album from Aaron Dessner’s ever-morphing project with Bon Iver’s Justin Vernon. In 2008, while assembling material for the charity compilation Dark Was The Night, Dessner sent Vernon a song sketch titled “big red machine”. Vernon interpreted “big red machine” as a beating heart and finished the song accordingly – a metaphor Dessner says “still sticks with me today. This project goes to many places and is always on some level about experimentation, but it shines a light on why I make music in the first place, which is an emotional need. It’s one of my therapies and one of the ways I interrogate the past.” Guests include Taylor Swift, Sharon Van Etten & Robin Pecknold, and others.

The Bronx – Bronx VI CD/LP (Cooking Vinyl)
The Bronx’s sixth studio album Bronx VI builds on the legacy the LA-based rockers have established in its near two-decade existence, but which definitely proves the door to what’s next has not just been kicked down but chopped up and burned to a cinder.

Indigo De Souza – Any Shape You Take CD/LP/Cassette (Saddle Creek)
“Everything has to be said.” This is the conviction guiding Indigo De Souza’s sophomore album, Any Shape You Take. This dynamic record successfully creates a container for the full spectrum – pushing through and against every emotion: “I wanted this album to give a feeling of shifting with and embracing change. These songs came from a turbulent time when I was coming to self-love through many existential crises and shifts in perspective.” Faithful to its name, Any Shape You Take changes form to match the tenor of each story it tells. “The album title is a nod to the many shapes I take musically. I don’t feel that I fully embody any particular genre – all of the music just comes from the universe that is my ever-shifting brain/heart/world,” says Indigo.

The Kooks – Inside In / Inside Out [Reissue/2006] 2xCD/2xLP (Astralwerks)
Remastered and expanded 15th anniversary edition. Originally released in 2006, the quadruple-platinum-selling album spawned such timeless hits as the BRIT nominated “She Moves In Her Own Way”, “Seaside” and the band’s top five single “Naive”. The unstoppable Inside In / Inside Out is a record that fizzes with the exuberance of youth and a certified staple of British indie which continues to win over new fans to this day. Includes 13 previously unreleased bonus tracks.

Pearl Charles – Sleepless Dreamer (Kanine) LP
Before 2021’s Magic Mirror, Los Angeles songstress, Pearl Charles released her debut album Sleepless Dreamer in 2018. Back in print and available in stores on August 27th, 2021, this pressing on pink vinyl, includes a new 12 x 24″ two sided poster, printed inner sleeve and download code.

Outkast – ATliens (25th Anniversary Edition) [Reissue/1996] 4xLP (Sony Legacy)
25th Anniversary Edition includes the original album plus the instrumentals which are being released commercially for the first time.

Jesu ‎– Heart Ache (Deluxe Remaster) [Reissue/2004] 2xLP (Avalanche Recordings)
Justin K Broadrick initiated the Jesu project in 2003, which has gone on to be as critically acclaimed and beloved as his previous project Godflesh. Jesu is credited as being at the forefront if not the very beginning of the post-metal movement and the hybrid of metal and shoegaze, exploring melancholy through heaviosity, electronica and shoegaze. Heart Ache (Deluxe Remaster) presents the original LP remastered and coupled with a bonus LP containing a rare performance of “Ruined” live with guest appearances from Aaron Turner (ISIS, Sumac) on guitar, Roderic Mounir (Knut) on drums, featuring Diarmuid Dalton on bass, and a Closure remix of Ruined. [A limited-edition color vinyl pressing is also available.]

Mega Bog – Life, And Another LP (Paradise of Bachelors)
On Life, and Another, Mega Bog (the world-inhabiting moniker of song-animator Erin Birgy) tends a succulent garden full of plants that the unwitting passerby might mistakenly perceive as extraterrestrial, but which are in fact very much of this Earth. Departing from the humid Holodeck spider plant nursery of previous record Dolphine (2019), Mega Bog’s new album brings us back to our home planet, into the rarefied air pressure of a dried-up desert valley where it’s fourteen songs were written and scattered like stones in the landscape. But true to Birgy’s alchemical writing practice, these bright stones simply refuse to blend into their arid environment, each one a precious gem chiseled by the anti-capitalist geologist’s hammer to reveal the impossible, dazzling life that inheres under the dusty exteriors of both the northern Nevada of her youth and the rural New Mexico of the album’s birth.

Marissa Anderson and William Tyler – Lost Futures CD/LP (Thrill Jockey)
Guitarists Marisa Anderson and William Tyler distill deeply rooted and varied traditions into distinctive voices all their own. Anderson and Tyler are each unyielding in their desire to extend through those traditions and the confines of “guitar music” to craft music at once intimate and expansive, conversational and transcendent. The duo’s debut collaborative album tethers together their singular voices into unified narratives that glisten, drive, and sway. On Lost Futures, Anderson and Tyler’s guitars dance through lush arrangements and pastoral duets serpentine and reverent.

COMING NEXT WEEK……!
GRIZZLY BEAR – Yellow House LP reissue
IMAGINE DRAGONS – Mercury Act 1 CD/LP
EMMYLOU HARRIS – Ramble In Music City CD/LP
LIZ COOPER – Hot Sass CD/LP
CHUBBY AND THE GANG – Mutt’s Nuts CD
KARATE – Self-Titled LP/Cassette
QUEEN LATIFAH – All Hail The Queen LP
DIRECTIONS – Echoes LP
FRONT LINE ASSEMBLY – Initial Command CD/LP
IRON MAIDEN – Senjutsu CD/LP
MOLLY LEWIS – Forgotten Edge LP
SNAPPED ANKLES – Forest Of Your Problems CD/LP
SWELL MAPS – Mayday Signals LP
RICHARD THOMPSON – Mirror Blue LP
BOOKER T + THE MGs – Complete Stax Singles 2 LP
NITE JEWEL – No Sun LP
TREES SPEEK – Ohms LP