Staff Picks
Lindsay – Kassa Overall and Fridge reissue
Caleb – Suicide and Sumac 
Dario – Lucy Dacus reissue 
Zach – AJJ, Black Country, New Road, and Kassa Overall
Kimber – Swervedriver 

AJJ – Disposable Everything CD/LP (Hopeless)
Arizona-based indie punk band AJJ is back with their 10th studio album, Disposable Everything. After years of cult-like indie success and underground critical acclaim, AJJ has continued to evolve with each album, adding more layers and texture musically, while still maintaining their trademark wit and irreverent lyricism. [A limited-edition green and red color vinyl pressing is available.]

Black Country, New Road – Live At Bush Hall LP+MP3 (Ninja Tune)
A brand-new album of unreleased material from Black Country, New Road, recorded at the historic music venue Bush Hall, in London at a series of unique shows at the end of December 2022. Mixed by John Parish and mastered by Christian Wright at Abbey Road, the new album and material marks a new chapter for the band as a six-piece.

Calexico – Feast Of Wire [Reissue/2003] 2xCD/3xLP (Quarter Stick)
Deluxe 20th Anniversary Edition of Calexico’s acclaimed 2003 album Feast Of Wire. The original album has been fully remastered,  and includes the band’s popular cover of “Love’s Alone Again Or”. The set includes the unreleased live recording of Calexico’s 2003 performance at the China Theatre in Stockholm, Sweden, titled More Cowboys In Sweden (Live).

Fridge – Happiness [Reissue/2001] CD/2xLP (Temporary Residence)
Formed in 1996 by schoolmates Kieran Hebden (Four Tet), Adem Ilhan, and Sam Jeffers, Fridge was astonishingly prolific in their early years, releasing ten singles and four albums in just their first four years together. After a brief stint with a major label imprint – which saw the trio release their most focused album to date (Eph, 1999) – Fridge delivered their fourth album, Happiness. Originally released in 2001, Happiness was a sprawling, pastoral masterpiece – an innovative mix of acoustic clatter, electronic exploration, hip-hop production techniques, and experimental rock arrangements.

Arlo Parks – My Soft Machine CD/LP/Cassette (Transgressive/PIAS)
Arlo Parks sophomore album, My Soft Machine, is a deeply personal body of work; a narration of Parks’ experiences as she navigates her 20s and the growth intertwined. It follows her highly praised debut album, Collapsed In Sunbeams, which received two Grammy nominations for Best New Artist and Best Alternative Music Album, won the BRIT Award for Best New Artist, received the Honda Mercury Prize, won the BBC Introducing Artist Of The Year Award, was nominated for Breakthrough International Act at the BET Awards and reached the Top 3 on the UK Album Charts. The record features a guest vocal from musician and friend, Phoebe Bridgers. [Two indie store exclusive versions are available: a green vinyl colorway and a deluxe violet vinyl colorway housed in a black canvas tote bag along with a friendship bracelet, a poster, and a print.]

Water From Your Eyes – Everyone’s Crushed CD/LP+MP3 (Matador)
Life is horribly dark right now. And yet, it is not unfunny. That’s the sentiment that animates Water From Your Eyes on their new album, Everyone’s Crushed. On the follow-up to the Brooklyn duo’s 2021 breakthrough, Structure, Rachel Brown, and Nate Amos find silliness and fatalism dancing in a frantic lockstep, using heart palpitating rhythms and absurdist, deadpan lyrics to convey stories of personal and societal unease. Described by Brown as Water From Your Eyes’ most collaborative record ever, it’s a swollen contusion of an album: experimental pop music that’s pretty and violent, raw and indelible.

Sparks – The Girl Is Crying In Her Latte CD (Island)
The Girl Is Crying In Her Latte marks Sparks’ first release on the venerable Island Records label in close to five decades, following such classics as 1974’s landmark Kimono My House, highlighted of course by the indelible hit single “This Town Ain’t Big Enough For Both Of Us”. The new release is described by Ron and Russell Mael as a record that is “as bold and uncompromising as anything we did back then or, for that matter, anytime throughout our career.”

Kassa Overall – Animals CD/LP (Warp)
Kassa Overall is a Grammy-nominated musician, emcee, singer, producer and drummer who melds avant-garde experimentation with hip-hop production techniques to tilt the nexus of jazz and rap in unmapped directions. On his Warp Records debut, ANIMALS, Kassa pushes his kaleidoscopic, subversive vision further. He layers Roland 808s against avant-garde drumming in the vein of his mentors Elvin Jones and Billy Hart, the latter of whom he studied with at the Oberlin Conservatory of Music. Virtuoso musos appear alongside rap poets, including Danny Brown, Wiki, Lil B, and Shabazz Palaces. Top-flight jazz improvisation weaves in and out of orchestral string arrangements by Jherek Bischoff. The album’s diverse, all-star roster of collaborators includes several of his close friends, like vocalists Nick Hakim, Laura Mvula, Francis and the Lights, and jazz stars like Theo Croker and Vijay Iyer.

Suicide – A Way Of Life [Reissue/1988] CD (BMG/Mute)
35th Anniversary remastered and expanded edition. Although the band barely received any credit during their career, Suicide is cited as one of the most inspirational bands of the 1970s, influencing the likes Soft Cell, Depeche Mode and The Jesus And Mary Chain, whilst garnering fans in Nick Cave, Jim Thirlwell, M.I.A., Spiritualized, Lydia Lunch, Bobby Gillespie and Savages to name a few. Originally released in 1988, more than a decade after their iconic self-titled album, A Way Of Life saw Alan Vega & Martin Rev once again team up with The Cars’ frontman Ric Ocasek to produce “nine creepily ingratiated industrial pop songs” (Pitchfork).

Brother Ali – Mourning In America and Dreaming In Color [Reissue/2012] 2xLP (Rhymesayers)
Red, white & blue color vinyl pressing. Originally released in 2012 following unprecedented changes in the music industry, Mourning In America and Dreaming In Color found Brother Ali reborn and rejuvenated. Teaming up with famed platinum-selling producer Jake One (Drake, J. Cole, Wiz Khalifa, MF DOOM), Brother Ali was prepared to tell the American story from a very different viewpoint. Inspired by his first trip to Mecca, the 2011 uprisings in the Middle East, and the Occupy movements that were building steam worldwide, Ali linked with Jake One during a two-month sabbatical in Seattle to create this brave new phase in his remarkable discography. The album presented a scathingly honest critique of America and its many flaws while simultaneously presenting a hopeful outlook for the future and its possibilities.

Charli XCX – True Romance [Reissue/2013] LP (Atlantic)
Silver color vinyl pressing. Originally released ten years ago in 2013, True Romance quickly established Charli XCX as a pop force to be reckoned with, thanks to its blend of infectious hooks, club-ready beats, and confessional lyrics that explore love, heartbreak, and self-discovery.

Lucy Dacus – Historian [Reisue/2018] LP+MP3 (Matador)
For the fifth anniversary of her sophomore album, Lucy Dacus releases a limited red vinyl edition of Historian with packaging restored to the never before seen original front cover artwork.

Death Cab For Cutie – Plans [Reissue/2005] 2xLP (Barsuk)
Death Cab for Cutie’s 2005 classic double-LP Plans is back in stock on standard-weight black vinyl. Presented in gatefold packaging, Plans is the band’s platinum-selling Grammy-nominated major label debut and includes some of their most beloved songs including “Soul Meets Body”, “Crooked Teeth”, and “I Will Follow You into the Dark”. Side D includes the non-album bonus track “Talking Like Turnstiles”.

Stan Getz & Charlie Byrd – Jazz Samba [Reissue/1962] LP (Verve)
When Charlie Byrd toured South America in 1961, bossa nova – a melding of Brazilian samba rhythms with the harmonic structures and the cool sound of West Coast jazz – was booming. He brought back records for Stan Getz to hear, and they planned a session. The result was Jazz Samba, the first album of bossa nova by jazz artists and the one that created the bossa nova wave.

Thelonious Monk with John Coltrane – Thelonious Monk with John Coltrane [Reissue/1961] LP (Craft Recordings)
Regarded as one of the greatest jazz collaborations of all time, Thelonious Monk and John Coltrane are joined on this 1961 album by the talents of Art Blakely (drums), Wilbur Ware (bass), Gigi Gryce (alto sax) and more.

Fucking Champs – III LP reissue (Drag City)
At the end of the century, The Fucking Champs spread Total Music™ across the planet, touring relentlessly and producing albums full of undeniable note choices, sounds and songs. For III’s 25th anniversary, the band remastered the original master tapes, assigned John Golden to expertly cut lacquers and oversaw artwork restoration by forensic experts in Drag City’s sub-basement. For the first time, this master stroke of musicality is widely available to an increasingly rock-starved public.

Nas – The Lost Tapes [Reissue/2002] 2xLP (Sony Legacy)
The Lost Tapes is widely regarded as one of Nas’ most important albums showcasing his raw lyrical talent and creative genius. This compilation features such stand out tracks as “Doo Rags”, “U Gotta Love It”, and “My Way” among others. The newly remastered double-LP set features all the original tracks from 2002’s original release pressed on premium quality black vinyl with full-color labels featuring classic Nas artwork.

Shirley Collins – Archangel Hill CD/LP (Domino)
Shirley Collins, one of the most important voices in British folk music, returns with Archangel Hill.

Goat – World Music [Reissue/2012] LP (Rocket Recordings)
Limited green & yellow color vinyl pressing. When the mysterious masked collective calling themselves Goat first emerged in 2012, armed with an incendiary debut album ‘World Music‘ and a backstory for the ages – the band’s anonymous members hailing from the remote village of Korpilombo in northern Sweden, where inhabitants had for centuries been devoted to a form of voodoo introduced by a travelling witch doctor – there was, and there still isn’t, anyone else on earth quite like them. Their mythology enticing, their music full of sinuous grooves and manic explosions of fuzz, Goat were outliers from the very beginning.

Steely Dan – Countdown To Ecstasy [Reissue/1980] LP (Geffen)
At long last, the classic Steely Dan catalog is back on vinyl. Led by Walter Becker and Donald Fagen, Steely Dan released seven albums from 1972-1980. The vinyl series continues with Countdown To Ecstasy, the band’s sprawling 1973 sophomore LP with standouts such as “Bodhisattva”, “Show Biz Kids”, and “My Old School.” 180gm.

Stone Temple Pilots – Purple [Reissue/1994] LP (Atlantic)
Stone Temple Pilots’ acclaimed 1994 album Purple is now available on clear vinyl as part of the Atlantic 75 celebration. Includes the hits “Vasoline”, “Interstate Love Song”, and “Big Empty”.

Swervedriver – Petroleum Spirit Daze 12” (Outer Battery)
Red color vinyl pressing of a previously unreleased original recording of Swervedriver’s debut EP Son Of Mustang Ford.

Sylvan Esso – What Now [Reissue/2017] LP (Loma Vista)
Sylvan Esso’s sophomore album, What Now, showcases the sound of a band truly fulfilling the potential and promise of their debut. Everything has evolved – the production is bolder, the vocals are more intense, the melodies are more infectious, and the songs shine that much brighter. What Now is an album of the finest songs this band has ever written, produced masterfully, and sang fearlessly to articulate our collective undercurrents of anxiety and joy.

VNV Nation – Electric Sun 2xLP (Metropolis)
Recently released on CD – now available on clear vinyl. VNV Nation blend poetic, thoughtful lyrics with a vast repertoire of melodic dance beats & anthemic electronic, haunting ballads & post-classical soundtrack pieces. This legendary act now returns with the brilliant new album Electric Sun, combining the intimate and anthemic as only VNV Nation can.

The Exploding Hearts – Guitar Romantic (Expanded & Remastered) CD (Third Man)
Legendary power-pop trailblazers The Exploding Hearts deliver an expanded and remastered reissue of their beloved sole studio album, Guitar Romantic, originally released in 2003. In the 20 years since – and the subsequent tragic deaths of three of the four band members in a van accident later that same year – Guitar Romantic has outgrown its onetime “cult” status to become an immortal touchstone of the genre. Adored the world over for its vivid depictions of young love and reckless abandon, alongside its effervescent combination of influences like the Buzzcocks, Undertones, Nick Lowe and more, Guitar Romantic is an undeniable statement from a band gone entirely too soon. The expanded and remastered reissue brings a welcome dose of new life to an album all-too-often associated with death, and with it, plenty of old favorites and unheard gems for fans to rejoice about.

Wolf Eyes – Dreams In Splattered Lines LP (Disciples)
Dreams In Splattered Lines fuses together Wolf Eyes’ 25 years of DIY electronics with the avant-garde sensibilities of Fluxus and the granite of dreary Midwestern life. Continuing some of the ideas explored on the Difficult Messages record of collaborations, the result is a surreal dreamscape of disorienting sound collages, where hit songs are transformed into terrariums of sonic flora and decimated fauna. As if pulled from a fever dream, the surrealists of the 1960s converge with alien electronic blues musicians in an underworld of mystery. The air is thick with car wash radio white noise, crackling and fizzing like a toxic elixir, spoken word poetry transmissions as absurd and cryptic phrases. Each corroded aural environment is a microcosm of chaos, honed to razor-sharp precision. Swept away in a whirlwind of thirteen perplexing narratives, each one an unpredictable journey through subterranean worlds, a sonic trip of reality folded into itself.

Sumac – Two Beasts LP (Sige)
For the uninitiated, Two Beasts is a comprehensive document of where SUMAC was in the late fall of 2020. The song hits on all the elements that make the band unique. Bowel-loosening low end? Check. Indecipherable time signature patterns? Yup. Long, empty pauses and repetitive structures? Yessir. Mammoth grooves? You betcha. “Two Beasts” is experimental metal at its finest, 18 minutes of left turns with enough rewarding pay-offs to make it worth a close listen. The band’s newfound love of negative space and jazz-inspired arrangements counterintuitively add an element of danger to the music. If big riffage is heavy music’s best friend and quiet moments its kryptonite, then SUMAC seem to operate under the adage keep your friends close, but your enemies closer.