Bull City Records

$29.98

Anderson .Paak + Knxwledge! "NxWorries appeared in early 2015 on Stones Throw with "Suede." Knxwledge provided the dazed production, its beat a clipped gait -- Gil Scott-Heron/Brian Jackson's "The Bottle" stretched and dragged to support Anderson Paak's freewheeling vehicular exhibition and macking seminar. Dr. Dre then sought Paak for extensive work on Compton, while the rising Knxwledge produced "Momma" on To Pimp a Butterfly and released a Stones Throw album. As Paak and Knxwledge sustained their prominence with separate collaborative and solo work, their activity as a unit gradually escalated to this full-length, released during the fourth quarter of 2016. It includes "Suede," two other cuts from an EP originally released as a download in late 2015, and 40 additional minutes of keenly bent and smudged soul loops. Though Paak is an accomplished musician and bandleader, as seen throughout 2016 in several televised performances to promote Malibu, he sticks strictly to singing and rapping, leaving Knxwledge to handle all the music. Reflective of their collaborative alias, Paak doesn't sound particularly bothered, apart from some irritation related in "H.A.N.," a deflection of leeches and critics, and some serious concerns and confessions within the supremely dreamy "Khadijah." Otherwise, he keeps it lighthearted as an irrepressible rolling stone. Audibly and lyrically coarse, he rarely sounds less than entirely self-satisfied and at least a little amused, whether he's dealing out wisecracking wordplay or quoting J Dilla as he deftly coasts over and darts between the beats. If not quite as substantive as Malibu, this is one of those albums that can be played continuously without risk of depreciation. Knxwledge and Paak are so occupied with other pursuits that this seems destined to take its place in the Stones Throw discography as one of the label's fine twosome one-offs in the manner of Madvillainy and Champion Sound." -All Music Guide

$24.98

"FLOTUS (For Love Often Turns Us Still) is a new full-length from the seminal Merge band Lambchop. Kurt Wagner, inspired by hip-hop, minimalism, and early electronic music, brings us a new sound for the band—one that's totally original and refreshing, yet distinctly Lambchop. The album's closer, "The Hustle", is an 18-minute whopper, which premiered with the album's announcement back in August along with a Stereogum interview . It was the soundtrack to the archival footage film The Dockworker's Dream by Bill Morrison, which was shared by NPR's First Watch. The album's second single,"NIV", was featured on an All Songs Considered's New Mix, and a video directed by William Tyler's sister Elise premieres later this month. A long-form essay by Wagner on the inspirations behind the record will run on Medium. NPR First Listen will stream the record in advance of the release date. Another single is set to be release ahead of that, and features, interviews, and reviews are set for Magnet, The Rumpus, American Songwriter, Ghettoblaster, The Big Takeover, WUNC Morning Edition, Dinner Party Download, and more." -Merge

$22.98

Mysterious masked Swedish psych group dabbling in Afro-beat 'n' Japanese psych influence rock. 3rd LP. "GOAT’s only outright declaration for Requiem is that it is their “folk” album, and the album is focused more on their subdued bucolic ritualism than psilocybin freakouts. But GOAT hasn’t completely foregone their fiery charms—tracks like “All-Seeing Eye” and “Goatfuzz” conjure the sultry heathen pulsations that ensnared us on their previous albums. Perhaps the most puzzling aspect of Requiem comes with the closing track “Ubuntu”. The song is little more than a melodic delay-driven electric piano line, until we hear the refrain from “Diarabi”—the first song on their first album—sneak into the mix. It creates a kind of musical ouroboros—an infinite cycle of reflection and rejuvenation, death and rebirth. Much like fellow recluse Pynchon, rather than offering explanations for their strange trajectories, GOAT create a world where the line between truth and fiction is so obscured that all you can do is bask in their cryptic genius." -Sub Pop

$19.98

"The writing of the songs that became Heart Like a Levee started in a hotel room in Washington , DC , in January of 2015 during a powerful storm that darkened the East Coast. At that time I was feeling—more acutely than I had ever felt before—wrenched apart by my responsibilities to my family and to my music. Forgetting, momentarily, that for me, each exists only with the other. How could I forget? Though maybe my lapse was reasonable: I had just quit my job, the most recent and last, in a series of dead-end gigs stretching back 20 years, with the vow that my children would understand their father as a man in love with his world and the inventor of his own days. They would be rare in that regard. And then—driven by monthly bills and pure fear—I left for another tour, carrying a load of guilt that I could just barely lift. But in that snowy hotel room I found the refrain that became my compass: I was a dreamer, babe, when I set out on the road; but did I say I could find my way home?" -M.C. Taylor

$16.98

"The Los Angeles/Orange County punk trio Girl Tears has mastered the art of the three-chord attack, delivering volatile blasts to the point of fury. Four tours and 100+ shows later, playing art spaces, houses, DiY venues, bars, barns, backyards, basements, and everything in between, Girl Tears has delivered a natural, confident progression from their debut. Woke Against The Tide wrestles with themes of Love/Hate, Good/Evil - and in particular - the space between these polarizing ideas. Cold Thoughtsand Uneasy personify the album's conflict. There are hooks, melody and structure, but also a bit of chaos built on a more complex arrangement that's constantly shifting and evolving, much like the band themselves. Whereas their debut Tension was more a discovery, Woke Against The Tideis more abstract. It creates a dense and unforgiving experience, really challenging the listener to keep up."

$12.00

Printed locally by Holy Mountain Printing on Gildan Heavy Cotton shirts.

$3.00

Both sides of the koozie shown here.

$20.98

" Drag City, Inc. is pleased to announce the solo debut full length from Wand’s Cory Hanson. The Unborn Capitalist from Limbo was recorded during May of 2016 in various locations across Los Angeles County, and features string arrangements by Heather Lockie. It came on as a panic, a car wreck, shivering and sudden liquefaction. You tried to hold it, to tend and cradle the damn thing like a child. But injury would only yield to injury. You stood in the darkened theater. The beam of a projector sliced toward you down the center aisle and struck the bag of dry rice in your arms with an image of a factory fire."

$20.98

" Highway Songs is the songs of a new man, but one made up of the old man with a few new metal parts inserted in key areas of the legs. There’s kind of a “Rear Window” quality to the record — watching suspiciously from a wheelchair at the comings and goings of the world around you, sorting out where the bodies are buried, making wild accusations, almost dying and eventually falling in love again and gaining release from the bondage of your own body."

$30.98

" Breathe—in through your nose, out through your mouth. Feel the energy passing through your body, from your head, down through your legs to the earth. Turn your heart to the sky—and realize that a new album from The Silence is nigh! Nine Suns, One Morning is the third album from The Silence since their formation in Tokyo in July of 2014. This is an amazing outpouring of music in a very short time! The reason for this is that The Silence transpose ecstatic moments from the rock and roll dreamscape into all-new, living music. Not only is there a lot of music in the ether yet to be realized, but The Silence are very good at this process! Despite the speed with with these albums have been dispatched over the course of just 21 months, each collection is gathered with an expert ear turned to the listening experience. Nine Suns, One Morning is one of the most explosive, far-ranging albums you will hear in 2016. The Silence employ a great variety of instruments with tremendous discipline, always in service of the songs, which share a goal of finding new lines of expression, no matter where the starting point."

$20.98

Screen-printed covers! Heavy guitar psych outta Massachusetts. " If it seems brighter and a bit more deafening in the world today, congratulations! You’re not dead (yet) and some of your senses are still working. In fact, you might just be perceiving that there’s new Major Stars in the sky—one so formidable it’s already been named, and you haven’t even heard of it until now! Motion Set is the 9th Major Stars LP and their first on Drag City since 2010’s Return to Form, with Decibels of Gratitude appearing in 2012. This has left Starsheads around the world high and decidedly dry; for what reason a four-year gap, they’ve cried, instead of the rather more ideal two-to-three? The answer lies in the very core of the band as they’ve existed from the start: time and space are required to produce the necessary mass to tether their music in this flighty, over-oxygenated atmosphere of ours—and after eight records, it only gets harder to find a combination of possible elements requiring three guitars and a rhythm section in search of the ultimate release with every song they play. Fortunately, Major Stars don’t sell their process until it’s fully melded. C’mon, Wayne Rogers is no Johnny-come-lately to the scene of psychedelic guitar rock. He and Kate Biggar have been crossing axes to head-scrambling effect since the halcyon days of Crystallized Movements, in the galaxy far, far away we now call the 80s. In the 90s came collaboration with Damon & Naomi in Magic Hour and Wayne Rogers solo records, before the debut of Major Stars at Terrastock ’97—the first of several appearances they eventually made at the now- defunct (and legendary) trips fest. As the years have passed, the band has evolved necessarily in their own expanding universe; since 2005, the Biggar/Rogers guitar duo has become a guitar trio, with original bassist Tom Leonard contributing to the murder of decibels. Vocally as well, Wayne’s lead vocs have given way to a string of she-singers who have brought new dimensions to the the sound. The finding of Major Stars material relies more on a feeling than anything else—intuition vs. accumulated knowledge, the years of process informing but never overwhelming the delightful pull of the knee-jerk if it is meant to be. As far as language is concerned, English barely cuts it! Writing for sextet involves greater complexity in the arranging of parts, but after that, there’s loads of playing and playing and letting go and seeing what that sounded like—an assembly process akin to working with play- doh in a room with no lights on. Every Major Stars record responds in one way or another to the one before, and to that end, Motion Set commenced with a blackout-and- start-again moment: the pulsing energy of “Alert,” with a view towards making more super-happy, short blues rock songs. Of course, things happen along the assembly line; the title track was played for over two years and thrown away at least once before revisitation, revitalization and recording finally happened. Now, stripped down to a mood and built back to a towering frenzy, it’s the kind of song to name an album after. In a band built to achieve moments of six-string nirvana, vocalist Hayley Thompson-King provides a sufficiently versatile presence to span the crunching, ever-spiraling trinity of Biggar, Leonard and Rogers; with sirenesque flights, a reedy, Nico-like introspection and gritty, pugnacious flourishes to match the full complement of riffs being flung about. And thus, four years in the locaing—Motion Set. Major Stars have been capturing and distilling lightning into bottles for a couple of decades, with each record reaching beyond what they know and delighting in what feels good to locate their desire for exploration, obliteration and rock in the present moment. Motion Set nullifies the past while standing on its vanishing shoulders, reaching ever beyond."

$19.98

" Sleigh Bells wasted no time after getting off the ground in 2009, releasing three blistering records in four years. Ready for a break from the road, they took their time on their fourth LP, Jessica Rabbit, writing and finishing the record several times only to realize that they wanted to push themselves and the music further. As the three years elapsed, Derek went looking for the abyss, found it, and crawled out in one peace. Alexis, for her part, found something like heaven in nature and healthy living. The result of their combined experiences is an intense and vulnerable record that's highly evolved and completely uncategorizable, a major statement from a band wholly committed to advancing their dynamic, uncompromising vision. Jessica Rabbit is the first release on the band's own record label, Torn Clean."

$14.98

" Everybody's still talking about the good ol' days! A rough and rugged collection of Numero Group classics that have inspired swarms of killer beats. A head nod to the sounds of Shaolin, the thirteen chambers of Shanghai'd Soul have led a generation of lyrical chefs and production geniuses to compose some of their most ominous hip-hop. Bound by heavy drums, moody chords, and haunting melodies, Gods and Earths alike will appreciate the raw funk and smoother-than-a-Lexus soul that come together like Voltron on this special compilation."

$16.98

" Exploded View is a new collaborative project helmed by the UK-born, Berlin-based political-journalist-turned-musician Anika (Invada Records / Stones Throw). After playing a string of 2014 solo shows in Mexico with a backing lineup composed of local producers Martin Thulin, Hugo Quezada and Amon Melgarejo, Anika and her new bandmates discovered a chemistry that they simply had to capture on tape."

$16.98

" After the initial blast of punk rock bands made their impression on the youth of the late 1970s, subgenres quickly emerged. Some preferred the faster, louder aggression of hardcore, others the angular danceability of post-punk, some the raw and more personal home-made sound of DIY, and so on. Looking back among and between these genres we now recognize various blends of punk, post-punk, goth rock, industrial, and DIY as "deathrock." In 2014, Sacred Bones Records launched the series Killed By Deathrock to document an entire scene of bands that haven't yet received proper recognition. This is the second volume of that series."

$16.98

" The Men are Rich Samis, Kevin Faulkner, Nick Chiericozzi and Mark Perro. We created Devil Music in our practice space over a weekend in January.We wanted to give ourselves something enjoyable to listen to with this record... Something that had our personality in it, not just another record to get reviewed, to get into festivals, to get on tv, to participate in some sort of endless, winless game. This isn't a campaign.Jordan Lovelace (mem. of Pampers) engineered and recorded Devil Music. Jonathan Schenke (mem. of Eaters and engineer of 100's of records) mastered the sessions on a Neve console in New York. These fine gentlemen knew we were after a raw four track sound. They used our strokes on the tape to get us where we wanted to go. Every record sounds a bit different than you think it will.Some newer things came along for the ride like cassette cut ups, damaged vocal cords from years of yelling, a saxophone and of course the ten new songs. Some old ideas are still in the mix: the tracks were all done live, including the vocals, the packaging/artwork was designed and produced by us."

$18.98

" Guitarist and former wunderkind Daniel Bachman, at 26, can no longer be considered “precocious.” On even his earliest recordings Bachman’s guitar prowess and compositional voice were staggeringly mature. His growth has been continual and, frankly, amazing – the ultimate product of this growth, 2015’s River, showed a phenomenal level of maturity and, in turn, continued to convert faithful. His new (2016) self-titled album continues that staggering growth – in composition, sound, and technique – and offers a sort of trapped in amber glimpse of where he presently stands. It is a full and complete collection of truly engrossing songs that sees Bachman’s sonic arsenal expand to include elements of drone (generated by all acoustic instruments) and field recordings alongside his ever-present prowess and strength on the acoustic guitar. Daniel Bachman truly is one of modern guitar’s most dynamic performers. If you’re not with him now, his 2016 self-titled album seems to declare, you never were."

$31.98

"Available for the first time on vinyl ever, the first two Magnetic Fields albums are collected here in one package. The audio has been newly remastered. The first two records showcase Stephin Merritt's lyrics as sung by Susan Anway, who would leave the band after The Wayward Bus in 1992. But, that record featured cellist Sam Devol and percussionist Claudia Gonson as band members, who came to shape the orchestral pop sound of the band for decades to come. The Wayward Bus and Distant Plastic Trees contain perfect pop songs delivered in a folk and electronic-tinged sound, notably "100,000 Fireflies", which would later be covered by Superchunk."

$31.98

"New Zealand's The Clean originally released Getaway in 2001. This deluxe reissue marks its first appearance on vinyl, and includes newly remastered audio. The double-CD or LP contains the full record and includes a bonus disc of rare, tour-only releases from the era: Syd's Pink Wiring System (2003 live set), and Slush Fund (piano-driven EP)."

$24.98

"Lee Moses was a huge talent and if he’d had the big hit album he richly deserved, Time And Place would’ve been it. A self-taught multi-instrumentalist, Moses cut his teeth in the clubs of Atlanta, the ‘Motown of the South’, where he frequently performed alongside his contemporary Gladys Knight (who reportedly wanted him for the Pips, but couldn’t pin him down). It was, however, in New York in the ‘60s that Moses made his greatest bid to find the solo fame he desired. Moses began working there as a session player, even playing frequently with a pre-fame Jimi Hendrix, but his close relationship with producer and Atlanta native Johnny Brantley eventually saw him getting his own break via a series of 45s in 1967 – most notably with covers of Joe Simon’s “My Adorable One”, The Four Tops’ “Reach Out, I’ll Be There” and The Beatles’ “Day Tripper”. It was 1971 before Moses’ dream of being at stage front was realized, when he released his Brantley-produced LP Time And Place for Maple Records. Recorded with a band including members of The Ohio Players and Moses’ own backing group The Deciples, it was, nonetheless, Moses himself whose star quality shone through, via his scratchy guitar riffs, his throat-ripping vocals and the stirring mood that permeates the LP’s heady mix of funk, soul and R&B. The LP did no business, and Moses’ dream quickly crumbled. Though details on his life are scarce, it’s believed he fled New York disenchanted with the music industry, feeling he’d been double-crossed by Brantley both in credit and remuneration for the countless records he’d played on. Back in Atlanta, Moses returned to playing the clubs, married twice, and fell into depression and drug dependency. He died in 1997 at the age of 56. Time And Place soon became a much-sought-after item for collectors, and its cult has continued to grow over the years. Here, we re-present it on deluxe vinyl, with brand new liner notes from Sarah Sweeney including interviews with Moses’ sister and his closest collaborator, the singer and guitarist Hermon Hitson. Through them, Moses becomes a little – but just a little – less of an enigma."

$29.98

" Recorded over a six month period in 1970/71 at Bearsville, In My Own Time was Daltons only fully planned and realized studio album. The material was carefully selected and crafted for her by producer/musician Harvey Brooks, the Renaissance man of rock-jazz who played bass on Dylan’s Highway 61 Revisited and Miles’ Bitches Brew . It features ten songs that reflected Daltons incredible ability to break just about anybodys heart – from her spectral evocation of Joe Tates “One Night of Love”, to the dark tragedy of the traditional “Katie Cruel”. Known as a great interpreter of choice material, Dalton could master both country and soul genres with hauntingly pining covers of George Jones “Take Me” and Holland-Dozier-Hollands “How Sweet It Is”."

$24.98

"Miles and Betty Davis fans have long debated the truth of a near mythological session recorded in Studios B and E at Columbia’s 52nd Street Studios on May 14th and 20th, 1969. The landmark session was produced by Miles and Teo Macero and featured Betty on vocals, accompanied by Jimi Hendrix Experience drummer Mitch Mitchell, guitarist John McLaughlin, Herbie Hancock on keys, and Dylan/Miles session bassist Harvey Brooks. Other players included bassist Billy Cox (Band of Gypsys), saxophonist Wayne Shorter, and organist Larry Young. Now, Light In The Attic, with full support from Betty herself, presents these recordings to the public for the very first time. These historic sessions—never heard, never bootlegged—predate Miles’ revolutionary album, Bitches Brew , and are the true birth of Miles’ jazz-rock explorations, along with the roots for Betty’s groundbreaking funk that came years later, starting with her self-titled debut in 1973. While, ultimately, these recordings would go unreleased for nearly half a century, they would greatly shape each of their careers. The vibe is intrinsically unique, fresh, and futuristic—jazz heavyweights playing psychedelia, rock, and jazz-fusion long before the term became commonplace. The songs include Betty originals and covers of classics by Creedence and Cream. The concepts explored on these previously unheard sessions fueled concepts that wouldn’t be fully realized until years later with Miles’ seminal On The Corner ."

$25.98

Limited edition blue / maroon vinyl "This remixed and expanded reissue of Soundgarden’s Ultramega OK is a long-planned “correction” of the legendary band’s Grammy®-nominated debut full-length. The album was originally recorded and released in 1988 on SST Records. While the band enjoyed working with the original producer, Drew Canulette, they soon realized they weren’t quite happy with the final mix. Thus, shortly after the album’s release, the band decided to remix the album for subsequent pressings. However, success intervened: the band rapidly scored a deal with A&M and began work on their major-label debut, Louder Than Love, and the Ultramega OK remix project fell by the wayside as Soundgarden climbed their way to (ultra)mega-stardom."

$25.98

"This remixed and expanded reissue of Soundgarden’s Ultramega OK is a long-planned “correction” of the legendary band’s Grammy®-nominated debut full-length. The album was originally recorded and released in 1988 on SST Records. While the band enjoyed working with the original producer, Drew Canulette, they soon realized they weren’t quite happy with the final mix. Thus, shortly after the album’s release, the band decided to remix the album for subsequent pressings. However, success intervened: the band rapidly scored a deal with A&M and began work on their major-label debut, Louder Than Love, and the Ultramega OK remix project fell by the wayside as Soundgarden climbed their way to (ultra)mega-stardom."

$22.98

" ’ Hot Thoughts ’, Spoon’s 9th album, is the bravest, most sonically inventive work of their career, though keep in mind, Britt Daniel’s already overseen a number of other reincarnations. With all due respect to earlier efforts that have made the quintet both critically acclaimed and a commercial contender, preconceptions about this band are about to be obliterated. That’s not to say ‘ Hot Thoughts ’ doesn’t have a requisite supply of infectious earworms but there’s a lyrical bent that’s as carnal as it’s crafty, and a newfound sense of sonic exploration that results in the genre-smasher Spoon have flirted with in the past but not fully consummated. Produced by Dave Fridmann (Tame Impala, The Flaming Lips, Weezer, MGMT) and back with Matador (third time’s the charm) helps position Spoon to mount the highest highs of their already spectaular career. We are overjoyed to be back in the Spoon business and in time for Daniel’s spot in the pantheon of rock’s genius songwriters was well established a ways back — with the crackling, incandescent, multi-dimensional backdrop conjured on ‘ Hot Thoughts ’, the lines between accessible and experimental become non-factors for once and all. It’s pop as high art, delivered with total confidence and focus." -Matador

$4.00

Released in 2009, this is Whatever Brains' first vinyl release! Manic punk, strange hooks and druggy anthems. Weird n' great.

$4.00

The second vinyl installment in the catalog of NC's WHATEVER BRAINS. The Whatever Brains bring us another slab set to melt away the rest of the world from our troubled minds. Three more tracks of oozing, sarcastic weirdo garage pop to put a little kick in yer step. A little bit manic, a little bit spastic, but all hurried hook. The 7-inch kicks off with a layered, reverbed-into-outer-space jangle track of hopeful hopelessness with no life aspirations and decays and deconstructs into radio-unfriendly hooky garage punk. In the studio they are not afraid to layer a track to death with fuzz, reverb, more guitar tracks and white noise, but live they're a force to be reckoned with. Amps cranked and all the hyper-activity and paranoia that Ritalin has wreaked on our brains. Claustrophobic, jittery garage pop for claustrophobic times.

$4.00

High school pop punkers! Pre-Last Year's Men and Natural Causes.

$4.00

North Carolina's premier garagers gone slightly psych-fried. "Dog In The Snow" b/w "Walking Walking Nowhere Nowhere.

$17.98

**Now Known As KYM REGISTER + MELTDOWN RODEO!!** Loamlands' Sweet High Rise is now available on vinyl! 500 pressed. Includes free download. First release on Bull City Records' new Hillsborough Rd Records imprint. Sentimental and searing country rock outta North Carolina's Triangle. Includes members of Midtown Dickens, Bad Friends, Megafaun, Phil Cook & Friends, Hiss Golden Messenger, Bon Iver, The Rosebuds and more. For fans of Lucinda Williams, Lucero, Stevie Nicks, Tim Barry, etc. From songwriter Kym Register (2016): Most of the important dates I can recall are moments of drastic change - because they’re painful. These are moments of personal growth that wedge themselves into our memories. These are the anniversaries, the birthdays, the points on a timeline. Moments that we remember clearly because they are recorded meticulously in lyrics, photo albums, and journals. Listening to recordings of my first band brings me back to parking garages with "good acoustics", playing music with my best friend, and the excavation of bodily trauma while locking in harmony with her. Those were songs written purely for ourselves that somehow made their way to DIY venues and houses across the country. The experience was formative, and then it imploded - leaving me to reexamine my relationship to music and performance. Thus was born Loamlands, a musical endeavor aimed at telling stories of being from the South through present day queer caucasian eyes. When Loamlands began, I wanted to break out of the folk-punk cocoon that I had spun around myself for eight years. The only thing I was sure of was that I wanted to write thoughtfully. I was on the cusp of something new, but I wasn’t quite there yet. I rarely plugged in. I was terrified by the idea of writing a song that revolved around something other than a feeling. I had internal guilt around loving the major label classic rock and country music my parents listened to. I never imagined wanting to croon like Loretta Lynn or play the perfect guitar lead — because "punk", because "fringe", because "queer". I slowly started to accept my own influences. I fell in love again with Stevie Nicks and Bonnie Raitt and Kim Deal. And then I got them all tattooed on my arm, never to forget the powerhouses that I grew up on, that saved my life. Sweet High Rise chronicles this journey of reaching outside of my self. When I learned - at a free school - that NC pride was born out of the protest and riots following the murder of two gay men on their way to a swimming hole in Durham I wrote Little River. Seeing the constant barrage of police, borne out of the institution of slavery, killing people of color, queer folk, and countless marginalized communities and getting away with it, I wrote "Get Ready". How can any thoughtful human not be angry at the current state of our world? Those people know that they will stay in poverty under the current system while the word “progress” is used as a pat on the back for liberal policy makers and developers. The same story is repeated under a different guise; slavery still exists — it’s just more covert. Prisons still cage folks and make them invisible to any passersby attending expensive reproductions of The Lion King or whatever at the multi-million dollar theater across the street. I’ve been in the South, and in Durham in particular, most of my life. I see the same things happening to my small town that I’ve read about for years in history books. Speedy gentrification is raising property taxes and kicking poorer folks further towards the outskirts of town. We know this. On this record, I’m telling stories. Stories about love, about abuse, about Durham’s brutal history with LGBTQ and police violence. I’m telling stories of my own, stories that I’ve encountered, stories that enrage me and that maybe not everyone knows. These are reflections of a queer dirtbag in love, of owning the desire to kill all abusers, of small town break ups, of the pent up anxiety that comes being on the cusp of identifying as angry and of standing strongly as genderqueer when I am misidentified as "she" or "he." This record is a release. I'm honored to have been able to place these ideas in the hands of musicians and pals like Will Hackney, Phil and Brad Cook, Matt McCaughan, Jon Ashley and Collier Reeves. I’m glad to be here and going further with friends. Thank you for helping me along the way. *NEXT SHOW: Wednesday, June 28th @ Duke Gardens, Durham, NC. *Stores & distributors, feel free to get in touch!

$20.98

" Platinum Tips + Ice Cream (scenes from the water park) is new from ROYAL TRUX. The songs were written over a span of time as wide as eagle’s wings—but the re- cordings are new, live, unrehearsed and were presented in real time to a few thousand people in California and NYC. Performance art? Yes! But only because, unlike so many other aural “content providers,” NEIL HAGERTY and JENNNIFER HERREMA are true artists writing their own futures into the present. This was, and will always be, ROY- AL TRUX. This new/“live”/old song/new performance album is yet another chapter in one of the best books out there. Release #647, corresponding to the Cali penal code stating that Prostitution is against the law. Just a re- minder so that they didn’t forget. It’s been a minute since ROYAL TRUX went about making a record in 1–2 days, but they got that system on lock, and once again we see them setting parameters and adhering to them for maxx impact. Platinum Tips + Ice Cream was made in two days...one in Cali and one in NYC. The hold up came when listening back to the “live” qualities, which had been com- promised by the “AI” of modern, presump- tuous (read: “spellcheck”) sound gear. Going back to undo the “smart changes” was tedious, yet imperative—bringing the actual experience and qualities of the per- formance, the rawness that could be felt and heard LIVE, to a finished form. These recordings conjure the early feral spirit of the band devouring the sophisticated sound of the later years and coughing up a motherfucking hairball of sound. ROYAL TRUX has always played with the idea of “expectation” like it was a new toy at Christmas, and year in and year out wiped it out like the face of an old teddy bear. For them, a touchdown was best achieved in reverse, via counter-intelligent means. It is fucking INSANE to hear how much that is still the case. This isn’t a butterfly mounted in amber; this is the sound of life...people getting through their set by any means nec- essary. Thoughts are flying in a mil- lion different directions, but staying with the plan is the number one rule. As the rhythm punches, the scabrous tone of JENNIFER’s vox is matched only by NEIL’s harsh, stinging guitar volleys—and the mad filters passing through the Bass Station. A personal playlist of hits rolls out—and not all rock- ers, but some slower jams and moments of deep heavy. But no “Back to School”?!? Well, that’s why there are more TRUX shows coming up. And like they say, every night is gonna be a great night. Wrapped up in a TRUXian collage scrapping together the crazy quilt of time in their ROYAL-iverse, which in the light of this reunion is now folding back over itself, Platinum Tips + Ice Cream collects twelve ROYAL TRUX non-sequiturs in tribute not only to the past but the unend- ing nature of the future." -Drag City

$20.98

" Introducing The Peacers Introducing the Crimsmen! Escalating from a disembodied voice to slowly mounting full-band hypnosis, this is a trip into the goldenrod days of fandom, a dimension where a t-shirt could change your life. Since their first LP in the summer 2015, The Peacers have been gigging in SF and around, woodshedding and collecting tunes for this divinely awaited moment: Introducing the Crimsmen. Lurching back into life, with buzz and hum alight and colors flashing, is the name, but the instigators of the sound are almost a whole other bunch (Mike Donovan, Shayde Sartin, Mike Shoun and Bo Moore)! Which is good - who do you trust with a treat to jam in your ears more than new/ old friends capable of tapping good old sounds? Nobody but The Peacers, that’s who. The tunes rock forth from a jukebox with a crack in the glass, with channels leaking / kaleidoscopic aspects of low-fi life directed back through the wires to form discrete detail, little shadows, backdrops, edgework. Introducing the Crimsmen: rainy day flows viewed through a delicate scope, where sounds that seem tossed off are actually as intricately laid out as biology; a circulatory system, with veins full of cool blue-grey blood. And the tunes! The Peacers got a hand into a variety of rock and roll baked goods. Whether gentle psych, basement throb, keening “Time of the Season” nocturne or ground-glass soundscape, it’s all bubblegum boiled in pot, scripted up with stinging street smart, zoloftnagenic reverie and a wink and a chill grin. Sing along to the shimmer of redefining depth, finding hidden and timeless time, bits of things they brought in from other places, all set in a relaxed array that only The Peacers are inclined to offer you. This'd make for a nice night out on the tiles as well - leaping to the bottomless sack of tunes with flecks of hazy shade, watery sunshine in the back of your mind. And it will. The Peacers, Introducing the Crimsmen." -Drag City

$19.98

"This album was recorded on a warm and very rainy night at the Chicago Theater in my hometown of Chicago, Illinois. I had been to the Chicago Theater as a kid to see Donny Osmond in Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dream Coat. I remember a joke in that production where a set of pyramids moves past Joseph as he travels to Egypt. Because they were performing it in Chicago they also threw in a miniature Sears Tower. When we, the audience, saw it was the Sears Tower we laughed so hard because that building is in Chicago. Stuff like that is a lot of fun. On the night this album was recorded I arrived at the Chicago Theater having not had dinner because I was too nervous to eat. I think I ended up eating a bunch of crackers. The Chicago Theater is a gorgeous beast with a built-in Mighty Wurlitzer organ. We filmed this whole show for Netflix and Rhys Thomas directed it beautifully. This performance is called The Comeback Kid. The title is a reference to Bill Clinton but it’s also not. "Lake Street Dive" performed. Joe Mande and Vanessa Bayer performed. I performed last and I wore the suit I got married in. My parents and sisters and brother were in the audience. My wife Anna was in the audience. Petunia our dog was at the hotel in a stand-off with the room service cart. She has a problem with room service carts. She... I don’t know... she hates how the wheels lock or something. She is not too fond of skateboards either. A few last things: Jon Brion is a good man and it's the pleasure of my life to have his music included in The Comeback Kid. Michael Berkowitz makes things happen. I am grateful to everyone who enjoyed the show but truthfully I do it to make my wife laugh. I want to thank MSG and the Chicago Theater. I want to thank the Daves. I want to thank anyone who helped put this show together or who helped put me together. While I was performing all these jokes on that night, I was genuinely happy." -John Mulaney

$26.98

" The Numero Group's dive into the deep end of America's private press continues. Having battled the witches and wizards of Darkscorch, the outlaws of Cosmic Americana, and traveled alongside Ladies From the Canyon and their Lonesome Heroes, it's time to take it easy. With pop music's volume knob adjusted for deflation in the early '70s, softness begat smoothness. Crewmen arrived from the worlds of jazz, folk, rock, and soul, all peddling a product that was sincere, leisurely, and lofty. A sound that was buoyant, crisp, defined. Sometimes classified as West Coast - and, later, Yacht Rock - the compass points of our Private Yacht expedition are the blue-eyed harmonies of Hall and Oates, the cocaine-dusted Fender Rhodes of Michael McDonald, and the combover strums of James Taylor. Here, at the glassy apex of rock's softer side, 20 strong swimmers are gathered together. An album for both relaxation and reflection, where listeners can enjoy the present, a cool breeze, and a taste of the good life." -Numero

$22.98

" City Music is an airplane descending over frozen lakes into Chicago. City Music is riding the Q Train out to Coney Island to smell the ocean and a morning in Philadelphia where greats cranes reconfigure the buildings like an endless puzzle. City Music is also the new album by Kevin Morby. Full of listless wanderlust, it's a collection inspired by and devoted to the metropolitan experience across America and beyond by a songwriter cast from his own mould. It is a collection crafted using the other side of its creator's brain, the jumping off point perhaps best once again encapsulated by an image. "Here, Lou Reed and Patti Smith stare out at the listener," explains Morby. City Music sees Morby joined once again by cohorts Megan Duffy (guitar) and Justin Sullivan (drums). Here the vocals were recorded at night, in darkness, overlooking a Pacific Ocean illuminated only by the stars, the wash and whisper of the ebbing tidal a distant soundtrack. The record was completed with Richard Swift in Oregon (producer of Foxygen, sometime member of The Black Keys). Here the album gives voice to the all those cities speaking the same universal language of chaos and commerce and culture." -Dead Oceans

$15.98

Featuring Remastered OK COMPUTER, B-Sides and Three Never Before Released Tracks: “I Promise,” “Lift,” “Man Of War” Rescued from defunct formats, prized from dark cupboards and brought to light after two decades in cold storage... OKNOTOK will be issued June 23 on XL Recordings, coinciding (roughly) with the original 1997 release date(s) of Radiohead’s landmark third album OK COMPUTER. OKNOTOK features the original OK COMPUTER twelve track album, eight B-sides, and the Radiohead completist’s dream: “I Promise,” “Lift,” and “Man Of War.” The original studio recordings of these three previously unreleased and long sought after OK COMPUTER era tracks finally receive their first of official issue on OKNOTOK. All material on OKNOTOK is newly remastered from the original analog tapes. OK COMPUTER was originally released on various dates ranging from May to July 1997. Produced by the band and Nigel Godrich, the album is widely cited as one of the greatest works of Radiohead’s--or any artist’s—catalog and was the first Radiohead record to reach #1 in the UK and to be be nominated for the Album of the Year GRAMMY. The album features singles “Paranoid Android,” “Karma Police,” “Lucky” and “No Surprises.” In 2015, The National Recording Registry selected OK COMPUTER to be preserved in the Library of Congress as a recording that has proven “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant.”

$20.98

This Is The Kit is the musical project of Paris-via-Bristol songwriter Kate Stables. Having already released three albums, toured the world and earned the adoration of peers including Guy Garvey, The National and Sharon van Etten, July 7th will see their fourth album 'Moonshine Freeze' debut for Rough Trade Records featuring Stables’ core band of Rozi Plain, Jamie Whitby-Coles, and Neil Smith plus Aaron Dessner of The National. Moonshine Freeze taps into themes of “folklore and oracles, memory, language, secrets, superstition, lives out of sync, and ‘the strange accidental fortune-telling nature of the writing process.'” Produced by John Parish (PJ Harvey, Perfume Genius).

$23.98

Atlanta’s valiant punks Black Lips have announced that their first album in three years, Satan’s graffiti or God’s art? , is set for release May 5 via Vice Records (LP releases 7/7/17). Produced by Sean Lennon at his studio compound in upstate New York throughout 2016, the album is the group’s most musically evolved to date, while still staying true to their original blistering take on fuzzy, dirty rock n’ roll.

$29.98

Double LP version. Gatefold sleeve with 20-page booklet; 140 gram vinyl. The Pop Makossa adventure started in 2009, when Analog Africa founder Samy Ben Redjeb first travelled to Cameroon to make an initial assessment of the country's musical situation. He returned with enough tracks for an explosive compilation highlighting the period when funk and disco sounds began to infiltrate the makossa style popular throughout Cameroon. From the very beginning, there were several mysteries hanging over Pop Makossa. It was not until DJ and music producer Déni Shain was dispatched to Cameroon to finalize the project, license the songs, scan photographs, and interview the artists that some of the biggest question marks began to disappear. His journey from the port city of Douala to the capital of Yaoundé brought him in contact with the lives and stories of many of the musicians who had shaped the sound of Cameroon's dance music in its most fertile decade. The beat that holds everything together has its origins in the rhythms of the Sawa people: ambassey, bolobo, assiko and essewé, a traditional funeral dance. But it wasn't until these rhythms arrived in the cities of Cameroon and collided with merengue, high-life, Congolese rumba, and, later, funk and disco, that modern makossa was born. Makossa managed to unify the whole of Cameroon, and it was successful in part because it was so adaptable. Some of the greatest makossa hits incorporated the electrifying guitars and tight grooves of funk, while others were laced with cosmic flourishes made possible by the advent of the synthesizer. However much came down to the bass; and from the rubbery hustle underpinning Mystic Djim's "Yaoundé Girls" to the luminous liquid disco lines which propel Pasteur Lappé's "Sekele Movement", Pop Makossa demonstrates why Cameroonian bass players are some of the most revered in the world. "Pop Makossa Invasion", an obscure tune recorded for Radio Buea makes its debut here and joins the pantheon of extraordinary songs that plugged Cameroon's makossa style into the modern world. Also features: Dream Stars, Mystic Djim & The Spirits, Bill Loko, Eko, Olinga Gaston, Emmanuel Kahe et Jeanette Kemogne, Nkodo Si-Tony, Bernard Ntone, Pat' Ndoye, and Clément Djimogne.

$26.98

Limited repress; reissue of Flower Travellin' Band 's debut album Anywhere , originally released in 1970. Anywhere is the first album from the legendary Japanese rockers fronted by Yuya Uchida . Although an album consisting mainly of cover versions, Anywhere still exhibited many of the musical traits that were to come to the fore on the band's next release, the classic 1971 album Satori , an album of original material delivered with panache by the increasingly confident Uchida. An album made memorable by its risqué cover as well as its ground-breaking approach to Western rock music. Orange vinyl.

$23.98

LP version. Dieter Moebius - one half of the legendary duo Cluster and the godfather of electronic krautrock - passed away in the summer of 2015. Bureau B are reissuing his final four solo albums. Following on from Blotch (BB 209CD/LP) and Nurton (BB 210CD/LP), reissued in 2016, Kram and Ding (BB 259CD/LP) now complete the quartet. Liner notes were penned by Moebius's friend, the U.S. composer, producer, and musician Tim Story. Kram was originally released in 2009. Tim Story on Kram: "Recorded in 2008, Kram's playfully disjointed rhythms and shiny plastic surfaces give us just a glimpse perhaps of Moebi's own state of mind -- content, at ease, and happy to be working on music. With small mobile recording setups in Berlin and Majorca where he and Irene split their time, he recorded when the muse struck (although he would hate the word 'muse'). In English, 'kram' means 'stuff' and the title is fitting. Synthetic, toy-like sounds skitter across the soundstage, colliding with those unlikely rhythms, and modulating in real time with Moebi's unmistakable hand on the controls. Funny, warped, joyfully cluttered, Kram unapologetically embraces its disposable sounds and sly humor. Imbued throughout with his singular conception of music and sound, it's arguably Moebius' most cheerful and mischievous album, and it's all the richer for it. Moebi was a champion of the everyday -- self-effacing in both his life and his music. In Kram, he elevates the commonplace, then promptly subverts the touchstones which make it familiar. The lack of overt 'emotionality' in his work sometimes obscures the humanity and depth that's always there, lurking behind the fabricated surfaces. Kram is a perfect example. Though he would be quick to dismiss it, the warmth of Moebi's personality drifts indelibly through it."

$23.98

LP version. Dieter Moebius - one half of the legendary duo Cluster and the godfather of electronic krautrock - passed away in the summer of 2015. Bureau B are reissuing his final four solo albums. Following on from Blotch (BB 209CD/LP) and Nurton (BB 210CD/LP), reissued in 2016, Kram (BB 258CD/LP) and Ding now complete the quartet. Liner notes were penned by Moebius's friend, the U.S. composer, producer, and musician Tim Story. Ding was originally released in 2011. Tim Story on Ding: "If Dieter Moebius' previous album Kram was an irreverent mélange of bright synthetic textures, 2011's Ding might be considered Moebi's industrial album. There is a cyclical, mechanical feel to many of the pieces here -- but this is light industry, not heavy machinery. Small, discrete contraptions churn out curious objects as the listener strolls the factory floor, the combinations evolving as perspectives shift with each step taken. Moebi made extensive use of a relatively portable sample recorder/looper during the creation of Ding, and the freedom to capture random bits of sound in the natural (or unnatural) world must have been inspiring. These organic ambiences might have evoked a terrain that feels familiar, except of course that this is a Moebius album. Angular rhythms, disembodied voices, repeated loops of audio debris all combine to forge a facsimile of reality that is wonderfully peculiar. The earthy environments of Ding give it a remarkable depth of field, and Moebi masterfully allows a great deal of transparency in the mixes. The smallest of musical cues -- the alternating, faraway chords which float through 'Bone,' for example -- are sufficient to tie the seemingly disparate elements together into a satisfying, truly musical experience. The strands of natural, mechanical, and electronic sounds are so deftly juxtaposed that music never quite overwhelms noise, and the clamor is never allowed to stifle Ding's strange poetry. Altogether, Ding feels like something of a small revelation -- there's liberation in Moebi's willful escape from a sound palette confined solely to his synthesizers. If the notion of manipulated, overlapping field recordings sounds dry and abstract, Ding is anything but. In places, the loping, syncopated pulses suggest the polyrhythms of African music, even funk -- but it's a state which never quite materializes because the rhythm loops are almost always trimmed slightly too long or too short, deliberately interrupting the 'groove' that otherwise could have taken hold. So it's music you might conceivably dance to, if your legs aren't quite the same length. Mentally, it's much easier to dance with Ding. Shot through with Moebi's humor and extraordinary imagination, its provocative choreography of music and noise remains one of his most seductive."

$24.98

Repressed. Beacon Sound present a reissue of Terry Riley's Descending Moonshine Dervishes, originally released in 1982. Recorded live in Berlin in 1975, and largely improvised, Riley plays a modified Yamaha organ with variable resistors to facilitate tuning in just intonation. This is a 50+ minute recording divided into two halves for vinyl. Terry Riley turned the music world upside down with his 1964 work In C, a revolutionary concept based on 53 modules that can be improvised upon by any number of musicians for an indeterminate amount of time over a pulsing C note typically played on piano or mallet. Performed live for the first time by Steve Reich, Pauline Oliveros, Morton Subotnik, and Jon Gibson, it has since been performed by everyone from the Shanghai Film Orchestra, Adrian Utley of Portishead, and the Malian musicians of Africa Express (featuring contributions by Brian Eno and Damon Albarn). Though referred to as the "father of minimalism", the 81-year-old Riley has ranged widely in the intervening decades, deeply influenced by jazz, North Indian classical music, and a distinctly West Coast strain of radical spirituality - and in turn influencing practically everyone: The Who ("Baba O'Riley"), The Velvet Underground, collaborators The Kronos Quartet, as well as the legions of cutting-edge electronic musicians and contemporary composers making genre-defying music today. A resident of Grass Valley, CA, Riley is still touring the world. "Great for meditating to the cosmos" --Thurston Moore. Remastered by Rafael Anton Irisarri. .

$24.98

Repressed. Beacon Sound present a reissue of Terry Riley's Songs For The Ten Voices Of The Two Prophets, originally released in 1983. Recorded live in Munich in 1982 using two Prophet synthesizers and voice, this album is a reflection of Riley's ongoing interest in melding improvisation, electronic music, and the raga vocal stylings of his mentor, Pandit Pran Nath. Terry Riley turned the music world upside down with his 1964 work In C, a revolutionary concept based on 53 modules that can be improvised upon by any number of musicians for an indeterminate amount of time over a pulsing C note typically played on piano or mallet. Performed live for the first time by Steve Reich, Pauline Oliveros, Morton Subotnik, and Jon Gibson, it has since been performed by everyone from the Shanghai Film Orchestra, Adrian Utley of Portishead, and the Malian musicians of Africa Express (featuring contributions by Brian Eno and Damon Albarn). Though referred to as the "father of minimalism", the 81-year-old Riley has ranged widely in the intervening decades, deeply influenced by jazz, North Indian classical music, and a distinctly West Coast strain of radical spirituality - and in turn influencing practically everyone: The Who ("Baba O'Riley"), The Velvet Underground, collaborators The Kronos Quartet, as well as the legions of cutting-edge electronic musicians and contemporary composers making genre-defying music today. A resident of Grass Valley, CA, Riley is still touring the world. Remastered by Raphael Anton Irisarri. Includes original insert; Edition of 300. "His voice twists and curves in complicated arabesques, recalling Indian music, and especially the singing of Mr. Riley's colleague and teacher, Pandit Pran Nath, who is also associated with Mr. Riley's long-time friend LaMonte Young. The synthesizers create a hushed, meditative counterpoint of slowly unwinding melodies and cross-rhythms... the Prophet 5, a polyphonic synthesizer that is capable of rich viola-like sounds, is a winning instrument for Mr. Riley's improvisations. After years of playing a Yamaha electric organ, he has turned to the synthesizer, which theoretically offers an infinite assortment of sounds. Rather than take advantage of the instrument's ability to mimic vocal sounds and timbres, as composers like Jon Hassel and Brian Eno have done, Mr. Riley plays the synthesizer as a keyboard instrument, with a luminous sound and the ability to bend or inflect notes." --New York Times, Feb 1984

$39.98

The classic minimal music album is now available again on vinyl for the first time since the '70s. During the 1970s, Californian composer Terry Riley concentrated on solo keyboard performances, continuing to make music yet writing down almost nothing. Riley selected a mode, chose a few motifs or basic patterns and then, seated on the floor in front of his audience, improvised on electronic keyboard. The electric organ, superseded at later concerts by a synthesizer, was portable and consistent. By the early '70s, Riley had come to feel that scores were a distraction. Faithful interpretation of an already written piece was a deviation from the true purpose of making music, which was spiritual quest. Fortunately, some of those live performances were captured on tape. Persian Surgery Dervishes, issued initially on the French label Shandar in 1972, features two such concerts for electric organ and reel-to-reel delay, one recorded in Los Angeles on April 18th, 1971, the other in Paris on May 24th, 1972. At the start of that decade, Riley became a dedicated student of the great Hindustani singer Pandit Pran Nath. Looking into North Indian classical tradition, he found correspondences to modal and cyclic ideas that he was already working on. In 1971, Riley started teaching Indian music at Mills College, in Oakland. That experience fed directly into his solo keyboard performances, but other influences were also shaping his music. Personal research into ancient Persian culture and the poetry of Rumi lit up his imagination, while the repetitive swirling of Sufi devotional music from North Africa and jazz, an enduring source of inspiration, reverberate through these performances. The Californian version of Persian Surgery Dervishes starts with low dark tones, dense and brooding like a huddled human figure, deep in introspection. But as the improvisation unfolds Riley's buoyant spirit asserts itself, spiraling out in ecstatic coils. The Parisian concert conveys a different mood, brighter and more open in texture, more relaxed from the outset and breathing with greater freedom as it takes flight. Persian Surgery Dervishes is a mesmerizing record of a vital stage in Riley's ongoing quest for connection with the universal mind and sublime music. "Music is my spiritual path. It's my way of finding out who I am." --Terry Riley, 1976 Includes insert with liner notes by Julian Cowley; Lacquer cut by Rashad Becker; Layout by Jeroen Wille; Remastered by Equusl; Licensed from FGL Productions; Edition of 1000.

$18.98

LP version. The real, great rock'n'roll swindle? You'd better search Belgium, and more specifically somewhere near Lou Deprijck and Yvan Lacomblez, two born-and-bred "Brusselians". If their names don't ring a bell at first glance, you've most likely already wiggled to their interplanetary hit "Ça Plane Pour Moi": A moronic song by a crappy singer... The prank swept through the world and within a few months, no less than one million 45s were sold just in France. It spawned mass-produced cover versions, becoming a universal punk anthem. Of course, such a cash cow would arouse envy and create quite a few vocations among our fellow countrymen. The song's trademark derision was about to bridge the missing link between original punk -- too violent, too dirty -- and the general public eager to enjoy a little Saturday-night pogo. Humor became the magic bullet to conquer a frightened audience. The formula had already proved successful. Remember the arrival of rock'n'roll in France (1957) through Boris Vian, Henri Salvador, and Michel Legrand. Their famous, jokey "Rock and Roll-Mops" already laid the foundations for the same equation: joke + rock'n'roll + derision = success. The big labels tried to produce punk bands in France -- Polydor signed the Stinky Toys and the Guilty Razors -- but only to result in huge commercial failures. But in the face of Mr. Bertrand's huge success, those big labels thought they understood how it worked. Music publishers and majors all wanted a punk hit. A&R executives brought all of their seasoned producers, composers, and lyricists into the stampede: eccentric arrangements, daft and stereotyped lyrics -- one-upmanship was the rule. An unprecedented bunch of punk-novelty records followed. Even André Verchuren had his own unbridled accordion cover version of "Ça Plane Pour Moi". Sure, most of these punk hoaxes are real lousy, real shitty but one must admit that some numbers stand out of the crowd. While they didn't reach the success of "Ça Plane Pour Moi", some, here and there, were really inspired and even more creative than the songs they hijacked and mimicked. Features: Piero, Soda Fraise, Stéfan, Geiger, Too Much, Gérard Bôle Du Chaumont, Sublime Deluxe, Bulldozer, Les Marylènes, Gisor, Anatole Frantz, Fatsy Wataire, and Plastichke.

$17.98

"Joey Rubbish must be stopped, but it's too late for that. As the architect of every note on this immaculate new LP, he joins the ranks of other groundbreaking modern home-recording luminaries such as Jay Reatard, Nobunny, Mikey Hyde of Medication, and Rick Crook of Lost Sounds/Lover!, all able to cover every instrumental note recorded, as well as the vocals & recording. Not a small feat and worth noting since it's such a rare thing to pull off, especially when it's this nuanced and complex, even by power pop standards. And with that, The Rubs second offering is finally here with Impossible Dream, a full spectrum of songs so tightly-knit, so cleverly-written, and so impossibly dreamy, you won't be able to pull them out of your skull for eternity. Agonizingly articulate pop that can barely contain its own excitement, these songs just keep hitting you, one after another, each better than the last, just continuously pounding their unwavering contagiousness into your brazen heart. It's not like The Rubs are reinventing the guitar with Impossible Dream, but this LP has something brilliant humming at its core, something stark, genuine, and extremely vulnerable. And yet so charming and confident, it's almost dizzying in its bravado. From the instant 'Wrong Right Girl' kicks off, it's a tense and tender tear through the highs and lows of girls, summer, breakups, and tight jeans, drizzled with a reduction of those irresistible vocal hooks. With a run through a series of songs all named after individual heart-breakers (Judy, Amy, Ruby, & Emily), from slow-burners to hyper-charged rockers, there's such a great variety of styles and deliveries you just don't see very often in modern power pop. And let's not forget, the attention to detail, as well as the overall production control, is top-notch, which really adds depth to these incredible songs. Timeless stuff that avoids any & all modern pitfalls, Impossible Dream is a new high watermark in Chicago pop lineage you really need in your life. Recommended If You Like: The Nerves, The Jeanies, Plimsouls, Nick Lowe, Real Kids, Dutchess & Duke, Rockpile, Wreckless Eric. 1st press Black vinyl edition of 300 copies. Comes with free download."

$74.98

Triple LP version. Includes CD. Comes with a 24-page booklet in a hardcover book. In the body of work of Cologne artist Wolfgang Voigt - who, like few others, has informed, shaped and influenced the world of electronic music with countless different projects since the early 1990s - Gas stands out in particular, a saturnine sound cosmos based on heavily condensed classic sequences. Even after nearly 20 years, the sound of Gas doesn't seem to have lost any of its luster, as shown by the commanding success of Kompakt's fall 2016 re-release of the essential back catalogue as a box set (KOM 370LP). The overwhelming feedback from a loyal international fan community and worldwide media outlets attests once again to the sheer timelessness of Gas. Which is why it will feel like hardly a day has passed since the release of the last official album Pop nearly two decades ago in 2000, when Wolfgang Voigt resumes this specific creative path with the upcoming new full-length Narkopop. Even in the here and now, the unmistakable vibe of Gas immediately hits home, taking the listener on an otherworldly journey with the very first sounds, drawing them into an impervious sonic thicket, down to the depths of rapture and reverie. From wafts of dense symphonic mist emerges a floating and whirling feeling of weightlessness, before the listener steps into an eerily beautiful forest of fantasy, pulled in by the allure of a narcotic bass drum. While earlier Gas tracks were often based on the hypnotic effects of looping techniques, the ten new pieces on Narkopop unfold their magic in a more entwined manner, sometimes with the sonic might of an entire philharmonic orchestra, at times subtle and fragile. A main characteristic of Voigt's oeuvre, the coalescence of seemingly contradictory stylistic aspects such as harmonious and atonal, concrete and abstract, light and heavy, near and far is also a decisive feature of Narkopop. In accordance with the transgressive spirit of his collective work, Voigt carries the aesthetic conceptions of his music over to the realm of the visual. Based on his abstract forest pictures, the Gas artwork addresses Voigt's artistic affinity to romanticism and the forest as a place of yearning. For the first time, a closer look at the cover of Narkopop reveals signs of architectural fragments which hint at another, maybe parallel world behind Voigt's forest. Truth is the prettiest illusion.

$20.98

LP version. For those not following Bill Orcutt's drift into increasingly ear-friendly orbits in his recent live sets, Bill Orcutt -- his first solo electric studio album -- shocks with its space and sensitivity. On this eponymous record, Orcutt mines the expansiveness and sustain possible on the electric guitar, letting notes spin out and decay at the edge of feedback. His pachinko-parlor pacing, marked by unraveling clockspring accelerandos crashing into unexpectedly suspended tones, is still in evidence. But here, his developing melodicism maps a near-contemplative mental realm, orbiting St. Joan-era Loren Connors more than the cascading treble clatter of his duo LPs with Chris Corsano and others. From the first notes of Ornette Coleman's "Lonely Woman", there's a lucidity and slow-burning lyricism that make Orcutt's plunges into barbed-wire fingerpicking all the more striking. While no one's about to mistake Orcutt for Jim Hall, you could probably play this for your jazzbo friends (should you be unlucky enough to have them) without raising any eyebrows. Orcutt's track selection mirrors his obsession with American popular song in its most banal manifestations, as radically reimagined via acoustic guitar on a variety of releases, including 2013's exhaustive Twenty Five Songs 7" box set, and the Editions Mego album A History of Every One (EMEGO 173CD/LP, 2013). Many of the songs from those two releases are here -- but stretched into new arrangements that explore the upper regions of the guitar neck (hitherto unexplorable on his shakily-intonated acoustic Kay), and lighting up new corners of each arrangement with a sensitivity born from years of reinterpretation. The result is a languid, freeform drift through Orcutt's internal cosmos into galaxies unknown to their original interpreters -- and occasionally, Orcutt himself. Most striking is "White Christmas", its careening low-register melodies crashing into complex chords that transcend Orcutt's primitive four-string fretboard. Orcutt's original compositions are equally striking. One of them -- "The World Without Me" -- is unique to this album, and notable for its trebly flurry of Clapton-esque 12th-fret drizzle. "O Platitudes!" by contrast, spins ever-faster in the cadence of a hand-cranked music box, before grinding to a near halt, its higher-key electricity standing in for the moaning vocalizations on Orcutt's acoustic rendition as heard on his 2014 VDSQ LP. With its deep-space beauty, harmonic complexity, and dark dissonance, Bill Orcutt is a stunning landmark in Orcutt's form-destroying trajectory.

$25.98

Double LP version. Includes color insert. Sub Rosa present a reissue of volume one (Mindanoo Mistiru) and two (Gold From Wax) of Ethiopian Urban And Tribal Music, both originally released as two distinct LPs on Lyrichord in 1972. Mindanoo Mistiru and Gold From Wax were recorded by Ragnar Johnson. Ethiopia contains many diverse peoples and many styles of music. It was still an empire in July and August of 1971 when these recordings were made. Over 70 languages and 200 dialects are spoken in Ethiopia. In much of the music, lyrics are more important than instrumentation, and the transmission is oral. The urban musicians, the bagana, and Mary Armeede, were recorded in Addis Ababa. Ethiopian urban musicians come from many parts of the country and are familiar with, and adapt to, styles of regions other than their own. The Afar divination chants and flutes were recorded in the Danakil desert. The Anuak toum and Nuer harp, lament and dance were recorded near the Sudan border. The Konso dance and the Gidole Fila flute dance were recorded near the Kenya border. Mindanoo Mistiru means "What is the Unknown?". Gold From Wax refers to the two layers of meaning in Amharic poetry. File under: Le Coeur du Monde.

$30.98

Double LP version. Wewantsounds are back with a superb selection of spiritual jazz and funk grooves from legendary producer Bob Shad's Mainstream Records catalogue. Bob Shad was one of the greatest music producers of the 20th century, having worked with all the music giants, from Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie to Sarah Vaughan, Lightnin' Hopkins, The Platters, and Janis Joplin to name just a few. "Bobby Shad was a legend in our family" says his grandson Judd Apatow who, together with his sister Mia, looks after Shad's back catalogue, Mainstream Records. Like his peers, jazz producers Creed Taylor and Bob Thiele, Shad went independent in the '60s, and by the early '70s, he was producing a string of superb albums mixing spiritual jazz with funk and soul. These albums are now being rediscovered by new generation of soul and jazz lovers hooked on the music of Kamasi Washington and Shabaka Hutchings. Recorded between 1971 and '73, the Fender-Rhodes-drenched tracks on Inner Peace showcase Shad's unique deep jazz sound. They feature such revered musicians as Harold Land, Roy Haynes, and Frank Foster, together with a younger generation of talented musicians led by Buddy Terry, Dave Hubbard, and LaMont Johnson. Here they are accompanied by the cream of '70s jazz session musicians including Bernard Purdie, Buster Williams, Eddie Henderson, James Mtume, Stanley Clarke, and Cecil Bridgewater. The Mainstream catalogue has been sampled by a long list of revered DJs and hip hop producers over the years. Roy Haynes's "Senyah" was sampled by De La Soul on "Pony Ride" and Shelly Manne's short outro "Infinity" forms the unmissable backbone of Jeru The Damaja's all-time hip hop classic, "Come Clean". A fitting tribute to the supreme sound of producer Bob Shad. Wewantsounds will start a reissue program of original Mainstream albums with bonus material and rare photos from the vaults. Also features: Charles Williams, Hadley Caliman, Pete Yellin, and Sonny Red.

$19.98

Still unknown in rock territory, French band CANNIBALE gets its name from its "kind of exotic garage" music whose humid tropical groove is slowly eating up all the stereotypes about Born Bad Records releases. If there's cannibalism to be found in No Mercy For Love, it's in reference to the Caribbean rhythms here-and-there, and to the psychedelic sound from the backwoods that make this first album a peculiar occurrence in the land of strikes and wine drinkers. There's never any silence with Cannibale and, as for the lambs, stick to the village in the middle of nowhere where the band members reside—a hamlet in Normandy with a total population of 300, including the cows. Rather than human flesh, these guys have been feeding on their own impatience. Lead guitarist MANUEL and singer NICOLAS met in junior high, but the members of Cannibale have a Frustration type profile—almost all of them are over forty. During the last twenty years, with unbending faith, these guys played in loads of bands that never made it to the top (AMIB, DE RIEN, 7QUESTIONS, KOUYATE NEERMAN, RENZA BO, BLAST) and even ended up playing as session musicians alongside Camile Bazbaz or Johnny Halliday. After winning the Inrocks Labs contest with BOW LOW, their penultimate band, and releasing two albums with Because, the Norman guys finally decided to create Cannibale in 2016. In theory, considering the beginning of their career, or lack thereof, you couldn't imagine you'd end up hearing the sounds from No Mercy For Love: a surprising mixture of cumbia, African rhythms and garage music. Or, if you will, a kind of missing link between Fela Kuti, The Doors, and The Seeds. A bunch of forty year-olds whose origins are as white as their soul is black.

$15.98

"Pictures of Saint Paul Street" is the sixth solo album from the former Mirrors/Gris-Gris mastermind Greg Ashley, an amalgam of tortured, Cohen-esque folk tinged with the beer soaked recklessness of a West Texas honky-tonk. The songs on "Pictures of Saint Paul Street" are lush & beautiful autopsies of society's underbelly, with stark and brutally honest ruminations on humanity. Ashley's songs move from ballads of hopeless misery to rallying anthems for the dispossessed. The people & artists who move further to the fringe as power and greed overtake our planet.

$26.98

Do Make Say Think has been widely celebrated as one of the preeminent instrumental rock bands of the 90s-00s. Stubborn Persistent Illusions is the group's first album in eight years - and a brilliant addition to one of the most consistently inventive and critically praised discographies in the 'post-rock' canon. The band has been acclaimed as "the supernova in Constellation's stellar network...arguably the finest back catalogue of any currently operating instrumental rock band" (Drowned In Sound), creating "some of the most honest, unpretentious, group-oriented rock of their time" (Popmatters). Among the band's strengths is an ineffable naturalism that avoids anything too woolly, proggy, purist or clichéd, while remaining a fundamentally guitar-driven group whose ornate four-and six-string interplay uniquely balances rockism, pastoralism, and electronic-influenced post-production. Stubborn Persistent Illusions is at once familiar and as fresh as anything DMST has committed to tape; produced and mixed as always by the band itself - a continuing affirmation of the group's DIY ethos and their singular self-production acumen and aesthetic. Do Make Say Think enter their third decade with a new album that reaffirms their promise of genuinely expressive, narrative and restorative instrumental rock music - an one that will surely rank among their best.

$17.98

Drawing from British folk, avant-rock, and jazz traditions alike, Wintres Woma-- Old English for "the sound of winter"-- is James Elkington's debut solo record, but you've likely heard his masterful guitar playing and arranging, even if you didn't realize it. Elkington (an Englishman living in Chicago) is an inveterate collaborator who brings his lyrical compositional and improvisational sensibilities to any group. He has toured, recorded, and/or collaborated with Jeff Tweedy, Richard Thompson, Steve Gunn, Michael Chapman, Joan Shelley, Nathan Salsburg and Brokeback, to name just a few of his many enthusiastic admirers. His assured album, recorded at Wilco's Loft, is baroquely detailed and beautifully constructed, featuring both his baritone vocals and some of Chicago's finest, including Tomeka Reid. RIYL Steve Gunn, Michael Chapman, Kevin Ayers, Bert Jansch, Ryley Walker, Jim O'Rourke, Scott Walker, Talk Talk. "Jim is a great guitarist and a tremendous, empathetic listener." -- Richard Thompson

$16.98

We've all been there before: stuck in the wrong place at the right time. In Au.Ra's case, Tom Crandles and Tim Jenkins both walked to the wrong Sydney campus for a TAFE class on audio engineering. Once they realized no one else was going to show up-- and the fact that the right classroom was in another neighborhood--the future collaborators were forced to talk about their shared interests. As the conversation wore on, Crandles and Jenkins both realized they were at a crossroads musically. And since they seemed to be on the same page sonically, the potential for a new project felt particularly strong. Limitless even, so they started rehearsing to see where some improv sessions would lead. The duo didn't want to rush their first record, though. It took two years to wrap 2015's acclaimed Jane's Lament album, a prolonged creative process that paid off when several key outlets praised its heady hooks. The Guardian, for one, wrote, "After succumbing to the riptide pull of the opening track, 'Morning', you stay submerged, sound-bathing in layers of sublime guitar tones and effects that evoke a bevy of shoegaze legends like Slowdive, Ride, and Pale Saints. Two years in the making, the gradual build of Jane's Lament paid off in its drowsy unhurried air." Au.Ra took a similar approach with this year's Cultivations LP, embracing spontaneity on several vastly different songs (see: the intricate, slow-moving guitars of "Dreamwork" and the disjointed dance loops of "Blue Chip") and exploring the outer limits of experimental pop elsewhere. That goes for everything from the shimmering keys and steely percussion of "I Feel You" to the lush, melancholic melodies of "Set the Scene"-- tracks that take cues from King Tubby's dub-wise delays and murky synth-pop. Not to mention "Nowhere," a humid number that channels such richly woven reference points as the surreal '90s program Wild Palms and the artful duets of David Sylvian and Ryuichi Sakamoto. And to think it all sta rted with showing up to the wrong class. Fate moves in mysterious ways indeed.

$14.98

Parasite kicks off with the title track, a rowdy throwback to a younger, angrier incarnation of the band. Crafted in the wake of the election and during a tumultuous period in the band members' private lives, "Parasite" is pure catharsis. "During the making of our last album, I didn't want to scream anymore, I just wanted to sing and focus on melody. When we came to this recording, I just wanted to scream and curse," says guitarist/vocalist Julia Kugel. If the EP is meant as a journey through the various stages of the band's career, it certainly storms out of the gate with the same kind of piss-and-vinegar of their eponymous debut. And while "Wipe Out" is another rowdy venture, with bassist Meredith Franco taking over the lead vocal duties over a steady barrage of pointed power-chords, it also showcases the rousing choruses that elevated the trio from underground heroines to an internationally renowned garage act. Despite the adverse times, The Coathangers' mastery of pop cannot be contained forever, as is evident in the EP's single "Captain's Dead", with its sultry verses, triumphant chorus, and a bombastic freak-out of noisy guitar. The journey through The Coathangers' musical evolution leads to a revamped version of "Down Down" off 2016's Nosebleed Weekend LP and the smoky twang of "Drifter", in which drummer/vocalist Stephanie Luke demonstrates her knack for solid Dusty Springfield-style ballads.

$24.98

The legendary Jad Fair has teamed up with Norman Blake (Teenage Fanclub) and Japanese mainstays Tenniscoats to create some of the most endearing content you're likely to experience outside of an internet cat video. 'Raindrops' is fiercely adorable. Containing 85 minutes of music on limited edition 2xLP, this is simple, charming, acoustic pop at it's most feral. Tenniscoats' playful melodies and vocal coos have seemingly harnessed Jad Fair's uninhibited style, resulting in some distinctively special songs that are fragile, and oozing with positivity. Outsider art has never sounded so cute.

$16.98

Japanese Breakfast's Soft Sounds From Another Planet is less of a concept album about space exploration so much as it is a mood board come to life. Over the course of 12 tracks, Michelle Zauner explores a sonic landscape of her own design, one that's big enough to contain her influences. There are songs on this album that recall the pathos of Roy Orbison's ballads, while others could soundtrack a cinematic drive down one of Blade Runner's endless skyways. Zauner's voice is capacious; one moment she's serenading the past, the next she's robotically narrating a love story over sleek monochrome, her lyrics more pointed and personal than ever before.While Psychopomp was a genre-spanning introduction to Japanese Breakfast, this visionary sophomore album launches the project to new heights. <a href="http://michellezauner.bandcamp.com/album/soft-sounds-from-another-planet">Soft Sounds From Another Planet by Japanese Breakfast</a>

$19.98

Records like Psychic Temple IV aren't made anymore. Maybe they never were. There is a magic present that some mistake for "tubes" or "tape" but it's no more complicated than putting the right musicians together with the right songs. Produced and composed by band/cult leader Chris Schlarb, Psychic Temple IV was recorded in Los Angeles over a series of eight large scale sessions. In the spirit of the classic Wrecking Crew sessions for Phil Spector and the Beach Boys, the band was often tasked with recording four songs per session. Vocals were added as soon as the rhythm section tracks were cut with British rock legend Terry Reid, Arlene Deradoorian, and Nedelle Torrisi joining Chris in the studio to work out harmony parts and sing live together. Schlarb's melodies are soulful yet unpredictable, and yet the exploratory spirit of the first Psychic Temple album still abides. The music has been poured over with both care and abandon. There is magic in Psychic Temple IV. It's no more complicated than that.

$17.98

As a stable fixture in the Los Angeles underground, Sextile has been gaining a devout following since its creation in 2015. The four-piece creates a revolutionary sound — boldly throwing convention out the window to create an entirely original, genre-bending imprint that combines the raw energy of 70's punk with the intricate, sophisticated structural elements of 80's post-punk and synthwave. Sextile's first release, A Thousand Hands, had a signature sound that was a dark and primitive form of rock n' roll, a blend of surf punk, early industrial, and post-punk marked by heavy use of distorted guitar feedback and primal drum beats against a backdrop of violent energy. Sextile is back with their sophomore LP, Albeit Living. The album is a testament to the band's growth in the songwriting department and effort spent fine-tuning their burgeoning compositional skills. Despite its more sophisticated sound, the album manages to match and even intensify the sedu ctive energy of their live shows and debut album. The album is a strong statement that re-defines Sextile's sound, but the real impact the album has is the way it decisively breaks the rules and guidelines set out by conventional genres and strives to create something truly unique and genre-altering.

$17.98

Melbourne scratchy pop favourites the Stevens return with their second album Good. 18 short songs, alternately frenetic or laconic, packed with twists and hooks that merge lo-fi outsider songcraft with 70s prog wizardry and classic rock swagger. The Stevens formed in 2011 around guitarists Alex Macfarlane (Twerps, Tyrannamen) and Travis MacDonald, and were soon joined by bassist Gus Lord (Twerps, Boomgates, Tyrannamen) and drummer Matt Harkin. Chapter released their debut album A History Of Hygiene in late 2014. The album was written up by Pitchfork and The Guardian, reviewed by Austin Brown of Parquet Courts and played on BBC6. The Stevens toured the US in 2015, playing Gonerfest on the back of killer single Thirsty Eye. In Australia they have played with Wire, Parquet Courts, Real Estate and others. The Stevens recorded Good in Melbourne bedrooms/jam rooms throughout 2016, and once again employed the services of New Zealand mastering engineer Tex Houston, veteran of a thousand Flying Nun releases. Alex and Gus from The Stevens have spent the last couple of years as the newest members of Twerps, with Alex drumming on their 2015 album Range Anxiety, and Gus joining on bass a short time later.

$23.98

What you hear on Fly is Yoko Ono's disarming combination of opacity and visceral, personal transparency in full bloom. It's one of the most unbridled, most captivating soul albums ever made. And that's right where she wants you: vulnerable, wide open to any-and-everything, ready to have your world tipped onto its head. She's a master of spinning your head around. First, you get the Bar Band from Hell of "Midsummer New York" to kick things off. It's about the last thing you'd expect from Ono coming off Plastic Ono Band. But here you are, listening to Ono channeling Elvis. Why am I all of a sudden bopping along to it? At 16-minute-plus, the tranced-out, motorik-inspired boogie "Mind Train" is rough-and-ready for your next basement get down. Movement and perspiration required. Then, we have the absolutely gutting blues of "Don't Worry, Kyoko (Mummy's Only Looking For Her Hand in The Snow)." Full of ache and raw emotion, the song is a love note, a plea for forgi veness, to her estranged daughter Kyoko shot across the universe on a flaming arrow. Ono follows this stampede of emotion with the self-referential torch song "Mrs. Lennon," a wounded song that gets right into the Universal Loneliness. And so here you are. You're devastated. You're exhausted. You're exhilarated. And you're only 1/4 of the way up the mountain that is Fly. Dig deep, traveler, it's worth the climb.

$23.98

There's a fury at the core of Yoko Ono's 1973 rock opus Approximately Infinite Universe that was not apparent on previously recorded efforts. Ono has always been a master of turning pain and sadness into art, but here, there's a clenched-fist intensity that sets it apart in her deep, unparalleled catalogue. Ono is angry. She proved that one can carry a boundless love for humanity and still be furious - furious at male/female relationships, at war, at your partner.Meanwhile, on a sonic level,Ono ups the ante on the more centered rock-n-roll sounds she approached with 1971's Fly. The album is one of the most traditional-sounding rock chapters in Ono's sprawling catalogue. There are moments here that absolutely rival Jersey legends the E Street Band, though of course Ono's vision leads her band down darker, more mystical paths than the E Street Band ever dared tread. Approximately Infinite Universe is an essential and progressive piece of Ono's output, both in the advancements she made as a songwriter/conceptualist, and as a solidified statement of her staunch feminist role within the very male-dominated mainstream rock ghetto of the mid-1970's.

$19.98

If you've listened to Feeling the Space, Yoko Ono's personal-is-political 1973 album, it should come as no surprise that the once-reviled artist is inspiring a new generation of activists in 2017. On such songs as the righteous chant "Woman Power," the empathetic ballad "Angry Young Woman," the hilarious proto-grrrl "Potbelly Rocker," and the satirical "Men Men Men," Yoko sings in surprisingly straightforward fashion about the burdens carried by women and the mandate for feminism. Supported by such skilled studio vets as guitarist David Spinozza, sax player Michael Brecker, and drummer Jim Keltner, this is perhaps Yoko's most accessible album, and her most intimate. Feeling the Space was recorded during the time when the avant-garde visionary artist became estranged from her rock-star husband John Lennon. He plays only briefly on the album (billed as Johnny O'cean); she produced and wrote all the songs. The result is a definitive soundtrack/document of the era of consciousness raising and of radical critique of the family structure. Yoko and company deliver this hard message soft rock style, or as soft as Yoko could get. Yoko was on the front lines of the women's liberation movement. Dedicated "to the sisters who died in pain and sorrow and those who are now in prisons and in mental hospitals for being unable to survive in the male society," it's an emotional exploration of the psychological toll of oppression.

$12.98

"Essential synth / wave from the American Rust Belt 1980-1982." The Last Four Digits were a pioneering Indiana new wave band, gigging steadily between 1980 and 1982. Two versions of the band existed, both are documented here. The Last Four (4) Digits (L44D) released the 7" Big Picture EP on Hardly Music in 1981, the same year the band covered Captain Beefheart's "Diddy Wah Diddy on Gulcher's Red Snerts Indiana punk/new wave compilation LP. Following personnel changes, The Last Four (5) Digits (L45D) emerged and recorded several tracks. L45D toured the east coast in 1982, culminating in a live show at CBGB NYC on Valentine's Day 1982. L45D included keyboard/synth wizard Brad "Mr. Science" Garton who joined upon leaving Dow Jones and the Industrials.

$26.98

Re-issued for the first time Auckland's Garageland 'Comeback Special EP' and 'Last Exit To Garageland' which when released made solid splashes on student radio as well as going on to reach number 5 in the NZ music album charts. Guitars turned up and warm reverb tossing off words nonchalantly in the way that great NZ bands have always mumbled through a catchy tune, Garageland were mining a rich musical vein. Deluxe 2xLP, including, B-sides, rarites and digital download. VIDEO:

$17.98

The 'Otherness' is the latest album from New Zealand's experimental-alternative pop connoisseur Grayson Gilmour. This album is Grayson's third record with Flying Nun and follows on from the 2014 release 'Infinite Life!'. Over a 15 year music career, Grayson has built himself a dedicated fan base and admiration from music critics across New Zealand and internationally for not just his solo work but his band So So Modern and his more recent film and TV work. <a href="http://music.graysongilmour.com/album/otherness">Otherness by Grayson Gilmour</a>

$24.98

Perfume Genius, nom de poster-wraith of musician Mike Hadreas, will release his fourth album, No Shape, May 5 on Matador Records. The album was recorded in Los Angeles, produced by Blake Mills, mixed by Shawn Everett. Perfume Genius’s 2014 breakout album Too Bright—called awe-inspiring, magnificent by NPR—marked a musical and performative leap that sounds unlike anything before or since. With his new songs, he goes even further, merging church music, makeout music, R&B, art pop, krautrock, and queer soul into his take on stadium anthems. In a bio for the album, writer Choire Sicha says, God is all around actually and some of these songs are about being equal and some are about the witchcraft of believing. This is church music the same way Prince’s Black Album is — too dirty. It’s femme art pop the way Kate Bush’s The Dreaming is — too scary."

$27.98

Beautiful gold & silver metallic ink on black jacket. Black Editions present the first vinyl reissue of Keiji Haino 's stunning debut album Watashi Dake? , originally released in 1981. This first ever edition released outside of Japan features the artist's originally intended metallic gold and silver jacket artwork. Over the last fifty years few musicians or performers have created as monumental and uncompromising a body of work as that of Keiji Haino. Through a vast number of recordings and performances, Haino has staked out a ground all his own, creating a language of unparalleled intensity that defies any simple classification. For all this, his 1981 debut album Watashi Dake? has remained enigmatic. Originally released in a small edition by the legendary Pinakotheca label, the album was heard by only a select few in Japan and far fewer overseas. Original vinyl copies became impossibly rare and highly sought after the world over. Watashi Dake? presents a haunting vision -- stark vocals, whispered and screamed, punctuate dark silences. Intricate and sharp guitar figures interweave, repeat, and stretch, trance-like, emerging from dark recesses. Written and composed on the spot -- Haino's vision is one of deep spiritual depths that distantly evokes 1920s blues and medieval music -- yet is unlike anything ever committed to record before or since. Produced in close cooperation with Keiji Haino and legendary photographer Gin Satoh . Coupled with starkly minimal packaging, featuring the now iconic cover photographs by Gin Satoh, the album is a startling and fully realized artistic statement. Housed in custom printed deluxe Stoughton tip-on jackets, including black on black inserts, extras, and hand-colored finishes; Remastered by Elysian Masters and cut by Bernie Grundman Mastering; Pressed to high quality vinyl at RTI; Includes download code.

$15.98

Some artists wait for a great record to eventually come out of their efforts. Other records wait for their respective artists to become great enough to finally complete them. In the mid-to-late 'teens of our 21st century, with soundcloud, bandcamp, and a bouquet of social media outlets at the fingertips of just about any self-proclaimed "musician" in the western world, the speed at which we (singers, strummers, knob-turners, collectives, labels, and the like) are able to churn out recordings for whatever public will have them is currently at an unprecedented production rate. But even in these increasingly hurried times, not every record is suited for such land-speed - such is the case with Chapel Hill-based songstress REESE McHENRY's debut full-length 12" BAD GIRL. When McHenry first began working on this batch of material with producer, co-songwriter, and key collaborator DAN McGEE (of fellow Triangle-area garage country cohorts SPIDER BAGS) over half a decade ago, the music scene acquaintances who merely admired each other's rock n roll outfits from a passing distance (McHenry then the defining force behind Durham's DIRTY LITTLE HEATERS) couldn't possibly have known the gravity of the journey that lay ahead of their newfound friendship. Gravity - it's a word used with intention, in this case. The word that McGee uses to describe the very nature of the situation when McHenry first imparted him with the sentiment that, above all things, she wished to make a great record before she dies. Who doesn't, right? The strummers, the knob-turners, we're all searching for that. At least that's how McGee initially took it. But as he soon came to realize, she meant something entirely more direct, more literal - perhaps, unfortunately, more time-sensitive than others. A victim of chronic heart problems (AFIB) and a series of strokes throughout the late-oughts, McHenry was deathly ill during the Heaters tenure, transitioning in and out of hospitals while continuing to work passionately on her music. In 2011, doctors severed half of her heart, replacing it with a pacemaker that helps it beat (and belt songs) to this day. Coincidentally or not, that was also the year she reached out to the Spider Bags in search of help with making this record. At the time, Dan McGee's production credits were hardly of note. Outside of his own music, he'd really only ever produced one record for friend and area musician Ben Carr's band LAST YEAR'S MEN (a group of rowdy teenagers at the time with as much of a natural knack for mature and emotive narrative songwriting - brought to the surface, in part, with McGee's assistance - as their inherent brand of balls-to-the-wall garage inferno). While he enjoyed the challenge and felt he had an ear for it, a wife at home, pregnant with his first child, and a band of his own to focus on progressing ultimately kept McGee out of other people's studios. It wasn't until McHenry approached him with the task at hand that he chose to revisit the roll of working on another person's record. The rest, as they say, is history... Well, eventually. Health and home-lives aside (if one can even divorce such nuclear matters), the making of the record itself came tangled with no shortage of obstacles. After all this woman had been through, there was inevitably a layer or two of rust that needed scraping. The Spider Bags (consisting of long-time percussionist Rock Forbes and somewhat new-comer Steve Oliva holding down the low end - both of whom, it's worth noting, start to gel as SB's definitive rhythm section over the course of these recordings) were no stranger to McHenry's organic talent. What they were there to do was make her even better. To be her "house band," like a Stax ensemble, catering themselves to the session without omitting their own recognizable charms. To write, arrange, and selflessly play, take after take, in service to the powerful, guiding tool that is McHenry's voice and the 18-wheeled Peterbilt that is her spirit. At the end of the day, Bad Girl is, by design, a singer's record. In the traditional sense, with its considerate balance of material written by her, for her by others, and/or by others all together, the collection as a whole is offered to us, in song, by a modern woman faced with the every-day trials of love and growth, and the pains that mark their passing. From the album-opening title track, a gender perspective-swapping garage-wop take on Lee Moses' timeless original, to the b-side's soon-to-be American standard "Concrete Roses," inked by McHenry herself and recorded live in one take - complete with Forbes masterfully playing brushes on a pizza box - without even having previously heard McGee's arrangement for it (after the tape stopped rolling, everyone wept), there's an almost cinematic quality throughout the long-player's narrative. It's the tale of a woman who tries her best to do good, to not be bad, but as we all know, life is rarely so black-and-white. It's what she overcomes along the way that gives her color - that not only gives her a voice, but strengthens it by giving her something to sing. And if you ask me, or just about any schmuck from Chapel Hill to Hollywood, we'd be hard-pressed to find another protagonist as easy to root for as our very own Reese McHenry - singer, survivor, Bad Girl.

$19.98

…speaking of air and darkness, Born on a Gangster Star came into the world in a big damn hurry, like nightfall on an island. You can see it happening, but then again it’s so gradual that the next thing you know—it’s dark. Imbued with the energy and ideas from all the creative embers floating in the atmosphere like fireflies, Shabazz Palaces recorded this entire album over the course of two weeks with Blood in Seattle. New gear and new equipment disintegrated comfort zones into dust and a new path appeared in the rubble. Herein the Palaceer continues the tale of Quazars, a sentient being from somewhere else, an observer sent here to Amurderca to chronicle and explore as a musical emissary. What he finds in our world is a cutthroat place, a landscape where someone like him could never quite feel comfortable amidst all the brutality and alternative facts and death masquerading as connectivity. Inspired by days on end spent in the waves—water and light, both—of Southern California, the work came to the Palaceer in a flash, like being picked up by something and carried. Always dribbling with his head up, he can see what’s going on around him and react to it, rather than starting in a certain direction and hoping to achieve something upon arrival. What’s good?—the kids ask. What does it even mean, and what does it even matter? Who is behind these choices? We are all of us sitting under a waterfall of all. this. shit. But it’s the excess that is casting us into ruts. The Palaceer stays away from the fleeting and the superficial nonessential. Stay away from your device—your phantom limb—and stay away from your image—your phantom self; that is his decree. Considering the motions behind the things you like to consume artistically, rather than just the way something looks or sounds, and thinking in layers, and trying to be more considerate and not so self-oriented—this is his medicine for combat. Born on a Gangster Star flirts with a pop sensibility, but through the prism of Shabazz Palaces’s fire and fury. For the Palaceer, that sense is all about how the groove is moving, and the supernatural telepathy that occurs amongst his cohort. Appearing here, in body or in spirit, are Julian Casablancas, Thundercat, Darrius Willrich, Gamble and Huff, Loud Eyes Lou, Thaddillac, Ahmir, Jon Kirby, Sunny Levine, and Blood. The story belongs to Quazarz, but the air and darkness belong to us. And so we shine a light on the fake.

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Throughout years of traveling, John Andrews has documented his life with his home recordings. His first record, Bit By The Fang, found him living in the amish country of Lancaster, PA. On his latest record, Bad Posture, he waves farewell to Pennsylvania and greets the wooded hills of Barrington, NH. These songs were written slowly and quietly throughout the winter, usually late at night next to the wood stove. It was recorded in Andrews’ barn with the doors ajar, welcoming the springtime — inviting the outside noises in. You can hear the crickets chirping and the occasional truck driving by. The songs themselves lend their hand like slow backwoods Beatles demos covered in a thin blanket of tape hiss. Andrews’ band, The Yawns, has been crystallized with staples from the New England freak scene: Rachel Neveu and Lukas Goudreault (MMOSS / Soft Eyes) and Joey Schneider. The album was mixed with headphones at the foot of Emma Critchett’s grave, who lived in the Yawns’ house during the 1800s. The record is an ode to her and all who have lived there. It paints a picture of living in the “freecountry” on the precipice of a rapidly changing political climate. Recommended If You Like: Woods, MV & EE, etc. Bad Posture by John Andrews & The Yawns

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BAD COP / BAD COP charged onto the punk scene two years ago with unrepentant fury through their aptly titled debut album Not Sorry. Since then Bad Cop has not stopped fighting. Through major ups and downs (the ‘downs’ reaching a head when co-vocalist STACEY DEE “ended up bottoming out” and having to leave the Fat Wrecked for 25 Years tour), Bad Cop / Bad Cop is stronger than ever now as they prepare to release their sophomore album. With Warriors, Bad Cop have seriously come out to play. Can you dig it? Through the band’s experiences over the last couple years have come some of their best and most personal song writing to date. Warriors comes out of the gate swinging with the in-your-face, blistering march “Retrograde,” and never looks back from there. They slow it down with the rock n’ roll tinged “Amputations” which highlights the struggles that the band has gone through over the last couple of years. “Womanarchist” dives headlong into the political climate, showing Bad Cop / Bad Cop aren’t going to take inequality and injustice lying down. Be assured, once Warriors is unleashed unto the world there won’t be a man left standing.

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Ask any New Yorker what makes them special and they'll all tell you something different. But there's something very particular about a city so condensed with a vast range of humanity all facing myriad daily challenges that gives its rock music a brash, direct aggression unlike other places. Case in point, NYC trio Blackouts take on doom and stoner rock is filled with a gritty, mechanistic heft unlike bands of their ilk from anywhere else. Subsumed within the greasy grooves of The Horse there are echoes of NYC heavy legends like Helmet, Cro-Mags, Judge, Prong and others not as intentional homage, but rather a vibe that permeates and inadvertently gives its bands a unique power that few can match. After a brief hiatus between the March 2015 release of their self-titled sophomore album on Riding Easy Records, Blackout has regrouped and (ahem) gotten back on The Horse for an 8-song blast of riffs that does not fuck around. On one fateful day in July 2016, with a handful of mushrooms and a bottle of tequila, vocalist/guitarist Christian Gordy set out to write an entire new Blackout record. Following the departure of original drummer Taryn Waldman earlier that year, the band's fate was uncertain. But, Gordy's writing foray resulted in a wellspring of inspiration and by happenstance he contacted drummer Adam Taylor who had just parted with his band Ghost Punch. Within two months of banging out riffs with bassist Justin Sherrell, Blackout was back in action. The Horse was recorded over 4 days in September 2016 at Spaceman Sound in Brooklyn's Greenpoint neighborhood, which the band describes as a whirlwind session laced with loads of buds, Petey's burgers and lipstick. Or, described by Blackout themselves: What you have before you now is a messy plate of meat, slathered in weird sauces. A haunted steak from from Centaurus A to sink your tingling fangs into. Sit back, crack a semi cold one, maybe get some snacks and turn this motherfucker up to 8.

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Chain & the Gang are different than the rest. You won’t see their name on the garbage heap of hyped bands pushed by paid-off web-zine tastemakers. They’re not “jingle-core,” tattooed onto your subconscious via Madison Avenue mind-control ad campaigns. They’re not middle brow NPR indie listening for Prius owning cubicle rockers or a tiresome teenage retread of ‘90s surrender sludge. No. Chain & the Gang are singular, terrifying, unparalleled. Not only the most ferocious live combo ever witnessed but also the world’s ONLY anti-liberty rock ’n’ roll group. Their motto? “Down with Liberty … Up with Chains!” Chain & the Gang don’t care about grades, likes, traffic or hits. They don’t petition publicists for goofy hype or pander to the corrupt institutions who molest rock ’n’ roll and use it as their plaything. Chain & Co. don’t play that game. They want total destruction of the insipid rock ’n’ roll status quo and the foul system it purports to offer relief from –- but in fact keeps afloat. Chain & the Gang have released five uncompromising records, each one a brilliant tossed off sketchbook of insolence and provocation: “Down with Liberty … Up With Chains!”, “Music’s Not For Everyone”, “In Cool Blood”, “Minimum Rock ’n’ Roll”, and “Experimental Music”. You got them or always meant to get them. Now: YOU DON't HAVE TO!!! Now you only need one: This is it: Chain & the Gang; “BEST OF ... CRIME ROCK” , on 'In The Red' Records and Tapes. They just recorded it. Its easily the best record, with the most passion, the most accuracy, the most cunning, the most vigor. Every song on these records is a classic, each lyric an anthem. The tunes are simplistic to the point of parody; call and response rhythm chants which infiltrate the consciousness and leave the listener transformed forever. Each group member is a star. But together they’re something greater than the parts. An irresistible combo that provides the best hope for the future and the only answer to the embarrassing slime pit called “culture” nowadays.

$22.98

John Coltrane transformed the inner architecture of jazz, throughout the mid-1950s and 1960s and long after his premature death at age 40 in 1967. No other American musician could be said to be at the spiritual center of the ‘60s musical universe as Trane influenced Albert Ayler, La Monte Young, Jimi Hendrix and everybody in between. Cosmic Music, originally self-released by Alice Coltrane in 1968 and later issued by Impulse!, features two tracks (“Manifestation” and “Rev. King”) by John Coltrane’s legendary final quintet that were recorded in San Francisco on February 2nd, 1966 and two more (“Lord Help Me To Be” and “The Sun”) from Alice Coltrane’s very first session as a bandleader, recorded six months after her husband’s passing. “Manifestation” opens with the group already in mid-flight: Trane’s fierce tenor leads the way with Pharoah Sanders’ blistering sax and Alice’s powerful chords hearing his call. On “Rev. King,” Trane introduces a lyrical theme and then the composition erupts into fiery incantations, while Jimmy Garrison’s bass throbs alongside the propulsive, gravity-defying drumming of Rashied Ali. Foreshadowing her majestic debut, A Monastic Trio, “Lord Help Me To Be” brings Alice’s celestial piano playing and inspired improvisations to the foreground with Sanders, Garrison and drummer Ben Riley rumbling in tow. “The Sun,” a meditative ballad with subtle urgency, perfectly closes the album’s contemplative circle. As John Coltrane recites on the final track, “May there be peace and love and perfection throughout all creation.”

$34.98

Ten Years Alive On The Infinite Plain is the quintessential work of artist/filmmaker/composer Tony Conrad. Comprised of both film installation and minimalist score for amplified strings, Ten Years leaps across genre and medium to connect his revolutionary structural filmmaking with the experiments in long-duration sound that Conrad had begun in the 1960s as part of the Theatre of Eternal Music. "Ten Years began with image before sound," writes Andrew Lampert, "a row of quadruple projections arranged side-by-side, all the shuffling stripes cascading into each other. Over the next two hours the music throbbed and the projectors incrementally shifted inwards, their beams gradually uniting to form one pulsating, overlapping picture." For its 1972 premiere at New York's The Kitchen, Ten Years included Conrad on violin as well as Rhys Chatham and Laurie Spiegel performing on instruments of the composer's own making. Chatham played the Long String Drone – a 6-foot long strip of wood with bass strings, electric pickup, tuning keys, tape, rubber band and metal hardware – while Spiegel carried out an arrhythmic bass pulse throughout. Superior Viaduct is honored to present this previously unreleased recording of Ten Years Alive On The Infinite Plain's breathtaking premier performance. As Chatham recounts in the liner notes, "When I first listened to this recording after not hearing it for over 40 years, it transported me back to the early Kitchen and the heyday of early minimalism, played outside the Dream Syndicate.”

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Violinist, composer and filmmaker Tony Conrad started his career in New York in the early 1960s. As a member of the Theater of Eternal Music (a.k.a. the Dream Syndicate) alongside John Cale, La Monte Young, Marian Zazeela and Angus MacLise, he participated in now-legendary and often legendarily loud drone performances with many pieces having no beginning and no end. During a fateful trip to Germany in 1972, Conrad met with avant-rock visionaries Faust and made the very first record to bear his name. Outside The Dream Syndicate, originally released in Europe only in 1973, is a stunning debut. Two side-long tracks—“The Side Of Man And Womankind” and “The Side Of The Machine”—show just how far Conrad had moved beyond his minimalist peers. Werner Diermaier’s repetitive drum beat and Jean-Hervé Peron’s stripped-down bassline conjure a tense, ascetic groove, while Conrad’s seamless violin, initially so controlled, reveals a surprising adaptability. The music shifts almost on a subliminal level, pushing and pulling to the drone’s internal pulse. It is hard to imagine Conrad’s trajectory from downtown Manhattan to a farmhouse in the German countryside that ultimately resulted in Outside The Dream Syndicate, yet no other record captures—so completely and instantly—the intersection of avant-garde and rock forms. Outside The Dream Syndicate remains ahead of and bracingly outside of its time. This first-time vinyl reissue and long out-of-print CD release have been carefully been carefully mastered from the original master tapes and include liner notes by musician Jim O’Rourke and author Branden W. Joseph.

$20.98

Summoned to play it the old way in a new age, Trondheim, Norway quintet Dunbarrow draws inspiration from freezing winter nights, unpolished demo tapes from the 70s and the Swedish throwback rock from the beginning of the 21st century. The result is Norwegian proto-doom with a back-to-basics sound, from Pentagram and Witchfinder General to Quicksilver Messenger Service. Dunbarrows clean, unadorned sound shares the unpretentious brilliance of classic heavy progenitors playing basements and barns, before the big budgets and bloated habits diluted hard rock into an echo chamber awash in reverb and layered in distant, screeching hobbits. The bands 9-track self-titled album is a classic in the sense that every song becomes instantly recognizable after just one listen. With lyrics like the clever paean to a young witch mothers birth of Lucifers Child, Dunbarrow has a wealth of gloomy sentiments: Can you understand my young mothers plight / Away from the comforts that burn at the stake / She gave birth to a venomous snake / On her great pyre she smiled / For she carried Lucifers child. Dunbarrow is based in the far northern Norwegian city Trondheim, but is originally from Haugesund on the west coast of Norway. The band has been playing together for over 8 years through different band names and genres. In 2014, vocalist Espen Andersen joined the band upon the departure of original singer/bassist Richard Chappell. Sondre Berge went from playing drums to playing bass. Kenneth Lnning and Eirik vregrd are still on the guitars, with Pl Gunnar Dale taking over the drums permanently in 2016. Espen Andersen recorded and mixed the debut album at Stoy Studios. Dunbarrow is hitting the studio for their second album this summer.

$36.98

ELDER is a heavy psych band from Boston, USA. Founded by long-time friends NICHOLAS DISALVO, JACK DONOVAN and MAT COUTO, the group spent years plodding in Sabbathian territory, releasing their self-titled debut 2007, followed by Dead Roots Stirring in 2011. They also released a two song EP Spires Burn / Release in 2012 showing musical growth in a more refined vision of the band's sound. With Dead Roots Stirring and Spires Burn, Elder took a surprising turn away from their more traditional stoner rock roots, incorporating uplifting melodies and progressive song structures into their lengthy epics. Their third full length Lore is a watershed moment in the band's history. Joining the interplay of heaviness and melody which has become the hallmark Elder sound are a host of new meanderings through uncharted kosmische territory; krautrock, prog as well as classic heavy rock and doom can all be heard unfolding throughout the record's five songs. By giving equal credence to riffs and atmosphere, Lore bypasses genre constraints, the group's penchant for progressive songwriting and melody shining more brightly than ever. While Elder's sound is now much more evolved and varied, it is still consistently based around rock and metal, originally influenced by such heavy landmark bands as Black Sabbath, Sleep and Electric Wizard.

$36.98

It’s time to get euphoric. With EDLER's fourth full-length album, an epic piece of rock music will be released unto the world. And we think that’s a reason to celebrate. Band members and friends NICK DISALVO, JACK DONOVAN and MATT COUTO already dismissed any last remains of stoner metal stereotypes on Lore (2015). Their current album, which was written following the long and acclaimed Lore tour in moments of intense creativity, is a journey into prog rock and psychedelic worlds. Six monumental songs, huge in sound, each of them their own cosmic expedition. What begins as driving mid-tempo rock filled with heavy guitar riffs repeatedly erupts into melodic tangents and clever variations. The high demands that DiSalvo places on his own songwriting seem to become more unfettered from minute to minute—as does the pleasure of listening to him. Guest musicians MICHAEL SAMOS and MIKE RISBERG have added additional guitars, pedal steel and keyboards to the trio, making Elder’s sound more voluminous than ever, and the influences found here range from '70s prog dinosaurs such as Yes, King Crimson or Pink Floyd to their kindred spirits in the European psychedelic and space rock scenes. And it is of course a cliché, but Elder bring their own organism to life from all these influences. Elder will be taking Reflections of a Floating World live to European fans in July and August 2017, followed by a USA tour in the fall. The East Coast trio will be a quartet for the first time ever on these tours with the addition of Mike Risberg on second guitar and keyboards. Anybody who has already seen Elder live know that they shouldn’t miss the opportunity to see them on this tour.

$19.98

For a side project, Flowers Of Evil outpaces and out-snots the best of them. What started as more or less of a studio project with Brandon Welchez from Crocodiles and David McDaniel from Young Boys has turned into a band that has delivered not one but two solid hardcore punk albums in the last two years. City Of Fear showcases a band comfortable with their punk roots and delivers some classic sounding snotty hardcore jams. Reminiscent of early Career Suicide, this album blends the high velocity in-your-face sound of first era hardcore like The Germs with a good dose of melody to keep things catchy and infectious. &lt;a href="http://derangedrecords.bandcamp.com/album/city-of-fear"&gt;City of Fear by FLOWERS OF EVIL&lt;/a&gt;

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What if Black Sabbath played Afrobeat? In short, that’s the underlying vibe to the self-titled debut by Here Lies Man. This L.A. based quintet, founded and conceptualized by Marcos Garcia of Antibalas, brings his erudite experience of West African rhythms and music to the more riff-based foundations of heavy rock. The results are an incredibly catchy and refreshing twist on classic forms, without sounding forced and trite like some sort of mashup attempt. Here Lies Man merges and expands musical traditions organically, utilizing the talents of drummer Geoff Mann (son of jazz musician Herbie Mann) and a host of skilled musicians to make Garcia’s vision a reality. “The repetitive guitar figures that happen in Afrobeat music are very close to heavy rock guitar riffs,” Garcia explains. “This music is based on the clave. It’s the musical algorithm that the rhythms revolve around. It’s what gives it integrity and provides the basis for the musical conversation that’s happening. I knew I wanted it to be psychedelic and heavy, and I wanted to be expanding on a musical tradition rather than pretending to be creating something new.” That expansion is this brilliant, hazy, psychedelic, hook-laden eight-song masterwork. &amp;amp;amp;lt;a href="http://hereliesman.bandcamp.com/album/here-lies-man"&amp;amp;amp;gt;Here Lies Man by Here Lies Man&amp;amp;amp;lt;/a&amp;amp;amp;gt;

$19.98

Four years after the end of his punk band Masshysteri, Robert Hurula returned with a solo project under the name Hurula. His first album, Vi Är Människorna Som Våra Föräldrar Varnade Oss För, picked up where that classic band left off, blending elements of early Scandinavian punk à la Ebba Gron and post-punk with some obvious pop undertones. The album earned wide acclaim and made numerous Best Of Year lists in 2014. On this second album, Hurula returns with more of the same infectious formula anyone familiar with his musical output over the last ten years will immediately recognize.The production is bigger but the songs are just as catchy. &amp;lt;a href="http://derangedrecords.bandcamp.com/album/vapen-till-dom-hopplosa"&amp;gt;Vapen Till Dom Hopplosa by HURULA&amp;lt;/a&amp;gt;

$15.98

Upbeat noisy new wave from this genius one woman group outta Calgary. Scratchy guitars and abrasive pouting vocals tracked over a thudding drum machine makes for a punk/wave mess to remember. Nine tracks with an incredible and infectious closing number “Vacuum Rebuilder.” &amp;lt;a href="http://janitorscum.bandcamp.com/album/lp"&amp;gt;LP by Janitor Scum&amp;lt;/a&amp;gt;

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Do Simon Joyner and David Nance love or hate the Rolling Stones’ Jamaican vacation themed 1973 follow-up to Exile On Main Street? You’ll have to listen and decide for yourself. It might depend on how sacrosanct you feel about classic rock “masterpieces”! One thing’s for certain, the Grimmer Twins version is a bit more raw and experimental than the original Glimmer Twins record. “Some of the songs had decent lyrics but terrible music, like Keith had just conceded the band to Mick at this point, so we wrote our own music. At least one song had to be totally re-written with new words and music because it was so awful that neither of us could think of how to save it. We kept the title. But the others just needed to be played by people who give a shit.”

$17.98

Texas and Japan team up for a trans-pacific, two-man summertime pop explosion! Lost Balloons are Jeff Burke (Radioactivity, Marked Men, etc.) and Yusuke Okada of Japan’s incredible Suspicious Beasts. Hey Summer is their second album, following 2015’s self titled debut on Germany’s Alien Snatch Records. The two play all the instruments (although there is a live lineup as well) and split singing / songwriting duties. It works fantastically well as an album, meant to be listened to from start-to-finish. Wistful, sun-shiny ’60s-inspired pop with a bit of ’80s college rock jangle and even a little modern garage / Americana twang, this album represents a pretty big departure from a normal Jeff Burke project (and although it’s sonically a little closer to Okada’s Suspicious Beasts, it veers farther afield of his normal songwriting comfort zone as well). Burke says that this album is probably the least “punk” record he’s ever done. It confirms what everyone has long suspected: these two can master any genre they tackle, and make it fully their own. &lt;a href="http://dirtnaprecords.bandcamp.com/album/lost-balloons-hey-summer"&gt;Lost Balloons - Hey Summer by Dirtnap Records&lt;/a&gt;

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“The couple that slays together, stays together: Looch Vibrato and Aggy Sonora, like the moniker of an infamous killing duo, the fucking butchest band from Bordeaux. Looch, with hands like bunches of bananas and songs like flaming arrows. The lovely and tough-as-hell Aggy, crushing the kit. Heavy weird attackers from our sister country. Sludge drips—murder the guitar, usurp the amp, fry the mic, howl like beasts, melt the crowd: Magnetix. We were lucky enough to grab them on one of their rare U.S. shows, recorded in a basement in San Francisco. Here it is in all its gory glory. Let’s go tripping…” —John Dwyer

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“Matt, Mark and Adam, aka Male Gaze, return quickly from the brainy roar of their previous album King Leer with their six heels hanging even further over the edge of the abyss. Good bands often pull punches but the great ones don’t and these charismatically scarred veterans of romance, gear singed from all too real firefights in the dark world of adulthood, lodge ten new slugs into your vest. Your life was spared but you’ll feel every second of the thirtyfive- plus minutes, grateful that all you got was a bruising. Imagine what it did to them! Have you ever flung yourself out there to such a degree that you risked total humiliation if it all went south, to where the next step would be self deportation to some distant island of annihilation in your mind? How did that work out for you? Don’t worry, Male Gaze knows and they wrote some songs about it. Look out your window, down at the glittering metropolis below and listen to this album.” —Henry Rollins

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David Nance, Omaha veteran of warble and hiss, returns with Negative Boogie, his new concoction of chug, throb and greasy swagger. On this album, Nance trades in his beaten up Tascam 488 for the bullet-proof, glass walls of A.R.C. Studios. What exactly is the negative boogie? Well, it’s a bit like Canned Heat but with Pere Ubu’s queasy rhythms and someone playing five finger fillet with Swell Maps. Ensconced in his ivory tower and soundproof rooms, Nance reached for unlikely weapons to tear down his own lofty experiment. He had his pick of rare guitars, cowbells, steel drums, vintage amps, Crazy Horse microphones, mellotron, and the restless but indefatigable rhythm section of Kevin Donahue and Tom May. They started at sunrise and recorded fifteen songs by midnight. Maybe it’s his Midwestern work ethic, maybe he’s a sonic cheapskate. Maybe it’s just the sound of negative boogie. These songs stab and flow into one other like a perfectly orchestrated classic. They are drenched with Nance’s most biting and comic lyrics to date, peaking on “D.L.A.T.U.M.F. Blues (Don’t Look At This Ugly Mother Fucker Blues)”. And ripping through the entire thing is the cracked power he yanks out of the guitar, a veritable The Good, The Bad And The Ugly of riffage. This is a departure for Nance. It’s bigger and grander but it’s far from easy music. It’s his Plastic Ono Band, his For Your Pleasure, his fever dream of Rocket from the Tombs. But this of course is only a press release, written by a team of robots using words programmed to seduce you. Did it work? &lt;a href="http://badabingrecords.bandcamp.com/album/negative-boogie-2"&gt;Negative Boogie by David Nance&lt;/a&gt;

$15.98

Slovenly Recordings is proud to present A Gut Feeling—the fifth foot-long (their 3rd for us!) from Sardinian rhythm ‘n’ beat powerhouse THE RIPPERS! Super tough mod-punk snarl and freak-beat floorstompers with galloping tom-toms on “Pain” recall Billy Childish‘s Native American worship channeling Buddy Holly, while “No One Cares” delivers hair-splitting harp wail in the grand tradition of Slim Harpo’s finest Excello Records sides as interpreted by The UK’s sharpest degenerate 60s rockers. “Stop to Drive Me Mad” is as fresh a sound as you’re ever gonna hear from these musical luddites, and tipping the hat to The Creation is as proggy as you’ll get from our heroes primitivi. &lt;a href="http://slovenly.bandcamp.com/album/the-rippers-a-gut-feeling-lp"&gt;THE RIPPERS "A Gut Feeling" LP by The Rippers&lt;/a&gt;

$29.98

"Don't try to fight it," the band's motto implores, "Salem's Pot has come to destroy your mind." It's the same kind of winking tease employed by low budget horror films of the 70s-80s that essentially dared audiences to experience what they knew they wanted, but couldn't possibly expect. Likewise, the new album by mysterious Swedish quintet Salem's Pot delivers truly gritty and captivating heavy rock in high contrast technicolor: a sonic equivalent of The Last House On The Left, El Topo and Blood Feast. Similar to the way such films made up for their lack of flashy, expensive effects with dim lighting and implied violence, a hallucinogenic sense of true evil lurks in the dark corners of Salem's Pot's sound. Lest we forget, the band's name itself is a pun on Stephen King's stark, modernized vampire masterpiece. Double vinyl in a gatefold sleeve, fourth side is an etching. &amp;lt;a href="http://salemspot.bandcamp.com/album/pronounce-this"&amp;gt;Pronounce This! by Salem's Pot&amp;lt;/a&amp;gt;

$20.98

Sweden's trio of blood drunkards Salem's Pot return this April to consecrate their union with the LA based label EasyRider Records with a follow up to last year's Watch Me Kill You. Following in the footsteps of astral concept albums of the 1970s, over three tracks of sprawling heavy psychedelia "...Lurar ut dig pa prarien" offers the listener little chance of escape. Summoning the writhing sounds of demon fuzz and distant death knells the opening swell of "Creep Purple", a 14 minute purge of lo-fi garage metal riffs and lysergic comedown finds Salem's Pot setting out their stall from which to peddle the darkest of doom. Loose, low slung and inspired by the legends of Sabbath and the extended jams of Hawkwind "Dr Death" and the pounding "Nothing Hell" complete the unholy trinity of tracks replete with lyrics that propel the listener into worlds unknown. Atmospheric realms populated with weed and witches in a reality as miserable and malevolent as it mind-bending and majestic. &amp;lt;a href="http://salemspot.bandcamp.com/track/nothing-hill"&amp;gt;Nothing Hill by Salem's Pot&amp;lt;/a&amp;gt;

$22.98

TERRY is a band from Melbourne, Australia comprised of members of CONSTANT MONGREL, SCHOOL OF RADIANT LIVING, MICK HARVEY BAND, PRIMO, EASTLINK, TOTAL CONTROL, RUSSELL STREET BOMBING, UV RACE, and DICK DIVER. Terry is a particularly active, having released two EPs and a full-length album Terry HQ in 2016 on Upset The Rhythm. After returning from summer 2016's European tour, Terry set about writing a new album of songs. These are now grouped together as Remember Terry, an album full of wish fulfillment, critiqued characters, memorial muscle, and historical hustle.

$23.98

The Fall returned to Rough Trade in 1983 to release a pair of singles (“The Man Whose Head Expanded” and “Kicker Conspiracy”) and Perverted By Language, their sixth proper studio album. Perverted By Language hints at the band’s shift towards a distinctly pop approach, one that they would perfect via their Beggars Banquet output that immediately followed. Yet again, the force and panic of their initial Rough Trade recordings remains the foundation for much of the album. A transitional recording in the absolute best sense, Perverted By Language is The Fall both as they were and as they would become. The emergence of Brix Smith is often cited as the impetus for The Fall’s move toward outward pop, and she first makes her first appearance with the band on Perverted By Language. Nowhere is her presence felt more than on “Hotel Blöedel,” where she handles lead vocal duties alongside Mark E. Smith whose mangled violin accompaniment roots the song’s cold romanticism in his unmistakable brand of strange. “Garden” provides a new take on The Fall’s stretched-out tendencies—using ringing, clean guitars to build a nearly 10-minute epic more subtly than ever before. The opener, “Eat Y’self Fitter,” is wholly classic Fall: a playfully circular bass line drives the album’s strongest vocal spout, complete with emphatic breaks where Mark E. Smith issues the song’s spiteful decree with equal parts glee and scorn. Superior Viaduct’s edition is the first time that Perverted By Language has been available on vinyl domestically.

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“Coming off the heels off a mounting barrage of thick post-punk releases, Voight-Kampff pushes out another aggressive and atmospheric assault with their new album The Din of Dying Youth. The album immediately drops into the fray like a paratrooper as rhythmic chiming and bolting drums push their way through the melodic chorus-drenched guitar easier than a jackhammer through a stream of water, cooling it down from overheating, in a sky-scraping industrial park factory where no sunlight reaches. The factory foreman vocals speak through the PA system to his human-replaced assembly line machines while simultaneously gripping the self-destruct button. Through the screeches and tears, faint optimistic veils drift in and out, spiraling around the tracks. Clocking in at just over twenty minutes, The Din of Dying Youth delivers a solid line without fluff or filling, striking both sides of the alternative melancholy buzz, from Creation Records to the steel grinding steel noise of Touch & Go. The momentum propels you miles per minute through overhead cable lines from the muddy waters of the Mississippi River into the cold Northeastern waters of the Quabbin Reservoir.” —Josh Jenkins

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Full Flower is an exercise in letting the light in—the result of a band exploring sonic space throughout its thirteen tracks—weaving smaller, more production intensive vignettes into the larger fabric of Us and Us Only’s trademark see-sawing dynamics. In allowing its home in bedroom ambiance to work in harmony with high fidelity studio prowess, Full Flower is a rock album viewed through the morning haze of half-open eyes.

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**LTD RED VINYL EDITION The Soul Jazz label once again proves how smart they are with excellent Studio One Groups, an almost overwhelming set of killer cuts from bands and singing groups affiliated with Clement "Coxsone" Dodd's "University of Reggae." Clement Seymour "Sir Coxsone" Dodd's record label and sometimes studio was alive from the mid-'50s to the early '80s and saw the Jamaican sound go from ska to rocksteady to roots reggae. There's an amazing, deep history to be explored and even when you focus on just the groups, one disc isn't enough to tell the whole story, but this collection functions as both a killer mixtape and exciting introduction for novices. Rob Chapman's liner notes are informative, the design is up to the label's usual high standards, and there's a wonderful mix of tracks you might know, tracks you should know, and a couple of wonderful rarities that should have never fallen through the cracks. The sweet harmonies, spiritual roots music, and soul-influenced ballads are all intoxicating and you can't even began to claim a familiarity with Jamaican music history until names like the Maytals, the Heptones, and, of course, the Wailers are firmly in your back pocket. Whether you're being introduced or getting reacquainted, Studio One Groups is an easy recommendation.

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BACK IN PRINT!!!!!!! 2xLP now with bonus download code! Compilation of classic recordings from the heaviest group in the history of reggae! Sound Dimension have recorded some of the most important songs in reggae music; songs such as 'Real Rock,' 'Drum Song,' 'Heavy Rock,' 'Rockfort Rock,' 'In Cold Blood' -- all classic songs that have become the 'foundation' of reggae music, endlessly versioned and re-versioned by Jamaican artists since the time they were first recorded to the present day. As the in-house band at Studio One in the late 1960s, Sound Dimension played alongside everyone from The Heptones, Alton Ellis, Ken Boothe, Marcia Griffiths and more. Similar to their U.S. counterparts, The Funk Brothers at Motown and Booker T. and The MGs at Stax, Sound Dimension recorded on a daily basis incredibly catchy and funky tunes and matched by a seamless musicality. Featuring musicians of the calibre of Ernest Ranglin, Jackie Mittoo, Eric Frater, Leroy Sibbles, Don Drummond Jr., Deadley Headley and more; Sound Dimension existed from around 1967-70 and all the recordings featured here were originally released during this period. REVIEWS: "A juicy compilation that does justice to the forgotten of the history of reggae." LES INROCKS "Since copyright laws were virtually non-existent in Jamaica for most of the 20th century, it is common to hear innumerable mutations of any given riddim track. Discerning the creators of each song can be a daunting task. From 1967 to ’70, however, the Sound Dimension was the house band at Studio One, creating memorable cuts for the lyrical pantheon of Jamaica to sing and toast over. This 18-song collection of instrumentals shows how pivotal these men were in the sonic architecture of reggae." XLR8R "Legendary Studio One band Sound Dimension find themselves on the receiving end of another celebrative retrospective courtesy of the ever-reliable Soul Jazz, bringing together classic recordings of 'Mojo Rocksteady', 'Real Rock', 'Heavy Rock'Rockfort Rock', 'Jamaica Underground' and more. The breadth of this band's influence can be heard throughout the annals of reggae, with these timelessly funky cuts revisited and re-versioned by anyone and everyone since being committed to tape in the '60s. Another great document from Soul Jazz" BOOMKAT