New Releases - 1/31/20
Hitting The Racks
Here's your weekly rundown of what's hitting the new release racks at Grimey's
Jump to… New Releases Reissues & From The Vaults New on Vinyl
New Releases
Drive-By Truckers - The Unraveling CD/LP (ATO)
Drive-By Truckers' twelfth studio album and first new LP in more than three years - the longest gap between new DBT albums - The Unraveling took shape after co-founding singer/songwriter/guitarists Mike Cooley and Patterson Hood both battling deep pools of writer's block. "How do you put these day to day things we're all living through into the form of a song that we (much less anybody else) would ever want to listen to?" says Hood. "How do you write about the daily absurdities when you can't even wrap your head around them in the first place? I think our response was to focus at the core emotional level. More heart and less cerebral perhaps." The remarkable songcraft found on The Unraveling receives much of its musical muscle from the sheer strength of the current Drive-By Truckers line-up, with Hood and Cooley joined by bassist Matt Patton, keyboardist/multi-instrumentalist Jay Gonzalez, and drummer Brad Morgan - together, the longest-lasting iteration in the band's almost 25-year history. The LP also features a number of special guests, including The Shins' Patti King, violinist/string arranger Kyleen King (Brandi Carlile), and North Mississippi All-Stars' Cody Dickinson, who contributes electric washboard to the strikingly direct "Babies In Cages". [Limited edition colored vinyl pressing.] We have autographed LP jackets, signed by Drive-By Truckers, free with purchase of The Unraveling on vinyl at Grimey's! While supplies last, naturally.
Frances Quinlan - Likewise CD/LP+MP3 (Saddle Creek)
Frances Quinlan has built an identity for herself over the past decade as the lead songwriter and frontwoman of the Philadelphia-based band Hop Along, and her distinct voice is among the most recognizable and inimitable in music. While the band began as Quinlan's solo project (originally titled Hop Along, Queen Ansleis), Likewise is Quinlan's debut under her own name. With a renewed openness to explore different sounds, Quinlan supplements her typical guitar-based instrumentation with synthesizers, digital beats, harps, strings, and a wide variety of keyboards. The shifting and exploratory nature of these musical arrangements allow her lyrics and vocals - which have always been at the forefront of her music - to reach emotional depths like never before. Her vocal tones beckon a kaleidoscopic range of emotions across all nine songs on the album, from soft and ruminative to enraged and commanding; from conveying powerful messages to highlighting small, yet poignant, moments. Free postcard with purchase while supplies last.
Torres - Silver Tongue CD/LP+MP3 (Merge)
A person whose words are so potent that they cause the people and beings around them to vibrate is said to have a "silver tongue". It's apt, then, that Mackenzie Scott - who has spent the 2010s making boundary-pushing pop music under her Torres moniker - has chosen to call her new album just that; Silver Tongue is a full-scale realization of the world Scott has created over Torres' last few albums. Even when singing in more subdued tones, Scott's voice is fervent, her lyrics stirring and unyielding as she draws from both the divine and the everyday. The album fastidiously chronicles the impulses that make up desire - from the dreamy first blushes of infatuation through the slightly terrifying wonder that accompanies connection with another. In between, Scott wrestles with the highs and lows of what "being in love" might mean over heady guitars and swirling synths. Torres' music has long navigated the space between the physical and the metaphysical, and Silver Tongue faces that conflict head-on, examining the ways in which the actions of others can stir up deep-seated feelings and seemingly alter the space in which one exists.
Destroyer - Have We Met CD/LP+MP3 (Merge)
Dan Bejar initially conceived of Have We Met as a Y2K album. He was already active during the era but not heard overhead in a cafe or salon, which is perhaps what the idea of the Y2K sound evokes nearly two decades later. Bejar assigned frequent producer and bandmate John Collins the role of layering synth and rhythm sections over demos with the period-specific Björk, Air, and Massive Attack in mind, but he soon realized the sonic template was too removed from Destroyer's own, and the idea of a concept was silly anyway. So, he abandoned it and gave Collins the most timeless instruction of all: "Make it sound cool." Atmosphere and loose approximations of a place or feeling are what we've come to expect from any new Destroyer record - certainly not an easily defined and stridently adhered to theme or concept. Have We Met manages to meet somewhere between those disparate Y2K reference points and Destroyer's own area of expertise, gliding deftly into territory that marries the old strident Destroyer with the new, aged crooning one of late.
Wire - Mind Hive CD/LP (Pink Flag)
Wire exhibit little inclination to look back; rather they remain resolutely focused on producing music that is smart, vital and defiantly modern. Mind Hive is the group's first newly recorded material since 2017's Silver/Lead. How a group that has been operating for such a long period is still able to produce such exciting and essential work is difficult to understand, and yet here we are.
Poliça - When We Stay Alive CD/LP+MP3 (Memphis Industries)
When Poliça's Channy Leaneagh fell off her roof while clearing ice in early 2018, she smashed her L1 vertebrae and battered her spine, leaving her in a brace with limited mobility for months. Yet Poliça's fourth album, When We Stay Alive, is not about one debilitating accident. It's about the redemptive power of rewriting your story in order to heal and reclaiming your identity as a result. When We Stay Alive possesses a new confidence in its sound, reflected in its fierce, determined songs and anchored by the heavy synths and punctuating beats of Poliça co-founder and producer Ryan Olson. [Limited clear vinyl pressing.]
Dan Deacon - Mystic Familiar CD/LP+MP3 (Domino)
Dan Deacon's most emotionally open and transcendent record, Mystic Familiar's eleven kaleidoscopic tracks of majestic synth-pop exponentially expand his sound with unfettered imagination and newfound vulnerability. It's the first album where Deacon presents his natural singing voice, unprocessed and with only minimal accompaniment; a vulnerable shift in a songbook abundant with characters, metaphors, and distorted vocals.
Squirrel Flower - I Was Born Swimming CD/LP+MP3 (Polyvinyl)
Ella O'Connor Williams, also known as Squirrel Flower, comes from a deep-rooted musical family tree. Her grandparents were classical musicians who lived in the Gate Hill Co-op, an artistic cooperative from upstate New York that grew out of Black Mountain College. Ella's father, Jesse Williams, spent most of his life as a touring jazz and blues performer and educator, and lends his bass playing to the album (listen for his smooth solo on "Headlights"). Squirrel Flower's music is ethereal and warm, gushing with emotional depth that the listener can step into like a warm bath. The band on I Was Born Swimming plays with delicate intention, keeping the arrangements natural and light. [Limited colored vinyl pressing.]
Caroline Polachek - Pang CD/LP (Caroline Polachek)
Caroline Polachek has already lived an extraordinary life in music: her previous band Chairlift formed in 2006 whilst Caroline was still in art school. Chairlift disbanded in 2017 and Polachek feverishly began writing for her first solo project under her own name. Moving fluidly through radically different genres, Caroline collaborated with dozens of artists (Blood Orange, SBTRKT, Charli XCX); sometimes writing, sometimes singing, sometimes directing videos, and sometimes all three. For the first time, the DNA from these seemingly different projects fit together perfectly; the playfulness of Chairlift, the theatricality of Ramona Lisa, futuristic glimmerings of CEP, plus a new mastery of her voice and thick Rolodex of keen collaborators. [Limited colored vinyl pressing.]
Kesha - High Road CD (RCA)
New album from the modern pop and the follow up to her 2017 Grammy-nominated album Rainbow. High Road is filled with emotional and stylistic range, and is a blend of heavenly highs and emotional depths. Kesha's swagger is front and center, with frisky, rap-based tracks that show-off her skills as a lyrical spitfire, and also a folkier side that emerges. With a dream-pop ode to a best friendship, a reflective ballad about growing up without a father, and plenty of lust and laughter, High Road traverses the emotional spectrum. Guest collaborators/songwriters/producers include John Hill, Dan Reynolds, Stuart Crichton, Jeff Bhasker, Drew Pearson, Brian Wilson, Sturgill Simpson, Nate Ruess, Justin Tranter, Stint, Wrabel, and Pebe Sebert, among others.
William Patrick Corgan - Cotillions CD/2xLP (Martha's Music)
The third solo album by the Smashing Pumpkins/Zwan frontman features seventeen Americana songs, written across the US and recorded in Chicago and Nashville, with a few guest appearances by Katie Cole, Jeff Schroeder, and other notable Nashville session musicians.
Ben Watt - Storm Damage CD/LP (Caroline)
Sonically adventurous, lyrically detailed and engaged, Ben Watt's fourth LP, Storm Damage, is a personal journey through anxiety and change cut through with an insistent defiance. Sonically the album forgoes the acclaimed twin-guitar approach of its two predecessors, and boldly shifts focus onto - in Watt's words - "a future-retro trio" of upright piano, double bass and hybrid acoustic-electronic drums, set against a half-lit backdrop of lone analogue synths, spiraling echo spins and impressionistic 'found sounds' adapted from online public-domain recording archives. [Limited colored vinyl pressing.]
Son Little - Aloha CD/LP (ANTI-)
Son Little's Aloha blends classic soul and old-school R&B into a timeless swirl fueled by gritty instrumental virtuosity and raw, raspy vocals. Recorded at Paris' iconic Studios Ferber with producer Renaud Letang (Feist, Manu Chao), Aloha is Little's first album to be recorded with an outside producer. The result is an ambitious work of vision and reflection and an ecstatic testament to the freedom that comes from trusting the currents of life to carry you where you belong. While Little plays nearly every instrument on the album himself, he put his songs in the hands of an outside producer for the first time here. The entire project was an exercise in letting go, in ceding control, in surrendering to fate. Recognizing the power of our own self-destructive tendencies is a recurring theme on Aloha. Little mourns the suicide of a beloved uncle on "Suffer", using addiction and mental illness as a lens to explore forgiveness and empathy, laments the rapidly deteriorating world his two children are set to inherit on "O Clever One", and meditates on the dangers of succumbing to passion at the expense of reason on "Belladonna".
Maceo Parker - It's all About Love CD/LP (Leopard)
To celebrate his 75th birthday (February 14th, 2018), soul and funk icon Maceo Parker releases his first studio album since 2006. The album features Parker on saxophone and finds him delivering outstanding vocal performances, backed by a full brass ensemble and the Cologne WDR Big Band, conducted by Michael Abene. 180 gram LP version includes exclusive bonus track "Love Is A Many Splendored Thing."
Sam Lee - Old Wow CD/LP (Cooking Vinyl)
Sam Lee plays a unique role in the British music scene as a highly inventive and original singer, folk song interpreter, a passionate conservationist, committed song collector and a successful creator of live events. Alongside his organization The Nest Collective and fellow collaborators Sam has shaken up the live music scene breaking the boundaries between folk and contemporary music and the assumed place and way folksong is heard. And for the first time with Old Wow, Sam includes the instrument most notably absent from his recording career: the guitar (and electric guitar at that, played by the album's producer Bernard Butler). Guest vocalists include Elizabeth Fraser of the Cocteau Twins, plus splendid harmonies from Cosmo Sheldrake and spoken word poet Dizraeli.
Artists For Peace And Justice - Let The Rhythm Lead: Haiti Song Summit, Vol. 1 CD/2xLP (Arts Music)
Let The Rhythm Lead is a collaborative project of songwriters Paul Beaubrun, Jackson Browne, Habib Koité, Jenny Lewis, Raúl Rodríguez, Jonathan Russell, and Jonathan Wilson, with members of the Haitian roots band Lakou Mizik. Hailing from four different countries, interweaving North American Indie Rock with beats and percussion of Haitian Vodou, Spanish and Malian guitar, Flamenco Tres, with songs in English, Creole, Khassonké, Manding and Spanish, this album celebrates the work of Artists for Peace and Justice in Haiti, and was recorded at their Artists Institute on the island's southern coast, in the town of Jacmel.
Dustbowl Revival - Is It You, Is It Me CD/LP (Good Egg)
Dustbowl Revival's fifth full length album over a span of 12 years, Is It You, Is It Me reveals the band moving in an exciting new direction. Instead of Dixieland jazz and Depression-era folk songs serving as musical mile markers, this new collection mines an energizing vein of soul, funk and roots-infused rock. The group's signature intertwined vocal leads star on the opening track "Dreaming" which tackles the deep vulnerability of revealing your secrets and your soul every night in front of an audience. But where the band really sets on a new course is on lushly cinematic, orchestrated set pieces like "Mirror", "Runaway" and, most notably, the current fan favorite and live showstopper "Sonic Boom", about the struggle to reveal who you really are in the hidden, rose-colored world of social media. There's a new widescreen expansiveness to these songs that wouldn't be out of place in a packed arena or orchestra hall with a full neon light show.
Chromatics - Closer To Grey CD/2xLP (Italians Do It Better)
Closer To Grey is the new album from Portland's Chromatics. It is the first album the band released since 2012. Amongst others, it contains reverent cover versions of Simon and Garfunkel's "The Sound Of Silence" and Jesus And Mary Chain's "On The Wall". The minimalistic synth-sound of previous albums is not lost though, and singer Ruth Radelet proves once again how tender and at the same time powerful a voice can sound. [Multiple limited colored vinyl variants were pressed.]
Squarepusher - Be Up A Hello CD/LP+MP3 (Warp)
Tom Jenkinson's first new album in five years as Squarepusher finds him returning to analogue hardware, the same gear that first helped him develop his signature sound in the early '90's. Be Up A Hello is features nine new pieces which chart a journey into harder and darker territory. From rinsing breakbeat tracks such as "Nervelevers" and "Terminal Slam" to darker moments such as "Vortrack" and "Mekrev Bass", the album illustrates Tom's continuing fascination with finely balanced psychological overload.
Haviah Mighty - 13th Floor CD (Haviah Mighty Ent.)
Toronto-based MC Haviah has been releasing music since 2009, but 13th Floor (2019), her most fully-realized project to date, made history as the first hip hop artist and the first black woman to ever receive Canada's Polaris Prize. Garnering overwhelming praise from the likes of Pitchfork, Billboard, and Hot New Hip Hop, Haviah continues to carve out spaces that boldly defy gendered expectations for women in hip hop. Haviah's explosive live show, filled with in-your-face intensity and her fast, technical flows, has quickly developed her reputation as one to keep an eye on, earning her opening slots for acclaimed artists like Ice Cube, Snoop Dogg, Rick Ross, Redman and Method Man, Sheck Wes, and Nelly.
Louis Tomlinson - Walls CD/LP (Arista)
Debut solo release from the One Direction member. Walls was inspired by the records Tomlinson listened to in his bedroom as a kid and channeling the spirit of the Britpop era of the '90s.
Meghan Trainor - Treat Myself CD/2xLP (Epic)
Sixth album from the singer-songwriter and her first since 2016's Thank You. [Limited white colored vinyl pressing.]
Reissues & From The Archives
Randall Bramblett - The Meantime [Reissue/2009] CD/LP (New West)
In 2009, Randall Bramblett released the critically acclaimed album The Meantime via his Blue Ceiling label. The recording marked a departure for the highly acclaimed multi-instrumentalist who is best known for his contributions on saxophone with Steve Winwood, Traffic, Levon Helm, Sea Level, Widespread Panic and more. The record was produced by Bramblett, who performs primarily on acoustic piano, organ, and lead vocals, and features 12 original tracks, including some of Bramblett's earliest songs such as "Sacred Harmony", "Witness For Love", and "One More Rose" as well as newer, unreleased compositions.
Slum Village & Abstract Orchestra - Fantastic 2020 CD (Ne'astra Music Group)
Slum Village & Abstract Orchestra - Fantastic 2020 V.1 LP (Ne'astra Music Group)
Slum Village & Abstract Orchestra - Fantastic 2020 V.2 LP (Ne'astra Music Group)
Live jazzy orchestral interpretations of the Jay Dee aka J Dilla-produced Slum Village classic Fan-tas-tic Vol 2! In honor of the 20th anniversary of its release, the Abstract Orchestra are proud to pay tribute to this highly innovative hip-hop classic, applying their own jazzy spin to Dilla's classic productions, with occasional assistance from the surviving members of Slum Village themselves. The end result is a hybrid blend of smooth, funky brass rhythms with boom-bap sensibilities that is just the kind of tribute that an often unsung, but highly influential group like Slum Village deserves, and is a more than welcome addition to any Dilla completist's library. [Vinyl edition split across two volumes, including a limited colored pressing.]
Neneh Cherry - Raw Like Sushi [Reissue/1988] CD/LP/3xCD/3xLP (Virgin)
Neneh Cherry exploded onto the pop music landscape by closing out the '80s with her internationally acclaimed debut album, Raw Like Sushi - a melting pot of musical styles and streetwise lyrics that take on life and love with equal parts tenderness. [The 1988 album is also available as super deluxe triple-CD and triple-vinyl box sets for special order.]
Jazz At Lincoln Center Orchestra w/ Wynton Marsalis - The Music Of Wayne Shorter CD (Blue Engine)
"He's at the highest level of our music; you can't get any higher than him." So says Wynton Marsalis of the legendary saxophonist, composer, and band leader Wayne Shorter. With a legendary career spanning over 60 years, the 11-time Grammy award winner (including a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Recording Academy) has released countless classic records and amassed a canon of lyrical, introspective music that stands up to the greatest jazz composers. In 2015, the formidable 81-year-old joined the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra with Wynton Marsalis onstage for three unforgettable nights.
Gary Moore - Live From London CD (Mascot Label Group)
Some shows are so momentous, they pass into rock 'n' roll folklore. When Gary Moore stepped onto the stage of London's Islington Academy on December 2, 2009, it was a true one-off, showcasing one of blues-rock's biggest names in an intimate club setting. Nobody in the sell-out crowd that night suspected the great Irish bluesman was close to the end. But when Moore died fourteen months later, aged 58, the show took on added poignancy, cherished as one of his last stands, kept alive in the memories of those who attended. Now, a decade later, the release of Live From London resurrects the much-missed Irishman, bringing his blazing talents back into the spotlight. [Limited edition CD box set (featuring four guitar picks), and blue colored vinyl editions are also available for special order.]
New on Vinyl
Guided By Voices - Man Called Blunder b/w She Wants To Know 7" (GBV Inc.)
Guided By Voices - Volcano b/w Sun Goes Down 7" (GBV Inc.)
Of "Man Called Blunder", Robert Pollard says "the recording is perfectly executed, the best performance of a GBV song, ever...". Non-LP B-side is a sparkling remake of "She Wants To Know" from GBV's 1986 debut Forever Since Breakfast. The B-side of "Volcano" is a piano ballad written and sung by GBV drummer Kevin March; an outlier in the GBV canon.
Dashboard Confessional - The Best Ones Of The Best Ones 2xLP+MP3 (Hidden Note) Dashboard Confessional's first-ever career-spanning compilation, The Best Ones Of The Best Ones, is a thoughtfully curated collection of the band's most beloved songs and features selections from all seven studio albums, the So Impossible and The Drowning EPs, and the band's MTV Unplugged performance. From start to finish, The Best Ones Of The Best Ones showcases the profound durability of Dashboard Confessional's music over the past two decades. The collection highlights singer/songwriter Chris Carrabba's extraordinary ability to give a cathartic voice to the messiest of emotions, which led the band to ascend from a bedroom project to a global sensation. [Limited indie-exclusive burgundy colored vinyl pressing.]
St. Vincent - Nina Kraviz Presents Masseduction Rewired LP (Loma Vista)
An eclectic remix package of St. Vincent's Grammy award winning album Masseduction, curated by Nina Kraviz. From frantic IDM and manic footwork to glistening house and meditative dubstep (via just about everything in between) her selections build an inspired portfolio from an abundance of talent. At times fragmented, at others familiar, it takes the spirit of Masseduction and runs with it in every way possible. Limited clear vinyl pressing. Wild Nothing - Laughing Gas 12" (Captured Tracks) On the third EP from Wild Nothing, songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Jack Tatum delves deeper into the territory where he thrives: namely, the synth and sophisti-pop of the 1980s. Limited colored vinyl pressing.
Aoife Nessa Frances - Land Of No Junction LP (Ba Da Bing!)
"A liminal space-a dark vast landscape to visit in dreams... A place of waiting where I could sit with uncertainty and accept it. Rejecting the distinct and welcoming the uncertain and the unknown." Land Of No Junction is shot through with this sense of mystery-an ambiguity and disorientation that illuminates songs with smokey luminescence. Yet, through the haze, everything comes down to what, where and who one is. With Land Of No Junction, she has built a universe full of intimacy and depth, with lyrics written through a process of free thought writing. It lends the record fluidity, each song in dialogue with the next not only through language, but the way each musical choice complements or threads into another.
SQÜRL - Some Music For Robby Müller LP (Sacred Bones)
SQÜRL's (Jim Jarmusch, Carter Logan) score to Claire Pijman's documentary of unparalleled Dutch cinematographer and poet of light Robby Müller, whose work includes Paris Texas, Dead Man, Breaking The Waves, Barfly, 24 Hour Party People, and at least 70 other remarkable films. [Limited colored vinyl pressing also available.]
Animals As Leaders - Animals As Leaders [Reissue/2009] 2xLP (Prosthetic)
New limited colored vinyl variant. When Tosin Abasi released his self-titled debut solo album under the moniker Animals As Leaders in 2009, few would have predicted the band's meteoric rise over the following years. Although Abasi earned acclaim as the lead guitarist in the Washington, D.C.-based metalcore act Reflux, it was still a long-shot that an instrumental album of progressive metal with jazz, electronic and ambient flourishes would develop anything more than a cult following. A collaboration between Abasi and Periphery's Misha Mansoor (who produced, mixed, mastered, engineered and programmed the album), Animals As Leaders' impact on modern metal cannot be overstated, as it somehow managed to be both genre-defying and genre-defining.
Elvis Presley - 50,000,000 Elvis Fans Can't Be Wrong (Elvis' Gold Records, Vol. 2) [Reissue/1959] LP+MP3 (Sony Legacy)
A compilation of hit singles released in 1958 and 1959 by Presley, from recording sessions going back as far as February 1957.
Freddie Gibbs & Madlib - Bandana Beats LP (RCA)
Bandana Beats is an instrumental version of last year's Bandana LP with Freddie Gibbs. Originally released in late June, Bandana marked the major label debut for both rapper and producer. It spent three weeks on Billboard's Rap Album chart (peaking at #21,) and featured appearances from a who's who of rap, including Pusha T, Yasiin Bey, Black Thought, Killer Mike and more.
Nas - Stillmatic 2LP (Get On Down)
RSD Black Friday 2019 release, repressed. For his fifth full-length, Nas eschewed the pop-friendliness he'd found success with and instead opted to return to the underground style he came up in, with tracks about American politics, ghetto life, and social upheaval. Stillmatic was hailed by critics as a stunning comeback, and a brilliant return to form, earning rave reviews from rap outlets such as The Source and HipHopDX as well as from more mainstream publications as The Rolling Stone and The Village Voice.
Charles Wright & The Watts 103rd St Rhythm Band - Express Yourself [Reissue/1970] LP (Real Gone Music)
The hit title track alone makes this 1970 release worth having, but it's the other cuts on this record that make it one of the greatest psychedelic soul/funk albums of all time.
Dr. John - Babylon LP (Get On Down)
RSD Black Friday 2019 release, repressed. Much like Sly & The Family Stone's There's A Riot Goin' On, Dr. John's sophomore album Babylon would be a reflection of the chaotic and tumultuous time that he was living in. He and the band dove deeper into the voodoo-inflected psychedelic rock and R&B of Gris-Gris, while touching upon elements of free jazz and Captain Beefheart-style avant garde. As with his debut record, production was handled by the legendary Harold Battiste, and Babylon featured much of the same session personnel as well. Babylon stands out as one of Dr. John's most overtly political albums, and is a singularly murky and darkly entrancing record in his discography. A psychedelic swamp of apocalyptic lyrical content, drunk, and disorienting experimentation.
Juju - Live At The East 1973 LP (Now-Again)
Now-Again Records presents deluxe reissues of the lauded Black Fire catalog in 2020. First up in the series, this previously unreleased live session recorded at the legendary Brooklyn venue The East in 1973. Magical, mystical, Afrocentric, progressive - words that could be used to describe any number of musical compositions by Sun Ra or his cosmic brothers and sisters, from John to Alice Coltrane, early '70s projects on record labels like Detroit's Tribe or Houston's Lightin' or the interests of one Washington, DC native named Jimmy Gray that centered under one, perfect moniker: Black Fire. Gray spent nearly three decades pushing boundaries as a Black American promoter, distributor and, finally, record label owner. Together with Juju's leader James "Plunky Nkabinde " Branch, Gray oversaw sixteen releases on Black Fire Records between 1975 and 1996. With this set, Juju and Black Fire's story burns forth into its fifth decade, its message not tempered, its sound pure. It's cycle, once again, complete. Lacquered directly from the master tape by legendary Los Angeles mastering engineer Bernie Grundman.
Miles Davis - Miles in Tokyo LP (Get On Down)
RSD Black Friday 2019 release, repressed. Features Herbie Hancock on piano, Ron Carter on double bass, Tony Williams on drums, and saxophonist Sam Rivers, who was primarily a free jazz musician, but had a long and extensive background in bebop. Davis and Rivers never developed any major chemistry between each other during the trip, and frequently found their distinct styles (Davis' cool and subdued traditional bop style contrasting with Rivers' wild but controlled avant-garde wandering) frequently clashing (or perhaps duelling) in their performances, but this record stands as a rare jewel in Miles Davis' discography, featuring high-energy live versions of songs by Rodgers & Hart, Cole Porter, and Richard Carpenter, as well as a restlessly fast-paced take on the Davis staple "So What".
Pete La Roca - Basra [Reissue/1965] LP (Blue Note)
By the time drummer Pete La Roca recorded his debut album Basra in 1965 he had already appeared on nine Blue Note sessions as a sideman and spent time in bands led by Sonny Rollins and John Coltrane. But it was another tenor titan, Joe Henderson, that La Roca brought in as the sole horn voice to front a dynamic quartet that was completed by what liner note writer Ira Gitler called one of the most attuned rhythm sections in jazz featuring bassist Steve Swallow and pianist Steve Kuhn.
Art Blakey & The Jazz Messengers - Buhaina's Delight [Reissue/1963] LP (Blue Note)
The lineup of drummer Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers shifted in 1961 with trumpeter Freddie Hubbard replacing Lee Morgan, pianist Cedar Walton replacing Bobby Timmons, and the addition of Curtis Fuller on trombone who joined existing members Wayne Shorter on tenor saxophone and Jymie Merritt on bass. This powerful new sextet line up first recorded on the album Mosaic, and quickly returned to the studio the next month to begin recording Buhaina's Delight.
Tony Williams - Foreign Intrigue [Reissue/1985] LP (Blue Note)
Drummer Tony Williams had a long, fruitful relationship with Blue Note Records starting in the 1960s when he appeared on numerous post-bop classics (Herbie Hancock Maiden Voyage, Eric Dolphy Out Oo Lunch, Andrew Hill Point of Departure) and made his first two albums as a leader: Life Time (1964) and Spring (1965). After Blue Note relaunched in 1984, Williams returned to the label eager to form a new acoustic band as a vehicle to perform his compositions.
Lord Invader - Calypso Travels LP (Smithsonian Folkways)
An icon of Caribbean music, and one of the major forces exporting it to the world, Lord Invader epitomizes the spirit of calypso - boisterous, acerbic, and joyful.
Emerald Web - Sound Trek LP (Trading Places)
Originally released in 1980. Pioneering space music duo Emerald Web, comprised of Bob Stohl and soulmate Kat Epple, made some of the most ethereal, divine, and healing sounds between 1979 and 1990. Crafting their debut album in a haunted mansion in northwest Connecticut, their second disc was created in a small log cabin. A subsequent move to the San Francisco Bay Area brought an extended stay at an Indonesian martial arts ashram, which led to the Valley of the Birds, a remote avian haven in which the duo produced Sound Trek, an incredible space rock long-player drawing on their immersion in fantasy realms, sci-fi, martial arts, and UFOs. Created mostly with monophonic synths and an Oberheim DS-2 sequencer, it also features Shakahachi flutes, electronic flutes, and more standard acoustic instruments.
Andras - Joyful LP+MP3 (Beats In Space/RVNG Int'l)
Joyful is a long journeyed, myth-making exercise from one of electronic music's most distinct and understated voices. Bridging an unusual connection between '70s acid folk and '90s acid house, It is an invitation to experience music through collective memory and dreaming.
Mint Julep - Stray Fantasies LP (Western Vinyl)
Stray Fantasies marks a deepening of the discography of wife-and-husband duo Hollie and Keith Kenniff under their collaborative moniker Mint Julep, an expertly manicured electric-pop venture that stands in stark contrast to the nebulous and experimental Helios and Goldmund outputs for which Keith Kenniff is known. Limited colored vinyl pressing.
Sidiku Buari - Revolution (Live Disco Show In New York City) [Reissue/1979] 2xLP (BBE)
Vinyl reissue of a heavyweight Afro-Disco album.
Pauline Oliveros/Stuart Dempster/Panaotis - Deep Listening [Reissue/1989] 2xLP (Important)
Recorded in a cistern, this double-LP reverberates with brilliant sonic clarity and masterfully improvised performances combining live electronics, vocals, trombone. and accordion. Deep Listening is a classic in the fields of improvisation, minimalism, ambient/drone, and modern classical.
Lydia Lunch & Rowland S. Howard - Shotgun Wedding LP (Bang! Records)
Originally released in 1991. Lydia Lunch fronted the influential no-wave group Teenage Jesus and The Jerks, and her 1991 collaboration with the Australian iconic cult figure Rowland S. Howard is perhaps one of her most revered. Featuring production by JG Thirwell (Foetus, Manorexia) and drums by Jim Sclavunos (Bad Seeds, Grinderman) it's a veritable who is who of the post punk/no wave scene of the time. Rowland S. Howard is no doubt best known for his work with the Birthday Party, his discordant guitar is an essential factor in their sound. With both parties at the height of their respective talents, this is an alternative rock gem, yet however maintains an atmosphere of eerie beauty throughout.
Sofia Kourtesis - Sarita Colonia 12" (Studio Barnhus)
New EP from Sofia Kourtesis, following up her self-titled instant hit debut from early 2019. Four mind-expanding dancefloor bombs chock-full of intricate rhythms and next-level sampling wizardry. Sofia Kourtesis makes house music that skirts convention and renounces rote functionality without ever forgetting that its purpose is to make people move." - Pitchfork
Villaelvin - Headroof LP (Hakuna Kulala)
In April 2019, improvising lyricist, producer and sound artist Elvin Brandhi moved into the "villa" in Kampala Uganda working on a collaborative album with several artists from the Nyege Nyege collective. Auto-tune blast beats from field recordings of Evangelist churches, the swamps surrounding the studios, with warped drums by Kampala based percussionist Omutaba, improvised stream of consciousness lyrics from local rappers Hakim and Swordman Kitala, with glitched-out bassy productions with Boutiq Studio manager Don Zilla and Congolese producer Oise.
Roberto Musci/Giovanni Venosta - Water Messages on Desert Sand LP (ReR Vinyl)
Originally released in 1987 on Chris Cutler's Recommended Records. Water Messages On Desert Sand was the very first sound creation from the Italian avant-garde duo of Roberto Musci and Giovanni Venosta. Both using sampler, synthesizer, guitar, piano, effects, and tapes, the duo were masters in overlaying and constructing rhythmic and harmonic pictures of transparent sound from electronic, acoustic, and documentary source, taking ethnic field recordings (from Africa, Indonesia, Asia, India) as their thematic center. Water Messages finds place in the realm of Eno and Byrne's My Life in the Bush of Ghosts (1981) - an essential purchase for anyone interested in adventurous modern art informed by ethnic music and sound explorations.
Luc Ferrari - Dialogue Ordinaire Avec le Machine / Sexolidad LP (Elica)
Two stunning works composed by Luc Ferrari between 1982 and 1984. One of the great figures in 20th century avant-garde and experimental music. Ferrari was a pioneer, who, for roughly half a century, continuously revolutionized the field of electronic and electroacoustic creative process. The first piece showcases Ferrari's interest in tape collage work and sampling: a rollercoaster through exploration, seduction, observations, misunderstandings, purrs, moans, gurgles, whooshes, loops and mechanical rhythms from which Ferrari builds his own synthesized folklore. "Sexolidad" is one of his less than traditional compositions for a traditional ensemble, representing a journey over the body, in which tonalities and their mix create "a particular harmonic climate."
Esplendor Geométrico - Cinética LP (Geometrik)
The influential "industrial" pioneers of the pulsating, hypnotic, and mechanical rhythms, return with a new album following 2016's Fluida Mekaniko. Cinética gives a twist to the line that the group has followed in their last albums, highlighted by a more elaborate sound. A less raw sound, but without losing the essence of EG: hypnotic rhythms and innovative industrial music, danceable and tribal sometimes. There are filtered and natural voices, broken, mechanical and industrial rhythms, synthesizers layers, percussion, noise, distortion, Mongolian chants; certain songs feature Eastern and African voices, recalling their standout 1988 LP Mekano Turbo.
Antonino Riccardo Luciani - Elettroencefalogramma LP (Dead-Cert)
Elettroencefalogramma scans the full breadth of electronic composition by Italian musical mastermind Antonino Riccardo Luciani, who's perhaps best known for his library records, but on the showing here had a strong, prescient line in mind-bending, fathoms-deep experimental and academic work with tape and early, pre-synth devices. The set reveals a distinctive mix of material that nods to contemporary, tape music, neo-classical, jazz, electro-acoustic, and counterpoint composition. There's a sense of being in transition between worlds and eras in the opening blend of melancholy strings and bubbling electronic rhythm, but Luciani excels at quieter, introspective styles, most remarkably in the stygian, primitive drum machine pulse and clammy string drones of "Forest Of Chimneys."
Msylma - Dhil-un Taht Shajarat Al-Zaqum 2LP (Halcyon Veil)
On a profoundly original record steeped in millennia of pre-Islamic (pagan) and Islamic theology and Arabic tradition, Myslma conveys an ancient sense of existential angst via the contemporary prism of electronic music in his singular style of emo-R&B and weightless grime expression. Whether channeling a pained sort of R&B/soul spirit in the aching delivery and floating chords of the opening track, or singing from the midst of a weightless grime skirmish, no knowledge of the lyrics' meaning is required in order to immerse in and empathize with Myslma's music. This is an album that will stick in the mind long after the music stops playing, opening windows into parallel dimensions as fascinating and dramatic as the visions of Scott Walker, as haunting as Omar Souleyman's lamenting mawwals, or futuristic as Fatima Al Qadiri.
Wayne Phoenix - soaring wayne phoenix story the earth LP (Halcyon Veil)
The debut release from an artist about which little is known, soaring wayne phoenix story the earth is a fascinatingly intimate yet elusive record honed over years by a trained pianist recording a kind of all-encompassing audio diary. The album dredges a remarkable and unshakeable depth of feeling and human insight via its mazy tile of vignettes, drifting from softly textured, deep blue witching hour logic to more grizzled, Tricky-esque realizations and glossolalic expressions. In between, pockets of fractured music box melody and sorely textured beats flower and weed in the gaps, sounding something like RZA's Ghost Dog OST adapted from dilapidated NYC rooftops to the same drizzly London streets inhabited by Burial, Klein, and Mica Levi.
UVEGRAF - A Laxe Modularys 2.049 LP (Proceso Uvegraf)
Alias of Madrid musician Juan Teruel, whose cassette label and productions played an important role in the Spanish 80s electronic underground scene. His latest release has the spirit of the 'old school' of the eighties with elements of minimal synth, post-industrial music, and even influences of '70s German electronic music. The ten tracks made primarily with sequencers, synthesizers, and analog rhythm boxes, stand out for their bright and powerful sound. Translucent green vinyl; edition of 300. Saint Vitus - Lillie: F-65 [Reissue/2012] LP (Season Of Mist) Limited colored vinyl pressing of the doom metal band's 2012 album.