New Releases - 10/22/21
Hitting The Racks
Here's your weekly rundown of what's hitting the new release racks at Grimey's
New Releases
My Morning Jacket – My Morning Jacket CD/2xLP (ATO)
On their self-titled ninth full-length album - the first new music since 2015's The Waterfall - My Morning Jacket reaffirm the rarefied magic that has made them so beloved, embedding each song with moments of discovery, revelation, and ecstatic catharsis. It comes after a near permanent hiatus for the band until performing four shows in summer 2019 left them with a new energy. Jim James engineered/produced the 11-track collection at 64 Sound in L.A. where the band spent weeks in intentional seclusion. "I hope this album brings people a lot of joy and relief, especially since we've all been cooped up for so long," says James. "I know that feeling you get from driving around blasting music you love, or even lying in bed and crying to the music you love. The fact that we're able to be a part of people's lives in that way is so magical to us, and it feels really good that we're still around to keep doing that." [Limited-edition indie store exclusive orange with yellow splatter vinyl available in the shop and on the Grimey's webstore.]
Hiss Golden Messenger - O Come All Ye Faithful CD/LP+MP3 (Merge)
Conceptualized and written during the chaotic fall months of 2020, Hiss Golden Messenger's O Come All Ye Faithful-recorded shortly after the widely hailed Quietly Blowing It-is a meditation on grace, loss, hope, and community. Explains songwriter M.C. Taylor, "Big, brash holiday music-the type that we hear in big-box stores in the middle of December-has never resonated with me, and this past year it felt absolutely dissonant. I wanted to make a seasonal record that felt more in step with the way that I, and so many others, experience this time of year: quiet, contemplative, searching, and bittersweet." [Peak vinyl 2xLP set includes dub LP and is on tri-color red/green/bone vinyl. A few autographed copies remain in the store - 1 per person, no mail orders. Standard vinyl is also available.]
Gary Allan – Ruthless LP (EMI Nashville)
Recently released on CD – now available on vinyl. With the allure of a modern-day outlaw, Gary Allan has won over fans, peers and critics with his signature blend of smoldering vocals, rebellious lyrics and raucous live performances. The superb instrumentation is a stand-out of Ruthless which adds a layer of complexity and appeal, drawing from Allan's deep-rooted influences of the ‘80s and ‘90s.
Priscilla Block – Priscilla Block CDEP (Mercury Nashville)
Priscilla Block’s new EP includes her Top 20 Country hit “Just About Over You”. Priscilla broke out in 2020 with the funny and infectious hits “Thick Thighs” and “PMS”. Also includes the moody “Wish You Were The Whiskey”, an angsty rocker that finds her fuming about the comforts a bottle can't replace.
Boy Scouts – Wayfinder LP+MP3 (ANTI-)
Recently released on CD – now available on vinyl. On Wayfinder, the follow-up to the acclaimed 2019 album Free Company, Oakland-based songwriter Taylor Vick, under her songwriting moniker Boy Scouts, chases down life's queries to the very edge of the horizon. This is an album that's not afraid to track down what it all means - how life unspools around the monoliths of love and death, the heavy knots of even quotidian conflict, the task of carrying your own suffering with you day after day, the challenge of meeting other people out here in the tangled expanse of living. In a warm, expansive style that recalls the raw punctures of Lucinda Williams and Alex G, Vick once again shows herself to be a fearless seeker shedding light on the unanswerable. Vick's true superpower is her voice. Strands of slide guitar, organ, and strings ring under her affable, expressive voice, bolstering layers and layers of harmony. There is something so honest about her songs, they feel like a late-night therapy session with your best friend. [Limited edition crystal clear vinyl.]
Can’t Swim – Change Of Plans CD/LP (Pure Noise)
Change Of Plans is the culmination of everything Can't Swim have been building and exploring over the last six years, combining their signature visceral lyricism and cathartic rock sound with influences ranging from the worlds of folk to EDM. Ultimately, the band feel that Change Of Plans is "the most Can't Swim record yet," Chris LoPorto says, "All of our endeavors as a band have led us to make what I think is the most honest and transparent album in our discography. We spent way less time recording what we thought we should be writing and put down whatever came naturally. The recording process was certainly the easiest to date as well – we knew what we wanted going into it. I'm constantly writing songs and some of the tracks on Change Of Plans have been in the demo stage for almost four years now so it feels great to finally have them all together on one release."
Circuit des Yeux – -io CD/LP+MP3 (Matador)
The sky over -io is Florida's strange, radiant orange. It's a built environment, unnatural, made from concrete and glass, with skyscrapers that stretch to the vanishing point as you gaze up at them. It's crumbling and suffocating, a city perpetually on the brink of collapse, where tension never topples over into catharsis, where the heat never breaks. Inside this world and its closed loop of time, Haley Fohr found herself able to begin moving again.
Clinic – Fantasy Island LP+MP3 (Domino)
Referencing H.G. Wells' Things To Come, Marshall McLuhan's The Medium Is The Massage and Sombrero Fallout by Richard Brautigan, the themes Clinic explore on Fantasy Island are time, music and entertainment. In a nutshell, Clinic have gone funky disco, broadening their sonic palette with the addition of several new gadgets including an electronic acid bass machine, a 1970s cocktail rhythm unit, a Casio digital horn and space drum. [Limited edition blue curaçao vinyl.]
Jarvis Cocker – Chansons d'Ennui Tip-Top LP (Abkco)
Chansons d'Ennui Tip-Top is the companion release to Wes Anderson's film, The French Dispatch. The album expands on the Anderson and Jarvis Cocker cover collaboration of the French pop hit "Aline" for the film. This is an entire album of French material from the same period. Cocker's signature style interprets material made known by the likes of Françoise Hardy, Serge Gainsbourg, Brigitte Bardot, Jacques Dutronc, and Christophe's "Aline." [CD edition due November 19.]
The Convenience – Accelerator CD/LP/Cassette (Winspear)
A singular album packed with visceral, immediate pleasure; body music for a plastic pop future. [Limited indie-store exclusive green clover vinyl.]
Lana Del Rey – Blue Banisters CD (Interscope)
Grammy-nominated singer-songwriter Lana Del Rey's eighth studio album Blue Banisters follows the success of fellow 2021 effort Chemtrails Over The Country Club which became her seventh consecutive top-ten album in the US. The 15-track effort includes the previously released songs "Wildflower Wildfire", "Blue Banisters", and "Text Book" plus new single "Arcadia". "I guess you could say this album is about what it was like, what happened, and what it's like now," Del Rey shared. "If you're interested go back and listen to the first three songs I put out earlier. They chronicle the beginning. ['Arcadia'] hits somewhere in the middle and by the time the record drops you will hear where we're at today." [Vinyl due 11/12. You can preorder your copy from Grimey’s webstore.]
Dinner – Dream Work LP (Captured Tracks)
Limited-edition opaque white vinyl pressing. After a four-year hiatus exploring ambient and meditation music, Danish multi-instrumentalist Anders Rhedin has returned to his indie roots. Dream Work, his third album as Dinner, is a lush collection of synth and guitar-laden indie pop that expertly channels Ryuichi Sakamoto, early British indie, and the sound of water.
Dream Theater – A View From The Top Of The World CD/2xLP+CD (Inside Out Music)
On their fifteenth album, A View From The Top Of The World, the New York quintet rush forward at full speed again with seven tracks equally steeped in articulate arrangements, groove-laden guitars, and sky scraping melodies. [Limited-edition tan color vinyl.]
Dummy – Mandatory Enjoyment LP (Trouble In Mind)
Employing pummeling guitars and celestial ambience within the same breath, the band folds a myriad of reference points into their drone-pop style. Influence from '60s melodicism and '90s UK noise pop can be found woven in with inspiration from spiritual jazz, Japanese new age, and Italian minimalism. Dummy dodges the brooding, dark, dramatic tropes of contemporary artistic music often found in punk, experimental, and electronic, instead insisting on joyous and euphoric sonic palettes. [Limited edition sky blue vinyl.]
Duran Duran – Future Past CD/LP (BMG)
Pop legends Duran Duran return with their fifteenth studio album Future Past boasting esteemed producers Erol Alkan, Giorgio Moroder and Mark Ronson behind the boards, plus special guests Graham Coxon of Blur on guitar, Bowie's former pianist Mike Garson, and guest vocals from Lykke Li. "When we first went into the studio in late 2018, I was trying to persuade the guys that all we needed to do was write two or three tracks for an EP," Simon Le Bon reveals. "Four days later, with the nucleus of 25 plus strong songs in the can, that all deserved development, I realized we'd be in it for the long haul, but that was before COVID. So here we are in 2021 with our 15th studio album, Future Past straining at the leash. Music by Duran Duran with Graham Coxon, Lykke Li, Mike Garson, Erol Alkan, Mark Ronson, Giorgio Moroder (for God's sake!). I'm not saying its epic, but well ... yes I am." [Indie exclusive transparent red vinyl & white vinyl are available.]
Efterklang – Windflowers LP (City Slang)
Recently released on CD – now available on vinyl. For over twenty years, Efterklang have been pushing the barriers of experimental, electronic, emotional chamber-pop. Announcing their sixth studio album Windflowers, the Danish trio of Mads Brauer, Rasmus Stolberg and Casper Clausen continue a creative journey that's brought them closer together, even as their lives grow apart. Channeling the motifs of hope and change its namesake flora represents, the album sees their many years of collaboration and experimentation distilled into some of their finest and most direct melodic moments to date.
Every Time I Die – Radical CD/2xLP+MP3 (Epitaph)
Every Time I Die is a loud rock institution committed to leaving every nuanced outpouring of chaotic passion and blissful malcontent all over their records and on the stage. With boiling charisma and unrelenting energy to spare, the Buffalo band manages not one but two near-impossible tasks. They've survived two decades as an underground entity cherished for coloring outside the lines, and contrary to most career arcs, continually improving with each successive album as they charge ahead. ETID makes a glorious hardcore-punk noise, alchemized by a swampy summoning of Southern rock's coarse poetry. The music swirls beneath sardonic and clever wordplay, a combination cementing them as leaders, not followers. The band is recognized and revered for its anarchic explosiveness, artistic impulsiveness, and approachable camaraderie. Radical is 16 tracks of peak-ETID. [Indie exclusive opaque lime green vinyl.]
Nubia Garcia – SOURCE ⧺ WE MOVE CD/LP (Concord)
London-based saxophonist/composer Nubya Garcia - whose critically acclaimed album, SOURCE, has been shortlisted for the prestigious Mercury Prize - returns with a new remix album. Through musical collaboration, Nubya has teamed up with an exciting and innovative array of artists including Dengue Dengue Dengue, Kaidi Tatham, Georgia Anne Muldrow, and Moses Boyd, for a reimagined look at her award-winning album. SOURCE ⧺ WE MOVE features nine original remixes.
Good Morning – Barnyard LP+MP3 (Polyvinyl)
Despite how quietly epochal Barnyard is - a milestone in the history of Good Morning - it's also the band's most meditative record, thoughtful and careful in its evocations. Barnyard is world-weary, concerned with the state of things in a loose, unfocussed sort of way. In other words, like we all are - frustrated both with the way things are and with everyone's general inability to fix any of the many issues endemic to our society. Despite the appropriately bleak vibe, these songs feature some of Good Morning's catchiest and most distinctive productions. [Limited edition seafoam vinyl.]
Guided By Voices – It's Not Them. It Couldn't Be Them. It Is Them. CD/LP (GBV Inc.)
It's been just a few months since Guided By Voice's faux rock opera Earth Man Blues garnered four-star and five-star reviews, with Rolling Stone proclaiming that it squarely hits all the marks that make Guided by Voices great-again and again and again. Again and again and again is perhaps GBV's credo, with Robert Pollard's never-ending supply of fascinating and supremely catchy rock. Just when one thinks one's got them pinned down, album number thirty-four opens with bizarre percussion, mariachi trumpets, strings and acoustic guitar. The adventurous spirit pervades yet another killer album from the greatest and most versatile GBV line-up.
Hand Habits – Fun House CD (Saddle Creek)
Hand Habits, the project of Los Angeles-based musician Meg Duffy is back with their ambitious new album Fun House. Produced by Sasami Ashworth (SASAMI) and engineered by Kyle Thomas (King Tuff), the record was not intended as a reaction to the pandemic, but it was very much the result of taking a difficult, if much-needed, moment of pause. Emboldened by going into therapy and coaxed by Ashworth to push the songs into unexpected new shapes, the resulting music is more acutely personal and stylistically adventurous than anything you've heard from Hand Habits before. The push/pull of styles, paired with songs that move deftly between the present and past, give the record a wildly diverse, hall of mirrors quality that befits its name. Where previous Hand Habits records could be insular affairs, Fun House feels ebullient, lush, a fully realized conversation. [Vinyl edition due November 5.]
Karl Hector And Johnny! – Karl Hector Presents: Johnny! CD/LP (Now Again)
JJ Whitefield, who in the early ‘90s revived the gritty, analogue funk sounds of the ‘60s and ‘70s with his Poets Of Rhythm, and who has been instrumental in launching Ghanaian Afrobeat/funk legend Ebo Taylor’s international career, decades after the maestro recorded the landmark albums that have inspired thousands. Whitefield recorded two new studio albums with Taylor and toured in his band between 2009 and 2013, where he met Taylor's son Henry and percussionist/Singer Eric Owusu. His trio Karl Hector & The Malcouns now front the Johnny! band and find inspiration not only in Ghana's hypnotic grooves, but also the full-frontal fuzz guitar assault heard legions of ‘70s Zambian Zamrock albums.
Helado Negro – Far In CD/2xLP+MP3 (4AD)
When Roberto Carlos Lange, the musician known as Helado Negro, began writing Far In immediately following the release of his acclaimed 2019 This Is How You Smile, he could not have predicted that we would soon need to learn how to stay at home and be the stars of our domestic dance floors with intimates and online communities. The titular pair in "Gemini And Leo" stay indoors to discover each other anew with music recalling Lange's youth growing up in South Florida listening to ‘80s club songs, and their return sampled in ‘90s hip-hop. Visions past and future meet in a euphoria of uptempo drums, Jen Wasner's (Flock Of Dimes) funky bass line, and Opal Hoyt's (Zenizen) galactic swirl of warm and steely synths and bright backing vocals. What was a prophesying rehearsal for the musician, we can hope will soon be our fresh start, a choice to bring that energy home, or go out to meet it.
Christone “Kingfish” Ingram – 662 LP (Alligator)
Recently released on CD – now available on purple color vinyl. Christone "Kingfish" Ingram's 662 (the area code of his Mississippi Delta stomping grounds) is a powerful and personal album; a fiery coming-of-age record. The lyrics reflect newfound maturity and the ways in which your roots inspire where you're heading. Musically, the record delivers a heaping helping of deep, visceral guitar magic fueling a combustible mix of molten blues rock, down home shuffles and soulful grooves. Following his debut album, Kingfish, Christone says about his sophomore record, "These are songs written when I got home from the road – I came back to the 662. This album is much more personal than the first one – I'm dealing with things that have been going on in my life since then." "Christone 'Kingfish' Ingram is the future of the blues, singing and playing with edge, verve and vitality. Stinging guitar...sweet and melodic vocals." – Guitar World
Jackson+Sellers – Breaking Point CD (ANTI-)
Jackson+Sellers' (the collaborative creation of singer-songwriters Jade Jackson and Aubrie Sellers) L.A.-written, Nashville-recorded album, Breaking Point is a masterclass in unexpected vocal harmonic convergence, soundtracked by raw guitars, driving drums and a singular pop-rock sound that weaves a sonic thread between ‘70s rock, ‘90s raucous roots, and modern indie pop. They exchanged lead vocals, reflecting on their own experiences of vulnerability, isolation, sensitivity and autonomy. They drew on changes in their personal relationships, intuitively capturing each other's personal experiences, often before they had even discussed them with each other. Jackson reflected, "This is an album that pays homage to unique, independent women who created their own path, wrote their own songs, and had their own sounds." [Vinyl edition due December 10.]
Lady A – What A Song Can Do CD (BMX)
Lady A's new album, What A Song Can Do, reinvigorates the band's signature sound - a captivating fusion of rootsy pop and electrifying harmony that has dominated charts for more than a decade. [Vinyl edition due December 17.]
Lala Lala – I Want The Door Open CD/LP (Hardly Art)
"I want total freedom, total possibility, total acceptance. I want to fall in love with the rock." That's how Lillie West describes the theme of "Diver", the song she calls the thesis of Lala Lala's third record, I Want The Door To Open. The rock in question is a reference to Sisyphus, the mythical figure doomed by the gods to forever push a boulder up from the depths of hell. To West, it is the perfect metaphor for "the labor of living, of figuring out who you are, what's wrong with you, what's right with you," she says. "I think it's easy to feel like we keep making the same mistakes over and over again, that we never learn, that we're Sisyphus; but time is actually a spiral that we move up. The key is falling in love with the labor of walking up the mountain." Coming off of 2018's acclaimed The Lamb, an introspective indie rock album recorded live with a three-piece band, West knew she was ready to make something sonically bigger and thematically more outward-looking than anything she'd done before; a record that would be less a straightforward documentation of her own personal struggles and more like a poem or a puzzle box, with sonic and lyrical clues that would allow the listener to, as the title says, open the door to the greater meaning of those struggles. [A limited-edition clear vinyl pressing is also available.]
La Luz – La Luz CD/LP (Hardly Art)
On their self-titled fourth album, La Luz launch themselves into a new realm of emotional intimacy for a collection of songs steeped in the mysteries of the natural world and the magic of human chemistry that has found manifestation in the musical ESP between guitarist and songwriter Shana Cleveland, bassist Lena Simon, and keyboardist Alice Sandahl. To help shape La Luz, the band found a kindred spirit in producer Adrian Younge. Though primarily known for his work with hip-hop, soul, and jazz acts, Younge saw in La Luz a shared vision that transcended genre. "We both create music with the same attitude, and that's what I love about them," he says. "They are never afraid to be risky and their style is captivating. It was an honor to work with them." The result is an album that is both the most naturalistic and psychedelic of the band's career. All the elements of classic La Luz are still present – the lush harmonies, the impeccable musicianship, the gorgeous melodies – but it's a richer, earthier iteration, replete with inorganic sounds that mimic the surreality of nature – the humming of invisible bugs, the atmospheric sizzle of a hot day. [Limited-edition transparent dark orange vinyl.]
Shannon Lay – Geist CD/LP+MP3 (Sub Pop)
Geist feels like a window - or a mirror - into possibilities of the self and beyond. Shannon Lay's new album is tender intensity, placeless and ethereal. It exists in the chasms of the present -- a world populated by shadow selves, spiritual awakenings, déjà vu, and past lives. "Something sleeps inside us," Lay insists on the opening track, and that's the guiding philosophy throughout. A winding, golden, delicate thread of intuition that explores the unknown, the possibility. Its title, Geist, the German word for spirit, is rife with an otherworldly presence, the suggestion of another. The promise that you are never alone. The album is both esoteric and accessible. Songs range from a concise, pared-back cover of Syd Barrett's tilt-a-whirl-esque "Late Night", to the meditative Dune-inspired "Rare To Wake", to the mostly a-cappella "Awaken And Allow", which channels Lay's deep Irish roots, a moment of reflection, before a drop happens -- its intensity mirroring the anticipation and anxiety that come with taking the first step to accepting change for yourself. [A limited-edition clear w/ orange & green vinyl pressing is due 11/05.]
Meta Meta - MetaL MetaL LP (Mais Um)
Metá Metá's sophomore album and debut for Mais Um, MetaL MetaL, launches itself from the ancient chants of the orixás into a dirty brew of psychedelic samba, distorted jazz and Afro-punk. On MetaL MetaL they mix these spiritual and rhythmic foundations with influences ranging from Afrobeat to Afrosambas, punk rock to be-bop to create chaotic, life-affirming music that explodes with the rage of The Stooges and Sonic Youth, the spirituality of John Coltrane and Sun Ra and the wild, avant-garde instrumentation of contemporary experimental jazz outfits such as Melt Yourself Down and Polar Bear.
Pat Metheny – Side-Eye NYC (V1.IV) CD/2xLP (Modern Recordings)
Pat Metheny unveils the latest chapter in his wildly prolific career – Side-Eye, a new setting featuring the 20-time Grammy winner accompanied by a handpicked and rotating cast of players featuring some of the most exciting and innovative new musicians on the New York scene. It was recorded just before the pandemic and deftly balances a mix of stunning new originals with inventive reworkings of some of Metheny's most beloved compositions.
Moor Mother – Black Encyclopedia Of The Air CD (ANTI-)
Black Encyclopedia Of The Air is here, not to save but to drown you. Heads better learn how to swim cause listen, this record is beat soup, hearty yet still minimal, a sonic mirage of prophetic soul that drop kicks your "chill beats to study to" YouTube playlist and hyper-intellectual rap podcasts into a hadron collider; it's only black matter on the other side - 13 mesmerizing tracks about memory and imprinting and the future, all of them wafting through untouched space like the ghostly cinders of a world on fire, unbound and uncharted, vast and stretching across the universe. Moor Mother is a holographic figment of an Afrotopian dream, all at once goddess and warrior, mystic and cyborg, griot and future time traveler, etching noisy pieces of reverie into our consciousness for decades now. But check it: on Black Encyclopedia... she's joined by a wide range of friends, collaborators and co-conspirators on a trip through the murky cosmos, navigating the black universe with stardust as currency. [Indie store exclusive seaglass wave translucent vinyl will arrive next week.]
Old Million Eye - The Incandescent Switch LP (Feeding Tube Records)
First LP, after several fine cassettes & CDRs, by this psych project helmed by Brian Lucas. Lucas is best known these days for his bass work with Dire Wolves, but he has a hand in many other California psych outfits. Often the OME moniker represents solo work, but this time Brian has recruited Dena Goldsmith-Stanley (3 Moons) and Steven R Smith (an old band mate from Mirza) to assist with his journey, and the results are beautiful. The most basic elements of The Incandescent Switch are swirls of kosmische keyboard, with vocals buried in the clouds, melodic bass lines moving through like slow-motion lightning, and various instrumental events darting hither and yon. The overall feel is something like a collision between a mid '70s album on the German Sky label and a '68 Bay Area acid-flash sensibility.
Orquesta Akokán – 16 Rayos CD (Daptone)
Recorded in Havana's famed Egrem Studios, Orquesta Akokán displays a cohesion forged by an intense performing and touring cycle. The musical conversation that began in the Areito studios three years earlier blossomed into an easy, intimate dialogue between good friends - allowing full, fearless musical expression and risk-taking outside of their comfort zones. Building upon Perez Prado's dissonant, near avant-garde vision of the mambo, and highlighting the subtext of Cuban rhythms and styles, the band continues to explore, develop and expand the island's rich rhythmic palette and repertoire - pushing the conventions of what is considered 'mambo' - and drawing deeply from folkloric and religious traditions seldom heard in popular music. 16 Rayos is here to shine its musical rays on us, warm our hearts, and irresistibly move our bodies.
Parquet Courts – Sympathy For Life CD/LP (Rough Trade)
On Sympathy For Life, Parquet Courts' thought-provoking rock is dancing to a new tune. The album finds the Brooklyn band at both their most instinctive and electronic, spinning their bewitching, psychedelic storytelling into fresh territory, yet maintaining their unique identity. Built largely from improvised jams, inspired by New York clubs, Primal Scream and Pink Floyd and produced in league with Rodaidh McDonald (The xx, Hot Chip, David Byrne) and John Parish (PJ Harvey, Aldous Harding, Dry Cleaning), Sympathy For Life was always destined to be dancey. Unlike its globally adored predecessor, 2018's Wide Awake!, the focus fell on grooves rather than rhythm. "Wide Awake! was a record you could put on at a party," says co-frontman Austin Brown. "Sympathy For Life is influenced by the party itself." [Limited-edition deluxe vinyl available in the shop and on the Grimey's webstore]
Phew – New Decade CD/LP (Mute)
Renowned avant-garde artist Phew returns with a new album, New Decade. Working within the medium of voice and analog electronics, New Decade's six tracks define Phew as a master of her craft - fusing her ghostly vocals with intense droning textures and clamorous guitar feedback. New Decade is a stark and haunted album, populated by voices that intone empty pleasantries in English and Japanese or manifest as wordless shrieks and groans, against a backdrop of fractured, dubbed-out electronics. [Limited-edition clear vinyl pressing is due 11/05.]
Luke Sanger - Languid Gongue LP (Balmat)
Sanger is a Norwich, UK-based artist whose two decades of electronic music-making have encompassed a range of tools and techniques, from MaxMSP to modular synthesis. Along the way he has built an extensive catalog encompassing ambient atmospheres, abstract soundscaping, and more. With Languid Gongue, he puts multiple approaches into play. Experiments in microtonal composition balance out pieces in standard tunings, while esoteric electronic machines merge with familiar acoustic treatments and microphone techniques. The result is a constellation of his signature sounds: freeform new-age fantasia; spring-loaded toytronic arpeggios; quartz-driven braindance clockworks.
Seether – Wasteland – The Purgatory EP 12” (Fantasy)
Recently released on CD – now available on red color vinyl. Seether's new five-track EP features three never-before-heard tracks and an alternate take of "Wasteland" (along with the original album version.) Written and produced by Shaun Morgan, and mixed by Matt Hyde, Wasteland – The Purgatory EP, follows the fall 2020 release of their ninth album, Si Vis Pacem Para Bellum. That album debuted with impressive chart success and has already spawned two No. 1 rock radio hits: the anthemic, "Dangerous", and hard-hitting "Bruised And Bloodied".
Spiritbox – Eternal Blue LP (Rise)
Named after a device some believe can communicate with the dead, there's a gleeful sense of the paranormal running through all that Canadian metallers Spiritbox do, but this is a group of artists who are very much brimming with life and creating something remarkable with their music. Featuring the brutal hit single "Holy Roller," the band's highly anticipated debut album Eternal Blue is intelligent, ambitious and, most importantly, uniquely theirs. [Limited-edition blue vinyl.]
Teamonade – This Far LP (Counter Intuitive)
Limited blue color vinyl pressing. The debut album from Ohio-based trio Teamonade introduces a group that can effortlessly merge indie-pop charm with alt-rock hooks.
Tonstartssbandht – Petunia LP+MP3 (Mexican Summer)
Brothers Andy & Edwin White, aka Tonstartssbandht, are an experimental, psych-rock project from Orlando, FL.
Remi Wolf – Juno CD (Island)
With her eclectic sound and style and magnetic personality, Remi Wolf has developed an avid fan base that has made her a trailblazer of the emerging Gen Z pop scene. A maximalist, funky, soulful pop record, stuffed to the gills with hooks. [Vinyl due next summer.]
Xeno & Oaklander – Vi/Deo Blue LP (Dais)
East Coast minimal wave institution Xeno & Oaklander's seventh full-length further distills their iconic noir synth pop into a streamlined suite of gleaming, graceful retrofuturism. [Limited edition green vinyl.]
Young Gun Silver Fox – Canyons LP (Karma Chief)
Limited-edition opaque red vinyl pressing. Andy Platts and Shawn Lee were thinking of canyons when they wrote and recorded their third album as Young Gun Silver Fox. With West End Coast and AM waves these two very talented musicians, singers, songwriters, arrangers and producers already explored all things West coast, AOR, soft rock and boogie. But - especially if you are into the golden age of this sound running from circa 1976 to 1984 - you will be aware that there is no return once you started digging these unconditional musical delights with their timeless compositions, untouchable musicianship and refined arrangements.
Reissues, Compilations, Live Recordings & Vault Excavations...
Allman Brothers Band – Bear's Sonic Journals: Fillmore East, February 1970 LP (Allman Brothers Band)
Limited pink color vinyl LP pressing. This is essential listening for Allman Brothers Band fans, showcasing an early incarnation of the legendary group with Duane Allman in top form and featuring the earliest known live concert recording of “In Memory Of Elizabeth Reed”, which had just been penned by Dickey Betts shortly before these shows. The tapes were recorded just one year before the band's landmark At Fillmore East album from the same venue. Captured over three nights in February 1970 when the Allman's opened for the Grateful Dead for the first time, these shows were recorded by Owsley Stanley aka Bear, the Dead's pioneering soundman, whose Sonic Journal recordings are sought after for their purity and uncanny ability to place the listener in the venue.
Tony Allen & Hugh Masekela – Rejoice 2xCD/2xLP (World Circuit)
Rejoice is the classic collaboration between Tony Allen, the legendary drummer and co-founder of Afrobeat, and Hugh Masekela, the master trumpet player of South African jazz. The record, released to great acclaim in March 2020, became the first posthumous release from Masekela, and the last release from Allen, who sadly passed away a month later. For this Special Edition, World Circuit have gone back to the original 2010 mixes and added previously unheard parts from the 2019 sessions to create eight reimagined bonus mixes.
Artillery – By Inheritance [Reissue/1990] LP (Real Gone Music)
Limited blue with red splatter color vinyl pressing of the Danish thrash metal band’s third studio album.
Atmosphere – The Family Sign [Reissue/2011] 2xLP+7” (Rhymesayers)
Atmosphere have distinguished themselves from their peers by creating albums encompassing the entire spectrum of human emotion while tethering each piece to a central aural aesthetic. The Family Sign took this philosophy to new realms of solidarity with Slug metaphorically touching on themes of fatherhood, loss, love, disappointment and jubilation, and tailoring them to an instrumental framework that draws emotion out of the listener, skillfully composed by producer Ant.
Bulbous Creation – You Won't Remember Dying [Reissue/1994] LP (Numero)
Beige color vinyl reissue of late 1960s / early 1970s recordings, unreleased until 1994. A truly underground document of the national obsession with heavy, mind-bent psychedelia. Originating in the unassuming suburb of Prairie Springs, Kansas, Bulbous Creation seem to have warped directly from the wrong side of the looking glass with a jabberwocky full of surreal lyrics and gratuitous guitar solos. Recorded and abandoned in the catacombs of Independence, Missouri's Cavern Sound studio in 1971, Bulbous Creation's eight-song screed invokes images of sinners, wage slaves, drugs, out of touch parents, jail, and the devil, naturally. [Bulbous beige color vinyl.]
Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds – B-Sides & Rarities: Part II 2xCD2xLP (Mute)
B-Sides & Rarities Part II is the follow up to 2005's B-Sides & Rarities. Part II was compiled by Nick Cave and Warren Ellis, and contains 27 rare and unreleased tracks from 2006-2020, including the first recordings of "Skeleton Tree", "Girl In Amber" and "Bright Horses". The song "Vortex" was written and recorded in 2006 by Nick Cave, Warren Ellis, Martyn Casey and Jim Sclavunos. As the band were never able to define the song as either Grinderman or Bad Seeds, it remained unreleased. "I always liked the original B-Sides & Rarities more than any of our other albums," Cave shares. "It's the only one I'd listen to willingly. It seems more relaxed, even a bit nonsensical in places, but with some beautiful songs throughout. There is something, too, about the smallness of certain songs that is closer to their original spirit. B-Sides & Rarities Part II continues this strange and beautiful collection of lost songs from The Bad Seeds." [A Deluxe vinyl edition collecting both volumes is also available this week.]
Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds – B-Sides & Rarities: Part I [Reissue/2005] 3xCD (Mute)
This reissue of B-Sides & Rarities: Part I features 56 tracks including rarities, out-takes, covers & B-sides from 1988-2005 across three volumes, compiled by Mick Harvey.
John Coltrane – A Love Supreme: Live In Seattle CD/2xLP (Verve)
After nearly six decades, a private recording of a rare, nightclub performance by John Coltrane of his magnum opus, A Love Supreme, is available for the first time. Recorded in late 1965 on the culminating evening of a historic week-long run at The Penthouse in Seattle, A Love Supreme: Live In Seattle is a musical revelation of historic importance, capturing Coltrane as he began to expand his classic quartet – adding Pharoah Sanders on second saxophone and Donald Garrett on second bass – and catapulting him into the intense, spiritually focused final phase of his career. The significance of A Love Supreme: Live In Seattle is heightened by the fact that Coltrane seldom performed his four-part suite after originally recording it in the studio in 1964. Composed and created as a public declaration of his personal spiritual beliefs and universalist sentiment, it became a best-seller and received a Grammy nod the next year. This fascinating and rare live performance of the full suite is marked by a looser and more improvisational approach and an overriding sense of communal participation – much like a Sunday church service. The lineup featured John Coltrane and Pharoah Sanders on saxophones, McCoy Tyner on piano, Elvin Jones on drums, and Jimmy Garrison and Donald (Rafael) Garrett on basses. Carlos Ward, then a young saxophonist just getting started on the scene, sat in as well. [Available in the shop and in the Grimey's webstore.]
The dB’s – I Thought You Wanted To Know: 1978-1981 2xLP (Propeller Sound)
23 tracks of remastered early singles, demos, and live recordings. Most of these tracks predate the release of Stands For deciBels by two to three years and were the basis of the signing of the band to Albion Records (UK) in 1980. Some songs are being released to the public for the first time in this package.
The Halo Benders – Don’t Tell Me Now [Reissue/1996] LP (K. Records)
Heaven sent with a halo bent. Doug Martsch (Built To Spill, Treepeople) joined forces with other underground folks from his past and future on this 1996 release: Steve Fisk Pell Mell, Pigeonhed, Duck Hunt, Calvin Johnson Beat Happening, Dub Narcotic Sound System, Wayne Flower Treepeople, Violent Green, Ralf Youtz Feelings, Built to Spill. The Dub Narcotic studios were the meeting place for this feast of empty-headed loudmouth doorbell rock done backwards, from basement to bomb shelter.
Freddie Hubbard – Ready For Freddy [Reissue/1961] LP (Blue Note)
Recorded in 1961, Ready For Freddie was trumpeter Freddie Hubbard's fourth album for Blue Note Records. Featuring a unique sextet line-up with Wayne Shorter on tenor saxophone, Bernard McKinney on euphonium, McCoy Tyner on piano, Art Davis on bass, and Elvin Jones on drums, the album stands as one of the finest of Hubbard's career.
The Replacements - Sorry Ma, Forgot To Take Out The Trash 4xCD/LP (Rhino)
40th anniversary expanded reissue of The Replacements' debut album. This 4CD/1LP set offers a remarkable document of The Replacements’ formative years. Of the set’s 100 tracks, 67 have never been released before, including the first demos the band recorded in early 1980, as well as a professionally captured concert from January 1981. Along with a newly remastered version of the original album, it also uncovers many unreleased rough mixes, alternate takes, and demos from the band’s first 18 months together. The LP included in the set, titled Deliberate Noise, presents an alternate version of the original album using these previously unreleased tracks. Presented in a 12 x 12 hardcover book loaded with dozens of rarely seen photos. The set was produced by Twin/Tone Records co-founder Peter Jesperson, Rhino’s Jason Jones, and Replacements’ biographer Bob Mehr, who received a Grammy for Best Album Notes for his work on the band’s acclaimed 2019 boxed set Dead Man’s Pop. Mehr again penned the detailed liners that accompany this set, which features new interviews with The Replacements. Former Replacements manager Jesperson also provides a remembrance of the Sorry Ma era.
Rolling Stones – Tattoo You [Reissue/1981] CD/2xCD/LP/2xLP/LP+4xCD+Book/5xLP+Book (Interscope)
Tattoo You celebrates 40 years with the release of a variety of remastered editions, including deluxe expanded double-CD and double-LP as well super deluxe box set editions. The expanded double-disc versions include Lost & Found, a brand-new collection of nine previously unreleased songs from the period of the album's original release, newly completed and enhanced with additional vocals and guitar by the band. The four-CD+LP edition features a vinyl picture disc of Lost & Found plus the live concert Still Life: Wembley Stadium 1982 plus a 124-page book featuring over 200 rare photos from recording sessions and world tour, and interviews with producer Chris Kimsey and photographer Hubert Kretzscmar. The package is housed in a special lenticular sleeve. The five-LP set includes the same amount of material; however, Lost & Found is pressed on standard black vinyl.
Sixx: A.M. – Sixx: A.M. Hits 2xCD (11-7 Recording Corp.)
Sixx: A.M. Hits is the ultimate Sixx: A.M. collection featuring the first new song in six years and song that compliments his new book - The First 21, two more unreleased tracks and new mixes of "Talk To Me", "Skin" and the iconic "Life Is Beautiful". Sixx: A.M. formed in 2007 by Mötley Crüe bassist Nikki Sixx, renowned guitarist DJ Ashba, and producer /songwriter James Michael, and is best known for their debut album The Heroin Diaries soundtrack and the #1 hits "Life Is Beautiful" and "Lies Of The Beautiful People". [Vinyl edition due December 3.]
Slayer – Show No Mercy [Reissue/1983] LP (Metal Blade)
Slayer – Haunting The Chapel [Reissue/1984] 12” (Metal Blade)
Slayer – Hell Awaits [Reissue/1985] LP (Metal Blade)
Slayer – Live Undead [Reissue/1985] 12” (Metal Blade)
Vinyl reissues of Slayers first two albums, first EP, first live EP. [Limited-edition color vinyl pressings are also available.]
Spiritualized – Let It Come Down [Reissue/2001] CD/2xLP (Fat Possum)
Let It Come Down saw Jason Pierce rebuilding Spiritualized after the core line-up dissolved following the intensive touring process of Ladies And Gentlemen... Dion's Phil Spector-produced Born To Be With You was an influence. The initial recordings were made at John Coxon's studio before some 115 different musicians were brought into Air and Abbey Road Studios to work on these 11 songs. Spiritualized had always made wide-screen music but this time the movie theater was the size of the Coliseum. [Indie exclusive ivory color vinyl.]
Suburban Lawns – Suburban Lawns [Reissue/1981] LP (Superior Viaduct)
If your brain has a shortlist of bands that instantly evoke new wave, Suburban Lawns deserve a slot right next to the likes of Devo, Talking Heads and the B-52's. After putting out two singles on their own Suburban Industrial imprint, the Lawns signed to I.R.S. Records and released their debut LP in 1981. While the band gained cult status thanks in part to a Jonathan Demme-produced music video which aired on Saturday Night Live, their self-titled album would sadly be the five-piece's only full-length statement.
Superchunk – Here's To Shutting Up [Reissue/2001] CD/LP+MP3 (Matador)
From Mac McCaughan of Superchunk: “To write the songs for Here's To Shutting Up, we gathered in Jim's garage (he lived way out in the woods) a couple times a week for what seemed like months. We started from actual scratch with no demos or concepts, just playing instrumental music with our usual gear plus a Casio. We recorded the album in the Cabbagetown neighborhood of Atlanta at Zero Return, the studio built by Brian and Rob (aka Birdstuff and Coco the Electronic Monkey Wizard) of Man or Astro-man? Brian Paulson came with us to produce it. Here's To Shutting Up was meant to be released on September 18, 2001. On September 11, the world changed. Our release date moved a couple weeks, but our tour dates remained, and we flew to Japan in October. It was a WILD time to be traveling the world. Receptions ranged from thank you for giving us something else to think about to why are you here? We flew home from Japan and left for the UK the day the US started bombing Afghanistan. This was the climate, and the climate was not great for playing rock music.”
James Taylor & Carole King – Live At The Troubadour [Reissue/2010] 2xLP (Craft Recordings)
In November of 1970, James Taylor and Carole King first performed together at The Troubadour in West Hollywood, California. Thirty-six years later, they returned for a three-night, six-show run to celebrate the venue's 50th anniversary. This remarkable recording features 15 songs and 75 minutes of stunning performances of their collective biggest hits including “You've Got A Friend”, “Fire And Rain”, “I Feel The Earth Move” and more. [CD version due October 29.]
Various Artists - Two Tribes Volume Two CD/2xLP
Not long after the release of Two Tribes Vol. 1, Agogo Records realized that the journey had only just begun and lots of stories still had to be told. The 14 tracks collected here represent what the label considers a broad and diverse spectrum but still clinging to the initial idea of building a musical bridge between the continents of Africa and Europe. The immense cultural diversity of both is represented by newcomers alongside more well-known names, both of which have a strong connection to the rich musical traditions of Africa. On board are African artists living in diaspora on equal footing with Europeans that incorporate their high affinity to the African continent into their music. Features tracks by Onipa (Strut Records), Karthala 72, David Nesselhauf (Kryptox Records), Wanubalé vs. Dr. Markuse, Lua Preta, Isilda Viegas, Alai K, Isaac and Octa Push, Guts, Jowee Omicil, and many more.
The White Stripes – White Blood Cells [Reissue/2001] LP (Sony Legacy)
Limited ‘peppermint pinwheel’ 180gram color vinyl pressing. For this one, Jack and Meg decamped to Memphis to record at the legendary Easley-McCain Studio and walked away with a bonafide classic. Unique for a White Stripes album, as it contains no covers, no guest musicians, no blues and no guitar solos, this album would be most of the world's introduction to the band. [Strictly limited to 1 per customer, no mail orders.]
Wye Oak – Civilian + Cut All the Wires: 2009 – 2011 LP+MP3 (Merge)
Limited green swirl vinyl pressing. Ten years after its release, Wye Oak's Civilian remains a raw, sinewy punch of a record-bleak and intense and lonely and self-assured all at once. The album unravels with the sort of self-questioning and uncertainty that come with youth, and its specific confidence in unflinchingly probing all those emotions, feeling them to their deepest extent even when it's tearing you apart at the seams. When Andy Stack and Jenn Wasner released Civilian, it marked both the ascension and death of Wye Oak, or at least a version of it. Now, a decade later, Civilian + Cut All The Wires: 2009-2011 delves back into that pivotal record and adds a lost album of unreleased tracks and demos to Civilian's universe.