New Releases - 12/20/24

Hitting The Racks

Here's your weekly rundown of what's hitting the new release racks at Grimey's

New Releases

Damu the Fudgemunk - Peace of Action LP (Def Presse / KPM Crate Diggers)

Peace of Action is the latest release from artist Earl “Damu the Fudgemunk” Davis, and also, the newest installment of Def Pressé’s series of projects made in partnership with KPM and associated music libraries. With dozens of titles under his belt over the past 2 decades highlighting his musicality and a reputation built on beats, it may be a surprise to many that this is the Fudgemunk’s first official instrumental project in over 7 years. This is a Jazz record, made with Hip Hop production techniques. The source material is a love of the records that came before it. Literally, digging into the Jazz catalogue at KPM, taking inspiration from the material, absorbing the imagination and talent of previous composers, and re-imaging it through a multifaceted lens.

RZA - A Ballet Through Mud LP (36 Chambers)

A Ballet Through Mud is a poignant coming-of-age story that delves into the complexities of love, the loss of innocence, the bonds of friendship, and person - al growth. Drawing inspiration from RZA's own lyrics and the candid memories he penned in his teenage notebooks, the narrative also embodies his profound philosophical journey influenced by Chan Buddhism. As RZA eloquently states, “out of the mud grows the lotus.” Pink and purple mixed color pressing housed in a gatefold jacket, featuring photos of a ballet performance with the Colorado Symphony and a 12 page graphic insert outlining the narrative of the ballet.

They Might Be Giants - Beast of Horns LP (Idlewild Recordings)

This new set of tracks captures the musical glory of They Might Be Giants' expanded live format of recent years. Long celebrated for their phenomenal shows, the addition of Stan Harrison on sax, Dan Levine on trombone and euphonium, and Mark Pender on trumpet takes the band to new heights on these brand new recordings. Includes audience favorites Doctor Worm, Museum of Idiots, and The Darlings of Lumberland. [Limited edition red vinyl.]

Ludwig Wandinger - Is Peace Wild? LP (light-years)

An album of hypnagogic nocturnes that relentlessly searches for a sense of calm in the great unknown, Is Peace Wild? is German producer, drummer and visual artist Ludwig Wandinger's long-awaited debut solo full-length. To help empty his mind, Wandinger developed a suite of soulful reflections that prioritize harmony over rhythm and clarity over trivial complexity -- music that confronts the eternal duality of romance and tragedy. Almost beatless and consistently sublime, Is Peace Wild? is punctuated by hypnotic lyrical contributions from multidisciplinary artist, poet and activist Yves B. Golden and producer and vocalist Evita Manji, both of whom bless the album with indispensable friendship and familiarity. For fans of: Aphex Twin, Kali Malone, Sarah Davachi, Kara-lis Coverdale, Tim Hecker, Sigur Ros, Laurel Halo.

Luke Wyland - Kuma Cove LP (Balmat)

"Music is my forever cove," writes Portland, Oregon's Luke Wyland of the ideas that give shape to Kuma Cove, his latest album under his own name. Recorded live in the studio and blurring obvious lines between computer-based composition and electro-acoustic instrumentation, it is an album about flow, borders, transitory states, and shelter. Composed of discontinuous ripples and repetitions, shaped into richly emotive arcs, and informed by his experience as a person who stutters, it is also an album about identity, self-expression, and the energies that sluice through and across what is perceived as linear time -- like floodwaters seeking an exit, like streams running into the sea. 

Reissues, Comps, Live Recordings, Vault Excavations...

Atreyu - The Pronoia Sessions CD/LP (Spinefarm)

American metalcore stalwarts Atreyu make a passionate return to the hearts of fans everywhere with The Pronoia Sessions - a new collection that deconstructs, recreates, and reshapes eight of their greatest hits and two nostalgic tribute covers. The genesis stretches back to a series of acoustic performances at special events on the road. "We had the idea to do a show similar to Nirvana's MTV Unplugged as a one-off thing," explains frontman Brandon Saller. "Then we thought, 'Why not spend some time on it in the studio?' And it built from there. 'How far can we push this?' It spawned from there and unexpectedly turned into this monster." What began as an acoustic album evolved into a grand re-imagining of Atreyu classics.

Common - Resurrection (30th Anniversary) LP (Get On Down)

Multi-color swirl vinyl pressing. A recut deluxe 30th anniversary colored vinyl pressing of Resurrection that includes the original album plus 3 “Resurrection” remixes with liner notes by Check The Technique author Brian Coleman and featuring track-by-track commentary from Common and No I.D. all in a beautiful gatefold jacket with a commemorative wrap-around OBI. Resurrection was released on Oct, 4, 1994. While the mainstream originally neglected the album, it has since received a great deal of critical acclaim and is now on The Source's 100 Best Rap Albums. Resurrection was produced almost entirely by No I.D., who has gone on to work with heavyweights like Usher, Alicia Keys, and Killer Mike on his Grammy Winning album Michael.  

Steve Earle - Alone Again… Live CD/LP (Missing Piece)

Steve Earle has a new album, Alone Again (Live) via Howe Sound Records/Missing Piece Records. The live album was recorded during his 2023 tour and features 15 of his most beloved songs including "Copperhead Road," "Guitar Town," "Galway Girl" and many more.

Jess & The Ancient Ones - Jess & The Ancient Ones CD/LP (Svart Records)

With the vocal talent Jess as their frontwoman and three guitars in the lineup, JATAO draws inspiration from heavy metal and rock groups of the classic era, such as Mercyful Fate, Roky Erickson, Iron Maiden and Abba. The album was recorded in December 2011 by Necromorbus Studio, known for their previous work with bands such as Watain. The result of these sessions is the eponymous album, a 53-minute moonlight ride into the nether regions of progressive occult heavy rock. 

Jess & The Ancient Ones - Astral Sabat LP (Svart Records)

Limited red vinyl LP pressing of this 2014 EP. Finland's Jess and the Ancient Ones recorded with Swedish sonic wizard Tore Stjerna of Necromorbus Studio in their hometown Kuopio. 'Astral Sabbat' sees them pushing forward the boundaries of the sound established on their first full-length and forging their own path, as personified by the rather unusual choice of cover song: 'Long And Lonesome Road', originally written and recorded by Dutch rock outfit Shocking Blue, mostly known for their mega-hit 'Venus'.

King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard - Live at Bonnaroo ’22 2xLP (Org Music)

Live at Bonnaroo '22 captures Melbourne psych-rockers King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard at their most freewheeling and ferocious. Taking the stage at the Tennessee festival to a captive audience as the clock struck midnight, the band ripped through this eleven-song set with intensity, letting up only to space out on certain tracks like the near ten-minute "Magenta Mountain" and a poignant rendition of fan favorite "Work This Time". This official bootlegger version of the release is spread out across two LPs, with one pressed on bubblegum and the other on sour grape color vinyl. The release was mastered for vinyl by Kern Haug and pressed at Furnace Record Pressing, with artwork by Michael Rogers. [Limited edition bubblegum & sour grape color vinyl.]

John Legend - Get Lifted 2xLP (Sony Legacy)

Experience John Legend's debut studio album Get Lifted, now pressed on vinyl. This GRAMMY-winning record merges the essences of soul, R&B, and hip-hop, showcasing standout songs like “Used to Love U,” “Ordinary People,” and “Let's Get Lifted.” The vinyl release also includes the exceptional bonus cut, “So High” Cloud 9 Remix featuring Ms. Lauryn Hill.

Magazine - Magic, Murder & The Weather LP (Integral)

Enduringly credible, Magazine have always been the music connoisseur's choice; frequently name checked by some of the most gifted musicians of recent years including Radiohead, Morrissey, Jarvis Cocker, U2, Johnny Marr and MGMT. NME. Com went so far as to included Magazine in a poll as one of the most influential bands of all time. Created by frontman, Howard Devoto - who co-formed Buzzcocks with Pete Shelley - Magazine's sound focused on the double barrels of Dave Formula's swirling keyboards and John McGeoch's ahead-of-it's-time innovative guitar work, underpinned by Barry Adamson's pulsing yet deviously irregular basslines. Atop of this sat Howard Devoto's lyrics. Leading the vanguard of post-punk, their released four groundbreaking albums before disbanding. 1981's Magic, Murder and the Weather is repressed for the first time on pink vinyl and features unseen images and new notes from band members compiled and curated by Rory Sullivan-Burke.

MC Money & Gangsta Gold - Da Hard Ov Frayser LP (Now Again)

Galaxy ruby colored vinyl. Part of Now Again's series chronicling History of Memphis Rap, which attempts to capture Memphis and its underground rap scene as it began to produce some of the most distinctive music of the 90s. This was a unique hip-hop strain - visceral and often vicious. It was a local, low-fi, cassette-tape based movement - yet it went on to change the course of rap music. These albums have never been pressed on vinyl - until now.These albums were all licensed directly from their original creators, and come on limited edition colored vinyl with artist-approved imagery for their first LP iterations. 

Meat Puppets - Live In Montana LP (Megaforce)

Meat Puppets-Curt Kirkwood, Cris Kirkwood and Derrick Bostrom-are reissuing the double album Live in Montana for the first time on vinyl, with four bonus songs. Recorded December 7 and 8, 1988 at the Sundance Club in Bozeman and the Top Hat Club in Missoula, Live in Montana is a tribute to a time when the Puppets were, as Michael Azerrad wrote in Rolling Stone, "one of an elite group of pioneering bands that tirelessly crisscrossed the country throughout the '80s, blazing an underground railroad of indie-oriented clubs, stores, radio stations and fanzines." "Our back catalog is an American treasure and should be in the Smithsonian, " says bassist and co-founder Cris Kirkwood. "Megaforce is doing a huge service to the planet to make sure our music continues to get into the hands of everyone who needs to have the coolest record collection on the block."

Meridian Brothers - Cumbia Siglo XXI LP (Bongo Joe)

"After the very acoustic ¿Dónde estás María?, I decided to try a new experiment taking as a reference the legendary group Cumbia Siglo XX which is a group who explores a futuristic vision of coastal cumbia in the '80s, together with other groups such as Grupo folclórico, 2000 Voltios and others, mainly under the label Machuca and Felito records. This new '80s cumbia was a combination of funky basses and a further evolution of the rhythms, blending this style with disco and even rock music and superimposing the traditional versus the urban context and the modernity. Meridian Brothers took this as a departing point and inspiration, making the same experiment but in XXI century, using the modern media of this time; all kinds of drum machines, guitars and synths, algorithmic software etc, and also taking into account the global exposition of modern cumbia in the 2010s. So all kinds of influences and genres are blended around this cumbia axis. Urban beats, synthy grooves, glitches and all kinds of swear words (and it's censorship), and all kinds of slang languaje are included in the songs of the album. All these elements are filtered and passed through the traditional train of thought of Meridian Brothers, which is the figuration of an abstract picture of sound put it within a concrete context or cultural tendency.

Origami Angel - Feeling Not Found LP (Counter Intuitive)

Feeling Not Found, the third full-length record from Washington, D.C. duo Origami Angel, is the one-the rare, undeniable piece of work that defines a sound, a moment, a subculture, a band's position in the continuum of music. Vocalist/guitarist Ryland Heagy and drummer Pat Doherty have been building to this record since they started the band in 2016, growing it quickly into one of the most exciting and volcanic bands in the American punk and emo communities. A 14-track epic recorded with producer Will Yip at his Studio 4 Recording, Feeling Not Found revolves around the deeply modern experience teased in the title: an emotional and spiritual 404 error, a sensation of cellular-level malfunction and data corruption, of being lost in an oblivion of digital information, and the desperate struggle to reconnect to how it feels to be human and whole. [Limited edition pink vinyl.]

Ananda Shankar - Ananda Shankar & His Music LP (Mr. Bongo)

Mr Bongo proudly presents an official reissue of an iconic, exploratory album by Indian maestro of the sitar, Ananda Shankar, aptly titled 'Ananda Shankar And His Music'. Released on His Master's Voice in 1976, the album is a sublime collage of sitar-funk, traditional Indian classical music and psychedelic grooves, from the Indian sitarist, composer and musician. Nephew to India's legendary sitar virtuoso Ravi Shankar, Ananda's musical family and upbringing led to a deep respect and love of the wealth of music that emanated from his birthplace. His travels to the west coast of America in the late '60s though, saw Shankar immersed in the full swing of psychedelic rock. The collision of these two musical worlds with a whole range of other Eastern and Western influences on 'Ananda Shankar And His Music', is a truly entrancing combination. 

Andy Stott - Faith in Strangers 2LP (Modern Love)

2024 repress of the Manchester-based producer's 2014 album. Making use of an array of instruments, field recordings, found sounds and vocal treatments, it's a largely analog variant of hi-tech production styles arcing from the dissonant to the sublime. The first two tracks recorded during these early sessions bookend the release, the opener "Time Away" featuring euphonium played by Kim Holly Thorpe and last track "Missing," a contribution by Stott's occasional vocal collaborator Alison Skidmore, who also appeared on 2012's Luxury Problems. Between these two points Faith in Strangers heads off from the sparse and infected "Violence" to the broken, downcast pop of "On Oath" and the motorik, driving melancholy of "Science & Industry" -- three vocal tracks built around that angular production style that imbues proceedings with both a pioneering spirit and a resonating sense of familiarity. [Available on black vinyl and 'Arctic Pearl' color vinyl.]

Tom Waits - The Heart of Saturday Night LP (Anti-)

50th anniversary raspberry beret color vinyl reissue of Tom Waits’ The Heart Of A Saturday Night. Rolling Stone included this 1974 LP in their "500 Greatest Albums of All Time" in admiration of it's bewitching blend of after-hours hipster jazz, ageless acoustic- piano songs and intimate introductions to the lonely "ghosts of Saturday night." the song of that title joins New Coat of Paint; Shiver Me Timbers; Diamonds on My Windshield; (Looking for) the Heart of Saturday Night; Semi Suite, and more of his early best!