Finally, the week we’ve all been waiting for. That week in summer where virtually nothing comes out! Here it is, enjoy. It’s also the last couple of days before we close for a few days for a summer break….
We will be closed July 28th – Aug 1st, just Monday – Friday.
Oh ya, due to some anti-spam laws I should tell you, if you want to keep receiving this email, don’t do anything. If you don’t want to keep getting it, unsubscribe at the bottom.
…..pick of the week…..
OVERSTOCK SALE!!!!
Since y’all are going to have to go a week without being able to come in and dig through our stacks, we figured why not motivate you to pick up some stuff you’ve been putting off and that we seem to have just too many copies of. We are having a different kind of sale than we’ve ever had before…..
3 days only… Friday, Saturday, Sunday (July 25-July 27)
30% off all tagged overstock
That’s it. You aren’t gonna get the new Mastodon for cheap, but you might get some Miles Davis, or Sonic Youth, or Horror OSTs. So get in here this weekend and help us clear out the back room!
…..new arrivals…..
Syd Barrett:
The Madcap Laughs (Harvest) LP
Barrett (Harvest) LP
One of the most influential musicians in British pop history, Syd Barrett was as appreciated as much for his iconoclastic approach to the electric guitar as for his adventurous and imaginative songwriting. A co-founder of Pink Floyd, he was also quintessentially English, penning idiosyncratic and unique songs, and, along with Ray Davies, was directly responsible for a whole generation of musicians feeling that it was acceptable to develop their own indigenous brand of rock music. Pink Floyd signed to EMI Records in 1967, releasing the singles “Arnold Layne” and “See Emily Play,” both written by Syd, and the album The Piper At The Gates Of Dawn, again mostly composed by Syd and considered to be one of the greatest British psychedelic albums. However, as the band began to attract a large fanbase, it became clear that Syd’s fluid approach to writing, performing and recording – spontaneous, one take only, nothing repeated – was increasingly at odds with the expectations of a musical scene that was still very conservative, especially outside London. Possibly exacerbated by Syd’s frequent experimentation with psychedelic drugs, his behavior became more erratic, to the point that the band decided to add a second guitarist for live performances. They hoped to call on Syd’s compositional abilities for studio work, similar to Brian Wilson’s role in the Beach Boys, while David Gilmour would bolster the band in live shows. The experiment didn’t really work and, in January 1968, after a handful of shows as a 5-piece, the band elected not to pick Syd up on the way to a Southampton University show. Syd and Floyd officially parted company in March 1968, with the band’s management Blackhill Enterprises deciding to stick with Syd as a solo artist. EMI’s new Harvest label committed to a Barrett solo project, and over the course of a year Syd recorded his debut The Madcap Laughs. The album was well received and sold reasonably, so EMI elected to record a follow-up straight away. The sessions for sophomore album Barrett started on February 26, 1970, with David Gilmour as producer, Richard Wright on keyboards and Humble Pie’s Jerry Shirley on drums. Sessions in April and July followed, and the album was released in November 1970, the last official Syd Barrett album, bar compilations.
File Under: Psych, LoFi, Classics, Pink Floyd
Listen Here And Here
Hamilton Leithauser: Black Hours (Ribbon) LP
Hamilton Leithauser presents his debut solo album Black Hours via Ribbon Music – inaugurating a new chapter in an already remarkable career from The Walkmen front man. The album brings Leithauser full circle and then some, from lonely midwinter piano-and-vocals sessions, to a loud, live rock & roll group and back again. Featuring Leithauser with a slew of talented collaborators including Rostam Batmanglij (Vampire Weekend), Paul Maroon (The Walkmen), Morgan Henderson (Fleet Foxes) and Richard Swift (The Shins/solo), the album showcases Leithauser at his most passionate, personal and free. In its orchestrated rhythms, dynamic vocals, and generous production, Black Hours speaks from one booming voice. The instrumentation provides muscle and texture: Maroon covering a wide range of acoustic and electric guitars as well as grand piano; Batmanglij switching between guitar, harpsichord, piano, bass and harmonica; Henderson takes the marimba and upright bass, and Swift lays down impressive drums on seven tracks. Amber Coffman from the Dirty Projectors provides backing vocals on several numbers and even Hugh McIntosh of Leithauser’s first band, the Recoys, returns to the drum stool for a pair of songs. Principal recording for Black Hours was done in August 2013 at Vox Studios in Los Angeles, “the oldest private studio in the world,” where Nat King Cole, Bing Crosby, Johnny Mercer, and countless others cut demos before appearing on air at NBC studios, just across Melrose Ave. This Deluxe Edition LP of Black Hours is a limited edition pressing that includes a bonus 4 track EP available exclusively on a second vinyl disc; includes a printed 7”x7” accordion fold out, two inner printed card stock sleeves housed in a wide spine jacket, and the album on a single 180 gram heavyweight vinyl with MP3 download card.
File Under: Indie Rock, Walkmen
Listen Here
Mastodon: Once More ‘Round The Sun (Reprise) LP
Art is a cyclical beast. The same can easily be said of Grammy Award nominated hard rock juggernaut Mastodon. The group’s four members recognize the importance of life’s omnipresent cycles on their sixth full-length album, Once More ‘Round the Sun. The band orbits around themes of loss and rebirth, twirling a sonic spiral of its signature robust riffing, hypnotically haunting soundscapes, triage of dynamic voices, and thundering seismic grooves. At the same time, this particular collection proves personal for Brann Dailor, Brent Hinds, Bill Kelliher, and Troy Sanders. Mastodon’s own collective cycle encompasses a staggering string of accolades. As far as rock ‘n’ roll goes, their legacy irrefutably stands alone. However, that legacy expands yet again with Once More ‘Round the Sun. In order to uphold a modus operandi of experimentation and evolution, the boys enlisted the talents of super producer Nick Raskulinecz (Foo Fighters, Rush, Alice In Chains, Deftones) for the very first time. They holed up in his Falcon Rock studio in Nashville throughout the fall of 2013, cutting what would become Once More ‘Round the Sun. Given his passion for the band, Raskulinecz immediately clicked with the musicians.
File Under: Metal, Hard Rock
Listen Here
Reigning Sound: Shattered (Merge) LP
Shattered is Reigning Sound’s first album for Merge and the first full LP by the group since 2009’s Love and Curses. The band’s principal songwriter/member is Greg Cartwright, who’s been leading the shifting cast of characters since 2001. You may be familiar with some of the band’s work, as this album is preceded by five studio efforts as well as numerous EPs and live records. Or perhaps some of Greg’s other projects have been on your musical radar: The Oblivians, Parting Gifts, Compulsive Gamblers, 68 Comeback, Deadly Snakes, Detroit Cobras. Regardless, as far as Reigning Sound is concerned, this is as good a place to start as any because through many line-up changes and mood swings, the central, constant feature is the way Greg writes songs. This particular embodiment of the band includes longtime keyboardist Dave Amels, who joined the band seven years ago when Reigning Sound recorded an album, consisting mostly of Cartwright’s songs, with former Shangri-Las lead singer Mary Weiss. The album was recorded at Daptone’s Brooklyn studio (where drummer Mikey works in the office) and masterfully engineered by Wayne Douglas. The recordings are warm and punchy, a mixed bag of rockers, ballads, and something in between. There are only 11 songs on the album, but the band reckons it’s just right. LP version includes download coupon.
File Under: Punk, Garage, Rock
Listen Here
Shabazz Palaces: Lese Majesty (Sub Pop) LP
Herein bumps and soars Lese Majesty, the new sonic action of Shabazz Palaces. Honed and primal, chromed and primo. A unique and glorified offering into our ever-uniforming musical soundscape. Lese Majesty is a beatific war cry, born of a spell, acknowledging that sophistication and the instinctual are not at odds; Indeed an undoing of the lie of their disparate natures. Lese Majesty is not a launching pad for the group’s fan base increasing propaganda. It is a series of astral suites, recorded happenings, shared. A dare to dive deep into Shabazz Palaces sounds, vibrations unfettered. A dope-hex thrown from the compartments that have artificially contained us all and hindered our sublime collusion. These reveries were sent to Palaceer Lazaro and Fly Guy ‘Dai in the year of gun beat battles in excess; In a succession of days, whilst walking in dreams and in varied transcendental states…(every minute of every day is filled with observation and composition. In action). Songs are committed and gathered by robots at Protect and Exalt Labs, a Black Space in Seattle, Washington.
File Under: Hip Hop, Electronic, Digable Planets
Listen Here
White Fence: For The Recently Found Innocent (Drag City) LP/CD
White Fence emerge from their high aerie to display a shining array of royal jewels each time they unveil a new pop album to the world. The gliss and glitter that sounds forth from For the Recently Found Innocent has a shine all its own, and for Reasons too. For the Recently Found Innocent is many things – the fifth White Fence album, the first White Fence album to be recorded outside the bedroom fence (with live drumming!), the first White Fence record to be produced for Drag City. Plus also, a sophomore pump: the second time that Tim Presley and Ty Segall have met to record music (does anyone remember Hair?), this time pure and simply committed in the name of White Fence. Inevitably, the collision at the intersection of all these winding roads is a beautiful pileup of deep impacts, graceful lines and open space embodied in sound, White on White, compacted for your eyes and ears to believe. For the Recently Found Innocent surges forth with fresh set of elaborately crafted songs, harmony vocalizations and trippin’ guitar tones that strike the face and viscera with an equal (easy) blow. White Fence conjure a fantasy about reality, of the world as it is and should always be; their songs are alterna-hits played out in green sun, in blue air, on repeat, relentless, RIGHTEOUS in the privacy of front-parlor and yes, bedroom – White Fence, full-circle, from the cradle to the grave!
File Under: Psych, Garage, Pop, Ty Segall etc.
Listen Here
Wooden Wand: Farmer’s Corner (Fire) LP
Following the critically acclaimed Blood Oaths of the New Blues, James Jackson Toth a.k.a Wooden Wand decided to try something different: instead of spending a week in a studio with the same people, the same engineer, the same equipment and the same state of mind, he would record in fits and starts, whenever – and wherever – he felt like it. Over six sessions in four studios spanning three states, he began amassing tracks. Toth then chose his favourites for Farmer’s Corner, which is, remarkably, the very first self-produced Wooden Wand album. Aided on the majority of the tracks by bassist Darin Gray (On Fillmore, Jim O’Rourke, Grand Ulena ), and guitarists William Tyler (Lambchop, Silver Jews, Yo La Tengo) and Doc Feldman. The result reflects Toth’s omnivorous musical and narrative obsessions. The arrangements – think Little Feat covering Harvest Moon – only serve to highlight his capabilities as both a songwriter and storyteller. The collected songs form an easy entry into the ever-growing Toth output, where outlaws on the run, epic landscapes, endless travels, agitated insomniacs and ditch-digging memory-evaders lurk behind every turn. “this is the sound of one musician’s prolific and mercurial path, reaching delightful new highs.” Pitchfork 7.9
File Under: Folk
Listen Here
Matthew Young: Recurring Dreams Drag City/Yoga) LP
Matthew Young’s genre-bending, acclaimed 1986 release Traveler’s Advisory reappeared as a reissue on Drag City/Yoga in 2010 and quickly sold out. We now return to Young’s first effort, Recurring Dreams, dating back to 1981 and the apex of the Eno/Berlin schools’ influence over a myriad of American followers. Young created eight EMS/Rhodes pieces solo, subtly weaving in variable-speed Revox manipulation of traditional rock instrumentation with the lightest of touches. As anyone who has heard Traveler’s Advisory already knows, Matthew Young could never be a mere imitator. What all too often amounted to predictable schtick in the field of early 80s home electronica, Young made personal, delicate, discreet, and discrete. Wordlessly illustrating its titles – ‘Version, Inversion’, ‘The Forest Of Lilacs’, and ‘Mistral’ (a strong, cold, northwesterly wind), Young conjures vivid, progressive tones of the unknown. Recurring Dreams requires repeat listenings to fully reveal its Bonsai-like qualities. Fans of Erik Satie, JD Emmanuel, private-issue new age or the more placid side of minimal synth should take note of this one. Drag City and Yoga Records are proud to reintroduce Matthew Young’s Recurring Dreams.
File Under: Electronic, Early Electronic
Listen Here
Various: Tropicalia Ou Panis Et Circencis (Soul Jazz) LP
This is the compilation that helped to define the sound of Tropicalia, whose artists made huge and influential strides in creating exotic pop that was as influenced by psychedelia as it was by samba, bossa nova, and more traditional South American genres. Tropicalia not only includes tracks from the label’s most important acts (Gilberto Gil, Os Mutantes, Caetano Veloso Gal Costa), but presents a large number of collaborations between these artists, many of which are simply amazing. Given the fact that many of the original Tropicalia releases have not been reissued or are not widely available, the compilation stands as a near-definitive package for the sound, and a great opportunity for anyone unfamiliar with the artists to experience an amazing and hugely important genre.
File Under: Brazil, Psych, Bossa Nova, Classics
Listen Here
…..restocks…..
Afghan Whigs: 1965 (Music on Vinyl) LP
Alabama Shakes: Boys & Girls (ATO) LP
Arcade Fire: Reflektor (Sonovox) LP
Arcade Fire: Suburbs (Merge) LP
Black Flag: Damaged (SST) LP
Black Keys: El Camino (Nonesuch) LP
Daft Punk: Discovery (EMI) LP
Daft Punk: Homework (EMI) LP
Miles Davis: Bitches Brew (Music on Vinyl) LP
Miles Davis: Kind of Blue (Columbia) LP
Dead Kennedys: Fresh Fruit For Rotting Vegetables (Manifesto) LP
Lana Del Rey: Born To Die (Island) LP
Mac Demarco: 2 (Captured Tracks) LP
Earth: Hex: Or Printing In The Infernal Method (Southern Lord) LP
Earth: The Bees Made Honey… (Southern Lord) LP
Flesh Eaters: A Minute to Pray A Second to Die (Superior Viaduct) LP
Robert Fripp & Brian Eno: No Pussyfooting (Pangyeric) LP
Jimi Hendrix: Are You Experienced (Reprise) LP
Jimi Hendrix: Axis: Bold As Love (Reprise) LP
Husker Du: Zen Arcade (SST) LP
Husker Du: Flip Your Wig (SST) LP
Joy Division: Closer (Rhino) LP
Led Zeppelin: I Deluxe (Warner) 3LP
Led Zeppelin: II Deluxe (Warner) 2LP
Led Zeppelin: III Deluxe (Warner) 2LP
Mars Volta: De-Loused in the Comatorium (Music on Vinyl) LP
Mars Volta: Amputechture (Music on Vinyl) LP
Medeski, Martin & Wood: s/t (Blue Note) LP
Morrissey: Your Arsenal (Sire) LP
Raconteurs: Consolers of the Lonely (Thirdman) LP
Radiohead: Ok Computer (EMI) LP
Songs: Ohia: Didn’t It Rain (Secretly Canadian) LP
Sons Of Huns: Banishment Rituals (Easy Rider) LP
Chad Van Gaalen: Shrink Dust (Flemish Eye) LP
War on Drugs: Lost In The Dream (Secretly Canadian) LP
Various: Don’t Stop: Recording Tap (Numero) LP