Another one of my all time favorite albums is finally available on vinyl again! It really is the golden age of reissues. Loads of other great stuff in and possibly even more in tomorrow…. maybe…
And as I mentioned last week, WE ARE HIRING! This doesn’t happen very often so if you’ve ever wanted to work here, this is your best chance! Please drop off a resume in person and include your top 10 albums of 2015 as well as of all time. Good luck!
…..pick of the week…..
Sonic Youth: Sister (Goofin) LP
“Let’s get something straight. There is no album in the entire corpus of indie rock—not Loveless, not Surfer Rosa, not Psychocandy—that reaches the heights of invention, joy, and magic of Sonic Youth’s sublime fifth album…. The haunted reveries of Sister remain with you for years, even if you only hear them once…. Sister is the sonic manifestation of refracted light. It’s a record that changes you.” —Stereogum One of Sonic Youth’s most beloved albums, 1987’s Sister incorporated the dissonance of their earlier releases into more traditional song structures. It’s an innovative and thrilling work assuredly delivered by a band at the peak of their powers. Reissued on the band’s Goofin’ imprint, this 2016 pressing includes a digital download card with the vinyl edition.
File Under: Indie Rock, Essential
Listen Here
…..new arrivals…..
Asa Chang & Junray: Jun Ray Song Chang (Leaf) LP
Available again! The latest in wildy exotic, playful and lovingly created music from self-taught tabla/bongo guru ASA-CHANG. A heady brew of Eastern percussion, babelogues of spoken word, horns, toys, flute, mandolin, and analog synthesizer drums. Hallucinogenic and beautiful.
File Under: Experimental, Electronic
Listen Here
Ash Koosha: Guud (Olde English Spelling Bee) LP
Tehran-born and London-based, Ash Koosha creates music that is stripped of genre, style and conventional structure. His training in classical music and his interest in computer music from a young age has equipped him with necessary tools to construct, break, form and deform at the same time. The result is sound that is fragmented, unearthly yet natural, collage-like yet seamless. His latest work, GUUD is a sonic experience, where classical variations and harmonies meet manipulated sample grains. It is a field, a ‘place where he deals with scientific and psychological questions’ and where he manipulates his senses by creating a synesthetic experience. He understands emotional and physical limits and pushes those emotions to the extreme without the extreme effect, as he simulates the sound of exploding speakers or collapsing percussion structures in a listenable frequency. It is by treating sound as physical matter that he can then apply a simulation of physical forces to it: shattering, positioning, joining, liquifying or pressuring. One of the ideas that Ash has introduced in GUUD and will be further discovered in his future projects, is ‘nano-composition’. Born out of his obsession with scale and based on ideas explored in nanotechnology and quantum realm, nano-composition can be defined as creating a composition, based on the sonic behaviour of fractal patterns that exist within a stretched or rescaled sound wave but without pitch alteration. It is visually treating grains in wave forms as particles and create sonic ‘events’ within that wave form. Although these events are controlled and structured by the composer, their randomness and internal chaos offers an element of singularity and rarity. It is a deconstruction of what is conventionally and sonics-wise ‘good’ music. GUUD is ‘good’ without the perfection of perfectly round ‘o’s. Pressed on white vinyl with download card.
File Under: Electronic, Leftfield
Listen Here
Eric Bachman: s/t (Merge) LP
On the heels of a celebrated Archers of Loaf reunion and the long-awaited vinyl reissue of the first two Crooked Fingers albums, Eric Bachman returns with a self-titled album that looks ahead to his future. Inspired to write an album on the piano by friend Todd Fink from The Faint, Eric consciously bid farewell to the “personas” of his past. Eric Bachmann builds around the one truth Eric has found in his years of travel. Gospel like vocal arrangements, pedal steel, and a song he “stole” from his wife Liz Durrett all combine to make this the most assured and personal album of Bachmann’s career.
File Under: Folk, Indie Rock
Listen Here
Bitchin’ Bajas & Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy: Epic Jammers & Unfortunate Ditties (Drag City) LP
Epic Jammers & Fortunate Little Ditties” contains moments of tranquility & trance, with the players integrating their separate ways, vibing off each other, making songs together. Bonnie Prince Billy is at his spirit-melting celestial best wandering through a lifetime of fortunes that amount, when incanted, to a prayer to the god of many names. The Bitchin’ Bajas’ access to the universal aural paintbox is unparalleled; their reach is deep. Epic Jammers and Fortunate Little Ditties is simple and stark and empyrean and inspirational… and pretty modal, too—probably never more than three chords!—as Bonnie and the Bajas pursue the life of the spirit down ever-fading vapor trails, in a bottomless space.
File Under: Folk, Kosmische
Listen Here
The Body: No One Deserves Happiness (Thrill Jockey) LP
On No One Deserves Happiness, The Body’s Chip King and Lee Buford set out to make “the grossest pop album of all time.” The album themes of despair and isolation are delivered by the unlikely pairing of the Body’s signature heaviness and 80s dance tracks. The Body can emote pain like no other band, and their ability to move between the often strict confines of the metal world and the electronic music sphere is on full display throughout No One Deserves Happiness, an album that eludes categorization. More than any of their genre-defying peers, The Body does it without softening their disparate influences towards a middle ground, but instead through a beautiful combining of extremes. No One Deserves Happiness is an album that defies definition and expectations, standing utterly alone.
File Under: Electronic, Metal, Industrial
Listen Here
Boris/Merzbow: Gensho 1 (Relapse) LP
Renowned Japanese innovators Boris and Merzbow have teamed up with Relapse for their new collaborative release Gensho, one of the artists’ most daring works to date. Named after the Japanese word for “phenomenon,” Gensho is a unique release featuring over 150 minutes of new music spread across four LPs, available as two separate double LP sets. The Boris songs are completely new, percussion-less reinventions of classic tracks from the band’s storied catalog, while Merzbow’s songs are entirely new compositions. The two sets are intended to be played at the same time at varying volumes so that the listener can experience their own “gensho/phenomenon” every time. As with every Boris With Merzbow release, the only thing to expect is the unexpected, lending the album near-infinite potential for aural discovery and encouraging direct interactivity with the listener rarely found in such unconventional music. An untouchable paroxysm of noisy, droning experimentation! Though Boris and Merzbow have an extensive history of collaborating with one another, this latest effort was born out of a one-off show in 2014 for Boiler Room TV, when the two acts decided that their set from that day was worthy enough to perform in the context of a proper studio recording.
File Under: Metal, Rock, Noise
Listen Here
William Burroughs: Call Me Burroughs (Superior Viaduct) LP
Originally released in 1965 by The English Bookshop in Paris and later by ESP-Disk’ in New York, Call Me Burroughs marks not only the recorded debut of William Burroughs, but also for many the first encounter with his inimitable voice. While Burroughs has had pervasive influence on counterculture in the past 50 years—from the Beats to punk rock and even hip hop—no other figure today is so widely considered the epitome of cool. Call Me Burroughs features the author reading from Naked Lunch and Nova Express, two of his best-known works that utilize the cut-up method developed by Burroughs and artist Brion Gysin. An eerie, deadpan drawl guides the listener through sci-fi innerscapes, narcotic nightmares, reports from the edge of the apocalypse. Phantasmagoric passages echo real experiences roaming the streets of Mexico, the West Village, Tangiers. Bradley the Buyer and other shadowy agents haunt our ears as Burroughs turns the page and pauses purposefully. “Anything put out up till now is like pulling a figure out of the air—Enemy installations shattered—Personnel decimated—Board Books taken—Electric waves of resistance sweeping through mind screens of the earth—The message of Total Resistance on short wave of the world” This first-time vinyl reissue is recommended for fans of Hunter S. Thompson, Patti Smith and Throbbing Gristle.
File Under: Spoken Word
Listen Here
Ornette Coleman: To Whom Keeps A Record (Superior Viaduct) LP
In the late 1950s, Ornette Coleman set the jazz world on fire. From his own unique playing style to his fundamental deconstruction of harmony and complete rethinking of group performance, Coleman at once confounded critics and inspired a new generation. This revolutionary music eventually became known as free jazz, but Coleman’s influence extended well beyond – into avant-garde rock and art circles – and today his name is synonymous with artistic freedom. Originally released in Japan only, To Whom Who Keeps A Record collects outtakes from Coleman’s legendary Atlantic period, sessions from Change of the Century and This Is Our Music that are as emotionally transfixing as intellectually rigorous. Featuring the classic quartets with Don Cherry, Charlie Haden, Billy Higgins and Ed Blackwell, this collection is striking for its brilliant compositions and scorching solos. The song titles themselves lay out Coleman’s central philosophy: “Music always brings goodness to us all. Unless one has some other motive for its use.” This first-time vinyl reissue includes liner notes by Byron Coley.
File Under: Jazz
Listen Here
Comets on Fire: Field Recordings From the Sun (Ba Da Bing) LP
Newly remastered and back in print on vinyl! Field Recordings From the Sun is the second album from West Coast skull-peelers and daisy-wilting psychedelic stormtroopers Comets On Fire. Joined by an armada of friends and hangers-on—including Tim Green of the Fucking Champs (who also produced) and Ben Chasny of Six Organs of Admittance (soon to be a permanent member)—the band erects towering tombs of natural ethereal beauty and pure sonic destruction set above a cosmic freight train of unhinged riffs and jagged grooves. And their drummer is more than happy to perform naked, you don’t even have to ask. “Field Recordings From the Sun demonstrates that melted guitars can sound just as good as the real thing. Maybe better, for that matter. This is old school being funneled into the future, garage rock unearthed from the tomb and infused with solar energy. These four Bay Area fellers grafted echoplex and oscillators onto a hard rock trio from hell and discovered that the results are a stoned avant-rocker’s wet dream.
File Under: Psych
Listen Here
Comets on Fire: s/t (Comets on Fire) LP
Newly remastered version! The first full-length release by psycho-psych freaks Comets Of Fire delivers dark and damaged acid rock served in a crude and blown-out speedball of Blue Cheer, High Rise, James Williamson and a shit-faced-drunk Roxy-era Eno. Methamphetamine and Schnapps-drenched lullabies take it straight into the sonic shitstorm, shifting from 4/4 power rock to imploding free form. Echoplex-treated tales tell of drug-crazed space travelers, graverobbers in love and cosmic cannibals. The album was recorded on 4-track with the levels in the bloody red in a basement and garage in Santa Cruz, California. Tinkering, mixing and sound manipulation with help from Tim Green (Fucking Champs, Nation of Ulysses).
File Under: Psych
Listen Here
Dreamtime: Sun (Captcha) LP
Hailing from Brisbane Australia’s underground DIY scene is the premier psychedelic outfit, Dreamtime. On their second LP Sun, they add elements of Indian ragas and Tibetan mantras to the Turkish-style ‘70s Psych, Kraut and ‘60s garage they are known for. Following quickly on the heels of last year’s self-titled debut, Sun more than lives up to its predecessor’s promise. Sun was originally released on vinyl in Australia in 2013 and the inventory was quickly depleted, leaving nothing for listeners outside of Oz. This eagerly awaited reissue will address that deficit. The amazing lithographs of flora and fauna that enhance the visual experience of this album were made by Californian artist Meg Adamson. Pressed on heavyweight purple/yellow swirled vinyl.
File Under: Psych
Listen Here
Heron Oblivion: s/t (Sub Pop) LP
Pastoral pummel. Listening to Heron Oblivion’s album feels like sitting in a lovely meadow in the shadow of a dam that’s gonna heave-ho’ any minute. Members of this new San Francisco combo have put in time in both raging and relatively tranquil psychedelic sound units – this is the premise and the synergy behind this very unique and special new album. On the West Coast side, Ethan Miller and Noel Von Harmonson were together in Comets on Fire, who spent a large chunk of the mid-2000s playing unbridled, blistering rock worldwide, fueled by a steady diet of amphetaminized Crazy Horse, High Rise, MC5, Chrome, and Fushitsusha. Noel did time afterwards with Sic Alps and Six Organs of Admittance, while Miller settled into Howlin’ Rain and Feral Ohms. Charlie Saufley resided at the psychedelic pop fringes with his band Assemble Head in Sunburst Sound (kindred spirits to Comets to be sure). He was joined in California by Meg Baird, a leading light in the modern psych-folk canon thanks to her work in Philadelphia’s Espers and as a solo artist (she is also the original drummer for Philly post-hardcore degenerates Watery Love). Three shades of light run through Heron Oblivion: Baird’s rich, beautiful vocal approach, the locked-horns bass and drums of her and Miller’s streamlined-but-motorik rhythm section, and a twin guitar tapestry that both aligns with the dreaminess of the songs and crackles out of containment to froth over the rim, punctuating Opal/Fairport moves with dramatic, explosive fuzz solos. Meg’s gorgeous singing resides within an untouchable domain and never struggles, nor has to combat the avalanche of guitars that ebb and flow.
File Under: Psych, Acid Folk, Comets on Fire, Espers
Listen Here
Damien Jurado: Visions of Us on the Land (Secretley Canadian) LP
Providing the ideal entry point for neophytes and an intoxicating aural high for the faithful, Damien Jurado’s new opus extends the hot streak ignited by 2012’s Maraqopa and its 2014 follow-up Brothers and Sisters of the Eternal Son. Cut once again with label mate and super producer Richard Swift at the latter’s National Freedom recording facility in rural Oregon, Visions of Us On The Land completes the tale of an individual who has had to disappear from society in order to discover some universal truths. There was no grand scheme to make a trilogy at the outset. Exuberantly prolific, its creator simply wanted the first record to be “a quick snapshot,” says Jurado. “Maraqopa is this peaceful place I can go to in my mind. A little bit psychedelic, but youre not using substances. The brain is such a powerful thing. In that uncharted territory I was able to tap in and find this place. Which was called Maraqopa. Similar to the fictional towns in television or books.” Maraqopa the album introduced a character deliberately unnamed, intended to represent anyone feeling that way who stumbles upon the titular locale then gets into a car crash…which only frees him further. Brothers and Sisters of the Eternal Son picked up the narrative after the accident, in a commune inhabited by Silver Timothy, Silver Donna, and Silver Malcolm. Visions of Us On The Land journeys further into the subconscious mind, a symbolic road trip spotlighting the people and towns that our central figure and his travelling companion, Silver Katherine, encounter upon leaving the commune. Hence the capitalized track titles, alluding to real American locations refracted through ones third eye in the rear view mirror. Like all great art, its about life and death and love and freedom. A sonic map with no set destination, revealing more with each ride.
File Under: Indie, Folk
Listen Here
Lavender Flu: Heavy Air (Meds) LP
Heavy Air is a 30 song puzzle / map masterminded by Chris Gunn (The Hunches, Hospitals). Recorded on analog tape machines over a period of years and outside of the genre concentration camps. A home recording project approached completely open to experimentation but in love with songs. Like Terrence Malick’s Tree Of Life remade by the ghost of Phillip K. Dick; projecting sounds as images inside your head. It’s extremely psychedelic and dense with layers and layers yielding new secrets with each listen. Songs / melodies / lyrics appear and reappear as half remembered dreams or reconstructed memories. It’s a circuitous path through pop songs (“My Time”, “Those That Bend”—with a Waterloo Sunset vibe), blasted rockers (“Fingers Like Wounds”), beautiful instrumentals (“Feel The Ground”, “Telepathic Axe”), fractured folk (“Between The Trees”), weirder experimental songs (“Vacuum Creature”, “La-Bas”), straight up fried epics (“Transcendental Hangover”) plus a few covers in the mix including a maximal / minimal take on The Godz mantra-like ode to sun worship and a Townes Van Zandt tune that is derailed by a massive panic attack. Traces of Big Star, Royal Trux, Brian Eno, Meat Puppets II, American Beauty are in the DNA but The Lavender Flu is its own beast. While it is obviously insane to release a double album debut in the current no-attention-span era, it is the only way. Put in the time, you will be rewarded. This is one of those rare double albums that isn’t overripe or padded with mediocrity. All killer, no filler! Super dynamic pressing! Completely insane on headphones! Recorded by Chris at home with lots of help from Justin Higgins (of Old Standard Sound), Lucas Gunn (The Blimps), Scott Simmons (Exiled Records, Helen), Ben Spencer (The Hunches), Adam Stonehouse (The Hospitals), Hart Gledhill (The Hunches), Spencer Clark and others. Edition of 500 copies.
File Under: Psych, Garage, Punk
Listen Here
Loretta Lynn: Full Circle (Legacy) LP
Sony Legacy will release Full Circle, the first new studio album in over ten years from American music icon Loretta Lynn. Produced by Patsy Lynn Russell and John Carter Cash, and recorded at the Cash Cabin Studio in Hendersonville, TN, Full Circle takes listeners on a journey through Loretta’s musical story, from the Appalachian folk songs and gospel music she learned as a child, to new interpretations of her classic hits and country standards, to songs newly-written for the project. Drawing inspiration from personal memories and deep connections to American music, Lynn’s 13 new recordings capture the essence of these songs in intimate new performances. Full Circle is Loretta’s first album of new recordings since Van Lear Rose, her 2004 collaboration with Jack White, which took home a pair of Grammys including Best Country Album of the Year. It is also volume one of the Cash Cabin Recordings, a series of new album projects imagined and created at the Cash Cabin Studio in Hendersonville, TN. Highlights from Full Circle include “Lay Me Down,” a duet with Willie Nelson; “Everything It Takes,” featuring guest vocals from Elvis Costello; “Whispering Sea,” a new version of the first song Loretta ever wrote; and soulful new renditions of some of Lynn’s classic tunes, including rousing renditions of “Everybody Wants to Go to Heaven” and “Fist City.” The album also includes traditional Appalachian songs from Loretta’s childhood such as “Black Jack David” and “I Never Will Marry.” At 83 years old, Lynn’s voice sounds as powerful as ever, and this new material only adds to her legend as a performer. Loretta has long been established as the undisputed Queen of Country Music, with more than 50 years of recording and touring to her name. A self-taught guitarist and songwriter, Lynn was one of the most distinctive performers in Nashville in the 1960s and 1970s. She shook up Nashville by writing her own songs, many of which tackled boundary-pushing topics drawn from her own life experiences as a wife and mother. “Coal Miner’s Daughter,” “Fist City” and “Don’t Come Home A’ Drinkin’ (With Lovin’ on Your Mind)” are just three of 16 country No. 1 singles. Lynn is also one of the most awarded musicians of all time. She has been inducted into more music Halls of Fame than any female recording artist, including The Country Music Hall of Fame and the Songwriters Hall of Fame, and was the first woman to be named the Country Music Association’s Entertainer of the Year in 1972. Lynn received Kennedy Center Honors in 2003 and a Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2013. She has won four Grammy Awards (including a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 2010) and sold more than 45 million records worldwide.
File Under: Country
Listen Here
Chris Marker: La Jetee (Superior Viaduct) LP
“This is the story of a man, marked by an image from his childhood.” Thus begins, with deceptive simplicity, Chris Marker’s La Jetée (1962). The film, by far Marker’s best-known work, synthesizes many of the elusive filmmaker’s central preoccupations – time and memory, power and resistance, the ephemerality and resilience of love – yet it also undermines the very idea of film. Composed almost entirely of still photographs, La Jetée quite literally pieces together the tale of an unnamed, forsaken protagonist, drafted into a series of time travel experiments in post-apocalyptic Paris. While Marker creates some of the most hauntingly beautiful imagery in cinema, what animates La Jetée’s frozen pictures is its sparse and unsettling soundscape. Whispers, breaths and heartbeats offer an unnerving reminder of bodily rhythms that, inside the film and out, will inevitably cease. Fragments of symphonic music at once capture a love affair and underscore the tragedy awaiting it. The poetic momentum of the narrator’s voice, our only guide: “On the tenth day, images begin to ooze, like confessions.” Superior Viaduct is honored to present the first-time release of the soundtrack from La Jetée. This vinyl album features both French and English voiceover narrations, along with organic textures and Trevor Duncan’s impressionistic score. More than half a century has passed since La Jetée’s theatrical release – now is the time to travel back to the “sudden roar” of this masterpiece in a completely different light.
File Under: OST, Spoken Word
Listen Here
Mind Spiders: Prosthesis (Dirtnap) LP
Based in Ft. Worth, TX, Mark Ryan’s shadowy, shape-shifting “solo” band Mind Spiders launched soon after his last project, the beloved and highly influential Marked Men, went on indefinite hiatus at the beginning of 2009. On earliest recordings, Ryan played everything except drums on some tracks, but the Mind Spiders lineup has continually evolved, with its founder remaining the sole songwriter and constant member. On Prosthesis, the band’s fourth album in five years, the lineup is Ryan (Radioactivity, High Tension Wires, etc.), Daniel Fried (Bad Sports, Radioactivity, Video, High Tension Wires, etc.), Mike Throneberry (Marked Men) and Peter Salisbury (Baptist Generals / Sub Pop Records). While each Mind Spiders album has been different from the one before, Prosthesis is less of a stylistic departure from 2013’s Inhumanistic than from previous work. The album clocks in at a brief eight tracks; however, the songs run a little longer than normal, really giving the individual pieces room to breathe and grow. The first Mind Spiders album to be recorded at Ryan’s and Jeff Burke’s (Radioactivity, Marked Men) new Cool Devices studio in Ft. Worth, Prosthesis is easily their best, fullest sounding effort yet! Keyboard and guitar blend seamlessly into ominous yet catchy dark pop explorations that incorporate post-punk, bedroom pop, krautrock and tons of obscure references along the way. Plans for the band include an appearance at Dirtnap Records’ 2016 SXSW showcase, a video for the track “Cold,” and touring later in the year. By then, Ryan will be ready to record another album!
File Under: Punk
Listen Here
Oranssi Pazuzu: Varahtelija (20 Buck Spin) LP
In 2013, Finland’s Oranssi Pazuzu issued their Valonielu LP, an album of timeless creative immensity that was met with ubiquitous praise throughout the world and solidified the group’s position as one of the most forward-thinking and interesting metal bands. Now, in the early months of 2016, Oranssi Pazuzu returns with their followup album and fourth overall, the mind-bending masterwork Värähtelijä. Oranssi Pazuzu has never been satisfied to stick with a formula. Each release has expanded upon the band’s previous incarnation and then, like a supernova, blown it up and transformed again into something recognizable but completely new. Värähtelijä continues in this vein, giving the band much more room to diverge and explore the vast regions of hypnotic progressive psychedelia and the nebulous outer limits of Scandinavian black metal. Songs explode with radiant ultraviolet color and plunge into the deep black darkness of innermost consciousness. If Valonielu was the creation of a universe, Värähtelijä is the magnification and expansion of its infinite boundaries. A 70+ minute sprawling voyage, Värähtelijä more accurately represents the band’s stunning live presence where the songs often span new and previously unheard dimensions of form and structure. Not meant for genre purists, Oranssi Pazuzu are on a trip all their own—modern electric pioneers on an expedition to unlock the keys to the hidden spaces all around and inside us. 20 Buck Spin is pleased to once again present the innovative brilliance of Oranssi Pazuzu and Värähtelijä.
File Under: Black Metal, Space Rock
Listen Here
OST: Pokemon (Moonshake) LP
Fans everywhere are celebrating 20 years of Pokemon, and this latest way to celebrate is one of the best so far. It’s a red and white Pokeball vinyl filled with classic tunes from Pokemon Red and Blue as well as the original Pokemon anime. The collector’s item comes from Moonshake records, which was sure to put each and every track composed by Junichi Masuda for the original games on the record. Did we mention the vinyl itself looks like a Pokeball? Also worth examining is the vinyl’s cover. It’s crammed with many (perhaps all) of the original 150 Pokemon, with cameo appearances from other classic Nintendo characters like Mario, Princess Peach, Toad and what appears to be Princess Zelda.
File Under: OST, Video Games
Listen Here
Sex Church: Flowers (Limited Appeal) LP
Sex Church is and was a band from Vancouver, BC. From 2008 until going on a permanent hiatus in 2014, they played their own brand of hypnotic, downtrodden psychedelic “punk”. Their music is greatly influenced by the rainy, gloomy atmosphere of their home city, the monotony of daily life and what we all do to try and escape it. During that time, the group put forth a handful of releases on labels such as Load, Hozac and Sweet Rot. Flowers is the third and final album from Sex Church (at least for now). Recorded by the band themselves in a tiny rehearsal space during the summer of 2014, it is a rawer and sparser affair than its predecessors, purely out of necessity. A cloud of impending doom hangs over the record, a sign of a band on their way out the door perhaps. That being said, there are also certain rays of sun that break through the sonic clouds, if one is listening for them. Flowers is an effort to grow, to expand and bloom, only to die and rot away again. While it is far from a perfect record, it is definitely an accurate representation of what a band actually sounded like in that time and space. Edition of 314 copies.
File Under: Punk, Psych
Listen Here
Skiffle Players: Skifflin’ (Spiritual Pajamas) LP
The Skiffle Players are: Cass McCombs – Guitar, vocals. Farmer Dave Scher – Keyboards, lap steel guitar, melodica, vocals. Beachwood Sparks. Neal Casal – Guitar, vocals. Chris Robinson Brotherhood, Phil Lesh & Friends, Circles Around The Sun – “Interludes For The Dead”. Dan Horne – Bass. Jonathan Wilson, Circles Around The Sun – “Interludes For The Dead”. Aaron Sperske – Drums and percussion. Beachwood Sparks. Pure, unadulterated, non-filtered West Coast golden goodness. Members have worked with Beachwood Sparks, Chris Robinson Brotherhood, Ryan Adams & The Cardinals, Jonathan Wilson, Father John Misty. Gatefold jacket with a spot varnish on the front cover. Limited to 1000 copies
File Under: Skiffle, Psych
Listen Here
Sonic Youth: Washing Machine (Geffen) LP
In tomorrow… After defying their status as America’s pre-eminent alternative band with 1994’s stripped down Experimental Jet Set, Trash And No Star, Sonic Youth returned a year later with the adventurous Washing Machine, a heightened and hookless 2LP-set produced by former engineer John Siket. Driven by the ringing electric guitars of Lee Ranaldo and Thurston Moore and extended multi-layered arrangements, Washing Machine straddles the line of art and invention perfectly and features two of the longest songs of the band’s career with the 9 1/2 minute title cut and nearly 20-minute epic “The Diamond Sea.” Kim Deal even shows up for guest vocals on the haunting “Little Trouble Girl.”
File Under: Indie Rock
Listen Here
Spacin’: Total Freedom (Richie) LP
Long-overdue long-form platter from Philadelphia’s Spacin’, the low-key torchbearers of both John Sinclair’s bold program and the fuzzy truth that less is often more (much more) as demonstrated by Lou’s time with Morrison & Tucker & Cale. On Total Freedom, guitarist & vocalist Jason Killinger blazes the path, lead guitarist Paul Sukeena & bassist Sean Hamilton vamp on economical electric chugs while drummer Eva Killinger reprises in her role as thee undisputed master of basement motorik. As a handsomely illustrated insert attests, the whole thing is punctuated by flourishes from some of most celebrated talents of this town’s percolating stew. Blast it soon or remain condemned to a billion years probation. Recorded & mixed in various squats, community centers, & meeting houses across the Quaker City
File Under: Psych
Listen Here
Waaves & Cloud Nothings: No Life For Me (Ghost Ramp) LP
No Life For Me is the highly anticipated collaborative album between Nathan Williams of Wavves and Dylan Baldi of Cloud Nothings via Williams’s own imprint, Ghost Ramp. The album was recorded at Williams’s home during sessions in March and June of 2014, with production from Sweet Valley. “For all their differences, a Wavves / Cloud Nothings collaboration makes a good deal of sense, and fans have been eagerly anticipating an album since it was officially announced back in March…. [The album] is a summery slice of punk that’s more SoCal than Ohio, even if Baldi can’t help but smear his unique brand of melancholy all over standout tracks like ‘Nervous’ and ‘Nothing Hurts’…. “No Life For Me is deeply indebted to early 1980s Southern California punk, a scene that’s probably buried deep in the soil of Williams’ mind by this point…. This is pop music executed with the no-frills precision of hardcore….” —Consequence of Sound
File Under: Stoner, Surf
Listen Here
…..Restocks…..
Blue Cheer: Vincebus Eruptim (Sundazed) LP
Bonnie Prince Billy: Master & Everyone (Drag City) LP
Bonnie Prince Billy: The Letting Go (Drag City) LP
David Bowie: Aladdin Sane (RCA) LP
Caribou: Up In Flame (Leaf) LP
Country Teasers: Destroy All Human Life (Fat Possum) LP
The Clash: s/t (Epic) LP
Leonard Cohen: Songs of (Sundazed) LP
Leonard Cohen: Songs from a Room (Sundazed) LP
Leonard Cohen: New Skin… (Sundazed) LP
Sam Cooke: Mr. Soul (Music on Vinyl) LP
Sam Cooke: Night Beat (Music on Vinyl) LP
Death: For The Whole World To See (Drag City) LP
Death Cab For Cutie: Code & Keys (Music on Vinyl) LP
Elliott Brood: Mountain Meadows (Six Shoot) LP
Father John Misty: I Love You Honeybear (Sub Pop) LP
Fucked Up: Hidden World (Deranged) LP
Fuzz: II (In The Red) LP
Gong: Radio Gnome Trilogy (Charly) 3LP
Grouper: Dragging A Dead Deer Up A Hill (Kranky) LP
Half Japanese: Volume 3 (Fire) 3LP
Lightnin’ Sam Hopkins: s/t (Arhoolie) LP
Hot Snakes: Automatic Midnight (Swami) LP
Isis: Celestial (Robotic Empire) LP
Johnny Jewel: The Other Side of Midnight (Italians Do It Better) LP
Kadavar: Berlin (Nuclear Blast) LP
King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard: I’m In Your Mind Fuzz (Castle Face) LP
King Khan & BBQ Show: s/t (In The Red) LP
Furry Lewis: Good Morning Judge (Big Legal Mess) LP
Meatbodies: s/t (In The Red) LP
Charles Mingus: Black Saint & The Sinner Lady (Superior Viaduct) LP
Murcof: Martes + Utopia (Leaf) LP
Neutral Milk Hotel: On Avery Island (Merge) LP
Night Beats: Who Sold My Generation (Heavenly) LP
Thee Oh Sees: Carrion Crawler (In The Red) LP
Thee Oh Sees: Castlemania (In The Red) LP
Thee Oh Sees: Drop (In The Red) LP
Om: Variations on a Theme (Holy Mountain) LP
Jim O’Rourke: Eureka (Drag City) LP
Parquet Courts: Sunbathing Animal (What’s Your Rupture) LP
Parquet Courts: American Specialities (Play Pinball) LP
Rev. Leon Pinson: The George Mitchell (Big Legal Mess) LP
Jay Reatard: Singles 06-07 (In The Red) LP
Refused: Shape of Punk to Come (Epitaph) LP
Salem’s Pot: Sweeden (Riding Easy) LP
Sleep: Dopesmoker (Southern Lord) LP
Smog: Dongs of Sevotion (Drag City) LP
SNFU: And No One Else Wanted To Play (BYO) LP
SNFU: If You Swear, You’ll Catch No Fish (BYO) LP
Soft Machine: s/t (Sundazed) LP
Sonic Youth: Bad Moon Rising (Goofin) LP
Sonic Youth: Evl (Goofin) LP
Bruce Springsteen: Nebraska (Sony) LP
Stereolab: Dots & Loops (1972) LP
Sunn o))): Black One (Southern Lord) LP
Sunn o))): Monoliths & Dimension (Southern Lord) LP
Sunn o))): 00 Void (Southern Lord) LP
Scott Walker: Scott 4 (Universal) LP
White Zombie: La Sexorcisto (Music on Vinyl) LP
Various: Lost Legends of Surf (Sundazed) LP
Various: Not the Same Old Blues 1 (Fat Possum) LP
Various: Not the Same Old Blues 3 (Fat Possum) LP