Well, the future just got a lot more scary…… Snuggle up with your loved ones and some good tunes before he burns the whole world down. Black Friday RSD is coming quickly approaching, so stay tuned for details on that. Oh, and tomorrow, Remembrance Day, we’ll be open 12-5.
…..pick of the week…..
Paradise Bangkok Molam International Band: Planet Lam (Studio Lam) LP
Inspiration for the LP, is the musical experimentation that has happened at Studio Lam, and how that has influenced our sound, whether it’s the alternative nights featuring individual band members (Paradise Bangkok Rhythm Section, Kammao & friends, Electric Piphat Band) or sets from other artists and DJs like Andrew Ashong, Miles Cleret, Hugo Mendez, Awesome Tapes From Africa, Rabih Beaini, Kirk Degiorgio, and Phuong Dan. The fact that Studio Lam has become a musical focal point for city of Bangkok, has inevitably had an impact on the band itself, and this is reflected in the presence of different vibes and styles of the LP. The sound of ‘Planet Lam’ has been shaped by late night jamming gigs, homemade ya-dong, run ins with the police, and the swapping of ideas with like minded local musicians and artists.
File Under: Molam, Thai, Psych
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…..new arrivals…..
Daniel Bachman: s/t (Three Lobed) LP
There are few things worse, or more damning, than peaking too soon. Just ask anyone who accomplished their greatest work before barely hitting the quarter century mark. Ask Orson Welles; ask any Olympic gold medalist. Wheaties boxes, increasing public indifference, and diminishing returns. Is that all there is? Guitarist and former wunderkind Daniel Bachman, at 26, can no longer be considered “precocious.” On even his earliest recordings, released under the moniker Sacred Harp, Bachman’s guitar prowess and compositional voice were staggeringly mature. There was something refreshingly novel about a guitarist not old enough to vote possessing such clarity of vision. But novelty wears off, and even the most big-eared benefactors are likely to become fickle and disinterested over time; the fans who do happen to stick around may begin to hold you to impossibly higher standards – after all, you’re not a kid anymore. And so it is a pleasure to hear Bachman, with his new self-titled album, so confidently answer the bell with an album that serves as both riposte and reckoning. If you’re not with Bachman now, the album seems to declare, you never were. “Brightleaf Blues (I)” opens the album with an enveloping acoustic drone, Bachman conjuring with his slide a kind of signpost that welcomes us into the album. The drone gives way to lyrical, insouciant-sounding single note slides, which gain a quiet momentum throughout the piece. “The Flower Tree” is aptly titled, not just because the piece’s unhurried transformation from seed to full bloom is a thing to behold, but because of the small intricate details within, like the way Bachman’s percussive arpeggios foreshadow the knotty, turbulent theme that follows. Here the guitar is cast as a suddenly wild and intractable thing, like a ventriloquist’s dummy that becomes self aware and must be subdued or suppressed by its master. By the end of the piece, one imagines Bachman is drenched in sweat. “Wine and Peanuts” is an evocative title, one that speaks to the dualism in Bachman’s work. Though his attack here, as on “The Flower Tree,” is forceful, almost violent, it is never inarticulate or blatantly exhibitionistic. Listening to Bachman’s quick, nimble lines can make one feel like that meme of Michael Jackson giddily shoveling popcorn into his face in anticipation during the movie theater scene of the “Thriller” video, but his music just as readily complements moments of quiet reflection. Consider “A Dog Named Pepper,” which showcases Bachman’s pastoral, placid side, recalling the stoned impressionism of early Windham Hill LPs, minus the stuffy grandiloquence. The tune’s wandering melody is broken up by gaps of silences and negative space; indeed, the song’s final minute is little more than the sound of car tires slowly approaching over a gravel road, reminding us that “A Dog Named Pepper” is a song that deals not only with time but of distance, of roads traveled and misremembered, of how every route is a choice that, by necessity, leaves other destinies unchosen and unknown. “Brightleaf Blues (II),” like its counterpart, begins with a drone, this one softer and continuous, from which wide, keening slide guitar notes emerge like slowly expanding bubbles. Bachman sounds deeply connected to his environment here, the probing lines maintaining a steady, simmering focus over most of the piece’s quarter-hour duration. Then, about two thirds of the way into the piece, the slide guitar disappears, leaving only the drone, which now rings with icy, almost shrill, overtones, like the light from a nearby window hitting an ice sculpture in such a way that it temporarily blinds anyone looking at it. “Watermelon Slices On A Blue Bordered Plate,” Bachman’s take on the riverboat tune, may evoke the expected images of swamps and (it must be said) Fahey circa Of Rivers & Religion, but Bachman’s compositional style deftly sidesteps such clichés. The album ends with a rendition of the hymn “Farther Along.” Bachman’s choice to extract and ruminate on the tune’s melancholic aspects further reveals his good instincts: he plays it a bit like a nonbeliever, which is probably the best way to play it. His rendition suggests transcendence not as a given but as one of many possibilities, a best-case-scenario. Maybe ours are merely transitory struggles, the song seems to say, but then again, maybe they’re not. Truly a song for these insane times. With Daniel Bachman, the guitarist has made his most cohesive statement yet, an album by which future solo acoustic guitar albums by grown-ass men and women can and should be judged. Think of it not as Bachman’s Citizen Kane but as his Mean Streets. In other words, just you wait. –James Toth, July 2016–
File Under: Guitar Soli
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Daniel Bachman: s/t (Three Lobed) LP
There are few things worse, or more damning, than peaking too soon. Just ask anyone who accomplished their greatest work before barely hitting the quarter century mark. Ask Orson Welles; ask any Olympic gold medalist. Wheaties boxes, increasing public indifference, and diminishing returns. Is that all there is? Guitarist and former wunderkind Daniel Bachman, at 26, can no longer be considered “precocious.” On even his earliest recordings, released under the moniker Sacred Harp, Bachman’s guitar prowess and compositional voice were staggeringly mature. There was something refreshingly novel about a guitarist not old enough to vote possessing such clarity of vision. But novelty wears off, and even the most big-eared benefactors are likely to become fickle and disinterested over time; the fans who do happen to stick around may begin to hold you to impossibly higher standards – after all, you’re not a kid anymore. And so it is a pleasure to hear Bachman, with his new self-titled album, so confidently answer the bell with an album that serves as both riposte and reckoning. If you’re not with Bachman now, the album seems to declare, you never were. “Brightleaf Blues (I)” opens the album with an enveloping acoustic drone, Bachman conjuring with his slide a kind of signpost that welcomes us into the album. The drone gives way to lyrical, insouciant-sounding single note slides, which gain a quiet momentum throughout the piece. “The Flower Tree” is aptly titled, not just because the piece’s unhurried transformation from seed to full bloom is a thing to behold, but because of the small intricate details within, like the way Bachman’s percussive arpeggios foreshadow the knotty, turbulent theme that follows. Here the guitar is cast as a suddenly wild and intractable thing, like a ventriloquist’s dummy that becomes self aware and must be subdued or suppressed by its master. By the end of the piece, one imagines Bachman is drenched in sweat. “Wine and Peanuts” is an evocative title, one that speaks to the dualism in Bachman’s work. Though his attack here, as on “The Flower Tree,” is forceful, almost violent, it is never inarticulate or blatantly exhibitionistic. Listening to Bachman’s quick, nimble lines can make one feel like that meme of Michael Jackson giddily shoveling popcorn into his face in anticipation during the movie theater scene of the “Thriller” video, but his music just as readily complements moments of quiet reflection. Consider “A Dog Named Pepper,” which showcases Bachman’s pastoral, placid side, recalling the stoned impressionism of early Windham Hill LPs, minus the stuffy grandiloquence. The tune’s wandering melody is broken up by gaps of silences and negative space; indeed, the song’s final minute is little more than the sound of car tires slowly approaching over a gravel road, reminding us that “A Dog Named Pepper” is a song that deals not only with time but of distance, of roads traveled and misremembered, of how every route is a choice that, by necessity, leaves other destinies unchosen and unknown. “Brightleaf Blues (II),” like its counterpart, begins with a drone, this one softer and continuous, from which wide, keening slide guitar notes emerge like slowly expanding bubbles. Bachman sounds deeply connected to his environment here, the probing lines maintaining a steady, simmering focus over most of the piece’s quarter-hour duration. Then, about two thirds of the way into the piece, the slide guitar disappears, leaving only the drone, which now rings with icy, almost shrill, overtones, like the light from a nearby window hitting an ice sculpture in such a way that it temporarily blinds anyone looking at it. “Watermelon Slices On A Blue Bordered Plate,” Bachman’s take on the riverboat tune, may evoke the expected images of swamps and (it must be said) Fahey circa Of Rivers & Religion, but Bachman’s compositional style deftly sidesteps such clichés. The album ends with a rendition of the hymn “Farther Along.” Bachman’s choice to extract and ruminate on the tune’s melancholic aspects further reveals his good instincts: he plays it a bit like a nonbeliever, which is probably the best way to play it. His rendition suggests transcendence not as a given but as one of many possibilities, a best-case-scenario. Maybe ours are merely transitory struggles, the song seems to say, but then again, maybe they’re not. Truly a song for these insane times. With Daniel Bachman, the guitarist has made his most cohesive statement yet, an album by which future solo acoustic guitar albums by grown-ass men and women can and should be judged. Think of it not as Bachman’s Citizen Kane but as his Mean Streets. In other words, just you wait. –James Toth, July 2016–
File Under: Guitar Soli
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Dazzling Killmen: Face of Collapse (Skin Graft) LP
Skin Graft Records presents a 25th anniversary Special Edition of Dazzling Killmen’s 1994 opus Face Of Collapse, recorded and engineered by Steve Albini. It includes a brand new restoration from the original analog tapes by Blake Fleming and Jason McEntire of Saw Horse Studios. The second LP includes the bonus tracks “Medicine Me,” “Poptones” (Public Image Ltd. cover) and “My Lacerations” (alternate version) on side 3 while side 4 features new artwork from cover artist Paul Nische silk screened directly onto the vinyl. A large 16-page book, measuring 12″ x 12″ , with liner notes from Aaron Burgess, new oral history of the band from Hank Shteamer and artwork and comics from Mark Buckheit, Mark Fischer, Paul Nitsche, Miles Rutlin and Rob Syers is also included. Comes complete with full gatefold sleeve including removable obi with color mini poster printed on the reverse side. Was Dazzling Killmen a hardcore band? A metal band? The world’s gnarliest progressive-rock quartet? “Yes” is the easy answer, but only because it’s easy to rewind through two decades of genre fragmentation to hear Dazzling Killmen’s influence on any number of “math-metal,” “prog-core” and similarly classified bands. At the time, however, this St. Louis quartet occupied a genre of one. When Skin Graft released the Killmen’s 1994 sophomore album, Face of Collapse, that genre had its touchstone. Nick Sakes, Darin Gray and Blake Fleming formed Dazzling Killmen just outside of St. Louis, Missouri in 1990. The following year Skin Graft made its debut with a 7″ single and comic book set from the band. Shortly afterward, Tim Garrigan joined the group, and the quartet began writing and refining material for what would become the label’s first, and the band’s second and final full-length, Face of Collapse. “As the songs progress, Dazzling Killmen bends the music just short of the breaking point, creating a frenzy that is always on the verge. They’re not linear melodies that arrive predictably in their neat little spaces. Rather there is a center to each song and in this space the band attempts to reach it from different directions. A phrase appears for a moment then vanishes and orbits around the next phrase, hovering and waiting for it’s next approach. Sometimes this center is the magnet that holds the whole shebang together. At other times the center cannot hold and the space collapses. It’s during these moments that Dazzling Killmen floor me.” – Randall Roberts, LA Times (from the band’s original presskit) Loud Life at Alternative Press magazine declared it the top album of the 90’s based on the following criteria: 1) Avoidance of formula or cliché. 2) Dexterity of rhythm section, 3) Quality of album’s production values, 4) Lack of predictable lyrical subjects – Satan, Straightedge, Viking folklore, etc. “Sounds like Dave Bruebeck’s Time Out played through Carcass’ PA system.” Face Of Collapse was a key influence on Dillinger Escape Plan: “Most of the great progressive underground bands of the ‘90s would not exist if it weren’t for them.” – Ben Weinman Spin Magazine called Blake Fleming one of the 100 Greatest Drummers of Alternative Music; while Fact Magazine named the album one of the Best Post-Metal Records Ever. Guitarist / vocalist Nick Sakes went on to form Colossomite (with Ed and John of Deerhoof) and now performs in Xaddax. Blake founded Laddio Boloko and then The Mars Volta; while Tim Garrigan and Darin Gray formed You Fantastic! Darin is renowned for his work with Jim O’Rourke, including their bands Brise-Glace and Yona-Kit.
File Under: Harcdcore, Metal, Prog
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Dead Can Dance: Within the Realm of a Dying Sun (4AD) LP
Formed in Australia in the early-80s by Lisa Gerrard and Brendan Perry, Dead Can Dance had veered away from the punk explosion towards a more non-conformist style. But finding the music scene unreceptive they moved to London, landed a record deal with 4AD and embarked on a career with the label that would last 17 years. Highly respected artists with a loyal global fanbase, Gerrard and Perry consistently made music full of integrity and passion. Both immensely talented vocalists – Gerrard with her inimitable, mesmeric style and Perry’s haunting baritone – they were also gifted, instinctive musicians and their melding of traditional instruments with samplers created a bridge between ancient and modern music. 4AD are finally reissuing all the albums the band released on the label on vinyl. With three recently back in print (Dead Can Dance, Spleen And Ideal, and Into The Labyrinth), the next three will be Garden Of The Arcane Delights (which is being pressed as a double LP to also include both the band’s John Peel Sessions), Within The Realm Of A Dying Sun and Toward The Within, all coming out in November 2016. Dead Can Dance issued their third album Within The Realm Of A Dying Sun in the Summer of 1987, showing both a continued maturity in their sound and rise in their popularity. Recorded during an intense period of musical and personal growth for the band, the album’s 8 songs are split equally between the duo with the first half being sung by Brendan and the second Lisa. At the time, Q Magazine described the album as combining “superb voice, ethereal church choirs, sweeping strings and a brochure of ethnic music: Middle Eastern, Indian, Moorish, anywhere but London’s East End where the couple resided.” The album’s cover only adds to the album’s aura of mystery with a haunting photograph of the family grave at the Père-Lachaise cemetery in Paris of famed French biologist François-Vincent Raspail.
File Under: Electronic, Rock, Dark Ambient
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Dead Can Dance: Toward the Within (4AD) LP
Formed in Australia in the early-80s by Lisa Gerrard and Brendan Perry, Dead Can Dance had veered away from the punk explosion towards a more non-conformist style. But finding the music scene unreceptive they moved to London, landed a record deal with 4AD and embarked on a career with the label that would last 17 years. Highly respected artists with a loyal global fanbase, Gerrard and Perry consistently made music full of integrity and passion. Both immensely talented vocalists – Gerrard with her inimitable, mesmeric style and Perry’s haunting baritone – they were also gifted, instinctive musicians and their melding of traditional instruments with samplers created a bridge between ancient and modern music. 4AD are finally reissuing all the albums the band released on the label on vinyl. With three recently back in print (Dead Can Dance, Spleen And Ideal, and Into The Labyrinth), the next three will be Garden Of The Arcane Delights (which is being pressed as a double LP to also include both the band’s John Peel Sessions), Within The Realm Of A Dying Sun and Toward The Within, all coming out in November 2016. Released in October 1994 and out of print on vinyl ever since, Toward The Within was an audio and video document of the 1993 sell-out Dead Can Dance World tour. Recorded at the Mayfair Theater in Santa Monica, California, it marked one of the final performances at the historic theatre as it later suffered major structural damage in an earthquake in 1994. Despite being a live recording, Toward The Within includes 12 previously unrecorded tracks as well as material from their six previous studio albums.
File Under: Electronic, Rock, Dark Ambient
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Frank Ocean: Blonde (Fanclub) LP
Blonde is the second studio album by American singer Frank Ocean. It was released on August 20, 2016, as a timed exclusive on the iTunes Store and Apple Music, and followed the August 19 release of Ocean’s visual album Endless. Initially known as Boys Don’t Cry and teased for a July 2015 release, the album suffered several delays and was the subject of widespread media anticipation. The album features guest vocals from Beyoncé, Kendrick Lamar, Yung Lean, André 3000, Sebastian, James Blake, and Kim Burrell among others, and production from Frank Ocean himself, as well as Pharrell Williams, Tyler, The Creator, Jamie xx, Rostam Batmanglij, Om’Mas Keith, and many more. The album was supported by the single “Nikes”. It received widespread acclaim from critics, and charted at number one on the Billboard 200.
File Under: Hip Hop, Soul
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Oneida/Rhys Chatham: What’s Your Sign? (Northern Spy) LP
Four years after their inaugural union at Ecstatic Music Festival inside New York City’s Merkin Concert Hall produced a cosmic din for the ages, two genre-obliterating renegades who’ve made indelible marks in the experimental music pantheon – the NYC-bred, Paris-based avant-garde guitar legend and minimalist composer Rhys Chatham and long-running psychedelic free-rock juggernaut and Brooklyn institution Oneida – have joined forces on their first collaborative album proper titled What’s Your Sign? With six compositions credited to Oneida and Rhys Chatham, What’s Your Sign? – Oneida’s first set of original material since 2012’s A List of the Burning Mountains and Chatham’s second LP in 2016 (Pythagorean Dream the first) and third overall for Northern Spy – is an exercise in freethinking sonic explorations from an uncompromising, genre-defying group whose collective output has shaped the experimental music landscape extending over the last four decades. Recorded and mixed at Menegroth The Thousand Caves by Colin Marston, Oneida and Rhys Chatham and mastered by James Plotkin, What’s Your Sign?’s six shapeshifters are ecstatic journeys into a psych-rock future-world. Warped, alien jam action like the jet engine-drone roar of “Well Tuned Guitar” and the in-your-face noise-rock screams of “You Get Brighter” harken back to the legendary free-improv all-nighters that took place at The Ocropolis, Oneida’s former studio/performance space in Williamsburg. Both “Civil Weather” and “A. Philip Randolph and Back Bay Station” approach firebreathing 60’s free jazz vibes driven by Millions’ rolling and manic beats and ear bleeding double-horn-fueled drone, thanks to a Hanoi Jane-Chatham trumpet duet.
File Under: Indie Rock, Experimental
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Yoko Ono/John Lennon: Unfinished Music No. 1: Two Virgins (Secretly Canadian) LP
Turns out the very sound of falling in love is just as abstract, subjective and loopy as the concept itself. Yoko Ono and John Lennon are two of history’s greatest lovers, and Two Virgins is the musique concrete fever dream document of the pair falling in love in real time. It’s a Cageian suite recorded over one weekend in Spring 1968 at Lennon’s Kenwood home: Distant conversations; comedic role playing and footsteps; laughter, birdcalls and plunking piano lines; silly songs and space; tape delay stretching shrieks, bass rumbles and moans to the moon and back again. It’s two young people attempting to weird one another out, attempting to make one another laugh, falling deeply into one another. John mucks around with delay and loops while Yoko exercises her expressionist vocalizations. The smoke and wine is nearly audible. Available on vinyl for the first time in decades, Unfinished Music, No. 1: Two Virgins has been remastered from the original tapes by Sean Lennon and Greg Calbi and comes complete with an accompanying download featuring the bonus track “Remember Love,” which did not appear on the original release. Secretly Canadian couldn’t be more proud to be a part of re-introducing Yoko Ono’s seminal work. The first batch to be reissued will be 1968’s Unfinished Music No. 1: Two Virgins, 1969’s Unfinished Music No. 2: Life with the Lions, and 1970’s Yoko Ono Plastic Ono Band, all out November 2016, with more to come in 2017. Comprised of 11 studio albums, the reissue project’s focus is to painstakingly reconstruct the original vinyl packaging, to thoroughly excavate and appropriately curate the treasure-laden archives of never-before-seen photos and ephemera, and to re-master the audio, all for the purpose of creating the definitive editions of this timeless work. In addition to making the vinyl available for the first time in decades, each album will also be available digitally for the first time ever.
File Under: Rock, Experimental
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Yoko Ono/John Lennon: Unfinished Music No. 2: Life with Lions (Secretly Canadian) LP
If Two Virgins is the ecstatic first kiss shared between two of pop culture’s greatest lovers, then Life with the Lions is the sound of the pair validating their love as something impenetrable and timeless. It’s when we, the listener, begin to fully understand that the scope of their recording efforts was much more than a recording collaboration, and something closer to a performative documentary, a declaration of “Our life and our love is our art every nitty, gritty part of it.” The collection begins with a more straightforward piece of improvised music, edited down from a live performance at Cambridge University’s Lady Mitchell Hall in March 1969. The entirety of Side B was recorded in a patient suite at London’s Queen Charlotte Hospital where Ono was admitted with pregnancy complications and ultimately lost a child, John Ono Lennon II. Available on vinyl for the first time in decades, Unfinished Music, No. 2: Life with the Lions has been remastered from the original tapes by Sean Lennon and Greg Calbi and comes complete with an accompanying download featuring the bonus tracks “Song for John” and “Mulberry,” which did not appear on the original release. Secretly Canadian couldn’t be more proud to be a part of re-introducing Yoko Ono’s seminal work. The first batch to be reissued will be 1968’s Unfinished Music No. 1: Two Virgins, 1969’s Unfinished Music No. 2: Life with the Lions, and 1970’s Yoko Ono Plastic Ono Band, all out November 2016, with more to come in 2017. Comprised of 11 studio albums, the reissue project’s focus is to painstakingly reconstruct the original vinyl packaging, to thoroughly excavate and appropriately curate the treasure-laden archives of never-before-seen photos and ephemera, and to re-master the audio, all for the purpose of creating the definitive editions of this timeless work. In addition to making the vinyl available for the first time in decades, each album will also be available digitally for the first time ever.
File Under: Rock, Experimental
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OST: Trainspotting (Rhino) LP
A 20th anniversary reissue of the original soundtrack from the iconic 1996 British drama Trainspotting. Based on the Irvine Welsh novel of the same name, the film version of Trainspotting directed by Danny Boyle became a cult sensation. Centered around the heroin subculture of Edinburgh in the 1980s, the film is occupied with surrealism, black comedy, and most importantly – a killer soundtrack. Including tracks from Iggy Pop, New Order, Blur, Primal Scream, Lou Reed, Pulp and Underworld, this timeless soundtrack is an essential part of any music lovers collection!
File Under: OST, Rock
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Sleigh Bells: Jessica Rabbits (Torn Clean) LP
Sleigh Bells wasted no time after getting off the ground in 2009, releasing three blistering records in four years. Ready for a break from the road, they took their time on their fourth LP, Jessica Rabbit, writing and finishing the record several times only to realize that they wanted to push themselves and the music further. As the three years elapsed, guitarist Derek Miller went looking for the abyss, found it, and crawled out in one piece. Vocalist Alexis Krauss, for her part, found something like heaven in nature and healthy living. The result of their combined experiences is an intense and vulnerable record that’s highly evolved and completely uncategorizable, a major statement from a band wholly committed to advancing their dynamic, uncompromising vision. Jessica Rabbit is the first release on the band’s own record label, Torn Clean, in partnership with Sinderlyn Records.
File Under: Rock
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Sonic Youth: Experimental Jet Set, Trash and No Star (Geffen) LP
In tomorrow??…. Following an unprecedented run of influential albums like Daydream Nation (1988), Goo (1990) and Dirty (1992) which marked Sonic Youth’s ascent to becoming America’s pre-eminent alternative band, the group issued Experimental Jet Set, Trash And No Star in 1994, an uncompromising record impacted as much by touring with acts like Royal Trux, Sebadoh and Pavement as contemporaries like Nirvana and Mudhoney had swayed the sound of its predecessors. Produced by Butch Vig yet as stripped down as ever, Experimental Jet Set, Trash And No Star saw the band simultaneously evolving and yearning for their pre-grunge art band days and less expectations, still just as interested in making remarkable underground sounds as songs with commercial appeal. Thurston Moore explained its synthesis, “The idea this time was to cut as much of it live as we could, and not labor over polishing and overdubbing in the usual big-rock manner, and that’s basically what went down.”
File Under: Indie Rock
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Muddy Waters: Elevate Me Mama (Black Knight) LP
Mississippi born singer-guitarist Muddy Waters was much more than an influential blues man, he was an artistic epicenter, a rare, luminous astral body around whom it seemed, at certain points, the entire post-war blues galaxy was centered. It would not be an exaggeration to say that Muddy represented the celestial pole of the blues’ very center, a point of connection between the music’s symbolic heaven and earth, one through which owed a surging force so powerful it not only affected how musicians performed, it reached into the very social-cultural fabric of the nation, and eventually the world. Bound together by a rare symmetry of creative elements, he also ultimately represents a uniting force that, through his pervasive influence on rock & roll’s practitioners, brought black and white together at time of profound division. Muddy changed everything. He proposed a modern blues reality so tangibly potent and loaded with soul deep appeal that it was like a portal to undreamed of realm, and all who entered therein were made a gift of Muddy’s singular philosophical rhythms and truth. As a ringmaster for rock & roll – a Godfather who not only facilitated but also participated by leading Chuck Berry to the recording studio, inspiring and touring with the Rolling Stones – he is completely unique all over again. Not just another hits collection, this deep 14-track offering from Black Knight Records gathers some of the early Chicago blues numbers that Muddy Waters made his name on and where his legend began including: “Five Long Years,” “Elevate Me Mama,” “You Shook Me,” “Messin’ With The Man,” “I Got My Brand On You,” “Read Way Back,” “When I Get To Thinking,” “Baby I Done Got Wise,” “Recipe For Love,” “Diamonds At Your Feet,” “She’s Into Something” and “She’s All Right.”
File Under: Blues
Various: Day of the Dead (4AD) LP
Epic New 59-Track, 5 Hour Tribute to the Grateful Dead Curated by Aaron and Bryce Dessner of The National! Day of the Dead is an epic tribute to the music and artistry of the Grateful Dead, curated by Aaron and Bryce Dessner of The National. They have brought together some of their favorite musicians to reinterpret the songs and sounds of the Dead for a new generation. 59 tracks and over 5 hours of music makes the album a landmark to get lost in, to discover hidden treasures and to make your own playlists for whatever mood you’re in. The diversity in both material and performance on the tribute is astounding. Special collaborations include Grateful Dead touring member Bruce Hornsby with DeYarmond Edison (featuring Justin Vernon of Bon Iver and the band Megafaun) on “Black Muddy River,” Perfume Genius and Sharon Van Etten on “To Lay Me Down,” Arcade Fire’s Richard Reed Parry, the Band’s Garth Hudson, Little Scream, and composer Caroline Adelaide Shaw’s take on “Brokedown Palace,” Grizzly Bear’s Ed Droste and Little Joy’s Binki Shapiro on “Loser,” Lee Ranaldo and TV on the Radio’s Tunde Adebimpe’s “Playing in the Band,” Jenny Lewis and Moses Sumney’s “Cassidy,” Charles Bradley’s “Cumberland Blues,” and perhaps most expansively, Grizzly Bear’s Daniel Rossen and Chris Bear teaming up with members of the National, So Percussion, and the Brooklyn Youth Chorus to recreate 1977’s entire Terrapin Station medley. There are fresh interpretations of classics, like The War On Drugs’ “Touch of Grey,” Jim James’ “Candyman,” Mumford and Sons’ take on “Friend of the Devil,” Phosphorescent / Matthew Houck’s “Sugaree” and “Standing on the Moon,” “Shakedown Street” recorded by Unknown Mortal Orchestra, the Walkmen’s “Ripple,” and Lucius’ version of “Uncle John’s Band,” as well as a perfectly cast Kurt Vile and J Mascis on “Box of Rain.” But the compilation also explores lesser known Dead material such as the psychedelic folk gem “Mountains of the Moon” (Lee Ranaldo), and “Rubin and Cherise,” originally a Jerry Garcia song, later adopted by the Grateful Dead and recorded here by Will Oldham. Day of the Dead also features lively recordings from Senegalese collective Orchestra Baobob (“Clementine Jam”), composer Terry Riley and his son Gyan Riley (“Estimated Prophet”), electronic artist Tim Hecker (channeling John Oswald’s classic “Dark Star” exploration “Grayfolded”), jazz pianist Vijay Iyer (“King Solomon’s Marbles”), and Bela Fleck with Edgar Meyer, Zakir Hussain, and Chris Wood (“Help on the Way / Slipknot”). Wilco also contributes here on a live version of “St. Stephen” with Bob Weir in tow!
File Under: Indie Rock, Grateful Dead
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Various: Killed By Death Volume 2 (Sacred Bones) LP
After the initial blast of punk rock bands made their impression on the youth of the late 1970s, subgenres quickly emerged. Some preferred the faster, louder aggression of hardcore, others the angular danceability of post-punk, some the raw and more personal home-made sound of DIY, and so on. Looking back among and between these genres we now recognize various blends of punk, post-punk, goth rock, industrial, and DIY as “deathrock.” In 2014, Sacred Bones Records launched the series Killed By Deathrock to document an entire scene of bands that haven’t yet received proper recognition. The thread that holds these groups together as deathrock bands comes down to their willingness and sometimes compulsion to reveal and explore the darker side of their psyches. Night-soaked dirges of fatality, despair, and horror were rampant, rooted in that sublimity that is found on the edge of the horror genre, as famously developed by Edgar Allan Poe – an edge that relished in misery and openly recognized the inevitable end of any human life. Killed by Deathrock Vol. 2 brings together essential underground bands from Denmark, the United Kingdom, Belgium, California, and Colorado. Though separated initially by the thousands of miles between their local scenes, these bands are united at last under the banner of this eternally underappreciated punk subgenre. Vinyl comes with exclusive poster designed by Heir.
File Under: Punk, Post Punk, Goth
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…..Restocks…..
Arctic Monkeys: AM (Domino) LP
Arctic Monkeys: Suck it and See (Domino) LP
Arctic Monkeys: Humbug (Domino) LP
Beach House: Depression Cherry (Sub Pop) LP
Beach House: Thank Your Lucky Stars (Sub Pop) LP
Black Keys: The Big Come Up (Alive) LP
Guy Clark: My Favorite Picture of You (Dualtone) LP
Dinosaur Jr.: Give A Glimpse of What Yer Not (Jagjaguwar) LP
Nils Frahm: Spaces (Erased Tapes) LP
Goat: Commune (Sub Pop) LP
Gorillaz: Demon Days (Fanclub) LP
Jesu/Sun Kil Moon: s/t (Caldo Verde) LP
Sharon Jones: It’s A Holiday Soul Party (Daptone) LP
Kraftwerk: Computer World (Fanclub) LP
Kraftwerk: Ralph & Florian (Fanclub) LP
Metallica: Metal Up Your Ass (Fanclub) LP
Metz: s/t (Sub Pop) LP
Metz: II (Sub Pop) LP
My Bloody Valentine: Loveless (Fanclub) LP
National: Alligator (Beggars) LP
National: Trouble Will Find Me (4AD) LP
Frank Ocean: Channel Live (Fanclub) LP
Organization: Tone Float (Fanclub) LP
Pavement: Slanted & Enchanted (Matador) LP
Pixies: Trompe Le Monde (4AD) LP
Queens of the Stone Age: Like Clockwork (Matador) LP
Radiohead: A Moon Shaped Pool (XL) LP
Radiohead: The Bends (XL) LP
Real Estate: Atlas (Domino) LP
Savages: Silence Yourself (Matador) LP
Sigur Ros: Meo Suo I Eyrum Vio Spilum Endalaust (XL) LP
Sigur Ros: Valtari (XL) LP
Elliott Smith: Either/Or (Kill Rock Stars) LP
Elliott Smith: s/t (Kill Rock Stars) LP
Elliott Smith: An Introduction… (Kill Rock Stars) LP
Elliott Smith: New Moon (Kill Rock Stars) LP
Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith: Ears (Western Vinyl) LP
Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith: Euclid (Western Vinyl) LP
System of a Down: s/t (Fanclub) LP
System of a Down: Toxicity (Fanclub) LP
System of a Down: Mesmerize (Fanclub) LP
System of a Down: Hypnotize (Fanclub) LP
Todd Terje: It’s Album Time (Olsen) LP
Tool: 10,000 Days (Fanclub) LP
U2: Achtung Baby (Fanclub) LP
U2: Zooropa (Fanclub) LP
Vampire Weekend: s/t (XL) LP
Kurt Vile: B’Lieve I’m Goin’ Down (Matador) LP
War On Drugs: Lost in the Dream (Secretly Canadian) LP
Warpaint: Heads Up (Rough Trade) LP
White Lung: Paradise (Domino) LP
Whitney: Light Upon the Lake (Secretly Canadian) LP
Wire: Pink Flag (Fanclub) LP
Women: s/t (Flemish Eye) LP
Women: Public Strain (Flemish Eye) LP
Neil Young: Mirror Ball (Fanclub) LP