Well folks, time is getting tight. If you haven’t started your xmas shopping, what are you waiting for?! Some nice stuff coming in this week and lots of restocks. We are just about completely out of time to special order anything, but you never know….
And if you are looking to outdo that special music lover on your list, or just want to spoil yourself, don’t forget about the awesome REGA promotion runnning right now! $200 off Planar 1 and Planar 2 turntables and $200 off the Brio amp!
…..pick of the week…..
Visible Cloaks: Lex (RVNG Int.) LP
Visible Cloaks’ Lex proposes a utopian dream language and its accompanying sound, a limitless, delicate space developed by fluid musical techniques and subconscious voices. The six pieces comprising Lex simulate a more peaceful future, their mysteries telling a new tale in an unknown but imaginable melodic language. Visible Cloaks are the Portland-based musicians Spencer Doran and Ryan Carlile. Utilizing software-based composition rooted in randomization, MIDI-translation and chance operations, the duo has established an improbable humanist mode of music from esoteric processes. Following their self-titled debut, Visible Cloaks offered Reassemblage, an album simultaneously honoring the post-Yellow Magic Orchestra school of avant musical adventure and diverging from it. Veering from the paths cleared by Japanese and Italian electronic pop and ambient artists of the mid-80s / early- 90s, Reassemblage established Visible Cloaks’ own camp in a forest of deep sound canopied by trees grown from synthetic seeds. The sound represented on Lex is webbed with sculptural arrangements and interpolated by the sounds of alien speech. These strange and serene utterances were created by Doran feeding a chain of multiple dialects and accents through a language translation software to create an auditory poetry of an evolved place and time. Lex features both the final version of this process and earlier, simplified experiments with it (“Keys”). “The idea – building on ‘fourth world’ or ‘global village’ type concepts – was to create a projected language that was a fusion of many,” Doran explains. “The result was a very disorienting form of non-language that amplifies the lapses in meaning that occur with the inaccuracy of auto-translation software.” Permutate Lex, a companion short film to Lex made by Visible Cloaks in collaboration with artist Brenna Murphy (who also created the artwork for Reassemblageand several virtualist videos for the album), is an integral counterpart, both visualizing an aesthetic alive with human form and guiding the sonic experience of the first five pieces: “Wheel,” “Frame,” “Transient,” “Keys,” and title track “Lex.” “World,” the longest piece presented on Lex, is redrawn from a generative composition originally produced for an installation Doran made with Murphy. The original work incorporates LFOs and randomized MIDI-information, and was intended to variate indefinitely. In this ‘fixed’ version, “World” provides a more conclusive view into the impossible musical environments Visible Cloaks make real. Longer than any track on Reassemblage, “World” expresses the deepening, patient intimations suggested by Lex. Doran says the Lex “attempts to communicate the essence of a world distant enough that it can’t be captured or comprehended from the present, appearing only surreal and inscrutable.” The statement reveals a broader musical philosophy fueling this new moment; an awakened voice woven through complex melodic shapes and phrases establishes communication between listeners and the unknown, here presented by Visible Cloaks as sounds coloring the very edge of the envisionable.
File Under: Ambient, Electronic
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…..new arrivals…..
A Certain Ratio: The Graveyard & The Ballroom (Mute) LP
A Certain Ratio was one of the first groups to sign to the legendary Factory Records in Manchester. Whilst many credit New Order and The Happy Mondays as the groups who brought dance music into the sound of Manchester (later Madchester!), it was in fact A Certain Ratio who were there from the beginning. Mute is pleased to present a vinyl reissue of The Graveyard and The Ballroom, the band’s landmark 1980 debut which shows off A Certain Ratio’s legendary early mix of angular, bass-heavy post-punk. Produced by Martin Hannett, the album contains 14 tracks: 7 demo songs from a session recorded at Graveyard Studios in September 1979 and 7 songs from a gig at the Electric Ballroom in October 1979. The album captures A Certain Ratio at their best – raw, dark and funky and contains early versions of future classics like “Do The Du” and “Flight.”
File Under: Post Punk
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Beastie Boys: Hot Sauce Committee: Part Two (Capitol) LP
The Beastie Boys were once upon a time the court jesters of rap. Wearing the label loud and proud, the New York trio lived by their own set of rules and ignited controversy wherever they set foot. Besides their daring-to-be-different and non-conforming attitudes, Adam “Ad-Rock” Horovitz, Michael “Mike D” Diamond and Adam “MCA” Yauch were considered pretty influential musicians too – the group were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2012. The cheekily titled Hot Sauce Committee: Part Two (2011) is the group’s eighth and final studio effort, originally intended as a two-part set and released a year before MCA’s death from cancer. Home to the swansong singles – “Lee Majors Come Again,” “Too Many Rappers” featuring Nas, “Make Some Noise” and “Don’t Play No Game That I Can’t Win” featuring Santigold – it debuted at No. 2 on the Billboard 200 and finds the Beasties reveling in their elder statesman status and offering up entertaining and engaging hip-hop beholden to know trends or styles but their own.
File Under: Hip Hop
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Beastie Boys: To The 5 Burroughs (Capitol) LP
The Beastie Boys were once upon a time the court jesters of rap. Wearing the label loud and proud, the New York trio lived by their own set of rules and ignited controversy wherever they set foot. Besides their daring-to-be-different and non-conforming attitudes, Adam “Ad-Rock” Horovitz, Michael “Mike D” Diamond and Adam “MCA” Yauch were considered pretty influential musicians too – the group were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2012. To the 5 Boroughs (2004) served as the group’s sixth studio effort overall and first since 1998’s Hello Nasty. An expertly crafted homage to New York littered with the trio’s signature humor and political fire, the platinum-certified album debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 and spawned the hit “Ch-Check It Out.”
File Under: Hip Hop
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Beatles: Sgt. Peppers 2017 Mix (Apple) LP
Hear the Acclaimed 2017 Beatles Sgt. Pepper Lonely Hearts Club Band Stereo Mix by Giles Martin and Sourced Directly from the Four-Track Session Tapes: 180g Vinyl LP Pressed at QRP. Produced by Giles Martin for 2017’s universally heralded Sgt. Pepper Anniversary Edition releases, the Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band’s new stereo mix on this QRP-pressed 180g vinyl LP is sourced directly from the original four-track session tapes and guided by the original, Beatles-preferred mono mix produced by Giles’ father, George Martin. Praised by fans and music critics around the world, The Beatles’ Sgt. Pepper Anniversary Edition is 2017’s most celebrated historical music release and an ideal gift for Beatle people here, there, and everywhere! It was just over 50 years ago when The Beatles’ astonished and delighted the world, ushering in the Summer of Love with Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, a groundbreaking masterwork that became popular music’s most universally acclaimed album. “It’s crazy to think that 50 years later we are looking back on this project with such fondness and a little bit of amazement at how four guys, a great producer and his engineers could make such a lasting piece of art,” says Paul McCartney. “Sgt. Pepper seemed to capture the mood of that year, and it also allowed a lot of other people to kick off from there and to really go for it,” Ringo Starr adds.
File Under: Rock, Pop
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Daphni: Joli Mai (Jiaolong) LP
Earlier this year Daphni (aka Caribou, aka Dan Snaith) released a very special FABRICLIVE mix made up of 23 original, unreleased Daphni tracks and four new Daphni edits to widespread critical acclaim. Today he has followed up with the announcement that he’ll be releasing a new full-length album, Joli Mai, on 6 October (NB vinyl coming later..) comprised of extended versions of the tracks from the mix as well as new, unreleased track ‘Vulture’.
File Under: Electronic
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Gord Downie: Introduce Yerself (Arts & Crafts) LP
Gord Downie’s Introduce Yerself is a double-album of twenty-three new songs inspired by the people in his life. The music was recorded swiftly over two four-day sessions in January 2016 and February 2017, with the final album often reflecting first takes. Introduce Yerself continues the collaborative relationship that brought the music of the Tragically Hip frontman’s historic Secret Path to life, with Broken Social Scene’s Kevin Drew producing the album and co-writing a number of the new songs.
File Under: Rock, Tragically Hip
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Gord Downie: Battle of the Nudes (Arts & Crafts) LP
Available for the first time on vinyl and remastered especially for the format, Gord Downie’s sophomore 2003 solo album, Battle Of The Nudes, “ranges from some sublime spoken word pieces to straightforward rock songs.” (PopMatters). Featuring a backing band credited as Country of Miracles including Julie Doiron, Josh Finlayson and members of experimental blues-rock band The Dinner Is Ruined, the album leaned closer to more traditional rock than its predecessor, but no less filled with Downie’s singular poetry.
File Under: Rock, Tragically Hip
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Gord Downie: Coke Machine Glow (Arts & Crafts) LP
Lush and sprawling, Coke Machine Glow is the 2001 solo debut from Tragically Hip frontman Gord Downie who passed away from cancer on October 17, 2017. Featuring the singles “Chancellor” and “Vancouver Divorce,” the album’s backing band was credited as “the Goddamned Band” and included contributions from musicians Julie Doiron, Steven Drake (The Odds), Kevin Hearn (Barenaked Ladies), Josh Finlayson, director Atom Egoyan, and members of The Dinner Is Ruined. Coke Machine Glow highlights Downie’s singular poetic story-weaving over sparse, loose production and subdued instrumentation. First ever vinyl pressing (gatefold 2LP) remastered for the format.
File Under: Rock, Tragically Hip
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Johann Johannsson: IBM1401: A User’s Manual (4AD) LP
Never before pressed on vinyl, IBM 1401, A User’s Manual, is one of Jóhann Jóhannsson’s most beloved works. Released in 2006, the decade since its release has seen Jóhann establish himself as one of the most important composers in the world, notably scoring movies such as Arrival, Blade Runner 2049, Sicario and The Theory of Everything. Johann’s scores have been nominated for two Academy Awards, two Golden Globes, a Grammy and three BAFTA awards. He was awarded the Golden Globe for Best Original Score for The Theory Of Everything. Inspired by the work his father did in the ’60s when chief maintenance engineer of one of Iceland’s first computers, Jóhann originally wrote IBM 1401, A User’s Manual to accompany a dance piece by long-standing collaborator and friend, Erna Ómarsdóttir. For the album release, he rewrote the piece for a 60-piece string orchestra, with a new final movement (built around a poem by Dorothy Parker) and incorporating both electronics and reel-to-reel recordings made by his father and friends in 1971 of the IBM 1401 mainframe computer singing the hymn “Ísland Ögrum Skorið” by Sigvaldi Kaldalóns as it was being decommissioned. The first ever pressing of IBM 1401, A User’s Manual comes as a colored 2LP-set in a deluxe gatefold sleeve, reworked by Chris Bigg (v23) from his original design. The package comes complete with two live bonus tracks recorded with the City of Prague Philharmonic Orchestra.
File Under: Ambient, Classical
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King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard with Mild High Club: Sketches of Brunswick East (ATO) LP
FINALLY IN TOMORROW!…. King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard returns with their third album of 2017, Sketches of Brunswick East, a jazz and Tropicalia infused collaboration with Mild High Club. It’s a soothing balm of a record, a chance to get to know King Gizzard’s sunny, playful side. Where previous albums have slipped down sonic worm-holes to explore distant galaxies, this one is an examination of (and homage to) the Melbourne suburb in which King Gizzard write and record in their own studio, and from where they run their planet-spanning psychedelic operation. A knowing nod to Miles Davis’s Sketches of Spain, this album also sees the band further exploring a Tropicalia element their music only ever previously hinted at. The group’s various sketches about time and place were reworked and pieced together, akin to “sampling-culture, in which old ideas are reshaped and suddenly things make sense,” explains lead singer Stu Mackenzie. “It was like we were continually jamming with ourselves.” Sketches Of Brunswick East is the third of five projected albums to be released by King Gizzard in 2017. “We don’t expect everyone to like everything that we release, but I hope people can view these five records as one body of work,” adds Stu of this grand creative undertaking. “They’ve been made at the same time, by the same people, in the same place, and they all overlap.”
File Under: Psych
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OST: Blade Runner 2049 (Epic) LP
The original motion picture soundtrack fnor Blade Runner 2049 highlights the entrancing, ethereal, and enigmatic original score composed by Academy Award winner Hans Zimmer (Inception, The Dark Knight, Gladiator, The Lion King) and Golden Globe and Emmy nominee Benjamin Wallfisch (It, Hidden Figures, Annabelle: Creation). Original and classic compositions round out this sci-fi noir masterpiece which concludes with an original song by Grammy Award nominee Lauren Daigle. Over a backdrop of cyber-infused soul production, she delivers a hypnotic and haunting performance. Together, Zimmer and Wallfisch sought to continue the incredible musical legacy of the original 1982 Blade Runner by Vangelis, while imparting a piece of themselves upon the score. In order to do so, they implemented vintage synths such as “the star of the score” a Yamaha CS80 from the late seventies as well as modern technological innovations, yielding a rich sonic palette wholly cognizant of this world and the vision of director Denis Villeneuve. “First of all, I realized that Denis is a director who has a vision; he has a voice,” says Zimmer. “Remember, I’ve done a lot of movies with Ridley Scott. So, it was important that this was an autonomous piece of work. Let’s just be honest. Ridley is a hard act to follow – as is Vangelis. While Ben was four-years-old, I had actually experienced all of this. We watched and literally, as we stopped watching, we decided on the palette. We decided this wasn’t going to be an orchestral thing. The story spoke to us.” “We all know what Blade Runner feels like and what that experience is to watch this incredible masterpiece,” adds Wallfisch. “The first question we asked ourselves was, ‘How can we reinvent and make it fresh and new, but still be in that world?’ The mission from the beginning was this idea of finding the heart of the film – what is its soul? When you discover the simplest possible theme, it sums up humanity almost. I feel like that’s what we were all striving for towards the beginning of the process.” In a feature detailing the film’s Oscar potential, Variety highlighted the aural balance that Zimmer and Wallfisch achieve writing, “Zimmer and Wallfisch’s score maintains proper reverence for and distance from Vangelis’ iconic original work.”
File Under: OST
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OST: Stranger Things: The Music From (Sony) LP
Sony Legacy presents a 30 track 2LP compilation album gathering a range of beloved 1980s hits and classic tracks featured in the Duffer brothers 18x Emmy-nominated hit Netflix series Stranger Things and its highly-anticipated second season, Stranger Things 2. The album features nineteen songs and eleven audio clips from the show. Artists and original hit recordings appearing on Stranger Things – Music From The Netflix Original Series include Toto (“Africa”), the Bangles (“Hazy Shade of Winter”), Corey Hart (“Sunglasses at Night”), The Poice (“Every Breath You Take”), The Clash (“Should I Stay or Should I Go”), Duran Duran (“Girls On Film”), Devo (“Whip It”), Cyndi Lauper (“Time After Time”) and Scorpions (“Rock You Like A Hurricane”). Gatefold 2LP-set with an 8 x 12 mini-poster and a crack-and-peel sticker.
File Under: Rock, OST
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U2: Songs of Innocence (Universal) LP
Songs Of Experience is the companion release to 2014’s Songs Of Innocence, the two titles drawing inspiration from a collection of poems, Songs of Innocence and Experience, by the 18th century English mystic and poet William Blake. While Songs of Innocence charted U2’s earliest influences and experiences in the late-1970s and early-1980s, the new album is a collection of songs in the form of intimate letters to places and people close to Bono’s heart i.e. family, friends and fans. The original thirteen-track album features the previously released tracks “You’re The Best Thing About Me” and “The Blackout” as well as “The Little Things That Give You Away,” which U2 debuted during their Joshua Tree 2017 tour. The song “American Soul” is a fleshed-out version of “XXX,” the band’s collaboration with Kendrick Lamar that was featured on the rapper’s Damn album. The front cover features a photograph of band members’ teenage children Eli Hewson and Sian Evans as photographed by U2’s long-time visual collaborator Anton Corbijn.
File Under: Pop
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…..restocks….
Arcade Fire: Neon Bible (Sonovox) LP
Marc Barreca: Music Works for Industry (Freedom to Spend) LP
Big Brave: Ardor (Southern Lord) LP
David Bowie: Blackstar (Columbia) LP
Leonard Cohen: The Future (Columbia) LP
Daft Punk: Tron Legacy (Disney) LP
Dead Kennedys: Gimme Convenience… (Manifesto) LP
Dead Kennedys: Fresh Fruit… (Manifesto) LP
Liam Gallagher: As You Were (Warner) LP
Vince Guaraldi Trio: A Charlie Brown Christmas (Fantasy) LP
Lauryn Hill: Miseducation of (Universal) LP
Jason Isbell: The Nashville Sound (Sony) LP
Medusa: First Step Beyond (Numero) LP
Nine Inch Nails: Broken (Nothing) LP
Jim O’Rourke: Eureka (Drag City) LP
Pink Floyd: The Wall (Columbia) LP
R.E.M.: Automatic For The People (Universal) LP
Steve Roach: Structures from Silence (Telephone Explosion) LP
Rural Alberta Advantage: Mended With Gold (Paper Bag) LP
Smiths: s/t (Rhino) LP
Talking Heads: Remain in Light (Rhino) LP
Tragically Hip: Fully Completely (Universal) LP
Tragically Hip: Live Between Us (Universal) LP
Tragically Hip: Phantom Power (Universal) LP
Tragically Hip: Up To Here (Universal) LP
Visible Cloaks: Reassemblage (RVNG Intl) LP
Lucinda Williams: This Sweet Old World (Sony) LP
Various: Eccentric Soul: Deep City Label (Numero) LP
Various: Eccentric Soul: Sitting in the Park (Numero) LP
Various: Soul Stabs Vol 1 (Colemine) LP