A much quieter week here on the new release front, which gives you some time to catch up on all the stuff that’s been coming out lately. Loads of hot new rekkids to pick up. And if new records aren’t your thing, we’ve been getting lots of sweet little stacks of used records too, and we’ve been pricing up a storm. Come have a dig.
If you haven’t had a chance to check out our new webstore… CHECK IT OUT! The inventory is live with the shop, so if it’s in stock there, it’s in stock in the store. We have an instore pick up option, so if you are local, but going out of town, or just don’t want to miss out on something, by all means, buy it through the site and it’ll be here waiting for you when you have time to get in.
…..pick of the week…..
Rega Planar 6 Sale!
Rega doesn’t have a lot of sales, but when they do, they are killer deals, and this one is no exception! Crazy savings on amazing turntables! Only for the month of June! The Planar 6 has one goal, to reproduce your vinyl as accurately as possible. We have engineered every aspect of this turntable to extract as much detail from the vinyl surface as possible. Advanced materials and engineering solutions have been used throughout the design to ensure the greatest level of performance.The Neo PSU offers electronic speed change, advanced anti-vibration control and user adjustable electronic fine speed adjustment only found on the RP10 until now. See ‘product details’ tab below for full information.
File Under: Sales, Gear, Rega
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…..new arrivals…..
Behemoth: Messe Noire (Metal Blade) LP
Polish black/death overlords Behemoth present the brand new live collection Messe Noire, recorded at Progresja in Warsaw, Poland on August 8, 2016. Comments singer/guitarist Nergal: “‘Messe Noire’. Well, that is everything that the Behemoth live magick represents, and we’re stoked that we have a true representation on record for everyone out there to enjoy. ‘Messe Noire’ captures the true intensity of what we do as a band and the energy we share with our fans. This is also an exclamation mark, the perfect way to conclude ‘The Satanist’ cycle which has been an overwhelming experience and amazing chapter in Behemoth’s career and our lives so far!”
File Under: Metal
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Bombino: Deran (PTKF) LP
In tomorrow… Home. Where the heart is. For Bombino and most other Tuareg, there’s only one place that can be. In recent years, the rest of the world has largely written off that home as a hot and savage wasteland, a bolt hole for religious extremists and terrorists, a geopolitical video nasty with little to offer apart from the oil, gold and phosphates that lie beneath its soil. But Bombino would like us to take a closer look and think again. How to celebrate that desert home, how to protect it, develop it, unify it, respect it and, above all, never forget it, are the salient themes of his brand new album Deran. They’re dressed up in 10 songs of rare maturity and power that mark a turning point in the career of a guitarist and songwriter who was born in the shade of an acacia tree about 80 miles north west of the ancient town of Agadez, and has since risen to forefront of the new Tuareg guitar generation. It’s a turning back the source of everything that makes Bombino who he is. “My mission for this album was always to get closer to Africa,” he says. Not surprising then that the decision was made to record Deran as close as possible to his native Niger in the southern Sahara. The ideal venue emerged in the shape of Studio Hiba, a top flight recording facility owned by King Mohammed VI located in a fairly drab industrial suburb of Casablanca in Morocco. There Bombino and his steady long-term band – fellow Tuareg Illias Mohammed on guitar and vocals, American Corey Wilhelm on drums and percussion and the Mauritanian (living in Belgium) Youba Dia on bass – slept, ate and made music in blissful isolation. Their circle was widened by Moroccan percussionist Hassan Krifa, and by Bombino’s cousins Anana ag Haroun (lead singer of the Brussels-based Tuareg band Kel Assouf), and Toulou Kiki (singer and star of the film Timbuktu), who dropped in to add some ‘gang’ vocals. After Casablanca, the tapes flew to Boston to be embellished by Sudanese friend and keyboardist Mohammed Araki. Whatever emerged at the end of the process had to be fresh and powerful. Yes. Bombino and crew have conjured up a roving mystery tour of contemporary Saharan sounds, from the raw diesel rock of the opener “Imajghane” (‘The Tuareg’), to the camel gait lope of “Tenesse” (‘Idleness’), the tender lilt of “Midiwan” (‘My Friends”) and the ‘Tuareggae’ style that is Bombino’s unique contribution to desert music on the song “Tehigren.” All the desert is there, harsh and gentle, tragic and playful. But more than anything Deran had to be honest and true. The pressure to be the authentic voice of his culture and his home on the world stage weighs heavy on Bombino. “You have to begin with the question of who you are,” he says. “You’re a Tuareg. With all the travels, all the experience of world, it’s as if I’m making myself remember where I come from. Where I come from will always be my home, my memory.” Simple, raw, true, that was the brief. “We wanted him to take a deliberate step out of the shadow of the celebrity producer,” says Bombino’s manager, and Deran producer, Eric Herman. “Apart from that, the idea was to take this raw, spontaneous, unadulterated approach to capturing his songs.”
File Under: Tuareg, Desert Blues
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Father John Misty: God’s Favorite Customer (Sub Pop) Loser Edition LP
Written largely in New York between the summer of 2016 and winter of 2017, Josh Tillman’s fourth Father John Misty LP, God’s Favorite Customer follows-up his Grammy-nominated 2017 effort Pure Comedy and reflects on the experience of being caught between the vertigo of heartbreak and the manic throes of freedom. God’s Favorite Customer reveals a bittersweetness and directness in Tillman’s songwriting, without sacrificing any of his wit or taste for the absurd. From “Mr. Tillman,” where he trains his lens on his own misadventure, to the cavernous pain of estrangement in “Please Don’t Die,” Tillman plays with perspective throughout to alternatingly hilarious and devastating effect. “We’re Only People (And There’s Not Much Anyone Can Do About That)” is a meditation on our inner lives and the limitations we experience in our attempts to give and receive love. It stands in solidarity with the title track, which examines the ironic relationship between forgiveness and sin. Together, these are songs that demand to know either real love or what comes after, and as the album progresses, that entreaty leads to discovering the latter’s true stakes. God’s Favorite Customer was produced by Tillman and recorded with Jonathan Rado (Foxygen), Dave Cerminara (Jonathan Wilson, Foster the People, Conor Oberst), and Trevor Spencer (FJM). The album features contributions from Haxan Cloak, Natalie Mering of Weyes Blood, longtime collaborator Jonathan Wilson, and members of Misty’s touring band.
File Under: Indie Rock
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Joan of Arc: 1984 (Joyful Noise) LP
Over their 20-odd year discography, Joan of Arc’s astute, endlessly probing musical experimentation – steadfastly resistant to dogma and genre at every turn – has been chorused by a barrage of voices, mostly from the singular larynx of mainstay Tim Kinsella, who remains endlessly obsessed with (and infuriated by) Orwellian language and it’s dominion over American life. Richard Brautigan, Mark Twain, Elizabeth Taylor, and Assata Shakur might visit his lyrics, but it’s the band itself that contains multitudes. Throughout Joan of Arc, Kinsella and his bandmates have hewn together a true artistic democracy – some two dozen members over the years – to confront the darkening political realities and interpersonal mysteries of our time. Like their namesake – a donee of revelation who became a fierce holy warrior, only to be discarded by a king and burned at the stake as a heretic – Joan of Arc has inspired their share of true believers and dismayed legions of skeptics. And now, a series of nearly a cappella performances from Kinsella’s fellow vocalist Melina Ausikaitis, debuted live by Joan of Arc over the last several years, has become the backbone of their new LP, 1984. Remarkably, so much of the cluttered sound of earlier LPs has largely fallen away on 1984, as has Kinsella’s voice. At first it’s genuinely shocking. But the songs here are a revelation, as profound and plainspoken as parables. Thoroughly of the band’s lineage, Ausikaitis’ lyrics are equally measured with wit, despair and stubborn perseverance. There is awkward sex at Grandma’s house. There are kids in the snow wearing cop sunglasses and the crumbling psychic defenses of childhood memories. There are A-frame houses and white horses. There are trucks losing their brakes on the hill at the end of the street. There are heaps of thoroughly useful self-help advice (“stop chicken-shittin’ all over your life” has become a personal mantra.). Like the album’s striking hand drawn cover art, the music inside is often spare. Anthemic highs ring from elegiac lows and back again. At times, Ausikaitis sings in an earnestly tangy and lovely flat twang redolent of the midwest, before screwing her voice up into a fearsome roar. Sometimes her voice is electronically distorted, like bells in the sky, into ringing eternity.
File Under: Indie Rock
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Megadeth: Killing is my Business… and Business is Good (Century Media) LP
Hailed as one of the best thrash metal debuts of all time, legendary thrash metal trailblazers Megadeth celebrate the band’s 35th Anniversary with a deluxe 180g 2LP re-issue of their revolutionary first effort, Killing Is My Business…And Business Is Good! Originally released in 1985, the album has been completely restored to band mastermind Dave Mustaine’s intended vision. Remixed by veteran metal mixer, Mark Lewis (Trivium, Death Angel, Devildriver, Whitechapel) and remastered by Ted Jensen for an optimal listening experience, the 2018 version reveals previously unheard parts and performances throughout the record, including a missing drum performance found during the mixing sessions. This rare gem includes the full original album, along with 7 live audio tracks from VHS tapes found in MegaDave’s own attic. In addition to the bonus live tracks, the re-issue also features Megadeth’s 1984 3-track demo and the previously removed cover of “These Boots,” that has been added back to the record with recut vocals true to Lee Hazelwood’s version. The re-issue is further enhanced by new album cover artwork featuring a fully executed sculpture of the iconic skull that has been lost over the many years since the album’s initial release. The packaging also includes classic flyers and band photos pulled from their archive of timeless metal moments from Megadeth’s storied 35-year history. Mustaine delves into the struggles during that time period as well as some of the surprising moments during the remixing sessions throughout the re-issue’s liner notes.
File Under: Metal
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Liz Phair: s/t (Capitol) LP
Available for the First Time on Vinyl! Ever since Exile In Guyville landed in 1993, Liz Phair has been cipher for a certain kind of aesthetic. She’s been called “the female face of indie rock,” a “slacker poet of the first degree” and a “brainy bad girl,” but she forever remains America’s sardonic sweetheart. Following up her great trifecta of albums that included Exile in Guyville (1993), Whip-Smart (1994) and Whitechocolatespaceegg (1998), Liz Phair’s eponymous fourth full-length effort and second in just ten years found her working in a more mainstream pop arena with singer/songwriters Michael Penn and Pete Yorn and hitmakers The Matrix. The album debuted at No. 27 on the Billboard 200 and yielded the successful singles “Why Can’t I?” and “Extraordinary.”
File Under: Indie Rock
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Liz Phair: Whip-Smart (Capitol) LP
Ever since her audacious debut, Exile In Guyville, landed in 1993, singer-songwriter Liz Phair has been cipher for a certain kind of aesthetic. She’s been called “the female face of indie rock,” a “slacker poet of the first degree” and a “brainy bad girl,” but she forever remains America’s sardonic sweetheart – as Guyville’s follow-up, Whip-Smart, continued to prove in 1994. Fusing lo-fi production with a singer-songwriter sensibility, Phair helped shape what would become “indie rock” and defied expectations of what a female rock star could be. Whip-Smart builds upon the foundation set forth by her debut, capturing the same intimate, DIY style but with slicker arrangements, multi-layered vocals and experimental sound effects. Whip-Smart is far more 90s power-pop than her first offering however. Lead single, “Supernova,” dominated alt.rock radio and MTV that year, and greatly introduced the once indie darling to more mainstream audiences, even earning Phair her first Grammy nomination. Whether she’s reflecting on a one-night stand to the tune of the traditional waltz “Chopsticks” or invoking the official slogan of America’s westward expansion in “Go West,” to get over an ex, her unflinching honesty and confessional songwriting is why an entire generation so strongly identified with her, and why she forever looms large as the alt.rock queen of the 90s. “Nashville” is another standout track, with its hazy shoegaze intro, and features one of the best refrains on the album. Much of the latter half of the record is dominated by downtempo bedroom rock, with the exception of the full-on rocker, “Jealousy.” Whip-Smart would go on to debut at No. 27 on the Billboard 200, later achieving Gold status and inspiring countless singers and female-fronted bands for decades to come.
File Under: Indie Rock
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Liz Phair: Whitechocolatespaceegg (Capitol) LP
Ever since Exile In Guyville, landed in 1993, singer-songwriter Liz Phair has been cipher for a certain kind of aesthetic. She’s been called “the female face of indie rock,” a “slacker poet of the first degree” and a “brainy bad girl,” but she forever remains America’s sardonic sweetheart. The final installment in Phair’s great trifecta of albums which began with her audacious debut and continued with its slick power-pop follow-up Whip-Smart (1994), Whitechocolatespaceegg marked her hook-fueled return from hiatus in 1998. Drawing on themes of motherhood and family after getting married and giving birth to a son, the intimate and autobiographical collection peaked at No. 35 on the Billboard 200 and yielded the singles “Polyester Bride” and “Johnny Feelgood.”
File Under: Indie Rock
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Professor Rhythm: Professor 3 (Awesome Tapes From Africa) LP
Professor Rhythm’s 1991 recording Professor 3 is a vivid reflection of urban South Africa as apartheid was ending. Thami Mdluli’s production project had young and old dancing to a sound that sought to unite Blacks within Southern Africa. “Our music gave hope to the hopeless,” he says. Professor Rhythm’s third instrumental album (which contains some background vocals, to be exact), portrays the moment when the dominant mbaqanga and American R&B-based bubblegum sounds being produced in Johannesburg and other urban centers were transforming into house and hip-hop-inspired kwaito. The pop of the 80’s and all that went with it – from the models of synths and drum machines to the lyrical style – gave way to a changing melodic emphasis and new, much slower tempi using a completely different rhythmic skeleton. Upbeat, chipper bubblegum, often with double-time breakdowns and upstroke syncopations, faded and the sounds began to more closely resemble those of contemporary Black America – where hip-hop was slowing down and the bass-lines and melodies were getting moodier, darker in general. At the same time house music had briefly reached mainstream acceptance in the States and that popularity continued to feed into awareness overseas. These two influences blended with the burgeoning house music scenes in Johannesburg and Pretoria as Professor 3 was being produced in March 1991 (the same year apartheid ended). Mdluli explains, “We were Influenced by foreign bands and so people updated their sound.” According to Mdluli, the evolving sound was bolstered by widening availability of house and rap records from abroad while, most importantly, an increasing sense that apartheid might soon be finished was met with a new positivity vibe society. Professor 3 came out on vinyl as the LP business was dying in South Africa and sold around 20,000 copies. It was mainly distributed on tape, which sold closer to 100,000. With the help of engineer Fab Rosso, the recording features backing vocalists from Mango Groove. After making a half-dozen records as Professor Rhythm, Mdluli once again shifted his focus musically. By the mid-90’s he had veered off gospel music – and left playing in bands and started making his own solo recordings. His enormous success in the gospel realm in the years since is a remarkable story in its own right, but for now we are only dancing.
File Under: Africa, Funk, Electro
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Steve Reich: Live Electric Music (Analog Spark) LP
“‘It’s Gonna Rain’ was composed in San Francisco in January of 1965. The voice belongs to a young black Pentecostal preacher who called himself Brother Walter. I recorded him along with the pigeons one Sunday afternoon in Union Square in downtown San Francisco. Later at home I started playing with tape loops of his voice and, by accident , discovered the process of letting two identical loops go gradually in and out of phase with each other. “‘Violin Phase’ was composed in New York in October 1967. Here, the process discovered with tape recorders is applied to a human being playing against several pre-recorded tapes of himself. In two sections of the piece the performer gives a sort of auditory “chalk talk” by simply playing one of the pre-existent inner voices in the tape a bit louder and then gradually fading out, leaving the listener momentarily more aware of that particular figure. The choice of these figures is largely up to the performer, and I want to thank Paul Zukofsky for bringing out several very interesting ones I never would have though of without him. “‘It’s Gonna Rain’ is the first and ‘Violin Phase’ the last of a series of pieces all dealing with the process of gradually shifting phase relations between two or more identical repeating figures. This process determines both the note-to-note (sound-to-sound) detail and the over-all form as well. It is a process we can all hear.” – Steve Reich
File Under: Avant Garde, Tape Music, Experimental
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Rolling Stones: Their Satanic Majesties Request (Abkco) LP
Their Satanic Majesties Request (December 1967) was the first Rolling Stones album to be released on both sides of the Atlantic with the same running order and inside the same record sleeve. The title was a satirical take on the words inside a British passport: “Her Britannic Majesty’s Secretary Of State requests and requires…” Coming to fruition during a transformative year in music, the summer of 1967 had been dominated by The Beatles’ pop art masterpiece Sgt Pepper’s, Jimi Hendrix’s Are You Experienced and Pink Floyd’s The Piper At The Gates Of Dawn. Bands the world over wanted to be part of the psychedelic revolution that was changing pop music and the Stones were no different. A tangle of psychedelic sounds and influences, complete with iconic 3D artwork, Their Satanic Majesties Request reached No. 3 in the UK charts and remains a charming curiosity. Though the band went straight back to their rock and blues-based roots the following year with Beggars Banquet, their foray into flower power was a bold and fruitful attempt to branch out. “She’s A Rainbow” is a sweet chorus-based pop song that features Brian Jones on Mellotron and deft string arrangements from future Led Zeppelin bassist John Paul Jones. Another success is “2,000 Light Years from Home,” while the haunting “The Lantern” is arguably a forerunner of “Shine A Light” from 1972’s Exile On Main St
File Under: Rock
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Uniform/The Body: Mental Wounds Not Healing (Sacred Bones) LP
In Spring 2017, Uniform was asked to support fellow noisy, boundary-pushing duo The Body for a European tour. Having been longtime fans of the band, Uniform vocalist Michael Berdan and guitarist Ben Greenberg jumped at the opportunity. During the planning phase of the tour, Berdan and Lee Buford from The Body started corresponding regularly. Ultimately, Berdan asked Buford if he and The Body cofounder Chip King would be interested in making a collaborative record with Uniform. Buford enthusiastically assented, and the seed of Mental Wounds Not Healing was sown. A few months after the genesis of the idea, Berdan and Greenberg went to the legendary underground Providence studio Machines With Magnets, where The Body were finishing up work on their latest LP. King and Buford had a ton of cool beats and music ready that Berdan played synth bass lines over. Greenberg then played guitar over Berdan’s bass lines, and the songs began to take shape. After the Machine With Magnets session, engineer Seth Manchester sent Greenberg stems of the tracks to work on back in Brooklyn. Berdan recorded vocals in the hallway of Greenberg’s tiny apartment, and the raw intensity of that makeshift session served as the perfect counterpoint for King’s unmistakable voice. Effectively, every song on Mental Wounds Not Healing is a duet between Berdan and King. The collaboration pushes both bands far beyond their roots in industrial music and metal, creating an immersive listening experience that truly transcends genre. The title of the record is a line stolen from the chorus of Ozzy Osbourne’s “Crazy Train.” Most of the titles are culled from horror literature and cinema, with specific nods to Shirley Jackson, Jack Ketchum, and Elem Klimov. Thematically, the songs have to do with feeling trapped in one’s own mind, projecting images over and over again of a future in shambles before it even gets a chance to happen. It is about hopelessness, anxiety, and depression so familiar that they seem like permanent fixtures of one’s psyche and identity.
File Under: Metal
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…..Restocks…..
Beach House: 7 (Sub Pop) LP
Bjork: Homogenic (One Little Indian) LP
Boards of Canada: Campfire Headphase (Warp) LP
Boards of Canada: Tomorrow’s Harvest (Warp) LP
Leon Bridges: Good Thing (Columbia) LP
Nick Cave: Push the Sky Away (Bad Seed) LP
Chvrches: Love is Dead (Glassnote) LP
Earth: 2 (Sub Pop) LP
Bill Evans Trio: At Shelleys Manne-Hole (OJC) LP
Bill Evans Trio: Waltz for Debby (OJC) LP
Gang of Four: Entertainment (Universal) LP
Getz/Gilberto: s/t (Verve) LP
Herbie Hancock: Prisoner (Blue Note) LP
Jon Hopkins: Singularity (Domino) LP
Lhasa: Living Road (Audiogram) LP
Sturgill Simpson: Metamodern Sounds (Thirty Tigers) LP
Sleep: Dopesmoker (Southern Lord) LP
Sufjan Stevens: Illinois (Asthmatic Kitty) LP
Sunn o))): Monoliths & Dimensions (Southern Lord) LP
Townes Van Zandt: Flying Shoes (Fat Possum) LP
Townes Van Zandt: Live at the Old Quarter (Fat Possum) LP
Gillian Welch: Harrow & The Harvest (Acorn) LP