Another week, goes by and a few new releases come in. It’s slowly starting to look like the industry is getting going again somewhat. There are still some major hiccups due to closures of pressing plants or distributors, but it’s definitely better than it was a few weeks ago. Sounds like some of the RSD releases are just going to be getting regular release soon. So keep your eye’s peeled for those. And as usual, we’re still adding new stuff, both new and used to the webshop daily. Thanks for your continued support!
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…..pick of the week…..
Jad Fair & Daniel Johnston: It’s Spooky (Joyful Noise) LP
This colored 2LP reissue puts Jad Fair and Daniel Johnston’s collaborative 1989 album It’s Spooky back on vinyl for the first time in 30 years! Includes a bonus flexi of the previously unreleased Daniel Johnston classic “I Live My Broken Dreams.” Sound restoration and remastering by Kramer. Gatefold jacket with printed inner sleeves containing extensive liner notes from Everett True, Jeff Feuerzeig (The Devil & Daniel Johnston, Half Japanese: The Band That Would Be King), Jad Fair, and Kramer. “I first heard Daniel in 1985. Half Japanese had a show in Austin and Daniel’s manager Jeff Tartakov gave me a tape of “Hi How Are You?”. I loved it and began corresponding with Jeff and Daniel. A few years later I was in NYC to take part in a recording session of Moe Tucker at Kramer’s studio Noise New York. Daniel was at the studio and he and I became friends. Daniel recorded two songs with lyrics I wrote. He recorded “Do It Right” for Moe’s album, and “Some Things Last A Long Time” for his album “1990”. “Soon after his time in NYC I invited him to my home and we had a week to record the songs for “It’s Spooky”. I considered Daniel to be a genius. I am so grateful to have had the opportunity to work with him. I’m so grateful to have it released again and it’s sounding better than ever thanks to an amazing mastering job by Kramer.” – Jad Fair
File Under: Lo-fi, Indie Rock
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…..new arrivals…..
ADULT.: Perception is/as/of Deception (Dais) LP
ADULT. make a triumphant return after their 2018 album This Behavior, dubbed “…one of the best records of their career…” by Pop Matters. This chilling continuation takes the form of Perception is/as/of Deception, an anxiety fueled cyclone of pandemonium that only ADULT. would know how to harness. While This Behavior was recorded in the isolated snow-covered woods of northern Michigan, Perception is/as/of Deception was given life in a temporary space the duo created by painting their windowless basement entirely black, with the sole intention to deprive their senses, question their perceptions, and witness the resulting ramifications. With over 23 years and a sprawling discography left in their wake, Adam Lee Miller and Nicola Kuperus have spent their entire career as ADULT. obscuring any defined genre or style. With a history as uncanny as ADULT., the pieces that make up Perception is/as/of Deception might be perceived as their most punk-infused and introspective work to date. The elements of frustration and apprehension that have consistently woven throughout their material are at full mast, although augmented by a strident and more “head-on” approach. Tracks like “Have I Started at the End” successfully maintain the duo’s classic EBM signatures and synthesized aggression, cradled by a suspicious mantra that questions….what’s the point? “Why Always Why” offers a disorienting mutation of the heralded sounds of classic dance music, like a remix that escaped prison and is on the run. The dystopian anthem, “Total Total Damage,” comes in full force with an frantic energy which jolts any bystanders to attention, with only the defiant chants of Kuperus’ vocals outlining the ever-degenerating state of societal affairs. The dramatically glam synth parts scattered throughout the album, while at times ominous in nature, seem to also act as a merciful reminder that through the journey of Perception is/as/of Deception, one can still enjoy the chaos. With the rampant sense of emptiness on the minds of many these days, there continues to be few attempts at scoring these common, unfortunate human qualities with pure sincerity. Thankfully, ADULT. has a long-standing reputation for creating the soundtrack for our insecurities, and Perception is/as/of Deception further solidifies their apprehensive position.
File Under: Electronic
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Hamilton Leithauser: The Loves of Your Life
(Glassnote) LP
In tomorrow… After solo projects made with Rostam from Vampire Weekend, and with producers, Hamilton Leithauser took full control over The Loves of Your Life, producing, recording, and writing the entire thing by himself. Here’s what Hamilton had to say about the album: “All of the songs on my new record are about people. Individual, real people. Some are strangers I’ve met, but a lot are friends.”
File Under: Indie Rock, Pop
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Les Filles de Illighadad: s/t (Sahel Sounds) LP
In tomorrow… Available again. Sublime recordings from rural Niger. Two very different sides of Tuareg music – dreamy ishumar acoustic guitar sessions, and the hypnotic polyphonic tende that inspires it. Guitarist Fatou Seidi Ghali and vocalist Alamnou Akrouni lead the troupe, named after the village. Recorded in the open air studio of the desert and originally released in 2016.
File Under: Africa, Tuareg
Maggot Brain (No. 02) Moondog cover
(Mar/Apr/May 2020)
“Maggot Brain is a full-color, quarterly magazine edited by noted Detroit scribe Mike McGonigal: 100+ pages packed with phenomenal content — art, music, literature, unpublished archival material, and more — with a simple promise to only exist on the printed page. Cover feature is a three-parter on Moondog. Our editor’s phone interview with him from 1998, some amazing never-before-seen-images, and crucially this series of archival interviews from 1953. Shana Cleveland: The singer-songwriter / La Luz leader’s hand-written / illustrated tour diary chronicles a European tour with her own newborn baby, and it’s really unlike anything you’ve seen or read before. Gainesville Riot ’88: On tour supporting ‘Bug,’ the immense Dinosaur Jr’s laconic wall of sound helped to start a riot at their show in a Florida university hall. Thankfully our old pal Kevin Arrow was there with slide film in his camera to capture the event. These images have never been seen before.”File Under: Reading
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Muthspiel/Colley/Blade: Angular Blues (ECM) LP
In tomorrow… Wolfgang Muthspiel, whom The New Yorker has called “a shining light” among today’s jazz guitarists, returns to the trio format with Angular Blues, his fourth ECM album as a leader, following two acclaimed quintet releases and his trio debut. Like Driftwood – the 2014 trio disc that JazzTimes dubbed “cinematic” and “haunting” – Angular Blues finds the Austrian guitarist paired with longtime collaborator Brian Blade on drums; but instead of Larry Grenadier on bass, this time it’s Scott Colley, whose especially earthy sound helps imbue this trio with its own dynamic. Muthspiel plays acoustic guitar on three of the album’s tracks and electric on six more. Along with his characteristically melodic originals – including such highlights as the bucolic “Hüttengriffe” and pensive “Camino” – he essays the first standards of his ECM tenure (“Everything I Love” and “I’ll Remember April”), as well as his first-ever bebop rhythm-changes tune on record (“Ride”). Angular Blues also features a single guitar-only track, “Solo Kanon in 5/4,” with Muthspiel’s electronic delay imbuing the baroque-like rounds with a hypnotic glow. Muthspiel, Colley and Blade recorded Angular Blues in Tokyo’s Studio Dede after a three-night run at the city’s Cotton Club. The album was mixed with Manfred Eicher in the South of France at Studios La Buissonne, where Muthspiel had recorded his two previous ECM albums, Rising Grace and Where the River Goes. Each of the groups that Muthspiel has put together for his ECM recordings has had a special rapport. About his new trio, the guitarist says: “Scott and Brian share my love of song, while at the same time there is constant musical conversation about these songs.”
File Under: Jazz
Perfume Genius: Set My Heart on Fire Immediately (Matador) LP
Set My Heart On Fire Immediately is the fifth studio album from Perfume Genius. It sees artist and musician Mike Hadreas re-teaming with Grammy-nominated producer Blake Mills and features contributions from musicians Jim Keltner, Pino Palladino and Matt Chamberlin. It was recorded in Los Angeles, where Perfume Genius settled in 2017 with longtime partner and musical collaborator Alan Wyffels. The album explores and subverts concepts of masculinity and traditional roles, and introduces decidedly American musical influences. Throughout Hadreas plays with themes of love, sex, memory and the body, channeling popular music mythologies while irreverently authoring its own – from the delirious, Cyndi Lauper-nodding celebratory pop of “On The Floor,” specters of Elvis on haunted tremolo waltz “One More Try,” to the harpsichord- punctuated baroque pop of “Jason,” and gliding steel guitar and Balearic rhythm of “Without You.” First album taster “Describe” captures this sense of fleetingness and living in the moment through a heavy fog of grizzly distortion and tumbling slide guitars.
File Under: Indie Rock
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Purity Ring: Womb (Crystal Math) LP
In tomorrow… After more than five years, Purity Ring return with their third album, Womb, entirely produced and recorded by the duo of Megan James and Corin Roddick. Womb chronicles a quest for comfort, the search for a resting place in a world where so much is beyond our control. The striking vulnerability of “Rubyinsides” – “If I could, I would let you see through me” – charts a course that’s both intensely personal and deeply connected to those close to us, our kin whether by nature or nurture. As the ground shifts beneath their feet, Womb’s characters help one another face death, despair, and world-altering discovery with resilience and grace. For all the terrain it encompasses, Womb’s quest culminates in “Stardew,” a glittering, transcendent invitation to “just be where you are” – to experience the kind of powerful peace that can only be found by truly coming home. Womb follows Purity Ring’s 2012 internationally-acclaimed and highly influential debut Shrines and 2015’s Another Eternity. On the latter, The New York Times praised the songs as “only a few steps removed from radio hits by singers like Ariana Grande and Ellie Goulding” while Rolling Stone called them “lustrous synth pop plus cavernous hip hop” and The New Yorker lauded the duo for “creat[ing] electro-pop that is as warm and human as it is cold and alien, an intoxicating combination that feels boldly futuristic.”
File Under: Indie Rock
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Redd Kross: Phaseshifter (Third Man) LP
Brothers Jeff and Steve McDonald formed Redd Kross (originally Red Cross) in Hawthorne, CA in the late ‘70s. Rumor has it that the band name was inspired by a prop from the 1973 horror film, The Exorcist. Their first show was opening for Black Flag and they released their debut record the mythical Posh Boy EP in 1980 when they were just 17 and 13 respectively. The Posh Boy EP features Black Flag’s second singer, Ron Reyes, on drums and founding member of Circle Jerks, Greg Heston, on guitar. 1982 saw a line up change and the release of Born Innocent, a high water mark of American punk rock. Containing nods to Jim and Tammy Faye Baker, Linda Blair, Lita Ford and breakfast cereal as well as a killer cover of Charlie Manson’s Cease To Exist. Redd Kross loves pop culture. The brothers have kept Redd Kross going through the decades (and line-up changes), releasing seven studio albums and a slew of EPs and singles. They have also stayed busy with side projects, production gigs and even occasional acting jobs. What are Redd Kross? Punk rock? Psychedelia? Heavy metal? Bubblegum? Power pop? Whatever they are they are 100% Redd Kross, the catchiest of catchy, chock full of hooks, melodies and harmonies, impossible to not smile and sing along…maybe even dance. Their live show just keeps getting better. Redd Kross are one of those rare bands who would be equally at home in a dark punk club and on stage at the Enormodome. 40 years in and hot on the heels of their amazing 2019 album Beyond The Door, Third Man Records reissues two of their beloved 1990s albums, Phaseshifter (1993) and Show World (1997). The brothers are joined by drummer Brian Reitzell, guitarist Eddie Kurdziel (R.I.P.) and keyboardist Gene Fennelly on 1993’s Phaseshifter. Redd Kross leaves the ‘60s and ‘70s pop culture references at the door (well, most of them) and brings their strong melodies, dreamy harmonies, psychedelic punk/bubblegum metal to the front, tearing through 12 new Redd Kross tunes. Every track is a full-on Redd Kross gem, with standouts like “Crazy World,” “Dumb Angel,” “Pay For Love” and “After School Special.”
File Under: Rock
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Redd Kross: Show World (Third Man) LP
Brothers Jeff and Steve McDonald formed Redd Kross (originally Red Cross) in Hawthorne, CA in the late ‘70s. Rumor has it that the band name was inspired by a prop from the 1973 horror film, The Exorcist. Their first show was opening for Black Flag and they released their debut record the mythical Posh Boy EP in 1980 when they were just 17 and 13 respectively. The Posh Boy EP features Black Flag’s second singer, Ron Reyes, on drums and founding member of Circle Jerks, Greg Heston, on guitar. 1982 saw a line up change and the release of Born Innocent, a high water mark of American punk rock. Containing nods to Jim and Tammy Faye Baker, Linda Blair, Lita Ford and breakfast cereal as well as a killer cover of Charlie Manson’s Cease To Exist. Redd Kross loves pop culture. The brothers have kept Redd Kross going through the decades (and line-up changes), releasing seven studio albums and a slew of EPs and singles. They have also stayed busy with side projects, production gigs and even occasional acting jobs. What are Redd Kross? Punk rock? Psychedelia? Heavy metal? Bubblegum? Power pop? Whatever they are they are 100% Redd Kross, the catchiest of catchy, chock full of hooks, melodies and harmonies, impossible to not smile and sing along…maybe even dance. Their live show just keeps getting better. Redd Kross are one of those rare bands who would be equally at home in a dark punk club and on stage at the Enormodome. 40 years in and hot on the heels of their amazing 2019 album Beyond The Door, Third Man Records reissues two of their beloved 1990s albums, Phaseshifter (1993) and Show World (1997). Phaseshifter line-up intact (Gene Fennelly would soon move on, but plays all the keyboards on the recording), Redd Kross came back at us with amps turned up and smiles on their faces on Show World. The album starts off with a spot on cover of The Quick’s L.A. power pop classic, “Pretty Please Me,” and sets the tone for yet another killer album by the thinking person’s good time band. Like all RK albums before and since, this one is all killer, no filler, with special highlights “Stoned,” “Vanity Mirror,” “One Chord Progression” and the absolutely sublime “Follow The Leader.”
File Under: Rock
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Mamman Sani: Early Recordings (Sahel Sounds) LP
Experimentation in early electronic music in the Sahara from the singular Mamman Sani. Dreamy organs and droning melodies reinterpret ancient folk tradition into sublime fantastical soundscape. In 1981 Mamman’s recording session at the National Radio of Niger went on to become his first and only official release (and the content of La Musique Electronique du Niger). During this session, he also recorded material for a second album that was never released. Sahel Sounds compiled some of these lost sessions into the LP – Unreleased Tapes 1981-1984. Most of the songs feature Mamman playing on his Orla accompanied by a BOSS Dr. Rhythm. It also features one of Mamman’s first songs – “Arman Doley,” which talks about the dangers of arranged marriage. A unique track, it’s also one of the first recordings of Mamman singing.
File Under: Africa, Electronic
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Sleaford Mods: All That Glue (Rough Trade) LP
Jason Williamson and Andrew Fearn stepped out of 2019 with a Top 10 album under their belt, their biggest sold out tour to date and the swagger of a band that have never been more relevant, topically challenging and downright entertaining. Sleaford Mods continue their onslaught into 2020 with the release of All That Glue, a collection of songs spanning the last seven years of the band’s career; an array of crowd pleasers, B sides, unheard tracks and rarities for fans and the curious. Over the past few years Sleaford Mods have become one of the most intractable British pop stories. Their music is drawn at a flawless fault-line of anger, tenderness and humor, a triumvirate of raw energy which frequently jostles in the space of a cadence for supremacy.
File Under: Rock
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Moses Sumney: Grae (Jagjaguwar) LP
Moses Sumney evades definition as an act of duty: technicolor videos and monochrome clothes; art rock and black classical; blowing into Fashion Week from a small town in North Carolina; seemingly infinite collaborators, but only one staggering voice. A young life spent betwixt Southern California and Accra, Ghana – not so much rootless as an epyphite, an air plant. The scale is cinematic but the moves are precise deeds of art and stewardship. Sumney’s new, generous album, græ, is an assertion that the undefinable still exists and dwelling in it is an act of resistance. There’s probably a biblical analogy to be made about a person who just happens to be named Moses, who flees the binary, splits a massive body into two pieces, and leads us through the in-between – holy and wholly rebellious. By breaking up græ into two multifaceted, dynamic pieces, Sumney is quite literally creating a “grey” in-between space for listeners to absorb and consider the art. Not strictly singles, not strictly albums, never altogether songs or spoken word segments on their own. It’s neither here nor there. “Neither/Nor,” if you will.
File Under: Soul
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…..Restocks….
Big Thief: U.F.O.F. (4AD) LP
Can: Monster Movie (Spoon) Lp
Destroyer: Have We Met (Merge) LP
Barbara Howard: On the Rise (Colemine) LP
Charlie Megira: Tomorrow’s Gone (Numero) LP
Mdou Moctar: Ilana: The Creator (Sahel) LP
OST: Joker (Water Tower) LP
Orville Peck: Pony (Royal Mountain) LP
Radiohead: A Moon Shaped Pool (XL) LP
Radiohead: Amnesiac (XL) LP
Radiohead: Hail to the Thief (XL) LP
Radiohead: In Rainbows (XL) LP
Radiohead: Pablo Honey (XL) LP
Throbbing Gristle: Mission of Dead Souls (Mute) LP
Throbbing Gristle: Part Two: The Endless Not/TG: Now (Mute) LP
Tops: I Feel Alive (Tops) LP
Tyler the Creator: Goblin (XL) LP
Neil Young: On the Beach (Reprise) LP