What a strange week. It fees like a Monday, but here I am pumping out a news letter. Anyway, some pretty nice slabs in this week, and a load of stuff on the way for next week.
Also, a heads up, I’m taking an extended weekend July 12-14th. No one will be here the 13th or 14th for pick-ups, however I will be here on Saturday July 11th instead. Probably not a BIG deal, but worth making a note in your day planner.
And in case you’re wondering, no, we still aren’t opening up yet, despite the provincial gov’t’s confidence in how things are going. As I’ve been saying we’re in a good groove. Online ordering and pick-ups are working well and keeping everyone safe. We run a small shop. Distancing, and cleaning add an extra layer to the whole thing that I currently just can’t fathom adding to the mix right now. We’re keeping tabs on how things go with Phase 2 rolling out tomorrow and in the coming weeks.
As always, big thanks to everyone who’s been hitting up our webstore and placing orders! It’s getting competitive around 5pm when we post up fresh used stock. If you haven’t hit up the WEBSTORE, MAYBE YOU SHOULD! If you can’t figure out the site, or don’t like to use computers, you can always call the store and we can do an order over the phone. I’ll be at the shop 11-4 week days. Stay safe!
Oh ya… if you don’t follow us on Instagram, WHY NOT?! And now you know.
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..…pick of the week…..
Melodien: Apeiron (Polytechnic Youth) LP
Liverpool’s Harry Sumnall has been creating his beautifully melodic kosmische / kraut themed electronica for several years now; with 3 full lengths previously for both PY and sister label Deep Distance. Each sells out in super quick time and all have attained rave reviews, 6 music plays and so on…. To quote Harry himself on the record: “Apeiron is the boundless infinite- overwhelming, interwoven and repetitive creation and destruction of thought. Drawing inspiration from Peter Michael Hamel, Jonathan Fitoussi, and Suzanne Doucet, ‘Apeiron’ blends minimalism, sequenced primitive percussion, kosmische strings and new age tintinnabulation”. To these ears there is also a distinct tip of the hat to the work of Richard Pinhas solo and with Heldon and Cluster and is strongly recommended to fans of present day heroes like Emeralds and on / off label mates Timothy Fife, Polypores, Panabrite and Umberto.” A lovely record, presented in reverse board sleeves with fabulous sleeve art from Mike McKenney; the record is rich, exploratory and ambitious- and one which isn’t expected to hang around long…
File Under: Electronic, Psych, Kosmische
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…..new arrivals…..
Barishi: Old Smoke (Season of Mist) LP
Old Smoke is clear evidence that Barishi’s dark and melodic sound has evolved from 2016’s Blood From a Lion’s Mouth. The third full-length album from the Vermont metal collective is a sprawling cacophony of earth-shattering grooves and ferocious elegance, redefining contemporary death metal.
File Under: Metal
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Built to Spill: Plays the Songs of Daniel Johnston (Ernest Jenning) LP
In 2017 Built To Spill was invited to play a few shows as Daniel Johnston’s back up band. This is what those rehearsals sounded like. Eleven tracks of Johnston’s fractured pop presented through the eyes of Built To Spill. Recorded in 2018 by Jim Roth, the band here consists as a trio of Dough Martsch, Jason Albertini and Steve Gere. However, Daniel does not play on this record. Daniel Johnston sadly passed away in September of 2019 while this album was in the final stages of production.
File Under: Indie Rock
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Carach Angren: Dance and Laugh Amongst the Rotten (Season of Mist) LP
Dance and Laugh Amongst the Rotten, the epic 2017 album from horror metal masters Carach Angren, revolves around the haunting of a young girl who has an unhealthy fixation with a Ouija board. On Dance and Laugh Amongst the Rotten, Carach Angren push their unashamedly theatrical style of metal to intense new heights, blending eerie and extreme black metal with beautifully composed string sections and regal orchestral arrangements. Carach Angren are in their prime here, and Dance and Laugh Amongst the Rotten is a next-level metal album for the ages!
File Under: Metal
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Cloak: To Venomous Depths (Season of Mist) LP
Cloak captured the magic, mystique, and mystery of classic heavy metal with their long-awaited 2017 debut To Venomous Depths. Drawing from metal’s most impactful sub genre’s, the quartet distill their collective influences into an enthralling full-album experience that honors the spirit of the early classics while standing firmly in the now. Captivating tracks like “Beyond the Veil,” “Deep Red,” “Forever Burned” and the title cut are riveted with somber harmonies, driving rhythms, and dramatic builds in momentum and suspense. Cloak’s bold and blackened metal teems with dark energy, and To Venomous Depths is a testament to the genre’s primal power and magic.
File Under: Metal
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Coriky: s/t (Dischord) LP
Formed in 2015 but not playing their first show until 2018, Washington, D.C. punk outfit Coriky features Ian MacKaye (Minor Threat, Fugazi) on guitar/vocals, Joe Lally (Fugazi, Ataxia, The Messthetics) on bass/vocals and Amy Farina (The Evens) on drums/vocals. “Every band name has been taken, and they all have lawyers,” MacKaye said. Their Dischord Records self-titled debut album was recorded with the great Don Zientara (Minor Threat, Fugazi, Bad Brains) at Inner Ear Studios in 2019 and includes the debut single, “Clean Kill” – which DCist says is, “decidedly more laid back than Fugazi’s high-octane, breakneck punk…”
File Under: Punk, Fugazi
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Craft: White Noise and Black Metal (Season of Mist) LP
In 2018 Craft returned to strike terror once again with their long-awaited album White Noise and Black Metal. Serving as their first new record in over seven years, White Noise and Black Metal sees the notorious and highly influential Swedish black metal band reclaiming their throne as one of the most intimidating and caustic entities in the underground. A cold and calculated attack on hope and the light, Craft spew nihilism and negativity in its purest forms. White Noise and Black Metal is a true manifesto of hostility, and a testament to the genre’s most elite and uncompromising band!
File Under: Metal
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The Devonns: s/t
(Record Kick) LP
Straight from the streets of Chicago, IL, new soul outfit The Devonns (pronounced “De vaughns”) are the latest addition to the Record Kicks’ family, whose self-titled debut is an assortment of influences taking us back to the heyday of soul. The band started in 2016 after multi-instrumentalist and songwriter Mathew Ajjarapu dropped out of med school and found himself unemployed and drifting. Listening to music constantly at the time, he found inspiration to put a band together and create his own music. Pairing up with some of the best musicians Chicago has to offer, he founded The Devonns: the rhythm duties are entrusted to Khalyle Hagood (bass), Ari Lindo (guitar) and Khori Wilson (drums). The result is an album filled with lavish arrangements and catchy melodies which take us on a nostalgic musical journey inspired by chic 70s soul, yet the band doesn’t hesitate to add their own unique and elegant contemporary stamp to the record either.
File Under: Soul
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Electric Prunes: Release of an Oath
(Real Gone) LP
Starting with their 1967 self-titled release featuring “I Had Too Much to Dream (Last Night),” The Electric Prunes made four fantastic albums for the Reprise label in the space of two years, but by the time they made Release of an Oath, the last of the four, not a single member of the original band was left. But two key individuals were still in the fold. One was Dave Hassinger, engineer for The Rolling Stones, Jefferson Airplane, Grateful Dead and other superstar groups of the ‘60s, who retained the rights to the Electric Prunes name and served as producer of the album. The other was legendary composer and arranger David Axelrod. Axelrod had already written and arranged the Prunes album Mass in F Minor, the complexity of which had forced the band’s original members to quit in frustration. Now, having composed a psychedelic Catholic mass, Axelrod turned his attention to the Old Testament and specifically “The Kol Nidre,” the prayer that begins the Yom Kippur service in the Jewish faith. Once again, the orchestration proved too much for the then-current edition of the band (except for vocalist Dick Whetstone), so Axelrod brought in The Wrecking Crew in the persons of guitarists Howard Roberts and Lou Morrell, bassist Carol Kaye, keyboardist Don Randi, and drummer Earl Palmer. Armed with that formidable line-up, Axelrod brought his trademark blend of psychedelic rock, jazzy orchestration and avant-garde touches to full fruition, creating an album that sounds fresh and cutting-edge over 50 years later. Now, for its first vinyl reissue, Real Gone Music presents this one-of-a-kind record in a maroon with white splatter vinyl pressing that’s every bit as psychedelic as the music it contains. If you know and love this album like we do, you’ll love this edition, and if you haven’t heard it, now is the time!
File Under: Psych
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Enslaved: Bloodhemn (Osmose) LP
Norway’s iconic Enslaved reign supreme as one of the most dependable components in extreme metals indestructible backbone. The group’s debut Vikingligr Veldi was issued in the spring of 1994, while their classic second album Frost came hot on its heels in the winter of the same year. Third album Eld (1997) is often considered to be the beginning of the band’s shift towards progressive Viking metal. However, Enslaved took yet another sonic detour on 1998’s more aggressive sounding Blodhemn (“vengeance in blood”) which was produced by the esteemed Peter Tägtgren and found the band implementing thrash metal influences with aplomb. Gatefold colored 180g vinyl LP.
File Under: Metal
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Greg Foat: Symphonie Pacifique (Strut) LP
Greg Foat has become a versatile mainstay in UK jazz through an acclaimed series of albums on Jazzman and Athens Of The North, moving from soul-jazz workouts to library music to cinematic, haunting compositions and pastoral acid folk. Symphonie Pacifique goes expansive and widescreen, building a lush soundscape using choral textures, harp and tubular bells. “It has been a hallmark of my previous albums to use choral voices and tubular bells to sound more like chordal instruments,” explains Foat. “I used pedal steel for the first time on these tracks.” All are showcased on the atmospheric “After The Storm.” “This piece was completely improvised during our last day of studio time,” continues Foat. “The assistant engineer had set up an arpeggio on the synthesizer as a metronome; the harp and guitar created an ostinato, myself and others soloed over it and we later added choir and strings. Eventually, we took the arpeggio off to leave a calm, serene piece of music.” Upping the tempo, Foat brings in sensual groove-based tracks like the undulating “Anticipation,” the album title track and Groove Merchant-channelling “Nikinakinu.” “This was one for my stepson Nicky,” explains Foat. “I worked up this idea with him and my Zimbabwean drummer friend Sam Chagumachinyi so it has a slightly African feel to it and uses pentatonic scales.” Other tracks include the languid, simmering “Island Life” and a moving tribute to KPM library legend Duncan Lamont on the reflective “Lament For Lamont.” “Duncan was one of the unsung heroes of British jazz. He played with Sinatra, composed some incredible library music and his 1970 album ‘Best Of The Bossa Novas’ was one of the biggest selling UK jazz albums of all time. I recorded with him for my album ‘The Mage’ a few years ago and he was genuinely the nicest guy I have ever played with. He was looking forward to working on this album but sadly passed away a couple of months before the sessions, so we really wanted to record this tribute to him.” The album is a truly international collaboration, recorded analogue and produced by Greg Foat at London’s Fish Factory studios with strings recorded in Edinburgh and choir in Gothenburg. The album was mixed by Mattias Glava at Kungsten Studios in Gothenburg. Cover artwork is based on a painting by early 20th Century Algerian / Parisian artist Henry Valensi. Symphonie Pacifique marks another major step forward in Foat’s evolution as one of the UK’s leading jazz pianists and composers.
File Under: Jazz
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Holy Hive: Float Back to You (Big Crown) LP
Homer Steinweiss, the Brooklyn based soul/funk drummer, always had a soft spot for folk music. Paul Spring, a young idealist folk singer traveling the country with his guitar, always had a beautiful falsetto in his back pocket. A family introduction would lead to Homer producing a few solo records of Paul’s, which would eventually lead to the creation of Holy Hive. The two enlisted Joe Harrison on bass and started out recording their first tunes as a group. A tour with soul legend Lee Fields would turn out to have an unexpected effect on their sound as they played their material to crowds of soul fanatics looking to dance. It was this realization that forced the next step in their evolution and gave birth to a sound unique to Holy Hive, a sound that walks a line so perfectly it necessitated a new genre, folk soul. Homer has been drumming professionally since 2000 and has provided the back beat to records by Amy Winehouse, Bruno Mars, The Jonas Brothers, and Lady Gaga to name a few. He has toured the world over with soul acts like Sharon Jones & The Dap Kings and The Arcs. With all of that under his belt, Holy Hive is the first band that is truly his own and you can hear that it is close to his heart. Paul is from a small town in Minnesota where he spent his formative years studying Ancient Greek mythology and practicing classical guitar. He toured the states for years with only the company of his guitar, playing solo shows to make ends meet and occasional library gigs promoting his self released children’s record, Home Of Song. Listening to their debut album, their different experiences and influences have all shown up. From the heavy downbeat of the lead single “Broom” to their intimate cover of Honeybus’ “Be Thou By My Side,” Float Back To You showcases their songwriting prowess as well as their impeccable musicianship. Spring’s fondness for ancient mythology shows up in a few places on the album as well adding another level to their work. They adapt the Greek poet Sappho’s “Fragment 31” to music on “Embers To Ash” and completely rework the Irish folk tune “Red Is The Rose” into a modern day two stepper. Another standout track is the already classic “Oh I Miss Her So,” which first showed up on their 2018 Harping EP and features accomplished harpist Mary Lattimore and trumpet by Dave Guy of The Roots.
File Under: Funk, Soul
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Jason Isbell & the 400 Unit: Reunions
(Southeastern) LP
Grammy Award-winning singer, songwriter and musician Jason Isbell and his band the 400 Unit return with the highly anticipated new album, Reunions. Produced by Grammy Award-winning producer Dave Cobb and recorded at Nashville’s historic RCA Studio A, the album features 10 new songs written by Isbell including the jangly call to action single, Be Afraid.” Reunions is Isbell’s seventh full-length studio album and the fourth released with his band, the 400 Unit: Derry deBorja (piano, keyboard, organ, omnichord), Chad Gamble (drums, tambourine), Jimbo Hart (bass), Amanda Shires (fiddle) and Sadler Vaden (acoustic guitar, electric guitar). The record also includes background vocals from special guests David Crosby (Crosby, Stills & Nash, the Byrds) and Jay Buchanan (Rival Sons). Of the release, Isbell shares, “There are a lot of ghosts on this album. Sometimes the songs are about the ghosts of people who aren’t around anymore, but they’re also about who I used to be, the ghost of myself. I found myself writing songs that I wanted to write fifteen years ago, but in those days, I hadn’t written enough songs to know how to do it yet. Just now have I been able to pull it off to my own satisfaction. In that sense it’s a reunion with the me I was back then.”
File Under: Country
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Kaytranada: Bubba (RCA) LP
Bubba is Haitian-born, Canadian artist/producer Louis Kevin Celestin aka Kaytranada’s highly anticipated second studio album and follow-up to his breakout 2016 debut 2016 99.9% which won the Polaris Music Prize and Juno Award for Electronic Album of the Year. Ushered in by the percolating pop-ready lead single “10%” with young R&B singer Kali Uchis, Bubba is an unapologetic dance album, more more low-key than its predecessor, yet consistently enthralling. Further guest appearances on the album come courtesy of Pharrell Williams, Tinashe, Estelle, GoldLink, Mick Jenkins, VanJess, Charlotte Day Wilson and Teedra Moses. “Bubba sounds like the hazy, dream-like moments before last call; the club is packed and everyone is transfixed in a sort of effortless, collective rhythm. Bubba isn’t concerned with the climax – that part of the night has come and gone. This album, instead, is all about riding out the high” (NPR).
File Under: Hip Hop
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Corb Lund: Agricultural Tragic (Warner) LP
Corb Lund embraces his rich and rustic western heritage with a style that’s unique, honest and resolute, while touching on a range of cowboy themes – from rough-and-tumble tales of lawless frontier saloons, to the somber realities of running a modern family ranch. As a descendant of many generations of rodeo contestants and ranchers, he sings about a life that he and his ancestors have lived themselves, paired with his quick-witted, wry observations of today’s world. As a result of his heritage and the ten years he spent touring the world with his indie rock band, Corb’s writing resonates emphatically with rural and urban audiences alike. It’s a classic sound with a twist, something of a rarity these days, but one that evokes the spirit of the American West, past and present. Lund’s eleventh studio album, Agricultural Tragic, finally puts a name to the genre he’s been embodying all of these years.
File Under: Country
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Mayhem: De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas (Deathlike Silence) BOX
«De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas» is often considered to be the most important Black Metal album of all time. The legendary Pytten can be quoted on saying “it was the next big thing after Grieg”, and we couldn’t agree more. The album was released on Euronymous label “Deathlike Silence Productions” May 24th 1994, marked as Anti-Mosh 006. We are proud to honour this timeless album with the release of the 25th Anniversary Box Set with the help and support by long time Mayhem friend Finn Håkon Rødland. The Iconic Album has been remastered for vinyl from the original DAT tapes by Solslottet Studio, with guidance from Pytten himself and approved by Hellhammer. The cover art and packaging will for the first time be presented as Hellhammer originally envisioned it back in 93/94, including also the lyric scroll booklet. Also included are four additional vinyls with stunning artwork consisting of two different rehearsal sessions in Oslo from February and May 1992, taken directly from tapes Euronymous made, the instrumental rough mix from Grieghallen June 1992, and the rough mix with vocals from the tape Attila got after the vocal recordings in April/May 1993. The Box Set will include a 96 page book with a series of in depth interviews casting Light and Darkness on the recording process and the glory days of Mayhem making history in the early 90’s, such as Pytten, Hellhammer, Attila, Necrobutcher, Nocturno Culto of Darkthrone, Bård `Faust” Eithun of Emperor, Shagrath of Dimmu Borgir, Dr. Best of Mysticum, Steinar “Sverd” Johnsen of Mortem/Arcturus, Erik Danielsson of Watain, Tore Bratseth of Old Funeral, Ivar and Grutle of Enslaved, HBM Majesty of Mare/Vemod/Dark Sonority, Nergal of Behemoth, Silenoz of Dimmu Borgir and Jørgen Lid Widing (lyric scrolls). Liner notes by Finn Håkon Rødland, Metalion, Iver Sandøy of Solslottet studio, and Maniac. The Book will include the original handwritten lyrics by Dead and Snorre, plus never before seen photos from the DMDS photo session, presented here for the very first time. The book will also give detailed insight into the classic cover art of Nidarosdomen. THE PAST IS ALIVE
File Under: Metal
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Jason Molina: Live At La Chapelle
(Secretly Canadian) LP
On a rare day off during Magnolia Electric Co.’s 2005 European tour, a pair of fans in the south of France convinced Jason Molina to abandon the promise of leisure to play a show in an old church in Toulouse. Now, fifteen years later, the result is making its way into the world for the first time via Live at La Chapelle, an 11-track album of Molina’s performance at the former church squatted and converted into a hub for the arts. Recorded with just a static microphone and a minidisc on June 7th, 2005, in front of a reverent crowd of 200, Live at La Chapelle is aglow with the hushed murmurs and whispers of an engrossed audience, of Molina’s stripped-back performance reverberating to the rafters. The neighbors’ penchant for calling the police with noise complaints meant acoustic shows only, so Molina split the difference and came with his electric guitar, choirboy voice, and Magnolia Electric Co. member Michael Kapinus’ occasionally guesting on trumpet. The sparse record finally made its way Secretly Canadian in 2014, and six years later, as part of the process of unearthing work from the extensive Molina archive, Live at La Chapelle will finally be widely heard. Here, Molina remarks some of his canonical work as well as the more obscure, deeper cuts in the special environment of La Chapelle. Nowhere better to hear a solo performance of Jason Molina’s catalog than in a house of worship, a cavernous structure with ceilings nearly high enough to contain the impossible reach a holy, lonesome voice.
File Under: Folk, Indie Rock, SSW
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Okkultokrati: La Ilden Lyse (Southern Lord) LP
Okkultokrati makes it their business to tear apart the rock ‘n’ roll guidebook and mash it in to vicious combat music for fans of punk, d-beat, black metal and generally anyone with a penchant for unsavory anthems delivered with inimitable attitude. They have earned a ferocious reputation for siphoning elements of disparate genres in to their toxic, distorted brew. Once the sheer slamming force of their tunes has sunk in, the iconoclastic quintet has a tendency to pull the rug from under the whole contraption, sending their tracks tumbling in to experimental and industrial forays that further their capacity to ensnare the listener in their bear trap. Okkultokrati returns on Southern Lord with La Ilden Lyse, the follow-up to 2016’s Raspberry Dawn.
File Under: Metal
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Rolling Blackouts Coastal Fever: Sideways to New Italy (Sub Pop) LP
Aussie rock/pop outfit Rolling Blackouts Coastal Fever’s second record Sideways to New Italy sees the band interrogate their individual pasts and the places that inform them. In clicking the scattered pieces back into place, they have crafted for themselves a new totem of home to carry with them no matter where they end up. Lead by singer-songwriter-guitarists Tom Russo, Joe White, Fran Keaney, and rounded out by bassist Joe Russo and drummer Marcel Tussie, the band began grasping for something reliable after emerging from relentlessly touring their critically regarded debut Hope Downs. Rather than dwell in the displacement, Keaney was determined to channel how he was feeling into something optimistic. The album is inspired by New Italy – a village near New South Wales’s Northern Rivers – the area Tussie is from. A blink-and-you’ll-miss-it pit-stop of a place with fewer than 200 residents, it was founded by Venetian immigrants in the late-1800s and now serves as something of a living monument to Italians’ contribution to Australia, with replica Roman statues dotted like souvenirs on the otherwise rural landscape. “I wanted to write songs that I could use as some sort of bedrock of hopefulness to stand on, something to be proud of,” says Keaney. “A lot of the songs on the new record are reaching forward and trying to imagine an idyll of home and love.” This is the bulk of Sideways to New Italy, which boasts love songs, and familiar voices and characters, grounding the band’s stories in their personal histories. “We tried to make these little nods to our friends and loved ones, to stay loyal to our old selves,” Russo adds. There’s something comforting, too, in knowing the next time they’re buffeted from stage to stage around the world, they’ll be taking the voices of their loved ones with them, following cues from their neighbors and ancestors and anyone else who responded to their newfound displacement by crafting a utopia in their own backyard.
File Under: Rock
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Sex Swing: Type II (Rocket) LP
In the realms of heavy amplification and monstrous riffage, one crucial ingredient can make the difference between an outfit doggedly hammering away at their chosen art and another whose graft is alchemically transformed into something of compelling fury and primal satisfaction. That ingredient is malevolence, pure and simple; the sense that something authentically vicious and debauched is going on at the root of the racket assaulting the sensibilities. Needless to say, Sex Swing – the London-based group whose mercurial and uncompromising onslaught now sees its second iteration to the wider world – have no shortage of this elixir. Type II was recorded by Martin Ruffin at Hastings’ Savage Studios and mixed at Bear Bites Horse by Wayne Adams. This mighty monument of swagger and malice also sees fit to add a certain amount of glitter to the trademark grit this time around. Just as the artwork from long-term collaborator Alex Bunn boasts a luminous sheen absent from the unsettling abjection of the sleeve of their 2016 debut on The Quietus Phonographic Corporation, so the rolling grooves and mantric hypnosis here boast a new-found structure and a feline sleekness fresh and unusual for this pugilistic outfit, just as Dan Chandler’s brooding presence disguises a twisted lyricism. Nonetheless, this remains a band fundamentally obsessed with the expression of decadence and wrongdoing through the mediums of repetition and overloaded frequencies. Opener “The Passover” hits like hammer to skull right from the off, a relative moment of calm soon being broken by an ungodly squall of horror from Webster’s sax, before a fearsome and naggingly catchy debacle ensues akin to Suicide grappling with downers in dancefloor rapture. Elsewhere, rock abjection is filtered notably through an electronic prism, as krautrock grace and garage brawn engage in a strangely beguiling wrestling match to the death – “Valentine’s Day At The Gym” is this vision at its apotheosis, rising like a Birthday Party-esque phoenix from the ashes of bad decisions and late nights – a tapestry of croon and warped groove that gathers momentum and power on a pathway to a particularly handsome kind of oblivion. Type II is more than the mere machinations of a rock band – it’s a howl of malfunction rendered terrifyingly visceral. It’s the lightning flash and unearthly roar of the primeval battle between Godzilla and Mechagodzilla that provokes awe and disquiet in the realm of fantasy, it’s the haunted clangor of the faulty air conditioning unit that lurks in the anonymous office building yet lends it eerie ambience. It’s man vs machine where discord becomes harmony, and it’s a fearsomely invigorating spectacle to behold.
File Under: Punk
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Soft Plastics: 5 Dreams (Paper Bag) LP
Soft Plastics’ incredibly textured and captivating debut album, 5 Dreams is the latest release from Carey Mercer, former leader of celebrated West coast group Frog Eyes. Written by Mercer in the fall and winter of 2018-2019, mere months after the dissolution of Frog Eyes, the influences on 5 Dreams are post-punk, new wave, mariachi, new-wave mariachi, dub, hip hop, and goth-rock, taking cues and according gobs of respect to Blixa Bargeld, Ryuichi Sakamoto, Talk Talk, Happy Mondays – all rung through the grime of a northern port city. Mercer says: “The songs aren’t tied to a cohesive theme, but they do exist in a land that is deeply wet, dark, flooded – occasionally a gilded sun-beam comes out of nowhere and the song just stops and stares in bloody awe at what we are given, what we might see.”
File Under: Indie Rock, Frog Eyes
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Tengger: Nomad (Beyond Beyond is Beyond) LP
Finding the interconnective tissue between Neu, Popul Vuh, the vocal sculptures of Julianna Barwick, and the sunset strains of Harmonia, TENGGER summons the serene sweep of trickling waters and the natural movement of molecules…and the duo taps the pulse of plasma rippling through the body and set it aloft on their own stretches of synth.
File Under: Psych
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Various: Black Riot – Early Jungle, Rave and Hardcore (Soul Jazz) LP
Soul Jazz Records’ Black Riot: Early Jungle, Rave and Hardcore is a brand new collection of heavyweight ragga influenced hardcore jungle tracks from the early 1990s. Dark and heavy. Featuring classic and seminal tracks from the likes of Levictus and Krome & Time alongside a host of rare and little-known ragga and junglist hardcore tunes, featuring the likes of Babylon Timewarp’s hypnotic “Durban Poison,” Rhythm For Reasons’ mad “The Smokers Rhythm,” The Freaky rave-y breakbeat sound of “Time and Age,” Trip One’s super dark “Snowball” and loads more. Expect super heavy basslines, equally heavy twisted ‘Amen’ drum loops, even heavier ragga vocals. Original jungle style – roots and culture – from the earliest days of drum and bass.
File Under: Electronic, Jungle
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Various: Louis Wayne Moody High (Numero) LP
The lost yearbook from Louis Wayne Moody High’s graduating class of 1967, chronicling the peaks and valleys of teenage angst, lost loves, and life after summer vacation. Fourteen moody melodies of surf kings, guitar Bettys, talent show psychers, and pre-S.D.S. soft poppers. Walls of jangly guitars, maudlin organs, and melancholy harmonies deliver the bummer to ring in the summer. A replica of the Louis Wayne Moody High class of 1967 yearbook houses the 150 gram LP. Inside the bound leatherette volume is a murder mystery, told through the scribblings of Moody High’s student body. What happened to Cheryl? Only you can help solve.
File Under: Psych, Pop
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…..Restocks….
Mulatu Astatke & The Heliocentrics: Inspiration Information (Strut) LP
David Bowie: Blackstar (Columbia) LP
Avishai Cohen: Big Vicious (ECM) LP
Sam Cooke: Night Beat (Music on Vinyl) LP
Bill Evans: Interplay (OJC) LP
Nils Frahm: All Encores (Erased Tapes) LP
Barbara Howard: On the Rise (Rewind/Colemine) LP
Roland S. Howard: Teenage Snuff Film (Fat Possum) LP
James Hunter Six: Nick of Time (Daptone) LP
King Crimson: Starless and Bible Black (Pangyric) LP
Les Filles de Illighadad: s/t (Sahel) LP
Lightning Bolt: Sonic Citadel (Thrill Jockey) LP
Lightning Bolt: Wonderful Rainbow (Thrill Jockey) LP
Tommy McGee: I’m a Stranger (Numero) LP
Jon McKiel: Bobby Joe Hope (You’ve Changed) LP
Charlie Megira: Tomorrow’s Gone (Numero) LP
Lee Morgan: The Cooker (Tone Poet) (Blue Note) LP
Perfume Genius: Set My Heart on Fire Immediately (Matador) LP
Redd Kross: Show World (Third Man) LP
Daniel Romano: Modern Pressure (You’ve Changed) LP
Daniel Romano: OKAY WOW (You’ve Changed) LP
Sturgill Simpson: Metamodern Sounds in Country Music (Thirty Tigers) LP
Sunn o))): Domkirke (Southern Lord) LP
Sunn o))): White 1 (Southern Lord) LP
Sunn o))): White 2 (Southern Lord) LP
Talking Heads: More Songs About Buildings and Food (Rhino) LP
Matthew Tavares & Whitty (Badbadnotgood): Visions (Mr. Bongo) LP
Tool: Lateralus (Sony) LP
Wooden Shjips: V (Thrill Jockey) LP
Robert Wyatt: Rock Bottom (Domino) LP
Robert Wyatt: Shleep (Domino) LP
Young Marble Giants: Colossal Youth (Domino) LP
Various: Brazil Classics 1: Beleza Tropical (Luaka Bop) LP
Various: Brazil Classics 2: O Samba (Luaka Bop) LP
Various: Brazil Classics 3: Forro Etc. (Luaka Bop) LP
Various: New Orleans Funk (Soul Jazz) LP
Various: New Orleans Funk 2 (Soul Jazz) LP
Various: Warfaring Strangers: Darkscorch Canticles (Numero) LP