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Dan Auerbach produced debut from the "southern gentleman".

"more Laurel Canyon early 70s than Alabama bound country.."

FAB thumbs up !

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March 22 street date. On It's Real, the group's second album, Ex Hex's commitment to larger-than-life riffs and unforgettable hooks remains intact, but the garage-y, post-punk approach that defined their debut album Rips has grown in scale and ambition. What started as a reaction to the blown-out aesthetic of Rips would test the sonic limits of the power trio and lead the band on a quest for a more immersive and three-dimensional sound. Vocal harmonies are layered ten tracks deep, solos shimmer and modulate atop heaving power chords, and the codas linger and stretch toward new frontiers of sound. On first listen, you might think you've unearthed a long-lost LP carved from the space where crunch-minded art rock and glitter-covered hard rock converge, an event horizon at the intersection of towering choruses and swaggering guitars. Ex Hex were already one of America's best guitar bands-but on It's Real, their musical savvy has thrillingly combined with anything-goes curiosity, studio experimentation, and a dedication to refinement, resulting in an album that's ready to be played at maximum volume.

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Merge Records was started in the summer of 1989, by Laura Ballance & Mac McCaughan, the same summer they formed the band Superchunk in Chapel Hill, NC. The first couple releases were cassettes (remember those?), by WWAX and Bricks, followed by the first Superchunk (then known only as "Chunk") 7" single.
The vinyl 7" was the format of choice for the first 3 years of the label, with cash borrowed from friends to finance projects (including singles from Erectus Monotone, Angels of Epistemology, and more Superchunk) and bedrooms serving as Merge HQ until 1992, when the first Merge full-length release, Tossing Seeds by Superchunk, was released on CD, LP, and cassette.
With this release Merge also forged a relationship with Touch and Go Records of Chicago, who have done an admirable job manufacturing and distributing the bulk of Merge's full-length releases since then.
Since '92 Merge moved from one charming-yet-run-down office to another until 2001, when we finally made the move from Chapel Hill down the road to a fine old building all our own in historic Downtown Durham, NC.
In 2004 Merge Records is celebrating its 15th birthday, and while our roster has changed, rotated, permutated and expanded over the last 15 years, the quality we look for in records as fans is still there in the music we put out on Merge.
Thanks for listening!

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February 8 street date. Mavis Staples has been a soul and gospel music legend for more than 50 years. Her work fronting the legendary Staples Singers defined the sound of politically-committed soul and influenced generations of musicians. As a solo artist in her own right, she has helped to define much of what is righteous and soulful in American music. There are few people who can claim to have been per- forming as long as Mavis Staples, let alone to her standards. This album captures her live at the Union Chapel in London with her band performing some of the greatest songs from her musical catalog, while celebrating her 79th birthday. GRAMMY LIFETIME ACHIEVEMENT AWARD WINNER, ROCK & ROLL HALL OF FAMER, KENNEDY CENTER HONOREE, NATIONAL HERITAGE FELLOWSHIP AWARD RECIPIENT- TO NAME A FEW OF HER HONORS. MAVIS HAS BEEN AS A FEATURED VOCALIST THIS YEAR ON SONGS BY HOZIER, ARCADE FIRE, GORILLAZ AND MORE.

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June 21 street date. If you purchased a snake plant, asparagus fern, peace lily, or what have you from Mother Earth on Melrose Avenue in Los Angeles (or bought a Simmons mattress from Sears) in 1976, you also took home "Plantasia", an album recorded especially for plants. Subtitled "warm earth music for plants and the people that love them," it was full of bucolic, charming, stoner-friendly, decidedly unscientific tunes enacted on the new-fangled device called the Moog. Few characters in early electronic music can be both fearless pioneers and cheesy trend-chasers, but Garson embraced both extremes, and has been unheralded as a result. Well before Brian Eno did it, Garson was making discreet music, both the man and his music as inconspicuous as a Chlorophytum comosum.

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February 1 street date. On What Will We Do, Lula Wiles channel infectious energy and bold insight into music that strikes with purpose. The band fosters contradiction, embracing the spirit of traditional American music, yet unflinchingly calling into question the virtues of the culture that produces it— country songs that shine a light on a country’s crimes; love songs about being alone; murder ballads that challenge the standards of morality. Lula Wiles exist in the tense space where tradition and revolution meet, from which their harmonies rise into the air to create new American music. 42 minutes, 40-page booklet with lyrics.

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