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A. Savage [Several Songs About Fire (Andrew Savage Parquet Courts)] October 6 street date. "I imagine myself playing these songs in a small club that is slowly burning", says A. Savage of his second solo record, "Several Songs About Fire". After more than a decade in New York, the co-frontman of Parquet Courts has left the city, marking his exit with a masterpiece of maturity and a worthy corollary to his first solo venture, 2017's "Thawing Dawn". "Fire is something you have to escape from. This album is a burning building, and these songs are things I'd leave behind to save myself". Produced by John Parish (PJ Harvey, Dry Cleaning) in just ten days in Bristol and studded by the support of Cate Le Bon and Jack Cooper (Modern Nature, Ultimate Painting) as well as saxophonist Euan Hinshelwood (Cate Le Bon), drummer Dylan Hadley (White Fence), and violinist Magdalena McLean (caroline). Influenced by Siybille Baier and Townes Van Zandt, A. Savage joins a canon of songwriters constantly dilating aperture and perspective. |
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Carpenter, John/Cody Carpenter/Daniel Davies [Anthology II (Movie Themes 1976-1988) (black vinyl)] October 6 street date. John Carpenter is not only a celebrated filmmaker but also a musical maestro whose soundtracks have become synonymous with the genres of horror, suspense, and science fiction. His innate talent for composition and his deep understanding of how music can elevate storytelling have left an indelible mark on the world of cinema, and a haunting presence in people's record collections. "Anthology II" continues the celebration of his compositional genius via an excellently sequenced collection of some of his most iconic pieces of music from his extensive filmography, all newly recorded with his musical collaborators Daniel Davies and Cody Carpenter. With each haunting note and pulsating beat, Carpenter's soundtracks continue to resonate with audiences, forever etching his name in the annals of film music history. |
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Chieftones [The New Smooth And Different Sound (black vinyl)] October 13 street date. Billed as "Canada's All Indian Band", the Tsimshian Nation garage band The Chieftones stormed the U.S. in the mid-1960s with their own brand of native rock 'n' roll. Led by guitarists Billy Thunderkloud and Albert Canadien, the band was filled out with Jack Wolf on lead guitar, Barry Clifford on bass, and Richard Douse on drums. Their repertoire was a heady mix of guitar instrumentals; Chet Atkins, Les Paul, Duane Eddy, and Brazil's Los Indios Tabajaras, but through the lens of the American sock hop. After a brief stint at Edmonton's Alberta College, The Chieftones hit the road, eventually setting up a home base in Sheboygan, Wisconsin, where they reportedly worked as ranch hands in between tours. More Buddy Holly than Link Wray, "The New Smooth And Different Sound" compiles their debut single for Wisconsin's lauded Cuca label and adds a dozen previously unissued demos from their brief time in the Driftless region. |
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Citizen [Calling The Dogs (brown vinyl)] October 6 street date. With the ability to excel in both quiet ballads and distorted rock anthems, Citizen has an incredible knack for channeling raw emotion and energy into singalong songs. On "Calling The Dogs", the band exemplifies that passionate songwriting and styling while stripping back to what they do best: guitar-driven rock 'n' roll. Picking up labels ranging from post-hardcore to shoegaze over the years, it's reductive to try to categorize Citizen as anything other than one of the best rock bands around today. Evolving from teenagers playing local dives to a vibrant band capable of selling out theaters and hitting major festivals around the world, vocalist Mat Kerekes, guitarist Nick Hamm and bassist Eric Hamm have earned their reputation as both tremendous songwriters and a must-see live act - and they do both better than ever on "Calling The Dogs". |
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Dutcher, Jeremy [Motewolonuwok] October 6 street date. Five years after winning the Polaris Music Prize with his ground-breaking debut, Jeremy Dutcher has returned with a radiant exploration of contemporary Indigeneity and his place within it. "Motewolonuwok" extends beyond anything the musician has made before, encompassing traditional song, starlit ballads and staggering orchestrations. "With my first record, the concept was so clear, so complete", Dutcher says. "This time, I wanted [to make an LP] that wasn’t always so sure of itself". The follow-up is more intimate, more personal, inspired by his growing understanding of the "middle space" of being Two Spirit - Indigenous and queer. In the Wolasotqey language, Two Spirit people are called "motewolonuwok" - "the people of great spiritual power" - an identity filled with strength and knowledge, which is not dogged by shame. "Motewolonuwok" features Wolastoqey traditionals, poetry from by the Cherokee poet Qwo-li Driskill, but also Dutcher's first songs written in English. This is an acknowledgment of his father's tongue, and also a way of singing "directly to the newcomer [settler]" in their own language, to tell his community's stories of grief, resilience and emergence. |
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Fils-Aimé, Dominique [Our Roots Run Deep (180g)] September 22 street date. There is a cinematic quality to “Our Roots Run Deep”. Dominique Fils-Aimé frames her latest album with a loose, dreamlike narrative structure that tells a story of growth. The first track sets the stage with the phrase: “our roots run deep underground”. Along the way, there are a myriad of human challenges and forms of interference. An underlying life force presses on. The final track closes with the lyric: “let me climb all the way to the sun”. Dominique provides a spaciousness in her work by creating her own musical language. She layers a variety of catchy, wordless vocal licks that feel like mantras or prayers—repeating, soothing the nervous system, and distinguishing her sound. These patterns don’t have any literary definitions attached to them so they escape the clutches of our interpreting minds. The result is a sonic space where the listener can feel and dream alongside innovative melodic structures. “Our Roots Run Deep” is an album that can be played from start to finish. Songs move in organic sequence—flowing leisurely, falling dramatically and shaping the environment. This style of continuity allows the audience time and space to sink into Dominique’s world on a trip of their own. "Our Roots Run Deep" made CBC's list of "Canadian albums we can't wait to hear in 2023" |
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Flynn, Ethan P. [Abandon All Hope] October 6 street date. Yorkshire-born, London-based singer, songwriter, and producer Ethan P. Flynn presents his debut album, "Abandon All Hope". Pouring twenty-four years worth of experience into 8 eclectic tracks, Flynn recalls 1970s greats like Randy Newman and Harry Nilsson, while exploring feelings of longing and losing power to hope in situations of relationships, love, navigating anxiety, and the coming of age in the 21st century. "Abandon All Hope" is the culmination of an intensely fruitful period of personal creativity that has seen the young artist collaborate with a host of familiar names including David Byrne, FKA Twigs, Jockstrap, and Vegyn. 44 minutes long, 22 minutes on each side (intentionally to be the traditional length of a 12" LP), recorded at Narcissus Studios in 12 days, the album is bound together by a unifying theme; an album in the old-fashioned sense. |
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Gou, Peggy [(It Goes Like) Nanana (12"EP)] September 29 street date. Artist, producer, DJ and cultural icon Peggy Gou returns with her first new music in nearly two years. Inspired by the eclectic house and pop classics that defined the Balearic sound, alongside 1990s and 2000s dance anthems and Peggy's own inimitable contemporary club production, "(It Goes Like) Nanana" has been the sound of the summer, a viral hit soundtracking sunsets and sunrises the world over. This 12" includes the extended edit of the club hit, as well as the brand new "Nanadub". |
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Hansard, Glen [All That Was East Is West Of Me Now] October 20 street date. Not many heroes of indie folk have won an Oscar or created the basis of a successful stage musical, but Glen Hansard is an artist who can wear both of those feathers in his cap. As a member of The Frames and The Swell Season, Hansard won acclaim for his literate, intelligent, and passionate songwriting and his nuanced vocals, and he's gone on to win similar accolades as a solo artist. Hansard first gained an audience for the limber but emphatic indie rock he created as a member of The Frames, then gained international fame with fellow singer and songwriter Markéta Irglová in the duo The Swell Season, whose emotionally open, primarily acoustic indie folk became the centerpiece of the award-winning independent romantic drama "Once". Hansard now presents "All That Was East Is West Of Me Now", his first solo album in 5 years. The album demonstrates the Oscar-winning singer-songwriter's unique ability to blend Irish folk with modern rock and the punch of his storied live shows, of which The Guardian says, "Hansard's powerful voice, whether raw with passion or tender with regret, shines above arrangements bursting with swagger". |
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Ingram, Christone Kingfish [Live In London (2LP)] October 13 street date. Recorded in June of 2023 in front of a rabid crowd at The Garage in London, "Live In London" is a white hot testament to the exhilarating live Kingfish experience. Christone is in masterful control of the proceedings, whether blasting out molten, rock-infused riffs or picking the sweetest single notes this side of heaven. At 16 songs and 109 minutes long, it's a motherlode of blues magic, and the set list is a fan's dream show, including "Outside Of This Town", "662", "Another Life Goes By", and a new, previously unrecorded song, "Midnight Heat". Since Kingfish burst on the scene in 2019, fans have been clamoring for an album that showcases the dizzying heights Kingfish reaches when he gets a chance to stretch out on stage. "Live In London" is that album. |
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Krug, Spencer [I Just Drew This Knife] October 13 street date. One night, at some unrelated recording session, years ago already, handsome young Eli Browning whips out his phone to show old Jordan Koop and even older Spencer Krug the instrumental recordings he's made over the pandemic, saying that now that they're finished, he doesn't know what to do with them. The music coming from the phone is dark and sparse, but also slick; tight enough to feel like some kind of twisted pop. At home, in his studio (lair), old Krug chops up one of young Browning's works, rearranges the parts to suit his own freakish needs, then squawks out an ill-conceived incantation overtop. He sends the whole mess to creaky Koop, who, in turn, from within his own dank cave of gadgets and oddities, skronks onto the franken-song his eccentric idea of what a guitar melody might be. They deliver the concoction back to young Browning, its progenitor, and cringe in wait for his gen z insults that they won't understand, but he is unexpectedly pleased. The three unlikely collaborators then decide they will make an album this way, repurposing Browning's perfectly fine and lovely instrumental tracks into "better" "songs" by unnaturally forcing them into pop structure-shaped holes, then adding lyrical phrases of vague meaning and forgivingly distorted guitar. |
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La Force [XO Skeleton] September 29 street date. "XO SKELETON" is the supple, steady, uncanny new album by La Force: a mixture of haunted pop and hot-blooded R&B that glistens at the meeting-point between life, death and love. The finality of death? The protection that another person's love can or cannot bestow? These are body questions, matters of breath and flesh and pulse, which is the stuff at the centre of all of La Force's music, beginning on her 2018 debut and also outward, into Ariel Engle's electrifying work with Broken Social Scene, Big Red Machine, Efrim Menuck, Safia Nolin, and AroarA, her duo with her husband, Andrew Whiteman. La Force's voice is stunning - somehow luscious and also wise - but so is her point of view - steady, sensitive, physical. "XO SKELETON" is a kind of reckoning: a coming-to-terms with the oblivion that bookends a life, but also the "gooey centre" of love, loss, touch, and memory. These nine extraordinary songs are human-scale and intimate, with chord changes like the shifting of limbs. "XO SKELETON" is electric and vivid, and also tactile and grimy. It bends and turns with its every shift of pulse - 35 mournful minutes; but also searching, turned on. Like a body, you might say. Or the memory of one. |
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Lattimore, Mary [Goodbye, Hotel Arkada] October 6 street date. Through evocative, emotionally resonant music, "Goodbye, Hotel Arkada", the new LP from American harpist and composer Mary Lattimore (her first proper LP of new material since 2020's "Silver Ladders", a year-end favorite of NPR, Pitchfork, and The New Yorker), speaks not just for its beloved namesake - a hotel in Croatia facing renovation - but for a universal loss that is shared. Six sprawling pieces shaped by change; nothing will ever be the same, and here, the artist, evolving in synthesis, celebrates and mourns the tragedy and beauty of the ephemeral, all that is lived and lost to time. Documented and edited in uncharacteristically measured sessions over the course of two years, the material remains rooted in improvisation while glistening as the most refined and robust in Lattimore's decade-long catalogue. It finds her communing with friends, contemporaries, and longtime influences, in full stride yet slowing down to nurture songs in new ways. The cast includes Lol Tolhurst (The Cure), Meg Baird, Rachel Goswell (Slowdive), Roy Montgomery, Samara Lubelski, and Walt McClements. |
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Matchbook Romance [Stories And Alibis (2LP/20th Anniversary/colour)] October 13 street date. With "Stories And Alibis", Matchbook Romance crafted a record that is so evolved, so catchy and so refined that it is almost impossible to believe that it is their debut full-length album. Produced by Joe Baresi, the album is a multi-layered sonic experience that is downright intoxicating. From start to finish, the album fills your senses with powerful melodic bursts of energy and an overall sincerity that is impossible to feign. "Stories And Alibis" is sure to evoke a response from every sector of your emotional spectrum. Reissued on limited edition red & black marble vinyl to celebrate the album's 20th anniversary. |
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Moonshake [Eva Luna (2LP/blue/remastered)] October 6 street date. Moonshake's 1992 debut album, "Eva Luna", is back in print as a deluxe edition import blue double LP remastered from analog 1/2" tape. Formed in 1991, the group was composed of David Callahan (vocals, guitars, samplers), formerly of The Wolfhounds, New York musician Margaret Fiedler (vocals, guitars, samplers), along with bassist John Frenett and drummer Miguel Morland. Both Fiedler and Callahan wrote songs, and they would (generally) sing on the songs that they wrote. Their output of shared inspiration produced wildly different results - Can, PiL, Kraftwerk, MBV, and Eric B and Rakim were a melting pot that made Moonshake somewhat uncategorizable, and as Margaret noted in an interview, "Moonshake was a collision - it was supposed to be a collision". In a piece celebrating the record's 30th anniversary, Louder Than War wrote "Eva Luna really is one hell of a ground-breaking record, and it stands resolutely alone among all of the albums released in 1992 as no other band has managed to create anything remotely similar before or since. It really is a unique album with few equals". Along with the album's original 10 tracks, this package includes the non-LP three-song single "Secondhand Clothes", two B-sides from the "Beautiful Pigeon" single, and four tracks from a November 1992 John Peel session. It also includes an 8-page full-colour booklet. |
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Mudhoney [Superfuzz Bigmuff (EP) (LOSER edition-mustard yellow vinyl)] October 6 street date. Limited 35th anniversary edition of this piece of rock history! In 1988, Mudhoney quickly followed up the release of their "Touch Me I'm Sick" 7" with "Superfuzz Bigmuff", a six-song EP so overflowing with chaotic rock energy it warped thousands of minds, and inspired countless guitarists to immediately search for the titular fuzz pedals. In the words of Dynamite Hemmorage's Jay Hinman: "My feeling - and I know I'm not alone in this one - is that for all the play and worldwide attention several Seattle-area bands got during the 1988-92 period, at the end of the day (and even at the time), there was Mudhoney - and then there was everybody else. To me, you, and most everyone who was paying close attention to underground rock music during those years, Mudhoney still sound like the undisputed kingpins of roaring, surging, fuzzed-out, punk rock music". |
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Pale Saints [In Ribbons (30th Anniversary Edition)] October 6 street date. Pale Saints present the 30th anniversary expanded reissue of their 1992 album, "In Ribbons". Produced by Hugh Jones (Echo & The Bunnymen, Modern English, The Sound) this record is "an unintended indie manifesto: music that is at once wayward and concise, dissonant and beautiful" - The Sunday Times. |
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Prong [State Of Emergency] October 6 street date. Their fans had to wait six long years for the arrival of a new album by American metal act Prong, but now they are back with a real bang: Their latest offering, "State Of Emergency", has turned into the fascinating recording we had all hoped for, with the usual irrepressible energy of a group that has been at the forefront of the metal scene since the mid-1980s, and with lots of ideas that couldn't be more typical of this band. "It's a very "Prong" record. I think it's totally genre-transcending and definitely ignores what's going on out there these days", band founder Tommy Victor outlines the stylistic direction of the eleven songs. Commenting on his artistic approach, he says: "I like all kinds of music. This record totally reflects that because it covers lots of different angles. At the same time, 'State Of Emergency' is very guitar-oriented and a typical example of my style which consists of a blend of punk, metal, post-punk noise, some doom, blues and thrash, with some pretty straightforward vocals. All in all, there's an aggressive East Coast flair to the album". |
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Shins [Chutes Too Narrow (20th anniversary edition)] October 20 street date. This 2023 edition of The Shins' beloved second album, "Chutes Too Narrow", celebrates its 20th anniversary with a fresh remaster by Adam Ayan, supervised by band leader James Mercer, and lovely new packaging for the vinyl. Following The Shins' breakout 2001 debut, "Oh, Inverted World", singer/songwriter/guitarist James Mercer and drummer Jesse Sandoval moved from Albuquerque to Portland, OR. "Chutes Too Narrow" was recorded in James' basement home studio, with later mixing assistance from Phil Ek (Built to Spill, Modest Mouse, David Cross, Les Savy Fav, etc.). And, with 10 songs, clocking in at just over 30 minutes, "Chutes Too Narrow" is a brief yet entirely scintillating glimpse at chiming, reflective and perfectly skewed pop innovation. Critically acclaimed on release, it is widely considered by many to be one of the best albums of the 2000s. |
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Stevens, Sufjan [Javelin (black vinyl)] October 6 street date. Over the course of his career, Sufjan Stevens has blurred distinctions between the major and the minor, between the details that colour our existence and the big events that frame our lives. He has turned historical footnotes of States into kaleidoscopic pop, and rendered the immeasurable grief of loss with intimacy and grace. "Javelin", Sufjan's first solo album of songs since 2020's "The Ascension" and his first in full solo singer-songwriter mode since 2015's "Carrie & Lowell", bridges all these approaches. Sufjan uses the quietness of a solitary confession to ask universal questions in songs we can share communally. Accompanying the CD and LP formats of the album is a 48-page book of art and essays. With a series of meticulous collages, cut-up catalog fantasies, puff-paint word clouds, and iterative color fields, Sufjan builds order from seeming chaos and vice versa. And toward the middle of it all are 10 short essays by Sufjan, another window into the process that informed "Javelin". |
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Superchunk [Misfits and Mistakes (4LP/singles/b-sides & strays 2007-2023)] October 27 street date. "Misfits & Mistakes: Singles, B-sides & Strays 2007-2023" is Superchunk's fourth singles compilation, a massive, 4-LP (or 2-CD) collection covering their triumphant return from hiatus. The amount of ground covered within its gorgeous packaging is staggering: 50 songs, 16 of which are on physical media for the first time, sourced from out-of-print releases, digital singles, compilations, and more - a vital piece of the Superchunk canon. Featuring extensive liner notes by Mac McCaughan (with additional notes from Laura Ballance), "Misfits & Mistakes" tells the story of each release, from why they chose to cover songs by The Misfits, The Cure, Destiny's Child, and Bananarama, to working with collaborators like Katie Crutchfield (Waxahatchee), Jane Wiedlin (The Go-Go's), Eleanor Friedberger, Damian Abraham (Fucked Up), Norman Blake and Raymond McGinley (Teenage Fanclub), and more. The 4-LP set comes packaged in a slipcase with two exclusive 18" x 24" posters, and the 2-CD set includes a full-colour 28-page booklet. |
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Timber Timbre [Lovage] October 6 street date (for LP) / October 20 (CD) (date change). New album by Taylor Kirk, the Toronto based musician who has happily worked as a producer since the last Timber Timbre album in 2017. Now with "Lovage" there is new music of his own, which proves that Kirk has not only refined his working methods, but also skilfully combines different influences. Kirk developed "Lovage" in close collaboration with Michael Dubue at the producer's studio in Quyon, Quebec. Working together proved so fruitful that Dubue quickly joined the collective as keyboardist and vocalist, while Adam Bradley Schreiber completed the current line-up on drums and percussion. Together they harmonize the varied sound palette of Brian Wilson with the special melancholy of Leonard Cohen, but also Sun Ra, Dorothy Ashby, and Alice Coltrane, as well as Italian singers like Pino Daniele and Paolo Conte, played a major role in its creation, which might explain the new album's cinematic lightness. |
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V/A [In The Light Of Time (2LP): UK Post-Rock & Leftfield Pop 1992-1998] October 6 street date. In the early 1990s, a number of bands exploring the daring side of guitar pop and rock started to emerge in the UK. Most were new, some included members of 80s groups looking for new directions. They were supported by established independent labels such as Rough Trade and 4AD/Guernica and new ventures like Too Pure and Domino. Influenced by the legacy of post-punk, minimalism, 70s art rock, and a growing electronic scene, their first releases were enthusiastically received by the media. This included a 1994 article in The Wire where journalist Simon Reynolds used the term "post-rock" to refer to some of them. Even though these bands didn't sound alike, they seemed to share an ethos of deconstruction and were interested in the possibilities of studio manipulation. The second part of the 90s brought a new crop of groups and "bedroom" labels that carried on this forward-thinking attitude to music, unburdened by genre notions and open-minded. With 18 tracks from artists such as Mogwai, Seefeel, Pram, Disco Inferno, and Bark Psychosis, "In The Light Of Time" is the first compilation to survey this period and scene of UK music. Beyond any tags or labels, they remain as inventive and captivating as when they first came out. |
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V/A [Alligator Records Christmas Collection (red vinyl)] October 6 street date. First-ever vinyl release of this genuine houserockin' holiday classic. 14 of Alligator Records' best-known artists performing a down home mixture of yuletide favourites and new holiday originals. Originally released in 1992, the title has sold over 90,000 copies on CD. Original songs include tracks by Koko Taylor, Lonnie Brooks, Lil' Ed & The Blues Imperials, Clarence "Gatemouth" Brown, Kenny Neal, William Clarke, Little Charlie & The Nightcats, and Saffire-The Uppity Blues Women. The holiday favorites include Katie Webster's "Deck The Halls Boogie", Charles Brown's "Boogie Woogie Santa Claus", Charlie Musselwhite's "Silent Night", Elvin Bishop's "Little Drummer Boy", Son Seals' version of Lowell Fulson's "Lonesome Christmas", and Tinsley Ellis' take on Albert King's "Santa Claus Wants Some Lovin'". |
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