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A Giant Dog [Bone (re-issue 2013 album/pink)] July 29 street date. This summer, Merge will reissue A Giant Dog's first two full-lengths - 2012's "Fight" and 2013's "Bone" on limited edition coloured vinyl, reintroducing the world to the quintet Spoon's Britt Daniel calls "the greatest American rock and roll/punk band since I don't know when". Recording for the first time with a proper producer (Mike McCarthy) in a proper environment (a studio lol), "Bone", on pink vinyl for this reissue, still manages to kool-aid man its way through the speakers with the immediacy of the band's live shows, a hit parade for the party people. Sabrina Ellis and Andrew Cashen add another baker’s dozen tunes to the band's repertoire just a year following their debut, with songs like "All I Wanted", "Dammit Pomegranate", and "Another World" cementing them as a conspicuous songwriting duo. |
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Alkaline Trio/Hot Water Music [split (silver vinyl anniversary edition)] July 29 street date. After touring together and courting similar fans, Alkaline Trio and Hot Water Music decided to band together for a split featuring original material and covers of each other's most popular tracks. The release finds Alkaline Trio covering Hot Water Music's "Rooftops" and Hot Water Music contributing covers of Alkaline Trio's "Radio" and "Bleeder". This 20th anniversary pressing is the first time the split has been released with the full album packaging and on standard vinyl. |
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black midi [Hellfire] July 15 street date. London three piece black midi present their third album, "Hellfire". Written in isolation in 2021 almost immediately after its predecessor, black midi pick up right where they left off. Building on the melodic and harmonic elements of "Cavalcade", and expanding on the brutality and intensity of their debut ("Schlagenheim"), "Hellfire" is their most thematically cohesive and intentional album yet. As lead-singer Geordie describes it: "if "Cavalcade" was a drama, "Hellfire" is like an epic action film" that delves into overlapping themes of pain, loss and anguish. But as always, the type of music black midi play isn't as important as its quality, and whatever you think about their music isn't as important as how you feel about it. |
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Bock, Naima [Giant Palm (LOSER edition-orange)] July 1 street date. Solo debut by Naima Bock, formerly of London band Goat Girl. The roots of Naima's music are far reaching. Born in Glastonbury to a Brazilian father and a Greek mother, Naima spent her early childhood in Brazil before eventually returning to England. This heritage combines with more recent pursuits in Naima's music. From the Brazilian standards that the family listened to while driving to the beach, to the European folk traditions she tapped into on her own, and the pursuits that interest her today, Naima's music draws from family, the earth and music handed down through generations. Naima's debut album "Giant Palm" is undoubtedly infused with the Brazilian music of her youth and regular family visits. Recorded with the help of over 30 musicians (including Josh Cohen on synth/electronics) by Dan Carey of Speedy Wunderground at his studio space, the songs on "Giant Palm" represent a snapshot of a specific feeling, of brief moments in Naima's life that make up a larger whole. The expansive yet delicate arrangements highlight Naima’s love for the collectivist values of traditional folk music, in which songs belong to everyone, and singing can take on countless forms without the need to exactly replicate something. |
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Carolan, Robin & Sebastian Gainsborough [The Northman (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack) (2LP-black)] Please note new street date: July 22. Composers Robin Carolan (Tri-Angle Records) and Sebastian Gainsborough (Vessel) were given a task of epic proportions when director Rob Eggers ("The Witch", "The Lighthouse") asked them to create the score for his ambitious and highly anticipated new film "The Northman". They needed to make a score that both honored the immense research that had gone into the authenticity of this Viking era period piece and complimented the cinematic maximalism of the film for a modern audience. The artists stretched themselves to the depths of their creativity and the resulting album is a gorgeous sonic tableaux that places the listener right in the center of the film. While arranging the score the composers consulted musician and ethnographer Poul Høxbro for inspiration and insight into the history of Viking music. Having backgrounds in leftfield electronic music, Robin and Sebastian felt liberated by the constraint of using a small selection of musical tools for this piece. The album as a whole is a cinematic masterpiece of sound and ambiance, both gorgeous and disturbing, like the film it so beautifully accompanies. |
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Collins, Albert [Cold Snap] Please note new street date: July 22. First time available on vinyl in 30 years! Originally released in 1986, "Cold Snap" was nominated for a Grammy Award in the "Best Traditional Blues Recording" category. The album features some of Albert Collins' most popular tracks like "I Ain't Drunk", "Lights Are On But Nobody's Home", and "Too Many Dirty Dishes". The Master of the Telecaster's last Alligator release, and his favourite, "Cold Snap" finds him backed by a hand-picked all-star band featuring organist Jimmy McGriff and guitarist Mel Brown, plus the Uptown Horns. All tracks remastered. "Cold Snap" has sold over 100,000 units in the U.S. |
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Elevator Through [Vague Premonition "Extra 2LP edition"] July 1 street date. Recorded in autumn 1998 at Chemical Sound in Toronto, with Daryl Smith and mixed by Jack Endino, the "Vague Premonition" LP was Elevator's last album with Sub Pop, and is now fully remastered and sounding better than ever. The second LP in this package features the original soundtrack to 1998's "THE SUCH", which is finally appearing on vinyl for the first time ever, plus 8 more songs from the band's spring/summer 1998 home sessions. As usual, the high quality packaging features freshly scanned original and unreleased artwork, lyrics and download codes. |
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Fleet Foxes [A Very Lonely Solstice] July 1 street date. Robin Pecknold brings light to the bleakest of winters with Fleet Foxes' ‘A Very Lonely Solstice,’ a 13-track career spanning collection recorded in December 2020, at Brooklyn, NY's St. Ann & the Holy Trinity Church. The recording was originally broadcasted as a live-stream event on the winter solstice of 2020, just days after New York declared a state of emergency tightening restrictions again in response to increasing COVID-19 cases. Pecknold describes the set as "me by myself on the longest night of the year... honoring the loneliness of 2020 with a nylon string and some songs new and old". Fans worldwide tuned in while quarantined at home, finding solace and a sense of community in a period of extreme isolation. Much of ‘A Very Lonely Solstice’ showcases a solo focus on Pecknold who offers up acoustic arrangements of fan-favourite songs spanning Fleet Foxes' catalogue. Selections cover all four of the band's studio albums along with a cover of Nina Simone's "In The Morning" and a rearrangement of the traditional "Silver Dagger". |
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Friendship [Love the Stranger] July 29 street date. Friendship's Merge debut, "Love the Stranger", moves like a country record skipping in just the right spot, leaving its fellow travelers longing for a place they've only visited in their dreams. Guitarist Peter Gill, drummer Michael Cormier-O'Leary, bassist Jon Samuels, and hawkeyed balladeer Dan Wriggins map out the group's particular, breathtaking landscape and invite the listener to share in its glory. "Love the Stranger"'s invitation is all the more wondrous because its characters have clearly been hurt before. Wide awake, vulnerable, and gimmickless, Friendship won't hesitate to confide in us, or even ask for help when the moment calls. The record's images craft a symbolic language of high and low Americana, both evocative and consistently accessible. Spending time with "Love the Stranger" creates a community - one in which the window between the listener and the musicmaker shatters in full, until all that remains are the fragments you decide to pick up together. |
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Gabriel, Charlie [89] July 1 street date. Sub Pop debut by Preservation Hall Jazz Band member and 89-year-old clarinet and saxophone legend Charlie Gabriel. This is Charlie's first album as a bandleader. He has played with Lionel Hampton, Charles Mingus, Cab Calloway drummer J.C Heard, Ella Fitzgerald, Tony Bennett, Aretha Franklin, and many more. While Charlie has faced plenty of challenges nursing his gift for more than 78 years, none likely rank with last winter's passing of his brother and last living sibling, Leonard, lost to COVID-19. For the first time ever, Gabriel put down his horn, filling his days and weeks instead with dark reflection, a stubborn despondency broken now and then by regular chess matches in the studio kitchen of Hall leader Ben Jae, working overtime to bring his friend some light. One such afternoon also included Joshua Starkman, sitting off in a corner playing his guitar and half-watching the chess from a distance. When Charlie returned the next day, he brought his saxophone. That day was to be the first session for "89", almost entirely the work of Gabriel, Jae and Starkman, recorded mostly right there, in the kitchen, by Matt Aguiluz. "89" includes six standards and three newer pieces on which Gabriel is a writer. The record also marks Charlie's return to his first instrument, clarinet, on many of the tracks. |
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Girlpool [Forgiveness] July 22 street date. "Forgiveness" is the brand new full-length Girlpool album, which finds the duo embracing weirdo-pop decadence without sacrificing the poetic curiosity that has always made their music so absorbing. Just like they did for "What Chaos Is Imaginary", Harmony and Avery each wrote their "Forgiveness" songs separately, then came together to decide how to present them in a style that felt representative of what excites and inspires them now. This time, the process resulted in their slickest and most ambitious music to date, filled with idiosyncratic and provocative gestures that simultaneously support and complicate the emotionally intricate material. With its unique blend of introspective earworms and surreal party music, "Forgiveness" reaches beyond the loosely sketched parameters of "indie rock", challenging any preconceived notions of what a Girlpool album can or should be. These songs investigate the always-shifting boundaries between a number of elementally human concepts: pain and pleasure, sex and love, reality and delusion, insecurity and confidence, grief and growth. |
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Interpol [The Other Side Of Make-Believe] July 15 street date. Interpol's 7th LP "The Other Side of Make-Believe" breaks fresh ground for the group: parallel to exploring the sinister undercurrents of contemporary life, their new songs are imbued with pastoral longing and newfound grace. Daniel Kessler's serpentine guitar arrangements crest skywards, Samuel Fogarino shatters his percussive precision into strange metres, while Paul Banks' sonorous voice exudes a vulnerability that is likely to catch most long-term fans of the band off guard. After all, says Banks, "there's always a seventh time for a first impression". On "The Other Side of Make-Believe", the band's deep interpersonal understanding means each member respects the other's respective strengths more than ever, letting Interpol's elemental qualities shine through. Ever the paradox, they have weathered nearly seven albums' and several line-ups' better than anyone might have predicted, never letting their sense of purpose or dedication escape. A quarter-century into their lifespan, Interpol are all fired up again. |
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Krug, Spencer [Twenty Twenty Twenty Twenty One] July 15 street date. Since the start of 2019, Spencer Krug has posted a new song to his Patreon page every month. The songs on the aptly named "Twenty Twenty Twenty Twenty One" are selected from those posted throughout 2020 and 2021. They've been remixed and remastered into a single album, one laced with the vague sense of anxiety the world provided for so many of us during that time, but also made while Krug entered into the chaotic, blissful fog of parenthood, and so contains a necessary dose of optimism. While no stranger to self-producing, 2020 and 2021 found Krug diving deeper than ever into the possibilities of his home setup, and therein refining a distinct blend of richly analog-acoustic and unabashedly artificial sounds. This self-aware and apparently self-pleasing juxtaposition is the texture making up a lot of the album, adorned with Krug's half-baked confessionalist poetry; ill-informed takes and recluse-revelations sung out from within his cave-ish Vancouver Island backyard studio. |
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Mobb Deep [Infamy (2LP-marbled copper)] July 15 street date. The fifth studio album by the Infamous duo of Prodigy and Havoc was originally released just over 20 years ago on December 11, 2001. The album features Mobb Deep Queensbidge affiliates Infamous Mobb and Big Noyd and was certified Gold. To commemorate "Infamy"'s 20 year anniversary, Get On Down is proud to present this limited edition marbled copper vinyl reissue for Mobb Deep fans worldwide. Limited to 2001 copies, with stamped numbered obi. |
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Pavement [Westing (By Musket And Sextant)] July 15 street date. Originally released in 1993, Matador Records is reissuing Pavement's "Westing (By Musket And Sextant)" for the first time. Compiling their early material from 1989-1993, the 23 track album showcases the formative years of Pavement before the breakthrough success of their debut. "Westing (By Musket And Sextant)" includes songs from their first 3 EP's, ("Slay Tracks: 1933-1969", "Demolition Plot J-7", and "Perfect Sound Forever") along with the "Summer Babe" single and 2 extra compilation tracks. The new pressing coincides with the recent release of the "Terror Twilight: Farewell Horizontal" 4xLP box set and the 30th anniversary edition of "Slanted And Enchanted". |
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Refused [Songs To Fan the Flames Of Discontent (2LP/25th anniversary/blue)] Please note new street date: July 8. 25th anniversary edition, including never before heard and previously unreleased demo tracks from the album. The second full-length release from Sweden's Refused, "Songs to Fan the Flames of Discontent" was released in 1996 to uniform praise as the group's worldwide following grew in both numbers and intensity. Signifying a musical evolution that culminated with their masterpiece "The Shape of Punk to Come", "Songs to Fan the Flames of Discontent" is perhaps the most metal offering in the group's catalogue. Consistently aggressive, the staccato guitar riffs and drumming rest directly on top of the beat, giving this tighter, later-era Refused material a thick sound that retains its punk energy. A truly definitive late-1990s hardcore disc, "Songs to Fan the Flames of Discontent" is a first-rate record from one of the best, most aggressive hardcore bands of this or any era. |
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RZA as Bobby Digital [RZA Presents: Bobby Digital & The Pit Of Snakes] July 22 street date. Z2 Comics proudly announces the larger-than-life rapper, actor, and filmmaker RZA as the latest artist to bring his storytelling skills to the comic book medium with the announcement of "Bobby Digital: The Pit of Snakes", an original graphic novel to be released in 2022. RZA, the founding member of the multimedia supergroup The Wu-Tang Clan, introduced the world to his alter-ego in his 1998 album "Bobby Digital in Stereo". With lush digital orchestral sounds and inventive beats, he was putting the love of comic books on full display through its concept and execution. Now, exactly 23 years since its original release, RZA announces a partnership with Z2 Comics to give the character a story in the medium which inspired his creation! "Bobby Digital: Pit Full of Snake" pairs RZA with White Noise Studios member Ryan O'Sullivan, whose last collaboration with Poppy was widely celebrated by fans and critics alike, with Sound & Fury artist Vasilis Lolos rounding out the team to bring the world of Bobby Digital to life. |
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Sande, Emeli [Let's Say For Instance (2LP)] July 8 street date. Now on vinyl! Introduced to the world ten years ago, Emeli Sandé MBE has become an icon of British singer-songwriting; emotional, honest, and prolific in the kind of manner that cements you as a go-to artist for heartfelt pop sensibility. In 2021, it's time for a reintroduction. Newly signed to independent label Chrysalis Records, Sandé has freed herself from the expectations of others in order to make an album of expansive creativity, flexing her holistic skills as a songwriter, producer and vocalist in new, versatile ways. Something of an artistic rebirth, it draws on old familiarities and brave beginnings, uniting fans old and new in her endless drive to use music as a tool for inspirational lift. |
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Segall, Ty ["Hello, Hi"] July 22 street date. "Hello, Hi": welcome in to a new room to play the styles and feels that lie under Ty Segall's fingers, easing fresh air into acoustic space with an assortment of love songs flowering in righteous unconsciousness. Plaintive and wistful, but unafraid. Like rain washing away yesterday, "Hello, Hi" pushes open the door, inviting the new to pass through all the old shades and degrees of hot and cold. Dark paths turn off abruptly into absurd darkness, then wind back through the broken rocks, ecstatic again. Absurdity again. It happens everyday. "Hello, Hi" is expansively rendered by Ty, mostly by himself, at home. Ty's acoustic and electric guitars and vocal harmonies layer self upon self, forming a spiny backbone for the album. Textures at once gentle and dissonant root the songs as they make their move: melodic arcs convulsing in doubt and bliss and rage. "Hello, Hi" is Ty's most relaxed and complete production to date, an ebb-and flow fusion of words and music offering abstraction and acceptance as it wrestles itself through a fucked-up time. |
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Smile [A Light For Attracting Attention (2LP)] June 17 street date. "A Light For Attracting Attention" is the debut from The Smile, but they're "not The Smile as in ha-ha-ha, more The Smile as in the guy who lies to you every day"... speaks Thom Yorke on the inspiration behind the supergroup that consists of his Radiohead bandmate Jonny Greenwood and drummer Tom Skinner of UK jazz outfit Sons of Kemet. The description was borne out of The Smile's acerbic first single "You Will Never Work In Television Again," a 2:48 blast of ragged, pulsing raw energy familiar to "The Bends" era Radiohead. Additional singles "The Smoke", "Skrting the Surface", "Pana-Vision" - which epically closed the series finale of hit show "Peaky Blinders" - and "Free In The Knowledge" each encapsulate different aspects and dynamics of the project. All are collected on The Smile's double LP, "A Light For Attracting Attention", produced by Nigel Godrich and featuring the London Contemporary Orchestra and a full brass section of UK jazz players. |
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Trent, Ron [WARM: What Do The Stars Say To You (black)] Please note new street date: July 1. Ron Trent's highly collaborative, career-topping new LP ‘What Do The Stars Say To You’ took little persuasion to recruit serious star power. Brazilian royalty Ivan Conti and Alex Malheriros from Azymuth, violin maestro Jean Luc Ponty, ambient hero Gigi Masin, hype band Khruangbin and more performed, whilst NY cornerstone François K provided mastering duties. At various points Ron himself played drums, percussion, keys, synths, piano, guitar and electronics. Harking back to the 70s and 80s boom in adventurous, luxurious albums, "What Do The Stars Say To You" is a love letter to the long player, where rich musicality and a liquid smooth, silky flow make seemingly odd genre bedfellows acquiesce harmoniously. Each song its own high-fidelity odyssey, Trent incorporated a broad range of live instruments and electronics into a sophisticated, euphonic whole. This is aural soul food, gently easing you into balmy nights, where everything is alright. |
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Viagra Boys [Cave World (black)] July 8 street date. "Cave World" is the third studio album from Viagra Boys. In this time of strife, insanity and confusion, only one band is depraved enough to offer themselves up as herald. Like sin-eaters if sins had to be ingested from a very small spoon, Viagra Boys have consumed the utterly incomprehensible chaos of our era and distilled it into 12 immaculate tracks of post-truth-cow-funk-kraut-wave-enlightenment. |
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Yaeji [EP 1+2 (opaque jade)] Please note new street date: July 1. Here is a collection of recordings by Kathy Yaeji Lee, originally released as a pair of EPs on March 31 and November 3 of 2017, remastered for a belated vinyl edition for the first time. A lot has been said and repeated about the interiority of this club music - how the joyful tremor of the "Raingurl" refrain holds hands with such soft and doubtful verses. How special it is that house music so of New York can contain storytelling cultivated so far away. That repetition is born of people all over the world going out, and staying in, with this music as a compass; songs that define so many late night hangs for crews of friends, singalongs in DJ booths, contemplative 5am walks home from the club. Yaeji wrote this music while going out nearly every night of the week to DJ and support her own NYC community of friends at their turns behind the decks. These tracks originated from explorations in dancefloor anonymity, growing from seeds planted by sharing her first musical experiments online. |
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Young Guv [GUV III & IV (2LP-yellow)] July 15 street date. In the spring of 2020, Ben Cook (aka Young Governor, Young Guv, or just Guv) was holed up in the New Mexico high desert, his U.S. tour having been abruptly Covid-cancelled during a southwest swing. In a place he never expected to be, under circumstances no one could have predicted, and in the face of physical isolation, emotional desolation, and existential dread, Ben created "GUV III & IV", a collection of songs dedicated and testifying to the eternal healing power of love - how to find it in the world, in others, and most importantly, in himself. |
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