F.A.B. Distribution

Architects [For Those That Wish To Exist (2LP/indie shop edition)]

February 26 street date. Architects are back with their ninth studio album "For Those That Wish To Exist". The band have confirmed their ascent to the very upper echelons of British heavy music. Few bands, of this modern era or any other, can match the quintet's ability to blend uncompromising heaviness with razor-sharp melodic musicianship. A versatile metal group based out of Brighton, England, Architects employ a lethal combination of breakdown-heavy guitars, melodic vocals and symphonic-ambient post-metal. That sonic delivery is conducted from a platform built on veganism and environmental activism. Also available on CD and 2LP black vinyl.

Blanck Mass [In Ferneaux]

February 26 street date. "In Ferneaux" explores pain in motion, building audio-spatial chambers of experience and memory. Using an archive of field recordings from a decade of global travels, isolation gave Blanck Mass an opportunity to make connections in a moment when being together is impossible. The record is divided into two long-form journeys that gather the memories of being with now-distant others through the composition of a nostalgic travelogue. The journeys are haunted with the vestiges of voices, places, and sensations. These scenes alternate with the building up and releasing of great aural tension, intensities that emerge from the trauma of a personal grieving process which has perhaps embraced its rage moment. With "In Ferneaux", Blanck Mass wrangles the immanent materials of the here-and-now to build a sense of transcendence. Here, the uncanny angelic hymn sits comfortably beside the dirge. The misery and blessing are one.

Blessed [iii (EP)]

February 19 street date. The cover art for "iii", the upcoming EP from Canadian art-rock band Blessed, depicts a wall of wooden blocks, all different shapes, jumbled messily and precariously high against a softly-coloured background. It's an image that captures Blessed at their most essential: experimental, asymmetrical, and interdependent, all the more remarkable for their marriage of those three qualities. The EP's four tracks expand on Blessed's already-idiosyncratic vision: cavernous post-punk electronics and measured drum work pave under guitarwork that trips and sways from chiming and sunny, to serrated and snarling, to frigid and stiff. Vocalist Drew Riekman's lithe tenor flickers in and out across tracks, an extra texture rather than a spotlit focus. Rather than aim for one uniform mix, the band pursued four separate ones: Corin Roddick (Purity Ring), John McEntire (Tortoise), Graham Walsh (Holy Fuck), and Riekman. The result is four tracks with distinctly different palettes and trajectories.

Blue Stones [Hidden Gems (cotton candy vinyl)]

March 19 street date. Sophomore album from the Windsor duo who were nominated for a 2020 Juno for Breakthrough Group Of The Year. When Tarek Jafar and Justin Tessier formed The Blue Stones, they were facing uncertainty about who they were and where they were going. But they did know they wanted to make music together, and so they did, writing songs over time and eventually releasing their debut album "Black Holes" in 2018. As confident and self-assured as they are, that record was very much about the pair finding themselves, both musically and existentially, and deciding to pursue the rock 'n' roll dream by jumping into a black hole of the unknown instead of choosing a more ordinary life-path. The band drew the attention of producer, Paul Meany - the creative force behind alternative rock band Mutemath, and who recently worked with Twenty One Pilots, producing their fifth album, "Trench". Working with Meany didn't just lead to The Blue Stones exploring - and creating - music in a different way than they had before, but it also led Jafar to approach and tackle lyrics in an entirely new light. Combined with the band's nuanced and layered approach to their sound, it makes these songs resonate with a powerful emotional intensity.

Clap Your Hands Say Yeah [New Fragility (milky clear translucent vinyl)]

Please note new street date: February 12. Milky clear translucent vinyl edition, limited to 1000 copies. What are we to make of the world? In many ways, the title "New Fragility" perfectly sums up our collective state of unease and anxiety, but it's particularly apt for singer songwriter Alec Ounsworth aka Clap Your Hands Say Yeah and the trauma he's spent the best part of three years processing. Yet it also showcases what Ounsworth has become so masterful at - couching a certain level of seriousness in something fun. Something danceable. It's what's powered some of Clap Your Hands Say Yeah's most memorable moments, and what makes "New Fragility" such an accomplished, affecting record. Powerful too, taking aim at what Ounsworth calls "the failed democratic experiment that is the United States of America" and the supine hypocrisy of those currently in government. Trace the arc of Clap Your Hands Say Yeah's evolution and it shows an accomplished musician and composer sounding ever more confident, constantly refining and broadening his sound and indulging an ever wider set of influences. Few have been as consistently brilliant, eclectic, and intimate; fewer still have done so while being defiantly, 100% independent, refusing to sign deals that compromise artistic vision.

DJ Muggs The Black Goat [Dies Occidendum]

March 12 street date. "Dies Occidendum" is a mythical voyage across fog-laden, scorched earth terrain from the original friar of dark hip hop, DJ Muggs The Black Goat. Known and revered as the sonic mastermind behind both Cypress Hill and his own Soul Assassins imprint, here Muggs sheds the MCs and presents his latest dark-soaked productions as an illuminated manuscript of sorts; a fully immersive, instrumental soundtrack to the mysterious "Dies Occidendum". No one wields the Excalibur of sonic darkness quite like Muggs. Combining ingredients of psych rock, gypsy folk with modern elements of trap, forged together under layers of his signature sonic grime, Muggs has created yet another blueprint for the utmost sonic menace and macabre. The Renaissance is upon us. Long live King Muggs.

Evergrey [Escape Of The Phoenix (2LP-indie exclusive/crystal clear vinyl)]

February 26 street date. Swedish dark melodic metal masters Evergrey return with their 12th album - dark and heavy, the phoenix is rising! Since the release of "Hymns For The Broken" in 2014, Evergrey has enjoyed increased notoriety and success with "The Storm Within" (2016) and "The Atlantic" (2019) - ironically, a conceptual trilogy - which is highly unusual for a veteran act. They mean to continue this tradition with "Escape Of The Phoenix", another heavy, melancholic and thought-provoking journey as only Evergrey can create. The result is 11 songs that embody everything Evergrey fans have to expect, albeit - a more metal version of "The Atlantic", with songs that are more direct - according to Englund and producer Jacob Hansen.

Fleet Foxes [Shore (2LP)]

Please note new street date: March 19. Fleet Foxes fourth studio album "Shore" is a collection of 15 new songs, available on double-gatefold 2LP vinyl and CD. Fleet Foxes' Robin Pecknold shares, "Shore feels like a relief, like you’d feel when your feet finally hit sand after getting caught in a riptide. It's a celebration of life in the face of death, honoring our lost musical heroes, from David Berman to John Prine to Judee Sill to Bill Withers, embracing the joy and solace they brought to our lives and honoring their memory. "Shore" is an object levitating between the magnetic fields of the past and the future". "Shore" was released digitally in its entirety on the fall equinox (9/22) alongside an album length Super-16mm landscape film captured and edited in Washington State by the filmmaker Kersti Jan Werdal. The album was recorded in upstate New York at Aaron Dessner's Long Pond Studio, in Paris at Studios St. Germain, in Los Angeles at the legendary Vox, in Long Island City at Diamond Mine, and New York City's Electric Lady.

Fruit Bats [The Pet Parade]

March 5 street date. "The Pet Parade", the title track to Fruit Bats' newest album, might be a surprising opening track for longtime fans of Eric D. Johnson's beloved indie folk-rock project. The six-and-a-half-minute tone poem smolders and drones over just two chords, inspired by the strange and silly community events that he saw growing up outside of Chicago, in La Grange, Illinois, in which people dressed up and showed off their pets. Decades later, "The Pet Parade" emerges in troubled times, living within what Johnson refers to as the beauty and absurdity of existence. While many of the songs on "The Pet Parade" were actually written before the pandemic, it's impossible to disassociate the record from the times. As an example, producer Josh Kaufman (Bob Weir, The National, and Bonny Light Horseman, in which he plays with Johnson and Anaïs Mitchell) was brought in for his deep emotional touch and bandleading abilities. At times upbeat and reassuring and at times quietly contemplative, "The Pet Parade" marks a milestone for Johnson, who celebrates 20 years of Fruit Bats in 2021.

Guided By Voices [Propeller]

March 19 street date. "Propeller" was the fifth album by Guided By Voices, and was intended to be the group's last. Released as a limited edition of 500 LPs in 1992, the album featured handmade covers and blank labels to keep expenses as low as possible. Their other albums hadn’t sold much, why would this one? As fate would have it, the band wound up releasing an album chock full of gems Pollard had stockpiled, and for the first time sounded distinctly like the band that fans have since come to love. "Propeller" also marks the return of Tobin Sprout to the GBV fold, along with an increased songwriting presence. "Propeller" is a hell of a ride, and remains one of the most important albums in the band's discography. The vinyl edition has been out of print for a decade, and features different cover art than previous pressings. The CD edition has been out of print for a minute as well, and is now housed in digipak format, also with a new, unique cover from one of the original pressings. And for the first time, "Propeller" is available on cassette.

Hemsworth, Ryan [Pout EP (coke bottle clear vinyl)]

February 19 street date. "For this EP I was trying to live less in nostalgia and function less off obvious references. I worked on "Pout" while becoming a dad, sitting a lot in my garden, and trying to kill my ego. Tracks like "Mountain Access" make me think about driving around Hamilton, Ontario, my home as of a year ago. I hope people can still get a chance to walk around with this on headphones or daydream while listening to this project" - Ryan Hemsworth. Limited edition first pressing on coke bottle clear vinyl. Features from Ms. John Soda and BADBADNOTGOOD's Leland Whitty.

Madlib [Sound Ancestors (arranged by Kieran Hebden)]

March 5 street date. Gil Evans to Miles Davis.... Holger Czukay to the ensemble known as Can....Jean Claude Vannier to Serge Gainsbourg on "Histoire de Melody Nelson". That's the only way to explain the specificity of Four Tet and Madlib's collaboration, in this special album that showcases a two-decade long friendship that has resulted in an album that follows Madlib's classics like Quasimoto's "The Unseen", "Madvillainy" and his "Pinata" and "Bandana" albums with Freddie Gibbs. "A few months ago I completed work on an album with my friend Madlib that we'd been making for the last few years. He is always making loads of music in all sorts of styles and I was listening to some of his new beats and studio sessions when I had the idea that it would be great to hear some of these ideas made into a Madlib solo album. Not made into beats for vocalists to use but instead arranged into tracks that could all flow together in an album designed to be listened to start to finish. I put this concept to him when we were hanging out eating some nice food one day and we decided to work on this together with him sending me tracks, loops, ideas and experiments that I would arrange, edit, manipulate and combine. I was sent hundreds of pieces of music over a couple of years stretch and during that time I put together this album with all the parts that fitted with my vision" - Kieren Hebden aka Four Tet.

Mogwai [As The Love Continues (2LP-transparent yellow vinyl)]

February 19 street date. Mogwai have advanced without a plan since they were teenagers, there have been no secretive meetings to work out the master plan. It is rare to hear a band that has been going for this long, and have this many albums behind them - ten records in and still no disappointments or mistaken creative left turns. You may know what to expect, but you will never get the same. Both transcendent and surprising, "As The Love Continues" shows that Mogwai are still offering solace from the mundane, supplying the soundtrack to whatever movie you are making in your head. Produced by Dave Fridmann, the album features contributions from Atticus Ross and Colin Stetson, and will arrive almost exactly 25 years after the release of their debut single, "Tuner"/"Lower".

National [Sad Songs For Dirty Lovers (re-issue/Abbey Road remaster)]

February 26 street date. The National's second album, "Sad Songs For Dirty Lovers" (2003) proved a leap forward from 2001's eponymous debut, showing a band adept at delivering warm embraces and gut punches in equal measure. With word of mouth now spreading on the band, critics proved equally enthusiastic... Pitchfork in their glowing review called it a "gorgeous train wreck" that "lives up to its blunt title (with) Matt Berninger's self-effacing barbs matched by the band’s equally potent hooks," while Uncut also became early champions saying the album was "a genuine treasure... livid as a bruise, this is brave, desperate, beautiful music." No longer a secret among those that know, "Sad Songs For Dirty Lovers" is an important record in The National's discography with this new remaster showing that it's more than standing the test of time. Remastered at Abbey Road Studios, this 2021 repress stays faithful to its original artwork while the stunning new master helps make it sound as vital as ever, further emphasising the early signs of the sound that would go on to make them one of the finest and most beloved alternative bands of their generation.

No Use For A Name [Rarities Vol. 2: The Originals]

Please note new street dates: February 26 for CD / March 12 for LP. When it comes to classic Fat Wreck bands No Use For A Name certainly need no introduction, but here's the scoop: they were one of the first bands on Fat Wreck Chords and remain a cornerstone of the label roster. Their unique take on California punk emphasized equally innovative and catchy melody, paired with top-flight musicianship. Despite the tragic passing of singer and songwriter Tony Sly in 2012, their presence can still be felt today, as their influence is evident in the work of many other artists. Fat Wreck recently unearthed some demos and early versions of some of the best No Use For A Name songs. The response was unanimous - people must hear these! So alas, we bring you "Rarities Vol. 2: The Originals". Side A gets the listener hooked immediately with rare versions of songs that have only appeared on compilations. The B-side contains never-before heard demos from the classic NUFAN album "Hard Rock Bottom".

NOFX [Single Album]

February 26 street date (CD)/March 19 street date (LP). After nearly 40 years, what is left to say about NOFX? Can a band continue to shake it up after almost four decades as a band? The answer to this question lies on "Single Album", the quartet's 14th full-length studio album. It is, as frontman and bassist Fat Mike describes, "a dark album". That wasn't the original intent. By early 2020, NOFX had written and recorded enough songs for a planned double album to be released that fall. Like so much about 2020, those plans changed. The band decided they had fell short of making the perfect double album, so they scrapped some tracks, and condensed it down to one solid single album. Hence the title. Recorded at Motor Studios in San Francisco with Bill Stevenson and Jason Livermore (Rise Against, Alkaline Trio), "Single Album" gets more personal than NOFX ever has before. The result of these 10 tracks is a NOFX album that is both familiar and unpredictable traits that legions of adoring fans have grown to love about the band.

Pallett, Owen [Island (2LP/download)]

March 5 street date. Some art is about sustenance. Some of it is about healing, or harm; some is about play and some about its own labour. There is art about wishing, and politics, and despair, and inheritance, and enchanted basilisks. Across 15 years and five solo albums, the Toronto musician Owen Pallett has made art that is each of these things - music that shines, gallops, shudders, climaxes. Working alone and with some of the biggest names in popular music, he has sewn his name into the early sound of this century, a message hidden at its hem. "Island", Pallett's latest, begins with 13 darkened chords. It is the sound of waking up - alone, on a new shore. What comes next is shimmering and luscious: an orchestral album that draws across the full breadth of Pallett's discography. Almost entirely acoustic, "Island" deploys the grandest ensemble of Pallett's solo career - the monumental London Contemporary Orchestra, recorded live at Abbey Road Studios - and yet it also presents the musician at his most distilled, often unadorned, just the words he's singing and the way he sings them. Pallett wrote these nine songs on old-fashioned acoustic guitar. Later, he imagined these tracks as an immersive, 80-minute orchestral album. The finished result is somewhere uniquely in-between - the 46-minute fruit of an instinctive, whirlwind recording process, completed over years but in short, concentrated bursts.

Pinegrove [Amperland, NY (2LP)]

February 26 street date. "Amperland, NY" is a collection (and feature length film) that features 21 brand new studio recordings spanning Pinegrove's career and catalogue, captured upstate in the house where the band lived and recorded for 4 years - a place they lovingly referred to as "Amperland". All good things (and leases) come to an end, and before they bid adieu to the space permanently, they gathered together for one last performance with friends and family. Featuring original member and keyboardist/vocalist Nandi Rose (Half Waif) on many tracks, this collection will thrill old and new listeners alike, with the band breathing new life into fan favorites and deep cuts. From acoustic versions to unique arrangements featuring piano, pedal steel and organ, "Amperland, NY" touches on notes of folk and progressive rock previously unheard on their studio albums. This will be an essential addition to the Pinegrove catalog and encompasses all of the earnest and ecstatic live energy the band is known for. The beautiful double album will be housed in a heavyweight matte gatefold package and comes with a fully annotated script and behind the scenes photos from the film.

Schultz, Wesley [Vignettes]

February 26 street date. "Vignettes" sees Wesley Schultz, the 2x GRAMMY® Award-nominated singer-songwriter-guitarist and co-founder of The Lumineers, exploring his myriad influences and early inspirations with a series of starkly beautiful cover versions spanning such legendary artists as Bruce Springsteen, Tom Waits, Sheryl Crow, Jim Croce, Derek and the Dominos, and Warren Zevon.

Smerz [Believer]

February 26 street date. Smerz are the Nowegian duo of Henriette Motzfeldt and Catharina Stoltenberg. The duo, who produce, write, direct and conceptualize all their own work, carve out a space where it's not so impossible for dreams, both big and small, to grow in the midst of the systemic societal weeds that tangle up people's self-worth and confidence. With "Believer", their 2021 debut full-length album on XL Recordings, they formalize the boundless sonic world that started to emerge within each of their debut EP's and in their running NTS monthly residency. Are you a Believer?

Tune-Yards [sketchy. (indie shop version/blue)]

March 26 street date. Tune-Yards' fifth studio album, "sketchy.", will be available on CD, translucent blue and standard black vinyl On "sketchy." Merrill balances self-inspection and reflection with bombastic rallying cries, reminiscent of the furious tones of early days Tune-Yards. Inspired by the Beastie Boys Book and Questlove's Creative Quest, the result is a colourful and joyous record with lyrics that cut to the bone. "I started remembering that people come to us to be entertained, to move, to feel joy. And together, I think, we can wake up." From 2009 to 2018, Tune-Yards (both Merrill and her partner and collaborator Nate Brenner) released four critically acclaimed albums, travelled the world relentlessly to play live shows, and composed the psychedelic score to Boots Riley's surrealist cinematic masterpiece "Sorry To Bother You".

VanGaalen, Chad [World's Most Stressed Out Gardener (colour)]

March 19 street date. First pressing on limited edition coloured vinyl. Since his 2004 debut album of bedroom recordings - the now legendary "Infiniheart" - Chad VanGaalen has been a restless and limitless creative force. It's been three long years since his last studio album "Light Information", and fans are hungry to finally see a full-length follow-up. 2020 was a terrible year for gardening. It was terrible for peppers, it was terrible for tomatoes, it was terrible for the condition of the soul. But Chad somehow raised a garden all the same: carrots and sprouts and broccoli and a revivifying new album, all of them grown at home. He likes to eat directly off the plant, he says - "I get down on my knees and graze. It's nice to feel the vegetables in your face" - and the 13 songs on "World's Most Stressed Out Gardener" were harvested with just such a spirit: in their raw state, young and vegetal, at the very moment, they were made. The songwriter's new album is a psychedelic bumper crop. A collection of tunes that does away with obsessiveness, the anxiety of perfectionism, in favor of freshness and immediacy - capturing the world while recording alone at home over a period of years. Throughout these 40 minutes, VanGaalen floats from mania to solace to oblivion, searching for zen in all the wrong places.

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