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Bonny Doon [Let There Be Music] June 16 street date. Throughout the ten tracks in their new album "Let There Be Music", you can hear the spaciousness Bonny Doon allowed themselves since their 2018 sleeper cult-classic "Longwave". Their latest musical journey is one that has big payoffs for devoted followers and undeniable rewards for anyone just stumbling across the band for the first time. After extensively touring "Longwave" by supporting Band Of Horses, Snail Mail, and Waxahatchee, Bill Lennox and Bobby Colombo were invited by Katie Crutchfield to collaborate on Waxahatchee's critically acclaimed album "Saint Cloud". On their long-awaited third album, we get a glimpse into the pure joy of Bonny Doon. The album serves as less of one conceptual story, and each song as their own individual offerings of putting words to the ordinary experience of being alive. The band is at their most dynamic and the songwriting deftly explores new terrain. "Let There Be Music" is brimming with small truths - both profound and mundane, comforting and difficult - and we are invited to revel in them all. |
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Boris & Uniform [Bright New Disease] June 16 street date. Sacred Bones Records is proud to present the Boris & Uniform collaborative album "Bright New Disease". Boris and Uniform might have seemed like a strange pairing when they teamed up for a US tour back in 2019. Sure, both bands harness the power of big, blown-out riffs, but Boris's rock heroics, lysergic sprawl, and monolithic sludge summon a different energy than Uniform's mechanized bombardments and frenzied assaults. However, when Boris invited Uniform to team up on a reimagined version of their classic "Akuma no Uta" as a part of their encore, there was an obvious chemistry between the artists. The idea of a collaborative album came up, and the bands spent the next year swapping song ideas and recordings from their homebase studios until Boris and Uniform had an album that captured the fearless exploration and unbridled power of their live performances. |
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Bright Eyes [Cassadaga (2LP-yellow vinyl)] June 16 street date. This last wave of Bright Eyes reissues contains "Cassadaga" and "The People's Key", the band's most polished and sophisticated albums. One of the things that struck Conor Oberst as he and the band went through twenty-plus years of music is that he may in fact have been writing the same song this whole time. Not sonically, of course, but conceptually. When Bright Eyes toured 2007's "Cassadaga", they performed an epic 7 sold-out nights at NYC's Town Hall. What's more grown-up rock-star than that? And yet ..."thematically those early songs are not that different than the songs I make now," Oberst says, shaking his head. "There's something affirming and disheartening about it. It's like, have I really changed or grown? But maybe it's just that I knew what I wanted to write about from the beginning". |
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Bully [Lucky For You (black vinyl)] June 2 street date. "Lucky For You" is Bully's most close-to-the-bone album yet. It's an album that's searing and unmistakably marked by its creator's experiences, while still retaining the massive sound that Alicia Bognanno has become known for over the last decade. Her fourth album draws from personal pain and the universal struggle that is existing, learning, and moving on - and it's all soundtracked by Bognanno's rock-solid melodic sensibilities and a widescreen sound that's impossible to pin down when it comes to the textures explored. "Lucky For You" is largely inspired by Bognanno's dog and best friend Mezzi passing away, at a time when her life already felt as if in metamorphosis. It is a kaleidoscopic rock record spanning punk's grit, the crunchy bliss of shoegaze, explosive Britpop, and the type of classic anthems Bully has been known for. These ten songs are simply the most irresistible Bognanno's put to tape yet, making "Lucky For You" her greatest triumph to date in a career already packed with them. |
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Cable Ties [All Her Plans] June 23 street date. "All Her Plans", the third album from Melbourne, Australia's Cable Ties, finds the trio of Jenny McKechnie, Shauna Boyle, and Nick Brown at their punchiest and most assured. The ferocious, kraut-influenced blend of post-punk and garage rock of their Merge debut "Far Enough" remains, but McKechnie's lyrics invite the listener closer than ever before. The urgency and fury that have marked Cable Ties' output thus far is more nuanced on "All Her Plans". The unfettered rage of their calls to action endures - tackling subjects like broken mental healthcare systems and the burden of familial care that is largely placed on women - while holding space for gratitude, love, and acceptance. "All Her Plans" is a breakthrough moment for Cable Ties. It is the sound of a group that is exhilarated to be making music together again, both a celebration of their resilience and a massive step forward into a future they can finally claim as their own. |
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Dinner Party [Enigmatic Society] June 16 street date. "Enigmatic Society" is the new offering from the multi-faceted, Grammy-nominated supergroup Dinner Party. Full of opulently intricate instrumentation and a range of sleek R&B to smooth neo-soul vocals, "Enigmatic Society" is mesmerizing in its entirety. The album features brilliant performances from the debut Dinner Party crew: Terrace Martin, Robert Glasper, Kamasi Washington and 9th Wonder, with additional help vocalists Phoelix, Arin Ray, Ant Clemons, Tank and producers Sounwave, Hi-Tek and Trevor Lawrence Jr. "Enigmatic Society" serves as a follow up to the group's 2020 debut self-titled album and continues as a celebration of Black joy, life, art, and culture, as it pays tribute to the duality that manifests in both the beauty and adversity in Black America. This deep sense of community and family flows throughout the project with the album's artwork designed by Kamasi Washington's sister, artist Amani Washington. |
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Eric'S Trip [1990 Demo] June 16 street date. Eric's Trip was a band from Moncton, and the first Canadian group signed to Sub Pop in late 1992. Two years earlier they recorded this, their first demo cassette. Now available for the first time on vinyl, lovingly remastered and pressed on a 45rpm coke bottle clear 12 inch. The music is noisy and melodic, a trademark sound that defined the band. It's been one of the top sellers in the digital realm on bandleader Rick White's Bandcamp page, so this small pressing may go quick. Download included. |
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Fred again../Brian Eno [Secret Life] June 16 street date. "Secret Life" was produced by Brian Eno and Fred Gibson (aka Fred again..) between April 4, 2020 - December 23, 2022. According to Four Tet, who is releasing the album on his label Text Records, "it is the most beautiful album of 2023". The son of members of the British peerage and descendant of English aristocrats, Fred again.. first met Eno at age 16 upon being invited by a family friend to join an a capella group rehearsal hosted by the ambient music legend. A profile in The Guardian notes that if the young artist wasn't making tea or tidying up song sheets for the group, he was talking synths and bringing song sketches to Eno. After mentoring Fred again.. for two years, Eno enlisted him to co-produce his pair of albums with Underworld's Karl Hyde, 2014's "Someday World" and "High Life". |
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Harper, Ben [Wide Open Light] June 2 street date. How Ben Harper describes his new album: "Wide Open Light" is a family of songs I've written. I've selected them with the care one might put into a personal photo album. To that effect, I'd call it a sonic family photo album, each track a close relative to the next. The story behind this record is simple. I have been writing songs now for over 30 years. It's what I long to do, love to do, and at times feel I need to do, and hope to continue doing until the ink runs dry and the notes fade. But for now, "Wide Open Light". Deliberately minimalist, the songs themselves do as much of the heavy lifting as the production (produced by myself, and my longtime collaborators Danny Kalb and Jason Mozersky)". Featured guests on the album include Jack Johnson, Shelby Lynne, and Piers Faccini. |
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Hecker, Tim [No Highs (2LP)] June 23 street date. The latest by Canadian composer Tim Hecker serves as a beacon of unease against the deluge of false positive corporate ambient currently in vogue. Whether taken as warning or promise, "No Highs" delivers - this is music of austerity and ambiguity, purgatorial and seasick. A jagged anti-relaxant for our medicated age, rough-hewn and undefined. Morse code pulse programming flickers like distress signals while a gathering storm of strings, noise, and low-end looms in the distance. Processed electronics shiver and shudder against pitch-shifting assemblages of crackling voltage, mantric horns (including exquisite modal sax by Colin Stetson), and cathedral keys. Throughout, the pieces both accrue and avoid drama, more attuned to undertow than crescendo. Hecker mentions "negation" as a muse of sorts - the sense of tumult without bombast, tethered ecstasies, an escape from escapism. His is an antagonism both brusque and beguiling, devoid of resolution, beckoning the listener ever deeper into its greyscale alchemies of magisterial disquiet. |
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Keys N Krates [Original Classic- Deluxe (2LP-blue vinyl)] June 23 street date. Since forming a decade ago in Toronto, Keys N Krates have carved their own path via a bass-centric, sample-driven sound, melding the realms of electronic, hip-hop, and beyond. The group - composed of drummer Adam Tune, keyboardist David Matisse and turntablist Jr. Flo - has built a venerable reputation as one of the leading live electronic acts today on the strength of their onstage instrumentation and energetic sets. Dubbed as one of Billboard's "Dance Albums of the Year" and A2iM Libera nominated "Best Dance Record", the trio's sophomore album "Original Classic" has been pressed for the first time on exclusive classic blue vinyl as a double LP, paired with a series of remixes from Soul Clap, Justin Martin, TEK. LUN, Byron The Aquarius, etc. |
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King Krule [Space Heavy] June 9 street date. UK songwriter/producer Archy Marshall, aka King Krule, presents his fourth studio record, "Space Heavy". Written from 2020 to 2022, the pensive 15 track album took shape over the course of commutes between London and Liverpool, where Archy was splitting his time. He found himself fascinated by the notion of "the space between" - the space haunted by dreams of love, touching a narrative of lost connection, losing people and situations to the guillotine of the universe. 10 years on from his debut album, "Space Heavy" presents King Krule at his most articulate; using his years of experience to create a dynamic body of work that reveals something new with every listen. |
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Layo & Bushwacka! [Love Story (Paul Woolford radio remix)] June 16 street date. Layo & Bushwacka!'s "Love Story (vs Finally)", released 20 years ago, was one of those tracks you couldn't get away from. Whether you were in the club or just listening to the radio, it was everywhere. Infiltrating the UK Top 10 Chart and going Gold, this mashup of the duo's original "Love Story" and Kings Of Tomorrow's "Finally" was the duo's crowning jewel. XL are celebrating "Love Story" and its anniversary by commissioning Paul Woolford to make a version that would hit the dancefloor just as hard 20 years later. This floor ready remix proves that classics never die; breathing new life into a track that "changed the course of dance music history" (DJ Mag). Layo & Bushwacka! & Paul Woolford's "Love Story (vs Finally)" (Paul Woolford 2023 Remixes) arrives on a black vinyl 12". |
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Lightning Dust [Nostalgia Killer] June 9 street date. "Nostalgia Killer" is the new album from Vancouver's Lightning Dust, led by Amber Webber and Josh Wells, both founding members of Black Mountain. Across "Nostalgia Killer", Lightning Dust introduces a sound that feels vaguely familiar while forming a mythology all of their own. Although this exact work may not have been created if it wasn’t for the duo's separation, it would be wrong to simply call it a break-up album. The album title couldn't set a more perfect expectation for what the album holds. Hearing those words together, one might anticipate something harder, more chilly and severe. But what happens is quite the opposite: listeners find themselves wandering into someplace warm, guided by familiar sounds and voices. Little do they know they'll soon be flung into a climate unknown. Sticky with unresolved, living feelings, walls of synths and bass lines rise to chill-inducing heights, while maintaining space around Webber's singular voice as she sings of romantic warfare like some kind of cosmic Stevie Nicks. An album that sounds arena-ready and devastatingly intimate all at once. |
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Milky Chance [Living In A Haze (black vinyl)] June 9 street date. As Milky Chance prepare to share the idiosyncratic and inventive alt-pop songs that populate their new album "Living In A Haze", they proudly boast over 10 million monthly Spotify listeners, an enviable touring resume (including stops at Coachella and Lollapalooza), and an upcoming schedule of world-trotting 2023 dates (including many Canadian shows) featuring the biggest shows of their career. Over the past decade, they've proven themselves to be, in their own low-key way, one of the biggest bands in the world. Their runaway hit debut "Stolen Dance" - which recently surpassed over 1 billion streams on Spotify - gifted Rehbein and Dausch with a platform far beyond what the duo could have imagined. On their independent debut "Living In A Haze", Milky Chance thrive on writing the tightest, most groove-forward alt-pop songs imaginable - and then going back and distorting each sound into its wildest iteration. "Living In A Haze" applies the band's endless musical curiosity to the propulsive logic of the best club music while delivering masterful songcraft. Canadian spring tour dates: May 27, 28 - Quebec City / May 29 - Ottawa / May 30 - Montreal / May 31 - Toronto |
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Neutral Milk Hotel [On Avery Island (2LP/Anniversary edition)] June 9 street date. Double vinyl LP pressing housed in gatefold jacket. Includes insert and digital download. Jeff Mangum creates a world of his own on this amazing 1996 debut from Neutral Milk Hotel. "On Avery Island" is full of trombone, keyboards, overdriven acoustics, and beautiful songs. On this anniversary reissue, the complete version of "Pree-Sisters Swallowing a Donkey's Eye" as originally intended completes the album. |
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Parks, Arlo [My Soft Machine (black vinyl)] May 26 street date. Arlo Parks' sophomore album, "My Soft Machine", is a deeply personal body of work; a narration of Parks' experiences as she navigates her 20s and the growth intertwined. It follows her highly-praised debut album, "Collapsed In Sunbeams", which received two GRAMMY nominations for Best New Artist and Best Alternative Music Album, won the BRIT Award for Best New Artist, received the Honda Mercury Prize, won the BBC Introducing Artist Of The Year Award, was nominated for Breakthrough International Act at the BET Awards and reached the top 3 on the UK Album Charts. For "My Soft Machine", Arlo worked alongside producers including Paul Epworth, Ariel Rechtshaid, Romil Hemnani (Brockhampton), Frank Ocean-collaborator Buddy Ross, and Carter Lang (SZA), whilst also self-producing a run of material on the album. The record features a guest vocal from musician and friend, Phoebe Bridgers. |
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Pennywise [Unknown Road (30th Anniversary/orange&blue)] June 2 street date. "Unknown Road" is reissued on limited edition orange & blue galaxy vinyl to celebrate the album's 30th anniversary! On "Unknown Road", Pennywise steps up their songwriting, maintains all their fury and intensity, and lays out their philosophy of independence and the importance of daring to live every moment to its fullest. This album featured a number of songs that played on tons of skate, surf and snowboarding videos, making this, and other PW records to come, the soundtrack to the exploding extreme sports board scene. Featuring such Pennywise classics as "Homesick", "Unknown Road", "It's Up To Me", and "You Can Demand", "Unknown Road" is arguably the quintessential SoCal hardcore record of the 90s. |
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Queens Of The Stone Age [In Times New Roman..(2LP)] June 16 street date. Black vinyl 2LP. "In Times New Roman…", the 8th studio album from Queens Of The Stone Age, is raw, brutal, and rough around the edges, but with a refinement that reveals itself further with each successive listen - and QOTSA founder Joshua Homme's lyrics are as witty and withering as ever. The results are instantly identifiable; QOTSA's sonic signature, expanded and embellished with new and unprecedented twists in virtually every song, a live in-a-room recording that showcases a band at the height of their creative powers. "In Times New Roman…" is a party for the obscene and the clean, the outcasts and the weirdos, and anyone and everyone in between. One of the most important bands in recent rock history is BACK, and it's no exaggeration to call this album a devastating rebirth. The 11-track Double-LP is available on 4 Limited Edition Colour Variants (Green, Red, Clear Blue or Metallic Silver) as well as on Black vinyl or CD. |
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Rancid [Tomorrow Never Comes] June 2 street date. Rancid - the legendary Bay Area punk rockers - are back with their 10th studio album, "Tomorrow Never Comes". Emerging from the blue-collar swamps of Berkeley, California, Rancid has now been a living, breathing punk rock band for over a quarter century. Back in 1991, after the demise of their much beloved and still influential first band, Operation Ivy, founding members Tim Armstrong (vocals, guitar) and Matt Freeman (bass, vocals) decided to do the impossible - start an even better band. Signing with Epitaph Records, the band released their first album in 1993. Shortly thereafter, Lars Frederiksen (vocals, guitar) joined the band and they went on to release incredible records including their classic - the platinum selling "And Out Come The Wolves" (1995). Their music confronts political and social issues, while balancing personal tales of love, loss, and heartbreak with attitude. Rancid gives their listeners a community where everyone can belong. By carrying on the traditions and spirit of the original punk rock bands that came before, Rancid has become a legend and inspiration to punk bands that have come after. They are the living embodiment of East Bay punk. |
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Texas [The Very Best Of 1989-2023 (2LP-gold vinyl)] June 16 street date. Texas are a Scottish rock band from Glasgow. They were founded in 1986 by Johnny McElhone (formerly of the bands Altered Images and Hipsway) and Sharleen Spiteri on lead vocals. Texas made their performing debut in March 1988 and released their debut album, "Southside", in 1989. Though not hugely successful in North America, they have had 13 UK top ten singles and 8 UK top ten albums. "The Very Best Of 1989-2023" is a career spanning collection of their work. It features 24 tracks, including two brand new singles, "After All" and "Keep On Talking". |
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This Is The Kit [Careful Of Your Keepers] June 9 street date. This Is The Kit, the group led by Paris-based bandleader Kate Stables, return with their wondrous new album, "Careful Of Your Keepers", produced by Gruff Rhys (Super Furry Animals). The album is daring and soft, cutting and warm, and a wild feat of complexity and combined dispositions. There's a shared language of the band's family experience that is as audible as ever in these recordings, which boast beautiful instrumental performances that still leave the nuanced space required for Stables' vocals to live at the forefront. "Careful Of Your Keepers", according to Stables, is rooted in "the fragility of things. Of situations. Of relationships. Of humans. What we do to look after each other and ourselves. The passing of time and what that does to us, and how we live our lives going forward". |
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Ward, M. [Supernatural Thing] June 16 street date. M. Ward has clearly mastered the whole vocabulary of American popular music and made serious decisions about how to employ it for his own ends. What Ward shares with Harry Smith's artists and Neil Young is a context of musical and human values: authenticity and intimacy. "Supernatural Thing"'s original songs sound freshly pulled from the ground, with a little earth sticking to them. Ward's lyric delivery has that slight rawness the ear loves, and his voice has quiet dignity and great tenderness. "Supernatural Thing" is an open-hearted, inviting album. The album's guest stars - First Aid Kit, Shovels & Rope, Scott McMicken, Neko Case, Jim James, others - enliven the album with surprises. Eight of the album's ten songs are Ward originals. There's an unusual Bowie choice, "I Can't Give Everything Away" from "Blackstar", and a live rendition of Daniel Johnston's "Story Of An Artist". |
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Water From Your Eyes [Everyone's Crushed] May 26 street date. Life is horribly dark right now, and yet, it is not unfunny. That's the sentiment that animates Water From Your Eyes throughout their latest album, and first for Matador, "Everyone's Crushed". On the follow-up to the Brooklyn duo's 2021 breakthrough, "Structure", Rachel Brown (they/them) and Nate Amos (he/him) find silliness and fatalism dancing in a frantic lockstep, using heart palpitating rhythms and absurdist, deadpan lyrics to convey stories of personal and societal unease. Described by Brown as Water From Your Eyes' most collaborative record ever, it's a swollen contusion of an album: experimental pop music that's pretty and violent, raw and indelible. |
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