 |
 |
Bad Suns [Apocalypse Whenever] January 28 street date. Bad Suns sound - dreamy 1980s pastiche flanked by Stratocasters through cranked Vox amps, pulsing synths, and palpable rhythmic energy - that endeared listeners to the band in the first place, and their fourth LP, "Apocalypse Whenever", uses that musical foundation as the jumping-off point for their next evolution. Conceived as "the soundtrack to a movie that doesn't yet exist", the 13-track album, helmed by longtime producer Eric Palmquist (MUTEMATH, Thrice) at his Palmquist Studios and the band's North Hollywood rehearsal spot, is more conceptually rigorous than anything they've ever attempted - but no less compelling or accessible. Their disparate influences don't just offer "Apocalypse Whenever" an expanded palette of sonic choices to color Bad Suns' airtight hooks - they help give the songs an emotional complexity that works on a multitude of levels depending on how listeners choose to receive them. |
 |
|
Barr, Brad [The Winter Mission (red + download)] January 21 street date. For more than 20 years, Brad Barr has been counting the number 216. It's a magical, mystical number that has appeared everywhere for him - from clocks and license plates to Ouija boards and receipts - and now it's also sewn the fabric of a new album, like the 216 stitches on an officially-certified Major League baseball. The front man for the Barr Brothers has set aside his band and his microphone and even his sheets of lyrics - picking up his instrument for a solo guitar album that ripples with immediacy, vulnerability, and the spell of six-cubed. The album had its origins in a commission, landing just before the arrival of the Pandemic: an invitation to compose for New York City's acclaimed off-Broadway All For One Theater. The theatre's founder, Michael Wolk, knew "The Fall Apartment" and sought a set of similar instrumental tracks for on- and off-stage use. "It felt like a gift," Barr recalls - as the world shut down and touring stopped, as Barr sought a sound he could explore all by himself, in this strange intermission. |
 |
|
Beach House [Once Twice Melody (2LP silver edition/black vinyl)] February 18 street date. Black vinyl "silver edition" packaged in wide-spine jacket with poster and custom dust sleeves. First new album since 2018 from the standard-bearers of modern atmospheric indie-pop. "Once Twice Melody" is the 8th studio album by Beach House. It is a double album, featuring 18 songs presented in 4 chapters. Across these songs, many types of style and song structures can be heard. Songs without drums, songs centered around acoustic guitar, mostly electronic songs with no guitar, wandering and repetitive melodies, songs built around the string sections. In addition to new sounds, many of the drum machines, organs, keyboards and tones that listeners may associate with previous Beach House records remain present throughout many of the compositions. Beach House's audience has tripled recently due to massive online exposure: "Space Song" (from 2015's "Depression Cherry") was in two separate TikTok memes, while "Silver Soul" (from 2010's "Teen Dream") was sampled by Kendrick Lamar and subsequently got tons of exposure on TikTok. |
 |
|
Big Thief [Dragon New Warm Mountain..(2LP) I Believe In You] February 11 street date. "Dragon New Warm Mountain I Believe in You" is a sprawling double-LP exploring the deepest elements and possibilities of Big Thief. To truly dig into all that the music of Adrianne Lenker, Max Oleartchik, Buck Meek, and James Krivchenia desired in 2020, the band decided to write and record a rambling account of growth as individuals, musicians, and chosen family over 4 distinct recording sessions. They spent 5 months in creation, coming out with 45 completed songs. The most resonant of this material was edited down into the 20 tracks that make up "DNWMIBIY", a fluid and adventurous listen. All 4 of these sessions, in their varied states of fidelity, style, and mood, when viewed together as one album seem to stand for a more honest, zoomed-out picture of lived experience than would be possible on a traditional, 12 song record. This was exactly what the band hoped would be the outcome of this kind of massive experiment. The attempt to capture something deeper, wider, and full of mystery, points to the inherent spirit of Big Thief. To support the new release Big Thief will be attempting to steer the dragon in Montreal (Olympia - April 18th) and Toronto (Massey Hall - April 19th). |
 |
|
Burial [Antidawn EP] January 28 street date. "Antidawn" reduces Burial's music to just the vapours. The record explores an interzone between dislocated, patchwork songwriting and eerie, open-world game-space ambience. In the resulting no man's land, lyrics take precedence over song, lonely phrases colour the haze, a stark and fragmented structure makes time slow down. "Antidawn" seems to tell a story of a wintertime city, and something beckoning you to follow it into the night. The result is both comforting and disturbing, producing a quiet and uncanny glow against the cold. Sometimes, as it enters "a bad place", it takes your breath away. And time just stops. |
 |
|
Callahan, Bill & Bonnie Prince Billy [Blind Date Party (2LP)] Please note new street date: January 28. The Blind Date Party hosted by Bill Callahan and Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy and featuring many guests (Ty Segall, Alasdair Roberts, Sean O'Hagan, David Pajo, Mick Turner, Meg Baird, Six Organs of Admittance, David Grubbs, and Sir Richard Bishop, to name a few) happened online in the fall and winter of 2020-21 - but the party planning dated back to the spring of 2020. Stuck at home, with no gigs in the foreseeable future, Bill, Bonnie and Drag City needed an outreach program to keep themselves busy, not to mention sane. In the absence of any company or anything on the calendar, playing songs they loved was an idea; playing with people they loved, the desire. And making it fun - so pairing someone with someone else having no say in the matter, the essence of the blind date, was the plan. Favourite songs were chosen by artists such as Leonard Cohen, Steely Dan, Billie Eilish, Lou Reed, Robert Wyatt, Hank Williams Jr. etc.; players from around the Drag City galaxy were messaged. Pretty soon, songs were flying back and forth - music in the air! |
 |
|
Chenaux, Eric [Say Laura (180g)] February 18 street date. The new record by Eric Chenaux is his most immaculate and pristine. "Say Laura" perfectly incarnates the counter-intuitive interplay of instrument and voice that Chenaux has been revealing and revelling in throughout the past decade: his gently unhinged juxtaposition of resplendently smooth, seductively assured singing and puckish, frazzled, thoroughly destabilized guitar could come from no other musician. The five wandering, wondering ballads on "Say Laura" bring Chenaux's semi-improvised but keenly intentional songwriting to its fullest, clearest, warmest and coolest articulation; uncompromising and generous, hyper-specific and loose, spartan and luxurious, elemental and ornate. Voice and guitar are inscribed with elemental clarity in a wondrously open, symbiotic sonic space. His pure tenor croon glides through a crisp, reverberant ether while his fried guitar careens dizzily and giddily, every gesture and timbre captured in unflinching detail. |
 |
|
Divine Comedy [Charmed Life: The Best Of The Divine Comedy (2LP)] February 4 street date. We proudly present "Charmed Life: The Best Of The Divine Comedy", a career-spanning collection of fan favourites including 'National Express', 'Something For The Weekend', 'Songs Of Love', 'Our Mutual Friend', 'A Lady Of A Certain Age', 'To The Rescue', and 'Norman And Norma'. It also features a brand new track: 'The Best Mistakes.' |
 |
|
Dubeau, Angele [Elle] February 11 street date. Comment souligner les 25 ans de l'ensemble La Pietà? La réponse est venue naturellement à Angèle Dubeau : par la musique! "Elle" propose donc pour l'occasion un album entièrement conçu, joué et composé par des femmes. En résulte un album empreint du bonheur d’échanger par le médium de la création. avec les compositrices ici réunies. Cet album témoigne de la virtuosité d'Angèle Dubeau et confirme son immense talent à élaborer des programmes qui sortent des sentiers battus, tout en étant aussi innovants qu'accessibles.How to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the ensemble La Pietà? The answer came naturally to Angèle Dubeau: through music! For the occasion, she proposes an album entirely conceived, performed and composed by women. The result is an album filled with the joy of exchanging through the medium of creation with the women composers gathered here. This album witnesses Angèle Dubeau's virtuosity and confirms her immense talent for creating programs that are off the beaten path, while being as innovative as they are accessible. |
 |
|
Eels [Extreme Witchcraft] January 28 street date. Eels have had one of the most consistently acclaimed careers in music. The ever-changing project of principal singer/songwriter E (Mark Oliver Everett), Eels have released thirteen studio albums since their 1996 debut, "Beautiful Freak". During the height of the pandemic lockdown in early 2021, E got an out of the blue message from Mark Romanek, director of the first Eels video, "Novocaine For the Soul". It triggered him to reach out to John Parish, who was in between numerous projects and immediately got to work in his HonorSound studio in Bristol and began sending ideas to E. "I'd sneak out of bed at 4 in the morning to hear the latest thing John had sent, and try to add my part to it and get it back to him quickly before my 4 year old son woke up," E says. The resulting album is "Extreme Witchcraft". |
 |
|
Felice, Simone [All The Bright Coins] January 28 street date. Simone Felice has long dedicated his storied life to the arts, and perhaps his brushes with death during childhood as heard in the song "No Tomorrows" have proved an unlikely but powerful source of inspiration. "All The Bright Coins" is his latest, arguably greatest devotion to song and the power of the words within it. Yet, like all artists worth their salt, he claims not to have quite grasped what he's been reaching for. There had been no grand plans to write this new album. Simone was happy with his lot and becoming increasingly more successful as a frontline record producer and songwriter (The Lumineers, Bat For Lashes, Jade Bird, Matt Maeson featuring Lana Del Rey, and indeed, The Felice Brothers) but, he muses, sometimes the lure and pull of penning his own material becomes too strong to resist. "All The Bright Coins" is a richly rewarding and inspired sound that makes a personal connection with the listener. It's built squarely on a bedrock of emotion, utilizing an acoustic guitar, and occasionally a piano to back the distinctive voice. |
 |
|
Fruit Bats [Sometimes A Cloud Is Just ..(2LP) 2001-2021] January 28 street date. Eric D. Johnson, the creative force behind Fruit Bats, doesn't spend a lot of time looking in the rear view mirror. But with the 20th anniversary of his first Fruit Bats release (2001's "Echolocation") on his mind, it seemed as good a time as any to take stock of his work - and he's doing so in the form of "Sometimes a Cloud Is Just a Cloud: Slow Growers, Sleeper Hits and Lost Songs (2001-2021)", a two-disc collection that tracks the history of Fruit Bats from its earliest days to right now. Thoughtfully compiled by Johnson himself, this set is split in two distinct halves. Set in reverse chronological order, the first disc cherry-picks from Fruit Bats' official releases. To emphasize both his reticence at dwelling on the past and to showcase how far he has grown as a songwriter, the first disc kicks off with a brand-new track, "Rips Me Up". If the first disc of this set is the collection that you buy for your friend that is Fruit Bats curious, the second disc is for longtime fans that want a deeper dive into Fruit Bats lore. |
 |
|
Hart, Beth [A Tribute To Led Zeppelin (2LP-black)] February 25 street date. A few years ago, there were whispers around blues-rock dynamo Beth Hart's orbit about a glorious album of Led Zeppelin covers, meticulously put together by superstar producer Rob Cavallo (Green Day, Linkin Park, My Chemical Romance). The only thing missing was vocals. Beth's dynamically expressive singing, which spans honeyed delicate tones, sandpaper gritty soulfulness, and rattle-the-rafters high notes, would be the perfect fit. Yet, the Grammy-nominated blues-rock singer-songwriter was hesitant. "Heavy rock has a lot of screaming and yelling, and a lot of my anger had died down over the years. I was scared to reconnect with it for this Led Zeppelin album," Beth explains. "But a lot of things started coming up around the pandemic, and, as time went on, I felt willing to take that risk." The resulting 9-song album, produced by Rob Cavallo and featuring him as a guitarist, is an artistic feat - a viscerally rocking album that is both faithful and personal. The 9-track album features a mix of Zep essentials and fan favourites. |
 |
|
Hollis Brown [In The Aftermath] February 4 street date. Hollis Brown's latest album, "In The Aftermath", is the deliciously depraved outcome of an all-night rock 'n' roll riot. The Queens, New York-based quintet escaped to the Poconos to record with a few handles of whiskey, and, in one 24-hour session, ran down the Stones' seminal first album of all originals, 1966's "Aftermath". On "In The Aftermath", Hollis Brown doesn't try to out-Stones the Stones. Instead, they find clever ways to salute the Stones legacy. Tracked live in the studio with minimal overdubs, "In The Aftermath" is potent proof the five-piece group is one of the last great American rock 'n' roll bands. "In The Aftermath" is the second in a casual homage series. Previously, Hollis Brown issued "Gets Loaded", saluting The Velvet Underground's "Loaded". This new album directly follows the band's most successful release yet, 2019's "Ozone Park", which earned rave reviews from Rolling Stone, Billboard, Paste Magazine, Pop Matters, Relix, and Goldmine. |
 |
|
Khruangbin & Leon Bridges [Texas Moon EP (black)] February 25 street date. Two of the acts boldly leading Texas music into the future have now delivered a second chapter of their groundbreaking collaboration, further extending the region's sonic possibilities. Singer/songwriter Leon Bridges, from Fort Worth, and trailblazing Houston trio Khruangbin have joined forces for the "Texas Moon" EP, a follow-up to 2020's acclaimed "Texas Sun" project. While the five new songs are clearly a continuation of the first EP, they also have an identity all their own. Bridges calls it "more introspective", while Khruangbin bassist Laura Lee says it "feels more night time". "Texas Moon" is a set of songs that touch on themes like love, faith, and death while exploring new dimensions of inventive, hypnotic grooves. The release represents a genuine and rare achievement, with two of the most respected and innovative acts of their generation truly collaborating to create something new. |
 |
|
Lamarr, Delvon Organ Trio [Cold As Weiss (black)] February 11 street date. Over the course of the last five years, the Delvon Lamarr Organ Trio have established themselves as the world's premier funky organ trio. The organ trio, along with founder and manager Amy Novo, continues to devise the perfect blend of raw, passionate music and engaging industry practices. Through a firm partnership with label Colemine Records, the trio has garnered Billboard charting albums, sold out shows, tens of thousands of albums sold, and millions of streams. Lofty accomplishments for an instrumental organ trio. Now, with permanent drummer Dan Weiss behind the kit, DLO3 is proud to present "Cold As Weiss", their third studio album to date that finds them tighter than ever, and continuing to push funky instrumental music to a new generation of fans. |
 |
|
Lee, Amos [Dreamland] February 11 street date. With one foot in the real world and the other in a charmed dimension of his own making, Amos Lee creates the rare kind of music that's emotionally raw yet touched with a certain magical quality. On his eighth album "Dreamland", the Philadelphia-born singer/songwriter intimately documents his real-world struggles (alienation, anxiety, loneliness, despair), an outpouring born from deliberate and often painful self-examination. In the spirit of fostering connection, Lee made "Dreamland" in close collaboration with L.A.-based producer Christian "Leggy" Langdon (Banks, Meg Myers). Thanks to the palpable sense of playfulness between them, "Dreamland" embodies an unpredictable and endlessly imaginative sound - a prime showcase for Lee's warmly commanding voice and soul-baring songwriting. All throughout "Dreamland", Lee embraces an unfettered honesty, repeatedly shedding light on the darkest corners of his psyche. |
 |
|
Mitski [Laurel Hell (black vinyl)] February 4 street date. We don't typically look to pop albums to answer our cultural moment, let alone to meet the soul hunger left in the wake of global catastrophe. But occasionally, an artist proves the form more malleable and capacious than we knew. With "Laurel Hell", Mitski cements her reputation as an artist in possession of such power - capable of using her talent to perform the alchemy that turns our most savage and alienated experiences into the very elixir that cures them. Like the mountain laurels for this new album is named, public perception, like the intoxicating prism of the internet, can offer an alluring façade that obscures a deadly trap - one that tightens the more you struggle. Exhausted by this warped mirror, and our addiction to false binaries, she began writing songs that stripped away the masks and revealed the complex and often contradictory realities behind them. Mitski has written a soundtrack for transformation, a map to the place where vulnerability and resilience, sorrow and delight, error and transcendence can all sit within our humanity, can all be seen as worthy of acknowledgment, and ultimately, love. |
 |
|
Pack A.D. [Unpersons (10th anniversary edition-glow-in-the-dark coloured)] February 4 street date. Originally released on September 13, 2011, Mint Records is releasing a limited 10th anniversary edition of "Unpersons" by The Pack a.d. on "haunted" glow-in-the-dark vinyl with a foil cover. This reissue of "Unpersons" celebrates an album that established The Pack a.d. as a band by which to compare others. Shredding and pounding their way through every song, The Pack a.d. swallows you whole inside their own fearless Franken-blend of heavy psych pop/garage-rock. "Unpersons" was recorded at the legendary Hive Studios with engineer Jesse Gander and famed Detroit producer Jim Diamond (The White Stripes, The Detroit Cobras, Electric 6), who insisted on flying in to produce the record firsthand. After the sessions, the band went back to Michigan to perfect the mix together. The result was a flawless record that took all the snarl, piss, vinegar, venom and vitriol heard on The Pack a.d.'s first three albums into a realm distinctly their own. Any prior reference to other rock duos like The Kills or White Stripes became no longer relevant after "Unpersons". |
 |
|
Pedro The Lion [Havasu (transparent peach)] February 11 street date. After a 15-year hiatus, Seattle's David Bazan reformed his legendary project Pedro The Lion with the release of "Phoenix", its first new album in over a decade. The album not only marked the project's official comeback, it quietly introduced Bazan's ambitious plan of recording 5 full-length albums devoted to each city he lived in throughout his youth. With "Havasu", Bazan goes back to the seventh grade, where he and his family spent one year living in Lake Havasu City, AZ. The result is an open-hearted acknowledgment of shame and elation both, spaciously but delicately arranged in affirmation of the nurturing those feelings deserve - even if the kid in need of validation has long since grown up and moved away. After 25 years refining and building what he calls his "garden of songs", David Bazan has sold hundreds of thousands of albums. With "Havasu", Bazan continues his prolific trajectory while planting the seeds for darker stories ahead. |
 |
|
Pinegrove [11:11 (indie shop edition/red)] January 28 street date. Pinegrove's new album "11:11" is an unqualified triumph, an album that seizes listeners with hook-filled songs imbuing feelings of warmth, urgency, and poetic beauty, even as it asks some of life's big and difficult questions. On previous Pinegrove recordings, band member Sam Skinner usually oversees mixing duties, but this time out, noted producer and former Death Cab for Cutie member Chris Walla has assumed the role. Walla, who co-produced "11:11" with Sam, sought more of a "messier" feel for these new songs. "11:11" features lush soundscapes, organs, Megan Benavente's melodic and adventurous bass playing, Josh Marre's signature guitar work and a special guest - Doug Hall, Evan's father- playing piano on many tracks. The record sounds intimate, yet expansive. "It spends equal time on optimism, community, reaffirming what we are and how it's our duty to look out for one another" says singer Evan Stephens Hall. "There's anger, love, hope and grief. The record has all of that". Pinegrove will support the release of "11:11" with performances in Toronto (February 12th) and Montreal (February 14th). |
 |
|
Shovels & Rope [Manticore] February 18 street date. Originally planned as a stripped-down acoustic-leaning release, the tracks on Shovels & Rope's new album "Manticore" were written prior to the pandemic, but recorded during it, when Michael Trent and Cary Ann Hearst suddenly had much more time at their disposal. The duo reimagined the original arrangements, resulting in 10 new songs that range in sound from heartbreaking, stark piano to rollicking hard-rock and danceable guitar and drum numbers. "Manticore" reveals the band's most personal stories about love, family, marriage, self-realization, and more to date, and it carves out its own distinct place in the Shovels & Rope canon. |
 |
|
Spoon [Lucifer On the Sofa] February 11 street date. Spoon's tenth album, "Lucifer on the Sofa", is alive, vital and inarguably the band's heaviest work to date. It's a rock 'n' roll record. Texas- made. The first set of songs that the quintet has put to tape in its hometown, Austin, in more than a decade. Written and recorded over the last two years - both in and out of shutdown - these songs feel like a culmination of Spoon's career while marking a shift toward something louder, wilder, and more vivid. From the detuned guitars anchoring "The Hardest Cut" to the sax-laden surrealism of the introspective title track, "Lucifer on the Sofa" bottles the physical thrill of a band tearing up a packed room. |
 |
|
Wild Rivers [Sidelines (bone)] February 4 street date. Indie trio Wild Rivers (Khalid Yassein, Devan Glover, and Andrew Oliver) have a gift for penning introspective lyrics and genre-fluid melodies that transmit wisdom beyond their years. Their anticipated full-length album, "Sidelines" - co-produced by Peter Katis (The National, Interpol, Sharon van Etten) and Wild Rivers and recorded in Connecticut, Los Angeles and Khalid and Devan's college town of Kingston, Ontario (where the two originally met and began making music together) - touches on coming-of-age themes and embracing the unknown. A portrait of their early post-college years, "Sidelines" is where Wild Rivers poured their collective impressions about merging into their mid-20s - a strange, liminal age where it's easy to romanticize childhood. "Sidelines", according to Andrew, looks back longingly upon "the time when you are truly present and you're not having this forward-thinking vision where you're worried about the next thing". Sonically, Wild Rivers pull from a spectrum of sounds, imbuing pop, rock, indie, and folk into each song's blueprint. |
Latest News |
|
|
Please note: Due to heavy order volume, it's crucial to send orders as early as possible. We will do our best to accommodate requests but some delays are to be expected, and with couriers at over capacity, delivery dates cannot be guaranteed. We appreciate your patience and understanding in these uncertain times. Stay safe and well! |
|