Vinyl edition of the "At The National Grid" album from double-decade running New Zealand pop heavyweights THE BATS -ROBERT SCOTT, MALCOLM GRANT, PAUL KEAN, and KAYE WOODWARD. Twelve tracks of classic, strummy pop recorded at National Grid studio in Christchurch. Includes guest electric violin from ALASTAIR GALBRAITH.
September 20 street date. Three members of Sleepytime Trio, Jonathan Fuller, David NeSmith, and Ben Davis, originally formed the band in the late nineties. They began writing songs together in a style that pursued and explored dark, meandering melodies while retaining the vitality and drive of their previous efforts. This trio produced Bats & Mice's first work, a self-titled CDep
released on Lovitt Records in fall 2000 to critical acclaim and mass popularity with college radio and fans alike. Six years, several personnel changes, and a lengthy hiatus later, Bats & Mice has re-emerged with its original members . The release of their latest 7", "Back in Bat," is an extension of the haunting themes and soaring harmonies of their prior releases. Energetic and refreshed, Bats & Mice enter a future that looks bright. A steady approach to song writing and plans to tour the USA and Europe in the summer and fall of 2010 contribute to a new chapter in the history of this group. Bats & Mice are working on new material for their next LP record, and a reinvigorated enthusiasm has infected the band, a good omen for the group and fans alike.
October 9 street date. Hailing from Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada, this powerful five-piece has been quickly turning heads in lots of different scenes. Their vast influences, spanning everything from American hardcore to early '80s UK punk and oi, yield an extremely accessible blend of punk that folks everywhere are embracing in a big way. Although the band only formed in 2013, these seasoned veterans of the scene are taking the Canadian prairies by storm, and have just begun branching out to share their brand of punk with the rest of North America and beyond. 7" includes digital download. This is the red vinyl version, limited to 200 copies.
August 6 street date. Wolf’s Clothing is the culmination of a years-long undertaking into what beatsmith, Batsauce refers to as “Dark Jazz” – moodier textures; muted instrumentation; whispers within the kaleidoscopic rhythms; untold stories coming to life by way of bending bass and drums. This Is an intentional body of work inspired by the legends that Batsauce discovered during crate-digging expeditions to be repurposed into his familiar environs.
May 27 street date. Batsaykhan is not only one of Nuno Oliveira's alter-egos but also something between a science fiction character and an ancestral spirit doomed to wander the earth Now a trio with the help of André Azevedo and Tito Silva, Nuno started working on old demos of unpublished compositions and adapting them to the new formation. Their sound is between a forest of psychedelia, a river of ambient and the obvious desert that has buried the guitars under its "western" sand.
May 25 street date. Wherever it is that they’re going, longtime collaborators, Dillon & Batsauce have been ‘on their way’ for quite some time...but their debut full length of the same name has finally arrived. The culmination of a series of trips between Dillon’s lab in Atlanta & Batsauce’s homebase in Berlin, On Their Way has been years in the making - albeit in annual two week increments.
April 17 street date. Atlanta based MC/DJ Dillon and globetrotting beat maker Batsauce are back with another dose. Their 2018 full-length, 'On Their Way' showed the well-traveled combo gazing outward, examining how far they've come in the world and their place in it. Here on their fouth project together, the duo instead reflects inward on the woes of depression and addiction in our society and how many of us choose to be self medicated just to survive. There's no simple solution to the complex problems we all face as human beings struggling to live on a dying planet, but we suggest you apply this musical medicine to your ears and see what it does for YOU.
October 22 street date. The Exbats are a father-daughter led band from Bisbee, Arizona. On "Now Where Were We", The Exbats hit the ground running like a dystopian garage rock version of the Shangri-Las, or like a message to the future from the pre-Velvet Underground doowop wannabe Lou Reed. The album rings bright, like a beacon in the wilderness: eminently, effortlessly catchy, and loaded with buoyant choruses that rank alongside the best chart-toppers launched by the Brill Building or Phil Spector's Wall of Sound. Despite their remote location in Bisbee, just eleven miles north of the U.S.-Mexican border, the group quickly racked up accolades citing a wealth of influences that run from cartoon quintet the Archies to punk rock originators the Avengers, and from the so-sweet-it-hurts 1910 Fruitgum Company to Los Angeles antiheroes the Weirdos. Truthfully, The Exbats embrace a wider swath of musical styles, incorporating blue-eyed soul, tongue-in-cheek country, Brit pop, psych, and R&B into their sound.
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.
Merge Records was started in the summer of 1989, by Laura Ballance & Mac McCaughan, the same summer they formed the band Superchunk in Chapel Hill, NC. The first couple releases were cassettes (remember those?), by WWAX and Bricks, followed by the first Superchunk (then known only as "Chunk") 7" single. The vinyl 7" was the format of choice for the first 3 years of the label, with cash borrowed from friends to finance projects (including singles from Erectus Monotone, Angels of Epistemology, and more Superchunk) and bedrooms serving as Merge HQ until 1992, when the first Merge full-length release, Tossing Seeds by Superchunk, was released on CD, LP, and cassette. With this release Merge also forged a relationship with Touch and Go Records of Chicago, who have done an admirable job manufacturing and distributing the bulk of Merge's full-length releases since then. Since '92 Merge moved from one charming-yet-run-down office to another until 2001, when we finally made the move from Chapel Hill down the road to a fine old building all our own in historic Downtown Durham, NC. In 2004 Merge Records is celebrating its 15th birthday, and while our roster has changed, rotated, permutated and expanded over the last 15 years, the quality we look for in records as fans is still there in the music we put out on Merge. Thanks for listening!
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.
Merge Records was started in the summer of 1989, by Laura Ballance & Mac McCaughan, the same summer they formed the band Superchunk in Chapel Hill, NC. The first couple releases were cassettes (remember those?), by WWAX and Bricks, followed by the first Superchunk (then known only as "Chunk") 7" single. The vinyl 7" was the format of choice for the first 3 years of the label, with cash borrowed from friends to finance projects (including singles from Erectus Monotone, Angels of Epistemology, and more Superchunk) and bedrooms serving as Merge HQ until 1992, when the first Merge full-length release, Tossing Seeds by Superchunk, was released on CD, LP, and cassette. With this release Merge also forged a relationship with Touch and Go Records of Chicago, who have done an admirable job manufacturing and distributing the bulk of Merge's full-length releases since then. Since '92 Merge moved from one charming-yet-run-down office to another until 2001, when we finally made the move from Chapel Hill down the road to a fine old building all our own in historic Downtown Durham, NC. In 2004 Merge Records is celebrating its 15th birthday, and while our roster has changed, rotated, permutated and expanded over the last 15 years, the quality we look for in records as fans is still there in the music we put out on Merge. Thanks for listening!
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.
Merge Records was started in the summer of 1989, by Laura Ballance & Mac McCaughan, the same summer they formed the band Superchunk in Chapel Hill, NC. The first couple releases were cassettes (remember those?), by WWAX and Bricks, followed by the first Superchunk (then known only as "Chunk") 7" single. The vinyl 7" was the format of choice for the first 3 years of the label, with cash borrowed from friends to finance projects (including singles from Erectus Monotone, Angels of Epistemology, and more Superchunk) and bedrooms serving as Merge HQ until 1992, when the first Merge full-length release, Tossing Seeds by Superchunk, was released on CD, LP, and cassette. With this release Merge also forged a relationship with Touch and Go Records of Chicago, who have done an admirable job manufacturing and distributing the bulk of Merge's full-length releases since then. Since '92 Merge moved from one charming-yet-run-down office to another until 2001, when we finally made the move from Chapel Hill down the road to a fine old building all our own in historic Downtown Durham, NC. In 2004 Merge Records is celebrating its 15th birthday, and while our roster has changed, rotated, permutated and expanded over the last 15 years, the quality we look for in records as fans is still there in the music we put out on Merge. Thanks for listening!
June 21 street date. Gold Past Life marks both an end and a beginning for Fruit Bats. It's the end of an unintentional thematic trilogy of records that began with 2014's EDJ (a solo record by name, but a Fruit Bats release in spirit) and hit an emotional peak with 2016's Absolute Loser. They encompassed years of loss, displacement, and the persistent, low-level anxiety of the current political climate. They were written in the wake of friends who left these earthly confines and families that could have been. But these salves, these songs on Gold Past Life, also represent new beginnings-the journeys that await after making it through troubled times. Gold Past Life is about rejecting notions of idealized nostalgia ("Gold Past Life") and the process of grounding oneself in the present, both geographically ("A Lingering Love," "Ocean") and spiritually ("Drawn Away"). With Gold Past Life, Eric Johnson of Fruit B hopes to bring more immediacy to the music and share positivity, hope, and motivation to keep on keepin' on with a wider audience.
Merge Records was started in the summer of 1989, by Laura Ballance & Mac McCaughan, the same summer they formed the band Superchunk in Chapel Hill, NC. The first couple releases were cassettes (remember those?), by WWAX and Bricks, followed by the first Superchunk (then known only as "Chunk") 7" single. The vinyl 7" was the format of choice for the first 3 years of the label, with cash borrowed from friends to finance projects (including singles from Erectus Monotone, Angels of Epistemology, and more Superchunk) and bedrooms serving as Merge HQ until 1992, when the first Merge full-length release, Tossing Seeds by Superchunk, was released on CD, LP, and cassette. With this release Merge also forged a relationship with Touch and Go Records of Chicago, who have done an admirable job manufacturing and distributing the bulk of Merge's full-length releases since then. Since '92 Merge moved from one charming-yet-run-down office to another until 2001, when we finally made the move from Chapel Hill down the road to a fine old building all our own in historic Downtown Durham, NC. In 2004 Merge Records is celebrating its 15th birthday, and while our roster has changed, rotated, permutated and expanded over the last 15 years, the quality we look for in records as fans is still there in the music we put out on Merge. Thanks for listening!
June 21 street date. Gold Past Life marks both an end and a beginning for Fruit Bats. It's the end of an unintentional thematic trilogy of records that began with 2014's EDJ (a solo record by name, but a Fruit Bats release in spirit) and hit an emotional peak with 2016's Absolute Loser. They encompassed years of loss, displacement, and the persistent, low-level anxiety of the current political climate. They were written in the wake of friends who left these earthly confines and families that could have been. But these salves, these songs on Gold Past Life, also represent new beginnings-the journeys that await after making it through troubled times. Gold Past Life is about rejecting notions of idealized nostalgia ("Gold Past Life") and the process of grounding oneself in the present, both geographically ("A Lingering Love," "Ocean") and spiritually ("Drawn Away"). With Gold Past Life, Eric Johnson of Fruit B hopes to bring more immediacy to the music and share positivity, hope, and motivation to keep on keepin' on with a wider audience.
Merge Records was started in the summer of 1989, by Laura Ballance & Mac McCaughan, the same summer they formed the band Superchunk in Chapel Hill, NC. The first couple releases were cassettes (remember those?), by WWAX and Bricks, followed by the first Superchunk (then known only as "Chunk") 7" single. The vinyl 7" was the format of choice for the first 3 years of the label, with cash borrowed from friends to finance projects (including singles from Erectus Monotone, Angels of Epistemology, and more Superchunk) and bedrooms serving as Merge HQ until 1992, when the first Merge full-length release, Tossing Seeds by Superchunk, was released on CD, LP, and cassette. With this release Merge also forged a relationship with Touch and Go Records of Chicago, who have done an admirable job manufacturing and distributing the bulk of Merge's full-length releases since then. Since '92 Merge moved from one charming-yet-run-down office to another until 2001, when we finally made the move from Chapel Hill down the road to a fine old building all our own in historic Downtown Durham, NC. In 2004 Merge Records is celebrating its 15th birthday, and while our roster has changed, rotated, permutated and expanded over the last 15 years, the quality we look for in records as fans is still there in the music we put out on Merge. Thanks for listening!
June 11 street date. Longtime stalwarts of the indie hip hop scene, Qwazaar (of Typical Cats) & Batsauce (The Smile
Rays) have once again emerged with a project that is sure to cause an avalanche – Stoned Giant. Qwazaar's unorthodox approach as a lyricist finds the quintessential canvases in Batsauce's moodier, dustier brand of Boom Bap beats. The duo is flanked by Qwazaar's partners in rhyme, Hellsent (Chicago), as well as Typical Cats bandmates Qwel & Denizen Kane who form like Voltron for a triumphant reunion track.
September 18 street date. Razorbats are a straight up hard rock band from Norway, a country known for their expensive beer, abundance of hard rock bars, Neseblod and the birthplace of Scandinavian Black Metal. Camp Rock is the follow up to their 7" E.P. Bring It On that was released in 2014 by Self Destructo Records, and it follows in the same style where the e.p. left off: 70's era hard rock riffs and melodies mixed with a break neck punk style attack. RILY: Rise Against, Supersuckers, Hanoi Rocks, Gluecifer.
July 28 street date. Non-returnable. Scandinavia is notorious for bringing out bands which remind us of the years that the US released great rock music. The Razorbats take over from an alternate reality where the United States actually paid attention to T. Rex, Hawkwind, and AC/ DC early on, instead of pushing them aside for radio friendly yacht rock. "All three songs follow the same '70s groove as Camp Rock. I hear significant influences from The Stooges, T-Rex, and even the Sex Pistols. Razorbats have modernized the pre-punk sound in a way that Green Day or Blink 182 did with their version of pop-punk. Particularly, the song "This High" floats between the two eras with interesting results." -Metal Mike - Sleaze Roxx.
June 30 street date. Sandy Wild is THE new female Rockabilly vocal sensation!!. . . Bear Family is proud to present the new Sandy & The Wild Wombats album, coming soon on Bear Family Records! The band’s second album is somewhat different and comes with 12 original songs written by their guitarist, Mark Twang. Sandy & The Wild Wombats are in fact a live band with a frenzied live show - and this, along with a thrill of ecstasy, is exactly what the band captured on record. The sound of the Wild is truly based on 1950s Rockabilly. The new album is full of Rockabilly rhythms mixed with more or less modern Rock'n'Roll rattles, some Blues orientated songs, some Country-influenced tracks, plus a ballad. And on top of it all is the wonderful voice of Sandy. Her singing has a strong resemblence with the vocal style of the late great Wanda Jackson. However, she’s singing in a way completely her own. Sandy has left her personal mark on every song.
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