Grizzly Bear – Painted Ruins
Grizzly Bear release their first album in five years Painted Ruins produced by band member Chris Taylor. Painted Ruins fits the current political mood, it’s an album of songs beautiful on the surface, but with darkness nibbling on all sides; hope and despair on an endless see-saw. It’s also a record of thirty something friends, estranged by both geography and navigating the adult territory of marriage, divorce and parenthood, fighting through separation to find the common ground that once and still exists. It’s political and personal and the best Grizzly Bear album in ages.
2LP – Double 180 Gram Vinyl housed in Gatefold Sleeve with Download.
Kacy and Clayton – The Siren’s Song
Kacy and Clayton first met Jeff Tweedy in the backroom of the Fillmore Auditorium in San Francisco in September 2016. The band had been invited to open for Wilco on night 4 of their annual 5-night run. While waiting for their soundcheck, Jeff appeared through a curtain backstage and introduced himself. In the conversations that followed, Kacy Anderson, Clayton Linthicum and Jeff Tweedy discussed their mutual appreciation of Davy Graham and Jeff’s understanding of Saskatchewan’s geography. Those conversations would eventually blossom into an invite to stop by Wilco’s studio, the Loft, a visit they made only weeks later. In January 2017, Kacy and Clayton returned to the Loft with a rhythm section and a batch of new songs. Over the course of 8 days, the band recorded 9 songs with Jeff Tweedy producing and Loft house engineer Tom Schick at the helm. These 9 songs are what would become the band’s fourth album, The Siren’s Song. While writing and recording The Siren’s Song, Kacy and Clayton found inspiration in the music of Sammi Smith, The Everly Brothers, Link Wray’s chicken shack LPs, country records with harpsichords, The Sir Douglas Quintet, Gene Clark, Jeannie C. Riley, as well as British traditional singers like Peter Bellamy and the Watersons. The Siren’s Song is a product of these influences and an extraordinary progression in the band’s own sound.
Echo and the Bunnymen – It’s All Live Now
Each LP is individually numbered and strictly limited. 180 Gram, black vinyl pressed at Record Industry comes in a single sleeve aqueous-gloss, old school tip-on Stoughton sleeve with brand new artwork and hard stock insert. Never before seen photos of the band. Liner notes by guitarist Will Sergeant. One of the most acclaimed British rockers from the 1980’s, this legendary band formed in Liverpool in 1978 and were forefathers of the neo-psychedelic movement. This brand new collection of their legendary live material recorded in Sweden in 1985 includes classic Rock- N-Roll covers of legendary tunes by the Doors, Rolling Stones, Velvet Underground, Television and more available on vinyl for the first time. Many of the tracks from Sweden were recorded live for Swedish National Radio at the Karen Club. Also included here is a legendary extended version of Do It Clean recorded live in concert at the Royal Albert Hall in 1983.
Sheer Mag – Need to Feel Your Love
Sheer Mag has let the sparks fly since their outset, with an axe to grind against all that clouds the way. A caustic war cry, seething in solidarity with all those that suffer the brunt of ignorance and injustice in an imbalanced system. With their debut LP, the cloak has been lifted. It is time to reclaim something that has been taken from us. Here the band rolls up their sleeves, takes to the streets, and demands recompense for a tradition of inequity that’s poisoned our world. However, it is in our ability to love – our primal human right to give and receive love – that the damage of such toxicity is newly explored. On Need to Feel Your Love, they make their first full-length declaration of light seen just beyond our darkness. Spoken plainly, without shame: It is love. This – is Sheer Mag.”
Interpol – Our Love to Admire
To celebrate the 10th anniversary of Our Love to Admire, Capitol release expanded versions of this beloved classic. Our Love to Admire marked a critical and commercial breakthrough for the band. Recorded at New York’s Electric Lady and the Magic Shop studios with producer Rich Costey (Muse, Death Cab for Cutie), the album boasts an expansive, cinematic sound that drove home such notable songs as The Heinrich Maneuver, Pioneer to the Falls, No I In Threesome, Mammoth and Rest My Chemistry. Upon its release, the album debuted in the Top Five in both the U.S. and the U.K. Interpol formed in the late 1990s and quickly established a dense, intoxicating sound featuring layers of guitar, bass and synthesizers. The band came up through the vibrant New York scene, alongside such notable contemporaries as the Strokes and the National, but gained crucial early attention in Britain, where they recorded a prestigious live session for legendary BBC DJ John Peel. The LP and CD debut a sparkling new edition of the original album, remastered for this release by Gavin Lurssen with all of its original packaging intact. The bonus DVD captures the band’s 12-song performance at the London Astoria on July 2, 2007. The DVD includes live versions of several songs from Our Love to Admire, along with such earlier Interpol favourites as Narc, Obstacle 1, Public Pervert, Evil and NYC.
2CD – CD and DVD Set.
2LP – Double 180 Gram Vinyl.
2LP+ – Double 180 Gram Vinyl with DVD.
Kelley Stolz – Que Aura
Extra fine songwriter and longtime bedroom-pop auteur Kelley Stoltz delivers on the promise so many of his records slyly hint at. Que Aura is the platonic ideal of a Kelley Stoltz record, which is a very exciting thing indeed. Stoltz embraces his best synth-pop tendencies, with this incredibly self-assured set of tender tunes, combining in his own hangdog fashion both a disco-lit abandon and the attendant post-party sighs of dread and remorse. Great songs come out of Stoltz at an alarming rate on any given day but this particular collection is some of his most effortlessly catchy stuff yet. Ennui under the disco lights suits him very well – there’s a hearty sip of Pulp-ian white Brit shimmy with a wink, a dash of Fleetwood Mac’s cynically professional late ’70s sheen, and even a spritz or two of Echo and The Bunnymen, which should surprise no one who’s noticed Stoltz has been playing guitar with McCulloch and Company for the past year or so. This record cements Stoltz’s place in the power-pop pantheon where he belongs, right between Dwight Twilley and Martin Newell.
Shelby Lynne and Allison Moorer – Not Dark Yet
Critically acclaimed artists and sisters Shelby Lynne and Allison Moorer release Not Dark Yet via Silver Cross Records / Thirty Tigers. Produced by Teddy Thompson, their first and highly anticipated album together is an extraordinary debut of the pair’s transcendent musical bond. Not Dark Yet was recorded in Los Angeles in the summer of 2016. The album provides a potent look at the sisters’ individual and collective artistry through eclectic song choices from writers ranging from the Louvin Brothers, Nick Cave, Kurt Cobain, and back to Jessie Colter. Shelby and Allison wrap their arms around the past, plant their feet in the present, and nod toward what’s around the bend with a co-written Is It Too Much, to close out the ten-song set.
LP – 180 Gram Vinyl.
Ariel Pink – Another Weekend / Ode To The Goat (Thank You)
Ariel Pink’s Another Weekend is the first single from the forthcoming album. The limited 7″ record comes in printed inner sleeve with liner notes and artwork from Matt Fischbeck, longtime collaborator of Ariel Pink.
Anna Meredith – Nautilus
Limited Edition one off pressing on Etched 12” Vinyl (500 copies – Exclusive to Rough Trade). Stand out track from Anna Meredith’s critically acclaimed album Varmints gets a release on a beautiful limited etched vinyl in all of its 5 minutes 30 seconds glory, and comes backed with hard to find gem Miranda. The flip side of the vinyl features an etching. Anna Meredith, aside from sharing bills with Anna Calvi, James Blake and These New Puritans, Meredith’s dizzying CV includes being Composer In Residence for the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, writing a piece for MRI scanner, soundtracking Prada’s Spring / Summer 2015 campaign, symphonies created for nursery children, music for park benches in Hong Kong and sleep-pods in Singapore. Performances at the BBC Proms have included collaborations with Laura Marling and The Stranglers for the first 6Music Prom, a performance of her body-percussion piece Connect It from the BBC Ten Pieces project and her Last Night Of The Proms composition Froms, simultaneously performed by five symphony orchestras across the UK, was broadcast to an audience of 40 million people.
The Fat Angel Sings 