***Cast your mind back to notable landmarks of 1992. Outside the Twin Cities, Mall of America opened to the public. Frank Gehry’s enormous golden fish sculpture, El Peix, welcomed Barcelona Olympians. And The House of Tomorrow, a four-song 7-inch on a small indie label, ushered in a new era for The Magnetic Fields. When Susan Anway, who sang on early albums Distant Plastic Trees and The Wayward Bus, left the group, Stephin Merritt stepped up to the microphone. He sought to sound simple, subtle, and unobtrusive, à la the Japanese concept of shibusa. Likewise, the arrangements and production of The House of Tomorrow felt less polished overall than on its predecessors, even as the band’s sound was evolving. Newly remastered and available as a 12-inch for the first time.
CD $9.25
01/19/1999
LP $17.75
06/24/2024
***Loris S. Sarid is a Rome born musician and sound designer living in Glasgow (Scotland). Music for Tomato Plants was born while taking care of a little tomato plant, grown on the windowsill of his flat during the winter 2020. The album is a homage to the unapparent courage of simplicity, and the beauty and lightness of the most ordinary things. “In the same spirit of Mort Garson, Green-House and others who synthesize the natural and musical worlds, this ambient serenade for tomato plants is a welcome saunter through a humble garden”—Charlie Moonbeam
LP $23.50
09/29/2023
A decade on from the release of Ripely Pine, Lady Lamb’s Aly Spaltro has created the definitive 5xLP box set to commemorate and expand upon her landmark debut. With the original songs remastered, Ten Years Of Ripely Pine also includes three LPs of newly recorded studio material, produced and arranged by Spaltro and mixed by original co-producer Nadim Issa. It captures the time, mood, art and ambition of Aly Spaltro in her early twenties, who had already accumulated years of playing and self-recording experience before laying down tracks for this giant of a debut record, and the sage wisdom of a decade’s experience.
5XLP $115.00
08/18/2023
***Cold Cave's "Confetti" 7" featuring the alternate radio edit of the song available on heavy baby pink virgin vinyl backed with the original version. Originally released in 2012 by Heartworm Press, the record was only available to those in attendance at the band's Guggenheim Museum performance that year. Edition of 500.
7" $17.75
06/30/2023
***Joanna Sternberg is one of the great songwriters of the day, with a unique ability to make the listener feel emotional and often joyous, while conveying universal human difficulties of anxiety and insecurity. A virtuosic musician, Joanna played every instrument on their brilliant new album, I've Got Me. "...one of the most beautiful albums I've heard in years. It's as if Randy Newman and Daniel Johnston merged into a new life form."—Conor Oberst "...everything they (Joanna Sternberg) touch turns to gold"—Phoebe Bridgers
LP COLOR $30.45
06/30/2023
***Super groups are always risky—the potential for disappointing fans or warring musical styles is high—but when longtime friends and masterful improvisers come together, they usually work. Evident in their first collaboration, simply titled Volume 1, John Dikeman (Saxophone; When The Time Is Right, 577 Records, 2021) joined musicians Pat Thomas (Piano; Shifa Live at Cafe Oto 2019, BleySchool 2019, Shifa Live in Oslo 2020, Educated Guess 2021), John Edwards (Bass; EMPoWered. 577 Records, 2021), and Steve Noble (Drums) for a dynamic collaboration. Volume 2 echoes the wide dynamic range of their first project, combining fast-paced, complex jazz in-the-moment arrangements with elegant solo gems from each musician, highlighting their best work, together and independently.
LP $21.95
06/23/2023
***Cory Hanson’s third solo LP follows upon 2020’s luminescent Pale Horse Rider, upping the heat to molten lev- els, six strings at a time. In search of further adventures, Cory draws with vampiric glee from the madness coursing through the world outside; a spiraling shitshow that’s reawakened a compulsion in him—an old ambition, even!—to crush brutality and elegance together into a fresh set of rocks to hail down upon us. Western Cum is a high-stepping, hard-dancing, first love/heartbreak, tonight’s-the-night, future nostalgia kind of good time—the sound of gui- tars through the speakers of luxury cars. Like the dream you had once, alone, asleep in an amplifier, blasting Guns N’ Roses through every last orifice in your body. And it’s coming through!
CD $13.75
06/23/2023
LP $24.25
06/23/2023
MC $12.75
TBD
***TREVOR POWERS returns as YOUTH LAGOON following two solo albums recorded under his own name. With whispers of country, Heaven Is a Junkyard is mutant Americana in a world of love, drugs, storytelling, and miracles—held together by Powers’ voice and an upright piano. “Heaven Is a Junkyard is about all of us. It’s stories of brothers leaving for war, drunk fathers learning to hug, mothers falling in love, neighbors stealing mail, cowboys doing drugs, friends skipping school, me crying in the bathtub, dogs catching rabbits, and children playing in tall grass...”—Trevor Powers. Pressed on ultra clear vinyl.
LP COLOR $31.25
06/09/2023
***The new EP from American Nightmare and their first 10" vinyl release. Dedicated To The Next World is AN refusing to rest on legacy. The legendary hardcore punk band returns with four new songs that sound like classic and future AN, stripped down and sped up to their trademarked urgency and live violence. With stream of conscious lyrics and existential dread, these are revival songs for the modern disenchanted. The band’s volatile mix of traditional American hardcore, dark aesthetics, and singer Wesley Eisold’s (COLD CAVE) emotional lyrical prose set a new creative standard for the worldwide hardcore community. "How I Got Away" recalls AN's anthemic hardcore sound a la tracks "We Are" and "The World Is Blue." "Self Check-Out" is a minute-long punk blister. "Real Love" flies like speed fueled Stooges and "Praying Hands..." nods to the influences of Bad Brains and Negative Approach. Having started in 2000 and initially breaking up in 2004, the band reunited in 2012 and subsequently launched a second life of lauded shows and records proving that there is life after youth. Recorded live to 2 inch tape by American Nightmare drummer Alex Garcia-Rivera at Mystic Valley Recording Studio in Boston. Mastered and cut for vinyl by Bob Weston at Chicago Mastering Service.
10" $21.95
06/02/2023
***Steve Moore (Zombi, Lovelock) and Overcalc (Nick Skrobisz of Multicult) take the road less traveled in this exploration of synth and psychedelic guitar. Developed from alternating vantages, these recordings feature collaborative, reinterpreted, and original works by both artists, resulting in an uncanny and bold tapestry. Moore, as a solo artist and as co-founder of the synth-heavy prog duo Zombi, along with his position in experimental hardcore outfit Microwaves and collaborations with the likes of Goblin, has had a long, prolific career spanning soundtrack work, minimal techno, noise rock, Berlin School-style synth exploration, Italo and new age with releases on a wide range of imprints including L.I.E.S., Kompakt, Death Waltz, and Relapse. Skrobisz has spent the last decade + fronting rhythmic noise-rock trio Multicult, recording several long players, splits and singles of propulsive, serpentine, unsystematic yet sophisticated heaviness for labels like SGG and Reptilian, and for even longer, managed guitar and vocal responsibilities for Voivod-ian outsider metal unit The Wayward. The two come together on this 12" in a way that highlights their distinct strengths on a path into previously unexplored terrain.
LP $20.25
06/02/2023
***Gerald Cleaver’s newest album, 22/23, journeys through genre, exploring the future and recalling history, in his most place-based album yet. Born and raised in Detroit, Cleaver is a product of the Motor City’s rich musical history. Long the manufacturing capital of America, Detroit citizens have never been afraid of imagination: technological innovation, a strong labor movement, techno-utopianism or afrofuturism. This spirit of innovation is felt on Cleaver’s newest album, particularly on songs like ‘31 Julys’ which builds on dynamic house beats, or ‘Cake’ which employs saxophone to compose a careening jazz track. This marks Cleaver’s third record with 577 Records (and its sub-label Positive Elevation, dedicated to electronic experimentation and avant soul), following 2020’s Signs, and his second album, Griots. Here, Cleaver deftly combines his talent for electronic composition with a curious ear for the unpredictable, occasionally accompanied by singer Jean Carla Rodea. Cleaver has performed and recorded as a jazz drummer with a wide variety of artists, including Tommy Flanagan, Daniel Carter, Bill Frisell and more, contributing as a musician for nearly 20 years before exploring his own electronic-forward projects.
LP $21.95
05/26/2023
Sarabeth Tucek emerges from a decade-long hibernation with a new double-album Joan of All under the new moniker SBT— a longtime nickname given to her by the many musicians she has worked with throughout her career. After retreating from the fevered pace of the record business to concentrate on other creative endeavors, Sarabeth began to piece together the music that would eventually become her most ambitious, personal project yet—the sprawling double-album Joan Of All, released on her own freshly-minted imprint Ocean Omen. Sarabeth Tucek officially broke onto the music scene 2003 performing a series of spellbinding duets with Bill Callahan on the acclaimed Smog album Supper. This was swiftly followed by a memorable appearance in the prize-winning Brian Jonestown Massacre documentary DiG! Sarabeth also contributed material to their 2005 EP release, We Are the Radio. One of Sarabeth's compositions covered by the band on that EP, "Seer," would later be retitled and released in 2006 as Tucek's debut single, "Something for You,” which became Steve Lamacq’s Single Of The Week on BBC Radio 6 Music. Her self-titled debut album produced by Luther Russell and Ethan Johns hit stores the following year and garnered rave reviews in the press, leading her to supporting Bob Dylan and unfaltering support at the BBC. In 2011, Sarabeth followed up her extraordinary debut with a raw, uncompromising album entitled Get Well Soon, praised as an unflinching meditation on the subject of grief. This release made many year-end lists and the title track was featured on...
CD $17.50
05/26/2023
2XLP $31.00
05/26/2023
***REISSUED!!! At the end of the century, The Fucking Champs spread Total Music™ across the planet, touring relentlessly and producing albums full of undeniable note choices, sounds and songs. For III’s 25th anniversary, the band remastered the original master tapes, assigned John Golden to expertly cut lacquers and oversaw artwork restoration by forensic experts in Drag City's sub-basement. For the first time, this master stroke of musicality is widely available to an increasingly rock-starved public.
2XLP $37.50
05/26/2023
***"Black Editions Archive is ecstatic to announce the newest release in the Milford Graves Archival series, the double LP, Children of the Forest, featuring previously unreleased 1976 sessions with Hugh Glover and Arthur Doyle that re-write the book on Milford Graves's ensemble music of the 1970s. Graves recorded these sessions himself in his legendary Queens basement laboratory and workshop in the weeks immediately leading up to the March 1976 session that, with the same unit, produced what many consider his most iconic album, Bäbi, recorded at WBAI-FM Free Music Store..."— Peter Kolovos & Michael Ehlers Deluxe double-LP tip-on gatefold with pigment ink foil stamping featuring photographs by acclaimed photographer and free jazz historian Val Wilmer. Includes insert with new interview of Hugh Glover by Jake Meginsky.
2XLP $44.75
05/19/2023
***Eric Emm and Jesse Cohen of Tanlines are indie-rock lifers turned reasonable, happy middle-aged fathers of two, figuring out their place in a chaotic culture and industry that can no longer command their full attention.They are emblematic of a particular time and place that doesn’t really exist anymore, yet here they are existing, and thriving, in 2023. The Big Mess came together when Emm and his family moved from Brooklyn to rural Connecticut, while Cohen launched a marketing career and a successful podcast and stayed in the city. Emm continued writing songs—hundreds of them—through all the weirdness of the past few years, but he wasn’t exactly sure who he was writing them for. “I spent years figuring out in my mind, ‘What is my musical life going to look like?’” he says. “I just kept writing.” Cohen gave Emm his blessing to continue Tanlines, even if his own contributions would be limited due to his own non-musical obligations. “I’m like, ‘Whatever you can do to keep this thing going, do it,’” Cohen says. And with that, Tanlines was reborn. By January 2022 Emm felt he had a body of work that made sense as a Tanlines album. Cohen spent ten days with Emm at his Connecticut studio, along with unofficial third Tanline Patrick Ford (!!!). This was tied together with a sleek final mix from Peter Katis (The National, Interpol) at his famed Tarquin Studios, resulting in a clear vision of what Emm’s musical life was going to look like:...
LP $22.25
05/19/2023
***Matt Espy is an American drummer and percussionist. Born in Dayton, Ohio, he spent his youth playing every genre of music he could find, playing out in clubs starting at age 14 and launching his touring career at 18. He moved to Chicago in 1996 and continued his journey playing rock, avant-garde, jazz, and performance art pieces. He’s played drums for a number of groups and charismatic individuals, including Atombombpocketknife, Duke Special and The Mountain Goats. Over the past decade, he’s found his home with Dead Rider, also on Drag City. Hawksworth is Matt’s first solo adventure. In the field of solo drumming albums, it’s an avian psychedelic percussion trip all of its own. A dialogue between birds, electronics, and drums, Hawksworth operates along precise degrees in the vastness that exists between the diverse poles of Terry Riley and Martin Denny. It captures one particularly memorable morning walk from long ago, a time immemorial in Matt’s life. In this new musical rendering, that fateful morning is ridden with wormholes throughout the piece, like hyperspace links that travel to motifs from his 30-plus years music career with every step along the way.
LP $21.25
05/19/2023
***New York-based Zoh Amba first cultivated her musical passion in the lush forests of the Appalachian mountains, playing to the woods around her home, before she studied at classical conservatories. Her music honors her roots, full of folk melodies, mesmerizing refrains, repeated incantations and powerfully-executed Free Jazz. Her sound is courageous and bold, soaring from muted hums to squeaky trebles, producing a confident sound imbued with an innate spirituality. On this project, Zoh Amba is joined by legendary artists William Parker (Bass, Gralla) and Francisco Mela (Drums), named the 2021 musician of the year by The New York City Jazz Record, who temper her daring saxophone with a lush percussive foundation and a steady bassline.
LP $21.95
05/12/2023
Multi-disciplinary artist Vivek Shraya has a body of work that crosses the boundaries of music, literature, visual art, theatre, and film. Among her list of accomplishments is an impressive catalog of music—including the Polaris Prize-nominated Part-Time Woman with Queer Songbook Orchestra (2017) and Angry by her band Too Attached (2018), which CBC described as one of “Canada’s most incisive, radical and galvanizing albums.” After twenty years of releasing music independently, Shraya will make her Mint label debut with Baby, You’re Projecting. Unlike her previous musical offerings, which were more sonically compartmentalized, Shraya endeavored to create a genre-fluid album. Inspired by great female-fronted pop records (including janet. by Janet Jackson, Sheryl Crow’s self-titled album, and Lemonade by Beyoncé), Baby, You’re Projecting holds the breadth of Shraya's sound and style in one space. Ranging from house to hip hop to country, her singular voice and songwriting holds the record together and resonates in every genre. Produced by and co-written with frequent collaborator James Bunton (Donovan Woods, Ohbijou), Baby, You’re Projecting is a break-up album that explores Shraya's tenuous relationships with men. The record also features performances by Alanna Stuart (Bonjay), Christine Bougie (Bahamas, Amy Millan) and Kimmortal. It is being co-released with a 12-minute film titled “He Loves Me Until He Hates Me,” set to songs from the record and directed by award-winning cinematographer Gabriela Osio Vanden. Taking inspiration from '90s classics like The Bodyguard and erotic thrillers, the film creates a meaningful (and playful) look at the unpredictability of masculinity—how it...
LP $19.00
05/12/2023
MP3 $9.90
05/12/2023
FLAC $11.99
05/12/2023
Oklahoma’s Chat Pile have had an exciting 2022; they released their album God’s Country, toured the midwest and east coast in support of the album, announced their appearance at Roadburn Festival 2023, and while the band is working on LP2, they’re revealing details for their score for the indie film Tenkiller. While not a proper full-length album, the Tenkiller score was written and recorded in the winter of 2020, and it waxes and wanes from the signature Chat Pile sound but also ventures into new ones— including arena country music. The band comments, “The music we made for Tenkiller is quite a bit different than what you may come to expect from us. We were given the freedom to really experiment and explore territories that we’ve never done before.” They continue, “It’s not going to be for everyone, but we hope some of you connect with what we set out to do.” “Chat Pile bring a sense of dirt and squalor to the table.” —The FADER “Oklahoma City’s Chat Pile are the perfect people to expose the dark, seedy underbelly of American life.” —Paste Magazine “Cleansingly punishing.” —Stereogum “Harrowing.” —Pitchfork
CD $12.00
05/12/2023
LP $20.25
05/12/2023
The New Country Sounds of Ryan Wong, the latest offering by the Cool Ghoul and multi-hyphenate music man behind Supreme Joy, finds the songwriter charting sonic territories that might at first seem unfamiliar to fans of his past work in the Garage, Psych, and Post-punk genres. But under the wing of storied San Francisco scene scion Sonny Smith (Sonny and the Sunsets), Wong sidles up to a sound that bears a close kinship to the producer’s own playfully country-leaning works. New Country Sounds finds Wong’s boyish lilt exploring deep registers and deeper themes, coupled with unmistakably capital-C Country explorations on both guitar and steel. Wong the writer, however, continues to find himself owing more to Ray Davies than he does to Ray Price. Wong’s natural charm and humor set him apart from today’s crop of self- serious crooners. A laconic slacker sensibility persists throughout, lending Wong’s more winkingly macho moments an ironic distance that comes off cheeky rather than threatening
LP $27.00
05/12/2023
MP3 $9.90
05/12/2023
FLAC $11.99
05/12/2023
***"A heartfelt thank you to the beautiful audience that came out on the 10th Feb 2022 to Cafe Oto (London) to make this such an enjoyable show. We came as a blank page, one that had been scrunched up for the years of this horrific pandemic. Upon it all we had written was ‘we must play!’. And so to finally seeing the light of day—as we tentatively unfolded this venture into life—in what we (I hope not prematurely) believe was a slow emergence into a new ‘normal’ (sadly to soon be overshadowed by warfare in Europe joining too many conflicts all around the world, and containing the same imbalances in society as the old normal). This was a pure performance circumstance. A debut performing together in this format, we have played in different projects over the years—but this particular trio is literally being born on this recording. Mark and Neil are internationally known as masters in multiple fields involving improvisation. Their creativity and interactivity here is both incendiary and inspirational. The album title ‘Towards The Flame’—came from my studies with Andy Wasserman. His mentioning a quote from McCoy Tyner—that playing with Coltrane was akin to ‘stepping into the flames’—every night. A place that is pure spirit, complete commitment to totally connect and the disappearance of the self. We love this and hold every wisdom as a vital guide in times that are ever more threatening to pull us apart. In honour of the incredible shoulders upon which we stand and...
LP $21.95
05/12/2023
Madeline Johnston and Angel Diaz became close friends in 2020, regarding each other as a lifeline when things were difficult in their personal lives. This friendship was born from music but quickly became so much more than that. The two met in person in 2021, when Diaz came for a recording residency at Johnston’s studio in New Mexico. It was during this session that they wrote and recorded Orbweaving, in the heat of summer in the arid Chihuahuan Desert. Orbweaving combines the best parts of Midwife’s “heaven metal” and Vyva Melinkolya’s sentimental, classic shoegaze in a way that distinctively elevates both artists. The record explores themes of hopelessness, calling on a higher power, being alone, and the sublime horror of the natural world. Orbweaving seeks to thematically and sonically create a web like structure—a gauze of sorrow and visceral connective thread. At night, Diaz and Johnston went herping (a term used by herpetologists to describe looking for snakes and amphibians) along the empty roads near Las Cruces. The asphalt retains heat from the day, and the snakes absorb the warmth by writhing across the pavement. They found rattlesnakes, roadkill, and orb-weaver spiders. The track “Plague X” was inspired by the lifecycle of cicadas; whose seventeen year periodical cycle took place in 2021. The group of cicadas that emerged are known as Brood X. In a post-covid world, one is no stranger to living in a plague year. The violent arrival of Brood X cicadas are alluded to...
LP $20.25
05/12/2023
MC $12.00
05/12/2023
MP3 $7.99
05/12/2023
FLAC $8.99
05/12/2023
Australian death metal monstrosity Impetuous Ritual are unleashing their new album Iniquitous Barbarik Synthesis. It is the follow-up to 2017’s Blight Upon Martyred Sentience and presents itself as the most unnatural, abnormal, and nightmarish Impetuous Ritual offering yet.
CD $12.00
05/12/2023
2XLP $31.00
05/12/2023
MP3 $7.99
05/12/2023
FLAC $8.99
05/12/2023
***2023 marks the twenty-eighth year of Suarasama; it is also the first year for this reissue of their 2013 masterpiece, Timeline. Irwansyah Harahap and Rithaony Hutajulu, Ethnomusicology lecturers at University of Sumatera Utara, founded Suarasama in 1995 after graduating from the University of Washington Ethnomusicology program. Their music, as expressed on both Timeline and Fajar Di Atas Awan (first issued in 1998, reissued by Drag City in 2008) is hypnotic and joyful; progressing ancient North Sumatran music concepts while referencing the music of adjacent ethnic traditions. “Dukkha,” for example, was written combining Mandailing and Eastern European musical inspirations. Playing this song on African jembe, Indian sruti box and a European lute known as the mandolin, Suarasama instigate a musical synesthesia in the listener that may honestly earn and truly deserve the title of “world music.” Throughout Timeline, this is largely due to Irwansyah Harahap’s master playing on a variety of stringed instruments including acoustic guitars, Malaysian gambus, mandolin, and an invention of his own design, the saz-guitar. Suarasama’s spirit and intention is further elevated by Rithaony Hutajulu’s vocals, as well as the skilled rhythm playing of Muhammad Amin and Horas Panjaitan, with additional percussion and singing from several others. The sound of Suarasama is the sound of people engaged in a deeply spir- itual, constantly moving recital in open space.
2XLP $34.85
05/12/2023
From the forests of Cascadia to the rippling tropics of the Gulf Coast, Hunter P. Thompson’s music as Akasha System both reflects and refracts the environment of its origin – equal parts mirror, mixing desk, and meditation chamber. His latest, Phytopia, skews even loftier, a private portal into a primordial world of mist and mystery, framed by crystalline rivers, rainbow canopies, and hanging gardens. He describes its wavelength as “a waking vision,” teeming with “life, chaos, and magic.” Crafted across the past three years in his recently departed Portland, Oregon basement haven, Green House, the album’s nine tracks unfold with a shimmering, cellular symmetry – prehistoric and preordained, lush ecosystems in hidden harmony. A composite of synths, software, and spatial finesse, this is Akasha System at its most attuned and eternal, a forever expanding universe of percolating rhythm and fragrant air.
LP $19.00
05/05/2023
MP3 $7.99
05/05/2023
FLAC $8.99
05/05/2023
Over a decade since its inception, Wave Temples continues to refine and refract the project’s visionary mythopoetic exotica. Panama Shift presents a 20-track kaleidoscopic star map inspired by “the euphoric cults, both then and now, that come and go in the vast ritual of night.” Bleached keys, devotional synth, and driftwood percussion align in minimalist vignettes shaded by tape hiss and field recordings of streams, waves, wind, and birds. Dedicated to the late Japanese-born American anthropologist Yosihiko H. Sinoto (whose portrait graces the cover), famed for his excavations throughout the Pacific and French Polynesia, the album embodies a similarly voyaging spirit: “chasing ancient mysteries… and rekindling with the esoteric journey of the human spirit.” This is music of forgotten shores, sea air, and saltwater shrines, echoing in shells scattered across the altars of Atlantis.
LP $19.00
05/05/2023
MP3 $9.90
05/05/2023
FLAC $11.99
05/05/2023
Milk Music was conceived in the late aughts as brothers Alex Coxen (guitar, vocals) and Joe Rutter (drums) drove around the Northwest jamming on tunes in a shitty old Volvo. Inspired by music that their friends were making, the young brothers rented a space, enlisted first bass player Eric Yates, and wrote the songs on this record. Side A begins with the blistering “Nervous Wreck”—in and out of tune at the same time, fast but somehow feels slow—totally fucked. “Beluga” conjures a deranged image of a mystery whale, as the listener imagines the brothers as Ishmael and Queequeg leaving their hometown of Port Townsend, WA behind on their epic coming-of-age hunt for revenge and white blubber. “No Life” finds this newly hatched band laying down the mood and sonic foundation that would define them up to this present day. “Ripped” ends side A with racing, lysergic skate-rat rambling over a thumping mudslide of scuzz. Side B begins with “Pipeline,” an absolutely massive, almost unbearable eight minute bong-toke of a song. Bonus crucial early track “Violence Now” wraps it up with a brutal sonic speed-bag to the groin, leaving the listener reeling and dazed, coughing in a fog of their own crotch smoke. Recorded by Sam Stabler (Sex Vid) in the practice space in 2009 and mastered in 2022 by Randy Randall. On two hundred gram vinyl with a sturdy tip-on sleeve for one’s consideration. Includes a poster.
12" $22.00
04/28/2023
Lunar Chamber, a hitherto unknown being of mysterious consciousness, now present in the physical realm for the first time with debut manifestation Shambhallic Vibrations, a tale of a journey eastward in search of enlightenment and what may lie beyond. Ensconced in mysticism, the five track nearly thirty minute pilgrimage advances unflinchingly through insane crushing riffs, bewildering solos, tranquil acoustics and illuminated ascendent melodies. “Spirit Body And The Seeing Self” details the start of the journey, self analysis, and the attempts at launching oneself into said “beyond,” while “The Bodhi Tree” is a mirroring tale of Gautama Buddha himself, having meditated underneath it in Bodh Gaya approximately 2500 years ago, attaining enlightenment. “III. Crystalline Blessed Light Flows… From Violet Mountains Into Lunar Chambers” is the ultimate pinnacle of the tale. Having reached a spiritual plane, pulses of light and dark; the very fabric of space-time itself churns. Knowledge is abundant here. Eventually, one is brought full circle, right back where everything began in normal life; albeit with a new sense of everything. But there is so much more to learn… a yearning thirst. Offering a deluge of jarringly brutal metal, overwhelming progressive physicality and instinctively accomplished memorability inspired by Buddhism, the East and esotericism, Lunar Chamber have just begun their quest of ascension and enlightened knowledge.
CD $12.00
04/28/2023
LP $22.00
04/28/2023
LP COLOR $24.00
04/28/2023
MP3 $5.99
04/28/2023
FLAC $6.99
04/28/2023
“Late in 2021, Slow Season announced they’d become Westing, and that Ben McLeod (also of Nashville’s All Them Witches) was now in the four-piece on lead guitar alongside guitarist, vocalist and keyboardist Daniel Story Rice, bassist Hayden Doyel and drummer / recording engineer Cody Tarbell. Their new LP (fourth overall for Riding Easy), Future, is not coincidentally titled. “Says Rice, ‘We wanted to hit the reset button on some things and so we included a new band name to that list. Fresh start, for the psychological effect of it. We first met Ben in 2014 opening for All Them Witches in San Diego, and we did that again in 2016 and he and Cody corresponded about tape machines, music production, and other similar nerd stuff. We started swapping a few ideas early in 2021 and then flew him out for four days in August 2021. We got Future mostly down in that short span and did some remote stuff for overdubs, but nothing major. Obviously, our creative processes jelled pretty well to allow for such an efficiently productive session.’ “So the story of Westing, and of Future, is about change, but the music makes itself so immediately familiar, it’s so welcoming, that it hardly matters. For about ten years, the Visalia, California, outfit wandered the earth representing a new generational interpretation of classic heavy rock. The tones, warm. The melodies, sweet. The boogie, infectious. They went to ground after supporting their 2016 self-titled third album, and clearly it was time...
CD $12.00
03/31/2023
LP $24.00
04/28/2023
John Andrews is something of an open secret in a certain corner of the music scene: a versatile musician and animator. A film school drop out whose work hat-tips tradition as much as outsider anti-aesthetics. He’s spent over a decade on the DIY circuit, playing early house shows alongside then up-and-coming peers Weyes Blood and Daniel Bachman. Today he is still out there projecting his sketchy hand-drawn animations during his performances in coffee shops, small galleries and non-traditional venues. Andrews’ painterly approach now introduces the listener to his version of New York City, the place he was bound to end up after years of dwelling in Pennsylvania farm towns and New Hampshire barns. There is handmade vibrancy to the world he’s imagined here: intimate moments seen from the interior, looking outward from hole-in-the-wall restaurants, theaters and the fragments of peace found within the restless and dirty street corners. Love For The Underdog, his aptly titled fourth release with the Woodsist label, was tracked live to tape in various studios and apartments across the Empire State with help from his bandmates in Cut Worms’ touring outfit, Max Clarke, Keven Lareau and Noah Bond. Buoyant melodies are supported by timeless string arrangements, translated from Andrews’ head to page with the help of friend Simon Hanes. The string quartet follows the tradition of Francoise Hardy, Harry Nilsson, Margo Guryan and Belle and Sebastian, giving the whole thing a cinematic ambience with stark shadows of an Edward Hopper painting. The lyrics tie together narratives...
LP $19.00
04/28/2023
MP3 $9.90
04/28/2023
FLAC $11.99
04/28/2023
In an artistic landscape fueled by gamified promotional tactics, spasmodic virality, and manufactured controversy, the amount of noise that independent artists must cut through can seem overwhelming. Yet, it’s the most genuine statements—often those expecting no audience at all—that overcome. The Origin Of My Depression, the 2019 album from Australian experimentalist Uboa, proves just that; presenting such a deeply affecting mix of dark ambient, noise, and extreme metal, it all but demanded its unplanned but unsurprising cult following. With several tracks that began as live improvisations recorded in the living-room-turned-bedroom, and others recorded from live sets in venues, The Origin Of My Depression exhibits the spontaneity and ineffability of extreme emotions. Xandra Metcalfe, the mind behind Uboa, offers sonic representations of her anxieties, depressive thoughts, and lived experiences throughout the record’s seven songs, even if the origins of these feelings escape her. The result, intensely and authentically personal, undeniably resonates, as The Origin Of My Depression spread through online communities through sheer word of mouth upon its initial release. Now, four years later, the record stands as a defining statement of late 2010s underground music, and it takes just one listen to see why. Uboa has spent the better part of a decade dipping into every corner of heavy music. From harsh noise to dark ambient, glitch to doom metal, Metcalfe’s output, though sonically varied, remains consistent in her use of such styles to express her mental state at the time of writing. Whether it's her live performances (described as...
LP $20.25
04/28/2023
***"It's been ten years since Bill Orcutt released A History of Every One, a compendium of hacksaw renditions of American standards on acoustic guitar—and since ten years is a blink of an eye, you are forgiven for not immediately realizing that we've gone an entire decade waiting for Jump On It, the next Orcutt solo acoustic record. As those of us of 'a certain age' will tell you (ad nauseam), a decade is a blink of an eye containing an infinity of experiential moments, and if this record is any gauge, the weight of those experiences have squashed Orcutt's rough edges, feathered his stop-motion timing into a languid lyrical flow, and snapped the shackles tethering his instant compositional skills to the imperative to deconstruct guitar history. In short, Jump On It is a collection of canonical, mature acoustic guitar soli to contrast against the fractured downtown conceits of previous acoustic releases. For those paying attention to the arc of Orcutt's electric records, which chart a course from Quine's choppiness to Thompson-ian/ Verlaine-ian flow, it should be no surprise that the ten-year gap between acoustic records should expose a similar underlying journey. But what's maybe more surprising is that Jump On It , with its living-room aesthetics and big reverb, packs a disarming intimacy absent from the formal starkness of Orcutt's earlier acoustic outings. Although you might sense the looming human in the audible breath whispering intermittently between chords (a physical flourish reminiscent of the late Jack Rose), such documentarian signposts...
LP $26.50
04/28/2023
Tiny Ruins, the project of New Zealand musician Hollie Fullbrook, are back with their fourth album, Ceremony, out on Ba Da Bing Records. The follow-up to 2019’s celebrated Olympic Girls, Ceremony goes deep into all the old and murky mysteries of what it means to be human—and sometimes it nearly goes under. Yet these songs also show how one can find the strength to swim from the shipwreck, push through the silt, surface into another new morning—another new chance. Ceremony washes in and takes one out like a strong tide, its songs “chapters” of a saga set on the shores of Tāmaki Makaurau’s (aka Auckland’s) Manukau Harbour. Known to locals as “Old Murky,” its western fringe of the Waitākere Ranges are home to Fullbrook. And while the harbour itself is a treacherous and oft-polluted body of water, move to one of its many peaceful inlets and it’s all tidal flats, shellfish and birdlife. “It’s beautiful but also muddy, dirty and neglected. It’s a real meeting of nature and humanity” says Hollie. The album’s songs took shape as she explored the turbulent landscape on foot with her two dogs. The things Fullbrook was struck by there are annotated across Ceremony (cover art by Christiane Shortal) as luminously as a naturalist’s scrapbook. After touring Olympic Girls both solo and with her long- term band line-up of Cass Basil (bass), Alex Freer (drums), and Tom Healy (electric guitar, producer) for eighteen months, Fullbrook returned home to the banks of Little Muddy Creek, exhausted...
CD $9.50
04/28/2023
LP $22.00
04/28/2023
MP3 $9.90
04/28/2023
FLAC $11.99
04/28/2023
Third in a trilogy of albums of library music miniatures from composer and multi-instrumentalist Daniel O’Sullivan (Æthenor, Ulver, This Is Not This Heat, etc) following 2020’s Electric Māyā and 2021’s Fourth Density. For heads, the term “library music” in 2021 might evoke dodgy Italian gray market LPs and crate-diggers hunting for “funky breaks”—but London’s venerable KPM Music is working with groundbreakers like O’Sullivan to open up new avenues for composers to experiment. The fifteen tracks on The Physic Garden are fully-formed and orchestrated compositions, which would be highlights on anyone’s release, never mind as incidental music. Of the music, O’Sullivan says: “The Physic Garden is an album of diverse instrumentals inspired by a swathe of verdant vistas from manicured gardens and follies to urban common land, overgrown and forgotten. Convalescent memories in the shape of psychedelic auditory botanics.” Key tracks include the droning acoustic folk of the title song; the Canterbury-esque rolling horn and woodwind melody of “Return The Heart” (with expert drum kit from Frank Byng); the prog-ish odd meter interlude “Buttercup Tea”; The quiet ambience and delicate melody of “Dusty Feather:”; and the Eno-like drift of “Vapourer Larvae.”
LP $19.00
04/28/2023
MP3 $9.90
04/28/2023
FLAC $11.99
04/28/2023
In 1982, D.O.A. was ready to record a new album on the heels of their first two alums: Something Better Change and Hardcore ’81, which are still both musical landmarks to this day. But their legendary line up had changed, as Randy Rampage was ousted from the band. Chuck Biscuits’ older brother Dimwit Biscuits stepped in on bass with Chuck still on drums, Joey Shithead on vocals and guitar and Dave Gregg on guitar. While this line up only lasted for three months, the band traveled to L.A. and recorded demos at Mystic Studios. Eventually Chuck quit, Dimwit took over on drums and Wimpy Roy became the bassist. So, as a grand way of celebrating the 40th Anniversary of War On 45, which many a critic and fan hailed as one of the most innovative albums of its time and on a par, quality wise with their first two albums. Sudden Death decided to add some bonus matterial. First off, now included is a 12-page booklet of unique photos, posters and an extensive history of D.O.A. at that time, written by Canada’s godfather of punk Joey Shithead. Also, All eight tracks from the War On 45 1982 release are on side A and seven tracks from the pre-War On 45 demos that were recorded at Mystic onto Side B. So one has the Montgomery brothers: Biscuits and Dimwit, two of the greatest drummers of all time on the same LP. All in all, this album will hit one hard, the...
LP $20.25
04/28/2023
LP COLOR $24.00
04/28/2023
Dirtnap Records will publish the first installment of Beacon Comics this Spring, packaged with a 7" record featuring a taste of Direct Hit's (Milwaukee, Fat Wreck Chords) dubiously-forthcoming album ("Wasteland"), and new Decent Criminal (Santa Rosa, Diised/Gunner Records) songs "Time" and "Dream" - each an alternate take, and a B-side off their forthcoming album, respectively. This lavishly packaged comic/7” combo is a one time only pressing of 500 and will only be available for a limited time. Get yours today!
MAG+7 $22.00
04/28/2023
MP3 $1.99
04/28/2023
FLAC $2.99
04/28/2023
***ON LIMITED ULTRA CLEAR W/ BLACK & RED SPLATTER VINYL!!! Blake Ibanez of Power Trip returns with a new band, Fugitive, and the Maniac EP, four original tracks of the aggressive pit detonation thrash he’s known for in Power Trip, with an even rawer and looser ferocity. A cover of the legendary Bathory’s ‘Raise The Dead’ rounds out the succinctly serrated five track debut. Joined by Seth Gilmore (Skourge), Lincoln Mullins (Creeping Death), Victor Gutierrez and Andy Messer, Ibanez and co. cohere in intensely violent crossover fashion with Fugitive; a product of long earned experience in the studio and on the stage. A savage death metal vocal style, like Power Trip passed through an Obituary meatgrinder, solidifies Maniac with the heaviness of a head hitting concrete. A short sharp shock of an EP, Maniac is a fierce introduction across its seventeen minute runtime to a future that Fugitive is just beginning to write and a reminder that Texas heat remains a steadily potent force in underground metal and hardcore.
CD $9.50
04/28/2023
12" $20.25
04/28/2023
12 COLOR $22.00
04/28/2023
"During’s self-titled debut is a pipe bomb of originality, set to detonate and shake the foundation of the tired post-punk sounds of today when it hits via Chunklet on ______. And while some more obvious influences show across the ten track LP—like DEVO, Sonic Youth and Gang of Four—its strength lies in some of it’s wilder ideas and influences, creating a wholly new approach as yet unseen in the otherwise very tired genre of post-punk. 'I've always been super influenced by post punk stuff. The Fall is definitely up there, as well as WIRE and the Urinals, even the Gizmos,' says Fisher emphatically. 'The coolest thing about recording this LP was we didn't know what we were gonna end up with, it just sort of came out the way it came out. So while those influences are there because that's where we come from, none of it is totally clear because it’s jumbled up with so many of our other ideas.' Starting with a dizzying and frantic base, During's sound can best be classified using the hyper-cerebral approach of DEVO, garnished with touches of their more frenetic speedfreak acolytes Minneapolis’ Uranium Club. It’s from there that things drift into territories unseen, with a cold vocal delivery not unlike Mark E Smith, a quirky and free-spirited approach like the Cardiacs, atonal riffing that recalls Sonic Youth, and a mildly funk-focused bed to tether down the madness a la A Certain Ratio or the Contortions. All that comes baked in with the...
LP $27.00
04/28/2023
MP3 $7.99
04/28/2023
FLAC $8.99
04/28/2023
Technology + Teamwork’s fizzling synths, interweaving textures and punchy rhythms are beguiling on their long-awaited debut album We Used To Be Friends. However, at the heart of it all it’s the connection between the group’s two members, Anthony Silvester and Sarah Jones, the friendship the much-traveled duo have managed to maintain for nearly 15 years and a showcase of the slow-burning construction of the electronic world that they’ve surrounded themselves with. We Used To Be Friends is ultimately the tale of two storied artists in their own right, holding onto each other through personal and career twists and turns, re-locations and broader movements through respective phases of their lives. Silvester and Jones first met and then collaborated as part of biting post-punk five-piece XX Teens in 2008, eventually breaking off to forge their own path together even as the latter’s demand as a drummer grew. Performing with everyone from Hot Chip, Harry Styles and Bloc Party among many others, Jones has been a constant percussive presence across the sphere of alternative UK pop music—she’s also found time for her own solo project Pillow Person and played on records by the likes of Puscifer and Kurt Vile. Silvester meanwhile has performed in art galleries across Europe including: Fridericianum in Kassel, Kölnischer Kunstverein in Cologne, and Vleeshal in Middelburg, as well as providing sound design and composing work for several art films. The album bristles with hyperpop modernity. You can hear it in the manipulated vocals most prominently on Big Blue’s...
LP $24.00
04/28/2023
***A reissue of the sought-after 1969 Exotic Moog album from Exotica / Cocktail music pioneer MARTIN DENNY. Great music for synth, exotica, experimental, 60s rock and psych hunters. Black vinyl pressing.
LP $26.50
04/21/2023