***Dirty Three Ahoy! Appropriately disheveled, the Three—Warren Ellis, Mick Turner and Jim White—emerge from the unending waves of time to pick up their guitar drum and viola / violin / piano / synthesizer / loops / percussion for their first album in a decade. Their playing encompasses ALL—from the original fury of their unlikely power trio to an impressionist cinema later on; mercurial, tumultuous to ambient to adagio, mood and emotion drawn up to dazzling heights from the humble human scale.
CD $13.75
06/28/2024
LP $24.95
06/28/2024
MC $12.75
06/28/2024
***Evil Does Not Exist is an expansive new soundtrack undertaking from Eiko Ishibashi, a stellar further display of her ability to explicate the depths of the unspoken in her music. That it is also the soundtrack to the new Ryusuke Hamaguchi feature is marvelous news for all who loved her score for his Oscar-winning 2021 film, Drive My Car. That her music harmonizes effortlessly with the state of nature as depicted in his film, a nuanced tale of humans’ uneasy efforts to maintain co-existence with the delicate state of the planet, is a further profound achievement. At play here, though, is much more than fantastic new music from a powerful new film—it is evidence of a vital recomposition of the relationship of sound to narrative, and composer to filmmaker.
LP $24.95
06/28/2024
***At last! It's been about five years since Bill's last solo album, Fountain Fire, one might guess that the new material was informed by his constant collaborations since (last year's BCMC release Foriegn Smokes; 2021's duo album with Nathan Bowles, Keys and 2019's duo album with Katinka Kleijn, STIR, and that's invariably so, but mostly, Bill solo is resolutely his own beast; Locust Land continues down the path of eclectically augmented guitar exploration fruitfully evidenced on Fountain Fire and Esker previously.
LP $24.45
05/24/2024
***This is the album version of the 2023 Netflix special—a wide-ranging conversation between John Mulaney, a kid in the balcony named Henry, and the rest of the sold-out crowd at Boston’s Symphony Hall. John dominates the chat, of course—nobody would want it otherwise—but damn, his cautionary tales might be a little TOO hilarious….and the album concludes with a song from David Byrne's score for the special.
CD $15.50
05/24/2024
2XLP $29.45
05/24/2024
***Nearly twenty-five years after disbanding, Gastr del Sol have unpacked their archive, stringing together an alternative view to their genre-melting 1993-1998 run. This assembly of previously uncollected studio recordings and beautifully captured unreleased live performances forms a spacious ode to the flux that was their métier; a further set of reinventions that continue to alter the manner in which we hear music, and literally everything else!
2XCD $27.45
05/24/2024
3XLP $65.50
05/24/2024
***REISSUED ON VINYL FOR THE FIRST TIME!!! Happy 20th birthday to Family Album, the third recording of Faun Fables and the first one released on Drag City. These songs belong to sons and daughters, entwined and orphaned, domesticated and feral; to all the family vines unraveling from a ball of yarn. In this family album, runaways graze the wild together, a mother finds her courage playing the piano, dogs become thieves and wolves, and a son is taken too soon. Fourteen-year-old nymphs sit dangerously at the crossroads, a younger brother tries to find his place, packs of girls defeat fear with a march, and the nightly adventures of the household mouse are spied upon. Edition of 500 copies.
CD $13.75
03/02/2004
2XLP $32.85
04/26/2024
***Once again, Six Organs of Admittance showcases the intricate tangle of fingers on the fretboard and flash of lens flare slicing the air, as the future arcs 360 degrees around to become a part of the past as well. Oscillations in this glass bowl ripple outward eternally, but are rooted on the ground where all the creatures are moving and communing; humans too. An intimate cosmic expression, file under: rural-industrial psych, ecosystem goth.
CD $13.75
04/26/2024
LP $21.95
04/26/2024
***An utterly unique guitar/bass/drums triad: the guitar sounds like anything but a guitar; bass and drums simultaneously insistent and relaxed. Telephathic group-think opens a window to fresh fields of fusion: funk-jazz…
LP $21.95
04/26/2024
***REISSUED ON VINYL FOR THE FIRST TIME!!! Mother Twilight is the second Faun Fables album. It has since been noted by Scottish author R.J. Stewart as a work containing true artifacts of the oral underworld tradition. Dawn and Nils made a hand-assembled first pressing and peddled it to nearly every bar and rural hall across North America from 2001–2003. Drag City reissued the CD in 2004. Edition of 500 copies.
2XLP $32.85
04/26/2024
***High Llamas present Hey Panda—a modern pop music/deep listening experience that could only issue forth from their personal quadrant of the galaxy. Hey Panda projects soulfully through an enervating abstract of today’s popular music; the sound of the Llamas’ stately melodies and expressive ditties laid open—blissfully shattered—with drums and vocals hitting different, burning sounds and contemporary production twists pulling the ear at every turn. For the past few decades, High Llamas have trafficked in contemporary pop sounds directed toward the avant end of the spectrum as much as not. But here the message was clear. Llamas’ composer-in-residence Sean O’Hagan was determined to let go. Hey Panda does just that, with a set of tunes reflecting on multiple levels how definitions change over the course of a lifetime, radiating an optimism derived from the diverse conundrums of today.
CD $13.75
03/29/2024
LP $24.95
03/29/2024
***"This is long overdue. I mean, looooooonnnnnng overdue. A solo album by Jim. The trap kit—so straightforward, so mysterious. What’s inside those things? Air and light—from which century? Which continent? Which planet? Depending on how and when you hit them it can be a vibration sent through a prehistoric breath, particles of Saturn’s atmosphere, the dead, wet leaves you walked through on the way to the first day of school. These are the memories of the drums on this record. Infinite and personal. Editing each other as they muscle to the front or soft shoe to the shadow. Cymbals can override/cancel everything out—wipe your memory clear or make the memory clearer. Drums are the instrument where you can feel the presence of the player the most—the full body—and sense the thoughts of the player the most. The instrument with the most choices to be made sends out the most brainwaves. A bouquet of brainwaves is on this LP. Jim oversees it all, surveys from the lost place we’re in, the void—the drumless song. We trust. We trust, Jim. His big green eyes search for the right tool (mallet, brush, etc), eyes that search you like you’re a song he wants to join, wants to see if he can add to or understand. Before humans, drums were playing—these drums. Genesis was a solo drum piece. After humans, these drums, this album. Someone — the last man — is out in a spaceship at the edge of space. He plays a single...
CD $13.75
03/29/2024
LP $24.45
03/29/2024
MC $12.75
03/29/2024
***BACK IN PRINT!!! In 2014, Drag City invites you to celebrate Dismay Day with America’s hardest working funnyman in show business, NEIL HAMBURGER! A somber work from a seasoned entertainer clearly carrying the weight of the world on his shoulders, First of Dismay is being issued in answer to many who have applauded for “more!” “more!” Specially-chosen stand-up comedy recordings from Neil’s recent appearances at coveted nightclubs in London, Savannah, and Los Angeles are interspersed with musical cries for help, as Neil emotes with the purely professional panache of the “Too Good For Neil Hamburger Band” in support. Song highlights include “Endless Roll,” a disco complaint letter aimed at Kirkland Signature trash bags (featuring guest spots from members of The Germs and Jefferson Starship!!), and “Nickel Candy”: societal decline set to music. Although Neil was strongly advised against the risk of merging side-splitting comedy segments with melancholy musical numbers, the exciting potpourri that resulted has enhanced his sparkle into a veritable milky way of entertainment.
LP $19.95
03/26/2024
***Who says there are no second-acts in show-biz? The same person who claimed there’s no crying in comedy, probably—and NEIL HAMBURGER has proven him wrong once again. Left for dead more than once in a career that has spanned literal decades, Neil is back on top and waiting for that next wave that will supposedly pull him under again. In 2007, Neil Hamburger experienced what some would call the high point of his career to date, playing Madison Square Garden and other big arenas of performance infamy all around the United States. This was no miracle; after all, people weren’t coming to see Neil; he was opening for popular rock act Tenacious D. Once the crowds heard some of his classic routines, however, Neil gained a great deal of exposure—exposed once again as America’s Funnyman in front of roaring crowds of Americans. Naturally, there were a few bad apples in the barrel, and Neil did what any professional would do—slaying the hecklers with their own sword of crass, unmannered profanity. Now it’s your turn—fire up the hi-fi and place this special phonograph LP on the platter. Then mix a couple drinks and listen to America’s Funnyman, Neil Hamburger, as he lives and dies the comedy life that all the greats have lived, too. Hot February Night is truly a brush with greatness. What will Neil do for an encore? No Export to Europe.
LP $21.95
03/01/2024
***Stereolab's Laetitia Sadier issues a call to the traumatized civilizations of Earth: we’re urged to finally evolve past our countless millennia of suffering and alienation. Her songs score the complexities and harmonies within this directive: organ, guitar, bass, synth, trombone, vibraphone, live and programmed drums, and a vocal assembly of men and women billed as The Choir, working intricate chord/tempo/and dynamic changes, as Laetitia’s empathic presence leads the way.
CD $13.85
02/23/2024
LP $24.45
02/23/2024
***REISSUED!!! Returned to us from early '90s Japan are the holy holy sounds of Ghost. Their collective, clearly inspired by various forms of transcendental music throughout history, created a new syncretic psychedelia with these albums, mixing the texture and vibe of multinational forms of traditional music, with strummed antique stringed instruments and the haunting wail of a recorder on top of their heavy beats and guitars. The considerable depth of this approach was explored through 2014 over another five Ghost LPs, as well as the further explorations to the present day of leader Masaki Batoh, as a solo artist and with The Silence, Damon & Naomi, Helena Espvall and most recently, nehan. These first three Ghost titles were originally released by P.S.F. on CD in 1990, 1992 and 1994, respectively, radiating enigma and energy in palpable waves with their original sound. After the acclaim that greeted Drag City’s 1996 US release of Lama Rabi Rabi, we quickly reissued all three on vinyl—and they quickly went out of print! At which point, Ghost had Snuffbox Immanence and Free Tibet ready to go. And then, Hypnotic Underworld. And then, and then.... Now, it’s been 25 years since they were last offered on vinyl. In the twenty-year sweep of Ghost history, these first three releases qualify as primitive early Ghost—sort of like a German Os Mutantes (or perhaps a Brazilian Amon Düül). The subterranean presence of a diversity of progressive/avant classic rock influences (Pink Floyd, Incredible String Band, Captain Beefheart, Scott Walker, Led...
LP $25.85
02/23/2024
***REISSUED!!! Returned to us from early '90s Japan are the holy holy sounds of Ghost. Their collective, clearly inspired by various forms of transcendental music throughout history, created a new syncretic psychedelia with these albums, mixing the texture and vibe of multinational forms of traditional music, with strummed antique stringed instruments and the haunting wail of a recorder on top of their heavy beats and guitars. The considerable depth of this approach was explored through 2014 over another five Ghost LPs, as well as the further explorations to the present day of leader Masaki Batoh, as a solo artist and with The Silence, Damon & Naomi, Helena Espvall and most recently, nehan. These first three Ghost titles were originally released by P.S.F. on CD in 1990, 1992 and 1994, respectively, radiating enigma and energy in palpable waves with their original sound. After the acclaim that greeted Drag City’s 1996 US release of Lama Rabi Rabi, we quickly reissued all three on vinyl—and they quickly went out of print! At which point, Ghost had Snuffbox Immanence and Free Tibet ready to go. And then, Hypnotic Underworld. And then, and then.... Now, it’s been 25 years since they were last offered on vinyl. In the twenty-year sweep of Ghost history, these first three releases qualify as primitive early Ghost—sort of like a German Os Mutantes (or perhaps a Brazilian Amon Düül). The subterranean presence of a diversity of progressive/avant classic rock influences (Pink Floyd, Incredible String Band, Captain Beefheart, Scott Walker, Led...
LP $25.85
02/23/2024
***Nehan is a Japanese free improvisation & avant-garde rock quintet formed in August 2022. Their performances are initiated by a 9hz brain wave emitted from a testee who has been brought into a deep meditative state via either hypnosis or acupuncture—a very relaxed but very alert state. nehan doesn’t begin until the testee has gotten into the state of “nothingness.” It is only then that the improvisation can begin. The role of improvisation has been key to all the musical projects of Masaki Batoh. In 2010, as Batoh was winding down the activity of his long-stand- ing “heavy chamber folk” group, Ghost, he became involved in the design of a machine to generate sonic data based on brain waves. An acupuncturist as well as a musician by trade, his interest was spurred by the rhythms of the body and the brain, and a desire to access the “pulses” of brain waves to initiate improvisations. Following the release of Brain Pulse Music, Batoh toured Japan and the US, making demonstrations of his process using a local volunteer and guest performers, when available. Today, nehan arrive at their performance space prepared with a Brain Pulse testee, bringing a wide array of instruments including gongs, timpani, tabla and other drums and percussion, Crumhorn, bagpipes, mellotron, oscillators and additional sound effects. Their performance is a transformative electro-acoustic display that passes through the prism of music styles, from east to west, from traditional folk and classical to rock, jazz, and avant electronic. For the personnel...
LP $34.65
01/26/2024
***Ty Segall follows 2022’s acoustic introspection opus Hello, Hi with a deeper, wilder journey to the center of the self. With Three Bells, he’s created a set of his most ambitious, elastic songs, using his musical vocabulary with ever-increasing sophistication. It’s an obsessive quest for an expression that answers back to the riptide always pulling him subconsciously into the depths. Questions we all ask in our own private mirrors are faced down here—and regardless of what the mysterious “Three Bells” mean in the context of the album’s libretto, you can be assured that Ty’s ringing them for himself, and for the rest of us in turn. It’s a growing up and out of your head parable, but the farther out you get, the farther in you go. The two-headed suggestion of 2012’s Twins has grown ever more complex, as the outside/inside world of perception dissolves into a greater world of the senses — all six or seven of them! Since Ty deals in sounds, Three Bells rings with them most of all: sounds signaling the next phase, ringing to keep you stuck, or to set you free, with guitars like voices, questioning and answering the others in their turn.
CD $13.75
01/26/2024
2XLP $31.25
01/26/2024
MC $12.75
01/26/2024
***One of two early cassette-only titles from the renowned guitar improviser Tashi Dorji originally released a decade ago—this reissue marks it's debut on vinyl. “Guitar Improvisation and Tashi Dorji are the first physical releases of my guitar improvisations. They were put out by a small local, now defunct, label called Headway Recording in 2012 and 2013. The friends who ran the label had heard some of my guitar music and reached out to me about doing a cassette release. Guitar Improvisations was really my first recording of improvisation—in a semi-studio setting at my friend’s basement space. It really was a formative time for me because it felt like everything opened, as far as the possibilities of what music-making meant. Like improvisation walked in and then there was a volcanic eruption..."—Tashi Dorji
LP $28.35
12/08/2023
***One of two early cassette-only titles from the renowned guitar improviser Tashi Dorji originally released a decade ago—this reissue marks it's debut on vinyl. "The self-titled session was recorded at a nice studio at the local university here in Asheville. I had some friends that were studying music there and had access to studio time. This session focused more on extended/prepared guitar ideas. My interest in percussive elements of sounds, timbre, harmonics, and dynamics plays a lot in this recording.”—Tashi Dorji
LP $28.35
12/08/2023
***The curtain rings down on 2023, and so much more, with the proverbial “Opus You Didn’t Know You Were Waiting For”—a new musical from Erik Paparozzi and Gregg Turkington—and the first-ever Drag City Christmas/Holiday album—Neil Hamburger Presents Seasonal Depression Suite. Through the lens of various guests stuck in a perfectly average chain-hotel during the holiday season, wallowing in self-pity and paranoia, reliving personal catastrophes both real and imagined, or simply trying to use the hotel vending machine. Influenced by everything from Thom Bell to Tommy to the trollish misery of Trip Advisor reviews, Seasonal Depression Suite provides another entry in the sprawling satirical critique of America that Turkington has been engaged in with his multifarious enterprises and collaborations since the early 90s. Features an all-star cast including: Neil Finn (Split Enz, Crowded House, Fleetwood Mac), Annabella Lwin (Bow Wow Wow), Alan Bishop (Sun City Girls), Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy, acclaimed singer/ performance artist Puddles Pity Party, voice actress Natalie Peyser, J.P. Hasson (Pleaseeasaur), enigmatic vocalist (and Frank Sinatra’s granddaughter) A.J. Lambert, Paparozzi himself and, of course, Neil Hamburger.
CD $13.75
11/17/2023
LP $25.75
11/17/2023
MC $12.75
11/17/2023
***In the time since the 2009 release of For the Whole World to See, happenings in the world of Death have occurred at warp speed. The raw rock ’n roll that the Hackney brothers made in the 1970s became a belated punk rock sensation, leading to shows and tours round the world, as well as two further compilations of old material. A documentary film was released in 2013 and an album of new Death music in 2015. Since a series of US dates in 2019, things have been relatively quiet externally, but evolution has continued, with this Death / Rough Francis split single representing the inauguration of a new phase in the Death history. Keeping it in the family and pointing toward the future has been a way of life for Death since the beginning. For this new recording, Bobby Hackney’s sons have joined Bobby and Dannis in the band they formed with their late brother David nearly 50 years ago. Urian, Julian and Bobby Jr. have made music under the name of Rough Francis since 2010, and will continue that journey while also making Death music old and new happen with their father and uncle. “World In Disguise” and “Haunted” are produced by Urian, who is gaining recognition as a drummer, artist and producer, playing with Converge, The Armed and even the Late Night with Seth Meyers 8-G Band in the last couple years, in addition to Rough Francis. Julian plays all the guitars in this new version of...
7" $19.50
11/17/2023
***Cylene II is the new materialization of the collaboration between François J. Bonnet & Stephen O’Malley, initiated in 2018 and continued without interruption since then, taking form in a myriad of contexts ranging from common practice to recording sessions, concerts and tours. Cylene II bears witness to these different contexts, offering a multifaceted sound signature developed on different occasions—artist residencies in La Becque, Switzerland and Modena, Italy, live performance excerpts, a studio session at INAGRM Studios in Paris. For the listener, Cylene II is a sound that reaches from the deep and scales up to the far firmament in its careful motion, drawing emotions viscerally from the chest, giving rise to the suggestibility of the soul. A séance of sorts for all who witness it, whether playing or listening.
LP $30.85
11/10/2023
***Since 2011, MIKE DONOVAN's been a Drag City stalwart, first with SIC ALPS, then as a solo and with THE PEACERS—but MIKE "THE MIGHTY FLASHLIGHT" FELLOWS has been a behind-the-scenes figure at Drag City since the early early days, playing live and on record with ROYAL TRUX, SILVER JEWS and WILL OLDHAM. And in fact, Donovan first laid eyes on Fellows way back in 1994, at yer legendary Drag City Invitational (we’re a matchmaker, blush!)! A multi-hy-phenate, Fellows has contributed to releases from ENDLESS BOOGIE, PIGEONS, WEEPING BONG BAND and PRISON in recent years. So when these two rambling musicians found themselves in adjacent communities in upstate New York, Mike D brought Mike F into the process of his new solo album. There The Mighty Flashlight turned ON, bringing his recording, writing, performing and mixing talents to the tabletop with such a seasoned vibe that he bought himself real estate in the album title itself! Something usually reserved for characters of legend (like Kiss’s adversary The Phantom of the Park) or giants of Dub (King Tubby, Scientist, Lee Perry et al, amen). The two-Mike combination makes the fourth Donovan solo album one that hits all kinda high water marks for the most and the best of what he’s capable of/plus inclined to do. And MF wanted to hear something different out of MD’s sound—so it could only be a meeting of the minds in the end.
LP $26.50
10/13/2023
***With BCMC, Cooper Crain and Bill MacKay unite to create Foreign Smokes: provocalogues, equal parts east Africa, deep space, rock’s dreamy lyrical interior, soloed multi-track, remix, raga, new age fugue state, field recording, blues and beyond—gossamer-light avant-garde noir flowing into fire-and-icy jams, collecting bright shades and warm stretches of infinity drawn through the buzzy overdrive of this side of life’s strange and sunny days.
LP $24.25
10/06/2023
***Recorded circa 1995/96, mostly in John Fahey’s room at a Salem, Oregon boardinghouse, the performances on Proofs & Refutations prefigure the ornery turn of the page that marked Fahey’s final years, drawing another enigmatic rabbit from his seemingly bottomless musical hat, making delightfully confounding demands upon your listening (and thinking) ear.
LP $21.95
09/08/2023
***Finally! Vinylly! The Prison break of our dreams at long last. Freedom is the goal for Rockaway Beach’s very own state-of-mind jam band. Everybody’s got their point of view and one slamming riff at a time unites all of them: five guys, four vocals, three guitars melded together outrageously in a craft that runs on it’s own rock and roll synergy, and lots of it. Sure, it goes too far! How the hell else you gonna get Upstate? The Prison population changes with the seasons, and during the season this album was recorded, Sarim Al-Rawi (Liquor Store), Mike Fellows (Mighty Flashlight), Sam Jayne (Love As Laughter), Matt Lilly and Paul Major (Endless Boogie) were in Prison.
2XLP $37.50
09/08/2023
***After Math retails what becomes of the cast of characters introduced in Art, Mystery, joint and severally pursuing an erotic Rinascimento statuette attributed to Antonio Pollaiuolo, a pursuit that lands them in court. On the way, their collective and singular fates are unfolded and accounted for, the consequences of the truth of matters for them are brought to bear and a kind of rough justice is seen to have been done, as is appropriate in rough trade. “After Math begins where Art, Mystery, the first installment in Mr. Thompson’s two-part novel, left off. The chrome trader Perlat Tile has just witnessed the criminal Pablo Palbon attempt to smuggle a small erotic bronze by Pollaiuolo out of Tirana disguised as a funeral urn. The ensuing trial—described in After Math—pits the gallerist Ms. Jasmine, who wants to acquire the work legitimately, against the state of Albania, which also claims ownership of it. Written in the impeccable prose that we have come to expect from Mr. Thompson, After Math proves that what happens after a plot is foiled can be just as delightful as the action itself.”—Michael Sanchez
BK $29.85
09/01/2023
***Back from the silence from which P.G. SIX always emerges, the new album release Murmurs & Whispers is the first proper P.G. Six album since 2011’s Starry Mind. Time passes slowly, as they’ve been known to say out in the country, and before you know it, there’s a bunch of it behind you. After five releases in the first decade of P.G. Six, it may seem a bit of a surprise to have not heard something new in the past twelve years—but a cursory listen to Murmurs & Whispers will answer why, as the deep acoustic focus of the tracks imply an investment of the type of compassion and understanding that takes time and concentrated effort to conjure. Additionally, PAT GUBLER's always got a few pots going at once in his ever-expanding musical universe. He’s been active since the mid-90s, first with Memphis Luxure and Tower Recordings, then as P.G. Six, and as a member of METAL MOUNTAINS, WET TUNA, GARCIA PEOPLES and WEEPING BONG BAND. Additionally, some time was spent making collaborative records with Dan Melchior (in 2019) and Louise Bock (in 2021). Pat’s been playing the harp for more years than he’s been in bands, but when he realized that he was writing a set of songs cen- tered around harp compositions, he spent some time in the woodshed with his instrument, a late 80s model Triplett Celtic 34 String Harp (which replaced a lovely Paraguayan harp he’d played for years previously). After the previous P.G. albums of...
LP $24.85
09/01/2023
***Resolve acts in dialogue with the minimalist inspirations of the first Arnold Dreyblatt & The Orchestra of Excited Strings release, 1982’s Nodal Excitation—in effect, looking beneath the hood of several decades of progression to review and renew the revolutionary intent of their microtonal foundation credo. This new Orchestra—Oren Ambarchi, Konrad Sprenger and JoachimSchütz—combine effortlessly to explore new scalar dimensions. PLAY LOUD.
LP $21.25
08/25/2023
***An impromptu live show at Worship vintage clothes store in Los Angeles, serving as a rehearsal for an acoustic set that would be part of a TY SEAGALL And FREEDOM BAND record release show. Ty along with EMMETT KELLY deliver five songs and show no rehearsal was necessary.
LP $21.25
08/11/2023
***Keeping Secrets Will Destroy You is a tale as old as time. It’s an album. Its songs and music are by and for people together. For listening together. Before it gets too late. Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy stands at the nexus of all the kinds of music he can summon, with friends, with family and community. All roads roll though him. There can be no holding back. A million billion moments are on the line. He’s gonna tell us about a world... Keeping Secrets Will Destroy You was recorded in Louisville by Nick Roeder, featuring Sara Louise Callaway on violin, Kendall Carter on keys, Elisabeth Fuchsia on viola and violin, Dave Howard on mandolin, Drew Miller on saxophone and Dane Waters’ voice.
CD $13.75
08/11/2023
LP $25.75
08/11/2023
MC $12.75
08/11/2023
***Emil Amos (Grails, OM and podcaster plus) decommissions pieces originally bound for the KPM library. A personal interpolation of ‘music for films (& television)’ expounds upon diverse sounds: synthy 80s soundtracks, contemporary hip-hop beatmaking, ambient music, and The Hulk’s “Lonely Man Theme”. Emil’s dark visions are full of noirish shadows and eerie neon glow—mood music for drug trips spent dreaming up new soundtracks to take drugs to!
LP $21.25
08/04/2023
***In addition to his day job transforming pop music with his own records, as well as those of Gastr del Sol, Loose Fur and Sonic Youth over the past few decades, Jim O’Rourke has been contracted for several dozen film scores over the years as well. It makes sense—his abilities as an improviser, composer and producer allow him to interpret cinematic moments with a unique understanding for their construction and how they work. It doesn’t hurt that Jim’s a well-versed cineaste, a complete and total fan of watching films, which has given him a preternatural understanding of the role of music in movies. O’Rourke’s process—sourcing resonant sounds to be enmeshed together into a music that supersedes their resident parts—makes a fitting soundtrack for Kyle Armstrong’s “prairie gothic” tale of down-on-the-farm horror way up north in Canada. His minimalist score inhabits the wide open, big sky landscape, flowing into suddenly-deep (and opaque) emotional waters, then panning out to a chilly omniscient remove. RIYL: Ambient, new age, mod comp
LP $21.95
07/14/2023
***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
06/23/2023
***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
***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
***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
***Outsider freekz, make with the haste! It’s time to get back to The Future—the one promised back when rock and roll was king, re- member? J.T. IV believed in the promise—and now, the mystery man behind barely-released private press 7" records of the ’80s like “Destructo Rock” and “Cosmic Lightning” and a film holding the Guinness record for worlds-longest—85 hours!—has been called back to our mortal coil, to live out his glittering, rapa- cious dreams once again. The 2009 comp LP Cosmic Lightning cast his tragic silhouette up on the big screen for all to see: the lost boy, alone in the world, standing before the mic and releasing his inner star with glee and vengeance, his antisocial visions flying high atop a raging funnel of distorted guitars and blunt rhythms. Or couched, childlike, within a heartbreaking billow of acoustic guitars—a schizophrenic split that only magnifies the display of his deep emotions. The Future goes even further, excavating fifteen recordings from a previously unheard-of cassette entitled, The Best Of Johnny Zhivago Retrospective 1979–1993, and adding four more uncollected tracks from his slim (and impossible to find anyway) discography. Of these nineteen tracks, eight are covers—and J.T. IV’s picks, from Velvets to Mott the Hoople, Roxy Music, Lee Hazlewood, The Kinks, Eno and Stephen Sondheim, sharpen our image of the misfit adrift; on the outside looking in, but maybe just a few steps away from his goal. The Future unfolds like an epic, as both sides of J.T.’s persona—the street-smart, damaged...
2XLP $32.75
04/21/2023