Drag City   Page 4

4th Movement, The

S/t

Drag City

***There is life after DEATH after all—and just like you’ve heard, it hinges on accepting You-Know-Who as your lord and savior. 1980: it was the dawn of a new age. Built on the broken backs and bodies of those who had hoped and dreamed for a better world, the '80s made it clear: that world wasn’t coming. A generation and more plunged into the abyss. But what of Death? The HACKNEY brothers were no different from anybody else—in the heat and tumult of the 1970s, they’d seen that new world coming. They’d raised their voices righteously, transforming with outrage and hunger their all-in-the-family power-trio ROCK FUNK FIRE EXPRESS into the legends called Death. The combination of BOBBY and DENNIS’ pile-driving rhythm, older brother DAVID's hard-rock guitar leads and an effervescent combination of lyrical angst, missionary zeal and vision-spirit were an unknown hybrid on the African-American side of Detroit in the mid-'70s. These were the sounds the world knows today as For the Whole World to See—but at the time, the brothers managed only to self-release two songs on a basically undistributed 7˝ record, which caused no label anywhere to express any interest in a record deal for the band called Death. Time for THE 4TH MOVEMENT. Death had plenty of existential/spiritual elements to them; a desire to know where they stood in the big picture was always key to the Hackneys’ musical ambitions. As The 4th Movement, they would direct all those inquiries to Christ. But the raw spirit of...

Renbourn, John

Live In Kyoto 1978

Drag City

***An evening in a coffee house in Kyoto forty years ago has lingered fondly in the memories of those who were there. Now, the stellar performance of JOHN RENBOURN that night is available for all to hear on Live in Kyoto 1978. John Renbourn, along with his sometimes partner Bert Jansch (with whom he formed PENTANGLE in the 1960s), has been passed away for these past few years—but the music that he made continues to inspire, alongside the works of fellow travelers like Jansch, Davey Graham, Wizz Jones and John Martyn. Over fifty years ago, Renbourn and these men were at the forefront of the British folk revival as it mingled with the blues boom that was exploding at the same time. Renbourn’s style mixed these traditions with classical, jazz, world and early music techniques, and his picking was second to none. Live in Kyoto 1978 is a remarkable document of Renbourn’s talent spun out over an evening’s-worth of performances, during which his ease of playing left the audience speechless afterwards. The recording was made by the late SATORO FUJII, whose archive of recordings was discovered posthumously and have begun to see release in recent years. Satoro captured the performance with pristine detail, allowing us to hear the fine detail of John’s fretwork and the warmth and delight in the room as he played. Featuring notes from MASAKI BATHOH, who was one of the enchanted listeners in attendance, Live in Kyoto 1978 is a superb performance of John Renbourn at...

Toral, Rafael

Sound Mind Sound Body

Drag City

***In 1987, RAFAEL TORAL began making his own compositions and solo recordings. 30 years later, these recordings sound remarkably prescient and perfectly timeless—almost fresher today than when they were first released. Rafael has spent the time since then developing his conceptions, with continued explorations in the many records that have followed. On the 30th anniversary of his start, Drag City is reissuing Sound Mind Sound Body and Wave Field, his first two long out-of-print albums, on vinyl for the first time. Sound Mind Sound Body was partly inspired by exploring some of the working principles of Brian Eno and Robert Fripp, extrapolated by Rafael via a unique signal path leading out of his guitar. He paid notice to the massive impact of discreet gestures, creating slow-moving tones and spacious orchestral resonances, drifting and droning with glacial majesty, hardly recognizable as guitar much of the time. The first of these pieces were recorded in 1987, and in 1994, they were released on Portugal’s AnAnAnA, with material evolved in the years between, producing a remarkable equilibrium over an hour’s listening. Further evidence of the necessity for gradual development exists in subsequent reissues: for the 1998 Moikai reissue, “AE 1” was recorded, and for this edition, “AER 7 E” was rerecorded and the material for “AE 2” was recorded for the first time ever—all from original processes as noted, and none of which will cause the listener to notice a change in the otherworldly atmosphere.

Toral, Rafael

Wave Field

Drag City

***In 1987, RAFAEL TORAL began making his own compositions and solo recordings. 30 years later, these recordings sound remarkably prescient and perfectly timeless—almost fresher today than when they were first released. Rafael has spent the time since then developing his conceptions, with continued explorations in the many records that have followed. On the 30th anniversary of his start, Drag City is reissuing Sound Mind Sound Body and Wave Field, his first two long out-of-print albums, on vinyl for the first time. Wave Field, released in 1995, was a departure from the first album into new composition methods involving the dirty textures of rock guitar, sounding in the open ears of many listeners (like Jim O’Rourke, who issued the disc in the US on dexter’s cigar) as a synthesis of disparate elements—a nexus where Alvin Lucier, Sonic Youth, My Bloody Valentine and Eno blend together. Here, the clangorous potential of the guitar was emphasized, giving a metallic edge to the two extended pieces and “radio edit” coda. The jacket paid subtle tribute to My Bloody Valentine, which, along with the radio edit, suggested a harmony between musical directions as wildly disparate as minimalist experimental and rock. Today, such a paradoxical intent is more widely considered as a part of the artist’s purview. This allows the sounds of Wave Field and Sound Mind Sound Body to sit perfectly among the forward-reaching music of today—as it continues to evolve in our ears, moving ever towards the next conception of listening space.

Wand

Perfume

Drag City

***If the emblem of WAND's Plum was the stark blue cloud—a condensation, a linking between longing molecules, data hungering for more data, a flotilla of vapor between eye and sky—then Wand’s new EP reeks of something more forceful, more seductive, more intoxicating, more insidious: this is Perfume. Here are seven electric hues, shocks of light that flagrantly provoke the dark, a posy’s clutch of purple, fuchsia, green and snowy white that curl against a stench of plague. Recorded between tours and fire seasons in Grass Valley, California, by TIM GREEN, Perfume’s potent, expansive tunes were mixed in Woodstock, New York by DANIEL JAMES GOODWIN. The band features SOFIA ARREGUIN, EVAN BURROWS, ROBBIE CODY, CORY HANSON and LEE LANDEY. There’s a kind of return here, a haunting, the déjà vu you only take in through a curious nose. Your nose invites the world inside your skull. A familiar fragrance finds you when you thought you’d let a lover go, but it won’t linger like a lover, flickering away with the breeze toward a yawning future.

Donovan, Mike

How To Get Your Record Played In Shops

Drag City

***THE PEACERS / SIC ALPS lead singer MIKE DONOVAN steps out from behind the ash-stained curtain for his second solo album in the past five years: How to Get Your Record Played In Shops. The Donovan oeuvre is not something you’re meant to think about—instead, enjoy the soupy soak, sliding beneath its opaque and filmy surface to discover the sensual world in the moat below. But if you had time to think, you might reflect that this music blooms from ’neath the gritty carpet of the USA herself, sighted psycho-acoustically via SF futures and pasts, through rose-colored lenses shoved in and now cracking at the edges, amid hoots and cries from mystery pursuers in the historical, but now-less-than-fully-existent boho jungle. Yep: four Sic Alps, two (The) Peacers and two Mike Donovan albums along the line, Mike is still jiving down on main street, a footloose man of the world, twisting the dial, running ahead of the pack and through twists and turns, past dark characters in shady doorways. Then retiring for a mellow moment around the chambers, staring above the rooftops, through the tangle of aerials and wires. And then lifting the music-box lid.... (STREET DATE - 4/20/2018)

Drinks

Hippo Lite

Drag City

***BACK IN PRINT!!! Received an 8.0 rating from Pitchfork. The latest from CATE LE BON and TIM PRESELEY as DRINKS. "A month spent in an old mill in the under belly of France. River swimming thrice a day. Hot nights soundtracked by the rattle of randy frogs. Scorpion fear. In the sheets, on the face. Hours of bird watching—no phone service. No wifi. 3 DVDs. Jurassic Park 1, 2 & 3. Violin practice. Bread scoffing. Early morning coffee drinking before the sun was too hot to do anything but snooze in the thick walled house. Music in the afternoon after a dip in the river and a cold beer on the square. With all the ease and air needed, in this mysterious place, we made an album made for each other by one another with no hands, eyes or ears piercing the bubble other than our dear friend Steve who slid in under the door and took note of it all."—Cate Le Bon

Bonnie Prince Billy

Wolf Of The Cosmos

Drag City

***"Sonata Mix Dwarf Cosmos by Susanna is a record that I’ve spent a lot of time with, and so this has been a long-imagined project, an attempt to understand or, better yet, experience the mysteries of that record. the lyrics are repetitive, almost like nursery rhymes for undead teenagers. Why is it so scary, why is it so sweet, why is it so comforting and disruptive at the same time. After EMMETT and CHEYENNE and I made Chijimi, I thought we were really onto something, and it felt like we’d made an ideal laboratory/process for reproducing the cosmos record. It’s taken a many years to get back into this lab, though. and I thought to expand the lab personnel by one, CHRIS RODHAFFER, would be a good way to fuck with the control."

Roberts, Alasdair, Amble Skuse & David Mcguinnes

What News

Drag City

***For his twelfth solo album, What News, and his fourth album focused exclusively on the performance of traditional songs, ALASDAIR ROBERTS has chosen a typically unusual and eclectic pair of collaborators: AMBLE SKUSE and DAVID MCGUINNES. On past albums No Earthly Man and Too Long In this Condition, Alasdair relied on his deep connection to the songs to anchor often exploratory arrangements that would locate the hundreds-years-old songs in a contemporary milieu. The resulting works are magnetically compelling and have been powerfully acclaimed down the years. For his first project in this vein since 2010, Alasdair was inspired by Scottish singers such as Jeannie Robertson, Lizzie Higgins, Duncan Williamson, Elizabeth Stewart and Sheila Stewart. He had a desire to sing and not so much to play, so he asked early music scholar and Concerto Caledonia director David McGuinness (a previous collaborator) to play keyboard accompaniment for these songs, upon which Alasdair would not be playing guitar. During the process of developing the arrangements, David hit upon an idea for an additional collaborator: sonologist Amble Skuse, whose work involves interactive, electronic performance treatments. This provided a third plane for the project, and thus triangulated, they were able to crystallise an approach involving a very open soundstage: David’s keyboard, Alasdair’s vocals and Amble’s structural soundscaping. What News stands artifacts of history in the unclear light of our modern day for us to compare and contrast. As always, it is shocking and delightful musical entertainment.

Your Food

Poke It With A Stick

Drag City

***Poke it with a Stick—the only record by Louisville legends YOUR FOOD—is a sui generis gem of the American underground, now faithfully reissued for the first time by Drag City. Recorded in 1983 by four scarecrows from Kentucky subsisting largely on cheap beer and baked beans, the album is a burbling burgoo of hypnotic rhythm, uncoiling tension, and sharp invective—a proud bastard of post-punk royalty. In the fall of 1981, the residents of 1069, Louisville’s original punk house, began to spy three teenagers lurking outside the decrepit environs. Eventually the teens grew bold enough to approach, and soon two, JOHN BAILEY amd WOLF KNAPP were learning guitar and bass in the trashed rehearsal space within. CHARLES SCHULTZ had been the drummer for Louisville’s recently defunct DICKBRAINS, a band described by the Village Voice as freaky weirdos who couldn’t fit in if they tried. He started playing with John and Wolf. DOUGLAS MAXSON, the Dickbrains male singer, was lured back from New York with the promise of beer and cigarettes, and soon Your Food was playing weekly shows at the local Beat Club, mostly for free beer. Financed by a Pell Grant and what little cash the band could scrounge, the album was cut largely live in the studio by a guy who usually recorded church groups, and self-released on the band’s own Screaming Whoredog label. Your Food managed three short tours and earned the admiration of the few who heard them. But they were sonically out of step with the...

V/a

Hexadic Iii

Drag City

***CHECK STOCK!!! Received a 7.6 rating from Pitchfork. If we subscribe to the current ISO 8601, then 2018 is Hexadic year three—the third annum since we were introduced to a new wave in combinatorial theory with powerful potentialities for music composition. The book, The Hexadic System, was written by SIX ORGANS OF ADMITTANCE's BEN CHASNY, who demonstrated the possibilities of the system with two albums of Hexadic composition, as well as touring the music and chairing talks on the process and uses of THE SYSTEM around the United States and Great Britain. This third installment of the Hexadic series had been planned from the beginning—inviting others outside of Ben Chasny’s Hexadic headquarters to make music using THE SYSTEM. Features music from MOON DUO, JENKS MILLER, MEG BARID & CHARLIE SAUFLEY, TASHI DORJI, RICHARD YOUNGS, PHIL LEGARD, and STEPHEN O'MALLEY, TIM WYSKIDA & MARC URSELLI.

Thompson, Mayo

Art, Mystery

Drag City

***In Art, Mystery, a controversial former footballer, now export agent specializing in chrome, accepts an unusual commission from an odd source, the very man who brought him down, a former football referee turned art handler—to find and export a pornographic work of Renaissance art. (STREET DATE - 1/26/2018) “Perlat Tile, Pablo Pablon, Ms. Jasmine, and the Beast of Bern tussle and conspire with other assorted gangsters and PhDs over an illicit Pollaiuolo statuette. The action unfolds in Tirana, between the National Museum and a bar named Tiranosaurus Tex, leading to a denouement in Venice. Mr. Thompson has given us the perfect cocktail of suspense and whimsy. Very highly recommended—even the most humorless of art historians will be tickled by Art, Mystery!”—Dr. Emmelyn Butterfield-Rosen “I am impressed with Art, Mystery. Cracking dialogue. I enjoyed reading it. I also thought it was very funny and wore its humour integrally, I mean, like, subtle.”—Josephine Pryde About the author: Art, Mystery is Mayo Thompson’s first published work of fiction since the nineteen-sixties. He is best known for his work with the psychedelic band, The Red Krayola

No Age

Snares Like A Haircut

Drag City

***BACK IN STOCK!!! Received an 8.0 rating from Pitchfork. With the world around us bruised and bloodied with teeth already dug into the concrete curb, we find ourselves with the shadow of a large boot looming overhead. What better time for NO AGE? Remember, they are the ones who first brought you the hospital-bed-feel-good-anthem, “Get Hurt" (2007). They know how to ecstatically rage and power on thru pain, because what else are you gonna do? The future belongs to the cockroaches, and this record is made for the disparate band of misfits who 2017 couldn’t kill. Snares Like a Haircut sounds like the good shit, and smells like the buzzy burning off of an aura, the marine layer suddenly vanished, leaving a thin layer of smog over the songs, simmering sock gazing tunes, revved and displacing enormous amounts of sound soil. This is pure driving music, for the bus racer and the car driver, with too many signs, bells and little lites flashing, ticking away. This is a record for the Foothill and the Valley, with a chemical sunset flowering at the end of every day. It’s a feeling made by driving music for driving music. Recorded in a few days and mixed forever, Snares Like a Haircut finds No Age in full on mode, because there was nothing else to do but go full on. In the songs inside the songs, the thumpy/thwappy drums, the desperately voiced paens to determination, the churning and the stinging-but-shiny fuck-it built into the...

Segall, Ty

Freedom's Goblin

Drag City

***Received an 8.1 rating from Pitchfork. Freedom’s Goblin is the new TY SEGALL album: 19 tracks strong, filling four sides of vinyl nonstop, with an unrestricted sense of coming together to make an album. It wants you to get your head straight—but first, the process will make your head spin! Back in the Twins days, we talked about the schizophrenia of Ty’s outlook; today, it’s super-dual, with loads of realities all folding back on each other. On any given side, we’re tracking five or six full-blown personalities, unconcerned with convention or continuity. So drop the needle—who can say what it’ll sound like where it lands? This is Freedom’s Goblin—one track engendering, the next one oppressing, violence up in the mix—a look at everything around that Ty used to make the songs. Freedom’s Goblin is thick with deep songwriting resources, be it stomper, weeper, ballad, screamer, banger or funker-upper, all diverted into new Tydentities. Freedom’s Goblin wears a twisted production coat: tracks were cut all around, from L.A. to Chicago to Memphis, whether chilling at home or touring with the FREEDOM BAND. Five studios were required to get all the sounds down, engineered by STEVE ALBINI, F. BERMUDEZ, LAWRENCE "BOO" MITCHELL and of course, Ty himself. The goal was getting free, embracing any approach necessary to communicate new heights and depths, new places for the fuzz to land among octaving harmonies, dancefloor grooves, synths, saxes and horns, jams, post-Nicky-Hopkins r’n’b electric piano vibes, children-of-the-corn psycho-rebellions, old country waltzes and down-by-the-river shuffles....

Askew, Ed

A Child In The Sun - Radio Sessions 1969-1970

Drag City

***If you, the discerning record collector, has even a passing interest in the posthumously named genre “acid folk”, surely the name ED ASKEW is in your golden pantheon. Askew recorded the sublimely gorgeous LP Ask the Unicorn in 1968 for the legendary proto-DIY label ESP records, which has now been recognized as a god-damn underground classic. Armed only with a tiple (sort of a South American mandolin) and his lilting neigh of a voice (and bearing superficial resemblances to labelmates Pearls Before Swine, and heady UK acoustic folkers Incredible String Band), Askew spun tales of doomed sisters, crashing universes, budding gay love, and a serious fondness for roses on his rare, precious and beautiful album. Ed unearthed four reels of radio sessions taped in 1969–70, performing songs from his first two albums (and the totally previously unreleased track, “Green Song”)! The tapes were meticulously studied by Galactic Zoo Disk honcho Plastic Crimewave (of Galactic Zoo Dossier, er, fame), and the best versions were extracted for this release—absolutely stunning renditions of Askew standards like “Fancy That” (with a sense of propulsive urgency not on the LP version, we’d say!) or “Red Woman” and “Mr. Dream”—which are perhaps even more gooily gorgeous than the originals.

Bitchin Bajas

Bajas Fresh

Drag City

***CHECK STOCK!!! Received an 8.0 rating from Pitchfork. Bajas Fresh is on the beach here in 2017, existing and thriving in the same wrecked world as you and me. How they finding it so chill and pretty? It’s been over three years since the last proper BITCHIN BAJASs—a natural paradise of woodwinds, droning organs, analog synths, field recordings, and an ever-expanding sense of MORE (and LESS). While flowing towards a wholeness, the four sides of Bajas Fresh feature distinct approaches, approaching the ephemeral with subtle tweaks from new angles. Eschewing the grainy expansiveness of the self-titled album, this new one has an almost monolithic approach, whether spitting forth with Harmonia-styled data riffs, finding Denny-esque South Pacific exotica within a classic Sun Ra piece or teasing out almost imperceptible inflections inside the epochal fizz and whir with glassy-eyed, glacial patience.

Gantry, Chris

At The House Of Cash

Drag City

***At the end of ’73, CHRIS GANTRY had in the can one of the weirdest records ever cut, on or off Music Row. A songwriter, storyteller and original Nashville outlaw, Chris started the wild new wave of young talent in town, a few years before Kristofferson, Mickey Newbury, Tony Joe White, Dan Penn and dozens more. He’d already been writing for years when, at the age of 25, his song, “Dreams of the Everyday Housewife,” was a Billboard Pop Top 40 hit and a #3 Country record for Glen Campbell. He’d made his own records to0—but so far, Chris Gantry hadn’t done anything like this—and that was kinda saying a LOT. His music was a stylistic fusion: his 1967 album debut Introspection sounded a little bit folk, a little bit pop and only a little bit country, with smooth melodies and verdant string charts. But the '60s were afoot, and by the time of Chris’ second LP in 1970, Motor Mouth, his approach had radicalized into a wide-eyed, hard-edged delivery. The critics dug it, and Chris played on Johnny Cash’s TV show, but the next Gantry record didn’t appear for five more years. And herein lies a tale: of dropping out, of a vision-quest and an exorcism of sorts, and of sessions for a bunch of songs so far out from Nashville norms that it’s only now they’ve seen release. This is the story of At the House of Cash. High on the waves of the times, Chris had pulled...

Circuit Des Yeux

Reaching For Indigo

Drag City

***BACK IN STOCK!!! Received ab 8,2 rating from Pitchfork. Reaching for Indigo is the 5th album from CIRCUIT DES YEUX. It references a moment that fell down in the life of HALEY FOHR on Jan. 22, 2016. Reaching for Indigo adds to the definition of Circuit des Yeux, as she realizes her goal of becoming one of the most distinctive voices of this time.

Mackay, Bill & Ryley Walker

Spiderbeetlebee

Drag City

***Drag City presents the second volume of BILL MACKAY and RILEY WALKER's inspired collaboration. It’s been nearly two years since their much-admired 2015 debut, Land of Plenty (Whistler Records), and SpiderBeetleBee more than makes up for lost time with rich, resonant performances that elevate the sound of the guitar duo as they work with an ever-widening panorama of styles. SpiderBeetleBee radiates forth with equal parts austerity and whimsy, opening with an almost-baroque dance before giving way to a Celtic theme, both featuring MacKay and Walker’s acoustics in rambling conversation, picking through intricate passages as though they were exchanges, thoughts and afterthoughts. Adorned with Bill MacKay’s colorful and wilfully primitive cover-art, SpiderBeetleBee wanders through styles, landmasses and hemispheres, capturing the further adventures of MacKay and Walker with spellbinding snapshots that only bloom larger the longer you take them in. (STREET DATE - 10/20/2017)

Dead Rider

Crew Licks

Drag City

***DEAD RIDER are up and rolling again, and Crew Licks is the latest job. After the thousand days and nights since Chills on Glass, Dead Rider had to overcome the creeping suggestion that they multitask themselves to sleep—or to premature brain death—whichever came first. Now they’re ready to get into their Rolling Stones suit and thank you for letting them be themselves again; to extrude rude grooves, shattered r’n’b and/or hip hop and mother’s blues in a priapic triad, tripped-out and overlaid, shedding the old fresh in search of new flesh; a gateway they’ve been dreaming of building in their minds. If you’re lacking for rhythm and imagination in your everyday nine-to-five, Dead Rider got the time for you. With Crew Licks, Dead Rider offer an anti-hero for today. He’s the everyman, the workingman (the man that they in fact are), in a tailor-made creature—a monster, if you will—made up of many, to funk and bump through the bepuzzled night. To render the thing, they’ve grasped onto tools pulled from the rubble of rock and roll. The beat is lode-bearing, brick-house solid, but flexible, breathing. In through the cracks come stuttered words and whispers, the pealing of a steel drum, a squalling sax or two, barks from the outside. Crew foreman TODD RITTMANN twines them with a cabling of acid-base guitar licks, cutting down into the roots for fingerings to invert and extend. The basslines roll and crush, bounce and squish as required, bringing synth and synthesis into and away...

Ka Baird

Sapropelic Pycnic

Drag City

***Sapropelic Pycnic is the Drag City and world debut of music presented under the name of KA BAIRD. While this record is a commencement of many sorts, it is in no way a mere beginning. Ka’s ritual is well underway here, her craft clearly already a dedicated mastery; it finds her on the hunt for new discoveries with a humble desire for the transfigured, the sublime. This has been among the goals since early times, when Ka was one of the founding members of experimental psychlings SPIRES THAT IN THE SUNSET RISE. Ka relocated to NYC in late 2014 and immediately embarked upon new directions—exploring piano improvisations, electroacoustic intervention, extended vocal technique, physical movement, and the electronic processing of her flute playing. The singular force that is Ka is represented on two releases under the SAPROPELIC PYCNIC—the improvised piano album See Sun Think Shadow (released in November 2015 on Brooklyn’s Perfect Wave imprint) and the Coltrane tribute A Love Supreme (on Chicago’s No Index label in January 2016). With the release of Sapropelic Pycnic, Ka manifests an evolving selfhood, expanding upon the essence of her first two albums’ artist name, while replacing and thus becoming that name on her own. “Sapropel” is a contraction of the ancient Greek words sapros and pelos—putrification and mud. “Pycnic” draws from pyknos—dense; stocky. This wordplay is meant to suggest a physical consumption, ingesting of the nutrient-rich mud found at the bottom of seas, lakes and rivers. Very much akin to the gorging of this...

Wand

Plum

Drag City

***BACK IN STOCK!!! Received a 7.9 rating from Pitchfork. Plum is WAND's fourth LP since the band formed in late 2013 but their first new album in two years. After a whirlwind initial phase of writing, recording, and touring at a frenetic clip, their newest document marks a period of relative patience; a refocusing and a push toward a new democratization of both process and musical surface. In late winter of 2016, the band expanded their core membership of EVAN BURROWS, CORY HANSON and LEE LANDEY to include two new members—ROBBIE CODY on guitar and SOFIA ARREGUIN on keys and vocals. From the outset, the new ensemble moved naturally toward a changed working method, as they learned how to listen to each other and trust in this new format. The songwriting process was consciously relocated to the practice space, where for several months, the band spent hours a day freely improvising, while recording as much of the activity as they could manage. This new process demanded more honest communication, more vulnerability, better boundaries, more mercy and persistence during a year that meanwhile delivered a heaping serving of romantic, familial and political heartbreak for everyone involved. They learned more about their instruments and their perceived limitations.

Segall, Ty

Fried Shallots

Drag City

***In order to survive this long hot season of discontent, you gotta have something new to turn up and tune into! It’s vital to chew down on stuff that’s not just all negativity, you know? If you wanna stay positive, throw TY SEGALL's Fried Shallots into your brain pan and flame on for a quick snack. Fried Shallots is a handful of numbers from different times and places over the past few years that all work together in a weird way. That’s something that we should all be striving for: all working together in a weird way. For Ty, that requires rock with the gears shifting and stripping, tempos and tropes mashing up; a primal outburst, a quick-and-fuzzy soundtrack of rock, folk, r’n’b and pure power pop, to give us a chance to chill and do the new century twist for just a minute. That’s good, for in twist we trust! Fried Shallots isn’t simply just good fun. The profits from this release will be donated to the American Civil Liberties Union, whose defense of our rights is badly needed now—especially in the face of the government pigs who don’t care about the constitution and are determined to thin our herd so that they and their corporate sugar- daddys can grow ever fatter off the deprivations of the common man-clan! Don’t you let ‘em do it! Organizations like the ACLU help secure freedoms that allow individuals to stay individual in the face of the choking tides of oppression. Ty Segall’s...

Fosson, Mark

Solo Guitar

Drag City

***MARK FOSSON’s been playing music for nearly 50 years now. Solo Guitar is the 5th album released under his name in all that time, which gives an insight into the nature of his music; when it is time for Mark to commit to something underneath his fingers, regardless of whether that is after two years, ten or twenty, that’s what’s right. On Solo Guitar, Mark continues to use his chops and enthusiasm to wander musically, drawing up pieces of sparkling, nimble fingerstyle with an eclectic vision. As the title implies, this time Mark is focused on the austerity of the guitar, plain and simple, to bring out the music. Whether on six- or twelve-string, his sure touch is transported by crystal-clear recordings that belie their down-home origins, as they catch the contours of every string as it is pressed, bent and struck—a full-bodied sound projecting soulful dips down into bass strings and shimmering upper register runs with equal power. The air around these performances is colored with curving waves of steel-stringed beauty, and the pungency of free-wheeling wit and recollection. This is one of Mark’s favorites of all that he’s written, and it is clear why: the golden, eternal promise of the guitar is ebulliently, transcendently delivered. Mark Fosson’s Solo Guitar is a masterful work, the kind it takes a lifetime to assemble! (STREET DATE - 7/28/2017)

Mulaney, John

The Comeback Kid

Drag City

***BACK IN STOCK!!! JOHN MULANEY has performed standup comedy on stages around the world, written for such shows as Saturday Night Live and Documentary, Now!, and starred in his very own cancelled sitcom. The Comeback Kid is his third comedy album, drawing from the Netflix special of the same name. John’s also had a Comedy Central special, just finished an acclaimed run on Broadway of his show with Nick Kroll, Oh, Hello on Broadway and he and Nick also just co-hosted the 32nd Annual Film Independent Spirit Awards in January 2017! One time he won an Emmy! If all that isn’t enough, his dog is a viral sensation on Instagram.

Peacers

Introducing The Crimsmen

Drag City

***Introducing THE PEACERS Introducing the Crimsmen! Escalating from a disembodied voice to slowly mounting full-band hypnosis, this is a trip into the goldenrod days of fandom, a dimension where a t-shirt could change your life. Since their first LP in the summer 2015, The Peacers have been gigging in SF and around, wood-shedding and collecting tunes for this divinely awaited moment: Introducing the Crimsmen. Lurching back into life, with buzz and hum alight and colors flashing, is the name, but the instigators of the sound are almost a whole other bunch (MIKE DONOVAN, SHAYDE SARTIN, MIKE SHOUN and BO MOORE). The tunes rock forth from a jukebox with a crack in the glass, with channels leaking / kaleidoscopic aspects of low-fi life directed back through the wires to form discrete detail, little shadows, backdrops, edgework. And the tunes! The Peacers got a hand into a variety of rock and roll baked goods. Whether gentle psych, basement throb, keening “Time of the Season” nocturne or ground-glass soundscape, it’s all bubblegum boiled in pot, scripted up with stinging street smart, zoloftnagenic reverie and a wink and a chill grin. (STREET DATE - 6/16/2017)

Royal Trux ("live")

Platinum Tips & Ice Cream

Drag City

***CHECK STOCK!!! Received a 7.3 rating from Pitchfork. Platinum Tips + Ice Cream (scenes from the water park) is new from ROYAL TRUX. The songs were written over a span of time as wide as eagle’s wings—but the recordings are new, live, unrehearsed and were presented in real time to a few thousand people in California and NYC. Performance art? Yes! But only because, unlike so many other aural “content providers,” NEIL HAGERTY and JENNNIFER HERREMA are true artists writing their own futures into the present. Wrapped up in a TRUXian collage scrapping together the crazy quilt of time in their ROYAL-iverse, which in the light of this reunion is now folding back over itself, Platinum Tips + Ice Cream collects twelve Royal Trux non-sequiturs in tribute not only to the past but the unending nature of the future. (STREET DATE - 6/16/2017)

Bonnie Prince Billy

Best Troubador

Drag City

***CHECK STOCK!!! Received a 7.4 rating from Pitchfork. With Best Troubador, BONNIE PRINCE BILLY pays homage to a long-time and forever hero, the late Merle Haggard. A singer who, some 25 years previously, first performed in public by playing a Merle Haggard song, Bonny has often cited Merle’s work in performance, on records and in conversation with anyone who was around, even talking to Merle himself for Filter magazine in 2009. Merle’s body of work was considered by Bonny for a record such as this for some time, but his passing in April of 2016 almost put a stop to it. The goal was to participate in the handing forward of the songs of a living legend, as Merle had done so many times in his own career. Best Troubador flips through his song book, landing on pages unmoored from their time and located anew. Moving from 1978 to 1969 to 2003 to 1981 allows the album to circle Haggard’s music in a simulation of thought and memory, slipping around from spot to spot as if they were discrete impressions, unknown but knowable yet. Dedicated to new life and old, Best Troubador is wistful and bittersweet and no lament at all,v but a tribute instead, for the triumph of a life spent in unending pursuit of the goal: new and expressive music, as our inspirations and heroes once sang it.

Mackay, Bill

Esker

Drag City

***BILL MACKAY is a musician and a musician’s friend—a genial guitarist / composer / improviser based in Chicago who has energized the experimental folk, rock and avant scenes around town with his polyglot approach to the guitar, combining the folk of Appalachia, the blues and gospel with rock, jazz, western-country and an array of eastern modes. Over the past decade-plus, he has recorded records for Tompkins Square, Whistler, Relay, and ears&ears, both as a solo artist and with his band Darts & Arrows, while performing and collaborating with a number of other artists. Bill’s most recent album was Sunrise, in which he examined the songs of John Hulbert, whose 1972 private-press classic Opus III reflected a uniquely mid-western hybridization of finger style and city blues playing. MacKay’s interest in this tactic—essentially, a personal blending of roots elements—has evidenced itself throughout his discography. On Esker, his third solo work, Bill takes it further with an album of all-original material performed entirely in consort with himself. Playing all the parts with guitars, glass slide, bass, piano and percussion, he deepens his hybrid-genre approach with both contrast and cohesion, creating warm, melodic narratives that draw on folk, psych and experimental rock modes. (STREET DATE - 5/05/2017)

Sadier, Laetitia Source Ensemble

Find Me Finding You

Drag City

***Another New Year, and new shapes are forming—if only we are fortunate enough to notice them! As we spin through this world, we are witness to all manner of combinations unfolding before us—familiar arcs and breaking waves alike, upon all of which it is our choice, our chance and our challenge, to possibly ride. Find Me Finding You, the new album from the new organization called the LAETITIA SADIER SOURCE ENSEMBLE, manages to strike new chords while touching familiar keys in the song of life. From its percolating opening beat, Find Me Finding You locates new systems within the sound-universe of Laetitia Sadier. This in itself isn’t a surprise—Laetitia has relentlessly followed her music through different dynamics and into a variety of dimensions over the course of four solo albums since 2010 (not to forget her three albums with MONADE and the long era of STEREOLAB)—but the nature of the construction here stands distinctly apart from her recent albums. Laetitia was inspired by a mind’s-eye envisaging of geometric forms and their possible permutations. As she sought to replicate the shapes in music, this guided the process of assembly for the album. Features longtime collaborators EMMANUEL MARIO and XAVI MUNOZ, keyboard and flutes from DAVID THAYER (LITTLE TORNADOS), keys, synths and electronics from PHIL M FU, and guitar from MASON LE LONG. Includes a guest appearance from HOT CHIP's ALEXIS TAYLOR, as well as cornet work from ROB MAZUREK.

Roberts, Alasdair

Pangs

Drag City

***Since 2001, ALASDAIR ROBERTS has busily pursued the path of his ancestors, down the many and varied byways of Scottish traditional music—and of English and Irish traditional music as well, all of which have fed the American folk tradition from its earliest days. Over the past 15 years, Alasdair has released eight albums of self-written material and interpretations of traditional song alike, all played in a diversity of electric and acoustic arrangements, bringing a modern thrust to the music while honoring the many singers from whom this material was learned and adapted. Following the acoustic austerity of his self-titled 2015 release, Alasdair’s applied himself to electric guitar and band once again for his ninth album, Pangs. Alasdair Roberts and Friends were deep within the epic song approaches of the widely-acclaimed A Wonder Working Stone (2013) when last heard creating music of such scope. While similarly broad in range, Pangs brings different forms of song-craft and modes of collaboration again. Recorded in Ireland with JULIE MACLAMON, Pangs finds Alasdair in a power trio beside his long-time musical partners ALEX NEILSON on drums and STEVIE JONES on bass (and he turns his hand to piano and organ too). Along with guests DEBBIE AMOUR, TOM CROSSLEY, RAFE FITZPATRICK and JESSICA KERR, they summon up a powerful—and powerfully gorgeous—storm over ten new songs. (STREET DATE - 2/24/2017)

Segall, Ty

Ty Segall

Drag City

***BACK IN STOCK!!! Received an 8.0 rating from Pitchfork. Life is a Rorschach, life is a Rashomon. Fuck your facts. Throw ‘em out with yesterday’s webpages. Lives lie beyond the equations of currency, border lines and government—and truth is just a drop in the beholder’s eye. TY SEGALL has made whole records that wrestle with realities—fighting against some, pulling mightily to bring others into being. Of late, he’s thrown up his hands and donned clown shoes, dancing merrily in the dual role of oppressed/oppressor! His hands aren’t any more or less dirty than anyone else’s—but amidst the thunder and the chaos of the ongoing storm, he’s looking for the eye within. The new self-titled record—the next record after Emotional Mugger, Manipulator, Sleeper, Twins, Goodbye Bread, Melted, Lemons, and the first self-titled album that started it up in the now-distant year of 2008—is a clean flow, a wash of transparency falling into a world that needs to see a few things through clearly, to their logical end. It’s got some of the most lobe-blasting neckwork since the Ty Segall Band’s Slaughterhouse, but it also features a steep flight of fluent acoustic settings, as Ty’s new songs range around in their search for freedom without exorcism, flying the dark colors high up the pole in an act of simple self-reclamation. All he wants is some truth! The construction and destruction of his chosen realities has, until now, been a luxury Ty has rightfully reserved for himself, striping overdubs together to form the...

Hanson, Cory

The Unborn Capitalist From Limbo

Drag City

***Drag City, Inc. is pleased to announce the solo debut full length from WAND's CORY HANSON. The Unborn Capitalist from Limbo was recorded during May of 2016 in various locations across Los Angeles County, and features string arrangements by HEATHER LOCKIE. 

Major Stars

Motion Set

Drag City

***Motion Set is the 9th MAJOR STARS LP and their first on Drag City since 2010’s Return to Form, with Decibels of Gratitude appearing in 2012. This has left Starsheads around the world high and decidedly dry; for what reason a four-year gap, they’ve cried, instead of the rather more ideal two-to-three? The answer lies in the very core of the band as they’ve existed from the start: time and space are required to produce the necessary mass to tether their music in this flighty, over-oxygenated atmosphere of ours—and after eight records, it only gets harder to find a combination of possible elements requiring three guitars and a rhythm section in search of the ultimate release with every song they play. Fortunately, Major Stars don’t sell their process until it’s fully melded. C’mon, WAYNE ROGERS is no Johnny-come-lately to the scene of psychedelic guitar rock. He and KATE BIGGAR have been crossing axes to head-scrambling effect since the halcyon days of CRYSTALLIZED MOVEMENTS, in the galaxy far, far away we now call the '80s. In the 90s came collaboration with DAMON & NAOMI in MAGIC HOUR and Wayne Rogers solo records, before the debut of Major Stars at Terrastock ’97. As the years have passed, the band has evolved necessarily in their own expanding universe. (STREET DATE - 11/11/2016)

Papa M

Highway Songs

Drag City

***PAPA M? Are you serious? The last time we said “Papa M,” it was 2004 and we were talking about a retrospective compilation album! There were no expectations, and none given! Sure, Papa M was attached to some of the 80s–90s greatest no-core records, especially if you consider his imaginary alter ego, one DAVID PAJO. But that was a long time ago! So why then does Highway Songs spill into our ears with a newness, a vitality that only fresh blood can bring? Could it be because of all the blood? David Pajo’s been writing lines on the guitar since he was a bitty little kid. It sustained him through a lot of groups, like MAURICE, SLINT, AERIAL M, TORTOISE, THE FOR CARNATION, and DEAD CHILD. He’s played live too, and on records. And now that he’s grown up to be a bitty little man, what’s he gonna do, change? If you think so, you don’t know Pajo—or as he’s been known to sometimes go, Papa M. The instrumental sounds he’s made in the name of these names implied danger, violence and total alienation, alongside a peaceful, easy, good-willin’ and wide streak of broke-toothed black humor. So, after those classic albums followed by a long silent phase, broken only by a steady stream of sweet (and terrifying) pictures on Instagram, we’ve now got Highway Songs. Sounds pastoral. Bucolic, even. What’s become of the implication of mayhem in this title? Don’t worry. This album could be called “Wreck on the Highway...

Silence, The

Nine Suns, One Morning

Drag City

***Nine Suns, One Morning is the third album from THE SILENCE—led by MASAKI BATOH of GHOST—since their formation in Tokyo in July of 2014. This is an amazing outpouring of music in a very short time! The reason for this is that The Silence transpose ecstatic moments from the rock and roll dreamscape into all-new, living music. Not only is there a lot of music in the ether yet to be realized, but The Silence are very good at this process! Despite the speed with with these albums have been dispatched over the course of just 21 months, each collection is gathered with an expert ear turned to the listening experience. Nine Suns, One Morning is one of the most explosive, far-ranging albums you will hear in 2016. Nine Suns, One Morning is a fully developed album of modern rock and roll that moves fluidly between ALL styles of music. LP version includes a bonus 7-inch containing two cover versions. “Louie Louie,” the most elemental of rock songs, is shaken violently in best Silence fashion, while “No Expectations” is given a gossamer gospel treatment on the flipside.

Purling Hiss

High Bias

Drag City

***Since 2009, the fuzzing rock power of PURLING HISS has taken many different forms, all emanating from of MIKE POLIZZE's instinctive approach to playing guitar, writing songs and hooking a feeling from disparate memories, sensations and desired effects. At times carefree and apparently footloose in the world, other times intensely focused and wrathful, Purling Hiss are the orphaned kids of last century’s rock and roll generations, lost in a society that has forgotten its way but determined to find their feet again. High Bias moves with rageful, dazed humor and soulfulness against the darkening times in which we find ourselves. With no way out, Purling Hiss hit today’s bullshit head-on, employing pounding psych-rock and punk effects, slipping signature Hissian backup “oooo-ooh”s and Polizze’s blistering guitar pile-ups in a full-bodied, head-ripping brew. High Bias is a brave and bold blast of popular music that lays it on the line to keep the rebellion alive in the streets of our mind. This is rock we will need in our ears as we venture into the darkness, and the next unexplored stretch of the wasteland. (STREET DATE - 10/14/2016)

Scene Creamers

I Suck On That Emotion

Drag City

***BACK IN PRINT!!! The debut explosion from this group of Washington, DC-based pig-haters consisting of IAN SVENONIUS (MAKE-UP, NATION OF ULYSSES, WEIRD WAR), MICHELLE MAE (MAKE-UP, FRUMPIES, WEIRD WAR), ALEX MINOFF (MAKE-UP, GOLDEN), and BLAKE BRUNNER (DJ NAPTAKER). Twelve soul-forged tracks of frenzified rock'n'roll madness, pumped with dizzying solos, manic rhythms, and wide-awake riffs.

Presley, Tim

The Wink

Drag City

***Received a 7.8 rating from Pitchfork. TIM PRESLEY, the dark force behind WHITE FENCE steps into the solo light with The Wink. Lit up within the shades and the folding conflex of his many musical outfits are the musical sparks that make Tim Presley come alive —but The Wink lives beyond all previous incarnations found in DRINKS, HAIR, White Fence and DARKER MY LOVE. Here, there’s fewer filters than ever between you and Tim. Working with the creative team of producer CATE LE BON, drummer STELLA MOZGAWA, and engineer SAMUR KHOULA, Tim’s located the corners of a perfect square, with their creativity and truth crafting unique parts to function as songs within songs, giving the tunes double-jointed features that extend their original intentions.

Flying Saucer Attack

Mirror

Drag City

***REISSUED ON VINYL!!! The distance between albums only increased between New Lands and Mirror. Mirror arrived wrapped in a vibrant, multicolored cover designed by SAVAGE PENCIL—but the opening sequence of songs offered some of the quietest, most refined FLYING SAUCER ATTACK songs committed to tape. The violent spells of New Lands had given way to a flattened drone on the electric pieces “Space 1999,” and “Islands” and “Dark Wind,” while the glittering acoustics of “Suncatcher” and “Tides” highlighted an incredible fragility within the songs. DAVE PEARCE seemed to be further away in space than ever, a wispy presence over streamlined hard beats and loops of “Chemicals,” and Mirror’s second side. Particularly when considering the silence that followed, this impression makes Mirror a distressing encounter at times, though certainly one of the most enervating listens of the FSA catalog.