***Coventry, England's The Primitives return following up last year's massive hit EP 'Don't Know Where to Start' with a new two song 7" single "I Won't Care" b/w "Everybody Needs Somebody to Hate." Happy Happy Birthday to Me Records is doing the honors of pressing this single up and getting it out into the world. The sleeve is a three color screen-printed fold-over sleeve and the vinyl comes with a download card. The artwork and color combo is a nod to the band's third single "Stop Killing Me" from 1987. "I Won't Care '' is a perfect slice of dreamy indiepop goodness with an effortless Tracy vocal and a guitar hook that will get stuck in your head for days. "Everybody Needs Somebody to Hate '' is an acoustic track with Paul taking the vocal. Limited to a one time pressing so don't miss out. For fans of Camera Obscura, Heavenly, Dolly Mixture, c86.
7" $7.85
05/17/2024
***In the elusive shadows of early '80s Athens, Georgia, Is/Ought Gap emerged as a force beyond the ordinary, their name whispered in the clandestine circles of independent music. A vital chapter in a scene immortalized by People Magazine and cinematic masterpieces (Athens, Ga: Inside Out), they wove their distinctive sounds into the same musical tapestry as R.E.M, the B-52's, and Pylon. The saga began in the twilight of 1981 when Bryan Cook (later of Time Toy and Club Gaga), captivated by the rebellious echoes of the Sex Pistols, collided with Tom Cheek (later of Killkenny Cats), sparking a brotherhood fueled by shared musical alchemy and thrift store escapades. With the arrival of Haynes Collins and later Allen Wagner, Is/Ought Gap marked a pivotal moment, their ensemble now complete. Within the ghostly halls of an old funeral home in downtown Athens, GA, they crafted their songs and narrative. Live debut whispers echoed via the clandestine "Party Line" on Pylon’s answering machine, setting the stage for an indelible pact forged with a silent yet attentive audience at the Coffee Club. As the band's sonic journey extended beyond Athens, Is/Ought Gap became known for electrifying performances across the Southeast, sharing the stage with iconic acts like the Bongos, Circle Jerks, R.E.M., and Pylon. The shadows thickened during their break-up in the late '80s, only to be resurrected during the Art Rocks Athens events in 2014, alongside the birth of the Pylon Reenactment Society. Now, in the hushed chambers of Jason Nesmith's (Casper &...
LP $22.75
04/05/2024
***Who wouldn’t want a break from planet earth after the past few years we’ve all had? Kenneth Close and Tracy Wilson have built themselves a new universe in the form of a home recording studio to transport themselves a galaxy away from the grief, fear, and worry the pandemic brought. The duo dubbed themselves Outer World and they blasted off into an entirely new to them corner of the musical universe to create their debut album Who Does The Music Love? Covid moved into Wilson’s lungs in February of 2020 and overstayed its welcome. It stole what she describes as “her big voice”. For those familiar with her previous bands Dahlia Seed or Positive No, her trademark, no need for a microphone belt, was gone for good. The couple grieved for the literal loss of a primary instrument used in their art, but were determined to find a way back to making music again. Together, they began exploring the world of songwriting using a computer, samples, synths, and plug-ins. The goal was to create a new musical landscape where Tracy could find a new voice that wasn’t as focused on power, but still potent nonetheless. The next two years were spent wrestling with long Covid and finding ways to work around each new frustrating lingering side effect. Close and Wilson had spent the previous decade creating technicolor post-punk pop as the band Positive No. Their final cinematic album Kyanite dabbled with electronic sounds and hints that had they remained active...
LP COLOR $23.50
03/22/2024
***Destination Christmas by Fred Schneider & the Superions is the perfect holiday party dance album every household needs. If the voice sounds familiar, yes it is that same Fred Schneider of the B-52s. Destination Christmas is equal parts disco bangers, sensual French pop, comedic holiday numbers, suggestive lyrics, and never a dull moment. An album that keeps the Xmas party going through new years. Hit the dance floor with disco party holiday anthems "Santa's Disco", 'Fruitcake", and "Teddy and Betty Yeti", laugh out loud to some of Fred's funniest Christmas tracks "Christmas Tears", "Laughter at Christmas", "Crummy Christmas Tree", don't forget the sensual French pop numbers "Santa Je T'aime", and "Under the Tree", then the more suggestive "Chillin' At Christmas", and "Jingle Those Bells", and don't forget the hi-nrg "Christmas Conga (Jungle Bells)" that answers the question what if Divine wrote a Christmas song. If your party is a bore and the guests are falling asleep or leaving early, just put on Destination Christmas and pull out the rum soaked Fruitcake and get the party in full swing. All the songs on Destination Christmas are all originals, so get ready for all new Christmas holidays classics.
LP COLOR $21.95
11/17/2023
***On their second full-length LP, The Garment District delivers a Kunstkabinett of sound reminiscent of the Manhattan neighborhood (and others around the globe, both existing and shuttered) with which they share a name. Just as one might wander through a Garment District shop entranced by a staggering display of fabric from seemingly every era and locale, surrounded by rows of buttons, threads and trimmings, listeners will be equally entranced by the hypnotic array of textured sounds on Flowers Telegraphed to All Parts of the World. Along with guitar, bass and drums, listeners will encounter a full suite of strings, horns, a variety of percussion, and finely woven keyboards and vocals. Some parts were improvised on-site, while others evolved at home, highlighting Jennifer Baron's collection of analog keyboards before being translated into final recordings. The result is a gilded tapestry of pop music history that is both panoramic and idiosyncratic.
LP $22.95
09/22/2023
***24 Songs is a triple album which features all 12 7" singles from the 2022 Hit Parade Singles Club all in one package with extended versions of a few tracks and 5 bonus tracks. The vinyl comes in full color inner sleeves with liner notes and lyrics along with a DVD featuring a full length concert and documentary on the recording of 24 Songs. Limited to 500 copies in the USA. Throughout 2022, The Wedding Present’s 24 Songs series saw the legendary indie band release two new tracks a month as double A sided 7”s, ultimately creating a much-sought-after box set. David Gedge has now re-curated full-length versions of all twenty-four tracks for a new compilation album that will also comprise five bonus recordings including one featuring The Wedding Present’s first guitarist, Peter Solowka. 24 Songs was a doff of the cap to The Wedding Present’s Hit Parade project of 30 years previous. That series proved to be a real milestone for the band with them becoming only the second-ever artist to achieve twelve Official UK Top 40 hits in a calendar year—at the time something that only Elvis had achieved! David Gedge says: “When it came to compiling the ‘24 Songs’ album, I decided not to sequence the tracks in chronological order. With six sides of vinyl, you have six ‘beginnings’ and six ‘ends’ to play with, and I felt that the opportunity to build some kind of a musical journey was too good to miss! Listening back to...
3XLP+DVD $42.95
08/04/2023
***As we enter the fall season, the weather is turning cooler and grayer, but UK’s THE PRIMITIVES have something to warm your heart and get your feet moving. HHBTM is proud to present the band’s latest single and first new material in five years. “Don’t Know Where To Start” is a three minute blast of pure pop perfection; with its organ-driven melody and vocalist TRACY TRACY's superb singing, we’re equally reminded of the late Ronnie Spector and The Muffs’ Kim Shattuck. In other words, “Don’t Know Where To Start” ticks all the Primitives’ pop charm boxes for those who know. It’s followed by the moody punk edge of “Till I’m Alive,” sung by PAUL COURT. Also included is a live recording of “Panic,” taken from the band’s 2017 Part Time Punks session. The single closes with a fuzzy acoustic version of “Don’t Know Where To Start.” The Primitives won hearts and minds in 1988 with their debut album Lovely and its Top Ten UK hit single, “Crash.” They would have more charting singles over the course of the next four years, releasing two further albums before disbanding in 1992. They reformed in 2009 and have since released two albums and a handful of singles. This single is something of a one-off, a single released because the band felt they had some good songs that deserved to be heard—and they’re right, it does deserve to be heard. While next year is still months away, but 2023 will be the 35th anniversary...
12" $18.50
01/20/2023
***Katie Lass is strong, strange, and on the taller side of medium height. She probably cuts her own hair, but it looks awesome. Katie Lass will make art whether you look at it or listen to it, or not. Lass lives and works in the general Detroit, Michigan area. She works in a record pressing plant, and once lived in Arizona working for a record plating plant. Like everyone these days, she has good taste. I didn’t ask her any questions about her life, because you’re going to want to do that yourself. It’s not often that we are presented with original works, which seem to slide in and out of time and to adhere to their own aesthetic rules. This is her first album, Hypnopomp, and it is really great music. Something obviously is different here; after a few listens, the beautiful catchy stuff reveals itself. It’s perhaps like the first time you eat “real” licorice. When Warren Defever of His Name Is Alive and Third Man Mastering first heard this music, he raved. Warren is a friend and he knew I like Katie’s art work, as I’d run it in my magazine Maggot Brain. He doesn’t rave about much. “This music is wonderful; it’s completely insane,” he said after Katie first gave him her home recordings. I asked him just now what he meant and what he thinks of it and he said after spending the time doing whatever it is that mastering guys do, and he remarked...
LP $20.30
11/04/2022
***Split cassettes offer up a two-for-one listening experience. When done right, the listener is rewarded with not one but two great records, and hopefully they will have two new favorite bands in the process. We think that’s the case with our newest release, a split cassette between lo-fi rockers Mythical Motors and long-time label associate Antlered Auntlord. We’re pleased to have Chattanooga’s Mythical Motors gracing our roster. The four-piece band has built up a satisfying discography of their distinct, heartfelt lo-fi rock. Nominally drawing on the sound of 90s indie-rock, there’s a more classic rock vibe to the ten songs they present, a power-pop sweet spot that’s reminiscent of Cheap Trick (and The Raspberrie, And while Guided By Voices comparisons are par for the course, impressively the songs that most recall them sound more inspired by Tobin Sprout than Bob Pollard. Mostly, though, Mythical Motors sound like Mythical Motors—and the songs featured here are easily among their best. The other side of the tape belongs to beloved HHBTM alum Antlered Auntlord, the project of Jesse Stinnard. While Mythical Motors specializes in melodic, mellow rock, Stinnard turns in ten songs of reckless, rambling, and raucous abandon. Part catchy indie rock, punk-rock abandon, part clever Beck-like lo-fi ramble, part hip-hop weirdness, Antlered Auntlord doesn’t sit still. Yet it all works; Stinnard’s side is fast paced and unpredictable and nothing less than an enjoyable listen. It’s quickly become one of our favorite collections of Stinnard’s muse. Edition of 150.
MC $7.50
10/07/2022
***Indiepop’s acclaimed NY cult artists return with the first of three evening-hued EPs of imperious new wave and plastic soul—glassine surfaces as two way mirrors on loneliness, trauma and growing old in the ruins of dreams. With their first extended play release in nearly 20 years, My Favorite scavenge the digital debris of the 20th Century to fashion a pre-apocalyptic soundtrack for a millennium’s malaise, a “hard rain in a soft cell.” As sequencers and saxophones swirl, songwriter Michael Grace Jr. uses the tragic totems of James Dean, Princess Diana and Major Tom to explore love and loss—remaking/remodeling the dim corridors of the memory into bright passages forward. Barely out of their teens in 1994 when their debut single “Go Kid Go” was spun by John Peel, My Favorite was formed in the archetypal suburbia of Long Island—a floating sliver of dirt where every bad idea of post-war America was beta tested. Among the strip malls and subdivisions, five kids formed a half-band/half-art project during their freshman year at state college in Stony Brook. Raised on new wave via the legendary WLIR, while encircled by the local hardcore scene, the band tried to merge ‘80s high-concept pop with the DIY energy/politics of punk and riot grrrl.
12" $18.50
09/02/2022
***Locked Down And Stripped Back Volume Two features home recordings of Wedding Present and Cinerama classics, along with a previously unreleased song: ‘That Would Only Happen In A Movie.’ There is a bevy of guest stars on the album. Jon Stewart (of Platinum-album-selling Sleeper fame) reprises his new role as Wedding Present guitarist but is joined here by some Wedding Present members of old. Peter Solowka, from the band’s first line-up appears on ‘Nobody’s Twisting Your Arm’ playing his second instrument, the accordion, while Hit Parade guitarist Paul Dorrington contributes to a re-working of the Top 30 single ‘Blue Eyes.’ Long-time Wedding Present and Cinerama bass player Terry de Castro returns to infuse the album with her own unique style, while current Wedding Present bass player Melanie Howard takes over the lead vocal duties on a beautiful version of ‘At The Edge Of The Sea.’ Last, but certainly not least, Amelia Fletcher—backing vocalist on George Best and Bizarro—also returns to the party! As on the first volume, each musician recorded and filmed their parts at home and, as before, it is fascinating to see how stripped-back arrangements bring out different aspects of these brilliant songs.
LP $19.95
07/29/2022
***Good things come to those who wait, and in the case of Liverpool’s Good Grief, the wait was worth it. The band first appeared back in 2013 via a series of split 7”s and an excellent EP on Odd Box Records. HHBTM loved them, excitedly pairing them up for a split single with like-minded band Eureka California, who then brought them over for an American tour. So you can believe us when we say we’re excited about the release of the band’s long-awaited debut album Shake Your Faith. Formed in 2012 by Liverpudlian guitarist/vocalist Will Fitzpatrick, bassist/vocalist Paul Abbott and drummer Matiss Dale, Good Grief released a handful of singles before real life took precedence and the band took a back seat in 2015. They never officially broke up, though, regrouping to play the occasional date, sometimes with big names like Wussy and Superchunk. Good Grief fully reactivated in 2018, and spent 2019 working on and off on what would become Shake Your Faith. They were all set to finish and release the album in 2020, but then…well, you know what happened. Shake Your Faith blasts the listener with a guitar rock that will sound quite inviting to fans of groups such as Superchunk, Sugar, and Jawbreaker. A little punk rock, a little indie rock, and a whole lot of fun. You’ll rock out to songs influenced by everything from mental health, the New York school of poetry, the films of Akira Kurosawa, Seinfeld, novelist David Grossman, and the end...
LP $18.50
03/18/2022
***Ben Crum doesn’t need to contend for anything; the leader of the long-running Great Lakes proved himself two decades ago on his very first outing. Contenders, the band’s seventh album, finds Crum basking in a keen sense of roots-y psychedelic Americana that recalls the fertile grounds of Upstate New York. Yet the music itself is a warm, sunny soundtrack that brings to mind road trips across the dusty Midwest and miles and miles of nothing in between. Fans of Built To Spill, My Morning Jacket, Luna, and Deserters Songs-era Mercury Rev will find much to love in Contender’s grooves. But don’t think that because the music ambles along dirt roads that the music isn’t cerebral; Contenders’ subject matter includes philosophical wonderings on love, sex, the temporal nature of man, the frustrations of creative partnerships, and the heady, hopeful times of your late teens and early twenties, where the world seems full of endless possibilities. Contenders offers up some of the finest songs you’ll hear that take inspiration in things such as The Band, the free youth of South Africa, and “The Gambler.” For Contenders, Ben Crum is joined by longtime collaborators Kevin Shea on drums and Suzanne Nienaber on vocals, with contributions from The Essex Green’s Chris Ziter (vocals) , Louis Schefano (drums), Petter Folkedal (piano), Ray Rizzo (vocals) and Dave Gould (synths). The album was produced by Ben Crum, mixed by Luis Leal, and mastered by Jen Munson.
LP $19.95
02/04/2022
***What do you do when the world shuts down? If you’re veterans of the indie pop scene, you form a band… accidentally! Huw Williams (The Pooh Sticks) and former collaborator Amelia Fletcher (Heavenly, Catenary Wires) are proud to present Swansea Sound. “At the start of lockdown, we were all quite bored and all had time on our hands,” says Swansea Sound guitarist Rob Pursey (Heavenly, Catenary Wires). “I had written a song that was too fast and punky for me and Amelia’s other band, The Catenary Wires, and I thought Huw might like it. He did, so he sang the vocal part on a cupboard in his house in Wales, sent the vocals back, and we mixed it. That song, “Angry Girl,” is on the album. With it, we realized we could record without meeting up—Huw’s cupboard sounds good—and “Corporate Indie Band” came next. We released the two as a limited edition cassette single. To our surprise, it got played on the radio quite a lot. We realized then that we’d accidentally started a new band,” laughs Pursey. To that end, we’re pleased to present you with Swansea Sound’s debut album, Live At The Rum Puncheon. Fans of the duo’s previous collaboration may well remember the band’s humorous, sardonic, lyrics that often offered commentary of the contemporaneous indie-pop scene. Thankfully, nothing’s changed; Live At The Rum Puncheon is chockablock with the same witty and biting lyrical content fans fell in love with many moons ago.
LP $20.25
11/19/2021
CD $14.50
12/03/2021
***In the time when things could still be seen, you might have seen Pearie Sol, keyboardist for DC-area rockers Gauche. Times being as they are, many musical projects have been put on hold, with members having to seek new outlets for their creative talents. For Pearie Sol, his new solo album, Real Happiness—which, he assures us, is not quite a lockdown album, having been conceived largely in 2019. On first listen, Real Happiness might make you smile. And how could you resist the charm of the dramatic, over-the-top Fred Schneider-like vocals of “Apathy” the jaunty, junkyard Jad Fair-isms of “Slime Pit,” or the catchy, danceable title track? Pearie’s flamboyant, over-the-top style is fun personified and vocalized and all those things in between.
MC $6.75
06/18/2021
***Locked Down And Stripped Back includes twelve home recordings of WEDDING PRESENT favorites along with two previously unreleased songs: ‘You’re Just A Habit That I’m Trying To Break’ and ‘We Should Be Together’. The latter was originally recorded—but never released—by Britpop favorites, SLEEPER. With each band member recording and filming their parts at home due to lockdown restrictions, the recording process was far from easy, but the end result is, as always, typically satisfying. From the swagger of ‘A Million Miles’ (George Best, 1987) and ‘California’ (Hit Parade, 1992), to the joyous, previously unreleased ‘We Should Be Together’—featuring a special guest appearance from Sleeper singer LOUISE WENER—Locked Down And Stripped Back is an unexpected treat. Elsewhere, a re-working of ‘You Should Always Keep In Touch With Your Friends'—originally released as a single in 1986—and a truly epic version of ‘Crawl’ (3 Songs EP, 1990), despite their ‘stripped back’ delivery, still pack a proverbial punch, while ‘You’re Just A Habit That I’m Trying to Break’—a new song co-written with new guitarist JON STEWART—is classic Wedding Present. Furthermore, bassist MELANIE HOWARD takes over vocal duties on the sumptuous ‘Sports Car’ (Mini, 1995), while none of DAVID GEDGE's famous sardonic wit is lost on the majestic ‘My Favourite Dress’ (George Best, 1987).
LP $19.85
03/19/2021
***Nothing is more American than the flawed idealism of rugged individualism, but any ruggedness you see in Denver's AMERICAN CULTURE only comes from years of touring, living in a GMC van, lugging that bass cab down another steep DIY basement staircase. This is DIY music. But it isn't alone. It's a culture, a community. One that American Culture and so many of their peers have nurtured, town after town, basement after basement, selling one record at a time not to "fans" but to friends. American Culture's third album For My Animals was finished pre-COVID and sent to us at HHBTM Records around early March 2020. 'For My Animals' isn't strict about genre. Like their favorites, The Meat Puppets, Crass, The Grateful Dead, The Feelies, this band does whatever they feel. There's bits of noise-pop, outsider lo-fi, washes of psychedelia and even hints of Jamaican dub influence here. It's definitely punk. Punk but not rock. This album seems to be set in a different era. A time when people didn't have much to do but chill at the mall. You made new friends by maybe seeing a Dead Milkmen tattoo peeking out from under a sleeve, or 'Sonic Youth' scrawled in sharpie on the rubber toe of their converse. You didn't know each other, but, also, somehow, you did. Same with this album.
LP $17.75
03/19/2021
***OH-OK are a minimalist post punk proto-twee band from the early '80s that were based in Athens, Georgia, made up of LINDA HOPPER (MAGNAPOP), MATTHEW SWEET, LYNDA STIPE (FLASH TO BANG TIME, also Michael Stipe's sister), DAVID MCNAIR (MAGNAPOP) , and DAVID PIERCE. This full length LP collects their 7" and 12" EP, two un-released tracks, and a partial live show. RIYL: Marine Girls, Pylon, Young Marble Giants, Delta 5.
LP $21.95
01/16/2021
***THE FLATMATES were formed in 1985 in Bristol, UK, a product of the city’s highly active mid-80s indie club scene (The Mission Club, The Bunker, EEC Punk Rock Mountain). Over the next 12 months they became one of the first bands to set the scene for what has become known to pop historians as the ‘C86 Movement’. Their simple aim was to make classic pop tunes combining the energy of '70s punk bands such as The Ramones and The Buzzcocks, the cool pop charm of '60s girl bands like The Ronettes and Shangri-Las, seasoned with an artful pinch of The Velvet Underground. Between 1986 and 1989 they released five singles on guitarist Martin Whitehead's Subway Organization label, all of which reached the upper levels of the UK indie charts, with “Shimmer” achieving an Indie chart No.1 (and 42 on the New Musical Express’s national chart). Despite a lengthy period without record releases or gigs, The Flatmates never really went away. One of the traits that set The Flatmates apart from the mass of indie bands that followed in their wake was that, from the very start, The Flatmates were all about the songs. In 2013 the band added Swedish singer Lisa Bouvier, released a single (‘You Held My Heart’ on Bristol’s Archdeacon of Pop label), and resumed gigging. In 2015 there was a single on Italian label Astro Girl, featuring cover versions of songs by Prince and Cinerama, as well as a reissue of the Potpourri compilation, for the first...
LP $19.25
08/07/2020
***George Best became THE WEDDING PRESENT's first album in 1988. But Tommy, released one year later, was made up of the early songs from the singles and radio sessions that had catapulted them from being bedsit musicians into indie darlings: "Go Out And Get 'Em, Boy!" with its purposefully super-fast guitars, "You Should Always Keep In Touch With Your Friends" an anthem for those long time Wedding Present fans, "My Favourite Dress" the only single in the collection that ended up on George Best, the classic, fraught tale of losing one's first love that perfectly played on the heart strings and began DAVID GEDGE's legacy of understanding everyone's heartbreak. Tommy 30, a brand-new re-recording of Tommy, did not come about simply as a "follow on" to George Best 30. The band felt, during a Tommy 30th anniversary concert tour, that the songs had grown and evolved. Enter a more confident vocalist... an altogether growlier guitar. A bigger sound. The urgency of a 25-year-old Gedge is replaced with a charming vocalist with years of experience. Everything's warmer and, maybe, gentler... but in a satisfying way. It's like your old friends have come home to see you. (STREET DATE - 11/29/2019)
LP $17.75
12/06/2019
CD $13.25
11/29/2019
***SUGGESTED FRIENDS are an indie rock quartet with a firm grounding in queer identity, fusing DIY punk roots with the interweaving guitars of '90s indie and a sometimes tongue-in-cheek take on the performative masculinity of '80s rock. There’s a tenderness to their songwriting, with lyrics reflecting on cultural malaise, trauma recovery and the banal absurdity of everyday life. Personal politics can come with an incisively dry sense of humour too. Turtle Taxi is their second album and demonstrates just how far they’ve come from the raw, scuzzy sounds of their DIY debut; unrepentant in letting the pop hooks loose. The choruses are big, harmonies frequent, and guitar solos abound—this is a lush, textured leap forward. Suggested Friends are more confident, acknowledging emotional pain and exploring how this affective space elides with a more expansive sense of injustice in the world.
LP $17.75
11/29/2019
***FRED SCHNEIDER & THE SUPERIONS are back with a festive fall Halloween single "Bat Baby". "Bat Baby" was released digitally 8 years ago, but this is the first time on vinyl and w/ an exclusive b-side "Real Scary Halloween Story." Limited to 600 copies and on super thick orange vinyl.
7" $6.00
11/15/2019
***MAGNAPOP's new album, The Circle Is Round, is the Atlanta-based group’s debut release for HHBTM Records, and is their sixth album, coming nearly a decade after their previous record, 2009’s Chase Park. Prior to this, the group had a fruitful run during the Alternative Rock heyday of the mid-90s, finding critical acclaim with 1994’s Hotboxing (with single “Slowly, Slowly”) and 1996’s Rubbing Doesn’t Help, which featured their most beloved song, “Open The Door.” The seeds that would blossom into The Circle Is Round were planted in 2011. “We reunited in 2011 when bassist SHANNON MULVANEY contacted us about playing a benefit for Criminal Records, a local record store,” says guitarist and songwriter RUTHIE MORRIS. “Playing together was easy, but we knew we needed time together to play our old songs again. The more we played together, the more we realized we wanted to work on new material.” The Circle Is Round was recorded at Furies Studios in Marietta, Georgia, and produced by the band and studio owner ED BURDELL—who worked with the band on one of their first recording sessions. Longtime fans of the band will find much to love with The Circle Is Round, while new listeners will get a taste of what converted listeners way back when to become lifetime fans. “Magnapop is kind of like Young Marble Giants backed by AC/DC”—Michael Stipe
LP $17.75
09/27/2019
CD $13.75
09/27/2019
***WESLEY JOHNSON—aka WESDARULER—knows the highs of artistic and personal fulfillment and the deep lows of struggle and burden. Ocean Drive is more than likely the first exposure the world at large will have to Johnson and, coincidentally, it’s no small matter that it’s on Ocean Drive that we find him most exposed. The Athens, Ga., beatsmith has spent years making his distinctly idiosyncratic music which has included time spent making headphone heavy boom bap to collectively conscious psychedelia. It wasn’t until a couple of years ago that his voice was ever heard on his recordings and it surprised so many longtime listeners that he was asked more than once who the MC was. Once he unleashed his lyrics, though, there really was no turning back. Although deftly skilled in the lab and a solid producer for multiple collaborations, WesdaRuler is a man, paradoxically, transitioning while arriving. Ocean Drive is a journey across the full breadth of Johnson’s inner dialogue. His role as son, husband, and father are all explored in loving detail and confessional honesty. His alternating desires to bring the party or hibernate are on full display.
LP $17.75
09/13/2019
***Rat Fancy unleashes nineties nostalgia and youthful abandon with their debut LP Stay Cool, Formed in late 2016 by Diana Barraza (vocals / lyrics / guitar) and Gregory Johnson (guitar / bass / drums / keys), the duo evolved their sound from shimmering lo-fi pop to heavy power pop. Recorded by David Newton of eighties indie pioneers The Mighty Lemon Drops, Stay Cool is unapologetic with themes touching on bad tattoos (“Stuck With You”) to immigration (“Must Be Nice”). From fuzzed out punk-pop (“Making Trouble”) to floor-shaking low end (“Never Is Forever”), Rat Fancy has never shown more compositional complexity and stylistic emotion than now. Today, Rat Fancy is Barraza, Johnson, with friends Matt Sturgis (drums) and Dan Fernandez (bass).
LP $17.75
07/07/2019
***TULLYCRAFT is known for writing indie pop anthems. Over the years they've penned a handful of songs that practically define the twee movement in America. The chorus "Fuck me, I'm Twee!" was the refrain that launched a thousand t-shirts, “The Punks Are Writing Love Songs” introduced bratty punk to hummingbird twee, and "Pop Songs Your New Boyfriend’s Too Stupid to Know About" encapsulated an entire music scene in a single song. And yet despite this, for most, the band exists somewhere near the edges of obscurity. Occasionally they receive a nod, like when their song “Superboy & Supergirl” was featured in the critically acclaimed Netflix series The End of the F***ing World, but these spotlights don’t tend to happen as frequently as one might think. While the mainstream has largely ignored Tullycraft, their status in the indie pop underground is undeniable. Formed in 1995, they are considered to be one of the genuine pioneers of the American twee pop movement. Touring relentlessly during the last gasp of the truly independent indie-underground, they influenced countless young bands. The Railway Prince Hotel is Tullycraft’s seventh album, their first since 2013’s Lost in Light Rotation. This new batch of songs sees SEAN TOLLEFSON and JENNY MEARS continue to share most of the vocal duties, while long time musical stalwarts CHRIS MUNFORD and CORIANTON HALE create most of the music.
LP $17.75
02/08/2019
CD $13.75
02/08/2019
***One of the most eagerly anticipated albums in years, SKINNY GIRL DIET's follow up album Ideal Woman is already getting regular play on BBC Radio 6 (by Iggy Pop, no less) and the London band’s been featured in just about every music blog/magazine you can imagine. SGD is raw, bleeding, and beautiful, a perfect convergence of Angela Carter and Angela Davis and The Powerpuff Girls. Inspired by punk and grunge and being alive & awake in the 21st century, their sophomore album—self-released in the UK so they can control the product, released in the US on HHBTM Records b/c it’s the only label you can trust—is as cathartic & angry & moving as anything we’ve heard in a long time.
LP $17.75
01/25/2019
***Part of the Elephant 6 Collective Athens, Georgia's MARSHMALLOW COAST have gone from psychedelic twee to yacht rock and now to '80s romantic new wave. The band members have changed a lot over the 10 albums, but it's always been ANDY GONZALES leading the project. Having spent time in both OF MONTREAL and THE MUSIC TAPES, Andy has toured the world and made countless fans.
LP $17.75
11/09/2018
***KLEENEX GIRL WONDER's Vana Mundi is a gloriously melodic dive into the deep alienation of contemporary life, with lyrics so simply profound that they have to be heard in order to be felt. It’s the most wondrous, hopeful album of GRAHAM SMITH's career, and it feels absolutely necessary that everyone hear it. In Latin, the album’s title means ‘Empty World.’ In Esperanto, the title means ‘Vain World,’ vain as in wasted effort, or the inflated ego—all is vanity. Either way, Smith knows all about emptiness, wasted effort, and inflated egos. The album is an attempt to come to try and understand those qualities as they exist within himself and those around him. And so Vana Mundi ends up tracing a journey, from a frustrated cynic trapped by their own psychic ice/isolation to someone reaching out to offer understanding and something not unlike love for their fellow humans. For maybe the first time in his long career, Smith is more interested in helping the ‘you’ in his songs than scoring points off them.
LP $17.75
06/22/2018
***Roadrunners by EUREKA CALIFORNIA comes a decade in for the band, and it’s a record only possible to write by having had that span of time to cycle through members, tour and sleep on endless floors or when there are no floors in the van at rest stops or Wal-Mart parking lots, argue over where to eat, turn around after missing exits, log those relentless hours of driving all day to get to the venue only to sit around hours and hours more ‘til performing. A decade of side hustles and and soul-sucking jobs just to be able to go on the road and continue the grind for those handful of minutes you get to perform or to record. Roadrunners, their fourth album in six years, had Eureka California returning to Leeds, UK, to record again with MJ of the band Hookworms at his Suburban Home Studios, and this second time around you can hear Eureka California being a bit more at home in the studio. The “play it hard and fast and whatever gets left behind… oh well, it should have kept up” attitude from their last album Versus has been replaced with layered guitars and vocals, sonic experiments, and the extra time to try to get every song just right. No filler, all hooks, loud drums, and smart lyrics. It’s a record made by a band who live for live performance, who work to tour, who tour to create.
LP $17.75
05/11/2018
CD $11.00
05/11/2018
***Black Wings was originally designed as a collection of outtakes, demos and experiments, combining beautifully layered acapella vocal harmonies with heavy fuzz riffs and sci-fi soundtrack synths, and was included in the Patterns of Light Limited Edition Super Set (2016) but quickly grew in stature and attracted attention as a fundamentally unique stand-alone release. Black Wings is a 30-song cosmic double album housed in a deluxe gatefold sleeve and collages an insane variety of styles including psychedelic rock, new age meditation, medieval choral, and the protometal prog of early Rush and Hawkwind, while lyrically covering heavily researched creation myths, visionary theology, particle physics, dragons and some feelings about the fundamental forces of nature and witchcraft. Black Wings is HIS NAME IS ALIVE's 101th release since their first cassette in 1986. HNIA spent 13 years recording for the legendary British label 4AD and in that time sold 100,000-plus records, toured the world, received gold and platinum records for soundtracking Tom Cruise's nervous breakdown in the movie Jerry Maguire and collaborated on two short films with famed animators the Quay Brothers.
2XLP $26.95
04/06/2018
***NOW AVAILABLE ON CD!!! FRED SCHNEIDER of the B-52's new project the SUPERIONS are a nonstop disco new wave party explosion for all generations. Since their Christmas record a couple of years back, pop dadaists Fred Schneider & The Superions have been roaming through their apartment, looking for the next party. Fred writes the words and sings the songs. NOAH and DAN make the music. Blame it on the wine. Blame it on Orlando, Florida. The Superions go where no one else dares to go—into the silly, the ridiculous, the fun, the insane.
LP $17.75
06/16/2017
CD $14.50
02/23/2018
***"It was early 2008, THE WEDDING PRESENTt had recently finished a twentieth anniversary tour for George Best and, having played the entire album dozens of times, it was fresh under their fingers. So after they had wrapped up recording the El Rey album, DAVID suggested they record a 'live' version of it in the same studio. STEVE ALBINI, who they were recording with, wasn't too keen on the idea, but David assured him it would be quick and easy, so he reluctantly caved. David was right; it was quick, done live, more like a Beatles recording than a drawn out modern one with lots of overdubs and multi-track layering. I imagine this version of George Best is what David would have liked to record in 1987. It is just so well recorded, which you’d expect from Steve Albini. You can feel David’s 20 years older self guiding the new recording in the same direction, but with more experience and warmth. Everything is bigger… the drums on the original recording were played live, but on a Simmons electronic drum kit. The combination of Albini’s recording and the ultra-talented GRAEME RAMSAY on drums brings the songs to life. However, the real difference comes out in the recording of those ever fast, ever jangly guitars… they’re warmer, bigger and more modern, more… Albini! Just to round everything off with a contemporary twist, award-winning mixer/producer ANDREW SCHEPS happily agreed to mix these recordings, having heard the original for the first time in his living...
LP $17.75
09/22/2017
***Raised on a steady diet of Sarah records singles, Slumberland noise pop, and Creation-era shoegaze, Portland's A CERTAIN SMILE work hard to find that balance between the sweet twee, the fuzzy gaze, and punky pop. Their debut LP Fits & Starts walks that balance through 9 fuzzy pop tracks. Opening track "Hold On, Call" takes the sweet pastoral melodies of The Field Mice and marries it with a driving chorus that would fit in the C86 era. "Summer Blonde" evokes a smooth ride on light waves with a haunting melody. Leisure Class marries a catchy pop song with a message in the vein of McCarthy or the Housemartins. And closing track "Mexican Coke" has a nod to Midwestern indie rock and an explosive chorus that will have you humming along even after it’s finished. Housed in screen printed sleeves.
LP $15.50
09/11/2017
***Wyatt at the Coyote Palace is the 10th solo album from KRISTIN HERSH (THROWING MUSES, 50 FOOT WAVE) since her solo debut Hips & Makers in 1994. Wyatt at the Coyote Palace is a 24-track double album that was written over the last 5 years during a turbulent period of her life while also being inspired by her son Wyatt and his fascination with an abandoned apartment building that was inhabited by coyotes.
2XLP $25.95
04/07/2017
***In just under a year since releasing their last album Versus, EUREKA CALIFORNIA are back with a new single, “Wigwam.” The band had a set plan in mind when going into the studio: get in and knock it out and release a single to hold over ‘til recording the next full length. With Versus they went overseas to the UK and recorded with MJ at Suburban Home, but for “Wigwam” they decided to record here in their hometown of Athens, Georgia, with DAVE BARBE (Sugar / Mercyland / Dave Barbe & the Quick Hooks) at his Chase Park Transduction Studio. Wasting no time, they recorded and mixed the single in one afternoon. A single on a tight budget, three tracks in under 8 minutes, hand-decorated sleeves—everything about this is economical. Eureka California have two brand new tracks, “Wigwam” and “Only Birds (No Feathers),” and a cover of Superchunk’s “Slack Motherfucker.”
7" $4.90
03/03/2017
***THE BASTARDS OF FATE sound like nothing you’ve ever heard before, a synthesis of everything that’s come before them, and a preview of everything that’s coming after. Their first two albums won praise from places like The Big Takeover (‘an uncompromising onslaught of demented pop’) and Magnet (‘walks the line between visionary and downright freaky. It’s a beautiful cacophony.’), but now that they’re on a real label, one that isn’t a weekend hobby, The Bastards of Fate are finally going to get the attention they deserve. With songs about the struggle to be human in an inhuman world, delivered through a combination of humor & dread that rings true on every level, Suck The Light Out is a sonic feast, a lyrical extravaganza, an album that goes where others are too cool to tread. It’s where science meets love, where suicide meets hope.
LP $17.75
02/24/2017
***REISSUED ON VINYL!!! You Were A Diamond is a record that is both haunting and haunted (that cello, the way it mimics the scraping of fragmented skull against fragmented brain). Like paintings done on glass instead of canvas, fragile and yet somehow more luminous. CLEM SNIDE's music is impossible to reduce to a literal description—can’t call it alt-country when there’s a cello, call it lo-fi even though you’re able to hear every note, call it folk, even though there is a predominant electric guitar. All of this adds up to the most unlikely of sonics. Call it CLEM SNIDE. Or maybe call it the missing link between John Cale and Hank Williams. Even the band name, Clem Snide, sounds like a demented Flannery O’Connor character, But it’s actually from a William Burroughs novel. Originally released on CD in 1998 and then again in 2002. Received a 7.9 rating from Pitchfork.
LP $17.75
12/09/2016
***‘Going, Going…’ is the title of the widely anticipated ninth studio album from UK indie darlings, THE WEDDING PRESENT, but, in typical Wedding Present fashion... it’s not a conventional release! Going, Going... tells the story of a road trip across the USA, revealed across a collection of twenty ‘linked’ songs, each with an accompanying short film. Always challenging and experimental, the idea to release the new project in a multi-media format is something that has been marinating with bandleader DAVID GEDGE for some time. Recorded at Studios La Fabrique in the south of France and Parr Street Studios in Liverpool with multiple Grammy award winning producer ANDREW SCHEPS (Red Hot Chili Peppers, Black Sabbath, Adele) the resulting twenty tracks represent arguably The Wedding Present’s finest work to date, with Gedge, as always, showing himself to be the unrivaled master at observing human relationships from an everyman perspective but with the touch and artistry of a poet.
LP+DVD $31.95
12/09/2016
***This LA-based power trio formed in 2003 by KRISTIN HERSH and BERNARD GEORGES of THROWING MUSES (with ROB AHLERS on drums), was named after the lowest note audible to human ears. The band was intended as an outlet for the noise/math rock pieces that didn't fit the aesthetic of Throwing Muses or Kristin Hersh's solo work. Their most successful and influential release, 2009's Power + Light, is thirty minutes of non-stop music, a barrage of free-form sound that found the band challenging its own complex song structure. Drowned in Sound wrote, "Kristin Hersh has flared back to ravenous, inferno intensity with the excoriating Power + Light, which feels neither selfindulgent nor like many tracks cobbled together, but bruisingly visceral." This year's Bath White is their sixth release. Again, they've chosen to work with Los Angeles producer MUDROCK, best known for his work with Godsmack. As Mudrock states, "These are the best musicians I've ever worked with, easily the most facile... they're pros and they're good people. 50 FootWave is why I do what I do." 12-inch limited to 1,000 copies with download.
CD $11.00
05/27/2016
12" $17.75
05/27/2016