Record Store Day is this Saturday but this fun begins tomorrow with over 60 new releases on vinyl. Time to break open your piggy bank!
New Vinyl – 4.12.2011
Ben Allison – Action Refraction – Palmetto Records
The Apache Relay – American Nomad – Nomadic Recordings (from NASHVILLE! Currently on tour with TRISTEN opening)
Atmosphere – The Family Sign – Rhymesayers
Bass Drum of Death – GB City – Fat Possum
Batillus – Furnace – Seventh Rule
Bearsuit – The Phantom Forest – Fortuna POP!
Booker T. & The MGs – The Best Of… – Friday Music
Bouncing Souls – Complete Control Sessions – Side One Dummy
Jeff Buckley – Grace – Columbia Legacy
Chalk Circle – Reflection – PPM Records – THIS RECORD IS FINALLY COMING OUT! CHALK CIRCLE COMPLETE RECORDINGS FROM WASHINGTON DC 1981 – 1983. POST PUNK, harDCore, THE WOMEN KILLING IT IN DC BACK IN THE DAY! IMPORTANT RELEASE, SPLIT WITH MISSISSIPPI RECORDS.
Dennis Coffey – All Your Goodies Are Gone – Strut – Detroit guitar legend, Dennis Coffey, previews his excellent forthcoming self-titled album with two essential cuts from the sessions on a 45, a cover of the Parliaments’ ’All Your Goodies Are Gone’ featuring Mayer Hawthorne and a new composition, ’Miss Millie’, featuring Kings Go Forth.
The Curious Mystery – We Creeling – K Records – A junkyard band with a heart of dirt, smoke, and wires; The Curious Mystery involves slowburn psych and garage experimentalism. Cool night air, Captain Beefheart, late night crawlers, native fowl, dinner, all over me, river blindness; these are some of the things the mysterians bide their time thinking about.
Miles Davis – Kind of Blue – Columbia/Legacy
Brett Dennen – Loverboy – Dualtone – (DOUBLE VINYL – HQ 180gram) “In many ways this is my first album,” Brett Dennen says of his fourth record, Loverboy, out April 12th, 2011. “On my previous albums I said what I needed to say. I evoked every different mood and sentiment and emotion. Now I don’t really have anything to prove. I’ve been the new kid on the block and now that phase is over. I get to start all over again, relax, and refocus.” He pauses and flashes a laidback grin. “And what I’m focused on is having fun.”
Eric Clapton – Unplugged – Reprise – (2LP 180 gram)
The Feelies – Here Before – Bar/None – After a 19 year break, the Feelies are back with Here Before, an album of all new original material. The new album touches on different styles from the Feelies’ long history while adding new grooves and musical ideas to the mix. Electric and acoustic guitars melt together in archetypal Feelies fashion on songs like “Nobody Knows” and “Should Be Gone. “ Elsewhere there are slabs of driving garage rock like “When You Know” and “Time Is Right” and the down-tempo ”Bluer Skies,” and harmonically rich “Later On.”
Fidlar – DIYDUI – White Iris – 7″
Fleetwood Mac – Rumours – Reprise – (Deluxe 2LP 180 gram & Regular Editions)
Foo Fighters – Wasting Light – RCA
Garage A Trois – Always Be Happy But Stay Evil – The Royal Potato Family
Howe Gelb & A Band Of Gypsies – Alegrias – Fire Records – Inaccurately yet affectionately dubbed “the Godfather of Alt. Country” by the British press, Tucson, Arizona-based musician Howe Gelb has remained the sole epicenter and creative force behind the ever-fluid configurations of Giant Sand for over a quarter century, giving birth along the way to an extended musical family tree that fostered the likes of The Band of Blacky Ranchette, The Friends of Dean Martinez, OP8, and Calexico.
The German Measles – A German Joke Is No Laughing Matter – What’s Your Rupture
Glassjaw – Worship and Tribute – Warner Brothers
Good Luck Mountain – S/T – 2:59 Records
Gypsyblood – Cold In The Guestway – Sargent House
Hauschka – Salon Des Amateurs – Fatcat -‘Salon des Amateurs’ is simultaneously a bold departure and a logical step forward for Hauschka. A unique project that sounds simultaneously organic and mechanised, it is full of carefully-picked references to two opposing genres – modern classical and heady dance music.
The Head and The Heart – S/T – Sub Pop – Recorded in early 2010, this is the debut full-length by The Head and the Heart. Self-released in June 2010, the album helped build an impressive head-of-steam for the band through the second 1/2 of the year, gaining fans at influential Seattle station KEXP, local record shops (a consistent top 10 seller for Easy Street and the #1 album of 2010 at Sonic Boom), and venues up and down the West Coast, culminating with signing to Sub Pop Records in November. For this 2011 re-release of the album, “Sounds like Hallelujah” has been re-recorded, live favorite “Rivers and Roads” has been added, and the album has been remastered.
Jimi Hendrix – South Saturn Delta – Legacy
Jason Isbell & The 400 Unit – Here We Rest – Lightning Rod Records
Jeremy Jay – Dream Diary – K Records
Jeniferever – Silesia (2xLP) – Monotreme Records – Jeniferever is a 4-piece band from Uppsala, Sweden. They have previously released 4 eps and one album since 2002, and have played over 250 live shows across Europe. Over the years, they have gained an ever-growing band of admirers, who have bestowed descriptions such as ‘lush’, ‘melodic’, ‘swooping’, ‘glacial’, ‘beautiful’, ‘shimmering’, ‘sublime’, ‘electrifying’ and ‘atmospheric’ on their music.
Journey – Infinity (180 gram audiophile) – Friday Music
Femi Kuti – Africa For Africa – Knitting Factory
Lake – Giving and Receiving – K Records
James Leg – Solitary Pleasure – Alive Records
Little Scream – The Golden Record – Secretly Canadian
Low – C’mon – Sub Pop – Comprised of new material written on and off the road, the ten-song set was recorded in a former Catholic church, aka Sacred Heart Studio (where the band previously crafted 2002’s Trust) and co-produced and mixed by Matt Beckley. The band took full advantage of Sacred Heart’s high, vaulted ceilings, natural reverb, and audible affinity for organ sounds and group singing. The thunder-crack percussion that peppers the final minute of the slowly unfolding “Majesty/Magic” is just one example of this dynamic in action.
Nick Lowe – Labour of Lust – Yep Roc – Here, his landmark second solo album Labour of Lust gets the deluxe reissue treatment, sporting an expanded 12pg. booklet with period photos, new essays and artwork by groundbreaking graphic artist Barney Bubbles.
Mazes – A Thousand Heys – Fatcat
The Meat Puppets – Lollipop – Megaforce
The Milkshakes – 107 Tapes (Early Demos & Live Recordings) – Damaged Goods
Old Calf – Borrow A Horse – No Quarter – Old Calf formed as a duo in the small, but musically vibrant town of Charlottesville, VA by Ned Oldham (The Anomoanon, Palace Music) and accordionist Marty Metcalfe, slowly accruing members on route to recording their debut album. Michael Clem (bass, mandola, dead-on harmonies) and Brian Caputo (percussion) round out the group of Southern gentlemen, who tightened up their sound rehearsing in Ned’s garage, and performing around town on weekend nights.
Demos were cut this past summer, of which Oldham says, “I’m sure I’ve never had a clearer plan of how a record should go before,” and it’s true that the finished album is near identical in sequence and structure. Touching on ground most groups do not know exist, Borrow A Horse is rich with melody and instrumentation, it’s simple songs rooted in folk and bluegrass, and presented in a swirl of psychedelia. It’s a near-perfect album, forged in history, created in the present, and timeless in sound.
Panda Bear – Tomboy – Paw Tracks
Ponytail – Do Whatever You Want All The Time – We Are Free
Pour Habit – Got Your Back – Fat Wreck Chords
Rebelution – Bright Side of Life AND Courage To Grow – Controlled Substance Soundlabs
Red Fang – Murder The Mountains – Relapse – RED FANG recorded Murder The Mountains with THE DECEMBERISTS’ Chris Funk and the album was mixed by Vance Powell (WHITE STRIPES, THE RACONTEURS).
Royal Bangs – Flux Outside – Glassnote Records – Trading instruments and production duties, band members Chris Rusk, Ryan Schaefer and Sam Stratton recorded the album this August in an old house in their hometown of Knoxville, Tennessee with the help of Scott Minor (Sparklehorse) and his dog, Loretta. After a few weeks of tracking, manipulating, alternately weirding and un-weirding the material, they traveled to the rural western New York studio of Dave Fridmann (Flaming Lips, Sleater Kinney, MGMT), who mixed the album with the band.
Sonny & The Sunsets – Hit After Hit – Fat Possum
The Sounds – Something To Die For – Side One Dummy
Charles D. Speer & The Helix – Leaving The Commonwealth – Thrill Jockey
Ebo Taylor – Life Stories – Strut – Following his recent studio album with Afrobeat Academy, ’Love And Death’, his first international release, Ghanaian highlife guitar legend Ebo Taylor teams up again with Strut for a long overdue definitive compilation of his seminal 1970s recordings, ‘Life Stories’.
The Belle Brigade – S/T – Reprise
Thee Spivs – Taped Up – Damaged Goods
Thursday – No Devolucion – Epitaph
Alexander Tucker – Dorwytch – Thrill Jockey – British experimental musician Alexander Tucker releases his Thrill Jockey debut Dorwytch in April 2011. This record breaks new ground for Tucker by combining minimalist string arrangements with electronic manipulations and drones to produce doom chamber-pop songs and psychedelic music-concrete collages.
Vivian Girls – Share The Joy – Polyvinyl – The ten-song Share the Joy finds the threesome — guitarist/vocalist Cassie Ramone, bassist/vocalist Kickball Katy and new drummer Fiona Campbell — continuing to evolve and expand — sharpening and refining their transcendent mix of garage thrash, girl-group warmth and infectious pop hooksmanship.
Weedeater – Jason The Dragon – Southern Lord
Winter – Into Darkness – Southern Lord – Reissue
Wiz Khalifa – Rolling Papers – Atlantic – The long anticipated Rolling Papers album is now available everywhere! The album features a gang of singles such as the #1 smash “Black and Yellow”, plus “Roll Up”, “On My Level”, “No Sleep”, and “The Race”! The album also sees guest appearances from Too $hort, Curren$y and Taylor Gang’s own Chevy Woods!
Young Widows – In And Out Of Youth and Lightness – Temporary Residence – In and Out of Youth and Lightness was produced by Young Widows and Kevin Ratterman (My Morning Jacket) at The Funeral Home in their hometown of Louisville, KY. The musical palette remains fundamentally the same—singer-guitarist Evan Patterson’s cavernous, warped blues riffs weighted by Nick Thieneman’s earth-shaking bass and drummer Jeremy McMonigle’s sturdy, shifting rhythms—but the augmented instrumentation and choral vocals lifts them to incredible new heights. With lyrical themes of emotional despair and domestic dissolution leading to inevitable catharsis,Youth and Lightness finds Patterson rising from his personal hell with a level of wisdom and maturity that most aggressive bands will never know. With a depth and ambition well beyond their years, Young Widows have stepped out of the shadows of their influences to become one of America’s more interesting and spirited underground rock bands. In and Out of Youth and Lightness is an unquestionable breakthrough for the band and an inspiring force in the canon of heavy music.
