Londoners The Clientele has been at it for a long while now, 32 years, in fact, with a lengthy hiatus consuming most of the last decade. On July 28, they release their ninth full-length album, a double set that finds vocalist-guitarist Alasdair MacLean, bassist James Hornsey, and drummer Mark Keen expanding on their signature ethereal indie pop. It’s ambition that pays off in a big way, as I Am Not There Anymore is stylistically and instrumentally broad, yet focused and unstrained. Distinct from anything they’ve released before, it still connects like an album by The Clientele.

Since announcing their presence in 1998 with Suburban Light (they’d been at it since 1991, with recordings from this formative period documented on the 2005 compilation It’s Art, Dad), The Clientele hasn’t exactly pulled a Ramones move and kept to the same rigid template, but they have honed an approach that’s pretty easily recognizable.

Branching out can be invigorating for artist and listener alike, but it can also prove disastrous (as in, “hope you enjoy our new direction.”). I Am Not There Anymore features electronic beats, tapes, bouzouki, celesta, and Mellotron, so the potential for calamity was extant. But hey, the use of Mellotron makes total sense, as a baroque sensibility fits and isn’t foreign to The Clientele’s general thrust.

However, there’s a full-on string section plus trumpet heard on I Am Not There Anymore, playing string and horn arrangements from MacLean and Keen, save for one track, “Through the Roses,” which was arranged by Hornsey and Alicia Macanás. The latter also co-wrote and sings on “Fables of the Silverlink,” the eight-minute opening track that combines heavy catgut action with those electronic rhythms before settling into that familiar Clientele sound. But the deep strings and electro beats do return, along with Macanás’ vocals.

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VIA PRESS RELEASE | Adrian Borland and Graham Bailey might be better known as members of legendary post-punk group The Sound, but the two were childhood friends and had been playing together even earlier in The Outsiders, and continued their deep musical rapport as a duo, creating these intense and engaging songs as Second Layer at the same time as their higher profile band output. Following our release of Courts Or Wars, combining their early material, we are proud to reissue their only full length album, World Of Rubber.

Fueled by experimentation in both song construction and recording techniques, the duo leave you enveloped in what The Quietus described as, “a monochrome worldview morbidly obsessed with the dehumanizing effect of war, nuclear weapon annihilation, and the fracturing and negation of the self within an increasingly distorted and technologically mediated society.” Indeed, the goal had been to make each album a concept album, with this to be titled: Second Layer’s World Of Rubber. Alas, this was to be the first and last of those efforts. New detailed liner notes from Graham Bailey shed considerable light on the creation of this cold classic and its immediate aftermath.

Bailey’s inventive construction and deconstruction of various electronics, effects boxes and tape loops form the propulsive base for these songs. Borland’s guitar playing is jagged and unleashed. Above it all is an undeniable sense of melody and Adrian’s distinctive vocals. Soon, they would wonder where Second Layer ended and The Sound began, but World Of Rubber would stand as a document of this fertile period. It would also be a lasting testament to their desire to push the boundaries of their creativity. Dark and brooding the result is what Bandcamp described as “brutally bleak, blank-eyed post-punk that remains chillingly compelling.”

Who’s the latest jazz giant to land a fresh edition of a canonical album in the retail racks courtesy of Craft Recordings’ Original Jazz Classics reissue program? That’d be pianist-composer Mal Waldron. The LP is Mal/2, cut in 1957 and released the same year by Prestige, with a load of talent on board and raising the bar of quality, including John Coltrane on tenor sax, Jackie McLean on alto, Bill Hardman on trumpet, and Art Taylor on drums. The byproduct of two sessions nearly a month apart, the sounds are cohesive in how they navigate away from the post-bop norm of the late 1950s. Mal/2 is out July 28 on 180 gram vinyl in a tip-on jacket, mastered analogue from the original tapes.

In the various synopses of his career, Mal Waldron is reliably credited as Billie Holiday’s final accompanist (a job that began the same month as Mal/2’s first session), with his work on a few jazz masterworks (Charles Mingus’ Blues & Roots, Max Roach’s Percussion Bitter Sweet, Eric Dolphy’s two At the Five Spot volumes, Abbey Lincoln’s Straight Ahead) peppered in.

There may also be mention of his enduring collaboration with soprano saxophonist Steve Lacy. They first recorded together on Lacy’s second album Reflections, released in 1958 by Prestige subsidiary New Jazz, notably the first album dedicated entirely to the music of Thelonious Monk. Although The Quest, issued in ’62 by New Jazz, is often cited as Waldron’s masterpiece as leader, Dolphy’s participation has tended to steal the spotlight a bit. Such is the case with Mal/2, which has been picked apart and released whole under Coltrane’s name, as on the 5CD collection of Trane’s ’50s support work Side Steps.

After gradually rebounding from a 1963 heroin overdose and the ensuing mental-physical breakdown, Waldron moved to Europe, began recording and performing again and essentially never stopped until his death in 2002. And rather than landing a consensus pick on a short (or long) list of essential jazz recordings, it’s Waldron’s voluminous studio sessions and the myriad captured live sets that secure his posthumous reputation, establishing him navigating deftly between the avant-garde and a warm, sincere classicism, and often subtly intermingling the two disciplines (a facility he shared with Lacy).

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VIA PRESS RELEASE | Craft Recordings announces a special gift for jazz fans this holiday with a new audiophile pressing of A Dave Brubeck Christmas.

Originally released in 1996, this bestselling title marks the legendary pianist’s sole holiday outing, as he interprets yuletide classics like “Santa Claus Is Coming to Town,” “Winter Wonderland,” and “The Christmas Song,” as well as stirring originals (“To Us Is Given,” “Run, Run, Run to Bethlehem”). Available September 22nd, this new 2-LP, 180-gram vinyl edition of A Dave Brubeck Christmas features lacquers cut at 45 RPM by Ryan Smith, delivering the highest quality listening experience.

One of the most important and innovative figures in the post-war cool jazz movement, Dave Brubeck (1920–2012) captured the ears of a generation, rising to become one of music’s biggest stars. Despite his global popularity and crossover appeal, however, Brubeck did not release an album of Christmas music until the latter quarter of his six-decade-long career. The resulting record was a welcome—and utterly refreshing—addition to the modern-day holiday cannon.

Featuring Brubeck on the piano, without accompaniment, the stripped-down set was recorded in a single day at Stamford, CT’s Ambient Recording Studio, with nearly every track captured in just one take. Russell Gloyd, who served as Brubeck’s longtime producer, manager and conductor, spoke to Chicago Tribune columnist Mary Schmich about the album in 2018. “Listen to any track and it is Dave playing directly to you,” he noted. “Listen to Dave’s ‘Joy to the World’…You hear the church bells. It’s not Dave improvising, it’s Dave painting a picture.” Brubeck didn’t deliver a cookie-cutter holiday album. Like everything he did, A Dave Brubeck Christmas defies expectations, offering listeners a reflective performance that mirrors the entire range of moods that the holiday season often evokes.

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VIA PRESS RELEASE | Underground hip hop polymath Aesop Rock has announced an expanded 10th anniversary edition of his canonical sixth album Skelethon, available on vinyl September 1st from Rhymesayers.

Skelethon represented a pivotal moment in the storied MC’s career, marking both his first fully self-produced effort as well as his first collaboration with his now longtime label Rhymesayers. In celebration of its 10th anniversary, the album has been expanded to a limited edition 3xLP vinyl packaged in a gatefold jacket with updated artwork, printed sleeves, a 4-panel insert with full album lyrics, across two cream and black marble-colored vinyl discs, and a UV printed ultra-clear vinyl disc with four exclusive bonus tracks. In addition to the deluxe 3xLP, there will be a range of new Skelethon themed apparel, including a hooded sweatshirt and three shirt designs, and Rhymesayers will be issuing the Skelethon Instrumentals on vinyl for the very first time.

The album’s title, a portmanteau of “skeleton” and “telethon,” was a metaphor for what felt like a long period of many adversities for Aesop. Across the album’s 15 tracks, he meticulously exhumes and examines these many skeletons in detail, exploring everything from death to distrust, insecurity and isolation, interjected with moments of humor and hope scattered throughout. The album’s many standout tracks include “Zero Dark Thirty,” a rapid-fire exploration of displeasure over dizzying drums, “ZZZ Top,” an impressive ode to youthful expression, and “Cycles to Gehenna,” with its haunting production and imaginative musings.

Upon release, Skelethon was praised for its intricate storytelling that expertly balanced abstract imagery with concrete details, and its immersive production incorporating sample-based beats with dusty pianos, distorted guitars, and psychedelic synths. To this day, the album remains a fan favorite and a critical darling, praised for its poignant introspection and razor-sharp wordplay.

Celebrating—sorta—Don Henley who turned 76 on Saturday. —Ed.

Everybody hates the Eagles. I hate the Eagles. You hate the Eagles. God hates the Eagles. Even the Eagles can’t stand the sight of each other, and as for real eagles, of the sort that soar majestically above the desert arroyos in the hopes of espying Don Henley and carrying him off to devour him and then pick the tequila-flavored gristle from their beaks at their leisure, they hate the Eagles too.

So why am I writing about the Eagles? Because much to my shame I’ve been lying through my teeth and sorta actually like the band, despite the fact that they’re poseurs (as Tom Waits once famously said, “Those guys grew up in L.A. and they don’t have cow-shit on their boots—just dog shit from Laurel Canyon”) and their music is pure product, like hair spray or shaving cream.

But haven’t you ever loved a product so much you’d travel to the furthest WalMart in the tri-state area to find it? True, I have a hard time thinking of a less authentic band—from their early country-schlock hits such as “Take It Easy,” “Peaceful Easy Feeling,” and “Easy Livin’” (which is actually by Uriah Heep, but who’s keeping score?) to their peripherally harder but equally soulless fare such as “Already Gone” and “Victim of Love”—but I too am a victim of love, the kind of love you might have for a vacuum cleaner or an air conditioner or even a sex toy, except there is absolutely nothing sexy about the Eagles, that is unless you fell into a coma in 1972 and suddenly awoke hot for a mustache ride from a guy dressed from neck to ankles in denim.

The Eagles formed in 1971 in Los Angeles as a country rock quartet consisting of Don Henley, Glenn Frey, Bernie Leadon, and Randy Meisner. The “four lads of I’m okay, I’m okay” (as Robert Christgau once dubbed them) released their eponymous debut in 1972, added guitarist Don Felder to beef up their sound when Henley and Frey decided to move away from country rock to go “hard rock” following the disappointing sales of 1973’s spaghetti Western concept album Desperado, lost Leadon who wanted nothing to do with this change in musical direction and replaced him with Joe “I want to do drugs even when I’m sleeping” Walsh, then replaced Meisner with Poco’s Timothy B. Schmit, and—all this is insufferably boring, isn’t it? Like listing the changing names on a corporate board, which is what the Eagles really are. I’m bored just writing it.

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VIA PRESS RELEASE | Showtime announced today that All Up in the Biz, directed by Sacha Jenkins (Wu-Tang Clan: Of Mics and Men, Louis Armstrong’s Black and Blues) will premiere Friday, August 11, streaming on Paramount+ with Showtime before making its on-air debut that same day at 9PM ET/PT on Showtime.

The documentary feature, which premiered at Tribeca Festival last month, is the definitive story of late, great rapper Biz Markie, who is best known for his mega hit “Just a Friend.” Featuring never before seen footage, musical interludes, animation, puppetry, and interviews with Biz Markie and other prominent figures in hip hop—from Fat Joe to Nick Cannon to Tracy Morgan—All Up in the Biz is a heartwarming portrait of how one underdog’s dreams—fortified by an unwavering determination and a wicked sense of humor—would come true inside the world of hip hop and far beyond. The film traces how Markie created a lane for himself in hip hop while also helping his friends, many of whom (Rakim, Big Daddy Kane, De La Soul, E.P.M.D.) would become legends in their own right.

Crowned “The Clown Prince of Hip Hop,” Markie was a beatbox wiz who was known for his comical rhymes and generally whimsical ways. A native of Long Island, Markie’s gift swiftly propelled him through hip hop history; he would inspire rap icons like Rakim and Big Daddy Kane in the process. The ride had a few bumps (like the groundbreaking sampling lawsuit he was wrapped up in) but in the end, Biz Markie was recognized as the actual personification of hip hop. All Up in the Biz chronicles Markie’s extraordinary tale, from humble beginnings, often living with a foster family after the death of his mother, to pop culture ubiquity, and ultimately speaks to how an individual can chart their own destiny and shape the future of a culture.

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VIA PRESS RELEASE | Nottingham Press will release Maps and Legends: The Story of R.E.M. by John Hunter, the most comprehensive biography of R.E.M. yet published.

Maps and Legends covers not just the band’s entire career, from Radio Free Europe to Collapse Into Now, but also delves deeply into the childhoods of each of the band members. It tells the story of each of the teenage bands one or more of the members played in before R.E.M.—among them Bad Habits, Shadowfax, the Back Door Band, Gangster, and the Wuoggerz—and concludes with a detailed look at the solo work of Peter Buck, Mike Mills, and Michael Stipe.

Author John Hunter was born in 1968 in Raleigh, North Carolina. At the age of sixteen, he began to sneak into local clubs such as the Brewery and the Cat’s Cradle, where he saw artists ranging from Black Flag, Hüsker Dü, and the Replacements to the dB’s, Let’s Active, and the Connells. From 1986 to 1991, he studied English at the University of Georgia, during which time he also performed at the 40 Watt Club, Uptown Lounge, and Rockfish Palace. He witnessed firsthand major events in R.E.M.’s career and in the larger Athens music scene during the second half of the 1980s.

To research Maps and Legends, Hunter pored through over a thousand original newspaper and magazine articles about R.E.M., and watched and listened to hundreds of video and audio interviews with the band. He also conducted new / original interviews with eyewitness sources and members of the band’s inner circle, ranging from high school classmates, bandmates, and friends of Peter Buck and Michael Stipe, to Hib-Tone Records founder Jonny Hibbert and the band’s catalyst Kathleen O’Brien, to Jeff Walls of Guadalcanal Diary and R.E.M. producer John Keane.

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