New Album Reissue Watch :: Lightning Bolt - Wonderful Rainbow

Exciting news from Thrill Jockey records. The label is planning to reissue Rhode Island freakout bros. Lightning Bolt's back catalog starting with their colourful 2003 release. Wonderful Rainbow on August 23rd.

New Album Watch :: Clinic - Wheeltappers And Shunters

Clinic - Wheeltappers and Shunters // Domino Records // May 10, 2019 // CD/Vinyl

A playful callback to the 1970s variety television show of the same name, Wheeltappers and Shunters is a title befitting of what Clinic was looking to achieve with their eighth studio album: "a satirical take on British culture - both high and low".

New Album Watch :: Sunn O))) - Life Metal

First new full length from your favourite monolithic metal band since 2015's Kannon. The band's website promises a far and wide ranging tour starting in Europe in March and moving to the USA in April with many more dates to be added. The album itself is due out in April. Track listing is as follows:

1. Between Sleipnir's Breaths

2. Troubled Air

3. Aurora

4. Novae

There is a teaser/trailer up on YouTube now too:

New Album Watch :: The Mountain Goats - In League With Dragons

What better to follow up an album about Goth Rock, appropriately called Goths, which itself was a follow up to an album about professional wrestling, Beat the Champ!, than an album all about Dungeons and Dragons. Well that's just what The Mountain Goats are doing. Come April 26th we shall hear the results, but for now here's the lead off track and this note from band leader John Darnielle about the album:

This album began life as a rock opera about a besieged seaside community called Riversend ruled by a benevolent wizard, for which some five to seven songs were written. When I’m focusing on a project, I always distract myself from the through-line with multiple byways, which are kind of like mini-games within the broader architecture of a long video game. As I worked on the Riversend stuff, weird noir visions started creeping in, probably under the influence of Leonardo Sciascia (a Sicilian author, he wrote mysteries) and Ross MacDonald’s The Zebra-Striped Hearse, which a friend from Port Washington gave me while I was in the thick of the writing. I thought these moods helped complicate the wizards and dragons a little, and, as I thought about my wizard, his health failing, the invasion by sea almost certain to wipe out half his people, I thought about what such a person might look like in the real world: watching a country show at a midwestern casino, or tryout pitching for an American League team years after having lit up the marquees. Finally, I wrote the title track, which felt like a drawing-together of the themes in play: rebellion against irresistible tides, the lush vistas of decay, necessary alliances. I am earnestly hoping that a new genre called “dragon noir” will spring from the forehead of nearly two years’ work on these songs, but, if not, I am content for this to be the sole example of the style.

New Album Watch :: Better Oblivion Community Center - S/T

Usually surprise releases are the purview of Kanye West, but today it comes from the duo of Conor Oberst and Phoebe Bridgers who've teamed up as Better Oblvion Community Center. Dubbed "soft rock for hard times," the album is available for download and purchase at the Dead Oceans Bandcamp, and likely, hopefully, very soon here instore.

New Album Watch :: Fennesz - Agora

Fennesz has always been a busy artist with collaborative releases with Jim O'Rourke, Ryuichi Sakamoto, Alva Noto and others over the last couple of years. But Agora, due out on March 29th through Touch is his first solo recording since 2014. Recorded with stripped down equipment and headphones in his own flat it provides a slight bend in the electronic superhighway for him. Here is a sampler of the four tracks that make up the new album:

New Album Watch :: Priests - The Seduction of Kansas

Washington based dance punks Priests are putting out their sophomore album The Seduction of Kansas April 5th on their own Sister Polygon Records. Here is the first single, the title track "The Seduction of Kansas."

New Album Watch :: Strand of Oaks - Eraserland

Timothy Showalter of Strand of Oaks has announced the follow up to 2017's excellent Hard Love. Eraserland will drop on March 22nd from Dead Oceans records. Here is the first single, "Weird Ways."

New Album Watch :: Pup - Morbid Stuff

Canadian faves PUP have announced their new album Morbid Stuff will be released on their own Little Dipper label on April 5th!! Get ready. Here is lead single "Kids"

New Album Watch :: Stella Donnelly - Beware of the Dogs

Australian singer/songwriter Stella Donnelly is following up her wonderful 2018 EP Thrush Metal with a full length titled Beware of the Dogs. It is due on March 8 through Secretly Canadian, and here is lead off track "Old Man". More timely than a Neil Young cover, really.

New Album Watch :: Teeth of the Sea - WRAITH

London based trio Teeth of the Sea return with their sixth release for Rocket Recordings. Their sound continues to evolve into new zones of psychedelic metal with atypical instrumentation that pleases with its challenges.

WRAITH is due out on February 22nd on both vinyl and CD. Pre-order with us now!

Best of 2018

For your consideration... 50 favourite albums in alphabetical order. How many did you hear? Just asking.

 01 Aaron Martin - Touch Dissolves
02 Alexander Tucker - Don't Look Away
03 Alva Noto - Unieqav

04 Amen Dunes - Freedom
05 Beak - >>>
06 Ben LaMar Gay ‎– Downtown Castles Can Never Block The Sun
07 Big Red Machine: Big Red Machine
08 Bonny Doon - Longwave
09 Caroline Rose - Loner
10 Daniel Bachman - The Morning Star
11 Demdike Stare - Passion


12 Dirty Projectors - Lamp Lit Prose
13 Ekin Fil - Maps
14 Ensemble 0 - ensemble 0 plays eight compositions and it lasts 38:36
15 Forth Wanderers - S/T
16 Gas- Rausch
17 Goldmund - Occasus
18 Haley Heynderickx: I Need to Start a Garden
19 Hop Along - Bark Your Head Off, Dog
20 How to Dress Well - The Anteroom

21 IDLES - Joy As An Act Of Resistance
22 Jetstream Pony - Self-Destruct Reality
23 Joan of Arc - 1984
24 Low - Double Negative
25 Makaya McCraven - Universal Beings
26 Mary Lattimore - Hundreds of Days
27 M Geddes Gengras - Light Pipe
28 Necks - Body
29 Neneh Cherry - Broken Politics
30 Nils Frahm - All Melody

31 Oneohtrix Point Never - Age of


32 Peel Dream Magazine - Modern Meta Physic
33 Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs - King Of Cowards
34 Preoccupations: New Material
35 Rival Consoles - Persona


36 Rosali - Trouble Anyway
37 Saintseneca - Pillar of Na
38 Serpentwithfeet - Soil
39 Shame - Songs of Praise
40 Snail Mail - Lush
41 Soccer Mommy - Clean
42 Sons of Kemet - Your Queen is a Reptile


43 Stephen Malkmus And The Jicks - Sparkle Hard


44 Superchunk: What a Time to Be Alive
45 Suuns - Felt
46 Swearin' - Fall into the Sun
47 Tim Hecker - Konoyo
48 Tim Rutili & Craig Ross - 10 Seconds to Collapse
49 Uniform - The Long Walk
50 Yo La Tengo: There's A Riot Going On

November Ambience

A quick list of 10 Ambient music titles we have in stock to help make the seasonal change more calm and collected.

1. Billow Observatory - II:Plains/Patterns  /// New Vinyl

2. Bohren & Der Club of Gore - Dolores  /// New Vinyl

3. Dead Light - S/T  /// New Vinyl

4. Grouper - Grid of Points  /// New Vinyl

5. Tim Hecker - Radio Amor  /// New Vinyl

6. Labradford - Fixed::Context  /// New CD

7. Mary Lattimore - Hundreds of Days  /// New CD

Chrisina Vantzou - No. 4  /// New CD

9. William Bansinski + Lawrence English - Selva Obscura  /// New CD

10. Planning for Burial - Quietly /// New Vinyl

New Album Watch :: The Good the Bad & The Queen- Merrie Land

After more than a decade, The Good, The Bad, and The Queen (Damon Albarn, Paul Simonon, Simon Tong, and Tony Allen) return with a new album, Merrie Land, available November 16th!! 

New Album Watch :: Swearin' - Fall Into the Sun

Out October 5th on Merge Records

The 1 Hundred :: Jeremy Jay - Dream Diary

Just as there are certain records that continually sell year after year, there are some titles that are continually either just under the radar of popularity, or maybe just need a bit of a highlight to remind you they are still out there waiting for new ears. As an experiment we are going to build a list of one hundred titles, all currently in stock, that we think you should lend an ear to.

 Jeremy Jay - Dream Diary (K Records, 2011) // Used Vinyl

A West Coast American transplanted to the UK, Jeremy Jay makes music that lives in the zone that also features the likes of Mac DeMarco, Jonathan Richman, and bedroom recorded versions of The Smiths or The Cure. If you like a bit of foppishness in your dreamy pop... and in this case you really should... then this is the record for you!

THE ONE HUNDRED MAIN PAGE

The 1 Hundred :: Zak Riles - S/T

Just as there are certain records that continually sell year after year, there are some titles that are continually either just under the radar of popularity, or maybe just need a bit of a highlight to remind you they are still out there waiting for new ears. As an experiment we are going to build a list of one hundred titles, all currently in stock, that we think you should lend an ear to.

 Zak Riles - S/T (Important, 2008) // Used CD

Guitarist and multi-instrumentalist Zak Riles spends the bulk of his time in post-rock / post- world group Grails. For this first and only solo disc he focuses on the acoustic guitar, backed at turns by a full band, playing a kind of modal, Middle Eastern inflected folk that crosses the territory between everything from OM to John Fahey to Sandy Bull to Popul Vuh, and more. With it moods from jubilation to paranoia to melancholy peek though, sometime from bar to bar. 

THE ONE HUNDRED MAIN PAGE

The 1 Hundred ::Tape - Milieu Plus

Just as there are certain records that continually sell year after year, there are some titles that are continually either just under the radar of popularity, or maybe just need a bit of a highlight to remind you they are still out there waiting for new ears. As an experiment we are going to build a list of one hundred titles, all currently in stock, that we think you should lend an ear to.

 Tape - Milieu Plus (Hapna, 2008 /// Used CD

Swedish trio, brothers Andreas and Johan Berthling plus Tomas Hallonsten create a music that is as difficult to categorize as it is easy to enjoy. Taking acoustic folk instrumentation and applying a gentle free form jazz approach along with some electronic connective tissue, the results are a pastoral and multiply detailed music that sound superficially easy and familiar but hides volumes of information beneath.

THE ONE HUNDRED MAIN PAGE

The 1 Hundred ::Wrekmeister Harmonies - Night of Your Ascension

Just as there are certain records that continually sell year after year, there are some titles that are continually either just under the radar of popularity, or maybe just need a bit of a highlight to remind you they are still out there waiting for new ears. As an experiment we are going to build a list of one hundred titles, all currently in stock, that we think you should lend an ear to.

Wrekmeister Harmonies - Night of Your Ascension (Thrill Jockey, 2015)// New Vinyl

If you like your metal a little more expansive then J.R. Robinson's collaborative project is the perfect place to put your listening. Occupying similar territory to groups like Sunn O))), for Night of Your Ascension Robinson welcomed help from The Body, Mary Lattimore, members of Einsturzende Neubaten, Corrections House, Cave, Indian and many more. The album features two extended tracks that are equal part beautiful and terrifying and definitely epic.

The 1 Hundred ::Gold Sparkle Band - Fugues and Flowers

Just as there are certain records that continually sell year after year, there are some titles that are continually either just under the radar of popularity, or maybe just need a bit of a highlight to remind you they are still out there waiting for new ears. As an experiment we are going to build a list of one hundred titles, all currently in stock, that we think you should lend an ear to.

 Gold Sparkle Band - Fugues & Flowers (Squealer, 2002) // Used CD

Brooklyn, NYC based quartet/quintet that had a decade long run from early 90s to early 00s. They play a heady mix of free and post-bop jazz that combines firey horn interplay and a propulsive rhythm section that draws upon 70s Miles Davis minimalist beats. It's great driving jazz.

Couldn't find a clip online from this album, but the one below is a fine representation of the band and what you can expect here.

THE ONE HUNDRED MAIN PAGE