January's Musts

Since we always get asked what's good lately or what have we been listening to, here are five of our favourites from the first month of the year (leaking a little into February).  You can still ask us... but in case you're shy.  Don't be shy.  We're only ironically grumpy.

01 Yo La Tengo - Fade (Matador)

see video here.




 02 Mountains - Centralia (Thrill Jockey)

03 Thao & The Get Down Stay Down - We the Common (Ribbon Music)

04 Daniel Romano - Come Cry With Me (Universal)

05 Buke &  Gase - General Dome (Brassland)

Second chances

Twenty titles in our Used CD New Arrivals that should be in your collection. (If they aren't already).

1. Arcade Fire - Funeral
2. Ariel Pink's Haunted Grafitti - Worn Copy
3. Jay Crocker - Below the Ocean
4. Miles Davis - Kind of Blue (2CD stereo + mono mixes)
5. Eric's Trip - Purple Blue
6. Jose Gonzales - Veneer
7. Nanci Griffith - Late Night Grand Hotel
8. The Headphones - S/T (David Bazan project)
9. KMFDM - Sturm und Drang
10. Led Zeppelin - Mothership
11. Little Scream - The Golden Record 
12. Mi & Lau - S/T
13. My Brightest Diamond - Shark Remixes (2CD)
14. Pernice Brothers - Yours Mine and Ours
15. Phish - Undermind
16. Pink Floyd - A Saucerful of Secrets
17. The Robins - S/T
18. Silver Jews - Early Times
19. Townes Van Zandt - Be Here to Love Me
20. The Who - Who's Next

Record of the day: Van Wissem // Jarmusch - The Mystery of Heaven

Along with our first box of restocks for 2013 there were included a little stack of promo CDs to enjoy whilst I sorted, stickered, and filed the new arrivals.  The stand out so far is this cool album of dark and mysterious guitar duets from Dutch artist Jozef Van Wissem and American director Jim Jarmusch.  Anyone who's seen Jarmusch's films (Down By Law, Dead Man, Ghost Dog) will know that music plays a big part, not just as soundtrack, but often as part of the narrative.  This is the second collaboration the two released in 2012, the first being Concerning the Entrance into Eternity, released on Important Records.  Jarmusch plays dirty electric feedback over Van Wissem's cleaner minimalist chords, together forming a blood, dust, and steel apparatus ready to shamble out the back door into the night.  I'm on my second listen right now.

The Mystery of Heaven is out on Sacred Bones records and available on CD and LP.

Nightlands - Oak Island

Dave Hartley is from War on Drugs.  We all love War on Drugs, right?  Well you'll probably love Nightlands too.  Here's the lead single from his new album "Oak Island."  It is his second solo release.  The other one is good too.  Honest.


Oak Island comes out on January 22nd from Secretly Canadian.

Excited for new Thurston Moore band: Chelsea Light Moving

via Matador Records:



On March 5 (March 4 in Europe), Matador will be releasing Chelsea Light Moving’s eponymous 1st full-length LP/CD/digital album.  Until this point, the Thurston Moore-spearheaded quartet (see the bio below) have dropped periodic MP3′s on the unsuspecting populace, along with road testing their live show in locations as far flung as Gothenberg, Sweden and Denver, CO.  Their first U.S. tour commences Sat., March 2, at Hoboken, NJ’s Maxwell’s.


(photo : Carlos van Hijfte)

CHELSEA LIGHT MOVING is the current group led by Sonic Youth founder Thurston Moore. He is the songwriter and plays over-amped hyper electric guitar and sings with raw-glam-destructo vocals. The band is a four piece featuring Samara Lubelski, who has played violin with TM on his last two solo LPs (Demolished Thoughts and Trees Outside The Academy) and with CHELSEA LIGHT MOVING plays deep psyche pop metal bass guitar. Keith Wood, who records under the aegis Hush Arbors, plays electric guitar with a pick forged from angel wing and John Moloney, aka “Pegasus”, approaches the drums like an asteroid hurtling toward Earth. The first CD self-titled was recorded in two spurious sessions with engineer Justin Pizzoferrato in Sone Lab, a killer studio in Easthampton MASSACHUSETTS. The band is ready to detonate any birthday party, wedding or hullaboo in any country, planet or stratosphere that doesn’t support right wing extremist NRA sucking bozo-ology.