Untitled Document

New Releases

Abbasi Brothers, The
Something Like Nostalgia
PS, US Something Like Nostalgia is a film for your ears, a cinematic glimpse into the purity of everyday life. Written over 2 years time, these 15 scenes are like snapshots of daydreams, their soundscapes are their subtitles, and the origin is not so very foreign. Shoegaze, dream-pop instrumental.
Dynamophone-012
CD
$14.75

Accidental
There Were Wolves
PS, US Take the man behind The Memory Band & Trunk Records (Stephen Cracknell), the twisted songwriter from TUNNG main man (Sam Genders), one half of Fence Collective duo THE BICYCLE THIEVES (Hannah Caughlin) & singer-songwriter Liam Bailey. Put them in front of a PC & add occasional input from guests incl. harpist Serafina Steer & Rob, Jenny & Nancy from the Memory Band. The finished record is fittingly warm, personal & intimate,& less disguised in its folkiness than either Cracknell or Genders's main projects. W/in this, new influences have crept in, such as Liam's soul & reggae edge & Hannah's jazz-influenced vocals. The album also gave Cracknell a chance to experiment w/ vocal & instrumental loops & layers, inspired, in part, by Panda Bear
& Animal Collective.
ThrillJockey
CD
$13.00

Accidental
There Were Wolves
PS, US VINYL VERSION!!!
ThrillJockey
LP
$11.50

Adasiewicz, Jason
Rolldown
PS, US The 14th entry in 482 Music's ongoing Document Chicago series & the recorded debut from this Chicago-based vibraphonist/composer, joined by fellow scene stalwarts JOSH BERMAN, ARAM SHELTON, JASON ROEBKE & FRANK ROSALY. Many of the songs recall the brilliantly oblique postbob Bobby Hutcherson material, while others are based on gently rippling, coloristic passages.
482Music
CD
$11.75

All the Saints
Fire On Corridor X
PS, US Don't be fooled by the piss-stained mattress on the cover, the debut from this Alabama-raised Atlanta-based power trio is moderately clean for one of Atlanta's most thunderous groups. All The Saints not only commanded their control of volume & intensity, but with their debut album have proven their abilities in composition & arrangement. Reference points include Loop, Gun Club, Verbena, In Camera, Federation X, and Swans. The band has earned fans in groups like Deerhunter, Battles, and A Place To Bury Strangers.
KillerPimp
CD
$11.75

American Mars
No City Fun
PS, US No City Fun, combines indie-rock elements with Eno/Lanois-influenced soundscapes. Oft-compared to artists such as Joe Henry, the Dream Syndicate, Tom Petty, and Blue Nile while their emotional and cathartic live shows earned them support slots for 16 Horsepower, The National, Clem Snide, Tim Easton, Elbow, Magnolia Electric Company, and The Black Heart Procession.
Gangplank
CD
$10.00

ASS (Andreas Soderstrom Solo)
My Get Up And Go Just Got Up And Went
PS, UK Very limited! Peering out between the mass of strings, hanging like vines, there must have been a spark of childish curiosity. From the giddy playfulness of youth all the way to the folk hinterland, Andreas Soderstrom has been surrounded by instruments, exposed to the sounds of his father's bazouki factory - an extraordinary mélange of clattering noise and metallic melody. That natural inquisitiveness has obviously paid off, and it surely can't be a coincidence that a career in music beckoned. Trading under the pseudonym Ass - it stands for Andreas Soderstrom Solo - for more than a decade he has been the hitherto unknown man of Swedish pop, having played with the likes of electro-pop priestess Jenny Wilson, digital folk stalwarts Tape, offbeat folk-pop minstrel Blood Music, and Taken By Trees, the latest incarnation of former Concretes singer Victoria Bergsman. All that will change with the release of 'My Get Up and Go Just Got Up and Went', the second full-length album from Soderstrom under his Ass moniker. Soderstrom plays all of the instruments found on this quietly intoxicating 10-track record, the follow-up to his astonishingly assured, eponymous debut - both released on Headspin Recordings. It finds him hacking through the folk undergrowth, his fluid dynamic underpinning a stark melancholy that simmers throughout. It's a real treat, and a chance to hear the whispered charm of a subtly disarming performer. To paraphrase George Clinton - free your mind, and Ass will follow...Very Limited vinyl Edition of 500 copies in thick cardboard stock, lyric insert and on purple wax.
StaticCaravan-167
LP
$19.00

Black Watch, The
Icing the Snow Queen
PS, US Twinkling, light hearted/headed
folk pop with swathes of beautiful distortion. This one is closer to 2002's breezy jewel, Jiggery-Pokery, though there's still a more electric/MBV-lite guitar fuzz-buzz on some quickening indie rock songs here to show how kittenish the mature cat remains (in the vein of 2006's Bunnymenish/Mary Chain-ish Tatterdemalion and 2005's The Hypnotizing Sea). One soaks in the quality songwriting--even a beaut of a Nick Drake-like instrumental in "The Jean Rhys Appreciation Society"--from this seemingly bottomless well, with lyrics like catnip for those starved for intelligence in rock (Fredrick's UCSB PhD wasn't wasted) and the highly-crafted yet unfussy melodies. I just hope it won't take, like The Sound's Adrian Borland, Fredrick's death for greater numbers to discover how good he is.
Eskimo
CD
$9.00

Booka Shade
The Sun & the Neonlight
PS, US PREFIX MAGAZINE: "For a duo with a reputation as the brains behind the tracks that Get Physical DJs M.A.N.D.Y. and DJ T built their fame on, Booka Shade take expert songcraft and blend it with dynamic beats, resulting in pulsing, pounding music that moves bodies and arrangements that hooking minds, twisting and turning at every corner. For The Sun & The Neon Light, Walter Merziger and Arno Kammermeier expand their musical palette, this time incorporating tracks built around proper vocals (courtesy of Merziger) and more traditional song structure. With the broader audience Booka Shade reached courtesy of Movements, it seems they now look to increase the accessibility even further with The Sun & The Neon Light."
GetPhysicalMusic
CD
$14.25

Broderick, Peter
Float
PS, UK This is the debut full-length release from Oregon's Peter Broderick. In the last few years, the world has seen its fair share of musicians give up the trusty guitar in favor of the piano, the banjo and even the French horn, but rarely do we find a musician who seems so perfectly suited to any and every instrument he cares to try. Float is the ideal showcase for Broderick's well-honed instrumental talents, blending his love of folk music, classical music and good old-fashioned indie-pop. After the release of his Docile EP on cult Swedish label Kning Disk, there was no doubting his piano playing skills, but here we see the piano joined by violins, cello, drums, banjo, guitar, vocals and so much more, resulting in a dense and varied collection of tracks. An easy comparison might be Efterklang, the Danish band who Peter currently performs with, but Float could just as easily be linked to the work of Max Richter, Sylvain Chauveau and the Portland, Oregon scene which birthed him. Float is an album which has a definite narrative -- a fan of film and film soundtracks, Peter decided early on to make an album which was not simply a collection of random tracks. Themes appear and reappear, motifs signal different acts and characters, sometimes in the shape of instruments themselves, dropping in and out as if through some thick French cigarette smoke. Even the titles of the tracks tell a story, and as you listen to the album, subconsciously you follow a captivating broad narrative arc that links each piece together. This is thoughtful, carefully-constructed, significant new music from a young talent who is quickly catching on fire.
Type-027
CD
$14.25

Brother Kite, The
Waiting For The Time To Be Right
PS, US LP+CD. LIMITED TO ONLY 200 COPIES WORLDWIDE!! Finally, the sophomore album from The Brother Kite is presented to the masses on vinyl!! The production on this vinyl has been an absolute nightmare, fraught with problem after problem and delay after delay - but the Wait is over, and we hope you find it was worth the wait! This limited edition release is presented on 180-gram audiophile-quality virgin black vinyl. In addition to the vinyl, this package includes an exclusive bonus CDr (professionally-manufactured), entitled "Inside Waiting For The Time To Be Right". We thought someone who liked the album enough to purchase the vinyl might be interested in peeling away some of its layers, just for curiosity's sake. So on this CDr, you will find alternative mixes of every song on the album.
Clairecords-064
LP
$14.75

Butcher the Bar
Sleep At Your Own Speed
PS, GERMANY This is the debut full-length release by Britain's Joel Nicholson for Morr Music. He has described the cast list of his intimate band as "me and my bedroom." In Manchester, the songs of Butcher the Bar fill a small house, but soon these walls won't be the only ones in which they live. "Make this house a home" could be the phrase that matches this atmosphere. He sounds a little like Elliot Smith, with the persuasive power of his carefully-crafted chords and the immediacy of his softly-spoken vocals. An artist like Joel Nicholson would have been called a singer-songwriter before this word became a catch-all phrase. In the meantime, quiet is STILL the new loud and home-cooked tracks are still the tastiest and most comforting of all. Sleep At Your Own Speed is a coming-of-age novel consisting of 13 short stories. "Getaway," for instance, is a declaration of woe to a city that used to be home once, "Ball Point Skin Notes" illustrates the forlornness of youth, and "Leave Town" is as exuberant as a pop song can be. An acoustic guitar, a banjo, a warm, direct voice. Lyrics such as "I leave town tonight, if only western civilization feels alright..." point to the singer's earnestness and yearning for universal understanding. Melancholy, deceleration and reduction are Joel Nicholson's musical topics. Folk and post-folk, old and new heroes (Nick Drake, Paul Simon, Sufjan Stevens), searching, finding and finally letting go.
MorrMusic-082
CD
$15.00

Caethua
Village of the Damned
PS, US Brilliant psych-folk debut by Bloomington, Indiana's Clare Hubbard. Stark, ghostly, and ultra-melancholy, just begin to describe this buried treasure. "Caethua builds a majestic framework of rural poetics and darkly colored orchestration that manages to cross the aesthetics of Harry Smith and This Mortal Coil." - Dusted
Magazine.
BlueSanct
CD
$10.75

Carter, Tom & Kiefer, C
From the Great American Songbook
PS, US This second collaborative work is an expansive & ambitious recasting of American music. With their interpretations, Carter (CHARALAMBIDES) & Kiefer have taken the songs that have seeped into their souls & extended upon them in such a way that brings something entirely new to their original ideas. Carter & Kiefer have taken the spirit of these as a starting point for their spectral guitar improvisations, then fleshed them out with piano, percussion, bass & drums. In this thrillingly vast sonic terrain are moments of foreboding, tenderness, melancholy & gut-wrenching rawness. Guest spots from Ben Massarella (CALIFONE, IRON & WINE) & limited edition deluxe packaging featuring award-winning design & liners by Tim Rutili & James Toth.
Preservation
CD
$15.00

Chevelles, The
Barbarella Girl God
PS, US Career retrospective plus new gear from this Aussie garage-pop combo. ALL MUSIC GUIDE: "14 of their most contagious numbers along with a trio of new songs as proof positive that they've lost none of their magic over the years. What really impresses about this album, though, is how well the band's wide-ranging sound and style are showcased. Garage pop is an easy tag for their music, but doesn't really capture the diversity of influences and elements that infuse their songs... From old-school to new-school punk, the band dances back and forth in time, tripping into new wave, psychedelia, and power pop along the way. The sound may be clean, a reflection of the Chevelles' tightness, but even at their jangliest, the guitars are down and dirty, the harmonies soaring, the melodies irrepressible, and the choruses irresistible. All in all, the perfect introduction to this stellar band."
WickedCool
CD
$12.25

Clientele, The
That Night, A Forest Grew
PS, SPAIN This is the third, and last, of a trilogy of E.P.s the Clientele have recorded for Acuarela. They have always used the Acuarela E.P.s as a way to stretch out between albums, to create a through-the-looking-glass version of the band that shadows the better-known history of their albums. 'Ariadne' experimented with drones and minimalism; 'The Lost Weekend' stretched the foggy sound of their debut to epic proportions. In contrast "That Night, a Forest Grew' is the most commercial and -shockingly- danceable thing they've ever recorded. Part Bacharach, part Television, part Orange Juice, the E.P. shares the pristine clarity, light and shade of 'God Save the Clientele', but adds a new element of summer pop perfection. This is The Clientele as a hazily remembered 1970s cartoon series, all distanced off-key colors; imaginary summer hits, radio waves beamed in from a dream-discotheque.
Acuarela-067
CD5
$8.25

Craig, Leighton
11 Easy Pieces
PS, AUSTRALIA Since 1995, Brisbane resident Leighton Craig has etched out a varied musical existence, from solo keyboard studies to an extensive body of collaborative work. His solo works, which span delicate ambient keyboard excursions through to site-specific live documents and most recently song-based explorations, have mapped out a focus of tone, duration and 'situations' for sound. On 11 Easy Pieces, his first widely available solo LP, Craig offers an intimate yet robust collection of works recorded on an array of cheap analogue keyboards, including his instrument of choice the Casio MT40. Recorded to cassette at the kitchen table between 2003-04, these recordings have been lovingly toasted by valve tubes during mastering to reveal not only a true sense of analog adventurousness inherent to Craig's mode of operation, but also his ability to unveil a rare tonal richness from his instruments. Leighton Craig casts out an audio net and collects together an essential haul of tonal gradients, phased rhythm and collapsed chordal interplays. 11 Easy Pieces (and two somewhat less 'easy' works), is a warm collection of distorted hymnals and blurred geometry - all of them visionary in their purity and timbral sensibilities. "This is more than Australian Music - this is Australia the musician." Sean Rabin, The Australian "an organic exorcism of the trees...the music of the earth...." Brad Rose, Foxy Digitalis. On Organ Notes "hazy minimal organ tones ... feel good mind-body static. Turn up loud and let it float." Eddie Flowers, Slippytown.
Room40-424
CD
$15.00

Depth Affect
Hero Crisis
PS, FRANCE The Depth Affect project was born in the new millennium in the suburbs of Nantes, France. In David Bideau and Rémy Charrier's student rooms, keyboards and laptops outnumbered Beach Boys and Autechre records. From then on, they were set to start building the architecture of their music. A few years later, with a handful of songs in their pockets, a few gigs and their duet being completed by a team composed of a DJ and a VJ, their music found its own personal path and their first album *Arche-Lymb* received critical acclaim. At that time the band also offered free downloads of remixes of Arche-Lymb tracks made by a wide cast of electronica musicians. On top of that they worked on their live performance and developed a new and original approach to the stage which they had a chance of displaying live in several glorious French venues and festivals. In their new album *Hero Crisis*, the colours of melancholy have taken over the naive beauty and bucolic joy of their first record. In Hero Crisis, their songwriting has become more direct, both harsher and colder, with catchy melodies enhanced by an astonishing production. The twelve tracks of Hero Crisis mix influences stemming from r'n'b, pop, hip-hop, ambient, click'n'cut and dubstep, thus creating a new dreamy and feverish soundscape.
AutresDirectionsInMusic-018
CD
$19.00

Eat Skull
Sick to Death
PS, US Leave it to the English to embellish a term like "shit-gaze." No surprise that the greatest shit-gazer of all time was none other than Samuel Coleridge, an avowed Brit who, plied full of laudanum, would sit for hrs & stare at his bowel movements, writing copious notes on their color, texture, etc. They are a quartet hailing from Portland, Oregon, co-masterminded by Rob Enbom (Hospitals and Hole Class) & another original Hospital, Rod Meyer (the greatest living genius of punk)(--erm--uh--wha?!).
Siltbreeze
LP
$16.00

Fairline Parkway
Memory of Open Spaces
PS, US Limited Edition of 700 hand-numbered, die cut. Zachary Okun & Raj Gadhia met in a quiet summer of college
unemployment. Raj recognized Zach as the guy in the back of the dusty university anthropology lab who diligently slept through monkey documentaries, waking from deep sleep only to angrily protest discernable differences in the skull specimens forced upon the class every week. In this manner things came to a head and they were graduated, just as they decided to have a good run at actually thinking. Reeling in denial, the two began recording together in 2002. They were promptly kidnapped by an enthusiastic fan & ushered into a studio.
Kora
CD
$11.25

Fantasy Bar
Friday Afternoon Car
PS, SPAIN Kieran, Diego, Jordi and Rubén used to be part of Migala, probably one of the best Spanish bands ever. It's something they won't try to hide. Now they are Fantasy Bar, whose debut album, Friday Afternoon Car, takes their music -and influences ranging from American Music Club to Nick Drake, Arab Strap to Neil Young...- into enchanting new territories. Friday Afternoon Car is an album of nostalgia and yearning for a brighter dawn; of harshness and tender feeling; of hopes and of fears. Its 14 stately, slow-paced rock songs are suffused with the beauty that lies just beneath the surface of existence. The careworn yet compassionate vocals of Scottish songwriter Kieran Stephen (ex-bassist with Los Planetas and Migala, bass guitar on El Hijo's album "Las otras vidas", live musician with QZIOS) speak of the emotions these four friends know so well: the persistence of memories; friendship and wasted love; the knowledge, throughout it all, that the good times can prevail. It's there from the first moments of "Spiders", which opens Friday Afternoon Car: the story of a bad dream called solitude, wrapped in gentle guitars and upbeat but delicate drums. The album was recorded at Rock Soul Studios in Madrid with the assistance of Carlos Torero, and features keyboards and guitar by Abel Hernández (El Hijo, former singer and guitarist of Migala) and electric guitar by Chris Bathgate (Sans Trauma, ex-Ganger, who also used to play bass with Arab Strap). It takes its name from an old British phrase that alludes to the belief that car-factory workers lose interest toward the end of the week: as the brief liberation of the weekend looms, everyday cares cease to matter. Friday Afternoon Car invites the listener to enter the universe of these songs: to discover a place to reflect and, above all, to feel. Fantasy Bar are: Kieran Stephen (vocals, guitars, bass), Diego Yturriga (keyboards, accordion and melodica), Jordi Sancho (bass, fender rhodes) and Rubén Moreno (drums).
Acuarela-1085
CD
$13.50

Free Blood
Never Hear Surf Music Again
PS, US This two-piece Brooklyn band has more street cred than you can shake a stick at, & for good reason. Consisting of Madeline Davy (Octopi NYC) on the microphone & John Pugh (formally of !!!) also on microphone. An unpredictable druggy number, a mangled hybrid of Beatles-esque melodies fused angrily w/ a Butthole Surfers song. "Quick & Painful" is a raucous affair that delivers a swift kick to the jewels.
Rong/DFA
12
$8.00

Friction Brothers
S-T
PS, US Chicago's The Friction Brothers consists of Michael Colligan (dry ice, implements), Fred Lonberg-Holm (cello, implements), & Michael Zerang (percussion, piano insides). While each member has a lengthy resume on his own, their combined forces have produced an endlessly interesting record full of harmonic resonances, grinding objects, manipulated dry ice, & heavy friction.
AbstractOnBlack
CD
$6.00

Futureheads
This Is Not the World
PS, US New album.
Megaforce
CD
$13.75

Gable
Seven Guitars With A Cloud Of Milk
PS, US Containing 18 tracks clocking in at just under 40 min. The songs cover such diverse topics as group suicide, the state of urban music, self-realization, cats, & drunk foxes, in the best tradition of DIY bands like The Vaselines, Violent Femmes, & Beat Happening.
Loaf
CD
$16.00

Goodnight Monsters
Summer Challenge
PS, FINLAND Second album by the Finish guitar-pop-band of young songwriters Valtteri Virtanen and Matti Jasu, the follow-up to The Brain That Wouldn't Die, their cute-as-a-button debut. This time recording took place at 22-Pistepirkko's Altai Studios with Petteri Rajanti as producer. The result is a bit more refined then the debut, without loosing any inch of the freshness. On the contrary, it's full of super-charming melodies and rhythms and even more uplifting and colourful arrangements. ALL MUSIC GUIDE: "Listening to Finland's Goodnight Monsters is like eating cotton candy with a root beer float chaser. Pure sugar rush from start to finish."
BoneVoyage
CD
$15.00

Greiner, Svarte
Til Seters
PS, US Room Forever. Concept and art direction by Joshua Zucker. Photography by Kurt Mangum. A Room Forever is an art project realized as a curated series of limited edition 12" record LPs. Packaged in a custom-made box with high quality digital C-print covers and letter pressed inserts, each record features an original musical composition on one side and a field recording on the other. Pressed in one-time editions of 300, A Room Forever takes a unique and personal approach to the vinyl record LP. Conceived as a physical manifestation of the Roadside Picnic Radio podcast, the project draws upon the rich history and mythologies of audio recording to produce a final object of art that will resonate uniquely within each listener. More than anything, a room forever is inherently about the act of listening." This album by Svarte Greiner (previous releases on the Type label out of the UK, also as one-half of Deaf Center) features one side of "acoustic doom" music, the other of field recordings. This deluxe limited edition LP series will feature Machinefabriek/Matt Davies and Koen Holtkamp in the next upcoming volumes.
ARoomForever
LP
$25.00

Group Doueh
Guitar Music From The Western Sahara
PS, US This is a CD reissue of the very first Sublime Frequencies LP, which sold Fouret qinu aenn ciniesstant in early 2007. This Saharan sandblizzard of fine-crushed glass will grind your face to a bloody pulp. They play raw & unfiltered Saharawi music from the former colonial Spanish outpost of the Western Sahara. The sound is distorted, loud & unhinged w/ an impressive display of virtuosity & style only known in this part of the world.
Sublime
CD
$16.25

Heaven And
Sweeter As The Years Roll By
PS, GERMANY Heaven And are Tony Buck (drums, percussion); Steve Heather (drums, marimba, percussion); Martin Siewert (guitars, lap steel, electronics, keyboards); Zeitblom (bass, keyboards); Alexander Hacke (vocals). Sweeter As The Years Roll By is their debut full-length release for the Staubgold label and it's a phrase which many will associate with wine. The music of the 21st century has evolved to become the proverbial "old wine in new skins" -- since remixing, cut'n'paste, and other methods of producing new culture by using the old, have become available to almost everyone. Because of the "digital revolution," the layman can now easily become the mixer and magician. The music of Heaven And is inspired by the diverse music styles all conglomerated in our culture -- elements of the diverse musical styles from the last five decades are clearly discernible. Listening to the first track "As If A Star," one can make out a vast range of influences: a psychedelic backwards guitar cuts through the whirr of a cymbal reminiscent of jazz and trance music, while in the second half, a layer of guitar sounds hovers over it all, which reminds one of the sounds emanating from the Fender amps of the bands belonging to the so-called Americana movement. At the same time, the track comes across as an update of those stoic monster tracks of early '70s Krautrock. (And when it comes to minimalism, the bass line beats any of Holger Czukay's in terms of sparseness.) "Bring Back Those Happy Days" with its manic, almost exploding guitar and its rompish, hippie-like percussion orgy, is quite another cup of tea. Art Ensemble Of Chicago meets Keiji Haino? Or Pharoah Sanders meets Sonny Sharrock meets Boredoms?
Staubgold
CD
$16.25

Hess, Steven/Miles Tilmann
Departures
PS, US Vinyl only. Steven Hess (Pan American, Fessenden, Haptic and the Dropp Ensemble) and the experimental electronic composer Miles Tilmann (Consumer Research, Sub:Marine, Toytronic) come together to present Departures - their forthcoming vinyl-only release on Other Electricities. Hess creates a unique hybrid of improvised percussion and electronics, where Tilmann's deep bass tones and sublime waves of sound converse with Hess's intricate rhythms and textures: the sonic equivalent of a complex series of weather systems that assemble, unfold and disintegrate according to their own logic. Simultaneously intriguing and elusive through their manipulation of sound's depth of field, they successfully incorporate this often underused element, pressurizing shimmering pulses alongside chaotic decays. For Fans of: Fourtet/Kieren Hebden and Steven Reid, Andrew Pekler, Biosphere.
OtherElectricites-013
LP
$12.25

Hooker, D.R.
The Truth
PS, US One of the rarest U.S. psych albums, previously issued on CD by Subliminal Sounds, now in a beautiful and legit 180 gram vinyl LP reissue. The Truth, recorded in Connecticut in 1972, might very well be the ultimate North American acid rock album, ever. No hype here - just incredible music. Tempting as it is to exaggerate the worth of such obscurities, The Truth deserves every plaudit that comes its way, making it astonishing that there was no real band to speak of. Instead, ten musicians are credited alongside the mysterious Donald Hooker, who wrote, sang and played lead on the album. This is one of those albums that keeps revealing new depths even when you've played it a hundred times. Connecticut hippie-philosopher concocts homemade lounge-psych masterpiece. True psychedelia! Includes a poster in a limited edition of 500 copies.
SubliminalSounds
LP
$25.00

I Love Math
Getting to the Point Is Beside It
PS, US Includes frontman John Dufilho (DEATHRAY DAVIES, APPLES IN STEREO) & Philip Peeples (OLD 97s), among others. The sound is stripped-down, the songs are straightforward & to the point, & wouldn't be out of place next to Jonathan Richman, Yo La Tengo, vintage Kinks, & like-minded harmonizers the Everly Brothers.
Glurp!
CD
$13.00

It's Casual/Bullet Treatment
Split
PS, US This is sure to rip a hole in your woofer! All new & unreleased tracks! BULLET TREATMENT feat. members form ICARUS LINE, VULTURES UNITED & INSTED, w/ true So Cal hardcore. IT'S CASUAL is angry, old school punk w/ heavy distortion. They are clearing a path of destruction one show at a time.
BasementRecords
45
$5.50

Jennings, Mason
In the Ever (ON SALE)
PS, US VINYL VERSION.
Brushfire
LP
$13.75

Judge Bone & Doc Hill
Big Bear's Gate
PS, FINLAND Judge Bone, aka Tuomari Nurmio with his English-lyric debut for Bone Voyage Recording Co. Fierce rockin' and mean ol' shaman-blues from the deep, Deep North. Strange boogie-scratching guitar, a dark raspy voice, footstomps keepin' some strange sort of time, this album echoes from a wholly different point on the space-time continuum. Sweltering Americana and Blues from the perspective of a Finnish Rock & Roll Shaman. Tuomari Nurmio aka Judge Bone is a legend of Finnish Rock'n'Roll, one of the country's true originals. With his former albums, in his native language and spanning a broad musical scope, he has established himself as one of the most original singer-songwriters in Finland. His lyrics are filled with peculiar and arresting metaphors and expressions, some of which have made their way into the vernacular Finnish language. Big Bear's Gate is his English-sung debut for Bone Voyage, and finally, for the world outside of Finland. He's joined by drummer Markku Hillilä, who's profession is a doctor. So this makes Judge Bone & Doc Hill.
BoneVoyage
CD
$15.00

Justice Yeldham & The Dynamic Ribbon Device
Birthdays
PS, US Birthdays consists of two live sets by maverick amplified-glass player Justice Yeldham, recorded during his & Keg's recent tour of Europe. If you've never heard of the guy, you are in for a bloody treat. Using concert-grade piano contact mics, he amplifies a sheet of glass and plays it with his mouth and face, processing it with pedals attached to his belt, usually barefooted. The results are unworldly, and hearing it you would never imagine what created it, something an Aussie could especially achieve. Like careening assaults of insect spaceships, he transports the listener to other worlds of sound, ending most often in a crash of the glass upon his head. Mastered by the god-like Rasheed of Dubplates (Berlin), the record has been collaboratively released in an edition of 600 copies across the world.
Anarchymoon
LP
$14.25

Lee, Okkyung
I Saw The Ghost Of An Unknown Soul
PS, US Anyone who has seen and heard Korean improviser/composer Okkyung Lee blow collective minds with her supremely amazing cello noise, energy, vibration, friction and true sound feeling music knows that in a world of wild and mind-snapping improvisors, Okkyung is one of the most exciting players to arrive down the rocky road in some time. This LP contains some of her most deep and resonant, at once furious and hushed string, bow and wood music recorded to date. Beautiful and frightening, daring to be both." LP only.
EcstaticPeace
LP
$12.00

Leukers, Antonia
Hasenlove
PS, GERMANY Picture-Disc LP (limited 300). "Hasenlove" is the debut musical release of Hamburg visual artist Antonia Leukers. She's a founding member of "Institut Hasenbart", a 10-piece artist collective dedicated to a meta-scientific research of hares and related social, zoological and aesthetical phenomena in reference to the art world and pop culture. Leukers has previously created stitched, sewed and animated sculptures while casually growing cucumbers, working for a local in-vitro fertilization hospital and advising young people on erotic issues as a German Dr. Ruth for a popular Online magazine. Inspired by a journey to Island, hearing local travel guides spontaneously interweaving their narrations with sudden outbursts of folklore chanting and an encounter with Wolfgang Müller's (Die Tödliche Doris) strategy of transforming and combining his (pseudo-) scientific, documentary and social research into a musical and artistic performance she started to elaborate her fellow artist's lectures with musical renditions. As a passionate DIY home-recording artist she has soldered her own microphones, used cheap toy instruments, gameboys and minidisk recordings of kitchen sounds to create her very own bricolage comic universe. By recycling corny AOR mainstream Rock/Pop songs into some oddly disturbing and wonderfully weird rabbit love songs with newly made German lyrics and combining these with some truly strange original compositions (ranging from freeform collage to distorted techno to deranged singer/songwriter stuff), she has created a musical love story in 7 parts. Spiritually influenced by (though not really sounding alike) German "Neue Deutsche Welle" artists such as Der Plan and theatrical and surreal performance bands like The Residents her versions of popular love songs sound like a teenage/female Andrew Lloyd Webber on bad acid.
Dekorder-023
LP
$21.75

Lodger, The
Life is Sweet
PS, US Still filled with gorgeous melodies & catchy tunes, but is also deeper & more thoughtful, full of emotional peaks & valleys. Rather than just chip in w/ an album of "more of the same," they've paid extra attention to the arrangements, w/ 12-string & acoustic guitars, lap steel, & violin adding crucial detail & depth to the tunes. We don't know if it's something in the water or what, but England is fairly bursting with exciting guitar pop bands right now, and The Lodger are amongst the brightest hopes. Taking their cues from fellow northerners The Smiths and The Wedding Present, The Lodger's music is classic melodic pop, fueled by sparkling hooks and plangent lyrics. The tunes are sharp and timeless, a thoroughly modern distillation of great Britpop from the 60s right up to today.
Slumberland
CD
$14.25

Lodger, The
Life is Sweet
PS, US VINYL VERSION!!!
Slumberland
LP
$14.25

Mammatus
S-T
PS, US Named for the ominous clouds that are usually seen after the worst of a thunderstorm has passed, they are a lean sludge machine that shoots giant burritos (carne asada) from their instruments. They have no known enemies in the natural world and share symbiotic relationships with hamburgers, subgoths & dragons. Their album was mastered by a wizard so mighty he has no name. They assure you that his abilities far exceed those of any "terrestrial" engineer, for they send the tapes back in time to be woven w/ spells of the nameless one that were spoken of before rock could speak.
HolyMountain
LP
$16.00

Maquiladora
St. Cecilia's Drowning: Ritual Of Hearts & White Sands Revisited (DELAYED)
PS, SPAIN Maquiladora's create songs from a sense of place. Eric Nielsen, Bruce McKenzie and Phil Beaumont (with occasional guests of Black Heart Procession, Modest Mouse and The God Machine) approach music from all sides, a sound which conjures up moods of the deserts and oceans providing a landscape that is both familiar and remotely distant. Acuarela is pleased to release a new take on Maquiladora's early works on St. Cecilia's Drowning - White Sands And Ritual Of Hearts Revisited. A re-mastered collection of songs recorded between 1995 and 2002, including nine previously unreleased songs, which present a graceful invitation into the musical journey of this reclusive band. ERASING CLOUDS WHITE SANDS: 1. Prostitute Song // 2. Julian // 3.Happy Day // 4. Little Miss R. C. // 5. Ankle // 6. So Far Away // 7. Itchy Song // 8. Termez 1936 // 9. Mr. Grey // 10. Bueno Mis Amigos // 11. Cousin // Bonus Tracks: 12. Light of the Rain // 13. Itchy Song (Live at VPRO) // 14. 12 Steps // 15. A/part // 16. After All RITUAL OF HEARTS: 1. The Secret // 2. Ritual of Hearts // 3. Heaven // 4. Sweet Afton // 5. I'm In Love // 6. A Vow // 7. Sound Of Rain // 8. Dream Of Snakes // 9. Chinese Girl // 10. Avow // 11. She's More Beautiful To Me Than Water And Pure // 12. Static Hum // Bonus Tracks: 13. So Young // 14. Buddy // 15. Boatman's Mantra // 16. Mexico D.F.
Acuarela-1083
DCD
$16.00

Medium Medium
Hungry, So Angry
PS, UK Medium Medium were originally signed to Cherry Red in 1981 and were one of the first signings of then A&R man Mike Alway. The band's first single, Hungry, So Angry caused quite an immediate stir at club and alternative radio level, and created quite a buzz around the band. The single was picked up by alternative radio in the U.S. and featured for several weeks in the Billboard Alternative Top 50 chart. The band recorded one album for Cherry Red, The Glitterhouse which received consistently good reviews. However, the band broke up in 1983 but were not forgotten as 'Hungry, So Angry' has been used on many compilation CDs over the years, especially in the U.S. This overdue CD re-press consists of 15 tracks and also includes the very rare promo video of 'Hungry, So Angry; as an enhanced track.
CherryRed
CD
$17.00

Midnight Juggernauts
Dystopia
PS, US This Melbourne based band was described by Rolling Stone US as "David Bowie if his Berlin Trilogy was a collaboration w/ Kraftwerk & Faust." RAVE MAGAZINE: "Midnight Juggernauts are the dark horses of Australian electronica... On the surface, Midnight Juggernauts deal in much the same instantly-accessible synth pop of their contemporaries, but Dystopia is an album of hidden depths - surreal and eccentric, its thirteen tracks are washed over with a spacey, movie soundtrack-like atmosphere that suggests the early '80s output of Vangelis or John Carpenter... Poppy and inviting yet weird and abstract, Dystopia is the kind of album that invites multiple listens, and with any luck, will make international a-listers of Midnight Juggernauts."
Astralwerks
CD
$14.25

Mogwai
Young Team [expanded re-issue]
PS, UK Reissuing the brooding debut from legendary Scottish post-rock pioneers Mogwai may seem redundant to their obsessive collector fanbase, but there are treats within the second disc for devotees and newcomers alike. 'Young Team' itself is considered to be one of the more influential instrumental rock albums of the 1990s, documenting the band at their most violent and visceral. A stark example of the power of dynamics with rock instruments, but shot through with moments of darkness and quiet that are chilling rather than soothing. Re-issue includes the original album remastered and repackaged with an additional CD of bonus tracks including phenomenal live performances from T In The Park and Chemikal Underground's 5th Birthday Party; a BBC session version of "R U Still In 2 It?" featuring Aidan Moffat; a rare Spaceman 3 cover; a radio session track from WNYC and some other stuff.
ChemikalUnderground
DCD
$15.75

Mount Eerie
Black Wooden Ceiling Opening
PS, US Six songs on a white vinyl 10", plus a cd wrapped in a large poster. Half of the songs are never-before released, half are reinterpretations of previously released soft songs. The key to these new versions is the addtion of Kjetil Jenssen, the supernaturally gifted drummer from dark frozen northern Norway. Hard and loud.
P.W.Elverum&SunLtd
10
$14.25

My Morning Jacket
The Tennessee Fire
PS, US Gatefold double vinyl re-press limited to 1000. 142 gm, green and blue color vinyl 2xLP in gatefold sleeve with matte finish. Their fabulous debut album (1999). "Released to worldwide critical acclaim, The Tennessee Fire provides proof (200 proof) that heartfelt American music is alive and well and living in Kentucky. A must for anyone who loves the sound of Alt-country mixed with wide open spaces." -ALL MUSIC GUIDE. TRACK LISTING: 1. Heartbreakin Man 2. They Ran 3. The Bear 4. Nashville To Kentucky 5. Old September Blues 6. If All Else Fails 7. It's About Twilight Now 8. Evelyn Is Not Real 9. War Begun 10. Picture Of You 11. I Will Be There When You Die 12. The Dark 13. By My Car 14. Butch Cassidy 15. I Think I'm Going To Hell 16. Bonus track
Darla-089-1
DLP
$19.00

My Morning Jacket
At Dawn
PS, US Gatefold double vinyl re-press limited to 1000. 142 gm, red and gold color vinyl 2xLP in gatefold sleeve with matte finish. Their beloved second record (2001). "At Dawn has an Ineffable magic to it from start to finish, one that leads me to scour my brain for words that could describe something that sounds so special. Anytime a pop or rock song can give you chills, that's something. When a whole album can do it that's something else entirely." -POPMATTERS. TRACK LISTING: 1. At Dawn 2. Lowdown 3. The Way That He Sings 4. Death Is My Sleazy Pay 5. Hopefully 6. Bermuda Highway 7. Honest Man 8. X-mas Curtain 9. Just Because I Do 10. If It Smashes Down 11. I Needed It Most
12. Phone Went West 13. Strangulation 14. Bonus track.
Darla-111-1
DLP
$19.00

Norman, Larry
Anthology
PS, US Norman was the church boy holding his own in the decadent world of rock music, an insubordinate jester w/a rebellious streak that stretched out long before the birth of punk, & a performer whose raw energy, spiritual force, & playful wit made him the endearing rock icon he is today. A man unfairly saddled w/the hefty burden of the "father of Christian rock," yet he is a singer whose defiant lyrics & actions were shunned by the church-going status quo. "Anthology" compiles the most loved recordings of the recently deceased & dearly missed Larry Norman.
ArenaRock
CD
$14.75

Odd Nosdam
Pretty Swell Explode
PS, US This inimitable producer returns with an enhanced 2-disc collection (one album, one EP) of remixes, B-sides, videos, & original songs, incl. 8 tracks entirely exclusive to this set. Here Nosdam compiles the odds & ends created mostly around his last two fulllengths (2005's Burner and last year's Level Live Wires), as well as a few choice gems from bygone days. Accompanying these blasted sounds are 3 videos, also incl. a hidden unreleased version of Nosdam's Lee Perry-inspired "Upsetter."
Anticon
DCD
$15.75

O'Neil, Tara Jane
Bones
PS, AUSTRALIA New album from Lousiville, Kentucky born Tara Jane ONeil, released worldwide by Australia's Preservation label. After playing bass with Rodan, pioneers of post-rock and post-hardcore, the long-respected and much-lauded ONeil has formed bands like The Sonora Pine and Retsin and has collaborated with Sebadoh, Papa M, Come, Low, and Ida. ONeil records all over the US, from ballrooms in Louisville, apartments in New York to rural cabins. Similarly, there's a wandering spirit to her music, her songs an engaging mixture of folk, pop, ambience and electronic sounds, tropicana and melodies that span references from Joni Mitchell to Brian Eno. Bones is a collection featuring new material from ONeil, often at her most stripped back and full of her raw, alluring essence. Her delicate, vivid acoustic guitar playing is the highlight here, along with her enigmatic vocals floating over tracks fleshed out with airy layers of strings and piano. Others showcase her burgeoning interest in electronica and found sounds, which become hypnotic instrumentals. Bones is rounded off with a few rarities, including two tracks from a recent vinyl single and her sublime acoustic reading of "High Wire".
Preservation-004
CD
$15.00

Pants, James
Welcome
PS, US Mr. Pants is a purveyor par excellence of that unmistakable "fresh beat": 80's Soul, Electro Boogie, Early Hip-Hop, New Wave, & Post-Punk Disco, all of which can be found on this where James plays drums, keys, guitar & sings.
StonesThrow
CD
$16.00

Pilot Ships
There Should Be An Entry
PS, US Low (as in lonesome) nights, starry skies, cool breezes with the windows open. Soundtracks days you wish didn't exist, but do; presenting a hopeful face that hides inner pain. Pilot Ships is Cheree Jetton (BEES ARE BLACK), Chris & Mike Linnen (MONROE MUSTANG), & Brian McBride (STARS OF THE LID).
BlueSanct
CD
$10.75

Pilot Ships
Limits Of Painting & Poetry
PS, US Long delayed, much anticipated release from Cheree Jetton (BEES ARE BLACK), Chris & Mike Linnen (MONROE MUSTANG), & Brian McBride (STARS OF THE LID). "like an old psychology text written in a foriegn language, the Pilot Ships operate the thin, grainy line demarcationg cognition and mystery." Austin Chronicle
BlueSanct
CD
$10.75

Pita
Get Out
PS, US Originally released in 1999 on the Mego label. Out-of-print for over half a decade, this new edition is remastered & packaged in a 6 panel digipack & incl. 3 extra tracks which appeared on the split 12'' w/ KEVIN DRUMM released by BOXmedia in 2000. Both restive & restless, orchestral & abrasive, this is the high water mark of laptop noise experimentation & it will absolutely scramble your brain.
EditionsMego
CD
$18.00

Pop Culture Press
#66
PS, US On the cover: Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds. Also Nada Surf, Fleshtones, British Sea Power, Drive-By Truckers, Bob Mould, & American Music Club. On the CD: The Lackloves, South, Matt Keating & more
ZINE
$4.50

Ratti, Nicola
From the Desert Came Saltwater
PS, US Italian-born multi-instrumentalist and architect, Nicola Ratti, presents his debut for Anticipate. Nicola's music can best be described as warm, subtractive rock, whereby he reduces guitar figures and piano passages into quiet explorations of the hidden corners of an otherwise familiar sound. Guitars twang with slight and spacious percussion and softly hushed (occasional) vocals and atmospheric twinkles congeal into a carefully-composed re-imagining of music. In terms of situating this album in the context of modern electroacoustic music, Nicola uses more natural effects treatments, shying away from fragmentation and processing, which obscures the inherent character of the instruments. Rather, he uses these processes to add depth and subtly tease out the hidden sonorities of his tools of choice, re-composing them and adding atmospherics along the way. By taking advantage of electronic production approaches, Nicola reworks something which is imminently accessible into an album which adds new levels of intangibility -- turning a classic and subdued sound into a future-minded extension, using the acoustics of field recordings and found sounds as instruments in their own right and allowing the harmonies between object and instrument to become more fully-realized. Dynamic and well-balanced, the album maneuvers through full, layered sequences into spare moments of near silence and back again with ease. It isn't a loud-quiet dichotomy, but rather, skillfully placed areas of intimacy. Nicola segues from droning strings and almost invisible vocals to subtly uplifting chords in an almost unnoticeable transition. From the Desert Came Saltwater is an album that sneaks up on the listener -- disappearing and also taking hold without missing a breath. With one solo album on Megaplomb, a handful of single tracks and remixes, and a recent collaboration with producer and engineer Giuseppe Ielasi, Nicola is defined by the excellence of his craft.
Anticip
CD
$14.25

Raven
Back to Ohio Blues
PS, US Official master tapes, self-released reissue of this unknown hard rock/pre-punk Ohio LP from 1975 (previously reissued and long gone on the Rockadelic label). "The Back to Ohio Blues LP by Raven (that's one man's pseudonym, not a band name) might be the ultimate non-commercial '70s American rock record, unintentionally putting the most ardent anarchist punk bands to shame." -hit-fi.com
Owl
CD
$8.50

Residents, The
Eskimo [expanded re-issue]
PS, US In 1979 punk was all the rage. This set the Eyeballs spinning off into their own imaginary world of 6 month nights, marimbas made of frozen fish & Eskimo sex lives-- the result is one of the most unique musical experiences in the history of recorded music
Mute
DCD
$21.00

Residents, The
Duck Stab [expanded re-issue]
PS, US Taking a break from their usual experimental, noisy sound, this was their answer to one reviewer's sentiment that kids won't listen to their music because they can't dance to it. Released in 1978, it was an instant hit & is often thought of as the ulitmate Residents album. Re-issue details forthcoming.
Mute
DCD
$21.00

Ribot, Julien
Vega
PS, FRANCE A luxurious 24 page book edition. Julien Ribot has always loved both music and image. At the end of the nineties he was a professional illustrator. He had always composed from his early years on for his own pleasure and out of a natural need related to his being a man of many ideas... The triggering event was the meeting with a Japanese pop star seeking new songs for her new LP. He wrote her two songs and met a few people in the small French pop world. As the buzz around his mysterious personality increased, Julien Ribot gave up his job in order to devote himself entirely to music. He released his first LP Hôtel Bocchi at the end of 2001. On top of having Françoiz Breut's participation, he was surrounded on some tracks by Dionysos or Katrine, who helped him enjoy a pleasant succès d'estime. As a pianist and a singer he has been influenced (among others) by Mike Garson (one of Bowie's musicians) and Gérard Jouannest (who worked with French singer Jacques Brel). He also drew his inspiration for his second LP from graphic worlds belonging to David Lynch, Roland Topor or Tim Burton.
Icid'Ailleurs-040
CD
$17.25

Salas, Mikel
Bajo Las Estrellas (Beneath The Stars)
PS, SPAIN Acuarela releases the original soundtrack of "Bajo las estrellas" [Under the stars] Félix Viscarret's debut film (2008 Goya* for best Adapted Screenplay), starring Alberto San Juan (2008 Goya for best Actor) and nominated for best Soundtrack music by Mikel Salas with twilight western instrumentation. Surprising bonus track by Flamenco big star, Enrique Morente, who sings the standard classic "Stella by Starlight." *Goya is the equivalent of the Oscars for films in Spanish language. "Bajo las estrellas" starts, and we hear a ukulele, a xylophone; suddenly it bursts a fun rogue melody, with an ubiquitous banjo and a persistent rhythm, as if we were traveling in a ramshackle bus. We are entering the impossible city of Estella (in Navarra, Spain), more imaginary than real, a world fraught with losers who cling to any chance of leading a more 'normal' life. Mikel Salas' music is that of iron, scrap metal and abandoned caravans, rusting, with twilight western instrumentation and lo-fi sound, a succession of instrumental landscapes, almost borderline abstractions that travel along with Benito Lacunza (actor Alberto San Juan) in his journey towards happiness, to the possibility of a remote happiness. In previous conversations between the director and the musician, it was much-discussed Daniel Lanois, and, above all, his album "Shine". Félix Viscarret says that Mikel Salas likes to get into a project before even shooting. But the proper 'revelation' came when "Mikel faced the first editing of the film. That's when we started talking about road music for our peculiar road movie à la navarra, an industrial western, the redemption story of an embarrassment guy, Benito Lacunza, who's going to show us that behind his dirty appearance lies someone with a huge heart." This is Acuarela's first published soundtrack. But it's also almost like any other release this label has got us used to. Almost folk, dark but flooded by rare cracks of light, intimate, warm, sometimes funny and sometimes bleak. Mikel Salas has written and recorded (by himself) the sound of how is traveling on roads filled with dust, deep into the mists of the north, or bordering small towns. And to conclude the record, a surprise: the voice of Enrique Morente and his amazing, magical version of Victor Young's standard "Stella by Starlight, filling the sky with stars.
Acuarela-1080
CD
$13.50

Scorch Trio, The
Brolt
PS, NORWAY This is the third full-length release from New York's free-spirited power trio, Scorch Trio: Raoul Björkenheim (electric guitar), Ingebrigt Håker Flaten (electric bass and electronics), Paal Nilssen-Love (drums and percussion). As with their previous albums Scorch Trio and Luggumt, Brolt is an old school analog recording -- the band set up in one room, instruments and amps miked with vintage microphones, playing live and recording to analog multi-track tape with no overdubs and editing and then mixing down to quarter-inch analog tape. There's a slightly different vibe to Brolt than that of its predecessors, maybe caused by the change of studio or the fact that they specifically set out to make it more of an ensemble recording where all instruments are treated equally. They went into the studio straight after a short, but very hectic tour of Europe and Japan, which may explain the more loose, live feel of many of the tracks. Björkenheim was raised on Hendrix, Zappa and rock music before he discovered Miles, Coltrane, Mingus and Eric Dolphy. He has written film scores and orchestral music and recorded with Bill Laswell, Henry Kaiser, Jah Wobble, Peter Erskine, Paul Schütze, Mats Gustafsson and others. Håker Flaten is a member of The Thing, Atomic, School Days and Free Fall and has his own quintet. He has played with Edvard Vesala, Krakatau and Tony Oxley and many others. Nilssen-Love is the most profiled player on the Norwegian jazz scene. A member of The Thing, School Days, Frode Gjerstad Trio, Atomic and several others, the two most important things for him are energy and creative freedom -- both vital ingredients in the Scorch Trio musical vocabulary.
RuneGrammafon
CD
$16.25

Sirhan Sirhan
Blood
PS, US West Coast (San Diego, hmm) heaviosity, think Melvins meets Black Flag.
Anodyne
CD
$13.00

Small Cities
S-T
PS, US Three friends from the Twin Cities playing well-crafted songs with nostalgic storylines & infectious refrains. The modest 3 piece outfit earned their wings in other Minneapolis bands like Wes Burdine & The Librarians & by swimming in at least three of Minnesota's ten thousand lakes.
CommonCloud
CD5
$6.00

Spiritualized
Songs in A&E [regular CD version]
PS, US Sixth studio album is an 18 track opus partially inspired by Jason's hospitalization. Songs in A&E finds Mr. Spaceman in minimalist mode, backed by his Acoustic Mainline idealism and arranged thusly: a gospel quartet, a string section, an electric piano and acoustic guitar. THE ONION A.V. CLUB: "Songs In A&E is Pierce's best work since Ladies And Gentlemen We Are Floating In Space-and easily his most personal. While Pierce's haunting hymns have always been rooted in simplicity, most Spiritualized records have buried them under layers of feedback or gauzy stratosphere. Songs strips them down to their vulnerable core, with Pierce's voice sounding unnervingly ragged on confessionals like "Death Take Your Fiddle," backed by a mournful choir and the morbid whooshing of a ventilator. But even for an album whose final words are "funeral home" (on the heartbreaking eulogy "Goodnight, Goodnight"), there's still plenty of uplift, from the Can-esque freak-blues of "I Gotta Fire" and "Yeah Yeah" to the gospel sing-along of "Soul On Fire," which boasts one of the most stirring choruses Pierce has ever written. Death has never sounded so alive."
Spaceman/Universal
CD
$12.25

Steinski
What Does It All Mean? 1983-2006
PS, US Steinski has produced a variety of tracks & this Illegal Art retrospective collects everything from his hip-hop narrative about
the Kennedy assassination to the 1998 remix of Afrika Bambaataa's "Jazz" with Double Dee. Besides the completist archive, the release will also includes the critically acclaimed "Nothing To Fear: A Rough Mix," an hour-long mashup that was produced for Solid Steel/BBC London, described by Salon as, "the closest thing to a masterpiece the genre has yet produced" and perhaps the most obvious precursor (along with The Lessons) to Girl Talk's Night Ripper.
IllegalArt
DCD
$16.75

Sun Ra All Stars
Zurich, West Berlin, Paris (5XCD)
PS, US 5 complete concerts from Milan, Zurich, West Berlin and Paris during the autumn of 1983. Featuring SUN RA, LESTER BOWIE (Art Ensemble of Chicago), DON CHERRY, MARSHALL ALLEN (Arkestra), JOHN GILMORE (Arkestra), ARCHIE SHEPP, PHILLY JOE JONES (Miles Davis Quintet), and more!
Transparency-311
CD-BOX
$40.50

Tape
Luminarium
PS, SWEDEN This is the eagerly-awaited fourth album from the Stockholm-based trio of Tape, comprised of Andreas and Johan Berthling and Tomas Hallonsten. Taking cues both from pop, experimentalism and minimalism, Tape's sound has become recognized internationally and is clearly unique. Their first album Opera was released on the Häpna imprint (Johan is a co-owner) in 2002. Working intuitively, all by themselves, they created mini-symphonies out of electronic sounds paired with a stunning melodic lyricism. With an array of electronic and acoustic instruments at hand, they recorded at a small stone barn on the island of Öland, east of Sweden. 2003 saw the release of Milieu, recorded at the very same barn. These recordings had a more arranged feeling and a clear pop sensibility in some parts. In 2005, they went to Cologne to have Marcus Schmickler produce and record their third album, Rideau. This was done in his Piethopraxis studio and his involvement left traces; an almost architectonical approach was taken and some of the intimacy that characterized the first two albums were replaced by a harder edge. This new album is a luminarium of sound where past and present merge at the speed of light. A world which lets itself be sensed, not known; the first light of your rosy-fingered youth; birches and concrete, touch and go.
Hapna-042
CD
$16.25

Torche
Meanderthal
PS, US Copious hooks abound & psychedelic swarms of drone weave throughout riff-wizardry on vinyl.
RoboticEmpire
LP
$18.75

Ueno
Sui-Gin
PS, AUSTRALIA Ueno, along with his partner Saya, is one of the core members of Tenniscoats, who've released a number of fantastic discs of straight up melodic to the core sing-songing joy. 2007 saw the release of Tenniscoat's 'Totemo Aimasho' for ROOM40 and 'Tan Tan Therapy' for Häpna/Headz. In addition to his contributions to the Tenniscoats mothership, Ueno has released a string of solo releases, most of which explore his engaging approach to the guitar. 'Two Things Always Happen Simultaneously' released in 2003 on Majikick as a cdr and then re-issued two years later as a 'proper' Cd on Commune-Disc lays the foundations. Whilst it is more explicitly a guitar record than what goes down on Sui-Gin, the Fahey-esque finger-picking that would otherwise plant him firmly within the Takoma school (Ueno's cat is not called 'Fahey' without reason) is willfully offset by Ueno's technique of recording multiple overdubs without recourse to the original. There might be a little of that on 'Sui-Gin' (Japanese for mercury), too. Either way, there is an ongoing slippage between intention and accident in the complex mesh of notes, and Ueno sends himself further away from any superficial 12-string Tacoma purism by plugging his guitar into a moog ring-mod and completing erasing its original sound. What you hear on 'sui-gin' is 9 tracks of alien beauty that sit somewhere between Derek Bailey and Mouse on Mars' 'Instrumentals' lp. Takashi Ueno plays 12 string acoustic guitar & Moog ring modulator. "For an instrument that when presented solo often brings to mind a clutter of reference points, Ueno Takashi's playing is stubbornly his own and (((hasunosu))) suggests we are hearing but the first offerings of an increasingly vital proponent of contemporary Japanese guitar composition." Signal To Noise.
Room40-428
CD
$15.00

Various
Radio Myanmar
PS, US This is a special opportunity for listeners to delve behind the headlines & into the airwaves; to hear for themselves the sounds, rhythms, & voices of urban Burma's radio experience, unfiltered by the international press or state-spokesmen. Due in part to the near-blackout of all foreign music on state airwaves, the few FM stations that do exist in Yangon & Bago divisions, transmit a rather bizarre assortment of music from 7am to 9pm: synth ballads, hip-hop jingles, & internationally popular songs re-recorded in Burmese. This release also feat. assorted tracks recorded between 1994-2002, highlighting many wonderfully strange
& beautiful pop, folk, & classical music styles
Sublime
CD
$16.25

Various
Let's Ride: 20 Popsike Excursions from the UK & Europe, Fairytakes Can Come True Volume 3.
VA: Let's Ride: 20 Popsike Excursions from the UK & Europe CD (PC 7022CD). ...Fairytakes Can Come True Volume 3. The Psychic Circle label has visited this Neverland twice before, and due to the great response, they're going back for yet another trip. This time you'll meet a suitably freaked-out Irish showband, an American band transported to Paris, a family band from Fulham, a Scottish supergroup in the making, plus a whole lot more. The many-hued charabanc is fuelled and ready to depart. Climb aboard, wrap your paisley travel rugs around your vertically-striped hipsters and Let's Ride. Compiled by legendary psych musician and Psychic Circle label-head, Nick Saloman (The Bevis Frond). Artists include: Sight & Sound, Winston G, Hubert Thomas Valverde & The HTs, Royalty, Les Irresistibles, Stoics, Grand Union, Barry Benson, Graham Bonney, Katch 22, My Kind Of People, Mike Batt, The Chanters, Des James, Unit 4 + 2, Tony Hazzard, The Newmens, Dave Christie, White Lining and Equip 84.
PsychicCircle-7022
CD
$16.25

Various
Lo Dubs Presents Analog Clash, Mixed By 6Blocc
PS, US Lo Dubs is pleased to present Analog Clash, our first Compact Disc, mixed by LA's 6Blocc, and destined to become the Rosetta stone of the Dubstep sound emanating from all regions of the Americas. From Toronto by way of DZ, Bombaman, XI, and the Doom metal group Nadja (Remixed by Vex'd, an exclusive to this release), to Venezuela via Pachecko and Cardopusher, and back to the middle with Philadelphia's own Starkey and the mighty South3rn of Texas, all the earth encompassing the two continents is represented in a release that may very well be the first of it's kind to represent the movement on this side of the pond. As a mix, 6Blocc has demonstrated once again his ability to thrill, compiling a hour-plus recording that weaves through Lo Dubs diverse list of releases, in addition to a host of unheard recordings, many of which will be featured on 12"s in their own right in the months following the CD release, thus continuing the cross pollination process. As a bonus, included is a second disc, containing every Lo Dubs release to date, in full CD audio format, mastered to perfection. This will be THE ONLY WAY any Lo Dubs releases will be available in such a high quality digital format, a point which will be made clear in all aspects of promoting this release. Key points of blag/boast: *Multitude of exclusive tunes, including a remix of the ultra prolific group know as Nadja, Remixed by the one and only Vex'd, and Solvent, known via releases on Ghostly, suction, etc. *Full color, highly evocative artwork, packaged as a 2CD jewel case. Front sticker explaining release, exclusivity. *6Blocc just returned to LA, having just blazed a trail of over 30 dates throughout Western/Eastern Europe, playing many of these tracks on Dub Plate to huge response. *the only way digital DJ's will be able to procure these tracks in digital .wav form is this release, period. *full color posters and postcards. Full press blitz in the works. No dizzah. CD1: 6blocc DJ Mix 1: DZ Feat. Awaken Lion - Chalice Dub 2: Starkey - Dementia 3: Nadja - Alien In My Own Skin (Vex'd V.I.P. RMX) 4: Solvent - Think Like Us (Bombaman RMX) 5: XI - G Funk-3000 6: DZ/XI - Guns at Dawn 7: South3rn - Fully Loaded 8: DZ - That Bongo Dub 9: Hoodz - Clash 10: Pacheko - Bi Polar Bear 11: Pacheko - Bi Polar Bear (Starkey RMX) 12: Pacheko - Tryouts 13: Pacheko - Tryouts (Cardopusher RMX) 14: 6blocc - Give the DJ a Break 2008 15: Cardopusher - Milk Thistle 16: XI - Lucky 17: South3rn - Mangione Tribe Dub CD2: Unmixed CD audio tracks 1. Starkey - Dementia 2. LOSBUD1207002 A 3. LOSBUD1207002 B 4. South3rn - Mangione Tribe Dub 5. South3rn - La Rana 6. Solvent - Think Like Us (RMX) . Bombaman - Rise Against 8. LOSBUD1208004 A 9. DZ Feat. Awaken Lion - Chalice 10. DZ - That Bongo Dub 11. South3rn - Fully Loaded 12. South3rn - Muslim Dub.
LoDubs-1208001
DCD
$12.25

Vegetable Orchestra, The
Remixed
PS, ITALY The Vegetable Orchestra are from Vienna and they use musical instruments made out of vegetables: using carrot flutes, pumpkin basses, leek violins, leek-zucchini vibrators, cucumberophones and celery bongos, the orchestra creates its own extraordinary and vegetable sound universe. The ensemble overcomes preserved and marinated sound conceptions or tirelessly re-stewed listening habits, putting its focus on expanding the variety of vegetable instruments, developing novel musical ideas and exploring fresh vegetable sound gardens. The music represents an isomorphism of electronic music and the structure of the sounds produced by the vegetables. The concept of this remix project is the interpretation and reconstruction of electronic music with organic means by using the original vegetable sounds and samples. Karmarouge Records has invited well-respected international artists such as Ricardo Villalobos, Luciano, Gabriel Ananda, Frank Martiniq, Oliver Hacke, Märtini Brös, Anja Schneider, Basteroid and Sian to take part and create their individual vegetable sound interpretation. Armed with vegetable samples, a sequencer and a hand-held blender, it's up to them to show the world how to brew a large portion of minimal techno out of ginger, leek and onions, how to buzz the pumpkin bass and cook a delicate celery soup. Listen to the vegetables!
Karmarouge
CD
$16.25

Velvet Cacoon
Genevieve
PS, US LIMITED to 1500. Double LP set w/ thick inner sleeves. "...luxurious wordplay back in hand, laced to the nines in immaculate decadence, the late Oregon fold, life on a grey seacoast, snowsailing into the deep December lavender of a heartbeat's cadence, drinking grenache, over & over, grenache grenache grenache, spiced lacquer coating in the fade of dusk, passages from "A Rebours", manic laughter at old art & new vignettes, music of the sea, stars, drugs, dreams, soft nothingness treasured, & after much delay we have finally started recording the new album."
SouthernLord
DLP
$21.50

Venus
Summer 2008
PS, US Hip Hop issue with Missy Elliott on the cover. Also featuring Zooey Deschanel, Kim Gordon, Santogold, and Erykah Badu. Features include: 10 Artists to Watch, World's Quirkiest Music Joints and more.
ZINE
$4.25

Walter Meego
Voyager
PS, US Justin Sconza & Colin Yarck, the heart & soul (respectively) of the group, are two rare suburban white boys who intuitively understand the subliminal power of synthy, salacious bass. Effervescent pop is their specialty, & it flies out of speakers like a Pegasus riding a cheetah. Truth is, it's a happy coincidence that the sound comes out of these two guys from Chicago. More than anything they're worshippers of the 'alternative pop years' between 1988 & 1994. ALL MUSIC GUIDE: "Chicago dance-pop duo Walter Meego have a bright and shiny sound that places them firmly on the "daft" end of the daft punk spectrum. Their debut album, Voyager, is 40 minutes of fat synths, shimmering vocoders, jumpy beats, and glittering hooks that will have you in a post-disco narcotic haze of happiness by the end."
AlmostGold
CD
$13.25

Winning
Could We Believe In Magic?
PS, CANADA Vancouver trio, Winnings sophomore full length is as dour and uncomfortable as it is playful. Its a paradigm sprouted from the seed of improvisation, but nurtured from a dark and claustrophobic sentiment. Structurally, Could We Believe In Magic? has it's hands in a variety of extremes. It runs the gamut, from an apparent abandonment of traditional tempo and structure, to, at least comparatively, more conventional composition. Last year's, This Is An For Cigarettes, Winning's debut album, was a tangled and puzzling foray into rocks most experimental corners, abandoning rhythm, and structure almost completely; Only Magazine called it ...a clumsy acrobatic act beneath the Big Top of punk rock. And Magic is, no doubt, a logical continuation of such acrobatics; the most notable difference being much larger occurrences of coherency. Melody and structure are gestured at; sometimes completed, and sometimes spun quickly out of control. One may assume that these moments of melody (are we bold enough to call them 'choruses?'), would smooth out Winning's cumbersome disposition. But it is arguable that the exact opposite is true. Much like how one warm day will make the cold ones feel colder; these moments create a reference point for normalcy. The pop insinuations on Magic are equally as baffling as the free structured ones.
Ache-037
CD
$13.25

WRNLRD
Oneiromantical War
PS, US Working with guitar, bass, fiddle, banjo, synths & samples; Wrnlrd throws metal, industrial, noise, dark ambient & folk musics into a blackened & bubbling cauldron. Wrnlrd records spontaneous, wordless vocalizations & details the lyrics later, improvises massed guitar tones, buries samples deep into the mix & brings the disruptive & unpredictable elements of improvisation & chance into recording. ONE TIME PRESSING OF 500 on 180 gram vinyl in a gatefold jacket with metallic ink artwork. Comes with digital download code.
FlingcoSoundSystem-01
LP
$21.75

Forthcoming Releases

1900s, The
Everybody's Got A Collection (PRE-ORDER: SALEABLE MAY 2008)
NO PS, US New 7" vinyl phonograph single from Chicago psych-pop troupe, featuring two non-album tracks. White wax, black jacket, real posh.
Parasol-039
45
$3.50

Abe Vigoda
Skeleton (PRE-ORDER: SALEABLE JULY 8TH)
PS, US This is a twisted joy ride through the four boys' private party. Soothing parts that remind you of Captain Beefheart & My Bloody Valentine, or some punk w/ a haunting reggaeton pulse that makes you move. When the record is done after a little more than 30 mins., you are left feeling that there is something they are trying to tell you, on second listen it smacks you in the face.
PostPresentMedium
CD
$11.50

Action Biker
Hesperian Puisto (PRE-ORDER: SALEABLE JUNE 24TH)
PS, SWEDEN It really is time for Action Biker's first solo album! It has now been six years since she emerged as an artist doing fun and popular live shows and releasing CD-R's in the indie pop scene of Gothenburg, Sweden, which included people like Jens Lekman and The Honeydrips. Since then, Sarah Nyberg Pergament has been involved in other projects, such as Flow Flux Clan, Kissing Mirrors and The Dreamers, whose record "Day For Night" has received great acclaim from different places around the world. Over the years, Sarah has also performed lots of Action Biker shows (some, as an opening act for Le Tigre and The Embassy), contributed to recordings with Lars Blek (The Field), Differnet and The Honeydrips, and all this time, new recordings with Action Biker have popped up on compilations and singles. In brief, when "Hesperian Puisto" finally is released, it means the début of someone with a lot of experienceŠ The record is named after the Hesperian park in Helsinki, Finland, where Sarah lived for a while. She describes her music as baroque on synthesizers. It is pop music built on complex naivety - altogether very accessible music with distinct vocals and a crispy, sweet, analogue sound. Two great-looking videos are also included on the CD. References and Influences: Young Marble Giants, Broadcast, Dislocation Dance, Moondog, Virna Lindt, BBC Radiophonic Workshop, Antena, Francoise Hardy, Saint Etienne, Brian Eno, Ghost Box, Stereolab, Fred Astaire, Maurice Ravel, ESG, Komeda, Cluster, Flying Lizards, Syd Barrett, The Passions, St Christopher, John Barry, Can, Human League, Colleen, Marine Girls, Eric Dolphy, Telex, George Delerue, The Wake, Kraftwerk, Lori & The Chameleons, Differnet.
FriendlyNoise-69
CD
$13.50

Anniversary
Devil On Our Side: B-Sides and Rarities (PRE-ORDER: SALEABLE JUNE 24TH)
PS, US Posthumous from the 5-piece Lawrence, KS group. A two disc set
featuring tons of rarities, b-sides, compilation tracks and more.
Vagrant
DCD
$13.75

Architecture In Helsinki
Like it or Not EP (PRE-ORDER: SALEABLE JULY 8TH)
PS, US The Australian sextet is back with their 3rd single from their critically lauded new album Places Like This. The band has been on a tear since the album's release in fall of 2007, selling over 25,000 copies in the US in under a year. On top of that, they made their debut on the Billboard charts in the first week of release, peaked at #3 on the CMJ Top 200, and sold out several clubs nationwide on their fall 2007 tour. With the Like It or Not EP, the band finally records "One Heavy February" and "Beef in Box," which are two long-time crowd favorites from their live shows, to accompany the single version of "Like It or Not". To top it off there is a "Like It or Not" remix by one of 2008 biggest buzz bands, El Guincho.
Polyvinyl-157
CD5
$7.25

Au
Verbs (PRE-ORDER: SALEABLE JUNE 24TH)
PS, US Sophomore record from acclaimed Portland experimental pop collective, which, in its swirling depths and subtleties, promises to be one of this year's most satisfying surprises. Verbs is padded out with contributions from nearly thirty collaborators, a list which includes members of YELLOW SWANS, PARENTHETICAL GIRLS, and EVOLUTIONARY JASS BAND, among many others-inadvertently resulting in a strange & singular snapshot of the city's. famously sprawling musical community. The resulting record seamlessly segues through new & unlikely ecstatic extremes with an arresting economy.
Aagoo
CD
$12.00

Band In Box
This Fiction (PRE-ORDER: SALEABLE JUNE 10TH)
PS, UK Debut album from Swedish act featuring members of Buren.
StereoTestKit
CD
$12.25

Be Gulls
By the Beach (PRE-ORDER: SALEABLE JUNE 3RD)
PS, US VINYL VERSION!!!
Rad
LP
$14.25

Be Gulls
By the Beach (PRE-ORDER: SALEABLE JUNE 3RD)
PS, US Sweeping and soaring music from the folks from LITTLE WINGS.
Rad
CD
$14.25

Beach Boys, The
U.S. Singles Collection Box [deluxe limited edition] (PRE-ORDER: SALEABLE JUNE 10TH)
PS, US 16 CDs! Super Deluxe Edition features recreations of the first 16 singles of the Beach Boys Catalog (1962-65), including accurate reproductions of the original sleeves and labels. Packaged in a board-wrapped, telescoping box featuring a retro chrome appliance sticker, and a variety of textures including gloss & rubber coatings, inlaid wood veneer and a foil stamp. 48 -page casebound photo book with 8 vellum pages is wrapped in mock sand. Accordion-folding credits folder. C-shaped card with titles, legal lines and barcode wraps over top, back and bottom of box under shrinkwrap.
Capitol
CD-BOX
$131.00

Black Sun Ensemble
Across the Sea of Id: The Way to Eden (PRE-ORDER: SALEABLE JULY 8TH)
PS, US Quite possibly the final BSE release after an illustrious career of nearly 25 years. It marks a return to the beloved semi-acoustic style of their first few releases, and also - due to public demand! - contains no vocals. It is a mixture of new readings of past tracks & new compositions. The new material offers a singular, dreamy vision of BSE's potentially final works. The two title tracks, Across the Sea of Id and Eden Song, are reflective, yet hallucinatory explorations into Jesus Acedo's unique compositional & melodic sensibility. While Angel de la Guardia has a refined yet explosive rock swagger, it is balanced by the meditation Perelandra & La Paz. The CD also contains a video of the band performing the signature BSE piece "Dove of the Desert"
CameraObscura
CD
$14.00

Blackshaw, James
Litany of Echoes (PRE-ORDER: SALEABLE JUNE 17TH)
PS, US Blackshaw's 6th studio album in 5 years, shows a more mature, focused and accessable. Featuring Blackshaw adding some glistening piano work for the first time and Fran Bury returning to play sweeping string parts.
TompkinsSquare
CD
$15.00

Blood Music
Don Quite (PRE-ORDER: SALEABLE JUNE 3RD)
PS, SWEDEN Second album from former First Floor Power dude Karl-Jonas Winqvist, the follow-up to 'Sing A Song Fighter!', his charming fizz-pop debut. 'Don Quite' features guest appearances by James Huggins (Of Montreal), Lars Skoglund (Laakso), Sara Wilson (First Floor Power, Andreas Söderström (Ass), Leo Svensson (The Tiny) and Simone Rubi (Rubies). Lilting pop for fans of the coony, orchestral-pop sounds of Jens Lekman and Sufjan Stevens. The electric sound of joy, indeed. More on this when it arrives...
MakeItHappen
CD
$15.00

Brother Kite, The/Plumerai
Split (PRE-ORDER: SALEABLE JUNE 10TH)
PS, US Track Listing: Plumerai "Vacant Eyes". The Brother Kite "We Can Never Be Friends". LIMITED to 500 copies. Clear vinyl in see-thru package. An idea hatched during the recording of Plumerai's "Without Number" CD out on Silber Records. The thought was to strip away the pedals and even electricity and release a record that would simultaneously draw upon the band's ability to evoke emotions and utilize one of the band's noted strengths; the intimacy and power of Elizabeth Ezell's voice. After consideration they sought out The Brother Kite to record a track for the flipside. A Clairecords staple and another top-notch New England band known for their shoegaze influences, they seemed like a perfect match for the concept of stripping down their sound and writing an acoustic track.. Plumerai's "Vacant Eyes" relies more heavily on orchestration and layering of instruments such as acoustic guitar, reed organ, violin (arranged and performed by Clara Kebabian) and bells to accompany Ezell. While The Brother Kite's "We Can Never Be Friends" is a more basic track with acoustic guitars and a catchy vocal melody carrying the song. This stunning and beautiful record comes on coke bottle-clear vinyl and is limited to 500 copies.
Clairecords-077
45
$5.25

Brown Bird
Bottom of the Sea (PRE-ORDER: SALEABLE JULY 1ST)
PS, US Dark Americana trio have brought subtly disturbing lyrics dressed in soothing harmonies to those who will listen since 2003. Their sound ranges from simple sea-shanty style folk to complex counterpoints with an Eastern European flavor. Their influences of indie, classical, and old american hymns rise and fall within their songs like whitecaps on a dark and stormy sea. For fans of John Prine, Dirty Three, and Low.
PeapodRecordings
CD
$10.50

Camper Van Beethoven
Popular Songs of Great Enduring Strength and Beauty (PRE-ORDER: SALEABLE JUNE 24TH)
PS, US
CookingVinyl
CD
$14.25

Cannabis Corpse
Tube of the Resinated (PRE-ORDER: SALEABLE JUNE 10TH)
PS, US This collects evil shredding & devilish melodies of ghoulish hunger, balanced out w/ steamrolling death metal grooves & set to an old-school battery of blasts & kick-work. Spidery bass lines & growling vocals relate ironic weed-laced tales of gore & murder (w/ a bit of heavy-handed humor), creating a reality that incl the existence of bloodthirsty bud monsters & mysterious death-dealing weed-cults. Reeking w/ pungent infectiousness.
RoboticEmpire
LP
$16.00

Carr, Derek
The Digital Space Race (PRE-ORDER: SALEABLE JUNE 10TH)
PS, IRELAND Derek Carr is one of Ireland's unsung heroes of soulful techno. Derek has been making music for almost 2 decades now (if you include his early experiments as a 14 year old with a Casio sampler). Following many releases over the past 7 years on a wide variety of electronic labels now comes his anticipated debut album for Psychonavigation Records.. 'The Digital Space Race' compiles ten tracks of sublime electronic music that can be enjoyed equally in the stoned privacy of your home or on the dance floor. For fans of John Beltran,B12,The Black Dog, Carl Craig... this is an essential record.
Psychonavigation-025
CD
$15.50

Chap
Mega Breakfast (PRE-ORDER: SALEABLE JULY 1ST)
PS, US They've become known & loved for their inimitable pop/improv/disco/rock-with-strings sound & a furiously rocking live show, complete w/ dance routines. It's the sound of the search for a heart of gold in a world gone cold. It deals w/ sex issues, depression & classic economics. It's all infectious, blistering pop music, but all the while something is deliciously wrong here, making for what is sure to be one of the most intriguing releases of 2008.
GhostlyInternational
CD
$12.75

Charlatans UK, The
You Cross My Path [deluxe edition] (PRE-ORDER: SALEABLE JUNE 10TH)
PS, US Expanded version of the new album. The Charlatans' tenth studio album, You Cross My Path, is nothing less than a masterpiece - only the latest triumph, in a career which has been positively stuffed with them. It was one of the most talked-about records in recent years, before anyone had even heard a note of it. It was first released in early March in MP3 format, via alternative radio station Xfm's website. In a revolutionary move, The Charlatans were charging their fans not a penny to own and enjoy their latest music. You Cross My Path includes some of the most euphoric music the Charlatans have ever made - some of the most disturbed, too. Like on a classic Cure or New Order record, Blunt's basslines lead from the front, for a driving, danceable sound, which is both nostalgic and fiercely contemporary.
CookingVinyl
DCD
$16.75

Cloudland Canyon/Lichens
Exterminating Angel (PRE-ORDER SALEABLE JUNE 10TH)
PS, US This single 30-min. track (split into 2 parts on the LP version) uses voice, guitar, samplers, & ARP synthesizer. Here are the sounds accompanying a spacecraft that's a combination Death Star & Taco Bell from the 70s filled w/ Mayan temples & pyramids populated by large, snappily dressed
reptilian beings.
HolyMountain
LP
$16.00

Club 8
Jesus, Walk With Me (PRE-ORDER: SALEABLE JUNE 3RD)
PS, SWEDEN 5 tracks. Club 8's critically acclaimed album "The boy who couldn't stop dreaming" is pop music at it's most profound - and the most personal, honest and beloved song in the whole collection spells "Jesus, walk with me". On this new 5-track EP the title track is backed up by four brilliant, exclusive tracks - two brand new songs and remixes by Jimahl and The Sound of Arrows. The first new song, "What I'm dreaming of is something I could have", perfectly highlights what everyone loved about their latest album. Gentle, warm pop music as loveable as it gets. The other new track, "Take me home", shows a new side of Club 8. It's minimalist psychedelia and colorfully mind-altering and hypnotic gospel pop! The first remix is signed by The Sound of Arrows - Sweden's most promising new act with an approach to music that bare some similarity to Saint Etienne around "Foxbase Alpha" or The Avalanches. Their take on "Jesus, walk with me" is just as surprising as it's genius. One of the most interesting ambient dub acts today, Jimahl, rounds up the EP perfectly with an extreme make over of Jesus. "Taking drugs to make music to take drugs to"? Possibly, yes... "Jimahl's 8-minute remix settles into chill-out mode at the start... more percussion and melodic snippets join as the song heads into the chorus, then settles back into a wistful, spacious groove, with just a few phrases shining out of the hypnotic mists." PITCHFORK.
Labrador-113
CD5
$11.00

Cobalt
Landfill Breastmilk Beast (PRE-ORDER: SALEABLE JUNE 24TH)
PS, US Feat. an appearance by ex-SWANS singer JARBOE. Clocking in at over 50 mins, this previews new & excl. material. "Ritual Use of Fire" is an epic 35+ min. Atmospheric/ambient journey through a landscape of desolation, loneliness, & desperation. Incl. a new track, "

Parasol New Arrivals • May 27, 2008
Hello friends, brothers, sisters, lovers, Well, we’re still recovering from the festivities that took place here is Champaign-Urbana this past Sunday. Now I know that reunion shows can be downright trite but when you have a handful of astonishing bands (Driver Has No Cash, Corndolly, Dick Justice, Moon Seven Times, Mother and Honcho Overload) reunited and armed with tools to pry open that there time capsule, that’s when the true magic happens and you see nothing but smiles stretched to the ceiling. The early 90s in Champaign-Urbana was truly a hotbed of absurdly talented artists and musicians, alike and it’s nice to see that as the torch has been handed to the new schoolers, there’s still plenty of gas left in our machine. As for new releases, our cup runneth over so grab a glass and pour yourself another drink. Ah hell yeah, Roy & Paul
Below is a list of new arrivals for this week. To search for a specific item or to browse our entire catalog click here. Or, click here to go back to the Parasol Home Page. Click here to see previous weeks new arrivals.
QUICK LINKS INTO PARASOL.COM DIGITAL UNDERGROUND: FREE PARASOL DOWNLOADS JIM's PICK: Great Music from Scandinavia New Releases Mail Order Portal Gift Certificates
Parasol Mail Order Pick of the Week
	La Scala "The Harlequin" (High Wheel) 45+CD5 $7.50 Turns out former Mother/Menthol mainman and Bowie-esque chameleon Balthazar de Ley has a brand new bag… Chicago's La Scala does melodramatic, visceral pomp-rock intertwined with European folk, Gainsbourgian exotica and a smear of glammy cabaret mascara. So totally post-war, with an urgent new wave zing that Menthol fans will be ecstatic about. Swank package includes four songs on 7” vinyl, while the CD5 adds a fifth song.
Jim's Pick of the Best New Nordic Music
	22 Pistepirkko"(Well You Know) Stuff Is Like We Yeah! " (Bone Voyage) regular CD $15.00 Since their humble beginnings in the mid-80s Finnish cult act 22 Pistepirkko have bestowed upon an unsuspecting planet's populace a dozen full-length albums (including The Others), an essential double-album retrospective, a DVD, and a slew of singles. With (WYK)SILWY!, like 2006’s Drops & Kicks before it, this quirky, veteran trio employ their awesome super-powers on behalf of song and songcraft, keeping things simple, but as always, skewed in the most compelling ways. With roots in psychedelia, garage, pop, surf, folk and electronica 22-PP’s musical boundaries are elastic, and the songs distilled to their most primal essences they have created their sweetest and most beguiling album yet. Sounds samples on front page. Also available as a special limited edition DCD, with nifty bonus material!
Thrillsville - Parasol staff's weekly picks
Angie picks: Pixies - Surfer Rosa (Reissue) CD ...watched "Loud Quiet Loud: A Film About The Pixies" and fell in love...Pixies fan 2008! Jim picks: 22 Pistepirkko - (Well You Know) Stuff Is Like We Yeah! CD The drummer plays with a stick in his left hand and a maraca in his hand... Roy picks: Mason Jennings - In The Ever CD Teary-eyed back porch ballads straight out of the confessional booth. Paul picks: Jesse Sykes and the Sweet Hereafter - Oh, My Girl CD Missed it first time around but it still sounds great a coupla years down the road. Hollow, fragile, haunting, lovely.. Geoff picks: Neil Young - Live at Massey Hall 1971 CD Along with the Byrds and Gram Parsons one of the best old live concerts released this year.
New Releases Abbasi Brothers, The Something Like Nostalgia PS, US Something Like Nostalgia is a film for your ears, a cinematic glimpse into the purity of everyday life. Written over 2 years time, these 15 scenes are like snapshots of daydreams, their soundscapes are their subtitles, and the origin is not so very foreign. Shoegaze, dream-pop instrumental. Dynamophone-012 CD $14.75 Accidental There Were Wolves PS, US Take the man behind The Memory Band & Trunk Records (Stephen Cracknell), the twisted songwriter from TUNNG main man (Sam Genders), one half of Fence Collective duo THE BICYCLE THIEVES (Hannah Caughlin) & singer-songwriter Liam Bailey. Put them in front of a PC & add occasional input from guests incl. harpist Serafina Steer & Rob, Jenny & Nancy from the Memory Band. The finished record is fittingly warm, personal & intimate,& less disguised in its folkiness than either Cracknell or Genders's main projects. W/in this, new influences have crept in, such as Liam's soul & reggae edge & Hannah's jazz-influenced vocals. The album also gave Cracknell a chance to experiment w/ vocal & instrumental loops & layers, inspired, in part, by Panda Bear & Animal Collective. ThrillJockey CD $13.00 Accidental There Were Wolves PS, US VINYL VERSION!!! ThrillJockey LP $11.50 Adasiewicz, Jason Rolldown PS, US The 14th entry in 482 Music's ongoing Document Chicago series & the recorded debut from this Chicago-based vibraphonist/composer, joined by fellow scene stalwarts JOSH BERMAN, ARAM SHELTON, JASON ROEBKE & FRANK ROSALY. Many of the songs recall the brilliantly oblique postbob Bobby Hutcherson material, while others are based on gently rippling, coloristic passages. 482Music CD $11.75 All the Saints Fire On Corridor X PS, US Don't be fooled by the piss-stained mattress on the cover, the debut from this Alabama-raised Atlanta-based power trio is moderately clean for one of Atlanta's most thunderous groups. All The Saints not only commanded their control of volume & intensity, but with their debut album have proven their abilities in composition & arrangement. Reference points include Loop, Gun Club, Verbena, In Camera, Federation X, and Swans. The band has earned fans in groups like Deerhunter, Battles, and A Place To Bury Strangers. KillerPimp CD $11.75 American Mars No City Fun PS, US No City Fun, combines indie-rock elements with Eno/Lanois-influenced soundscapes. Oft-compared to artists such as Joe Henry, the Dream Syndicate, Tom Petty, and Blue Nile while their emotional and cathartic live shows earned them support slots for 16 Horsepower, The National, Clem Snide, Tim Easton, Elbow, Magnolia Electric Company, and The Black Heart Procession. Gangplank CD $10.00 ASS (Andreas Soderstrom Solo) My Get Up And Go Just Got Up And Went PS, UK Very limited! Peering out between the mass of strings, hanging like vines, there must have been a spark of childish curiosity. From the giddy playfulness of youth all the way to the folk hinterland, Andreas Soderstrom has been surrounded by instruments, exposed to the sounds of his father's bazouki factory - an extraordinary mélange of clattering noise and metallic melody. That natural inquisitiveness has obviously paid off, and it surely can't be a coincidence that a career in music beckoned. Trading under the pseudonym Ass - it stands for Andreas Soderstrom Solo - for more than a decade he has been the hitherto unknown man of Swedish pop, having played with the likes of electro-pop priestess Jenny Wilson, digital folk stalwarts Tape, offbeat folk-pop minstrel Blood Music, and Taken By Trees, the latest incarnation of former Concretes singer Victoria Bergsman. All that will change with the release of 'My Get Up and Go Just Got Up and Went', the second full-length album from Soderstrom under his Ass moniker. Soderstrom plays all of the instruments found on this quietly intoxicating 10-track record, the follow-up to his astonishingly assured, eponymous debut - both released on Headspin Recordings. It finds him hacking through the folk undergrowth, his fluid dynamic underpinning a stark melancholy that simmers throughout. It's a real treat, and a chance to hear the whispered charm of a subtly disarming performer. To paraphrase George Clinton - free your mind, and Ass will follow...Very Limited vinyl Edition of 500 copies in thick cardboard stock, lyric insert and on purple wax. StaticCaravan-167 LP $19.00 Black Watch, The Icing the Snow Queen PS, US Twinkling, light hearted/headed folk pop with swathes of beautiful distortion. This one is closer to 2002's breezy jewel, Jiggery-Pokery, though there's still a more electric/MBV-lite guitar fuzz-buzz on some quickening indie rock songs here to show how kittenish the mature cat remains (in the vein of 2006's Bunnymenish/Mary Chain-ish Tatterdemalion and 2005's The Hypnotizing Sea). One soaks in the quality songwriting--even a beaut of a Nick Drake-like instrumental in "The Jean Rhys Appreciation Society"--from this seemingly bottomless well, with lyrics like catnip for those starved for intelligence in rock (Fredrick's UCSB PhD wasn't wasted) and the highly-crafted yet unfussy melodies. I just hope it won't take, like The Sound's Adrian Borland, Fredrick's death for greater numbers to discover how good he is. Eskimo CD $9.00 Booka Shade The Sun & the Neonlight PS, US PREFIX MAGAZINE: "For a duo with a reputation as the brains behind the tracks that Get Physical DJs M.A.N.D.Y. and DJ T built their fame on, Booka Shade take expert songcraft and blend it with dynamic beats, resulting in pulsing, pounding music that moves bodies and arrangements that hooking minds, twisting and turning at every corner. For The Sun & The Neon Light, Walter Merziger and Arno Kammermeier expand their musical palette, this time incorporating tracks built around proper vocals (courtesy of Merziger) and more traditional song structure. With the broader audience Booka Shade reached courtesy of Movements, it seems they now look to increase the accessibility even further with The Sun & The Neon Light." GetPhysicalMusic CD $14.25 Broderick, Peter Float PS, UK This is the debut full-length release from Oregon's Peter Broderick. In the last few years, the world has seen its fair share of musicians give up the trusty guitar in favor of the piano, the banjo and even the French horn, but rarely do we find a musician who seems so perfectly suited to any and every instrument he cares to try. Float is the ideal showcase for Broderick's well-honed instrumental talents, blending his love of folk music, classical music and good old-fashioned indie-pop. After the release of his Docile EP on cult Swedish label Kning Disk, there was no doubting his piano playing skills, but here we see the piano joined by violins, cello, drums, banjo, guitar, vocals and so much more, resulting in a dense and varied collection of tracks. An easy comparison might be Efterklang, the Danish band who Peter currently performs with, but Float could just as easily be linked to the work of Max Richter, Sylvain Chauveau and the Portland, Oregon scene which birthed him. Float is an album which has a definite narrative -- a fan of film and film soundtracks, Peter decided early on to make an album which was not simply a collection of random tracks. Themes appear and reappear, motifs signal different acts and characters, sometimes in the shape of instruments themselves, dropping in and out as if through some thick French cigarette smoke. Even the titles of the tracks tell a story, and as you listen to the album, subconsciously you follow a captivating broad narrative arc that links each piece together. This is thoughtful, carefully-constructed, significant new music from a young talent who is quickly catching on fire. Type-027 CD $14.25 Brother Kite, The Waiting For The Time To Be Right PS, US LP+CD. LIMITED TO ONLY 200 COPIES WORLDWIDE!! Finally, the sophomore album from The Brother Kite is presented to the masses on vinyl!! The production on this vinyl has been an absolute nightmare, fraught with problem after problem and delay after delay - but the Wait is over, and we hope you find it was worth the wait! This limited edition release is presented on 180-gram audiophile-quality virgin black vinyl. In addition to the vinyl, this package includes an exclusive bonus CDr (professionally-manufactured), entitled "Inside Waiting For The Time To Be Right". We thought someone who liked the album enough to purchase the vinyl might be interested in peeling away some of its layers, just for curiosity's sake. So on this CDr, you will find alternative mixes of every song on the album. Clairecords-064 LP $14.75 Butcher the Bar Sleep At Your Own Speed PS, GERMANY This is the debut full-length release by Britain's Joel Nicholson for Morr Music. He has described the cast list of his intimate band as "me and my bedroom." In Manchester, the songs of Butcher the Bar fill a small house, but soon these walls won't be the only ones in which they live. "Make this house a home" could be the phrase that matches this atmosphere. He sounds a little like Elliot Smith, with the persuasive power of his carefully-crafted chords and the immediacy of his softly-spoken vocals. An artist like Joel Nicholson would have been called a singer-songwriter before this word became a catch-all phrase. In the meantime, quiet is STILL the new loud and home-cooked tracks are still the tastiest and most comforting of all. Sleep At Your Own Speed is a coming-of-age novel consisting of 13 short stories. "Getaway," for instance, is a declaration of woe to a city that used to be home once, "Ball Point Skin Notes" illustrates the forlornness of youth, and "Leave Town" is as exuberant as a pop song can be. An acoustic guitar, a banjo, a warm, direct voice. Lyrics such as "I leave town tonight, if only western civilization feels alright..." point to the singer's earnestness and yearning for universal understanding. Melancholy, deceleration and reduction are Joel Nicholson's musical topics. Folk and post-folk, old and new heroes (Nick Drake, Paul Simon, Sufjan Stevens), searching, finding and finally letting go. MorrMusic-082 CD $15.00 Caethua Village of the Damned PS, US Brilliant psych-folk debut by Bloomington, Indiana's Clare Hubbard. Stark, ghostly, and ultra-melancholy, just begin to describe this buried treasure. "Caethua builds a majestic framework of rural poetics and darkly colored orchestration that manages to cross the aesthetics of Harry Smith and This Mortal Coil." - Dusted Magazine. BlueSanct CD $10.75 Carter, Tom & Kiefer, C From the Great American Songbook PS, US This second collaborative work is an expansive & ambitious recasting of American music. With their interpretations, Carter (CHARALAMBIDES) & Kiefer have taken the songs that have seeped into their souls & extended upon them in such a way that brings something entirely new to their original ideas. Carter & Kiefer have taken the spirit of these as a starting point for their spectral guitar improvisations, then fleshed them out with piano, percussion, bass & drums. In this thrillingly vast sonic terrain are moments of foreboding, tenderness, melancholy & gut-wrenching rawness. Guest spots from Ben Massarella (CALIFONE, IRON & WINE) & limited edition deluxe packaging featuring award-winning design & liners by Tim Rutili & James Toth. Preservation CD $15.00 Chevelles, The Barbarella Girl God PS, US Career retrospective plus new gear from this Aussie garage-pop combo. ALL MUSIC GUIDE: "14 of their most contagious numbers along with a trio of new songs as proof positive that they've lost none of their magic over the years. What really impresses about this album, though, is how well the band's wide-ranging sound and style are showcased. Garage pop is an easy tag for their music, but doesn't really capture the diversity of influences and elements that infuse their songs... From old-school to new-school punk, the band dances back and forth in time, tripping into new wave, psychedelia, and power pop along the way. The sound may be clean, a reflection of the Chevelles' tightness, but even at their jangliest, the guitars are down and dirty, the harmonies soaring, the melodies irrepressible, and the choruses irresistible. All in all, the perfect introduction to this stellar band." WickedCool CD $12.25 Clientele, The That Night, A Forest Grew PS, SPAIN This is the third, and last, of a trilogy of E.P.s the Clientele have recorded for Acuarela. They have always used the Acuarela E.P.s as a way to stretch out between albums, to create a through-the-looking-glass version of the band that shadows the better-known history of their albums. 'Ariadne' experimented with drones and minimalism; 'The Lost Weekend' stretched the foggy sound of their debut to epic proportions. In contrast "That Night, a Forest Grew' is the most commercial and -shockingly- danceable thing they've ever recorded. Part Bacharach, part Television, part Orange Juice, the E.P. shares the pristine clarity, light and shade of 'God Save the Clientele', but adds a new element of summer pop perfection. This is The Clientele as a hazily remembered 1970s cartoon series, all distanced off-key colors; imaginary summer hits, radio waves beamed in from a dream-discotheque. Acuarela-067 CD5 $8.25 Craig, Leighton 11 Easy Pieces PS, AUSTRALIA Since 1995, Brisbane resident Leighton Craig has etched out a varied musical existence, from solo keyboard studies to an extensive body of collaborative work. His solo works, which span delicate ambient keyboard excursions through to site-specific live documents and most recently song-based explorations, have mapped out a focus of tone, duration and 'situations' for sound. On 11 Easy Pieces, his first widely available solo LP, Craig offers an intimate yet robust collection of works recorded on an array of cheap analogue keyboards, including his instrument of choice the Casio MT40. Recorded to cassette at the kitchen table between 2003-04, these recordings have been lovingly toasted by valve tubes during mastering to reveal not only a true sense of analog adventurousness inherent to Craig's mode of operation, but also his ability to unveil a rare tonal richness from his instruments. Leighton Craig casts out an audio net and collects together an essential haul of tonal gradients, phased rhythm and collapsed chordal interplays. 11 Easy Pieces (and two somewhat less 'easy' works), is a warm collection of distorted hymnals and blurred geometry - all of them visionary in their purity and timbral sensibilities. "This is more than Australian Music - this is Australia the musician." Sean Rabin, The Australian "an organic exorcism of the trees...the music of the earth...." Brad Rose, Foxy Digitalis. On Organ Notes "hazy minimal organ tones ... feel good mind-body static. Turn up loud and let it float." Eddie Flowers, Slippytown. Room40-424 CD $15.00 Depth Affect Hero Crisis PS, FRANCE The Depth Affect project was born in the new millennium in the suburbs of Nantes, France. In David Bideau and Rémy Charrier's student rooms, keyboards and laptops outnumbered Beach Boys and Autechre records. From then on, they were set to start building the architecture of their music. A few years later, with a handful of songs in their pockets, a few gigs and their duet being completed by a team composed of a DJ and a VJ, their music found its own personal path and their first album Arche-Lymb received critical acclaim. At that time the band also offered free downloads of remixes of Arche-Lymb tracks made by a wide cast of electronica musicians. On top of that they worked on their live performance and developed a new and original approach to the stage which they had a chance of displaying live in several glorious French venues and festivals. In their new album Hero Crisis, the colours of melancholy have taken over the naive beauty and bucolic joy of their first record. In Hero Crisis, their songwriting has become more direct, both harsher and colder, with catchy melodies enhanced by an astonishing production. The twelve tracks of Hero Crisis mix influences stemming from r'n'b, pop, hip-hop, ambient, click'n'cut and dubstep, thus creating a new dreamy and feverish soundscape. AutresDirectionsInMusic-018 CD $19.00 Eat Skull Sick to Death PS, US Leave it to the English to embellish a term like "shit-gaze." No surprise that the greatest shit-gazer of all time was none other than Samuel Coleridge, an avowed Brit who, plied full of laudanum, would sit for hrs & stare at his bowel movements, writing copious notes on their color, texture, etc. They are a quartet hailing from Portland, Oregon, co-masterminded by Rob Enbom (Hospitals and Hole Class) & another original Hospital, Rod Meyer (the greatest living genius of punk)(--erm--uh--wha?!). Siltbreeze LP $16.00 Fairline Parkway Memory of Open Spaces PS, US Limited Edition of 700 hand-numbered, die cut. Zachary Okun & Raj Gadhia met in a quiet summer of college unemployment. Raj recognized Zach as the guy in the back of the dusty university anthropology lab who diligently slept through monkey documentaries, waking from deep sleep only to angrily protest discernable differences in the skull specimens forced upon the class every week. In this manner things came to a head and they were graduated, just as they decided to have a good run at actually thinking. Reeling in denial, the two began recording together in 2002. They were promptly kidnapped by an enthusiastic fan & ushered into a studio. Kora CD $11.25 Fantasy Bar Friday Afternoon Car PS, SPAIN Kieran, Diego, Jordi and Rubén used to be part of Migala, probably one of the best Spanish bands ever. It's something they won't try to hide. Now they are Fantasy Bar, whose debut album, Friday Afternoon Car, takes their music -and influences ranging from American Music Club to Nick Drake, Arab Strap to Neil Young...- into enchanting new territories. Friday Afternoon Car is an album of nostalgia and yearning for a brighter dawn; of harshness and tender feeling; of hopes and of fears. Its 14 stately, slow-paced rock songs are suffused with the beauty that lies just beneath the surface of existence. The careworn yet compassionate vocals of Scottish songwriter Kieran Stephen (ex-bassist with Los Planetas and Migala, bass guitar on El Hijo's album "Las otras vidas", live musician with QZIOS) speak of the emotions these four friends know so well: the persistence of memories; friendship and wasted love; the knowledge, throughout it all, that the good times can prevail. It's there from the first moments of "Spiders", which opens Friday Afternoon Car: the story of a bad dream called solitude, wrapped in gentle guitars and upbeat but delicate drums. The album was recorded at Rock Soul Studios in Madrid with the assistance of Carlos Torero, and features keyboards and guitar by Abel Hernández (El Hijo, former singer and guitarist of Migala) and electric guitar by Chris Bathgate (Sans Trauma, ex-Ganger, who also used to play bass with Arab Strap). It takes its name from an old British phrase that alludes to the belief that car-factory workers lose interest toward the end of the week: as the brief liberation of the weekend looms, everyday cares cease to matter. Friday Afternoon Car invites the listener to enter the universe of these songs: to discover a place to reflect and, above all, to feel. Fantasy Bar are: Kieran Stephen (vocals, guitars, bass), Diego Yturriga (keyboards, accordion and melodica), Jordi Sancho (bass, fender rhodes) and Rubén Moreno (drums). Acuarela-1085 CD $13.50 Free Blood Never Hear Surf Music Again PS, US This two-piece Brooklyn band has more street cred than you can shake a stick at, & for good reason. Consisting of Madeline Davy (Octopi NYC) on the microphone & John Pugh (formally of !!!) also on microphone. An unpredictable druggy number, a mangled hybrid of Beatles-esque melodies fused angrily w/ a Butthole Surfers song. "Quick & Painful" is a raucous affair that delivers a swift kick to the jewels. Rong/DFA 12 $8.00 Friction Brothers S-T PS, US Chicago's The Friction Brothers consists of Michael Colligan (dry ice, implements), Fred Lonberg-Holm (cello, implements), & Michael Zerang (percussion, piano insides). While each member has a lengthy resume on his own, their combined forces have produced an endlessly interesting record full of harmonic resonances, grinding objects, manipulated dry ice, & heavy friction. AbstractOnBlack CD $6.00 Futureheads This Is Not the World PS, US New album. Megaforce CD $13.75 Gable Seven Guitars With A Cloud Of Milk PS, US Containing 18 tracks clocking in at just under 40 min. The songs cover such diverse topics as group suicide, the state of urban music, self-realization, cats, & drunk foxes, in the best tradition of DIY bands like The Vaselines, Violent Femmes, & Beat Happening. Loaf CD $16.00 Goodnight Monsters Summer Challenge PS, FINLAND Second album by the Finish guitar-pop-band of young songwriters Valtteri Virtanen and Matti Jasu, the follow-up to The Brain That Wouldn't Die, their cute-as-a-button debut. This time recording took place at 22-Pistepirkko's Altai Studios with Petteri Rajanti as producer. The result is a bit more refined then the debut, without loosing any inch of the freshness. On the contrary, it's full of super-charming melodies and rhythms and even more uplifting and colourful arrangements. ALL MUSIC GUIDE: "Listening to Finland's Goodnight Monsters is like eating cotton candy with a root beer float chaser. Pure sugar rush from start to finish." BoneVoyage CD $15.00 Greiner, Svarte Til Seters PS, US Room Forever. Concept and art direction by Joshua Zucker. Photography by Kurt Mangum. A Room Forever is an art project realized as a curated series of limited edition 12" record LPs. Packaged in a custom-made box with high quality digital C-print covers and letter pressed inserts, each record features an original musical composition on one side and a field recording on the other. Pressed in one-time editions of 300, A Room Forever takes a unique and personal approach to the vinyl record LP. Conceived as a physical manifestation of the Roadside Picnic Radio podcast, the project draws upon the rich history and mythologies of audio recording to produce a final object of art that will resonate uniquely within each listener. More than anything, a room forever is inherently about the act of listening." This album by Svarte Greiner (previous releases on the Type label out of the UK, also as one-half of Deaf Center) features one side of "acoustic doom" music, the other of field recordings. This deluxe limited edition LP series will feature Machinefabriek/Matt Davies and Koen Holtkamp in the next upcoming volumes. ARoomForever LP $25.00 Group Doueh Guitar Music From The Western Sahara PS, US This is a CD reissue of the very first Sublime Frequencies LP, which sold Fouret qinu aenn ciniesstant in early 2007. This Saharan sandblizzard of fine-crushed glass will grind your face to a bloody pulp. They play raw & unfiltered Saharawi music from the former colonial Spanish outpost of the Western Sahara. The sound is distorted, loud & unhinged w/ an impressive display of virtuosity & style only known in this part of the world. Sublime CD $16.25 Heaven And Sweeter As The Years Roll By PS, GERMANY Heaven And are Tony Buck (drums, percussion); Steve Heather (drums, marimba, percussion); Martin Siewert (guitars, lap steel, electronics, keyboards); Zeitblom (bass, keyboards); Alexander Hacke (vocals). Sweeter As The Years Roll By is their debut full-length release for the Staubgold label and it's a phrase which many will associate with wine. The music of the 21st century has evolved to become the proverbial "old wine in new skins" -- since remixing, cut'n'paste, and other methods of producing new culture by using the old, have become available to almost everyone. Because of the "digital revolution," the layman can now easily become the mixer and magician. The music of Heaven And is inspired by the diverse music styles all conglomerated in our culture -- elements of the diverse musical styles from the last five decades are clearly discernible. Listening to the first track "As If A Star," one can make out a vast range of influences: a psychedelic backwards guitar cuts through the whirr of a cymbal reminiscent of jazz and trance music, while in the second half, a layer of guitar sounds hovers over it all, which reminds one of the sounds emanating from the Fender amps of the bands belonging to the so-called Americana movement. At the same time, the track comes across as an update of those stoic monster tracks of early '70s Krautrock. (And when it comes to minimalism, the bass line beats any of Holger Czukay's in terms of sparseness.) "Bring Back Those Happy Days" with its manic, almost exploding guitar and its rompish, hippie-like percussion orgy, is quite another cup of tea. Art Ensemble Of Chicago meets Keiji Haino? Or Pharoah Sanders meets Sonny Sharrock meets Boredoms? Staubgold CD $16.25 Hess, Steven/Miles Tilmann Departures PS, US Vinyl only. Steven Hess (Pan American, Fessenden, Haptic and the Dropp Ensemble) and the experimental electronic composer Miles Tilmann (Consumer Research, Sub:Marine, Toytronic) come together to present Departures - their forthcoming vinyl-only release on Other Electricities. Hess creates a unique hybrid of improvised percussion and electronics, where Tilmann's deep bass tones and sublime waves of sound converse with Hess's intricate rhythms and textures: the sonic equivalent of a complex series of weather systems that assemble, unfold and disintegrate according to their own logic. Simultaneously intriguing and elusive through their manipulation of sound's depth of field, they successfully incorporate this often underused element, pressurizing shimmering pulses alongside chaotic decays. For Fans of: Fourtet/Kieren Hebden and Steven Reid, Andrew Pekler, Biosphere. OtherElectricites-013 LP $12.25 Hooker, D.R. The Truth PS, US One of the rarest U.S. psych albums, previously issued on CD by Subliminal Sounds, now in a beautiful and legit 180 gram vinyl LP reissue. The Truth, recorded in Connecticut in 1972, might very well be the ultimate North American acid rock album, ever. No hype here - just incredible music. Tempting as it is to exaggerate the worth of such obscurities, The Truth deserves every plaudit that comes its way, making it astonishing that there was no real band to speak of. Instead, ten musicians are credited alongside the mysterious Donald Hooker, who wrote, sang and played lead on the album. This is one of those albums that keeps revealing new depths even when you've played it a hundred times. Connecticut hippie-philosopher concocts homemade lounge-psych masterpiece. True psychedelia! Includes a poster in a limited edition of 500 copies. SubliminalSounds LP $25.00 I Love Math Getting to the Point Is Beside It PS, US Includes frontman John Dufilho (DEATHRAY DAVIES, APPLES IN STEREO) & Philip Peeples (OLD 97s), among others. The sound is stripped-down, the songs are straightforward & to the point, & wouldn't be out of place next to Jonathan Richman, Yo La Tengo, vintage Kinks, & like-minded harmonizers the Everly Brothers. Glurp! CD $13.00 It's Casual/Bullet Treatment Split PS, US This is sure to rip a hole in your woofer! All new & unreleased tracks! BULLET TREATMENT feat. members form ICARUS LINE, VULTURES UNITED & INSTED, w/ true So Cal hardcore. IT'S CASUAL is angry, old school punk w/ heavy distortion. They are clearing a path of destruction one show at a time. BasementRecords 45 $5.50 Jennings, Mason In the Ever (ON SALE) PS, US VINYL VERSION. Brushfire LP $13.75 Judge Bone & Doc Hill Big Bear's Gate PS, FINLAND Judge Bone, aka Tuomari Nurmio with his English-lyric debut for Bone Voyage Recording Co. Fierce rockin' and mean ol' shaman-blues from the deep, Deep North. Strange boogie-scratching guitar, a dark raspy voice, footstomps keepin' some strange sort of time, this album echoes from a wholly different point on the space-time continuum. Sweltering Americana and Blues from the perspective of a Finnish Rock & Roll Shaman. Tuomari Nurmio aka Judge Bone is a legend of Finnish Rock'n'Roll, one of the country's true originals. With his former albums, in his native language and spanning a broad musical scope, he has established himself as one of the most original singer-songwriters in Finland. His lyrics are filled with peculiar and arresting metaphors and expressions, some of which have made their way into the vernacular Finnish language. Big Bear's Gate is his English-sung debut for Bone Voyage, and finally, for the world outside of Finland. He's joined by drummer Markku Hillilä, who's profession is a doctor. So this makes Judge Bone & Doc Hill. BoneVoyage CD $15.00 Justice Yeldham & The Dynamic Ribbon Device Birthdays PS, US Birthdays consists of two live sets by maverick amplified-glass player Justice Yeldham, recorded during his & Keg's recent tour of Europe. If you've never heard of the guy, you are in for a bloody treat. Using concert-grade piano contact mics, he amplifies a sheet of glass and plays it with his mouth and face, processing it with pedals attached to his belt, usually barefooted. The results are unworldly, and hearing it you would never imagine what created it, something an Aussie could especially achieve. Like careening assaults of insect spaceships, he transports the listener to other worlds of sound, ending most often in a crash of the glass upon his head. Mastered by the god-like Rasheed of Dubplates (Berlin), the record has been collaboratively released in an edition of 600 copies across the world. Anarchymoon LP $14.25 Lee, Okkyung I Saw The Ghost Of An Unknown Soul PS, US Anyone who has seen and heard Korean improviser/composer Okkyung Lee blow collective minds with her supremely amazing cello noise, energy, vibration, friction and true sound feeling music knows that in a world of wild and mind-snapping improvisors, Okkyung is one of the most exciting players to arrive down the rocky road in some time. This LP contains some of her most deep and resonant, at once furious and hushed string, bow and wood music recorded to date. Beautiful and frightening, daring to be both." LP only. EcstaticPeace LP $12.00 Leukers, Antonia Hasenlove PS, GERMANY Picture-Disc LP (limited 300). "Hasenlove" is the debut musical release of Hamburg visual artist Antonia Leukers. She's a founding member of "Institut Hasenbart", a 10-piece artist collective dedicated to a meta-scientific research of hares and related social, zoological and aesthetical phenomena in reference to the art world and pop culture. Leukers has previously created stitched, sewed and animated sculptures while casually growing cucumbers, working for a local in-vitro fertilization hospital and advising young people on erotic issues as a German Dr. Ruth for a popular Online magazine. Inspired by a journey to Island, hearing local travel guides spontaneously interweaving their narrations with sudden outbursts of folklore chanting and an encounter with Wolfgang Müller's (Die Tödliche Doris) strategy of transforming and combining his (pseudo-) scientific, documentary and social research into a musical and artistic performance she started to elaborate her fellow artist's lectures with musical renditions. As a passionate DIY home-recording artist she has soldered her own microphones, used cheap toy instruments, gameboys and minidisk recordings of kitchen sounds to create her very own bricolage comic universe. By recycling corny AOR mainstream Rock/Pop songs into some oddly disturbing and wonderfully weird rabbit love songs with newly made German lyrics and combining these with some truly strange original compositions (ranging from freeform collage to distorted techno to deranged singer/songwriter stuff), she has created a musical love story in 7 parts. Spiritually influenced by (though not really sounding alike) German "Neue Deutsche Welle" artists such as Der Plan and theatrical and surreal performance bands like The Residents her versions of popular love songs sound like a teenage/female Andrew Lloyd Webber on bad acid. Dekorder-023 LP $21.75 Lodger, The Life is Sweet PS, US Still filled with gorgeous melodies & catchy tunes, but is also deeper & more thoughtful, full of emotional peaks & valleys. Rather than just chip in w/ an album of "more of the same," they've paid extra attention to the arrangements, w/ 12-string & acoustic guitars, lap steel, & violin adding crucial detail & depth to the tunes. We don't know if it's something in the water or what, but England is fairly bursting with exciting guitar pop bands right now, and The Lodger are amongst the brightest hopes. Taking their cues from fellow northerners The Smiths and The Wedding Present, The Lodger's music is classic melodic pop, fueled by sparkling hooks and plangent lyrics. The tunes are sharp and timeless, a thoroughly modern distillation of great Britpop from the 60s right up to today. Slumberland CD $14.25 Lodger, The Life is Sweet PS, US VINYL VERSION!!! Slumberland LP $14.25 Mammatus S-T PS, US Named for the ominous clouds that are usually seen after the worst of a thunderstorm has passed, they are a lean sludge machine that shoots giant burritos (carne asada) from their instruments. They have no known enemies in the natural world and share symbiotic relationships with hamburgers, subgoths & dragons. Their album was mastered by a wizard so mighty he has no name. They assure you that his abilities far exceed those of any "terrestrial" engineer, for they send the tapes back in time to be woven w/ spells of the nameless one that were spoken of before rock could speak. HolyMountain LP $16.00 Maquiladora St. Cecilia's Drowning: Ritual Of Hearts & White Sands Revisited (DELAYED) PS, SPAIN Maquiladora's create songs from a sense of place. Eric Nielsen, Bruce McKenzie and Phil Beaumont (with occasional guests of Black Heart Procession, Modest Mouse and The God Machine) approach music from all sides, a sound which conjures up moods of the deserts and oceans providing a landscape that is both familiar and remotely distant. Acuarela is pleased to release a new take on Maquiladora's early works on St. Cecilia's Drowning - White Sands And Ritual Of Hearts Revisited. A re-mastered collection of songs recorded between 1995 and 2002, including nine previously unreleased songs, which present a graceful invitation into the musical journey of this reclusive band. ERASING CLOUDS WHITE SANDS: 1. Prostitute Song // 2. Julian // 3.Happy Day // 4. Little Miss R. C. // 5. Ankle // 6. So Far Away // 7. Itchy Song // 8. Termez 1936 // 9. Mr. Grey // 10. Bueno Mis Amigos // 11. Cousin // Bonus Tracks: 12. Light of the Rain // 13. Itchy Song (Live at VPRO) // 14. 12 Steps // 15. A/part // 16. After All RITUAL OF HEARTS: 1. The Secret // 2. Ritual of Hearts // 3. Heaven // 4. Sweet Afton // 5. I'm In Love // 6. A Vow // 7. Sound Of Rain // 8. Dream Of Snakes // 9. Chinese Girl // 10. Avow // 11. She's More Beautiful To Me Than Water And Pure // 12. Static Hum // Bonus Tracks: 13. So Young // 14. Buddy // 15. Boatman's Mantra // 16. Mexico D.F. Acuarela-1083 DCD $16.00 Medium Medium Hungry, So Angry PS, UK Medium Medium were originally signed to Cherry Red in 1981 and were one of the first signings of then A&R man Mike Alway. The band's first single, Hungry, So Angry caused quite an immediate stir at club and alternative radio level, and created quite a buzz around the band. The single was picked up by alternative radio in the U.S. and featured for several weeks in the Billboard Alternative Top 50 chart. The band recorded one album for Cherry Red, The Glitterhouse which received consistently good reviews. However, the band broke up in 1983 but were not forgotten as 'Hungry, So Angry' has been used on many compilation CDs over the years, especially in the U.S. This overdue CD re-press consists of 15 tracks and also includes the very rare promo video of 'Hungry, So Angry; as an enhanced track. CherryRed CD $17.00 Midnight Juggernauts Dystopia PS, US This Melbourne based band was described by Rolling Stone US as "David Bowie if his Berlin Trilogy was a collaboration w/ Kraftwerk & Faust." RAVE MAGAZINE: "Midnight Juggernauts are the dark horses of Australian electronica... On the surface, Midnight Juggernauts deal in much the same instantly-accessible synth pop of their contemporaries, but Dystopia is an album of hidden depths - surreal and eccentric, its thirteen tracks are washed over with a spacey, movie soundtrack-like atmosphere that suggests the early '80s output of Vangelis or John Carpenter... Poppy and inviting yet weird and abstract, Dystopia is the kind of album that invites multiple listens, and with any luck, will make international a-listers of Midnight Juggernauts." Astralwerks CD $14.25 Mogwai Young Team [expanded re-issue] PS, UK Reissuing the brooding debut from legendary Scottish post-rock pioneers Mogwai may seem redundant to their obsessive collector fanbase, but there are treats within the second disc for devotees and newcomers alike. 'Young Team' itself is considered to be one of the more influential instrumental rock albums of the 1990s, documenting the band at their most violent and visceral. A stark example of the power of dynamics with rock instruments, but shot through with moments of darkness and quiet that are chilling rather than soothing. Re-issue includes the original album remastered and repackaged with an additional CD of bonus tracks including phenomenal live performances from T In The Park and Chemikal Underground's 5th Birthday Party; a BBC session version of "R U Still In 2 It?" featuring Aidan Moffat; a rare Spaceman 3 cover; a radio session track from WNYC and some other stuff. ChemikalUnderground DCD $15.75 Mount Eerie Black Wooden Ceiling Opening PS, US Six songs on a white vinyl 10", plus a cd wrapped in a large poster. Half of the songs are never-before released, half are reinterpretations of previously released soft songs. The key to these new versions is the addtion of Kjetil Jenssen, the supernaturally gifted drummer from dark frozen northern Norway. Hard and loud. P.W.Elverum&SunLtd 10 $14.25 My Morning Jacket The Tennessee Fire PS, US Gatefold double vinyl re-press limited to 1000. 142 gm, green and blue color vinyl 2xLP in gatefold sleeve with matte finish. Their fabulous debut album (1999). "Released to worldwide critical acclaim, The Tennessee Fire provides proof (200 proof) that heartfelt American music is alive and well and living in Kentucky. A must for anyone who loves the sound of Alt-country mixed with wide open spaces." -ALL MUSIC GUIDE. TRACK LISTING: 1. Heartbreakin Man 2. They Ran 3. The Bear 4. Nashville To Kentucky 5. Old September Blues 6. If All Else Fails 7. It's About Twilight Now 8. Evelyn Is Not Real 9. War Begun 10. Picture Of You 11. I Will Be There When You Die 12. The Dark 13. By My Car 14. Butch Cassidy 15. I Think I'm Going To Hell 16. Bonus track Darla-089-1 DLP $19.00 My Morning Jacket At Dawn PS, US Gatefold double vinyl re-press limited to 1000. 142 gm, red and gold color vinyl 2xLP in gatefold sleeve with matte finish. Their beloved second record (2001). "At Dawn has an Ineffable magic to it from start to finish, one that leads me to scour my brain for words that could describe something that sounds so special. Anytime a pop or rock song can give you chills, that's something. When a whole album can do it that's something else entirely." -POPMATTERS. TRACK LISTING: 1. At Dawn 2. Lowdown 3. The Way That He Sings 4. Death Is My Sleazy Pay 5. Hopefully 6. Bermuda Highway 7. Honest Man 8. X-mas Curtain 9. Just Because I Do 10. If It Smashes Down 11. I Needed It Most 12. Phone Went West 13. Strangulation 14. Bonus track. Darla-111-1 DLP $19.00 Norman, Larry Anthology PS, US Norman was the church boy holding his own in the decadent world of rock music, an insubordinate jester w/a rebellious streak that stretched out long before the birth of punk, & a performer whose raw energy, spiritual force, & playful wit made him the endearing rock icon he is today. A man unfairly saddled w/the hefty burden of the "father of Christian rock," yet he is a singer whose defiant lyrics & actions were shunned by the church-going status quo. "Anthology" compiles the most loved recordings of the recently deceased & dearly missed Larry Norman. ArenaRock CD $14.75 Odd Nosdam Pretty Swell Explode PS, US This inimitable producer returns with an enhanced 2-disc collection (one album, one EP) of remixes, B-sides, videos, & original songs, incl. 8 tracks entirely exclusive to this set. Here Nosdam compiles the odds & ends created mostly around his last two fulllengths (2005's Burner and last year's Level Live Wires), as well as a few choice gems from bygone days. Accompanying these blasted sounds are 3 videos, also incl. a hidden unreleased version of Nosdam's Lee Perry-inspired "Upsetter." Anticon DCD $15.75 O'Neil, Tara Jane Bones PS, AUSTRALIA New album from Lousiville, Kentucky born Tara Jane ONeil, released worldwide by Australia's Preservation label. After playing bass with Rodan, pioneers of post-rock and post-hardcore, the long-respected and much-lauded ONeil has formed bands like The Sonora Pine and Retsin and has collaborated with Sebadoh, Papa M, Come, Low, and Ida. ONeil records all over the US, from ballrooms in Louisville, apartments in New York to rural cabins. Similarly, there's a wandering spirit to her music, her songs an engaging mixture of folk, pop, ambience and electronic sounds, tropicana and melodies that span references from Joni Mitchell to Brian Eno. Bones is a collection featuring new material from ONeil, often at her most stripped back and full of her raw, alluring essence. Her delicate, vivid acoustic guitar playing is the highlight here, along with her enigmatic vocals floating over tracks fleshed out with airy layers of strings and piano. Others showcase her burgeoning interest in electronica and found sounds, which become hypnotic instrumentals. Bones is rounded off with a few rarities, including two tracks from a recent vinyl single and her sublime acoustic reading of "High Wire". Preservation-004 CD $15.00 Pants, James Welcome PS, US Mr. Pants is a purveyor par excellence of that unmistakable "fresh beat": 80's Soul, Electro Boogie, Early Hip-Hop, New Wave, & Post-Punk Disco, all of which can be found on this where James plays drums, keys, guitar & sings. StonesThrow CD $16.00 Pilot Ships There Should Be An Entry PS, US Low (as in lonesome) nights, starry skies, cool breezes with the windows open. Soundtracks days you wish didn't exist, but do; presenting a hopeful face that hides inner pain. Pilot Ships is Cheree Jetton (BEES ARE BLACK), Chris & Mike Linnen (MONROE MUSTANG), & Brian McBride (STARS OF THE LID). BlueSanct CD $10.75 Pilot Ships Limits Of Painting & Poetry PS, US Long delayed, much anticipated release from Cheree Jetton (BEES ARE BLACK), Chris & Mike Linnen (MONROE MUSTANG), & Brian McBride (STARS OF THE LID). "like an old psychology text written in a foriegn language, the Pilot Ships operate the thin, grainy line demarcationg cognition and mystery." Austin Chronicle BlueSanct CD $10.75 Pita Get Out PS, US Originally released in 1999 on the Mego label. Out-of-print for over half a decade, this new edition is remastered & packaged in a 6 panel digipack & incl. 3 extra tracks which appeared on the split 12'' w/ KEVIN DRUMM released by BOXmedia in 2000. Both restive & restless, orchestral & abrasive, this is the high water mark of laptop noise experimentation & it will absolutely scramble your brain. EditionsMego CD $18.00 Pop Culture Press #66 PS, US On the cover: Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds. Also Nada Surf, Fleshtones, British Sea Power, Drive-By Truckers, Bob Mould, & American Music Club. On the CD: The Lackloves, South, Matt Keating & more ZINE $4.50 Ratti, Nicola From the Desert Came Saltwater PS, US Italian-born multi-instrumentalist and architect, Nicola Ratti, presents his debut for Anticipate. Nicola's music can best be described as warm, subtractive rock, whereby he reduces guitar figures and piano passages into quiet explorations of the hidden corners of an otherwise familiar sound. Guitars twang with slight and spacious percussion and softly hushed (occasional) vocals and atmospheric twinkles congeal into a carefully-composed re-imagining of music. In terms of situating this album in the context of modern electroacoustic music, Nicola uses more natural effects treatments, shying away from fragmentation and processing, which obscures the inherent character of the instruments. Rather, he uses these processes to add depth and subtly tease out the hidden sonorities of his tools of choice, re-composing them and adding atmospherics along the way. By taking advantage of electronic production approaches, Nicola reworks something which is imminently accessible into an album which adds new levels of intangibility -- turning a classic and subdued sound into a future-minded extension, using the acoustics of field recordings and found sounds as instruments in their own right and allowing the harmonies between object and instrument to become more fully-realized. Dynamic and well-balanced, the album maneuvers through full, layered sequences into spare moments of near silence and back again with ease. It isn't a loud-quiet dichotomy, but rather, skillfully placed areas of intimacy. Nicola segues from droning strings and almost invisible vocals to subtly uplifting chords in an almost unnoticeable transition. From the Desert Came Saltwater is an album that sneaks up on the listener -- disappearing and also taking hold without missing a breath. With one solo album on Megaplomb, a handful of single tracks and remixes, and a recent collaboration with producer and engineer Giuseppe Ielasi, Nicola is defined by the excellence of his craft. Anticip CD $14.25 Raven Back to Ohio Blues PS, US Official master tapes, self-released reissue of this unknown hard rock/pre-punk Ohio LP from 1975 (previously reissued and long gone on the Rockadelic label). "The Back to Ohio Blues LP by Raven (that's one man's pseudonym, not a band name) might be the ultimate non-commercial '70s American rock record, unintentionally putting the most ardent anarchist punk bands to shame." -hit-fi.com Owl CD $8.50 Residents, The Eskimo [expanded re-issue] PS, US In 1979 punk was all the rage. This set the Eyeballs spinning off into their own imaginary world of 6 month nights, marimbas made of frozen fish & Eskimo sex lives-- the result is one of the most unique musical experiences in the history of recorded music Mute DCD $21.00 Residents, The Duck Stab [expanded re-issue] PS, US Taking a break from their usual experimental, noisy sound, this was their answer to one reviewer's sentiment that kids won't listen to their music because they can't dance to it. Released in 1978, it was an instant hit & is often thought of as the ulitmate Residents album. Re-issue details forthcoming. Mute DCD $21.00 Ribot, Julien Vega PS, FRANCE A luxurious 24 page book edition. Julien Ribot has always loved both music and image. At the end of the nineties he was a professional illustrator. He had always composed from his early years on for his own pleasure and out of a natural need related to his being a man of many ideas... The triggering event was the meeting with a Japanese pop star seeking new songs for her new LP. He wrote her two songs and met a few people in the small French pop world. As the buzz around his mysterious personality increased, Julien Ribot gave up his job in order to devote himself entirely to music. He released his first LP Hôtel Bocchi at the end of 2001. On top of having Françoiz Breut's participation, he was surrounded on some tracks by Dionysos or Katrine, who helped him enjoy a pleasant succès d'estime. As a pianist and a singer he has been influenced (among others) by Mike Garson (one of Bowie's musicians) and Gérard Jouannest (who worked with French singer Jacques Brel). He also drew his inspiration for his second LP from graphic worlds belonging to David Lynch, Roland Topor or Tim Burton. Icid'Ailleurs-040 CD $17.25 Salas, Mikel Bajo Las Estrellas (Beneath The Stars) PS, SPAIN Acuarela releases the original soundtrack of "Bajo las estrellas" [Under the stars] Félix Viscarret's debut film (2008 Goya* for best Adapted Screenplay), starring Alberto San Juan (2008 Goya for best Actor) and nominated for best Soundtrack music by Mikel Salas with twilight western instrumentation. Surprising bonus track by Flamenco big star, Enrique Morente, who sings the standard classic "Stella by Starlight." Goya is the equivalent of the Oscars for films in Spanish language. "Bajo las estrellas" starts, and we hear a ukulele, a xylophone; suddenly it bursts a fun rogue melody, with an ubiquitous banjo and a persistent rhythm, as if we were traveling in a ramshackle bus. We are entering the impossible city of Estella (in Navarra, Spain), more imaginary than real, a world fraught with losers who cling to any chance of leading a more 'normal' life. Mikel Salas' music is that of iron, scrap metal and abandoned caravans, rusting, with twilight western instrumentation and lo-fi sound, a succession of instrumental landscapes, almost borderline abstractions that travel along with Benito Lacunza (actor Alberto San Juan) in his journey towards happiness, to the possibility of a remote happiness. In previous conversations between the director and the musician, it was much-discussed Daniel Lanois, and, above all, his album "Shine". Félix Viscarret says that Mikel Salas likes to get into a project before even shooting. But the proper 'revelation' came when "Mikel faced the first editing of the film. That's when we started talking about road music for our peculiar road movie à la navarra, an industrial western, the redemption story of an embarrassment guy, Benito Lacunza, who's going to show us that behind his dirty appearance lies someone with a huge heart." This is Acuarela's first published soundtrack. But it's also almost like any other release this label has got us used to. Almost folk, dark but flooded by rare cracks of light, intimate, warm, sometimes funny and sometimes bleak. Mikel Salas has written and recorded (by himself) the sound of how is traveling on roads filled with dust, deep into the mists of the north, or bordering small towns. And to conclude the record, a surprise: the voice of Enrique Morente and his amazing, magical version of Victor Young's standard "Stella by Starlight, filling the sky with stars. Acuarela-1080 CD $13.50 Scorch Trio, The Brolt PS, NORWAY This is the third full-length release from New York's free-spirited power trio, Scorch Trio: Raoul Björkenheim (electric guitar), Ingebrigt Håker Flaten (electric bass and electronics), Paal Nilssen-Love (drums and percussion). As with their previous albums Scorch Trio and Luggumt, Brolt is an old school analog recording -- the band set up in one room, instruments and amps miked with vintage microphones, playing live and recording to analog multi-track tape with no overdubs and editing and then mixing down to quarter-inch analog tape. There's a slightly different vibe to Brolt than that of its predecessors, maybe caused by the change of studio or the fact that they specifically set out to make it more of an ensemble recording where all instruments are treated equally. They went into the studio straight after a short, but very hectic tour of Europe and Japan, which may explain the more loose, live feel of many of the tracks. Björkenheim was raised on Hendrix, Zappa and rock music before he discovered Miles, Coltrane, Mingus and Eric Dolphy. He has written film scores and orchestral music and recorded with Bill Laswell, Henry Kaiser, Jah Wobble, Peter Erskine, Paul Schütze, Mats Gustafsson and others. Håker Flaten is a member of The Thing, Atomic, School Days and Free Fall and has his own quintet. He has played with Edvard Vesala, Krakatau and Tony Oxley and many others. Nilssen-Love is the most profiled player on the Norwegian jazz scene. A member of The Thing, School Days, Frode Gjerstad Trio, Atomic and several others, the two most important things for him are energy and creative freedom -- both vital ingredients in the Scorch Trio musical vocabulary. RuneGrammafon CD $16.25 Sirhan Sirhan Blood PS, US West Coast (San Diego, hmm) heaviosity, think Melvins meets Black Flag. Anodyne CD $13.00 Small Cities S-T PS, US Three friends from the Twin Cities playing well-crafted songs with nostalgic storylines & infectious refrains. The modest 3 piece outfit earned their wings in other Minneapolis bands like Wes Burdine & The Librarians & by swimming in at least three of Minnesota's ten thousand lakes. CommonCloud CD5 $6.00 Spiritualized Songs in A&E [regular CD version] PS, US Sixth studio album is an 18 track opus partially inspired by Jason's hospitalization. Songs in A&E finds Mr. Spaceman in minimalist mode, backed by his Acoustic Mainline idealism and arranged thusly: a gospel quartet, a string section, an electric piano and acoustic guitar. THE ONION A.V. CLUB: "Songs In A&E is Pierce's best work since Ladies And Gentlemen We Are Floating In Space-and easily his most personal. While Pierce's haunting hymns have always been rooted in simplicity, most Spiritualized records have buried them under layers of feedback or gauzy stratosphere. Songs strips them down to their vulnerable core, with Pierce's voice sounding unnervingly ragged on confessionals like "Death Take Your Fiddle," backed by a mournful choir and the morbid whooshing of a ventilator. But even for an album whose final words are "funeral home" (on the heartbreaking eulogy "Goodnight, Goodnight"), there's still plenty of uplift, from the Can-esque freak-blues of "I Gotta Fire" and "Yeah Yeah" to the gospel sing-along of "Soul On Fire," which boasts one of the most stirring choruses Pierce has ever written. Death has never sounded so alive." Spaceman/Universal CD $12.25 Steinski What Does It All Mean? 1983-2006 PS, US Steinski has produced a variety of tracks & this Illegal Art retrospective collects everything from his hip-hop narrative about the Kennedy assassination to the 1998 remix of Afrika Bambaataa's "Jazz" with Double Dee. Besides the completist archive, the release will also includes the critically acclaimed "Nothing To Fear: A Rough Mix," an hour-long mashup that was produced for Solid Steel/BBC London, described by Salon as, "the closest thing to a masterpiece the genre has yet produced" and perhaps the most obvious precursor (along with The Lessons) to Girl Talk's Night Ripper. IllegalArt DCD $16.75 Sun Ra All Stars Zurich, West Berlin, Paris (5XCD) PS, US 5 complete concerts from Milan, Zurich, West Berlin and Paris during the autumn of 1983. Featuring SUN RA, LESTER BOWIE (Art Ensemble of Chicago), DON CHERRY, MARSHALL ALLEN (Arkestra), JOHN GILMORE (Arkestra), ARCHIE SHEPP, PHILLY JOE JONES (Miles Davis Quintet), and more! Transparency-311 CD-BOX $40.50 Tape Luminarium PS, SWEDEN This is the eagerly-awaited fourth album from the Stockholm-based trio of Tape, comprised of Andreas and Johan Berthling and Tomas Hallonsten. Taking cues both from pop, experimentalism and minimalism, Tape's sound has become recognized internationally and is clearly unique. Their first album Opera was released on the Häpna imprint (Johan is a co-owner) in 2002. Working intuitively, all by themselves, they created mini-symphonies out of electronic sounds paired with a stunning melodic lyricism. With an array of electronic and acoustic instruments at hand, they recorded at a small stone barn on the island of Öland, east of Sweden. 2003 saw the release of Milieu, recorded at the very same barn. These recordings had a more arranged feeling and a clear pop sensibility in some parts. In 2005, they went to Cologne to have Marcus Schmickler produce and record their third album, Rideau. This was done in his Piethopraxis studio and his involvement left traces; an almost architectonical approach was taken and some of the intimacy that characterized the first two albums were replaced by a harder edge. This new album is a luminarium of sound where past and present merge at the speed of light. A world which lets itself be sensed, not known; the first light of your rosy-fingered youth; birches and concrete, touch and go. Hapna-042 CD $16.25 Torche Meanderthal PS, US Copious hooks abound & psychedelic swarms of drone weave throughout riff-wizardry on vinyl. RoboticEmpire LP $18.75 Ueno Sui-Gin PS, AUSTRALIA Ueno, along with his partner Saya, is one of the core members of Tenniscoats, who've released a number of fantastic discs of straight up melodic to the core sing-songing joy. 2007 saw the release of Tenniscoat's 'Totemo Aimasho' for ROOM40 and 'Tan Tan Therapy' for Häpna/Headz. In addition to his contributions to the Tenniscoats mothership, Ueno has released a string of solo releases, most of which explore his engaging approach to the guitar. 'Two Things Always Happen Simultaneously' released in 2003 on Majikick as a cdr and then re-issued two years later as a 'proper' Cd on Commune-Disc lays the foundations. Whilst it is more explicitly a guitar record than what goes down on Sui-Gin, the Fahey-esque finger-picking that would otherwise plant him firmly within the Takoma school (Ueno's cat is not called 'Fahey' without reason) is willfully offset by Ueno's technique of recording multiple overdubs without recourse to the original. There might be a little of that on 'Sui-Gin' (Japanese for mercury), too. Either way, there is an ongoing slippage between intention and accident in the complex mesh of notes, and Ueno sends himself further away from any superficial 12-string Tacoma purism by plugging his guitar into a moog ring-mod and completing erasing its original sound. What you hear on 'sui-gin' is 9 tracks of alien beauty that sit somewhere between Derek Bailey and Mouse on Mars' 'Instrumentals' lp. Takashi Ueno plays 12 string acoustic guitar & Moog ring modulator. "For an instrument that when presented solo often brings to mind a clutter of reference points, Ueno Takashi's playing is stubbornly his own and (((hasunosu))) suggests we are hearing but the first offerings of an increasingly vital proponent of contemporary Japanese guitar composition." Signal To Noise. Room40-428 CD $15.00 Various Radio Myanmar PS, US This is a special opportunity for listeners to delve behind the headlines & into the airwaves; to hear for themselves the sounds, rhythms, & voices of urban Burma's radio experience, unfiltered by the international press or state-spokesmen. Due in part to the near-blackout of all foreign music on state airwaves, the few FM stations that do exist in Yangon & Bago divisions, transmit a rather bizarre assortment of music from 7am to 9pm: synth ballads, hip-hop jingles, & internationally popular songs re-recorded in Burmese. This release also feat. assorted tracks recorded between 1994-2002, highlighting many wonderfully strange & beautiful pop, folk, & classical music styles Sublime CD $16.25 Various Let's Ride: 20 Popsike Excursions from the UK & Europe, Fairytakes Can Come True Volume 3. VA: Let's Ride: 20 Popsike Excursions from the UK & Europe CD (PC 7022CD). ...Fairytakes Can Come True Volume 3. The Psychic Circle label has visited this Neverland twice before, and due to the great response, they're going back for yet another trip. This time you'll meet a suitably freaked-out Irish showband, an American band transported to Paris, a family band from Fulham, a Scottish supergroup in the making, plus a whole lot more. The many-hued charabanc is fuelled and ready to depart. Climb aboard, wrap your paisley travel rugs around your vertically-striped hipsters and Let's Ride. Compiled by legendary psych musician and Psychic Circle label-head, Nick Saloman (The Bevis Frond). Artists include: Sight & Sound, Winston G, Hubert Thomas Valverde & The HTs, Royalty, Les Irresistibles, Stoics, Grand Union, Barry Benson, Graham Bonney, Katch 22, My Kind Of People, Mike Batt, The Chanters, Des James, Unit 4 + 2, Tony Hazzard, The Newmens, Dave Christie, White Lining and Equip 84. PsychicCircle-7022 CD $16.25 Various Lo Dubs Presents Analog Clash, Mixed By 6Blocc PS, US Lo Dubs is pleased to present Analog Clash, our first Compact Disc, mixed by LA's 6Blocc, and destined to become the Rosetta stone of the Dubstep sound emanating from all regions of the Americas. From Toronto by way of DZ, Bombaman, XI, and the Doom metal group Nadja (Remixed by Vex'd, an exclusive to this release), to Venezuela via Pachecko and Cardopusher, and back to the middle with Philadelphia's own Starkey and the mighty South3rn of Texas, all the earth encompassing the two continents is represented in a release that may very well be the first of it's kind to represent the movement on this side of the pond. As a mix, 6Blocc has demonstrated once again his ability to thrill, compiling a hour-plus recording that weaves through Lo Dubs diverse list of releases, in addition to a host of unheard recordings, many of which will be featured on 12"s in their own right in the months following the CD release, thus continuing the cross pollination process. As a bonus, included is a second disc, containing every Lo Dubs release to date, in full CD audio format, mastered to perfection. This will be THE ONLY WAY any Lo Dubs releases will be available in such a high quality digital format, a point which will be made clear in all aspects of promoting this release. Key points of blag/boast: Multitude of exclusive tunes, including a remix of the ultra prolific group know as Nadja, Remixed by the one and only Vex'd, and Solvent, known via releases on Ghostly, suction, etc. Full color, highly evocative artwork, packaged as a 2CD jewel case. Front sticker explaining release, exclusivity. 6Blocc just returned to LA, having just blazed a trail of over 30 dates throughout Western/Eastern Europe, playing many of these tracks on Dub Plate to huge response. the only way digital DJ's will be able to procure these tracks in digital .wav form is this release, period. full color posters and postcards. Full press blitz in the works. No dizzah. CD1: 6blocc DJ Mix 1: DZ Feat. Awaken Lion - Chalice Dub 2: Starkey - Dementia 3: Nadja - Alien In My Own Skin (Vex'd V.I.P. RMX) 4: Solvent - Think Like Us (Bombaman RMX) 5: XI - G Funk-3000 6: DZ/XI - Guns at Dawn 7: South3rn - Fully Loaded 8: DZ - That Bongo Dub 9: Hoodz - Clash 10: Pacheko - Bi Polar Bear 11: Pacheko - Bi Polar Bear (Starkey RMX) 12: Pacheko - Tryouts 13: Pacheko - Tryouts (Cardopusher RMX) 14: 6blocc - Give the DJ a Break 2008 15: Cardopusher - Milk Thistle 16: XI - Lucky 17: South3rn - Mangione Tribe Dub CD2: Unmixed CD audio tracks 1. Starkey - Dementia 2. LOSBUD1207002 A 3. LOSBUD1207002 B 4. South3rn - Mangione Tribe Dub 5. South3rn - La Rana 6. Solvent - Think Like Us (RMX) . Bombaman - Rise Against 8. LOSBUD1208004 A 9. DZ Feat. Awaken Lion - Chalice 10. DZ - That Bongo Dub 11. South3rn - Fully Loaded 12. South3rn - Muslim Dub. LoDubs-1208001 DCD $12.25 Vegetable Orchestra, The Remixed PS, ITALY The Vegetable Orchestra are from Vienna and they use musical instruments made out of vegetables: using carrot flutes, pumpkin basses, leek violins, leek-zucchini vibrators, cucumberophones and celery bongos, the orchestra creates its own extraordinary and vegetable sound universe. The ensemble overcomes preserved and marinated sound conceptions or tirelessly re-stewed listening habits, putting its focus on expanding the variety of vegetable instruments, developing novel musical ideas and exploring fresh vegetable sound gardens. The music represents an isomorphism of electronic music and the structure of the sounds produced by the vegetables. The concept of this remix project is the interpretation and reconstruction of electronic music with organic means by using the original vegetable sounds and samples. Karmarouge Records has invited well-respected international artists such as Ricardo Villalobos, Luciano, Gabriel Ananda, Frank Martiniq, Oliver Hacke, Märtini Brös, Anja Schneider, Basteroid and Sian to take part and create their individual vegetable sound interpretation. Armed with vegetable samples, a sequencer and a hand-held blender, it's up to them to show the world how to brew a large portion of minimal techno out of ginger, leek and onions, how to buzz the pumpkin bass and cook a delicate celery soup. Listen to the vegetables! Karmarouge CD $16.25 Velvet Cacoon Genevieve PS, US LIMITED to 1500. Double LP set w/ thick inner sleeves. "...luxurious wordplay back in hand, laced to the nines in immaculate decadence, the late Oregon fold, life on a grey seacoast, snowsailing into the deep December lavender of a heartbeat's cadence, drinking grenache, over & over, grenache grenache grenache, spiced lacquer coating in the fade of dusk, passages from "A Rebours", manic laughter at old art & new vignettes, music of the sea, stars, drugs, dreams, soft nothingness treasured, & after much delay we have finally started recording the new album." SouthernLord DLP $21.50 Venus Summer 2008 PS, US Hip Hop issue with Missy Elliott on the cover. Also featuring Zooey Deschanel, Kim Gordon, Santogold, and Erykah Badu. Features include: 10 Artists to Watch, World's Quirkiest Music Joints and more. ZINE $4.25 Walter Meego Voyager PS, US Justin Sconza & Colin Yarck, the heart & soul (respectively) of the group, are two rare suburban white boys who intuitively understand the subliminal power of synthy, salacious bass. Effervescent pop is their specialty, & it flies out of speakers like a Pegasus riding a cheetah. Truth is, it's a happy coincidence that the sound comes out of these two guys from Chicago. More than anything they're worshippers of the 'alternative pop years' between 1988 & 1994. ALL MUSIC GUIDE: "Chicago dance-pop duo Walter Meego have a bright and shiny sound that places them firmly on the "daft" end of the daft punk spectrum. Their debut album, Voyager, is 40 minutes of fat synths, shimmering vocoders, jumpy beats, and glittering hooks that will have you in a post-disco narcotic haze of happiness by the end." AlmostGold CD $13.25 Winning Could We Believe In Magic? PS, CANADA Vancouver trio, Winnings sophomore full length is as dour and uncomfortable as it is playful. Its a paradigm sprouted from the seed of improvisation, but nurtured from a dark and claustrophobic sentiment. Structurally, Could We Believe In Magic? has it's hands in a variety of extremes. It runs the gamut, from an apparent abandonment of traditional tempo and structure, to, at least comparatively, more conventional composition. Last year's, This Is An For Cigarettes, Winning's debut album, was a tangled and puzzling foray into rocks most experimental corners, abandoning rhythm, and structure almost completely; Only Magazine called it ...a clumsy acrobatic act beneath the Big Top of punk rock. And Magic is, no doubt, a logical continuation of such acrobatics; the most notable difference being much larger occurrences of coherency. Melody and structure are gestured at; sometimes completed, and sometimes spun quickly out of control. One may assume that these moments of melody (are we bold enough to call them 'choruses?'), would smooth out Winning's cumbersome disposition. But it is arguable that the exact opposite is true. Much like how one warm day will make the cold ones feel colder; these moments create a reference point for normalcy. The pop insinuations on Magic are equally as baffling as the free structured ones. Ache-037 CD $13.25 WRNLRD Oneiromantical War PS, US Working with guitar, bass, fiddle, banjo, synths & samples; Wrnlrd throws metal, industrial, noise, dark ambient & folk musics into a blackened & bubbling cauldron. Wrnlrd records spontaneous, wordless vocalizations & details the lyrics later, improvises massed guitar tones, buries samples deep into the mix & brings the disruptive & unpredictable elements of improvisation & chance into recording. ONE TIME PRESSING OF 500 on 180 gram vinyl in a gatefold jacket with metallic ink artwork. Comes with digital download code. FlingcoSoundSystem-01 LP $21.75 Forthcoming Releases 1900s, The Everybody's Got A Collection (PRE-ORDER: SALEABLE MAY 2008) NO PS, US New 7" vinyl phonograph single from Chicago psych-pop troupe, featuring two non-album tracks. White wax, black jacket, real posh. Parasol-039 45 $3.50 Abe Vigoda Skeleton (PRE-ORDER: SALEABLE JULY 8TH) PS, US This is a twisted joy ride through the four boys' private party. Soothing parts that remind you of Captain Beefheart & My Bloody Valentine, or some punk w/ a haunting reggaeton pulse that makes you move. When the record is done after a little more than 30 mins., you are left feeling that there is something they are trying to tell you, on second listen it smacks you in the face. PostPresentMedium CD $11.50 Action Biker Hesperian Puisto (PRE-ORDER: SALEABLE JUNE 24TH) PS, SWEDEN It really is time for Action Biker's first solo album! It has now been six years since she emerged as an artist doing fun and popular live shows and releasing CD-R's in the indie pop scene of Gothenburg, Sweden, which included people like Jens Lekman and The Honeydrips. Since then, Sarah Nyberg Pergament has been involved in other projects, such as Flow Flux Clan, Kissing Mirrors and The Dreamers, whose record "Day For Night" has received great acclaim from different places around the world. Over the years, Sarah has also performed lots of Action Biker shows (some, as an opening act for Le Tigre and The Embassy), contributed to recordings with Lars Blek (The Field), Differnet and The Honeydrips, and all this time, new recordings with Action Biker have popped up on compilations and singles. In brief, when "Hesperian Puisto" finally is released, it means the début of someone with a lot of experienceŠ The record is named after the Hesperian park in Helsinki, Finland, where Sarah lived for a while. She describes her music as baroque on synthesizers. It is pop music built on complex naivety - altogether very accessible music with distinct vocals and a crispy, sweet, analogue sound. Two great-looking videos are also included on the CD. References and Influences: Young Marble Giants, Broadcast, Dislocation Dance, Moondog, Virna Lindt, BBC Radiophonic Workshop, Antena, Francoise Hardy, Saint Etienne, Brian Eno, Ghost Box, Stereolab, Fred Astaire, Maurice Ravel, ESG, Komeda, Cluster, Flying Lizards, Syd Barrett, The Passions, St Christopher, John Barry, Can, Human League, Colleen, Marine Girls, Eric Dolphy, Telex, George Delerue, The Wake, Kraftwerk, Lori & The Chameleons, Differnet. FriendlyNoise-69 CD $13.50 Anniversary Devil On Our Side: B-Sides and Rarities (PRE-ORDER: SALEABLE JUNE 24TH) PS, US Posthumous from the 5-piece Lawrence, KS group. A two disc set featuring tons of rarities, b-sides, compilation tracks and more. Vagrant DCD $13.75 Architecture In Helsinki Like it or Not EP (PRE-ORDER: SALEABLE JULY 8TH) PS, US The Australian sextet is back with their 3rd single from their critically lauded new album Places Like This. The band has been on a tear since the album's release in fall of 2007, selling over 25,000 copies in the US in under a year. On top of that, they made their debut on the Billboard charts in the first week of release, peaked at #3 on the CMJ Top 200, and sold out several clubs nationwide on their fall 2007 tour. With the Like It or Not EP, the band finally records "One Heavy February" and "Beef in Box," which are two long-time crowd favorites from their live shows, to accompany the single version of "Like It or Not". To top it off there is a "Like It or Not" remix by one of 2008 biggest buzz bands, El Guincho. Polyvinyl-157 CD5 $7.25 Au Verbs (PRE-ORDER: SALEABLE JUNE 24TH) PS, US Sophomore record from acclaimed Portland experimental pop collective, which, in its swirling depths and subtleties, promises to be one of this year's most satisfying surprises. Verbs is padded out with contributions from nearly thirty collaborators, a list which includes members of YELLOW SWANS, PARENTHETICAL GIRLS, and EVOLUTIONARY JASS BAND, among many others-inadvertently resulting in a strange & singular snapshot of the city's. famously sprawling musical community. The resulting record seamlessly segues through new & unlikely ecstatic extremes with an arresting economy. Aagoo CD $12.00 Band In Box This Fiction (PRE-ORDER: SALEABLE JUNE 10TH) PS, UK Debut album from Swedish act featuring members of Buren. StereoTestKit CD $12.25 Be Gulls By the Beach (PRE-ORDER: SALEABLE JUNE 3RD) PS, US VINYL VERSION!!! Rad LP $14.25 Be Gulls By the Beach (PRE-ORDER: SALEABLE JUNE 3RD) PS, US Sweeping and soaring music from the folks from LITTLE WINGS. Rad CD $14.25 Beach Boys, The U.S. Singles Collection Box [deluxe limited edition] (PRE-ORDER: SALEABLE JUNE 10TH) PS, US 16 CDs! Super Deluxe Edition features recreations of the first 16 singles of the Beach Boys Catalog (1962-65), including accurate reproductions of the original sleeves and labels. Packaged in a board-wrapped, telescoping box featuring a retro chrome appliance sticker, and a variety of textures including gloss & rubber coatings, inlaid wood veneer and a foil stamp. 48 -page casebound photo book with 8 vellum pages is wrapped in mock sand. Accordion-folding credits folder. C-shaped card with titles, legal lines and barcode wraps over top, back and bottom of box under shrinkwrap. Capitol CD-BOX $131.00 Black Sun Ensemble Across the Sea of Id: The Way to Eden (PRE-ORDER: SALEABLE JULY 8TH) PS, US Quite possibly the final BSE release after an illustrious career of nearly 25 years. It marks a return to the beloved semi-acoustic style of their first few releases, and also - due to public demand! - contains no vocals. It is a mixture of new readings of past tracks & new compositions. The new material offers a singular, dreamy vision of BSE's potentially final works. The two title tracks, Across the Sea of Id and Eden Song, are reflective, yet hallucinatory explorations into Jesus Acedo's unique compositional & melodic sensibility. While Angel de la Guardia has a refined yet explosive rock swagger, it is balanced by the meditation Perelandra & La Paz. The CD also contains a video of the band performing the signature BSE piece "Dove of the Desert" CameraObscura CD $14.00 Blackshaw, James Litany of Echoes (PRE-ORDER: SALEABLE JUNE 17TH) PS, US Blackshaw's 6th studio album in 5 years, shows a more mature, focused and accessable. Featuring Blackshaw adding some glistening piano work for the first time and Fran Bury returning to play sweeping string parts. TompkinsSquare CD $15.00 Blood Music Don Quite (PRE-ORDER: SALEABLE JUNE 3RD) PS, SWEDEN Second album from former First Floor Power dude Karl-Jonas Winqvist, the follow-up to 'Sing A Song Fighter!', his charming fizz-pop debut. 'Don Quite' features guest appearances by James Huggins (Of Montreal), Lars Skoglund (Laakso), Sara Wilson (First Floor Power, Andreas Söderström (Ass), Leo Svensson (The Tiny) and Simone Rubi (Rubies). Lilting pop for fans of the coony, orchestral-pop sounds of Jens Lekman and Sufjan Stevens. The electric sound of joy, indeed. More on this when it arrives... MakeItHappen CD $15.00 Brother Kite, The/Plumerai Split (PRE-ORDER: SALEABLE JUNE 10TH) PS, US Track Listing: Plumerai "Vacant Eyes". The Brother Kite "We Can Never Be Friends". LIMITED to 500 copies. Clear vinyl in see-thru package. An idea hatched during the recording of Plumerai's "Without Number" CD out on Silber Records. The thought was to strip away the pedals and even electricity and release a record that would simultaneously draw upon the band's ability to evoke emotions and utilize one of the band's noted strengths; the intimacy and power of Elizabeth Ezell's voice. After consideration they sought out The Brother Kite to record a track for the flipside. A Clairecords staple and another top-notch New England band known for their shoegaze influences, they seemed like a perfect match for the concept of stripping down their sound and writing an acoustic track.. Plumerai's "Vacant Eyes" relies more heavily on orchestration and layering of instruments such as acoustic guitar, reed organ, violin (arranged and performed by Clara Kebabian) and bells to accompany Ezell. While The Brother Kite's "We Can Never Be Friends" is a more basic track with acoustic guitars and a catchy vocal melody carrying the song. This stunning and beautiful record comes on coke bottle-clear vinyl and is limited to 500 copies. Clairecords-077 45 $5.25 Brown Bird Bottom of the Sea (PRE-ORDER: SALEABLE JULY 1ST) PS, US Dark Americana trio have brought subtly disturbing lyrics dressed in soothing harmonies to those who will listen since 2003. Their sound ranges from simple sea-shanty style folk to complex counterpoints with an Eastern European flavor. Their influences of indie, classical, and old american hymns rise and fall within their songs like whitecaps on a dark and stormy sea. For fans of John Prine, Dirty Three, and Low. PeapodRecordings CD $10.50 Camper Van Beethoven Popular Songs of Great Enduring Strength and Beauty (PRE-ORDER: SALEABLE JUNE 24TH) PS, US CookingVinyl CD $14.25 Cannabis Corpse Tube of the Resinated (PRE-ORDER: SALEABLE JUNE 10TH) PS, US This collects evil shredding & devilish melodies of ghoulish hunger, balanced out w/ steamrolling death metal grooves & set to an old-school battery of blasts & kick-work. Spidery bass lines & growling vocals relate ironic weed-laced tales of gore & murder (w/ a bit of heavy-handed humor), creating a reality that incl the existence of bloodthirsty bud monsters & mysterious death-dealing weed-cults. Reeking w/ pungent infectiousness. RoboticEmpire LP $16.00 Carr, Derek The Digital Space Race (PRE-ORDER: SALEABLE JUNE 10TH) PS, IRELAND Derek Carr is one of Ireland's unsung heroes of soulful techno. Derek has been making music for almost 2 decades now (if you include his early experiments as a 14 year old with a Casio sampler). Following many releases over the past 7 years on a wide variety of electronic labels now comes his anticipated debut album for Psychonavigation Records.. 'The Digital Space Race' compiles ten tracks of sublime electronic music that can be enjoyed equally in the stoned privacy of your home or on the dance floor. For fans of John Beltran,B12,The Black Dog, Carl Craig... this is an essential record. Psychonavigation-025 CD $15.50 Chap Mega Breakfast (PRE-ORDER: SALEABLE JULY 1ST) PS, US They've become known & loved for their inimitable pop/improv/disco/rock-with-strings sound & a furiously rocking live show, complete w/ dance routines. It's the sound of the search for a heart of gold in a world gone cold. It deals w/ sex issues, depression & classic economics. It's all infectious, blistering pop music, but all the while something is deliciously wrong here, making for what is sure to be one of the most intriguing releases of 2008. GhostlyInternational CD $12.75 Charlatans UK, The You Cross My Path [deluxe edition] (PRE-ORDER: SALEABLE JUNE 10TH) PS, US Expanded version of the new album. The Charlatans' tenth studio album, You Cross My Path, is nothing less than a masterpiece - only the latest triumph, in a career which has been positively stuffed with them. It was one of the most talked-about records in recent years, before anyone had even heard a note of it. It was first released in early March in MP3 format, via alternative radio station Xfm's website. In a revolutionary move, The Charlatans were charging their fans not a penny to own and enjoy their latest music. You Cross My Path includes some of the most euphoric music the Charlatans have ever made - some of the most disturbed, too. Like on a classic Cure or New Order record, Blunt's basslines lead from the front, for a driving, danceable sound, which is both nostalgic and fiercely contemporary. CookingVinyl DCD $16.75 Cloudland Canyon/Lichens Exterminating Angel (PRE-ORDER SALEABLE JUNE 10TH) PS, US This single 30-min. track (split into 2 parts on the LP version) uses voice, guitar, samplers, & ARP synthesizer. Here are the sounds accompanying a spacecraft that's a combination Death Star & Taco Bell from the 70s filled w/ Mayan temples & pyramids populated by large, snappily dressed reptilian beings. HolyMountain LP $16.00 Club 8 Jesus, Walk With Me (PRE-ORDER: SALEABLE JUNE 3RD) PS, SWEDEN 5 tracks. Club 8's critically acclaimed album "The boy who couldn't stop dreaming" is pop music at it's most profound - and the most personal, honest and beloved song in the whole collection spells "Jesus, walk with me". On this new 5-track EP the title track is backed up by four brilliant, exclusive tracks - two brand new songs and remixes by Jimahl and The Sound of Arrows. The first new song, "What I'm dreaming of is something I could have", perfectly highlights what everyone loved about their latest album. Gentle, warm pop music as loveable as it gets. The other new track, "Take me home", shows a new side of Club 8. It's minimalist psychedelia and colorfully mind-altering and hypnotic gospel pop! The first remix is signed by The Sound of Arrows - Sweden's most promising new act with an approach to music that bare some similarity to Saint Etienne around "Foxbase Alpha" or The Avalanches. Their take on "Jesus, walk with me" is just as surprising as it's genius. One of the most interesting ambient dub acts today, Jimahl, rounds up the EP perfectly with an extreme make over of Jesus. "Taking drugs to make music to take drugs to"? Possibly, yes... "Jimahl's 8-minute remix settles into chill-out mode at the start... more percussion and melodic snippets join as the song heads into the chorus, then settles back into a wistful, spacious groove, with just a few phrases shining out of the hypnotic mists." PITCHFORK. Labrador-113 CD5 $11.00 Cobalt Landfill Breastmilk Beast (PRE-ORDER: SALEABLE JUNE 24TH) PS, US Feat. an appearance by ex-SWANS singer JARBOE. Clocking in at over 50 mins, this previews new & excl. material. "Ritual Use of Fire" is an epic 35+ min. Atmospheric/ambient journey through a landscape of desolation, loneliness, & desperation. Incl. a new track, "