New Release Round-Up 05-17-19

The National - I Am Easy To Find - 4AD
I Am Easy To Find is The National’s eighth studio album and the follow-up to 2017’s GRAMMY®-award winning release Sleep Well Beast. A companion short film with the same name will also be released with music by The National and inspired by the album. The film was directed by Academy Award-nominated director Mike Mills (20th Century Women, Beginners), and starring Academy Award Winner Alicia Vikander. Mills, along with the band, is credited as co-producer of the album, which was recorded at Long Pond, Hudson Valley, NY with vocal contributions from Sharon Van Etten, Brooklyn Youth Chorus, Lisa Hannigan, Mina Tindle and more. The two projects are, as Mills calls them, “Playfully hostile siblings that love to steal from each other”—they share music and words and DNA and impulses and a vision about what it means to be human in 2019, but don’t necessarily need one another. The movie was composed like a piece of music; the music was assembled like a film, by a film director. The frontman and natural focal point was deliberately and dramatically side staged in favor of a variety of female voices, nearly all of whom have long been in the group’s orbit. It is unlike anything either artist has ever attempted and also totally in line with how they’ve created for much of their careers.

The Head And The Heart - Living Mirage - REPRISE
The Head And The Heart are releasing their new LP, Living Mirage, on Warner Bros. Records/Reprise. Early last year, The Head And The Heart came together in the Mojave Desert’s Joshua Tree where they decided to shed old skin before writing their fourth album, Living Mirage, a sweeping, artful expansion of the earthy folk rock that once defined them. This recent “rebirth, a spirit quest of sorts,” as bassist Chris Zasche describes it, came from growing pains after their last album, Signs of Light: the amicable departure of guitarist-vocalist Josiah Johnson, replaced by Matt Gervais (husband to singer-violinist Charity Rose Thielen), and the return of keyboardist Kenny Hensley. “This is literally the most work we’ve ever done on an album,” the band’s Jon Russell remarks, proudly.

RAMMSTEIN - RAMMSTEIN - CAROLINE
RAMMSTEIN is the first new RAMMSTEIN studio album since 2009’s LIEBE IST FÜR ALLE DA. The new album is produced by Olsen Involtini with Rammstein. Rammstein is Christoph Schneider, Flake Lorenz, Oliver Riedel, Paul Landers, Richard Z. Kruspe, and Till Lindemann.

Jimmie Vaughan - Baby, Please Come Home - Last Music Company
When it comes to the blues today, there are a handful of guiding lights to make sure the music stays true to its powerful source. The sound of pleasure and pain that first sparked musicians to create such a sound is a force that can never be underestimated. The mojo has to be there. Texas guitarist/singer Jimmie Vaughan has dedicated his life to making sure the blues not only stays alive, but remains full of life and an inspiration to all who listen. He's held onto the spirit of the blues for more than 50 years, and he isn't about to stop now. Vaughan's first studio album since 2011, Baby, Please Come Home is a rolling and righteous celebration of everything the blues can be.

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Jon Bryant - Cult Classic - Nettwerk Records
New to Vancouver (Canada), alternative/singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Jon Bryant sought connection. After joining, spending time and eventually leaving an undisclosed ‘cult’, Bryant’s fascination with cults began to percolate and became the framework for his upcoming full-length ‘Cult Classic’, that releases this week via Nettwerk.

 

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Ryan Pollie - Ryan Pollie - Anti
Inspired by the warm, inviting sounds of ‘70s singer-songwriters like Jackson Browne and Graham Nash, Ryan Pollie wanted to make the most personal music of his career. He had released two albums as Los Angeles Police Department, and now he was ready to shed the protective barrier of his old band name — to make music, simply, as himself. Bolder and crisper than the albums he’s made as Los Angeles Police Department, his self-titled record emerges from a deeply collaborative place. He invited many of his closest friends over to his home to record the album, and a feeling of warm camaraderie shines through the music. “When somebody plays on a song, their character is in it,” he says. “I like to think all my friends are on this record. Their personality is in it. That was really important to me. I’m able to do what I do, mentally and emotionally, because of the people around me.”

 

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Minor Poet - The Good News - Sub Pop
After spending years writing and recording music by himself in various bedrooms and basements, Andrew Carter hit his stride with the debut Minor Poet album, And How!. Made on a creative whim with no outside expectations, the eleven-song collection combined Carter’s love of carefully-crafted pop with a loose, fun, off-the-cuff recording aesthetic. The album was released in 2017 and developed a small but loving fan base, and Minor Poet has grown from a passion project into a cross-country touring band with write-ups in publications such as American Songwriter, Magnet, The Wild Honey Pie, Impose, and more. Minor Poet’s second album, The Good News, is a six-song collection that expands the boundaries of what constitutes the band’s sound. In just twenty-two minutes, the songs take apart the standard formulas of guitar-based rock and infuse them with vibrance and energy. On opener “Tabula Rasa,” interlocking guitars and a Farfisa organ carry the song through until everything drops suddenly into a doo-wop section that wouldn’t be out of place on a 1950’s.

 

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UPCOMING RELEASES 

Justin Townes Earle - The Saint Of Lost Causes - New West Records
The Saint Of Lost Causes is the 8th album from American roots troubadour, Justin Townes Earle.  Earle’s latest album finds a songwriter and artist who is unflinching and unequivocal in his truth. When writing this album, Earle focused on a different America—the disenfranchised and the downtrodden, the oppressed and the oppressors, the hopeful and the hopeless. There’s the drugstore-cowboy-turned-cop-killer praying for forgiveness (“Appalachian Nightmare”) and the common Michiganders persevering through economic and industrial devastation (“Flint City Shake It”); the stuck mother dreaming of a better life on the right side of the California tracks (“Over Alameda”) and the Cuban man in New York City weighed down by a world of regret (“Ahi Esta Mi Nina”); the “used up” soul desperate to get to New Orleans (“Ain’t Got No Money”) and the “sons of bitches” in West Virginia poisoning the land and sea (“Don’t Drink the Water”). These are individuals and communities in every corner of the country, struggling through the ordinary—and sometimes extraordinary—circumstances of everyday life.

 

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Mavis Staples - We Get By - Epitaph
Mavis Staples returns with a brand new studio album produced and written by Ben Harper. Backed by Mavis’ critically acclaimed live band, We Get By features 10 songs of longing, strength, and spirituality, presented with simplicity, grit and sublime beauty. Highlights include the buoyant, “Anytime”, the cathartic, “Change”, and the title track, an uplifting duet with Ben Harper.

 

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For more information on these and other releases out this week, check out our New Releases charts by week section.

New Release Round-Up 05-10-19

Mac DeMarco - Here Comes the Cowboy - Polyvinyl Records
Mac DeMarco returns with his newest album, Here Comes the Cowboy, the first album to be released on his new independent label, Mac’s Record Label. The album features lead single “Nobody”.

The Get Up Kids - Problems - Polyvinyl Records
After releasing their highly anticipated Kicker EP in the summer of 2018 (which Pitchfork described as the band's "most satisfying release in nearly 20 years"), The Get Up Kids have returned with an invigorating new full-length album, Problems. Produced by Peter Katis (The National, Interpol, Sharon Van Etten), Problems sees the band expanding on the unmatched energy and emotion found on Kicker and channeling it into a fresh collection of songs that showcases the highly developed songwriting characteristics and impeccable use of melody we've come to expect from the Kansas 5-piece. Standouts like "Satellite" and "The Problem Is Me" make it clear the band has come full circle while continuing to evolve.

Defeater - Defeater - Epitaph
Since their inception in 2008, Defeater have stood apart as storytellers in the world of hardcore. Hailing from Boston, Massachusetts, the band’s lineup consists of Derek Archambault (vocals), Adam Crowe (guitar), Jake Woodruff (guitar), Joe Longobardi (drums) and Mike Poulin (bass). They have toured with the likes of La Dispute, Comeback Kid, and August Burns Red. Defeater will be the band’s fifth studio album

 

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Jackie Cohen - Zagg - Spacebomb Records
Zagg is the debut full-length album by Jackie Cohen and the follow-up to her two introductory EPs released last year, Tacoma Night Terror Parts 1 & 2, which were called "utterly spellbinding" (The Line of Best Fit), "a stunning and complete debut" (Vinyl Me, Please), and "sleazy-listening glam" (The Guardian). The playing on Zagg – by Cohen with the Spacebomb House Band – and production – by Jonathan Rado (Foxygen) and Matthew E. White with freak-of-nature orchestral arrangements by Trey Pollard – is bright and beautiful across the whole grab-bag of love songs, laments, self-mortifications, meditations on sunscreen, hammer-anvil jams, and kit v. kit double drum cardio smash-bros looney tunes suicide pursuits. More than one of Jackie’s many nicknames, “Zagg" is also a shout out to her uncanny ability to select an unanticipated word or musical flourish, her disarming poetic acumen, her ability to zoom in and out at lightning speed and spin a phrase into a mantra, or the opposite of a mantra. Each song on this record is its own unique little world, keeping a listener delightfully off-kilter throughout the entire affair. 

Sammy Hagar & The Circle - Space Between - BMG
Sammy Hagar & The Circle release their debut album of original material, titled Space Between this week via BMG. The first single from the record, “Trust Fund Baby,” is available now. With the upcoming release of Space Between, the band harnesses the depth of their artistic experiences and seminal collaborative sound with Hagar's prolific writing vein to produce an album that builds and explodes, song after song, around the concepts of money, greed, enlightenment and truth. Lyrically and musically, the collection of songs on Space Between build from intimate and introspective eye-openers to heart-pumping anthems. The music draws on the bands' substantial careers independently and collaboratively; presenting a veteran band still at the peak of their game. Formed in 2014, the acclaimed supergroup featuring Rock & Roll Hall of Fame inductees Sammy Hagar and bassist Michael Anthony, drummer Jason Bonham and guitarist Vic Johnson, quickly established themselves as one of the most emphatic and exciting live acts on tour today, seamlessly ripping through career-spanning hits from Montrose, Van Halen, Sammy Hagar and The Waboritas and Led Zeppelin.

Guitar Wolf - LOVE&JETT - Third Man Records
Guitar Wolf! They are the keepers of all blasted, hard, spazzed out songs, building a whole life on the bedrock of hyperactive RNR exhilaration. This Japanese power-group has been stupefying audiences at home and on the road since the late ‘80s and finally are back to unveil their capital-L loud jams. Third Man is fortunate to be releasing their lucky 13th full-length album LOVE&JETT and to have a hand in supporting Guitar Wolf’s noisy and canonical rise to their rightful place in underground music's highest hall of fame.

UPCOMING RELEASES 

Jimmie Vaughan - Baby, Please Come Home - Last Music Company
When it comes to the blues today, there are a handful of guiding lights to make sure the music stays true to its powerful source. The sound of pleasure and pain that first sparked musicians to create such a sound is a force that can never be underestimated. The mojo has to be there. Texas guitarist/singer Jimmie Vaughan has dedicated his life to making sure the blues not only stays alive, but remains full of life and an inspiration to all who listen. Hes held onto the spirit of the blues for more than 50 years, and he isnt about to stop now. Vaughans first studio album since 2011, Baby, Please Come Home is a rolling and righteous celebration of everything the blues can be.

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Jon Bryant - Cult Classic - Nettwerk Records
New to Vancouver (Canada), alternative/singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Jon Bryant sought connection. After joining, spending time and eventually leaving an undisclosed ‘cult’, Bryant’s fascination with cults began to percolate and became the framework for his upcoming full-length ‘Cult Classic’, that releases on May 17, 2019 via Nettwerk.

 

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For more information on these and other releases out this week, check out our New Releases charts by week section.

J.S. ONDARA - FREE FLEXI DISC

Free Flexi Disc of the single AMERICAN DREAM from J.S. Ondara's upcoming new album "Tales of America" with any vinyl purchase on Black Friday. Heavily influenced by Dylan, his album is "a deliberation on the times and a search for wisdom and the American Dream."
(while supplies last)

Tales of America - The new album from J.S. Ondara - Available 02-01-2019

New Release Round-Up 01-26-18

Calexico - The Thread That Keeps Us - New West Records
Over the past two decades, a strong sense of place has shaped the music of Calexico, infusing their albums with a stylistic unpredictability and richness of texture. While 2015’s Edge of the Sun brought the Tucson-bred band to the Mexico City borough of Coyoacán, their new full-length The Thread That Keeps Us mostly came to life in a house studio near the Northern California coast nicknamed “The Phantom Ship” by CALEXICO vocalist/guitarist Joey Burns and drummer John Convertino.

 

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Hollie Cook - Vessel of Love - Merge Records
Hollie Cook combines her unique vocal talent with charming charisma to craft her own dynamic strand of lovers rock with enduring tropical vibes, weaving a path from her West London roots to an arena of diverse collaborations, critically acclaimed records, and iconic live appearances around the world. Cook’s ability to continually surprise, delight, and progress solidifies her position as one of the most exciting voices in reggae, and this is crystal clear on her third full-length and Merge debut, Vessel of Love.

Ty Segall - Freedom's Goblin [LP] - Drag City
Ty Segall goes all the way, flipping the Freedom coin to find passion, laughter and savagery on both sides. A head-spinning compendium of stompers, weepers, ballads, screamers, bangers and funker-uppers, all marking a different impasse, like a flag whirling into a knot, exploding and burning on contact, in the name of life and loathing and the pursuit of what you love.

Beth Hart & Joe Bonamassa - Black Coffee [Red LP] - J&R Adventures
It's been 4 years since the critically acclaimed, Grammy nominated, and #1 Billboard Blues album Seesaw was released by Beth Hart & Joe Bonamassa. They have reunited for Black Coffee - another collection of scorching interpretations of ten soul gems that pair Hart’s breathtaking vocals and Joe’s masterfully expressive playing. Featuring songs made famous by; Edgar Winter, Ray Charles, Etta James, Ella Fitzgerald, Lucinda Williams and more. LP is 180g, red vinyl, and contains an exclusive bonus track.

Nightmares On Wax - Shape The Future [2LP] - Warp Records
One of the most influential artists of a generation and a long-standing member of the Warp Records family, Nightmares On Wax announces his new album Shape The Future. A perfect marriage of soul, hip-hop, dub and timeless club sounds that act as a salvo masterpiece of contemporary and classic genre-blending, brilliantly solidifying Nightmares On Wax place as an inspirational electronic music figurehead.

Cornelius - Mellow Waves [LP] - Rostrum Records
Acclaimed Japanese producer, composer, and recording artist Cornelius first proper studio album in over 11 years, featuring the singles If You're Here, Sometime / Someplace, and In a Dream. 180g black vinyl gatefold LP

American Folk [Soundtrack] - American Folk Records
American Folk is the soundtrack to the award-winning 2018 independent film, American Folk, starring Joe Purdy and Amber Rubarth. In addition to both original compositions and classic folk song renditions by Purdy and Rubarth, the soundtrack includes John Prine's ''Some Humans Ain't Human'' and Jerry Garcia & David Grisman's ''Freight Train.''

 

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For more information on these and other releases out this week, check out our New Releases charts by week section and don't forget that many of these titles are also available on vinyl.