New Release Round-Up 01-18-19

Pedro The Lion - Phoenix - Polyvinyl Records
Phoenix is the first album in 15 years from pioneering emo/indie rock outfit Pedro The Lion fronted by David Bazan.

Alice Merton - Mint - Mom & Pop Music
After rising to fame two years ago in 2016 with her explosive debut 1 Million selling single 'No Roots' (Mom + Pop), written about her constant moving homes as a child becoming such as huge debut, its safe to say its been a whirl wind for Alice Merton with 124 Million YouTube hits to date. She also gained 6+ Million streams, toured the US supporting the brilliant Vance Joy, championed by Billboard Magazine, Rolling Stone Magazine with Performances on Jimmy Fallon's The Tonight Show and James Corden's Late Late Show, Live With Kelly and Ryan, and even a recent 2018 Teen Choice Awards Nomination in 'Best Rock' category. Merton's debut album, Mint features "No Roots", "Lash Out" and her newest single "Why So Serious".

Toro Y Moi - Outer Peace - Carpark Records
Following the ever-emotive Boo Boo, Toro Y Moi’s new album Outer Peace is a time capsule that captures our relationship to contemporary culture into one comprehensive, sonic package. As both a producer and designer, Bear utilizes abstract sound pairings with recognizable samples for his most pop influenced record to date, including features from ABRA, WET, and Instupendo. This is no departure from his funk and disco roots, which can be heard on “Ordinary Pleasure”, later fusing into variations of house with tracks like “Freelance” and “Laws of the Universe.” Smooth interludes melt into fast paced beats, paralleling the feeling of driving through the Bay Area, where Bear spent most of his time writing the album. Outer Peace is duality. It embodies whatever form you choose to inhabit in the moment. Listen and let your imagination become the universe.

Guster - Look Alive - Nettwerk Records
Guster's latest studio album Look Alive was produced by English musician, composer, and producer Leo Abrahams (Regina Spektor, Brian Eno/David Byrne, Belle and Sebastian, Chromatics). The forthcoming LP maintains the band’s unique charm while charting new sonic and lyric pathways. It is available on CD, Vinyl, and Indie Exclusive Dandelion Yellow Vinyl.

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James Blake - Assume Form - Republic
James Blake has long been a hip-hop ally. Not only has his own discography cemented him as a critically acclaimed artist, the multiple Grammy award-nominee and Mercury Prize winner has worked with artists from the likes of Drake, Beyonce, Kendrick Lamar, Travis Scott, Frank Ocean and more. 2018 was a massive year for the producer, singer and song-writer who collaborated with Kendrick Lamar on the era-defining Black Panther soundtrack and lent his vocals to Travis Scott's "Stop Trying To Be God."

 

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Sharon Van Etten - Remind Me Tomorrow - Jagjaguwar
Remind Me Tomorrow was written in stolen time. In the four years since Are We There, Sharon Van Etten guest-starred in The OA, performed in David Lynch's Twin Peaks revival, and wrote her first film score and song for TV - for Kathering Dieckmann's Strange Weather Tig Notaro's show Tig, respectively. Van Etten also had a child, and began studying psychology. In the scraps of hours between these endeavors, Remind Me Tomorrow was born. Working with producer John Congleton, Remind Me Tomorrow reveals piano keys that churn, deep drones, distinctive sharp drums. Originally a piano ballad, "Comeback Kid" evolved into a dark, menacing anthem. "Seventeen" began as a Lucinda Williams-esque dirge, but winds up a star-spangled nod to Springsteen, exploring gentrification and generational patience. The breadth of Van Etten's new passions have inflected Remind Me Tomorrow with a wise, warped-time perspective. She explains, "I want to be a mom, a singer, an actress, go to school, but yeah, I have a stain on my shirt, oatmeal in my hair. I feel like a mess, but I'm here. Doing it. This record is about pursuing your passions." This is Remind Me Tomorrow, fusing a pained attentive realism and radiant lightness about new loves.

UPCOMING RELEASES 

Graeme James - The Long Way Home - Third Man Records
Acclaimed New Zealand singer/songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Graeme James has built a large and loyal fan base throughout his home country with his captivating live shows and unique folk style, performing with the aid of a loop pedal to layer electric violin, guitar, bass, baritone ukulele, mandolin, harmonica, percussion, and beatboxing in his one-man-band sound.

 

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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 01-11-19

Old Sea Brigade - Ode To A Friend - Nettwerk Records
Old Sea Brigade releases his highly anticipated full-length debut Ode To A Friend. While the songs remain rooted in Americana, indie, rock, and ambient soundscapes, they also toss and turn between analog cinematic flourishes and provocative lyricism. At times singer-songwriter, other times indie-rock – no matter the inspiration behind the mélange of styles, Cramer has created a soundscape of the utmost sincerity and beauty. Throughout Ode...Old Sea Brigade tackles one of life’s most complex crises: how to make each day’s fleeting moments amount to something. It's these deeply introspective, meditative songs that make Old Sea Brigade so compelling.

 

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Taking Back Sunday - Twenty - Craft Recordings
Twenty is a career retrospective, celebrating 20 years of Taking Back Sunday. The collection spans all seven of their full-length studio albums: Tell All Your Friends, Where You Want To Be, Louder Now, New Again, Taking Back Sunday, Happiness Is and Tidal Wave. Whether your introduction to the band was singing along to "A Decade Under The Influence" in a sweaty club or hearing "MakeDamnSure" or "Sink Into Me" on the radio, Twenty is a look back at some of the highlights from this genre-defying band. Additionally, fans will be able to hear newly recorded songs, which hint at the direction that Taking Back Sunday are heading in the coming years.

Ski Mask the Slump God - Stokeley - Republic
Ski Mask the Slump God releases his debut album Stokeley via Victor Victor / Republic Records. The breakout album includes the fan favorite, "Nuketown" featuring Juice WRLD as well as the underground hits "Foot Fungus" and "Faucet Failure."

 

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Tommy Emmanuel / John Knowles - Heart Songs - CGP Sounds
In music as in love, one + one can add up to not two but a new and greater one. On Heart Songs two of the world's greatest guitarists, Tommy Emmanuel and John Knowles, make this clear. Both are masters of their instrument, honored by the iconic Chet Atkins with the rare designation of CGP (Certified Guitar Players). Their early journeys were dissimilar. Emmanuel began his in Australia, grew up on the road with his family's band, settled as a teenager in Sydney and left his rock band to launch a spectacular solo career. Knowles followed a more academic path, eventually earning a PH.D. in physics from Texas Christian University but then electing to pursue his true love of music. Inevitably they would cross paths, become friends and perform on stages and clinics around the world. Their styles are distinctive but for that very reason they mesh seamlessly, with Knowles generally creating sophisticated but compelling foundations over which Emmanuel's guitar soars in astonishing yet always musical flights.

Soilwork - Verkligheten - Nuclear Blast America
Soilwork has been around, in one form or another, for twenty years now. Some people say that they haven’t made anything worth listening to after “Steelbath Suicide”. Some have only heard “Stabbing The Drama. Some think “The Living Infinite”, the band’s 2013 double disc release, was quite epic. It’s all good. At this point in a band’s career, you can either choose the nostalgia route, playing old albums in their entirety, because that makes an easy package for promoters to sell. Verkligheten, the title of Soilwork’s latest offering, is the Swedish word for reality, the entity that we’re all trying to escape from. Verkligheten is their attempt to try and go somewhere else, to express all those things that are born in between hypnagogic states and frenzies of hyperrealism. SOILWORK is a band that has been through a lot. They don’t have to try and tidy things up by using clichés like personal and/or musical differences. It has been hell. They are not young anymore, and their reality these days is the hellhounds on their tails, the ghosts in their subconscious and the coldness of existence that starts eating at the soul the very day that you leave the womb. We can no longer escape the fact that we’re vulnerable to the shortcomings of life itself.

boy pablo - Soy Pablo + Roy Pablo - U OK?
Norwegian 19 year old indie pop sensation boy pablo releases double EP on 2cd set full of winningly naïve but old soul pop. Disc 1 is the brand new Soy Pablo EP, featuring new single “Feeling Lonely” along with “Losing You” and “Sick Feeling.” Disc 2 is his Roy Pablo EP from 2017, never before released on CD. Tremendous press; Pitchfork, Fader, Pigeons & Planes, i-D. Touring the world this fall with two dates in LA… full US tour in Spring 2019. The EPs are also available on individual Vinyl pressings Soy Pablo EP [Light Blue Vinyl], Roy Pablo EP [White Vinyl].

UPCOMING RELEASES 

Guster - Look Alive - Nettwerk Records
Guster's latest studio album Look Alive was produced by English musician, composer, and producer Leo Abrahams (Regina Spektor, Brian Eno/David Byrne, Belle and Sebastian, Chromatics). The forthcoming LP maintains the band’s unique charm while charting new sonic and lyric pathways. It will be available on CD, Vinyl, and Indie Exclusive Dandelion Yellow Vinyl.

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

GRIZFOLK EXCLUSIVE PREVIEW

Listen to alternative band Grizfolk's latest single “Spoonful,” which channels a retro sound to deliver a dark tale of yearning for someone out of reach. And check out their upcoming song [exclusively at this record store], "Heavy Crown," which melds a danceable bass line with jangly pianos to create an upbeat track that is sneakily about the tough subject of fighting for what's right in today's complicated world. See Grizfolk with Andrew McMahon & The Wilderness on tour and listen to their two latest singles now.