At this point, it is almost impossible to say what makes for a classic Animal Collective album; the standard fluctuates with the weather, your temperament, whatever chemicals may or may not waft through your mind. But from start to finish, first listen to last, Isn’t It Now? absolutely lands as a classic, its mix of playfulness and earnestness, glittery pop and tessellated textures seeming to synthesize and update all that has ever made and still makes this band so compelling. It is experienced and wise, energized and young, the work of four people committed to finding the frontier of a beginner’s mind, together. Recorded, mixed and co-produced by Russell Elevado (D’Angelo, The Roots, Kamasi Washington).

Green Day’s third studio album Dookie was released in February 1994, and has since sold over 15 million copies worldwide, including 10 million in the US (RIAA Diamond certified). The album is an iconic punk-rock-pop masterpiece and one of the most influential and defining albums of the 1990’s. It spawned five hit singles that are still hugely popular songs: “Longview”, “Basket Case”, “Welcome to Paradise”, “When I Come Around”, and “She”.

Limited Edition Super Deluxe Box Sets (vinyl and CD) will be released on September 29, 2023, to celebrate the 30^th Anniversary of this landmark album.

In addition to the original album, the super deluxe box sets will include a wealth of rare and unreleased material. The legendary Woodstock ’94 performance is included – previously released as a very limited Record Store Day vinyl release. The 6 LPs (or 4 CDs) also feature 17 unreleased demos, 6 studio outtakes (3 unreleased), and a 17-track unreleased club show from Barcelona in 1994.

The deluxe vinyl box features the six LPs pressed on 6 different varieties of brown vinyl, plus a 36-page 12” x 12” book. The box also includes many fun memorabilia items inspired by the “Dookie” artwork: Doggie Poop Bags, Air-Freshener, Poster, Color-in litho, Button Set, Magnet Sheet, Postcard, Bumper Sticker and Paper Plane.

The CD box includes 4 CDs (the same audio content as the vinyl box), 48-page book, Button Set, Air-Freshener, Magnet and two stickers.

It’s been four years since Cherry Glazerr released their resplendent third album Stuffed and Ready, but Clementine Creevy has been in no rush. “I’ve spent these years taking a hard look at myself, at my relationships, and writing about it,” she says. “I guess I’m coming to terms with a lot of my bullshit.” Cherry Glazerr has been on the road more often than not since Creevy was still in high school, and when the pandemic hit, she immersed herself in a static existence she’d been deprived of. 

Creevy describes Cherry Glazerr’s ambitious new album, I Don’t Want You Anymore, as some of her most personal, raw music to date, a collection of songs that elaborate on this period of self-reckoning. It’s the first she’s produced since Cherry Glazerr’s garage rock debut, Haxel Princess, released nearly a decade ago when Creevy was a teenager.

A first time to vinyl reissue treatment of HAIM’s chart-topping debut album Days Are Gone, in celebration of the 10th anniversary. Featuring the six singles, ‘Forever’, ‘Don’t Save Me’, ‘Falling’, ‘The Wire’, ‘If I Could Change Your Mind’ & ‘My Song 5’, the record hasn’t been reissued since its release in 2013. Housed in an entirely new package, the album features a track list compiled by the band of their favorite demos and remixes on transparent green vinyl. Also features an exclusive fold out poster.

On Yard, Wisconsin-bred, Chicago-based four-piece Slow Pulp nes- tles comfortably into pockets of nuance, impressions, contradictions— sonics and lyrics finessed together to bottle the specific tension of a feeling you’ve never quite been able to find the right words for. In that regard, listening to Slow Pulp can feel like being in a room with someone who’s known you so long that they can read your every micro-expression and pinpoint exactly how you’re feeling before you can. Perhaps this spawns from the band’s own shared history and chemistry; in various ways, the four of them grew up—are still grow- ing up—together.

The dreamy songs of the Midwest indie rock outfit draw on moody shoegaze, hooky grunge, and intimate lo-fi fare. The band made their full-length debut with Moveys in 2020. After the downcast 2021 7” Deleted Scenes, they put the focus on hooky grunge pop for singles like 2021’s “In Too Deep” and 2023’s “Cramps.” Yard is their second full-length album and first for ANTI-.

After a year of drama and speculation, Escape the Fate return stronger and heavier than ever. Their sophomore release, This War Is Ours, marks the debut of singer Craig Mabbit (formerly of Bless the Fall) and has all the elements that made Dying is Your Latest Fashion such an immediate success. The blistering guitars, beyond-heavy breakdowns and an in-your-face attitude remain, and the addition of Craig’s mad vocal skills - from the deepest growls to the most emotive harmonies - propels ETF beyond the fray. From the formidable breakdowns of “The Flood,” to radio-ready heartbreak in “Something,” to the theatricality of “It’s Just Me,” Escape The Fate proves this is a band destined to triumph. First time pressing on limited edition White with Red & Green splatter vinyl to celebrate the album’s 15th anniversary!

Slaughter Beach, Dog’s new album Crying, Laughing, Waving, Smiling finds Jacob Ewald hitting his songwriting stride. A decade into steadily releasing records through Slaughter Beach, Dog and Modern Baseball, Ewald spent hundreds of hours over the past few years to listen purposefully, diving deep into the worlds of Randy Newman, Tom Waits, Neil Young and many other “classic guys” that he hadn’t spent ample time with. Ewald also spent a similar amount of hours meticulously assembling a band fit for these new songs, and I am very happy to report that he found what he was looking for.

"Flying Wig" is an album of recurrent dualities; a can of paradoxes, a box of worms. The pine-surrounded cabin studio where Banhart was “constantly listening to The Grateful Dead” somehow birthed something slick, city pop-adjacent and eno-esque. It’s the actualisation of a “precious friendship” with producer Cate Le Bon - a coming together prophesied by the mirror-image titles of their early solo albums (Banhart’s “Oh Me Oh My” / Le Bon’s “Me Oh My”), a tenderness built on crude haircuts (“we finally met, soon after she was cutting my hair with a fork and that was that”) and home-made tattoos.

A defining album of the 90s, Last Splash by The Breeders turns 30 this year. To celebrate, the band have returned to the original tapes to give it its first-ever remaster, and by doing so have also unearthed two lost tracks that will delight fans. 
  
Recorded by the ‘classic’ Breeders line-up of Kim Deal, Kelley Deal, Josephine Wiggs and Jim Macpherson and featuring singles ‘Cannonball’ and ‘Divine Hammer’, Last Splash was “an alt-rock classic” (Pitchfork’s Top 100 Records of 1990s) on release; a fast seller too, quickly attaining Platinum status in the US. 
 
Despite having had the boxset treatment on its 20th birthday, the album was still left to be remastered so 10 years on, the original ½” tapes were taken out of the archives and have been lovingly worked on by Kim Deal, Benjamin Mumphrey and Miles Showell (Abbey Road). 
 
Never sounding so good, the album for its 30th anniversary, it’s getting the ultimate vinyl pressing. Entitled Last Splash (the 30th Anniversary Original Analog Edition), this new version has been cut at half speed at Abbey Road by Miles Showell, now spanning two LPs and running at 45rpm. 
 
This edition contains an exclusive, one-sided etched 12” which features two previously unreleased tracks – ‘Go Man Go’ and ‘Divine Mascis’ (‘Go Man Go’ is a track that Kim co-wrote with Black Francis while ‘Divine Mascis’ is a different version of ‘Divine Hammer’ with Dinosaur Jr.’s J Mascis on lead vocals). Both tracks originate from the original sessions and were left forgotten until the sessions were exhumed to create this new master. 
 
The attention to detail continues to the album’s art, which equally celebrates Vaughan Oliver’s iconic sleeve. With Vaughan sadly no longer with us, his long-time design partner Chris Bigg has gloriously reimagined the album’s sleeve for this new version.

Kiefer’s newest album It’s Ok, B U marks a return to a beat-driven style after several years of live band projects for the acclaimed GRAMMY Award-winning artist - The album is accompanied by exclusive custom visuals by Barcelona-based artist María Medem, who created a visual universe specific to the album. - Video content across the project to include 3 custom animated visuals, private live sessions,and live streamed performances - Past Press & Radio highlights: Pitchfork, Paste, Bandcamp, Mojo, FACT, Mixmag, Drowned in Sound, and many more. - Over 65 million global track streams across all platforms - Loyal and highly engaged online community. Social stats include: YouTube - 3M+views; Instagram - 149k+ followers; Twitch - 12k+ subscribers; Twitter - 10k+ followers; Discord - 2.5k members; TikTok - 2.5k+ followers - Vinyl cut at 45 rpm for top audiophile quality - Exclusive moon yellow indie color vinyl - Value adds for indie retail, active digital marketing and radio campaigns, solo in-stores around US tour dates

Anches En Maat is the first new album from Grails in over a half-decade – following the masterful Chalice Hymnal in 2017 – and their first album recorded with all members in the studio together since Doomsdayer’s Holiday in 2008. With every Grails album released since Doomsdayer’s Holidaybeing a sprawling double-album endeavor, Anches En Maat was conceived as a return to the comparatively efficient single LP runtime. With that, Grails set out to craft the same sonically dense world that their longer albums showcased, while trading singular indulgences for live collaborative interplay.

Will Johnson’s ninth solo album, No Ordinary Crown, hums with palpable motion. Travelers, runners and conductors fill its lyrics, and gesticulating storms and emotional highs and lows seep through the instinctual quality of its rock ’n roll performances. It’s also cabled by ephemeral momentum.

The songs were conceived in stolen moments and brief windows of time between the responsibilities of family and a multi-hyphenate career. The singer, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, painter and novelist describes the demo process as “fairly jagged,” a gathering and stitching of audio snippets recorded via cell phone and dictaphone over a year and half. “I finalized the songson short tours where I could hear my thoughts a bitmore clearly,” he says.

Killer Mike’s MICHAEL marks the celebrated MC’s first solo project since 2012’s R.A.P. Music. MICHAEL introduces the world to the totality of Michael Render, a lifelong rap fiend whose consciousness is steeped in the sounds of community that raised him – multiple eras of southern rap flows, Sunday church service and barbershop discourse. A 14-track album produced by No ID featuring the likes of Future, Young Thug, Ty Dolla $ign, Curren$y, André 3000, 6LACK, EL-P, Blxst, Eryn Allen Kane and more! 2 LP set includes a 24” x 12” pull-out insert.

The indie exclusive of STONE LP is a ruby red LP housed in a heavyweight printed inner sleeve inside of a spot UV gatefold jacket with black flood and a four-panel lyric booklet. All artwork by John Dyer Baizley. Produced by Baroness, mixed by Joe Barresi, mastered by Bob Ludwig at Gateway Mastering. Only available at independent record stores.

Grammy-award nominated heavy rock outfit Baroness mark their much-anticipated return with new album, STONE. Their sixth record overall and third released via Abraxan Hymns, STONE finds the Philadelphia-based quartet of John Baizley (guitars/vocals/illustration), Gina Gleason (guitars), Nick Jost (bass), and Sebastian Thomson (drums) streamlining the momentous multi-genre vocabulary of its critically-acclaimed predecessor Gold & Grey (2019). This is still very much Baroness—just refocused for efficiency and rethought as a consequence of stability. STONE’s most prominent tracks, "Last Word,” “Beneath the Rose,” “Shine,” and “Anodyne," reflect thoughtfully, groove deeply, and refract tumult effortlessly. They, of course, rock.

"Alan Palomo (fka Neon Indian) is making his return this year with the brand new album World of Hassle. As Neon Indian, Alan most recently released VEGA INTL. Night School in 2015 and Era Extraña in 2013. His 2009 debut record Psychic Chasms not only earned the musician a spot on numerous year-end lists, but assisted the forming of a genre that, though known by a few names now (hypnagogic pop, glo-fi, chillwave), summoned a very unique and specific electro-mangled sound.

Palomo’s World of Hassle is a Pynchonesque place, packed with characters and situations rendered in dreamily absurdist strokes—guerilla freedom fighters camped out in a Rainforest Cafe in “The Wailing Mall,” a crumbling ex-pop star in “The Return of Mickey Milan,” the Leisure Suit Larry-does-Ibiza fantasy of “Nudista Mundial ’89” (featuring Mac DeMarco, who hosted some of the album’s sessions in his home studio). It’s parody, sure—of rock star ego trips, the mall-ification of America, and our own self-obsession, even on the brink of apocalypse—but it’s also dead serious, the sound of history repeating itself as the Doomsday Clock clicks past its Reagan-era maximum and nuclear anxiety comes back into style along with digital synthesizers and sax solos. The deeper it pulls you into its own uncanny reality, the clearer it becomes how thin the borders are between Alan Palomo’s World of Hassle and our own."

Sometimes, Mitski says, it feels like life would be easier without hope, or a soul, or love. But when she closes her eyes and thinks about what’s truly hers, what can’t be repossessed or demolished, she sees love. “The best thing I ever did in my life was to love people,” Mitski says. “I wish I could leave behind all the love I have, after I die, so that I can shine all this goodness, all this good love that I’ve created onto other people.” She hopes her newest album, The Land Is Inhospitable and So Are We, will continue to shine that love long after she’s gone. Listening to it, that’s precisely how it feels: like a love that’s haunting the land.

“This is my most American album,” Mitski says about her seventh record, and the music feels like a profound act of witnessing this country, in all of its private sorrows and painful contradictions. In this album, which is sonically Mitski’s most expansive, epic, and wise, the songs seem to be introducing wounds and then actively healing them. Here, love is time-traveling to bless our tender days, like the light from a distant star.

The album is full of the ache of the grown- up, seemingly mundane heartbreaks and joys that are often unsung but feel enormous. It’s a tiny epic. From the bottom of a glass, to a driveway slushy with memory and snow, to a freight train barreling through the Midwest, and all the way to the moon, it feels like everything, and everyone, is crying out, screaming in pain, arching towards love. Love is that inhospitable land, beckoning us and then rejecting us. To love this place — this earth, this America, this body — takes active work. It might be impossible. The best things are.

Coke Bottle Clear Color Vinyl. K. Flay returns with her latest studio album MONO. This album features 15 all new songs including "Raw Raw," "Shy" and "Punisher," as well as Irish Goodbye, her collaboration with Vic Fuentes from Pierce The Veil.

First establishing himself as an influential poet, then an award-winning screenwriter/actor, Saul Williams then went on to become an MC. His approach to MCing, though, wasn't exactly in line with the traditional school of hip hop. His rhymes weren't really rhymes, but rather his poetry delivered in a frenzied, spoken word manner that was more rhythmic than alliterate. Released in 2004, this self-titled album features guests like Zach de la Roca and members from Mars Volta.

Ode To Joe is internationally-acclaimed drummer and percussionist David Whitman’s fourth album as leader. A hard swinging septet session dedicated to the memory of drummer Joe Morello, the six tunes were composed by Whitman and Grammy nominated arranger Andrew Neesley. It features a stellar group of musicians including saxophonist Bob Sheppard, guitarist Bruce Forman, and Grammy Award winning pianist Geoffrey Keezer. 

Genesis Owusu returns with the highly anticipated sophomore album, STRUGGLER. On the back of the critically acclaimed debut album, Smiling with No Teeth, that put Genesis Owusu on the global map, a new chapter begins on May 18 with the lead single Leaving the Light. A fervent anthem about survival and perseverance, Leaving the Light, sets an urgent tone for the new album. STRUGGLER explores the chaos and absurdity of life, and our ability to endure. Where Smiling With No Teeth was all about the battle (against depression and racism), STRUGGLER is about how to get through the struggle. The album was inspired by Owusu witnessing a close friend hitting the bring and coming through the other side. The experience, alongside reading Beckett's Waiting for Godot and Kafka's Metamorphosis, found Owusu questioning life and finding beauty in the struggle.

Anyone who has had the pleasure of seeing Jalen perform live knows that he is one of the most captivating performers on today's soul scene. His upcoming full length debut on Daptone Records is equal parts raw feeling and elegance and exudes confidence and charm. Over the last few months he has disarmed packed rooms of rowdy concert goers, leaving them silent as they hold fast to every syllable sung. Recorded at Hive Mind Studios in Brooklyn, NY, with the help of producer/arrangers Mike Buckley and Vincent Chiarito (both members of Charles Bradley's Extraordinaires) and crack team of a-list musicians, his upcoming album blends heavy arrangements and introspective lyrics with sophistication, leaving the listener in a blissful wash of wonderment. Now with a massively successful US tour opening for sweet soul darlings Thee Sacred Souls behind him, 2023 is sure to be a propitious year for Daptone's newest signee.

Heavy MakeUp is a dynamic musical trio made up of Edie Brickell, CJ Camerieri and Trever Hagen, who have come together to meld their shared curiosities through voice, synths, drum machine, and brass. From their first face-to-face encounter in 2022, the group clearly had musical chemistry and spent three days improvising in an apartment, recording everything they played—not knowing they were beginning to make an album or, for that matter, a band. But the melodies were insistent, and the recordings were undeniable. The band formed while following the music, producing their self-titled album, Heavy MakeUp.

Anonymous Club is Danny Cohen’s candid documentary about the personal travails and hard-fought triumphs of Courtney Barnett, as she rose through the ranks of indie rock during the last decade. A cautiously redemptive portrait, any happy ending reflects the possibilities of fulfillment and stability, not the things themselves. In May 2021, months before the film’s release, Courtney Barnett and collaborator Stella Mozgawa rendezvoused with Cohen in Melbourne to shape a score that fit that premise—nothing too obvious or instructive, to tell the audience how they should feel. Barnett found she liked listening to what the duo had made, existing within its reflective gaze. She began sorting through those little instrumentals like amoebic puzzle pieces, figuring out how they fit into a full picture. The result is a seamless series of 17 instrumental improvisations called End of the Day: Music from the Film ‘Anonymous Club’, soundtrack reimagined as impressionistic sound-art collage. Like Barnett’s rock songs, they wordlessly ask hard questions of our softest parts, wondering what it is we really find there.

bar italia is a London based trio.

Celebrating the 25th Anniversary of Beastie Boys’ multiplatinum Hello Nasty album, this deluxe vinyl reissue is a rare version of the album that was released as a limited run in 2009. It includes two additional LPs with 21 bonus tracks (remixes, B-sides, rarities) and features the singles “Intergalactic” (certified platinum), “Body Movin’” and “The Negotiation Limerick File.” Co-produced by Beastie Boys and Mario Caldato Jr., it’s a record that embraces a kaleidoscope of musical influences, with hat-tips to Latin psych-rock, Brazilian samba, jazz-funk, dub, post-punk and an impressive collection of collaborators ranging from reggae vagabond Lee “Scratch” Perry to Cibo Matto’s Miho Hatori. Pressed on 180g vinyl, this Deluxe 4 LP boxset is housed in a hardcover slipcase and includes a removable sew-on patch. Limited Edition.

Black Classical Music, the first official solo release of the acclaimed UK drummer, Yussef Dayes. Across 19 tracks, it melds the spirit of everything from 70s funk, reggae and Senegalese percussion while simultaneously nodding to furious dancefloor pacings of the soundsystem continuum. At every turn, Yussef’s distinctive drum licks and Rocco Palladino’s bass are the sturdy anchors; aided by Charlie Stacey/Elijah Fox (keys/synths), Venna (saxophone) and a whole host of honorable features including: Chronixx, Jamilah Barry, Tom Misch, Shabaka Hutchings, Miles James, Sheila Maurice Grey, Nathaniel Cross, Theon Cross and the Chineke! Orchestra, the first professional orchestra in Europe to be made up of majority Black and ethnically diverse musicians.

Yussef Dayes’ rise can be first linked to the short lived duo Yussef Kamaal, with keyboardist Kamaal Williams who released one album Black Focus, in 2016.  2019/2020 birthed two EPs and one album within close proximity: Blackfriars, and Duality, and sandwiched in between, What Kinda Music, a collaboration with Tom Misch. Since then, his list of collaborators has blossomed to include an official remix of Pa Salieu’s “Frontline”, drums on “Motor City Madness (People Mover Remix)” for Waajeed, and on Wizkid’s “Made In Lagos” album, plus production for Kali Uchis (“Blue”) and Kehlani (“Hate The Club”) and 2022’s joint release with Soulection entitled Live At Joshua Tree.

As a band, Taryn and Austin’s journey happened both unexpectedly and fortuitously. At the start of the COVID pandemic, Austin and his wife moved back into his parents’ house, where Taryn was also living at the time. Faced with nothing but time, he got back to songwriting, regularly asking Taryn for input — or as the two playfully put it, “Gen Z quality control.

”The immediate result of their musical partnership was the pop-punk/alternative anthem “Who’s Laughing Now,” which leads with wry, tongue-in-cheek lyrics about the futility of young adulthood in 2023. After posting an unfinished version of “Who’s Laughing Now” on TikTok, it swiftly took off, galvanizing thousands of viewers who shared their coming-of-age frustrations. Clearly, the song’s sentiments - which land somewhere between a shrug and a clenched fist - resonated with millions of listeners, and today Durry have recorded a fully fleshed-out version of “Who’s Laughing Now,” which is set to appear on their riveting, perfectly sardonic debut LP, Suburban Legend.

Whether Suburban Legend is tackling romantic love, late-stage capitalism, mental health woes, or teen nostalgia, the thread tying it all together is its utter relatability. Regardless of where you are in life — city or suburbs, school or work, or pursuing a creative dream of your own — Durry will meet you there with a wink and a high five.

Following it’s surprise digital release, Sigur Rós’ first new studio album in ten years, ÁTTA, is their most intimate and emotionally direct record to date. Few bands cut through the noise and distractions of the world to bring you a pure elemental truth or feeling like Sigur Rós. As you hear on ÁTTA, there’s a new compulsion and drive to the band that comes with the new formation of the line up. Multi-instrumentalist Kjartan Sveinsson is back in the fold – having left the band in 2012 – to join frontman Jónsi and bassist Georg Holm. Recorded across multiple continents - in the band’s Sundlaugin studio in Iceland, the legendary Abbey Road in the UK and a number of studios in the US - ÁTTA leans heavily towards the orchestral, and touches on everything that has made Sigur Rós one of the most ambitious and acclaimed bands of recent times, with close to ten million albums sold, whilst signposting an exciting and expansive possibility for their future. ÁTTA prominently features the London Contemporary Orchestra conducted by Robert Ames, alongside brass performed by longtime Icelandic collaborators Brassgat í bala. It is mixed and co-produced by another frequent collaborator Paul Corley, alongside the band."

Wide-spine two-pocket Gatefold jacket, 2x Printed innersleeves. 2x Heavy 180g vinyl (1x "Sunset Burst", 1x "Cadillac Blue"). Australian indie folk rock band The Paper Kites release their highly anticipated sixth album - At The Roadhouse. The song and production background began when the band created a roadhouse in rural Australia, performing an unannounced month-long residency in the small Victorian town of Campbells Creek, whilst working on their sixth record. The atmosphere of the live performance is recreated with pedal steel and crooning vocals and harmonies. The song lyrics reminisce of a romance still as alive as a blue flame. "We had talked about this for years" Sam Bentley explains, "We were drawn to the idea of holding up in a town somewhere and playing the evenings as a house band. The Roadhouse became this place for us." Expanding their line-up, the five members of The Paper Kites recruited three extra musicians to make up their roadhouse band, including multi-instrumentalist Matt Dixon - who's weeping pedal steel features on the track - as well as Hannah Cameron and Chris Panousakis.

everything is alive, Slowdive’s 5th record, is exactly what the title suggests: an exploration into the shimmering nature of life and the universal touch points within it. 

While there are parts of this record that could sit neatly next to the atmospheric quality of 1995’s Pygmalion; everything is alive also manages to break down the boundaries of what’s come before it. Spanning psychedelic soundscapes, pulsating 80’s electronic elements and John Cale inspired journeys, the album lands immediately as something made for 2023 and beyond. 

For a genre that is often thought of as divisive, and often warrants introspection, here Slowdive show their craft as the masters of it by pushing it outwards, beyond the singular; the end result being a record which feels as emotional and cathartic as it is hopeful.

Remixed, Remastered and featuring the final unreleased song from the late Oderus Urungus

The final album of GWAR founder and lead singer Oderus Urungus has been remixed and remastered for this release. It also includes the song “Tammy, The Swine Queen” which is his final recording and has never before been released. The LP includes a limited edition embossed cover with new art throughout including behind the scenes photos from this time period and a Listeners Guide that details the story of the album.

The moment the needle drops on Bite, the new A Giant Dog record, one’s conception of what an A Giant Dog record sounds like bends like space and time around a starship running at lightspeed. The biggest point of departure is that Bite is a concept album, concerning characters who find themselves moving in and out of a virtual reality called Avalonia.

A Giant Dog’s first album of original songs since 2017’s Toy, Bite finds the band—Sabrina Ellis, Andrew Cashen, Danny Blanchard, Graham Low, and Andy Bauer—at their peak as musicians, challenging themselves with more complex arrangements and subject matter that forced them out of their heads and into those of the characters who occupy this supposed paradise. “We had to find ourselves within, or project ourselves into, the principal characters. We developed them, got to know their minds, emotions, and motivations, and then expressed those in nine songs,” Ellis explains.

Themes of addiction, gender fluidity, living ethically in a capitalist society, physical autonomy, avarice, grief, and consent bubble beneath the promised happiness of Avalonia. This is evident in songs like “Different Than,” where Ellis sings, “My body can’t explain the things my mind don’t comprehend” as if societal gender pressure is squeezing its protagonist out of their skin.

The songs on Bite are full of bombast, at turns calling to mind the spacefaring operatic rock of Electric Light Orchestra and the high drama of an Ennio Morricone film score. The album’s narrative sweep is epic in scope, its characters facing impossible odds and certain doom, existing as comfortably with the sci-fi grandiosity of Thin Lizzy’s Jailbreak as it does with the high fantasy of Dio and Iron Maiden.

Appropriately, A Giant Dog came to this narrative armed to the teeth with new ideas, unleashing synthesizers and string sections to create what Ellis describes as orchestral, symphonic, futuristic punk. To achieve this, they left their home turf of Austin, Texas, for La Cuve Studio, just outside of Angers, France. Living in the French countryside, A Giant Dog laid down their vision of the future against a decidedly pastoral back-drop. On walks from Angers to La Cuve, Ellis says that they “would see many things, and also nothing at all. Swans on the river. Romani people living in little trailers, with a side hut built for their dog. A juggler on a unicycle—not fucking with you.” “We thought we wouldn’t be allowed back in France after this trip, to be honest,” they continued. “Five loud, stomping, clapping, rowdy Americans who ran through the
streets of Angers for three weeks in November 2022.”

The experience capped two years of planning and writing, fleshing out the universe of Avalonia beyond the bounds of most concept albums. The resulting nine songs do not merely occupy this space: They’ve lived in it, and they want out.

For his latest solo album, Buck Meek, lead guitarist of Big Thief, went back to Texas with his band – Adam Brisbin (guitar), Austin Vaughn (drums), Ken Woodward (bass), Mat Davidson (pedal steel, vocals), and Dylan Meek (keys) - to record the eleven songs that make up Haunted Mountain over the course of two weeks at Sonic Ranch studio. Produced by Davidson and engineered and mixed by Adrian Olsen, the album follows Meek’s 2018 self-titled debut and 2021’s Two Saviors, with records as a part of Big Thief in-between - U.F.O.F. and Two Hands (2019), and Dragon New Warm Mountain I Believe In You (2022). Haunted Mountain is about love and... something other. Something bigger than love, a soulfulness, or a soul seeking fullness. In the songs, five co-written alongside longtime friend and musical hero Jolie Holland and one set to the words of Judee Sill’s final journal entry, love often assumes a natural form, sometimes it becomes artificial, sometimes cosmic. It is a consciousness here, interacting with the lovers, watching them sometimes, becoming them sometimes. Yet romance is not the only form of love Haunted Mountain explores. The epic ‘Lullabies’ examines the inexhaustible connection between mother and son; a platonic bond appears in ‘Where you’re coming from’; and grief leads to communion with the dead in ‘Lagrimas’. The songs were written in mountains; by cold springs in the Serra da Estrela of Portugal, on the submerged volcano of Milos in the Cyclades, Valle Onsernone in the Swiss Alps (where the cover photo was taken), and the Santa Monica range where Buck now calls home - all where his new love was born. “Love inhabits your environment, animates the inanimate, charging everything around you with a sense of meaning,” Meek says. Haunted Mountain asks, "is love a form of magic?"

The Nashville, Tennessee, garage rock group were signed as teenagers to the prestigious XL in the UK and Thurston Moore's Ecstatic Peace label in the US, with whom they released two widely acclaimed albums. They went on to tour with the likes of Arctic Monkeys, Sonic Youth, Le Tigre etc and have been cited as influences for groups such as Paramore and Big Joanie.

SPELLLING, the moniker of the Bay Area experimental pop mastermind Chrystia Cabral, returns with SPELLLING & the Mystery School, a collection of richly envisioned new versions of songs from throughout her critically-acclaimed discography, out August 25 via Sacred Bones. Recorded with her touring band (est. 2021), these reimagined studio tracks follow Cabral’s spellbinding career — from her 2017 breakthrough debut Pantheon Of Me, to 2018’s multidimensional synth-based project Mazy Fly, and her expansive third album, 2021’s The Turning Wheel, breathing new life into the extravagant orchestrations she’s written and produced entirely herself.

The NEON GENESIS EVANGELION SOUNDTRACK Vinyl takes you on a mesmerizing journey through the iconic series. With its translucent blue vinyl adorned with ethereal black smoke, this edition captures the enigmatic essence of EVANGELION's mysterious world. It features all the songs from the NEON GENESIS ORIGINAL SOUNDTRACK, including “ A Cruel Angel's Thesis (Director's Edit Version)”and “FLY ME TO THE MOON – Yoko Takahashi Acid Bossa Version”. This edition comes in a 140g vinyl, housed in a colored gatefold jacket with illustrations of the series, and includes a credit insert with comprehensive information about the songs and the series.

In Rumi’s poem A Great Wagon he writes of a place of total acceptance. “Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing, there is a field. I’ll meet you there,” It is a boundless, liminal space where we can release the judgments we make and carry of ourselves, and the comparisons to others. When we think of this field, there is a sense of tranquility that only comes when we are undisturbed by the shadow self and see existence as neither bright nor dim, white nor black. But as lead singer Greg Bertensexplains, arriving there is a whole different story. “This is a poem I’ve returned to over the years, and I love the idea of this place, but getting there is life’s journey.” Bertens adds “I think the longing for and elusiveness of this field is a recurring theme in our music.” Field is enveloped by themes of regret, disconnection and frustration but with the space to understand that these feelings are a natural part of the struggle between reconciling the inner and outer self.

The Los Angeles/San Francisco-based group have been indie shoegaze stalwarts since their formation in 2001. After two decades and a handful of line-up changes, their extensive discography presents a dynamically textural, lush psychedelic rock that has featured guest appearances by members of Pavement, My Bloody Valentine, and Snow Patrol, among others. 2021’s LP We Weren’t Here(Sonic Ritual) was hailed for its dense instrumental blanket, where unrelenting hi-hats and heavy kicks exist alongside dreamy drone guitar.

The Armed return with their new album Perfect Saviors, the first new music since 2021 breakout release ULTRAPOP. Providing a full accounting of album contributors for the first time, Perfect Saviors was produced by the band’s Tony Wolski along with Ben Chisholm and Troy Van Leeuwen, with contributions from Julien Baker, Sarah Tudzin, Mark Guiliana, Justin Meldal-Johnsen, Eric Avery, Stephen Perkins, Josh Klinghoffer, and many more. The album was mixed by Alan Moulder. Vocalist Tony Wolski offered this statement on the album: “Too much information has made us dumb and confused. Too many ways to connect have inadvertently led to isolation. And too much expectation has forced everyone to become a celebrity. Predictable primal dangers have given way to newer social ones. And the result is a world that is confounding and terrifying—but ultimately still beautiful. We hope this record is exactly all of that, too. Perfect Saviors is our completely unironic, sincere effort to create the biggest, greatest rock album of the 21st century.”

Crooks & Nannies is a collaboration between multi-instrumentalists Sam Huntington (she/her) and Max Rafter (they/them). The duo's signature blend of brash, confessional indie rock functions on extremes. Alternating between painfully tender and jarringly obtuse, the childhood friends fashion themes of growth, loss, and transformation into off-kilter pop songs that whirr with the unpredictability of a failing engine. In early 2020, just days after Huntington decided to start hormone therapy, her father was diagnosed with terminal cancer. After his passing, she and Rafter retreated to the partially-finished, off-grid cabin that her father had been building prior to his diagnosis. It was the first time either of them had been back to their hometown in upstate NY since transitioning, and it resulted in a distinct contrast between vulnerable, melancholy hush and explosive, confused guitar throughout every fiber of their new record, Real Life. 

For Lutalo, creating music is an act of hope in and of itself. Throughout their meticulously crafted folk, rock, and soul, on which they sing and play all the instruments, the Twin Cities-raised, Vermont-based musician embeds golden lines of poetry that inspire curiosity about the world and empathy for everyone searching for a way through it.

Kendra Morris, the Brooklyn-based artist is back with her fifth LP, entitled I Am What I'm Waiting For, on Colemine/Karma Chief Records. Co-written and produced by Torbitt Schwartz (Run The Jewels, Killer Mike, Rubble Kings, Chin Chin), this collections is Kendra's most personal album to date.