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A lone pair of footsteps meanders down a street in Omaha, into the neighborhood bar and then into a near-imperceptible tangle of conversations - about wars, sleepless nights - a surrealist din pushing against the sound of ragtime. Then, as the background quiets, a line rings out clearly: "I think about how much people need - what they need right now is to feel like there's something to look forward to. We have to hold on. We have to hold on." Thus we enter the fitting, cacophonic introduction to Bright Eyes' tenth studio album and first release since 2011. Down in the Weeds, Where the World Once Was is an enormous record caught in the profound in-between of grief and clarity - one arm wrestling its demons, the other gripping the hand of love, in spite of it. The end of Bright Eyes' unofficial hiatus came naturally. Conor Oberst pitched the idea of getting the band back together during a 2017 Christmas party at Bright Eyes bandmate Nathaniel Walcott's Los Angeles home. The two huddled in the bathroom and called Mike Mogis, who was Christmas shopping at an Omaha mall. Mogis immediately said yes. There was no specific catalyst for the trio, aside from finding comfort amidst a decade of brutal change. Sure, Why now? is the question, but for a project whose friendship is at the core, it was simply Why not? The resulting Bright Eyes album came together unlike any other of its predecessors. Down in the Weeds is Bright Eyes' most collaborative, stemming from only one demo and written in stints in Omaha and in bits and pieces in Walcott's Los Angeles home. Radically altering a writing process 25 years into a project seems daunting, but Oberst said there was no trepidation: "Our history and our friendship, and my trust level with them, is so complete and deep. And I wanted it to feel as much like a three-headed monster as possible." As a title, as a thesis, Down in the Weeds, Where the World Once Was functions on a global, apocalyptic level of anxiety that looms throughout the record. But on a personal level, it speaks to rooting around in the dirt of one's memories, trying to find the preciousness that's overgrown and unrecognizable. For Oberst, coming back to Bright Eyes was a bit of that. A symbol of simpler times, vaguely nostalgic. And even though it wasn't actually possible to go back to the way things were, even though there wasn't an easy happy ending, there was a new reality left to work with. And here, there is a bleary-eyed hopefulness - earnest, emotive recommitments to love appear on "Dance and Sing" and "Just Once in the World." And throughout, Down in the Weeds features snippets of Oberst's loved ones speaking, in late-night conversations. The fleeting loveliness of intimate moments punctuates the bleakness of the record's existential crisis, crackling like lightning bugs illuminating the long night. Down in the Weeds is a distillation of a prolific, enduring canon. It's immediate and urgent, the product of its creators' growth across a decade apart, as well as the need to make a record together to find solace from loss. Through deliberate, fearless experimentation in process, the trio made the truest Bright Eyes sound: the sound of a deep bond, of a band coming home, but also a seamless continuation, like Bright Eyes never went away. It's the impossible, sprawling mess of human experience that Bright Eyes has always sought to put to tape, since the beginning - the sound of holding on. Why now? Why not?

Limited edition of 350 only copies on cassette! Formed in 1984, Dinosaur Jr carved a singular path through the latter half of the 1980s and early 1990s, issuing a number of highly influential albums in the process before finding a home with Sire Records. “Where You Been”, their fifth record, emerged in 1993, at the height of enthusiasm for grunge and the alternative American rock scene the band had long been part of. Produced by a new line-up of the group (longtime drummer Murph and new bassist Mike Johnson completing the three-piece), the album became the band’s most successful up to that point, reaching #50 in the US (where it sold over a quarter of a million copies) and #10 in the UK album charts, and spawning the hit single ‘Start Choppin’. Released to unanimously positive reviews, and containing many tracks that would become staples and fan favourites, “Where You Been” continued Dinosaur Jr’s global ascent, being issued simultaneously across the US, Europe, Australasia, Asia and South America.

Limited edition of 350 only copies on cassette! Formed in 1984, Dinosaur Jr carved a singular path through the latter half of the 1980s and early 1990s, issuing a number of highly influential albums in the process before finding a home with Sire Records. “Without A Sound”, their sixth record, emerged in the summer of 1994, in the wake of personal bereavement and the departure of longtime drummer and founder member Murph. Performed primarily by J Mascis, “Without A Sound” continued the band’s growth in popularity and commercial achievement, reaching #44 in the US (their highest ever album placing there) and featuring the hit singles ‘Feel The Pain’ and ‘I Don’t Think So’. Released to positive reviews, “Without A Sound” also took Dinosaur Jr around the world, including dates in Australia, New Zealand and Japan, and into the mainstream as the group contributed ‘Blah’ to the hit US TV show Melrose Place.

Limited edition of 350 only copies on cassette! Formed in 1984, Dinosaur Jr carved a singular path through the latter half of the 1980s and first half of the 1990s, issuing a number of highly influential albums in the process. “Hand It Over”, their seventh record, appeared in the spring of 1997 following a lengthy absence, and would prove to be the band’s final album-length offering for a decade. Performed primarily by J Mascis, “Hand It Over” appeared at a time of declining international interest in American alternative rock, but nevertheless received widespread approval and appreciation amongst critics and reviewers. The album was accompanied, unusually, by an EP of non-album songs recorded for the Matt Dillon movie Grace Of My Heart and, later, a vinyl only ‘I’m Insane’ 7” single, all of which are collected here alongside a previously unreleased concert recording made in Stockholm and two tracks performed for ABC TV in Australia. Accompanied by in-depth sleevenotes from Mojo’s Keith Cameron (based on recent and exclusive interviews with J Mascis), this edition provides a final view of a band about to disappear from the limelight but still as engaging and powerful as ever.

Bendrix Littleton is the writing and recording project of Nashville-via-Dallas musician and producer Bennett Littlejohn. The self-aware, malaise-filled songs on his debut LP 'Deep Dark South' are imbued with the painful beauty of the modern American South, including themes of drug and alcohol abuse, and the dissolution of relationships. Bendrix wrote most of the album on a vintage Harmony H162 acoustic guitar that he found at a flea market in Kentucky and restrung with higher pitched strings (a 'Nashville tuning'). After running the tracks through a Tascam four track cassette recorder, which sped the songs up ever so slightly, Bendrix added layers of lap steel, dobro, and pedal steel. 'I tried to pair instruments that typically aren't used together--one's that I've shied away from after playing them with uninspired country music.' 'Deep Dark South' conjures the feeling of wonder one gets from looking up at the vast Southern night sky.

Swarm of failing robots, where are you running to? This is Milano in 2020, put your gloves on, it’s brutal out there. Hailing from the Occult Punk Gang collective and the experimental scene that calls Macao home, Wisecrack perfectly exemplify the bleak narrow futureless city with their heavy dose of industrial bass music. Their Maple Death self-titled debut is a furious mix of mind bending circuit breakcore rhythms, post-rave, hard techno and synth-punk delivered with an uncanny edge, a kinetic body voyage through vexation that juxtaposes celestial placidity (closing track ‘Wrongful Death’) with residual rage (‘Lights Off’). Federico Campo and Francesco Manzato, the duo behind Wisecrack, came together in late 2018, to create music inspired mainly by bass and distortion, documenting city hallucination, suburban sprawls and urban isolation. Their first output ‘Flesh’ was included as a cut in Bristol’s Avon Terror Corps compilation ‘Avon Garde’, epitomizing the duo’s ties to the city’s musical scene: post-dub, industrial, club culture. What characterizes Wisecrack is their unique approach, metallic dry beats, a cyber-punk sneering vocalist and a tribal thump that would not feel out of place on Chicago’s legendary Wax Trax Records.

Monument is a fitting title for the third album by Belarusian trio Molchat Doma. Indeed, it stands as a monument to everything they've achieved in their short time as a band, from whispered-about unknowns, to enigmatic underground icons, to legitimate viral sensations with hundreds of thousands of TikTok videos using their music. Monument sees them return as conquering heroes, expanding on the minimalist greatness of S Krysh Nashikh Domov and Etazhi to fully realize a more maximalist vision of their crystalline post-punk sound.Written and recorded while the band was quarantined in their hometown of Minsk during the COVID-19 pandemic, Monument is a conscious step up in songwriting and fidelity, and it reveals a band preternaturally comfortable in its own skin. Whether playing to the dancefloor, as they do on the synthpop anthem "Discoteque," or working more introspectively on pre-pandemic live favorites "Otveta Net" and "Ne Smeshno," Molchat Doma are in complete control. Their greatest strength has always been their songwriting, and they've only gotten better.As the band's arrangements have grown more sophisticated, so too have the sounds they use to bring them to life. Roman Komogortsev and Pavel Kozlov's gear arsenal has grown to include an extensive range of synthesizers and drum machines, all of which they deploy with precision. Egor Shkutko's vocals move fluidly between his familiar deadpan monotone and an expressive croon, his beautifully delivered Russian lyrics at turns bleak and romantic. Shkutko has often been compared to Ian Curtis, but here, he outgrows the comparison. With Monument, Molchat Doma have done one of the hardest things to do as a band. They've greatly expanded the scope of their music while retaining everything that made them great in the first place.

Kiwi Jr. Is A Phenomenal "Rock" And/Or "Punk" And/Or "Indie-Rock" (Whichever You Like More) Band From Canada, Made Up Of Jeremy Gaudet (Mic, Guitar), Brohan Moore (Drums), Mike Walker (Bass), And Brian Murphy (Guitar). Cooler Returns Is Their Second Album, And Their First For Sub Pop. Despite Being A Snapshot Of The Pandemic-Infused Beginnings Of This Decade, Cooler Returns Is Truly A Whole Lot Of Fun. Riyl Indie-Pop From Down Under, Things That Are Smart/Exuberant/Catchy All At Once. Buildings Burning In Every Direction; Macabre Unknowns In Your Friendly Neighbor's Basement; Undecided Voters Sharpening Their Pencils: Under Pressure We Could Call Kiwi Jr.'S Cooler Returns "Timely." But What Year Is It, Again? On Cooler Returns, Kiwi Jr. Cycle Through The Recent Zigs & Looming Zags Of The New Decade, Squinting Anew At New Year's Parties Forgotten And Under-Investigated Small Town Diner Fires, Piecing Together Low-Stakes Conspiracy Theories On What's Coming Down The Pike In 2021. Put Together Like A Thousand-Piece Puzzle, Assembled In Flow State Through The First Dull Stretch Of Quarantine, Sanitized Singer Shuffling To Sanitized Studio By Streetcar, Masked Like It's The Kind Of Work Where Getting Recognized Means Getting Killed, Cooler Returns Materializes As A Sprawling Survey From The First Few Bites Of The Terrible Twenties, An Investigative Exposé Of Recent History Buried Under The Headlines & Ancient Kings Buried Under Parking Lots. Not So Long Since Their Debut Football Money In Archaeological Time, Unending Gray Eons Later In The Dog Years Of Quaran-Time, Spiritually Antipodean Canadians Kiwi Jr Return To Disseminate This Year's Annual Report To The Shareholders, Burying The Incriminating Numbers In The Endless Appendices Of A Longform Narrative Record, A 3,000 Word Tract For Stakeholders To Pore Over. These Stories - Memories Of Augusts Past, Unrepressed & Transcribed Fast - Go Down Easier Thanks To Meaningful Changes Enacted In 2019's Kiwicares Pledge: Delivering On A Promise To Transition F...

Documa is the multimedia project of longtime Northwest Indiana musician Bobby Markos. Markos began writing and releasing music on his own, using analog production methods at home. The project debuted with a collection of songs called “The Color of Documa.” Around the same time, Documa began performing live, marrying audio and visual aspects to create an almost movie-like experience for audience members. The sounds of Documa are heavily influenced by music from the 60s and 70s, documentary soundtracks, and field recordings. The music incorporates fingerstyle guitar playing, as well as electronic compositions and samples to create ambient productions with country-western cadence. Markos relies on a home studio consisting of old reel-to-reel tape machines, VCRs, and cassette decks to engineer Documa recordings.

To integrate a longtime love of film, he founded Documavision, a production company focused on collaborating with other artists, visualizers, and motion graphics. The visual aesthetic focuses on film equipment and methods of the past as well, often using analog cameras, televisions, and VCRs to produce videos.

To close out 2020, Documa has partnered with Flesh & Bone Records to release a series of EPs, starting with the digital release of the EP “3.” and now a cassette release of "Lo-Fi One Two Seven".

RIYL: Duster, Bowery Electric, Codeine, Slowcore meets Downbeat, Tortoise.

Shame follow up their wildly acclaimed debut with a James Ford-produced peek into the riddled mind of the band's frontman, Charlie Steen. There are moments on Drunk Tank Pink where you almost have to reach for the sleeve to check this is the same band who made 2018's Songs Of Praise. Such is the jump Shame have made from the riotous post-punk of their debut to the sprawling adventurism and twitching anxieties laid out here. The South Londoner's blood and guts spirit, that wink and grin of devious charm, is still present, it's just that it's grown into something bigger, something deeper, more ambitious and unflinchingly honest. The genius of Drunk Tank Pink is how these lyrical themes dovetail with the music. Opener Alphabet dissects the premise of performance over a siren call of nervous, jerking guitars, its chorus thrown out like a beer bottle across a mosh pit. Songs spin off and lurch into unexpected directions throughout here, be it March Day's escalating aural panic attack or the shapeshifting darkness of Snow Day. There's a Berlin era Bowie beauty to the lovelorn Human For A Minute while closer Station Wagon weaves from a downbeat mooch into a souring, soullifting climax in which Steen elevates himself beyond the clouds and into the heavens. Or at least that's what it sounds like. From the womb to the clouds (sort of), Shame are currently very much in the pink.

Kiwi Jr. Is A Phenomenal "Rock" And/Or "Punk" And/Or "Indie-Rock" (Whichever You Like More) Band From Canada, Made Up Of Jeremy Gaudet (Mic, Guitar), Brohan Moore (Drums), Mike Walker (Bass), And Brian Murphy (Guitar). Cooler Returns Is Their Second Album, And Their First For Sub Pop. Despite Being A Snapshot Of The Pandemic-Infused Beginnings Of This Decade, Cooler Returns Is Truly A Whole Lot Of Fun. Riyl Indie-Pop From Down Under, Things That Are Smart/Exuberant/Catchy All At Once. Buildings Burning In Every Direction; Macabre Unknowns In Your Friendly Neighbor's Basement; Undecided Voters Sharpening Their Pencils: Under Pressure We Could Call Kiwi Jr.'S Cooler Returns "Timely." But What Year Is It, Again? On Cooler Returns, Kiwi Jr. Cycle Through The Recent Zigs & Looming Zags Of The New Decade, Squinting Anew At New Year's Parties Forgotten And Under-Investigated Small Town Diner Fires, Piecing Together Low-Stakes Conspiracy Theories On What's Coming Down The Pike In 2021. Put Together Like A Thousand-Piece Puzzle, Assembled In Flow State Through The First Dull Stretch Of Quarantine, Sanitized Singer Shuffling To Sanitized Studio By Streetcar, Masked Like It's The Kind Of Work Where Getting Recognized Means Getting Killed, Cooler Returns Materializes As A Sprawling Survey From The First Few Bites Of The Terrible Twenties, An Investigative Exposé Of Recent History Buried Under The Headlines & Ancient Kings Buried Under Parking Lots. Not So Long Since Their Debut Football Money In Archaeological Time, Unending Gray Eons Later In The Dog Years Of Quaran-Time, Spiritually Antipodean Canadians Kiwi Jr Return To Disseminate This Year's Annual Report To The Shareholders, Burying The Incriminating Numbers In The Endless Appendices Of A Longform Narrative Record, A 3,000 Word Tract For Stakeholders To Pore Over. These Stories - Memories Of Augusts Past, Unrepressed & Transcribed Fast - Go Down Easier Thanks To Meaningful Changes Enacted In 2019's Kiwicares Pledge: Delivering On A Promise To Transition F...

It Is The Simple Thing That Is So Hard To Do. This Is The Paradox That Musician Lael Neale Has Lived Within Throughout Her Development As An Artist. It Is The Reason She Became Enthralled With Poetry. Poems Are A Distillation. Lael Says, "This Challenge To Winnow Away What Is Unessential Is The Most Maddening And, Ultimately, Rewarding Part Of Writing A Song."Lael's New Album Acquainted With Night Is A Testament To This Poetic Devotion. Stripped Of Any Extraneous Word Or Sound, The Songs Are Lit By Lael's Crystalline Voice Which Lays On A Lush Bed Of Omnichord. The Collection Touches On Themes That Have Been Thread Into Her Work For Years: Isolation, Mortalit...

It's Tempting To Think That You Have All The Answers, Screaming Your Gospel Every Day With Certainty And Anger. Life Isn't Quite Like That Though, And The Debut Album From London Four-Piece Tv Priest Instead Embraces The Beautiful And Terrifying Unknowns That Exist Personally, Politically, And Culturally. Posing As Many Questions As It Answers, Uppers Is A Thunderous Opening Statement That Continues The Uk's Recent Resurgence Of Grubby, Furious Post-Punk Music. It Says Something Very Different Though - Something Completely Its Own. Four Childhood Friends Who Made Music Together As Teenagers Before Drifting Apart And Then, Somewhat Inevitably, Back Together Late In 2019, Tv Priest Was Borne Out Of A Need To Create Together Once Again, And Brings With It A Wealth Of Experience And Exhaustion Picked Up In The Band's Years Of Pursuing 'Real Life' And 'Real Jobs', Something Those Teenagers Never Had. Last November, The Band - Vocalist Charlie Drinkwater, Guitarist Alex Sprogis, Bass And Keys Player Nic Smith And Drummer Ed Kelland - Played Their First Show, To A Smattering Of Friends In What They Describe As An "Industrial Freezer" In The Warehouse District Of Hackney Wick. "It Was Like The Pub In Peep Show With A Washing Machine Just In The Middle_" Charlie Laughs, Remembering How They Dodged Star Wars Memorabilia And Deep Fat Fryers While Making Their First Statement As A Band. Unsurprisingly, There Isn't A Precedent For Launching A Band During A Global Pandemic, But Among The General Sense Of Anxiety And Unease Pervading Everything At The Moment, Tv Priest's Entrance In April With The Release Of Debut Single "House Of York" - A Searing Examination Of The Monarchy Set Over Wiry Post-Punk And Fronted By A Mark E. Smith-Like Mouthpiece - Served As A Breath Of Fresh Air Among The Chaos, Its Anger And Confusion Making Some Kind Of Twisted Sense To The Nation's Fried Brains. It's The Same Continued Global Sense Of Anxiety That Will Greet The Release Of Uppers, And It's An Album That Has A Lot To Say Rig...

Katy Kirby is a Texas-based songwriter and indie rock practitioner with an affinity for unspoken rules, misunderstanding and boredom. She was born, raised and homeschooled by two ex-cheerleaders in small-town Texas and started singing in church, amidst the pasteurised-pop choruses of evangelical worship. Like many bible belt late-millennials, Katy grew up on a strict diet of this dependably uncool genre and accordingly, Cool Dry Place finds her dismantling it. "I can hear myself fighting that deeply internalized impulse to make things that are super pleasant or approachable," she says. Though Katy hasn't fully overcome the itch to please, it's to a listener's benefit. Instead of eradicating the pop sensibilities of her past, she warps them, lacing sugary hooks with sneaky rage, twisting affectionate tones into matter-of-fact reproach, and planting seemingly serene melodies with sonic jabs. The fun is in the clash. The nine tracks that make up Cool Dry Place are miscellaneous in subject (motherhood, late capitalism, disintegrating relationships) but unified by the angle from which they're told: from a person re-learning to process life with intense attention. Each song is a catalogue of fragments, the number of segments in an orange or the cut of an obsessively-worn shirt, distilled into meditations on the bizarre and microscopic exchanges that make up modern life - a relationship splintering, an uncomfortable pause, an understanding finally found. These emotional dioramas are moderated by the angular storytelling that unites Gillian Welch and Phoebe Bridgers, a favour for the conventions of short fiction over confession.

After decades on the road and the never-ending hustle of life as an artist, Lou Barlow has tapped into a new confidence in the chaos. In 2021, the concept of balance feels particularly intimidating. Now more than ever, it's clear life isn't just leveling out a pair of responsibilities. Instead, we're chasing after a flock of different ideals with a butterfly net. On Barlow's new solo album, Reason to Live, he has come to an understanding of that swirl rather than trying to contain it. As a long-time indie legend, Barlow has found a life akin to a middle-class musician. In recent years, he's moved from Los Angeles back to Massachusetts, where he lives with his wife and three kids. And yet rather than settle into a comfortable malaise or yearn for the open road, Barlow's strengthened urgency finds a way to merge the two instincts. Reason to Live is shambolic and grand yet intimate and doting, warmly acoustic and crackling with grit. "I had been struggling for a way to connect both my home life and my recorded life, but this record is the first time I've integrated that," Barlow says. By folding the many facets of his life into one package, Reason to Live radiates with a renewed balance and calm. That comfort in complexity shines through even in the recording process, with select songs having origins in decades past and others written in the early stages of 2020. The multitude of whirring messages of Reason to Live are united by Barlow's roiling multilayered arrangements and the understanding that change is inevitable - and that it can bring you a new reason to live in the darkest times. "This album is me really opening up, and the album follows that through its many different themes," he says. "Some of my other work could be almost claustrophobic in its insistence on being all tied together but there's space for people to live inside these songs." After albums with Sebadoh, Dinosaur Jr., Folk Implosion, and under his own name, listeners may have felt they knew the construction of a Barlow song, even that they knew Barlow himself. "People have this vision of me as this heartbroken, depressed guy, but this record feels so true to who I am, to this rich life I now have full of people I love," he says. "The songs culminated over the last five years to show that music has returned to its central comforting role in my life. Now I'm home."

When S Krysh Nashikh Domov The Debut Album By Molchat Doma, Was Released In 2017, It Announced A Bold New Voice In Underground Music. The Album Found A Passionate Audience On Bandcamp And Other Streaming Services And Was Released On Cd And Cassette. Sacred Bones Records Is Proud To Present The Album On Vinyl For The First Time. Molchat Doma (Translated As "Houses Are Silent"), Founded In 2017 In Minsk, Belarus, Stands At The Intersection Of Post-Punk, New-Wave And Synth-Pop. Dark Yet Danceable, And With A Heavy Dose Of Goth Ethos, Their Music Is Reminiscent Of The Masters That Predate Them, But Make No Mistake: Molchat Doma Creates A Sound And Meaning That Is Immediately Recognizable As All Their Own. The Band Is Comprised Of Egor Shkutko, Who Sings The Russian Lyrics In His Deep Monotone, Roman Komogortsev On Guitar, Synths, And Drum Machine, And Pavel Kozlov On Bass And Synths.Riyl: Depeche Mode, New Order, Drab Majesty, Black Marble

Waking the Dreaming Body is the follow-up to Tucson artist Karima Walker's 2017 standout album Hands In Our Names, which garnered praise from Pitchfork, Mojo, and Bandcamp. The album includes dense harmonic arrangements of synthesizer, guitar, piano, percussion, field recordings, tape loops and Karima's dulcet singing voice. The final result is a 40-minute dream-narrative of her conscious and subconscious minds that oscillates between the rich textures of her ambient work and the melody and poetry of her melancholic, Americana-tinged songwriting, their ebb and flow recalling liminal states of half-sleep where images and emotions are recalled and forecasted from the previous night's dreams. Night falls in regular intervals throughout the album, forming a natural dialogue between waking and dreaming.

From the moment she began writing her new album, Japanese Breakfast's Michelle Zauner knew that she wanted to call it Julibee, After all, a jubilee is a celebration of the passage of time-a festival to usher in the hope of a new era in brilliant technicolor. Zauner's first two albums garnered acclaim for the way they grappled with anguish; Psychopomp was written as her mother underwent cancer treatment, while Soft Sounds From Another Planet took the grief she held from her mother's death and used it as a conduit to explore the cosmos. Now, at the start of a new decade, Japanese Breakfast is ready to fight for happiness, an all-too-scarce resource in our seemingly crumbling world. How does she do it? With a joyful noise. Jubilee bursts with the most wide-ranging arrangements of Zauner's career. Each song unfurls a new aspect of her artistry. In the years leading up to Jubilee, Zauner also took theory lessons and studied piano in earnest for the first time, in an effort to improve her range as a songwriter: "I've never wanted to rest on any laurels. I wanted to push it as far as it could go, inviting more people in and pushing myself as a composer, a producer, an arranger." Jubilee is an album about processing life and love in the quest for happiness, and how that process sometimes requires us to step outside of ourselves. Throughout Jubilee, Zauner is hardly fictionalizing her lyrics, instead pouring her own life into the universe of each song to tell real stories, and allowing those universes, in turn, to fill in the details. Joy, change, evolution-these things take real time, and real effort. And Japanese Breakfast is here for it.

Archive Series Volume No. 5: Tallahassee is the lost-in-time debut album from Iron & Wine. A collection of songs recorded three years prior to his official Sub Pop debut, The Creek Drank the Cradle (2002). A period before the concept of Iron & Wine existed and principal songwriter Sam Beam was studying at Florida State University with the intent of pursuing a career in film. Tallahassee documents the very first steps on a journey that would lead to a career as one of America's most original and distinctive singer-songwriters. Creek arrived like a thief in the night with its lo-fi, hushed vocals and intimate nature, while almost inversely Tallahassee comes with a strange sense of confidence. Perhaps an almost youthful discretion that likely comes from being too young to know better and too naïve to give a shit. The recordings themselves are more polished than Creek and give a peak into what a studio version of that record might have offered up. Tallahassee was recorded over the course of 1998-1999 when Beam and future bandmate EJ Holowicki moved into a house together. Beam had not been performing publicly, however he was known for playing an original song or two in the early morning glow of a long night. Holowicki also in the film program and who would go onto a career as a sound designer at Skywalker Sound, had a mobile recording device and after some prodding convinced his friend to record these late-night meditations. Together they would record close to twenty-four songs, ideas and sketches, with EJ on bass and Sam on vocals, guitar, harmonica and drums. The recordings - all captured in the house where they lived - have a "live in the room" feel akin to say Neil Young's Harvest or Nick Drake's Five Leaves Left, rather than the homespun lo-fi 4-track home recording experiment taking place at the time. These recordings, minus one track, have never been made available and were instead left preserved on a hard drive for the last twenty years. The one track that floated out there, called "In Your Own Time" was shared without a title to childhood friend Ben Bridwell (Band of Horses) at some point. The song became known as the "Fuck Like A Dog" song and Ben shared it with more than a few folks during the golden era of mix cd's. Two of those folks were Jonathan Poneman from Sub Pop and journalist Mike McGonigal, who included it on his best songs of 2001 mix cd, passed out to friends and acquaintances. And for many that is where the Iron & Wine story begins, until now_ Tallahassee is the foreword to your favorite book that you've somehow skipped over time and time again. It's an alternative history mixed with some revisionist history told over the course of eleven songs. It's also the debut record by Iron & Wine some twenty years after the fact.

Oh, Inverted World, the earth-shattering, indie-rock-redefining 2001 debut album by The Shins, is presented here in its finest form, dressed up all nice for its 20th birthday. The classic tunes get new life by way of a full remastering job under band leader James Mercer's watchful eye, the art is given a little extra zest via a die-cut jacket and a classy inner sleeve, and the package is rounded off with a big ol' booklet with vintage photos, handwritten lyrics, and more. The music, of course, is obviously essential. Aside from a friendly reminder that this is the album with the smash hit "New Slang," as heard in the hit movie Garden State, we just need to note that the remastering job truly makes this the album James Mercer always wanted it to be. Never quite satisfied with the sonics of the original, Mercer took the 20th anniversary of the album as his opportunity to finally set the (literal!) record straight. And the results sound stellar: great for new fans, and well worth the attention of those already on board! For old times' sake, here's what we had to say about this record back when it came out: Hailing from Albuquerque, NM, The Shins sprung from the ashes of Flake/Flake Music in 1997 (though those previous incarnations date back nearly a decade) - same members, different instruments, different approach. Counterpoint guitars have given way to a single guitar pitted against calculated keyboard passages; swarming indie rock machinations led to pop-based melodic endeavors (who knew?).

Access, The Second Album By Major Murphy, Is An Album Born Out Of Being At A Crossroads. It's Also, Without Question, An Album To Blast At An Unruly Volume To Soundtrack An Experience Onemight Have Standing At That Crossroads. It's Remarkably Cohesive - A Striking Relic In An Age Where Ardent And True"Album-Making" Is A Fading Art Form - Full Of Heavy Rock'n'roll Sounds And Textured Atmospheres Fused Withpro-Idea, Hyper-Creative Jittery Warmth. In Nine Songs, It Somehow Takes A Listener Backwards And Forwards Atonce, Reckoning With Intrinsic Anxieties While Conceptualizing A Fantastical And Vibrant Happening, Soothing In Itsfamilia Familiar, Occasionally Childlike Tone.Behind The Sturdy And Poetic Architecture Lies A Story Of New Parents, Navigating Uncertainty And Seeking A Senseof Agency In The New Unknown. Throughout Access, Songwriter Jacob Bullard Recounts Memories Of Teaching Hisyoung Son To Breathe Through His Nose And Laments Missing His Son And His Partner And Bandmate Jacki Warren.On "In The Meantime", Bullard Expresses The Timeless Anxiety Of Recent Parenthood, Written In The Wake Of Theterrifying Experience Of Their Son Suffering From Lead Poisoning. While The Title Track "Access" Is As Much Apersonal Plea For Patience And Humility...

Reissued - Father John Misty's First From 2012! Father John Misty Is The Nom-De-Plume Of Josh Tillman, Who Has Been Recording And Releasing Solo Albums Under His Own Name Since 2003, And Who Left Seattle's Fleet Foxes After Playing Drums With Them From 2008-2011. When Discussing Father John Misty, Tillman Paraphrases Philip Roth: "'It's All Of Me And None Of Me, If You Can't See That, You Won't Get It.'" Fear Fun, Father John Misty's Debut Album, Began Gestating During What Tillman Describe...

Ever since childhood, learning to play various instruments in a suburban Cincinnati basement alongside his brother Bryce, Aaron Dessner has consistently sought an emotional outlet and deep human connection through music _ be it as a primary songwriter in The National, a founder and architect of beloved collaboration-driven music festivals, or collaborator on two critically acclaimed and chart-topping Taylor Swift albums recorded in complete pandemic-era isolation at his Long Pond Studio in upstate New York, among many other projects. Through it all, Dessner has brought together an unlikely community of musicians that share his impulse to connect, celebrate and, most of all, process emotion and experience through music. This generous spirit and desire to push music forward has never been more deeply felt than on Big Red Machine's "How Long Do You Think It's Gonna Last?," the second album from Dessner's evermorphing project with Bon Iver's Justin Vernon. In 2008, while assembling material for the charitycompilation "Dark Was the Night," Dessner sent Vernon a song sketch titled "big red machine". Vernon interpreted "big red machine" as a beating heart and finished the song accordingly _ a metaphor Dessner says "still sticks with me today. This project goes to many places and is always on some level about experimentation, but it shines a light on why I make music in the first place, which is an emotional need. It's one of my therapies and one of the ways I interrogate the past." Released in 2018, Big Red Machine's self-titled debut album evolved from improvisation and what Dessner calls "structured experimentalism," with an ear toward building tracks that would work well in a live setting alongside visual elements. When Dessner and Vernon started the Eaux Claires Music Festival in 2015, they staged the original "Big Red Machine" as an improvisation-based performance piece. They later took that show to the People collective's Berlin residency and festival, and to Dessner's Haven Festival in Copenhagen. "Big Red Machine started as this thing we would do for fun, and we fell in love with the feeling of it," says Dessner." Vernon agrees: "I remember it feeling really easy, but we never knew what would happen. It was exciting. As time went on, we just kept doing things together. And our friendship has grown strong, alongside all the collaborative stuff." New Big Red Machine material began taking shape in spring 2019, when Vernon came to visit Dessner at Long Pond. The first week produced songs such as "Reese," "8:22am" and eventual album opener "Latter Days," a haunting number sung by Vernon and Anaïs Mitchell that set the emotional tenor for what was to come. "It was clear to her that the early sketch Justin and I made of Latter Days was about childhood, or loss of innocence and nostalgia for a time before you've grown into adulthood _ before you've hurt people or lost people and made mistakes. Anaïs defined the whole record When she sang that, as these same themes kept appearing again and again," Dessner says. In the ensuing months, Vernon and Dessner would meet up when they could, and in the meantime, Dessner developed the existing material and wrote new instrumental tracks which he sent Vernon, always eager to hear what he would receive back. "Justin is incredibly gifted, but he's also disruptive in the best way," says Dessner, pointing to the first note of the song "Birch" as a prime example. "It's absolutely brilliant, but it was very surprising when I heard it the first time. I can't tell you what that interval is. There are many moments working with him where your head hits the wall in amazement like that." In the early stages of the pandemic, Swift approached Dessner to work with her on what would become the sister albums "folklore" and "evermore." Dessner describes this period as a "creative blur," during which he'd be writing material for Swift and Big Red Machine simultaneously. "I think this was an intense growing period for me, I was learning so much from Taylor and the process. Along the way, I shared all of our unfinished Big Red Machine songs with her and she really found them inspiring and gave me so much positive feedback and encouragement," he says. "I think that helped me realize how connected this Big Red Machine music was to everything else I was doing and that I was always supposed to be chasing these ideas. I was finding new sounds and ways of working through these songs. I just hadn't been able to finish them. So, I did." Beyond Vernon and Swift's encouragement, many of Dessner's previous collaborators and friends show up for him here, continuing the reciprocal exchange of ideas that has come to define his creative community. Songs feature guest vocals and writing contributions from artist friends including Fleet Foxes' Robin Pecknold ("Phoenix"), Ben Howard and This Is The Kit ("June's a River"), Naeem ("Easy to Sabotage'), Sharon Van Etten, Lisa Hannigan and My Brightest Diamond's Shara Nova ("Hutch," a tune inspired by Dessner's late friend, Frightened Rabbit frontman Scott Hutchison) and Swift herself ("Birch" and "Renegade," the latter an instant-classic Taylor earworm summed up by the poignant lyric "Is it insensitive for me to say / get your shit together so I can love you." The song was recorded in Los Angeles at the Kitty Committee studio in March 2021, the same week when Swift and Dessner took home the Grammy for Album of the Year for "folklore.") "This is all music I generated, but it is interesting to hear how different people relate to it, or how different voices collide with it," Dessner says. "That's what makes it special. With everyone that's on this record, there's an openness, a creative generosity and an emotional quality that connects it all together." As he continued writing prolifically on his own, Dessner noticed a theme emerging -- the idea of sitting with the uncomfortability of personal and family darkness from his childhood and reflecting on how emotional issues he dealt with growing up have reverberated through his adult life. It became clear that some of these he'd need to sing himself; songs such as "The Ghost of Cincinnati" and "Magnolia" address the disintegration of marriage and family and mental health, asking pointed questions of himself and those closest to him. "Brycie" is an ode to his aforementioned twin and National bandmate, who picked up on the musical vibes immediately when Dessner played the song for him for the first time backstage at a National show in Washington D.C. "He picked along to it with me and it immediately sounded like Aaron and Bryce playing the guitar in the basement as kids, which was my intent," Dessner remembers. "The words mean a lot to me. It's about my childhood with Bryce, and how I had pretty severe depression in high school. He was the one who kept me going and took care of me until I was back on my feet. I've lost close friends to depression and this song is about how important it was that Bryce was there for me at that time and is still here." In addition to being one of the more lyrically significant tracks on the album, Dessner says singing it himself felt like an important act of self-acceptance. "I always sing under my breath when I write music, but I usually hand it off to [National vocalist] Matt [Berninger] or others" he says. "When you're in a band for so long and somebody else is that person, you come to rely on it and I've always loved Matt's voice and his words. But singing `Brycie' myself helped rewire my brain to realize that maybe Big Red Machine is the project that not only enables me to create songs with other people, but also sometimes finish songs on my own." Recalling sessions at Sonic Ranch in Texas when Dessner recorded his vocal takes, Vernon says, "Aaron showed me `Brycie' a couple years ago now. I was like, this is beautiful, and you should do more singing. Not only would it be good for the future of your songwriting, but your voice sounds really good to me. It was exciting to see him flourish in that way _ to now be a part of that process and realize the hardships in that and also the victories. On this record, he's leading the charge, wholly and completely." Musically, "How Long Do You Think It's Gonna Last?" features what Dessner calls maybe the "clearest distillation" of his varying songwriting and production styles. Songs like "Reese," the Dessner-sung "Magnolia" and the elegiac "Hutch" are built on the kinds of tear-jerking piano melodies millions of fans have come to love from The National, but then move at their own pace toward unusual sonic destinations. "Aaron's greatest gift as a collaborator is his ability to evolve and experiment with the emotional sound that is so natural to him," Vernon says of the material. Elsewhere, the dream-like "Hoping Then" sets layered vocals by Vernon, Dessner and Hannigan ("It's the on the edge of why I can't sleep soundly") atop chopped and phased violin lines, programmed drums and countermelodies played on a rubber bridge guitar. His brother Bryce's orchestration ebbs and flows throughout this song and many others. The main instrumental track of the chugging, groovy "Easy to Sabotage" was stitched together from two different live recordings and later enveloped in warm keyboard textures and the head-nodding vocals of Naeem. "It just feels alive and electric, and it just happened," Dessner says of the song. That sense of shared experience extended to the new album's title, which was coined by Swift after Dessner told her he wasn't sure what to call the new album. Intuitively summing up the themes, she suggested titling it "How Long Do You Think It's Gonna Last?," a question which she pointed out could refer to multiple subjects addressed therein: "childhood, family, marriages, a depression, a losing streak, a winning streak or a creative streak. Taylor saw it all so clearly," Dessner says. "A year ago, we'd never even worked together. It's so cool that this community keeps extending and that everyone who contributed to this album connected so naturally to the emotions at the heart of the music."

After 2018's Critically Acclaimed Almost Opened The Ophelias To A World Beyond Their Cincinnati Home, The Indie Rock Quartet Craved Areturn To A Sense Of Community. The Band Members No Longer Lived In The Same City - Bandleader Spender Peppet (She/Her) And Newbassist/Longtime Music Video Collaborator Jo Shaffer (They/Them) Live In New York, While Drummer Mic Adams (He/Him) And Violinist Andrea Gutmann Fuentes (She/Her) Remain In Ohio. When It Came Time To Record The Candid, Expansive Crocus, The Ophelias Purposefullyfocused On The Experimental, Communal Spirit That Fueled Their First Record. Crocus Was Recorded At Night In A Converted "2000 Percent Haunted" Masonic Lodge, Which Surely Had An Effect On The Album's Ability To Weave Darker Tones Through The Taut Song Structures. Engineer John Hoffman Kept Spirits High At The Lodge Ky, Ensuring The Ophelias Had The Freedom To Experiment In The Grey Area Between Pain And Rebirth. Despite The Lodge's Eerie Nature, The Ghosts Remain Personal, Finding Peppet Facing Herself And Her Own Truth Without Blinking. Through Songs Equally Infused With References To The Bible And The Twilight Zone, The Ophelias Extract Mystic Emotion Out Of The Spaces Between Their Past, Present, And Future. The Four Core Ophelias Members Provide A Wide-Reaching Exploration Into Genre, Emotion, And Sonic Textures Over The Course Of Crocus. That Expansiveness Shines On Album Highlight "Neil Young On High," A Track That Finds Peppet's Firefly Vocals Backed By Harmonies From Julien Baker. On "Spitting Image" Gutmann Fuentes Leans Hard Into Country Swing, Showing Her Range As A Violinist While A Chorus Of Voices Sing The Taunting "Ha Ha Ha" Hook Below Her. Shaffer's Bass Intertwinesseamlessly With The Drums On "Becoming A Nun," Which Explodes Into Feedback And Punk-Inspired Textures Beyond What The Ophelias Have Previously Created. Peppet's Direct Delivery Of Intimate Lyrics Draws You In - Detailing The Murky Line Between The Things We Mourn And The Things We Remember. "Crocus Represents...

St. Petersburg pathfinder Vladimir Karpov coaxes hushed auras of keys, metronomes, fog, and feeling to evoke hazed and isolated realms, traced in altered states. His latest collection—and vinyl debut—maps the maze at “the bottom of self,” subterranean consciousness manifested from decaying synthesizer and shadowed pulse: music for fading torchlight. Labyrinth leads through six misty, mystic chambers of dreams, drones, delirium, and phaser’d percussion, spiraling in slow, sacred arcs, in quest of “the inner world.” Tosya CHAIKINA’s ghost vocals on “False Angel Lullaby” and “Shadows Of Forgotten Ancestors” bring a whispered hymnal mood, but otherwise the album is ambient and abandoned, obscure meditations along corridors of candlelit runes, “to find the right path, to find the true answer.”