Northern Spy HHV Records 22 Items

Release: 2024 / US – Original

Genre: Organic Grooves

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Australian minimalist-jazz trio The Necks' 20th studio album, Bleed, explores a sublime language of stillness. With a single, 42-minute composition, The Necks masterfully express the unspeakable beauty of decay and space in yet another totally distinct entry in a vast and stunning body of work.

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LP | 2021 | EU | Original (Northern Spy)

Genre: Organic Grooves

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Chicago-area native Josh Johnson’s vital presence in the vanguard of new jazz music is evident by his features on countless critically-acclaimed projects like Jeff Parker’s Suite for Max Brown and Makaya McCraven’s Universal Beings. When he moved to L.A. eight years ago, he thought his stay would be temporary. The saxophonist and keyboardist would spend enough time there to learn from his heroes Herbie Hancock and Wayne Shorter, but not a complete geographic pivot. But eight years later, Johnson is still in L.A., where he recorded his debut album Freedom Exercise with three “musically omnivorous” friends (the very quality that inspired him to stay on the West Coast). The songs on Freedom Exercise reflect this idea of genreless exploration — a fluid combination of jazz, post-rock and electronic music. Ultimately, Johnson’s compositions are concise yet expansive, like an intimate gathering in a sprawling city.

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Psymon Spine

Charismatic Megafauna

LP | 2024 | CZ | Original (Northern Spy)

Release: 2021 / EU – Original

Genre: Rock & Indie

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Fusing psychedelic pop and the deep grooves of dance music, Psymon Spine’s music oozes with melodic hugeness—but the places this Brooklyn electronic pop outfit takes their songs is truly out there, exploring complicated feelings through a singular approach to left-of-center dance sounds. Only a year ago, band members Noah and Sabine were playing in the dream-pop group Barrie, who broke out following a string of buzz-making singles, but Charismatic Megafauna proves that Psymon Spine are on a different journey, exploring sounds ranging from disco to early techno and motorik's incessant pulse. Psymon Spine put their own addictive stamp on the sounds of the past, with surprises at every turn and the type of lush synth work that could only come from brilliant students of dance music. Reflecting optimism and catharsis, Charismatic Megafauna is a heady trip through left-field pop that packs its own emotional wallop.

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Josh Johnson

Unusual Object

LP | 2021 | US | Original (Northern Spy)

Release: 2024 / CZ – Original

Genre: Organic Grooves

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Josh Johnson’s Unusual Object is a world of sound. His fantastically processed saxophone & subtle samples & grooves give this work a sort of cyberpunk ambient jazz feel that crosses into realms akin to classic Warp Records and Jon Hassell. These qualities serve to bring the listener closer to Johnson, to his breath, his sense of song. In 2023, Johnson was grammy-nominated for producing Meshell Ndegeocello’s The Omnichord Real Book (Blue Note).

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Josh Johnson

Freedom Exercise

24,99 €*

Release: 2021 / US – Original

Genre: Organic Grooves

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Jeremy Cunningham / Dustin Laurenzi / Paul Bryan

Better Ghost Limited Edition

LP | 2022 | US | Original (Northern Spy)

30,99 €*

LP | 2022 | EU | Original (Northern Spy)

Release: 2022 / US – Original

Genre: Organic Grooves

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As the opening track of drummer Jeremy Cunningham, saxophonist Dustin Laurenzi, and bassist Paul Bryan's A Better Ghost swoons toward its close, a vocal clip of the colossus Sonny Rollins rises over the trio's warm sonics to deliver a message, "my greatest joy is everything." This sample, found and cut by Laurenzi, became a staple of live, improvised sets between him and Cunningham in Chicago. It not only opens the album but captures an early spark of magnificence from a musical and personal connection that sparks the entirety of the album's meticulous, soulful, hypnotic, and joyous sound.

The title track features propellant hi-hats and repetitious synths, and the saxophone leads you to elation as the song rises to its climax after building a safe, loving atmosphere in its opening half. On "New Dust," Laurenzi provides a smooth, natural improvisation, dynamically ebbing over a deep, dub groove kept steady with distinct rhythmic assurance from Cunningham and Bryan. "With What We Have" wakes slowly, focusing on gradual layering and a musical build that is cut short of euphoria but feels true to lived experience. That is followed by the synth-driven "Ray Tracing," which is brief but hypnotic, and the quiet, atmospheric "Bye Line," which gently leads into the album's emotionally resonant closer, "The Way We Remember," featuring singer Katie Ernst over a lush bed of improvised synths, drums, and saxophone.

A Better Ghost showcases a balance between free-improvisation and a more produced side that has been woven together through personal connection - Cunningham, Laurenzi, and Bryan have found in each other natural muses, working with and off of each other to build musical wonders.

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Office Culture

Big Time Things

27,99 €*

LP | 2022 | EU | Original (Northern Spy)

Release: 2022 / EU – Original

Genre: Rock & Indie

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Brooklyn band Office Culture is made up of four longtime collaborators (and all solo artists in their own right)—lead singer and songwriter Winston Cook-Wilson (vocals/keyboards), Ian Wayne (guitar), Charlie Kaplan (bass), and Pat Kelly (drums). Following the electronic avant-pop experimentation of their debut album I Did the Best I Could, the band's critically acclaimed sophomore LP—2019’s A Life of Crime—unveiled a lush, jazz-inflected sound that Pitchfork described as "sleek music for a cursed place, opulent like a ritzy hotel lounge." Cook-Wilson's wry and contemplative songs reflect the bandmates' shared points of musical reference, including Nite-Flights-era Scott Walker, mid-‘70s Joni Mitchell, Curtis Mayfield, and ECM-label jazz. The FADER wrote: "Office Culture spends the best moments on [A Life Of Crime] sounding like the most vital lounge-pop act of all time.”

Big Time Things—the band’s third album and Northern Spy debut—is a more maximalist affair. Written and recorded across the course of three years, it’s a meticulously orchestrated and groove-forward record featuring nine of Cook-Wilson’s most ambitious compositions to date. Tracks like singles “Elegance,” “Big Time Things,” and “Little Reminders” draw together a disparate collection of influences, integrating soulful vocal harmonies, horns straight out of ‘70s spiritual jazz, string arrangements informed by modernist classical music, and beats that reflect the band’s enduring love of neo-soul and hip-hop.

The playful experimentation of the arrangements elevates the melodrama and humor of Cook-Wilson’s songs—his most emotionally direct to date—which trace the complexities of our efforts to better ourselves by learning from our worst and least rational behavior, and how we attempt to apply that knowledge to nurturing close personal relationships. The record features a dense cast of supporting players, including Carmen Q. Rothwell, Caitlin Pasko, Alena Spanger (Tiny Hazard), and members of Cuddle

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Renata Zeiguer

Picnic In The Dark

25,99 €*

Release: 2022 / EU – Original

Genre: Rock & Indie

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Genre: Pop

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Eleven Twenty-Nine

LP (Northern Spy)

17,99 €*

LP | 2021 | EU | Original (Northern Spy)

Genre: Rock & Indie

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Taken from the blues parlance for the length of a one year prison sentence, Eleven Twenty-Nine is the new project of Tom Carter and Marc Orleans. This debut self-titled album, dedicated to the late Jack Rose, releases a sound that has done hard-time in the blues, from two performers who have constantly pushed the limits of rock guitar. Tom, a latter day Carter Family member as a co-founder of Texas' Charalambides, has explored a psychedelic-brand of guitar instrumentals. Between his band and solo work, he has released some 50 albums, all garnering high praise. While Marc, a slick-fingered guitar-slinger, has imprinted on legions of fans the sounds of Helix, Juneau and the Sunburned Hand of Man. Together they deliver an album steeped in the soul and depth of blues while moving forward into an enigmatic free-improv rock. The album was engineered and recorded by Jason Meagher at Black Dirt Studios.

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Beauty Pill

Instant Night

35,99 €*

Thai Elephant Orchestra Record Store Day 2021 Edition

Release: 2021 / EU – Original

Genre: Rock & Indie

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The lyrics of “Instant Night” are insinuating and allusive, not topical. It’s only a political song in the way that Dylan’s “A Hard Rain’s Gonna Fall” or Public Enemy’s “Fight The Power” are political songs. People call them “protest songs,” but neither of those songs is as specific as people think. Go back and listen again; they’re pretty abstract! They are more poetic than polemic. “Instant Night” exists within that spectrum too. Originally written by Beauty Pill bandleader Chad Clark in 2015 after he watched Ann Coulter, as a guest on Real Time with Bill Maher, predict that Donald Trump would win the 2016 US presidential election, the Washington, D.C. based artist recorded and surprise-released the single in October 2020 out of urgency to inspire people to vote in the presidential election.

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Thai Elephant Orchestra

LP | 2021 (Northern Spy)

38,99 €*

You And Me And Everything

Release: 2021

Genre: Rock & Indie

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Record Store Day 2021 Release. Thai Elephant Orchestra, originally released on CD in 2001, features performances by 6 elephants living at the Thai Elephant Conservation Center in Lampang. The elephants’ poignant phrases and beautiful melodies are meditat

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Toth

LP | 2021 | EU | Original (Northern Spy)

15,07 €* 23,18 € -35%

LP | 2020 | Original (Northern Spy)

Release: 2021 / EU – Original

Genre: Rock & Indie

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On his second solo album as TÅ?th, You And Me And Everything, Rubblebucket cofounder Alex Toth embarks on a journey of transformation and self-discovery. Surrounded by cascading folk rock, celebratory horns, and jaunty piano, he finds himself falling in love after the dissolution of a 12-year-long relationship and learning how to deal with deep-seated grief. From the â€œwhy not?â€? attitude that drives the celebratory â€œI Might Beâ€? to the vivid imagery that positions â€œTurnaround (Cocaine Song)â€? as one of his strongest lyrical efforts yet, TÅ?th uses his latest album to push himself as both a musician and a person. The result brings to mind the heartfelt vulnerability of Arthur Russell, the woozy jazz of Chet Baker, and the playful melodic breadth of the Beach Boys. On You And Me And Everything, TÅ?th accepts love as an adventure and invites you to join on the unpredictable, fulfilling ride.

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Steph Richards

Supersense

13,91 €* 23,18 € -40%

LP | 2020 | US | Original (Northern Spy)

Release: 2020 / Original

Genre: Rock & Indie

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As one of the most exciting artists working in jazz’s avant-garde, Steph Richards is no stranger to challenging listeners’ expectations. But the trumpeter, composer and bandleader is pushing in a still more unusual direction on her new release Supersense. Along with a trio of fellow all-star improvisers — Jason Moran, Stomu Takeishi and Kenny Wolleson — Richards tapped acclaimed multimedia artist Sean Raspet to create singular, abstract scents to both inform and accompany the recording. Once exposed to the scents, which were culled from such idiosyncratic sources as "cricket exoskeletons," the musicians responded with improvised performances. Scratch & sniff scent cards accompany physical copies of Supersense, and the record's mission — to bring some of the tactile feeling of concert-going to the at-home listener — has never been more relevant than during the COVID-19 pandemic.

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Beauty Pill

Please Advise

27,99 €*

LP | 2018 | US | Original (Northern Spy)

Release: 2020 / US – Original

Genre: Rock & Indie

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The follow up to Beauty Pill's critically acclaimed album, 'Beauty Pill Describes Things As They Are,' which was released after main band member Chad Clark’s heart literally failed due to a condition called viral cardiomyopathy. Chad felt creatively emboldened after the success of 'Beauty Pill Describes…' and this album presents Beauty Pill at the peak of their eclectic, unique brand of indie rock. RIYL: Lungfish, Dismemberment Plan, Beck, Stereolab, Destroyer, TV On The Radio

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Wilder Maker

Zion

Jason Stein's Locksmith Isidore

Release: 2018 / US – Original

Genre: Rock & Indie

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James Joyce once said that if all of Dublin was destroyed, they ought to be able to rebuild it brick by brick just from reading his novels. Wilder Maker's Zion is the first chapter in a musical novel that makes the same claim for Brooklyn, NY. Written by guitarist/saxophonist/singer Gabriel Birnbaum and brought to life with long time collaborators Katie Von Schleicher, Nick Jost (Baroness), Adam Brisbin (Sam Evian, Jolie Holland) and Sean Mullins, Zion is a kaleidoscopic snapshot of years hustling for a break in New York City: waking up at 5 am to pour coffee for the brownstone-owning elite, waiting for a drug dealer on a city bench outside a blurry house party, moving catastrophically from apartment to apartment in the garbage scented heat, glimpsing euphoria through the ritual of taking your place among the anonymous crowd at a music festival, having your heart shattered in front of an audience at a bar, drunkenly contemplating bodega window displays, circling ever closer to something that could either be perfection or the drain, depending on the day. Last year's Saddle Creek single New Streets showcased the band in their poppiest Fleetwood-Mac-channeling mode, breezy summer jams for driving with the windows down, and it got them noticed by NPR, SPIN and Stereogum, but Zion hugely expands their palate of tools. Its influences run from classic 70's Dylan to blown out free jazz saxophone, from Dr. John's swampy psychedelia to Ethiopian sounds picked up from Birnbaum's many years as a member of Debo Band, with hints of Coltrane's classic quartet and nods to The Velvet Undergound. Zion is an omnivorous record. Its wide ranging influences have been hinted at throughout Wilder Maker's adventurous catalogue of self-released material but never explored so fully, or with this kind of wild energy and unclassifiable groove. This is a record to dance to, to cry to, to sing along to, maybe all three at once.

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After Caroline

LP | 2018 | US | Original (Northern Spy)

LP | 2017 | US | Original (Northern Spy)

Release: 2018 / US – Original

Genre: Organic Grooves

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Jason Stein is a ubiquitous presence on the world class Chicago improvised music scene and beyond. He's a staunch force with a monogamous passion for his instrument of choice, the darkly sonorous and notoriously difficult bass clarinet. But Stein thrives as a leader also, as witnessed by his critically-acclaimed recent quartet release. However, no other aggregation he works with has quite the road legs, perspective, and intimacy of Locksmith Isidore, his long running trio with bassist Jason Roebke and drummer Mike Pride. Of late, this decade old unit has toured arenas throughout the US opening for comedy star Amy Schumer, who happens to be Stein's kid sister. Presenting avant jazz in such massive venues as Madison Square Garden and LA's Forum has cemented Locksmith Isidore's very special bond, which is more than apparent on their fourth album After Caroline.¨

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Ross Goldstein

Inverted Jenny

28,99 €*

Okkyung Lee & Christian Marclay

Release: 2017 / US – Original

Genre: Rock & Indie

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As a photographer, visual artist and member of the cosmic brain-bending trio Devin Gary & Ross, Ross Goldstein has built a layered catalog of softly psychedelic artistic output, but none has been as personal as the sonic spiderweb of his second solo album Inverted Jenny. The last time Ross showed up solo was in 2007 on the quietly-released Trail Songs, a collection of more Americana-leaning songcraft. A decade later, he picks up on threads started on his debut, but continues in a far more inward direction, blurring deftly arranged instrumental backdrops with patient, bucolic songwriting for a discreetly epic modern classic in headphone music. Ross travels through a glowing internal world with these songs, observing moments of both stillness and the sublime from a distance. There's a sheen of loneliness that runs throughout, but never a bitterness. The record opens with a trifecta of Van Dyke Parks-tinged open road songs, but even in the joyful discovery of these songs there's the sense that they're viewed from a loner's perspective. This feeling only grows as things shift from roadside distractions to the plush instrumentals and gentle vibes that make up the record's second half. Gorgeous arrangements set up a playful conversation between warm synths, stoned guitar leads, meticulously placed touches of chamber pop orchestration, and even sounds of the natural world from Ross' own field recordings, always buzzing with life. By the end of the album we've walked alongside for a while, watching the songs navigate their lonesome internal landscape like a late night wearing blissfully into morning. At the end of this night (and every other night, really) there's no answer to be found, no great revelation besides wandering along into another beautiful morning.

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Amalgam

LP | 2016 | US | Original (Northern Spy)

24,99 €*

Release: 2016 / US – Original

Genre: Electronic & Dance

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Starring

LP | 2012 | US | Original (Northern Spy)

25,99 €*

Release: 2012 / US – Original

Genre: Rock & Indie

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LP | 2024 | US | Original (Northern Spy)

Steph Richards

Power Vibe

28,99 €*

LP | 2024 | US | Original (Northern Spy)

Release: 2024 / US – Original

Genre: Organic Grooves

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Steph Richards has already made quite a name for herself in the worlds of avant garde music and creative jazz. She has recorded for Relative Pitch and Northern Spy, worked with Laurie Anderson, Anthony Braxton and Ravi Coltrane and studied with Wadada Leo Smith. As co-producer of the FONT Music Festival, Richards worked for years alongside fellow trumpeter Dave Douglas. Her records have been praised for displaying her evident virtuosity and inventiveness, the New York Times calling Richards “boldly inventive.” NPR’s Nate Chinen says Richards is “ingenious” and Downbeat insisted that she is “the latest figure of note” in jazz while All About Jazz cuts to the chase, saying simply, that Richards “kicks ass.”

It’s an impressive history and litany of praise for a young trumpeter, but with her latest full-length for Northern Spy, Power Vibe, Richards pushes even further, marrying avant garde and cinematic moods with a kind of infectious and patently pleasing tunefulness that is certain to expand her dedicated audience even further. The addition of “sensory electronics” –– subtle but compelling textures and tactile rhythms which are physically triggered by drum-mounted sensors –– compels fascination here, interweaving a kind of aural hyper-lucidity throughout the record. Though boldly original, this music strides surefootedly alongside the work of contemporaries like Nicole Mitchell and Rob Mazurek and the late jaimie branch.

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Psymon Spine

Head Body Connector

26,31 €* 29,23 € -10%