Merge Indierock | Alternative 145 Items

To commemorate the thirtieth anniversary of Virginian salsa veterans Bio Ritmo, esteemed indie Merge is reissuing their debut 7" `Piragüero' which it originally released back in 1996. This impassioned, funky original is backed with a cover of `Asia Minor', a song popularised in the Fifties by Cuban maestro Machito, himself a cited influence on Bio Ritmo.

The first single from Wild Loneliness, "Endless Summer," features the harmonies of Teenage Fanclub's Norman Blake and Raymond McGinley. The 7-inch single contains a cover of The Glands' "When I Laugh" as the B-side, originally released as part of Merge's Going to Georgia benefit compilation.

Translucent Pink Vinyl! A little drums, a little atmosphere, and it wails like this! Hotter than anything printed by a Hearst daily, the 12-song Version Especial of Redd Kross' Teen Babes from Monsanto - all art, no filler, direct from the source, pure from the tap - reissued by Merge Records. The album features specially designed packaging that allows you to choose between two different front covers with just a flip of the wrist! Experience vintage teenaged Redd Kross as presented by Monsanto: 100% genuine, chemically inspired brilliance fueled by processed junk food.

180g Vinyl! Neutral Milk Hotel waren Elephant 6 Mitbegründer Jeff Mangum, Julian Koster (Music Tapes), Scott Spillane (The Gerbils) und
Jeremy Barnes (Beirut, A Hawk And A Hacksaw). "In the Aeroplane Over the Sea" wurde 1998 veröffentlicht und vom Magnet Magazine
zum besten Album der 90er Jahre gewählt. Bei der Neuauflage im Jahr 2005 wurde das Album bei Pitchfork mit 10,0 bewertet. ,In The
Aeroplane Over the Sea" ist einer der meistverkauften Merge-Titel aller Zeiten. "Jeff Mangum's masterpiece mixes hushed folk, explosive
brass, and unforgettable vocals that touch on pain, loss, memory, and hope." – Pitchfork

Cover is close to NM! Copy is still in shrink!

A person whose words are so potent that they cause the people and beings around them to vibrate is said to have a "silver tongue." It's apt, then, that Mackenzie Scott_who has spent the 2010s making boundarypushing pop music under her TORRES moniker_has chosen to call her fourth album, and first release on Merge, just that. Recorded at O'Deer in Brooklyn, New York, Silver Tongue is a full-scale realization of the world Scott has created over TORRES' last few albums. Even when singing in more subdued tones, Scott's voice is fervent, her lyrics stirring and unyielding as she draws from both the divine and the everyday. It's also the first TORRES record produced solely by Scott. After having shared production duties on her first three albums, the latter two alongside PJ Harvey collaborator Rob Ellis, she found the process liberating: "I made exactly the record I want, and it feels very `me.'" Silver Tongue fastidiously chronicles the impulses that make up desire_ from the dreamy first blushes of infatuation through the slightly terrifying wonder that accompanies connection with another. In between, Scott wrestles with the highs and lows of what "being in love" might mean over heady guitars and swirling synths. While potent vocal hooks punctuate songs like the sparkling "Dressing America," which combines New Wave glitter with hovering frustration, and the brooding "Good Grief," which gently pokes at the idea of fetishized sadness, the knottiness lurking underneath reflects Scott's realtime processing of her emotions while making the record. Silver Tongue's musical world is vast and at times seemingly infinite. Edge-of-the-world synths add gravity to the vulnerability of "Two of Everything," and refracted guitars offer a gnarled counterpoint to Scott's increased determination at the end of "Last Forest." On "Gracious Day," one of TORRES' most forthright love songs, Scott's voice hovers over a starlit landscape in a way that transcends the mundane and enters the otherworldly as she sings. TORRES' music has long navigated the space between the physical and the metaphysical, and Silver Tongue faces that conflict head-on, examining the ways in which the actions of others can stir up deep-seated feelings and seemingly alter the space in which one exists.

Peak edition is opaque yellow vinyl and includes a photo booklet of ephemera of the era! The Spinanes were Portland OGs singer-guitarist Rebecca Gates and drummer Scott Plouf and were snapped up by Sub Pop in the post-Nirvana feeding frenzy. Gates was a guitar manipulator more artful and poetic and sensual than her peers, with a voice full of emotion and warmth_a deep, distinct standout among the samey girly-girls. Plouf was a powerhouse drummer, exact and on-point, with a giant collection of shades and enough mod swagger to make Paul Weller proud. Their urgency was soft but they pummeled us hard. When they recorded their debut album, Manos, with Brian Paulson at AmRep in Minneapolis, they brought a ridiculous amount of energy: Few acts manage to capture that live spark in the studio. A college radio hit, "Manos" was characterized as indiepop or indie rock or alternative, but also had a touch of art rock, folk, emo, math rock, postrock, even jazz, nearing the same spiritual space as '90s bands like Unrest, Sebadoh, and Versus. Gates told our zine (chickfactor) in 1993 what kind of record she wanted to make: She wanted it to be really magical - the way the first Verlaines record is or a Replacements record - things that you can put on when you feel horrible. Named after a misheard Jesus Lizard lyric, "Manos" is just that: It sounds like smoky venues and dance parties at punk houses: woozy, tight, fraught, wrought, tense, intense, swoony, breathy, fast, worldly/weary -?sophisticated and primitive, stressful and soothing. Twelve songs and nary a dud: "Noel, Jonah and Me", the epic title track (a hip-swayer full of lust and longing), the rifftastic "Grand Prize", the catchy "Sunday". "Manos" was an original in a crowded market in 1993, and the Spinanes seemed to be everywhere. All hail its reissue, one quarter century later. - Gail O'Hara

30th anniversary remastered edition - pressed 45 RPM - Side B vinyl etching - first time released as a 12-inch - includes the track "Alien Being" not previously available on the original 7" vinyl release - The House of Tomorrow EP marks the first release introducing vocals by Stephin Merritt // Cast your mind back to notable landmarks of 1992. Outside the Twin Cities, Mall of America opened to the public. Frank Gehry's enormous golden fish sculpture, El Peix, welcomed Barcelona Olympians. And The House of Tomorrow, a four-song 7-inch on a small indie label, ushered in a new era for The Magnetic Fields. When Susan Anway, who sang on early albums Distant Plastic Trees and The Wayward Bus, left the group, Stephin Merritt stepped up to the microphone. "This was my first time singing on record," he recalls. He sought to sound simple, subtle, and unobtrusive, à la the Japanese concept of shibusa. "But now, listening back, I hear a little too much vocal influence from the Jesus and Mary Chain. (I really should move to Scotland. I belong there.)" Likewise, the arrangements and production of The House of Tomorrow felt less polished overall than on its predecessors, even as the band's sound was evolving. "I wanted to have rock instrumentation, plus cello (so ELO without keyboards), but everyone was tracked separately so there was no question of sounding like we were playing together," explains Stephin. Instead, he chose to highlight the artifice. Voilà! "The drums are like Tusk only more so, the cello sounds like a synth, and the guitars might as well be programmed." The House of Tomorrow rose in stature upon re-release on compact disc in 1996, with a new addition, "Alien Being" (previously relegated to the flip of the "Long Vermont Roads" single), boosting its modest track list from four songs to five. The limits of technology had stymied plans the first time: "You can't fit five two-and-a-half-minute songs on a 7" record, even at 33rpm." From World's Fairs and Disneyland to Tex Avery and Hanna-Barbera cartoons, visions of the home of the future have long been popular. Although this new vinyl edition of The House of Tomorrow includes an etching of Buckminster Fuller's visionary D.I.Y. Dymaxion House, Stephin laments the sluggish pace of architectural innovation. What is his dream home? "I want to live in Barbarella's spaceship, with my neighbors being the Jetsons, floating defiantly over Edinburgh Castle."

Our original idea for an all-acoustic album was for it to be a selection of songs from all our albums, played in the style of an acoustic performance in a record store or a radio station, which we have done quite a bit of over the years (and documented on the first of our "Clambake" series in 2001). But with 2019 being the 25th anniversary of the Foolish album, it seemed weirder and more interesting to record an acoustic version of one whole album. I didn't want this to sound like "acoustic demos recorded 25 years after the fact" or a band trying to "rock out" except on acoustic guitars, though to be fair we do some rocking out. Once we got into the process of learning how to play the songs on acoustic guitars_some of which we had never performed at all_it made sense to make this record its own thing altogether. We are lucky to have Allison Crutchfield, Matt Douglas, Peter Holsapple, Owen Pallett, and Jenn Wasner lend their great talents to the record and also lucky that Jon has an arsenal of small bells and a vibraslap.

In the hallowed Destroyer discography, the early trinity of City Of Daughters / Thief /
Streethawk: A Seduction holds an important place; for not only does it document Dan
Bejar's evolution from lo-fi bedroom tyro to bona fide master of the rock album, it also
contains a massive percentage of superlative Destroyer "classics." 1998's City of Daughters
features some of the first steps out of the demo-tapey experimentation of earlier recordings,
with songs like "Comments On The World As Will" refining the sound of that strippeddown
earlier work, and the seminal "No Cease Fires" offering us the first taste of just what a
full-band Destroyer might conjure.

Yellow in clear vinyl seems unplayed.
With booklet. "peak edition" limited to 3500 copies.

Like every record Superchunk has made over the last thirty-some years, Wild Loneliness is unskippably excellent and infectious. It's a blend of stripped-down and lush, electric and acoustic, highs and lows, and I love it all. On Wild Loneliness I hear echoes of Come Pick Me Up, Here's to Shutting Up, and Majesty Shredding. After the (ahem, completely justifiable) anger of What a Time to Be Alive, this new record is less about what we've lost in these harrowing times and more about what we have to be thankful for. (I know something about gratitude. I've been a huge Superchunk fan since the 1990s, around the same time I first found my way to poetry, so the fact that I'm writing these words feels like a minor miracle.) On Wild Loneliness, it feels like the band is refocusing on possibility, and possibility is built into the songs themselves, in the sweet surprises tucked inside them. I say all the time that what makes a good poem_the "secret ingredient"_is surprise. Perhaps the same is true of songs. Like when the sax comes in on the title track, played by Wye Oak's Andy Stack, adding a completely new texture to the song. Or when Owen Pallett's strings come in on "This Night." But my favorite surprise on Wild Loneliness is when the harmonies of Norman Blake and Raymond McGinley of Teenage Fanclub kick in on "Endless Summer." It's as perfect a pop song as you'll ever hear _ sweet, bright, flat-out gorgeous_and yet it grapples with the depressing reality of climate change: "Is this the year the leaves don't lose their color / and hummingbirds, they don't come back to hover / I don't mean to be a giant bummer but / I'm not ready / for an endless summer, no / I'm not ready for an endless summer." I love how the music acts as a kind of counterweight to the lyrics. Because of Covid, Mac, Laura, Jim, and Jon each recorded separately, but a silver lining is that this method made other long-distance contributions possible, from R.E.M.'s Mike Mills, Sharon Van Etten, Franklin Bruno, and Tracyanne Campbell of Camera Obscura, among others. Some of the songs for the record were written before the pandemic hit, but others, like "Wild Loneliness," were written from and about isolation. I've been thinking of songs as memory machines. Every time we play a record, we remember when we heard it before, and where we were, and who we were. Music crystallizes memories so well: listening to "Detroit Has a Skyline," suddenly I'm shoutsinging along with it at a show in Detroit twenty years ago; listening to "Overflows," I'm transported back to whisper-singing a slowed-down version of it to my young son, that year it was his most-requested lullaby. Wild Loneliness is becoming part of my life, part of my memories, too. And it will be part of yours. I can picture people in 20, 50, or 100 years listening to this record and marveling at what these artists created together_beauty, possibility, surprise_during this alarming (and alarmingly isolated) time. But why wait? Let's marvel now. - Maggie Smith