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Albarn, Damon [The Nearer The Fountain, More Pure The Stream Flows] November 12 street date. "The Nearer The Fountain, More Pure The Stream Flows" was originally intended as an orchestral piece inspired by the landscapes of Iceland. This last year has seen Damon Albarn return to music in lockdown and develop the work to 11 tracks which further explore themes of fragility, loss, emergence and rebirth. The result is a panoramic collection of songs with Albarn as storyteller. The album title is taken from a John Clare poem "Love and Memory". Albarn says "I have been on my own dark journey while making this record and it led me to believe that a pure source might still exist". In a career of perpetual musical shifts and exploration, the record uncovers yet more ground, finding expansive orchestral arrangements nestling with intimate melodies, discordance brushing up against infectious majesty, all set to some of Albarn's most arresting vocal performances to date. Much like the beauty and chaos of the natural world it soundtracks, "The Nearer The Fountain, More Pure The Stream Flows" vividly documents the emotional ebb and flow of the human condition, in all its extremes, serving as a soul enriching document for our times. |
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Black Marble [Fast Idol (black)] October 22 street date. On "Fast Idol", Black Marble reaches back through time to connect with the forgotten bedroom kids of the analogue era, the halcyon days of icy hooks and warbly synths. Harmonies are piped in across the expanse of space, and lyrics capture conversations that seem to come from another room, repeat an accusation overheard, or speak as if in sleep of interpersonal struggles distilled down to one subconscious phrase. At the same time, percussive elements feel forward and cut through the mix with toms counting off the measures like a lost tribe broadcasting through the bass and tops of a basement club soundsystem. Melodies roll with the fizz and charm of Jacno and phrases repeated are electric torchlight ballads sung after hours in William Gibson's San Francisco. Emerging from the early 2000s New York synth scene, Black Marble carried on the tradition of early synthwave pioneers like Martin Dupont and Modern Art who repurposed synths once reserved for expensive studios and stadium rock superstars. Seeking to channel this spirit, Black Marble recalls the gauzy tape wow and flutter of The Membranes and the warbling VCO of Futurisk, carrying on a sound that seeks to channel the future while imprinting residue of the past. |
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Calexico [Seasonal Shift] October 29 street date. Now on vinyl! / CD available now. Calexico's "Seasonal Shift" is less of a Christmas album and more of a cross cultural seasonal celebration. The themes are based around that familiar end of year feeling, of reflection, of ceremony and of recognition of the year gone by and changes it brought for better and for worse. It contains a few cover songs including classics by John Lennon and Tom Petty, a few more special guests and a whole load of good will. It's heartfelt but fun, and earnest but celebratory. It features Calexico in an assortment of guises, referencing Portuguese Fado and old Mexican folk songs, from the stripped back two-man skeleton to the full party of international collaborators including artists like Bombino, Gaby Moreno, Gisela João, Nick Urata (DeVotchKa) and Camilo Lara. |
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Carll, Hayes [You Get It All] October 29 street date. Country singer/songwriter Hayes Carll returns with his eighth album "You Get It All", produced by Allison Moorer and Kenny Greenberg. Carll's talent for storytelling and creating compelling lyrical narratives shines through as brightly as ever, and "You Get It All" exemplifies his ability to span a wide range of musical styles while staying true to himself. Featuring songs co-written by Brothers Osborne, Brandy Clark, and Sean McConnell, "You Get It All" is both heartbreaking and lighthearted, a combination that Carll has honed on his records throughout his entire career. "I like to tug at heartstrings, find commonality with others, reflect on my own life, and sometimes I do it in a lighthearted way," says Carll. "A lot of musical styles found their way onto this record, but my first and most formative influences came from country music. This is a country singer-songwriter record. It's just unapologetically me". |
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Carpenter, John/Cody Carpenter/Daniel Davies [Halloween Kills O.S.T. (orange)] October 15 street date. The scream team is back for the highly anticipated follow up to 2018's "Halloween", "Halloween Kills". John Carpenter has returned to the studio with son Cody Carpenter and godson Daniel Davies to further expand on the iconic score that forever changed the course of horror cinema and synthesizer music. The 2018 "Halloween" movie soundtrack received unanimous praise and brought a rich and ominous depth to the original theme music that was famously recorded on a shoestring budget in 1978. Now with the "Halloween Kills" score, director David Gordon Green has pushed the musicians to be more experimental and take their modern sound to a chilling new level. Like all of Carpenter's legendary soundtracks, "Halloween Kills" features incredible standalone music that like their "Lost Themes" trilogy of music made for imaginary films can be enjoyed thoroughly with or without the context of the film. |
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Charles, Ray [True Genius Sides Of Ray (2LP)] November 19 street date. This collection illustrates the many musical "sides" of Ray Charles by focusing each album side on some of the broader genre categories he visited most. Soul, Jazz and Blues, Country and his Classic Pop hits are all celebrated on this two disc collection featuring some of the most important songs of his career. Ray Charles is both one of the most iconic artists of all time as well as one of the hardest to define by genre. At the beginning of his career, he was dubbed the Genius of Soul for boldly combining traditional R&B with Gospel music and giving birth to Soul music. Yet this momentous musical accomplishment was just the beginning of a five-decade career in which he uniquely succeeded in virtually every genre. Ray's unique mastery of music allowed him to continue to explore all forms of music, freely floating between jazz, blues, pop, rock, soul and country while continuing to combine them in new, unprecedented ways. |
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Circuit Des Yeux [io] October 22 street date. Matador Records is thrilled to announce the release of "-io", the sixth album by vocalist and composer Haley Fohr, best known as Circuit des Yeux. A celebrated figure in Chicago's music community, Circuit des Yeux has released acclaimed albums via De Stijl, Thrill Jockey, and Drag City and toured throughout the world. "-io" is her most ornate and elaborate work to date - a set of compositions that nest Fohr’s otherworldly four-octave voice amid a 24-piece string, brass, and wind ensemble. The album was put to tape last fall by Cooper Crain at Chicago's Electrical Audio studio and mixed by Marta Salogni (Bjork, Holly Herndon) with Fohr acting as arranger and producer. Written in the wake of personal loss and recorded in the midst of the pandemic, "-io" maps a geography of grief - a place where "everything is ending all the time". While Fohr's music has never been short on ambition, these songs are striking in their brilliance and strangeness. On "-io", Circuit des Yeux has delivered a work that is vivid, immense, and fully illuminated. |
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Grouper [Shade] October 22 street date. The 12th full-length by Pacific Northwest artist Liz Harris aka Grouper is a collection of songs spanning fifteen years. She characterizes "Shade" as an album about respite, and the coast, poetically and literally. How one frames themselves in a landscape, how in turn it frames themselves; memories and experiences carried forward mapping a connection to place. Songs touch on loss, flaws, hiding places, love. Deep connections to the Bay Area, and the North Coast, with its unique moods of solitude, beauty, and isolation - a place described and transformed by the chaos and power of rivermouth, wild maritime storms, columns of mist that rise up unexpectedly on the road at night. Throughout, Harris threads a hidden radiant language of voice, disquiet, and guitar, framed by open space and the sense of being far away. |
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Harding, Curtis [If Words Were Flowers] November 5 street date. Simply calling Curtis Harding a soul man feels reductive. Harding's voice conveys pain, pleasure, longing, tenderness, sadness and strength - a full gamut of emotions. Today Harding's voice takes on an optimistic lilt with his his new album, "If Words Were Flowers", his first new music since 2018, and a follow up to his critically acclaimed "Face Your Fears" album. It features songs like "Hopeful", where Harding croons with devotion over a classic soul groove, textured with infectious horn playing, background singers and modern psychedelic flourishes. Harding fuels his psychedelic sound with the essence of Soul but isn't bound by it. Instead, his songs convey an eclectic blend of genres leaping from the many musical lives he has lived from following his evangelical Gospel-singing mother on tour around the country as a child to rapping in Atlanta, forming a garage band with The Black Lips' Cole Alexander to singing back-up for Cee Lo Green. Through these experiences he fully embraces life's darkest intricacies and conjures dynamic, addictive melodies. |
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Helado Negro [Far In (2LP)] October 22 street date. When Roberto Carlos Lange, the musician known as Helado Negro, began writing 'Far In' immediately following the release of 'This is How You Smile' (spotlighted as Pitchfork's #7 "Best Album of 2019"), he could not have predicted that we would soon need to learn how to stay at home and be the stars of our domestic dance floors with intimates and online communities. Roberto and his partner, the visual artist Kristi Sword, had planned to visit Marfa, Texas for an early 2020 residency to work on their collaborative project 'Kite Symphony'. Once the pandemic hit, they decided to stay in Marfa through the summer, inspiring Roberto to write a significant amount of songs on the upcoming album. Driving back to Brooklyn in the fall inspired by his work in the desert, Roberto auspiciously purchased a Rhodes from a friend who 20 years earlier gave him his first synthesizer, an Arp Odyssey 2800. The electric piano was a catalyst that guided much of the remaining songwriting for the album. |
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Houndmouth [Good For You] November 5 street date. Recorded with Brad Cook (Waxahatchee, Hiss Golden Messenger) and mixed by Jon Ashley (The War On Drugs, B.J. Barham), the fourth full-length album from the Indiana-bred, platinum-selling band marks a return to what Houndmouth does best: "shaggy, swinging, big-screen storytelling" (NPR Music) set to a rustic, home-recorded sound. The album features novel-esque storytelling and a bright sound, highlighted on lead single "Las Vegas", and weaves tales of fading love, growing up, and reflection. |
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Joan As Police Woman/Tony Allen/Dave Okumu [The Solution Is Restless (2LP)] November 5 street date. "The Solution Is Restless" is a brand new collaborative album by Joan As Police Woman, Tony Allen, and Dave Okumu. Joan was invited to Africa Express: The Circus in 2019, where Damon Albarn introduced her to Tony Allen for the first time and they played a version of Nina Simone's "I Wish I Knew How It Would Feel To Be Free". That same year she was invited to the Africa Express in Waltham Forest, where Damon Albarn came to see her collaborate. They got on so well, that besides it being the seed where this record started to grow, it also led to Joan lending guest vocals to the Gorillaz' track "Simplicity", off their 2020 album "Song Machine". Dave Okumu and Joan have known each other for a few years and worked together on "Pieces Of A Man: The Gil Scott-Heron Project" in March 2016. When Joan and Tony decided to record together, she invited her longtime friend to join from London and they ended up improvising all night in a Parisian studio. Then when the world shut down, she used those recordings to write this new record "The Solution Is Restless". |
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Khruangbin [Mordechai Remixes (2LP)] October 29 street date. Khruangbin are no slouches when it comes to the remix. This time, they're taking it a step further with an album dedicated to the art. The choice of remixers for this album is neither arbitrary nor accidental. All have some connection to the band, sometimes personal friendships, musical connections, or simply mutual musical appreciation. Harvey Sutherland and Ginger Roots have both toured with the band, Kadhja Bonet and Ron Trent had their own mutual fan club going on, Knxwledge sampled ‘White Gloves’ on a recent mixtape, Natasha Diggs and Soul Clap's Eli's are recent buddy-ups, and Quantic is a mutual friend of Bonobo. Some of these remixes were specifically made so you can dance your ass off while getting down to the Khruangbin sound, while some might better be appreciated horizontally with headphones on, wearing fashionably loose clothes. But all were made with love and respect for Khruangbin. |
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La Luz [La Luz] October 22 street date. La Luz has always been a band with a vision. Their discography is a study in balancing both heavenly and haunting sounds for a lush style of rock music that's all their own. On their self-titled fourth album, La Luz fearlessly launch themselves into a new realm of emotional intimacy with a collection of songs steeped in the mysteries of the natural world and the magic of human chemistry that has found manifestation in the musical ESP between guitarist and songwriter Shana Cleveland, bassist Lena Simon, and keyboardist Alice Sandahl. All the elements of classic La Luz are here - the beautiful harmonies, the gorgeous melodies, the impeccable musicianship - but it's a richer, earthier iteration. After spending the last few years living in rural northern California, Cleveland's lyrics have become more grounded, less interested in traveling to other dimensions than in peeking behind the curtain of this one, fascinated by the way reality becomes mystical when you slow down long enough to let it reveal itself to you. |
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Light Conductor [Sequence Two (180g)] October 29 street date. Light Conductor returns with "Sequence Two", the second album of prismatic slow-burn analog synth instrumentals by the duo of Jace Lasek (The Besnard Lakes) and Stephen Ramsay (Young Galaxy). Expanding on the hypnaogogic ambience of their warm and uncluttered 2019 debut, Lasek and Ramsay add subtle but scintillating structure and electricity to these four new longform tracks. The songs remain predominantly beatless, but burble and vibrate with more ornate, intentional pulses, arpeggiators and control voltages. Light Conductor's analog palette of gently fuzzed-out chordal drone, mesmeric ostinato, sweeping filters and drifting levitational melody continues to colour the glowing atmosphere of this enveloping space/trance music: like sunrise on another planet, with a profoundly satisfying dimension of heightened ceremony and design. |
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Nadler, Marissa [The Path Of The Clouds (black)] October 29 street date. "The Path of the Clouds", Marissa Nadler's ninth solo album, is the most stylistically adventurous, lyrically transfixing, and melodically sophisticated collection of songs in her already rich discography. Gripped by wanderlust while suddenly housebound at the start of the pandemic in 2020, Nadler escaped into writing, and came back with a stunning set of songs about metamorphosis, love, mysticism, and murder. Blurring the line between reality and fantasy and moving freely between past and present, these 11 deeply personal, self-produced songs find Nadler exploring new landscapes, both sonic and emotional. Seth Manchester, known for his work with Lingua Ignota, Battles, and Lightning Bolt, mixed the album and added dimension to the songs' atmospheric beauty with screeching feedback and distorted guitars. Stripped of the ethereal reverb that often swaddles her resonant vocals, Nadler's delivery now stings and pierces with newfound immediacy and confidence. Coming a long way from the spare dream folk of her earlier work, Nadler has remained inspired and continues to evolve, open to new ideas and directions. Includes guest appearances from Emma Ruth Rundle, Mary Lattimore, Milky Burgess, Amber Webber (Black Mountain/Lightning Dust), and more. |
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Parquet Courts [Sympathy For Life] October 22 street date. Parquet Courts' thought-provoking rock is dancing to a new tune. "Sympathy For Life" finds the Brooklyn band at both their most instinctive and electronic, spinning their bewitching, psychedelic storytelling into fresh territory, yet maintaining their unique identity. Built largely from improvised jams inspired by New York clubs, Primal Scream, and Pink Floyd and produced in league with Rodaidh McDonald (The xx, Hot Chip, David Byrne), "Sympathy For Life" was always destined to be dancey. Unlike its globally adored predecessor, 2018's "Wide Awake!", the focus fell on grooves rather than rhythm. "Wide Awake! was a record you could put on at a party", says co-frontman Austin Brown. "Sympathy For Life is influenced by the party itself. Historically, some amazing rock records have been made from mingling in dance music culture - from Talking Heads to Screamadelica. Our goal was to bring that into our own music". |
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Radiohead [Kid A Mnesia (3LP)] November 5 street date. Radiohead announces "KID A MNESIA", a multiple format triple-album release marking the 21st anniversary of "Kid A" and "Amnesiac". "KID A MNESIA" collects Radiohead's fourth and fifth albums alongside the debut of a newly compiled third disc titled "Kid Amnesiae". Exclusive to this release, "Kid Amnesiae" is comprised of unearthed material culled from the "Kid A"/"Amnesiac" sessions. Along with alternate versions and elements of "Kid A" and "Amnesiac" album tracks and B-Sides, "Kid Amnesiae" features the never-before-heard "If You Say the Word" and a previously unreleased studio recording of "Follow Me Around". |
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Segall, Ty [Harmonizer] October 29 street date / Nov 5 for LP (date change). With "Harmonizer", his first album in two years, Ty Segall glides smoothly into unexpected territory, right where he likes to find himself! Responding to the challenge his new songs gave him: a synthtastic production redesign, Ty kicks back with bottom-heavy creativity, dialing up a wealth of guitar and keyboard settings to do the deed. "Harmonizer" is a glossy, barely-precedented sound for him, and truth, it enraptures the ear - but in Ty's hands, the sound is also a tool that allows him to cut through dense undergrowth, making for some of his cleanest songs and starkest ideas to date. The album's production model couches tightly-controlled beats in thick keyboard textures, with direct-input guitar signal whining and buzzing purposefully from left to right. The Freedom Band appear all over the record, but often one at a time, their contributions leaving a distinctive footprint on the proceedings wherever they appear. |
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She And Him [A Very She And Him Christmas (10th Ann/bonus 7")] November 12 street date. This holiday season, Merge will celebrate ten years of "A Very She & Him Christmas", the wonderful collection of tunes from two of music's most beloved artists - Zooey Deschanel (She) and M. Ward (Him). Recorded and originally released in 2011, Deschanel and Ward let the songs speak for themselves, oftentimes recording them with only acoustic guitar and vocals. The result is an intimate holiday recording that deserves a place in your collection next to seminal Christmas albums by the likes of The Carpenters, Vince Guaraldi, The Beach Boys, and Elvis Presley. To mark this joyous occasion, the limited-edition deluxe 10th anniversary reissue is pressed on tinsel silver vinyl and includes a brand-new 7-inch, also on silver vinyl, that features renditions of Madonna's "Holiday" and Wham!'s "Last Christmas", as well as a bonus download of "It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas". |
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Snail Mail [Valentine] November 5 street date. "Valentine" is the hugely anticipated follow up to Snail Mail's first full length, "Lush". "Valentine" was written and produced by 22-year-old Lindsey Jordan and co-produced by Brad Cook (Bon Iver, Waxahatchee) in 2019-2020. The album is filled with romance, heartbreak, blood, sweat and tears. But "Valentine" is poised and self-possessed, channelling anger and dejection into empowering revenge fantasies and rewriting the narrative of its own fate. Stitched throughout it is the melodrama and the camp Jordan so deftly utilizes to offset her pain. The sonic leap forward can be heard from the first moments of the title track - the whispered voice and eerie sci-fi synths erupting into a full-on stadium-sized adrenaline-rush of a chorus. From there it's all go - with digitized electronic inflected anthems, swooning baroque FM rockers, smouldering slow-jam R&B, and some of the most gorgeous and heart-rending finger-picked guitar ballads this side of Elliott Smith. The star of the show however is Lindsey's voice - no longer the prodigal wunderkind, her vocals and words are rawer, deeper, snarlier and more feeling than ever before. North American tour is planned for 2022 which will include April shows in Toronto, Vancouver, and Montreal. |
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Superchunk [Here's To Shutting Up (20th anniversary edition/LP+CD)] October 22 street date. 20 year anniversary reissue of Superchunk's "Here's to Shutting Up" album. Each format will include a new ten-track bonus CD of acoustic demos, and the Peak Vinyl Indie Exclusive LP is pressed to colour vinyl with an exclusive poster insert as well. |
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Sylvan Esso [Sylvan Esso] November 5 street date. Recorded in a little studio in Durham, North Carolina, Amelia Meath and Nick Sanborn's debut LP as Sylvan Esso arrived in 2014 at the juncture of pop and experimental. Years later, the LP remains an urgent and fitting introduction to a push-and-pull that would go on to inform the duo's sound - a thoughtful headiness that also wants to get you out on the dance floor. A blend of analog and digital, Meath and Sanborn were two unexpected puzzle pieces fitting together with singular ease, producing a ten-track LP that was both minimalist and shimmering, with dark undulations rippling beneath the synthy surface and crystalline quality of Meath's voice. |
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Wye Oak [Civilian + Cut All the Wires (2LP/colour) 2009-2011] October 22 street date. When Andy Stack and Jenn Wasner released "Civilian", it marked both the ascension and death of Wye Oak, or at least a version of it. Now, a decade later, "Civilian" + "Cut All the Wires: 2009-2011" delves back into that pivotal record and adds a lost album of unreleased tracks and demos to its universe. Ten years after its release, "Civilian" remains a raw, sinewy punch of a record - bleak and intense and lonely and self-assured all at once. The album unravels with the sort of self-questioning and uncertainty that come with youth, and its specific confidence in unflinchingly probing all of those emotions, feeling them to their deepest extent even when it's tearing you apart at the seams. "Cut All the Wires: 2009-2011", a 12-song collection of rare and unreleased tracks and demos culled from the Wye Oak archives, is an extension of the bruised and aching "Civilian". The collection adds another layer of separation, a lost album unexpectedly discovered and the feeling of meeting oneself all over again. |
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RSD BLACK FRIDAY NOVEMBER 26, 2021 For RSD Approved Indie Record Stores Solicitations for the special Black Friday releases have started coming in from record labels and suppliers. To browse the list of titles added so far, type "2021BF" in the TITLE field and hit search. More titles will be added as details are received. Quantities are limited; no guarantees on fill. Check back regularly and order early for your best chance at good fill. Please note: For the safety of our staff and our community, we continue to work in a limited capacity so that we can follow physical distancing protocols. |
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