Indie Exclusive version … Lord Huron presents their fourth studio album, Long Lost. The band has often tried to uncover the past of their studio, Whispering Pines, without much success. Instead, they decided to imagine what has gone on in the studio, who has passed through, and that is how Long Lost was created. Featuring the singles “Not Dead Yet,” “Mine Forever,” “I Lied” and “Love Me Like You Used To.” LP Packaging: Opaque Custard/Blue mixed color vinyl; gatefold jacketBlack Vinyl VersionFor more than two decades, the GRAMMY and Academy Award-nominated rock band Counting Crows have enchanted listeners worldwide with their intensely soulful and intricate take on timeless rock & roll. Exploding onto the music scene in 1993 with their multi-platinum breakout album, August and Everything After, the band has gone on to release seven studio albums, selling more than 20 million records worldwide, and is revered as one of the world’s most pre-eminent live touring rock bands. In October 1996, the band’s double-platinum sophomore studio album, Recovering the Satellites, debuted at number one and further solidified their growing reputation as one of the leading American alternative rock bands in the world. A follow up to their early success; Counting Crows went on to release This Desert Life (1999), Hard Candy (2002), Saturday Nights & Sunday Mornings (2008), Underwater Sunshine (Or What We Did on Our Summer Vacation) (2012), Echoes of the Outlaw Roadshow (2013),and Somewhere Under Wonderland (2014.) In 2004, Counting Crows recorded the chart-topping “Accidently in Love” for the animated motion picture Shrek 2. The instant success of the track earned them an Academy Award nomination for “Best Original Song” at the 2005 Academy Awards, a Golden Globe nomination for “Best Original Song” and a GRAMMY Award nomination for “Best Song Written for a Motion Picture, Television or Other Visual Media.” In September 2014, Counting Crows released their critically acclaimed seventh studio album, Somewhere Under Wonderland, which debuted at No. 10 on the charts and was heralded by The Daily Telegraph as “… the best collection of songs since their debut.” The album consisted of nine sprawling tracks around rich sonic tapestries, which yielded some of the most grandiose yet intimate songs Counting Crows had recorded to date. 2018 marked 25 years since the band’s inception and sent Adam Duritz, Jim Bogios, David Bryson, Charlie Gillingham, David Immergluck, Millard Powers, and Dan Vickrey back on the road for the “25 YEARS AND COUNTING” tour. In 2021, Counting Crows ranked #8 on Billboards’ “Greatest of All Time: Adult Alternative Artists” 25th anniversary chart. After seven years, Adam Duritz and Counting Crows are returning with Butter Miracle: Suite One set for release in May 2021. Counting Crows – BUTTER MIRACLE Suite OneBlaster Master Zero comes to vinyl for the first time, bringing every track from the Inti Creates classic to wax with a brand new remaster suited for the format.Double vinyl LP pressing housed in gatefold jacket. Includes booklet with liner notes and art. Blaster Master Zero 2 comes to vinyl for the first time, bringing every track from the Inti Creates classic to wax with a brand new remaster suited for the format.Special half-speed master edition cut by Miles Showell, Abbey Road Studios. It is with great joy that we present the Mr Bongo edition of Marcos Valle’s 1983 self-titled masterpiece. A pure vintage that features the ultimate Brazilian-boogie cult-classic ‘Estrelar’ and iconic 80s cover art that sees a gloriously sun-drenched Marcos dressed in a pink v-neck t-shirt surrounded by a generous selection of deadly-looking neon cocktails. The album was produced by the legendary Lincoln Olivetti and Marcos’ brother Paulo Sérgio Valle. It showcases a real who’s who of Brazilian music at the time, with stellar performances from vocalists and musicians such as Rosana, Serginho Do Trombone, Robson Jorge and Oberdan Magalhães to name but a few. This was Marcos’ second album, after having moved back to Brazil from his time living in Los Angeles, and that US influence is evident through it’s prominent boogie, soul and funk sounds. It also features collaborations with the US singer-songwriter, composer, pianist, keyboardist, and record producer, Leon Ware, who co-penned three tracks including ‘Estrelar’. To complete the album there are tracks such as ‘Fogo Do Sol’, which is pure AOR / Balaeric vibes, and tracks that are more MPB and pop-inspired, making a well-balanced track list for both home-listening pleasure and dancefloor business. What could we do to give one of Marcos’ most celebrated albums the treatment it deserved and produce the most definitive re-issue possible? The answer was to enlist the services of Miles Showell, Abbey Road Studios Mastering and lacquer-cutting engineer and all-around audio-magician, to cut a special half-speed master edition. Miles had previously worked his half-speed magic on our Arthur Verocai album re-issue, and once again we are totally blown away by the richness which Miles has brought out in his mastering technique. He has enhanced the listening experience and taken this wonderful album to another level.On limited red vinyl. How do you reconcile loving someone when everything is relentlessly changing, dying, and decaying? It is devastating to love and be loved, because the perfect is both impermanent and eternal. For eons and mere moments, we exist with lovers like we exist in deserts, where the landscape stretches on and on. You can’t possibly hold it all. These are the questions that permeate the rooms, corridors and wider landscapes of Indigo Sparke’s debut record, Echo. Sifting through deep and intimate relationships, her work is a constellation of desire, dreams, memories and melancholia. Infused with heartbreak and hope, her songs are sombre, yet reflective, positioning herself like a stone being tumbled in tides of time. Sparke established herself on the Australian music scene in 2016 releasing her self-produced EP Night Bloom. In the years since, she has moved between New York, Minneapolis and LA, travelling through terrifyingly vast deserts and mountains, with seemingly endless highways and empty motel rooms. In 2018 her song, “Holographic Heart” was performed in the Australian TV show, Cloudy River (SBS). Later that year, she released her single, “The Day I Drove the Car Around the Block,” to critical acclaim. She was invited to play at SXSW in Texas in early 2019, where NPR’s Bob Boilen was first taken by Indigo. He later wrote, “Her song, ‘The Day I Drove the Car Around the Block’ has a mundane title that made me smile, but lyrics that both cut hard and comfort.” After seeing one of her performances Boilen invited her to do a Tiny Desk concert in Washington D.C. and included her song in All Songs Considered 2019 SXSW Wrap-up: Our Favourite Discoveries and Memorable Moments, claiming he “loved the way Indigo Sparke balanced heavy, reverb-drenched verses with moments of airy and acoustic whispers.” Listening to Echo, it is clear Indigo has submerged herself even further into an abyss of ambiguous grief, dismantling the glass house of hope, and resurfacing with a fragile, yet fearless debut record. It was on a tour in Australia supporting Big Thief that Indigo met Adrianne Lenker. The two formed a transcendental connection and over the next two years, explored vast deserts and heaving cities across the world, eventually ending up in an old castle nestled in the hills of Northern Italy. The record was recorded between LA, Italy and New York, co-produced by Indigo, Adrianne, and Andrew Sarlo (producer of Big Thief, Nick Hakim, Hovvdy, Courtney Marie Andrews, Bon Iver, Hand Habits, Active Child). Sarlo engineered the first session in LA. James Krivchenia (drums) and Max Oleartchik (bass) played on the record with an eerie yet fairy-tale like contribution by Nick Hakim on the glockenspiel on her track “Baby.” It was at the castle that Indigo met Shahzad Ismaily (musician and multi-instrumentalist) who, upon learning Indigo wrote poetry, asked her late one night to work on a song with him. What became of that session is “Dog Bark Echo.” Back in New York, at Shahzad’s studio (Figure 8), the record was completed. The final session there was engineered and eventually mixed by Phil Weinrobe (producer/engineer of Leonard Cohen, Damien Rice, Adrianne Lenker, Buck Meek, JFDR, Lonnie Holley).Old School Hip-Hop … Various Artist CompilationLimited gold colored vinyl 180gm LP pressing. As singers, songwriters and instrumentalists, The Rascals were the equal of virtually any band that emerged from the mid-1960s. The New Jersey quartet scored 13 Top 40 hits during the latter half of that decade alone. This 1968 Greatest Hits collection displays the irresistible energy and songcraft that put the band into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and charts the group’s evolution from the garage and blue-eyed soul of it’s “Young” phase (“Good Lovin’,” “Groovin'”) to the band’s first single to be released under the new name Rascals (“A Beautiful Morning”) to their more progressive pop-rock leanings. Colored 180g vinyl LP reissue mastered by Joe Reagoso at Friday Music Studios.Deluxe vinyl LP pressing. Includes digital download. m b v is the 2013 album from the British Alt-Rock icons led by the esteemed Kevin Shields. MBV is the follow-up to their genre-defining 1991 album Loveless.Limited 180gm vinyl LP pressing in gatefold jacket. The Eleventh Hour is the fourth studio album by Magnum, released in 1983 by Jet Records. The production of this album caused a lot of tension between the band and Jet Records, following the two-year delay to the previous album, Chase the Dragon in 1982 and their first album, Kingdom of Madness, in 1978.Vinyl LP pressing. 2021 release featuring jazz interpretations of Led Zeppelin classics. On limited Blue and White Galaxy Swirl vinyl. Fiddlehead wasn’t supposed to make a second record. But, if we’re being totally honest, they weren’t supposed to make their first record either. Formed in what singer Pat Flynn describes as “a deeply, deeply, laughably depressing part of my life,” Fiddlehead was born with modest intentions. Flynn and his then-roommate, guitarist Alex Dow, decided to work on some songs, and with Basement having just broken up, guitarist Alex Henery entered the fold. Drummer Shawn Costa and bassist Adam Gonsalves-who has since been replaced by Casey Nealon-linked up with them and, all together, they wrote what would become the Out Of The Bloom EP. Those five songs established what Fiddlehead would be, a band that merged elements of post-hardcore, post-punk, and classic ’80s emo into something that felt distinctly theirs. After the release of their debut album Springtime & Blind, the band did some weekend-long tours, and saw that their music was hitting people harder than they ever expected. “Kids were singing along in a very desperate way and we realized it wasn’t just resonating with us, it was resonating with these people in a really meaningful way,” says Flynn. Springtime & Blind was a hit for many reasons, but chief among them was Flynn’s open-hearted exploration of his father’s passing, which saw him use his lyrics as a means of relating to and understanding his mother’s grief. So when it came time for Fiddlehead to work on a second record, people weren’t just curious what the songs would sound like, they were curious what they’d even be about. Between The Richness effectively picks up where Springtime & Blind left off, as Flynn dives headfirst into that same subject. But astute listeners will notice a major difference this time: Flynn is singing about himself. “These massive things happened in my life between the first record and this record. It just so happened that I ended up getting married, I had a child, and it was around the 10-year anniversary of my father’s passing. So what if I want to write another record about how I feel about the loss of my father? Will people be like, ‘Pick another topic, dude.’ So, the opening track is called ‘Grief Motif’ because it’s the idea that this is an eternal struggle that will never go away. Take it or leave it, but it will be part of this dude as long as he’s got a pen in the hand.” Between The Richness explodes with an energy that usurps that of Springtime & Blind. The guitar riffs of Dow and Henery are their most anthemic and combustive yet, making songs like “The Years,” “Get My Mind Right,” and “Down University” not just serve as the backbone for Flynn’s personal ruminations, but empathetic, emotional musical stabs that hit the listener just as hard. Meanwhile, Costa and Nealon give the songs a propulsive heft, allowing a track like “Million Times” to dart into unexpected territories without ever feeling alien. But at the center if it all is Flynn. He’s a different person than he was on Springtime & Blind, because he’s now a father himself. And that experience colors the journey he goes on throughout the album. “My son’s name is Richard and my father’s name is Richard, so it’s literally between the two of them. But it’s also the richness of life and the richness of death. It was important for me to capture that perfectly paradoxical feeling,” says Flynn. “We started writing this record two weeks after my son was born, and it’s a really great way for him when he’s older-and when I’m gone-to say, ‘My father wrote this in the first year of my life. What does that mean?'” It’s an attempt to put words to that strange place we all exist in, that place between the richness.Limited 180gm turquoise colored vinyl LP pressing. 2021 release, Micky Dolenz’s first new solo studio album in nine years. The album is packed with songs Michael Nesmith wrote throughout his career, all beautifully reimagined by Dolenz. And who better to produce it than Nesmith’s son, Christian Nesmith, who has done a brilliant job in coming up with fresh and completely new arrangements for all of the songs. This is the album Monkees fans have waited years to hear.Vinyl LP pressing. The new album American Quilt from Paula Cole. American Quilt is the fondue of Cole’s melting pot, blending a variety of genres that include jazz, folk, and country. Cole takes on classics like “Black Mountain Blues,” “Nobody Knows You (When You’re Down and Out),” and “What a Wonderful World,” creating a patchwork of American music. The album also includes one original song, “Hidden in Plain Sight,” which is about quilts women made that provided clues to slaves in the Underground RailroadVinyl LP pressing. Recorded during the summer of 2020, ‘Blue Elephant’ is testament to Matt’s exceptional musicianship, production skills and songwriting prowess with every instrument played by Matt including, guitars, bass, a variety of keyboards and synthesizers (piano, Wurlitzer, mellotron, Moog, Hammond, Vox and Farfisa organs), with the exception of drums – supplied by Craig Blundell, on arguably his best album to date. This music soundtracks an album that explores themes surrounding today’s close scrutiny in all it’s bewildering, objectifying and unnerving experiences. Very much a conceptual and, therefore, continuous long-player, the album’s infectious grooves come to the fore on standout tracks ‘Summer Sun’, heavy-psych instrumental ‘Invisible’, the three-part ‘Blues Inside Me’, which encompasses a psych journey through a late ’60s and early glam filter mixed with the propulsive ‘Like Stone’.
Compact Disc Releases
Hardcover packaging. 2021 release. Lord Huron presents their fourth studio album, Long Lost. The band has often tried to uncover the past of their studio, Whispering Pines, without much success. Instead, they decided to imagine what has gone on in the studio, who has passed through, and that is how Long Lost was created. Featuring the singles “Not Dead Yet,” “Mine Forever,” “I Lied” and “Love Me Like You Used To.” 2021 release. Written and largely produced by Tyler Joseph in isolation over the course of the past year at his home studio, with Josh Dun engineering the album’s drums from across the country, Scaled And Icy is the product of long-distance virtual sessions and finds the duo processing their upended routines along with the prevailing emotions of 2020 – anxiety, loneliness, boredom, and doubt. The duo had to forgo their normal studio sessions but reached a new of level of introspection in the process, adopting a more imaginative and bold approach to their songwriting. The result is a collection of songs that push forward through setbacks and focus on the possibilities worth remembering.The new album American Quilt from Paula Cole. American Quilt is the fondue of Cole’s melting pot, blending a variety of genres that include jazz, folk, and country. Cole takes on classics like “Black Mountain Blues,” “Nobody Knows You (When You’re Down and Out),” and “What a Wonderful World,” creating a patchwork of American music. The album also includes one original song, “Hidden in Plain Sight,” which is about quilts women made that provided clues to slaves in the Underground Railroad2021 release. In the midst of a global pandemic, John Hiatt walked into Historic RCA Studio B to record a record. Hiatt teamed up with multi-Grammy award winning artist and producer, Jerry Douglas and his band, The Jerry Douglas Band. The result of those sessions would be the album, Leftover Feelings. There’s no drummer, yet these grooves are deep and true. And while the up-tempo songs are, as ever, filled with delightful internal rhyme and sly aggression, the Jerry Douglas Band’s empathetic musicianship nudges Hiatt to performances that are startlingly vulnerable. In life, leftover feelings can remain unresolved. Explicated in a place of history, a place of comfort. A sacred place, if you believe the documentation of human expression to be a holy thing. Here are Hiatt and Douglas, creating love songs and road songs, sly songs and hurt songs. Their songs, and now our songs. Leftover feelings that edify and sustain.Conquerors unveils a medieval universe accompanied by a Thrash Black Brutal including regiments of legionnaires, the band devastates everything in their path.Intruder is the 21st solo album from the iconic and influential Gary Numan. Intruder sees Gary reunite with producer Ade Fenton, who previously produced four critically acclaimed albums for Numan: Jagged, Dead Son Rising, Splinter and Savage. With a career that has spanned nearly four decades, his approach to electronic music remains an inspiration to artists across genres and eras, from stadium goliaths such as Depeche Mode, Prince and Nine Inch Nails to alternative heroes such as Beck, Damon Albarn and Marilyn Manson. Even Kanye West owes him a debt, and David Bowie once credited him with “writing two of the finest songs” in British music.
