NEW RELEASES 2015 WEEK #7 FEBRUARY 17, 2015

NEW RELEASES WEEK #7 FEBRUARY 17, 2015

1.    THE AMAZING-“PICTURE YOU” (2/17) (The Amazing inhabits an aural landscape that’s all its own: a panoramic, constantly evolving spectacle marked by layers of intertwining guitars, richly textured keyboards and a rhythm section adept at skewed tempos and a tendency to veer off in unexpected directions. The band’s free flowing, cinematic sound balances focused song structures with unbridled improvisation to create a heady genre smashing exercise in sonic exploration. The Amazing lives up to its name on Picture You.)

2.    CARL BARAT AND THE JACKALS-“LET IT REIGN” (2/17)

3.    S. CAREY-“SUPERMOON” (2/17)

4.    BROTHERS OF THE SONIC CLOTH-“BROTHERS OF THE SONIC CLOTH” (2/17) (***With a long-held reputation for some of the heaviest music from the the Pacific Northwest, Seattle's legendary Tad Doyle (formerly of Tad, Hog Molly) delivers his strongest songwriting and playing to date with his newest band Brothers of the Sonic Cloth. This powerful trio of musicians--Tad on guitar / vocals, veteran bass player Peggy Doyle and drummer Dave French (the Annunaki)--present their long-awaited debut album on Neurosis's own Neurot Recordings. Brothers of the Sonic Cloth bring together the collective and extensive musical histories and experience of the three members in the worlds of punk, hard rock and metal.Recorded at Robert Lang Studios and Doyle's own Witch Ape Studios in Seattle and mixed by Billy Anderson, Brothers of the Sonic Cloth's self-titled full-length consists of five immense songs, with two bonus tracks on the CD. The record opens with "Lava," an ominous eruption of riffs forged from deep within the Earth, and continues on this path throughout; a mammoth, relentless spirit on a timeless journey. This album is as much a persistent, thudding body-punch of sonic destructive force as it is a thoughtful statement of awareness of the inescapable raw condition of life.)

5.    ERIC CHENAUX-“SKULLSPLITTER” (2/17)

6.    CRUSHED BEAKS-“SCATTER” (2/17)

7.    DARK DARK DARK-“FLOOD TIDE” (2/17)

8.    THE DELTA ROUTINE-“YOU AND YOUR LION” (2/17)

9.    DEVO-“MIRACLE WITNESS” (2/17)

10. DIVERS-“HELLO HELLO” (2/17) (Divers is a band from Portland, Oregon. We are Harrison Rapp (guitar and vocals), Seth Rapp (guitar), James Deegan (bass), and Colby Hulsey (drums). We play dynamic, sweaty music. The indie rockers say we are a punk band. The punk rockers are suspicious that we might be an indie band. The bands that have inspired us fall on both sides of the fence, but they all share the same kind of energy. If we have any clear idea about what we are doing, it has something to do with that energy. Our forthcoming album is about a couple of bank robbers driving across North America, doing what they do. We will be driving across North America doing what we do in March and April. We are probably coming to your town. Come say hello. We don't bite, but we'll try and shake you up the best we can. Divers)

11. STEVE EARLE-“TERRAPLANE” (2/17) 

12. ELEPHANT MICAH-“WHERE IN OUR WOODS” (2/17) 

13. EX CULT-“CIGARETTE MACHINE” (2/17)

14. BEN FROST-“VARIANT” (2/17) (Ben Frost's remix EP V A R I A N T features remixes from Frost's most recent album, A U R O R A, which has been named 'Album of the Year' by Rolling Stone, The New Yorker, Stereogum, and Drowned in Sound. Remixes include British producer, Evian Christ, Downward label boss and techno producer, Regis, and HTRK to name a few.)

15. JOSE GONZALEZ-“VESTIGES & CLAWS” (2/17) (Brand new, long awaited album from José González, Vestiges & Claws. This will be the first album in 7 years for José González- his sophomore album, In Our Nature, which was released in 2007 was met with much critical acclaim. Since then, José González recorded and released albums with his other musical incarnation, Junip a duo made up of González and Tobias Winterkorn. Most recently, González teamed up with Ryan Adams to create a track for Ben Stiller's "The Secret Life Of Walter Mitty" released last year.)

16. GROOMS-“COMB THE FEELINGS THROUGH YOUR HAIR” (2/17)

17. THE JULIANA HATFIELD THREE-“WHATEVER, MY LOVE” (2/17)  (The Juliana Hatfield Three has reformed with the original lineup of Todd Philips (drums), Dean Fisher (bass), and Juliana Hatfield (guitar, vocals, keyboards, percussion) to release their sophomore album Whatever, My Love. Recorded at Nuthouse Recording in Hoboken, NJ and co-produced by Hatfield and Tom Beaujour (Nada Surf, Guided By Voices, Minor Alps), the twelve songs on Whatever, My Love are gorgeous and punk, sleazy and sweet, unsentimental and funny. Hatfield, humble as always, acknowledges that, 'We haven't totally reinvented the wheel or anything' with this new album and that the recordings exhibit 'stuff I am sort of known for, I guess': a guitar-centric melodicism and lyrical examinations of emotional confusion. 'But I am a lot more confident now than I was then with the first album. And I had more fun recording this one.' Whatever, My Love comes 21 years after the trio's Become What You Are debuted on Atlantic Records. The 1993 album was an influential force of uncompromising, original guitar pop/rock and secured a permanent place in alternative rock history with the radio hits 'My Sister' and 'Spin The Bottle.' With their new album, The Juliana Hatfield Three has in a sense responded to its former directive to 'become what you are' by making an album that is exactly what it wants to be, identifiable in its acceptance--and celebration--of the eternally unknowable and unsolvable.)

18. HEY COLOSSUS-“IN BLACK & GOLD” (2/17)

19. IN TALL BUILDINGS-“DRIVER” (2/17)

20. INFLATABLE BOY CLAMS-“INFLATABLE BOY CLAMS” (2/17)

21. JASON ISBELL & AMANDA SHIRES-“SEA SONGS” (2-TRACK SINGLE) (2/10)

22. JAMESTOWN REVIVAL-“UTAH” (2/17)

23. JARBOE & HELEN MONEY-“JARBOE & HELEN MONEY” [EP] (2/16)

24. KING WOMAN-“DOUBT” [EP] (2/17) ("King Woman is fronted by former Whirr vocalist Kristina Esfandiari. The group’s debut 12-inch Doubt unfurls lugubriously, blossoming into a haunting sprawl of crushing, slo-mo miserablism. Churning washes of crumbling distortion and tar-pit riffage drift grimly through billowing clouds of dense, layered thrum. Imagine some twisted fusion of PJ Harvey, Sunn 0))) and Black Sabbath.)

25. KODALINE-“COMING UP FOR AIR” (2/17) 

26. LANTERNA-“BACKYARDS” [A COLLECTION] (2/17) (This ten-song collection completes multi-instrumentalist Henry Frayne s most compelling work to date where he crafts musical landscapes interweaving layers of warm, instrumental sonic tapestries. For Frayne, the inception of Backyards began nearly a decade ago, and is a culmination of his career as a versatile musician best known for blending genres and bending guitar styles to create layers of airy overtones. Most of the songs for this album sprung from an orphaned blond Conrad hollow body six-string along with a Gibson acoustic, purchased in 1983 for $5 after having survived a fire. Frayne composed the underlying textures of the record with a heavy influence from the Nashville tuning, the practice of utilizing very light strings to produce an angelic sound. Backyards is the fifth Lanterna CD to be released by Badman Recording Co.'s instrumental-only label, Jemez Mountain.)

27. LETTS-“HOLD FAST” (2/17) (Christian Letts is more commonly known as the guitarist from Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeroes. Letts is releasing his debut solo record, produced by Marcus Mumford. The track 'Matches' also features backing vocals from Mumford. Letts will be launching a US tour this Spring.)

28. MOURN-“MOURN” (2/17) (MOURN is a very young quartet formed from the friendship of Jazz Rodríguez Bueno and Carla Pérez Vas - both born in 1996 in El Maresme, Catalonia, Spain. The duo armed themselves with inspiration from PJ Harvey, Patti Smith, Sebadoh and Sleater Kinney and began writing material, which they quickly released, raw and acoustic, on their YouTube channel. These recordings caught the attention of their homeland's Sones Records. Despite being teenagers, earlier this year they came out of the studio (along with drummer Antonio Postius and bassist Leia Rodríguez) with a brilliant treatise of indie rock that has stunned those who have had the opportunity to listen to it. Jazz (18), Carla (18), Leia (15) and Antonio (18) came together to present these tracks with authenticity and self-awareness beyond their age. With the confidence only residing in youth, the Mourn debut was recorded live in the studio in two days, proof of which is in their live-in-the-studio videos for singles "Otitis" and "Your Brain is Made of Candy." Both tracks perfectly capture the bands' affinity for the brevity of The Ramones with the lyrical and melodic sophistication of The Pixies.)

29. IKUE MORI-“LIGHT IN THE SHADOW” (2/17)

30. NO MAN-“SCHOOLYARD GHOSTS” (2/17)

31. OH LAND-“EARTH SICK” (2/17)

32. THE ORB-“HISTORY OF THE FUTURE PART 2” (2/17)

33. PEACE-“HAPPY PEOPLE” (DELUXE EDITION) (2/17) 

34. PHOSPHORESCENT-“LIVE AT THE MUSIC HALL” [2-CD] (2/17) 

35. KATE PIERSON-“GUITAR & MICROPHONES” (2/17) 

36.A PLACE TO BURY STRANGERS-“TRANSFIXIATION” (2/17) 

37. QUARTERBACKS-“QUARTERBACKS” (2/17) 

38. SIX ORGANS OF ADMITTANCE-“HEXADIC” (2/17) (Designed to free sound and language from rational order and replace calculation with indeterminacy, Ben Chasny's Hexadic System is a catalyst to extinguish patterns and generate new means of chord progressions and choices. The album brews and boils with an ominously dark tone in a desolate space, dense with energy, guitar overdriven past the point of sanity, slamming drum accents, vocals cutting through in what seems to be comprised of another, as yet unheard, language. This is the majestic dialectic of Hexadic. Features members of Comets On Fire, Badgerlore, and SF psych legend Charlie Saufley.)

39. SONNY AND THE SUNSETS-“TALENT NIGHT AT THE ASHRAM” (2/17)

40. TEXAS-“TEXAS 25: THE TRUTH AND SOUL SESSIONS” (DELUXE EDITION) (2-CD) (2/17)

41. TROPICS-“RAPTURE” (2/17)

42. WOLFGANG VOIGT-“PROTEST-VERSAMMLUNG 1” (2/17)

43. WRINKLE NECK MULES-“I NEVER THOUGHT IT WOULD GO THIS FAR” (2/17)

44. ZS-“XE” (2/17) 

NEW RELEASES 2015 WEEK #5 FEBRUARY 3, 2015 & WEEK # 6 FEBRUARY 10, 2015

FEBRUARY 3, 2015 (WEEK #5)

1.    ALL WE ARE-“ALL WE ARE” (2/3)

2.    ANDREW BIRD-“ECHOLOCATIONS: CANYON” (2/3)

3.    BIG NOBLE-“FIRST LIGHT” (2/3) (Twelve years ago, a New York band called Interpol released a song called “NYC“. The third track on the band’s debut LP Turn on the Bright Lights and the song that makes reference of the album’s title within, it’s the first of many emotional high points on the record. But more importantly, it’s a distinct localizer that gives the whole of the record (and the band, at that time) a proper grounding. A major player in the New York indie rock revival, Interpol was, and for many always will be, a New York band, and nothing spells it more clearly than this track. But Paul Banks’ haunting cries of detachment couldn’t hold the spartan power they possess without the chariot of Daniel Kessler’s screaming guitar arrangements. With a brutal tremolo, Kessler embodies the biting wind and the freezing cold that define the dark night in which the track takes place more than any song has since.  That being said, when Sonos decided to do an exhibition last autumn dedicated to the sounds of NYC, who better to turn to than Kessler and his sonic partner in crime, Joseph Fraioli? Together as Big Noble, the two created a sweeping, omnipresent soundscape that embodies their city like nothing else has ever before. Their debut record Big Light curates the many themes they assembled for their Sounds of NYC exhibit into a proper record. The result is a beautiful and ambient work, less of a soundtrack and more a tribute to living in the hustle and bustle of winter nights under the bright lights of New York City.)

4.    BODUF SONGS-“STENCH OF EXIST” (2/3) 

5.    BREAKFAST IN FUR-“FLYAWAY GARDEN” (2/3)

6.    CARY BROTHERS-“LOVIN’ ON YOU” [EP] (2/3) 

7.    THE CHARLATANS U.K.-“MODERN NATURE” (2/3)

8.    CHICANE-“THE WHOLE IS GREATER THAN THE SUM OF ITS PARTS” (2/3) 

9.    CORNERSHOP-“HOLD ON IT’S EASY” (The urge to reimagine your debut album as an instrumental, easy-listening affair with added swing is not perhaps one that strikes most bands, but Cornershop have always been something of a square peg. Their first album, Hold on It Hurts, was noisy and boisterous enough to take its place in the riot grrrl movement (despite the group’s all-male lineup); Hold On It’s Easy – which reworks every track from the 1993 original – is performed by Preston’s Elastic Big Band and would sound more at home as a 70s TV theme or, in the case of their woodwind and brass reworking of Change, Air’s Moon Safari. The original’s political side has naturally been dimmed, replaced with an impressive knack for revealing melodies you never knew existed beneath the feedback (Born Disco, Died Heavy Metal is a particular revelation). It might not make for the most essential listening of 2015, but Hold On It’s Easy is a playful distraction.) (2/3)

10. DREEMS-“IN DREEMS” (2/3)

11. EMMY THE GREAT-“S” (2/3)

12. THE GO BETWEENS-“G STANDS FOR GO-BETWEENS VOL. 1” [8-CD BOX SET] (2/3) (VINYL/CD BOX 167.98 AMAZON) (G Stands For Go-Betweens (Vol. 1) documents the band’s origins in four LP, four CDs and an 112-page book, featuring photos and extensive liner notes. This volume documents them from 1978 to 1984 with vinyl re-pressings of their first three studio albums (Send Me A Lullaby, Before Hollywood & Spring Hill Fair). It also collects their early 7” output on a fourth LP entitled The First Five Singles. Additionally, the set comes with four CDs of rare and unreleased demos, radio sessions and a complete live concert radio broadcast from 1982.)

13. ETIENNE JAUMET-“LA VISITE” (2/3)

14. JUNE-“DOMINION” (2/3) 

15. JULIAN LAGE-“WORLD’S FAIR” (2/3) 

16. MOUNT EERIE-“SAUNA” (2/3) 

17. NITE FIELDS-“DEPERSONALISATION” (2/3) 

18. THE PHANTOM BAND-“FEARS TRENDING” (2/3)

19. POND-“MAN IT FEELS LIKE SPACE AGAIN” (2/3) 

20. RICKED WICKY (ROBERT POLLARD OF GUIDED BY VOICES)-“I SELL THE CIRCUS” (2/3) (The first thing the listener will notice about Ricked Wicky is that it is the most musically adept project Guided By Voices' mage Robert Pollard has undertaken in some time, at least since late period-GBV (Half-Smiles of the Decomposed, for instance), or even Boston Spaceships. "[Ricked Wicky] is a sophisticated arena rock band," says Pollard, and I Sell the Circus offers in evidence a series of ball-peen hammers to the brain-pan ("Piss Face" with its James Gang-era slide guitar and the proto-punk stomp of "Intellectual Types," for example) alongside more delicate, prog-tinged Frippery ("Cow-Headed Moon" features Court of the Crimson King-esque mellotron, while the acoustic guitar mastery displayed on "Even Today and Tomorrow" recalls the mellow-era ELP of "Lucky Man").Credit the players: bolstering the easy mastery of a dizzying array of songwriting forms one naturally expects (and receives) from Pollard are the impressive instrumental prowess of fellow Daytonian Nick Mitchell ("no blood relation to Mitch," Pollard stresses), who can otherwise be found in near-weekly performance at Wings, an important Dayton sports bar; multi-instrumentalist and producer Todd Tobias; and "the worldly Kevin March," (Pollard again) who does double duty these days in Guided By Voices.Fourteen of its fifteen tracks were recorded at Cyberteknics in Dayton, a studio Pollard has come to use with increasing frequency due to its profusion of vintage analog gear. "Rotten Backboards" is as gorgeous and melancholic a tune as Pollard has ever written, and lyrically sounds a note of wistfulness that long-time fans will not find unfamiliar. "She can run, 'cause that's what I did," sings Pollard over a sublimely textured background of synth-strings, arpeggiated guitar, piano and clattery drums, and while it's tempting to read real regret into the content ("rotten backboards" as a metaphor for the debris of the past), it's always dangerous looking for autobiography in Pollard's mostly-fictional constructions. And anyway, the misty wistfulness is cleared away immediately by the sharply propulsive prime-Who swagger of the next--and final--track "A Real Stab." Which seems to be about needles, or the messengers of Oz, or paper bags. It's one of the best songs on an album of standouts."Some may wish to refer to us as a 'super group,'" says Pollard, tongue practically poking through his cheek, but as with a lot of the pronouncements made by The Oracle of Huffman Prairie, as no one has ever called him or ever will, he's joking, but he's not joking. Ricked Wicky may not be a super group as the term is too-commonly used, but there's no real doubt they're a super group.)

21. ROSE QUARTZ-“AXIS OF LOVE” [EP] (2/3) 

22. TY SEGALL BAND-“LIVE IN SAN FRANCISCO” (2/3) 

23. ANDY SHAUF-“THE BEARER OF BAD NEWS” (2/3)

24. JOHN TEJADA-“SIGNS UNDER TEST” (2/3)

25. TITLE FIGHT-“HYPERVIEW” (2/3) 

26. TWO GALLANTS-“WE ARE UNDONE” (2/3) 

27. BUTCH WALKER-“AFRAID OF GHOSTS” (2/3)

FEBRUARY 10, 2015 (WEEK #6)

1.    JOHAN AGEBJORN (FROM SALLY SHAPIRO)-“NOTES” (2/10)

2.    KATH BLOOM-“PASS THROUGH HERE” (2/10) 

3.    DAMON & NAOMI-“FORTUNE” (2/10) 

4.    DEAD ROCK WEST-“IT’S EVERLY TIME!” (2/10)

5.    DINOSAUR JR-“BUG LIVE” (LTD EDITION VINYL) (2/10) 

6.    FATHER JOHN MISTY-“I LOVE YOU, HONEYBEAR” [2-CD] (2/10)

7.    FIREWORKS-“SWITCH ME ON” (2/10)

8.    LUKE HAINES-“ADVENTURES IN DEMENTIA: A MICRO OPERA” (2/10)

9.    JUNE-“DOMINION” (2/10) 

10. LIGHTNING IN A TWILIGHT HOUR-“SLOW CHANGES” (2/10)

11. 6 STRING DRAG-“ROOTS ROCK ‘N’ ROLL” (2/10)

12. THE UNTHANKS-“MOUNT THE AIR” (2/10)