NEW RELEASES 2015 WEEK #21 MAY 26, 2015

MAY 26, 2015 (WEEK # 21)

1.    ACID MOTHERS TEMPLE & THE MELTING PARAISO U.F.O.-“BENZAITEN” (5/26)

2.    ALT J-“THIS IS ALL YOURS TOO” [EP] (5/26) 

3.    ASTROBRITE-“DELUXER” (5/26) 

4.    THE BARBARY SOUND-“LP1” (5/26) 

5.    BEST GIRL ATHLETE-“CARVE EVERY WORD” (5/26) 

6.    BEST KISSERS IN THE WORLD-“YELLOW BRICK ROADKILL” (5/26) (***The Best Kissers in the World should have been huge. They're debut album, Been There, was a moderate success with the singles "Miss Teen USA" and "Bleeder" getting significant radio and MTV airplay during the first few years of the early 90's Alternative Rock boom. However, just as their popularity was peaking, with the lead single from their forthcoming second album garnering tons of acclaim, the band had the rug pulled out from under them. That second album, Yellow Brick Roadkill, is finally seeing release after nearly 20 years of sitting on the shelf, following a label shake-up and merger that effectively ended the band. Yellow Brick Roadkill was a huge leap forward for the band. The sound of the album is tougher, the lyrics are more caustic, and the tone is darker. But it's also an album that is full of hooks, riffs, and classic songs. "Hit Parader," "They Give Each Other Diseases," and "Countin' Out Dexedrine" are classic BKITW songs. A few of the songs on this expanded release eventually found their way (in different form) onto lead singer and songwriter Gerald Collier's first two solo albums.After the band was dropped by their label and the record was shelved, advance copies of the album were initially sold online for big money to hardcore fans of the band. We count ourselves among those fans and are happy to finally make this release available with a bonus disc of alternate versions, rarities, and unreleased songs. The band has consistently maintained a passionate following who will now be able to get this album through official and affordable means.)

7.    BEST KISSERS IN THE WORLD-“SKINNY MY HEART BROKE MY KNEE” [COLLECTION] (5/26) (***Best Kissers in the World were a beloved early 90's Seattle quartet. Frontman Gerald Collier possesses one of the great rock voices of the era with a mind for witty and irreverent lyrics. Combine these with the band's expert power-pop riffs and hooks and it's clear why their multitude of diehard fans put them in the lineage of artists such as The Replacements, Joan Jett, and Cheap Trick. Skinned My Heart, Broke My Knee is an 11 song compilation made up of the band's classic, out-of-print Sub Pop EP and their early 7 inch singles (which are seeing life on CD for the first time.) Tracks such as "Working on Donita," "Slightly Used," and "Broke My Knee" are anthemic rockers. "Hungover Together", a duet with Hammerbox's Carrie Akre, is a fine, lived-in country ballad (The Supersuckers would later record a version with Kelley Deal of the Breeders.) A killer version of Tommy Roe's bubblegum classic "Sweet Pea" closes out the album.Though they never achieved breakout success during their time, groups like Weezer and Blink-182 would later take a similar musical template and spin it into gold. With a revived interest in 90's alternative rock in full swing, Best Kissers in the World's cult continues to grow.)

8.    THOMAS BRINKMANN-“WHAT YOU HEAR” (5/26)

9.    BRITISH SEA POWER-“SEA OF BRASS” [LIVE] (5/26)

10. CINERAMA-“VALENTINA” (5/26)

11. DEPECHE MODE-“SHAME” [IMPORT SINGLE] (5/26)

12. FIRST AID KIT-“AMERICA” [EP] (5/26) 

13. WILLIAM FITZSIMMONS-“PITTSBURGH” (5/26)

14. FOOL’S GOLD-“FLYING LESSONS” (5/26) 

15. JACCO GARDNER-“HYPNOPHOBIA” (5/26) 

16. RACHEL GRIMES-“THE CLEARING” (5/26) (Rachel Grimes is a pianist, composer, and arranger based in Kentucky – most renowned for her work in Rachel's, the groundbreaking chamber-rock ensemble that introduced an entire generation of underground rock fans to the unexpected similarities and appeal of neoclassical music. Grimes has toured the world as a solo pianist, and as a collaborator with chamber ensembles such as Portland Cello Project, astrïd, Cicada, the Amsterdam Sinfonietta trio, and Orchestra Kandinskij. Unhurried, at times fleeting, and stretching into the sky, The Clearing is a winding path of transient moments exploring personal memory, relationships, and mystery from a deeply internal place. The music is a wide spectrum of textures in strings, harp, piano, woodwinds, and percussion. Featuring an ensemble that includes Scott Morgan (LOSCIL), Scott Moore, Kyle Crabtree (Shipping News), Amsterdam Sinfonietta, Jacob Duncan (Liberation Prophecy), and Helen Money, The Clearing reveals a broad new chapter for Rachel Grimes.)

17. GROUNDERS-“GROUNDERS” (5/26)

18. HOLLY HERNDON-“PLATFORM” (5/26) (Holly Herndon has become a leading light in contemporary alternative and electronic music by fearlessly experimenting within the outer reaches of dance music and pop songwriting structures. A galvanizing statement, Platform cements Herndon’s reputation as a unique musician with a singular voice. Born in Tennessee, but reared on music abroad, Herndon broke out from her formative years in Berlin’s minimal techno scene to repatriate to San Francisco, where she currently lives and studies as a doctoral candidate at Stanford’s Center for Computer Research in Music and Acoustics (CCRMA). Herndon’s debut album Movement, released in 2012, showcased Herndon’s fascination with trance and the disjunctive sampling techniques pioneered by avant-garde composition. Offering what Herndon describes as “a rupture, a paradisic gesture”, Platform is an optimistic breakthrough for Herndon, an appeal for progress, and a step toward new ways to love.)

19. HUSKY RESCUE-“LONG LOST FRIEND” [SPECIAL EDITION 2-CD] (2013/2015) (5/26) 

20. ICKY BLOSSOMS-“MASK” (5/26) (Three years on from their Dave Sitek (TV on the Radio) produced debut, Icky Blossoms’ singular brand of mesmerizingly contradictory dance music has evolved. Blending avant-garde elements with catchy and danceable pop, threaded within dark, bass-heavy atmospheres, their songs nod to great music of the past, whilst firmly propelling them into the future. For the new album Icky Blossoms continue with their study of synthesizers and drum machines, finding new focus by exploring the space between their background in basement rock shows and their new-found fluency in electronic music. They spent a year crafting the next evolution of their sound, maintaining their core of throbbing electronic grooves, but working to blend it with the drums, bass, and screaming guitars of their chaotic live show. Hailing from Omaha, Nebraska, The three members of Icky Blossoms - Sarah Bohling (vocals/synth), Nik Fackler (lead guitar/vocals) and Derek Pressnall (guitar/vocals – also of Tilly and the Wall) - wrote independently and then filtered songs back and forth through each other, creating a collage of tastes, genres and energies within each track. The band experimented with making electronics sound organic and organic instruments feel electronic. Song skeletons were embellished with tuned 808’s, hyper-effected mouth noises, screams as instruments, and guitars run through synthesizers. Soon the demos had mutated to a point of being studio-ready. With the talent of longtime friend and collaborator Mike Mogis (Bright Eyes, Julian Casablancas, Man Man, First Aid Kit) at ARC Studios in Omaha, Nebraska, these songs became fully realized. Along with Mogis, the contributions of assistant engineer Ben Brodin (Conor Oberst band), bassist Graham Ulicny (Reptar), drummer Daniel Ocanto (Big Harp) and Todd Fink (The Faint) helped the vision come into focus.   Mask finds the band capitalizing on the spontaneity of their live experience and the ambitions of their writing and recording process, while not losing their sense of self. Their influences range from Fad Gadget to Beyonce and the subject matter varies from wrestling with the isolation of existence to the emotional spectrum of love. The album pulses with a vibrant sound that’s electric, confident, and new. )

21. EILEN JEWELL-“SUNDOWN OVER GHOST TOWN” (5/26) 

22. LANDSHAPES-“HEYOON” (5/26)

23. LYDIA LUNCH / RETROVIRUS-“URGE TO KILL” (5/26) (Lydia Lunch has been collaborating with Herculean guitarist Weasel Walter (Flying Luttenbachers), fret-destroying bassist Tim Dahl (Child Abuse) and Bob Bert (Sonic Youth/Pussy Galore) under the Retrovirus flag. The album, “Urge To Kill”, was recorded live in studio in November 2014 and offers new versions of classics from Lydia Lunch’s immense catalog. ) 

24. MOONBABIES-“WIZARDS ON THE BEACH” (5/26) 

25. NIGHTINGALES-“MIND OVER MATTER” (5/26)

26. NIXON-“LINUS” (5/26) 

27. JIM O’ROURKE-“SIMPLE SONGS” [IMPORT] (5/26) (***2015, and the silence has been broken with Simple Songs. JIM O'ROURKE is ready to talk to you again. First, he wants you to know he's not dead--yet. But you're not, either--and really, what have you done lately? Certainly not made your first pop album since 2001--and even if you had, it probably wasn't any good. Meanwhile Simple Songs is more than just a first of anything since whenever! It's an amazing record of musical song entertainment--because Jim O'Rourke knows what he wants and how to get it.--musically, that is. The rest of the world is still a mystery and a bottomless source of aggravation for the old boy. What do we care? We get a great new album out of it. Yes, Simple Songs is an album of songs sung by Jim O'Rourke all the way through! It has been ten years since Jim's voice rang out from a new album. What Simple Songs sounds like.... At this point, the range of sounds and songs that have turned Jim's head are numerous enough to have crushed together into something that is unmistakably his--the vast, glossy and glittering O'Rourkian (yes, like Kervorkian) wall of sound. The music's got OCD quality, played so immaculately by so many instruments, and most of them by the creator's hand. This time's really the widest screen yet for Jim's popular song-style, truly breathtaking!)

28. CHRISTOPHER OWENS-“CHRISSYBABY FOREVER” (5/27)

29. THORE PFEIFFER-“IM BLICKFELD” (5/26) (Meticulously curated by Wolfgang Voigt, the Pop Ambient compilation series (and its latest offspring, the Pop Ambient artist album series) has long catered to a unique aesthetic sitting somewhere between experimental field recordings, no-age music, and synth pop -- a proud tradition carried on by Thore Pfeiffer's full-length debut Im Blickfeld. After inaugurating its Pop Ambient artist album series with Leandro Fresco's stellar 2015 full-length El Reino Invisible (KOMPPA 001CD/LP), Kompakt presents the next installment by up-and-coming soundsmith Thore Pfeiffer. The young German producer turned heads with two excellent contributions to Kompakt's Pop Ambient 2015 compilation (KOMP 120CD/KOM 315LP), and he showcases the full breadth of his remarkable talent on Im Blickfeld. Successfully carving out his very own niche on crowded terrain, he doesn't seem too interested in merely repeating the established achievements of the genre, but finds a personal approach to electronic enchantment. From the hot-wired micro-loops of enigmatic opener "Allzu Nah" to the cut-up folk of the title-track, the neon-tinged romance of "Was Ihr Wollt," or the mock balearisms of "Kolibri," Pfeiffer seems to be less interested in watering down the rough edges of his source material, focusing on the relationships and juxtapositions of his samples instead. Rather than indulging in multiple layers of textures, this is a decidedly concrete interpretation of pop ambient, dealing with distinct musical objects and their different states of aggregation in time. Nevertheless, there's a lot of purely emotional adventure to be found in Im Blickfeld -- take the sophisticated soaring of "Falke," for example, or the somewhat cozy dissonances of "Nicht Genug": these are tracks that don't remain stationary, but take you travelling into fascinating mental territory, thanks to their unique arrangements and hand-picked sonics. "During production, I always had these images in mind, of a hunter sitting in his deerstand, contemplating his extended field of vision," Pfeiffer recalls. "He's got a lot of time at his hands to muse about things and take in the silence before the storm.")

30. ROBERT POLLARD-“FAULTY SUPERHEROES” (5/26) (Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays Robert Pollard from the swift completion of his latest brilliant record. Faulty Superheroes jets off Pollard's vinyl-grooved runway like the prototype for some new supersonic power pop fighter jet, and at this point in his career is anyone surprised that the twelve tracks on his latest effort are uniformly awesome? The answer is no. Exactly no one is surprised. The biggest thing with which Pollard has to contend is his own miraculously consistent greatness. That he rarely-if ever-stumbles is some kind of marvel, and perhaps implies superpowers of his own. If you see what we did there. Faulty Superheroes has a tossed-off, effortless magnificence for which the rash of indie-whatevers trailing in his wake from Bee Thousand to the present constantly strive, and fail to achieve. The constant sense of surprise, of wonder, of discovery that one routinely finds in superbly structured instant bomp classics like "Faster the Great" is not something that can be taught, or learned, or imparted, or copied. Pollard largely abandoned the four-track 20 years ago and still gets tagged as "lo-fi," which is a word that makes even less sense now in the days of digital recording than it did then in the days of occasionally tape-hiss smothered coulda-shoulda-been hits. "Take Me to Yolita" in lesser hands might not have been much more than a bad one-liner stretched to fit a pop song, but Pollard reverse-engineers the titular pun to build a Kinks-like mini-epic that elevates the raw material to transcendent heights. "She walks to him but that's not him." Damn. And so it goes. Are there bum notes here and there? Recording-accidents-on-purpose left in like crushed empty beer cans strewn around the miniature, glimmering pop / rock / psych / prog construction sites left standing in the wake of each finished / unfinished songs? You betcha. The Guided By Voices aesthetic was formed and developed and continues to be improved by Pollard, which makes all the more puzzling the hand-wringing that accompanies every announcement of a so-called GBV "break-up" (or for that matter, "reunion"). "You only need one," he sings on the song of that title. As long as we have Bob, we need nothing else. And we have Bob. If you're counting your blessings, don't forget that one. It's kinda crucial.)

31. PORCUPINE TREE-“ANESTHETIZE” (5/26)

32. A PROJECTION-“EXIT” (5/26) (A Projection are an indie post-punk band from Stockholm, Sweden. With dark textures of effects-driven guitars, lush synthesizers, and heartfelt, introspective lyrics, their music has frequently been compared to that of Interpol, New Order, The Cure, and The Chameleons. Formed in 2013, the band quickly became an underground sensation, owing much of their success to their powerful and atmospheric live performances. By combining a dense, sinister sound with suggestive video projections, the band quickly established themselves as a highly sought-after live act. Following the release of their eponymous demo EP, the band was contacted by several record companies, eventually signing with the Hamburg-based label Tapete Records. "Tapete Records offered us full creative freedom," the band says. "Every track on the album is exactly the way we want it to be." The album was recorded in Stockholm, a city famous for its cold and dark winters. Naturally, that setting had some influence over the overall mood of the album. Most of the recording sessions were held at the band's regular studio, Melodibyrån, but they also had the opportunity to record some tracks at the renowned Elektronmusikstudion (EMS), which has played a significant role in the development of Swedish electronic music. "2013 was a big year for electronic artists: More and more artists are moving over to synth-driven music. It's very exciting. That development has definitely had an effect on our production process -- we started out making an overtly guitar-driven album, but as things progressed we found it very natural to add a lot of electronic elements as well," the band agrees. "It was an intense recording process. We wanted to make a record that was heartfelt and honest, and yet true to form. We are very satisfied with the end result." With their raw yet subdued aesthetics, the band bridges the gap between modern indie rock and classic post-punk, and manages to create exciting and accessible music without conforming to the mainstream.)

33. SOLEY-“ASK THE DEEP” (5/26) 

34. SPC ECO-“DARK MATTER” (5/26) 

35. SWEET SPIRIT-“HAVE MERCY” (WITH BRITT DANIEL OF SPOON) [SINGLE] (5/26)

36. THEE OH SEES-“MUTILATOR DEFEATED AT LAST” (5/26) 

37. TWO SHEDS-“ASSEMBLING” (5/26)

38. UNKNOWN MORTAL ORCHESTRA-“MULTI-LOVE” (5/26) 

39. THE VACCINES-“ENGLISH GRAFFITI” [DELUXE EDITION] (5/26) 

40. VALET-“NATURE” (5/26) 

41. WOLFGANG VOIGT-“RUCKVERZAUBERUNG 10 / NATIONALPARK” (5/26) 

42. WHOMADEWHO-“EMBER” (5/26) (Genre-bending Copenhagen trio WhoMadeWho continue their string of acclaimed releases, including their 2005 self-titled debut (GOMMA 060CD), 2012's chart-topping Brighter (KOMP 097CD/KOM 254LP), and 2014's Dreams (DACD 001CD/DALP 001LP), which was touted by many as one of the best things to come from the indie-dance sector of music in some time. No surprise coming from a band that's played and toured alongside the likes of Justice, LCD Soundsystem, Daft Punk, and Hot Chip, who, in 2011, also asked to remix the trio's song "TV Friend" while WhoMadeWho covered "Don't Dance" in return. Other remixers include underground heavy-hitters The Mole, DJ Koze, and Michael Mayer, proving WhoMadeWho's ability to go from mega-stage to basement seamlessly. Ember is another foray into the world of machine music and dreamy soundscapes, in which the band stays true to its pop tendencies while spinning things around and taking a trip right back to its roots. Band member Tomas Barfod, who also produced the release, says, "After many years of emphasizing 'the song' more and more, we felt like just playing around with our instruments, like when we recorded our first album... it was like renewing our band-wedding vows; we found our way back to our fun and free approach of making music together." "Fun" and "free" might very well be two of the best ways to describe this seven-track creation of skewed pop, surf-rock, and slow, meaningful dance music. Beachy guitar licks, ethereal crooning, and enough distinct flavor to set each track apart from the rest, in the dreamy puzzle that is Ember.)

43. VARIOUS ARTISTS-“DIAL RECORDS 15^TH ANNIVERSARY COMPILATION: ALL” (5/26)

44. VARIOUS ARTISTS-“LINEAR LABS: LOS ANGELES” (5/26) ("In less than a year's time, Adrian Younge's Linear Labs imprint has made a very firm impression on fans of forward-thinking, analog-based music from multiple genres. One notable fan, among many, is DJ Premier, who produced his late-2014 PRhyme album exclusively using samples drawn from Younge's catalog. To give fans a chance to revel in Younge's range and -- just as importantly -- give followers a sneak-peek at four impressive 2015 albums, Younge is proud to release the compilation album Los Angeles. On Los Angeles, many hip-hop fanatics will impatiently skip forward to the graceful, galloping, and appropriately dramatic 'Return of the Savage,' from the upcoming Younge-helmed Twelve Reasons to Die II. The song features Ghostface Killah alongside Raekwon and RZA. But track-skippers will soon head back to the album's opener, the dusky, baroque soul of 'Memories of War,' from Something About April II, with vocals by Stereolab's Laetitia Sadier. Also a track from the Adrian Younge/Ali Shaheed Muhammad concept album The Midnight Hour, titled 'Feel Alive,' with silky vocals by Karolina, alongside longtime Younge collaborator Loren Oden.") 

NEW RELEASES 2015 WEEK #20 MAY 19, 2015

MAY 19, 2015 (WEEK # 20)

1.    BHI BHIMAN-“RHYTHM & REASON” (5/19)

2.    NICK CAVE & WARREN ELLIS-“FAR FROM MEN” (ORIGINAL MOTION PICTURE SOUNDTRACK RECORDING) (5/19)

3.    CEREMONY-“THE L-SHAPED MAN” (5/19)

4.    DUKE SPECIAL-“LOOK OUT MACHINES!” (5/19) 

5.    EKOPLEKZ-“REFLEKZIONZ” (5/19)

6.    FAITH NO MORE-“SOL INVICTUS” (5/19)

7.    FOOL’S GOLD-“FLYING LESSONS” (5/19)

8.    LAURENT GARNIER-“LA HOME BOX” (5/18)

9.    THEA GILMORE-“GHOSTS & GRAFFITI” [DELUXE EDITION 2-CD] (5/19) 

10. GIRLS NAMES-“ZERO TRIPTYCH” (5/19)

11. THE HELIO SEQUENCE-“THE HELIO SEQUENCE” (5/19)

12. RICH HOPKINS & LUMINARIOS-“ENCHANTED ROCK” (5/19)

13. HOT CHIP-“WHY MAKE SENSE?” (5/19)

14. JOANNA GRUESOME-“PEANUT BUTTER” (5/19) 

15. GRACE JONES-“DISCO” [3-CD BOX SET] (5/19) 

16. KERRIER DISTRICT-“#4” (5/19)

17. AMY LAVERE & WILL SEXTON-“HALLELUJAH I’M A DREAMER” (5/19)

18. LOOPER-“OFFGRID: OFFLINE” (5/19) 

19. LYDIA LUNCH RETROVIRUS-“URGE TO KILL” (5/22) (***No Wave iconoclast and Big Sexy Noise-queen LYDIA LUNCH, in conspiracy with Herculean guitarist WEASEL WALTER (THE FLYING LUTTENBACHERS), fret-destroying bassist TIM DAHL (CHILD ABUSE) and legendary skinsbasher BOB BERT (SONIC YOUTH, PUSSY GALORE) unleash Urge To Kill--the follow up to 2013's face-melting live recording by this deadly combo called RETROVIRUS. Recorded live in studio by engineer COLIN MARSTON (Gorguts, Behold The Arctopus, Dysrhythmia) on one afternoon in November 2014, Urge To Kill stomps new life into classics from Lydia's immense and darkly evocative catalog, with no material repeated from the live debut. Included are re-invigorated re-imaginings of songs like "Snakepit Breakdown" and "Lock Your Door" from 13.13. (1981), "Fields of Fire" and "Three Kings" from Honeymoon in Red (1987), the Rowland S. Howard slow-scorcher "Still Burning," "Some Boys" from In Limbo (1984), "Tied and Twist" from Queen of Siam (1980) as well as a gloriously manic reworking of Suicide's seminal shriek, "Frankie Teardrop.")

20. MARCHING CHURCH (ICEAGE FRONTMAN ELIAS BENDER RONNENFELT’S SOLO DEBUT)-“THIS WORLD IS NOT ENOUGH” (5/19) (Since 2010, Elias Bender Rønnenfelt (Iceage, Vår) has used the Marching Church moniker to a variety of musical ends, both live and recorded. However, the project as it exists on This World Is Not Enough wasn't born until November 2013. With a live performance looming and no real idea what the set would be, Rønnenfelt found a new vision for the band while daydreaming at a gig at the venue where Marching Church was set to perform. "What I pictured was me in a comfortable armchair, adorned in a golden robe, leading a band while a girl kept pouring me champagne when I required it," Rønnenfelt explained. "This raised the question, 'What sort of music would go along with this picture?'" ) (.64 MP3MILLION)

21. THE MILK CARTON KIDS-“MONTEREY” (5/19) 

22. JIM O’ROURKE-“SIMPLE SONGS”  (5/19) (***2015, and the silence has been broken with Simple Songs. JIM O'ROURKE is ready to talk to you again. First, he wants you to know he's not dead--yet. But you're not, either--and really, what have you done lately? Certainly not made your first pop album since 2001--and even if you had, it probably wasn't any good. Meanwhile Simple Songs is more than just a first of anything since whenever! It's an amazing record of musical song entertainment--because Jim O'Rourke knows what he wants and how to get it.--musically, that is. The rest of the world is still a mystery and a bottomless source of aggravation for the old boy. What do we care? We get a great new album out of it. Yes, Simple Songs is an album of songs sung by Jim O'Rourke all the way through! It has been ten years since Jim's voice rang out from a new album. What Simple Songs sounds like.... At this point, the range of sounds and songs that have turned Jim's head are numerous enough to have crushed together into something that is unmistakably his--the vast, glossy and glittering O'Rourkian (yes, like Kervorkian) wall of sound. The music's got OCD quality, played so immaculately by so many instruments, and most of them by the creator's hand. This time's really the widest screen yet for Jim's popular song-style, truly breathtaking!)

23. GRAHAM PARKER & THE RUMOUR-“MYSTERY GLUE” (5/19)

24. TODD RUNDGREN-“GLOBAL” [DELUXE EDITION] (5/19) 

25. TANLINES-“HIGHLIGHTS” (5/19) (Highlights, the band’s first collection of new material since their critically-lauded debut, Mixed Emotions, in 2012, began in a basement in Pittsburgh and ended in a church in Brooklyn. It trades world music sounds for a more alive, realized approach, the result of Emm and Cohen knowing they wanted to break from their ‘two guys, one screen’ writing style. Influenced by their time spent on the road touring Mixed Emotions, primarily in the States, they reached for the sounds of 90’s New York hip-hop drums, Detroit techno synths, and lots and lots of guitars. The result could almost be called an homage to the sonics of America, if that sort of phrase wouldn’t make the band cringe. Instead, let’s just call Highlights “the album where things started making more sense.” Between working in Los Angeles with producer Patrick Ford, and their hometown of New York City with Chris Taylor (Grizzly Bear) in his 100 year-old church studio, they eventually settled on the ten songs that make up the record. Highlights is like a renaissance for a band that began in 2008 as a one-off remix project. The upbeat dancefloor-ready tracks are imbued with colors and emotional range that go much deeper than ever before, with Emm’s vocals and lyrics, at once personal and observational, taking center stage.)

26. JANE WEAVER-THE AMBER LIGHT” (5/19) 

27. PAUL WELLER-“SATURN’S PATTERN” (5/19)

NEW RELEASES WEEK #19 MAY 12, 2015

MAY 12, 2015 (WEEK # 19)

1.    BANG ON A CAN ALL-STARS-“FIELD RECORDINGS” (5/12) 

2.    BLANCK MASS-“DUMB FLESH” (5/12) (Benjamin John Power’s newest solo offering as Blanck Mass, Dumb Flesh, was written, produced and recorded in a number of different locations over the space of a year. It began life in Fuck Buttons’ ‘Space Mountain’ studio, moved into a windowless attic space in Hatch End, North London, then was finished up at Ben’s new home in Edinburgh. The geographical spread of the sessions is reflected in the shifting landscapes of the tracks and the ever-changing sound-palette used to realize Dumb Flesh as an expansive body of work. As a work of art, Dumb Flesh is a comment on the flaws of the human form in its current evolutionary state. The frailty of the human body naturally became a resonant and inescapable part of the album's gestation. “We are at the mercy of our genetic heritage everyday. No matter how intelligent we are compared to other life forms, we’re still made up of the same building blocks and things can go very wrong”. In particular, the first single ‘Dead Format’ reflects upon this reality, whilst ‘Atrophies’ and ‘Detritus’ acknowledge the organic decay we will all inevitably succumb to.)

3.    TYONDAI BRAXTON-“HIVE1” (5/12) 

4.    CHRIS CONNELLY-“DECIBELS FROM HEART” (5/12) (The new solo album from Ministry/Revolting Cocks vocalist Chris Connelly! Features a stellar line-up of guest vocalists including Meshell Ndegeocello, actress/singer Rebecca Pidgeon, former Pigface alum Ruby, and more! In addition, Connelly has put together a magnificent band including Scott Bennett who has played with Beach Boy Brian Wilson, Mike Farrell of Morrissey, and Mat Walker ex-Filter, Smashing Pumpkins and Garbage!)

5.    CROCODILES-“BOYS” (5/12) (2015 release, the fifth album by the indie rockers. Crocodiles has always traveled their own particular road of excess; playing, recording, dreaming and scheming in various far-flung corners of the globe. For Boys, the boys decamped to Mexico City where producer Martin Thulin captured this psych-pop masterpiece. Trashy in some places and beautiful in others, this colorful album sees the band revisiting familiar Crocodilian themes that have earned them worldwide acclaim while also cooking with many new flavors. Boys is an album for boys and for girls and for boy-girls and mutants, back-alley poets, thieves, space cadets and alien babes, righteous tricksters, sonic deviants, and everything in between. But most of all, Boys is an album for you. Crocodiles have always traveled their own particular road of excess; playing, recording, dreaming and scheming in various far-flung corners of the globe. For their fifth album Boys, the boys decamped to Mexico City where producer Martin Thulin captured this psych-pop masterpiece. Trashy in some places and beautiful in others, this colorful album sees the band revisiting familiar Crocodilian themes that have earned them worldwide acclaim while also cooking with many new flavors.Take the salsa-punk of tracks like "Crybaby Demon" or "Kool TV"; noisy guitars mesh with Latin rhythms to create a new sound that can only be described as "muy chingon!" Beautifully lush soundscapes on "The Boy Is a Tramp," "Don't Look Up" and "Blue" are sure to seduce the listener. "Foolin' Around" is a bonkers car-crash of influences, something the punks can do The Hustle to. Crocodiles' bizarro-pop craftsmanship shines brightly on "Peroxide Hearts," "Transylvania" and "Hard."Boys is an album for boys and for girls and for boy-girls and mutants, back-alley poets, thieves, space cadets and alien babes, righteous tricksters, sonic deviants, and everything in between. But most of all, Boys is an album for you.)

6.    DAVID BOWIE-“DAVID BOWIE 1966” (5/12) (Digitally remastered collection of early tracks from the rock icon remastered with a crisp and lively sound and a superb sleeve from the era. In 1972, at the height of David Bowie's glam-era fame, former label Pye unlocked the vault and produced an EP, the aptly subtitled For the Collector - Early David Bowie, reprising four of the six songs Bowie recorded during 1965-1966. Since that time, those four (plus their two companions) have established themselves as mod pop classics. Here they are now in their glory - half a dozen slices of the young Bowie at his most endearing mourning lost love and celebrating youthful promise, with his whole life ahead of him and fame still more than half a decade away.)

7.    DJANGO DJANGO-“BORN UNDER SATURN” (5/12)

8.    THE EARLY NOVEMBER-“IMBUE” (5/12) (The Early November have returned with their highly anticipated new full-length album, "Imbue." The band reunited back in 2012 and released their first album in six years. While that release revitalized the band in the eyes and ears of both critics and fans alike, they haven't sounded truly "back" until their latest effort. "Imbue" is a total return to form. The Early November is back at the top of their game, uniquely blending indie and alternative rock, the same formula that's helped them sell over 450,000 total albums (3 releases have all sold over 100,000 copies each). When the band reunited it wasn't a money grab to "cash-in" on the reunion fad. It was five friends who missed writing music and touring the world together. Finally, after three years of getting acclimated, The Early November are back and razor focused. It is impossible for a band to become a legacy overnight. While several bands may have immediate major label success with corporate radio, MTV, or teen magazine spreads, they don't have careers and they fade almost faster than they arrive. From front to back, "Imbue" is The Early November effortlessly doing what they do best. The people spoke and demanded a new album, and the band has responded with their best and strongest body of work to date.)

9.    ENVY-“ATHEIST’S CORNEA” (5/12)

10. EMMYLOU HARRIS & RODNEY CROWELL-“THE TRAVELING KIND” (5/12)

11. HISS GOLDEN MESSENGER-“SOUTHERN GRAMMAR” [EP] (5/12) 

12. THE HOLYDRUG COUPLE-“MOONLUST” (5/12) (The Holydrug Couple began in Santiago, Chile in 2008, a little over a half-decade after Ives and Manu met for the first time. The two young friends hadn t seen each other in a few years when Manu texted Ives to tell him that he bought a drum kit. They started jamming, and a week later, the band was formed. A flurry of songwriting activity followed, culminating in 2011 s Ancient Land EP and 2013 s Noctuary, both released on Sacred Bones. Moonlust boldly treads territory that those earlier psych-indebted recordings only hinted at, especially the dreamy French movie soundtracks of the 70s and 80s and the discography of Serge Gainsbourg. I had clear what I wanted to revisit from the last album, as well as what I didn t want to do again, Ives said. I definitely wanted to make a good-sounding record, clear and heavy. I wanted to get away as much as possible from the band sound. The last album wasn t recorded live, but I tried to make it sound as if it had been. This time, I wanted to make an electronic-like album instead. The result is an album in the self-recorded Moonlust that falls well outside the boundaries of the prevailing psych-rock idiom. Aside from the French soundtrack and Gainsbourg influences, they also cite inspiration from the soul ballads of Aretha Franklin, 80s South American synthpop acts like Los Encargados, Virus, and Los Prisioneros, and the contemporary French electro group Air. The songs are streamlined hook delivery machines, without any baroque arrangements or unnecessary flourishes to get in the way of their ultimate goal. To Ives, the lyrical themes on the record represent feeling lust, desire, for something that you see when it's dark but it's so far away that it s unreachable. It's an unrealistic target, like God, maybe, or a dream archetype of a goddess. It s the feeling of melancholy that you can't fulfill with anything. If that feeling sounds anything like the songs on Moonlust, then here s hoping that he and Manu keep reaching out into that cosmic void anyway.)

13. THE LUCID DREAM-“THE LUCID DREAM” (5/12) 

14. JENNY LYSANDER-“NORTHERN FOLK” (5/12) 

15. RHETT MILLER WITH BLACK PRAIRIE-“THE TRAVELER” (5/12) (Rhett Miller, lead singer of boozy raucous rockers The Old 97 s, will release his new solo album 'The Traveler' on May 12th. Recorded with Black Prairie (members of The Decemberists ) and produced by Chris Funk, The Traveler showcases a relentless and seemingly ageless songwriter honed by years on the road.)

16. ROISIN MURPHY-“HARILESS TOYS” (5/12) 

17. NOVELLA-“LAND” (5/12) (Novella’s formation was the result of an instant spark—guitarist Hollie Warren, guitarist Sophy Hollington, and bassist Suki Sou met through mutual friends in Brighton in 2010, where they quickly realized that they shared a common love for ‘60s counterculture and bands like Black Sabbath, the Brian Jonestown Massacre, and Pale Saints. The addition of drummer Iain Laws in 2011 and keyboardist Isabel Spurgeon in 2014 solidified the group into a propulsive engine, capable of welding woozy, cosmic psychedelia to sustained squalls of flanged-out, far-out dream pop. Novella’s debut album, Land, is a controlled blast of mainlined electricity, a tempest of relentless groove and crystalline vocals that is at once the vicious edge and the calm eye of the storm.)

18. NOZE-“COME WITH US” (5/12) (Four years after their 2011 album Dring (GPM 035CD), French house duo Nôze present their fifth album, Come With Us. Once again the pairing of Nicolas Sfintescu and Ezechiel Pailhes has yielded a collection of captivating and curious songs that could only come from the unique sound-world they inhabit. From their early experimental house days through their song-based material for Get Physical, the Parisian duo have always pushed their sound to deliver a new experience for themselves and their listeners with each release. On this occasion, Come With Us finds Sfintescu and Pailhes in a particularly introspective mood, reveling more than ever in personal reflection, both musically and lyrically. "Saint," for example, conjures up the romanticism of dustbowl blues with its vagabond guitar tones (played by longtime collaborator Thibault Frisoni), while Sfintescu's voice reaches new distinctive heights in spellbinding tales like "Apache." Emiliano Turi also lends a new sense of natural groove to the Nôze sound with his live drumming, and as ever, Sfintescu and Pailhes are keen to bring their friends into the fold for guest vocal spots. Dani Siciliano spars beautifully with Sfintescu on the disco-inflected album opener "I Need to Know." dOP vocalist JAW, fresh from his 2014 Midtown project (CC 016CD), joins in for the bittersweet balladry of "Come With Me." Although they may be committed to exploring more intimate forms of musicianship, Nôze are not a duo who have forgotten their dancefloor roots, and in recognition of this they offer up electrified alternative versions of every track on the album, available (along with the original album) via download code included with the double LP version. As a body of work in its own right, these are less remixes and more original productions rich with the warmth of synthesized tones and powered by mechanized drums. The '70s feel of the album transfers to the remixes, the comforting hum of arpeggios and Moog growls finished off with a snappy modernity. On every level, Nôze have delivered an album that will satisfy their ardent fans of many years while demonstrating their expanding repertoire as they grow as artists. From the beginning it was clear they would never rest in one place, and now Come With Us is the perfect invitation to carry on down the path with two of Circus Company's original ambassadors.)

19. AKI ONDA / LOREN CONNORS / ALAN LICHT-“LOST CITY” (5/12)

20. PRURIENT-“FROZEN NIAGARA FALLS” [2-CD] (5/12) (2015 release from America's most prominent noise figure. Dominick Fernow has for the better part of two decades helped shape and reinvent the genre with a stream of works under the Prurient moniker. A project unlike any other in the realms of experimental, ambient and noise, Prurient continually mutates from one incarnation to the next. Fernow often treads a fine line between harsh noise extremity and atmospheric beauty-his massive, layered walls of sound may be comprised of piercing feedback, tortured vocals and machine-like industrial pounding, or incorporate meticulous sampling, entrancing beats and waves of electronica-yet his prolific output is never less than compelling. Prurient's first full-length since the 2011 game-changer Bermuda Drain sees Fernow deliver the project's most ambitious release to date. A sprawling album clocking in at just under 90 minutes, Frozen Niagara Falls is the result of over a year of work. It is without a doubt Prurient's magnum opus, and will solidify the artist's standing as a visionary master able to break down barriers between genres while creating something entirely new and different. "Prurient’s first full-length since 2011's game-changer "Bermuda Drain" sees Dominick Fernow deliver the project’s most ambitious release to date. Fernow often treads a fine line between harsh noise extremity and atmospheric beauty.  A sprawling album clocking in at just under 90 minutes, Frozen Niagara Falls is the result of over a year of work. It is without a doubt Prurient’s magnum opus. " )

21. BUFFY SAINTE-MARIE-“POWER IN THE BLOOD” (5/12)

22. SSLEEPING DESIRESS-“SSLEEPING DESIRESS” (5/12) (While the band has gone through a few lineup changes, Ssleeping Desiress has essentially remained the brainchild of San Francisco-based Gabriel Ramos, who is the sole member on this, the band's debut album. Following the great 2012 A Voice/Sister 7", this album runs along the boundaries between minimal synth, coldwave, and electro with lyrical themes of gentrification, coping with death, artistic drive and confusion, and the ephemeral nature of relationships. Ssleeping Desiress have appeared on numerous new new wave compilations since 2011, but this album takes the project to the next level, kicking off with an echoing voice over repetitive drums and outbursts of synths and guitars before slowly moving toward a more darkwave sound on the second half of the album. Ramos started making solo recordings while living in Portland, Oregon, around 2005. The DIY drive of the city and the live shows that he hosted at his house, often of friends' bands from San Francisco, led to a growing fascination and voracious consumption of music. Ramos recalls, "I can really trace it to the first time Spector Protector played at my house and getting a tape afterwards from one of the two members, Eric Davis. That and being freshly exposed to groups like Suicide and Arthur Russell was very inspirational to begin recording music on my own, though it is something I had done fairly aimlessly since high school. I make an effort and try and change my process as much as I can (usually through collaboration) and vary the instrumentation. I try and incorporate a late '70s punk vibe, a marriage of dub and krautrock repetition and cavernous space. Definitely not always successful but that is what is usually running through my head when I create music for this band." Mastered by Michael Romanowski. Graphic design by Luis Mendoza.)

23. SURFER BLOOD-“1000 PALMS” (5/12) (1000 Palms marks a return to Surfer Blood's DIY ethos. Abandoning the big time studio, the band decided to head back home to self-record and self-produce their third full-length album. Free of major-label-influence, Surfer Blood has delivered a uniquely compelling album, unlike anything in their catalog. The story of 1000 Palms began on January 1st 2014, after playing a New Year's show in Portland, OR. The band decided to stick around for the rest of the month, renting a practice space and sorting through a backlog of ideas. By February, as their lease ran out, Surfer Blood had recorded demos for most of the tracks that are now featured on their third LP. After a frustrating time at their previous home, Warner Brothers, the quartet was beyond ready to return to a more DIY recording process, completely void of the middlemen scrutinizing every bar of previous LP, Pythons. With the band self-recording, it was in the glamorous setting of an attic studio above a doctor's office where drums were committed to tape. Of the work, frontman John Paul Pitts states "fortunately none of us are strangers to DIY recording, so this seemed like the kind of challenge well-suited to our band". The making of 1000 Palms also owes a lot to the kindness of friends and family, with the remaining instrument sessions taking place at the home of drummer Tyler Schwartz's parents, while they were on vacation. Following a few days of very little sleep and after the band pooled resources and called in favors, the band had managed to craft everything you now hear on the upcoming record.)

24. SWANS-“FILTH” [DELUXE EDITION 3-CD] (5/12) (*Swans’ debut album re-mastered and reissued on 3CD digipack printed on embossed brown chipboard with booklet including rare photos. This is the first in a series of Swans re-masters due to be released by Mute** The first in a series of re-mastered catalogue reissues from Swans, ‘Filth’ was originally released in 1983 and has been unavailable on vinyl ever since. Here’s what Michael Gira himself has to say about it: "This is all slabs of sound, rhythm and screaming/testifying. What more do you need? In a way, it was a reaction against Punk (and just about any other music you can think of), and the conservative notion that 3 chords were somehow necessary. I used to deny it vehemently at the time, but No Wave (I “hated” that scene too, for some reason I can’t remember now) played a big role as the germ from which this music grew, along with The Stooges and Throbbing Gristle, of course. I wanted Swans to be “heavier” though – I wanted the music to obliterate – why, I don’t remember! I think it just felt good. Live, we used two basses (playing utterly unmusical chords that were stabbed and left to sustain or sometimes hit in staccato or opposing rhythms), drums, a “percussionist” that slammed down on a metal table with a metal strap, crude cassette loops of various sounds/noises (usually some kind of undefined ROAR), and Norman Westberg’s glorious sustained and screaming guitar chords. It was pretty elating to play live – for us. If 100 people showed up (which would have been a huge audience at the time – 20 was more the average), 80 were guaranteed to leave by the second song. Somehow that tension – contempt or indifference from the audience – was nourishing, so we kept going… Here’s some music I was listening to at the time:  Throbbing Gristle, Psychic TV, The Stooges, Brian Eno, Teenage Jesus And The Jerks, DNA, The Contortions, Glenn Branca, Black Flag, early Pink Floyd,  This Heat, Kraftwerk, The Germs, Cabaret Voltaire, Can, Public Image LTD.,  SPK…") 

25. THE TALLEST MAN ON EARTH-“DARK BIRD IS HOME” (5/12) 

26. TRACEY THORN (FROM EVERYTHING BUT THE GIRL – FOR THOSE OF YOU LIVING UNDER A ROCK!)-“SONGS FROM THE FALLING” [A FILM BY CAROL MORLEY] (5/5) (Set in a girls' school in the late '60s, The Falling (2014) is the atmospheric debut feature film by acclaimed director Carol Morley (Dreams of a Life (2011), The Alcohol Years (2000)), which garnered a rave five-star review in The Guardian when it premiered at the London Film Festival in September 2014. The soundtrack is dominated by eight songs and sketches by Tracey Thorn, which are gathered together on the 17-minute mini-album CD Songs from The Falling, also available as a 10" released on Record Store Day 2015 (FEEL 017EP). Written after consultation with Morley to fit the film's mood and themes, Thorn's music was inspired by one the central scenes in which several girls form the "Alternative School Orchestra" and jam listlessly on instruments left lying around in the music room. "Carol sent me a cardboard box full of the instruments they used -- the typical things you'd expect, wood-block, tambourine, triangle, recorder -- and I decided to use the scene as a springboard for my songs," says Thorn. Recorded in the north London home studio she shares with her partner Ben Watt (who engineered the recordings), Thorn added guitar and piano, wrote the songs and then playing everything herself, allowing herself only one take on each of the instruments. "I wanted to leave in all timing discrepancies to try and capture the loose freeform feel of an untutored school performance," she adds. The final mixes were done by Bruno Ellingham. Part folk, part minimal garage band, the music's gauzy simplicity harkens back to Thorn's cult debut album A Distant Shore (1982).)

27. TORRES-“SPRINTER” (5/12) 

28. STEVE VON TILL-“A LIFE UNTO ITSELF” (5/12) (2015 release, the fourth solo album from the musician best known for his work with Neurosis, Tribes Of Neurot and Harvestman. A Life Unto Itself is a perfect description for the 25-plus years he's spent forging a unique and influential sound. One can hear that deep musical history, and all the life experience that goes with it, on A Life Unto Itself. As with his previous solo works, Von Till's weathered, distinctive voice and sparse acoustic guitar provides the foundation. Quiet and subdued for the most part, these songs still evoke vast emotional power as Von Till's raspy whisper dives deeply inward and speaks of visions, memories and self-reflection in a way both seasoned and exposed. While his last couple albums took on a more traditional approach with respectful nods toward Americana and Celtic ballads, A Life Unto Itself ventures into a wider variety of sonic landscapes, often borrowing from the rural psychedelia of Harvestman, weaving in strains of vintage synth and electric guitars. Von Till was assisted in creating the album's myriad textures by viola master Eyvind Kang, pedal steel wizard J. Kardong and percussionist Pat Schowe, all under the supervision of engineer and producer Randall Dunn, with whom he recorded and mixed the album at Avast! Recording Co. in Seattle. A Life Unto Itself is as much the name of Steve Von Till's fourth solo album as it is a perfect description for the 25-plus years he's spent forging, with his brothers, the incomparable musical force that is Neurosis--not to mention the numerous sonic tapestries he's woven with Tribes of Neurot and under his alter ego Harvestman. One can hear that deep musical history, and all the life experience that goes with it, on A Life Unto Itself. As with his previous solo works, Von Till's weathered, distinctive voice and sparse acoustic guitar provides the foundation. Quiet and subdued for the most part, these songs still evoke vast emotional power as Von Till's raspy whisper dives deeply inward and speaks of visions, memories and self-reflection in a way both seasoned and exposed. While his last couple albums took on a more traditional approach with respectful nods toward Americana and Celtic ballads, A Life Unto Itself ventures into a wider variety of sonic landscapes, often borrowing from the rural psychedelia of Harvestman, weaving in strains of vintage synth and electric guitars. Von Till was assisted in creating the album's myriad textures by viola master Eyvind Kang, pedal steel wizard J. Kardong and percussionist Pat Schowe, all under the supervision of engineer and producer Randall Dunn, with whom he recorded and mixed the album at Avast! Recording Co. in Seattle. Von Till and his fellow travelers take the listener on a pilgrimage through hidden inner worlds, occasionally surfacing for brief sojourns through the American West ("In Your Wings"), Old World Europe ("A Language of Blood") and more modern points unknown ("Night of the Moon").

29. WALLS-“URALS” (5/12) (Walls (Alessio Natalizia and Sam Willis) return with their third and final studio album, Urals. Urals is the conclusion of a three-album cycle that began with their self-titled debut in 2010 (KOMP 082CD/KOM 212LP), and continued in 2011 with Coracle (KOMP 091CD/KOM 245LP). This album is an accumulation of four years of studio exploration, inverting their signature sound into a new, more intense dimension, the duo once again exploring futuristic vistas with their coruscating synth lines, spiraling guitar figures, and howling distortion and noise. Informed by the creation/curation of their burgeoning Ecstatic Recordings imprint that has seen them release music by kindred spirits such as Pye Corner Audio, Axel Willner (The Field), and L/F/D/M, among others, as well as their own individual explorations (Natalizia's caustic, minimal synth workouts as Not Waving, and Willis's lurid, ritualistic techno as Primitive World) Urals pushes the envelope a long way from the template they set out with on tracks such as "Burnt Sienna" or "Hang Four." From the stumbling, off-kilter groove of the title-track to the probing kosmische pulses of "Altai" to the intense, ear-shredding acid of "I Can't Give You Anything But Love" to the sublime synth-scape paean "Radiance," it's clear that Willis and Natalizia are taking leave of the Walls project at the top of their game. Mastered by Sonic Boom (Spacemen 3, Spectrum) at New Atlantis Studios.)

30. THE WEATHER STATION-“LOYALTY” (5/12) (The third and finest album yet by Toronto artist Tamara Lindeman, recorded in France with Afie Jurvanen (Bahamas) and Robbie Lackritz (Feist), Loyalty crystallizes her lapidary songcraft into eleven emotionally charged vignettes and intimate portraits, redolent of fellow Canadians Joni Mitchell, Leonard Cohen, and David Wiffen, but utterly her own. A diaphanous eeriness and harmonic and rhythmic tension contributes to a pervading sense of clock-stopping bloom and smolder, recalling the spooky avant-soul of Terry Callier’s Occasional Rain. She’s an extraordinary singer and instrumentalist—on Loyalty she plays guitar, banjo, and keys—but Lindeman has always been a songwriter’s songwriter, recognized for her intricate verse, filled with double meanings, ambiguities, and complex metaphors. Though more moving than ever, her writing here is almost clinical in its unflinchingly self-examining gaze and deliberate delivery, evoking similarly idiosyncratic songsters from Linda Perhacs to Bill Callahan. Lyrically, Loyalty inverts the language of confession, of regret, of our most private and muddled mental feelings, by externalizing those anxieties through exquisite observation of the things and people we accumulate, the modest meanings accreted during our most ostensibly mundane domestic moments. “Your trouble is like a lens,” she discerns in “I Mined,” “through which the whole world bends.”)