AIMS Marketing Program/ Featured Titles Promoted This Week:

Cian Ducrot – Victory CD/LP (Geffen)

Irish singer-songwriter, producer, and multi-instrumentalist Cian Ducrot cements his rising star status with the release of his eagerly anticipated debut album Victory. Fan Favorites “All For You”, “I’ll Be Waiting”, and “Part Of Me” provide an insight into the soul-bearing vulnerability and supreme songcraft that Cian demonstrates throughout Victory. For Cian, it represents the culmination of a lifelong dream. But even more significantly, it represents a triumph in the face of insurmountable odds in which his mother’s selfless bravery, determination, and support changed his future for the better.

The Front Bottoms – You Are Who You Hang Out With CD/LP (Fueled By Ramen)

For New Jersey’s The Front Bottoms, working on new music has always been therapeutic, but on their new album You Are Who You Hang Out With, having complete and utter fun took top priority for the duo of Brian Sella and Mat Uychich. It’s this carefree and laid-back mindset that colored the sessions for the album. Armed with the duo’s signature anthemic melodies, take-no-prisoners lyrics and tight musical interplay, every spin of You Are Who You Hang Out With is a chance to peek behind the curtain at two friends having one hell of a time doing what they do best. [An indie store exclusive vinyl colorway is available.]

Jerry Garcia – Might As Well: A Round Records Retrospective CD/2xLP (Rounder/ATO)

Might As Well: A Round Records Retrospective presents a collection of Jerry Garcia’s most beloved solo studio recordings and collaborations with Grateful Dead lyricist Robert Hunter. The compilation contains 16 remastered, original recordings of fan favorites including “Sugaree”, “They Love Each Other”, “Rubin & Cherise”, and “Cats Under The Stars”, among others. It highlights the performances that helped enshrine the Grateful Dead and Jerry Garcia in the Songwriters Hall of Fame. While the creative duo penned countless legendary works together for the Grateful Dead and other projects; this collection focuses solely on the compositions appearing on Garcia’s solo releases. Might As Well serves as a preface into the world of these two songsmiths and the devotion to their craft.

[Read more…] about New Releases for August 4, 2023

AIMS Marketing Program/ Featured Titles Promoted This Week:

Bethany Cosentino – Natural Disaster CD/LP (Concord)

On Natural Disaster, the debut solo album from Best Coast’s Bethany Cosentino, the Los Angeles-based singer/songwriter takes close account of the endless catastrophes and upheavals of modern life, offering a high-minded and open-hearted response that makes room for compassion, imagination, and a radical sense of possibility. The new record, produced by Butch Walker, was written in Nashville and Los Angeles, and is described as a departure from the understated indie-pop that Best Coast are known for. The new set was mainly recorded during a series of trips to Walker’s Nashville studio, and puts her voice front and center, both literally and metaphorically, for the first time. [An indie store exclusive orange ‘dreamsicle’ color vinyl pressing is available.]

Darlingside – Everything Is Alive CD/LP (More Doug)

Everything Is Alive finds Darlingside intimate in a way they’ve never been before: embracing individual voices, both sonically and lyrically. Where typically the indie-folk quartet’s songs have been written in super-democratic processes, here, each member spearheaded three tracks – culminating in a collection of truly personal snapshots. By shedding their superpower of vocal harmony and committing to processing their own experiences with loss and change through their writing, Everything Is Alive ends up exuding a softly triumphant possibility—of life and hope.

High Pulp – Days In The Desert CD/LP+MP3 (ANTI-)

Los Angeles-based experimental jazz collective High Pulp release their new album Days In The Desert in peak sweltering summer heat. The titular desert is both literal and metaphorical: it’s the Mojave Desert that the band powers through on their many DIY tours around the country, and the band’s founder / drummer Bobby Granfelt perceives the desert as “a spiritual quest” as well. Amid the trials of our present moment, you must look within, relying solely on your own instincts to keep moving forward. Days In The Desert finds the West Coast band fully emerging into their own sound. Rooted in the jazz tradition while also smitten by indie-rock and electronic music, High Pulp was willing to grab from all these sounds at once to pursue something unique.

[Read more…] about New Releases for July 28, 2023

AIMS Marketing Program/ Featured Titles Promoted This Week:

Blur – The Ballad Of Darren CD/LP (Parlophone)

Britpop legends Blur are back with their first new album in over eight years. The Ballad Of Darren is the band’s ninth studio album overall, their first since 2015’s The Magic Whip, with artwork featuring an image by British photographer Martin Parr. Damon Albarn said, “This is an aftershock record, reflection and comment on where we find ourselves now.” Graham Coxon adds, “The older and madder we get, it becomes more essential that what we play is loaded with the right emotion and intention. Sometimes just a riff doesn’t do the job.” Alex James shares, “For any long-term relationship to last with any meaning you have to be able to surprise each other somehow and somehow we all continue to do that.” Dave Rowntree closes, “It always feels very natural to make music together. With every record we make, the process reveals something new, and we develop as a band. We don’t take that for granted.” The highly anticipated 10-track collection is introduced by lead track “The Narcissist” which The Guardian says, “chugs along to a motorik beat, rising to an anthemic chorus that seems to be reflecting on the band’s career path.” [An indie store exclusive blue color vinyl pressing is available.]

Sam Burton – Dear Departed CD/LP (Partisan)

Dear Departed, the second album from Sam Burton, arose from a time of rebirth. In the last few years, Burton basically started over. He temporarily abandoned the life he’d built in Los Angeles and spent time with friends and family friends in rural Utah and California. After all that time wandering, couch-surfing, and writing, Burton emerged with more than enough material for his sophomore outing. He joined up with producer Jonathan Wilson to craft a more intricate, layered sound that recalled the lived-in yet immediate singer-songwriter albums of the ’60s and ’70s. Together they achieved a sound that didn’t descend into retro pastiche, but rather became an evocative echo, a dream of the past. In scope, Dear Departed finds Burton using a far bigger canvas than on his debut, giving the emotions therein a new sense of urgency and intensity. But the album still has an intimacy to it, like Burton and his backing musicians are crammed onto the corner stage of a smoke-filled bar in a long-lost time.

Lori McKenna – 1988 CD/LP (CN)

Lori McKenna titled her new album 1988 after the year she married her husband, Gene, yet the ten songs within also serve as a love letter to lifelong friendships, people she’s lost, and her family. Recorded with producer Dave Cobb in Savannah, Georgia, 1988 naturally has its nostalgic moments, even if not every ending is a happy one. With more of an electric edge than her past projects, 1988 feels in step with classic ‘90s albums by Sheryl Crow or Gin Blossoms, where the lyrics pulled you in as much as the melody or production. Playing together on acoustic guitars while facing one another in the studio, McKenna and Cobb tracked the album live, giving it a feeling of immediacy and authenticity.

[Read more…] about New Releases for July 21, 2023