AIMS Marketing Program/ Featured Titles Promoted This Week:

George Benson – Live At Montreux 1986 2xCD+DVD (Mercury Studios)

A frequent visitor to Montreux, George Benson has selected this show from 1986 as the first he would like released. Taken from the height of his commercial success, the concert includes classics and hits throughout the set, such as “Lady Love Me (One More Time)”, “Love Ballad”, “In Your Eyes”, “Love X Love”, “20/20”, “On Broadway”, “Turn Your Love Around”, “Never Give Up On A Good Thing”, and more.

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.

John Coltrane – Evenings At The Village Gate: John Coltrane With Eric Dolphy CD/2xLP (Impulse!)

In August of 1961, the John Coltrane Quintet played an engagement at the legendary Village Gate in Greenwich Village, New York. 80 minutes of never-before-heard music from this group was recently discovered at the New York Public Library. The recordings were made by engineer Rich Alderson as part of a test of the Village Gate’s then-new sound system. The tapes seemed to have been lost, were found, but then disappeared again into Library’s vast sound archives. Coltrane played his month-long Village Gate residency with a quintet featuring a revolving cast of musicians. The new album comprises unheard music and provides a glimpse into the powerful but sadly all-too-short musical partnership between Coltrane and Eric Dolphy, who died three years later. This is the only recording of their vaunted Village Gate performances.

[Read more…] about New Releases for July 14, 2023

AIMS Marketing Program/ Featured Titles Promoted This Week:

The Dust Coda – Loco Paradise CD/LP (Earache)

London-based trailblazers The Dust Coda release their latest album Loco Paradise; a pleasurable, tempestuous rock ‘n’ roll journey. Recorded during the hazy summer heat of 2022, Loco Paradise saw the band take residence together at the divinely picturesque Chapel Studios in Lincolnshire, with producer Charlie Russell (Kasabian, Jamiroquai, Wargasm) at the helm. “This album really captures the band at the top of its game. We locked ourselves away in the studio together for a week to live and breathe the creation of Loco Paradise. Just six people constantly feeding off each other 24 hours a day for 7 days to give life to these songs and elevate them to a place beyond our expectations. The result is a 54-minute testimony of pure, organic rock ‘n’ roll music.”

Gus Dapperton – Henge CD/LP (WB)

Alt-pop icon Gus Dapperton’s vast and ambitious new album Henge builds a new world – tugging the listeners between night and day, socializing and solitude. The Warwick, NY native constructed the album with the concept of entering an underworld as the sun goes down and trying to get home before dawn – or risk being stuck in a time loop. Sonically the album delivers a contemporary eclectic sprawl, at times landing between ‘80s new-wave and ‘70s funk. Collaborators include Cruel Santino, Ocean Vuong, and BENEE – who Dapperton reunites with musically following their double-platinum viral hit “Supalonely”. Dapperton’s music maintains the intimacy that made his previous offerings so resonant – including the singles “Horizons”, “Wet Cement”, and “Don’t Let Me Down”. [An indie store exclusive autographed CD version and an indie store exclusive red color vinyl pressing are available.]

Gabriels – Angels & Queens CD/LP (Atlantic)

Los Angeles soul trio Gabriels presents the full-length release of their debut album, Angels & Queens. The 13-track record, released via Atlas Artists/Parlophone Records, was produced by Grammy winning fellow Compton local, Sounwave. Angels & Queens Part I was released in September 2022, picking up widespread acclaim across the globe. Its release was governed by the band’s desire to push through the release of new recordings and deliver the record in two distinct chapters. The second chapter, Angels & Queens, incorporates a brand-new recording of the band’s seminal debut single, “Love and Hate In A Different Time”, and songs that have already become staples of the band’s live set including “Offering”, “Glory”, and “Great Wind”. [An indie store exclusive silver color vinyl pressing is available.]

[Read more…] about New Releases for July 7, 2023

AIMS Marketing Program/ Featured Titles Promoted This Week:

The Baseball Project – Grand Salami Time! CD/2xLP (Omnivore)

Fourth release featuring Scott McCaughey (The Minus 5/Young Fresh Fellows), Steve Wynn (The Dream Syndicate), Peter Buck and Mike Mills (R.E.M.) and Linda Pitmon (Filthy Friends). All in all, a fancy pedigree but, as Wynn points out, “this is our only band that plays stadiums”—true story as The Baseball Project has performed full sets along with the National Anthem and “Take Me Out To The Ball Game” at major league parks in Boston, Chicago, Milwaukee, Denver, Minneapolis, Philadelphia and more minor league and spring training fields, as well as having thrown out some exceptional first pitches (nothing but strikes!) as well. Grand Salami Time! was recorded at Mitch Easter’s fabled Fidelitorium Studios in Kernersville, North Carolina, with the entire band performing live together in the same room, a joyous experience that seemed impossible to imagine only one year before. Mitch adds guitar on a few tracks and the record also features appearances by Stephen McCarthy (The Long Ryders) and Steve Berlin (Los Lobos).

Neko Case – Wild Creatures CD/2xLP+MP3 (ANTI-)

Wild Creatures pulls together some high points of feral joy from 21 years of solo work by Neko Case. The Virginian marked Neko’s debut as a solo artist in 1997. She delved into darkness in 2000 with Furnace Room Lullaby, scrawled Blacklisted in 2004 and recorded The Tigers Have Spoken live the same year. In 2006, she dreamed Fox Confessor Brings The Flood, and in 2009 unleashed Middle Cyclone. She plumbed her own life in 2013 for The Worse Things Get, The Harder I Fight, the Harder I Fight, The More I Love You, and raised hell in 2018 with Hell-On. Now in her third decade of recording under her own name, she’s just getting started. The career retrospective Wild Creatures contains 23 of Neko’s most impactful tracks from her discography as well as the new song “Oh, Shadowless”. [An indie store exclusive eco-mix vinyl colorway is available.]

Grian Chatten – Chaos For The Fly CD/LP (Partisan)

Chaos For The Fly is the debut solo album from Grian Chatten, vocalist of Dublin’s critically-acclaimed band Fontaines D.C. Rare moments of respite from a relentless touring schedule afforded Chatten the opportunity to start work on something for himself, occupying a completely different headspace from his hugely successful work within Fontaines D.C. Co-produced by the band’s longstanding producer Dan Carey, the album is arguably the most poetic from Chatten. Each song has a sweep of color and texture that breathes life into his lucid tales. Over its nine tracks, Chaos For The Fly is a record that takes in all of life’s rich emotions, transporting the listener to a place you not only want to visit, but will find yourself returning to again and again. [A limited-edition white color vinyl pressing is available.]

[Read more…] about New Releases for June 30, 2023