CDs + Vinyl:

Ann-Margret – The Definitive Collection 2xCD (Real Gone Music)

She was the ultimate bombshell, a Swedish seductress with hair of flame, a fulsome figure, and a taste for Triumph motorcycles. But with Ann-Margret, her irresistible beauty took a back seat to her incandescent talent; this was no mere starlet, but a performer whose singing, dancing, and acting skills—all imbued with a devil-may-care charisma—caused record execs to groom her as the female Elvis Presley. This double-CD set captures those magical early days of Ann-Margret’s career, featuring 30 tracks chosen from her 1961-1966 RCA recordings.

Artful Dodger – The Complete Columbia Recordings 2xCD (Real Gone Music)

Artful Dodger was a band ahead of its time, casting hard-edged hooks into a mid-‘70s pond that wasn’t quite ready to bite on the genre that came to be known as power pop. Had they come along a few years later, things might have been quite different for this outfit hailing from Fairfax, VA, for their three albums for the Columbia label hold up to this day as shining examples of the style. This double-disc set includes the band’s three albums plus a couple of single versions.

A Will Away – Here Again CD/LP (Triple Crown)

A Will Away is a band with a sound that draws influences from elements of melodic pop and the nostalgically heartfelt early 2000s emo movement. Alternative Press named them one of the 10 up and coming bands who pack an emotional punch. [Limited yellow with red splatter vinyl pressing also available.]

Banteay Ampil Band – Cambodian Liberation Songs [Reissue/1983] CD/LP (Akuphone)

Cambodian Liberation Songs is a painful call from forgotten resistance fighters—it is a captivating and moving record. It works as a witness of Cambodian history, bringing to the world the breathless voice of the members of the resistance from the Banteay Ampil Band. Released in 1983, Cambodian Liberation Songs is a mysterious and overwhelming record. As a genuine piece of history, this “call from sorrow and fierce passion” makes use of a whole range of Cambodian music, from folk to rock, to express sufferings and complaints.

Blanck Mass – World Eater CD/LP (Sacred Bones)

“As half of the experimental electronic duo F— Buttons, Benjamin John Power has spent most of his musical career pushing toward extremes. His solo affair Blanck Mass has been a little more subtle; while never shying away from overload, Blanck Mass’ instrumental vistas have been less blinding and more illuminating—to the point where ‘Sundowner,’ a track from the project’s 2011 debut, was rerecorded with the London Symphony Orchestra and played during the 2012 Olympics. It was a perfect fit, seeing as how Power’s edgier, noisier impulses mask a symphonic scope of veritable Vangelis proportions. Those two sides of his aesthetic don’t vie for dominance as much as strike a nervy balance on Blanck Mass’ third full-length, World Eater.” – WUWM Milwaukee

Bombadil – Fences CD/LP (Ramseur)

Bombadil is a three-piece folk-pop band from Durham, North Carolina with guitar, bass, piano, and drums as their primary instruments. The band are known for their creative and heartfelt lyrics, lush vocal harmonies, thoughtful arrangements, and engaging live show.

Bungler – The Nature Of Being New CD (Innerstrength)

New album from the Buffalo, NY hardcore trio.

[Read more…] about New Releases for March 3, 2017

New Releases for February 24, 2017

CDs + Vinyl:

Acceptance – Colliding By Design CD/LP+MP3 (Rise)

New comeback album from the Seattle-based alt-punk band. [Limited color vinyl pressing also available.]

Kalevi Aho – Piano Works CD (Neos)

Finnish composer Kalevi Aho (born 1949) is a true giant among composers, both in terms of craftsmanship and of sonic and formal imagination. Although his works are not performed as much internationally as some of his colleagues’, he is without doubt Finland’s most brilliant symphonic and operatic composer of his time. This disc presents harpsichordist and pianist Andreas Skouras’s brilliant first recording of this music for solo piano. The pieces are as many-sided as they are unpredictable, crossing borders in pianism.

All Them Witches – Sleeping Through The War CD/LP+MP3/Cassette (New West)

“Carrying a reputation for following instinct over calculation, All Them Witches lunge into the young year wielding Sleeping Through The War, a record that potently concentrates all that the band pull up from their well of heavy Americana. Depending on which state-of-the-pop-world conversation you jump into, rock is routinely in decline, left for dead, or being resuscitated. All Them Witches don’t seem like the kind of guys to entertain any of those notions. Like Josh Homme’s Kyuss and Queens Of The Stone Age, they dig up diamond hooks from rough desert rock. They can swing between tranquil and torrential in an almost Mogwai-esque manner, as the massive strobe light opener ‘Bulls’ demonstrates. Nashville grounding informs their grooves and affords them the inspired addition of recurring backing vocals by local notables Erin Rae, Caitlin Rose and Tristen. Sleeping Through the War’s persuasive determination to chew up everything in its path make minor idiosyncrasies like Allan Van Cleave’s psychedelic organ punctuations on the pedal-to-the-floor ‘Bruce Lee’ fit in without question. Even through mere speakers, All Them Witches have a physically imposing yet approachable presence” – The Line Of Best Fit. [Vinyl is available in two editions: Limited gatefold and standard sleeve.]

Herb Alpert – Blow Your Own Horn [Reissue/1983] CD (Herb Albert Presents)

Herb Alpert – Bullish [Reissue/1984] CD (Herb Albert Presents)

Herb Alpert/Hugh Masekela – Herb Alpert/Hugh Masekela [Reissue/1989] CD (Herb Albert Presents)

The latest three in a huge campaign to re-release Herb’s classic discography – remastered from their original analog tapes.

American Grim – Freakshow CD (eOne)

New album from the East Coast shock rockers.

Armored Saint – Carpe Noctum: Live 2015 CD/LP (Metal Blade)

Having toured with Metallica, Whitesnake, Alice Cooper, The Scorpions, and many other artists since their inception in the early-‘80s, Armored Saint has always been a highly regarded live act – not only in their hometown of Los Angeles, California but also around the world.

Aseethe – Hopes Of Failure CD/LP+MP3 (Thrill Jockey)

Aseethe’s unrelenting slow-doom is often compared to drone music because of its core repetitions. This distinctly non-metal approach combined with harsh vocals and unusual samples gives Aseethe a unique voice among metal’s boundary pushers. On Hopes Of Failure, the Iowa band’s primary influences of doom and drone share a similar ethos, but rarely do they converge with as much restraint, and patience, drawing on inventive sound sources and distorted, just enough, to add some sludge. Aseethe is the direction that heavy music is moving in.

Marc Barreca – Aberrant Lens CD (Palace Of Lights)

Marc Barreca’s seventh solo album for Palace Of Lights extends his work with a broader and deeper palette of synthesized and sampled sound, including sources as diverse as prepared guitars, pianos, Indonesian metallophones and glass harmonica. The music of Aberrant Lens employs long MIDI delays, synced MIDI processing via MAX for Live and extreme warping of disparate looped sound sources driven into entirely new states.

Harry Belafonte – When Colors Come Together: The Legacy Of Harry Belefonte CD (Sony Legacy)

An essential single-disc anthology of Harry Belafonte’s biggest hits including a new re-recording of “Island In The Sun” entitled “When Colors Come Together (Our Island In The Sun),” performed by a children’s choir.

Benighted – Necrobreed CD/LP (Season Of Mist)

Benighted is a brutal death metal/deathgrind band from France. [CD is available in Regular and Deluxe editions. Deluxe features fancy packaging.]

Manford Best – Come Go With Me [Reissue/1978] CD/LP (PMG)

“Come Go With Me was self-financed and released on Manford Best’s own MacSeries Records label. Only 1,000 copies were pressed and he distributed them from the back of a Toyota van himself. A rare Afro gem, deserving of its place in the sun again.” — Peter Moore

The Beta Yama Group – Free Love [Reissue/1980] CD/LP (PMG)

Nigerian musicians Nash Dodoo, Charlie Cuul and Jonas Caulley put out Free Love after releasing an album of face-melting gospel boogie as the BML Chapels in 1980. The album is, as Peter Moore puts is, “a belated love letter to San Francisco’s Summer of Love,” and, “a small slice of Haight-Ashbury transported to the Polygram Studios in Lagos.”

Steve Black – Happy Birthday To ‘U’ [Reissue/1979] CD/LP (PMG)

An irresistible blend of highlife, Afro beat, and Afro funk.

Blank Square – Animal I CD/LP (Castleface)

When squirming black mold in a dingy Bayshore, CA, warehouse became sentient, creaked and took humanoid form it created Blank Square and their singularly odd-punk debut, Animal I — sounding like the weirder end of Flesheaters but with a sterility that can only be contemporarily compared to Total Control’s Aussie hardcore no-wave and then with a pinch of what made DNA and Mars amazing.

Rosario Bonaccorso – A Beautiful Story CD (Via Vento Jazz)

Rosario Bonaccorso continues to enrich and expand his musical pathway, evolving his ideas as a band leader and composer. On A Beautiful Story the double bassist is joined by a group of acclaimed musicians: his friend Dino Rubino on the flugelhorn, Enrico Zanisi on the piano and Alessandro Paternesi on the drums. These young “lions”, widely appreciated by critics and audiences on both Italian and European jazz scenes, are sensitive and mature artists and despite their young age, they boast of a rich variety of noteworthy collaborations and experiences.

Born Of Osiris – Eternal Reign CD (Sumerian)

In honor of the 10 Year Anniversary of the label and Born Of Osiris re-signing with Sumerian Records, the two have teamed up to produce a re-release of the band’s debut album, The New Reign. Not only is the album a re-release of the initial work that put them on the map, but Born Of Osiris have re-recorded the eight tracks, in addition to adding one new song and titled the new version — The Eternal Reign.

David Bowie – No Plan CDEP (Sony)

The No Plan EP features single “Lazarus” from Blackstar backed with three final, non-album tracks recorded during the Blackstar sessions. [Vinyl edition due April 21.]

Nikolaus Brass – String Trios CD (Neos)

TrioCoriolis’s performance of three works by German composer Nikolaus Brass (born 1949).

Brass initially studied medicine and took private composition lessons with Peter Kiesewetter, before later studying with Frank Michael Beyer and Helmut Lachenmann, and regularly attending the Darmstadt Summer Courses between 1978 and 1986, where he also met with Morton Feldman; his music has since become standard at every important new music festival, and Brass has received numerous awards, including the Music Prize of the State Capital Munich in 2009.

Brian Jonestown Massacre – Don’t Get Lost CD/2xLP (A. Recordings)

Don’t Get Lost, the 16th full length release from The Brian Jonestown Massacre, was fully recorded and produced at Anton Newcombe’s new Cobra Studio in Berlin, and features saxophonist Emil Nikolaisen (from the Norwegian band Serena-Maneesh), and vocal performances from Tess Parks and Shaun Rivers. The album mixes a shoegaze and psychedelic sound with more experimental twists on some tracks you might hear from Public Image Limited’s Metalbox (1979), Primal Scream, or even Ornette Coleman. [Limited yellow color vinyl edition also available.]

Brokeback – Illinois River Valley Blues CD/LP+MP3 (Thrill Jockey)

Brokeback features members of Tortoise, Eleventh Dream Day, Tweedy, and Steve Gunn Band. For lead guitarist/bassist Douglas McCombs (Tortoise), Brokeback’s Illinois River Valley Blues stands as one of his most sumptuous and personal offerings to date. Inspired by his early years growing up along the Illinois River corridor between Peoria and Chicago, Illinois River Valley Blues stretches McCombs’ eternal fascination with the roots of American guitar music in bold new directions.

[Read more…] about New Releases for February 24, 2017

CDs + Vinyl:

Aborym – Shifting.Negative CD (Agonia)

New album from the Italian industrial/electronic metal band.

Ryan Adams – Prisoner CD/LP (Pax Am/Blue Note)

Ryan Adams mined an unexpected influence – hard rock icons AC/DC – for the sonic design of his 16th LP, Prisoner. “When I run, I listen to [an iPod] Nano that I have,” the singer/songwriter told Entertainment Weekly. “I put all the AC/DC records on from back to front, or I’ll listen to the best of stuff from the ’80s: Springsteen, or Hornsby, and I’ll listen to what is going on there. I was listening to AC/DC’s Fly On The Wall, and that’s when I realized what I had to do for the record.” Last fall, Adams told EW his next album would feature material inspired by Bruce Springsteen’s Darkness On The Edge Of Town and the Smith’s Meat Is Murder. But he’s since added several disparate influences into the mix – including classic rock act Bachman-Turner Overdrive (“Takin’ Care Of Business,” “You Ain’t Seen Nothing Yet”) and pop hit-makers Electric Light Orchestra, both of whom helped expand his guitar production expertise. “I was like, ‘Wow!’ I understand the multicolored guitar tone moments now,” he said. “You can layer stuff. I really just learned a lot.” “How do I make a real distinct record where anybody listens to it and says, ‘That’s the truth from beginning to end?’” he said. “So it’s like exercise. It sucks in the beginning. But then you get into it.” [Limited red color vinyl pressing also available.]

Aquilo – Silhouettes CD/LP (Harvest)

Silhouettes is the debut album from this atmospheric pop duo.

Battle Beast – Bringer Of Pain CD/2xLP (Nuclear Blast)

New release from the Finnish heavy metal band.

Big Sean – I Decided CD (Def Jam/G.O.O.D. Music)

Fourth album from the Detroit rapper. Includes guest contributions from Eminem, Jeremih, Jhene Aiko, The Dream, Migos and others.

Bing And Ruth – No Home Of The Mind CD/LP (4AD)

On their third album, No Home Of The Mind, the New York ensemble continues with the deft minimalism that has marked them out in critical circles in recent years. Established in 2006, Bing And Ruth is an ever-evolving collective steered by composer David Moore. A pianist from Kansas and graduate of New York’s school of Jazz and Contemporary Music at the New School, Moore’s work follows in the great tradition of fellow alumni John Cage and Steve Reich, albeit looking past the more studied repetition of the style’s forerunners toward a meditative form built on feeling.

Blacksage – Shivers CD (Friends Records)

Recently released on vinyl – now available on CD. Since their debut EP Sixtape in 2014, Baltimore-based duo Blacksage has been possessing listeners with the devastating coo of folk singer Josephine Olivia and the bass heavy beats of producer Drew Scott. Melting gothic-tinged elements of modern R&B and ‘90s trip-hop with old-fashioned pop, their 2015 full-length Basement Vows expanded on this dynamic to stunning effect. Their songs tread on the darker side of love and lust while remaining aware of the experimental and danceable nature of the music scene brewing in Baltimore.

Black Sites – In Monochrome CD/LP (Mascot)

Black Sites is a super group of sorts, featuring some of Chicago’s finest players from the underground metal scene including former Trials-members Mark Sugar (vocals/guitar) and Ryan Bruchert (guitar), plus John Picillo from Without Waves and Immortal Birds on bass, and Chris Avgerin, formerly of Autonomy and Lost Dog, on drums. The four-piece band draws inspiration from a panoramic pedigree of classic and modern metal and hard rock influences including Black Sabbath, Deep Purple, 1970s Judas Priest, Iron Maiden, Fates Warning, Motörhead, Queensrÿche, Voivod, Hammers Of Misfortune, and Dawnbringer.

Molly Burch – Please Be Mine CD/LP+MP3 (Captured Tracks)

Molly Burch was exposed to the arts at an early age. Growing up in L.A. with a writer/producer father and a casting director mother, Burch’s childhood was filled with old Hollywood musicals and the sounds of Patsy Cline, Billie Holiday and Nina Simone. After finding her voice in adolescence, Burch packed up for the UNC in Asheville to study Jazz Vocal Performance. “I was always really interested in singing before songwriting. I didn’t always have the confidence to write,” Molly says, “Initially it was more about finding the right songs to complement my voice.” And that voice is the first thing you’ll notice on Burch’s debut album.

[Read more…] about New Releases for February 17, 2017