CDs:

Airstrip – Willing CD/LP (Holidays For Quince)

Airstrip’s guitar-driven ”Nightmare Pop” is dark, hypnotic and strangely infectious.

Terry Allen – Bottom Of The World CD (TLA)

Bottom Of The World is Terry Allen’s first studio release in over 14 years. Widely heralded as a progressive artist of contemporary country music, Allen digs into modern-day concerns with a gutsy, liberal perspective, while maintaining a firm musical grounding in regional country and folk traditions.

Apache Dropout – Magnetic Heads CD (Family Vineyard)

“Rawer and bleaker than last year’s Bubblegum Graveyard, the 10-track Magnetic Heads is a combination of two of their early cassette releases, 2008’s Cha Cha Cha and 2009’s Lysergic Caveman Choogle: Not For Pigs, originally released on Magnetic South Recordings. The songs are drenched in fuzz and echo with the occasional fiddle (!?) accompaniment.” – Tiny Mix Tapes. Vinyl version due March 5.

Avant – Face The Music CD (Mo-B)

On his new album, Avant pulls inspiration from R&B legends such as Marvin Gaye, Stevie Wonder, Frankie Beverly & Maze, Luther Vandross and Kenny Babyface Edmonds.

Nils Bech – Look Inside CD/LP (Fysisk Format)

New album from the Norwegian art-pop eccentric: Idiosyncratic pop at its best. Look Inside is his darkest and most ambitious project so far. It is a journey through the different emotions and tensions of a relationship and involves the listeners through states of vulnerability and suspicion, but also joy and bliss.

Bette Serveert – Oh, Mayhem! CD/LP (Second Motion)

“Like Wire, Bettie Serveert are only getting fiercer with age. The 50-something Dutch rockers, who found college-radio indie fame in the ‘90s, make a surprise return with an album big on catchy melodies and tough lyrics delivered forcefully by Carol van Dijk. Her strong voice (think Kim Deal or Liz Phair) remains the focal point, though wild guitars and thunderous drumming give Oh Mayhem the foundation it needs to soar.” – Now Toronto

Bjork – Bastards CD/2×12” (One Little Indian)

Collection of remixed tracks from Bjork’s 2011 album Biophilia. Features collaborations with Current Value, Death Grips, Hudson Mohawke, Alva Noto, Matthew Herbert, Omar Souleyman, 16-bit, These New Puritans, and The Slips.

Boats – Fairway Full Of Miners CD (Kill Rock Stars)

There are still plenty of manic, sloppy-on-purpose junk-store pop tunes that burst with pop-rocks-and-Coke energy, but the new record also sees the band stretch out over more ambitious epics and heartfelt ballads.

Erin Boheme – What A Life CD (Heads Up)

Sophomore album from the Wisconsin-based jazz vocalist. The album was produced by Michael Buble and features his touring band as her backing unit.

Broadway Calls – Comfort/Distraction CD/LP (No Sleep)

Broadway Calls is a sometimes pop, sometimes punk, always ultra-catchy band hailing from Rainier, Oregon. Vinyl version due February 19.

The Bronx – The Bronx (IV) CD/LP (ATO)

After two albums under the moniker Mariachi El Bronx, Los Angeles punks the Bronx are back with riotous riffs and howling, shout-along choruses on their fourth self-titled LP.

Brother Lynch Hung – Mannibalector CD (Strange Music)

Sacramento, CA veteran emcee Brotha Lynch Hung wraps up his Strange Music trilogy.

[Read more…] about New Releases for February 5, 2013

CDs:

Amor De Dias – The House At Sea CD/LP+MP3 (Merge)

Second album from Alasdair MacLean (Clientele) and Lupe Nunez-Fernandez (Pipas). The fast pace of the sessions resulted in a rawer, more urgent album, recorded on vintage ‘70s valve equipment with a feeling for space and a deliberately limited palette, all the elements of which had to count. The theme of the sea threads its way throughout the record along with a gentle sense of drifting and departure, of being lost, of saudade — a sadness at lost things.

Bleeding Rainbow – Yeah Right CD/LP (Kanine)

Philly’s favorite indie-pop duo, formerly known as Reading Rainbow, is now a full-blown rock quartet. Yeah Right is the follow up to their 2010 breakout Prism Eyes, and it has a much bigger sound directly influenced by the band’s teenage musical taste: Sonic Youth, My Bloody Valentine, Nirvana and Yo La Tengo (to name a few).

Buke & Gase – General Dome CD/LP (Brassland)

New York skronk pop duet Arone Dyer and Aron Sanchez (and their homemade instruments) make up the indefinable band Buke & Gase. Their new album, General Dome, was recorded with the instruments that make up their name: a “buke” (a baritone ukulele) and a “gase” (a guitar-bass hybrid).

Eric Burdon – ‘Til Your River Runs Dry CD/LP (ABKCO)

The lead singer of The Animals returns with his most personal album to date.

Gabriele Coen – Yiddish Melodies In Jazz CD (Tzadik)

Tapping into modern Yiddish swing, Coen’s exciting arrangements and fabulous band has created a true melting pot music, bringing together a variety of jazz styles in this beautiful and lyrical collection.

Cult Of Luna – Vertikal CD (Density/Workhorse)

Sixth studio album from the Swedish powerhouse and first for Density/Workhorse. Vertikal is thematically influenced by the classic film Metropolis: a hypnotic backdrop of machinery and repetition. Vinyl version due February 5.

Brett Dennen – Definitive Collection CD (Dualtone)

Celebrates Dennen’s already impressive body of work and includes the best work from these past releases as well as three tracks never before released on CD.

Destiny’s Child – Love Songs CD (Sony Legacy)

Generally known for their dance floor pop and R&B anthems, Destiny’s Child demonstrate their equally compelling command of contemporary torch songs and ballads throughout Love Songs, which is comprised mainly of romantic gems recorded between 1997 and 200.

[Read more…] about New Releases for January 29, 2013

CDs:

Arbouretum – Coming Out Of The Fog CD/LP+MP3 (Thrill Jockey)

Arbouretum continue to mine the same breadth of styles made familiar on The Gathering and Song Of The Pearl, notably the languid ballads, fuzzed-out burners, and heavier songs that have defined the group’s unique doom laden folk-rock sound.

Ash Borer – Ash Borer CD (Profound Lore)

Available on CD for the first time, Ash Borer’s 2011 album captures the vitriolic, ambient black metal fury for which they are renowned. 

Bad Religion – True North CD/LP (Epitaph)

In a world still brimming with rampant anti-intellectualism, inequality and oppression, their signature brand of sonically charged humanist dissent seems as relevant as ever. Here they revisit and refine the powerful and melodic Southern California sound they helped define.

Patricia Barber – Smash CD (Concord Jazz)

The imaginative pianist, vocalist and composer continues her crusade to retrieve the ground that jazz musicians long ago ceded to pop and rock: the realm of the intelligent and committed singer/songwriter. With a new band and a dozen new compositions, she tackles even familiar subjects (like love and loss) with a nuance and depth beyond the limits of the Great American Songbook.

Bell Gardens – Full Sundown Assembly CD/LP (Southern)

Debut from duo of Brian McBride (Stars Of The Lid) and Kenneth Gibson (Apendics, Furry Things). Here, they embark upon an exploration of cinematic pop sound that often belies their respective backgrounds in the fields of experimental electronic, techno and minimalist music. For their first long-player, the duo expand on their strange yet beautiful soundscapes, favoring piano melodies, horns, pedal steel and lush vocal harmonies.

Big Harp – Chain Letters CD/LP+CD (Saddle Creek)

The follow up to their 2011 debut White Hat, Chain Letters is built on a foundation of crackling fuzz bass and angular electric guitars and keyboards, and plays like a series of character sketches centered around escape and surrender, and the blurred borders where the two become indistinguishable.

The Blue Nile – A Walk Across The Rooftops 2xCD [Reissue/1984] 2xCD (EMI)

The Blue Nile – Hats [Reissue/1989] 2xCD (EMI)

This Scottish folk-ambient band has enjoyed a mystique contrived by its inaccessibility and the infrequency of its recordings, but it has also made a series of critically acclaimed discs.

Brokeback – Brokeback And The Black Rock CD/LP+MP3 (Thrill Jockey)

New from the longstanding project of Douglas McCombs (Tortoise, Eleventh Dream Day, Pullman). Features an entirely new band assembled by McCombs that includes members of Tight Phantomz, Pinebender, and Head Of Skulls.

Tyler Bryant And The Shakedown – Wild Child CD/LP (Carved)

Tyler Bryant is a 21 year-old guitar prodigy who has been playing since he was 6.

[Read more…] about New Releases for January 22, 2013