AIMS Marketing Program/ Featured Titles Promoted This Week:

Blondshell – Blondshell CD/LP (Partisan)

In the past few years, Sabrina Teitelbaum aka Blondshell has transformed into a songwriter without fear. The hook-filled songs on her self-titled debut are clear-eyed statements of and about digging your way towards confidence, self-possession, and relief. All of this is powered by brilliant, crystalline melodies, and gigantic choruses that are wrapped with shredding guitars. Teitelbaum grew up in a classic rock-loving household. During an era of sleek teen pop, her most formative childhood obsession was the Rolling Stones. In high school, she discovered new indie-rock bands by scouring NYC venues with her fake ID in hand-these shows instilled in her a love for lyrics with specificity and intensity. [A limited-edition clear vinyl pressing is available.]

Daughter – Stereo Mind Game CD/LP (Glassnote)

Returning with their first studio album for seven years, Stereo Mind Game is a new chapter for Daughter. The group’s third record follows Not To Disappear (2016) and soundtrack Music From Before The Storm (2017). After more than a decade spent depicting the darkest emotions, the trio of Elena Tonra, Igor Haefeli and Remi Aguilella present their most optimistic record yet. Connection and disconnection permeate Stereo Mind Game‘s twelve songs literally and figuratively. In the intervening years since the Ivor Novello-nominated Music from Before The Storm (2017), the band has moved away from their initial London base. However, despite the physical distance – further exacerbated by the pandemic – Daughter continued to meet and write together. [An indie store exclusive color viny pressing is available. Standard vinyl and cassette versions due April 21.]

Devon Gilfillian – Love You Anyway CD/LP (Fantasy)

An intoxicating, genre-crossing game changer, rising singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Devon Gilfillian’s second full-length studio album Love You Anyway spans soul, hip-hop, R&B, and rock, all under the banner of Black joy. Love You Anyway confronts as well as comforts; chronicling Gilfillian’s journey as a Black artist living in 21st century America, the album’s 10 original tracks, (all co-written by Gilfillian) are as much about fighting for what you believe in: equity and representation, as it is about love, finding it, making it, and channeling it into every facet of our lives. Conjuring the raw, sexy emotions of his predecessors and the next-level production grooves of his R&B and hip-hop contemporaries, Gilfillian is taking soul music into an exciting and restorative new future. [A limited-edition clear vinyl pressing is available.]

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

AIMS Marketing Program/ Featured Titles Promoted This Week:

Altin Gün – Aşk CD/LP (ATO)

An exuberant return to the ‘70s Anatolian folk-rock sound that characterized Turkish psych-folk innovators Altin Gün’s landmark first two albums, Aşk finds the band veering away from the electronic, synth-drenched sound of their critically acclaimed 2021 albums, Âlem and Yol, to capture all the infectious power and urgency of the Amsterdam-based band’s famously propulsive live performances. Recorded using vintage equipment and techniques, the album’s ten groundbreaking tracks all represent visionary new readings of traditional Turkish folk tunes, revealing how these ancient songs remain eternally resonant and ripe for reinterpretation. [An indie store exclusive orange color vinyl pressing is available.]

Boygenius – The Record CD/LP (Interscope)

The Record is the debut full length album from indie supergroup Boygenius. Julien Baker, Phoebe Bridgers, and Lucy Dacus formed Boygenius after booking a tour together, but the trio had subconsciously been in the works for longer than that. Through a series of tours and performances together, and chance encounters that led to friendships – including Bridgers’ and Dacus’ first in-person meeting backstage at a Philadelphia festival, greenroom hangouts that felt instantly comfortable and compatible, a couple of long email chains and even a secret handshake between Baker and Dacus – the lyrically and musically arresting singer-songwriters and kindred spirits got to know each other on their own terms. [An indie store exclusive clear vinyl pressing is available.]

Alex Braxe And Friends – The Upper Cuts CD/2xLP+MP3 (Smuggler’s Way)

“Simplicity, sincerity… et voilà!” If you want to understand how French producer Alain Quême (aka Alan Braxe) ended up making some of the most important house music records of the late 1990s and early 2000s, you need to understand his modus operandi. Everything must be simple; and everything must be sincere. You hear this time and again in Braxe’s music, from the golden emotional minimalism of Stardust’s “Music Sounds Better With You”, a worldwide hit he produced with Daft Punk’s Thomas Bangalter and singer Benjamin Diamond, to the perfectly uncluttered house music strut of “Intro”, his underground anthem with Fred Falke. The Upper Cuts, originally released in 2005, is a compilation that rounded up several of Braxe’s greatest hits. This newly reissued version of that album adds seven bonus tracks. [An indie store exclusive blue w/ pink color vinyl pressing is available.]

[Read more…] about New Releases for March 31, 2023

AIMS Marketing Program/ Featured Titles Promoted This Week:

Babymetal – The Other One CD/LP (Cooking Vinyl)

Last year Babymetal were “sealed” from the world after a successful 10-year journey. Earlier this year, The Other One restoration project began to recover the Babymetal we never knew existed within a virtual world called the Metalverse. The concept album reveals the other side of the Babymetal story that no one knew existed. A total of 10 songs have been discovered within The Other One restoration project, in which each song represents each theme of the 10 parallel worlds that seem to exist. [Two vinyl colorways are available: transparent and indie store exclusive white.]

The Bouncing Souls – Ten Stories High CD/LP (Pure Noise)

For over three decades The Bouncing Souls have been one of the most reliably joyful bands in punk rock, fostering an incredibly close kinship with their loyal listeners. Now on Ten Stories High, the band have taken this connection even further, creating an album of songs directly inspired by the stories of their fans. Ten Stories High finds The Bouncing Souls – vocalist Greg Attonito, guitarist Pete Steinkopf, bassist Bryan Kienlen, and drummer George Rebelo – making the best of the chaotic past couple of years. With touring on pause during the pandemic, the group turned to Patreon connect with their listener community, including a tier where fans could have a custom song written for them. The process would begin with the band having Zoom conversations with fans. [An indie store exclusive yellow w/ orange & black multicolor vinyl pressing is available.]

Lucinda Chua – YIAN CD/LP+MP3 (4AD)

Conscious to hold space within her music for people to live inside, Chua thought often of YIAN‘s sound in terms of sonic spacing. The hushed, flickering tones of “Autumn Leaves Don’t Come” and swelling strings of instrumental “Grief Piece” sound completely intimate, like she’s singing into your ear, yet capacious, like soft cocoons of sound. “For me, the music is like a home,” Chua explains. Cultivating a Chinese dance practice is as much part of the story of YIAN as the music itself. Chua returned to dance after struggling with the conservative constraints of ballet as a child, finding intuition and affirmation in the fluidity and naturalism of Chinese classical, fan & ribbon and contemporary. Dance is entwined in the very texture of YIAN, with Chua undertaking deep study of Chinese dance forms whilst working on the album. [A limited-edition clear vinyl pressing is available.]

[Read more…] about New Releases for March 24, 2023