The Long Ear

ANTI 2024 Catalog Sale

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Alfa Mist is one of the driving forces behind a young and vibrant scene of UK musicians, who've taken on jazz as their musical narrative. On his new album Bring Backs the producer, self-taught pianist and rapper takes us on a sonic trip back to his beat-making past on the streets of East London, through the depth and musicality he discovered composing and playing jazz. 2017 saw the release of Alfa's breakthrough record, Antiphon and the 2019's album Structuralism were both self-released on his Sekito label. His latest endeavour, 2021's Bring Backs, sees Alfa taking on new challenges. The record marks his first release for the label Anti and is also the most detailed exploration of his upbringing in musical form.
Alfa Mist - Bring Backs
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Green to Gold is the much-anticipated new album from New York based, Indie/Folk band, The Antlers. Perhaps what distinguishes Green to Gold from the rest of The Antlers’ canon is its, well, sunniness. Conceived and written almost entirely in the morning hours, Green to Gold is the band’s first new music in nearly seven years, and easily their most luminous to date. ”I think this is the first album I’ve made that has no eeriness in it,” singer and primary songwriter Peter Silberman asserts. “I set out to make Sunday morning music.”

The brighter outlook emerged, paradoxically, after a succession of ominous events. In 2015, Silberman suffered with an auditory condition that made touring near impossible and he retreated to the quiet of Upstate New York to heal. His return in 2017 with a solo album was short lived when he was diagnosed with lesions on his vocal chords, which required surgery and again a quiet rest and recovery period. Silberman explains. “I took these health obstacles as a sign that I should change course for a little while. I hadn’t made a full stop like that since The Antlers began.”

But he still felt the strong pull to spend time and work with longtime drummer Michael Lerner, and frequently invited him up to visit the idyllic hamlet he now called home. The two friends’ days typically involved long walks in the woods, but routinely ended up in Silberman’s converted-garage studio. “I would record him playing drums in the studio while he listened to old soul and R&B songs in headphones... and those drum recordings ultimately served as starting points for the songs that followed. At the time, we were merely attempting to make music together again, without really knowing how to approach it, or to what end.”

“I think the shift in tone is the result of getting older. It doesn’t make sense for me to try to tap into the same energy that I did ten or fifteen years ago, because I continue to grow as a person, as I’m sure our audience does too. Green to Gold is about this idea of gradual change,” he sums up. “People changing over time, struggling to accept change in those they love, and struggling to change themselves. And yet despite all our difficulty with this, nature somehow makes it look easy.”

The Antlers - Green To Gold
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Green to Gold is the much-anticipated new album from New York based, Indie/Folk band, The Antlers. Perhaps what distinguishes Green to Gold from the rest of The Antlers’ canon is its, well, sunniness. Conceived and written almost entirely in the morning hours, Green to Gold is the band’s first new music in nearly seven years, and easily their most luminous to date. ”I think this is the first album I’ve made that has no eeriness in it,” singer and primary songwriter Peter Silberman asserts. “I set out to make Sunday morning music.”

The brighter outlook emerged, paradoxically, after a succession of ominous events. In 2015, Silberman suffered with an auditory condition that made touring near impossible and he retreated to the quiet of Upstate New York to heal. His return in 2017 with a solo album was short lived when he was diagnosed with lesions on his vocal chords, which required surgery and again a quiet rest and recovery period. Silberman explains. “I took these health obstacles as a sign that I should change course for a little while. I hadn’t made a full stop like that since The Antlers began.”

But he still felt the strong pull to spend time and work with longtime drummer Michael Lerner, and frequently invited him up to visit the idyllic hamlet he now called home. The two friends’ days typically involved long walks in the woods, but routinely ended up in Silberman’s converted-garage studio. “I would record him playing drums in the studio while he listened to old soul and R&B songs in headphones... and those drum recordings ultimately served as starting points for the songs that followed. At the time, we were merely attempting to make music together again, without really knowing how to approach it, or to what end.”

“I think the shift in tone is the result of getting older. It doesn’t make sense for me to try to tap into the same energy that I did ten or fifteen years ago, because I continue to grow as a person, as I’m sure our audience does too. Green to Gold is about this idea of gradual change,” he sums up. “People changing over time, struggling to accept change in those they love, and struggling to change themselves. And yet despite all our difficulty with this, nature somehow makes it look easy.”

The Antlers - Green To Gold [LP]
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Growing up in the suburbs of Ontario, CA sisters Harmonie and Heaven Martinez have been playing music before they could walk and songwriting since middle school. It was when the two brought a few friends into the equation that they formed what is now an Indie rock band they call Ariel View. With Harmonie Martinez (vocals/lead guitar), Heaven Martinez (vocals/bass), Miranda Viramontes (rhythm guitar), and Nadina Parra (drums), Ariel View have played countless DIY and club shows across Southern California. Influenced by garage, surf, psych rock, emo, and pop punk, Ariel View make music you can dance to, party to, sing along to, or maybe even cry to if that strikes the mood.

Ariel View - Until My Lungs Are Cleared [LP]
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Art Moore make vivid, heartbreaking short stories. Each song on the newly formed band’s self-titled debut album is its own individual universe of bittersweet feeling: a brief snapshot of a moment in time that captures the fragility and occasional impossibility of human connection. These songs are deft character studies, zeroing in on shy beginners, jilted friends and friendly exes, chronicling minute moments—road trips, casual dates, games of truth or dare—with rich detail and subtle wit. Featuring the inimitable songwriting of beloved Oakland luminary Taylor Vick of Boy Scouts set in sharp relief against lush production from Ezra Furman collaborators Sam Durkes and Trevor Brooks, it’s a quietly wondrous record — a set of songs that sketch out the struggle and beauty of coping with everyday life. These are songs about tiny, unspoken feelings rendered on a grand scale, moments that often get brushed aside given the weight that they should be. Across these ten stories, Vick, Brooks and Durkes
are unsparing in their focus but remarkably generous in their artistry — three pairs of steady, even hands crafting one fine, precious object.

Art Moore - Art Moore
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Art Moore make vivid, heartbreaking short stories. Each song on the newly formed band’s self-titled debut album is its own individual universe of bittersweet feeling: a brief snapshot of a moment in time that captures the fragility and occasional impossibility of human connection. These songs are deft character studies, zeroing in on shy beginners, jilted friends and friendly exes, chronicling minute moments—road trips, casual dates, games of truth or dare—with rich detail and subtle wit. Featuring the inimitable songwriting of beloved Oakland luminary Taylor Vick of Boy Scouts set in sharp relief against lush production from Ezra Furman collaborators Sam Durkes and Trevor Brooks, it’s a quietly wondrous record — a set of songs that sketch out the struggle and beauty of coping with everyday life. These are songs about tiny, unspoken feelings rendered on a grand scale, moments that often get brushed aside given the weight that they should be. Across these ten stories, Vick, Brooks and Durkes
are unsparing in their focus but remarkably generous in their artistry — three pairs of steady, even hands crafting one fine, precious object.

Art Moore - Art Moore [LP]
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Taylor Vick makes music that is instantly comforting and arrestingly beautiful. Under her songwriting moniker Boy Scouts, the Bay Area artist has spent over a decade refining her craft, penning heartbreak confessionals over glitchy drum loops since Myspace days. It wasn’t until 2015 that Vick put together a live band and became a staple of San Francisco and Oakland lineups. On her forthcoming album, it feels like Boy Scouts has truly arrived. Recorded and produced by Stephen Steinbrink, every element exists purely to serve the songs - the bass lines bounce and guitars are lush, but nothing gets in the way of Vick’s true superpower, her voice. Delicately layered harmonies exude an effortless grace, and make the most casual lyrics hit the hardest. There’s something so honest about her songs, they feel like late night therapy sessions with your best friend.

Boy Scouts - Free Company
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On Wayfinder, the follow-up to the acclaimed 2019 album Free Company, Oakland-based songwriter Taylor Vick, under her songwriting moniker Boy Scouts, chases down life’s queries to the very edge of the horizon. This is an album that’s not afraid to track down what it all means -- how life unspools around the monoliths of love and death, the heavy knots of even quotidian conflict, the task of carrying your own suffering with you day after day, the challenge of meeting other people out here in the tangled expanse of living. In a warm, expansive style that recalls the raw punctures of Lucinda Williams and Alex G, Vick once again shows herself to be a fearless seeker shedding light on the unanswerable.

Vick’s true superpower is her voice. Strands of slide guitar, organ, and strings ring under her affable, ex- pressive voice, bolstering layers and layers of harmony. There is something so honest about her songs, they feel like a late-night therapy session with your best friend.

Boy Scouts - Wayfinder
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Taylor Vick makes music that is instantly comforting and arrestingly beautiful. Under her songwriting moniker Boy Scouts, the Bay Area artist has spent over a decade refining her craft, penning heartbreak confessionals over glitchy drum loops since Myspace days. It wasn’t until 2015 that Vick put together a live band and became a staple of San Francisco and Oakland lineups. On her forthcoming album, it feels like Boy Scouts has truly arrived. Recorded and produced by Stephen Steinbrink, every element exists purely to serve the songs - the bass lines bounce and guitars are lush, but nothing gets in the way of Vick’s true superpower, her voice. Delicately layered harmonies exude an effortless grace, and make the most casual lyrics hit the hardest. There’s something so honest about her songs, they feel like late night therapy sessions with your best friend.

Boy Scouts - Free Company [LP]
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Artvertisement is Bradbury’s third album and second release for ANTI-, following his critically acclaimed 2019 LP Talking Dogs & Atom Bombs. Bradbury wrote Artvertisement while touring in support of Talking Dogs, and recorded the album at Trace Horse Studio in March of 2020 over the strange, anxious handful of days between Nashville’s devastating March 3rd tornado and the start of the COVID-19 shutdown.

The title Artvertisement was inspired by Bradbury’s difficult experiences navigating the polished, often soulless Nashville music industry, where record label executives would laud his songwriting — some going so far as to call him a genius — but ultimately turn him away because his music wasn’t commercial.

While music is still his primary focus, Bradbury has leaned into working on visual art, which, like his music, draws out both the darkness and the humor of the everyday. His art aligns aesthetically with his music. His portraits are abstract, while his smaller sketches veer more toward humor and commentary. He sells his art on a “pay what you want” model, explaining that he is as happy to sell a painting for a nickel as he is for five hundred dollars.

It may not be the kind of financial model that lands him a high-rise office overlooking downtown Nashville, but that’s always been the antithesis of what Bradbury is about. “Do no harm but take what you need,” he says. “Holding on to success, holding onto money... What does it matter? We’re all going to die someday.”

Darrin Bradbury - Artvertisement
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Darrin Bradbury writes about the way things really are in America – a singular perspective shaped by a natural gift for storytelling and a sly sense of humor. A self-described folk satirist who has toured the country for more than a decade, Bradbury collects his oddball observations in his newest album, Talking Dogs & Atom Bombs. Bradbury grew up in New Jersey with an early interest in performing, partly because of his mother’s career as a circus clown. At the age of 7, he felt certain that he would either become a songwriter or a cartoonist. He learned to play guitar as a vessel to tell his stories. By the age of 18, he’d discovered Bob Dylan, Jack Kerouac, and Paul Simon, and decided to hit the road. At 25, he moved to Nashville, to try making it as a songwriter. For three months, he slept in his car in a Walmart parking lot, and developed a local following by playing open mic nights. With a handful of self-funded EPs and albums, Bradbury steadily cultivated a national audience by touring constantly. Talking Dogs & Atom Bombs is Bradbury’s first release for ANTI- Records. - Album Produced by Kenneth Pattengale of The Milk Carton Kids - Featured players on this album include a “who’s who” of Nashville players including Margo Price (featured vocal on “The Trouble With Time” ) , Kenneth Pattengale (vocals, mellotron), Jeremy Ivey (bass, piano), Alex Munoz (guitar, lap steel, vocals) and Dillion Napier (drums).

Darrin Bradbury - Talking Dogs & Atom Bombs [LP]
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Artvertisement is Bradbury’s third album and second release for ANTI-, following his critically acclaimed 2019 LP Talking Dogs & Atom Bombs. Bradbury wrote Artvertisement while touring in support of Talking Dogs, and recorded the album at Trace Horse Studio in March of 2020 over the strange, anxious handful of days between Nashville’s devastating March 3rd tornado and the start of the COVID-19 shutdown.

The title Artvertisement was inspired by Bradbury’s difficult experiences navigating the polished, often soulless Nashville music industry, where record label executives would laud his songwriting — some going so far as to call him a genius — but ultimately turn him away because his music wasn’t commercial.

While music is still his primary focus, Bradbury has leaned into working on visual art, which, like his music, draws out both the darkness and the humor of the everyday. His art aligns aesthetically with his music. His portraits are abstract, while his smaller sketches veer more toward humor and commentary. He sells his art on a “pay what you want” model, explaining that he is as happy to sell a painting for a nickel as he is for five hundred dollars.

It may not be the kind of financial model that lands him a high-rise office overlooking downtown Nashville, but that’s always been the antithesis of what Bradbury is about. “Do no harm but take what you need,” he says. “Holding on to success, holding onto money... What does it matter? We’re all going to die someday.”

Darrin Bradbury - Artvertisement [Crystal Clear LP]
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20th Anniversary Edition of the Grammy Award Winning album by the King of Rock ‘n’ Soul - the great Solomon Burke. Newly mastered and includes the bonus track “I Need A Holiday”. The newly packaged booklet includes exclusive photos from the recording session and new liner notes.

Recorded live in the studio in a raw, organic style by Joe Henry, the album features new compositions by writers and artists including Bob Dylan, Van Morrison, Tom Waits, Elvis Costello, Barry Mann & Cynthia Weil, Nick Lowe, Brian Wilson, Joe Henry and Dan Penn, all of whom credit Solomon with deeply influencing their work. None of these songs have ever been released commercially before now, and Solomon makes each of them his own with his dynamic delivery.

Solomon Burke - Don't Give Up On Me: 20th Anniversary Edition
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Calexico occupy their signature sound on the new album, El Mira- dor; riding the continental divide between dream pop, Mexican folk and Americana. If any band understands how to expand their sound without losing the brilliant essence of the band, it’s Calexico. Their songs run the gamut from retro-tinged alt-rock, to sentimental folk to southwestern tracks with an impressive display of vision and expertly honed skills. With vocals that intertwine English and Spanish, El Mirador embraces the musical heritage of the southwest, and features guest artists from all musical genres including: Sam Beam (Iron & Wine) who drops backing vocals on “Harness the Wind”, Jairo Zavala of Depedro is featured vocalist on “Cumbia Peninsula” Gaby Moreno and Mexican Institute Of Sound are featured on “Cumbia Del Polvo”.

Calexico - El Mirador
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Combo Chimbita unleash a primal roar of catharsis on their latest album, IRÉ, channeling a burning spiritual awakening blazing through the world and in their hearts. Rapturous cumbia, ancestral drumming, free jazz, electronic distortion and wordless chants abound throughout IRÉ; a testament to the ever expanding scope of Combo Chimbita’s sonic palette and acts of resistance in realms both spiritual and terrestrial.

The New York City-based quartet are tracing their roots back to Colombia and even further to the precolonial continent of Abya Yala. Often described as tropical futurists for their ambitious melange of ancestral musical traditions and cutting edge experimentation, the creative unity of Carolina Oliveros (vocals, guacharaca), Niño Lento es Fuego (guitar), Prince of Queens (bass, synthesizers) and Dilemastronauta (drums) transcends common concepts of time and nationality. By identifying as Abyayalistas, the ensemble takes yet another step towards unshackling their essence from the cruelty of conquest and the stifling oppression of land borders.

Combo Chimbita - IRÉ
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Deafheaven was formed in 2010 by vocalist George Clarke and guitarist Kerry McCoy. They released their debut studio album Roads To Judah in 2011 . They added drummer Daniel Tracy to the group and released their breakthrough album Sunbather in 2013. After rounding out their line up with guitarist Shiv Mehra and bassist Stephen Clark—each subsequent live set felt like a religious experience for the bigger (and bigger) shows that followed. Their third album, and first for ANTI-, 2015’s New Bermuda, was heavier, sturdier, and more grounded in the dirt than Sunbather. They toured extensively to support New Bermuda playing tours and festivals with Lamb Of God, Anthrax, Danzig, and Gojira. Deafheaven’s new album, Ordinary Corrupt Human Love, finds them working with old friends again. The Jack Shirley-produced and Nick Steinhardt-art directed (of Touché Amoré) collection gets its title from Graham Greene’s novel The End of the Affair, referencing a moment when someone is looking for love, in all of its imper¬fection and simple beauty. This sentiment is carried throughout the hazy, yearning romanticism of the record with song titles and words as sumptuous as the sounds around them. Clarke describes the composition of Ordinary Corrupt Human Love beginning with “small seeds of healing, repair, and rebirth,” and like each subsequent Deafheaven album, this record is, in fact, a revelation. Defeat has inspired some of our best art. If you survive something terrible, you surface on the other side, walk toward the light, and come back to life. If you’re an artist, this kind of new self-knowledge can lead to creating something universal and remembered, something that can live longer than you do. While Deafheaven have managed to cross over this road in the past, they’ve nailed the feeling wholly with Ordinary Corrupt Human Love, a feeling that comes with experience and wisdom. Yes, everybody deals with hurt, everybody’s been the cause of their own implosions, and everybody has the capacity to overcome and love again. Deafheaven have found a way to externalize all of this, and in making their most complete record to date, they turn it into a balm and a cathartic exorcism.

Deafheaven - Ordinary Corrupt Human Love [180gm LP]
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Under the name Delicate Steve, guitarist extrodinaire Steve Marion has spent the better part of the last decade establishing himself as one of the most wildly innovative and widely revered players in the game. He’s recorded with Paul Simon, been sampled by Kanye West, toured in the Black Keys, and released four critically acclaimed albums of genre-bending instrumental music. He’s your favorite musician’s favorite musician, a virtuoso songwriter, producer, and performer who occupies a lane entirely his own in the modern indie landscape, but he’s never liked the sound of the electric guitar? “I’ve tried everything under the sun to get away from it,” he explains. “Until now.”

Written and recorded on a white 1966 Fender Stratocaster that reignited his love for the instrument, Delicate Steve’s warm and captivating new album, After Hours, marks a first for Marion, an earnest, easygoing collection that revels in the simple joys of plugging in and playing. The songs are sweet and breezy here, pairing vintage soul grooves with mesmerizing, wordless melodies, and Marion’s production work is subtle and restrained, stepping back in all the right places to let the album’s masterful performances speak for themselves. In another first, Marion teamed up with outside musicians on the record, bringing in renowned bassist Shahzad Ismaily (Yoko Ono, Marc Ribot) and famed Brazilian percussionist Mauro Refosco (David Byrne, Atoms For Peace) to help flesh out the arrangements and stretch his sonic boundaries. The result is a dreamy, introspective album built for late night comedowns and deep dive soul searching, a cinematic, escapist fantasy for the wee hours of the morning that draws on everything from Bill Withers and Sly Stone to Pharoah Sanders and Salvador Dali as it explores memory and nostalgia, instinct and intuition, serenity and transcendence.

Delicate Steve - After Hours
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Delicate Steve is back with his 5th studio album, Till I Burn Up. A critically acclaimed guitarist beloved by music critics and his peers, Steve has played on the albums of artists from Paul Simon to Yeasayer, and toured with artists from Tame Impala to The Growlers. Check out what the critics have to say about Delicate Steve. “Steve Marion..this fierce and lyrical guitar player, who performs as Delicate Steve, writes playful instrumental music led by hooky vocals — but there is no voice. His electric guitar is often played with a glass slide, mimicking a human being and bringing a palpable personality to his songs. “ - BOB BOILAND , NPR MUSIC “Steve Marion has become something you didn’t know you even needed in this day and age: a guitar hero. And just as contemporary superhero franchise reboots tend to focus less on their protagonists’ powers and more on their flaws, Marion wields his ample talent with the humility of a mortal. On the (mostly) instrumental albums he’s released as Delicate Steve, Marion’s guitar playing is always in the spotlight, but never hogging it—rather, his luminous leads form the emotional undercurrent around which everything else flows. What makes Marion a guitar hero isn’t just his technical wizardry, but his music’s mission to help you through dark times.” - STUART BERMAN, PITCHFORK

Delicate Steve - Till I Burn Up [LP]
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Rage, confusion, despair, self-deception, and introspection—Madi Diaz cycles through the full spectrum of emotions on History Of A Feeling, her debut on ANTI-. It’s an album that undeniably marks Diaz’s status as a first-rate songwriter, a craft she’s spent years refining, and one wherein Diaz establishes herself as an artist capable of distilling profound feelings with ease.

Diaz pulls from a range of folk, country, and pop leanings—she is as much influ- enced by Patty Griffin and Lori McKenna as she is the sonics of PJ Harvey and di- rectness of Kathleen Hanna. On History Of A Feeling, the Nashville based songwriter comes to terms with the dissolution of a meaningful relationship. By the end of it, she wills herself into a self-reflective state where she doesn’t hate herself for being so heartbroken.

The songs on History Of A Feeling, are the most direct and introspective songs Diaz has ever written. In the few times she’s gotten to perform them live in front of an audience, Diaz describes the experience as one where she feels acutely present even though she’s singing about emotions that started to take root years ago. It’s relatable to anyone who has experienced heartbreak and great change in some manner, and this profound sense of intimacy and camaraderie she seamlessly weaves into the songs was important to her. “I wanted it to sound conversational, like I had just walked over to your house and we’re sitting and at the end of your driveway talking—just like we’re hashing it out in the same way that you’d call a best friend at one in the morning because you needed to talk about what just happened.”

Madi Diaz - History Of A Feeling
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Rage, confusion, despair, self-deception, and introspection—Madi Diaz cycles through the full spectrum of emotions on History Of A Feeling, her debut on ANTI-. It’s an album that undeniably marks Diaz’s status as a first-rate songwriter, a craft she’s spent years refining, and one wherein Diaz establishes herself as an artist capable of distilling profound feelings with ease.

Diaz pulls from a range of folk, country, and pop leanings—she is as much influ- enced by Patty Griffin and Lori McKenna as she is the sonics of PJ Harvey and di- rectness of Kathleen Hanna. On History Of A Feeling, the Nashville based songwriter comes to terms with the dissolution of a meaningful relationship. By the end of it, she wills herself into a self-reflective state where she doesn’t hate herself for being so heartbroken.

The songs on History Of A Feeling, are the most direct and introspective songs Diaz has ever written. In the few times she’s gotten to perform them live in front of an audience, Diaz describes the experience as one where she feels acutely present even though she’s singing about emotions that started to take root years ago. It’s relatable to anyone who has experienced heartbreak and great change in some manner, and this profound sense of intimacy and camaraderie she seamlessly weaves into the songs was important to her. “I wanted it to sound conversational, like I had just walked over to your house and we’re sitting and at the end of your driveway talking—just like we’re hashing it out in the same way that you’d call a best friend at one in the morning because you needed to talk about what just happened.”

Madi Diaz - History Of A Feeling [Indie Exclusive Limited Edition Coke Bottle Clear LP]
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Doe Paoro

Soft Power

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Transforming pain into transcendence is the genius of many pop artists, but Doe Paoro brings an entirely new depth to that process. On her third album Soft Power, the L.A.-based singer/songwriter digs into her own frustration and anguish, and ultimately comes away with a newfound strength that’s profoundly inspiring. Soft Power thus bears a raw vitality that marks a major departure from Doe’s previous album. Naming Carole King among her inspirations, Doe notes that the new record’s more urgent feel comes partly from reconnecting with the instinctive approach of her earliest songwriting. Throughout the album, Doe infuses her songs with a rebellious spirit. A passionately charged track about misogyny, “Guilty” blends cascading guitar lines with sharply cutting lyrics (I know I’m not the first / that you made defend her word). . “Over” brings classic girl-group harmonies and smoldering vocal work to speak to the song’s central question: Now that I’m older / does it get easier / to get over? Several songs also confront the notion of setting boundaries, with “Projector” centering on “the refusal to let someone else superimpose their story onto yours” and “Walk Through the Fire” emerging as a brutal testament to the fact that “self-examination is ultimately a solo job – and there’s no easy way to do it.” The result is an album that’s undeniably potent in its emotional impact. “One thing I’ve continued to find through writing songs is the ability to alchemize painful experiences into something that’s useful and healing,” says Doe. “For me that’s the highest purpose of music—both in terms of what it offers to me and what I wish to offer to others.”

Doe Paoro - Soft Power
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Doe Paoro

Soft Power [LP]

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Transforming pain into transcendence is the genius of many pop artists, but Doe Paoro brings an entirely new depth to that process. On her third album Soft Power, the L.A.-based singer/songwriter digs into her own frustration and anguish, and ultimately comes away with a newfound strength that’s profoundly inspiring. Soft Power thus bears a raw vitality that marks a major departure from Doe’s previous album. Naming Carole King among her inspirations, Doe notes that the new record’s more urgent feel comes partly from reconnecting with the instinctive approach of her earliest songwriting. Throughout the album, Doe infuses her songs with a rebellious spirit. A passionately charged track about misogyny, “Guilty” blends cascading guitar lines with sharply cutting lyrics (I know I’m not the first / that you made defend her word). “Over” brings classic girl-group harmonies and smoldering vocal work to speak to the song’s central question: Now that I’m older / does it get easier / to get over? Several songs also confront the notion of setting boundaries, with “Projector” centering on “the refusal to let someone else superimpose their story onto yours” and “Walk Through the Fire” emerging as a brutal testament to the fact that “self-examination is ultimately a solo job – and there’s no easy way to do it”. The result is an album that’s undeniably potent in its emotional impact. “One thing I’ve continued to find through writing songs is the ability to alchemize painful experiences into something that’s useful and healing”, says Doe. “For me that’s the highest purpose of music—both in terms of what it offers to me and what I wish to offer to others”. - PRODUCED IN LONDON WITH JIMMY HOGARTH (AMY WINEHOUSE, SIA, CORINNE BAILEY RAE) - SOFT POWER IS THE THIRD ALBUM BY DOE PAORO - FOR FANS OF FLORENCE AND THE MACHINE, ST. VINCENT AND SKY FERREIRA

Doe Paoro - Soft Power [LP]
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Translucent Red Vinyl repress. Dr. Dog having evolved from a band whose primary creative outlet was the album-making process into one that favored the energy of their live performances, they knew they wanted to document the new dynamic they had developed on the road. Producer Rob Schnapf (Beck, Elliott Smith) was brought in to help peel back the intricate arrangements of last album Fate to reveal the raw immediacy of a tight five-man unit honing their craft.
Dr Dog - Shame Shame - Red [Colored Vinyl] (Red)
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There are two phases of The Dream Syndicate. There was the band with revolving lineups that existed from 1982 to 1988 and made four albums including The Days of Wine and Roses and have influenced bands and delighted fans in the years since. And then there’s the band that reunited in 2012 and is closing in on its seventh year with nary a lineup change. This 21st Century version of the Dream Syndicate released How Did I Find Myself Here in 2017 to universal acclaim, no small feat for a band reuniting after almost three decades. With that reintroduction and a full year of touring behind them, the Dream Syndicate had the freedom to take it all somewhere new, to dig a little deeper, get outside of themselves a little bit. Their new album ‘These Times’ feels like a late-night radio show that you might have heard as a kid, drifting off into dreams and wondering the next morning if any of it was real. So, what does it sound like? If How Did I Find Myself Here was a 10 pm record, all swagger and cathartic explosion, then These Times is the 2 am sibling, moodier and more mercurial, the band acting as DJs of their own overnight radio station, riffing on an idea of what a Dream Syndicate album could be at this moment in time. It is Radio DS19. So, what’s it all about? Founder and singer/guitarist/songwriter Steve Wynn says, “These Times. That’s it. It’s all we’re talking about, all we’re thinking about. There’s no avoiding the existential panic of a world that’s hurtling somewhere quickly and evolving and shifting course by the hour. It seems like a lie to not address or reflect the things that we can’t stop thinking about—the whole world’s watching indeed.”

The Dream Syndicate - These Times
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The Drums

Brutalism

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Brutalism is quite possibly the best collection of songs in The Drums’ ten-year career. The album is defined by growth, transformation and questions, but it doesn’t provide all the answers. Brutalism is a form of simplistic architecture defined by blocks of raw concrete. Brutalism is rooted in an emotional rawness but its layers are soft, intricate and warm, full of frivolous and exquisitely crafted pop songs that blast sunlight and high energy in the face of anxiety, solitude and crippling self-doubt. Even the fact that Brutalism sounds intentional, focused and efficient is a symbol of how Pierce’s prioritizing of his own health and wellbeing has bled into how he makes music. For the making of this album, between his lake house in Upstate New York and a studio in Stinson Beach, California, Pierce was more open than ever, keeping his control freakery at bay, working with others to produce and record the album. He brought in Chris Coady (Beach House, Future Islands, Amen Dunes) to mix it. If there was a guitar part he wanted to write but couldn’t play, he brought in a guitarist. It’s also the first Drums record with a live drummer. Delegating freed up Pierce’s time to produce a more specific vision. His intentions were rooted in pop, as they’ve always been. Back in The Drums’ previous iterations, however, the pressure was on Pierce to maintain the innocent and nostalgic sound of this surf-pop indie band and it didn’t allow him to explore sex, drug use, darker emotions or how he felt currently. Abysmal Thoughts was the first occasion he had chance to do that. Lyrically Brutalism is another giant step in that direction. It’s much more cut-throat. “I think there’s a parental advisory sticker on the cover!” laughs Pierce. “I didn’t have the courage to stand up for what I wanted before. I felt I had to keep things whimsical and that’s not who I am. It feels empty.” Sonically he had been devoid of external influences, so afraid of being accused of losing the purism of The Drums’ sound. Now he’s rediscovering music: everything from SOPHIE to 90s band Whale. They inspired the loop-based, breakbeat drums on ‘Kiss It Away’ and ‘Body Chemistry’. “I used to think our songs sounded like they were held together by scotch tape. These are more bulletproof.”

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Following his triumphant performances at the 2022 Coachella Music and Arts Festival, Danny Elfman delivers Bigger.Messier., an ambitious double-album collection of remixed and reimagined tracks from his highly acclaimed Big Mess album. This sprawling, 23 track collection (available on 2 LP or 2 CD) features tracks reworked by some of the most groundbreaking and subversive artists around today. Bigger.Messier. views the Grammy and Emmy Award-winning composers songs through the lens of luminaries from diverse sides of the music business, including Trent Reznor, Iggy Pop, Squarepusher, and Ghostemane. Elfman once again has achieved a kind of artistic liberation on the record that had been eluding him for decades, and connecting him to brand new audience. Born and raised in southern California, Elfman began his career as part of a surrealist, avant-garde musical theater troupe known as The Mystic Knights of Oingo Boingo. The group would eventually morph into the critically acclaimed rock band Oingo Boingo, whose high-energy performances and genre-bending sound garnered them a fanatically devoted cult following in the 1980s and ’90s. Among the group’s early fans was fledgling director Tim Burton and Paul Reubens (aka Pee-wee Herman), who enlisted Elfman to score their first feature film, Pee-wee’s Big Adventure. The collaboration would prove to be the start of a long and fruitful partnership for Elfman and Burton, with Elfman going on to score a string of iconic Burton features like Batman, Beetlejuice, Big Fish, Edward Scissorhands, and The Nightmare Before Christmas. To date, Elfman has scored more than 100 films.

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Robin Pecknold brings light to the bleakest of winters with Fleet Foxes' 'A Very Lonely Solstice,' a 13-track career spanning collection recorded in December 2020, at Brooklyn, NY's St. Ann & the Holy Trinity Church. Now being released for the first time on vinyl, CD and digital formats, 'A Very Lonely Solstice' captures a poignant moment in time. The recording was originally broadcasted as a live-stream event on the winter solstice of 2020, just days after New York declared a state of emergency tightening restrictions again in response to increasing COVID-19 cases. Pecknold describes the set as "me by myself on the longest night of the year... honoring the loneliness of 2020 with a nylon string and some songs new and old." Fans worldwide tuned in while quarantined at home, finding solace and a sense of community in a period of extreme isolation. Much of 'A Very Lonely Solstice' showcases a solo focus on Pecknold who offers up acoustic arrangements of fan-favorite songs spanning Fleet Foxes' catalog. Selections cover all four of the band's studio albums, including their 2008 self-titled debut album ("Tiger Mountain Peasant Song") to 2011's Helplessness Blues ("Blue Spotted Tail") and 2017's Crack-Up ("If You Need To, Keep Time On Me"), all the way to their latest release, Shore. Resistance Revival Chorus joins Pecknold on Shore tracks "Wading In Waist-High Water" and "Can I Believe You." Also featured: a cover of Nina Simone's "In The Morning" and a rearrangement of the traditional "Silver Dagger."
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Fleet Foxes

Shore

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2021 release, the fourth album from Fleet Foxes. The band's Robin Pecknold shares, "Shore feels like a relief, like you'd feel when your feet finally hit sand after getting caught in a riptide. It's a celebration of life in the face of death, honoring our lost musical heroes, from David Berman to John Prine to Judee Sill to Bill Withers, embracing the joy and solace they brought to our lives and honoring their memory. Shore is an object levitating between the magnetic fields of the past and the future." The album was recorded in upstate New York at Aaron Dessner's Long Pond Studio, in Paris at Studios St. Germain, in Los Angeles at the legendary Vox, in Long Island City at Diamond Mine, and New York City's Electric Lady.
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Fleet Foxes

SHORE

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Fleet Foxes will release their fourth studio album entitled SHORE, a collection of 15 new songs, on February 5, 2021 on double-gatefold 2LP vinyl and CD.

Fleet Foxes’ Robin Pecknold shares, “SHORE feels like a relief, like you’d feel when your feet finally hit sand after getting caught in a riptide. It’s a celebration of life in the face of death, honoring our lost musical heroes, from David Berman to John Prine to Judee Sill to Bill Withers, embracing the joy and solace they brought to our lives and honoring their memory. SHORE is an object levitating between the magnetic fields of the past and the future.”

SHORE was released digitally in its entirety on the fall equinox (9/22) alongside an album length Super-16mm landscape film captured and edited in Washington State by the filmmaker Kersti Jan Werdal. The album was recorded in upstate New York at Aaron Dessner’s Long Pond Studio, in Paris at Studios St. Germain, in Los Angeles at the legendary Vox, in Long Island City at Diamond Mine, and New York City’s Electric Lady.

Fleet Foxes' self-titled debut made a profound impact on the international musical landscape, earning them Uncut's first ever Music Award Prize and a spot in Rolling Stone's 100 Best Albums of the 2000’s. The follow-up album Helplessness Blues was met with the same critical praise as its predecessor (MOJO ★★★★★, Pitchfork’s Best New Music) and earned them a GRAMMY nomination. Both Fleet Foxes and Helplessness Blues are certified Gold in the US. The band’s third studio album Crack-Up, released in 2017, charted #9 on the Billboard Top 200.

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As a singer, songwriter, and author whose incendiary music has soundtracked the Netflix show Sex Education, Ezra Furman has for years woven together stories of queer discontent and unlikely, fragile intimacies. She has a knack for zeroing in on the light that sparks when struggling people find each other and ease each other's course. All of Us Flames widens that focus to a communal scope, painting transformative connections among people who unsettle the stories power tells to sustain itself. Produced by John Congleton in L.A., All of Us Flames unleashes Furman's songwriting in an open, vivid sound world whose boldness heightens the music's urgency. The record arrives as the third installment in a trilogy of albums, beginning with 2018's Springsteen-inflected road saga Transangelic Exodus and continuing with the punk rock fury of 2019's Twelve Nudes. "This is a first person plural album," Furman says. "It's a queer album for the stage of life when you start to understand that you are not a lone wolf, but depend on finding your family, your people, how you work as part of a larger whole. I wanted to make songs for use by threatened communities, and particularly the ones I belong to: trans people and Jews."She wrote much of Flames during the early months of the pandemic. "I had no time alone anymore; my house was super crowded," she says. She drove to seek solitude, parked in arbitrary quiet spots around Massachusetts, and began to write. The songs that came flowed toward ideas of communality and networks of care, systems of survival cultivated by necessity among people who have been historically deprived of them
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With their powerful harmonies and imaginative songwriting in full force, Girlpool are making new creative leaps with their new album, What Chaos Is Imaginary. Combining elements of shoegaze, folk, and 80’s postpunk with their own melodic gifts, these two great songwriters come up with a modern classic full of great tunes and sonic surprises. Impressive growth for this already celebrated band.

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Forgiveness is the brand new full-length Girlpool album, which finds the duo embracing weirdo-pop decadence without sacrificing the poetic curi- osity that has always made their music so absorbing. Just like they did for What Chaos Is Imaginary, Harmony and Avery each wrote their Forgiveness songs separately, then came together to decide how to present them in a style that felt representative of what excites and inspires them now. This time, the process resulted in their slickest and most ambitious music to date, filled with idiosyncratic and provocative gestures that simultaneously support and complicate the emotionally intricate material. With its unique blend of introspective earworms and surreal party music, Forgiveness reaches beyond the loosely sketched parameters of “indie rock,” challeng- ing any preconceived notions of what a Girlpool album can or should be. “Faultline” the albums first single, is an effective introduction to the world of Forgiveness; the notion of straddling a fault line feels somewhat indicative of Forgiveness on the whole. These songs investigate the always-shifting boundaries between a number of elementally human concepts: pain and pleasure, sex and love, reality and delusion, insecurity and confidence, grief and growth.To support their vision of a sound at the intersection of Holly- wood futurism and post-grunge sincerity, Girlpool enlisted help from pro- ducer Yves Rothman (Yves Tumor, Miya Folick).
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With their powerful harmonies and imaginative songwriting in full force, Girlpool are making new creative leaps with their new album, What Chaos Is Imaginary. Combining elements of shoegaze, folk, and 80’s postpunk with their own melodic gifts, these two great songwriters come up with a modern classic full of great tunes and sonic surprises. Impressive growth for this already celebrated band.

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THE GOOD ONES renown is evidenced by the stellar musicians who collaborated with them on their new album: Wilco’s Nels Cline, TV on the Radio’s Tunde Adebimpe, Sleater-Kinney’s Corin Tucker, My Bloody Valentine’s Kevin Shields, and Fugazi’s Joe Lally. In 2009, Grammy-winning producer Ian Brennan (Tinariwen, Ramblin’ Jack Elliott) traveled to Rwanda in search of local music with his Italian-Rwandan wife, filmmaker and photographer, Marilena Delli. After two weeks of crisscrossing the country and listening to countless artists, they met THE GOOD ONES.

For The THE GOOD ONES’ new album, Rwanda, You Should Be Loved, bandleader Adrien Kazigira composed over forty songs. The recording was done live without overdubs on Adrien’s farm in Rwanda. Since they live without electricity and have had little access to devices to reproduce musical recordings, THE GOOD ONES’ vocalizations are based on the singing traditions and dialect of their local immediate, agricultural district more than by outside and Western influences. Primary songwriter Adrien Kazigira interweaves intricate harmonies with co-singer, Janvier Havugimana, in a style frequently referred to as “worker songs from the streets.” With the musicians rural and remote hilltop origins, the harmonic similarities to American Bluegrass vocals is often eerie. Third member, Javan Mahoro, lends additional background vocals and percussion on select songs. From the moment he laid eyes on them, Brennan said he knew, “What these guys do is precious and rare. Don’t f*** it up!”

THE GOOD ONES formed the band as a healing process after the Rwandan genocide, which marks its 25th anniversary in 2019. The band will be touring in the US for the first time this Fall, playing dates with Glen Hansard in the North West and performing at bookshops nationwide along with producer Ian Brennan, as he travels the US speaking about his latest book “Silenced By Sound.”

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Half Waif

Mythopoetics

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With her musical project Half Waif, Nandi Rose dives deep into the waters of artistic expression by layering evocative vocals and synths to create a powerful form of pop music. On Mythopoetics, Rose ex- plores a full spectrum of sounds that sparkle with memorable hooks, otherworldly production and uplifting grooves. “This is the record I’ve been trying to make for 10 years,” Rose says.

Previous albums The Caretaker (2020) and Lavender (2018) garnered acclaim for their compelling journeys through solitude, desire and the search for independence. Half Waif declares a new chapter on Mytho- poetics, a collection of 12 new songs – mythical stories that transcend time, each sung with a glorious contralto wrapped up in synths and electronic percussion, and her lyrical piano serving as the backbone. It is an essential reminder that we have the power to shape the stories we tell and the myths we make of our lives. This is music that you feel.

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Half Waif

The Caretaker

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Half Waif Nandi Rose is on her own again, and three songs into her forthcoming album The Caretaker, the singer, songwriter and producer declares her fearlessness: "Baby don't worry about me, I don't worry about you." Here, on "Ordinary Talk," Rose meditates on the heaviness of ordinary moments, the constellation of tears and chores and self-doubt and small talk that comprise being a person, accompanied by her most cinematic, pulsing arrangements to date. It's an apt introduction to The Caretaker, an ax-lbum that negotiates the space between working alone and with others, between isolation and connection. The result is her boldest work yet. Over the course of eleven songs, Rose creates the lush world of a humid summer night, dreaming of and reaching for a season in which she is her "best self."

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