Wildewoman (The New Recordings) re-imagines and expands Lucius’ sparkling debut album. Features friends Marcus Mumford on “Go Home,” and Devon Gilfillian on “Tempest.” Also features close friend and collaborator Brandi Carlile on the previously unreleased fan favorite “Housewarming.”
A glorious mix of tragedy and comedy — studded with nods to the band’s eclectic musical taste — delightfully weird and utterly them, tripping from ghostly bops to ruminations on love and loss to some seriously debauched and crazy nights. A decade may have passed, but Les Savy Fav is still growing.
Ugandan-born, Austin-based Jon Muq's debut, Flying Away, melds African and Western melodies, reflecting his astonishing journey. Produced by Dan Auerbach, the album is infused with themes of resilience, and Muq's spontaneous, reflective songwriting captures the essence of his cross-continental life.
Produced by Daniel Tashian (Kacey Musgraves) along with Konrad Snyder (Noah Kahan) and frontperson Ela Melo, the much-anticipated album ponders life’s ups and downs, and traces the turbulent trajectory of relationships, painted out loud in hues of pop, electronic, rock, and hip-hop. As such, it finds the musicians at their most vulnerable, vibrant, and vital.
Mercurial and moody soundscapes are infused with wistful romance in one of the Grammy-winning singer and composer’s most spirited records to date. It’s a perfumed, public garden of renewal, desire, shelter, and love guided by Aftab’s soothing voice – its reach and intensity complementing the sun’s departure.
Not since the early work of Car Seat Headrest or Bright Eyes has indie rock managed to come across as this intimate and grandiose. The Australian quartet lay a lifetime's worth of woes across a canvas of indie rock that feels both timeless and in-the-moment. Feeling down never sounded so goddamn good.
Whereas some forms of dream-pop sound unmistakably like winter, the Marías make music for poolsides, afternoons in air conditioning, and glamorous waterfront locales after dark. It’s exquisite music for chilling out: funky, jazzy, loungey, dreamy pop that never lets its atmospheric qualities drift into sleepy nothingness.
This special edition pays homage to the unwavering passion and raw emotion that captured hearts worldwide upon its initial release in 2019. The original album is being released alongside an intimate collection of acoustic recordings, inviting you to rediscover the soulful essence and sardonic wit of the ukulele-toting musical genius.
After portraying Billie Holiday onscreen, Day’s soaring voice reaches inward. Andra examines every iteration of love: lost, gained, rekindled, interpersonal, and with "God". She sings about her personal experiences with intense love, gut-wrenching heartbreak, reclamation, and spiritual growth while bringing jazz virtuosity to songs of her own.
Unashamedly vulnerable, unabashedly feminine, and undeniably triumphant, News of the Universe is another knockout record from a band so reliably great, led by an earnest belief in the cosmic power of love and a great riff. This is not groovy indie finery; there’s a rock-as-high-art vision at work here.
Moreland’s artistic integrity will only allow him to tell the truth, and he’s past the point of false hopes. Still, the music on Visitor is an honest companion, an important presence in the void that presses us to pay attention to what matters most. It’s folk-rock that is intimate, immediate, deeply thoughtful, and catchy as hell.
Umbra Vitae fit in twice as many ideas than your common or garden death metal band in around half the time. Led by Converge front man Jacob Bannon (as well as members of Hatebreed and The Red Chord),the bandleads listeners down a rip-roaring descent into darkness in this modern metal masterpiece.
Dayton redefines himself once again with The Hard Way Blues, a blues-based rock record produced by Grammy winner Shooter Jennings. Inspired by longtime influences like '70s-era Bob Dylan, Lightnin' Hopkins, and Mance Lipscomb, the album balances some of the sharpest songwriting of Dayton's career with loud guitar riffs and amplified attitude.
“You think every day’s the same / But it’s new, and it’s brief, and it takes your breath away,” John Rossiter sings on his new album of gritty indie folk. It’s a fitting for a committed gardener like himself, one who sees the rainy days and the sunny days with equal gratitude and gravity— the sun “like a balloon / sent from Hell / straight to the moon.”
Blackgrass mixes the sacred and the profane in typical Swamp Dogg fashion as it blurs the lines between folk, roots, country, blues, and soul. It’s as reverent as it is raunchy, challenging genre and race while celebrating the music that helped make Swamp Dogg the beloved iconoclast he’s known as today.
Recorded against a pandemic backdrop Tivel’s eighth album features just her guitar and violin with producer Shane Leonard on everything else. Living Thing ride waves of anxiety, resilience and hope, surfed with her whispering vocals and washes up on a shore that ultimately looks out to the light on the horizon rather than the darkness behind.
Individually, each member boasts their own critical acclaim. Paste declared Don DiLego’s latest album a “stunner.” NPR said Anthony D’Amato “sings and writes in the tradition of Bruce Springsteen or Josh Ritter.” Rolling Stone called Brian Dunne’s new record “the sleeper album of the year” and praised Mike Montali’s band, Hollis Brown, as “the soundtrack for a late-night drive through the American heartland.” Collectively, though, the four transcend their respective roots, emerging as a velvet-clad rock and roll cooperative far greater than the sum of its parts.
Said to be the bands most collaborative and first fully democratic endeavor, Frog in Boiling Water pushes the bands ethos and breaks new ground in their storied career. Alternative tunings, tape loops, drum samples, the band’s first acoustic-led song, and some of their most striking lyrics yet fill out the album’s edges, and leaves the listener floored.
Featuring nine covers and one original, Sunday Morning Put-On finds Bird making a straightforward jazz album, or at least his version of a straightforward jazz album. His approach to these songs is hardly radical, but he understands their beauty and finds his own way of bringing it out while reminding us just how quietly brilliant Andrew Bird can be.
The Coalition of Independent Music Stores (CIMS) is a national level organization comprised of the best independent record stores in America. CIMS was founded in 1995 with the goal of uniting like minded independent store owners, giving them a more powerful voice in the music industry. The stores that make up CIMS are all very different, but we share the same desires – to be the heart of our communities, to super-serve our customers, to support and develop artists, and to share our love of music.
For more information about CIMS and the stores in our organization, please visit cimsmusic.com or find us through social media with the #cimsmusic hashtag. And please remember to always shop local by supporting your neighborhood record store.
