RSD 2024 Wishlists Due Sunday!

Shrinking attention spans and a cultural obsession with the fresh new thing have led to a generally received wisdom that our best artists make their greatest, most lastingly impactful work when they are young. Their vision is uncluttered by influence, competitiveness and jealousy, their disregard for old conventions is a welcome jolt of disruption, and their unwrinkled visage looks great on the cover of a magazine. Well hooey to that says MARY TIMONY, who turns in the strongest album of her career with 'Untame The Tiger', here in her 53rd year on Earth. No slight intended to her illustrious back catalog (which includes early days with DC femme-punks in Autoclave, the one of a kind evil-pixie noise-grrl band Helium, fronting the garage rock unit Ex Hex, stints with Carrie Brownstein in Wild Flag and the Spells, and recently ripping bass with Alec MacKaye in Hammered Hulls, to name just a few), but it does feel like it's all been leading to this one. T-Money is a guitar hero of incredible breadth, a lyricist capable of threading the fantastical and the real in one tight braid, and a performer comfortably at home within herself, cutting vocal takes that sound human and real. 'Untame' covers every edge of her territory: jagged garage, woozy psychedelic folk-rock, cheeky Guyville-esque kissoffs, and nifty inside-out blues. Sounds she's made before, sure, but never all at once and with such grace. This album is so good, the fact that the drums on most of its tracks are played by none other than Dave Mattacks of Fairport Convention and Jethro Tull only rates as a minor footnote, though I am certainly fascinated by how that came to pass. Album of the week! Plenty more though: the dynamic duo MGMT return with their first proper studio album in several years. Cursory googling of 'Loss Of Life' mentions the band being "Tik Tok Famous" and I am thrilled to have no idea why that might be the case. More people should always be listening to MGMT though! No other band emerged from the early Obama era psych pop scene with enough ideas to still be putting out unusually hooky albums all these years later. Chilled R&B crooner ERIKA DE CASIER returns with 'Still', which has to be shorthand for "I'm still the queen of addictively vibey, elegantly low-key vocal house that makes you blush". Her longtime production partner Central is still in the mix, adding some cool hip-house flourishes to keep things interesting, and she's attracted some pretty big guest vocalists in Blood Orange and Shygirl. New Jersey and Brooklyn might try to claim REAL ESTATE as their own, but I think of them as a Madison band. Guitarist Julian Lynch priced records here at the shop once upon a time! These dream-rock professionals return with 'Daniel', another blissed out album of intimate soaring.

Here in this section we have new issues of records from some of our favorite vocalists ever. Hold on, you say, EMAHOY TSEGE MARYAM GEBRU is a vocalist? Well, if you heard her last archival collection "Jerusalem", you would have heard her voice on one track there, for the first time ever, accompanying her cosmically expressive piano playing. Did she record any other vocal music? Turns out, yes, the immense vault of unheard Gebru material under the care of Mississippi Records includes a lot of it, and a selection is compiled on 'Souvenirs' in stock on limited edition gold vinyl in a gold foil sleeve. It showcases yet another transporting side of this musical titan's catalog, and it soothes and stirs just like the rest of her available material, just about all of which is back in stock now. Few singers define a literate and yet primitive level of cool like Stereolab frontwoman LAETITIA SADIER, who returns to Drag City with another joyful album of timeless pop called 'Rooting For Love'. The "Pressed at Third Man" series restores some essential vocal jazz with crisp new editions of ASTRUD GILBERTO's 'Look To The Rainbow' and BETTY CARTER's 'The Modern Sound of Betty Carter'.

There's a couple things I know for sure about NEIL YOUNG. He loves the San Jose Sharks, and he really loves recording music. You might appreciate the classic album with CRAZY HORSE from 1975 called 'Zuma', with its coloring book style cover and its inclusion of permanent live set fave "Cortez the Killer". Well, did you know he recorded another 2 LPs of songs and outtakes to go along with it, called 'Dume'? You didn't, and that's why you're reading this newsletter. Ol' Neil's opened up the archives yet again for a luxurious new experience of this classic, and our limited edition copies come with a lithograph of its classic cover art. British folk-rocker BILL FAY has been making music for decades that never seems to fit into its place in the timeline, so it's fitting that his most classic work (from 1977) is called 'Tomorrow Tomorrow and Tomorrow', as it spacy yet earthbound folk yearns ever forward. This classic has made enthusiasts out of everyone from David Tibet to Jeff Tweedy to Kevin Morby for good reason. Albertan (as in Edmonton, go Oilers) twangmaster CORB LUND returns with another crackling album of modern honky-tonk on 'El Viejo', while blues dealers JJ GREY & MOFRO drop their first album in nearly a decade, called 'Olustee'.

Dallas Duster-lovers TEETHE usher in a new pressing of their 2020 debut self-titled LP, a gorgeous collection of melodic, plodding fuzz pop. Title Fight vocalist Ned Russin reconfigures his new band GLITTERER with an uber-punchy synthrock banger called 'Rationale'. Canadian progressive hardcore dons FUCKED UP changed things up in a major way with 'The Chemistry Of Common Life' around, oh (checks watch) fifteen years ago, yikes. Time for an anniversary reissue of this classic, which saw the band welcoming organ and woodwinds to the mix alongside a seemingly infinite number of guitars. I like Nirvana, you like Nirvana, but the Baton Rouge sludge dealers THOU really love Nirvana. Enough to record a whopping sixteen Nirvana covers across a decade of singles and compilations. 'Blessings Of the Highest Order' collects them all, with some cover art that doesn't really make sense to me, but I'm sure Kurt would have loved, and a version of "Territorial Pissings" that sounds like the Earth literally splitting open.

New York's GHOST FUNK ORCHESTRA return with a delightful new album, an exotica-flavored album of spaceways called 'A Trip To the Moon'. The Numero Group stays dealing out the stoned soul, alien-laned doowop with a reish of the DC-area rarity 'Your Funny Moods' from SKIP MAHOANEY & THE CASUALS. New rap business is in from POST MALONE and CONWAY THE MACHINE.

Live albums aren't always mandatory unless you are a devoted completist, or have a strange affinity for stage banter and crowd noise. Not so with the ongoing CAN live releases, which capture the band at their alchemical heights, playing long, perambulating meditations on scraps of songs from their albums and beyond. 'Live In Paris 1973' captures an early appearance from the band's longtime vocalist Damo Suzuki, who recently left this Earth but will live forever in this band's limitless music. Similar sentiments apply to FELA KUTI: another pair of 70s classics come back this week from the afrobeat icon: 'Original Sufferhead' and 'Ikoyi Blindness'. Argentine composer GUSTAVO SANTAOLALLA has made quite a career with his prolific soundtrack work, but a reissue of a spectacular 1990s album called 'Ronroco' showcases the guitarist's talent for tender traditional Andean music. First time on vinyl for this overlooked gem, and it sounds stellar; same goes for a lush new Mr. Bongo reissue of jazz-funk guitarist O'DONEL LEVY's lovely, languorous 'Simba'.

Now defunct California duo SWEET TRIP spent the past few decades combining their affinity for the glitch of Autechre and Aphex with the turbocharged fuzz-pop of Slowdive and Ride, peaking with 2003's 'Velocity:Design:Comfort', a manic ride of infinite hooks, blasted chorus, and colorful noise. It felt sorta ADHD for its era, and gained only the smallest of a cult following: naturally, its a rightly-beloved classic now! And its back in print on LP for the first time in foreverrrrr. Erstwhile Daft Punksman THOMAS BANGALTER turns in a soundtrack for 'Daaaaaali!', and we've got new records from LOVING and LIAM BAILEY.

Last up, some nice strong reissues of essential LPs from bygone Jack White dalliances THE RACONTEURS and THE DEAD WEATHER. By the feel of em, these are pressed on 800 gram vinyl, or maybe shellac? Leave it to ol Jack to find a new way to pay old debts!

Welp! After a brutal January double bubble ice storm bonanza and Wisconsin's first ever Feb-Nad-do, we were all due for some good weather and good vibes. Mother Nature is bringing one, we’re bringing the rest with our latest crop of choice used this week.

Enough variety to shake a recently unfrozen stick at, we got these beauties coming in hot:
Eno/Byrne, Muse, Lumineers, Jimmy Eat World, Japanese Breakfast, The White Stripes, Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds. A beautiful Brigitte Bardot rounds out Husker Du (and don’ts) and AFI. Not to mention a great Billy Joel and fun times with Mojo Nixon and Skid Roper. Help us give the Cryan’ Shames a hand, as they join Santana, Van Morrison, The English Beat, Dalis Car in the jams department. Bad Brains laying it down in strong, Belle And Sebastian, also strong, but you know, a more quiet strength. James Taylor, Todd Rungren, Leon Russell, and our fave Canucks Rush, join the likes of ELO, Led Zeppelin and a jet setted Taylor Swift.

We’re hoping to see those spring worms, thanks to HMLTD. Beegees, Richard Holmes, Gene Ammons, John Mayer showing what they got against Mongo Santamaria digging into that Soul Bag. The jams continue with Chief Keef, Flamin Groovies, Charlie Parker, Pet Shop Boys, Bruce Springsteen, and first lady of country Loretta Lynn. India Aire bringing some grooves to the stacks, holding it down with Steely Dan, Ann Peebles, Jaco, U2 and everyone's favorite formidable trio, Oscar Peterson, Joe Pass and Niels Pedersen. And as always we end on a bit of familiar bang with Europe. The group, not the continent, don't be silly.

Used CD Alert!

Yes, we are still buying! Call us at the shop to schedule: 608-259-1991