February 6, 2025

Record Store Day 2025 List is Live

Save the date for April 12th!

All you loyal Words on Sounds readers will get an email when our wishlist site goes live. And you can count on another Harrison Street block party with the deepest selection of RSD titles around. But more on all that over the next few weeks.

For now, check out the list at https://recordstoreday.com/SpecialReleases

New This Week At The Shop

Newsletter time, everyone buckled in? Good. 2025's most anticipated record (so far) pulls into the driveway this week, as we welcome a healthy stack of KENDRICK LAMAR's latest career-redefining album, 'GNX', on limited blue vinyl (just a few left!) and standard black. Not sure if you heard, but KDot is the halftime show entertainment at a certain Eagles game this weekend; this eclectic and restless collection gives him plenty to work with. Memphis rapper GLORILLA channels gospel and Lil Jon on her first full-length album 'Glorious'. Praise music sure has come a long way since I was a kid! After a pair of critically-enjoyed albums, songwriter BENJAMIN BOOKER disappeared for several years. He's re-emerged now in a new incarnation, collaborating with producer Kenny Segal on a much grimier collection of no less political songs called 'Lower'. French-Canadian/Ethiopian rapper NAYA ALI returns with the jubilant 'We Did The Damn Thing'.

Folk-rock no-shit-taker SHARON VAN ETTEN has been around the block a few more times than most, so when she announces she's formed a new band with three others and recorded songs written as a group for the first time, you know it's gonna be good. THE ATTACHMENT THEORY features longtime Sharon drummer Jorge Balbi, bassist Devra Hoff, plus guitar keys and harmonies from vocalist Teeny Lieberson from the old Brooklyn band TEEN, and it is certainly a departure from past SVE stuff. Soaring, euphoric and jammy, this record benefits greatly from the production of Marta Salogni, who has similar credits on recent records from Bon Iver and Bjork. Salogni also produced another big record out this week (actually I didn't even know this before putting them side by side in the newsletter, very eerie!): the wily and wiry new album 'Cowards' from Brighton postpunkers SQUID. London fourpiece LOWEN deliver breathtaking progressive doom metal uniquely influenced by Arabic ghazals on 'Do Not Go To War With The Demons Of Mazandaran'. Irish rockers INHALER aim to a new Imagine Dragons-ish high on their latest, 'Open Wide'.

If you're looking for a pleasant surprise this week, which sure seems awfully likely, check out the latest full-length from Saskatchewan mellow legends PEACE FLAG ENSEMBLE who turn in another stirring and melodious session of ambient free-jazz on 'Everything Is Possible'. Emerging UK gothpunkers HEARTWORMS lower the bang on 'Glutton For Punishment; esoteric jazzer EAST FOREST collabs with spiritual guru RAM DASS on a new album, and the always fresh Analog Africa label returns with a deep collection of haunting Afro-cuban funeral marches from GNONNAS PEDRO.

An essential new MILES DAVIS piece called 'Birth of The Blue' takes the four additional songs from the Kind Of Blue sessions and positions them alone as their own companion album in an audiophile setting. Trumpeter DIZZY REECE's transcendent 1958 hard bop classic 'Blues In Trinity' gets a reissue, alongside SONNY ROLLINS' soundtrack/score for 'Alfie'. LA blues historian JERRON PAXTON puts a modern spin on old classics with 'Things Done Changed'.

Two essential high summits of spiritual oneness from PHARAOH SANDERS are back in print this week with new editions of 'Deaf Dumb Blind (Summun Bukmun Umyun)' and 'Wisdom Through Music', plus we've got the transcendent 'Further Conversations With Myself' from BILL EVANS and the overlooked ALBERT AYLER gem 'Music Is The Healing Force of The Universe'.

Irrepressible jammers PHISH roll out a pair of new editions to the "Live Phish on Long Play" series: 'LP On LP 05 (Twist / Stash Uniondale, NY 4/2/98)' and 'LP On LP 06 (Simple / Blaze On - 8/6/2021)'. What I heard is, one of these sets really sucks and the other one is amazing...but I can't remember which is which. Guess you need to buy both! HOOTIE AND THE BLOWFISH celebrate 'The Atlantic Years 1994-2003' with a lustrous 6-LP box set, and the mid-90s odds and ends collection from YO LA TENGO, 'Genius + Love', which contains many of their great non-album songs and a full disc of delirious instrumentals, is back in print from Matador.

Used Vinyl LP Alert

Here is your weekly update for February 6th. We'll pickup where the Thursday night sneak peek video on our @StrictlyDiscs Instagram and Facebook left off. No frills. Just the artists. The rest is for your 650+ fresh-used digging pleasure downstairs in our Madison shop.

Jazz: Bill Evans, Chick Corea & Flora Purim & Stanley Clarke, Randy Weston, Don Cherry, John Coltrane, Oscar Peterson, Herb Ellis, Pete Fountain, Wes Montgomery, Rahsaan Roland Kirk, Weather Report, Charles Mingus, Wayne Shorter, Pharoah Sanders

Soul/Hip Hop: Don Shirley, Sly & The Family Stone, Rick James, Flying Lotus

Rock/Contemporary: The Velvet Underground, Alice in Chains, Nirvana, UB40, : Jimmy Buffett, King Harvest, Led Zeppelin, Sex Pistols, The Hollies, Queen, Alice Cooper, Yoko Ono, Van Morrison, Neil Young, Elton John, E.L.O., Phil Collins, Aerosmith, Jackson Browne, Steve Earle, Genesis, Alice in Chains, Nirvana, UB40, Rush, Tracy Chapman, Living Colour

Country: Dolly Parton, Merle Haggard, Hank Williams Jr., Johnny Cash, Alabama, Willie Nelson, Kenny Rogers

Soundtracks: The Last Dragon, Kung Fu, Xanadu, Smokey and the Bandit 2, Beetlejuice, Rocky

Happy Digging!

SELL US YOUR LPS!

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

Ryan, Evan, Ed, Eric, Matt, Steve, Mark, Marty, Brad, Adam, Andrew, Rick, Dru, Ashley, Cypress & Dan.