Another week here and gone! Time for a rundown of this week's new releases which are full of faithful names and some surprises. You don't need to twist our arm to get us listening to a new album from CHARLEY CROCKETT; longtime readers of this newsletter know we've been championing the Man from Waco since the early days of his career. It was funny, then, when a highly motivated young fella came into the shop a month or so ago asking if we had heard of Crockett, and if we were willing to help him out with putting up some posters for his new album, 'Lonesome Drifter'. The cowboy's got a street team now! Comes with the territory, I s'pose, when you sign to Island Records. The bigger budget is evident on this phenomenal new record, produced by rootsy legend Shooter Jennings, which opens up Crockett's sound (already plenty authentic) into new organic vistas. Our editions come with an alternate cover that looks even cooler than the one pictured here, I just couldn't find any pictures of it! ## Parisian indie artist OKLOU has been widely feted as a synth-popper to watch for a few years now, but hasn't had an album available in record stores until now, with the landing of 'choke enough', her second full-length. Since we couldn't stock her stuff, I hadn't really checked out Oklou's music until recently, so allow me to arrive roughly five years late in saying "damn, this is great!" The tender, cumulonimbal ambience of these tracks makes comparisons to Caroline Polachek quite apt, but the tracks on 'choke enough' have a lot of unusual, half-buried elements that bear the hallmark of a studious bedroom recorder. ## The Big Crown label has a solid track record with releases of the soul revival variety, so news that they are releasing a contemporary Turkish pop album is a very welcome prospect. DERYA YILDIRIM and GRUP SIMSEK fit right in with 'Yarin Yoksa', their first release for a US label and their fifth overall. Producer Leon Michels keeps the proceedings tight on twinkling, funky arrangements of these sultry pop tunes embellished with saz and keys, while Derya sounds like a modern day Selda on the mic. ## I don't make the rules around here: if you're a touring musician and you come through the shop and you're nice and you even (gasp) buy some cool records while signing copies of your own, we are likely to support all your future endeavors forever and ever. Luckily we don't even have to feel obligated to support NEAL FRANCIS and his latest blue-eyed soul masterpiece 'Return To Zero', it frickin rules! Blue vinyl on our limited copies, which would look very nice with an autograph from Neal if he ever passes our way again.

The endlessly soujourning troubadours known as PHISH keep the spice flowing with a limited re-release of their massive set 'A Live One', in the shop while it lasts on "solar garlic" colored vinyl. Spacecase STEVEN WILSON delivers his first proper solo record in some time with 'The Overview', here on mint green. A multi-night stand by JIMMY PAGE & THE BLACK CROWES is memorialized with 'Live at the Greek', plus we've got a pair of essential mid-century blues LPs back in print on audiophile vinyl: MISSISSIPPI JOHN HURT's 'Today!' and LONNIE JOHNSON's 'Blues & Ballads'.

Few artists have stayed as true to their twisted vision while still gaining a bigger audience like CIRCUIT DES YEUX, the long-running project of Chicago artist Haley Fohr. 'Halo On The Inside' is her second album for Matador, after graduating from indie institutions like Thrill Jockey, Drag City, and De Stijl. The horns she dons on the cover of this one give you a hint at the neo-pagan chicanery afoot here; her industrial side has never been plainer to see. Montreal artist JONI VOID delivers some exquisite modern trip-hop on 'Every Life Is A Light; veteran post-post-post-rap unit CLIPPING keep pushing their progressive horrorcore on 'Dead Channel Sky'; country-rock singer DOROTHY goes Gaga on her latest solo record, 'The Way'.

He'd prefer we didn't give him sole billing, but avant guitarist NELS CLINE is a living legend, and his new quartet album for Blue Note finds him with some exceedingly great players who are less than household names. 'Consentrik Quartet' is a boldly expressive new jazz album, in the shop in a limited edition with a signed art print. The trio of GREGORY UHLMANN, JOSH JOHNSON, and SAM WILKES land on the can't miss International Anthem label with a fluid and lyrical album of chamber-jazz emphasizing small melodic details. Dazzlingly talented musician Loraine James returns to her ambient project WHATEVER THE WEATHER for a second installment of temperature-driven, impressionistic soundscapes. A chance encounter many years ago with the little-known Scottish synth-pop duo VAZZ has made me a lifelong fan. Their subdued yet bass-bouncy microcosms of greyscale pop make them a sort of poor man's-Eurythmics. Numero gang is on the case with a long overdue proper recreation of their lone 1986 album. Vazz - Your Lungs and Your Tongues (clear vinyl)

In the late 1960s, a series of albums were coming out on venerated jazz labels that we're utterly remaking the genre. ARCHIE SHEPP's 'The Magic Of Ju-Ju' was a big one, and it's back in print this week alongside vintage salsa fire from CELIA & JOHNNY, plus a pair of fresh re-printings of some key bits of the Black Jazz label's torrid mid-70s run: CALVIN KEYS' 'Shawn-Neeq' and DOUG CARN's 'Spirit of the New Land'.

More essential back in print include DAVID BOWIE's 'Young Americans', on a 50th Anniversary, half-speed remaster type of trip, and also some big ones from TALK TALK, OF MONTREAL, and the GOO GOO DOLLS, which also happens to be my dream lineup for Brat Fest.

The Austin noise-rock band SCRATCH ACID crawled so every other noise-rock band after them could.....well, also crawl, lets be honest. A chance encounter with a demo tape landed them on the then-fledgling Chicago punk label Touch and Go, ensuring that thousands if not millions of people would one day see David Yow fully naked on stage, both spiritually and physically. But just try and find a copy of any Scratch Acid record in a shop here in 2025? No dice, man. Until today, as the mighty, still-existing Touch and Go brings us limited vinyl copies of their first two EPs, 'Scratch Acid' and - 'Berserker', plus their only full-length album, 'Just Keep Eating', in addition to a box set collecting all of those pieces and more. Keep it heavy with a 35th anniversary color wax edition of the iconic GODFLESH album 'Streetcleaner', which found the hidden warp-zone between pummeling death metal and ambient bliss. Lastly, we've been trying for years to land copies of the incredible South Korean fem-fronted hardcore band SLANT's album 'Vol.1', and they are finally here (for now).

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