September 26, 2019

 

 

Let's start this week's new release rundown with the big stuff first, as we welcome some very sweet, and very large, box sets to the floor. The Beatles' iconic album 'Abbey Road' turns 50 this month, and is celebrated in a variety of expanded editions which see the songs given the remaster treatment, with demos and alternate takes included. We've got the vinyl expanded to 3 LPs, a 2 CD version, and a version with a large book and Blu-ray. The Replacements' seventh album, 1989's 'Don't Tell A Soul', is re-released in its originally imagined form as the sprawling 'Dead Man's Pop', a four disc set that includes a new mix, extra songs and outtakes, a studio session with Tom Waits, and the full recording of the band's blazing, oft-bootlegged 1989 show at UW-Milwaukee. While they last, we have a cassette of Mats rarities to give away with purchase of this set. The Grateful Dead's memorable 1991 performance at Giants Stadium is honored with a beautifully packaged new set on triple CD or 5 LP formats, and the first one through the door for this one gets a - wait for it - Grateful Dead hacky sack, to really put you in that parking lot scene. Let's get a hack goin' guys! Masked metallers Ghost revisit their album 'Prequelle' with a new deluxe vinyl version packed in a snakeskin box.

  

Grammy-winning country everyman Sturgill Simpson delivers his long-awaited new record, 'Sound and Fury', which sees the Sturge continuing to push into new hard rockin territory. We're getting QOTSA-meets-Waylon vibes on this one, which is in the building on limited indie-only vinyl. Punk lifers Mudhoney return with a new EP on Sub Pop's singular brand of Loser Edition vinyl, and we have a new record from the New Pornographers, 'In the Morse Code of Brake Lights', which has Neko Case in the mix!  

 

 

Psychedelic power couple Moon Duo head in a delightful new direction on 'Stars are the Light', a far more melodic and glittering album of puzzled pop than any of their previous more minimalist affairs. That one's here on red vinyl. Telefon Tel Aviv return from a decade-plus hiatus with a beautiful new record called 'Dreams Are Not Enough' that sounds like a fragmented IDM-influenced version of AnCo's 'Strawberry Jam'. UK prog-punkers Beak are back with a new EP, and we have an amazing new record from Melbourne musician Sui Zhen, who channels the grief of the loss of her mother into an enervating, surreal record of synth pop that will appeal to fans of Jenny Hval or Bat For Lashes.   

 

 

Modern folk and Americana is here in spades, with new albums from Charlie Parr, Will Johnson (of Centro-Matic), Jordan Moser, and the fiddle trio of the Quebe Sisters.

 

 

Spiritual jazz flautist Lloyd McNeill sees his stunningly gorgeous (and dead rare) 1980 album 'Elegia' reissued by the Soul Jazz label, where he is joined by bassist Cecil McBee and percussionist Nana Vasconcelos. The archive revelations from the John Coltrane estate continue with the first official release of 'Blue World', a 1964 French film soundtrack that features unique, unheard takes of Coltrane quartet classics like 'Naima', 'Village Blues' and 'Traneing In'. No big deal!  Brad Mehldau's breakout 2004 solo piano album 'Live in Tokyo' hits vinyl via the Run Out Groove label, and we have a new CD featuring a collaboration between Tyshawn Sorey and Marilyn Crispell.

  

PacNW melodic indie folk-rockers Chastity Belt have a doozy of a new album that hearkens back to bygone names like The Spinanes and Julie Doiron, and has us properly excited for their Madison show later in the year. Tegan and Sara return with the comforting 'Hey I'm Just Like You', in the house on yellow vinyl, and we have a lovely new record of classic country from a fresh voice in Michaela Anne's 'Desert Dove'.

 

 

Following on the release of the latest Bonnie Prince Billy album, which finds him collaborating with Bryce Dessner on arrangements of Julius Eastman pieces, we have a couple of key Eastman documents back in stock. The minimalist composer studied alongside Reich and may have outpaced him creatively were his career not derailed by racism and mental illness, and he's only recently getting his due adulation. We've also got a great new CD of healing gong music from Katherina Bornefeld, a drummer known primarily for her amazing work in the Dutch punk band The Ex. We've also got a new disc of compositions from Laurie Anderson called 'Songs From the Bardo'.  

 

 

Norwegian pianist and synth pioneer Erik Wollo sees an LP of unreleased early material hit the LP format, a stunning selection of songs with feet equally placed in the Berlin school and new age traditions. Wonderful ambient here, as well as on 'All Night Chroma', a new LP of modern classical compositions by none other than Tom Jenkinson AKA Squarepusher. Glasgow's Iona Fortune returns with the second volume in her 'Tao of I' series, an arresting set of tunes that expertly blend classical Chinese guzheng with twinkling synth and throbbing, restrained bass. Belgian jazz group Black Flower see their 2016 album 'Ghost Radio' repressed, and it's a lovely slice of fascinating jazz shaded with Ethiopiques-style swing and dubby atmosphere.

  

Pre-post-and-during rock reissues about this week, with a 15th anniversary repress of Interpol's 'Antics', a fresh printing of El Ten Eleven's lone self-titled album, the Melvins' 'The Maggot and the Bootlicker', and a new color vinyl printing of Thrice's 'Vheissu'.

 

 

Longtime chuggy chillwave producer Secret Circuit returns with a new project called XLNT, and it sure does bang. 'High Tide' fits in well alongside 'Byen', the latest from Norwegian housemeister Bjorn Torske. Longtime Balearic wizards Woolfy vs Projections have a killer new LP called 'Destinations', which comes with 'Album of the Year' declarations from fellow SD staffer Ben. Nosaj Thing turned the whole vaporwave/chill beats to study to game on its ear with 'Drift' ten years ago (yes, ten years ago), and that one is back in print now on LP.

 

A pair of the 90s most potent hiphop albums are restored and expanded on vinyl this week: Ice Cube's 'Amerikkkas Most Wanted' and The Roots' 'Things Fall Apart', which now stretches to a mighty three LPs.

  

The Numero Group continues their 'Art of the Compilation' series with 'Visible and Invisible Persons Distributed in Space', a set of private electronic soul that expands the orbit of the phenomenal 'Personal Space' compilation that I have referenced in these emails approximately 50 times. The sleeve on this one folds out into a giant gold foil pyramid! Steve Hiett's lone 1984 album 'Down On the Road By the Beach' is one of those mythical lost albums that seems almost too good to be true, ala Ted Lucas or Charanjit Singh's 'Ten Ragas'. With the grace and ease of a beach-bum Pat Metheny, Hiett proceeds to predict Mac DeMarco by decades. You'd have to quantum leap to ever find one of these LPs until now, as we see a lavish reissue from the big boys at Be With and Efficient Space. Lastly, a potential 'favorite record ever' is here for one of you, in the form of the Turkish band Grup Dogus' lone 1975 album. Eschewing the blazing rock styles of contemporary groups like Mogollar or Bunalim, the Dogus fellas put organ at the front of their compositions, crafting an enchanting sound thats not quite jazz, not quite rock, maybe even exotica? But with a lovely Anatolian sheen. What an album.

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Vivian Girls - “Memory”  This album is the band’s first release in eight years.  The band played their last shows in 2014 and then the band members walked away and went on to form other bands.  So, it really is a surprise then to see this album suddenly appear. And the question that needs to be answered is whether this reformation album is as good as their prior three releases.  I would definitely say yes! The band still knows how to write memorable and catchy songs and this disc is chock full of them. And the band still knows how to rock, though there is a psychedelic undercurrent to their sound on this album.  The production is a bit on the dense side, but that strangely adds to the enjoyment of the album. It may seem counterintuitive, but at times reformed bands can be just as good as they once were. And the women of the Vivian Girls prove that even after five years that they can bounce back no worse for the wear. - Ted

Giant Sand - “Recounting the Ballads of the Thin Line Man”  Not many bands want to go back to the future. This album is a reimagining of their 1986 album “Ballad of The Thin Line Man.”  I should probably use the term redo, for Giant Sand completely rerecords all the songs on the original album. Also, a few songs were dropped and a few were added.  It is implied that Howe Gelb, the only original member of the band left today, wanted to polish material that he thought he had somehow failed to polish thirty-three years ago,  The end results are certainly different. The redo is more sonically cohesive and even more electric guitar-orientated than the original. In fact, this album is a primer on electric guitar playing.  But most importantly, the unique beauty of the songs are still there, even in gussied up form. In fact, one could say that the new recordings make some of the songs much better than the originals. - Ted

Ron, Ryan, Angie, Marty, Evan, Matt, Ben, Will, Ed, Isaac, Larry, Andy, Mark, Jack, Eric & Mike