Record Store Day is this Saturday folks, (April 17th 2010 for you exact date lovers) We’re seeing our shipments starting to arrive with all our various exclusive releases. Because there’s such a limited quantity of these releases not every indie store in the country is getting all the items, but we can tell you that we’re trying to get as many as we can. Here’s just a teaser of a few we know we’ll have in stock (albeit, in limited quantities) on Saturday. Better set that alarm and get down here cause i’m sure they’re gonna go fast.
Grace Potter Live EP
Grace and some of the Nocturnals will be down here later in the evening around 7pm till close they’ll be signing copies of their new exclusive live EP and spinning some of their favorite tunes!
Gogol Bordello – 7 Inch
Ex Pure Popper/Burlington Scene alumni cum mega-indie Balkan punk rocker Eugene Hutz is dropping an exclusive 7″ for all you Gogol fans out there, and judging by album sales, we know there are a bunch of you.
Flaming Lips, Henry Rollins & Peaches doing Darkside of the moon.
On Vinyl… Yeah this total oddity (Henry Rollins & Peaches?) will definitely be available in limited quantities for all you lovers of The Lips, or maybe Floyd fans, or maybe Rollin’s fans… Peaches, etc….
And just a few more lovely pieces of vinyl coming out of the shipping boxes as i type this…
Modest Mouse – Moon & Antartica, Pantera Catalog & The Magnetic Field 69 love songs box sets!
Sharon Jones & The Dap-Kings – I learned The Hard Way
The Dap-Kings succeed through attention to detail. While a lot of music makes aesthetic or stylistic nods to 60s, almost none of it actually captures the sonic character of the era. But on each of their albums, Jones and her collaborators, led by Gabriel Roth, have done just that. And it doesn’t just come down to the production and placement of the microphones. Jones deserves the most credit, simply for having an amazing voice that she understands how to wield effectively. Her impeccable sense of delivery balances power with nuance, varying her forcefulness for maximum impact. The songs give her plenty of room to move, too– if these tracks weren’t every bit as good as the ones that inspired them, all of the performance and production acumen in the world couldn’t save them. As rote as it sounds, “Better Things” and “The Game Gets Old”, among others on I Learned the Hard Way, would likely be classics today if they’d been released alongside the music that influenced them. In fact, they may yet become classics to a smaller, more niche audience today. Read the Full Review
Dr. Dog – Shame, Shame
Philadelphia’s Dr. Dog has caught praise and derision for seeming to exist in three modes, alternately replicating The Band, The Beach Boys, and The Beatles. But the first artist listeners might think of upon hearing “Where’d All The Time Go,” off the quintet’s sixth album, is The Flaming Lips. The song features the same reedy croon as Wayne Coyne, the same wispy, watercolor keyboards that blanketed The Soft Bulletin, and the same sort of smiley, existential musings on death as “Feeling Yourself Disintegrate.” That last point is key: Shame, Shame draws from the well of rocker inspiration that is early-midlife bewilderment at mortality. It’s an album of confusion and carpe diem, which might explain why its two best traits are its psychedelic bent and liveliness. Read the Full Review
David Byrne & Fatboy Slim – Here Lies Love
Here Lies Love sounds like such an interesting concept that it’s easy to be disappointed with it on first listen. For the most part, the double album is a light, airy thing, with light, airy singers plopped onto light, airy music with disco sensibilities and modern club beats. There are lots of strings, as if to underscore the drama, but also enough buzzy noises and 120-130 BPM tempos to make one remember when Fatboy Slim was not only relevant, but wildly popular as well. It’s an album that could easily be put on in the background, whether as the backdrop for a classy party or simply for cooking dinner. It is so passively ear-pleasing that you actually have to make an effort to notice it.
Make the effort, though, and you will be rewarded. Byrne has done us the favor of providing detailed liner notes (or a 100-page book if you’re feeling extravagant), most of which are reprinted here, so very little decoding has to be done of the lyrics. What this allows us to do is concentrate on the delivery of those lyrics, and Byrne has coaxed expert performances out of nearly all of his collaborators. Read the Full Review
We’re a little over a week away from Record Store Day 2010. The last two were a lot of fun, so we’re pretty excited. There are a ton of titles this year on all formats, including exclusives, reissues, live material and all sorts of other neat stuff. In addition to all the Record Store Day releases, we’re going to be running some cool sales and putting out a ton of cheap used cd’s and lp’s.
This year we have an extra-special treat. We will proudly be hosting Grace Potter and some of her band-mates from The Nocturnals. They are going to come in to sign albums and meet fans. As if that wasn’t enough, Grace will also be DJing at the store for the final hours of the event. One can imagine a high-calibar songstress like herself having great taste! They should be arriving around 7pm.
Feel free to call the store with any questions you may have. Please take note of a few details before you do:
-Store Hours on Record Store Day will be 10am-9pm
-All of our orders for Record Store Day titles are in. We tried to get just about everything. Given the limited nature of these releases, we’re not sure exactly how much we’ll be getting of anything.
-We will not be reserving any of the event’s exclusive titles for customers. No exceptions. All items are first come first serve. If you really want that Magnetic Fields “69 Love Songs” Vinyl box set, come at ten o’clock.
-More information can be found at the event’s official website.
-Here is a fairly comprehensive list of Record Store Day releases: Read the rest of this entry »
This was a strange music year for me. After spending the past few years immersing myself almost entirely in ambient, drone, and various strains of dance music, I inadvertently returned to my “indie roots” (sorry, pretentious) and listened to a lot more of the straightforward albums that Pitchfork was slinging. I found stuff like the new Flaming Lips, A Sunny Day in Glasgow, Memory Tapes, and, of course, Animal Collective to be refreshing, and it kind of restored my faith in indie music. I gotta throw it out there that I didn’t check out nearly as much new music this year as I have in the past few, so I feel like my list could be stronger. The truth is, I spent a good chunk of the year listening exclusively to Unwound’s Leaves Turn Inside You. Oh, and there were a couple of months when all I listened to was Hold Steady’s Separation Sunday. And nowadays, I’m basically only playing Rage. I was told this is because I’m angsty. So anyway, here’s my top ten albums of 2009:
10. Deuce – EP + Planetary Assault Systems rmx
The techno fans out there are probably well aware of the splashes that both Shed and Marcel Dettmann made last year, with Shedding the Past and Berghain 02 respectively, but for those who aren’t in the know, these two are pretty much putting out the best techno there is right now. While this collaboration yielded very little output this year (a three-track EP and a Planetary Assault Systems remix), they made up for scant quantity with four mind-bending grooves of the highest order. These collective 23 minutes are the most punishing, relentless dance music I heard all year, with the obvious reference point being Jeff Mills’ fabled 1995 DJ set at the Liquid Room in Tokyo and methamphetamines.
9. Ben Frost – By The Throat
Imagine a dude who makes vicious, distorted swells (and the odd wolf growl) with his instruments. Then think about how awesome they might sound paired with Sigur Ros’ string section, Aniima. And then if he added Nico Muhly, a dude from Arcade Fire, and some Swedish metal band. Might as well reference Twin Peaks while he’s at it, huh? Now look at that cover. You want some of this.
8. Brock Van Wey – White Clouds Drift On and On
Perfectly titled, this is a dubbed out, gorgeous collection of overlapping drones, which, much like the clouds overhead, are continually morphing, expanding, and contracting despite seeming stagnant. It’s important to throw it out there that this is on Echospace, which means you’re definitely not dealing with your run-of-the-mill drones here. Even better is that Steve Hitchell (Intrusion) was so enamored with the music, he busted out a track-for-track remix album to be included with the release. If Echospace is one of your go-to labels, make this the next album you check out.
7. Bear in Heaven – Beast Rest Forth Mouth
This one really took me be surprise. Despite my stubborn insistence that indie rock needs to be stuffed with experimental flourishes for me to enjoy it, it turns out that, no, solid songwriting, tons of hooks, spot-on production, and a kick ass drummer is all it really takes to make me happy. Plus, the whole thing smacks of the 80s (in terms of melodies, not production), and the singer kind of sounds like Peter Cetera to me. So there’s that.
6. Neon Indian – Psychic Chasms
OK, first off…There’s a track on here called “Should’ve Taken Acid With You,” so you get a pretty good idea of what you’re in for. This right here is some straight up ear candy. Like Daft Punk or Tispy before him, Neon Indian takes ridiculously cheesy sound sources and melds them into heady, ass-kicking tracks. There’s not a second that goes by without a sound bouncing all over your headspace, and he coats everything in delay, reverb, phasing, flanging, and anything else that’ll make it sound like a jet passing overhead. Oh, and it’s surprisingly effective for getting toddler-aged girls to shake their booties on a Saturday morning.
Flaming Lips – Embryonic
Embryonic leans heavily on the Lips’ formative 60s/70s psych-rock influence (like In a Priest Driven Ambulance‘s “Take Meta Mars” before it, Embryonic‘s formidable opener “Convinced of the Hex” grooves heavily on Can’s “Mushroom”), but never before has the band recorded an album so unwaveringly sinister, or so devoid of pop-song levity. (Hell, even Zaireeka had “The Big Ol’ Bug Is the New Baby Now”.) Wayne Coyne no longer assumes the role of the endearingly creaky, puppet-toting crooner. Instead, he’s a world-weary fatalist describing scenes of environmental holocaust in a chillingly unaffected monotone on the rampaging “See the Leaves”. Or he’s a cult leader deviously summoning his minions on “Sagittarius Silver Announcement”, before leading them to a fiery demise on the monstrous, stoner-metal onslaught of “Worm Mountain” (featuring fuzzbox-stomping assistance from MGMT). (Read Full Review)
Baroness – Blue Record
Baroness’ rock is both intricate and blunt, and like most music that’s intricate and blunt, is easiest to classify as metal. Sure enough, they’re neck deep in the scene, recording for a premier label and doing artwork for Guitar World. Staring at frontman John Baizley’s Art Nouveau jacket art, you can glimpse what sets them apart, though. Like their album titles (this one follows up Red Album), there is a conspicuous absence of heavy metal’s favorite color and mood. Baroness don’t have much about them that’s black.
Leaving out darkness would seem to be as fatal as ditching overdrive or the kick drum, and it’s not completely absent. They do slash through minor scales and kachugga-chugga plods, tones that would metalicize middle-of-the-road rock. But for metal, Blue Record is uplifting. When the twin lead guitars lock in with each other and spiral up though notes together, it’s bright, bright stuff – southern rock, essentially, and it makes up meaty sections of the songs here. But just as often, it’s simple; icy notes hang in the air while Baizley howls listlessly and rhythms grind like machines. (Read Full Review)
Del & Tame One – Parallel Uni-verses
The album starts off with soulful production by Parallel Thought, who makes the most of this full length effort. Weaving between samples while bringing a true underground sound that compliments the emcees, Thought shines. By setting the tone from get go, Del and Tame, at times struggle to reach the bar. When they do, they clear it without effort. Both revert to spitting those conscious verses, with sporadic humor throughout that grabbed our attention 15 years ago. At times, they struggle to diversify their content, which can make it hard for the listener to differentiate between tracks due to the lack of variety. In same breath, that same struggle provides the album with a stability that is often unheard in today’s soundscape. (Read The Full Review)
Bob Dylan – Christmas in the Heart
This enjoyable sense of exploration, which prizes levity in a genre that usually amounts to an artistic wasteland, is invaluable. It also proves how much life is left in the songs, and how much other artists have succeeded at butchering them (Rod Stewart comes to mind). It’s not hard to imagine a few of these versions sneaking in with the Burl Ives and Bing Crosby classics that define the season. And there’s the added bonus of Dylan’s voice, which he wittily exaggerates to a creepy level, almost emulating a scratchy Tom Waits growl. Profoundly weird but still cozy, Christmas in the Heart paints an appealing holiday picture: chestnuts roasting on an open fire, Jack Frost scratching at your ears. people under the stairs (Read The Full Review)
