Rock & Pop
Nathaniel Rateliff & The Night Sweats
South Of Here [Indie Exclusive Iridescent Green LP]
Vinyl: $29.99 Buy
South of Here, the fourth full-length studio release from Nathaniel Rateliff & The Night Sweats, reckons with a
lifetime of pain and trauma and transforms it into a stirring and soul-baring rumination on love, loss, hope and
resolve. Following Rateliff’s 2020 solo album, And It’s Still Alright, and The Night Sweats’ acclaimed 2021 release,
The Future, the new album blends both sides of his immense talent: emotionally potent, vivid storytelling and the
rugged, R&B revivalism that has powered the band to world-wide acclaim over the past decade. Iridescent Green
180g LP with die-cut O-card. Limited Edition. Indie Exclusive.
Imagine Dragons’ sixth studio album LOOM represents the pinnacle of their artistic journey of self-discovery and marks the best body of work they've ever made. LOOM, produced entirely by Imagine Dragons and their longtime collaborators Mattman and Robin, finds the perfect balance between the classic sounds that have made them superstars and the freshness that brought them joy in the studio. Featuring 9 brand new tracks including hit single “Eyes Closed”, LOOM signifies new beginnings on the horizon – the excitement for a new day, moments yet to come.
Releasing COPE, Manchester Orchestra stated it was an "unapologetically heavy rock record". Ten years later, the legacy holds up as the band's loudest, fastest, & most pounding album of their career. To celebrate the 10th Anniversary of this seminal album COPE, Manchester Orchestra took the stage for one night only at East Atlanta’s tiny but beloved rock venue The Earl to perform a blistering set, performing the record from start to finish. Immortalized on this special 10th anniversary tribute.
5 years on from 2nd record Young Enough, Charly Bliss are back with new album Forever, produced by Jake Luppen & Caleb Wright (Hippo Campus), they say it "celebrates the big love between the four of us & the life we’ve fought for & built together. The lyrics are head over heels, overflowing with romantic love, friend love, crushes & the hurricanes of feeling that accompany all the massive shifts of growing up. We fell back in love with making music through this record, & you can hear it."
For seasoned Australian alternative stalwarts Atlas Genius, their third album – and first in nine
years – End of the Tunnel on the Orchard comes after a trying time that included leaving Warner
Records and then their adopted base of Los Angeles for home just before the pandemic shut
down the world. Whether that’s a light or an oncoming train in their path, the band’s lead
vocalist/guitarist/writer and founding member Keith Jeffery is looking ahead, not over his
shoulder, on 11 songs which reflect that turmoil and growth, both personal and universal, over
the past several years.
“We’re happy enough just to get this album out, above everything else,” admits Keith, with the
band in “musical purgatory” due to another aborted label deal. “We have no expectations this
time.”
The previously released “Elegant Strangers” is a melodic ode to the drug-fueled L.A. faux
schmooze culture, “dressed for the morning sun/Mirrors and razors,” already charting at
SiriusXM’s Alt Nation. The opening disco-inflected track, “Falling So Hard,” offers a longing
song for a lover “oceans apart.” It’s a theme explored as well on “Nobody Loves Like You,” with
Keith’s falsetto and funky guitar solo underlining a tale of missing someone “half the world
away,” a dance-rock track that combines the club floor and the furthest reaches of the arena. The
epic orchestral intro to the geo-political tract “Don’t Let Love be a Stranger,” “Can’t Be Alone
Tonight” and “On a Wave,” inspired by Keith’s passion for surfing, sport an anthemic melodic
drive with whisper-to-a-scream dynamics.
“It’s not really about the water, though I used to love to surf,” says Keith about “On a Wave,”
“It’s like riding that emotional roller coaster, trying to maintain your balance despite all of life’s
ups and downs.”
“Romans” examines a dysfunctional relationship Jeffery experienced while in L.A. “We were
seemingly under control, like Romans, but we were really just bullshitting and using one
another,” explains Keith, a Pisces and admitted “hopeless” romantic. “Animals” and “Do Me
This Way” offer thumping, funky odes to unbridled, passionate lust.
“’Animals’ is just about the chemistry between people,” observed Keith. “The coy games that
couples play, the dance of courtship which results in marriage and kids or is simply a one-night
stand. ‘Do Me This Way’ is about indulging in all the wrong shit in L.A., when you should be
focusing on what you need to be doing.”
“All for nothing, all for show/If all else fails, at least we rode,” “On a Wave”
Atlas Genius started out in Victor Harbor, a tiny town an hour south of Adelaide on the coast of
southern Australia in 2011 with Keith and his brothers Michael on drums and Steve on bass and
keys along with keyboardist Darren Sell, working out of a home studio they built with funds
from playing at local bars. Signed worldwide to Warner Records, Atlas Genius released a three-
song EP and two full-length albums. The debut, When It Was Now, dropped in 2013, producing
the SiriusXM Alt Nation hit, “Trojans,” the album peaking at #3 on the Billboard Alternative
chart (where it remained for over 52 straight weeks), and #34 on the Billboard 200, with a
second single, “If So,” hitting #8 on the Billboard Alternative Songs chart. Inanimate Objects
came out two years later, with the first single, “Molecules,” going Top 10 on Billboard’s
Alternative Airplay chart, where it spent 22 weeks before the band was unceremoniously
dropped.
“We have to remind people that we’re still here,” acknowledges Keith. “I feel very positive about
things now. You have to go through a really shit period to appreciate what you’ve got. We’re
ready to put the past behind us, to emerge from the ‘End of the Tunnel’ into the sunlight. We’re
excited to start playing these new songs for people. It’s about time.
“This is by far our strongest album from front to back, mainly because we had the time to get it
right. These 11 songs are the best from the more than hundred I’ve written over that time. I’m
just very happy with how it turned out.”
Papercuts is the first singles collection from innovative musical force Linkin Park. The career-spanning 20-track album compiles 18 essential anthems, plus the never-before-released track “Friendly Fire” recorded during the 2017 sessions for their seventh album One More Light and fan-favorite rarity “QWERTY”.
Linkin Park were inspired to thoughtfully curate Papercuts by their fans’ passionate reception of the 20th Anniversary Editions of Hybrid Theory in 2020 and Meteora last year. That enthusiasm led to this comprehensive retrospective of the band’s journey so far in the span of one album.
MUNA’s sophomore album, Saves The World has been reissued on vinyl due to popular demand. The album delivers the alt-pop anthems fans know and love including hits like “Number One Fan” and “Stayaway". Rolling Stone called it a “mastery of pop songcraft” and Pitchfork named it “pristine pop.”
You get older, you have a family, and you start to slow down—that’s how things are supposed to go, right? Not for Montreal band Corridor, who have returned on their fourth album, Mimi, with a sound and style that’s more widescreen and expansive than anything that’s preceded it. The follow-up to 2019’s Junior is a huge step forward for the band, as the members themselves have undergone the type of personal changes that accompany the passage of time; even as these eight songs reflect a newfound and contemplative maturity, however, Corridor are branching out more than ever with richly detailed music, resulting in a record that feels like a fresh break for a band that’s already established themselves as forward-thinkers.
Mimi immediately recalls the best of the best when it comes to indie rock—Deerhunter’s silvery atmospherics immediately come to mind, as well as the spiky e ervescence of classic post-punk—but despite these easy comparisons, Corridor remain impossible to pin down from song to song, which makes Mimi all the more thrilling as a listen.
“The goal was to work differently, which is the goal we have every time we work on a new album—to build something in a new way,” Robert explains. “This time, we took our time.” And so in the summer of 2020, Corridor’s members—Robert, vocalist/bassist Dominic Berthiaume, drummer Julien Bakvis, and multi-instrumentalist Samuel Gougoux—holed away in a cottage to engage in the sort of creative experimentation that would lead to Mimi’s ultimate creation.
Corridor tinkered with the songs’ raw parts digitally and remotely over the next few years, with co-producer Joojoo Ashworth (Dummy, Automatic) lending their own specific talents in the theoretical booth. The process was a byproduct of not having access to their rehearsal space due to the COVID-19 pandemic, but also a result of the four-piece leaning harder into incorporating electronic textures than on previous records.
“For a long time, we identified as a guitar-oriented band, and the goal of making this whole record was trying to get away from that,” Berthiaume states. Berthiaume also describes Mimi as a record about “getting older” and “figuring out new parts of life”—but despite any claims of transitional growing pains from the band, Mimi is a record bursting with new energy and life, a vibrance that’s owed in no small part to Gougoux joining the band full-time after pitching in on live performances in the past.
“I come more from a background of electronic music, so it was nice to involve that with the band more,” he explains, and Mimi contains a distinct rhythmic pulse reminiscent of classic era-post-punk’s own melding of dance and rock textures. Over bright, chiming guitars and ascending synths, Robert addresses his looming mortality on “Mourir Demain”: “I wrote it when my girlfriend and I were shopping for life insurance,” he laughs. With our little daughter growing up, we also considered making our will. I said to myself, ‘Oh shit, from now on I’m slowly starting to plan my death.”
Don’t mistake this as music about dead ends, though, as Mimi embraces and champions unfettered creativity while paving a way for Corridor’s own bright future. “We just focused on making a record that sounded the way we wanted,” Gougoux exclaims while discussing the band’s aims. “There were no limitations when it came to what was possible.”
Ramona is a work of raw truth rendered in its most beautiful form. Melbourne-based Grace Cummings traveled to Los Angeles to work with producer Jonathan Wilson (Angel Olsen, Father John Misty) and dreamed up a lavishly orchestrated sound that fully accommodates the depth and scope of her vocal prowess. With its visceral reflection on grief, self-destruction and emotional violence, Ramona brings a stunning new grandeur to Cummings’ music while refusing to soften or temper its humanity!
Vinyl: $27.99 Buy
The Moon Is In The Wrong Place is an upbeat, yet poignant narrative on grief and resilience from Shannon & The Clams. Woven from the threads of devastating loss and communal ties in the aftermath of profound loss – the sudden passing of Shannon's fianceé just months before their wedding – this record unfolds as the Clams' most introspective to date. With Dan Auerbach's production, the album delves deep into themes of heartache and healing, and showcases the band's trademark wry psychedelia, energetic nostalgia, and flourishes of retro beauty. It's a tribute to the power of art and community to triumph over tragedy, and a milestone in Shannon & The Clams' venerable oeuvre.
Khruangbin’s fourth studio album, A La Sala (“To the Room” inSpanish), is an exercise in returning in order to go further, anddoing so on your own terms. It continues the mystery and sanctitythat is the key to how bassist Laura Lee Ochoa, drummer Donald“DJ” Johnson, Jr. and guitarist Mark “Marko” Speer approach music.If 2020’s Mordechai, the last studio LP Khruangbin made withoutcollaborators, was a party record that enhanced the band’s musicalreputation far and wide, then A La Sala is the measured morningafter. It’s a gorgeously airy record completed only in the companyof the group’s longtime engineer Steve Christensen, with minimaloverdubs. It’s a window onto the bounties powering Khruangbin’svision, a reimagining and refueling for the long haul ahead. A LaSala scales Khruangbin down to scale up, a creative strategy withthe future in mind.
The trio’s collective musical DNA, the years spent constructing itin Houston’s local-meets-global cultural stew, ensures the bandcontinues to sound like no one but itself. A cascade of crispmelodies emanates from Marko’s reverb-heavy electric, dancinggently around Laura Lee’s minimalist almost-dub bass triangles,while DJ’s drums serve as the tightened-up pocket and unwaveringdance-floor on which all this movement takes place. Yet there’s afreshness to A La Sala’s instrumental interactivity, less concernedwith getting further out than going deeper in, a profound desire tocelebrate the world’s external wonders. Where prior albums strivedtowards music’s polyglot edges, such inquiries now sound likebeloved intimacies. Here, Khruangbin’s sonic touch-points —whether spaghetti-western film scores (on “Fifteen Fifty-Three”),West African discos (on “Pon Pón”), G-funk fantasias (“TodavíaViva”), living room dancing moments (the first single, “A LoveInternational”), or even ambient found-sounds (on “Farolim deFelgueiras and throughout the album”) — are ingrainedcharacteristics. This is who they are! Unique and huge (andgrowing), ambitious and driven.
Khruangbin’s aspirations and commitment to playful creativityeven extends to A La Sala’s vinyl packages, of which there will beseven distinctive covers and color-sets. Designed by the bandusing Marko’s multitude of travelog photos, the images arewindows from the band’s living room onto a set of daydreams,scenes of impossible skies, external glances that illuminate what isgoing on inside. Each cover image comes with a matching colorvinyl. These too are all about looking out and looking back, in orderto better look ahead.
Legendary musician and multi-disciplinary artist Kim Gordon returns with her second solo album, The Collective, which will be released March 8th on Matador. Recorded in her native Los Angeles, The Collective follows Gordon’s 2019 full-length debut No Home Record and continues her collaboration with producer Justin Raisen (Lil Yachty, John Cale, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Charli XCX, Yves Tumor), with additional production from Anthony Paul Lopez. The album advances their joint world building, with Raisin’s damaged, blown out dub and trap constructions playing the foil to Gordon’s intuitive word collages and hooky mantras, which conjure communication, commercial sublimation and sensory overload.
"On this record, I wanted to express the absolute craziness I feel around me right now," says Gordon. "This is a moment when nobody really knows what truth is, when facts don’t necessarily sway people, when everyone has their own side, creating a general sense of paranoia. To soothe, to dream, escape with drugs, TV shows, shopping, the internet, everything is easy, smooth, convenient, branded. It made me want to disrupt, to follow something unknown, maybe even to fail."
Visions [Indie Exclusive Limited Edition Orange Blend LP Alternate Cover LP]
Vinyl: $29.99 Buy
“For each of these songs, I just sent over a lead vocal and a piano and Hammock reinvented these songs in way that only they could do,” explains YELLOWCARD vocalist/guitarist Ryan Key about A Hopeful Sign, the new collaboration with the Nashville-based post-rock duo. Set for release on February 9, 2024 via Equal Vision, the new album revisits some of the alt-rock band’s most memorable tracks and reimagines them in a neo-classical and ambient space, deconstructing the songs and rebuilding them as a whole new aural experience. The first single from the album, “Ocean Avenue,” takes the band’s signature hit and metamorphosing the song from a pop-punk anthem to a contemplative and delicate piano-led ballad. “Yellowcard is in a new place where we are collaborating with other artists more than ever before,” says Key about this new musical partnership. “I have found Hammock in my top three most played artists every year for nearly a decade now. Hammock are one of the defining and most pioneering artists in the post rock and ambient space. We have taken so much inspiration from their work over the years so first becoming friends, and then unexpectedly getting to work together on new music were dreams come true.”
Reflecting on the tracklist on A Hopeful Sign, he adds, “I still can’t quite believe it’s real, that we were able to create an entire album with a band that has had such a massive influence on us. Whether it is one of our well-known songs or a deeper cut, these versions bring with them completely new interpretations and meanings for listeners who have lived with them for so many years. During the six years that Yellowcard was apart, I was constantly searching for ways to continue my career as a musician and producer. I had the idea to basically do Yellowcard covers featuring friends and artists I’ve had the pleasure of knowing throughout my career. The first artist to reply and complete a collaboration was Hammock with their reworked version of ‘Empty Street’.”
The nine-track album pulls tracks from 2003’s Ocean Avenue (title track, “Only One”), 2006’s Lights And Sounds (“Waiting Game”), 2007’s Paper Walls (“You And Me And One Spotlight”), 2012’s Southern Air (title track, “Telescope”), 2014’s Lift A Sail (“Transmission Home”) and 2016’s Yellowcard (“Empty Street”, “A Place We Set Fire”). “It is such an honor to have worked on ‘A Hopeful Sign’ with such talented humans, and this record will be something we cherish forever,” says Ryan.
Based on the 2018 Broadway musical adaptation of the 2004 film, the MEAN GIRLS soundtrack features songs from a number of the movie’s stars including Reneé Rapp as Regina George, Angourie Rice as Cady Heron, Auli’i Cravalho as Janis ‘Imi’ike, Avantika as Karen Shetty, and more. Also featuring the single “Not My Fault” by Reneé Rapp with rap superstar Megan Thee Stallion.
Ohio Players is The Black Keys’ fourth album in five years, a momentum with a simple explanation, Auerbach says: “We never stopped recording.” There was his and Carney’s reunion, after a five-year hiatus, on 2019’s "Let’s Rock”, then the 2021 blast of Mississippi-hill-country covers, Delta Kream. A rapid-fire follow-up of new originals, 2022’s Dropout Boogie, featured the duo working with outside writers for the first time: Greg Cartwright of Memphis rockers Reigning Sound and Angelo Petraglia, who has worked with Kings of Leon and the teenage Taylor Swift. (Cartwright and Petraglia are back for Ohio Players too.)
“We'd never worked harder to make a record,” Dan Auerbach says. “It's never taken us this long to make an album. We took our time and did it right.”
“What we wanted to accomplish with this record was make something that was fun,” Patrick Carney says. “And something that most bands 20 years into their career don’t make, which is an approachable, fun record that is also cool.”
While making Ohio Players, a title inspired by the legendary Dayton, OH funk band of the same name, The Black Keys were also DJing dance parties in cities around the world that they called “record hangs,” spinning 45s from their own eclectic and growing collections. Mojo reports, “The spirit of those parties infused the album’s DNA. ‘That’s been the fun of it,’ [says] Auerbach. ‘Letting go a little bit.’”
On her most ambitious album yet, No One Gets Out Alive, singer-songwriter Maggie Rose proves she’s a true original. Though the electrifying record is her fourth release, in many ways it feels like her first. No One Gets Out Alive is a knockout career game-changer. Filled with deeply intimate, relatable songs that showcase her masterful storytelling, the album showcases her soulful, powerful voice and pulls you in immediately. Unencumbered by genre, No One Gets Out Alive reflects Maggie’s varied influences including rock, soul, Americana, pop and folk, all colliding for a deeply satisfying listen. Maggie Rose inhabits her music and distills it into something all her own. With unflinching honesty, she does everything authentically and completely.
The Black Crowes are leaving the bullshit in the past. Fifteen years after their last album of original music, the Robinson Brothers present Happiness Bastards - their 10th studio album. Some may say the project has been several tumultuous years in the making, but we argue it's arriving at just the right time. Call it brotherly love or music destiny that brought them back together, the highly anticipated record consecrating the reunion of this legendary band just may be the thing that saves rock & roll. In a time where the art form is buried beneath the corporate sheen of its successors, The Black Crowes are biting back with the angst of words left unsaid penned on paper and electrified by guitar strings, revealing stripped, bare-boned rock & roll. No gloss, no glitter, just rhythm and blues at it's very best - gritty, loud, and in your face.
Since The Black Crowes reunited in 2019, they've made a triumphant return to form with over 150 shows spanning 20 countries worldwide, celebrating the 30th anniversary of Shake Your Money Maker, the album that put them on the map. Upon their return from the road, they knew they needed something new to show for their lost time. The Robinson Brothers and longtime bassist Sven Pipien headed to the studio with producer Jay Joyce in early 2023 and the experiences of years past transcribed themself through the music as the band found their way back to their roots. And it's finally here - Happiness Bastards is out March 15, 2024.
Faye Webster’s songs are direct lines to the human subconscious, and Underdressed at the Symphony documents what happens once you begin to build a new self from the ashes of your old routines. This rebirth isn’t flashy or definitive, but is instead a series of seemingly mundane moments that, scattered across weeks and months, sneak their way toward something like healing. Yes, there’s a breakup in play, but Webster is not documenting the heartbreak of a breakup so much as she’s navigating the contours of heartbreak itself.
Recorded at Sonic Ranch Studios in Texas with her longtime band, Webster is accompanied on Underdressed at the Symphony by Matt Stoessel’s arcs of shimmering pedal steel, the plaintive, unhurried drums of Charles Garner, and, occasionally, additional guitarwork from Wilco’s Nels Cline, among many other crucial players. The title of the album refers to Webster’s post-breakup compulsion to visit the symphony on a whim, usually buying a ticket at the last possible second. “Going to the symphony was almost like therapy for me. I was quite literally underdressed at the symphony because I would just decide at that moment that that's what I wanted to do,” she says. “That's what I felt like I needed to hear. I got to leave what I felt like was kind of a shitty time in my life and be in this different world for a minute.”
That strain of lightheartedness with a melancholic backbone permeates the album, and is the major driving force behind “Lego Ring,” which features Atlanta multi-hyphenate Lil Yachty, the only guest voice on the entire album. Yachty’s ghostly warble floats just under Webster’s voice, jabbing through empty space, trembling over a low rumble of bass. The song is also a sort of release—a buoyant moment that cuts through the sadness. “I think I hit a point in songwriting during this record where I was just like, man, I said a lot.” Webster says. “I'm just going to sit down and sing about this ring that I really want. ”Like the rest of the album, Webster isn’t providing answers, nor is she on some epic journey of healing and self-care. Instead, she’s choosing to just live, to document heartbreak and ridiculous moments right next to each other, until they start to blur together, becoming real enough for us all to feel.
David Nance & Mowed Sound, the first album by Nance to be released on Third Man Records, cuts deep. Memories sprout back, like the sounds of a great rock song blasting from the neighbor’s truck as it revs away into the night. There is a definite connection to the past, but the swinging guitar boogie and snarled blues you might expect from Nance and company sounds leaner and completely hypnotic. What remains are 10 tracks from a well-oiled group so rhythmically together that the songs on the album seem as connected as links in a chain.
The Vault: Old Friends 4 Sale is a collection of previously unreleased songs from Prince’s legendary vault that was released by Warner Bros. Records in 1999, shortly before the release of his studio album Rave Un2 the Joy Fantastic with the brief liner note: "The enclosed material was written during the period beginning 1/23/1985 and ending 6/18/1994 and was originally intended 4 private use only."
You may think you know the story of Jennifer Lopez, one of the most written about women in the world, but This Is Me…Now shares the real story, a piece of her soul, and she is doing it in her own inimitable style. Jennifer Lopez’s long awaited musical experience THIS IS ME…NOW begins with the release on February 16th, 2024 of This Is Me…Now: The Album and This Is Me…Now: The Film inspired by the music. The album, written and produced by Jennifer Lopez and Rogét Chayed, along with Angel Lopez, Jeff "Gitty" Gitelman, HitBoy, Tay Keith and INK among others, effortlessly blends R&B, contemporary pop sounds and hip-hop beats. Her signature vocals, combined with intricately crafted lyrics delve into the highs and lows of life, love, and relationships with unflinching honesty and introspection, making this Jennifer Lopez’s most honest and personal album yet.
"Recent years brought about for Julia Holter an existential focus on human connection, amid the staggering change that came with the death of loved ones (including her young nephew, to whom the album is dedicated) and the birth of her daughter. On Something in the Room She Moves, Holter vividly processes the complexity, gravity, and awe of this confluence of experience. She calls the music “sensual,” “flowing,” and “nocturnal”--a testament to how love, with all of its challenges, “reroutes neural pathways.” The cover art by Holter’s childhood friend, artist Christina Quarles, highlights the multiplicity of intimate connection: are the figures embracing or in battle?
The title Something in the Room She Moves came to Holter spontaneously as she was naming the Logic project file for an early demo. Coincidentally, a few months later, she found herself mesmerized by the eight-hour cinéma-vérité Beatles documentary Get Back in 2021. Her titular phrase flips the gaze of the Beatles lyrics (“Something in the way she moves…”); the woman is no longer passively observed, but actively augmenting space. Holter has loved the Beatles since childhood, but sees the title less as a tribute than as a semi-surreal bit of automatic writing from her subconscious.
After a string of dream pop albums that established her searching voice in independent music—from 2012 breakthrough Ekstasis to Loud City Song and Have You in My Wilderness—Holter released the thrillingly experimental Aviary in 2018. Since then, she has scored films like Never Rarely Sometimes Always, performed a commissioned live score for The Passion of Joan of Arc with the Chorus of Opera North, and collaborated with her partner, Tashi Wada, who plays on her new album. Something in the Room She Moves is a remarkable progression in Holter’s oeuvre, synthesizing her free, improvisatory energy with her signature eloquence."
Tarantula Heart [Ipecac 25th Anniversary Indie Exclusive Limited Edition Silver Streak LP]
Vinyl: $28.99 Buy
The Melvins new album is like nothing the band has ever done before. Probably the best record they’ve ever recorded. Certainly one of their weirdest. The five song album centers around the mammoth 19-minute opening track “Pain Equals Funny” and features Buzz, Dale and Steven along with second drummer Roy Mayorga (Ministry, Soulfly, Stone Sour and Nausea) and guitarist Gary Chester (We Are The Asteroid). Vinyl comes in a Gatefold Jacket with 12pg booklet.
All My Friends [Opaque Yellow LP, Alternate Cover Image, Autographed Insert]
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Daniel Boeckner understands the grit and gravel that accumulates in the heart and that it takes an unwavering courage to crack through that clutter and burrow to the other side. And in Boeckner’s hands, that quest comes via post-apocalyptic synth and guitar heroism, a rallying cry for those always coming home through the scorched clouds. Throughout his work with Wolf Parade, Handsome Furs, Divine Fits, Operators, Atlas Strategic, and more, the iconic Canadian indie rocker recognizes that few feelings are more gratifying—more memorable, more generative, more abundant—than hope. But it takes getting the hell out of your own way. A culmination of that deep library of musical reference, Boeckner is set to release his first album under his own name: Boeckner!
No matter where his genre exploration has taken him, there’s something about growing up in punk and DIY spaces that puts collaboration in Boeckner’s blood. Composed of a collection of intimately familiar elements, Boeckner! elicits the same thrill of young passion and discovery. It’s a jet-powered chase through a tech-noir cityscape—fueled by a dream and that special someone in the passenger seat.
That urgency and passion have always been a trademark of Boeckner’s, and writing on his own pushes those feelings further into the center of the scope. But while Boeckner may be the clear driving force behind the album, he’s not without collaborators for his solo debut. After meeting producer Randall Dunn while contributing to the soundtrack to the Nicolas Cage-starring psychedelic horror film Mandy, Boeckner knew he’d found the perfect counterpart for his solo debut. “I’d been a fan of his forever, especially the Sunn0))) records he produced,” Boeckner says. “Working with Randall really unlocked some suppressed musical urges, things that I enjoy in my private life but don’t normally weave into what I’m releasing—like occult synth, pseudo-metal, krautrock, and heavy psych influences.”
That base allows Boeckner to thoughtfully weave between emotional imagism and more grounded storytelling. Throughout the record, his imagery delves into science fiction, but it’s charged first and foremost by experience. The trio of Boeckner, Dunn, and drummer Matt Chamberlain (Pearl Jam, David Bowie, Fiona Apple) formed a sort of dark engine for the album, and Chamberlain’s ingenious approach of triggering a vintage Arp synthesizer simultaneously with each drum track helped Boeckner shape the record’s atmosphere. That tense futurism was influenced by Boeckner’s time staying in Dunn’s Circular Ruin studio, a dusky, electronic aura burned into every track.
By the end of the album, Boeckner! eases from sci-fi epic into something more akin to a torched VHS copy of a John Cassevetes film, the chemtrails and nuclear fallout fading long in the distance. Like all good sci-fi, the emotion and pain hits home for the author and listener alike, and the genre flourishes bolster the human experience. In revealing more than ever before, Boeckner! ratchets up the musical intensity to unforeseen levels and hopes to find some peace at the end of the journey.
One of the hardest working singer-songwriters in the game is named Katie Crutchfield. She was born in Alabama, grew up near Waxahatchee Creek. Skipped town and struck out on her own as Waxahatchee. That was over a decade ago. Crutchfield says she never knew the road would lead her here, but after six critically acclaimed albums, she's never felt more confident in herself as an artist. While her sound has evolved from lo-fi folk to lush alt-tinged country, her voice has always remained the same. Honest and close, poetic with Southern lilting. Much like Carson McCullers's Mick Kelly, determined in her desires and convictions, ready to tell whoever will listen.
And after years of being sober and stable in Kansas City - after years of sacrificing herself to her work and the road - Crutchfield has arrived at her most potent songwriting yet. On her new album, Tigers Blood, Crutchfield emerges as a powerhouse - an ethnologist of the self - forever dedicated to revisiting her wins and losses. But now she's arriving at revelations and she ain't holding them back. Produced by Brad Cook, the album features MJ Lenderman, Phil Cook, and Spencer Tweedy.