Featured releases for February 2014 + new pre-order offer

So excited to finally talk about some up coming releases. Looks like the year is starting of with some really excellent music. If you don’t yet have a turntable spinning in your home this might be the year to jump back in as there are several titles already that will only be available on vinyl.

As mentioned yesterday, we are trying out a new pre-order option for our featured releases. At the bottom of this post you will find a form you can simply fill in and submit if you want a copy of the release held for you. If you pre-order, we will send you a $2.00 off coupon for that release. Trying to keep it simple so please let us know if you have any problems or if you have any comments or suggestions please let us know. We are human so don’t get too frustrated if it’s not super smooth yet, we will definitely work out any problems.

That all said, we’re not about to jump into cyberspace and become an online retailer, that’s not our mode. We are genuinely focused on creating the record store and book store experience with real people working here, that like you and know you. A place for you to browse, chat and spend some time, not just click and buy.
On to the upcoming releases!!!

-= Featured releases available February 4, 2014 =-

+/- – Jumping The Tracks
VINYL ONLY RELEASE on ORANGE VINYL. 5th album from NYC’s +/- (Plus/Minus) & their 1st in over 4 years. There are 8 new songs on the LP joined 4 more on the download card. There is lots of pent up demand from their fervent & loyal fan base for this great new album – a stunning collection of pop songs with the +/- trademark emblazoned on them – polyrhythmic percussion, glorious harmonies, & their innate knack for writing a killer hook.
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Various Artists – The 78 Project: Volume 1
Includes digital download. The 78 Project is a documentary journey across America that records today’s musicians as they perform the songs that inspired a century of music – exactly as those works were originally recorded: instantaneously onto 78 RPM lacquer discs. Inspired by folklorist Alan Lomax, The 78 Project celebrates the artistry and craft that captured America’s musical forms of a century ago, exploring the deep historical significance of American folk songs in the process. With just one microphone, one authentic 1930s Presto recorder, and one blank acetate disc, musicians are given a single, three-minute take to cut a 78 RPM record, finding in that adventure a new connection to our cultural legacy. Each track has a beautiful, cinematic documentary video episode on www.The78Project.com – “Wow! I feel like I knew what it’s like to be in Bristol in the 1920s, recording those first Carter Family records. That was time travel.” – Rosanne Cash // “It’s everything I was saying about emotional. It’s a whole other thing.” – Richard Thompson // “New York is buzzing with retro-chic products these days, but few can match the authenticity of a project that aims to bring alive the sound, touch and even smells of recorded music’s first golden period.” -BBC News


Have A Nice Life – The Unnatural World
For years, fans of Connecticut’s post-industrial doomgaze two-piece Have a Nice Life have restlessly awaited the band’s second gloom-fueled, autobiographical meditation. Now, San Francisco label The Flenser is proud to unleash The Unnatural World. With eight songs clocking in at 47 minutes, The Unnatural World is Have a Nice Life’s most monumental release yet – a colossal, perfectly orchestrated work that leaves listeners comatose on the ground beside their record players. This second full-length delivers doom and gloom at a new level, more focused and soul-tearing than ever. The weight of sound is matched only by the band’s piercingly uncomfortable and personal lyrics dredging up themes of modern legend, religious insecurity and crushing depression. Wave after overwhelming wave will slam listeners down into psychological depths of existentialism and woe. Like its predecessor, the band’s 2008 debut Deathconsciousness, The Unnatural World maintains intensity from quiet lows to staggering highs. No speaker will do it justice and none of you are worthy!
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Broken Bells – After the Disco
Sophomore album from the musical partnership comprised of Brian Burton (Danger Mouse) and James Mercer (The Shins). A short-film prologue to the album, “Part One: Angel and The Fool,” is on YouTube, and an interview with the duo and NPR’s Bob Boilen can be heard on “All Songs Considered.” The duo’s Grammy-nominated debut, Broken Bells, reached the Billboard Top 10 in its release week. S1 is “Holding On To Life.”
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Young The Giant – Mind Over Matter (2LP)
For their highly anticipated second album Mind Over Matter Young the Giant enlisted Grammy-nominated producer Justin Meldal-Johnsen – known for his work with such diverse artists as Beck, Nine Inch Nails, Paramore, and M83. Featuring the electrifying lead single “It’s About Time,” the collection of songs finds the young band challenging themselves both lyrically and musically. Mind Over Matter follows the band’s debut, Young the Giant which featured singles as ‘Apartment’ and the RIAA gold certified smashes, ‘My Body’ and ‘Cough Syrup.
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Tower Of Light – The Tower Of Light
Beaming its sleepwalking sound from a bedroom in Brooklyn, his self-titled debut album deals in the marriage of polarities. At once delicate and severe, ecstatic then pensive, both sparse and lush, it follows a road that was paved by the early days of 4AD and its strange, beautiful diversity, while making unexpected stylistic detours as it winds its way through the ether.
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-= Featured releases available February 11, 2014 =-

Keel Her – Keel Her (LP+CD)
Known for her prolific songwriting and soundcloud posting Rose Keeler-Schffelers debut album features eighteen powerfully but economically packed tracks, cherry picked from her vast repertoire. Keel Hers songs are intimate vignettes drawn from Roses own experiences delivered in a chatty, honest and delightfully conversational manner. Guitars and synths vie for melodic prominence over vast swathes of fuzz and feedback, where Roses indecipherable vocals swim amongst buzzing melodies, swampy reverb and broken beats. Although much of her sound and aesthetic harks back to 90s slacker culture, the variety of styles she has absorbed makes it harder to specifically pinpoint her sound. Veering sonically from Beat Happening to Ariel Pink, Wavves to Bikini Kill, Real Estate to Guided By Voices and all the way back again, it wasnt long before her bedroom pop reached the ears of home recording supremo R. Stevie Moore. The R Stevie Moore collaboration started when Rose wrote a song for him called Robert. He was won over and they recorded the double A-side single Boner Hit/With Me Tonight. Rose invited Moore to remix the album track I’d Be Your Slave, which also sees him playing bass. Having grown up in Winchester, Rose Keeler-Schffeler began writing and recording in her bedroom at an early age and for over a year posted tracks online at an alarming rate. Now residing in Brighton, she remains blissfully unconcerned with glossy production values, clichd lyrics and formulaic hooks and instead taps in to seemingly bottomless well of creativity on her own terms.
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Papir – Papir IIII
Papir from Copenhagen, Denmark have gradually developed their unique vision of instrumental psychedelic rock over the course of three albums. On IIII, their fourth, they have created their most condensed and realized work to date. The amazing thing about Papir is how they transform heavy, psychedelic music into something new and relevant, something truly unique. Sure, Papir knows their kraut- and progrock history, but unlike the majority of bands in the present day psych-rock scene they venture far beyond mere pastiche. It sounds inspired. Not only is it heavier than previous efforts, it seems more lush and atmospheric as well. IIII is the sound of a band fullfilling its potential. Onwards and upwards. The album was recorded in two different sessions, one in Copenhagen and another out in the Danish countryside with Causa Sui’s Jonas Munk, who also mixed and mastered the album, giving the album an organic but powerful sound with the full dynamic range intact.
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Band Of Horses – Acoustic At The Ryman
Acoustic at The Ryman, a 10-song virtual greatest hits set of acoustic renditions of songs from across the Band of Horses catalog, recorded at Nashville’s legendary Ryman Auditorium over two magical nights in April 2013.
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Jamestown Revival – Utah
Jamestown Revival is a group formed by Jonathan Clay and Zach Chance. After growing tired of a life mining tiger’s eye in the foothills of the Texas hill country, they hit the road to conceive a style that could be described as back-porch- folk rock.
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David Crosby – Croz
Music icon, singer-songwriter, social justice activist and sublime master of harmony vocals David Crosby is a two time Rock and Roll Hall of Famer, inducted as a member of seminal folk-rock band The Byrds and Woodstock era-defining trio Crosby, Stills and Nash. A native Californian, Crosby’s storied career began as a folk singer in the coffee-house scene of the early 1960s, and remains one of the most remarkable threads weaving through contemporary music. Croz is David Crosby’s first studio album in over 20 years, a collection of 11 new tracks from one of America’s most notable singer-songwriters and two-time Rock and Roll Hall of Famer. Croz also features guest appearances from Mark Knopfler and Wynton Marsalis.

Speedy Ortiz – Real Hair
On Speedy Ortiz’s Real Hair, the band sets a course between the knotty discord of debut album Major Arcana and the pop bonafides of the preceding Sports EP. Recorded and mixed by Paul Q. Kolderie (Pixies Radiohead), the new EP finds them subtly adding new techniques to their songbook. Guitarists Sadie Dupuis and Matt Robidoux bring on additional guitar effects to color the roundabout feel of “Oxygal,” while bassist Darl Ferm and drummer Mike Falcone hit hard to deliver the jump-in-the-pit urgency of “American Horror”.
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-= Featured releases available February 18, 2014 =-

UK Subs – Endangered Species (140g/Clear/Ltd)
DELUXE VINYL EDITION, 140 GRAM CLEAR VINYL, 1000 ONLY LIMITED EDITION. Re-issue of UK SUBS’ 1982 studio album.

Lost In The Trees – Past Life
When Lost In The Trees set out to record Past Life, their third album for ANTI-, they knew they needed a break with the past. On their first two releases Picker had used an expanded six-member band to render his carefully composed, classical-inflected songs. For the new album, the band is pared to a lean electronic-rock four-piece; the arrangements are modern, spare, minimal, emphasizing groove and rhythm, blending the sonic architecture of 21st century electronic dance music, and the sensual swerve of post-Bowie 80s pop. The band made their next break with past practice by electing to work with an outside producer for the first time. Nicolas Vernhes, whose credits include breakthrough albums from Deerhunter, Dirty Projectors and Animal Collective, endorsed the band’s new minimal aesthetic, and the question in the studio became, “How much can we strip away?” But fans that came to the band lured by the lush classicism of All Alone In An Empty House and A Church That Fits Our Needs (the Wall Street Journal’s album of the year in 2012) will not be disappointed.
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Spiritual Front – Open Wounds
The Rome-based nihilist suicide pop outfit Spiritual Front returns with Open Wounds, a monolithic selection of re-arranged and re-mastered tracks from their back catalog. The band, formed in 1999 as a project fronted by Simone Salvatori, has been described as a cross of a wide variety of genres and musical styles, and the band itself is considered highly unique among the modern neo-folk and post-industrial scenes in Europe. Strongly recommended to fans of Ennio Morricone, Death In June, Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds, Johnny Cash, Swans, and Crime & The City Solution.
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Bear Hands – Distraction
After releasing their debut LP Burning Bush Supper Club, Bear Hands criss-crossed America opening for the legendary GZA, Passion Pit, and AWOLNATION only to return home to Brooklyn and be distracted by the minutia of modern life and shallow urbanity. While avoiding each other for months, the band frittered away its time with help from the internet, serial monogamy, and recreational drugs. Fortunately, this distance allowed the band to approach Distraction with a revolutionary new perspective. Their minds expanding and hearts imploding, Bear Hands set about matching new songs to familiar soundscapes. From the propulsive, infectious rhythms of “Giants” and the angular, warped melodies of “Bone Digger” to the widescreen sweep of “Thought Wrong,” Distraction demands your attention – calling out for love from behind a mask of ones and zeroes, cardboard and vinyl.
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-= Featured releases available February 25, 2014 =-

Lo-Fang – Blue Film
This is the debut album by LA-based producer Lo-Fang (nee Matthew Hemerlein). A Baltimore native and classically trained in violin, cello, bass, piano and guitar, Hemerlein’s soulful falsetto floats above a rich blend of classical, R&B and electronic music, telling stories of love, loss, and deceit. The album was written and recorded during Hemerlein’s world travels; everywhere from a farmhouse in Maryland, a hotel in Cambodia, to studios in London and Nashville. He completed the project at Capitol Studios in Los Angeles with GRAMMY Award winning producer Francois Tetaz. Earning UK raves, NME calls his music “timeless and bang up to date”. The Clash praises his “bold, striking songwriting [and] sharp emotional focus”. Billboard named Lo Fang as One To Watch in 2014.