Featured New Releases + a Whack of Wax at $9.95

Hey there good people! Man we’ve got some good stuff to mention today. First off we have new releases from Nneka, Unknown Mortal Orchestra, Helio Sequence, and Jenny Hval featured today. All the details and sample tracks are below. So many great releases lately, what have you folks been listening to?

Many of you have let us know that we have some of the best prices for records, new and used. We’ve got people coming in from Ottawa, Kingston, Toronto, Montreal and beyond so the word has been getting out, we greatly appreciate the support! But now we are taking things a little further, we already loaded 2 crates of new vinyl at 20-50% off, how about a whack of wax at $9.95, hell yeah! We’ve just put out nearly 50 new records (very limited supply) at $9.95. Can’t decide? Pop over to our Soundcloud playlist of featured tracks from these albums. $9.95 for new vinyl!

On with the recent releases we now have on vinyl!

Jenny Hval – Apocalypse, Girl

Think big, girl, like a king, think kingsize. Jenny Hval’s new record opens with a quote from the Danish poet Mette Moestrup, and continues towards the abyss. Apocalypse, girl is a hallucinatory narrative that exists somewhere between fiction and reality, a post-op fever dream, a colourful timelapse of death and rebirth, close-ups of impossible bodies — all told through the language of transgressive pop music.

When Norwegian noise legend Lasse Marhaug interviewed Jenny Hval for his fanzine in early 2014, they started talking about movies, and the conversation was so interesting that she asked him to produce her next record. It turned out that talking about film was a great jumping off point for album production. Hval’s songs slowly expanded from solo computer loops and vocal edits to contributions from bandmates Håvard Volden and Kyrre Laastad, before finally exploding into collaborations with Øystein Moen (Jaga Jazzist/Puma), Thor Harris (Swans), improv cellist Okkyung Lee and harpist Rhodri Davis. All of these musicians have two things in common: they are fierce players with a great ear for intimacy, and they hear music in the closing of a suitcase as much as in a beautiful melody.

And so Apocalypse, girl is a very intimate, very visual beast. It dreams of an old science fiction movie where gospel choir girls are punks and run the world with auto-erotic impulses. It’s a gentle hum from a doomsday cult, a soft desire for collective devotion, an ode to the close-up and magnified, unruly desires.

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Nneka – My Fairy Tales

My Fairy Tales, Nneka’s fourth is released through Bushqueen Music and was born while she was studying French and living in Paris. “I’d initially gone for one month but ended up extending my stay for several months,” says Nneka. “While there I met the producer Mounir Maarouf and I just started recording every day after school. It evolved into this project; the Parisian Sessions.” It was recorded and produced in France, Denmark and Nigeria. French producer Mounir Maarouf produced five songs, the Danish Silver Bullit team with Nneka produced two songs and The Slag [aka Martin Nigsch] produced one song.

My Fairy Tales is a concept album, exploring the lives of Africans in the diaspora and the struggles they face – focusing on the importance of being responsible towards children as well as the significance of culture, education and identity values. “I wanted to write about this experience in the ” Nneka explains. “How we cope hustling in ‘another man’s land’. but also the aspects of endurance, perseverance and gratitude.”

The Helio Sequence – The Helio Sequence

The Helio Sequence is a renewed push forward for the band: From the cool wallop of “Deuces,” where guitars snarl and harmonies soar, to the stuttering anxiety of “Upward Mobility”, where pianos pound and drums race, this collection depends upon an effortless kinetic energy. Lyrically, “Stoic Resemblance” is a study of existential anxiety, but musically, it’s a beguiling burst of pop, Summers’ vocals rising over and sliding off of Weikel’s big, irrepressible beat. The bittersweet “Leave or Be Yours” evokes the easy twinkle of romance and the smoldering sadness of losing it. Crisscrossing vocals and cross-talking guitars and drums map a broad swirl of emotions.

With its easy acoustic jangle, “Inconsequential Ties” might be one of the most surprising, light moments within the bombastic Helio Sequence catalog. But considered within the band’s history, it points to the pop that’s bound Summers and Weikel for so long. Indeed, there’s a delightful candor to The Helio Sequence, an openness that is a rare and special feat for a band about to enter its third decade.

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Unknown Mortal Orchestra – Multi-Love

While legions of artists show fidelity to psychedelia’s roots, Unknown Mortal Orchestra has always shared the rare quality that makes the genre’s legends vital, a constant need for exploration. Last year, frontman and multi-instrumentalist Ruban Nielson descended into his home studio in a Portland basement to chart out where’s he traveled since his last set of unhinged psych-soul ballads. He discovered that the best way for him to move forward would be to look back. Where Nielson addressed the pain of being alone on II, Multi-Love takes on the complications of being together.

Nielson wrote the surrealistic II during an isolated period on the road, a walkabout throughout disillusionment and darkness when he pushed away. The more upbeat Multi-Love charts a different type of catharsis and reflects on relationships.

“The writing on this album was more abstract, riddles that slightly disrupt the flow,” he says. “A good lyric was something that didn’t quite sit right. I don’t want to be sad or nostalgic about these relationships. I want to be more celebratory. It’s a feeling and desire that just came from time, being further away from it all. It was never going to be simple. I’m a bit wild, and was never going to just be normal.”

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And that my friends is it for today. Go enjoy some mighty fine music today!