Hey Backbeaters! We’ve got a bunch of new vinyl releases to feature this week. The latest albums from Afghan Whigs, Brother Ali, Mac DeMarco and The Mountain Goats are now here, plus the Lost Highway (1997) and Singles (1992) movie soundtracks have been released. We also received a huge delivery of new jazz reissues, you can find the list of those down below. If that isn’t enough we just restocked the recent arrival used record bin with some great stuff, you check out a flippin’ video of those way down this page.
On to the new stuff.
The Mountain Goats – Goths
The theme this time around is goth, a subject closer to my heart perhaps than that
of any Mountain Goats album previous. And while John writes the songs, as he
always has, it feels more than ever like he’s speaking for all of us in the band,
erstwhile goths (raises hand) or otherwise, for these are songs that approach an
identity most often associated with youth from a perspective that is inescapably
adult. Anyone old enough to have had the experience of finding oneself at sea in a
cultural landscape that’s suddenly indecipherable will empathize with Pat Travers
showing up to a Bauhaus show looking to jam, for example.
But underneath the outward humor, there is evident throughout a real tenderness
toward, and solidarity with, our former fellow travelers—the friends whose bands
never made it out of Fender’s Ballroom, the Gene Loves Jezebels of the world—the
ones whose gothic paths were overtaken by the realities of life, or of its opposite.
It’s something we talk about a lot, how fortunate and grateful we are to share this
work, a career that’s become something more rewarding and fulfilling than I think
any of us could have imagined. We all know how easily it could’ve gone the other
way, and indeed for a long time did. — Peter Hughes
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The Afghan Whigs – In Spades
“Divination/Cleromancy/Comes the card that I refused to see”
– The Afghan Whigs, “Oriole”
“Cleromancy” isn’t a word one normally finds in rock lyrics. Then again, In Spades – the forthcoming album by The Afghan Whigs, from which the new song “Oriole” hails – is defined only by its own mystical inner logic. The term means to divine, in a supernatural manner, a prediction of destiny from the random casting of lots: the throwing of dice, picking a card from a deck. From its evocative cover art to the troubled spirits haunting its halls, In Spades casts a spell that challenges the listener to unpack its dark metaphors and spectral imagery.
On the one hand, In Spades is as quintessentially Afghan Whigs as anything the group has ever done – fulfilling its original mandate to explore the missing link between howling Midwestern punk like Die Kreuzen and Hüsker Dü, The Temptations’ psychedelic soul symphonies, and the expansive hard-rock tapestries of Led Zeppelin and Lynyrd Skynyrd. At the same time, this new record continues to push beyond anything in the Whigs’ previous repertoire – another trademark, along with the explosive group dynamic captured on the recording.
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Brother Ali – The Beauty In This Whole Life
Over the past 17 years, Brother Ali has earned wide critical acclaim for his deeply personal, socially conscious, and inspiring brand of hip-hop. Under Rhymesayers Entertainment, he’s unleashed a series of lauded projects, establishing himself as one of the most respected independent voices in music. The latest chapter in that celebrated journey is All the Beauty in This Whole Life, a 15-track collection produced entirely by Atmosphere’s Anthony “Ant” Davis.
“This entire album is based on the reality that beauty is the splendor of truth” says the Minneapolis MC. “Beauty in all of its forms is the outward manifestation of love and virtue. It soothes the soul and pulls it gently toward the truth it communicates. Every word and note of this album is intended to either reflect beauty, or expose the ugliness that blocks us from living lives of meaning.”
All the Beauty in This Whole Life is Ali’s first official release in five years and represents the newest and most refined chapter of his life’s journey. “Each of my albums are the result of the pain, growth and eventual healing that I experience. Articulating the pain and navigating the healing allows the people who really feel my music to travel with me. It’s not only that we hurt together, we heal together as well.”
Contrasting intensely heavy moments with joyous and grateful ones, All the Beauty in This Whole Life arrives right on time, to help heal a divided nation through the power of music. Ali wouldn’t have it any other way. “In times of great suffering in the outside world, the most important battles start from within.”
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Mac DeMarco – This Old Dog
Before you ancients out there turn your heads and scoff at the premise of a twenty-something rock-and-roll goofball calling himself an old-anything, consider this: said perpetrator, he who answers to the name Mac DeMarco, has spent the better part of his time thus far writing, recording, and releasing an album of his own music pretty much every calendar flip, and pretty much on his own. The fresh meat you’re now feasting on, This Old Dog, makes for his fifth in just over half a decade—bringing the total to 3 LPs and 2 EPs. According to the DMV, MacBriare Samuel Lanyon DeMarco is 26. But in working-dog years, ol’ Mac here could easily qualify for social security. To stay gold, turns out all he needed was some new tricks.
Though used to and pretty happy with that annual grind, it was a little space—in time, location, and method—that inspired DeMarco while making the record. Moving from his isolated Queens home to a house in Los Angeles helped give the somewhat transient Canada-native a broader base, and a few more months on his calendar to create did their job as well. Arriving in California with a grip of demos he’d written in New York, he realized after a few months of setting up his new shop—complete with a few new toys—that the gap was giving him perspective (insert tooth joke here).
“This one was spaced out,” DeMarco says. “I demoed a full album, and as I was moving to the West Coast I thought I’d get to finishing it quick. But then I realized that moving to a new city and starting a new life takes time. And it was weird, because usually I just write, record, and put it out; no problem. But this time, I wrote them and they sat. When that happens, you really get to know the songs. It was a different vibe.”
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Lost Highway – Soundtrack
Lost Highway is the 1997 French-American neo-noir-horror mystery film written and directed by David Lynch. It stars Bill Pullman as a man convicted of murdering his wife (Patricia Arquette), after which he inexplicably morphs into a young mechanic and begins a new life.
The film’s score was composed by Angelo Badalamenti, with additional music by Barry Adamson. Trent Reznor from Nine Inch Nails was responsible for assembling the soundtrack. David Bowie’s “I’m Deranged”, Rammstein’s “Heirate Mich”, Lou Reed’s “This Magic Moment”, Marilyn Manson’s “Apple Of Sodom” plus more tracks from Trent Reznor, The Smashing Pumpkins all appear on the double album to accompany the Angelo Badalamenti and Barry Adamson theme music.
Singles – Soundtrack
25 years ago, the film “Singles” and its soundtrack worked together to bring the underground Seattle music scene to the forefront of mainstream consciousness. The album was among the first top-selling movie soundtracks of the 1990s to showcase new material from emerging contemporary bands. The expanded edition of Singles: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack-Deluxe Edition is cause to celebrate anew the radical rock sounds that radiated out of the American Northwest a quarter century ago and changed pop music forever.
Recent Restocks and Additions
Ryan Adams – Prisoner
Beastie Boys – Solid Gold Hits
Black Keys – Brothers
David Bowie – Changesonebowie
Descendents – Everything Sucks
Depeche Mode – Violator
Digital Underground – Sex Packets
Eminem – V1 Marshall Mathers
Feist – Pleasure
Feist – Reminder
Fugees – Score
Jesus And Mary Chain – Damage And Joy
July Talk – July Talk
Kendrick Lamar – Good Kid M.A.A.D. City
Little Richard – Little Richard
Motorhead – Ace Of Spades
Mumford & Sons – Sigh No More
Pearl Jam – Vs
Elvis Presley – Elvis Presley
Smashing Pumpkins – Gish
Rag’N’Bone Man – Human
Ratatat – Classics
Timber Timbre – Sincerely, Future Pollution
A Tribe Called Quest – Midnight Marauders
A Tribe Called Quest – We Got It From Here..
Twenty One Pilots – Blurryface
Weezer – Weezer (Blue Album)
White Stripes – Elephant
Wilco – Yankee Hotel Foxtrot
Jazz
Cannonball Adderley – Somethin Else
Chet Baker – Sings
Art Blakey And The Jazz Messengers – Moanin
Art Blakey And The Jazz Messengers – W/Thelonious Monk
Clifford Brown and Max Roach – Study In Brown
James Brown – Tour The U.S.A
James Brown & His Famous Flame – Excitement Mr. Dynamite
Dave Brubeck – 1958 Newport
John Coltrane – Blue Train
John Coltrane – Soultrane
Sam Cooke – Encore
Sam Cooke – Tribute To The Lady
Miles Davis – At Newport 1958
Miles Davis – Kind Of Blue
Miles Davis – Sketches Of Spain
Duke Ellington, – Ellington Indigos
Duke Ellington – Such Sweet Thunder
Bill Evans Trio – Sunday At The Village Vanguard
Ella Fitzgerald – Ella In Berlin
Stan Getz – Big Band Bossa Nova
Stan Getz – Focus
Dexter Gordon – Go
Billie Holiday – Carnegie Hall Concert 1956
Billie Holiday – Sings
Billie Holiday – Songs for Distingué Lovers
Howlin Wolf – Rockin Chair Album
B.B. King – Singin The Blues
Shelly Manne and His Men – V1 At The Black Hawk
Charles Mingus – Ah Um
Charles Mingus – Pithecanthropus Erectus
Charlie Parker – Jazz At Massey Hall
Oscar Peterson – A Jazz Portrait Of Frank Sinatra
Oscar Peterson – Plays The Cole Porter Songbook
Oscar Peterson Trio – Live From Chicago
Django Reinhardt – Nuages
Sonny Rollins – Bridge
Nina Simone – At Town Hall
Nina Simone – My Baby Just Cares For Me (180
Nina Simone – Sings Ellington!
Zoot Sims – Zoot
Frank Sinatra – And The Count Basie Orchestra
Frank Sinatra – In The Wee Small Hours (180G)
Frank Sinatra – Only The Lonely
Frank Sinatra – This Is Sinatra
T-Bone Walker – Sings The Blues
Last but certainly not least, here’s the latest used/vintage vinyl that we’ve just put out.
Whoa, that’s a lot of records!