Another packed new release Friday.

This week we have another packed new release Friday. The latest albums from Foxygen, Local Natives, Cranberries, Mountain Goats, Aldous Harding and King Gizzard have all dropped. Plus, there’s a couple of Prince reissues you’ll definitely want to check out. Rave Un2 the Joy Fantastic (1999) and its remix accompaniment Rave In2 the Joy Fantastic (2001) have both received the vinyl treatment.

There’s the usual list of restocks and additions down past the new release info.

Let’s get into the new stuff!

Foxygen – Seeing Other People
“Seeing Other People” is curiously positioned as Foxygen’s most recent last-ever album. With every album the band dies; with every album the band is reborn. But unlike the last-ever Foxygen albums before it, this one seems to have a self-effacing bittersweetness to it that signifies some sort of passing; some sort of white flag. But it SOUNDS in no way like a band giving up. It has experiments in tone and genre the likes of which we’ve not heard on a Foxygen record since “Starpower”?; since “21st Century”?; since “Take The Kids”?

Mountain Goats – In League With Dragons (2LP+7″ – Green Vinyl Indie Shop Version)
The Mountain Goats are John Darnielle, Peter Hughes, Jon Wurster, and Matt Douglas. They have been making music together as a quartet for several years. Three of them live in North Carolina and one has moved back to Rochester. Their songs often seek out dark lairs within which terrible monsters dwell, but their mission is to retrieve the treasure from the dark lair & persuade the terrible monsters inside to seek out the path of redemption. As Axl Rose once memorably asked, in the song “Terrible Monster”: “what’s so terrible about monsters, anyway?” This is the question the Mountain Goats have been doggedly pursuing since 1991. They will never leave off this quest until every option has been exhausted. Thank you.

The Cranberries – In The End (Cranberry Colour Vinyl Indie Shop Version)
“On Monday 15th January, 2018 Dolores O’Riordan died in London. Two days later she was due to come into BMG and play us the song demos for a new Cranberries album. At this point none of us believed there would be another studio album from the band.
A couple of months later the remaining band members (Noel, Fergal & Mike) listened through to the vocals with producer Stephen Street and with the full support of Dolores’s family the decision was taken to take the vocal tracks and for the band to complete the recording of the album. This was a direct reaction to the strength of the material Dolores had left as her legacy.
The end result is a euphoric alternative rock album on a par with the band’s best work, and together with the striking album artwork (by original band photographer Andy Earl and original sleeve designer Cally Calloman), celebrates vitality and optimism albeit tinged with tremendous poignancy.”
-Alistair Norbury, BMG UK President

Aldous Harding – Designer (Gold Vinyl Indie Shop Version)
An artist of rare calibre, Aldous Harding does more than sing; she conjures a singular intensity. Her body and face a weapon of theatre, Harding dances with steeled fervor, baring her teeth like a Bunraku puppet’s gnashing grin. Aldous Harding’s third album, Designer finds the New Zealander hitting her creative stride. After the sleeper success of Party (internationally lauded and crowned Rough Trade Shop’s Album of 2017), Harding came off a 200-date tour last summer and went straight into the studio with a collection of songs written on the road. Reuniting with John Parish, producer of Party, Harding spent 15 days recording and 10 days mixing at Rockfield Studios, Monmouth and Bristol’s J&J Studio and Playpen. From the bold strokes of opening track ‘Fixture Picture’, there is an overriding sense of an artist confident in their work, with contributions from Huw Evans (H. Hawkline), Stephen Black (Sweet Baboo), drummer Gwion Llewelyn and violinist Clare Mactaggart broadening and complimenting Harding’s rich and timeless songwriting.

Local Natives – Violet Street
If you distilled California into soundwaves and vibrations, it might resemble the sonic and spiritual interplay of the Los Angeles quintet—Taylor Rice [vocals, guitar], Kelcey Ayer [vocals, keys, percussion, guitar], Ryan Hahn [guitar, keys, mandolin, vocals], Matt Frazier [drums], and Nik Ewing [bass, keys, vocals].
In essence, Local Natives return to the methods of their 2009 debut Gorilla Manor , but with the bonds of their union fortified and with the growth of wisdom accrued in the studio and on stage in front of millions of worldwide fans.
Face-to-face songwriting and musical interplay put to tape: the classic studio setting is juxtaposed on Local Natives’ fourth full-length, Violet Street with modern production and visuals to form a timeless album. The band’s signature soaring 3-part harmonies are augmented by loops of tape, physically spliced and transformed by hand, the result of experimenting in the studio with producer Shawn Everett [Alabama Shakes, Kacey Musgraves, The War On Drugs] is a band renewed.

King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard – Fishing for Fishies (Toxic Landfill Edition – Colour Vinyl)
King Gizzard’s fourteenth album since their 2012 debut – Fishing for Fishies is a blues-infused blast of sonic boogie that struts and shimmies through several moods and terrains. From the soft shuffle Outback country of the opening title track through the sunny easy listening of ‘The Bird Song’ (think the lysergically-soaked Laurel Canyon circa 1973) and on through the party funk of ‘Plastic Boogie’ (which somehow summons the spirit of Stevie Wonder’s Innervisions) the road-trucking, Doors-like highway rock of ‘The Cruel Millennial’ and ‘Real’s Not Real’ – what The Carpenters might have sounded like had they existed entirely on vegemite and weed – it’s a dizzying, dazzling display.
And that’s all before we even get to ‘Acarine’, a futurist blues tune which heads off into previously unchartered territories of shimmering Eno-esque ambient and dark John Carpenter-style electro, and the electro squelch of album-closing single ‘Cyboogie’, on which five of the seven King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard members play synths. It’s a stomping vocoder-lead anthem akin to Georgio Moroder or Trans-era Neil Young and a triumphant conclusion to an album that is as surprising as it is thrilling, as unexpected as it is effortless.

Prince – Rave In2 The Joy Fantastic (Purple Vinyl)
Prince – Rave Un2 The Joy Fantastic (Purple Vinyl)
Marking the first ever vinyl release for Rave In2 the Joy Fantastic. Each of the vinyl titles will be pressed on highly collectible, limited edition purple vinyl.
First came Rave Un2 the Joy Fantastic, his only album for NPG/Arista (and last released under the unpronounceable “Love Symbol” moniker), a record showcasing Prince’s mastery of pop and R&B through a variety of tracks and a surprising range of guest artists including Chuck D, Eve, Gwen Stefani, Ani DiFranco, and Sheryl Crow (Prince even covers Crow’s smash hit “Every Day is a Winding Road” on the album).
By 2001, Prince had established a groundbreaking internet presence through his NPG Music Club, an online destination site where fans could access new music alongside tracks from the fabled Prince Vault and other rarities. One of the first full-length releases from NPG Music Club was Prince’s Rave In2 the Joy Fantastic, a remix and reimagining of his ongoing “Rave” project.
In 1999, Prince promoted the release of Rave Un2 the Joy Fantastic with his iconic pay-per-view special, Prince In Concert: Rave Un2 the Year 2000. Broadcast on New Year’s Eve 1999, the special featured guest artists including Morris Day & the Time, Maceo Parker, Larry Graham, George Clinton, and Lenny Kravitz. The DVD of this concert features 23 tracks plus 4 “bonus groovez.” Tracks from across Prince’s career are featured including hits like “Let’s Go Crazy,” “Purple Rain,” “U Got The Look,” “Raspberry Beret,” “Gett Off,” and “Kiss” and deeper cuts like “She’s Always In My Hair,” “The Christ,” (originally “The Cross” from Sign O’ The Times) and “Nothing Compares 2 U” plus songs from Rave Un2 the Joy Fantastic like “Baby Knows” and “The Greatest Romance Ever Sold.”

New Vinyl Restocks and Additions

Connect the dots, la la la la