Recent New Vinyl Releases – Finally Here!

Just received some recent vinyl releases that should have been here over that past couple of months but because of… well, we all know why. Anyhoo they are here now, available in store or on our eShop.

Let’s check them out!


Thundercat – It Is What It Is

The latest album from Thundercat “It Is What It Is”, produced by Flying Lotus and Thundercat, features musical contributions from Ty Dolla $ign, Childish Gambino, Lil B, Kamasi Washington, Steve Lacy, Steve Arrington, BADBADNOTGOOD, Louis Cole and Zack Fox.

“It Is What It Is” follows his game-changing third album “Drunk” (2017). That record completed his transition from virtuoso bassist to bonafide star and cemented his reputation as a unique voice that transcends genre. “This album is about love, loss, life and the ups and downs that come with that,” Bruner says about “It Is What It Is”. “It’s a bit tongue-in-cheek, but at different points in life you come across places that you don’t necessarily understand… some things just aren’t meant to be understood.


Pokey LaFarge – Rock Bottom Rhapsody

“The man singing these songs isn’t exactly the same man who wrote them,” says Pokey LaFarge of Rock Bottom Rhapsody, his eighth and latest studio release. “This album is about the story of who I used to be.”
In early 2018, LaFarge — searching for the sort of artistic freedom and inspiration he wasn’t finding in the Midwest — relocated from his longtime home base of St. Louis, Missouri, to Los Angeles, California. New songs came quickly to LaFarge in his new environment, but new temptations soon found him, as well. Though he declines to get into specifics, LaFarge admits that he experienced a significant “fall from grace” during the last months of 2018. “Things sort of started to unravel in my mind,” Shortly before the recording of Rock Bottom Rhapsody began, LaFarge experienced a spiritual awakening — and the faith he re-embraced in his hour of darkness helped to buoy him through the making of the album.
Though he was struggling for spiritual equilibrium at the time, LaFarge at least had some rock-solid musical support to lean on. Recorded primarily at Reliable Recorders on Chicago’s Northwest side, Rock Bottom Rhapsody was produced by LaFarge’s friend and collaborator Chris Seefried (who also co-wrote several of the album’s tracks), and features the considerable talents of guitarist Joel Paterson, keyboardist Scott Ligon, upright/electric bassist Jimmy Sutton, and drummer Alex Hall.
Musically, LaFarge continues to mix and match a wide variety of styles and traditions, while never losing track of his own vision “This record is kind of like Roy Orbison and Bob Dylan hanging out with chanson singers and French jazz bands in like the forties, but I was never trying to make it sound like a particular person. ”
Despite the trying period that preceded its recording, Rock Bottom Rhapsody is ultimately far more uplifting and life-affirming than its title would suggest. “That desperation, that struggle,” LaFarge ponders, “Did it add something to the record? It certainly did. I mean, I don’t know if it made it better; it just is what it is. It’s not up to me to decide if people are going to feel that…”


Steve Earle & The Dukes – Ghosts Of West Virginia

Ghosts of West Virginia centers on the Upper Big Branch coal mine explosion that killed twenty-nine men in that state in 2010, making it one of the worst mining disasters in American history. When asked about what drove him to craft his deeply evocative new album, Steve Earle says, “I thought that, given the way things are now, it was maybe my responsibility to make a record that spoke to and for people who didn’t vote the way that I did,” he says. “One of the dangers that we’re in is if people like me keep thinking that everybody who voted for Trump is a racist or an asshole, then we’re fucked, because it’s simply not true. So this is one move toward something that might take a generation to change. I wanted to do something where that dialogue could begin.”

In ten deftly drawn, roughly eloquent, powerfully conveyed sonic portraits, Earle and his long-time band the Dukes explore the historical role of coal in rural communities. More than merely a question of jobs and income, mining has provided a sense of unity and meaning, patriotic pride and purpose

“I said I wanted to speak to people that didn’t necessarily vote the way that I did,” he says, “but that doesn’t mean we don’t have anything in common. We need to learn how to communicate with each other. My involvement in this project is my little contribution to that effort. And the way to do that – and to do it impeccably – is simply to honor those guys who died at Upper Big Branch.”


Paris Hilton – Paris

Not everybody has not one, not two, but twelve producers attached to her debut release. Not everybody has her one and only album pranked by British artist Banksy (who substituted a topless photo for the cover). Nope, not everybody is Paris Hilton, who has lived in the public eye since, well, forever. She first announced plans to make an album in 2003, during her run on the reality TV series The Simple Life. Originally entitled Screwed, and then Paris Is Burning, the record—finally simply entitled Paris—came out in 2006. And it was…uh…good? Yeah, for real. This record goes expensively pedicured cuticle to cuticle with anything Britney Spears, Jessica Simpson or any other pop culture chanteuse of the like ever put out, and the Paris the heiress displays some real savvy both in her taste of material and the Madonna-like manipulation of her sex symbol image. And her voice? Definitely respectable despite what the haters said. Indeed, the single “Stars Are Blind” went top 20, and the album itself went all the way up to #6, selling over 600,000 copies worldwide. For the first-ever vinyl release of Paris, we at Real Gone Music have taken the fetching photos from the CD package and given them plenty of acreage to show their stuff, with a newly-created gatefold jacket and 4-color printed inner sleeve. And our limited-edition run of maroon and blonde marbled vinyl goes smashingly with the album art. In short: a pop culture keepsake from a pop culture icon!


Deeper – Auto-pain

What do you do when pain blots out joy? How do you learn to take care of yourself? What happens when the things you think are helping end up doing the most harm? ‘Auto-Pain’ is the Sophomore album from Deeper, a record that finds the band embracing open space, using synths to create shadows where bricks of guitars once would’ve blocked out the sun. The group — singer and guitarist Nic Gohl, bassist Drew McBride, and drummer Shiraz Bhatti — were all graduates of Chicago’s rich DIY scene who came together around their love of Wire, Devo, Gang of Four, and Television. While the new record is still within the Great Lakes post-punk tradition of their debut, the album isn’t as insular as its predecessor; it’s less interested in pile-driving and more willing to dwell in liminal spaces. Guitars enter the picture precisely, locked bass grooves propel things forward. Drummer Shiraz Bhatti, who is half-Pakistani and half-Native American, embraced the drumming patterns he’d heard growing up at pow-wows, channeling the anxieties of his heritage into his playing and keeping the group grounded when they switch into all-out percussive attack. The result is an album both more nuanced and catchy.


Hinds – The Prettiest Curse

Each time they take the stage, Madrid-bred rock band Hinds create a kind of wild magic, a feel-good free-for-all often complete with synchronized dancing and giddy crowd-surfing from the members themselves. While the band’s first two albums channeled the euphoric energy of their live show in their gorgeously punchy take on garage-rock, their latest full-length adds entirely new texture to their sound. Produced by Jenn Decilveo (The Wombats, Ben Platt and Anne-Marie), The Prettiest Curse finds the band letting their imaginations run more freely than ever, even as they share some of their most emotionally heavy material to date.

 

 

 

 

See you soon!

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