Although we weren’t closed for that long we’ve got a load of fresh vinyl to catch you up on. Most years start pretty slowly for new music releases but so far 2017 seems to have some great albums coming out right out of the gate and we’re pretty stoked about it. There’s also a few highly anticipated reissues that have recently come out too so we’ve got you covered no matter what you’re into. Definitely take some time to check out the sample tracks on these new releases even if you hadn’t heard of them, you might find something you didn’t expect to like.
Fresh Releases
Cherry Glazerr – Apocalipstick
Society would deem that a prodigious girl can’t be in a progressive rock band while also being in complete control of its creative vision, business plan and social messaging. Society is wrong. Clem, a 19 year old teen Queen with a headstrong resolve like her hero Patti Smith and a cartoon laugh like Muttley the dog, dreamed up Cherry Glazerr in her LA bedroom alone and is perhaps more capable of figuring a music career out than anyone who attempts this treacherous life path. And yet, she carries herself very lightly. “This one’s going to be a flop!” she jokes, here to discuss the newly lined-up trio’s second album, Apocalipstick. It’s every bit as epic, funny, life-assuring, doom-defiant and flaming fire as that title sounds. What’s more, it’s the soundtrack to their collective rockstar evolution.
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Elbow – Little Fictions
Elbow return with their seventh studio album Little Fictions. It was recorded in Scotland and Manchester and sees the band collaborate with the string players of The Hallé Orchestra, the Hallé Ancoats Community Choir, members of London Contemporary Voices and session drummer Alex Reeves. As with the previous three elbow albums it was produced by Craig Potter.
Foxygen – Hang
Foxygen is the Big Bang of two combusting minds. It’s the splayed Galaxy of polar geniuses Sam France and Jonathan Rado. It’s a handshake with a knife behind your back. A cosmic, Californian
death-game of highway chicken. A sleepless night in a five star hotel. Truth or dare. Foxygen is the risk of pushing your best friend off the ledge just to see if they can fly. You listen to this album properly. You take in each moment. Each new melody that threads forward from the fingertips of one of this generation’s finest piano men in Jonathan Rado. And you fall in line behind Sam France’s sprawling and reckless lyric. Witness his mastery. Feel them struggle against the walls of their own creations. Follow them there. To the perimeter. To the exit sign. And let your eyes fog up with thoughts like ‘For at least this moment I understand how cold blooded and beautiful I am.’ Notice that the two young guys aren’t there anymore. They’re outside looking for another joint to haunt. They’re already out of sight.
Hand Habits – Wildly Idle (Humble Before The Void)
“Meg Duffy, aka Hand Habits, is a singer, songwriter and guitarist from Upstate New York. She has been putting her time in on the road and in the studio over the past two years with pacific northwest band Mega Bog, and the Kevin Morby Band, making an impression on everyone she comes across with her natural charisma and uncharted talent as a multi-instrumentalist. But let Wildly Idle (Humble Before The Void) be her open invitation to the world to step inside and take a much deeper look into who Duffy actually is. Tracked in an Upstate New York living room, then finished in her current home in Los Angeles – it is appropriate that this album was recorded by Meg herself – for Meg, who has an acute ear for detail, has touched every corner, has seen every vision ’til its end. Because of this, Wildly Idle feels incredibly intimate, like a secret between her and the listener. It hits soft, like warm water, and before you know it it is all around you – a bath, and Meg’s whisper has made its way inside you.
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Jens Lekman – Life Will See You Now
Jens Lekman describes his new record playfully, but also honestly, as “a thirties-crisis disco album; it’s an existentialist record, about seeing the consequences of your choices”. Across three studio albums, the Swedish singer/songwriter and musician has proven not only his flair for telling very personal stories with a sharp self-awareness, but also his skill for balancing depth of emotional expression with droll and often self-deprecating detail. It’s a winning pop combination.
His fourth, Life Will See You Now is a typical Lekman album in several ways: sly humour is key to its heartfelt nature; it inverts pop’s writing norm by making songs with sad concerns sound happy and songs with a happy subject sound sad; and it plays with notions of identity and the self. Life Will See You Now is expansive, the upbeat sound of a revitalised Lekman, who is just one of many characters in his new stories about the magic and messiness of different kinds of relationships. It’s also the result of deliberate steps he took to create this fresh sound.
Paperhead – Chew
The Paperhead have been Nashville’s best-kept secret for years now. The trio of Ryan Jennings, Peter Stringer-Hye & Walker Mimms have crafted three albums of psych-pop perfection, starting with their 2010 album “Focus In On… The Looking Glass” & last leaving us with 2014’s “Africa Avenue”. They return in fine form with their fourth magnum opus, entitled “Chew”.
The Paperhead’s current oeuvre showcases a band whose strengths lie in each other; the raw talent & chemistry flourishes as three minds came together as one with Jennings, Stringer-Hye & Mimms operating in tandem, each anticipating the other’s moves before they make it and whose collaborative spirit reigns in the studio. In most band’s hands, the freedom & convenience of music these days could be a detriment, but rather than committing the cardinal sin of many modern acts by drenching everything in reverb, The Paperhead revel in clarity & melody. The band will stretch out & jam in a live setting, but their recent album’s celebrate structure and, above all – songs. The case can be made that many bands aren’t allowed the time to ripen & mature, most flaming out before they really “lock in” & find their way. With “Chew”, The Paperhead’s time is nigh, and we couldn’t be happier to take a bite.
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The Proper Ornaments – Foxhole
The Proper Ornaments is the project of James Hoare (Ultimate Painting, Veronica Falls) and Max Oscarnold (Toy,Pink Flames). The band germinated slowly from their friendship, which began when Max distracted James from shop-keeping, as his then girlfriend attempted to steal shoes. Max was freshly arrived in London from Buenos Aires; helped out by Andrew Loog Oldham as it happens, to escape a drug-lead implosion of a previous band and a family member’s plan to have him sectioned.
The chance meeting blossomed into an epicurean riot of luminous highs and cold, dismal crashes that conversely produced music that was very well ordered and faintly angelic. It was so much deeper and more refined, serious, simple and affecting than anything suggested by the bare facts – a guitar band in East London, ten years into the infancy of a millennium that had so far freighted those five words with plenty of horrendous mental associations.
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Rag’N’Bone Man – Human
2017’s biggest breakthrough artist Rag’n’Bone Man has released his debut album Human. Rag’n’Bone Man’s hit single Human has earned the bluesman Platinum status in five countries and Gold in seven, including the UK where the track reached No.2 in the Official Charts. Human has sold over half a million copies and has been streamed over 150 million times in the UK alone, and helped earn him second place in the BBC Sound Of 2017.
Fresh Re-Issues
Blind Melon – Soup
Blind Melon’s Soup, originally released in August of 1995 on Capitol Records, is often viewed as one of the most underrated albums of the 1990s. The album, which charted at number 28 on the Billboard 200, would prove to be the original band’s last. Tragically, just eight weeks after the release of Soup, lead singer Shannon Hoon died of a drug overdose.
The album has been unavailable on vinyl for over 20 years and become highly sought after by fans and collectors. It is now being reissued by Analog Spark, sourced from the original mix reels and remastered by Kevin Gray at Cohearent Audio. The 180-gram vinyl is pressed and plated at RTI and housed in a Stoughton old style tip-on jacket which the original insert booklet.
Chemical Brothers – Dig Your Own Hole (LTD/Numbered White Vinyl)
Dig Your Own Hole is the second studio album by The Chemical Brothers. It was recorded between 1995 and 1997, and released in 1997. The album features Noel Gallagher of Oasis and Beth Orton as guest vocalists. Dig Your Own Hole was a sensation in the UK, being the first Chemical Brothers album to reach number one, and producing five singles. The album has been included in several British magazines’ lists of the best albums ever.
This indie exclusive vinyl reissue is pressed on double white vinyl.
Danzig – The Lost Tracks of Danzig (black marbled or green and blue marbled vinyl)
The double vinyl of “The Lost Tracks of Danzig” consists of 24 previously unreleased tracks that span Danzig’s entire career. “Whenever I’ve made a new album, I’ve recorded more songs than were needed for the final CD,” said Glenn Danzig. “The songs that make it onto the final album ‘fit’ or ‘flow’ together as a whole. Consequently, some tremendous Danzig songs have never been released, not because they weren’t great, but because they didn’t fit the overall vibe of the particular album, or for other reasons.”
When Glenn began the “Lost Tracks” project, the songs were in various stages of completion — some were still in demo form, some had no vocals, some needed a different mix, a new bass or guitar track, or some other type of tweaking. So, after spending months tracking down and reviewing the original tapes, Glenn entered the studio and completed the tracks, handling the vocals and finishing all instrumental recording himself.
Phish – Phish (AKA “The White Tape”)
Phish is a self-produced album released by the American rock band Phish on cassette in 1986. Often cited as the first Phish album, The White Tape was originally a collection of original material that the band used as a demo/sample tape for venues, and was sometimes labelled “Phish” or simply “Demo”.The album was widely circulated among Phish fans for more than a decade before being officially released in 1998, it is now again available on vinyl.
Hey if that wasn’t enough music for you there’s even some new Bowie re-issues and Diamond Dogs has the original banned cover back!
David Bowie – Station To Station
David Bowie – Young Americans
David Bowie – Diamond Dogs
If you’re not into the new stuff we’ve just loaded the browsers back up this week with these restocks and a few new additions to the rotation here at Backbeat. Loads of new jazz and blues came in so we’ve included a separate section for those titles down below.
Restocks and Additions
Action Bronson – Mr. Wonderful
Aesop Rock – Skelethon
Arcade Fire – Reflektor
Beach House – Teen Dream
Beatles – Abbey Road
Big Star – #1 Record
David Bowie – Rise And Fall Of Ziggy Stardust
Cure – Disintegration
Hayden – The Place Where We Lived
Joy Division – Closer
Joy Division – Unknown Pleasures
Killers – Hot Fuss
MF Doom – Unexpected Guests
National – High Violet
National – Alligator
Oasis – Definitely Maybe
Oasis – Masterplan
Tom Petty – Greatest Hits
Pink Floyd – A Momentary Lapse Of Reason
Pink Floyd – Dark Side Of The Moon
Pink Floyd – The Wall
Radiohead – OK Computer
Run The Jewels – Run The Jewels
Soundgarden – Badmotorfinger
Stone Roses – Stone Roses
Strokes – Is This It
Velvet Underground – And Nico
Velvet Underground – Loaded
Weezer – Blue Album
White Stripes – De Stijl
White Stripes – White Blood Cells
Amy Winehouse – Back To Black
Amy Winehouse – Back To Black (Half Speed)
Jazz and Blues
Louis Armstrong/Duke Ellington – Great Summit
Louis Armstrong/Oscar Peterson – Armstrong Meets Peterson
Chet Baker – Chet Is Back
Chet Baker – Sings
Dave Brubeck – Time Out
Ornette Coleman – Something Else!!!
Miles Davis – Kind Of Blue
Ella Fitzgerald/Louis Armstrong – Ella & Louis (Alt Cover)
Vince Guaraldi – Vince Guaraldi Trio
Billie Holiday – Lady In Satin
Billie Holiday – Lady Sings The Blues
Etta James – At Last
Charles Mingus – Ah Um
Hank Mobley – Workout
Wes Montgomery – Full House
Charlie Parker – Jazz At Massey Hall
Art Pepper – Plus Eleven
Nina Simone – Little Girl Blue
Nina Simone – Sings Ellington!
Muddy Waters – I Got My Brand On You
Muddy Waters – Real Folk Blues
Junior Wells – Hoodoo Man Blues