Buy | Sell | TradeVivian Girls – Share the Joy
April 29th, 2011
On their third album, Share the Joy, Brooklyn’s VIVIAN GIRLS continue to sharpen and refine their transcendent mix of garage thrash, girl-group warmth and infectious pop hooksmanship. The trio’s vibrant blend of guitar noise and melodic sweetness has already made the band one of America’s most celebrated and influential young bands, and has helped to spark a wave of similiarly-inclined female-fronted acts who’ve followed in their wake.
Les Rallizes Denudes – Great White Wonder
April 29th, 2011
Expanded box-set of what was originally released on the Mitzutani approved, Rallizes-only Univive label. This is essentially a career-spanning set with material from 1974-1980. This deluxe edition on Phoenix has bonus tracks, live at Kanagawa University from 1980, which was not included in the Univive label set. Numbered edition of 1000 copies. An essential Japanese psych document and a great place to start for anyone unfamiliar with Les Rallizes Denudes.
Atmosphere – The Family Sign
April 29th, 2011
Atmosphere returns with their 7th official studio album and the newest addition to their unparalleled body of work. The Family Sign comes from a place well refined and firmly planted, from a universal perspective. It’s about being okay with losing friends and strengthening your bonds with others, celebrating the person who’s been the most positive in your life, your kids, your homies, leaving the people you need to behind, and bringing the ones you love with you. It’s about your family, your time and the time you have with them. It’s about living and dying. It’s the truth about family, that it comes from loyalty as much as biology. It’s about breaking down your perceptions of family and really appreciating the people who’ve made you who you are and continue doing so.
The Family Sign is Atmosphere’s most personal and intimate album yet; it involves and engages the listener like never before. Slug’s signature voice weaves in and out of Ant’s ASR-born production, Nate Collis’ bluesy guitar riffs and the sound of Erick Anderson’s unmistakable keys giving The Family Sign a fresh, unique edge without sacrificing Atmosphere’s signature sound.
Charles Bradley – No Time for Dreaming
April 29th, 2011
Lee Fields, Sharon Jones and Charles Bradley. All three of these names are grouped into what is collectively known in 2011 as the retro-soul movement. Not that this style of music ever really went away, but on a commercial level it did find itself largely supplanted in the early 80s by slick production and a gloss that had little, of anything, to do with STAX, Muscle Shoals and the other seminal core scenes originally associated with the genre. But like anything, if one pulls the curtains back a bit, it’s not hard to find the regional pockets of soul that existed sub rosa and continued to do there thing as if Anita Baker never happened. (And thanks to the work of a new crop of reissue labels a number of these would-be forgotten artists work is finally seeing the light of day on a much larger scale.)
This week sees the release of Charles Bradley’s No Time For Dreaming on the burgeoning Dunham Records—an imprint of Brooklyn’s Daptone Records, the label largely credited with this latest resurgence of classic soul music. Not unlike the Fat Possum labels blues run in the 1990s, anything associated with Daptone comes with both the label’s seal of approval and the knowledge that the contents will be bolstered sonically with a certain aesthetic. Bradley’s debut is no exception.
At 62 Bradley emotes with a hard won conviction reminiscent of the southern soul greats whose work originally set the bar four decades ago. Clocking in at 12 tracks just under 45 minutes, No Time For Dreaming embraces a no-frills approach that only compliments and reinforces Bradley’s phrasing and delivery. Eschewing unnecessary flash and pageantry the LPs style is more akin to that of an old James Carr or Solomon Burke side than, say, Back to Black.
At 62, with a debut record out, I imagine Bradley would take issue with the notion that ‘there are no second acts in American lives.’ As he should.
Crystal Stilts – In Love With Oblivion
April 29th, 2011
Back in 2008, a lot of heads turned to clock Crystal Stilts’ Alight of Night, the Brooklyn-based band’s first album after a string of here-today-gone-tomorrow singles and EPs. It wasn’t exactly a surprise—Crystal Stilts felt like part of a new age dawning; part of underground collectives and random, crazy groups who’d rediscovered the joys of noise-pop and set about creating their own Creations—but there was something unique about Crystal Stilts, something hermetic yet gorgeous about the world they created. With their new album, In Love With Oblivion, they stretch things further still, honing their songcraft and indulging their more strung-out sides, full of elliptical verses and perfectly chiming guitars, cranky pop organs and the punkest of rhythms. It’s a perfect blend of pop smarts and beguiling experiment. And as with all good pop bands, Crystal Stilts not only look cool and sound great: they also listen hard. But if Crystal Stilts are scholarly about pop, they don’t wear their knowledge heavily. The best songs on In Love With Oblivion are effortless, rapturous—”Through The Floor” burns on fevered energy; “Silver Sun” kisses the air with a beautiful stream of jangle guitar; “Alien Rivers” is a spooked, psychedelic requiem, roughly Opal’s Happy Nightmare Baby plus 14 Iced Bears’ “Mother Sleep” multiplied by Victor Dimisich Band. “Precarious Stair” is the best girl-pop-song-not-actually-fronted-by-a-girl since “Just Like Honey.” With In Love With Oblivion, Crystal Stilts take all one’s expectations and quietly, unassumingly but determinedly turn them upside down, making one listen with a fresh ear to the glorious haze of pop they pour out of their bloodied veins. A buzzing organ, some slack-strung guitars, a clutch of Moe Tucker drums and some black tambourines never sounded this alive.
Low – C’mon
April 29th, 2011
C’mon is the shortest title of any Low album, which seems fitting, as it also ranks among the most succinct and straightforward entries in their variegated discography. Singer-guitarist Alan Sparhawk has even perfected the “elevator pitch” for C’mon: “Recorded in an old church in Duluth, MN and mixed in an apartment in Hollywood, CA.” But that brief synopsis hides universes.
Comprised of new material written on and off the road, the ten-song set was recorded in a former Catholic church, aka Sacred Heart Studio (where the band previously crafted 2002’s Trust) and co-produced and mixed by Matt Beckley. The band took full advantage of Sacred Heart’s high, vaulted ceilings, natural reverb, and audible affinity for organ sounds and group singing. The thunder-crack percussion that peppers the final minute of the slowly unfolding “Majesty/Magic” is just one example of this dynamic in action. With its jangly guitars and sweet vocal harmonies, opener “Try to Sleep” sets the album’s tone: Warmer, fuller and more introspective. Whereas 2007’s Drums and Guns railed against the war in Iraq, C’mon feels like a plea for humanity, decency and common sense in a world gone mad. Sparhawk concurs. “With the last couple of records, we were grappling with something outside of ourselves. This one feels more like, ‘Well, forget that. I’m looking in your eyes right now, and we need to figure out how to get through the next moment, together, as human beings.’”
Without curtailing their artistry one iota, the trio has made one of its most accessible, affecting albums to date. And while the origins of C’mon may lie in a church in Minnesota, Beckley’s apartment in CA and the hearts of the modest individuals who created it, the resulting music has the capacity to resonate deeply with audiences everywhere.
Princess Nicotine: Folk And Pop Music Of Mayanmar
April 29th, 2011
Princess Nicotine is the first true compilation of the phenomenal Mayanmar (Burma) music scene that runs from Yangon to Mandalay and beyond. Includes some of the greatest names of the past 50 years of Burmese musical history from original recordings featuring MAR MAR AYES, BO SEIN, and the incomparable TONTE THEINTAN. Listen and be amazed. Released by the wonderful Sublime Frequencies label founded by ALAN BISHOP of SUN CITY GIRLS
Live Music on Record Store Day!
April 12th, 2011
This Saturday, April 16th, we will be hosting an assortment of our favorite local acts in celebration of Record Store Day! We’ll have live music outside all day and killer deals on great music inside! Come check it out!
Here’s the line-up:
1:oopm Andrew & His Feisty Felines
2:00pm French Quarter
3:00pm Vegetable
4:00pm Rumpsringer
5:00pm Destruction Unit
6:00pm The Avon Ladies
7:00pm Abstinence
8:00pm Eddy Detroit
The Pains of Being Pure at Heart In-Store Performance!
April 1st, 2011On Thursday, April 14th, The Pains of Being Pure at Heart will be playing an exclusive Phoenix show at Revolver Records! Show starts at 6pm and there is no cover charge!
Here is some more info on the band and their brand new release on Slumberland:
The Pains of Being Pure At Heart had quite a run over the last eighteen months. They released their self-titled debut last February to universal acclaim, racking up features in magazines like Spin, Rolling Stone and NME, earning Best New Music status from Pitchfork, and touring the US and Europe non-stop. They began 2010 with a month-long tour of Japan, New Zealand and Australia, and are wrapping it up with a series of west coast dates with labelmates Weekend and a sure-to-be-triumphant return to England.
All the while they’ve been working on new songs, releasing the excellent single “Say No To Love” in June 2010 and beginning work on their eagerly-anticipated second album. To help bring this new batch of tunes to life they’ve enlisted the help of producer Flood (Smashing Pumpkins, U2, PJ Harvey) and ace mixer Alan Moulder (My Bloody Valentine, The Jesus & Mary Chain, Arctic Monkeys). The result is “Belong,” a massive sounding album, sonically ambitious but still grounded in the peerless song-craft that The Pains are known for.
“Belong” is the second single to be taken from the album and it’s a huge, in your face pop tune. Based around a massive guitar riff and booming drums, “Belong” is a perfect example of how well the band’s partnership with their new production team worked. It’s pure Pains all the way, but bolder, louder and more confident.
Banjo or Freakout In-Store Performance!
April 1st, 2011Banjo or Freakout will be playing a special in-store show at 5pm on Thursday, April 7th! This show will be free!
Check out their new album:
BANJO OR FREAKOUT’s self-titled debut is a heady collection of introspective beats and carefully constructed moments forged across borders and genre. The immediacy of Banjo Or Freakout’s sound—a sprawl of guitars, synths, drum loops & effects—is simply mesmeric. Italian-born and London-based ALESSIO NATALIZIA makes stargaze pop that stares stellar, but with feet firmly set forwards from the sonic footprints left by artists like Kevin Shields, Can, and Arthur Russell, as well as contemporaries Caribou, Deerhunter and A Place to Bury Strangers
