CIMS In The Groove
U.F.O.F., F standing for ‘Friend’, is the name of the highly anticipated third record by Big Thief, set to be released by 4AD on May 3rd. The New York-based band, featuring Adrianne Lenker (guitar, vocals), Buck Meek (guitar), Max Oleartchik (bass), and James Krivchenia (drums), has spent the last 4 years on an incessant world tour, winning the devotion of an enthusiastic and rapidly expanding audience. Their songs represent an emotional bravery and realness that weaves intimate relationships with the listener, a phenomenon that has made them one of the most widely-respected bands of the current era. Their first two back-to-back releases, Masterpiece (2016) and Capacity (2017), have been analysed, wept to, danced to, critically applauded, imitated, hummed idly, and shouted out loud. They have soundtracked crowded restaurants, difficult conversations, cowboy bars, yoga classes, night drives, and lonely bedrooms. U.F.O.F. was recorded in rural western Washington at Bear Creek Studios. In a large cabin-like room, the band set up their gear to track live with engineer Dom Monks and producer Andrew Sarlo, who was also behind their previous albums. Having already lived these songs on tour, they were relaxed and ready to experiment. The raw material came quickly. Some songs were written only hours before recording and stretched out instantly, first take, vocals and all. Others were explored in search of perfected moments of dynamic feedback and spiritual, rhythmic togetherness. A careful New Age sprinkle of mystical textures and stabs was added and kept in the mix only when all agreed that each element had become absolutely crucial to the tune. The completed palette feels classic, upfront and honest, with an occasional, welcome glimpse into the magic box.
If you distilled California into soundwaves and vibrations, it might resemble the sonic and spiritual interplay of the Los Angeles quintet Local Natives. VIOLET STREET revels in its stylistic eclecticism ranging from kinetic and propulsive pop (“When Am I Gonna Lose You”) to sun-drenched grooves (“Cafe Amarillo”) and stark emotive ballads (“Tap Dancer”). Produced by Shawn Everett (Kacey Musgraves, War On Drugs, Alabama Shakes), their 4th full length album proves to be their most diverse and mature set of tunes, from production through song writing.
4-panel gatefold wallet w/ lyrics booklet
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.
Steve Earle was nineteen and had just hitchhiked from San Antonio to Nashville in 1974. Back then if you wanted to be where the best songwriters were you had to be in there. Guy Clark had moved to Nashville and if you were from Texas, Guy Clark was king.
Flash forward more than forty years. In the fall of 2018, Steve and The Dukes went into House Of Blues studio in Nashville and recorded GUY in six days. 'I wanted it to sound live...When you've got a catalog like Guy's and you're only doing sixteen tracks, you know each one is going to be strong.'
Earle and his current, perhaps best-ever Dukes lineup, take on these songs with a spirit of reverent glee and invention. But in the end GUY leads the listener back to its beginning, namely Guy Clark, which is what any good 'tribute' should do. GUY is a saga of friendship, its ups and downs, what endures. We are lucky that Earle remembers and honors these things, because like old friends, GUY is a diamond.
Honk is the brand-new Best Of compilation album featuring the biggest hits and classic cuts from every Rolling Stones studio album from 1971 to 2016’s Blue & Lonesome. The Deluxe 3CD collects 36 essential Stones’ tracks on the first two discs – including eight Top 10 singles, “Brown Sugar,” “Tumbling Dice,” “Angie,” and much more. The third disc includes 10 live tracks recorded during the band’s more recent sold-out tours and feature guests like Florence Welch, Dave Grohl, Brad Paisley and more.
Josh Ritter is returning this year with a new full-length, his tenth studio LP and follow-up to 2017’s Gathering. The Americana songwriter’s latest album, Fever Breaks, spans 10 tracks recorded at Nashville’s RCA Studio A over the second half of the past year. Jason Isbell produced the effort, which features his band The 400 Unit playing backup. It’s an exciting confluence of talents, and the promised chemistry bears out on the album’s gritty lead single “Old Black Magic”.
2019 release, the debut album from award-winning guitar virtuoso Molly Tuttle. An insightful, gifted songwriter who was crowned "Instrumentalist of the Year" at the 2018 Americana Music Awards on the strength of her EP Rise, Tuttle has broken boundaries and garnered the respect of her peers, winning fans for her incredible flatpicking guitar technique and confessional songwriting. Graced with a clear, true voice and a keen melodic sense, the 25-year-old seems poised for a long and exciting career. When You're Ready, produced by Ryan Hewitt (The Avett Brothers, The Lumineers), showcases her astonishing range and versatility and shows that she is more than simply an Americana artist.
With a career spanning two decades and 11 releases, L.A. hip hop duo People Under the Stairs bid farewell with their final LP. Their unique style is on full display; lyrically dense spliced with vintage boom bap. Self produced, self recorded and NO features but with multiple instrumentalists to supplement their trademark dusty breaks. Gatefold CD in case with artwork by @drewtoonz
Audiences from Manchester to Melbourne, London to Los Angeles, Newcastle to New York, and everywhere in between have been engulfed by the swell of eager sentiment propelled from a vociferous fanbase. Catfish and the Bottlemen possess a magnetic and dynamic focal point in McCann, renowned for posing everyday, easilyidentifiable observations through his lyrics.
Bells Atlas is a psychedelic R&B band from Oakland, California. Their thoughtful, textured sound has consistently answered the call for something new and refreshing. Bells Atlas has shared the stage with Hiatus, Kaiyote, Badbadnotgood, Meshell Ndegeocello, Bermuda Triangle, and tours with NPR’s Snap Judgement. Band members Sandra Lawson-Ndu, Douglas Stuart, Geneva Harrison, Derek Barber, and Steven Blum carve through musical genres to create their own stylings-- and the result is a buoyant, soulful sound that is unique yet accessible. The band’s latest offering the mystic digs further into their soulful aesthetic to explore both sound and storytelling. It began with the musicians stumbling upon a new process for songwriting, of which included sampling grainy phone recordings of the bands drummer. The spontaneity and even humour that came from that process elevates Bells Atlas’ already distinct approach to music, resulting in the mystic’s raw, cosmic sound that is mirrored in its lyrics. The record is on one hand, a sci-fi fantasy of two first-generation Nigerian American women coming to terms with a mental health diagnosis; on the other hand, a very universal exploration of how we make sense of reality. “It’s about a truth seeker and a skeptic trying to make sense of what’s mystical and what’s clinical,” frontwoman Sandra Lawson-Ndu says. The listener is made to consider the possibility of magic. Is it possible, for instance, that someone who navigates the world differently may have a deeper understanding of the universe? Is it possible that we all have some kind of obstructed view on our environment? With deep emotionality and levity, the music of Bells Atlas is a tool to explore the full dimension of our reality.
Father of the Bride is the highly anticipated new album from Vampire Weekend, and is the band’s fourth full length release. It is the follow up to 2013’s Modern Vampires of the City, which won the Grammy for Best Alternative Music Album in 2014.
Father of the Bride is produced by founding band member Ezra Koenig, and Ariel Rechtshaid (Adele, Madonna, Charli XCX, Usher, HAIM, Solange, and others). The album features 18 songs, with an array of collaborations yet to be revealed. 6 of the songs from Father of the Bride will be released ahead of the full album.
Inspired by the boundary-pushing production, rhythm, and pastiche of hip-hop, classic beat-infused rock like Talking Heads, Blondie, and The Police, and danceable indie music like Gorillaz and St. Vincent, House on Fire is the debut album from Kansas City's Hembree. One of NPR's Spotlight Artists to Watch and Rolling Stone's 'Best Artists We Saw at SXSW.'
Bad Religion began in the sprawling suburbs surrounding Los Angeles, with the teenage punks offering an impassioned counterpoint to a culture of consumerism and anti-intellectualism. Founding members Greg Graffin, Brett Gurewitz, and Jay Bentley were eventually joined by guitarists Brian Baker of Minor Threat, Mike Dimkich of The Cult, and drummer Jamie Miller of …And You Will Know Us by the Trail of Dead. Bad Religion have been highly influential force in modern punk, producing beloved international hits like “Infected,” “21st Century (Digital Boy),” and “Sorrow,” and building a devoted worldwide following.
Bad Religion are set to release their new album Age of Unreason, which can be described as "a musical manifesto on the current political landscape.” In a world still brimming with rampant anti-intellectualism, inequality and oppression, the band’s signature brand of sonically charged humanist dissent seems as relevant as ever.
This Wild Willing is Glen Hansard’s fourth solo album. Written and created in Paris, France with a band of brothers; new friends and old, more than 24 musicians collaborating on the album. From his partners in The Frames (Joe Doyle) and Swell Season (Marketa Irglova & Joe Doyle), to his touring family of players , to three Iranian brothers he met in Paris (the Kroshravesh brothers) , Glen brought together a group of global talents who each left an indelible mark on this recording. “It became quickly apparent in the studio we were onto something interesting. I was finding new ways into the existing songs and we were improvising new ideas every day. When you surround yourself with great musicians and do your best to keep up, stay loose, give little direction, and allow everyone to bring what they bring, something transformative may happen. This collection of songs is mainly made up of those that came through while improvising and following the melodic lines and threads. Sometimes when you take a small musical fragment and you care for it, follow it, and build it up slowly, it can become a thing of wonder. In this sense, some of these songs weren’t written in the traditional form; they were ideas followed to a conclusion. I want to thank all these great musicians for coming and giving these songs their best. All a song wants is to be heard. I hope something in this music can be of use to you. I know it’s been of great use to me to make it. Beauty is in the ear of the behearer.”
Joy Williams is a singer-songwriter from Santa Cruz, CA who now lovingly calls Nashville, TN home.
Formerly of four-time Grammy Award-winning Folk, Country and Americana duo The Civil Wars, Joy recently recorded her forthcoming solo album, Front Porch, produced by Kenneth Pattengale of The Milk Carton Kids.
Following the recent birth of her second child, Joy is steadily performing new music from Front Porch live in advance of the album’s release on May 3rd.
Judah & the Lion return with their third album, Pep Talks, following their widely successful Folk Hop n’ Roll and their breakout hit, “Take It All Back.” The album is a mature step for the band, and blends uplifting, powerful anthems with more contemplative and emotional tracks. The album includes “Over my head” and “Quarter-Life Crisis” and features Kacey Musgraves and Jon Bellion.