Indie Exclusive Releases

Athena is the debut album from violinist, singer, songwriter and producer Sudan Archives. Sudan Archives is widely acclaimed for her thrilling combination of styles: powerful and anthemic R&B, electronic music, a violin style inspired by Northeast African fiddling, and West African rhythms. For Athena, she collaborated with a wide cast of songwriters, producers and musicians for a sound that is her fullest and richest to date, while staying true to the unique blend of influences that has won her fans around the world.

Cigarettes After Sex return with their anticipated sophomore album - Cry via Partisan Records. Recorded during night time sessions in a mansion on the Spanish island of Mallorca, the album is a lush, cinematic meditation on the many complex facets of love - meeting, wanting, needing, losing...sometimes all at once. The album was self-produced and engineered by Greg Gonzalez, and mixed by Craig Silvey (Arcade Fire, Yeah Yeah Yeahs).

2 Custom 180 Gram Translucent Orange LPs, Gatefold Jacket, Printed Insert, Inside LP Pockets, 24”x 36” Movie Key Art Poster folded and 11” X 17” Hollywood Map Poster folded

Process Black are a brutal sonic venture by members of Kiss it Goodbye, Ramprasad, Deadguy, No Escape, Lumbar, Bible Black Tyrant, Cascabel, COTCM, and Craft Spells. The band began in 2015 gaining attention through an incredible demo that blended noise-rock viciousness with hardcore/punk intensity. Bringing to mind the influential music the creators made in previous bands while continuing to evolve in sound and character. “Countdown Failure” is their masterful three song EP recorded by engineers Derek Moree (drums) and Joe Boldizar (vocals). Member Aaron Edge tracked guitars and mixed the material at Alphabaphomet in Portland, OR. Brad Boatright (Converge, Nails, etc) later mastered the release at Audiosiege

Double LP. Originally released in 2009. Remixed and remastered in 2019.

Originally released in 2011. Remixed and remastered in 2019.

Part 2, like Part 1, was produced by Foals themselves: Yannis Philippakis (vocals/guitar), Jimmy Smith (guitar), Jack Bevan (drums) and Edwin Congreave (keys), with Philippakis and Congreave contributing bass too. The album simmers with the pure visceral intensity which has long been emblematic of the band— “The Runner” and “Black Bull” are streamlined attacks, and this approach also informs“10,000 Feet”— while retaining the opening chapter’s eclectic nature. “Wash Off” marries manic world music-tinged grooves with a punk-like intensity and the cinematic instrumentals “Red Desert” and “Ikaria” underline that Everything Not Saved Will Be Lost is a journey rather than a mere collection of songs.

The best musical mavericks never sit still for long. They mutate and morph into new shapes, refusing to be boxed in. Floating Points has so many guises that it’s not easy to pin him down.

Floating Points’ first album in four years, Crush, twists whatever you think you know about him on its head. It’s the producer at his most “unhinged,” he says, a tempestuous blast of electronic experimentalism whose title alludes to the pressure-cooker of the current environment we find ourselves in. It’s the sound of the many sides of Floating Points finally fusing together: the carefree selector, the considered composer and the passionate label curator. But it’s also a sound that, while it’s born out of despair and frustration with the overwhelmingly dark forces around us, manages to provide some hope for compassion. Crush on that.

Virginia Metalheads MUNICIPAL WASTE return with a fresh EP for fall 2019. It’s been few years and several hundred live shows since the Waste oozed out the much celebrated Slime and Punishment album. Back with 4 ripper tracks that embrace all the bands punk and street metal roots without clutching the past. That honest formula has led the Waste to innovate the festival scene with the opening track and party of the summer “Wave of Death”. Charged by the exotic and biting wit of vocalist Tony Foresta. Turbo charged by the dual guitar aggression of Ryan Waste and Nick Poulos. Locked in and ready for takeoff by rhythm section LandPhil Hall on bass and Dave Witte on Drums. Partiers, you’ve been taught the “Art” and now it is time for an advanced lesson. Thrashers on alert! MUNICIPAL WASTE is delivering, The Last Rager.

Music has been the genesis of Common's creative life. Let Love is the culmination of a journey. Common spent 2018 and 2019 immersed in self-care and, ultimately, catharsis. In the process, he underwent a transformation as he examined God, faith, fatherhood, community, and love. He unites with prominent forces from different eras of the culture to deliver a timeless dedication to hip-hop. As such, the record details his past and present and shines a light on a bold and bright future. Of hip-hop, Common admits on lead single HER Love, "You gave me a voice in the world, it's been hard to choose another girl."
"a State of the Rap Union as he addresses the rise and expansion of hip-hop throughout the past 25 years" - VIBE

"his most impactful body of work yet, - OkayPlayer.
"Common's homage to hip-hop" - Rolling Stone

On their fourth LP (after Allah-Las, Worship The Sun and Calico Review), drummer Matt Correia, bassist Spencer Dunham, and guitarists Miles Michaud and Pedrum Siadatian A.K.A Allah Las turn their collective gaze outward and toward the horizon. Simply titled LAHS (a reference to a common misspelling of the band’s name), their forthcoming release on Mexican Summer finds the band turning in their most cohesive and ambitious work yet. “We’ve been traveling a lot the past couple years and I think that played a role in influencing the broader variety of songs on this record” Correia explains. And this is precisely what sets LAHS apart from its predecessors -- a record inspired less by time, but by place. “LAHS to me feels like a soundtrack to the past 5 years or so. A sort of audio postcard to anyone who wants to listen.”  

“It's like a coming-of-age crisis,” says Daniel Shultz about Out of the Blue, the messy and melodic debut album from his band, Dan Luke and The Raid. “It’s about being in that space in your 20s where you’re trying to get your shit together and figure things out in life. You’re dealing with your problems”—the singer, songwriter and guitarist pauses—“even as you’re going out and partying and getting into trouble all the time.”

Shultz and his Dan Luke & The Raid band mates know a thing or two about the last part of that equation, as evidenced by the songs and subject matter on Out of the Blue. Throughout the album’s 10 tracks, people are passed out on curbs under neon signs (“Black Cat Heavy Metal”), breaking hearts over rolled-up dollar bills (“Exoskeleton”), leaving baggies lying in passenger seats (“Money Mouth”) and faking smiles and feeling ashamed (“Golden Age”). Legs are bleeding, faces are numb and Shultz declares his band to be the “diamond kings of smut.” All the while, the music throbs and pulses and twitches and buzzes with the energy and enthusiasm and inexperience of youth, bursting with harsh, distorted guitar chords, blown-out synths squiggles and hopped-up rhythms—as well as, on occasion, moments of stunning and sincere melodic beauty.

With the weight and experience of events that have been at times joyful and sad, poignant and puerile, triumphant and tragic, Dan Luke and The Raid continue to carve out their future, one musical moment at a time. “What we want to do is create music, and create music in a way where people feel something,” Shultz says. “And when we see that happening it’s an amazing thing.”

Two Hands, a completely new, fully-realized, 10-song album by Big Thief, will arrive just five months after their breakthrough U.F.O.F., one of the most acclaimed albums of 2019. In sharp contrast to the wet environment of the U.F.O.F. session, Two Hands had to be completely different— an album about the earth and the bones beneath it. The songs were recorded live with almost no overdubs. All but two songs feature entirely live vocal takes, leaving Adrianne’s voice suspended above the mix in dry air, raw and vulnerable as ever. Where U.F.O.F. layered mysterious sounds and effects for levitation, Two Hands grounds itself on dried-out, cracked desert dirt. Anybody who has borne witness to Big Thief in the wild will find songs they recognize here. Much of the album’s tracks (“The Toy”, “Those Girls”, “Shoulders”, “Not”, “Cut My Hair”) have been live staples for years. Two Hands has the songs that I’m the most proud of; I can imagine myself singing them when I’m old,” says singer/songwriter Adrianne Lenker. With raw power, intimacy, and honor, Two Hands folds itself gracefully into Big Thief’s impressive discography. This body of work grows deeper and more inspiring with each new album.