Alex Delivery "Star Destroyer"Alex Delivery "Star Destroyer"
$12.99 CD $11.00 LP $9.99 MP3Think Can or Faust all mashed up with the personal disco of Arthur Russell. Think of the electric organ of Terry Riley's Shri Camel, slowly morphing and perpetually in motion, but remaining in step with a guitar-less and Moroder-charged Sparks. And think of a more composed Dead C, where Michael Morley sings about Big Thunder Mountain while holding a beach ball in one hand and fending off the digital shards of musique concrète humming around his ears with the other. Alex Delivery have gleefully exposed their myriad gifts and influences with their debut full-length Star Destroyer, almost two years in the making. On it the New York-based quintet have demonstrated their penchant for the electro-organic, seamlessly blending the sharp and gentle, like a chain-gang draped in organza. You can hear the chattering of insects resonating from the inside of a kettle drum, and you can imagine this colossal robo-beast wobbling and waltzing down an abandoned carnival boardwalk. Sylphs soar across strings, occasionally descending to enjoy some wiggle-worthy poly-rhythms. These and many more colorful characters have climbed aboard the Star Destroyer.
Alex Delivery is Nik Bozic, Marika Kandelaki, Robert Lombardo, Colin Ryan, and Yegang Yoo. Star Destroyer was self-recorded and mixed by the band and mastered at West West Side with Alan Douches. The album artwork is taken from six oil paintings made by Kandelaki.
Angel Olsen "All Mirrors"Angel Olsen "All Mirrors"
$7.99 Cassette $24.99 2xLP $12.99 CD $24.99 2xLPThe descent into darkness is a trope we find time again across history, literature and film - a protagonist plunging further and further into the depths. But there is also an abyss above. There is a winding white staircase that goes ever upward into the great unknown - each step, each turn, requiring a greater boldness and confidence than the one before. This is the journey on which we find Angel Olsen.
Olsen’s flight is both upward and inward. Olsen's artistic beginnings as a collaborator shifted seamlessly to her magnificent, cryptic-to-cosmic solo work, and then she formed bands to play her songs, and her stages and audiences grew exponentially. But all along, Olsen was more concerned with a different kind of path, and on her vulnerable, Big Mood new album, All Mirrors, we can see her taking an introspective deep dive towards internal destinations and revelations. In the process of making this album, she found a new sound and voice, a blast of fury mixed with hard won self-acceptance.
"I guess you could say some bold and unexpected things have happened in my life" Olsen said. "It feels like part of my writing has come back from the past, and another part of it was waiting to exist."
All Mirrors gets its claws into you on both micro and macro levels. Of course, there’s that singular vibrato, always so very close - seemingly simple, cooed phrases expand into massive ideas about the inability to love and universal loneliness. And then suddenly - huge string arrangements and four horsemen bellowing synth swells emerge, propelling the apocalyptic tenor. Throughout All Mirrors, Angel fully lets in the goth tones that always lurked at the ends of her song craft.
"In every way - from the making of it, to the words, to how I feel moving forward - this record is about owning up to your darkest side," Olsen said. "Finding the capacity for new love and trusting change, even when you feel like a stranger. This is a record about facing yourself and learning to forgive what you see. It is about losing empathy, trust, love for destructive people. It is about walking away from the noise and realizing that you can have solitude and peace in your own thoughts, that your thoughts alone can be just as valid, if not more."
The first step of All Mirrors, was conceiving a back-to-basics solo record, which she recorded with producer Michael Harris in Anacortes, Washington. Soon after that was completed, a more ambitious version of the album began to percolate in her mind. This second, more maximalist version of All Mirrors evolved slowly with producer John Congleton, arranger Jherek Bischoff, Swiss Army Knife musician/arranger Ben Babbitt, and a 14 piece orchestra.
"I was determined to keep it bare bones in order to contrast with the not yet recorded full band record," Olsen said. "I wanted to have versions of these songs that are completely raw and real in the way some of my earlier recordings are, so that I could have the choice to play alone or with a band."
While remaking the album with full production and new collaborators, Olsen developed a new relationship with control. And in that process, she developed an even clearer vision of herself as artist.
"It’s scary to be your own compass, to trust new faces, to be a stranger - but sometimes that’s the only way forward," she said. "When you’ve been in a repetitive cycle so long it’s difficult for anyone to see you as someone who could come out of it. When you’ve made an example of yourself that people expect, some voices remind you of that example even when you know in your heart you’ve made changes."
"As I see it, in order for an artist to survive some kind of change, change needs to be a constant. For myself that constant change means having some kind of epiphany or clarity expressed in song. I don’t know if it’s something I inspire or attract, or if it’s just in the way I’m looking at my surroundings, but drama is something that surrounds my world and always has. I’m at least happy that I've learned to write it down."
Angel Olsen "Phases"Angel Olsen "Phases"
$17.99 LP $12.99 CDHow do you best describe Angel Olsen? From the lo-fi, sparse folk-melancholy of her 2010 EP, Strange Cacti, to the electrified, polished rock 'n' roll bursting from 2016's beloved and acclaimed MY WOMAN, Olsen has refused to succumb to a single genre, expectation, or vision. Impossible to pin down, Olsen navigates the world with her remarkable, symphonic voice and a propensity for narrative, her music growing into whatever shape best fits to tell the story. Phases is a collection of Olsen's work culled from the past several years, including a number of never-before-released tracks. "Fly On Your Wall," previously contributed to the Bandcamp-only, anti-Trump fundraiser Our First 100 Days, opens Phases, before seamlessly slipping into "Special," a brand new song from the MY WOMAN recording sessions. Both "How Many Disasters" and "Sans" are first-time listens: home-recorded demos that have never been released, leaning heavily on Olsen's arresting croon and lonesome guitar. The b-sides compilation is both a testament to Olsen's enormous musical range and a tidy compilation of tracks that have previously been elusive in one way or another. Balancing tenacity and tenderness, Phases acts as a deep-dive for longtime fans, as well as a fitting introduction to Olsen's sprawling sonics for the uninitiated.
Angel Olsen "MY WOMAN"Angel Olsen "MY WOMAN"
$6.99 Cassette $18.99 LP $12.99 CDAnyone reckless enough to have typecast Angel Olsen according to 2013's Burn Your Fire For No Witness is in for a rethink with her third album, MY WOMAN. The crunchier, blown-out production of the former is gone, but that fire is now burning wilder. Her disarming, timeless voice is even more front-and-center. Yet, the strange, raw power and slowly unspooling incantations of her previous efforts remain.
Over two previous albums, she gave us reverb-shrouded poetic swoons, shadowy folk, grunge-pop band workouts and haunting, finger-picked epics. MY WOMAN is an exhilarating complement to her past work, and one for which Olsen recalibrated her writing/recording approach and methods to enter a new music-making phase.
As the record evolves, one gets the sense that the "MY WOMAN" of the title is Olsen herself, absolutely in command but also willing to bend with the influence of collaborators and circumstances. An intuitively smart, warmly communicative and fearlessly generous record, MY WOMAN speaks to everyone. That it might confound expectation is just another of its strengths.
Angel Olsen "Burn Your Fire For No Witness"Angel Olsen "Burn Your Fire For No Witness"
$12.99 CD $15.99 LP $9.99 MP3On her newest LP, Burn Your Fire for No Witness, Angel Olsen sings with full-throated exultation, admonition, and bold, expressive melody. With the help of producer John Congleton, her music now crackles with a churning, rumbling low end and a brighter energy.
Angel Olsen began singing as a young girl in St. Louis. Her self-released debut EP, Strange Cacti, belied both that early period of discovery and her Midwestern roots. Olsen then went further on Half Way Home, her first full-length album (released on Bathetic Records), which mined essential themes while showcasing a more developed voice. Olsen dared to be more personal.
After extensive touring, Olsen eventually settled for a time in Chicago’s Logan Square neighborhood, where she created "a collection of songs grown in a year of heartbreak, travel, and transformation," that would become Burn Your Fire For No Witness. Many of them remain essentially unchanged from their bare beginnings. In leaving them so intact, a more self-assured Olsen allows us to be in the room with her at the very genesis of these songs. Our reward for entering this room is many a head-turning moment and the powerful, unsettling recognition of ourselves in the weave of her songs.
Aspera "Oh Fantastica"Aspera "Oh Fantastica"
$11.00 CD $11.00 LP $9.99 MP3After a summer spent listening to grimy hip hop beats and hooks, supporting the re-release of Sugar and Feathered, and making 4 track demos, Aspera converged at Tonearm Studios to begin work on their third album. Oh Fantastica continues a darkly thematic tradition established with Sugar and Feathered and the follow up Birds Fly EP (Suicide Squeeze) but strays from both records overwrought psychedelia (oft compared to Flaming Lips and Mercury Rev). Oh Fantastica is full of minimal yet memorable melodies driven by Drew Mills’ most upfront and un-effected vocal performance to date. The beats are intentionally raw—composed of deep, 808 / 909 textures and laced with gated, acoustic percussion takes and dirty synth bass lines. On Oh Fantastica, Aspera ride a dream-like wave enjoying and sharing the fruit of parallel universes—where the epic ‘80s pop production (as heard in early work of Simple Minds and Tears for Fears) exist side by side with hip-hop’s old school (Afrika Bambaataa) and new school (Swizz Beats, Anti-Pop Consortium, Missy Elliott & Timbaland, and producers the Neptunes), and, perhaps most-notably, electronic music's contemporary experimentalists (Boards of Canada) as well as its early trailblazers (such as the pop soundscapes of Another Green World-era Brian Eno; Giorgio Moroder’s militant electro; and the early-80’s tech-adventurism of musical veterans as manifested in Herbie Hancock’s Future Shock and Paul McCartney’s McCartney II).
Aspera "Sugar & Feathered"Aspera "Sugar & Feathered"
$11.00 CD $9.99 MP3Through the cerebral undergrowth and fantastical thickets of Aspera's dark imagination comes Sugar And Feathered, the re-release of the elusive Philadelphia-based quartet's sophomore full-length, re-mastered and packaged with all new artwork. As eerie as it is amiable, the twelve songs of Sugar And Feathered create a conceptual forest breathing with melodies familiar and forgone. On this record, Aspera creates songs that bear a passing resemblance to Crocodiles era Echo and The Bunnymen as fed through the dry, trashy production work of Tony Visconti's T Rex recordings. The experimental nature of Brian Eno and David Byrne's random sampling on My Life In The Bush of Ghosts mixes with the rudimentary electronics of Bowie's Scary Monsters, a smattering of 80's-style synthetic percussion and a fondness for Peter Murphy, conjuring a record with only one non-wayward quality - unrelenting creativity.
Bevel "Down the Puppet String, Marionettes"Bevel "Down the Puppet String, Marionettes"
$7.50 CDEP $5.99 MP3Bevel makes pastoral folk music in the same vein as Vashti Bunyan, Nick Drake and Maher Shalal Hash Baz. Bevel is the project of Via Nuon (lead guitarist of Manishevitz and now defunct Drunk). Down the Puppet String, Marionettes began in the early parts of 1998, is now being introduced for the first time since its original conception 6 years ago. Comprised of old and new songs diligently re-worked and re-recorded between 2001 and 2002, it also includes a chilling rendition of a Civil War-era traditional and a suitably deconstructed version of Donovan Leitch’s “Teas”. Melodious and interwoven throughout this mini-album are the lull-like tones of Deanna Varagona’s baritone sax exhalations. Sometimes an undulating piano line—played by Michael Krassner—can be heard punctuating against the textural rhythms tapped out by Gerald Dowd. Although only 19 minutes in length and operating in a stream of consciousness-like fashion, Down the Puppet String, Marionettes, captures a transitory world, whose bucolic plains and uncharted beaches are characteristic results as one awakens, diluted and immersed, such as from an afternoon reverie.
Bevel "Where Leaves Block the Sun"Bevel "Where Leaves Block the Sun"
$11.00 CD $9.99 MP3With Where Leaves Block the Sun, Bevel follows through with the promise that was made with its debut Turn the Furnace On. The new full-length is principal songwriter Via Nuon's electric pastoral folk music, which begins with a symbolic Dante-esque like descent into the wilderness. Through the foliage disguised music, rich and fascinating images interplay with dark and light scenarios giving a chiaroscuro effect and also a sense of cinematic progression. Though difficult to describe in sound, one might compare Bevel to the other worldliness music of Pearls before Swine, Brian Eno's experimental ambient period, or the climactic achievement of Popol Vuh's lush film soundtracks.
Bevel "Turn the Furnace On"Bevel "Turn the Furnace On"
$11.00 CD $9.99 MP3Twelve uneasy pieces, these songs are rough and unhewn like the stones that make up an altar precipice. Bevel is the An unpolished document, TURN THE FURNACE ON exists in the same moody and emotional climate as Yoko Ono's SEASON OF GLASS and Red House Painters' OCEAN BEACH. Not so unlike Skip Spence's OAR, TURN THE FURNACE ON is the product of a man who has for years existed in the public eye only as a member of a greater whole (Nuon being a core member of the Richmond, Virginia, group Drunk, as well as an occasional member of Chicago-based Manishevitz; Spence with San Francisco's Moby Grape). Like Oar, TURN THE FURNACE ON is the sort of creative watershed which begs the listener to re-examine the works done by the artist in his more well-known group and experience his effects there more acutely, with more regard for the subtle force of personality which has rightly been made more evident. name of a character in modern Southern literature. Turn the Furnace on is the debut album by Bevel, and it is a feat of beauty. Conceived, composed and captured almost entirely by one man, Via Nuon, Bevel's TURN THE FURNACE ON is a subtle work of solitary triumph. Few albums created by the hands of one succeed in leaving such an indelible impression of personality. Most solo artists -- especially those of such minimal design -- are required the span of a career to leave their mark on the ever-evolving body of song. But with TURN THE FURNACE ON Bevel distinguishes Via Nuon as a brave new voice in folk form.
Black Mountain "Destroyer"Black Mountain "Destroyer"
$18.99 LP $12.99 CD $18.99 LPDestroyer is structured around that first time behind the wheel of a hot rod. The fat, charging “Living After Midnight” riffs of opener “Future Shade” is, according to McBean, “Straight outta the gates. FM radio cranked.” He ain’t kidding. The song, and all of Destroyer for that matter, seems to exist at that crucial nexus of the early-to-mid 80s Los Angeles when a war between punk and hair metal was waged. Black Flag’s My War tried and failed to keep the peace. But in the trenches, some hybrid ghoul was beginning to form in bands like Jane’s Addiction and White Zombie. The heavy extended player “Horns Arising,” with its Night Rider vocals and golden, climbing Blade Runner synths, is a fill-up at a desert gas station just in time to see a UFO hovering near a mesa. Other songs, like the serpentine “Boogie Lover,” are a cruise down the Sunset Strip. You pull into The Rainbow Bar & Grill to take the edge off - doesn’t matter what year it is, Lemmy’s there in flesh or spirit. To continue the teenage theme, there’s also a sense of youthful discovery to these cuts — “High Rise” is a foray into Japanese psych, rounding the bend to a careening, while “Closer to the Edge” feels like falling in love with Yes (Remember how good they were for a minute there in your youth?). “Licensed to Drive” would easily be the most exhilarating and dangerous ripper on a titular film’s soundtrack, a dose of heavy right before the muscle car’s wheels fly off going 100 mph on the freeway.
Shacked up in his rehearsal space, McBean found an old chair in an alley, spray painted Producer on the back and pressed record. Friends from the endless rock’n’roll highway were invited over and 22 songs were brought to life. While some were laid back into shallow graves to dig up once again at a later date, the remaining skeletons were left above ground — given organs, skin, eyes, and the opportunity to grow their hair real long and greasy. Some of these zombie hesher jams were sent on a journey to Canada where longtime band member Jeremy Schmidt, slipping on the Official Collaborator satin jacket, had at them with his legendary synth arsenal. As he added long flowing robes, sunglasses, driving gloves and medallions, the undead songs began to transform into the new breathing creatures that make up Destroyer. Schmidt’s work with these songs turned out to be the transformative glue for this new era of Black Mountain.
Black Mountain "IV"Black Mountain "IV"
$12.99 CD $21.99 2xLP $21.99 2xLP $9.99 MP3The rock canon has many anti-heroes, Black Mountain being the latest. In the past, Can's Tago Mago established that the only rule in rock and roll is that there are no rules. Pink Floyd's prodigious output in the 70s showed us that architecture can be cool, while delinquent proto-metallers Black Sabbath demonstrated that you can make a lot from not that much. Now Black Mountain teach us that you don't have to be afraid of the past to move bravely into the future, defining what it is to be a classic rock band in the new millennium. Today, they announce IV, an unapologetically ambitious record made by a group of musicians who are at the peak of their powers.
Black Mountain "Black Mountain 10th Anniversary Deluxe Edition"Black Mountain "Black Mountain 10th Anniversary Deluxe Edition"
$22.99 2xLP $22.99 2xLP $13.99 2xCD $11.99 MP3Available in limited edition Grey Vinyl. Black Mountain's self-titled debut album is a new classic rock, with reference points arcane and clear, its sound fresh, unfamiliar and irresistible. Savor the compact, spacey brilliance of this cosmic, heavy and subtle album, expanded now with a raft of delicious bonus tracks scavenged from the Black Mountain Army archives.
Black Mountain "Wilderness Heart"Black Mountain "Wilderness Heart"
$12.99 CD $9.99 MP3Wilderness Heart, the new album by Black Mountain, is packed with succinct rock songs that pulse and pound with startling precision: it pummels you and you ask for more. This is arguably the band’s tightest, most concentrated venture, but there’s still plenty of raw rock energy at work. “It’s our most metal and most folk oriented record so far,” songwriter Stephen McBean says. “I’m not gonna say it’s our best record or the album that we always dreamt of making ‘cause that’s what everyone says. It’s all about where we were at the time the machines were rolling. You can’t control the electricity or how your limbs were moving that day. You have to erase the visions and just go along for the ride.”
Black Mountain "In The Future Deluxe Edition"Black Mountain "In The Future Deluxe Edition"
$12.99 2xCDFavorite psych-and-prog-spiritual pioneers BLACK MOUNTAIN are back with "In The Future", their second full-length album that resonates with the same epic ring, beloved deep rock touchstones and genuine folk fragility that made their self-titled debut full-length an instant classic. The new album possesses immense breadth, seamlessly showcasing short and classic folk-pop gems along with driving modern rock masterpieces, peaking with "Bright Lights", a seventeen-minute multi-dimensional opus that gives Pink Floyd's "Echoes" a run for its money.
Black Mountain "In The Future"Black Mountain "In The Future"
$12.99 CD $9.99 MP3Favorite psych-and-prog-spiritual pioneers BLACK MOUNTAIN are back with "In The Future", their second full-length album that resonates with the same epic ring, beloved deep rock touchstones and genuine folk fragility that made their self-titled debut full-length an instant classic. The new album possesses immense breadth, seamlessly showcasing short and classic folk-pop gems along with driving modern rock masterpieces, peaking with "Bright Lights", a seventeen-minute multi-dimensional opus that gives Pink Floyd's "Echoes" a run for its money.
Black Mountain "Druganaut"Black Mountain "Druganaut"
$6.00 CDEP $3.99 MP3Time to rejoice space travellers, music lovers, drug takers and all freak creatures of the nighttime world. The heat is on and the streets are wild. We've had enough of your modern music and fake painted smiles. We're all looking for a little more. Big amps, small amps, it's all the same. Dee-lite said that groove is in the heart. But we believe that rock'n'roll is boiled in the blood and born in the soul. What more do you want? What more do you need? Distractions? Interstellar cellular progress? Better killing machines? Originally released as a 12-inch single (and acting as the band's first release ever), the Druganaut single is now being molded in the CD format, with two additional songs added to it. Black Mountain are the front line soldiers for the Black Mountain Army, an arts collective from Vancouver, British Columbia, featuring members of The Pink Mountaintops, Jerk With A Bomb, Sinoa Caves, and Blood Meridian. Their debut self-titled full-length record may well be the Pied Piper that takes us all back into the primordial mountain, where our hearts can be made steady and our minds can be set free. It brings to mind - as does this Druganaut single - Animals-era Pink Floyd, Black Sabbath, Neil Young and a James Brown on a liberal does of cough syrup.
Black Mountain "Black Mountain"Black Mountain "Black Mountain"
$12.99 CD $9.99 MP3Black Mountain, the front-line soldiers for the Black Mountain Army, an arts collective from Vancouver, British Columbia, write, perform and record music that speaks (and sings) to this realization: that solutions are rarely simple, that the world is as complex as it is ambiguous, and that music sprinkled with an inoculating dose of madness may well be the Pied Piper that takes us all back into the primordial mountain, where our hearts can be made steady and our minds can be set free. Their debut self-titled record, like a space probe built of erector set parts and transmitting secret and arcane messages to earth by string, charts territories unknown yet remains grounded by the roots of classic rock and roll. It is easy to discern these roots: Black Sabbath, Animals-era Pink Floyd, Blue Cheer, Led Zeppelin and Can. Principal songwriter Stephen McBean’s vocals are a smoother, bluesier amalgam of the voices of Neil Young, Mick Jagger and perhaps a James Brown loaded on cough syrup. And when Amber Webber’s voice joins Stephen’s, the combination brings to mind the potency and chemistry of Richard and Linda Thompson singing together on Shoot Out The Lights, or of Meat Loaf and Ellen Foley howling together on Bat Out Of Hell. Musical comparisons aside, the Black Mountain full-length is one part protest song, one part pop-cultural commentary, and one part sick-groove-rock casserole peppered with mesmerizing ballads and intoxicating ditties. “Modern Music” is the lead-off hitter and counts its way to the imposing and riff-rife “Don’t Run Our Hearts Around”. Immediately thereafter, the sludge-rock masterpiece “Druganaut” establishes the fecund heart and tone of the record. Black Mountain have also just recently released a 12-inch single (on Jagjaguwar), including an extended mix of “Druganaut” on the A-side. And the band’s currently sexploitative counterpart The Pink Mountaintops, a band that also pipes into the prolific well-spring of Stephen McBean’s mind, released their self-titled debut record (on Jagjaguwar as well) this past summer. A video by Heather Trawick of the song “Druganaut” is included on the CD version of the Black Mountain self-titled record.
Bon Iver "Blood Bank EP 10th Anniversary Edition"Bon Iver "Blood Bank EP 10th Anniversary Edition"
$20.00 LP $10.00 CDBon Iver's Blood Bank EP was originally released in early 2009, hot on the heels of the beloved album 'For Emma, Forever Ago'. The EP was a harbinger of a new sound for Bon Iver: a movement away from the acoustic guitar-led instrumentation of the debut and the beginning of an exploration into the experimental sounds that have evolved but defined Bon Iver ever since. The reissue of this seminal EP is coupled with brand new live renditions of all the EP tracks:
Blood Bank, recorded at Ericsson Globe in Stockholm, Sweden on Oct 31, 2018 Babys, recorded at Eventim Apollo Hammersmith in London on Mar 4, 2018 Beach Baby, recorded at the The Bomb Factory in Dallas, TX on Jan 23, 2018 Woods, recorded by La Blogothèque at Pitchfork Paris on Nov 3, 2018
A reflection on the Blood Bank EP by Ryan Matteson:
When I reflect on the songs that make up the Blood Bank EP, I am drawn to mantras, both musical and lyrical. The driving and pulsating rhythm of the title track is held steady by the repeated refrain, I know it well, before it eventually yields to a beautiful array of guitar distortion and noise.
These moments are significant through all four songs. When the steel guitar makes its entrance on “Beach Baby,” it's transportive. A blissful, breezy feeling sweeps into the room and that puts you within the moment. Close your eyes and you can feel it. “Babys” follows perfectly. A piano guides your mind to the new beginnings that come with the changing of seasons. The awareness of time passes and makes way for another day.
Then there's “Woods.” A flawless finale. Foreign and new. Not just a new direction but a new beginning entirely. A place where boundaries don't exist. It was a signal change of things to come, laying the groundwork for new collaborations. A decade later, the song says so much in just three lines. Most significant to me are the words, “I'm building a sill to slow down the time.” Time doesn't slow down, it races.
Bon Iver "i,i"Bon Iver "i,i"
$12.99 CD $24.99 LP‘i,i’ is Bon Iver’s most expansive, joyful and generous album to date. If 'For Emma, Forever Ago’ was the crisp, heart-strung isolation of a northern Winter; ‘Bon Iver’ the rise and whirr of burgeoning Spring; and '22, A Million', a blistering, "crazy energy" Summer record, ‘i,i’ completes the cycle: a fall record; Autumn-colored, ruminative, steeped. The autumn of Bon Iver is a celebration of self acceptance and gratitude, bolstered by community and delivering the bounty of an infinite American music.
The sales and accolades are well-known - multiple Gold albums, multiple Grammys, chart-topping collaborations and festival headlines. But even more significantly, with each release Bon Iver quietly shifts the state of modern music. From the boundaries of folk, to the rules of autotune, to production work for others, Bon Iver’s fingerprint finds its way across the mainstream every time. Vernon has always been a master collaborator, and on ‘i,i’ that desire becomes maximal, with guests ranging from Moses Sumney and Bruce Hornsby to Wye Oak’s Jenn Wasner and the Brooklyn Youth Chorus. Here, the music - and band, and themes, and creative space - are bigger than ever.
Bon Iver "22, A Million"Bon Iver "22, A Million"
$13.99 CD $23.99 LP22, A Million is part love letter, part final resting place of two decades of searching for self-understanding like a religion. And the inner-resolution of maybe never finding that understanding. The album's 10 poly-fi recordings are a collection of sacred moments, love's torment and salvation, contexts of intense memories, signs that you can pin meaning onto or disregard as coincidence. If Bon Iver, Bon Iver built a habitat rooted in physical spaces, then 22, A Million is the letting go of that attachment to a place.
Bon Iver "Bon Iver"Bon Iver "Bon Iver"
$12.99 CD $17.99 LP $9.90 MP3Bon Iver, Bon Iver is Justin Vernon returning to former haunts with a new spirit. The reprises are there – solitude, quietude, hope and desperation compressed – but always a rhythm arises, a pulse vivified by gratitude and grace notes. The winter, the legend, has faded to just that, and this is the new momentary present. The icicles have dropped, rising up again as grass.
Bon Iver "Blood Bank"Bon Iver "Blood Bank"
$7.50 CDEP $11.99 12 inch $4.99 MP3The four song Blood Bank collection continues down the path forged by 2008's critically acclaimed For Emma, Forever Ago.From the title track's remembrance of the winter warmth we seek, to the summer love tribute of b-side gem "Babys," Bon Iver's snow-blanketed harmonies live across the seasons. Both expansive and intimate, these four songs explore the darker and lighter natures of the seasons and what they signify, and offer a dynamic glimpse into the natural energy and refined craftsmanship that characterize Justin Vernon's music.
Bon Iver "For Emma, Forever Ago"Bon Iver "For Emma, Forever Ago"
$16.99 LP $12.99 CD $9.99 MP3We are thrilled to release Bon Iver's debut full-length "For Emma, Forever Ago". Bon Iver (pronounced: bohn eevair; French for "good winter" and spelled wrong on purpose) is a greeting, a celebration and a sentiment. It is a new statement of an artist moving on and establishing the groundwork for a lasting career. For Emma, Forever Ago is the debut of this lineage of songs. As a whole, the record is entirely cohesive throughout and remains centered around a particular aesthetic, prompted by the time and place for which it was recorded. Justin Vernon, the primary force behind Bon Iver, seems to have tested his boundaries to the maximum, and in doing so has managed to break free from any pre-cursing or finished forms.
Briana Marela "Call It Love"Briana Marela "Call It Love"
$17.99 LP $7.99 Cassette $12.99 CDThere is something unforgettable about great love songs, and Briana Marela's Call It Love wraps its welcoming arms around the subject, invoking all its complexity. Before writing the songs that would become Call It Love, Briana Marela was guided first and foremost by her instincts as a producer & engineer. Marela's original vision for this album was to dig into the two poles of her songwriting styles: her ambient, ethereal side and her brighter, beat-driven pop leanings. She enlisted the production help of Juan Pieczanski & Ryan Heyner of the band Small Black upon hearing their most recent self-produced album.
On this album, Briana Marela has made her proverbial giant leap, deepening her songwriting and expanding her palette to explore the sounds of love in beautiful, striking new ways. "Give Me Your Love" explores what Marela calls "love's immature, silly & selfish side." "Quit", the deep, dramatic centerpiece of Call It Love, was originally penned about a breakup with a longtime partner and written with the idea that she could give the song away to another artist. Instead, "Quit" is powerful and revealing in Briana's own hands. And, if "Be In Love" is the sound of falling in love, "Farthest Shore" is the sound of looking inward, of reckoning with and without ourselves. It is an intricate, cavernous song, setting a deceptively pretty melody over ominous drones and skittering percussion. And here, again, the contradictory becomes complementary.
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