Trevor Sensor "Andy Warhol's Dream"Trevor Sensor "Andy Warhol's Dream"
$12.99 CD $17.99 LP $17.99 LPIt's Trevor Sensor's voice you notice first. A deep bubbling black tar pit of a sound, it's a voice whose unique timbre resonates far beyond the constraints of the songwriting format. It demands the listener reaches for a new vocabulary.
The 23 year old's debut album Andy Warhol's Dream is part of a literate folk lineage that runs from Woody Guthrie and Bob Dylan through Tom Waits and onto the likes of Bon Iver, Bright Eyes and Sufjan Stevens today. It’s an unflinching honest album, transcendent in its exploration of self and sonically a collision between the classic and the forward-thinking.
Sensor's debut EP for the label, 'Texas Girls and Jesus Christ', was written on a borrowed acoustic guitar and took him out into the world. 2016 saw him tour Europe before hitting the road in the US for tours with Foy Vance and The Staves.
Andy Warhol's Dream was recorded to tape at Steve Albini's Electrical Audio and produced by both Jonathan Rado of Foxygen (The Lemon Twigs, Whitney) and songwriter/producer Richard Swift (Damien Jurado, Foxygen). His backing band featured members of Whitney.
On these 11 songs Sensor doesn't so much wear his heart on his sleeve as flings it out in the darkness of the front rows that sit beyond the glare of the single blinding spotlight. This is the sound of one man’s soul laid bare, facing life head on.
Trevor Sensor "Starved Nights of Saturday Stars"Trevor Sensor "Starved Nights of Saturday Stars"
$11.99 12" EPFrom the first moments of Trevor Sensor's debut EP for Jagjaguwar, Texas Girls and Jesus Christ, the Illinois-born 22-year-old singer/songwriter's distinctive burr of a voice sounds aged decades beyond his years. The rest of the young talent's music follows suit, too, with timeless-sounding melodies and a sense of songwriting that exudes maturity while still feeling fresh.
Sensor wrote the music featured on Texas Girls and Jesus Christ on a borrowed acoustic guitar that he has yet to return, composing songs that sound deeply felt and from a place of truth and honesty. "If I'm trying to do anything, it’s to be sincere," he says about his songwriting approach. "A lot of singer/songwriters today are oriented in irony. It's cooler to be lackadaisical rather than to try to be compelling."
And Sensor's music, above all else, is compelling: the proclamatory howls that close out the piano-led "Pacing the Cage," the dark desolation of "Satan's Man", and the dynamic blowout of the EP's title track grab your attention and refuse to let go. With Texas Girls and Jesus Christ, Sensor's presented his own little worlds for listeners to explore - with many more to follow.
Unknown Mortal Orchestra "Sex & Food"Unknown Mortal Orchestra "Sex & Food"
$7.99 Cassette $9.99 CD $18.99 LP $18.99 LPWhere are we headed? What are we consuming, how is it affecting us, and why does everything feel so bad and weird sometimes? These are some of the questions posed on Ruban Nielson's fourth album as Unknown Mortal Orchestra, Sex & Food. Recorded in a variety of locales from Seoul and Hanoi to Reykjavik, Mexico City, and Auckland, Sex & Food is a practical musical travelogue, with local musicians from the countries that Neilson and his band visited pitching in throughout.
Sex & Food is the most eclectic and expansive Unknown Mortal Orchestra release yet, from the light-footed R&B of "Hunnybee" to the stomping flange of "Major League Chemicals." "If You’re Going to Break Yourself" and "Not in Love We're Just High" chronicle the effects of drugs and addiction on personal relationships, while the lyrics "Ministry of Alienation" drip with modern-day paranoia like the silvery guitar tones that jewel the song's structure.
The modern world, and all the thorny complications that come with living in it, loomed large on Ruban's mind while making Sex & Food. Though he's not afraid to get topical throughout, as evidenced on the surprisingly boisterous "American Guilt" or the roomy-disco medication-meditation "Everyone Acts Crazy Nowadays".
A statement of selflessness, to be sure - but make no mistake: Sex & Food reaffirms the vitality of Ruban's voice in today’s musical landscape.
Unknown Mortal Orchestra "Multi-Love"Unknown Mortal Orchestra "Multi-Love"
$7.99 Cassette $12.99 CD $16.99 LP $9.99 MP3The threads of our past never unravel, they hover like invisible webs, occasionally glistening due to a sly angle of the sun. On Multi-Love, Unknown Mortal Orchestra frontman and multi-instrumentalist Ruban Nielson reflects on relationships: airy, humid longing, loss, the geometry of desire that occurs when three people align. Where Nielson addressed the pain of being alone on II, Multi-Love takes on the complications of being together.
Multi-Love adds dimensions to the band's already kaleidoscopic approach, with Nielson exploring a newfound appreciation for synthesizers. The new songs channel the spirit of psych innovators without ignoring the last 40 years of music, forming a flowing, cohesive whole that reflects restless creativity. Cosmic escapes and disco rhythms speak to developing new vocabulary, while Nielson's vocals reach powerful new heights. "It felt good to be rebelling against the typical view of what an artist is today, a curator," he says. "It's more about being someone who makes things happen in concrete ways. Building old synthesizers and bringing them back to life, creating sounds that aren't quite like anyone else's. I think that’s much more subversive."
While legions of artists show fidelity to the roots of psychedelia, Unknown Mortal Orchestra shares the rare quality that makes the genre's touchstones so vital: constant exploration.
Unknown Mortal Orchestra "Blue Record"Unknown Mortal Orchestra "Blue Record"
$11.99 12 inch"I only started playing the acoustic guitar last year. I'd always preferred the idea that the guitar converts a sound into voltage and then becomes really loud. I thought the acoustic guitar was a little bit too twee for me or something. But after being offered some opportunities to play various acoustic sessions to promote the new record, in situations where it wasn't possible to record the whole band, I decided to treat it like a challenge to try and play acoustic and not have it be lame. After all I was really into Arthur Lee's ability with an acoustic and started wondering if I could make it sound convincing. Anyway, after being somewhat forced to develop some skill on the acoustic through these various radio sessions and things like that I decided to record some songs acoustically and release them since people seemed to be liking the way I was doing it. Everything was recorded straight to tape in my basement with a one mic set up." — RUBAN NIELSON, UMO
Unknown Mortal Orchestra "II"Unknown Mortal Orchestra "II"
$16.99 LP $7.99 Cassette $12.99 CD $9.90 MP3II builds on the break-beat, junk-shop charm the 32-year-old multi-instrumentalist and songwriter Ruban Nielson came to be renowned for following Unknown Mortal Orchestra's self-titled 2011 debut, and signals the solidification of the band's position as an endlessly intriguing, brave psychedelic band. UMO is unafraid to dig deeper than the rest to lock into their intoxicating, opiate groove and bring rock’n’roll’s exaggerated myths to life. Written during a punishing, debauched touring schedule during which Nielson feared for both his sanity and health, II illustrates the emotional turmoil of life on the road, painting surrealist, cartoonish portraits of loneliness, love and despair.
Various Artists "Music from Drinking Buddies, a film by Joe Swanberg"Various Artists "Music from Drinking Buddies, a film by Joe Swanberg"
$15.99 LP $9.99 MP3We're proud to release the soundtrack to the acclaimed indie film Drinking Buddies on Jagjaguwar. Written and directed by Joe Swanberg (Hannah Takes the Stairs, Alexander the Last, V/H/S), the film stars Olivia Wilde (TRON: Legacy, Rush), Jake Johnson (New Girl, Safety Not Guaranteed), Anna Kendrick (Up in the Air, Pitch Perfect), Ron Livingston (Office Space, Boardwalk Empire) and Jason Sudeikis (We're the Millers, SNL). The film was music supervised by Jagjaguwar's very own Chris Swanson, Grant Manship and Kathleen Cook, and features Jag artists Foxygen and Richard Youngs, as well as The Amazing, Richard Swift, Plants & Animals, Here We Go Magic and Phedre, among others.
Various Artists "Music from The Comedy, A Film by Rick Alverson"Various Artists "Music from The Comedy, A Film by Rick Alverson"
$15.99 LPJagjaguwar is proud to present the soundtrack from director Rick Alverson's provocative film "The Comedy." The film focuses on Swanson (Tim Heidecker), who whiles away his days with a group of aging Brooklyn hipsters, engaging in acts of recreational cruelty and pacified boredom. Desensitized and disenchanted, he strays into a series of reckless situations that may offer the promise of redemption or the threat of retribution. A scathing look at the white male on the verge of collapse, Rick Alverson's carefully observed portrait provokes and disorients; a cautionary fable for the autumn of the American Era. With his similarly-minded friends, ("Tim and Eric" co-star Eric Wareheim, LCD Soundsytem frontman James Murphy and comedian Gregg Turkington a.k.a.“Neil Hamburger") in games of comic irreverence and mock sincerity. As Swanson awaits a large inheritance from his father’s estate, he grows restless of the safety a sheltered life offers, and he begins to test the limits of acceptable behavior, pushing the envelope in every way he can.
Alverson worked with Jagjaguwar to create a soundtrack of eerie, bittersweet and mystic pop songs from the "autumn of the American Era," featuring artists from the present (GAYNGS, Gardens & Villa, Here We Go Magic) and the past (Donnie & Joe Emerson, Bill Fay, Amanaz). Markedly, the soundtrack features excerpts from William Basinski's groundbreaking The Disintegration Loops, one of the most powerful manifestations of the inevitable cycle of life ever committed to tape, even as it documents the inevitable decay of all that is committed to tape.
Volcano Choir "Repave"Volcano Choir "Repave"
$12.99 CD $17.99 LP $7.99 MP3It’s been four years since the first Volcano Choir album, Unmap, provided a glimpse into the collaborative mindset between a singer and a band that inspired him. Ideas were minted, written at a distance and realized in the studio; edges sanded back and flaps tucked in, the craftsmanship of the endeavor bearing evidence of the craft itself, and the technology used to assemble it. Unmap strove to find strands of life between the ones and zeroes - a carefully constructive narrative that showed the listener through its darkest passages like a tour guide leading their wards through a cave, with nothing but a slack length of rope and the senses of sound and touch. Just as importantly, it brought these people together, setting an expectation: be your own band. Achieve transference. Learn how to play these songs in the live setting. Tour Japan. Do some dates in America. Pull the life from the record and share it with tiny segments of the world. Repave brings Volcano Choir into sharp focus. The glitch-laden, cautious presentation of the band’s previous work serves as points of both reference and departure across these eight songs, the product of growing conviction and trust, of a fully-operational rock band, gifted in shading and nuance, and rumbling with power. It’s the sound of the creative process as it evolves and ultimately explodes, the seamless interleaving of electronic and acoustic/amplified instruments, multithreaded with the timbre and technology of the human voice as it enters and exits the equation. Moreover, Repave is the sound of confident musicians extending their reach to anthemic peaks and pulling back to reveal moments of real vulnerability, sure enough of themselves to let them stand on their own.
If Repave reminds you of other kinds of records from the past decade or so, it’s done so on the bonds between the members of Volcano Choir, how their friendships were fortified over the years-long process of writing and recording these songs. There is an openness to this work that won’t be taken for granted – real, moving tales of change, sadness, loss and truth grace the wordplay of these tracks, an account of life between the fringes of poetry and reality. With each verse you can sense that someone, somewhere is listening to this music and getting stronger, feeling better, learning to open up their soul.
Volcano Choir is Jon Mueller, Chris Rosenau, Matthew Skemp, Daniel Spack, Justin Vernon and Thomas Wincek
Volcano Choir "Unmap"Volcano Choir "Unmap"
$12.99 CD $14.99 LP $9.99 MP3Volcano Choir is an assembly of Wisconsinites Jon Mueller, Chris Rosenau, Jim Schoenecker, Daniel Spack, Justin Vernon, and Thomas Wincek. You might find these old friends also frequenting records and stages under different monikers, Collections of Colonies of Bees and Bon Iver. The collaboration predates the meteoric rise of Justin Vernon's Bon Iver project, with original songwriting dating back to the summer of 2005, right around the time the Bees first toured with Vernon's previous band DeYarmond Edison.
While entirely a studio record, the collection doesn't suffer from the overburdens of a digital pile up or over-thinking. Rather it breathes and convulses in equal measure, radiating an inherent dynamism found only in the voluntary bondage of intimacy. With influences ranging from David Sylvian and Steve Reich to Mahalia Jackson and Tom Waits, it might be more accurate to say the group's influence is music itself. You can hear it in the care and real love generously applied to each moment of Unmap. With the vibe of some intimate backwoods gospel, plus a spirit of patience and thoughtful repetition, the music of Volcano Choir is as dynamic as it is lovely.
Unmap ultimately came together over a weekend in November 2008 in Fall Creek, Wisconsin, at Justin and Nate Vernon's recording studio. And while it is at its heart a record about the allure of being with people you need and making something with them, it is also a document created by musicians with rare gifts getting together to exorcise their ideas about beauty. This scaffolding of loops and off grid tempos for choral style vocals offers a state of continual surprise, call it unexpectation.
Unmap marks the debut full-length from Volcano Choir, the collaboration between Collections of Colonies of Bees and Justin Vernon of Bon Iver.
Wilderness " kno w here"Wilderness " kno w here"
$12.99 CD $12.99 LP $9.99 MP3Wilderness's third full-length album entitled "(k)no(w)here" was conceived as one musical piece, and the impetus for this composition came from an invitation to collaborate with renowned visual artist Charles Long at Long's exhibit at the Whitney Biennial in Spring of 2008. The eight identifiable parts of "(k)no(w)here" are not readily separated from each other, such is the flow from and into each part. Created in ways different than the previous Wilderness self-titled album (2005) and the Wilderness "Vessel States" album (2006), "(k)no(w)here" still retains the Wilderness sound, with some evolution. On the new album, James Johnson is sometimes joined vocally by Colin McCann (aka The Lord Dog Bird, whose self-titled debut was released by Jagjaguwar in the Summer of 2008). And, as on previous albums, McCann performs on guitar, Brian Gossman on bass, and William Goode on drums, but the resulting community of all these parts comes across as more dynamic, and the perceived space they inhabit seems more vast.
Wilderness "Vessel States"Wilderness "Vessel States"
$12.99 CD $11.00 LP $9.99 MP3Wilderness is an unconventional band from Baltimore, Maryland, whose apparent musical pedigree stems from the likes of the Fall, This Heat, Savage Republic, Public Image Limited and Joy Division - without sounding like any of them -, and whose music is every bit as spiritual as it is visceral, as nuanced as it is overt, and as communal and all-embracing as it is culturally alienating and nihilistic. Embodied most recently in their second full-length record called Vessel States, the music-art of Wilderness attempts to glide above definitions or categorizations, especially those that are self-serving or manipulative. Yet the band is fully aware that striving for this kind of purity is most likely futile. Every human expression builds on or is connected to previous expressions, and the music of Wilderness will be packaged, commodified and connected to other forms of things beyond their understanding or control. This tension between the intended and the actual, and the awareness that this tension exists, may best sum up what Wilderness is all about.
Wolf People "Ruins"Wolf People "Ruins"
$12.99 CD $17.99 LPRuins is Wolf People's new album, and its over-riding theme is that of nature reclaiming the land. The transcendence of life over politics, plants over people. It asks: where are we going and what comes next? If culture is history's narration, then Wolf People are custodians and conduits; electrified sages, if you will. Through them runs a time-line of a nation rising from bloody glory to existentialist confusion. Yet within Ruins, their album proper, lies a spirit of hope too, it is a reminder that society is no match for the mighty power of music and nature working in perfect symbiosis. Wolf People are time travellers, their tools mythology, history, hauntology, big riffs, bigger beats, electricity. Recorded in Devon, Isle Of Wight and London, Ruins is their most direct and instinctive work yet, simultaneously reaching back into a fecund past to tell us who we are today, while harnessing the power of modern technology and ideas to ponder unknown futures. Lyrically Ruins imagines how the planet might appear when society has finally fallen to dust and ash, and the creeping vines and nettles have reclaimed the land. It is the product of letting go of conceit, contrivance and, indeed, a career plan. Influences upon Ruins come in all shapes, size, contours and hues: the discovery of proto Sabbath/Zeppelin Scottish band Iron Claw, the lesser known landscapes of rural Bedfordshire, backstage Taekwondo stretches, Scandinavian psychedelia, fleeting rural epiphanies, Dungen, Trees, Peter Green's Fleetwood Mac, a group holiday on a remote Finnish island, and Jagjaguwar flipping out after seeing them play in Bloomington, Indiana and insisting it was time they made their Back In Black...
Wolf People "When The Fire Is Dead in the Grate"Wolf People "When The Fire Is Dead in the Grate"
$9.99 12 inch $3.96 MP3Following Wolf People's critically acclaimed 2013 release, “Fain,” comes this 4-track 12" featuring two of the album’s most accomplished songs and two brand new tracks. "When the Fire is Dead in the Grate" has quickly been established as a fan-favorite throughout venues during their European tour. Stewart Lee described the song as ".... the album’s first stone classic, a funky folk-metal workout that trails off into a compellingly extended coda, both guitarists circling and dovetailing and spiraling." A brand new track, "Become the Ground," breaks new ground for the band, being, perhaps, their most obviously folk-influenced song to date. It’s a beautiful duet between lead singer Jack Sharp and guest vocalist Nicola Keary before the song breaks into a swirling psychedelic jam. The B-side of the 12” is made up of the first track fans heard on Fain, "All Returns", but now coupled with "All Returns Part II", the song’s original extended outro. It’s Wolf People at their best, locking into a masterful groove, razor-sharp guitars lines interlocking and intertwining.
Wolf People "Fain"Wolf People "Fain"
$12.99 CD $15.99 LP $7.92 MP3Recorded in an isolated house in the Yorkshire Dales, Fain is the sound of a band at the peak of their creative powers. It’s an honest and natural album that allows its stories and melodies to breathe. The album draws on more traditional English and Scottish folk melodies than anything they’ve done before, but not straying from the drop-out fuzz-rock route they’ve made their own.
Wolf People "Steeple"Wolf People "Steeple"
$14.99 LP $12.99 CD $8.91 MP3Steeple is the first album proper from Wolf People and represents the emergence of a fully fledged band from the fragmented, haunted bedroom meanderings of their Tidings singles compilation, released earlier this year. Recorded in a converted chicken barn on the grounds of a 17th century Welsh mansion, Steeple takes on a heavier sound while maintaining the arabesque electric guitars, groove-laden drums and ethereal vocals that characterized its predecessor.
Cheerfully aware of the English rock band cliché of “getting it together in the country," the quartet did it anyway, inspired by the rural isolation of West Wales to conjure shifting rhythms, entrancing folksong and smoke-fogged, riff-stoked jams. Steeple captures a band in metamorphosis, bridging frontman Jack Sharp’s earlier solo efforts and the speaker-shearing attack developed in concert over the past four years. Now an accomplished live unit, the quartet have shared stages with the likes of The Besnard Lakes, Dinosaur Jr, Dungen, Endless Boogie, Lightning Dust and Tinariwen.
While the bulk of recording took place in Wales, the remainder was undertaken during post-day job, late night sessions in Sharp’s bedroom studio. The results are both more coherent and nuanced than previous outings, with Sharp’s keen ear for a tune complemented by heady instrumental passages that veer between dreamlike traditional melodies and feedback onslaughts. Proud of their heritage, both musical and cultural, Wolf People's vision faithfully reflects the myriad environments the group's members move between — the British countryside and various cities (Bedford, London and North Yorkshire) — while offering a universally appreciable set of songs for this age or any other. Wolf People are Jack Sharp, Joe Hollick, Dan Davies and Tom Watt.
Wolf People "Tidings"Wolf People "Tidings"
$14.99 LP $12.99 CD $9.99 MP3Tidings is the first dark and frenzied offering from London's Wolf People — an alchemistic compendium of English classic rock that has been doused in wine, its pages left red-stained, blurred and melded in the most interesting ways. The quartet — and first UK rock band to join the Jagjaguwar inner circle — is eager to stress that Tidings is not a proper album per se. Collected from recordings made by Jack Sharp in Bedford, England between 2005 and 2007 (and mostly before the band as it exists now was formed), Tidings is wild with tape hiss, feedback and background noise — a fecund broth of sounds competing for the listener's attention. Stitched together in a style reminiscent of Faust or early Mothers Of Invention, the songs lay nestled in snatches of field recordings, winding tapes, squealing feedback, studio outtakes and the voices of dead relatives. The tunes themselves are full of hissing guitars, distorted blues harmonica, acid rock, mystical flutes and crackling tape, often based on updated versions of classic blues structures and half-remembered English folk songs. These recordings form the prehistory of a band that have recently garnered a reputation for blistering live performances around the UK. Their sound has evolved to include the diverse influences and musicianship of Jack's three colleagues and, as such, Tidings serves as index of possibilities.
Women "Public Strain"Women "Public Strain"
$14.99 LP $12.99 CD $9.99 MP3On their debut self-titled album, Women embraced sonic brashness that deeper examination revealed to be tinted with sly pop melody. With their second album "Public Strain", the band has honed a sound truthful to that reverb drenched noise while allowing the pop sensibilities to surface into clearer focus.
This exact balance of delicate and dense is a pervasive thread throughout the album, reflecting the contradiction of the band's environment buried in urban sprawl framed by prairie landscape. Whether twisting through the urgent krautrock of "Locust Valley", an exercise of harmony through simplicity, or climaxing with the bittersweet melody of "Eyesore", the album somehow builds luminous contrast out of a palette of grays.
Women "Women"Women "Women"
$12.99 CD $15.99 LP $9.99 MP3Sometimes light and spacious, at other times eerie and dense with an ominous weight, this self titled album touches upon Velvet Underground, Swell Maps or This Heat while not really having any obvious precursors - a lo-fi masterpiece cloaked in layers of vibrato and guitar wash.
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