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Metz
Atlas Vending
Indies exclusive LP is on 'light rose' coloured vinyl.
“Change is inevitable if you’re lucky,” says guitarist/vocalist Alex Edkins while talking about Atlas Vending, the fourth full-length album by Toronto’s METZ. “Our goal is to remain in flux, to grow in a natural and gradual way. We’ve always been wary to not overthink or intellectualize the music we love but also not satisfied until we’ve accomplished something that pushes us forward.” The music made by Edkins and his compatriots Hayden Menzies (drums) and Chris Slorach (bass) has always been a little difficult to pin down. Their earliest recordings contained nods to the teeming energy of early ‘90s DIY hardcore, the aggravated angularities of This Heat, and the noisy riffing of AmRep’s quintessential guitar manglers, but there was never a moment where METZ sounded like they were paying tribute to the heroes of their youth. If anything, the sonic trajectory of their albums captured the journey of a band shedding influences and digging deeper into their fundamental core—steady propulsive drums, chest-thumping bass lines, bloody-fingered guitar riffs, the howling angst of our fading innocence. With Atlas Vending, METZ not only continues to push their music into new territories of dynamics, crooked melodies, and sweat-drenched rhythms, they explore the theme of growing up and maturing within a format typically suspended in youth. Covering seemingly disparate themes such as paternity, crushing social anxiety, addiction, isolation, media-induced paranoia, and the restless urge to leave everything behind, each of Atlas Vending’s ten songs offer a snapshot of today's modern condition and together form a musical and narrative whole. The song sequencing follows a cradle-to-grave trajectory, spanning from primitive origins through increasingly nuanced and turbulent peaks and valleys all the way to the climactic closer, “A Boat to Drown In.” The lyrics speak to this arc as well, with the songs addressing life’s struggles all the way through to death, as Edkins snarls “crashed through the pearly gates and opened up my eyes, I can see it now” before the band launches into the album’s cascading outro. While past METZ albums thrived on an abrasive relentlessness, the trio embarked on Atlas Vending with the goal to make a more patient and honest record—something that invited repeated listens rather than a few exhilarating bludgeonings. It’s as if the band realized they were in it for the long haul, and their music could serve as a constant as they navigated life’s trials and tribulations. The result is a record that sounds massive, articulate, and earnest. Bolstered by the co-production of Ben Greenberg (Uniform) and the engineering and mixing skills of Seth Manchester (Daughters, Lingua Ignota, The Body) at Machines with Magnets in Pawtucket, Rhode Island, METZ deliver the most dynamic, dimensional, and compelling work of their career.
Sub Pop Records
CD | LP
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Stone Foundation
Is Love Enough?
‘Is Love Enough?’ is the band’s sixth studio album and was recorded at Paul Weller’s Black Barn Studios in Surrey and produced by Stone Foundation’s founding members Neil Jones and Neil Sheasby. It continues their fruitful collaboration with Paul Weller who produced 2017’s Street Rituals and played on 2018’s ‘Everybody Anyone’ [both of which have streaming figures in the millions]. Paul contributes lead vocals to ‘Deeper Love’ and also prominent backing vocals on ‘Picture A Life’. He also joins the band and plays guitar on three other tracks (‘Af-Ri-Ka’, ‘Help Me’, ‘Love’s Interlude (II)’).
Stone Foundation are renowned for their collaborative approach and this time is no exception. Legendary actor Peter Capaldi provides a spoken word coda to the album, reading words by Vincent Van Gogh written about love. Additionally, two rising stars of the soul scene feature on the record. Durand Jones joins for a lead vocal on ‘Hold On To Love’ and Laville sings lead on ‘The Light In Us’.
Neil Jones says: “This time around we wanted to sing songs about love, that beautiful emotion we see in every town or city we play in. Not the trite, ‘boy falls for girl’ kind, this was the building bridges and breaking down borders kind and right now it seemed to us like we needed more of that L O V E than ever.” Neil Sheasby says: “We felt it was the right moment to move the big subjects such as hope, compassion, empathy and indeed love to the forefront of our writing. We wanted to attempt something ambitious. It was a joy to create, one of the most productive periods for us, the ideas just flowed.”
‘Is Love Enough’ sees Stone Foundation building on their growing stature but also on 22 years of experience of playing together. Having been pulled forward into the limelight by been chosen to support The Specials on a 2011 arena tour, the band has kept both grooving and growing! They have enjoyed national airplay from BBC 6 Music, BBC Radio 2 and rave reviews from a huge range of publications. Stone Foundation has played Glastonbury and sold out headline shows at London’s Shepherd’s Bush Empire and the Electric Ballroom. Last year saw two very successful support tours opening for Paul Weller’s outdoor gigs and Mavis Staples’ summer tour - they played to 20,000 people. This was followed by a 10 date headline UK tour in Autumn 2019.
This album is the product of everything that has come before it, a distillation of everything that makes Stone Foundation so special. Unmissable.
100%
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Whitney
Candid
Covers have long been an integral part of Whitney's ethos. Ever since the band first formed in a Chicago apartment in 2014, tackling songs by the Everly Brothers, Allen Toussaint, and more played an important part in the songwriting process for their breakthrough 2016 debut Light Upon The Lake. Since then, their takes on NRBQ's "Magnet" and Neil Young's "On the Way Home" have become live staples, an essential and communal part of their sets. Their love for the music that makes up their deepest influences has always been genuine and tangible.
Following their acclaimed sophomore 2019 album Forever Turned Around, Whitney have decided to return with a loving tribute to songs that have been formative and lasting to the entire band. Candid is a 10-song collection boasting covers of artists like Kelela, David Byrne, John Denver, SWV, and others but it's also a band challenging themselves to explore more than their musical comfort zone. "This could've been as simple as saying we really love these songs and we love our bandmates and making a covers record just felt right but it truly became an exploration into how we can evolve as a band going forward,” says drummer and singer Julien Ehrlich.
Recorded in January and February of 2020 over multiple sessions at Treehouse Studios in Chicago and Flora Recording and Playback in Portland, Candid finally sees the full touring band in a recording studio together. "This is the first time we really saw what the live iteration of Whitney sounds like in a studio. It was a really celebratory vibe and everyone in the room fed off each other's energy," says guitarist Max Kakacek. It's the band's best reflection so far of their triumphant live show as most of these renditions were recorded live. Featuring keyboardist Malcolm Brown, bassist Josiah Marshall, trumpeter Will Miller, as well as guitarists Print Chouteau and Ziyad Asrar, the entire live unit is firing at all cylinders thanks to its tight-knit and road-tested relationship.
Secretly Canadian
CD | LP
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Video Age
Pleasure Line
An absolute joy of an album. Golden 80's style nuggets that will gte caught in your head after just one play. Video Age’s third album, out on Winspear, pairs neon-bright 80s pop melodies with a vast range of influences (including Janet Jackson, David Bowie, and Paul McCartney) to create an optimistic sound all their own. The influences vary song to song, but they’re all tinted with the same rosy hue. These are catchy, memorable songs that radiate big “glass-half full” energy. Pleasure Line is a salve that protects against cynicism—listening to this album, you can’t help but feel the world around you is full of romantic potential. Video Age’s first two albums were about loneliness and discovering oneself, but Pleasure Line takes on a whole new attitude, considering songwriting partners Ross Farbe and Ray Micarelli are both getting married this year (just a few weeks apart from each other, too). But these songs aren’t expressions of one-dimensional puppy love—this is euphoria with depth, ecstasy with complications.
Winspear Records
CD | LP
Thurston Moore
By The Fire
This is Thurston Moore’s seventh solo album, and features musicians Deb Googe (My Bloody Valentine) on bass and backing vocals, Jon Leidecker aka ‘Wobbly’ (of Negativland) on electronics, James Sedwards on guitar, and Sonic Youth’s Steve Shelley, as well as Jem Doulton, alternating on drums. ‘Hashish’ is the ?rst single from the album to be released and is described by Moore as “an ode to the narcotic of love in our shared responsibility to each other during isolation." The song includes a video with footage from The Thurston Moore Group’s tour in early 2020 in Europe, as well as footage of Thurston quarantined in his home during the past few months “with respect to the sacred healing truth of nature.” Prior to isolation during the COVID pandemic, Thurston worked in recording studios in North London until the third week of March 2020 to complete this album for release on September 5, 2020. While the musicians may not immediately tour, Thurston was adamant to release BY THE FIRE in 2020, and with Daydream Library, has released this quote: ?BY THE FIRE is music in ?ames. 2020 is our time for radical change and collective awareness and Thurston Moore has written nine songs of enlightenment, released to a world on ?re. Taking a cue from Albert Ayler's "music is the healing force of the universe", this recording offers songs as ?ames of rainbow energy, where the power of love becomes our call. These are love songs in a time where creativity is our dignity, our demonstration against the forces of oppression. BY THE FIRE is a gathering, a party of peace—songs in the heat of the moment. Some of the songs feature all of the musicians whist a few are solo guitar and vocals. Thurston is working on the ?nal cover and sleeve art with London-based artist Radieux Radio who also scribed lyrics for a few of the tracks. BY THE FIRE will come out on The Daydream Library Series record label which was founded in 2018 especially to release London Afro-punk feminist trio Big Joanie’s debut album ‘Sistahs’.
Daydream Library Series
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Washed Out
Purple Noon
Indies exclusive LP is on 'purple' coloured vinyl.
Both LPs include a download code.
Washed Out is Atlanta-based producer/songwriter/multi-instrumentalist Ernest Greene. Over three enchanting, critically-lauded albums and an EP, his music has proved both transportive and visual, each release inviting listeners into immersive, self-contained universes. With Purple Noon, his fourth album, and his return to Sub Pop, he delivers the most accessible Washed Out creation to date.
Life of Leisure, Washed Out’s 2009 debut EP, set the bar for the Chillwave era, shimmering in a warm haze of off-the-cuff Polaroids and pre-IG filters. Within and Without, his 2011 full-length debut on Sub Pop, morphed into nocturnal, icy synth-pop and embraced provocative imagery. 2013’s Paracosm was Greene’s take on psychedelia, with a full live band and kaleidoscopic light show, and saw him playing to the largest audiences of his career. The sample-heavy Mister Mellow (2017, Stone’s Throw) delivered a 360 audio/visual experience, with cut-n-paste and hand-drawn animation to match the hip-hop influences throughout the album. With each release, Greene has approached his evolving project with meticulous detail and a steadfast vision. For Purple Noon, Greene again wrote, recorded, and produced the entirety of the album, with mixing handled by frequent collaborator Ben H. Allen (Paracosm, Within and Without). Production of the album followed a brief stint of writing for other artists (most notably Sudan Archives) which enabled Greene to explore genres like R&B and modern pop. These brighter, more robust sounds made their way into the songs of Purple Noon and mark a new chapter for Greene as a producer and songwriter. The vocals are front and center, tempos are slower, beats bolder, and there’s a more comprehensive depth of dynamics. One can hear the luxuriousness of Sade, the sonic bombast of Phil Collins, and the lush atmosphere of the great Balearic beat classics. Mediterranean coastlines inspired Purple Noon, and Greene pays tribute to the region’s distinct island culture - all rugged elegance and old-world charm - and uses it as a backdrop to tell stories of passion, love, and loss (Purple Noon’s title comes from the 1960 film directed by Rene Clement and based on the novel The Talented Mister Ripley by Patricia Highsmith). Much like romantic Hollywood epics, the melodrama throughout is strong: a serendipitous first meeting in “Too Late”; a passionate love affair in “Paralyzed”; disintegration of a relationship in “Time to Walk Away”; a reunion with a lost love in “Game of Chance.” Purple Noon adds a layer of emotional intensity to the escapism of Washed Out’s oeuvre, taking the music to dazzling new heights.
Sub Pop Records
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A Certain Ratio
ACR Loco
Limited vinyl colours distributed randomly - white vinyl / 300, blue vinyl / 600, red vinyl / 900, turquoise vinyl / 1200.
First new album in 12 years from influential Mancunians A Certain Ratio, who pioneered a unique mix of post-punk / funk / disco.
ACR Loco feels like an accumulation of ACR's DNA from point zero in 1977 through to 2020 and sounds like a band who have effortlessly perfected their craft.
An album to dance to, cry to, fall in love to and most importantly, to party to.
ACR Loco by the core ACR members Jez Kerr, Martin Moscrop and Donald Johnson, are joined by long term partners Tony Quigley, Denise Johnson and Matt Steele, plus special guests Sink Ya Teeth’s Maria Uzor and Gemma Cullingford, Factory Floor’s Gabe Gurnsey and Manchester luminaries Mike Joyce and Eric Random.
Mute
CD | LP
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Bill Callahan
Gold Record
For his first record in….uh, well, just a little over a year (!), Bill Callahan’s given us his first Gold Record. They can’t all be gold, and they’re not all six years apart either — all good! You could probably call the album “Gold Records,” too: all the songs have a stand-alone feel, like singles, meant for you to have a deep encounter with all of a sudden, from the start of the song to the finish. And what do you got when you have a record full of singles — and let’s face it, hit singles, at that?
That’s a Gold Record for you.
From the top, it’s clear this is music with an affection for people, as Bill immediately slips easily and deeply into his characters. Among them: a limo driver, a watcher of television, a suitor, a man in a broken-down car, a reader of books, a Ry Cooder superfan, and in the closing number, a wanderer who “notices when people notice things”. The voices of the people, with their ups and downs, their loss and laughter. You can feel the love.
For Bill, preparing to tour for Shepherd In a Sheepskin Vest meant considering being away from home for long stretches of time — maybe up to a year, who knew? Feeling his oats, Bill pulled out a few sketches from over the years and touched them up. Before he knew it, he was recording them, and in the shuffle, newer songs started popping up.
It happened fast. Basics were recorded live with Matt Kinsey playing guitars, guitars, guitars and Jaime Zurverza holding it down “and then letting it go” on bass. Drums and horns were brought in for a couple songs. Spirits were high! Six out of the ten were done first take; overdubs, when needed, came equally quickly. Listening, one hears their intuitive cohesion coming together richly behind Bill’s titanic voice spread across the stereo spectrum: the gentle conversation of Bill and Matt’s guitars, the subtle percussion of the bass and drums, and odd appearances of trumpet, woodwind and synth, striking notes both decorous and discordant, sounding for all the world like the naturally occurring sound meant to accompany and express lives lived everywhere.
These are in fact songs meant for other people to sing — but until they do, Bill’s got this. He’s got a secret on this one, and before we go, we don’t mind sharing it with you: he’s figured out how to perfectly place his voice in proximity to your ear. It’s based on the distance from your heart to your brain. Simple! Why don’t more people think like this?
Drag City
CD | LP
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Bright Eyes
Down in the Weeds, Where the World Once Was
Indies exclusive LP is on ‘transparent blue and transparent red’ coloured vinyl. LPs are packaged in a die-cut sleeve with a ‘phenakitoscope’ etching on the D-side. The new, highly anticipated full length album from Bright Eyes, their first since going on hiatus back in 2011. As a title, as a thesis, Down in the Weeds, Where the World Once Was functions on a global, apocalyptic level of anxiety that looms throughout the record. But on a personal level, it speaks to rooting around in the dirt of one’s memories, trying to find the preciousness that’s overgrown and unrecognizable. For Oberst, coming back to Bright Eyes was a bit of that. A symbol of simpler times, vaguely nostalgic. And even though it wasn’t actually possible to go back to the way things were, even though there wasn’t an easy happy ending, there was a new reality left to work with. And here, there is a bleary-eyed hopefulness – earnest, emotive recommitments to love appear on “Dance and Sing” and “Just Once in the World.” And throughout, Down in the Weeds features snippets of Oberst’s loved ones speaking, in late-night conversations. The fleeting loveliness of intimate moments punctuates the bleakness of the record’s existential crisis, crackling like lightning bugs illuminating the long night. Down in the Weeds is a distillation of a prolific, enduring canon. It’s immediate and urgent, the product of its creators’ growth across a decade apart, as well as the need to make a record together to find solace from loss. Through deliberate, fearless experimentation in process, the trio made the truest Bright Eyes sound: the sound of a deep bond, of a band coming home, but also a seamless continuation, like Bright Eyes never went away. It’s the impossible, sprawling mess of human experience that Bright Eyes has always sought to put to tape, since the beginning – the sound of holding on. Why now? Why not?
Dead Oceans
CD | LP
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