NEW RELEASE VINYL JANUARY 2016

Posted by

FRIDAY, JANUARY 29th, 2016

Basement – Promise Everything
Chuck Berry – After School Session
Clan Nugent – Night Fiction

Phil Collins – Face Value
Phil Collins – Take A Look At Me Now
Crooked Fingers – S/T
Crooked Fingers – Bring On The Snakes

Doom – Born Like This Featuring Raekwan & Ghostface Killah
Benji Hughes – Songs In the Key of Animals
Charlotte, North Carolina’s Benji Hughes fronted a rock band in the nineties. He’s written commercial jingles (“Got a Little Captain in You?” for Captain Morgan rum). He’s made music for film and television (Walk Hard, Eastbound & Down). He released 2008’s A Love Extreme, his excellent double-LP debut record. But these ventures aren’t different hats Hughes wears. They’re not different paths traveled. This isbenji Hughes playing in different keys. Now, for his first record on Merge, Benji Hughes is playing Songs in the Key of Animals. Recorded over two years mostly at Frisbie studios in New York , the album is 41 minutes of pop-music exploration. Hughes was working on three other albums as Songs in the Key of Animals started to take shape. “The songs on this album were being written as they were being recorded—on-the-spot, stream-of-consciousness magic.” The listener can hear that sense of discovery and playfulness all over the record. It gives the album its cohesion even as it bounces from, say, the funky hooks of “Freaky Feedback Blues” to the gauzy and bittersweet “Magic Summertime,” Hughes’ reworking of an Eleni Mandell song. Although Hughes has been described as being meticulous, the spontaneous feel of the record comes out of Hughes’ approach. “You just let the tracks happen to you,” he says. “If you’re in tune with what you’re doing, these things will continue to happen. You’re not overlording magic.” And there is something magical about Songs in the Key of Animals. Hughes played most of the music on it, but the album is still full of collaboration. You can hear the chemistry between Hughes and the female vocalists he sings with on this record. One of those singers happens to be Meshell Ndegeocello (who also plays bass on many of the tracks). If Hughes is our host, there are still plenty of guests invited to the party. “Waiting for the muse is a boring and lonely approach,” says Hughes. “Collaboration is where it’s at!” For a while, Hughes hadn’t planned to bring that party to a label. He was going to continue to make music available as a “renegade maverick” until Merge came calling. “I love Merge,” he says. “Who hasn’t vibed out to some of those records? Also, I happen to do a wicked Stephin Merritt impression, so it’s perfect.” And just like that, through Hughes’ love of records like 69 Love Songs, his new album had a home. Though the record runs well short of its predecessor A Love Extreme’s playing time, the CD version of the album will come on two discs. “It feels like the best way of letting people know how I intended the album to be experienced,” Hughes explains. “Two different vibes, the two discs are meant to represent the two sides of a record that gets flipped. It’s really that simple.” As much as Hughes talks about spontaneity and of the two-experience format being “really that simple,” Songs in the Key of Animals is deceptive in its depth. It’s a double-sided album in so many ways. It’s got a summertime immediacy but an evergreen resonance (see “Longshot”). It’s clever but too deep for punchlines (check the excellent back and forth of “Picnic”). It is sincere (“Girls Love Shoes”) yet heartbreaking (“Song for Nancy”). It’s eccentric but never forced in its strangeness. It’s the kind of record that reminds us music can be fun without being empty. It’s an album full of peacocks and sharks and zebras and tigers, but ultimately, it’s about us. “People are animals,” Hughes says, “even if some people don’t want to admit it.” Songs in the Key of Animals taps into something beyond just intellect or trend or taste. It’s all about the feel, the connection between the player, the music, and the listener.
Buddy Miller & Friends – Cayamo Sessions At Sea In 2012, Cayamo veteran Buddy Miller brought along some recording gear and set up a studio in the ship’s library where he and his Sirius XM co-host Jim Lauderdale recorded episodes for their Buddy & Jim Radio Show. Buddy thought the radio show recordings sounded really good so, in 2014, he brought more gear, an engineer and some great musicians. They took over the Bliss Lounge where Buddy set up a temporary recording studio between the lanes of the bowling alley. For two days and nights, guest artists came to record and fans came to watch. It was so much fun, they did it all again in 2015. The audio presented on this release comes from those sessions. It is with great pleasure that New West Records presents Buddy Miller & Friends, Cayamo Sessions At Sea.
Nevermen – S/T Nevermen is Faith No More’s Mike Patton, TV On The Radio’s Tunde Adebimpe and Doseone.
Simo – Let Your Love Show The Way The song is a blueprint for reinvigorating the fusion of jazz improvisation, downhome blues and classic R&B, as well as these genres’ psychedelic Brit Invasion and countrified Southern-rock manifestations. The rest of the record follows suit, a souped-up vehicle transporting the band on a deeply satisfying, off-the-cuff musical journey. Cut entirely live in full, unbroken takes—vocals and solos included—the sound is primal,simo sweltering and immediate. “We live and die by the take,” says singer-guitarist JD Simo. “We don’t edit, and if there are overdubs, they’re minimal. I want it to be unaffected and pure. For me, the music that always resonates most is when a performance is captured. That’s what I love, and that’s what we go for.” The first album ever recorded at Macon, Ga.’s Big House—the communal home of the Allman Brothers Band during their late ‘60s/early ‘70s heyday—Let Love Show the Way finds SIMO not just reveling in the hallowed space’s unique mojo and history, but taking it to a fresh and inspired place. As a musical unit, Simo, his longtime drummer Adam Abrashoff and bassist Elad Shapiro have an undeniable chemistry, taken to even greater heights with JD playing Duane Allman’s 1957 gold-top Les Paul for every track on the record. This is the same six-string heard on the first two Allman Brothers LPs, the same storied guitar that delivered the unforgettable riff on Derek & the Dominoes’ “Layla.” JD is now part of an elite group of artists—including Derek Trucks, Warren Haynes and Wilco’s Nels Cline—who share the rare honor of having wielded this talismanic instrument.
The Triffids – Born Sandy Devotional
Your Friend – Gumption

FRIDAY, JANUARY 22nd, 2016

Badly Drawn Boy – Hour of Bewilderbeast The Hour of Bewilderbeast surely isn’t a traditional pop album, but a continually beguiling trip through lo-fi postmodern folk that draws as much from Harry Nilsson as Beck. This is the 3 LP deluxe edition.
Besnard Lakes – Coliseum Complex Museum
Limited edition colored vinyl
Best Friends – Hot Reckless. Totally Insane.cactus
Black Sabbath – Black Sabbath
Deluxe 2LP 180 gram edition
Black Sabbath – Master of Reality
Deluxe 2LP 180 gram edition
Black Sabbath – Paranoid
Deluxe 2LP 180 gram edition
Black Sabbath – Past Lives
Deluxe 2LP 180 gram edition double live LP sourced from recordings between 1970-1975
Marc Bolan – Love & Death
Bonnie Prince Billy Pond Scum
Cactus Blossoms – You’re Dreaming
John Cale – M: Fans A complete reworking of the 1982 masterpiece Music For A New Society. John Cale re-contextualizes the original songs into radical new forms to resonate with the digital age. Contains a new recording of a previously lost track from the original session ‘Back To The End.’
The Church – Starfish
Re-issue on translucent green vinyl
Fourtet – Pink
Dizzy Gillespie – Have Trumpet, Will Excite
Half Japanese – Perfect Half Japanese is one of the most influential bands in rock history. Founded by brothers Jad & David Fair in 1975, the band is credited with pioneering the DIY and lo-fi movements and influencing everyone from Sonic Youth and Neutral Milk Hotel to Daniel Johnston and Kurt Cobain (who asked the band to open some of the dates on Nirvana’s In Utero tour.) Known for dismissing conventional music basics like melody, song structure and chords (and for Jad’s famous line “the only chord I know is the one that connects the guitar to the amp”), Half Japanese operated under the premise that rock music should be accessible to anyone who wanted to play. On January 22nd, Joyful Noise will release Half Japanese’s new full-length album, Perfect, a collection of songs that feature otherworldly sounds, chaotic rhythms, and weird time signatures, topped off with Jad’s brash vocals and oddball lyrics. Its tracks run the gamut from sweet love songs with overtly sincere lyrics to manic, almost abrasive tracks that seem to end before you can 714270689079.smlfully wrap your head around them. With Perfect, Half Japanese manages to combine elements of every genre imaginable into one strange, unpredictable, and undeniably-catchy package.
High Llamas – Here Come The Rattling Trees
Iggy & The Stooges – Sadistic Summer Live 2011
Lizzo – Big Grrrrl Small World

Savages – Adore Life
Ty Segall – Emotional Mugger

Del Shannon – Runaway With Del Shannon
Shirelles & King Curtis Give A Twist Party
Louis Smith – Here Comes Louis Smith
Stanley Turrentine – A Chip Off The Old Block

TUESDAY, JANUARY 19TH, 2016

It’s RHINO Tuesday! Cool re-issues of some classic vinyl! Get a free Rhino calendar while supplies last with a purchase of one of the following albums. Start your “ear” off right.

Bad Company – Rock & Roll Fantasy, The Very Best of Bad Company The definitive collection from 1974-1982 on 180gram double vinyl plus there are two previously unreleased tracks!
Blue Man Group Giacometti 7″
The Cars – S/T Classic 1978 debut LP on translucent blue vinyl
Cibo Matto – Viva! La Woman
Devo – Freedom of Choice
35th Anniversary edition on red, white & blue vinyl.
Grateful Dead – Shrine Exposition Hall, Los Angeles, CA 11/10/1967
Three LP set, 180gram vinyl, limited to 6700 pressings.
The Monkees – Cereal Box Record Set
4 cardbord 7″ singles mimicking the cereal box 45s of the past. One title per disc, “Last Train to Clarksville,” “Words(TV Mix),” “I Never Thought It Peculiar (TV Mix)” and “Valleri (TV Mix).”
The ReplacementsThe Twin/Tone Releases This time, sold individually, not in a box…“Sorry Ma, Forgot R1_773761LetItBe_Jacket.inddTo Take Out the Trash,” “Stink,” “Hootenanny,” and “Let It Be.”
Temple City Kazoo Orchestra – Some Kazoos 7″ Featuring Whole Lotta Love
The Velvet
Underground – Live At Max’s Kansas City Expanded remaster of the August 23rd, 1970 performance. 2 LPs on 180 gram vinyl and 15 tracks!
Soundtrack – Jackie Brown 180 gram yellow vinyl

FRIDAY, JANUARY 15TH, 2016

All Them Witches – Lightning At The Door
Johnny Cash – Original Sun Sound

Tommy Castro – Method To My Madness
Cows – Cunning Stunts
Cranberries – Bury The Hatchet

El-Vy – Return To The Moon
Randy Rogers Band – Nothing Shines Like Neon
Rolling Stones – From The Vault: Roudhay Park, Live In Leeds July 25, 1982

Rush – Feedback Re-Issue
Rush – Snakes & Arrows
Re-Issue
John Sangster –
The Sunsets – The Hot Generation Soundtrack Session
Mike Watt – Ball-Hog or Tugboat?
Re-Issue
Wavves & Cloud Nothings – No Life For Me

FRIDAY, JANUARY 8TH, 2016

Alberta Cross – S/T
Anthrax – Anthems A seven-song EP of covers including Cheap Tricks’ “Big Eyes,” Thin Lizzy’s “Jailbreak,” Boston’s “Smokin’,” plus more.
Bjork – Vulnicura
David Bowie – Blackstarblackstar
James Horner – The Amazing Spider-Man
Gregory Isaacs – More Gregory
Re-issue
Gregory Isaacs – Night Nurse Re-issue
Gregory Isaacs – Out Deh Re-issue
Gregory IsaacsSoon Forward Re-issue
Move – Move Long sought after by collectors and originally released in 1986 by a small independent label, this stellar full-length is driven by sharp post-punk guitars, tribal rhythms, and ghostly synthesizers, following the UK coldwave and post-punk tradition. Reflecting the realities of life in a city like Rome in the political landscape of the early ’80s in Italy, Move also released a couple of tapes and a split 12′ with Gronge before dissolving into obscurity. The history of Italian post-punk begins around 1979, in some specific areas of the country. The productions come out of Pordenone and Bologna, with The Great Complotto (SPITTLE 048LP, SPITTLE 060LP) and Italian Records influencing the surrounding area. In a less organic way, something began to arise in other parts of Italy, especially in the center-north where Florence, Turin, Milan, and Rome played a crucial role. Move is a forgotten classic, reissued here for the first time and highly recommended for fans of Joy Division, New Order, Section 25, Killing Joke, Bauhaus, Gang of Four.
Nelly – Country Grammar Re-issue
Art Pepper – Smack Up Re-issue of the 1961 classic.
Rush – Grace Under Pressure
Soundtrack – Hateful Eight

Soundtrack – Straight Outta Compton
Suicidal Tendencies – Controlled by Hatred
Translucent yellow vinyl edition limited to 2000 worldwide.
Various Artists – Soho Scene ’63, Jazz Goes Mod Jack McDuff, Charles Kynard, Ronnie Ross, Hank Crawford and more!
Paul Weller – Pick It Up 7″ single

Leave a Reply