Now Hear This
Black Pumas have unveiled a deluxe edition of their Grammy-nominated self-titled debut album via ATO Records. Features original album plus 11 bonus tracks, three new original songs and four cover tracks, plus unreleased live material. Double CD Set housed 4-panel wallet packaging with 12-page insert and unpublished studio/live photographs, plus new artwork.
On White Bronco, Action Bronson's 2018 release, he rapped "my next album's only for dolphins," and the principled MC is nothing if not true to his word. Thus, "Only For Dolphins", out this fall on Loma Vista. A Queens legend, respected for his idiosyncratic pen and vivid raps, Bronson is a decade into his career and still deepening his skillset. With "Only For Dolphins" he wants to take the listener on a tour of his creativity. Welcome to his world.
2020 album is about the importance of ancestral heritage. It is an invitation to listen to messages from the past to build the future. Skald is inspired by the Doggerland, which is an island that disappeared 20,000 years ago following various natural disasters (tsunami, long winter...). The Vikings tell here the history of the people who preceded them and question the role of Man for saving the planet.
2020 live release. This collection of 23 tracks recorded during the band's critically acclaimed 40th Anniversary Tour combines their unparalleled virtuosity and red-hot rock 'n' roll spirit, all raw and completely live-the way it was played on sweaty stages around the world. The live album was produced by the multi-platinum band's guitarist/vocalist Brian Setzer, upright bass player Lee Rocker and drummer Slim Jim Phantom-original founding members of the iconic American rock and roll trio-and mixed by Vance Powell (Jack White, Arctic Monkeys).The album's career-spanning track listing features their greatest hits as well as several brand-new scorchers from last year's 40, the band's first new album in 26 years.
If 'Joy As An Act of Resistance.' was meant to detail the band's manifesto, then their highly anticipated third album ' 'Ultra Mono' - is the sound of IDLES heading into battle, battering ram in hand, for those tenets. Sonically constructed to capture the feeling of a hip-hop record (Kenny Beats even helped with programming on several tracks), the songs double down on the vitriolic sneer and blunt social commentary of their past work. Not far beneath the surface of their self-admitted sloganeering lies a deeply complex and brutally relevant album that chews up clichés and spits them out as high art for the masses. Active presence and self-acceptance also stand at the core of 'Ultra Mono,' with much of the songwriting done on-the-spot in the recording booth, and the phrase 'I am I' serving as a lyrical and spiritual mantra throughout. Ultimately 'Ultra Mono' is a celebration of community.
15 years after the release of their debut album, Daptone's Royal Court from Staten Island delivers a truly epic collection of new material that finds the group further bridging the gap between the farfisa-fueled Ethio-Funk stylings of their early recordings, with the psychedelic, Sabbath-inspired hellfire of late. The title track and lead single, Long in the Tooth, jumps out of the speakers with a heavy drum break (reminiscent of the B-Boy approved grooves of their early output), drenched in a pulsating, hallucinatory wall of organ, menacing horns, and a rugged guitar riff that pummels the listener into Budonian submission. Imagine Link Wray and Mulatu Astatke collaborating on a Italian horror soundtrack and you're getting close.
2020 release. Ronnie Earl is a four-time Blues Music Award winner as 'Guitar Player of the Year,' and a world-renowned composer and musician. Most of his 26 albums have included chart-toppers and best-sellers and he continues to be a crowd favorite at music festivals to this day. Following the immensely successful Beyond the Blue Door album released in 2019, Ronnie continues to perform with his outstanding band The Broadcasters on Rise Up. Rise Up contains songs written and recorded just as the COVID19 quarantine was winding up. The majority of the album, recorded in The Living Room Sessions in Ronnie's home, are filled with songs that remind us of the comfort brought by family and community. Ronnie Earl has always believed in the power of music to heal the mind and spirit, and the 15 tracks on this disc demonstrate that implicitly. Rise Up confirms Earl's status as one of the most soulful blues/soul/jazz guitarists working today and as Gregg Grella reminds us, 'Ronnie Earl continues to play elegant guitar.'
A return to musical roots is a time-honored tradition for many established artists who have endured for the better part of a decade. Forming and shaping an identity can take an album or two, and perpetuating forward motion while perfecting a sound can take another. Sometimes a swerve gets thrown in, an unseen obstacle sets itself in the middle of a path, or an experiment or two get eked out for one reason or another. But oftentimes by this point in a career an itch pops up to circle back to where it all began in order to do what the artist does best. And so, for their fourth album as Cayucas, brothers Zach and Ben Yudin are heading back to the beach-in other words, to the sunny, vibrant, melodic rock from which they first paddled out. The eight tracks also mark the first time Zach will earn a producer credit for a Cayucas album. The Yudins' studio, dubbed Corner Pocket, is filled with many vintage pieces of equipment, but a vintage reverb tank found in Japan and a DanElectro with space echo may appear on the album more than any other sound. When it came time to title the record, only one phrase seemed to capture the mood correctly. "The album is called Blue Summer, which is a lyric in the song 'Malibu '79 Long,'" Zach says. "It just felt right as a title. It was simple, classic and evokes the mood. No matter your feelings about the warmest season, be sure that Cayucas will always be there to provide it's perfect soundtrack.
Brooklyn indie-rock stalwart Drew Citron formed Beverly in 2013, after having got her start as a touring member with Frankie Rose and The Pains of Being Pure of Heart. Over the course of Beverly's two LPs, released on Kanine Records, Citron toured the world with big acts (The Drums, We Are Scientists). She and Beverly drummer, Scott Rosenthal (Class Actress, The Beets), would go on to open storied Bushwick music-venue, Alphaville, and more recently embark on the highly regarded post-punk outfit, Public Practice. In all these collaborative endeavors, Citron has been developing, refining, and ultimately giving life to what is her latest project, Free Now, due out Summer of 2020 on Park The Van. Citron, after the break up of Beverly and the end of her long-term relationship with Rosenthal, writes a lot about heartbreak on Free Now. But at thirty-four, she's also arrived at the height of her performing/writing/producing abilities. "I am finally unafraid to get up on stage and be the front-person, to write all my own material, to get behind a mixing board and turn the knobs and produce my own songs," she says. "And it took time to get here. It takes time." In recording, Citron recruited an extremely talented pool of musicians, recording with Sam Owens (aka Sam Evian) at Flying Cloud, Tim Wheeler (of Ash) at Atomic Heart, John Agnello (engineer: Dinosaur Jr., Sonic Youth, Kurt Vile) at Water Music, and Danny Taylor at Transmitter Park Studio. The song arrangements were worked out on stage night after night with Citron's backing band, comprised of Nico Hedley and Laura Catalano, so that when Citron went into the studio, the songs were, as they say, ready to go. With Free Now, Citron, one of the most beautiful voices in Indie Rock, comes to the table with a whole lot of pain to sing about and the full musical knowledge to put herself, and her talents, front and center.
2020 release, Yung Lean's seventh full-length following 2018's Poison Ivy. Starz includes previously released singles "Boylife in EU," "Violence," and "Pikachu." Much like Lean's overall catalog, the album feels almost impossibly cohesive. In part, that's thanks to production entirely from longtime collaborator whitearmor - they kept the sessions intimate and secluded, recording partly in an old ballet hall in the Swedish countryside. But this is an album only Lean could make, as a young veteran, with a sound and career that's well-entrenched globally but still doggedly, even perplexingly, on it's own planet.
The Pineapple Thief are one of the leading lights of Europe’s experimental rock domain, led by post-progressive mastermind Bruce Soord and reinforced by Gavin Harrison (King Crimson) on drums. With the release of their new opus, The Pineapple Thief are set to raise the standard yet again, having delivered quite possibly one of the most important albums of 2020. Versions Of The Truth creates a conceptual progression from Dissolution - a contemplation on our ‘post truth’ world. Lyrically the album tackles a more personal reflection on how there can be more than one ‘version of the truth’, the impact it can have on our lives and the people we love.
Versions Of The Truth is Gavin Harrison’s second album as a full creative member of The Pineapple Thief alongside Soord, bassist Jon Sykes and keyboard player Steve Kitch. His presence has again helped bring writing and recording into sharp focus – a fresh dynamic added to the band’s previous creative process. Recording started at Bourne Place (London) and Soord Studios (Yeovil) as soon as they completed their US tour (October 2019 to April 2020), with engineering handled by Bruce Soord and Gavin Harrison, with mastering by Steve Kitch.