Now Hear This

The Milk Carton Kids are set to release a special 10th Anniversary box set reissue of their critically acclaimed debut album Prologue, out September 24 on Milk Carton Kids Records.

The three-LP box set includes the remastered original album alongside a selection of early demos and live performances, as well as a disc that traces the evolution of “Michigan” and “New York,” two of the group’s most popular songs. The box set also comes with redesigned artwork and metallic ink on a clamshell box, plus a 32-page booklet featuring archival photos and a retrospective essay by author Kim Reuhl.

Lost Tapes is a monthly release of rare B-sides, exclusives - & even some previously unreleased tracks. Now the first 10 tracks from the series are released on limited vinyl and CD for the first time. 

2021 release from the Nashville-based rock trio. The album follows the release of three previous EP releases.

Lindsey Buckingham is his first solo release since 2011’s Seeds We Sow. As with the seven studio and three live albums he has released as a solo artist beginning with 1981’s Law and Order, the new project showcases Buckingham’s instinct for melody and his singular fingerpicking guitar style, reaffirming his status as one of the most inventive and electrifying musicians of his generation. Written, produced and recorded by Buckingham at his home studio in Los Angeles, CA, the new album is a welcome display of Buckingham’s instantly recognizable guitar work and vocal layering, particularly on songs such as “Power Down,” “Scream” and “Swan Song.”

To emerge from a global pandemic with a renewed sense of situational awareness, hard won insight, and a new album is the kind of move we’ve come to expect from THRICE over the last twenty years. With Horizons/East, Dustin Kensrue and his bandmates address, with candor and courage, the fragile and awkward arrangements that pass for civilization, while inviting us to dwell more knowingly within our own lives. Without surrendering any of the energy and hard edge of their previous albums, they’ve given us a profoundly meditative work which serves as a musical summons to everyday attentiveness.

Since forming THRICE with guitarist Teppei Teranishi, bassist Eddie Breckenridge, and drummer Riley Breckenridge in 1998, Kensrue has never been one to back down from a mental fight. This mood is set by the opening synth-driven number “Color of the Sky,” which sounds well-suited to accompany the closing credits of the Stranger Things season finale. Think Flying Lotus giving way to Elbow and setting the listener down in a new dimension. A self-recorded effort, Horizons/East conveys a palpable sense of danger, determination, and possibility.

On December 4th 1970, Neil Young played two legendary solo acoustic shows at New York’s Carnegie Hall. The 23 songs in this set (2 LP & 2 CD) have been mixed from the original ¼ inch tapes by Young and Niko Bolas. This is the early show which has never been bootlegged or circulated, and is the first release in Neil’s new “Official Bootleg Series”.

The Specials, who enjoyed a triumphant 2019 with the release of the critically acclaimed Encore — their first #1 album, coming 40 years after they exploded onto the music scene and launched the 2 Tone movement — make a very timely return with the release of their new album, Protest Songs 1924-2012, through Island Records. The album features 12 singular takes on specially chosen protest songs across an almost 100-year span and shows The Specials are still pissed off.

Remi Wolf will cement her status as one of pop music’s brightest young stars when her debut album Juno lands on October 15th. With her eclectic sound and style and magnetic personality, Remi has developed an avid fan base that has made her a trailblazer of the emerging Gen Z pop scene. She has garnered a cult following of peers and fellow artists along the way, boasting collaborations with Dominic Fike, Beck, and Nile Rodgers and Instagram cosigns from John Mayer, Khalid and Camila Cabello. With all of her accomplishments before her debut album, Juno will solidify what already seems written in stone; Remi Wolf is a star.

‘22 Break’ is about Anthony and Josephine’s relationship over the past year or so, and how after having toured and made music together continuously up to the lockdown last year, found themselves alone and in each other’s company for the first time in a long time - testing their relationship to the breaking point. Bespoke CD packaging.

The latest chapter in Columbia/Legacy's highly acclaimed Bob Dylan Bootleg Series shines fresh light on the provocative new musical directions Dylan was taking as a songwriter and a recording artist from 1980 through 1985. In the early 1980s, while the music industry was grappling with the arrival of new trends and technology, from MTV to compact discs to digital recording, Bob Dylan was writing and recording new songs for a new decade, creating an essential new chapters in his studio catalog. Bob Dylan - Springtime In New York (1980-1985) celebrates the rich creative period surrounding Dylan's classic albums Shot Of Love, Infidels, and Empire Burlesque with previously unreleased outtakes, alternate takes, rehearsal recordings, live performances and more.

In his liner notes for Bob Dylan - Springtime In New York, Damien Love writes, "And that's the real story of this gloriously untrammeled collection. The songs. The songs stripped free of trappings, tampering, passing tastes, and judgements. The songs broken down to the sound of people really doing this, right now, acting on instinct. The songs rough and rowdy, bruised and tender, joking and crying, nagging and striving and yearning. The songs were always there, and here they are still, keeping pace with us."

Flying Lotus follows the release of his sweeping epic Flamagra and his Producer of the Year Grammy nomination for Thundercat's It Is What It Is, with an expansive original soundtrack for Netflix's new anime series, Yasuke.

Flying Lotus is the executive producer & composer of Yasuke, which retells the story of feudal Japan's first African samurai who served with Oda Nobunaga. The series is directed by LeSean Thomas, stars Lakeith Stanfield and features Takeshi Koike as its lead designer.

Flying Lotus' score for Yasuke is an unforgettable titan in his musical canon, drawing enhanced influence from prior instrumental and vocal works alike, while looking towards the future uncompromisingly. The music lies heavily steeped within the legacy of jazz and electronic instrumentation, with select feature appearances by longtime friends and collaborators: Thundercat, Denzel Curry and Niki Randa.

2021 release. Lifeforms is the sixth studio album by alternative rock band Angels & Airwaves. The album marks the longest gap between albums for the band following 2014's The Dream Walker. It is also the band's first album with bassist Matt Rubano, who replaced Matt Wachter in 2019 after first serving as a touring member the same year. The album also marks the return of guitarist David Kennedy, who last appeared on 2011's Love: Part Two. Lifeforms was a conscious effort by the band's frontman, Tom DeLonge, to return to the band's earlier sound, while also incorporating elements of punk rock and post hardcore.

Sometimes, the best place to begin is at the end. If you really want to dig deep into Illusory Walls, the fourth album by THE WORLD IS A BEAUTIFUL PLACE & I AM NO LONGER AFRAID TO DIE, it definitely helps to do that. That’s because epic closer “Fewer Afraid”—all 19 minutes, 44 seconds of it—doesn’t just revisit the themes and ideas on the ten songs that precede it, but also offers a self-aware summary of the Connecticut band’s entire history. It’s the conclusion of all the stories within the record as well as a nod to all the lives that helped make them—little glimpses of everything that’s come before, on both a micro, immediate level, and a more universal one. “That song is a higher level look at my whole life and the whole world,” explains vocalist/guitarist David F. Bello, “as well as the album, our band and our discography. It places the band in the context of the rest of the world, as if we’re listening to everything that came before. It touches on all the themes of the previous songs, but there are also callbacks to songs
from earlier in our career. But in this song, they’re the object, not the subject—I’m talking about a world in which these things happen, not talking about these things happening.”

Due to the coronavirus pandemic, the band—completed by Steven K. Buttery (drums and percussion), Joshua Cyr (bass/vocals) and Katie Dvorak (vocals/synth)—had nothing but time to realize the full extent of their musical and thematic aspirations. And so, four years on from lauded third album Always Foreign, they were able to make what is undoubtedly the band’s most ambitious and epic record to date. Written and recorded remotely—a first for the band—Illusory Walls takes on the weight of human existence while it’s buckling under the pressure of today’s near-dystopian society. Personal anxieties and political struggles collide with a series of portentous, apocalyptic and dramatic tunes, resulting in some of the darkest music the band has made since forming in 2009.