New Release Round-Up 02-21-20

Grimes - Miss Anthropocene - 4AD
Grimes started producing music when she had to learn the program Logic for her neuroscience class. Shortly thereafter she had a viral myspace page, which allowed her to start booking shows and focus full-time on music. She lived in a crack den in Montreal with no heat (where she got frostbite twice and her neighbor was bludgeoned to death in the hallway), playing raves until her 2012 breakout, Visions, which was recorded during a 2 week speed binge wherein she did not leave her bedroom. Upon the success of this album, Grimes attempted to enter society as a regular human, which has clearly not gone super well but has nonetheless been entertaining. She’s since become an award winning music video director as well as a music writer, producer, engineer, singer-songwriter. She’s toured globally to sold out crowds, headlined festivals, and is now moving into the space of corporate surrealism. She recently had experimental eye surgery only available to the upper class. She is putting out her final earth album Miss Anthropocene.

Best Coast - Always Tomorrow - Concord Records
This week sees the release of Always Tomorrow, the hotly anticipated new album from Best Coast. Inspired by the 70s, the LA based duo expand their signature indie pop sound into a harmonic blend of melodic guitars and keyboards as warm and refreshing as a California breeze. Multi-instrumentalist Bobb Bruno, along with the irrepressible Bethany Cosentino, combine to bring her masterful storytelling to new heights, crafting their most eloquent and reflective album to date. It’s the Best Coast you know and love at an entirely new level.

Sløtface - Sorry For The Late Reply - Nettwerk Records
Norwegian indie rock band Sløtface deliver a powerful sophomore record in "Sorry For The Late Reply". Fierce yet melodic, the album takes on everything from break ups to climate change and lead vocalist Haley Shea's immigrant experience.

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Courtney Barnett - Mtv Unplugged Live In Melbourne - Mom & Pop Music
On October 22nd Courtney Barnett performed a unique and special show at the invitation of MTV Australia in her hometown of Melbourne. The “Unplugged” performance features Barnett as you’ve never heard her before, warm, vulnerable and emotional. Under a garland of lights and a canopy of florals in the outdoor courtyard of Howler, Barnett performed a stirring set of eight songs to an intimate audience including “Depreston”, “Avant Gardener” and “Sunday Roast." Joined by her usual band Dave Mudie and Bones Sloane, she also enlisted cellist Lucy Waldron.

 

Ozzy Osbourne - Ordinary Man - Epic
This is the Ozzman’s first album in 10 years and with his recent appearance on the Post Malone track “Take What You Want” as well as his single “Under The Graveyard” which has now been #1 at Active Rock for five weeks and #1 at Classic Rock for nine weeks we are poised to have a massive return to the marketplace.  Some of the announced features include longtime guitarist Zakk Wylde, Slash & Duff McKagan (GNR), Chad Smith of the RHCP, and Post Malone guitarist / producer Andrew Watt.  There are additional big name features that have yet to be announced.

Purr - Like New - ANTI
2020 debut album from New York City born, raised and forever-based songwriting partners Eliza Barry Callahan and Jack Staffen. Like New was produced by Jonathan Rado (Weyes Blood, Father John Misty, Whitney, The Lemon Twigs). The duo - who had previously captured attention releasing deft, stripped down, warm-toned pysch-pop under their names, Jack and Eliza - shifted to what naturally felt like their next musical gear. If Jack and Eliza showcased the songwriting prowess of a promising young duo (they are both still in their early twenties), then Purr let's Callahan's and Staffen's work bloom in the fertile ground of a fully realized soundscape. Purr builds upon an ageless, classic sound that at once looks at the past while leaning into their own, individual future - with Staffen's and Callahan's vocals humming at the center.

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UPCOMING RELEASES

The Secret Sisters - Saturn Return - New West Records
As we age, we face obstacles that are beyond our control. Some forces are internal: insecurity, anxiety, fear. Some are external: the loss of loved ones, an unjust system and the fragility of time. Yet the mark of maturity is how you respond when you realize you’re not in control. Where do you find your resilience? This album is a reflection of us coming to terms with how to find our power in the face of an unfair world. These songs lead listeners past “where happy man searches, to a place only mad women know.” We question our purpose, our relationships, our faith. Trading the fears of our youth for the dread that rages within us as mature women. With Saturn Return, our hope is that women can feel less alone in their journey through the modern world. We need each other more than we ever have; the less competition and the more inclusiveness and understanding, the better. We are southern women in the 21st century, convicted by our beliefs.

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Five Finger Death Punch - F8 - Better Noise Music
2020 release, the eighth album from hard-hitting rockers Five Finger Death Punch. The album was produced by Kevin Churko, the Canadian record producer/engineer and songwriter who currently lives in Las Vegas, where he works out of his private studio, The Hideout Recording Studio. Includes "Inside Out".

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Broken Social Scene - Live At Third Man Records - Third Man Records
Third Man Records had the pleasure of hosting the inimitable Broken Social Scene, carefully absorbing and recording their magnetic and unforgettable live set on the Blue Room stage. Epic, panoramic, and intimate all at the same time, the legendary Toronto collective Broken Social Scene began as an ebbing and flowing collective of artists in the late 90s, collaborating to create a distinct strand of indie rock that is both perplexingly maximal and straight-up catchy. The band kicked off the set with emotive fan favorite “Cause = Time”, then transitioning into “Stay Happy,” the lead track from 2017’s Hug of Thunder, in all it’s hypnotic, horn-driven grandeur. Then, on the flip side, the album’s 2-song B-side wraps with the slow-build anthem “It’s All Gonna Break,” a song once described as “Bob Seger on acid.” Really, how else would you want a show to close? Their live set was captured, mixed and mastered in real time via the world’s only live venue and direct-to-acetate lathe cutting studio. With the release of this Live At Third Man Records album, Third Man is very excited to invite all to be a part of this special experience, Broken Social Scene’s first commercially available live album, in the only venue in the world where performance, art and tactile transcription methodologies converge.

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For more information on these and other releases out this week, check out our New Releases charts by week section.

New Release Round-Up 02-14-20

Justin Bieber - Changes - Def Jam
Justin Bieber is ready to give the world insight into events that have taken place in his life over the past four years. From marriage to faith and his new outlook on life, Justin is reflecting on changes he's experienced and the impact they've had on him. "Changes" marks a new chapter in his career. The album hinges on themes of personal growth through life experiences, love and commitment, creatively expressed through music, giving a candid look into his evolution as an artist and human being. 

Tame Impala - The Slow Rush - Interscope Records
Tame Impala (Kevin Parker) release's his fourth studio album, The Slow Rush on Interscope. Recorded between Los Angeles and his studio in his hometown of Fremantle, Australia, the twelve tracks were produced and mixed by Parker. The Slow Rush is Parker's deep dive into the oceans of time, conjuring the feeling of a lifetime in a lightning bolt, of major milestones whizzing by while you're looking at your phone. Pressed on forest green vinyl

Beach Bunny - Honeymoon - Mom & Pop
Honeymoon is the excellent debut album from Beach Bunny, the four-piece band out of Chicago. Recorded at the iconic Chicago studio Electrical Audio with producer Joe Reinhart (Hop Along, Algernon Caldwaller), the nine songs on the LP burst with energy that capture their vital and life-affirming live shows. Songs like the swooning and anthemic singles 'Dream Boy' and 'Ms. California' encapsulate the highs and lows the exiting the honeymoon stage of a relationship. The long-awaited debut LP 'Honeymoon' from Beach Bunny follows their breakout hit on Tik-Tok, 'Prom Queen' (65 million global streams, 518K+ TikTok videos).

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Nathaniel Rateliff - And It's Still Alright - Fantasy
Nathaniel Rateliff has written and recorded his first solo record since the explosive debut of his work together with The Night Sweats. And It's Still Alright, is an intensely personal 10-song album of vibrant country-blues, badland ballads, ornate Americana and jazz-inflected R&B. Rateliff's warm baritone, ranging from gently hushed to a guttural howl, imbues these superbly drawn character studies with raw, naked emotion.

The Ballroom Thieves - Unlovely - Nettwerk Records
Americana-leaning indie folk band The Ballroom Thieves take on topics as heavy as politics and as joyful as lifelong companionship on their latest studio album Unlovely.

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UPCOMING RELEASES

Sløtface - Sorry For The Late Reply - Nettwerk Records
Norwegian indie rock band Sløtface deliver a powerful sophomore record in "Sorry For The Late Reply". Fierce yet melodic, the album takes on everything from break ups to climate change and lead vocalist Haley Shea's immigrant experience.

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Purr - Like New - ANTI
2020 debut album from New York City born, raised and forever-based songwriting partners Eliza Barry Callahan and Jack Staffen. Like New was produced by Jonathan Rado (Weyes Blood, Father John Misty, Whitney, The Lemon Twigs). The duo - who had previously captured attention releasing deft, stripped down, warm-toned pysch-pop under their names, Jack and Eliza - shifted to what naturally felt like their next musical gear. If Jack and Eliza showcased the songwriting prowess of a promising young duo (they are both still in their early twenties), then Purr let's Callahan's and Staffen's work bloom in the fertile ground of a fully realized soundscape. Purr builds upon an ageless, classic sound that at once looks at the past while leaning into their own, individual future - with Staffen's and Callahan's vocals humming at the center.

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For more information on these and other releases out this week, check out our New Releases charts by week section.

#BobMarley75

Throughout history, no artist has dominated the world of music quite like Bob Marley. A musical, political and spiritual icon of mythical proportions, both poet and prophet, Marley was the first Jamaican artist to give voice to the struggles of his people and the Rastafarian culture, and the first to gain worldwide fame. October 2020 will see the 40th anniversary of Bob Marley’s “Redemption Song.” Released in October 1980 and taken from his ninth album Uprising (Island Records), the song was inspired by a speech from Pan-Africanist Marcus Garvey’s “The Work That Has Been Done” and is considered by many as one of the greatest songs ever written in popular culture. In a time when political unrest and oppression feels more prevalent than ever, “Redemption Song” maintains a poignancy and power and acts as a long-standing testament to Bob Marley’s brilliance and voice for the people. Bob Marley’s music catalog has amassed billions of streams and sold millions of albums worldwide, while his hits compilation, Legend, remains the world’s best-selling reggae album and longest-charting album in the history of Billboard’s Catalog Albums chart.

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