Pedro the Lion has always been David Bazan, but it took a long time to get back there.

In August 2016, during what he now recognizes as his lowest point, Bazan was touring the country alone in an aging minivan and found himself in his hometown of Phoenix, AZ. In need of a break from the road, he spent a night off at his grandparents’ house instead of driving on to San Diego. Before leaving town the next morning, after realizing that even the most familiar places can become unrecognizable, Bazan gave himself the gift of a quick detour past the house he grew up in, and on the way, experienced a breakthrough - one that would lead him both forward and back to another home he had built many years before.

From the beginning, Pedro the Lion didn’t work like the bands Bazan had played drums in, where each player came up with their own parts. Instead, like scripting scenes of dialogue for actors to play with, Bazan recorded and arranged all of the skeletal accompaniments for his obsessively introspective lyrics and spare melodies. Each player would then learn their parts and, together as a band, they brought the skeleton to life. While bandmates played on a few recordings, Bazan often played all or most of the instruments himself.

“I found so much joy working this way,” Bazan remembers. “It came naturally and yielded a feeling and a sound that couldn’t have existed by any other process. At the same time, I was also aware that not everyone wanted to play in a band where the singer wrote all the parts and might perform them on the record. Someone even suggested it might not be a valid approach to having a band in the first place. Being insecure and wanting to find camaraderie, I became conflicted about my natural process.”

By 2002, after recording Control, the high rate of turnover in the band finally caused Bazan to ditch his “natural process” in favor of a collaborative writing process. When, after a couple more years, this move did nothing to stabilize turnover, Bazan was perplexed. In November 2005, Bazan decided to stop doing Pedro the Lion altogether.

Ironically, Bazan didn’t see “going solo” as a chance to revert back to his original process of writing and playing all the parts. For the next decade Pedro the Lion felt off limits, even forgotten, like a childhood home Bazan had moved out of. He pushed forward with releasing solo albums & relentless touring in living rooms and clubs, through every part of the US and beyond, sometimes with a band, but mostly on his own. It took a toll on his family and more acutely on himself. By the summer of 2016, he still hadn’t found the personal clarity or the steady collaboration he’d been seeking and was at the end of his rope.

“I had abandoned my natural way of working in the hopes of creating space for a consistent band to write with...and it hadn’t worked. So I got a rehearsal space, mic’d up drums, bass, and guitar, and really leaned into my original process again. It immediately felt like like home. Before long I realized it also felt like Pedro the Lion.”

In June 2018, with Bazan on bass, vocals, and arrangement writing, Erik Walters on guitar and backing vocals, and Sean Lane on drums, Pedro the Lion went into Studio X and Hall of Justice with producer Andy Park to create Phoenix, the first new Pedro album in 15 years.

After rising to fame two years ago in 2016 with her explosive debut 1 Million selling single 'No Roots' (Mom + Pop), written about her constant moving homes as a child becoming such as huge debut, its safe to say its been a whirl wind for Alice Merton with 124 Million YouTube hits to date. She also gained 6+ Million streams, toured the US supporting the brilliant Vance Joy, championed by Billboard Magazine, Rolling Stone Magazine with Performances on Jimmy Fallon's The Tonights Show and James Corden's Late Late Show, Live With Kelly and Ryan, and even a recent 2018 Teen Choice Awards Nomination in 'Best Rock' category. Merton's debut album, Mint, will be released on January 18th and featured "No Roots", "Lash Out" and her newest single "Why So Serious".

Following the ever-emotive Boo Boo, Toro Y Moi’s new album Outer Peace is a time capsule that captures our relationship to contemporary culture into one comprehensive, sonic package. As both a producer and designer, Bear utilizes abstract sound pairings with recognizable samples for his most pop influenced record to date, including features from ABRA, WET, and Instupendo. This is no departure from his funk and disco roots, which can be heard on “Ordinary Pleasure”, later fusing into variations of house with tracks like “Freelance” and “Laws of the Universe.” Smooth interludes melt into fast paced beats, paralleling the feeling of driving through the Bay Area, where Bear spent most of his time writing the album. Outer Peace is duality. It embodies whatever form you choose to inhabit in the moment. Listen and let your imagination become the universe.

Guster's latest studio album Look Alive was produced by English musician, composer, and producer Leo Abrahams (Regina Spektor, Brian Eno/David Byrne, Belle and Sebastian, Chromatics). The forthcoming LP maintains the band’s unique charm while charting new sonic and lyric pathways. It will be available on CD, vinyl, and digitally.

James Blake has long been a hip-hop ally. Not only has his own discography cemented him as a critically acclaimed artist, the multiple Grammy award-nominee and Mercury Prize winner has worked with artists from the likes of Drake, Beyonce, Kendrick Lamar, Travis Scott, Frank Ocean and more. 2018 was a massive year for the producer, singer and song-writer who collaborated with Kendrick Lamar on the era-defining Black Panther soundtrack and lent his vocals to Travis Scott's "Stop Trying To Be God."

Remind Me Tomorrow was written in stolen time. In the four years since Are We There, Van Etten guest-starred in The OA, performed in David Lynch's Twin Peaks revival, and wrote her first film score and song for TV - for Kathering Dieckmann's Strange Weather Tig Notaro's show Tig, respectively. Van Etten also had a child, and began studying psychology. In the scraps of hours between these endeavors, Remind Me Tomorrow was born. Working with producer John Congleton, Remind Me Tomorrow reveals piano keys that churn, deep drones, distinctive sharp drums. Originally a piano ballad, "Comeback Kid" evolved into a dark, menacing anthem. "Seventeen" began as a Lucinda Williams-esque dirge, but winds up a star-spangled nod to Springsteen, exploring gentrification and generational patience. The breadth of Van Etten's new passions have inflected Remind Me Tomorrow with a wise, warped-time perspective. She explains, "I want to be a mom, a singer, an actress, go to school, but yeah, I have a stain on my shirt, oatmeal in my hair. I feel like a mess, but I'm here. Doing it. This record is about pursuing your passions." This is Remind Me Tomorrow, fusing a pained attentive realism and radiant lightness about new loves.

Aesop Rock has been credited as one of the most verbose MC's in Hip-Hop today. Known for his dense and abstract wordplay, he manipulates language to illustrate elaborate stories and difficult concepts with sharp clarity. Tobacco is a member of psych-electronic band Black Moth Super Rainbow. Known for working with pre-digital electronic instruments like analog synths and tape machines, he crafts distorted, experimentalist beats that intertwine feelings of tension and anxiety with sensations of bemusement and pleasure. Together, Aesop Rock and Tobacco are... Malibu Ken.

How do you describe an album out of time, concerned with the disappearance of culture, of humanity, of nature, of logic and emotion? Why make this album in an era when attention spans have been reduced to next to nothing, and the tactile grains of making music have been further reduced to algorithms and projected playlist placement. Why wake up in the morning? Why hasn’t everything already disappeared? Deerhunter’s eighth LP forgets the questions and makes up unrelated answers. It gets up, walks around, it records itself in several strategic geographic points across north america. It comes home, restructures itself and goes back to bed to avoid the bad news. From the opening harpsichord and piano figures of Death in Midsummer, it is impossible to tell where the record came from. Is No One’s Sleeping an outtake of an aborted Kinks recording session in 1977 Berlin with Eno producing? No. That is nostalgia. If there is one thing Deerhunter are making clear it is that they have exhausted themselves with that toxic concept. What they spend their time doing instead is reinventing their approach to microphones, the drum kit, the harpsichord, the electromechanical and synthetic sounds of keyboards. Whatever guitars are left are pure chrome, plugged straight into the mixing desk with no amplifier or vintage warmth. The result is as thrilling, haunting, and unpredictable as anything in their roughly 15 year career. Deerhunter have made a science fiction album about the present. Is it needed right now? Is it relevant? Perhaps only to a small audience. DADA was a reaction to the horrors of war. Punk was a reaction to the slow and vacant 70’s. Hip Hop was a liberated musical culture that challenged the notions presented wholesale about the African-American experience. What is popular music today a reaction to?

Imagine: John Lennon 75th Birthday Concert captured performances from the historic event  at The Theatre At Madison Square Garden, honoring the songs of one of the most significant cultural figures of the 20th century. The concert film/audio recordings feature 20 performances of Beatles and solo classics by Aloe Blacc, Eric Church, Sheryl Crow, Brandon Flowers, John Fogerty, Peter Frampton, Juanes, Kris Kristofferson, Pat Monahan, Tom Morello, Willie Nelson, The Roots, Spoon + Chris Stapleton.

Following the 2015 release of the critically acclaimed Fast Forward , legendary songwriter Joe Jackson is releasing the 20th studio album of his career. 'Fool' is the fulfilment of a career-long dream: to finish a tour and head straight into the studio with the band firing on all cylinders. So, on July 29th, Joe wrapped up his 2018 summer tour at The Eqyptian Theater in Boise, Idaho and the following day set up shop at Tonic Room Studios in town. The album was co-produced by Jackson and producer Pat Dillett (David Byrne, Sufjan Stevens, Glen Hansard, etc.) The band in question was the same group that Jackson has played live with ever since the release of Fast Forward : Teddy Kumpel on guitar, Doug Yowell on drums, and long-time collaborator Graham Maby on bass (Maby was on that first recording session 40 years ago as well). The Fast Forward Tour took on a life of its own and enjoyed several encores over the last 3 years with the band ultimately playing 103 shows together during that time span.

Fast on the heels of 2018's acclaimed 'Juliana Hatfield Sings Olivia Newton-John' comes Juliana Hatfield's self-produced all-originals album, Weird. Freda Love Smith (Blake Babies, Sunshine Boys) and Todd Philips (Lemonheads, The Juliana Hatfield Three) each played drums on multiple songs while Hatfield played all of the other instruments (and some additional drums). Weird is an album about disconnection and discomfort. ''I often feel cut-off from other people, from my feelings, from technology, from popular culture,'' says Hatfield. ''I feel weird, I feel like I'm dreaming my life and that I am going to wake up some day.'' While Hatfield's songs-melodies and lyrics and structures are meticulously crafted, her guitar parts are loose and sometimes a little unhinged; first-take expressions of this temperamental uneasiness. ''Personally, I feel like a malfunctioning machine. There's a screw or two loose. I want my guitar playing to reflect that.''

Limited clear vinyl LP pressing. 2019 release from the acclaimed singer/songwriter, his first studio album since 2016's More Rain. What A Wonderful Industry takes on a subtler shade of music industry beef, writing about the heroes and villains he's encountered over 20 years. M. Ward: "This album is a reminder to keep your friends close, your enemies closer and don't let the ones that just need an extra couple hours of therapy bring you down." M. Ward's solo work is a mixture of folk and blues-inspired Americana analog recordings; he has released nine albums since 1999, primarily through independent label Merge Records. In addition to his solo work, he is a member of pop duo She & Him and folk-rock supergroup Monsters of Folk, and also participates in recording, producing, and playing with multiple other artists.

For more than 18 years, the members of Greensky Bluegrass have been creating their own version of bluegrass music, mixing the acoustic stomp of a stringband with the rule-breaking spirit of rock & roll. As they continue to evolve and further define that sound they are breaking barriers with their seventh studio album, All For Money. Recorded at Echo Mountain Recording in Asheville, NC alongside co-producers Dominic John Davis (Jack White s longtime bassist) and Glenn Brown, this set of 12 new songs finds the band pushing boundaries and breaking new ground, welcoming old fans and new audiences alike. They re going full steam ahead into this new era with both the passion and vigor of a band in their infancy and the knowledge and power of one that s been together for almost two decades and counting.

One of Los Angeles punk rock’s most widely admired yet little-heard bands makes a striking return to records on Jan. 18, as Yep Roc Records issues an all-new collection by The Flesh Eaters, I Used to Be Pretty.  On the release, founding vocalist and songwriter Chris Desjardins — better known as Chris D. — is backed by the legendary “all-star” edition of the band, originally heard on the 1981 set A Minute to Pray, A Second to Die: Dave Alvin (guitar) and Bill Bateman (drums) of the Blasters; John Doe (bass) and D.J. Bonebrake (marimba and percussion) of X; and Steve Berlin (saxophones) of the Plugz (and later the Blasters and Los Lobos). The album was produced collectively by the band members. 

'Before we learn to hate. Love is our Native Tongue.' - Jon Foreman. For their new album Native Tongue, alternative rock band SWITCHFOOT step beyond their trademark epic soundscapes and explore new textures and themes that genuinely reflect this fraught cultural moment. From the hard-hitting anthemic title-track to more reflective songs such as 'Prodigal Soul,' 'Joy Invincible,' and 'Voices,' co-written and produced with their friends in One Republic, the band interlace empathy and introspection, urging us to 'use our lungs for love and not the shadows.'

The new album from LP on orange vinyl.