We're seeing off August 2020 in impeccable musical form, actually.
Hello, Friends.
Spearheading the new music this week, Inner Song is the beautifully paced second album from Kelly Lee Owens and it is our August Record of the Month. Her production is just so perfect, a stunning collection here that ebbs and flows between meditative headspaces and flat-out bangers. Her debut LP established her as a fine voice and an exciting producer, this next step cements her as a rare talent indeed.
Available now on;
+ Double Black Vinyl
+ Double Indie exclusive on White vinyl
+ Double Dinked Edition on Clear Vinyl (that also benefits from a bonus exclusive ‘Hidden’ track Side C and a signed and numbered exclusive 12" art print.)
It's another double Dinked Edition Friday with Widowspeak's absolutely excellent Plum. It's a lush combination of dream pop and melancholic downers. Vocally it's spooky and dusty, but there is a focus to the instrumentation that stops it drifting off idly. Highly recommended.
Available now on;
+ Indie shop White vinyl
+ Dinked Edition Green vinyl (that also benefits from two exclusive art prints by illustrator Nick Dahler and is signed and numbered.)
You know we love a good jangle! From a View is the debut album from Melbourne’s Floodlights and it's got some killer shimmer. It's got some solid gold credentials, with Nao Anzai (Rolling Blackouts Coastal Fever) engineering the album and then mixing it over the infamous Australian summer. Mikey Young (Total Control/Eddie Current) added the final touch with mastering. A really strong set of songs and they all knew to leave them just that little bit rough and ready, it's got such a great vibe to it.
+ Available on limited indie shop ochre yellow vinyl.
Our Record of the Week for the last time in August is Angel Olsen's Whole New Mess, a companion piece and an early chrysalis of the remarkable songs that formed 2019's 'All Mirrors'. We're utterly thrilled to finally hear the journey in full. It's the most stripped back she has sounded in a decade, but her presence has grown such that it feels just as powerful as the EPIC production of its amazing predecessor. She remains quite brilliant.
+ Available on limited indie shop clear smoke vinyl.
Back in late 2013, My Morning Jacket arrived at Stinson Beach (a tiny Northern California town set right on the ocean and near the majestic Muir Woods) and set about recording over two dozen songs. Though they flirted with the idea of putting out a double album, the band ultimately decided to lay aside a batch of songs and release the rest as The Waterfall: a 2015 full-length that later earned a Grammy Award nomination for Best Alternative Music Album. After years of keeping the remaining songs stashed away, My Morning Jacket are now set to share The Waterfall II, a strangely timely continuation of a psychic and sonic journey begun long ago. We're massive fans admittedly, but there is something both thrillingly new and warmly comfortable here. The Waterfall II swoons as they always do and also kicks out some fine MMJ jams.
+ The LP is pressed on limited clear vinyl. 'One-run-and-done.' There is a deluxe edition that is released this time next month, but this is currently sold out.
Also this week; International Teachers of Pop return with Pop Gossip (including an indie shop Bubble-gum Pink pressing). A big return with Disclosure releasing new LP Energy on Island, includes an indie Clear Transparent 2LP in gatefold sleeve. Sneaks (the solo moniker of Washington, DC's Eva Moolchan) return with Happy Birthday on Merge. PVRIS (It's pronounced "Paris"...) return with new LP Use Me, we have an indie shop colour vinyl pressing too!
Legendary composer/director John Carpenter has returned with his first non-soundtrack music since 2016’s Lost Themes II. We have a super limited 12" of Skeleton on “Blood Red” vinyl, housed in a deluxe “X-Ray-style” opaque outer sleeve.
Another couple of super additions from the repressed Blue Note vaults this week with Jackie McLean's It’s Time (with a killer quintet) and Joe Henderson's The State Of The Tenor (Live At The Village Vanguard, Vol.1). We also have trumpeter Ambrose Akinmusire's new On the tender spot of every calloused moment LP.
Mac Demarco releases the Demos to his Here Comes The Cowboy album on his own Mac's Record Label. Confusingly, the same LP is released on Purple vinyl for Record Store Day on Saturday... But you can't buy that now.
Lastly for now, we have a really limited 'Indie retail edition' (on Red Galaxy coloured Vinyl) of The Shaggs 1982 compilation Shaggs’ Own Thing. As ever, these LITA editions FLY out so don't blink. Talking of which.... U.F.O. sighting!!!
A reminder that Record Store Day 2020 info is here and we'll try and keep that updated. Check our socials too.
- Drift
