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viewing 1 To 9 of 9 items
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CD
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KKV 123CD
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"With its meditative tempos and enveloping guitar work by Michio Kurihara -- 'it's like this golden net,' Naomi said of his gorgeous, versatile playing -- A Sky Record offers shelter from the squall. If it has the glow of a long-delayed reunion between friends, that's not accidental: Kurihara hasn't traveled outside of Japan in some time, so Damon and Naomi hadn't recorded with him in nearly ten years. When they finally made it back to Japan in November 2019 for a brief tour, they were elated to book some time with Kurihara at the aptly named studio Peace Music. In those long stretches of quarantime, the tracks they returned from Japan with had distinct moods but not yet any lyrics. (Kurihara works best when trying to conjure a specific feeling or natural image -- after all, he did once make a solo record, Sunset Notes, on which every song was based on a different sunset he'd witnessed...) How to write about the pandemic? How to not write about the pandemic? Naomi first struck upon the appropriate tone when re-reading the journals of one of her favorite abstract painters, Charles Burchfield. She arranged this found language into the lyrics of the iridescent 'Season Without Time,' which also became a tribute to a friend that she and Damon had lost in the last year. From there, the floodgates opened. The wistful and watery 'Midnight' (electrified, towards the end, by the slow screams of a Kurihara solo) conjures Naomi's nostalgia for youthful summers spent at Jones Beach, while the gentle current of 'Sailing By' pays homage to those ritualistic BBC Shipping Forecasts and the waltzing, quintessentially British theme song from which it takes its name." --Lindsay Zoladz "Back to make all your folk-pop dreams melt into the sunset." --Rolling Stone Japanese CD version released by KiliKiliVilla.
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LP
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202020 018LP
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"With its meditative tempos and enveloping guitar work by Michio Kurihara -- 'it's like this golden net,' Naomi said of his gorgeous, versatile playing -- A Sky Record offers shelter from the squall. If it has the glow of a long-delayed reunion between friends, that's not accidental: Kurihara hasn't traveled outside of Japan in some time, so Damon and Naomi hadn't recorded with him in nearly ten years. When they finally made it back to Japan in November 2019 for a brief tour, they were elated to book some time with Kurihara at the aptly named studio Peace Music. In those long stretches of quarantime, the tracks they returned from Japan with had distinct moods but not yet any lyrics. (Kurihara works best when trying to conjure a specific feeling or natural image -- after all, he did once make a solo record, Sunset Notes, on which every song was based on a different sunset he'd witnessed...) How to write about the pandemic? How to not write about the pandemic? Naomi first struck upon the appropriate tone when re-reading the journals of one of her favorite abstract painters, Charles Burchfield. She arranged this found language into the lyrics of the iridescent 'Season Without Time,' which also became a tribute to a friend that she and Damon had lost in the last year. From there, the floodgates opened. The wistful and watery 'Midnight' (electrified, towards the end, by the slow screams of a Kurihara solo) conjures Naomi's nostalgia for youthful summers spent at Jones Beach, while the gentle current of 'Sailing By' pays homage to those ritualistic BBC Shipping Forecasts and the waltzing, quintessentially British theme song from which it takes its name." --Lindsay Zoladz "Back to make all your folk-pop dreams melt into the sunset." --Rolling Stone
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LP
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202020 015LP
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2021 repress. 2015 release. "Grey day celebration music for meshed afternoons; eleven strums and songs to savor as you wander till spring. Did Damon & Naomi dream them? Did I? Will you?" --Andy Zax "People talk about Damon & Naomi as if they're the raw infrastructure that remained after Galaxie 500 fell apart, a steel skeleton stubbornly standing after an earthquake. But when the pair began a new project, they weren't adjusting so much as starting from scratch. By the time they released More Sad Hits, they had grown enough as musicians and songwriters that they didn't need to lean on stark sincerity and reverb-drenched emoting. Instead, they reigned in their sound, favoring acoustic over electric, building more complex and specific textures, and exploring smaller sonic spaces. If Galaxie 500 was ahead of its time, Damon & Naomi are prescient in their own way, firmly rooted in the early '90s but hinting at things to come. The project provided a necessary platform for the pair to focus, hone and build on the groundwork that they laid for themselves, peeling away layers to reveal a shy closeness that Galaxie 500 never could. The pair's latest project, Fortune, is an LP released in tandem with Naomi Yang's video piece of the same name. She refers to the work as "a silent movie," though the visuals are so bound up in the music (and vice versa) that it's more of a long-form music video, a visual poem set to the metronome of a textural score. She conceived of the piece to explore conflicting feelings surrounding her father's recent passing; Yang was suddenly burdened with a massive archive of his artistic work (her father was a photographer), as well as the ongoing aftermath of flawed parenting. Her use of the term 'fortune,' then, is tinged with sardonicism but also with nostalgia -- portraits from the 1940s and '50s painted by protagonist Norman von Holtzendorff's father (also recently deceased, and who also left his archive in Norman's hands) feature prominently. An ongoing tarot card motif ties in another facet of the suddenly slippery term 'fortune,' using Damon & Naomi's now familiar brand of close, acoustic warmth to explore the past's bearing on the future: 'I want to be over / To touch and be gone / Forget this amnesia.' Fortune -- as a film or an album -- is itself an expressive portrait, but doesn't adhere to any obvious narrative; rather, it's a comfortable space that the viewer can move in and out of, dreamlike and immersive. The eleven new songs don't require visual accompaniment -- Damon & Naomi have constructed the sequence to communicate through sound alone -- but at upcoming performances the duo will be presenting them live as a soundtrack to Yang's 'silent' film."
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Book
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202020 018BK
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"Every audio format has its strengths and weaknesses? but those without liner notes are really missing out. We thought we'd take advantage of the persistence of physical media for words and images and print a booklet to accompany what will be, inevitably, a digital album for many. Richard Youngs was with us when this project began, like a screwball comedy, with a (largely harmless) fall down stairs. Michio Kurihara lent his wonderful electric guitar to all its tracks, and Soichiro Nakamura skillfully recorded those parts at his Peace Music studio in Tokyo. Susanne Sasic joined us on the trip to Japan that made those recordings possible, a tour sparked by an unusual invitation in 2019 to play a cultural festival in the small port town of Tsuruga, on the Sea of Japan. (The same port where Damon's father landed as a nine-year-old refugee from Europe in 1940.) We asked the music writer Lindsay Zoladz to tell the story of what happened next, to this project and to all of us, in the unexpected events of 2020. And Jarvis Cocker explains an audio ritual that helped us through that year. We've added some short notes of our own, on the genesis of the music and words for these songs; and their lyrics. Thank you for listening, however you choose to do so. And welcome to our Sky Record." --Damon & Naomi Companion book to indie icon's upcoming album. 8 inches x 10 inches, 48 pages, full color with 34 photographs. Soft-cover, sewn with exposed spine & blue thread.
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LP
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202020 008LP
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2022 repress. "On Fire is widely recognized as the canonic pinnacle of Galaxie 500's career. The artwork conveys this, with a low-angle shot of the band, looking up towards an amber sky. This record marked the realization of their signature sound. Nowhere is it clearer than on the album opener, 'Blue Thunder,' the closest a song can come to waves crashing on a beach in song form. Lyrically inconsequential, with a chorus composed entirely of 'las', the track's power lies in a systematic build and break of intensity that reaches a Spector-like climax. It is the quintessential Galaxie 500 song, encapsulating all that was great about the band. For the first time since its original pressing, On Fire is available again on vinyl. Cut by vinyl ace Kevin Gray from a remaster by Kramer and Alan Douches, the album sounds more vibrant than ever, and Galaxie 500 exists again as one of the most enrapturing and glorious bands to emerge from the underground in the past 25 years."
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LP
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202020 009LP
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2022 repress. "After producing two albums celebrated by a thirsty underground network of fans, Galaxie 500 released what turned out to be their unexpected swansong, This Is Our Music. The title is an intentionally declarative statement. After being labeled masters of the disengaged and forlorn, Damon Krukowski, Dean Wareham, and Naomi Yang delivered a full-length comprised of their most stately material. Here, one can hear potential realized, as well as changes afoot. For the first time since its original pressing, This Is Our Music is available again on vinyl. Cut by vinyl ace Kevin Gray from a remaster by Kramer and Alan Douches, the album sounds more vibrant than ever, and Galaxie 500 exists again as one of the most enrapturing and glorious bands to emerge from the underground in the past 25 years."
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LP
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202020 007LP
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2022 repress. "When Galaxie 500's Today was released in 1988, it set off a chain reaction of quiet explosions still being felt. Never before had a record so emphasized the calming elements of rock music, transforming what at first seems like a collection of bridges into fully realized songs. And one can draw a straight line from here to the many groups they influenced, like Low, Belle & Sebastian, and Bon Iver. More than 20 years after its initial release, its title is still no misnomer. The music, recorded with what many thought at the time was too much reverb, sounds present, alive, and indeed a product of today. Songs like 'Flowers,' 'Temperature's Rising,' and of course 'Tugboat' (the band's debut single) stand the test of time and exist in an eternal now. For the first time since its original pressing, Today is available again on vinyl. Cut by vinyl ace Kevin Gray from a remaster by Kramer and Alan Douches, the album sounds more vibrant than ever, and Galaxie 500 exists again as one of the most enrapturing and glorious bands to emerge from the underground in the past 25 years."
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2CD
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202020 009CD
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2022 repress. "Galaxie 500's ambitious final album, with bonus disc recorded live at their last European show." This Is Our Music originally released in 1990. Copenhagen originally released in 1997.
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2CD
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202020 007CD
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2022 repress.. "Reissue of influential indie rock trio's three original albums, each with a bonus disc of additional material. A seminal band in the history of indie rock, often cited as the progenitors of shoegaze / slowcore, but with an influence on bands across a wide range of styles, from Stereolab to Bon Iver." Today originally released in 1988. Uncollected originally released in 2004.
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