DRAG CITY - Forced Exposure

$13.50 PREORDER RELEASE DATE: 10/24/2025

"In March 2024, Jim White released his first-ever solo album, All Hits: Memories. Coming forty years into his career, it felt like some kind of breakthrough happening. His second solo album confirms it: Jim's deep percussive intuition is fueling a new musical vehicle in his life. Inner Day finds him dancing ever more deftly with himself on an expressionistic set of drum kit and keyboard duets. Developing meditations on his personal arcana into expressive keyboard feels, he crafts parts as he would on the kit, further interacting with them on drums as well. Jim takes another big step on Inner Day, singing on two standout tracks, 'Inner Day' and 'I Don't Do / Grand Central,' his words and voice in the mix for the first time. A drummer of exquisite powers, great and small -- his Dirty Three compatriot Warren Ellis contends his playing long ago 'split the atom' -- Jim's capable of driving a band one minute, then slipping past accompaniment and into the cracks of the subliminal in the next breath. Inner Day is a state of nature: peace and tension, rest and disquiet aloft on the wind of Jim's inspiration. Working in conversation with his long-time collaborator Guy Picciotto on Inner Day, Jim travels further into the hypnotic relationships that they captured on All Hits: Memories. Here's another old friend, filmmaker Jem Cohen: 'I drove around listening to Jim's new record. It fit so well, even when the things themselves didn't: the straights and turns of the road, fields and houses and industrial parks, the possible rain, deep spring greens and the greys of a parking lot, the rain when it finally came. It goes where it will, quite fearlessly but never demonstrative or showy about its risk-taking. I'd say the record's a conversation Jim's having with the world, one that isn't about drums or being a drummer but, more expansively, about music as the spillway for feeling and experience.' Jim himself adds: 'On my first album All Hits: Memories, I wanted to have a keyboard sound to keep the drums company as together they celebrated why some things just 'hit' the psyche, why some memories stick. Later, I found the notes wanted to move more and so on my second album Inner Day, that is what they do.'"

$23.00 PREORDER RELEASE DATE: 10/24/2025

"Out of the roiling miasma of timeless time comes a long-promised delivery from one of the constants of this era: Major Stars, and their new LP, More Colors of Sound. Fueled by overdriven guitars and gut-punching rhythm, these veteran rockers are stalwart in their delivery of trippy, psyched-out extremes. Over the 27 years since The Rock Revival (their Twisted Village debut), they can be counted on to come back around every three or four years or so, with something heavy picked up on their journey. This time, it's been since 2019's Roots of Confusion Seeds of Joy -- but what's a few years in the larger scheme of things? It's been since the late '90s that Major Stars have been transmitting their signal. But even eternity wasn't built in such an arc of time: Wayne Rogers and Kate Biggar have been crossing necks dating back to the '80s, with Crystallized Movements' screaming psychpunk hybrids. Tom Leonard, Major Stars' current third axeman, has been in the mix almost as long: Luxurious Bags' amorphous low-fi was released on Twisted Village too, and Kate and Wayne and him all played together in Vermonster. The More Colors of Sound lineup is as-was for Roots of Confusion Seeds of Joy: Kate, Tom, Wayne, Dave Dougan on bass, Casey Keenan on drums and Noell Dorsey singing lead. More Colors of Sound had been earmarked as a title for nearly twenty years when they started work on the album that would finally bear its name. For the first ten Major Stars releases, Wayne wrote everything, but due to the way things were in 2020 and 2021, Tom and Noell wrote a bunch of things together, along with Wayne's stuff. By the time they got to Gloucester's Bang-A Song Studios, there was enough music for a double LP. As ever, the crush of the three guitars as they riff with the rhythm defines Major Stars' sound. The work of two writing camps has produced a song-centric focus on More Colors of Sound -- one, of course, shot through with distorted tones, fevered neck-wringing solos and several extended jammers -- but the production overall has a cleaner sound than its predecessor. On More Colors of Sound, Major Stars find new hues inside the incendiary approach that's launched them so ecstatically since early times; another jar of infinity captured with a quality all its own -- and it's all in the grooves!"

$23.00 PREORDER RELEASE DATE: 10/24/2025

LP version. "In March 2024, Jim White released his first-ever solo album, All Hits: Memories. Coming forty years into his career, it felt like some kind of breakthrough happening. His second solo album confirms it: Jim's deep percussive intuition is fueling a new musical vehicle in his life. Inner Day finds him dancing ever more deftly with himself on an expressionistic set of drum kit and keyboard duets. Developing meditations on his personal arcana into expressive keyboard feels, he crafts parts as he would on the kit, further interacting with them on drums as well. Jim takes another big step on Inner Day, singing on two standout tracks, 'Inner Day' and 'I Don't Do / Grand Central,' his words and voice in the mix for the first time. A drummer of exquisite powers, great and small -- his Dirty Three compatriot Warren Ellis contends his playing long ago 'split the atom' -- Jim's capable of driving a band one minute, then slipping past accompaniment and into the cracks of the subliminal in the next breath. Inner Day is a state of nature: peace and tension, rest and disquiet aloft on the wind of Jim's inspiration. Working in conversation with his long-time collaborator Guy Picciotto on Inner Day, Jim travels further into the hypnotic relationships that they captured on All Hits: Memories. Here's another old friend, filmmaker Jem Cohen: 'I drove around listening to Jim's new record. It fit so well, even when the things themselves didn't: the straights and turns of the road, fields and houses and industrial parks, the possible rain, deep spring greens and the greys of a parking lot, the rain when it finally came. It goes where it will, quite fearlessly but never demonstrative or showy about its risk-taking. I'd say the record's a conversation Jim's having with the world, one that isn't about drums or being a drummer but, more expansively, about music as the spillway for feeling and experience.' Jim himself adds: 'On my first album All Hits: Memories, I wanted to have a keyboard sound to keep the drums company as together they celebrated why some things just 'hit' the psyche, why some memories stick. Later, I found the notes wanted to move more and so on my second album Inner Day, that is what they do.'"

$20.00 PREORDER RELEASE DATE: 9/26/2025

LP version. "The shaman of the six-string is back. Waving his axe of choice, Sir Richard Bishop once again summons forth damnable truth and beauty on an all-new musical kamikaze run through histories both written and -- as of yet -- not commonly known. Since the dying days of the 20th century, the composer/player of spirited polytheistic guitar recitals including Salvador Kali, Improvika, The Freak of Araby, Tangier Sessions, and most recently, Oneiric Formulary has worked feverishly to wrench and wrangle all the music that has and can possibly fall out of the guitar from east to west. With Hillbilly Ragas, Sir Rick stretches his callused hands across the waters to draw diverse musics back to his shack with the gladiatorial bloodthirst and balance of gravitas and jocosity listeners can expect from him in every hot little moment of play. But there's more to be said than these merely glib rantings as to what happens when traditional music heads for the hillbillies:"

"There were a few different approaches I utilized for this release. First and foremost, I wanted to go back to basics, to strip away any excesses and keep it as simple as possible: one man, one acoustic guitar, no overdubs, no effects, no electricity. Taking several cues from the sounds most often associated with the so-called American Primitive guitar style, I wanted to avoid any traditional approaches and instead try something more-raw and aggressive, concentrating more on rhythm and movement as opposed to anything predictable or overly melodic, while also keeping my particular interpretive ideas about East Indian Raga in the mix. I've always felt that the majority of what is considered to be American Primitive music, while certainly based on historical American musical traditions, never really had any sounds that I personally thought of as being primitive -- it always seemed too orderly, too developed, and too safe? During the recording process I was envisioning an undiscovered mountain man or "hillbilly" who had remained hidden in his own private backwoods; one who never learned, or even heard about, any traditional musical canon that he was expected to work within. So what we have here with Hillbilly Ragas are nine pieces for solo acoustic guitar, each one representing a different excursion into the dark woods -- the untamed explorations of a musical loner, an outsider, maybe even an undesirable, embodying a peculiar folklore and turning it into sound -- creating his own folk music in the process. He's still out there, fueled by moonshine, his supernatural surroundings, and a fuck-all attitude!" --Richard Bishop, 2025

$13.50 PREORDER RELEASE DATE: 9/26/2025

"The shaman of the six-string is back. Waving his axe of choice, Sir Richard Bishop once again summons forth damnable truth and beauty on an all-new musical kamikaze run through histories both written and -- as of yet -- not commonly known. Since the dying days of the 20th century, the composer/player of spirited polytheistic guitar recitals including Salvador Kali, Improvika, The Freak of Araby, Tangier Sessions, and most recently, Oneiric Formulary has worked feverishly to wrench and wrangle all the music that has and can possibly fall out of the guitar from east to west. With Hillbilly Ragas, Sir Rick stretches his callused hands across the waters to draw diverse musics back to his shack with the gladiatorial bloodthirst and balance of gravitas and jocosity listeners can expect from him in every hot little moment of play. But there's more to be said than these merely glib rantings as to what happens when traditional music heads for the hillbillies:"

"There were a few different approaches I utilized for this release. First and foremost, I wanted to go back to basics, to strip away any excesses and keep it as simple as possible: one man, one acoustic guitar, no overdubs, no effects, no electricity. Taking several cues from the sounds most often associated with the so-called American Primitive guitar style, I wanted to avoid any traditional approaches and instead try something more-raw and aggressive, concentrating more on rhythm and movement as opposed to anything predictable or overly melodic, while also keeping my particular interpretive ideas about East Indian Raga in the mix. I've always felt that the majority of what is considered to be American Primitive music, while certainly based on historical American musical traditions, never really had any sounds that I personally thought of as being primitive -- it always seemed too orderly, too developed, and too safe? During the recording process I was envisioning an undiscovered mountain man or "hillbilly" who had remained hidden in his own private backwoods; one who never learned, or even heard about, any traditional musical canon that he was expected to work within. So what we have here with Hillbilly Ragas are nine pieces for solo acoustic guitar, each one representing a different excursion into the dark woods -- the untamed explorations of a musical loner, an outsider, maybe even an undesirable, embodying a peculiar folklore and turning it into sound -- creating his own folk music in the process. He's still out there, fueled by moonshine, his supernatural surroundings, and a fuck-all attitude!" --Richard Bishop, 2025

$11.00 PREORDER RELEASE DATE: 9/26/2025

Cassette version. "The successor to 2022's Bajascillators glides easily into frame, but once there, Inland See is deceptively immediate. It's so dialed in, you hardly even feel how present the music (and you the listener) is. Time wharping's always been a resident magic for Bitchin Bajas, as is flow, which is translucent like water here. That's the Inland See vibe, unique unto itself. In turn, each of the four songs here are entirely within themselves, all together forming an essential whole. The coincision'll cause yer breath to shorten, like an exciting and non-fatal kind of exercise! New freedoms, yet more molecular structure in each one. With every successive Bitchin Bajas release, we see that the real key for them is a sense of discovery, that tingle that comes when you feel something breaking through. The sky opening up. The stuff that fills this Inland See holds you up powerfully, as if you're floating, saltwater or helium-wise -- effervescent, effortless, elemental. An increasing sense of the Bajas' physicality -- what's ephemeral, what's mercurial, and what sits inside us after it's all over. This music was mostly written on the road. It's an unusual happening for Bitchin Bajas! They were open for it, though -- the landmarked Bajascillators kept them out there for a while, and when inspiration struck, there they rolling. When it was time to render it to tape and find the record there, they did the whole thing at Electrical Audio. Recording all together in the room there lent a sense of space, which they dug and captured as natural as possible. No reverb at all added after the fact. Everything that's there was in system, directed through the interconnects with cool hands. And once Inland See is flowing toward you, through the hi-fi, you feel it all in the air."

$23.00 PREORDER RELEASE DATE: 9/26/2025

"The successor to 2022's Bajascillators glides easily into frame, but once there, Inland See is deceptively immediate. It's so dialed in, you hardly even feel how present the music (and you the listener) is. Time wharping's always been a resident magic for Bitchin Bajas, as is flow, which is translucent like water here. That's the Inland See vibe, unique unto itself. In turn, each of the four songs here are entirely within themselves, all together forming an essential whole. The coincision'll cause yer breath to shorten, like an exciting and non-fatal kind of exercise! New freedoms, yet more molecular structure in each one. With every successive Bitchin Bajas release, we see that the real key for them is a sense of discovery, that tingle that comes when you feel something breaking through. The sky opening up. The stuff that fills this Inland See holds you up powerfully, as if you're floating, saltwater or helium-wise -- effervescent, effortless, elemental. An increasing sense of the Bajas' physicality -- what's ephemeral, what's mercurial, and what sits inside us after it's all over. This music was mostly written on the road. It's an unusual happening for Bitchin Bajas! They were open for it, though -- the landmarked Bajascillators kept them out there for a while, and when inspiration struck, there they rolling. When it was time to render it to tape and find the record there, they did the whole thing at Electrical Audio. Recording all together in the room there lent a sense of space, which they dug and captured as natural as possible. No reverb at all added after the fact. Everything that's there was in system, directed through the interconnects with cool hands. And once Inland See is flowing toward you, through the hi-fi, you feel it all in the air."

$23.00 PREORDER RELEASE DATE: 9/26/2025

"Drag City presents the reissue of hypnotic syncretic guitar duo Bill MacKay & Ryley Walker's recorded debut, Land of Plenty. And just in time for the 10th anniversary of the original release! Now, who remembers where they were in January 2015? Bill and Ryley don't need to, they've got Land of Plenty to remind 'em. That's when they made the record, but a scant year before, they barely knew each other! Once they met, though, they hit it off over mutual influences, like Albert King, Laura Nyro, Nick Drake, Bert Jansch, Ali Akbar Khan and Jimi Hendrix. They got to work. And play. A year later, they were loaded into The Whistler every single Friday night on the calendar in January 2015. A residency, so called, but these resident players had designed not simply to entertain each night, but also to record the pool of material they'd woodshedded together in the recent months. A record, of all new originals, recorded live. Then when they went back to review the tapes, they were reliving the dream! While the two of them are generally divided up by speakers, which is a groovy old-school way to have stereo sound, their shared headspace is a constant flow of ever-melding play, ranging across all sorts of genres and geographies from east to west and folding them immaculately into each other, whether in moments of transition or extended meditation. Listening out for each other as they're picking, these boys dance together and never land a foot wrong. Whether head-to-head with six-strings or with Bill picking up his Requinto, or Ryley picking up his 12-string, these performances sound rich. The live capture seems to enhance the sound in all sorts of unpredictable ways that activates with the chemistry in their playing, and ultimately serves to elevate Land of Plenty in its field!"

$12.00 PREORDER RELEASE DATE: 9/26/2025

Cassette version. "The shaman of the six-string is back. Waving his axe of choice, Sir Richard Bishop once again summons forth damnable truth and beauty on an all-new musical kamikaze run through histories both written and -- as of yet -- not commonly known. Since the dying days of the 20th century, the composer/player of spirited polytheistic guitar recitals including Salvador Kali, Improvika, The Freak of Araby, Tangier Sessions, and most recently, Oneiric Formulary has worked feverishly to wrench and wrangle all the music that has and can possibly fall out of the guitar from east to west. With Hillbilly Ragas, Sir Rick stretches his callused hands across the waters to draw diverse musics back to his shack with the gladiatorial bloodthirst and balance of gravitas and jocosity listeners can expect from him in every hot little moment of play. But there's more to be said than these merely glib rantings as to what happens when traditional music heads for the hillbillies:"

"There were a few different approaches I utilized for this release. First and foremost, I wanted to go back to basics, to strip away any excesses and keep it as simple as possible: one man, one acoustic guitar, no overdubs, no effects, no electricity. Taking several cues from the sounds most often associated with the so-called American Primitive guitar style, I wanted to avoid any traditional approaches and instead try something more-raw and aggressive, concentrating more on rhythm and movement as opposed to anything predictable or overly melodic, while also keeping my particular interpretive ideas about East Indian Raga in the mix. I've always felt that the majority of what is considered to be American Primitive music, while certainly based on historical American musical traditions, never really had any sounds that I personally thought of as being primitive -- it always seemed too orderly, too developed, and too safe? During the recording process I was envisioning an undiscovered mountain man or "hillbilly" who had remained hidden in his own private backwoods; one who never learned, or even heard about, any traditional musical canon that he was expected to work within. So what we have here with Hillbilly Ragas are nine pieces for solo acoustic guitar, each one representing a different excursion into the dark woods -- the untamed explorations of a musical loner, an outsider, maybe even an undesirable, embodying a peculiar folklore and turning it into sound -- creating his own folk music in the process. He's still out there, fueled by moonshine, his supernatural surroundings, and a fuck-all attitude!" --Richard Bishop, 2025

$23.00 PREORDER RELEASE DATE: 9/26/2025

"Actor/comedian/musician/producer/author/all-round good guy Fred Armisen has long been known as one of the most curious entertainers in the business, creating a wild variety of things for television, film, stage, records and other media. The latest proof of his inquiring imagination is here: 100 Sound Effects! The goal was to create a number of specific and evocative sounds, but in addition to being a fun listen -- pure and simple -- 100 Sound Effects has great value as an industrial tool, with sound effects ready to be used in any number of entertainment projects. Some follow the basic blueprint, like doors shutting and glass breaking. Others are more abstract scenarios, but with a track like 'Campfire Breakfast Conversation.' The majority of the album was done at recording studios, but occasionally ambient sounds were needed. Rather than rely on OTHER sound effects records, Fred went outside and got these himself on a portable digital recorder, pointing it at the sky or a car or whatever was needed. Additionally, Fred wanted to recreate other specific moments not always covered on sound effects records, like 'Music Venue Employee Kicking Everyone Out While Throwing Away Bottles,' while also executing versions of his personal favorite sound effects, which resulted in tracks like 'Small Theater Booing.' With additional help and inspiration from Bill Hader, Mary Lynn Rajskub, Amber Coffman, Tim Heidecker, Riki Lindhome, and Alice Carbone Tench, Fred had a lot of fun making the album. And now, Fred Armisen's 100 Sound Effects is a sound effects album like no other, a fantastic contemporary entry in a classic album category that can be used as a library or just for brain-stimulating deep listening. Lastly, a personal note from Fred: 'I was thinking about haunted house sound effects albums and how fun those seemed to record. I wanted to do it at Steve Albini's studio in Chicago, Electrical Audio, but since this wasn't a collection of songs and I didn't know how long it was going to take, I needed to do this where I live, in Los Angeles. I told Steve what I was doing and asked if he knew of any engineers I could work with in L.A. He was very excited about the idea and asked Dave Grohl who might be available to help. Dave recommended Darrell Thorp and we started working at Studio 606, and then later Sunset Sound. Darrell was really inventive and a lot of fun to work with. Because Steve was so instrumental in making this happen, I dedicate the album to his memory. I miss him every day."

$23.00 PREORDER RELEASE DATE: 8/29/2025

2025 repress forthcoming. 180 gram pressing, embossed sleeve. "Starting in the mid-'90s, the U.S. Maple saga was rent open, seam by seam, over ten long, sweaty years, like a ripple of mirages exploding up around the bend. Theirs was a dues-paid elevation of good old rock 'n roll values that reached dizzyingly high, past the blunt force of their immediate '80s- '90s forebears and the magisterial arc of the venerated classic rockers before them. Their music is a rapacious, constantly morphing ooze through which can be sighted gristled flecks and shards of glam, punk, blues, metal, funk, jazz and other denuded musical formations to be grabbed upon and squeezed til the juice runs down your leg. Released in April 2001, Acre Thrills is the most danceable, sensual and subcutaneous of all their offerings, 'Ma Digital' their most kicking song EVER. It ain't alone -- captured by Brian Paulson, the workings of the trio within the quartet were greased to absolute slickness, with Todd Rittmann/Mark Shippy's guitars and Pat Samson's drums collectively divining and conquering the songs' rhythm and harmony, while also playing in what appeared to be their own private imaginations. With his signature succession of consumptive wheezes and acid-tongued utterances, Al Johnson -- for some, the most unlikely front man of the rock 'n roll era (and to others, their own private Jim Morrison) -- drew it all together immaculately."

$20.00$17.00 IN STOCK

"Eiko Ishibashi and Jim O'Rourke toured Europe for two weeks in 2023, a wonderful passage through France, Switzerland, Italy and Ireland; Pareidolia, the duo's fifth collaborative release, is a remix made up of resonances from those shows. The movement of sound in each performance and the relationships of sound between them; a dynamic medley of color and shape to pulse through earbuds, speaker cones and the air immediately surrounding you. Improvisation is the preferred collaborative mode for Eiko and Jim. They both prepare separately, without discussing anything beforehand. The dialogue in the moment determines the performance; anything that takes place is a possible point of departure, allowing for a unique experience each time they play. These 2023 shows marked the first time Jim and Eiko had played together outside Japan. Perhaps the flow of parts unpacked from their respective computers was inspired by the experiences of the tour: the nature of the assembled audience, the quality of the meal on the day at hand. Additionally, Eiko played flute and they both played a bit of harmonica intermittently throughout the performances. These live acoustic signals were routed back to the hard drives, to provide further material to play with -- and as they traveled, recordings of the previous nights' shows were among the materials for the next performance. With all this to play with, there was much fun to be had every night. Pareidolia's final mix is one further rearrangement of the elements -- comping -- say, a bit of Jim from Paris against Eiko in Dublin for a minute, before bringing them both back into the same room for a spell before another set of interactions comes into play. The choices and edits represented here make yet another unique dialogue, as well as a kind of "best" version of what they were doing on the tour. The sense of inevitability in the parts as they flow together might suggest structure; happily, this occurs without Eiko and Jim really committing to anything of the sort. Their available sound sources could present as a hot-wired noise onslaught, with all faders up full. Endless possible interpretations to be had on either side of the experience! This is one of several ways that the LP title and sequence of song titles come into play. Listeners hearing something more should have a good look in the mirror and perhaps consider the old saying: 'Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they aren't out to get you.' It could only help."

$20.00$17.00 IN STOCK

"The third time's the charm! Or perhaps -- the third time's another charming excursion into the seemingly infinite universe of rhythm spontaneously created whenever guitarist Oren Ambarchi, bassist Johan Berthling, and percussionist Andreas Werliin plug in together. However you choose to look at it, several years into their collaborative endeavor, and a little more than a year on from Ghosted II, Ambarchi, Berthling and Werliin are back with a new finding, constituting fresh developments of their sound -- if not their album-titling ambition (in other words, if you can't guess it's called Ghosted III, you're just not paying enough attention!). In actuality, the sound of this trio has been all about new developments since they first started playing together. That's something to be simply expected when dropping the tonearm on any of their records, which is a very nice thing. There's also something to be said for constancy, especially when it produces such stimulating variations of tone and mood within the trio format. So, all good -- since there wasn't anything broke, there was no need to fix it. Instead, just do it again. With that credo, Ambarchi, Berthling and Werliin returned to Stockholm's Studio Rymden to continue the incredible standard of capture that distinguished both Ghosted and Ghosted II. Although they took more studio time than ever before (three whole days!), Ghosted III's new development is an increased immediacy in their performances, something a little looser and wilder than their first two albums -- and something, no doubt, that's been developed by their encounters during the several dozen-plus gigs played since their debut. Thus, their ability to lock in and focus, hanging on to the smallest of details, is here enhanced by an expansive lightness of being. Such potentially polar skill sets could well make for uneven chemistry -- but in the hands of these three, a sparkling variety of new jams occurs. They seem to be available to try anything these days, at times playing with the exuberance of prog-rockers or new-wave popsters, alongside the eternal energies of their established styles: ambient neo-jazz, postkraut, minimal funk. In the end, their shared instinct shapes the varied emissions into structure reaching ever further into the ether -- giving Ghosted III a singular quality belonging only to the trio that is Oren Ambarchi, Johan Berthling and Andreas Werliin."

$29.00 PREORDER RELEASE DATE: 8/29/2025

2025 repress forthcoming. Vinyl LP version. "Starting in the mid-'90s, the U.S. Maple saga was rent open, seam by seam, over ten long, sweaty years, like a ripple of mirages exploding up around the bend. Theirs was a dues-paid elevation of good old rock 'n roll values that reached dizzyingly high, past the blunt force of their immediate '80s- '90s forebears and the magisterial arc of the venerated classic rockers before them. Their music is a rapacious, constantly morphing ooze through which can be sighted gristled flecks and shards of glam, punk, blues, metal, funk, jazz and other denuded musical formations to be grabbed upon and squeezed til the juice runs down your leg. Their final LP, recorded with Jeremy Lemos, Purple On Time dropped in late 2003, and found new drummer Adam Vida cannily replacing the fairly departed Pat Samson. With consolidations and developments heavy on the ground, the band once more surged and retarded in near-orchestral precision, as Johnson's voice swooped through fresh ranges. The songs were tangy, more rock than ever, yet just as potent when it came to drawing forth that thrusting, demented hip-shake that they induced in 'their faithful.'"

$24.00 PREORDER RELEASE DATE: 8/29/2025

2025 repress forthcoming. "Starting in the mid-'90s, the U.S. Maple saga was rent open, seam by seam, over ten long, sweaty years, like a ripple of mirages exploding up around the bend. Theirs was a dues-paid elevation of good old rock 'n roll values that reached dizzyingly high, past the blunt force of their immediate '80s- '90s forebears and the magisterial arc of the venerated classic rockers before them. Their music is a rapacious, constantly morphing ooze through which can be sighted gristled flecks and shards of glam, punk, blues, metal, funk, jazz and other denuded musical formations to be grabbed upon and squeezed til the juice runs down your leg. Talker, their Drag City debut, came on in the summer of 1999, its discrete shades of soundscape yawning like an open fly, dangling like shirttails through silence into previously unimagined spaces of width and depth. Having Swans' Michael Gira on to produce was big, but bigger still was the group's vigilant sense of what they were up to -- at that exact moment, a sequence of 'back to school' reflections with singer Al Johnson as your skeezy JD/Virgilian guide. Their tactile cloak of intimacies/detritus/little jokes/lucid dreams/vast emptiness was the perfect cover for a deceptive populism."

$30.00 PREORDER RELEASE DATE: 8/29/2025

Hardcover. 51-pages. "Gabba Gabba We Accept You is a children's picture book that tells the story of how a kid who was bullied and felt like a misfit grew up to become a hero to so many as lead singer of The Ramones. This story speaks to one of the greatest silent majorities in the world -- all the kids who feel a little off. It contains an essential message that the world of punk rock has always meant to communicate. The challenging passages of life that brought Jeffrey Ross Hyman to the place where he became Joey Ramone provide a natural lesson to young folks navigating their way through the complexities of growing up. Working in collaboration with visual artist Lucinda Schreiber, Jay Ruttenberg guides the story of Gabba Gabba We Accept You in unexpected directions, with Lucinda's lyrical illustrations and colorful design opening the sense of possibility in what feels like the path less traveled on every page. About the inspiration for this book, Jay says: 'My daughter just turned 11, so I've spent recent years in children's book land. I think I've read her 97 books about Abraham Lincoln and 12,984 about Ruth Bader Ginsburg. It occurred to me that a lot of the life lessons I've been trying to teach her weren't learned through my family or school, but through punk stuff: the importance of being your own person, following your own radar instead of a group's, embracing uniqueness, etc. The Ramones, and in particular Joey, seemed like the perfect embodiment of that. So my big hope for the book is that it tells the story of Joey Ramone, but also, in kind of the biggest way, of what punk rock means, and how it might help a little kid wade through difficult social waters and be their own unique person." Gabba Gabba We Accept You speaks in well-grounded and wise verbal and visual language to inform and affirm children -- young ones and the adult children, alike -- that their individual personalities have an inspired and inspiring place in the world. In the process of becoming and being a person, there's no one set of rules. The sooner we all know that, the sooner we'll find ourselves in a much better place."

$12.00 LOW STOCK LEVEL

Cassette version. "Like a sweet spring breeze after a long, cruel winter, Cory Hanson's blowing through town again. And like the wind, I Love People comes from parts unknown. Followers of Cory's twin arcs as solo singer and Wand member will be intrigued to learn that the lineup here is the same band that recorded 2024's Vertigo. That's Robbie Cody co-producing behind the desk, Evan Backer playing bass and arranging strings and horns, Evan Burrows on drums and percussion and Cory on piano, guitars and voices and songs. I Love People bugs out to the wtf-ness on the edge of town spied now and again on Cory's previous solos, Pale Horse Rider and Western Cum. Here though, the simmering shades of Rider's quiet horror and the bursts of Cum's cartoonish, gun-slinger bravado have given way to an ever-more impartial view of life on the ground, tinted in gossamer sepia and other nostalgic tones. Written over the past several annums, Cory's songs ensnare the '70s singer-songwriter in a feedback loop, drawing additional inspiration from the indelible everyman melodies of the American Songbook. With gilded threads and emboldened needling, I Love People's songs are rendered with immediacy and a deep-pile Hollywood production sound that radiates affluence and comfort, even in the darkest and coldest nights way out beyond the range of any signal. Placed and displaced among gorgeously outfitted musical arrangements, I Love People's people are kin to their threadbare folk forbears. Song by song, their occupations, social positions and dispositions unravel like silk into the wind. While they perform, Cory loiters backstage, gently pulling at the curtain to reveal silly details hidden in plain sight inside America's broken heart. It doesn't come as a surprise, and it's not strictly funny, either: a giddy mash of the two, the delirium that comes from finding what you think is 'true' is someone else's 'false.' When maps won't help you find out where you are anymore, you're as normal and horrible as the next person, playing out your days in a place of constant activity with your parallax view progressing invisibly into a limbo beyond the horizon. That's your freedom for you, and it might be more sad, more terrifying -- if it weren't so much fun! Even though their subject won't stop squirming, Cory and his merry men have constructed a timeless still life with I Love People, simply by living for the fun and love of it all."

$13.50 LOW STOCK LEVEL

"Like a sweet spring breeze after a long, cruel winter, Cory Hanson's blowing through town again. And like the wind, I Love People comes from parts unknown. Followers of Cory's twin arcs as solo singer and Wand member will be intrigued to learn that the lineup here is the same band that recorded 2024's Vertigo. That's Robbie Cody co-producing behind the desk, Evan Backer playing bass and arranging strings and horns, Evan Burrows on drums and percussion and Cory on piano, guitars and voices and songs. I Love People bugs out to the wtf-ness on the edge of town spied now and again on Cory's previous solos, Pale Horse Rider and Western Cum. Here though, the simmering shades of Rider's quiet horror and the bursts of Cum's cartoonish, gun-slinger bravado have given way to an ever-more impartial view of life on the ground, tinted in gossamer sepia and other nostalgic tones. Written over the past several annums, Cory's songs ensnare the '70s singer-songwriter in a feedback loop, drawing additional inspiration from the indelible everyman melodies of the American Songbook. With gilded threads and emboldened needling, I Love People's songs are rendered with immediacy and a deep-pile Hollywood production sound that radiates affluence and comfort, even in the darkest and coldest nights way out beyond the range of any signal. Placed and displaced among gorgeously outfitted musical arrangements, I Love People's people are kin to their threadbare folk forbears. Song by song, their occupations, social positions and dispositions unravel like silk into the wind. While they perform, Cory loiters backstage, gently pulling at the curtain to reveal silly details hidden in plain sight inside America's broken heart. It doesn't come as a surprise, and it's not strictly funny, either: a giddy mash of the two, the delirium that comes from finding what you think is 'true' is someone else's 'false.' When maps won't help you find out where you are anymore, you're as normal and horrible as the next person, playing out your days in a place of constant activity with your parallax view progressing invisibly into a limbo beyond the horizon. That's your freedom for you, and it might be more sad, more terrifying -- if it weren't so much fun! Even though their subject won't stop squirming, Cory and his merry men have constructed a timeless still life with I Love People, simply by living for the fun and love of it all."

$25.00$21.25 IN STOCK

LP version. "Like a sweet spring breeze after a long, cruel winter, Cory Hanson's blowing through town again. And like the wind, I Love People comes from parts unknown. Followers of Cory's twin arcs as solo singer and Wand member will be intrigued to learn that the lineup here is the same band that recorded 2024's Vertigo. That's Robbie Cody co-producing behind the desk, Evan Backer playing bass and arranging strings and horns, Evan Burrows on drums and percussion and Cory on piano, guitars and voices and songs. I Love People bugs out to the wtf-ness on the edge of town spied now and again on Cory's previous solos, Pale Horse Rider and Western Cum. Here though, the simmering shades of Rider's quiet horror and the bursts of Cum's cartoonish, gun-slinger bravado have given way to an ever-more impartial view of life on the ground, tinted in gossamer sepia and other nostalgic tones. Written over the past several annums, Cory's songs ensnare the '70s singer-songwriter in a feedback loop, drawing additional inspiration from the indelible everyman melodies of the American Songbook. With gilded threads and emboldened needling, I Love People's songs are rendered with immediacy and a deep-pile Hollywood production sound that radiates affluence and comfort, even in the darkest and coldest nights way out beyond the range of any signal. Placed and displaced among gorgeously outfitted musical arrangements, I Love People's people are kin to their threadbare folk forbears. Song by song, their occupations, social positions and dispositions unravel like silk into the wind. While they perform, Cory loiters backstage, gently pulling at the curtain to reveal silly details hidden in plain sight inside America's broken heart. It doesn't come as a surprise, and it's not strictly funny, either: a giddy mash of the two, the delirium that comes from finding what you think is 'true' is someone else's 'false.' When maps won't help you find out where you are anymore, you're as normal and horrible as the next person, playing out your days in a place of constant activity with your parallax view progressing invisibly into a limbo beyond the horizon. That's your freedom for you, and it might be more sad, more terrifying -- if it weren't so much fun! Even though their subject won't stop squirming, Cory and his merry men have constructed a timeless still life with I Love People, simply by living for the fun and love of it all."

$27.00$22.95 IN STOCK

"Sharpie Smile's debut album has one question for you: is your heart good enough to take The Staircase? Sharpie Smile is Dylan Hadley and Cole Berliner. They met in 2015, a pair of musically-adept nonconformist teenagers, forming a songwriting and performance duo. Writing initially for a project called Kamikaze Palm Tree, with Dylan on drums and Cole on guitar, they produced two albums of thorny, earwormy art-rock. While continuing to play shows and write, there was some session work with other acts (Cate Le Bon, A. Savage, Tim Presley's White Fence). And then a shimmering new direction came into view. For Sharpie Smile, that direction is up. The Staircase is a lush and energizing contemporary pop record, scaling an ambitious gradient of minimal/maximal electronic production and deep feels. It's a dreamy and ethereal trip through something (you're not sure what yet), on a radiant melodic raft. Reality is breaking and rebirth is happening, one piece at a time -- essential questions deconstructed and pieced together again. Like scanning a new x-ray image of yourself. Finding is losing something else; there's the shadow of 'goodbye' here, too. When Dylan sings 'There is nothing I won't miss' on 'Love or Worship,' you feel broken up -- but if the breakup is with the old way of life (it is), then getting over the hump will provide its own sweet reward. Sharpie Smile's passage there is one of sensuous breaths and serpentine soul-terrain, as Dylan's blue vocal melodies drift glacially through a luminous wilderness of synth keys, guitars and percussion beats, cutting the melancholy milieu of New Romantic pop in sharp new relief. On The Staircase, Sharpie Smile ascend through waves of sound art in a sophisticated musical craft all their own. Inspired by SOPHIE, 100 gecs, Oklou, and other insane futurists, they allow the feeling of discovery to free their evolution, whenever needed. Their collaborators help facilitate and guide their astonishing transformations: The Staircase was engineered and produced by Cesar Maria, with additional engineering by Spencer Hartling, additional vocal engineering and production by Cairo Marques-Neto and mixing by Mikey Weiland. You're in the eye of the storm. A refuge from the unrelenting, where the journey to clarity can be glimpsed, accessed and shared."

$13.50$11.48 IN STOCK

"In 1987, Rafael Toral began making his own compositions and solo recordings using electric guitar in an enhanced signal path. In the time since then, he has developed his conceptions, first as a guitar improviser, then in what he called his 'Space Program,' utilizing self-made electronic modules. 2024's Spectral Evolution was a much-acclaimed return to guitar voicings and improvisations, edified by his further explorations in electronic sound. In the wake of his extraordinary new music comes a new set of CD masters for Rafael's first two albums, Sound Mind Sound Body and Wave Field. Nearly 40 years later, these recordings sound remarkably prescient and perfectly timeless -- fresher today than when they were first released! Sound Mind Sound Body was inspired in part by the working principles of Fripp and Eno, extrapolated by Rafael via a unique signal path leading out of his guitar. He paid notice to the massive impact of discreet gestures, creating slow-moving tones and spacious orchestral resonances, drifting and droning with glacial majesty, hardly recognizable as guitar much of the time. The first pieces were recorded in 1987; in 1994, a collection was released on Portugal's AnAnAnA, producing an hour's worth of remarkable sonic equilibrium in this mode. With each subsequent reissue, however, aspects of this sound have been subtly revisited. For the 1998 Moikai CD, 'AE 1,' one of the earliest pieces conceived, was newly recorded; for the 2018 Drag City LP master, 'Textura e Linhas Curvas' was included, 'AER 7 E' was re-recorded and the material for 'AE 2' was recorded for the first time ever. These performances were executed using the same processes as the original ones. For the current CD, 'Loopability II' has been recalled from the AnAnAnA master, 'Textura e Linhas Curvas' omitted and yet another brand-new version of 'AER 7E' inserted in place of the 2018 version. Incredibly, all of these changes augment Sound Mind Sound Body's expansive intent without altering its essential otherworldly atmosphere. Wave Field and Sound Mind Sound Body to sit perfectly among the forward-reaching music of today -- as it continues to evolve in listeners' ears, moving ever towards the next conception of listening space."

$13.50$11.48 IN STOCK

"In 1987, Rafael Toral began making his own compositions and solo recordings using electric guitar in an enhanced signal path. In the time since then, he has developed his conceptions, first as a guitar improviser, then in what he called his 'Space Program,' utilizing self-made electronic modules. 2024's Spectral Evolution was a much-acclaimed return to guitar voicings and improvisations, edified by his further explorations in electronic sound. In the wake of his extraordinary new music comes a new set of CD masters for Rafael's first two albums, Sound Mind Sound Body and Wave Field. Nearly 40 years later, these recordings sound remarkably prescient and perfectly timeless -- fresher today than when they were first released! Wave Field, released in 1995, was a departure from the first album into new composition methods involving the dirty textures of rock guitar, sounding in the open ears of many listeners (like Jim O'Rourke, who issued the disc in the US on dexter's cigar) as a synthesis of disparate elements -- a nexus where Alvin Lucier, Sonic Youth, My Bloody Valentine, and Eno blend together. Here, the clangorous potential of the guitar was emphasized, giving a metallic edge to the two extended pieces and 'radio edit' coda. The jacket paid subtle tribute to My Bloody Valentine, which, along with the radio edit, suggested a harmony between musical directions as wildly disparate as minimalist experimental and rock. Today, such a paradoxical intent is more widely considered as a part of the artist's purview. Wave Field and Sound Mind Sound Body to sit perfectly among the forward-reaching music of today -- as it continues to evolve in listeners' ears, moving ever towards the next conception of listening space."

$23.00$19.55 IN STOCK

"Drag City and Yoga Records return to the music of Matthew Young. Following Recurring Dreams (1981, reissued 2014) and Traveler's Advisory (1986, reissued 2010), Undercurrents (2025) collects eight oddly dissimilar pieces that somehow fit together perfectly. Although unique enough to be called outsider, Young's new album occupies a musical world accessible to fans of many genres. Matthew Young, born in 1950, grew up in Lawrenceville, New Jersey. When he showed early musical interest, his parents bought an upright piano, and Matthew began taking lessons. In his teens, he attended concerts by Duke Ellington, Dave Brubeck, and Count Basie, and grew up to discover iconoclasts such as Eric Satie, Charles Ives, John Cage, Harry Partch, Brian Eno, and experimental rock groups such as Can and Harmonia. He also regularly attended and played at folk music gatherings in the nearby New Jersey Pine Barrens. His music began to appear in local theater productions, leading to the 1981 release of Recurring Dreams, through New York distributor NMDS. Later, Young became obsessed with the hammered dulcimer, and in 1986 he released a new album, Traveler's Advisory, which featured the instrument prominently, along with electronics, tape effects, and his first foray into vocals. Composed and recorded over the span of several decades, Undercurrents displays the wide range of Young's various sonic pallets. On the opener 'Reflexion,' a quartet of marimbas twist and turn over each other, while in 'One and All,' a harp melody is overtaken by various electronic effects. The 12-minute title track is an abstract weaving of piano and synthesis, with the six sections named after oceanic currents. 'A Game of Chess, a Game of Chance' consists of sparse electronic tones created on the Princeton University IBM mainframe during his studies in 1976. This all makes way for the second half of Undercurrents, where settings of Marion Lineaweaver's poems, 'The Summer Girls' and 'Her Key is Minor,' showcase Young's honest, fragile vocal approach, conveying a deep sense of soulful longing, and the latter even sweetly approaching something akin to synthpop. The piano on 'Inflexion' calls back to the end of 'Reflexion,' and in the album closer, 'Into the Woods,' Young plays the hammered dulcimer with the disciplined reverence of an alchemist. Simply put, Undercurrents is a triumph across many musical realms."

$35.00$29.75 IN STOCK

"Faun Fables, the long-running collaboration between Dawn McCarthy and Nils Frykdahl, have returned with Counterclockwise, the follow-up to 2016's Born of the Sun. With the longest space between albums in the band's twenty-seven-year history, the nature of time and experience spent raising a family and negotiating life's changes have much to do with the incredible listening companion Faun Fables have gifted us here. Counterclockwise's songs and production are the most encompassing, richly lived-in sonic world of their seven full-length albums. From start to finish, it is an exquisitely etched portrait of their aesthetic and worldview: colorfully studded with fine-hewed jewels of song, tinged with the traditional sounds of past and future nations. Their timeless 'songtelling' practice is entwined with a holistic view of a life in music -- embracing and celebrating the mundane details of home, partnering and family, elevated by a mystical and fantastical perspective. The new discovery here is their creative relationship with time. Counterclockwise began to take form in 2020, its songs brought together from over a span of fifteen years. Some came from commissioned projects about werewolves, Mother Goose, and other fairy tales. Others were rooted in familial traditions. Similarly, several cover songs salute crucial companions from different points in their individual and collective lives, making deep cuts from Yes and the Bee Gees -- as well as the theme song to '70s television program Grizzly Adams -- into further chapters of shaped time, well lived and loved, to indelibly light this collection. Counterclockwise is the first Faun Fables album engineered and produced by Dawn and Nils from start to finish. Taking the wheel in the tradition of the engineers that taught them, they have created a living atmosphere of songs and family. Dawn and Nils' wide-ranging vocal harmony tradition is enriched by the voices of their daughters Edda, Ura, and Gudrin, who contribute on keyboards and percussion, as well. Norwegian guitarist Arild Hammerø lends his singular guitar craft on the songs 'Ember Bell,' 'Hiawatha,' 'Wonderous Stories' (on which he also sings) and 'Maybe,' as well as the final, essential sounds that close the album. Dedicated with love to Dawn's late father, Edward 'Will' McCarthy, Counterclockwise is an evocation of the essential truth and joy of Faun Fables' relationship with time, the greatest value they can imagine to give to anyone who listens to their music."

$24.00 LOW STOCK LEVEL

LP version. "With the quickness, time's still slipping into the future. Take it from Ty Segall. He's been on a few trips around the sun himself, making records in orbit as he charts his path forward. Modern life is here to stay, but also (to quote an old civil war scribe), everything rocks and nothing dies -- so for Possession, Ty's 16th album, he strikes up the orchestra in his head with an abiding view of some quintessentially American stories, a quest channeled into ten non-stop bangers. A year and a half removed from the trenchant identity opus of his 'Three Bells' song cycle, Ty's beamed himself out from deep within psychic interiors. Here, compulsive rhythm arrangements are joined in battle by sweeping movements of strings and horns that further the charge righteously. Be it de Toqueville, duBois, George H. Nash, Howard Zinn, Bob Dylan or Smile-era Beach Boys, it doesn't matter where you get your history: whether you wanna party like it's 1999 or 1699, the stories you like to tell yourself tend to reinforce what you already believe. Here, coursing through the irresistibly high music spirits, Ty foists social concepts that you won't read about in school. In the process, he manages to slip discreetly in and out of the ranks of silver-tongued bums, fly-by-nights and way-outs like Cheap Trick and Steely Dan, never tarrying long enough to retain their distinctive ordure. One of the keys to this new music involved tapping an old friend and collaborator, filmmaker Matt Yoka, to write with him. As a non-musician, Matt's language sense is different from the one Ty's amassed as a player of music. With the trust they've developed over the years -- brainstorming the visual worlds of Goodbye Bread, Manipulator, Emotional Mugger, and plenty more -- they throw the conceptual ball back and forth to translate general vibes and feels into wicked lyric imagery, each acting as writer and editor in the process. Rife with singing guitar leads and Wizzardian brass n' reeds lustily riffin' on the banks of Ty's harmony vocal choir, Possession features some of Ty's most inspired songs to date. Taking back alleys through complicated cityscapes, ripping riffs jaggedly out of past hits for a new purpose, Ty scans the wreckage scattered all around, singing about the end of the rope while resisting defeat -- suggesting an ecstatic new empire to build as he cruises the countryside in his glittering craft."