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Waxahatchee

Tigers Blood

ON SALE $13.98 CD: $12.98 PREORDER

One of the hardest working singer-songwriters in the game is named Katie Crutchfield. She was born in Alabama, grew up near Waxahatchee Creek. Skipped town and struck out on her own as Waxahatchee. That was over a decade ago. Crutchfield says she never knew the road would lead her here, but after six critically acclaimed albums, she's never felt more confident in herself as an artist. While her sound has evolved from lo-fi folk to lush alt-tinged country, her voice has always remained the same. Honest and close, poetic with Southern lilting. Much like Carson McCullers's Mick Kelly, determined in her desires and convictions, ready to tell whoever will listen.

And after years of being sober and stable in Kansas City - after years of sacrificing herself to her work and the road - Crutchfield has arrived at her most potent songwriting yet. On her new album, Tigers Blood, Crutchfield emerges as a powerhouse - an ethnologist of the self - forever dedicated to revisiting her wins and losses. But now she's arriving at revelations and she ain't holding them back. Produced by Brad Cook, the album features MJ Lenderman, Phil Cook, and Spencer Tweedy.

Waxahatchee - Tigers Blood
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Multiplatinum artist BOYS LIKE GIRLS are releasing their first new studio album in over 10 years. The band returns with their infectious pop-rock sound that created the platinum singles “Two Is Better Than one” (feat. Taylor Swift), “Love Drunk” and “The Great Escape”. The new album, SUNDAY AT FOXWOODS, has all the fun and bouncy hallmarks of their early sound with plenty of modern hooks. BOYS LIKE GIRLS will launch their North American Headlining Tour in support of this album in Fall 2023.
Boys Like Girls - Sunday At Foxwoods
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Prelude To Ecstasy is a pendulum which swings between the extremes of human emotion – from the ecstasy of passion to the sublimity of pain – and it is this concept which binds our album together. This is an archeology of ourselves; you can exhume our collective and individual experiences and influences from within its fabric. We exorcised guitars for their solos, laid bare confessions directly from diary pages, and summoned an orchestra to bring our vision to life. It is out greatest honour and pride to present this offering to the world, it is everything we are.” – The Last Dinner Party

The Last Dinner Party - Prelude To Ecstasy
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Amid a digital world focused on perfection, as autotune and electronic instruments run rampant within studios, it can be a difficult endeavor to find authenticity amongst music in this day and age. The era of albums crafted as true listening experiences has gone by the wayside, yet the Red Clay Strays have artfully brought it back in style with their debut LP, Moment of Truth. To fully appreciate this masterpiece, one must drop the needle at the very beginning and listen till the record stops spinning while lending attention to every note crooned and chord played as the songs soak deep into the soul. Recorded in a studio in the hills of Huntsville, Alabama, the album was tracked in an old-school manner, completely in analog as their heroes did in days gone by. As they banded together in one room cutting every song live, the Strays captured the chemistry from their live performances whilst ushering in a new era of sound that aptly describes who they are and where they’ve been. 
 
When asked how the album name was conceived, the Strays summed it up best: “It’s the Moment of Truth because it’s our first album we’re ever releasing. It’s the Moment of Truth because it’s actually us that got to create this, nobody else. No outside interference.” Sonically, the record is a melting pot of a myriad of genres set in the heyday of the southern music the band grew up influenced by and is lyrically driven by honest life experiences as it cycles through the highs and lows of living and loving, comprised of songs with a deep moral fiber to them. With each track displaying the Red Clay Strays’ innate penchant for storytelling, Moment of Truth has a song for everyone, for every emotion. “Stones Throw” begins the record on a strong note, setting the tone for what’s to come as its funky, soulful style melodically details the difficulties of a life spent being gone on the road while trying to keep it all between the lines. The title track, “Moment of Truth,” is a pensive ballad where a man evaluates the motives behind the choices he makes in the process of his own personal judgment day. Perhaps in efforts to find the answers, “Moment of Truth” transitions beautifully into one of the more upbeat numbers on the record, a 60s infused ditty entitled “Do Me Wrong,” finding a man in the midst of a toxic relationship longing to be set free as a doo wop groove plays. Also on the concept of romantic love, “Wondering Why” makes its mark as the sole love song and is an ode to the good women loving and supporting men who aren’t quite sure of their reasons. 
 
Moving on from songs of love to ones of loss, “Forgive” features ethereal vocals as lead singer Brandon Coleman croons about life after heartbreak. “Heavy Heart” follows the same path, highlighting Brandon’s vocal range as he bemoans the heaviness of that heartbreak weighing on the mind. The next track, “Ghosts,” picks up the pace into a rockin’ number about not being able to escape the haunting of past mistakes that are always a stones throw away from the memory. Expertly extending the concept of ghosts, “She’s No Good” is a piano heavy bop about a woman who is prone to hiding her true intentions, not revealing her true spirit. “Don’t Care” comes next, riding the waves of emotion back into a tune of sorrow as the euphonic vocals highlight the tender mood of being plagued by someone’s memory, desperate to get away no matter the cost. 
 
On a much different emotional plane, “Killers” queues up next. Sonically, it’s one of the standouts on the record with its sound effects and stirring music amplifying the storyline of the lifelong tragedies of war as it follows a young soldier in the jungle to living as an older man on the streets. Following such a soul-aching song, “Sunshine” is a thoughtful tune about finding the faith to keep it all together for the ones who love us despite the missteps we’ve made. Rounding out the record with that quintessential Red Clay Strays sound, “Doin’ Time” brings the album to a close with its bona fide rock-and-roll melody and subject matter—being thrown in the penitentiary for poor choices with a lot of time to think about all the feelings felt and examined in the precious eleven tracks. Overall, the record is as sonically diverse as the men who form the band, yet it maintains the rare sincerity and artistic integrity the band possesses as a whole. Moment of Truth will not only be a milestone in the Red Clay Strays career, but it will also be a turning point in the history of music—and for good reason.
The Red Clay Strays - Moment Of Truth
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Hurray for the Riff Raff (aka Alynda Segarra, they/them) announces their new album, The Past Is Still Alive, due February 23, 2024 on Nonesuch Records. The record represents a new phase of beginning in Segarra’s lauded evolution as a storyteller. Created during a period filled with grief, when they found inspiration in radical poetry, railroad culture, outsider art, the work of writer Eileen Myles, and the history of activist groups like ACT UP and Gran Fury, discovering a stronger, singular style of writing that felt like a long-awaited revelation. In each song, lyrics serve as memory boxes for Segarra to process their trauma, identity and dreams for the future. Segarra uses their lyrics as a way to immortalize and say goodbye to those they have loved and lost, to illustrate the many shapes and patterns of time’s passing, and honor both the heartbroken and the hopeful parts of themselves. Though the record was made in North Carolina and produced by Brad Cook (Bon Iver, Kevin Morby, Waxahatchee), the Bronx-born, New Orleans-based Segarra brings listeners to places far beyond, evoking vivid experiences of small shops and buffalo stampedes in Santa Fe, childhood road trips and Florida storms, struggles of addiction in the Lower East Side, days-long journeys to outrun the cops in Nebraska, and more. 

The followup to their acclaimed Nonesuch debut, Life on Earth—which landed on Best of 2022 lists from the New York Times, Rolling Stone, NPR Music, Mojo, Uncut, among others—The Past Is Still Alive sees Hurray for the Riff Raff reunite with Brad Cook, while further expanding their creative cast of collaborators. Anjimile, Conor Oberst and S.G. Goodman all join Alynda Segarra on vocals at various points throughout the LP, with a band of musicians including Cook, Libby Rodenbough, Matt Douglas, Meg Duffy of Hand Habits, Phil Cook, Yan Westerlund and Mike Mogis, who also mixed the album. 

The “nature punk” of Life on Earth marked a departure for Hurray for the Riff Raff, as they contemplated surviving and thriving amidst a world in crisis The Past Is Still Alive brings the focus back inwards. The arrangements are raw, the melodies direct and indelible, and the lyrics personal, yet largely rooted in family and community. There are love songs to real characters, locations and mythic figures like Sky Red Hawk (“Buffalo”), the first trans woman Segarra ever met (“Hawkmoon”), queerness and sacred spaces (“Colossus of Roads”), leaving home behind (“Snake Plant”), short-lived romances and the wisdom gained through chaos (“Vetiver”). Elsewhere, in the self-portraits painted on “Alibi,” “Ogallala” and other album highlights, Segarra reflects on the land they have traveled, the hardships witnessed and bravery gained while running away from everything and everyone they knew at age seventeen, hopping freight trains and hitchhiking across the country with a band of street urchins. 

In recent months, Hurray for the Riff Raff debuted a stage adaptation of their beloved 2017 album, The Navigator, based on their quest to reclaim their Puerto Rican identity. They also toured with Bright Eyes and First Aid Kit, performed for the Late Show with Stephen Colbert and NPR Music’s 15th Anniversary Concert, played festivals like Pitchfork and more. Next spring, they will bring the music of The Past Is Still Alive on the road, for a headline tour across the US, UK and EU, that they have partnered with PLUS1 so that $1 per ticket goes to supporting This Must Be the Place and their work to distribute Naloxone - the lifesaving medicine that reverses an overdose – at events across the nation.

Hurray For The Riff Raff - The Past Is Still Alive
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The Snuts present Millennials: a sharp, snarling 10-track run of firecrackers, out February 23rd, 2024 on the band’s newly set up label Happy Artist Records - via The Orchard

From start to finish, top to bottom, Millennials has been made entirely to The Snuts’ script. The result: a tight, taut, fat-free masterclass in songwriting and production.

The Snuts have a chart-topping and top 3 albums under their belts, songs that attack subjects affecting the youth of today, and an arsenal of adoring fans up and down the country. As these four lads from Whitburn, West Lothian vowed four years ago, The Snuts wanted to be risky. And with Millennials, The Snuts have followed through on that promise.

The Snuts - Millennials
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Liam and John have been friends for years but when Liam invited John to join him on stage at Knebworth in 2022 it reignited a long-running ambition of writing and recording an album together. The demos were written at John's home studio in Macclesfield and then recorded with legendary producer, Greg Kurstin and mixed by Spike Stent. Joey Waronker (Atoms for Peace, Beck, R.E.M.) plays drums on the album.

Liam Gallagher & John Squire - Liam Gallagher & John Squire [CD]
$14.98 Video
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Girl With No Face: Allie X’s fourth album, Girl With No Face, is a daring excavation of her identity. A maniacal journey into the mind of an artist who just spent three years in isolation, refusing any input as she became the solitary producer, writer and creative voice for the first time in her career. “This record documents an intense struggle for power and control – creatively, professionally, mentally and physically,” X explains. Inspired by the technology and hedonism of the early 80’s new wave scene, the album’s analog-leaning songs are a series of stark contradictions – retro in feel but ultra-modern in subject matter, pointed, unpredictable yet danceable, approachable while delightfully menacing. In short, Girl with No Face is completely orthogonal to the hyper-tuned, automated shapes that dominate today’s alt pop. “Instead of following any trends, I just wanted to indulge myself in all my favourite stuff this time. I wanted limitations. No plug-ins. I chose a bass synth, drum machine, string machine and embraced the shortcomings and grittiness of this old temperamental equipment. The result was something that felt messy, raw, and direct, which was really exciting to me.” Infused with early 80’s British experimentalism, with nods to The Human League and New Order, the album is a strident move away from 2020’s introspective and spare Cape God -- so much faster, more threatening. “The best comparison I can make is intentionally locking yourself in a room and sitting in front of a mirror staring at yourself. When everything is refracted through your lens you get high on the sense of power and control. But as you get to know yourself intimately, you see your own ugliness, your limitations, your pain. It’s terrifying and enlightening all at once. A total ego fuck.” - Allie X 

Allie X - Girl With No Face
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Altan

Donegal

CD: $16.98 Buy

Altan is arguably the most iconic band working in traditional Irish music today. For the past 35 years, they have been bringing the music of their native County Donegal to the world stage. Irish-language songs and dynamic twin-fiddling, the hallmarks of Altan's sound, framework the band's newest album, aptly titled DONEGAL. The album's 10 tracks pay homage to Donegal's rich musical heritage, breathtaking landscapes, and vibrant culture. The authenticity and allure of the music transports listeners to a bygone time in rural Ireland while simultaneously forging a connection between the past and modern times.
Altan - Donegal
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In Ki moun ou ye, Haitian singer/songwriter/composer/multi-instrumentalist, Nathalie Joachim takes us through an intimate collection of music that ponders its title’s question: “Who are you?” Inspired by the remote Caribbean farmland that her family continues to call home after seven generations, Ki moun ou ye travels deeper into the Haitian heritage introduced on Joachim’s GRAMMY-nominated Fanm d’Ayiti. Performed in both English and Haitian Kreyòl, the immersive work examines the richness of one’s voice—an instrument that brings with it DNA, ancestry, and identity—in a vibrant tapestry of Joachim’s voice, and intricate electronically sampled vocal textures underscored by an acoustic instrumental ensemble. Ki moun ou ye invites listeners into an exploration of personal history, and draws upon the voice’s historic and ongoing role as a tool for survival, healing, preservation of self, fellowship, and an affirmation of freedom.

Nathalie Joachim - Ki moun ou ye
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Voir Dire, the momentous album by Earl Sweatshirt and Alchemist, undoubtedly represents the long-awaited convergence of two rap titans. Earl's personal and intricately woven wordcraft, along with Alchemist's treasure trove of obscure, captivating samples, combine to create an artistic chemistry that permeates "Voir Dire" (which translates from French to "Speak Your Truth"). Earl accomplishes just that as he delves into the analysis of specific phases of his life, particularly in the past where his reflections resonate with immense potency, meticulous detail, and profound insight. The album features notable Los Angeles wordsmith Vince Staples on two tracks and esteemed rap artist, MIKE. On Voir Dire, unmatched lyricism and remarkable maturity take center stage, while personal experiences such as new fatherhood emerge and evolve over stripped-down, spacious Alchemist production — culminating in what many consider to be the best rap album of the year.

Earl Sweatshirt & The Alchemist - VOIR DIRE
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