New Release Round-Up 04-19-19

Cage The Elephant - Social Cues -  RCA
John Hill produces the Kentucky alt-rock band Cage The Elephant's fifth album, Social Cues, which features a collaboration with Beck.

Drugdealer - Raw Honey - Mexican Summer
In an era when networked access to information is nearly universal and wearing influences on your sleeve is normalized, it often feels like everything’s been done. Which begs the questions: What’s the point of creating? Does the world need another still life of fruit? Another film about love? Does the world need another melody? On Raw Honey, his second album as Drugdealer, Michael Collins colors these existential conundrums with lush arrangements, memetic melodies, and a vulnerable tunefulness that tries to make sense of self-doubt and connected loneliness in our shared simulacra.

The Rolling Stones - Honk - Interscope Records
Honk is the brand-new Best Of compilation album featuring the biggest hits and classic cuts from every Rolling Stones studio album from 1971 to 2016’s Blue & Lonesome. The 2LP collects 20 essential Stones’ tracks – including eight Top 10 singles, “Brown Sugar,” “Tumbling Dice,” “Angie,” “It’s Only Rock’n’Roll (But I Like It),” “Fool To Cry,” “Miss You,” “Emotional Rescue” and “Start Me Up.” and more. The album also features a live version of “Wild Horses” featuring Florence Welch.

 

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Daniel Norgren - Wooh Dang - Superpuma Records
The experience of Daniel Norgren's music is marked by connection: the artist to the band, the audience to the music, and the body to the soul. His latest album, Wooh Dang, out on Superpuma Records, is Norgrens first worldwide release. Recorded live and entirely on a 16 track analogue rig the album captures the close chemistry between Norgren and his band, comprised of old friends Anders Grahn (bass), Erik Berntsson (drums), and Andreas Filipsson (guitar and banjo). An intertwining of analog instrumentation, live performance, and rural field recordings, Wooh Dang is rife with a deeply hopeful creative intention. It's red blooded, alive, and coursing with equal parts adrenaline and seratonin. Wooh Dang was a real fun album to make and to me its been the world for the last few years, says Norgren. Thanks for taking the time. I hope you enjoy it.



Tech N9ne - N9na - Strange Music
Technicians! Tech N9ne releases his newest album, N9na. Where his previous album, Planet, was about everyone, this is more focused and introspective, honing in on what makes Tech N9ne who he is. With standout tracks like “FTI 2.0” and the title track, “N9NA”, this is sure to be an album bookmarking where Tech is at this point in his life and career. 

UPCOMING RELEASES 

Catfish And The Bottlemen - The Balance - Capitol
Audiences from Manchester to Melbourne, London to Los Angeles, Newcastle to New York, and everywhere in between have been engulfed by the swell of eager sentiment propelled from a vociferous fanbase. Catfish And The Bottlemen possess a magnetic and dynamic focal point in McCann, renowned for posing everyday, easily identifiable observations through his lyrics. The new album The Balance arrives 4.26.

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Slick Rick - The Great Adventures Of Slick Rick - Def Jam
Remastered from the rare analog tape the special edition vinyl will be on 2LP for the first time. Limited double vinyl LP repressing of this 1988 debut album from the Rap kingpin. The Great Adventures Of Slick Rick topped Billboard's R&B/Hip Hop albums chart for five weeks and peaked at #31 on the Billboard 200 chart.

 

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For more information on these and other releases out this week, check out our New Releases charts by week section.

New Release Round-Up 04-12-19

Anderson .Paak - Ventura -  12 Tone Music
While he was working on Oxnard, the ever-ambitious Anderson .Paak was recording Ventura at the same time. As he explains it, both albums showcase the duality that has inspired the Grammy-award winning artist throughout his career. “Growing up in Oxnard gave me the grit and the church to find this voice of mine. One town over I went further and found my depth. [I] held one [album] back because that would have been too many songs to perform live!” Now with a more soulful sound representative of the beautiful, scenic Ventura, Anderson .Paak gives us “King James”, “Make It Better”, and more – with features including Smokey Robinson, André 3000, Nate Dogg among others. Welcome to Ventura!

Norah Jones - Begin Again - Mercury
This week, nine-time GRAMMY-winning singer-songwriter Norah Jones is releasing Begin Again, a collection of singles that gathers seven eclectic songs that Jones has recorded over the past year with collaborators including Jeff Tweedy and Thomas Bartlett. Begin Again will be released on 12” vinyl, CD, and as a digital album and features the new song “Just a Little Bit,” which was produced by Jones and features her on vocals, piano, and organ along with Brian Blade on drums, Christopher Thomas on bass, Dave Guy on trumpet, and Leon Michels on tenor saxophone. The singles Jones began releasing last summer ran the gamut from riveting electronic experiments to starkly acoustic folk ballads to organ-and-horn drenched soul songs. With the addition of three more previously unreleased songs, Begin Again presents seven snapshots of creativity from one of the music world’s most versatile and consistently intriguing artists.

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Eli 'Paperboy' Reed - 99 Cent Dreams - Yep Roc Records
With the release of his new record, 99 Cent Dreams, Eli 'Paperboy' Reed begins his second decade as an artist much in the same way he began his first: in love with soul music. Reed is ten years wiser this time around, writing with the kind of freewheeling confidence. The result is the finest of his career. Cut at the legendary Sam Phillips Recording in Memphis, TN, and produced by Matt Ross-Spang (Jason Isbell, Margo Price), 99 Cent Dreams is exuberant, a celebration of life delivered by an ecstatic messenger. Reeds arrangements on the album are lean, filtering vintage R&B, soul, and gospel through the heart of a modern songwriter. His stunning voice remains front and center but his performances have matured, a sign perhaps of the newfound perspective hes gained with fatherhood. Fueled by love and hope, this is a collection that, despite its moments of loneliness and pain, ultimately insists on seeing the bigger picture, on recognizing each and every day for the gift that it is.

Andy Black - The Ghost Of Ohio - Republic
The Ghost Of Ohio, the second album released under the Andy Black moniker, is both a soundtrack to its comic book graphic novel counterpart and a thrilling standalone record of diverse anthems and ballads, in pursuit of a muse that transcends genre. The Ghost of Ohio saw Andy return to longtime collaborator John Feldmann, the producer and songwriter whose discography includes multiple Number One rock albums and gold/platinum certifications, including releases from Blink-182, 5 Seconds Of Summer.

 

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Glen Hansard - This Wild Willing - Epitaph
This Wild Willing is Glen Hansard’s fourth solo album. Written and created in Paris, France with a band of brothers; new friends and old, more than 24 musicians collaborating on the album. From his partners in The Frames (Joe Doyle) and Swell Season (Marketa Irglova & Joe Doyle), to his touring family of players , to three Iranian brothers he met in Paris (the Kroshravesh brothers) , Glen brought together a group of global talents who each left an indelible mark on this recording. “It became quickly apparent in the studio we were onto something interesting. I was finding new ways into the existing songs and we were improvising new ideas every day. When you surround yourself with great musicians and do your best to keep up, stay loose, give little direction, and allow everyone to bring what they bring, something transformative may happen. This collection of songs is mainly made up of those that came through while improvising and following the melodic lines and threads. Sometimes when you take a small musical fragment and you care for it, follow it, and build it up slowly, it can become a thing of wonder. In this sense, some of these songs weren’t written in the traditional form; they were ideas followed to a conclusion. I want to thank all these great musicians for coming and giving these songs their best. All a song wants is to be heard. I hope something in this music can be of use to you. I know it’s been of great use to me to make it. Beauty is in the ear of the behearer.”

Bill Frisell / Thomas Morgan - Epistrophy - ECM
Like their acclaimed ECM release Small Town of 2017 which The Guardian called "wistful and mesmerizing... tonally ingenious and haunting" Epistrophy by guitarist Bill Frisell and bassist Thomas Morgan was recorded at New York City's Village Vanguard. The new album once again captures the rare empathy these two players achieve together in this intimate environment. There are further poetic takes on pieces from the duo's beloved Americana songbook ("All in Fun," "Red River Valley," "Save the Last Dance for Me"), as well as another intense version of a composition by Paul Motian ("Mumbo Jumbo"), an artist whom both the guitarist and bassist knew well. Frisell and Morgan communicate the essence of Billy Strayhorn's "Lush Life" and the Frank Sinatra hit "In the Wee Small Hours of the Morning," so much so that the famous words seem to hang in the air even without a singer. At the center of the album is a pair of pieces by Thelonious Monk: the funky, angular "Epistrophy" and the ruminative ballad "Pannonica." And as with "Goldfinger" on Small Town, Frisell and Morgan offer a glowing duo interpretation of a melody-rich John Barry title tune from a James Bond film "You Only Live Twice."

 

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Nirvana - Live At The Paramount - Geffen Records
First time vinyl release ever of the Live At The Paramount concert. All editions include a 12x24” poster insert and a cloth sticky VIP pass replica of the original pass used that very night of the concert as the vinyl download card insert with download instructions on the paper-backing. Pressed on 2LP 180G vinyl.

UPCOMING RELEASES 

The Rolling Stones - Honk - Interscope Records
Honk is the brand-new Best Of compilation album featuring the biggest hits and classic cuts from every Rolling Stones studio album from 1971 to 2016’s Blue & Lonesome. The 2LP collects 20 essential Stones’ tracks – including eight Top 10 singles, “Brown Sugar,” “Tumbling Dice,” “Angie,” “It’s Only Rock’n’Roll (But I Like It),” “Fool To Cry,” “Miss You,” “Emotional Rescue” and “Start Me Up.” and more. The album also features a live version of “Wild Horses” featuring Florence Welch.

 

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For more information on these and other releases out this week, check out our New Releases charts by week section.