{"title":"Clearance","description":"","products":[{"product_id":"shabazz-palaces_quazarz-vs-the-jealous-machines","title":"Quazarz vs. The Jealous Machines","description":"\u003cp class=\"MsoNormal\"\u003e**Be sure to check out the \u003cb\u003e\u003ca title=\"Link: http:\/\/https:\/\/megamart.subpop.com\/releases\/shabazz_palaces\/quazarz_vs_the_jealous_machines_illustrated_album\" href=\"http:\/\/megamart.subpop.com\/releases\/shabazz_palaces\/quazarz_vs_the_jealous_machines_illustrated_album\"\u003eIllustrated Album\u003c\/a\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e format as well \u003cb\u003e\u003ca title=\"Link: http:\/\/https:\/\/megamart.subpop.com\/releases\/shabazz_palaces\/quazarz_vs_the_jealous_machines_illustrated_album\" href=\"http:\/\/megamart.subpop.com\/releases\/shabazz_palaces\/quazarz_vs_the_jealous_machines_illustrated_album\"\u003eover here\u003c\/a\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e, which comes with a digital download of the full album.**\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp class=\"MsoNormal\"\u003eQuazarz came to the Earth from somewhere else, a musical\rambassador from his place to ours. Somehow, through fire or through fury, the\rPalaceer of \u003ca title=\"Link: http:\/\/www.subpop.com\/artists\/shabazz_palaces\" href=\"http:\/\/www.subpop.com\/artists\/shabazz_palaces\"\u003eShabazz Palaces \u003c\/a\u003ecaught wind of the tale, and it is through his\rprism that we hear the story.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp class=\"MsoNormal\"\u003eThe beach was there, and Atlaantiis, and chemical alterations\rand cell memories and Andre Norton, Richard K. Morgan, and always Octavia\rButler. There were killings and there were votes, and brutality in both. There\rwas sound and there were other worlds, and there was a vastness so\rparticipation sometimes came only at the edges. And the Palaceer coasted down\rwith the alien notion, like Quazarz, and so became.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp class=\"MsoNormal\"\u003eOn Quazarz when they look at this place they see the\rinhabitants, the humans, but they don’t assess as we do. And so Quazarz was\rsent to meet a cat with vibration, a creative and courageous, caring,\rcompassionate dude that stood out. The dude was a drug dealer, but that was\rneither here nor there, until his dealings squashed the rendezvous, leaving our\ralien alone to figure out what this place is really all about.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp class=\"MsoNormal\"\u003eComing from a simpler, more essential, innocent place, the\rhero could not make heads nor tails of most advancements. From an aerial view,\rhe saw that a good percentage of earthly vibrations were on very small squares\rand it became his belief that this world was very disposable and the spans short.\rHis opinion was not of anything good nor bad but simply the truth. The\rmachines—he noted—though at the behest of their master’s voice, are scorned,\rand jealous as all hell.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp class=\"MsoNormal\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eAnd so the tale is told while surfing on the board of Shabazz\rPalaces, with its sturdy base angled for takeoff on a new trajectory. There is\rnew blood and space and room to be different and have different assets and\rdifferent art and different ways to talk and also open up some space inside to\rdo something new. There are pages and there are drawings, and color and faces\rand inked dialogues written in ancient futuristic hieroglyph. There are scales\rand there is melody and there are Sunny days and there is Darkness, but \u003ci\u003ethat\u003c\/i\u003e—it\rshould be noted—to the Palaceer is not a lack of illumination or brightness.\rMaybe it is dark, but in it is always optimism and joy, a bright darkness and a\rfull, hopeful one as well.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\r\r\r\r\r\r\r\r\r\r\r\r\r\r\r\r\r\r\r\r\r\r\r\r\r\r\r\r\r\r\r\r\r\r\r\r\r\r\r\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp class=\"MsoNormal\"\u003eIt comes in gold, and it comes for the night. And so Quazarz\rsang the Jealous Machines. And so too did the Jealous Machines sing the\r\u003ca title=\"Link: https:\/\/megamart.subpop.com\/releases\/shabazz_palaces\/quazarz_born_on_a_gangster_star\" href=\"https:\/\/megamart.subpop.com\/releases\/shabazz_palaces\/quazarz_born_on_a_gangster_star\"\u003eGangster Star\u003c\/a\u003e.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Shabazz Palaces","offers":[{"title":"CD","offer_id":31826129911904,"sku":"711852","price":6.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true},{"title":"LP","offer_id":31826129879136,"sku":"711851","price":23.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true},{"title":"Cassette","offer_id":31826129944672,"sku":"711854","price":10.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true},{"title":"Digital","offer_id":32556509888608,"sku":"711856","price":10.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0110\/1882\/9920\/products\/shabazzpalaces-quazarzvsjealousmachines-2400x2400-72.jpg?v=1581642377"},{"product_id":"king-tuff_the-other","title":"The Other","description":"When asked to describe the title track from his new record, Kyle Thomas—aka \u003ca title=\"Link: http:\/\/www.subpop.com\/artists\/king_tuff\" href=\"http:\/\/www.subpop.com\/artists\/king_tuff\"\u003eKing Tuff\u003c\/a\u003e—takes a deep breath. “It’s a song about hitting rock bottom,” he says. “I didn't even know what I wanted to do anymore, but I still had this urge, like there was this possibility of something else I could be doing... and then I just followed that possibility. To me, that’s what songwriting, and art in general, is about. You’re chasing something. ‘The Other’ is basically where songs come from. It’s the hidden world. It’s the invisible hand that guides you whenever you make something. It’s the thing I had to rediscover to bring me back to making music again in a way that felt true and good.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAfter years of non-stop touring, culminating in a particularly arduous stint in support of 2014’s \u003ca href=\"https:\/\/megamart.subpop.com\/releases\/king_tuff\/black_moon_spell\"\u003e\u003ci\u003eBlack Moon Spell\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/a\u003e, Thomas found himself back in Los Angeles experiencing the flipside of the ultimate rock and roll cliche. “I had literally been on tour for years,” recalls Thomas. “It was exhausting, physically and mentally. I’m essentially playing this character of King Tuff, this crazy party monster, and I don’t even drink or do drugs. It had become a weird persona, which people seemed to want from me, but it was no longer me. I just felt like it had gotten away from me.”\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe ten tracks that make up \u003ci\u003eThe Other\u003c\/i\u003e represent a kind of psychic evolution for King Tuff. No less hooky than previous records, the new songs ditch the goofy rock-and-roll bacchanalia narratives of earlier records in favor of expansive arrangements, a diversity of instrumentation, and lyrics that straddle the fence between painful ruminations and a childlike, creative energy untarnished by cynicism. The soulful and cosmic new direction is apparent from the album’s first moments: introduced by the gentle ringing of a chime, acoustic guitar, and warm organ tones, “The Other” is a narrative of redemption born of creativity. As Thomas sings about being stuck in traffic, directionless, with no particular reason to be alive, he hears the call of “the other,” a kind of siren song that, instead of leading towards destruction, draws the narrator towards a creative rebirth. Elsewhere, tracks like “Thru the Cracks” and “Psycho Star” balance psychedelia with day-glo pop hooks. “The universe is probably an illusion, but isn’t it so beautifully bizarre?” he asks on “Psycho Star,” providing one of the record’s central tenets. At a time when everything in the world feels so deeply spoiled and the concept of making meaning out of the void seems both pointless and impossible, why not try?\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThomas self-produced the record, as he did his 2007 debut, \u003ci\u003eWas Dead\u003c\/i\u003e, but on a far grander scale. He recorded it at The Pine Room, the home studio Thomas built to work on the record, and playing every instrument aside from drums and saxophone. He pulled Shawn Everett (War On Drugs, Alabama Shakes) in to assist with the mixing process.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWhile it would be easy to think of \u003ci\u003eThe Other \u003c\/i\u003eas a kind of reinvention for King Tuff, Thomas views the entire experience of the record as a kind of reset that’s not totally removed from what he’s done in the past. “I can’t help but sound like me,” he says. “It’s just that this time I let the songs lead me where they wanted to go, instead of trying to push them into a certain zone. King Tuff was always just supposed to be me. When I started doing this as a teenager, it was whatever I wanted it to be. King Tuff was never supposed to be just one thing. It was supposed to be everything.” \u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"King Tuff","offers":[{"title":"LP","offer_id":31826131157088,"sku":"712301","price":13.8,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true},{"title":"CD","offer_id":31826131189856,"sku":"712302","price":12.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true},{"title":"Cassette","offer_id":31826131222624,"sku":"712304","price":10.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false},{"title":"Digital","offer_id":32556515623008,"sku":"712306","price":10.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0110\/1882\/9920\/products\/kingtuff-theother-1936x1936-300.jpg?v=1581642411"},{"product_id":"deaf-wish_lithium-zion","title":"Lithium Zion","description":"There’s an inherent flaw in the perennially alternating “rock is back”\rand “rock is dead” arguments: they are based on the idea that rock\rmusic is a logic-based choice a person consciously chooses to make.\rContrary to the critics who are looking to suss out cultural trends and\rmovements, the decision to play loud, distorted, unabashed\rguitar-rock isn’t a strategic move but a higher calling (or curse,\rdepending on one’s point of view). Some might say the pursuit of\rrocking out via deafening amplifiers, crusty drums and a\rbeer-battered PA is a spiritual one, an affliction that either strikes or\rdoesn’t. Few groups today embody this sentiment like Melbourne’s\raptly-named \u003ca href=\"http:\/\/megamart.subpop.com\/artists\/deaf_wish\"\u003eDeaf Wish\u003c\/a\u003e.\r\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\r\t\t\t\t\t\t\u003cp\u003eThey’re more likely to ask a fellow musician what they do for their\r“real” job (for one, guitarist Jensen Tjhung works as a builder) than\rtalk shop about publicists, ticket counts and online promotions.\rThey’re a grisly rock group and they’ve already signed to Sub Pop,\rwhich is to say they’ve already succeeded beyond their wildest\rdreams, so anything that comes after (performing in strange new\rcities, meeting like-minded souls, maybe even selling a \u003ca href=\"https:\/\/megamart.subpop.com\/tshirts\/deaf_wish\/deaf_wish_pain_black\"\u003et-shirt\u003c\/a\u003e or two)\ris a bonus. And if they come to your town, you would be wise to clear\ryour calendar.\r\u003c\/p\u003e\r\t\t\t\t\t\t\u003cp\u003e\u003ci\u003eLithium Zion\u003c\/i\u003e is their fifth full-length album (and second for Sub Pop\rfollowing 2015’s Pain), and, while it’s a rare case that a group’s fifth\ralbum is their best, it may in fact be Deaf Wish’s finest. Their previous\ralbums were recorded in makeshift studios - a wise choice for\rcapturing the hazardous riffing, chemically-stained vocals and fiery\rrhythms conjured by a group such as this - but this step toward a\rslightly more professional sound only enhances their power. The\rrecord opens with “Easy”, a languid rocker in the rich Australian\rtradition of groups like X and The Scientists. From there it’s onto\r“FFS”, a moody downhill rocker sung by guitarist Sarah Hardiman\rthat confirms Deaf Wish’s relation to fellow Sub Pop employees like\rfeedtime and Hot Snakes. “The Rat Is Back” is tense and epic;\r“Hitachi Jackhammer” pays a brief and noisy tribute to Hitachi’s\rsecond most notable device (you’d be forgiven for assuming this song\ris about vibrators). \u003ci\u003eLithium Zion\u003c\/i\u003e is a veritable buffet of garage-punk\renergy, post-punk pathos, sardonic wit and the fearlessness that\rcomes with Aussie rock, a natural consequence for anyone living on a\rcontinent teeming with grapefruit-sized spiders and man-eating\rmosquito swarms.\r\u003c\/p\u003e\r\t\t\t\t\t\t\u003cp\u003eAs has always been the case, the whole group shares vocal duties,\reven drummer Daniel Twomey (you know the band is slightly\runhinged if they’re letting the drummer sing). Hardiman and Tjhung\rare as ragged and hairy as ever, chugging along as though krautrock\rwas trying to speed past the late ‘70s but got caught in the sticky\rgrasp of punk. Such is the way of Deaf Wish, a group destined to write\rsongs that are simultaneously stupid and sublime, vulnerable and\rferocious, and play them with the unbridled intensity they demand.\rAnyone serving a life sentence to rock will surely concur.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Deaf Wish","offers":[{"title":"LP","offer_id":31826131320928,"sku":"712461","price":9.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true},{"title":"CD","offer_id":31826131353696,"sku":"712462","price":12.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true},{"title":"Digital","offer_id":32556514410592,"sku":"712466","price":10.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0110\/1882\/9920\/products\/deafwish-lithiumzion-cover-3600x3600-300.jpg?v=1581642420"},{"product_id":"cullen-omori_new-misery","title":"New Misery","description":"\u003cp\u003eCullen Omori knows it’s a false cliche to say there are no second acts in American lives, but after the 2014 breakup of his acclaimed band the Smith Westerns, living that cliche was his greatest fear. His solo debut \u003ci\u003eNew Misery\u003c\/i\u003e, is a direct challenge to that anxiety: an album that goes beyond the glam punch of the Smith Westerns to new sounds, new sources of inspiration, and greater self-awareness.\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“I had this overwhelming feeling that perhaps the apex of my life both as a musician and as an individual would be relegated to five years in my late teens\/early 20s,” says Omori, who was launched into the music industry when the Smith Westerns, who started in high school in Chicago, became fast-rising indie stars. “This fear really forced me to work hard as to not see the Smith Westerns as an end but as a point along a bigger trajectory.” Read more about Cullen and his excellent new album \u003ca href=\"http:\/\/subpop.com\/artists\/cullen_omori\"\u003eover here\u003c\/a\u003e.  \u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Cullen Omori","offers":[{"title":"LP","offer_id":31826132336736,"sku":"711541","price":9.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true},{"title":"CD","offer_id":31826132369504,"sku":"711542","price":12.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true},{"title":"Cassette","offer_id":31826132402272,"sku":"711544","price":10.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0110\/1882\/9920\/products\/cullenomori-newmisery-900x900-300.jpg?v=1581642518"},{"product_id":"porter-ray_watercolor","title":"Watercolor","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003ci\u003e“There must be something in the water.  The soil is rich, yes, but it has to be the water…”\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eYou should already know who Porter Ray is (but you probably don’t.)  The machines that seek to control your perception don't want you to.  He is too much of an anomaly.  Porter skews the modern experiment that is contemporary rap music wildly.  He is in a word: Authentic.  Porter Ray is a natural… he sounds like East Seattle feels.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eFrom the same wet blocks that spawned Quincy, Jimi and Ishmael, comes Porter Ray.  Having previously penned six projects showcasing dexterous wordplay, unflinching honesty and vulnerability, tempered with equal degrees of braggadocio and charm; Porter is an old soul, a story teller par excellence, a griot possessing insight beyond his years.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eA bit of Context…\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe year is 2017 and something is amiss.  Fascism is on the rise and nearly everyone is a “rapper” (but very few people are actually still rapping.)  Something else has replaced the art form, the lack of intent and authenticity is nearly palpable.  We have, by in large, exchanged clarity of voice for the unintelligible.  \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eMuch of the shortcomings of the music being made is guised under the auspice of improvisation, its inadequacy explained away by the supposed importance of immediacy.  It is in fact: Lazy.  The craft is even more garbled and devolved by the haze of excessive prescription pharmaceuticals that most of its purveyors (and many of its consumers) are slave to.  An inevitable figurative and literal glut ensues.  The masses are numb (and loving it).\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003ePorter Ray has had no choice but to feel deeply.  Loss and violence seemed to plague Porter’s adolescence and early adulthood.  His father fell gravely ill, and his subsequent passing signaled the beginning of a dark time. Leaving high school devoid of any certification was next. Losing his younger brother to a much publicized case of gun violence four years years later only added to the young de facto patriarch’s heavy heart and perceived curse. The year following found some of his closest friends [including the mother of his son] locked up in the penitentiary with lengthy sentences.   \u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003ePorter attempted to replace the cloud that seemed to be following him with a haze of inebriants… reconciling the futility of that approach, he found refuge in his notebooks… they started to give what he actually needed.  Within them Porter Ray found \u003ci\u003eBlk Gld\u003c\/i\u003e and mined it, stumbled upon \u003ci\u003eWht Gld\u003c\/i\u003e and purified it, gave us \u003ci\u003eRse Gold\u003c\/i\u003e and we rocked it… he developed a set of fundamentals and made them mantric, then we witnessed \u003ci\u003eNightfall\u003c\/i\u003e. \u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThen came \u003ci\u003eWatercolor\u003c\/i\u003e…\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e14 tracks.  Each distinct.  Each clear and nuanced.  Each immersed in clean air and surrounded by abundant green.  Beyond the highly visual, visceral verbiage and layered slumping sonics, Watercolor is about a family immediate and extended, who care deeply about this art form.  It features original raps... original cadences... over original sample free beats.  It is a testament to authenticity, work, brilliance and true collaboration with a reverence for what has preceded. \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eEvery word, every beat, every piece of visual ephemera that one experiences on and in this project is resultant of years of conversations and shared exposures, common highs and mutual lows.  From the painterly photographs that are the cover art, to the sketches that embrace the physical discs, to the sonic collaborations, Porter Ray creates with those who have been close in spirit and proximity.  \u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe project features original production from B-Roc, Dez Anthony, Kmtk and Tele Fresco and was mixed by Erik Blood.  It is vocally flavored by guest appearances from THEE Satisfaction’s Stas Thee Boss, Cashtro, Nate Jack, and Jus Moni. Iconic Central District MC, Infinite, of Narkotik and Tribal Productions as well as Black Constellation elders Palaceer Lazaro and Fly Guy Dai of Shabazz Palaces also make key contributions. \u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eSacred Geometry - (feat. The Palaceer and Cashtro) If James Mtume and the S.O.S. band collaborated to lace us with something new for 2027, this track would be what brought them from beyond the creative veil. Palaceer advising from the stratos, Porter Ray and Ca$tro reporting from the streets.  Students and teachers should build together shouldn’t they?  \u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eLightro (Looking for the Light) (feat. Stas THEE Boss) Porter paints. Stasia Meschel Irons, known to most via her ground-breaking work with THEESatisfaction, lends harmonies and aural nuance to this pistol punctuated bouncing sonic wave.\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eBullet Proof Windows -  (feat. Nate Jack and Thad) A masters class in collaborative comparative story telling.  A sublime addition to the time honored lyrical give and take that would make smooth and Trigger or Nas and AZ show you their teeth.  A verbal tit for tat between childhood friends hooks crooned by Porter’s older cousin Thad. \u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eArithmetic - (feat. Infinite and Stas THEE Boss).  Three of the most influential, effortlessly lyrical and revered wordsmiths from up top…all on one track.  The Townest of Biz in deed.  Most of you won't quite understand the significance… but for those who do (and for those new)…You are welcome. \u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe project was A\u0026amp;R'd by Ishmael Butler, who also signed Porter Ray in 2015 dubbing him the “Golden One”.  He has provided Porter, with a wealth of perspective and history also keeping him deftly aware of the present professional creative landscape into which he is entering.  \u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003ci\u003eWatercolor\u003c\/i\u003e is the natural extension of musical traditions that have poured forth (both credited and mis-assigned) from the rich soil that is Seattle’s central district.  Watercolor sounds like Seattle.\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eMore life and countless marbled composition books later…\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003ePorter Ray is living robustly and earnestly.  Raising two sons, busy honing his craft, relaying tales resultant of actual experiences, dreams had, highs and lows partaken in.  No matter what the internet tells you, this thing called living cannot be faked.  Following this logic, many rappers aren’t really living.  Fabrication is tantamount.   \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eConversely, we invite you to immerse yourself in something real.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003ci\u003eWatercolor\u003c\/i\u003e…\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e**************\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003ci\u003eWatercolor\u003c\/i\u003e is the long-awaited label debut from Seattle’s Porter Ray. Porter is a Seattle based MC who caught the attention of \u003ca href=\"https:\/\/megamart.subpop.com\/artists\/shabazz_palaces\"\u003eShabazz Palaces\u003c\/a\u003e’ Ishmael Butler, who signed him to the label in 2014. \u003ci\u003eWatercolor\u003c\/i\u003e is a snapshot of Porter’s life and the lives of his friends growing up in Seattle. The album captures a specific time period, before things began rapidly changing around their neighborhoods, and it delves into the experiences that shaped Porter, the situations he and his friends survived, and how they overcame the adversity they faced. Porter’s influences – including hip-hop classics like Nas’s Illmatic, Common’s Be, and Mos Def \u0026amp; Talib Kweli’s ...Are Black Star – shine through in both the beats and production, and his deeply personal lyrics.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003ePorter was born and raised in and around Seattle’s Central District\/Capitol Hill\/Columbia City\/Beacon Hill neighborhoods. He wrote short stories and poetry before he began writing rhymes in middle school and early high school, and started recording music towards the end of high school. Watercolor follows a string of acclaimed, self-released mixtapes -- \u003ci\u003eElectric Rain, Nightfall, Fundamentals, BLK GLD, WHT GLD, RSE GLD\u003c\/i\u003e -- all of which have been available as free downloads via Bandcamp.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003ci\u003eWatercolor\u003c\/i\u003e was recorded in various studios in Seattle, mostly mixed by Erik Blood (Shabazz Palaces, THEESatisfaction, Tacocat), with a few songs co-mixed by Vitamin D (Macklemore, Abstract Rude, Black Sheep). Watercolor was produced by B Roc, with additional songs produced by DJ El Grande, KMTK, and Tele Fresco.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Porter Ray","offers":[{"title":"LP","offer_id":31826132500576,"sku":"711881","price":10.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true},{"title":"CD","offer_id":31826132533344,"sku":"711882","price":12.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true},{"title":"Cassette","offer_id":31826132566112,"sku":"711884","price":10.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true},{"title":"Digital","offer_id":32556519325792,"sku":"711886","price":10.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0110\/1882\/9920\/products\/porterray-watercolor-3000.jpg?v=1581642531"},{"product_id":"the-gotobeds_blood-sugar-secs-traffic","title":"Blood \/\/ Sugar \/\/ Secs \/\/ Traffic","description":"\u003cp\u003eHey, what's this? Well that, my friend, is the newest album from The Gotobeds, entitled \u003ci\u003eBlood \/\/ Sugar \/\/ Secs \/\/ Traffic.\u003c\/i\u003e It's their second full-length LP and their first for Sub Pop. Whoa, whoa, please slow down. I'm already completely lost. What you just said sounded like a stream of complete gibberish. Okay, I'll lay it out for you and if you have any questions could you yell them at me? SOUNDS GOOD. The Gotobeds formed vaguely around 2009 in Pittsburgh and play a mutant strain of rock music that is often filed under punk, indie rock, or 99-cent discount bin. WAIT, THE GOTOBEDS? I HEARD THEY WERE KNUCKLEHEADS! Only if the knuckle is the part of the human body that contains the brains. Much like their previous releases on underground stalwart labels like Mind Cure and 12XU, this new album artfully slips intelligence and experimentation into a dying art form. It's a harder feat than you'd think.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAnd sure, their live shows have often been compared to an \"all night party where I feared for my life and the lives of everybody in the five block radius,\" and their recorded output is akin \"to the sonic manifestos of four men deprived of human love and raised on beer and Swell Maps, Mission of Burma, and old Fall records.\" But what you get with The Gotobeds, delivered in spades on this album, is smart, noisy rock with just the right amount of stupid.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eFAIR ENOUGH. SO HOW'D THIS GET MADE? It was recorded in bursts over several months of 2015 in their friend My War Matt's basement in Pittsburgh. Unlike previously, the songs were conceived and recorded in blocks, which resulted in a more experimental feel. But this is no chin stroking curate's egg. You like loud, double guitar leads? OF COURSE I DO. WHO DOESN'T? You're in luck, because this album is carpeted with em, thanks to Eli Kasan and TFP. On a song like \"’Bodies,’\" it sounds as if you've walked into the biggest Guitar Center, but, you know, not terrible. Keeping it all locked down is the rhythm section of drummer, Cary Belback and bassist, Gavin Jensen. They allow the downright prettiness of a song like \"Red Alphabet\" to shine, and the lyrics on the anti-sexism thrash of \"Crisis Time\" to punch through.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eTHIS ALL SOUNDS WONDERFUL, IS THERE ANYTHING ELSE I NEED TO CARE ABOUT? Eh, probably not. Except that Tim Midyett (Silkworm, Bottomless Pit, Mint Mile) and some bum (Protomartyr) are featured as guest vocalists on \"Rope\" and \"Why'd You,\" respectively. Also, I'd be remiss to not mention the fact that the band's live show is a testament to the cathartic nature of speed, skill, repetition, noise, and red stage lights. If you don't believe me, ask the bands they have played with, like Total Control, Tyvek, or The Replacements. Also, they rep Pittsburgh harder than anyone possibly could and come off better for it...which is saying something.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eI THINK I UNDERSTAND. BLOOD \/\/ SUGAR \/\/ SECS \/\/ TRAFFIC IS THE GREATEST ALBUM SINCE THE LAST GOTOBEDS RECORD? Yes. Now please stop yelling.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"The Gotobeds","offers":[{"title":"LP","offer_id":31826133090400,"sku":"711691","price":11.5,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true},{"title":"CD","offer_id":31826133123168,"sku":"711692","price":12.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true},{"title":"Cassette","offer_id":31826133155936,"sku":"711694","price":10.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true},{"title":"Digital","offer_id":32556512739424,"sku":"711696","price":10.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0110\/1882\/9920\/products\/gotobeds-bsst-900.jpg?v=1581642566"},{"product_id":"cullen-omori_the-diet","title":"The Diet","description":"\u003cp\u003eCullen Omori's path to his second album \u003ci\u003eThe Diet\u003c\/i\u003e wasn't an easy one. After the release of his first album, \u003ci\u003e\u003ca title=\"Link: https:\/\/megamart.subpop.com\/releases\/cullen_omori\/new_misery\" href=\"https:\/\/megamart.subpop.com\/releases\/cullen_omori\/new_misery\"\u003eNew Misery\u003c\/a\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e, he had to deal with busted vans, crashed cars, mangled relationships, and other trials that can leave one feeling like the world is playing a cosmic joke. From the guitar that drops out of the sky on the opening track \"Four Years\" all the way through the fade-out of kaleidoscopic closer \"A Real You,\" \u003ci\u003eThe Diet\u003c\/i\u003e is a powerful modern indie-rock album that is buoyed by warped, analog pedals\/transistors and tailor-made guitar tones. Omori's winsome vocals crisscross 70’s art rock and classic songwriting all within the span of 40 minutes. \u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\"No one died, I didn’t get a severe physical injury, but emotionally it was a lot to take on,\" recalls Omori. \"I named the album \u003ci\u003eThe Diet\u003c\/i\u003e because to go on a diet, you cut back on certain things and regulate your intake of others. The idea that you can do that means you must have a surplus of whatever you’re trying to limit. I was so emotionally and spiritually drained, and my only surplus was a bunch of negative feelings and a lot of self-loathing. I tried to limit and confront those feelings in ways that I felt were productive. A big part of that was suppressing the obstructive, unnecessary minutiae that comes with being, or rather trying to be, a ‘professional musician,’ and beginning to write music with no pretense again.\" \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eSo Omori crafted \u003ci\u003eThe Diet\u003c\/i\u003e as a series of what can loosely be defined as love songs that metaphorically channel the frustrations and ruptures of his turbulent 2016-2017, into unforgettable compositions with abstract, yet sharply rendered lyrics; as he puts it, \"if I was straightforward, the songs would be this very faux-cerebral, pseudo-poetic misrepresentation of myself.\" Omori's version of the love song medium goes far beyond the la-la-love-you template. \"Only a few deal with loving or falling out of love with an actual, physical person,\" says Omori. \"Then there are, like, love songs to my antidepressants or whatever I thought my life would be like at 27.\"\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eAfter relocating from Chicago to Los Angeles in 2016, Omori reexamined his whole artistic process in the run-up to recording \u003ci\u003eThe Diet\u003c\/i\u003e. \"On this record,\" says Omori, \"I was like, 'I want a break with the convention that I had steadily been building since releasing music as a teenager.’ Whereas on New Misery I was locked in a room with a producer for a month tinkering away, this time around I wanted the sessions to be a revolving door of musicians: different people, different aesthetics. I wanted to open up, even though all these terrible things have happened to me. I pushed against my inner nature by actively pursuing collaborators. The outcome, funnily enough, is that the songs turned out to be arguably some of the most accessible I’ve ever written.\" \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003ci\u003eThe Diet\u003c\/i\u003e was recorded with Taylor Locke, who approached Omori after Cullen had played a short acoustic set at Los Angeles' The Echo—a meeting that made a frustrating night fruitful. \"I’m in the patio area, sulking, thinking I just embarrassed myself with a new set of songs that didn’t translate to anyone in the room, and this guy comes up to me and introduces himself,\" Omori recalls. \"He’s like, 'I thought the show was great. Would you want to try recording these?' Something in his demeanor felt confident —I trusted that he got it.\" Locke's talents wound up being well-suited to the intricacies of the songs that would become \u003ci\u003eThe Diet\u003c\/i\u003e. \"He can sing, he is a multi-instrumentalist. On top of that, he is also a producer. Working with him really lent itself to my process of songwriting,\" says Omori.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eOmori began working on the album at Velveteen Laboratory, Locke's studio in Los Feliz, in early 2017. \"I wanted to experiment with the structures—having them not be verse-chorus-verse-chorus, having the dynamics not be loud-quiet-loud-quiet,\" says Omori. \"I like the production because it’s hi-fi and clean, but at the same time we were doing this on our own in Locke’s backyard studio and not in some studio overburdened with the nostalgia of massively successful albums from yesteryear. It was on decent, smart gear, but the DIY aspect comes across in the little imperfections and in the voracious and frantic pace at which we recorded the songs. I think maybe a week after we got the okay from Sub Pop we were working away.\" \u003ci\u003eThe Diet\u003c\/i\u003e is lovingly constructed yet not fussy, with Omori's wail soaring over the latticework guitar of the omnipresent \"Master Eyes\" and following the vintage humbucker riffing on \"Natural Woman.\" \"I don’t think the record would’ve sounded nearly as good if I didn’t have Taylor record it, and if I didn’t have access to the excellent musicians who played on it,\" says Omori.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\"Happiness Reigns,\" a charming slice of powerpop with lyrics that combine fatalistic imagery (\"flowers of uranium\/ and the kids just play along\") and a wide-eyed apologia to a woman, is perhaps the closest Cullen gets to the classic love-song ideal on \u003ci\u003eThe Diet\u003c\/i\u003e. \"Reigns\" was not only inspired by Omori's current girlfriend—she was intricately involved in his vision for bringing the love song a la Beatles or Rolling Stones \"into the 21st century.\" \"Seldom are songs actually about girls in my life, but I when I choose to write them I try to act in conspiracy with my ‘muse,’” he says. \"On 'Happiness Reigns,' I was consciously trying to prevent the song from  lyrically falling into this one-way ode to an idolized muse. Of course some of my favorite artists like T-Rex or John Cale have albums chock full of them but my intention was never to be a rock classicist or to make something that was an extension of my influences. So I had her write it with me. If I was going to write this about someone, even in vague terms, I thought it would be interesting to intertwine their perception of themselves and of our relationship.\"\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003ci\u003eThe Diet\u003c\/i\u003e represents a new chapter for the former Smith Westerns member, one in which he stretches out his songwriting chops and uses his life experience to craft loose-limbed, hook-filled songs that combine pop appeal with finely sutured lyrics. “Not so much a reinvention, but a different approach to a problem I struggled with on \u003ci\u003e\u003ca href=\"http:\/\/megamart.subpop.com\/release\/cullen_omori\/new_misery\"\u003eNew Misery\u003c\/a\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e: how to synthesize all my influences into something that is representative of what I want to hear as a musician, and what I want to say as a songwriter. I spent my early 20’s saddled with the ill-conceived, romantic notion that the best songs are written through suffering. And finally, whether intentionally or subconsciously, when I came across the truly painful events of the past couple years they reinforced my personality as a songwriter. I think this couldn’t be truer than when, thanks to my quest for ‘true experiences,’ I was sitting in a hospital detox center facing out on Lake Michigan in Chicago and literally just a few miles south, Lollapalooza, an event I’ve played twice and had many peers at, was happening without me. The process of trying out a completely different persona and approach in \u003ci\u003eNew Misery\u003c\/i\u003e, and then facing my negative experiences and the shortcomings of that persona, to clarify where I wanted my music to go. While making \u003ci\u003eThe Diet,\u003c\/i\u003e my songs were constantly presenting themselves to me, and when I got a chance to listen back and read my song journals I saw what a truly beneficial and cathartic event had taken place.” \u003ci\u003eThe Diet\u003c\/i\u003e’s collection of 12 songs has Omori well on his way.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Cullen Omori","offers":[{"title":"LP","offer_id":31826133254240,"sku":"712341","price":9.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true},{"title":"CD","offer_id":31826133287008,"sku":"712342","price":12.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true},{"title":"Cassette","offer_id":31826133319776,"sku":"712344","price":10.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true},{"title":"Digital","offer_id":32556526043232,"sku":"712346","price":10.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0110\/1882\/9920\/products\/cullenomori-thediet-cover-3000.jpg?v=1581642572"},{"product_id":"jo-passed_their-prime","title":"Their Prime","description":"The nicest thing anyone has ever – ever – said to Jo Hirabayashi, frontman of Jo Passed, is that his band's debut album sounds like “fucked-up Beatles”. \u003ci\u003eTheir Prime\u003c\/i\u003e, the full-length follow-up to Jo Passed’s two EPs, \u003ci\u003eUp\u003c\/i\u003e and \u003ci\u003eOut\u003c\/i\u003e, does sound like fucked-up Beatles. It sounds like Lennon and McCartney discovered Can and Neu!, and maybe a little Sonic Youth and XTC along the way. It demonstrates that timeless knack for dreamy melodies – chord progressions that sound like they were created in a land far, far away. Lyrically, however, it's imbued with a philosophical longing for answers to questions that have resurfaced for the first time since the explosion of counterculture in the late 1960s and early 1970s.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003ci\u003eTheir Prime\u003c\/i\u003e is a record about identity and the loss of time that happens as a direct consequence of being in the city with nowhere to rent, no time outside of employment and no realistic expectations to live up to. It encompasses that fear of being beyond the glory years, the most creatively fruitful period of one’s life. Those years were lost to contemporary struggles for working relationships, home, identity and space. “It's me owning my worst nightmare,” he admits. “A lot of the Jo Passed project has been about confronting fears. I was afraid to move away from Vancouver to Montreal on my own. Afraid to leave musical relationships I had. Afraid to bear the full responsibility of a project. Being open about those fears is a good way of dealing with them. You end up at this point where you hit 30 and you're like, 'Oh what happened? Am I done? Did I not activate my main creative energy?' It's a ridiculous idea but 30 feels a little like 1000 in rock n roll terms.” You can hear the frustrations and the jitters in the crashing loud-and-quiet motifs throughout the album's twelve tracks, which offer up a patchwork quilt of sound, similar to Faust's IV or Fugazi's Red Medicine.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eJo Passed originally consisted of Jo and his friend and drummer Mac Lawrie. The two moved to Montreal together, and toured the far-right corner of North America. After Jo’s return to Vancouver, multi-instrumentalist Bella Bébé joined the band in January of 2016, and multimedia artist Megan-Magdalena Bourne joined on bass, after working on a video for the song “Rage” (from Jo Passed’s \u003ci\u003eOut\u003c\/i\u003e EP).\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eHaving worked with Bella, Mac, and Megan to create the live experience of \u003ci\u003eTheir Prime\u003c\/i\u003e, it's touring and hearing people's reactions to the album that are at the forefront of Jo’s mind. “It's like I've put all my negativity into a place and now I'm lighting it on fire as a way of releasing it... by putting it out on Sub Pop, ha!” Indeed, sometimes you have to banish the bad vibes to get to the great ones.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Jo Passed","offers":[{"title":"LP","offer_id":31826133876832,"sku":"712431","price":9.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true},{"title":"CD","offer_id":31826133909600,"sku":"712432","price":12.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true},{"title":"Cassette","offer_id":31826133942368,"sku":"712434","price":10.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true},{"title":"Digital","offer_id":32556523159648,"sku":"712436","price":10.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0110\/1882\/9920\/products\/jopassed-theirprime-cover-1500x1500-300.jpg?v=1581642606"},{"product_id":"kristin-kontrol_x-communicate","title":"X-Communicate","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eSometimes you have to rip it up and start again.\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIt was a tough call for Dee Dee. \u003ca href=\"http:\/\/subpop.com\/artists\/dum_dum_girls\" title=\"Link: http:\/\/subpop.com\/artists\/dum_dum_girls\"\u003eDum Dum Girls\u003c\/a\u003e was her guise for the better part of a decade, an outlet through which she had crafted an instantly identifiable body of work. Demos made in a studio apartment on a nylon string guitar and posted on to a Myspace page pricked the ears of various labels including Sub Pop who the band signed with. From there, Dee Dee assembled her group of badass, black-clad cadets and toured the world. Over the course of three albums, four EPs, and a bold brace of singles, Dum Dum Girls morphed from the girl-group-gone-bad moves of debut album \u003ci\u003e\u003ca href=\"http:\/\/megamart.subpop.com\/releases\/dum_dum_girls\/i_will_be\" title=\"Link: http:\/\/megamart.subpop.com\/releases\/i_will_be\"\u003eI Will Be\u003c\/a\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e (2010), to the plush noir-pop of 2014’s \u003ci\u003e\u003ca href=\"http:\/\/megamart.subpop.com\/releases\/dum_dum_girls\/too_true\" title=\"Link: http:\/\/megamart.subpop.com\/releases\/too_true\"\u003eToo True\u003c\/a\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e, with its motorik beats and svelte harmonies; a dark heart burning bright.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eBut sometimes the project you pour your soul into ends up hemming you in. As her music evolved, Dee Dee found that she would be forever refracted through the prism of Dum Dum Girls’ early work: retro-leaning female harmonies, a backdrop of lo-fi, fuzzed-up guitars.\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAt the top of 2015, she decided to shed her skin, ditching Dee Dee for her real name, Kristin, and adding Kontrol. It was a spontaneous idea – but it resonated with her.  As Karen O once counseled her, it may be a leap into the unknown, but little risk means little reward.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eHer challenge was to start fresh, and go further back into her relationship with music. Her goal was to sweep all her loves together into one genre-less experience.\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e“The first music I felt was mine was classic 80s pop and 90s R\u0026amp;B, from Tiffany and Debbie Gibson to Janet Jackson and Madonna, to TLC and SWV,” she says. “But for years I was hellbent on the rock’n’roll thing, revering Joan Jett, Patti Smith, Chrissie Hynde” — a rebellion against her classical vocal training — “but with Kristin Kontrol I just wanted to try it all….I thought I’m Kate Bush covering Mariah.”\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eArguably the biggest shift beyond the music is that, as Kristin Kontrol, she tells her stories using a sonic palette splashed with bold pop melodies, her vocals showcasing a range hitherto unexplored. The songs that emerge from Kristin’s universe are familiar but unique. You can hear the touchstones of new wave, R\u0026amp;B, synthpop, krautrock, postpunk, and even reggae, but \u003ci\u003eX-Communicate\u003c\/i\u003e uses genre rather than adheres to it, with a distinct nod to the present.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe visual aesthetic has morphed, too: Dee Dee in her inky ebony garb is gone, and in her place stands a newly minted, assured figure - but one that’s playful, too. “It turned out to be timely, unfortunately, that I’ve been fantasizing about this sort of Thin White Duchess concept for a while. Maybe Bowie is my patron saint. He’s certainly always led the charge to evolve.”\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e“I feel free. I had to excommunicate myself to be able to explore. Even if I have to rebuild my whole career, I’d rather work tirelessly then feel stagnant. I feel excited again, and you can’t put a price on that.” \u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003ca href=\"http:\/\/www.subpop.com\/artists\/kristin_kontrol\" title=\"Link: http:\/\/www.subpop.com\/artists\/kristin_kontrol\"\u003eRead the full story on making \u003ci\u003eX-Communicate\u003c\/i\u003e over here.\u003c\/a\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Kristin Kontrol","offers":[{"title":"LP","offer_id":31826134138976,"sku":"711601","price":8.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true},{"title":"CD","offer_id":31826134171744,"sku":"711602","price":6.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true},{"title":"Cassette","offer_id":31826134204512,"sku":"711604","price":10.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true},{"title":"Digital","offer_id":32556525387872,"sku":"711606","price":10.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0110\/1882\/9920\/products\/kristinkontrol-xcommunicate-900.jpg?v=1581642617"},{"product_id":"doldrums_the-air-conditioned-nightmare","title":"The Air Conditioned Nightmare","description":"\u003cp class=\"MsoNormal\"\u003eThe title was spawned by Henry Miller upon his return to the US after ten years as an expatriate. Keen to rediscover the country he left behind, Miller found it a stifling place of big business, pollution, credit, misinformation and prejudice. In short: a spiritual, moral, cultural and aesthetic vacuum. “Nowhere else in the world,” he wrote in his 1945 collection of essays “is the divorce between man and nature so complete”.  \u003ci\u003eThe Air Conditioned Nightmare.\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp class=\"MsoNormal\"\u003e\u003ci\u003e*\u003ca href=\"https:\/\/www.subpop.com\/artists\/doldrums\"\u003eRead the rest here!\u003c\/a\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Doldrums","offers":[{"title":"LP","offer_id":31826134630496,"sku":"711251","price":6.4,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true},{"title":"CD","offer_id":31826134663264,"sku":"711252","price":12.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true},{"title":"Digital","offer_id":32556525092960,"sku":"711256","price":10.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0110\/1882\/9920\/products\/doldrums-airconditionednightmare-900px.jpg?v=1581642635"},{"product_id":"perfect-son_cast","title":"Cast","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan\u003eSometime in 2016, just as the Polish singer and producer Tobiasz Biliński began to find success through the dim and fractured electropop of Coldair, he knew it was time for a radical change. The songs on \u003ci\u003eThe Provider\u003c\/i\u003e, Coldair’s much-lauded second album, had been an exorcism of sorts. Laced with songs about early death, chronic disappointment, and clouded minds, the record was, as he puts it now, his earnest attempt to “get all this old shit out.” That mission accomplished, he needed something new, a restart—the unabashedly radiant and unapologetically complex pop of Perfect Son, delivered in 10 perfect shots on Biliński’s Sub Pop debut, \u003ci\u003eCast\u003c\/i\u003e.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"MsoNormal\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eIn the past, Biliński’s music has flirted with and explored the darkness, first in a sort of Transatlantic freak-folk and then with the gothic refractions of Coldair. But on \u003ci\u003eCast\u003c\/i\u003e, Perfect Son steps boldly into the light without sloughing off emotional weight or depth. With powerful, sweeping production that recalls the best pop beats of Matthew Dear and arcing melodies that conjure the majesty of \u003ca href=\"https:\/\/megamart.subpop.com\/search\/results?utf8=%E2%9C%93\u0026amp;query=shearwater\"\u003eShearwater\u003c\/a\u003e, Perfect Son animates sensations of lust, belonging, and newfound trust with tumescent electronic arrangements that threaten the safety of any sound system. Biliński sings about falls throughout \u003ci\u003eCast\u003c\/i\u003e, but also about picking yourself back up, about pressing on despite or perhaps because of the bruises. In the process, he is lifted by music that feels unabashedly motivational, built to remind us that the best times are hopefully to come.\u003c\/span\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"MsoNormal\"\u003ePerfect Son, it should be said, is Sub Pop’s first Polish artist, the result of an extended interest in Biliński’s work and the country itself from label co-founder Jonathan Poneman. Several years ago, Biliński applied to play at South by Southwest as Coldair.  Poneman saw his performance, and was impressed. The two stayed in touch, with Poneman eventually signing Coldair to a publishing deal. “I bugged him about releasing my stuff constantly,” Biliński admits with a laugh. “And I guess he admired my persistence.”\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"MsoNormal\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eWhen \u003ci\u003eCast \u003c\/i\u003ewas finally finished, Poneman didn’t need more convincing. These songs, after all, are magnetic, with the searching harmonies and deep drums of “Promises” and the rhythmic intricacy and serial synths of “Wax” pulling you close on first listen and holding you there for the foreseeable future. These songs and this story are about the power of human perseverance and deliberate reinvention, of knowing that you can confront and come to terms with the darkest angels of your being. \u003ci\u003eCast \u003c\/i\u003eis a testament to the possibilities of the future, brilliantly disguised as 10 grandiose and undeniable pop anthems.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cbr\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e \u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Perfect Son","offers":[{"title":"Loser (color) LP","offer_id":32668242313312,"sku":"712840","price":8.5,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true},{"title":"LP","offer_id":32611886039136,"sku":"712841","price":9.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false},{"title":"CD","offer_id":31826146230368,"sku":"712842","price":12.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true},{"title":"Digital","offer_id":32556512608352,"sku":"712846","price":10.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0110\/1882\/9920\/products\/perfectson-cast-2400.jpg?v=1581642994"},{"product_id":"shearwater_animal-joy","title":"Animal Joy","description":"\u003cp\u003eWe at Sub Pop are exceedingly proud to present Shearwater’s \u003ccite\u003eAnimal Joy\u003c\/cite\u003e, our first album by the band and their eighth overall. Led by Jonathan Meiburg, and featuring drummer Thor Harris, and bassist Kimberly Burke, Shearwater has been a favorite at Sub Pop HQ for many years. Why? Fellow Shearwater fan Gerard Cosloy puts it nicely:\u003c\/p\u003e\r\u003cp\u003e“It’s been suggested—by fans, detractors, even by the band’s founder—that Shearwater and whatever we call underground\/indie\/whatever-rock in this part of the century are not an obvious fit. And that’s true. So much of what we hear these days (the lousy stuff, anyway) is willfully insular; Jonathan Meiburg’s songs, by contrast, have constantly tackled bigger questions and been propelled by massive musical ambitions.\u003c\/p\u003e\r\u003cp\u003eWe’re in an era in which minimalism and lower-than-low-tech have come in vogue. By contrast, Shearwater’s recordings—the epic “Island Arc” trilogy of \u003ccite\u003ePalo Santo\u003c\/cite\u003e, \u003ccite\u003eRook\u003c\/cite\u003e and \u003ccite\u003eThe Golden Archipelago\u003c\/cite\u003e in particular—have been expansive in a fashion like none of their contemporaries. On \u003ccite\u003eAnimal Joy\u003c\/cite\u003e, Meiburg has opted to ditch an approach that paid huge artistic dividends over his last three Matador albums for a record that seems shockingly direct, immediate and intensely personal. He’s no stranger to lush, crafted recordings, but this one sounds like no prior Shearwater incarnation.\u003c\/p\u003e\r\u003cp\u003eSomeone’s bound to label this Shearwater’s transitional album, but to these ears, it sounds like a thrilling artistic rebirth. Just give ’em the fucking Grammy already!\"\u003c\/p\u003e\r\u003cp\u003eVinyl includes mp3 download code.\u003c\/p\u003e\r\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e\u003cspan class=\"caps\"\u003eBLACK\u003c\/span\u003e \u003cspan class=\"caps\"\u003eVINYL\u003c\/span\u003e (red \u003cspan class=\"caps\"\u003eLOSER\u003c\/span\u003e edition is sold out!)\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Shearwater","offers":[{"title":"LP","offer_id":31826193612896,"sku":"709571","price":9.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true},{"title":"CD","offer_id":31826193645664,"sku":"709572","price":12.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true},{"title":"Digital","offer_id":32556517032032,"sku":"709576","price":10.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0110\/1882\/9920\/products\/10921.jpg?v=1581643917"},{"product_id":"le-loup_family","title":"Family","description":"\u003cp\u003eAt the core of every contented family is a sense of balance, an emotional push-and-pull that helps stabilize the entire unit. A similar equilibrium anchors Le Loup’s second album, \u003cem\u003eFamily\u003c\/em\u003e. Recorded in a remote cabin and a Maryland basement, the record finds the middle ground between tribal rock and sonic experimentation.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Le Loup","offers":[{"title":"CD","offer_id":31826217795680,"sku":"730082","price":6.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true},{"title":"LP","offer_id":31826217762912,"sku":"730081","price":13.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false},{"title":"Digital","offer_id":32556507856992,"sku":"730086","price":10.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0110\/1882\/9920\/products\/8550.jpg?v=1581644296"},{"product_id":"the-homesick_the-big-exercise","title":"The Big Exercise","description":"\u003cp\u003eIf their debut Youth Hunt marked The Homesick’s tryst with faith and pastoral life, the band’s upcoming second album The Big Exercise brings them to more grounded, tangible pastures. With its title ripped from a passage in the Scott Walker-biography Deep Shade Of Blue, the record is a concentrated effort by Jaap van der Velde, Erik Woudwijk and Elias Elgersma to explore the physicality of their music in fresh ways. \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“When we were on tour in 2018, I bought Meredith Monk’s Dolmen Music in Switzerland,” Van der Velde recalls, “Elias and I have been completely immersed in her music ever since. But also the work of Joan La Barbara for example, who also did things with extended vocal techniques, that was also quite vital to us. We discovered that the human voice offers so many beautiful elements that can still feel very physical and intrusive.”\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eDuring those formative years, the Dutch trio was often typecast as your resident tricksters. Hailing from the backwater Frisian municipality of Dokkum, Van der Velde, Woudwijk and Elgersma shrewdly courted spirituality under their own nonconformist whims, even if that wasn’t immediately obvious to outsiders. For those on the outside looking in, it was hard to tell whether the band was taking the piss or genuinely unraveling themselves as starry-eyed romantics.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe Homesick relished and thrived in that very schism on Youth Hunt. When not ruminating on their environment under the guise of Dark Age Christianity, they wrapped their ambivalence into sure-fire pop earworms. Even the album’s production values were undeniably quixotic: the exuberant vocal retorts of Elgersma and Van der Velde drenched in reverb, as warped synths and distorted guitars launched skyward with the glee of a firework spectacle. \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eAs an inverse to that mindset, The Big Exercise finds the band keenly second-guessing their core chemistry as a live unit, imbuing their angular post-punk workouts with baroque elements such as piano, acoustic guitar, percussion, and even clarinet. “It’s the opposite of trying to translate recorded music to the stage,” Elgersma comments. “We were already playing these songs live for quite some time, so for this album, we wanted to unlock the potential of these songs further in the studio.”\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eOpening track “What’s In Store” was in part inspired by Van der Velde’s unprompted deep dive into the world of National Anthems, making his own attempt to conjure a similarly timeless melody. The song seamlessly bleeds into the chivalrous prance of  “Children’s Day” and the fragmented “Pawing,” righteously encouraging Erik Woudwijk’s nimble, cerebral drumming to become the band’s driving force. \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe headstrong wanderlust of The Big Exercise is very fitting, given The Homesick’s exodus as a small-town Dutch band ready to trot the world. Contrary to Youth Hunt’s quest for belonging, roots, and provenance, however, the band’s creative trajectory is now dictated by a sense of otherness and imagination. The sharp contrasts are nevertheless ever-present; the music’s new sonorous depth is underpinned by wry meditations on family ties, alternate realities, and commonplace encounters. As the band’s chief lyricists, Elgersma and Van der Velde deliberately keep each other in the dark, allowing the syntax of words and music to entangle in surprising – sometimes delightfully absurd – ways.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“I Celebrate My Fantasy,” for example, summons a mirage of creeping pianos, sylvan clarinet flourishes and cartoonish sprawls with mock-paranoia, as Elgersma documents a macabre vision he had during a mild case of sleep paralysis. True to the band’s method of holding the more mundane, fleeting moments under a magnifying glass, capricious closing track “Male Bonding” pulls a wide range of movements out of the top hat: the album’s rare heavy burst is promptly mediated by almost medieval-sounding prog rock-flirtations. \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eWith aplomb, The Homesick made a record impregnated with impressions which – when superimposed – still fit neatly under the pop umbrella. That obvious nod to Scott Walker isn’t an aberration either: straddling pop sonority and the cacophonous fringes is something well worth aspiring.  \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“That’s also a  phenomenal aspect of the position we’re now in as a band,” Van der Velde enthuses. “I consider The Homesick a pop band first and foremost. If you’d introduce a late-era Scott Walker-record to a layman, it would likely fall on flat ears. But put it in the right scene of a good movie, and that person may finally understand its potential. The Homesick is allowed to play around in that pop framework, and the goal is to explore what’s possible within it. You can do super radical and weird things, and at the same time convey it all as straightforward pop music. With this album, I hope people will hear things anew after multiple listens.”\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"The Homesick","offers":[{"title":"Loser (color) LP","offer_id":31826244173920,"sku":"713390","price":9.5,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true},{"title":"LP","offer_id":31826244206688,"sku":"713391","price":9.5,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false},{"title":"CD","offer_id":31826244239456,"sku":"713392","price":6.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true},{"title":"Digital","offer_id":32556525322336,"sku":"713396","price":10.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0110\/1882\/9920\/products\/thehomesick-thebigexcercise-cover-3600.jpg?v=1581644657"},{"product_id":"sam-beam-and-jesca-hoop_love-letter-for-fire","title":"Love Letter for Fire","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003e*Loser edition is sold out! Black vinyl shipping now. \u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003ci\u003eLove Letter for Fire\u003c\/i\u003e is the name of the collaborative record from songwriters Sam Beam (\u003ca title=\"Link: http:\/\/subpop.com\/artists\/iron_and_wine\" href=\"http:\/\/subpop.com\/artists\/iron_and_wine\"\u003eIron \u0026amp; Wine\u003c\/a\u003e) and Jesca Hoop.  A collection of songs steeped in the tradition of the male\/female duet where love – in its many forms - takes center stage.  \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eContemplating a duets album for some time, Beam was never able to find the right voice - until Hoop’s music found its way to his stereo. Diving into her catalog on iTunes one afternoon, specifically the album Kismet, was the spark Sam needed to reach out to Jesca and propose the idea of writing together.\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe timing could not have been better for Beam: “I was looking to work with another songwriter because I had never shared the songwriting responsibility with anyone. I really enjoyed her music and it’s different than mine which is what excited me about the project.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eHoop at the time was finishing her fourth record and had never co-written either.  However she notes, “I had the advantage of knowing Sam’s music because it had cleaned my house many times, so I was familiar with his sensibilities and knew the combination could work.” Her memory though of “Sam’s pitch” for making the record occurred once they connected in person and Beam “threw [the idea] under his breath, like ‘If we ever write songs together.’ I think he said ‘Let’s make an EP’ and I said ‘Let’s make an album.’”  \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe inspiration behind Love Letter for Fire was Sam’s love of classic duets, most of which are ones he grew up hearing on the radio. “Some of my favorite songs are duets, because the narrative is expanded. It’s not just a monologue.  It’s a conversation, and so it gets complicated. I had melodies over the years that I’d been compiling that I thought, this sounds like a classic Kenny and Dolly, ‘Islands in the Stream’ kind of thing, or George and Tammy”.  While the record itself is not Countrypolitan in nature, the two have carved out something that feels wholly original and should have no trouble appealing to fans of their previous work.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eOver the course of thirteen songs Love Letter for Fire brims with joyful energy, contrasting Beam and Hoop’s songwriting styles yet never feeling forced, nor pandering. Veering from disparate pop (“Every Songbird Says” \/ “Chalk It Up To Chi”) to introspective folk (“One Way to Pray” \/ “Soft Place to Land”) to a few things in between (“Welcome to Feeling” \/ “Midas Tongue”), the record never rests solely on just the two voices but rather showcases the new chapter of songwriting each found in the collaboration. Beam notes: “(Jesca) brought a lot of energy and a lot of heart in places where I would be cerebral, she would bring heart.  In places where I would be steady, she would add an exclamation point.” \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eRecorded in Portland, Oregon with the steady hand of Tucker Martine, the album features a collection of handpicked musicians. The band includes Rob Burger, a frequent Iron \u0026amp; Wine contributor, Sebastian Steinberg (Soul Coughing, Fiona Apple), Teddy Rankin-Parker (Primus), Eyvind Kang (Decemberists\/Tzadik and Ipecac labels) and Glenn Kotche (Wilco). This particular set of musicians had never worked together, but quickly found themselves on equal footing.  For Beam it was a bit of a dream team: “It was a really fun band, and a lot less guitar than I usually have on my [Iron \u0026amp; Wine] records.  Tucker and the band were able to help bring out what’s inside of you that you might not know is there.”\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe album’s title comes from the song, “We Two Are A Moon“ and the irony of the title and record of love songs by two folks not in love is not lost on its creators. The idea of love in song and life is a constant and universal denominator that everyone relates to. Hoop describes love and the songs succinctly: “Each song has its heat, its own trajectory. The album title represents a kind of “ephemeral love that passes through” and then it’s gone\". Beam on the other hand insists the title plays on itself in that “is it a love letter for fire? Or is it a love letter ready to be wasted?” and leaves it up to the listener to come to their own conclusions.   \u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Sam Beam and Jesca Hoop","offers":[{"title":"LP","offer_id":31826245058656,"sku":"711651","price":9.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true},{"title":"CD","offer_id":31826245091424,"sku":"711652","price":6.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true},{"title":"Cassette","offer_id":31826245124192,"sku":"711654","price":10.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true},{"title":"Digital","offer_id":32556519030880,"sku":"711656","price":10.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0110\/1882\/9920\/products\/sambeamjescahoop-llff-2400-72dpi.jpg?v=1581644685"},{"product_id":"flight-of-the-conchords_live-in-london","title":"Live in London","description":"\u003cp\u003eFlight of the Conchords will release Live in London on 2xCD\/3xLP\/DL\/CS worldwide via Sub Pop on March 8th, 2019. This past October and ten years after the launch of their hit HBO series, musical comedians Bret McKenzie and Jemaine Clement returned to the network for an all-new comedy special. Live in London was taped before a live audience at the Eventim Apollo and features the Conchords performing new songs from the sold-out UK and Ireland edition of “Flight of the Conchords Sing Flight of the Conchords Tour.”\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe Live in London album features 7 new songs including \u003ca title=\"Link: https:\/\/youtu.be\/NzP7y7bqB8c\" href=\"https:\/\/youtu.be\/NzP7y7bqB8c\"\u003e“Iain and Deanna,”\u003c\/a\u003e \u003ca title=\"Link: https:\/\/youtu.be\/4cZAr_WaLcw\" href=\"https:\/\/youtu.be\/4cZAr_WaLcw\"\u003e“Father and Son,”\u003c\/a\u003e “Summer of 1353,” “Stana,” “Seagull,” “Back on the Road,” and “Bus Driver.” The album also features performances of fan favorites “Inner City Pressure,” “Bowie,” “Foux du Fafa,” “Mutha'uckas - Hurt Feelings,” “Robots,” “Carol Brown” and “The Most Beautiful Girl (In The Room)’ (the latter two bonus tracks edited out of the broadcast due to time constraints).\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eNew Zealanders McKenzie and Clement debuted on HBO in 2005 in an edition of the comedy series “One-Night Stand,” returning to the network in 2007 for the debut season of their acclaimed, Emmy-nominated series “Flight of the Conchords,” which followed fictionalized versions of their lives in New York City. The duo also signed a worldwide deal with Sub Pop Records for their recorded music, going on to release the Grammy-winning EP, \u003ca href=\"https:\/\/megamart.subpop.com\/releases\/flight_of_the_conchords\/the_distant_future\"\u003eThe Distant Future\u003c\/a\u003e in 2007, followed by two full-length albums - their \u003ca href=\"https:\/\/megamart.subpop.com\/releases\/flight_of_the_conchords\/flight_of_the_conchords\"\u003eself-titled debut\u003c\/a\u003e in 2008, and \u003ca title=\"Link: https:\/\/megamart.subpop.com\/releases\/flight_of_the_conchords\/i_told_you_i_was_freaky\" href=\"https:\/\/megamart.subpop.com\/releases\/flight_of_the_conchords\/i_told_you_i_was_freaky\"\u003eI Told You I Was Freaky\u003c\/a\u003e in 2009. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe Conchords have also enjoyed individual success. Clement’s film credits include the “Rio” movies, “Men in Black 3,” “What We Do in the Shadows” and “The BFG,” and he's also been seen in his role in FX’s “Legion.” McKenzie was the music supervisor for “The Muppets,” which won him an Academy Award® for Best Original Song for “Man or Muppet,” and “Muppets Most Wanted.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Flight of the Conchords","offers":[{"title":"2xCD","offer_id":31826288410720,"sku":"712752","price":8.4,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true},{"title":"Loser (color) 3xLP","offer_id":32668243263584,"sku":"712750","price":27.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false},{"title":"3xLP","offer_id":32611786358880,"sku":"712751","price":33.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true},{"title":"Cassette","offer_id":31826288443488,"sku":"712754","price":10.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false},{"title":"Digital","offer_id":31826288476256,"sku":"712756","price":14.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0110\/1882\/9920\/files\/FlightOfTheConchords_LiveInLondon_2xLP_MockUp.jpg?v=1741201587"},{"product_id":"sub-pop_logo-navy-w-green-long-sleeve-t-shirt","title":"Logo Navy w\/Green Long Sleeve T-Shirt","description":"\u003cp\u003eA brand new long sleeve t-shirt featuring our logo (which you know and love).\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Sub Pop","offers":[{"title":"XS","offer_id":31826328354912,"sku":"100011811","price":15.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true},{"title":"S","offer_id":31826328387680,"sku":"100011812","price":15.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false},{"title":"M","offer_id":31826328420448,"sku":"100011813","price":15.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false},{"title":"L","offer_id":31826328453216,"sku":"100011814","price":15.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false},{"title":"XL","offer_id":31826328485984,"sku":"100011815","price":15.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false},{"title":"2XL","offer_id":32801768079456,"sku":"100011816","price":15.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false},{"title":"3XL","offer_id":31826328551520,"sku":"100011817","price":15.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0110\/1882\/9920\/products\/unnamed_b86c1ffb-8ac0-4e40-9a2f-027fa3af0d19.jpg?v=1581646038"},{"product_id":"so-pitted_neo","title":"neo","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003e*Loser edition white vinyl is now sold out. Black vinyl being shipped on all orders. \u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“We’re a band named after a YouTube video. I like that.” \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eNathan Rodriguez, of Seattle’s So Pitted, is referring to a viral clip of a surfer, standing on the shore in front of mountainous morning waves, relaying to a reporter the glory of the ocean conditions from which he has just emerged. To most, the clip is a funny nugget of Spicoli brah-speak, culminating with the hero’s ecstatic assessment of the event with two brilliantly smashed together words. But to Rodriguez and his bandmates, Liam Downey and Jeannine Koewler, “So Pitted” is way more than just that gung ho, slacker-speak catchphrase. “That surfer gets carried away talking about what he loves, because to him that’s all that really matters,” says Rodriguez. “I don’t surf, but to this surfer ‘so pitted’ is following through instead of bailing. You can take that abstraction and repurpose it to anything you like.” \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eSo Pitted is every bit an experiment in social partnerships as it is a noise outfit. They bonded over a shared love of alternative music - Rage Against the Machine, Smashing Pumpkins, Nine Inch Nails, The Mars Volta. Rodriguez is a self-taught quick study who learned music theory on Wikipedia; Downey is a new wave fanatic who sticks pipe cleaners in his brain to speak to extraterrestrials; Koewler is a longtime ballet dancer whose love of aesthetes and bands like Cocteau Twins is a strong influence on her bandmates. Roles and positions have never been important to So Pitted: Rodriguez and Downey often switch instruments and both sing, while Koewler plays her guitar through a bass amp. Together, the trio just fits, a perfect balance for one another’s quirks, strengths, and shortcomings. \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eEnter \u003ci\u003eneo\u003c\/i\u003e, So Pitted’s debut album some years in the making. These eleven tracks are lean and snarling rebukes, torch songs not in the traditional, unrequited-love sense, but songs that will torch your house down. It’s fuzzy, angular, throbbing, pounding, yet catchy. Songs crash over and over, turning under themselves like waves, but, as the measures tick off, the dog-eared melodies arise. And yet, for all its power, growth, and complexities, \u003ci\u003eneo\u003c\/i\u003e is but a slice in time. It stands for anything new, and the necessity of revisiting ideas – nothing is above an update. In Rodriguez’s words, “Our whole process is not perfect, but I don’t think it’s supposed to be. That’s not the point.”\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003ci\u003eneo\u003c\/i\u003e was co-produced \u0026amp; mixed by So Pitted \u0026amp; Dylan Wall and recorded at The Old Fire House, Media Lab, Spruce Haus, the band’s practice space, and Tastefully Loud in Seattle. \u003ci\u003eneo\u003c\/i\u003e was engineered by Wall at Tastefully Loud and mastered by Eric Boulanger at The Bakery in Los Angeles.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"So Pitted","offers":[{"title":"LP","offer_id":31826345033824,"sku":"711531","price":7.2,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true},{"title":"CD","offer_id":31826345066592,"sku":"711532","price":12.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true},{"title":"Cassette","offer_id":31826345099360,"sku":"711534","price":10.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true},{"title":"Digital","offer_id":32556517556320,"sku":"711536","price":10.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0110\/1882\/9920\/products\/sopitted-neo-cover-900x900.jpg?v=1581646416"},{"product_id":"the-julie-ruin_hit-reset","title":"Hit Reset","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003ci\u003e\u003c\/i\u003eIn late 2014 \u003ca href=\"http:\/\/hardlyart.com\/artists\/the_julie_ruin\"\u003eThe Julie Ruin\u003c\/a\u003e began work on their second album, \u003ci\u003eHit Reset\u003c\/i\u003e. Mixed by Eli Crews, \u003ci\u003eHit Reset\u003c\/i\u003e expands on the band’s established sound: dancier in spots and moodier in others, with girl group backing vocals and even a touching ballad closer.\u003ci\u003eHit Reset\u003c\/i\u003e is the sound of a band who have found their sweet spot. Kathleen Hanna’s vocals are empowered and her lyrics are as pointed and poignant as ever. From the chilling first lines of “Hit Reset” (“Deer hooves hanging on the wall, shell casings in the closet hall”) to the touching lines of “Calverton” (“Without you I might be numb, hiding in my apartment from everyone \/ Without you I’d take the fifth, or be on my death bed still full of wishes”), Hanna takes a leap into the personal not seen completely on the first album or possibly even in the rest of her work.\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"The Julie Ruin","offers":[{"title":"CD","offer_id":31826345951328,"sku":"730962","price":7.5,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true},{"title":"LP","offer_id":31826345918560,"sku":"730961","price":23.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true},{"title":"Cassette","offer_id":31826345984096,"sku":"730964","price":10.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true},{"title":"Digital","offer_id":32556513460320,"sku":"730966","price":10.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0110\/1882\/9920\/products\/thejulieruin-lp1.jpg?v=1581646467"},{"product_id":"omni_networker","title":"Networker","description":"\u003cp\u003eEnter Networker, the new album by Omni and first with indie giant Sub Pop Records. Their sound is still defined by sparse drums, locked-in bass, blistering guitar, and nonchalant, yet assured vocals, but from the first notes of \"Sincerely Yours\" you'll immediately notice that Networker sounds much cleaner and more \"HI-FI\" than their prior two albums, Deluxe (2016) and Multi-task (2017). The departure in fidelity suits the new record and allows the listener to enjoy the nuances of their meticulous arrangements. Don't worry, the riffs of Gang of Four and Wire are still present, but the production is more lush and the harmony is even more expansive.  Despite nods to the sounds of the ’70s and ’80s what comes through is a record fully rooted in the here and now.  Thematically, this is apparent on the title track \"Networker\" taking a candid snapshot of the “digital you” aspect of life in the age of the internet.  The otherwise fun romp “Skeleton Key” also acknowledges the “direct message and obsessive” side of social media with lines like “if you don't like what you see, the pretty face on the screen, scroll on by...”  \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eNetworker was written half between tours and half during recording sessions. The band, Philip Frobos on bass\/vocals and Frankie Broyles on guitars\/drums\/keys, returned with longtime collaborator Nathaniel Higgins to the studio in South Georgia where they also recorded Multi-task and most recent single \"Delicacy.\" In this case, the “studio” is a cabin near Vienna, GA (pronounced Vye-anna) that was built by Frankie Broyles’ great-grandparents in the 1940s. The band completed four sessions between November 2018 and April 2019. Omni hit their stride in the cabin with songs such as \"Moat,” which cruises along at a nice mid-tempo clip with sounds that are maybe piano or maybe the “behind the bridge” strings of a Jaguar a la Sonic Youth or This Heat.  \"Blunt Force\" provides a nice contrast to some of the more upbeat cuts, getting jazzy with it’s less traditional arrangement and psychedelic outro.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eOn “Courtesy Call,\" Omni successfully ride the line of being able to pleasantly reference influences without mimicking. They venture into experimental Haruomi Hosono territory while still managing to sound like Thin Lizzy. The same could be applied to “Sincerely Yours” where the fantastic guitar work and a beautiful breakdown in the middle dive into late 70’s jazz production.  On standout cut \"Present Tense,\" Yellow Magic Orchestra vibes are present in the fun synthesizer riff while the guitar counterpoint checks this direction pulling the song back into something fresh, sharp, and definitely Omni.   \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eOverall, Networker is simultaneously fun, catchy, and contains some truly impressive musicianship. This combo is especially hard to pull off as bands that are great players often don’t have great or memorable songs. Omni and Nathaniel Higgins have done a stellar job of reigning in their diverse influences into a cohesive record by curating their sounds into a tight package that leaves you just on the cusp of understanding where the band is coming from, while still feeling like you’re hearing something totally fresh. While their earlier records had more of a “post-punk” sound, Networker is an amalgamation of the best sounds of the ’70s and ’80s, all arranged with (mostly) guitars, bass, and drums for our contemporary age, and it really works! There are hooks everywhere, vocal and instrumental, that will leave you humming along, even during the first listen. As Philip Frobos says in “Present Tense,” “guess who’s on my mind right now?” Well, Omni’s on mine and will be on yours soon.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e-Scott Munro, Preoccupations 2019\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Omni","offers":[{"title":"LP","offer_id":31826359746656,"sku":"713261","price":10.8,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true},{"title":"Loser (color) LP","offer_id":32668247228512,"sku":"713260","price":18.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false},{"title":"CD","offer_id":31826359779424,"sku":"713262","price":12.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true},{"title":"Cassette","offer_id":32611885514848,"sku":"713264","price":10.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true},{"title":"Digital","offer_id":32556518080608,"sku":"713266","price":10.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0110\/1882\/9920\/products\/omni-networker-3600px.jpg?v=1581646807"},{"product_id":"yuno_moodie","title":"Moodie","description":"\u003cp\u003eDespite being stuck in his bedroom in the city of Jacksonville, the 27-year-old Yuno’s pedigree is diverse. His parents are from the UK, and of Jamaican descent, and his musical upbringing involved a wide array of discovery mainly as a result of being part of his local skateboarding subculture. That’s what got him into music: hanging out with friends at their now abandoned mall, going to the skate shop, playing \u003ci\u003eTony Hawk’\u003c\/i\u003es \u003ci\u003ePro Skater\u003c\/i\u003e video games, watching skate videos, and listening to all the music featured therein. “In high school I had a lot of friends that played guitar also. We would all come into school early, learn songs and play for each other in the cafeteria.”\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eIn the house he’d listen to reggae, ska, rocksteady and classic R\u0026amp;B, but it was skating that got him into rock and rap. Formative albums included ones his friends would pass along to him on burned CDs: HIM’s \u003ci\u003eRazorblade Romance\u003c\/i\u003e, AFI’s \u003ci\u003eSing The Sorrow\u003c\/i\u003e and Rancid’s …\u003ci\u003eAnd Out Come The Wolves\u003c\/i\u003e. He never really went to shows because rarely would anyone worth seeing come through. His first gig he attended was headlined by a rapper called MC Lars. That’s what made him consider starting a solo project – seeing one dude onstage, recreating all the music alone with a laptop. To this day, he’s only been to four shows. “I’m used to just watching them on YouTube,” he says. “ I never think about a live show when writing songs. I just make whatever.”\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eYuno creates all his of music alone at home, self-producing and engineering, playing all the instruments. He also shoots all of his own press photos, design’s his album art and directs his music videos. “I like being really hands on with everything surrounding my music, even now that I’m with Sub Pop,” he says.  \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eHowever, the exotic lure of bright lights, brighter city, is one of the most relatable of tales, and it certainly makes a whole tonne of sense once you’ve wrapped your ears around \u003ci\u003eMoodie\u003c\/i\u003e– Yuno’s first mini album, released via Sub Pop. Take for instance, lead single “No Going Back” which marries a summertime vibes of Tame Impala,” the surreal, R\u0026amp;B atmospherics of Frank Ocean and, well, Len’s “Steal My Sunshine.” It’s a collection of songs that chimes with pop’s increasing lack of concern for genre. It’s the opposite of tribal, as multicultural and diverse as a ride on the New York City subway, across all five boroughs. It can’t be attributed to one particular origin of sound or vision.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eYuno continues, “I don’t really go anywhere in Jacksonville. I don’t drive. I spend a lot of time in my bedroom.” Thus, the six song collection sounds like a collage of bedroom posters. “So Slow,” for instance, would be a Washed Out flyer sat next to a piece of Kid Cudi artwork, whereas “Why For” with its squealing Wavves guitars would probably be represented by a big weed sticker or some Sleigh Bells ticket stubs. It’s deeply creative and visual.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eHe continues “I knew in high school that I wanted to do music. Drawing had been my thing when I was really young, then I started to make videos in middle school with my friend – little skits. Then I began playing guitar.” In eighth grade his cousin taught him how to make beats, and that’s when Yuno arguably began. His dad also bought him a $20 guitar at a flea market. Despite his mom insisting he get lessons, he taught himself by learning online guitar tabs, mostly for metal bands. “I’d bring my guitar to school every day.” He’s learned how to sing over pop punk songs too, hence the abrasive nature of his vocals.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eSub Pop found Yuno via Ishmael Butler of Shabazz Palaces and Digable Planets fame, who’s on the A\u0026amp;R staff for the label. He stumbled upon Yuno on Soundcloud and kept a close eye on him. Similar to Ish, Yuno is encouraged by the genre-bending age of melody we’re living through, citing Lil Uzi Vert and Young Thug as sources of influence.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp class=\"normal\"\u003e\u003cspan id=\"m_1672311616972186706gmail-docs-internal-guid-850b7ddb-ef52-542c-1a3c-14193b549b5c\"\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe multiple flavors of sound also reflect the breadth of feeling that he’s chasing in the writing. \u003ci\u003eMoodie\u003c\/i\u003e – the EP’s title – clearly relates to his surname, but it’s also channeling the emotional variety of the tracks. “It covers all the different feelings you have at the end of a relationship,” he notes. “Sometimes you’re really happy to be moving on, other times you’re really upset to see something go.”\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan id=\"docs-internal-guid-aa68b748-5ace-af7a-539e-082d5e6b51f8\"\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Yuno","offers":[{"title":"LP","offer_id":31826368397408,"sku":"712361","price":10.8,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true},{"title":"CD","offer_id":31826368430176,"sku":"712362","price":9.6,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true},{"title":"Cassette","offer_id":31826368462944,"sku":"712364","price":10.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false},{"title":"Digital","offer_id":32556512313440,"sku":"712366","price":5.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0110\/1882\/9920\/products\/yuno-moodie-3000cover.jpg?v=1581647003"},{"product_id":"thumpers_galore","title":"Galore","description":"\u003cp\u003e“Comprised of long time friends Marcus Pepperell (vocals, guitar, keys) and John Hamson Jr. (drums, vocals, bass), \u003cspan class=\"caps\"\u003eTHUMPERS\u003c\/span\u003e make colourful, exuberant alt-pop that celebrates their innate musical kinship and draws upon their shared childhood memories. The London-based band combine layered androgynous vocals with muscular drums, astral synths and shimmering guitars in a celebration of the breathless sensations of youth and coming of age.\u003cbr\u003e\rFriends since the age of 11 and playing in bands together since their teens, the two reignited their musical bond again in early 2011. Initially exchanging ideas over long distance correspondence, they used breaks from travel and other projects for intensive, marathon recording sessions. Retreating to the familiar surroundings of their hometown, they worked intuitively and resourcefully in utilizing every means at their disposal (with siblings occasionally joining in on the recording process) with the sole objective of producing great recordings touched by a transcendental jubilance and vague air of the otherworldly.\u003c\/p\u003e\r\u003cp\u003eLive, \u003cspan class=\"caps\"\u003eTHUMPERS\u003c\/span\u003e are augmented by an interchanging cast of friends and musicians in faithfully bringing their immersive dynamics and grand scale sonic vision to the stage.\u003c\/p\u003e\r\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan class=\"caps\"\u003eTHUMPERS\u003c\/span\u003e will release \u003ccite\u003eGalore\u003c\/cite\u003e, their debut album, on February 11th in North America via Sub Pop. The record was produced by Pepperell and Hamson along with David Kosten (Bat for Lashes, Everything Everything).\"\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eMP3 download included with all vinyl releases\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"THUMPERS","offers":[{"title":"CD","offer_id":31826369708128,"sku":"710622","price":6.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true},{"title":"LP","offer_id":31826369675360,"sku":"710621","price":16.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true},{"title":"Digital","offer_id":32556520308832,"sku":"710626","price":10.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0110\/1882\/9920\/products\/13966.jpg?v=1581647044"},{"product_id":"iron-and-wine_beast-epic","title":"Beast Epic","description":"\u003cp\u003e\"I must confess that I’ve always shied away from album introductions citing the usual \"dancing to architecture\" cop out. Speaking to their own work is uncomfortable for many artists, but I’ve made a new album called \u003ci\u003eBeast Epic\u003c\/i\u003e which is important to me and I wanted to take a moment to talk about why. I’ve been releasing music for about fifteen years now and I feel very blessed to have put out five other full lengths, many EPs and singles, a few collaborations with people much more talented than myself, and made contributions to numerous movie scores and soundtracks. This is my sixth collection of new Iron \u0026amp; Wine material and I’m happy to say that it’s my fourth for Sub Pop Records.\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\"It’s a warm and serendipitous time to be reuniting with my Seattle friends because I feel there’s a certain kinship between this new collection of songs and my earliest material, which Sub Pop was kind enough to release.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e“I have been and always will be fascinated by the way time asserts itself on our bodies and our hearts. The ferris wheel keeps spinning and we’re constantly approaching, leaving or returning to something totally unexpected or startlingly familiar. The rite of passage is an image I've returned to often because I feel we’re all constantly in some stage of transition.  \u003ci\u003eBeast Epic\u003c\/i\u003e is saturated with this idea but in a different way simply because each time I return to the theme I’ve collected new experiences to draw from. Where the older songs painted a picture of youth moving wide-eyed into adulthood’s violent pleasures and disappointments, this collection speaks to the beauty and pain of growing up after you’ve already grown up. For me, that experience has been more generous in its gifts and darker in its tragedies.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e \u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e“The sound of \u003ci\u003eBeast Epic\u003c\/i\u003e harks back to previous work, in a way, as well. By employing the old discipline of recording everything live and doing minimal overdubbing, I feel like it wears both its achievements and its imperfections on its sleeve. Over the years, I’ve enjoyed experimenting with different genres, sonics and songwriting styles and all that traveled distance is evident in the feel and the arrangements here, but the muscles seemed to have relaxed and been allowed to effortlessly do what they do best (read full artist statement \u003ca title=\"Link: http:\/\/www.subpop.com\/artists\/iron_and_wine\" href=\"http:\/\/www.subpop.com\/artists\/iron_and_wine\"\u003eover here\u003c\/a\u003e).” \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e - Sam Beam\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"MsoNormal\"\u003e\u003cspan id=\"docs-internal-guid-2d8ecb33-8499-66b9-f09f-7e4b72b334d8\"\u003e\u003ci\u003eBeast Epic\u003c\/i\u003e was written and produced by Sam Beam. It was recorded and engineered by Tom Schick at the Loft in Chicago in July 2016 and January 2017, and mastered by Richard Dodd in Nashville, Tennessee. The musicians who played on the album include longtime Iron \u0026amp; Wine collaborators Rob Burger (keys), Joe Adamik (percussion, drums), and Jim Becker (guitar, banjo, violin, mandolin), along with bassist Sebastian Steinberg (Soul Coughing and Fiona Apple), and Chicagoan Teddy Rankin Parker (cello).\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"MsoNormal\"\u003eThe Deluxe 2xLP version of \u003ci\u003eBeast Epic \u003c\/i\u003eis on red \u0026amp; blue vinyl with alternate artwork, two bonus tracks from the \u003ci\u003eBeast Epic \u003c\/i\u003erecording sessions and three home-recorded demos, and has an etching on side D. The 5 bonus tracks are also included in the digital download that comes with this deluxe 2xLP edition. The bonus tracks are: 1. Hearts Walk Anywhere; 2. Kicking the Old Rain; 3. About a Bruise (demo); 4. Claim a Ghost (demo); 5. Summer Clouds (demo).\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Iron \u0026 Wine","offers":[{"title":"Deluxe","offer_id":31826412470368,"sku":"711703","price":17.4,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false},{"title":"CD","offer_id":31826412535904,"sku":"711702","price":7.2,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true},{"title":"LP","offer_id":31826412503136,"sku":"711701","price":23.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false},{"title":"Cassette","offer_id":31826412568672,"sku":"711704","price":10.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false},{"title":"Digital","offer_id":32556508086368,"sku":"711706","price":10.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0110\/1882\/9920\/products\/ironandwine-beastepic-3000.jpg?v=1581648022"},{"product_id":"lyla-foy_mirrors-the-sky","title":"Mirrors the Sky","description":"\u003cp\u003eIn most aspects of life, it's usually a good idea to keep your options open, lest you deny yourself the opportunity to explore avenues that might lead to transcendence or, at the very least, a little bit more happiness. But sometimes the best course of action is to find your path and stay focused, which is what Lyla Foy has been doing with her music for the past couple of years. That discovery has led to the creation of her debut album, Mirrors the Sky, due in spring on Sub Pop.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eEverything changed for the 25-year-old London songwriter one day in early 2012, when she canceled her evening plans to work on music at home. After years of various collaborations, she instead decided to tap into her creative energy all on her own, and that night her bit of happiness arrived in the form of the gorgeously stripped-down \"No Secrets,\" which she eventually shared with the world under the moniker WALL.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\"When I first started writing for the project, I wanted everything to be really focused on the melodies, but also really simple and minimal,\" says Foy. \"Just using a lot of bass, and simple drum patterns. So it was completely different to anything I was doing at the time. I wanted to try something new, and that one song happened and I felt like it was the beginning of something.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eBut that was then, and this is now, and now Foy has decided to come out from behind her WALL and adorn Mirrors the Sky with her given name. Let's not make a big deal about the transition: She's still in the same musical mindset that produced \"No Secrets\"--in fact, that very same song appears on Mirrors the Sky in a slightly updated form - and she still plays with the guys who have helped bring WALL's songs to the stage. If anything, listeners can just appreciate the irony that now that she's fully integrated her bandmates into her music, she's ditched the band name for her own. Unlike the WALL recordings, Mirrors the Sky contains plenty of input from the guys.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWhile the vibe on Mirrors the Sky is still restrained romanticism and dreamy drama, Foy had no problem scratching her pop itch on songs like the electro-grooved \"I Only\" and \"Feather Tongue\" and the slightly rockier (in a Christine McVie way) \"Impossible.\" Just try getting those choruses out of your head. Blips and bleeps comfortably mix it up with live drums, and Foy's keys, guitar, and bass help fill in the rest of the gentle soundscape. Throughout the record, synthesized and organic sounds play off each other's strengths, giving everything a cool edge while burning with passion.\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eLike usual, all of the songs started with Foy building layers of beats, keyboards, and vocal melodies in her computer, and she worked quickly to bottle her inspiration at the source, usually completing the skeleton of songs in a few hours.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\"Working fast is fun and keeps me excited,\" she says, \"rather than writing a song and playing it for a few weeks and then getting around to recording it.\"\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eFor a project that began as a single song in a London bedroom, Lyla Foy's hypnotically hushed songs have come quite a long way over the past two years, figuratively and literally, as her worldwide deal with Sub Pop will find her spending quality time supporting Mirrors the Sky across the globe. Funny how taking a singular route has led to such a momentous journey.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003ci\u003eMirrors the Sky\u003c\/i\u003e will be released on March 18th, 2014 through Sub Pop Records. \u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Lyla Foy","offers":[{"title":"CD","offer_id":31826467913824,"sku":"710782","price":6.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true},{"title":"LP","offer_id":31826467881056,"sku":"710781","price":16.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true},{"title":"Digital","offer_id":32556511428704,"sku":"710786","price":10.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0110\/1882\/9920\/products\/lylafoy-mirrorsthesky-text.jpg?v=1581649535"},{"product_id":"sub-pop_wa-state-thick-lines-royal-blue-t","title":"WA State Thick Lines Royal Blue T","description":"\u003cp\u003eShow your love for both Washington State and Sub Pop with a new take on our classic \u003ca href=\"https:\/\/megamart.subpop.com\/tshirts\/sub_pop\/sub_pop_washington_state_grey\"\u003eWA State design\u003c\/a\u003e.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Sub Pop","offers":[{"title":"XS","offer_id":32668069068896,"sku":"103000311","price":12.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false},{"title":"S","offer_id":32668069134432,"sku":"103000312","price":12.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true},{"title":"M","offer_id":32668071985248,"sku":"103000313","price":12.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false},{"title":"L","offer_id":32668075229280,"sku":"103000314","price":12.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false},{"title":"XL","offer_id":32668075327584,"sku":"103000315","price":12.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false},{"title":"2XL","offer_id":32668075425888,"sku":"103000316","price":12.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false},{"title":"3XL","offer_id":31826475941984,"sku":"103000317","price":12.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0110\/1882\/9920\/products\/0-2.jpg?v=1581649726"},{"product_id":"marika-hackman_any-human-friend","title":"Any Human Friend","description":"\u003cp id=\"E67\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"qowt-font2-Arial\" id=\"E68\"\u003e“\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"qowt-font2-Arial\" id=\"E69\"\u003eh\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"qowt-font2-Arial\" id=\"E70\"\u003eand \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"qowt-font2-Arial\" id=\"E71\"\u003es\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"qowt-font2-Arial\" id=\"E72\"\u003eolo,” “\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"qowt-font2-Arial\" id=\"E73\"\u003eb\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"qowt-font2-Arial\" id=\"E74\"\u003elow,” “\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"qowt-font2-Arial\" id=\"E75\"\u003ec\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"qowt-font2-Arial\" id=\"E76\"\u003eonventional \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"qowt-font2-Arial\" id=\"E77\"\u003er\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"qowt-font2-Arial\" id=\"E78\"\u003eide”—these are just a few of the cheeky offerings off \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"qowt-font2-Arial\" id=\"E79\"\u003eAny Human Friend\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"qowt-font2-Arial\" id=\"E80\"\u003e,\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"qowt-font2-Arial\" id=\"E81\"\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"qowt-font2-Arial\" id=\"E82\"\u003ethe new album from rock provocateur Marika Hackman. “This whole record is me diving into myself and peeling back the skin further and further, exposing myself in quite a big way. It can be quite sexual,” Hackman says. “It’s blunt, but not offensive. It’s mischievous.” There’s also depth to her carnal knowledge: \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"qowt-font2-Arial\" id=\"E83\"\u003eAny Human Friend\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"qowt-font2-Arial\" id=\"E84\"\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"qowt-font2-Arial\" id=\"E88\"\u003eis ultimately about how, as she puts it, “We all have this lightness and darkness in us.”\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp id=\"E91\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"qowt-font2-Arial\" id=\"E92\"\u003eHackman lifted the album’s title from a documentary about \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"qowt-font2-Arial\" id=\"E93\"\u003efour-year-olds\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"qowt-font2-Arial\" id=\"E94\"\u003e interacting with dementia patients in senior homes. At one point, two little girls confer about their experience there, with one musing on how it’s great to make “any human friend,” whether old or young. “When she said that it really touched a nerve in me,” says the London-based musician. “It’s that childlike view where we really accept people, are comfortable with their differences.”\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp id=\"E97\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"qowt-font2-Arial\" id=\"E98\"\u003eSuch introspection has earned Hackman her name. Her folkie 2015 debut, \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"qowt-font2-Arial\" id=\"E99\"\u003eWe Slept at Last\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"qowt-font2-Arial\" id=\"E100\"\u003e, was heralded for being nuanced and atmospheric. She really found her footing with her last release, \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"qowt-font2-Arial\" id=\"E101\"\u003e\u003ca href=\"https:\/\/megamart.subpop.com\/releases\/marika_hackman\/im_not_your_man\"\u003eI’m Not Your Man\u003c\/a\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"qowt-font2-Arial\" id=\"E102\"\u003e—which earned raves from \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"qowt-font2-Arial\" id=\"E103\"\u003eThe Guardian\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"qowt-font2-Arial\" id=\"E104\"\u003e, \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"qowt-font2-Arial\" id=\"E105\"\u003eStereogum\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"qowt-font2-Arial\" id=\"E106\"\u003e, and \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"qowt-font2-Arial\" id=\"E107\"\u003ePitchfork\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"qowt-font2-Arial\" id=\"E108\"\u003e—\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"qowt-font2-Arial\" id=\"E109\"\u003eand its sybaritic, swaggering hit “Boyfriend,” which boasts of seducing away a straight guy’s girlfriend.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"qowt-font2-Arial\" id=\"E110\"\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"qowt-font2-Arial\" id=\"E111\"\u003e“Her tactile lyrics keep the songs melodically strong and full of surprises,” remarked \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"qowt-font2-Arial\" id=\"E112\"\u003ePitchfork\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"qowt-font2-Arial\" id=\"E113\"\u003e. We’ll say!\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp id=\"E116\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"qowt-font2-Arial\" id=\"E117\"\u003e“I’m a hopeless romantic,” she explains. “I search for love and sexual experience, but also I’m terrified by it.” Hackman is a \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"qowt-font2-Arial\" id=\"E118\"\u003eRid of Me\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"qowt-font2-Arial\" id=\"E119\"\u003e-era\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"qowt-font2-Arial\" id=\"E120\"\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"qowt-font2-Arial\" id=\"E121\"\u003ePJ Harvey for the inclusive generation: unbounded by musical genre, a preternatural lyricist and tune-smith who isn’t afraid to \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"qowt-font2-Arial\" id=\"E122\"\u003ego there\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"qowt-font2-Arial\" id=\"E123\"\u003e. (Even her cover art,\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"qowt-font2-Arial\" id=\"E124\"\u003e which finds Hackman nearly nude while cradling a baby pig, \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"qowt-font2-Arial\" id=\"E125\"\u003eis a nod to \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"qowt-font2-Arial\" id=\"E126\"\u003eDutch photographer \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"qowt-font2-Arial\" id=\"E127\"\u003eRineke Dijkstra\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"qowt-font2-Arial\" id=\"E128\"\u003e’s unfiltered photos of mothers just after they gave birth.) \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"qowt-font2-Arial\" id=\"E129\"\u003eTo that end, “\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"qowt-font2-Arial\" id=\"E130\"\u003eh\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"qowt-font2-Arial\" id=\"E131\"\u003eand \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"qowt-font2-Arial\" id=\"E132\"\u003esolo\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"qowt-font2-Arial\" id=\"E133\"\u003e” extols the virtues of masturbation\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"qowt-font2-Arial\" id=\"E134\"\u003e and \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"qowt-font2-Arial\" id=\"E135\"\u003e features Hackman’s favorite line, “Under patriarchal law, I’m going to die a virgin\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"qowt-font2-Arial\" id=\"E136\"\u003e.” The song\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"qowt-font2-Arial\" id=\"E137\"\u003e “\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"qowt-font2-Arial\" id=\"E138\"\u003eb\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"qowt-font2-Arial\" id=\"E139\"\u003elow” paints a picture of social excess. And “\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"qowt-font2-Arial\" id=\"E140\"\u003ec\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"qowt-font2-Arial\" id=\"E141\"\u003eonventional \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"qowt-font2-Arial\" id=\"E142\"\u003er\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"qowt-font2-Arial\" id=\"E143\"\u003eide” thumbs its nose at heterosexual sex through “the trope a lot of gay women experience: sleeping with someone, then it becomes apparent you’re kind of an experiment.”\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"qowt-font2-Arial\" id=\"E144\"\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp id=\"E145\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"qowt-font2-Arial\" id=\"E146\"\u003eWith \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"qowt-font2-Arial\" id=\"E147\"\u003eAny Human Friend\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"qowt-font2-Arial\" id=\"E148\"\u003e, boundaries are no longer an issue for her. “I sent ‘\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"qowt-font2-Arial\" id=\"E149\"\u003ea\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"qowt-font2-Arial\" id=\"E150\"\u003ell \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"qowt-font2-Arial\" id=\"E151\"\u003en\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"qowt-font2-Arial\" id=\"E152\"\u003eight’ to my parents and they were quite shocked,” she says of the paean to the flesh, dressed as a sweetly harmonic track. “Why does it sound shocking coming out of my mouth? Women have sex with each other, and it seems to me we aren’t as freely allowed to discuss that as men are. But at no point am I disrespecting the women I’m having sex with. It can be fucking sexy without banging people over the head with a frying pan. It’s sexy sex.”\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp id=\"E155\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"qowt-font2-Arial\" id=\"E156\"\u003eSharing intimacies with her parents \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"qowt-font2-Arial\" id=\"E157\"\u003esorta makes sense when you consider she wrote “the one”—a \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"qowt-font2-Arial\" id=\"E158\"\u003eportrait of the artist amid identity crisis—\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"qowt-font2-Arial\" id=\"E159\"\u003eand several other songs in her bedroom at their house, where she crashed after a \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"qowt-font2-Arial\" id=\"E160\"\u003epainful break-up with a longtime girlfriend. “‘\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"qowt-font2-Arial\" id=\"E161\"\u003es\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"qowt-font2-Arial\" id=\"E162\"\u003eend \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"qowt-font2-Arial\" id=\"E163\"\u003emy\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"qowt-font2-Arial\" id=\"E164\"\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"qowt-font2-Arial\" id=\"E165\"\u003el\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"qowt-font2-Arial\" id=\"E166\"\u003eove’ is a proper breakup song,” she says of the levitating, string-laden track. “I actually wrote that in a moment of grief. It’s a strange take on it because I’m imagining myself as my ex-\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"qowt-font2-Arial\"\u003egirlfriend.” She penned its companion track, “\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"qowt-font2-Arial\" id=\"E167\"\u003eI\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"qowt-font2-Arial\" id=\"E168\"\u003e’m \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"qowt-font2-Arial\" id=\"E169\"\u003en\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"qowt-font2-Arial\" id=\"E170\"\u003eot \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"qowt-font2-Arial\" id=\"E171\"\u003ew\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"qowt-font2-Arial\" id=\"E172\"\u003ehere \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"qowt-font2-Arial\" id=\"E173\"\u003ey\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"qowt-font2-Arial\" id=\"E174\"\u003eou \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"qowt-font2-Arial\" id=\"E175\"\u003ea\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"qowt-font2-Arial\" id=\"E176\"\u003ere,” a melodic ear-worm about emotional detachment from relationships, roughly six months later.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp id=\"E180\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"qowt-font2-Arial\" id=\"E181\"\u003e“I think because my life was flipped upside down, it was taking me longer to write,” she says. “This was definitely the hardest process I’ve gone through to make a record.” She wrote the album over a year, recording a few songs at a time with co-producer David Wrench (Frank Ocean, The xx). “I stopped being able to sleep properly,” she says. “I was waking up in the middle of the night to write songs.”\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp id=\"E184\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"qowt-font2-Arial\" id=\"E185\"\u003eBut \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"qowt-font2-Arial\" id=\"E186\"\u003ethe longer recording process\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"qowt-font2-Arial\" id=\"E187\"\u003e also meant that Hackman had the time to experiment in the studio\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"qowt-font2-Arial\" id=\"E188\"\u003e, especially with electronic songs\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"qowt-font2-Arial\" id=\"E189\"\u003e.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"qowt-font2-Arial\" id=\"E190\"\u003e She was inspired by Wrench’s vast synth collection, many of which she used\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"qowt-font2-Arial\" id=\"E191\"\u003e throughout \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"qowt-font2-Arial\" id=\"E192\"\u003eAny Human Friend\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"qowt-font2-Arial\" id=\"E193\"\u003e (“the synths give the album a nice shine”), notably on “\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"qowt-font2-Arial\" id=\"E194\"\u003eh\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"qowt-font2-Arial\" id=\"E195\"\u003eold \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"qowt-font2-Arial\" id=\"E196\"\u003eo\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"qowt-font2-Arial\" id=\"E197\"\u003en,” a deep dive into ennui expressed as ethereal R\u0026amp;B.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"qowt-font2-Arial\" id=\"E198\"\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"qowt-font2-Arial\" id=\"E199\"\u003eShe also switched up drum rhythms and wrote songs on the bass, such as the upbeat, idiosyncratic “\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"qowt-font2-Arial\" id=\"E200\"\u003ec\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"qowt-font2-Arial\" id=\"E201\"\u003eome \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"qowt-font2-Arial\" id=\"E202\"\u003eu\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"qowt-font2-Arial\" id=\"E203\"\u003endone” (working name: “Funky Little Thang”).\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp id=\"E207\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"qowt-font2-Arial\" id=\"E208\"\u003eHackman bookends \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"qowt-font2-Arial\" id=\"E209\"\u003eAny Human Friend\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"qowt-font2-Arial\" id=\"E210\"\u003e with some of her most unexpected musical turns. The first song she wrote, “\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"qowt-font2-Arial\" id=\"E211\"\u003et\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"qowt-font2-Arial\" id=\"E212\"\u003ehe \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"qowt-font2-Arial\" id=\"E213\"\u003eo\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"qowt-font2-Arial\" id=\"E214\"\u003ene” (technically its second track), is “probably the poppiest song I’ve ever written\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"qowt-font2-Arial\" id=\"E215\"\u003e,\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"qowt-font2-Arial\" id=\"E216\"\u003e” she says. \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"qowt-font2-Arial\" id=\"E217\"\u003e“It’s about \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"qowt-font2-Arial\" id=\"E218\"\u003ethat weird feeling of starting the process again from scratch\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"qowt-font2-Arial\" id=\"E219\"\u003e.” To that end, it \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"qowt-font2-Arial\" id=\"E220\"\u003efeatures a riot grrrl Greek chorus hurling such insults at her as, “You’re such an attention whore!” The title track closes out the album and explores how, “when we’re interacting with people, it’s like holding a mirror up to yourself.” It’s a weightless coda that’s jazz-like in its layering of rhythmic sounds as if you’re leisurely sorting through Hackman’s \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"qowt-font2-Arial\" id=\"E221\"\u003eheadspace\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"qowt-font2-Arial\" id=\"E222\"\u003e.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp id=\"E225\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"qowt-font2-Arial\" id=\"E226\"\u003e“The drive to do all this is all just about trying to work out what the fuck is in my brain,” she says, laughing. The dragon she’s chasing is a rarefied peace that materializes after properly tortured herself. “I really did have a good time working on this album,” she says, reassuringly. “It’s just emotionally draining to write music and constantly tap into your psyche. No musician is writing music for themselves to listen to. It’s a dialogue, a conversation, a connection. I’m creating something for people to react to.”\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Marika Hackman","offers":[{"title":"LP","offer_id":31826481578080,"sku":"713141","price":9.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true},{"title":"Loser (color) LP","offer_id":31826481545312,"sku":"713140","price":17.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false},{"title":"CD","offer_id":31826481610848,"sku":"713142","price":12.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true},{"title":"Digital","offer_id":32556517949536,"sku":"713146","price":10.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0110\/1882\/9920\/products\/0.jpg?v=1741202131"},{"product_id":"unnatural-helpers_land-grab","title":"Land Grab","description":"\u003cp\u003eUnnatural Helpers churn out hit songs like allergic sneezes, but they also are culled from the ditches of modern society, stolen from the ranks of working class yahoos. Pain, Doubt, Fear, Hate, Anger, Guilt, Regret, ad nauseum: it’s all here. Recorded in Seattle with Kurt Bloch and Eric Randall.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eAll LPs include a download code.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Unnatural Helpers","offers":[{"title":"CD","offer_id":31826492817504,"sku":"730402","price":5.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true},{"title":"LP","offer_id":31826492784736,"sku":"730401","price":23.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true},{"title":"Digital","offer_id":32556522864736,"sku":"730406","price":10.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0110\/1882\/9920\/products\/12043.jpg?v=1581650200"},{"product_id":"sub-pop_fanny-pack","title":"Fanny Pack","description":"\u003cp\u003eKeep your hands free and store your belongings with this high quality black fanny pack! It features an adjustable strap for a custom fit.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Sub Pop","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":31826495144032,"sku":"350180103","price":16.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0110\/1882\/9920\/products\/subpop-fannypack-01-1500x1500copy2.jpg?v=1680126052"},{"product_id":"mass-gothic_mass-gothic","title":"Mass Gothic","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eLoser edition vinyl is SOLD OUT. Black vinyl shipping now!\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eAfter nearly ten years as the creative force behind much-loved New York rock outfit Hooray For Earth, Noel Heroux had lost his way. “I was constantly cutting corners and phoning everything in,” he says. “I was super depressed. I was creatively frustrated. I was emotion- ally unavailable to the people I really, really wanted to be there for—and no matter how much I cared, I just couldn’t change. But when I realized that I needed to the end the band and just try again, my head cleared and the clouds parted. I’d been derailed somehow,” he adds. “So I allowed myself to return to the beginning.” \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan\u003eThis year marks the release of \u003ci\u003eMass Gothic\u003c\/i\u003e, the Massachusetts-bred, New York-based singer\/songwriter’s self-titled Sub Pop debut. Written and recorded at home over four months during the winter of 2013-2014, it’s a stunning reminder of not just Heroux’s own remarkable talents as singer and songwriter, but how unbridled creativity can sound and feel: Before Hooray For Earth had quickly become a fully-functioning band, it began as a solo project. No pressure or compromises—just Heroux, a four-track, and an irrepressible urge to “jot down all of the noise and music floating around in my head” and make it available to other people. “All I wanted to do was whatever I do when I’m alone and I’m unconcerned with what anyone else wants or expects,” he says. “I did my best to let go, and what came out was pure, uncut. It reminded me of the first few times I made music, when I was a young kid. I didn’t set any rules and I had zero expectations.” \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe result is an expansive, often exhilarating set of guitar-driven pop that required very little editing when it was done. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eFrom the iridescent doo-wop of “Every Night You’ve Got to Save Me” to the skyward crescendo of “Mind is Probably” to the falsetto-streaked clatter of “Want to, Bad,” it’s a radiant retelling of Heroux’s starting over, with “Nice Night” as its cathartic, electrifying centerpiece. “A lot of these songs are more or less a really dramatic, loud apology\/thank you note,” he says, referencing his partner, collaborator, and future tour mate, Jessica. “It didn’t matter where any of the sounds came from. I just cared that it sounded big and heavy, and that it was moving when it was done. 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All orders will receive black vinyl going forward.\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eStrange Wilds is a musical power-trio from Olympia, Washington.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThere are three members: Allen, who plays drums; Sean, who plays bass; and Steven, who sings and plays the guitar. There is also a freight train, several buzzsaws, a banshee, and some heavy, heavy Pacific doom-and-gloom up in the mix. They're putting their debut full-length out on Sub Pop and we think you might want to know more about these guys \u003ca title=\"Link: http:\/\/subpop.com\/artists\/strange_wilds\" href=\"http:\/\/subpop.com\/artists\/strange_wilds\"\u003eover here.\u003c\/a\u003e \u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Strange Wilds","offers":[{"title":"CD","offer_id":31826502582368,"sku":"711242","price":6.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true},{"title":"LP","offer_id":31826502549600,"sku":"711241","price":16.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true},{"title":"Digital","offer_id":32556516900960,"sku":"711246","price":10.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0110\/1882\/9920\/products\/sw-subjectiveconcepts-900.jpg?v=1581650336"},{"product_id":"the-dutchess-and-the-duke_sunset-sunrise","title":"Sunset \/ Sunrise","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eSunset \/ Sunrise\u003c\/em\u003e, a slump-dodging opus that takes the dark, raw beauty of the band’s debut and scales it up to distinctly luminescent heights, thanks to a graceful synthesis of painfully earned creative maturity and thoughtful production under Greg Ashley’s adroitly tuned ears. The Gris Gris frontman’s analog-equipped, Bay Area studio was the ideal space for Jesse Lortz and fellow vocalist and guitarist Kimberly Morrison to arch their intimate musical dialog into the larger shape they had envisioned. Much of what colors \u003cem\u003eSunset \/ Sunrise\u003c\/em\u003e‘s ten tracks is the confidence the duo acquired during extensive touring throughout 2008 in support of their debut, _She’s the Dutchess, He’s the Duke_.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"The Dutchess \u0026 the Duke","offers":[{"title":"CD","offer_id":31826503991392,"sku":"730092","price":6.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true},{"title":"LP","offer_id":31826503958624,"sku":"730091","price":23.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false},{"title":"Digital","offer_id":32556520570976,"sku":"730096","price":10.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0110\/1882\/9920\/products\/8549.jpg?v=1581650381"},{"product_id":"the-gotobeds_debt-begins-at-30","title":"Debt Begins at 30","description":"\u003cdiv\u003e\n\u003cspan style=\"font-family: -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, 'San Francisco', 'Segoe UI', Roboto, 'Helvetica Neue', sans-serif; font-size: 0.875rem;\"\u003eGive me a minute or three to extol the virtues of \u003c\/span\u003e\u003ca style=\"font-family: -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, 'San Francisco', 'Segoe UI', Roboto, 'Helvetica Neue', sans-serif; font-size: 0.875rem;\" href=\"https:\/\/megamart.subpop.com\/artists\/the_gotobeds\"\u003eThe Gotobeds\u003c\/a\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-family: -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, 'San Francisco', 'Segoe UI', Roboto, 'Helvetica Neue', sans-serif; font-size: 0.875rem;\"\u003e, the modern rock and roll sensation that has always sounded like they love to play. Never maligned by having the world’s weight on their backs, The Gotobeds - Cary, TFP, Eli and Gavin - return to the fray with their third full lengther, 'Debt Begins at 30'. The \u003c\/span\u003e\u003ci style=\"font-family: -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, 'San Francisco', 'Segoe UI', Roboto, 'Helvetica Neue', sans-serif; font-size: 0.875rem;\"\u003eesprit de corps\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-family: -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, 'San Francisco', 'Segoe UI', Roboto, 'Helvetica Neue', sans-serif; font-size: 0.875rem;\"\u003e and anxiety-free joy that permeates their other LPs and EPs remains intact. The octane is high-test, the engine still has knocks and pings and the battery is overcharged. The Gotobeds - as Pittsburgh as it gets, the folk music of the Steel City - have more tar for us to swallow. \u003c\/span\u003e\u003ci style=\"font-family: -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, 'San Francisco', 'Segoe UI', Roboto, 'Helvetica Neue', sans-serif; font-size: 0.875rem;\"\u003eDebt Begins at 30 \u003c\/i\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-family: -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, 'San Francisco', 'Segoe UI', Roboto, 'Helvetica Neue', sans-serif; font-size: 0.875rem;\"\u003eis an old-fashioned blast furnace and the liquid iron flows. \u003c\/span\u003e\u003ci style=\"font-family: -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, 'San Francisco', 'Segoe UI', Roboto, 'Helvetica Neue', sans-serif; font-size: 0.875rem;\"\u003eDebt Begins at 30 \u003c\/i\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-family: -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, 'San Francisco', 'Segoe UI', Roboto, 'Helvetica Neue', sans-serif; font-size: 0.875rem;\"\u003eis not \"pub sop\" in any way or shape.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"normal\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003e Though I never considered The Gotobeds a band that needed assistance from their peers, \u003ci\u003eDebt Begins at 30 \u003c\/i\u003efeatures outside contributors on every track. The album's first single, \"Calquer The Hound,\" includes local buddy Evan Richards, and Rob Henry of Kim Phuc. \"Calquer The Hound\" has euphony, a sly bridge, plenty of trademark bash, and a spacey outro. It's a sanguine album opener, more Al Oliver than Starling Marte.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"normal\"\u003eOn \"Twin Cities,\" the lads tap Tracy Wilson, formerly of Dahlia Seed and currently of Positive NO!, to share the vox, and the result is an exuberant pop song proving The Gotobeds benefit from women ruling the scene. \"Twin Cities\" is more Dakota Staton than Don Caballero. \"Debt Begins at 30,\" the title trackular, includes the wizardry of Mike Seamans and legend Bob Weston. It's a brooding romp with tribal beats and slash-and-burn guitar, more Rocky Bleier than Le'Veon Bell.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"normal\"\u003eUnsurprisingly, The Gotobeds called partners-in-rock-crime \u003ca href=\"https:\/\/megamart.subpop.com\/artists\/protomartyr\" title=\"Link: https:\/\/megamart.subpop.com\/artists\/protomartyr\"\u003eProtomartyr\u003c\/a\u003e a coupla times, with Joe Casey bolstering \"Slang Words\" and hook-fiend Greg Ahee shredding on \"On Loan.\" \"Slang Words\" is a savory wrecking ball with a crunching bite, more of a soft shell crab sandwich from Wholey's Market than a 4am slop feast at Primanti Brothers. \"On Loan\" is an anthemic jangle-fest with high-arcing fret work, more Karl Hendricks (rest his soul) than \"Weird Paul\" Petroskey.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"normal\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003e Silkworm guitarist Tim Midyett is tapped on \"Parallel,\" a grand song that enters a world of whimsy, melodic and uncomplicated, more Jaromir Jagr than Sidney Crosby. The likes of 12XU label boss Gerard Cosloy, Tre Orsi's Matt Barnhart, the wonderful Victoria Ruiz of \u003ca href=\"https:\/\/megamart.subpop.com\/artists\/downtown_boys\"\u003eDowntown Boys\u003c\/a\u003e, Pittsburgh wordsmiths Jason Baldinger and Scott MacIntyre, and yours truly strut stuff on other tracks. In my case, I just scream “dross” on \"Dross\" several times. Good judgment on the part of The Gotobeds to know that's the best I can do, more Max Moroff than Andrew McCutchen.\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cspan\u003eAnyways, The Gotobeds have quickly reached the veteran stage, but, based upon \u003ci\u003eDebt Begins at 30\u003c\/i\u003e, their best days are ahead of them. It's a pleasure to be associated with such an excellent band.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\n\u003cdiv\u003e--Bob Nastanovich, 1\/13\/2019, Des Moines    \u003cbr\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"The Gotobeds","offers":[{"title":"LP","offer_id":32611920183392,"sku":"713031","price":9.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true},{"title":"Loser (color) LP","offer_id":32611920281696,"sku":"713030","price":18.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true},{"title":"CD","offer_id":31826514411616,"sku":"713032","price":12.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true},{"title":"Digital","offer_id":32556508577888,"sku":"713036","price":10.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0110\/1882\/9920\/products\/thegotobeds-debtbeginsat30-3000px_34d0cbd3-6fec-42ee-a74b-b5381032f13e.jpg?v=1581650627"},{"product_id":"talbot-tagora_lessons-in-the-woods-or-a-city","title":"Lessons in the Woods or a City","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eLessons in the Woods or a City\u003c\/em\u003e is presented as a series of lessons. 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Black vinyl now available and shipping with all orders. \u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe United States’ myriad inequalities, hatreds and phobias are painfully evident in 2017, offering proof that the age-old dichotomy of “political bands” versus “apolitical bands” simply doesn’t exist. Either you are comfortable and unfazed by the current reigning power structures, or you use your music as a vehicle for the dismantling of oppression and the creation of something better. No matter what your songs are about, you are choosing a side.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe position of Providence, RI’s Downtown Boys has been clear since they started storming through basements and DIY spaces with their radically-minded rock music: they are here to topple the white-cis-het hegemony and draft a new history. Downtown Boys began by combining revolutionary ideals with boundless energy and contagious, inclusive fun, and their resolve has only strengthened as their sound and audience have grown.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003ci\u003eCost of Living\u003c\/i\u003e is their third full-length, following a self-released 2012 debut and 2015’s \u003ci\u003eFull Communism\u003c\/i\u003e on Don Giovanni Records. They recorded it with Guy Picciotto (Fugazi; producer of Blonde Redhead, The Gossip), one of indie-rock’s most mythological figures, in the producer’s chair. Picciotto fostered the band’s improvisational urges while pulling the root of their music to the forefront: unflinching choruses, fearlessly confrontational vocals, and the sense that each song will incite the room into action, sending bodies into motion that were previously thought to have atrophied. \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eDowntown Boys are keenly aware of the increased visibility and credibility that comes with signing to a corporate-media conglomerate such as Sub Pop. They’re using this platform as a megaphone for their protest music, amplifying and centering Chicana, queer, and Latino voices in the far-too-whitewashed world of rock. In just one example, album-opener “A Wall” rides the feel-good power that drove so many tunes by The Clash and Wire as it calls out the idea that a wall could ever succeed in snuffing the humanity and spirit of those it’s designed to crush. \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eCompared to previous efforts, Downtown Boys have shifted from a once-meaty brass section to the subtler melodic accompaniment of keyboards and a saxophone, coloring their anthems with warm, bright tones while singer\/lyricist Victoria Ruiz spits out her frustrations and passions. Some might say it shows a sense of maturity, as Downtown Boys have undoubtedly smoothed down some of their earlier edges, but there is no compromise to their righteous assault and captivating presence. Like the socially conscious groups of years past, from Public Enemy to Rage Against the Machine, Downtown Boys harness powerful sloganeering, repetitive grooves, and earworm hooks to create one of the most necessary musical statements of the day. We should all do well to take notice! \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e- Matt Korvette, Pissed Jeans \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cdiv\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Downtown Boys","offers":[{"title":"LP","offer_id":31826537775200,"sku":"712061","price":9.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true},{"title":"CD","offer_id":31826537807968,"sku":"712062","price":12.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true},{"title":"Cassette","offer_id":31826537840736,"sku":"712064","price":10.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true},{"title":"Digital","offer_id":32556520865888,"sku":"712066","price":10.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0110\/1882\/9920\/products\/downtownboys-costofliving-cd-mm.jpg?v=1741201539"},{"product_id":"knife-knights_1-time-mirage","title":"1 Time Mirage","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eKnife Knights\u003c\/b\u003e were born of the love of mystery. 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Their shared interests have been split into pieces and fused together with enviable imagination. In the decade since Butler launched Shabazz Palaces and first christened his partnership with Blood as Knife Knights, much of the external mystery has, of course, fallen away. And \u003ci\u003e1 Time Mirage\u003c\/i\u003e is a very public step forward for the pair. The early sense of secrecy has given way to a spirit of friendship and creative candor, to the doors of experimentation being thrown open by old pals thrilled by the prospect of testing new ideas.  \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eStill, these eleven songs retain a core of intrigue and, indeed, mystery; each listen reveals yet another connection between infinite and interlocking pieces. To wit, Robert Beatty’s brilliant cover for \u003ci\u003e1 Time Mirage\u003c\/i\u003e depicts a futuristic vehicle, being coolly steered with one hand into some great, mildly ominous unknown. That’s how these songs feel, too—confident conquests of the dark that unlock sounds and spaces you have yet to imagine.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Knife Knights","offers":[{"title":"LP","offer_id":32700367929440,"sku":"712481","price":10.8,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true},{"title":"CD","offer_id":31826538070112,"sku":"712482","price":12.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true},{"title":"Digital","offer_id":32700367962208,"sku":"712486","price":10.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0110\/1882\/9920\/products\/knifeknights-1timemirage-lp-loser.jpg?v=1741201942"},{"product_id":"sub-pop_wa-state-record-vintage-iris-t-shirt","title":"WA State Record Vintage Iris T-Shirt","description":"\u003cp\u003eA new take on our wildly popular \u003ca title=\"Link: https:\/\/megamart.subpop.com\/tshirts\/sub_pop\/sub_pop_washington_state_grey\" href=\"https:\/\/megamart.subpop.com\/tshirts\/sub_pop\/sub_pop_washington_state_grey\"\u003eWashington State T-Shirt.\u003c\/a\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Sub Pop","offers":[{"title":"XS","offer_id":32668077457504,"sku":"104000011","price":12.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false},{"title":"S","offer_id":32668081324128,"sku":"104000012","price":12.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false},{"title":"M","offer_id":32668081619040,"sku":"104000013","price":12.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false},{"title":"L","offer_id":32668082143328,"sku":"104000014","price":12.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false},{"title":"XL","offer_id":32668082241632,"sku":"104000015","price":12.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false},{"title":"2XL","offer_id":32668082471008,"sku":"104000016","price":12.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false},{"title":"3XL","offer_id":31826551570528,"sku":"104000017","price":12.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0110\/1882\/9920\/products\/0-1.jpg?v=1581651555"},{"product_id":"shannon-lay_august","title":"August","description":"\u003cp\u003eThere is an entire sub-genre of poetry devoted to rivers and their persistent, meditative flow. Emily Dickinson’s “My River Runs to Thee” compares them to the cycle of life, while Alfred Tennyson’s “The Brook” deems them eternal and Kathleen Raine’s “The River” muses on the dream-state they evoke. For transcendent folk-pop artist \u003ca href=\"https:\/\/megamart.subpop.com\/artists\/shannon_lay\"\u003eShannon Lay\u003c\/a\u003e, the river is all of the above: It’s the metaphor driving her latest album, the exquisitely uplifting August (Sub Pop Records, out August, 23rd)—which doubles as an aural baptism renewing her purpose for making music. “I always picture music as this river. Everyone’s throwing things into this river, it’s a place you can go to and feed off of that energy,” she says, “and feel nourished by the fact that so many people are feeling what you’re feeling. It’s this beautiful exchange.”\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe album’s name, August, refers to the month in 2017 when Lay quit her day job and fully gave herself over to music. This was her liberation as an artist, and the album is devoted to paying that forward to her listeners. “It’s a thank you to the universe,” says the L.A. artist. The title track is a mystical, folk-psych expression that builds into a gentle gallop. “Open the doors that you cannot,” she sings with a feathery lightness. Notes Lay: “Everyone is capable of so much, but we have a tendency to stand in our own way.” The steady movement of the song captures the rapids of a river. “I was thinking about creating something with momentum,” she continues. “I started out with just the guitar and Laena Geronimo came in and added that gorgeous drone and when Nick Murray put his drum touch in there it was exactly what I never knew it would be.”\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eLay may be the most chilled-out artist you’ll ever meet. Despite fronting her tranquil solo act and being a guitarist\/singer in the indie-rock band Feels, she never pressures herself to overachieve. (Even though she regularly does—in a glowing review, Pitchfork anointed her last album, Living Water “captivating.”) “I learned to not beat myself up if I’m not writing all the time,” she says. “Music really does come in these waves of inspiration.” During the album’s graceful finale, “The Dream,” Lay addresses embracing uncertainty. “I’ve always felt like a lucky person, life is a dream and it is yours to manipulate. Create the world you want to live in, create your own reality, create your path. We have so much more control that we could ever imagine.”\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWith her life devoted to music, the artist often spends hours a day simply playing the guitar, challenging herself to become better “It just feels so good, doing something that is so much bigger than myself. I think so much of music is that, realizing that it’s coming from something beyond and you are just the messenger” says Lay, who took guitar lessons at age 13, which introduced her to Neil Young and The Beatles. After high school, she moved from Redondo Beach, Calif., to Hollywood and joined an indie-rock band. “It was an energy I needed to release,” she says. The exact type of energy may have changed, but her drive hasn’t. Her recent practice pays off transcendentally in songs such as “Nowhere,” a wistful kindred spirit to “August” that evokes Nick Drake. “It’s about getting somewhere and not doing anything or meeting anyone,” Lay says, “the idea of just having a quieter journey, zero expectation.”\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThere are other lovely, solitary moments on August. The simple, soprano narrative “Shuffling Stoned,” for instance, serves no grander purpose than to capture a snapshot of the time Lay walked into a cool record store in New York City and watched the guy working there buy some weed off his dealer, as “this tiny, little spider crawled up on the records—it was such a cool, weird moment.” And “Sea Came to Shore,” in which Lay’s guitar finds its foil in a slightly askew violin, immediately teleports you, alone, to a breezy shore. “The ocean,” adds Lay, “is a good reminder of how small we are.”\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAugust was mostly written in three months, during Lay’s first solo tour for Living Water. “For the most part, all of the songs were just guitar and voice,” she says. In keeping with the humbled, contemplative nature of August, most tracks clock-in at three minutes or less. She saved indulgence for the production. “Some songs as they were had this room to grow,” says Lay, who recorded the album with her longtime friend, musician Ty Segall at his home studio on the East Side. “I believe whoever you record with tends to affect the mood of music and Ty really brought this jovial sense that I hadn’t really explored yet,” she says. “Once you get rolling with him, he just throws these ideas at the wall. And you’re like, ‘I would never have thought of that!’ I couldn’t have hoped for a better guide and energy to help create this record.”\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIn this sense, the album’s opener, the mantra-like “Death Up Close” is also its centerpiece. “With that song, I wanted to recognize that everyone else is going through something and reflect on that. Don’t be so close-minded to think you’re the only one who’s got issues, in fact, find comfort in the thought that everyone is on their own journey” Lay explains. What starts as an Eastern-influenced song morphs into an avant-garde sound bath. “I had this idea of the violin ascending. Then Mikal Cronin came in with the saxophone and just blew me away.  I love the idea of building a song like that, take people by surprise.”\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e“A lot of my friends who are really tough have admitted that they shed a tear when they hear my songs, and I think that really speaks to the visceral aspect of folk music,” Lay says. “It’s this ancient form of expressing yourself.” Think of August as a warm hug for your psyche. “I want to create as much music as I can,” she says, “and leave this spot by the river where people can go sit and enjoy.”\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Shannon Lay","offers":[{"title":"LP","offer_id":31826555797600,"sku":"713151","price":8.5,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true},{"title":"Loser (color) LP","offer_id":31826555764832,"sku":"713150","price":17.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true},{"title":"CD","offer_id":32611895279712,"sku":"713152","price":12.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true},{"title":"Cassette","offer_id":31826555863136,"sku":"713154","price":10.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true},{"title":"Digital","offer_id":32556521521248,"sku":"713156","price":10.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0110\/1882\/9920\/products\/shannon-lay-august-3000.jpg?v=1581651608"},{"product_id":"kyle-craft_showboat-honey","title":"Showboat Honey","description":"\u003cp\u003eThere is this curious equilibrium to existence: In order to create balance, the universe must giveth, and the universe must taketh. \u003ca href=\"https:\/\/megamart.subpop.com\/artists\/kyle_craft\"\u003eKyle Craft\u003c\/a\u003e, along with his now solidified backing band dubbed Showboat Honey, know this all too well. And this is why their self-titled album, the contemplative yet restless \u003ci\u003eShowboat Honey\u003c\/i\u003e (Sub Pop Records, July 12th, 2019) reflects that sturm-und-drang. “This is basically an album centered around bad luck and good fortune hitting at the same time,” Craft explains “Then, out of nowhere, I find love. Everything went to shit except that. I guess that’s how life works.”\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"normal\"\u003eNo track better captures this duality than the sweeping “Sunday Driver,” about sticking to your guns, despite a universe of blow-back. “At this point, you get baptized by certain fires and start to walk with the dead a little bit, like nothing can harm you anymore,” says the Portland-based musician. “That’s what self-love sounds like to me, as aggressive as that sounds.”\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"normal\"\u003eThe sticky-sweet title of the album is lifted from the brightly choral “Buzzkill Caterwaul” (“Once you were the showboat honey\/ But your ship sailed out”). “I wanted to make something that sounded like a raucous collision of Leon Russell and Patti Smith,” he says, “But ‘Buzzkill Caterwaul’ was the only tune that ended up showcasing that vision.”\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"normal\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eThough aesthetics veer from song to song, \u003ci\u003eShowboat Honey\u003c\/i\u003e’s steadfast formula remains the same. Drummer Haven Mutlz holds down the machine with a ’60s\/’70s fast-molasses groove that locks in with the slinky rolling bass of Billy Slater. When Kevin Clark isn’t bouncing across the piano, his mellotron swells in and out of frame. Jack of all trades Ben Steinmetz’s organ parts well up from the deep of the songs, while lead guitarist Jeremy Kale’s solos rip through them like electricity. On top of it all, sits the tongue-in-cheek phantasmagoria created by Craft’s lyrics. \u003c\/span\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"normal\"\u003eLyrically, perspectives shift to imbue life into a cast of intriguing, mysterious characters, à la Bob Dylan. (“There is not a single thing in my life that has affected me more than the first time I heard Dylan,” says Craft. “It immediately changed my life.”) “Johnny (Free \u0026amp; Easy)” is seemingly about a date gone awry at a swinger’s party in the Hollywood Hills. And the twangy pop of “O! Lucky Hand” appears to shadow a poor sod desperate to elude a hex. Its antidote is the stunning, cinematic “Deathwish Blue,” which sounds like a deep cut from the book of John Lennon, about the lovesick salvation found in his bride to be, Lydia.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"normal\"\u003eIf that’s not head-trippy enough, the carefree sing-along “2 Ugly 4 NY” features a lyrical reference to a previous incarnation of Craft. Its lyrics—“Don’t wanna see Death strum for cash downtown\/ Or the look on his face when the change hits the case on the ground”—call out his early days in Portland when he went by the moniker of Hobo Grim. Busking downtown, he’d cover country tunes while dressed as the Grim Reaper so as to conceal his true identity. \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"normal\"\u003eCraft started writing about as soon as he could play the guitar at the age of 15. He grew up in the isolated Mississippi River town of Vidalia, Louisiana where his chops weren’t honed in a woodshed, but rather an old, dingy meat freezer that was out of commission.  When asked about the first song he’d ever written, he laughs, saying it was an “angsty-rock tune” and “a rare bird of how bad a song could be.”     \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"normal\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eAfter years of touring, two LPs with Sub Pop Records, and solidifying the band, he’s since grown into a prodigious songwriter, to say the least. The band recorded \u003ci\u003eShowboat Honey—\u003c\/i\u003eco-produced by Craft, Clark, and Slater—at their own Moonbase Studios in Portland over 2018. “We approached this record differently for sure,” Craft says. “I’d make a demo, and after putting the songs together, shoot it to the band for ideas.” Tracks such as “Broken Mirror Pose” ended up being highly collaborative, while others settled into Craft’s original vision. “Deathwish Blue,” for instance, was tracked in a similar fashion to his solo debut, \u003ci\u003e\u003ca href=\"https:\/\/megamart.subpop.com\/releases\/kyle_craft\/dolls_of_highland\"\u003eDolls of Highland\u003c\/a\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e, with Craft tracking every instrument by himself. \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"normal\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eKyle and the members of Showboat Honey worked at such a feverish wine-fueled pace that they actually ended up with two completely different albums. But at the end of the day, they decided to combine the two into what is now \u003ci\u003eShowboat Honey,\u003c\/i\u003e a moonstruck rock ’n’ roll record teeming with reckless abandon.    \u003c\/span\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"normal\"\u003e“We thought we had the album done at one point. But at the last minute, I was like, ‘Shit, this isn’t the album. This isn’t it,’” Kyle says. “It was just a gut feeling. I’m glad for that because I feel like I ended up writing some of the best songs I’ve ever written.”\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Kyle Craft","offers":[{"title":"LP","offer_id":31826584076384,"sku":"713111","price":8.5,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true},{"title":"Loser (color) LP","offer_id":31826584043616,"sku":"713110","price":17.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true},{"title":"CD","offer_id":31826584109152,"sku":"713112","price":12.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true},{"title":"Digital","offer_id":32556525977696,"sku":"713116","price":10.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0110\/1882\/9920\/products\/kylecraft-showboathoney-3000x3000_3d5895fe-2739-4992-a5d1-6276bf32e661.jpg?v=1581652181"},{"product_id":"frankie-cosmos_close-it-quietly","title":"Close It Quietly","description":"\u003cp\u003eClose It Quietly is a continual reframing of the known. It’s like giving yourself a haircut or rearranging your room. You know your hair. You know your room. Here’s the same hair, the same room, seen again as something new. Close It Quietly takes the trademark \u003ca href=\"https:\/\/megamart.subpop.com\/artists\/frankie_cosmos\"\u003eFrankie Cosmos\u003c\/a\u003e micro-universe and upends it, spilling outwards into a swirl of referentiality that’s a marked departure from earlier releases, imagining and reimagining motifs and sounds throughout the album. FC’s fourth studio release is a manifestation of the band’s collaborative spirit: Greta Kline and longtime bandmates Lauren Martin (synth), Luke Pyenson (drums), and Alex Bailey (bass) luxuriated in studio time with Gabe Wax, who engineered and co-produced the record with the band.\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eRecording close to home— at Brooklyn’s Figure 8 Studios— grounded the band, and their process was enriched by working closely with Wax, whose intuition and attention to detail made the familiar unfamiliar and allowed the band to reshape their own contexts. On opener “Moonsea,” an unaccompanied Greta begins, “The world is crumbling and I don’t have much to say.” Take that as a wink and a metonym for the whole album, as her signature vocals are joined by Alex’s ascending bassline and Lauren’s eddying synths, invoking a loungey take on Broadcast or Stereolab’s space-disco experimental pop. There’s much more than “not much” to say here, and it's augmented and expanded by experimentation with synth patches, textures, and other recording nuances courtesy of Wax.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eAs the lineup has solidified into the most permanent expression of full-band Frankie Cosmos, the bandmates have felt more comfortable deviating from their default instruments and contributing bigger-picture ideas to continue pushing the sound forward. The synergy of its creation is clear upon listening: the multiple hands dipping and re-dipping into each song form a multifaceted whole. The band’s closeness and aesthetic consistency freed its members to take more musically-formal risks, notes Luke: \"Everything will sound like Frankie Cosmos because Greta has such a distinct voice (literally and figuratively). We have so much latitude to experiment with the instrumental music, and this time around we really took advantage of that.\"\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe album forms its own vortex of reinvention that’s embodied through both the tracks themselves and the recording and arranging processes. “A Joke” curls in on itself, in word and in deed, a series of undercuts defining negative space: “It’s just a joke I wasn’t trying to tell;” “It wasn’t really a game;” “I do not know what I am for\/I wasn’t really keeping score.” Inverting technology’s human mimicry, Luke impersonates a drum machine until the song’s end. “A Joke’s” tricks scratch at something bigger, a small song embodying the laughability of attempting to neatly organize or adhere to any particular role.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“Rings of a Tree” frees itself from its original context: released earlier this year on Greta’s solo piano album Haunted Items, she didn’t initially anticipate a major deviation; then, Luke says, “Lauren and I had the same arrangement idea without talking about it. Like, ‘let’s make this song funky. Let’s channel Orange Juice.’ We texted Greta and Alex before practice and Alex came in with a new guitar part that perfectly captured what Lauren and I heard in our heads.” \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“I’m just fucking glad for my bubble\/despite how often it is penetrated by evil” Greta sings on “Last Season’s Textures,” taking to task the accusation that young people cloister themselves in complacency: she’s quick to point to, thank, and feel suspicious of that sphere all at once. The song explores the feeling of safety in her realm; reasonable despair re: reality (“the news is excruciating”); and a quick admission that darkness isn’t something a liberal-minded social network can block out. Kline notes how the song is “partly about misogyny and internalized misogyny--moments where I've felt betrayed by what is meant to be a safe space.”\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eWithout losing any intimacy of prior albums, Close it Quietly is different, is outer. The album functions as a benign doppelganger, a shadow self of past releases; where other Frankie Cosmos records shine brightest looking inward, Close it Quietly refracts the self into the world, and vice versa, miraculously echoing Thoreau’s assertion that “when I reflect, I find that there is other than me.”\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eReflection--and refraction--isn’t tidy. “Flowers don’t grow\/in an organized way\/why should I?” Greta sings on “A Joke.” Growth isn’t linear. Change happens in circles. While recording the album, Alex says, “I closed my eyes a lot.” Stand in the sun, listen to Close it Quietly, and do the same.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Frankie Cosmos","offers":[{"title":"Puppy CD","offer_id":31826621694048,"sku":"713203","price":23.2,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true},{"title":"Loser (color) LP","offer_id":31826621726816,"sku":"713200","price":18.4,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true},{"title":"LP","offer_id":31826621759584,"sku":"713201","price":18.4,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false},{"title":"CD","offer_id":31826621792352,"sku":"713202","price":9.6,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true},{"title":"Cassette","offer_id":31826621825120,"sku":"713204","price":10.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false},{"title":"Digital","offer_id":32556516376672,"sku":"713206","price":10.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0110\/1882\/9920\/products\/frankiecosmos-closeitquietly-3000_a4d8b4bd-d9e0-457f-9d60-f531ad866e3f.jpg?v=1581652484"},{"product_id":"minor-poet_the-good-news","title":"The Good News","description":"\u003cp\u003eAfter spending years writing and recording music by himself in various bedrooms and basements, Andrew Carter hit his stride with the debut Minor Poet album, And How!. Made on a creative whim with no outside expectations, the eleven-song collection combined Carter’s love of carefully-crafted pop with a loose, fun, off-the-cuff recording aesthetic. The album was released in 2017 and developed a small but loving fan base, and Minor Poet has grown from a passion project into a cross-country touring band with write-ups in publications such as American Songwriter, Magnet, The Wild Honey Pie, Impose, and more.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eMinor Poet’s second album, The Good News, is a six-song collection that expands the boundaries of what constitutes the band’s sound. In just twenty-two minutes, the songs take apart the standard formulas of guitar-based rock and infuse them with vibrance and energy. On opener “Tabula Rasa,” interlocking guitars and a Farfisa organ carry the song through until everything drops suddenly into a doo-wop section that wouldn’t be out of place on a 1950’s greatest hits compilation. Warped noise envelops a tropicalia-flavored Casio beat in “Tropic of Cancer” before a slick groove and sliding bass line lead into the chorus’ pure pop bliss of of horns and vocal harmonies. “Museum District” begins with a drum intro reminiscent of an off-kilter “Be My Baby,” and “Bit Your Tongue\/All Alone Now” features a midsection with a glam-rock guitar solo amidst trumpet fanfare. These are a just a few of the infectious moments on an EP filled with many more.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe Good News was made over four days at Montrose Recording, in Minor Poet’s hometown of Richmond, VA. In the past, Carter played all the instruments and handled all the production, but he knew he that he had to reach outside himself to do justice to these songs. “I couldn’t capture the sounds I heard in my head,” Carter explains. “I wanted something that was vast and expansive but that at the same time could hit you immediately in the gut.” Paying homage to the “wall of sound” techniques made famous by Brian Wilson and Phil Spector, Carter and co-producer Adrian Olsen (Natalie Prass, Foxygen) overdubbed layer after layer of Carter playing an array of guitars, pianos, organs, synths, and percussion, as well as singing all the harmonies. The members of Minor Poet’s touring band were brought in to perform the core rhythm section, and local musicians stopped by to add crucial flourishes, such as the harmonizing guitar riffs in “Reverse Medusa” and the saxophone solo that closes out “Nude Descending Staircase.”\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eAt the center of everything is Carter’s voice, singing lyrics that seamlessly mix allusions to religion, mythology, art, and philosophy as he questions himself, his place in the world around him, what he owes to his relationships, and, in turn, what he needs to ask of others in order to stay healthy. Tabula Rasa is a concept that argues that humans are born blank slates, shaped through experience and environment. The last two years couldn’t have felt more applicable for Carter, who started out as a fresh face with little-to-no experience in the music industry and slowly grew into himself as a stage performer and bandleader through both good and bad times. During this period he began to come to terms with lifelong struggles, such as the depression that permeates “Tropic of Cancer” and the social anxiety that runs through “Museum District.” Rather than be one-dimensional, however, Carter dives deeper into himself and his motivations, such as in “Reverse Medusa” when he sings, “Hide my love in poetic half-truths\/never was one to dwell on my issues.” Carter’s ability to balance emotional honesty with a tongue-in-cheek self awareness adds to the richness and originality of the music. Short but memorable, catchy yet meaningful, The Good News is another promising step forward for Minor Poet.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Minor Poet","offers":[{"title":"LP","offer_id":31826634080352,"sku":"712801","price":6.5,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true},{"title":"Loser (color) LP","offer_id":31826634047584,"sku":"712800","price":13.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true},{"title":"Digital","offer_id":31826634113120,"sku":"712806","price":6.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0110\/1882\/9920\/products\/minorpoet-thegoodnews-cover-3000_bfc28e17-5e53-49a0-b121-f17ef1343bc4.jpg?v=1581652605"},{"product_id":"frankie-cosmos_vessel","title":"Vessel","description":"\u003cp class=\"MsoNormal\"\u003e\u003cb\u003e*Loser edition LPs are SOLD OUT. Black vinyl shipping now. (Updated 3\/30\/18 - 1:00 PM PST)\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp class=\"MsoNormal\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eNew York-native\rsongwriter Greta Kline has shared a bounty of her innermost thoughts and\rexperiences via the massive number of songs she has released since 2011. Like\rmany of her peers, Kline’s prolific output was initially born from the ease of\rbedroom recording and self-releasing offered by digital technology and the internet.\rBut, as she’s grown as a writer and performer, devising more complex albums and\rplaying to larger audiences, Kline has begun to make her mark on modern\rindependent music. Her newest record, \u003ci\u003eVessel\u003c\/i\u003e, is the 52nd release from\rKline and the third studio album by her indie pop outfit Frankie Cosmos. On it,\rKline explores all of the changes that have come in her life as a result of the\rmusic she has shared with the world, as well as the parts of her life that have\rremained irrevocable. \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp class=\"MsoNormal\"\u003eFrankie Cosmos has taken\rseveral different shapes since their first full-band album, 2014’s \u003ci\u003eZentropy,\u003c\/i\u003e\rerupted in New York’s DIY music scene. For \u003ci\u003eVessel\u003c\/i\u003e the band’s lineup\rcomprises multi-instrumentalists David Maine, Lauren Martin, Luke Pyenson, and\rKline. The album’s 18 tracks employ a range of instrumentations and recording\rmethods not found on the band’s prior albums, while maintaining the succinctly\rsincere nature of Kline’s songwriting. The album’s opening track, “Caramelize,”\rserves as the thematic overture for \u003ci\u003eVessel\u003c\/i\u003e, alluding to topics like\rdependency, growth, and love, which reemerge throughout the record. Although\rmany of the scenarios and personalities written about on \u003ci\u003eVessel\u003c\/i\u003e are\rfamiliar territory for Frankie Cosmos, Kline brings a freshly nuanced point of\rview, and a desire to constantly question the latent meaning of her\rexperiences. Kline’s dissonant lyrics pair with the band’s driving, jangly\rgrooves to create striking moments of musical chemistry.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp class=\"MsoNormal\"\u003e\u003ci\u003eVessel’s\u003c\/i\u003e 34-minute run time is exactly double the\rlength of Frankie Cosmos’ breakout record, \u003ci\u003eZentropy\u003c\/i\u003e, and it is an\renormous leap forward. Typically, albums by artists at a similar stage in their\rcareers are written with the weight of knowing that someone is on the other end\rlistening. Yet, despite being fully aware of their ever-growing audience, Kline\rand band have written \u003ci\u003eVessel\u003c\/i\u003e with a clarity not muddled by the fear of\ranyone’s expectations. \u003ci\u003eVessel\u003c\/i\u003e’s unique\rsensibility, esoteric narratives, and reveling energy place it comfortably in\rKline’s ongoing musical auto-biography.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp class=\"MsoNormal\"\u003e\u003ci\u003eVessel\u003c\/i\u003e was recorded in Binghamton, New\rYork with Hunter Davidsohn, the producer and engineer who helped craft \u003ci\u003eZentropy\u003c\/i\u003e\rand \u003ci\u003eNext Thing\u003c\/i\u003e, and at\rGravesend Recordings in Brooklyn with Carlos Hernandez and Julian Fader.\rIt features contributions from Alex Bailey (formerly of Warehouse, and now part\rof the live configuration of Frankie Cosmos), Vishal Narang (of Airhead DC),\rand singer\/songwriter Anna McClellan, all of whom have played on bills with\rFrankie Cosmos and collaborated on-stage with the band. The final mixes were\rdone by Davidsohn, and the album was mastered by Josh Bonati.    \u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Frankie Cosmos","offers":[{"title":"LP","offer_id":31826638110816,"sku":"712151","price":18.4,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true},{"title":"CD","offer_id":31826638143584,"sku":"712152","price":9.6,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true},{"title":"Cassette","offer_id":31826638176352,"sku":"712154","price":10.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false},{"title":"Digital","offer_id":32556517458016,"sku":"712156","price":10.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0110\/1882\/9920\/products\/frankiecosmos-vessel-3000.jpg?v=1581652641"},{"product_id":"theesatisfaction_earthee","title":"EarthEE","description":"\u003cp\u003eTHEESatisfaction’s \u003ci\u003eEarthEE\u003c\/i\u003e is the follow up to \u003ci\u003eawE naturalE\u003c\/i\u003e, the alternative R\u0026amp;B group’s critically acclaimed debut album.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eLed by highlights “Recognition,” “Nature’s Candy,” and the title track, \u003ci\u003eEarthEE \u003c\/i\u003ewas recorded in Seattle and Brooklyn, and features guest appearances from \u003ca title=\"Link: http:\/\/www.subpop.com\/artists\/shabazz_palaces\" href=\"http:\/\/www.subpop.com\/artists\/shabazz_palaces\"\u003eShabazz Palaces\u003c\/a\u003e, Meshell Ndegeocello, Porter Ray and Taylor Brown. \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003ci\u003eEarthEE\u003c\/i\u003e was produced by THEESatisfaction and Erik  Blood, mixed by Blood at Protect And Exalt Studios: A Black Space and mastered by Adam Straney at BreakPoint Mastering in Seattle, WA. \u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"THEESatisfaction","offers":[{"title":"CD","offer_id":31826645352544,"sku":"710842","price":6.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true},{"title":"LP","offer_id":31826645319776,"sku":"710841","price":18.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true},{"title":"Digital","offer_id":32556523749472,"sku":"710846","price":10.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0110\/1882\/9920\/products\/theesatisfaction-earthee-900.jpg?v=1581652788"},{"product_id":"rolling-blackouts-coastal-fever_sideways-to-new-italy","title":"Sideways to New Italy","description":"\u003cp\u003eAfter enough time away from home, even the familiar starts to feel foreign. For guitar-pop five-piece Rolling Blackouts Coastal Fever, returning to Melbourne after long stretches looking out at the world through the windows of airplanes and tour vans lead to dislocation, like being the knot in the middle of a game of tug-o-war. Their second record, Sideways to New Italy (Sub Pop), sees the band interrogate their individual pasts and the places that inform them. In clicking the scattered pieces back into place, they have crafted for themselves a new totem of home to carry with them no matter where they end up.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eLead by singer-songwriter-guitarists Tom Russo, Joe White and Fran Keaney (and rounded out by bassist Joe Russo and drummer Marcel Tussie), the band began grasping for something reliable after emerging from relentlessly touring their critically regarded debut Hope Downs. \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\"I felt completely rudderless on tour,\" Keaney says. \"It’s fun but you get to a point where you’re like, Who am I anymore? You feel like you’re everywhere and nowhere at the same time. And no one in particular.\" Russo adds, \"We saw a lot of the world, which was such a privilege, but it was kind of like looking through the window at other people's lives, and then also reflecting on our own.\"\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eRather than dwell in the displacement, Keaney was determined to channel how he was feeling into something optimistic. \"I wanted to write songs that I could use as some sort of bedrock of hopefulness to stand on, something to be proud of. A lot of the songs on the new record are reaching forward and trying to imagine an idyll of home and love.\"\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe eponymous New Italy is a village near New South Wales’s Northern Rivers – the area Tussie is from. A blink-and-you'll-miss-it pit-stop of a place with fewer than 200 residents, it was founded by Venetian immigrants in the late-1800s and now serves as something of a living monument to Italians' contribution to Australia, with replica Roman statues dotted like souvenirs on the otherwise rural landscape. The parallel between these remnants of home and the band's own attempts to maintain connections and create familiarity during their disorienting time on the road were not lost on Russo. \"These are the expressions of people trying to find home somewhere alien; trying to create a utopia in a turbulent and imperfect world.\"\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eHome, for Russo, manifests in different ways: there's Melbourne, where he and brother Joe grew up, but also Southern Italy where the forebears of their family originated. As members of the band individually visited the Mediterranean and returned home to Melbourne's inner-north, where waves of European migrants forged a sense of home since the 1950s, they realized the emotional distance between the two was minuscule. The prominent and romantic Greco-Roman statues that sit outside tidy brick homes in Brunswick represent, for Russo, an attempt to \"build a utopia of where your heart’s from.\"\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe same can be said of this record, where White’s early attempts at writing big, high-concept songs were abandoned in favor of love songs (\"She's There,\" \"The Only One\"), and familiar voices and characters filter in and out, grounding the band's stories in their personal histories. On \"Second of the First\" the voice of a close friend joins White's partner in delivering a spoken word passage; the chorus from \"Cool Change\" began its life in a song the trio played in an early band, over a decade ago; the chords from \"Cameo\" were once in an eventually abandoned song called \"Hope Downs\"; an early version of \"Falling Thunder\" featured a reference that only their friends would recognize. \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan id=\"docs-internal-guid-5d23f8f6-7fff-1a28-a0d3-40c5b3a8313f\"\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\"We tried to make these little nods to our friends and loved ones, to stay loyal to our old selves,\" Russo explains. \"I think we were trying to recapture some of the innocent weirdness of our very first recordings,\" Keaney adds of the “Cool Change” chorus. \"Which I think we did.\" There’s something comforting, too, in knowing the next time they’re buffeted from stage to stage around the world, they’ll be taking the voices of their loved ones with them, building a new totem of home no matter where they end up. \u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Rolling Blackouts Coastal Fever","offers":[{"title":"LP","offer_id":32100538351712,"sku":"713601","price":10.8,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true},{"title":"Loser (color) LP","offer_id":32100538286176,"sku":"713600","price":18.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false},{"title":"CD","offer_id":32100538417248,"sku":"713602","price":12.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true},{"title":"Cassette","offer_id":32100538482784,"sku":"713604","price":10.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true},{"title":"Digital","offer_id":32100538515552,"sku":"713606","price":10.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0110\/1882\/9920\/products\/0020250254_10.jpg?v=1741202233"},{"product_id":"man-man_dream-hunting-in-the-valley-of-the-in-between","title":"Dream Hunting in the Valley of the In-Between","description":"\u003cp\u003eHonus Honus (aka Ryan Kattner) has devoted his career to exploring the uncertainty between life’s extremes: beauty and ugliness, order and chaos. The songs on Dream Hunting in the Valley of the In-Between, Man Man’s first album in over six years and his Sub Pop debut, are as intimate, soulful, and timeless as they are audaciously inventive and daring. \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe 17-track effort, featuring “Cloud Nein,” “Future Peg,” “On the Mend” “Sheela,” and “Animal Attraction,” was produced by Cyrus Ghahremani, mixed by S. Husky Höskulds (Norah Jones, Tom Waits, Mike Patton, Solomon Burke, Bettye LaVette, Allen Toussaint), and mastered by Dave Cooley (Blood Orange, M83, DIIV, Paramore, Snail Mail, clipping). Dream Hunting...also includes guest vocals from Steady Holiday’s Dre Babinski on “Future Peg” and “If Only,” and Rebecca Black (singer of the viral pop hit, “Friday”) on “On The Mend” and “Lonely Beuys.” The album follows the release of “Beached” and “Witch,“ Man Man’s contributions to Vol. 4 of the Sub Pop Singles Club in 2019. \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eAt the end of 2015, Man Man went on an unexpected and unforeseen hiatus, and thus began a period of creative reinvention for Honus. He worked in music supervision and on scores (The Exorcist, Superdeluxe, Do You Want to See a Dead Body?). He acted in the indie film Woe (“I played a park ranger, a nice guy in a sad movie.”), So It Goes, a short musical film with Mary Elizabeth Winstead, and starred in the award-winning tour documentary Use Your Delusion. He also developed an animated series, wrote film scripts, a graphic novel, a neo-noir TV pilot, and briefly penned a music column for The Talkhouse all while continuing to work on new music, such as an unreleased kids’ record, another Mister Heavenly album, a self-released Honus Honus record, and a conceptual art\/noise project Mega Naturals. He was sleeping 2.5 hours per day. \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eIn the midst of this Man Man sabbatical, Honus began piecing together what would become Dream Hunting in the Valley of the In-Between. He recruited longtime-creative collaborator Ghahremani to help him produce. Written in a friend’s LA “guesthouse” (more shack than chic) that had “an old upright piano, a thrift store lamp, and nothing else,” it was an arduous, three-and-a-half-year process, “I had chord progression notes that looked like chicken scratch and lyrics on pieces of paper stuck all over the walls. It looked like I was about to break the big case, catch the killer,” he says, laughing. “One of the best things about this time, in these ‘lost in the wilderness\/surreal exile from my own band’ years, was that I finally found players who believed in me, trusted my vision, respected my songwriting. It was rejuvenating.” \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eDream Hunting in the Valley of the In-Between opens with “Dreamers,” an ethereal instrumental that soon takes a dark turn into the 20 seconds of cacophony that introduces “Cloud Nein.” An exercise in orchestral-pop storytelling tinted by wry cynicism, it features lyrics such as, “All your dreams crash and burn, and fall to the ground. When they’re made of sweet nothings ’cause nothing sticks around.” Says Honus: “I was writing a song about someone else, but also myself, in a sense. You have to keep changing, evolving in order to survive, appreciate what you have while you have it because there are no guarantees it’ll stick around forever. AKA, life.” \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eHe would find inspiration everywhere. “If Only,” featuring feather-light vocals from Steady Holiday’s Dre Babinski, came to him in a dream. “I first heard ‘If Only’ sung in an R\u0026amp;B Jackie Wilson kind of way,” he says of the haunting piano lullaby. The glitched-out fever dream “Oyster Point'' opens with a recording of 8-year-old Honus singing to his newborn brother and named after the town where the frontman and his bandmates met someone who tried to sell them a broken bass clarinet. An ex, bitten by a goat and worried she’d contracted salmonella (true story!), inspired the off-kilter jazz narrative “Goat.” (Spoiler alert: It doesn’t end well!) In the opening seconds of “Goat” you can actually hear the first time Honus presented the song to his band —an iPhone recording of his drummer playfully teasing, in classic 80s movie tone, “Don’t fuck this up. This is a big gig,” before launching seamlessly into the studio version. “I was taking songs out under the guise of my solo band,” he explains, “so we could test the waters, see what worked live, what didn’t, and then I’d adjust accordingly. When it came time to finally record, we did everything at Cy’s studio but after a year or so of tracking, I didn’t like how ‘in the box’ and stiff everything felt so we booked out a short tour with the sole intention of rolling back and recutting everything together live in a larger studio space. In two frantic tracking days. It was crucial to me that this album feels like a band playing together in a room, communicating with each other, breathing, organic, slithery, alive.” \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThis lust for life, gloriously unhinged at times, beats strongly throughout. The “Inner Iggy,” all staccato Pinocchio Pleasure Island vibes, pays obeisance to the punk singer as a one-man tsunami. Joseph Beuys, the conceptual artist famous for cohabitating with a coyote at a gallery, stands at the center of the full-throated “Lonely Beuys.” Meanwhile, “Sheela,” a pop-fuzz update on doo-wop, is a love song to the cult attaché at the center of Wild Wild Country. “I watched that documentary, and she terrified me,” he says. “But weeks later, I couldn’t stop thinking about her. I loved how strong and powerful and determined a person she was.” The devil is in the details, which is why they affected coyote howls to honor the hell-raiser. \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“I started Man Man because I saw Holy Mountain when I was 22. It blew my mind. I had never been in a band or played music before, but I knew I needed to make songs that sounded like that movie felt,” he says. “When I was hunkering down to write, there was a lot of self-doubt, fighting the urge to throw in the towel. It was unavoidable but I had to dive headlong into these fears and twist them into something that wasn’t dominated by them. I’m not gonna lie, it fucking sucked, but it definitely forced the best album of my career out of me. Sometimes you have to tear it all down to build it back up the right way.” \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan id=\"docs-internal-guid-76c5e936-7fff-56fd-367f-02bb8dfa66b8\"\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eKattner caught the killer. He is currently sleeping 3.5 hours per day. Hope reigns. \u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Man Man","offers":[{"title":"2xLP","offer_id":32611825614944,"sku":"713501","price":16.8,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true},{"title":"Loser (color) 2xLP","offer_id":32668243853408,"sku":"713500","price":24.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false},{"title":"CD","offer_id":32611826204768,"sku":"713502","price":12.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true},{"title":"Cassette","offer_id":32100539301984,"sku":"713504","price":10.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false},{"title":"Digital","offer_id":32556520702048,"sku":"713506","price":10.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0110\/1882\/9920\/products\/manman-dhinvotib-3000.jpg?v=1587000231"},{"product_id":"shabazz-palaces_the-don-of-diamond-dreams","title":"The Don Of Diamond Dreams","description":"\u003cp\u003eCruise the city in a night ship, dressed to kill in the Seville. Float down waterfalls and fountains, reclined on some pimp shit. The time zone ghost returns to paint a picture that echoes through infinity. The sun is put to rest, the soliloquy is killer bee. A diamond purpose lying beneath the surface. Nothing is ever what it seems, but forever is the theme. It’s time. \u003ca href=\"https:\/\/megamart.subpop.com\/artists\/shabazz_palaces\"\u003eShabazz Palaces\u003c\/a\u003e are back with yet another classic of divine mathematics design. More dazzling Afrofuturist sutras to illuminate distant constellations with sacred abstractions. Enter The Don of Diamond Dreams, raw and uncut, but glowing with 10,000 karat shine. \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIf you adhere to the corporeal limitations of space and chronology, it’s been roughly a decade since Shabazz Palaces first shook the ramparts with their debut stylistic revolution, \u003ca href=\"https:\/\/megamart.subpop.com\/releases\/shabazz_palaces\/black_up\"\u003eBlack Up\u003c\/a\u003e -- which Pitchfork named as one of the Best of the 2010s, hailing it as an “album of impossible vision.” But the project masterminded by vocalist and producer Ishmael Butler (with levitational assists from multi-instrumentalist Tendai \"Baba\" Maraire) has never conformed to gravitational consideration or terrestrial measurement. They are heirs to the astral imagination of Sun Ra and George Clinton, Octavia Butler and Alice Coltrane. If they technically claim residence in Seattle, their sound emanates much closer to Alpha Centauri than Alki Beach. \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIn his unstinting drive to re-imagine hip-hop, Butler remains one of the preeminent visionaries of the last quarter-century. His first album with Digable Planets, Reachin (A New Refutation of Time and Space, nodded at Miles Davis in the first half of its title, but 27 years later, he has become one of the most vaunted inheritors of the trumpet deity’s rarefied legacy -- still innovating as he enters his fourth decade as a working musician -- splintering, rebuilding, and expanding the possibilities of sound. He has collaborated with like-minded visionaries Flying Lotus and Thundercat, Battles and Animal Collective. While all-timers like Radiohead and Lauryn Hill have invited him to join them on tour. \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIt remains impossible to accurately describe a Shabazz Palaces album without lapsing into cosmic tropes. Yet sometimes clichés are stand-ins for eternal truths. Therein, The Don of Diamond Dreams embodies a futuristic manifestation of ancient myth, full of robotic vocoder and warped auto-tune, Funkadelic refracted into different dimensions, weird portals and warm nocturnal joy rides alongside the coast (a reflection of it being mixed near the beach in California). The synthesizers are alien but the drums speak a universal language. It is hip-hop, dub, jazz, R\u0026amp;B, soul, funk, African, experimental, and occasionally even pop. But over the course of five albums, Shabazz Palaces have conceived the fluid boundaries of their own one-band genre. \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eEven though the construction of the album is meticulous, it’s a startling masterpiece of improvisation and instinct. It’s both cerebral and automatic, with Butler jotting down phrases and ideas in his phone and eventually shaping them into amorphous abstract expressionist canvasses. If anything, their latest illustrates Butler’s gift for being a conduit of sounds and experience. It’s partially shaped by his own reflection on being a parent and watching his son, Jazz, become internationally renowned as the artist, Lil Tracy. If you listen closely, you can hear the interplay between father and son, as Butler does what is impossible for most veteran artists: he absorbs the sounds of today’s youth, but filters it through his own fractured lens, spitting back convex poems with wild cadences, free-styling with the wisdom of age and the frenetic passion of someone still trying to show and prove. It’s confident and suffused with the thing that defines almost all great art: the willingness to risk attempting something new. \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThere is “Ad Ventures,” a shout out to Butler’s crew, The Black Constellation. The beat operates like a melodic free jazz hymn, with Ish boasting about Ethiopian carats and watching lakes from a theological terrace. It’s an imagistic rendering of their tours through Europe in sprinter vans, blitzing from place to place and absorbing every detail. Featuring Purple Tape Nate, “Fast Learner” offers odd splendor, spoken word reveries and flexes that wriggle through a wrinkle in time. The synthesizers sound like New Age from the 37th century crossed with 90s R\u0026amp;B, the drums are slow and seething. On top of that, Butler laid a guitar line down and auto-tune harmonies that instantiate the feeling of driving along PCH at night. \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e“Wet” is a freestyle of sorts with Ish offering his own twist on contemporary rap cadences but making it sound like an underwater Atlantis symphony. There are Based God shout-outs and fuzzy guitars that wouldn’t sound out of place on an Ariel Pink album. “Chocolate Souffle” is some god-level shit-talking in the way that only Butler could do: replete with Maurice Chevalier allusions and admissions of being an “elitist at the zenith of slick demeanor.” While “Thanking the Girls” might be the most poignant song in the Shabazz catalog, a song that acknowledges the myriad positive ways in which women have shaped Butler’s life. The second verse is dedicated to his two daughters and the pride which they engender. Of course, this is a Shabazz Palaces song so the beat sounds like a riff on Panda Bear distilled through a bent futuristic boom-bap prism. \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIn some respects, it’s difficult to consider the possibility that this might be the best Shabazz Palaces album yet. Very few musicians have ever peaked in their fifth decade on earth, but whoever said they were actually from earth? It’s wrong to say that Shabazz Palaces have gone beyond the looking glass. This time they’ve shattered it entirely and created a brilliant new universe in each one of the shards. \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eShabazz Palaces The Don of Diamond Dreams will be available April 17th, 2020 worldwide on Sub Pop. The 10-track album includes the highlights “Fast Learner (ft. Purple Tape Nate),” “Chocolate Souffle,” “Bad Bitch Walking (ft. Stas THEE Boss), and “Thanking The Girls.” It also features contributions from singer\/keyboardist Darrius Willrich, Percussionist Carlos Niño, Knife Knights collaborator OCnotes, Saxophonist Carlos Overall, and bassist Evan Flory-Barnes. \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe Don of Diamond Dreams was recorded throughout 2019 and produced by Shabazz Palaces at Protect and Exalt: A Black Space in Seattle, mixed and engineered by Erik Blood with mixing assistance from Andy Kravitz at Studio 4 Labs in Venice, California, and mastered by Scott Sedillo at Bernie Grundman Mastering in Los Angeles. \u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Shabazz Palaces","offers":[{"title":"CD","offer_id":32100539662432,"sku":"713352","price":7.2,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true},{"title":"Loser (color) LP","offer_id":32100539596896,"sku":"713350","price":23.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true},{"title":"LP","offer_id":32100539629664,"sku":"713351","price":23.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true},{"title":"Cassette","offer_id":32100539695200,"sku":"713354","price":10.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false},{"title":"Digital","offer_id":32556526469216,"sku":"713356","price":10.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0110\/1882\/9920\/products\/shabazzpalaces-thedonofdiamonddreams-cover-3600x3600.jpg?v=1587000233"},{"product_id":"sub-pop_orca-black-t-shirt","title":"Orca Black T-Shirt","description":"\u003cp\u003eA portion of the proceeds from this item will be donated to Orca Network, a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization dedicated to raising awareness of the whales of the Pacific Northwest, and the importance of providing them healthy and safe habitats.  Please visit \u003ca href=\"http:\/\/www.orcanetwork.org\/\"\u003ehttp:\/\/www.orcanetwork.org\u003c\/a\u003e to learn more about them.\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAlso available in youth sizing \u003ca href=\"https:\/\/megamart.subpop.com\/tshirts\/sub_pop\/youth_orca_black_t_shirt\"\u003ehere.\u003c\/a\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Sub Pop","offers":[{"title":"XS","offer_id":32452089151584,"sku":"131000011","price":12.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true},{"title":"S","offer_id":32452089217120,"sku":"131000012","price":12.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false},{"title":"M","offer_id":32452089315424,"sku":"131000013","price":12.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false},{"title":"L","offer_id":32452089348192,"sku":"131000014","price":12.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false},{"title":"XL","offer_id":32452089380960,"sku":"131000015","price":12.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false},{"title":"2XL","offer_id":32452089413728,"sku":"131000016","price":12.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false},{"title":"3XL","offer_id":32452089446496,"sku":"131000017","price":12.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0110\/1882\/9920\/products\/orca-adultshirt-black.jpg?v=1593631150"},{"product_id":"loma_dont-shy-away","title":"Don't Shy Away","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003c\/b\u003eOn December 26th, 2018, Emily Cross received an excited email from a friend: Brian Eno was talking about her band on BBC radio. “At first I didn’t think it was real,” she admits. But then she heard a recording: Eno was praising “Black Willow” from Loma’s \u003ca title=\"Link: https:\/\/megamart.subpop.com\/releases\/loma\/loma\" href=\"https:\/\/megamart.subpop.com\/releases\/loma\/loma\"\u003eself-titled debut\u003c\/a\u003e, a song whose minimal groove and hypnotic refrain seem as much farewell as a manifesto: I make my bed beside the road \/ I carry a diamond blade \/ I will not serve you. He said he’d had it on repeat.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eAt the time, a second Loma album seemed unlikely. The band began as a serendipitous collaboration between Cross, the multi-talented musician and recording engineer Dan Duszynski, and Shearwater frontman Jonathan Meiburg, who wanted to play a supporting role after years at the microphone. They’d capped a grueling tour with a standout performance on a packed beach at Sub Pop’s SPF 30 festival, in which Cross leapt into the crowd, and then into the sea, while the band carried on from the stage—an emotional peak that also felt like a natural ending. “It was the biggest audience we’d ever had,” she says. “We thought, why not stop here?”   \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eFollowing the tour, Cross went to rural Mexico to work on visual art and a solo record, while Meiburg began a new Shearwater effort. But after a few months apart (and Eno’s encouraging words), the trio changed their minds and reconvened at Duszynski’s home in rural Texas, where they began to develop songs that would become Don’t Shy Away. Loma writes by consensus, and though Cross is always the singer, she, Duszynski and Meiburg often trade instruments.  Meiburg compares their process to using a ouija board, and says the songs revealed themselves slowly, over many months. “Each of us is a very strong flavor,” he says, “but in Loma, nobody wears the crown, so we have to trust each other—and we end up in places none of us would have gone on our own. I think we all wanted to experience that again.” The album that emerged is gently spectacular—a vivid work whose light touch belies its timely themes of solitude, impermanence, and finding light in deep darkness. Stuck \/ beneath \/ a rock, Cross begins, as if noticing her predicament for the first time. Then she adds: I begin to see \/ the beauty in it. \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eIt’s a couplet that evokes the album in miniature. 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On their sophomoric smash-up released world-wide by Sub Pop Records, Kiwi Jr cycle through the recent zigs \u0026amp; looming zags of the new decade, squinting anew at New Year’s parties forgotten and under-investigated small town diner fires, piecing together low-stakes conspiracy theories on what’s coming down the pike in 2021. Put together like a thousand-piece puzzle, assembled in flow state through the first dull stretch of quarantine, sanitized singer shuffling to sanitized studio by streetcar, masked like it's the kind of work where getting recognized means getting killed, Cooler Returns materializes as a sprawling survey from the first few bites of the terrible twenties, an investigative exposé of recent history buried under the headlines \u0026amp; ancient kings buried under parking lots. \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eNot so long since their debut Football Money in archaeological time, unending gray eons later in the dog years of quaran-time, spiritually antipodean Canadians Kiwi Jr return to disseminate this year's annual report to the shareholders, burying the incriminating numbers in the endless appendices of a long-form narrative record, a 3,000 word tract for stakeholders to pore over. 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Throughout these crises, histories, and head games Kiwi Jr. don’t expect you to be taking notes or checking dates - and on the back nine, when “Omaha” demands proof that “Woodstock ever happened in the first place,” perhaps the freewheeling guitar groove underfoot tells us all we need to know about who’s been flipping through the festival files, air-drumming along to the complete 10-CD set. 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The lusty electro-soul cascade of “Close the Distance,” the lithe funk frolic of “Get Yourself Together,” the insistent weight of “Back in That Time,” sung in Yupik: These 11 tracks put Galanin, Ya Tseen, and Indigenous art at large in a current musical conversation with the likes of Moses Sumney and TV on the Radio, FKA Twigs and James Blake. \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIndian Yard is a profound record of liberation and an implicit act of protest, making its case by facing the intersection of past, present, and future realities. In a nod to Sun Ra, “Gently To The Sun” mentions “meds for a nightmare”—an apt description for a record that offers a much-needed antidote for what now ails us personally and universally. \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThis is not, by any means, Galanin’s first album. He has released a steady stream of records  under a panoply of aliases, including Silver Jackson and Indian Agent. 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