NEW RELEASES / NEW RE-ISSUES
David Byrne & St. Vincent: Love This Giant
Dan Deacon: America
Matthew Dear: Beams
The Raveonettes: Observator
The xx: Coexist
Wild Nothing: Nocturne

NEW ARRIVALS / BACK IN STOCK
Antlers: Hospice
American Football: s/t
Chromatics: Kill For Love
Descendents: Milo Goes to College
The Mummies: Tales from the Crypt
Gabor Szabo: Jazz Raga
Patrick Watson: Adventures in Your Own Backyard
*plus many more

FEATURED VINTAGE ARRIVALS
The B-52’s: Do Somersaults
Brian Eno: Discreet Music
Cowboy Junkies: The Trinity Session
Fairport Convention: s/t
Boris Gardiner Happening: Sledgehammer
Billie Holiday: Stormy Blues
Eddie Hooper: My Life, My Music and Me
Honey Boy: Lovers
Joni Mitchell: Blue (VG+)
Joy Division: Closer
Byron Lee & the Dragonaires: Reggae with Byron Lee & the Dragonaires
Byron Lee & the Dragonaires: Disco Reggae
Byron Lee & the Dragonaires: Reggay Blast Off!
Nirvana: Heart Shaped Box (12”)
Phil Ochs: Pleasures of the Harbor
Pink Floyd: Animals, Meddle, Dark Side of the Moon, The Wall (VG+)
The Sisters of Mercy: First and Last and Always
The Smiths: How Soon is Now (12” UK Rough Trade)
Neil Young: Time Fades Away
Neil Young: Tonight’s the Night (Insert & Poster VG+)
*plus many more

COMING SOON… (RE-STOCKS AND RELEASES)
Alvarius B: s/t (2LP)
Syd Barrett: The Madcap Laughs
Black Ace: s/t
Willie Dixon: I Am the Blues
Bob Dylan: Tempest
Jens Lekman: I Know What Love Isn’t
Flying Lotus: Until the Quiet Comes
Grizzly Bear: Shields
Fela Ransome Kuti & His Koola Lobitos: s/t
Lightnin’ Hopkins: Texas Blues Man
Propagandhi: Failed States
The Sea and Cake: Runner
R. Stevie Moore: Hearing Aid (2LP)
Sun Ra & His Blue Universe Arkestra: Universe In Blue
Thee Oh Sees: Putrifiers II
Muddy Waters: Sail On
Sonny Boy Williamson: Down and Out Blues
Big Joe Williams: Tough Times
*plus many more

STAFF PICK OF THE WEEK

Neil Young: Time Fades Away
My pick this week is a vintage arrival that is just too good not to mention. “Time Fades Away” came out in 1973, just over a year after the massive “Harvest”. Though it features much of the same band as Harvest, “Time” is a far more ragged effort. For one, it’s a live recording from Neil’s ‘73 tour, a tour that commenced almost immediately after the death of Crazy Horse guitarist Danny Whitten. Though Neil is typically one to champion his most vulnerable and raw recordings, “Time” has never been given the reissue treatment. It’s a shame too, given the strength of the material.

Dig it,
Dennis

FEATURED NEW ARRIVALS / RE-STOCKS
Matthew Dear: Beams (2LP - Ghostly International)
While the album’s dancefloor-ready tempos, major keys, & sunwarmed synths signal “Beams” as the lighter, brighter response to its predecessor, Dear’s latest productions creak and groan like anxious organisms, with slivers of guitar, electric bass, and drum kit darting in and out among the synths & samples. His lyrics, meanwhile, are deeply personal, expressing vulnerability & confusion in startlingly immediate ways.

Gabor Szabo: Jazz Raga (Light in the Attic)
Jazz Raga, recorded in August of 1966, and released in early 1967, is Hungarian jazz guitarist Gabor Szabo’s third album for Impulse!, and his most exotic and mysterious. Szabo not only played guitar on the live-to-two-track sessions, he also overdubbed sitar on nine of the album’s eleven cuts. Produced by Bob Thiele and engineered by Rudy Van Gelder, it combines Szabo’s singular guitar sound (equally influenced by West Coast jazz, Hungarian gypsy folk songs, and Indian music — which he began studying as early as 1961), as he fronts a rhythm section of drummer Bernard Purdie and upright bassist Jack Gregg on nearly half of the album with an expanded lineup that also included electric bassist Bob Bushnell on the rest. On what has now become Szabo’s signature tune, “Mizrab” (perhaps the first truly psychedelic jazz composition) Ed Shaugnessy was added on tablas. Musically, Jazz Raga dwells in the no man’s lands between jazz, psych rock, Indian, and Eastern European music. Its track selection includes two standards — “Caravan” and “Summertime” — a smoking cover of the Rolling Stones’ “Paint It Black,” and eight Szabo originals. While some of the titles, like “Search for Nirvana,” “Raga Doll,” and “Krishna” seem dated, they don’t taint the power of the music. — All Music Guide

The xx: Coexist (Young Turks)
The xx follow up their 2009 self-titled, Mercury Prize-winning debut album, with “Coexist”. In 2009 the south London trio’s debut, quietly made at night over the course of two years, bled steadily into the public consciousness to become shorthand for newly refined ideas of teenage desire and anxiety. Articulated with a maturity beyond their years, it’s hallmarks were restraint and ambiguity. In the age of the over-share, ‘XX’ was pop with its privacy settings on max. Three years later, Romy Madley Croft, Oliver Sim and Jamie Smith are back with a new album, and a new perspective. Where XX lent in close to whisper in your ear, “Coexist” gazes warmly in your eyes. Much has happened to lead to this point: most pertinently, they’ve grown up.
*write-ups from June staff and various web sources.