After months of waiting, the official DEAL01 release of Kim Deal‘s solo material (Walking With A Killer b/w Dirty Hessians) is available for pre-order — pre-orders will begin shipping this week!
Gotta Groove Records
The Artist's Preferred Pressing Plant.
Record Highlight — A Great Big Pile of Leaves
Brooklyn-based trio, A Great Big Pile of Leaves got their start in 2007 when guitarist/singer Peter Weiland and drummer Tyler Soucy took time from their prior projects to start writing material of their own. You’re Always On My Mind is the band’s second full length and was recorded with Ed Ackerson (Limbeck, Motion City Soundtrack, Polara, The Replacements) and mastered by Roger Seibel (Deathcab for Cutie, Andrew Bird, Bon Iver). Pre-order it now! (release date is July 2)
Record Highlight — Alto!
ALTO!, based in Portland, is a strongly rhythm-oriented band; dual drummers vary between synched-up pounding and subtly shifiting polyrhythms, while the guitar often functions as another percussion instrument. ALTO! draws strong inspiration from Congotronics bands such as Konono #1, the psychedelic explorations of later-period Boredoms, and avant-garde rock bands such as Sun City Girls. Their debut LP brings all of these elements together into a dizzying array of sound. This edition of 300 is available now on Raheem Records.
Record Highlight — Tiny Moving Parts
Tiny Moving Parts is a family band from Minnesota. Their new LP – The Couch Is Long & Full of Friendship will be available very soon….so stay tuned!
Motel Glory is rock and roll with an “ex-members-of” genealogy that goes back to Clinton’s first term. They play clubs, bars, dives, houses, prisons, and forests. They want to be your friend. The new album Weekend Treasures & Monday’s Trash is out — Buy it now!
Record Highlight — Green Dreams
Coming very soon from Carbon Records – Green Dreams Sweat EP shipped out last week — you can check out this new track from the EP now!
Record Highlight — Mikael Jorgensen & Greg O’Keeffe
Born in suburban New Jersey to Scandinavian immigrant parents, Mikael Jorgensen developed a fascination with music and its production while accompanying his father Joe, an accomplished New York recording engineer, to recording studios in NYC at age 7. From this technology-rich childhood, Mikael went on to gain formal education ranging from fine arts and video to electronics and computer science, a combination that now forms the core of his creative endeavors as a master of modern-digital and retro-analog production.
Throughout this time, Mikael has been collaborating with a number of other musicians and producers, including his long-term musical partner, Greg O’Keeffe. Their 2009 album All is Golden – released under the moniker Pronto – led to a unique second album, Bunny Hates Wolf.
After listening to the basic live tracks, Jorgensen began to abandon the guitars, bass and vocals and replace them with vintage analog synthesizers, software samplers and music technology of any variety. At first just a few replacements accentuated the production, but eventually Jorgensen and O’Keefe would replace everything but the live drums. This labor intensive shift has produced one of the most interesting electronic music records in recent memory, one that artfully avoids the “clubby” and “dancey” and “ambient” cliches to cast its own sonic territory that spans playfully sinister grooves, euphoric 8-bit blossoms and quiet introspection.
Toward the end of production, Jorgensen noticed an article about producer/engineer Allen Farmelo’s retro-futuristic mixing console, and the two were soon into a long-term mixing collaboration for the Jorgensen-O’Keefe album. Mixing cemented Mikael and Allen’s relationship and eventually led to Butterscotch Records (founded by Farmelo) signing Jorgensen.
Available now as a limited pre-sale at the Solid Sound Festival, the record will be officially released in late September. Released by Butterscotch Records.
Record Highlight — Overseas
Overseas is David Bazan, Will Johnson, Matt Kadane, and Bubba Kadane. The self-titled debut album is a dreamy waltz of foreboding and reconciliation, a coin flipping head over tails in spotlight slow motion, landing briefly on its edge before accepting that it’s both sides at once if it’s anything at all. Written, performed, and produced by Overseas, the album is available for pre-order now – every order receives a digital copy instantly.
Record Highlight — Big Blood
Radio Valkyrie 1905-1917 is only the second proper full-length LP by this Portland Maine-based duo, although there are vast arrays of CDRS and split releases littering their wake. After spending time with both the cosmically-shifting Cerberus Shoals and the folkily psychedelic Fire on Fire, Caleb Mukerin and Colleen Kinsella decided to opt for something more personal and hermetic. Thus, we have Big Blood. The band’s multi-phasic discography has thus far reminded people of everything from the Parson Sound to Opal to Portishead at different moments, yet none of these thumbnails comes close to capturing the elegant mystery of their essence. Sometime electric guitar lines weevil hauntingly in the aether while acoustics strum quietly up front. At other points, muted chimes of freedom push against vocals and cloppety rhythms that recall White Noise’s “Making Love Without Sound”. Still others vibe early Comus or The Third Ear Band. Available from Feeding Tube Records now.
Record Highlight — The Margots
The Margots (featuring John D. on guitar and Adrienne P. on vocals) will be hosting a listening party at the Palm Tavern (Milwaukee, WI) on Tuesday, June 11th at 9pm. Tim Daisy (drums) and Ken Vandermark (reeds) will also be present. Their new album Pescado will be shipping soon from Okka Disk!
