Indie Exclusive Releases

My Echo' is my 11th solo album. It's my 'my songs knew I was getting divorced before I did" album. My conscious mind was trying as hard as I could to keep my family together but my subconscious mind was working on the difficult struggles in my marital life. I was part of a 'Secret Poetry Group' that met and wrote poems monthly for a year during the writing of this record. Many of my poems turned into songs for this album. By the time the album was being mixed last fall, my ex-husband/producer Tucker Martine and I had decided to go our separate ways. We were a great musical team for many years but we struggled to be compatible in our marriage and family life and that struggle is reflected in this album.

"Shadow of Life" is the ten song debut album from Umbra Vitae, recorded and mixed by Kurt Ballou at God City Studios. Guitars and bass were recorded by Mike McKenzie at The Black Coast. The album was mastered by Brad Boatright atAudiosiege. Intro “Decadence Dissolves” is a Schuldiner-esque calm before the storm. “Ethereal Emptiness” and “Atheist Aesthetic” soon rip everything apart, methodically downshifting from blackened to brutal in tone. “Mantra of Madness” then emerges as a monster of a song, driven by inhuman drumming and traditional death metal riffing. This pattern of intensity continues in “Fear is a Fossil”, “Polluted Paradise”, and “Intimate Inferno”. All are motion sickness inducing numbers that violently lurch in aural agony. It’s here one realizes that this album never lets up. “Return to Zero” takes it to another level, viciously grinding as the lines “Return to zero, bite down on the chain, bow down to no one” repeat as mantra. This leads to “Blood Blossom” an amalgamation of metal ferocity and hardcore spirit that could very well be the heaviest track of them all. Infectious closer “Shadow of Life” then screams in terror as it tells the tale of the internal battle of the dark and light within us all.

The World Only Ends When You Die is a cinematic psych folk opera about someone who finds themselves incapable of coping with a new uncertain reality that followed a near death experience. Under a spell of mixed wisdom by several “trickster guides” hailing from the future, this confused person leaps back into the world of the dead only to spend a hero’s journey climbing out, returning to this strange existence of America in 2020.

Midnight Manor, the much anticipated sophomore album of the six-piece rock outfit The Nude Party is set for release on October 2nd via New West Records. Following two years of non-stop touring in support of their eponymous debut release, the band returned to their farmhouse in New York's Catskill Mountains to record the follow up to their acclaimed 2018 self-titles debut.

Like The Band's sacred home-recording habitat The Big Pink, The Nude Party's communal dwelling provided the landscape and proximity to focus on deepening their bonds through music. It was at the Manor that the band of childhood friends could shift their energies from the archetypical emotional journeys of mid-twenty-somethings towards rebuilding their road-worn relationships with one another, leading them to write Midnight Manor - an album that lead singer Patton Magee describes as "a stone skipping over troubled waters."

With Midnight Manor, The Nude Party shine a light on their past while at the same time moving towards a brighter future.

Good Luck With Whatever is Dawes at their most unapologetic. It’s sympathetic, magnetic, genetic, highly kinetic. Songs like “Didn’t Fix Me” & “Me Especially” showcase Goldsmith’s poetic prowess. An unfiltered photograph of a band doing what they do best, these guys learned to rock before they could crawl. Produced by 6X Grammy winner Dave Cobb. Curated by the band, the Indie Exclusive LP pressed on Yellow Marble 180-gram vinyl.  Includes 6x6 matte band photo + handwritten lyrics insert.

Massey Fucking Hall, the upcoming live album from Japandroids, captures the power and intensity that have made the band one of indie rock’s most beloved live acts. The Canadian duo on guitar and drums, bring a wall of sound that delivers a full dose of raw and un¬hinged emotion to sixteen fan favorites that span the band’s storied career. sonically this is Japandroids perfection, capturing the energy that has long made their live shows so electrifying; performed at the legendary Massey Hall in Toronto.

Indiana’s Hoops released their critically-acclaimed debut album Routines in 2017, and, soon after, announced an indefinite hiatus. The trio - friends, singers, and multi-instrumentalists Drew Auscherman, Kevin Krauter and Keagan Beresford - had been making music together for almost half of their lives, but the band had begun to feel more like a burden than an outlet, so they decided to call it quits. “I think we had lost a lot of steam,” explains Krauter. “Hoops wasn’t moving forward organically. It was being dragged along.” Following a short but necessary break, during which the band had the opportunity to explore their own creative endeavors, Hoops have reunited and announce their incredible sophomore album today. Recorded at Bloomington’s Russian Studio, the studio that had been home to L’il Bub (RIP), and produced by the band’s friend Ben Lumsdaine, Halo is an album defined by musical exuberance, full of gratitude and generosity, and, simply, sounds like a lively conversation amongst close friends.

With his wonderful new album Stardust, Luka Kuplowsky makes a refreshing argument for the relevance of acoustic music as a place to hold thought; an open space to place impeccably chosen words, ideas, and images. A young songwriter with a calm, conversational delivery and an effortless, un-showy grasp of poetry; Kuplowsky humbly picks up the same threads of inquiry that did Cohen, asking the big questions about love, meaning, and consciousness. Musically, Stardust triangulates between Hejira and Late for the Sky, finding connections between the purity of simple melody and the tangled modulations of jazz. Luka Kuplowsky makes a music of contemplation, a music alive to the everyday possibilities of epiphany and revelation, an unhurried music that moves with the gentle and curving rhythms of thought. - Tamara Lindeman (The Weather Station)

Single LP pressed on white, black, blue 3-color stripes color vinyl in same packaging as standard LP. Includes coupon for full download

An explosive album of pain, rage and fear with some of the most direct and confrontational lyrics of his four-decade career. According to Bob, “This is the catchiest batch of protest songs I’ve ever written in one sitting.”

In the five years since Will Butler released his debut album, Policy, he’s toured the world both solo and as a member of Arcade Fire, released the Friday Night live album, recorded and released Arcade Fire’s international #1 album Everything Now, earned his master’s degree in public policy from Harvard, hosted a series of touring town halls on local issues (police contracts, prison reform, municipal paid sick leave, voting rights), and spent time raising his three children. 

He also found the time and inspiration to write and record a new album, Generations.

“My first record, Policy, was a book of short stories,” Butler says. “Generations is more of a novel—despairing, funny, a little bit epic… A big chunk of this record is asking: What’s my place in American history? What’s my place in America’s present? Both in general—as a participant, as we all are, in the shit that’s going down—but, also extremely particularly: me as Will Butler, rich person, white person, Mormon, Yankee, parent, musician of some sort, I guess. What do I do? What can I do? The record asks that question over and over, even if it’s not much for answers.”

While the songs on Generations contain their fair share of dread and regret, there is ultimately a lightness that shines through Butler’s music. That brightness is at its most intense when he and his solo band—Miles Francis, Sara Dobbs, and Julie and Jenny Shore—perform on stage. Their electricity is palpable throughout Generations, with the bulk of the new songs having been worked out live. Wild synth production—gnarly bass synths with live drums—and anthemic backing vocals as on first single “Surrender” are punctuated by intimate, direct moments: Butler’s voice cracking on “Fine” as he conjures his ancestors, and “Promised,” a meditation on friendship, how lives are built together, and how and why they drift apart.

Generations was recorded and produced by Butler in the basement of his home in Brooklyn. Tracking finished in March 2020, as New York closed down for the pandemic. Half the record was mixed in Montreal by longtime Arcade Fire engineer Mark Lawson, the other half by Brooklyn-based producer Shiftee (who is, incidentally, bandmate Julie Shore’s husband and Will’s brother-in-law).

Generations opens a dialogue with the world. It posits answers—and deals with those answers being refuted. Ultimately, it navigates the conversation as a way to find the truth… or at least a way forward.

Bright Light Bright Light is singer, songwriter, producer and DJ born in Wales, living in NYC and obsessed with pop culture, particularly from the 80s and 90s. Over the course of his 3 commercially released albums he's toured with Cher, Ellie Goulding and John Grant, and toured AND recorded with Sir Elton John, Scissor Sisters and Erasure. He's an avid record collector, DJing pop obscurities he finds on his vinyl treasure hunts at his weekly DJ sets (online on Twitch.tv/brightlightx2 at the moment) that have been praised by Time Out NY. Equally inspired by 80s/90s movies and artists like Kate Bush, Björk, Ace Of Base, Max Richter and Pointer Sisters, he's a music geek at heart, and a renowned artist on stage, currently the first and only unsigned (he runs his own label) artist to perform on Graham Norton's BBC One TV Show.  

“The phrase sticking in my mind when I started thinking about the lyrical direction for this album was “the other”. You could recognise at the time that there was a rapidly growing fear and paranoia being generated about everybody, from migrating people to people with fluid sexuality and this was starting to manifest itself in very antagonistic reactions that you felt were almost verging on violence. Not everybody resorts to such reactions of course, but even the basic lack of understanding can become toxic over time. I’m not saying that this is an entirely new phenomenon, but it has been stoked in recent history by some particularly attack-minded people in more political circles and, as ever, I felt that it would be the natural antidote to endorse basic humanity and solidarity with all.

The artwork specifically uses a white dove as a centrepiece, which of course is a commonly recognised symbol of peace and cooperation. The dove has been mauled very violently by a sterilising hand and in death appears particularly broken and bloodied. However, through the violence you can see an equality symbol in blood on the chest of the dove, which perhaps demonstrates – visually at least – that equality cuts through in the end. A positive amidst many negatives then, much like the album title itself being a bit of an oxymoron – the celebration of humanity even in the mangling jaws of negativity."

The whole story could’ve been written in the stars…

Astrology tells us a “Saturn Return” happens when the planet Saturn revolves back to the same position it held upon our birth. It typically takes almost thirty years. However, in the case of Delta Spirit, it took a little less than fifteen. The enduring California rock quintet—Matthew Logan Vasquez [vocals], Kelly Winrich [multi-instrumentalist, vocals], Will McLaren [guitar], Jon Jameson [bass], and Brandon Young [drums]—realign on their fifth full-length and first album since 2014, What Is There. As much as it reflects their journey thus far, it also ushers them into new territory as both musicians and, most importantly, friends. In the end, Delta Spirit not only return, but move forward together on What Is There.

ALL THEM WITCHES have built a career out of playing music that can not be pigeonholed into one specific genre. NOTHING AS THE IDEAL was recorded in Studio 2 at the world famous Abbey Road with the help of longtime mixing engineer Mikey Allred. The history and vibe of that setting laid the groundwork for what was to come. The band’s signature psychedelic blues riffs, relentless drums, melodic bass lines and non-linear lyrics are all present. The resulting album is a thought provoking head banger that is the band’s most cohesive album to date.

Zakk Sabbath is the Black Sabbath tribute band featuring guitarist/vocalist Zakk Wylde (Black Label Society, Ozzy Osbourne), bassist Blasko (Ozzy Osbourne, Rob Zombie) and drummer Joey Castillo (Danzig, Queens of the Stone Age), who have been constantly gigging since 2014 with their take on the Birmingham four's early songs. Legendarily recorded in a single day in October 1969, Black Sabbath's self-titled debut was released on a Friday the 13th in 1970, and the world was never the same. "We recorded a live EP and were wondering what we could do next as a cover band, so the 50th album anniversary came just at the right time", explains Blasko regarding Zakk Sabbath's decision to go studio. "Compared to 'Paranoid', which is almost like a best-of record, the bulk of the material on 'Black Sabbath' is deep-cut, really experimental stuff that was never thoroughly explored, so that was a challenge, not to forget that we wanted to meet our own high standards." Describing the DIY process as "very productive," the three respectfully added their own flair to make for a slightly different flavor, also revisiting various live renditions and "extending a solo here or slowing things down because that's what they tended to do on stage." Titled "Vertigo", Zakk Sabbath's ode to the masters won't be available digitally, "to make the release feel authentic to the time when vinyl ruled the earth. It was such a cool time for those of us that grew up during that time. The fan experience with the physical product is irreplaceable with digital and streaming. We wanted to capture that authenticity." The songs were faithfully recorded in the spirit of the original - live in the studio and with a film crew documenting the process - culminating in a new celebration of the greatest heavy metal band of all time and the record that started it all. Gatefold LP incl. Padded inner sleeve and special vinyl mastering, ltd. Yellow Vinyl

“I dug myself out from the well to make Closeness a record about love”, professes Devin Tuel. “When I sat down to begin what would become Closeness I felt that above all, I wanted to make it clear that, while the clock is moving, we can hold onto one another and maybe there will be tears but there will also be laughter.”

Closeness, the fourth LP from Pennsylvania’s Native Harrow, elaborates on the duo’s radiant warmth and timeless nostalgia with the inclusion of new sounds and experiences. The combustible fuzz-driven opener “Shake” gives way to slices of 70s FM groove (“The Dying of Ages” and the desert funk of “If I Could”), 60s art pop (“Even Peace” and the expansive orchestral “Sun Queen”), and the kind of graceful folk (“Smoke Burns”) and folk soul (the compassionate conviction of “Carry On”) the band is best known for. The intricate polyrhythms and grinding Moog synthesizer (“Same Every Time”), the fully realized vintage jazz combo (“Turn Turn”), and the exquisite piano ballad (the penultimate “Feeling Blue”) provide glimpses down previously unexplored streets and find the band stretching out and confidently illuminating their expansive aspirations.

B Is for B-sides is a 12-track album by Less Than Jake. It is composed of songs recorded for the album Anthem that did not make the release. The album was released on July 20, 2004 by Sire Records. Less Than Jake's 2003 effort Anthem was its hookiest to date. But its explosive production and energizing pop-punk/ska dynamics were guided by sobering reality. The bent toward telling the kids just where the weekends end made Anthem way more resonant than your average album in the genre, and marked the emergence of LTJ as, well, a veteran act. B Is for B-Sides backs that up. Any gaggle of greenhorn punk revivalists or would-be third-wave enthusiasts would kill to write even one of these tracks, but in Less Than Jake's world, they're just the unused portions of the Anthem sessions, put out on a record for their faithful bunch o' fans. There's even a T-shirt for the first 10,000 customers, and seven awesome illustrations by artist Jeremy Fish. Now, the music. "Portrait of a Cigarette Smoker" tingles with ragged energy and chirping horns, harking to the heyday of the Mighty Mighty Bosstones; "Last Rites to Sleepless Nights" is a rapid-fire, poppy hardcore prayer; and "Goodbye in Gasoline" is the most rousing suicide song you'll ever hear. Some might say Less Than Jake only has one or two gears, and some might be right.

COLOR LP: S&M2, the live set from Metallica & The San Francisco Symphony is the concert event of the year! S&M2 features 20 songs (over 2.5 hours of music) from the two-night event that opened San Francisco’s new Chase Center, with many Metallica fan favorites and 2 unique classical songs chosen by San Francisco Symphony Musical Director Michael Tilson Thomas. S&M2 has newly re-mixed and remastered audio for a whole new sound from the original theatrical run in October 2019. Four marbled orange LPs with a 16-page 12x12 booklet featuring photos by Anton Cobijn. Download card included. Exclusive to independent retail and Metallica.com.

Metallica and San Francisco Symphony’s September 6 & 8, 2019 S&M2 concerts were historic on multiple levels: They served as the grand opening of San Francisco’s Chase Center, reunited the band and Symphony for the first time since the 1999 performances captured on the Grammy-winning S&M album, and featured the first-ever symphonic renditions of songs written and released since those original S&M shows.

The sold out shows were rapturously received by the 40,000 fans who traveled from nearly 70 countries, as well as the media: Rolling Stone raved “the group proved that anything was possible,” Variety noted an atmosphere “buzzing with excitement,” while the Mercury News witnessed "a concert that fans will be talking about for decades to come,” and Consequence of Sound hailed "a true celebration of Metallica and their musical prowess.”

Limited to 3,000 copies (Merlot-Wave vinyl)

The Waterfall II completes The Waterfall, My Morning Jacket’s acclaimed 2015 record. Originally intended to be a sprawling triple album, the band were advised to hold back and keep some of it on the shelf. Until now! Frontman Jim James says, "this is simply the second half of a long snapshot of life for me as a writer in the years leading up to 2014, and the life of us as a band as we lived and worked in the epic country in and around Stinson Beach, CA during these recording sessions."

“I allowed myself to support a narrative I thought I had to support of PVRIS being a band,” Lynn confesses. “I didn’t really have a role model for this. Coming from a ‘band culture,’ it’s about how the group is always greater than the sum of its parts, and you’re not supposed to take credit, even if you do everything. There’s no template or role model for really owning it as a woman. I wanted to make everyone else happy and uphold an image I thought we had to. Growing up, I learned I don’t have to do that anymore. I’m finally allowing myself to take credit. I’ve got the full support and encouragement of my bandmates. PVRIS is a unit and very much a team, but the heart and soul of the vision and music always has sourced from me. I’m just saying it now. I fulfilled my own vision of what a role model should be.”

Writing and recording all of 2019, she found the perfect collaborator to bring this to life in JT Daly [K. Flay]. With Lynn writing, cooking up beats, playing guitar, drums, and bass, and singing, he amplified and augmented her vision and versatility in the studio. PVRIS set the foundation for the new era with recent EP, Hallucinations, spawning lead single and title track “Hallucinations,” which clocked 10 million total streams in a few months’ time, as well as fan favorites, “Old Wounds” and “Death of Me.”

52 page hardbound foil stamped coffee table book with 2 LPs (pressed on electric blue vinyl), handwritten lyrics and over 20 previously unseen photographs.

When Elliott Smith's self-titled second album came out in 1995, it was ignored by the press but championed by artists from the Beastie Boys to Fugazi. To commemorate the twenty-fifth anniversary of Elliott Smith, the Kill Rock Stars label is releasing a special deluxe package, which includes a new remastering of the original record; a coffee table book of previously unseen photographs by JJ Gonson with handwritten lyrics, reminiscences from Smith's friends and colleagues, and previously unseen photographs; and a bonus disc documenting the earliest known recording of Smith performing as a solo act. The set is a revelatory look at an under-appreciated work by an artist whose influence continues to expand seventeen years after his death.

A celebration of the glam rock androgynous wizardry of Marc Bolan and T. Rex, featuring contributions from an all-star line-up including U2 and Elton John, Kesha, Nick Cave, Joan Jett, Father John Misty, Devendra Banhart, Lucinda Williams, Beth Orton, and many others, AngelHeaded Hipster was lovingly created by the late Hal Willner, who passed away April 7 from COVID-19. The acclaimed music producer, who “for nearly four decades bent and shaped the dimensions of almost-popular music” (New York Times), produced albums for artists including Lou Reed, Marianne Faithfull and William S. Burroughs, and concept albums drawing upon the music of Thelonious Monk, Kurt Weill, vintage Disney films and others.

Singer-songwriters have been tackling existential questions about life and death since time immemorial' or at least the 1960s. But when it came to Blitzen Trapper's newest album, Holy Smokes Future Jokes, front man Eric Earley looked beyond mere existence - or even the end of it - to contend with grander cosmic explorations: namely, the intermediate period between a person's separate lives on earth, "and what it means to escape the cycle of birth and rebirth," he explains. Inspired by George Saunders' 2017 experimental tome, Lincoln in the Bardo and the Tibetan Book of the Dead, Earley's lyrics take the listener on a wild and dramatic journey through rivers of waist-high water in the aftermath of a tragic car wreck and the hazy morning before a murderous moment, and from getting blitzed to the point of extinction inside a masonic temple to a stop for chips and dip before the apocalypse.

The Third Gleam marks a return to the Avett Brothers’ roots, both sonically and with Seth & Scott playing as a trio with longtime bassist Bob Crawford. The eight tracks capture their personal experiences and perspectives on undeniably timely, universal themes: isolation, gun violence, incarceration, historical prejudice, mortality, resilience, love, hope, redemption. 12 years in the making, this is the third installment of the brothers’ ongoing Gleam series.

With his sophomore album Shape & Destroy, Nashville-based artist Ruston Kelly now documents his experience in maintaining sobriety, and finally facing the demons that led him to drug abuse in the first place. But while Kelly recounts that journey with an unvarnished honesty, his grace and conviction as an artist ultimately turn Shape & Destroy into a work of unlikely transcendence. Indie LP includes an exclusive 8x10 glossy photo Insert; die-cut outer jacket, mirror board with gold print inner sleeve.

GRAMMY®-nominated U.K. duo Disclosure will release their new album, ENERGY on the August 28th. A spectrum of talented artists are featured; Common, Kelis, Kehlani & Syd, Aminé, slowthai and more. The duo has worked diligently to use environmentally responsible products by focusing on recycled and sustainable materials across all formats. Indie Limited-Edition 2LP on clear 180-gram vinyl. Recycled/FSC packaging mix with printed inner bag, sugarcane wrap. Includes download card.

From the prairies of Saskatchewan, Canada and recently seen on Austin City Limits, Colter Wall sings songs of the great West. Heralded by icon Steve Earle and touted as a favorite of celebrity Jason Mamoa, the music of Colter Wall has graced the silver screen many times, in films such as Peanut Butter Falcon, Hell or High Water, Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, MO and Deadwood. Characterized by his distinct, gritty baritone, Colter Wall’s career has been marked with critical praise from his breakout EP, Imaginary Appalachia to his debut and sophomore records produced by Dave Cobb. Whether headlining music festivals in Norway, or playing legendary stages like Newport Folk Festival, Colter Wall continues to garner attention from the world. On his third full-length release, fans will hear Colter Wall in the producer’s chair.

Their most ambitious and powerful record to date- feat artwork by the legendary Dan Seagrave and production by Christian Donaldson. 'Where Only Gods May Tread', is the follow up to the critically acclaimed 'The Level Above Human.' Ten tracks, the like of which you have never witnessed, this is a turning point in the Ingested's career. Blistering speed, crushing hooks, dark melodies and of course the signature ten ton slams, Throw in some incredible guest appearances from the Crowbar/Down Riff Lord himself, Kirk Windstein + The Acacia Strain's Vincent Bennett and Kublai Khan's Matt Honeycutt...'Where Only Gods May Tread' is the quintessential album for any fan of extreme music.