Music Releases 11-17-23
My Love Is Your Love is a testament to Houston’s place in history as one of the greatest vocalists ever and is now available on 2LP vinyl featuring a new essay by Wyclef Jean, photos, lyrics, and fan testimonials. Celebrate the 25th anniversary of Whitney Houston’s 4x Platinum album My Love Is Your Love, originally released worldwide on November 17th, 1998. Her first studio album in eight years, Houston re-emerged with this remarkable work, graced by her transcendent talents and a prestigious ensemble of musicians. The vibrant sonic landscape interweaves sentiments of love, faith, and ardor with emotional integrity in every note, featuring the hit songs "Heartbreak Hotel," "It's Not Right But It's Okay" and the title track.
Available for the first time on vinyl, Whitney Houston's The Preacher's Wife: Original Soundtrack Album is the best-selling gospel album of all time. Released on November 26, 1996, the album features songs performed and produced by Houston, who also starred in the film. From the moment you press play, your heart will move to soul-stirring vocals like the hauntingly beautiful "I Believe In You and Me," and the spiritual "Joy To The World," "I Love The Lord," and "Step By Step." The album features guest artists including Shirley Caesar, the Georgia Mass Choir, and Houston's mother, the legendary Cissy Houston. This 2LP vinyl features a new essay by producer Mervyn Warren and fan testimonials of love.
Whitney Houston's third studio album, I'm Your Baby Tonight, is now available on a single LP vinyl edition. Houston served as executive producer for the first time on this 4x Platinum album, originally released on November 6th, 1990. In addition to working with previous producers Narada Michael Walden and Michael Masser, she also worked with the production team of L.A. Reid and Babyface, as well as Luther Vandross, and recorded a duet with Stevie Wonder. Houston also produced the closing song "I'm Knockin'" with her tour music director Rickey Minor. This new vinyl edition features a new essay by Kenneth "Babyface" Edmonds, photos, lyrics, and fan testimonials.
Following the release of the critically acclaimed Random Access Memories 10th Anniversary Edition earlier this year, this new iteration of the GRAMMY-award winning Album of the Year strips away all drum and percussive elements from the album, giving listeners the ability to dive deeper into the layers of instrumentation on each track. 2LP vinyl gatefold package with an 8 page booklet.
The Love Movement is the fifth studio album by A Tribe Called Quest. Originally released on September 29, 1998, by Jive Records, it is a concept album exploring the lyrical theme of love containing 15 album tracks and 6 bonus tracks over 3-LPs. The album features the singles “Find A Way” and “Hot Sex” and has been certified Gold by the RIAA.
Milli Vanilli had a host of global hits, including three #1s on the Billboard Hot 100. This 35th anniversary collection contains 17 tracks including their first major single "Girl, You Know It's True" which raced up the pop charts to number two, along with the next three singles -- "Baby Don't Forget My Number," the ballad "Girl, I'm Gonna Miss You," and the Diane Warren-penned "Blame It on the Rain"-- that all hit number one.
Bill Evans Trio
Sunday At The Village Vanguard: Original Jazz Classics Series [LP]
The surprise companion to The National’s April release First Two Pages of Frankenstein, Laugh Track is the band’s most freewheeling, all-hands-on-deck album in years. If Frankenstein represented a rebuilding of trust between group members after 20+ years together, the vibrant, exploratory Laugh Track is both the product of that faith and a new statement of intent. Reveling in the license to radically upend its creative process, The National honed most of this material in live performances on tour, and captured those invigorated versions in impromptu sessions at producer Tucker Martine’s Portland studio. Two nights later in Vancouver, the nearly eight-minute album closer “Smoke Detector” was recorded during soundcheck, completing a body of work bristling with spontaneity and vintage rock energy that makes a perfect complement to the songs found on its more introspective predecessor.
“The revelation that you didn’t need formal training to start a band in 1977 and the realization that you don’t need to be Merce Cunningham to dance are one and the same.” - Ryan Schreiber, Pitchfork, 2003
47 minutes. Two sides. A single spine jacket. Confident and deliberate. Lightning in a bottle. The Rapture’s Echoes was and is a clear-eyed kick in the teeth, a band at the peak of their powers and producers with an ambitious vision making. a. point.
The whole “indie crowd finally learns to dance” narrative is overwrought and irrelevant in 2023 - perhaps context is no longer king - but what remains clear is that this album, made by a San Diego punk band who had moved to New York via Seattle, and produced by the DFA in their own studio, where time and gear and ideas both good and bad were aplenty, maintains an energy and search for catharsis that could bulldoze even the most uptight.
For whatever reason, it’s remained out of print on vinyl since its initial run. (Don’t worry, though, there were a lot of CDR promos lying around.) And now, with minimal pageantry, it’s back.
The Polyphonic Spree
Salvage Enterprise [Indie Exclusive Limited Edition Lemon LP]
Vinyl: $25.99 Buy
Unknown Mortal Orchestra came to life in basements and bedrooms, the musical vision of Portlander-via-New Zealand Ruban Nielson that fused guitar-god riffs, choppy percussion, soul and funk. II, the sophomore album from UMO, emerged in an era rampant hedonism and isolationism and became the blueprint for everything Nielson has become renowned for. It was, and is, the solidification of Unknown Mortal Orchestra as an endlessly intriguing, brave and addictive band. Ten years on, it’s back with an expanded edition.
Written during a punishing, debauched touring schedule during which Nielson feared for both his sanity and health, II illustrates the emotional turmoil of life on the road, painting surrealist, cartoonish portraits of loneliness, love and despair. These conflicting themes are evident immediately; on the album’s sleeve is an unnerving image of Janet Farrar, the famous British witch, Wiccan, author and teacher of witchcraft. The chilling refrain of opener “Into The Sun” sees Nielson deliver the line “Isolation can put a gun in your hand,” softly, his words starkly intelligible above a warm, slow-burning melody that quickly brands itself onto your brain. His playful imagery (“I’m so lonely I’ve gotta eat my popcorn all alone”) mirrors the melody, before a solo that borders on psychotropic ends II‘s introduction. UMO is unafraid to dig deeper than the rest, their intoxicating, opiate groove bringing rock’n’roll’s exaggerated myths to life. And as it unfolds, II does find Nielson reenergized. “One At A Time” and “Faded In The Morning” boast dizzying choruses and instrumentals; these crusty hunks could have been excavated from a lost 1960s treasure trove. “Monki” unravels over seven minutes like the yarn from a stoner’s cardigan with an eye-frying pattern. “Dawn” is a minute of disconcerting noise that stands out between the nooks and crannies of the choruses, guitar solos, groove-heavy bass and drums that were recorded live by newly-recruited drummer Greg Rogove and Kody Nielson in a move away from the electronic percussion employed on album one. II closes with “Secret Xtians,” a tender observational puzzle that fizzes to a satisfied end.
In celebration of the album’s 10th anniversary Nielson’s complete collection from the II era is finally available in one compilation, and features the five acoustic tracks from the Blue EP as well as two additional B-sides. Unknown Mortal Orchestra was once Nielson’s closeted concern. With an album that uses his singular musical imagination and extraordinary talent to parade his emotions with unyielding honesty, it is now a fully realized band operating at the peak of its powers ten years on.
Don Caballero
What Burns Never Returns: 25th Anniversary Edition [Limited Edition Transparent Yellow 2LP]
Vinyl: $35.99 Buy
Limited 25th anniversary edition on transparent yellow vinyl of Don Caballero's third album, What Burns Never Returns (Originally released in 1998, Touch and Go Records)
"Yet another testament of pure musical genius from the wizards of Don Caballero. This album -- probably their greatest effort to date and a keystone instrumental album -- will make musicians stand open-mouthed in absolute amazement, wondering just how such music is written." - Allmusic.com
"As the purveyor of brainy, muscular instrumental rock, Don Caballero spent most of its early years labeled the "Geeks from Pittsburgh who don't sing." Now that the rest of the indie-rock world has warmed up to instrumental rock (see the popularity of Tortoise, et al.), Don Caballero reemerges from hiatus with its third full-length, What Burns Never Returns. Staying ahead of the learning curve, the band employs little of the muscle that marked its earlier efforts, instead adopting a more highbrow, abstract approach to its music making. The band is not improvising per se, but creating meticulously arranged, post-Kind Crimson-like songs that attack odd time signatures. Stunning in its acrobatic musicianship, intriguing in its relentless experimentalism, What Burns… is indeed a welcome return." — Tad Hendrickson, CMJ New Music Report, 1998
Culled from half a decade of home four-tracking, Remote Echoes is a hissy, crumbly, and ungrounded expression of Clay Parton and Canaan Amber's ongoing Duster project. A mix of cassette only demos released under the banners Christmas Dust and On The Dodge, this 14 track album also includes a bevy of previously unissued stragglers. Duster's unique blend of fuzzy guitars, bargain synths, muffled percussion, and hushed vocals anticipated chillwave, mumblecore, and corecore, elegantly illustrating the holy trinity of slacker vices: cigarettes, coffee, and the weed supreme.
Culled from half a decade of home four-tracking, Remote Echoes is a hissy, crumbly, and ungrounded expression of Clay Parton and Canaan Amber's ongoing Duster project. A mix of cassette only demos released under the banners Christmas Dust and On The Dodge, this 14 track album also includes a bevy of previously unissued stragglers. Duster's unique blend of fuzzy guitars, bargain synths, muffled percussion, and hushed vocals anticipated chillwave, mumblecore, and corecore, elegantly illustrating the holy trinity of slacker vices: cigarettes, coffee, and the weed supreme.
Global icon and recent Rock & Roll Hall of Fame inductee, Dolly Parton, has joined forces with some of rock music’s most legendary artists along with today’s biggest stars for her first-ever rock album, Rockstar. The ever-evolving Parton teamed up with an all-star roster of musicians for the 30-song collection which includes 9 original tracks and 21 covers of iconic rock anthems.
Dolly Parton
Rockstar [Indie Exclusive Limited Edition Alternate Cover, Deep Purple 4LP]
Global icon and recent Rock & Roll Hall of Fame inductee, Dolly Parton, has joined forces with some of rock music’s most legendary artists along with today’s biggest stars for her first-ever rock album, Rockstar. The ever-evolving Parton teamed up with an all-star roster of musicians for the 30-song collection which includes 9 original tracks and 21 covers of iconic rock anthems.
Evanescence
Fallen: 20th Anniversary Deluxe Edition [Indie Exclusive limited Edition Pink & Black Marble 2LP]
2xLP Deluxe Edition of Nonagon Infinity! The original album plus a bonus LP with 10 demos. New packaging includes an embossed gatefold jacket with gold foil stamping and a 24" x 36" fold-out poster. Originally released in 2016, Nonagon Infinity remains the band biggest album. Constructed as an infinite loop, Pitchfork claimed upon it's release that the record was "overstuffed with so many stomach-tossing thrills that you’ll actually be jonesing to ride the roller-coaster all over again." Also available on 2xCD!
Shania Twain releases her record-breaking Greatest Hits album for the first time on 180g black vinyl! Selling over 100 million records, Shania is the best-selling female country artist ever, and this compilation showcases why. Including her iconic songs “Man! I Feel Like a Woman!”, “Any Man Of Mine,” “You’re Still The One,” and “Forever And For Always”, this updated remastered release now contains her newest hit “Giddy Up!” and fan favorite “Life’s About To Get Good.”
Back in print on vinyl. Named one of the 20 best albums of 1992 by Spin Magazine, Ween's 2nd record was recorded by Dean and Gene Ween on a Tascam four-track cassette recorder between January and October 1990. All songs were recorded at the Pod, the apartment where they lived for a year and 10 months. In 1999 The Stranger declared: "someday, classical music students will write dissertations on The Pod.” “Fuscus Edition” pressed on brown and cream A-side/B-side vinyl.
Replacements
Songs For Slim (Blk) [Colored Vinyl] (Red) (Stic) [Download Included]
Vinyl: $20.99 Buy
Acetone was originally released on vinyl in 1997. This new pressing is the first pressing since 1997. Originally pressed on a two-disc LP and packaged in a wide-spine jacket, this release is now pressed on black vinyl and inserted into a full art gatefold.
If You Only Knew is now pressed on vinyl for the first time ever. This 2-disc version is pressed on black vinyl and inserted into a full art gatefold. Originally slated for a vinyl release, the audio was eventually released solely on CD and promo cassette.