New Releases & Staff Picks - 10/10/25

STAFF PICKS
DARIO - Charles Mingus and Ebo Taylor reissue
ASH - Ebo Taylor reissue
JAKE - Jerskin Fendrix and Patrick Shiroishi
KIMBER -Tristeza and Antonio Carlos Jobim 
MARY - Flock of Dimes
ZACH - Jay Som, The Antlers, and Telephone Numbers 
DREW -

FLOCK OF DIMES - Life You Save  (Sub Pop)
The Life You Save is the third album by Flock of Dimes, the solo project of multi-instrumentalist and producer Jenn Wasner. Across the last few decades - whether it be as Flock of Dimes, as half of beloved duo Wye Oak, or via one of her many collaborations with Bon Iver, Sylvan Esso, and a sprawling list of other musical juggernauts - Jenn Wasner's extensive catalog displays her gift for balancing authenticity and directness with an unmistakable left-of-center sensibility. Her songwriting has always found her as a keen-eyed observer, a deeply empathetic and thoughtful storyteller with a skill for probing memory, heartbreak, and unhealed trauma, a shroud of syncopation or off-kilter guitar taking a song somewhere quietly prodigious. Her last solo album, the critically-lauded Head of Roses, took on heartbreak from a dualistic perspective, following a winding thread of intuition into the unknown and into healing. Her new album, The Life You Save, takes that a step further; put simply, it's the most honest, intimate and personally revealing record of Wasner's career.

JAY SOM - Belong CD/LP (Polyvinyl Records) 
Jay Som is your favorite band's favorite band - or songwriter, producer, engineer, multi-instrumentalist... The list goes on and on when referring to Jay Som's mastermind Melina Duterte. After breaking into the spotlight with the critically acclaimed Everybody Works (2017) and it's follow-up, Anak Ko (2019), Duterte became one of the most in-demand musicians in the industry - whether it's collaborating with artists such as Troye Sivan, recording original tracks for films like A24's I Saw The TV Glow, or working on grammy-award-winning albums like boygenius' the record, as well as performing in the boygenius touring band with shows across the globe + a performance on SNL. Duterte has been a part of some of the biggest indie albums of the decade, you just might not have noticed. That's all about to change however, with the release of the brilliant new Jay Som album, Belong. The album is undeniably Duterte's best work yet and features 11 tracks that showcase her ever-expansive musicianship and wide-ranging influences. Recorded at Headroom Studios in Philadelphia and mixed by Duterte and Kyle Pulley (Dr. Dog, Alex G), Belong is chock-full of everything you'd expect from such an influential and pioneering fixture in music.

ANTLERS - Blight  CD/LP (Transgressive)  
The Antlers - the beloved band and recording project of Peter Silberman - have announced their eagerly awaited new album, Blight, arriving via Transgressive Records on Friday, October 10. This is their first new studio album in over four years - Blight asks many questions without offering easy answers. Over the course of nine new songs, The Antlers' founder and primary songwriter Silberman reckons with our passively destructive tendencies - absent-minded pollution, unwitting wastefulness, and the inadvertent devastation of the natural world. But despite it's heavy themes, Blight is far from a punishing listen. With it's adventurous arrangements and persistent momentum, it plays more like an iridescent odyssey.

MJ LENDERMAN - And The Wind (Live And Loose) CD/LP (ANTI)  
MJ Lenderman writes songs that are amorphous and elastic, rising to fill the venue they're in, generous to accommodate the number of players on stage, less concerned with replicating the studio version than they are with meeting the crowd where they're at. On And the Wind (Live and Loose!), the Asheville-based Lenderman handles most of the playing, but with The Wind, it's a multi-headed beast. This live album is culled from sold-out summer 2023 shows on a brief headline run during what some might call a wild-ass couple of months. It captures a near-euphoric moment in time - dizzying and exhausting and, most of all, having some real true-blue f*king fun with your best friends. It's 90s college rock meets Americana hootenanny, an electrifying piece of the MJ Lenderman lore that needs to be experienced live with a light beer in-hand - but in the interim, And the Wind (Live and Loose!) does it's best to commit the scene to tape.

MADISON CUNNINGHAM - Ace CD/LP (Verve) The stunning 2025 album, Ace, from Grammy Award-winning singer-songwriter Madison Cunningham is a record about love, every part of it: falling out of love, having your heart broken, then falling in love again. Ace, on which Cunningham serves as co-producer, sees the acclaimed guitarist bring the piano into the foreground, creating intimate songs that are as playful as they are reflective.

APPLESEED CAST - Two Conversations  (Numero)  
The break up concept album no one asked for, The Appleseed Cast arrived on Tiger Style in 2003 amidst a second wave emo backlash. Decades later, Two Conversations is widely considered the Lawrence, Kansas, quintet's crowning achievement, an atmospheric soul baring that eschews the Midwest varietal's tropes. Get lost in the dreamy keys and synths and steel string strums, just be home before curfew. The group sound like it's trapped on Polyvinyl Records circa 1996.-Pitchfork

CAROLINE POLACHEK - Desire I Want To Turn Into You: Everasking Edition  (Caroline Polachek)   Hardcover 44-page book on a double LP pressed on Translucent Milky Clear vinyl. For the first time on a physical format, Caroline Polachek's critically acclaimed Desire, I Want To Turn Into You: Everasking Edition will be released in a limited quantity as a hardcover, 44-page book featuring all of Desire's iconic photographs, single covers and lyrics, along with a double LP pressed on Translucent Milky Clear vinyl.

ADRIAN YOUNGE - Midnight Hour LP (Linear Labs)  
The Midnight Hour is comprised of Ali Shaheed Muhammad and Adrian Younge, alongside a tight rhythm section and a full orchestra. This album is Black excellence: an ode to the cultural sophistication that the Harlem Renaissance established for it's people. Featuring: Cee Lo Green, Eryn Allen Kane, Estelle, Raphael Saadiq, Keyon Harold, Questlove and more. Recorded and mixed by Adrian Younge at Linear Labs, the preeminent analog studio of Los Angeles, CA.

EMILY A SPRAGUE - Cloud Time (RVNG Int'l)  
Emily A. Sprague's Cloud Time traces an audio-spiritual journey through time and place, recorded across a long-awaited debut tour of Japan in the fall of 2024. Compiled from environmental improvisations captured in and for the moment, material at once welcoming, responsive, and inimitable, the album distills a voyage guided by psychic wayfaring, unbound presence, and activating performance for a reciprocal exchange with space, listener, and each fully engaged instant. Cloud Time is a series of postcards penned to the energetic possibilities of each lived moment, deeply felt and in dialogue with the eternal now.

CHARLES MINGUS - Mingus At Monterey LP [Reissue/1965] (Candid)
In conjunction with the Charles Mingus Estate, Candid Records is proud to present Mingus At Monterey for official reissue. This tour de force live performance from the 1964 Monterey Jazz Festival captures Mingus at the top of his form and the height of his powers. Out of print for more than 40 years, this landmark recording was originally released on Mingus’ own short-lived mail-order label. It has consistently been the most requested reissue by Mingus fans.

JERSKIN FENDRIX - Once Upon A Time…In Shropshire LP  (untitled (recs))
London-based artist & composer Jerskin Fendrix has announced Once Upon A Time. . . In Shropshire, his highly anticipated sophomore album, due out October 10th via untitled (recs). It follows his critically acclaimed debut album Winterreise – Loud & Quiet’s 2020 Album of The Year, as well as the 2023 soundtrack to Yorgos Lanthimos’ Poor Things. In-between time spent nurturing his burgeoning career as a composer, Jerskin began work on OUATIS. The record threads together memories of a vibrant, rural childhood, attempting to capture a time and place that’s been altered by the ebb of time and the failings of memory. “It's not a sad thing - maybe a bit nostalgic. It’s trying to capture that feeling and how important that was to me and my friends and my family - and then how, bit by bit, it gets cracked and corrupted” he says. Raised in the rural county of Shropshire, England, where he learnt violin and piano, Jerskin moved to London and spent 2 years nurturing a visceral live personality at the iconic Brixton Windmill, playing alongside Black Midi and Black Country, New Road. He released his debut-album Winterreise in 2020 which was described as an “unhinged collection of pop songs”, and named by Loud & Quiet Magazine as their Album of the Year.

DIZZY GILLESPIE / SONNY STITT / SONNY ROLLINS - Sonny Side Up (Verve Vault Series) LP [Reissue/1959] (Verve)  
Sonny Side Up, released in 1959 on Verve Records, is the masterful studio collaboration between trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie and tenor saxophonists Sonny Rollins and Sonny Stitt. Recorded in December 1957 with producer Norman Granz, the album brings together three of modern jazz's most distinctive musicians in a rare frontline configuration. Gillespie, already a pivotal architect of bebop, trades choruses with two tenor titans of contrasting approach: Rollins, with his thematic development and rhythmic elasticity, and Stitt, with his rapid-fire bebop fluency. It's rumored that Gillespie playfully pitted Rollins and Stitt against each other ahead of the session which resulted in the bar being raised and the creation of an iconic album. Make no mistake, though, the two trade blows throughout the set leaving no doubt that both are heavyweight champions. The Verve Vault Series is always mastered from analog tapes and pressed on 180g vinyl at Optimal.

EBO TAYLOR - Ebo Taylor LP [Reissue/1977] (Strut Records)  
A landmark recording from one of Ghana's great musical architects, Ebo Taylor's 1977 self-title release marked the first solo LP by the legendary guitarist, arranger, and composer after years behind the scenes shaping the sound of modern highlife. Ebo Taylor's first solo album, blending traditional Ghanaian highlife with funk, soul, and jazz influences. Originally released on Essiebons in 1977, the album features rich horn arrangements and deep grooves, later rediscovered as a cult classic. Features newly restored and remastered audio by The Carvery and See Why Audio, as well as new liner notes featuring an interview with Taylor's son, Henry Taylor

ANTONIO CARLOS JOBIM - Composer Of Desafinado, Plays (Verve Vault Series) LP [Reissue/1963] (Verve)  
The Composer of Desafinado, Plays, released in 1963 on Verve Records, marked the U.S. debut of Brazilian songwriter and pianist Antonio Carlos Jobim as a bandleader and documents the beginning of what would become a long-term creative relationship between Jobim and arranger Claus Ogerman that helped define the international sound of bossa nova. Recorded in New York in 1962 and produced by Creed Taylor, the 12-song instrumental set pairs Jobim's understated guitar and piano work with Ogerman's lush orchestral arrangements, backed by a mostly American studio ensemble with select Brazilian contributors. With it's soft textures, streamlined rhythms, and harmonic richness, the record emphasizes the poised intimacy that became a hallmark of Jobim's songwriting - cementing his role as both architect and ambassador of the bossa nova movement. The Verve Vault Series is always mastered from analog tapes and pressed on 180g vinyl at Optimal.

MULATU ASTATKE - Mulatu Plays Mulatu (Strut Records)  
Mulatu Plays Mulatu marks Mulatu Astatke's first major studio album in over a decade, reinventing his classic compositions in his pioneered Ethio-jazz style. Bleding Western jazz with traditional Ethiopian instruments (krar, masenqo, washint, kebero, begena), reflecting Mulatu's long-term vision for Ethio-jazz. Recorded in London and Addis Ababa, the album features Mulatu's UK ensemble, Addis-based cultural musicians, and contemporary artists Carlos Niño and Kibrom Birhane, under producer Dexter Story. Mulatu presents the album as both a tribute to Ethiopian musical pioneers and a fresh reinterpretation of Ethio-jazz, maintaining it's relevance while honouring it's roots.

PATRICK SHIROISHI - Forgetting Is Violent LP (American Dreams)
Forgetting is Violent is the most powerful release to date from Los Angeles saxophonist and composer Patrick Shiroishi (The Armed, Wild Up), with timely suites that meditate on racism and addiction. The music developed in part through extensive solo touring opening for Emma Ruth Rundle, in which Shiroishi brought effects pedals to the forefront. For the first time on a solo LP, Shiroishi has brought in collaborators: a who’s who of heavy music, including Aaron Turner (SUMAC), Gemma Thompson (Savages), and Mat Ball (BIG|BRAVE). With liner notes by Pulitzer Prize-winning author Hua Hsu, Forgetting is Violent is Shiroishi’s latest masterwork.

NATHANIEL RATELIFF & THE NIGHT SWEATS - Nathaniel Rateliff & The Night Sweats LP Reissue (Fantasy)  
Celebrate 10 years of Nathaniel Rateliff & The Night Sweats' explosive debut album with this special anniversary edition. Featuring the timeless hits that launched their meteoric rise, including the unstoppable S.O.B., this release honors the raw soul, vintage grooves, and powerful vocals that captivated fans worldwide. Revisit the record that redefined modern soul-rock and introduced a band whose music continues to move hearts and dance floors everywhere.

VARIOUS - Soul Jazz Records Presents: Soul Jamaica LP (Soul Jazz)  
Soul Jazz Records’ new Soul Jamaica brings together a wicked selection of reggae funk and soul tracks from the legendary Studio One stable, featuring a stellar line-up of artists including Jackie Mittoo, The Heptones, The Gladiators, Sim Smith, Peter Tosh and The Wailers, Cedric ‘Im’ Brooks and many more. // For a short period of time at the end of the 1960s and early 1970s, nestled between the end of rocksteady and the arrival of roots reggae, Studio One released a small stream of superb soul and funk reggae tunes – covering everyone from Sly and The Family Stone, Diana Ross and The Supremes, Nina Simone, Gene Chandler, Tyrone Davis and more. // Most of the tracks featured on Soul Jamaica were only ever released on Studio One’s UK-subsidiary label Bamboo in small-run pressings and are now consequently extremely hard to find. // The cover photograph features images of Air Jamaica, the new airline created by the Jamaican government at the end of the 1960s, showing how in the years following independence the country assumed its place on the world stage, with reggae music playing a key role in creating the island’s new cultural identity.

ST. PAUL & THE BROKEN BONES - St. Paul & The Broken Bones CD/LP (Oasis Pizza Records)
In rock-music mythos, the self-titled album is a line in the sand-typically signifying a reinvention, a reunion, or a return to roots. St. Paul & the Broken Bones, the sixth LP from Birmingham's ever-evolving Southern-soul giants, is somehow all of these things at once-carrying forward the experimental spirit of their back-to-back heavyweights The Alien Coast and (2022) Angels in Science Fiction (2023), but with a warmer, more accessible vibe that recalls the fun, exuberance, and buoyancy of their breakout debut, Half the City (2014), and beloved follow-ups Sea of Noise (2016) and Young Sick Camellia (2018). As singer and co-founder Paul Janeway puts it, these 10 songs represent a reset and a refresh after a frenetic few years.

TELEPHONE NUMBERS - Scarecrow II  (Slumberland Records)  
The Telephone Numbers have established themselves as a crucial part of San Francisco's fertile indie music scene, sharing members with The Reds, Pinks & Purples and The Umbrellas and a musical palette that takes in everything from the rootsier end of Byrds jangle to Lemonheads-tinged power-pop to the pop sophistication of bands like The Go-Betweens and The Church. Scarecrow II is their second album and a massive step forward for the band. Recorded by Alicia Vanden Heuvel at SF's Speakeasy Studios, this set of songs is deeper and richer, foregrounding the crafty tunes and lovely melodies, adding just-right bits of trumpet, violin and organ to the mix. With Scarecrow II The Telephone Numbers have created a record overflowing with warmth, an earnest exploration of traditionalist pop that feels fresh, vital, and essential.

TRISTEZA - Dream Signals In Full Circles LP [Reissue/2000] (NUMERO)  
Atmospheric instrumentals for the post-hardcore drop out. Tristeza's Y2K sophomore album and debut for Tiger Style, back in print a quarter century later. Tracked in Chicago-the post-rock capital of the world- Dream Signals In Full Circles weaves together shimmering counterpointed guitars, mathlete precision percussion, synth glaze and dramatic strings into a trance-inducing sonic screensaver. Do they ID at this bar?

COMING NEXT WEEK!
TAME IMAPLA - Dead Beat CD/LP
BAR ITALIA - Some Like It Hot CD/LP
MOUNTAIN GOATS - Sunset Tree 20th Anniversary CD/LP REISSUE
ANIMAL COLLECTIVE - Feels 20th Anniversary CD/LP
APHEX TWIN - Classics CD/LP Reissue
PIXIES - Purple Tape LP Reissue
THEY ARE GUTTING A BODY OF WATER - Lotto CD/LP
THE WORLD IS A BEAUTIFUL PLACE AND I AM NO LONGER AFRAID TO DIE - Dreams Of Being Dust CD/LP
LAST DINNER PARTY - From The Pyre CD/LP
MILITARIE GUN - God Save The Gun CD/LP
POLICIA - Dreams Go CD/LP
SUDAN ARCHIVES - BPM CD/LP
HOLLIE COOK - Shy Girl CD/LP
BOB MOSES - Blink CD/LP
CHICHA LIBRE - Quatro Tigres LP