New Releases & Staff Picks - 10/2/26

STAFF PICKS
DARIO -
JAKE -
KIMBER -
MARY -
ZACH -
DREW -
PAT -

WISHY - Nature's Pill CD/LP/CASS (Winspear)  
‘You can do what you want to do (every day is yours)/ Baby, it's your life/ (That's right) It's such a sick ride.’ That's Kevin Krauter and Nina Pitchkites, Wishy's dual vocalists and songwriters, wrapping their voices around each other, symbiotic, coming to terms to with a conclusion: Life is, simply put, fucking crazy. In the whirlwind first few years of the band, there had been breakups, new love affairs, and yearning all while Wishy stormed the indie scene as an instantly beloved new act. Yet Wishy's latest jubilant remix of the past bears all their trademarks: zany lyrics transfiguring melancholia into freedom, an instant classic chorus that already feels like an old friend. It's all quintessentially Wishy, and yet unlike any Wishy song you've yet heard-which made it the perfect song to give their vibrant sophomore album Nature's Pill it's name.

OSEES - Off Course CD/LP (Deathgod Corp)  
“We went back to an older method of writing for this one. We jammed and jammed and jammed. I took the tapes home and ironed out some mutant tunes. We went back into the studio and burned them to tape live and then I took it home to Stu-Stu-Studio and did the vocals and bought in Tom Dolas & Brigid Dawson to put the finish on. Spice is always nice. Mixed it all up in the cauldron and thus we have a strange brew indeed. Floating in the smoke we have: a couple long jams, a couple short jams and a finale that'll dump a bucket of ear worms on you (reminiscent of the axis?). Dip your toe in organ rock and roll. So without further ado, we present to you OFF COURSE, an album wondering where the fuck are we and how did we get here. A signal dispatched out into the darkness. We are here. We are alive. And we are together. CHEERS NO EARS,” JPD/DG/Osees.

FAT DOG - Cancel Me (I’m Tired) CD/LP (Domino)  
The second album by Fat Dog is titled Cancel Me (I'm Tired). The reason that the group - Joe Love, Chris Hughes, Morgan Wallace, Ellis Dickson, Michael Dunlop, Dillon Harrison and Jed Bevington - are tired is because they have spent the period since WOOF.'s release spreading their raucous, infectious and irresistible bark around the world. The reason that they want you to cancel them is that they've been around the world and had enough of it's shit. They don't care what the world thinks, so go ahead and do what you need to do. With Cancel Me (I'm Tired), Fat Dog have created an exhilarating, swaggering, panoramic, inventive, re-inventive, re-re-inventive electro-punk-art-pop-rock'n'roll-space-country triumph that deserves all the adjectives. Over ten mind-bending and melodic tracks, it blends electro-pop anthems, cascading rave bangers, cowboy-tinged pitstops and swirling psychedelia. It possesses all the rabid frenzy and electrifying excitement of their debut but now delivered on a grand and glorious scale. Big, big things are ahead. Fat Dog are only just getting going.

VARIOUS - Contra-Ice Vol. 1: Ice Out CD/LP (Soundsgood Records)  
A SOUNDSYSTEM COMBATING ICE - PROCEEDS TO HELP FUND FRONTLINE ORGANIZATIONS THAT SUPPORT IMPACTED COMMUNITIES. Contra-ICE Vol. 1: ICE OUT is a powerful new compilation album uniting legendary voices across music, spoken word, and comedy to amplify the fight for immigrant rights and stand against inhumane immigration enforcement. Featuring an all-star lineup of over 30 artists, including Ozomatli, Kathleen Hanna ft. Ad-Rock, Tom Morello, Fred Armisen, Fishbone, Money Mark, David J (Bauhaus, Love and Rockets), and Jello Biafra; this sonic journey, curated by DJ Dali, shines a crucial light on systemic injustices. Proceeds will raise vital funds for frontline Los Angeles organizations, the National Day Laborer Organizing Network (NDLON) and Unión del Barrio, to support their ongoing work defending human, civil, and labor rights for impacted communities.

POKEY LAFARGE - Rent Money LP (Diggers Factory)  
For two decades, Pokey LaFarge has walked his own effortlessly cool road as an exceptionally iconoclastic troubadour - forthright, genuine, and markedly keen to put it all out there. Rent Money now sees him pushing forward yet again in what can be safely declared his finest collection to date, both as an heartfelt expression of personal experience and as no-nonsense social commentary. With it's twanging guitars, plucky rhythms, and undeniably captivating melodies, the album soars and swings, it's joyous refrains belying the inescapable undercurrent of constant worry and angst that permeates these troubled times. As always, the Illinois native deftly traverses the genre boundaries, seamlessly integrating the myriad strains of 20th-century American music with a freewheeling command of earnest songcraft, inspired performance, and subversive creativity. Rent Money stands tall as an indisputable high-water mark for Pokey LaFarge - a defining collection from a one-of-a-kind artist of rare ingenuity and uncommon candor, now as ever, determinedly crafting a sure-footed brand of deeply human music all his own.

OREN AMBARCHI - Cooked LP (Drag City) 
Cooked comes a la - yet so far from - 2022's Shebang with transcendent and trenchant flow from Oren Ambarchi. Flying in international collaborators Joe Talia, Johan Berthling, Will Guthrie, Eiko Ishibashi, Jim O'Rourke, Michiko Ogawa, Marcus Pal, Fredrik Rasten, James Rushford, Andreas Werliin & Konrad Sprenger into the mix, Cooked sets foot tapping, mind boggling, heart quailing, earth turning. RIYL: Edgar Froese, Steve Hillage, Godley & Creme

ACTRESS - Radical Frame LP (Ninja Tune)  
Eminent producer Darren Cunningham- AKA Actress - has always pushed the boundaries of Electronic music, blending club-focused energy with abstract, cerebral, and atmospheric sounds, exploring avante garde compositions and Musique Concrète within the context of underground dance. Over 20 years, Cunningham has pioneered Black British avant-garde music. Radical Frame is the apotheosis of his career thus far, embodying his signature sounds, as well as passing the torch to the next generation of artists. 

CARMEN VILLAIN - Memoria LP (Smalltown Supersound) 
Memoria, Carmen Villain’s latest album on Smalltown Supersound, begins like an opened valve; exhaling flute chords slowly fill a vast sonic landscape as an invitation for the listener to slow down and enter a state of deep listening. It’s an introduction that guides expertly into an album of decelerated, spectral dub, which shimmers, growls and decays across the narratively ordered seven tracks. In this regard, Memoria picks up where Villain leFT off with 2022’s Only Love from Now On, though the current album’s focus is sound as memory – and memories as morphing, non-static imperfections.

MESHELL NDEGEOCELLO - Synonym LP (Blue Note Records) 
Meshell Ndegeocello returns with Synonym, her third Blue Note album, featuring stunning duets on beloved songs that span genres, moods, and eras. Exploring themes of love, identity, friendship, and selfhood, each track pairs two singers of the same gender for striking musical chemistry. Featuring Cynthia Erivo, Cat Power, Robert Glasper, Chaka Khan, Brandi Carlile, Lianne La Havas, Moses Sumney, Anohni, Willow, and more.

MAC MILLER - Divine Feminine 10th Anniversary LP (Warner Records)
Initially released in 2016, The Divine Feminine marked one of the most stark turning points in a career punctuated by creative reinvention. After doubling down on his rap prowess on 2015's GO:OD AM, Mac Miller stunned fans with an audacious pivot to create a concept album that explored his views on the power of love and the sacred energy of women. Hailed by Pitchfork as being "easily his most intoxicating release yet," the embrace of his singing voice and genre-agnostic approach of the songwriting foreshadowed the evolution that would further materialize on his 2018 album Swimming. The 10th anniversary edition of The Divine Feminine features three previously-unreleased songs from the album's recording sessions and will be available on 3 colored LPs with printed inner sleeves in a single-pocket jacke.

EMILY A. SPRAGUE - Cyano LP (RVNG INT'L)  
In Cyano, Emily A. Sprague builds an intricate world, expanding a sonic register that is both familiar and viscerally new, reflecting the synthesist and composer's internal register with mirrors to alternate realms. Cyano was conjured through ideas of an imagined planet whose inhabitants are rebuilding forbidden capacities for expressivity and emotional connection. An arc of faithful gestures, Cyano is meditation on visibility, psychic transformation, light transmission, and worlds beyond our knowing. It revels in configurations of connective possibility, where shadow and vision meet incisive truth.

THE MARIAS - Submarine LP [Reissue/2024] (Nice Life)  
[RSD Essential - Half Clear/Half Sea Blue] Celebrate the 2nd anniversary of The Marías' acclaimed album Submarine with a new indie retail exclusive vinyl variant, featuring alternate cover art and a brand-new exclusive colorway.

DANZIG - III: How The Gods Kill LP [Reissue/1992] (American Recordings )   
DANZIG - 4P LP [Reissue/1994] (American Recordings) 
Danzig's third and fourth studio album returns to vinyl as part of the RSD Essentials series, pressed on colored vinyl with printed inner sleeves in a standard LP jacket.

JOHN COLTRANE - John Coltrane 100: Highlights From 1957-1964 LP (Atlantic) 
A curated collection celebrating John Coltrane's centennial legacy with essential recordings from one of jazz's most influential creative periods.

DUR DUR BAND - Dur-Dur Vol. 3 & 4 1988-1989 LP (Analog Africa)  
Funk, disco and Somali soul from 1980s MogadishuIn the 1980s, Mogadishu was home to one of East Africa's most vibrant music scenes. Nightclubs, hotels and theatres filled with the sound of ambitious young musicians blending Somali melodies with funk, disco, reggae, soul and jazz. At the centre of that movement was Dur-Dur Band - a group whose recordings would later travel far beyond Somalia's borders and find new audiences decades after they were made.

UNWOUND - Leaves Turn Inside You (25th Anniversary Edition) CD/LP (Numero)  
The Unwound album that ended all Unwound albums. Recorded in a moldering farmhouse basement at the crest of the new century, Leaves Turn Inside You is the no-wave response to Spector's wall of noise call. Infinite layers of choppy guitar stabs and bridge scrapes, guttural bass thronk, thrift store synths, and monotone chanting wash over suffocating rhythms to deliver the world's only choral grunge LP. This 25th anniversary edition has been remastered from the original analog tapes and is housed in a glorious silver foil jacket with added emboss, deboss, spot varnish, and a replica 12x24 poster. Reinvented for you.

KING GIZZARD - Alien Metal LP (KGLW)  
Introducing Alien Metal; King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard's 28th studio album. With this project the group have set their controls for the dark heart of electronic dance music. The album evolved from the "rave shows" King Gizzard debuted in 2025, and was sculpted largely via Eurorack modular synthesizers. The 180g record itself is made from 100% recycled plastic via (the more energy efficient) injection-mold technology, making it one of the most sustainable LPs ever made. It also comes with a large double-sided poster, in a high-gloss jacket and housed in a 100% recycled protective over bag.

SONS OF SEVILLA - It Could Be Today LP (Ubiquity Records)  
Since first recording together during the pandemic, sibling duo Sons of Sevilla - brothers Henry and Reuben Vaun Smith - have travelled widely in search of inspiration, collaboration, and new musical experiences.This October, they return with their third album, It Could Be Today, a warm and soulful collection shaped by life on the road and their experiences since 2025's Street Light Moon. Following a period living and recording in southern Spain, the brothers returned to West Yorkshire, expanded the band's live lineup, and toured the United States supporting producer and performer Skinshape (William Dorey). During the tour, they recorded the double A-side single Forever Heaven / Changing at Max Shrager's (Say She She, That's Love Records) New Jersey studio. Inspired by the collaboration, they later joined Skinshape in London to record It Could Be Today. Produced using vintage equipment and classic instruments, the album blends blue-eyed soul, Californian grooves, and psychedelic pop influences. Featuring drummer Ben Spruce and additional contributions from Skinshape, the record is rich in shimmering guitars, warm basslines, lush keys, strings, and Reuben Vaun Smith's distinctive vocals.

LUSTMORD LOMBARDO - Pulse Of Atoms LP (Ipecac Recordings) 
Two of the most respected musicians in their genres have come together for a different take on experimental ambient music. Dave Lombardo needs no introduction. His reputation as a drum innovator and musical bellwether is unsurpassed. Whether it was his decades-long tenure with thrash metal titans Slayer, his four-album stint with influential experimentalists Fantômas, or his work with prestigious composer/saxophonist John Zorn. Lustmord is the Welsh musician widely credited as the originator of dark ambient music. He was initially associated with the industrial scene in the early '80s with a sound, built from field recordings, deep bass frequencies, and ritualistic instrumentation. His extensive career as a collaborator and film/game composer, included working with bands such as Melvins, Tool, Nurse With Wound, and Wes Borland, and he has contributed to over forty motion pictures, including First Reformed, The Crow, and Underworld.

VANISHING TWIN - Archives LP (Fire Records)  
Shapeshifting trio Vanishing Twin present their new album Archives, a collage of postmodern songcraft that finds transcendence in the shared experience of creation. The album's title alludes to Vanishing Twin's distinctive approach of listening to, piecing together and reworking daily recording sessions. Founding member Cathy Lucas describes the process as 'gathering material together, riffing with it, turning it around on itself, trying to put the pieces together and create a story with it'. With Lucas now relocated to rural France, and Valentina Magaletti and Susumu Mukai in London, the three connected by swapping songs and fragments of instrumentals in a virtual studio space.

ERVIN BOOKER - Structurally Sound LP [Reissue/1967] (Blue Note Records)  
Presented in Blue Note's acclaimed Tone Poet audiophile series, this jazz recording receives premium remastering and deluxe packaging for collectors and enthusiasts.

FREDDIE HUBBARD - Hub Cap LP [Reissue/1961] (Blue Note Records)  
Freddie Hubbard's hard-bop classic returns in the premium Tone Poet series with exceptional sound quality and deluxe presentation.

TOM WAITS - Small Change LP [Reissue/1976] (ANTI)  
Small Change is a masterpiece that contains some of Waits' best early work. Classic jazz, Tin Pan Alley, and Stephen Foster filtered through Tom's unique worldview and lyrical genius. Heartbreaking, hilarious, and always vivid, songs like "Step Right Up," "Tom Traubert's Blues," "I Wish I Was in New Orleans," "The Piano Has Been Drinking," and "Invitation to the Blues" are all classics that have influenced generations of songwriters since. Recorded with a live orchestra and featuring jazz legend Shelly Manne on drums, Small Change is a classic and stands as one of Tom Waits' most popular recordings.

SPACE AFRIKA - Quiet Storm LP (Dais)
Space Afrika, the Manchester/Berlin-based duo of Joshua Tarelle Reid and Joshua Inyang, make raw, intensely detailed, visceral music with shades of ambient, trip-hop, techno, and modern classical, drawing spacious urban dubscapes from the contours of their city. Quiet Storm expands on their sound and scale as a sprawling, collaborative vision shaped with profound patience and intention, embedding their own coming-of-age story within a moving suite of cathartic abstraction. Songs allude to spirituality and the human condition, the tension between boldness and softness, ambition and persistent inner demons. 

LARD - Last Temptation Of Reid LP [Reissue/1990] (Alternative Tentacles) 
Back in Print. Louder. Meaner. Finally. Industrial noise terrorists Lard, the legendary collision of Jello Biafra and Ministry masterminds Al Jourgensen and Paul Barker, return with the long-awaited repress of their 1990 full-length masterpiece, The Last Temptation of Reid. A vicious fusion of industrial metal, punk rock, political outrage, and black humor, The Last Temptation of Reid remains as relevant, confrontational, and sonically devastating today as it was when it first detonated over three decades ago.

ROSE MCDOWALL - Cut With The Cake Knife LP [Reissue/2004] (Sacred Bones)  
Cut With the Cake Knife was recorded by Rose McDowall in 1988 and 1989 following the break up of her group Strawberry Switchblade. Produced with the aid of several musicians in several studios, the album features songs written for the fabled second Strawberry Switchblade album. More importantly, perhaps, it showcases the honest, direct, and life-affirming songs of one of the greatest unsung songwriters of the modern pop era at a tumultuous time in her career.

LEE RANALDO  - The System LP (Silver Current)  
A quick scan of the world's favorite crowdsourced discography reveals that Sonic Youth co-founder Lee Ranaldo was not a total stranger to crackling electric experimentation in the years following his songwriting turns of the 20-teens. Yet The System, ingeniously culled and sequenced from Ranaldo's soundtrack work for Dutch filmmaker Joris Postema’s "eco-doc" of the same name nonetheless feels like a reawakening. Quietly released in a vastly different (and much more "filmic") form by Doxy Music/ Riva Media Records in 2025, this LP reimagines and reconfigures the initial release, including unreleased material (written and recorded for the film) to lend it new stature as both a return to drone-improv form and a reunion with introspective Downtown angst.

VICTORIA MONET - Frequency Of Love LP (RCA) 
Victoria Monét blends sophisticated R&B, pop sensibilities, and soulful songwriting on a collection filled with warmth and emotional depth.

RED HOT CHILI PEPPERS - Stadium Arcadium 4xLP [Reissue/2006] (Warner Records)  
The Red Hot Chili Peppers' album Stadium Arcadium is their 9th studio album and one of the band's most successful releases. Released in 2006 as a 4 LP and 2 CD album, it included five hit singles: "Dani California", "Tell Me Baby", "Snow (Hey Oh)", Desecration Smile" and "Hump de Bump". The album topped the Billboard Chart in the US and has been certified multi-platinum in over 10 major countries worldwide. To celebrate the 20th anniversary of this iconic album, the band is releasing 3 strictly limited color vinyl editions of the 4 LP set.

SOFT CELL  - Danceteria LP (Big Frock) 
The final album is both a love letter to early 80s New York and a tribute to the late, great Dave Ball. Electronic music legends Soft Cell, aka singer and frontman Marc Almond and multi-instrumentalist and producer Dave Ball, are set to release Danceteria, their sixth and final studio album. Danceteria the album is a big, classy and playful farewell to 47 years of Marc and Dave making music as Soft Cell and features career-defining performances from our electronic pop legends. Reminiscent of Sparks and Pet Shop Boys and with lyrics Lady Gaga would kill for, the album takes you on a vivid journey through a day in early 80s New York, bouncing round the clock from night to bleary daybreak and headlong back into the club.

COMING NEXT WEEK
CAMERON WINTER - Live At Carnegie Hall CD/LP
ALEX CAMERON - Late To Set CD/LP
REMI WOLF - Mud CD/LP
TALLEST MAN ON EARTH - Just Beyond Endless Mountain CD/LP
TEENAGE FANCLUB - Do Not Dare To Dream CD/LP
IDA - I Know About You CD/LP (Reissue)
DANIELLE PONDER - Everything Has Changed LP
TOTAL WIFE - Come Back Down CD/LP
JESS WILLIAMSON - Mile South Of Heaven LP
JPEGMAFIA - Experimental Rap LP
DAWN RICHARD - Creole Culture CD/LP
DEATH VALLEY GIRLS - Welcome To Earth CD/LP
GRETA VAN FLEET - Palace For The People CD/LP
HORSE JUMPER OF LOVE - S/T LP (Reissue)
JOHN PRINE - Found Dogs CD/LP
KARATE BOOGALOO - Access All Areas CD/LP
NALA SINEPHRO - Space 1.8 CD/LP (Reissue)