New Releases & Staff Picks - 8/29/25

STAFF PICKS
 DARIO - Gastr Del Sol Reissues
ASH - Funkadelic reissue 
 JAKE - Eiko Ishibashi & Jim O'Rourke
KIMBER - Oren Ambarchi
MARY - The Beths
ZACH - Blood Orange
DREW - Funkadelic reissue

BLOOD ORANGE - Essex Honey CD/LP (RCA)
Essex Honey explores themes of family grief, England, and the healing, communal power of music throughout a lifetime. Lyrically, the album is diaristic yet communal, existing in the haze of memory that often follows a loss. Musically, this is reflected sonically through analog recordings, recurring cello motifs, nods to earlier Blood Orange projects, and various musical interpolations from Hynes' youth. Sonically, the album includes an array of arrangements and instruments like the acoustic guitar with a punk distortion and melodic ethereal tones that were woven into his dreams as a kid growing up in Essex, imagining his future. Essex Honey features contributions from The Durutti Column, Mustafa, Caroline Polachek, Daniel Caesar, Lorde, Zadie Smith, Tirzah, Brendan Yates (Turnstile), and Mabe Fratti.

BETHS - Straight Line Was A Lie CD/LP (ANTI)
One of the greatest indie-rock bands of their time. Rolling Stone New Zealand indie rock heroes The Beths latest album Straight Line Was A Lie is a catchy, instant classic out on August 29th. Written in Los Angeles and self-recorded in the band's hometown of Auckland, Straight Line Was A Lie (their first release for ANTI-) follows 2022's critically celebrated LP Expert in A Dying Field. Lead singer and songwriter Liz Stokes delves deeper into her psyche to address everything from roundabout progress to physical and mental health challenges, and fraught family dynamics. Inspired by The Go-Go's, Olivia Rodrigo, filmmaker Akira Kurosawa, and Stephen King's On Writing, amongst others, Stokes' songwriting has achieved startling new depths of insight and vulnerability. Fans will agree that Straight Line Was A Lie is the most sharply observant, truthful, and poetic Beths project to date.

SABRINA CARPENTER - Man's Best Friend CD/LP (Island)
Man's Best Friend is the latest album from multi-hyphenate global popstar Sabrina Carpenter. Coming off her GRAMMY-winning project, Short n' Sweet, and numerous multi-platinum singles added to her resume, the latest from Carpenter is bursting with high energy pop and criss-crossing genres in only a way that she can.

HIVES - Hives Forever Forever The Hives CD/LP (Play It Again Sam)
The Hives Forever, Forever The Hives is the bands 7th studio LP, a razor-sharp culmination of their rupturing, signature powder-keg (The New York Times) rock n roll energy that initially captured the zeitgeist during the garage rock revival in the early 2000s. The Hives continue to reach sky-high on the new album, with the majority of it recorded in one take at Yung Lean/YEAR0001s studio and Riksmixningsverket, a studio owned by Benny Andersson of ABBA in Stockholm. The record was produced by their longtime collaborator Pelle Gunnerfeldt (Viagra Boys, Yung Lean, Elvira) as well as the bands old tourmate Mike D of the Beastie Boys, who flew out to Sweden specifically to work on the album and hosted the band at his studio in Malibu. Josh Homme of Queens of the Stone Age consulted on the record, too.

MARGO PRICE - Hard Headed Woman CD/LP (Loma Vista)  
For nearly a decade, Margo Price has created a lane where independent-minded, insurgent country music can exist and thrive alongside the mainstream. Now she's back with an exquisite, timeless album that reconnects with her roots. At it's core, Hard Headed Woman is about that furious instinct to never waver - especially when our values and future are so clearly on the line. It's country music as only Price can make it: free of rules, cherishing tradition, hard headed but with a delicate beating heart.

HIBOU - It Seems To Me  (Crafted Sounds) 
Hibou's fourth full length record, It Seems To Me, takes us on a roadtrip through a garden of swirling chord progressions, crystalline textures, and infectious choruses. While summoning the same lush atmosphere and sentimentality that give the project it's signature sound, Michel dives into a wealth of new territories on his upcoming album, widening the sonic atmosphere and lyrical focus to provoke an entirely different set of themes than his previous works.

EIKO ISHIBASHI & JIM O'ROURKE - Pareidolia LP (Drag City)  
For this collaborative release, Eiko & Jim edited and remixed material captured at shows they played during a lovely two week tour through France, Switzerland, Italy and Ireland in April 2023. Pareidolia shapes an ideal collage from the best resonances and relationships from those nights. A dynamic medley of color and shape to pulse through earbuds, speaker cones and the air around you, appealing to your suggestibility, wherever you find it.

FUNKADELIC - Funkadelic LP [Reissue/1970]  CD/CASS/LP/2xLP (Org Music)  
Released in 1970, Funkadelic’s self-titled debut was a radical collision of psychedelic rock, gospel, blues, and soul — a chaotic, genre-defying statement that redefined the possibilities of Black music. Where Motown aimed for polish and crossover appeal, Funkadelic dove headfirst into distortion, improvisation, and spiritual ambiguity, offering a sound as gritty and unpredictable as the era itself. Backed by a ferocious young band — including Eddie Hazel, Billy Bass Nelson, Tawl Ross, Tiki Fulwood, and Mickey Atkins — the album rejected convention in favor of raw groove and existential noise. As part of Org Music’s Westbound Records reissue series, this edition restores the album’s full impact across multiple formats. The deluxe double LP, mastered at 45RPM directly from tape by Dave Gardner at DSG Mastering, offers the highest fidelity to date. Gardner and restoration specialist Catherine Vericolli archived and restored the original master tapes at 54 Sound Studios in Ferndale, Michigan, with assistance from in-house engineer Nick King. A single LP edition, cut from high-resolution tape transfers, is also available, alongside CD, cassette, and digital formats.

FLORENCE & MACHINE - How Big How Blue How Beautiful LP [Reissue/2015] (Republic Records) 
For the 10th anniversary of How Big, How Blue, How Beautiful, Republic Records presents the original album on limited-edition blue marble vinyl. This 2 LP set is housed in a single sleeve with 2 printed inners and a 4-page booklet. Includes 10x10 exclusive print.

RODNEY CROWELL - Airline Highway CD/LP (New West Records)  
Airline Highway is an album full of old, abiding loves, whether it’s a favorite song or a lover you remember fondly. Songs like “Sometime Thang” and “Rainy Days in California” (the latter featuring Lukas Nelson) raise a glass to old romances and encounters with different women in California or down in Louisiana: falling in love, toughing out hard times, growing apart until they become “that small voice on your phone,” to quote a devastating line on “Taking Flight,” co-written with and featuring Ashley McBryde. Some are fictional, Crowell explains, but they all contain some kernel of truth. "At a basic level there are a lot more years behind me than there are ahead of me. Now it’s just about the work and what a blessing it is to be able to do it. The work truly feeds me in the moment."

AHMAD JAMAL - Essence Vol.1 LP [Reissue/1995]  (Diggers Factory)
When this album came out in 1995, it was an incredible breath of oxygen that penetrated the lungs of jazz, until then asphyxiated by young wolves, or let's say young clones, who were competing to see who could best imitate McCoy Tyner, Bill Evans or Herbie Hancock... This album by Ahmad Jamal, a legendary pianist if ever there was one, is perhaps his greatest album of the decade...

JOHN COLTRANE - John Coltrane Quartet Plays LP [Reissue/1965] (Verve)  
Recorded in two sessions just a few months after working on A Love Supreme, this album makes for a perfect introduction to Coltrane's final period as a leader. Though Art Davis plays second bass on ‘Nature Boy,’ the classic quartet of Coltrane with McCoy Tyner (piano), Elvin Jones (drums) and Jimmy Garrison (bass) is at full heat, leaning hard into more free improvisation with a matter-of-fact confidence that will become more normalized over his concluding two years. Verve Acoustic Sounds Series features transfers from analog tapes and remastered 180-gram vinyl in deluxe gatefold packaging.

FLEETWOOD MAC - Tango In The Night LP [Reissue/1987] (Rhino) 
This 3x Platinum-certified 1987 studio album features the classic lineup of Stevie Nicks, Christine McVie, Lindsey Buckingham, John McVie, and Mick Fleetwood. This is their most sonically advanced album featuring stellar production work by Lindsey Buckingham and longtime associate Richard Dashut. Pressed locally on 180 gram premium-quality vinyl at Fidelity Record Pressing's brand new plant in Oxnard, California as part of Rhino's new Rhino Reserve line.

BRAD MEHLDAU - Ride Into The Sun CD/LP (Nonesuch) 
Nonesuch Records releases pianist and composer Brad Mehldau's Ride into the Sun-a songbook record of music by the late singer, songwriter, and guitarist Elliott Smith. Featured musicians include singer/guitarist Daniel Rossen (Grizzly Bear); singer/mandolinist Chris Thile (Punch Brothers, NickelCreek); bassists Felix Moseholm (Brad Mehldau Trio) and John Davis; drummer Matt Chamberlain (FionaApple, Tori Amos, Randy Newman, etc.); and a chamber orchestra led by Dan Coleman. Ride into the Sun's ten Elliott Smith songs are complemented by four Mehldau compositions that he says are inspired by, and reflect, Smith's oeuvre. Also included are interpretations of Big Star's Thirteen, which Smith also covered, and Sunday by Nick Drake, who Mehldau says, I look at in some ways assort of Smith's visionary godfather. Recalling how he first got to know Smith and his music, which has been a regular part of his repertoire for years, Mehldau said that after years living in New York, he moved to Los Angeles and there was this wonderful scene of singer-songwriters that was congregating at a club called Largo. That included Elliott but it also included artists like Rufus Wainwright, Fiona Apple. And then other musicians who had been around for a while would come down every Friday night to sit in on a gig that was led by Jon Brion. I played behind Elliott on his own tunes with Jon. It felt to me like a kind of renaissance in songwriting that flourished for a number of years.

JEHNNY BETH - You Heartbreaker You CD/LP (Fiction)  
Jehnny Beth, former frontwoman of Mercury-nominated English rock band Savages, returns with her 2nd solo album You Heartbreaker, You via Fiction Records.

SHABASON, KRGOVICH, TENNISCOATS - Wao LP (Western Vinyl)  
Wao is the spontaneous and dreamlike new album from Joseph Shabason, Nicholas Krgovich, and legendary Japanese duo Tenniscoats. Recorded over two unplanned days at the oceanfront artist haven Guggenheim House in Kobe, Wao captures the magic of pure improvisation, the joy of instant connection, and the quiet poetry of everyday life. The project began in spring 2024, when Shabason and Krgovich traveled to Japan for their first tour as a duo. Label head Koji Saito not only organized the dates but arranged for Tenniscoats—Saya and Takashi Ueno—to serve as both openers and backing band. With only two rehearsals, the group found immediate musical chemistry on stage, their performances growing more fluid and playful each night.

GASTR DEL SOL  - The Serpentine Similar LP [Reissue/1997] (Drag City )  
Bastro was being reborn, with Grubbs on guitars, keyboards and vocals and Brown on bass. Playing in duo format opened up sound and intention, leaving the need for speed (and the stock in rock) out, while letting in an expanse of brooding, droning acoustic space that highlighted the songs’ serpentine shapes. This was something so radically different as to require a new calling card: henceforth, Gastr del Sol

GASTR DEL SOL - Crookt, Crackt, or Fly LP [Reissue/1994] (Drag City)  
Recorded with Brian Paulson at King Size Sound Labs and several other spaces in late ‘93, Crookt, Crackt or Fly is a stimulating 45-minute listening experience, crystallizing the first phase of Grubbs' and O'Rourke's collaboration, while promising, “Just wait ‘til the next one!

DJ HARAM - Beside Myself LP (Hyperdub)  
DJ Haram's debut album Beside Myself is about the survival of the spirit in day to day struggle. Following on from her collaboration with Moor Mother as 700 Bliss on Nothing to Declare, here she is joined by a swarm of collaborators, collectively navigating pain and rage, and in occasional moments of joyful respite, mocking the strife. Haram describes herself as a multidisciplinary propagandist, contemporary anti-authoritarian Arab, gendered labor class, god fearing atheist who makes anti-format, audio propaganda, anti-lifestyle, immersive sonics.

SOMEONE STILL LOVES YOU BORIS YELTSIN - Broom (20th Anniversary Edition) LP [Reissue/2006] (Polyvinyl Records)  
The members of Someone Still Loves You Boris Yeltsin couldn't list a single music blog until their lo-fi MP3s and low-res JPEGs made them worldwide icons of Blogdom in 2005. Even Spin read an SSLYBY blog, downloaded their music and declared the Missouri band could succeed The Shins as the band that will change your life. Recorded in the attic and living room of guitarist Will Knauer's home, Broom, SSLYBY's debut record, is an expertly crafted indie pop gem. Originally, SSLYBY had a simple ambition: to make the Local Releases bin at CD Warehouse. However, Broom turned into a classic rock 'n' roll record - the kind where pop perfectionism meets studio experimentations and each track flows effortlessly. To celebrate 20 years of Someone Still Loves You Boris Yeltsin's Broom, the essential title is now back in print on a fresh pressing on Clear with Red, Pink, Yellow & Green Splatter vinyl to match the cover.

WISP - If Not Winter CD (Interscope Records)  
[CD available now, LP available in November] Following her breakout EP, Pandora - amassing over 250 million global streams and solidifying her place at forefront of the underground - Wisp's debut album, If Not Winter, is here. A testament to her ability to push the bounds of modern rock music, the twelve-song body of work showcases her distinctive and sophisticated sound, and dedication to storytelling.

BILLY WOODS - Today I Wrote Nothing (10 Year Anniversary) LP (Backwoodz Studioz)   When Billy Woods released Today, I Wrote Nothing ten years ago, it was an unexpected departure from a rapper who was just starting to make waves in the indie rap scene. After spending the earlier part of his career in the wilderness, woods had managed to crawl out of obscurity with the minor success of 2012's History Will Absolve Me. Dour Candy, 2013's collaboration with underground legend Blockhead drew accolades, which only increased with Armand Hammer's debut Race Music. Then, woods dropped out of sight for two years before returning with Today, I Wrote Nothing, a record that deviated significantly from what had come before.

CHALINO SANCHEZ - El Pela Vacas LP [Reissue/1992]  (Craft Recordings)  
El Pela Vacas by the Godfather of the Corrido, Chalino Sánchez, was released in 1992 on Discos Musart. This classic recording features some of his greatest corrido compositions Ya después de muerto, Corrido del Gallito, and La muerte del Pela Vacas. This is the first vinyl reissue since it's original pressing, and it features (AAA) lacquers cut from the original master tapes.

OREN AMBARCHI - Ghosted III LP  (Drag City)  
Ambarchi, Berthling and Werliin are back, a little looser and wilder than before. Their ability to lock in and focus on the smallest of details is enhanced here by a sense of increased immediacy. Great news for fans of stimulating variations of tone and mood within a potentially infinite universe of rhythm and sound! The more you listen to Ghosted III, the better your hearing becomes. Or maybe it’s just that you hear more every time you play it.

NEON INDIAN - Vega Intl Night School LP [Reissue/2015] (Mom & Pop Music)  
Neon Indian’s third album showed founder Alan Palomo embracing every fluorescent color of the ’80s music scene to create a synth-pop masterpiece. Fans and critics were dazzled by a unique melding of influences from The Police to Prince to Blondie and The Tom Tom Club, landing Vega Intl. Night School in the Top 20 of Billboard’s Rock, Indie, and Alternative Album charts, as well as best-of lists from Pitchfork, Complex, Under The Radar, and others.

OLD ANIMALS - Old Animals LP (Old Animals)
Ancient Sludge stirs. DNA of the immortal jellyfish lives on,we are OLD ANIMALS. The debut album is available now! Old Animals is:
Jonathan Portnoy – Bass & Moog Synth.
Jason Kowalski – Drums & Vox.
Zachary Stauber – Guitars & Leads.
Tanner Crace – Guitars, Vocals & Synths.

COMING NEXT WEEK!
BIG THIEF - Double Infinity CD/LP
DAVID BYRNE - Who Is The Sky? CD/LP
EL MICHELS AFFAIR - 24 HR Sports CD/CASS/LP
SHAME - Cutthroat cd/lp
MF DOOM - Metal Fingers Presents Special Herbs CD/LP/CASS
SPINAL TAP - This Is Spinal Tap OST LP
HOT CHIP - Joy In Repetition CD/LP
AUTECHRE - Quaristrice & Untitled LP Reissues
CAMPER VAN BEETHOVEN - Telephone Free Landslide LP Reissue
LUCERO - Nobody’s Darlings LP Reissue
LA DISPUTE - No One Was Driving.. CD/LP
LARD - Pure Chewing Satisfaction LP Reissue
SAINT ETIENNE - International CD/LP
LONDON SUEDE - Antidepressants LP Reissue
N8NOFACE - As Of Right Now LP
SISTER NANCY - One Two LP Reissue