PREORDER UPCOMING RELEASES
Gregory Porter, the world’s best-selling contemporary Jazz/Soul artist with over 3 million worldwide album sales returns with ALL RISE, his sixth studio album. The album marks a return to Porter’s beloved original songwriting – heart-on-sleeve lyrics imbued with everyday philosophy and real-life detail, set to a stirring mix of jazz, soul, blues and gospel. Produce by Troy Miller (Laura Mvula, Jamie Cullum, Emili Sande), the set also represents the evolution of Porter’s art to something even more emphatic, emotive, intimate, and universal too. After 2017’s Nat King Cole & Me, Porter knew two things: one, he’d bring in an orchestra for his next LP, and two, the music is medicine. In the spirit of that latter revelation, ALL RISE brims with songs about irrepressible love, plus a little protest, because the road to healing is bumpy.
Since his world-beating 2013 Blue Note debut, ‘Liquid Spirit’, which won the Grammy for Best Jazz Vocal Album, Gregory hasn't let down his legion of fans, whether collaborating with Disclosure on ‘Holding On’, releasing his dance hit ‘Liquid Spirit – Claptone Remix’ which became one of the most popular tracks in Ibiza, scoring another Grammy for ‘Take Me to the Alley’ (2016), or telling his life story through Cole's songbook. Porter is still surprised by his runaway success, but he has a theory: "I was soothed by my voice as a child and I think that's the same thing others get from it. I'm trying to heal myself with these songs."
Not only has Gregory made chart history by bringing jazz back to the masses, graced the iconic Pyramid Stage and the world’s most prestigious gig venues, performed for the Queen, appeared on the biggest TV shows as well as presented his own series (‘Gregory Porter’s Popular Voices’ on BBC Four), 2019 saw the singer launch and host his own podcast, ‘The Hang’, featuring such distinguished guests as Annie Lennox and Jeff Goldblum.
High Road is the new album from the modern pop icon Kesha, and the follow up to her 2017 GRAMMY-nominated album Rainbow.
High Road finds Kesha on a joyful musical journey of self-discovery. The album is filled with emotional and stylistic range, and is a blend of heavenly highs and emotional depths. Kesha’s swagger is front and center, with frisky, rap-based tracks that show-off her skills as a lyrical spitfire, and also a folkier side that emerges. With a dream-pop ode to a best friendship, a reflective ballad about growing up without a father, and plenty of lust and laughter, High Road traverses the emotional spectrum.
For High Road, Kesha enlisted an eclectic roster of collaborators/songwriters/producers including John Hill, Dan Reynolds, Stuart Crichton, Jeff Bhasker, Drew Pearson, Brian Wilson, Sturgill Simpson, Nate Ruess, Justin Tranter, Stint, Wrabel, and Pebe Sebert, among others.
Kesha has sold more than 14 million total album equivalents worldwide, and has had 9 Top 10 hits on The Billboard Hot 100, including four #1 singles at Top 40 Radio.
At 16, Joey Alexander has already recorded two GRAMMY-nominated studio albums, as well as a critically acclaimed surprise release from late 2017 to honor Thelonious Monk's centennial. With his third studio effort Eclipse, Joey took another giant step forward, demonstrating his aptitude as a composer, bandleader, and musician, hinting at the many artistic paths open to him in the decades ahead. Joey has made appearances on 60 Minutes, The Today Show, and NPR's Tiny Desk series.
When Poliça's Channy Leaneagh fell off her roof while clearing ice in early 2018, she smashed her L1 vertebrae and battered her spine, leaving her in a brace with limited mobility for months. Yet Poliça's fourth album, When We Stay Alive, is not about one debilitating accident. It's about the redemptive power of rewriting your story in order to heal, and reclaiming your identity as a result. When We Stay Alive possesses a new confidence in its sound, reflected in its fierce, determined songs and anchored by the heavy synths and punctuating beats of Poliça co-founder and producer Ryan Olson. Over the last several years Olson and Leaneagh have widely collaborated with musicians from all over the world: both with Bon Iver, and Leaneagh individually with Boys Noize, Lane 8, Sasha, Leftfield, and Daniel Wohl; Olson with Swamp Dogg in addition to countless musicians from the Aaron Dessner and Justin Vernon's 37d03d collective. As a result, When We Stay Alive features one of the largest musical casts of any Poliça record to date. To create the album, Olson brought his favorite collaborators into his studio for all-night sessions. He'd then send Leaneagh the files to write lyrics to while recovering at home, which she'd record alone or with engineer Alex Proctor. Drummers Drew Christopherson and Ben Ivascu colored the songs with a new approach ' drastically changing the rhythmic dynamic from previous efforts by creating an indistinguishable hybrid of live and electronic instrumentation--and bassist Chris Bierden provided a melody-laden low-end as well as more layered backing vocals than ever before. On Poliça's first three albums, Leaneagh focused on restructuring the world and her relationships within it. On When We Stay Alive, she realizes the power in restructuring her inner self. The album's title references the idea of moving forward through life ' our experiences, both good and bad ' and what happens next with the strength we find. 'I had been living unconsciously in past trauma,' Leaneagh says. 'I don't want to deny something happened ' this is not about repression ' it's about taking the power back from the past, holding the power in the present, and creating a new story for myself.'
Dashboard Confessional's first-ever career-spanning compilation, The Best Ones Of The Best Ones, is a thoughtfully curated collection of the band's most beloved songs and features selections from all seven studio albums, the So Impossible and The Drowning EPs, and the band's legendary, Platinum-certified MTV Unplugged performance. From start to finish, The Best Ones Of The Best Ones showcases the profound durability of Dashboard Confessional's music over the past two decades. The collection highlights singer/songwriter Chris Carrabba's extraordinary ability to give a cathartic voice to the messiest of emotions, which led the band to ascend from a bedroom project to a global sensation.
With their ninth album, Nada Surf: Matthew Caws, Daniel Lorca, Ira Elliot, and Louie Lino continue pursuing their humanistic vision of the world through hooky, catchy rock songs with sharply drawn, yet tenderly felt lyrics. Never Not Together, is a compact, yet wide-ranging collection of songs that revel in the quartet's ability to evoke and reflect grand and intricately wrought emotions, whether through sweeping guitar solos or hushed-whisper vocals. Never Not Together was recorded at the Coach House Studio in Wales' Rockfield Studios, where artists like Echo & the Bunnymen, the Flamin' Groovies, and Dumptruck recorded albums. "I've been seeing the name on albums for so long," says Caws. "It's a working farm, and the founder/owner, Kingsley Ward, would come in and tell us stories when he wasn't farming. I'd walk into town every morning and listen to the sheep talking as I walked by them."That openness to listening to their fans, to each other, to the world has helped inform Nada Surf's legacy as down-to-earth rock stars musicians who can command festival stages around the world while connecting to audience members on a personal level, conscious of the shared humanity every step of the way.
Oh Wonder announced details of their upcoming third album, No One Else Can Wear Your Crown, which will be released on February 7th, 2020! The new album will include their first single "Hallelujah" and most recent follow-up "Better Now." Oh Wonder also shares a brand new track from the album, "I Wish I Never Met You," out now. The album announcement arrives hand-in-hand with the first installment of international dates for the "Wear Your Crown Tour," including legs in North America and the U.K..
Driving anywhere in Texas can cost you half a day, easy. For example, it'll take you over four hours just to get from R&B singer Leon Bridges' hometown of Fort Worth down to Houston, where the psychedelic wanderers in Khruangbin hail from. The state is vast, crisscrossed with rugged expanses of road flanked by limestone cliffs and granite mountains, forests of pine and mesquite, miles of desert or acres of sprawling grassland, all depending on what part you're in. And it's all baking under the Texas Sun that lends it's name to Bridges and Khruangbin's new collaborative EP. "Big sky country, that's what they call Texas," Khruangbin bassist Laura Lee says. "The horizon line goes all the way from one side to another without interruption. There's something really comforting about that." On Texas Sun, these two members of the state's musical vanguard meet up somewhere in the middle of that scene, in the mythical nexus of Texas' past, present, and future-a dreamy badlands where genres blur as seamlessly as the terrain. It calls equally to the cowboys boot-scooting at Billy Bob's in Fort Worth, the chopped-and-screwed hip-hop fans rattling slabs on the southside of Houston, the art-school kids dropping acid in Austin, the cross-cultural progeny who grew up on listening to both mariachi and post-hardcore out on the Mexican borders of El Paso. All of these things, overlapping in a multicolored melange, purple hues as vivid and unpredictable as one of the state's rightfully celebrated sunsets. A journey through homesick reminiscences, backseat romances, and late-night contemplations, the kind of record made for listening with the windows down and the road humming softly beneath you. Like the highways that inspired it, Texas Sun is guaranteed to get you where you're going-especially if you're in no particular hurry to get there.
Grammy-winning and BRIT and Mercury-Prize-nominated artist La Roux returns with her first new material in five years - 'Supervision' out February 7th 2020 on her own label Supercolour Records. From cover to contents, this is unequivocally the album Elly Jackson always wanted to make - a claim that with some artists might ring alarm bells, but in this instance simply means that ‘Supervision’ sounds precisely, unmistakably, gloriously like La Roux.
La Roux shot to worldwide fame with her debut self-titled album in 2009 selling over 6 million singles worldwide and - in addition to collaborations with the likes of Skream, Kanye West, and Major Lazer – helped reshape pop as we now know it. Elly’s second album, 'Trouble In Paradise', was a critically-adored reinvention, topping the Dance/Electronic charts in the US and landing La Roux her second top 10 album in the UK.
Joe Russo’s debut solo album 'phér•bŏney’ is now available on limited edition black vinyl via Royal Potato Family. Initially a surprise release on digital formats in early summer 2019, the LP editions mark the first time the recording is available in physical form. Throughout ‘phér•bŏney,’ Russo defies expectations with a collection of dreamy instrumentals and vocal tracks, channeling a sublime, reflective musicality. The wildly imaginative, yet cohesive, 9-song set moves through ethereal indie-pop, Ennio Morricone-like soundscapes, electro-jazz forays and smoldering, African-inspired guitar workouts.
Nathaniel Rateliff has written and recorded his first solo record since the explosive debut of his work together with The Night Sweats. And It's Still Alright, is an intensely personal 10-song album of vibrant country-blues, badland ballads, ornate Americana and jazz-inflected R&B. Rateliff's warm baritone, ranging from gently hushed to a guttural howl, imbues these superbly drawn character studies with raw, naked emotion.
And It's Still Alright was produced by Rateliff, Night Sweats' drummer Patrick Meese and James Barone of the indie band, Beach House and primarily recorded at National Freedom in Cottage Grove, Oregon, the studio formerly owned by the late Richard Swift (who produced both Night Sweats recordings). While Rateliff, Meese and Barone handled much of the album's instrumentation, several friends make contributions including Night Sweats' guitarist Luke Mossman; bassist Elijah Thomson (of the indie band Everest); keyboardist Daniel Creamer (of The Texas Gentlemen); steel guitarist Eric Swanson (touring musician for Israel Nash) and renowned string arranger Tom Hagerman (of the instrumental vocal ensemble DeVotchKa), whose delicate orchestrations beautifully complement the album's deep emotional terrain.
And It's Still Alright's many highlights include album opener ''What A Drag,'' which sketches a vivid portrait of a disconnected relationship, ''Tonight #2,'' a haunting, end-of-the-world waltz, ''Time Stands,'' detailing an epic, desperate struggle for love and the elegiac ''Rush On,'' a heart-breaking requiem for Swift.
Unguarded and unflinchingly real, Nathaniel Rateliff's And It's Still Alright expands on the sounds and styles he's used to great affect across both his band and solo careers. It's a commanding next step in Nathaniel's evolution into one of America's most vital and essential songwriters.
Americana-leaning indie folk band The Ballroom Thieves take on topics as heavy as politics and as joyful as lifelong companionship on their latest studio album Unlovely.
Tennis are an indie pop duo comprising husband and wife Patrick Riley (guitar, keyboards, production) and Alaina Moore (vocals, keyboards). The band wrote their upcoming album on land and sea; on their sailboat traveling around Baja California, Mexico & in their recording studio they built in Denver. Alaina and Patrick were driven to elevate their songwriting & experimented with different instrumentation, time changes, & a focus on lyrical storytelling. The band experienced many life-changing occurrences over the last two years that influenced their writing - from loss to illness and renewed bonds. Swimmer is a single they are releasing in Fall 2019, coming out as the band announces touring dates for spring 2020.
Honeymoon is the excellent debut album from Beach Bunny, the four-piece band out of Chicago. Recorded at the iconic Chicago studio Electrical Audio with producer Joe Reinhart (Hop Along, Algernon Caldwaller), the nine songs on the LP burst with energy that capture their vital and life-affirming live shows. Songs like the swooning and anthemic singles 'Dream Boy' and 'Ms. California' encapsulate the highs and lows the exiting the honeymoon stage of a relationship. The long-awaited debut LP 'Honeymoon' from Beach Bunny follows their breakout hit on Tik-Tok, 'Prom Queen' (65 million global streams, 518K+ TikTok videos). Honeymoon will be released on February 14th, 2020 following a major market tour with festival plays.
Recorded over the course of a series of freewheeling, improvisatory sessions, Kingdom In My Mind is The Wood Brothers seventh studio release and their most spontaneous and experimental collection yet. A testament to the limitless creativity of the unharnessed mind, the record explores the power of our external surroundings to shape our internal worlds (and vice versa), reckoning with time, mortality, and human nature. The songs here find strength in accepting what lies beyond our control, thoughtfully honing in on the bittersweet beauty that underlies our pain and sadness with vivid character studies and unflinching self-examination. Deep as the lyrics dig, the arrangements always manage to remain buoyant and light, though, drawing from across a broad sonic spectrum to create a transportive, effervescent blend that reflects the trio s unique place in the modern musical landscape.
On October 22nd Courtney Barnett performed a unique and special show at the invitation of MTV Australia in her hometown of Melbourne. The “Unplugged” performance features Barnett as you’ve never heard her before, warm, vulnerable and emotional. Under a garland of lights and a canopy of florals in the outdoor courtyard of Howler, Barnett performed a stirring set of eight songs to an intimate audience including “Depreston”, “Avant Gardener” and “Sunday Roast." Joined by her usual band Dave Mudie and Bones Sloane, she also enlisted cellist Lucy Waldron. MTV Australia Unplugged Live in Melbourne will be released physically on February 21.
This is the Ozzman’s first album in 10 years and with his recent appearance on the Post Malone track “Take What You Want” as well as his single “Under The Graveyard” which has now been #1 at Active Rock for five weeks and #1 at Classic Rock for nine weeks we are poised to have a massive return to the marketplace. Some of the announced features include longtime guitarist Zakk Wylde, Slash & Duff McKagan (GNR), Chad Smith of the RHCP, and Post Malone guitarist / producer Andrew Watt. There are additional big name features that have yet to be announced.
Craft Recordings is thrilled to announce the release of a vinyl box set celebrating one of music’s greatest gospel and soul groups, The Staple Singers. Set for a December 6th release date, Come Go With Me: The Stax Collection presents all of the group’s studio albums released on the iconic Memphis label, spanning 1968–1974, and features the Staples’ biggest hits, including “I’ll Take You There,” “Respect Yourself” and “If You’re Ready (Come Go with Me).” The six studio albums were cut from the original analog masters by Jeff Powell at Take Out Vinyl. The final, seventh disc offers rarities, non-album singles and several live recordings from the legendary 1972 Wattstax music festival. The seven discs come in heavyweight 180-gram vinylpressed at Memphis Record Pressing. Housed in a slipcase, the collection also includes a deluxe booklet with archival photos and new liner notes from American music specialist and curator Levon Williams (formerly of the Stax Museum and the National Museum of African American Music), and folklorist, ethnomusicologist and writer Dr. Langston Wilkins. The complete collection will also be released digitally, and the six studio albums will be available in hi-res 24-bit/192 kHz and 24-bit/96 kHz formats for the first time.
As we age, we face obstacles that are beyond our control. Some forces are internal: insecurity, anxiety, fear. Some are external: the loss of loved ones, an unjust system and the fragility of time. Yet the mark of maturity is how you respond when you realize you’re not in control. Where do you find your resilience?
This album is a reflection of us coming to terms with how to find our power in the face of an unfair world. These songs lead listeners past “where happy man searches, to a place only mad women know.” We question our purpose, our relationships, our faith. Trading the fears of our youth for the dread that rages within us as mature women.
With SATURN RETURN, our hope is that women can feel less alone in their journey through the modern world. We need each other more than we ever have; the less competition and the more inclusiveness and understanding, the better. We are southern women in the 21st century, convicted by our beliefs.
Double vinyl LP pressing in gatefold jacket. 2020 release, the eighth album from hard-hitting rockers Five Finger Death Punch. The album was produced by Kevin Churko, the Canadian record producer/engineer and songwriter who currently lives in Las Vegas, where he works out of his private studio, The Hideout Recording Studio. Includes "Inside Out".
On his sophomore album, Full Hand, Indiana musician Kevin Krauter tackles complicated emotional states and ideas through elliptical songwriting that is at once poetic and truthful. "A lot of the lyrics touch on how I was raised religiously, touch on me understanding my sexuality more and more in recent years," Krauter says, "just growing up and becoming more confident in myself...that process of looking inward and taking stock of myself." It’s not especially uncommon for artists to probe deep into their own psyche to uncover what makes them tic, but Krauter’s light touch feels like something all his own. On the album’s first single, "Pretty Boy," he sings, "Look ahead, say I see me now / Smiling at what used to stress me out / Cause it won’t be too long, but I’ll take my time with it / It won’t be too long till I come back home." There’s a palpable sense of joy in Krauter’s acceptance of dire, stressful moments, and a liberation that comes from hearing him realize that the present will eventually be the past, and he’ll be able to look back and find peace.