Alternative

TRACKLISTING: 01. JOHN FRED - LENNE 02. LESTERYOUNG - DOWN TO THE RIVER 03. EDDIE KING & MAE B, MAY - ARE YOU PUSHED TO LOVE? 04. LOUISIANA RED - WHO DAT? 05. THE JOLLY JAX - 'PRECIATE IT 06. BIG JACK REYNOLDS - MADE IT UP IN YOUR MIND 07. PROFESSOR HAMILTON & THE SCHOOL BOYS - BACK TO SCHOOL 08. BOBBY PIERCE - MY NIGHT OUT 09. THE THUNDERBIRDS - THUNDERBIRD TWIST 10. KENNY HAMBERS & DAVID ROBERTSON'S COMBO - DO THE HULLY GULLY 11. JOHNNY COPELAND - WAKE UP, LITTLE SUSIE 12. JOEL SCOTT HILL & THE INVADERS - LOOK OUT 13. MISS LA-VELL - TEENAGE LOVE 14. FRANK SCOTT - SHE SAID 15. THE MERRILL BROTHERS - MY BABY TWIST 16. JIMMIE VAUGHN - COME ON HOME Record Label: Jerk!Boom!Bam! Style: Garage Rock

Ultra-rare gems extracted from 45s and 78s records released in the 50s and early 60s by obscure record labels. A unique mix of genres perfect for a successful exotic party: TROPICALYPSO, PERSIAN CHA CHA CHA, LATIN AND ROLL, JAPANESE RHUMBA, HAWAIIAN SWING, POLYNESIAN SURF, BAHAMIAN DRUMS, MEXICAN MONSTERS, BRAZILIAN EXOTICA. "The craziest compilation of music from all over the world!!! This comp collates a worldwide mixture of painfully obscure crud-a-phonic dance craze platters from the 50s and 60s." "A brilliant & bonkers concoction of exotica and international nonsense novelties." "If you need something new to listen to after you've worn out yer Las Vegas Grind and Jungle Exotica records then this is for YOU! This platter will liven up any party!" "Lurch-eriffic tropical crazes and totally daffy mix-n-match foreign language tracks that'll make your eyes & ears alike pop just like corn. Long live the University of Vice. Style: Garage Rock

Sacred Bones is excited to be making this album available to the world in a limited edition of 700 deluxe LP format. Of all languages, French may be the most musically suited to convey the emotion of melancholy. And as the prickly landscape of Photodrame unfolds, the yearning lyrical baritone plays out as a sardonic disgust and surrender to the sorry state of things. Armed with a stripped-down gear set-up of bass, guitar and a single drum machine, the band recorded this at home direct to tape. "Trop Tard" is a French term translating to "too late". It is also the name of one of the darkest and most elusive bands to come out of Europe. For nearly a quarter century the music of TROP TARD has been lost to the world, trapped in the icy expanse of mid-80s provincial France. The trio self released ,Photodrame" (1987) and "Ils Etaient 9 Dans L'Obscurité" (1988) in extremely limited editions that likely saw little if any distribution outside of their native France. Yet these are two of the true coveted jewels in the crown of the French Cold Wave. Also known as La Vague Froide, the movement was inspired by inspired by British post-punk and legendary producer Martin Hannett, creator of Manchester's Factory Records sound. Looking back now, 25 years later, TROP TARD stands as one of the purest embodiments of its Romantic spirit. Record Label: Sacred Bones Style: Independent

Record Label: Grand Hotel van Cleef Style: Indie-Pop

Back with a second album of thoughtful new themes, Sun Airway's Soft Fall takes us to an ethereal layer between worlds. The sonically inspiring sub-strata of Soft Fall began in songwriter/producer Jon Barthmus' house in Philadelphia. Classical foundations were chopped, dissected, and sewn back together by a string quartet in one recording studio, with live instruments overdubbed in another, then re-edited and assembled back at home by Barthmus. David Wrench (Caribou, Bat for Lashes, Bear in Heaven) took it all to new heights with some masterful mixing. On Soft Fall, Sun Airway's pop songs move out of the bedroom and into cathedrals. The songs are hyper-saturated, bright and colorful, spilling from the speakers. They're glistening, based on rich acoustic instruments and layered in synthetic sounds carried along on Barthmus' perfect hooks. Soft Fall is a place where swirling orchestras play, cupped in the palms of your hands. It's a place where everything belongs where it doesn't; As Barthmus sings, it's "out of time, but still in tune." Listen closely, and you can make out the memories left traced in the rocks; shady shapes of electronic / pop pioneers past and present. Touches of ELO and New Order brush up against hints of modern sounds like M83 and Radio Dept., carried by the subtle breeze of Bjork's Homogenic. In a landscape of collapsed beats, humming of the life that springs up from underneath, ,Soft Fall" takes you on frosty morning walks through the woods where twinges of psychedelic light escape through the spaces between the leaves. It's Versailles in audio form: grand and beautiful, ornate and complex, surreal and classic all at once Style: Independent

Record Label: Music On Vinyl Style: Pop

Record Label: Music On Vinyl Style: Rock

Canada's METZ are a return to everything that's good about loud, ecstatic live music; a frantic nod to Nation of Ulysses, Shellac, The Pixies, The Jesus Lizard, and Public Image Ltd. at their most vicious, while carving out some heavy new business. METZ have been around for over three years, sharing stages with Mission of Burma, Mudhoney, Oneida and NoMeansNo. METZ was produced by Graham Walsh (Holy Fuck) and Alexandre Bonenfant. With this, their debut album, METZ articulate with deafening clarity what we've known for some time: The world of good music needs a new power trio, and this is it. Style: Alternative Rock

When Jerry Fuchs joined Maserati in 2004, he initiated a complete overhaul of the group: old songs were dropped, tempos were drastically sped up, and the budding psych-rock impulses of guitarists Coley Dennis and Matt Cherry were given room to grow. Beginning with the electrifying "Inventions For The New Season", MASERATI were a better, faster, stronger beast. That spirit shines bright on ,Maserati VII", their first album conceived since Fuchs' passing. MASERATI has an uncanny ability to toggle time back and forth between the past, present, and future - often in the span of one song. On ,Maserati VII", they're grounded and driven by new drummer Mike Albanese (Cinemechanica), whose dexterity and stamina prove a perfect fit for MASERATI's trademark relentless, driving rhythms and epic song lengths, anchored by bass badass, Chris "Coach" McNeal. "Maserati VII" perfectly captures the essence and evolution of MASERATI as face-melting, bone-rattling, ass-shaking Moroder Metal Style: Post-Rock

LA-via-Vermont garage/powerpop wunderkind KING TUFF presents two brand new, non-album tracks, hot on the heels of his critically-acclaimed self-titled LP. "Screaming Skull" is a club-ready, guitar-driven dance hit, and "Love Potion" is yet another glammed-up rock anthem from the King Style: Garage Rock

Group Rhoda is a solo project based in San Francisco. The fruits of a five year journey into self-discipline and personal discovery, Mara Barenbaum's Group Rhoda uses stark musical practices and analogue electronics to evoke imagery and rhythms both atavistic and futuristic. Using the tools of musical simplification - synthesisers, analogue effects and drum machines - Group Rhoda's aim is to build a pop music that reaches freedom through discipline. All instrumentation, whether in the studio or on stage, is played live and with no sampling; a completely organic language formed from the roots of synthesis. 'Out Of Time, Out of Touch' is Group Rhoda's debut recording. It is the culmination of a process which began with a self-taught keyboard technique and a desire to learn about the machinations of the tools of pop music and, in turn, the environment in which it is produced. While many of GR's choices are implicitly political - from a strict methodology to a strong commitment to DIY ethics and community - the outcome is also easily approachable as sublime pop music in the best sense. With a grounding in minimal wave and the post-industrial landscape, GR takes surprising detours into tropical rhythm patterns, dubbed-out bass throbs, hypnotic Wurlitzer flourishes and, above all, GR's distinctive, plaintive vocal. The alluring contradiction at the heart of 'Out Of Time, Out Of Touch' is the push of the psychedelic, the hyper-real, the overtly physical and the pull of the artificial, the synthesised, the stark. This contradiction is brought to light continually through-out 'Out Of Time, Out Of Touch' - whether in the classic west coast psychedelic melodic sense played with Suicide's mechanical simplicity, or the industrial rhythms of Throbbing Gristle drenched in a technicolour, sun-blanched imagination. The songs on 'Out Of Time, Out Of Touch' seem to be plucked from a continuum - the throb of the bass and splashing of the drum machines are ongoing in the universe - with GR forming the songs with precision. Her voice intones themes of dislocation from reality, loneliness and the conundrum of ultimate freedom. 'Virtual Dancer' rides a bass-heavy wave to comment on the fleeting nature of human contact in the modern age, while 'At The Dark' is a deep-listening experience steeped in hypnotic psychedelia. 'Hi Rise' continues the theme of isolation, a reference to the eponymous JG Ballard novel, on the back of metallic tropical rhythm pattern. 'Fire' closes the album and is a pulsing, linear song which recalls 'Autobahn' era Kraftwerk, a single riff repeating and modulating around Barenbaum's freedom dilemma. 'Out Of Time, Out Of Touch' presents a surge forward in the ongoing critique and participation of pop music that is Group Rhoda. + + + FOR FANS OF: JULIA HOLTER, PEAKING LIGHTS, MARIA MINERVA, BILLIE RAY MARTIN. Record Label: Night School Style: Independent

TALLULAH" IS THE LEAD SINGLE FROM COWBELL'S DEBUT ALBUM, IT FEATURES AN EXCLUSIVE B-SIDE, "CRY BABY" COWBELL are Jack Sandham and Wednesday Lyle. The duo play garage/soul/rock n roll and write songs that combine a lyrical charm and ease with a sound that's full-bodied and powerful in spite of their stripped-down set-up. They take their influences from both sides of the Atlantic with a love for both the output of U.S labels such as Stax, Motown and Sun and for British sixties R&B bands such as The Small Faces, The Kinks and The Zombies. Style: Garage Rock

37-year-old native of Los Angeles currently residing in the farmlands of Vermont. He is the child of a former music business executive and a former Broadway actress. His resumé of prior musical projects is a long one: as a contributing member of The Curtains, Cryptacize, Deerhoof, and Natural Dreamers, he released 10 full-length albums between 2002 and 2008. Along the way, Cohen was also a touring player with White Magic, Cass McCombs, Haunted Graffiti and Danielson, among others, for stints both short and long. All of this has culminated in his first release under his own name, and his first for Captured Tracks, Overgrown Path. A singing drummer who writes psychedelic pop music, Cohen also records his own bass, Casio MT65, piano, and guitar. Tracks like "Caller No. 99" and "Monad" follow idiosyncratic forms, but are still melodic in an unconventional and homegrown way - like the best of Robert Wyatt, Mayo Thompson, Syd Barrett, and Jerry Garcia. Overgrown Path unfolds its delicate and unexpected arrangements around Cohen's relaxed baritone, unhurriedly revealing the detailed world wrapped up in each Record Label: Captured Tracks Style: Independent

UK band Blueneck bring their trademark sense of melancholy mood and melody to a new instrumental project called "Epilogue", due for worldwide release on Denovali records in October 2012. Typically known for the distinctive haunting vocals of mainman Duncan Attwood, "Epilogue" takes a deliberately different approach. Inspired by Attwood's recently commissioned solo work on soundtracks for independent films, not to mention the influence of inspirational composers and soundscapers such as BRIAN ENO, AIR, JOHN CARPENTER and CLINT MANSELL, this vocal-free release is the soundtrack to an (as yet) imaginary film. Epilogue" follows a trio of critically-acclaimed full length albums (2006's Scars of the Midwest; 2009's The Fallen Host ; 2011's Repetitions). Attwood says ""Epilogue" is intended as both the start and end of a number of distinct creative periods. It's a bookend to our three previous full-length vocal albums, a statement of intent on our parallel soundtrack work, and a means of clearing our collective minds before we started work on our new recording. It's our intention that the Blueneck you hear in the future will be markedly different to what you hear on this release". The band are currently working on the release of their fourth full-length vocal album, as yet untitled, due for release on Denovali in 2013. Vinyl: thick deluxe gatefold sleeves; 180g vinyl; 2 different vinyl colors; free download code Style: Ambient

Style: Alternative Rock

Record Label: Play It Again Sam Style: Independent

Most known for her jazz singing and her role in founding and fronting the Squirrel Nut Zippers, Madly Love shows a new side of Katharine Whalen. A Popmatters reivew states "Madly Love is always rewarding. If you want an easy reference point, imagine a less contrived She & Him, with Southern grit taking the place of all the coyness Record Label: Five Head Ent. Style: Independent

Record Label: Grand Hotel van Cleef Style: Indie-Pop

Record Label: Out Of Line Style: Dark Wave

In 1992 Louisville, KY was home to a unique and diverse punk rock scene that was fast becoming a highly influential underground mecca, and for every Slint and Rodan there were a half dozen brilliant Style: Alternative Rock