DRAG CITY - Forced Exposure

$12.00 PREORDER RELEASE DATE: 7/25/2025

Cassette version. "Like a sweet spring breeze after a long, cruel winter, Cory Hanson's blowing through town again. And like the wind, I Love People comes from parts unknown. Followers of Cory's twin arcs as solo singer and Wand member will be intrigued to learn that the lineup here is the same band that recorded 2024's Vertigo. That's Robbie Cody co-producing behind the desk, Evan Backer playing bass and arranging strings and horns, Evan Burrows on drums and percussion and Cory on piano, guitars and voices and songs. I Love People bugs out to the wtf-ness on the edge of town spied now and again on Cory's previous solos, Pale Horse Rider and Western Cum. Here though, the simmering shades of Rider's quiet horror and the bursts of Cum's cartoonish, gun-slinger bravado have given way to an ever-more impartial view of life on the ground, tinted in gossamer sepia and other nostalgic tones. Written over the past several annums, Cory's songs ensnare the '70s singer-songwriter in a feedback loop, drawing additional inspiration from the indelible everyman melodies of the American Songbook. With gilded threads and emboldened needling, I Love People's songs are rendered with immediacy and a deep-pile Hollywood production sound that radiates affluence and comfort, even in the darkest and coldest nights way out beyond the range of any signal. Placed and displaced among gorgeously outfitted musical arrangements, I Love People's people are kin to their threadbare folk forbears. Song by song, their occupations, social positions and dispositions unravel like silk into the wind. While they perform, Cory loiters backstage, gently pulling at the curtain to reveal silly details hidden in plain sight inside America's broken heart. It doesn't come as a surprise, and it's not strictly funny, either: a giddy mash of the two, the delirium that comes from finding what you think is 'true' is someone else's 'false.' When maps won't help you find out where you are anymore, you're as normal and horrible as the next person, playing out your days in a place of constant activity with your parallax view progressing invisibly into a limbo beyond the horizon. That's your freedom for you, and it might be more sad, more terrifying -- if it weren't so much fun! Even though their subject won't stop squirming, Cory and his merry men have constructed a timeless still life with I Love People, simply by living for the fun and love of it all."

$13.50 PREORDER RELEASE DATE: 7/25/2025

"Like a sweet spring breeze after a long, cruel winter, Cory Hanson's blowing through town again. And like the wind, I Love People comes from parts unknown. Followers of Cory's twin arcs as solo singer and Wand member will be intrigued to learn that the lineup here is the same band that recorded 2024's Vertigo. That's Robbie Cody co-producing behind the desk, Evan Backer playing bass and arranging strings and horns, Evan Burrows on drums and percussion and Cory on piano, guitars and voices and songs. I Love People bugs out to the wtf-ness on the edge of town spied now and again on Cory's previous solos, Pale Horse Rider and Western Cum. Here though, the simmering shades of Rider's quiet horror and the bursts of Cum's cartoonish, gun-slinger bravado have given way to an ever-more impartial view of life on the ground, tinted in gossamer sepia and other nostalgic tones. Written over the past several annums, Cory's songs ensnare the '70s singer-songwriter in a feedback loop, drawing additional inspiration from the indelible everyman melodies of the American Songbook. With gilded threads and emboldened needling, I Love People's songs are rendered with immediacy and a deep-pile Hollywood production sound that radiates affluence and comfort, even in the darkest and coldest nights way out beyond the range of any signal. Placed and displaced among gorgeously outfitted musical arrangements, I Love People's people are kin to their threadbare folk forbears. Song by song, their occupations, social positions and dispositions unravel like silk into the wind. While they perform, Cory loiters backstage, gently pulling at the curtain to reveal silly details hidden in plain sight inside America's broken heart. It doesn't come as a surprise, and it's not strictly funny, either: a giddy mash of the two, the delirium that comes from finding what you think is 'true' is someone else's 'false.' When maps won't help you find out where you are anymore, you're as normal and horrible as the next person, playing out your days in a place of constant activity with your parallax view progressing invisibly into a limbo beyond the horizon. That's your freedom for you, and it might be more sad, more terrifying -- if it weren't so much fun! Even though their subject won't stop squirming, Cory and his merry men have constructed a timeless still life with I Love People, simply by living for the fun and love of it all."

$25.00 PREORDER RELEASE DATE: 7/25/2025

LP version. "Like a sweet spring breeze after a long, cruel winter, Cory Hanson's blowing through town again. And like the wind, I Love People comes from parts unknown. Followers of Cory's twin arcs as solo singer and Wand member will be intrigued to learn that the lineup here is the same band that recorded 2024's Vertigo. That's Robbie Cody co-producing behind the desk, Evan Backer playing bass and arranging strings and horns, Evan Burrows on drums and percussion and Cory on piano, guitars and voices and songs. I Love People bugs out to the wtf-ness on the edge of town spied now and again on Cory's previous solos, Pale Horse Rider and Western Cum. Here though, the simmering shades of Rider's quiet horror and the bursts of Cum's cartoonish, gun-slinger bravado have given way to an ever-more impartial view of life on the ground, tinted in gossamer sepia and other nostalgic tones. Written over the past several annums, Cory's songs ensnare the '70s singer-songwriter in a feedback loop, drawing additional inspiration from the indelible everyman melodies of the American Songbook. With gilded threads and emboldened needling, I Love People's songs are rendered with immediacy and a deep-pile Hollywood production sound that radiates affluence and comfort, even in the darkest and coldest nights way out beyond the range of any signal. Placed and displaced among gorgeously outfitted musical arrangements, I Love People's people are kin to their threadbare folk forbears. Song by song, their occupations, social positions and dispositions unravel like silk into the wind. While they perform, Cory loiters backstage, gently pulling at the curtain to reveal silly details hidden in plain sight inside America's broken heart. It doesn't come as a surprise, and it's not strictly funny, either: a giddy mash of the two, the delirium that comes from finding what you think is 'true' is someone else's 'false.' When maps won't help you find out where you are anymore, you're as normal and horrible as the next person, playing out your days in a place of constant activity with your parallax view progressing invisibly into a limbo beyond the horizon. That's your freedom for you, and it might be more sad, more terrifying -- if it weren't so much fun! Even though their subject won't stop squirming, Cory and his merry men have constructed a timeless still life with I Love People, simply by living for the fun and love of it all."

$30.00 PREORDER RELEASE DATE: 6/27/2025

Hardcover. 51-pages. "Gabba Gabba We Accept You is a children's picture book that tells the story of how a kid who was bullied and felt like a misfit grew up to become a hero to so many as lead singer of The Ramones. This story speaks to one of the greatest silent majorities in the world -- all the kids who feel a little off. It contains an essential message that the world of punk rock has always meant to communicate. The challenging passages of life that brought Jeffrey Ross Hyman to the place where he became Joey Ramone provide a natural lesson to young folks navigating their way through the complexities of growing up. Working in collaboration with visual artist Lucinda Schreiber, Jay Ruttenberg guides the story of Gabba Gabba We Accept You in unexpected directions, with Lucinda's lyrical illustrations and colorful design opening the sense of possibility in what feels like the path less traveled on every page. About the inspiration for this book, Jay says: 'My daughter just turned 11, so I've spent recent years in children's book land. I think I've read her 97 books about Abraham Lincoln and 12,984 about Ruth Bader Ginsburg. It occurred to me that a lot of the life lessons I've been trying to teach her weren't learned through my family or school, but through punk stuff: the importance of being your own person, following your own radar instead of a group's, embracing uniqueness, etc. The Ramones, and in particular Joey, seemed like the perfect embodiment of that. So my big hope for the book is that it tells the story of Joey Ramone, but also, in kind of the biggest way, of what punk rock means, and how it might help a little kid wade through difficult social waters and be their own unique person." Gabba Gabba We Accept You speaks in well-grounded and wise verbal and visual language to inform and affirm children -- young ones and the adult children, alike -- that their individual personalities have an inspired and inspiring place in the world. In the process of becoming and being a person, there's no one set of rules. The sooner we all know that, the sooner we'll find ourselves in a much better place."

$13.50 PREORDER RELEASE DATE: 6/27/2025

"In 1987, Rafael Toral began making his own compositions and solo recordings using electric guitar in an enhanced signal path. In the time since then, he has developed his conceptions, first as a guitar improviser, then in what he called his 'Space Program,' utilizing self-made electronic modules. 2024's Spectral Evolution was a much-acclaimed return to guitar voicings and improvisations, edified by his further explorations in electronic sound. In the wake of his extraordinary new music comes a new set of CD masters for Rafael's first two albums, Sound Mind Sound Body and Wave Field. Nearly 40 years later, these recordings sound remarkably prescient and perfectly timeless -- fresher today than when they were first released! Sound Mind Sound Body was inspired in part by the working principles of Fripp and Eno, extrapolated by Rafael via a unique signal path leading out of his guitar. He paid notice to the massive impact of discreet gestures, creating slow-moving tones and spacious orchestral resonances, drifting and droning with glacial majesty, hardly recognizable as guitar much of the time. The first pieces were recorded in 1987; in 1994, a collection was released on Portugal's AnAnAnA, producing an hour's worth of remarkable sonic equilibrium in this mode. With each subsequent reissue, however, aspects of this sound have been subtly revisited. For the 1998 Moikai CD, 'AE 1,' one of the earliest pieces conceived, was newly recorded; for the 2018 Drag City LP master, 'Textura e Linhas Curvas' was included, 'AER 7 E' was re-recorded and the material for 'AE 2' was recorded for the first time ever. These performances were executed using the same processes as the original ones. For the current CD, 'Loopability II' has been recalled from the AnAnAnA master, 'Textura e Linhas Curvas' omitted and yet another brand-new version of 'AER 7E' inserted in place of the 2018 version. Incredibly, all of these changes augment Sound Mind Sound Body's expansive intent without altering its essential otherworldly atmosphere. Wave Field and Sound Mind Sound Body to sit perfectly among the forward-reaching music of today -- as it continues to evolve in listeners' ears, moving ever towards the next conception of listening space."

$13.50 PREORDER RELEASE DATE: 6/27/2025

"In 1987, Rafael Toral began making his own compositions and solo recordings using electric guitar in an enhanced signal path. In the time since then, he has developed his conceptions, first as a guitar improviser, then in what he called his 'Space Program,' utilizing self-made electronic modules. 2024's Spectral Evolution was a much-acclaimed return to guitar voicings and improvisations, edified by his further explorations in electronic sound. In the wake of his extraordinary new music comes a new set of CD masters for Rafael's first two albums, Sound Mind Sound Body and Wave Field. Nearly 40 years later, these recordings sound remarkably prescient and perfectly timeless -- fresher today than when they were first released! Wave Field, released in 1995, was a departure from the first album into new composition methods involving the dirty textures of rock guitar, sounding in the open ears of many listeners (like Jim O'Rourke, who issued the disc in the US on dexter's cigar) as a synthesis of disparate elements -- a nexus where Alvin Lucier, Sonic Youth, My Bloody Valentine, and Eno blend together. Here, the clangorous potential of the guitar was emphasized, giving a metallic edge to the two extended pieces and 'radio edit' coda. The jacket paid subtle tribute to My Bloody Valentine, which, along with the radio edit, suggested a harmony between musical directions as wildly disparate as minimalist experimental and rock. Today, such a paradoxical intent is more widely considered as a part of the artist's purview. Wave Field and Sound Mind Sound Body to sit perfectly among the forward-reaching music of today -- as it continues to evolve in listeners' ears, moving ever towards the next conception of listening space."

$27.00 PREORDER RELEASE DATE: 6/27/2025

"Sharpie Smile's debut album has one question for you: is your heart good enough to take The Staircase? Sharpie Smile is Dylan Hadley and Cole Berliner. They met in 2015, a pair of musically-adept nonconformist teenagers, forming a songwriting and performance duo. Writing initially for a project called Kamikaze Palm Tree, with Dylan on drums and Cole on guitar, they produced two albums of thorny, earwormy art-rock. While continuing to play shows and write, there was some session work with other acts (Cate Le Bon, A. Savage, Tim Presley's White Fence). And then a shimmering new direction came into view. For Sharpie Smile, that direction is up. The Staircase is a lush and energizing contemporary pop record, scaling an ambitious gradient of minimal/maximal electronic production and deep feels. It's a dreamy and ethereal trip through something (you're not sure what yet), on a radiant melodic raft. Reality is breaking and rebirth is happening, one piece at a time -- essential questions deconstructed and pieced together again. Like scanning a new x-ray image of yourself. Finding is losing something else; there's the shadow of 'goodbye' here, too. When Dylan sings 'There is nothing I won't miss' on 'Love or Worship,' you feel broken up -- but if the breakup is with the old way of life (it is), then getting over the hump will provide its own sweet reward. Sharpie Smile's passage there is one of sensuous breaths and serpentine soul-terrain, as Dylan's blue vocal melodies drift glacially through a luminous wilderness of synth keys, guitars and percussion beats, cutting the melancholy milieu of New Romantic pop in sharp new relief. On The Staircase, Sharpie Smile ascend through waves of sound art in a sophisticated musical craft all their own. Inspired by SOPHIE, 100 gecs, Oklou, and other insane futurists, they allow the feeling of discovery to free their evolution, whenever needed. Their collaborators help facilitate and guide their astonishing transformations: The Staircase was engineered and produced by Cesar Maria, with additional engineering by Spencer Hartling, additional vocal engineering and production by Cairo Marques-Neto and mixing by Mikey Weiland. You're in the eye of the storm. A refuge from the unrelenting, where the journey to clarity can be glimpsed, accessed and shared."

$35.00$29.75 IN STOCK

"Faun Fables, the long-running collaboration between Dawn McCarthy and Nils Frykdahl, have returned with Counterclockwise, the follow-up to 2016's Born of the Sun. With the longest space between albums in the band's twenty-seven-year history, the nature of time and experience spent raising a family and negotiating life's changes have much to do with the incredible listening companion Faun Fables have gifted us here. Counterclockwise's songs and production are the most encompassing, richly lived-in sonic world of their seven full-length albums. From start to finish, it is an exquisitely etched portrait of their aesthetic and worldview: colorfully studded with fine-hewed jewels of song, tinged with the traditional sounds of past and future nations. Their timeless 'songtelling' practice is entwined with a holistic view of a life in music -- embracing and celebrating the mundane details of home, partnering and family, elevated by a mystical and fantastical perspective. The new discovery here is their creative relationship with time. Counterclockwise began to take form in 2020, its songs brought together from over a span of fifteen years. Some came from commissioned projects about werewolves, Mother Goose, and other fairy tales. Others were rooted in familial traditions. Similarly, several cover songs salute crucial companions from different points in their individual and collective lives, making deep cuts from Yes and the Bee Gees -- as well as the theme song to '70s television program Grizzly Adams -- into further chapters of shaped time, well lived and loved, to indelibly light this collection. Counterclockwise is the first Faun Fables album engineered and produced by Dawn and Nils from start to finish. Taking the wheel in the tradition of the engineers that taught them, they have created a living atmosphere of songs and family. Dawn and Nils' wide-ranging vocal harmony tradition is enriched by the voices of their daughters Edda, Ura, and Gudrin, who contribute on keyboards and percussion, as well. Norwegian guitarist Arild Hammerø lends his singular guitar craft on the songs 'Ember Bell,' 'Hiawatha,' 'Wonderous Stories' (on which he also sings) and 'Maybe,' as well as the final, essential sounds that close the album. Dedicated with love to Dawn's late father, Edward 'Will' McCarthy, Counterclockwise is an evocation of the essential truth and joy of Faun Fables' relationship with time, the greatest value they can imagine to give to anyone who listens to their music."

$12.00$10.20 IN STOCK

Casette version. "With the quickness, time's still slipping into the future. Take it from Ty Segall. He's been on a few trips around the sun himself, making records in orbit as he charts his path forward. Modern life is here to stay, but also (to quote an old civil war scribe), everything rocks and nothing dies -- so for Possession, Ty's 16th album, he strikes up the orchestra in his head with an abiding view of some quintessentially American stories, a quest channeled into ten non-stop bangers. A year and a half removed from the trenchant identity opus of his 'Three Bells' song cycle, Ty's beamed himself out from deep within psychic interiors. Here, compulsive rhythm arrangements are joined in battle by sweeping movements of strings and horns that further the charge righteously. Be it de Toqueville, duBois, George H. Nash, Howard Zinn, Bob Dylan or Smile-era Beach Boys, it doesn't matter where you get your history: whether you wanna party like it's 1999 or 1699, the stories you like to tell yourself tend to reinforce what you already believe. Here, coursing through the irresistibly high music spirits, Ty foists social concepts that you won't read about in school. In the process, he manages to slip discreetly in and out of the ranks of silver-tongued bums, fly-by-nights and way-outs like Cheap Trick and Steely Dan, never tarrying long enough to retain their distinctive ordure. One of the keys to this new music involved tapping an old friend and collaborator, filmmaker Matt Yoka, to write with him. As a non-musician, Matt's language sense is different from the one Ty's amassed as a player of music. With the trust they've developed over the years -- brainstorming the visual worlds of Goodbye Bread, Manipulator, Emotional Mugger, and plenty more -- they throw the conceptual ball back and forth to translate general vibes and feels into wicked lyric imagery, each acting as writer and editor in the process. Rife with singing guitar leads and Wizzardian brass n' reeds lustily riffin' on the banks of Ty's harmony vocal choir, Possession features some of Ty's most inspired songs to date. Taking back alleys through complicated cityscapes, ripping riffs jaggedly out of past hits for a new purpose, Ty scans the wreckage scattered all around, singing about the end of the rope while resisting defeat -- suggesting an ecstatic new empire to build as he cruises the countryside in his glittering craft."

$13.50$11.48 IN STOCK

"With the quickness, time's still slipping into the future. Take it from Ty Segall. He's been on a few trips around the sun himself, making records in orbit as he charts his path forward. Modern life is here to stay, but also (to quote an old civil war scribe), everything rocks and nothing dies -- so for Possession, Ty's 16th album, he strikes up the orchestra in his head with an abiding view of some quintessentially American stories, a quest channeled into ten non-stop bangers. A year and a half removed from the trenchant identity opus of his 'Three Bells' song cycle, Ty's beamed himself out from deep within psychic interiors. Here, compulsive rhythm arrangements are joined in battle by sweeping movements of strings and horns that further the charge righteously. Be it de Toqueville, duBois, George H. Nash, Howard Zinn, Bob Dylan or Smile-era Beach Boys, it doesn't matter where you get your history: whether you wanna party like it's 1999 or 1699, the stories you like to tell yourself tend to reinforce what you already believe. Here, coursing through the irresistibly high music spirits, Ty foists social concepts that you won't read about in school. In the process, he manages to slip discreetly in and out of the ranks of silver-tongued bums, fly-by-nights and way-outs like Cheap Trick and Steely Dan, never tarrying long enough to retain their distinctive ordure. One of the keys to this new music involved tapping an old friend and collaborator, filmmaker Matt Yoka, to write with him. As a non-musician, Matt's language sense is different from the one Ty's amassed as a player of music. With the trust they've developed over the years -- brainstorming the visual worlds of Goodbye Bread, Manipulator, Emotional Mugger, and plenty more -- they throw the conceptual ball back and forth to translate general vibes and feels into wicked lyric imagery, each acting as writer and editor in the process. Rife with singing guitar leads and Wizzardian brass n' reeds lustily riffin' on the banks of Ty's harmony vocal choir, Possession features some of Ty's most inspired songs to date. Taking back alleys through complicated cityscapes, ripping riffs jaggedly out of past hits for a new purpose, Ty scans the wreckage scattered all around, singing about the end of the rope while resisting defeat -- suggesting an ecstatic new empire to build as he cruises the countryside in his glittering craft."

$23.00$19.55 IN STOCK

"Drag City and Yoga Records return to the music of Matthew Young. Following Recurring Dreams (1981, reissued 2014) and Traveler's Advisory (1986, reissued 2010), Undercurrents (2025) collects eight oddly dissimilar pieces that somehow fit together perfectly. Although unique enough to be called outsider, Young's new album occupies a musical world accessible to fans of many genres. Matthew Young, born in 1950, grew up in Lawrenceville, New Jersey. When he showed early musical interest, his parents bought an upright piano, and Matthew began taking lessons. In his teens, he attended concerts by Duke Ellington, Dave Brubeck, and Count Basie, and grew up to discover iconoclasts such as Eric Satie, Charles Ives, John Cage, Harry Partch, Brian Eno, and experimental rock groups such as Can and Harmonia. He also regularly attended and played at folk music gatherings in the nearby New Jersey Pine Barrens. His music began to appear in local theater productions, leading to the 1981 release of Recurring Dreams, through New York distributor NMDS. Later, Young became obsessed with the hammered dulcimer, and in 1986 he released a new album, Traveler's Advisory, which featured the instrument prominently, along with electronics, tape effects, and his first foray into vocals. Composed and recorded over the span of several decades, Undercurrents displays the wide range of Young's various sonic pallets. On the opener 'Reflexion,' a quartet of marimbas twist and turn over each other, while in 'One and All,' a harp melody is overtaken by various electronic effects. The 12-minute title track is an abstract weaving of piano and synthesis, with the six sections named after oceanic currents. 'A Game of Chess, a Game of Chance' consists of sparse electronic tones created on the Princeton University IBM mainframe during his studies in 1976. This all makes way for the second half of Undercurrents, where settings of Marion Lineaweaver's poems, 'The Summer Girls' and 'Her Key is Minor,' showcase Young's honest, fragile vocal approach, conveying a deep sense of soulful longing, and the latter even sweetly approaching something akin to synthpop. The piano on 'Inflexion' calls back to the end of 'Reflexion,' and in the album closer, 'Into the Woods,' Young plays the hammered dulcimer with the disciplined reverence of an alchemist. Simply put, Undercurrents is a triumph across many musical realms."

$24.00 LOW STOCK LEVEL

LP version. "With the quickness, time's still slipping into the future. Take it from Ty Segall. He's been on a few trips around the sun himself, making records in orbit as he charts his path forward. Modern life is here to stay, but also (to quote an old civil war scribe), everything rocks and nothing dies -- so for Possession, Ty's 16th album, he strikes up the orchestra in his head with an abiding view of some quintessentially American stories, a quest channeled into ten non-stop bangers. A year and a half removed from the trenchant identity opus of his 'Three Bells' song cycle, Ty's beamed himself out from deep within psychic interiors. Here, compulsive rhythm arrangements are joined in battle by sweeping movements of strings and horns that further the charge righteously. Be it de Toqueville, duBois, George H. Nash, Howard Zinn, Bob Dylan or Smile-era Beach Boys, it doesn't matter where you get your history: whether you wanna party like it's 1999 or 1699, the stories you like to tell yourself tend to reinforce what you already believe. Here, coursing through the irresistibly high music spirits, Ty foists social concepts that you won't read about in school. In the process, he manages to slip discreetly in and out of the ranks of silver-tongued bums, fly-by-nights and way-outs like Cheap Trick and Steely Dan, never tarrying long enough to retain their distinctive ordure. One of the keys to this new music involved tapping an old friend and collaborator, filmmaker Matt Yoka, to write with him. As a non-musician, Matt's language sense is different from the one Ty's amassed as a player of music. With the trust they've developed over the years -- brainstorming the visual worlds of Goodbye Bread, Manipulator, Emotional Mugger, and plenty more -- they throw the conceptual ball back and forth to translate general vibes and feels into wicked lyric imagery, each acting as writer and editor in the process. Rife with singing guitar leads and Wizzardian brass n' reeds lustily riffin' on the banks of Ty's harmony vocal choir, Possession features some of Ty's most inspired songs to date. Taking back alleys through complicated cityscapes, ripping riffs jaggedly out of past hits for a new purpose, Ty scans the wreckage scattered all around, singing about the end of the rope while resisting defeat -- suggesting an ecstatic new empire to build as he cruises the countryside in his glittering craft."

$20.00$17.00 IN STOCK

2025 repress. "1995: new composition methods involving the dirty textures of rock guitar, a synthesis of disparate elements -- a nexus where Alvin Lucier, Sonic Youth, My Bloody Valentine, and Eno blend together. A prescient vision of the next phases of listening space. CD version originally released in1998 on Dexter's Cigar."

$12.00 LOW STOCK LEVEL

Cassette version. "Years past the space time of Automaginary, Bitchin Bajas and Natural Information Society have reported back at last from beyond. If the new title doesn't clue you, Totality brings good news. Since their first collaboration, the path ways that lead from Natural Information Society's ecstatic all-world jazz to Bitchin Bajas' microtonal soundscapes have grown ever finer in their articulation. Across the spectrum, the septet balance a deeply searching mood with wonderfully in-pocket production feel. This makes for collective aural transport of the highest order to all those listening in. In the time since their 2015 first convergence, the Natural Information Society have released four albums (one in collaboration with Evan Parker, one with Ari Brown) and Bitchin Bajas five (one a soundtrack, one with Bonnie 'Prince' Billy, one featuring the songs of Sun Ra). Given the multivarious paths both groups have traveled, it makes sense that their second convergence seems to emanate from centuries, eons beyond or below -- some undefinable elsewhere -- from their first. Totality is that. These days, Natural Information Society is populated differently. From the sextet NIS that co-created Automaginary, Joshua Abrams, Lisa Alvarado and Mikel Patrick Avery remain. In the stead of the departed former players is Jason Stein on bass clarinet. This might account for some mere impression of aspects of time, space and evolution to be found here -- but then again, Bitchin Bajas flow on in their long-standing trio configuration (Cooper Crain, Dan Quinlivan, Rob Frye), so the 'people in the room' theory of how Totality ever got this way will only take us so far. Recorded in a single day with Greg Norman at Chicago's Electrical Audio, then slowly considered into the finished record we hear here, Totality is a sweet-tempered second child. It experiences time in ways the first kid didn't. If you're in it for slow-shifting trance formations, it's gonna be cool. There's lots here for you, lots of simmering time and synth atmospheres dappled with radiant woodwinds -- but there's some head-snapping hypno-rhythms that stand apart from the groove energies of the first one. It's just natural facts: two different days in time separated by years, with the experience of several live encounters between the two groups in between. Beyond that, only the music can say anything else. That said, here are a few thoughts from this listener's log... The low-key revolutionary thump of 'Nothing Does Not Show' and 'Clock no Clock' notwithstanding, Totality charts impressive new launch angles from NIS & BB's improvisatory heart, with their careful listening and response time continually redefining the space in a relaxed manner that rewards deep zoners. Additionally, their blended corps assimilate marvelously on Abrams' composition, 'Always 9 Seconds Away.' Here, and with the aforementioned groovers, the collective resonates beyond familiar kraut/spiritual/minimal power lines, bringing new time conceptions to bear in the always-expansive space of this album event. It's about time we got back to the singularly-divined space of Natural Information Society & Bitchin Bajas with Totality. That's the best way to way to define this new music -- it's about time."

$20.00$17.00 IN STOCK

"This is the first collaboration between Al Cisneros (OM, Sleep) and David Eugene Edwards (Wovenhand, 16 Horsepower)."

$23.00$19.55 IN STOCK

LP version. "As many Scots from both Highlands and Lowlands have done before them, musicians Màiri Morrison and Alasdair Roberts made the long journey over the ocean to Canada in June 2023. However, theirs was not a perilous sea voyage, nor a permanent relocation; rather it was for a transatlantic collaboration instigated by Nova Scotian bass player and musical arranger Pete Johnston. The trip resulted in a new album, Remembered in Exile: Songs and Ballads from Nova Scotia, Màiri and Alasdair's long-overdue second album together following 2012's critically acclaimed Urstan. The album's title is an allusion to John Lorne Campbell's book Songs Remembered in Exile, a collection of songs of Scottish Gaelic origin found in Cape Breton and Antigonish County, Nova Scotia. Featuring ten traditional Canadian songs with Scottish roots, Remembered in Exile draws heavily on the pioneering work of Nova Scotian folklorist Helen Creighton, who collected a vast amount of traditional song material on Canada's eastern seaboard. The album's songs are drawn from Creighton's published works including Songs and Ballads from Nova Scotia and Gaelic Songs in Nova Scotia. They are musical artifacts of the westward journey undertaken by Scottish fishers, crofters, merchants and their families as they migrated -- willingly or otherwise -- to Canada from the 1600s to the mid-1800s. A native of the Isle of Lewis, Màiri takes the lead on a handful of Gaelic language songs, mostly collected in Cape Breton, while Alasdair leads on some Canadian variants of the types of Scots ballads for which he has become well known. There are also a couple of 'macaronic' songs in both English and Gaelic. Anchored around Pete's steadfast bass playing and sensitive arrangements, as well as Alasdair's guitar work, the songs are further enlivened by the skills of a fine group of players: Sarah Frank on fiddle, Jake Oelrichs on drums, Mike Smith on banjo and Andrew Killawee on harmonium. Produced by Pete Johnston and Mike Smith at Fang Recording in Dartmouth, Nova Scotia, Remembered in Exile is by turns genial and playful, somber and brooding. It constitutes a fine and fitting follow-up to Màiri and Alasdair's first album together, charting new waters and reforging the longstanding bond between old Scotland and Nova Scotia."

$30.00 LOW STOCK LEVEL

Repressed. "Years past the space time of Automaginary, Bitchin Bajas and Natural Information Society have reported back at last from beyond. If the new title doesn't clue you, Totality brings good news. Since their first collaboration, the path ways that lead from Natural Information Society's ecstatic all-world jazz to Bitchin Bajas' microtonal soundscapes have grown ever finer in their articulation. Across the spectrum, the septet balance a deeply searching mood with wonderfully in-pocket production feel. This makes for collective aural transport of the highest order to all those listening in. In the time since their 2015 first convergence, the Natural Information Society have released four albums (one in collaboration with Evan Parker, one with Ari Brown) and Bitchin Bajas five (one a soundtrack, one with Bonnie 'Prince' Billy, one featuring the songs of Sun Ra). Given the multivarious paths both groups have traveled, it makes sense that their second convergence seems to emanate from centuries, eons beyond or below -- some undefinable elsewhere -- from their first. Totality is that. These days, Natural Information Society is populated differently. From the sextet NIS that co-created Automaginary, Joshua Abrams, Lisa Alvarado and Mikel Patrick Avery remain. In the stead of the departed former players is Jason Stein on bass clarinet. This might account for some mere impression of aspects of time, space and evolution to be found here -- but then again, Bitchin Bajas flow on in their long-standing trio configuration (Cooper Crain, Dan Quinlivan, Rob Frye), so the 'people in the room' theory of how Totality ever got this way will only take us so far. Recorded in a single day with Greg Norman at Chicago's Electrical Audio, then slowly considered into the finished record we hear here, Totality is a sweet-tempered second child. It experiences time in ways the first kid didn't. If you're in it for slow-shifting trance formations, it's gonna be cool. There's lots here for you, lots of simmering time and synth atmospheres dappled with radiant woodwinds -- but there's some head-snapping hypno-rhythms that stand apart from the groove energies of the first one. It's just natural facts: two different days in time separated by years, with the experience of several live encounters between the two groups in between. Beyond that, only the music can say anything else. That said, here are a few thoughts from this listener's log... The low-key revolutionary thump of 'Nothing Does Not Show' and 'Clock no Clock' notwithstanding, Totality charts impressive new launch angles from NIS & BB's improvisatory heart, with their careful listening and response time continually redefining the space in a relaxed manner that rewards deep zoners. Additionally, their blended corps assimilate marvelously on Abrams' composition, 'Always 9 Seconds Away.' Here, and with the aforementioned groovers, the collective resonates beyond familiar kraut/spiritual/minimal power lines, bringing new time conceptions to bear in the always-expansive space of this album event. It's about time we got back to the singularly-divined space of Natural Information Society & Bitchin Bajas with Totality. That's the best way to way to define this new music -- it's about time."

$13.50 LOW STOCK LEVEL

"As many Scots from both Highlands and Lowlands have done before them, musicians Màiri Morrison and Alasdair Roberts made the long journey over the ocean to Canada in June 2023. However, theirs was not a perilous sea voyage, nor a permanent relocation; rather it was for a transatlantic collaboration instigated by Nova Scotian bass player and musical arranger Pete Johnston. The trip resulted in a new album, Remembered in Exile: Songs and Ballads from Nova Scotia, Màiri and Alasdair's long-overdue second album together following 2012's critically acclaimed Urstan. The album's title is an allusion to John Lorne Campbell's book Songs Remembered in Exile, a collection of songs of Scottish Gaelic origin found in Cape Breton and Antigonish County, Nova Scotia. Featuring ten traditional Canadian songs with Scottish roots, Remembered in Exile draws heavily on the pioneering work of Nova Scotian folklorist Helen Creighton, who collected a vast amount of traditional song material on Canada's eastern seaboard. The album's songs are drawn from Creighton's published works including Songs and Ballads from Nova Scotia and Gaelic Songs in Nova Scotia. They are musical artifacts of the westward journey undertaken by Scottish fishers, crofters, merchants and their families as they migrated -- willingly or otherwise -- to Canada from the 1600s to the mid-1800s. A native of the Isle of Lewis, Màiri takes the lead on a handful of Gaelic language songs, mostly collected in Cape Breton, while Alasdair leads on some Canadian variants of the types of Scots ballads for which he has become well known. There are also a couple of 'macaronic' songs in both English and Gaelic. Anchored around Pete's steadfast bass playing and sensitive arrangements, as well as Alasdair's guitar work, the songs are further enlivened by the skills of a fine group of players: Sarah Frank on fiddle, Jake Oelrichs on drums, Mike Smith on banjo and Andrew Killawee on harmonium. Produced by Pete Johnston and Mike Smith at Fang Recording in Dartmouth, Nova Scotia, Remembered in Exile is by turns genial and playful, somber and brooding. It constitutes a fine and fitting follow-up to Màiri and Alasdair's first album together, charting new waters and reforging the longstanding bond between old Scotland and Nova Scotia."

$27.00$22.95 IN STOCK

"The fragmented shards from the history of punk rock are still being sourced! Thanks to the rediscovery of a long-lost cache of cassette tapes, Bag People can now be counted, the sounds of their feral stink sitting perfectly in the grime-streaked canon of NYC's early-'80s post-punk/no-wave era. Their lore commences in Chicago's western suburbs. In 1977, Carolyn Master and Diane Wlezien were juniors at Proviso West High and rock 'n rollers, with a particular taste for English rock -- The Who, The Stones, The Kinks, Bowie, T. Rex -- they were wild for it. They put an ad out for a guitarist, Gaylene Goudreau answered, and they clicked right away -- but after a year or so trying to make it in LA as the Runaways-like girl group Lois Lain, they were back in Chicago, disillusioned. Gaylene joined DA!, when, opening for DNA at Tut's one night, her life was changed. She got back with Carolyn and Diane and they started over again, this time as Bag People. Algis Kizys saw them one night in early '82 at Chicago's infamous Space Place, then beat out some kid named Albini in a tryout for the bass spot. Pete Elwyn, working for the weekend at Poppin' Fresh Pies while drumming. Their line-up set, they played on the Chicago scene for a while, with bands like The Cadavers and The Functionally Illiterate. In late 1982, they decamped to Brooklyn's Bed-Stuy neighborhood. Deep within NYC's atomized urban interior, with deserted and destroyed shit everywhere, dudes selling drugs on every corner, it was a zone of lawlessness and neglect. The amorphous horror of this scene echoes distortedly through these recordings, an onslaught converging Carolyn and Gaylene's scabrous guitar interplay, Algis and Pete's free-roaming rhythm and Diane's nihilistic gutter-siren vocal projections. A few songs were recorded at Hi Five Studio in the Gramercy Park neighborhood. They taped more at the practice space, and a set at CB's but, constantly fucked up on booze and the drugs being hawked around the Lower East Side, the chaos of the times was wearing them thin. By the end of '83, it was apparent that things were falling apart. Pete literally disappeared after Christmas, taking a large part of their recordings with him. They got other drummers, but in July of 1984, they dissolved. It would be nearly forty years before their lost recordings were heard again. After Carolyn finally found Pete (on social media, no less!), Algis drove up to Massachusetts to get them so they could be heard at last."

$25.00$21.25 IN STOCK

"Mess Esque is an Australian duo who sound like they literally dreamed themselves into being, and might even still be in the dream that made them! Helen Franzmann (McKisko) and Mick Turner (Dirty Three, Tren Brothers) initially partnered on Mess Esque's shared inner plane circa 2020. Since then, they've taken their preferred path -- the one less traveled -- at an unhurried pace. Yet Jay Marie, Comfort Me is their third album in less than five years, and the new music feels a hemisphere away from their first efforts: a whole new atmospheric level above, with greater depths to descend into as well. Mess Esque first launched as a correspondence course. The two swapped tracks between Melbourne and Brisbane, experimentally pairing Mick's guitar, keys and loops with Helen's ruminative vocals. They released Dream #12 through Australian label Bedroom Suck in April 2021, with a self-titled album on Drag City following six months later. Then it was time to actualize in the same spaces for some touring: Australia, the US, UK, Europe, and New Zealand. Jay Marie, Comfort Me has an edge to it: that savage grace that comes from actually drawing breath and stepping up in the witness of others. The process of becoming, in all its aspects, has made Mess Esque's efforts ever more visceral and incisive, their music billowing up to the skies while drawing close to the bone in the same moment. Jay Marie, Comfort Me is co-produced by Helen and Mick themselves, along with Nick Huggins, who recorded the Dirty Three's acclaimed Love Changes Everything, Mick's Don't Tell the Driver, and McKisko's Southerly album. Along with Keeley Young and Kishore Ryan from the live band, the album features cellist Stephanie Arnold and a couple of Australia's living legends of percussion: Bree van Reyk and Mick's ol' Dirty Three partner in crime, Jim White. The title -- Jay Marie, Comfort Me -- is from a line in the song, 'That Chair.' That's Helen's sister in there, who died in her sleep unexpectedly. It feels right to have her name on the jacket. Jay Marie, Comfort Me reaches exciting new heights in the Mess Esque journey, propelling their uniquely twisted aural circus to a new level of dance-ability, exaltation and effect. Fitting the immediacy at their core with new dimensions, Mess Esque push themselves into more vivid states of being."

$27.00 LOW STOCK LEVEL

"For Translucence is the debut album from Whitney Johnson and Lia Kohl. Their dialogue, found initially in free improvisation on viola and cello, has evolved over time into (for the moment) this: a neophonic orchestral expression. A living, breathing meditation in which layers of acoustic strings, synthesizers, field recordings, radio and sine waves illuminate and change each other as they twine and grow. Lia and Whitney began playing together in 2018, exploring the space between Lia's cello and Whitney's viola, with their shared tuning one octave apart. There was an ease in weaving their instruments and voices, whether playing outside, with extended technique; or inside, playing melodic lines with rich tones. Several years passed before they considered recording, as the shared parts of their identities -- string players, composers, and sound artists based in Chicago; both interested in solo composition as well as improvisation and collaboration -- soaked the fertile ground. Then their individual concerns -- Lia, exploring the possibilities and dualities of mundane and profound sounds; Whitney (as Matchess and herself) presenting the listener with the effects of sound on bodies and minds -- were able to be more finely articulated and integrated in this finished work. Recording at Experimental Sound Studio, Whitney filled out the low end of her sound with sine waves, making binaural beats through function generators and her ARP Odyssey synthesizer. Lia added an AM/FM radio and her Teenage Engineering OP-1 synthesizer. Using the open strings on both viola and cello to create the drones and establish a baseline of gravity, they improvised, building up phases of spontaneity before giving careful consideration to what they'd assembled, editing it to arrive at a final mix. The resulting sound isn't electro-acoustic, exactly; more like electronics and acoustics together, with each layer transforming the one next to it. Within the double layers of their four strings and added instruments, a symmetry emerges that is the key to For Translucence. The songs are two improvisations superimposed over each other, the titles derived from the two fundamental frequencies in which they improvise. The binaural beats form a sculptural structure of drone over which further improvisations are made. This is where surprise and laughter come into the focus; like all of time put together, both inside and outside history, their past and future selves unfolding with a flowing energy of fresh discovery breathing through it."

$23.00$19.55 IN STOCK

"Antigone is Eiko Ishibashi's new album -- a musical masterwork rife with chilling speculations, all calling from inside her own head! For Antigone, her first album of songs with lyrics and singing since 2018's acclaimed The Dream My Bones Dream, Eiko teases out images from a dystopia not unlike the one we've already got. Hers is suffused with a 'scene missing' quality, its continuity laced with sudden, odd details sprung like traps from within her music's smooth, expansive sound. It's a clash of context with Eiko's serene vocals and the well-appointed precision of the soundscape, uncanny, disturbing, not entirely okay. That's it working! And it keeps ticking like clockwork through the whole album. An accomplished keyboardist/multi-instrumental composer and improviser, Eiko consolidates her conceptions throughout Antigone. On her early song-based albums -- 2013's sci-fi-themed Imitation of Life and 2014's poptastic Car & Freezer, listeners sensed an album-oriented direction, built song by song into an inevitable whole. 2018's conceptually-united The Dream My Bones Dream allowed Eiko to tell stories closer to home. Her instrumental works since then -- 2022's For McCoy (Black Truffle) and the soundtracks for Ryusuke Hamaguchi's films, Drive My Car and Evil Does Not Exist -- have seen her diversity of musical ideas operating in an increasingly integrated long-form presentation. With these transformative encounters in hand, Eiko and her band -- drummer Tatsuhisa Yamamoto, bassist Marty Holoubek, Norweigan accordionist Kalle Moberg, Ermhoi on backing vocals, Joe Talia playing percussion and Jim O'Rourke on Bass VI, synths, etc -- bring a wide array of sounds and moods to the songs here, referencing pop, funk and jazz, ambient, electronic and musique concrète in a seamless flow. Antigone is a bittersweet look at our already-alternate reality, Eiko's jarringly personal vision glimpsed through a latticework of ambitious compositions and on-lock production techniques."

$27.00$22.95 IN STOCK

2025 repress. "Natural Information Society, like their partners in time Bitchin Bajas, live their days in flow motion. Rhythms come and go, instruments sound as a means to a greater end. Music is the way of their life. Their debut convergence, Automaginary, feels as natural as it does inevitable. Both groups were first heard in 2010, both emerging from solo endeavors that accessed a vastness, more room than a single player might ultimately fill -- a place then for fellow travelers! Joshua Abrams, a questing bassist and improviser by trade, with an extensive discography of solo recordings and collaborations with a wide variety of artists, formed Natural Information Society as a conduit for the live presentation of his guimbri music. Abrams had delved into the sound of the threestringed Gnawan lute on his own, intrigued by the instrument's ability to provide melodic and rhythmic direction with a minimal, hypnotic palette. Known for the drone also are Bitchin Bajas. Cooper Crain of CAVE started the Bajas to explore his fascination with vintage electronics and recording techniques. With Dan Quinlivan on keyboards as well, Bitchin Bajas' discography has explored a range of dynamic approaches, producing various proportions of atmosphere and soundtrack that move from becalmed stasis to synthetic beat-building with a prescient liquidity. Both Natural Information Society and Bitchin Bajas are in pursuit of the unconscious in their musical expression, and through their independent methods, both have ridden the wind to unseen places, using the playing as the carpet that will take them there. A multitude of influences swarm amoebically in their sounds, from the mud of ancient Afro-groove to 20th-century classical austerity, from the clatter of freedom jazz to the 4/4 of kraut and disco and fusion beyond -- and then beyond the music and into the air. Wrapped up in a screen-printed jacket from visual artist Lisa Alvarado, whose aesthetic sense is a touchstone for the vision of Natural Information Society, Automaginary is psychedelic and ambient and jazz -- yet none of it either, the whole being more than the sum of former parts. This is music of unique variance, a remarkably perfect congregation of the two tribes that are Natural Information Society & Bitchin Bajas."

$26.00$22.10 IN STOCK

"After a near-total silence of twenty years, Edith Frost is back again, and in full bloom with In Space. Her first new record since 2005's It's a Game is just in time -- the world needs Edith's voice back in the conversation. It seems Edith needed something, too: from the notebooks of her long hiatus, a line like 'I say too much/I wait too long/I wait forever/ And notice that it's gone' speaks volumes about feelings of lack. Overwhelmed by the demands of day-to-day living and the details and anxieties that always come, Edith squirreled herself away for as long as she could -- only to find herself isolated, spun even farther into the doldrums. In Space isn't simply a song-cum-album title so much as very real exploration of the remote place she'd found herself, with her songs registering this recognition and measuring the vast distances between herself, the life that is and the life that was. It was the only way back in! Over the years away, Edith was immersed in music everyday, and spent lots of time learning -- in addition to new lyric perspectives, her reinvention of herself as a keyboard player is one of the waves lifting the album In Space. The keys suggested different places within Edith's harmonic palette; for us listening, this attenuation seems to create a deep focus on emotional life within the songs and a breathtakingly visceral presence in the performances. Her voice as well, in all its iterations, sounds quite fine and vital. The songs, as ever, are low-key brilliance elevated by the vitality of Edith's voice. Mark Greenberg, alongside longtime Frost A&R man Rian Murphy, brought fresh arrangement ideas to complement the strange-new-world vibe of Edith's songs. Recorded at The Loft in Chicago, with invaluable contributions from Jim Becker (Califone, Air Blue Gowns), Sima Cunningham (Finom, formerly OHMME), Bill MacKay, and Jeff Ragsdale, In Space feels like the most Edith Frost record yet made, pulled from deep inside with great feeling, awash in harmonized voices and -- more often than ever before -- featuring her own playing. Alternatively approaching and avowing connection, Edith's crafty songwriting orbits the human exchange with an increasing sense of possibility. It's what the world needs the most of today."

$26.00$22.10 IN STOCK

"Don't look up! Whistle from Above is David Grubbs' first Drag City release in over a decade and his first-ever instrumental album for the label. The suspiciously youthful Grubbs is four decades into his career, with former bands including Gastr del Sol, Squirrel Bait, and Bastro, along with a wild ride of collaborators including Bitch Magnet, Richard Buckner, Codeine, Tony Conrad, The Red Krayola, Royal Trux, Dirty Three, Edith Frost, Mats Gustafsson, Susan Howe, Will Oldham, Stefano Pilia, Taku Unami, The Underflow, Ryley Walker, Jan St. Werner, and The Wingdale Community Singers. If all that doesn't imply 'Trying something different,' what ever will? Whistle from Above is the first solo collection David's released since 2017's Creep Mission. During the 2020 shutdown, David played what he precisely quantified as 'a shit-ton of guitar,' more than he could recall playing ever previously. Reinvigorated by this period of enforced woodshedding, he produced a series of new pieces, mostly for guitar, but also a piano composition and an exceptionally eerie bit of musique concrète. These seemed to imply a solo set that would tour marvelously when the time was right again. Meanwhile, David was reconnecting with the Gastr del Sol archive, as a new collection of old performances was being prepared from extensive archival material. The duo magic of that storied collaboration (released in 2024 as We Have Dozens of Titles) left David hungry to play in this format again -- as he had recently with Loren Connors, Alan Courtis, Manuel Mota, and Liam Keenan. These duo experiences showed David the path forward to complete this new solo material. Thus he sought out collaborations with folks he's called 'some of the musicians whom I adore most on the planet' -- Rhodri Davies, Andrea Belfi, Nikos Veliotis, Nate Wooley, and Cleek Schrey -- and their stunning contributions flesh out Grubbs' innate, deeply person brand of minimalism. Whistle from Above is a colorful, compulsive set of instrumental pieces in which David and his chosen collaborators interact amid the steady roll of an expansive landscape based in the hypnosis of David's immediately recognizable guitar style. Throughout the album, the listener may recall some places visited over the years, but will find them -- as David and his traveling companions have as well -- changed again, reactivated in a new light."