DRAG CITY - Forced Exposure

$25.00 PREORDER RELEASE DATE: 8/30/2024

"For those of you who've mislaid your history goggles, this archival release recalls an ancient time in the world of recorded music. Yes, back in the dinosaur days of the 1990s, a creature known as Aerial M walked the earth, before evolving into Papa M and PAJO and beyond and back. Even then, the music of M had a next-wave vibe, walking upright among the knuckle-draggers (and having drinks in the evening with others of its genetic detachment). It was too much to last very long, of course -- but some things end up lasting forever, don't they? Fuck! So it is today that Drag City, an organization largely set up to bring you the best of all available M recordings, is proud to be there for the release of the only Aerial M session ever recorded for John Peel's BBC Radio One show, as it was originally recorded on March 3, 1998 and broadcast on April 2 of the same year. The studio versions of these songs, which appear on Aerial M's self-titled album and Papa M's Hole of Burning Alms comp, were played by "M" himself (now revealed to be David Pajo!), which makes this album a rare alternative view of the canonical M, played by an actual Aerial M band who, all too briefly, embodied the sound for a year or so before Papa brought a brand-new bag. This session found them fortuitously roadburned from several weeks in the European Theatre. OG-M's signature minimalist long-fuse sizzle is thrillingly intact here; in fact, even more so, as the tunes are jammed out past the studio versions' originally delineated borders, reaching rudely across the table in moments of liveness that the studio-bound project might have decided against when conferring only with the walls. For fans of their epic version of 'Turn Turn Turn,' this is more sweetmeats from that raucous old skull -- but if you've not been down this road before, be prepared: the taste will set you slowly aflame. And then, before you know it, the band is dined and dashed -- just like the band that Aerial M was, all too briefly amok on the earth that was too. Salute!"

$27.00 PREORDER RELEASE DATE: 8/30/2024

"Drag City presents the first official reissue of Dorothy Carter's 1976 album debut, her folk-music exegesis, Troubadour. In her lifetime, Dorothy, a self-made traveling musician and folklorist, brought forth masterful evocations on hammered dulcimer and psaltery from a myriad of times and places. Her music was played, produced and sold outside of that era's mainstream music distribution. Troubadour reissue producer Eric Demby can look back to a childhood spent off the grid: the early '70s in rural Maine, and later on, in Boston -- wherever his freewheeling father brought the family, at one point or another, there too was Dorothy, as she lived and breathed, playing her hammered dulcimer. The early '70s found everyone living up on the farm up in rural Maine; it was here that Rutman, Constance, Dorothy and some others formed Central Maine Power Company, a troupe of almost feral improvisers playing on a combination of self-made and found instruments, with live video feedback to boot. In 1976, Dorothy had been playing music for decades, but had yet to record any of it. That year, she went to Cambridge's Studio B with Rutman and friend Steve Baer at the console. Constance and Sally Hilmer accompanied her. The performances captured there were released later that year as Troubadour. In addition to hammered dulcimer and psaltery, Dorothy played the flute and sang. She chose songs from all over: Appalachian folk tunes, old and ancient psalms and hymns, Scottish, Irish, French and Israeli melodies, with a few of her own songs for good measure. They all flow together effortlessly under Dorothy and friends' hands in a syncretic space that we can identify today as a garden of world musics -- a highly energized, alternately meditative and proselytic recital whose vitality has only burgeoned in the decades since it appeared. As it should be: the music of Dorothy Carter is akin to a portal, linking her with the eternal. This edition of Troubadour reproduces the original album package, adding an insert adorned with additional photos of Dorothy and her collection of instruments, as well as notes from Eric Demby exploring the era -- his childhood -- from a vantage point of some 50 years. This reissue is a long-held family dream come true, and it is dedicated in loving memory to Bob Rutman, Constance Demby, David Demby and Dorothy Carter."

$12.00 PREORDER RELEASE DATE: 8/30/2024

Cassette version. "Love Rudiments is a meditation by Ty Segall on his first love: the drums. Known popularly as a singing guitar player, he generally starts the recording of his songs by laying down a drum track. Love Rudiments kicks off with drums and percussion, then adds a few other percussive and production aspects. It travels a great journey in this configuration. However, Love Rudiments wasn't written or performed to present as some kind of solo drums album -- it's just another music album, with vibes (figurative as well as literal), feels, a theme and a through-line. Never one to shy away from a challenge, Ty's made an instrumental album of percussive music that rides the wild surf of a waxing-then-waning love affair -- from the first blinding look, to the eventual recognition, that look back at love's rudiments, viewed from beyond and outside that seemingly infinite sensation. And why not? Drums are a melody instrument too. Ty plays them with precision and sensitivity, delving deep into the textures of timpani, vibraphone, xylophone, percussion and e-drums, all of them occupying space within the luxe stereo spread of the drumkit. In the process, a psychological space is opened -- a private emotional location where only two can meet. Love Rudiments reembodies the passion and compulsion that drives all of Ty Segall's music in a suite of moments played on orchestral batterie to explore the most delicate passages of human interaction -- playing on the bones of love."

$27.00 PREORDER RELEASE DATE: 8/30/2024

"Love Rudiments is a meditation by Ty Segall on his first love: the drums. Known popularly as a singing guitar player, he generally starts the recording of his songs by laying down a drum track. Love Rudiments kicks off with drums and percussion, then adds a few other percussive and production aspects. It travels a great journey in this configuration. However, Love Rudiments wasn't written or performed to present as some kind of solo drums album -- it's just another music album, with vibes (figurative as well as literal), feels, a theme and a through-line. Never one to shy away from a challenge, Ty's made an instrumental album of percussive music that rides the wild surf of a waxing-then-waning love affair -- from the first blinding look, to the eventual recognition, that look back at love's rudiments, viewed from beyond and outside that seemingly infinite sensation. And why not? Drums are a melody instrument too. Ty plays them with precision and sensitivity, delving deep into the textures of timpani, vibraphone, xylophone, percussion and e-drums, all of them occupying space within the luxe stereo spread of the drumkit. In the process, a psychological space is opened -- a private emotional location where only two can meet. Love Rudiments reembodies the passion and compulsion that drives all of Ty Segall's music in a suite of moments played on orchestral batterie to explore the most delicate passages of human interaction -- playing on the bones of love."

$12.00 IN STOCK

Cassette version. "Wand are back, and they're coming down slowly. With Vertigo, what hath Wand spawned? It's multichromatic, that's for sure, but it's too soon to tell. The way cells are replaced and all new again? That's it. Now they are ten and all new again, but in the sample set of the time between they've undergone the complex dimensional restructure, coming out a quartet. So, new-ish, in new ways anyway. The new Wand's built upon the exalted altars of old. There's flashes of sentiment and tension, nudity and evasion, theatrical elevation, giant pieces chunked throughout alongside little bits of things. Allowing for slippage, it's all one: the far horizon drawn in, nearer than ever before, allowing the chance for greater integration, if you stay open. Vertigo is the sound of feet lost, regained, lost again, equilibrium in soft focus, a swaying feeling, more automatic and associative: in time, direct. Determining to work backwards this time, Wand recorded everything in their own studio; pieces cut from improvisations and reshaped, writing from within the performance, without the woodshed. Unconsciously, in the shadow of themselves, and turning round and round (and round), they kept finding that empty space and playing what it implied. Everybody took on a new position in addition to the old one. It was intuitive, strangely ego-less, going somewhere they'd never been and not knowing what they were doing, but committing and recommitting, unafraid to eject in a constant positive forward momentum. It's like folk music for children, with synthesizers and other crap. Raw details with a lush velvet backing. Hear the articular evidence granular within the jams as it flows. Wand are funneling energy, pitching space your way -- more like to stand your hair on its toes with every verse-chorus. Pulling on segments of infinity, boiled down and resequenced, they've devised their own dream gear to drive the old moterik into wide open space, in atmospheric reverb, on perma-globular drift."

$13.50 IN STOCK

"Wand are back, and they're coming down slowly. With Vertigo, what hath Wand spawned? It's multichromatic, that's for sure, but it's too soon to tell. The way cells are replaced and all new again? That's it. Now they are ten and all new again, but in the sample set of the time between they've undergone the complex dimensional restructure, coming out a quartet. So, new-ish, in new ways anyway. The new Wand's built upon the exalted altars of old. There's flashes of sentiment and tension, nudity and evasion, theatrical elevation, giant pieces chunked throughout alongside little bits of things. Allowing for slippage, it's all one: the far horizon drawn in, nearer than ever before, allowing the chance for greater integration, if you stay open. Vertigo is the sound of feet lost, regained, lost again, equilibrium in soft focus, a swaying feeling, more automatic and associative: in time, direct. Determining to work backwards this time, Wand recorded everything in their own studio; pieces cut from improvisations and reshaped, writing from within the performance, without the woodshed. Unconsciously, in the shadow of themselves, and turning round and round (and round), they kept finding that empty space and playing what it implied. Everybody took on a new position in addition to the old one. It was intuitive, strangely ego-less, going somewhere they'd never been and not knowing what they were doing, but committing and recommitting, unafraid to eject in a constant positive forward momentum. It's like folk music for children, with synthesizers and other crap. Raw details with a lush velvet backing. Hear the articular evidence granular within the jams as it flows. Wand are funneling energy, pitching space your way -- more like to stand your hair on its toes with every verse-chorus. Pulling on segments of infinity, boiled down and resequenced, they've devised their own dream gear to drive the old moterik into wide open space, in atmospheric reverb, on perma-globular drift."

$27.00 IN STOCK

LP version. "Wand are back, and they're coming down slowly. With Vertigo, what hath Wand spawned? It's multichromatic, that's for sure, but it's too soon to tell. The way cells are replaced and all new again? That's it. Now they are ten and all new again, but in the sample set of the time between they've undergone the complex dimensional restructure, coming out a quartet. So, new-ish, in new ways anyway. The new Wand's built upon the exalted altars of old. There's flashes of sentiment and tension, nudity and evasion, theatrical elevation, giant pieces chunked throughout alongside little bits of things. Allowing for slippage, it's all one: the far horizon drawn in, nearer than ever before, allowing the chance for greater integration, if you stay open. Vertigo is the sound of feet lost, regained, lost again, equilibrium in soft focus, a swaying feeling, more automatic and associative: in time, direct. Determining to work backwards this time, Wand recorded everything in their own studio; pieces cut from improvisations and reshaped, writing from within the performance, without the woodshed. Unconsciously, in the shadow of themselves, and turning round and round (and round), they kept finding that empty space and playing what it implied. Everybody took on a new position in addition to the old one. It was intuitive, strangely ego-less, going somewhere they'd never been and not knowing what they were doing, but committing and recommitting, unafraid to eject in a constant positive forward momentum. It's like folk music for children, with synthesizers and other crap. Raw details with a lush velvet backing. Hear the articular evidence granular within the jams as it flows. Wand are funneling energy, pitching space your way -- more like to stand your hair on its toes with every verse-chorus. Pulling on segments of infinity, boiled down and resequenced, they've devised their own dream gear to drive the old moterik into wide open space, in atmospheric reverb, on perma-globular drift."

$31.00 IN STOCK

Double LP version. "The date was March 6, 2023. Bill Callahan strode onto the stage at Chicago's Thalia Hall, flanked by Matt Kinsey on guitar, Dustin Laurenzi on tenor sax and Jim White on the kit. They all were feeling good, and it seemed like the crowd was also. But that wasn't all. They had some special surprises planned."

"This is a live album that was taken from the tour for YTI⅃AƎЯ. Songs tend to mutate after they've been recorded. These songs were mutating faster than usual. Like whatever happened to Bruce Banner in the lab -- I knew these songs were about to get superpowers. As far as I was concerned, this change needed to be documented. The best thing about documenting something is that it gives the creator permission to move on should they wish to move on. I usually prefer to move on. These songs were recorded in Chicago, America's heart. And at one of the best clubs in the country -- I try to only work with venues that are not entangled with LiveNation/Ticketmaster. Thalia Hall, baby. Stay free. The date was mid-point in the tour, so I knew we'd be as hot as we were going to get. Not too green, not too brown. There was the thought, 'let's take this op to make it something special.' So we took advantage of Chicago's easily accessible players -- we got Nick Mazzarella to add alto sax to one song, and from the opening band, Pascal Kerong'A to sing on a song, and Nathaniel Ballinger on piano on one song -- and I couldn't pass up the opportunity to invite Joshua Abrams and Lisa Alvarado to play on 'Natural Information.' The hardest part of making the record was cutting songs out -- it could have been a triple album. But I don't know, maybe the show should have been this short?" --Bill Callahan

$13.50 IN STOCK

"The date was March 6, 2023. Bill Callahan strode onto the stage at Chicago's Thalia Hall, flanked by Matt Kinsey on guitar, Dustin Laurenzi on tenor sax and Jim White on the kit. They all were feeling good, and it seemed like the crowd was also. But that wasn't all. They had some special surprises planned."

"This is a live album that was taken from the tour for YTI⅃AƎЯ. Songs tend to mutate after they've been recorded. These songs were mutating faster than usual. Like whatever happened to Bruce Banner in the lab -- I knew these songs were about to get superpowers. As far as I was concerned, this change needed to be documented. The best thing about documenting something is that it gives the creator permission to move on should they wish to move on. I usually prefer to move on. These songs were recorded in Chicago, America's heart. And at one of the best clubs in the country -- I try to only work with venues that are not entangled with LiveNation/Ticketmaster. Thalia Hall, baby. Stay free. The date was mid-point in the tour, so I knew we'd be as hot as we were going to get. Not too green, not too brown. There was the thought, 'let's take this op to make it something special.' So we took advantage of Chicago's easily accessible players -- we got Nick Mazzarella to add alto sax to one song, and from the opening band, Pascal Kerong'A to sing on a song, and Nathaniel Ballinger on piano on one song -- and I couldn't pass up the opportunity to invite Joshua Abrams and Lisa Alvarado to play on 'Natural Information.' The hardest part of making the record was cutting songs out -- it could have been a triple album. But I don't know, maybe the show should have been this short?" --Bill Callahan

$13.50 IN STOCK

"The Nathan Bowles Trio's Are Possible is a spark-throwing, undulating fusion of styles played (mainly) on banjo, upright bass and drums. The individual perspectives of Nathan, double-bassist Casey Toll (Jake Xerxes Fussell, Mt. Moriah) and drummer Rex McMurry (CAVE) work together in an easy-rolling manner, but one that contains an expansive, ass-shaking confabulation of ideas. Nathan's solo music-making explorations with the banjo are evidence of the range of possible places to go in the world while still in contact with one's roots: clawhammer boogie, strummed, bowed and percussive techniques, original compositions and traditional tunes, all cutting a path between old-time Appalachian music and its long-lost cousin, ecstatic minimal drone. In conversation with Rex and Casey's own conceptions, with guitar, bass, mellowtone, keyboards, drums and percussion aboard, he continues to ride toward new vistas. It's been a long six years since these three players first appeared on Nathan's 2018 album, Plainly Mistaken, a stretch made weird by the period of time in which social music couldn't be played socially. But again, nothing ever really dies: the time since, experienced as individuals and as a band, informs everything about Are Possible's multitudinous group sound. The details along the road that the band traveled to get here, where one riff blossomed into ten, then melted back down, and parts were added and subtracted and became each other in moments of new collective understanding, lent a unique prog-nosticafication to the possibilities of Are Possible before they'd even recorded a note. Music is time in redux: Are Possible's many moments in time carry details from all over the place. Rex brought a rhythm to the table after drumming on buckets at work, Casey provided a bassline that redirected a previous jam, Nathan brought in a song he'd been fucking with forever and they figured it out together. Their diversity of sources moves easily within the arrangements, rendering a far-ranging set of feels, from transcendental to new country funk to good ol' jazz and the folk-rock, even -- all of it drawn out exquisitely when they mixed at Electrical Audio in Chicago with the delicate hands of Cooper Crain upon the faders. The Nathan Bowles Trio have done their due diligence, passing their music through time and space on their way to now; now, the real trip begins, as Are Possible travels on, through you."

$25.00 IN STOCK

LP version. "The Nathan Bowles Trio's Are Possible is a spark-throwing, undulating fusion of styles played (mainly) on banjo, upright bass and drums. The individual perspectives of Nathan, double-bassist Casey Toll (Jake Xerxes Fussell, Mt. Moriah) and drummer Rex McMurry (CAVE) work together in an easy-rolling manner, but one that contains an expansive, ass-shaking confabulation of ideas. Nathan's solo music-making explorations with the banjo are evidence of the range of possible places to go in the world while still in contact with one's roots: clawhammer boogie, strummed, bowed and percussive techniques, original compositions and traditional tunes, all cutting a path between old-time Appalachian music and its long-lost cousin, ecstatic minimal drone. In conversation with Rex and Casey's own conceptions, with guitar, bass, mellowtone, keyboards, drums and percussion aboard, he continues to ride toward new vistas. It's been a long six years since these three players first appeared on Nathan's 2018 album, Plainly Mistaken, a stretch made weird by the period of time in which social music couldn't be played socially. But again, nothing ever really dies: the time since, experienced as individuals and as a band, informs everything about Are Possible's multitudinous group sound. The details along the road that the band traveled to get here, where one riff blossomed into ten, then melted back down, and parts were added and subtracted and became each other in moments of new collective understanding, lent a unique prog-nosticafication to the possibilities of Are Possible before they'd even recorded a note. Music is time in redux: Are Possible's many moments in time carry details from all over the place. Rex brought a rhythm to the table after drumming on buckets at work, Casey provided a bassline that redirected a previous jam, Nathan brought in a song he'd been fucking with forever and they figured it out together. Their diversity of sources moves easily within the arrangements, rendering a far-ranging set of feels, from transcendental to new country funk to good ol' jazz and the folk-rock, even -- all of it drawn out exquisitely when they mixed at Electrical Audio in Chicago with the delicate hands of Cooper Crain upon the faders. The Nathan Bowles Trio have done their due diligence, passing their music through time and space on their way to now; now, the real trip begins, as Are Possible travels on, through you."

$12.00 IN STOCK

Cassette version. "Emerging once again from the unending waves crashing upon fragile timecraft (adrift on the eternal ocean, and taking on water), Dirty Three are a) back, b) tangled in seaweed, rank with saltwater and possessed of three rather ominous thousand-mile stares, and c) not wasting another minute -- as nothing is guaranteed. For their first album in over a decade -- yep, it's been since 2012's Toward the Low Sun -- they flew in, got together and started playing. End of story. What else is there to say or do but that? Music's their language, their true love; they never stop listening to that. And like the label says, Love Changes Everything. The Dirty Three -- Warren Ellis, Mick Turner, and Jim White -- formed up in Melbourne in 1992, to play with guitar drums and violin or viola, and within a couple years, they'd broken out -- out of Australia, out of anything else they might have been inside of, to boot -- and got worldwide. Over the next ten years, they toured over and over the planet, ceaseless like, and cut seven albums out along the way. After this, their unique style of play, fitted together like puzzle pieces, was decoupled, more often than not, and pieced together in many other, fruitful collaborations with many other esteemed talents. Over the past 20 years, they've gotten together a few times, renewed the vow, revved the engines and played some shows, or made an album. These lot were born to be as weathered as they are today. Time doesn't matter. They make their gathered wisdom of the ages sing like something new every time. It renews. And Love Changes Everything."

$14.00 NOT IN STOCK

"Emerging once again from the unending waves crashing upon fragile timecraft (adrift on the eternal ocean, and taking on water), Dirty Three are a) back, b) tangled in seaweed, rank with saltwater and possessed of three rather ominous thousand-mile stares, and c) not wasting another minute -- as nothing is guaranteed. For their first album in over a decade -- yep, it's been since 2012's Toward the Low Sun -- they flew in, got together and started playing. End of story. What else is there to say or do but that? Music's their language, their true love; they never stop listening to that. And like the label says, Love Changes Everything. The Dirty Three -- Warren Ellis, Mick Turner, and Jim White -- formed up in Melbourne in 1992, to play with guitar drums and violin or viola, and within a couple years, they'd broken out -- out of Australia, out of anything else they might have been inside of, to boot -- and got worldwide. Over the next ten years, they toured over and over the planet, ceaseless like, and cut seven albums out along the way. After this, their unique style of play, fitted together like puzzle pieces, was decoupled, more often than not, and pieced together in many other, fruitful collaborations with many other esteemed talents. Over the past 20 years, they've gotten together a few times, renewed the vow, revved the engines and played some shows, or made an album. These lot were born to be as weathered as they are today. Time doesn't matter. They make their gathered wisdom of the ages sing like something new every time. It renews. And Love Changes Everything."

$24.00 LOW STOCK LEVEL

LP version. "Emerging once again from the unending waves crashing upon fragile timecraft (adrift on the eternal ocean, and taking on water), Dirty Three are a) back, b) tangled in seaweed, rank with saltwater and possessed of three rather ominous thousand-mile stares, and c) not wasting another minute -- as nothing is guaranteed. For their first album in over a decade -- yep, it's been since 2012's Toward the Low Sun -- they flew in, got together and started playing. End of story. What else is there to say or do but that? Music's their language, their true love; they never stop listening to that. And like the label says, Love Changes Everything. The Dirty Three -- Warren Ellis, Mick Turner, and Jim White -- formed up in Melbourne in 1992, to play with guitar drums and violin or viola, and within a couple years, they'd broken out -- out of Australia, out of anything else they might have been inside of, to boot -- and got worldwide. Over the next ten years, they toured over and over the planet, ceaseless like, and cut seven albums out along the way. After this, their unique style of play, fitted together like puzzle pieces, was decoupled, more often than not, and pieced together in many other, fruitful collaborations with many other esteemed talents. Over the past 20 years, they've gotten together a few times, renewed the vow, revved the engines and played some shows, or made an album. These lot were born to be as weathered as they are today. Time doesn't matter. They make their gathered wisdom of the ages sing like something new every time. It renews. And Love Changes Everything."

$33.00 IN STOCK

"What might appear to be the most unlikely collaboration of 2024 proves also to be one of the most invigorating listens of the year! Shackleton & Six Organs of Admittance are in full aural/metaphysical alignment in their mutual effort to become Jinxed by Being. On first listen, it becomes immediately clear that this fusion of Shackleton's bass-heavy cosmic dread and Six Organs' ritual folksong makes total sense. Longtime listeners know that both Shackleton and Six Organs of Admittance have been unafraid to pursue their muse into any and all encroaching depth of darkness or outer boundary of potential dissonance -- in fact, that has always been their default mode, finding more of resonance way out there in the process. They also share that ol' maverick psychedelic ritual transcendental music vibe, don't they? And a fascination with repetition and cycles. And a mutual inspiration drawn from alternative tunings and literature -- all this considered, it's been basically inevitable that Ben Chasny and Sam Shackleton would work together. It took a while for them to find each other -- and once they did, it was almost eerie, how preordained it felt. When the music started coming, though -- that's when it got really eerie. The mood rises from the music like smoke, a sure signal of total integration. Jinxed by Being finds Shackleton and Six Organs of Admittance delighting in their synthesis. Reveling in the unique sonic textures found in the collage, they launch small details that unfold into a massive space, then fracture into multiple lines of dimensional reality, crossing the stereo spectrum with enervating motility. Here lies all the proof you need against the danger of categorizing by perceived genre rather than intention -- encounters like Shackleton and Six Organs of Admittance might never have found the linear space in which they sit next to each other, beyond alphabets and other institutional organizing principles. Rearrange your libraries -- or you might miss getting Jinxed by Being.

$25.00 IN STOCK

"Drummer Chris Corsano is a tireless collaborator. Among the 150 or so albums that he's contributed to over the past 25 years, only six have been credited to Chris alone, which makes the existence of The Key (Became The Important Thing [& Then Just Faded Away]) a rare instance of Chris going deep on his own vision. Indeed, this album finds him involved in every aspect of the process, from making the string-drums that the music is based upon, to playing all parts of the music, mixing them, and doing the cover art, too! This is a special album, bringing his encompassing focus on free improvisation and noise into a granular fusion with acoustic experiments and ideations of hard rock riffing and the post-punk sound. In Chris Corsano's collaborations over time with Paul Flaherty, Joe McPhee, Dredd Foole, Michael Flower, Paul Dunmall, Bill Orcutt, Nate Wooley, Mette Rasmussen, C. Spencer Yeh, Ben Chasny, and Sir Richard Bishop (as individuals, and together as Rangda), Bill Nace, Wally Shoup, Evan Parker, and dozens of other players, it's clear the vibe may get intense/heavy/OUT. Accessing this place, in itself, is an incredible calling -- but on The Key (Became The Important Thing [& Then Just Faded Away]), the intensity radiates entirely from inside Chris's process, in conversation with himself. And that's something that hit a bit different once he was done making it. The pieces here were largely built out of Chris's string drum playing, utilizing a setup he's created involving a silicone string, stretched across a snare drum with a bridge. When the string is hit, it resonates the drum -- a conception similar to that of the banjo, but with more of a bass tone. Several songs focus on Chris playing a bass string drum with a full kit, while the basic parts of two other pieces ('I Don't Have Missions,' 'The Full-Measure Wash Down') implied possibilities for full band arrangements which Chris was compelled to respond to himself. All the results on the tape, when listened back, found a higher order, transcending sequences of experimentation and technique, becoming much more than the sum of an internal conversation, standing together as a set of insistently compelling pieces of a whole. And so they became The Key (Became the Important Thing [& Then Just Faded Away]). They unlocked something in Chris Corsano."

$23.00 IN STOCK

"Evil Does Not Exist is an expansive new soundtrack undertaking from Eiko Ishibashi, a stellar further display of her ability to explicate the depths of the unspoken in her music. That it is also the soundtrack to the new Ryusuke Hamaguchi feature is marvelous news for all who loved her score for his Oscar-winning 2021 film, Drive My Car. That her music harmonizes effortlessly with the state of nature as depicted in his film, a nuanced tale of humans' uneasy efforts to maintain co-existence with the delicate state of the planet, is a further profound achievement. At play here, though, is much more than fantastic new music from a powerful new film -- it is evidence of a vital recomposition of the relationship of sound to narrative, and composer to filmmaker. The impetus for this came when Eiko was asked by overseas promoters for a program of live performances backed by visuals. After some thought, she asked Hamaguchi if he would make something for her to use for this purpose. This led Hamaguchi to develop the script further, with sequences of dialogue. In the end, he made two works: Gift, a silent film to act as a visual score for a live performance by Ishibashi, and Evil Does Not Exist, his new narrative feature film, which provided the visual material for the silent film Gift and features Eiko's music as its soundtrack. This is a fittingly synergistic exchange within their two disciplines, in which the moods and intentions of the music and the film acted in practical conversation: each one a sovereign statement, made possible by its relationship with the other. Eiko's compositions are scored for violin, cello, guitar, drums and keyboards. Her longtime partner Jim O'Rourke played the guitar and mixed and mastered the recordings when they were done, eliciting further the necessary nuances of atmosphere and mood that one would expect in one film, much less two!"

$31.00 IN STOCK

"Drag City presents the first ever vinyl pressing of guitarist Lee Underwood's under-sung 1988 acoustic guitar opus, California Sigh. Lee Underwood had been Tim Buckley's stalwart, inspiring, accompanying and being inspired by Buckley as they both navigated a heady set of changes in the late '60s and early '70s. Then, he abruptly stopped working as a professional musician, leaving behind a body of work, that, as noted by Eugene Chadbourne, was the work of 'a loner, who didn't quite march under any one flag, whose improvisations involved the level of sophisticated harmonic development one finds in jazz, floating as freely as Ornette Coleman.' 35 years later, yet still in time, train your ears on the meditations of California Sigh! As Byron Coley's liner notes observe: 'The music is guitar-based acoustic instrumental melodicism with a lovely tone and alternately ruminative and jazzy structuring. The playing is generally in the vein of William Ackerman and Alex de Grassi rather than progenitors like Basho and Fahey, although 'Lady of the Streams' does display a bit of a Fahey lilt at times. Throughout these pieces there are also flashes of single string runs straight out of the Django Reinhardt playbook. But the overall mood is tranquil -- reflecting the musical joys Underwood found when surrounded by nature.' The tenor of the production is transcendent to be sure. The playing of Chas Smith and Kevin Braheny Fortune, on pedal steel and soprano sax respectively, lend additional colors to Lee's music on several songs, but it is largely the soulful depth of Lee's guitar figures, limned by Steve Roach's synthesizers and the Roach/Underwood co-production, that give dynamic shape and elevation to Lee's lovely cycle of songs. And now, with this remastered vinyl edition, the air around the instruments -- both real and implied -- and the full sonic impact of California Sigh -- alternately gentle and mighty, like the natural world that inspired it -- is magnified incomparably. In the years following the release of California Sigh, Lee wrote and recorded two solo piano CDs, Phantom Light and Gathering Light. He continues to live in Northern California. California Sigh is 'dedicated with love and respect' by Lee to his late wife, Sonia Crespi, for the friendship and inspiration she brought."

$27.00 LOW STOCK LEVEL

"Back in print for the first time this era is David Berman's Actual Air. Released in paperback in 1999 by the now-defunct Open City and praised everywhere in the then-ascendant print press industry (including names that still make waves today like The New Yorker and GQ), David Berman's first (and only) book of poetry was and is a journey though shared and unreliable memory. Uncannily inspired, Berman's poems walk through doors into rooms where one might hear 'I can't remember being born/and no one else can either/even the doctor who I met years later/at a cocktail party' (from 'Self-Portrait at 28'), or praise 'the interval called hangover/a sadness not co-terminous with hopelessness' (from 'Cassette Country') and 'that moment when you take off your sunglasses/after a long drive and realize it's earlier/and lighter out than you had accounted for' ('The Charm of 5:30'). At that time, Berman was called a modern-day Wallace Stevens and a contemporary of John Ashberry with his own logic, awareness of pop culture and sensitivity to the details of the post-postmodern world in his poems. Alongside his lyrics to a half-dozen infamous Silver Jews records, Actual Air endeared Berman to lovers of poetry, prose, and music alike. Poet James Tate said it best: 'It is a book for everyone.' And poet laureate Billy Collins could only add, 'This is the voice I've waited so long to hear.' The second edition of the hardcover version of Actual Air is limited to 1000 copies. Features of the second edition are: new larger dimensions and enlarged typeface, new dustjacket artwork variant, deluxe cloth boards, updated full-color endpapers, dust-jacket featuring a photo of the artist around the time of publication, and of course the poems that inspired all this fuss in the first place. Fans of Actual Air, get hard again!"

$26.00 IN STOCK

"Like a bolt echoing back from the blue, We Have Dozens of Titles restrikes the iron of Gastr del Sol, plunging the listener back into the maelstrom of their all-too-brief passage of 1993-1998 via an assembly of previously uncollected studio recordings and beautifully captured unreleased live material. Gastr del Sol's music was of the transformative variety -- or was it transfiguration they were up to? Or transmigration? Flux was key, to be sure. David Grubbs formed Gastr from the final lineup of Bastro; on Gastr del Sol's debut, The Serpentine Similar, Grubbs, Bundy K. Brown and John McEntire downshifted from a thrashing electric outfit into a droning, acoustic-based one. Following this, the lineup shifted again, decisively -- Brown and McEntire departed to focus on the project to be known as Tortoise, and Jim O'Rourke arrived, pairing with Grubbs to make a sequence of unpredictable leaps across genre and practical approach alike, over three LPs and a pair of EPs. We Have Dozens of Titles contains nearly an hour of previously unreleased live recordings, alongside another near-hour of studio recordings culled from previously uncollected singles, EPs, and compilations. As much as Gastr del Sol's albums showcase a group eminently at home in the studio, they were inclined to thoroughly reinvent their compositions in performance. While reviewing live tapes for this compilation, the studio versions of most things felt more and more definitive, with the exception of the live takes included here, which essay startling new qualities in pieces that have been in the public ear for several decades. The majority of these live performances come from a miraculous find in the CBC archive -- a broadcast-quality recording of Jim and David from the 1997 Festival International de Musique Actuelle de Victoriaville. The extended company of players on these numbers includes Jeb Bishop, Bundy K. Brown, Steve Butters, Gene Coleman, Thymme Jones, Terri Kapsalis, John McEntire, Günter Müller, Bob Weston, and Sue Wolf. We Have Dozens of Titles revisits the slow-burning incendiaries of Gastr del Sol, finding, once again and after so much time elapsed, another, further set of reinventions."

$65.00 IN STOCK

LP version. "Like a bolt echoing back from the blue, We Have Dozens of Titles restrikes the iron of Gastr del Sol, plunging the listener back into the maelstrom of their all-too-brief passage of 1993-1998 via an assembly of previously uncollected studio recordings and beautifully captured unreleased live material. Gastr del Sol's music was of the transformative variety -- or was it transfiguration they were up to? Or transmigration? Flux was key, to be sure. David Grubbs formed Gastr from the final lineup of Bastro; on Gastr del Sol's debut, The Serpentine Similar, Grubbs, Bundy K. Brown and John McEntire downshifted from a thrashing electric outfit into a droning, acoustic-based one. Following this, the lineup shifted again, decisively -- Brown and McEntire departed to focus on the project to be known as Tortoise, and Jim O'Rourke arrived, pairing with Grubbs to make a sequence of unpredictable leaps across genre and practical approach alike, over three LPs and a pair of EPs. We Have Dozens of Titles contains nearly an hour of previously unreleased live recordings, alongside another near-hour of studio recordings culled from previously uncollected singles, EPs, and compilations. At long last, vinyl purchasers will hear the full range of 'The Harp Factory on Lake Street,' 'Dead Cats in a Foghorn,' 'Quietly Approaching,' and 'The Bells of St. Mary's' for the first time on vinyl -- all of it, live and studio alike, lovingly mastered and remastered by Jim O'Rourke, and packaged in a three-LP box set with a wicked Roman Signer image on its removable lid, interior printing on the box bottom and inner sleeves for each LP with performance credits for all the songs. As much as Gastr del Sol's albums showcase a group eminently at home in the studio, they were inclined to thoroughly reinvent their compositions in performance. While reviewing live tapes for this compilation, the studio versions of most things felt more and more definitive, with the exception of the live takes included here, which essay startling new qualities in pieces that have been in the public ear for several decades. The majority of these live performances come from a miraculous find in the CBC archive -- a broadcast-quality recording of Jim and David from the 1997 Festival International de Musique Actuelle de Victoriaville. The extended company of players on these numbers includes Jeb Bishop, Bundy K. Brown, Steve Butters, Gene Coleman, Thymme Jones, Terri Kapsalis, John McEntire, Günter Müller, Bob Weston, and Sue Wolf. We Have Dozens of Titles revisits the slow-burning incendiaries of Gastr del Sol, finding, once again and after so much time elapsed, another, further set of reinventions."

$13.00 IN STOCK

Cassette version. "Bill MacKay and Drag City are delirious with pride to announce the discovery of a new territory: Locust Land, a record which seeks to reflect the nerve-shredding consciousness run amok in our world today -- and somehow allay it with sound. Bill's music is a visceral crackling where it meets the air, and Locust Land can't help but reflect its era more than any other in his discography. It's been five years since the release of Fountain Fire -- but in the interim, Bill has barely stopped moving, collaborating with artists across the spectrum, including cellist Katinka Kleijn, banjo player Nathan Bowles, and keyboardist Cooper Crain. He's also contributed to recordings by Steve Gunn, Ryley Walker, Bill Callahan & Bonnie Prince Billy (Blind Date Party), and Black Duck (on their self-titled record featuring Douglas McCombs and Charles Rumback). Bill's sense of music as art is constantly modulating -- lifting off from where it is found and naturally migrating to some other place. Sometimes, that's elsewhere -- others, it's simply to be found deeper inside the starting point. And so, the action of moving on informs the landscape of Locust Land. Within the arrangements, there's also departure from previous norms -- in addition to the brilliant guitar work for which he is known, Bill plays a variety of keyboards, from piano to organ to synth, extending his music with the available voicings, while enriching the sound field without abandoning his signature brevity. Also different: on his previous solo recordings, Bill played every sound. Here, he has invited other illustrious Chicagoans to join him: Sam Wagster (The Father Costume, Mute Duo) plays bass on three songs, two of which feature the percussion playing of Mikel Patrick Avery (Natural Information Society, Jeff Parker, etc.). Additionally, Janet Beveridge Bean (Eleventh Dream Day, Freakwater) adds otherworldly vocal textures to the elegiac 'Neil's Field.' With cover art also by Bill MacKay (the third of his albums on Drag City to feature his work), Locust Land stands as a thoroughly personal statement from Bill to everyone everywhere."

$23.00 IN STOCK

"Bill MacKay and Drag City are delirious with pride to announce the discovery of a new territory: Locust Land, a record which seeks to reflect the nerve-shredding consciousness run amok in our world today -- and somehow allay it with sound. Bill's music is a visceral crackling where it meets the air, and Locust Land can't help but reflect its era more than any other in his discography. It's been five years since the release of Fountain Fire -- but in the interim, Bill has barely stopped moving, collaborating with artists across the spectrum, including cellist Katinka Kleijn, banjo player Nathan Bowles, and keyboardist Cooper Crain. He's also contributed to recordings by Steve Gunn, Ryley Walker, Bill Callahan & Bonnie Prince Billy (Blind Date Party), and Black Duck (on their self-titled record featuring Douglas McCombs and Charles Rumback). Bill's sense of music as art is constantly modulating -- lifting off from where it is found and naturally migrating to some other place. Sometimes, that's elsewhere -- others, it's simply to be found deeper inside the starting point. And so, the action of moving on informs the landscape of Locust Land. Within the arrangements, there's also departure from previous norms -- in addition to the brilliant guitar work for which he is known, Bill plays a variety of keyboards, from piano to organ to synth, extending his music with the available voicings, while enriching the sound field without abandoning his signature brevity. Also different: on his previous solo recordings, Bill played every sound. Here, he has invited other illustrious Chicagoans to join him: Sam Wagster (The Father Costume, Mute Duo) plays bass on three songs, two of which feature the percussion playing of Mikel Patrick Avery (Natural Information Society, Jeff Parker, etc.). Additionally, Janet Beveridge Bean (Eleventh Dream Day, Freakwater) adds otherworldly vocal textures to the elegiac 'Neil's Field.' With cover art also by Bill MacKay (the third of his albums on Drag City to feature his work), Locust Land stands as a thoroughly personal statement from Bill to everyone everywhere."

$15.00 IN STOCK

"Should the name Jim Rafferty sound a tad familiar, he is in fact the older brother of Gerry Rafferty, of 'Baker Street' and 'Stuck In The Middle with You' fame. As a songwriter, Jim had signed a solo deal with Decca in the late '70s. Times were changing across the music business, and Jim, always seeking new challenges, continued to write interesting, idiosyncratic material. He signed a self-penned, nervy and minimalist new work 'I See Red,' to Hit & Run publishing, which was picked up by Phil Collins for Abba star Frida's solo album. The song's outsider narrative and implied reggae rhythm, made somewhat cartoonishly explicit in Frida's version, also found favor with a number of other artists, notably Clannad, whose album Magical Ring included their near identical version of 'I See Red,' and gained chart placing in the UK. The flip-side of Jim's 'I See Red' has its own cover history -- 'Fear Strikes Out' first appeared on Ian Matthews' 1984 LP, Shook. Matthews, a journeyman who'd once sung in Fairport Convention alongside Judy Dyble and Sandy Denny and later hit the charts several times as a solo act, roots his version firmly in Jim's ineffable arrangement, which makes sense -- but Jim's version notches up the excitement brightly, showcasing sharp guitar and keyboard textures in the mix. And sounding more like a hit. Shortly after this, Jim teamed up with producer Hugh Murphy and his then-wife, American born singer songwriter Betsy Cook, to form The Urbane Planners, working out of Hugh's Buckinghamshire studio on smart pop singles, such as 'Spirit of the Thing,' for release on Mays Records. These gained radio exposure in the UK, but failed to get the kind of promotion they deserved, possibly a little too smart for the charts at that point. Jim continued to write, and returned to his earlier career as a graphic designer, then moved to Canterbury, where he found to his surprise that multi-instrumentalist Geoffrey Richardson of prog-rock outfit Caravan lived right across the street. The two struck up an immediate musical friendship and began working on material together at Geoffrey's studio nearby. And to the present, where Jim's relatively unheard 1982 recordings finally make their splendidly remastered debut on Drag City. It's a surprise and delight, not just for Jim, but for collectors of sublime pop songs all around the world."

$13.00 IN STOCK

"The Emmy-winning 'Comeback Kid' himself comes back yet again with a blunt, brilliantly quotable stand-up special. Baby J takes the form of a wide-ranging conversation between John Mulaney, a kid in the balcony named Henry, and the rest of the sold-out crowd at Boston's Symphony Hall. And now, you! John dominates the chat, of course -- and while his cautionary tales are a bit too convulsive to be functionally preventative, you probably aren't here to be cautioned. So have at it!"