Staff Picks 2021

Low - HEY WHAT

Released 10th September 2021. Focusing on their craft, staying out of the fray, and holding fast ...

Released 10th September 2021. Focusing on their craft, staying out of the fray, and holding fast their faith to find new ways to express the discord and delight of being alive, to turn the duality of existence into hymns we can share, Low present HEY WHAT. These ten pieces—each built around their own instantaneous, undeniable hook—are turbocharged by the vivid textures that surround them. The ineffable, familiar harmonies of Alan Sparhawk and Mimi Parker break through the chaos like a life ra...

Matthew E. White - K Bay

Released 10th September 2021. The LP was produced by White and recorded between his beloved Kensi...

Released 10th September 2021. The LP was produced by White and recorded between his beloved Kensington Avenue home studio (and album namesake) K Bay, Richmond’s Montrose Recording and his own local institution, Spacebomb Studio. K Bay finds the singer/songwriter, bandleader, and musical polymath expanding every facet of his creative process and harnessing the full power of his community, culminating in the best record of his career. "For me, one of the most exciting production techniques from...

Rosali - No Medium

Released 7th May 2021. While the collection of songs on Philadelphia/Michigan musician Rosali’s e...

Released 7th May 2021. While the collection of songs on Philadelphia/Michigan musician Rosali’s electrifying third LP, No Medium, explores the often dark territory of loss, death, sexuality, self-sabotage, and addiction, there is a surprising lightness to its sonic being. Backed by members of the David Nance Group, Rosali (Long Hots, Wandering Shade, Monocot) wades through the emotional mire with infectious, earworm melodies led by her luminous voice. With their rich, raw instrumentation, the...

Emma-Jean Thackray - Yellow

Released 23rd July 2021. The debut album by Emma-Jean Thackray feels exactly like the sort of thi...

Released 23rd July 2021. The debut album by Emma-Jean Thackray feels exactly like the sort of thing we’ve been longing for over the last 12 months: a transcendent, human, shared experience. Across its 49 minutes, Yellow draws glowing lines between ‘70s jazz fusion and P-Funk, the cosmic invocations of Sun Ra and Alice Coltrane, and the gorgeous orchestration of the Beach Boys. “I wanted the whole thing to sound like a psychedelic trip,” explains Thackray. “You put on the first track, it takes...

Lake Street Dive - Obviously

Released 12th March 2021.  Obviously is the new album from beloved band Lake Street Dive.  It inc...

Released 12th March 2021.  Obviously is the new album from beloved band Lake Street Dive.  It includes the new single ‘Nobody’s Stopping You Now’, a letter of encouragement from lead vocalist Rachael Price to her teenaged self, co-written with bassist Bridget Kearney.  Lake Street Dive has figured out how to write tunes that reflect this particularly turbulent chapter in our shared history.  The album track ‘Making Do’, which was released at the end of last year, speaks to the world that futu...

Gruff Rhys - Seeking New Gods

Released 21st May 2021. Gruff Rhys is releasing his new album “Seeking New Gods” through Rough Tr...

Released 21st May 2021. Gruff Rhys is releasing his new album “Seeking New Gods” through Rough Trade Records on 21 st  May. This will be Gruff’s seventh solo album. “Seeking New Gods” was recorded following a US tour with his band and mixed in LA with superstar producer Mario C (Beastie Boys).  The album concept was originally driven to be the biography of a mountain, Mount Paektu (an East Asian active volcano). However, as Gruff’s writing began to reflect on the inhuman timescale of a peak’s...

Hiss Golden Messenger - Quietly Blowing It

Released 25th June 2021. “I went looking for peace,” says songwriter M.C. Taylor of Hiss Golden M...

Released 25th June 2021. “I went looking for peace,” says songwriter M.C. Taylor of Hiss Golden Messenger about his new album Quietly Blowing It, out March 26, 2021, on Merge Records. “It’s not exactly a record about the state of the world—or my world—in 2020, but more a retrospective of the past five years of my life, painted in sort of impressionistic hues. Maybe I had the presence of mind when I was writing Quietly Blowing It to know that this was the time to go as deep as I needed to in o...

Ryley Walker - Course In Fable

Released 11th June 2021. SK says: 'If the thunderous opening chords of Ryley Walker's 'Course in...

Released 11th June 2021. SK says: 'If the thunderous opening chords of Ryley Walker's 'Course in Fable' suggest he's made good on his long-threatened epic prog tribute to Genesis, what follows rather more bears the mark of the guitarist's other great love: Chicago's incestuous and influential post rock scene. Indeed Tortoise's John McEntire is in the producer's chair on an album which blends their jazzy minimalist patterns, the elliptical delivery of Gastr del Sol and the kind of gonzo humou...