Other Music's Top 25 New Releases & Reissues of 2011

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	December 20, 2011

OTHER MUSIC'S BEST OF 2011: NEW RELEASES & REISSUES
Another year nearly gone and another year's worth of great records that helped define it! You can imagine the back-room bickering that can go into compiling these lists, as of course, these things are subjective and everyone has their own favorite artists and albums. Yet inevitably, certain records rise to the top, worming their way into our lives day after day. The albums featured below, 25 new releases and 25 reissues, represent some sort of consensus amongst the Other Music staff as the best of 2011. There are bound to be records here that are already favorites of yours, and we hope there are many that you have yet to hear -- and that you will take a chance and join us in our excitement. For us, the thrill of music often lies in discovery, and we guarantee there is much to discover and enjoy below.

Happy Holidays!

-All of us at Other Music

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	$13.99 CDx2 $16.99 LP+MP3 $9.99 MP3 So Outta Reach EP $10.99 12" $5.99 MP3		KURT VILE Smoke Ring for My Halo - Deluxe Expanded Edition (Matador) "Smoke Ring for My Halo" "Peeping Tomboy" Kurt Vile has a knack for both full-bore rock channeling prime-era Petty, Seger and Springsteen, as well as folksy solo numbers, and he's been teetering on the edge of greatness for a few years now. When Matador Records picked him up in 2009 to issue his third long-player, the excellent Childish Prodigy, it was only a matter of time that Vile would be coming fully into his own. Sure enough, with Smoke Ring for My Halo he managed to marry the bedroom intimacy of his earlier releases with the detail and care that went into Prodigy, and while this album is perhaps his most accessible set to date, it sounds like Kurt being Kurt. His resigned vocals and blunted sneer are a deceptively unassuming entryway into an emotional, heartfelt well of self-reflection, isolation and resignation, and if not for the strikingly buoyant arrangements loosely stitched together by his hypnotic guitar strumming and a sympathetic band who plays restraint like an instrument, Vile would fall right in and pull us down too. Released in March, Smoke Ring for My Halo set the high mark for the year early on and when re-released last month as a deluxe edition expanded with a bonus disc of the So Outta Reach EP (featuring six songs mostly recorded during the same sessions as the album, including a dissonant, rollicking take on Springsteen's "Downbound Train"), Vile cemented his place in the top spot for 2011's best of the best.


	$13.99 CD $19.99 LPx2+MP3 $9.99 MP3 Nothing EP $9.99 12"		ZOMBY Dedication (4AD) "Riding with Death" "Digital Rain" On Zomby's 4AD debut, the enigmatic, psychedelic dubstep producer invited us into a very detailed and personal inner space. Immediately striking was how pulled back Dedication felt compared to 2008's Where Were You in '92 in which Zomby painted a dream-like, face-melting re-imagination of a hardcore rave. While his cosmic videogame sound palette and the woozy drugginess were still present here, those elements were now used to create a backwards-turning vortex from the depths of the heart. Even tracks with floor-filler ingredients like steppy dancehall rhythms, pixilated bass-tone melodies, cascading washes of synth and handclaps seemed custom-made for solitary moments, where a vocal sample of "Yeah" wasn't a party chant, but rather a personal vow to press on and not give up hope. The Panda Bear-assisted album pinnacle "Things Fall Apart" found Zomby's Robotron sound reaching its most sweeping potential, and mournful tracks like the piano- and strings-driven "Haunted" and the procession-like dirge "Basquiat" rank amongst his most beautiful pieces to date. While Zomby was already assured a high place on our list, he recently snuck in the Nothing EP, which was supposedly culled from the same pool of material as the album. While there's definitely a similarity to the shadowed melodies and neon beats of Dedication, it seems as if he's going for a new, streamlined strain of mutant jungle here via the skittering shuffle and pop and the jagged breaks, or the tribal tom-toms, and it makes for an incredible bookend to an incredible album.


	$22.99 CDx2 $5.99 MP3 Passed Me By $5.99 MP3 We Stay Together		ANDY STOTT Passed Me By / We Stay Together (Modern Love) Preview Passed Me By on Other Music's Download Store Preview We Stay Together on Other Music's Download Store Andy Stott's two vinyl double-packs from earlier this year set the high bar for rumbling, bass-heavy, dub-infused techno and it was only made better when Modern Love closed 2011 by reissuing Passed Me By and We Stay Together together on CD, with a disc dedicated to each title plus an additional 25 minutes or so of never-before-released material. Too slow to be techno, too earthy to be industrial and too fast to be hip-hop, there's a subtle sensuality in these tracks; rather than pummeling you with such extreme, stark textures, Stott gives everything ample breathing room and lets his creations swim in an almost aquatic environment. Many have tried to emulate the slow, deep majesty of this Manchester producer's work, but few have come close.


	$15.99 CD		THE CARETAKER An Empty Bliss Beyond This World (History Always Favours the Winners) "Treetop" "Natural" Working under his Caretaker moniker, Leyland Kirby created an album of haunting, eerie yet deeply romantic soundscapes out of loops plundered from old pre-war jazz and big band 78s, the final results sounding like an extended suite scoring the end credits of Kubrick's The Shining. An Empty Bliss Beyond This World is mixed as though it were a field recording of a ghost playing records through a phonograph at the end of a long, lush, cavernous hallway, EQed for maximum spectral quality with the hiss, crackle and pop of the dusted grooves adding to (but never overwhelming) the musical content. Perhaps the ultimate statement in hauntology, this was the most listenable experimental album that we'd heard in a long while.


	$14.99 CD $19.99 LPx2 180 Gram		JAMES BLAKE James Blake (Atlas/Polydor) "Wilhelms Scream" "Limit to Your Love" We were all scratching our heads when we first played James Blake's eponymous full-length in the shop. It wasn't that it was bad, obviously quite the opposite; it's just that this young British producer had quickly risen to the top of the dubstep scene via his two stellar EPs, CYMK and Klavierwerke, yet here was his major label debut and it was far more minimal than even the hypnotically restrained, soulful production of those 12"s -- almost beat-less in fact. Sure, there were still pulses of bass, manicured clicks and pops, and other digital textures but at the album's core was Blake's sultry, yearning croon, albeit sampled, processed and looped. This opened up a whole new slew of references -- Arthur Russell's tender, repetitive pleas; Bon Iver's Auto-Tuned lonesome cowboy; Thom Yorke's digitalized soul; or the xx's style of stark R&B -- but there was nothing quite like it out there. In just two short years, Blake had transformed himself from a dubstep wunderkind to a post-modern heartthrob, and we're still smitten.


	$14.99 CD		PJ HARVEY Let England Shake (Vagrant) "The Words That Maketh Murder" "Written on the Forehead" From the bluesy raucous stomp of her earlier records to the more nuanced tones of Is This Desire?, Polly Jean Harvey has been a shape-shifter throughout her career and her fans have always been happy to oblige her every transformation. Let England Shake proved to be one of the most beguiling albums in her discography, Harvey expanding on the dense and dusty cloud of ambience that she mapped with White Chalk, blended with the raw, skeletal rock on which she had built her reputation. The swampy blues of her past, however, was replaced by electrified British folk forms and even some Cocteau Twins-esque dreamscapes, spliced with snippets and samples of Russian folkloric melodies, rockers reggae and marching band music. It gave the album a hallucinogenic subtlety that very much contrasted with the blunt imagery of her weighty lyrics: "I have seen and done things I want to forget / Soldiers fell like lumps of meat / Blown and shot-out beyond belief." Let England Shake marked a new form of expressionist territory for Harvey and it stands as one of her best.


	$14.99 CD $9.99 MP3		JAMES PANTS James Pants (Stones Throw) "Clouds Over the Pacific" "Darlin'" While James Pants' previous releases delivered heavy doses of throwback funk and boogie grooves, mixed with copious helpings of the sort of pop necrophilia that Ariel Pink fans go nuts for, he expanded his sonic palette on his third album for Stones Throw, coercing a vibe that equally synthesized funk and rock through a DIY electronic fuzz which evoked Broadcast as much as Prince. Lucrecia Dalt provided the ghostly lullabies in "Incantation," "Clouds Over the Pacific" and "A Little Bit Closer," which ranked amongst Pants finest tracks to date, along with highlights like "Strange Girl" and Darlin'," which found him channeling the new wave robot rockabilly of Alan Vega and Tones on Tail. All at once fun and arty, James Pants appealed to a broad swath of Other Music staff and customer alike.


	$12.99 CD $14.99 LP $9.99 MP3		PEAKING LIGHTS 936 (Not Not Fun) "Birds of Paradise" "Marshmellow Yellow" With music influenced by the untamed Wisconsin wilderness where they make their home, and recorded to tape in a barn that used to host artistic happenings back in the '70s, 936 found Peaking Lights fleshing out their richly textured, beat-heavy psychedelia and deep love for dub with a spatial, experimental pop sensibility. In songs like "All the Sun That Shines," the duo craft masterfully mellow yet driving, danceable dub out of scavenged synths, bass and guitar hooks, with Indra Dunis' (formerly of Numbers) melodic but detached vocals nicely calling to mind Anika and Broadcast's Trish Keenan. A slow-burner that locks into the groove for a full 50 minutes, this might be the strongest release yet on the Not Not Fun label, and a great discovery for fans of Woods, Sun Araw, Gang Gang Dance, and Dirty Beaches.


	Black Up $13.99 CD $18.99 LP+MP3		SHABAZZ PALACES Black Up (Sub Pop) "Endeavors for Never" "Are You...Can You...Were You?" Featuring Digable Planets' Ishmael 'Butterfly' Butler (now known as Palaceer Lazaro) and Zimbabwe-born Baba Maraire, the mysterious Shabazz Palaces not only had the distinction of being the first hip-hop act signed by the legendary Sub-Pop label, but their Black Up full-length would also prove to be like no other hip-hop record out there. Much like the avant recordings of artists like Sun-Ra, Albert Ayler, Anti-Pop Consortium, Mike Ladd, Divine Styler, Jungle Brothers, or even Odd Future (think Tyler at age 40 instead of 20, having resolved some issues), the duo create a world of their own design. Blending samples of various international musics with American soul and jazz sounds, and adding live percussion, shakers, kalimba and an array of analog electronics on top and lots of bass rumbling beneath, this is an Afro-Dirty South meets Pacific Northwest meets outer-space fusion of the black experience, where imagination runs rampant, free-association is the foundation and stream of consciousness the medium, and skill shows its more daring side -- pop status be damned.


	$10.99 CD $12.99 LP+MP3 $9.99 MP3		WIDOWSPEAK Widowspeak (Captured Tracks) "Puritan" "Hard Times" Even if two-thirds of this new Brooklyn trio had not worked at Other Music, and even if they were not on one of our favorite local labels, we would still love Widowspeak. Produced by Woods' Jarvis Taveniere, the group's debut full-length presented a natural progression from the simple, sunshine-dappled pop of groups like the Vivian Girls or Best Coast, Widowspeak taking the next step forward in that re-evolution of sound, at times recalling the lighter side of Mazzy Star, with Molly Hamilton's warm, sweetly melodic hypnotic voice and earworm melodies carried by her spindly guitar leads and Michael Stasiak's pounding tom-toms. Not too many modern rock bands can pull off being both relaxing and engaging in the same breath, but Widowspeak have shown themselves to be an exception.


	$26.99 CDx3 $17.99 MP3		DEMDIKE STARE Tryptych (Modern Love) "Forest of Evil (Dusk)" "Bardo Thodol" Originally issued last year as three limited edition, vinyl-only records which formed a trilogy of hauntingly rich, thematically dark soundworlds, Modern World kicked off 2011 re-releasing this trio of albums from UK electronic conjurers Demdike Stare as a stunning triple-CD package, with each of the discs augmented and even improved upon by what totals out to be around 40 minutes of bonus material. With their music touching upon dub, deep ambient drones, sampled plunderphonia, classic techno and psychedelic Krautrock, and their visual and thematic content referencing Ouija boards, witchcraft, runes and pagan symbolism, not to mention an overall love of horror films, low-tech sci-fi, and British folklore, Demdike Stare joined artists like Broadcast as well as the Ghost Box label roster as prime movers of hauntology.


	CD & LP TEMPORARILY UNAVAILABLE $9.99 MP3		BALAM ACAB Wander/Wonder (Tri Angle) "Motion" "Now Time" Following up on last year's See Birds, an EP that was (and still is) arguably a blueprint for many of the "hypnagogic" indie projects that have been hitting our shelves and taking so much Internet bandwidth as of recent, this 20-year-old Pennsylvania resident found himself distancing himself somewhat from his close association with the witch house scene on Wander/Wonder, his anticipated Balam Acab full-length. While the beats still creep and the R&B influence is still prevalent, the album is more of a suite than a collection of distinct, separate songs, engulfed in an indescribable glowing ambience. Eschewing the dreary and morbid motifs of See Birds, there's something more blissful and inviting at play. All at once weird, beautiful, soft and alien with a skewed pop aspiration, consider this the next evolution of the Thom Yorke, Panda Bear, James Blake continuum, or even a "prettier" Burial.


	$13.99 CD $16.99 LP+MP3 $9.99 MP3		GIL SCOTT-HERON & JAMIE XX We're New Here (XL) "My Cloud" "I'll Take Care Of U" In 2010, Gil Scott-Heron returned to the studio after 16 years and recorded a new album, I'm New Here, a comeback if there ever was one for the musician, poet, author and activist. Soon after, the record's producer, XL founder Richard Russell, invited xx beatsmith/producer and big Scott-Heron fan Jamie xx to rework the material, resulting in We're New Here, a creatively fresh, successful pairing of the old iconoclast and young wunderkind. The album would sadly also serve as a bookend to the artistic career of the legend; Gil Scott-Heron died a few months after its release and fans around the world mourned his passing. It was an inspired yet bittersweet parting gift, however, with Jamie xx treating Scott-Heron's vocals with care and finesse across the 13 tracks, the wordsmith's poetic text tastefully accompanied by elements of hip-hop, trip-hop, dubstep, drum-n-bass and soul. The album marked new territory for all involved, and introduced a new generation to this highly influential artist, and an older generation to one of the groundbreaking producers of the early 21st century, and it felt right. Gil Scott-Heron's opening line summed up this meeting perfectly: "I did not become someone different than I intended to be, but I'm new here, will you show me around?"


	$13.99 CD $14.99 LP+MP3 $7.99 MP3		DIRTY BEACHES Badlands (Zoo Music) "The Lord Knows Best" "Sweet 17" Montreal's Alex Zhang Hungtai (a/k/a Dirty Beaches) rode into 2011 on a tidal wave of blog buzz thanks to a small batch of limited cassettes and 45s; then came his full-length LP, Badlands, which we couldn't keep on our shelves until it was repressed as a CD for the masses. Hungtai's setup is relatively simple yet effective; over eerie, looped samples that sound grave-robbed from old 1950s records pockmarked by a switchblade, he croons, yelps and sweats himself into a frenzy on these raw recordings, often recalling Suicide's Alan Vega. Some of the album's true highlights, though, are the two slow dances, the aching ballad "True Blue" and the outstanding waltz "Lord Knows Best" -- each sounding like something that would play on a barroom jukebox somewhere in the town of Twin Peaks. Dirty Beaches was undoubtedly one of our favorite new artists of this year and we can't wait to hear where he goes next.


	$14.99 CD $18.99 LP		ONEOHTRIX POINT NEVER Replica (Mexican Summer) "Pelham Island Road" "Describing Bodies" While Daniel Lopatin's previous epic releases as Oneohtrix Point Never placed him vaguely in a camp with Emeralds, who share a similar love for warm synth arpeggios and other-dimensional drones, Replica saw Lopatin heading in a new direction. Created by filtering and looping fragments of 1980s television ads, his analog drones of past were replaced with fizzy washes and brief stuttering loops recalling certain strains of late-'90s IDM and chillout, without sounding much like either. Despite the low fidelity of the source material this is ironically the cleanest-sounding OPN record to date; generally opting for a progression of simple, uncluttered ideas over dense layers, Replica not only rewards but demands close listening, forgoing dazzle for depth that only grows with each play.


	$12.99 CD		ICEAGE New Brigade (What's Your Rupture) "White Rune" "Broken Bone" It took four Danish teens to make punk rock sound as vital, desperate and important as anything we've heard in the genre, their debut a messy, propulsive 24-minute traipse through icy bracing noise with confident riffs, piercing feedback and a big blast of energy that can only come from youth. Never mind the inevitable comparisons to Warsaw, Sods/Sort Sol, Rudimentary Peni, the Lurkers or the Damned, New Brigade is a loud highlight of 2011 -- the sound of teen revolution ripping your ears apart.


	$12.99 CD $19.99 LP+MP3 180 Gram $9.99 MP3		REAL ESTATE Days (Domino) "Easy" "Wonder Years" This Brooklyn-via-New Jersey outfit had made great progress as songwriters and stylists over the past couple of years, winning notice and acclaim from mere bedroom recordings, and their new home on Domino afforded Real Estate the luxury to get into a real studio and flesh out their sound to a stately, dreamy confidence. The resulting sophomore full-length marked a giant step forward for the band and was some of the most gorgeous guitar pop that we'd heard in a while. Filled with spacey, luxurious ballads celebrating the beauty of lush, green suburban tracts in the summer, or long car rides with no set destination and the companionship of trusted friends, Real Estate followed a similar idyllic path as traveled by the likes of the Feelies, Go-Betweens and Clientele, and in doing so they invigorated a classic sound in the pantheon of modern rock.


	$17.99 CD		NICOLAS JAAR Space Is Only Noise (Circus Company) "Space Is Only Noise If You Can See" "I Got A" Another great young talent who graduated in 2011 from singles, EP and remixes to the long-player, Nicolas Jaar's debut album for Circus Company placed the producer in the same new-school minimalist league as James Blake and Mount Kimbie, all three artists having made their names on dissecting and reassembling the various strains of electronic music into new forms. Utilizing electronic and acoustic instruments and processed vocals, Jaar blends minimal sound collage, loose-limbed house and downtempo ambient abstraction. Throughout Space Is the Only Noise, tempos build and his collaged vocals gradually grow more human as instruments come together and the atmosphere subtly builds from the bedroom to the dance floor. While it's not the most immediate record, it only takes a few listens to be fully immersed in Jaar's open landscape of sounds. A sleeper hit for sure.


	$14.99 CD $16.99 LP+MP3 $8.99 MP3		MOON DUO Mazes (Sacred Bones) Preview Songs on Other Music's Download Store The arrival of Mazes would mark Ripley Johnson's most concise work to date. There's a sharper focus to this album than the hazy drift of his previous Moon Duo and Wooden Shjips releases, and while the motorik Krautrock qualities are still present, there are also deceivingly catchy keyboard lines and sharp drum machine beasts courtesy of Sanae Yamada, with Johnson's vocals less muddled and sitting much higher in the mix. Even the guitar has a great, almost garagey scuzztone reminiscent of Spacemen 3's "Revolution," and much of the album sounds like the perfect hybrid of Velvet Underground's three-minute songs and Alan Vega's first solo record -- call it pop music if you must. The thing about Johnson is the dude just gets it.


	$14.99 CD		THUNDERCAT The Golden Age of Apocalypse (Brainfeeder) "Is It Love?" "Boat Cruise" Bassist Stephen Bruner's resume boasts an impressive list of associations, from LA punk legends Suicidal Tendencies to avant-R&B'ers like Erykah Badu, Sa-Ra and Shafiq Husayn. His debut full-length as a leader, however, would bare closest resemblance to the cosmically soulful journey of Cosmogramma from Flying Lotus, whose Brainfeeder label released The Golden Age of the Apocalypse. Moving from beatless passages to mellow soul, jazz and psych-influenced jams, Thundercat remembers a time when everyone was plugging in and spacing out -- think late-'70s boogie-jazz-soul-fusion like Roy Ayers, Herbie Hancock, Quincy Jones, or Stevie Wonder. A nice mix of instrumentals and vocals that continued to push the modern-soul vibe into the new decade, with The Golden Age, Bruner's Thundercat guise joined the ranks of Jazzanova, 4Hero, Dam-Funk, the bass-playing excursions of Squarepusher, and FlyLo.

$13.99 CD

$21.99 LP+MP3
180 Gram

$9.99 MP3

Humor Risk
$13.99 CD

$17.99 LP+MP3

$9.99 MP3

CASS MCCOMBS
Wit's End
(Domino)

Preview Songs on Other Music's Download Store

CASS MCCOMBS
Humor Risk
(Domino)

Preview Songs on Other Music's Download Store

Cass McCombs is a rare breed these days, a songwriter in the classic mold, and with each successive record he has been pushing his craft further off the beaten path and into the briars. This year he offered two albums, the first, Wit's End, appearing in the spring and playing quite opposite to the color and optimism of the season in which it was released; McCombs seemed to be pulling from the darkest depths of his soul, where loneliness was his muse. It was an album that seemed almost uncomfortable to play while in the company of others, all hushed tones with every song slowly unraveling at a hypnotizing pace -- and it was also one of the most beautiful records that we heard all year.

Then last month came Humor Risk which saw McCombs returning to the vibe that he was riding a few years ago, circa-Catacombs. While the songs here are still stuffed to the brim with foreboding and venom, there's also a playfulness to them, with "Meet Me at the Mannequin Gallery" and "Mystery Mail" being some of the jauntiest numbers that he's written in a long time. Two great albums in a serpentine trail of nothing but, McCombs clearly plays by a set of rules known only to himself, and his output is timeless.


	$11.99 CD+MP3 $17.99 LP+MP3 $12.99 CSx2 $9.99 MP3		BLUES CONTROL & LARAAJ FRKWYS Vol. 8 (RVNG) Preview Songs on Other Music's Download Store The finest installment yet in RVNG's FRKWYS series paired up experimental rock 'n' roll duo Blues Control with ambient legend and zither master Laraaji. Known for his work with Brian Eno and for beautiful solo albums under his given name Edward Larry Gordon, Laraaji perfectly complemented Blues Control's motorik Krautrock rhythms and swirling dronescapes with wordless vocals and virtuosic zither playing, creating psychedelic, new age bliss. All formats of the album include two bonus tracks totaling 50-plus minutes, the CD and LP versions coming with a download code, and the cassette format featuring the extra material on a separate tape.


	$11.99 CD $18.99 LP+MP3		EMA Past Life Martyred Saints (Souterrain Transmissions) "Coda" "Milkman" Erika M. Anderson was once half of West Coast duo Gowns, whose chilling records dissolved under the scorching personal heat of her solo debut as EMA. The nine songs on Life Martyred Saints sound as if they were recorded through a sonic microscope, leaving you painfully close to the source of Anderson's tales of hurt, discomfort, and the sunrise that serves to wipe the slate clean for it to happen all over again. She exhibits masterful control over the recording environment, layering guitars, synths, drums and voice into a bruised yet stoic whole, daring you to turn away. Thing is, though, with her Stevie Nicks-meets-Karen O vocals, you simply can't.


	$11.99 CD $14.99 LPx2 $9.99 MP3		THE WAR ON DRUGS Slave Ambient (Secretly Canadian) "I Was There" "Baby Missiles" On their second album, the War on Drugs injected the rootsy, all-powerful demeanor of the '70's and '80's most iconic songwriters/performers of American rock -- Petty, Springsteen, Twilley, Mellencamp -- with 30 years' worth of psych/Kraut mainlining. What resulted were BIG songs with BIG riffs, and by reintroducing momentum back into pop music, Adam Granduciel and his band reminded us what it meant to get lost in the spirit of this music. Slave Ambient is the sound of the War on Drugs thickening their already-proven formula, doubling the amount of this dying breed of rock and streamlining it for a modern audience no longer content with polished perfection -- a dazzling, inspired listen. CD and LP formats include a free bonus disc with purchase featuring a War on Drugs radio session.


	$13.99 CD $15.99 LP $9.99 MP3		PSYCHIC ILLS Hazed Dream (Sacred Bones) Preview Songs on Other Music's Download Store Hazed Dream was nothing less than a return to form for Psychic Ills who, following 2006's crashing storm of perma-stoned noise and pop (Dins), had dove into an extended period of self-discovery and abstraction, moving further out and leaving it for the listeners to sort out. Any of those excesses are burned off here though; energy levels never rise above a browned-out choogle, but that's alright, with the Ills finding a niche for themselves between Opal's Happy Nightmare Baby, Spacemen 3 demos, and the sunrise that greets us each morning. This is a supremely burnt, incredibly cool album based on repetitive concepts, blues riffage, and dark sunglasses, content to purr along while the world races past.


	$14.99 CD		HOWLIN' WOLF This Is Howlin' Wolf's New Album (Geffen) "Smokestack Lightning" "Evil" After languishing out of print for decades, and previously only available on CD as a Japanese reissue which itself had lasted for only a moment, blues legend Howlin' Wolf's 1969 psychedelic opus for Cadet Concepts finally landed back on the shelves and hot damn, if you still don't know this record, then pick it up post-haste, because fans of psych-rock and dirty blues owe it to themselves to hear this. Recorded during the same period as Muddy Waters' Electric Mud LP, and featuring nearly the same band of players (including guitarists Pete Cosey and Phil Upchurch), This Is Howlin' Wolf's New Album featured updates of several of Wolf's classic tunes with a new, modern sound influenced by the burgeoning psychedelic rock scene that birthed Cream, Led Zeppelin, and many others who were, ironically, influenced by Wolf and Waters themselves. It's easy to take for granted how revolutionary a statement this was at the time; as much as Dylan plugging in at Newport, as much as Bad Brains paying to cum, as much as Miles running the voodoo down, this is a document of revolution, and it's been a revelation to have it back on the racks again.


	$34.99 CDx4+Booklet		MICKEY NEWBURY An American Trilogy (Drag City) "Sunshine" "San Francisco Mable Joy" This year Drag City did right by Mickey Newbury, one of the greatest American singer-songwriters of all time, by returning his three most crucial and long out-of-print albums to the shelves in this four-disc box set which includes an amazing fourth disc of never-before-released outtakes, publishing demos, and live sessions that equals much of what you hear on his properly released records. Newbury was inarguably one of the most ambitious and talented songwriters to ever grace the streets of Nashville, a man held in awe by such peers as Kris Kristofferson and Johnny Cash. Even if you've never heard him, you've undoubtedly heard his songs, as performed by many dozens of artists of note during the 1960s and '70s. Despite never having much chart success as a singer, Newbury was always his own best interpreter -- he claimed that he "wrote through his sadness," and there's always a depth of melancholy soul in his performances that even his greatest interpreters could never match. There's barely an unmoving moment across these albums, and rarely has the pain and sadness and sardonic humor to be found in a man's life been manifested in such lovely form.


	Laughing Stock $10.99 CD Mark Hollis $16.99 LP		TALK TALK Laughing Stock (Ba Da Bing! / Polydor) MARK HOLLIS Mark Hollis (Ba Da Bing! / Polydor) Ba Da Bing did us all a favor this year with these vinyl reissues of UK band Talk Talk's classic final album, 1991's Laughing Stock, as well as group leader Mark Hollis' equally mind-blowing eponymous solo album from 1998. Both of these records went on to serve as cornerstones for what became the "post-rock" movement, and inform groups like Radiohead and Sigur Ros in the way that they blend textural ambition and innovation with classic song craft. Hollis' singular sound even now seems to be coming back and playing influence to the likes of James Blake and Bon Iver, whose heartfelt lyrical and vocal emotion similarly slowly emerge from stark instrumental minimalism. These records are massively important and were long overdue to be discovered by a new audience who need to hear where the acclaim of those young artists' recent recordings finds its roots. PLEASE NOTE: Laughing Stock LP is temporarily unavailable. Check back for re-stock.


	TEMPORARILY UNAVAILABLE		THE BEACH BOYS The Smile Sessions (Capitol) "Do You Like Worms (Roll Plymouth Rock)" "Cabin Essence" For many, many music fans, 2011 will be remembered as the year that the definitive version of the Beach Boys' legendary, near-mystical SMiLE finally saw the light, and it indeed proved to be the brilliant and innovative masterpiece that all those bootlegs had only hinted at. And that's not even touching on the second disc here of expanded sessions included in this beautiful package, featuring lots of jaw-dropping vocal takes and improv sessions with the Wrecking Crew -- man, Brian Wilson really was diving pretty deep into the avant-garde! This is not only an album of classic songs documenting the history of American expansion and its moralistic downturn which can be appreciated by the casual fan, but it is a treasure trove of evidence of the power of recorded music, to the craft of musical arrangement, and to the simple but unstoppable force of the human imagination.


	$17.99 CD+45 $21.99 LP+45		WILLIE WRIGHT Telling the Truth (Numero Group) "I'm So Happy" "Right on for the Darkness" Born in St. Louis, MO, reared in Harlem, Willie Wright cut his teeth in the bohemian Greenwich Village and Boston/Cambridge folk scenes of the '60s. He pretty much lived a nomadic, troubadour lifestyle for 20 years and by 1977 had found himself on Nantucket Island entertaining the nation's wealthy elite, singing and strumming cover tunes in supper clubs. It was an isolating experience, and feeling deeply estranged he penned all of the beautiful and self-reflective tunes found on this album. Like contemporaries Bill Withers, Terry Callier and Gil Scott-Heron, Wright had a gift for cutting straight to the heart of things, able to convey complex emotional sentiments in beautiful economical phrases, and as the title of the album suggests, this is a deeply personal listen. Recorded in New York, pressed up in an edition of 1000 copies and sold mostly out of the trunk of his car, it ended up being Wright's final full-length recording, so kudos to Numero for unearthing yet another outstanding gem among many and bringing it a larger audience this year.


	$14.99 CD $9.99 MP3		DISCO INFERNO The 5 EPS (One Little Indian) Preview Songs on Other Music's Download Store At long last, the five EPs Disco Inferno released in the early- to mid-'90s were compiled onto one convenient disc. The English group was mostly overlooked in its day but has since received props from the indie rock elite (most recently by MGMT who featured DI on their Late Night Tales DJ mix). Disco Inferno crafted a unique atmosphere, combining the spacious bass sound of a Martin Hannett production, samples and loops, and shimmering guitar lines reminiscent of the Durutti Column. And thusly, like all of the best music, The 5 EPs looks into the future while drawing from familiar sources of the past, making for some of the most special sounds of the era.


	$17.99 LP+CD $9.99 MP3		HARALD GROSSKOPF Synthesist/Resynthesist (RVNG Intl) Preview Songs on Other Music's Download Store Percussionist Harald Grosskopf got his start in the German music scene playing drums for the likes of Klaus Schulze, Cosmic Jokers, and Manuel Göttsching, amongst others, but Synthesist, his 1980 solo debut originally released on the infamous Sky label and lovingly reissued this year by RVNG Intl, documented his first true shining moment. Utilizing a Minimoog, a Revox reel-to-reel, and his stellar drumming, Grosskopf fashioned a breathtaking suite of explorative transition -- this is the sound of a man not only expanding his own personal horizons and vision, but essentially creating a key document which bids farewell to the bombastic excess of 1970s Krautrock and greets the 1980s with sleek, synthesized neon warmth. If you've ever dipped into the minimal synth/post ambient/analogue fetish scene and enjoyed your time there, then this is without a doubt essential listening.


	$19.99 LP		REV. CHARLIE JACKSON You Got to Move: Live Recordings, Vol. 1 (50 Miles of Elbow Room) Comprised of live recordings taped to cassette, You Got to Move: Live Recordings, Vol. 1 features famed guitar evangelist Rev. Charlie Jackson at his rawest, most fevered and visceral best. Do you remember that awesome comp of Jackson's obscure gospel seven-inches that Case Quarter reissued in 2003 (which also made it into our year-end best list back then), and how rippin' that was? Well, You Got to Move goes beyond even that, capturing the man in a number of different pulpits throughout the years with a single mic as he lets fly all manner of guitar pyrotechnics and ecstatic singing. It's nothing short of miraculous that a teensy little cassette tape with such rough and primitive recordings can nevertheless contain the vast sound of a man's soul soaring unto heaven.


	Unavailable at This Time		JOHN FAHEY Your Past Comes Back to Haunt You: The Fonotone Years 1958-1965 (Dust-to-Digital) An absolutely tremendous set featuring the embryonic recordings of one of the greatest and most influential American musicians to ever live. Highlighting recordings Fahey made for famed blues collector Joe Bussard's highly obscure Fonotone label, the vast majority of the material gathered here has till now only been heard by a smattering of people, and it's an extremely important body of work that proves that Fahey's genius was birthed fully intact. The always stellar Dust-to-Digital label teamed here with Revenant, and they went all in for this one: five discs, 115 tracks, loaded to the brim with essays, interviews, photos, and a gorgeous sound, remastered from Bussard's original reel-to-reel tapes. A major event, and one of the landmark albums of the last couple of years.


	$24.99 CD $31.99 LPx3 Part 1 $31.99 LPx3 Part 2		VARIOUS ARTISTS The Original Sound of Cumbia: The History of Colombian Cumbia & Porro, As Told by the Phonograph 1948-79 (Soundway) "La Cumbia Esta Llamando" Gaston (El Isleño) con El Conjunto de Jaime Simanca "La Culebra" Los Tigres con Morgan Blanco British musician and producer Will Holland, a/k/a/ Quantic, has been living in Colombia for a half a decade now, immersed in the rich sounds and musical history of this South American nation. We're huge fans of pretty much anything bearing Quantic's name at the shop -- we couldn't keep his mix of vintage cumbia for the Mochilla label on our shelves a few years back -- so to find him collaborating with Soundway head Miles Cleret for this 55-track collection of Colombian cumbia and porro, well, we knew it was going to be a doozy. And it is. Featuring two-and-a-half hours of songs culled from countless 78s, 45s and LPs recorded between 1948-79, The Original Sound of Cumbia traces the origins and evolution of this irresistibly kinetic, tropical music -- essential as it gets.


	$15.99 CD $15.99 LP $9.99 MP3		LEE "SCRATCH" PERRY The Return of Pipecock Jackxon (Honest Jon's) Preview Songs on Other Music's Download Store Honest Jon's finally reissued an important piece of the puzzle that is Lee "Scratch" Perry's ingenious musical output with 1980's The Return of Pipecock Jackxon. Long legendary as containing the last recordings made at Perry's Black Ark studio before he burned it to the ground, the bulk of the album was recorded in the Ark, with the remainder completed in a Dutch studio and then issued on the small Netherlands label Black Star Liner. The album effectively plays as a continuation of the spiritually minded playfulness of his classic Roast Fish, Collie Weed & Cornbread, with Perry spouting his cryptic Rasta riddles over a loose-limbed and elastic version of the hazy Black Ark groove. Opener "Bed Jammin'" is an 11-minute(!) reggae precursor to Marvin Gaye's "Sexual Healing" that has Perry going so far down the rabbit hole that by the time he starts toasting the alphabet halfway through the track, you're chasing after him and singing along without even realizing what's going on. The rest of the album is more concise but equally thrilling, all easy grooves and brilliant ambiances, with Perry in fine voice and top lyrical form. This album is classic, no question about it, and it's fantastic to finally see it on shelves again after floating in collector limbo for 30 years.


	$37.99 CDx3		VARIOUS ARTISTS This May Be My Last Time Singing: Raw African-American Gospel on 45RPM 1957-1982 (Tompkins Square) "Perfect Like the Angels" Sounds of Road Now "Jesus Been Good" The Fantastic Angels This is the second volume of raw American gospel that Yeti magazine founder/editor Mike McGonigal has now curated for Tompkins Square, and like its predecessor, is culled from records which display a fierce, street-level approach to music making that could appeal to fans of punk or ethnographic field recordings as much as they could fans of traditional religious music. Most all of the groups included here were clearly in the sway of the "modern" soul sounds that ruled the black community (and really, much of the world) in the '60s and '70s; it is music by and for the people, and oftentimes you can hear those people singing and clapping along to tracks cut live in front of the congregation. Hours of great, inspirational music spread across three discs with meticulous notes from McGonigal make this a must-have for even the saddest sinner.


	$11.99 CD $19.99 LP $9.99 MP3		PHIL COHRAN AND LEGACY African Skies (Captcha) Preview Songs on Other Music's Download Store Perfectly conceived and executed as a tribute to the then recently deceased Sun Ra, in whose ensembles Phil Cohran originally got his start, this is quite possibly one of the greatest jazz records of the '90s, and an album which stands head to head with Cohran's famous work in the '60s and '70s. Composed as a suite, and deeply elegiac in tone, there's a level of reflection throughout that stands in sharp contrast to the often-fiery rhythms and playing of his earlier work. That change was no doubt occasioned by the recent loss of his comrade, and many of the pieces here gently interweave soft melodic lines through intricate patterns created by mbiras and harps or koras. This might actually be Cohran's defining work, an absolutely essential listen that's simply beautiful on every level.


	$56.99 CDx4+BK		VARIOUS ARTISTS Opika Pende: Africa at 78RPM (Dust-to-Digital) This four-disc set of 100 sides culled from Excavated Shellac architect Jonathan Ward's extensive and excellent collection of African 78s traverses Tunisia to South Africa, Algeria to Zanzibar, reaching the remote islands of Seychelles and Reunion. This impossibly rare music paints an aural picture of nearly the whole of Africa between 1909 and the 1960s, and it's fitting to consider this set as the African equivalent to Harry Smith's game changer, the Anthology of American Folk Music; it exclusively contains music created by the people, bought by the people, and, for better or worse, music reflecting the social and economic conditions of the people. Anyone who has been able to avoid becoming totally cynical (or maybe even those folks too) should be able to learn something profound from listening: adversity is relative, and the human spirit is boundless. Opika Pende, indeed! (Due to weight, a small extra shipping charge may be applied.)


	Satan Is Real + Handpicked Songs $21.99 CDx2 $21.99 LP Satan Is Real 180 Gram $21.99 LP Handpicked Songs		THE LOUVIN BROTHERS Satan Is Real / Handpicked Songs (Light in the Attic) "I See a Bridge" "You're Running Wild" The Louvin Brothers are country music icons and one of the most important of the close-harmony duos that thrived in the 1930s-1950s. Satan Is Real, probably their most famous album, is a concept record on the themes of sin and redemption, and while the artwork may have some kitsch value, the music is deeply passionate and honest; tracks like "The Christian Life" and "Are You Afraid to Die?" are simply stunning in their pure emotion, whatever your beliefs. The deluxe CD version from Light in the Attic comes with a bonus second disc titled Handpicked Songs, with fourteen more classic career-spanning Louvin tracks as selected by a host of artists who hold the Brothers near and dear, including Beck, Will Oldham, Jim James, Dolly Parton, Kris Kristofferson, and Emmylou Harris, to name a few, plus notes from the selectors, an essay from Jessica Hundley, and more, in a lovely gatefold double-CD digipack.


	$21.99 CDx2 $9.99 MP3		THROBBING GRISTLE 20 Jazz Funk Greats (Industrial Records) Preview Songs on Other Music's Download Store 2011 saw the staggeringly powerful back-catalog of Throbbing Gristle returned to print by its rightful owners, the band itself. While we unreservedly, whole-heartedly endorse their entire oeuvre, if we had to pick just one title above all others to feature, then 20 Jazz Funk Greats has to be it. Probably the gentlest first step into the TG arena, with the group posing like Teen Beat stars on the cliffs of Dover, the album contains some of their poppiest material. The infinite sequence chug of "Hot on the Heels of Love" sounds as contemporary as anything else you might hear today, bridging Kraftwerk, Gavin Russum and Carl Craig. This album proves that three decades on, as the sounds of our current noise underground bridges towards kosmische, drone, new age, cold wave and all things hypnogogic, TG sound more relevant than ever.


	$15.99 CD		GOOGOOSH Googoosh (B-Music/Finders Keepers) "Shekayat" "Pishkesh" Googoosh (or Gougoush, among numerous other spellings of her name) is a legend in Iran even today; a singer, movie star, and symbol of national pride among her people, she has become one of the most influential figureheads in Middle Eastern pop music over the last several decades. This collection from Finder's Keepers focused on her lesser known and seldom-compiled deep cuts from the early- to mid-1970s, a period when her creativity was at its peak. Her voice could blow holes in concrete walls; it's a powerful, deeply emotional, yet highly sensitive instrument, and here it inhabits arrangements that throb and ache with propulsive drums, complex, bubbling bass lines and some of the most lush, incredible string and woodwind arrangements we've ever heard. This is one of Finder's Keepers landmark releases, as essential as the Sarolta Zalatnay and Selda collections, as well as Jean-Claude Vannier's L'Enfant Assassin Des Mouches.


	$15.99 CD $18.99 LP		GENE CLARK Roadmaster (Sundazed) During Gene Clark's brief stint with the Byrds in the mid-'60s, he wrote most of the iconic group's best-known songs (including "Feel a Whole Lot Better" and "Eight Miles High"), and played a major role in inventing folk-rock and country-rock. For a host of reasons that have little to do with the actual music he made after leaving the band, Clark's solo career never really took flight, but he recorded a pile of great records in the late-'60s and '70s, none better than 1973's Roadmaster, the bulk of which was laid to tape in 1972 with the cream of the L.A. scene, including Clarence White, Chris Ethridge, Michael Clarke, Sneaky Pete and Spooner Oldham. The remainder of the record was drawn from previous sessions with Clark backed by the Flying Burrito Brothers, and two aborted Byrds reunion sessions; in many ways it is Clark's most honest, personal album, crafted without any commercial aspirations beyond making beautiful music with good friends and collaborators, and this remastered edition is long overdue. Also given the Sundazed treatment this year was Clark's stark and haunting 1971 masterpiece White Light, and the 1968 classic The Fantastic Expedition of Dillard & Clark.


	$17.99 CD		VIRGO FOUR Resurrection (Rush Hour) "Sex" "Boing" Rush Hour's re-release last year of Virgo, collecting Chicago house veterans Virgo Four's first two EPs, was a banner reissue shining light on one of the most important yet overlooked dance music innovators of its era. It turned out though that Virgo was just a teaser for the real prize: Resurrection, a 15-track CD compiling previously unreleased cuts dating from 1984 to 1990, and which sound like a Rosetta Stone of dark, gritty dance experimentation. One of the best and most important reissues to come out in 2011, and pretty much one of the best house albums ever, filled with equal parts heart, soul, brain, and brawn. This is the sound of machines breathing, not some heavily sequenced gridwork, with that real-time funk being the key ingredient to most of the magic of these tracks. Essential listening for anyone interested in house, IDM, early Warp, the synth-heavy boogie-funk of Dam and Tony Cook, and just plain old good dance music.


	$10.99 CD $9.99 MP3		JEFF & JANE HUDSON Flesh (Captured Tracks / Dark Entries) Preview Songs on Other Music's Download Store The Dark Entries imprint and their friends over at Captured Tracks brought us one hell of a reissue with Flesh (Expanded), the complete discography of the US minimal synth husband and wife duo Jeff & Jane Hudson, available for the first time in its entirety. We couldn't have been more excited; this material is hands down some of the best of the genre from any continent and marks a pinnacle achievement for two labels already known for their stellar selections. Melding analog drum machines, dreary synth lines, detached vocal delivery from both Jeff and Jane, a killer DIY ethos and tight, artful sonic arrangements, the duo successfully blurred the line between pure synth-pop and more guitar-driven post-punk, while retaining a playfulness seldom seen in the realm of arty, dark synth music.


	$19.99 CD $19.99 LP		VARIOUS ARTISTS Those Shocking Shaking Days: Indonesian Hard, Psychedelic, Progressive Rock and Funk 1970-1978 (Now-Again) "Haai" Panbers "Shake Me" AKA Now-Again brought us this insane collection of psychedelic funk and rock from 1970s Indonesia. Equal parts King Crimson and James Brown, Those Shocking Days is as warped as a hash pipe run over by a moped, with twenty stomping, stormy fuzzballs packed with danceable beats, heavy riffs and most importantly, hummable, memorable TUNES, not to mention some totally cracked vocals (often backed by angelic harmonies) and some heavy-hitting raw production. Add to that a visually stunning package, from its eye-catching front cover to the massive book (not booklet, this is a full-blown Reader's Digest) of liners, photos, and ephemera included within -- the label clearly put insane amounts of work (and love) into this project, and it was well worth it.


	$48.99 LPx4		DAPHNE ORAM Oram Tapes Vol. 1 (Young American) Daphne Oram was part of the small group who founded the BBC Radiophonic Workshop -- the BBC's in-house sound effects lab perhaps best known for their Doctor Who theme -- in the late '50s, and was integral to their productions for the next 40 years. When Oram died in 2003, she left more than 400 reels which are still being meticulously archived; this incredible 4-LP set covers just a fraction of the material left behind, focusing on Oram's darker, more experimental impulses, closer to musique concréte than the sort of whir and ping the Workshop was best known for. It's a groundbreaking collection on a number of levels, bringing to light the work of a pioneering woman whose name is little-known despite her music being widely heard throughout Britain (and the world) for many years, and showcasing a side to her work that pushed well beyond the confines of her day job with the BBC. Moreover, for fans of experimental electronics, this is simply brilliant stuff.


	UNAVAILABLE AT THIS TIME		STAN HUBBS Crystal (Companion) Totally bitchin' private press obscurity recorded by the enigmatic Stan Hubbs in his Sonoma County living room (circa 1982) with a cast of much younger band mates, this album proved to be some seriously epic and wasted lo-fi bedroom rock with arena-level pretensions scuttled by the most endearingly blank singing imaginable. Think early X, but with massive amounts of flange, and you'll have but the faintest sense of what's happening here. The whole thing is just a head-scratcher, made even more intriguing by the inclusion of a couple of stunningly blissful ballads that seemingly levitate on thin air. Crystals is a singular experience if ever there was one, and Companion gave it all the love and attention it deserves, rescuing it from nearly complete obscurity with a gorgeous exact replica production that even includes the original 16 page insert.


	$19.99 LP		L'ORCHESTRE KANAGA DE MOPTI Kanaga De Mopti (Kindred Spirits) "Kulukutu" "Sare Mabo" Overflowing with frenetic, polyrhythmic percussion grooves, robust horn work, psychedelic finger-picked guitar lines, and vocal chants and synth parts run through assorted echo/delay units, this album blasts off into space from opener "Kulukutu" and never returns, utilizing the same primitive/futurist dichotomy heavily practiced by the likes of Sun Ra's Arkestra, while employing aesthetic similarities to the lysergic explorations of Pink Floyd (the group was allegedly referred to as "The Malian Pink Floyd" because of their pioneering synth usage) and the melodic electronic pointillism of early Terry Riley. These six tracks are overflowing with pure joy, which comes through in the vocal chants sung in harmony by various members of the band, not to mention impressive, complex rhythmic and harmonic counterpoint as displayed in the latticework woven by the keyboards, balafon, and stuttering brass.


	$14.99 CD $16.99 LP		STONE COAL WHITE Stone Coal White (Cali-Tex Records) "Hell Below" "Peoples" Just when we thought that there were no more hidden funk jewels to be excavated, DJ Shadow's Cali-Tex imprint offered up one of the grimiest, nastiest unheard rock-n-soul masterpieces of the '70s. Hailing from the unsung soul mecca of Dayton, OH, and led by gang member Jesse Chandler, Stone Coal White was a bona fide black motorcycle gang who also happened to be one helluva heavy psych-funk outfit. Originally unearthed by noted collector Dante Carfagna and showcased on his seminal psych-soul mix Chains and Black Exhaust, SCW delivered a scuzzy mix of rust-belt rock-n-roll grit, pedal-to-the-metal wah-wah guitar, and heavy primitive funk backbeats. Imagine Curtis Mayfield and Funkadelic jamming after two tabs of brown acid and you're almost there. This long overdue record insures that Chandler and his band will get their deserved spot in the annals of underground funk history.


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