AIMS Music
“Whoosh!” sees Deep Purple for the third time joining forces with producer Bob Ezrin, who invited the band to Nashville to write and record new songs. Together they created the most versatile album in their collaboration.
Deep Purple “stretched out in all directions” without any limitation, letting their creativity go. “Deep Purple is putting the Deep back into Purple” was the half-joking motto in the studio after the first songs made it clear that Ezrin and Purple were on their path to creating an album pushing the boundaries of time, while voicing their resentment about the current situation of the world and addressing all generations.
In recent years, Deep Purple has progressively moved into new areas, piquing the interest of fans who were not born when the mighty Purple machine ruled the music world. Their holy grail of “In Rock” (1970), “Machine Head” (1972) and “Made In Japan” (1973) catapulted Deep Purple to the top in concert grosses and album sales around the world, with tracks such as “Smoke On The Water” ascending them to mega-status.
The band’s 20th studio album “inFinite” has become one of their most successful albums ever, braking chart records accumulated by the hard rock legends over an impressive 50-year history.
Waking Hours, by Photay (aka Evan Shornstein), is a meditation on time and our obsessive need to actively fill each moment. The NYC native's search for calm is at the album's very core; while he admits it was therapeutic to create, it's not to be mistaken for a healing excursion. Largely electronic, frequents on the verge pop; extensively features Evan's own vocals. Sonically intimate and inviting, it suggests Photay is perhaps at his best when blurring genre lines.
Legendary Greek symphonic death metal outfit SEPTICFLESH deliver unto us the long-awaited 'Infernus Sinfonica MMXIX,' a true milestone in the history of extreme metal. Captured at the Metropolitan Theatre in Mexico City in front of a sold out audience of 3200 metal maniacs, this unique live album/concert recording captures the brutality and bombast of the band playing in tandem with the Symphony Experience Orchestra - led by award-winning Maestro Gerardo Urbán Y Fernández - and the National University Of Mexico Children’s and Youth Choir (over 130 musicians total).
Joining them for this one-of-a-kind concert experience is longtime collaborator, clean vocalist, and co-founder Sotiris Vayenas in what marks his first ever North American appearance with the band. In a white-hot set spanning their four critically-acclaimed recent albums – ‘Communion (2008),’ ‘The Great Mass (2011),’ ‘Titan (2014),’ & ‘Codex Omega (2017)’ - the trailblazing quartet unleash their full powers for their first-ever live album recording. 'Infernus Sinfonica MMXIX' is at once impressive, monumental, stunning and arguably the crown-jewel in their already impressive career to date.
CD Two pocket wallet with lyric and photo book
Barely a year after the release of their acclaimed debut album 'Dogrel' (which charted Top 10 in the UK, earned a Mercury Prize nomination, Fallon performance, and #1 Album of the Year positions for BBC 6Music and Rough Trade), Fontaines DC have returned with an intensely confident, patient, and complex sophomore album. 'A Hero's Death' arrives battered and bruised, albeit beautiful - a heady and philosophical take on the modern world, and its great uncertainty.
2020 release from the indie pop duo. The Naked and Famous' album reasserts the group as one of modern indie-pop's most exciting sonic trailblazers, taking them to emotionally inspired depths, while maintaining the fresh effervescence that has led to over 600 million collective streams to date. While they have sonically mastered the art of dreamy, hook-laden synth-pop, The Naked and Famous have stuck to their guns as far as intimate storytelling. Recover is largely an autobiographical record rooted in a powerful sentiment of survival, and of the very human process of self-preservation - of saving, choosing and celebrating oneself in a world constantly trying to put us down.
2020 release. Portugal's Gaerea challenges the archetype of black metal, coloring outside of the genre's lines with melancholy texture and deep emotion. Limbo devours the listener with misanthropic catharsis and cinematic agony, delivering palpable emotion for 52 uninterrupted minutes. Prepare to lose yourself in the nihilistic abyss with this devastating offering.
Queens-based songwriter Matt Longo (aka Thin Lear) has always been drawn to the stories of forgotten eccentrics but never haunted by their subjects. And yet, upon the reading of 1920's occultist Netta Fornario, and her misunderstood demise on a tiny island off of Scotland, he unearthed the inspiration for a surreal and ethereal collection of songs, Wooden Cave. Pulling influence from the insular world of Astral Weeks, the melodic adventurousness of Harry Nilsson, and the eclecticism of Shuggie Otis, Thin Lear creates songs existing on a sonic and lyrical island of their own. The result is eleven tracks sprawling from ornate, warm ballads, to psychedelically-tinged folk, to propulsive grooves, brimming with melody and heart. Wooden Cave, written for outsiders like Netta, radiates with a sonic glow that harkens back to 70's-era studio obsessives, familiar and surprising in equal measure, like a face from a dream.
Do You Turn Red? is both a guidepost pointing toward what may come - such rich mood and color practically begs for transmedia worldbuilding - and a snapshot of this moment. Peter Manos is at the front of his career, full of ideas, and all of them tangibly intimate. Despite joining Capitol in 2019 and relocating from Dallas to the heart of LA, Manos still makes music in a vacuum of sorts. He works almost exclusively solo out of his apartment, in a bedroom turned recording den. 2020 EP release.
Chicago bred trio The Lawrence Arms will release Skeleton Coast, their first album in six years, on July 17.
Skeleton Coast was recorded 30 miles east of El Paso, TX at Sonic Ranch Studios with longtime producer Matt Allison. It was kind of like album camp in the sense that we were in this very remote setting for two weeks and really focusing on making the record. That was a very different experience for us because we’ve always made our records in Chicago which is home and all the things about home are in the way,” says vocalist and guitarist Chris McCaughan.
The album contains the elements of the band’s sound that fans have come to love for the past two decades but recontextualizes them in a way that somehow sounds perfectly aligned with this strange time in our collective history. Although it was written and recorded before the Coronavirus upended the world, the band’s seventh studio album sounds eerily prescient as it imagines an apocalyptic future where coyotes croon and wolf packs roam free. “For a band who has been around as long as us, this is about as urgent of a record as we could make,” vocalist and bassist Brendan Kelly explains. “It may be kind of dark but it’s really about searching for light in the darkness and finding it, as small as those moments may seem. That’s sort of where we’re at: Collecting the scraps of things that could make for a bearable existence in dark times.”
With a legendary career spanning nearly five decades, KANSAS has firmly established itself as one of America’s iconic classic rock bands. This "garage band" from Topeka released their debut album in 1974 after being discovered by Wally Gold, who worked for Don Kirshner, and have gone on to sell more than 30 million albums worldwide. The band is currently comprised of original drummer Phil Ehart, bassist/vocalist Billy Greer, vocalist/keyboardist Ronnie Platt, violinist/guitarist David Ragsdale, keyboardist/vocalist Tom Brislin, guitarist Zak Rizvi, and original guitarist Richard Williams. With no signs of slowing down, KANSAS continues to perform in front of large and enthusiastic audiences around the world.The summer of 2020 marks the release of “The Absence of Presence,” KANSAS’s sixteenth studio album. The wide-ranging progressive rock album, released by InsideOut Music, follows-up 2016’s “The Prelude Implicit,” which debuted at #14 on Billboard’s Top 200 Albums chart.
After a legendary career as the enigmatic frontman for Pulp, and a successful run of solo albums and collaborations, Jarvis Cocker debuts his first new full length album since 2009 with musical project JARV IS' JARV IS... an ongoing live experience because life is an ongoing live experience. THIS IS NOT A LIVE ALBUM'it's an ALIVE ALBUM. Thanks for listening.
Arca is one of the world's most transformative musical talents. Since breaking through with her 2012 EPs Stretch 1 and Stretch 2, she's created an unprecedented body of work drawing from club music, experimental noise, and the ballad tradition of her native Venezuela, while reaching beyond music to encompass performance, visual art, and technology. As a collaborator with Björk, Kanye West, and FKA twigs, she's stretched contemporary music's sonic boundaries and helped set the sound of her era. As a Latinx nonbinary trans woman, she's redefined the role of the diva for a new generation. Her latest work is KiCk i, the first in a series of upcoming works, each with it's own sonic theme. For the first installment, KiCk i, Arca pursues pleasure, dignity, and dance floor liberation by refracting club music, reggaetón, and pop through her radical vision.
Pop on Floor It!!!, the new and second full-length effort from the Texas Gentlemen, and prepare your eardrums to be hit with everything from woozy, brass-fueled Dixieland-style jazz (“Veal Cutlass”), to slinky, chicken-scratch country funk (“Bare Maximum”) to lushly orchestrated pop-soul balladry (“Ain’t Nothin’ New”)—and that’s all in just the first 10 minutes of play time.
While the Gentlemen’s sound is clearly steeped in the classic roots, rock and pop music of the ‘60s and ‘70s, there’s a dreamy (the lilting “Sing Me to Sleep”), spacey (“Skyway Streetcar”) and occasionally progressive (“Dark at the End of the Tunnel”) element to what they do that seems to detach the music from belonging to any particular place and time. Add in elements of funk, soul, country, r&b, southern rock, gospel and essentially any other style that catches their musically omnivorous ears; an expansive and detailed approach to arrangement that sees the songs adorned with all manner of horns, strings and heavenly background vocals (“Hard Road”) and you have a collection of tunes that is more than just a mere album. Rather, Floor It!!! is a rich and righteous ride.
Gaslighter is the brilliant 2020 album from The Chicks, and is the fifth studio album to be released by the band. It is The Chick's first new album since 2006's Taking The Long Way, which won five Grammy Awards including Album of the Year, Record of the Year, and Song of the Year. Gaslighter is produced by Jack Antonoff with The Chicks. Superstars, renegades, innovators, heroes, villains, and moms, The Chicks have grown from a band into a cultural phenomenon. Since the release of their debut album, Wide Open Spaces in 1998, The Chicks' music has stirred emotions in fans across the world, making them one of the biggest and most influential bands of our time.
2020 release. Love Letter is the legendary saxophonist Jimmy Heath's stunningly elegant last testament, a take on seminal ballads. Includes songs written by Billie Holiday, Dizzy Gillespie and Kenny Dorham in addition to original material. Partially recorded in New York in the days preceding his 93rd birthday, Jimmy presided over a brilliant cast of colleagues and friends. The result is pure Heath: polished, inventive, candid, beautiful. Guest artists include Wynton Marsalis, Gregory Porter, and more.
Lianne La Havas's self-titled, third album spans the arc of a relationship. "What plays a big role in the album is the idea of the life cycle of plants and nature—equating this journey with a seasonal thing that blooms, thrives, goes away, and comes back even stronger," she says. Its musical references are as varied as Milton Nascimento, Joni Mitchell, Jaco Pastorious, Al Green, and Destiny’s Child. In keeping with the album's intimate feel, everyone who contributed is a trusted collaborator, including longtime songwriting ally Matt Hales, co-producer Beni Giles, and guest co-producer Mura Masa.
A never-before-released studio album by Art Blakey & The Jazz Messengers recorded at Rudy Van Gelder's Hackensack, New Jersey studio on March 8, 1959, and featuring the legendary drummer-whose centennial is being celebrated this year-along with trumpeter Lee Morgan, tenor saxophonist Hank Mobley, pianist Bobby Timmons, and bassist Jymie Merritt. The 6-song set includes 2 previously unissued compositions: "Quick Trick" and "Jimerick."
On July 10, Harvest Records will release Donna Missal's new album, Lighter - the follow-up to her 2018 full-length debut, This Time, which has amassed nearly 24 million combined global streams to date. She supported This Time with a sold-out, 20-date U.S. headline tour, and Donna has also played numerous festivals - including Austin City Limits and Bonnaroo - and toured with such artists as King Princess, Lewis Capaldi, Bishop Briggs, K.Flay, Joywave, Sir Sly, and Barns Courtney.
2020 release. Unfollow the Rules is Rufus Wainwright's ninth of original material, his first since Out of the Game (2012), and his first with BMG. The album was produced by Mitchell Froom, and other contributors include Matt Chamberlain, Jim Keltner, and Blake Mills. Includes "Trouble in Paradise", "Damsel in Distress", "Peaceful Afternoon", and "Alone Time". There's still a sense of mischief in Wainwright's songs, but there's also abundant passion, honesty and a kind of fearlessness pervading this album. He pushes the boundaries of pop with these tracks, which were mostly recorded in single takes, and his vocals are at their soaring, sublime best.
Digitally remastered and expanded edition of this 2017 album by the Australian metal band. Features three bonus tracks.
2020 release. "Some of these songs stretch back ten years, and some of them are brand new. It wasn't something we consciously set out to do, but we ended up recording an album that spans our entire journey together: falling in love, breaking up, getting married, leaving home, coming back." - Aslyn Nash. It's hard to think of a more fitting introduction to that journey than Back Of Our Minds, Kalen & Aslyn's gorgeous debut. Written over the course of a decade in which the Athens, Georgia-based duo was primarily known for their own respective projects, the songs here represent something of a look behind the curtain, a captivating series of musical journal entries that reveal the evolution of a relationship in all it's messy, honest, imperfect beauty. Kalen & Aslyn produced the album themselves, and their subtle touch is a perfect match for the record's intimate, understated performances.
2020 release. Pianist Gerald Clayton makes his Blue Note debut with Happening: Live At The Village Vanguard. An example of musical gambles taken on stage, the exceptional quintet (tenor sax-Walter Smith III, bassist-Joe Sanders, drummer-Marcus Gilmore) deliver dynamic performances at NYC's legendary Village Vanguard. With four Clayton originals and Billy Strayhorn's "Take the Coltrane". He then pares down to a trio for the lively version of Bud Powell's "Celia" and a stunning rendition of "Body and Soul".
* Bonus tracks are exclusive to the first pressings of CDs and Vinyl
Featuring writing and lead vocal contributions from all four members, The Jayhawks’ extraordinary new album, XOXO, is the most diverse and wide-ranging in the group’s storied history. Rather than marking a sonic departure, though, the collection signals a sharpening of focus for the band, an elevation in understanding of who they are and what they do best. In classic Jayhawks fashion, the songs here mix the influence of American roots music with British invasion and jangly power-pop, but there’s a newfound vitality at play, as well, an invigoration of confidence and energy that could only come with the injection of fresh blood. The result is an album that, much like the band’s lush harmonies, brings multiple distinctive voices together into a singular whole, a collection that, ironically enough, finds unity in individuality and identity in reinvention.
“This album feels like a new lease on life for us,” explains Louris. “I don’t know what the future holds, but this band is full of great songwriters who deserve to be heard, and my only regret is that we didn’t do something like this sooner.”
Yaeji's 'What We Drew' is titled intentionally; the project is as much indebted to her own singular creative vision as it is to her network of close-knit collaborators and friends, a team she's described as a 'family business.' She's inspired by both Korean indie rock and electronica that she listened to as a teenager in Seoul as well as late '90s and early 2000s hip hop and R&B and in her first full-length release. While entirely self-produced, she's careful to classify it as a mixtape, which belies the way that these songs came together: 'Each track is almost like a snippet of my life, a look into my diary or something, where it's reflective of how I was specifically feeling during that time.'
Coming July 24th: Spoon's first EP Soft Effects is back in print for the first time since its initial release nearly 25 years ago. Newly recut from the original masters, the EP is available on vinyl and as part of a CD compiling the five tracks with Spoon's debut LP Telephono. Soft Effects vinyl features blue sky cover never before used in physical packaging.
The groundbreaking British band’s eighth studio album and first new album in nearly three decades. Founded by visionary singer/lyricist Richard Butler and his brother, bassist Tim Butler, The Psychedelic Furs are among the most significant and lasting bands of the post-punk era, their remarkable canon encompassing seven milestone studio albums and such classic singles as “We Love You,” “Sister Europe,” “Love My Way,” “The Ghost In You,” “Pretty In Pink,” “Heaven,” “Heartbreak Beat,” and “All That Money Wants,” to name but a few. MADE OF RAIN sees the band returning to the fray as relevant and original as ever before, fueled by their always innovative sonic approach and Richard Butler’s evocative, masterful songwriting. Produced by longtime associate Richard Fortus (formerly of Richard and Tim Butler’s acclaimed mid-1990s band, Love Spit Love, and a current member of Guns N’ Roses) and mixed by Tim Palmer (Pearl Jam, U2, Robert Plant), magnificent reiterations of The Psychedelic Furs’ distinct, desperate wall of sound, melding haunting melodies and driving rhythms with ambition, aggression, and subversive lyrical power.
The third solo album from the Chilean-American multi-instrumentalist and vocalist, who is a founding member of several bands, including the alternative rock group Eleven, and has been involved with acts such as Queens of the Stone Age, Them Crooked Vultures, PJ Harvey, Chris Cornell, Arctic Monkeys, Mark Lanegan and The Desert Sessions, both as a musician and as a producer
This is a compilation of the foundational Detroit post-punk group from 1980-83, featuring unheard studio and live tracks, unseen photos, and miscellaneous archival material. It was fronted by the late Larissa Strickland, who would go on to be in post-punk/hardcore/blues-punk group Laughing Hyenas with John Brannon from hardcore legends Negative Approach. Their only release before this was a 7" on Touch and Go's Special Forces imprint, a division of the label that focused on DIY and weirder, more far out stuff that was not as straight-forward punk or hardcore, but still operated with the same spirit and devotion to art creation.
All the original L-Seven members (sans the late Larissa Strickland, r.i.p.) as well as Steve Shelley from Sonic Youth helped put this comp together.
2020 release. They've been compared to tornadoes, firecrackers, and lightning storms, and described as genuine, unapologetic, and down-to-earth. And Alex Luciano and Noah Bowman of gutsy rock duo Diet Cig are excited to announce their sophomore full-length, Do You Wonder About Me? The album is the follow-up to 2017's Swear I'm Good At This. The album marks a more intentional, self-assured Diet Cig; not only in Luciano's radically intimate, acerbic lyrics, but in the duo's sound as well. Luciano and Bowman moved to Richmond, VA in the summer of 2017 as a place to "hide out and make music," and it was there that they wrote Do You Wonder About Me?, Diet Cig's ode to growing up.
Vinyl LP pressing. Sound Wheel is artist and musician Alison Mosshart's first solo spoken word album and companion piece to her new printed collection of paintings, photographs, short stories and poetry, Car Ma. It is an album about cars, rock n' roll, and love. It's an album about America, performance, and life on the road. It's an album about fender bender portraiture, story tellin' tire tracks, and the never-ending search for the spirit under the hood. Mosshart imagines the auto body shop like some other Coney Island. And America's highways - the last great roller coasters. She shows us that the engine on fire is connected to the guitar feeding back since birth. And the sensation of walking on stage and facing an audience is like the laugh before the scream in a car without brakes. Mosshart ruminates that automobiles-with their doors and mirrors and windows, engines and wheels and radios- portray us. Mirror our need to be in or to exit, our inward reflections and outward visions, our lifetimes of tinkering with the mysterious heart. That which runs until it doesn't.
The Melvins’ King Buzzo has a new solo acoustic record called Gift of Sacrifice. This is exciting news!
What makes this news even more exciting is that King Buzzo has recorded this record with the fabulously talented bass player Trevor Dunn. Trevor was a founding member of Mr. Bungle and also plays bass in the psycho metal/spaghetti western band Fantômas, as well as recording and touring with the Melvins (as Melvins Lite).
The addition of Trevor’s stand-up bass makes Gift of Sacrifice a step up from King Buzzo’s last acoustic record, This Machine Kills Artists. It gives this new record a haunted quality which drives the songs to a new level. Another new element is the addition of modular synth, which adds its own angular sounds to the acoustic guitar and bass. This is an odd combination of sounds not heard before on an all acoustic record.