New Releases & Staff Picks - 12/20/24

STAFF PICKS
Lindsay – Meridian Brothers and Stinkweeds Best of 2024
Dario – Meridian Brothers and Corsano, Baiza, Watt Trio
Kimber – Tom Waits reissue
Jake – Meridian Brothers
Zach – Christopher Owens and They Might Be Giants 
Ash – Christopher Owens

Christopher Owens - I Wanna Run Barefoot Through Your Hair LP (True Panther)
​​I Wanna Run Barefoot Through Your Hair is the third solo album by Christopher Owens, ex-frontman of seminal indie rock band Girls (Father, Son, Holy Ghost peaked at #37 on Billboard). After losing his bandmate, getting into a motorcycle accident, and bouts of homelessness, he left San Francisco for NYC and returned to Girls' home label True Panther. Inspired by life (and love) to write music again, Owens is finally ready to share IWRBTYH, a record about his journey back to the center of himself.

They Might Be Giants - Beast of Horns LP (Idlewild Recordings)
Beast of Horns is a live album compiling They Might Be Giants performances recorded at live shows in 2022 and 2023 spotlighting songs that feature the Tricerachops Horns, who began touring with TMBG full-time in 2022. This new set of tracks captures the musical glory of They Might Be Giants' expanded live format of recent years. Long celebrated for their phenomenal shows, the addition of Stan Harrison on sax, Dan Levine on trombone and euphonium, and Mark Pender on trumpet takes the band to new heights on these brand new recordings.

Corsano, Baiza, Watt Trio - Self Titled LP (Yucca Alta)
Yucca Alta Records is ecstatic to present our inaugural release: the debut, self-titled LP from the Corsano Baiza Watt Trio. This is an all-improvised, mind-blowing, punk AF sound-meeting between Chris Corsano, one of America's premier avant-garde drummers, and two legendary SoCal punk pioneers: guitarist Joe Baiza (Saccharine Trust, Universal Congress Of) and bassist Mike Watt (Minutemen, fIREHOSE). The bulk of this LP consists of studio recordings made deep in the Mojave Desert (Landers, CA to be exact) in December of 2023. The Corsano Baiza Watt Trio had never played, or even entirely met, before this session; what you hear is the surprise and fierce delight of 3 great musicians coming together in real time. The first track, "51 Card Solitaire," begins abruptly in mid-flight, capturing the exact moment that recording began, as the trio played together for the very first time. 

Meridian Brothers - Cumbia Siglo XXI LP (Bongo Joe)
"After the very acoustic ¿Dónde estás María?, I decided to try a new experiment taking as a reference the legendary group Cumbia Siglo XX which is a group who explores a futuristic vision of coastal cumbia in the '80s, together with other groups such as Grupo folclórico, 2000 Voltios and others, mainly under the label Machuca and Felito records. This new '80s cumbia was a combination of funky basses and a further evolution of the rhythms, blending this style with disco and even rock music and superimposing the traditional versus the urban context and the modernity.” Meridian Brothers took this as a departing point and inspiration, making the same experiment but in XXI century, using the modern media of this time; all kinds of drum machines, guitars and synths, algorithmic software etc, and also taking into account the global exposition of modern cumbia in the 2010s. 

Electric Wizard - Black Magic Rituals & Perversions Vol 1 LP (Witchfinder)
Formed in 1993, Electric Wizard's brand of doom metal incorporates stoner and sludge traits, with lyrics focusing on the occult, witchcraft, H.P. Lovecraft, horror films, and cannabis. Black Magic Rituals & Perversions Vol.1, a one-take dungeon session, features some of their most classic moments, captured live, raw and uncensored. This is a career-defining collection, and a must-have for followers of this iconic British metal band.

Tom Waits - Heart of Saturday Night [Reissue/1974] LP (Anti-)
Limited edition 180g Raspberry Beret color vinyl to celebrate the 50th anniversary for The Heart Of A Saturday Night. Rolling Stone included this 1974 LP in their "500 Greatest Albums of All Time" in admiration of it's bewitching blend of after-hours hipster jazz, ageless acoustic- piano songs and intimate introductions to the lonely "ghosts of Saturday night." 

Old Lung & Owen Kurts - OKOL (Callous Quartz) CASS
OKOL is the long-awaited collaboration between Toronto based sound artist and experimental musician, Owen Kurtz and Phoenix based experimental noise musician, OLD LUNG. The duo recorded this album by sending assorted samples through snail mail and the world wide web, creating a varied collage of organic and inorganic sounds, radio broadcasts, noise, and electronics.

Magazine - Rays & Hail 1948-2011 [Reissue/1987] (Virgin)
Magazine - No Thyself [Reissue/2011] LP (Virgin)
Magazine - Magic, Murder, and the Weather [Reissue/1981] (Virgin)
Limited colored vinyl reissues of Magazine’s fifth and sixth albums plus the Rays & Hails compilation.