Notable vinyl releases out this Friday - 18 April (2025)

A Study Of Losses is the seventh studio album from Beirut, the musical project of Zach Condon. The project originated in spring 2023, when Viktoria Dalborg, director at the Swedish circus Kompani Giraff, reached out to Condon, asking if he would be interested to provide the music for their next project, a show based on an adaptation of a novel by German author Judith Schalansky. The main themes in Schalansky's book and in the adaptation for the circus show deal with the concept of loss and the impermanence of everything known to us: from extinct animal species, lost architectural and literary treasures to more abstract concepts of loss through the process of aging. In close collaboration, A Study Of Losses, turned into a rather unexpected piece of music-at 18 songs and nearly an hour long, it is by far the largest album Beirut has ever done, and amongst some of their most beautiful work to date

Perhaps the biggest challenge for any musician is to learn to grow as an artist and expand one's repertoire while retaining a coherent overarching vision to one's work. Since their inception and across the span of three full-length albums, Blackwater Holylight have consistently conjured an aura of both power and vulnerability, as if the members of the band have found both the space and the vehicle for lowering their emotional defenses by fortifying their position with pure sonic strength. Yet that persistently haunting and enchanting quality has manifested in a variety of approaches. Equally adept at devil's note doom riffs, narcotic neo-folk melodies, lysergic psychedelic forays, and jagged art-rock abrasion, Blackwater Holylight have used their limited arsenal of guitar, bass, drums, synth, and voice to cover a broad swath of aural terrain. On their newest EP, If You Only Knew, Blackwater Holylight continue to follow a path marked only as further, mining new tactics and timbres across four songs while continuing to address the uncertainties that come with transference and transition. If You Only Knew opens with "Wandering Lost," a track singer/guitarist/bassist Sunny Faris describes as being about "feeling community in sorrow and remembering that everyone hurts, everyone changes, and that no one knows what's next." Fueled by the interwoven melodies of Sarah McKenna's mournful electric piano and Sunny's lilting vocals, then driven into high gear with Mikayla Mayhew's amplifier-worshipping guitars and Eliese Dorsay's earth-shaking drums in the chorus, the song thrives on the contrast between sublime beauty and seismic menace, underscoring the song's dichotomous theme of acknowledging pain and harnessing the power of shared experience in life's trials and tribulations. From there, the EP segues into "Torn Reckless," a song that combines the wall-of-sound distortion of shoegaze with dream-pop vocals and prog-rock synth flourishes. Once again, the song's lyrical themes center around vulnerability, with Faris describing the song as being about a private relationship quandary veiled in the broader universal experience of "standing in the doorway of something that feels so hugely mysterious and bigger than you... and I think we've all been there in that doorway, and I think we've all felt the doubt." Side B finds Blackwater Holylight continuing to explore new opportunities. While Side A was recorded and produced by Sonny DiPerri, the flipside was captured in the studio by Dave Schiffman. "Fate Is Forward" is a song about stasis and realizing that some things are fixed in place and the only way to move beyond an obstacle is to stop leaning on it. Much like the other songs on If You Only Knew, the lyrics are rooted in specific incidents in the lives of the band members but eschew diaristic impulses in favor of highlighting the communal similarities in the spectrum of personal struggles. Never content to rest on their laurels, the band tackles the loud-quiet-loud dynamics and roaring power-chord choruses of early '90s alt-rock while maintaining their signature ability to render mesmeric vocal melodies out of a foundation of ominous and oppositional instrumentation. The EP closes with an absorbing cover of Radiohead's "All I Need," taking the original's almost claustrophobic closeness and opening it up into a grandiose swirl of undulating drones and desperation. Ultimately, If You Only Knew is a brave step into the unknown that mirrors the uncertainty of the band member's personal lives. Where Blackwater Holylight could've easily continued to tread on familiar ground, they've opted to make bold and brave steps, all while retaining the evocative power that put them on the map.

Chime Oblivion began out of the blue. David Barbarossa reached out to John Dwyer saying he was a fan of Osees and he was invited to a show in London. The two hung out and hit it off, "then I rabbit holed on Bow Wow Wow too...," Dwyer recalls. "I reached out to David and suggested that we try and write some songs together... I flew David out, we met at my studio and spent five days writing basic drums ideas." The two got to know each other and had a lot of laughs. Dwyer then brought in Weasel Walter, knowing that he would be perfect "to add all that legitimate old-school weird proto-punk no wave guitar scratch to it, which of course he did masterfully." Next came Tom Dolas to play fuzzy marimba, and the fabulous H.L. Nelly, "as I knew her from a record I'd put out back in the day for a band called Naked Lights from Oakland. I knew that she could pull off the vocal style I had in mind." Together, the group created their debut self-titled album. For Deathgod. "For fans of Adam & the Ants, Bow Wow Wow, Crass, The Slits, and any other wierdo punk we fell in love with as youths."

The title for Divide and Dissolve's new album, Insatiable, came to Takiaya Reed in a dream. Themulti-instrumentalist and composer had a vision of a better world, one that gelled seamlessly with theoptimism of her take on doom metal: "I saw people committing great acts of harm never being happy,and people committing great acts of love, always being happy," she says. "People are constantly feedinginto this genocidal energy, depleting all of these resources in the name of so-called power, just to end uppowerless. Whereas people feeding into pathways of love and decolonial energy, honouring loving andbenevolent ancestors, experience such a deep sense of fulfilment." For Takiaya, this is what it means tobe "insatiable"; it's the way we choose either a path of destruction or one of compassion, andexperience it to it's fullest. "The album's title hits on so many levels," she continues. "It's an album aboutlove, and it feels important to tap into that, now more than ever."If all of this sounds a bit heavy, wait until you hear Divide and Dissolve's music. Already legends on theinternational doom metal scene, they are able to build upon the genre's trademark sludgy guitars andthundering drums with Takaiya's deft and wondrous saxophone, adding a layer of intricacy rarely seen indoom. Over Insatiable's 10 tracks, Divide and Dissolve run the gamut of doom metal - from theear-splitting depths of lead single "Monolithic", to contemplative, dare we even say softer moments, likeon the aptly titled songs "Loneliness" and "Grief". Divide and Dissolve are a band that have honed theirsound to a fine point, and yet continue to find new ways to evolve, both musically and conceptually. Likeall of Divide and Dissolve's music, Insatiable is almost entirely instrumental, but is able to convey deepresonance and complexity.

I've been partying since 1984," says Jamal Moss, the living Chicago legend known by his dedicated cult following as the one, the only, Hieroglyphic Being. "40 years later, it's drastically different - everybody's angry!" So sets the stage for Dance Music 4 Bad People, the artist's first album for Smalltown Supersound. Tapping back into the same cosmic frequencies responsible for the prolific house virtuoso's most vital work, the album sees Moss coaxing nine anthems for those up to no good from out of the ether. With driving drum machine workouts and low-slung synth sexuality, Hieroglyphic Being pays homage to human fallibility, drawing focus on the revolutionary potential of house music and club culture that is so often lost to the chaos of the present. "I have yet to walk into a club and see everybody hug and say: Let's forgive each other, let's move forward and make the world a better place," he levels. "With all these conversations about sexuality, ethnicity, politics, whatever, when you walk into an environment with the music, you are supposed to celebrate all of that. Let it be and come together."As the tongue-in-check title suggests, Moss looks to the eternal quality of his art to throw moral compasses into disarray, speaking truth to the evil energies that have permeated the club industrial complex of today while challenging black and white notions of good and bad that are so easily instrumentalized for the persecution of those at the fringes. For Moss, this is a tension he has observed since he started hearing the sound pioneered by Ron Hardy at the legendary Muzic Box, back when Chicago house music was born. "Back then, especially during the Reagan era and the police brutality of the so-called crime and crack epidemic, the one thing I noticed in my community was that house music actually helped us escape from all that negative stuff and make everybody in the environment support each other more." Experiencing house as a great leveling force, the origins of the cosmic dance prophet the Hieroglyphic Being would become can be traced back to the club as an essential site of acceptance. "If there was anybody of a certain walk of life, politically, sexually, ethically, financially, we didn't care," he asserts. "We were just there to be free of all that shit."It's this loose vitality that Moss understands to be in severely short supply in the dance music scene today. "Festivals and clubs profess to propagate safe spaces, but you've probably seen it firsthand: you look around and a good percent of people in the club are not happy." Taking aim at the entire ecosystem, from the malaise and malcontentedness of modern audiences to the false solidarity and commodification of minority positions within the commercial entity of dance music, Moss offers up the raw, unrefined power of the tracks collected on Dance Music For Bad People as an antidote to these evil forces. You can hear this negativity fleeing in fear from the surging drums of 'U R Not Dying Ur Just Waking Up' and 'Dispatches From The B4 Life,' or teased into submission by the sensual low end gurgle of 'The Secret teachings Of The Ages' and the ambling bassline of 'Reality Is Not What It May Seem.' On the dense cacophony of 'The Art Of Living A Meaningless Existence,' Moss sounds ready for spiritual war, armed with restless sequencing and bursts of high voltage static.

Coming April 18: Julien Baker & TORRES’ ‘Send A Prayer My Way’ was written and sung in the best of the outlaw tradition—defiant, subversive, working class, and determined to wrestle not only with addiction, regret and bad decisions, but also with oppressive systems of power. Mercifully, this is only the beginning of the stories TORRES and Baker are determined to tell. Because these are also songs about radical empathy and second chances, and third chances, and while there’s plenty of struggle and regret in here, there’s also humor and defiance. ‘Send A Prayer My Way’ has been in the works for years. Imagine two young musicians playing their first show together at Lincoln Hall, a much-loved venue here in Chicago. It’s January 15, 2016, and bone chillingly cold outside, especially for a couple of southerners. When the show is over and they’re shooting the shit, one singer says to the other, “We should make a country album.” This is the origin story, the stuff of legend in the world of country music, and the beginning of a collaboration between two artists already admired for their spare, elegant lyrics as well as the courage to share their struggles with those who love their music. It’s also the beginning of creating a work that, like the most enduring country albums, sustains and inspires, reminding both singer and listener that not one of us is ever totally alone in this world, that music is a steady companion.

The new album featuring the 1983 lineup of Buzz and Mike Dillard. Plus special guests Void Manes and Ni Maitres. Formed over 40 years ago in Seattle, they were one of the pioneers of the grunge and sludge metal scenes. 

Graham Jonson is drawn to the comforts of melody and noise. How the two conspire in tension, tonally and atonally, stirring up memory and mood. This quality animates the technicolor world of quickly, quickly, the psych-pop project that emanates from Kenton Sound, his basement studio in Portland, Oregon. "Everywhere your eye lands, there's another curio to marvel over," noted Pitchfork's Philip Sherburne when he visited Jonson's recording space for a Rising feature just after the release of his "strikingly original" 2021 debut LP, The Long and Short of It. Since then, Jonson formed a live band, released his Easy Listening EP in 2023, and navigated the up-and-downs of a young musician, the sustainability of tours and relationships. While shaped by personal bouts and fallouts, his highly-anticipated full-length follow-up finds Jonson making music that's universal, open-ended, and rewarding, like great songwriters can do. He set out to make a folk album but couldn't help coloring it in with noise; a confluence of lush instrumentation and unexpected sounds. Ambitious yet intimate, hi-fi yet homespun, the idiosyncratic songs on I Heard That Noise curve around the contours of everyday life with warmth, wit, and dissonance.

Rhiannon Giddens reunites with her former Carolina Chocolate Drops bandmate Justin Robinson on What Did the Blackbird Say to the Crow, an album of North Carolina fiddle and banjo music.Produced by Giddens and Joseph "joebass" DeJarnette, the album features Giddens on banjo and Robinson on fiddle, with the duo playing eighteen of their favorite North Carolina tunes: a mix of instrumentals and tunes with words. Many were learned from their late mentor, the legendary North Carolina Piedmont musician Joe Thompson; one is from another musical hero, the late Etta Baker, from whom they also learned by listening to recordings of her playing. Giddens and Robinson recorded outdoors at Thompson’s and Baker’s North Carolina homes, as well as the former plantation Mill Prong House. They were accompanied by the sounds of nature, including two different broods of cicadas, which had not emerged simultaneously since 1803, creating a true once-in-a-lifetime soundscape

Superheaven not only relies, but also thrives on the interplay of its four members—Jake Clarke [lead vocals, guitar], Taylor Madison [lead vocals, guitar], Joe Kane [bass], and Zack Robbins [drums]. The music unfolds like an unspoken conversation between the respective players (and old friends), revolving around post-hardcore grit, full-bodied and fuzzed-out distortion, and hazy alternative melodies. Muscular riffs make indentations in a perpetually droning soundscape, fissuring into fits of catchy catharsis and hypnotic jamming without rival. Following a series of independent releases, the Pennsylvania group unveiled Jar during 2013. At the time, it slowly but surely built a foundation for the band. The musicians leveled up with 2015’s Ours Is Chrome—hailed by Brooklyn Vegan as one of the “50 Best Punk & Emo Albums: 2015-2019.” The latter boasted the likes of “Poor Aileen,” which gathered 25 million Spotify streams. Superheaven played intermittently throughout the ensuing years, whether at a benefit alongside Turnstile and Tigers Jaw, at Outbreak Fest 2022 in Manchester, UK, or at Sick New World 2023 in Las Vegas, NV. Ten years after the initial release of Jar, the record unassumingly took on a life of its own fueled by fan rediscovery. “Youngest Daughter” surged on TikTok and eventually eclipsed over 128 million Spotify streams followed by “In On It” with 22 million Spotify streams and “Life In A Jar” with 8 million Spotify streams. After a pair of quietly influential albums, hundreds of millions of streams, and countless shows, a longstanding sonic and spiritual union underscores the band’s third full-length offering and very first release for Blue Grape, the self-titled Superheaven.

For the last 24 years, Tunde Adebimpe has largely been known as the co-founder, co-vocalist and principal songwriter for TV On The Radio. The mostly-black art-rock band triumphed through two decades of volatile cultural change to become one of the most beloved, enduring and influential groups from New York City's early-2000s rock scene. Though Tunde's poetic songwriting and towering vocals are central to TV On The Radio, the band will always be a collaboration between a group of musicians.Tunde's personal story exists on a parallel path, as a sort of creative polymath. He is a musician but also an illustrator and painter. He's a former animator and stop-motion filmmaker (Celebrity Deathmatch). He is a television and film actor, with roles in Jump Tomorrow (2001), Rachel Getting Married (2008), Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017), Twisters (2024) and Star Wars: Skeleton Crew (2024).. And now he is also a solo artist, with his first-ever solo album, Thee Black Boltz.Tunde initially conceived of the album in 2019, while TV On The Radio was on a break. Two years later, as the world emerged from the Covid pandemic, he started a notebook of words, illustrations and ideas, forming what he calls, "mixtape of emotions the music could evoke. A feeling map of sorts." It is how Tunde begins most of his projects, and in 2011 he started translating those ideas into music with the help of multi-instrumentalist Wilder Zoby (Run The Jewels), with whom he shares a studio with in Los Angeles.Thee Black Boltz is not a TV On The Radio album. But the excitement of doing something on his own ignited a similar spark in Tunde as the early TV On The Radio days. The songwriting process is the same, but without his TVOTR bandmates Tunde "didn't have that scaffolding to hang on. That was both terrifying and exhilarating."At the heart of the album is it's title, a nod to Tunde's propensity to write and sing about the human condition, in all it's forms, under all it's stressors, both big and small. It is his response to the macro unease of a post-pandemic world careening towards violent authoritarianism and the personal grief that has come from loss in recent years, specifically the sudden passing of his younger sister while making this album. Thee Black Boltz is Tunde's desperate grasping of small moments of joy amidst the dissonance and sadness, any way he can. "It was my way of building a rock or a platform for myself in the middle of this fucking ocean."As Tunde writes in his notebook, "The sparks of inspiration/motivation/hope that flash up in the midst of (and sometimes as a result of) deep grief, depression or despair. Sort of like electrons building up in storm clouds clashing until they fire off lightning and illuminate a way out, if only for a second." "Also," he adds. "It's a good name for a cool metal band, and I think that most people would describe me as akin to a very cool metal band."