Notable vinyl releases out this Friday - 28 June (2024)

.C,XOXO is written by Camila and brought to life with executive producer El Guincho (Rosalia, FKA twigs, Frank Ocean) and co-producer Jasper Harris (Lil Nas X, Baby Keem, Jack Harlow). Camila describes C,XOXO as having “an emotional immediacy and rawness” and goes on to proclaim C,XOXO as her “boldest solo album.” C,XOXO is a full on modern pop album. There are ballads, upbeat songs, cool songs with great features throughout. There’s a single with Playboi Carti, and we obviously have this next one with lil nas X. the audience range for this is very wide, and caters to many genres. On top of all that, Camila is as front and center in pop culture as she has been in a long time, from Formula 1, to the Met Gala, to Glastonbury coming up, Bacardi partnership, etc. It’s a fun album, perfectly timed for summer, about being free, dealing with heartbreak, etc – girl anthems in this album.

Building on forty years years of GBV history, the majestic and triumphant Strut Of Kings is the forty-first album by indie rock royalty Guided by Voices. Largely recorded in Kings County, New York (Brooklyn), the album is perhaps a gesture towards the malevolent "kings" on the world stage. As the "Serene King" waltzes across the battlefield, Emperor Pollard evokes castles, King Kong and strutting roosters, a surreal yet regal journey.

Three time Grammy nominated Hiatus Kaiyote return with their eagerly anticipated new album Love Heart Cheat Code. The band have warmed up fans with standout single 'Everything's Beautiful' and what awaits is a masterfully crafted album from a band who are firing on all cylinders and totally in sync. LHCC is a mix of their classic neo-soul sound, fused with jazz, soul and rock - which is on full display on their cover of the Jefferson Airplane classic 'White Rabbit' and a fan favorite from their live shows, 'Cinnamon Temple'. The album also includes a feature from BMO from the cult classic animated series Adventure Time (Cartoon Network/Adult Swim). Throughout the campaign the band will build a bright and vibrant world for fans to dive into, with games, artifacts, mazes and all other matter of zaniness that one can expect from Hiatus Kaiyote. Just ahead of album release the band will be embarking on a 19 day US tour, which includes stops at Montreal and Toronto Jazz Fests and Electric Forest.

Following March's CD Wallet, HOMESHAKE presents his second album of 2024, Horsie. Written and recorded at his home studio in Toronto, it explores Sagar’s complicated feelings about returning to live performance. Deepening his relationship to loneliness and anxiety, the record examines those themes in the context of touring. Horsie employs various textures influenced by artists like Four Tet and My Bloody Valentine, the rhythmic forms of D’Angelo and Sade, and moments of ambient Americana found in the works of Ry Cooder. The cornerstone pieces of gear used were an Ensoniq EPS and Roland Juno 60, though the album also employs a great deal of electric guitar, along with his beloved SP-404. He maintains a philosophy of “less is more,” finding the simplest route from one point to another. HOMESHAKE, the musical project of Peter Sagar, is an expression of adjustment and contortion within the world as he experiences it and the sounds he wants to hear in it. Hallucinatory and heartbreaking in its cries for connection, Sagar’s sound is often imitated but has proven to be entirely his own; textural and profound, uniquely honoring his diverse influences but adrift within its own transportive imagination.

Imagine Dragons’ sixth studio album LOOM represents the pinnacle of their artistic journey of self-discovery and marks the best body of work they've ever made. LOOM, produced entirely by Imagine Dragons and their longtime collaborators Mattman and Robin, finds the perfect balance between the classic sounds that have made them superstars and the freshness that brought them joy in the studio. Featuring 9 brand new tracks including hit single “Eyes Closed,” LOOM signifies new beginnings on the horizon – the excitement for a new day, moments yet to come.

Johnny Cash recorded an album’s worth of self-penned songs in 1993. Shortly thereafter, he released the American Recordings albums and re-established himself as one of the world’s greatest songwriters, introducing him to a new generation of fans. Songwriter’s unreleased 11 songs have been updated and produced by his son John Carter Cash and co-producer David Ferguson.

January 2023, Dorset. Snow is piled at the door, icy roads are closed, and Emily Cross is in a coffin. Not a setting typical for a rebirth. But for Loma, this is where they bring their band back from the brink. "It's like a demon enters the room, whenever we get together", writer, singer and instrumentalist Cross says of the struggle to bring new Loma music into the world. Following the release of their 2020 second album Don't Shy Away, Loma's three members were cast around the globe and the band-not for the first time-entered a deep sleep. Multi-instrumentalist and recording engineer Dan Duszynski remained in his studio in Don't Shy Away's central Texas heart, but Cross, a UK citizen, moved to Dorset, and writer and instrumentalist Jonathan Meiburg left the US for Germany to research a book. In the pandemic years, even being in the same room was impossible, and attempts to start a new record faltered. The following winter, in an attempt to salvage the record and the band, Cross suggested they regroup in the UK, in the tiny stone house-once a coffin-maker's workshop-where she works as an end-of-life doula. With minimal recording gear and few instruments, Loma turned two whitewashed rooms into a makeshift studio, using a padded coffin as a vocal booth. It was a turning point. They scrapped much of what they'd made, letting a new place set a new course. The one-lane roads, hedgerows and dark skies of Dorset gave the new songs an ineffable but unmistakable Englishness. The band used the ruin of a 12th-century chapel as a reverb chamber-surprising hillwalkers who peeked in to find them singing to no one-and the sounds of Cross's chilly workshop wormed their way into the recording: a leaky pipe, a drummer's brushes on a metal lampshade, the voices left on an ancient answering machine. What emerged was How Will I Live Without A Body?: a gorgeous, unique, and oddly comforting album about partnership, loss, regeneration, and fighting the feeling that we're all in this alone. Many of it's songs have a feeling of restless motion; faceless characters drift through meetings and partings, tangling together and slipping away. "I Swallowed A Stone" is like a nightmare with a happy ending; "How It Starts" and "Broken Doorbell" reflect on the challenge (and necessity) of wrestling with agoraphobia. Though the record nods to the trio's separate lives- a German percussion ensemble, a pair of Texan owls, and the surf at Chesil Beach make guest appearances-the core of Loma's sound remains intact: earthy, organic and deeply human, anchored by Cross's cool, clear voice. Loma's previous album, Don't Shy Away, was galvanized by the unexpected encouragement and contributions of Brian Eno. This time, they found inspiration in another hero, Laurie Anderson, who offered a chance to work with an AI trained on her entire body of work. Meiburg sent her a photo from his book-in-progress about the once and future life of Antarctica; Anderson's AI responded with two haunting poems. "We used parts of them in a few songs," he says. "And then Dan noticed that one of it's lines, 'How will I live without a body?' would be a perfect name for the album, since we nearly lost sight of each other in the recording process." In the end, Loma's efforts to reconnect with one another are the album's central focus: what do you owe a shared past, when everyone and everything has changed? "Making this record tested us all," says Duszynski. "I think that feeling was alchemized through the music." Alchemized, because How Will I Live Without A Body? is by no means a stressed-out record: an undercurrent of deep calm runs through it. But maybe 'relaxed' isn't the right word. It's more like a feeling of relief, of making it through a tough journey together.

Traversing the bounds of genre and language in his songs, singer-songwriter GRAMMY nominated Omar Apollo captures the adventurous spirit that this multi-hyphenate moment in pop demands, returning with his highly anticipated sophomore album, God Said No. God Said No is Omar’s interpretation of “lo que sera, sera” which translates to “whatever will be, will be”. The phrase embodies the album with Omar’s tongue-in-cheek humorous outlook on the suffering that comes from surrendering and accepting whatever is thrown at you by life, a relationship, or lover. Omar believes his natural state is longing for love or stability, and elements of the album are about surrendering to that. The record was created with Teo Halm, Blake Slatkin, Carter Lang, Dylan Wiggins, and Oscar Santander, among other contributors. In 2022 with the release of Ivory, Apollo’s eclectic debut, his hit single and career first Billboard Hot 100 entry “Evergreen (You Didn’t Deserve Me at All)” was certified platinum, sold out his first headlining tour, and performed arenas with SZA and Daniel Caesar. Omar Apollo is a true visionary, whose one-of-a-kind pop synthesis unites listeners from all walks of life in a shared passion for rhythm and soul.

Previous Industries is three Chicagoans with a deep, shared history-Open Mike Eagle, Video Dave, and STILL RIFT-who currently reside in LA. In a city where transplants often say they find it hard to connect with new people, these guys found a way around that by delving into the past to rekindle old connections. When that connection was made, they seemed to stay in the past, rapping about anything and everything but always bolstered by nostalgia and shared memories.Service Merchandise, their debut LP as a unit, is named after a largely defunct retail chain, as are many of the songs on the album. Orbiting the dead mall as a spiritual concept, Previous Industries tackle nostalgia, heartbreak, joy, and disposability from three distinct points of view, weaving in and out of beats by Child Actor, Quelle Chris, and Smoke Bonito to create something new from a discarded past. The record was mixed by Kenny Segal (Armand Hammer, billy woods) and mastered by GRAMMY-winning engineer Daddy Kev (Flying Lotus, Thundercat).The style of rap crafted throughout Service Merchandise is a previous industry in and of itself. It's conceived and manufactured by a rap group trading verses in a way that evokes greats like de la Soul and contemporaries like Armand Hammer and Earl Sweatshirt; it comes from a world of freestyle cyphers and open mics (pun intended) and rap battles seemingly bygone where hip-hop communities are formed on Instagram and Discord. But that doesn't mean this industry, birthed in the increasingly distant past, is dead. Quite the contrary; it's thriving.

In 1979, two school-kids all hopped-up on punk-rock started their own group in their hometown of Hawthorne, Los Angeles (birthplace of the Beach Boys) and soon found themselves opening shows for notorious scene pioneers Black Flag. Jeff McDonald was fifteen, his brother Steven McDonald only eleven. But that didn't stop their group from becoming one of the most remarkable, enduring and unique outfits punk-rock ever belched up. 2024, then, marks Redd Kross's forty-fifth birthday-an important anniversary for any group whose heart pulses at 45RPM-and the brothers are celebrating the event with a veritable multimedia extravaganza. There's a memoir, Now You're One Of Us, due in November, author Dan Epstein telling the group's story in the McDonalds' unmistakable (and occasionally contrary) voices. A brilliant rockumentary, Born Innocent, directed by Andrew Reich, will premiere later in the year. Most exciting of all, this new album-an eponymous double-album, no less, packed with eighteen of their sharpest, most addictive songs yet. These years of joyful service to rock'n'roll have seen Redd Kross evolve into a killer pop-rock concern, dealing in dayglo power-chords, choruses as tall as skyscrapers and a lyric sheet thick with acid couplets and arch pop-cultural references their loyal following will gobble up like quaaludes.