Notable vinyl releases out this Friday - September 5, 2025

It was winter in Manhattan. The streets were frozen and still the band rode bicycles to the Power Station on 53rd and back to Brooklyn for three weeks. Three weeks that would mark the birth of Double Infinity - the album that constitutes a grand departure for Big Thief. An ultramodern community of musicians gathered in the warm wooden room where Bruce once stood. They all tracked together – simultaneously – improvising arrangements and making collective discoveries. Laraaji created drones with zither and an iPad and sang intuitive vocal melodies. Joshua Crumbly played bass; Mikey Buishas made live tape loops and played keys; Mikel Patrick Avery, Jon Nellen, and Caleb Michel played percussion; Adam Brisbin played guitar; and Hannah Cohen, Alena Spanger and June McDoom sang background vocals. Along with core members Adrianne, Buck, and James, the group played for nine hours a day. Double Infinity is the archive of this play. It could only have been produced, engineered, and mixed by longtime Big Thief collaborator Dom Monks. “Double Infinity,” reaches into the idea of inner and outer worlds, and the body as the bridge. It speaks to the purgatory created by the human brain, always looking to the past or future, between the things we’ve lost and the things we want, between desire and regret. “Beauty speak to me, let me know you, let me see myself inside your mystery, through the crystal cage of aging.” It calls for true beauty to speak, not fabricated, conditioned ideas of beauty. At the bridge between “what is forming” and “what is fading”, between “losing and of gaining”, “mourning and celebrating”, perhaps there is solace in “the eye behind the essence, still, unmovable”, that which is unchanging”, outside of time. Is it love?

The LP was Self-produced at Dunne’s home in Red Hook, Brooklyn, Clams Casino was inspired by the classic songwriting form of working-class blues. Dunne has also announced a fall tour that will take him across the East Coast, with stops in New York City, Philadelphia, Atlanta, Nashville and more. 

Moments, the seventh album from the Grammy-nominated Australian electronic/synth-pop band Cut Copy.  Released independently via their own label imprint, Cutters Records.

In 2023, as his triumphant American Utopia era came to a close, David Byrne began jotting down the occasional groove, chord or melody and assembling them into demos he recorded with just an acoustic guitar atop a programmed beat or loop. The prior three years had given him, and much of humanity, the opportunity to ask, “Do I like what I'm doing? Why am I writing songs, or working this job, or whatever? Does any of it matter?" Byrne’s attempts to answer those weighty questions can be found on Who Is The Sky?, a first-time collaboration between himself, Grammy-winning producer Kid Harpoon aka Tom Hull (Harry Styles, Miley Cyrus) and New York-based chamber ensemble Ghost Train Orchestra, and featuring guest appearances by Paramore’s Hayley Williams, longtime collaborator St. Vincent and The Smile drummer Tom Skinner. The album builds upon the optimistic themes laid out by American Utopia and its supporting tour, but more specifically spelled out by the Grammy-winning Broadway show and subsequent movie. With this offering, Byrne continues his lifelong exploration of human connection and the potential for societal unity against the chaotic backdrop of the world. Who Is the Sky? is particularly personal, cinematic, humorous and joyful, but often with a lesson baked in – that love is unexplainable, that enlightenment means very different things to different people and that it’s always a good idea to moisturize, whether you wake up the next morning with skin like a baby or not. Most importantly, the songs evince Byrne’s gift for riding the razor's edge of avant-garde and accessible pop.

Leon Michels has quietly become one of the most sought-after producers in music. His signature sound has caught the attention of the mainstream while continuing to inspire the underground. Since 2023's El Michels Affair & Black Thought album Glorious Game, Michels has been busy producing records for other artists; Norah Jones' Grammy winning Visions, Clairo's Grammy nominated Charm, Kali Uchis' "Moonlight", as well as albums for labelmates Brainstory, Derya Yildirim & Grup Simsek, Thee Heart Tones, and Liam Bailey. His new album 24 Hr Sports marks the highly anticipated return to recording under his own moniker, El Michels Affair. 24 Hr Sports was inspired by the fashion and graphic design of '80s & '90s Sports Illustrated magazines, MF DOOM's Special Herbs albums, the sample sources used on them, and gospel music a la Pastor T. L. Barrett. The sum of those influences with Michels' impeccable creative touch prove to be the recipe for an instant classic that will surely be one of the most heralded releases of 2025. The album opener "Drum Line" is an anthemic, uplifting tune with marching band drumming and thundering brass arrangements that command undivided attention and set the tone for what's to come. 24 Hr Sports sees a significant departure from the largely instrumental music of the El Michels Affair catalog with a roster of vocal features that manages to mirror the undefinable genre of his music. The first one on the album is "Mágica" which features Brazil's Rogê. He takes the already pumping energy of the track over the top with his fútbol inspired lyrics. Moving from Brazil to Ghana, "Say Goodbye" features Florence Adooni who touts her individuality with an effortless swag jumping between Frafra and English, telling it like it is in the earworm chorus, "never gonna find a girl like me... ". Labelmate and world renowned trumpeter from The Roots, Dave Guy joins the '70s groove of "Oakley's Car Wash" with his distinct horn lines before the track switches lanes, closing with a dubby outro. From raucous to serene, "Anticipate" featuring Clairo picks up on the musical synergy between her and Leon that created 2024's Charm album. Clairo rides signature EMA arrangements perfectly as she pines for an unattainable love over the band's airtight instrumentation. "Eastside" is a song that could soundtrack a sunrise over the ocean, putting Leon's tasteful use of space and arrangement on a pedestal. By way of Japan, The Suginami Children's Choir join in on the lush "Clean The Line" singing a song about the moon, the sun, and birds. Next, "Cortex" kicks in the door with gritty distorted guitars and thundering drums that puts a moment of pure cinematic intensity in the middle of the album. Leon himself handles lead vocals on "Shining," a song about looking for a friend to share the joys of a sunny day with. The universally adored Shintaro Sakamoto is featured on "Indifference", a swanky tune built on bouncing basslines and flute chops. Shintaro uses the arrangements to go from singing to speaking, musing over a fleeting love. The Grammy winning duo of Norah Jones and Michels reunite on "Carry Me Away" with Jones' honeyed vocals soaring over a track that is hard to place but easy to love. Leon leans into El Michels Affair territory on the tune that sounds decidedly different from the Norah Jones records he has produced. "Take My Hand" puts gospel influence front and center with the Fabulous Rainbow Singers choir on the chorus and a saxophone solo from the late great Rahsaan Roland Kirk. "Open Season", a mid tempo, piano driven number with group vocals chanting "we want the gold, we want the gold... " could soundtrack a slow motion highlight reel, while the aptly titled album closer "Victory Lap" is a dreamy euphoric wind-down worthy of the record that just finished. When all is said and done, the trophy on the cover of the album speaks volumes. El Michels Affair is champion sound and 24 Hr Sports hammers that home.

Glenn Hughes is a true original. Vocalist, bass guitarist, and songwriter, Hughes has spent decades crafting a sound that uniquely blends hard rock, soul, and funk — all powered by his astonishing vocal range and style. Often referred to as a “singer’s singer,” he once earned the praise of Stevie Wonder, who called him his favorite white vocalist. Born in Cannock, England, Hughes grew up influenced by British hard rock, the Beatles, and — most of all — American soul and R&B. Motown and Stax/Volt left a deep impression on him, helping form the foundation of his musical identity. Hughes rose to fame in the early 1970s with the band Trapeze, before joining Deep Purple in 1973 during a pivotal moment in the band’s history. With Hughes and David Coverdale stepping in for Ian Gillan and Roger Glover, Deep Purple released the landmark album Burn in 1974 — a rejuvenation of the band’s sound that stands as a classic. His contributions to Stormbringer and Come Taste the Band further solidified his legendary status. Following Deep Purple’s split in 1976, Hughes began a long and prolific solo career starting with Play Me Out in 1977. In 1982, he teamed up with Pat Thrall for the acclaimed Hughes/Thrall project. Over the decades, Hughes made countless appearances on albums by artists like Gary Moore, John Norum, and Tony Iommi of Black Sabbath. From the 1990s onward, Hughes launched a prolific solo run and formed several notable bands including Black Country Communion (with Joe Bonamassa), California Breed, and The Dead Daisies. Now, after a nine-year hiatus as a solo artist, Glenn Hughes returns with Chosen — a hard-hitting new studio album that presents him at his most explosive and inspired. Produced by longtime collaborator Soren Andersen, Chosen is a masterclass in powerful songwriting and production. It’s Glenn Hughes at the peak of his craft: bold, loud, and unforgettable.

Joy In Repetition covers Hot Chip's work, from their landmark EMI/DFA debut, The Warning, and traces their artistic evolution up to the present day. Alongside new track "Devotion," the comp is packed with stone-cold bangers from across their career: "Ready For The Floor,” “I Feel Better,” and “Flutes,” to name a few. "Devotion" sees the band in full voice, merging pop hooks with their unique dancefloor mentality. Joy In Repetition highlights the consistency of their stellar career so far and cements their status as one of the most important British groups in the last two decades. To complement this, the album comes housed in a cover designed by legendary British pop artist Peter Blake, mastermind behind the iconic Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band artwork, and features a little monkey with a miniature cymbal (a little nod to "Over and Over"). The Joy In Repetition really is in you.

With Adam Schlesinger's untimely passing from COVID-19 in 2020, the IVY trio neverthought there would be another album. But the band had actually been storing a largetrove of unfinished songs and demos in a Rhode Island storage locker dating back totheir beginnings. In 2023, while prepping the recent vinyl releases of their catalog, AndyChase and Dominique Durand took a trip to Rhode Island and listened to the tapes theyhad left there all those years ago; tapes labeled with notes like "Adam's Wacky Idea 1997","Stupid Cat 2005" or "This one might be good for Shallow Hal."The pair, along with their longtime friend Bruce Driscoll (Freedom Fry), decided to returnto the studio and flesh out the bones of those recordings. While they would never feelright about putting out an album under the IVY moniker without Adam, they realized theydidn't have to. Adam had already written and recorded his parts - he is on every song.The trio also enlisted friends that had been involved with making Ivy's records throughthe years to join them in the studio to bring these songs to life.Traces of You encapsulates everything that we love and have always loved about Ivy.Could there be more to come? (Yes, there could.)

You leave her a voicemail and everyone hears it. A version of james K slides through the valueless material “real” with fists full of melancholic ecstasy. Song collapses the unending mist around us, in a world of intensity and pain, confusion and loss, like a lung filling playfully, that makes us more sensitive, opens more wounds, to lay a path for mutual mending. She plucks a coiling, gaseous halo from the air, steadying the tempest with lulling, heaven-kissed sounds, and comes as a balm to our desperate hearts with her timeless offering, 𝘍𝘳𝘪𝘦𝘯𝘥- to make some light of this gum pink fog. 

Joni Mitchell introduces Joni’s Jazz, a passion project years in the making. The 8LP edition features recordings chosen by Mitchell that reflect jazz’s profound influence on her music, liner notes with rare and previously unseen photos, and original artwork by Mitchell. Spanning 61 tracks, Joni’s Jazz includes studio recordings, live performances, rare alternate takes, and material drawn from multiple decades and record labels. Among them are two previously unreleased 1980 demos. The set features contributions from some of Mitchell’s most important collaborators in jazz, among them Wayne Shorter, Jaco Pastorius, Herbie Hancock, and Charles Mingus.

It's been six years since La Dispute released their last album, Panorama. Since then, the Michigan post-hardcore band-made up of Jordan Dreyer on vocals, Brad Vander Lugt on drums, Chad Morgan-Sterenberg and Corey Stroffolino on guitar, and Adam Vass on bass-dealt with the stagnance of the pandemic, celebrated the ten-year anniversaries of Wildlife and Rooms Of The House, and began working on No One Was Driving The Car. The fifth studio LP is the first entirely produced by the group, and it came together in Grand Rapids and Detroit, the United Kingdom, Australia, and the Philippines: "I think the change in environment was really helpful to breathing new life into the process each time we came back to it," Dreyer says.Partly inspired by the 2017 psychological thriller First Reformed, No One Was Driving The Car reckons with malaise in the shadow of the looming apocalypse, which has noticeably been worsened by the advancement of tech. The title comes from a quote from a police officer Dreyer read in a news article about a lethal self-driving Tesla crash, an absurd event which raises questions about the amount of control we have in our own lives. In fourteen dynamic tracks, the band grapples with the existential topic and the human need to find comfort and a sense of security in an existence where we're often thrust into chaos without permission.

Lucrecia Dalt's A Danger to Ourselves is a fearless reflection on the unfiltered complexities of human connection. Following up her breakthrough 2022 album ¡Ay!, A Danger to Ourselves unravels like a deeply personal conversation; Dalt's voice is foregrounded and formidable, supported by a lush array of acoustic orchestration and processing, collaged percussive patterns, and an esteemed cast of collaborators including David Sylvian, who co-produced the album with Dalt, Juana Molina, Alex Lazaro, and Camille Mandoki. Mastered by Heba Kadry, CD includes a printed insert with lyrics in English and Spanish.

This new album you hold in your hands, Sleep Circle, is this newly recorded, abridged version of Sleep informed by those concert experiences and focusing on the movements within the composition that are more in the foreground. This way Sleep Circle becomes a hallucinatory 90-minute trip into the hypnagogic state. For Max, the approach offered new insights into his epic composition: “Some of these compositions, such as Dream 11, Moth-like Stars or Non-Eternal, are so rich in their poetic core that I wanted the music to be experienced in a more traditional way. I first wrote a structure for a concert performance. The new version we’ve recorded now is based on these performances, which also means that it has a slightly different architecture. It's like Sleep distilled.” 

 

Lukas Mayo didn't set out to break their laptop while making Battlebots, but in the end, the machine just couldn't take it. Files became too heavy, too unwieldy, too layered with chopped-up guitar notes, warped voice memos, and fractured drum loops. Some songs weren't finished so much as abandoned, because the computer simply refused to open them anymore. That moment felt fitting. An album about breaking apart, about friction and collapse, should probably come with a little destruction of it's own.Pickle Darling has always existed just outside of the periphery. In a heightened time of fast music, algorithmic consumption and rapid virality, Mayo has remained focused on the album. Their discography is a reflection of their creative evolution, and they deliberately look for ways to push sonic boundaries from release to release. Since debuting with Bigness in 2019 followed by Cosmonaut in 2021, Mayo has curated a catalog that is deeply personal and strangely tactile, where tiny, unexpected details-an off-kilter loop, a whispered aside, the warmth of an old Casio-become as crucial as melody itself. Their 2023 LP Laundromat was a precise and polished expansion of that world, a record that felt like it had been carefully placed behind glass. It garnered praise from Mojo, Rolling Stone Australia, The Line of Best Fit, and led to a live performance on the beloved New Zealand children's TV program, What Now.Battlebots, by contrast, is unruly and full of static: a collection of songs that feel like they could only ever exist on scratched CD-Rs passed between friends. Self-recorded in their home studio in Christchurch, New Zealand, Battlebots finds Mayo taking a scalpel to their own songwriting. Instead of simply playing guitar, they recorded each note individually, then arranged them one by one. Songs were stretched, chopped, reversed. Some ideas started as "unlistenable garbage" before morphing into something unexpectedly beautiful. If a song felt too straightforward, Mayo had to mess it up. "After Laundromat, I was tired of 'the song,'" Mayo explains. "I wanted to avoid capturing a performance as much as possible, everything had to be fragments, and I wanted to show as much of the recording and editing process as possible, leaving all the seams exposed." The result is an album that feels like a glitch in the system, pushing against past constraints while embracing the weird, beautiful mess of making something new.That friction of old and new, organic and digital, melody and noise is what drives Battlebots. Mayo drew inspiration from a strange, scattered lineage: Four Tet's Rounds, The Books, Neneh Cherry's Broken Politics, The Wrens' Three types of reading ambiguity, but also the emotional directness of 2000s pop like Madonna's Ray of Light and Robyn's Body Talk. The album opens with "Obsolete," featuring a voice memo from songwriter Ava Mirzadegan. It takes a full two minutes before Mayo's voice emerges, hesitant but clear. Later, there's "Massive Everything," which Mayo describes as the closest they've ever come to writing a pop song. And then there's Battlebots' most striking couplet, from "Congratulations Champion": "You know I'm gonna love you still / Like black mold loves the windowsill." It's as sweet as a strawberry on the edge of rotting.The title Battlebots itself is a reference to clashing ideologies-internally and externally, between past and present versions, between the desire to create something and the frustration of the process. It's a reflection of how our thoughts never settle, how music is never really about one singular thing, how an album can hold a hundred tiny conflicts at once. And in that way, it mirrors life itself. It's an album built from fragments, from warped sounds and half-memories, stitched together into something that still somehow pulses with life. It's not just a standalone piece, it's another chapter in the world Pickle Darling has been quietly building all along.

On his sixth solo album, All Night Days, multi-platinum singer-songwriter Rob Thomas continues to pen songs about living life to the fullest, even if those "All Night Days" come less often than they used to. Co-produced with Gregg Wattenberg (John Legend, Goo Goo Dolls), this record is as fitting a soundtrack for Saturday night, as much as it is Sunday morning. Available on "Knock Wood" brown vinyl.

After Saint Etienne's 35-year excursion through pop, International, is their final album-length statement. A dreamlike drift with friends and collaborators, International features cameos from the higher echelons of pop - 80s chart heroes, electro, acid house and all points in-between - from Vince Clarke to Nick Heyward, Confidence Man to Erol Alkan, Chemical Brothers, Orbital, Doves and Xenomania, through to the lesser known, but equally exhilarating Augustin Bousfield and Flash Cassette. Saint Etienne are the 90s band who never left us, never imploded, and never adhered to clichéd excess. They are a testament to getting along, getting on with creating something new and, of course, getting away with it.

Cutthroat is shame at their blistering best. An unapologetic new album with Grammy winning producer John Congleton at the helm; it's souped up and supercharged. It's exactly where you want shame to be.Still in their twenties, the five childhood friends - Charlie Steen, guitarists Sean Coyle-Smith and Eddie Green, bassist Josh Finerty and drummer Charlie Forbes - have grown Shame exponentially, with ambitious sonic ideas and the technical chops to execute them. Having proved themselves several times over with legendary live shows and three critically-acclaimed albums under their belts, Shame went into Cutthroat ready to create a new Ground Zero. "This is about who we are," says Steen. "Our live shows aren't performance art - they're direct, confrontational and raw. That's always been the root of us. We live in crazy times. But it's not about 'Poor me.' It's about 'Fuck you'." Crucial to this incendiary new outlook was producer John Congleton (St. Vincent, Angel Olsen). From their initial meeting, Congleton's no-bullshit approach became a guiding force to streamline the band's ideas.Stamped throughout with Shame's trademark sense of humour, the album takes on the big issues of today and gleefully toys with them. Casting a merciless eye on themes of conflict and corruption; hunger and desire; lust, envy and the omnipresent shadow of cowardice.Musically, too, the record plays with visceral new ideas. Making electronic music on tour for fun, Coyle-Smith had previously seen the loops he was crafting as a separate entity to the things he wrote for Shame. Then, he realised, maybe they didn't have to be. "This time, anything could go if it sounded good and you got it right," he says.The result is an album that revels in the idiosyncrasies of life, raising an eyebrow and asking the ugly questions that so often get tactfully brushed over. "I'm not here to answer the questions, I'm a 27-year-old idiot.." Steen caveats with a self-effacing chuckle. But the one answer that Cutthroat gives with a resounding flourish is that, right now, Shame have never sounded better.

The 25th Anniversary Edition of their self-titled debut album features new artwork and a lot of bonus material, such as unreleased demos and alternative mixes.

The London Suede have announced details of their 10th studio album `Antidepressants,' via BMG. The album is a milestone achievement that sees the band at the top of their game. It follows the success of their critically acclaimed ninth UK Top 10 album `Autofiction,' released in September 2022, which charted at No. 2 on the UK Albums Chart and was their highest-charting release in over 20 years. The London Suede will celebrate the release of `Antidepressants' with a takeover of London's Southbank Centre, through a series of exciting live performances kicking off in September, Suede's four-night residency will commence with two consecutive nights at the Royal Festival Hall on September 13th and 14th, followed on September 17th by an intimate stripped-back performance at the Purcell Room, culminating in a collaboration with the Paraorchestra on September 19th at the Queen Elizabeth Hall. Standard black vinyl, gatefold jacket.

Jason Molina was an artist who didn't like to look back. Throughout the singer-songwriter's life and career, a restless and evolving creative pulse propelled him forward, training his focus on what was next. His unyielding creativity and work ethic bore sacred fruit. In his short life, Molina achieved what most musicians strive for: a sound that is instantly recognizable but rarely repeats itself. From the banks of Lake Erie in his hometown Lorain, Ohio, to international stages with his bands Songs: Ohia and Magnolia Electric Co., Molina performed his vast catalog of mysterious, romantic, tempestuous, and monumental songs that were at once innovative and rooted in American tradition. He consistently tinkered with his sound, image, band, and homebase in order to sate his muse. Tenor guitar-toting misfit. Lovesick lo-fi indie rocker. Dirgey slowcore bard. 21st century roots-rock trailblazer. Canonical Midwestern songwriter. Jason Molina planted his creative flag in all of these territories - to stake his claim, convey how far he'd traveled, and leave behind a trail of precious talismans. With I Will Swim to You: A Tribute to Jason Molina - named after a line in Molina's song "Lioness" - Run For Cover Records and a coterie of affiliated artists honor the songwriter's enduring impact. The compilation of Molina covers is performed by some of today's most visionary singer-songwriters, including MJ Lenderman, Hand Habits, Horse Jumper of Love, Sun June and more, and includes singular interpretations of Molina fan favorites and deep cuts from his solo albums and lesser-known EPs. As part of the tribute, 10% of the profits from each record will be donated to MusiCares, a nonprofit that helped Molina when he was struggling with addiction.