In the past, Mapache recording sessions have been pretty laid-back affairs, with friends coming and going, the sessions starting and stopping at the band’s discretion—as relaxed a process as the immaculately sunny vibes that their four albums would suggest. But on their dynamic and ambitious fifth album of cosmic-folk, Swinging Stars, Sam Blasucci and Clay Finch decided to take a trip and hunker down somewhere particularly special. “It’s a pretty impactful place,” Finch says of the Panoramic House, the artist retreat where Swinging Stars was recorded. “It’s kind of dramatic. It’s a castle-y building on a hill, way up overlooking the Bay.” Located in Stinson Beach in Marin County, California, the Panoramic House has recently hosted acts like My Morning Jacket, the War on Drugs, and Cate Le Bon, and was the ideal combination of scenic beauty and self-imposed confinement to allow Mapache to settle in for their most cohesive album yet. “That environment yields itself to a higher level of focus because everybody’s together for a week,” says Finch, explaining that the band stayed there during the process, sharing every bit of their time and energy on a shared vision. “We were all captive. No one could escape,” he laughs. Swinging Stars, an album of calm, second-nature swagger, is the natural result of a band that’s existed in one form or another for its founders’ entire adult lives. Finch and Blasucci first met as students at La Cañada High School, just north of Los Angeles, where they both had a guitar class: “There wasn’t much supervision or anything,” remembers Blasucci. “It was really nice. And we got to just play guitars together.”
Release date:
August 18, 2023
Install our app to receive notifications when new upcoming releases are added.

Recommended equipment and accessories
-
Vinyl Care - Top Picks
A selection of accesories to keep your turntable equipment & vinyl records in the best shape
-
Audioengine A2 Plus
Precision-engineered 2.75-inch woofers and a 0.75-inch silk dome tweeter, featuring built-in DAC and Bluetooth connectivity for seamless integration.
-
Cartridges - Top Picks
A selection of turnatble cartridges that provide great performance and sound quality
-
Nobsound Little Bear T7 Tube Preamp
Delivers rich, warm audio through its high-quality vacuum tubes, featuring multiple inputs and adjustable gain
-
HumminGuru: Ultrasonic Vinyl Record Cleaner
Advanced ultrasonic technology with customizable cleaning cycles and a large tank capacity to thoroughly remove dust, dirt, and contaminants
Featured Upcoming Vinyl
-
Various Artists The Black Album
Cleopatra Records
August 8, 2025 -
STOMACH Low Demon
Hibernation Release
July 18, 2025 -
David Byrne Who Is The Sky? (Lemon Yellow)
Matador
September 5, 2025 -
Psychlona Warped Vision
Magnetic Eye
July 18, 2025 -
Rival Consoles Landscape from Memory [2xLP]
Erased Tapes
July 4, 2025 -
BABYMETAL METAL FORTH
Capitol
August 8, 2025 -
New Eves The New Eve Is Rising (Light Pink)
Transgressive
August 1, 2025 -
Guerilla Toss You're Weird Now (Yellow)
Sub Pop
September 12, 2025 -
Mal Blum The Villain
Get Better Records
July 11, 2025 -
Revocation New Gods, New Masters
Metal Blade
September 26, 2025 -
Irvine Welsh Men in Love
Port Sunshine Rec.
July 25, 2025 -
FLETCHER Would You Still Love Me If You Really Knew Me?
Fletcher/Snapback
July 18, 2025 -
Thin Lizzy Acoustic Sessions
Mercury
August 1, 2025 -
CORAL GRIEF Air Between Us
Suicide Squeeze
July 18, 2025