New Releases
- September 8, 2023
On multi-instrumentalist Yussef Dayes’ debut solo studio album, Black Classical Music, Dayes’ drum licks and Rocco Palladino’s bass are the anchors, aided by Charlie Stacey (keys/synths), Venna (saxophone), Alexander Bourt (percussion), and a host of features including: Chronixx, Masego, Jamilah Barry, Tom Misch, Elijah Fox, Shabaka Hutchings, Miles James, Sheila Maurice Grey, Nathaniel Cross, Theon Cross, and the Chineke! Orchestra—the first professional orchestra in Europe to be made up of majority Black and ethnically diverse musicians.
The Staves celebrate the 10th anniversary of their 2012 debut album, Dead & Born & Grown, with the release of this 180-gram recycled colored vinyl edition. Produced with Glyn and Ethan Johns (The Beatles, The Rolling Stones), Dead & Born & Grown was met with great critical acclaim and set the Staveley-Taylor sisters on the way to becoming one of the UK’s most celebrated indie exports. The recycled vinyl is made from 100% PVC recycled material, using waste material and clippings from previous record pressings, resulting in a unique color combination for each LP.
This first studio recording of Tyondai Braxton's Telekinesis—an eighty-seven-piece work for electric guitars, orchestra, choir, and electronics—features the Metropolis Ensemble conducted by Andrew Cyr, the Brooklyn Youth Chorus conducted by Dianne Berkun Menaker, and chamber choir The Crossing conducted by Donald Nally performing what the Guardian calls "a superpower-themed symphony … a titanic composition." Braxton cites the Japanese manga classic Akira as a thematic guide, with its story of a young boy's discovery of his telekinetic powers and his inability to control it, leading to his own destruction. The Times exclaims: "It's remarkable."
Drummer, composer, and producer Tom Skinner (The Smile, Sons of Kemet)'s album Voices of Bishara is the first recording under his own name. Its title references cellist Abdul Wadud's 1978 album By Myself, which was pressed on Wadud's label, Bisharra—an Arabic name meaning "good news." Voices of Bishara began life when Skinner asked some musician friends to join him for a Played Twice session at London's Brilliant Corners, in which a classic album was played in full through the venue's audiophile system, and a live ensemble improvised a response. That night focused on drummer Tony Williams' 1964 album Life Time; the music they conjured inspired Skinner to write an album's worth of new music.
The Blue Hour is a song cycle born of a collaboration among five composers—Rachel Grimes, Angélica Negrón, Shara Nova, Caroline Shaw, and Sarah Kirkland Snider—commissioned and performed by the chamber orchestra A Far Cry, who are joined by singer Shara Nova. Set to excerpts from Carolyn Forché’s epic poem On Earth, the music follows one woman’s journey through the liminal space between life and death via thousands of hallucinatory and non-linear images. Exploring memories of childhood, war, love, and loss, The Blue Hour amplifies the beauty, pain, and fragility of human life from a collective female perspective.
Rhiannon Giddens wrote “Build a House” for the 155th anniversary of Juneteenth in 2020; she performs it here with renowned cellist Yo-Yo Ma and multi-instrumentalist Francesco Turrisi. The song, which then inspired Giddens’ children’s book of the same name (out on Candlewick Press), tells of African Americans who were forcibly enslaved and brought to the US to build houses they were not allowed to live in, tend to families who were not their own, and sow the seeds that fed a nation—while being left with only scraps themselves. It depicts a family’s resilience in the face of violence and sorrow.
This 11-LP + 1 CD Super Deluxe Edition of Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, Wilco’s 2002 Nonesuch debut, comprises the original album, remastered for its 20th anniversary in 2022, plus 82 previously unreleased tracks. Includes demos, drafts, and instrumentals, charting the making of the album; a live 2002 concert recording; and a September 2001 radio performance and interview. The box set also includes a new book featuring an interview with Jeff Tweedy, Glenn Kotche, and Jim O’Rourke; an in-depth essay by journalist/author Bob Mehr; and previously unseen photos of the band making the album in their Chicago studio. On Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, the band delivers a thrillingly experimental work that scored a perfect 10 on Pitchfork, which hailed the album as “complex and dangerously catchy, lyrically sophisticated and provocative, noisy and somehow serene … simply a masterpiece.” Uncut called it “a stone-cold classic.” Grammy Winner for Best Historical Album, Best Album Notes.
This 8-CD Super Deluxe Edition of Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, Wilco’s 2002 Nonesuch debut, comprises the original album, remastered for its 20th anniversary in 2022, plus 82 previously unreleased tracks. Includes demos, drafts, and instrumentals, charting the making of the album; a live 2002 concert recording; and a September 2001 radio performance and interview. The set also includes a new book featuring an interview with Jeff Tweedy, Glenn Kotche, and Jim O’Rourke; an in-depth essay by journalist/author Bob Mehr; and previously unseen photos of the band making the album in their Chicago studio. On Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, the band delivers a thrillingly experimental work that scored a perfect 10 on Pitchfork, which hailed the album as “complex and dangerously catchy, lyrically sophisticated and provocative, noisy and somehow serene … simply a masterpiece.” Uncut called it “a stone-cold classic.” Grammy Winner for Best Historical Album, Best Album Notes.
This 7-LP Deluxe Edition of Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, Wilco’s 2002 Nonesuch debut, includes the original album, remastered for its 20th anniversary in 2022, plus 39 previously unreleased tracks—“The Unified Theory of Everything” alternate album versions plus bonus tracks, a live 2002 concert recording, and a September 2001 radio performance. The set also includes a booklet with an in-depth essay by journalist/author Bob Mehr. On Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, the band delivers a thrillingly experimental work that scored a perfect 10 on Pitchfork, which hailed the album as “complex and dangerously catchy, lyrically sophisticated and provocative, noisy and somehow serene … simply a masterpiece.” Uncut called it “a stone-cold classic.”