Now Hear This

New Career-Spanning Compilations Celebrate The Icon’s Record 50 #1 Club Hits Across Four Decades

Alabama's native son, Early James, returns with his sophomore album, Strange Time To Be Alive. The lyrical wordsmith conjures the ghosts of great southern gothic writers from Eudora Welty to William Faulkner, while channeling the haunted spirits of Tom Waits and Townes Van Zandt. The album evokes a timeless amalgam of forsaken blues, wistful folk, and Tin Pan Alley crooning, anchored by the singer’s unmistakable voice that sways from gravel-filled shouts to pained, forlorn whispers.

A special collection of cover songs curated and performed by GRAMMY®-nominated artist Valerie June. Under Cover features singular interpretations of some of her favorite songs including Mazzy Star’s “Fade Into You,” Frank Ocean’s “Godspeed,” Nick Drake’s “Pink Moon,” and more.

Chaos in Bloom, arriving August 12th, 2022 via Warner Records. Marking the first album of their career to be produced by frontman John Rzeznik, the record finds the band at the top of their game and continuing to constantly evolve just as they have for nearly four decades together. Consisting of 10 tracks, Chaos in Bloom is an album of biting sarcasm, stadium-ready choruses, and the type of spear-sharp songwriting that’s led them to becoming one of the most influential alternative rock groups of all time.

While Chaos in Bloom isn’t necessarily an album borne out by the pandemic, many of the tracks reflect on all of the things in daily life that became amplified while everyone was isolated from one another and sequestered at home. “Chaos in Bloom reminded us how special this whole thing is and to cherish the relationships that we have together,” says Rzeznik about the album. “Where we’ve been, and where we’re going.” Oscillating from personal reflections on the state of the world to societal commentaries, the songs on the album grapple with observations about our dystopian modernity while searching for optimism and pushing for a more empathetic world. “I’ve been trying to have a relationship with the bigger picture,” adds bassist and songwriter Robby Takac, “and refining happiness and what it means from that perspective.”

To record the album, Rzeznik and Takac retreated to Dreamland Studios just outside Woodstock, New York during the pandemic. An environment as remote as it is rich with historic rock music roots, the location proved to be the perfect setting for clearing the noise and creating such a record, which carries a true live quality that the band captured by blending vintage instruments and gear with new-age recording processes and techniques.

Twenty years and some 4,000 shows into his career, the name Wade Bowen has become synonymous with Texas country music – and for good reason. An artistic descendant of American icons like Guy Clark, Ray Wylie Hubbard, Robert Earl Keen and more, Bowen is another link in a Texan chain of roots-rock poets stretching back more than 50 years – but his ambition never ended at the state line.

“I will carry that flag proudly,” Bowen says of his well earned Red-Dirt distinction. “But I’ve always said I’m not a ‘Texas artist,’ I’m an artist from Texas, and I think there’s a difference.”

Indeed, Bowen has showed the world that difference since 2001 – by going big on integrity.

Seen as one of the genre’s finest and most authentic modern voices, Bowen’s approach stays rooted in tradition, but also stands on the creative cutting edge. His focus remains on writing unique songs with a literary quality, and shifting his sonic territory to match his life. And while the hard-touring troubadour is constantly breaking new ground, his course was set early on.

Limited edition live performance of Amythyst Kiah’s “Wild Turkey” and “Firewater” cut direct to disc.

Stranger Things: Soundtrack from the Netflix Series, Season 4 will include key music covering various classic eras and styles as featured in "Stranger Things 4." The soundtrack album is conceptualized and produced by The Duffer Brothers and Nora Felder (Grammy and Emmy nominee Nora Felder has served as music supervisor for "Stranger Things" since the show's inception and was nominated for a Music Supervision Grammy the first year the category was recognized by the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences). The compilation album is produced by The Duffer Brothers and 2x Grammy nominee Timothy J. Smith.

Following Momma's beloved 2020 LP Two of Me, which introduced the world to the symbiotic writing style and profound creative intuition of founders Etta Friedman and Allegra Weingarten, the band's third studio album Household Name reveals an exciting new chapter marked by both personal and artistic growth. Mastered by Grammy-winning engineer Emily Lazar, the album is a tightly-stitched collection that is magnetic and dynamic, and also marks their debut for Polyvinyl Record Co./Lucky Number-who signed Momma in the midst of the pandemic.Bygone heroes helped inspire a lyrical theme throughout Household Name: the rise and fall of the rock star, and the tropes and tribulations that come with that arc. The theme allowed the group to celebrate (and, in some cases, directly reference) icons like Nirvana, Pavement, Smashing Pumpkins, Veruca Salt, and the Breeders' Kim Deal, while weaving in their own perspective and experiences. Standouts like "Medicine," which The Line of Best Fit described as an "addictive alt-rock tonic," and "Speeding 72" showcase the band's knack for developing hooky guitar lines paired with an intricate, yet boisterous rhythm section. The album perfects a balance of heavy riffs, deep emotions, inviting sonic production, and a lighthearted, wry sense of humor, creating a singular lane for Momma in today's world of alt rock. In addition to a full US tour supporting Snail Mail and recent club dates with Wet Leg, and Greer, Momma have been featured in outlets such as DIY, NPR, Stereogum, and Rolling Stone, who featured them as 2020's "Artist You Need To Know.""One of nouveau grunge's best-kept secrets." - Guitar World Magazine"Over toppling drums and gripping guitar riffs, "Medicine" reveals that Momma have tightened their songwriting craft." - FLOOD"It's a fun juxtaposition, and a feeling many can relate to. Wanting to be around someone so much that it's a craving when they're absent is presented here without frills. It's a sound that suits Momma well." - Consequence

Paradise Again came together in the wake of rediscovering Swedish House Mafia's musical synergy on the band's 2019 reunion tour, spending countless hours in the studio, exorcizing new sonic palettes, textures, and tones from an arsenal of analog synths. It represents an ambitious broadening of their musical scope, as evinced by the wide-ranging roster of collaborators and guests, including The Weeknd, A$AP Rocky, Sting, Ty Dolla $ign, 070 Shake and many more.

From the first-ever authorized and in-depth archive in Blondie’s history, this 3 CD edition features the very best of the outtakes and rarities from the Super Deluxe Collector’s Edition, remastered from the original analog tapes and cut at Abbey Road Studios. Included is a 164-page book featuring an exhaustive look at Blondie’s international notoriety via picture sleeves and regional pressings.

2022 release. Inspired by the introspection, fear and loss during lockdown, Älskar celebrates life in all of it's complexities as well as love in every form imaginable. Includes the singles 'Dinner Table', 'Pressure Makes Diamonds', and 'When You Lose Someone'. Älskar shimmers with both tender, intimate ballads and huge escapist '80s-tinged bangers that beg for the dancefloor.

American Heartbreak is Zach Bryan’s major label debut album. The meaning, importance, and heart of this album is best described in the artist’s own words. This album to me is all the trials we face day-in and day out and I wrote all the stories on it hoping someone, somewhere might relate or some kid might pick up an instrument and replicate it in an effort to be an artist. Some songs are sad, some are happy, some are hopeful and some are hopeless, all of them mean something different to me and I pray they mean something to someone else. American Heartbreak is my effort at trying to explain what being a 26 year old man in America is like. There’s love, loss, revelry, resentment, and forgiveness all wrapped into one piece of work.

Hailing from Los Angeles with an arsenal of songs as varied as the American landscape itself, PJ Western creates music of contradictions. His tripped out pop-rock psychedelia evokes a haze of 60’s AM radio as heard emanating from someone else’s car window. Here I Go, Western’s debut album, recorded during the lockdown we all endured, was written in dreams. In visions. Wild but refined, classic but modern. The album is a lot like the man who wrote it: complex, celebratory, grateful. Recorded in LA with the help of some of the finest musicians the city has to offer, Here I Go offers a perspective of the city as heard through the ears of a precocious outsider – someone who may call the city home, but also can’t quite shake the suspicion he might not belong in the Hollywood Hills surrounding him.

This album was created in Los Angeles and London and is influenced by the increasing uncertainty and instability in the world. A pandemic, new wars in Europe, massive protests & riots, an attempted insurrection, Western democracy wavering, rising authoritarianism, wildfires and natural disasters and the destabilisation of the global order all informed Will Of The People. It has been a worrying and scary time for all of us as the Western empire and the natural world, which have cradled us for so long are genuinely threatened. This album is a personal navigation through those fears and preparation for what comes next. - Matt Bellamy

Forward thinking progressive & atmospheric sci-fi infused Metal heralding the most unique and invigorating sound the scene has experienced in decades!!! Austin TX new comers Phase IV burst onto the scene with the stellar shock-waves created by a new born star. Delivering a completely original and avant-garde sound, the band seamlessly mixes elements of progressive rock and free-form jazz into a blackened heavy metal context and concept, creating a unique and invigorating sound all their own. Cosmic rays of dissonant and abstract guitars, intergalactic waves of contra-bass and pulsar emissions of nonlinear syncopated drums reverberate, emanate and comingle. As nearby quasars consume all light, supernova pulses radiate Phase IV neutrinos which arrive to the planet earth. Prepare yourself for the coming change as the cosmic electromagnetic sound waves of Phase IV have arrived!

Brotherkenzie is the solo output from Minneapolis producer and songwriter Nathan Stocker – and, through the project, lives in the shadows, operating on the outskirts of the music industry, something he’s grown increasingly less interested in as he ages. Brotherkenzie’s music is a chasm carved from honesty and earnestness, the result teetering between catchiness and pop, but with sharp edges.

On the cover of Nathan, Stocker is about to be enveloped by an enormous black box in a deadened Minnesotan sprawl, framed by the eeriness of placid blue skies, the suggestion of a cold wind. It’s like a snapshot of calm caught in a moment before something bad happens, but you don’t know quite what that bad is yet. The looming black mass is a physical manifestation of narcissism – and Nathan is an exhaustive exploration of that. It’s an artifact of what happens when you listen to, and obey, your demons. A final look-a-round at the dirt you’ve known your whole life before descending to the eternal what-have-you.

The record is a re-introduction to Stocker’s solo output as brotherkenzie; his last release, 2020’s BIG WHAT closed the first chapter of the project, while Nathan explores the afterlife of a creative death. The 12 songs collected here are intended to signify a new brotherkenzie era: one embracing sex and heathen ideals. Even the title vies for blasphemy; Stocker’s attempt to divorce his first name from its loaded religious meaning and instead take ownership of it. It’d be easy to say it’s in response to Stocker’s deeply religious upbringing, but that’s too simple – instead, it’s an exercise in “what if’s?,” leaning into the dark side, interested in exploring what it means to be satanic without ever mentioning a devil – or any type of God, or religion – by name. Instead, Stocker wonders what happens when you die and are reborn as a demon. When you operate without goodness in mind. Is that a mode for something true? Even if it’s evil?

 

Stocker wrote these songs from March to November of 2020. It was isolating in the usual ways for that time, of course, but he was also juggling a number of relationships that were unhealthy for a myriad of reasons. He was stuck in a cycle, unable to escape, and every time he sat down the self-loathing and demons came out. Here he examines that self-destructive tenderness, observant of the way he was then but not fraught over it. Instead, he’s like a documentarian of trying times; of what it feels like to grow a new epidermis instead.

Spanish Villager No. 3 is the highly-anticipated third studio album from GRAMMY-nominated artist Ondara. Featuring the single, "An Alien in Minneapolis," the new project was produced by Ondara and Mike Viola.

The music of Young Jesus has always been about change. Bandleader and sole original member John Rossiter is a restless spirit, always moving, always seeking new sounds, new thoughts, new methods of working. Young Jesus’ new album Shepherd Head is a dramatic departure for the band, delving deeper into the themes that have always fascinated Rossiter—love, loss, and God—approached in a completely new direction. It’s a record of growth and exploration, pushing forward into the future with hope while still holding the pain and regrets of the past, seeking a balance for the present.

For the new album, Rossiter opened up the songwriting process, relying on collaboration and improvisation. Instead of the band’s usual method of months-long rehearsal before cranking out an album live in the studio in less than a week, Rossiter decided to take his time, recording the entire record over a series of years using only his MacBook, GarageBand, and an SM57 microphone. He used found sounds, recording random people on the street, experimenting with white noise, piecing together scraps of songs from voice memos.

The result is a record completely unlike anything in Young Jesus’ discography. Rossiter’s voice is deep and lovely, conjuring a sense of melancholy and grandeur, but never with bitterness or despair. The disparate elements—the found sounds, the friend cameos, Rossiter’s disciplined songwriting—come together in thrilling and sometimes shocking ways. There’s a joy to the music, the wild hope and possibility that arises after tragedy, a feeling of revelation.

Shepherd Head is an album of healing, of acceptance of weakness, of love, and of hope. It’s the sound of an artist stretching himself, going to new places and facing the pain and fear of life. Gathering together the sounds of the world, from the chatter of friends to footsteps of strangers, and building something new out of it. Something singular and unique. Something beautiful.

Daddy Yankee’s farewell album LEGENDADDY combines all the styles that have defined him in one single album. It contains 19 tracks and has the most superb guest list yet including Bad Bunny, Rauw Alejandro, Nile Rodgers, Becky G and more. He also collaborated with some of the industry’s hottest producers including Play-N-Skillz, Luny (Luny Tunes) and Tainy. LEGENDADDY stands out as his first album in ten years and his boldest, brightest, and biggest musical statement ever.