Now Hear This

Hailing from Norwich, Ida Mae present themselves as a sensual version of The White Stripes meets Civil Wars meets The XX, whose magic lies in the sensuous dovetailing of two voices and the intimacy of their songs. Their upcoming album Click Click Domino grew out of their transatlantic travels- inspired by stumbled-upon prom nights in Grand Junction and even later nights at pub gigs in Essex, using picked-up pawn-shop instruments like a 1920s Mandolinetto from New Jersey to a marching drum from Ohio. Forced to cut their tour short due to the pandemic, the band returned to Nashville to record the album in their home studio during quarantine. Chris took the reins on production, having honed his skills over the years with Ethan Johns, T Bone Burnett, Ryan Hadlock, M Ward and more. Special guests include Ethan Johns drumming throughout the record, Jake Kiszka from Greta Van Fleet on guitar on “Long Gone and Heartworn,” and Marcus King on guitar on “Click Click Domino,” “Deep River Bottom Blues” and “When Eden Was My Girl.”

Angel Dream is a special reimagining of the album She’s The One to celebrate the 25th anniversary of its original release. This also brings to a close the celebration of Tom Petty’s masterpiece Wildflowers, as most of the songs on this album were recorded during the same time period.  She’s The One included some songs that were left off the original Wildflowers album, recently included in the Wildflowers & All The Rest re-issue. To take the place of those songs, four previously unreleased songs have been added here – two Petty originals (“105 Degrees” and “One of Life’s Little Mysteries”), a cover of JJ Cale’s “Thirteen Days”, and the instrumental “French Disconnection”.  An extended version of “Supernatural Radio” is also included. The album has been remixed & remastered and brand new cover art commissioned – emphasizing that this is a Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers album, rather than a soundtrack album.

Gaspard Auge, best known as one half of Justice, the duo that united rock and rave and whose dancefloor smashes defined a generation, is releasing his debut album. Gaspard made an instrumental album whose sound will be familiar to Justice ’s fanbase , echoing some previous works & inspirations of the cult duet. Escapades sounds like a UFO landing from another galaxy, or time, a baroque masterpiece that reimagines European classical music for this century. Out via Because Music June 25th.

MARINA will be releasing her fifth studio albumon June 11, a 10-track project titled Ancient Dreams In A Modern Land. In writing this album, the major themes range from the impending climate crisis doom, wealth disparity, gender and racial inequalityto choosing yourself in a relationship. The new album is self-written and also sees MARINA co-producing 6 tracks for the first time alongside James Flannigan (Lana Del Rey, Dua Lipa) and Jenn Decilveo.This album was preceded by the release of three singles, “Man’s World”, “Purge The Poison”, and “Ancient Dreams In A Modern Land”. Reacting to the startling statistics that only 2% of producers and 3% of engineers across popular music are women, MARINA returned and launched her new era with “Man’s World”, penned solely by MARINA, produced by Grammy Award nominee Jenn Decilveo and engineered by the first-ever female Grammy Award winner for “Best Engineered Album, Non Classical,” Emily Lazar, with an all-female creative team helming the music video and photography led by Alexandra Gavillet and Coughs.VOGUEacclaimed “Since her idiosyncraticFamily Jewelsdebuted in 2010, the singer-songwriter has attained one of pop’s most devoted followings….” “Man’s World” advances her sound further, while retaining the ethereal hooks that have sustained Diamandis as one of the most consistently innovative acts in alt-pop.”MARINA will be releasing her fifth studio album on June 11, a 10-track project titled Ancient Dreams In A Modern Land. In writing this album, the major themes range from the impending climate crisis doom, wealth disparity, gender and racial inequality to choosing yourself in a relationship. The new album is self-written and also sees MARINA co-producing 6 tracks for the first time alongside James Flannigan (Lana Del Rey, Dua Lipa) and Jenn Decilveo. This album was preceded by the release of three singles, “Man’s World”, “Purge The Poison”, and “Ancient Dreams In A Modern Land”. Reacting to the startling statistics that only 2% of producers and 3% of engineers across popular music are women, MARINA returned and launched her new era with “Man’s World”, penned solely by MARINA, produced by Grammy Award nominee Jenn Decilveo and engineered by the first-ever female Grammy Award winner for “Best Engineered Album, Non Classical,” Emily Lazar, with an all-female creative team helming the music video and photography led by Alexandra Gavillet and Coughs. VOGUE acclaimed “Since her idiosyncratic Family Jewels debuted in 2010, the singer-songwriter has attained one of pop’s most devoted followings….” “Man’s World” advances her sound further, while retaining the ethereal hooks that have sustained Diamandis as one of the most consistently innovative acts in alt-pop.”

This 2 LP and 1 CD 20-track compilation spans the band’s career from 1995 – 2007 – a prolific period when the band released several of their biggest hits, and they had great success in many key global markets. The collection includes b-sides, live tracks, acoustic versions, radio performances, international releases and other non-album tracks. All but 2 of the tracks are unavailable to stream on Spotify or Apple Music in the US and all currently unavailable on any physical format.

2021 release. Wary + Strange marks the collision of two vastly different worlds: the iconoclastic alt-rock that first sparked her musical passion, and the roots music scene where she's found breakout success in recent years. Produced by Tony Berg (Phoebe Bridgers, Amos Lee) and featuring musicians like Blake Mills, this album arrives as an immersive body of work, redefining the limits of roots music in it's inventive rhythms and textures.

Nonesuch Records releases an album of songs written and performed by Caroline Shaw and Sō Percussion, Let the Soil Play Its Simple Part. The musicians, who have known each other since their student days, were presented with three days of gratis studio time and decided to experiment with ideas they had begun putting to tape during the sessions for their January 2021 Nonesuch release Narrow Sea. With Shaw on vocals and Sō—Eric Cha-Beach, Josh Quillen, Adam Sliwinski, and Jason Treuting—filling out this new band, they developed songs in the studio, with lyrics inspired by their own wide-ranging interests: James Joyce, the Sacred Harp hymn book, a poem by Anne Carson, the Bible’s Book of Ruth, the American roots tune “I’ll Fly Away,” and the pop perfection of ABBA, among others. The album is co-produced by Shaw, Sō Percussion, and the Grammy Award–winning engineer Jonathan Low (The National, Taylor Swift).

2021 release. "Better Mistakes, my sophomore album, is by far the most challenging yet fulfilling project I have ever worked on. I wrote, recorded, re-wrote, re-recorded and then repeated that process in order to deliver an album that truly reflects who I am as a singer, songwriter and most importantly as an artist. I want to give listeners a journey of pop paradise fused with elements of rock and hip-hop. It's important to me that my music continues to recognize ongoing themes of vulnerability, the cycle of self-destruction & self-realization, and female empowerment."

John Grant's fantastic fifth solo album, Boy from Michigan, finds him at the peak of his powers. Having lived outside of the US for a decade, John is looking back at his childhood growing up in Michigan and Colorado. He documents America in microscopic, painterly detail, and his keen eye and acerbic wit are as sharp as ever. John worked with Cate Le Bon to produce twelve tracks that balance both sides of his musical personality, the battle-scarred piano-man and the grand electronic auteur. In a decade of solo work, he has established himself as one of the great musical chroniclers of the American Dream, viewed mostly from its flipside. He is the misfit's misfit: too weird to be mainstream, too mainstream to be weird; too sad to be happy, too sharp not to crack a mordant joke about it.