What is your wish? What do you expect?" Cross Record's self-titled third album begins with Emily Cross's disembodied voice intoning from an otherworldly vacuum. In the three years since her last album, Cross has divorced, quit drinking, become a death doula, started the observational podcast What I'm Looking At, and toured and recorded with Sub Pop's Loma, the trio she formed with Dan Duszynski on drums and Jonathan Meiburg (Shearwater) on guitar / vocals. On Cross Record, she guides the listener like a sonic Virgil, delivering a textured soundscape of meditative curiosity, akin to Low's Double Negative, Broadcast's The Noise Made By People and Radiohead's Kid A. The record's themes of departure and separation were inspired by changes Cross made in her career. After years of work as a nanny and in customer service, she recently embarked on studies to become a death doula. Similar to the services provided by birth doulas, a death doula helps clients navigate decisions and hardships at the end of life. In her new role, she created a three hour ceremony called a Living Funeral, which guides participants through the rituals of their own deaths. Her work in helping others face their greatest fears inhabits the same space as her art, which has always explored the metaphysical in the everyday. The eerie experience of listening to this record and the unsettling sense of songs slipping from coherent grasp share these same sensibilities. The oddness of these songs is nonetheless honest and truthful, and to understand them requires acknowledging notions of alienation in ourselves. WA-39263865|Vinyl LP pressing. By Special Arrangement, is a new double album of orchestral reinventions of some of the most beloved songs from The Bamboos, alongside two cover versions Γö£Γòù London Grammar's "Hey Now" and a majestic rendition of Sam Brown's 1998 UK hit "Stop." Other vocalists featured include Tim Rogers, Washington and longtime Boos vocalist Kylie Auldist. WA-39264008|Vinyl LP pressing. EDWARD SHARPE AND THE MAGNETIC ZEROS broke out in 2009 with their debut album UP FROM BELOW which was released on Community Music and Vagrant Records. The ten-person troupe of traveling artists and musicians had initial success through their captivating live performances, which broke conventional barriers of what a live concert was. UP FROM BELOW is a unique mixture of folk, soul with flourishes of film composer Ennio MorriconeΓö£├Ñs grandeur, and was one of the most talked about album in 2009, forging a movement of Neo Folk Rock & Roll. The bandΓö£├Ñs break out hit song Γö£ΓöñHomeΓö£Γòó from the album, became an instant classic being performed in TV shows, movies and countless weddings across the world. The band, spearheaded by singer and principal songwriter Alex Ebert would go on to release three more albums and tour worldwide even while the line up changed over the years with Ebert remaining one of the five constants. Ebert himself released solo material and even won the Golden Globe in 2014 for Best Original Score for his composing in the film All Is Lost. WA-39264602|Recording his debut album during the hiatus and breakup of the Pixies in late-1992, front-man Black Francis inverted his stage persona for his solo work. Co-produced with Eric Drew- Feldman (Captain Beefheart / Pere Ubu), Frank let his inner rock historian loose on Frank Black, channelling greats like Iggy Pop, Lou Reed, The Beach Boys & David Bowie in a thrilling way that felt like a natural next step on from Trompe Le Monde (the last Pixies album before they reconvened two decades later). WA-39263049|150gm vinyl LP pressing. On his new album, Ideal Man, Andrew Combs worked with producer/engineer Sam Cohen (Kevin Morby, Benjamin Booker) to achieve a more raw, direct sound. The collection was captured live in Cohen's Brooklyn studio, with compact arrangements fueled by taut, elastic grooves. While Combs may be best known as a singer/songwriter in the classic 1970's Laurel Canyon sense, he demonstrates the true versatility of his work here, often setting the acoustic aside in favor of atmospheric synthesizers and distorted electric guitars. Combs worked with some of his favorite writers on the album, including Dylan LeBlanc, Jeff Trott, Joe Henry, and Kenny Childers, but the stories he tells here are deeply personal and remarkably vulnerable. A sense of danger and violence underlies the entire record, much as it does the entire country, but it only serves to make the moments of beauty and connection here that much more poignant. Life is short and the clock is ticking. WA-39263643|Vinyl LP pressing. Absolute Still Life is the fourth full-length album by the experimental duo Wreck And Reference. The album marks a radical departure from the band's heavy and noise rock origins and finds them driving toward a more electronic and abstract dimension. Like past albums, warped synthesizers and pillaged samples build up the harmonic elements of the songs, but the absence of acoustic drums gives this release a colder, more alien "sthetic. With fewer screams and stranger textures than before, the band find themselves alone again in uncharted and uncategorizable territory. WA-39263650|Double vinyl LP pressing. Caligula, the 2019 album from Lingua Ignota, takes the vision of Kristin Hayter's vessel to a new level of grandeur, her purging and vengeful audial vision going beyond anything preceding it and reaching a new unparalleled sonic plane within her oeuvre. Succeeding her self-released 2017 All Bitches Die opus, this new one sees Hayter design her most ambitious work to date, displaying the full force of her talent as a vocalist, composer, and storyteller. Vast in scope and multivalent in it's influences, with delivery nothing short of demonic, this is an outsider's opera; magnificent, hideous, and raw. Eschewing and disavowing genre altogether, Hayter builds her own world. Here she fully embodies the moniker Lingua Ignota, from the German mystic Hildegard of Bingen, meaning "unknown language" -this music has no home, any precedent or comparison could only be uneasily given, and there is nothing else like it in the contemporary realm. Working closely with Seth Manchester at Machines With Magnets studio, Hayter strips away much of the industrial and electronic elements of her previous work, approaching instead the corporeal intensity and intimate menace of her notorious live performances, achieved with unconventional recording techniques and sound sources, as well as a full arsenal of live instrumentation and collaborators including harsh noise master Sam McKinlay (The Rita), visceral drummer Lee Buford (The Body) and frenetic percussionist Ted Byrnes (Cackle Car, Wood & Metal), with guest vocals from Dylan Walker (Full of Hell), Mike Berdan (Uniform), and Noraa Kaplan (Visibilities). Caligula is a massive work, a multi-layered epic that gives voice and space to that which has been silenced and cut out. WA-39263674|Savagery in musical form takes a further step toward total sonic annihilation with DΓö£Γòûda SjΓò¼├║lar, the culmination of a bestial trilogy from the eccentric intensity called Mylingar. A tempest of whirlwind-blackened death metal barbarity and animalistic filth, this album is unrelenting in it's intent to rend flesh from bone and inflict torment. There is no peace here-the guitars and riffs burn through everything like scorched earth with the scraping, gritty bass barreling forward into total massacre. All the while, the insanity is presided over by a voice neither animal nor human but both at once: diseased, psychotic and commanding. The pace remains maddeningly frantic, but relents as needed to revel in the violence of it's creation. Less an album of songs to enjoy passively, DΓö£Γòûda SjΓò¼├║lar is an all-encompassing specter of claustrophobic oppression and pestilence, draping blackness over everything and leaving little but barren wasteland behind. Witness an unexplainable, unknowable force for the malevolent villainy that envelops our world. WA-39263735|Neurot Recordings are proud to reissue the landmark collaboration Neurosis & Jarboe, which was originally released in 2003. This latest version is fully remastered and with entirely new artwork from Aaron Turner, available on vinyl for the first time, as well as CD and digital formats. When two independent and distinct spheres overlap, the resulting ellipse tends to emphasize the most striking and powerful characteristics of each body. Such is the case with this particular collaboration between heavy music pioneers Neurosis and the multi-faceted performer Jarboe (who performed in Swans and who has collaborated with an array of people from Blixa Bargeld, J.G. Thirlwell, Attila Csihar, Bill Laswell, Merzbow, Justin K. Broadrick, Helen Money, Father Murphy, the list goes on...) The musicians pull from one another some of the most harrowing and unusual sounds ever heard from either artist at the time-a sentiment which also rings true to some fifteen years later. The collaboration is a deeply textured mosaic that is a culmination of merged "sthetics from two major influences on free-thinking sounds. It unlocked the hidden potential of electronic music as a new force in heavy rock. At a time when groups like Oneida, Wolf Eyes and Black Dice were beginning to experiment with technology in making mind-numbing leaden electro-drone freed from any essence of "dance music," Neurosis & Jarboe redefined all notions of their past-and outlined the course of heavy music to come. WA-39263827|Vinyl LP pressing. Spike Fuck is inspired primarily by love and obsession, addiction, sexual disorientation, Catholic guilt and washed up 60s musicians who make overproduced comeback albums a decade later crying out for redemption and a maybe even just little bit of the limelight back. Spike Fuck describes her music and attitude as a whole (for the sake of classification and utility) as Γö£ΓöñsmackwaveΓö£Γòó - a blend of late 80s new wave and late 70s post-punk with a dash of country music/singer-songwriter sensibilities delivered in Las Vegas Ballroom karaoke vocal style. The Smackwave EP was previously only available digitally as a 4 track release. Partisan Records is thrilled to issue The Smackwave EP on vinyl with new bonus track, "Body By Crystal." WA-39264633|Vinyl LP pressing. These soulful originals have been handed down generation after generation and are always guaranteed to touch the hearts and souls of their endeared listeners. Each volume features lost classics as well as oldies hits. This timeless series will live on forever! WA-39264886|Continuing to extract the deadliest beings from the dankest corners of the Northwest, 20 Buck Spin summons from the festering swamp-soaked murk the revolting mutation that is Cerebral Rot. Like sewage winding it's way through tunnels below the street, this music reeks with the stench of vulgarity and noxious body fumes. Embalmed in an analog toxic dump, this debut, Odious Descent Into Decay, melts the skin with radioactive brutality and gurgling bursts of punishing cruelty. It's virulent subterranean death metal glistens with pustular fallout, with an obscure rotten air from being left too long on the morgue table-the skin peels off and the last gasp of life echoes terrifyingly within. A rank abomination of disgust, the album relies not on over-technicality, but rather disfiguring physical violence and battering submission in it's quest for the true embodiment of sub-underground death, morphing from one wet distorted monstrosity to another. Like the miserable mess of decayed forms on the cover, the septic sickness of Cerebral Rot has only just begun to spread. WA-39264916|Canadian composer Scott Morgan's 12th long-player as Loscil takes it's title from an influential series of early 20th century photographs by Alfred Stieglitz, abstracting clouds into miasmic, painterly canvases of smoke and shadowplay. It's a deeply fitting analog for Morgan's own musical process across the past two decades, fraying forms and tones into widescreen mirages of opaque texture and negative space. The name Equivalents referred to Stieglitz's notion of the photographs as being equivalent to his "philosophical or emotional states of mind;" the same could be said of these eight weighty, shivering chiaroscuros of sound. Each piece unfolds and evolves enigmatically, adrift in low oxygen atmospheres, shifting dramatically from pockets of density to dissipated streaks of moonlit vapor. The entirety of the record was created specifically for the album with the exception of "Equivalent 7," which began as a dance score for frequent collaborator Vanessa Goodman. The album version of this track was reworked with Vancouver musician Amir Abbey aka Secret Pyramid. Cloud photographs taken by Scott Morgan at various locations throughout Cascadia in 2018. WA-39264923|Diocletian, who have always reigned at the apex of the extreme, unrelenting war metal movement, have resurged with founder / guitarist Atrociter unearthing the band with a new formation and sense of purpose. The result is the New Zealand unit's most primal, barbarous, unhinged-yet-remorselessly-calculated and violent album Amongst The Flames Of A Burning God. Five years since their acclaimed Gesundrian album, which saw this war machine of a band reach a certain summit, this latest resurges their sound canvas with a newfound sense of ferocity, rawness, and artistry, all while regressing back to the impressions and atmosphere witnessed on their debut Doom Cult, from ten years ago. To achieve this regeneration, this new lineup aligning with Atrociter consists of vocalist / bassist R.W., drummer E. M., guitarist M. H., and none other than vocalist Impurath (of notorious Black Witchery fame) completing the stronghold. WA-39264954|HERE LIES MAN took the music world by storm in 2017 with their self-titled debut positing the intriguing hypothesis: What if Black Sabbath played Afrobeat? Since that time, they have expanded and expounded upon their sound and ideas of heavy riff rock and psych within the ancient rhythmic formula of the clave. The L.A. based band comprised of Antibalas members have toured relentlessly over the past two years, while also releasing a second album, You Will Know Nothing and an EP, Animal Noises, both in 2018. No Ground to Walk Upon is their third album. It continues with an ongoing concept of playing a soundtrack to an imaginary movie, with each song being a scene. Rough Trade named HERE LIES MAN in their prestigious Top 10 Albums of 2017. BBC 6 and Classic Rock Magazine deemed it among the year's best, as well as countless other press outlets singing it's praises. 2018's You Will Know Nothing furthered the band's reputation for genre-smashing rhythmic experimentation, topping many year-end lists as well as earning features from countless metal and indie rock outlets, plus cover stories in weekly papers. This latest album is the next step in the band's rapid ascent to what is bound to be influential upon riff-based rock. "We're very conscious of how the rhythms service the riffs," explains founder and vocalist / guitarist / multi-instrumentalist Marcos Garcia (who also plays guitar in Antibalas) of the band's sound. "Tony Iommi's (Black Sabbath) innovation was to make the riff the organizing principle of a song. We are taking that same approach but employing a different organizing principle: For Iommi it was the blues, for us it comes directly from Africa." WA-39265098|Double vinyl LP pressing. 2019 release. Acclaimed Ukrainian-American rapper Your Old Droog recently made waves with the unexpected release of It WasnΓö£├Ñt Even Close, an album that drew widespread attention and endless praise after dropping in April with no advance warning. Fresh off this success, your old pal is returning less than two months later with Transportation. The album features 15 tracks, all of which loosely relate to a method of transportation. The bulk of the beats on Transportation are handled in-house by eclectic Inwood beat wizard Mono En Stereo. Droog sounds more than at home delivering the audio equivalent of comfort food, with interludes sprinkled around beats and rhymes that go together like a peanut butter and jelly sandwich with a cold glass of milk in the middle of the night. In DroogΓö£├Ñs case, it might be Bulgarian buttermilk. WA-39264558|Limited colored vinyl LP pressing. An exercise in both darkness and light, When I Have Fears only serves to highlight the early ambition in The Murder Capital's sound. Produced by Flood (PJ Harvey, New Order, Foals), from the post-rock build and breakdowns of the two-part "Slowdance," to the tender, bruised confessional of "On Twisted Ground" and industrial pulse of closer "Love, Love, Love," there's a consistent intensity throughout that marks out The Murder Capital as a band arriving fully formed on their debut album. WA-39264565|Vinyl LP pressing. An exercise in both darkness and light, When I Have Fears only serves to highlight the early ambition in The Murder Capital's sound. Produced by Flood (PJ Harvey, New Order, Foals), from the post-rock build and breakdowns of the two-part "Slowdance," to the tender, bruised confessional of "On Twisted Ground" and industrial pulse of closer "Love, Love, Love," there's a consistent intensity throughout that marks out The Murder Capital as a band arriving fully formed on their debut album. WA-39263612|'El amor despuΓò¼├┐s del amor (Love After Love)', is the eighth studio album by Argentine musician Fito PΓö£╞"ez, released in 1992. El Amor DespuΓò¼├┐s del Amor marked the pinnacle of his commercial success, also becoming the most sold album in the history of Argentine rock. WA-39265074|Double vinyl LP pressing. No pretense, just skills. The duo of Libretto & Buscrates represent a convergence of emcee and production mastery. They are students of Hip-Hop and are thoroughly committed to both its preservation and progression. Their masterpiece, Eternal Ridin' fully and uncompromisingly represents Hip-Hop in its purest form, while updating the sound and pushing the culture forward. Eternal Ridin' is a true LP. From "Sentences" with its vivid 1st hand description of life in federal prison, to "Stuck in Time" which details a love and connection to music, every song has its place, and every song tells its own story. Yet, there is an overarching theme, one of redemption and standing strong in the face the struggle. The struggle that is universally understood, and the unique struggle of what it means to be oppressed in America. WA-39265036|Vinyl LP pressing. This project came to be from unfortunate malfunctioning of his MPC 2500 drum machine. While his go to weaponry was in rehabilitation, he used his secondary equipment, the Roland/BOSS SP series, with limited features to test his skill in beat making. Depending on your ear, you may recognize a few familiar sound throughout the project he purposely chopped to present his approach to the sample he used. Deaf Strike is a very energetic body of work, which is also easy on the ears to play in a relaxed setting. WA-39265067|Vinyl LP pressing. Jack Waterson is the acid that Adrian never took as a kid. The result, as youΓö£├Ñd expect, is both colorful and dark; full of sonic and musical surprises. The creative relationship they have questions the social order of the United States, yet theirs is a quintessentially American Story: Kindred spirits. Punk rock and hip hop came from the same place, fueled by identical sentiments: people taking the music back, reclaiming it, and finding a new audience. Waterson, primed from the mid-70s Punk scene, began his musical career in Γö£├Ñ79 as a founding member of Green on Red. They inspired artists as diverse as My Bloody Valentine, Wilco and Mazzy Star with their records and psychedelic palette. Years later, Waterson continued his influential journey by opening the revered musical instrument store, Future Music, a Los Angeles staple. In Γö£├Ñ99, an 18 year-old Younge realized that he wanted to create music that sounded like the records he was sampling. Unbeknownst to him, he serendipitously wandered into Future Music. ItΓö£├Ñs there, he realized his dream was possible. During these years, Waterson schooled Younge on psych and art rock; Younge returned the favor by schooling him on Hip Hop, the origins of sampling, and its source music. Together this unlikely duo manifested new revolutionary worlds with Waterson appearing on every Younge album within the last decade. WA-39268679|Vinyl LP pressing. The neo-soul movement of the late '90s, which fused classic soul sounds with contemporary elements, heralded the arrival of some of the greatest R&B recordings of the decade. Albums like Lauryn Hill's The Miseducation Of Lauryn Hill, D'Angelo's Brown Sugar, and Maxwell's Urban Hang Suite were all born of this trend, while artists such as Mos Def, The Roots, and Common whole-heartedly embraced the sound, creating some of their most timeless material in the process. These are some of neo-soul's great successes, but a slew of underground acts were what set the initial blueprint for their more pop-friendly acquaintances to follow. Acts such as R&B duo Groove Theory. The nearly hour-long record features 14 tracks of Wilson's smooth soul arrangements and atmospherics merged with golden era boom-bap beats, and Larrieux's siren-quality vocals, inspired equally by a combination of Native Tongues, peak Marvin Gaye, Joan Armatrading, Soul II Soul, as well as elements of breakbeat, jazz fusion, and even trip hop. It's a definitive, but often overlooked classic of the '90s, which helped expand contemporary R&B's sound, render Billboard hits out the tracks "Tell Me" (which peaked at No. 5 on the Billboard Hot 100), "Keep Tryin'