{"title":"Western Vinyl","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eWestern Vinyl is a music label based in Austin, Texas. Founded in 1998 by Brian Sampson, the label has established itself as a prominent force in the music industry. With a diverse roster of talented artists and performers, Western Vinyl offers a wide range of musical genres and styles to its listeners.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eKnown for their commitment to quality and innovation, Western Vinyl strives to bring unique and groundbreaking music to the forefront. The label's dedication to nurturing talent and supporting artistic vision has earned them a reputation as an influential player in the independent music scene.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eWhether you're a fan of *indie rock*, *experimental electronic*, or *ambient soundscapes*, Western Vinyl has something for everyone. Explore their catalog and discover new sounds that will captivate your ears and expand your musical horizons.\u003c\/p\u003e","products":[{"product_id":"voids","title":"Voids","description":"\u003cp\u003eFor Fans of: Bill Callahan, Adam Torres, Cross Record, Julia Holter, Low, Damien Jurado.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe album’s Texas-based producer John Mark Lapham was a member of Secretly Canadian band The Earlies. \u003ci\u003eVoids\u003c\/i\u003e employs the vocal talents of Bill Callahan, Emily Cross, Adam Torres, and Julia Holter across twelve genre-fluid, yet impressively cohesive tracks that span baroque dream-pop, filmic ambient, raga-like drones, avant-country, and even spiritual jazz, all imbued with poetic heft and seared by the West Texas sun. It was beneath this same sun that Lapham lost both of his parents, mourned a withering relationship, and shouldered the fallout of the pandemic, turning his life into the rusted-out scraps he then used to build Voids from the ground up.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThere is no better narrator for Lapham’s story than fellow Texas resident Bill Callahan, whose iconic delivery perfectly personifies the core themes of Voids. By the time Callahan appears, he does so over a saw-blade drone that sounds like machinery echoing off the corrugated steel walls of a nearby workshop, which then breaks open into a loose yet pained confluence of violin and upright bass that recalls Joe Henderson’s 1974 spiritual jazz album The Elements. On “Dreamless” the album crystallizes into its most straight-ahead moment as Lapham trains his compositional lens on a brilliant piece of pop songwriting. Featured vocalist Adam Torres soars over John Mark’s punctual arrangement of stomping drums and rapturous string-work to anthemic, and gently psychedelic consequence.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003ci\u003eVoids \u003c\/i\u003econcludes with the pleasant clatter of “Circles” wherein Lapham throws all his ingredients into a pot of celebratory catharsis. Drum sets collide with one another gleefully, and harmonized textures scatter and roll about the floor like a dropped bucket of ornate marbles. Lapham’s collage-work, which up to this point has been smartly restrained, comes unglued as he transmutes grief into relief within a moment-of-death montage of aural imagery. Across \u003ci\u003eVoids\u003c\/i\u003e, that same awareness of tragedy and loneliness is made palatable by the album’s exciting and varied topography, which stands insubordinately against Lapham’s real-life surroundings. The settlers who established West Texas towns like the one he calls home must have done so with a sense of hope despite the hostility of their surroundings, however inevitable the withering. Similar spirits speak through John Mark Lapham’s work, and he welcomes them as fascinating old friends. “That more than anything inspired a lot of what I try to express through Old Fire, faded memories, former glories, places lost in time,” he discloses. “Whatever I was trying to express with Old Fire wasn't finished with the first album, like a story that was only half-read. 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Sometimes though, and it happens too rarely, the cover is an act of devotion in which a musician's humility produces something more beautiful than bravura could. When Erik Hall undertook his painstaking reconstruction of Steve Reich's 1976 masterpiece of minimalism, \u003ci\u003eMusic for 18 Musicians,\u003c\/i\u003e it was as much an exercise in modesty as ambition. With its repetitions and complex constructions, the piece makes great demands on stamina and concentration, and Reich himself advised that these challenges meant it should probably be performed with more than eighteen musicians. Hall, however, recorded every part himself in his small home studio, playing instruments he had on hand, in live, single takes. Here, then is the ambition. But here too is the modesty: by doing one section a day, one instrument at a time, he made his way through this monumental piece, building a faithful and loving re-creation, one sonic brick at a time. 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Hatcher-Williams met Copeland while living in Brooklyn, and as they got to know each other, he revealed that he'd spent years playing in bands before his career took over his life. Copeland's encouragement, in tandem with the concurrent changes in Hatcher-Williams' career and domestic life, gave him the confidence to revisit this part of himself that felt unfinished. The dreamlike Lamplight feels at once familiar and new; it's a room you recognize but can't quite place, the fragment of a memory that you can't pin down. There's love but also panic attacks, realizations and reckonings, questionings alongside resignations, and confrontation as well as avoidance. By the end of the album, you get the sense that Ian Hatcher-Williams has learned that he's not the dogma that over-promised and under-delivered, and he's not the youthful ambition that led him to the brink of self-destruction. 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Kramer, who was born in 1990 and grew up alongside the internet, uses her music to explore nature in the actual and the virtual world, through direct experience and facsimile alike, focussing and blurring the line between the two. “Looking back at my videos of that summer which is where the processed audio came from I tried to remember what it had felt like to be there,” she recalls, “thinking about questions of reality versus imagination; physical versus digital; and the ways in which memory shifts through our minds and technology.” The title The Blue of Distance was derived from Rebecca Solnit’s book \u003ci\u003eA Field Guide to Getting Lost\u003c\/i\u003e, referring to the phenomenon of faraway mountains appearing blue due to light particles getting lost over distance. “If we were to go up to the mountains that appear blue from far away, we would see that they weren’t actually that color.” She says. “This beauty is made possible because of their distance,” much in the same way that the splendor of a lush season is only fully realized in the throes of a bleak one, and the joy of an event can only be felt when it has long since been consigned to remembrance.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Western Vinyl","offers":[{"title":"Clear | LP","offer_id":50431227363659,"sku":"1110237","price":23.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0867\/1120\/6219\/files\/5f7c991d-a332-4112-aa64-e203b903362c_thumbnail_4096.jpg?v=1726856690"},{"product_id":"nostalgia-killer","title":"Nostalgia Killer","description":"\u003cp\u003eIn 2019, Lightning Dust broke up. Not the band, but Amber Webber and Joshua Wells the couple at the core of it ended their longtime relationship. In the wake of the split, the two musicians realized that Lightning Dust was still important to them and decided to stay together as an artistic partnership. The experience made them think about nostalgia as a concept and how this sort of longing for the past can be destructive, cancerous, useless. Webber and Wells reconvened virtually in mid-2020 to work together again as creative comrades, sharing some new ideas by correspondence, stitching together their song fragments into the dramatic arrangements now heard across Lightning Dust’s new album, \u003ci\u003eNostalgia Killer\u003c\/i\u003e.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe album title couldn’t set a more perfect expectation for what the album holds.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eHearing those words together, one might anticipate something harder, more chilly and severe. But what happens is quite the opposite: listeners find themselves wandering into someplace warm, guided by familiar sounds and voices.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eLittle do they know they’ll soon be flung into a climate unknown. Throw away the old coat–these songs signal a new season. This is a winding and moving album. Sensual, confessional, and free of fences. Each song builds with inexorable force, often pulling back to a whisper before washing over the listener completely. With their wealth of new imagery and the most incandescent flights, Lightning Dust sweeps you away from wherever you happen to be.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eAcross \u003ci\u003eNostalgia Killer,\u003c\/i\u003e Lighting Dust introduces a sound that feels vaguely familiar while forming a mythology all of their own. Although this exact work may not have been created if it wasn’t for the duo’s separation, it would be wrong to simply call it a break-up album. The songs here don’t merely travel that well-trod\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003elandscape, they reinvent the scene altogether; after all, sometimes love needs reinventing. Nostalgia Killer is about something that affects us all, which is how we make sense of the world and each other over time and across borders. And far out as always, Lightning Dust is reinvented here magnificently.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Western Vinyl","offers":[{"title":"Yellow LP","offer_id":50432286884171,"sku":"2020011","price":29.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"CD","offer_id":50432286622027,"sku":"2020009","price":14.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0867\/1120\/6219\/files\/Nostalgia_Killer_e884d517_thumbnail_4096.jpg?v=1726866679"},{"product_id":"patron-saint-of-tireless-losers-2","title":"Patron Saint of Tireless Losers","description":"\u003cp\u003eRIYL: Wilco, Elliott Smith, Harry Nilsson, Pedro The Lion, Randy Newman. On his acclaimed LPs with his experimental rock band Wilder Maker, Brooklyn singer-songwriter Gabriel Birnbaum's animus has been breaking molds. Records like 2018's sprawling concept album Zion and last year's guest-lead-singer-filled treasure trove Male Models highlighted the 37-year-old musician's penchant for formal adventurousness, stylistic pivots, and lyrical verbosity the kind that mirrors the flow of a warm and spirited conversation, betraying a fascination with influences from Bob Dylan to Billy Woods. On his albums billed to Gabriel Birnbaum, he focuses on economy and direct emotional resonance, bending classic American songforms to his will. Following 2019's Not Alone—and coming after a busy period of production and arranging work for artists like Mutual Benefit and Katie Von Schleicher his stunning new solo album Patron Saint of Tireless Losers is the most immediate and narratively kaleidoscopic collection of songs of his career both deeply personal and enigmatic in a way that encourages serial relistens. With sensitivity and patience, Birnbaum cuts straight to the spiritual essence of the characters he inhabits, painting affecting and lovingly drawn scenes bolstered by cathartic hooks. Recorded in the winter of 2019, \u003ci\u003ePatron Saint like Not Alone\u003c\/i\u003e channels the production methodology of Neil Young and Crazy Horse: made in a few days with none of the players having heard the material ahead of time. Birnbaum an accomplished saxophonist as well as guitarist and singer has one foot in the world of NYC jazz and avant-garde music, and works with players who mix indie rock and Americana bonafides with free-improv instincts: Will Graefe (guitar\/bass), Adam Brisbin (guitar\/bass), and Jason Nazary (drums). The spontaneity of the playing shapes the dramatic situation in each track; at turns, they build to the point of obscuring the chord structure and exploding the tempo see Nazary mimicking the turbulent thought process of the narrator in \"Same As You.\" Elsewhere, they assume a more atmospheric role, stripping back to evoke the story's mise-en-scene, as in the gorgeous, gently restless \"A Drunk.\" Elsewhere, the songs and arrangements adopt a more restrained presentation, based on striking melodic counterpoint, recalling Wilco or Elliott Smith at their most baroque. These sensitive arrangements underscore a dizzying and impressive spread of themes and dramatic scenarios. Nearly every song takes place from the vantage of a different character, including young women, aging fathers, paranoid preppers in a post-apocalyptic world, and lonely men reaching out for connection. The throughline between these individuals is that they are usually struggling to reconcile the reality they cling to—often with no small amount of desperation with a broader, harsher reality of which they are just becoming aware. Birnbaum cites one of his favorite collections of short stories, James Joyce's Dubliners as inspiration. \"Many of my songs overlap with the scenarios in that book: people who think they have a way out and then something happens and then it's just like, \"no.\" It's a classic human experience.\" The barriers that the record's narrators often come up against are both real and imagined. They bemoan their own concrete failures but also fantasize about straw-man adversaries and their own impending mortality. As with many Birnbaum-helmed releases, their moments of reckoning, whether positive or negative, often come in bars or parties. Opener \"Laughing Backwards\" comes from a celebratory but avoidant hang, revisiting the scene of the crime the bar where they watched the 2016 election and having a good time between the pall still hanging over the world. Elsewhere, the narrator of \"Same as You\" confronts self-hatred and disillusionment in a crowd at a concert; in the searing \"The More They Come Around,\" they embrace chaos in the context of a wider sense of political malaise and cultural nihilism. Anyone who has followed any part of Gabriel Birnbaum's diverse and inevitably compelling musical exploits over the past couple of decades knows that his governing impulse has always been to avoid stock perspectives and familiar platitudes. Like one of his own espoused patron saints Paul Simon Birnbaum sets new challenges for himself with each recording, honing the nuts and bolts of his songcraft and pinpointing unexpected new aesthetic contexts for it. (He's proved his ability with hooky AM-rock earworms, long-form blues exegeses, infectious riff-rock, au courante R\u0026amp;B, and more.) The lush and psychedelic folk-rock songs on \u003ci\u003ePatron Saint of Tireless Losers \u003c\/i\u003econfidently cut to the essence of his artistry, highlighting a mature narrative voice and always surprising musical syntax. As much as anything Birmbaum has put into the world, it is a tour de force that thrives on both self-assuredness and restlessness marks of a crucial and constantly evolving artist whose work it's impossible to turn away from once you tap into its frequency.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Western Vinyl","offers":[{"title":"Black LP","offer_id":50433740439883,"sku":"2201259","price":27.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0867\/1120\/6219\/files\/Gabriel_Birnbaum_-_Patron_Saint_of_Tireless_Losers_b6af7174_thumbnail_4096.jpg?v=1726882544"},{"product_id":"certain-limitations","title":"Certain Limitations","description":"\u003cp\u003eLuke Temple emerges with a new project, \u003cstrong\u003eLuke Temple and The Cascading Moms\u003c\/strong\u003e. 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When these three came together to rehearse, a spark ignited, revealing a creative connection that transcended that first show that brought them together.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eThe album's lead single, \"\u003cem\u003eI Can Dream\u003c\/em\u003e,\" originally appeared on Art Feynman's Half Price At 3:30. However, after reworking it with the Cascading Moms, the song took on a new life. This reinvention exemplifies \u003cem\u003eCertain Limitations\u003c\/em\u003e's core concept: a collection of songs honed and reshaped through the improvisations and collaborative spirit of three musicians creating and exploring a new sonic world.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Western Vinyl","offers":[{"title":"Black LP","offer_id":50442692067659,"sku":"2201448","price":29.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0867\/1120\/6219\/files\/Certain_Limitations_eba6f0f8_thumbnail_4096.jpg?v=1727002911"},{"product_id":"the-time-it-takes","title":"The Time It Takes","description":"\u003cp\u003eFor fans of Nils Frahm, Balmorhea, Ryuichi Sakamoto,Brian Eno, Eluvium, Erik Satie. Pennsylvania native Keith Kenniff's output as Goldmund has established him as one of the preeminent composers of minimal piano-based ambient music alongside peers like Hauschka, Dustin O'Halloran, and even Ryuichi Sakamoto, who himself once described Kenniff's work as \"so, so, so beautiful\". \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eHis recordings tread sincerely along paths laden with dusty timbres, diffuse synthesizer, and soaring string textures tinted by the muted glow of a cloudy analog sky above. On \u003ci\u003eThe Time it Takes\u003c\/i\u003e, Goldmund's newest book of aural polaroids, Kenniff somehow manages to deepen the emotionality of his already affecting project, creating a space in which to unfold the sorrows of a troubling age and revel in the hope and beauty that follow thereafter. In this sense, \u003ci\u003eThe Time it Takes\u003c\/i\u003e tackles grief head-on, unadorned by themes of escapism or pastorality, and marks another entryin an impressively consistent body of work. \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eFrom the first murmurs of its opener \u003ci\u003eDay in, Day Out, The Time it Takes\u003c\/i\u003e calls to mind the cascading nature of mourning. There's the first tragedy, the loss itself, then the second one, the dissipation of the memory of the thing lost. We start out grieving for a loss directly; years later, sorrow reappears not only for that loss, but for the idea that its meaning is slipping away with each turn of the calendar page. An aged piano thumps gently just beyond an impassable moat of time, its operator's presence is evidenced by the shuffling of pedals and the shifting of mechanisms, and seraphic choirs seep in from places unseen. Kenniff's kindling of piano is gradually set ablaze with synth, choir, and trilling strings provided by his equally emotive labelmate Christopher Tignor. Like much of \u003ci\u003eThe Time it Takes\u003c\/i\u003e,\u003ci\u003e Respite \u003c\/i\u003eis true to its title, but not because it leans on New Age aims of comfort and relaxation. Deeply fervent, it instead reflects the kind of emotional relief that can bring someone to tears if they're lucky enough to stumble upon it mid-crisis. Conversely, the subsequent \u003ci\u003eRivulet\u003c\/i\u003e crouches in subdued concern and uncertainty amid deteriorated synths that howl down darkened hallways. \u003ci\u003eThe One Who Stands By\u003c\/i\u003e approaches a similar sense of subtle menace. With its lilting arpeggio, pulsing bass, and scraping drones, the piece anxiously marches toward some severe and unresolved dilemma. Earlier in the sequence, tracks like \u003ci\u003eFor Old Times\u003c\/i\u003e investigate the serene sides of woe and yearning that form the core sentiments of the album: missed chances to share things with people who've passed on and are forever lost to the past; small internal battles quietly won or lost, but never spoken of; a heavy rain followed by sideways afternoon sunlight that imparts just enough awe to make you feel okay with your unnoticeable role in it 2all. As if we needed convincing, Kenniff further proves his skill of crafting sound-design vignettes that are personal, private, and hushed, yet simultaneously grand, colossal, and profound. Nostalgia sometimes suffers the role of low hanging fruit for the marketing world, or worse, a symptom of the stunted development of a generation facing backward in a world that moves unrelentingly forward. But instead of engaging in reductive and culpable pastiche, Kenniff dispels any notions of nostalgia's counter productivity by using our collective memory as just another brush to paint with, thereby wresting his music from any linear cultural timeline. 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Saxl continues to utilize chamber-music ensemble alongside analog synth and digital experimentation, deeply tuning into textural emotion and the vivid details of small actions. While her 2021 breakthrough LP, The Blue of Distance, processed recordings from the Adirondacks and Lake Superior, Saxl's source material here comes primarily from live percussion and other instrumentation\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Western Vinyl","offers":[{"title":"Clear LP","offer_id":50446707917131,"sku":"2204726","price":32.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"CD","offer_id":50446708244811,"sku":"2204729","price":17.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0867\/1120\/6219\/files\/Elori_Saxl_-_Drifts_and_Surfaces_15341fdb_thumbnail_4096.jpg?v=1727061700"},{"product_id":"stray-fantasies","title":"Stray Fantasies","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003ci\u003eStray Fantasies\u003c\/i\u003e marks a deepening of the discography of wife-and-husband duo Hollie and Keith Kenniff under their collaborative moniker Mint Julep, an expertly manicured electric-pop venture that stands in stark contrast to the nebulous and experimental Helios and Goldmund outputs for which the latter member is known (though both members have ambient projects under their own names). Where those projects seek to defy conventional songform through textural, amorphous exploration, Mint Julep gels all the elements with a surprising and impressive songwriting expertise that speaks to the skill and well-roundedness of its creators. Stray Fantasies further proves this by delivering twelve fully crystallized, iridescent pop pearls glimmering with the interplay of synthesizers, pulsing basslines, and punching drums that ballast Hollie's oneiric singing as she unfurls themes of vulnerability, insecurity, and other aching minutiae of love and relationships.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e The album quickly establishes its impetus with its opener, Blinded, whose one-two drumbeat, brisk synth arpeggios, and spot-on vocal melodies earnestly tempt descriptions like \"iconic\" and \"anthemic\" without a single put-on. The title track follows punctually delivering on the promise of the first, solidifying the energy and ensuring that the duo's passion and urgency isn't about to give way to the lull of a front-loaded suite. When the tempo eases, it does so only slightly on the seductive \u003ci\u003eWhite Noise\u003c\/i\u003e which palpitates with something subtler than hurt or longing - something perhaps only communicable by the singular mood Mint Julep have carved out for themselves. The central territory of Stray Fantasies exudes the latent dancefloor sensibilities of Keith Kenniff as a producer exemplified in the club-ready synth-leads of \u003ci\u003eJust for Today\u003c\/i\u003e and the low end kick drum patterns of \u003ci\u003eEscape\u003c\/i\u003e and \u003ci\u003eVakaras\u003c\/i\u003e both of which strike with harder physicality than anything the duo has done to date (due in part to the engineering of The Shins' Yuuki Matthews). Issuing an explanation that closes the gap between the pair's collaborative bombast, and the relative pastorality of their individual efforts, Keith explains \"Hollie grew up listening to a lot of industrial music and we both listened to a lot of punk but also growing up a lot in the late '70s and '80s we both have a lot of pop music from the time in our blood. We both listen to a lot of IDM and electronic music as well so I feel like our music is a marriage of those different things, song elements from pop influences mixed with production from the more instrumental and experimental side of things.\" \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eAs such, Mint Julep encapsulates a feeling often misattributed to youthfulness, a kind of dark and sensual liberation that most people regardless of age partake in after hours when the sun is down, the mood is thick, and the \"adulting\" is over for the day. But as the night fades and the sun reapproaches, the mood gets woozy, and the scene is set aglow in the four A.M. half-light embodied by the shoegaze strumming of \u003ci\u003eTranslations\u003c\/i\u003e. The haze intensifies on \u003ci\u003eStill Waters\u003c\/i\u003e a song whose opening bass throbs tease malevolence before giving way to the shadowy sweetness of a buzzed late-night drive with a new love. 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Similar in its baritone gravel to Bill Callahan, a hero of his, it rumbles in your conscience, a righteous sound that marks him as an artist for our tumultuous times, when sanity seems absent from popular discussions. His voice is ideally suited to confront a topic as large and as ominous as the \u003ci\u003eAnthropocene\u003c\/i\u003e Age. That term is relatively new, reportedly coined in the 1960s but popularized only in the new century to designate a new epoch in the earth’s history, when man has exerted a permanent — and, many would argue, an incredibly deleterious — change in the environment. \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe songs on \u003ci\u003eAnthropocene\u003c\/i\u003e, his first album for Western Vinyl, are direct and poetic, outraged and measured, taking in the entire fucked-up world from his fixed point of view. Oren attracted the attention of Ken Coomer, the former drummer for Wilco and a producer in Nashville. Together, the duo assembled a backing band featuring some of the city's finest session musicians, including keyboard player Michael Webb (John Fogerty), singer Maureen Murphy (Zac Brown Band), and guitarists Sam Wilson (Sons of Bill) and Laur Jaomets (Sturgill Simpson). \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eLP - Black Vinyl with Download.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eLP+ - Limited Coloured Vinyl with Download.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Western Vinyl","offers":[{"title":"LP.","offer_id":50449699701067,"sku":"1019530","price":22.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"LP","offer_id":50449699930443,"sku":"1019531","price":22.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0867\/1120\/6219\/files\/c6577190-9b92-4208-9766-583ff499fbac_thumbnail_4096.jpg?v=1727105880"},{"product_id":"in-a-deep-and-dreamless-sleep","title":"In a Deep and Dreamless Sleep","description":"\u003cp\u003eFor fans of Alvvays, School of Seven Bells, Tamaryn, Chairlift and Cocteau Twins. Created slowly over a years-long span that encompassed the recording of 2019’s \u003ci\u003eStray Fantasies\u003c\/i\u003e, wife and husband duo Hollie and Keith Kenniff deliver In a Deep and Dreamless Sleep, a distinctly hazier chapter of their technicolour pop venture Mint Julep. Where the former album bore a crystalline latticework of defined pop structure, the latter blunts the sharpness and softens the glare, striking a balance between songcraft, and Hollie’s solo material, as well as Keith’s output as Goldmund.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003ci\u003eIn a Deep and Dreamless Sleep\u003c\/i\u003e assumes a more aerated form, exuding a heavy fog of shoegaze sensibility, though the infectious pop know-how of its precursor remains firmly intact. Somewhat counter to its title, \u003ci\u003eIn a Deep and Dreamless Sleep\u003c\/i\u003e is rife with dreamworld inclinations in which waking and sleeping, loving and leaving, living and dying, are all interchangeable. The album is imbued with the soft opiation of oncoming love - or perhaps that’s the mournfulness of a love in its twilight. Or, further still, that feeling is the spousal duo nurturing their love against the backdrop of their busy lives. \u003ci\u003eIn a Deep and Dreamless Sleep\u003c\/i\u003e is a window into an intoxicatingly romantic parallel world the Kenniffs have constructed out of analog synths, masterful sound design, nectar-drenched hooks, and airy vocals that wade way out into a sea of texture. 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There is a moment on \u003ci\u003eSides\u003c\/i\u003e, the new album from Richmond, Virginia-based duo Lean Year, in which a hospital room floor is filled with white chrysanthemums. This imagery, based on an opiate-induced hallucination experienced by vocalist Emilie Rex’s mother as she recovered from surgery, is a perfect encapsulation of the band’s second album: dreamlike and beautiful, yet burdened with cold, stark reality. Sides is a harrowing journey through realms of grief and memory, a meditation woven into a tapestry of synth pads, woodwinds, and Rex’s instantly recognizable voice.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe duo of Rex and Rick Alverson who also works as a film director (The Mountain, Entertainment, The Comedy) originally set out to write an album about conflict, but during the writing and recording process, they were confronted with a number of personal tragedies. Alverson lost both of his parents in rapid succession, Rex’s mother received a cancer diagnosis, and the couple’s beloved family dog, Orca, died. These events transformed the album into an exploration of loss an attempt at processing the painful, complex, and private emotions that bubble to the surface when confronted with death. “We thought we’d do a concept album called Sides where we could reflect on all of the division in the world, and some in our own families, but then COVID transformed everything \/ everyone, and we suffered our own specific losses. The record became about loss and grief,” Rex explains. “In this way, the title Sides was still appropriate: our individual grief and collective grief, the margins of before and after, the act and feeling of during and enduring. It felt like straddling a threshold between two opposing sides the moment before conflict and the moment after it passes, life and death, the act of living and the memory of the act. Grief feels like a contention between what you knew and what you now know, and often both feel real and unreal at once.”\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003ci\u003eSides\u003c\/i\u003e produced by Alverson alongside Erik Hall (In Tall Buildings) and featuring contributions from Elliot Bergman (Nomo, Wild Belle) and Joseph Shabason (Destroyer, The War on Drugs) has a distinctly cinematic quality, perhaps due in part to Alverson’s other career.Moments of jazz, slowcore, and dirgelike R\u0026amp;B find their way into the sorrowful, ambient suite, lulling the listener into a state of calm while the lyrics speak of ghosts, childhood, and mortality. Despite the gravity of the subject matter, Sides succeeds in mastering a balancing act between pathos and pop. Each song is indelible and haunting, with melodies that have the kind of broad appeal reminiscent of Karen Dalton, Aldous Harding, and FKA twigs.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Western Vinyl","offers":[{"title":"Black | LP","offer_id":50457883312459,"sku":"1158054","price":27.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"CD","offer_id":50457882001739,"sku":"1158053","price":12.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0867\/1120\/6219\/files\/9e26c6c2-d2c5-4936-aa46-d9db442956c4_thumbnail_4096.jpg?v=1727208820"},{"product_id":"half-mirror","title":"Half Mirror","description":"\u003cp\u003eOn his debut album \u003ci\u003eHalf Mirror\u003c\/i\u003e, Matthew O’Connell superimposes warm analog synths onto self-described “confessional folk” with a simultaneously cosmic and earthly outcome. Tracked at home in the mountains of North Carolina using a vintage tape delay, electric guitar, and a self-designed synthesizer named ‘Balsam,’ Half Mirror is at once a lonesome push-pull of electronics humanized by folk elements, and folk music made alien by electronic adornments. \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eO’Connell’s own story is just as captivatingly segmented. While growing up on a farm in Palmyra, Indiana, he became obsessed with metal drumming and spent most of his free time practicing in the garage, occasionally recording on four-track tape machines with his brother Joe (Elephant Micah). Reflecting on those formative years, O’Connell says, “I think that period instilled two things in me: a long attention span, and the ability to work obsessively on something in solitude.” It’s these monastic inclinations that helped form the spirit of Half Mirror. While in college, his interest in math led him to participate in a six-month intensive study program in Budapest, Hungary. There, he continued writing song fragments on a borrowed guitar and fiddling with musical electronics at the Kitchen Budapest a collective of artists, theorists, and coders. In 2011, his interest in electronics and engineering led him to Asheville, North Carolina, where he worked for Moog Music calibrating and building synthesizers, and testing vintage analog delay chips by day. At night he would spend his time building homemade synths and writing songs. It was here in Asheville that he began the bulk of the work on Half Mirror, imbuing his music with the qualities of his environment almost by necessity. O’Connell made a deliberate effort to keep the album's production sparse. His interest in restraint stems in part from his love of albums like\u003ci\u003e Nearly God\u003c\/i\u003e by Tricky and\u003ci\u003e Ghost Tropic\u003c\/i\u003e by Songs: Ohia, both of which feature uncomfortably bare vocals and uncanny production that commands the listener’s attention. Additional inspiration came from Mark Hollis' striking minimalism, and the freeform songwriting of Arthur Russell and John Martyn. Filtering the poetry of fractured, imperfect memories through a lush, yet sparse palette of sounds, Half Mirror evokes a profoundly moody sense of place: the fog heavy in the mountain peaks, the dew present on early morning walks, and the musky smell of rhododendrons in the air. \u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Western Vinyl","offers":[{"title":"Black | LP","offer_id":50459539800395,"sku":"1126834","price":27.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"CD","offer_id":50459540226379,"sku":"1126835","price":14.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0867\/1120\/6219\/files\/42f448fc-a9d8-41e3-b3f2-b8acc8b1c209_thumbnail_4096.jpg?v=1727224117"},{"product_id":"a-mold-for-the-bell","title":"A Mold For The Bell","description":"\u003cp\u003eFor Fans Of: J. Tillman, Phosphorescent, Low, Damien Jurado, Bill Callhan.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“It’s going to be hard to talk about this when it’s done.” So begins \u003ci\u003eA Mold For The Bell\u003c\/i\u003e, the new album from Colorado singer-songwriter and producer Logan Farmer. What follows that enigmatic lyric is a collection of stark and ambient folk songs, tethered solely by Farmer’s unadorned vocals, acoustic guitar, and moving embellishments from contributors, including saxophonist Joseph Shabason (who also mixed the album) and renowned harpist Mary Lattimore. With the help of Grammy-nominated producer Andrew Berlin (Gregory Alan Isakov), Farmer tracked all of the vocal and guitar parts over two days in the early months of 2021. The tracks were recorded quickly, live in the studio to capture the raw intimacy and immediacy of Farmer’s live performances. The rest of the album’s creation occurred remotely, over texts, phone calls, and emails with Shabason and a handful of other musicians, as wildfires, insurrections and the pandemic raged around them.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“I was working at a bookstore that winter,” Farmer explains, “and I’d walk to my shift every day, obsessing over lyrics and early mixes in a cheap pair of earbuds.” These daily walks would take him past a church, where he’d often stop on the sidewalk and listen to the bells at the top of the hour. “I’ve always loved the sound of church bells, but as the situation worsened, what began as a comfort began to feel ominous, almost threatening.” This experience, along[1]side influences as disparate as Tarkovsky’s film Andrei Rublev and the novels of Olga Tokarczuk, led to a collection of songs that are similarly foreboding, expanding upon the stark and spacious universe of Farmer’s last album (2020’s \u003ci\u003eStill No Mother)\u003c\/i\u003e to reveal an atmosphere that’s even more oppressively still, like an abandoned Victorian home.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Western Vinyl","offers":[{"title":"Black | LP","offer_id":50464935346507,"sku":"1164887","price":23.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"CD","offer_id":50464936526155,"sku":"1164886","price":14.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0867\/1120\/6219\/files\/eb975a95-3c8e-4277-9052-acc44d658e8f_thumbnail_4096.jpg?v=1727280334"},{"product_id":"we-all-have-places-that-we-miss","title":"We All Have Places That We Miss","description":"\u003cp\u003eor Fans Of: Grouper, Julianna Barwick, Christina Vantzou, Stars of the Lid, This Mortal Coil, Cocteau Twins.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eHollie Kenniff’s second LP for Western Vinyl, \u003ci\u003eWe All Have Places That We Miss,\u003c\/i\u003e is a gallery of cloudlike synths, seraphic strings, and humming guitars, all coaxed into cohesion by Hollie’s own wordless singing. The album’s 2021 precursor, \u003ci\u003eThe Quiet Drift,\u003c\/i\u003e landed on Bandcamp’s Best Ambient list alongside the description “...deep tones of drone, dream pop harmonies, and new age’s bright tranquility, Kenniff evokes the forests, lakes and rivers of her past and present surroundings with a zen patience.” Here on \u003ci\u003ePlaces...\u003c\/i\u003e she strides even further into reminiscence, seeking and commemorating the fondly tragic ache of half-remembered locales lost to time: A grandparent’s dim living room from an ambiguous decade; a lonely clearing beside a trail we can’t remember if we walked or just dreamt; the calming light of a movie that aired years before we were born though our feelings insist we were there with the characters. We All Have Places That We Miss transmutes such glimmers into a palpable sonic kingdom that can be revisited at will, recalling the pedal-board ambience of Windy and Carl, Adam Wiltzie, and Liz Harris.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Western Vinyl","offers":[{"title":"Black | LP","offer_id":50466855354699,"sku":"2002603","price":27.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"CD","offer_id":50466855321931,"sku":"2002602","price":14.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0867\/1120\/6219\/files\/We_All_Have_Places_That_We_Miss_bad055fc_thumbnail_4096.jpg?v=1727325900"},{"product_id":"labyrinth-9","title":"Labyrinth","description":"\u003cp\u003eOn \u003ci\u003eLabyrinth\u003c\/i\u003e, Heather Woods Broderick serves as our reflective host, subverting expectations of conventional songcraft with impressionistic language and quietly relentless explorations of the human experience that’s at once light and dark, more circular and less linear. “Many of us yearn for stillness and peace, as an escape from the movement all around us,” she explains when asked about the themes of the album. “Yet movement is perpetual, happening all the time on some level. It’s as wild as the wind, yet eternally predictable in its inevitability. It is linear in part, but infinite in its circuitry. Our lives just punctuate it.”\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eBroderick began crafting Labyrinth in March 2020, when most forms of movement were brought to a creeching halt. The Maine-born, Los Angeles-based songwriter who, in addition to her work as a solo musician, built a life playing and touring with acts such as Sharon Van Etten, Beth Orton, Damien Jurado, and Efterklang was suddenly forced off the road for the first time in her career. She used this disruption as an opportunity to pare down her creation process and construct the scaffolding for Labyrinth in her apartment. Employing only the most crucial tools at her disposal, Broderick found herself opening different artistic doors as she focused on sharpening her recording skills, capturing the majority of the album on her own before finishing the remainder with co-producer D. James Goodwin.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eFor all of Broderick’s sage lyricism and vocal authority, \u003ci\u003eLabyrinth\u003c\/i\u003e never provides the listener with any easy answers. If the image of the labyrinth represents the enormity of modern life and the difficulty of navigating it, Heather Woods Broderick provides a guide to its endless kinetic wonders of being present, aware, and  connected despite its disconnects. She describes the texture of its walls, its indifferent rhythms, and the inherent poeticism of feeling lost amid the dead-ends and unexpected turns. At this point in our history, perhaps that’s all we need to keep moving.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eFor fans of Sharon Van Etten, Julien Baker, Julia Jacklin, Weyes Blood.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Western Vinyl","offers":[{"title":"Black LP","offer_id":50466899001675,"sku":"2008301","price":27.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"Grey LP","offer_id":50466899034443,"sku":"2008302","price":27.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"CD","offer_id":50466898968907,"sku":"2008299","price":14.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0867\/1120\/6219\/files\/Heather_Woods_Broderick_-_Labyrinth__8e45a4eb_thumbnail_4096.jpg?v=1727329526"},{"product_id":"sun-glories","title":"Sun Glories","description":"\u003cp\u003eOn his new album \u003ci\u003eSun Glories\u003c\/i\u003e, Oakland-based musician, composer, and producer Chuck Johnson explores themes of time, memory, and illusion through his unique blend of pedal steel, synths, organs, strings, and drums. Opening track \"Teleos\" explores the linear and cyclical qualities of time itself through episodic sections and motifs, which evoke the bittersweet relief and nostalgia that flood the senses with the arrival of the first warm and sunny day after a long, dark, and rainy stretch of winter. According to Johnson, the piece \"took a surprising turn when I started adding guitar textures that recall the music I played and listened to when I was much younger.\" Evocative fields of guitars and pedal steel conspire to spark an intoxicating palimpsest of memories, before being ushered forward by an improvisatory and propulsive drum performance from Ryan Jewell.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe guitar-based \"Sylvanshine\" captures a moment between improvisation and nascent composition, elevated by a radiant glissandi performance by electro-acoustic saxophonist Cole Pulice. \"This track is an appreciative nod to Rachika Nayar, whose recent works have re-opened the electric guitar for me and inspired me to play that instrument again after a hiatus of several years,\" explains Johnson.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eOn \"Ground Wave\" Johnson revisits the composition technique of weaving a small string ensemble into clouds of pedal steel, similar to his approach on \"Red Branch Bell' from his 2021 LP \u003ci\u003eThe Cinder Grove\u003c\/i\u003e. \"When the pedal steel solo comes in at about 3:30, I wanted to make it feel like the ground suddenly disappearing from under the listener’s feet.\" To achieve his vision for this piece, Johnson work with cellist Clarice Jensen (who Johnson has worked with on film scores and in live performances), and violinist Emily Packard (who Johnson knew from his time at Mills College), both of whom layered multiple parts to create a virtual chamber ensemble.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe album concludes with \"Broken Spectre,\" a play on a term describing a ghostly optical illusion caused by sunlight bending over a mountain covered in mist or clouds. Once again Johnson's gorgeous pedal steel melodies build into a hypnotic swirl, which develops an epic sense of grandeur with the addition of Ryan Jewell's anthemic drumming. As the mist clears and the sun breaks through, this final track leaves the listener with a feeling of hope and resolution.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Western Vinyl","offers":[{"title":"Black LP","offer_id":50474567795019,"sku":"2206000","price":29.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0867\/1120\/6219\/files\/Sun_Glories_9f77f60b_thumbnail_4096.jpg?v=1727436658"},{"product_id":"big-earth-energy","title":"Big Earth Energy","description":"\u003cp\u003eHaving crested the west coast modular-ambient wave in just a few releases including 2018’s \u003ci\u003eSharing Waves\u003c\/i\u003e on the influential LA experimental imprint Leaving Records - Sean Hellfritsch has swapped the mossy analog synth improvisations of his prior output for refined melodic arrangements dressed in sprightly dawn-of-digital textures. \u003ci\u003eBig Earth Energy\u003c\/i\u003e plumbs the depths of Hellfritsch’s multimedia mind and naturalist heart, spinning an impressionistic narrative world off of cultural touchstones like the PC game MYST, and the work of Studio Ghibli composer Joe Hisaishi. Inspired by the aforementioned, and guided by Hellfritsch’s experience as an animator and filmmaker, \u003ci\u003eBig Earth Energy\u003c\/i\u003e is the soundtrack to a hypothetical video game with a pointedly ecological premise, and a twist of psychedelic charm. In Hellfritsch’s imagined virtual journey, the player assumes the perspective of a treefrog sixty-five-million years ago, hopping epochs with each new level, forming a comprehensive picture of the massive changes the planet has gone through over the eons. The ultimate goal of the game is not to amass resources, defeat enemies, or gain power, but to fully witness the unfolding of one of the biggest systems of energy imaginable - or as the album’s creator puts it - “to explore the incomprehensibly vast energetic expression and mystery that is Earth.”\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003ci\u003eBig Earth Energy\u003c\/i\u003e is steeped in exploratory RPG intrigue, possibility, and contemplation, lovingly overlaid with Miyazaki-an sentiments and aesthetics. The through-composed, organic, meandering synthesis heard on previous Cool Maritime albums has been fully replaced by meticulous polygonal arrangements that recall the computerized sheen of late 80s work by composers like Hiroshi Yoshimura, and Yoichiro Yoshikawa using true-to-period gear no less.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eEven given its referentiality, \u003ci\u003eBig Earth Energy\u003c\/i\u003e comes off as forward-facing where so much reminiscent music remains fixed to a bygone moment in pop culture. 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Produced by Psychic TV's Jeff Berner, the album is an emotional seance held through an unearthly haze of menacing trip hop, ambient electronica, and synth-based noise rock. A sense of longing and hopelessness in the face of monumental loss comes through almost instantly on opening track \"Department of Blood,\" in which lead vocalist Travis Johnson sardonically indicts both neoliberalism and \"whatever the lord is,\" beneath a grim collage of processed electronics and a sinister drum machine beat. The David Berman-inspired \"Heaven Chords, was written shortly after the iconic songwriter's death, and atmospheric track \"Where the Art is Hung,\" is a haunting lament over the omnipresence of technology and surveillance in the modern world. Spirit in the Room is no lighthearted journey, but the band's playfulness and obvious natural chemistry keeps the collection from being burdened by its own solemnity. \"Unlike the first album, where we'd barely played live before we recorded, we got to take some of the less electronic songs out on the road in the fall of 2021,\" Johnson explains. \"Some tracks had been incubating for over a year in our rehearsals. We could feel them change and open up in a live setting, so when we got back home, we went back to the drawing board on a lot of them. Some got scrapped altogether and we haven't played them since. You get an idea in your head of what it is, but it's something else when you're trying to hold other people's attention. Every part needed to feel earned or necessary.\" On the one hand, Spirit in the Room is a harrowing journey through a Bosch-like landscape of illness, global capital, and human-caused destruction. On the other hand, it's a room full of friends who are simply trying to make it through the day and process this world we've created. When asked why this album needed to be made, Johnson put it best: \"None of us can stand to not make music is all, really.\"\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Western Vinyl","offers":[{"title":"Clear LP","offer_id":50482976293195,"sku":"2029992","price":27.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"CD","offer_id":50482976784715,"sku":"2030000","price":14.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0867\/1120\/6219\/files\/Spirit_in_the_Room_c634b970_thumbnail_4096.jpg?v=1727559078"},{"product_id":"disappearing-coin","title":"Disappearing Coin","description":"\u003cp\u003eIn 2019, Stephen Steinbrink discovered a short YouTube video of a street magician who approaches a highschooler walking home in Barstow, California. “Here, let me show you my idea,” he says, as he places a quarter on the kid’s hand. The magician performs some relaxed flourishes, and the coin vanishes. In silence, the kid stares at his hand at the nothing where there once, indisputably, was something, until his wonder finds a single word: “Cool.” The title of \u003ci\u003eDisappearing Coin\u003c\/i\u003e, the new album from Oakland songwriter Stephen Steinbrink, comes from this short clip. “When I look at it now,” he says, “I relate to the kid, who’s obviously uneasy in his body, and going through the experience of being a teenager in the early 2000s growing up in a bleak desert town like I did. I also relate to the coin, an inanimate disc of possibility. And I relate to the magician, an absurd facilitator of sending what is tactile and concrete into the wispy conceptual realm.” “I’ve watched it probably a hundred times,” he says. “It cracked me up but also blew my mind open the feeling of wonder I experienced watching this video became a guide as I navigated new ways of staying in the realm of what’s both real and magical.”\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe album can be seen as a 42 minute session of show and tell, the manifestation of Steinbrink repeating the mantra of “Here, let me show you my idea” to himself over and over. \u003ci\u003eDisappearing Coin\u003c\/i\u003e is at once a welcome return for the veteran Steinbrink and the debut of a totally new artist, one who has found a new path to himself with new goals of openness, curiosity, and self-acceptance.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Western Vinyl","offers":[{"title":"Black LP","offer_id":50483670286667,"sku":"2026719","price":27.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0867\/1120\/6219\/files\/Stephen_Steinbrink_-_Disappearing_Coin_2b025015_thumbnail_4096.jpg?v=1727571410"},{"product_id":"a-flor-de-piel-2","title":"A Flor de Piel","description":"\u003cp\u003eA Flor de Piel, the new album from singer- 6 songwriter and composer Maria Monica Gutierrez (aka Montañera), is a meditative journey of self-discovery across oceans, time, and the traditional confines of genre. Originally from Bogota, Colombia, Gutierrez began the album as a way to explore her identity after a difficult move to London left her feeling untethered in a strange new place. The result is an examination of the immigrant’s experience through a rich sonic lens of ambient pop textures, inspired by sources as disparate as Colombian traditional music, traditional Senegalese music, and whalesong from the depths of the Atlantic. The album begins with the title track “A Flor de Piel,” Gutierrez’s indelible vocals floating above a vast expanse before being joined by deep, silky bass and the plucks of a koto-like stringed instrument. “The song was inspired by traditional Japanese music,” Gutierrez explains, “It’s about making my heart a little lighter; I know that inside of me I can be as light as mist in heat, I can be fragile as the song of a sparrow.” That sentiment perfectly encapsulates much of what makes A Flor de Piel so special. The album comes with a message of healing for all people, without forgetting the centuries of struggle and hurt that form the bedrock of modern society. The track “Santa Mar,” for instance, is inspired by the musical traditions of afropacific women in Colombia, and the crucial role that they play as peacebuilders in the region. Backed by a hypnotic beat, the song features contributions from marimba player Cankita, alongside Las Cantadoras de Yerba Buena, an all-female vocal group that utilizes traditional Afro-Colombian music to preserve their history and promote peace. Standout track “Como Una Rama” is a futuristic take on bullerengue, a traditional style of music and dance originally developed by Maroon communities on Colombia’s Caribbean coast. Deeply affecting, the song combines Gutierrez’s indomitable voice with electronics that recall Steve Reich's rhythmic minimalism. “Cruzar,” the final track on the album, feels almost like a lullaby, with a meditative harmonic style and trance-like vocal melody. “The lyrics,” Gutierrez explains, “are a personal reminder of what is important to me: healing, letting go, breathing, evaporating, forgetting, changing, crystallizing.” Across the 40-odd minutes of A Flor de Piel, Gutierrez triumphs at recontextualizing traditional sounds and sentiments into a modern form using synth-based and electronic textures. It’s a fitting representation for the personal struggles that the artist endured during her move to London. Rather than dwelling solely on the past Guitierrez uses A Flor de Piel to summon the strength of past generations, and forge a new path forward. As she describes it, “The album has accompanied me through inner journeys of finding myself in a new territory of redefining myself, of remembering who I am in a strange place.” As we drift towards an increasingly frightening and uncertain future, perhaps Montañera’s A Flor de Piel is exactly what we need: something to give us strength, to bring us peace, and to accompany our journey into a strange new place.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Western Vinyl","offers":[{"title":"Black LP","offer_id":50489846464843,"sku":"2143705","price":29.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0867\/1120\/6219\/files\/Montanera_-_A_Flor_de_Piel_6fd84155_thumbnail_4096.jpg?v=1727644485"},{"product_id":"ears","title":"Ears","description":"\u003cp\u003eListeners familiar with Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith's previous album 'Euclid' will no doubt notice her heavier use of vocals on her new album 'Ears'. On all but one song, her gently ecstatic swells of vocals emerge to soar over a dense jungle of synths and woodwinds. After initially composing on a Buchla analog synth, she wrote arrangements for a woodwind quintet, added vocals, and further refined the pieces with granular synthesis techniques she developed in her sound design work (she contributed sound design to Panda Bear's 'Boys Latin' video, and handled sound design and original compositions for Brasilia co-written by and starring Reggie Watts). Kinetic arpeggios of synths pulse, often buoying her graceful vocal mantras, while woodwinds breathe and flutter, emulating the wildlife Smith observed while growing up on the West Coast (she even studied recordings of slowed down bird calls prior to composing these pieces). Though some of her gestures echo the musical tropes used by early minimalist composers, the world she creates on 'Ears' is uniquely hypnotic and full of life, not unlike Miyzaki's film Nausicaä, which she cites as an inspiration.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Western Vinyl","offers":[{"title":"LP","offer_id":50490154025291,"sku":"399169","price":24.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"CD","offer_id":50490154320203,"sku":"399168","price":12.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0867\/1120\/6219\/files\/EARS_64796ac5_thumbnail_4096.jpg?v=1727653274"},{"product_id":"glider","title":"Glider","description":"\u003cp\u003eHeather Woods Broderick excels at distilling her experiences into a soulful melancholy that's enduring both for it's intimate relatable moments and its persistent sense of mystery.  Her uncanny ear for evocative production and gorgeous vocal harmonies serves her well on her new album Glider.  Throughout the album, the rich dreamlike atmospheres she creates hint at a darkness looming on the horizon, while the singularity of her ethereal voice always seems to linger long after the music has stopped.  As a talented multi-instrumentalist and vocalist, Heather has had the opportunity to record and tour with plenty of incredible artists including Horse Feathers, Efterklang, and Sharon Van Etten, which has kept her moving house and traveling around the world for much of the past decade. As a talented multi-instrumentalist and vocalist, Heather has had the opportunity to record and tour with plenty of incredible artists including Horse Feathers, Efterklang, and Sharon Van Etten, which has kept her moving house and traveling around the world for much of the past decade.  Though the songs on Glider aren't explicitly about touring, her life on the road provides the backdrop and context for her songs that are often about relationships that naturally fade as two people grow apart. More confident and self-assured than ever, songs like \"Fall Hard\" evolve from vulnerable bare piano and vocals to hypnotizing swells of vocals reminiscent of Grouper or Cocteau Twins' Elizabeth Fraser.  Her voice soars in stride with a wall of guitars on \"Wyoming\", while \"Mama Shelter\" introduces a gentle groove as Heather conjures the sensuality of Stevie Nicks.  The album closes with the heartbreaking \"All for a Love\", ending with the refrain \"I can see our love is dragging you down.\"  As dark as the sentiment can be, Heather always seems to be leaning into the light.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Western Vinyl","offers":[{"title":"CD","offer_id":50492999074123,"sku":"390262","price":12.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0867\/1120\/6219\/files\/5dccce23-dec0-4e6a-853a-5c1ca9b62669_thumbnail_4096.jpg?v=1727694852"},{"product_id":"everybody-s-a-good-dog","title":"Everybody's A Good Dog","description":"\u003cp\u003eShaun Fleming is a member of Foxygen. The album features Felcia Douglass of Ava Luna and Sam France of Foxygen. 'Everybody's A Good Dog' is the first true realization of Shaun Fleming's Little Shop of Horrors -meets-Aladdin Sane vision, recorded in a proper studio with an assortment of guest artists, horn section, and string ensemble (all firsts for Fleming). The resulting 11 tracks are a sky-scraping sound kaleidoscope, touched with euphoric instrumentation and dark lyricism. Just as Diane Coffee's debut LP, 2013's 'My Friend Fish,' was inspired by Fleming's move from sunny California to New York City. The songs on 'Everybody's A Good Dog' capture this sense of clarity, channeling the New York Dolls or T-Rex at their strutting-est and Meatloaf at his most theatrical, with shades of Motown-worthy soul. The gentle psychedellia on opener 'Spring Breathes' gives way to a pounding prog breakdown, 'Mayflower' leads with a monster funk-fueled horn riff, while on 'Tams Up' Fleming fronts his own one-man doo-wop group.LP features deluxe packaging including embossed text and printed inserts and Download.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Western Vinyl","offers":[{"title":"CD","offer_id":50493154197835,"sku":"390868","price":12.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0867\/1120\/6219\/files\/e7ee896a-006c-40d6-b732-a535807dc169_thumbnail_4096.jpg?v=1727695828"},{"product_id":"split-stones","title":"Split Stones","description":"\u003cp\u003eBrothers Jared and Michael Bell have been making music together as Lymbyc Systym since 2004. On their new album Split Stones they explore the power of disparate halves coming together to form a unique whole. The idea serves as an analogy for Jared and Mike's relationship, Lymbyc's sound, and the mind\/body dichotomy. All of the songs on Split Stones were created using arpeggiators but with a distinctly Lymbyc twist. Throughout the album the arpeggiators act as living machines - scientic clarity in harmony with human uncertainty. As Jared explains, \"Instead of synching up the arpeggiators, they were recorded freely with countless variations, then edited together manually. It made for an incredibly dynamic and organic rhythm that set the compositional tone for the rest of the record.\" The resulting collection of songs is the duo's most up-tempo, vibrant, and danceable album to date. Recorded largely in their respective home studios, the duo went to Dallas to track live drums at Elmwood Recording, where they mixed their previous albums Shutter Release and Field Studies with John Congleton. The album opens with \"Generated Bodies\", a song that starts as a colossal instrumental rock track, but quickly evolves into spirals of chordal synths and electronic beats, mirroring the band's metamorphosis over the past decade. Other songs like \"Split Stones\" and \"Pulses\" find the band experimenting with longer cinematic song structures, leaving behind the short \"pop\" song structures they've delivered on previous albums. The album veers into full on dance mode on \"Paraboloid\" before things wind down with the sunny groove of album closer \"Scientific Romance\".\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Western Vinyl","offers":[{"title":"LP","offer_id":50493598531915,"sku":"393785","price":19.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0867\/1120\/6219\/files\/92601597-7dca-44a3-9ddc-6a28892191b1_thumbnail_4096.jpg?v=1727699184"},{"product_id":"blast-off-through-the-wicker","title":"Blast Off Through The Wicker","description":"\u003cp\u003eDub, Krautrock, and 70’s Highlife inspired debut. \u003ci\u003eBlast Off Through the Wicker\u003c\/i\u003e documents Art Feynman looking for life in the lifeless, questioning what it means to be living. There is a calm, disciplined pocket to be felt in everything Feynman does; krautrock slink, staccato bounce, and pentatonic bursts of Nigerian Highlife fuzz pour on the temporal canvas with unquestionable ease, never falling in the wrong place. Even more admirable is, that his \"canvas\" is a four-track tape recorder, and that\u003ci\u003e Blast Off \u003c\/i\u003efeatures no loops or drum machines despite its aesthetically faithful motorik and afrobeat underpinnings. Nowhere is this fact more surprising than on album standout \u003ci\u003eSlow Down\u003c\/i\u003e which pulses along infectiously with a crunchy backbeat, and deftly arpeggiating bass lines that are so locked-in that it would be hard to fault an unknowing ear for assuming the whole thing is tediously programmed. There are gentler sides to \u003ci\u003eBlast Off\u003c\/i\u003e that conjure the spacey tenderness of Arthur Russell inventively and respectfully, without adopting their muse's palette wholesale. In this regard \u003ci\u003eBlast Off\u003c\/i\u003e is an endearing collection of songs that capture the ear with warm-yet-clear cassette aesthetics and spot-on musicianship, both of which form an angle that points lovingly to Feynman's deep and varied influences. Make no mistake - this one truly is alive. \u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Western Vinyl","offers":[{"title":"LP","offer_id":50495894487371,"sku":"1012903","price":24.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0867\/1120\/6219\/files\/1b3c5e72-3fcc-485d-adec-1eb58c0063ae_thumbnail_4096.jpg?v=1727715573"},{"product_id":"the-kid","title":"The Kid","description":"\u003cp\u003eIn 2017, the musical term “electronic” is nearly obsolete given the ubiquity of computerized processes in producing music. Even so, the prevailing assumption is that musicians working\u003cbr\u003eunder this broad umbrella must be inspired by concepts equally as electrified as their equipment. Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith has demonstrated in her still-blooming discography that this\u003cbr\u003enotion couldn’t be further from the truth, and that more often than not, rich worlds of synthesized sound are born from deep reverence of the natural world. Smith (who by no coincidence, cites\u003cbr\u003enaturalist David Attenborough as a contemporary muse) has embodied such an appreciation on The Kid in as direct and sincere a way as possible by sonically charting the phases of life itself.\u003cbr\u003eThe album, which punctually follows up her 2016 breakthrough \u003ci\u003eEars\u003c\/i\u003e, chronicles four defining cognitive and emotional stages of the human lifespan across four sides of a double LP. The first side takes us through the confused astonishment of a newborn, unaware of itself, existing in an unwitting nirvana. Smith’s music has always woven a youthful thread befitting of the aforementioned subject. Here she articulates it in signature fashion on the track “An Intention,” which serves not only as a soaring spire on \u003ci\u003eThe Kid\u003c\/i\u003e, but on her entire output. There is playfulness here, but it's elevated by an undertone of gravity into something compelling and majestic that is fast becoming Smith’s watermark. The emotional focus of side two is the vital but under reported moment in early youth when we cross the threshold into self awareness. The subject is profound enough to fill an entire album, but rarely makes its way into a single track, indicating Smith’s ambition to broach subtler and deeper subjects than the average composer. This side offers up another highlight in the form of \u003ci\u003eIn The World But Not Of The World\u003c\/i\u003e which serves its subject well with epiphanic, climbing strings and decidedly noisy textures over a near-Bollywood low end pulse. Side three emphasizes a feeling of being confirmed enough in one’s own identity to begin giving back to the formative forces of one’s upbringing, which is arguably the duty that all great artists aim to fulfill. This side ends with the exploratory album cut \u003ci\u003eWho I Am and Why I Am Where I Am\u003c\/i\u003e recorded in a single take without overdubs on the rare EMS Synthi 100 synthesizer. This humble piece of sound design serves as a contrast to side four’s verdant orchestral moments, all written and arranged for the EU-based Stargaze quartet by Smith herself. This final side represents a return to pure being, the kind of wisdom and peace that eludes most of us until the autumn of life. \u003ci\u003eOn To Feel Your Best\u003c\/i\u003e this concept is voiced in the bittersweet refrain “one day I’ll wake up and you won’t be there” which Smith intended to be a grateful acknowledgement of life rather than a melancholy resentment of loss. The song has both effects depending on the mood of the listener, and both interpretations are equally moving. Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith belongs to an ilk of modern musicians who are defined by their commitment to creating experiential albums despite the singles-oriented habits of modern listeners, and here she represents her kind proudly. The subjects on The Kid are not simple to convey, and yet through both emotional tone and lyrical content, Smith does just that. There is a similar gravity to both birth and death, and rarely is that correlation as accurately and enthusiastically mapped as it is here. Alan Watts, another logical inspiration of Smith’s, once expounded that people record themselves to confirm their own existence, and as such, echoes and resonance are reminders that we are alive. “You're not there unless you're recorded,” Watts muses, “if you shout, and it doesn't come back and echo, it didn't happen.” The Kid speaks to this idea directly. As Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith explores her existence through music, she guides us in gleefully contemplating our own.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e2LP - Double Black Vinyl.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e2LP+ - Double Twilight coloured vinyl (transparent blue with solid black and white bits mixed in).\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Western Vinyl","offers":[{"title":"LP | x2.","offer_id":50496019333451,"sku":"1014176","price":24.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"LP | x2","offer_id":50496018710859,"sku":"1014177","price":27.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"CD","offer_id":50496016875851,"sku":"1014175","price":14.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0867\/1120\/6219\/files\/881fef17-34a5-4c73-9775-a7ac64eb121b_thumbnail_4096.jpg?v=1727716456"},{"product_id":"lean-year","title":"Lean Year","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003ci\u003eLean Year\u003c\/i\u003e is the debut, self-titled record by Richmond, Virginia based singer Emilie Rex and filmmaker \/ musician Rick Alverson (director of Entertainment staring Neil Hamburger, and the cult-drama \u003ci\u003eThe Comedy\u003c\/i\u003e staring Tim Heidecker). What for Rex was a departure from the structured life of academia toward the uncertain contours of a creative field, for Alverson was a return to form. Having released 5 albums with his previous band Spokane, Alverson took a 10-year hiatus from music to write and direct feature films. These departures and approaches bring a transience and listlessness to the album, like a walk interrupted by both curiosity and caution. Rex and Alverson co-wrote the album over the course of a year at their home in Richmond, VA and recorded it in three sessions at the home studio of Chicago musician \/ engineer Erik Hall (In Tall Buildings, NOMO), who also performs on the record. Alverson and Hall co-produced the album's ten tracks, drawing on both Hall's and Elliot Bergman's (NOMO) arsenal of instruments.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eLP - With Download.\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Western Vinyl","offers":[{"title":"LP","offer_id":50496211779915,"sku":"1018547","price":24.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0867\/1120\/6219\/files\/b9d133a8-37cd-4862-9fcf-057ff9f6b2de_thumbnail_4096.jpg?v=1727718430"},{"product_id":"where-in-our-woods","title":"Where In Our Woods","description":"\u003cp\u003e'Where In Our Woods' features vocals by Will Oldham aka Bonnie Prince Billy. For the past 14 years, Elephant Micah's Joseph O'Connell has quietly self-released his music, sometimes collaborating with the psych-folk imprint Time-Lag Records or other very small labels. Despite the project's almost secretive status, Elephant Micah has repeatedly caught the attention of NPR, and has been championed by an impressive cohort of like-minded artists including Jason Molina, Hiss Golden Messenger, Dark Dark Dark, and Hurray for the Riff Raff. Where in Our Woods, the 12th Elephant Micah album and the first for Western Vinyl, is defined by its limited palette. The arrangements foreground nylon-string guitar and an antique portable pump organ. A stripped-down drum set, a baritone ukulele, a toy recorder, and harmony vocals (sung by Will Oldham, a friend of and key influence on O'Connell) round out the sound. This sparse ensemble leaves O'Connell's voice room to breathe, while elevating and magnifying the poetry of his songs. The album follows an ensemble cast of human and animal characters as they negotiate the supernatural and the mundane: \"Light Side\" catalogues a friend's search for sublime experience through a self-described \"redneck mysticism\" involving in drugs, sex, and travel. \"Rare Beliefs\" and \"Demise of the Bible Birds\" explore the world of a \"Bible Bird Man\" from Noblesville, Indiana, who trained exotic birds to perform stunning Christian-themed stunts. \"Albino Animals\" is a modern day journalistic ballad, summarizing three stories found in one edition of O'Connell's hometown newspaper: readers responding to the recent slaying of an albino deer, husband-and-wife meth cooks escape federal prosecution based on an error in legal process, and a rower with local roots attempts atransatlantic passage that ends in disaster. The album closes with \"Slow Time Vultures,\" which was inspired by the descent of hundreds of migrating vultures on O'Connell's parents' farm in southern Indiana. At the time of this avian congress, state government was instituting the observance of daylight savings time for the first time in Indiana. As O'Connell explains, \"Maybe it goes without saying that the unexplained appearance of a sky full of vultures might seem like a harbinger of doom. I wondered if it related to the time change. At its core, this song is in the tradition of American country songs that express indignation toward the idea of progress.\" Throughout the album, O'Connell deftly transforms the stuff of everyday American life into a series of entrancing meditations on culture, nature, religion, and modernity.   \"A beautiful slice of narcoleptic folk...\" WIRE  \/\/  \"A stealthy album, which rewards your patience.\" UNCUT  \/\/  \"Haunted Americana at its lo-fi best. 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Her new album \u003ci\u003eArgonauta\u003c\/i\u003e, is a collection of songs about her struggle with the grief of losing her mother, while also navigating a new relationship, and ultimately trying to figure out what the new normal is for her life. \u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Western Vinyl","offers":[{"title":"LP","offer_id":50497137049931,"sku":"1034991","price":22.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0867\/1120\/6219\/files\/b28c18e4-505b-4049-aca6-6847b16ca427_thumbnail_4096.jpg?v=1727726494"},{"product_id":"light","title":"Light","description":"\u003cp\u003eIt’s hard to imagine that Juliana Daugherty’s softness and subtlety could materialize amid the tumult of current-day Charlottesville, VA, but every mode of being continues in the people of Charlottesville, as it does elsewhere, despite the impressions headlines might give. Despite thesocietal ills that dominate our screens, private struggles still exist, and Daugherty’s debut \u003ci\u003eLight \u003c\/i\u003egives them palatable, manageable, andsatisfying form. For fans of Sharon Van Etten, Julien Baker and Aldous Harding. \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eLP - Black Vinyl - includes 11” x 22” full-colour insert with lyrics and additional artwork. Comes with Download.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eLP+ - Limited Milky Clear Vinyl - includes 11” x 22” full-colour insert with lyrics and additional artwork. Comes with Download.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Western Vinyl","offers":[{"title":"LP.","offer_id":50497178763595,"sku":"1034960","price":19.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"LP","offer_id":50497177682251,"sku":"1034961","price":22.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0867\/1120\/6219\/files\/08c99d2e-d9b6-4566-b081-7b1f7de44256_thumbnail_4096.jpg?v=1727726725"},{"product_id":"the-skull-eclipses","title":"The Skull Eclipses","description":"\u003cp\u003eKnown respectively for their independent work as Botany and Lushlife, Spencer Stephenson and Raj Haldar selected their collaborative mantle, The Skull Eclipses, when the album became more than just a one-plus-one combination of their individual sounds. Broadly, The Skull Eclipses is a post-hip hop album that harmonizes tropes of mid 90's electronic genres - ambient, downtempo, jungle, and trip-hop - under a hauntological umbrella. It is the first offering from a project that's as much indebted to Broadcast and The Focus Group as it is to Pete Rock and CL Smooth, but obligated to neither. Up close however, the album is a peer into the shadows by two figures uncontent with blending into the tapestry of modern music, wholly committed to creating experiences over mere content, which is pouring in from all corners of a frustrated and distracted world.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eLP - Black Vinyl with Download\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eLP+ - Limited Gray Coloured Vinyl with Download.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eCD - Housed in 4-panel Gatefold Wallet.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Western Vinyl","offers":[{"title":"LP.","offer_id":50497422295371,"sku":"1028260","price":24.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"LP","offer_id":50497419968843,"sku":"1028261","price":24.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"CD","offer_id":50497420132683,"sku":"1028262","price":14.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0867\/1120\/6219\/files\/4535b031-f7bc-4187-a1c0-103f177d1f1c_thumbnail_4096.jpg?v=1727727856"},{"product_id":"chime-shone","title":"Chime \/ Shone","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003ci\u003eThis is a Record Store Day 2018 item. It will be available to purchase from our stores from 8am 21st April. Remaining stock will be available to purchase from this page at 00.01 28th April.\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eIn September of 2017 the Austin-based instrumental band Balmorhea released \u003ci\u003eClear Language\u003c\/i\u003e, an album which prompted NPR’s Bob Boilen to say “I’m madly in love with this album...it’s one these ambient records and beautiful records that I’ve just listenedto over and over again.” To create \u003ci\u003eClear Language\u003c\/i\u003e, the duo returned to their roots, working simply and with restraint, letting intuition guide them as they molded the 10 elegant, spacious gestures that comprise the album. Now, just a few months later the duo returns with the \u003ci\u003eChime \/ Shone\u003c\/i\u003e 7” vinyl for Record Store Day 2018. Recorded during the \u003ci\u003eClear Language\u003c\/i\u003e sessions, the two tracks \u003ci\u003eChime\u003c\/i\u003e and \u003ci\u003eShone\u003c\/i\u003e flow gracefully with a clear-eyed sense of reflection, as these two old friends transmit unfettered meaning through simple sonic gestures that resonate with the cosmos as much as they echo the pulse of a human heart. In a culture dominated by the loudest, ostentatious voices, Lowe and Muller continue to prove the power and importance of restraint and minimalism. \"...gorgeous, dynamic, and emotive.\"\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Western Vinyl","offers":[{"title":"7\"","offer_id":50497492746571,"sku":"1030561","price":9.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0867\/1120\/6219\/files\/6e1b6b2d-fea9-4747-a72f-d9c3258d5345_thumbnail_4096.jpg?v=1727728255"},{"product_id":"akinetic","title":"Akinetic","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003ci\u003eAkinetic\u003c\/i\u003e, the new album from Chicago songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Erik Hall's one-man polymathic project In Tall Buildings sees its creator plunge headlong into allegories of communication, loss, impulse, vice, and mass-denialism. With the addition of producer and engineer Brian Deck (Modest Mouse, Iron and Wine) Hall crashes through the aforementioned subject matter with brightness and lucidity, yielding his most intelligent and focused songwriting yet. Working out of his house with Deck in Pilsen, Chicago, Hall's efforts yield ten tracks of spacious and textured handmade pop, comprising one of the most sharply written and deftly recorded home-studio albums in memory. \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eLP - Black Vinyl with Download.\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eLP+ - Limited White Vinyl with Download.\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Western Vinyl","offers":[{"title":"LP.","offer_id":50497661108555,"sku":"1027320","price":24.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"LP","offer_id":50497660748107,"sku":"1027319","price":24.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0867\/1120\/6219\/files\/c1948d93-e8d0-4029-b1d7-d51b8b8686f1_thumbnail_4096.jpg?v=1727729805"},{"product_id":"wild-wild-country-original-music-from-the-netflix-documentary-series","title":"Wild Wild Country - Original Music From The Netflix Documentary Series","description":"\u003cp\u003eWild Wild Country by Brocker Way features 15 tracks from the critically acclaimed Netflix documentary series. Way also scored the film \u003ci\u003eThe Battered Bastards of Baseball\u003c\/i\u003e (2014) staring Kurt Russell and #Takemeanywhere (2018) starring and directed by Shia LaBeouf. Working closely with his brothers and a skilled technical team including mix engineers Joey Waronker (Atoms for Peace, David Byrne, Beck, R.E.M.) and Tom Biller (Kanye West, Jon Brion, Kate Nash), and percussionist Neal Morgan (Joanna Newsom, Bill Callahan), Brocker Way’s original score for the Netflix docuseries \u003ci\u003eWild Wild Country\u003c\/i\u003e is meant to reflect the outlook of each of the show’s interviewees rather than simply emphasizing their outward idiosyncrasies. Such an approach invites the listener to inhabit the myriad personalities and situations in the show from a virtual first-person perspective, sculpting a deeply empathic auditory experience capable of standing on its own as an album. \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eLP - Black Vinyl.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eLP+ - Limited Edition Maroon Vinyl with an Orange Stripe in the Middle.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Western Vinyl","offers":[{"title":"LP.","offer_id":50497777795403,"sku":"1040228","price":22.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"LP","offer_id":50497777566027,"sku":"1040230","price":27.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0867\/1120\/6219\/files\/921a7236-07de-4a51-b146-650caa681d41_thumbnail_4096.jpg?v=1727732466"},{"product_id":"there-s-no-fool-like-an-old-fool","title":"There's no Fool Like an Old Fool","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003ci\u003eNo Fool Like An Old Fool\u003c\/i\u003e is the sophomore LP from Austin via Alabama musician, Caroline Sallee, aka Caroline Says. Moving beyond the surf-folk foundations of her debut, on \u003ci\u003eNo Fool\u003c\/i\u003e... Sallee loosens her earthly tether, allowing her songs to float to ever higher altitudes on clouds of loops, immaculate melodies, and hypnotic harmonies, as she sings about aging, the daily grind, and hometown stymie. The first few notes of the Daniel Rossen-esque opener \u003ci\u003eFirst Song\u003c\/i\u003e dutifully establish the surreal and slightly tragic tone of longing maintained throughout the album. The curiously upturning melodies ride out on a rich ambient texture before \u003ci\u003eSweet Home Alabama\u003c\/i\u003e cuts the fog with a crackling 60's soul loop that's charming and catchy enough to induce a cathartic laugh from the listener. The brightness fades with the frosty and propulsive \u003ci\u003eA Good Thief Steals Clean\u003c\/i\u003e, which features lyrics inspired by the 1971 film \u003ci\u003ePanic in Needle Park\u003c\/i\u003e, and the idea of being in love with a heroin addict. “I tend to write from the perspectives of characters in dark situations, even though my songs may sound bright,” Sallee notes of her alluring juxtaposition of sunny production and grim lyrics. She employs this dynamic again on \u003ci\u003eRip Off\u003c\/i\u003e, a frenetically percussive song with lyrics inspired by an NPR story about a young Iraqi man who was killed in an ISIS bombing just before moving to NYC to become a professional dancer. Inspired by Terrence Malick's Badlands and Bruce Springsteen's \u003ci\u003eNebraska\u003c\/i\u003e, the song \u003ci\u003eBlack Hole\u003c\/i\u003e features multi-voice harmonies sung from the perspective of 50's spree killer Charles Starkweather. \u003ci\u003eNo Fool Like An Old Fool \u003c\/i\u003eis a fine soundtrack for this kind of liminal state, honest in its weariness, glad to be done with the day, carrying itself into tomorrow with a bleary-eyed sense of wonder and hope for the future. A tireless worker, and a wellspring of creativity, whatever Caroline Says, we will be listening.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eLP+ - Limited Two-Toned Sky and Ocean Coloured Vinyl with Download.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eLP - Black Vinyl with Download.\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Western Vinyl","offers":[{"title":"LP","offer_id":50497790607691,"sku":"1028442","price":24.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0867\/1120\/6219\/files\/ce07f71c-5b6a-4492-9840-6417d669548c_thumbnail_4096.jpg?v=1727732782"},{"product_id":"moon-2","title":"Moon 2","description":"\u003cp\u003eOn \u003ci\u003eMoon 2\u003c\/i\u003e Ava Luna's de facto band leader Carlos Hernandez steps back, leaving space for the rest of the band members to step up and step into roles they hadn't occupied on previous albums. Felicia Douglass (now a touring member of Dirty Projectors) worked with percussion and sampler, Julian Fader experimented with synths, nearly every band member ran the computer during recording sessions, and Becca Kauffman (aka performance artist Jennifer Vanilla) composed her first song for the group \u003ci\u003eOn Its Side the Fallen Fire\u003c\/i\u003e, a deeply layered orchestral piece of Kate Bush grandeur meets Julia Holter reverie. Compared with previous Ava Luna albums, \u003ci\u003eMoon 2\u003c\/i\u003e has fewer sharp turns into dissonance, fewer celebratory guitar parts, none of Hernandez's signature screams. Nevertheless, the infectious buoyancy of\u003ci\u003e Deli Run\u003c\/i\u003e and \u003ci\u003eWalking With an Enemy\u003c\/i\u003e, are warm and bright, and songs like \u003ci\u003eCenterline\u003c\/i\u003e and \u003ci\u003ePhoebe (Set it Off)\u003c\/i\u003e venture confidently into pop territory. For fans of Tom Tom Club, Dirty Projectors, Animal Collective, Tune-Yards and Sylvan Esso.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eCD - Housed in Deluxe 4 Panel Cardboard Wallet.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eLP - Black Vinyl housed in full-colour Gatefold Jacket with Download.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eLP+ - Limited Edition Moon Coloured Vinyl housed in full-colour Gatefold Jacket with Download.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Western Vinyl","offers":[{"title":"CD","offer_id":50497795490123,"sku":"1042728","price":14.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0867\/1120\/6219\/files\/f90ae7c4-471b-45f2-b364-75d99b5db80f_thumbnail_4096.jpg?v=1727732942"},{"product_id":"i-see-you-among-the-stars","title":"I See You Among the Stars","description":"\u003cp\u003ePsychedelic folk is starting to become sorely missed. The sub-genre has never not been a staple in the diets of most record collectors. It proves its timelessness with each passing year, defying the laws that chain most other styles to their respective eras. As everything else ages, psych-folk darts in and out of decades, covered in the residue of each, but not necessarily beholden to the tropes of any single one, appearing new and welcome each time. On \u003ci\u003eI See You Among the Stars\u003c\/i\u003e, Chicago sound-weaver Jessica Risker is nudging the category back into plain view, setting a proper place for it at the table in 2018 and beyond.Comprised of eight aural vignettes, \u003ci\u003eI See You Among the Stars\u003c\/i\u003e is a wood-grained, amber-hued world respectfully orbiting influences like Nick Drake, Sibylle Baier, and the softest moments of Broadcast. Paisley fabrics fade beneath an uncovered window, while dust and smoke billowgently through the sunbeams that never fully reach the dark half of the room. \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eLP - With Download.\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Western Vinyl","offers":[{"title":"LP","offer_id":50497819738443,"sku":"1033009","price":22.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"CD","offer_id":50497820328267,"sku":"1033007","price":14.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0867\/1120\/6219\/files\/ed55472a-77c4-456d-98a4-130fcdd271b0_thumbnail_4096.jpg?v=1727733451"},{"product_id":"genericana","title":"Genericana","description":"\u003cp\u003eBy day, Elephant Micah’s Joseph O'Connell works as a folklorist, documenting the local culture of southern Indiana and other Midwest regions. Not surprisingly, his songs seem to emerge from habits of travel and observation. Their account of the phenomenal world is as vivid as it is mysterious, equal parts ethnographic fact and fable. For the past 14 years, O'Connell has quietly self-released his work on CD-R and limited LPs, sometimes collaborating with the psych-folk imprint Time-Lag Records or other very small labels. Despite the project’s almost secretive status, Elephant Micah has repeatedly caught the attention of NPR, and has been championed by an impressive cohort of like-minded artists, including Jason Molina, Patterson Hood, Hiss Golden Messenger, and Dark Dark Dark. Over time, O’Connell’s songwriting has grown in confidence and intensity, while maintaining its signature restraint. \u003ci\u003eGenericana\u003c\/i\u003e, the 13th Elephant Micah album and the second on Western Vinyl, is the fruit of this long-term creative progress.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eLP - Black Vinyl with Download.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eLP+ - Limited White Vinyl with Download.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Western Vinyl","offers":[{"title":"CD","offer_id":50497834385739,"sku":"1040052","price":14.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"LP","offer_id":50497835204939,"sku":"1040054","price":24.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0867\/1120\/6219\/files\/4310cc07-1288-4f0e-bec2-145f1a97e765_thumbnail_4096.jpg?v=1727733822"},{"product_id":"invitation-1","title":"Invitation","description":"\u003cp\u003eHeather is Sharon Van Etten’s longtime collaborator and band member. Since the release of her last album Heather has toured with Alela Diane and Lisa Hannigan and has opened twice for The War On Drugs. \u003ci\u003eInvitation\u003c\/i\u003e features vocals and synth contributions from Peter Broderick. \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003ci\u003eInvitation\u003c\/i\u003e was conceived on the Oregon coast, an outlier among American landscapes, where vast stretches of empty beach are decorated with silver driftwood and towering pines. It is here among the dunes, tide pools and colossal rock formations that Heather spent her childhood summer day-trips. And it is here that she returned as an adult to construct her newest LP, an album of dreamy baroque-pop that swells and whispers with grand string arrangements, intimately descriptive lyrics, and impassioned songcraft built around earnest piano melodies, painting a lifelike picture of the locale in which it was written. \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eIn the years between her early youth and the creation of \u003ci\u003eInvitation\u003c\/i\u003e, Heather has played in Efterklang, Horse Feathers, the live bands of Laura Gibson, Lisa Hannigan, and Damien Jurado, and has also been a longtime collaborator and bandmate to Sharon Van Etten. But while this list may seem enviable for an aspiring young musician, any experienced player will know that the life of a touring musician comes with its own sacrifices. Lasting relationships and financial certainty can be tenuous, as can mental stability itself. Feeling this firsthand, Heather traded her usual launchpad of Brooklyn for the sleepy town of Pacific City where she would quietly take a job cleaning houses for a cast of local eccentrics, sitting down at the piano in the off-hours to unpack the personal tragedies and triumphs of the intervening decades since her first trips there. \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThroughout \u003ci\u003eInvitation\u003c\/i\u003e, floral tendrils of sound design and dynamic strings decorate the edges of each track, propelling the album beyond mere singer-songwriter fare into something altogether more grand and immersive in scope. And somehow still, the album maintains a humble quality throughout. It’s not about the epic and beautiful physical features of the Pacific northwest seaside that first stirred Heather Woods Broderick as a child. It’s about how the stillness of such settings can unearth the disquiet often buried by the infinite distractions of a life without pause. \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eRIYL: Sharon Van Etten, Weyes Blood, Marissa Nadler, Julianna Barwick, Julia Holter.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Western Vinyl","offers":[{"title":"Black | LP","offer_id":50498072412491,"sku":"1055693","price":22.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"Blue LP","offer_id":50498072838475,"sku":"1055692","price":24.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"CD","offer_id":50498072674635,"sku":"1055691","price":14.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"LP","offer_id":50498073002315,"sku":"2006598","price":24.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0867\/1120\/6219\/files\/f610a0e1-b231-48ae-8a1e-7560e32b14a5_thumbnail_4096.jpg?v=1727738588"}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0867\/1120\/6219\/collections\/test_fc021c5e_thumbnail_4096_e3f48c59-af8b-4839-990b-49acf2b0fee0.jpg?v=1726034125","url":"https:\/\/shop.roughtrade.com\/collections\/western-vinyl.oembed","provider":"Rough Trade","version":"1.0","type":"link"}