Tunes - Now Hear This! - October 2019

The Highwomen
The Highwomen
ELK

The Highwomen (a play on The Highwaymen supergroup featuring Johnny Cash, Kris Kristofferson, Willie Nelson and Waylon Jennings) is a supergroup formed by Brandi Carlie, Natalie Hemby, Maren Morris and Amanda Shires. Continually demonstrating the importance of inclusion and collaboration, The Highwomen are joined by several guest musicians, vocalists and songwriters across the album's 12-tracks, including Sheryl Crow, producer Dave Cobb, and Jason Isbell (among many others).

Devendra Banhart
Ma
NONESUCH

Ma is Devendra Banhart's first album since 2016's Ape in Pink Marble. Bursting with tender, autobiographical vignettes, Ma displays a shift from the sonic experimentation of his previous albums to an intricate, captivating story-telling and emotional intimacy. Banhart favors organic sounds to accompany his voice and guitar here with the arrangements bolstered by strings, woodwinds, brass, and keyboards. Lead single "Kantori Ongaku" translates from Japanese to "country music" and is a nod to experimental pop legend Haruomi Hosono (Yellow Magic Orchestra).

Hobo Johnson
The Fall Of Hobo Johnson
WARNER

The Rise of Hobo Johnson really lived up to its name. Self-produced, self-recorded, and originally self-released, it powered a breakout that most musicians can only dream of. "The new album is a mix of songs and poems I've had floating around in my head," says Johnson. "I hope that it makes everyone feel a little less alone and a little more like they want to stay alive." The Fall of Hobo Johnson is introduced by the unhinged guitar-driven anthem "Typical Story" and the spirited, horn-adorned confessional "Uglykid."

The Goo Goo Dolls
Miracle Pill
WARNER

Miracle Pill finds The Goo Goo Dolls at the top of their game with a collection of songs that are complete with all the emotion, incredible melodies and sweeping guitars you’ve come to expect from the veteran New Jersey band. The album observes and reflects on our current landscape of instant gratification and relief that everyone seems to be seeking. “It speaks to the second decade of 21st century angst,” says singer Johnny Rzeznik “We're inundated by… false solutions to every problem we have.” Miracle Pill is more satisfying than anything you can get over the counter.

Fitz and The Tantrums
All The Feels
ELK

Brimming with imagination, energy, and genre-smashing scope, Fitz and the Tantrums is at the top of their game with their new album, the appropriately-titled All The Feels. Frontman Michael "Fitz" Fitzpatrick says, "So many highs and lows this last year but we'll make it through together.” All The Feels has all the emotions – but the title track and “123456” will keep you in your Happy Place.

The Shelters
Jupiter Sidecar
Warner

The Shelters fan a fresh flame with classic fuel on their second full-length, Jupiter Sidecar. Ebbing and flowing between rock ‘n' roll roots, surf swagger, synth swells, and unassuming pop ambition, the Los Angeles-based group thread it all together with catchy melodic hooks. This approach quietly cemented them as a fan and critical favorite following the release of their self-titled full-length in 2016, which was produced by Tom Petty. The Shelters returned to his Malibu studio to craft Jupiter Sidecar and to mourn the loss of their friend and mentor – and in the process learned to rely on one another like never before.

Tegan And Sara
Hey, I'm Just Like You
Warner

While working on their memoir, Tegan and Sara came across two cassette tapes with dozens of songs they wrote in high school. Defiant and melodramatic, the songs were a perfect time capsule. They expected to hate them – and were surprised they didn’t. In fact, they thought they were good – really good. So good that they decided to use them as demos for Hey, I’m Just Like You – even keeping the original lyrics (when they could be deciphered). That young hunger, craftily appropriated, makes this the finest Tegan and Sara album in a minute.

Leeroy Stagger
Strange Path
True North Records

The name Strange Path applies as much to Leeroy Stagger’s unexpected route from the British Columbia punk scene to southern-Alberta singer songwriter as it does to the album’s own evolution. Strange Path is the end result of a triple-album’s worth of scrapped demos, and a spirit-reviving retreat inwards. It’s also Stagger’s most ambitious and philosophical creation yet – a veritable self-help book pulled from a lifetime of struggling towards the light and brimming with the hard-won joy at the heart of his recent renaissance.

Jeremy Benjamin
Wonderlove
True North Records

If you were to take Bruce Cockburn’s lyricism, gentle spirit and truth telling lyrics- cross them with a voice akin to Sufjan Stevens, sprinkle in a little Chris Martin falsetto and then add the songwriting diversity of folk, pop, gospel and worship, you might find something similar to the sound of Jeremy Benjamin. A passionate communicator, a young man of deep faith with a gift for songwriting and a formidable drive to make a difference, the world can expect to be hearing more from Jeremy Benjamin.

Bill Frisell
HARMONY
Blue Note

Bill Frisell’s newest project, Harmony, features the acclaimed guitarist with a wholly distinctive quartet comprising two longtime collaborators: Petra Haden, voice; Hank Roberts, cello and voice – plus a relative newcomer, Luke Bergman, on acoustic, baritone, and bass guitars. Harmony features new compositions, imaginatively reworked music from Frisell's catalog, and a typically sharp selection of jazz and Americana staples. Throughout, Haden's dreamlike, often wordless lead vocals and the trio's quietly powerful harmonies grant Frisell's music dimensions it's never known before.

Glorious Sons
A War On Everything
BMG

The Glorious Sons' dangerous brand of rock and roll is on full display on A War On Everything. From the kinetic intensity of "Panic Attack" to the frenzied "The Ongoing Speculation Into The Death Of Rock and Roll," the album bursts with bulletproof energy and trenchant, brutally honest lyrics. A War On Everything is a daring 14-track collection of stadium-ready RAWK rife with devastating moments of vulnerability and searing insight into universal truths about anxiety, sadness and isolation in the 21st century.

The Sherlocks
Under Your Sky
Infectious Music

With their 2017 debut album Live For The Moment, Sheffield quartet The Sherlocks established themselves as key contenders in a new wave of British bands keeping alt-rock and indie vital. Now The Sherlocks enter a new chapter in their career with their eagerly-anticipated second album, Under Your Sky. While Live For The Moment remains a scintillating insight into the hedonism and heartbreak of youth, Under Your Sky finds frontman Kiaran Crook writing songs which bridge the exuberance of youth with the reflection and maturity of young adulthood.

Spyro Gyra
Vinyl Tap
Amherst Records

Free of the tension of having to write great songs, the five members of Spyro Gyra revisited the songs that inspired them from their youth when they were listening to music on vinyl. That artistic fount was spun into Vinyl Tap. “Secret Agent Mash,” a supercharged and ultrahip mashup of “Secret Agent Man” and “Alfie’s Theme.” “Sunshine Of Your Love” is virtually unrecognizable in its new form as a Latin big band number. The plaintive “Can’t Find My Way Home,” takes on a bit of a western feel. “What A Fool Believes” is slowed to become a contemplative power ballad that breaks into swing mid-song.

San Fermin
The Cormorant I
Masterworks

The Cormorant I ushers in a new era for Ellis Ludwig-Leone's Brooklyn-based art pop act San Fermin, who envisions the eight-track collection as the first of two eventual full-length releases encompassing the full scope of the new project. "The Cormorant I starts with a visit from a strange bird, a death augur, which haunts two characters throughout their lives," says Ludwig-Leone. "The track listing is chronological: the first few songs are about childhood, while the later tracks follow the characters into their more complicated adult lives. Finally, the last song imagines the return of the bird and their eventual deaths."

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SuperM
SuperM: The First Mini Album
SM Entertainment

SuperM is a K-Pop supergroup featuring seven scene veterans: Taemin, Baekhyun, Kai, Taeyong, Mark, Ten, and Lucas. Each member gets their own specially-designed version of group’s debut, SuperM: The First Mini Album (The eighth album version features the group’s logo) – and, naturally, you’ll wanna get them all. The album features 5 new songs “Jopping,” “I Can’t Stand the Rain,” “2 Fast,” “Super Car,” and “No Manners,” as well as instrumental versions of “Jopping” and “I Can’t Stand the Rain” so you can sing and choreograph with your friends, by your lonesome, and/or your cat(s).

Wilco
Ode To Joy
dBpm Records

Jeff Tweedy and Co. follow-up 2016's Schmilco and the singer/songwriter's pair of solo albums, Warm and Warmer, with Wilco's eleventh studio effort, Ode to Joy. Featuring eleven new songs written and produced by Tweedy and recorded by Wilco at The Loft (Chicago, IL) in January 2019, Tweedy and Glenn Kotche were the launching pad from which most of the songs on Ode to Joy materialized – Kotche's percussion propels the music forward while Tweedy's measured words flesh out the cleared paths which the rest of the band makes its own. As a result, the album, according to Tweedy, is comprised of "really big, big folk songs, these monolithic, brutal structures that these delicate feelings are hung on.”

Starcrawler
Devour You
Rough Trade

Starcrawler's remarkable sophomore album, Devour You, is a record that dynamically captures the essence and aggression of their gloriously unhinged live shows. Produced by Nick Launay (Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, L7) at Sunset Studios, Devour You takes the feral intensity of its 2018 self-titled debut and twists it into something grander and more gracefully composed. With its more elaborate and nuanced yet harder-hitting sonic palette, the result is a selection of songs radiating both raw sensitivity and untamable power, and a record that the band's Arrow de Wilde says, "encapsulates all the blood, sweat, bruised knees, and broken fingers of a Starcrawler show" – a spectacle that you should absolutely not miss. Nor should you sleep on this record of trash-glam-punkers.

Big Thief
Two Hands
4AD

Big Thief had only just finished work on their 3rd album, U.F.O.F. – "the celestial twin" – days before in a cabin studio in the woods of Washington State. Now it was time to birth U.F.O.F.'s sister album – "the earth twin" – Two Hands. 30 miles west of El Paso, surrounded by 3,000 acres of pecan orchards and only a stone's throw from the Mexican border, Big Thief (a.k.a. Adrianne Lenker, Buck Meek, Max Oleartchik, and James Krivchenia) set up its instruments close together as possible to capture its most important collection of songs yet. Where U.F.O.F. layered mysterious sounds and effects for levitation, Two Hands grounds itself on dried-out, cracked desert dirt – brandishing feral hooks worthy of Throwing Muses, Geraldine Fibbers, and Neil Young. You need this.

The Coalition of Independent Music Stores (CIMS) is a national level organization comprised of the best independent record stores in America. CIMS was founded in 1995 with the goal of uniting like minded independent store owners, giving them a more powerful voice in the music industry. The stores that make up CIMS are all very different, but we share the same desires – to be the heart of our communities, to super-serve our customers, to support and develop artists, and to share our love of music.

For more information about CIMS and the stores in our organization, please visit cimsmusic.com or find us through social media with the #cimsmusic hashtag. And please remember to always shop local by supporting your neighborhood record store.