JULIEN BAKER & TORRES
SEND A PRAYER MY WAY
CD /LP / INDIE LP
[CD] 01. Dirt / 02. The Only Marble I’ve Got Left / 03. Sugar in the Tank / 04. Bottom of a Bottle / 05. Downhill Both Ways / 06. No Desert Flower / 07. Tape Runs Out / 08. Off the Wagon / 09. Tuesday / 10. Showdown / 11. Sylvia / 12. Goodbye Baby
[LP] A1. Dirt / A2. The Only Marble I’ve Got Left / A3. Sugar in the Tank / A4. Bottom of a Bottle / A5. Downhill Both Ways / A6. No Desert Flower / B1. Tape Runs Out / B2. Off the Wagon / B3. Tuesday / B4. Showdown / B5. Sylvia / B6. Goodbye Baby
Label: MATADOR
Julien Baker & TORRES’ Send A Prayer My Way was written and sung in the best of the outlaw tradition— defiant, subversive, working class, and determined to wrestle not only with addiction, regret and bad decisions, but also with oppressive systems of power. Mercifully, this is only the beginning of the stories TORRES and Baker are determined to tell. Because these are also songs about radical empathy and second chances, and third chances, and while there’s plenty of struggle and regret in here, there’s also humor and defiance.
Send A Prayer My Way has been in the works for years. Imagine two young musicians playing their first show together at Lincoln Hall, a much-loved venue here in Chicago. It’s January 15, 2016, and bone chillingly cold outside, especially for a couple of southerners. When the show is over and they’re shooting the shit, one singer says to the other, “We should make a country album.” This is the origin story, the stuff of legend in the world of country music, and the beginning of a collaboration between two artists already admired for their spare, elegant lyrics as well as the courage to share their struggles with those who love their music. It’s also the beginning of creating a work that, like the most enduring country albums, sustains and inspires, reminding both singer and listener that not one of us is ever totally alone in this world, that music is a steady companion.
Indie exclusive blue coloured vinyl.
ARTHUR RUSSELL
SKETCHES FOR WORLD OF ECHO / OPEN VOCAL PHRASES, WHERE SONGS COME IN AND OUT
2CD / 2LP
[CD1: Sketches for World of Echo] 01. Changing Forest / 02. Let’s Go Swimming / 03. They and Their Friends / 04. Keeping Up / 05. Make 1,2 / 06. I Take This Time / 07. Losing My Taste For The Nightlife / 08. I Can’t Hide You / 09. The Boy with a Smile On His Face / 10. Sunlit Water
[CD2: Open Vocal Phrases Where Songs Come in and Out] 01. That’s The Very Reason / 02. Tower Of Meaning/Rabbit’s Ear/Home Away From Home / 03. Happy Ending / 04. All-Boy All-Girl/Tiger Stripes/You Can’t Hold Me Down / 05. Introductions / 06. Hiding Your Present From You/School Bell / 07. Too Early To Tell
[2LP] A1. That’s The Very Reason / A2. Tower Of Meaning/Rabbit’s Ear/Home Away From Home / B1. Happy Ending / B2. All-Boy All-Girl/Tiger Stripes/You Can’t Hold Me Down / C1. Introductions / C2. Hiding Your Present From You/School Bell / C3. Too Early To Tell / D1. Changing Forest / D2. Sunlit Water
Label: ROUGH TRADE
“Open Vocal Phrases, Where Songs Come In and Out” offers an intimate unedited solo live performance recorded at Phill Niblock’s Experimental Intermedia Foundation in Downtown NYC on 12/20/85.
Phill curated and produced with Arthur two concerts at EI that would become an integral part of the foundation for the final World of Echo album. Arthur titled this performance “Open Vocal Phrases, Where Songs Come In and Out”. This extraordinary performance was recorded by Steve Cellum and overseen by Phill and Arthur. Arthur would later edit sections from this performance merging it with studio material recorded at Battery Sound to finalize the World of Echo album released in 1986.
“Some of it sounds so pure and clear and I am picturing him huddled around all that gear, simply magical. In my memory he didn’t play “for” the audience but was rather trying to perfect these various permutations of sound within himself…and a few of us just happened to be present” – Tom Lee
[2LP]
The double vinyl LP includes the complete nineteen minute plus version of Tower of Meaning/Rabbit’s Ear/Home Away along with the previously unreleased songs That’s The Very Reason, and Too Early to Tell. Side four includes two instrumental tracks from the previously unreleased in the UK “Sketches For World Of Echo” Changing Forest and Sunlit Water.
TUNDE ADEBIMPE
THEE BLACK BOLTZ
CD / LTD LP
01. Thee Black Boltz / 02. Magnetic / 03. Ate The Moon / 04. Pinstack / 05. Drop / 06. ILY / 07. The Most / 08. God Knows / 09. Blue / 10. Somebody New / 11. Streetlight Nuevo
Label: SUB POP
For the last 24 years, Tunde Adebimpe has largely been known as the co-founder, co-vocalist and principal songwriter for TV On The Radio. The mostly-black art-rock band triumphed through two decades of volatile cultural change to become one of the most beloved, enduring and influential groups from New York City’s early-2000s rock scene. Though Tunde’s poetic songwriting and towering vocals are central to TV On The Radio, the band will always be a collaboration between a group of musicians.
Tunde’s personal story exists on a parallel path, as a sort of creative polymath. He is a musician but also an illustrator and painter. He’s a former animator and stop-motion filmmaker (Celebrity Deathmatch). He is a television and film actor, with roles in Jump Tomorrow (2001), Rachel Getting Married (2008), Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017), Twisters (2024) and Star Wars: Skeleton Crew (2024).. And now he is also a solo artist, with his first-ever solo album, Thee Black Boltz.
Thee Black Boltz is not a TV On The Radio album. But the excitement of doing something on his own ignited a similar spark in Tunde as the early TV On The Radio days. The songwriting process is the same, but without his TVOTR bandmates Tunde “didn’t have that scaffolding to hang on. That was both terrifying and exhilarating.”At the heart of the album is its title, a nod to Tunde’s propensity to write and sing about the human condition, in all its forms, under all its stressors, both big and small. It is his response to the macro unease of a post-pandemic world careening towards violent authoritarianism and the personal grief that has come from loss in recent years, specifically the sudden passing of his younger sister while making this album. Thee Black Boltz is Tunde’s desperate grasping of small moments of joy amidst the dissonance and sadness, any way he can.
First pressing on limited “Loser Edition” Òşùpá clear w/ black and white vinyl.
JESS SAH BI
JESUS-CHRIST NE DEÇOIT PAS CASSETTE
CASSETTE
01. Ile De Gorée / 02. Il Veut Marcher Avec Toi / 03. Y Vou Balé Va / 04. Séhé Voulé / 05. Fortifie-Toi / 06. Il Veut Marcher Avec Toi (Remix) / 07. Loué
Label: AWESOME TAPES FROM AFRICA
Jess Sah Bi & Peter One “Our Garden Needs Its Flowers” was a revelation to many folks outside West Africa when it was reissued worldwide a few years ago. However, the Country-Americana duo from Ivory Coast has been massive since they emerged in the mid-80s, playing stadiums and making a beloved home in peoples’ ears across the region for decades. The enormous response from listeners and press around the globe speaks for itself.
Recorded in South Carolina and released in Ivory Coast in 1991 only on cassette, Jesus-Christ Ne Deçoit Pas [Jesus Christ Never Gives Up] comes out April 18 in restored and remastered audio on digital and tape formats. It is the first in ATFA’s new African Devotional Music series.
Jess Sah Bi narrowly survived a brush with death and promised himself and God that he would record an album in praise. While on an exchange visit to South Carolina he arranged to record some new songs and later released the album in Ivory Coast. At the time, locally-produced gospel music wasn’t big yet—most of the well-known West African gospel artists hailed from Ghana and Nigeria. But with the success of Jesus-Christ Ne Deçoit Pas, Jess Sah Bi helped kick off a homegrown Ivorian gospel music movement that today thrives in many parts of the country and beyond.
