Alternative

Artist: Video Label: Third Man Records

Artist: Wake Label: Ltm

Artist: Hurricane#1 Label: Tapete Records

Montreal's Sheer Agony started in late 2010, when Christian Simmons and Jackson Macintosh started amassing tape-based studio equipment in their apartment. Initially looking to fuse Sell Out-era Who with The Homosexuals and The Soft Boys, the two found compatriots in Markus Lake and Greg Napier and put their vision to tape, resulting in a few songs on Bandcamp that lead immediately to a now very much out-of-print 7" with the great Canadian label Fixture. Several North American tours later, Sheer Agony have emerged with Masterpiece, their debut long player for Couple Skate. Heavy players in the sprawling, potent DIY scene of Montreal and Drones Club, which has produced too many great bands and labels to list, Sheer Agony perfectly channel the weird energy of their scene and aforementioned influences into a potent blend of neo-psych swirl and proto-punk succinctness Record Label: Couple Skate/Sc Style: Post-Rock

MY DISCO have always employed space as an instrument. Space between notes; space between instruments; even space between albums, as the Australian trio prepare to release Severe, their first full-length record in nearly five years. More than just a title, Severe pushes MY DISCO's subtle, intensely focused, minimalist sound to its most terrifying extreme. It is bleak, occasionally uncomfortable, and unpredictably profound. Recorded, mixed, and produced in Melbourne by acclaimed film composer and producer, Cornel Wilczek. Engineered entirely in a digital domain, the recording process for Severe was a huge change for MY DISCO, who had previously worked with renowned analog tape guru, Steve Albini. The change in process allowed the band the freedom to explore enhanced audio effects, including programmed sine wave drones and heavily effected rhythms and vocals. Severe is an album of aggravated tonal darkness and long breaths of disturbing silence, punctuated by pounding stabs and heavy, hypnotic rhythms. It is a minimalist approach to maximum sound, and by far the band's darkest, heaviest, and most consistent album of MY DISCO's burgeoning career. For Fans of THIS HEAT, PAN SONIC, SUNN O))), BOREDOMS, SHELLAC Record Label: Temporary Residence Style: Indie Rock

Maserati are a band obsessed with process. Specifically, they're obsessed with the process of marrying the past to the future - retro futurists hellbent on forging Krautrock and classic rock into one motorik, monolithic vehicle. Rehumanizer is the most accomplished product of that process to date, a marriage of man and machine that plays like a supergroup comprised of Gary Numan, Cluster, and Pink Floyd. Recorded and mixed by drummer Mike Albanese - and produced entirely by the band in their own studio - this is the first Maserati album completely devoid of outside collaboration or interference. Building songs up bit by bit - and breaking them back down to their barest elements - Maserati fully embraced technology as a songwriting tool. The band takes greater risks than ever, sonically experimenting on the fly and incorporating unprocessed vocals for the first time ever. For the past decade Maserati has built a career out of relentless forward momentum - a tight, sleek, chugging beast that drove towards the sun and rarely veered off course. Rehumanizer maintains that same ambition and sense of abandon, but is distinctly as much man as it is machine - a true alliance of the past and the future. Record Label: Temporary Residence Style: Alternative Rock

In 2013, the Canadian duo Majical Cloudz released the austere, stunning Impersonator, the album that got them out of DIY spaces and into arenas, opening for Lorde on tour. They’ve been working on a follow-up album for a while, and they just confirmed on Twitter that it will be called Are You Alone? and it’ll be out this fall on Matador. In a recent Pitchfork profile, singer Devon Welsh claims that he wrote much of the album while visiting friends in Detroit over the winter, and it seems likely to have a fuller sound; Owen Pallett added drums, viola, and piano. But the duo seems conscious of keeping it sonic continuity, too. Pallett says, “I didn’t want to add anything superfluous.” And Welsh adds that, though the band experimented with different equipment, they didn’t end up using much of it: “After all the crazy shit we could get our hands on, we came back to the cheapo organ we’ve been using since day one.” Record Label: Matador/Beggars Group Style: Alternative Rock

Limited Edition 7" on red vinyl. Taken from his debut solo album "It Seemed Like A Good Idea at The Time. Record Label: Fortuna Pop! Style: Indie Rock

Up Records (via Sub Pop) reissue Built To Spill's much loved classic There's Nothing Wrong with Love, the second full-length album released by the legendary indie rock band. It was originally released September 13, 1994 on the Up Records label with the stellar line-up of Doug Martsch, bassist Brett Nelson, and drummer Andy Capps, with Phil Ek producing. The album features enduring singles "In the Morning," "Car," and "Distopian Dream Girl." There's Nothing Wrong With Love will be available October 30th from Up Records - distributed through Sub Pop. There's Nothing Wrong with Love was exceptionally well received by critics upon its release. It went on to earn "Best Albums of 90's" notices from the likes of Pitchfork, PASTE, SPIN, and has sold nearly 140k copies to date. This new, vinyl edition is the first time the album has been available on vinyl since its original run. Record Label: Up Records/Sub Pop Style: Indie Rock

Expanded reissue of original 1987 debut LP - Available on CD for the first time in deluxe edition, including full debut LP, along with bsides, rarities and unreleased demos - Includes liner notes and original photos of the band from the era of recording Originating from Wellington, New Zealand and arriving in the U.K. at the back end of the 80s, The Wild Poppies and their "Warm Wall of Sound" resided somewhere between the jangle pop of other indie scene favorites such as The Rain Parade and The Church and the proto-shoegaze of Loop, Spacemen 3 and My Bloody Valentine. Basing themselves in Oxford, and touring with well-known contemporaries such as Ride and Swervedriver (their housemates), The Wild Poppies forged a name for themselves and enjoyed a "1001 night" season as a touring favorite, before dissolving in the face of the impending U.K. rave culture. After that, as guitarist Nick Taylor states, "Nobody ever saw The Wild Poppies... Very few at least, and I suspect that those few that did can actually remember it now. I certainly can't, and I was IN the Wild Poppies." This collection compiles their long out-of-print "Heroine" LP, the "Stare at the Sun" 7", the "Out of Time" EP as well as demos for many latter-day tracks (both released and unreleased). Record Label: Manufactured/Sc Style: Indie Rock

Laura Stevenson is finally learning not to worry. After more than a year of national and worldwide touring following the release of her critically acclaimed album Wheel, both headlining, and alongside such varied acts as Against Me!, The Go-Go's, Kevin Devine, Tim Kasher of Cursive, and The Gaslight Anthem, the songwriter made the move from her between-tour home base of Brooklyn, to upstate New York's Hudson River Valley. There, she rented a nineteenth-century Victorian, a former brothel in a cement-mining town-turned hippie-enclave, and converted the attic into a makeshift studio. It was in this space that she and her band went to work arranging and demoing the eleven songs she had written that would make up Cocksure, Stevenson's fourth album. The record features musicians Mike Campbell, Alex Billig and Peter Naddeo, who in various incarnations have performed with her for over seven years, as well as newcomer Samantha Niss, a long-time Hudson Valley resident and the veritable go-to drummer of the region. Where 2013's Wheel was full of lingering uncertainty, harkening to Stevenson's folk and country leanings, Cocksure is a straightforward, to the point, emboldened rock and roll album. Although some existential dread still peaks through the cracks, Stevenson treats themes as heavy-hearted as sudden and tragic death, self-imposed exile in small windowless rooms, and that back-of-your-mind anxiety that the road you're on may not be the right one, as their own signs of life; a life that is brightly colored by those realities. Record Label: Don Giovanni Style: Indie Rock

"Zeng" is the new album of the Hungarian band Perihelion. A stellar mix of post rock and metal elements, resulting in an overall abstract imagery translated into music to set you off on a vivid spiritual and cosmic journey, completely sung in Hungarian, for fans of Thy Catafalque and Alcest... Artwork by Costin Chioreanu (Mayhem, Sigh, Vulture Industries...) Record Label: Apathia Records Style: Rock / Metal

MY DISCO have always employed space as an instrument. Space between notes; space between instruments; even space between albums, as the Australian trio prepare to release Severe, their first full-length record in nearly five years. More than just a title, Severe pushes MY DISCO's subtle, intensely focused, minimalist sound to its most terrifying extreme. It is bleak, occasionally uncomfortable, and unpredictably profound. Recorded, mixed, and produced in Melbourne by acclaimed film composer and producer, Cornel Wilczek. Engineered entirely in a digital domain, the recording process for Severe was a huge change for MY DISCO, who had previously worked with renowned analog tape guru, Steve Albini. The change in process allowed the band the freedom to explore enhanced audio effects, including programmed sine wave drones and heavily effected rhythms and vocals. Severe is an album of aggravated tonal darkness and long breaths of disturbing silence, punctuated by pounding stabs and heavy, hypnotic rhythms. It is a minimalist approach to maximum sound, and by far the band's darkest, heaviest, and most consistent album of MY DISCO's burgeoning career. For Fans of THIS HEAT, PAN SONIC, SUNN O))), BOREDOMS, SHELLAC Record Label: Temporary Residence Style: Indie Rock

Mixing a lively folk troubadour style with a sunny voice that would befit that of Donovan, along with a sly, subversive humor that surely influenced the likes of Belle & Sebastian's Stuart Murdoch, "Circus Maximus" opens boldly and doesn't let up. The playfully unconventional collection of songs delivers punchy doses of folk balladry and Judeo-Christian imagery that would rival the religious themes and prolific tendencies of Current 93's David Tibet in theme, if not tone. And Currie's beautifully assured guitar work calls to mind the intricate and intimate folk players who preceded him, such as Bert Jansch and Nick Drake. This expanded 2xLP gatefold edition of Momus' long out-of-print debut LP also includes a selection of three EPs from the same period: "The Beast With Three Backs" EP, the "Murderers, The Hope of Women" EP, as well as the "Jacky" EP, in which Momus proudly wore the influence of Jacques Brel on his sleeve. Cumulatively, second hand copies of these releases sell for over $100, but are collected here for the first time ever, at a fraction of that cost. Available again in this expanded edition and on CD for the first time since 1991, "Circus Maximus" sounds as fresh and intelligent today as it did in its debut. Record Label: Manufactured/Sc Style: Indie Rock

In 2013, the Canadian duo Majical Cloudz released the austere, stunning Impersonator, the album that got them out of DIY spaces and into arenas, opening for Lorde on tour. They’ve been working on a follow-up album for a while, and they just confirmed on Twitter that it will be called Are You Alone? and it’ll be out this fall on Matador. In a recent Pitchfork profile, singer Devon Welsh claims that he wrote much of the album while visiting friends in Detroit over the winter, and it seems likely to have a fuller sound; Owen Pallett added drums, viola, and piano. But the duo seems conscious of keeping it sonic continuity, too. Pallett says, “I didn’t want to add anything superfluous.” And Welsh adds that, though the band experimented with different equipment, they didn’t end up using much of it: “After all the crazy shit we could get our hands on, we came back to the cheapo organ we’ve been using since day one.” Record Label: Matador/Beggars Group Style: Alternative Rock

“I was thinking about the concept of difficulty. Whether in life or in nature - of conflict, of being troubled. The idea of friction. Also in geology, an asperity is some part of a faultline that doesn’t move which can create an earthquake, which is quite an evocative concept.” Asperities is the fourth solo album by acclaimed Canadian cellist Julia Kent. As the title suggests, this is a record born of conflict: internal, personal and global. Universal themes. The build of pressure and the threat of violent release. Modern guilt. Modern fears. Kent draws from a rich well of emotion, the pieces deceptively rendered, each feeling like a miniature dramatic epic in its own right – sculpted and self-contained. Her work on recent film scores is very much in evidence. While cinematic in scope, there is nothing as trite as a Hollywood ending here. There is tension and darkness, the edges cracked and frayed. “A lot of the melodic material is based on semitones,” Julia elaborates. “So in the music there is an inherent sense of dissonance; that things are too close for comfort. More generally, it seems like a particularly dark time in the world right now, and I think that definitely had an influence too.” The album was recorded, produced and mixed in its entirety by Julia in her New York studio. This method of working lends the record a sense of isolation that carries a powerful resonance in our modern over-connected world. “I really like the autonomy of working alone,” she says. “I feel that I can transmit something emotionally that I might not be able to if there were someone else involved.” Utilising looped cello, electronics and found sounds, Kent creates a world where the technological and the organic merge in perfect symbiosis, the layers of sound peeling back to reveal a beating, bloody human heart at its centre. “I did quite a lot of processing of the cello sound and used different electronic textures,” she explains of her technique. “I was trying to get away from the acoustic cello sound and find one that was more textural and more expressive of the material.” Throughout the plaintive strains of opener ‘Hellebore’, the prowling grace of ‘The Leopard’, the elegant restraint of ‘Heavy Eyes’ and the immersive closer ‘Tramontana’, Kent’s cello evokes romance and loss, a yearning for simplicity. This is the soundtrack to the transitory nature of life and the inevitability of death. Vancouver-born and New York-based, Julia Kent rose to prominence with Rasputina and Antony & The Johnsons. Her extensive résumé includes recent work with Swans, Aidan Baker, Rachel Grimes, Rutger Zuydervelt, Barbara Morgenstern, Library Tapes and Khan of Finland. Kent has also composed extensively for film, theatre and dance. Her cinematic work includes the documentaries The Boxing Girls of Kabul and Rwanda, L’Impossible Pardon, American feature A Short History of Decay, short films Doppio Urlo, and the award-winning Oasis. Her music also was used in Paolo Sorrentino’s 2011 film This Must Be The Place. As a solo artist she has toured extensively in Europe and North America and performed at festivals including Primavera Sound, Reeperbahn, Unsound, and Meltdown. Record Label: Leaf Style: Independent

The Undisputed Kings of Garage Rock! Reissue of their classic singles compilation on 3 LPs with new gatefold sleeve! A retrospective compilation of singles released on a multitude of different labels throughout the 90's. Featured tracks are "We Hate The Fuckin' NME", "My Dear Watson" & "Every Bit Of Me". A fitting tribute to one of the greatest bands ever. Thee Headcoats were mainly Billy Childish (Git/Vox) Bruce Brand (Drums) and Johnny Johnson (bass), they formed in 1989 after Billy's previous band Thee Mighty Caesars gave up the ghost. By 1992 they had already released something like 6 albums and 15 singles one of which was catalogue number Damgood1, a split single with Thee Headcoatees. Lots more releases followed including the great "In Tweed We Trust!" album. Thee Headcoats carried on touring and releasing records in every corner of the world until mid 2000 when they called it a day. Record Label: Damaged Goods Style: Garage Rock

Record Label: Seayou Records Style: Alternative

Record Label: Epitaph Europe Style: Punk