...And You Will Know Us By The Trail Of Dead - The Century Of Self [2009]

Austin, Texas band ...And You Will Know Us By The Trail Of Dead will release their first album on their own Richter Scale label, The Century Of Self, on Feb. 17.The 13-track follow-up to 2006's So Divided was produced by Chris Coady (TV On The Radio, Yeah Yeah Yeahs) and will feature two tracks from the recently released Festival Thyme EP. The Century Of Self also features guest appearances from members of Yeasayer and Dragons Of Zynth. You can hear "The Bells Of Creation" on the band's MySpace page.Trail Of Dead split acrimoniously from their previous label, Interscope Records, last year after three albums.

1. "Giants Causeway"

2. "Far Pavilions"

3. "Isis Unveiled"

4. "Halcyon Days"

5. "Bells Of Creation"

6. "Fields Of Coal"

7. "Inland Sea"

8. "Luna Park"

9. "Pictures Of An Only Child"

10. "Insatiable One"

11. "Ascending"

12. "An August Theme"

13. "Insatiable Two"

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Bat For Lashes - Two Suns [2009]

Two Suns sees Natasha exploring her creative personas and the world around her in a very different way. Envisioning herself as two separate yet ultimately attached beings, we discover her inner character Pearl, the destructive blonde femme fatale that represents one extreme of her personality. The album includes appearances by Yeasayer on a number of tracks and Natasha duets with the legendary Scott Walker on closing song “The Big Sleep”.

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The Black Lips - 200 Million Thousand [2009]

Garage rock veterans, The Black Lips will following up the widely successful Good Bad Not Evil with the release of 200 Million Thousand. Simple, straightforward songwriting mesh perfectly with the Black Lips distinctive howl to create atime capsule rife with nods to simple pleasures and a world of worry.Critics darlings, The Black Lips have received previous acclaim from Rolling Stone, Spin, Filter, Magnet, Stop Smiling, The Fader, Anthem, Paste, and The NY Times to name a few.Heralded by Rolling Stone as "one of the best livebands in America," there will be ample opportunity to see Black Lips do what they do best - whip a crowd into a pure ball of drunk, unpredictable energy. After a release week showin their hometown of Atlanta, GA, the band will embark on a month long tour in March presented by Myspace Music, which will bring them to the Northeast, Midwest, SXSW and theSoutheast. They hit the West Coast for the last two weeks of April.

*link removed by request*

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Kawabata Makoto - Rainbow of Love [2009]

Brand new solo record from one of the most prolific Japanese recording artists around right now. Most people will know Kawabata Makoto as the guitar wielding shredder from Acid Mother Temple. This brand new solo recording is a two piece epic of some of the most beautiful tones I've heard in a while. Side A's 'You Are From The Rainbow Over The Sea' is an piece of bowed beauty, taking you to a higher plain of consciousness. The B Side's 'Waiting For You Till The End Of The Rainbow' is just as cosmic as its predecessor with cascading waterfalls of tones washing over you again and again... kinda reminds me of some of the Inui series, which is probably some of my favourite material from Makoto. Edition of only 265 copies in screen printed white sleeves with artwork by Darryl Norsen.

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The Juan MacLean - The Future Will Come [2009]

Although the Juan MacLean’s debut album, Less Than Human, featured plenty of guest contributions, it was ostensibly a solo project from former Six Finger Satellite guitarist John MacLean. The Future Will Come was constructed in a similar manner, and features a number of vocal and musical guests, including singer Nancy Whang and MacLean’s DFA label boss James Murphy. The first single from the record, the ebullient techno-house hybrid “Happy House,” was the first signifier of The Future Will Come’s buoyant tone, and MacLean describes it as “a disco inflected Human League sounding record.” Plenty of duets between MacLean and Whang feature, with the latter firmly establishing her role in the band during her time-off from touring with LCD Soundsystem.

1. The Simple Life
2. The Future Will Come
3. One Day
4. A New Bot
5. Tonight
6. No Time
7. Accusations
8. The Station
9. Human Disaster
10. Happy House

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Papercuts - You Can Have What You Want, 2009

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Mono - Hymn to the Immortal Wind, 2009

1. Ashes In The Snow
2. Burial At Sea
3. Silent Flight, Sleeping Dawn
4. Pure As Snow
5. Follow The Map
6. The Battle Of Heaven
7. Everlasting Light

Just in time for their 10-year anniversary, MONO return with their fifth studio album, the absolutely massive Hymn To The Immortal Wind. The music is naturally majestic, with MONO's trademark wall of noise crashing beautifully against the largest chamber orchestra the band has ever enlisted. The instrumentation is vast, incorporating strings, flutes, organ, piano, glockenspiel and tympani into their standard face-melting set-up. While Hymn continues to mine the cinematic drama inherent in all of MONO's music, the dynamic shifts now come more from dark-to-light instead of quiet-to-loud. The maturity to balance these elements so masterfully has become MONO's strongest virtue - save for perhaps their uncanny ability to sound every bit like a plane crashing into a Beethoven concert.

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Æthenor - Faking Gold & Murder, 2009

Third earth shattering outing for Vincent De Roguin (Shora), Stephen O'Malley (Sunn0))), KTL) and Daniel O'Sullivan (Guapo). For Faking Gold and Murder, the core trio is joined by percussionists Nicolas Field and Alex Babel, as well as renown guitarist Alexander Tucker and the inimitable David Tibet. Faking Gold is Æ’s heaviest outing, driven by a weighty low end and the full fury of Babel and Field’s free-wheeling drums. The trio’s electronics, guitar, Rhodes, and organ ride the waves of sound in a tightly-controlled blare, leaving plenty of space for Tibet’s declarations of the mystical and supernatural. Tibet is on top form here, rising out of the tempest at just the right moment, almost plain-spoken in places – grounding the squall at times, voicing the apocalypse at others.

“Brooding, primeval, dark alchemical epics are full of a ferocious intensity, sounding more like a starlit night being ripped open by lightning than a musical group. Intelligent and primal, like a dæmonic workshop, battering up Pandemoniums and dreaming of gold and murder, Æthenor are spectacular.”- David Tibet

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1900's - Kicks [2009]

Kicks features more sassy, infectiously catchy songs about Glasgow and girls in the main, but also references Mongolian warlords, bears, Jan Vennegoor of Hesselink, Baader-Meinhof and Scientology. Most of the songs on Kicks are anecdotes about ex, current, future and fictional girlfriends.The album was recorded at Edwyn Collins’ West Heath Yard studio in London and it was produced by Bernard Butler. Kicks is the sound of a group careering head first, inspired by where they come from and what they can potentially do, into further adventures in sound and visions. Inspiration was taken from everything from Scary Monsters/Golden Years-era Bowie and his work with Brian Eno & Tony Visconti to Jay-Z through to Hall & Oates, the chops of Hot Chocolate and even the folk licks of Richard Thompson. Sonically Kicks is a rock record, but 1990s' intention was to make it sound slightly alien, too. The album’s a non-stop assault of pop gems. “59” eulogises the 59 bus in Pollokshields, which comes approximately once per lifetime and goes from Narnia to Brigadoon via Pollokshields. As Michael, who sings it, explains "It’s the only bus you want to get on in Pollokshields, even if it’s going in the wrong direction. The song’s about me taking this bus and checking out the girls… with gammy eyes."1990s' vocal harmonies on this album have come into their own and lead vocal duties are shared amongst the group much more so than on Cookies. Michael sings four songs, Dino sings two and Jackie sings the rest. “Kickstrasse” features Jackie addressing German 1970s terrorist group Baader-Meinhof, with help from Kate Jackson (of The Long Blondes) on backing vocals. On “Everybody Please Relax” Jackie threatens to move to Hollywood and become a Scientologist. Michael and Dino hope that he doesn't.

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Madlib - Speto Da Rua (Dirty Brasilian Crates Vol. 1) [2009]

Crate-digging has become somewhat of an art in the hip-hop world. Producers and beatsmiths constantly have to challenge themselves in digging deeper into vinyl archives, looking for breaks and potential samples that haven't yet been used and over-exploited by other producers. And while that may not seem so hard (your parents probably have a bundle of old LPs in the attic that could be sample gold), it's a lot tougher than you would think. But Madlib, a DJ, producer and emcee hailing from Oxnard, California, has consistently made the competition look like a bunch of chumps, releasing handfuls of beat tapes to the public each year. His most recent mix? Speto Da Rua, the first in a six-part series of Brazilian goodies.

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