Top CDs at Indie Stores 2024(Luminate)
Gracie Abrams returns with her sophomore album, "The Secret of Us" released via Interscope Records. This is Gracie's most expansive body of work both sonically and narratively. Coming off the heels of her hugely successful debut "Good Riddance" Gracie shows us how much she has accomplished in one short year. Gracie's growth as a songwriter and vocalist is showcased in her most extroverted album yet, as she continues to work with longtime collaborator Aaron Dessner. A portion of these songs were also written with Gracie's best friend, Audrey Hobert. This album was written with the urgency with which you run home to detail every moment of a night to your friend, with her live experiences over the past year having deeply shaped the identity of this album.
2020 release. Fetch the Bolt Cutters is the fifth studio album by American singer-songwriter Fiona Apple. It is Apple's first release since The Idler Wheel... in 2012. The album was recorded from 2015 to 2020, largely at Apple's home in Venice Beach. It was produced and performed by Apple alongside Amy Aileen Wood, Sebastian Steinberg and Davíd Garza; recording consisted of long, often-improvised takes with unconventional percussive sounds. Rooted in experimentation, the highly percussive album resists genre categorization. While conventional instruments, such as pianos and drum sets, do appear, the album also features prominent use of non-musical found objects as percussion. Apple described the result as "percussion orchestras". These industrial-like rhythms are contrasted against traditional melodies, and the upbeat songs often subvert traditional pop structures.
This Is How Tomorrow Moves is the third album from artist beabadoobee, recorded at Shangri-La in Malibu with renowned producer Rick Rubin
and released on her long-standing label, Dirty Hit. This Is How Tomorrow Moves captures beabadoobee's confidence and introspection, with
themes of self-acceptance and personal growth woven throughout. It stands as a testament to her artistic evolution and resilience, marking a
significant milestone in her career.
Will Toledo always knew he would return to Twin Fantasy. He never did complete the work. Not really. Never could square his grand ambitions against his mechanical limitations. Listen to his first attempt, recorded at nineteen on a cheap laptop, and you’ll hear what Brian Eno fondly calls “the sound of failure” - thrilling, extraordinary, and singularly compelling failure. Will’s first love, rendered in the vivid teenage viscera of stolen gin, bruised shins, and weird sex, was an event too momentous for the medium assigned to record it.
Early next year, on the heels of the smashing success of Teens of Denial, Car Seat Headrest will release a new version of Twin Fantasy. “It was never a finished work,” Will says, “and it wasn’t until last year that I figured out how to finish it.” He has, now, the benefit of a bigger budget, a full band in fine form, and endless time to tinker. According to him, it took eight months of mixing just to get the drums right. But this is no shallow second take, sanitized in studio and scrubbed of feeling. This is the album he always wanted to make. It sounds the way he always wanted it to sound.
It’s been hard, stepping into the shoes of his teenage self, walking back to painful places. There are lyrics he wouldn’t write again, an especially sad song he regards as an albatross. But even as he carries the weight of that younger, wounded Will, he moves forward. He grows. He revises, gently, the songs we love so much. In the album’s final moments, in those apologies to future me’s and you’s, there is more forgiveness than fury.
This, Will says, is the most vital difference between the old and the new: he no longer sees his own story as a tragedy.
On her anxiously awaited fifth full-length album, emails i can’t send, Sabrina Carpenter showcases ultra-personal songwriting and passionate, palpable performances. With “skinny dipping,” “Fast Times” and her latest release “Vicious,” a nineties pop-rock songcraft with an intoxicating dose of 21st century feels, Carpenter offers her most vulnerable work to date.
Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds return with new album, Wild God. Across the ten tracks of the album, the band dance between convention and experimentation, taking left-turns and detours that heighten the rich imagery and emotion in Cave's soul-stirring narratives. It is the sound of a group emboldened by reconnection and taking flight. There are moments that touch fondly upon the Bad Seeds' past but they are fleeting, and serve only to imbue the relentless and restless forward motion of the band. Produced by Cave and Warren Ellis, and mixed by David Fridmann, Cave began writing the album in 2023. With sessions at Miraval in Provence and Soundtree in London, the Bad Seeds added their unique alchemy, with additional performances from Colin Greenwood (bass) and Luis Almau (nylon string guitar, acoustic guitar). "Wild God... there's no fucking around with this record. When it hits, it hits. It lifts you. It moves you. I love that about it," says Nick Cave.
With the release of Cigarettes After Sex’s third album, X’s, the band finally takes center stage as not just one of today’s preeminent indie bands, but as one of the most globally accomplished acts across any genre. Filled with raw, imagistic, sometimes smutty vignettes set to entrancing, slow burn pop songs, bandleader Greg Gonzalez captures every emotion a romantic arc inspires. CD Packaging: Digipak CD with lyric book.
Moon Music, the highly anticipated tenth album from Coldplay lands on October 4 2024.
Moon Music, which was produced by Max Martin, is available to pre-order everywhere now.
In tandem with Coldplay's ground-breaking sustainability measures on their current tour - which has so far produced 59% less CO2e emissions than their previous stadium tour - the band have gone to great lengths to make the physical release of Moon Music as sustainable as possible.
This will be the world's first album released as a 140g EcoRecord rPET LP, with each copy containing nine recycled PET-plastic bottles recovered from post-consumer waste. This will prevent the manufacture of more than 25 metric tonnes of virgin plastic, and provide an 85% reduction in manufacturing process CO2 emissions/kg compared to traditional 140g vinyl.
Additionally, the band have collaborated with long-time partners The Ocean Cleanup to create an additional format: the Notebook Edition EcoRecord rPET LP. The rPET for this edition comprises 70% river plastic, intercepted by The Ocean Cleanup from the Rio Las Vacas, Guatemala, and prevented from reaching the Gulf of Honduras and the Atlantic Ocean.
The CD editions of Moon Music will be the world's first to be released on EcoCD, created from 90% recycled polycarbonate,sourced from post-consumer waste streams. This will provide at least a 78% CO2/kg emission reduction, and avoid the manufacture of more than five metric tonnes of virgin plastic.
In an effort to reduce waste, the first edition run of Moon Music(both EcoRecord rPET LP and EcoCD) will be strictly limited and produced at a higher specification than any future editions. All First Edition EcoRecord rPET LP products will be individually numbered.
2023 marks the 10th anniversary of Daft Punk multi Grammy winning hit record Random Access Memories including Get Lucky, Instant Crush, Lose Yourself To Dance and featuring Pharrell Williams, Nile Rodgers, Julian Casablancas, Paul Williams, Panda Bear and Todd Edwards. To celebrate this milestone a special expanded edition will be released including 35 minutes of unreleased music (Demo and Studio Outtakes). The double CD Digipak includes a 20 page booklet.