Featured New Releases

Y La Bamba
Lupon
Tender Loving Empire

Produced by The Decemberists’ Chris Funk, the debut album from Portland’s Y La Bamba blends breathtaking three-part harmonies, reverb-laden guitars, and a songbook written in both English and Spanish by six-foot tall, tattooed lead songstress Luzelena Mendoza. The result is a rich, fully realized, cutting-edge indie rock record that hearkens back to the days of 78's and Victrola speakers and proudly bears its Mexican influences.

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Various Artists
Black Sabbath: The Secret Musical History of Black-Jewish Relations
Idelsohn Society

This first attempt to gather the US history of African-American & Jewish relations into a selective pop musical guide moves from early performers like Slim Galliard singing about bagels and matzoh balls and Cab Calloway mixing Yiddish into his hepcat dictionary of jive, to Sonny Berman making ’40s bebop he called ''Beautiful Jewish Music," Johnny Mathis singing "Kol Nidre," and Aretha Franklin doing a ’60s take on "Swanee." Also features Billie Holiday, Eartha Kitt, Cannonball Adderley, Lena Horne, Nina Simone, The Temptations, and more!

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Joan of Arc
Cassette Box Set
Joyful Noise

Limited to just 100 copies, this box set contains high-quality digital downloads of every full-length Joan of Arc album from 1997–2009 in retro cassette format! Screen-printed box, hand-numbered, with only 100 units in existence. Cassettes individually packaged with original artwork and over-wrapped with DD code inside.

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Jen Wood
Finds You In Love
New Granada Records

Jen Wood’s first full length in eight years! Previous work includes releases on Tree Records (EP and Post Marked Stamps 7" series). Jen sings on the Postal Service singles "Such Great Heights" and "Nothing Better,” as well as contributing vocals to releases by Black Heart Procession, Joan of Arc, and Rosie Thomas. Several years in the making, Finds You In Love is the perfect storm that results from a gifted singer-songwriter writing the best songs of her career, a dynamic band, and the right producer working together and trusting one another to create a powerful and special album.

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Major Organ and the Adding Machine
Major Organ and the Adding Machine
Orange Twin Records

Elephant 6 supergroup featuring Jeff Mangum (Neutral Milk Hotel), Kevin Barnes (Of Montreal), and members of Olivia Tremor Control and Elf Power. This expanded version of the album includes a DVD of the accompanying film packed with new bonus videos, including Neutral Milk Hotel live at the Knitting Factory, a new Apples In Stereo video, live show footage from Hawk and a Hacksaw, and more.

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William Parker
I Plan To Stay A Believer: The Inside Songs of Curtis Mayfield
AUM Fidelity

Curtis Mayfield was a prophet, a preacher, a revolutionary, a humanist, and a griot—words that all apply to William Parker as well. I Plan To Stay A Believer is the definitive document of Parker’s Curtis Mayfield project, with fully exuberant performances of each piece drawn from concert recordings spanning the past decade. Included are two pieces from the group's very first 2001 performance in Paris with a chorus of 90 children, and another pair from New York in 2008 that feature a full gospel choir.

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The Birthday Massacre
Pins and Needles
Metropolis Records

Combining their interests in various musical and artistic styles, The Birthday Massacre creates a captivating hybrid of ’80s electronica and aggressive guitars, curiously fused with cinematically dark melodic progressions. From the opening notes of the lead off track “In The Dark” to the closing chimes of “Secret,” it is evident that Pins and Needles is The Birthday Massacre at its collective best.

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Rudresh Mahanthappa & Bunky Green
Apex
Pi Recordings

A blazing all-star collaboration between alto saxophonists Rudresh Mahanthappa and Bunky Green, along with Jason Moran on piano and the great Jack DeJohnette on drums. Rudresh Mahanthappa is perennially near the top of the DownBeat Critics Poll, and was named Alto Saxophonist of the Year for the last two years by the Jazz Journalists Association. A real cult figure in jazz, 75-year-old Bunky Green is among the most influential living saxophonists, with a direct impact on the playing style of such greats as Steve Coleman, Greg Osby, and Gary Thomas. Based on a terrific live performance review by Ben Ratliff of the New York Times, there is already significant buzz building in the jazz community for this release.

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