Pond / The Practice of Joy Before Death - SP265

MEDIUMS: LP, CD, CS

TRACK LISTING:

1. Side Road
2. Mubby\‘s Theme
3. Union
4. Magnifier
5. Patience
6. Ol\’ Bluehair
7. Sundial
8. Glass Sparkles In Their Hair
9. Van
10. Happy Cow Farm Family
11. Carpenter Ant
12. Artificial Turf
13. Rock Collection
14. Gagged & Bound

NOTES:

Released: January 17, 1995

Damien Jurado / Waters Ave S. - SP374

MEDIUMS: LP, CD

TRACK LISTING:

1. Wedding Cake
2. Angel of May
3. Treasures of Gold
4. Yuma, AZ
5. The Joke is Over
6. Space Age Mom
7. Circus, Circus, Circus
8. Hell or Highwater
9. Independent
10. Purple Anteater
11. Sarah
12. Halo Friendly
13. Waters Ave. S.

NOTES: Released 1/21/97

Released: January 21, 1997

godheadSilo / Skyward In Triumph - SP347

Released: April 9, 1996

Pigeonhed / Pigeonhed's Flash Bulb Emergency Overflow Cavalcade of Remixes - SP408

MEDIUMS: LP, CD

TRACK LISTING:

1. The Full Sentence (Fisk-Goodmanson Seismic Consumer Remix)
2. Phunpurephun (Technical Itch Remix)
3. Glory Bound (Red Snapper Edit Mix)
4. Battleflag (Lo-Fidelity Allstars Remix)
5. Marry Me (Fisk-Goodmanson Prenuptial Trash Heap Remix)
6. It\‘s Like The Man Said (Highlanders Syn-ful Remix)
7. Keep On Keepin\’ On (Ultra Living Mix)
8. Marry Me (Dave Ruffy Blissed Out Ambient Mix)
9. The Full Sentence (Substate Remix)

NOTES:

Released: October 7, 1997

Sunny Day Real Estate / LP2 - SP316

Released 11/7/95 on LP, CS, CD.

ATTENTION!
This is the original version of LP2 NOT the remastered reissue due out on Sept. 15, 2009 with added bonus tracks. And, it should go without saying (if you think about it), this version will no longer be available after Sept. 15, 2009.

Released: November 7, 1995

Radio Birdman / The Essential Radio Birdman (1974-1978) - SP553

Founded in Australia by Michigan native, guitarist Deniz Tek and vocalist Rob Younger, Radio Birdman was one of the crucial forebears of underground, high-energy punk. Blending the Motor City sound of bands like The Stooges and MC5 that permeated Tek's youth, with elements of surf-rock, Radio Birdman developed a sound that was truly all their own. And yet, their recordings have remained obscure and generally unattainable. Until now. This 22-track, single disc collection is the first release of Radio Birdman material in the U.S. in over twenty years.

TRACK LISTING:

1. Aloha Steve & Danno
2. Murder City Nights
3. New Race
4. Love Kills
5. Descent into the Maelstrom
6. Burn My Eye '78
7. I-94
8. Anglo Girl Desire
9. Hand of Law
10. Snake
11. Do the Pop
12. Non-Stop Girls
13. What Gives?
14. Man with Golden Helmet
15. Hanging On
16. Crying Sun
17. Smith & Wesson Blues
18. Time to Fall
19. Alone in the Endzone
20. Breaks My Heart (live)
21. More Fun (live)
22. Dark Surprise (live

NOTES:
This has newly designed cover art and contains remastered
tracks from Burned My Eye EP, Radios Appear, and Living
Eyes, as well as the live tracks from Paddo '77 that were included in the "Ashes" box set.

(The 2X LP comes with a bonus 7" including:
A. New Race (Australian Version)
B. TV Eye)

Released: 2001-07-17 (CD), 2001-11-06 (2xLP), 2001-07-17 (MP3s)

Holopaw / Holopaw - SP605

Holopaw, a five strong, ragtag group of string-benders, knob-twiddlers and finger pickers from Gainesville, Florida, came to our attention by way of Isaac Brock (he and Holopaw’s John Orth co-wrote some of our favorite songs on the Ugly Casanova record). Isaac played us their demo and we haven’t been the same since. Throughout, human fragility teeters on the edge of electric malfunction, dutifully powered along by pedal steels and steel pedals alike. We quickly came to realize that the strength of this band lies in the many contradictions they present: stripped acoustic arrangements are unsettled by electronic pulses and swells that fade in and out of songs like the warble of a short-wave radio. The sweetest melodies are splintered with stories of broekn backs and horses tangled in bridal veils. A sweet, spare vocal track is suddenly pulled under by a rush of dark, spiraling voices, only to surface again – more beautiful still for the contrast. It is these contradictions that might make Holopaw hard to describe, but harder still to ignore.

NOTES:
Holopaw is: Michael Johnson, Jeff Hays, Tobi Echevarria, Ryan Gensemer, and John Orth (also in Ugly Casanova)

Produced by Brian Deck

Released: January 21, 2003

Jale / Dreamcake - SP256

MEDIUMS: CD, LP, CS

TRACK LISTING:
Not Happy
Nebulous
3days
To Be Your Friend
Again
River
I’m Sorry
Mend

The Unseen Guest
Love Letter
Emma
Promise

NOTES: Released 7/1/94

Released: July 1, 1994

Band of Horses / Everything All The Time - SP690

Achieving musical transcendence is a tricky feat, almost definitively. If it happens at all, it happens naturally — and perhaps nobody knows that better than Seattle, Washington’s Band of Horses. Guitarist/vocalist Ben Bridwell and bassist Mat Brooke formed Band of Horses in 2004, after the dissolution of their nearly ten-year run in northwest melancholic darlings Carissa’s Wierd. Carissa’s Wierd trafficked in sadly beautiful orchestral pop, whose songs told unflinching stories of heartbreak and loss, leavened with defeatist humor. And, Band of Horses rises from the ashes of that well-loved and short-lived band. After playing music with each other for over a decade, Bridwell and Brooke picked up together again when Bridwell began fleshing out his compositions post-Carissa’s. “It was really just a natural thing we started doing,” explains Bridwell. Buoyed by Bridwell’s warm, reverb-heavy vocals (which strangely channel a dichotomous blend of Wayne Coyne, Brian Wilson and Doug Martsch,) Band of Horses’ woodsy, dreamy songs ooze with amorphous tension, longing and hope. At times raggedly epic (“The Great Salt Lake”) and delicately pensive (“St. Augustine,” “Monsters”), Everything All the Time is an album painted gorgeously in fragile highs and lows.

Released: March 21, 2006

Combustible Edison / The Impossible World - SP431

MEDIUMS: CD & LP

TRACK LISTING:

1. Utopia
2. Call of the Space Siren
3. Laura\‘s Aura
4. 20th Century
5. Cat O\’Nine Tails
6. Pink Victim
7. Dior
8. Hot and Bothered
9. Mr. Pushkin Came to Shove
10. Seduction
11. Tickled to Death
12. In the Garden of Earthly Delights
13. Utopia (Scanner\’s Reprise)

NOTES:

Released: October 6, 1998

5ive Style / 5ive Style - SP309

MEDIUMS: LP, CD

TRACK LISTING:

1. Deep Marsh
2. Hard Afro Rubalon
3. Once Around The Park
4. Round Up
5. I Told Ya
6. Outta Space Canoe Race
7. Apple Pie
8. Waiting On The Eclipse
9. Freddy Flakeout
10. Sure Is Hot

NOTES: Released 9/12/95.

Released: September 12, 1995

King Darves / The Sun Splits For... The Blind Swimmer - SBL-76063

So I would imagine that you’d have one look at the photo of King Darves we have here and think “Oh brother! Another guy with a beard getting over what looks like a bad case of the clap and an acoustic guitar. Where’s my axe?” So we’re not gonna put it up here. (Mystique, dig?) But it’s really not like that, I tell you! The bedrock of King Darves’ New Brunswick based concoction is certainly folk based but there’s no headband and he’s not singing of pixies in the moss. This is somewhere between rolled cigs and the foggy vision of Big Pink from somewhere on Jersey Avenue, or maybe a one-manned Meat Puppets. This kid has really cobbled something together in his kitchen sink! The Sun Splits For… The Blind Swimmer will shock and please when the prettiest sound of his deep, rich voice comes out of yr headphones, and it’ll make you tap yr toes and nod yr head like a little goil.

~ T Rettman

Released: July 31, 2008

Red Red Meat / Bunny Gets Paid: Deluxe Edition - SP778

Red Red Meat’s third full-length record, 1995’s Bunny Gets Paid has been out of print and unavailable for the past several years. And, while that’s a genuine shame on the face of it, it also provides a really good excuse for a deluxed-up reissue. In a recent reassessment of Red Red Meat’s catalog on Pitchfork Managing Editor Mark Richardson commented, “Having lived with these records for a decade plus now, I can say with confidence that this is Red Red Meat’s best by far. It’s one of the best pure rock records of the 1990s, actually, though it’s not exactly pure.”

We at Sub Pop heartily agree and have been talking about putting together this expanded reissue for the better part of a year now. In this deluxe edition, the original album has been remastered by Red Red Meat’s own Brian Deck and is accompanied by a 7-song 2nd disc of alternate, demo and single versions of album tracks, plus b-sides, covers and a previously unreleased song from the same era (“St. Anthony’s Jawbone”), all put together by the band. And it’s all packaged with expanded and enhanced album art. Bunny Gets Paid is easily one of the high points in the entire Sub Pop catalog (which is no one’s idea of “pure” either…), and we’re exceedingly proud to present it in this new version.

Released: March 24, 2009

Handsome Furs / FACE CONTROL - SP790

FACE CONTROL is the second album by Montreal’s Handsome Furs, 2007’s Plague Park was their first. Alexei Perry and Dan Boeckner wrote the songs on FACE CONTROL together. The album was recorded and mixed by Arlen Thompson at Mount Zoomer. It was mastered by Harris Newman at Hotel2Tango. It will be released on March 10th, 2009.

Released: March 10, 2009

Vetiver / Tight Knit - SP795

Tight Knit is the fourth full-length album from Vetiver, singer/songwriter Andy Cabic’s ever-evolving musical home base. Luminous and surprising, Tight Knit unfolds like a road trip down Highway 1, towards Cabic’s home in San Francisco. It represents a summation of the different styles and directions heard on past Vetiver releases, while it introduces some unexpected twists. Recorded in Sacramento at The Hangar and in LA at Melva, Tight Knit was produced by longtime Vetiver collaborator Thom Monahan. Vetiver’s songs have been described as “dreamy, gentle songs that George Harrison would have written in some sunny country garden.” Happily, that element remains alive and well on Tight Knit, as evidenced in songs like album opener “Rolling Sea” and “Everyday.” The album also introduces new aspects of the band’s sound with the light bop of “Sister” and “On the Other Side,” and the faraway and ethereal “Down from Above” and “At Forest Edge.” Tight Knit is layered and rich, with subtleties and nuances that reveal themselves with repeated listening. While there’s also more immediate gratification than on past Vetiver releases, Tight Knit is an album that rewards your attention.

You can download an mp3 of the song Everyday right here, for free!

Released: February 17, 2009

A Frames / A Frames - SS003

The A Frames’ debut album on SS Records. And here’s what SS Records has to say about it…

“Debut album that can claim to be one of p. rock’s great debut albums or “one of the few great new American rock records” (Byron Coley/Thurston Moore). You know you’ve been told to buy this record by god knows how many friends and don’t think that shitty download is what you really need. This is a ultrafucking masterpiece of punking genius."

Vetiver / Vetiver - 4079598

Self-titled debut album from Vetiver.

Released: November 6, 2008

Vetiver / Thing of the Past - 4079597

Thing of the Past is a carefully selected collection of 12 cover songs.

Released: November 6, 2008

Vetiver / To Find Me Gone - 4079599

Second full-length album from Vetiver.

Released: November 6, 2008

Unnatural Helpers / Unnatural Helpers - 4078899

This is the self-titled record from my work cubicle area’s finest band (sorry Zig), as well as the band that brought you the second single in our sold-out Single’s Club series.

Released: October 23, 2008

The Pica Beats / Beating Back the Claws of the Cold - SBL-73005

For all there is to be said about the power of the present in the endlessly cannibalizing tradition of pop music, it’s often the uncanny intangibility of timelessness that so separates the wheat from the chaff—a music aware of both the past and present, and yet discernibly apart from either moment in time. It is a tightrope tread by many, and often with perilous consequence. And yet, in the most literal sense of the word, timelessness is the very currency Seattle’s The Pica Beats make their stock in trade: that is, a sound both of and apart from our time.

Released: October 7, 2008

The Moondoggies / Don't Be A Stranger - SBL-73004

There is a popular chapter of American mythology that pertains to The Highway. It tells of a two-way ribbon of blacktop running endlessly through our past to our future, linking city to country, offering escape and motion and freedom to travel anywhere the imagination might wander. In this chapter, The Highway is both means and end, metaphor and reality. And down that mythical Highway there is a Bar. Inside that Bar is a Stage. On that Stage is a Band. That Band is the Moondoggies.

Released: October 7, 2008

Upchuck / Upchuck: Gone But Not Forgiven - 4999998

“This long-awaited CD from the legendary Charles “Upchuck” Gerra finally sets right one of the lost chapters in Seattle’s pre-grunge music era. Essential for anyone who loves punk rock, glam rock, or just groundbreaking music of any genre."

-Charles R. Cross
author of ‘Heavier Than Heaven’ & ‘Room Full of Mirrors’

Released: October 2, 2008

The Ruby Suns / Ruby Suns s/t - 4076699

The Ruby Suns’ self-titled debut on Memphis Industries.

Released: August 15, 2008

Daniel Martin Moore / Stray Age - SP760

(Stream Stray Age in full here!)

You’ve never heard of Daniel Martin Moore, from Cold Spring, Kentucky. That’s okay. Before we got his unsolicited demo in January 2007, neither had we. Luckily, he’d heard of us, and contacted us the way people in Cold Spring still do—he sent us a package, just to see what would happen. In all honesty, his odds were quite slim, but occasionally we’ll take down that “no solicitation” sign on our door. Eventually, we opened his package and gave his four songs a listen and decided to contact him—we happened upon Daniel while he was working at a friend’s bed and breakfast in Costa Rica. He’d been a bit of a drifter up until this point, studied photography in college, joined the Peace Corps in 2006, traveling to Cameroon for his service. What was supposed to be a two year commitment was cut short due to illness. So he came back to the states, lived in Minnesota for a while with his brother (who plays piano on several tracks), and began to focus on music.

The first thing you’ll notice about his debut, Stray Age is its simplicity. It’s a folk record, evoking certain feelings (as all good records should), but there’s a gentle approach to its sound and the way Moore’s voice phrases his words. Stray Age was recorded in Los Angeles in three different spurts, the first two sessions taking place in October and December of 2007, then the third in February of 2008. He even got some people you’ve heard of to help him out. Joe Chiccarelli (The Shins, U2, The White Stripes) took on co-production, recording and mixing duties. Justin Meldal-Johnsen (Beck, Tori Amos) played upright bass. Jesca Hoop lent her voice to “The Old Measure” and “Restoration Sketches.” And Petra Haden (Bill Frisell, Beck) adds violin to “It’s You,” “The Hour Of Sleep,” and “The Old Measure.”

Those reference points are really just that, though. Moore is most captivating as a singer, one who doesn’t seem concerned with usual folkie fodder. If you ask him what his music’s about—a legitimate question—he just politely shrugs his shoulders in a way that says, “that’s up to you to figure out.” But, the insights in Stray Age are not secrets and would never hope to be. That’s a good thing, as Moore’s much more of an optimist, hopefully anticipating the things that are just around the corner. “That’ll Be The Plan” strums along to a soft drumbeat, a traveling narrative centered around delicate mandolin solos. The one cover on the album, “Who Knows Where The Times Goes,” has Moore slowly, softly singing Sandy Denny, coupling his gentle coaxing with a faint vibraphone.

Yet as simply as Daniel Martin Moore thinks of Stray Age, it’s rich with understated complexities that take you to places that people like Nick Drake and Mojave 3/Slowdive principal Neil Halstead have been cited as doing. There’s a soft swing in the vocals reminiscent of Chet Baker. But the one thing with Moore, that we like to think of as separating him from the pack, is he’s looking forward. He wants to go places, he wants you to come with him, and we’re finding him right in that moment.

Stray Age is a work that welcomes a listener to know it. This is Daniel Martin Moore. He comes from a place both geographically and personally removed from any sense of the independent music scene. Clearly, that’s okay.

Released: October 7, 2008

Blitzen Trapper / Furr - SP755

Furr is the fourth record by Portland sextet Blitzen Trapper and the follow-up to last year’s highly acclaimed Wild Mountain Nation. Written in the gaps of the group’s frenetic touring schedule and recorded mostly in a hoary old telegraph building close by the Willamette River, the new record refines and expands on the far-ranging yet distinctive songcraft that lies at the heart of Blitzen Trapper’s unique appeal.

Like its predecessor, Furr was made largely in the group’s studio at Sally Mack’s School of Dance, which is housed in the aforementioned telegraph building near downtown Portland. This is a small T-shaped room with high ceilings, a couch, a hot-plate, and a mixing console. During reprieves from tour, songwriter and producer Eric Earley lived furtively in the studio, crashing on the couch, but rising with the sun or staying up into the nether hours when the other bands in the building quit and went home. It was during these quiet times that the new songs took shape, with rhythm sections printed hot to four-track and then layered and embellished and deconstructed or sometimes just left the way they were.

One key to this new material was an ancient, warped piano that appeared in the hallway one day at Sally Mack’s School of Dance and which was subsequently muscled into the group’s studio. Though out of tune and missing teeth, this piano became the warhorse upon which Earley wrote and recorded much of Furr. The beast has gone away to the landfill now, but you can still hear the clacking and clattering of its rickety skeleton in songs like “Not Your Lover” and “Echo.”

Blitzen Trapper is a group of native Northwesterners, most of whom grew up in Salem, Oregon. They have lived and played together in Portland since 2000. Critics and fans have compared their music to just about everything; there have been calls to coin a new genre. After self-releasing Wild Mountain Nation in June of 2007, the group ventured beyond the West Coast for the first time to tour extensively in Europe and North America. Furr is their first Sub Pop release.

Herewith, the Rolling Stone review of Furr

Released: September 23, 2008

Chad VanGaalen / Soft Airplane - SP783

Chad VanGaalen’s musical roots date back to the first part of the decade, when he made a living busking on the streets of Calgary. He is also an accomplished animator and illustrator whose music is very much informed by his appreciation of visual arts. He has produced a voluminous wealth of material, by himself, at a rate that might best be described as alarming. And whatever his motivation for doing what he does, or creating what he creates, the result is that it is always both genuine and good. The proof is in the songs themselves. They have heart. They have pain. They have hope. They have humor. And most importantly, they have fun.

Recorded on a Tascam 4-track and other analog devices, using synthesizers, guitars and a collection of his own handmade instruments, Chad’s first two LPs, Infiniheart (2005) and Skelliconnection (2006), were wildly eclectic and ethereal, texturally imaginative, sometimes ambitious and sometimes restrained.

Recorded primarily on an old tape machine and a JVC ghetto blaster in Chad’s Calgary basement, Soft Airplane retains the handmade charm and singular character of his previous records, while incorporating new layers of sophistication and weight. Recalling Neil Young at his most fragile and plaintive, and Thurston Moore at his most resolved and vital, Chad’s emotive vocals anchor these songs while tackling the pervasive themes of death and dreams with an unexpected air of certainty and hope that is far from ominous—-instead it’s luminous. Through a complex interplay of guitar, drum beats, loops, samples, found sounds, unorthodox percussion, xylophones, distortion, synthesizers, accordions and more, Chad has made an album that sounds bigger than one man.

It sounds like a lifetime.

Released: September 9, 2008

The Monkeywrench / Gabriel's Horn - 4012998

Monkeywrench: Celebrating 17 years of a great idea; putting together the progenitors of the modern underground featuring Mark Arm and Steve Turner of Mudhoney fame, together with Tim Kerr (Poison 13, King Sound Quartet, The Big Boys), Gas Huffer’s Tom Price, and Martin Bland (Lubricated Goat), Monkeywrench is nothing less than a Punk/Grunge supergroup.

You won’t be surprised to find the same glorious, fuzzed-out mess that characterizes Mudhoney’s work, but there are notable differences here: Monkeywrench provides a twisted take on everything from country to Psychedelic and offers impressive bluesy guitar playing. There is a Texas roots taste spread through the tracks while the rhythm section lays down a fast and furious groove (Turner’s bass playing is outstanding) while dueling guitars engage in a race to the finish line. Then there’s Mark Arm’s influential rasp — an unkempt, sneering yowl. It’s comforting to know these gents haven’t settled down.

For fans of: Mudhoney, The Big Boys, Lubricated Goat, The Sonics, The Big Boys, The Dicks, MC5

Released: March 6, 2008

Death Vessel / Nothing Is Precious Enough for Us - SP735

This collection of music was written and sung by Joel Thibodeau. It is unlike anything you’ve ever heard. People will call it many things. Few will get it right. This is Death Vessel.

Death Vessel’s debut album Stay Close was released in 2005 to critical acclaim. Since that album’s release Death Vessel has toured with Iron & Wine, Low, Jose Gonzalez, and The Books, among others. Recorded with longtime producer/collaborator Pete Donnelly (The Figgs) at his New Jersey studio, and various locales across the northeast, Nothing Is Precious Enough for Us is Death Vessel’s Sub Pop debut. While in recent years Joel has toured primarily as a solo performer, and the songs are inarguably mesmerizing and relevant in that setting, on record they take on a new life, thanks to his and Donnelly’s inspired, and often unusual, arrangements, and the contributions of numerous friends and players. The album exudes a unique, wide-scope ambition. Its musical reach is fully extended—-deep into the past, grounded in the present and nodding to the future. Owing to the gritty avarice of Joel’s singular spirit, voice and musicality, the songs sound as progressive, experimental and modern as they do antique and old-world. The music is haunting and spiritual, mysterious and kind, ageless and contemporary, soulful and psychedelic. In short, it’s where the requiem meets rock ‘n’ roll.

“Now I am versed in silence/my throat hurts, not from yelling but from holding back,” Joel sings on “Block My Eye,” the album’s opening track. And that’s ok, because the music speaks for itself. And nothing ever sounded so loud, and so clear.

Released: August 19, 2008

Oxford Collapse / BITS - SP769

BITS is album number four for Brooklyn’s Oxford Collapse, but it’s a first for them in many ways. Some of those ways will be immediately apparent to those of you who’ve followed their raucous, boyish exploits since their 2006 Sub Pop debut Remember the Night Parties, or from their earlier efforts. Their charming lack of guile, combined with a capable and focused aim towards the better of the ‘80s college-rock cognoscenti and Trouser Press favorites, has made for music that has found its way into backyards and across rooftops all over the city. Recorded in chunks throughout 2007 with Eric Emm at the Brothers Studios, and Chad Matheny in spaces all over town, BITS corrects for time and experience, and shows a band artistically riding its own peaks. The tension is still present in their three-way interplay (listen to them firing off of each other, squealing out of control at the end of “Back of the Yards”) but the direction and presence in this set is open, flowing against anything they’ve done before. It’s the sound of fun turning into purpose, of a great band writing and playing their best songs, and knowing how great that feels. This is the new Oxford Collapse, as a band and as a record: straightforward; memorable; mature, but not necessarily grown-up; just better. It’s all heart and ingenuity, the joyous racket that connects C86 pop to the present, made by three guys who are realizing that they can be mayors.

Released: August 5, 2008