Kinski / Kinski / Acid Mothers Temple - SP626

A four-song split release from Kinski and their friends Acid Mothers Temple, limited to 5000 copies on CD and 1000 on double-LP. After a December 2001 Japanese tour together, the two bands did a bit of home-recording together. Kinski’s Chris Martin in the record’s liner notes: “Months and months later, I sat down with the tapes and began mixing what seemed to be the most interesting 10 minutes of the session, which became ’It’s Nice to Hear Your Voice.’ Kawabata [Makoto] wanted to overdub onto my mix (along with Tsuyama, Acid Mothers’ bassist, who wasn’t at the original sessions) and the results are ‘Planet Crazy Gold.’ ‘Fell Asleep On Your Lawn’ and ‘Virginal Plane 5:23’ are new Kinski and Acid Mothers Temple tracks (respectively).”
This CD is limited to 5000 copies in the US.
Track Listing:
1. Fell Asleep On Your Lawn (Kinski)
2. It’s Nice To Hear Your Voice (Kinski and Acid Mothers Temple)
3. Planet Crazy Gold (Kinski and Acid Mothers Temple)
4. Virginal Plane (Acid Mothers Temple)

Released: October 7, 2003

Kinski / Semaphore - SP606

Kinski’s 2002 debut Sub Pop release (not counting their 2001 contribution to the v.2 of the Sub Pop Singles Club), the Semaphore EP includes the song “Semaphore,” which later appeared on the band’s Jan. 2003 full-length Airs Above Your Station, a cover of “Point That Thing Somewhere Else” by The Clean, and two otherwise unreleased tracks.

Released: October 8, 2002

Niki & The Dove / The Drummer - SP986

Niki & The Dove, the Swedish duo of Malin Dahlström and Gustaf Karlöf who NME recently referred to as “…one of Europe’s most exciting bands,” return with this new, digital-only EP called The Drummer. Four of the seven tracks here (“The Drummer,” “Last Night,” “Mother Protect,” and “Manon”) will appear on the band’s forthcoming and as-yet-unscheduled 2012 full-length debut. Along with their June 2011 single for The Fox, this new EP provides plenty of reasons to look forward to in 2012.

NME (these guys again…) had the following to say about “The Drummer”:
“Niki & The Dove continue distilling the elemental into cautionary, unpredictable electronic shapes on this, perhaps their most gleaming pop moment to date.”

Niki & The Dove will be on tour throughout the UK for much of October and will support Hurts in the UK in early November.

Released: October 18, 2011

Spoek Mathambo / Put Some Red on It - SP982

Put Some Red on It is Sub Pop’s first release from South Africa’s Spoek Mathambo. Here’s SPIN magazine on Spoek’s cover of Joy Division’s “Control” in a recent “Songs You Must Hear Now” section: “Slo-mo vocals plunge into the sepulcher as drum machines ricochet and synths snake on this ‘darkwave township house’ cover of Joy Division.”

Produced by Spoek in collaboration with Copenhagen-based future-bass artist Chllngr, Put Some Red on It is a 6-song digital-only EP featuring two tracks (“Put Some Red on It” and “Dog to Bone”) that will also appear in some form on Spoek’s as-yet-unscheduled 2012 debut full-length, plus remixes of those tracks and a brief intro piece. We’re just ridiculously excited about the music Spoek’s making and this EP provides a glimpse at a album we hope you’ll soon look forward to as much as we do.

Released: September 27, 2011

Dum Dum Girls / Only in Dreams - SP950

On several levels, Dum Dum Girls’ second full-length Only in Dreams is a great leap forward for a gifted songwriter and an equally gifted band—it’s heavy, deeply personal stuff and surely unprecedented for this style of music. “The first record was basically the first songs I’d ever written,” says band-leader Dee Dee, “and I was thinking nostalgically about being a teenager. This record, it was pretty much impossible not to write about very recent, very real things.” Very real things indeed: Dee Dee wrote “Hold Your Hand” immediately after her mother (the pretty lady on the cover of both the Dum Dum Girls’ self-titled 2009 debut EP and their 2010 debut album I Will Be) was diagnosed with what turned out to be a fatal illness, and it’s one of several songs on Only in Dreams that unsparingly trace her mom’s passing. Other songs spell out the emotional toll of separation from one’s lover, something Dee Dee had to deal with while she and her husband (Brandon Welchez of the acclaimed noise-pop band Crocodiles) pursued their own tour schedules.

Only in Dreams more than fulfills the promise of 2011’s acclaimed and fast-selling He Gets Me High EP. It retains Dum Dum Girls’ signature blend of the girl-gang eyeliner punk of the Shangri-Las, the trashy propulsion of the Cramps, and the moody atmospherics of Mazzy Star, but for the first time, all four Dum Dum Girls play and sing on the album. Now the harmonies have more depth, Jules plays her own distinctive guitar leads, and the Bambi (bass)/Sandy (drums) rhythm section powers the music like a vintage V-8 engine. Best of all, tons of time on the road—including two massively successful headlining tours—have molded Dum Dum Girls into a very formidable rock & roll band, giving the music an undeniable force.

And now that power and glory is showcased by full-on studio production—while I Will Be was recorded at home and modestly spiffed up in a studio by legendary pop maestro Richard Gottehrer (Blondie, Go-Go’s), Only in Dreams was recorded at Josh Homme’s Pink Duck Studios, and Gottehrer again produced, this time with Sune Rose Wagner from the Raveonettes.

Only in Dreams represents a musical evolution for Dum Dum Girls and a personal one for Dee Dee, and that’s no coincidence. “I’m for real,” she says. “We all are. I’m really passionate about this, it’s all I know. And maybe we’ve just grown up a bit-or grown out a bit. There’s some weight to what we do, and a pure intent, and I think that comes across on this album.”

If you pre-order Only in Dreams, you’ll receive a limited-edition seven-inch single featuring an edit of “Coming Down” b/w “Crystal Baby.” That’s not the only bit of good news—we pressed a whole bunch on black vinyl, but if you order through us, you get your seven-inch on white vinyl. -And more good news with the colored vinyl: if you pre-order through us, your copy of Only in Dreams will be on light pink vinyl!- (We are now out of pink vinyl.) Both of these things is a “while supplies last” sort of thing, so order now!

Released: September 27, 2011

Fruit Bats / Tripper - SP935

With the 2001 release of the Fruit Bats’ debut album, Echolocation, Eric D. Johnson embarked on a career in music that has, to date, included ten years with the Fruit Bats, sideman duties for bands including Califone, Vetiver and The Shins, and more recently, soundtrack work for films like Ceremony and the soon-to-be-released Paul Rudd comedy Our Idiot Brother. Tripper, the new and fifth Fruit Bats full-length, was recorded at WACS Studio in Los Angeles with Thom Monahan, best known as producer for the last four Vetiver albums, Devendra Banhart’s Cripple Crow, and the Pernice Brothers. For the first week of recording, Johnson brought in a full band—Sam Wagster, Ron Lewis and Graeme Gibson—to capture some of the live excitement of the previous Fruit Bats album, 2009’s The Ruminant Band. However, having recently worked alone on soundtracks for an extended period, Johnson knew that he wanted Tripper to be more of a solitary pursuit than his previous album. For the remaining four weeks, he worked with Monahan to deepen and refine the sound. Though, perhaps the most radical thing about the album is not its haunting production, but the way it allows narratives to shape its songs. Johnson says that, though he began experimenting with story songs on The Ruminant Band, he has only recently made them his focus. As Johnson approached recording for this latest Fruit Bats album, he began to think, more and more, about the appeal of changing scenery. His own process shifted slightly to focus more on story-based songs, and following his collaborations with film-makers, he began experimenting with more abstract, less folk-based sounds. The resulting album, a bittersweet meditation on hitting the road, leaving the familiar behind and reinventing yourself, is a reinvention itself.

Released: August 2, 2011

Mister Heavenly / Out of Love - SP926

Comprised of Nick Thorburn (Islands/The Unicorns), Ryan Kattner (Man Man) and Joe Plummer (Modest Mouse), Mister Heavenly is a threesome as charming and, sometimes, as tricky to pin down as their name suggests. At the very forefront of “doom wop” (more a state of mind than a nitpicky micro-genre), Mister Heavenly draws inspiration from a shared love of 1950s vocal-based R&B classics by ensembles like the Penguins, the Platters, and the Moonglows, and also a fascination with ill-fated romance. The album title, Out of Love, is both a nod to passion as a motivator (“I did it out of love”) and also the absence or dissolution of same (“She fell out of love with me”): two seminal lyrical themes in the annals of pop music. As it happens, the actual Mister Heavenly song “Doom Wop” owes as much to grunge and art-punk as it does ‘50s pop. When you mint your own style you can take such liberties. Recorded live to tape at Bear Creek Studio in Woodinville, WA, Out of Love is Mister Heavenly’s debut full-length album. With the August 2011 release of Out of Love, Mister Heavenly will tour these United States.

If you’re among the first 500 people to pre-order Out of Love on CD or LP, you’ll receive TWO really cool gifts from the guys of Mister Heavenly. First is a Nick Thorburn two-sided, signed/numbered print and second is a Mister Heavenly stencil! Also, if you’re among the first 350 people to order the album on vinyl, you’ll it on a limited edition mustard-colored LP!

Released: August 16, 2011

Male Bonding / Endless Now - SP934

Male Bonding is a noise-pop trio from London’s Dalston neighborhood. Nothing Hurts, the band’s 2010 debut was described by Pitchfork as, “…the sound of a fast, fuzzy rock band racing from hook to hook, plowing happily through breakdowns and guitar blasts, springing through scrappy melodies with style. It’s one of the happiest surprises of the year so far.” This new Male Bonding album, Endless Now, was recorded at Dreamland Recording Studio in Woodstock, NY, the converted 19th century church that birthed such classics as The B-52s’ “Love Shack” and Dinosaur Jr.’s 1993 full-length Where You Been. The band worked with producer John Agnello (Kurt Vile, Thurston Moore, Dinosaur Jr.) installed behind the altar and came up with an album animated by an infectious, evangelical zeal that reflects their roots in the D.I.Y. indie rock community. Eleven tracks—plus a wee reprise—imbued with the fierce urgency of now, and catchy as all get-out, Endless Now is 36 minutes of songs tailor-made to anchor mix tapes and playlists—if you can stand to separate them from the whole album.

If you pre-order Endless Now on CD/LP by August 30th, you’ll receive a free Male Bonding patch! (limited to the first 400 pre-orders)

Released: August 30, 2011

Washed Out / Within and Without - SP945

Washed Out is the operational alias for Atlanta, GA’s Ernest Greene, and on July 12th, we at Sub Pop Records will be releasing the first Washed Out full-length, Within and Without. We are excited about this, to an almost unseemly degree. Greene recorded Within and Without with Ben Allen, who, among a great many other things, co-produced Animal Collective’s Merriweather Post Pavillion, Gnarls Barkley’s St. Elsewhere and Deerhunter’s Halcyon Digest. In 2009 Washed Out released two critically-acclaimed EPs; Life of Leisure (Mexican Summer) and High Times (Mirror Universe Tapes). Most recently, the Washed Out song “Feel It All Around,” from Life of Leisure, was chosen as the theme song for the new and very funny IFC series Portlandia, which features Saturday Night Live cast member Fred Armisen and Sleater-Kinney/Sub Pop alum and current Wild Flag member Carrie Brownstein. Early confirmed press for Within and Without includes a “Breaking Out” feature in the June issue of SPIN, as well as NPR “Song of the Day” coverage for the album’s lead track “Eyes Be Closed.” In addition to performing at this year’s Sasquatch! Music Festival in May, Washed Out will be touring in these United States in September of 2011.

Released: July 12, 2011

Shabazz Palaces / Black Up - SP900

Black Up is the new sonic move from Shabazz Palaces. Like rich velvet hijabs or gold threaded abayas. Luxury as understood by the modest. Shabazz Palaces. If Bedouins herded beats instead of goats and settled in Seattle instead of the Atlas Mountains, this would be their album. Forward thinkers but nostalgic for a sparer time when ancient astronomers only recognized five planets. Hip hop. Black light uses electromagnetic radiation to eradicate microorganisms, but shabazz didn’t come to kill a sound, just to shine their own incandescent lamp on this. Hear. Hard and clear. Fifty thousand years in the making. Honorable.—palaceer pink gators. Produced by Knife Knights.plcrs at Gunbeat Serenade Studio in Outplace Palacelands. It was recorded and mixed in Lixx-alog by Blood.

If you pre-order Black Up by June 28th, you will receive, for free, from us, a patch designed by the Palaceer himself! Plus and also there will be stickers.

Released: June 28, 2011

The Head and the Heart / The Head and the Heart - SP915

Recorded in early 2010, this is the debut full-length by The Head and the Heart. Self-released in June 2010, the album helped build an impressive head-of-steam for the band through the second 1/2 of the year, gaining fans at influential Seattle station KEXP, local record shops (a consistent top 10 seller for Easy Street and the #1 album of 2010 at Sonic Boom), and venues up and down the West Coast, culminating with signing to Sub Pop Records in November. For this 2011 re-release of the album, “Sounds like Hallelujah” has been re-recorded, live favorite “Rivers and Roads” has been added, and the album has been remastered.

The vinyl version comes in a deluxe gatefold jacket with gold foil printing and includes an MP3 download (320k) of the album. The cover of the vinyl version is different from the CD: it has an off-white border framing the cover image that appears on the CD.

The digital version is presented at a glorious 320k bit rate.

If you pre-order The Head and the Heart CD or LP by April 16th, you’ll receive a limited edition (meaning order now if you’d like one!) photo scrapbook compiled by the band with your order! Oh yeah! There will also be stickers. (Note that the MP3 version of the album does NOT include the scrapbook or stickers.)

Released: 2011-01-11 (MP3s), 2011-04-16 (CD), 2011-04-16 (LP), 2011-04-16 (CD + t-shirt adult s bundle)...

Handsome Furs / Sound Kapital - SP881

Sound Kapital is the third full-length from Handsome Furs, the Canadian two-piece of husband and wife Dan Boeckner and Alexei Perry. It’s also the first Handsome Furs album written exclusively on keyboards. This was a conscious decision. Here in 2011, the suggestion that electronic music is cold, alien or unfeeling, somehow detached from the human experience, is as lingering as it is outdated. Handsome Furs don’t just shrug off this myth on Sound Kapital, they reject it with every fiber of their shared being. On this new album they use keyboards and drum machines to forge life-affirming anthems taut with muscle and blood. These nine songs of innocence and experience occasionally look ahead to a better world in the not-so-distant future, but Handsome Furs know what time it is: Now. They are fully engaged in the moment and their surroundings, wherever that may be.

Sound Kapital was recorded quickly, polished and rehearsed in the Furs’ derelict Montreal studio, then preserved for posterity by longtime producers Howard Bilerman and Arlen Thompson at Hotel2Tango, mixed by Finnish dudes Antti Joas and Jonas Verwijnen at Kaiku Studios in Helsinki and Berlin, and mastered by Harris Newman at Grey Market Mastering in Montreal.

Cold, alien and unfeeling? Hardly. Sound Kapital is hot, noisy, over-stimulated… and ready to take on the world.

PLEASE NOTE! When you pre-order Sound Kapital on CD or LP, we will give you a 320k download of the entire record! This download will be available on your sp.com account page, sensibly enough, under “available downloads” after you’ve placed your order.

The above thing is in addition to the thing where we will be giving the first 350 people who pre-order Sound Kapital a 9-postcard set featuring photos taken by the band, all packaged in a fancy custom envelope. It is, as I am told they say, a “real classy piece.”

Released: June 28, 2011

Fleet Foxes / Helplessness Blues - SP888

Helplessness Blues is the new full-length from Fleet Foxes. Helplessness Blues was recorded over the course of a year at Avast Recording, Bear Creek Studios, Dreamland Studios, and Reciprocal Recording. The album was recorded and mixed by Phil Ek and co-produced by Fleet Foxes and Ek. The piece that appears on the album cover was illustrated by Seattle artist Toby Liebowitz and painted by Chris Alderson. Fleet Foxes is Robin Pecknold, Skyler Skjelset, Christian Wargo, Casey Wescott, Josh Tillman and Morgan Henderson.

Released: May 3, 2011

Low / C'mon - SP905

C’mon is the shortest title of any Low album, which seems fitting, as it also ranks among the most succinct and straightforward entries in their variegated discography. Singer-guitarist Alan Sparhawk has even perfected the “elevator pitch” for C’mon: “Recorded in an old church in Duluth, MN and mixed in an apartment in Hollywood, CA.” But that brief synopsis hides universes.

Comprised of new material written on and off the road, the ten-song set was recorded in a former Catholic church, aka Sacred Heart Studio (where the band previously crafted 2002’s Trust) and co-produced and mixed by Matt Beckley. The band took full advantage of Sacred Heart’s high, vaulted ceilings, natural reverb, and audible affinity for organ sounds and group singing. The thunder-crack percussion that peppers the final minute of the slowly unfolding “Majesty/Magic” is just one example of this dynamic in action. With its jangly guitars and sweet vocal harmonies, opener “Try to Sleep” sets the album’s tone: Warmer, fuller and more introspective. Whereas 2007’s Drums and Guns railed against the war in Iraq, C’mon feels like a plea for humanity, decency and common sense in a world gone mad. Sparhawk concurs. “With the last couple of records, we were grappling with something outside of ourselves. This one feels more like, ‘Well, forget that. I’m looking in your eyes right now, and we need to figure out how to get through the next moment, together, as human beings.’”

Without curtailing their artistry one iota, the trio has made one of its most accessible, affecting albums to date. And while the origins of C’mon may lie in a church in Minnesota, Beckley’s apartment in CA and the hearts of the modest individuals who created it, the resulting music has the capacity to resonate deeply with audiences everywhere.

Released: April 12, 2011

Obits / Moody, Standard and Poor - SP857

The answer to the question, “Are Obits ‘indie rock veterans’?” is yes and no. Yes, they are accomplished musicians who once fronted Drive Like Jehu, Edsel, Hot Snakes, and Pitchfork. But also; No, they are not active or retired members of the United States military. It’s good to get these things sorted out. Don’t worry—there are no dumb questions.

Are Obits a young band? They are. Another good question. A child born in 2007, when Greg Simpson joined as bassist, would not yet be in kindergarten. Obits didn’t self-release their first single (“One Cross Apiece” b/w “Put It in Writing”) until late 2008. Their debut LP (I Blame You, on Sub Pop), wasn’t released until March 2009. Does their stripped-down rock incorporate elements of surf and garage? Absolutely it does. The members of Obits are fans of oldies. They generally dislike newies. But their influences simmer in the crock-pot of human creativity; you will find only disappointment if you try to deduce the muse of any given song.

What of Obits’ new record? Well, for starters, it’s their second full-length, and it’s called Moody, Standard and Poor. It was recorded at Brooklyn’s Saltlands Studio by Eli Janney and Geoff Sanoff. Sub Pop will release it on March 29, 2011. And how will Moody, Standard and Poor make you feel? The short answer is: great. Not Smoking-An-Eightball-Of-Coke great. But Alive-To-New-Listening Experiences great. The long answer is that these twelve songs will take you on a series of emotional road trips. Some will be as brief as a walk to the fridge. Others will be epic pilgrimages to the shady hinterlands of your subconscious. Great records can do this. Moody, Standard and Poor is no exception.

Released: March 29, 2011

Papercuts / Fading Parade - SP885

Papercuts prinicipal Jason Robert Quever’s beautiful songwriting is thoughtful, evocative, subtle, and simultaneously ambitious. And the new Papercuts album, Fading Parade,—the band’s fourth overall—is dream pop of the highest order. Crafted over the course of several months at The Hangar in Sacramento, with Thom Monahan, and at Quever’s own Pan American Recording studio, Fading Parade is meticulously designed pop music, with a fully developed sense of space and a sturdy wall of sound. With the aid of strings, autoharp, Mellotron, Moogs, 12-string acoustic guitars, piano, echoplexes, analog and digital recording methods, this new album is wide-ranging and adventurous, through the up-tempo jangle of “Do You Really Wanna Know,” the soaring and resonant “Do What You Will,” the moody swirl of “I’ll See You Later, I Guess,” the folky, piano-driven “Winter Daze,” and on. Imagine Belle & Sebastian teaming up with Slowdive and recording with Phil Spector back when he was killing it in the studio rather than, well, you know. Fading Parade is Papercuts’ first album for Sub Pop.

If you pre-order Fading Parade by March 1st, you’ll receive, for free, a limited edition CDR featuring “Boys of Summer” (yes, that “Boys of Summer”, “Perfect”, and “UFO”. You’ll also get a couple stickers!

Released: March 1, 2011

Dum Dum Girls / He Gets Me High - SP917

Los Angeles-based Dum Dum Girls follow up their fuzzy,girl group-inspired 2010 Sub Pop debut I Will Be with He Gets Me High, an EP composed of three originals and a cover of the swooning Smiths’ classic “There Is a Light That Never Goes Out.” Lead singer/songwriter Dee Dee, Richard Gottehrer (who also worked on I Will Be and is best known for penning “My Boyfriend’s Back” and “I Want Candy”), and Sune Rose Wagner of the Raveonettes produced the EP.

Released: March 1, 2011

J Mascis / Several Shades of Why - SP859

In the quarter century since he founded Dinosaur (Jr.), J Mascis has created some of the era’s signature songs, albums and styles. The laconically-based roar of his guitar, drums and vocals have driven a long string of bands—Deep Wound, Dinosaur Jr., Gobblehoof, Velvet Monkeys, the Fog, Witch, Sweet Apple—and he has guested on innumerable sessions. But Several Shades of Why, recorded at Amherst, Massachusetts’ Bisquiteen Studios, is J’s first solo studio record, and it is an album of incredible beauty, performed with a delicacy not always associated with his work.

Nearly all acoustic, Several Shades of Why was created with the help of a few friends. Notable amongst them are Kurt Vile, Sophie Trudeau (A Silver Mount Zion), Kurt Fedora (long-time collusionist), Kevin Drew (Broken Social Scene), Ben Bridwell (Band of Horses), Pall Jenkins (Black Heart Procession), Matt Valentine (The Golden Road), and Suzanne Thorpe (Wounded Knees). Together in small mutable groupings, they conjure up classic sounds ranging from English-tinged folk to drifty, West Coast-style singer/songwriterism. But every track, every note even, bears that distinct Mascis watermark, both in the shape of the tunes and the glorious rasp of the vocals. Ten brilliant tunes that quietly grow and expand until they fill your brain with the purest pleasure.

Released: March 15, 2011

Mogwai / Hardcore Will Never Die, But You Will - SP895

Mogwai are Dominic Aitchison, Stuart Braithwaite, Martin Bulloch, Barry Burns, and John Cummings. The band was birthed in the halcyon days of the mid-‘90s and helped Glasgow become one of the real bright spots in the musical universe again. Not everyone gets Mogwai, but that’s what makes them great. Theirs is a majestic, powerful sound where barely a word is spoken yet it is the antithesis of background music. Album and song titles bemuse, confuse and delight in equal measure and live, they are utterly unstoppable. Recorded at Chem 19 studios with producer Paul Savage (who recorded 1997’s Mogwai Young Team), Hardcore Will Never Die, But You Will is the band’s seventh album. It’s a brave and instinctive album that is charged with an energy, spirit and intensity few can match. It is the sound of a band comfortable in their own skin, but clawing at the edges of their own capabilities, and drawing out something particularly special in the process.

The first 500 ALL pre-orderers of Hardcore Will Never Die, But You Will will receive a set of earplugs in a limited edition Mogwai earplug case!-

All pre-orders of Hardcore Will Never Die, But You Will, in any of its many remarkably handsome configurations, will receive a set of earplugs in a limited-edition Mogwai earplug case!

As of February 10th, we have no more Mogwai earplug cases to give away with pre-orders. The amount of pre-orders we received was overwhelming, but appropriate for the level greatness that HCWND,BYW exudes. What I’m sayin’ is, it’s great.

The download code that accompanies the double-LP version of Hardcore Will Never Die, But You Will includes the 23-minute track “Music for a Forgotten Future (The Singing Mountain)” (available on the Deluxe Edition of the CD, available right here) even though it’s not actually on the vinyl version.

One final BOLDED note here: those of you who ordered the deluxe CD version of Hardcore Will Never Die, But You Will on this page of the Sub Pop website (where it was located, until sometime late in the day on Friday, Feb. 4th) WILL STILL RECEIVE THE ITEM YOU ORDERED. Please do not worry! If you paid $16 for the CD (plus S+H), you’re getting the deluxe version. We’ve got you on this, believe it. And, again, if you would like to now (sometime after late in the day on Friday, Feb. 4th) order this deluxe 2-disc version of the Hardcore Will Never Die, But You Will CD, you can do that very thing here.

Released: February 15, 2011

The Twilight Singers / Dynamite Steps - SP844

“Whenever you’re here, you’re alive” are the first words sung on Dynamite Steps, the fifth album from Greg Dulli’s Twilight Singers collective, and the group’s first in five years. The Twilight Singers’ previous release, the acclaimed confessional opus Powder Burns, came out in 2006. Dynamite Steps is clearly the next chapter, a whole new level of catharsis and progress, evocatively cramming all the highs and lows of the maverick singer-songwriter’s past half-decade into unexpected sonic trapdoors. “Shot on location” at various locales significant to Dulli’s life, you can hear the sense of place emanating up from the grooves of Dynamite Steps. Here, the weary nighttime decadence of New Orleans rubs up against the oppressive sunshine of Los Angeles and the desolation of Joshua Tree’s desert vistas. Dynamite Steps explores the thin line between life and death, mortality and immortality, resignation and celebration—that mythical moment when your life flashes before your eyes, drawn out here over the course of eleven songs. The album’s forty-three minutes prove an unflinching odyssey through the dark side, but one that’s ultimately redemptive in its scope and power.

If you pre-order Dynamite Steps by February 15th, you’ll receive a free, limited edition CDR featuring two non album Twilight Singers tracks!

As of February 10th, we have no more Twilight Singers Bonus CDRs to give away with pre-orders. The amount of pre-orders we received was overwhelming, but appropriate for the level greatness that Dynamite Steps exudes. What I’m sayin’ is, it’s great.

The LP version is a double LP on white vinyl!

Released: February 15, 2011

The Vaselines / Sex with an X - SP889

Formed in Glasgow in 1987, The Vaselines released two singles and one album (Dum Dum on the 53rd and 3rd label) and then split up in 1989 (in the same week their album was released). They might have faded into obscurity but for the intervention of a certain band from Seattle. Nirvana covered three Vaselines songs, helping to fuel a growing after-the-fact appreciation of their seedy, two-and-a-half chord, garage pop manifesto. Founding members Eugene Kelly and Frances McKee remained musically active between then and now: the former with Captain America aka Eugenius and finally as a solo artist; McKee with Painkillers and Suckle. Eugene and Frances also collaborated intermittently in the intervening years and, in 2008, toured America (including a stand-out appearance at Sub Pop’s 20th anniversary festival, SP20), Brazil and Japan and played some UK festivals. The Vaselines “re-connected” with wildly appreciative audiences who had blinked and missed them the first time round. Buoyed by the success of their live return, the two punk rock chums decided to go back into the studio.

The new Vaselines album, Sex with an X, was recorded outside Manchester at the Analogue Catalogue studio in Mossley with Julie McLarnon engineering and produced by Jamie Watson (who also produced that first album Dum Dum). The Vaselines ca. 2010 is Eugene and Frances with guest musicians Stevie Jackson and Bob Kildea from Belle & Sebastian on guitar and bass, and Michael McGaughrin from the 1990s on drums. It may have taken The Vaselines 20 years to get round to making this baby, but it was worth the wait—bringing their solo careers to a climax. The irony has not been lost. Who says indie music can’t be fun? No hand-wringing on these tracks—just good clean smut with a twist of bitter. The Vaselines will tour the US in October, 2010.

If you are among the first 200 people to pre-order Sex with an X by September 14th, you’ll receive a bonus 7" featuring “White Chapel” b/w “Picked a Cherry”, demos both recorded by Norman Blake (Teenage Fanclub)—the latter not available on the new record.

Released: September 14, 2010

Kelley Stoltz / To Dreamers - SP890

Kelley Stoltz, now a veritable godfather to the burgeoning San Francisco under/over-ground (folks like Thee Oh Sees, Sonny & the Sunsets, The Fresh & Onlys), has blazed a path since the late ‘90s as a home-recording guru and multi-instrumentalist. And, while Stoltz’s nigh-religious reverence for all things Beatles, Beach Boys and Kinks has been at the fore on recent albums Below the Branches, Sub Pop) and Circular Sounds, Sub Pop), his new album, To Dreamers, blends a bit more post-punk abandon into its layered everyman pop. This new album maintains the kaleidoscopic core of sounds heard on Kelley’s previous records, while making inroads into new sonic terrains.

No slouch on the live front, he was asked to open the Raconteurs first US tour in 2006, toured the USA and Europe with the Dirtbombs in 2008, and through a twist of volcano ash-cloud karma, was the support act to childhood heroes Echo and the Bunnymen, in 2010.

It’s not unreasonable to suggest that the entire reason behind music itself is to dream. From the young kid strumming a tennis racket along with the Ramones, to the box seats at the opera, the goal is the same. What music does and should do is allow us to lose ourselves and be transported, to find the mystical land where milk and honey meets Xanadu. See where you go with this new Kelley Stoltz record—an album of tunes oddly familiar and yet surprising, like a dream itself.

If you pre-order To Dreamers by October 12th, you’ll receive a limited edition CDR featuring 5 new Kelley Stoltz songs currently unavailable anywhere else!

Released: October 12, 2010

No Age / Everything in Between - SP892

Recorded in Los Angeles from the end of 2009 and into 2010, Everything in Between is the new album from No Age, the duo of Dean Spunt and Randy Randall. They emerged from former band Wives in 2005, to become No Age, worldwide glowing talismans for the DIY art-punk scene in LA, now famously known as having its epicenter at The Smell, a clubhouse where art-life/music-life welded and inspired a creative movement and attitude which has fertilized a purple patch of likeminded punkers and artists around the globe. Since the release of Weirdo Rippers, their 2007 debut album (on FatCat Records), through Nouns, the band’s 2008 follow-up on Sub Pop, and beyond, No Age has earned enthusiastic notice from an incredibly wide array of sources; from Pitchfork to The New Yorker (“Let It Rip,” Nov. 19, 2007), and found themselves unlikely Grammy nominees (for Best Recording Packaging in 2008). No Age have risen from sweaty basement shows and art galleries to having their songs blast off the walls of the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), to performing at unconventional spaces both close to home and abroad.

And Everything in Between is a bold step in their creative evolution. It is a culmination of reflecting upon life’s ruptures and triumphs; the process of moving through these moments banged and bruised, yet better off for the wear and tear. They’ve pushed themselves in challenging and different directions, deconstructing their weird-out pop songs while still maintaining their original aesthetic and intent. Everything in Between sees No Age expand on the emotional force at the core of their catchy song-writing through tone, structure, noise, and samples. And, it’s their best record yet.

Released: September 28, 2010

Foals / Total Life Forever - SP875

In April of 2008, we at Sub Pop Records had the good fortune to release the US version of Antidotes, the debut album by Oxford, UK quintet Foals. Antidotes was a special album. Two years on from that impressive introduction, a choice has been made–-rather than contort Antidotes’ lithesome guitars into ever more elaborate patterns, Total Life Forever is the sound of a band settling into and surveying the decay of old protocols. With this new album, Foals strip their sound back and turn themselves inside out searching for that invisible human thing. The result is an album as persuasive emotionally as Antidotes was physically. Whereas that album constantly reinforced its own presence by filling the air with yelping and polyrhythm, tracks on Total Life Forever such as disarming opener “Blue Blood,” “2 Trees” and the astonishing “Black Gold” are happier to leave gaps for the listener to explore in mind’s ear and eye. Written primarily in the basement of their Oxford HQ (“The House of Supreme Mathematics”) and recorded in Gothenburg with former Clor man Luke Smith, Total Life Forever finds Foals singing rather than shouting, emotional as well as functional. The band’s soul-search reveals new antidotes found in infinite, internal spaces rather than carved violently upon the air–-Total Life Forever feels more the work of artists than artisans. It’s a triumph that they’ve managed to remain a band of progress and propulsion while investigating that vast, dark space lurking inside themselves-–that gap between ribs where “nature, or god or whatever you wanna call it, will come in.”

This is a double LP on colored vinyl!

Released: June 15, 2010

Jaill / That's How We Burn - SP891

Vincent Kircher, Austin Dutmer, Andrew Harris and Ryan Adams are a somewhat sneaky, rarely sleazy group of guys from Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Together, they are Jaill, a self-described psych-pop combo who play with undeniable guts. Kircher and Dutmer started the band back in 2002 and in early 2009, the band released There’s No Sky (Oh My My), a 12-song LP (at just over 30 minutes) that is irresistibly catchy, moving, dirty, sarcastic, and new. Recorded nervously in the leaky basement of an old funeral home, with overdubs finished over a year’s time at home, There’s No Sky caught the attention of Sub Pop, with stand-out tracks like “Always Wrong” and “Beggar Sincere.” Recalling the glory of 90s lo-fi pop, these songs possess a sinewy tension honed from years of basement shows and a palpable, gritty rock sense born of enduring cold, cold Midwest winter months. Recorded at his Mystery Room studio with Justin Perkins, this new Jaill album, That’s How We Burn, finds the band wrapping its head and arms more solidly around a sound they’ve been building up for nearly a decade. Their ‘Sconnie sensibilities lend to a laid-back but creatively effortless brand of pop: bright guitars and amped-up energy skipping like a stone over Kircher’s dense lyrics, only to sink into momentary mellow moments. That’s How We Burn is sure to make the girls freak, the guys geek, and all the lovers weak in the knees.

If you pre-order That’s How We Burn by July 27th, you’ll receive a free Jaill patch handmade by the same glorious hands who made this unquestionably buyable record.

Released: July 27, 2010

Wolf Parade / EXPO 86 - SP870

Recorded and mixed at Hotel2Tango, with Howard Bilerman, in late February and early March of 2010, EXPO 86 is the name of the new and third album by Montreal’s Wolf Parade. EXPO 86 follows the band’s 2008 album At Mount Zoomer, which itself followed their 2005 debut, Apologies to the Queen Mary. Read the full bio for EXPO 86 here.

If you pre-order EXPO 86 by June 29th and are among the first 600 people to do so, you will receive a free limited edition set of two magnets featuring artwork from the new album. We’re talking top quality, strikingly handsome magnets—your fridge is gonna be stoked!

Released: June 29, 2010

Blitzen Trapper / Destroyer of the Void - SP825

Blitzen Trapper is based in Portland, OR. There are six of them in the band and they’ve been together since 2000. Over the course of their four full-length albums to date, including their revelatory 2008 Sub Pop release Furr, front man Eric Earley’s considerable poetic talents and his band’s hard-earned chops have gained them a growing international audience. The band’s continuing exploration of American music that spans from the ‘60s folk movement to the country sounds of the ’70s, to the pop balladry and prog rock of the ’80s has earned it notice ranging from Rolling Stone magazine to late-night network television to Yo Gabba Gabba, among a great many others. In January 2009 and again in January 2010, Earley and a few of his bandmates entered the attic studio of lauded Portland musician and studio engineer Mike Coykendall (Bright Eyes, M Ward, She & Him) to work on what would become Destroyer of the Void. And the resulting new album takes Blitzen Trapper further than ever before, building on the band’s seamless marriage of the familiar and the fantastic to, literally, create an otherworldly experience.

Released: June 8, 2010

Damien Jurado / Rehearsals for Departure - SP440

Rehearsals for Departure is Damien Jurado’s second album on Sub Pop. And it’s a stunner.

Amazon’s review:
If you were to take the promising moments from Damien Jurado’s first album, Waters Ave. S., and factor in a few years’ worth of maturity, it still wouldn’t add up to this spectacular achievement. The Evergreen State’s self-tagged “urban folksinger” has sharpened his songwriting skills and streamlined his musical attack. Simple, finger-picked acoustic guitar graces most of the tracks and when matched with Jurado’s nasal whine (which shares a few adenoids with Freedy Johnston) creates a genuine emotional intensity. “Ohio” is the perfectly shaped tale of a girl abducted from her mother and made to live with her father in a faraway city. The lament is perfectly underpinned by the harmonica of Richard Smokovich, who also adds an extra-rough ferocity to the complete-band numbers (“Honey Baby,” “Letters & Drawings”). The Posies’ Ken Stringfellow produces and adds a full complement of instruments, ranging from guitar, organ, and piano to mellotron and concertina. One of the year’s best, for sure.—Rob O’Connor

Released: March 9, 1999