Hausu / Total - SBL-73070

The beauty of rock-music lies in the expanse of terrain that it encompasses as a definition. Total aims to acknowledge that freedom; it is at times melodious and at others dissonant, all in all, a finished product, a totality. With this in mind: Total is the debut LP from Portland’s Hausu, and the band’s first for Hardly Art.

Released: June 25, 2013

Washed Out / Paracosm - SP1055

Paracosm is the new full-length from Washed Out.

Released: August 13, 2013

Daughn Gibson / Me Moan - SP1010

Me Moan is Daughn Gibson’s second full-length record, and his first with Sub Pop.

If you pre-order Me Moan from your good friends here at Sub Pop, you’ll receive at no extra charge, a limited-edition Daughn Gibson seven inch featuring the songs “Every Night I Fall in Love” b/w “Brandy and Daughn”. Daughn himself describes the single this way: “Way back in the year 2002, I produced two R&B singles for a teenage sister group caled “No Option” out of a small recording booth located in a ballerina studio. As payment I received a Korg D1600, and these two songs were among the first solo things I ever recorded on it." As you can surmise, this is likely going to be a rare piece in future record collections. We’re also going to be giving people who pre-order Me Moan on LP the limited, colored-vinyl Loser Edition. Such is the nature of limited-edition things, when they’re gone, they’re gone, so get your order in quickly!

Note: If you pre-order Me Moan with other releases, your entire order won’t arrive until July 9th, so plan accordingly, please!

Released: July 9, 2013

Daughn Gibson / Daughn Face Shirt - 2101099

I know it doesn’t look like much now, but what you are presently gazing at is a future Daughn Gibson t-shirt in none of it’s future glory. What we mean by this is, we have our highly experienced team of designers working around the clock in order to deliver to you, discerning consumer of fine apparel, the best possible Daughn Gibson t-shirt. Why don’t we just wait until we have a finished design?, you’re no doubt muttering to yourself as your cursing us. Well, that’s a very fair question. The reason for this bone-headed stunt is that we want to sell you Daughn Gibson’s forthcoming Sub Pop debut, Me Moan, right this second, and optimally, we’d like to save you a couple of dollars by bundling the CD or LP with this beautiful future t-shirt at a reduced total price and we wouldn’t be able to do that with no t-shirt at all; which is to say, future t-shirt is better than no t-shirt in this case. So, bear with us, trust us, we want you to look good, and this future Daughn Gibson shirt will do the trick. Thank you.

Released: July 9, 2013

Rose Windows / Rose Windows Landscape Shirt - 2105399

There is an inherent majesty that this Rose Windows t-shirt design imbues that is immediately apparent upon first glance. In fact, this shirt is so picturesque that wearing it would be like personally mailing every single person you come across that day a postcard from the land of mountains and sea that is the beautiful and lush Washington State. What a nice gesture that would be. Lovingly hand-printed on American Apparel t-shirts.

Released: June 25, 2013

Rose Windows / The Sun Dogs - SP1053

The notion that there is nothing new under the sun can be both a blessing and a curse to musicians. On the one hand, it absolves artists from any nagging sense that they have to reinvent the wheel with every new project. On the other, it makes innovation seem like a fool’s errand. Seattle songwriter Chris Cheveyo embraces this blessing, but, with his compatriots in Rose Windows, he also defies the curse. The band follows Western traditions in their instrumentation, using the basic tools employed in past decades of American and British rock music. Elements of The Band’s folk-infused rock, The Doors organ-driven psychedelia, and Black Sabbath’s blues-based dirges can be heard in Rose Window’s debut album The Sun Dogs. But the septet’s curiosity goes much further than a few well-chosen classic rock records. The band devoured Persian, Indian, and Eastern European music, and incorporated the revelations learned into Rose Windows’ sound. The Sun Dogs challenges the assumption that all creative territories have been mapped out and charted. While Rose Windows aren’t interested in making music of the future, one reviewer was wise enough to note “a sound like this would not be possible in any other time.”

Rose Windows began in late 2010 in a house in Seattle’s Central District, where Cheveyo found himself tiring of the limited palette of his prior heavy, post-rock project. Starting with a few rough demos by Cheveyo alone, Rose Windows took shape as the band amassed members from their circle of musician friends. Rose Windows began playing out, fluidly sharing the stage with underground art-metal bands one night and popular indie Americana acts the next.

In November of 2011, the band began working on The Sun Dogs with local producer Randall Dunn (SunnO))), Boris, Earth, Master Musicians of Bukkake). Dunn’s penchant for musical anthropology proved the perfect match for the band, with their mutual curiosity and artistic ambition broadening the scope of the album. Dynamics were expanded. Boundaries were pushed.

Rose Windows have toured the West Coast several times, and with the release of The Sun Dogs, the band plans much more. In the meantime, they continue their search—delving into archives of long-lost albums, learning more about their craft from renowned local musicians, and charting their own path in an ancient art.

If you pre-order The Sun Dogs on CD or LP from SubPop.com, you’ll receive a Rose Windows patch with your order! Also worth noting, pre-orders of the LP will receive the limited, colored-vinyl Loser Edition of the record. These things are governed by a while supplies last type of law, so order soon to ensure your obtainment of such wonderful things.

Released: June 25, 2013

Goat / Dreambuilding - SP1056

Dreambuilidng

Released: June 4, 2013

Peter Jeffries / The Last Great Challenge in a Dull World - 4000369

Peter Jefferies’s extraordinary debut solo album, The Last Great Challenge in a Dull World, first saw life as a cassette via the Xpressway label of Port Chalmers, New Zealand, in 1990. As a result of some international underground acclaim in fanzines and mailorder catalogs – for both the album and a striking 7-inch, “The Fate of the Human Carbine,” released around the same time – it soon appeared on LP and CD as well, through the Ajax label of Chicago. Within a handful of years it slipped out of print and out of sight. Roughly 20 years later that situation is being amended by De Stijl with a vinyl reissue that includes the songs from the attendant single and no amount of remastering whatsoever.

Though no one’s gotten around to writing a book on it yet, The Last Great Challenge in a Dull World nonetheless stands as one of the singular singer-songwriter albums of all time, existing on a sparsely populated plane with Pink Moon, I Often Dream of Trains, Blues Run the Game, Our Mother the Mountain and not many others. In a sandy voice that soothes and slashes, Jefferies offers a compassionate, piercingly lucid view of the endeavor of life, all our pain and small glories rendered in tones both harrowing and tender. On piano, drums and percussion, he pounds out melodies that roar, sweep and lilt, accompanied on many songs by the serrated guitars of a variety of players. Featuring a small team of South Island heavy-hitters – all three members of the Dead C as well as David Mitchell (3Ds), Alastair Galbraith, Kathy Bull (Look Blue Go Purple, Cyclops), Nigel Taylor and Robbie Muir (who’s cobilled on the single) – Last Great Challenge provides a pivot point in Jefferies’s formidable recording career, which included two bands he shared with his brother Graeme in the ’80s, Nocturnal Projections and This Kind of Punishment, and four further solo albums, as well as stints in bands here (Mecca Normal, Two Foot Flame) and there (Plagal Grind, Cyclops, and collaborations with Shayne Carter, Jono Lonie and Chris Smith).

This immediate and affecting album has been a comfort and a guide for me since it came out. Sit a spell and see if it doesn’t speak to you as well.

~ Mike Wolf, NYC, 2013

Released: May 23, 2013

The Baptist Generals / Jackleg Devotional to the Heart - SP648

On The Baptist Generals’ sophomore album, the word “heart” repeats eight*** times. The Denton, TX band, known for its haunting, claustrophobic take on drunken folk, needed ten full years to bare its hearts—one of which is in the album title, Jackleg Devotional to the Heart, a name that songwriter Chris Flemmons conjured shortly after he recorded, and then trashed, the album’s first attempt in 2005.

Flemmons goes so far as to call this his “love album,” and it’s an apt description—though love through The Baptist Generals’ eyes is plenty complicated. Jackleg‘s hearts don’t resemble valentines. No smooth curls into a final point. The band’s vibraphones, guitarrons and ambient feedback combine like a mess of ventricles, aortas and veins—not to mention, from the sound of it, all of the blood spilled while Jackleg lurched for years toward an eventual finish line.

Call it a love record, then. It’s the kind of love Flemmons had to figure out in the ten years since The Baptist Generals’ critically-acclaimed 2003 full-length debut No Silver/No Gold, a period in which he admits he’s fallen in love with a wild spectrum of music—the Ethiopiques series, saxophonist Archie Shepp, film scorer Meredith Willson, and plenty more. That wide spectrum only befits Jackleg‘s repeated need to buck genre; in fact, the 2005 version of the album hit the trash heap because “it sounded like any other indie rock-type band,” Flemmons admits. Co-produced by Stuart Sikes (Loretta Lynn, Cat Power, The Walkmen, Modest Mouse, The White Stripes) and the band’s Jason Reimer, Jackleg Devotional to the Heart sounds like exactly no one else.

NOTE: if you pre-order this record, your order will not ship until May 21st. This applies to everything in your order – none of it will ship until May 21st. So, if you’d like to order more than just this Baptist Generals CD/LP, it would be good to place separate orders if you’re the type who wants what you ordered, and you want it NOW! Thanks! 

Pre-orders come with a limited-edition, one-sided 7" flexi-single featuring the Baptist Generals track “Fly Candy Harvest”, currently not available to hear elsewhere! Also, if you pre-order the LP, you’ll receive the colored-vinyl, limited Loser Edition. Both of these things are LIMITED, so a while supplies last type of thing applies here. Order now.

Released: May 21, 2013

Shannon and the Clams / Dreams in the Rat House - SBL-73069

SHANNON AND THE CLAMS are rumored to be from NOW in Oakland California and comprised of Shannon Shaw (vocals, bass), Cody Blanchard (vocals, guitar), and Ian Amberson (drums, vocals). Dreams in the Rat House is their first LP for Hardly Art. From pop ballads to doo woppers, bomp stompers and punk rippers, country clippers and some psych-o trippers, it’s all R’n’R and it’s all right there in the Clams’ hooded velvet trick bag. Ya feel lucky, punk?

Released: May 21, 2013

Condominium / Carl - SP1051

Carl

Released: May 21, 2013

The Baptist Generals / Heart Shirt - 2061599

This shirt from The Baptist Generals features an anatomically correct illustration of what one can assume is a human heart and goes nicely when bundled with their forthcoming new record, Jackleg Devotional to the Heart, which comes out May 21st.

Printed on American Apparel 50/50 t-shirts.

Released: May 21, 2013

Still Corners / Strange Pleasures - SP1035

Greg Hughes, the driving force behind London’s Still Corners, is not one to rest on his laurels. Despite the critical plaudits hurled at the band’s 2010 debut Creatures of an Hour (“indulgently seductive” opined NME; “an astounding debut” purred Drowned in Sound), Hughes is blessed with the kind of inexorable ardor for refreshing and sharpening his muse that is common to expert sculptors of elegant pop music. “I’ll never be satisfied with any of it, I need to keep trying new things,” he concedes. “Still Corners is The Enterprise, for me.”

Riding that insatiable kinesis over the last two years has resulted in Hughes, along with singing accomplice Tessa Murray, fashioning Strange Pleasures, a devastating sophomore album which is destined to usher Still Corners to a deserved place at dream-pop’s high table. The album was captured in Hughes’ Greenwich studio, with the protean multi-tasker handling all the instruments and penning most of the lyrics. Where its predecessor soared on sugared layers of shoegazing-infused retro-futurism, Strange Pleasures proffers a leaner, more acute extrapolation of ’80s-suffused song and studio craft, navigating a sinuous trajectory between velveteen Angelo Badalamenti noir-pop torch song sophistication, ethereal Cocteau Twins beauty and the glacial, mellifluous territory mapped by Modern English, The Cure and The Passions.

For Hughes, an Austin native whose plans to move to Brooklyn were sidetracked when he fell in love London’s worldly charms, the new album is more than just a stylistic progression from Creatures of an Hour. “Musically, Creatures… was soft and relaxing but it was a massively cathartic record for me. I was destroyed after being in a relationship; it’s all in there, suicide… all that stuff. I needed to calm my soul and Creatures… did that for me. Strange Pleasures is more of an adventure out toward the open seas. It’s an exploring type of record: strange new lands, strange new love…”

Presaged by the soaring “Fireflies” single (Pitchfork’s Best New Track of 9/28/2012), Strange Pleasures brings the Still Corners story up to date.

The vinyl LP comes with a digital download code of the entire record.

People who pre-order Strange Pleasures on CD or LP from SubPop.com will receive a limited-edition scrap book featuring pages taken directly from Still Corners’ lyric book as they were writing the record as well as images from the recording process. People who pre-order the record on LP will receive the colored-vinyl, limited Loser Edition version of Strange Pleasures. And as is the nature of limited things, the sooner you order, the better, as they will run out!

Released: May 7, 2013

Mudhoney / New World Charm - SP1025

The long-running and unrivaled Seattle-based underground rock band Mudhoney released their ninth studio album on April 2nd, 2013. It’s called Vanishing Point and it’s excellent. Exactly none of the songs on this single are from that album. The a-side here, “New World Charm,” was recorded during the same sessions that yielded Vanishing Point, and, though of equally high caliber, impressed itself upon all concerned parties as less of a team player and more of a rugged individualist. The two b-sides are two different versions of the theme song Mudhoney wrote and recorded for the short-lived Discovery Channel TV series Brew Masters. Arguably not for the casual Mudhoney fan, this single will appeal to the Mudhoney completist we should all aspire to become.

Released: May 7, 2013

We Are Loud Whispers / Suchness - SBL-73068

We Are Loud Whispers is a dreamy duo featuring Sonya Westcott (Arthur & Yu) and Ayumu Haitani (4 Bonjour’s Parties). Suchness, their debut LP, displays intricate electronic orchestration, loops, and effects, while relaying an organic ease. Assembled over emails sent between Seattle and Japan, Suchness transcended geographical and language barriers – and traditional ideas of what a “band” is – in its making.

Released: May 7, 2013

Shabazz Palaces / Black w/ blue and pink 3D - 2090096

New Shabazz Palaces design printed in blue and pink on a black 50/50 American Apparel tee.

Released: April 23, 2013

Shabazz Palaces / Black w/ tri-color - 2090097

New Shabazz Palaces design printed in red, green, and golden yellow on Black 50/50 American Apparel tees.

Released: April 23, 2013

The Thermals / Desperate Ground - 4062297

The Thermals’ Desperate Ground LP.

Released: April 22, 2013

Father John Misty / Singing Ax - 4097096

J. Tillman’s (AKA Father John Misty) full length, Singing Ax LP.

Released: April 22, 2013

Goat / World Music - 4105699

Goat’s World Music LP.

Released: April 22, 2013

Sub Pop / Sub Pop 1000 - SP1000

We STILL want your money!

Yes, I know.

I may as well be a carnival barker; inviting you, valued listener, to step-right-up! If Sub Pop has ever had a mission other than to separate you, gullible customer, from your wallet (and the contents therein), it’s to inspire nasty, compulsive behavior.

We’ve been doing it the same way for over 25 years: by putting out crucial, limited-edition vinyl records.

Back in 1986, before Sub Pop was a company with debt, mass firings and other trappings of corporate culture, our founder, Bruce S. Pavitt, was already plotting a generation’s takeover.

Sub Pop 100, the first vinyl featuring the now-ubiquitous logo, was the first step in his elaborate scheme. Featuring the “spoken word” of Steve Albini and stellar tracks by Sonic Youth, Wipers, U-Men and Scratch Acid among others, Sub Pop 100, with brain-melting cover art by Carl Smool, was a utopian endeavor at its heart: a “greatest hits” compilation for a world that might actually enjoy “underground” music – a mostly laughable conceit in the mid-80s. Its first-and-final pressing was for 5,000 copies.

(We feel your pain, covetous collector, but that shit’s long gone, save the occasional eBay sighting.)

For Sub Pop, 1988 was a year of many firsts: our first office, our first employee, our first bounced check(s) – and that was just April! Sub Pop 200 was conceived over a bottomless trough of beer at the Virginia Inn; twenty masterpieces spread across three twelve inch vinyl EPs with a glossy booklet, this limited edition boxed set was to feature only our friends and our friends’ bands. We then hired an unemployed British actor, re-christened him “Everett True” and bribed a failing music rag to publish our words with that byline. The rest is so much spilt porridge, as they say, and having friends like Nirvana, Soundgarden and Mudhoney didn’t hurt either.

(Sub Pop 200 is still available on CD, old timer; the classic Charles Burns illustration alone makes it worth the purchase.)

At last, it’s 2013, and the music industry is well into its second decade of epic free fall. Once seen as a colorful holdover from a bygone era, like polio and honor killing, record-making is resurgent, and you, discerning buyer, stand to get fleeced by those who would have you spend extravagantly on something unnecessary or worse just ‘cause it’s Record Store Day.

Don’t be deceived! After all: WE still want your money!

Our Silver Jubilee commemorates 25 years of going out of business, and to celebrate, your friends at the Sub Pop water cooler have put together a compilation worthy of your time, money and admiration – though maybe not in that order. We don’t write pithy, half-baked reviews about the music we love; we commit it to vinyl!

Sub Pop 1000 is our gift to you, patient benefactor, for your unwavering devotion in the face of occasionally wavering good taste. Put together as a labor of love, Sub Pop 1000 carries no further agenda than to provide a crucial, maximal listening experience for its own sake. By that measure, it succeeds and then some. With artists from disparate parts of the globe, our quest for World Domination appears to be complete – again!

Sub Pop 1000 will be a one-time pressing of 5,000 on tricked-out colored vinyl, with cover art by Nathan Fox, a 16-page booklet and an MP3 download coupon. Sub Pop 1000 will be available at your local record store on 4/20/2013 (aka Record Store Day, though Sub Pop 1000 is NOT a Record Store Day exclusive), through this here Sub Pop Internet Shopping Place and at our 25th anniversary Silver Jubilee on July 13th. It’s also available digitally, for whatever THAT’S worth.

Your uncle in the record business,
-Jonathan Poneman

A limited number of copies of the Sub Pop 1000 LP are available through this very website, otherwise, they will be available at your local independent record retailers as an official (but not exclusive) part of 2013’s Record Store Day.

Released: April 20, 2013

Sub Pop / SP 1000 Shirt Black - 2000051

Sub Pop shirt featuring the artwork from the by the time you read this, probably world-famous SP-1000 release.

Released: April 20, 2013

The Postal Service / Cloud font - 2059591

Blue on Asphalt Grey. Printed on American Apparel.

Released: April 9, 2013

The Postal Service / GIVE UP White - 2059592

Impress your friends with this classic Sub Pop LOSER-style design. Large Sub Pop logo on back. Printed on American Apparel.

Released: April 9, 2013

The Postal Service / Give Up (Deluxe 10th Anniversary Edition) - SP1045

You can spend all the time and money in the world trying to craft the perfect pop-music scenario, but sometimes the stars have to align all by themselves. Even though early on the members of The Postal Service jokingly referred to Such Great Heights as “the hit” on their debut album, Give Up, there’s no way anyone could have predicted the eventual impact made by a mail-order album designed in a pair of West Coast bedrooms.

It’s been 10 years since the little project that could from Seattelite Ben Gibbard (aka Death Cab For Cutie’s frontman) and Angeleno Jimmy Tamborello (Dntel, Figurine) emerged from seemingly nowhere and began to burrow into the ears of anyone who came into contact with the band’s infectious electro-pop. To celebrate, Sub Pop is reissuing The Postal Service’s sole album, and including in the multi-disc set 15 bonus tracks, including two brand new songs, “A Tattered Line of String” and “Turn Around.” On top of that, the band is back together: The Postal Service will hit the road for a long-overdue victory lap, giving most fans their first (and last—seriously, don’t ask) chance to see the group in person.

Of course, the band’s music was more than just electro-pop, and the force with which Jimmy and Ben captured the indie-rock zeitgeist of the early aughts made them more of a phenomenon than just a regular old band. That such artists as Ben Folds, Amanda Palmer, Streetlight Manifesto, and Confide have covered “Such Great Heights” is a testament to both the song’s magical spark and its melodic inclusivity. The band’s sound is such a touchstone that “Postal Service-esque” has become a generally accepted musical adjective. And it goes way beyond Owl City.

While it was impossible to anticipate how massive Give Up would become, it was obvious in 2003 that these guys had made something special. Ten years on it’s amazing to know that so many people have come to agree.

If you pre-order the 10th Anniversary Edition of Give Up from SubPop.com, you’ll receive a limited-edition Postal Service postcard set. We’re also giving people who pre-order the 3xLP vinyl version of the album the red/white/clear-colored, limited Loser Edition of Give Up. Both the Loser Edition and postcard sets are while supplies last, so act now!

Released: April 9, 2013

Mudhoney / Mudhoney Ruin Gray - 2004494

Presumbaly inspired by the cover of Mudhoney’s forthcoming record, Vanishing Point, Ed Fotheringham designed this exceedingly handsome (in our biased, but not totally fashion unaware opinions) Mudhoney shirt. Bundle yours with the CD or LP and save yourself a few bucks.

Released: April 2, 2013

Mudhoney / Vanishing Point - SP1020

25 years in, Vanishing Point decisively affirms that, even in an age where only the newest of the new can survive (and even then, only for a few weeks at best), Mudhoney still have plenty to say and more to offer. These are songs written from the rare vantage point of a band who went through the rock ‘n’ roll meat-grinder and not only lived to tell such a tale, they came out full of the wisdom and dark humor such a journey provides. Vanishing Point is filled with dread, psychoanalysis and Nuggets-on-fire riffs; the sort of real, uninhibited rock music that is harder and harder to locate these days. With Vanishing Point, Mudhoney make it easy.

Vinyl LP pre-orders will get the limited, Loser Edition of Vanishing Point on “Clear Smoke”-colored vinyl. And such is the nature with limited-edition things, they are limited to first come, first served, so order now!

If you pre-order Vanishing Point, your order will not ship until April 2nd. This applies to everything in your order – none of it will ship until April 2nd. So, if you’d like to order more than just this Mudhoney CD/LP, it would be good to place separate orders. Thanks!

All of Mudhoney’s Sub Pop CD/LP releases and t-shirts prior to Vanishing Point are on sale right now through April 2nd! Sale prices are reflected on each on sale item.

Released: April 2, 2013

Mudhoney / Mudhoney Easy Street Poster - 3004499

You are looking (possibly gazing) at a limited-edition, screen-printed Mudhoney poster celebrating their future (or more likely past, depending on when you’re reading this) in-store performance at Easy Street Records in Seattle, WA. The things you should know about this are, only 300 were made, only 50 are for sale, and the relatively famous Ed Fotheringham designed and signed them (he only signed the 50 for the store).

Released: March 28, 2013

Low / Low Face - 2064395

A brand new Low t-shirt featuring art work from the band’s 2013 release, The Invisible Way, out March 19th. Printed on American Apparel 100% cotton Butter Yellow tees (Women’s Large is Creme colored).

Released: March 19, 2013

Low / The Invisible Way - SP1030

We here at Sub Pop are honored to have our name attached to The Invisible Way, Low’s tenth album in 20 years as a band. Rather than put together our own, inevitably-inadequate description of the album, we will let Low’s Alan Sparhawk do the talking:
“While driving though Chicago, on tour, we stopped finally to visit Wilco at their studio, The Loft. They had invited us to come check it out several times over the years, but this would finally be the day. It’s a great place—a sea of instruments in a relaxed, open working environment. It’s cool, but what really converted us was hearing the new Mavis Staples tracks they were working on: big, simple, raw, and intimate. Plans were made then and there.

’Don’t break my Grammy streak.’
We have worked with many of the great engineer/producers. Jeff Tweedy has been on our side of the microphone for over 25 years, however with engineer (and fellow Grammy winner) Tom Schick, he has of late become a formidable and eclectic producer. He spoke a language we understood, but then took us effortlessly into the mystery.

We’ve made many records, and you know our M.O.: slow, quiet, sometimes melancholy, and, we hope, sometimes pretty…
How is this different from any other Low record?
- Mimi sings lead on five of the eleven songs (she usually only does one or two, despite being a fan favorite).
- Piano, lots of piano… and an acoustic guitar.
- Songs about intimacy, the drug war, the class war, plain old war war, archeology, and love.

Thank you for your time again and please enjoy what we made. I think it’s beautiful."

Pre-orderers at SubPop.com will receive the CD, The Visible End, a limited-edition companion piece featuring four stunning alternate takes of album tracks. Also, if you pre-order the vinyl LP, you’ll receive the limited-edition colored LOSER edition. Both of these offers are limited quantity, so order soon! While we’re out of the limited, Loser Edition version of The Invisible Way, it will be available at select independent retailers on March 19th. Call your local record store on release day for availability.

Released: March 19, 2013

Colleen Green / Sock it to Me - SBL-73064

Colleen Green always wears sunglasses onstage. Colleen Green is long hair and getting high. Colleen Green’s first full-length for Hardly Art, Sock it to Me, is grounded in pure pop. Colleen Green’s multi-tracked, emotive vocals take an enormous leap forward, evoking all-time heroes such as Rose Melberg and Tina Weymouth, with every drum-machine-tracked song awash in the dreamy slacker romanticism of California.

Released: March 19, 2013

Survival Knife / Traces of Me - SP1038

“Traces of Me” b/w “Name That Tune”

Survival Knife hail from Olympia, WA, and this is their first release (if you don’t count a soundboard recording of their first show that has been gathering praise all over the internet). The band – which features two of the three founding members of Northwest legends Unwound – pulls together elements of Drive Like Jehu/Hot Snakes, Black Flag’s mid-period mathematical lurch, King Crimson and of course Unwound for a taut and catchy post-hardcore crunch. Since their live debut in March 2012, they have shared stages with the likes of METZ, Bitch Magnet, Kinski and Hungry Ghost.

Released: March 5, 2013

Grave Babies / Crusher - SBL-73067

Grave Babies are a band whose sound might suggest the need for drugs that stabilize mood, while also creating a desire for ones that enhance them. The center of Grave Babies’ sound is the sonic equivalent of thwarted desire – and on Crusher, their first LP for Hardly Art, Grave Babies take the harder approach: doing what they’ve always done, but doing it better. All LPs include a download code.

Released: February 26, 2013

The Ruby Suns / Ruby Suns Hang Loose - 2076699

This is a brand new shirt from The Ruby Suns, released in conjunction with their forthcoming cd/lp, Christopher. Printed on American Apparel.

Released: January 29, 2013

Retribution Gospel Choir / 3 - 4085698

Retribution Gospel Choir’s third full-length record, aptly title, 3.

Released: January 24, 2013

Low / Trust - 4064396

Low’s Trust on vinyl LP.

Released: January 24, 2013

Low / Secret Name - 4064398

Low’s album, Secret Name, on vinyl LP.

Released: January 24, 2013

Mudhoney / I'm Now - 4004488

This documentary tells the story of Mudhoney from their very beginnings, to following them on their recent world tour and everything in between. Complete with testimonials from friends, music industry veterans, and musicians such as Pearl Jam’s Stone Gossard & Jeff Ament, Sonic Youth’s Thurston Moore & Kim Gordon, Soundgarden’s Kim Thayil, and Mudhoney themselves, this movie shows the true story of the founding fathers of Grunge (please do not describe Mudhoney as the founding fathers of Grunge).

Released: December 12, 2012

The Head and the Heart / Down In The Valley Poster - 30915999

This signed and hand-numbered poster for The Head and The Heart was limited to just 330. Designed by our own Sasha Barr.

Released: December 11, 2012

Total Control / Henge Beat - 4102399

Henge Beat, the full-length record from Total Control

Released: November 30, 2012

C.S. Yeh / Transitions - 4000373

Having rattled the hinges with last year’s “In the Blink of an Eye” 7-inch, C S Yeh (C. Spencer Yeh) flings open the door and steps inside with Transitions, his first full-length album of songs after years of establishing himself as one of Earth’s top humans in experimental music and unbound improvisation, both alone and in collaboration, on record and onstage.

The effect Transitions has on you may or may not depend on your familiarity with Yeh’s past work; regardless, his path in music has always been about and rather than or. And the addition to his catalog of work that Transitions represents is nothing short of startling: songs that flit between sculpted guitar riffs and measured, just-shy-of-lush synth-pop; wry lyrics delivered in guileless tones; the remarkable fact that Yeh made every sound on the record. All the same, his most ardent fans will have little trouble understanding the move and recognizing this distinct voice. Its plainspoken confidence and intrepid spirit are as present as when he’s carving drones or emitting speckled and serrated noise; Transitions is simply a different form of Yeh’s unmediated expression. As you’d guess, for a career outside guy really coming inside for the first time, Transitions involved quite a bit more behind the scenes strategizing than it would for some indie band on its third album. Think of how English can sound so jarringly beautiful on the tongue of non-native speakers: Everything fits even when, maybe especially because things might seem ever so slightly off. Thus we have a new language of melodies, ones of a spirit with say, Slapp Happy, but which wouldn’t sound out of place on a Magnetic Fields record. Ultimately, the pop heart on display is characterized by the artful mind behind it — and besides, when we say pop are we talking popular, or populist? Perhaps the space we’re trying to sketch here could be found between the artists covered on Transitions: Father Yod and the Spirit of ‘76, and Stevie Nicks. Perhaps citing the varied examples of Jim O’Rourke, Dave Gahan and the aforementioned Peter Blegvad in artful songcraft could be useful (whether or not they were inspirations). Perhaps we’re not talking about a space at all, but instead a particular sort of freedom in a music landscape defined by cages and enclosures. Questions, questions — what do we know, we’re only observers. All that’s really clear is that C. Spencer Yeh is transitioning into, not away from.

Released: November 30, 2012

Robust Worlds / Emotional Planet - 4000372

Chris Rose’s Robust Worlds has impressed us since first glimpse. He was actually barefoot, if you can believe that, and his set had the feel of a way more lysergic Kevin Ayers. It was freezing fucking cold and I’m pretty sure he wore a Hawaiian shirt. His debut LP is called Emotional Planet, and it’s deceptively simple. Voice, guitar, some noisey shit, whatever. His playing is sick — fluid, unforced, warm, soothed and soothing. It’s a bath you don’t want to exit. Seriously, if yr going to play guitar, play it like he does. With a trick in his back pocket and a Heavy Moon on his mind, Rose utilizes the sort of neo-noir narratives that you hear thru Neil Michael Hagerty, James Jackson Toth, Kurt Vile and other keen observers. Handguns, b&e, two-lane black tops, love, lust, and hard drugs. Life: summed up !

Released: November 30, 2012

Sub Pop / SP Letter Jumble Silver - 2000054

Sub Pop’s initials all jumbled up atop one another, creating a lovely, colorful, eye-pleasing design. Printed on a 50/50 New Silver American Apparel tee. Make all your friends jealous with this one!

Released: November 30, 2012

Sub Pop / Sporty Red w/ White - 2000057

Sub Pop “Sporty” design, printed in White on a Red 100% cotton American Apparel tee.

Released: November 30, 2012

Sub Pop / Sporty White w/ Black - 2000056

Sub Pop “Sporty” design, printed in Black on a White 50/50 American Apparel tee.

Released: November 30, 2012

Sub Pop / Sporty Green w/ Yellow - 2000055

Sub Pop “Sporty” design, printed in Yellow on a Kelly Green 50/50 American Apparel tee. Women’s Large are 100% cotton.

Released: November 30, 2012

Sub Pop / New Punky - 2000053

White American Apparel 50/50 tee featuring our Megamart’s mascot, Punky!

Released: November 30, 2012

Sub Pop / Sub Pop Maroon w/ small logo Zip Hoodie - 2000052

Maroon zip front hooded sweatshirt with a white Sub Pop logo printed on the left chest. American Apparel 50/50 Flex Fleece Zip front hoodie.

Released: November 30, 2012

Sub Pop / Sub Pop Blue/Black Knit Hat - 30000749

While not completely lacking in charm, winter is known primarily for its unrelenting lack of warmth, forcing warm-blooded music lovers to don additional layers, such as the traditional knit stocking hat, that operate as personal heat retention devices which are integral in their seasonal survival. Unfortunately for these mammalian music lovers, the oppressive majority of the available knit hats don’t bear the namesake of Sub Pop Records knit on their sides. Well friends, this black & blue hat manages to accomplish both tasks with the stylistic aplomb you’ve come to expect from Sub Pop.

Released: November 28, 2012