Our Favorite Vinyl Releases of the Week (7/14/15)

Tame Impala - Currents

||Available 7/16 in the Member Store||

Ever taken some mushrooms & a little bump of coke and driven around L.A. in an old sedan listening to the Bee Gees? Kevin Parker, the brainchild/lead singer of Tame Impala has....and after listening to the disco/funk veins pumping blood through the band's usual psychedelic tissues in Currents you realize that maybe Officer Avery the D.A.R.E. teacher failed to mention some of the positive effects drugs could have like helping young Australian men make hit records. Parker says there's no correlation between his occasional drug use and the ideas/inspiration for his music, but the L.A. joyride serves as a perfect metaphor for this album that finds a warm, late night perch somewhere between Random Access Memories, The Drive OST and the Bee Gees "Stayin' Alive"....and rainbows....and 'Hand With Reflecting Sphere.'

Listen to "Let It Happen"

Jason Isbell - Something More Than Free

||Available 7/16 in the Member Store||

To appreciate where Jason Isbell is coming from one should start with his 2014 interview on the WTF Podcast w/ Marc Maron.  At the end of an hour and a half segment of intense retrospecting Isbell, alone with Marc in a hotel room, exhausted from touring, plays a live acoustic performance of "Elephant" with a depth & nuance 99% of artists will never attain on their best day.  In the follow up to his 2013 masterpiece Southeastern, the former Drive-By Truckers member seems less like he has something deep to get off his chest and more like a man who, while still conflicted, has found some amount of respite in his craft.  The songwriting remains as immaculate as ever and the arrangements continue to push Isbell in a similar direction as fellow wanderer Sturgill Simpson (both produced by Dave Cobb) - that of timeless/classic country & Americana...a cigarette lighter of hope in an otherwise dull & repetitive modern country landscape.

Stream via NPR First Listen

White Reaper - White Reaper Does It Again

||Purchase LP||

If you like Ty Segall, Thee Oh Sees, The White Stripes....you get the picture, but don't let this incredible mediocre, lead make you think this album is anything short of "strong...to quite strong" to quote Greg in the comedy classic Meet the Parents.  This is the type of music MTV should have been playing when you were in high school and wondering what you might get away with as an energetic youth in the land of the free.  Psychedelic keyboards & dueling electric guitars combine for the perfect lo-fi blitz...like playing a concert inside Kevin Parker's chest of drawers while he's banging out Currents at a 70s disco club...there's a party both places, but the crowd is just different.  Take a listen below, we'll not give $100 to you if you don't like it...but we're also not not saying that.

Stream via NPR First Listen