Indie / Alternative

lovesliescrushing's Bloweyelashwish is an ambient masterpiece, originally recorded in 1992 with a 12-string guitar, 4-track recorder, looping pedal, and boundless reverb. Scott Cortez’s project, alongside the haunting vocals of Melissa Arpin Duimstra, transformed bedroom daydreams into a serene, moonlit journey on a timeless sea. This expanded and remastered double album features five additional tracks, each distortion-laden and hypnotic, alongside lyrics and a replica postcard to guide listeners deeper into its world. Blindness, not eyewash, is the intended experience.

Expanded edition of Sufjan Stevens 2015 LP, celebrating its 10 year anniversary.

"A decade after its release, Carrie & Lowell continues to resonate as one of Sufjan Stevens’ most personal and beloved albums—“a fall-down gorgeous and emotionally devastating masterpiece” (The Guardian). To mark the anniversary, Asthmatic Kitty Records presents Carrie & Lowell –10th Anniversary Edition, featuring seven never-before-released demos that offer a rare window into the album’s creation. With updated cover art, a beautifully designed 40-page booklet and new essay reflecting on the album by Sufjan, this special edition celebrates and expands the legacy of one of his most cherished works. Arriving on May 30, 2025, this anniversary edition is a must-listen for fans and newcomers alike, inviting listeners to experience the music’s evolution and reflect on the raw emotional landscapes that influenced its creation."

Originally released on Tiger Style in 2003, Two Conversations stands as The Appleseed Cast’s crowning achievement. Arriving during the second-wave emo backlash, the Lawrence, Kansas band sidestepped genre clichés in favour of widescreen indie rock shot through with atmosphere and emotional depth.

Dreamy keys and synths drift over intricate steel-string guitars, carrying lyrics that explore love, loss, and the spaces in between. It’s an album that favours reflection over angst, unfolding with a cinematic sense of space and texture.

Hailed by Pitchfork as sounding “trapped on Polyvinyl Records circa 1996,” Two Conversations remains a landmark — a soul-baring, beautifully constructed record that has only grown in stature with time.

Culled from half a decade of home four-tracking, Remote Echoes is a hissy, crumbly, and ungrounded expression of Clay Parton and Canaan Amber's ongoing Duster project. A mix of cassette only demos released under the banners Christmas Dust and On The Dodge, this 14 track album also includes a bevy of previously unissued stragglers. Duster's unique blend of fuzzy guitars, bargain synths, muffled percussion, and hushed vocals anticipated chillwave, mumblecore, and corecore, elegantly illustrating the holy trinity of slacker vices: cigarettes, coffee, and the weed supreme.。

Highly recommended for fans of Dean Blunt and hypnagogic pop. Emerging in the late 2010s as Belgium’s counterpart to Music From Memory with its focus on obscure archival excavations, and now known for releasing cult records from contemporary artists, STROOM.TV presents the full LP debut of the enigmatic act Felicity J Lord. A collision of obscure playfulness and fragile poetics, the album unfolds as a collection of nearly 30 fragmentary tracks, each lasting only a minute or two—like peering into a diary or sketchbook. Synths, piano, cut-up voices, and intimate domestic sounds appear and dissolve, sometimes evoking lo-fi pop sensibilities, sometimes drifting into experimental collage. Rather than striking with force, it’s the accumulation of hazy, fleeting fragments that lingers—resonating quietly in the listener’s memory. A rare and remarkable work.

1994 second album by the trio of Andrew Weatherall, Jagz Kooner and Gary Burns, unavailable on vinyl and CD since original release. A concept album with accompanying text for each track by James Woodbourne, it also includes additional production by Portishead and Mr Scruff. Remastered from the original tapes by Matt Colton, contains “Theme” for the first time on the 2LP edition.

Emerging in the aftermath of the Louisville–via–Chicago late-90s post-rock wave, The Mercury Program carved their own path with a vibraphone-led sound that blurred genre lines. Their 2000 album From The Vapors of Gasoline, released on Tiger Style, was no sophomore slump — its ten intricate, atmospheric tracks fused cerebral post-rock with unexpected flashes of dissonance and melodic warmth.

Rather than conform to the era’s prevailing styles, the group explored what might happen if new age shimmer and post-hardcore intensity shared the same space. The result was a record that felt both expansive and intimate, drawing in listeners with its textured arrangements and restless creativity.

This 25th anniversary remaster brings new clarity and depth to an overlooked triumph, illuminating the full scope of its inventive musicianship for a new generation of heads.

Rumah Sakit were a four-piece rock band based in San Francisco, CA. The group began to take shape in 1998 after guitarist John Baez, bassist Kenseth Thibideau and drummer, Jeff Shannon, all moved from Redlands to San Francisco. Fully formed once guitarist Mitch Cheney quickly joined, the band settled on the name Rumah Sakit – a literal Indonesian translation of “sick room” (aka hospital) – and a sound that fused the frenetic energy of Red-era King Crimson with a meditative melodicism that starkly contrasted the vast majority of so-called “math-rock” bands of the era. Soon thereafter, Rumah Sakit entered the studio for the first time to record what would become their eponymous debut album.Rumah Sakit was recorded in 1999 at The Music Annex – a hallowed megaplex that counts diverse icons such as Erik Satie, The Tubes, Michael Hedges, Montrose, and American Music Club amongst its many historical clients – in two somewhat clandestine overnight sessions with good friends and studio interns, Jay & Ian Pellicci. The album was made with a “no tricks” philosophy that would come to define the band’s approach to performing and documenting their music. Recorded entirely live with no overdubs in very few takes, the band embraced the art of using the natural presence of the room and strategic gear placement to capture the purest and most accurate representation of those songs in those moments. In an era that was quickly being transformed by the burgeoning popularity of ProTools and meticulously manicured, maximalist mixes, the world inside of Rumah Sakit was a refreshing respite.A year later, in the fall of 2000, Rumah Sakit flew renowned Chicago recording engineer and Shellac bassist, Bob Weston, out to San Francisco to spend two brief days recording an EP at John Vanderslice’s Tiny Telephone Recording. This EP would be released as part of Temporary Residence’s subscription-based CD series, Travels In Constants (alongside Mogwai, Low, Explosions In The Sky, Eluvium, and MONO). Aside from the original pressing of 1,000 CDs reserved for subscribers, the studio recordings on Travels In Constants were never available again on any format or platform.Reuniting with Bob Weston to meticulously remaster the original master tapes, Rumah Sakit 25 collects the band’s debut album and their long out-of-print Travels In Constants EP into one exceptional package. Featuring new cover art from old friends and collaborators, Jeremiah Maddock and Marty Anderson, the expansive gatefold 2xLP includes full-color printed inner sleeves featuring hundreds of previously unpublished photos documenting this inspired early era in the band’s history, as well as a massive full-size 24-page art book of previously unpublished artwork by Maddock. It’s an exquisite opus that masterfully captures a special band at a special time.

A longtime favorite at our shop, El Michels Affair—New York-based instrumental funk/soul band renowned for their unique “cinematic soul” sound and a flagship act of the esteemed Big Crown Records—returns with a brand new album, featuring none other than Shintaro Sakamoto as a guest! Rooted in funk and soul yet infused with a breezy, urban summer feel, this exquisite release blossoms into a light and airy indie pop-soul masterpiece. A refreshing soundscape full of timeless musical elegance, perfect for strolling through sun-drenched city streets.

Driving is Sam Wilkes’ Indie Rock record. Out October 6th, 2023, it is the first release on Wilkes Records, an imprint borne of the artist’s emergent need to self-release. The songs presented here exist comfortably within the ever-expanding Wilkesian cosmos, characterized as they are by virtuosity, torqued experimentalism, and collaboration with a range of talented musicians. But Driving’s influences, its sincerity, and its allegiance to a certain pop sensibility reflects a departure for an artist who has primarily staked his claim within the experimental jazz idiom. Take the first track, “Folk Home,” which inaugurates the album’s fecundity—a bright, green, humid, summer feel. A swirling, freakout coda of reversed vocals gives way, in no short order, to a caterwaul of flute work that conjures Van Morrison’s (in)famous Astral Weeks sessions. Standing beside Morrison, the usual suspects are all present, if somewhat abstractedly. Dylan, The Dead, Joni, the Fab Four. Wilkes has developed a reputation as an experimental jazz luminary, but his deep affinity for the pop/rock/folk idiom of the latter twentieth century rings clear throughout Driving. More so than any Wilkes release to date, Driving is a collection guided by and dedicated to the man’s attention to songcraft. Written and recorded during a period of rain-damage induced renter’s itinerance (and the attendant desire to produce a kind of therapeutic, self-soothing, home-feeling music), Driving loosely charts the trajectory/experience of “a protagonist,” both Wilkes and not, “who has figured out how to live an enlightened and fulfilled life, but is unable to do so because he thinks about it too much.” This friction is surely relatable — a symptom of our compulsively self-aware present. But Wilkes avoids the obvious pitfalls of public hand-wringing. Rather, Driving’s nine tracks evince a genuine, and mature searching-ness, both sonically and lyrically. The ending refrain of “Own” serves like something close to a thesis— “Letting go // isn’t a concept // it’s an action.” In an attempt to beat back ego, hyper-cogitation, language itself, Wilkes arrives at an axiom that feels so true and familiar, you’d swear you’d heard it one hundred times before. Driving’s final third is, fittingly, its most emotive and cathartic. Tracks seven and eight, “Again, Again” and “And Again,” form a diptych, joined most obviously by the jangling, recursive grooves of guitarist Daryl Johns. Wilkes is said to have encouraged Johns to go “full Lindsey [Buckingham]” (clearly a welcome and resonant prompt), but one also catches stray Knopfler vibes, some intermittent Fripp, and (perhaps more-so in tone than technique) the spirit of DIY prophet and jangling man himself, Martin Newell (the Cleaners from Venus). Wilkes has stated that he finds joy in creating musical environments suitable to the contribution and flourishing of his favorite musicians. Throughout Driving, and in these two tracks especially, he has more than succeeded. The record closes with the titular track: a story-song that, according to Wilkes, poured out of him (melody, composition, and lyrics) in a single sitting. The tale is told plainly, bravely, starkly; a mistake was made, regrets have been had, and all is wrapped up in the recollection of a deeply felt adolescent heartsickness—a time when the narrator was first afire with music and automotive freedom. The song captures the moment when meaning inexplicably falls into place, when a long-nagging memory suddenly assumes narrative form, and the subsequent sense of lightness and unburdening. It is fitting that Driving, a record conceived as a form of self-therapy, should culminate with a sense of humble revelation. That Wilkes is plainly eager to share the vulnerable fruits of this labor constitutes Driving’s joyful offering.

Though Dean Blunt and Danish singer-songwriter Fine Glindvad Jensen are credited, the overall identity of the project remains a mystery. This self-titled debut album by the unit The Crying Nudes has been released on the label World Music Group. Comprising nine songs and clocking in at a compact 15 minutes, the album feels like a collection of short sketches, centered on fragmented acoustic guitar phrases, ambient sounds that make use of empty space, and ethereal vocals enveloped in reverb. With a musical style that prioritizes atmosphere and texture over melody and harmony, and an intentional anonymity that keeps the artists' identities ambiguous, this album exudes a minimalist aesthetic and a captivating mystique.

Drag City reissues Land of Plenty, the recorded debut from Chicago guitar duo Bill MacKay and Ryley Walker. Captured live during a January 2015 residency at the Whistler, these performances showcase two kindred spirits in full creative flight, blending their influences into a seamless, intuitive exchange. Meeting only a year before the recording, MacKay and Walker found common ground in artists as varied as Albert King, Laura Nyro, Nick Drake, Bert Jansch, Ali Akbar Khan and Jimi Hendrix. Across six-strings, twelve-strings and requinto, they weave a dialogue that draws from blues, folk, jazz and global traditions, folding them effortlessly into each other in real time. The set brims with interplay, each player listening and responding with precision and imagination. The stereo mix keeps their guitars distinct while capturing the shared headspace where improvisation and composition meet. Live recording adds an extra charge, amplifying the richness and detail in their sound. Originally released on Whistler in 2015, Land of Plenty stands as one of the most dynamic and engaging acoustic guitar records of its era — a document of two musicians discovering just how far their combined energies could take them.

2025 has been a big year for Drop Nineteens. They finally officially released their long lost pre-curser to 1992’s Delaware, the demo collection 1991. These releases comprise the band’s early run and as Pitchfork noted in their review of both albums earlier this year, “established Drop Nineteens’ reputation as leading lights of U.S. shoegaze.”

The band follows up the release of the 1991 LP with their first ever 7”, White Dress b/w White Dress (demo). The 7” features the band’s cover of the Lana Del Ray classic in two versions. It comes on the anniversary of the band’s digital release of “White Dress.”

This is an edition of 500 black 7”s and 200 white 7"s and is sure to be a collectable item for fans of shoegaze and Drop Nineteens alike.

From the ashes of Moss Icon, Universal Order of Armageddon blasted out of Annapolis, MD in a fiery maelstrom of punishing riffs, syncopated breakbeats, and terrifying shrieks. Compiled here are the complete Gravity, Vermin Scum, and Kill Rock Stars recordings, remixed and remastered from the original session tapes, and housed in a deluxe gatefold jacket with a chunky 24-page book packed with photos, notes, and iconography from their 1993-’94 run. Armageddon IS now.

Am I ever gonna be the one? Do I ever wanna be with someone? Am I ever gonna be the one? Will I ever end up being someone?

The latest album from Horse Vision, the experimental indie rock unit based in Stockholm and crafting music across Europe, now arrives on vinyl. Positioned at the intersection of pop/indie sensibilities and dreamy electronic ambient, the record quietly dwells on themes of “everyday fluctuations and the slippage of memory and emotion.” Its intimate, introspective sound—shaped by post-rock and emo influences—feels attuned to the stillness before dawn or the moments when city lights continue to flicker. A graceful work where rich imagery emerges through resonance and ambiguity, filling the quiet spaces within the listener.

Sir Richard Bishop returns with Hillbilly Ragas, a feral and fiery take on solo acoustic guitar that digs into the roots of American Primitive style and rips them up by the fistful. Drawing on decades of exploratory playing across records like Salvador Kali, Improvika and The Freak of Araby, Bishop pares things down to their essence: one man, one guitar, no overdubs, no effects. But simplicity doesn’t mean safety. These nine tracks are anything but tame. Inspired by East Indian raga, rhythm-heavy phrasing and a self-imposed exile from traditional structure, Bishop envisions an uncontacted hillbilly mystic conjuring his own untamed folk music deep in the woods. His goal? To play with abandon, rejecting the polished edges of the American Primitive genre for something darker, stranger and more unhinged. Hillbilly Ragas is an unfiltered excursion into a haunted backwoods sound-world — part ritual, part rebellion, all delivered with the ragged conviction of an artist hell-bent on carving out his own language.

Sir Richard Bishop returns with Hillbilly Ragas, a feral and fiery take on solo acoustic guitar that digs into the roots of American Primitive style and rips them up by the fistful. Drawing on decades of exploratory playing across records like Salvador Kali, Improvika and The Freak of Araby, Bishop pares things down to their essence: one man, one guitar, no overdubs, no effects. But simplicity doesn’t mean safety. These nine tracks are anything but tame. Inspired by East Indian raga, rhythm-heavy phrasing and a self-imposed exile from traditional structure, Bishop envisions an uncontacted hillbilly mystic conjuring his own untamed folk music deep in the woods. His goal? To play with abandon, rejecting the polished edges of the American Primitive genre for something darker, stranger and more unhinged. Hillbilly Ragas is an unfiltered excursion into a haunted backwoods sound-world — part ritual, part rebellion, all delivered with the ragged conviction of an artist hell-bent on carving out his own language.

Sir Richard Bishop returns with Hillbilly Ragas, a feral and fiery take on solo acoustic guitar that digs into the roots of American Primitive style and rips them up by the fistful. Drawing on decades of exploratory playing across records like Salvador Kali, Improvika and The Freak of Araby, Bishop pares things down to their essence: one man, one guitar, no overdubs, no effects. But simplicity doesn’t mean safety. These nine tracks are anything but tame. Inspired by East Indian raga, rhythm-heavy phrasing and a self-imposed exile from traditional structure, Bishop envisions an uncontacted hillbilly mystic conjuring his own untamed folk music deep in the woods. His goal? To play with abandon, rejecting the polished edges of the American Primitive genre for something darker, stranger and more unhinged. Hillbilly Ragas is an unfiltered excursion into a haunted backwoods sound-world — part ritual, part rebellion, all delivered with the ragged conviction of an artist hell-bent on carving out his own language.

For all the attention that was paid to her 2012 break-through Tramp, Sharon Van Etten is an artist with a hunger to turn another corner and to delve deeper, writing from a place of honesty and vulnerability to create a bond with the listener that few contemporary musicians can match. Compelled by a restless spirit, Van Etten is continuously challenging herself. Now, the result is Are We There, a self-produced album of exceptional intimacy, sublime generosity, and immense breadth.Most musicians are quite happy to leave the production end of things to someone else. It’s enough to live your music without taking on the role of producer as well. Yet Van Etten knew it was time to make a record entirely on her terms. The saying goes “fortune favors the bold” and yet this boldness had to be tempered. For this, Van Etten found a kindred spirit in veteran music producer Stewart Lerman. Originally working together on Boardwalk Empire, they gently moved into new roles, rallying around the idea of making a record together in Lerman’s studio in New Jersey. Lerman’s studio expertise gave Van Etten the freedom to make Are We There the way she imagined. Van Etten also enlisted the individual talents of her band, consisting of Heather Woods Broderick, Doug Keith and Zeke Hutchins, and brought in friends Dave Hartley and Adam Granduciel from The War on Drugs, Jonathan Meiberg (Shearwater), Jana Hunter (Lower Dens), Peter Broderick, Mackenzie Scott (Torres), Stuart Bogie, Jacob C. Morris and Mickey Freeze. It is clear from the opening chords in the first song, Afraid of Nothing, that we are witnessing a new awareness, a sign of Van Etten in full stride, writing, producing and performing from a place that seems almost mythical, were it not so touchable and real. Always direct, and never shying away even from the most personally painful narratives, Van Ettten’s songwriting continues to evolve. Many of the songs deal with seemingly impossible decisions, anticipation, and then resolution. She sings of the nature of desire, memory, of being lost, emptiness, of promises and loyalty, fear and change, of healing and the true self, violence and sanctuary, waiting, of silence. The artist who speaks in such a voice is urging us to do something, to take hold and to go deeper. Living in this way, the questions of life remain alive, as close and steady as breathing. Many of the ballads of old are as dark as pitch, and people for whom the issues of life and death were as vivid as flame wrote them. You could turn off the electricity, remove all the instruments and Sharon’s voice and words would remain. They connect her to the mystic stratum which flows just beneath the everyday, which is rarely acknowledged as the forces of distraction sweep our attention away.

Big Crown Records is proud to present Brainstory’s sophomore full-length album Sounds Good. Based in L.A. but hailing from the Inland Empire's own Rialto, California, two-thirds of Brainstory, Kevin and Tony Martin are brothers by blood, while Eric Hagstrom is a brother through their music and long term friendship. Since they started the band they have constantly faced situations that forced them to rise to the occasion. They got signed to Big Crown Records, they stepped up their game. COVID happened, they learned to record themselves. They started touring a ton sharing the stage with the likes of Lady Wray and they got their live show super tight. All of this time spent grinding and growing has certainly paid off. The path to take their art to the next level is clearer than ever, and once again, they are here for it. If there is one thing that is abundantly clear on Sounds Good, it’s that Brainstory has leveled up. Part of this evolution is undoubtedly attributed to having access to and working constantly in their own studio in Long Beach. Another major factor is that their brotherhood has expanded. "I've been playing music with my brother all my life and now with Eric for a long time," Tony tells us. "Leon, though, is like another brother I've just met." Leon Michels, Big Crown's co-owner, produced this record and applied his unmistakable golden touch in crucial ways. The other member of the extended Brainstory brotherhood whose contributions were essential to the album, is studio engineer legend Jens Jungkurth who controls the tones and textures of the music. "That's what you're hearing, our connection, the fun moments, the little details," Kevin describes. "This record isn't half what it is without them—and it made us want to match that effort," and match that effort they did. Album opener "Nobody But You" is an uplifting, dance floor burner, that shows off a new side of Brainstory's range. Drummer Eric Hagstrom’s crushing back beat lays the foundation for an inspirational feel good banger that manages to take the uncomfortable truth that “nobody will save you but you” and turn it into pure blissful motivation. "Peach Optimo" is a laid back half time tune that blends the bounce of Down South Hip-Hop with California G funk and Jazz. They once again show off their B said ballad talents with "Gift Of Life" but this time taking the genre to a new place with lyrics about existentialism and a track that is drop dead gorgeous, haunting, and profound all at once. "NyNy" is an homage to Kev and Tony's recently deceased grandfather while "Too Yung" is a show stopping, deeply personal, stripped down number about being introduced to alcohol at a young age. They put another hit on the boards with "Hanging On," a Latin / Psychedelic Soul inspired banger featuring Claire Cottrill on background vocals while "XFaded” addresses the all too common vicious cycle of smoking and drinking too much over a trippy shuffle. "It's been four years since our last full length record, and with everything that's happened since, it's like we've been catching up to ourselves." That's one way to describe change: catching up to oneself. Each member of Brainstory has gone through shifts, both personally and musically, and all of that threads through Sounds Good. It's easy to say that the music industry can be short on lasting, genuine relationships. However, for Brainstory, from day one it's been about standing by each other, for each other. Their friendship started the group, and now, this expanded brotherhood is supporting them to push it further. The stars have aligned for them to take a big and well deserved step with this new album and it couldn't have happened to a better group of guys. Ups and downs of course, but they are acutely aware of how good the big picture has been for them and you can hear it in their music—music that just Sounds Good.

Unearthed from the neolithic tar that eventually swathes all history, Aerial M’s early-98 Peel Session is once again among us. Compared to the studio takes, played strictly and singly by Aerial/Papa M-astermind David Pajo, these versions swing from the necks of road-burned players, breathing more bestially than their canonical cousins, glinting ‘pon the dark metallic roots that fed all of Pajo’s best guitar lines, winding thru time immemorial.

80s synth magic for the four-track mind.

DIY outsider Rick Cuevas was a post-punk refugee on a vision quest for a hit. Tracked at home in 1984, "The Birds" is that 40-year-delayed viral smash, one of eight retro-futurist anthems that make up Cuevas' debut album. Remastered from the analog masters, this 40th anniversary edition replicates the 200-copy original for max teleportation value.

Suntub’ is the second full length album from ML Buch, a double record of 15 pieces by the Danish composer and producer, entering further into the realm of electric guitars and layered vocals along with exploring new instrumental expressions. With an offset in open tunings on a 7-string Stratocaster, slide and fretless tablet guitars and deep-sampled virtual guitars, the album draws up narratives and locations in a distant time. Props like puddles, well buckets, bone barrels and flesh rags live in these scenes, suspended in air, drifting about, climbing stairs and ladders, all given life through guitar sensibilities and visceral vocals.