Encore Records

Death Cab For Cutie

Codes and Keys

Codes and Keys still sounds like a Death Cab album, but the guys explore the benefits of the recording studio more than ever before, boosting Jason McGerr s drums with bits of programmed percussion and scaling back their guitar riffs to sparse, articulate clumps of notes that ring out into the ether.

Theres a new-found emphasis on open space, on electronics, on Kid A-inspired webs of feedback and distortion that are draped behind the songs like ambient backdrops. It’s not all machines and Eno-esque production.

Flogging Molly

Speed Of Darkness

Speed Of Darkness is their fifth, and arguably most important album.

In the words of lead singer and songwriter Dave King, “It wasn’t the album we set out to write. It became the album we had to write”. Speed Of Darkness was written in Detroit, MI and takes a hardnosed look at the economic collapse in the US: the causes and the direct effect it has had on everyday people.

Speed of Darkness features Flogging Molly’s own blend of Rock, Folk, Punk, Blues and traditional Irish music with King’s populist poetry.

Thurston Moore

Demolished Thoughts

The third solo album from the Sonic Youth main man. Demolished Thoughts was produced by Beck and features Mary Lattimore on harp, Samara Lubielski on violin, and Beck on various instruments.

Demolished Thoughts is an equally beautiful and brooding work.

While there are more than a few tonal similarities to some of your older favorite Moore compositions, the execution this time is nothing short of staggering.

Booker T Jones

The Road From Memphis

2011 album from the Memphis Soul legend.

Along for the ride are vocalists Matt Berninger of the National, Yim Yames of My Morning Jacket, Sharon Jones, Lou Reed, and Booker himself, telling the story of how the Funk/Soul sound that Booker helped invent spiraled out from Memphis, touching The Roots hometown of Philadelphia, New York and Detroit.

The Road from Memphis is classic Memphis Soul, and classic Booker in the tradition of “Green Onions”, but beyond that it is the story of a sound, and how Booker, working with the inheritors of his sound, is keeping a tradition alive.

Fleet Foxes

Helplessness Blues

Helplessness Blues is the anticipated follow-up to Fleet Foxes’ 2008 debut. Recorded and co-produced by fellow Seattleite Phil Ek, it expands the band’s baroque folk songs by focusing heavily on rhythm and groove, although Fleet Foxes’ signature harmonies are also on full display.

Queens of the Stone Age

s/t

Finally back in print on cd and LP !!

Rory Gallagher

Irish Tour ‘74

For the first time the film has been lovingly restored and remastered from the original footage and is being released for the first time on Blu-ray.

There is a massive improvement in both sound and picture quality over the original DVD release and finally Gallagher fans can get to see the film as it was meant to be, capturing Rory, his music, the period and the place to perfection.

Panda Bear

Tomboy

2011 solo album from Animal Collective member Noah Lennox (AKA Panda Bear).

Recorded at his studio in Lisbon, and mixed by Pete Kember (Sonic Boom, Spacemen 3), Tomboy sees Panda Bear stepping away from the sample-based parameters of his previous record and incorporating more guitar and synthesizer.

Still prevalent, though, is the interest in texture that made Person Pitch such a dense record; crashing waves and cheering crowds bounce against the gurgling arpeggios and give the tracks an immense sense of space.

Bill Callahan

Apocalypse

Eessentially an ensemble recorded live in the studio, Callahan’s Apocalypse is the corpus delecti.

Something happened here! If tape is like meat, this record is the whole hog! Callahan, riding on the back of his band, corrals them all & guides them single-handedly through the valley with love & ferocity.

TV On the Radio

Nine Types Of Light

Nine Types Of Light is a lush and beautiful album that stands apart from the group’s previous work.

If their other albums had shades of dystopia and distress, this album, sung by Tunde Adebimpe and Kyp Malone, is filled with songs about longing and love.