Real artists creating great records on their own terms
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Galactic - Ya-Ka-May OUT 2/9!
A-KA-MAY is set to be released Feb 9, 2010 on Anti Records. The album features established legends such as the Rebirth Brass Band, Irma Thomas, Big Chief Bo Dollis, Allen Toussaint and Walter "Wolfman" Washington with younger artists like Trombone Shorty and Corey Henry, John Boutté, Josh Cohen and Scully, and Glen David Andrews, as well as groundbreaking new "Bounce" artists like Cheeky Blakk, Big Freedia, Katey Red, and Sissy Nobby. The end result is New Orleans like it's truly meant to be heard, and pure GALACTIC.
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Tom Waits - Glitter and Doom Live OUT NOW!
Available November 23rd, Glitter and Doom is a 2 disc collection of the best of the best tracks from Tom Waits' sold out, highly acclaimed Glitter and Doom tour of the US and Europe in the summer of 2008.
Disc One is designed to sound like one evening's performance, even though the 17 tracks are selected from 10 cities, from Paris to Birmingham; Tulsa to Milan; and Atlanta to Dublin. Sonically the album is superb and has been beautifully recorded and meticulously mastered . Disc Two is a bonus compendium called TOM TALES, which is a selection of the comic bromides, strange musings, and unusual facts that Tom traditionally shares with his audience during the piano set. Waits' topics range from the ritual of insects to the last dying breath of Henry Ford.
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The Swell Season - Strict Joy OUT NOW!
The Swell Season, the Oscar-winning duo of Frames frontman Glen Hansard and Czech ingenue Marketa Irglova, are putting the finishing touches on Strict
Joy, (Oct 27/Anti- Records), the follow-up to their beloved, surprise hit
2007 film and gold-certified soundtrack 'Once.' The twelve new, original songs on Strict Joy were recorded last year and document a time of great change and tumult.
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Alec Ounsworth - Mo Beauty OUT NOW!
Anti-Records is excited to announce the upcoming release of Mo Beauty from celebrated singer/songwriter Alec Ounsworth. The Philadelphia native, who earned acclaim with his band Clap Your Hands Say Yeah, recently recorded his debut solo record in the music-steeped metropolis of New Orleans at the famed Piety St. recording studio.
For Mo Beauty, Ounsworth was backed by George Porter, Jr. on bass, Stanton Moore on drums, Robert Walter on keys, and Matt Sutton on baritone and pedal-steel guitars, with additional help from some members of the diversely talented New Orleans community such as Mark Mullins, Craig Klein, Greg Hicks, Washboard Chaz, Shannon Powell, John Boute, Al "Carnival Time" Johnson, and Meschiya Lake.
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Dead Man's Bones - Dead Man's Bones OUT NOW!
This album was not supposed to be an album. This was intended to be a soundtrack to a play about a monster-ghost-love-story. When Zach Shields and Ryan Gosling met in 2005 and discovered their mutual obsession with ghosts, they decided to write the afore-mentioned ghastly love story. Scrapping the stage show when costs became prohibitive, they already had songs written and decided to continue. The pair chose to play all the instruments on the record, even those they had never touched before. They also imposed rules on themselves during the recording process, like not playing with a click track, or trying to do no more than three takes on any song, letting any imperfections highlight the strengths of the music. Enlisting the help of the Silverlake Conservatory Children’s Choir to round out the tunes, the album was produced by Tim Anderson of I’m A Robot. The result is a striking collection of doo-wop songs about werewolves, haunting melodies telling tales of zombies with broken hearts, and children singing the joys and pains of being alive or being dead.
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Rain Machine - Rain Machine OUT NOW!
Kyp Malone’s much anticipated solo project Rain Machine is set to be released September 22 on Anti-records. The provocative album art, created by Malone himself, is an appropriate indicator of the unique and defiantly personal music within. Rain Machine features ten unflinchingly original and emotional songs mixing elements of modern jazz, blue-grass and blistering guitar driven rock into a refreshing new sound. As singer and guitarist for celebrated band TV on the Radio, Malone proved himself both a captivating and delightfully unpredictable musical force. On Rain Machine, he shows himself a singer and a lyricist of startling talents. Malone recently described Rain Machine as “a nearly full spectrum of frequencies audible to the human ear, a reflection of a variety of emotions and situations real and imagined - some rhythm some rhyme.”
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Islands - Vapours OUT NOW!
Nick Diamonds' polymorphous pop band, Islands, is back with their third studio album, Vapours. The 2006 debut, Return to the Sea, found eccentric and mellifluous pop tunes performed with a cast of characters from Montreal's thriving music scene (including members of Arcade Fire and Wolf Parade), helmed by Nick Diamonds and Jamie Thompson. Thompson departed amicably from the group shortly after the album was released, and 2007's Arm's Way found the band turning in a new direction towards lushly orchestrated, guitar-driven prog-rock. Thompson has returned to the band for Vapours, a record that flits back and forth between moody synthesizers and drum-machine-heavy beats, while remaining firmly rooted in the classic pop sensibilities and multitude of melodic hooks that Islands is known for.
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Os Mutantes - Haih or Amortecedor OUT NOW!
Os Mutantes have found a home with other likeminded provocateurs such as Tom Waits, Nick Cave, Mavis Staples and Billy Bragg on the Los Angeles independent label ANTI- Records. 2006 saw a reunion of sorts, with the band playing a handful of shows in London, New York, the Pitchfork Festival in Chicago, San Francisco and supporting the Flaming Lips at the Hollywood Bowl in Los Angeles, but it is the release of Haih or Amortecedor in September that will mark the band’s first recorded material since 1974 and their very first album to receive a worldwide release. Conceived by Sergio Dias with collaborations with other Brazilian legends Tom Ze (lyrics) and Jorge Ben (who wrote the song "Minha Menina"), Haih is a vibrant and timely return from one of world music’s most important bands.
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Joe Henry - Blood From Stars OUT NOW!
On Blood from Stars, his remarkable and sprawling new album, Henry has the unprecedented pleasure of introducing the world to a new talent, a young saxophonist by the name of Levon Henry. "I was tempted to put him on my last record, Civilians (2007)," Henry explains of his seventeen-year-old son. "He wasn't quite ready for that –and neither was I. But in the last two years, he's found a voice and begun to speak in wildly expansive and complete sentences. It wasn't a matter of me thinking it would be cute to put him on a record. He was just the musician I most wanted to hear in that chair."
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Solillaquists of Sound - No More Heroes OUT NOW!
At their core, heroes are trailblazers, engulfed by a spirit that is unafraid to break outside the constraints of conformity to innovate and improve the space in which they exist. And their path is a rocky one – some of the greatest minds of our time have been plagued by the pioneer’s curse. All too often, the rest of the world greets these ahead-of-their-time individuals with a blind eye (or even worse, hostility). Unfortunately, tangible genius is rarely recognized until it is no longer with us. With the release of their sophomore album No More Heroes (the second in a trilogy of conceptually-linked records for Anti-), Orlando-based hip hop quartet Solillaquists of Sound have accomplished the rare feat of creating a body of work that’s as palatable to the public as it is groundbreaking, imaginative, and rewarding to listeners looking for something more in the soundtrack to their lives.
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Neko Case - iTunes Originals OUT NOW!
For her iTunes Originals session, Neko Case discusses tracks from her five solo albums and performs a half-dozen of those songs in an intimate quartet setting with guitarist Paul Rigsby, bassist Phil Palazzolo, and vocalist Kelly Hogan. Head to iTunes to download Neko Case iTunes Originals today.
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Bettye LaVette - Change Is Gonna Come Sessions OUT NOW!
Having conquered the ghosts of a hard-luck past on her GRAMMY-nominated CD The Scene of the Crime, Bettye LaVette shines a new light on that past with her latest, A Change Is Gonna Come Sessions. The digital-only EP for Anti- Records, available exclusively through iTunes starting June 16, revisits Bettye's forgotten post-Atlantic Records years as a nightclub singer, Broadway performer, and touring cast member opposite Cab Calloway in "Bubbling Brown Sugar."
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Busdriver - Jhelli Beam OUT NOW!
Busdriver has returned to jolt rap back into shape with the virtuoso, gatling gun vocal stylings and poignant (and at at times dadaist) lyricism of his new record, Jhelli Beam. Appearing to only abide by the approaches cemented by his 15 some odd years spent in the underbelly of rap, Jhelli Beam not only effortlessly trumps all previous mind-bending performances of his earlier works, but gives them new context; highlighting their dexterity with nuggets of election year paranoia and absurdist humor.
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Jason Lytle - Yours Truly, the Commuter OUT NOW!
Two years after Grandaddy's quiet demise, Jason Lytle returns with Yours Truly, the Commuter. Immaculately crafted pop soundscapes mirror both the dramatic environment of Lytle's newly-adopted Montana and the vintage twang of Central California farmland that provided the backdrop to all Lytle's earlier work. Electronic flourishes collide with acoustic guitars and soulful piano parts, recreating Lytle’s signature lo-fi-electro atmospheres. The space-fuzz rocking of “It’s the Weekend” is balanced by the beautiful heartbreak of “Rollin’ Home Alone,” and the opening lines of the first song "Yours Truly, the Commuter" poignantly capture the past few years of Jason Lytle’s life, and his shining future as a solo artist: “I may be limping, but I’m coming home”
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The Field - Yesterday & Today OUT NOW!
The Field is Axel Willner, and his last album, From Here We Go Sublime, was one of the most acclaimed releases of 2007, receiving a 9.0 on Pitchfork and universal praise. The album is the soundtrack to the spit-shined airport of your dreams – faceless, futuristic, and fuzzy. You could dance to it, sleep to it, or daydream to it: just a versatile little album. Now, Willner's label, Kompakt, has teamed with ANTI- to release his anticipated follow-up, Yesterday & Today. On the new album, Willner expands his palette, continuing the oblique sampling strategy of From Here We Go Sublime while building up the rhythmic architecture; on the title track, Willner collaborates for the first time with Battles drummer John Stanier.
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Booker T. - Potato Hole OUT NOW!
Trailblazing soul man Booker T Jones has written the most audacious chapter of his career with Potato Hole, his first solo album in decades and the natural evolution of his groundbreaking work leading Booker T and the MGs in the 1960s. Backed by the Drive-By Truckers with Booker's signature Hammond B3, Potato Hole is raw and edgy, fun and innovative. Produced by Rob Schnapf & Booker T.
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Bob Mould - Life and Times OUT NOW!
30 years since the formation of Husker Du and 20 years since their explosive demise and the subsequent release of his first lauded solo effort Workbook - called a "masterpiece" by critics - Bob Mould is marking anniversaries with an album filled with self-reflection and an unflinching examination of the world around him. Standouts like "Wasted World" and "I'm Sorry Baby, But You Can't Stand In My Light Anymore" highlight an artist completing a cycle decades in the making, his talent undiminished, his perspective acute.
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Ramblin' Jack Elliott - A Stranger Here OUT NOW!
Ramblin' Jack Elliott will release his long-anticipated follow-up to his 2006 ANTI- Record debut I Stand Alone on April 7th 2009, entitled A Stranger Here. Working with producer Joe Henry (Bettye LaVette, Solomon Burke, Elvis Costello/Allen Toussaint), the 77 year old Elliott sings and plays acoustic guitar, and is backed by a stellar collection of musicians handpicked by Henry, among them Van Dyke Parks and David Hidalgo (Los Lobos).
Revered for his interpretive take on traditional American music, on A Stranger Here Elliott steps out of the country/folk arena that has shaped his legend, 50+ years in the making. Haunting and evocative landscapes crafted by Henry construct a mood that is enhanced by Elliott's world-scarred voice. Together, musician and producer examine a carefully selected number of pre-WWII blues songs in a wholly unique way.
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Neko Case - Middle Cyclone OUT NOW!
On March 3, 2009, Anti- Records will release the eagerly awaited new Neko Case album Middle Cyclone. The fifteen-track collection is Case's first release since 2006's Fox Confessor Brings The Flood, the best-reviewed and best-selling album of her career. Middle Cyclone was produced by Case with Darryl Neudorf and recorded in Tucson, Brooklyn, Toronto, and Vermont. It features Case backed by her core band - guitarist Paul Rigby, bassist Tom V. Ray, backing vocalist Kelly Hogan, multi-instrumentalist Jon Rauhouse, and drummer Barry Mirochnick - along with numerous guests including M. Ward, Garth Hudson, Sarah Harmer, and members of The New Pornographers, Los Lobos, Calexico, The Sadies, Visqueen, The Lilys, and Giant Sand, among others. In addition to twelve new songs written by Case, Middle Cyclone includes covers of 'Never Turn Your Back on Mother Earth' by Sparks, and "Don't Forget Me" by Harry Nilsson.
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William Elliott Whitmore - Animals In The Dark OUT NOW!
From the first lines of "Mutiny," the opening track on William Elliott Whitmore's ANTI- Records debut Animals In The Dark, one can see that this is decidedly not simply a continuation of his Southern trilogy that spanned his last three releases. Rather than a reflection of life and loss and the world surrounding his Iowa horse farm on the banks of the Mississippi, "Mutiny" finds Whitmore's focus turned outward, to the state of the country and the missteps of the government. Yet Animals In The Dark, is by no means a political record. It has more in common with the preacher blues of Reverend Gary Davis or the romantic populism of Bruce Springsteen's Nebraska than it does a Billy Bragg record. What Animals In The Dark highlights is the maturation and growth of an exemplary artist.
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N.A.S.A. - The Spirit of Apollo OUT NOW!
N.A.S.A is an ongoing creative collaboration between two lifelong music aficionados, Squeak E. Clean ad DJ Zegon, and their friends, friends of friends and musical heroes. While N.A.S.A. stands for North America/South America and contains a number of superstar artists from both coasts of the US, it is about as far from a tension-building geographical showdown as a record can get. Rather, their Anti debut The Spirit of Apollo was born with the righteous goal of bringing people together through music and art, and that is exactly what masterminds Sam Spiegel (Squeak E. Clean) and Ze Gonzales (DJ Zegon) have done.
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Mavis Staples - Live: Hope At The Hideout OUT NOW!
On Monday June 23rd a lucky few Chicagoans were treated to an intimate performance at the Hideout by the leading lady of protest, Mavis Staples. Accustomed to appearances at large venues, particularly in her hometown - the Windy City itself - Staples played with a stripped down, raw and swampy three-piece band and just a handful of back-up singers, providing a rare opportunity for fans to get close and sweaty with a figure who has led the musical charge towards equality and justice for the past five decades. Fortunately, the magical set was captured on tape, and now the rest of us can experience the righteous protest and joyful inspiration Mavis imparted that evening via Mavis Staples Live: Hope at the Hideout.
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Jolie Holland - The Living and The Dead OUT NOW!
On this, her third studio album, Jolie Holland ranges far and wide, adding to her unique take on folk and country and jazz that other distinctly American articulation, rock n roll. “I love rock and roll, but I think it was hard for me to trust its motives until now,” says Jolie Holland. No longer, for the Living and the Dead has some truly rowdy moments. Interspersed between the ephemeral repose that defined her earlier work are songs that are as musically immediate as they are emotionally complex.
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Michael Franti and Spearhead - All Rebel Rockers OUT NOW!
One of the most moving and politically charged writers, Michael Franti and his band Spearhead, return with their eagerly-awaited album, All Rebel Rockers, on September 9, via Anti-Records. Recorded in Kingston, Jamaica, with reggae's most prolific production teams, Sly & Robbie (No Doubt, Alicia Keys, Sean Paul, Bob Dylan), this new release deviates from Franti's previous sound and comprises a hybrid dub-infused soul flavor with some hard-hitting dub rock production.
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