Encore Records

Interpol

S/T

On their fourth and self-titled full-length, Interpol return to Matador, the label that released their first two albums.
It is their last album to feature bassist Carlos Dengler, whose departure was announced in May. Mixed by Alan Moulder (Depeche Mode, Smashing Pumpkins, the Killers), there s a greater emphasis on the rhythm section, which carries the band through a set of dark, thematically connected songs.

The Groundhogs

Thank Christ For The Groundhogs: The Liberty Years

2010 three CD set that contains their first five albums for Liberty Records (1968-72) plus bonus tracks. With a career that spans an impressive five decades, the Groundhogs are a veritable British Blues-Rock institution. With a line-up cemented around Peter Cruickshank on bass guitar, Ken Pustelnik on drums and fronted by singer, guitarist and principle songwriter Tony (T.S.) McPhee, this bluesy power trio were joined by harmonica toting Steve Rye for their full length debut, Scratching The Surface released on Liberty Records in 1968. With a reputation hard won by their incessant touring schedule, the band recorded Blues Obituary as a three piece in 1969, followed by Thanks Christ For The Bomb (1970), then hitting #5 with their most successful record, Split, in 1971 and rounded off by the fabulously titled Who Will Save The World? The Mighty Groundhogs (1972).

Ten Years After

Think About the Times: The Chrysalis Years

2010 three CD release featuring albums plus rare tracks all recorded during their time on Chrysalis Records. Their fourth album, Ssssh., issued in August 1969, coincided with their breakthrough appearance at the Woodstock festival, a definite highlight of the subsequent film and LP of that show. Fifth album Cricklewood Green, issued in April 1970, featured their biggest UK chart hit with ‘Love Like A Man’. 1971’s A Space In Time showed a change in direction, no doubt inspired by the more acoustic sounds prevalent in the States at the time. As well as producing their biggest Stateside hit with ‘I’d Love To Change the World’, this set is completed by Rock & Roll Music to the World from 1972, a classic mix of the blues and rock ‘n’ roll that made the band such a successful live draw, with lead guitarist Alvin Lee hailed as one of the fastest players in the world. This set also includes rare b-sides and single edits, appearing on CD for the first time.

Robin Trower

Tale Untold : The Chrysalis Years

2010 three CD collection containing his five Chrysalis albums between 1973 -1976 plus bonus tracks (b-sides, outtakes, edits and previously unreleased tracks). Robin Trower initially found fame in the late 1960s as the guitarist with Procol Harum before embarking on a solo career in 1973. The Chrysalis Years 1973-1976 is augmented by the rare b-side, ‘Take A Fast Train’, single edits of ‘Day of The Eagle’, and ‘Long Misty Days’, previously unavailable on CD, and finishes with the previously unreleased ‘Let Me Be The One’, a rare outtake from Long Misty Days.

Boris & Ian Astbury

Bxi

A collaboration between Japanese Doom/Sludge Rock trio Boris and British vocalist Ian Astbury, frontman for Alt-Rock band The Cult.

Astbury’s iconic Rock vocals are a perfect match for Boris’ straightforward and laid back but still raw and imaginative songwriting.

Heart

Red Velvet Car

2010 album from the veteran Rock band led by sisters Ann and Nancy Wilson, their first album in six years.

Red Velvet Car takes generations of Heart fans on what truly feels like the musical ride of a lifetime. Powerfully produced by Ben Mink, Red Velvet Car is a thoroughly electrifying song cycle of largely acoustic-based sound and a stunning album with a true and renewed sense of purpose.

Ann and Nancy committed themselves to writing and recording an album that was as authentic as possible, culling from their own personal experiences and some universal themes. The result on Red Velvet Car is an album of breathtaking intimacy and honesty.

Eels

Tomorrow Morning

Just when you thought it couldn’t get any darker for Mark Oliver Everett (aka E)...it doesn’t.

On the third Eels album in 14 months, Everett completes a trilogy that began with the rockist Hombre Lobo in June of 2009, which addressed the ravenous hunger and cost of desire.

In January 2010, End Times detailed in a low-key and acoustic manner, often in sometimes embarrassingly intimate terms, the shattering toll of a broken relationship.

Tomorrow Morning emerges on the other side of both.

This 14-song collection meditates on E’s own eccentric brand of optimism. The tunes carry his requisite catchy melodies, hooks, and compelling arrangements, but the textures are different from anything he’s released before because most of it is electronic and programmed (though his guitar, Koool G Murder’s bass and keys, and Knuckles’ drums are present, too).

Jenny and Johnny

I’m Having Fun Now

Jenny and Johnny first started working together in Los Angeles in 2005, after being introduced by Conor Oberst.

The exuberance of love songs like ‘Scissor Runner’ mask some of the record’s darkness, with Lewis chronicling the economic demise of her beloved California in ‘Big Wave’, Rice’s haunting vocal on ‘Animal’, and both songwriters raising a middle-finger kiss off in the acerbic ‘My Pet Snakes’.

The overall result is genuine and original pop music for ‘Right Now’. This is not a Rilo Kiley record, a Jenny Lewis record, or a Johnathan Rice record. This is Jenny and Johnny

Richard Thompson

Dream Attic

Penned during a short and inspired burst of creative outpouring, the songs were performed during a West Coast tour in February of this year, and the bulk of the performances that made the album come from three shows at the Great American Music Hall in San Francisco.

“I don’t think musicians playing on their own are particularly interesting, it’s only when they play in front of an audience that something interesting happens,” Thompson said in an interview at one of the shows.

The musicians appearing on the album with Thompson are Pete Zorn (guitars, flute, sax, mandolin), Michael Jerome (drums), Taras Prodaniuk (bass), and Joel Zifkin (violin, mandolin).

Bachman & Turner

S/T

New album from 2/3 of legendary rock band B.T.O.

Their first album of new material in decades !!