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40 Years ago Hunting Lodge was nearing the peak of its fertile “Tribal” period. In celebration of this anniversary we are releasing Nomad Souls, Tribal Warning Shot (expanded) and The Harvest (live/expanded). All of the included tracks have been lovingly remastered from the original reels and cassettes, restored and mastered for digital by Grant Richardson. Nomad Souls LP was released in the fall of 1984 on S/M Operations in the U.S., and in the following spring on Side Effekts Records, U.K.. Tribal Warning Shot 12” 4-track EP was released early 1985 on S/M Operations (U.S.). The title track was remixed with drums added for a 12” 45 release on Normal Records (Germany) soon thereafter. This version appears here (the original mix is included as a digital bonus track). A new remix of the 1983 7” “Night From Night” b/w “Untitled” is included, along with 2 tracks that appeared on compilation albums and one unreleased track. The Harvest cassette was a collection of live Hunting Lodge tracks circa 1984. Those tracks are #15, #18 through #27, and digital bonus track #1. The Detroit show bears the distinction of being the only time Roselle Williams (“The Wolf Hour”) sang live with the band. Included here are two previously unreleased tracks, one from Chicago and the other from Detroit. This set features a replica of the original S/M Operations Nomad Souls cover, and of the Normal Records 12” art, which was designed by T.M. Caldwell & executed by Trish Damon. The third sleeve features a newly designed back cover by Rolaid Alpo Cola, and an inner panel including the original Harry O. Morris promo poster artwork along with an essay from Graeme Revell. Puppy38 assisted in design and pulled together all of the design elements. Includes a limited edition 34-page booklet. This tome includes a replica of the original S/M Operations booklet (originally included in Nomad Souls / Tribal Warning Shot mail-orders) and has been expanded to feature detailed information pertaining to this LP set. All of the new artwork, as well as that of the original, are the creations of the legendary T. M. Caldwell.

Justin Townes Earle released Kids In The Street, his first record on New West Records, in May of 2017. The album received critical acclaim and further cemented Justin’s legacy as one of the best active songwriters in music. Songs like, “Champagne Corolla” showcased his wry sense of humor as well as his deft ability to build upon the music that came before him while at the same time creating something unique and new. Familiar, inventive, creative, and clever.

Justin would release his second album with New West Records in May of 2019. The Saint of Lost Causes was hailed as one of the best albums of 2019 by Rolling Stone Magazine with “half a dozen or so career classics.” “I was trying to look through the eyes of America,” Earle says. “Because I believe in the idea of America - that everybody’s welcome here and has a right to be here.” Earle tells these American stories in detail and without judgement. While some songs cite historic events like “Flint City Shake It,” and “Don’t Drink The Water," other tracks present fictionalized narratives that are no less harrowing, or true-to-life , as heard in "Appalachian Nightmare,” “The Saint Of Lost Causes,” and “Over Alameda."

Justin Townes Earle was always a champion of the underdog and All In features in depth looks at the hopeful, and the hopeless. Fueled by empathy, baked in the blues, Justin was never without something poignant or humorous to say. Sadly, Justin passed away in 2020 at the age of 38. ALL IN: Unreleased & Rarities (The New West Years) is a fitting tribute to Justin’s legacy. The collection features many never heard before songs, demos, and cover tunes, spanning his time as a New West Records recording artist.

Fronted by the captivating brother and sister duo Knut and Johanne Nesdal, MEER returns with their highly anticipated third album, "Wheels Within Wheels." This new release is a masterclass in blending symphonic prog and intelligent pop, showcasing the band's exceptional musicianship, intricate vocal harmonies, and grandiose melodies. Following the critical success of their sophomore album, "Playing House," released three years ago, MEER's latest effort expands their artistic horizons. While "Playing House" explored the intricacies of personal relationships, "Wheels Within Wheels" offers a broader perspective, delving into the complex interplay between individuals and the wider world. The band captures the electrifying energy of their live performances, creating songs that are both expansive and deeply personal, all while maintaining their distinctive sound. "Wheels Within Wheels" represents a significant evolution for MEER. The album features tracks that reach soaring heights and moments of intimate reflection, resulting in their most dynamic and immersive work to date. With a runtime of just over an hour, it stands as their most ambitious project yet. Reuniting with producer Lars Gärtner Fremmerlid, MEER recorded the album at Ocean Sound Recordings in 2023, bringing their vision to vivid life. The album's title "Wheels Within Wheels" symbolises the hidden complexities beneath the surface, inviting listeners on a journey of discovery. This release promises to be an essential listen for fans of both symphonic prog and sophisticated pop music, solidifying MEER's place as a band of remarkable talent and creativity. 01.Chains of Changes02.Behave03.Take Me to the River04.Come to Light05.Golden Circle06.To What End07.Today Tonight Tomorrow08.World of Wonder09.Mother10.Something in the Water11.This is the End

Elijah McLaughlin and Caleb Willitz lean hard into their improvisational skills on their debut duo release for Centripetal Force, Morning Improvisations / Evening Abstractions. Elijah McLaughlin, a Chicago-based guitarist who has released three well-regarded albums as bandleader of the Elijah McLaughlin Ensemble (Astral Spirits, Tompkins Square), and his long time friend and collaborator, Caleb Willitz, a recording engineer, producer, and sound artist, are in their element on this album, as each musician is constantly feeding off the other’s creativity. The eight tracks that make up Morning Improvisations / Evening Abstractions are replete with experimentation, and each performance displays a building excitement and exudes inspiration. Willitz, who also worked with the likes of Jeff Parker and Bill MacKay, and McLaughlin set up the ideal conditions to invoke the best of their abilities, allowing for even the recording process itself to take on a more spontaneous spirit. The duo set up camp in Willitz’s studio to work without the restraints of time, a move that allowed total freedom to create adventurously. Utilizing a refurbished 8-track tape machine, the pair was only restricted by the 25-minute limit of their analogue reels of tape. With McLaughlin playing an electric guitar routed through stereo amplifiers and various effects and Willitz playing piano while simultaneously controlling a tape delay with a foot pedal, the two developed ethereal and transcendental soundscapes that exist somewhere between free jazz, post-rock, and ambient music. From there, the two artists picked the best takes from their sessions and exhaustively mined them for musical directions to pursue. Once a path was determined, they worked their material into song structures through extensive editing, rearranging, and overdubbing. As they were in the process of shaping these raw jams into well-crafted compositions, Willitz and McLaughlin intentionally left space within some tracks for their guest musicians to jump in. Fellow Chicago improv veterans Edward Wilkerson Jr., Josh Johannpeter, Charles Rumback, and Jason Stein not only assisted in fleshing out the sound of these recordings, they straight up elevated them to new dimensions with heaps of additional color and texture. A prime example being on “Vesper Pt. 2” as McLaughlin's wall of distorted guitar is perfectly met by a surge of cataclysmic drums, howling sax, and whirling clarinet. The finished track is a veritable hurricane of brass, amplifiers, and percussion of Pharaoh Sanders sized proportions. Fittingly, the approach and feel of Morning Improvisations / Evening Abstractions is intrinsically linked to some of the music McLaughlin was consuming during the early phases of its production. The intentionality of Lalgudi Jayaraman’s Violin, Venu, Veena is present on the album, as is the frenetic aggression of Sonny Sharrock’s Ask the Ages. The meticulous editing and rearrangement that famously went into Talk Talk’s Laughing Stock certainly played a role, as did the kind of rhythmic and harmonic interplay found on Laurie Spiegel’s The Expanding Universe. Similarly, the album reflects some of the fertile and multifaceted music ecosystem of McLaughlin and Willitz’s Chicago home. Shades of the city’s abstract jazz, minimalist, and free improv scenes can be detected within the very fiber of the record’s being, informing the performances and compositions, as well as the vast palette of sounds and the duo’s unrestrained creative energy. This influence of Chicago’s rich culture is further enhanced by the contributions of their guest artists, each of whom represents a different pocket of the city’s music scene.

A majority of the music Drew Gardner has made over the years has been deeply collaborative, in contexts where his skills with improvisation can shine: with Elkhorn, Jeffrey Alexander + THE Heavy Lidders, and his own Flowers IN Space band. Cygnus A, where Gardner is playing and multitracking all the instruments, marks a shift in his approach as well as his intention, drawing the audience closer for an inward listening experience. With an earthy yet cosmic vibe, this multi-instrumentalist solo foray explores themes of distance and nearness. The album title Cygnus A refers to a distant galaxy that is one of the brightest radio sources in the sky. Its broadcast from space comes from a supermassive black hole generating energy as it consumes material, causing electrons to emit radio waves as they spiral outward in magnetic fields. Recorded in Gardner’s home studio in Harlem, Cygnus A forms a suite of serene pieces that create a soothing, mesmerizing psychedelic flow. The songs are named for our closest stars, and the album is voiced using instruments best heard at an intimate range—the mbira and zither. And while his electric guitar still plays a role, Gardner has stepped away from guitar soloing on this effort in favor of celestial leads on the zither. Fittingly, Gardner’s ability to play a variety of instruments runs deep and serves him well in guiding listeners beyond this earthly sphere.

A sprawling patchwork of the artist’s dreams and fears, Parannoul’s third album After the Magic explores the enigmatic solo artist’s life in the wake of his second album’s overnight success.

Expanding on the shoegaze-shaded emo that made Parannoul’s To See the Next Part of the Dream so beloved by lo-fi and indie rock fans alike, After the Magic sees the anonymous auteur striving to write a follow-up as worthy of acclaim as the last.

Across the album’s ten songs, Parannoul plunges yet deeper into his diverse pool of influences, coming back to the surface with a record that captures and extends the magic of its predecessor. Unexpected flashes of orchestral ambient and glitched-out electronica meld seamlessly with Parannoul’s signature passages of noisy, distortion-laden shoegaze, offering a real time glimpse into the maturation of one of indie rock’s most exciting artists.

Escape Forever is a signal from the past, a loose thread that pulls us from our nostalgia filled bedrooms into our present moment. Both a loving homage to teenage memories and an intense response to our current milieu. Soft Kill’s Escape Forever is thirteen raw tunes, musings and samples with Chicago artist RBTayskii as the spiritual tour guide. The record is delightfully centered around just the painful and joyful moment of creation, where guitars and melodies are supreme. Soft Kill attempts to grapple with the chaos of the world coming back to harmony, to reconcile with the past, to embrace it. A reverie on how to remain humble and intentional in an ever more complicated world. As Emerson once said we are artists because we are unsuccessful people living in an unsuccessfully realized world. Escape Forever tries to find transcendence in the knuckle bruising nightmare we came from instead of the realm of the phenomenal, praised and often overreaching. It harkens back to another era, but Escape Forever is decidedly the sound of us now. Edition of 500 copies on gold vinyl.

Back in 1996 Swans released what was supposed to be their final album and declared themselves "dead". While Gira focused on Angels Of Light, Norman Westberg, Algis Kizys and Vinnie Signorelli paired up with Dan Joeright (The Rentals) and Kelly Burns for a project of "rock type music" under the name A/N. This project was recorded in 96-97 has never been released in any format. Limited hand-numbered edition of 275 copies on oxblood and black swirled vinyl.

Svart Records are proud to release the long-awaited full length album "sála" by Kati Rán in May 2024

If the most profound treasures are often the most deeply buried, the journey to uncover them is vital process of discovery. Five years after the 15-minute single “Blodbylgje” signaled the birth of a new, more primordial, and immersive vision after the dissolution of her band L.E.A.F., Nordic dark folk artist Kati Rán has expanded on its oceanic theme for her long-awaited full-length album, “sála”. Embarking on a far-reaching musical and personal travelogue, it’s a reawakening of both the feminine narratives submerged and fragmented within Norse mythology, and the enduring, healing powers held within.

Named after the Old Norse word for ‘soul’ and ‘sea’, “sála” is an act of ‘soul retrieval’, the shamanic art of trauma recovery, be it illness, death, heartbreak or loss, and the reintegration of a splintered self. Across its 13, wide-ranging, elegantly unfolding tracks, the album is an embodiment of different feminine voices and perspectives – from the Norse nine daughters of the sea, or ‘billow maidens’, through various historical and fictional figures to the late-night voices we hear in our most liminal states – all with tales to tell, riddles to solve, challenges to be accepted and guidance to offer. It’s a multiplicity that, like the ocean itself, belongs to a vast, restless dynamic: a matrix of mysteries, unfathomable depths and ever-shifting currents, accumulating into an elemental, regenerative source of power.

Recorded in a barn in Húsafell, Iceland – home to glacier ice caves and a rare lava stone marimba rediscovered for the track “Stone Pillars” – as well as Finland, Norway and at home in Kati’s native Netherlands, “sála” is as much chronicle of Kati’s own perspective-shifting recording process as it as a pilgrimage through different viewpoints and internal states. That itinerate urge is also reflected in the use of different languages, ranging across Norwegian, Old Norse, Icelandic, and, for the first time, English, her combination of ancient texts, historical reimagining’s and unguarded personal reflection backed up by deep research into the most resonant recesses of Nordic lore.

Spun throughout every thread of “sála” is a sense of communion - with the power of stories to offer moral guidance and the thrill of the unknown; with the element of water, recreated across the album both in field recordings and the agelessly organic nature of the music itself; with the archetypes whose qualities we are called upon to embody at our most critical moments; and with the internal hidden realms forever whispering at us from the far edges of our consciousness.

Appropriately, it’s a collaborative venture too. As well as working closely together with Finnish producer Jaani Peuhu, there are contributions from across the musical spectrum, including extreme metal vocalist extraordinaire Gaahl, the Icelandic female choir Umbra Ensemble, renowned Norwegian jazz musician Karl Seglem, Björk and Brian Eno contrabassist Borgar Magnason, members of pagan folk acts Völuspá, Gealdýr, Heilung and Theodor Bastard and even Napalm Death’s Mitch Harris on vocals.

For all the many sources “sála” draws from, the result is a singular, intimately transformative rite of passage, and a retuning of the heart to the reverent continuity of the sacred. It will take you from the opening title track’s chest-pounding rhythmic pulse emerging from a traditional Norwegian bukkehorn (recorded by Karl Seglem), a galloping horse-rider and Kati’s glacial, velveteen chant, through “Kólga’s” recounting of female persecution through the ages borne on the most gossamer-light yet unbreakable of timbres and “Stone Pillar’s” gently percolating, deep wells of abandonment and incantations to recovery. “sála” closes with the track “Sátta” - Old Norse for ‘peace’ and ‘reconciliation’ – ending the album as it began with the bukkehorn, as it weaves rich drones and experience-stamped poems and prayers, Kati’s vocals the most sensitively tuned of emotional barometers. An album made in dedication, and in thrall to, its own sense of destiny, “sála” is, as all quests must ultimately be, a homecoming.

Album introduction written by Jonathan Selzer.