Jagjaguwar Vinyl, CD & Tape 125 Items

In late 2013, Preoccupations (then known as Viet Cong) released a small-run cassette EP only available on tour.

Over the course of a year, Matt Flegel and Scott Munro worked in their basement studio with a mess of old and run down equipment to build a set of fresh material.

Joined by bandmates Daniel Christiansen and Michael Wallace, the band completed work on an debut cassette.

What emerged from the studio was a mixture of sharply-angled rhythm workouts and euphoric 60s garage pop-esque melodies, balanced with a penchant for drone-y, VU-styled downer moments, and became a hard-to-find classic.

“22, A Million is part love letter, part final resting place of two decades of searching for self-understanding like a religion. And the inner-resolution of maybe never finding that understanding. The album’s 10 poly-fi recordings are a collection of sacred moments, love’s torment and salvation, contexts of intense memories, signs that you can pin meaning onto or disregard as coincidence. If Bon Iver, Bon Iver built a habitat rooted in physical spaces, then 22, A Million is the letting go of that attachment to a place.”

The bulk of the album was recorded and produced at April Base Studios in Fall Creek, Wisconsin with pieces recorded in London, England and just outside Lisbon, Portugal. Collaborators included Colin Stetson, S. Carey, Poliça’s Ryan Olson, and Richard Buckner.

A singular, bracing collection that proves what's punishing can also be soothing, everything can change without disturbing your compass.

Another remarkable new Dinosaur Jr. album from the bands original lineup

You can designate records as seasonal, and you can feel Viet Cong's bleakness and declare it wintry. But the only way you get a frost is when there's something warmer to freeze up. So yes, Viet Cong is a winter album, but only until it is a spring record, then a summer scorcher, then an autumn burner, then it ices over again. They build these buildings, and they're built to break.

S. Carey's chosen musical expression is a hugely beatific, restorative panorama of beauty - perfect given how landscape and the wonder of nature inspire much of Carey's imagery. His new album Range of Light - the follow-up to his 2010 debut All We Grow - takes its title from the name that 19th century naturalist John Muir - Carey's hero - gave to California's Sierra Nevada, and follows suit with a dazzling array of musical light and shade, drawn from Carey's love of jazz, modern classical and Americana. Like a weathered mountain range changing shadow form and color, or the ebb and flow of a river's current, his music is simultaneously restful and rhythmic, complex and simple, and always evolving.

Range of Light incorporates elements of his previous work, but also amplifies Carey's percussive proclivities, and is altogether more developed than its predecessors, with more input on the performance and even composition side from the band of musicians and best friends he assembled originally to bring All We Grow to life in the live setting.

Many of the superlatives describing Angel Olsen refer to how seemingly little it takes for her to leave an audience speechless, even spellbound. But Olsen has never been as timid as those descriptors imply, and the noisy, fiery hints in her earlier work find a fuller expression on her newest LP, Burn Your Fire for No Witness. Here, Olsen sings with full-throated exultation, admonition, and bold, expressive melody. Also, with the help of producer John Congleton, her music now crackles with a churning, rumbling low end and a brighter energy.

Perth, Minnesota & Calgary get their own songs, it's a good winter in this bad summer!

Crack Cloud has always been something beyond a rock band: bothprofound and grand, vaporous and elusive.The first iteration of Crack Cloud was formed nearly a decade ago as aproxy-rehab outlet on the fringes of Calgary. Over time, two EPs andaccompanying visual pieces were produced out of the residence knownas Red Mile. By 2017, several members had relocated to Vancouver,working out of harm reduction centers and low-barrier shelters. Sobriety,self-reformation and the idealism of their work further formed an ethosfor Crack Cloud. It was during these years that the band produced theirastounding 2020 album Pain Olympics. At once, their vision becameexpansive, cinematic.Now, Red Mile is a bit of a homecoming. Members have returned toCalgary. But Calgary/home has become a liminal space, a place of flux.After a decade of personal and collective growth, what does home evenmean? Red Mile is, for them, something like samsara: a return and arebirth.Red Mile's sound breathes expansive energy into the circuitous, streetbound sonics of Crack Cloud's prior material. Fizzling synths intertwinewith chiming pianos. Songs layer like Russian nesting dolls; one may finda Ramones chorus set within a desolate Western prog soundtrack only towatch it erupt into a joyous anthem. Real-ass guitars _ alternately lilting,scuzzy and soaring _ ring out across wide sun-bleached spaces. In 2024,the cumulative effect is (in rock instrumentation terms) naturalistic. Anywhiff of embalmed nostalgia is absent. Even the close of the album - awinding, alllllmost Jerry Garcia guitar noodle that leads us out of Red Mile- is delivered without sentimentality. Principal songwriter Zach Choy'slyrics are cutting but merciful, with a sharp self awareness that neverslides into self-satisfaction. Crack Cloud as artists are critical _ andultimately as forgiving _ of themselves as they are the melting worldaround them. The songs balance an easy charm and cathartic power:affirming life without denying de...

There are ghosts all across AVANTI, the debut album fromMalice K. At points it's howling and unhinged, a grungy layeratop a lush foundation of melodic capital-s Songwriting, but inother moments it dissolves into a gentle, wistful haunting.Malice K's songs are blunt, uncomplicated and unflinching as heprobes the interiority of memories, of mistakes - saturated withan innate intensity that sucks you into his gnarled and visceralworld, so barbed it could draw blood.Malice K is helmed by visual artist and songwriter AlexKonschuh, New York-based but born and raised in Olympia,Washington. Following a stint living in Los Angeles, where hebecame a member of the artist collective Death Proof Inc., a tripto New York resulted in him simply never leaving the city. Aperiod of chaos ensued, Malice K exhausted and unmoored andultimately, unwell.The record is unpredictable across its 11 songs. The album openswith a jarring scream on "Halloween," Malice K's breathlessvocals buried beneath a grungy, roving Nineties riff. The trackemanates a manic energy, enveloping. It's a fitting entrypointfor the record, and for the vividness of Malice K. The snarling andobsessive "You're My Girl" has a swaggering paranoia: "I got sohigh I thought my hand touching my hand was your hand." ButAVANTI exists in quieter moments too; "Radio," with itsfluttering morose cello, moves at an almost glacial pacecomparatively. The aching wistfulness of "The Old House" is analbum stand-out, anchored in an acoustic guitar, an uneasylullaby that never quite settles into itself: "I think to myself I gotthe things that I wanted, but I can't help think there'ssomething else that I forgot to do."A recent press interview called Malice K a shapeshifter, but he'snot amorphous in that way. He's decisive and intense, moreconcerned with carving his own path, and building his ownworld. Every part of Malice K is distinctly himself: from hissweaty high-octane shows to the high-flash high-contrastphotos;...

At once a hazy relic and a digital snapshot of the human experience, Your Day Will Come is the debut album from Chanel Beads, arriving April 19 via Jagjaguwar. The remarkable project announces the arrival of New York-based musician Shane Lavers as a new force in experimental music, capturing the many contradictions of modern existence and the strange infiniteness of the digital world. The songs feel like a memory in which you can't distinguish between what actually happened or what was a false reproduction in your mind - although the burning emotion remains intact. Lavers pushed himself to strip his own sense of ego from “Your Day Will Come”. Throughout, Lavers weaves in contributions from his live bandmates, singer-songwriter Maya McGrory (Colle) and experimental instrumentalist Zachary Paul, who offer their own layers of feeling. As McGrory offers a more full-bodied tone and Lavers often sings with his higher-pitched head voice, the two collaborators meet in the middle; it's an intermingling of identities or a subconscious pining for androgyny. In this slippery space, different perspectives merge together, and there's a sense of empathy and humility that arises from the blending of these voices. These days, Chanel Beads live shows see all three performers weaving together in absolute catharsis. This catharsis is pushed to its peak on "Idea June," which sees McGrory taking over lead vocals to project Lavers' lyrics. As McGrory sings, "The waves wash onto my shore," in a voice that's both earnest and digitally processed, it's as though she's speaking as a separate embodiment of Lavers. In under two minutes, the track of clunky acoustic guitar and gutting strings lands somewhere between detachment and kinship. Similar to the off-kilter structure of "Police Scanner," these songs are strangely affecting in their unfinished and liminal forms. Lavers, who is drawn to poor MP3 rips and transitional moments in DJ mixes, knows that these inexact musical artifacts evoke human imperfection. The title of Your Day Will Come could be read as a promise of the arrival of good karma, or it could be a reminder of one's mortality, said out of spite. Yet as Lavers unpacks the haunting feelings of the past that he must release in order to move into his future, he reminds us that grief and hope might be closer than they seem to the naked eye.

Unknown Mortal Orchestra came to life in basements and bedrooms, the musical vision of Portlander-via-New Zealand Ruban Nielson that fused guitar-god riffs, choppy percussion, soul and funk. II, the sophomore album from UMO, emerged in an era rampant hedonism and isolationism and became the blueprint for everything Nielson has become renowned for. It was, and is, the solidification of Unknown Mortal Orchestra as an endlessly intriguing, brave and addictive band. Ten years on, it's back with an expanded edition. Written during a punishing, debauched touring schedule during which Nielson feared for both his sanity and health, II illustrates the emotional turmoil of life on the road, painting surrealist, cartoonish portraits of loneliness, love and despair. These conflicting themes are evident immediately; on the album's sleeve is an unnerving image of Janet Farrar, the famous British witch, Wiccan, author and teacher of witchcraft. The chilling refrain of opener "Into The Sun" sees Nielson deliver the line "Isolation can put a gun in your hand," softly, his words starkly intelligible above a warm, slow-burning melody that quickly brands itself onto your brain. His playful imagery ("I'm so lonely I've gotta eat my popcorn all alone") mirrors the melody, before a solo that borders on psychotropic ends II`s introduction. UMO is unafraid to dig deeper than the rest, their intoxicating, opiate groove bringing rock'n'roll's exaggerated myths to life. And as it unfolds, II does find Nielson reenergized. "One At A Time" and "Faded In The Morning" boast dizzying choruses and instrumentals; these crusty hunks could have been excavated from a lost 1960s treasure trove. "Monki" unravels over seven minutes like the yarn from a stoner's cardigan with an eye-frying pattern. "Dawn" is a minute of disconcerting noise that stands out between the nooks and crannies of the choruses, guitar solos, groove-heavy bass and drums that were recorded live by newly-recruited drummer Greg Rogove and Kody Nielson in a move away from the electronic percussion employed on album one. II closes with "Secret Xtians," a tender observational puzzle that fizzes to a satisfied end. In celebration of the album's 10th anniversary Nielson's complete collection from the II era is finally available in one compilation, and features the five acoustic tracks from the Blue EP as well as two additional B-sides. Unknown Mortal Orchestra was once Nielson's closeted concern. With an album that uses his singular musical imagination and extraordinary talent to parade his emotions with unyielding honesty, it is now a fully realized band operating at the peak of its powers ten years on.