4AD Vinyl, CD & Tape 150 Items

On 3rd September 2017, director Mike Mills emailed Matt Berninger to introduce himself and in very short order, the most ambitious project of the National’s nearly 20-year career was born and plans for a hard-earned vacation died. The Los Angeles-based filmmaker was coming off his third feature, 20th Century Women, and was interested in working with the band on... something. A video maybe. Berninger, already a fan of Mills’ films, not only agreed to collaborate, he essentially handed over the keys to the band’s creative process.

The result is I Am Easy to Find, a 24-minute film by Mills starring Alicia Vikander, and I Am Easy to Find, a 68-minute album by the National. The former is not the video for the latter; the latter is not the soundtrack to the former. The two projects are, as Mills calls them, “Playfully hostile siblings that love to steal from each other” -- they share music and words and DNA and impulses and a vision about what it means to be human in 2019, but don’t necessarily need one another. The movie was composed like a piece of music; the music was assembled like a film, by a film director. The frontman and natural focal point was deliberately and dramatically sidestaged in favour of a variety of female voices, nearly all of whom have long been in the group’s orbit. It is unlike anything either artist has ever attempted and also totally in line with how they’ve created for much of their careers.

Over the last year, Vienna-based producer SOHN has collaborated with the likes of Disclosure, Angel Haze, Rhye, and Banks.

Now it's time for his debut Tremors on UK's 4AD.

80g vinyl including download code.

Out of print since release in 1999, Dead Can Dance"s Brendan Perry"s debut solo album "Eye of the Hunter" is being reissued this summer and has been expanded to now also include his 1993 live show as part of 4AD"s infamous 13 Year Itch week of concerts at London"s ICA, a live show that has to date only been available as a very rare promotional cassette.Having mutually disbanded Dead Can Dance so he and Lisa Gerrard could focus on their own material (a hiatus that would last seven years between live shows and sixteen between albums), Brendan"s debut built on his renown as a solo performer, having often played just he and an acoustic guitar during his band"s otherworldly live shows. Indeed, Dead Can Dance"s first official live album, 1994"s Toward The Within, captures just this with three Brendan solo tracks helping to set the scene for what came next.Backed by the band of Liam Bradley (drums), Glen Garrett (bass guitar) and Martin Quinn (pedal steel), Brendan performs the guitar, a 12-string guitar, mandolin and keys to achieve a rich, gothic sound while the album"s incredible production elevates his vocals to Scott Walker and Tim Buckley levels of delivery; two clear influences, the latter"s "I Must Have Been Blind Here" is thoughtfully covered here.A record that has been out of print on vinyl since its release in 1999, people have been asking for it to be repressed for long enough. Having been remastered at Abbey Road, fans will be delighted to hear that not only is Eye of the Hunter finally being reissued but that it"s also being expanded to include Live at the I.C.A.. A true collectible, this extra album has previously only been available on a rare as hen"s teeth promotional cassette, recorded during the 4AD label"s infamous 13 Year Itchresidency at the storied London venue in 1993. Chris Bigg"s fantastic art remains front and centre, upgraded to a gatefold sleeve for the LP with the transparent teal Colored Vinyl matching the album"s palette.

Record 1 in black, record two in orange.

Established in 2006, Bing & Ruth is an ever-evolving collective steered by composer David Moore. A pianist from Kansas and graduate of New York’s school of Jazz and Contemporary Music at the New School, Moore’s work follows in the great tradition of fellow alumni John Cage and Steve Reich, albeit looking past the more studied repetition of the style’s forerunners toward a meditative form built on feeling.
With Moore at its nucleus, Bing & Ruth’s line-up has transmuted from the eleven-strong line-up that created debut album City Lake (“A stunning, humble record built on traditions we all understand, yet, somehow feels dizzyingly new.” – The Quietus) to a cast of seven for 2014’s Tomorrow Was The Golden Age (“One of the finest leftfield releases of the year.” – Pitchfork). With No Home of the Mind, the ensemble has been streamlined to a five-person unit, exploring the piano’s percussive qualities alongside running woodwinds, warbling tape delays and splattered upright bass lines that stare out with a wide-eyed transcendence, taking so-called “classical” music to new limits.

Spanning over 14 tracks, the new album features collaborations with Janelle Monáe and newcomer, Taiwanese rapper Aristophanes. It was recorded primarily in her home studio in Los Angeles, CA, where she relocated to in 2014. Like all of her previous albums, ‘Art Angels’ was written and recorded entirely as a solo endeavor. The new album features more live instrumentation than ever before on a Grimes record. She plays piano, guitar and violin, continuing her evolution as a musician and a producer for her most ambitious album to date.

When Sunn O))) first approached Scott Walker about appearing on their 2009 album Monoliths & Dimensions, little did they know what it would actually lead to. Four years on, Scott was back with something even more enticing, collaborating on Soused, a body of work he was writing with them in mind.

With a career spanning more than five decades, Scott Walker’s cult status remains as significant as ever before. Experiencing mega-stardom as part of The Walker Brothers before carving out a career as a solo crooner who released a quartet of peerless self-titled LPs that painted rich vignettes of life in the late 60s, Scott went through what felt like a massive U-turn by recording a collection of masterfully challenging albums: Climate Of Hunter (1984), Tilt (1996), The Drift (2006) and Bish Bosch (2013). While there’s some truth to this artistic arc, the actual picture is a lot more complex, with his knack for introducing the disturbingly counter-intuitive and the uncanny into his songwriting dating back to the likes of 'The Plague' (1967) and ‘It’s Raining Today’ (1969).

Centred around the core duo of Stephen O’Malley and Greg Anderson, Sunn O))) have been at the heart of underground and experimental metal since they began in Los Angeles back in 1998, broadening in range to increasingly encompass avant-garde and jazz dynamics to their dark music. Anderson runs Southern Lord (Sunn O)))’s usual label home), whilst O’Malley is involved in a remarkable web of projects as a musician, designer, and label head of Ideologic Organ. They appear alongside extended Sunn O))) member Tos Nieuwenhuizen on this recording.

Artwork by Steven O'Malley.

LP+CD+7"

Tkay Maidza, the first female rapper signed to 4AD, announces details of her highly anticipated new album, Sweet Justice. The follow-up to her 2016 self-titled debut will be released on 3 November and includes the recent Flume-produced earth-shuddering single ‘Silent Assassin’. Today, Tkay shares a blistering new track, ‘Ring-A-Ling’ and official video directed by Jocelyn Anquetil.

“I’m never choosing compliance,” a defiant Maidza utters ‘Ring-A-Ling’; a warning from the Zimbabwean-born, Australian-raised, Los Angeles-based rapper, singer and producer and a mantra for Sweet Justice. Produced by Two Fresh, Tkay says of ‘Ring-A-Ling’, “I wanted to make an empowering song that tells others that my biggest focus are my goals.”

The result of a dark night of the soul—and ensuing epiphany—that led to a series of professional and personal reckonings, Sweet Justice isn’t a revenge album, but it does stem from a profound sense of karma. In a traditional sense, it’s a breakup record: about Tkay splitting off from her self-doubt and warped sense of self; the toxic figures that populated the last chapter of her life; and the idea that she should stick to any one lane.

After severing ties with old friends, she found some new ones on the same creative wavelength: Canadian producers Stint and Kaytranada, and fellow Australian Flume, all of whom contribute production. Sweet Justice is an album that embodies the beautiful contradictions of Tkay’s art: it’s a coming-of-age record by someone who’s mastered the game; an album about karmic justice and accountability that’s bright, breezy and incredibly fun. In Tkay’s mind, it’s a rebirth album, a record about harnessing the feminine power that was innate in her the whole time.

Tkay Maidza says, “Sweet Justice was a way for me to channel my emotions from what I’ve experienced in the last two years. It’s a diary of things and thoughts I’ve kept to myself. Making the record was a healing experience and I’m grateful to have worked with producers who have inspired me throughout my career.” Sweet Justice follows the 3-year-long, 24 song-strong genre-bending Last Year Was Weird trilogy exploring Maidza’s own African-Australian experience. The project earned her a 2021 ARIA Awards win for Best Soul/R&B Release and an NME Award for Best Solo Act From Australia in 2022. Following on from tours with Billie Eilish and Dua Lipa, Tkay is currently in the southern hemisphere for arena shows with Lizzo with her own headline shows to be announced soon.

Double LP reissue of Air Miami"s lost-classic 1995 album, "Me. Me. Me." Remastered from original 2" tapes and now including 3 extra tracks. This one time pressing comes on Colored Vinyl and in a gatefold sleeve.Remastered from their original analogue tapes by Pete Weiss, this new deluxe edition pulls together all the album session tracks for the fi rst time, spreading 16 tracks (3 new to the album) over two LPs. Pressed on Floridian-inspired aqua and orange vinyl and cut at 45rpm, the package is completed with a new gatefold sleeve design with Hideaki Kodama"s stunning "Girl B 1988" photo still adorning the cover.

Across its 17 tracks and 69 minutes, Pom Pom is unfiltered Ariel, featuring infectious tales of romance, murder, frog princes and Jell-O. The record sees the Los Angeles native strike it out alone, returning to the solo moniker he has adopted for well over a decade.

From demented kiddie tune collaborations with the legendary Kim Fowley (songs such as ‘Jell-O’ and ‘Plastic Raincoats In The Pig Parade’ were written with Fowley in his hospital room during his recent battle with cancer), to beatific, windswept pop (‘Put Your Number In My Phone’, ‘Dayzed Inn Daydreams’), scuzz-punk face-melters (‘Goth Bomb’, ‘Negativ Ed’), and carnival dub psychedelia (‘Dinosaur Carebears’), pom pom could very well be Ariel Pink’s magnum opus.

Speaking about the record, Ariel says that “although this is the first “solo” record credited to my name, it is by far the least “solo” record I have ever recorded.”

Big Thief present their highly-anticipated new single, "Vampire Empire", off their forthcoming "Vampire Empire" / "Born For Loving You" 7". "Vampire Empire" is Big Thief"s most eagerly awaited song ever, with the non-album single taking on a life of its own as it became a live fan favourite. Coming off the back of a Grammy-nominated album and debuting on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, it"s already a viral anthem. The television performance and hundreds of live performances of "Vampire Empire" took TikTok by storm. Recorded and produced by Dom Monks at Guissona, Spain"s Teatre de cal Eril Studio during a recent tour, "Vampire Empire" speaks to the beautiful complexity of gender identity and breaking destructive internal cycles. Of the song, Adrianne Lenker adds, "For me, it"s about getting out of toxic internal patterns - leaving the empire of energy drains that obscure pure essence, learning about what healthy boundaries are, and finding the power to implement them for the possibility of giving and receiving (both inwardly and outwardly) unbroken and infinite Love."

Released a year before The National broke through with their third album Alligator, 2004’s Cherry Tree EP is a thrilling record which - thanks to ist collection of delicate ballads and anthemic crowd-pleasers - sums up what they do best in under 30 minutes. Now a fi rm fan-favourite, among Cherry Tree’s seven tracks are now National classics ‘About Today’ and ‘All The Wine’, plus a thrilling live version of ‘Murder Me Rachael’ that reminds of the band’s fearsome early live performances. Cherry Tree can be seen as the record that marks the moment when The National had truly found themselves, a bridge from what went before to a band ready to conquer the World. And with this new master, it’s never sounded better too.

On 3rd September 2017, director Mike Mills emailed Matt Berninger to introduce himself and in very short order, the most ambitious project of the National’s nearly 20-year career was born and plans for a hard-earned vacation died. The Los Angeles-based filmmaker was coming off his third feature, 20th Century Women, and was interested in working with the band on... something. A video maybe. Berninger, already a fan of Mills’ films, not only agreed to collaborate, he essentially handed over the keys to the band’s creative process.

The result is I Am Easy to Find, a 24-minute film by Mills starring Alicia Vikander, and I Am Easy to Find, a 68-minute album by the National. The former is not the video for the latter; the latter is not the soundtrack to the former. The two projects are, as Mills calls them, “Playfully hostile siblings that love to steal from each other” -- they share music and words and DNA and impulses and a vision about what it means to be human in 2019, but don’t necessarily need one another. The movie was composed like a piece of music; the music was assembled like a film, by a film director. The frontman and natural focal point was deliberately and dramatically sidestaged in favour of a variety of female voices, nearly all of whom have long been in the group’s orbit. It is unlike anything either artist has ever attempted and also totally in line with how they’ve created for much of their careers.