News

The album of the comedy special of the year is here at last! And by "year", we mean 2023! Twas almost a year ago that John Mulaney's Baby J debuted on Netflix, to instant acclaim. Come May 24th, 2024, the Emmy-winning Comeback Kid himself comes back yet again with the vinyl & CD release of Baby J: his blunt, brilliantly quotable, Emmy award-winning stand-up special.

Baby J takes the form of a wide-ranging conversation between John Mulaney, a kid in the balcony... (read more)

Last month, the Chicago-based, journeyman musician and singer-songwriter Bill MacKay announced his forthcoming album, Locust Land, with the stunning lead single "When I Was Here". The album serves as the long-awaited follow up to MacKay’s 2019 solo effort, Fountain Fire. Today, MacKay is excited to share the second single from the upcoming album: a swaggering, psychedelic, slow-burning jam called "Glow Drift" replete with a gorgeous guitar melody reminiscent of early Yo La Tengo. As was the case with its predecessor “When I Was... (read more)

Returning to this heated Earth on your calendar’s next page are two early classics from Faun Fables: 2001’s Mother Twilight and 2004’s Family Albumarrive on vinyl for the first time ever on April 26th. These two treasures from Dawn McCarthy and Nils Frykdahl join hand-in-hand, in full Family Band fashion, with a hearty tour across North America this spring alongside Nils’ reunited Sleepytime Gorilla Museum.

Wiser, well-weathered, and now 20 years of age, Family Album lit the Faun Fables flame at... (read more)

Trill the trumpets!

Hoist the flags!

Raise the gates of the city!

Rip the protective plastic covers off the furniture!

For lo, Joanna Newsom, balladeer without compeer, Nevada City’s native daughter and Aureate Laureate of these Austral climes, comes riding down the mountain (sidesaddle, natch) to undertake a limited Los Angeles solo residency at The Masonic Lodge at Hollywood Forever, May 15th through May 19th, 2024!

Though she rides alone this time, Joanna comes equipped with her usual blistering... (read more)

Priapic, in peak tumescence, Wand re-break this surface, their atmospheric river flown in deep and wide. A tune standing alone against the world, “Help Desk” necessarily summons grandeur with a variety of keyboard tones, their lines extending to the far horizon. Oceanic solemnity or just plain chill? Slow-unfurling banners of orchestral colors imply the former, but we FEEL the latter – sweet like the first beam through our diurnal marine layer or a sudden puff of smoke at the Vatican City, indomitably calm among all... (read more)

In 2021, Oren Ambarchi, Johan Berthling and Andreas Werliin convened in Stockholm’s Studio Rymden to bring forth several monstrously hypnotic improvisations, ultimately bearing their debut: 2022’s widely-acclaimed Ghosted. Two years on, Drag City is now pleased to announce the release of Ghosted II, out on April 26, 2024.

Here, Oren, Johan and Andreas have crafted a follow-up record that fuels a rock-solid foundation with years of performing live together as a trio: a fulmination of propelling grooves and persisting meditations. Ghosted... (read more)

Today, Six Organs of Admittance — the longstanding project of Ben Chasny — share “Summer’s Last Rays,” the second single from their upcoming album, Time is Glass (out April 26th) along with a string of West Coast tour dates. Time is Glass continues a cyclical pattern of acoustic Six Organs records released roughly every 6 years: School of the Flower (2005), Asleep on the Floodplain (2011), and the critically-beloved Burning the Threshold (2017).

Upon a head arrangement of classical chord flourishes, “Summer’s Last Rays”... (read more)

The High Llamas return today with new single “Sisters Friends”, a glitchy soul number featuring lead vocals from Rae Morris from their upcoming 11th studio album, Hey Panda, set to arrive on LP/CD/digital on March 29th.

“Sisters Friends” exemplifies what head Llama Sean O’Hagan was looking to achieve on this very modern pop album, combining and clashing various techniques new and old, to create a distinctive sound; when Rae and Sean’s vocals meet in the chorus, there is a euphoric twisting of... (read more)

Today, the legendary drummer Jim White shares his second second single and video, “Marketplace”, off his upcoming debut solo album All Hits: Memories(out March 29). “Marketplace” further illuminates Jim’s headfirst dive into pairing synthesized tracks against his unmistakable drumming, a practice heard first on last month’s lead single, “Names Make the Name”.
 
The tapping of the hi-hat, like signals from typewriters and stock tickers of old, sets the tone for “Marketplace.” Jim sprays staccato energy across the kit,... (read more)

Bill MacKay and Drag City are delirious with pride to announce the discovery of a new territory: Locust Land, the Chicago-based renaissance musician’s transcendent and singular new solo album due for release May 24, 2024. Alongside the album announcement, Bill is sharing the album’s lead single, “When I Was Here”, with its accompanying video and a tour commencing in June.

“When I Was Here”, featuring Mikel Patrick Avery on percussion and Sam Wagster on bass, is a surging, blistering, blues-inflected jam with a... (read more)