FAB DISTRIBUTION

DESTROYER

“Poison Season” MERGE

2016 JUNO NOMINEE

Alternative Album of the Year

Out Now! - Poison Season opens with Vancouver native Dan Bejar swathed in Hunky Dory strings. He’s a dashboard Bowie surveying four wracked characters—Jesus, Jacob, Judy, Jack—simultaneously Biblical and musical theatre. This bittersweet, Times Square-set fanfare is reprised twice more on the record—first as swaying, saxophonestoked “street-rock” and then finally as a curtain-closing reverie. These songs merge a casual literary brilliance with intense melodic verve, nimble arrangements, and a certain blue-eyed soul sadness.

BITCHIN BAJAS & BONNIE ‘PRINCE’ BILLY

“Epic Jammers and Fortunate Little Ditties”

DRAG CITY

Out March 18 - Yessir, Bitchin Bajas and Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy be in righteous and TRUE collaboration on this one, flowing ideas through the air between them, which seems a rare thing in this age where records course forth without wires, pieced together out of the zeros and ones that divide and don’t define us. Epic Jammers and Fortunate Little Ditties is simple and stark and empyrean and inspirational... and pretty modal, too - probably never more than three chords!

BOB MOULD

“Patch the Sky”

MERGE

Out March 25 - At the core of these songs is what I call the chemical chorus - you hear it once and your brain starts tingling. The heart rate picks up. It gets worse - you know it’s coming again and you can barely stand the anticipation. Then, the beautifully heartbreaking bridge appears, and you’re all set up - hooked for life. Music is an incredibly powerful drug. I want to be your drug dealer. I have what you need.

CHARLOTTE CORNFIELD

“Future Snowbird” CONSONANT Out Now! - Toronto’s Charlotte Cornfield is a song farmer. She sings clever, heartwrenching songs in a lived-in, streetwise drawl reminiscent of Bob Dylan, Will Oldham and Courtney Barnett. Future Snowbird, the follow up to the acclaimed 2011 album Two Horses, grew from Cornfield’s time living in New York and the background noise of her moments in the city: a formative relationship, a vicious bout of psoriasis, and an overall constellation of ups and downs. Future Snowbird was recorded live off the floor at Rooster Studios in Toronto with producer/engineer Don Kerr (Ron Sexsmith, The Rheostatics), and features guest performances by Tim Darcy (Ought) and Johnny Spence (Tegan & Sara). Future Snowbird is Cornfield’s strongest statement to date.

ERIC BACHMANN

“Eric Bachmann” MERGE Out March 25 - Inspired to write an album on the piano by friend Todd Fink from The Faint, Eric consciously bid farewell to the “personas” of his past (as the lead singer for Archers Of Loaf and Crooked Fingers). Eric Bachmann builds around the one truth Eric has found in his years of travel: “Places do not offer a sense of home for me. People do.” Gospel-like vocal arrangements, pedal steel, and a song he “stole” from his wife Liz Durrett all combine to make this the most assured and personal album of Bachmann’s career.

M. WARD

“More Rain” MERGE Out Now! - More Rain, Ward’s eighth solo affair, finds the artist picking up the tempo and volume! Begun four years ago and imagined initially as a DIY doo-wop album that would feature Ward experimenting with layering his own voice, it soon branched out in different directions, a move that he credits largely to his collaborators on the album, who include R.E.M.’s Peter Buck, Neko Case, k.d. lang, The Secret Sisters, and Joey Spampinato of NRBQ. The result is a collection of upbeat, sonically ambitious yet canonically familiar songs that both propel Ward’s reach and satisfy longtime fans.

MARGO PRICE

“Midwest Farmer’s Daughter”

Out March 25 - First impressions matter, especially on a debut album. Fortunately, it only takes Margo Price about twenty-eight seconds to convince you that you’re hearing the arrival of a singular new talent. There’s an expectancy, a brewing excitement as Price recalls hardships and heartaches – the loss of her family’s farm, the death of her child, problems with men and the bottle. There is no self-pity or over-emoting. Her voice has that alluring mix of vulnerability and resilience that was once the province of Loretta and Dolly. It is a tour-de-force performance that is vivid, deeply moving and all true. Margo Price’s fresh twist on classic Nashville country and hardhitting blues grooves come up with a sound that could’ve made hits in any decade.

RANGDA

“The Heretic’s Bargain” DRAG CITY Out Now! - The Heretic’s Bargain takes territories that Rangda explored on their first two albums - the abraded fury and free forms off False Flag and the serpentine Rang-dangdoodle songatechture from Formerly Extinct - and evolves them further into a grand unified I-know-I-don’t-know-what-it-is- (but-I-like-it) development in music. The Heretic’s Bargain is the sound of Rangda - and, without getting all rock-opera on you (but a little AOR, to be sure), The Heretic’s Bargain is best taken as a whole. Lots of ground is covered, but it’s all part of the same earth. Until you fall off the edge in the end.

RJD2

“Dame Fortune” RJ’S ELECTICAL CONNECTIONS

March 25 - The new studio album from RJD2, Dame Fortune, continues the sonic exploration that was started 14 years ago on his seminal debut Deadringer. An entirely self-produced and engineered affair, long time vocal collaborations appear here - Blueprint, Son Little (a.k.a. Aaron Livingston, the other half of the Icebird duo), Phonte Coleman and Jordan Brown, along with newcomer Josh Krajcik (runner up on the 2011 season of X_Factor). Always soulful, perpetually psychedelic, this album has found the lost threads connecting Aloe Blacc, Tangerine Dream and King Crimson.

SOUNDTRACK

“The Revenant – Score by Ryuichi Sakamoto and Alva Noto”

MILAN

Out Now! - A film of this magnitude (winning 3 Oscars this year) deserves a composer who understands creative artistry and unbridled passion. Japanese master and Oscar winner Ryuichi Sakamoto fits the bill perfectly. Along with fellow Yellow Magic Orchestra member and frequent collaborator Alva Noto, Sakamoto has created a gripping soundtrack that is sure to be a treat for the winter crowds. Bryce Dessner also supplies additional music.

V/A

“Kinked: Kinks Songs & Sessions 1964-71” ACE Out April 1 - Kinked! Kinks Songs & Sessions 1964-1971 is an alternative celebration of the Kinks’ first decade, via the songs that “got away”. There’s a wide range of interpreters including Peggy Lee, Bobby Rydell, The Orchids, Goldie & The Gingerbreads, Herman’s Hermits, Pretty Things, Nicky Hopkins, Barry Fantoni, Chocolate Watchband and The Olympics. Several cuts are previously unissued alternate versions, mixes or recent vault discoveries with detailed liner notes providing a background to the artists and how they acquired the songs.

V/A

“Love Hit Me! Decca Beat Girls 1962-70”

ACE

April 1 - For British girl-pop, 1960s Decca is a goldmine. This compilations includes The Orchids, Dana Gillespie, Beverley, Adrienne Poster, Sandra Barry, The Vernons Girls, The Satin Bells, Elkie Brooks, Truly Smith, Lulu, Barry St John, Louise Cordet, Twinkle, Marianne Faithfull, Beryl Marsden, Billie Davis, Babbity Blue, Jean Martin and Goldie & The Gingerbreads. Largely placed in the skilled hands of producers, arrangers and writers such as Mike Leander, Andrew Loog Oldham, Shel Talmy, Charles Blackwell and Tony Meehan, Decca sourced a steady supply of homemade and American soul, folk-rock, beat and pop. Compiled by Mick Patrick as either a 24-track CD or 12-track LP, with notes by Sheila Burgel.

WOODS

“City Sun Eater in the

River of Light” WOODSIST Out April 8 - “Woods have always been experts at distilling life epiphanies into compact chunks of psychedelic folk that exists just outside of any sort of tangible time or place. Maybe those epiphanies were buried under cassette manipulation or drum-anddrone freakouts, or maybe they were cloaked in Jeremy Earl’s lilting falsetto, but over the course of an impressive eight albums, Woods refined and drilled down their sound into City Sun Eater in the River of Light, their ninth LP and second recorded in a proper studio. It’s a dense record of rippling guitar, lush horns, and seductive, bustling anxiety about the state of the world. It’s still the Woods you recognize, only now they’re dabbling in zonked out Ethiopian jazz, pulling influence from the low key simmer of Brown Rice, and tapping into the weird dichotomy of making a home in a claustrophobic city that feels full of possibility even as it closes in on you.” -Sam Hockley

Smith