Dear fellow nerds and heads: our friends at Aquarium Drunkard asked us to assemble a guide to our favorite science fiction and fantasy literature. We hope this might help reorient your minds in some small measure in these troubled and anxious times. Dig in; many delights and terrors await herein.
Michael Chapman has premiered his latest single “Sometimes You Just Drive,” “further proving the transcendental power of his music.” The dark, angular song, one of three new compositions on 50, prominently features the smoldering guitar work of Steve Gunn and the backing vocals of Bridget St John, and was inspired by events very close to home.
The new album by the ever-evolving project of Jaime Fennelly is his most ambitious and spellbinding set of roiling, meditative recordings to date, and the first to supplement his foundational arsenal of Indian pedal harmonium, analog synthesizers, and incantatory voices with a full ensemble, including Janet Beveridge Bean (Eleventh Dream Day), Jim Becker (Califone), Haley Fohr (Circuit des Yeux), and Jon Mueller (Death Blues).
Here’s something for your weekend: a Spotify playlist of Terry Allen songs covered by admirers, friends, collaborators… and himself. The gang’s all here: everyone from Doug Sahm to Richard Buckner to Guy Clark to Little Feat. Dig in.
Happy Release Day to Terry Allen (again)! We’ve spilled plenty of ink on this album, in the liner notes and elsewhere, so for now, please just enjoy this masterpiece of West Texas art-country. Order the record, visit your favorite local shop to grip it, or stream it herein. The physical package must be seen to be believed, so please check out the unboxing video, as well as some incredible ephemera related to the original record release show in spring 1979.
Michael Chapman’s new record 50, produced by Steve Gunn and titled to commemorate fifty years of touring—and released four days before Michael’s 76th birthday—stands as a formidable monument of retrospection and introspection in his adventurous catalog, embodying his undeniable late career masterpiece. Today Chapman shares debut track “That Time of Night” via NPR Music’s Songs We Love. Pre-order and watch an album trailer.
This Friday, Oct. 14 marks the release date of our highly anticipated reissue of Terry Allen’s 1979 masterpiece Lubbock (on everything), the follow-up to Juarez. Check out some of the recent press and other evidence below, and stream the remastered, pitch-corrected album in full in advance of its release. Now, for the first time ever, you can hear the entire album as it was intended by Allen. Orders now shipping.
David Byrne, a noted fan, friend, and collaborator of Terry Allen, has written a new essay on his love for Terry Lubbock (on everything) to accompany our reissue of the 1979 classic. Today Dangerous Minds has published the essay, titled “A Sleeping Bag In The West Texas Scrub,” in full. In it he discusses his own connections to Lubbock, the first time he met Terry and his wife, actor and writer Jo Harvey Allen, and digs deep into his favorite songs.
Frieze Magazine has published a feature on our reissues of Terry Allen’s classic art-country albums: “A singular moment in the history of country music [and] one of the most singular and underrated works in the history of US conceptual art. Lubbock (on everything) and Juarez are restless travelogues, songs of feeling out of place and in search of home.” Plus, check out some shots of the deluxe LP package en plein air.
Watch Allen and The Panhandle Mystery Band (with Delbert McClinton and Robert Earl Keen) tear into “New Delhi Freight Train,” originally released on the classic Lubbock (on everything) (and famously covered by Little Feat), at Texas Tech in Lubbock, TX, the first-ever live performance of the album in its entirety. Hear the remastered album version and check out Terry’s tour dates, including a show today at the Hardly Strictly Bluegrass festival.
