The amorphous Atlanta fivetet saunters out of whatever plush, paisley bohemian habitues they dwell in for another album of beguiling power pop. Whereas 2011's Halcyon Digest lured listeners into a psychedelic dollhouse of precisely arranged curlicues of sound, Monomania kicks the door in, more or less, with a whiskey-mouthed garage ripper from Bradford and Sons. On the whole, this album sounds far liver than anything they've done since the guitar-slinging days of their debut, and owes just as much to trippy, polished UK psych as it does to the snarling Twin Tone/Replacements sound or even prime-era Guided by Voices. And if you like your records at least vaguely Oh Seesish, you'll be quite happy with this one.
- Evan / Strictly Discs
CD $14.99 / LP $18.99

The National are easily one of the most consistent bands of the past 15 years. Fans of the Ohio quintet's previous albums will not be disappointed by "Trouble Will Find Me". Matt Berninger's Cohen-esque baritone is surrounded by plinking pianos and dreamy guitars and leads you through melancholy anthems that will make the perfect soundtrack to the end of your summer barbeques and nights under the stars.
- Marty / Strictly Discs
CD $13.99 / LP $24.99

A couple listens into this expanded collection of home recordings by Grails/OM member Emil Amos, and it starts to dawn on you that probably only a handful of people have even heard this music before, but they really, really love it. They've been dubbing tapes and burning CD-Rs of it and passing it onto friends for years. That's usually how it goes with these things, until a bigger label is bold enough to step up and do a legit release. The music here dates from 1995 to just a few years back, an arc in which the American musical landscape changed quite a bit, while Amos stayed contented in his own zone of somnambulist bedroom downer blues. I hear strains of 90s indie rock like Silkworm, solo Lou Barlow, and early Palace, while other tracks swerve into a Syd Barrett psych-deli and tape-dub pastiche worthy of uber-lone wolves like R. Stevie Moore and Ariel Pink. The music here can be fragmented and piecemeal, of course, but there is a patchwork brilliance that rises to the surface.
- Evan / Strictly Discs
CD $14.99

The latest from this Albuquerque-based husband and wife duo continues to build on their alt country Gothic roots. Wilderness is a concept album about the sometimes uneasy interaction between human and animal with each song dedicated to a different species. The lyrics are smartly written and expertly paint a series of vivid pictures that veer from dreamlike imagery to nightmare-inducing scenes. The result is a charming collection of homespun fireside short stories in song format that suit the album’s folk instrumentation and his oaky baritone perfectly.
- Angie / Strictly Discs
CD $12.99 / LP $14.99

Scout's not really messing around on this, her 7th album, which opens with a song called "Gun", in which she (or a character, maybe Emma?) menaces that she will one day shoot down a former lover without warning. With that out of the way, It's Up To Emma unfolds as a gripping and tense exploration of the mind of a woman you probably don't want to cross. Comparisons to PJ Harvey and Cat Power have followed Niblett forever, and not totally without merit (She shares Chan Marshall's angelic howl, and the spare economy of tension on these songs recalls and even eclipses Polly Jean at times), but she ups the ante with a witheringly straight-faced cover of TLC's "No Scrubs" that reminds us all just how revolutionary the message of that song was, and drifting, mournful, hollowed out guitar licks.
- Evan / Strictly Discs
CD $12.99 / LP $17.99 (available in the shop or by phone)

Originally released in 2005, one of the best comps ever is back to educate a new generation of those curious about Jack. This set, and the Trax Records box set (they are pretty similar in scope) was my first real introduction to underground dance music when they first came out, a general slap in the face in terms of getting me to take the genre seriously as one of the ultimate soundworlds to explore. Throughout the 80s, dance outsiders like Frankie Knuckles and Larry Heard fled a perilous existence in NYC for Chicago, finding a home at clubs like the Warehouse (where the term 'house' originates), even if times weren't too rosy in economically blighted Greater Chicagoland. Along with fellas like Jesse Saunders, Marshall Jefferson, and Adonis, this crew invented what came to be known as acid house; intense, atmospheric, utterly engulfing machine music in which to get lost in the middle of the night, with the attendant paranoia, alienation, and sex. Short of gospel blues, there may not be a more striking, sincere music emerging from a neglected class of people in all of American history. It also makes you move like nothing else. Includes a great book of interviews and liner notes from spot-on UK dance historian Tim Lawrence.
- Evan / Strictly Discs
2CD $23.99 / LP Pt. 1 $23.99 / LP Pt. 2 $23.99