✨ IC Community Weekly #66
✨ IC Community Weekly #66
ft. Previous Industries, Kate Nash, The Folk Implosion, Bodysync, reissues of The Mountain Goats, Daniel Johnston and New Math, incoming Xiu Xiu and Peel Dream Magazine records, tour dates and more!
Hey everyone and welcome to another Community Weekly!
In the week where thousands of fans have been gathering on a farm in Somerset for Glastonbury Festival, the IC community has, as always, been busy dropping excellent new music and videos, announcing tours, sharing news and so much more…
IC COMMUNITY NEWS
🆕 This week in IC: new importer settings to allow unmapped values for retailer and a a new importer (and accompanying doc) for Forward Distribution, a distribution platform and charity project.
👨🍳 Paradise of Bachelors artist Jennifer Castle had her new song Blowing Kisses, which features a sweeping string arrangement by Owen Pallett, featured in its entirety during the pivotal scene of the latest episode of the third season of FX's The Bear, which premiered on Wednesday night.
☀️ Mexican Summer is having a summer sale, with 15-30% discounts on select music, books, and merchandise through August 3rd. A portion of proceeds from it will be donated to the Greenpoint Hunger Program.
🌈 Get Better are continuing their Pride Month Sale with 50% off everything in their store - no code needed.
📝 UK Music revealed the findings of its 2024 Workforce Diversity Survey, which gives a revealing snapshot of those working behind the scenes in the UK music industry. Ahead of the general election on July 4th, the report outlines the key asks from the sector of the next Government to boost equity, diversity and inclusion.
👋 If you’re an IC catalog or Partner and you’ve got news, releases, or other fun stuff you want us to include, just reply and let us know - this goes out to 3000+ inboxes every week!
IC PARTNER NEWS
Where IC Partners get to flex some news. Want to be an IC Partner? Fill out this form.
A2IM and IMPALA announced the launch of a free one-year pilot project of IMPALA’s Carbon Calculator in the U.S., in partnership with Julie’s Bicycle, a pioneering non-profit mobilising the arts and culture to take action on the climate crisis. More details here.
A2IM also released a photo recap of Indie Week + The Libera Awards.
AIM announced the first wave of speakers for Future Independents, the free online conference for emerging independent artists, labels & entrepreneurs. Get your free ticket here.
Other Record Labels released a guide to making a great record cover.
NEW RELEASES
ALBUMS
🎧 Merge released Service Merchandise, the debut full length album by LA hip hop trio Previous Industries, a supergroup made up up of Open Mike Eagle, Video Dave, and Still Rift. The record is “a full-length meditation on middle age, memory, and the parallel histories of commercial hip-hop and brick-and-mortar business” that contains “verse after verse of peak rap performances full of insight, humor, and sophisticated wordplay” (Flood Magazine).
🎧 Kill Rock Stars released the new album from recent addition to their roster Kate Nash. The British singer-songwriter’s fifth album 9 Sad Symphonies, which has been called “fierce, funny, friendly, and festival-ready” by The Independent, was produced and mixed by Grammy winning Danish producer Frederik Thaae (K Flay, Jada, Crown The Empire).
🎧 Three Lobed Records released Arc Of Night, the new album by Danny Paul Grady Duo. It’s their third for Three Lobed and the follow up to last year’s Arc Of Day.
🎧 Joyful Noise released Walk Thru Me, the new record by legendary indie rock/lo-fi band The Folk Implosion, their first full length album in 25 years! “A triumphant comeback”, according to Narc. Magazine.
🎧 Defend Music released NUTTY, the sophomore album from anarchic dance outfit Bodysync, who have previously collaborated with the likes of Tinashe, Devin Morrison, Dazy, and Nite Jewel. In their own words,“it’s dance music by fans of DIY punk and Y2K pop, with a healthy dose of absurdity”.
🎧 Friends of IC’s Community Lead Adam (me!) Post Spring released their debut record What For You Scream. The band is composed of two friends, one from Liverpool, UK and the other from Cleveland, OH, who’ve never met in person. They’re unsigned and very good. Highly recommend checking them out - lead single Coastline and the track Spectres, in particular.
SINGLES
🎧 Polyvinyl released two new Oceanator tracks from upcoming record Everything is Love and Death (out August 30th, pre-order here). Album opener, First Time “kicks things off with a bang, like fireworks in the night sky” and Be Here is “filled with dueling guitars and haunting synths that intertwine across space”.
🎧 Keeled Scales shared a new Meernaa single called Make It Rain. Songwriter Carly Bond said about it, "I think 'Make it Rain' is about the acknowledgment of not being one’s whole self or dissociating during a period of depression and allowing grace and reminding oneself that it will pass."
REISSUES
🎧 Propeller Sound Recordings announced the forthcoming reissue of They Walk Among You, the debut New Math EP from 1981. Formed in Rochester, NY in 1976, the band opened for the likes of The Ramones, The Psychedelic Furs, The Cramps, The Damned and The Gun Club at now-extinct local clubs. Pre-order the record here.
🎧 Merge reissued the 2000 masterpiece The Coroner’s Gambit by The Mountain Goats today, which has long been out of print. It returns to CD and LP (and makes its cassette debut), with new liner notes by John Darnielle.
🎧 Merge are also putting out the classic 2002 David Kilgour record A Feather in the Engine on vinyl for the first time. Hailed as a “just-about-perfect record” (Magnet) and “a hefty dose of beauty” (Pitchfork) upon release, the album is The Clean co-founder’s fourth solo effort, “featuring transcendental pop music and instrumentals that presage ambient country”.
🎧 Org Music released a vinyl reissue of the Daniel Johnston record Fun today, which turns 30 this year and was originally released on Atlantic Records.
PRE-ORDERS
🎧 Polyvinyl announced a new record from avant-garde experimentalists Xiu Xiu called 13" Frank Beltrame Italian Stiletto with Bison Horn Grips, will be out worldwide on September 27th. The latest from Angela Seo, David Kendrick, and Jamie Stewart features the band's “most mesmerizing music to-date… inspired by the destruction of previous aesthetic notions and their recent move from Los Angeles to Berlin.”
🎧 Don Giovanni announced Wearing Out The Refrain, the long awaited new record from DC power-pop band Bad Moves. The record, which “explores the repetitive cycles of life that elicit existential nausea… the moments in which we find ourselves overwhelmed by an oppressive sense of pointlessness”, will be released on September 13th.
🎧 Topshelf announced Rose Main Reading Room, the new record by Peel Dream Magazine, the musical vehicle for NYC's Joe Stevens, who launched the band in 2018. Check out new single Lie In The Gutter, alongside an interview, over on Stereogum.
NEW SIGNINGS
✍️ Spartan welcomed Suburban Eyes to their family and announced that their self-titled debut album comes out August 30th. The band is a convergence of indie rock pioneers Eric Richter (Christie Front Drive, Antarctica), Jeremy Gomez (Mineral, The Gloria Record), and John Anderson (Boys Life). You can listen to the new single Headlight Torches at BrooklynVegan and pre-order / pre-save the album over on their web store.
VIDEOS
🖥️ Final Girl Records released a music video by their recent signing TWINFLAME, a transmasculine New York City duo “drenched in boyband sensibility, with music as political as it is smutty”. Check out GOOD GIRLS GO 2 HEAVEN, “the song that blasts out of your car when you’re shamelessly 25 over the speed limit and crazed by the crushing weight of a girl you’ll never have”, below.
🖥️ Get Better released the video for hush by trans singer, rapper and producer ZORA. She said about the track: "I wrote this song as a toxic love story about a guy who didn’t want to be seen with me in public. In all honesty, this song is really abstractly written about several guys that I’ve entertained, and the hurt that comes with a love that chooses to be hidden."
INTERVIEWS
🎙️ Open Mike Eagle, Video Dave, and STILL RIFT of Previous Industries spoke to Bandcamp about how they all met and how whiskey-fueled Tekken battles and reminiscing about bygone years led to songwriting sessions, then an album, then a contract with Merge Records.
🎙️ Iris James Garrison aka Bloomsday (Bayonet) and Blair Howerton, songwriter, vocalist and guitarist for Why Bonnie (Fire Talk) catch up over on Talkhouse about their dramatic musical pasts, and more.
FROM THE ARCHIVE
This week: British musician Saint Saviour performing her song When You Smile from Sound It Out, the 2011 documentary portrait of the very last surviving vinyl record shop in Teesside, North East England. The store sadly closed last year after serving the North East since 1998, when its beloved owner Tom Butchart tragically passed away in the shop.
SHOWS, TOURS + EVENTS
🚌 Mia Joy (Fire Talk) is hitting the road next month in support of her most recent EP, Celestial Mirror | TICKETS
🚌 Allegra Krieger (Double Double Whammy) is touring with Greg Mendez (Forged Artifacts) later this year | TICKETS
📆 UPCOMING INDUSTRY EVENTS
+ check out the 🎟 Events Directory for more conferences, festivals, record fairs, webinars, etc!
July 3rd - 6th ‣ Open’e r Festival (Gdynia, Poland)
July 4th - 6th ‣ Vida Festival (Vilanova i la Geltrú, Spain)
July 4th - 7th ‣ High Sierra Music Festival (Quincy, CA, US)
July 4th - 8th ‣ Essence Music Festival (New Orleans, LA, US)
July 11th - 13th ‣ NOS Alive (Lisbon, Portugal)
July 15th - 17th ‣ Fortune Brainstorm Tech (Park City, UT, US)
July 24th - 26th ‣ World Ticket Conference (WTC24) (Nashville, TN, US)
*we’ll be there!
That’s all for this one! Stay safe and we’ll catch you again next week.
- Adam & the Infinite Catalog crew