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CD
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THRILL 663CD
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$14.50
PREORDER
RELEASE DATE: 9/25/2026
"A clerestory -- a bright or 'clear' level or 'story' -- is an upper section of wall, most often in a church punctuated by windows. It is a powerful image for grasping this luminous new music from Jules Reidy. Light casts shadows, of course, and logics of shadowing, mirroring, and distorted reflection -- of key importance for Reidy's work as a whole -- inform the sumptuous surfaces of Clerestory. 'Shadow Symmetric' is a string quartet commissioned and performed by the JACK Quartet as part of their JACK Studio program. Reidy's pairing with the quartet is felicitous: JACK are one of the preeminent new music ensembles working today, with a particular interest in just intonation, an important component of Reidy's music. It is primarily a music of harmony, but rhythmic organization is key to its effect: arranged as successive harmonic blocks that at times overlap, with staggered introductions of the quartet's four voices often serving to key the listener's attention into the blurring of the near-unison pitches, the music moves with the stateliness of an early Baroque chorale. Through it, there threads a melodic theme, passed between instruments and tuning systems, almost at the threshold of perception but with the same yearning quality familiar to listeners of Reidy's guitar works. 'Clerestory Windows' offers up a distorted mirror image of the string quartet, arranged as a series of episodes that each remake the material in their own way. It begins with an arrangement of the string quartet material for MIDI strings and voices, repositioning its rigorous harmonic exploration somewhere between the Lovely Music Ltd universe and a '90s RPG soundtrack. This episode derives from Reidy's installation Inside, Crystals and Circuitry, held in Stockholm in 2025, made up of multi-channel sound broadcast by transducers in suspended sheets of glass illuminated by spotlights, producing a mysterious effect where shadows appear more palpable than the sheets themselves. The piece moves into a lyrical 12-string acoustic guitar air performed at the installation opening, before the strings from the first side reappear, now frozen and stretched into slow-moving waves, with electric guitar tones rippling across. From this emerge flickering arpeggios, achieved by arranging the string quartet material for the RMI, an early digital synthesizer. Clerestory is a meditation on fundamental dynamics of human experience: orientation and disorientation, the hazy borders the hazy borders between the material and the spiritual, and the instability of identity."
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CD
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THRILL 663X-LP
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$27.00
PREORDER
RELEASE DATE: 9/25/2026
LP version. Gold color vinyl. "A clerestory -- a bright or 'clear' level or 'story' -- is an upper section of wall, most often in a church punctuated by windows. It is a powerful image for grasping this luminous new music from Jules Reidy. Light casts shadows, of course, and logics of shadowing, mirroring, and distorted reflection -- of key importance for Reidy's work as a whole -- inform the sumptuous surfaces of Clerestory. 'Shadow Symmetric' is a string quartet commissioned and performed by the JACK Quartet as part of their JACK Studio program. Reidy's pairing with the quartet is felicitous: JACK are one of the preeminent new music ensembles working today, with a particular interest in just intonation, an important component of Reidy's music. It is primarily a music of harmony, but rhythmic organization is key to its effect: arranged as successive harmonic blocks that at times overlap, with staggered introductions of the quartet's four voices often serving to key the listener's attention into the blurring of the near-unison pitches, the music moves with the stateliness of an early Baroque chorale. Through it, there threads a melodic theme, passed between instruments and tuning systems, almost at the threshold of perception but with the same yearning quality familiar to listeners of Reidy's guitar works. 'Clerestory Windows' offers up a distorted mirror image of the string quartet, arranged as a series of episodes that each remake the material in their own way. It begins with an arrangement of the string quartet material for MIDI strings and voices, repositioning its rigorous harmonic exploration somewhere between the Lovely Music Ltd universe and a '90s RPG soundtrack. This episode derives from Reidy's installation Inside, Crystals and Circuitry, held in Stockholm in 2025, made up of multi-channel sound broadcast by transducers in suspended sheets of glass illuminated by spotlights, producing a mysterious effect where shadows appear more palpable than the sheets themselves. The piece moves into a lyrical 12-string acoustic guitar air performed at the installation opening, before the strings from the first side reappear, now frozen and stretched into slow-moving waves, with electric guitar tones rippling across. From this emerge flickering arpeggios, achieved by arranging the string quartet material for the RMI, an early digital synthesizer. Clerestory is a meditation on fundamental dynamics of human experience: orientation and disorientation, the hazy borders the hazy borders between the material and the spiritual, and the instability of identity."
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THRILL 659X-LP
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$27.00
PREORDER
RELEASE DATE: 8/28/2026
LP version. Silver color vinyl. "Stargazing Brooklyn noise-rock cosmonauts Upper Wilds -- the power-trio led by Parts & Labor co-founder Dan Friel -- return with another set of lean anthems filtered through a flamethrower. Their speediest, most explosive album yet, Mercury, is a meditation on death, with Friel expounding on his brush with skin cancer, climate change, funerals, Henry Kissinger, and a world seemingly on fire. Buoyed by recent tours with acts like Pelican, Uniform, Psychic Graveyard and Savak, the trio's increased speed is met with a precision that gives every hairpin turn more wallop. Mercury's molten, non-stop riffing is captured with grit and punch by engineer Travis Harrison (Guided By Voices, The Men) and is bolstered by longtime collaborator/saxophonist and fellow-New York mainstay Jeff Tobias (Sunwatchers) and vocalist Erin Dawson of LA-based experimental black metal band Genital Shame. Jason Binnick's basslines shine brighter than before dancing in tandem with Friel's guitar licks on 'Death Song #3' and bringing equal parts melody and thunderous weight to 'Green-Wood Cemetery.' Jeff Ottenbacher's drumming oscillates between machine gun fills and sledge hammer pounding, giving each riff more momentum and bite. Upper Wilds' space-rock adventures through their recent albums Mars, Venus, and Jupiter came replete with stories of the heavens and humanity alike. On this fourth installment, the closest planet to the sun, things take a darker turn. The small, barren planet Mercury was named after the gods' speedy messenger and guide to the underworld, and the album syphons Upper Wilds' fuzz-pop aesthetics into concise, scorched anthems about the brevity and fragility of life with the ferocity of a band playing on the edge of extinction."
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THRILL 659CD
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$14.50
PREORDER
RELEASE DATE: 8/28/2026
"Stargazing Brooklyn noise-rock cosmonauts Upper Wilds -- the power-trio led by Parts & Labor co-founder Dan Friel -- return with another set of lean anthems filtered through a flamethrower. Their speediest, most explosive album yet, Mercury, is a meditation on death, with Friel expounding on his brush with skin cancer, climate change, funerals, Henry Kissinger, and a world seemingly on fire. Buoyed by recent tours with acts like Pelican, Uniform, Psychic Graveyard and Savak, the trio's increased speed is met with a precision that gives every hairpin turn more wallop. Mercury's molten, non-stop riffing is captured with grit and punch by engineer Travis Harrison (Guided By Voices, The Men) and is bolstered by longtime collaborator/saxophonist and fellow-New York mainstay Jeff Tobias (Sunwatchers) and vocalist Erin Dawson of LA-based experimental black metal band Genital Shame. Jason Binnick's basslines shine brighter than before dancing in tandem with Friel's guitar licks on 'Death Song #3' and bringing equal parts melody and thunderous weight to 'Green-Wood Cemetery.' Jeff Ottenbacher's drumming oscillates between machine gun fills and sledge hammer pounding, giving each riff more momentum and bite. Upper Wilds' space-rock adventures through their recent albums Mars, Venus, and Jupiter came replete with stories of the heavens and humanity alike. On this fourth installment, the closest planet to the sun, things take a darker turn. The small, barren planet Mercury was named after the gods' speedy messenger and guide to the underworld, and the album syphons Upper Wilds' fuzz-pop aesthetics into concise, scorched anthems about the brevity and fragility of life with the ferocity of a band playing on the edge of extinction."
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THRILL 645X-LP
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$27.00
PREORDER
RELEASE DATE: 8/28/2026
LP version. Coke bottle clear color vinyl. "The Chicago trio of Black Duck is a natural fit for collaboration with acclaimed Basque musician Elena Setién. Black Duck's bassist/guitarist Douglas McCombs, guitarist Bill MacKay and drummer Charles Rumback have been lauded for their adaptability as live performers and collaborators for decades, performing in countless ensembles from Tortoise to Brokeback to collaborations with Ryley Walker, Bill Callahan, James Singleton and many more. Setién honed her improvisational skills in duo Little Red Suitcase before going on to collaborate with the likes of Steve Gunn, Mary Lattimore, and Glenn Kotche (Wilco) to name a few. Black Duck and Elena Setién's combined preternatural ability to converse at the boundaries of improvisation and composition makes for fertile ground in which every subtle gesture carries weight. On their debut, self-titled collaborative release, Black Duck and Elena Setién alchemize the ease of their live chemistry and their wealth of experience into a refined menagerie. The quartet first played together in early 2025 having only just met, trading off sitting in on each other's sets on a run of shows throughout Spain. Recorded just a few months later in Chicago at Palisade with Nick Broste after only a few hours of rehearsal time, the record embraces the spontaneity of those performances. The freewheeling compositions take on added layers of depth with skillfully layered overdubs. The album perfectly balances the openness and core electric energy shared between each musician in the room and sumptuous, detailed arrangements. Together, Black Duck with Elena Setién sounds like a singular unit and four powerhouses all at once. Their collective compositional acumen makes for an exquisite diversity of sounds and movements that all cohere into a singular album only they could make. Black Duck with Elena Setién is a gem of collective work, the sound of a quartet of masters of their craft moving in tandem."
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CD
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THRILL 645CD
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$14.50
PREORDER
RELEASE DATE: 8/28/2026
"The Chicago trio of Black Duck is a natural fit for collaboration with acclaimed Basque musician Elena Setién. Black Duck's bassist/guitarist Douglas McCombs, guitarist Bill MacKay and drummer Charles Rumback have been lauded for their adaptability as live performers and collaborators for decades, performing in countless ensembles from Tortoise to Brokeback to collaborations with Ryley Walker, Bill Callahan, James Singleton and many more. Setién honed her improvisational skills in duo Little Red Suitcase before going on to collaborate with the likes of Steve Gunn, Mary Lattimore, and Glenn Kotche (Wilco) to name a few. Black Duck and Elena Setién's combined preternatural ability to converse at the boundaries of improvisation and composition makes for fertile ground in which every subtle gesture carries weight. On their debut, self-titled collaborative release, Black Duck and Elena Setién alchemize the ease of their live chemistry and their wealth of experience into a refined menagerie. The quartet first played together in early 2025 having only just met, trading off sitting in on each other's sets on a run of shows throughout Spain. Recorded just a few months later in Chicago at Palisade with Nick Broste after only a few hours of rehearsal time, the record embraces the spontaneity of those performances. The freewheeling compositions take on added layers of depth with skillfully layered overdubs. The album perfectly balances the openness and core electric energy shared between each musician in the room and sumptuous, detailed arrangements. Together, Black Duck with Elena Setién sounds like a singular unit and four powerhouses all at once. Their collective compositional acumen makes for an exquisite diversity of sounds and movements that all cohere into a singular album only they could make. Black Duck with Elena Setién is a gem of collective work, the sound of a quartet of masters of their craft moving in tandem."
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LP
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THRILL 660X-LP
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LP version. Opaque jade blue color vinyl. "Master, We Perish's deluxe reissue is newly remastered and expanded. The Body's landmark record Master, We Perish, originally released in 2013, found the acclaimed duo at a crossroads in their career. Recorded just before the duo of drummer Lee Buford and guitarist/vocalist Chip King were leaving their longtime home of Providence for Portland and released in between their breakthrough albums All the Waters of the Earth Turn to Blood and Christs, Redeemers, Master expanded on the duo's love of layered worldbuilding with more precision and a stronger emphasis on percussive samples than ever before. The seeds of the duo's celebrated collaborative inclination are evident as the album features Assembly of Light Choir leader Chrissy Wolpert, choir member Reba Mitchell, Otesanek vocalist Leslie Weitz, and guitarist David Lifrieri. With the expanded edition, the album's striking cover painting by Providence mainstay Manifester aka Matt Brinkman (Mindflayer, Forcefield) is finally rendered in its original form. Master, We Perish is expanded with rare bonus tracks from The Body's early days, taken from a pair of rare 7" singles 'Cop Killer/Dead Cops' as well as a split with Get Killed. These storied singles mark the first time the band truly pushed the boundaries of sound in the studio and on record. It also marks the beginning of The Body's practice of wielding the studio as a veritable weapon to translate their gargantuan sound with deeper impact on LP. The results are not only pushing the capacity of the album format but are sonically riveting. The bonus material was recorded at Machines with Magnets."
"Master, We Perish lashes at perceived and much-debated divisions between metal and noise so hard and so fast that its tremendous squall and anthemic structures might actually be the sound of those fortified seams splintering -- every bit as exhilarating and intimidating as you might hope" --Pitchfork
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CD
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THRILL 660CD
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"Master, We Perish's deluxe reissue is newly remastered and expanded. The Body's landmark record Master, We Perish, originally released in 2013, found the acclaimed duo at a crossroads in their career. Recorded just before the duo of drummer Lee Buford and guitarist/vocalist Chip King were leaving their longtime home of Providence for Portland and released in between their breakthrough albums All the Waters of the Earth Turn to Blood and Christs, Redeemers, Master expanded on the duo's love of layered worldbuilding with more precision and a stronger emphasis on percussive samples than ever before. The seeds of the duo's celebrated collaborative inclination are evident as the album features Assembly of Light Choir leader Chrissy Wolpert, choir member Reba Mitchell, Otesanek vocalist Leslie Weitz, and guitarist David Lifrieri. With the expanded edition, the album's striking cover painting by Providence mainstay Manifester aka Matt Brinkman (Mindflayer, Forcefield) is finally rendered in its original form. Master, We Perish is expanded with rare bonus tracks from The Body's early days, taken from a pair of rare 7" singles 'Cop Killer/Dead Cops' as well as a split with Get Killed. These storied singles mark the first time the band truly pushed the boundaries of sound in the studio and on record. It also marks the beginning of The Body's practice of wielding the studio as a veritable weapon to translate their gargantuan sound with deeper impact on LP. The results are not only pushing the capacity of the album format but are sonically riveting. The bonus material was recorded at Machines with Magnets."
"Master, We Perish lashes at perceived and much-debated divisions between metal and noise so hard and so fast that its tremendous squall and anthemic structures might actually be the sound of those fortified seams splintering -- every bit as exhilarating and intimidating as you might hope" --Pitchfork
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LP
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THRILL 650X-LP
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"Four years near the beginning of the last decade, William Cashion and Bruce Willen created quietly radiant instrumental music from two tessellated guitars, a few modest synths, and a slew of percussive and noisy toys, like walkie-talkies or the things that gave the pair their handle, bells. This 2016 live recording is taken from the band's next-to-last show, at least for now, cut in an artist-run space called The Compound in their hometown of Baltimore. Peals is the project of two bassists known best for their other livewire and loud Baltimore bands: Future Islands for Cashion, Double Dagger for Willen. Technically, Double Dagger -- an absolutely electrifying post-punk trio -- had reached its end just as Cashion and Willen began talking about trying to make music together, but that context never really mattered. Peals emerged at an inconvenient moment for their sort of instrumental wonder. The noisy international explorations of great acts like Yellow Swans, Growing, and Fuck Buttons (all duos, mind you) had mostly subsided before Peals played their first show in April 2012. And the current bloom in New Age and ambient music was very much still germinating, those terms still catching substantial side-eye from arbiters of acceptability. That was steadily changing, however, as Peals offered this set in September 2016, with the United States unknowingly at the edge of successive upheavals that would increasingly make such sounds feel like requisite medicine. Writing to you from 2026, then, this recording does not feel at all out-of-time, like some overlooked gem that was simply swallowed by its moment. It sounds relevant, welcoming, welcome. These 38 seamless minutes have clear predecessors: Manuel Göttsching's E2-E4, Cluster and Eno's Cologne dalliances, the way Midwest emo could sound smarter than its lyrics read. I hear bits of old spirituals and Appalachian banjo music, too, nested inside the guitars. But the way Cashion and Willen stitched it all together ignored any rules of what this music was supposed to be, so that very gentle passages abutted joyously jarring ones, so that the saxophone line that unexpectedly offers the denouement here feels as though it were birthed by a symphony of chattering guitars. It's a sound meant for you to inhabit, to take a walk around, to notice." -- Grayson Haver Currin
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LP
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THRILL 660LP
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LP version. "Master, We Perish's deluxe reissue is newly remastered and expanded. The Body's landmark record Master, We Perish, originally released in 2013, found the acclaimed duo at a crossroads in their career. Recorded just before the duo of drummer Lee Buford and guitarist/vocalist Chip King were leaving their longtime home of Providence for Portland and released in between their breakthrough albums All the Waters of the Earth Turn to Blood and Christs, Redeemers, Master expanded on the duo's love of layered worldbuilding with more precision and a stronger emphasis on percussive samples than ever before. The seeds of the duo's celebrated collaborative inclination are evident as the album features Assembly of Light Choir leader Chrissy Wolpert, choir member Reba Mitchell, Otesanek vocalist Leslie Weitz, and guitarist David Lifrieri. With the expanded edition, the album's striking cover painting by Providence mainstay Manifester aka Matt Brinkman (Mindflayer, Forcefield) is finally rendered in its original form. Master, We Perish is expanded with rare bonus tracks from The Body's early days, taken from a pair of rare 7" singles 'Cop Killer/Dead Cops' as well as a split with Get Killed. These storied singles mark the first time the band truly pushed the boundaries of sound in the studio and on record. It also marks the beginning of The Body's practice of wielding the studio as a veritable weapon to translate their gargantuan sound with deeper impact on LP. The results are not only pushing the capacity of the album format but are sonically riveting. The bonus material was recorded at Machines with Magnets."
"Master, We Perish lashes at perceived and much-debated divisions between metal and noise so hard and so fast that its tremendous squall and anthemic structures might actually be the sound of those fortified seams splintering -- every bit as exhilarating and intimidating as you might hope" --Pitchfork
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THRILL 655X-LP
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Egg yolk yellow color vinyl version. "Cloud Machines is the extraordinary debut collaboration between M.C. Schmidt of legendary electronic duo Matmos and John Berndt, the Baltimore avant-garde institution and band leader behind High Zero Festival, the Red Room collective, Geodesic Gnome, and radical sonic concepts like Spectral Relay (a bespoke signal processing architecture) and Relabi (a conceptual genre defined by a Rorschach-blot pulse.) These two iconoclasts have delivered something genuinely unexpected: an oddly sweet electronic opus that's as immediately engaging as it is a series of delicious puzzles. When two of experimental music's most irascible characters spend twelve years crafting an album, you don't just get another release -- it is an anthology of pocket universes. The record is a love letter to two of their strongest mutual influences of the 1980s -- the delirious comic books of French auteur Jean Giraud (AKA Moebius) and the beautiful miniatures of the SKY Records Cluster/Eno/Conny Plank collaborations. Cloud Machines honors the spirit of those ineffably 'hermetic' creations by reinventing their legacy through the lens of decades of accumulated experimental practice and the duo's singular creative personalities. The result feels simultaneously like rediscovering a lost classic from 1978 and receiving a transmission from an alternate, somehow better timeline in 2026. Yet unlike so much 'difficult' experimental music, Cloud Machines maintains an uncanny and sneaky accessibility -- each track a self-contained world, inviting and alien in equal measure. It's not always a two-man show. On side one, 'The Analysis of Joel' refracts the prepared guitar playing of Joel Knispel into eerie shards as M.C. Schmidt counters with processed fragments of the music of Polish electroacoustic composer Bogusław Schaeffer. John Berndt takes a solo on the mysteriously poised synthesizer etude 'The Balcony.' Side two features the largest ensemble piece, 'Gecko Lazzaro' a slow-burning sinuous bassline groove featuring the trombone playing of Baltimore improviser Patrick Crossland and a suitably fried guitar solo from Owen Gardner (lead guitarist of Berlin-by-way-of-Baltimore out rockers Horse Lords). Like a kaleidoscope turning slowly towards and away from different light sources, genres and traditions seem to emerge from the haze and pull into focus and then melt away again, but never constrain the constant sense of exploratory forward movement."
"For three decades now Daniel and Schmidt have found gaps where experimental approaches and sources can leak into music that could be played in a club or on the radio, showing that stretching the Overton window of musical sounds doesn't have to be restricted to rarefied settings." -The Quietus
"One can't help but be in awe of the production mastery on display and the confidence with which Matmos have turned a man's creative remains into a freshly expressive musical instrument." - The Wire
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CD
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THRILL 406CD
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CD version in four-panel mini-LP style gatefold package. "Simply put, Tortoise has spent nearly 25 years making music that defies description. While the Chicago-based instrumental quintet has nodded to dub, rock, jazz, electronica and minimalism throughout its revered and influential six-album discography, the resulting sounds have always been distinctly, even stubbornly, their own. It's a fact that remains true on The Catastrophist, Tortoise's first studio album in nearly seven years. And it's an album where moody, synth-swept jams like the opening title track cozy up next to hypnotic, bass-and-beat missives like 'Shake Hands With Danger' and a downright strange cover of David Essex's 1973 radio smash sung by U.S. Maple's Todd Rittmann. Throughout, the songs transcend expectations as often as they delight the eardrums. Tortoise, comprised of multi-instrumentalists Dan Bitney, John Herndon, Doug McCombs, John McEntire, and Jeff Parker, has always thrived on sudden bursts of inspiration. And for The Catastrophist, the spark came in 2010 when the group was commissioned by the City of Chicago to compose a suite of music rooted in its ties to the area's noted jazz and improvised music communities. Tortoise then performed those five loose themes at a handful of concerts, and 'when we finally got around to talking about a new record, the obvious solution to begin with was to take those pieces and see what else we could do with them,' says McEntire, at whose Soma Studios the band recorded the new album. As ever, Tortoise has conjured sounds on The Catastrophist that aren't being purveyed anywhere else in music today. There's a deeply intuitive interplay between the group members that comes only from two decades of experimentation, revision and improvisation."
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CD
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THRILL 653CD
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"The work of BIG|BRAVE is ever-expanding. The trio's singular masterful sculpting of sonics into songcraft tucks layers of vulnerability into frenetic storms. in grief or in hope is an innovative vision of electro-acoustic sound and emotive storytelling, an endless bounty of overwhelming distortions and devastating beauty. The album marks a shift for BIG|BRAVE towards denser guitar-oriented compositions. With longtime touring bassist Liam Andrews (MY DISCO, Aicher) joining guitarist/vocalist Robin Wattie and guitarist Mathieu Ball in the studio for the first time, the pieces are keenly layered with a rich tapestry of harmonics and tonal intricacies. The trio's instinctual progressions made more vivid through live recording, harnessing the gargantuan and storied sound of their performances. Wattie writes: 'All that I could reflect on was grief and hope; death and life; cause and effect; shared experiences of being a human person.' The tenth album for the ensemble, in grief or in hope pays homage to their past while looking into their future. Standout 'the ineptitude for mutual discernment' expands on lyrical themes first explored on 2015's Au De La where 'verdure' echoes melodies from the title track of 2014's Feral Verdure. These references to their past serve as potent reflections on BIG|BRAVE's evolution as artists. A sonic whirlpool of string instruments surround Wattie's commanding vocals as she shifts from spectral undulations on pieces like 'what may be the kindest way to leave' to the direct, spare declarations of the title track. The ambiguity of mountainous chords on 'an uttering of antipathy' are coupled with autotuned phrases emphasizing the protagonists' isolation inside the fray. Together the trio shift to deliver emotional momentum that vividly describes the complex and deep feelings of struggle, pain, and transcendence. in grief or in hope transmits that sense of humanity with every gesture."
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LP
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THRILL 653LP
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LP version. "The work of BIG|BRAVE is ever-expanding. The trio's singular masterful sculpting of sonics into songcraft tucks layers of vulnerability into frenetic storms. in grief or in hope is an innovative vision of electro-acoustic sound and emotive storytelling, an endless bounty of overwhelming distortions and devastating beauty. The album marks a shift for BIG|BRAVE towards denser guitar-oriented compositions. With longtime touring bassist Liam Andrews (MY DISCO, Aicher) joining guitarist/vocalist Robin Wattie and guitarist Mathieu Ball in the studio for the first time, the pieces are keenly layered with a rich tapestry of harmonics and tonal intricacies. The trio's instinctual progressions made more vivid through live recording, harnessing the gargantuan and storied sound of their performances. Wattie writes: 'All that I could reflect on was grief and hope; death and life; cause and effect; shared experiences of being a human person.' The tenth album for the ensemble, in grief or in hope pays homage to their past while looking into their future. Standout 'the ineptitude for mutual discernment' expands on lyrical themes first explored on 2015's Au De La where 'verdure' echoes melodies from the title track of 2014's Feral Verdure. These references to their past serve as potent reflections on BIG|BRAVE's evolution as artists. A sonic whirlpool of string instruments surround Wattie's commanding vocals as she shifts from spectral undulations on pieces like 'what may be the kindest way to leave' to the direct, spare declarations of the title track. The ambiguity of mountainous chords on 'an uttering of antipathy' are coupled with autotuned phrases emphasizing the protagonists' isolation inside the fray. Together the trio shift to deliver emotional momentum that vividly describes the complex and deep feelings of struggle, pain, and transcendence. in grief or in hope transmits that sense of humanity with every gesture."
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THRILL 501Y-LP
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Color vinyl. "Legendary band Lightning Bolt's Wonderful Rainbow is one of the most quintessential albums to come from the underground in the last 20 years. Included in lists like Pitchfork's '200 top albums of the 2000s' and the book 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die, Lightning Bolt's seminal record solidified their place as pillars of the underground community. Wonderful Rainbow saw the duo of Brian Chippendale (drums/vocals) and Brian Gibson (bass) being compared to the likes of Slayer, Ornette Coleman, and early Boredoms, and captured the bristling, immeasurable energy of their mythical live shows, which continue to astonish audiences today. The album's now iconic artwork (drawn by Chippendale) mirrors the music's curious and exhilarating blend of chaos, noise, intense beauty, and childlike wonderment. Lightning Bolt paved the way for countless artists who followed them, cracking the noise-rock and underground scenes wide open with an album as frenetic and violent as it is overflowing with joyful abandon."
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THRILL 210X-LP
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2026 repress; opaque red color vinyl version. " Beacons Of Ancestorship is Tortoise's sixth full-length album, and their first release of new material in five years, since 2004's It's All Around You. A characteristic Tortoise album is one that traverses an encyclopedia of styles and reference points, a document of where musical intersections and dialogue are occurring at a given moment in time. Beacons Of Ancestorship is no different, with nods to techno, punk, electro, lo-fi noise, cut-up beats, heavily processed synths and mournful, elegiac dirges. We see these ideas working out in compositions like 'High Class Slim Came Floatin' In,' an eight-minute track which playfully references the world of ecstatic rave and dance culture with a curiously ambivalent, multi-part suite overlaid with robotic, machine-sounding melodies that stop and start in several different time signatures before the song's ultimate resolution; and again in 'Yinxianghechengqi,' which begins as a straightforward uptempo math-rocker before steadily accelerating into a wall of fuzzy atonal sqwonk. There are many moods, styles, and modes in the Tortoise songbook, of course -- often, in the course of a single composition. Consistent throughout, however, is what might be called a pervasive element of group play, or ensemble-mindedness, as opposed to emphasis on a virtuoso soloist or frontman. (Think Robert Altman versus Robert Plant.) In the same sense that the string quartet and all small-ensemble chamber music can be thought of as an intelligent conversation among equals -- violins, viola, and cello taking turns, expressing opinions, joining voices and then coming apart, as also occurs in elevated discourse -- so, too, the calling card of a Tortoise song is the experience of a sound being worked out as a conversation among the individual and interrelated parts -- of an ensemble thinking collectively and in group dynamics through the expression of a multi-layered musical thought."
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THRILL 115X-LP
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2026 repress, pale yellow vinyl. "Over the past decade, Tortoise have produced some of the most innovative and influential albums in all of music. From the deep and understated rhythms and tones on their 1996 landmark, Millions Now Living Will Never Die, to the bombastic rock of 2001's Standards, Tortoise have always been ahead of their time. It's All Around You finds Tortoise doing what they do best; building and rebuilding upon melodies and rhythms with their own remarkable touch. Written largely in the studio, It's All Around You was crafted over the course of a full year, and allowed Tortoise the use of John McEntire's Soma Electronic Music Studios (whose clients have included Wilco, Stereolab among others) in serving not just as a state-of-the-art recording facility, but as a compositional tool as well. It took months of continuous writing, recording, tinkering, mixing, and perfecting to bring It's All Around You to its finalized state. Tortoise are one of the only bands of their size and status who have always produced their own records, and it's largely because of this that they are able to achieve and maintain such a distinct and precise sound. The band's extensive knowledge of the studio's equipment and their ability to feel at home without a restrictive deadline allowed them to explore a multitude of approaches in the composing, editing, and coloring process of their compositions. The results of this process are clear in the lush, orchestrated tones, intricate melodies, and densely elaborate rhythms that make It's All Around You Tortoise's most adventurous and thoughtful record to date. These songs build deliberately and consistently, amassing music of great detail; exploring their layers is both exciting and infinitely rewarding. While the members of Tortoise are perpetually involved with multiple other musical projects-from Brokeback and the Chicago Underground Quartet/Trio to A Grape Dope and The Sea and Cake, make no mistake about it, Tortoise is and always will be the main focus of these five distinctly visionary musicians. It's All Around You took them to places they've never been before and shows them synergistically united like never before, now it's your turn."
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THRILL 019X-LP
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2026 repress. "Tortoise have been expanding the definition of rock music for almost 30 years, nodding to dub, rock, jazz, electronica and minimalism throughout its revered and influential discography. The resulting sounds have always been distinctly, even stubbornly, their own. Rhythms, Resolutions & Clusters has not been available on LP since it was released in 1995. The record ushered in a late '90s remix craze, and launched a 12" series of remixes by a wide range of artists. This new re-press for the 30th Anniversary is a Tortoise record unlike any other, as Tortoise turned their iconic early songs over to their friends to play with. Remixes include mixes by Steve Albini, Jim O'Rourke, Mike Watt (Minutemen), Brad Wood (Liz Phair), and Rick Brown (75 Dollar Bill). Original songs recorded by Dan Bitney, Bundy K Brown, John Herndon, John McEntire, and Douglas McCombs."
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THRILL 655LP
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"Cloud Machines is the extraordinary debut collaboration between M.C. Schmidt of legendary electronic duo Matmos and John Berndt, the Baltimore avant-garde institution and band leader behind High Zero Festival, the Red Room collective, Geodesic Gnome, and radical sonic concepts like Spectral Relay (a bespoke signal processing architecture) and Relabi (a conceptual genre defined by a Rorschach-blot pulse.) These two iconoclasts have delivered something genuinely unexpected: an oddly sweet electronic opus that's as immediately engaging as it is a series of delicious puzzles. When two of experimental music's most irascible characters spend twelve years crafting an album, you don't just get another release -- it is an anthology of pocket universes. The record is a love letter to two of their strongest mutual influences of the 1980s -- the delirious comic books of French auteur Jean Giraud (AKA Moebius) and the beautiful miniatures of the SKY Records Cluster/Eno/Conny Plank collaborations. Cloud Machines honors the spirit of those ineffably 'hermetic' creations by reinventing their legacy through the lens of decades of accumulated experimental practice and the duo's singular creative personalities. The result feels simultaneously like rediscovering a lost classic from 1978 and receiving a transmission from an alternate, somehow better timeline in 2026. Yet unlike so much 'difficult' experimental music, Cloud Machines maintains an uncanny and sneaky accessibility -- each track a self-contained world, inviting and alien in equal measure. It's not always a two-man show. On side one, 'The Analysis of Joel' refracts the prepared guitar playing of Joel Knispel into eerie shards as M.C. Schmidt counters with processed fragments of the music of Polish electroacoustic composer Bogusław Schaeffer. John Berndt takes a solo on the mysteriously poised synthesizer etude 'The Balcony.' Side two features the largest ensemble piece, 'Gecko Lazzaro' a slow-burning sinuous bassline groove featuring the trombone playing of Baltimore improviser Patrick Crossland and a suitably fried guitar solo from Owen Gardner (lead guitarist of Berlin-by-way-of-Baltimore out rockers Horse Lords). Like a kaleidoscope turning slowly towards and away from different light sources, genres and traditions seem to emerge from the haze and pull into focus and then melt away again, but never constrain the constant sense of exploratory forward movement."
"For three decades now Daniel and Schmidt have found gaps where experimental approaches and sources can leak into music that could be played in a club or on the radio, showing that stretching the Overton window of musical sounds doesn't have to be restricted to rarefied settings." -The Quietus
"One can't help but be in awe of the production mastery on display and the confidence with which Matmos have turned a man's creative remains into a freshly expressive musical instrument." - The Wire
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THRILL 653X-LP
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LP version. Clear pink color vinyl. "The work of BIG|BRAVE is ever-expanding. The trio's singular masterful sculpting of sonics into songcraft tucks layers of vulnerability into frenetic storms. in grief or in hope is an innovative vision of electro-acoustic sound and emotive storytelling, an endless bounty of overwhelming distortions and devastating beauty. The album marks a shift for BIG|BRAVE towards denser guitar-oriented compositions. With longtime touring bassist Liam Andrews (MY DISCO, Aicher) joining guitarist/vocalist Robin Wattie and guitarist Mathieu Ball in the studio for the first time, the pieces are keenly layered with a rich tapestry of harmonics and tonal intricacies. The trio's instinctual progressions made more vivid through live recording, harnessing the gargantuan and storied sound of their performances. Wattie writes: 'All that I could reflect on was grief and hope; death and life; cause and effect; shared experiences of being a human person.' The tenth album for the ensemble, in grief or in hope pays homage to their past while looking into their future. Standout 'the ineptitude for mutual discernment' expands on lyrical themes first explored on 2015's Au De La where 'verdure' echoes melodies from the title track of 2014's Feral Verdure. These references to their past serve as potent reflections on BIG|BRAVE's evolution as artists. A sonic whirlpool of string instruments surround Wattie's commanding vocals as she shifts from spectral undulations on pieces like 'what may be the kindest way to leave' to the direct, spare declarations of the title track. The ambiguity of mountainous chords on 'an uttering of antipathy' are coupled with autotuned phrases emphasizing the protagonists' isolation inside the fray. Together the trio shift to deliver emotional momentum that vividly describes the complex and deep feelings of struggle, pain, and transcendence. in grief or in hope transmits that sense of humanity with every gesture."
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THRILL 089Y-LP
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2026 repress; clear with red color vinyl. "Standards, the fourth full-length recording from Chicago's Tortoise, boldly announces their return following 1998's TNT. Tortoise spent the bulk of 1998 and a portion of 1999 touring the world. Following tours of the U.S., Europe, South America, Japan, Brazil, and Australia, Tortoise members worked on other projects that occupied them until the spring of 2000 when they began to record Standards. In 1999 members of the band toured the US as the backing band for legendary Brazilian composer/singer Tom Zé's. Musically, Standards is their most concise statement of purpose thus far. The tunes are direct and immediate, yet they maintain the exploratory edge that has always characterized the group's output. The fusion of instrumental sounds (electric, acoustic, and synthesized) is subtle and subversive. Similarly, the group's fluency within the studio environment gives the finished work a quality that alternates between artifice and reality. Whilst TNT was constructed in the studio using segments recorded, improvised or altered electronically, the 'Standards' sessions began after a period of rehearsal and composition. The contrast, simply stated, is that the studio was used extensively as a compositional tool for TNT, whereas with Standards it was used predominantly as tool to realize and enhance the existing new compositions. The studio does not impose itself on the recording to the same degree listeners witnessed on TNT, and the resulting record is in many ways reminiscent of their unadorned self-titled debut. Sounds, notes and rhythms are manipulated but in general, processing is spare. Tortoise's highly lyrical melodies, rich and varied tonal palette and high level of musicianship were recorded in a studio designed by McEntire. The resulting record is the clearest demonstration of the band's many skills and strengths."
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CD
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THRILL 657CD
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"Magic Tuber Stringband act in communion with the natural world around them. Highly skilled players and writers, the trio are leaders within the burgeoning avant-folk world. Growing up in Appalachia studying the folk traditions of the region in tandem scientific and observational work in nature, their music appears to weave in and out of the fabric of the landscape. The ensemble continues to stretch the parameters of acoustic instrumental expression with masterful flourishes of dense, textural arrangements, subtle minimalist gestures and deft improvisation. Heavy Water addresses the impact of nuclear production on the environment and the communities within, a musical evocation of destruction and resilience, an embrace of dissonance and tension within moments of transcendence. The inspiration for Heavy Water is rooted in fiddler Courtney Werner's work as an ecologist in rural South Carolina. Werner explains: 'The town of Ellenton, South Carolina was the largest of the towns displaced in 1952 by the U.S. federal government to build the Savannah River Plant, which produced radioactive materials for U.S. nuclear weapons during the Cold War. The former site of Ellenton was dedicated to the extraction of 'heavy water,' whereas other areas of the plant focused on manufacturing weapons-grade plutonium and tritium within nuclear reactors. Heavy water is chemically altered to be denser than normal water and is incredibly expensive and time-consuming to synthesize, requiring 52 gallons of river water to produce one fluid ounce. Its denser properties made it valuable for use within the nuclear reactors on the site.' The pieces of Heavy Water address the loss of community and untold ecological fallout of invasive, irreversible actions. A verdant countryside often mythologized in American vernacular as a respite or refuge in reality is forever tainted, a dynamic whose emotional impact is captured in the compositions."
"While it's easy to peg their influences, the band's lively performances and ear for rich sonorities affirm that Weird America is in good hands." - The Wire
"North Carolina's Magic Tuber Stringband have emerged as a force in the realm of traditional Appalachian folk music. Fiddler Courtney Werner and 12-string guitarist Evan Morgan create music that drones back through the centuries but feels current and alive." - Stereogum
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THRILL 657LP
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LP version. "Magic Tuber Stringband act in communion with the natural world around them. Highly skilled players and writers, the trio are leaders within the burgeoning avant-folk world. Growing up in Appalachia studying the folk traditions of the region in tandem scientific and observational work in nature, their music appears to weave in and out of the fabric of the landscape. The ensemble continues to stretch the parameters of acoustic instrumental expression with masterful flourishes of dense, textural arrangements, subtle minimalist gestures and deft improvisation. Heavy Water addresses the impact of nuclear production on the environment and the communities within, a musical evocation of destruction and resilience, an embrace of dissonance and tension within moments of transcendence. The inspiration for Heavy Water is rooted in fiddler Courtney Werner's work as an ecologist in rural South Carolina. Werner explains: 'The town of Ellenton, South Carolina was the largest of the towns displaced in 1952 by the U.S. federal government to build the Savannah River Plant, which produced radioactive materials for U.S. nuclear weapons during the Cold War. The former site of Ellenton was dedicated to the extraction of 'heavy water,' whereas other areas of the plant focused on manufacturing weapons-grade plutonium and tritium within nuclear reactors. Heavy water is chemically altered to be denser than normal water and is incredibly expensive and time-consuming to synthesize, requiring 52 gallons of river water to produce one fluid ounce. Its denser properties made it valuable for use within the nuclear reactors on the site.' The pieces of Heavy Water address the loss of community and untold ecological fallout of invasive, irreversible actions. A verdant countryside often mythologized in American vernacular as a respite or refuge in reality is forever tainted, a dynamic whose emotional impact is captured in the compositions."
"While it's easy to peg their influences, the band's lively performances and ear for rich sonorities affirm that Weird America is in good hands." - The Wire
"North Carolina's Magic Tuber Stringband have emerged as a force in the realm of traditional Appalachian folk music. Fiddler Courtney Werner and 12-string guitarist Evan Morgan create music that drones back through the centuries but feels current and alive." - Stereogum
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THRILL 654X-LP
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LP version. Green color vinyl. Comes with a full 12x12 4-page color booklet with detailed track information, and extensive liner notes from Anderson. "Marisa Anderson's music transcends borders. The topography of her work interrogates the intersections of artistry and expression with form and tradition. A singular guitarist and voracious musical collaborator, Anderson crafts pieces bursting with equal parts reverence and curiosity, contouring familiar shapes into work that is wholly her own. Anderson has spent decades mining the veins of the complicated, interconnected American folk traditions she was steeped in from a young age, stretching beyond those traditions and incorporating the vocabulary and techniques of vernacular folk music from around the world into her work. Eschewing replication or revival, Anderson's music lives in conversation with tradition. The Anthology of UnAmerican Folk Music is drawn from nearly one thousand songs culled from the private record collection of the late Harry Smith. For this record, Anderson works on music from places that the United States has been in conflict with since 1970: Southeast Asia, the USSR and the Arabic and Islamic regions of the world. In Volume 1 Anderson presents her own deeply personal iterations of nine songs from the Anthology. Composed, transcribed and arranged through a process of trial and error, deep listening and research, Anderson charts a musical course from Afghanistan to Vietnam via Yemen, Cambodia and Turkmenistan. Interpretations of compositions from Pakistani qawwali and Syrian taqsim are played with Anderson's deft and practiced hands. Each piece on the album stands as a dialogue between Anderson and the original source recordings, refracted through the prism of her unique musical lens. Anderson's contribution to this dialogue ultimately invites the listener to join her in asking: 'Who are the people we've been told in our lifetimes are 'unamerican?'' What have we lost or been denied access to in the fallout from that label?"
"[A] musician working out emotions physically, instinctively, with her fingers on the strings." - The New York Times
"Folk guitar genius" - Stereogum
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CD
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THRILL 654CD
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CD comes with a 12-page color booklet with detailed track information, and extensive liner notes from Anderson. "Marisa Anderson's music transcends borders. The topography of her work interrogates the intersections of artistry and expression with form and tradition. A singular guitarist and voracious musical collaborator, Anderson crafts pieces bursting with equal parts reverence and curiosity, contouring familiar shapes into work that is wholly her own. Anderson has spent decades mining the veins of the complicated, interconnected American folk traditions she was steeped in from a young age, stretching beyond those traditions and incorporating the vocabulary and techniques of vernacular folk music from around the world into her work. Eschewing replication or revival, Anderson's music lives in conversation with tradition. The Anthology of UnAmerican Folk Music is drawn from nearly one thousand songs culled from the private record collection of the late Harry Smith. For this record, Anderson works on music from places that the United States has been in conflict with since 1970: Southeast Asia, the USSR and the Arabic and Islamic regions of the world. In Volume 1 Anderson presents her own deeply personal iterations of nine songs from the Anthology. Composed, transcribed and arranged through a process of trial and error, deep listening and research, Anderson charts a musical course from Afghanistan to Vietnam via Yemen, Cambodia and Turkmenistan. Interpretations of compositions from Pakistani qawwali and Syrian taqsim are played with Anderson's deft and practiced hands. Each piece on the album stands as a dialogue between Anderson and the original source recordings, refracted through the prism of her unique musical lens. Anderson's contribution to this dialogue ultimately invites the listener to join her in asking: 'Who are the people we've been told in our lifetimes are 'unamerican?'' What have we lost or been denied access to in the fallout from that label?"
"[A] musician working out emotions physically, instinctively, with her fingers on the strings." - The New York Times
"Folk guitar genius" - Stereogum
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