The Kills - No Wow - VINYL LP

Vinyl LP pressing. Includes . On their seminal second album No Wow, The Kills established the ethos that would set the tone for their expansive career - capture the rawest emotions and sounds, and then push them to the furthest possible edge. The band is celebrating No Wow's 15 year anniversary with a deluxe reissue featuring the original recording and a fresh new mix by the multiple Grammy Award-winning Tchad Blake (The Black Keys, Fiona Apple, Arctic Monkeys) that brings new life to the 11 vivid tracks.

Vinyl LP pressing. Marcos Valle's career started with the end of bossa nova. A lifelong surfer of swells, he expertly rode out the final wave of the waning international fad, landing in the U.S. for a short stay before returning to Brazil to continue his career. A proud Carioca (Rio de Janeiro resident), Valle couldn't stay away from his beloved hometown. This seminal artist is no stranger to Los Angeles, though. Back in the mid-to- late sixties he recorded a solo album (Samba '68) and was a featured member of an early, short-lived line-up with Sergio Mendes right before he landed the Brasil '66 deal with A&M records. He would try his luck in the U.S. again a decade later, spending a half-dozen years here, mostly in L.A. where he befriended members of Chicago and developed a prolific songwriting partnership with R&B journeyman Leon Ware. Valle never recorded his own music during those years, though. This historic collaboration with Jazz Is Dead's Ali Shaheed Muhammad and Adrian Younge marks the first time he has recorded music in the U.S. in nearly 50 years. Younge and Shaheed Muhammad started by mining Valle's back catalog for direction and inspiration. Unlike a number of artists of his stature, Valle is still actively recording and releasing music, but Marcos Valle JID003 is different from all of his others. If spontaneity and improvisation are trademarks of jazz music, then this album stands out in the maestro's lengthy discography as the closest thing to a jazz album. Valle impressed Shaheed Muhammad with his professionalism and confidence in this new environment with limited time to capture the music 'Marcos is so focused on getting it right, he sat down in the moment and wrote some lyrics about what was actually happening, and that's how free and open he is.'

Double vinyl LP pressing includes . 2016 . Ash & Ice is the follow up to 2011's critically lauded Blood Pressures and was five years in the making in part due to Jamie Hince's five hand surgeries, which resulted in him having to re-learn how to play guitar with a permanently damaged finger. It was during Hince's recuperation from surgery that he first started sketching out what would become the songs for the album. To shake up the writing process, Hince booked a solo trip on the infamous Trans-Siberian Express for inspiration while Alison Mosshart, now residing in Nashville, TN, wrote some of the most affecting, poetically candid lyrics that she ever has, painting word pictures that mine the dangerous terrain between romantic obsession, prophecy and tough love. Where previous albums had an air of detachment and emotional austerity, underpinned by an uneasy self-awareness and unexpressed anger, the songs on Ash & Ice are more understated, less tempestuous and more affecting because of that, exposing the kind of push-pull you feel when you find yourself in a complicated but all-consuming relationship. Ash & Ice is The Kills at their emotionally charged, arresting best. Prepare to be slayed.