AIMS Music

Grammy-nominated singer/songwriter Julian Lennon releases two powerful new original tracks, “Freedom” and “Every Little Moment.” “Freedom” is a soulful, ethereal track intensified by Lennon's distinctive vocals that provokes an emotional and meditative journey. “Every Little Moment,” is a driving rock track, that not only confronts the wars within, but the ongoing battles we face on the outside. Lennon will continue to release singles, leading into a much anticipated studio album with BMG.

Anthem - Flogging Molly

How Do You Burn? - The Afghan Whigs

Tall CD format with 5 bonus songs, 72-page booklet including lyrics, credits, and photos/art

Doggerel is a mature yet visceral record of gruesome folk, ballroom pop and brutal rock, haunted by the ghosts of affairs and indulgences, driven wild by cosmic forces and envisioning digital afterlives where no God has provided one. And all the while, right there on the news, another distant storm approaches.

Guitarist Joey Santiago says, "This time around we have grown. We no longer have under two-minute songs. We have little breaks, more conventional arrangements but still our twists in there."

Vocalist/guitarist Black Francis adds, "We're trying to do things that are very big and bold and orchestrated. The punky stuff, I really like playing it but you just cannot artificially create that shit. There's another way to do this, there's other things we can do with this extra special energy that we're encountering."

Definition of doggerel [daw-ger-uhl]: loosely styled and irregular in measure especially for burlesque or comic effect also: marked by triviality or inferiority - Merrian Webster

Infectious Music Pixies - Doggerel (Deluxe)

The London Suede return with their ninth studio album, Autofiction.

As The London Suede began work on the songs that would become Autofiction, they decided to go back to basics. In a move that recalled their most formative days, Brett Anderson, Mat Osman, Simon Gilbert, Richard Oakes and Neil Codling schlepped to a rehearsal studio in deserted Kings Cross to collect a key, hump their own gear, set up and start playing.

Speaking about Autofiction, Brett Anderson said: "Autofiction is our punk record. No whistles and bells. Just the five of us in a room with all the glitches and fuck-ups revealed; the band themselves exposed in all their primal mess."

First single "She Still Leads Me On" is the track that reconfigured what the album could be. A beautiful song written from Brett to his late mother. As its title suggests, Autofiction is one of Anderson's most personal records yet. Reflecting on the process of writing acclaimed memoirs Coal Black Mornings and Afternoons with the Blinds Drawn helped Brett get a newfound perspective on himself as a performer and singer in the public eye, much of which has bled into the lyricism of Autofiction.

Hailing from Mongolia, The HU are unlike any other rock band in the world, introducing their new style of music they call "hunnu rock" - from the Mongolian root word for human being, "hu". Since their release, the band has been #1 on the Billboard World Albums Chart, #1 on the Top New Artist Albums, and Top 5 Globally on Hard Rock Music Album Charts (US, Canada, UK, and more). They have toured the world extensively, with sold out shows in Europe, the UK, and the United States. Following the success of the The Gereg, which not only debuted at #1 but featured viral rock hits "Wolf Totem" and "Yuve Yuve Yu" reaching Top 10 at rock radio, The Hu are back with new album, Rumble of Thunder, showcased by 6 vinyl color variants globally. This album connects the world to Mongolian culture and it's unique core values of natural preservation and spiritual connection with the earth. These core values are on full display in the new album along with deeply meaningful lyrics uplift that Mongol people, as the band wishes for prosperity and peace among all.

Since the band's inception in 1992, Built to Spill founder Doug Martsch intended his beloved band to be a collaborative project, an ever-evolving group of musicians making music and playing live together. "I wanted to switch the lineup for many reasons. Each time we finish a record I want the next one to sound totally different. It's fun to play with people who bring in new styles and ideas, " says Martsch. "And it's nice to be in a band with people who aren't sick of me yet." Following several albums and EPs on Pacific Northwest independent labels, including the indie-rock classic, There's Nothing Wrong With Love, released on Sub Pop offshoot Up Records in 1994, Martsch signed with Warner Brothers from 1995 to 2016. He and his rotating cast of cohorts recorded six more great albums during that time - Perfect From Now On, Keep It Like a Secret, Ancient Melodies of the Future, You In Reverse, Untethered Moon, There Is No Enemy. There was also a live album, and a solo record, Now You Know. While the band's impeccable recorded catalog is the entry point, Built to Spill live is an essential force of it's own: heavy, psychedelic, melodic, and visceral tunes blaring from amps that sound as if they're powered by Mack trucks. Now in 2022, Built to Spill returns with When the Wind Forgets Your Name, Martsch's unbelievably great new album (and his eighth full-length)... with a fresh new label. "I'm psyched: I've wanted to be on Sub Pop since I was a teenager. And I think I'm the first fifty year-old they've ever signed." (The rumors are true, we love quinquagenarians...). When the Wind Forgets Your Name continues expanding the Built to Spill universe in new and exciting ways. In 2018 Martsch's good fortune and keen intuition brought him together with Brazilian lo-fi punk artist and producer Le Almeida, and his long-time collaborator, Joao Casaes, both of the psychedelic jazz rock band, Orua. Martsch fell in love with their music the moment he heard it. So when he needed a new band for shows in Brazil, he asked them, and the partnership went so well Martsch, Almeida, and Casaes continued playing together throughout 2019, touring the US and Europe and ultimately recording the bass and drum tracks for When the Wind Forgets Your Name at Doug's rehearsal space in Boise. After Martsch tracked guitars and vocals, they group collaborated from afar to mix the album. What emerged is When the Wind Forgets Your Name, a complex and cohesive blend of the artists' distinct musical ideas. Alongside Built to Spill's poetic lyrics and themes, the experimentation and attention to detail produces an album full of unique, vivid, and timeless sounds, from guitar-driven rock odes to REM and Dinosaur Jr to bluesy '60s-style anthems to dub-reggae-inspired instrumentation. It may have taken us 30 years of obvious fandom and courtship, but on September 9, 2022, Sub Pop Records is unabashedly proud to finally release an excellent new album from Built to Spill: When the Wind Forgets Your Name. Sometimes persistence pays off.

2022 release. Herb Alpert, the prolific Tijuana Brass titan, returns with Sunny Side Of The Street. This new set of 11 songs contains gentle ballads like "Childhood" and "Time After Time", upbeat romps like "Pata Pata" and "Tickle Time" and covers of classic songs like "I'll Remember You" and Louis Armstrong's "On The Sunny Side Of The Street". Few artists in the history of American music have been able to stay relevant decade after decade like the 87-year-old Alpert. So, put on your shades and take a walk with Herb on the Sunny Side Of The Street.

Like the many Banded Stilts that spread across the cover of her newest album Flood, Stella Donnelly is wading into uncharted territory. Here, she finds herself discovering who she is as an artist among the flock, and how abundant one individual can be. Flood is Donnelly's record of this rediscovery: the product of months of risky experimentation, hard moments of introspection, and a lot of moving around. Her early reflections on the relationship between the individual and the many can be traced back to Donnelly's time in the rainforests of Bellingen, where she took to birdwatching as both a hobby and an escape in a border-restricted world. By paying closer attention to the natural world around her, she recalls "I was able to lose that feeling of anyone's reaction to me. I forgot who I was as a musician, which was a humbling experience of just being; being my small self." Reconnecting with the 'small self' allowed Donnelly to tap into creative wells she didn't know existed. Soon songs were coming to her in a way she could not control and over the coming months, Donnelly accumulated 43 tracks as she moved out of Bellingen and around the country, often finding herself displaced due to border restrictions, a tough rental market, and once from the joys of finding black mould in the walls. "I had so many opportunities to write things in strange places," Donnelly remarks, having passed through Fremantle, Williams, Guilderton, Margaret River and Melbourne. "I often had no choice about where I was. There's no denying that not being able to access your family with border closures, it zooms in on those parts of your life you care about." With new locations came new approaches. "It freshened things up for sure," Donnelly says, and writing with band members Jennifer Aslett, George Foster, Jack Gaby and Marcel Tussie, soon began to feel like kindergarten play. "They all brought themselves to the record in such a beautiful way. A lot of us were playing instruments that weren't our first instrument: me on piano, Jack doing all these synth sounds, George trying a bunch of stuff out, Marcel sang! We were all like 'plink plonk'; it was quite vulnerable for all of us." Along with the support of her band members, co-producing the record beside Anna Laverty and Methyl Ethyl's Jake Webb helped to foster an important spontaneity in the studio. With Webb, Donnelly could "dig in" and discover a "forward-leaning sound" she'd been searching for, while Laverty's ability to "capture the piano" and discern the "perfect take" allowed the songwriter to take further risks. Straying from the easier option of writing on an electric guitar, Donnelly's move to piano imbues her new work with a fluidity and vulnerability that befits the record's introspective nature. Donnelly had not played much piano - what she fondly calls "a very easy instrument to fuck up" - since her early childhood and there was something wonderfully playful and poignant about climbing back up onto the piano stool and finding her fingers. Flood revels in this. In "Restricted Account", the piano quietly dances back and forth with her vocals, while the warmth of the fluegelhorn blooms above; piano again drives the band along in "Move Me" as the understated horn returns and Donnelly later aptly sings, "You're the bit that holds us all together". These patterns flicker across the record, dispelling any fears of the record turning out disjointed from it's origin story. Much of the album is ultimately united by Donnelly's intuitive songwriting, where listeners can expect commanding assertive verses, euphoric shimmery choruses and killer bridges; and just when you think you really know what to expect, something alien will arrive: the offspring of the band's "plink plonking". Subverting expectations and keeping people on their toes has long been a strategy of the 'firstborn' in Donnelly. "I can't sit on something for too long," she laughs, "it's an oldest child thing: you strive to entertain; you've got to fight for your spot to keep someone engaged." The child's fight for their spot at the table, both in and out of the home, appears throughout Flood in different personas; one offers a bold exclamation about being a child the rest of her life, while another grapples over whether to wear or throw away her beads from when she was five. In "Morning Silence", one declares "Same old fight was had today / Great grandchild will see the same." Throughout the record, Donnelly looks back at history and wonders where she's come from and where she'll go next. In opener "Lungs" we hear her plead, "History again teach me like a friend what you know and why," and this curiosity extends into many of the songs exploring relationships, be them familial, romantic or platonic. "I do love observing human dynamics," Donnelly says. "Dynamics between old best friends, or dynamics between housemates, or a relationship where the two people are broken up and haven't spoken in years. I like getting into the mind of someone who we've all been at some point." This interest expresses itself in a unique way on the record as Donnelly regularly 'plays dress-up', adopting different faces and personas to help her distill her truest self. In "Lungs" she writes from the point of view of a child whose family has just been evicted, while "Flood" invites us to look through the eyes of someone dating Donnelly, with lyrics frank and at times damning. Looking back at the Banded Stilt, Donnelly ultimately appreciates how when "seen in a crowd they create an optical illusion, but on it's own it's this singular piece of art." While each song on Flood is a singular artwork unto itself, the collective shares all of Stella Donnelly in abundance: her inner child, her nurturing self, her nightmare self; all of herself has gone into the making of this record, and although it would take an ocean to fathom everything she feels, it's well worth diving in.

In the kitchen of the Byron Bay home of Winston McCall stands a refrigerator, adorned on one side by a quote from Tom Waits: “I want beautiful melodies telling me terrible things.”

This, the PARKWAY DRIVE vocalist says, is a pretty good summation of him-self. It holds true, too, as one of the guiding principles behind Darker Still, the seventh full-length album to be born of this picturesque and serene corner of north-eastern NSW, Australia, and the defining musical statement to date from one of modern metal’s most revered bands.

Darker Still, McCall says, is the vision he and his bandmates – guitarists Jeff Ling and Luke Kilpatrick, bassist Jia O’Connor and drummer Ben Gordon – have held in their mind’s eye since a misfit group of friends first convened in their parents’ basements and backyards in 2003. The journey to reach this moment has seen Parkway evolve from metal underdogs to festival-headlining behemoth, off the back of close to 20 gruelling years, six critically and commercially acclaimed studio albums (all of which achieving Gold status in their home nation), three documentaries, one live album, and many, many thousands of shows.

While Darker Still remains irrefutably PARKWAY DRIVE, it finds the band sonically standing shoulder to shoulder with rock and metal’s greats – Metallica, Pantera, Machine Head, Guns N’ Roses – as much as it does their metalcore contemporaries. “I wanted a classic guitar tone for this record,” explains Ling, who credits much of his inspiration to the connection his riffs have with a crowd in a live setting. 

Emerging from the darkness of the past few years, this is the true face of PARKWAY DRIVE: redefined and resolute, focused in mind and defiant in spirit.

Born Aaron Livingston, GRAMMY Award winning Son Little unleashes his album Like Neptune never sounding stronger or more confident than now, showcasing his original vision of r&b, informed by his love for hip-hop imbued with tinges of funk, pop, and psychedelia. While Little’s collaborations with The Roots and RJD2 had already helped him make a name for himself by that point in his adopted hometown of Philadelphia, critics on both sides of the pond were quick to recognize the unique power of Little’s solo recordings, which stripped the past for parts that could be reconstituted into something wholly new and original. NPR hailed Little’s “impeccably crafted songs” as “honest and unpretentious,” while The Independent proclaimed him “a formidable talent,” and Vice declared that he was “dissolving the barrier between R&B and rock ‘n’ roll one tearjerker at a time.”

“The whole point of this record was to share every emotion that I feel,” says The Soft Moon’s Luis Vasquez.“No two songs are the same. It’s about existing in the world as a human being and experiencing many emotions and experiences throughout life.” 

And so hence the title Exister, a record rooted in the ecstatic joys and crippling lows that life can throw up and how just hanging on and existing is sometimes all we have. “Exister is my way of saying ‘I’m here, deal with it.’” Vasquez says. 

Sonically, this expression is a vast, expansive and potent one. The opening ‘Sad Song’, which unfurls with a dense brooding atmosphere, Vasquez describes as almost a ballad, while tracks such as ‘The Pit’ capture the opposite end of the musical spectrum, exploding as a thundering piece of industrial techno complete with gut-churning levels of bass. ‘Monster’ - a song that follows a human metamorphosis into an unrecognizable and destructive being - seamlessly combines a deeply melodic, almost electro pop, vocal hook with a slow build atmospherics to create something equally beautiful and unsettling. ‘Become the Lies’ explores the devastating consequences of being lied to by your own family and is a post-punk stomper, merging charging basslines, pummelling drums and snaking guitars, all of which combine explosively. Elsewhere the album runs the gauntlet of everything from ambient to dark wave - features ferocious guest contributions from fish narcand Special Interest’s Alli Logoton ‘Him’ and ‘Unforgiven’ - all while retaining that distinct tone that unmistakably The Soft Moon.

Divino Niño are no strangers to bold reinvention. When Camilo Medina and Javier Forero—friends whose bond dates back to their childhoods in Bogotá, Colombia—moved to Chicago and recruited guitarist Guillermo Rodriguez to form a band, they were psych-pop outsiders playing live shows with a drum machine. With the addition of drummer Pierce Codina, their 2019 breakthrough and debut LP for Winspear, Foam, solidified their place as local indie rock mainstays. Soon after, multi-instrumentalist Justin Vittori joined to round out their lineup. Once again, with their masterful, unpredictable, and eminently danceable new album, the band has done something radical: They totally upended the way they write songs, eschewing practice room jams for unrelentingly collaborative beats, implied grooves for immersive dance floor heaters, and mellow vibes for frenetic doses of reggaeton, electropop, and trap on their most adventurous and ambitious work to date. Welcome to the Last Spa on Earth.

Written and recorded over the past two years, Last Spa on Earth deals in release and catharsis: confronting your darkest moments and coming out better for it. The album artwork, done by Medina, a longstanding visual artist, depicts a dreamy, yet graffiti-tagged spa, void of physical bodies so listeners can envision themselves in this unique environment. It represents the yin and yang approach Divino Niño took while creating the album: the serenity of the spa and the chaos of the party. Ultimately, the band’s desire is to provide healing in the same way one feels after sweating, shivering, stretching, and resting at the spa against the backdrop of the world’s darkness. Last Spa on Earth is the cathartic product of Divino Niño letting go of their musical preconceptions, past traumas, and future anxieties to embrace change, chaos, and each other’s contributions both to these songs and to each other.

With The Will To Live, Titus Andronicus invite listeners on a journey from fear to faith, from anger to acceptance, from grief to gratitude, all chasing the mythical ideal of Ultimate Rock. Drawing on maximalist rock epics from Who's Next to Hysteria, the band have crafted their richest, densest, and hardest-hitting album to date, matching the sprawl and scope of their most celebrated work while also streamlining their ambitious attack to greater effect than ever before.The Will to Live was produced by Titus Andronicus singer-songwriter Patrick Stickles and award-winning Canadian producer Howard Bilerman (Arcade Fire, Leonard Cohen, The Whole Nine Yards) at the latter's hotel2tango recording studio in Montreal. "It may strike some as ironic we had to go to Canada to record our equivalent to Born in the USA," says Stickles, "but the pursuit of Ultimate Rock knows no borders."The album comes packaged with gorgeous triple gatefold artwork by illustrious illustrator Nicole Rifkin.

2022 release. Hideous Bastard, the debut album from Oliver Sim-best known for his work as songwriter, bassist, and vocalist of The xx-is set for release on September 9th via Young. Produced by bandmate Jamie xx, Hideous Bastard is the culmination of two years of writing and recording, inspired by Sim's love of horror movies and his own life experience, unpacking themes of shame, fear, and masculinity. These themes are front and centre on new single "Hideous". Enlisting the help of lifelong hero and "guardian angel" Jimmy Somerville on guest vocals, the single sets the scene for the forthcoming album and sees Sim speaking publicly for the first time that he's been living with HIV since the age of seventeen. It debuts with a video by another personal hero, French director Yann Gonzalez, who has also collaborated with Sim on a forthcoming queer horror short film of the same name that premiered yesterday as part of the Semaine de la Critiqueat the Cannes Film Festival.

Magnetically energetic and eternally hopeful, Dayglow (the project of Austin, TX based Sloan Struble) excels in creating catchy, carefully crafted, effervescent indie pop. His home-recorded 2018 debut album Fuzzybrain featured the Platinum Certified single “Can I Call You Tonight?”, which went on to be hailed as 2020’s biggest independent alternative hit. Following up with his sophomore album Harmony House in 2021, Dayglow generated a mountain of indie buzz and critical acclaim anchored by lead single "Close To You". Now, after racking up over a billion streams and selling out headline tours around the world, Dayglow returns with his third album People In Motion. Fun and colorful, People In Motion meditates on the ideas of commitment, inner peace, and movement, while inviting the listener to the dance floor to leave the chaos and noise of our current culture behind.

Broken Bells are back with their third full length album, INTO THE BLUE.

2022 release, the long-awaited fourth album from hardcore supergroup Off. "A heavy punk industrial free jazz soundtrack recording".in blues and folk, including standards and new cuts from Virgil.

Dan Álvarez de Toledo and Jordan Dunn-Pilz have a special bond. Growing up in Newburyport, Massachusetts, the two were fast and unshakable friends through sleepovers, school choir practices, and discovering formative bands, to the point that now, as roommates in Brooklyn, they finish each other’s sentences. This shared history and obvious love for each other are tangible in their songwriting project TOLEDO, named after the Spanish town and Álvarez’s  familial namesake. Their music, which is full of seamless harmonies throughout, skirts the softer edges of indie rock and the darker fringes of pop with each song imbuing a heaping dose of vulnerability and emotional openness.

On How It Ends, their debut album which is out September 23 via Grand Jury Music, the two dive into each other’s family histories and traumas as they navigate their own lives as twenty-something musicians. These tracks are striking for their blunt honesty but also for the way Álvarez and Dunn-Pilz’s real-life chemistry translates on record: the 12 songs are as tender as a warm hug and as clarifying as a needed reality check. This LP is the product of deep self-reflection and the necessary hard work that comes with any relationship. 

Perseverance carries us through the most turbulent, traumatic, and trying of times. When all hope seems lost, it shines a light from the inside that’s impossible to extinguish, no matter how hard even the darkest forces try. That light also burns bright at the heart of Gogol Bordello. Since 1999, the band have consistently riled up audiences with an inimitable patchwork of punk, gypsy, dub, folk, Latin swing, and Eastern European magic.

However, the New York-based collective trumpet the spirit of survival louder than ever on their eighth full-length album, SOLIDARITNE. Ukrainian-born band leader Eugene Hutz and Co. linked up with New York underground icon Walter Schreifels [Gorilla Biscuits, Rival Schools, Quicksand] to co-produce the album.  Meanwhile, H.R. of Bad Brains guested on “Era of the End of Eras,” blessing the track with a cameo punctuated by a key moment from the Bad Brains anthem “Sailin’ On.” The band also recorded a new version single “Forces of Victory” [feat. Serhiy Zhadan & Kazka]. Dizzying acoustic guitar and violin charge forward at lightspeed before crashing into an uplifting verse kickstarted by fits of electric guitar. The accompanying video juxtaposes footage of the band with real-life scenes of citizens and soldiers in the midst of war in Ukraine shot by a Gogol Bordello crew member.

In the end, Gogol Bordello rally everyone together on SOLIDARITNE.

Electric Callboy finally return with their highly anticipated studio album Tekkno. With tons of energy and fun on board, the band from Castrop-Rauxel delivers an unprecedentedly fulminant metalcore-firework that is second to none. On 11 incredibly strong tracks including the already released hit singles "We Got The Moves" and "Pump It" Electric Callboy show on their undoubtedly best album so far what they are made of.

Charley Crockett will release his latest album The Man From Waco on September 9th via Son of Davy/Thirty Tigers. Crockett wrote or co-wrote all 14 songs on the album, and in many ways The Man From Waco is the purest distillation of his artistry to date. What started as a demo session with producer Bruce Robison at Robison’s studio The Bunker outside Austin, TX turned into the first album Crockett has ever made with his band The Blue Drifters backing him from start to finish. Mostly first takes with only a handful of overdubs, The Man From Waco finds Crockett refining his singular “Gulf & Western” sound which continues to captivate an ever-growing legion of fans.

“I just wanted an honest partnership: do it at your place, live to tape, everybody in the room,” Crockett says of the recording experience, and Robison was happy to accommodate. “The magic is in the performances on that tape. That’s what Bruce wanted to do, that’s what I wanted to do. When we were done, I said ‘these are masters, not demos.’”

There’s a loose narrative thread that ties the album together, but at the center of The Man From Waco is Crockett, who continues to trust his instincts and carve out his own singular space. Eschewing the ever-growing siren song of major labels and GRAMMY-winning producers, Crockett is forging ahead as a mostly DIY artist, calling his own shots and giving himself the space to strive for greatness on his own terms.

“Everybody was telling me: ‘go right, go right, go right,’” says Crockett. “I went left. I had to hold on to what has gotten me this far.”

The Man From Waco will be in a record store near you on September 9th on CD, Vinyl, and an indie record store exclusive edition featuring alternate album artwork.