AIMS Music

SUGAREGG roars from the speakers and jumpstarts both heart and mind. Like My Bloody Valentine after three double espressos, opener "Add It On" zooms heavenward within seconds, epitomizing band leader Alicia Bognanno's newfound clarity of purpose, while the bass-driven melodies and propulsive beats of "Where to Start" and "Let You" are the musical equivalents of the sun piercing through a perpetually cloudy sky. A very old saying goes that no one saves us but ourselves. Recognizing and breaking free from the patterns impeding our forward progress can be transformative. Indeed, the third Bully album, SUGAREGG, may not ever have come to fruition had Bognanno not navigated every kind of upheaval imaginable and completely overhauled her working process along the way. The artist admits that finding the proper treatment for bipolar 2 disorder radically altered her mindset, freeing her from a cycle of paranoia and insecurity about her work. "Being able to finally navigate that opened the door for me to write about it," she says, pointing to the sweet, swirly "Like Fire" and slower, more contemplative songs such as "Prism" and "Come Down" as having been born of this new headspace. Even small changes like listening to music instead of the news first thing in the morning "made me want to write and bring that pleasure to other people." An unexpected foray into the film world also helped set the table for SUGAREGG when Bognanno was asked to write songs for the 2019 movie Her Smell, starring Elisabeth Moss as the frontwoman of the fictional rock band Something She. The experience was cathartic, infusing Bognanno with new energy for songwriting, and she dove into making the new album. Having engineered both previous Bully albums herself, Bognanno freed herself to focus on the songs by handing production and engineering duties to Grammy-winning producer John Congleton (St. Vincent, Sleater-Kinney, The War on Drugs, Modest Mouse), and who worked with her on SUGAREGG at Pachyderm Studios in Cannon Falls in Bognanno's home state of Minnesota. (Nirvana's In Utero, PJ Harvey's Rid of Me and Superchunk's Foolish were recorded at Pachyderm.) With contributions from longtime touring drummer Wesley Mitchell and bassist Zach Dawes (Sharon Van Etten and Lana Del Rey), and two additional songs recorded at Palace Studios in Toronto with Graham Walsh (Alvvays, METZ, !!!), SUGAREGG was finally complete. Ultimately, SUGAREGG is a testament that profound change can yield profound results - in this case, the most expressive and powerful music of Bognanno's career. "This is me longing to see the bigger picture, motivated and eager for contentment in the best way," she says. "I hope the happy go lucky/f***-it-all attitude shines through some of these songs because I really did feel like I was reentering a place I hadn't been to in a while and was excited to be back there."

After years spent looking out at landscapes and loved ones and an increasingly unstable world, Rolling Blackouts Coastal Fever have turned their gaze inward, to their individual pasts and the places that inform them, on their second full-length, Sideways to New Italy. Led by singer-songwriter-guitarists Tom Russo, Joe White and Fran Keaney, the guitar-pop five-piece returned home to Australia after the relentless touring schedule that came following their critically regarded 2018 debut Hope Downs. Feeling the literal and metaphorical ground under their feet had shifted, the band began grasping for something reliable. For Keaney, that translated into writing "pure romantic fiction" and consciously avoiding the temptation of angsty break-up songs, while Russo looked north to a "bizarre place" that captured the feeling of manufacturing a sense of home when his own had disappeared. The New Italy of the new album’s title is a village near New South Wales’ Northern Rivers – the area drummer Marcel Tussie is from. A blink-and-you'll-miss-it pit-stop of a place with fewer than 200 residents, it was founded by Venetian immigrants in the late-1800s and now serves as something of a living monument to Italians' contribution to Australia, with replica Roman statues dotted like alien souvenirs on the otherwise rural landscape. The parallels to the way the band attempted to maintain connections and create familiarity during their disorienting time on the road was apparent to Russo. "These are the expressions of people trying to find a home somewhere alien: trying to create a utopia in a turbulent and imperfect world." The record's geographic identity emerged from the band losing their grip on their own, whether that was through the pressure of touring, the dissolution of relationships, a frustrating distance from their daily lives – or some combination of all three – that came from being slingshotted all over the world, playing sold-out headline tours and festivals including Coachella, Governors Ball, Primavera Sound, All Points East, and Pitchfork Music Festival. The notion of crafting, in Russo’s words, “a utopia of where your heart’s from,” permeates Sideways to New Italy, in which early attempts at writing big, high-concept songs about The State of the World were abandoned in favor of love songs, and familiar voices and characters filter in and out, grounding the band's stories in their personal histories. There’s something comforting, too, in knowing the next time they’re buffeted from stage to stage around the world, they’ll be taking the voices of their loved ones with them, building a new totem of home no matter where they end up.

Deluxe CD + DVD edition. The Kenny Wayne Shepherd Band release Straight To You: Live. Their only other live output, the Live! In Chicago album was released a decade ago and got itself a Grammy nomination along the way, but this time around for 2020, you get to watch the band in it's full glory as well as listen. In the last 10 years the multi-platinum selling Shepherd has gone from strength to strength, winning countless awards, releasing four studio albums and touring the world over several times - from Brazil to Europe, India to Canada and US to Australia and beyond. The band were only weeks into The Traveler World Tour when the Covid-19 pandemic broke, and the world came to a standstill. The show took place at the famous Leverkusen Jazzstage for the iconic German TV show, Rockpalast on 25th November 2019. The seven-piece band took the stage and immediately launched into their most-recent hit-single 'Woman Like You'.

2020 debut album by this band led by former Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers guitarist Mike Campbell. The band also features singer-guitarist Jason Sinay, bassist Lance Morrison and drummer Matt Laug. The album features musical contributions from Chris Stapleton and Heartbreakers keyboardist Benmont Tench. The album was produced by George Drakoulias and the artwork was created by Plastic Ono Band bassist Klaus Voormann.

Two CDs. 2020 release. Cyr is the 11th studio album by alternative rock band The Smashing Pumpkins. The album is the second studio album from the band (after 1995's album Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness) to be released as a double album, and also the second album of the Shiny and Oh So Bright series. Includes "Confessions of a Dopamine Addict", "Anno Satana", "Ramona", and the title track.

Two CDs. 2020 live release. Idiot Prayer: Nick Cave Alone at Alexandra Palace is a concert film and live album by musician Nick Cave. It was filmed by cinematographer Robbie Ryan and features Cave performing solo on piano at Alexandra Palace in London. Idiot Prayer serves as the final film in a trilogy-along with 20,000 Days on Earth (2014) and One More Time with Feeling (2016)-and was described by Cave as "it's luminous and heartfelt climax."

2020 release from the alt-rock band led by singer/songwriter Mark Everett (AKA E). Earth to Dora is the follow-up to the band's 2018 release The Deconstruction.

"I first heard Lady In Satin in a mega-shopping mall somewhere in San Francisco. I was about 20 years old and didn't know much about Billie's records or her life or how her voice changed over the years. Anyway, the sound was coming from the other side of the mall and I remember mistaking her voice for a beautiful perfectly distorted electric guitar - some other-world thing floating there on this strange mournful ocean of strings and I was hooked for life. Ten years later in 2006 I recorded an electric guitar instrumental version of "I'm A Fool To Want You" for my album Post-War. In 2018 I performed a concert in LA. Of all the songs from Lady In Satin as a quintet and began preparing guitar arrangements for the recordings compiled on this record - Think of Spring. The title comes from a poem written in 1924 by Jane Brown-Thompson that eventually became "I Get Along Without You Very Well" in 1938 - the first song here. The conceit of Think of Spring is to filter the songs and strings from Lady In Satin through a single acoustic guitar using various alternate tunings and a minimal amount of textures and studio manipulation. #most of the songs were recorded on an analog Tascam four track. Think of Spring is inspired by Billie Holiday, Ray Ellis, J.J. Johnson, John Fahey and Robert Johnson. Proceeds from this record will benefit the Billie Holiday Foundation and Black Lives Matter. "- M. Ward

NCT’s 2nd full-length album ‘NCT - The 2nd Album RESONANCE Pt. 1’ will be released with a total of 12 tracks. With NCT's new combination of the members and various music genres, the album is already highly anticipated by their fans around the globe. The album includes 1 photobook, 1 folded poster (random 1 out of 3), 1 photo card (random 1 out of 23), one post card (random 1 out of 23). This is an official release from SM Entertainment and Caroline & will count towards Billboard and Gaon Charts.

King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard return with new album K.G., their sixteenth since forming in 2010. In the wake of a global pandemic, it's a collection of songs composed and recorded remotely after the six members of the band retreated to their own homes scattered around Melbourne, Australia. K.G. is a pure distillation of the King Gizzard sound, one that cherry picks the best aspects of previous albums and contorts them into new shapes via defiantly non-western rock scales.

Shortly after delivering their breakthrough album Nonagon Infinity, King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard hit San Francisco's The Independent for a wildly frenetic and meticulously executed set. One of their final club gigs, the Melbourne septet gave a breakneck performance that "made every organ ache just right" (SF Weekly). Live in San Francisco '16 (ATO Records) captures an extraordinary moment in the band's history, a 13-song spectacular likely to leave every listener awestruck and adrenalized.

4-panel softpack + 16-page booklet

The Waterfall II completes The Waterfall, My Morning Jacket’s acclaimed 2015 record. Originally intended to be a sprawling triple album, the band were advised to hold back and keep some of it on the shelf. Until now! Frontman Jim James says, "this is simply the second half of a long snapshot of life for me as a writer in the years leading up to 2014, and the life of us as a band as we lived and worked in the epic country in and around Stinson Beach, CA during these recording sessions."

Black Pumas have unveiled a deluxe edition of their Grammy-nominated self-titled debut album via ATO Records. Features original album plus 11 bonus tracks, three new original songs and four cover tracks, plus unreleased live material. Double CD Set housed 4-panel wallet packaging with 12-page insert and unpublished studio/live photographs, plus new artwork.

The unlikely partnership between acoustic guitar pioneer Leo Kottke and Phish bassist Mike Gordon continues with the long-awaited Noon, their first new album in 15 years. Couching late-night melancholy in a summer lilt, Noon features 11 tracks of warmly askew songs and intricate playing -- and the intimate third voice created by Kottke and Gordon, two of the most accomplished and idiosyncratic instrumentalists in American music.

Two CDs includes bonus album Not Normal. 2020 release. Hailed by American Songwriter for their "mind-bending musicality," moe. Is undoubtedly amongst our most vital and inspired bands, treasured for their mesmerizing musical synergy, expansive showmanship, and resonant songcraft. Since coming together in Buffalo, NY, the band has embarked on a truly original journey spanning three decades. This Is Not, We Are is their 12th studio album and first since 2014's acclaimed No Guts, No Glory.

2020 release, the first album in seven years from the alt-rock band. Nearly 30 years into an already impressive career, Less than Jake has never been a band to rest on it's laurels. "We made a new record! Our first full length with our new drummer, Matt Yonker, and it sounds amazing," shares vocalist/guitarist Chris Demakes. "More vocal hooks than a tackle box, horns galore and that bombastic and upbeat energy that we're known for. We didn't try to reinvent the wheel with this one, it's still undeniably Less than Jake. Just a bit punchier and in your face. We can't wait for our fans to hear it!"

2020 release, the sophomore album from singer/songwriter Russell Dickerson. Southern Symphony was co-produced with frequent collaborator Casey Brown and legendary producer Dann Huff. Includes the single "Love You Like I Used To".

Four CD + Blu-ray. 2020 live release from the progressive metal band. Distant Memories - Live in London is a live album that features the band performing their 1999 album, Metropolis Part 2 - Scenes From a Memory, in it's entirety, alongside other hits.

1 CD, 1 photo book, 1 making book, 1 lyric poster, 8 photo cards, 1 polaroid photo card, 1 photo frame, 7 postcards, 1 poster. All sales count towards Soundscan and the US Billboard Charts, as well as the Korean Hanteo and Gaon charts.

CD Two pocket wallet with lyric and photo book

Barely a year after the release of their acclaimed debut album 'Dogrel' (which charted Top 10 in the UK, earned a Mercury Prize nomination, Fallon performance, and #1 Album of the Year positions for BBC 6Music and Rough Trade), Fontaines DC have returned with an intensely confident, patient, and complex sophomore album. 'A Hero's Death' arrives battered and bruised, albeit beautiful - a heady and philosophical take on the modern world, and its great uncertainty.

If 'Joy As An Act of Resistance.' was meant to detail the band's manifesto, then their highly anticipated third album ' 'Ultra Mono' - is the sound of IDLES heading into battle, battering ram in hand, for those tenets. Sonically constructed to capture the feeling of a hip-hop record (Kenny Beats even helped with programming on several tracks), the songs double down on the vitriolic sneer and blunt social commentary of their past work. Not far beneath the surface of their self-admitted sloganeering lies a deeply complex and brutally relevant album that chews up clichés and spits them out as high art for the masses. Active presence and self-acceptance also stand at the core of 'Ultra Mono,' with much of the songwriting done on-the-spot in the recording booth, and the phrase 'I am I' serving as a lyrical and spiritual mantra throughout. Ultimately 'Ultra Mono' is a celebration of community.

The newest chapter for Dirty Projectors is a sequence of five four-song EPs. Each EP features lead vocals by a different band member including Maia Friedman, Felicia Douglass, Kristin Silpp and Dave Longstreth. The final EP features vocals by all members. Each song collection is strikingly different from the next, but true to itself: Maia's Window Opens is acoustic and folky; Felicia's Flight Tower is super future, both soulful and electronic. Kristin's Earth Crisis is cut-up orchestral collage - looped, pitch-shifted, digitally deconstructed - and Dave's Super Joao is four-track bossa nova. Ring Road, the final EP, recapitulates everything with a classic full-band Dirty Projects sound.

The Kills have compiled an extraordinary career spanning b-sides and rarities album titled, appropriately, Little Bastards. The songs date back from the band’s first 7-inch singles in 2002 through to 2009. All of the material has been newly remastered for release on 2 x LP, CD & Digital and marks the first ever vinyl pressing for some of these tracks.

First ignited over trans-Atlantic mixtapes shared between two kindred spirits at the turn of the Millennium, the past two decades have seen The Kills master a savage balance, unleashing artful detonation and subtle vocal and guitar violence. That’s five albums and four EPs where Alison Mosshart and Jamie Hince reimagined the possibilities of modern duality - alchemizing garage rock, punk, and blues into smoke clouds, psychic carnage, and a smoldering nocturnal slink into a northwest passage between Outkast and Suicide. Their last album, Ash & Ice (2016), was universally lauded, and their most recent release - a 2018 cover of Saul Williams’ “List Of Demands” b/w Peter Tosh’s “Stepping Razor” – marked 15 years since their first album as The Kills, 2003’s Keep On Your Mean Side. As performers, their chemistry is unmatched and unfettered; magnetic and enthralling whether drenched in guitar feedback or delivering a piano-led torch song under a single spotlight. The Kills have transcended whatever genres first claimed them and inhabit an entirely unique place in music culture. They are themselves. Inimitable and unparalleled, Little Bastards is a musical refresher manifest as a shot of pure adrenaline. Enjoy the memories. Long may they blaze.