LA pop/rock band Wallows performed at Amoeba Hollywood to celebrate the release of their debut EP Spring and beforehand we got a chance to talk with them about some of their favorite records, including David Bowie's final album, Black Star. "To be 68 years old and making this album," Dylan Minnette marveled, "[it's] completely game-changing, and unlike anything I've ever heard." The singer/guitarist considered the record one of the artist's best, saying, "David Bowie went out with one of his greatest albums in his entire catalog."

Los Angeles-based Wallows consists of Braeden Lemasters (vocals/guitars), Dylan Minnette (vocals/guitars), and Cole Preston (drums). Lemasters and Minnette, both child actors, met through their work in the film industry, later inviting Preston to play music with them. They have been performing in bands together since they were eleven-year-old students at the San Fernando Valley music school Join the Band. After collaborating musically for almost a decade, Wallows signed to Atlantic, releasing their debut recording, the Spring EP, (fittingly) in spring 2018.

of Montreal today announced the dates for their Fall 2016 US tour that will include three California dates in late October. The tour will be in support the group's recently announced, forthcoming album Innocence Reaches. That album, that features such tracks as "It's Different For Girls" (audio preview below), is scheduled to arrive in Amoeba on August 12th in CD and vinyl formats via the Athens, GA group's longtime label Polyvinyl. Last month the label released the group's double-A sided 7" single "Chinese Rocks" / "Either Way I Lose."  And last year Polyvinyl released of Montreal's Aureate Gloom (also in LP) in March. Then in April 2015, for Record Store Day, they unleashed the vinyl release of Snare Lustrous Doomings. Six months later in October they again released Snare Lustrous Doomings on CD and on LP formats in wider release numbers.

Innocence Reaches will be the fourteenth album from the Kevin Barnes band of two full decades and can be filed under such categories as contemporary electronica, indie pop, and EDM. As for how the album differs from other ones by his group, said Barnes: "I got into this bubble of only being in some other time period. I came up picking apart the Beach Boys, the Beatles, and symphonic pieces. But last year, I was hearing Jack Ü, Chairlift, Arca, and others, thinking about low end and sound collage. It was an extra layer to geek out on." 

Eclectic alt/rock band of Montreal today published the brand new stop-motion animated video (see below) for their song "Last Rites At The Jane Hotel" that is the second track found on their latest ten-song album Aureate Gloom [Note technically their most recent release would be their limited edition, Record Store Day only LP release Snare Lustrous Doomings]. Released a few months back on Polyvinyl Records the latest studio album is the Athens, GA band's thirteenth full-length to date and is currently available from Amoeba in both CD and LP formats.

For the unique new video, that was  directed by Matthew Cooper with graphics/art contributions from Michiko Suzuki, Samuel Pepys and Tom Moglu, the director reportedly carefully constructed it by spending a few months in production, and tediously working on its components that are entirely done in stop-motion animation.  He animated in 2D format first. Meanwhile the pieces in the video are all painted on wood and meticulously cut out to make the resulting video which is a bright sunny series of visuals that perfectly juxtapose the dark lyrical content of the Kevin Barnes penned song.

Hot on the heels of the release last week of of Montreal's brand new album Aureate Gloom care of Polyvinyl (also available in vinyl format) the prolific Athens, GA indie band have unleashed a music video for the ten song album's opening track/lead single "Bassem Sabry" (named for the Egyptian journalist who tragically died in the spring of 2014). The stream of consciousness, photo-montage styled video clip (below) that was shot mostly on Super 8 film was directed by Ben Rouse who, in a statement about his approach to its production, said that "I tend to peg myself as a photographer, so in many ways this project was a really beautiful boot camp into an entirely new medium. It's my first music video...so it was a massive learning experience and chance to make something exciting and meaningful with our friends. I felt very inspired by Věra Chytilová's Daisies, Stan Brakhage's Mothlight, and Jean Cocteau's Le Sang d'un Poète."

Aureate Gloom, which is of Montreal's thirteenth full-length album, was recorded at Sonic Ranch studio which is just across the border from Juarez, Mexico in the Texan desert where the album recording was done old school style: recorded directly to tape. There, with the help of engineer Drew Vandenberg, Aureate Gloom was recorded by Clayton Rychlik (drums), Bob Parins (bass), Bennett Lewis (guitar), JoJo Glidewell (keys), and of course Kevin Barnes (guitar, vocals). Of the album's revelatory lyrics main writer Barnes, who founded the band in 1996 and pictured above c/o Chad Kamenshine, admitted that it indeed might be a case of TMI. "I might be guilty of sharing or exposing too much of my private life, but to me the best albums are those that help people connect with an artist on a deep, human level and that do so without too much artifice or evasiveness," he said in a statement noting that, "I was going through a very stormy period in my life and felt like I was just completely trashed."

Record Store Day is this Saturday, April 19. You can see all of the records that will be available here, and be sure to check out my 10 to watch blog. To whet your appetite further, check out these songs that will be released on Record Store Day but that you can stream now. And be sure to come to Amoeba stores on April 19—read about what we’ll have going on in-store here.

Ex-Cult – “Ties You Up”

While this track will be on the upcoming Midnight Passenger album, this version (not found on the album) is produced by garage-rock wunderkind Ty Segall, giving it that extra oomph.

 

Lust for Youth – “Illume”

We’ve been fans of Sacred Bones signees Lust for Youth for some time now, but they seem to really be coming into their own with the cleaned-up and poppy “Illume.” It’ll appear on their new album International (out June 10), but before that, you can pick it up on Sacred Bones’ compilation Todo Muere Vol. 4, with other gothy goodies from Zola Jesus, Marissa Nadler, David Lynch and more.