Street date: 2009-09-02

Sin Ropas - Tim Hurley & Danni Iosello - make their home in Marshall, North Carolina. They moved into the town's abandoned library building where they wrote and recorded Fire Prizes. The week they started recording, the French Broad River, which divides Marshall along the rail lines, jumped its banks and threatened the town. A dark and slow chaos ensued: people scattered languidly, trains sneaked along their tracks lowing tentatively, smaller, and then larger, pieces of people's lives floated past the back doors of the library to the lost-sound accompaniment of the landlady's dish collection clanking and ringing at the watertop below. There is the die-cut letter pressed jacket with the die cut tree revealing the full color inner-sleeve and when you pull the last layer back the picture disc is revealed. Brent Green provided the artwork for the inner-sleeve and picture disc while the fine folks at Dexterity Press provided the super die-cut jacket with inked letter pressed font. This release, Matryoshka doll-like, is limited to 485 worldwide, with only 100 available for Europe.

Street date: 2009-02-09

Shana David's debut EP and the inaugural release on the brand new Shrug label "Terminally Bourgeois" - as Andre Breton declared all music to be - is a 70g white vinyl 7" which features artwork by local Jacksonville artist and collaborator Ryan Strasser. Shana David's songs rely on simplicity and wit. In addition, her wobbly, winning voice, primitive keyboard melodies and skittish sense of fun make this 7" a must for lovers of tuneful oddness (and odd tunefulness). The MG-1 Mini-Synth and vocals, both courtesy of Shana result in something which is "...nothing short of delightful" according to Jacksonville's Folio Weekly. They also called it "witty" with lyrics that are "clever as hell" and also used the gnomic phrase "short funness" a phrase that rather aptly describes Shana herself. Listeners will no doubt be moved to employ their own superlatives on encountering the skewed, poppish charms of this infinitely covetable 7". As Minor Threat/Fugazi/Dischord mainman Ian Mackaye put it in a recent p.s. - "I enjoyed 'Fucked Up' thanks for the 7inch." Who could put it better than that?

Street date: 2009-02-09

The first full LP release on new vinyl-only label Shrug, is the music for Interkosmos. Jim Finn's shoe-string sci-fi film concerning an East German space mission was created by Jim Becker and Colleen Burke, with additional drum parts by Jim White and additional vocals by Jiha Lee. Besides writing and touring with his band Califone, Jim Becker most recently has toured with the bands Freakwater and the Dirty Three. As well as playing piano in the band We Ragazzi, Colleen Burke recently toured with Smog and is currently collaborating with filmmaker Eve Sussman to develop a musical film in Miami. Jiha Lee has sang and played flute with Bright Eyes and The Good Life. Dirty Three drummer Jim White has toured and recorded with Cat Power, Nick Cave, Will Oldham and recently played percussion on the score of Nick Cave's film The Proposition. The film score is a charming cosmic exploration taking in nods to krautrock, the more cosmically-minded variety of prog rock and classic science fiction soundtracks. This limited run of 500 come on 180g pink vinyl and is hugged by a cleverly crafted jacket, designed by Dexterity Press.

Street date: 2009-02-09

New Steam was produced between November 2006 and January 2007 at the late, great Ice Factory venue/recording studio. In addition to songs and arrangements by Roommate frontman/founder Kent Lambert, it features performances by drummer Seth Vanek (Crap Engine, Velvetron), guitarist Justin Petertil (Crap Engine), analog synth savant Luther Rochester (Low Skies), bassist Anton Hatwich (Rempis Percussion Quartet, Kyle Bruckmann's Wrack), bassoonist Katie Young & violinist Erica Dicker (Till By Turning), violist Amy Cimini (Till By Turning, !!!, Imaginary Folk), and banjoist Mercedes Landazuri (Rio Bamba, Saravah). Todd Leibov (Aleks and the Drummer) and Thomas Comerford (Kaspar Hauser) make guest appearances. The EP features two originals Until Then and Emidio Anotci alongside two covers Quarter Horses (Red Red Meat) and Until Then (Broadcast). The 10 inch vinyl edition includes letterpress artwork designed by Dean Rank and printed at Chicago's Dexterity Press. It is limited to 500 copies worldwide, only 100 available to Europe!

Street date: 2009-02-09

When infinite information is available 24 hours a day at the click of a button, it can become difficult to distinguish between waking life and dream life. Virtual identities supersede their real-world counterparts as images both horrific and idyllic are browsed casually. Scenes that once seemed possible only in nightmares are captured and sold as reality, and sleeping states become repositories for the mundane details of increasingly surreal routines. It is in this blurred cycle of waking and dreaming that We Were Enchanted finds its foundation. Much like a dream, the album does not follow a purely linear structure; instead, it is formed from a series of startling images, both gorgeous and grotesque, from which a series of themes emerges: the escapism and anonymity of digital life; the endless, vacuous cycle of modern news; the struggle to connect meaningfully with the earth and other humans in a wasteful and destructive society; the seductive appeal of fantasy and nostalgia in a landscape defined by American Idolatry and Wars of Terror. Avoiding easy cynicism, Roommate examines these and other themes with earnest idealism and self-observant irony, finding hope, beauty and humor where little seems possible.