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?Empty Estate? is the follow-up EP to the critically acclaimed ?Nocturne?, which received several year-end accolades including album of the yearin Under The Radar and iTunes. The 7-song EP was recorded in Brooklyn at Gary?s Electric by Al Carlson in January.

The album started with visions of large monumental sounds inspired by Heizer and Turrell; American works on a grand scale, monuments, dirty hands and an epic American masculinity. Dust, Stone, Sky, Earth.

These broad, bold strokes would come to pass but not quite as expected.

A Sci Fi aesthetic narrative emerged. Tackling distant pasts and future humanism, the pain and idiocy of our contemporary culture. How to deal with it open heartedly? The boredom, the sadness and speed. The plots within plots of Dune mirrored in many layers of sound. Creating 3D sonic atmospheres that our songs and singers inhabit.

Our story, a story, all stories. Told in verses, in underground language, in sub frequencies. Not audible, only felt, intuited, imagined in some deepest psychic space that you are yet to know. A strange story. Of the future, of yourself. Of everyone. We are all we are, only this and yet we move forward. Along some line to somewhere. And who knows?

You may have experienced Arrington de Dionyso?s Malaikat dan Singa as an unexpected live force, pushing up through the earth like daffodils in late winter; or maybe you?re familiar with their previous exploits in the studio, Malaikat dan Singa [KLP215] and Suara Naga [KLP226], which burn clean with fragrant traumas. Open the Crown is similarly passion-filled, with new vistas (channeled hallucinations) exploring English (previously only the Indonesian language was employed) as their stomping ground to expand parallel themes anew. Open the Crown conveys tendrils of raw energy emanating from the head ? dream visions translated directly to audio outrage. Heavy. And sexy. To be expected from Arrington de Dionyso and his molten collection of Malaikat dan Singa who manipulate the ?form?d and the formless? to create from within this broken system.

Beacon's debut album The Ways We Separate both consolidates and develops these ideas. The album focuses, as the title suggests, on the idea of separation ? both within the context of relationships and in a more intimate, psychological sense. As Thomas Mullarney explains, "The narrative contained inside The Ways We Separate deals with two kinds of separation: one where two entities grow apart, and the other where we grow apart from ourselves. Over the course of a relationship, the two sometimes happen together, one being the result of the other."

Bigfoot posesses flirty rhythmic sensibilities both snappy and sparkling, a rosy, near-tropical warmth, and a loose and conversational feel that position you right in the line of Yudin?s wry gaze.

Colin Stetson established himself as an intensely original solo composer and performer in 2011 with the release of the widely acclaimed New History Warfare Vol. 2: Judges, which ended up on countless year-end lists. Anyone who has seen Stetson in solo performance can attest to the stunning physicality of his circular-breathing technique and capacity to produce a seemingly impossible palate of multiple voicings simultaneously in real time.

New History Warfare Vol. 3: To See More Light is the final installment in a trilogy of solo albums, again recorded live in single takes and again mixed by groundbreaking producer Ben Frost. Colin's membership in Bon Iver has also led to vocal contributions from Justin Vernon for this record, who appears on four songs, and whose voice constitutes the only overdubbing on the album.

New History Warfare Vol. 3: To See More Light is the most cohesive and fully realized of Stetson's solo albums to date. It should reliably stand as the apotheosis of the New History Warfare trilogy, and certainly signals the full flourishing of Stetson's unique talents as both composer and performer, pressing his arsenal of virtuosic techniques into the service of vivid, impassioned and conceptually astute songcraft.

Celebrating their 10th year as one of independent music?s most substantive bands, Louisville?s Coliseum return with their fourth full-length, the stunning Sister Faith, to be released on April 30 on Temporary Residence Ltd. Expanding on the anthemic direction the trio veered toward on 2010?s highly acclaimed House With a Curse, Sister Faith?s 13 songs are the most dynamic and immediately captivating of the band?s career, bristling with galvanizing melodies at the collision point between punk and noise-rock. The first album to be recorded in producer J. Robbins? recently relocated Magpie Cage Studios, Sister Faith is also the first Coliseum recording to feature new bassist, Kayhan Vaziri, in addition to contributions from some of the groups? closest friends and musical peers: Wata of Boris, J. Robbins (Jawbox, Burning Airlines), and Jason Loewenstein (Sebadoh, The Fiery Furnaces), Jason Farrell (Swiz, Bluetip) all make small but memorable contributions.

Denison Witmer is Denison Witmer, a culmination of a story that started at the birth of independent music in the early 2000s.

He began his career in 1998 with Safe Away. Three albums, dozens of hard, long tours, and several years later, Denison released his most popular record Are You a Dreamer? in 2005. The industry changed quickly though - losing its focus on singer-songwriter folk music.

Instead of bowing to the pressure to follow musical trends, Denison continued to refine his sound, becoming more confident in creating something subtle and sublime. His music grew up as he did; a couple of years ago, his dad passed away, and in 2012, he became a new dad.

So, since Dreamer, there's been time, craft and perfection, and slow and quiet reflection and production. Now there?s Denison Witmer.

Fans who liked Dreamer, Denison's best-selling record, will love Denison Witmer. They?ll appreciate that Sufjan Stevens, William Fitzsimmons, and Devin Greenwood (Norah Jones, Amos Lee) all appear on this record. They?ll love the way Denison has figured out what works. They?ll appreciate the attention to detail, in songwriting and in production.

And for those new to Denison, they?re not not alone; there?s a whole generation of young songwriters in their early 20s that grew up listening to Denison. They?ve heard and respected a finely honed style that pulls from a tradition of folk singer-songwriters going back 40 years to Elliot Smith, Nick Drake, Carole King, Neil Young, and even Woody Guthrie.

Artists only get once chance to self-title a record. Denison chose a good one.

Vinyl reissue of master guitarist Loren Connors' modern classic The Departing of a Dream ? the first of what would become a three volume series based loosely as tribute to Miles Davis' "He Loved Him Madly." This album finds Connors exploring slowly churned darkened hues ? each collapsing onto themselves like echoes of Miles' muted trumpet and Connors' signature ghost melodies.

Since the late 1970s, Connors' use of haunted Delta Blues, minimalism and compositional underpinnings have become an avant-garde style synonymous to him. When The Departing of a Dream was released as a CD in 2002 it signaled a dramatic growth in Connors' sound by combining electric, acoustic and bass guitar with the unsettling menage of subtle percussion and ambient hiss. Remastered from the master tape this 180 gram LP extends the closing two part suite "For NY 9/11/01" with a bonus track. Comes with download code.

David Wingo is a busy man. In the years since the release of his last record as Ola Podrida, he's written and recorded soundtracks for several movies including Take Shelter (winner of the Grand Prix at Cannes in 2011), MUD (starring Matthew McConaughey and Reese Witherspoon), and Prince Avalanche (starring Paul Rudd and Emile Hirsch and co-composed with Explosions In The Sky), both of which are seeing wide release this coming spring/summer. When he had time in between films, Wingo assembled a live band featuring Colin Swietek on guitars, Matt Clark on bass, and David Hobizal on drums and began to bring his new songs in to the band. A first for Ola Podrida, the new album Ghosts Go Blind was recorded to tape in a proper studio, mostly live, with the full band. The resulting songs are energetic and accessible, while Wingo's abstract narratives are more personal and intimate than ever.

The Shivas are friends and sweethearts who grew up playing music together, launching Kickstarters for a tour van and then coming of age driving that van around the country. Having played literally hundreds of shows together just after high school, The Shivas? joy and serious performing chops set them apart from other surf-pop bands in the swarming Portland music scene. Like their Burger Record cassette-mates Thee Oh Sees before them, The Shivas? sweet harmonies and sun-baked sound harkens back to the origins of surf rock, and are too compelling for the physical senses to refuse. Jared Molyneux (guitar; vocals), Kristin Leonard (drums, vocals), Eric Shanafelt and Robert Mannering are tight, precise, and deliciously fun Their sweet, reverb-laden LP Whiteout! (KLP243) debuts on K this spring,

Recorded in an isolated house in the Yorkshire Dales, Fain is the sound of a band at the peak of their creative powers. It?s an honest and natural album that allows its stories and melodies to breathe. The album draws on more traditional English and Scottish folk melodies than anything they?ve done before, but not straying from the drop-out fuzz-rock route they?ve made their own.