Dave Sitek’s FEDERAL PRISM is pleased to announce the launch yesterday of a unique pop-up record store designed to serve music collectors and serious music fans. The store features exclusive and limited edition vinyl, downloads, apparel and creative works from a wide variety of artists and genres, including TV on the Radio, Oh Land ft. Sia, Thelonius Monk, The Germs, Johnny Cash, Chuck Inglish, Sly & The Family Stone, Chuck Dukowski (Black Flag), Mike Watt, The Julie Ruin, Chance the Rapper, and much more.
Sitek explains, “Somewhere along the line music became ‘content.’ It’s my full intention to bring it back to music again! With such potency, music should be treated with care. The sound, the feel, the presentation… everything! It is a medicine. It is a teacher!”
Feeding a growing appetite for vinyl and “specialty products” among passionate music fans, Federal Prism has partnered with Girlie Action, Acme Creative Group and Pledge Music to create a unique pop up Record Shop with an exciting mix of exclusive and limited addition titles. The store will operate for 60 days starting today.
Federal Prism’s managing partner, Jeff Bowers, discusses how the idea was conceived. “We are at a moment in music when some of the most well received artists and releases in recent memory have little to nothing in the retail space. It is my hope that we can take the lessons of Record Store Day and the resurgent popularity of vinyl, and pull these consumer models together and make a compelling experience for the fan. I am asking talented kids, the next generation, who have never sold anything in a record store to make something unique that interests them and their fan base, and we are placing that next to traditional music configurations by established artists. That doesn’t happen anywhere with any consistency. It doesn’t happen at iTunes and it certainly doesn’t happen at Best Buy.“
Promising a steady flow of new titles popping up over the next two months, Sitek launches with dozens of titles including:
A limited edition pressing of Thelonius Monk’s penultimate studio album, Underground, on 180 gram color vinyl
The Germs’ 3-song 7″ EP, Lexicon Devil, originally released via mail-order by Slash Records in 1978, and limited to just 1,500 units on 7″ red vinyl
Chuck Inglish’s full-length, The Convertibles, on a 4-disc 7″ vinyl set originally released earlier this year, and which landed the album at #8 on the Billboard Heatseekers Albums chart and caused it to jumped from #53 to #24 on the Billboard Hip Hop Albums chart the week it was released.
Check out this previously unreleased track of The Julie Ruin’s “Blueberry Hill” (limited pressing available on 7″ at the store. The B-side is a YACHT remix of the Julie Ruin track “Right Home”.
Bowers, who started DIY label Soul Force Records in his native Tempe, AZ at the age of 15, worked for a decade as a creative marketing consultant for Warner Bros. Records and Atlantic, where he worked on classic vinyl reissues by Led Zeppelin, Metallica and Neil Young, as well as Nirvana and Sonic Youth and more contemporary Record Store Day releases by Skrillex, Fun., Portugal. The Man and Grouplove. While at Warner between 2007-2014, Bowers helped the label secure the number one marketshare in the vinyl format, moving from mid-six figures when he started to eight figures by the time he left as well as founding three record labels signed to the group.
He is also credited by the people responsible for “Record Store Day” for taking the annual event to a whole new level. “Without Jeff Bower’s enthusiasm and passion for music in general, and vinyl in specific, we would not have been able to launch Record Store Day,” RSD co-founder Michael Kurtz has said. “In doing so, Jeff helped the indie record store community take vinyl sales from a few thousand dollars the first year to millions by the seventh year.”
Electro-pop singer-songwriter & producer extraordinaire Nanna Øland Fabricius, better known as Oh Land, today announces her fourth studio album, Earth Sick – set for release November 11th via her own independent imprint, Tusk or Tooth, in collaboration with Kobalt Label Services! Immersed in her signature soundscape of lush vocals, rich string arrangements & infectious melodies, the album is a hybrid of masterfully woven symphonic & electronic sounds, and marks a full-circle return to the artist’s bedroom production style.
Earth Sick first single “Head Up High,” featuring bouncing synth rhythms & infectious, hook-laden vocals, was written for a friend going through a tough time in her life as encouragement to, quite literally, keep her head up high. Nearly forgotten about by Nanna, the same friend reminded her a year later whilst deep in the throes of recording Earth Sick. The song was finished almost instantly & added to the album.
Frustrated by the struggle to keep her head above the waves and hold onto a sense of idealism despite the complexities of life, Oh Land grasped the struggle as the inspiration for her lyrical exploration on Earth Sick. Anchored by melancholic anthem “Machine,” which opens the album with delicate yet industrial textures, tracks “Little Things” and “Earth Sick” continue the existential lyrical journey combined with the singer’s love for orchestral arrangements.
Oh Land began her career rather unconventionally following a ten-year budding career in ballet, which was ended abruptly by an injury. Searching for a new way to incorporate music into her life, she began recording in her bedroom and discovered an early knack for production. In 2008, she released her debut album Fauna to much critical acclaim, and has spent the better part of the past four years supporting her following releases, Oh Land & Wish Bone, and supporting artists including Katy Perry & Sia on the road.
Be sure to catch her when she plays New York City’s Bowery Ballroom on October 21st during CMJ- marking her first NYC show in a year!
Earth Sick tracklist:
1. Machine
2. Favor Friends
3. Head Up High
4. Earth Sick
5. Nothing Is Over
6. Doubt My Legs
7. Half Hero
8. Daylight
9. Hot ‘n Bothered
10. Little Things
11. Flags
12. No Particular Order
13. Trailblazer
Musically Amusing 