Outside the Heard

	Anoushka Shankar Home Deutsche Grammophon

Four-time Grammy nominated Anoushka Shankar is one of today´s most distinguished and versatile classical cross-genre sitar performers and composers – finding success by both embracing and subverting the classical upbringing and teaching by her legendary father, Maestro Ravi Shankar. Home is the sound of Shankar returning to her roots, performing both both meditative and virtuoso Indian classical raga for solo sitar and larger ensembles. With Home, Anoushka continues her journey exploring modern and fresh ways to reinterpret and keep alive the beautiful musical traditions of India.

	Snarky Puppy Sylva Universal Music Classics

The once Texan, now New York-based, Grammy award-winning quasi-collective, Snarky Puppy, has gone from the best-kept secret to one of the most respected names in instrumental music – playing over 200 shows a year and making fans out of the pop illuminati. The ensemble’s latest album, Sylvia, was written specifically for a bass-heavy orchestra – and, since it was recorded live in Berlin (with staging that reflects the music’s sylvan theme) – the music sound especially gigantic.

	Never Shout Never Black Cat Warner Bros

Youth, as they say, is wasted on the young. Christofer Drew, 24, and his band, Never Say Never, kindly refutes that conceit. A songwriter to be reckoned with since he was 16, Drew’s trajectory as a lyricist and tunesmith only rises, evolving steadily with each new release, as does his empire of fans. Drew is a punk rock Justin Bieber with a ukulele. Tackling heavy subjects like truth, love, loss, and acceptance, he has developed a genuine talent for exploring the human condition from a place of positivity. And with the 10 crack cuts collected here on Black Cat, it’s not a stretch to label Drew a master of his craft, despite the fact that he still can’t legally rent a car.

	New Politics Vikings Warner Bros

When inspiration gathers, you simply ride the wave and hold on for dear life. While writing Vikings, their third full-length album, the members of New Politics embraced that spirit wholeheartedly. As a result, Vikings threads together a patchwork of femme fatales who have provided plenty of, er, local color while the band wrote and recorded in its Brooklyn apartment. From the half-naked vixen crashing on their couch in “50 Feet Tall” or the libidinous gender-bending of “Girl Crush,” these stories unfold in tandem with a soundtrack of danceable tunes that fearlessly pop and rock.

	Continental Drifters Drifted: In The Beginning & Beyond Omnivore

Drifted: In The Beginning & Beyond (re-)introduces the Continental Drifters, explores their influence and magnitude, and fills in the gaps of this Americana supergroup’s expansive career. Born in Los Angeles in the early 1990s via a residency of weekly jam sessions before then relocating to New Orleans, The Continental Drifters were more a collective than a band – counting Vicki Peterson (Bangles), Susan Cowsill (The Cowsills), Peter Holsapple (The dBs, R.E.M.), and lone mainstay Mark Walton (Giant Sand, The Dream Syndicate) among its venerable membership. Drifted features two-discs worth of music that will entice the curious as well as the die-hard with many never released goodies. Informative notes from Scott Schinder help tell the story with interviews from band members.

	MS MR How Does It Feel Columbia

In 2014, Lizzy Plapinger and Max Hershenow came back to New York City to start work on their sophomore album as MS MR. How Does It Feel is the rare second album that feels more personal than the first. Via the album's dynamic melodies once can hear the way that Lizzy, born and raised in the UK, still has the midnight energy of the London indie pop scene in her veins. There's a sense of brazen forward movement and physicality that suffuses every song, telling of Max’s time as a choreographer and In other words: How Does It Feel is filled with catchy songs you can dance to.

	Roger Waters Amused To Death Legacy

With Amused to Death, Roger Waters sounded the alarm about a society increasingly and unthinkingly in thrall to its television screens. Twenty-three years later, Amused to Death speaks to our present moment in ways that could scarcely have been anticipated two decades ago. In 2015, television is just one option in an endless array of distractions available to us anytime, anywhere, courtesy of our laptops, tablets and smartphones. With eyes glued to our screens, the dilemmas and injustices of the real world can easily recede from view. Includes Blu-ray edition of Amused to Death feature a new 5.1 surround remix of the album on high-definition Blu-ray audio.

	Joe Satriani Shockwave Supernova Legacy

During the final performance of his two-year “Unstoppable Momentum” tour, Joe Satriani had an epiphany: He found himself "playing the guitar with my teeth an awful lot. I thought, 'Why are you doing this?' It's as if something else, or somebody else, was driving me to do it." Satriani seized upon this moment of self-realization as the springboard and creative center for his alter ego "Shockwave Supernova" – the outlandish and extroverted “performance side” of the normally shy and reserved guitar virtuoso. As such, Shockwave Supernova is an album of duets with Satriani’s personal Ziggy Stardust… Or is it Chris Gaines?

	Saint Asonia Saint Asonia RCA Records

Saint Asonia is a "supergroup" formed by former Three Days Grace frontman Adam Gontier and Staind guitarist Mike Mushok. The group, which also features bassist Corey Lowery (Eye Empire, Stereomud, Dark New Day) and former Finger Eleven drummer Rich Beddoe, recorded the 11-track Saint Asonia with producer Johnny K at his Groovemaster Studios in Chicago. Despite a couple of beautiful, acoustic-driven tracks Saint Asonia is some of the heaviest music that Gontier and company have ever recorded as tracks like “Let Me Live My Life” and (especially) “Blow Me Wide Open” will clearly attest.

	Jack + Eliza Gentle Warnings Yebo

Jack + Eliza have imagined a precise yet affably cool, warm and melodious sun-drenched pop sound. Growing up in NYC as childhood friends and now musical collaborators, Jack + Eliza have a beyond-their-years sensibility (in fact, Eliza won the International John Lennon Songwriting award at just 15). Inspired by 60's psychedelia, the duo takes a stripped-down approach to the technical virtuosity of bands like The Beach Boys and The Mamas & the Papas in its own music. With their debut album, Gentle Warnings, produced by Chris Zane (The Walkmen, Holy Ghost, Passion Pit), Jack + Eliza’s voices to coalesce into a sparse landscape of melancholy memories, narrating a bittersweet nostalgia built on radiant layers of sound.

	On An On And The Wave Has Two Sides Roll Call Records

When On An On entered the studio to begin work on their new album, they brought a new approach to their songwriting with them. “This is another first record for us in a way,” says keyboardist Alissa Ricci, alluding to their experience with their debut Give In, which was recorded only weeks after the band’s formation. If Give In was On An On exploring its sonic horizons, And The Wave Has Two Sides is the moment of clarity born of its initial soul-searching journey. And The Waves Has Two Sides is rife with deeply cutting emotional moments, often buoyed afloat by the incredible pop instincts in bloom on its debut – resulting in fully-formed gems like the summer dance-floor anthem “It’s Not Over.”

The Coalition of Independent Music Stores (CIMS) is a group of some of the best independent music stores in America. CIMS was founded in 1995; its current membership is made up of 29 accounts that handle 47 stores in 21 states. Many of the accounts have been recognized by the music industry and their local communities for their outstanding dedication to customer service and developing artist support.

Each member is bound by its shared love of music, a reputation for great selection and customer service in its community, yet each CIMS account is as unique as the market it represents. Most importantly, CIMS member stores continually seek to challenge the jaded, color-by-numbers advertising and marketing of other retailers.