Outside the Heard

	Great American Canyon Band Only You Remain Six Degrees

Great American Canyon Band is a Baltimore based group formed by husband & wife, Paul & Krystal Jean Masson. Only You Remain is a beautiful mix of harmony rich rock, mixed with elements of dreamy, shoegaze guitars and a big, wall of sound production. They've also opened for The Lone Bellow, Strand of Oaks, Divine Fits, Tennis, Pure Bathing Culture and many more. For fans of The Lone Bellow and Slowdive.

	Solids Else Topshelf Records

Montreal-based Fuzz Factors, Solids, are back with a new EP, Else, which finds the band checking in after a year of near-constant touring. Having played more than 200 shows in 2014-2015 with the likes of Metz, PUP, and Nothing, Else reflects that road weariness within a group of songs that vibrate at a lower frequency, documenting the waiting, the bleary-eyed confusion and the blur of days that come with life on the road.

	Whitehorse The Northern South Vol 1 Six Shooter Records

Whitehorse gathers no moss, rolling forward with a brand new EP called The Northern South Vol. 1 – a project that takes the band deep into the sound electric blues of Chess and Checker Records, circa the 1950s. With a pink Jazzmaster and a “new” 1952 Martin guitar, Whitehorse takes a twelve-bar trip through a collection of chart-toppers that built rock n’ roll one sneakin’ cheatin’ no good man at a time.

	White Lung Paradise Domino

After the critically acclaimed release Deep Fantasy, White Lung return with their fourth album Paradise. White Lung spent a month in the studio, working closely with producer Lars Stalfors (HEALTH, Cold War Kids, Alice Glass) who helped the band refine its pop sensibilities while stretching the boundaries of its sound. The result is a punk album tailor-made for 2016 – one that rips up the past in search of the future.

	Rufus Wainwright Take All My Loves - 9 Shakespeare Sonnets Deutsche Grammophon

Rufus Wainwright celebrates the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare’s death in typically dramatic fashion by releasing a unique collection of nine sonnets in stunning performances by both actors and vocalists, including Florence Welch, Martha Wainwright, Anna Prohaska and, of course, Rufus himself, as well as actors Sian Phillips, Helena Bonham Carter, Carrie Fisher and William “Freakin’” Shatner!!

	The Boxer Rebellion Ocean By Ocean Absentee Recordings

The Boxer Rebellion has a knack for writing album after album of jaw dropping beauty. Ocean By Ocean is no exception. Now in their 15th year as a band, Ocean By Ocean is quite simply The Boxer Rebellion's most complete record to date – an accomplished, beautifully orchestrated and impeccably freighted album, with a depth of emotion to every one of the 10 songs that lift each towards the hymnal. It sounds good before midnight, but is even better afterwards.

	Snarky Puppy Culcha Vulcha GroundUP

Following hot on the heels of their second Grammy win for 2015’s Sylva and this year’s critically-acclaimed (and chart-topping) Family Dinner Volume Two, Brooklyn-by-way-of-Denton, Texas band camp heroes, Snarky Puppy return with Culcha Vulcha. The album is a slight departure for Snarky Puppy – darker, with elements of Rock along with brilliant flourishes of R&B, Funk, Soul, Jazz, Bossa Nova, electric Blues and more. In a word, it’s intoxicating. Scratch that: it’s otherworldly.

	Bear Hands You'll Pay For This Spensive Sounds

Attention spans maybe shrinking, but Bear Hands’ third album, You'll Pay for This, holds the listener in its grip from start to finish. You'll Pay for This is a potent mix of sticky 70’s songwriting, CBGB’s and Factory Records era post-punk guitars, and the high drive of modern pop and hip hop. Snarky lyrics, too. Mixed by by Alan Moulder (Smashing Pumpkins, My Bloody Valentine, Foals).

	Nils Okland Band Kjolvatn ECM Records

Following his critically-lauded and distortion-saturated collaboration with rock players in Lumen Drones comes the next fine album from Norway’s Hardanger fiddle master, Nils Okland. On Kjolvatn most of the music is from Okland’s wide musical world -- inspired by classical violin to Balkan folk, rock, jazz, free improvisation and Norwegian folk music – with each band member contributes his unique perspective.

	Anat Fort Trio Birdwatching ECM Records

For her third ECM album, Israeli pianist Anat Fort augments her long-established trio with bassist Gary Wang and drummer Roland Schneider with a special guest: Italian reedman Gianluigi Trovesi. Fort and Trovesi have made a number of appearances together in recent years (from Italy’s Novara Jazz Festival to the Tel Aviv Opera House), to critical acclaim, and Birdwatching, with its lively bright music, takes their rapport to the next level.

	Jon Balke Warp ECM Records

Warp situates the solo piano of Norway’s Jon Balke within a subtle architecture of composed soundscapes, in fluctuating dimensions of space. Here, Balke’s gently exploratory solo piano gradually acquires an almost hallucinatory aspect thanks to innovative recording and sound processing. The result is a luxurious world of sound seldom heard in modern jazz.

	Nik Bartsch's Mobile Continuum ECM Records

Mobile, originally founded in 1997 is at the source of Nik Bärtsch’s ritualistic approach to music, fusing concepts of reduction and repetition as well as his fascination with Japanese culture. With Continuum textures from jazz, funk, new music, minimal as well as ritual and sacral music are organically interwoven in the service of an energetic group sound.

	James McCartney The Blackberry Train Maybenot

The Blackberry Train – the new album from James McCartney (Paul and Linda’s kid) -- is a diverse and cohesive collection of new tunes. Highlights include the rough-edged and urgently melodic "Unicorn," the anthemic "Peyote Coyote," the soulful ballad "Prayer" and the winsome and reflective "Waterfall" which was inspired by memories of his mother.

	Greys Outer Heaven Carpark

Outer Heaven is a massive leap forward for Toronto post-punks Greys – tempering their trademark onslaught of discordance with new textures and subtle dynamics, building a more spacious and melody-driven environment atop their noise rock foundation. They fearlessly explore every extreme – skronk, atmosphere, and hooks. It’s a potent crush of Portishead and Sonic Youth that begs for extreme volume.

	LUH Spiritual Songs For Lovers To Sing Mute

LUH (which stands for Lost Under Heaven) is Ellery Roberts and Ebony Hoorn. Over the past two years, they have been releasing music, art, photography, film and manifestos into the world. Ellery’s name might be familiar as the frontman of WU LYF, whose raw and primal voice helped create a sound that vividly captures the untamed fury of youth. Spiritual Songs For Lovers To Sing was produced by The Haxan Cloak – known for his own genre-bending experimental compositions and work on Björk’s Vulnicura.

	Maxies Nuuk 'Em All Rock Ridge Music

Since 2010, the masked men of Nuuk, Greenland’s The Maxies have wreaked havoc across the United States and Japan, bringing audiences to their knees with their diabolical mix of power pop and punk. After a year of pouring their hearts, souls, and booze unto this record, Nuuk ’Em All is ready for the world – and it’s filled with catchy sing-along choruses, witty lyrics, sweeping guitar solos, and lots of slapstick antics that are so sweet, you’ll need to see a dentist.

	Yak Alas Salvation Octopus Electrical

Yak has channeled its ferocious live experience into their debut album Alas Salvation. Recorded with Pulp's Steve Mackey, it's a wired and ambitious record that refuses to be pigeonholed. Yet beneath all the head-spinning chaos lies a beating heart of great melodies and a hyperactively eclectic and inventive approach to making music – like Melt Banana meets The White Stripes.

	Miike Snow iii Atlantic

Miike Snow’s third album, iii, wasn't crafted in one fell swoop. Instead, the musicians collaborated across space and time, worked with a variety of outside collaborators, and sending songs back and forth when they couldn't be together in one room. As a whole, the album feels resolutely like a Miike Snow project – albeit it one with unexpected new flavors. Rest assured, these are pop professionals doing what they do best.

	A$AP Ferg Always Strive And Prosper RCA

The Trap Lord himself, A$AP Ferg, continues his grand hustle with Always Strive and Prosper. The new album features the soon to be classics “New Level” ft. Future, “Let It Bang” ft. ScHoolboy Q, “World Is Mine” ft. Big Sean and “Strive” ft. Missy Elliott! Always Strive and Prosper finds your boy A$AP Ferg leveling up to Hood Pope – and these trippy, dank beats are your path to salvation.

Alex Ebert was in a pretty cool band called Ima Robot when he had a psychedelic religious experience and gathered a cult of fellow music weirdoes and formed under the moniker of Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeroes. If you know them at all, then you know their sleeper hit, “Home,” a soaring, triumphant, and galloping duet that has found favor with music fans all over the globe. Sharpe writes the material but, for the group’s new album, personA, he gathered the band at his home base in New Orleans and, for the first time in their history, recorded as a full group. So committed is Sharpe his group that he’s made the not so subtle gesture of crossing through his name on the album’s cover. Music, of course, is part of the very fabric of New Orleans, and the sounds and spirit of the city permeate personA, particualry on opening salvo “Hot Coals” and “Wake Up The Sun,” which finds the dectet channeling some Dr. John vibes. “Free Stuff” and “No Love Like Yours” still trade in the sound that made Sharpe and company and attractive festival draw, but it’s personA’s hoodoo explorations that keep the good times rolling.

Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros -
PersonA
Community

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.