Featured Pressing Projects

Parsonsfield — Happy Hour On The Floor

On April 3, 2020 acclaimed folk-rock quartet Parsonsfield will release their highly anticipated fifth release, Happy Hour On The Floor on Signature Sounds. Produced by multi-instrumentalist Benjamin Lazar Davis (Joan As A Police Woman, Okkervil River), Happy Hour On The Floor was recorded in a small barn over three weeks. It is both subdued and danceable, exploring the in-between moments in life.

Chris Freeman reflects, “We took some time off the road to analyze where we’ve been over the last five years of touring. We made ourselves fresh again, but with a whole new depth of experience in our pockets. We tracked almost the whole album on one microphone, one instrument at a time. We didn’t see ourselves as a folk band, an indie band or by any other label. In a bigger sense, this album is a story diving deep into ourselves and leaning on each other.”

The Horace Tapscott Quintet — The Giant Is Awakened

The title of Horace Tapscott’s debut release is apt, if not self-referential, for indeed a giant of West Coast jazz had awakened with this, the pianist/composer/bandleader’s 1969 album for the Flying Dutchman label. Tapscott went on to form two groups crucial to the flowering of modern jazz in the Los Angeles area, the Pan Afrikan Peoples Arkestra (or P.A.P.A.; the name is an homage to Tapscott’s predecessor and peer, Sun Ra), which eventually became part of a larger umbrella organization, Union of God’s Musicians and Artists Ascension (UGMAA).

Out of UGMAA came a host of LA-bred musicians, singers, and poets, including Arthur Blythe (who goes by Black Arthur Blythe on this recording), Stanley Crouch (who wrote the original liner notes), David Murray, Butch Morris, Wilber Morris, Jimmy Woods, Nate Morgan, and Sinclair Greenwell, Jr. (a.k.a. Guido Sinclair).

Anchoring it all was Tapscott himself; as Kamasi Washington, whose vision of a large, Los Angeles community-based ensemble echoes that of P.A.P.A. and UGMAA, said in 2015: “Horace is one of the most important figures in the foundation of music in L.A., from both a purely musically and socially conscious perspective.”

Now, Real Gone Music is proud to present the first-ever LP reissue of The Giant Is Awakened (original copies go for hundreds of dollars), taken from high-resolution audio sources and complete with original gatefold artwork. A foundational document of West Coast modern jazz!

Freaked – Original Motion Picture Soundtrack

Over 25 years in the making! Death Waltz Recording Co. is extremely proud to bring you both the score and the songs featured in Alex Winter and Tom Stern’s FREAKED – available for the first time in any format.

This 2XLP set features all new artwork from inventor of Strata-Cut clay animation David Daniels (who did the original, mind-melting opening credit sequence for the film) and features liner notes by directors Tom Stern and Alex Winter

Disc 1 features songs from the movie from the likes of Butthole Surfers, Blind Idiot God, Henry Rollins, Axiom Funk (George Clinton & Bill Laswell) and Iggy Pop.

Disc 2 features Kevin Kiner’s original score, which so good that it could easily rival any number of Amblin’s films from the ’80s. Kiner’s music is incredibly nuanced, yet playful and bombastic (in a good way) that it is a revelation when listened to independent of the film.

Available from Mondo.

Statement on Apollo/Transco Fire

We at GGR were saddened to learn of the fire that destroyed the Apollo/Transco manufacturing facilities on February 6, 2020. The vinyl manufacturing industry is a relatively close-knit community. We have had many dealings directly with Terry Carlson (president of Apollo/Transco Masters) over the years. We hope that he, Apollo/Transco’s employees, as well as the many pressing plants and mastering providers around the world who relied predominantly upon Apollo/Transco will all weather this storm and successfully land on their feet.

How this situation affects Gotta Groove Records:

Gotta Groove Records provides lacquer mastering services – 12” orders are cut by Clint Holley and Dave Polster, and 7” orders are cut by Greg Reierson.

GGR does not rely upon Apollo/Transco for master lacquers used in making 12” records. Therefore, as of today, it does not appear that 12” orders will be affected by the Apollo/Transco fire.

7” orders will be affected to some degree – moving forward, all 7″ jobs cut by GGR’s lacquer engineers will need to be cut on the larger lacquers typically used for 12″ jobs.

Reference lacquers will be temporarily unavailable. This applies to both 12” and 7” orders – the supply of reference lacquers, at least in the near future, will be disrupted. In some situations, 12” customers will be offered the option to do test cut samples instead of reference lacquers.

We will continue to provide updates on this matter, should anything materially change from the statements made above. Of course, please feel free to contact us at either [email protected] or via phone at (800) 295-0171 if you have any specific questions.

We are devoted to the vinyl format, and will continue to do everything within our powers to make vinyl manufacturing as accessible and consistent as it can be to musicians, labels, and anyone else wanting to make a record. We want to press your next record.

KAINA — Next To The Sun

KAINA’s Next to the Sun was one of the VMP team’s favorite releases in 2019, as we loved the album’s dedications to KAINA’s native Chicago, and her family and the communities that raised her. Dripping in bright production and buoyed by her brighter voice, Next to the Sun is an album about soldiering on despite it all, and remembering to love who you are and where you came from.

For a limited time, you can obtain the Vinyl Me Please version of this album (pressed at Gotta Groove) on opaque blue vinyl.

John Moreland — LP5

Over the last half a dozen years or so, John Moreland’s honesty has stunned us––and stung. As he put hurts we didn’t even realize we had or shared into his songs, we sang along. And we felt better. But there has always been far more to Moreland than sad songs. Today, his earthbound poetry remains potent, but in addition to his world-weary candor, Moreland’s music smolders with gentle wisdom, flashes of wit and joy, and compassion. And once again, as we listen, we feel better.

“I can’t dress myself up and be some folk singer character that I’m not really,” Moreland says. “I figured, I can’t dress up these songs and try to sell them that way. All I can do is be me.”

Out February 2020, his latest album LP5 proves John Moreland has gotten really good at being John Moreland––thank God. A masterful display of songwriting by one of today’s best young practitioners of the art form, LP5 is Moreland’s finest record to date. The album’s experimentations with instrumentation and sounds capture an artist whose confidence has grown, all without abandoning the hardy roots rock bed and the lyrics-first approach Moreland’s work demands. “I feel like just this year, in the past few months, I’ve reached a point where I feel like I know what I’m doing here now,” he says. “And I feel comfortable with it.”

When pressed about the hard-won wisdom and peace that seem to define LP5, Moreland is characteristically both direct and humble. “I definitely am wiser than I was five years ago––I guess anybody would hope to be wiser than they were five years ago,” he says with a laugh. “But I do feel more mellow. Settled. I don’t feel as antsy or think I’ve got to prove myself anymore. I feel really comfortable and free to just do what I want to do.”

Preorder now.

Whiskey Basterds — Redemption on Main St.

Whiskey Basterds’ debut album Redemption on Main St., is now available! Written over the course of three years in Los Angeles, Santa Barbara, and Ojai, CA, it was produced by Ken Eros and April Theriault, recorded and mixed at Eros Creative and Sound, and mastered by Eric Boulanger at The Bakery.

Mute Forest — Riderstorm

<a href="http://muteforest.bandcamp.com/album/riderstorm">Riderstorm by Mute Forest</a>

Wednesday — I was Trying To Describe You To Someone

<a href="http://wednesdayband.bandcamp.com/album/i-was-trying-to-describe-you-to-someone-2">I Was Trying to Describe You to Someone by Wednesday</a>

Steve Dawson & Funeral Bonsai Wedding — Last Flight Out

The idea of FUNERAL BONSAI WEDDING came to Steve Dawson while riding a bus in his hometown of Chicago. Every day he passed a florist with three windows, each with a sign. “Funeral,” read one. “Bonsai,” another. “Wedding,” read the last.

However random, Dawson realized the words sounded natural when put together, much like the group that would share its title. Indeed, when FUNERAL BONSAI WEDDING released its self-titled debut album in 2014, the collaboration appeared like it shouldn’t work. As the songwriter-singer behind Dolly Varden, an acclaimed Americana band from Chicago, Dawson’s roots are country and soul. He is joined by three Chicago jazz musicians — vibraphonist Jason Adasiewicz, drummer Charles Rumback and bassist Jason Roebke — known for their inventiveness on Chicago’s legendary free jazz scene, having participated in projects with people like Ken Vandermark, Ryley Walker, Thurston Moore, Nicole Mitchell, Jeff Parker, and Nels Cline, among many others.

On Last Flight Out, every sound is inverted: Adasiewicz’s vibes serve as the lead instrument, Dawson’s voice often leads to chants, and Rumback and Roebke shift time to move the music to side pockets as they move it forward. The closest comparison to the ephemeral blissed-out melodies is Van Morrison’s epic Astral Weeks, which aims for transcendence amid ordinariness. To reach those otherworldly heights, Dawson had to invert the process he was conditioned to within the context of a rock band.

Gotta Groove Records

Parsonsfield — Happy Hour On The Floor

The Horace Tapscott Quintet — The Giant Is Awakened

Freaked – Original Motion Picture Soundtrack

Statement on Apollo/Transco Fire

KAINA — Next To The Sun

John Moreland — LP5

Whiskey Basterds — Redemption on Main St.

Mute Forest — Riderstorm

Wednesday — I was Trying To Describe You To Someone

Steve Dawson & Funeral Bonsai Wedding — Last Flight Out

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