After attending the early screening of Dan Savage’s Hump! Film Festival in Williamsburg and eating nearby at the yummy Le Fond, Andy and I made our semi-annual pilgrimage to Rough Trade, one of the last remaining record stores in the city. As Andy likes to say, I “accidentally” bought a stack of eight CDs. Even though I get plenty of new music via Napster, Spotify, and NPR, I found myself unable to resist the fiendishly effective salesmanship of the stickers found on every item on the racks at Rough Trade.
First stop, the bargain bin:
OH MY SEXY LORD (with bonus disc, MUSIC ROCKS): “Marijuana Deathsquads is the ever-evolving experimental project led by Ryan Olson (producer/writer of Polica and GAYNGS), Isaac Gale, and Stefon Alexander (P.O.S.). With multiple drummers, a slew of electronic instruments, and highly effected vocals, their live shows are a violent onslaught of…”
THE WAITING ROOM (limited deluxe edition CD+DVD): “Tindersticks’ new album is a milestone not just numerically (their 10th) but musically and creatively. Their first studio album since 2012’s critically acclaimed THE SOMETHING RAIN is the most ambitious, diverse and elaborate album you’ll have heard from Tindersticks in recent…”
And then the total wild cards:
LIITAL: “Aby Ngana Diop was the most famous taasukat in Dakar, Senegal, in the 1980s and 1990s. Taasu is a Wolof-language poetic style, usually performed by women griots over frenentic drum patterns, with an aggressive verbal flow thought to presage rap. Her only album LIITAL was groundbreaking in the history…”
IMARHAN: “Imarhan were born in Tamanrasset, Southern Algeria, a city where the Tuareg community of Norther Mali, Kel Tamashek people, ended their exile in the early 1990s, following the multiple struggles they have been experiencing since the 1960s. Imarhan, meaning the ones I care about, started out around…”
LATE NIGHT TALES (limited edition with exclusive download bonus): “Standing at the intersection where techno meets classical music, Olafur Arnalds directs the newest Late Night Tales, set for release on 10th June 2016. After releasing the breakthrough album And They Have Escaped The Weight of Darkness in 2014, he was awarded a BAFTA for best original music for…”
DESDES: “At the age of 28, Awalom Gebremariam arrived in the United States, following a years-long jourey from Eritrea. He’d made it to a refugee camp in Ethiopia several years ago and eventually attained asylum status for passage in America. But before he left his hometown, Eritrea’s capital Asmara, he made…”
WHAT?: “Based on tracks from the best-selling William Onyeabor album. Fantastic interpretations by Hot Chip, Optimo, Joakim (and more). Remixes by Daphni, Scientist, Justin Strauss and even more all done as part of the Luaka Bop/MOOG Remix Project.”
And a CD+DVD package from this obscure performer named Beyoncé called LEMONADE.
another eye opens 
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