Wednesday, August 12, 2026 • Vinyl Finds from Around the World
Low Profile (Not For The Blacks)
A solo outing from Lekan Animashaun, Fela Kuti's baritone saxophonist and a longtime anchor of Africa 70. Thick Afrobeat grooves and funk horns make this an uncommon slice of African jazz in the month's pre-order list.
Cinema 3000
After winning fans with two EPs of soul, funk and sweet psychedelic guitar, Common Saints finally deliver their debut album. UK press likens them to Tame Impala or Khruangbin — every track sounds beamed in from a strange planet, with the occasional Pink Floyd haze.
Songs in the Key of X: Music from and Inspired by The X-Files
A collection of music from and inspired by The X-Files — resonant for anyone raised on '90s alternative and now grown up. Getting its first double-vinyl pressing; Entertainment Weekly once called it 'the most ambitious record ever assembled for a TV soundtrack.'
Good Will Hunting
Enjoy The Ride and Warner reissue Danny Elfman's score for Good Will Hunting, gathering 21 cues from the legendary composer — a pressing worth grabbing early on both price and quantity.
The Best of Wayne's So Sad 傷心欲絕 精選集
The first career-spanning best-of on vinyl from Wayne's So Sad. Built on punk and alternative rock with folk and country threads, the Taiwanese band built a singular voice — one of the island's most emblematic rock groups, forever channeling a spirit that pushes back against the era's malaise.
The Closest Thing to Silence
Released on Chicago's International Anthem: veteran French ambient composer Ariel Kalma joins LA experimental duo Jeremiah Chiu and Marta Sofia Honer. Born from a 2022 BBC Radio 3 'Late Junction' session meant to run 20 minutes, it kept growing — saxophone, winds, viola and electronics layered like overlapping phantoms.
3+1
A Japan-only edition from Pu Poo Platter, the jazz-funk/groove group founded in New York in 2019 and relocated to Shanghai in 2023, compiling their third EP 'Undercurrent' and their first. Rooted in soul, funk, library music and spiritual jazz with MF DOOM and J Dilla in the beats; side A is spare, side B turns to lounge funk and cinematic soul — like a lost '70s film score.
Sky
TENGGER — the Seoul-based Korean-Japanese nomadic music family of vocalist Itta (voice, Indian harmonium) and composer Marqido (synths) — deliver their eighth album on Guruguru Brain. Less a set of songs than a continuously flowing environment: glowing synths, patiently unfurling drone walls and breath-like voice, like a sky you can lie back and float on.
Everything You Give Away
Belgian cult ambient group Pablo's Eye return with all-new original work. A 180g pressing, ten tracks steeped in faint ambiguity — dreamlike synth landscapes, hand-played drums and murmured verse (some drawn from poet Richard Skinner) — weaving a cinematic, Central European sound world.
City Slicker
The record that made Ginger Root (Cameron Lew) an overnight sensation. Released in 2021 but set in a fictional 1981, it soundtracks the American remake of an imaginary Japanese film, reviving the golden haze of '70s–'80s city pop. The single 'Loretta' detonated instantly, lifting him from underground maker to global indie star.
Headsparks
After 34 years without a CD in circulation, Seam's 1992 debut returns. It blends punk abandon, post-rock space and indie-rock delicacy — a cornerstone of the '90s slowcore scene. Its most affecting track, the five-and-a-half-minute 'Feather,' is quiet yet impossible to shake.
Lost Weekend
The most-talked-about record of the moment — Phoebe Bridgers's first in six years. After deliberately vanishing, she resurfaced this year via pop-up shows and a surprise Madison Square Garden concert. The album grapples deeply with her father's sudden death, with boygenius's Julien Baker and Lucy Dacus plus producer Alex G on board, roaming between uncanny electronic art-rock and Southern-tinged American folk.
Work (Work, Work)
Born from grief and revered as underground scripture, this landmark returns for the band's 21st anniversary as a Ghostly-issued clear-grey vinyl with OBI. Made by HTRK — from Melbourne, later Berlin — after founding member Sean Stewart's sudden 2010 death: glacial 808s, eerie synth arpeggios and fog-like guitar noise, a romantic heart hidden beneath the desolation.
A Certain Distance
Seattle electronic musician Jeff McIlwain (aka Lusine) released this, his second full-length for Ghostly, in 2009 — long out of print, with secondhand copies nearing NT$2,000 — now reissued on transparent orange + teal vinyl. His signature abstract, refined electronics take on more pop melody without losing their fine layering and warmth; a much-cited reference for its acclaimed sound.
Sensorimotor
Lusine's fourth full-length, released in 2017 and reissued for its 10th anniversary on black-and-white splatter vinyl. More inward and experimental than its predecessor, it features guest singers whose voices are chopped and folded into the instrumentals — avant-garde with a playful streak.
Die Kreuzen
One of the most important records in American hardcore, out of print on vinyl for 13 years and reissued on limited yellow wax. Formed in Milwaukee, Wisconsin in 1981, their name from a hard-to-translate German word (roughly 'crossing' or 'crossbreed'). This 1984 self-titled, produced by Corey Rusk, packs 20 songs into under 30 minutes — fast, ferociously concentrated.
A rare session that surfaced only on Japan's Trio Records 'Nadja' series: Don Cherry, Dollar Brand (Abdullah Ibrahim) and saxophonist Carlos Ward at a fleeting crossroads. Cherry was shedding free-jazz form and looking east and toward Africa; Ibrahim's beautiful, faintly melancholy piano runs parallel to Cherry's spiritual wanderlust, with Ward weaving between them — like the two-toned line drifting above their heads on the sleeve.