The album’s ambitious denouement, "5225," is a slowburning build around knotted guitar, steadily crescendoing to a moment of chaotic clarity that centers a boisterous, unexpected solo. "5225" momentarily steers bathes and listens away from its sonic milieu, only to plunge listeners back into the heavy, crunched distortion of the album’s closer "why i play 2k/land back," concluding on a note that reminds us the land we call ours and pass on through legacy is all stolen. It’s declarative in a way that matches the stylistically focused nature of bathes and listens, the product of McKnight’s choice to allow his strengths to guide his songwriting, resulting in Maneka’s strongest work to date. more info→
five albums,
a re-issue,
two singles,
an EP,
and a split.
On her third full-length TIDE/TIED, Montreal artist Thanya Iyer expands on the future-folk designs of sophomore album KIND with washes of jazz-inflected pop and ensemble ambience. While Iyer explored a more personal journey of self-love on KIND, she, her band, and cohort of guest musicians embark on a new way of moving on TIDE/TIED, prizing collective care and communal healing as antidotes to the dissonances of living in a colonial, capitalistic world. more info →
When writing about a song or album, the convention is to use the present tense. A piece of music, although representative of and influenced by the era in which it was created, is ultimately always experienced in ~the present~. We built this website while pondering ways that we could, at every turn, focus on discovery by bringing music we released years ago relevantly back into the present, challenging how we collectively talk and think about “new” music. Discovering new music is exciting, but so is discovering music that’s simply
new to you.
It’s our hope that you'll enjoy digitally crate digging through this online home of ours, finding and connecting with the 250+ albums we’ve released with 140+ artists from all around the world over the last 16 years. Directly below are a few of our favorites to get you started.
However you’ve found yourself here presently, thanks so much for stopping by! We couldn’t do this without your support and enthusiasm.
-All of us at Topshelf
Although unbound by genre, Peel Dream Magazine still inhabit the sonic milieu of warm woodland tones and droning repetition. In the entrancing standout “Believer,” they evoke Rose Main Reading Room’s atmosphere through vocalist Olivia Babuka Black’s mantric melodies and Philip Glass-like woodwinds and mallets, bringing Taurus into focus as a welcoming companion piece to its predecessor. more info →
Their fifth album, Singapore Dreaming, centers their hometown through a more focused lens. Where previous album All Around You comprised a space to sit with the complex feelings inspired by the intense world we inhabit, Singapore Dreaming is that intense world itself — Subsonic Eye’s interpretation of their high energy urban context refracted through straight-to-the-point, poppy, ergonomic songs tinged with tension that could explode at a moment’s notice. Despite the newly honed vision, Singapore Dreaming still has all of Subsonic Eye’s signature elements: spellbinding walls of tone, hooky riffs, zippy rhythms, and punches in the perfect place — all led by singer Nur Wahidah’s dreamlike voice, whose vaporous and velvety character always makes the layers whole. more info →
Ekko Astral are here to uplift, a mission exemplified by the frenetic and bewitching pre-release singles “baethoven” and “devorah,” cornerstones of pink balloons in both style and theme. The former serves as a reminder to keep your larger than life personality in a world that wants to downsize you, where the latter proclaims urgent solidarity with missing and murdered people. Such crucial messages of upliftment are the foundation of pink balloons, and, by extension Ekko Astral, whose thrashing debut leaves no stone of solidarity unturned. more info →
"'horseglue' is a screeching call for moral clarity. Anything short of courage against the rise of The New Authoritaria is complicity. It is important to focus on how integral the Messengers really are, and that some of them are the 1% too. They are rich and they are happy without consequence, as a vast majority of us suffer in the shadows of the unknown." read more →
“I like when whole songs are just capturing the emotions of one moment in life without much other context. I think these types of tunes allow the listener to really connect since emotions are in larger part universal to the human experience.” read more →
One year from the release of acclaimed album Rose Main Reading Room, Peel Dream Magazine returns with new mini album Taurus. Catch them on tour this fall and pick up a tape! read more →
LITE are coming to the west coast from Tokyo and bringing their start-stop precision math rock with them. Catch them on one of their upcoming dates with Covet—for dates and info, read more →
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