Thank You!

Soundscapes will be closing permanently on September 30th, 2021.

Open every day between Spetember 22nd-30th

We'd like to thank all of our loyal customers over the years, you have made it all worthwhile! The last 20 years have seen a golden age in access to the world's recorded music history both in physical media and online. We were happy to be a part of sharing our knowledge of some of that great music with you. We hope you enjoyed most of what we sold & recommended to you over the years and hope you will continue to seek out the music that matters.

In the meantime we'll be selling our remaining inventory, including thousands of play copies, many of which are rare and/or out-of-print, never to be seen again. Over the next few weeks the discounts will increase and the price of play copies will decrease. Here are the details:

New CDs, LPs, DVDs, Blu-ray, Books 60% off 15% off

Rare & out-of-print new CDs 60% off 50% off

Rare/Premium/Out-of-print play copies $4.99 $14.99

Other play copies $2.99 $8.99

Magazine back issues $1 $2/each or 10 for $5 $15

Adjusted Hours & Ticket Refunds

We will be resuming our closing sale beginning Friday, June 11. Our hours will be as follows:

Wednesday-Saturday 12pm-7pm
Sunday 11am-6pm

Open every day between September 22nd-30th

We will no longer be providing ticket refunds for tickets purchased from the shop, however, you will be able to obtain refunds directly from the promoters of the shows. Please refer to the top of your ticket to determine the promoter. Here is the contact info for the promoters:

Collective Concerts/Horseshoe Tavern Presents/Lee's Palace Presents: shows@collectiveconcerts.com
Embrace Presents: info@embracepresents.com
MRG Concerts: ticketing@themrggroup.com
Live Nation: infotoronto@livenation.com
Venus Fest: venusfesttoronto@gmail.com

We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause. Thank you for your understanding.

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Last Month's Top Sellers

1. TAME IMPALA - The Slow Rush
2. SARAH HARMER - Are We Gone
3. YOLA - Walk Through Fire
4. DESTROYER - Have We Met
5. DRIVE BY TRUCKERS - Unravelling

Click here for full list.

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Friday
Sep072018

SPIRITUALIZED - And Nothing Hurt

"J. Spaceman makes music that can fill Royal Albert Hall. For nearly three decades, his band Spiritualized has turned space-rock into a spectacle worthy of crystal chandeliers and velvet seats, complete with choral, horn and string arrangements. The last 10 years, in particular, have yielded the positively lush records Songs in A&E and Sweet Heart Sweet Light, which throw back to the orchestral bluster of late-'60s Scott Walker and The Beatles at their most extravagant. But when making a new record, J. Spaceman (a.k.a. Jason Pierce), like every other musician struggling in an economy unkind to artistry, could not afford excess time in a lavish studio. So he bought a laptop and got to work.

 Not that you would know it just by listening, but And Nothing Hurt makes a living room sound like a cathedral.

"I wanted to make like a 1960s Columbia Studios recording, but without ever going to the studio to put that thing together," he told KEXP. "And it seemed kind of dumb. I don't know what went down. I became so obsessed."

J. Spaceman learned the ins and outs of home recording in his East London abode, using a cast of musicians just as ambitious as on his standard fare, painstakingly layering sound on sound to get bigger and bigger. (To complicate the process, he had to book 10 different studios to record instruments he couldn't quite capture at home.) "I'm Your Man" is a sterling example of his ambition: Its warm, Stax-style horns are swirled in psychedelic R&B, culminating in a sky-high guitar solo. "Let's Dance" is deceptively stripped back, a charming space waltz that builds with piano here, guitar there, and then slowly adds a Beach Boys-style boom boom tsh to what eventually becomes a synth-and-horns carnival of sound.

There are a few rockers, as well, perhaps in a nod to 2001's Let It Come Down. Both "On the Sunshine" and "The Morning After" set the R&B rave-up to raging speeds, culminating in a cacophony of feedback, free-jazz saxophone and drums. But J. Spaceman is quick to temper the noise with something like church, especially in the spectral slow burn of "The Prize."

J. Spaceman's soulful quiver has sometimes blended into the sonic wallpaper of past Spiritualized records. And Nothing Hurt almost foregrounds him by necessity — you can imagine the Englishman hunching over a microphone in his home as he tenderly sings the album's closer: "If I could hold it down / I would sail on through for you / If I weren't loaded down / I would sail on through for you." Like much of the record, it's not necessarily hopeful, but he knows there's something ahead." - NPR

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