Wilco are loading up on cool points as of late, releasing a brand new album out of the blue for FREE and then turning around and performing the whole thing at Pitchfork Fest. For a bunch of Dad rockers, they’re doing alright as of late. 

The latest from the Chicago rockers comes in the form of the following note posted to the band’s website last night, where they delivered a quick note about their fortunate position in being able to release an album for free, citing the difficulty of such a thing in the current landscape of the music business. With that, they shared a few of their favorite albums of the year and encourage you to support these fantastic musicians. 

We consider ourselves lucky to be in the position to give you this music free of charge, but we do so knowing not every band, label or studio can do the same. Much of the “music business” relies on physical sales to keep the lights on and the mics up. Without that support, well, it gets tougher and tougher to make it all work.

With that in mind, Wilco has put together a list of some of their favorite recent releases. We encourage you to explore it (and beyond) and yep, even march down to your neighborhood record shop and BUY. There’s a lot of great music out there, lets all try to support it. After all, it’s the years of support (and purchases) of Wilco’s music that allowed us to do what we did last week.

Adron – Organismo
Cibo Matto – Hotel Valentine
Empyrean Atlas – Inner Circle
Eleventh Dream Day – Works for Tomorrow
Full of Hell, Merzbow – Full of Hell & Merzbow
Game Theory – Real Nighttime
Girlpool – Before the World Was Big
Invisible Familiars – Disturbing Wildlife
Landlady – Upright Behavior
Luluc – Passerby
Ned Doheny – Hard Candy
Parquet Courts – Content Nausea
Richard Julian – Fleur de Lis
Scott Walker + Sunn O))) – Soused
Speedy Ortiz – Foil Deer
Steve Gunn – Way Out Weather
William Tyler – Deseret Canyon

Thanks for listening (and sometimes buying),

– HQ

PS: yes, you can also pre-order Star Wars on vinyl and CD here. It’ll also be available at finer record stores everywhere on August 21 (CD) and November 27 (vinyl).

For what it’s worth, that Steve Gunn record is insane.