Got a small shipment of new vinyl in today. I'll concentrate this post on the ambient titles that arrived: Tim Hecker's new release, An Imaginary Country, is a 2LP set on Kranky for $22.99. Pitchfork calls it "an otherworldly landscape," and says Hecker "paints these portraits in painstaking three-dimensional detail; the music is strikingly colorful [and he] showcases here a capacity for coaxing natural textures out of his electronic arrangements." Allmusic Guide calls the album "one of his most serene and, from its striking start 100 Years Ago forward, uplifting albums."

We also restocked Hecker's previous album, Harmony in Ultraviolet. Pitchfork named this double LP as one of the top 50 records of 2006--clocking it in at #14 and saying, "What makes the album brilliant-- not merely gorgeous-- is the gradual accrual of power that occurs throughout its 50-minute duration: Submerged, sinking synths are steadily woven into stuck-between-stations radio static, floating from a patient, natural-world meander until, in the last 20 minutes, the dam breaks and angels swirl. This is the ambient album of 2006, one of Canada's most celebrated sound artists imbuing electro-magnetic b-rolls with humanity and grace." $21.99.

I also brought in two albums by one of my all-time favorite ambient acts: Stars of the Lid. Six years separate the release of The Tired Sounds of Stars of the Lid and ... And Their Refinement of the Decline. Allmusic raves about both albums, saying of the latter, "It's an awesome thing, this album, and anyone, virtually anyone who encounters it will be in some way moved by the impure music it contains," and of the former, " something unspeakably beautiful and determinedly unmentionable in its vast and luxuriant erasure from any musical category." Pitchfork gives each album an 8.6 outta 10 and puts Refinement in the top 50 albums released in 2007 (they didn't do a top 50 the year Tired came out). Each release is 3XLP and they're $27.99 each.