Widely considered one of the best records of the 1990s, R.E.M.'s Automatic For The People is being given the anniversary treatment and is in record stores now in Deluxe Double CD, Four CD/BluRay and 180g Vinyl versions.

The third album from Michigan rapper NF is high on the charts and that's before the vinyl even comes out. When it does, on 11/3, indie record stores will be the first place to get it.  And for special fun, NF wrote twenty copies of his lyrics, and they've been inserted into random copies around the country.

Norwegian musician Sondre Lerche is having a very busy month. He'll release his new album PLEASURE (CD in record stores 11/3, vinyl 11/10) and a special Black Friday limited edition release, SOLO PLEASURE which brings intimate performances of Pleasure songs exclusively to indie record stores starting 11/24. (Get more information on the #RSDBF piece here.)

October 24 sees the first of two special nights in the US, as he performs a special intimate engagement at The McKitrick Hotel in New York. He'll bring An Evening of Solo Pleasure to the Largo in Los Angeles on January 20, 2018.

One of the songs on both Pleasure and Solo Pleasure, Siamese Twin, is particularly special to Lerche, and the video, directed by Thale Fastvold & Marius Hauge, maybe even more so. We're particularly happy to premiere it, and Sondre wanted to give us a little insight into it as well:

"Growing into my early teens I quickly found more comfort in embracing my effeminate self, rather than forcing the macho temperament that young boys still often automatically feel expected to assume. Thankfully, it didn’t bother me much what friends or strangers might think of my vibe. If anything, any small sense of ambiguity that I might’ve inspired felt empowering, at least for a while. Later, as an adult, I eventually managed to come to terms with my so-called masculine self - for me that was a much more complicated process. In the song Siamese Twin, the need for intimacy knows no boundaries - much like that of a child, or best friends in high school. But the song is not about children, it is perhaps not even about a relationship between two people, but one. I always thought of it as a desperately symbiotic love song - a relationship where one simply cannot come close enough to the other, and where the need to become one with someone is so overpowering that the need to possess the other becomes the most dominant desire. The experience of filming the video for Siamese Twin in January of this year made my own reading of my song much clearer to me. In the video the directors and I wanted to capture the calm, casual intimacy within ourselves when we are alone. The split second when you catch yourself in the mirror, and see yourself in a new way. Who do we see? The video is graced with model/photographer/stylist Jakob Landvik’s magnetic screen presence and expertise, which made all the difference. Searching for a language with which to negotiate and inhabit the different parts of our selves, this video has a much happier, more serene and poetic ending than the morbid fantasy of actual song. I can now truly say it’s a love song again.”