Dead Oceans Vinyl, CDs & Cassettes

Dead Oceans started in 2007 out of Bloomington, Indiana, as part of the Secretly Group, and the name came from a Bob Dylan song, which tells you something about the sensibility from the jump. The label's founders came up through record stores and had the instincts that come from actually living inside music rather than just marketing it, and the roster they built reflects that completely.

The catalog doesn't have a single sound and was never supposed to. The earliest releases ranged from Phosphorescent's folk to Dirty Projectors' art punk to psych rock, and the label kept expanding from there in whatever direction the music pointed. Mitski built one of the most critically acclaimed careers in indie rock under this roof, with Puberty 2, Be the Cowboy, and The Land Is Inhospitable and So Are We each arriving as genuine events. Phoebe Bridgers signed in 2017, and Punisher earned four Grammy nominations three years later. Khruangbin brought their genre-dissolving mix of Texas soul, global psych, and dub. Japanese Breakfast. Kevin Morby. Slowdive returned after twenty-two years away and released one of their best records. Bright Eyes brought their full catalog home here.

What ties all of it together is the word classicism that one of the founders uses to describe what they're after: music made to last by artists who aren't chasing a moment. The Dead Oceans records in this collection are built to hold up.