Tomorrow we will release our fifth soundtrack of 2013, Mike Shinoda & Joe Trapanese’s Original Score for THE RAID: REDEMPTION.

For the uninitated, THE RAID is an Indonesian martian-arts film that is easily one of the best action movies to come out of any country in the last few years. This soundtrack, scored for the U.S. release of the film by Joe Trapanese (of last month’s soundtrack release OBLIVION) and Mike Shinoda, is fast-paced and pulsating, perfectly capturing the energy and tension of the film.

The artwork on this gatefold jacket was created by Jock, and the album was pressed on 180 Gram vinyl in both BLACK and randomly-inserted SMOKEY GREY.

Photo credit: Billy Garrett

Track Listing:
1. Prayers
2. Gear Up
3. The Arrival
4. We Have Company
5. We’re Alone Here
6. Quaking Old Fuck
7. Hole Drop
8. Moving Up, Part 1
9. Moving Up, Part 2
10. Trapped
11. Close Shave
12. One Way Out
13. Machete Standoff
14. Rama’s Family Dream
15. Chair Slam
16. Dirty Cop
17. Jaka Caught
18. Dog Fight
19. Uncle Andi
20. Dead Already
21. Drug Lab
22. Andi Strung Up
23. Putting A Mad Dog Down
24. Misfire
25. Razors.Out (Performed by Chino Moreno)
26. Suicide Music (Performed by Get Busy Committee)

This 2XLP will be available tomorrow, May 24, at a random time at www.mondotees.com
Please follow us on Twitter for the on sale announcement.

Tomorrow we will be releasing our copies of the amazing soundtrack to OBLIVION by M83 and Joseph Trapanese. Hopefully by now you’ve had a chance to listen to it (it’s been streaming on several music blogs or Spotify if you have it) or better yet, you’ve heard it at its intended volume at your local cinema. If you haven’t, it is incredibly powerful, and very effective (see what I did there?)

Our participation in this release was sort of a happy accident. It happened while we were fishing for other soundtracks in the Universal Pictures library. We heard about M83 doing the score, and we are all huge fans, so we snuck it in on the list of potential releases and never expected to hear back… and I guess the rest is obvious. But what should be noted is the filmmakers personally requested the art of Killian Eng, and I cannot say I blame them. The artwork came out incredible, and perfectly captures the Daytime Sci-Fi look Joseph Kosinski created in the film. We hope you like it!

A few notes regarding this release: The copies we will be selling tomorrow will ONLY be clear. I know this is different than previous releases, with randomly-inserted Variant vinyl. The contributing factors to this decision are plentiful, but mostly selfish. We just wanted our copies to be special. That said, the copies that will be in record stores starting on 5/28 will be black ONLY.

The final note I want to make is that, while we are putting these on sale tomorrow, they will not begin shipping for two weeks. I approximate 5/15/2013. We are still playing quite a bit of catch up in the shipping queue, and I don’t want to skip the people who are patiently waiting on GAME OF THRONES prints and beyond. For locals, we will announce when OBLIVION vinyl are available for gallery pick-up.

Track listing:
1. Jack’s Dream (1:22)
2. Waking Up (4:09)
3. Tech 49 (5:58)
4. StarWaves (3:41)
5. Odyssey Rescue (4:08)
6. Earth 2077 (2:22)
7. Losing Control (3:56)
8. Canyon Battle (5:58)
9. Radiation Zone (4:11)
10. You Can’t Save Her (4:56)
11. Raven Rock (4:33)
12. I’m Sending You Away (5:38)
13. Ashes Of Our Fathers (3:30)
14. Temples Of Our Gods (3:14)
15. Fearful Odds (3:09)
16. Undimmed By Time, Unbound By Death (2:26)
17. Oblivion (feat. Susanne Sundfor) (5:57)

**UPDATE** Good news: The pallet has been located! Yesterday afternoon we received a very exciting call, telling us that our DRIVE Picture Discs were found unharmed, and were en-route to our distributor. Since then, our distributor has been working tirelessly to get these out to as many stores as possible.

Now, obviously the timing is not ideal. Record Store Day is tomorrow so we cannot guarantee that these will make it to all stores in time for doors, but they will be in some. Please contact your local record store to see if they will have these discs in time. Worst case scenario, they should be on shelves early next week.  As mentioned before, they will for sure be in WATERLOO and END OF AN EAR here in Austin, as I had already hand delivered some of our personal copies in advance, prior to this announcement.

Thank you for your patience with this matter, and thank you for being so understanding when all was (theoretically) lost. I hope you like them. We are incredibly proud of them.

- Mo Shafeek – 4/25/2013

It was supposed to be so easy…

Bad News (the Short Version): Our DRIVE Picture Disc 2XLP will NOT be in stores on Record Store Day, this coming Saturday.

Bad News (the Long Version): So, a few weeks ago, we got our entire stock of DRIVE. That included the entire regular edition that we put online, plus 75 copies or so of the RSD Picture Disc for our own personal archives and comps. We shot some photos in anticipation of promoting its existence, a blog for which would’ve gone live today under more positive circumstances. You can see them below (a.k.a. Proof these things actually exist.)

The very same day, our manufacturer also shipped the remaining edition (1,000 copies) to our distributor, intended to be divvied up across the country for Record Store Day. But something went terribly wrong: they were never received. At first we waited patiently for them to arrive. A week went by, then we had to get a little more pro-active. We tried to trace them. We got the upper-management of the shipping company involved. We did nationwide sweeps of major shipping facilities, ultimately with no luck. Now, we are all freaking out asking the same question you are undoubtedly asking yourself…

How does one lose 1,000 records?

Did they get stolen? Did they “fall off the back of the truck?” Literally, or figuratively – probably not. Anyone who knows records could tell you that 1,000 records weigh quite a bit. I feel/hope like someone would notice (unless it was some sort of Fast & Furious heist-type situation, which would at least make for a good story.) It’s more likely that they are just sitting in a warehouse, or dock gathering dust. But which “warehouse/dock” is a question that our manufacturer and distributor are still asking each freight company, leaving us to deal with this P.R. nightmare.

As far as we can tell, it is no one’s fault in particular. It is a mix of miscommunication, incorrect receiving procedures and general hectic-ness surrounding this industry-specific holiday. But none of that changes how awful this situation is. As of now, no one can tell us when these copies will resurface. Without even a remote timeline, we cannot guarantee they will be in stores in time for Saturday, nor can we guarantee what we are going to do with them when we eventually find them (I have been assured that in the history of Record Stores, no one has ever lost an entire pallet of records and never found them… so at least there’s that.)

It’s totally fitting after waiting a year to put out this LP that we should all have to wait a bit longer. As someone who has seen these with his own two eyes, I can tell you that they are worth the wait. They just won’t be a part of Record Store Day 2013. And for that, we sincerely apologize.

But don’t let that discourage your Record Store Day! PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE support you local record stores. It is so incredibly important that you do. I, personally, will be getting up super early and getting in line at Waterloo Records here in Austin to go pick up a few things. If you are local, I hope to see you there.

A few more things:

AUSTIN LOCALS will still have a shot. As stated above, we have a few to spare so we are going to give a few copies to END OF AN EAR and WATERLOO RECORDS to sell this Saturday. I don’t know how many just yet, but it will be very minimal. I’m sorry that we cannot do the same for other stores outside of Austin. I hope you understand.

POLTERGEIST GLOW IN THE DARK was on a separate pallet and will still be in Record Stores on Saturday. It is CRAZY how much this thing glows. You can see a few photos below.

DRIVE REGULAR EDITION will be in stores on May 28th, 2013. Those were not lost either (thank god). Please contact your local record store to make sure they carry it.

OBLIVION will be on sale on April 26th on our web store and will also be in record stores on May 28th. We will have the exclusive CLEAR version. The one that will be in stores will be BLACK.

Please feel free to e-mail me at Mo@mondotees.com if you have any further questions.

Photo credit: Billy Garrett

Thank you, again, from the bottom of our hearts.

On March 5th of 2012, on this very blog, we boldly promised you 2XLP of DRIVE with artwork by Tyler Stout to be released in June of 2012. Man, were we way off.

But here we are, a little over a year after that blog post, and I can finally show you pictures of the finshed product and tell you with complete confidence that these are going on sale tomorrow, March 22nd, 2013 at a random time.

A few notes regarding DRIVE that will also fill you in on how we are progressing in the shipping department these days, post-SXSW.

Like with all of our previous releases, the record comes standard in BLACK, but there is a randomly inserted variant (PINK) vinyl. We cannot take requests for PINK copies. Apologies for that in advance.

Unlike with posters, there are NO limits on how many LP’s you can buy.

We still have a few copies here at the gallery. If you are local, come pick one up so you don’t have to pay for shipping.

Also, while the DRIVE LP’s will go on sale tomorrow, they likely will not ship until the first week of April. We are just getting started on shipping the OSCAR night prints. After that we have GAME OF THRONES, and somewhere during all that madness we will begin shipping the records.

And now, here’s that DRIVE vinyl we were talking about…

Photo credit: Billy Garrett

Track List:
01. Nightcall
02. Under Your Spell
03. A Real Hero
04. Oh My Love
05. Tick of the Clock
06. Rubber Head
07. I Drive
08. He Had A Good Time
09. They Broke His Pelvis
10. Kick Your Teeth
11. Where’s the Deluxe Version
12. See You in Four
13. After the Chase
14. Hammer
15. Wrong Floor
16. Skull Crushing
17. My Name on a Car
18. On the Beach
19. Bride of Deluxe

This vinyl will be on sale tomorrow, March 22, at a random time HERE. Please follow us on Twitter for the on sale announcement.

As always, please feel free to shoot us an e-mail at store@mondotees.com if you have any questions about this release.

Now that both cats are out of their respective bags (GAME OF THRONES and STOUT & TAYLOR), we can also announce something else: Yes, that 4-6 week wait on your Oscar Night prints is accurate. With all we have planned for SXSW, we simply will not have the space to operate our shipping department to normal capacity. Our apologies to our more impatient fans, but I promise they will be worth the wait.

Good news is, before we close up shop we are going to get your POLTERGEIST 2XLP’s out the door. I wanted to show you some photos of the actual Wax we weren’t able to take in time for the Press Release (check out how beautiful that clear variant is).

We hope to have these all out the door before the end of this week. If you requested Gallery pick up, we will be able to honor your request starting March 8th.

We are nearing the end of our stock. Don’t hesitate much longer if you are on the fence.

Jerry Goldsmith’s soundtrack for Steven Spielberg’s Poltergeist formed a significant part of the 1982
film’s conceptual strength. Known for the intensity of his thematic exposition, Goldsmith designs
the Poltergeist soundtrack to elaborately ground the film between the promise of suburban repose
and the malevolent unknown. Beginning in innocence with a classic rendition of the “Star-Spangled
Banner,” the soundtrack parallels the film’s intrusion of angry ghosts into the California home of the film’s
protagonists with dreadful strings and eerie keys. Goldsmith then switches to airier strings and an ethereal
flute to denote the family’s fumbling after their daughter, Carol Anne, is abducted. Utilizing frenzied
horn blasts and a sudden lapse into atonalism, the composer ominously signifies the emergence of the
Beast. Goldsmith, seemingly effortless, concludes the frantic drama of “Escape From Suburbia” in stark
contrast with the sweet and child-like tones of “Carol Anne’s Theme,” elegantly illustrating the dignity and
range that his orchestral scores for horror modeled within the genre.

Track list:
1) The Star Spangled Banner*
2) The Calling / The Neighborhood (Main Title)
3) The Tree (Outtake)*
4) The Clown / They’re Here / Broken Glass / The Hole / TV People*
5) Twisted Abduction
6) Contacting The Other Side*
7) The Light
8) Night Visitor / No Complaints
9) It Knows What Scares You*
10) Rebirth
11) Night Of The Beast
12) Escape From Suburbia
13) Carol Anne’s Theme (End Title)

*First appearance on vinyl

This vinyl will be on sale tomorrow, February 22nd, at a random time at www.mondotees.com. Please follow us on Twitter for the on sale announcement.

If you noticed, we took the last couple of weeks of 2012 off. Why? Because we have some big things coming to you in January and they needed the proper attention. We just announced Ken Taylor’s JURASSIC PARK poster and we’ll be announcing the January gallery show soon, but this blog post will focus on one of of the most exciting things we’ll be expanding in 2013…. our record label.

Last year, we started a record label that focused on putting out great soundtracks on vinyl. Our first two offerings were MANIAC and THE BEYOND. We also announced that we would be putting DRIVE out with Tyler Stout artwork for the packaging. (Quick update on that… it’s done. Approved. And at the plant getting pressed.) We’ve been working very hard on getting choice titles and artists for packaging and we’re happy to announce that our first release for 2013 is being dropped this Friday, January 4th. This release just happens to be one of my favorite monster movies of all time and the packaging features amazing original art by Phantom City Creative. Here is THE DEADLY SPAWN….

THE DEADLY SPAWN will go up for sale at a random time on Friday. We are beyond thrilled with how the entire project turned out. Here is a closer look at the record sleeve and vinyl…

We will also have two colors of vinyl that will be randomly inserted into orders. Black and the DEADLY SPAWN variant which mimics the color and look of the monsters in the film …

Thanks to everyone for making the first few releases such successes. We hope you like this and are excited to bring more great vinyl to you in 2013.