Some record labels have a sound. Sacred Bones has a mood. Since 2007, the Brooklyn label has released gothic synth-pop, doom metal, power electronics, cosmic folk, post-punk from Belarus and the solo music of two of the most famous film directors alive, and somehow it all hangs together. The covers help: a strict, instantly recognizable sleeve design runs through the catalog. But the real thread is a taste for the dark, the strange and the slightly theatrical.
The label describes itself as having been born in Brooklyn "with the intention of bringing great new music to light as well as reissuing music lost to time," and both halves of that mission show up below. These 10 records are the best way into the catalog, in the order they arrived, with notes on where to start.
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1. Zola Jesus, Conatus (2011)
Nika Roza Danilova grew up in rural Wisconsin and started out making abrasive, lo-fi noise as Zola Jesus before her huge, operatic voice pulled her toward pop. Conatus, her third album, is where it all came into focus: icy synths, glitchy electronics and ballads that hit like a cathedral door slamming. Sacred Bones calls it a leap forward in production, instrumentation and song structure, and it remains the record that best captures the label's early sound. Start with Conatus on vinyl.
2. The Men, Open Your Heart (2012)
The Men started as a ferocious Brooklyn punk band, and on their third album they let everything they loved into the room: classic rock, country, surf guitar and long, droning jams, without losing the noise. It is the most joyful record on this list, and proof that the label was never only about darkness. Open Your Heart is the one to hear first.
3. David Lynch, The Big Dream (2013)
Yes, that David Lynch. The director of Eraserhead and Twin Peaks made a second solo album of what he called "modern blues," recorded over several months at his own Asymmetrical Studio with engineer Dean Hurley. According to Sacred Bones, Lynch wrote 11 of its 12 songs, and the album includes his take on Bob Dylan's "The Ballad of Hollis Brown." It sounds exactly like his films feel: smoky, slow and quietly unsettling. The label has since become the home of much of his musical work, including soundtrack reissues.
4. Amen Dunes, Love (2014)
Damon McMahon, who records as Amen Dunes, had made his earlier records quickly, often in first takes. Love took about a year and a half. He recorded the main sessions in Montreal with Dave Bryant and Efrim Menuck of Godspeed You! Black Emperor, and members of that band play on several songs, alongside saxophonist Colin Stetson. The result is warm, hazy, psychedelic folk about time and memory. Love on vinyl is a beautiful late-night record.
5. Pharmakon, Bestial Burden (2014)
The hardest listen here, and one of the most powerful. Pharmakon is the New York noise musician Margaret Chardiet, and Bestial Burden grew out of a medical emergency days before her first European tour, which left her recovering from major surgery. The album turns that experience of a body turning against itself into pounding, screaming industrial noise. It is not background music. It is a gut punch, and a key record for anyone curious about the label's heavier side. Find Bestial Burden if you are ready.
6. John Carpenter, Lost Themes (2015)
The director of Halloween and The Thing has scored most of his own films, and his throbbing synth themes shaped the sound of horror. Lost Themes was his first stand-alone album, made with his son Cody Carpenter and his godson Daniel Davies: all-new music, in the words of Sacred Bones, that "asks Carpenter's acolytes to visualize their own nightmares." It started a second career that now includes more volumes of Lost Themes, live tours and reissues of his classic scores on the label. Lost Themes on vinyl is the essential first step.
7. Jenny Hval, Blood Bitch (2016)
The Norwegian artist Jenny Hval made a concept album about blood, vampires and menstruation, co-produced with the noise musician Lasse Marhaug, and it is far more seductive than that description suggests. Whispered vocals, ghostly synths and sudden moments of pop melody drift through a story inspired by 1970s horror and exploitation films. It is one of the most original records of its decade. Pick up Blood Bitch on vinyl.
8. Mort Garson, Mother Earth's Plantasia (1976, reissued 2019)
The best example of the label's reissue work. In 1976, the composer Mort Garson recorded an album of gentle Moog synthesizer music meant for houseplants. It was given away to customers of a Los Angeles plant shop called Mother Earth and to buyers of a certain mattress at Sears, then disappeared into cult status. Sacred Bones officially reissued it in 2019, and its warm, sweet, slightly goofy melodies found a huge new audience. Mother Earth's Plantasia is the easiest record on this list to love.
9. Molchat Doma, Etazhi (2018)
The breakout. Molchat Doma, whose name translates as "Houses Are Silent," are a trio from Minsk, Belarus, who sing in Russian over cold drum machines, chorus-soaked guitars and synths that recall 1980s post-punk and new wave. Etazhi, meaning "Floors," first came out in 2018 on a small Berlin label and became a viral phenomenon online. Sacred Bones signed the band and brought the album to a much wider audience. Etazhi on vinyl is the label's biggest crossover hit.
10. SPELLLING, The Turning Wheel (2021)
Chrystia Cabral, the Bay Area artist who records as SPELLLING, started out with homemade synth music. For her third album she orchestrated and self-produced a lush, theatrical double LP featuring 31 collaborating musicians, with strings, banjo and bassoon swirling around her voice. It is split into two halves, "Above" and "Below," and sounds like a cosmic cabaret. The Turning Wheel is the label at its most ambitious.
Where to go next
Once you have the basics, the catalog opens up fast. Khanate's To Be Cruel is crushing, slow-motion doom from a band featuring Stephen O'Malley of Sunn O))). Marissa Nadler's Strangers is gorgeous, gothic folk. Boris, Blanck Mass and Psychic Ills push into noise, electronics and psychedelia, and Jim Jarmusch's albums with the lutenist Jozef van Wissem sound like the soundtrack to a dream. The label also runs the Sacred Bones Record Society, a membership for collectors who want exclusive pressings.
If you like labels with a strong identity, see our starter guides to 4AD Records, Mute Records and Kranky Records, and for the synth side of the catalog, our krautrock starter guide.
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