Forager Records are available now through In Sheep’s Clothing distribution!

The story of recorded music isn’t merely what reached the charts or got coverage — it’s also the countless voices left unheard, abandoned by the side of the road. Folk singers who pressed 500 LPs and quit. Soul groups who never made it past the local station. Soft-rock dreamers who wrote songs as radiant as any hit but lacked the machinery to push them forward. New wavers looking to shock the market. These records didn’t fail because they weren’t good; they failed because the system was built to ignore them. And as histories of payola, radio politics, and label manipulation come into sharper focus, our relationship with these neglected recordings continues to evolve.

“The music industry of the ’60s, ’70s, and ’80s was incredibly political and prohibited a ton of music from garnering the attention it may have deserved,” Matthew Bruce of Forager Records said in a 2021 interview with Resistor. “If you didn’t get radio play or a hit single, then that was it.”

Forager emerged in Los Angeles in 2020, when Bruce, a graphic designer and crate-digger, joined with engineer Sam Hirschfelder as the pandemic shut the city down. Bruce had already been running the brilliant Crates LA, a YouTube channel where he uploaded rips of obscure 45s. “After a while I wanted something more,” he told Resistor. “I wanted to get in touch with the artists and officially license the music to share it with a larger audience.” That impulse led to Belong to the Wind (2021), a debut compilation that became a cult favorite.

Since then the label has issued reissues by Roberta Vandervort & Sally Townes, the Michigan band Flight, and themed sets including Child of Nature and Forever Gamblin’ On You. “Tracking down master tapes, or the last remaining copy of a record, allows us to digitize, restore, and remaster the music,” Bruce explained. “This is important because if the last copy ends up in a landfill before there’s a digitized file, that music is going to be gone forever.” Compilations, he added, serve as “a gateway into serious record digging,” distilling thousands of hours of searching into a single LP.

Bruce’s insight into collecting, in fact, is spot on, and has aligned with In Sheep’s Clothing’s mission since Forager launched. In 2021, Forager joined us at NeueHouse for a remarkable evening of focused listening centered around Belong to the Wind.

“One of the biggest allures of record collecting for me is the exploration of music,” he explained. “The further we are pushed into the digital age the harder it is to navigate the vast expanse of music that’s out there. If I go to a record store, I am limited to digging through whatever lies within those walls. It narrows it down for you, and the music isn’t pushed on you by some algorithm or based on what your friends are streaming. It’s more work physically flipping through and scanning the credits of record sleeves, but it’s much more rewarding.”

Forager Records are now available for distribution via In Sheep’s Clothing Distribution. Shops can reach out to [email protected] for the inventory list!

Below, five Forager compilations that have defined their aesthetic.

Small Talk (2025)

Forager’s love of curated collections is infectious: “A compilation is an incredible thing because it’s thousands of hours of digging through records, restored and remastered audio, and new artwork neatly wrapped with a bow. It’s a sort of gateway into serious record digging. It showcases what kind of rare, unknown, or obscure music is out there. It might convince someone to go spend hours in a dingy basement digging through moldy records.”

Small Talk is a brilliant example. The release notes set the scene:

“A warm breeze drifts through the open cabin of the boat, carrying the scent of salt and sun-warmed teak as it stirs the linen curtains. The man moves easily, bare feet against the wooden floor, the slow rhythm of the harbor rocking beneath him.” He flips through records with a knowing touch, “pulling out a favorite—something smooth and mellow, with buttery vocals and melodies that drift like a sailboat on calm waters.”

With melodies as smooth as a sailor balancing two decks in rough waters, Small Talk brings together a carefully curated selection of long-forgotten, yet remarkably captivating soft rock and AOR tracks from the ’70s and ’80s, compiled by Arizona-based digger and amplifier Brandon McMahon. These lesser-known songs are drenched in lush harmonies, dreamy guitar riffs, and mellow rhythms, capturing the essence of an era — minus any mainstream recognition. For those with an ear for the obscure and a taste for the subtle, Small Talk offers a fresh perspective on an era’s overlooked gems.

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Forever Gamblin’ On You (2024)

Midnight on an empty highway, a yacht-sized ’73 Chevy Caprice cuts through the dark, headlights tunneling ahead. The dashboard glows in aquamarine, soft as a motel pool light, while the back shelf speakers rattle with bass but sparkle in the midrange. Forever Gamblin’ On You feels like it belongs here — an after-hours collage of forgotten ‘70s and ‘80s vinyl whispers, blue-eyed soul lullabies, psych-folk reveries, and soft-funk laments. Music for the road between nowhere and the next flicker of neon.

Angie Pepper’s “Miss You Too Much” hums with the hazy warble of a memory taped over a dozen times, its production fluttering like it was captured straight onto VHS. Cross Creek’s “Good Guy” doesn’t just lean on archetypes, it belts them out and mixes them — a pulp western spun into a fantasy novel. “Where the white hat and a golden gun, ride your horse into the setting sun, there’s a need in everyone to slay the dragon with your silver sword, save the princess and become a lord, we have dreams we’re aiming toward…” The track plays like a technicolor showdown.

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Belong to the Wind (2021)

Forager’s Belong to the Wind collects a handful of obscure 45s from the 1970s — songs that feel fragile yet alive, like they’ve been waiting for the right ears. It’s the label’s debut, and the curation plays less like a crate-digger’s brag and more like a manifesto: intimate music that once slipped away but still resonates today.

Denny Fast leans into a smoke-faded piano ballad that could drift through a late-night hi-fi session. Connie Mims, fronting St. Elmo’s Fire, sharpens a portrait of betrayal into something quietly cinematic. Snuffy mumbles his outsider prayer for transformation, a lo-fi hymn that lands with as much gravity now as it must have then.

The set doesn’t aim for polish — some cuts wobble, some hiss — but that’s part of the spell. Played on a good system, they sit right alongside contemporary folk, soft-psych, or even low-key singer-songwriter streams. These are small, stubbornly human songs, and Forager has given them a second life.

Available Now: https://insheepsclothinghifi.com/product/various-belong-to-the-wind-lp/

Sky Dust Drifter (2022)

Dawn presses against the windshield, pale light scattering over the hood. The horizon feels endless, a ribbon of road humming beneath wheels too heavy for the silence around them. Sky Dust Drifter doesn’t just keep time, it colors it: faded soft-rock hues, psych-folk fragments, and half-remembered AOR choruses, like radio transmissions from another timeline. The collection carries the air of discovery but leans into daylight.

Michael Andrews’ “Something Bad’s Better Than Nothin’” breezes in like an open window on a deserted stretch, Sunburst’s “Special Lady” flickers with synth warmth, and the title track hovers like a mirage. This is music for drifting between small towns, gas stations, and memories that blur into the scenery. Even the sleeve art — Arina Kokoreva’s aquamarine haze warped into sunlight — suggests that morning has its own mysteries, no less strange than the night before.

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Vacation from My Mind (2022)

Vacation From My Mind is a gentle realignment of melancholic soul, breezy soft rock, and mellow jazz-funk. This 12-track set, drawn from rare and overlooked recordings between 1973 and 1981, feels like a care package from another time. Jeanette Baker’s hypnotic title cut drifts like a daydream, while David Buckland’s “Celia” spins with Latin-tinged jazz-funk fire. The Care Package delivers “The Storm,” a lush, harmony-soaked production rarely heard on privately pressed 45s. From Bolivia, Utopia’s “Lejos De Mi” offers a slow-burning slice of psych that lingers long after it fades.

Lovingly sequenced to ease the anxieties of the present, the compilation creates space to breathe, reflect, and drift. If Sky Dust Drifter chased sunlit horizons, this one slips into the shade, aquamarine tones flickering in the chrome. Whatever track pulls you in first, the hope is simple: that this album gives you, at least for a while, a vacation from your mind.

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