30/05/2021
29/05/2021
Oneida - Bad Habit (Official Audio)
Excepting a collaboration with legendary post-minimalist composer Rhys Chatham, Romance is Oneida's first studio full-length since the building that hosted their Brooklyn recording studio, the Ocropolis, was demolished in 2011. Oneida were hardly inactive, however; they toured throughout America and Europe and released several limited live recordings and singles, in addition to their extracurricular projects such as People of the North and Man Forever.
Uilab Fires - impulse rah! + st. elmo's fire (snow) [vinyl]
Fires is an EP of collaborations between NYC funky experimentalists Ui and London's Stereolab. The two groups have toured together and the mutual admiration is evident here. What's most distinctive are the vocals of Stereolab's Laetitia Sadier and Mary Hansen and the bottom-heavy Ui rhythm section. Unlike many collaborative efforts, this goes well beyond the sum of its parts and is as entertaining as any of either band's usual efforts.
The Kingsbury Manx Piss Diary
The Kingsbury Manx emerged in 1999 from the same North Carolina indie rock scene that spawned the Archers of Loaf and Superchunk before them. Bandmembers Ken Stephenson (guitar/vocals), Bill Taylor (guitar/vocals), Ryan Richardson (drums/vocals), and Scott Myers (bass/keyboards) attended middle school together in Greensboro before going separate ways during their college years. Stephenson and Myers enrolled in creative writing studies at Wilmington while Taylor and Richardson both landed at UNC, Chapel Hill. During visits back home, the quartet began writing and recording the music for a demo. The band's break came when Overcoat Recordings owner (and former Thrill Jockey employee) Howard Greynolds heard the tape and agreed to fund their debut.
26/05/2021
Holiday Ghosts - Slipstream
When Holiday Ghosts made their debut in 2017, it was with a clattering garage rock that revealed good melodic instincts and a thoughtfulness that was more concerned with getting through the day than partying in said garage. After tweaking their lineup but retaining co-lead singers and main songwriters Sam Stacpoole and Kat Rackin, the U.K. four-piece returns two years later with West Bay Playroom and a more direct sound.
Sons Of Kemet, Joshua Idehen - Field Negus (Audio)
Before listening to Black to the Future, Sons of Kemet's fourth album, reading the track list first is recommended. Bandleader Shabaka Hutchings sequenced it as a poetic statement to accurately and aesthetically foreshadow the record's narrative, thereby framing the context for its music. Sons of Kemet remains a quartet with Hutchings on reeds and woodwinds, Theon Cross on tuba, and Edward Wakili-Hick and Tom Skinner on drums and percussion; they are joined here by a slew of vocal and instrumental guests. Black to the Future carries the torch of musical polemic from Max Roach's We Insist! Freedom Now Suite, Archie Shepp's Attica Blues, and Gil Scott-Heron and Brian Jackson's It's Your World to Linton Kwesi Johnson's Bass Culture, Rip Rig & Panic's Attitude, and Public Enemy's It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back. Sons of Kemet address the Black experience from colonial slavery to Black Lives Matter's international ascendancy amid the struggle for self-determination while erasing artificial boundaries between jazz, dub, highlife, Afrobeat, calypso, rap, funk, and soul, without sterile posturing.
The Comet Is Coming - Birth Of Creation
England's sci-fi jazz trio the Comet Is Coming have been exploring the cosmos since 2015 when drummer Maxwell Hallett (Betamax) and keyboardist Dan Leavers (Danalogue) were playing a gig as futurist duo Soccer96 when they encountered Shabaka Hutchings (King Shabaka) hanging near the stage with a saxophone. They invited him up and improvised. Received enthusiastically, the trio formed the Comet Is Coming to explore a mutual love of Sun Ra, John and Alice Coltrane, Mahavishnu Orchestra, and future-forward electronica.
Trees Speak - Glass
The fourth album from Arizona's Trees Speak is another exciting shift in their rapidly expanding discography, packing a wealth of ideas within its 18 tracks. With each successive release, the group have tightened their focus, reining in their more indulgent impulses and creating full-length journeys with a true sense of progression. PostHuman is their most cinematic work to date, with each track resembling a distinct movie scene, often seamlessly segued in order to maintain continuity. The band is still heavily influenced by Krautrock, but the motorik rhythms of tracks like "Glass" are creepily suspenseful as well as hypnotic. "Chamber of Frequencies" blends rippling synth arpeggios with showers of psychedelic horns, and feels torn between bliss and existential confusion. "Elements of Matter" masterfully applies spacy effects, flickering keyboards, and overdubbed drum hits to a sparse, anxious groove. While some tracks seem to offer light relief, others considerably ramp up the suspense, from the clanging, dread-filled "Scheinwelt" to the spooky, tripped-out funk of "X Zeit." Of the many highlights, "Steckdose" is a good summation of the album's charms and challenges, opening with unsteady chords and wibbling synths before launching into a driving beat, then breaking down into a slower rhythm before more fragmented synths bubble upward, providing a segue into the arpeggio-core of "Amnesia Transmitter." The vocoder-heavy, Mellotron-laced "Quantize Humanize" gives off a loungey Air vibe, leading the way to the rising strings and gasping horns of the frightful "Gläserner Mensch." The last two tracks are included as a bonus 7" along with the LP edition, and the swirling jitteriness of "Machine Vision" is one of the album's funnest moments. Wide-ranging without seeming scattered, PostHuman is an effortlessly accomplished work
23/05/2021
22/05/2021
FACS - Casual Indifference
For Facs, redefining themselves and their music is a way of life. Fortunately, they're consistently great at it. Void Moments is the band's second album with bassist Alianna Kalaba, and it feels like the stability of their lineup allowed them to be even more daring with their music. Even when they pared their sound down to its bones on Negative Houses, Facs have never been a simple proposition. However, on their third full-length they give the melodies, harmonies, and textures they introduced on Lifelike even more depth. With its jittery, jabbing rhythm, "Boy" initially sounds like it could be a Negative Houses outtake, but the way Brian Case's angular guitar lines play against Noah Leger's slinky polyrhythms in a shifting audio illusion has a mesmerizing complexity that feels new. As on Lifelike, Void Moments' melodic and harmonic elements make Facs sound even more singular instead of more conventional. Tremulous guitars drift through the album, floating above the gritty din of the rhythm section and lending an eerie sensuality to tracks such as "Casual Indifference," where Case's androgynous harmonies when he sings about playing "around with different sexes" suggest that the music's fluidity extends to Void Moments' themes. Those weightless guitars take center stage on "Version," a fascinating collage of zero-gravity shoegaze, dub's spooky atmospheres, and jazzy, freewheeling interplay that culminates in triumphantly noisy catharsis. Though the post-punk violence of Facs' playing is undeniable, the intricacy of their performances is just as remarkable. Leger remains a brilliant drummer; on "Teenage Hive," it sounds like he's having a conversation with himself on his kit while he ties together Kalaba's taut bass and Case's radiant guitar washes. Here and on the standout "Void Walker," each member of Facs traces different trajectories that complement each other perfectly. When they close the album with the monumental-sounding "Dub Over," the sheer hugeness of the track makes it feel like they can do just about anything. Though Facs demand a lot from their listeners, when the results are as stunning as Void Moments, it's well worth paying attention.
FACS "XOUT" (Official Video)
Facs have earned a well-deserved reputation as post-punk innovators unafraid to hit as hard and be as weird as they want. They're prolific -- 2021's Present Tense is their fourth full-length in just over three years -- and they're consistent. Even at the best of times, their music is filled with paranoia and uncanniness, qualities that fit the fraught era in which this album was made all too well. If possible, Present Tense is even more hallucinatory and high-strung than Facs' previous output. "You do it until you cannot," Brian Case intones as everything around him wobbles seismically on "Strawberry Cough," one of the album's most beautiful and nightmarish moments. Here and on the rest of the album, all of Facs' touchstones are present and accounted for: elegant, inventive drumming, Dutch angle guitars, a psychedelic strangeness in how they layer their sounds, and a willingness to build tension and resolve it only when they're good and ready to. The implosive, nine-minute "Alone Without" (previously released as an Adult Swim single) is a prime example of Facs' expertise at suspense, with fuzzy contrails of guitar stretching out almost as long as the spaces between Case's surreal lyrics. With highlights including "General Public"'s slashing Gang of Four homage and "How to See in the Dark"'s sculptural sleekness, Present Tense seems like a very good but somewhat straightforward Facs album until the last two tracks. The band took a more experimental approach to writing and recording that stands out on "Present Tense," where backward drums and cryptic observations ("all life remains kneeling in love") take on an almost spiritual dimension that feels equally ominous and optimistic, and on the brilliant closer "Mirrored," which brings the album full circle by adding a metal-tinged doom to the heaviness the band hinted at on the opening track "XOUT." Exciting developments are just more proof of how Facs extend the challenges they set for themselves to their audience -- if they leave you rattled, they've done their job.
Lambchop - Fuku (Official Video)
Showtunes is Lambchop’s follow-up to 2019’s This (is what I wanted to tell you). Lambchop mastermind Kurt Wagner recorded the album remotely with Yo La Tengo’s James McNew, Ryan Olson, co-producer and engineer Jeremy Ferguson, horn player and arranger CJ Camerieri, and Cologne DJ Twit One
19/05/2021
Califone & Robyn Mineko Williams - Echo Mine | Audiotree STAGED
Califone is an experimental, folky post rock band who are dedicated to collaboration. The iconic trio partnered with artistic visionary/choreographer Robyn Mineko Williams to craft a stimulating experience of expressive flow put to Califone's chameleonic soundscapes.
18/05/2021
Nightshift "Power Cut" (Official Video)
Glasgow indie band Nightshift (featuring members of Spinning Coin, 2 Ply and Robert Sotelo) are shrewd in their sonic choices. On their new LP, Zöe, avant-garde and no wave tendencies
Nightshift- Zöe
Nightshift: Zöe
Trouble in Mind Records
Glasgow indie band Nightshift (featuring members of Spinning Coin, 2 Ply and Robert Sotelo) are shrewd in their sonic choices. On their new LP, Zöe, avant-garde and no wave tendencies mingle with classic indie-pop influences, resulting in an alluring push and pull.
For an album that thrives on their rhythmic interplay and colorful chemistry, it’s surprising that these songs were recorded remotely during lockdown, but they’re still able to lock into grooves with ease. The extended breakdown on the blissful “Power Cut,” for example, finds them riffing over each other like it’s a rapturous jam session—synths, bells, and guitars flutter and glow, until a screeching flute solo invades and takes the track into wonderfully freakish territory. Other tracks like “Make Kin” and “Infinity Winner” thrive on their spacious, hair-raising qualities, with a palpable gloom brought on by jazzy post-punk. Whether it’s an offbeat drum passage or charming shared pop vocals, Nightshift have plenty of curveballs and plenty of heart. —Lizzie Manno
Cloud Nothings - "The Spirit Of" (official audio)
“Am I older now or am I just another age?,” Dylan Baldi asks on track one of Cloud Nothings’ new album The Shadow I Remember. The band recently celebrated the 10th anniversary of their debut album Turning On, which was just reissued via Carpark Records, so it makes sense that they’re pondering the passage of time
The Shins: Oh, Inverted World One by One All Day
When Sub Pop selected “New Slang” as one of their Singles-of-the-Month, the response was immediate. Albequerque’s James Mercer was quickly looking at a full-on record deal, and the label that made its name during the grunge movement was about to get a second life as the epicenter of indie rock. There were plenty of other acts making music that would help usher in the indie era, but nothing marked the the appetite for quirky, folky, quiet rock quite like Mercer’s first falsetto oooh-ooh-ooh-ooh-ohh-ooh-ooh-oooohs at the beginning of “New Slang.” With its opaque lyrics about deteriorating relationships and dissatisfaction about one’s lot in life married to bouncy rhythms and chiming guitar melodies connected with disaffected rock fans. The first iPod was released four months after Oh, Inverted World, and what better to fill up something novel than with something novel. Over the next few years, the band would be name-checked by Natalie Portman’s character in Garden State, and the album would earn its Gold Record status from the RIAA. It might not change your life, but it definitely changed the music landscape of the 2000s. —Josh Jackson
The Dismemberment Plan - "The Face of the Earth"
The Dismemberment Plan were unparalleled at their zenith, when Change was released. We’re talking about a record that fell between the band being asked seemingly out of nowhere to open for Pearl Jam during the European leg of their 2000 tour, and their tour pairing with Death Cab for Cutie in 2002 when Transatlanticism came out.
Moontype "Ferry" (Official Video) 2021
Moontype: Bodies of Water
Friendship, water and glass have a lot in common. For starters, they’re essential for modern life, and they can be beautiful, life-affirming and often long-lasting. Similarly, they’re all powerful and capable of wreaking havoc. But most interestingly, we can see our reflection in each of them, whether it’s a storefront, a pond or even a friendship. These three things also inform Bodies of Water, the impressive debut album from Chicago trio Moontype. The record is full of references to water in various states of matter, cherished quality time and glass as a symbol of perspective—all devices to highlight the tender, wholesome moments that keep us going. It’s a sweet, intimate record, bolstered by the love each band member has for each other. Soaking up their album really is a healing experience given its universal search for love, understanding and identity. Whether songwriter, lead vocalist and bassist Margaret McCarthy is pining for a friend she hasn’t seen in a while, feeling disconnected from someone who’s near, or trying to cope with being alone, Bodies of Water cherishes the special moments when connection comes easy, and we truly feel seen by ourselves and others. —Lizzie Manno
Godspeed You! Black Emperor: Job's Lament 2021
Godspeed You! Black Emperor: G_d’s Pee AT STATE’S END
For the entirety of its existence, the Canadian post-rock group Godspeed You! Black Emperor has eschewed interviews, choosing instead to communicate collectively through terse, unsigned (and uncapitalized) statements. “this record,” reads the one accompanying the band’s new album G_d’s Pee AT STATE’S END, “is about all of us waiting for the end.” The truth is, Godspeed’s entire body of work over the past three decades has felt like a prelude to an end—an end that feels closer than ever before. It is surely no coincidence, then, that G_d’s Pee arrives now, its 52 minutes stuffed with forbidding drones, symphonic despair, eerie found sounds and vast swaths of epic, instrumental rock befitting the apocalypse and whatever comes after. —Ben Salmon
Dry Cleaning: New Long Leg 2021- Her Hippo
British quartet Dry Cleaning extract the profound from the mundane and the meaningful from the nonsensical. On “Viking Hair” from the band’s 2019 EP Boundary Road Snacks and Drinks, frontperson Florence Shaw’s everyday sexual fantasies stood in for the arbitrary guidelines determining acceptable and shameful desires; as she surreally rattled off “traditional fish bar, chicken and ribs, bus pass” and more on “Traditional Fish” from the band’s other 2019 EP, Sweet Princess, she scorned the very idea of commerce. And she did it all in a bone-dry, comical sing-speak set to rollicking, if not straightforward, post-punk courtesy of guitarist Tom Dowse, bassist Lewis Maynard and drummer Nick Buxton. New Long Leg, Dry Cleaning’s debut album (and first release for 4AD), is all of that and none of that. Shaw’s semi-accidental revelations about the ridiculousness of being alive when we live in a society are sharper than ever, and her voice newly takes the tone of a psychic waking up from a 70-year nap. Dowse, Maynard and Buxton have massively upped their game, too: The EPs’ post-punk foundation remains, but atop it come stomping glam riffs, dream-pop arpeggios and razor-sharp melodies that loosen Dry Cleaning’s prior tension without entirely taming the mania. —Max Freedman
Arooj Aftab - Ras Ke Bhare (w VANDANA, Charlotte Greve and Jonathan Levy)
Arooj Aftab: Vulture Prince
A Lahore, Pakistan-born graduate of Boston’s Berklee College of Music now based in Brooklyn, composer and singer/songwriter Arooj Aftab’s new album Vulture Prince follows her 2018 collection Siren Islands, but is in direct conversation with her 2015 debut, Bird Under Water. Vulture Prince opens with “Baghon Main,” a new reimagining of her debut’s fourth track that replaces the original’s subdued harmonium with bright, beautiful strings, as if assuming a newly accepting outlook on a painful past.
The Armed - AVERAGE DEATH
Everything you read about The Armed’s latest album ULTRAPOP will mention the mysterious nature of the Detroit-based band’s true lineup. They’ll cite made-up names and untrustworthy interviews, falsified press releases and photos featuring models standing in for whoever’s behind such an uncommonly catchy and charismatic strain of hardcore punk. Here’s what we do know: Whoever is pulling strings and pushing boundaries for The Armed is doing a hell of a job. What’s most impressive about ULTRAPOP is not necessarily the killer riffs, the pummeling rhythms or the plentiful melodies, though all of those are consistently thrilling. What’s most impressive is the way this band brings together different, disparate styles in a way that sounds seamless and natural and new, even if others have done it before. When The Armed announced ULTRAPOP last winter, de facto leader Dan Greene was quoted as saying the album “seeks, in earnest, to create a truly new listener experience. It is an open rebellion against the culture of expectation in ‘heavy’ music. It is a joyous, genderless, post-nihilist, anti-punk, razor-focused take on creating the most intense listener experience possible.” With ULTRAPOP, they’ve done exactly that. Whoever “they” are. —Ben Salmon
SAULT - Fearless
Sault, the enigmatic British group that surprise-dropped the riveting, socially conscious soul album Untitled (Black Is) released another new album titled Untitled (Rise). Last year also saw them release two albums, with the first in early summer and the second at the end of summer, and they’ve continued that pattern in 2020. The group is a collaboration between Dean Josiah Cover (aka Inflo), Melisa Young (aka Kid Sister) and Cleopatra Nikolic (aka Cleo Sol), and their music spans soul, funk, Afrobeat and R&B. While Untitled (Black Is) was more pointed about the struggles of the Black experience, Untitled (Rise) shows the carefree, independent and celebratory sides of that existence. The rhythms are more central and vigorous, and there’s a relaxing flow to these songs, though there are still moments of powerful spoken-word speeches and stomps on tracks like “Rise Intently” and “The Beginning & the End.” With this album, Sault have proven their exceptional dynamism, talent and spirit once again as they’ve delivered another essential cultural staple. —Lizzie Manno
Soccer Mommy - royal screw up (Official Audio)
Although Soccer Mommy’s 2018 debut studio album Clean transformed her into a critical favorite, indie-rock leader and tour opener for Paramore, Kacey Musgraves and Vampire Weekend, anyone who’s grappled with mental illness knows that success isn’t a salve. Following Clean, Soccer Mommy (real name Sophie Allison) became especially vocal about her struggles with body dysmorphia, depression and anxiety. These challenges lay solely at the periphery of Clean’s tales about youthful, regretful romantic breakdowns and insecurities, but on her eagerly anticipated Clean follow-up color theory, Allison bravely pulls her mental illness from the sidelines to the forefront, and she also tackles a grave subject she’s spoken about far less frequently: her mother’s terminal cancer. Success neither curing mental illness nor reversing a parent’s medical death sentence is a lot for a 22-year-old to face, but Allison is more than up to the task. color theory is an astounding feat of lyricism as clever as it is devastating, and Allison’s songwriting, production and voice are likewise orders of magnitude stronger than they were on Clean, recalling ’90s alt radio while pushing Soccer Mommy in galvanizing new directions. —Max Freedman
Adrianne Lenker - ingydar
Everything Adrianne Lenker puts her name to could very well be the best thing she’s ever done. She’s best known as the frontwoman and songwriter of Brooklyn-based indie-folk band Big Thief, who released their debut album in 2016 and quickly became critical darlings, and Lenker herself became a particularly influential vocalist. When Big Thief’s tour was cut short back in March, Lenker decided to retreat to a cabin in the mountains of Western Massachusetts to record an album. Space and nature, after all, are hugely important to her work. Lenker’s last solo full-length was 2018’s abysskiss, an album where dreams can lie in pillows, wagons can carry desire and time can count us just as well as we can count it. With songs, Lenker hones in on the duality of life. Love can be pure or manipulative, intimacy can indicate separation or closeness, and pain can be soul-crushing or relieving—and all these realities still lurk beneath the surface even when one has more clearly manifested. These tracks are among Lenker’s most striking and emotionally nuanced. While it lacks the musical dynamism of abysskiss, songs’ lyrics are more potent and detailed. Much like Big Thief’s, Lenker’s music emboldens the listener to think about their mother and dig through photos from their childhood, and not out of typical sentimental longing, but a deeper, primal desire to love and be loved. —Lizzie Manno
Thundercat album 2021 - It Is What It Is How I Feel
While the cat noises and fart sounds on his last album, 2017’s Drunk, offended one prominent music critic so much he nearly crashed his car in a fit of frustration, bassist Stephen Bruner (aka Thundercat) didn’t actually need to tame his prodigious appetite for variety. On previous Thundercat albums, he reveled in his own zaniness, but he also showed a knack for going right to the edge of incoherence while maintaining just enough of a consistent thread. Listening to a player with a range that rivals the late bass giant Jaco Pastorius—and, arguably, the chops to match—part of the appeal comes from just watching the ideas roam free. That makes it all the more remarkable that Bruner has decided to rein in his wanderlust on his fourth solo LP, It Is What It Is. It’s not that It Is What It Is lacks variety. Much like on his other output, Bruner once again draws freely from the wells of funk, soul, disco, jazz, rock, hip-hop and lo-fi experimentation. The crucial difference this time is that he shoehorns those influences into a startlingly smooth flow that somehow accommodates dazzling technical proficiency. On It Is What It Is, Bruner brings ’70s-style R&B balladeering (“Overseas,” “How I Feel”) and fusion (“Interstellar Love,” “How Sway”) to the forefront as other styles recede into supportive roles. In terms of the impact of the record as a complete listening experience, the payoff is tremendous. —Saby Reyes-Kulkarni
SAULT - Sorry Ain't Enough
“The revolution has come (out the lies!) / Still won’t put down the gun.” This is the first line of Sault’s new album Untitled (Black Is). The album of the Movement has arrived—and every second of it is glorious. Last year, a mysterious soul group named Sault arrived out of nowhere with two albums, titled 5 and 7. No one knew the identities of its musicians, and the albums were released on an independent label, but they drew rapturous acclaim. 5 and 7 were feasts of rhythmic and exuberant Afrobeat, soul, funk and R&B—the songs are passionate, radiant, radical and rooted in rich Black musical traditions (which, by extension, are the same roots of most popular genres). They were unexpected triumphs, but after releasing two albums in the same year, one might’ve figured Sault would go silent—at least for a little while. But earlier this year, something incredible happened—they surprise-released another album, Untitled (Black Is). On June 12, they posted a square image of a Black power fist on socials with the caption: “We present our first ‘Untitled’ album to mark a moment in time where we as Black People, and of Black Origin are fighting for our lives. RIP George Floyd and all those who have suffered from police brutality and systemic racism. Change is happening … We are focused.” The languid synthesizers on “Eternal Life,” the fury-filled shared vocals on “Stop Dem,” the jazzy guitars on “This Generation” and the skittering beats on “Black” make up a rich tapestry of soul, funk and gospel music. While there are nods to Motown, these aren’t your parents’ classic soul records—you’re hearing the eccentricities, voices and personalities of today and tomorrow. —Lizzie Manno
Nothing - Just a Story
On their fourth album The Great Dismal, Philadelphia shoegaze outfit Nothing triumph with both bold and subtle sounds. The band have always excelled at details and dynamics, and they deliver here without fail. The final passages of opening track “A Fabricated Life” really cement the album’s prodigious and intimate themes: “Long before the fall / Did we have it all along? / Sing the same old songs / Beat the same old tired drum / But what else can I ask for? / I’m nauseous from the ride / Degeneration in the wind / A fabricated life.” These moods of erosion, numbness and uncertainty pervade the album, and their mythical soundscapes bolster the weight of these feelings and elevate their sense of urgency. The Great Dismal watches as humanity is put through the wringer and responds with godlike, pummeling guitars and metaphorical, emotionally revealing lyrics. One minute, they’re contemplating themes of love, reason, perception and death, on a grand scale and in simple terms, and the next, they’re marveling at people’s reactions to rain (“Isn’t it strange / Watching people / Try and outrun rain”). It’s a sweltering expulsion of anxieties and a thoughtful chronicling of our species’ downfall. —Lizzie Manno
HUM - In the Den
Space-rock cult favorites Hum made a triumphant return over the summer, releasing their fifth studio album—and their first in 22 years, following 1998’s Downward Is Heavenward—with little-to-no advance notice in June. The Champaign, Ill., quartet unleash “Waves” of intoxicating distortion, both on that tone-setting opener and throughout Inlet’s eight-track hour. Matt Talbott and Tim Lash’s dual guitar torrents are exceptional—powerful without being oppressive, they tap into nostalgia for the band’s mid-’90s heyday, yet don’t belong to any one time period. Meanwhile, Talbott’s vocals paint dark, imaginative portraits of an empty earth, “misplaced dreams” and “starlight fallen,” as if these songs are being beamed back in time from a near-future world where natural tranquility and humankind’s hopes are little more than distant memories. Inlet’s grit is like sandpaper for the mind, leaving it smoother and more serene than before. —Scott Russell
CAFE RACER - Faces
Some psychedelic albums reach a hypnotic end cheaply. But Shadow Talk, the second album from Chicago experimental five-piece Cafe Racer, reaches heady emotional and sonic heights, not by leaning on overused effects or sprinkling meaningless, abstract imagery, but by expecting more out of a song and its lyrics. Shadow Talk is all about finesse and dynamics—melodies cascade with subtlety and spark with a euphoric glow. They’re also masters of grooves both meditative and invigorating, and they experiment with foreground and background sounds in mind-numbing ways. It’s an extremely calming album until it isn’t—the guitar and synth fury on “Faces” is life-affirming, the guitar solo in “Exile” is painfully emotive and its subsequent outro track creates blistering, ambient havoc. It’s a moody, empathetic album, bolstered by repetition and the palpable scenes they create, whether that’s an imagined, heavenly gorge or the melancholy urban landscapes you traverse every day. —Lizzie Manno
17/05/2021
Outside - Bird Box (Abridged) by Trent Reznor & Atticus Ross
Atticus Ross and Nine Inch Nails frontman Trent Reznor came up with the track "Outside". The 13-minute track is taken from the soundtrack of the Netflix movie "Bird Box".
Sandra Bullock stars in this post-apocalyptic thriller released in December on the streaming service.
Its soundtrack (10 tracks), composed by Ross and Reznor, is for sale on the Nine Inch Nails website in high-definition audio. It will be available on music streaming sites from January 25.
According to the site, a long version exclusively available on physical media will be released in the spring and will contain an additional hour of music.
Reznor and Ross have recently collaborated on the composition of several soundtracks, including the one for Jonah Hill's film “Mid90s” (2018) and the upcoming adaptation of “Watchmen” for HBO.
Tempers feat. Rem Koolhaas - Love At The Mall (Official video)
architect Rem Koolhaas construi a CASA da MUSICA no porto
The Wedding Present album Seamonsters - Suck
After recording with Steve Albini on their remake of 1990's "Brassneck" single, the Wedding Present decamped to Minnesota to record a full album with the notoriously abrasive producer. It proved to be a perfect match of band and producer and Seamonsters turned out to be the most emotionally powerful album the band could have hoped to make. Albini's dramatically stripped-down sound and David Gedge's utterly wrecked lyrics work to wring every last drop of desolate anger and angst from the songs. Simon Smith sounds like he's battering his drums with concrete blocks instead of sticks, Keith Gregory's wire-taut bass sounds like it's stalking the guitars, and Gedge and Peter Solowka's guitars explode into flaming balls of noise and sound when they aren't lurking in the mix like barely restrained demons. The simplicity of the recording, the intense range of dynamics in each song, and the almost painful amount of passion the band injects into every note is breathtaking.
16/05/2021
Galaxie 500 - Don't Let Our Youth Go To Waste (Peel Sessions)
Galaxie 500 covering Jonathan Richman's "Don't Let Our Youth Go To Waste"
13/05/2021
11/05/2021
TRUMANS WATER - A Tiny World With the Jitters
This Californian post-hardcore group dealt in a lo-fi noise rock with angular inclinations that come off as a notably unique hybrid of Captain Beefheart & the Magic Band, the Swell Maps, and early Sonic Youth. If that sounds like a post-rock dream combination, the prolific group churned out a string of stunning lo-fi albums and singles during the early '90s, but maybe only their more obscure avant-rock musings sheltered them from reaching the larger audiences that their contemporaries Pavement and Sebadoh achieved. The album in question is their second full-length, originally self-released by the band on the Justice My Eye label, and was reissued by Homestead Records in the U.S
09/05/2021
Altered Images - Pinky Blue
The band's follow-up is a slicker though less interesting affair. "I Could Be Happy" and "See Those Eyes" show that they can still pull off a couple of catchy singles but a cover of Neil Diamond's "Song Sung Blue" is certainly a mistake.
Extremely giddy Scottish New Wave group whose hooky pop songs took flight thanks to the helium-filled vocals of Clare Grogan.
08/05/2021
PAUL ROESSLER - Poor Sunshine Paul Roessler
Paul Roessler
Born
27 August 1958, New Haven, CT, United States
Currently
Malibu, CA, United States
Member of
45 Grave, Brews Springstien, Crimony, DC3, The Deadbeats, Gitane Demone Quartet, The Joykiller, The Manic Low, Nervous Gender, The Screamers, Spun, Twisted Roots
Notes
Brother of Kira Roessler; son of Carl Roessler
Genres
Experimental Rock
Priestess of the Promised Land-Stan Ridgway (Wall Of Voodoo) and Pietra Wexstun (Hecate’s Angels) released August 24, 2016.
tan Ridgway & Pietra Wexstun – “Priestess of the Promised Land”
Song from the album “Priestess Of The Promised Land” by Stan Ridgway (Wall Of Voodoo) and Pietra Wexstun (Hecate’s Angels) released August 24, 2016.
04/05/2021
02/05/2021
01/05/2021
Shopping - The Hype [The Official Body]
London trio following the post-punk traditions of prickly sounds and left-wing politics.
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