LISTEN THE PLAYLIST ON DEEZER.COM
Electric Six
Chicken Wine 2:25
Sex With Somebody 3:29
Dark Politics 3:59
from How Dare You 2017
Once upon a time -- back in the '60s and '70s, you know, the Bronze Age -- it was pretty much a given that a working rock band put out an album every year, toured behind it, and then rolled back into the studio to repeat the cycle. That time line has all but vanished in the 21st century, but the men of Electric Six have the sort of work ethic that harks back to those halcyon days. Since 2005, Electric Six have dropped at least one album every year, sometimes more, and 2017 has proven to be no exception, as How Dare You was delivered unto their fans in October of that year. Along with being industrious, the E6 are also reliable; while they haven't delivered a lunatic masterpiece like Switzerland or I Shall Exterminate Everything Around Me That Restricts Me from Being the Master in a while, they haven't been tossing off duds, either, and How Dare You is a testimony that this band's devotion to its own strange creation is not a sometime thing. Still dealing in hard rock bombast, dance-rock pomp, and a wisenheimer's worldview, How Dare You is Electric Six doing what they do best, with Dick Valentine's gloriously mannered vocals expounding on his myriad obsessions as the guitars, keys, and drums pop behind him like an exceptionally long string of firecrackers...
The Trouble with Templeton
Bad Mistake 3:05
Double Life 5:34
from Someday, Buddy 2016
Built around the talents of singer and songwriter Thomas Calder, the Trouble with Templeton self-released what was essentially a solo album before making their Bella Union debut as a five-piece with 2014's Rookie. The bricolage of indie folk, synthier pop, and more direct alt-rock led to touring opportunities with the likes of Of Monsters and Men and Father John Misty. Playing more to their strengths, however, the follow-up sees the group, which slimmed down to a trio, simplify their approach. The more focused Someday, Buddy re-places the emphasis on songwriting. It takes on an almost lo-fi character with '90s Pavement-type ambling guitars and intimate lyrics as the album oscillates between hushed rumination and lyric-driven outbursts...
Fat White Family
Whitest Boy on the Beach 4:53
We Must Learn to Rise 7:10
from Songs For Our Mothers 2016
On their first album, Fat White Family sounded like they could be a group of bitter, homeless alcoholics who took to making music on battered gear found in a house where they were squatting. Three years later, the group made something of a creative shift; on 2016's Songs for Our Mothers, those winos have purchased a cheap but reliable rhythm machine and started dabbling in club music...
King Khan / The Gris Gris
Discreate Disguise 4:18
Run Doggy Run 3:32
from Murderburgers 2017
Who needs a band when you have friends? King Khan has worked with plenty of musicians over the years, including the garage-punk band the Spaceshits, minimalist blues stomper BBQ, and his own show band the Shrines, but though Khan announced that 2017's Murderburgers would be his first solo album, that doesn't mean he was working entirely on his own. For Murderburgers, Khan brought along producer Greg Ashley, who in turn brought in his own band, the Gris Gris, to back Khan on these sessions. And it turns out everyone in this scenario made fine choices; Murderburgers is one of the most tuneful, eclectic, and satisfying albums King Khan has delivered to date, and the Gris Gris have the chops and the imagination to keep up with Khan at every turn...
Tav Falco
Nobody's Baby 4:50
Old Fashioned Morphine 4:18
New World Order Blues 4:35
from Cabaret of Daggers 2018
Cult legend, avant-roots/Rock & Roll raconteur Tav Falco is back at it again with the same ferocious line-up from 2015’s Command Performance. Cabaret of Daggers was tracked in Rome, with vocal overdubs recorded at the legendary Sam Phillips Recording Service in Memphis.
Le Butcherettes
Spider/WAVES feat. Jello Biafra 5:47
strong/ENOUGH 4:20
struggle/STRUGGLE 4:14
from bi/MENTAL 2019
"My heart's beating, I'm so excited," says Teri Gender Bender — the wild and wonderfully outspoken singer who fronts Guadalajara garage-punk band Le Butcherettes. To be honest, it's touching that an interview with the good old L.A. Weekly still inspires that sort of emotion in an artist we admire as much as Ms. Gender Bender.
The band's bi/MENTAL album, their fourth, has just landed and it features guest spots from punk royalty such as Alice Bag and Jello Biafra...
Foals
Moonlight 2:39
Sunday 5:54
from Everything Not Saved Will Be Lost Part 1
The idea of the band’s fifth album representing a new start was amped up when, after the tour for ‘What Went Down’ came to an end, bassist Walter Gervers left. Rather than break up, or try to squeeze the last drops of life out of the era though, on ‘Everything Not Saved Will Be Lost’, the now-four-piece have made the ultimate Foals album... Musically tying everything that’s come before together in a comprehensive showcase of the band’s continued prowess, and lyrically providing an ominous but defiant voice for 2019, ‘Everything Not Saved Will Be Lost’ is Foals’ definitive statement. And that’s only part one!
Dido
Hurricanes (Dido Armstrong / Rollo Armstrong / Rick Nowels) 5:17
Hell After This (Dido Armstrong / Ryan Laubscher) 3:27
Still on My Mind (Dido Armstrong / Ryan Laubscher) 3:04
from Still On My Mind
Reinvigorated and confident, Dido returns from a six-year absence with her sparkling fifth album, Still on My Mind. Following 2013's neon-washed Girl Who Got Away, this set features her liveliest, catchiest production since early-era breakthroughs No Angel and Life for Rent, and soundtracks familiar themes of love, loss, desire, and -- as the mother of a young son -- family. Anchored by her yearning and ever-ethereal vocals, the LP delivers on the promising glimmers that were teased on its cool (but ultimately sedate) predecessor, successfully synthesizing the spirit of her early hybrid sound with updated late-2010s sheen. Yet another collaboration with her brother Rollo, Still on My Mind finds the English singer/songwriter in a mature, controlled space -- an elegant but fresh collection of her familiar electro-folk with a hip-hop heartbeat... Two decades after her debut, Still on My Mind stands impressively strong, a late-era peak that is refreshing in its fearlessness and comforting with a familiarity that doesn't rest too heavily upon the past. Considering the long gap between albums, Still on My Mind is more than worth the wait.
Maya Jane Coles
Don't Leave 5:17
Waves & Whirlwinds 3:33
from Waves & Whirlwinds
Waves & Whirlwinds is a brief, EP-length follow-up to Maya Jane Coles' expansive double-album Take Flight, offering a similar blend of tech-house rhythms and pop instincts. Coles excels at producing sensuous dance tracks which float and bubble yet have a steady drive to them. "Don't Leave" has cloudy, pitch-shifted vocal fragments and loose guitars which levitate over a chunky breakbeat, punctuated by samples commanding the listener to "get yo hands up!"... Her vocals, again, are looped murmurings and intonations rather than coherent thoughts, expressing dark, vulnerable feelings rather than spelling them out.
Roz and the Rice Cakes
Slow Motion 2:22
Open Eyes 3:02
from Devotion
Led by Roz Raskin, a nimble vocalist who counts Gwen Stefani among her biggest influences (and she sounds a little like her, too), Rhode Island's Roz and the Rice Cakes released a debut in 2014 that introduced an intricate yet catchy experimental indie pop. Three years later, they strengthen those same qualities on their more vivid follow-up, Devotion. A track like "Open Eyes" starts with a muscular vocal melody over an exposed rhythm section that quickly establishes irregular time signatures before adding melodic, syncopated guitar. Despite lengthy instrumental passages, amorphous forms, and shifting rhythms, it lands like an uptempo dance-pop tune due to the band's ability to keep the big picture simple and accommodate tapping feet... Roz and the Rice Cakes apart from many pop, electronic, and indie rock acts -- as they juggle elements of all three.
Dr. Dog
Golden Hind 3:12
Swampedelic Pop 3:42
from The Psychedelic Swamp
Back in 2001, The Psychedelic Swamp seemed an appropriate name for the debut cassette from psychedelic pranksters Dr. Dog, but some 15 years later the title seems even more fitting given that the band decided to revisit, rework, and re-jigger the entirety of the album to create a brand-new album for 2016. It's not quite right to say Dr. Dog cover themselves here. Rather, they reconnect with the ideas originally essayed in 2001 and approach those ideas with the skill and panache they've developed in the ensuing 15 years. Because Dr. Dog rely on texture and feel as much as they do songs, this isn't a bad idea at all: they're able to execute ideas they were only able to hint at when they were a young band...
Ibeyi
Deathless feat. Kamasi Washington (Lisa Kainde Diaz) 3:11
Transmission/Michaelion feat. Meshell Ndegeocello, (Maya Dagnino / Lisa Kainde Diaz / Claudia Rankine / Richard Russell) 6:30
from Ash
Ibeyi's stellar self-titled debut album was a flashpoint that steeped itself in brittle electro-drenched R&B and roots Yoruban percussion and openly engaged the saints of Santeria: its introduction was an invocation to Elegua (the gatekeeper between worlds) and the goddess of wind and storms in "Oya." On the French/Cuban sibling duo's sophomore effort, Lisa-Kaindé and Naomi Diaz address matters more corporeal and rooted in lived experience. The spiritual here is an inspirational tool for understanding and confronting suffering and injustice. Ash is an album directly affected by the tension of the times. Its songs address female empowerment, racial injustice, loneliness, and love in a brittle yet warm mix less frenetic than its predecessor. Singing again in mixed French, English, and Yoruba...
Founded as a side project by Meneguar's Jeremy Earl, Woods started as a solitary recording project in 2005, but soon grew into a band that melded together influences as disparate as avant-garde noise, psychedelic pop, folk-rock, Ethiopian jazz, and African pop; combined them with thoughtful songs; and became influential themselves.
Dungen / Woods
Loop (Jeremy Earl / Gustav Ejstes / Reine Fiske / Jarvis Taveniere) 2:56
Marfa Sunset (Jeremy Earl / Gustav Ejstes / Reine Fiske / Jarvis Taveniere) 3:09
Just for the Taste (Jeremy Earl / Gustav Ejstes / Reine Fiske / Jarvis Taveniere) 3:49
from Myths 003
Every year the Marfa Myths festival, a celebration of music, movies, and the arts held in the desert landscape of West Texas, gives two performers the chance to collaborate in a setting removed from the distractions of a usual studio, giving the artists a chance to commune with nature and each other. In 2017, the festival offered that chance to Woods and Dungen. The Swedish psychedelic dreamers sent multi-instrumentalist/vocalist Gustav Ejstes and guitarist Reine Fiske, while the Cali folk weirdoes sent vocalist/guitarist Jeremy Earl and bassist Jarvis Taveniere. The results were issued just ahead of the 2018 festival by Mexican Summer as Myths 003. The record is a collection of trippy, free jazz instrumentals that sound like the guys were really letting the atmosphere flow through them...
Lorelle Meets the Obsolete
Acción – Vaciar 3:30
Resistir 3:29
Unificado 9:11
from De Facto
After recording three murkily psychedelic albums heavily influenced by living in the swirl of Mexico City, Lorelle Meets the Obsolete's sound changed when the duo moved out of the bustling metropolis to the more relaxed locale of Ensenada in Baja, California. Their music became more expansive on 2016's Balance, and shifted again when they built their own studio and had more time to experiment. When recording 2018's De Facto, they were joined by members of their live band -- synthesizer wiz José Orozco, drummer Andrea Davi, and bassist Fernando Nuti -- and the five musicians recorded much of the album together in one room, constructing songs from loops and fragments before masterfully patching them together. In a break from their usual method, the guitars were added later, though they sound fully integrated and as brilliantly psychedelic as ever. It's also the first time that Lorelle sings all the lyrics in Spanish -- as though seeking the solace and depth of feeling only her native tongue could provide.
Nincsenek megjegyzések:
Megjegyzés küldése