063 ALTER.NATION weekly favtraX 10-11-2019

ALTER.NATION #63

Woolworm, Jehnny Beth, The Homesick, FKA Twigs, Jessie Ware, SebastiAn feat. Charlotte Gainsbourg, Kate Davis, Josienne Clarke, Beck, Charles Rumback / Ryley Walker, Matt Valentine, Kamaal Williams

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"I’m The Man"

ALTER.NATION #63 on DEEZER

Leaders of their own self-created genre "Blanket Rock," Woolworm are a band from Vancouver, British Columbia whose music is a fusion of hardcore, indie rock, shoegaze, and ambitious pop. Led by singer and guitarist Giles Roy,
Woolworm - Soon from AWE
Vancouver's Woolworm don't hesitate to speak proudly of their roots in the Canadian hardcore scene, though an examination of their body of work reveals an uncommon virtue among modern hardcore bands: a willingness to evolve and explore. Their third full-length album, 2019's Awe, certainly boasts the intensity and conviction of hardcore, but they've learned how to incorporate pop melodies into their sound, add atmospheric touches drawn from indie rock, and make their guitars tower like shoegaze or jangle like vintage alt-rock.

Best known as the compelling vocalist for Savages, Jehnny Beth is the performing name of French musician Camille Berthomier.
Jehnny Beth - I’m The Man
Savages leader Jehnny Beth has a new song out today, “I’m The Man,” which appears on the soundtrack for the British television show Peaky Blinders... Here’s what Beth had to say about the track in a statement: "I’m The Man’ is an attempted study on humankind, what we define as evil and the inner conflict of morality. Because it is much easier to label the people who are clearly tormented by obsessions as monsters than to discern the universal human background which is visible behind them. However, this song has not even a remote connection with a sociological study, collective psychology, or present politics; It is a poetic work first and foremost. Its aim is to make you feel, not think."

Dutch pop trio signed by Sub Pop Records
The Homesick - I Celebrate My Fantasy
Dutch trio the Homesick have signed to Sub Pop for the release of their upcoming sophomore album The Big Exercise, named after a passage from the Scott Walker biography Deep Shade Of Blue. And today, they’re sharing first single “I Celebrate My Fantasy,” which imbues their brand of post-punk with a prog-pop whimsicality in the form of clarinet and piano flourishes.

FKA twigs is the project of English singer/songwriter/producer/choreographer Twigs, aka Tahliah Barnett. Evoking trip-hop as well as the xx's spare electronic pop, FKA twigs' songs are haunting and vulnerable.
FKA twigs - Thousand Eyes from MAGDALENE
On her early EPs and LP1, FKA twigs' Tahliah Barnett expressed the intersections of love, pain, fragility and strength with remarkable eloquence. While making Magdalene, she embodied them. Not only did she endure the end of a long-term relationship, she had surgery to remove six large uterine fibroids (colorfully described by her as a "fruit bowl of pain"). These events became the heart of her second album, which uses the duality of Mary Magdalene as a lens for its wounded yet resilient feminine energy...  The beautifully nightmarish "Thousand Eyes" is steeped in anxiety that churns in its spiralling pianos and when Barnett sings "It's gonna be cold out there with all those eyes" in an anguished soprano that could cut glass...

South London native with a powerful soul-steeped voice who has collaborated with SBTRKT, Joker, and Disclosure.
Jessie Ware - Mirage (Don’t Stop)
Jessie Ware knows how to make you move. She’s been doing it for years. “Don’t stop moving together,” she intones on her latest single. “Keep on dancing.” “Mirage (Don’t Stop)” is grounded by a sticky bass line that’s impossible not to move along to, fulfilling Ware’s command to do just that. Ware understands the dance floor’s capacity for self-preservation and reinvention, and she builds songs that facilitate moments of sweaty transcendence.
“Last night we danced and I thought you were saving my life,” she sings. The British singer took a bit of a detour into smoldering, loungey music over the last few years, but her most recent singles have her back in the club where she belongs, and we couldn’t be luckier. “Mirage (Don’t Stop)” isn’t flashy or showy, and it doesn’t have to be — it’s an undeniable groove. Ware knows what she wants and she knows how to get it: constant motion, ecstasy among the strobing lights.

French electronic artist noted for his remixes as well as his glitchy, electro-house original material.
SebastiAn feat. Charlotte Gainsbourg - Pleasant from Thirst
The cover art for SebastiAn’s first solo album, Total, is a photo taken by Jean-Baptiste Mondino. It shows the French producer – best-known for his association with revered house label Ed Banger, and for his work on Frank Ocean’s Blonde – kissing himself. On Thirst, a follow-up that has taken eight years to materialise, he straddles his doppelganger and raises his fist, as though about to punch himself in the face... Charlotte Gainsbourg, whose superb 2017 album Rest was produced by SebastiAn, channels another of her regular collaborators – director Lars Von Trier – on the haunting “Pleasant”, which in turn recalls the Nineties trip-hop of Bristol artist Tricky...

Musical polymath who released jazz albums as a teen and wrote "Seventeen" with Sharon Van Etten before emerging with indie rock of her own.
Kate Davis - Dirty Teenager from Trophy
The third solo album by Portland native Kate Davis but her indie rock and singer/songwriter debut, Trophy was several years the making. A one-time jazz prodigy, the vocalist/bassist recorded a pair of cover albums as a teen between performances with youth orchestras, as a guest of the likes of Herbie Hancock and Ben Folds, and as a Presidential Scholar of the Arts at Kennedy Center... Recalling contemporary debuts by names like Anna Burch and Madison Cunningham in terms of its polished sophistication, consistency, and fault-finding lyrics, Trophy introduces a songwriter fully formed.

British folk singer/songwriter Josienne Clarke uses understated guitar arrangements to convey a sense of longing, managing to pursue melancholy atmosphere whether backed by a chamber orchestra -- as seen in her time working alongside Ben Walker -- or as a solo artist.
Josienne Clarke - Dark Cloud from In All Weather
UK singer/songwriter Josienne Clarke worked for years as half of a folksy duo with Ben Walker before completing In All Weather, her first set of hushed, sparely arranged solo songs. Clarke's bright vocal style was at the center of her songs with Walker, as they are with her solo debut, but here they’re allowed to rise even higher in the mixes, ornamented only slightly with light accompaniment. Clarke's songwriting is gentle and bittersweet...

One of the most inventive, eclectic figures of the alternative era, the epitome of post-modern chic in an era obsessed with junk culture.
Beck - Dark Places
20 years ago, the combination of Beck and Pharrell Williams would’ve seemed like the coolest thing that could ever possibly happen. Today, it’s still pretty cool... Beck co-wrote “Dark Places” with Pharrell. It’s a slow, ambling song, built from both an acoustic-guitar strum and a rich, hazy synth sound. Beck, singing as high as his voice will let him go, reflects on a breakup: “Time moves on, and on and love, it goes / Now she’s gone, and all I see are shadows.” It’s closer to Sea Change than it is to Midnite Vultures, which is not something I would’ve ever expected to say about a Beck/Pharrell collab.

Chicago's Charles Rumback is a forward-thinking drummer with a bent toward avant-garde jazz and experimental music. In addition to playing in various jazz configurations, he collaborated with virtuosic folk guitarist Ryley Walker...
Ryley Walker is an accomplished fingerstyle guitarist, singer, and songwriter from Chicago whose music and evolution as an artist have proven mercurial. He moved from noisy avant-garde work in his nascent stages into virtuosic guitar playing and floating spiritual pop that traced lines between Bert Jansch, Van Morrison, and somehow even the Dave Matthews Band...
Charles Rumback / Ryley Walker - Idiot Parade from Little Common Twist
Drummer Charles Rumback and guitarist Ryley Walker came together as a duo in 2016 to create the outstretching improv sprawl of their five-song album Cannots. Sometimes abstract and harsh, other times introspective and subdued, Cannots pitted Walker's virtuosic folk-informed guitar playing against Rumback's flowing jazz percussion.. While the results weren't always seamless or pretty, the players locked into a riled-up unison. Recorded over various sessions between 2017 and 2018, Little Common Twist represents a follow-up to the wild noise and rolling exploration of Cannots...  "Idiot Parade" is more groove-oriented, finding the duo joined by bassist Nick Macri for swells of feedback and drone that ride Rumback's fluid, reverb-effected drumming. Elsewhere they dabble in ambient tones and spirited odd-timed rhythms...

Psychedelic folk singer/guitarist who prolifically released solo work as well as co-founding MV & EE... As the years burned on, Valentine focused on a deep-fried miasma of sounds and styles with solo albums like 2019's Preserves.
Matt Valentine - Light Speed from Preserves
Matt Valentine is no stranger to psychedelic sounds... Assembled from eight years of back-filed recordings, Preserves goes off the deep end into a pool of demented funk, wild-eyed guitar freak-outs, and layered, druggy walls of confusion and bliss. "Light Speed" opens the album with its closest thing to a pop song. Funky bass, buried vocals, and scratchy, zigzagging wah-wah guitar lines all rise and fall in the mix, sometimes making space for what sounds like a violin or random electronics. It's the sonic equivalent of a bad trip in a '70s blaxploitation movie...

London-born keyboardist, DJ, and producer with a funky sound informed by '70s jazz fusion, acid jazz, and modern electronic traditions.
Kamaal Williams - Snitches Brew (Live in Atlanta) (Mixed) from DJ-Kicks
...As a listening experience, the mix is filled with abrupt switches, change-ups, dissolves, and vibe-out moments, seemingly approximating a night spent trying to visit every club in South London for a few minutes each. It also highlights the artist's skill as both a musician and cratedigger, dropping in several of his own creations (as both Williams and Wu) among dozens of records dating back to the early 1980s. Early on, he includes a live recording of his track "Snitches Brew," released as the B-side of a 2018 single, which flips from a meditative groove to an up-tempo breakbeat wig-out filled with loads of fiery soloing...

Woolworm, Jehnny Beth, The Homesick, FKA Twigs, Jessie Ware, SebastiAn feat. Charlotte Gainsbourg, Kate Davis, Josienne Clarke, Beck, Charles Rumback / Ryley Walker, Matt Valentine, Kamaal Williams