PNM.MiX - 52 songs - yearly favtrax from weekly favtrax of 2020
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Crafty Sunderland, England-based indie/art rock trio invokes names like XTC and Wire.
Field Music - Making a New World / Best Kept Garden
war stories with disco-pop sensibilities
The Brewis brothers’ concept album about the impact of the first world war brings left-field pop to topics ranging from skin grafts to period shame
This 40-minute, 19-song cycle about the aftermath of the first world war isn’t the most obvious commercial follow-up to Field Music’s glorious 2018 Top 30 album, Open Here. In fact, Making a New World was originally a commission for performances in the Imperial War Museum, but Peter and David Brewis felt proud enough of the resulting songs to release them as a concept album. The opening two short instrumentals evoke artillery fire on either side of the armistice: there are percussion sounds like falling bombs and mournful, Erik Satie-like pianos and eerie near-silences...
Psychedelic pop from Mancunian sonic explorer extraordinaire. Since Dom Thomas is one of the founders of the acclaimed reissue label Finders Keepers, it makes sense that his band Whyte Horses is informed by a dizzying array of musical influences. This wide sonic palette of psychedelia, library music, acid folk, Krautrock, tropicália, yé-yé, and lounge...
Whyte Horses - Hard Times / Bang Bang [My Baby Shot Me Down] (feat. Chrysta Bell)
Over the course of two albums, Dom Thomas and his Whyte Horses collective made a name for themselves as master mixers of vintage sounds derived from swinging French ye-ye, swirling psychedelia, strutting big-city soul, snappy garage rock, and hooky kitchen sink pop. It's a little bit of theft, a little bit of borrowing too, but Thomas and his merry gang reassemble the pieces in ways that make clear they are adding great dollops of their own vision to the music. Hard Times does away with any trainspotting and lays their influences on the table with a selection of covers that range from familiar (Cher's "Bang Bang [My Baby Shot Me Down],"...
Ace guitarist who won a following with blues and jam band fans before honing his talents as a vocalist on his first solo album.
Marcus King - El Dorado / The Well
... Because together Auerbach and King make an impressive team. Auerbach is a prolific producer (I’m officially worried he’s not getting enough sleep), with a distinct perspective. While some producers melt into the background of their artists’ work, Auerbach takes a more collaborative approach, sharing some of himself in the tracks. That works well for King, giving him strong songs on which to focus his considerable vocal energies. The end-product is tunes that often sound like Turn Blue-era Black Keys with a better vocalist...
The Wood Brothers - Kingdom in My Mind / Alabaster
"Alabaster" kicks off Kingdom in My Mind, the Wood Brothers' eighth studio album, with a slow, thick groove, its swampiness a reflection of how the album originated from a series of studio jams. The band didn't enter the studio with the intent of recording a new album, but they were taken with the results of their recording, so brothers Chris and Oliver Wood shaped the improvisations into songs. Starting with a collection of funky rustic recordings wound up being a boon to the Wood Brothers, letting Kingdom in My Mind establish a vibe that's cozy, homespun, and just slightly slick. Chalk the polish up to how the group are veterans with a good sense of space and feel, a knack that they're pushing on Kingdom in My Mind over tasteful songcraft...
Smoke Fairies - Darkness Brings the Wonders Home / On the Wing
"Dirty blues-rock" is about the last thing that comes to mind when thinking about Smoke Fairies, whose music is most strongly rooted in ethereal indie folk. But it seems someone in their circle has been listening to something featuring gritty guitar textures with a side of slide, since that's the unexpected yet prominent new flavor on Smoke Fairies' fifth album, 2020's Darkness Brings the Wonders Home. The opening track, "On the Wing," is built around a faintly ominous folky melody with the graceful harmonies of Katherine Blamire and Jessica Davies hovering overhead, while in the middle distance there's a buzzy electric guitar playing bluesy licks and slide riffs...
Jorja Chalmers - Human Again / Red Light
Australian-born, London-based musician Jorja Chalmers gained international recognition as the show-stealing saxophonist and keyboard player for Bryan Ferry's live band, which she's been an integral part of since 2007. While constantly busy touring throughout the world, she's been writing and recording her own songs, and following a string-laden 2016 EP, Human Again is her synth-heavy full-length debut. Fitting squarely within the Italians Do It Better aesthetic, this is a rich, haunting set of dream pop tunes and cinematic instrumentals that seem to emerge out of a misty late-night haze...
Bambara are a Brooklyn-based band who play harsh, punishing post-punk with a distinct Western Gothic bent. Their songs combine walloping drums and dark, twangy guitar riffs with unsettling noise loops and howled, ranting vocals that examine the seedy side of life.
Bambara's second release on Wharf Cat Records isn't a radical departure from the first, 2018's Shadow on Everything, but it is most certainly a refinement. Active for over a decade, the Brooklyn-based trio's sound has evolved from shadowy noise rock to a much more focused, direct sort of gothic post-punk, foregrounding Reid Bateh's bitter, brutal lyrics about seedy characters who constantly seem to be one wrong move away from a horrible, unforgiving tragedy. Stray is the band's longest album to date, at 43 minutes, but it actually feels more concise...
King Krule - Man Alive! / Cellular
... Marshall duly stuffs his concise follow-up to The Ooz with the terror and negative liquid references, both literal and metaphorical, for which he is known. They even girdle it, starting with a numbed post-punk creeper in which Marshall drones about glancing at his phone to watch a girl cry, and signing off with a lashing, hollowed-out appeal of disconnectedness and dejection that contains the lyrics, "We don't have long 'til this earth is drowned." The Krule gaze is certainly more outward than before, though the most trenchant observations are mumbled. At times, Marshall sounds like he's recording a memo in the middle of a sleepless night...
Soccer Mommy - color theory / crawling in my skin
Though Soccer Mommy's Sophie Allison generated buzz as early as 2015 with her introspective, then-self-recorded tracks, the project made its official debut three years later with Clean, a critically lauded set of hooky, heartbroken songs with lyrics that were notably vulnerable and relatable. That more hi-fi release was produced by Gabe Wax, known for his work in the studio with acts like the War on Drugs, Cass McCombs, and Frankie Cosmos. The pair reunited for the follow-up, color theory, Soccer Mommy's Loma Vista debut. The title comes with a thematic key code; the album is divided into three sections represented by blue, yellow, and gray, each with its own associated topics and emotions (sadness, mental and physical sickness, and darkness)...
Chromatics - Famous Monsters
Chromatics have shared a futuristic new single, ‘Famous Monsters.’ You can listen to the new song below.
‘Famous Monsters’ is the second new song from the band this year, following on from ‘TOY’ which was released back in February. The single came in three different versions: ‘TOY,’ ‘TOY (On Film),’ and ‘TOY (Instrumental).’
Describing that song, Chromatics wrote: “It’s a song about trying to forget someone you’re still in love with even though they treat you like an object. I’m not your TOY.”
Dungen - Live / A4
Recorded during the end of 2015 at a couple different Swedish concerts, Dungen's first live album is a ripping example of their prowess both as individual musicians and as a cohesive unit. The album is totally instrumental and it flows from short song fragments to extended expansive pieces in dynamic waves of psychedelic sound. The guitars as played mainly by Reine Fiske (mainly) and band leader Gustav Ejstes are massive when they are cranked up, riffing and soloing like large birds in flight. The other instrument to take the lead is saxophone, with Jonas Kullhamer doing his best Pharoah Sanders at crucial points throughout. Ejstes and he also add some flute to the mix, and the former does very nifty things with keyboards (piano, organ and mellotron) throughout... (Tim Sendra)
Arbouretum - Let It All In / No Sanctuary Blues
Built around the masterful songwriting and commanding vocals of bandleader Dave Heumann, Arbouretum spent the 2000s and 2010s slowly trickling out excellent albums of slightly cosmic folk-rock. As time went on, the band leaned into a British folk influence, lacing Heumann's narrative songs with haunting traditionally informed melodies. Ninth album Let It All In finds the band at the clearest articulation of their sound ever, blurring the boundary lines between woodsy folk, rural psychedelia, and an experimental take on roots rock. "No Sanctuary Blues" finds Arbouretum at the crossroads of all of their varied impulses. Solid rhythm section playing shifts between bar room rock and sprawling drone while Heumann steps away from delivering spirited vocals only to offer Richard Thompson-grade guitar soloing. The moments of cosmic space-out are highlighted by keyboardist Matthew Pierce's unobtrusive synth textures... (Fred Thomas)
The Wants - Container / Clearly a Crisis
The Wants – ‘Container’ review: punk-funkers’ debut is the soundtrack to a lockdown party
Fans of Interpol, Depeche Mode, LCD Soundsystem and Gang of Four – meet your favourite new band
The album artwork for ‘Container’ displays cans of tinned food – stockpiling chic, if you will – while portentous song titles such as ‘Fear My Society’ and ‘Clearly A Crisis’ could hardly chime more with the doomy current climate if they arrived with vouchers for contraband hand sanitiser. Comprised of two members of New York art-punks Bodega – Madison Velding-VanDam and bassist Heather Elle – and completed by drummer Jason Gates, the confident self-produced debut from The Wants is riven with taut anxiety and a sense of looming dread. Yet it’s also a collection of razor-sharp pop songs that gleam through the gloom. They mine the sinuous basslines and euphoric bleakness of post-punk outfits such as Gang Of Four (with Velding-Van-Dam’s lyrics seemingly similarly preoccupied with stripping away the lies of capitalist and consumerist culture) and the dancefloor nous of bands from their home city (think LCD Soundsystem). So while ‘Clearly A Crisis’ apes Andy Gill’s distinctive, serrated slashes of guitar... (Gary Ryan)
Avishai Cohen / Big Vicious - Big Vicious / King Kutner
On his fourth date for ECM, trumpeter Avishai Cohen leads a band he formed with friends after returning to Israel in 2013. The electro-acoustic ensemble includes guitarists Uzi Ramirez and Yonatan Albalak (also on electric bass) and drummers Aviv Cohen and Ziv Ravitz (who also did the live studio sampling); they deliver a program of nine originals and two covers. It is easily the most accessible album of Cohen's career thus far, in that it will likely appeal to listeners not normally drawn to jazz. There are several reasons for this. First is that Cohen's writing is songlike. The melodies are often hummable and there are many different stylistic forays into psychedelic rock, R&B and funk, Hebrew folk, and sound system electronica. It was cut over three days at Studios La Buissonne in France and produced by Manfred Eicher... "King Kutner" is a rock tune with bluesy lead guitar and a popping bassline framed by snare breaks and a punchy kick drum.
Pokey LaFarge - Rock Bottom Rhapsody / Lost in the Crowd
When you've spent most of your career sounding as if you were living in the 21st century by fate rather than by choice, figuring out how to sound more up to date is going to be a complicated thing, and it seems that Pokey LaFarge has been giving that scenario a lot of thought. Since releasing Manic Revelations in 2017, Pokey LaFarge left St. Louis for Los Angeles, experienced what he calls a "fall from grace," had a spiritual reawakening, and recorded 2020's Rock Bottom Rhapsody, in which he clearly wants to change up his usual creative persona as a slightly twangy jazzbo here on a pass from 1923. The rootsy jazz-inflected sound that dominated LaFarge's early albums is wired deep enough into his DNA that he can't entirely shake it in as far as his melodies are concerned, but in terms of his production and arrangements, he's clearly willing to fight that...
Jehnny Beth - Innocence
Earlier this year, Savages leader Jehnny Beth announced that she would finally be releasing her debut solo album, To Love Is To Live. “Record stores are where I found myself as a teenager, digging through albums that ultimately shaped who I have become,” she said in a statement. “To release my first ever solo album in a way that would leave them out felt wrong to me; luckily, we were able to find a date that would allow us to release the physical and digital album at the same time.”... she’s putting out another track, “Innocence.” It’s a booming and dancey song about being packed-in with other people...
Other Lives - For Their Love / Sound of Violence
The fourth full-length effort from the Nebraska-based indie rockers, For Their Love finds Other Lives in fine form, applying their moody sonic expertise to a spectral ten-song set that parses themes of self-worth and existential dread in an age of political, social, and economic turmoil. Commencing with the ruminative "Sound of Violence," a sumptuous bit of '60s-leaning orchestral pop that evokes the Wally Stott string arrangements of "Montague Terrace"-era Scott Walker, For Their Love was self-produced in Oregon's Cooper Mountain region in frontman Jesse Tabish's A-framed cabin, and the material mostly reflects that pastoral setting...
Texas-born musician and actor known for his experimental psychedelic rock. After making his name as a film actor in the latter half of the 2010s, Texas native Caleb Landry Jones launched his music career in 2020 with the experimental, neo-psychedelic album The Mother Stone.
Caleb Landry Jones - The Mother Stone / You're So Wonderfull
Actor and musician Caleb Landry Jones makes his recording debut with The Mother Stone, a 15-song psychedelic rock opus of sprawling complexity, abrupt tonal shifts, and dark-hued pop arrangements. Dating back to the late 2000s, the Texas native has built up an impressive resume of film and television credits, from Breaking Bad and X-Men to Get Out and Twin Peaks. It turns out he has also been making music since a young age and boasts a deep back catalog of material, much of it inspired by the Beatles' more exploratory moments and the ramshackle psych of Syd Barrett's thrilling post-Pink Floyd burnout. While filming the zombie art-comedy The Dead Don't Die, Jones played some of his demos for director Jim Jarmusch, who recommended him to experimental enthusiasts Sacred Bones Records, the same label that has released some of Jarmusch's own recordings. Teaming up with producer Nic Jodoin (Black Lips), Jones unleashed what sounds like a lifetime's worth of ideas and pent-up weirdness, constructing a wild suite of interconnected songs, replete with lurching orchestral sections and harsh fuzzy textures and sung in a variety of different voices and timbres like a character actor gone off the rails...
Jazz saxophonist, flutist, producer, and composer who made his solo debut at 42 after his previous career in Manchester house and hip-hop scenes. Roger "Chip" Wickham is a saxophonist/flutist producer/composer who resides in Madrid, Doha in Qatar, and the U.K. His vintage-influenced, open, warm brand of modal jazz weaves together the great expansive traditions of the '60s and '70s...
Chip Wickham - Blue to Red / Double Cross
The title of British jazzman Chip Wickham's third long-player refers to one of his greatest fears: That climate change will cause our blue and verdant earth to become a red desert like the planet Mars... Wickham leaves his saxophones in their cases in favor of his flutes. The Coltrane reference may be sketched into his compositions, but it takes on physical characteristics through the playing of harpist Amanda Whiting who, like Wickham, is an alumnus of Matthew Halsall's Gondwana Orchestra. The other sidemen include session boss Dan Goldman on keys, drummer Jon Scott (Sons of Kemet), bassist Simon Houghton (Fingathing), and percussionist Rick Weedon (Mr. Scruff)... "Double Cross" is gritty and fast, with Goldman's Rhodes and synths both soloing and painting a fat, heavy, funky backdrop. Scott's snare and hi-hat breaks, and a propulsive shuffle delivers a dramatic Headhunters vibe in the backbeat. Wickham's solo sounds filthy, visceral, swinging, and soulful (think Jeremy Steig)...
"Amikor a sok munkától kiürülök, akkor kell valami, ami laktató, de izgalmas, átmozgat, de azért az intellektusomat is leköti, és mindenekelőtt érző emberként hat rám. Legutóbb, nagyjából egy éve azon vettem magam észre, hogy nem találok ilyen lemezt. Éreztem, hogy valahol ott kell lennie a világban, de mégsem találtam. Ekkor kissé nagyképűen úgy döntöttem, hogy írok magamnak egyet! Ez lett az Octopus. Olyan ez, mint egy válogatáskazi, amit az ember a csajának csinál: ilyesmiket hallgatok, ez vagyok én" - A Subtonesban, mint Subicz mondja, úgy működnek a tagok, mint egy polip – innen az album címe. Subicz Gábor jazztrombitás-zeneszerző a fej, a többiek a karjai, Jónás Vera és Kiss Flóra énekel és dalt szerez, Benkő Dávid, Csókás Zsolt és Fonay Tibor építik fel a zenét, Csízi László és Szarvas Dávid a ritmus-vázt adják az egészhez, és végül Fenyvesi Márton a sound designer gyúrja egységgé a dalokat...
Alison Mosshart - Rise
In all her years howling out front of such esteemed rock ‘n’ roll bands as the Kills and the Dead Weather, Alison Mosshart has never released music under her own name. That changes with today’s release of Mosshart’s debut solo single, “Rise.”
Mosshart began sketching out the idea for “Rise” back in 2013: “I didn’t ever forget it,” she says. “I remember right where I was when I wrote it, sitting at my desk in London, missing someone badly.” She didn’t finish the song until much more recently, when she was approached to contribute music to Sacred Lies: The Singing Bones, a TV show on FacebookWatch starring Juliette Lewis. The slow-burn blues-rock track is featured throughout the series; Jordan Alexander’s character Elsie sang it in Episode One, and the song prominently features in today’s season finale.
The Sonic Dawn - Enter the Mirage / Young Love, Old Hate
Arriving just under a year after the release of the Danish psych-rockers third studio effort, 2019's liquid light show-ready Eclipse, Enter the Mirage delivers another tie-dyed blast from the past; a lo-fi, acid-soaked transmission from a mirror dimension where the Summer of Love never ended. Commencing with "Young Love, Old Hate," the hirsute trio goes all-in on the '60s fetishizing, administering copious amounts of noodly guitars and shimmery maracas drenched in analog reverb and delay, and a melodic through-line that echoes Hendrix's "All Along the Watchtower."...
Deerhoof - Future Teenage Cave Artists / Sympathy For the Baby Boo
...On Future Teenage Cave Artists, they explore what happens when that fight is lost. As Deerhoof dives into the messes that younger generations have to clean up, and art's role in the process, they sound rawer than they have in years... Future Teenage Cave Artists' startling sound feels like a call to action, even if some of its most stunning songs document how humanity is continually thwarted by destructive impulses... The contrasts that have always made Deerhoof thrillingly unlike any other band heighten the album's unpredictability, whether it's the way the boogie-rock riffs jump out of the rubble on "Sympathy for the Baby Boo"...
James Alexander Bright - Headroom / 6am
James Alexander Bright's music is as visual a voyage as it is a sonic one; a kaleidoscope of colours that swirl, swoon, soar and sing. Stepping into his musical world is a multi-sensory experience, one where smooth grooves, wonky rhythms, dreamy melodies and immersive atmospheres coalesce to form their own sphere. “Sound as vision,” says Bright of the audio aesthetic he relates to and aims for. “Music you can bite into.” Based in the Hampshire countryside and an illustrator by day, Bright’s world is often a dual one but one where elements overlap and inform one another. “I spend a lot of my day creating things visually and everyday life can be an assault on the senses,” says Bright. “Evening is my quiet time; time for my ears. Invariably I’m inspired by the things that people and creatures do in the dark.”
Norah Jones - Pick Me Up Off the Floor / Hurts to Be Alone
Once she came to the end of the promotional cycle for 2016's Day Breaks, Norah Jones decided to challenge herself by recording a series of swift sessions with a rotating cast of collaborators. The intention was to release the results quickly, issuing them as a digital single at a time, and Jones followed through on this plan, releasing a new song every few months throughout 2018. These tunes were rounded up on 2019's Begin Again, but that wasn't the end of the project. Jones cut a number of songs during these sessions that were unreleased but not forgotten by the singer/songwriter. She kept listening to the rough mixes, eventually coming to the conclusion that these tracks would make a strong album of their own accord. Pick Me Up Off the Floor proves her instincts were correct...
Kate NV - Room for the Moon / Not Not Not
The Russian experimental pop performer Kate NV has her feet in two worlds. In one, the artist born Ekaterina Shilonosova sings and plays guitar in the fiery post-punk band ΓШ (Glintshake). In the other, she works with the Moscow Scratch Orchestra, an ensemble inspired by the improvisational pieces of the English composer Cornelius Cardew. In her work as Kate NV, she commits fully to the unpredictability and openness that unites them both... But even while Room for the Moon bursts with exuberance, NV has explained that the record was finished during “the loneliest period” of her life. With that in mind, it’s easy to see these 10 songs as a sanctuary NV willed into being, a fantasy world where that solitude could be replaced with a cornucopia of melodies. The air of escapism is palpable in the album’s wriggling synth flourishes and chirping flutes like hummingbirds...
Jessie Ware - What's Your Pleasure? / Ooh La La
Rhapsodic dancefloor intimacy became a new specialization for Jessie Ware with "Overtime," the first in a wave of tracks the singer released from 2018 up to the June 2020 arrival of What's Your Pleasure?, her fourth album ...recontextualize underground club music with as much might and finesse as anything by Róisín Murphy.
Thurston Moore - HASHISH
By The Fire features My Bloody Valentine’s Deb Googe on bass and backing vocals, Negativland’s Jon Leidecker (aka Wobbly) on electronics, James Sedwardson on guitar, and Sonic Youth’s Steve Shelley alternating on drums with Jem Doulton. And today, you can preview it with its first single, a blissed-out guitar tangle called “Hashish.”
According to a press release, the song is “an ode to the narcotic of love in our shared responsibility to each other during isolation...”
Acclaimed alternative band with a swirling, guitar-based rush of sound matched to Kristin Hersh's cryptic, metaphoric lyrics and highly emotive voice.
Throwing Muses – Bo Diddley Bridge
Earlier this year, Throwing Muses, the great long-running Boston alt-rock band, announced plans to release their new album Sun Racket... We’re still waiting, but now Throwing Muses have set a new release date. They’ve also shared “Bo Diddley Bridge,” another great new track. “Bo Diddley Bridge” does not have a Bo Diddley beat, as cool as that would be. Instead, it’s a thick, enveloping, atmospheric jam with a whole lot of teeth. The song gets a whole lot out of bandleader Kristin Hersh’s tough, instinctive wail, which has been one of the greatest sounds in American underground rock for decades.
Throwing Muses – Bo Diddley Bridge
Earlier this year, Throwing Muses, the great long-running Boston alt-rock band, announced plans to release their new album Sun Racket... We’re still waiting, but now Throwing Muses have set a new release date. They’ve also shared “Bo Diddley Bridge,” another great new track. “Bo Diddley Bridge” does not have a Bo Diddley beat, as cool as that would be. Instead, it’s a thick, enveloping, atmospheric jam with a whole lot of teeth. The song gets a whole lot out of bandleader Kristin Hersh’s tough, instinctive wail, which has been one of the greatest sounds in American underground rock for decades.
Protomartyr - Ultimate Success Today / Day Without End
If the guy stumbling out of a bar at 1:30 a.m. carrying a placard reading "THE END IS NEAR" decided to go into a recording studio and make an album, he'd probably sound a little like Protomartyr frontman Joe Casey. And if that man were very lucky, he'd have a band as good as Protomartyr backing him up; Casey's measured, articulate rage and disgust may fuel their music, but the echoey fury of Greg Ahee's guitars, the primordial throb of Scott Davidson's bass, and the artfully implacable drumming of Alex Leonard communicate with a strength that matches Casey for thoughtful bad karma. Protomartyr create soundtracks for an apocalypse that's hovering just over the horizon, and while 2020's Ultimate Success Today was written and recorded before the multiple calamities of that year made themselves known, it's a brilliant encapsulation -- even more than 2017's Relatives in Descent -- of a time of dashed hopes and entropy as our culture goes into what feels like its final state of implosion... Ultimate Success Today sounds timely in 2020, but this music would be a smart, compelling accompaniment for staring into the abyss as it begins to look back, no matter what the year.
Crack Cloud - Pain Olympics / Tunnel Vision
If the aim of Pain Olympics was to leave the listener wanting more, then it's gold medals all around. Although the 29-minute runtime is bursting with brilliance, the breakneck speed of the record approaches escape velocity only to abruptly hit the brakes. It can be a little disorienting at times, as the tracks pinball from one another with minimal space to catch their breath, even managing to forge a newer cosmic side to their sound in the process. It feels like a truer opening statement from the band, as their debut was really just two EPs melded together, and fully demonstrates their capabilities, especially their updated version of "Bastard Basket," which eschews the scratchy nature of its initial iteration for a weightier sound. Despite its erratic nature, Pain Olympics does manage to find cohesion in chaos; the band may have Zach Choy's vocals and propulsive percussion front and center, but the cast of larger than life members -- including the irresistible magnetism of Mohammed Ali Sharar -- that surround him conjure something far greater, an odd unity of sound and visuals that would otherwise fall apart if too many egos were at play; no-one else in 2020 exemplifies art-punk as much as Crack Cloud...
Robby Krieger - The Ritual Begins at Sundown / Chunga's Revenge
The label described the instrumental LP as a “return to friends” and features a wide range of his colleagues from the era when he began exploring jazz music, including a number of people who worked with Frank Zappa. The record contains nine original compositions and a cover of Zappa’s “Chunga’s Revenge.”
Blues Pills - Holy Moly! / Low Road
...More rootsy than anything on 2016's neo-psych breakthrough Lady in Gold, the track signified a back-to-basics approach, one that Blues Pills engages through most of these 11 tracks. When guitarist Dorian Sorriaux amiably left the band in 2018, founder/bassist Zack Anderson moved over into his role and it made sense to reconsider their roots. They hired bassist André Kvarnström as drummer Kristoffer Schander's rhythm section partner. Holy Moly! was cut at the band's countryside recording studio in Närke, Sweden with Larsson, Anderson, and Kvarnström all co-producing. The set was mixed by veteran engineer Andrew Scheps.
More than previous studio outings, Holy Moly! comes closest to resembling Blues Pills' live attack. It is greasy, loose, and immediate; it's fiery and tuneful, blazing with searing guitar solos, thudding kick drums, and filthy bass throb. There is a profoundly musical finesse offered here that comes from working stages large and small. "Low Road" is a furious exercise in blues-rock, with Anderson's potent riff delivered by an overdriven wah-wah pedal. Larsson soars above the low-end power of the rhythm section...
Billy Childs - Acceptance / Leimert Park
Jazz pianist and composer Billy Childs follows up 2017's Rebirth, his Grammy-winning Mack Avenue outing, with the same core quartet: saxophonist Steve Wilson, bassist Hans Glawischnig, and drummer Eric Harland. Childs grew up in a music-loving household; in addition to his parents' prodigious record collection of jazz, blues, classical, and Brazilian volumes, his older sister, playwright Kirsten J. Childs, brought home the latest pop and soul sides... The biggest surprise is "Leimert Park." Co-composed by Childs, bassist Paul Jackson, and drummer Mike Clark (the rhythm section of Herbie Hancock & Headhunters), it's a fusion jam that weaves trancelike synth and Rhodes vamps and rhythmic cadences as they crisscross musical terrain that touches on mid-period Weather Report, dancefloor funk, and hip-hop...
A year and a half after the death of his daughter Mazy, English electronic pioneer Tricky delivered his appropriately dark and dirgeful 14th album, Fall to Pieces. The first full-length since 2017's ununiform, the set closely followed the first stage of Tricky's sonic catharsis, the 20,20 EP, continuing the mourning process across a taut 11 tracks that brim with angst and sadness. As the digitized production drones, anxiety and melancholy build to uncomfortable levels like the most unnerving and depressed Portishead or Massive Attack tracks...
Tricky and Marta Złakowska
Let's face it: If any year needed a new album from Public Enemy, it was 2020. Faced with disease and unrest at every turn, PE returned to their original home, Def Jam, for What You Gonna Do When the Grid Goes Down?, a record that consciously reconnects with their past while addressing the present with a clear eye. At first, it's hard to avoid the chaos of the modern world, with Public Enemy pushing their "State of the Union (STFU)" and the existential digital quandary of the title track, but the record subtly shifts gears with "Public Enemy Number Won." Its title is a nod to "Public Enemy No. 1," a pivotal track from their 1987 debut, and it doesn't hide from the fact that neither Public Enemy nor their guests Mike D, Ad-Rock, and Run-DMC have been at this since the '90s. The vibe isn't necessarily nostalgic. Rather, it's an acknowledgment that the years have piled up, that PE and their peers are now not only the old guard, they're survivors. That's an undercurrent that runs through What You Gonna Do When the Grid Goes Down?: It finds room for additional cameos by Cypress Hill, Nas, Questlove, and Ice-T, fellow hip-hop veterans who have turned lifers...
With their 2018 album Mogic, Hen Ogledd evolved from the amorphous improvisations of their earliest phases into something resembling a more traditionally molded pop band. They didn't completely shake the wooly weirdness that initially defined the project, but incorporated it into structured songs that pitted hopeful melodies against noisy electronics and heady lyrical themes. If Mogic was Hen Ogledd dipping their toes into pop, its successor Free Humans is the band diving in headlong. The ambitious double album finds Hen Ogledd further refining their take on pop sounds, presenting neatly produced tunes that offer straightforward hooks, anthemic choruses, and a generally less cluttered rendering of the band's maximal aesthetic...Both precisely calculated and boundlessly imaginative, Free Humans creates an expansive world in which Hen Ogledd can continue to sculpt their bizarre brand of pop music.
Frankie & the Witch Fingers - Monsters Eating People Eating Monsters…/ MEPEM
When momentum is in full swing on Frankie and the Witch Fingers’ ‘Monsters Eating People Eating Monsters’ it is boundless. In a greenhorn’s hands, this fired-up haste could be a ghastly listening experience, but fortunately, the L.A.-based foursome handles abundant vigour with a supreme deftness, which they honed to a superlunar level on 2019’s ‘ZAM’. Like its predecessor, ‘MEPEM’ continues to shed further layers of the band’s lo-fi garage- rock-of-yore DNA in favour of a richer and groovier psychedelia, but most importantly, it is a more polished manifestation of their own sound, and never has it been this thick...
...The group took cues from the open-ended improvisation of classic jam band acts like Phish and the Grateful Dead, but also incorporated dual-guitar wizardry on par with Television or, in their more Southern-fried moments, the Allmann Brothers. For their 2019 album One Step Behind, the band expanded to a six-piece lineup and added avant-jazz touches to the equation as they stretched out over the course of a half-hour-long title track. With Nightcap at Wits' End, Garcia Peoples shift gears yet again, with a set of neatly composed and relatively concise tunes that distill their wandering impulses into easily digestible forms. This can take the form of rowdy prog-lite tunes like album opener "Gliding Through"...
The resulting vibe is some kinda tweaked-out Miami disco dipped into a Mississippi mudslide... Quintron & Miss Pussycat fans will get the unique charm and twisted take on dance music they have come to expect from our dynamic duo, but the added instrumentation and production from Mr. Cartwright push this album into some places that will surprise even longtime Q&P afficionados, especially Quintron's stinging one-handed stun slide guitar attack.
After two albums where Fuzz's dynamic duo of Ty Segall and Charles Moothart set the controls to the heart of the late '60s/early '70s in a (mostly successful) quest to recapture the vital moment in history when garage rock met acid rock and got super heavy, they've truly hit the bull's-eye with III. With new bassist Chad Ubovich on board, the group have made a record that not only brings to mind early Black Sabbath or Blue Cheer but also stands proudly next to them like a conquering hero. With the help of Steve Albini's no-frills recording job and a general lack of overdubs, reverb, and frills, the sound is immediate and powerful. Segall's drums are a force of nature, Ubovich's bass thuds when it needs to, then jousts with the guitar melodically when that's required, and Moothart's guitar is an overdriven thing of ugly beauty. He conjures up molten riffs that tumble out of the speakers, doles out shards of overblown noise, unleashes snaky solos, and basically makes claim to a seat at the table of guitar heroes circa 2020...
Eels - Earth to Dora / Are You Fucking Your Ex
Mark Oliver Everett, the man who is the benevolent despot behind the Eels, is not adverse to change, and after the cool electronic surfaces and nervous lyrical viewpoint of 2018's The Deconstruction, he decided to take things in a different direction for his 13th album, 2020's Earth to Dora. By Everett's standards, Earth to Dora sounds optimistic, or at least he seems reasonably content most of the time, which is pretty impressive given the dour, edgy tone of much of his music... Of course, Everett probably isn't capable of making an album that's devoid of dark thoughts, and between the uncomfortable jealousy of "Are You Fucking Your Ex,"... For the Eels, those are not emotions to dismiss offhand. In an era of malaise, Eels are contrary enough to take a shot at feeling good, and Earth to Dora is well-written and imaginatively produced pop for grown-ups that reminds us Mark Oliver Everett is crazy enough to try anything once -- even feeling OK for a while.
Since Masaki Batoh founded the Silence in 2014, the guitarist and group have traversed open sonic terrains between acid folk and psychedelic rock, free improvisation and structured composition, visceral statement and textured meditative space. Electric Meditations brings together the same quartet that issued the excellent, sprawling Metaphysical Feedback in 2019: Batoh on guitar and vocals; Taiga Yamazaki on bass and vocals; Futoshi Okano on the drum kit, and Ryuichi Yoshida on baritone saxophone and flute... The opening vamp in "Butterfly Blues" recalls Morphine's funkiest music, at least before Yamazaki's yowling vocal claims the center. That said, the punchy, spiky, James Brown-esque guitar vamps, baritone sax honks, and mercurial dynamics revolve around a restrained yet throbbing bassline and skeletal snare breaks. They usher in a wandering flute solo from Yoshida that eventually entwines with his baritone horn...
Malcolm Catto is an English musician and record producer. He is the co-founder and producer of the London psych'/jazz/experimental outfit The Heliocentrics. They have so far released four of their own albums but have also issued collaborations with DJ Shadow, Mulatu Astatke, Lloyd Miller, Orlando Julius and Melvin Van Peebles.
Little Barrie, Malcolm Catto - Quatermass Seven / Rest in BlueAfter the release of their 2017 album Death Express, Little Barrie suffered the tragic loss of drummer Virgil Howe, and the remaining two members of the group, guitarist Barrie Cadogan and bassist Lewis Wharton, took some time deciding whether they wanted to keep the band going. When they did choose to make more music together, they called in drummer Malcom Catto of the London jazz group Heliocentrics. The trio began jamming in the drummer's basement studio, liked what they came up with, and turned their ideas into a set of songs...
Germany's Urlaub in Polen has always been a hard band to pin down. At their core, they are a two-man guitar-and-drums unit, though both members also handle the myriad synthesizers and ambient electronics that shimmer and buzz through their hypnotic songs... Reuniting after a nine-year gap, they return with their sixth album, All. If anything, the ten-song set feels even tighter than the band's earlier releases, paring away some of the harsh and cavernous sounds of Boldstriker and presenting a leaner, cleaner sort of minimalism that plays to their strengths...
A good sign that a band is on a creative hot streak is the amount of music they release outside of their albums. As the B-sides and rarities collection Little Bastards shows, Jamie Hince and Alison Mosshart were barely keeping up with their muse during their first decade as the Kills. Named for the Roland 880 sequencer/drum machine that gave the duo's early work its signature throb, Little Bastards is an apt description of these stray songs that deserve more love... While it's one of the collection's earliest recordings, it shows that Hince and Mosshart knew what they were doing from the start. Not only does Little Bastards get at everything that makes the Kills equally enduring and inventive, it's a lot of fun, too.
Jim Noir - A.M Jazz / Beatheart
After making a record that eschewed his usual junkshop electronics-meets-the Beatles sound in favor of something guitar-oriented and very Beatlesque on 2014's Finnish Line, Jim Noir returned to a more familiar sound on 2019's AM Jazz. Working with an array of old synths and whatever instruments were lying about his studio, he's crafted a melancholy take on his trademark sound that folds in very pillowy synths, soft rock vocal harmonies, and loads of atmosphere...
Of Montreal - Ur Fun / Deliberate Self-harm Ha Ha
2018's White Is Relic/Irrealis Mood took direct inspiration from the extended remixes of pop hits that were prevalent in the 1980s, and two years later, Ur Fun narrows in on catchier, singles-minded fare. A set that doesn't break for ballads, it was, as has become typical for Barnes, inspired by his personal life, which settled into a steady relationship following divorce. In fact, his partner, Christina Schneider (aka Locate S,1)... Taken together, infectious rhythms, smart lyrics, and effervescent chorus hooks that deliver throughout Ur Fun make it more than a mere amusement.
Jeff Parker - Suite for Max Brown / Go Away
Guitarist and composer Jeff Parker made a name for himself first with Tortoise during the '90s, and then as an integral member of the experimental music scene in Chicago. He's made a career of jumping the dimensions between rock, soul, funk, and jazz. Unknown to all but his contemporaries and musician friends, he also pursued his intense love of hip-hop without recording any of it; that is, until he released The New Breed from his adopted home in Los Angeles in 2016... While that recording revealed his respect and gratitude for his departed father, Suite for Max Brown is titled for and dedicated to his very-much-alive mother. Produced by the artist and engineered by Paul Bryan, it is a continuation of the sounds explored on New Breed. It includes most of the same sidemen, though it's more a solo date than a band date, and its tunes meander and stroll through thoughtful, creative, loose-sounding compositions...
Homesick - The Big Exercise / I Celebrate My Fantasy
Making their Sub Pop debut are the Homesick, a trio of Dutch sonic explorers from the Frisian town of Dokkum whose idiosyncratic indie rock traverses Motorik post-punk, neo-psychedelia, and lean Baroque pop. The Big Exercise follows three years after the band's slightly grittier 2017 missive Youth Hunt, which introduced their signature blend to mostly European audiences and scored them a fair amount of critical buzz, not to mention an American record deal. Brandishing a youthful mix of confidence, creative intelligence, and chutzpah, members Elias Elgersma (guitar), Jaap Van der Velde (bass), and Erik Woudwijk (drums) have landed on a surprisingly distinctive sound, one that contains enough melodic warmth to engage listeners but packed with complex song structures and played with taut precision...
Sonny Landreth - Blacktop Run / Groovy Goddess
Louisiana guitar slinger Sonny Landreth returns to the studio with his quartet two years after 2017's Grammy-nominated Recorded Live in Lafayette. Blacktop Run is more than just a new studio outing, however. Landreth reunites with producer R.S. Field for the first time since 2005's Grant Street. Field produced Landreth's three breakout sets for Zoo as well as several later albums. He is a studio empath and extends artists full faith and credit. Landreth possesses a distinct sound to be sure, direct, resonant, and simple, but he's restless when it comes to experimenting with styles... Cajun stomper complete with button accordion; zydeco and Delta blues melt together on a honky tonk dancefloor. "Groovy Goddess" is a spiky instrumental showcasing Landreth's electric slide-playing swing.
Horse Lords - The Common Task / Against Gravity
Baltimore quartet Horse Lords play a complex, polyrhythmic form of music that incorporates just intonation, algorithmic composition, and microtonal harmonies. Instead of being a purely academic exercise, however, the group apply these techniques to sprawling, groove-heavy instrumental rock songs, equally influenced by Krautrock and Saharan desert blues as well as composers like Terry Riley and James Tenney. The Common Task is their fourth studio album, and it's easily their most vibrant, dazzling recorded effort to date... "Against Gravity" showcases Andrew Bernstein's saxophone playing, beginning with a drone before playing hopscotch with the rhythm. The saxophone gradually lifts off, multiplies, and becomes scattered around the beat, while the music becomes more ecstatic, eventually beaming up into space courtesy of Max Eilbacher's synthesizer... (Paul Simpson)
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