062 ALTER.NATION weekly favtraX 03-11-2019

ALTER.NATION #62

Olivia Colman, Alcest, Cigarettes After Sex, Sudan Archives, Little Scream, The Bad Plus, Jeff Goldblum & the Mildred Snitzer Orchestra, Anna Calvi, Simon Joyner, Omni, Bradford Cox / Cate Le Bon, CUP, Nels Cline, Yuka C. Honda, Itasca

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"G l or y   B o x"

ALTER.NATION #62 on DEEZER

Sarah Caroline Olivia Sinclair, CBE, better known as Olivia Colman, is an English actress. Deemed a "national treasure", Colman is the recipient of numerous accolades, including an Academy Award, four BAFTA Awards, two Golden Globe Awards, four British Independent Film Awards, the Volpi Cup for Best Actress, and a BFI Fellowship.
Olivia Colman - Glory Box / Portishead from BBC Children In Need: Got It Covered
In an exclusive collaboration for BBC Children in Need, a whole host of stars have got together to record an entire album to raise money for this year’s appeal...
Each star has handpicked a song significant to them for the album.  Recorded at the legendary Rak and Abbey Road Studios in London, they each received expert guidance from Brit and Mercury award-winning record producers and songwriters, Guy Chambers and Jonathan Quarmby.

Alcest are a metal duo from Bagnols-sur-Cèze, France comprised of Neige (guitars, keyboards, vocals) and Winterhalter (drums). Their music has gradually shifted from black metal to shoegaze to post-metal, and finally to the integrated sound known as blackgaze. Intense melody, lush, swirling electronic textures, and sometimes screamed-sometimes cleanly sung vocals entwine in their mixes. 
Alcest - Les Jardins de Minuit from Spiritual Instinct 
When Alcest released Kodama in 2016, it stood apart from their previous catalog in exploring the "blackgaze" metal subgenre they'd created. It was darker, more aggressive, and had more pointed edges.... Spiritual Instinct, the band's debut for Nuclear Blast, builds on Kodama even as it reaches further outside the emotions expressed on it in order to transcend them. It explores dichotomies -- the divine and the primal, the raw and the refined, the hideous and the beautiful -- in a quest to reveal complexities at the heart of what humanity actually means. Opener "Les Jardins de Minuit" borrows a radically Gothic bassline from Joy Division before a single-string melody line, followed by doubled vocals, pave the way for blastbeats and powerful, strummed open chords. It's a swirl of gray and smoke that gallops along.

Ambient pop collective started as a recording experiment in an echoey hallway. Ambient pop collective Cigarettes After Sex grew out of an experimental sound project by songwriter Greg Gonzalez. 
Cigarettes After Sex - You're the Only Good Thing In My Life from Cry
...The project of Texas native Greg Gonzalez, Cigarettes After Sex's noir-ish imagery and languid odes to romantic obsession made them seem like unlikely candidates for such contemporary pop culture peaks, but the song and subsequent 2017 debut album nonetheless found a very receptive audience... With the gently hissing surf-and-sun-baked limestone cliffs as their backdrop, he and bandmates Randall Miller (bass), Phillip Tubbs (keyboards), and Jacob Tomsky (drums) recorded nine gentle, often improvised pieces of music to which Gonzalez added lyrics at a later date. Cry is nothing if not cinematic and, as its creator has indicated, is indelibly linked to its place of origin. Listening to the opioid strains of "Don't Let Me Go" or "You're the Only Good Thing in My Life," it's easy to picture the lovelorn indie playboy gazing wistfully from a marbled balcony out into the sea's infinite expanse...

Violinist, singer, songwriter, and producer who combines R&B, hip-hop, folk, and experimental electronic music for the Stones Throw label.
Sudan Archives - Pelicans In The Summer from Athena
Nothing about Sudan Archives and Sink, Brittney Parks' self-written and self-produced Stones Throw EPs, sounded underdeveloped or uncertain. That they were filled with tunes akin to repeated epigrams and transportive moodscapes -- instead of traditionally-structured songs -- seemed like a deliberate artistic choice, not a deficiency. It's only after being weighed against the LP follow-up Athena that they come across as unripe. The previously solitary Parks opted here to work with a crew including James R. McCall IV, Will Archer, Rodaidh McDonald, Paul White, and Catherine Parks (her sister) among the dozen or so fellow producers and songwriters... and "Pelicans in the Summer," a pulsing/snaking song of deep affection...

Delivering her own brand of ambitious, grand-scale indie pop, Little Scream is the stage name of vocalist, songwriter, and multi-instrumentalist Laurel Sprengelmeyer. Her music is at once lush and intimate, with a subdued approach informed by folk but with melodies that are drawn from indie pop and flashes of rock dynamics.
Little Scream - Switchblade from Speed Queen
Sometimes you have to spend some time away from home in order to see it as it really is. Laurel Sprengelmeyer, aka Little Scream, was born and raised in the United States before she settled in Canada and made a name for himself in the local indie music community... What she saw has become the foundation of the third Little Scream album, 2019's Speed Queen, a moody but beautifully crafted set of intelligent indie pop melodies matched to vocals that are graceful on first glance but speak of lives teetering on the brink if you're willing to take a closer look. The LP's title track speaks of the anxieties and desperation of a woman whose greatest wish is to have the means and stability to own her own washer and dryer, a simple dream that is painfully far from her reach...

Progressive jazz scientists who found a way to put a modern rock-oriented spin on jazz while still honoring its forward-thinking traditions.
The Bad Plus - Undersea Reflection from Activate Infinity
When the Bad Plus released Never Stop II in 2018, new pianist Orrin Evans had been in the group for less than a year. He's since logged thousands of miles with them, playing concert halls and bandstands across the globe. That makes Activate Infinity, their second album together, a much more integrated affair. Evans' decades of experience as a bandleader and inventive hard bop-inspired pianist lend immeasurably to the quirk and instinct of this trio...  Anderson's fluid soloing adds heft and imagination that Evans and King follow down an intricately constructed rabbit hole. Activate Infinity is a canny, wildly creative expression of the Bad Plus' collective persona; it's inspired, sophisticated, fresh, and a joy to encounter, time and again.

But the difference with Jeff Goldblum, who is releasing I Shouldn’t Be Telling You This one year after his debut and following a celebrated Glastonbury set this summer, might be that music came before the acting. Goldblum learnt piano growing up in Pittsburgh, and has played lounge gigs with the Mildred Snitzer Orchestra throughout his career. And musicianship courses through these classily rendered jazz standards.
Jeff Goldblum & the Mildred Snitzer Orchestra feat. Anna Calvi - Four On Six/Broken English  from I Shouldn't Be Telling You This
...Anna Calvi lends her lowest-register vibrato to the mash-up of Wes Montgomery’s “Four on Six” and Marianne Faithfull’s “Broken English”, which injects a rebellious splash of electric guitar. Sultry sweetness...

Prolific figure of the Great Plains' lo-fi D.I.Y. scene, and a heavy influence on Bright Eyes' Conor Oberst. Cited as a key influence by Conor Oberst (of Bright Eyes) and Beck, Omaha, Nebraska native and singer/songwriter Simon Joyner has been putting out delicate, intimate, mournful songs since the early '90s.
Simon Joyner - You Never Know from Pocket Moon
favorite musician's favorite musician. Consistently active and firmly independent since the early '90s, Joyner's influence is apparent in much more recognizable names like Bright Eyes, Kevin Morby, Angel Olsen, and other top-shelf artists occupying the space between Americana and lyrically focused songwriting. Pocket Moon continues Joyner's reshaping and refining of the elements that have given his work such impact since he began... The arrangements are simple, centered around vocals high in the mix. Throughout his discography, Joyner has consistently evoked Leonard Cohen's grim narratives, Dylan's flirtations with the surreal, and Townes Van Zandt's blue-collar storytelling. Combined with his own intricate lyrical perspectives, these influences are sharper on Pocket Moon... "You Never Know" runs through a series of everyday scenes that hold deeper emotional weight, stretching out with the same protracted lyrical rumination as Blonde on Blonde-era Dylan...

Energetic blend of Postcard pop, angular post-punk, and scrappy D.I.Y. punk by ex-members of Deerhunter and Carnivores.
Omni - Present Tense from Networker
After a jump to Sub Pop, Omni return with their most precise, most melodic, and best-sounding album yet. Like their first two, Networker was recorded in rural Georgia with Nathaniel Higgins and the sound is very similar. Frankie Broyles' guitar is a slashing, twisted ball of nerves, his drumming is spare and punchy, Philip Frobos' basslines are jabbing and melodic, and his vocals are cheerfully monotone and just barely poke their head out of the mix. What's different this time is everything is a little more jagged, the guitars have more restraint, and there are hints of avant-garde jazz and Television throughout...

Welsh songwriter Cate Le Bon's distinctive voice and smart arrangements manifested as a dark, looming take on psychedelic pop over the course of multiple critically acclaimed solo albums, side projects, and production for others.
Bradford James Cox is an American singer-songwriter and musician, best known as the lead singer and guitarist of the indie rock band Deerhunter. He also pursues a solo career under the moniker Atlas Sound.
Bradford Cox / Cate Le Bon - Canto! from Myths 004
Cate Le Bon's role as producer on Deerhunter's 2019 album Why Hasn't Everything Already Disappeared? can be heard in both the album's experimental tendencies and organic yet distant arrangements. Le Bon's own 2019 strike Reward had the same balance of strong songwriting and production that blurred curiosity and confusion. The creative friendship between Le Bon and Deerhunter's Bradford Cox takes new shapes on their collaborative EP Myths 004. At its most straightforward, the seven-song project sounds like what could be outtakes from either artist's 2019 album. Opening track "Canto!" features Cox in a dramatic double-tracked vocal melody in an arrangement decorated with strums of autoharp, dissonant guitar soloing, and heavy tandem drum kits...

CUP is an experimental art-pop project from creative and marital partners Nels Cline (Wilco) and Yuka C. Honda (Cibo Matto). An intriguing blend of electronic, folk, rock, and improvisations, the New York duo made their debut with the 2019 album, Spinning Creature.
CUP -  Spinning Creature from Spinning Creature
A project from musical and marital partners Nels Cline and Yuka C. Honda, CUP is a delightfully strange affair that merges exploratory improvisations for guitar, percussion, electronics, and voice with more structured art-pop songwriting... The two come together most soundly on the album's title cut, an artful gem of circular folktronic pop with a curiously inviting melody sung in unison. Pleasantly weird without being pretentious, CUP defy easy categorization and their debut pops like the collision of two beloved nonconformists.

The wispy vocals and guitar-picking style of Kayla Cohen evoke the gentler branch of the singer/songwriter era as well as centuries past.
Itasca - Only a Traveler from Spring
Following Open to Chance, her first album to feature a backing band, by three years, Spring is the fourth overall effort from Itasca, the alias of indie folk balladeer Kayla Cohen. Collaborative or not, all four records are populated by the songwriter's gentle, fingerpicked tunes and evocative lyrics, inspired here by her temporary relocating from L.A. to rural New Mexico to write. Specifically influenced by the region's diverse landscapes, highway apparitions, and the isolation she experienced, the resulting songs were recorded to tape with members of Gun Outfit and Sun Araw. On an album where everything is soft and bucolic, notable behind-the-scenes collaborators include James Elkington, who provided atmospheric string arrangements, and singer/songwriter Chris Cohen, who mixed the record...

Olivia Colman, Alcest, Cigarettes After Sex, Sudan Archives, Little Scream, The Bad Plus, Jeff Goldblum & the Mildred Snitzer Orchestra, Anna Calvi, Simon Joyner, Omni, Bradford Cox / Cate Le Bon, CUP, Nels Cline, Yuka C. Honda, Itasca

052 ALTER.NATION weekly favtraX 08-0 9-2019

ALTER.NATION #52

Chrissie Hynde, The Valve Bone Woe Ensemble, Iggy Pop, Frankie Cosmos, Bat For Lashes, Mermaidens, Guaxe, Kendra Amalie, The Comet Is Coming, Chastity Belt, Mikal Cronin, Cigarettes After Sex, Chelsea Wolfe

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"Wild is the Wind"

ALTER.NATION #52 on DEEZER

The lead singer/songwriter and driving force of the Pretenders, Hynde released her solo debut nearly 35 years into her career.

Chrissie Hynde, The Valve Bone Woe Ensemble - Wild is the Wind from Valve Bone Woe
The notion of Chrissie Hynde recording a jazz album initially seems odd, even incongruous. Hynde admitted as much in the promotional cycle for the release of Valve Bone Woe in 2019, calling herself a "devout rock singer," but revealing that the idea of a jazz album appealed to her because she has a "penchant for cover songs." That much is true... Hints of studio trickery are peppered throughout the record, most evident in elongated electronic echoes, and far from seeming out of place, they lend the album a certain sense of hipness; Hynde isn't shutting out the modern world, she's ushering the past into the present. The vibe is appealing and so is Hynde's performance. Unhurried and nuanced, she eases herself into songs she clearly loves, and that sense of warmth lingers long after the album's last notes fade away.

The Godfather of Punk, who began shocking in the late '60s, influencing and (phenomenally) outlasting practically every punk movement to come.
Iggy Pop - James Bond from Free
If you'd been a baker for more than fifty years, you could be forgiven for being sick of the sight of chocolate eclairs. Similarly, a half-century on from the first Stooges album, Iggy Pop has made it clear he's not in love with rock & roll as he once was. Albums such as 2009's Preliminaries and 2012's Après have found him exploring less aggressive and more thoughtful material, and Iggy continues this trend with 2019's Free... While there are electric guitars on most of these numbers, there's little in the way of fuzz or bark, and a ghostly trumpet and waves of atmospheric keyboards play a much bigger role in the arrangements. Iggy had a hand in writing three of the tracks on Free, but most of the songs were penned by his primarily collaborators on this album, trumpeter Leron Thomas and Noveller, who is credited with "guitarscapes."  There are a few playful moments, most notably on the sly and slinky "James Bond...

Prolific solo project turned indie pop band led by the succinct, sweet, and self-conscious tendencies of singer/songwriter Greta Kline.

Frankie Cosmos - Wannago from Close It Quietly

The onetime bedroom project of singer/songwriter Greta Kline, Frankie Cosmos made its debut as a four-piece band dozens of albums later with 2018's Vessel, a release that doubled as the project's Sub Pop debut. A year and a half later, Close It Quietly continues on the path set by that album, with a sound reinforced by input from, as opposed to the mere presence of, bandmates (here, drummer Luke Pyenson, keyboardist Lauren Martin, and bassist Alex Bailey). As with all Frankie Cosmos output, the spotlight remains on Kline's endearingly candid confessions and observations thanks in part also to first-time collaborator Gabe Wax (The War on Drugs, Fleet Foxes, Palehound), who engineered and co-produced the album...

Acclaimed British/Pakastani singer/songwriter with influences that range from Steve Reich to Siouxsie Sioux.Crafting a mystical indie-rock sound that drew comparisons to Kate Bush and Björk, Bat for Lashes is the project of Natasha Khan.
Bat for Lashes - Feel for You from Lost Girls
By the time Bat for Lashes released Lost Girls, the '80s synth pop revival of the 2000s and 2010s had lasted several years longer than the style's original run. More than 30 years later, the magic, hope and romance of that decade's pop culture and music -- especially when contrasted with its threatening political climate -- still resonated. The imaginary '80s of the 21st century heightened the era's theatricality into a dream world capable of expressing the grandest feelings and desires of artists like M83 and, on her fifth album, Natasha Khan... "Feel for You"'s funky rhythm and laser beam synths make it a perfect rollerskating jam...

New Zealand trio whose moody, angular indie rock takes inspiration from post-punk and psychedelic rock as well as dream pop.
Mermaidens - Bastards from Look Me in the Eye
Mermaidens' second album for the Flying Nun label and third overall, Look Me in the Eye was named with a double meaning in mind. Inspired by shifting gender politics, stubborn power structures, and related frustrations, it refers to confrontation as well as intimacy. Continuing to sharpen their increasingly dark, angular sound, the New Zealand trio favor post-punk and psychedelic influences on an album that doesn't completely leave their mix of dream pop, grunge, and other textures behind...

Warm and surreal Brazilian psych-folk duo formed by members of Boogarins and Supercordas. Brazilian indie psych duo Guaxe formed when two like-minded experimental musicians began collaborating in sporadic sessions where they shared their lo-fi production techniques and warm, hazy songwriting, which resulted in their wild and colorful self-titled debut album in 2019.
Guaxe - Desafio do Guaxe from Guaxe
Longtime friends and collaborators Dino Almeida and Pedro Bonifrate knew each other from the fringes of Brazil's music scene, where they made reaching experimental rock sounds with their respective bands Boogarins and Supercordas. Over a series of years, the two friends worked on a new musical project that eventually was named Guaxe after a bird native to the Atlantic forests whose call is naturally surreal. With their self-titled debut, Bonifrate and Almeida's musical connection and friendship emanates through these wild yet warm sounds of homespun psychedelia...

Midwestern musician, bandleader, and multi-instrumentalist especially skilled at 12-string acoustic guitar and drifting, cosmic songwriting.
Kendra Amalie - Breathe Underwater from Intuition
As the guiding force behind her band Names Divine, singer/songwriter/multi-instrumentalist Kendra Amalie leaned into dark textures and sprawling experimentalism. In the context of that band, her songs were pained and explosive rock, like an early Velvet Underground at their most tortured meeting the cosmic expanse of working-class underground drifters like Major Stars or Bardo Pond. With her first proper solo album, Intuition, Amalie branches out in several different directions while sharpening her sounds at every turn. The album begins with the tense, nearly gothic rocker "Breathe Underwater." Composed of spindly guitars, gigantic drums, and dour vocal harmonies, the overpowering presence of the song buries more subtle details like soft synth countermelodies and glimmering guitar textures...

"Apocalyptic space funk" trio from London, England, signed to the Leaf Label.Identified as Betamax Killer, Danalogue the Conqueror, and King Shabaka -- aliases of drummer Maxwell Hallett, keyboardist Dan Leavers, and saxophonist Shabaka Hutchings -- the Comet Is Coming describe their sound as "apocalyptic space funk," consciously and purposefully melding jazz, funk, electronica, psychedelia, hip-hop, and improvisation.
The Comet Is Coming - Lifeforce Part II
English band the Comet Is Coming released their sophomore album, Trust In The Lifeforce Of The Deep Mystery, back in March... “The Afterlife has been a topic of deep consideration and of the keys to spiritual mythology around the world for millennia,” the band’s keyboardist, who goes by Danalogue, said in a press statement. “The two records can be seen as companions, that cannot exist without each other, like day and night, light and dark, creation and destruction. They were made together, at the same time, and have always been intended to be experienced together.”

Seattle area band takes cues from the riot grrrl scene as well as angular early-'90s guitar-based indie rock.
Chastity Belt - Drown
“I started writing ‘Drown’ back when I was 23 … so almost 6 years ago. It came together with the band a few years later,” Julia Shapiro said in a statement. “It feels good to finally put it out into the world! Everyone’s parts on it are really intricate and thoughtful and overall add to the moodiness of the song.”
“Drown” is a tender swirl, Shapiro’s voice a salve and an escape route. “Believe me,” she sings. “This is the way out/ And doesn’t the water feel good on your skin?”

Creator of clever and idiosyncratic indie pop with a garage rock undertow; frequently collaborates with Ty Segall.
Mikal Cronin - Shelter
This one’s overpowered by fuzzy guitar and really intense string arrangements. The percussion section is multi-layered, creating this dimensional experience that feels expansive. Apparently this approach was calculated, as Cronin was inspired by ambient linchpin Brian Eno. Here’s what Cronin had to say about the track:
"This is a song about searching for answers in an uncertain world. It’s about the observer reluctantly stepping out of their comfort zone and looking around, while trying to keep their head straight. Musically, it’s dense and polyrhythmic. The string line weaves it all together for me. When writing a song with a lot of additive looping rhythmic parts, I think of Brian Eno."

Ambient pop collective Cigarettes After Sex were formed almost accidentally in 2008 by songwriter and bandleader Greg Gonzalez. While living in El Paso, Texas, Gonzalez was experimenting with capturing the spacious sound of recording songs in a four-story stairwell at the University of Texas.
Cigarettes After Sex - Heavenly
Greg Gonzalez released the self-titled debut LP for his ambient pop project Cigarettes After Sex back in 2017. Today, he’s announcing the follow-up sophomore album, Cry, and sharing its dreamy lead single. “Heavenly” recalls the romantic pop music of the late ’50s and early ’60s. Gonzalez sighs over swelling guitars and synths: “I’m giving you all my love.”
The forthcoming album was recorded in a house on the Spanish island of Mallorca with drummer Jacob Tomsky, bassist Randy Miller, and keyboardist Phillip Tubbs. “I’ve always avoided studios,” Gonzalez says. “There’s something special about recording out in the world, some kind of X-factor that comes from the character and atmosphere of wherever it is that you’re working that becomes essential to the feeling of the music.”

Crafting "doom-drenched electric folk," Los Angeles' Chelsea Wolfe grew up in Northern California with a father who had a country band and his own home studio, so she was immersed in music at an early age and began recording herself at age nine; by the time she was in fourth grade, she knew she wanted to be a singer.
Chelsea Wolfe - Deranged For Rock & Roll
“‘Deranged for Rock & Roll’ is my love song to music,” Wolfe says. “Every time I ever tried to walk a different path, music always called me back home to it. It’s in my blood; it’s my one source of true peace. I love its chaos and its rough edges, and I love the way it can bring understanding and comfort. I belong to music, and it to me. I feel Gilbert’s video illustrates that unnamed pull towards something so well. My character is destined to sing the same song over and over in this purgatory of a desert bar, while different people come through the town and begin to feel the pull as well, drawing them into this vortex to stay for good.”

Chrissie Hynde, The Valve Bone Woe Ensemble, Iggy Pop, Frankie Cosmos, Bat For Lashes, Mermaidens, Guaxe, Kendra Amalie, The Comet Is Coming, Chastity Belt, Mikal Cronin, Cigarettes After Sex, Chelsea Wolfe