010 ALTER.NATiON: weekly favtraX / 08-12-2018

ALTER.NATiON #10

Charlotte Gainsbourg, Jessica Pratt, Lana Del Rey, Adrianne Lenker, Noname, Smino,  Saba, Metro Boomin, 21 Savege, Sheck Wes, Yves Tumor, Kilo Kish, Thom Yorke, Disclosure, Julia Holter

weekly favtraX 

08-12-2018

Charlotte Gainsbourg - Such a Remarkable Day
A French actress and singer who carried on the provocative legacy of her famous father, Serge Gainsbourg. Charlotte Gainsbourg may be better known as an accomplished actress than as a musician, but her singing career has also been significant. Around the same time she began acting, Gainsbourg also started singing professionally. At 13 years old, she recorded her debut, Charlotte for Ever, an album of songs written by her father, singer/songwriter/provocateur Serge Gainsbourg, that was inspired by the film he directed and in which they both starred...

Jessica Pratt

Jessica Pratt - This Time Around
West Coast singer/songwriter who recalls the best of obscure '70s psych-folk with her introverted, twilight-toned style. West Coast-based singer/songwriter Jessica Pratt emerged from the ether with a distinctive introverted folk style on her 2012 self-titled debut. The album consisted of mostly low-key recordings of Pratt's voice and simple acoustic guitar accompaniment, recalling both obscure psych-folk artists like Sibylle Baier and more well-known stargazing folk-rockers like David Crosby or Joni Mitchell...

Lana Del Rey - Venice Bitch
Vocalist who makes atmospheric orchestral pop showcasing her torchy image and sensuously husky singing style. Lana Del Rey envisioned a Southern California dream world constructed out of sad girls and bad boys, manufactured melancholy and genuine glamour, and then she came to embody this fantasy...

Adrianne Lenker

Adrianne Lenker - symbol
Soloist and leader of Big Thief known for her intimate and evocative songwriting and performance style. Also known for her evocative songwriting and performances with indie folk-rock band Big Thief, Adrianne Lenker's solo material is spare, brittle, and often deeply personal...

Noname - Ace [ft. Smino and Saba]
Chicago rapper and poet who brings an observant eye and quiet patience to her soulful R&B-meets-hip-hop style. The poetic, down-to-earth style of Noname exhibits inspirations including Lauryn Hill and Andre 3000...

Metro Boomin, 21 Savege - Don’t Come Out the House
Producer behind dozens of sleek hits for Future, iLoveMakonnen, Migos, and Big Sean, among several others. Within five years of his first output with Future, producer Leland Wayne amassed well over a dozen Top 20 R&B/hip-hop hits and a similar quantity of gold and platinum RIAA certifications. The St. Louis, Missouri native did it with a low-gloss, jet-black sound sufficiently reflected in his alias, Metro Boomin. Wayne got into production during his early teens and also rapped, though he eventually opted to devote all his energy to beatmaking...

Sheck Wes - Wanted
Hostile rhymes from a Harlem native who records jointly for the labels of Travis Scott and Kanye West. The rapper and producer started making music as a youngster as he moved back and forth between New York City and Milwaukee. While attending high school in New York, basketball became a major extracurricular pursuit, but he attracted interest from a fashion talent scout that led to him skipping a playoff game in favor of participating in the Madison Square Garden unveiling of the Yeezy Season 3 collection...

Yves Tumor - Lifetime
Experimental artist whose work encompasses haunting ambient collages, ethereal lo-fi soul, and confrontational noise. The music created by experimental artist Yves Tumor encompasses haunting ambient collages, ethereal lo-fi soul, and confrontational noise, shifting through styles and sounds in a fluid, surrealist manner...

Kilo Kish

Kilo Kish - Elegance
New York-via-Florida alternative R&B singer, songwriter, and rapper with connections to the Internet, Childish Gambino, and the Kitsuné label. Born Lakisha Robinson in Orlando, Florida, she spent part of her childhood in New Jersey prior to returning to Orlando and was briefly in a pop group called D'Angelz.

Thom Yorke - Suspirium
The perpetually haunted voice of Radiohead reserved his solo billing for further electronics and beats experimentation. Few rock singers of the alternative era were as original or as instantly unforgettable as Thom Yorke, and his band, Radiohead, became one of the biggest acts of the 1990s and 2000s for their challenging and unpredictable music. Early on, Yorke rarely worked outside the band, but he steadily collaborated with a variety of artists, released a pair of low-key solo albums, and briefly led another band, the Afrobeat-inspired Atoms for Peace. Throughout, he worked closely with Radiohead producer Nigel Godrich...

Disclosure - Moonlight
Sibling dance-production duo from Surrey whose debut album went platinum in the U.K. and featured the Top Ten U.S. pop hit "Latch." A pop-oriented synthesis of numerous styles, including house, garage, dubstep, and bass, along with well-timed vocal collaborations, made Disclosure one of the most successful production teams of the 2010s...

Julia Holter - I Shall Love 2
Composer and instrumentalist who blurs the boundaries of indie, modern composition, and electronic music with surprisingly accessible results. Los Angeles-based composer/multi-instrumentalist Julia Holter blurs the boundaries between indie music, modern composition, and electronic music. On early releases such as 2011's Tragedy, she combined bedroom recordings of droning electronics and distant vocals with inspirations as cultured as Euripides' play Hippolytus...

Julia Holter

from Pitchfork BEST NEW TRACKS

Charlotte Gainsbourg, Jessica Pratt, Lana Del Rey, Adrianne Lenker, Noname, Smino,  Saba, Metro Boomin, 21 Savege, Sheck Wes, Yves Tumor, Kilo Kish, Thom Yorke, Disclosure, Julia Holter

20 first tracks from the best albums of the year 2015 (1-22) PnM.MiX

Kendrick Lamar - Wesley's Theory 4:47
Becoming an adult ultimately means accepting one's imperfections, unimportance, and mortality, but that doesn't mean we stop striving for the ideal, a search that's so at the center of our very being that our greatest works of art celebrate it, and often amplify it....

Tame Impala – Let It Happen 7:49
After a long break from making Tame Impala music, during which time Kevin Parker produced other people's albums and played in side projects, 2015's Currents shows that much has changed with the project...

Courtney Barnett - Elevator Operator 3:14
A convincing argument that rock & roll doesn't need reinvention in order to revive itself, Courtney Barnett's full-length debut Sometimes I Sit and Think, And Sometimes I Just Sit. falls into a long, storied rock tradition but never feels beholden to it...

Father John Misty - I Love You, Honeybear 4:38
On 2012's Fear Fun, Josh Tillman introduced audiences to Father John Misty, a jaded and erudite, faux-bohemian retro-pop confectioner with a strong surrealist bent and an aptitude for capturing the American zeitgeist via wry couplets concerning the culturally and morally ambiguous wasteland of southern California...

Sufjan Stevens - Death with Dignity 3:59
Nothing truly prepares anyone for the loss of a parent. No matter how aware one may be about the realities of disease and death, no matter what their attitude about their mother or father, experiencing the passing of the person who brought them into this world hits hard and deep, and the survivors are left to come to terms with their pain in their own ways...

Jamie XX - Gosh 4:51
Compared to Jamie xx's impact on music, it's easy to forget that he hasn't released much on his own. The distinctive yet surprisingly versatile blend of indie, R&B, and dance in his work with the xx, Gil Scott-Heron, and his remixes helped shape the sound of the late 2000s and 2010s, but his solo discography was limited to a handful of singles, many of which appear on his first full-length, In Colour...

Sleater-Kinney – Price Tag 3:54
Perhaps it was inevitable that Sleater-Kinney would reunite. They parted ways in 2006 claiming that it was a hiatus, not a dissolution, thereby leaving the door open for a comeback -- a comeback that arrived nearly ten years after the group faded away. Smartly, Sleater-Kinney don't pick up the threads left hanging by the knotty, roiling The Woods...

Kurt Vile – Pretty Pimpin 4:58
Kurt Vile scored a genuine word-of-mouth hit with his fifth album, Wakin on a Pretty Daze, its elongated rambles conjuring hazy half-memories of Laurel Canyon while feeling uniquely situated to modern confines. B'lieve I'm Goin Down..., released two years after that 2013 breakthrough, whittles away some of the excesses while retaining eccentricity, trading ten-minute sprawls with six-strings for woozy five-minute vamps on a piano...

Vince Staples - Lift Me Up 4:32
Blowing the promise of his Hell Can Wait EP into an extraordinary double LP, Summertime '06 finds rapper Vince Staples with all the pieces in place. His delivery is still sneering and steady with a slight sway that suggests he's stoned, but like pop gangstas Chief Keef or Future, he can craft a memorable melody out of chopped-up nonsense...

Blur - Lonesome Street 4:22
Blur dissolved slowly so it follows that their reunion was protracted -- a halting reconvening that produced understated singles and excellent concerts spread out over a period of six years....

Björk – Stonemilker 6:49
Never one to do things timidly, with Vulnicura Björk delivers a breakup album that doesn't just express sadness -- it immerses listeners in the total devastation of heartbreak...

Drake - Legend 4:02
After a typically busy and fascinating 2014, Drake's 2015 started off much the same way. His chart-topping "album" If You're Reading This It's Too Late started off life as a free mixtape, but his label Cash Money stepped in at the last minute and changed it to a full-priced release...

Julia Holter – Feel You 4:08
After drawing on Greek tragedies and MGM musicals for her earlier albums, it would be hard for Julia Holter to find loftier sources of inspiration...

D’Angelo & The Vanguard – Ain't That Easy 4:49
The one-eighty Questlove promised back in 2012, when the drummer and producer persuaded D'Angelo to perform for the first time in a dozen years, turns out to be closer to a ten...

Future – Thought It Was a Drought 4:24
Perhaps it was the threat of Young Thug beginning to rise, but whatever the reason, 2015 was the year when Future leapt forward artistically, captivating the mixtape circuit with three releases (56 Nights, Beast Mode, and Monster) that all pushed the envelope...

Shamir – Vegas 4:16
Though Shamir's Northtown EP made him one to watch, it was his single "On the Regular," a witty, charismatic, and almost unclassifiable mix of pop, dance, and hip-hop that truly put him on the map...

Holly Herndon – Interference  4:41
Just as Holly Herndon's debut album Movement had abundant layers in its title alone, its follow-up Platform is just as nuanced in how it combines political, technological, and structural and ideological concepts into a single word...

New Order – Restless 5:28
For Music Complete, New Order's ninth album and first in a decade, the band signed to new label Mute and welcomed keyboardist Gillian Gilbert back for her first recordings with them since 2001...

Kamasi Washington – Change of the Guard 12:15
The Epic is saxophonist Kamasi Washington's aptly titled, triple-length, 172-minute debut album for Brainfeeder...

Donnie Trumpet & the Social Experiment – Miracle  4:10
Surf begins like the Beach Boys and ends with the loping pop melody of a lost 1970s AM radio record...