035 ALTER.NATION.MiX weekly favtraX 12-05-2019

ALTER.NATION #35

Esperanza Spalding, Jamila Woods, Carlton Jumel Smith, Death and Vanilla, Maps, HÆLOS, Clinic, Nots, Daddy Long Legs, Mac Demarco, Steve Moore

weekly favtraX
12-05-2019

Singer and instrumentalist Esperanza Spalding established herself as a wildly flourishing talent in the '00s. 
Esperanza Spalding - 12 Little Spells (thoracic spine) from 12 Little Spells
Coming off her inventive 2016 album Emily's D+Evolution, singer/bassist Esperanza Spalding offers another highly-conceptualized production with 2019's kaleidoscopically tactile 12 Little Spells. Where Spalding's previous work was a built around a central character, here, she offers twelve songs each explicitly inspired by a separate body part, such as the mouth, eyes, fingers, and yet more esoteric parts like the "solar portal." Joining her on this tactile journey of sensation are longtime associates guitarist Matthew Stevens and drummer Justin Tyson. Together they craft deeply ambient, intricately constructed songs that fall yet further afield of the crossover jazz, fusion, and R&B that garnered Spalding so much of her early praise...

Singer and songwriter, as well as a poet and activist, who naturally applies the latter two outlets to her modern, soul-rooted R&B. 
Jamila Woods - MILES / MUDDY
MILES - This feels more like a character study than other tracks on the album, like you’re stepping into the shoes of Miles Davis.
“Miles” felt like a persona poem, where you learn about the author through the lens that they choose to take. I used to love writing persona poems; I once wrote one from the voice of a pigeon.
MUDDY - This feels like the most overt tribute on the album, because you’re singing about what Muddy Waters did—not to him, not as him.
Yeah, that’s true. I wrote this song after the poet Kevin Colville asked me to cover a poem of his, which starts with: “Motherfuckers won’t shut up.” Then it explains how Muddy Waters originally decided to play electric guitar in Chicago because people were talking too loud in the bar. I thought the poem was super dope but I didn’t know that much about Muddy Waters, so I watched all of these interviews with him.

Harlem-born soul singer, songwriter, producer, and actor who played James Brown in Liberty Heights. 
Carlton Jumel Smith -  Help Me (Save Me from Myself) from 1634 Lexington Avenue
...1634 Lexington Avenue is his debut long-player for Finland's premier indie soul label, Timmion, and his first full-length since 2008. The title reflects Smith's childhood address. He is backed by Helsinki's Cold Diamond & Mink, Timmion's production team and studio band led by guitarist/organist Seppo Salmi, bassist Sami Kantelinen, and drummer Jukka Sarapää. The horn section includes arranger/trumpeter Jukka Eskola, Pope Puolitaival on baritone sax, and global jazz-funk saxophonist Jimi Tenor, with Janne Auvinen on congas and Tuomo Prättälä on organ, piano, and background vocals filling...

Swedish duo who worship the BBC Radiophonic Workshop and also own a lot of Broadcast albums. 
Death and Vanilla - Nothing Is Real
Sweden's Death And Vanilla have shared new song 'Nothing Is Real' - tune in now.
The band's catalogue has built up a singular identity, a kind of retro-futurist psychedelia that dwells upon eerie and uncanny climes.
New album 'Are You A Dreamer?' will be released on May 10th, released digitally, on CD, and on two different vinyl pressings - crystal clear and a deluxe limited pink transparent wax.
New song 'Nothing Is Real' lifts its title from 'Strawberry Fields Forever', and it opens with a spooked out Joe Meek style twanging reverb guitar line.
Evolving into a curious psych-pop nugget, 'Nothing Is Real' underlines the otherworldly, almost impossible to define charm that drives Death And Vanilla.

Sound sculptor James Chapman combines sleepy indie rock song structures with touches of electronic. 
Maps - New Star from Colours. Reflect. Time. Loss.
Under the name Maps, British musician James Chapman has sculpted a trio of dramatic albums whose electro-shoegaze hybrid seems to skirmish back and forth between its organic and synthetic factions. A veteran of the Mute Records roster since his Mercury Prize-nominated 2007 debut, We Can Create, Chapman has spent over a decade transmuting influences like Spiritualized, My Bloody Valentine, and Ulrich Schnauss into his own pleasing concoction of atmospheric indie rock which, more often than not, trends toward pop melodicism. Following a 2016 detour that saw him pair up with similarly ethereal counterpart Polly Scattergood as the duo ondeadwaves, he returns to Maps with a renewed sense of grandeur on the lush and orchestral Colours. Reflect. Time. Loss. Ambitious as he was on earlier releases, Chapman was often thought of as a bedroom pop producer, extracting a widescreen sound from small screen foundations. On this deeply collaborative set, he steps firmly onto a bigger stage, working with classical ensemble the Echo Collective and an array of guests to create his most sweeping, cinematic work to date...

U.K. trio with a love of '90s trip-hop and seductive, hypnotizing soundscapes that they've dubbed "dark euphoria." 
Hælos - Buried in the Sand
...appears to be changing: HÆLOS are back with a new single called “Buried In The Sand” and a promise of more new music to follow in 2019. The trio has now expanded to a four-piece, with original members Lotti Bernadout, Arthur Delaney, and Dom Goldsmith officially joined by their one-time touring member Daniel Vildósola. “Buried In The Sand” maintains the nocturnal textures of Full Circle, and the same subtle attention to sonic detail that made their debut so rewarding. Built on a clattering beat and ghostly vocal turns from various members, it’s also a reminder of how good this band is at depicting internal, psychological tension. Here’s what HÆLOS had to say about the new song and their approach to working on their forthcoming album...

Liverpool-based art punk band distinguished by its chugging rhythms, an inventive cut-up approach to arrangements, and the acidic vocals of Ade Blackburn.
Clinic - Laughing Cavalier
Clinic's forthcoming Wheeltappers and Shunters album is their first since 2012's Free Reign.
They recorded the album at founding member Jonathan Hartley's Liverpool studio, before recruiting Dilip Harris (King Krule, Sons Of Kemet, Mount Kimbie) to mix the album.
The group's Ade Blackburn says of the new record, "It’s a satirical take on British culture - high and low. It fascinates me that people look back on the 1970s as the glory days. It’s emerged that there was a darker, more perverse side to that time. When you look back on it now it was quite clearly there in mainstream culture."

Self-proclaimed "weird punk" band who deliver fast, aggressive tunes with a side portion of jagged noise. 
Nots - Floating Hands
Feedback opens the track and underscores the majority of the song with little fluctuation. As the track builds, bitter and visceral raucous keys carve up any room not filled with that buzzing sensation. The vocals get more desperate, the melody revs up in speed and intensity all while descending into a disjointed cadence. Whirling alien-like synth tones spiral through the air as the reverb doused kick drum outpaces the repetition of the song’s title.

Intense, wild, and wailin’ blues-punk from the St. Louis/Brooklyn trio. Fronted by the tall, lean harp-blowin' Missourian vocalist Daddy Long Legs -- from whom the band derives its name -- this raw and energetic outfit's lo-fi sound is positively dripping with the blues
Daddy Long Legs - Pink Lemonade from Lowdown Ways
Brooklyn, NY-based trio DADDY LONG LEGS-Brian Hurd (vocals, harmonica, guitar), Murat Akturk (slide guitar), Josh Styles (drums, maraca) will make their Yep Roc Records debut May 10, with Lowdown Ways, their third studio album... the album features 12 original compositions with songwriting contributions from JD McPherson and Sutton. A new direction from their first two studio albums (released by Norton Records), Lowdown Ways sees the boys widen their sonic horizons with field hollers, gospel, Cajun, and Mississippi Hill Music, coupled with their renowned supercharged, harp-driven R&B bangers.

Indie icon with a unique style that moves between jangly warped pop and glassy-eyed late-night reflections on youth. 
Mac DeMarco - All of Our Yesterdays from Here Comes the Cowboy
...His fourth official album and inaugural release on Mac's Record Label (what else would he call it?) arrives as somewhat of a conundrum. Here Comes the Cowboy isn't really about cowboys, nor does it have a particularly country-inspired feel. Growing up in prairie-bound Edmonton, he chafed against the cowboy image adopted by the jocks and bullies of his youth and only later adopted the term "cowboy" as a semi-affectionate slang term among his friends. With its camera phone happy-face button cover and minimalist production, Here Comes the Cowboy is a mixed bag of a record beset by an overall aimlessness where some crafty low-key gems have to share the bus with a few inane clunkers that probably should have stayed in the vault.

Co-founder of Pittsburgh horror-prog duo Zombi as well as a prolific film composer, dance music producer, and solo artist. 
Steve Moore - Beloved Exile from Beloved Exile
...After devoting a large chunk of the 2010s to writing scores for actual horror films (the best of which remains 2016's exemplary The Mind's Eye), Beloved Exile is Moore's first proper solo album since 2013's Spectrum Spools-issued Pangaea Ultima. Immediately, the album feels like one of the most spiritually informed works he's ever produced. Opener "Your Sentries Will Be Met with Force" features the enchanting vocals of Tunisian singer Emel Mathlouthi, who adds a sublime new dimension to Moore's glowing, pulsating electronics. On much of the rest of the album, Moore is joined by master harpist Mary Lattimore... Beloved Exile contains some of Moore's most meditative music, while also maintaining the fantasy element present throughout his work.

Esperanza Spalding, Jamila Woods, Carlton Jumel Smith, Death and Vanilla, Maps, HÆLOS, Clinic, Nots, Daddy Long Legs, Mac Demarco, Steve Moore

025 ALTER.NATiON: weekly favtraX 12-03-2019

ALTER.NATiON

Snapped Ankles, Living Hour, Frankie and the Witch Fingers, DELICATE STEVE, Nots, Gurr, Laura Stevenson, The National, Malihini, The Coathangers, Xeno & Oaklander
 
weekly favtraX
12-03-2019

Mysterious London-based post-punk band indebted to Krautrock and foliage. 
Snapped Ankles - Rechargeable
‘Rechargeable’ is the second single taken from the new Snapped Ankles album, Stunning Luxury - a call to harness the kinetic energy of dance to push against the rigid continuity of the daily routine.
Emerging from the undergrowth, music still ringing in their ears, the woodwose make their way home through the early morning commute. Walking among the shameless and spangled weekday ravers illuminated in a sea of corporate grey suited early risers heading to work in their enormous crystal towers.

Expansive, yearning dream pop from Winnipeg, Canada. Living Hour's expansive, gently psychedelic dream pop is distinguished by lovelorn melodies, transient polyrhythms, and an instrument palette that includes multiple voices, Organelle, and brass in addition to keyboards, guitars, and drums.
Living Hour - Slow Shines from Softer Faces
What started as a quartet is now a quintet, though still led by the smoky, ethereal lead vocals of Sam Sarty (vocals, trombone, keyboard), who started singing in choirs at a young age. With her strong vocal backbone, musicians Gil Carroll (guitar), Adam Soloway (guitar, vocals), Alex Chochinov (drums, trumpet, organelle), and Brett Ticzon (bass, vocals) are able to shine. Three voices, guitar, trombone, brushed percussion, and boundless effects sees Living Hour pulling from many genres to create their own sonically diverse and unique vibe.
With a more collaborative songwriting focus and added maturity, Softer Faces boasts the band's best songwriting to date. With its lush sounds, healing energy and intricate instrumental and vocal melodies, it is a beautiful album that commands attention. The emotive vocals, glittering guitar interplay, and horn arrangements wash over you with an irresistible calm. Uplifting vocal harmonies contrast with melancholy lyrics. Living Hour finds strength in vulnerability, as they look inward, grappling with themes of self determination, independence, and isolation.

Los Angeles-by-way-of-Indiana foursome whose music takes tough garage punk and runs it through a heavy psychedelic filter. 
Frankie and the Witch Fingers - Pleasure
Across four albums, Frankie and the Witch Fingers have been sharing their lo-fi psych-rock to relatively small, but cultishly devoted audiences. They’ve  secured a solid reputation as a band that offers an accessible route through a sometimes tricky genre. They go deeper into the freaky than other practitioners of this kind of sound, but they also retain a refreshing awareness of melody, and… er… pop.
So, here we are, and Frankie and the Witch Fingers have dropped a new single via Greenway Records. Underlining a particular approach to having fun is ‘Pleasure’. It struts from the gates with a fuzzed, grit-filled funk. It’s hard to pin where the charm originates – but the track personifies the charismatic host of an after-hours party. Everything goes.

Experimental pop instrumentals by New Jersey-based guitarist/producer Steve Marion. 
DELICATE STEVE - Madness from Till I Burn Up
Embracing a self-produced experimental pop that favors both bold, inventive timbres and melodic hooks, guitarist Steve Marion has carved a whimsical niche for himself over the course of four albums as Delicate Steve. Just five months after delivering the holiday release The Christmas Album in November 2018, he continues to explore his growing collection of custom guitars, effects pedals, and synthesizers on his fifth long-player, Till I Burn Up...  Combining spare drum samples, distorted rock tones, blippy '80s computer sounds, and murky synth voices like no one else in the 2010s, tracks like "Rubber Neck" and the post-punky "Madness" sometimes confuse sound origins...

Self-proclaimed "weird punk" quartet who deliver fast, aggressive tunes with a side portion of jagged noise. 
Nots - Half-Painted House
Memphis-based trio NOTS are back today with “Half Painted House,” the lead single from their upcoming record, 3. We premiered their most recent release, 2017’s “Anxious Trend,” which blended synths and textured guitars to create a distinctly post-punk sound. It was aptly named too, as that combination proved nerve-inducing... Here’s NOTS multi-instrumentalist Natalie Hoffman with more details on the track: "[Half Painted House] is about being stuck in a haze of repetitive cycles while change proves to be both stubborn and elusive. The veneer of what it looks like to be “normally functioning” during these tumultuous times is peeling to reveal a mind struggling to keep from turning against itself."

GURR are a German garage rock duo, consisting of Andreya Casablanca and Laura Lee (both on vocals and guitar). Their debut album, In My Head, was released in 2016
Gurr - Zu Spät
Gurr are playing at our Stereogum Range Life 2019 party in Austin during SXSW next week. And a few weeks after that, the Berlin garage-pop duo are releasing a new EP called She Says. We’ve already heard the title track, and today they’ve shared another new song called “Zu Spät.”
Although Gurr are from Berlin, they mostly sing in English. As the title might indicate, that’s not the case on “Zu Spät,” which means “Too Late” in German. Other than that, I have no idea what they’re saying, but the song is a sparkling guitar-pop jam...

Singer/songwriter whose stylized folk-rock sometimes diverges into distortion-fueled indie rock or whimsical folk. 
Laura Stevenson - Value Inn
Last month, Laura Stevenson announced her latest album, The Big Freeze, with “Living Room, NY,” a song that, like the rest of the tracks on The Big Freeze, was recorded in her childhood bedroom.
Her next single, “Value Inn,” also takes its name from a location, but rather than the comfort of something familiar, this one’s weighed down by uncertainty and unknown. “And in a Value Inn, I dig at my skin,” Stevenson sings as her guitar crashes behind her for a brief moment. “With a travel kit in the fluorescence/ Because I’m lumbering, ’cause I want to be gone.” The song is quiet, but it’s not still — it has all the intensity of a black storm cloud rolling in.

Grammy-winning indie rockers whose heartfelt and quietly anthemic sound grew to embrace orchestral instrumentation. 
The National - You Had Your Soul with You
The National have announced a new album called I Am Easy To Find, the follow-up to 2017’s Sleep Well Beast. Today, they’re sharing its first single and first track, “You Had Your Soul With You.”
The album is one component of a collaboration with film director Mike Mills, who reached out to the band to see if they wanted to work together a couple of years ago, fresh off his last movie 20th Century Women. Mills directed a 24-minute short film staring Alicia Vikander called I Am Easy To Find, while the National’s album of the same name clocks in at 68 minutes... The album’s lead single features vocals from Davie Bowie bandmate Gail Ann Dorsey, and the rest of the album has guest spots from Sharon Van Etten, Lisa Hannigan, Mina Tindle, Kate Stables, and the Brooklyn Youth Choir.
Matt Berninger had this to say of the collaborations: “Yes, there are a lot of women singing on this, but it wasn’t because, ‘Oh, let’s have more women’s voices.’ It was more, ‘Let’s have more of a fabric of people’s identities.’ It would have been better to have had other male singers, but my ego wouldn’t let that happen.”

Italian alternative/lo-fi duo formed by singer/songwriters Federica Caiozzo and Giampaolo Speziale. 
Malihini - Hopefully, Again from Hopefully, Again

After a chance meeting in 2015, Italian singer/songwriters Federica Caiozzo and Giampaolo Speziale turned their budding romance into the full-fledged musical project Malihini, capturing the intimacy and sensuality of their relationship on debut LP Hopefully, Again. Their vocal interplay creates a tension and warmth similar to the xx, all while transmitting an effortlessly languid coolness on each track. Produced by Richard Formby (Wild Beasts, Ghostpoet), Hopefully, Again also features drumming by Alberto Paone with the remaining instrumental duties provided by Caiozzo and Speziale themselves.... Released just two years after their debut EP, Hopefully, Again is worlds away in terms of artistic maturity, with focused delivery and tightened songcraft elevating each song. Languid and hazy, Hopefully, Again basks in its own luxuriant afterglow, an ideal soundtrack to the comedown.

An all-female garage punk band with an irreverent, fun-loving attitude, the Coathangers play purposefully simple, hooky tunes that borrow from vintage girl group sounds and contemporary teen pop acts as much as the old-school punk and new wave outfits that inform their sound. Hailing from Atlanta, Georgia, the Coathangers were formed in 2006...
The Coathangers - Stranger Danger from The Devil You Know

There have always been angry women in music, but these days, an album like The Devil You Know feels like dressing a wound on the battlefield—exactly what you need in order to carry on the fight. It is angry but never ugly, melodic without ever being syrupy, addressing gun violence, street harassment and more, all without ever becoming overbearing or preachy... Maybe there will be a day when we don’t need songs telling the NRA to “suck my dick.” But until then The Devil You Know masterfully walks the line between politically charged while remaining , perhaps tragically, timeless. But it’s also an immensely listenable album, a fully realized emerging of the band’s true power in crafting edgy, electric songs.

Making minimal electronic music inspired by coldwave and other forms of dark synth pop, Xeno & Oaklander are a Brooklyn-based duo featuring Sean McBride and Liz Wendelbo.
Xeno & Oaklander - Fire and Smoke from Hypnos
A decade after releasing their debut album, Sentinelle, Xeno & Oaklander return to their roots on Hypnos and continue the refinement of their sound that began on later albums such as Topiary. After spending several years working exclusively with mono synths, this time Liz Wendelbo and Sean McBride reintroduce polyphonic synths to their music. The lusher, more intricate sounds of these instruments create heightened atmospheres on songs such as "Altamira," where sweeping chords and stair-stepping arpeggios add a frostbitten glamour to Xeno & Oaklander's 21st century continuation of coldwave. Thanks to the mix by the duo's live sound engineer Egan Frantz, the clarity of each element on Hypnos adds a hyperreal feel that befits the mythical influences behind its songs... Filled with surreal soundscapes and fantastical tone poems, Hypnos is a striking album from the duo who pioneered the coldwave renaissance of the 21st century and remain at its forefront.

Qasim Naqvi is a drummer, composer, and member of the group Dawn of Midi. When he is not touring with DOM, he composes music for film, dance, theater and chamber ensembles domestically and abroad.
Qasim Naqvi - No Tongue
...“No Tongue” serves as our introduction to Naqvi’s synth-teeming soundscapes. We are at first immersed deep amongst dark synthesizers and plucking, dissonant notes. It feels like being suspended, floating in space with help just out of reach. After a deliciously tense pause, we are rushed without warning down a stream of playful, unpredictable synth plops, in the vein of a more sinister Four Tet. Naqvi shows promise as a composer of marvelous opacity...

Snapped Ankles, Living Hour, Frankie and the Witch Fingers, DELICATE STEVE, Nots, Gurr, Laura Stevenson, The National, Malihini, The Coathangers, Xeno & Oaklander, Qasim Naqvi