076 ALTER.NATION.MiX weekly favtraX 08-03-2020

ALTER.NATION #76

Gladie, Anna Calvi, Courtney Barnett, Islet, Stephen Malkmus, Jonathan Wilson, The James Hunter Six, Daniel Davies, Phantogram, Cornershop, Wasted Shirt, DISQ, Chromatics

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0 8 - 0 3 - 2 0 2 0

"Cosmic Joke"

Introspective and sometimes experimental indie rock outfit led by former Cayetana leader Augusta Koch.
Gladie - Safe Sins / Cosmic Joke
Augusta Koch made her name in the middle part of the 2010s as the frontwoman for Cayetana, a raucous all-female punk trio from Philadelphia whose unfussy songs took cues from classic '90s riot grrrl and lo-fi indie while taking on stigmatic issues of mental health and self-image. Even before parting ways with her bandmates in 2019, she had begun to shift toward a more personal and varied approach, playing a series of solo acoustic shows and teaming up with multi-instrumentalist Matt Schimelfenig to record under the name Gladie.

British singer/songwriter with influences ranging from Nick Cave's post-punk to Django Reinhardt's flamenco. Hailed as "the best thing since Patti Smith" by Brian Eno, as well as being included in the BBC's Sound of 2011 list, the hype surrounding London-born Anna Calvi came to a crescendo in late 2010.
Anna Calvi - Hunted / Don't Beat the Girl out of My Boy [Hunted Version] feat. Courtney Barnett
Early in her career, the full force of Anna Calvi's vocal and guitar virtuosity was so formidable that she sounded virtually immortal. With time, however, her work has become more open and vulnerable, and on 2018's Hunter, she explored strength, fragility, masculinity, and femininity in ways that let the humanity of her music shine through. Calvi takes another step in this direction with Hunted, a collection of Hunter demos that she revisits with the help of some talented friends. Letting her audience hear these songs being born -- or in this case, reborn -- is an intimate act in itself...

Welsh indie quartet Islet that built a cult following through the 21st century with a blend of psychedelic, folk-driven pop.
Islet - Eyelet / Good Gref
For more than a decade, Islet seemed happy to be completely independent, releasing their free-flowing experimental pop on their own label whenever the mood struck them. On Eyelet, however, the Welsh trio celebrate the power of connection. This is Islet's first album for Fire Records, one of many significant changes for the band since 2016's Liquid Half Moon EP. During that time, Alex Williams lost his mother and moved in with Emma and Mark Daman Thomas, who were expecting their second child while making Eyelet. This feeling of togetherness extends to the album's sound, which is more cohesive than any of Islet's previous work. It still feels like anything is possible in their music, but this time the trio leave fewer loose ends in their songs...

The former Pavement frontman's solo career has a broader musical palette, evoking British folk, '70s prog, psychedelia, and blazing guitar rock.
Stephen Malkmus - Traditional Techniques / ShadowBanned
Set aside the title Traditional Techniques, which appears to be a veiled riposte to Groove Denied, the happily modern, vaguely electronic album Stephen Malkmus released in 2019. The name accentuates the gulf between the two records, but Traditional Techniques is the album Malkmus has been threatening to make for nearly a quarter-century: an amiably trippy and decisively mellow psych-folk adventure, steeped in the obscure sounds of the British and American underground from the twilight of the hippies. A strain of this style has run through his music since at least Pavement's sprawling 1995 double-LP Wowee Zowee, but Traditional Techniques benefits from Malkmus' relaxed middle age...

Jonathan Wilson is a musical polymath. In addition to being a highly regarded songwriter and guitarist, he is a noted producer and guitarist. Deeply influenced by late-'60s West Coast psychedelia and the Laurel Canyon singer/songwriter scene of the '70s, he could easily be mistaken for a SoCal native (he's from North Carolina).
Jonathan Wilson - Dixie Blur / Just for Love
After Jonathan Wilson released 2018's wonderful Rare Birds, he realized he'd taken his third album of Topanga Canyon psychedelia-drenched singer/songwriter sound to its zenith, and needed a new direction. He found it inadvertently while appearing on NPR's eTown with Steve Earle. The elder songwriter advised him to travel to Nashville and take advantage of its top-notch studio aces. Wilson was more than intrigued. He headed East and enlisted Wilco's Pat Sansone as co-producer. The next call was to the iconic fiddler Mark O'Connor. Growing up in North Carolina, Wilson recalled with excitement the fiddle's place in country, mountain, and bluegrass music. O'Connor hadn't been a session musician since the '90s, but Wilson pleaded and cajoled convincingly and he agreed to participate. He and Sansone hired an illustrious cast of sidemen: guitarist Kenny Vaughn, bassist Dennis Crouch, pedal steel player Russ Pahl, Jim Hoke on woodwinds and harmonica, drummer Jon Radford, and keyboardist Drew Erickson. They all holed up at Cowboy Jack Clement's Sound Emporium Studio for six days and cut the album live from the studio floor; there are precious few overdubs...

The gritty, passionate, longstanding backing band of British soulman, songwriter, and guitarist James Hunter.
The James Hunter Six - Nick of Time / Missing in Action
Since the 1980s, exemplary British R&B singer, songwriter, and guitarist James Hunter has been plying his trade with his own bands, first with Howlin' Wilf and the Vee-Jays and then with the James Hunter Six. He's also accompanied some of his very famous friends like Van Morrison (you can hear Hunter on Days Like This and A Night in San Francisco). Nick of Time mark's the artist's fourth collaboration with Daptone producer Bosco Mann (Gabriel Roth), and his third full-length for the label. As ever, his music remains rooted in historic rhythm and blues, doo wop, and soul, but Hunter expands his range here to include cha cha, rhumba, and swing rhythms. He also hired a new cast of American players to be the second edition of the James Hunter Six...

Guitarist, singer, and composer known for fronting hard rock band Year Long Disaster and working with his godfather, horror legend John Carpenter.
Daniel Davies - Signals / Phantom Waltz
Daniel Davies' first solo album for Sacred Bones isn't a film soundtrack, real or imaginary, but it was composed with the visual art of Jesse Draxler in mind. His work is featured in the album's liner notes, and the pieces consist of dark, grainy landscapes with strange sculptural shapes superimposed onto them. They look obviously unnatural and pasted on, even to the point of seeming like an interruption, yet there's something about them that commands you to think that their presence is normal and expected. Davies' music attempts to work similar contrasts, forcing different moods and tones to coexist and somehow sound made for each other. It's not as jarring or discordant as that sounds -- there's lighter and darker elements, and there always seems like a balance between them... "Phantom Waltz" is spooky and also a bit playful, with staccato vocals dancing around harpsichords and circular guitar flickerings, anchored by steady waltz-time drums...

New York duo who lovingly re-create the sounds of classic trip-hop. The deeply emotional electronic pop of Phantogram revolves around Sarah Barthel's powerful vocals, which tower over their insistent, hip-hop-inspired left-field pop sound that's built on booming beats, washes of synths, and the occasional jagged guitar riff. 
Phantogram - Ceremony / Mister Impossible
...“We’re always conscious of how to string together our songs,” Carter said. “And we are well aware in this day and age, a lot of people don’t really listen to albums… I’m guilty of checking out bands who I’ve never heard and just see what they sound like. I’ll just click on a song. ‘Oh if it’s not for me,’ then I’m like ‘alright,’ which sucks. I don’t like that about myself. It’s definitely a different time we’re living in.”...

Indian-influenced indie band led by Tjinder Singh, who mix dance, reggae, dub, hip-hop, and rock.
Cornershop - England Is a Garden / No Rock: Save In Roll
Cornershop may have taken an eight-year break from releasing albums between 2012's Urban Turban: The Singhles Club and 2020's England Is a Garden, but they certainly weren't idle. Between running their label Ample Play, supporting political causes, and issuing an easy listening version of their 1993 record Hold On It Hurts (titled Hold On It's Easy), the duo of Tjinder Singh and Ben Ayres definitely had a lot going on. Amidst this whirl of activity, they also spent a great deal of time and effort writing and recording songs; right around 40 in the end. After narrowing it down to the best of the batch and giving them a polish, they titled the sparkling result England Is a Garden. It's their most cohesive and powerful record yet, full of songs that have a hearty punch to go along with their typically sharp hooks. Alternating between tracks that have a driving, T. Rex-ian beat and rollicking mid-tempo groovers, the record is a blast of joyous rock & roll from start to finish.

All-out experimental noise rock assault created by garage punk hero Ty Segall and Lightning Bolt drummer Brian Chippendale.
Wasted Shirt - Fungus II / Four Strangers Enter the Cement at Dusk
One of the first rules of rock & roll is: you need a good drummer. The whole charmingly inept thing may work for a singer or guitarist, but if the drummer can't keep it together, the center will not hold and we all know how that plays out. So if one-man garage punk industry Ty Segall (not a bad drummer himself) was going to launch yet another project, joining forces with Brian Chippendale shows sound judgment on his part. Chippendale is the drummer and co-founder of Lightning Bolt, and whatever one might think about their assaultive style, his work has always been a remarkable example of precision in support of chaos, his tight yet frantic bursts of rhythm bounding all over the place but also giving the noise around him a unexpectedly stable framework. Chippendale is a good man to have around if you want to get noisy, and that's what Segall had in mind when he and Chippendale formed Wasted Shirt, who make their debut with 2020's Fungus II....

Wisconsin indie rock band Disq was formed by childhood friends when they were still teenagers, bringing their young obsessions with power pop and classic songwriters to a more tightly wound indie style. The band drew on elements of post-punk, psych folk, and melodic pop for their 2020 Saddle Creek debut, Collector.
Disq - Collector / Gentle
Wisconsin band Disq make a grand entrance with their debut album, Collector, a knotty bouquet of chugging indie rock, offbeat power pop, and psych-marinated post-punk. Formed around the creative partnership of lifelong friends Raina Bock (bass, vocals) and Isaac de Broux-Slone (guitar, vocals), the project grew into a highly collaborative five-piece populated with like-minded explorers Shannon Connor (guitar, keys, vocals), Logan Severson (guitar, vocals), and Brendan Manley (drums), who were also active in Madison's indie scene. A well-earned reputation as a fierce live act and a handful of small indie releases later, Disq joined the Saddle Creek roster and hit the studio with producer Rob Schnapf (Kurt Vile, Joyce Manor) to record their first full-length outing...

Beginning as a no wave band with an equally volatile lineup and sound, Chromatics evolved into one of the most influential electro-pop acts of the 2000s and 2010s. On albums such as Night Drive and Kill for Love, the group's evocative mix of Italo-disco, post-punk, and '80s pop was glamorous, heartbroken, and utterly distinctive.
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.”

Gladie, Anna Calvi, Courtney Barnett, Islet, Stephen Malkmus, Jonathan Wilson, The James Hunter Six, Daniel Davies, Phantogram, Cornershop, Wasted Shirt, DISQ, Chromatics

058 ALTER.NATION weekly favtraX 09-10-2019

ALTER.NATION #58

Guerilla Toss, Omni, Hemlock Ernst, Kenny Segal, Lightning Dust feat. Stephen Malkmus, Levitation Room, Gong Gong Gong 工工工, North Mississippi Allstars, Hiromi, Jeremiah Jae / L'Orange, DIIV, Joshua Redman / Brooklyn Rider, Penguin Cafe

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0 9 - 1 0 - 2 0 1 9

"Future Doesn’t Know"

ALTER.NATION #58 on DEEZER

Brooklyn-via-Boston group combining no wave, punk, funk, psychedelia, and more in chaotic and ecstatic ways.
Guerilla Toss - Future Doesn’t Know
On their new EP What Would The Odd Do?, the art-rock experimentalists Guerilla Toss are addressing the opioid crisis from a deeply personal angle...  “Future Doesn’t Know.” It’s one of the poppiest songs Guerilla Toss have ever released, yet still fried and off-kilter, like Deerhoof if they were video game characters. At Flood, Carlson calls it “a song about the personification of the future, and finding your own truth.” She continues, “So often we look to others for the meaning of life or what to do next, but really the only answer is within.”

Energetic blend of Postcard pop, angular post-punk, and scrappy D.I.Y. punk by ex-members of Deerhunter and Carnivores. Atlanta group Omni channel the best herky-jerk pop through the ages, drawing inspiration from Devo, Television, Josef K, and Magazine, then filtering it through a no-frills lo-fi sound.
Omni - Courtesy Call
...the third single from Networker, their first album for Sub Pop... finds the Atlanta trio letting a bit of oxygen into their tightly wound post-punk sound. It begins with a reference to an “after hours history lesson and a smile that keeps you guessin’.”

Samuel T. Herring  also known as Sam Herring and by his rap moniker Hemlock Ernst, is an American performer and rapper from Baltimore, Maryland, better known for being the frontman of the synth-pop band Future Islands.
Kenny Segal also known as Syndakit, is an American record producer and DJ based in Los Angeles, California. In 2018, Mixmag described him as "one of the best hip-hop producers in the city.
Hemlock Ernst & Kenny Segal - Addicted Youth
For years now, Samuel T. Herring, frontman for the great synthy-indie Baltimore band Future Islands, has been making rap music. Herring raps under the name Hemlock Ernst, and it’s not the embarrassing, halfassed side project that you might expect from the not-so-proud history of indie rockers attempting to rap... “Addicted Youth” doesn’t sound that different from Future Islands. Segal chops up a few shards of acoustic guitar, and Herring ruminates on fears and regrets, letting some melody creep into his voice. We hear a few hints of the soulful growl that Herring uses when he’s singing. Herring also full-on sings on the outro, but only to quote Eric B. & Rakim’s “Microphone Fiend.”

Hemlock Ernst

Dark and synth-friendly indie rock from Black Mountain's Joshua Wells and Amber Webber. Dark and synth-friendly indie rock duo Lightning Dust started out as a side project for members of Vancouver heavy rock institution Black Mountain, but as years went by the project grew to become a primary focus.
Lightning Dust feat. Stephen Malkmus - A Pretty Picture from Spectre
Lightning Dust's excellent 2013 album Fantasy marked a shift for the Vancouver duo, moving from the subdued folky tones of their earliest work to embrace dark, synthy pop. The band began as a side project of founding Black Mountain members Amber Webber and Joshua Wells, foiling their main band's brawny guitar rock with moodier material. Fourth album Spectre comes after a six-year interim where Webber and Wells parted ways with Black Mountain to focus on Lightning Dust full time. Still leaning heavily on vintage synth sounds and brooding moods, the band lets go of the pop formula that informed Fantasy for a more multi-dimensional approach to the album's songcraft. Webber's stunning vocals are even more central to these songs than before... The production, songwriting, and performances all reach new levels of curiosity and unpredictable moves, making it some of the band's most captivating work.

Los Angeles-based psychedelic explorers meld garage rock energy with a lysergic sense of music adventure.
Levitation Room - 2025 from Headspace
After debuting with Ethos, an album that sounded like it could have been released in 1966 to minor acclaim, Levitation Room return with a record that maintains their note-perfect, backward-looking sound but adds some new wrinkles. This time around, they aren't stuck in one particular year or style and this looseness gives them room to explore. Some of these journeys lead to winning results; some of them don't work quite as well. Looking at the positives first, there are several tracks that capture the strutting swagger of Ethos and deliver similarly fuzzy garage feelings. "2025" lets guitarist Gabe Fernandez take off in flights of fuzztone frenzy while singer Julian Porte sneers mightily...

Chinese experimental rock outfit known for their "phantom rhythms" and genre-fusing. The brainchild of guitarist/vocalist Tom Ng and bassist Josh Frank, Chinese experimental rock outfit Gong Gong Gong earned underground acclaim in the late 2010s for their rhythmic genre-fusing.
Gong Gong Gong 工工工 - Gong Gong Gong Blues 工工工布魯斯 from Phantom Rhythm 幽靈節奏
Gong Gong Gong is a duo from Beijing who play an alarmingly stripped-down form of hypnotic rock which spiritually evokes the blues as well as punk, but otherwise can't be directly compared to any other genre or artist. The instrumentation consists almost entirely of Tom Ng's guitar (and a barely audible shaker) and Josh Frank's bass, which interlock to form insistently chugging rhythms. Ng sings entirely in Cantonese, and his lyrics (as indicated by the translated lyric sheet included with the vinyl pressing of the album) express frustration and anxiety, but ultimately provide words of encouragement...  their ability to create such a big, imposing sound out of limited elements is fascinating, and the determination which drives their work is admirable.

Greasy, bluesy jam band led by brothers Luther and Cody Dickinson, sons of Memphis studio legend Jim Dickinson. 
North Mississippi Allstars - Call That Gone from Up and Rolling
...NMA -- Luther and Cody on guitar and drums, respectively, Thomas on vocals and fife, Carl Dufrene on bass, and Sharisse Norman on vocals -- are a well-seasoned outfit; the quintet and most of their guests have been playing together in various capacities for most of their lives. "Call That Gone" is a filthy, squalling, bottleneck-guitar blues driven by rolling tom-toms with souled-out vocals from Luther and Thomas, her fife trading licks with his guitar...

A classically trained jazz pianist and composer who regularly employs electronic elements into a diverse but signature sound. Japan has added a wealth of fine pianists to the jazz genre. That said, few -- if any -- are as relentlessly inventive and stylistically mercurial as the award-winning Hiromi Uehara. Whether she is playing solo, with a trio, or a full-on electric band, she is as likely to meld post-bop and funk as she is rock and classical, and sometimes all four in the same composition.
Hiromi - Yellow Wurlitzer Blues from Spectrum
Since making her recorded debut in the 1990s, Hiromi Uehara has established herself as one of the most gifted jazz pianists of her generation. She issued Spectrum on the eve of her fortieth birthday as an overview of what she learned as a musician in her thirties...  It aches with emotion and the hint of a smile in its improvisational moments. "Yellow Wurlitzer Blues" reflects the harmonic invention of Thelonious Monk if he were a stride blues pianist. Hiromi's sense of improvisational lightheartedness is stacked in punchy grooves in turnarounds with deft scalar feints for good measure... This 75-minute recital portrays the nearly spiritual command Hiromi has of her instrument and its various languages to extend her astonishing technical facility. More than this, however, it underscores the visionary, authoritative place her pianism commands in modern jazz.

Son of jazz and R&B artist/composer Robert Irving III, rapper Jeremiah Jae has a solid left-field resumé, having worked with cutting-edge producers like Samiyam, Flying Lotus, and Ras G while landing on taste-making labels like Warp and Brainfeeder.
L'Orange is a North Carolina-born beatmaker with a penchant for sampling early jazz records and vintage radio broadcasts, lending a nostalgic, time-worn quality to his music.
Jeremiah Jae / L'Orange - Cool Hand from Complicate Your Life with Violence
Four years after their first collaboration, The Night Took Us In Like Family, enigmatic beatmaker L'Orange and left-field rhymer Jeremiah Jae teamed up again for another set of tense, thrilling tales about violence and vengeance. The duo conjure up a dark, twisted world where the past clashes with the future, and ruthless combat is necessary for survival. It's enough to drive anyone mad, but the constant struggle is life-affirming, and the album creatively illustrates this vicious cycle. While L'Orange was initially known for his extensive sampling of scratchy old jazz 78s and vintage radio broadcasts, his palette has expanded to incorporate twangy country guitars, blues riffs, funkier bass lines, and even faint traces of exotica...

The guitar-heavy project of Zachary Cole Smith combines grunge catharsis with shoegaze bliss. 
DIIV - The Spark from Deceiver
Since its earliest days, shoegaze has been seen as druggy music, with warped guitars and murmured vocals that suggest altered states of consciousness and prompt adjectives like "narcotic," "woozy," and "blissful" to describe it...  They first delved into this territory with Is the Is Are, which offered beautiful proof that they could be a functional band in the wake of Zachary Cole Smith's well-publicized substance abuse issues. After that album's release, DIIV experienced more seismic changes. Smith spent half of 2017 in different rehab programs; by the end of that year, founding bassist Devin Ruben Perez had departed. On Deceiver, DIIV emerge from these challenges as a stronger, even more expressive band...

An acclaimed tenor saxophonist, Joshua Redman is a thoughtful, forward-thinking jazz artist whose robust improvisational style balances a love of the bop tradition with an ear for advanced harmony and playful exploration.
Founded in 2005, New York string quartet Brooklyn Rider are known for their accessible but genre- and boundary-challenging repertoire. In addition to recording works by the likes of Beethoven and Philip Glass, they draw focus on emerging composers and contribute their own original compositions.
Joshua Redman / Brooklyn Rider - Sun on Sand from Sun on Sand
A collaboration between saxophonist Joshua Redman, forward-thinking chamber string ensemble Brooklyn Rider, and composer Patrick Zimmerli, 2019's Sun on Sand is a kinetic, richly attenuated album that straddles the line between jazz and modern classical... Also joining Redman are his equally talented rhythm section bandmates bassist Scott Colley and drummer Satoshi Takeishi; the latter of whom is also a longtime Zimmerli associate going back to the '90s... The most impressive aspect of Sun on Sand is how balanced the collaboration feels. Redman has the facility and sound to carry the music, but Brooklyn Rider offer a deeply textured counterpoint, while Zimmerli's expansive voice remains ever present.

Founded by Arthur Jeffes in 2009 as both a continuation of and homage to his father Simon Jeffes' original avant-pop band Penguin Cafe Orchestra. Distinct from the original ensemble, Penguin Cafe features no former members of PCO, but they perform some of their compositions, and play a similarly uncategorizable blend of folk, jazz, pop, and chamber music influences, occasionally using unconventional instrumentation. 
Penguin Cafe - Pythagoras on the Line Again from Handfuls of Night
In 2018, as part of a project commissioned by Greenpeace with the intention of raising awareness about the endangered Antarctic environment, Arthur Jeffes wrote four songs about specific species of penguins native to the continent. As Jeffes became enamored by their characteristics, he began to fantasize an entire world of anthropomorphic penguins, and he developed this concept into the fourth Penguin Cafe album. The nine compositions on Handfuls of Night serve as a soundtrack to this imaginary penguin world, and as one might expect of Penguin Cafe, they're as playful as they are poignant... "Pythogaras on the Line Again" is an interpretation of a piece which appeared on Penguin Cafe Orchestra's final album from 1993, using sampled dial tones to demonstrate the principles of harmonics. Conveying a sense of childlike wonder about the natural world, the album is full of life and immensely enjoyable.

Guerilla Toss, Omni, Hemlock Ernst, Kenny Segal, Lightning Dust feat. Stephen Malkmus, Levitation Room, Gong Gong Gong 工工工, North Mississippi Allstars, Hiromi, Jeremiah Jae / L'Orange, DIIV, Joshua Redman / Brooklyn Rider, Penguin Cafe

026 ALTER.NATiON: weekly favtraX16-03-2019

ALTER.NATiON #26

Dido, Stephen Malkmus, Caracara, Gurr, Nasty Cherry, Danger Mouse / Karen O, Anderson .Paak, The Comet Is Coming, The Cinematic Orchestra, Dexter Story, Snarky Puppy, Joey DeFrancesco
 
weekly favtraX
16-03-2019 

16-03-2019

English female singer whose melodic, down-tempo music has been hugely successful on both sides of the Atlantic. 
Dido - Hell After This from Still on My Mind
Reinvigorated and confident, Dido returns from a six-year absence with her sparkling fifth album, Still on My Mind. Following 2013's neon-washed Girl Who Got Away, this set features her liveliest, catchiest production since early-era breakthroughs No Angel and Life for Rent, and soundtracks familiar themes of love, loss, desire, and -- as the mother of a young son -- family. Anchored by her yearning and ever-ethereal vocals, the LP delivers on the promising glimmers that were teased on its cool (but ultimately sedate) predecessor, successfully synthesizing the spirit of her early hybrid sound with updated late-2010s sheen. Yet another collaboration with her brother Rollo, Still on My Mind finds the English singer/songwriter in a mature, controlled space -- an elegant but fresh collection of her familiar electro-folk with a hip-hop heartbeat.

The former Pavement frontman's solo career has a broader musical palette, evoking British folk, '70s prog, psychedelia, and blazing guitar rock. 
Stephen Malkmus - Ocean of Revenge from Groove Denied
It's called Groove Denied because Matador insisted on releasing Sparkle Hard, an album Stephen Malkmus recorded with his mainstay supporting band the Jicks, instead of this electronic-infused record in 2018. This back story was revealed in a May 2018 Washington Post profile of Malkmus by Geoff Edgers, an article that perhaps overplayed the label's rejection of Groove Denied. Matador maintained that its plan was to have the album appear after Sparkle Hard, which was a better record to re-introduce the ex-Pavement leader into the marketplace after a four-year hiatus. All this hoopla around Groove Denied undeniably makes for a good yarn, but it also tends to oversell the weirdness of the album.

Caracara - Better
On their upcoming Better EP, Philadelphia’s Caracara are honing a unique, inspiring sound. The project finds a thrilling midpoint between the city’s signature emo stylings and the stately indie rock of bands like Bon Iver and the National. It’s coming out on Memory Music, the label run by in-demand Philly producer Will Yip, who also helmed these sessions. Today they’re offering a preview in the form of the title track.
“Better” is a six-minute epic featuring vocals from Mannequin Pussy’s Marisa Dabice. It unfolds in two halves: First a tense buildup with William Lindsay singing to “the Bathsheba of the strip-mall set” and eventually crying out, “I thought you knew me better than that!” The second half of the song explodes into a cloud of gorgeous noise, with Lindsay eventually returning to the mic to howl us home.

Gurr - Fake News
Here’s what the band had to say about the track in a press statement:
“Fake News” was a direct response to what was going on (and still is) politically at the time, and the growing gap I feel between people leaning both left and right. I think with press and algorithms, we are only fed the kind of news we already believe in and agree with, which is super dangerous. The song then connects that to an experience I had when we visited the the BBC for an interview with Huw Stephens. We went inside and there was this gigantic newsroom with so many screens but no windows at all. I found that a bit disturbing: Like here’s the people making the news and they can’t look outside.

Nasty Cherry - Win
Nasty Cherry are a new all-female rock band made up of Kitten’s Chloe Chaidez, Star Wars set decorator Georgia Somary, Charli XCX drummer Deborah Knox-Hewson, and model Gabbriette Bechtel. A press release describes them as the “brainchild” of Charli XCX, who signed the group to her Vroom Vroom Recordings imprint and collaborated extensively with them on their upcoming debut EP.
Today, Nasty Cherry have released their official debut single, “Win,” which was co-written with Charli XCX and produced by Charli/Sky Ferreira/Angel Olsen collaborator Justin Raisen. The song successfully merges shadowy ’80s post-punk riffs with a huge anthemic pop chorus.

Danger Mouse - Underground rap acolyte who brought his music to the masses with a production roster ranging from Norah Jones to Beck to Bright Eyes.
Karen O - High-energy lead singer for NYC indie rockers Yeah Yeah Yeahs. 
Danger Mouse / Karen O - Leopard's Tongue from Lux Prima
This is a stately, cinematic listen from the Yeah Yeah Yeahs frontwoman and the veteran producer, as they take up residency a few lunar resorts over from Arctic Monkeys' Tranquility Base Hotel & Casino... There’s sex – perhaps the most human act of all – on ‘’Leopard’s Tongue’. “One touch and you ask for more / Two touch and you’re on the floor,” Karen hushes halfway through. “Just a lick of sweat off your skin / Like an aftershock from the prick of a pin.” It’s easily the record’s most lustful moment, made all the more thirsty by the lack of anything really going on around it. Where most of ‘Lux Prima’ is fleshed out with layers of lush instrumentation, it’s sparse and emaciated – just the soft jingle on percussion and a rolling bassline filling out the verses.

Madcap singer, rapper, drummer, and producer central to Dr. Dre's Compton before his Grammy-nominated solo work, including Malibu (2016). 
Anderson .Paak - King James
Anderson .Paak released his latest LP, Oxnard, last November. A few weeks ago, he announced his forthcoming album, Ventura. He shared its star-studded tracklist yesterday, and now, we hear its lead single. “King James” is a jazzy track about uniting and standing up against injustice.
He sings over a jazzy beat, “If they build a wall / Let’s jump the fence / I’m over it.” Ventura will feature artists like André 3000, Smokey Robinson, Brandy, and the late Nate Dogg, among others.

"Apocalyptic space funk" trio from London, England, signed to the Leaf Label. 
The Comet Is Coming - Timewave Zero from Trust in the Lifeforce of the Deep Mystery
England's sci-fi jazz trio the Comet Is Coming have been exploring the cosmos since 2015 when drummer Maxwell Hallett (Betamax) and keyboardist Dan Leavers (Danalogue) were playing a gig as futurist duo Soccer96 when they encountered Shabaka Hutchings (King Shabaka) hanging near the stage with a saxophone. They invited him up and improvised. Received enthusiastically, the trio formed the Comet Is Coming to explore a mutual love of Sun Ra, John and Alice Coltrane, Mahavishnu Orchestra, and future-forward electronica...  "Timewave Zero" enters from the margins in a soundscape at once cinematic and intimate before articulating a fusion of spiritual jazz-funk, dancehall rhythms, and punky grime.

Borderline symphonic electronica band infused with bursts of modern jazz, emerged in the late-1990s. 
The Cinematic Orchestra - Lessons from To Believe
Over a decade after the release of 2007's Ma Fleur, the Cinematic Orchestra return with their fourth album of expansive soundscapes, To Believe. During the gap between efforts, the primary duo of Jason Swinscoe and Dominic Smith remained active with multiple projects (including a Disney soundtrack, a live album, and a compilation of tracks composed for avant-garde short films), but didn't return focus to their core material until late 2016... On the instrumental side, the uplifting "Lessons" evokes Radiohead at their most experimental and glitchy...  To Believe is very much an experience that requires engagement if a worthwhile connection is desired; otherwise, it makes for a terrific soundtrack to a film that resides purely in the soul.

Lifetime Los Angeleno Dexter Story (aka Wondem) is a musical polymath -- a multi-instrumentalist, vocalist, composer, arranger, songwriter, producer, and ethnomusicologist.
Dexter Story - Electric Gurage from Bahir
Dexter Story is a musical polymath. He is a singer, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, producer, and arranger. He works in genres from global spiritual soul and jazz to funk, folk, and hip-hop. He has spent the 2010s studying and traveling the Horn of Africa, immersing himself in its musical traditions -- beautifully articulated on 2015's Wondem. The Carlos Nino-produced Bahir, filled with guests, picks up from and expands the terrain explored on his previous outing. Rooted in Eastern Africa's musical traditions, he engages influences with the soul, funk, and jazz from his Western world albeit one transformed by his travels. His intention is not simply to bring those influences to the West, but to contribute music that expands the traditions he employs here.

Texas-based jam band centered around bassist Michael League that fuses jazz, funk, and rock. 
Snarky Puppy - Bigly Strictness from Immigrance
Snarky Puppy helped bring '70s-style fusion into the jam band era with a series of Grammy-winning albums that found them incorporating elements of funk, jazz-rock, and blues. Produced by bassist and bandleader Michael League, 2019's Immigrance continues this trajectory with a set of highly kinetic instrumental tracks (purportedly inspired by the band's travels around the globe) that balance exploratory improvisation with intricately arranged group interplay. As with past Snarky Puppy albums, Immigrance is less about each bandmember's individual improvisational contribution (though there are moments of brilliant soloing)...

Another of Philadelphia’s gifts to the world of jazz, Joey DeFrancesco is one of the reasons the Hammond B-3 organ is enjoying a renaissance. 
Joey DeFrancesco - Awake and Blissed from In the Key of the Universe
Following up his 2018 collaboration with Van Morrison, You're Driving Me Crazy, Joey DeFrancesco returns to his own work with his quartet on 2019's spiritually inspired In the Key of the Universe. Produced by DeFrancesco and his wife, Gloria, the album finds the organist tapping into the hypnotic, deeply soulful metaphysical jazz that artists like Pharoah Sanders, Don Cherry, and Rahsaan Roland Kirk further explored in the wake of spiritual jazz pioneer John Coltrane's death in 1967. In fact, DeFrancesco showcases Sanders here on three tracks. Joining them are several longtime associates including legendary drummer Billy Hart, saxophonist Troy Roberts, and percussionist Sammy Figueroa...

Dido, Stephen Malkmus, Caracara, Gurr, Nasty Cherry, Danger Mouse / Karen O, Anderson .Paak, The Comet Is Coming, The Cinematic Orchestra, Dexter Story, Snarky Puppy, Joey DeFrancesco