CDs + Vinyl:

Jay Arner – Jay II CD/LP (Mint Recordings)

Jay Arner’s Jay II is music for outsiders who might not want to be insiders. Sophisticated synth-pop for sensitive types, existential glam rock for the unsettled-these songs are the soundtrack to fitting in, finding your place in the world of suffering, and finally coming to terms with yourself. In his quest for self-discovery, Arner channels inspirations ranging from the cheeky charm of Sparks to the regal slink of Roxy Music; the soaring hooks of Fleetwood Mac to the propulsive drive of La Dusseldorf.

Avion Roe – In Separation CD (Epitaph)

New album from the melodramatic emo rock band.

Luke Bell – Luke Bell CD (Bill Hill)

“Luke Bell is a country singer of seriously old timey tradition. He was born in Wyoming, where he grew up working on a ranch, dropped out of school to make music, and now he’s in Nashville, the country music capital of the world. And that’s not all—his music sounds like you could have heard it in the same honky tonk Hank Williams used to play (with the exception of a little profanity). ‘Sometimes,’ the first single off Bell’s new self-titled album, is a two-step worthy tune about the mixed feelings he has about leaving his girl behind. ‘So now I sit alone, but mostly I don’t mind/ except every now and then at closin’ time/ there’s a sweet memory/ at the bottom of my glass,’ he croons with his old soul voice, transporting you straight to the stool next to him at the whiskey joint. Makes you wanna wipe those honky tonk tears off his face” – The Fader. [Vinyl edition due August 17.]

Big Deal – Say Yes CD/LP (FatCat)

“In between stolen laptops and plentiful heartbreak, Big Deal had a right old ‘mare these last few years. Most people might respond by huddling away with Netflix and a bag of crumpets; Kacey Underwood and Alice Costelloe answered it with their most rip-roaringly brilliant album yet.

Their third album Say Yes is affirmative to the core, by name and nature. Saccharine vocals coat like sherbet, in tense contrast with a bitter­laced dib­dab of clouded melodies. Time and time again, the pair make zesty, sugary lemonade out of sour lemons. And even when they’re teary-eyed and falling out of love — on starkly honest standouts like ‘Still My Dream’ and ‘Don’t Forget’ — there’s a persistent feeling that mega-riffs can overcome mega-woe.” – DIYmag

Wolfert Brederode Trio and Wolfert Brederode – Black Ice CD (ECM)

After two quartet adventures, Wolfert Brederode returns to a piano trio setting, and Black Ice makes an apt metaphor for his new music, with its gleaming lyricism, transparency, and hint of danger. “I find the combination of danger and beauty intriguing,” he says. There is sleek melodic invention both from the leader and from Icelandic bassist Gulli Gudmundsson, and Jasper van Hulten proves to be a resourceful addition to the team, a tone-sensitive drummer adept at embellishing the sensitive musical language and sense of interplay.

Jake Bugg – On My One CD/LP (Island)

Raised on a steady diet of the Beatles, Bob Dylan, Jimi Hendrix, and the brothers Gallagher, English singer/songwriter Jake Bugg blends the melodious, working-class swagger of the La’s and the primal, bluesy simplicity of the White Stripes with the wry, weathered romanticism of Jens Lekman. Born in Nottingham, Bugg picked up the guitar at the age of 12, and within a year he was composing his own songs. Disinterested in the hip-hop and grime that dominated the listening habits of his peers, he turned to the classics for inspiration. 

Will Butler – Friday Night CD (Merge)

Friday Night is a live album of performances from Will Butler’s tour supporting Policy, his first album. It was recorded mostly at Lincoln Hall in Chicago on June 4, 2015. Five of the songs are from Policy, two are songs Will wrote for the Guardian newspaper last year, and five are new. “We started almost every show with ‘You Must Be Kidding.’ Not only does it build nicely, but the chorus lyric is literally ‘It’s only just begun.’ The blend of humor, Lord Of The Flies, and the end of the world also set the right tone for the show to come. But I thought the album should start in medias res to welcome the listener into a sweaty room with a tired, happy band and a loose crowd. So the album starts with the encore ‘Tell Me We’re All Right’ which was only ever played once, and this is the recording of it. We never soundchecked it. It wasn’t even written yet (you might be able to tell).” – Will Butler

[Read more…] about New Releases for June 17, 2016

CDs + Vinyl:

Af Ursin – Aura Legato [Reissue/2005] CD/LP (Blackest Ever Black)

Blackest Ever Black presents Af Ursin’s 2005 masterpiece Aura Legato. Af Ursin is the alter ego of Finnish autodidact composer/improviser Timo Van Luijk. His work is rooted in the use of acoustic instruments (wind, percussion, strings), but his special sensitivity to the timbral qualities of each instrument, and his deft blurring of them, results in a sound-world that is mysterious, amorphous and hallucinatory, full of suggestive shadows, creaks and whispers. Van Luijk’s process begins always with pure improvisation: music played in an intuitive, sensual way, without the employment of conscious technique.

AGF – Kon:3p>UTION to: e[VOL]ution CD (AGF Produktion)

Ninth solo album of the artist and producer AGF (Antye Greie, also Anye Greie-Ripatti or formerly Antye Greie-Fuchs, Laub). It is the 30th studio album as executive producer in collaborations with Vladislav Delay, Gudrun Gut, The Lappetites, Craig Armstrong.

The Aggravators & The Revolutionaries – Guerilla Dub [Reissue/1978] CD/LP (Burning Sounds)

Classic 1978 album recorded at King Tubby’s studio and mixed by Ossie Hibbert. Features Sly and Robbie.

Air – Twentyyears 2xCD/2xLP (Rhino/Parlophone)

Twenty years after their international debut, the French multi-platinum selling band Air, consisting of Nicolas Godin and Jean-Benoît Dunckel, release their first anthology. The first disc contains 17 tracks selected by the band and the second disc gathers 14 rare and unreleased tracks.

Amp Studio – Uncertainty Principles 2xCD (Ampbase)

Uncertainty Principles is the new Amp Studio album, the solo project of Richard Amp of A.M.P.

As the album’s name suggests, it is an homage to the beauty that can manifest itself when random or complex processes are allowed to flow in the production and creation of musical or visual works. The double-disc set features new material, using sounds and field recordings, both new and re-discovered.

Analog Brothers – Pimp To Eat [Reissue/2000] CD (Mello Music Group)

Out of the attics of the insane comes one of the most overlooked rap classics of its era, full of bizarre boasts, ice-cold and meteor-hard beats, and the best bad examples. [Vinyl edition due July 15.]

Apathy – Handshakes With Snakes CD/LP (Dirty Version)

Apathy, a member of the underground hip-hop collectives Army Of The Pharaohs and Demigodz, has been extremely active over the past couple of years. Handshakes With Snakes features guest contributions by B-Real, Twista, Bun B, Ras Kass, O.C., Celph Titled and other respectable artists including Brooklyn MC Pumpkinhead, who passed away last year.

Atom TM – Texturen II CD (No.)

Part two of Atom TM’s minimalist, ambient magnum opus, Texturen, airdrops you into a void of undulating sonic modulation with nothing but the dream of silent huskies for company. Uwe Schmidt has always been a maestro of harnessing non-repetitive repetition and on Texturen II he takes that to a psychedelic extreme, constructing a smooth, digital crystal within the stereo field. Almost imperceptible sheets of binary sleet superimpose themselves on flows of deep, glacial pulse-width gestures. The ensemble is minimal but ever-fluctuating, expansive but hyper-detailed. A frozen mirage. Here, the vistas are endless, the peaks illusory, the troughs few and the symmetries pure. Eat your rations, try to keep moving and don’t go snow blind.

Audion – Alpha CD/2xLP (!K7)

New album from Matthew Dear’s techno-focused Audion alias.

[Read more…] about New Releases for June 10, 2016

CDs + Vinyl:

10,000 Maniacs – Playing Favorites CD (Omnivore)

Recorded before an adoring crowd in Jamestown, NY, Playing Favorites features live 14 tracks, including hits and fan favorites from the group’s storied and influential career. The six-piece band (Jerome Augustyniak, Dennis Drew, Jeff Erickson, Steven Gustafson, John Lombardo, and Mary Ramsey) is augmented by strings, horns, and backing vocalists. According to Dennis Drew, “We are thrilled to release a recording that represents 10,000 Maniacs’ true live sound. The MTV Unplugged (1993) record was an acoustic record. This is really what we sound like…a rock band. The energy in that room was electric.”

Amber Arcades – Fading Lines CD/LP+MP3 (PIAS America)

Amber Arcades is the moniker of Dutch-born musician Annelotte de Graaf. De Graaf first started writing songs in 2010 while temporarily living in Philadelphia. Back in the Netherlands she put out a first EP in 2012 containing soft-voiced, melancholic folk ballads. Wanting to develop her sound and mature from the safe bedroom folk environment, she got in touch with producer Ben Greenberg (Beach Fossils, The Men, Destruction Unit) to produce a collection of songs she had written over the years. In May 2015, de Graaf flew out to New York to record the songs in the Strange Weather recording studio in Brooklyn, backed by a band consisting of members of Real Estate, Quilt and Kevin Morby. The result is a record that is as dreamy and esoteric as it is gripping, presenting slightly off, floating pop melodies over a mixture of kraut-inspired drums, cutting guitars and fuzzed-out organs.

And The Kids – Friends Share Lovers CD (Signature Sounds)

Friends Share Lovers has a more audacious, ambitious, involuted sound than the band’s 2015 debut, Turn To Each Other, with intertwining lines becoming more complex and artfully crashing against each other. The title track is exemplary of their growth. Intricate rolling drum patterns and transitions, wonderfully balanced guitar and bass, and alluring synths compete and combine and play off each other for infectious rhythms. That is not to overlook their consistently introspective lyrics or Hannah Mohan’s silky delivery. [Vinyl edition due June 24.]

Joseph Arthur – Family CD (True North)

Joseph Arthur is a singer, songwriter, poet and artist from Akron, Ohio, known for his solo material and as a member of RNDM and Fistful Of Mercy. Combining poetic lyrics with a layered sonic palette, Arthur has built his reputation over the years through critically-acclaimed releases, collaborations and constant touring; his unique solo live performances often incorporate the use of a number of distortion and loop pedals, even live painting and a sprinkling of beat-poetry. [Vinyl version due June 24.]

Banta – Dark Charms CD/LP (E1)

Amongst the garage rawk acts and synth-pop duos of Echo Park is a coed collective known as Banta. Led by singer-songwriter Sharaya Mikael, the band channels a vintage soft rock vibe via smooth vocals, acoustic strums, and gentle grooves which often conjure an uncanny Fleetwood Mac likeness.

Bear Tooth – Aggressive CD/LP (Red Bull)

Bear Tooth has as much in common with stomping metalcore as old-school punk, vintage screamo, and harder edged pop punk, with a bit of cinematic extravagance.

William Bell – This Is Where I Live CD/LP (Stax)

This is Where I Live is the legendary Stax artist’s first Stax album in over 40 years. William Bell is probably best known for 1961’s “You Don’t Miss Your Water” (his debut single); 1968’s “Private Number” (a duet with Judy Clay, and a top 10 hit in the UK); and 1976’s “Tryin’ To Love Two,” Bell’s only US top 40 hit, which also hit No. 1 on the R&B charts. As a songwriter, Bell co-authored the Chuck Jackson hit “Any Other Way” (itself a cover, since Bell issued it first, as a follow-up to “You Don’t Miss Your Water”), Billy Idol’s 1986 hit “To Be a Lover” (originally a hit for Bell under its original title “I Forgot to Be Your Lover”), and the blues classic “Born Under A Bad Sign,” popularized by both Albert King and Cream.

Fiona Brice – Postcards From CD/LP+MP3 (Bella Union)

The music world is filled with talented artists whose names are reserved for the liner notes, over-shadowed by the name of the artist on the front cover. One such person is composer, orchestral arranger and violinist Fiona Brice. She is responsible for orchestral arrangements for artists such as John Grant, Anna Calvi, Midlake, Placebo, Vashti Bunyan and Jarvis Cocker, scores for concert performances by Roy Harper as well as countless violin performances for the likes of Kanye West and Robbie Williams.

The Paul Butterfield Blues Band – Got A Mind To Give Up Living: Live 1966 CD (Real Gone Music)

Issued in July 1966, The Paul Butterfield Blues Band’s East-West took blues-rock to places only free jazz had dared to tread, offering lengthy, modal improvisational passages that sparked the West Coast rock revolution, and, in Mike Bloomfield and Elvin Bishop, fully unleashing the first great guitar tandem in rock history. Recorded live at Boston’s Unicorn Coffee House 50 years ago in May 1966, two months before the release of East-West, Got A Mind To Give Up Living: Live 1966 reaffirms that The Paul Butterfield Blues Band was simply untouchable live, capable of turning on a dime from slow burning blues tunes to up-tempo rave-ups.

[Read more…] about New Releases for June 3, 2016