February Program Titles Released This Week:
Boy Harsher – Careful CD/LP (Nude Club)
Boy Harsher’s second full-length album, Careful, further develops the band’s brooding dance style, set up in their previous EP Country Girl. The ten songs, spanning forty-four minutes, contain eerie narrative soundscapes that are bracing, high tempo and dynamic. The album delivers manifold emotions, from the nostalgic yearning of “LA” to the gripping intensity of “Come Closer”. The nervousness of Augustus Muller’s bent, out of tune synths paired with the lush and sometimes brittle vocals of Jae Matthews, delivers an unsettled, yet fulfilling encounter with Boy Harsher. Careful summons a new spirit for the young band – that of growth and desire.
Ex:Re – Ex:Re CD/LP (Glassnote/4AD)
New solo recordings from Elena Tonra from Daughter. Running parallel to Daughter, she’s assumed the pseudonym Ex:Re (pronounced ex ray) for her eponymously-titled debut solo album, a deeply personal record that was made with both a sense of urgency and a cathartic need. Tonra’s candid solo songs document the time after a relationship ended and are written like unsent letters to herself and others. Taking on a creative moniker, she chose Ex:Re to mean ‘regarding ex’ and also ‘X-Ray’ as a way to look inside and see what is really there. Elena said of the album, “Although the record is written for someone, a lot of the time it’s about the space without that person in it. In every scenario, there’s either the person in memory or the noticeable absence of that person in the present moment. I suppose it is a break-up record, however I do not talk about the relationship at all, and he hardly features in the scenes. He is only felt as a ghostly presence.”
Girlpool – What Chaos Is Imaginary CD/LP (ANTI-)
With their powerful harmonies and imaginative songwriting in full force, Los Angeles, CA duo Girlpool (Harmonoy Tividad and Cleo Tucker) makes new creative leaps with their new album, What Chaos Is Imaginary. Combining elements of shoegaze, folk, and ‘80s postpunk with their own melodic gifts, these two great songwriters come up with a modern classic full of great tunes and sonic surprises. NPR has already praised the songs saying, “Girlpool’s full-band transformation has illuminated its raw sound in deep and unexpected ways.” Lead single “Hire” is a great example of the band’s constant evolution and maturation. [Indie-store exclusive “pineapple” colored vinyl pressing also available.]
Mandolin Orange – Tides Of A Teardrop (First Edition) CD/2xLP (Yep Roc)
North Carolina-based singer-songwriter Andrew Marlin and multi-instrumentalist Emily Frantz, aka Mandolin Orange, release their first new music since 2016. Tides Of A Teardrom finds Mandolin Orange exploring the intimate grief at the frayed edges of their songwriting and confronting loss head-on, facing down the depths of despair and emerging with something renewed and redemptive. It’s a progressive, personal statement from one of roots music’s most thoughtful young groups. On the self-produced set, their slow-burning acoustic meditations on love and loss are belied by a newfound directness as Marlin tackles the death of his mother, who died when he was 18. Marlin’s songwriting voice emerges clearer than ever throughout; whether it’s the trilling, weighty atmosphere of the allegorical “Wolves” or the Appalachian yearning of the hymn-like “Suspended In Heaven”, Marlin and Frantz’s vocal and instrumental interplay is as dialed in as ever, the instinctual expression of deeply known but unspoken truths. [Limited blue colored vinyl pressing includes a bonus EP featuring four traditional cover songs.]
