Absolutely and categorically the fullest and most excellent week of new stuff so far in 2025.
We know that you know, that we know that we always let you know just how much we love Ty Segall, but the man is back and his 412th album Possession is just absolutely magnificent. On the Ty scale of things, it is a sort of sonic companion to his much-loved Hello, Hi album (our 2022 Record of the Year), a swooning set of modern Laurel Canyon loveliness with little garage-y aesthetics and a positive harmony of off-kilter synths, wind instruments and other magic.
Honestly, this is just fantastic. Record of the Week.
WE WERE MADE PREY. is the fourth studio LP from Scottish songwriter Kathryn Joseph and she really has gone somewhere pretty special. Continuing her creative partnership with producer Lomond Campbell, the album is all about magical moments and huge emotional responses. I don’t think there is anyone else around who can convey quite as much with one long-held note. This is far from easy going, but it’s really gripping stuff.
+ Pressed on limited Red vinyl.
‘With Trampled by Turtles’ is a collaborative union between Duluth royalty Trampled by Turtles and Alan Sparhawk of Low. Man alive is it ever a stonker. Lush, long-form Bluegrass tones, intimate plucks and spiritual drones and the vocals are just magnificent. I don’t think Sparhawk has actually ever sounded better. In fact, tell you what… the last few Low albums (and Alan’s spectacular solo debut - White Roses, My God) were thrilling and richly experimental, but there is something so overwhelming about hearing his wonderful voice with such clarity. It took us all the way back to Low’s seminal 2011 C’Mon album.
Huge feelings all round. Really essential listening.
+ Pressed on Cream vinyl.
Eight-piece collective caroline return with their second studio LP, caroline 2, and it really is another of the week's magnificent new discs. It is just so vast, so complicated and dense, but so overwhelming in its humanness too. You could spend all day trying to explain the nuance really, but broadly each song flows like a suite of complicated sonics… then Caroline Polachek turns up. So bonkers, but so perfect. Hell of a record.
+ Available on very limited "Clear Blue" colour vinyl.
Some of the week's other biggest wow moments come on Endling, the new LP from Pakistani-American composer Qasim Naqvi (also drummer in lauded trio Dawn of Midi). He is also an accomplished synthesist and the long evolving drones he makes here are so immersive. A lot of the album feels quite mournful, but it’s all about those little lifts to take it somewhere else. Pretty spectacular tbh.
+ Pressed on limited Clear vinyl.
LEVELS is the full debut LP from French singer, songwriter and producer Léa Sen. The production is great, cohesive but full of experimental pop energy and her voice is a yearning treasure. It is a personal concept album structured around hotel rooms and she has made us some limited hotel key fobs. First few orders get one! Really good stuff, this.
+ Available on Faded Rose colour vinyl.
Turning the dial to much harder spaces is the self-titled Demise Of Love, a new project from Daniel Avery, James Greenwood (Ghost Culture) and Working Men’s Club. This eponymous 10” EP is raw and pounding, with some lush squelch and some pretty epic sonic landscapes too.
Originally dropping online this January (to wild critical acclaim), Brooklyn rapper Mike’s Showbiz! gets a physical release this week and it really is a right baller. From introspective right through to all out experimental, it’s really good and his voice sounds fantastic.
+ Lavishly pressed on double vinyl with exclusive alternative artwork.
Get Sunk is the new solo album from The National’s frontman, Matt Berninger. Still has the big emotional weight of his day job (and it is after all his voice), but this one has a way more relaxed and intimate vibe going, with little country twinges on the longer held notes. One for the repeat plays for sure.
+ Available on limited Cobalt Blue colour vinyl.
In Limerence is the debut LP from the much-hyped Scottish songwriter Jacob Alon. It was produced with Dan Carey (so it manages to sound both intimate and jacked af) and is one of those rare ones that is as impactful when it’s quiet as it is when it’s loud.
+ Pressed on random colour vinyl.
Melbourne garage rockers CIVIC return this week with Chrome Dipped, an evolution of their rich ‘70s punk vibes. It remains hard and unfussy, but when it jangles, it really comes alive.
+ Pressed on Silver Smoke colour vinyl.
Counterclockwise is the new LP from Faun Fables, the long-running collaboration between Dawn McCarthy and Nils Frykdahl. Somewhere between the traditional and the fantastical, it’s really got a lush and quite spooky vibe.
Also this week; Evangelic Girl is a Gun is the glitching new set from Singaporean songwriter and experimental pop producer, Yeule. Soul duo MRCY return with Volume 2 on Dead Oceans. Lush vocals and even scaling up towards afrobeat polyrhythms, it’s got it going on. First pressing is on Yellow vinyl. I Got Too Sad For My Friends is the highly anticipated new album from UK producer, Shura. She sounds fantastic. LA-based rock band Mt. Joy release Hope We Have Fun and it has some lush little flashes of Country hues. Warrington-Runcorn main man Gordon Chapman-Fox releases Very Quiet Music To Be Played Very Loudly under his own name on the new Castles In Space imprint, Lunar Module. Black Hole Superette is the new self-produced album from Long Island rapper Aesop Rock.
You’ll likely remember that last week we said that two absolute lid flippers are en route from Phi-Psonics and Resavoir & Matt Gold. Well, we now have CD copies so the process is slowly getting closer. Let's pick that up again soon when the bigger discs arrive as they are both fantastic and we need to talk more about them both. Also due to land shortly we will have Psychedelic Porn Crumpets, Lavinia Blackwall and Mara Simpson. More on those guys shortly too.
The week’s Best New Reissues are less ample in quantity, but still hitting damn hard in quality, including a 10th Anniversary edition of Kendrick Lamar’s To Pimp A Butterfly, Ry Cooder’s Paris, Texas, a Bill Evans double and Sufjan Stevens’ seminal Carrie & Lowell.
