A week of both quantity and supreme quality, from the guitar scorchers to the minute textures and wooze.
McCartney, It'll Be OK is the debut LP from Crewe-based four-piece UNIVERSITY, and the first time we heard it, we just howled with laughter…“god damn, that's a great album” we said! It is a loud and sprawling mess of creativity, angst, humour and scything riffs. With sonic cues taken from out-there guitar music of the last three decades, it inevitably sounds a little bit like lots of things, but then in a second it all changes and goes totally off-piste. Absolutely loved this one as soon as we heard it and we bit all available hands off to ensure that we could bring this one to you as an exclusive Dinked Edition to celebrate.
Record of the Week and straight up, a proper belter of a record!
The Leaf Label release the eponymous The Sick Man Of Europe debut LP this week and it really locks in. Taut Krautrock motoriks, something adjacent to post-punk and other gnarled textures in a frenetic hurtle. O of the week’s many albums to get totally lost in.
+ Available on limited and exclusive Red vinyl.
Ipsa Corpora ("Actual Bodies") is a 40-minute solo guitar masterwork from Kentucky’s Nathan Salsburg. It is dark and it is sparse, but there are surprising little moments of sweet melody and the focused mood that he creates throughout is just spectacular. Quite essential listening for the ambient and traditional heads.
New York’s Hotline TNT return this week on Third Man Records with Raspberry Moon and it is a swimming belter. There are so many crunching gestures towards classic shoegaze, but there is something very fresh about it too. All of the euphoria has that slight edge of darkness to it, and all of the harsher moments have the prickling feeling of optimism. It is emotive music and they really have cast a thick, fuggy spell.
+ Available on limited ‘Sapphire Slush Puppy’ colour vinyl.
In a week with so many lovely tones, quite possibly our most favourite of the tones are from Jeremiah Chiu & Marta Sofia Honer on their collaborative Different Rooms. Field recordings, natural hues and mod-synth workouts with really amazing focus and thoughtful evolution. It is both tranquil and quietly dramatic, really lush stuff as ever on the esteemed International Anthem Recording Co.
+ Available on limited "Battiato Brick" colour vinyl.
Esteemed Norwegian electronic musician Biosphere releases a proper slab of dark treasure this week called The Way of Time on AD 93. It takes loose inspiration from Elizabeth Madox Roberts’ novel The Time Of Man, with tight and minute textures slowly looping alongside samples of Joan Lorring’s voice (performing the 1951 radio play adaptation of the novel). Dreamlike and addictive.
Born from a special one-off gig in Hot Springs, Arkansas where U.S. Girls’ Meg Remy put together a crackerjack band of Nashville professionals, Scratch It is a gorgeous blend of gospel, country, garage rock and soul all distilled through her unique lens. Her voice sounds absolutely fantastic, mixed loud and present across the album so that it remains ever present and provides loads of opportunity for the songs to move around stylistically. Coherent, but wildly diverse and full of smokey confidence.
Sydney-based three piece Daily Toll release their debut LP A Profound Non-Event on Tough Love this week and it’s really gorgeous. Whispery folk roots with skiffling post-punk vibes and plenty of wooze in both directions. Stuck this on early the other day and completely lost track of what I was doing. They make moods!
+ Available on limited Red vinyl.
Also this week; Kyiv-based riot grrl trio Death Pill release the thrashing Sologamy, including a very limited Frosted Clear vinyl pressing. I quit is the highly anticipated fourth studio album from best-sisters, HAIM. The production (with Rostam) is really impressive, has a rawness to it. Manchester jazz trio GoGo Penguin return with the quite sublime sounding Necessary Fictions, featuring a guest vocal (a first for the band) from Daudi Matsiko. His Lordship return with the vintage and rockin’ Bored Animal LP, that they taped at Edwyn Collins’ studio. We’ve really been enjoying this one. ODESZA have reworked Theodore Shapiro’s Emmy Award-winning compositions from the Severance TV show into the limited Music To Refine To. We have a very limited Lawdy Rolla / Pinball 7” from Paul Weller, and if you’re dead quick, we are going to put a last few copies of THE NONE’s incendiary At Hope / In Civic Pride 7” in stock too.
Lastly for today, the much-hyped Yuuf release the limited Alma’s Cove on Technicolour and it is a groover. The four piece met and formed the band whilst studying at BIMM in Brighton, pulling in all sorts of global psychedelia and other hot tones. Knotty riffs that get pretty dreamy.
