What a welcome to October, this first week is low-key one of our favourites for the new stuff this year!
Jason Dungan returns this week as Blue Lake with the all new The Animal LP on Tonal Union and it’s just gorgeous. It is the Copenhagen-based musician’s proper follow-up to 2023’s Sun Arcs, and also his first project recorded with a full band in a studio. He has retained that majestic energy of this earlier work, but there is something about the interaction between a band dynamic that really takes this one somewhere special. Pretty, sad, intricate and full of Kosmische magic. Honestly, a belter.
+ Available as a limited Dinked Edition.
My word. Daybreak is the new LP from composer Sven Wunder and it is absolutely outstanding. It is nothing short of a hallucinogenic soundscape through cinematic pop, cocktail jazz, orchestral decadence and analogue studio bliss. Swedish musician Daniel Danell is obviously supremely gifted as an arranger and producer, but the ingenuity, swoon and groove on this LP is just dazzling in its ambition. So highly recommended, Record of the Week.
+ Available on Sky Blue colour vinyl.
Roulette is the sixth studio release from the prolific producer, songwriter, pianist and MC Alfa Mist. Never one play it easy, the album is about an imagined near-future in which reincarnation is discovered to be a potent tool linking dreams and past lives… there is even a limited edition with a comic! His voice sounds fantastic (as does British soul star Tawiah who guests on a track) and I don't think anyone is using jazz textures as interestingly as Alfa Mist. A smoky treat.
Cut & Rewind is the politically-charged, dancefloor-crushing third album from Say She She. We really like these guys. Their voices and their harmonies again sound absolutely celestial, but the big change here is how they have started to take the Disco sound somewhere new, and that ain't easy. There is some darkness, some looseness and thrillingly dense funk cuts; then they go proper disco and everyone's head explodes. Luscious, but still full of angular surprises.
+ Available on limited Lilac colour vinyl with a signed print.
We don’t often link out, but there is a killer interview with the trio in the Guardian, here.
I'm Nice Now is the new LP from Georgia punk band Upchuck and it is a right banger. Their third LP, and Domino debut, was recorded at Sonic Ranch Studio in Texas with Ty Segall and the performance here is key. Thirteen hard, venomous and vengeful tracks that rarely clock in past two and a half minutes, different paces of pissed off. This is really serious stuff, nuanced and dynamic. Really good.
+ Available on limited Silver vinyl.
Next, in our heads, Nashville band Snõõper are in a street adjacent, screening and whaling. Our part of town! The band's new LP - Worldwide - is out this week on Jack White’s Third Man label and it is a propulsive beast, garage punk and New Wave aesthetics and breakneck speed. Twelve tracks and also rarely passing the two minute mark, it grabs you by the collar for sure. We’re in!
+ Available on limited Translucent Pink colour vinyl.
Also this week… Guinean born, Margate-based, singer and multi-instrumentalist Falle Nioke releases his full debut Love From The Sea via the Eat Your Own Ears label. His voice sounds fantastic and the different timbres in the production are really captivating too. Californian experimental rock band AFI return with the wonderfully grandiose Silver Bleeds the Black Sun… Gothic levels of elation! We’re big Nilüfer Yanya fans over here and have been enjoying her new Dancing Shoes EP a lot. Very much as difficult as ever to pigeon hole. The much-loved Scottish band (they really are, both loved and Scottish) Idlewild release an eponymous later career gem. Big riffs, big feels and lots of big band leaning bits in between. We’re enjoying it muchly. Pretty sure that Taylor Swift’s The Life of a Showgirl is due to land imminently too… we’re just not trusted with it in a timely advanced manner ahead of release, so we haven’t heard it. Apparently there are two Bashment cuts. Portofino Orange Glitter.
We have serious Best New Reissues too, with; The Keith Tippett Group, Supergrass, Joan Baez, Jason Isbell, Morphine, Bobby Hutcherson and The Earlies. We’ll tell ya more shortly.
