Note it down, folks. Late May twenty five, a week of quite magnificent new music for your bandwidths.
The week is just so vibrant! First out of the blocks is Instant Holograms On Metal Film, the hallucinogenic, dazzling and effervescent new studio album from Stereolab. It is our May Record of the Month and you can read a little more about how much we like it, here.
+ Available on limited and exclusive double Clear vinyl.
Now have we ever been ready for this return. Crooked Wing is These New Puritans’ long-awaited fifth album - their first in six years. Produced with Graham Sutton (of Bark Psychosis), it sounds absolutely amazing; so hugely vast, but also strikingly intimate with some inspiring and quite overwhelming timbres in the mix. It even features a little flash of Caroline Polachek who sounds as splendid as any of the vocals across the album. Way too much to absorb on one listen, this is fantastic stuff.
+ Available on limited Clear vinyl.
New York based musical rapper (also jazz trumpeter, producer, musical director, thinker, raconteur…) Pan Amsterdam makes his Heavenly Recordings debut with Confines. It is really evocative stuff, dream-like but full of vibrancy and really much unlike anyone around, especially his humour and wryness.
+ Pressed on Transparent Red vinyl.
Officially released a few days back on National Bee Day, To Be is the first album release from Karman Line Collective, FKA BE. It is an immersive new soundscape for Wolfgang Buttress’ latest art installation - BEES: A Story of Survival - a multi-sensory experience at World Museum, Liverpool. Recorded by Buttress with Kevin Bales and Tony Foster (Spiritualized, Julian Cope) and Justin Goodyear, it really is powerful stuff. Equally sublime and heartbreaking.
Sung for the vast majority in Scottish, Forefowk, Mind Me is a stunning blast of traditionalism from Glasgow-based Quinie. Using traditional Instrumentation, it’s the winding and tricky vocals that really make this one so special. Quinie has taken early music and given it a newfound place in the contemporary experimental. Quite amazing.
Eros is an absolute masterclass from composer and multi-instrumentalist Daniel O'Sullivan (of Grumbling Fur and about three dozen other essential artistic ventures). Most simply it is a song cycle of experimental contemporary chamber music composed for a 14-piece ensemble, but it’s the way that it touches the off-kilter that makes it so engaging. It is proper fun. Really highly recommended - and that’s our Rose on the cover!
Seattle drone-rock titans Earth release their latest live document, WEM Dominator (Live in London NW1, 2016), an unrelenting display of the band’s seismic force, recorded during their performance at London’s KOKO in 2016. This album absolutely couldn’t be more us and playing it dead loud has already been one of the week’s most exciting pursuits.
+ Pressed on ‘Dark Star’ colour vinyl.
New York-born, Tamil Nadu-raised singer and transdisciplinarian Ganavya releases the all-new Nilam on Nils Frahm’s LEITER label this week and it is simply stunning. A genuinely profound set of meditations, this one feels special.
Brothers Ron and Russell Mael return as Sparks with their 28th album, MAD! We had fun playing that one in the shop this week, our playback exclusives have all sold out, but we do have the wild lenticular sleeve edition if you get involved quickly!
Not only all this, we are still imminently expecting the arrivals of Phi-Psonics on Gondwana, and Resavoir & Matt Gold on International Anthem. For those of you who like to have your lids blown off, these are premium spiritual lid lifters.
Lastly this week, we have been absolutely basking in Acts Of Faith, the spellbinding eleventh studio album from Sault. After first appearing on the band’s website as a free download back in the summer of 2024, the sublime and spiritual set gets a limited physical pressing. With twelve albums and a couple of EPs in six years, you’d assume that they’d tread some common ground and lose some of that sparkle… Acts Of Faith is just sublime, thirty-two flowing minutes of good energy.
Very highly recommended. I mean, their twelfth album - 10 - lands in a few weeks too
The week’s Best New Reissues aren’t half bad either, with; Ffa Coffi Pawb, Scientist, Moskito on ATFA, Clap Your Hands Say Yeah, Orbital, Thelonious Monk and the always essential Emahoy Tsege Mariam Gebru.
We shall talk about them all on a Bank Holiday bumper special.
