A multitude of routes and the weekly Drift conjecture. Come and jump off.

Our Record of the Week is The Gloss, the second LP from Montreal trio Cola. We really love this band (the trio consisting Tim Darcy and Ben Stidworthy formerly of the amazing Ought and Evan Cartwright of U.S. Girls) but even as big fans, there is some proper dark magic caught on tape. They deliberately stripped it right back and it sounds very much like you’re in the room with them. Plenty of hooks and frenzy, but also just as engaging in its slow, stark melancholy. Highly recommended.

+ Available on exclusive Transparent Green colour vinyl.

The Art Of The Lie is the shimmering new LP from John Grant. As ever, he brings such duality to his work and his sixth solo LP flows between style and mood with great ease. There is a swirling opulence to the funk drenched strutters and a swooning sadness to the slower meditations. His voice sounds fantastic in any and all directions, and sonically it’s arguably his richest ever set. Great stuff.

+ Available on limited double Pink vinyl.
Daffodils & Dirt is the collaborative debut LP from Sam Morton, the musical duo of singer, songwriter and acclaimed actor and director Samantha Morton and music producer and co-songwriter Richard Russell. The formula is relatively straightforward - with Morton’s ethereal vocals floating to hallucinogenic effect and Russell's production creating clicking and evocative soundscapes - but the mood they have created is entirely of its own and it is really special stuff. Fragile without drifting into nothingness and sentimental without sounding hackneyed, it’s like listening to someone's diary.

+ Available on limited Yellow colour vinyl.

Inspired by Belfast’s fictional The Rutz pub, Kneecap (Mo Chara, Moglaí Bap and DJ Provaí) release their debut LP Fine Art and it sounds like nothing else. Toddla T’s production gives everything a discombobulating bounce as odd lines (an intoxicating blur of English and Irish) catch your ear. They will piss off as many people as they delight, but that feels very much to be the point.

+ Green/White/Orange Tri colour vinyl.

Absolute icon John Cale returns this week on Domino’s Double Six with POPtical Illusion, his second album in a little over twelve months. It is really up, an album full of energy and off-kilter ideas. The drive is pretty thrilling, Shark-Shark sounds exactly how you’d imagine a member of The Velvet Underground would sound when they have spent the last sixty years making wild noises.

+ Available on limited double Neon Orange colour vinyl.

Supershapes Vol. 1 is the debut solo album from Mike Lindsay, Mercury Prize-winning producer, co-founder of the woozed-out Tunng and one half of alt-psych duo LUMP. Part of a series of works that explore “the miraculous in the mundane”, it really is a charmer. Anna B Savage lends guest vocals and sounds beautifully fragile.

+ Available on ‘Cucumber Green’ colour vinyl.
San Francisco psych-pop legend Kelley Stoltz releases La Fleur, a pop-sensitive set of bangers high on jangle. Although mostly full of joy, there are some gorgeously sombre moments and his voice sounds particularly good too.

+ Available on Strawberry Cornetto colour vinyl.

We have an absolute baller on Upset The Rhythm with Marcel Wave’s Something Looming. Members of Sauna Youth and Cold Pumas (yeah, double excellent right?) with writer and vocalist Maike Hale-Jones. A lot more dimensions than many of the post-punky releases we have seen in droves.

Also this week; New York psych-pop band Crumb return with the woozy Amama, another of the week’s most evocative vibes. Much-loved Glasgow-born singer-songwriter Isobel Campbell returns with Bow To Love. FEET hit excellent guitar-pop vibes with Make It Up. Instrumental duo Hermanos Gutiérrez create cosmic pastorals on the new Sonido Cósmico. Oneohtrix Point Never’s excellent Again album is reissued as a limited Blu-ray edition with a Dolby Atmos mix. Searching is the Sinkane-produced new album from Staples Jr. Singers, the Mississippi family’s first in fifty years!

Lastly today, Tough Love repress Ryan Davis and the Roadhouse Band’s absolutely essential Dancing on the Edge. We have played and played this one since we got hold of the import on Sophomore Lounge, it is honestly an instant classic.

Locals, a reminder that Ryan is on tour with The Reds, Pinks & Purples and will be dropping into Drift next Saturday lunchtime (22nd) to play live in the shop.

+ Pressed on Double Clear colour vinyl.

Reissues this week include; The Decemberists, David Bowie, White Lies, BADBADNOTGOOD and the mysterious Master Wilburn Burchette.

- Drift