This week is properly stacked with ‘something for everybody’ energy…
Man alive, what a week of new releases, and very much the trend as we end August and start September. Guys, this week’s taster playlist is over four hours (scroll down), there is so much to discover.
So Friday includes two new Dinked Editions, including the magnificent It’s A Beautiful Place from Water From Your Eyes. That one is our Record of the Month and you can read a little more about it here.
+ Limited Dinked Edition copies are available now.
The second of the two is Songs for Nina and Johanna, the latest album of collaborations from James Yorkston and Friends. It really is a gorgeous set, featuring two of Sweden’s most recognisable female vocalists in Nina Persson (The Cardigans) and Johanna Söderberg (First Aid Kit). It was recorded in Stockholm with The Second Hand Orchestra and has such a lush balance of the grandiose and the intimate.
+ Limited Dinked Edition copies are available now.
The Passionate Ones is the new LP from Nourished By Time and the vastness of it all is hugely compelling. The genre fluidity is really impressive, most often it is an off-kilter take on synthpop, with warped and retro samples against the clicks of unaffected drum machines. Vocally he is also really strong, soul and gospel hues but loose and howling. Poetic, smart and sweetly optimistic. This is really good.
+ Available on limited Clear vinyl.
Rún is the eponymous debut LP from Irish trio Rún, and it’s pretty gripping stuff you know. We are talking experimental; full of out-there atmospherics that often are underpinned with quite dark and menacing energy. Acid-folk, cosmic jazz and sludge-metal timbres as it swirls and whirls hypnotically. Highly Recommended.
Songs In The Key of Yikes is the thirteenth studio LP from North Carolina indie-rock icons, Superchunk. Man, this is such euphoric stuff. Each track is like a coiled spring, fizzing riffs and pounding rhythm as they give a little flash of melancholy before winding it up into something anthemic. Really good fun.
+ Available on limited Orange and Black Swirl Vinyl + Signed Poster.
Guitar is the super-chill new LP from Mac DeMarco and we honestly had no idea how much we were in the mood for it before it landed this week. Slow, melancholic, minimal but super complicated as it weaves through easy-flowing but very mathsy chord sequences. There is some real Paul McCartney energy going on, and we honestly mean that as a high compliment. Good stuff, this.
+ Available on limited and exclusive Transparent Orange vinyl.
The Collapse Of Everything is the first full studio LP in ages from the great Adrian Sherwood. The master producer really brings the filmic energy to this one, ambient suites with big dub energy and so many glorious and inventive noises. The balance here is masterful.
+ Available on exclusive Clear vinyl.
New York singer-songwriter Maiya Blaney releases A Room with a Door That Closes on LEX and the production is really quite spectacular. From spooky and fugged out samples to the sharpest and most biting beats, it’s constantly changing. She can also take it right back to something way more primal too, where her voice really shines.
We have a trio of proper chart busters hitting the racks this week, with Deftones releasing private music, Wolf Alice returning with The Clearing and Icelandic songwriter Laufey’s third LP, A Matter of Time. All three titles include limited and exclusive editions.
Also available in this wonderfully full week; Vermont-based songwriter Greg Freeman releases the alt-country tinged Burnover. Hickey is the jangling major label debut from Australian duo Royel Otis. Adult Romantix is the hugely evocative album from Samira Winter as Winter, full of crunching and shimmering guitar pop. Montréal band TOPS debut for Ghostly International with the wildly smart pop, Bury the Key. Moses Brown (aka Peace de Resistance) releases Stone Upon Stone on PPM, a soundtrack of Mellotrons and bedroom chamber ensembles. Pretty spectacular stuff. The Tennessee-born, New York-based baritone saxophonist Zoh Amba releases Sun on Smalltown Supersound. Meg Duffy returns as Hand Habits on Fat Possum with Blue Reminder. Rising Irish-trio Kingfishr release the stadium-primed new-folk LP, Halcyon. Last Missouri Exit is the debut LP from Casey Gomez Walker and Spencer Tweedy Case Oats and it is super-charming. Philly hitmaker Kurt Vile collaborates with Nashville swooner Luke Roberts on the Classic Love EP. Eve Adams releases American Dust on Basin Rock, a hugely impressive ode to the American Southwest.
