Perennial fav of the blog, Spirit of the Beehive, is releasing their new album ENTERTAINMENT, DEATH via new label home Saddle Creek on April 9. I’ve had the chance to listen to it early and holy smokes, I cannot wait for everyone else to hear it too. The band is known for their sound collage-like sound structures, blurring genre and songwriting tropes to create a hazy web of a “rock-like” substance. This new single is pretty emblematic of the album, although it’s hard to chalk the whole sound of the record up in just one song. It goes places. There are no other entities making music like Spirit of the Beehive. Thank you for existing.
Recommended Albums is in its sixth year of operation, which frankly is absurd to me. This started as a way for me to get more involved in my blog as I’d been slacking on it going into 2016. Kind of like a New Year’s resolution or something. Maybe I’d continue it for a few months and then get tired of it. Welp, 72 months later I’m still at it – picking 10 or so records from each month to highlight. Hope some people find this helpful in seeking out releases they may have missed, or maybe even seeing which ones to check out first to begin with. 2021 has started off well music-wise, although to be perfectly honest it’s been hard to concentrate on just the music. Despite this, I’ve collected a pretty cool group of records, from airy ambient, to confessional singer/songwriter, to dirty laundry R&B, to calming, virtuosic guitar. Hope you enjoy.
Abul Mogard – In Immobile Air [Ecstatic] Hanging upside-down off the front of an arctic freight ship, watching an inverted view of the ship plow through sheets of ice over black water.
Anna B Savage – A Common Turn [City Slang] Having recurring nightmares about being closed in pages of your diary (a giant dream version) like pressed flowers.
Buke & Gase / So Percussion – A Record Of [Brassland] A port town at danger of being swallowed by the rising sea enlists inventors to excavate the town with steam-powered diggers and fly it into the sky in one big chunk.
Carmen Villain – Sketch for Winter IX: Perlita [Geographic North] Steam rising from a hot spring catches sunlight reflected off a frozen waterfall.
Fievel Is Glauque – God’s Trashmen Sent To Right The Mess [la Loi] Dystopian hackers reprogram Hit Clips to play bootleg recordings of Brazilian jazz radio broadcasts.
Insides – Soft Bonds [Self-Released] Feeling steadily more detached from reality until a familiar, unseen hand covers yours.
Jazmine Sullivan – Heaux Tales [RCA] A convincing stump speech alleging being horny on main will bring world peace.
Madlib – Sound Ancestors [Madlib Invazion] Drawing soul records from memory in a journal while out to eat (sitting at the bar with a direct view to the kitchen, secondhand steam and kinetic energy filling your spirit).
Rhye – Home [Loma Vista] Slow dancing at 2am in your dark living room, with only the moon and the red coils of a space heater providing any form of light.
Yasmin Williams – Urban Driftwood [Spinster] A picturesque view of a mountain range next to a gentle stream for a daytime picnic.
I’ve also started my Best of 2021 playlist – it’s pretty short, but it’s going! Check it out –> HERE.
GR8 SONGS OF JANUARY 2021::
I’d say out of all these songs, Smerz’s “Believer” is probably the best thing I’ve heard all year. The bass gives me goosebumps.
Abul Mogard – “Sand”
Anna B Savage – “Baby Grand”
Arlo Parks – “For Violet”
Bicep – “Sundial”
Buke & Gase / So Percussion – “Over The Hill”
Cassandra Jenkins – “Hard Drive”
Fievel Is Glauque – “Simple Affairs”
Insides – “Undressing”
Jazmine Sullivan – “The Other Side”
Kalbells – “Purplepink”
Logic1000 – “Like My Way”
Matthew E. White & Lonnie Holley – “This Here Jungle Of Moderness-Composition 14”
Rhye – “Come In Closer”
Sara Bug – “Rosebank”
Smerz – “Believer”
SOPHIE – “UNISIL”
Yasmin Williams – “Urban Driftwood (feat. Amadou Kouyate)”
Been all over this Yasmin Williams album that came out today (Jan 29) via Spinster Sounds. Williams is a Virginia native and guitar virtuoso that makes some of the most unique instrumental acoustic guitar music out there. Williams brings a tap/percussive element to the instrument, while also adding kora and kalimba to the equation to vary the timbre and weight of the notes. Not to be outdone, she also adds tap shoes into the equation, like a Cape Breton fiddler. North American percussive guitar stylings and traces of West African plucked wizardry? That’s a recipe for an earthy, hearty and fulfilling album, which this is. I only had to hear a few tracks before I ordered the vinyl. Some sounds here I want filling my home for sure.
The album only came out today – I’m excited to see how these tracks continue to morph in fancy as I sit with them longer.
You’ve probably already seen this song posted everywhere this year already, but this Cassandra Jenkins song “Hard Drive” is so great. Slowly building poetic narrative with some slick saxophone jazzing up the background. It’s vast and seemingly limitless. Can’t wait to hear what her upcoming LP, An Overview On Phenomenal Nature, coming February 19 via Ba Da Bing.
Wanted to share a new song from a relatively new artist, Nashville’s Sara Bug, who just signed to Egghunt Records. The song in question is “Rosebank”, a song dedicated to taking therapeutic motorcycle rides – a concept I’m very familiar with if you swap out motorcycles for NYC public transit, or windows-down drives to the beach in the winter. The thrill of movement, wind pushing through every pore (ok maybe not deep underground on a subway, but you get it) acting as a cleansing salve for built-up tension.
The song itself does a great job at harnessing this feeling of movement, with heavy guitar lines chugging at a steady pace, while ebbing and flowing within the chorus. Vocals are solid too, giving me Big Thief and Jessica Lea Mayfield vibes. This is a promising first taste of hopefully more to come – keep your eyes and ears here if you’re into it.
Stop what you’re doing and listen to Anna B Savage, a London-based singer/songwriter poised for a meteoric rise in 2021 with her upcoming debut album, A Common Turn, coming via City Slang January 29. Her vocals are deep and intense, a full-body experience, and joins the likes of Aldous Harding and Haley Fohr in my mind. Her voice and the music surrounding it has a naturally devastating affect, I don’t even know how to articulate it. It sweeps and bows like a ship in a storm, but remains steadfast in getting to its destination. Frankly, it’s just special.
Pre-order Anna B Savage’s A Common Turn via Bandcamp HERE.
Newly announced today, Richmond’s Matthew E. White has teamed up with prolific artist Lonnie Holley for a new collaborative album, Broken Mirror, A Selfie Reflection, coming April 9 via Spacebomb & Jagjaguwar.
Holley made one of my favorite songs of the last decade with “I Woke Up In A Fucked Up America”, and White has been partially responsible for bringing tons of great musicians from the Virginia area and beyond through his Spacebomb studios and label, bringing a real funky, homegrown sound to everything he touches. It’s not a pairing I’d think of immediately, but one that makes me VERY excited to hear down the line. This first taste, “This Here Jungle…” is a high-energy, freeform funk jam with a killer bass thump and Holley commanding as a wise presence as he always does. It’s wonderful. Lots of great stuff in the hopper from the south coming up this year. I’m excited to share and continue commending the US region.
Oakland’s Brijean (aka Brijean Murphy with Doug Stuart) put out a record that I saw a lot of people I trust talk about in 2019, Walkie Talkie. I definitely enjoyed the LP but it always slipped my mind when it came down to continued listening. However, it definitely put them on my map and made me generally excited to see whatever they had next.
Well, what’s next is really good and extremely up my alley. Their upcoming record, Feelings, is out February 26 via Ghostly International. In the past, Brijean has cut her teeth performing with acts like Poolside, Toro Y Moi and U.S. Girls, all groups that understand the groove. They’d need someone that also deeply understands the groove. It’s clear Brijean is fluent in the groove. You can hear shards and shades of the aforementioned groups in the Brijean’s sound, but cast through a unique light all their own. Think beachy lounge, downtempo disco, outdoor pool backstroke house… feel good music, plainly. One comparison that instantly comes to mind is my favorite city night walk music, Mr Twin Sister’s 2014 album. Getting feelings of that mood here, only it takes place at the same beach resort I picture The Avalanches’ Since I Left You at. My musical cinematic universe is broad in scope. Everything I write is canon and incredibly, desperately nerdy.
Either way, I’m just posting album highlight and new single “Ocean” to talk about this upcoming record. It’ll help you exhale, settle into a comfortable chair, outfit, bath, whatever and let some negative feelings slide for a moment.
Feelings is out February 26 via Ghostly International. Pre-order it via Bandcamp HERE.
NY’s Kalbells made one of my favorite EPs of 2020, Mothertime, and are already on their way to put out a new LP, Max Heart, coming March 26th via NNA Tapes. I’ve had the chance to check it out and it feels like something from a post-pandemic reality. It’s an exciting, joyful and rippling alternate timeline, or perhaps one that’s coming a bit down the line. One of my favorite things about Mothertime was the texture of the sounds the group used; it’s almost as if they’re tactile. You could reach out and squeeze the synths and percussion used and glowing ooze would gush out. Maybe that’s a gross visual, and I apologize.
Even so, the sounds and melodies the group uses are truly unique and defining. You’ll find much of that vein on Max Heart. New single “Purplepink” showcases that with squelching synths, a rippin’ guitar solo and lovely shared vocal duties from Angelica Bess (also of Body Language!) and Kalmia Traver. I always gotta get some kinda comparison in here and the one that comes to mind first is Little Dragon – but they’re definitely doing more out of the box things melodically and sonically. Still nice and groovy though.
Max Heart is out via NNA Tapes on March 26. Pre-order via Bandcamp HERE.
Was recently sent this cool albumby Spanish musician Shoeg, 外皮 External Skin, an OST to a fictional RPG. This one’s for all you VGM freaks out there. There’s the regular album version of 外皮 External Skin, but Shoeg has gone one step further and extended each song to an hour’s length and paired it with dreamy 3D visuals in a YouTube playlist – you can watch the rest if you jump to YT from the video I linked above. Imagine if other records had this, I don’t know what you’d call it, feature? Shades of custom YouTube videos where people loop game soundtracks for 10 hours. Just vibe out to a variable melody for an hour. Exist in its space. Observe the crests and valleys of its sound. Create your own mythology to it.
It’s easy to get lost in any of the pieces on the record, but I’ve found myself gravitating towards the second track, “ES II: Needs Assessment”, with its great digital hammered strings and synthesized vocals. Parts of the soundfonts remind me of the “Dire Dire Docks” theme? Potentially? Could be paired with some kind of ancient forest, roots growing off ocean cliffsides, colorful birds peacefully flying overhead, and a hidden temple nestled in a thicket of especially tough vines. There’s plenty more fantasizing to be done on the full LP.
This is a total aside, but now that I’m thinking about video game music and YouTube; late last year I found a great playlist of this guy, Jammin’ Sam Miller, who’s been restoring the music from Donkey Kong Country by essentially re-performing it without the compression needed to fit it on a SNES cartridge. The result is pretty shocking, especially on some of the songs with more haunting ambiance in the later game. As someone who’s been listening to that OST for over twenty years, it’s amazing to hear the sounds of the score really pop, along with hearing defined highs and lows, for the first time. You can check it out here.
And don’t forget, this post was about Shoeg. Check out their Bandcamp here.
A stream of consciousness music blog, active since 2010. Established in Ann Arbor, MI, currently in NYC.
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January 9: Dry Cleaning – Secret Love SAULT – Chapter 1 Winged Wheel – Desert So Green
January 16: A$AP Rocky – Don’t Be Dumb Jana Horn – Jana Horn Julianna Barwick & Mary Lattimore – Tragic Magic SASSY 009 – Dreamer+
February 6: Beverly Glenn-Copeland – Laughter in Summer Daphni – Butterfly Elori Saxl & Henry Solomon – Seeing Is Forgetting Fabiano do Nascimento – Aquáticos Joshua Chuquimia-Crampton – Anata Mandy, Indiana – URGH Puma Blue – Croak Dream Ratboys – Singin’ To An Empty Chair
February 13: Charli XCX – Wuthering Heights Colin Stetson – Nethering Danny L Harle – Cerulean KMRU – Kin The Olympians – In Search of A Revival
February 20: Altin Gün – Garip Apparat – A Hum of Maybe
February 27: Buck Meek – The Mirror Fabiano do Nascimento – Vila GENA – The Pleasure Is Yours Gorillaz – The Mountain Gus Englehorn – The Broken Balladeer Heavenly – Highway to Heavenly LB aka LABAT – Feel So Good Around U Maria BC – Marathon Mitski – Nothings About to Happen to Me Nothing – a short history of decay Shane Parish – Autechre Guitar
March 6: Hater – Mosquito Natalie Jane Hill – Hopeful Woman Resavoir – Themes For Dreams Scout Gillett – Tough Touch Shabaka – Of The Earth Tomu DJ – Antagonist waterbaby – Memory Be a Blade
March 13: Alexis Taylor – Paris In The Spring Bill Orcutt – Music In Continuous Motion Crack Cloud – Peace and Purpose Cut Worms – Transmitter ELUCID – I Guess U Had To Be There James Blake – Trying Times Johnny Blue Skies & The Dark Clouds – Mutiny After Midnight Kim Gordon – PLAY ME The Notwist – News From Planet Zombie Ora Cogan – Hard Hearted Woman Tinariwen – Hoggar
March 20: Avalon Emerson & The Charm – Written Into Changes Chalk – Crystalpunk Colleen – Libres antes del final Grace Ives – Girlfriend Green-House – Hinterlands Whitney Johnson, Lia Kohl & Macie Stewart – BODY SOUND
March 27: ADULT. – Kissing Luck Goodbye
Buzzy Lee – Shoulder to Shoulder
Fcukers – Ö Holy Fuck – Event Beat Irreversible Entanglements – Future Present Past José González – Against the Dying of the Light King Tuff – MOO Konradsen – Hunt, Gather Lauren Auder – Whole World As Vigil Lone – Hyperphantasia The New Pornographers – The Former Site Of Pan•American – Fly The Ocean In A Silver Plane Robyn – Sexistential Shinchi Atobe – Silent Way Snail Mail – Ricochet Tom Misch – Full Circle
April 3: Arlo Parks – Ambiguous Desire John Andrews & The Yawns – Streetsweeper Makthaverskan – Glass and Bones A Place To Bury Strangers – Rare and Deadly Sunn O))) – sunn O))) Thundercat – Distracted Wendy Eisenberg – Wendy Eisenberg
April 10: Alex Zhang Hungtai – Dras Cactus Lee – Lee’s Dream Flore Laurentienne – Volume III Jessie Ware – Superbloom My New Band Believe – My New Band Believe Squarepusher – Kammerkonzert WU LYF – A Wave That Will Never Break
April 17: Hollie Cook – Shy Girl In Dub!
Tiga – Hotlife Yaya Bey – Fidelity
April 24: Angelo De Augustine – Angel In Plainclothes Friko – Something Worth Waiting For Gia Margaret – Singing Hrishikesh Hirway – In The Last Hour of Light Miss Grit – Under My Umbrella Quiet Light – Blue Angel Sparkling Silver White Denim – 13 White Fence – Orange
May 1: Ana Roxanne – Poem 1 Hiss Golden Messenger – I’m People Lip Critic – Theft World
May 8: Broken Social Scene – Remember the Humans Chinese American Bear – Dim Sum & Then Some Cola – Cost of Living Adjustment Lykke Li – The Afterparty
May 15: Kevin Morby – Little Wide Open Telehealth – Green World Image
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