The new album from Seattle group Great Grandpa is coming out tomorrow, 10/25, via Double Double Whammy – and it is seriously a whammy. I haven’t listened to any of their previous material, but singles like “Digger” and “Mono No Aware” (shout out to PAN) and the album artwork alone really got me interested. Thanks to a friend sending me the record early, I can safely say that the whole album is worthy of your time.
“Bloom” starts off in a way a pop country song from the mid-00s that I’d hear on the radio while having a garage sale, singing about feeling worthless, Tom Petty, and remembering that your friends love you. The second half though is a slow build-up back to the volume of the first half that turns wordlessly anthemic in the process. There are other great songs on the record, but I wanted to share this one in particular to show the versatility of the band’s sound.
Four Of Arrows is out 10/25 via Double Double Whammy – buy the album HERE.
Anamanaguchi has a new album, [USA], coming out THIS FRIDAY (10/25) via Polyvinyl. They started out the album cycle with single “Lorem Ipsum (Arctic Anthem)”, which was a killer introduction to the new, more rock-focused sound while still incorporating video game sounds and electronics they’re known for.
Second single “Air On Line” is probably my favorite song on the record, harkening back to my favorite track off their last album, “Planet”, and pulling in some classic Ocarina Of Time soundfonts.
This new song “On My Own” is a KILLER pop jam with vocals courtesy of Hana. The chorus is huge and really slams into my chest. It kind of reminds me of some of the more recent Kero Kero Bonito material, as well as another obvious comparison in Crying. Where’s new music from that band? Anyways – it’s a banger to the highest degree and I hope people dig it, because this band has worked hard enough to deserve it.
You can pre-order [USA] or buy other Anamanaguchi merch HERE.
Celebrate the 2-year anniversary of Circuit des Yeux’s great 2017 album Reaching For Indigo and my personal favorite song off the record, “Black Fly”. You’ll probably be seeing this track around soon in my decade wrap-up posts 🙂
On this week’s edition of Recommended Albums, we have a long-awaited pop opus, a meditation on chill, a blistering goth collision, a musical equivalent to a gentle breeze, and more. I only picked eight this month because I didn’t feel like really digging down and finding two more albums to focus on. These were the ones I really liked! If there are any I’m missing or you think I should listen to again, let me know!
I’ve had the pleasure of having this track for a minute now and I’m so excited it’s finally out so I can share it with everyone. Anna Meredith made one of my favorite albums of 2016 in Varmints and is following that up with FIBS later this year. “Inhale Exhale” is my favorite track on the record. I love its bright, tactile synths, the worm-like rumblings below it, and Meredith’s mantra-like lyrics overtop. It ramps up and up and pays off in a great conclusions. She’s hot off making the much-beloved score for Eighth Grade, but don’t miss out on her old material, a totally unique fusion of a traditional orchestral/classical background with electronics.
Canadian trio Loving are releasing a new record next year, but for now listen to this calmingly infectious single “Only She Knows”. Ultra dreamy and gentle, it corrals any stress you might be letting roam free across your subconsciousness and puts it on the back burner with delicate, acoustic guitars, plush keys and distant, warm strings. This band lights it up in the streaming department and it’s easy to see why with such pleasing songs like this.
Mount Eerie is releasing a follow up we didn’t know we needed (but we really did) to Lost Wisdom, the album he recorded with Julie Doiron (of Eric’s Trip) back in 2008. It’s one of my favorite records of his (it even made it onto my recent revisit to the Best Albums of the 2000s). With no growing pains whatsoever, this new track “Love Without Possession” jumps us right back into the fold of the best Mount Eerie music. This is now my most-anticipated record of the year. Thank you very much.
The pair are also going on tour later this year and you KNOW I’m gonna try my darnedest to be at that Brooklyn show.
After years of existing on bootlegs, an official version of Boards of Canada’s “XYZ” performed on John Peel’s show back in 1998 has been released from Warp. This song has always been on the outskirts of my listening for the band, but I now see the error in my ways. It’s a brilliant tune that throws new corkscrews in over its eight minute length. I still have yet to hear the band’s mix for WXAXRXP, but I’m assuming there’s more good gold in there too.
My favorite song (according to my mood right now – the whole thing is amazing) from the upcoming Jenny Hval album The Practice Of Love is out NOW with a great video as always from Hval’s frequent collaborator Zia Anger (+starring Anger’s mom!). The video even references the pair’s collaborations and their content they “produce and reproduce” together – the duo says about the video:
“With the release of this video we planned on publishing a dialogue between the two of us. Something that spoke about the kind of work we are doing, and that also referenced the theme of the video – the pairing of production and reproduction.
It’s a given that the product of some artistic work is worthless. You are therefore expected to ‘mother’ it instead of working and being compensated for it. And sometimes this is the best kind of work. Because it doesn’t feel valuable. Because not everybody will like it, or understand it. Because it won’t immediately be sucked up into the capitalist scroll. It has time and space to be conceived of, to sit in utero, to be birthed, to have its umbilical cord cut, and to live, to breathe.
The same is true of our collaboration. We are both seen and heard by each other, and often validated by our responses to each other. However big (with a video) or small (with an email.) Our collaboration validates each other’s right to breathe, to live, to speak. It’s the closest we get to magic.
This dialogue however, felt rushed. We will publish it at a later date. Until then.”
— Zia Anger and Jenny Hval
You may recognize Anger’s name from her videos for Zola Jesus, Maggie Rogers, Angel Olsen and Mitski, or her work as a dancer with Jenny Hval on her Blood Bitch tour.
The Practice of Love is out THIS FRIDAY (9/13) via Sacred Bones!
Welcome to August 2019’s iteration of Recommended Albums, which greets us with music like nails being hammered into your hands, with music that caresses our senses like an island breeze, with music that possesses our limbs and makes them swing wildly. In all seriousness, I greatly enjoyed the records I’ve plucked to highlight this month. Top standouts to me are Cross Record and Friendly Fires, whom by happenstance are both playing NYC on the same night. I bought Friendly Fires tickets before Cross Record show was announced, so there’s not much I can do. I’ll have a good time regardless. Onwards!
Blanck Mass – Animated Violence Mild [Sacred Bones]
A roller coaster gets longer and more chaotic as you ride it, distorting your sense of time, space and self.
Bodywash – Comforter [Luminelle]
A casual diving excursion in warm, shallow waters vibrant with sea life reveals a submerged metropolis, calcified from rising ocean temperatures.
Cross Record – Cross Record [Ba Da Bing!]
Grappling with life as a partially invisible person, taking pleasure in solitude & trusted friends only able to visually communicate with your shadow.
Esther Rose – You Made It This Far [Father/Daughter] A tipsy, moonlit walk home with thoughts that wobble between abandoning companionship for good and holding your partner tight for the rest of your life.
Friendly Fires – Inflorescent [Interscope]
One of those extreme wingsuit POV videos, racing down mountainsides with various parties and other extreme stunts happen below.
HTRK – Venus In Leo [Ghostly International]
In stasis aboard a drifting spaceship, you dream of human contact from someone outside your sleep chamber.
Infinity Shred – Forever, A Fast Life [3DOT Recordings]
Assembling and launching rocket out of salvaged parts by yourself to escape Earth before it caves in on itself.
Joan Shelley – Like The River Loves The Sea [No Quarter]
Memories of peaceful times spent in a small home near the water with friends, family and lovers inspire a series of paintings.
Salami Rose Joe Louis – Zdenka 2080 [Brainfeeder]
A semi-educational, definitely homemade VHS tape about how galaxies and molecules are the same thing plays to a high school science class.
Various Artists – Chill Pill [Public Possession]
Disconnecting from social media, you take a trip to a mountainous coast for a week of hiking, meditation, going to dance functions and gently psychedelic guided self-reflection.
A stream of consciousness music blog, active since 2010. Established in Ann Arbor, MI, currently in NYC.
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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: American Football – American Football Ana Roxanne – Poem 1 The Boo Radleys – In Spite of Everything Calibre – Tricklemore Sea Cindy – Another Country Hiss Golden Messenger – I’m People Lip Critic – Theft World Seefeel – Sol.Hz Tori Amos – In Times of Dragons
May 8: Aldous Harding – Train on the Island Broken Social Scene – Remember the Humans Chinese American Bear – Dim Sum & Then Some Cola – Cost of Living Adjustment Fire-Toolz – Lavender Networks JWords – Sound Therapy Loraine James – Detached From The Rest Of You Lykke Li – The Afterparty Olof Dreijer – Loud Bloom Sadie – Better Angels
May 15: Active Child – Active Child Genesis Owusu – REDSTAR WU & THE WORLDWIDE SCOURGE Kevin Morby – Little Wide Open Telehealth – Green World Image
May 22: aja monet – the color of rain
Alela Diane – Who’s Keeping Time? Bill Orcutt & Mabe Fratti – Almost Waking Hyd – Hold Onto Me Infinity Marisa Anderson – The Anthology of Unamerican Folk Music Visible Cloaks – Paradessence
May 29: The Bug Club – Every Single Muscle Digitalism – Optimism Elder – Through Zero Greg Mendez – Beauty Land Iceage – For Love of Grace & The Hereafter KÁRYYN – PHYSICS UNIVERSAL LOVE LANGUAGE Kurt Vile – Philadelphia’s Been Good To Me Mad Iris – Mad Iris villagerrr – Carousel
June 5: Bedouine – Neon Summer Skin Converge – Hum of Hurt Death Cab for Cutie – I Built You a Tower DJ Seinfeld – If This Is It Fucked Up – Grass Can Move Stones Pt. 2 Year of the Monkey Lee “Scratch” Perry & Mouse on Mars – Spacial, No Problem. Midrift – Silhouette Slippers – Slippers 08 Sparklmami – in this body Tara Clerkin Trio – Somewhere Good Widowspeak – Roses
June 12: BIG | BRAVE – in grief or in hope CFCF – L.U.V. Horse Lords – Demand to Be Taken To Heaven Alive Jalen Ngonda – Doctrine of Love Kelsey Lu – So Help Me God La Sécurité – Bingo! Paycheque – Paycheque
June 19: Styrofoam Winos – Any River Warning – Rituals of Shame
June 26: Abul Mogard & Rafael Anton Irisarri – We Are Light Pauses In the Silence of the Sun Born At Midnite – Eternal BAM Nation Downtown Boys – Public Luxury
July 3: mary in the junkyard – Role Model Hermit
July 10: Parts & Labor – Set of All Sets Tracey Nelson – Hercules
Warm Visions 