New Music Releases Thread



So, thi: s week's new and newish releases:

Nick Cave & Warren Ellis: magnificent! They combine the stateliness of the Bad Seeds' mlast couple of albums with the anger of Grinderman. Something of a masterpiece.
King Gizzard & the Lizard WIzard: it'll do, I guess but they've made better albums. Some good songs but it doesn't really gel as a full album.
A Winged Victory For The Sullen: very good. They continue their melding of classical with post-rock. Shorter pieces than they often produce.
Roy Montgomery: a Kiwi veteran (he appeared on the first Flying Nun release back in the day). Four very listenable and enjoyable guitar pieces. Good.
Maximo Park: a fine album of literate indie rock, seemingly about parenthood. They've generally shown a lot more longevity than a lot of their contemporaries.
Lost Horizons: the second album from Simon Raymonde (Cocteau Twins and founder of Bella Union records) and Richard Thomas (drummer of 80s post-punk band Dif Juz). This is guest vocalist heavy but very good, although it can come across as a compilation. Guests include John Grant, Porridge Radio, Marissa Nadle, Tim Smith of Midlake.
Blanck Mass: interesting. This is two elongated soundscapes (Phase I and Phase II). Somewhat different to earlier Blanck Mass releases, more akin to a noisier Four Tet. Good though.
Mapstation: German electronica, melding dub and Krautrock but also exploring South American and African folk. I really like this.
Camera: This ticks all of the motorik boxes yet, somehow, I haven't yet warmed to it. Not sure why.
Mouse On Mars: Staying in Germany, it's their usual mix of glitch filled electronica. Ambient at times, noisy at others.
The Martha's Vineyard Ferries: I like this a lot. Proper old school US indie rock. Reminds me a lot of Sebadoh, at their peak. Recommended.
Julien Baker: she's moved away from the fragility of her first two albums to big songwriting. Lyrically excellent and always interesting. Impressive!
XIXA: excellent but it's really difficult not to think of Calexico when listening to them.
Cheval Sombre: another really good album in a strong week. Quite fragile folkish songs, underpinned by Sonic Boom's synths and strings.
Berwyn: a mix tape/demos from a hotly tipped London base rapper. There's a fragility to this that I like.
Brijean: every review mentions dreamy disco pop so I wont deviate. It's an entertaining album.
Francois and the Atlas Mountains: Francophone indie pop. Some songs sung in French, some English, some both. Enjoyable but not spectacular.
Fire! - enjoyable, upbeat psych-jazz from Scandinavia.
Karima Walker: dreamy and fragile, a mix of Low's take on slowcore/folk/post-rock and more droney electronic soundscapes. Again, really, really good.

Album of the week: There'd be 6 or 7 contenders most weeks but only one this, Nick Cave & Warren Ellis.
 

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