New Music Releases Thread



It's been a pretty good week for new music. Stuff I've listened to:

Bent - their first album in ages, which actually came out last year. Pleasant chill out type stuff with samples. I always thought Lemon Jelly were better though.
Katy Kirby - nice hybrid of Americana and indie-pop. She's got a good voice.
The Hold Steady - it's a good album. Essentially it's The Hold Steady's literate blue collar rock with some horns added.
Mogwai - exceptionally good, as always. They're a band whose albums I tend to judge against their own standards rather than against others and this is good for them.
Cassandra Jenkins - excellent! It fuses more indie singer-songwriter stuff with jazzier music. A big talent. One of many post-David Berman albums/songs that seem to be emerging this year (Mogwai's "Ritchie Sacramento" is about him).
Tindersticks - exceptionally good, as always. They're a band whose albums I tend to judge against their own standards rather than against others and this is good for them. (I know that's word for word what I wroteVed for Mogwai but they're two bands I feel similarly about).
Lael Neale - quite minimal and lo-fi. There's a sort of Jesus and Mary Chain with Lana Del Rey doing the lyrics feel to this. Interesting.
Wild Pink - another good album. Well constructed songs, vaguely reminiscent of a less rock Deathcab for Cutie.
Heilung - my explorations into what I suppose could be termed Scandi dark folk continue. This is actually from 2019 and is their third album but I've just picked up on it thanks to a Guardian article last week. It's very entertaining. The best bits sound are quite call and responsey and sound like an orc army starting to attack. May not be for everyone!
Vedan Kolod - Russian folk. A bit more trad than Otava Yo, who I love and who are my reference point for Russian folk. Still good.
Whitney K - another big new talent. Canadian singer-songwriter who does a laidback take on some sort of indie-country thing, sort of indie stonericana. Reminds me a bit of early Pavement crossed with Lou Reed. Highly recommended!
Animal Collective - a soundtrack album for an indie film called Crestone (about a group of stoner rappers living in the desert, apparently). It's quite ambient and has quite short tracks. Worth a listen but not immediately in classic territory
4 Mars - thanks to @chunkylover53 for pointing this one out. It's Somali in origin and combines east African sounds with Arabic instruments. Really good. Apparently, they were the house band for Djibouti's ruling party at one point.
 
It's been a pretty good week for new music. Stuff I've listened to:

Bent - their first album in ages, which actually came out last year. Pleasant chill out type stuff with samples. I always thought Lemon Jelly were better though.
Katy Kirby - nice hybrid of Americana and indie-pop. She's got a good voice.
The Hold Steady - it's a good album. Essentially it's The Hold Steady's literate blue collar rock with some horns added.
Mogwai - exceptionally good, as always. They're a band whose albums I tend to judge against their own standards rather than against others and this is good for them.
Cassandra Jenkins - excellent! It fuses more indie singer-songwriter stuff with jazzier music. A big talent. One of many post-David Berman albums/songs that seem to be emerging this year (Mogwai's "Ritchie Sacramento" is about him).
Tindersticks - exceptionally good, as always. They're a band whose albums I tend to judge against their own standards rather than against others and this is good for them. (I know that's word for word what I wroteVed for Mogwai but they're two bands I feel similarly about).
Lael Neale - quite minimal and lo-fi. There's a sort of Jesus and Mary Chain with Lana Del Rey doing the lyrics feel to this. Interesting.
Wild Pink - another good album. Well constructed songs, vaguely reminiscent of a less rock Deathcab for Cutie.
Heilung - my explorations into what I suppose could be termed Scandi dark folk continue. This is actually from 2019 and is their third album but I've just picked up on it thanks to a Guardian article last week. It's very entertaining. The best bits sound are quite call and responsey and sound like an orc army starting to attack. May not be for everyone!
Vedan Kolod - Russian folk. A bit more trad than Otava Yo, who I love and who are my reference point for Russian folk. Still good.
Whitney K - another big new talent. Canadian singer-songwriter who does a laidback take on some sort of indie-country thing, sort of indie stonericana. Reminds me a bit of early Pavement crossed with Lou Reed. Highly recommended!
Animal Collective - a soundtrack album for an indie film called Crestone (about a group of stoner rappers living in the desert, apparently). It's quite ambient and has quite short tracks. Worth a listen but not immediately in classic territory
4 Mars - thanks to @chunkylover53 for pointing this one out. It's Somali in origin and combines east African sounds with Arabic instruments. Really good. Apparently, they were the house band for Djibouti's ruling party at one point.
That’s great. But what’s your album of the week?
 
Volume One by Speed Stick is a really interesting listen. I think it came out last week. 80% is what I'd probably call post-rock or shoegazey, mainly instrumental, with repetitive drums and distorted guitar. Some synthy. A couple of songs have impenetrable vocals (Kelley Deal is on one of them), good stuff, and then there are 2 random tracks, one a little catchy indie ditty, and one an 80s-sounding rap song, both of which confused me a bit.

Social Haul's debut single, Wet Eyes, is on Bandcamp today - pretty decent. It's another post-punk slightly talky delivery, though more toward the singing end of that spectrum than most of the recent stuff.
 
Anyone else vaguely hopeful the second half of the year may be a cracker for albums given no one has toured/done anything else for a year?

If so, who do you (realistically) want? I’d love a new Radiohead/Thom record, Nick Cave (in progress apparently), Parquet Courts, Low, Joanna Newsom and GY!BE
 
Anyone else vaguely hopeful the second half of the year may be a cracker for albums given no one has toured/done anything else for a year?

If so, who do you (realistically) want? I’d love a new Radiohead/Thom record, Nick Cave (in progress apparently), Parquet Courts, Low, Joanna Newsom and GY!BE

Must be due a new PJ Harvey album at some point.

Edit: Kendrick Lamar and Father John Misty, too.
 
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Anyone else vaguely hopeful the second half of the year may be a cracker for albums given no one has toured/done anything else for a year?

If so, who do you (realistically) want? I’d love a new Radiohead/Thom record, Nick Cave (in progress apparently), Parquet Courts, Low, Joanna Newsom and GY!BE
Sarah Shook and the Disarmers are due one, their whole recording process was derailed with Covid last year.

Ben Lee has moved back to Australia and started gigging again, sharing articles on social media about him having been away from the Australian charts etc so I suspect he might go back to his roots and give us an album of 2 minute pop songs.

Ben Folds spent most of last year holed up in an apartment writing new music

I suspect we might see a new King Gizzard record or 2.
 
Anyone else vaguely hopeful the second half of the year may be a cracker for albums given no one has toured/done anything else for a year?

If so, who do you (realistically) want? I’d love a new Radiohead/Thom record, Nick Cave (in progress apparently), Parquet Courts, Low, Joanna Newsom and GY!BE
I’d love a new Joanna Newsom record! Hopefully a tour as well (ideally the sage again)

Must be well overdue a los campesinos album by now too
 
Anyone else vaguely hopeful the second half of the year may be a cracker for albums given no one has toured/done anything else for a year?

If so, who do you (realistically) want? I’d love a new Radiohead/Thom record, Nick Cave (in progress apparently), Parquet Courts, Low, Joanna Newsom and GY!BE
Yes, been having the same chat with the missus. It's bound to have been a great opportunity for artists to sit and spend time working on new ideas without the tour, record, tour, record pressure they're usually under.

Been 2 years for Twilight Sad and 3 for Jetpacks, so those would be welcome in this house. Also been 1.5 years since Frank Turner, but that was all stuff he'd written and recorded a few years earlier, so he's due, though I wasn't keen on his last proper album. Keep hoping for a new There Will Be Fireworks, but it's probably unlikely - they occasionally tease, but the last was a studio photo, summer of '19. Skinny Lister seem active on social, and I'll be looking forward to the Dinosaur Jr. Editors maybe. Los Campesinos! I'm sure there are plenty others I'd like.
 
Yes, been having the same chat with the missus. It's bound to have been a great opportunity for artists to sit and spend time working on new ideas without the tour, record, tour, record pressure they're usually under.

Been 2 years for Twilight Sad and 3 for Jetpacks, so those would be welcome in this house. Also been 1.5 years since Frank Turner, but that was all stuff he'd written and recorded a few years earlier, so he's due, though I wasn't keen on his last proper album. Keep hoping for a new There Will Be Fireworks, but it's probably unlikely - they occasionally tease, but the last was a studio photo, summer of '19. Skinny Lister seem active on social, and I'll be looking forward to the Dinosaur Jr. Editors maybe. Los Campesinos! I'm sure there are plenty others I'd like.
I'm pretty sure that they are aiming to release an album prior to their Autumn UK tour.
 
Would love to hear something new from The Horrors (had a new single out apparently but that had passed me by), Bill Ryder-Jones, Snail Mail and as previously mentioned Parquet Courts and Los Camp.

Looking forward to Self Esteem’s new record in the next quarter.

Also, I can’t remember if I’ve mentioned but I’ve been relistening to Thundercat’s record. Wonderful IMO
 
As often happens on the final Friday of the month, there's a bumper crop of new albums tomorrow. Releases from Alice Cooper, Architects, Blanck Mass, Cloud Nothings, Julien Baker, Kyle Edward Connolly, Lost Horizons, Lydia Luce, Maximo Park, Melvins, Neil Young & Crazy Horse (an archival live album, I think), NOFX, Willie Nelson (Sinatra covers), Karima Walker, A Winged Victory For The Sullen, Francois & the Atlas Mountains, Brijean, Richard Barbieri, Jimmy Edgar, Cheval Sombre, Mouse On Mars, Mapstation, Xixa and The Martha's Vineyard Ferries.
 

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