My regular summary of this week's new and newish releases I've listened to. It's a solid week:
Gruff Rhys: cracking single. Warped elongated "a side" and ambient, psychedelic "b side".
King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard: more of a one track mini-album than a single. Bounces around genres and sums them up in a song.
Star Party: short, snappy, punkier end of the C86 things. Pleasingly lo-fi.
Tanya Tagaq: she's gone from Inuit folk to noisy arthouse sound experiments. Reminds me a little of the Moor Mother records, but not.
Yin Yin: the mix of dance and worldy stuff that made their debut exceptional but not quite as good.
Jenny Hval: exceptionally good, as per usual. She's moved to a point where she's almost mainstream.
Alex Cameron: back on form after a blip. Witty as ever and hook laden. A charmer! This week's Jason Williamson guest spot occurs here.
Kee Avil: arthouse indie rock. Intriguing.
Bodega: they continue to perfect their formula, lying somewhere between B-52s and Parquet Courts. This is a very strong album indeed.
The Boo Radleys: back after however many years minus Martin Carr. It's a nice album but won't change your world.
Jeremy Ivey: I like this. Toward the less countryish end of Americana essentially.
Pan American: ambient Americana. Instrumental guitar tunes, a llttle ambient post-rockish.
Widowspeak: pleasantly woozy psych-indie. I like them.
Samana: much loved by Guy Garvey. Sort of folkish, filmic singer-songwriter type stuff.
Franz Ferdinand: their career spanning best of. All the hits and more. They're a very good pop band.
The Districts: a good, solid American indie rock album. They're a band that defines solid and this is solidly solid.
Album of the week: probably just Jenny Hval, pushed by Bodega and Tanya Tagaq.
There are new albums tomorrow from Babeheaven, Charli XCX, Mattiel, Midlake, Rosalia, Sonic Youth (unreleased material from 2000-2010), Yumi Zouma, Swamp Dogg, Pictish Trail and Jerry Leger. There's also a posthumous Phife Dawg album released on Tuesday.