STAFF PICKS

kimber – marc lanegan
lindsay – spoon
dario – spoon, jennylee
jeff – badly drawn boy

 

THIS WEEK’S NEW RELEASES

 

Badly Drawn BoyThe Hour Of The Bewilderbeast [Reissue/2000] 2xCD (XL)
When The Hour Of Bewilderbeast was originally released in 2000, it was met with critical acclaim and won the Mercury Prize that year. The album is both ambitious and extremely entertaining and while it’s not a traditional pop album, it’s a continually beguiling trip through lo-fi postmodern folk, drawing as much from Harry Nilsson as it does Beck. This 15th Anniversary reissue features a disc containing 16 bonus tracks. Vinyl editions due January 22.


Neil Finn + Paul KellyGoin’ Your Way 2xCD (Omnivore)
Two of Australia and New Zealand’s best-selling and most revered singer/songwriters, Neil Finn and Paul Kelly, toured their home country together in 2013. Their performance at the Sydney Opera House is presented on Goin’ Your Way (which was released in 2013 in Australia and is now available for the first time in the US). The set features 29 tracks on two CDs, including staples like Kelly’s “To Her Door” and “Before Too Long” and Finn’s “She Will Have Her Way” and “Sinner.”


GrimesArt Angels CD/LP+MP3 (4AD)
“Some artists use alter egos to protect their private selves from their performative ones; others use their personas to become more themselves than they ever could be without an audience. Grimes, the chimera puppeted by Canadian producer Claire Boucher, falls in the latter camp. Her art, her fashion, her music, and her personality appear seamless across the channels where she’s chosen to display them. Grimes is a maximized self, sparkling, mutable, and inexhaustibly alive. Her fourth album, Art Angels, is simultaneously her most accessible and her least personal body of work. You could trace lines into Boucher’s own narratives in the ragged edges of her first three LPs; you could find the details of her hurt and fold them into your own hurt. But Art Angels is pure Grimes — performative, maximalist, joyful, and broad. [A-]” – Consequence Of Sound


jennylee right on! CD/LP+MP3 (Rough Trade)
“Her inventive bass playing grounds Warpaint’s lush, painterly compositions, so it’s little wonder that Jenny Lee Lindberg (aka jennylee)’s first solo album, right on!, is both spacious and intimate. More focused than the last Warpaint record, right on! is subtle, with the softness and density of cashmere. It owes quite a bit to ’80s and ’90s goth-leaning college rock but thankfully never feels like a direct tracing thereof. It’s a good record for the winter, reflecting long nights, and the search for comfort and safety, the desire to wrap ourselves in layers.” – Pitchfork


Edith PiafIntégrale 1915-2015 20xCD+10” (Rhino/Parlophone)
This 21-disc box set includes rare recording sessions, rehearsals, a 1962 interview with Piaf, and classic live performances at the Paris Olympia in 1955, 1958, 1961 and 1962, at the New York Carnegie Hall in 1956 and 1957 and at the Paris Bobino in 1963. Also included is a deluxe 30-page book featuring a new biography, various photos and three emblematic scenes from Edith Piaf’s life re-created in pop-up.


Spoon Gimme Fiction [Deluxe Edition/Reissue/2005] 2xCD+MP3/2xLP+MP3 (Merge)
Gimme Fiction dragged the sonic pointillism of Kill The Moonlight further into dub-influenced weirdness as the increasingly confident Spoon went crazy in the studio, experimenting with everything from warped hip-hop samples to horse whinnies. How all this directionless Dylan worship and psychedelic goofing resulted in an album as sharply realized as Gimme Fiction is a testament solely to Spoon’s self-assurance and tastefulness (and some hard work, and a bit of luck, etc.). This deluxe tenth anniversary edition includes a second disc with 12 previously unreleased demos from the era, nine additional bonus tracks via digital download, and a full-color book containing photos and an extensive oral history of the making of the album.


Ryan Adams1989 LP (Pax Americana/Blue Note)
Recently reissued on CD – now available on vinyl. Produced by Adams, the first news of this reinterpretation of 1989 was revealed last month on the Grammy-nominated singer/songwriter’s Instagram with the post “Taylor Swift 1989 full album cover night 1. As played by the Smiths.” Several subsequent posts of song snippets revealed much more range than that including a take on “Bad Blood” that Vanity Fair called “a lovelyHeartbreaker-era style version” referencing Adams’ classic debut, a string quartet-enhanced version of “Blank Space,” what Adams promised to be the “guaranteed saddest version of ‘Welcome To New York’ ever — or your tears back,” and more.


Kurt CobainMontage Of Heck: The Home Recordings 2xLP (UMe)
Recently released on CD – now available on vinyl. This audio companion to the acclaimed film showcases tracks from the documentary including spoken word, demos and full songs. The soundtrack is comprised from various early and raw cassette recordings made by Kurt alone, the soundtrack allows a rare, unfiltered glimpse into Cobain’s creative progression from early song snippets and short demos to musical experiments and ultimately, pieces of songs or lyrics that eventually appeared on later Nirvana albums.


D’AngeloLive At The Jazz Cafe, London 2xLP (Virgin)
Live album by the R&B and neo soul musician. The original 1998 release only contained seven tracks; this vinyl edition contains the complete show for the first time. Now included are four unreleased performances — three of them covers of tracks originally by D’Angelo influences Mandrill, Ohio Players and Al Green — plus a longer version of “Lady.”


FKA TwigsM3LL155X 12” (XL)
M3LL155X is a continuation of the holistic creative process that FKA Twigs has undertaken on each of her previous EP releases (EP1 and EP2), with videos forming an integral part of the release. However, M3LL155X is more ambitious than ever before and, in terms of concept, scope and execution.


Jamie XX Loud Places (feat. Romy) 12” (XL)
Four club-ready reworks of Jamie xx’s “Loud Places (feat. Romy”) taken from the UK producer’s debut album In Color. On the A- side, Young Turks affiliate John Talabot adds his trademark melodic take on disco and house while UK producer Tessela, known for his hard hitting 12″s on legendary techno label R&S, goes darker and tougher. On the B-side, Barnt adds another layer of melancholy while UK legend Matthew Herbert, under his Herbert moniker, makes a surreal and experimental revision.


Killing Joke Pylon 2xLP (Spinefarm)
Recently released on CD – now available on vinyl. 16th studio album by the veteran British post-punk outfit fronted by Jaz Coleman and backed by the original lineup. Pylonisn’t for a quiet night at home; these 10 tracks, produced by the band and Tom Dalgety (Royal Blood) are very much music as ritual — raw, uncompromising and targeted lyrically.


Mark Lanegan One Way Street 6xLP+MP3 (Sub Pop)
This set compiles the first five solo albums recorded by Mark Lanegan, the Pacific-Northwest singer/songwriter known for his work with Screaming Trees, Gutter Twins, Mad Season, Queens Of The Stone Age, Isobel Campbell, and more. Includes: The Winding Sheet (1990), Whiskey For The Holy Ghost (1993), Scraps At Midnight (1998),I’ll Take Care Of You (1999), and Field Songs (2001). HQ-180gm vinyl, each packaged in sleeves reproducing the original artwork.


Cass McCombsA Folk Set Apart LP+MP3 (Domino)
The Cass McCombs’ anthology, A Folk Set Apart, is subtitled Rarities, B-Sides & Space Junk, Etc. which is, on the surface, true but it’s so much more than that. It’s an alternate retelling of the last decade and a half of an enigmatic career built on immaculate songwriting but short on “breakthrough success.” While it contains none of McCombs’ better known songs from his seven full-lengths, he would have you believe this is his favorite album. CD version due next week.


Gary Numan – The Pleasure Principle [Reissue/1979] LP (Beggars Banquet)
Tubeway Army – Replicas [Reissue/1979] LP (Beggars Banquet)
Gary Numan – Telekon [Reissue/1980] 2xLP (Beggars Banquet)
Essential Gary Numan titles back in print on vinyl. Gary Anthony James Webb started his musical career in 1977 as a punk rocker in the band Mean Street, before being sacked in May 1977 for being “too creative.” He responded to an advert in Melody Maker to join the band The Lasers, alongside Paul Gardiner. Both soon left to form their own punk band, Tubeway Army, with his uncle Jess Lidyard filling in on drums. In 1978 Tubeway Army was signed to Beggars Banquet and released a couple of punk singles. By then he was using the name Numan and the band was performing live in pubs and clubs around London, supporting The Lurkers. Whilst recording demos for Beggars, Gary stumbled upon a Minimoog that had been left behind in the studio, still programmed to a sound that caught his attention. The rest, as they say, is history.


Christopher OwensChrissybaby Forever 2xLP (Turnstile Music)
Third solo album from the former Girls frontman. Chryissybabby Forever is the follow-up to last year’s A New Testament. The sixteen-track LP was co-produced, engineered, and mixed by JJ Wiesler. The cover photograph is by Hannah Hunt (of Vampire Weekend fame), who the album is dedicated to.


The PharcydeLabcabincalifornia [Reissue/1995] 2xLP (Bicycle Music)
Repressed in time for its 20th anniversary.”If Labcabincalifornia came out today, boasting production by J Dilla on seven out of 17 tracks would be a big deal” — Complex Magazine. “Labcabincalifornia is an artistic breakthrough, and because of the deep shift in hip-hop production in the last two decades, the timelessness of the album is more apparent than ever.” — Treble Music’s Induction of Labcabincalifornia into their Hall Of Fame. “Years ahead of its time for a scene still hung over from The Chronic,Labcabincalifornia was an underappreciated album that would almost certainly have fared better amidst the alt-rap renaissance of 1999.” — Rap Reviews


Earl SweatshirtDoris [2013] LP (Sony)
Earl SweatshirtI Don’t Like Sh!t, I Don’t Go Outside [2015] LP (Columbia)
Vinyl pressings of the first two albums by the rapper, producer and member of the Los Angeles-based hip-hop collective Odd Future. I Don’t Like Sh!t, I Don’t Go Outsideincludes collaborations with Dash, Wiki, Na’kel and Vince Staples. “At just 10 songs in a half-hour, I Don’t Like Sh!t is surprisingly concise — even if it’s sometimes dark and paranoid enough to make There’s a Riot Goin’ On sound like the Three’s Companytheme. And who needs more? Even a half-hour with Earl is enough to leave you with a lifetime of creepy memories.” – Rolling Stone

 

NEXT WEEK’S NEW RELEASES
CAGE THE ELEPHANT – Tell Me I’m Pretty CD/LP
AVETT BROTHERS – Live Vol Four CD
KID CUDI – Speedin Bullet To Heaven CD
BARONESS – Purple LP
CLUTCH – Psychic Warfare LP
THE FLAMING LIPS – Heady Nuggs LP
DAVE DAHAN + SOULSAVERS – Angels + Ghosts LP
THE GET UP KIDS – Four Minute Mile LP reissue
HUM – You’d Prefer An Astronaut LP reissue
MODERN BASEBALL – Nameless Ranger LP
TINARIWEN – Live In Paris LP

Category

New Releases

Tags

, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,