December 2, 2016 —

This Week’s New Releases & Staff Picks – 12/2/16

STAFF PICKS

kimber – damien jurado & richard swift
lindsay – c duncan, piers faccini
dario – the magnetic fields
jeff – telefon tel aviv
dominic – mia

THIS WEEK’S NEW RELEASES
Kate Bush – Before The Dawn 3xCD/4xLP (Concord)
This three-act show contains many well-known Kate Bush songs along with two song suites: “The Ninth Wave” from Hounds Of Love and “A Sky of Honey,” from Aerial. The New York Times called the performance “Dense, cathartic and physical.” NME concluded: “It is no ordinary artist that can tackle life, death, synchronicity, identity, spiritual transformation, empathy and the chaos of relationships with idiosyncratic ease in the space of a few hours,” and the UK’s Independent gushed, “Undoubtedly the most ambitious, and genuinely moving piece of theatrical pop ever seen on a British stage.”
 
Childish Gambino – Awaken, My Love! CD (Glassnote)
In a recent interview with Billboard, 33-year-old rapper Childish Gambino (Donald Glover) explained the overall feel of his new album, Awaken, My Love!, was sourced from childhood memories of listening to his father’s favorite music. “I remember listening to songs my dad would play – albums by the Isleys or Funkadelic – and not understanding the feeling I was feeling,” Gambino says. “I remember hearing a Funkadelic scream and being like, ‘Wow, that’s sexual and it’s scary.’ Not having a name for that, though; just having a feeling. That’s what made it great.” Gambino went on to say he approached Awaken as “an exercise in just feeling and tone.” He also summarized how some people felt in the 1970s and compares it to what’s going on around the world today. “It felt like people were trying to get out of their minds, with all the things that were happening – and that are happening right now,” Gambino said. “How do you start a global revolution, really? Is that possible with the systems we’ve set up? There’s something about that ’70s black music that felt like they were trying to start a revolution.”
 
The Clean – Getaway [Reissue/2001] 2xCD/2xLP+CD (Merge)
2001’s Getaway may be the best illustration of whatever mercurial, inexplicable musical power animates The Clean. After the band’s initial rush of activity between 1978 and 1982, the trio lay dormant until the end of the ’80s, when a string of reunion shows inspired the Kilgours and Scott to start recording again. After three well-received albums in the first half of the nineties—1990’s Vehicle, 1994’s Modern Rock, and 1996’s Unknown Country—The Clean disappeared again until the end of the decade, when another tour inspired another record. This reissue includes the rare 2003 album Syd’s Pink Wiring System, along with the more experimental, piano-driven EP Slush Fund, from the same era.
 

Bob Dylan – The Royal Albert Hall 1966 Concert 2xCD (Legacy)
For decades, Bob Dylan’s performance in Manchester, England was incorrectly labeled. Now, for the first time, The Real Royal Albert Hall 1966 Concert!, originally recorded for a live album by CBS Records, is finally available (this show is also included in the massive 1966 Live Recordings box set). Dylan is accompanied on these recordings by Robbie Robertson (guitar), Rick Danko (bass, backing vocals), Richard Manuel (piano), Garth Hudson (organ) and Mickey Jones (drums). These recordings put a fiery exclamation point on Dylan’s great mid- ‘60s creative epoch that produced — in an 18-month span — Bringing It All Back Home, Highway 61 Revisited and Blonde On Blonde, the trilogy of album masterpieces which secured Dylan’s reputation as a songwriter and performer of unprecedented depth, power and originality while significantly impacting the course of popular music and culture. These concert recordings from the same period document Dylan’s evolution as an on-stage phenomenon whose transformative vision saw no limits.
 
Damien Jurado & Richard Swift – Other People’s Songs Volume One CD (Secretly Canadian)
Over the weekend of August 21-22, 2010, not long after Damien Jurado and Richard Swift first collaborated to produce Damien’s 2010 record, Saint Bartlett, the pair hunkered down with a 4-track recorder and one Coles 4038 ribbon microphone to record a collection of cover songs that run the gamut from John Denver to Chubby Checker to Kraftwerk. The timing was perfect. On Other People’s Songs Volume One, we can see the scaffolding of what would become a creative turning point for the pair — later seen with the release of Damien Jurado’s Maraqopa, the first record in his Maraqopa trilogy — less than two years later.
 

The Rolling Stones – Blue & Lonesome CD/2xLP+MP3 (Interscope)
The Rolling Stones first studio album in a decade, Blue & Lonesome was recorded in just three days in London, England. The album takes the band back to their roots and the passion for blues music, which has always been at the heart and soul of their sound. [Available in Regular and Deluxe editions. Deluxe edition adds postcard prints and a 75-page hardcover mini-book chronicling the making of the album.]


Soviet Soviet – Endless CD/LP (Felte)
Italian trio Soviet Soviet take a broad view of the post-punk genre, ignoring timestamps and geographic restrictions to assemble a specimen uniquely theirs. Endless, Soviet Soviet’s proper sophomore album, is the result of a very long, well thought out process marked by experimentation and innovation yet still tied to their instinctive style of interpreting and performing music.


Beck – Odelay [Reissue/1996] LP+MP3 (Interscope)
Beck – Sea Change [Reissue/2002] LP+MP3 (Interscope)
Beck – Guero [Reissue/2005] LP+MP3 (Interscope)
Vinyl reissues of Beck’s second, seventh, and eighth albums.


Erasure – Tomorrow’s World [2011] 2xLP (Mute)
Erasure – Snow Globe [2013] LP (Mute)
First-time vinyl editions now available.
 

The Joy Formidable – Hitch 2xLP (C’Mon Lets Drift)
Welsh trio The Joy Formidable return with their highly anticipated new album Hitch. Once described by Rolling Stone as “wickedly bracing and Himalaya-huge,” the fantastic live band went to work on their third studio album with one mission: to make sure their unique live performance and energy was captured on record. “We realized we needed to build a space and do it ourselves, go back to being three people in a room again” said Ritzy Bryan regarding the band’s decision to self-produce Hitch. Following suit with their decision to take the reigns on the record, The Joy Formidable chose to “work with people who feel as strong as we do about the music, who listen to albums, love the art and let that take control.” One such early supporter was the legendary Alan Moulder (The Killers, Nine Inch Nails, The Smashing Pumpkins) who mixed the album. The band states “on this album, we’ve been lucky enough to feel that same enthusiasm from everyone involved.”


The Magnetic Fields – Distant Plastic Trees/The Wayward Bus [1994] 2xLP+MP3 (Merge)
The Magnetic Fields spectacular first two albums (released in 1991 and 1992, respectively, and combined as a twofer on CD in 1994) have never been released on vinyl. That is, until now. Distant Plastic Trees, the Magnetic Fields’ first album, was originally released in England and Japan in 1991. To the amusement of frontman Stephin Merritt, who composed and recorded the album electronically with virtually no live instruments, Distant Plastic Trees was called “a contender for album of the year” by Folk Roots magazine. The second album, The Wayward Bus, features a plinky, orchestral sound in tribute to pop producer Phil Spector and his Wall of Sound. Both are essential.
 

MIA – AIM 2xLP (Interscope)
Released in September on CD – now available on vinyl. Fifth (and reportedly final) album from London-born, Sri Lankan-raised rapper Maya Arulpragasam. “It’s my last record so I wanted it to be happy. There’s no complains on it. [It’s] another side to me completely. I don’t know if people know [about] that.” “MIA’s always been an artist to make a point. But if this is her last action, then it’s an uncharacteristically blunt set of knives. Maya says she’s omitted the views on politics, gender, race and substituted them with warm thoughts and love.” – Loud And Quiet
 

Saint Motel – saintmotelevision LP (New Elektra)
Recently released on CD – now available on vinyl. Saint Motel is an American indie pop band from Los Angeles, whose music has been described as everything from “dream pop” to “indie prog”.


Telefon Tel Aviv – Fahrenheit Fair Enough [Reissue/2001] 2xLP (Ghostly International)
The late 1990s was a fertile time in the American electronic underground. At the convergence of hip-hop, electronic, and soul music, these artists sought to carve out their own lane. In September 2001, New Orleans’ Telefon Tel Aviv, high school friends Joshua Eustis and the late Charles Cooper, joined the conversation with their debut album, Fahrenheit Fair Enough, released by Hefty Records. A labor of love, Fahrenheit was an attempt by the pair “to contribute something meaningful” Eustis says today, “something definitely American, and kinda southern too.” Living in New Orleans in the late 1990s, Eustis and Cooper were in the thrall of two musical orbits: black America — New Orleans’ bounce, Detroit’s techno, Chicago’s house — and British electronica — Autechre, Aphex Twin, Jega. Recorded over the course of a year in Eustis’ childhood bedroom in the Riverbend neighborhood of New Orleans, Fahrenheit mapped out a potential for American electronic music in a time of hope.


NEXT WEEK’S NEW RELEASES

LEONARD COHEN – You Want It Darker LP
NEIL YOUNG – Peace Trail CD
ATMOSPHERE – Frida Kahlo Vs Ezra Pound CD/7″ box
KEITH HUDSON – Pick A Dub CD/12″
SUN RA – Singles CD/LP
BODY/HEAD – No Waves LP
DEAD CAN DANCE – Toward The Within LP
DWARVES – Invented Rock & Roll LP
DWARVES – Are Younger & Even Better Looking LP
FELICE BROS – Country Ham 7″
KLEENEX/LILIPUT – First Songs LP
NOUVELLE VAGUE – I Could Be Happy CD/LP
POSTER CHILDREN – Daisy Chain Reaction – LP
SENSES FAIL – Let It Enfold You LP
SENSES FAIL – Still Searching LP
TMBG – Phone Power LP
MAC MILLER – Divine Feminine LP
SOLANGE – Seat At The Table LP
LAST SHADOW PUPPETS – Dream Synopsis CD/12″