April 7, 2017 — Stinkweeds
This Week’s New Releases & Staff Picks
Kimber- Father John Misty & The New Pornographers
Lindsay- The New Pornographers, Wire, & Timber Timbre
Dario- Timber Timbre &
Brittany- The New Pornographers, Wire, Timber Timbre, & Father John Misty
Arca – Arca CD (XL)
Arca is the first to feature the Venezuela-born, London-based producer’s untreated singing voice. He sings in Spanish – the language of his childhood home, Venezuela. It stands as a defiant, delicate statement of intent, and cements his position as one of this turbulent decade’s defining musicians. Previous work has incorporated snatches of song and Arca’s rapping, but on Arca, his voice is front-and-center on eight of the album’s 13 tracks. [Vinyl edition due May 5.]
Joey Bada$$ – All-AmeriKKKan Bada$$ CD/LP+MP3 (Cinematic Music Group)
The sophomore album from the Brooklyn emcee features guest appearances by ScHoolboy Q, J. Cole, Styles P, Meechy Darko Flatbush Zombies and members the Pro Era crew. A mix of indie and street, rapper Joey Bada$$ rose to fame by releasing mixtapes and joining the hip-hop collective Pro Era with fellow MC Capital Steez. Born in the East Flatbush section of Brooklyn, Joey began performing under the name JayOhVee, but changed it to Joey Bada$$ before the Pro Era crew signed to the Cinematic Music label in 2012. “With his sophomore album, a new sound and a clearer outlook on the problems of the world around him, Joey Bada$$ is ready for the next level. All-AmeriKKKan Bada$$ addresses social conflict with an astuteness that recalls J. Cole and Kendrick Lamar, two rappers who also broke through half a decade ago. Songs like the ironically-titled lead single ‘Land Of The Free,’ defiantly hopeful “For My People’ and the call to arms of album-closer ‘AmeriKKKan Idol’ straddle the line between justified anger and practical resistance, laying out a world view that is more balanced than reactionary.” – Billboard
C.F.M. – Dichotomy Desaturated CD/LP (In The Red)
Trust is hard, but trusting yourself is harder. Are the decisions you make the right ones? Is it worth taking risks if there’s no one around to talk you out of it? Is it brave to follow your arrow without knowing where that arrow will lead, or is it better to exercise caution? L.A. punk shredder Charles Moothart wrestled with some of these quandaries while making his second solo album under the CFM moniker, Dichotomy Desaturated. The Laguna Beach-raised Moothart first picked up a guitar at 12 years old and got behind the drum kit for the Moonhearts at the age of 16 with fellow Cali six-string ripper Mikal Cronin. Since then, the 27-year-old journeyman has become a fixture in the West Coast community: he’s logged oodles of studio and stage time with Cronin and Ty Segall-both on his solo albums and as part of the ultra-heavy supergroup Fuzz, the latter experience driving him to make music on his own.
Clark – Death Peak CD/LP (Warp)
Sixteen years since his debut and eight albums later, a now rightly considered cornerstone of Warp’s core artist base, Clark, lines up what is sure to amount to his most cutting edge and immaculately scored vision of varied dancefloor dynamics and richly-ground techno hydraulics with the high-rise hypnotics that make up Death Peak. Having first appeared way back in 2001 with the brain-hammering Clarence Park album, Chris Clark (as he was then known) instantly slotted in perfectly with both the old and new artists that made up the cutting-edge Warp vanguard. While his music, at times reflected a strong influence bled in from the caustic industrial puzzles of Autechre and the analogue post-jungle crunch of AFX and Squarepusher, Clark melted these influences down into a concrete vat that carried a strong influence of out and out techno. Having had the album title in his head since summer last year, Death Peak sounds a lot like you might imagine it would, albeit in your wildest hopes and dreams, given its serious title. Truly an incredible and starkly visceral series of recordings, Clark appears to take a strong influence from the battered 12”s of mid- ‘90s warehouse techno and drum & bass that litter so many of our collections, yet mixes them with the ethereal electronics and library record exploration previously unheard from him.
Cold War Kids – LA Divine CD/LP (Capitol)
On their sixth album LA Divine, Cold War Kids pay tribute to Los Angeles and all its strange glory. The follow-up to 2014’s Hold My Home, Cold War Kids’ latest is slightly tongue-in-cheek in its title. “In many ways LA is the least divine city, the most hedonistic and irreverent and disconnected from history,” says Cold War Kids singer/guitarist/pianist Nathan Willett. Still, LA Divine embodies the Long Beach-bred band’s endless fascination with their adopted hometown. “LA’s so massive, I feel like I’m always finding something new in it,” says bassist Matt Maust. “It’s an incredibly weird place, and I’m happy to have made a record that totally honors that weirdness.” With its sonic palette inspired by everything from Frank Ocean’s Blonde to Florence & The Machine to Alabama Shakes, LA Divine merges artful, hook-minded production with Cold War Kids’ classic post-punk grit. And in his lyrics, Willett offers both raw vulnerability and layered complexity, bringing his heart-on-sleeve sensibilities to songs exploring long-lasting love. [Limited purple color vinyl pressing also available.]
Andrew Combs – Canyons Of My Mind CD (New West)
Dallas native Andrew Combs, for years regarded as one of the more promising young singers and songwriters in Music City, has inked a deal with New West Records. Combs’ maiden album for the label, Canyons Of My Mind, is an 11-song set that was produced by Skylar Wilson and Jordan Lehning and recorded at Battle Tapes Studio in East Nashville. “Canyons Of My Mind is a collection of songs, all put together, that embodies the idea of a young man growing older. The album consists of the customary songs about lost love and travel, but also hits on more mature issues, such as environmental awareness, spirituality, mental illness, and political exploitation. Taking on a more introspective and controlling role in the writing and recording process, I dug deep inside my own heart and mind to create what I think is a good illustration of a man becoming more comfortable in his own skin” — Andrew Combs. [Vinyl edition due April 21.]
James Luther Dickinson Featuring North Mississippi Allstars – I’m Just Dead, I’m Not Gone: Lazarus Edition CD/LP+MP3 (Memphis Int’l)
When Jim Dickinson died on August 15, 2009 at the age of 67, his hometown paper, The Memphis Commercial Appeal, ran a lengthy, appreciative obituary chronicling his many achievements and credits. The lead read “The North Mississippi Allstars have lost their father, Bob Dylan has lost a ‘brother,’ rock and roll has lost one of its great cult heroes and Memphis has lost a musical icon with the death of Jim Dickinson.” I’m Just Dead, I’m Not Gone (Lazarus Edition) is the second album culled from his Friday, June 2, 2006 concert on the stage of the New Daisy Theater on Beale Street. This edition includes unreleased tracks from that live recording and two historical live tracks featuring legendary Sun Records rhythm section band members including Roland Janes, Stan Kessler, Cowboy Jack Clement, Billy Lee Riley and J.M. Van Eaton.
Diet Cig – Swear I’m Good At This CD/LP (Frenchkiss)
Diet Cig are here to have fun. They’re here to tear you away from the soul-sucking sanctity of your dumpster-fire life and replace it with pop-blessed punk jams about navigating the impending doom of adulthood when all you want is to have ice-cream on your birthday. “Diet Cig earned our Band To Watch designation by virtue of their charmingly approachable and insightful rudimentary songcraft and their infectious live presence, exemplified on their Over Easy EP and a pair of singles, ‘Dinner Date’ and ‘Sleep Talk.’ And now, after two years of relentless touring, they’ve released their debut album Swear I’m Good At This. The first single, ‘Tummy Ache,’ is a tune that takes their formula — a few chords, a catchy melody, some reflections on the thrills and frustrations of young bohemian life — and coheres it into something sharper and fuller.” – Stereogum
Karen Elson – Double Roses CD/LP+MP3 (HOT)
First new album in seven years from the English singer/songwriter and model. Double Roses includes collaborations with Patrick Carney (The Black Keys), Father John Misty, Pat Sansone (Wilco), Benmont Tench (Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers), Laura Marling, Nate Wolcott, Paul Cartwright, and Dhani Harrison. [Limited white with smoky black swirl color vinyl edition also available.]
Father John Misty – Pure Comedy CD/2xLP+MP3/Cassette (Sub Pop)
Father John Misty is the brainchild of singer-songwriter Josh Tillman. Tillman has released two widely acclaimed albums – Fear Fun (2012) and I Love You, Honeybear (2015) – and the recent “Real Love Baby” single as Father John Misty, and recently contributed to songs by Beyoncé, Lady Gaga, and Kid Cudi. Pure Comedy, his third album, is a complex, often sardonic, and, equally often, touching meditation on the confounding folly of modern humanity. “Joshua Michael Tillman, a.k.a. sentient-thinking emoji Father John Misty, recently performed two songs on Saturday Night Live that questioned two of the bedrocks of Western civilization: entertainment and religion. ‘Total Entertainment Forever’ and ‘Pure Comedy,’ both from Pure Comedy, are thought-provoking, tongue-in-cheek criticisms of societal opiates. Given the state of American political discourse right now, Tillman’s booking on late night’s premier stage — which typically hosts musicians much more popular than the Los Angeles-based songwriter — was a clear message from the SNL staff bookers.” – NPR
Fujiya and Miyagi – Fujiya and Miyagi CD (Impossible Objects Of Desire)
April 2017 sees Fujiya and Miyagi wrapping up a unique year-long musical project that represents one of their most adventurous to date. EP3 joins the previous two to make up this album, a carefully staged project that sees the group traverse disco, electro, pop, and the now synonymous 1970s Germany-inspired groove they so seamlessly ooze. For album number six, the result is one that simultaneously captures the fizzy energy, elongated jams and melodic intuition of previous releases, whilst still cracking un-trodden ground. [Vinyl edition due May 5.]
Future Islands – The Far Field CD/LP+MP3/Cassette (4AD)
With string and horn arrangements by Patrick McMinn, The Far Field is the first Future Islands record to feature live drums by Michael Lowry, who joined the band prior to their sensational performance of “Seasons (Waiting On You)” on David Letterman’s late night TV show. Blondie’s Debbie Harry also makes a guest appearance, in a duet with Herring on penultimate track “Shadows.” Across The Far Field’s twelve chest-pounding love songs and odes to the road, Future Islands brilliantly expresses the band’s central themes they’ve been exploring for the last decade: that there is power in emotional vulnerability, that one can find a way to laugh and cry in the same breath – and be stronger for it. [Limited white color vinyl pressing available.]
Gonjasufi – Mandela Effect CD/LP (Warp)
A versatile collection of remixes, covers and original music from Gonjasufi and his people. It’s a scientific concept of false memories compounding upon themselves, creating false truths. The term was coined after a collective ‘misremembering’ of Nelson Mandela’s death in prison in the 1980’s. Mandela Effect features contributions from the likes of Shabazz Palaces, Daddy G of Massive Attack, Anna Wise, Moor Mother, Innsyter, Ras G, Perera Elsewhere and a slew of his San Diego brethren.
Guided By Voices – August By Cake CD/LP (GBV Inc.)
Guided by Voices’ August By Cake is the one hundredth studio album that Robert Pollard has released since 1986’s Forever Since Breakfast. (To put that in perspective, Bob Dylan has released roughly thirty-nine studio albums since 1959. And that includes the Traveling Wilburys.) This is a highly-anticipated record, which includes the new line-up (returning GBV veterans Doug Gillard and Kevin March, virgins Bobby Bare Jr and Mark Shue) that has been wowing audience in clubs and festivals throughout 2016. It’s the most musically adept and versatile line-up Pollard has ever assembled. With thirty-two songs, this album is also GBV’s first ever double album, and song contributions from all five band members is additional icing on the cake, setting album #100 apart from the previous 99.
The New Pornographers – Whiteout Conditions CD/LP (Concord)
“Cohesive.” It’s a word New Pornographers founder A.C. Newman still sounds a little bit surprised to say as he describes the band’s seventh album, Whiteout Conditions. It’s a quality that you wouldn’t necessarily intuitively associate with a so-called supergroup that, by its very collective nature, seems bound to have a good deal of stylistic variance built into the formula (or lack of it). Can an outfit built on the appeal of multiple frontmen and frontwomen develop a signature sound after all? Maybe, and maybe better late than never. “On other records,” says Newman, “it felt like sometimes it was very clear: oh, this is a fast one with me singing, and then the next would be a slow song with Neko (Case) singing. And I’ve always liked that in a White Albumkind of way – being a band that just does whatever the hell they want from track to track. But when we did Brill Bruisers (the band’s previous album, released in 2014), it was the first time where I thought: Let’s try to make a cohesive record. Let’s try to give it a sound and see how focused we can make it. And on this record, I think we went a lot farther down that road.” [Limited white color vinyl pressing also available.]
The Obsessed – Sacred CD/LP (Relapse)
Doom godfathers The Obsessed return with Sacred, their first studio album in over 20 years. Led by legendary frontman Scott “Wino” Weinrich (Saint Vitus, Spirit Caravan, The Hidden Hand), The Obsessed originally formed in 1976 and released three seminal stoner/doom albums in the early- ‘90s, including The Church Within which has been hailed as one of the important records in the genre’s history. Now, after reforming in 2016, the band showcases a renewed energy and purpose, sounding heavier and more relevant than ever before. On Sacred, The Obsessed double down on enormous, heaving riffs and pummeling low-end across 12 tracks of eternal doom. [Limited color vinyl pressing also available.]
San Fermin – Belong CD/2xLP (Downtown)
San Fermin’s third studio album marks a shift in songwriting perspective for bandleader Ellis Ludwig-Leone. Produced by Ludwig-Leone and brought to life by his fellow performers – lead vocalists Charlene Kaye and Allen Tate, trumpet player John Brandon, saxophonist Stephen Chen, violinist Rebekah Durham, drummer Michael Hanf, and guitarists Tyler McDiarmid and Aki Ishiguro – Belong unfolds in warm, intoxicating textures that both contrast and intensify that sense of unrest.
Timber Timbre – Sincerely, Future Pollution CD/LP (City Slang)
Timber Timbre’s music has always traced a shadowed path, using cues of the past to fuse the sound of a distant, haunted now. Its fourth record, Sincerely, Future Pollution, is the cinema of a dazzling dystopia, rattled by the science fiction of this bluntly nonfictional time. Taylor Kirk and co-composers Mathieu Charbonneau and Simon Trottier, together with drummer Olivier Fairfield, offer their most daring artistic work yet. With the palette of archetypal synthesizers at La Frette studio outside Paris, the long-time collaborators took a unique approach to Timber Timbre’s characteristic sonic invention. The first single, “Sewer Blues,” is an ironclad groove marked by plodding, heavy rhythm, cavernous delay, and a backdrop of starry synthesizers. Sincerely, Future Pollution is a romance of neoteric machines and dark, futuristic hues, with promise as beautiful as it is unsettling. Covering a spectrum of new age to popular French disco revival, the sound is synthetic, exotic, yet familiar, with Kirk’s chilling croon and the mid-apocalyptic setting of his poetry. This is Timber Timbre’s document of our generation’s degeneration and disarray: Signed and sealed. [Limited clear vinyl pressing available.]
The Weeks – Easy CD/LP (Lightning Rod)
Rising Nashville-via-Mississippi band The Weeks recorded their new album Easy over the course of two weeks at Memphis, TN’s Ardent Studios with producer Paul Ebersold. The band left Nashville to record in order to disassociate themselves from their everyday routines in the city, and to find a halfway point between their two homes old and new, Mississippi and Nashville. “Memphis has always been the capitol of North Mississippi to us,” says guitarist Sam Williams. “We went there to be at Ardent. We knew Paul had learned everything from John Frye and John Hammond so we figured that was the spot. It’s important to keep those historic studios alive and not let them become museums.” Of the record, frontman Cyle Barnes says, “We called it Easybecause every time I make music with these guys, it’s easy. It feels good.” Thematically, Easy explores new ground for the band. Bassist Damien Bone explains, “We just wanted to make a rock record. We weren’t as concerned making it a southern rock record. The southern thing is always going to part of what we do.”
Wire – Silver/Lead CD/LP (Pink Flag)
Silver/Lead is the fifteenth studio album from musical pioneers Wire. It arrives on the 40th anniversary of their debut performance. Yet it’s about as far from nostalgia as you could get. This is the sound of a uniquely addictive 21st century psychedelic post-punk. Colin Newman and Matt Simms’s guitar work is alternately jagged and luminous, while bassist Graham Lewis’s ear-catching lyrics are vivid yet oblique. Meanwhile, drummer Robert Grey provides a virtual masterclass in percussive minimalism
Coming next week. …..
CHRIS SHIFLETT – West Coast Town CD
LITTLE HURRICANE – Same Sun Same Moon CD/LP
JULIAN LAGE + CHRIS ELDRIDGE – Mount Royal LP
JOHN MARTYN – LP reissues
MILKY CHANCE – Blossom LP
SMOKEY + MIHO – Two Eps LP
LILLIE MAE – Forever and Then Some CD?LP