July 14, 2017 —

New Releases & Staff Picks 7/14/17

STAFF PICKS

Kimber – Tom Lo
Lindsay – Tom Lo & Japanese Breakfast
Dario – Shabazz Palaces & Six Organs of Admittance & William Tyler
Brittany- Waxahatchee

THIS WEEK’S NEW RELEASES

Boris – Dear CD/2xLP+MP3 (Sargent House)
In the 25th year of their existence Boris deliver an album they describe as “heavenly-far beyond heavy.” Though Boris has traversed a broad swath of sonic territories, they have always been consistent in their embracing of excess, pushing their myriad of approaches and stylistic forays to points of intoxicating absurdity.

Dasher – Sodium CD/LP+MP3 (Jagjaguwar)
After a string of well-received 7″ releases on labels like Suicide Squeeze and Die Slaughterhaus, Dasher songs new and old have finally been smelted down into their debut album, Sodium. Dasher knifes out the chop-crunch guitar of latter-day post-punk with a seething screech echoing the hardest horizons of the early 90’s underground.
 
The Dears – Times Infinity Volume Two CD/LP (Dangerbird/Paperbag)
Following 2015’s Times Infinity Volume One, The Dears’ new album, Times Infinity Volume Two, is the darker side of the two-part release. The band, led by husband-and-wife duo Murray Lightburn and Natalia Yanchak, recorded Times Infinity Volume Two in a similar two-year span that they recorded Volume One. Propelled by driving bass-lines, fractious early single “Of Fisticuffs” doubles down on the propulsive agitation of Times Infinity‘s first installment, typifying the universal, everyday tightrope of choosing which battles to fight. For Lightburn and Yanchak, a sense of protecting what’s important runs deep through Volume Two, though rendered with disarming tenderness.

Integrity – Howling, For The Nightmare Shall Consume CD/LP (Relapse)
Known for being one of the most incendiary and influential bands in hardcore and modern metal history, apocalyptic heavy music icons Integrity return with their highly anticipated twelfth studio album Howling, For The Nightmare Shall Consume. A conceptual foretelling of the final days of Armageddon, Howling… is a manifestation of Pentecostal nightmares and religious depravities, wrought with fire and brimstone sermons and occult prophecies bathed in waves of destruction. Now with almost 30 years of creating dark and terrifying anthems under their belt, Integrity have honored their past musical legacy while fearlessly moving forward into unchartered territory on what is undoubtedly their most elaborate and ambitious effort to date.
Japanese Breakfast – Soft Sounds From Another Planet CD/LP+MP3 (Dead Oceans)

Japanese Breakfast’s Soft Sounds From Another Planet is less of a concept album about space exploration so much as it is a mood board come to life. Over the course of 12 tracks, Michelle Zauner explores a sonic landscape of her own design, one that’s big enough to contain her influences. There are songs on this album that recall the pathos of Roy Orbison’s ballads, while others could soundtrack a cinematic drive down one of Blade Runner‘s endless skyways. Zauner’s voice is capacious; one moment she’s serenading the past, the next she’s robotically narrating a love story over sleek monochrome, her lyrics more pointed and personal than ever before. While Psychopomp was a genre-spanning introduction to Japanese Breakfast, this visionary sophomore album launches the project to new heights. [Limited colored vinyl pressing also available.]

Laibach – Also Sprach Zarathustra CD/LP (Mute)
Also Sprach Zarathustra is an update of the music Laibach created for the play, directed by Matjaž Berger for the Anton Podbevšek Theatre (APT) in Novo Mesto, Slovenia.
 
Lo Tom – Lo Tom CD/LP (Barsuk)
Lo Tom is made up of David Bazan (Pedro The Lion), Trey Many (Velour 100, Starflyer 59), TW Walsh (Pedro The Lion, The Soft Drugs), and Jason Martin (Starflyer 59). Recorded over two different sessions when they could find the time to spare, the four friends gathered with half-formed riffs and beats to see what would come out of it. The album’s thematic direction is loose and conceptual. The melodies recall Pedro The Lion and TW Walsh, the guitars sparkle with hints of Starflyer 59, and the songs hurtle through the major keystones of guitar rock tight conversation between percussion and guitar, heavy fuzz, and some genuinely joyful breakdowns that give way to catharsis.
Nick Lowe – Nice The Knife [Reissue/1982] CD/LP (Yep Roc)

Nick Lowe – The Abominable Showman [Reissue/1983] CD/LP (Yep Roc)
Nick The Knife is Lowe’s third solo LP, and his first since the 1981 breakup of his band Rockpile. However, the record still has several Rockpile ties, as Lowe’s former bandmates Billy Bremner and Terry Williams play on the album. The Abominable Showman was recorded with his post-Rockpile touring band Noise To Go. Following the blueprint of Rockpile, the band also featured a second lead vocalist in erstwhile Ace frontman Paul Carrack and had been featured on the Lowe-produced Carrack album, Suburban Voodoo.

Yoko Ono – Fly [Reissue/1973] CD/2xLP+MP3 (Secretly Canadian)
Yoko Ono – Approximately Infinite Universe [Reissue/1973] CD/2xLP+MP3 (Secretly Canadian)
Yoko Ono – Feeling The Space [Reissue/1973] CD/LP (Secretly Canadian)
What you hear on Fly is Yoko Ono’s disarming combination of opacity and visceral, personal transparency in full bloom. It’s one of the most unbridled, most captivating soul albums ever made. And that’s right where she wants you: vulnerable, wide open to any-and-everything, ready to have your world tipped onto its head. There’s a fury at the core of Yoko Ono’s 1973 rock opus Approximately Infinite Universe that was not apparent on previously recorded efforts. Ono has always been a master of turning pain and sadness into art, but here, there’s a clenched-fist intensity that sets it apart in her deep, unparalleled catalogue. Feeling The Space is Yoko Ono’s fourth solo album, her last one on Apple Records and her last release of the 1970s. The entire album adopts a feminist theme, focusing on the plights of women in the 1970s.
 
Psychic Temple – Psychic Temple IV CD/LP (Joyful Noise)
Produced and composed by band/cult leader Chris Schlarb, Psychic Temple IV was recorded in Los Angeles over a series of eight large scale sessions. In the spirit of the classic Wrecking Crew sessions for Phil Spector and the Beach Boys, the band was often tasked with recording four songs per session.
 
Psychic TV – Pagan Day [Reissue/1984] CD/LP (Sacred Bones)
Psychic TV – Allegory And Self [Reissue/1988] CD/LP (Sacred Bones)
Beginning in 1982, the conceptual audiovisual troupe labeled Psychic TV set out on a multimedia journey filled with subversion, liberation and rebellion. While the members’ previous works took root in the counterculture zeitgeist of late ’70s UK punk and conceptual art, it was no longer a question of how to rebel against authority, but rather how to carefully subvert it through collective infiltration.
RAC – EGO CD/LP (Counter)
RAC (pronounced Ar-Ay-Cee) is the project of André Allen Anjoswill. With EGO, Anjos re-directs RAC to songwriting which accounts for the record’s intimate but full-lunged tone, as heard on lead single “This Song” (feat. Vampire Weekend’s Rostam Batmanglij) and follow-up “I Still Wanna Know,” featuring vocals and a guitar solo from Weezer’s Rivers Cuomo as well as additional production by Classixx.
 
Sextile – Albeit Living CD/LP (Felte)
This Los Angeles band combines the raw energy of ‘70s punk with the intricate, sophisticated structural elements of ‘80s post-punk and synthwave.
 
Shabazz Palaces – Quazarz: Born On A Gangster Star CD/LP+MP3 (Sub Pop)
Born On A Gangster Star came into the world in a big damn hurry, like nightfall on an island. You can see it happening, but then again, it’s so gradual that the next thing you know – it’s dark. Imbued with the energy and ideas from all the creative embers floating in the atmosphere like fireflies, Shabazz Palaces recorded this entire album over the course of two weeks with Blood in Seattle. New gear and new equipment disintegrated comfort zones into dust and a new path appeared in the rubble. Herein the Palaceer continues the tale of Quazar, a sentient being from somewhere else, an observer sent here to Amurderca to chronicle and explore as a musical emissary. Born On A Gangster Star flirts with a pop sensibility, but through the prism of Shabazz Palaces’s fire and fury. For the Palaceer, that sense is all about how the groove is moving, and the supernatural telepathy that occurs amongst his cohort. Appearing here, in body or in spirit, are Julian Casablancas, Thundercat, Darrius Willrich, Gamble and Huff, Loud Eyes Lou, Thaddillac, Ahmir, Jon Kirby, Sunny Levine, and Blood.
 
Shabazz Palaces – Quazarz vs. The Jealous Machines CD/LP+MP3 (Sub Pop)
Quazarz vs. The Jealous Machines is Shabazz Palaces’ extra-spatial twin to Quazarz: Born On A Gangster Star. The album, featuring highlights “30 Clip Extension,” “Julian’s Dream (ode to a bad)” and “Effeminence” includes guest appearances from Fly Guy Dai of Chimurenga Renaissance, Amir Yaghamai, John Carroll Kirby, Thaddillac, Morgan Henderson, The Shogun Shot, Laz, and Purple Tape Nate. Quazarz vs. The Jealous Machines is a second, fully-realized album of new material that expands the Quazarz universe, and tells the tales of Quazarz, that sent sentient from some elsewhere. A wave warrior wielding his sonic sword. Posted to the turnt-up states of Amurderca here on the Gangster Star to chronicle, explore and enjoy as a musical emissary. He discovers a world where humankind’s relationship with their tech-devices has become weirdly sensual, seducing a sedentary seamlessness with humans, while capturing and incarcerating the results of their imagination. Quazarz vs. The Jealous Machines finds our protagonist with his dazzling cohorts rising a collective Nah to the device and the guilds that proliferate them.

SQÜRL – EP #260 CD/LP (Sacred Bones)
SQÜRL is: Carter Logan and Jim Jarmusch. An enthusiastically marginal rock band from New York City who like big drums and distorted guitars, cassette recorders, loops, feedback, sad country songs, molten stoner core, chopped & screwed hip-hop, and imaginary movie scores.
 
Sun Seeker – Biddeford CDEP/12” (Third Man)
Sun Seeker has carved out a universe all their own in Nashville, TN. Biddeford, their first EP and second release on Third Man Records, is near combustion level with beautiful atmospherics, willful lyricism and a supernatural ear for atypical pop hooks which should ring immediately familiar to fans of their debut 7’’ “Georgia Dust”. Six charming vignettes explore friendship, romance, and the daydreams populating the space between them. EP highlight and single, “Won’t Keep Me Up At Night”, gives us the best of singer and principal songwriter Alex Benick – his ability to breathe life and a depth of scenery into a song, especially with the clever rhythms of drummer Ben Parks and guitarist Asher Horton’s near-perfect pop instinct. Sun Seeker has climbed into broad daylight, into blessed dynamics, and every song blossoms as a result of it.
 
Waxahatchee – Out In The Storm CD/LP+MP3 (Merge)
Out In The Storm is the blazing result of a woman reawakened. Her most autobiographical and honest album to date, it is a self-reflective anchor in the story of both Katie Crutchfield’s songwriting and her life. The album tells the story of taking control of a volatile situation, embracing flaws, and exploring a new sonic freedom. Crutchfield’s voice oscillates between effortless grace and commanding righteousness, taking the listener with her on an explicitly personal journey. Songs like “Hear You” and “No Question” are lyrically unapologetic and musically resolute, while the softer acoustic songs like “A Little More” and “Fade” let fear and melancholy seep through. But it is on the atmospheric “Sparks Fly” where we feel an essential redemption. The track acts as an inner dialogue and marks the first time since the inception of Waxahatchee that any semblance of self-love has shone through. This moment is a perspective we’ve yet to see from Crutchfield: it is a rediscovery of herself, and the realization of a full life she is completely worthy of. [Regular and Limited Deluxe vinyl pressings also available. Deluxe includes a poster.]

Bardo Pond/Yo La Tengo – Parallelogram a La Carte: Bardo Pond & Yo La Tengo LP (Three Lobed)
Bardo Pond and Yo La Tengo have long traveled in similar circles as underground lifers, but have never shared space on a non-compilation release. In 2015 Three Lobed Recordings was ecstatic to dedicate one of the albums of the Parallelogram collection to righting this cosmic wrong.
 
Vic Chesnutt – Ghetto Bells [Reissue/2005] 2xLP+MP3 (New West)
Ghetto Bells matches the poetic power of Vic Chesnutt’s words with some of the most elegantly simpatico backing he’s ever been blessed with, including jazz icon Bill Frisell on guitars, legendary writer, arranger and multi-instrumentalist Van Dyke Parks on piano, accordion and organ, Don Heffington of Lone Justice and the Jayhawks on drums and percussion, classically trained session-man Dominic Genova on double bass, Tina Chesnutt on electric bass and Liz Durrett on exquisite backing vocals.

Gunn/Vile – Parallelogram – LP (Three Lobed)
Kurt Vile and Steve Gunn collaborated on record in 2015 for their contributions to Three Lobed Recording’s Parallelogram series. That previously ornate and limited title is now released in a non-limited format standing along and outside of that prior collection. The two artists, originally connected by mutual friends and geographic proximity, have long pushed the other’s continued artistic development. Despite sharing many live stages over the years, this collaborative album represents the first time that the two have worked together in the studio.
 
Hiss Golden Messenger/Michael Chapman – Parallelogram a La Carte: Hiss Golden Messenger and Michael Chapman LP (Three Lobed)
Matching up kindred spirits and mutual influences, this volume of Three Lobed Recording’s Parallelogram series collects 2015 recordings from Hiss Golden Messenger and Michael Chapman. Both M.C. Taylor (Hiss Golden Messenger) and Michael Chapman have consistently won praise for possessing a certain songwriting prowess and earnest delivery.

Kendrick Lamar – Damn 2xLP (Aftermath)
Recently released on CD – now available on vinyl.
 
Thurston Moore and John Moloney/Bishop, Orcutt, Corsano – Parallelogram: a La Cart LP (Three Lobed)
Thurston Moore, Alan Bishop, Bill Orcutt, John Moloney, and Chris Corsano are five of the most uncompromising and visionary voices to emerge out of the last quarter century of American underground rock. Three Lobed Recordings was honored to capture all of these artists within the confines of a single album for this raucous and boundary-free volume of their Parallelogram series.

Six Organs Of Admittance and William Tyler – Parallelogram: a La Carte LP (Three Lobed)
Mutual influence is always fun to see in action, especially when it is between modern long-form guitar composition greats Ben Chasny (Six Organs of Admittance) and William Tyler. This volume of Three Lobed Recording’s Parallelogram series allows both artists room to stretch out and breathe.

 

NEXT WEEK’S NEW RELEASES

LANA DEL REY – Lust For Life CD
FOSTER THE PEOPLE – Sacred Hearts Club CD/LP
TYLER THE CREATOR – Flower Boy CD
AVEY TARE – Eucalyptus CD/LP
CHRIS ROBINSON BROTHERHOOD – Barefoot In The Head CD/LP
IMAGINE DRAGONS – Evolve LP
POLICA – Bruise Blood: Reimagining Steve Reich’s Music For Pieces Of Wood LP