Staff Picks
Kimber – Besnard Lakes
Lindsay – PJ Harvey
Dario – Delvon Lamarr
Eric – Lucero

DELVON LAMARR ORGAN TRIO – I Told You So (Colemine) CD/LP
Delvon Lamarr Organ Trio-or as it is sometimes referred to, DLO3-specialize in the lost art of “feel good music.” The ingredients of this intoxicating cocktail include a big helping of the 1960s organ jazz stylings of Jimmy Smith and Baby Face Willette; a pinch of the snappy soul strut of Booker T. & The M.G.’s and The Meters; and sprinkles Motown, Stax Records, blues, and cosmic Jimi Hendrix-style guitar. It’s a soul-jazz concoction that goes straight to your heart and head makes your body break out in a sweat. Available in black and limited edition pink vinyl.

BOMBAY BICYCLE CLUB – I Had The Blues But I Shook Them Loose (Caroline) CD/LP
Bombay Bicycle Club release their new live album, I Had The Blues But I Shook Them Loose – Live At Brixton. The album was recorded on 8th November 2019 at the band’s sold out Brixton Academy show, celebrating the 10th anniversary of their debut album.

PJ HARVEY – Is This Desire (2020 Reissue) LP
Limited 180gm vinyl LP pressing. Includes digital download. The fourth PJ Harvey studio album Is This Desire? Produced by PJ Harvey with Flood and Head, and originally released in September 1998, Is This Desire? features the singles ‘A Perfect Day Elise’ and ‘The Wind’. Reissue is faithful to the original recording and package, cutting by Jason Mitchell at Loud Mastering under the guidance of longtime PJ Harvey producer Head.

PJ HARVEY – Is This Desire (Demos) (Island) CD/LP
Vinyl LP pressing. Includes digital download. Collection of unreleased demos of every track written for the fourth PJ Harvey studio album Is This Desire? including demos of ‘A Perfect Day Elise’, ‘The Wind’ and ‘Angelene’. Audio has been mastered by Jason Mitchell at Loud Mastering under the guidance of longtime PJ Harvey collaborator John Parish. Features brand new artwork with previously unseen photos.

GOAT GIRL – On All Fours (Rough Trade) CD
Goat Girl are delighted to announce their new album On All Fours, which will be released via Rough Trade Records on January 29, 2021. The new album was produced by Dan Carey (Kae Tempest, Black Midi & Franz Ferdinand) in South London in early 2020. Vinyl delayed until 2/12/21.

LUCERO – When You Found Me (Liberty & Lament) CD/LP
Building on the themes of their critically acclaimed album Among The Ghosts, “family” is at the center of Lucero’s new album When You Found Me. The album reimagines family stories as modern fables, with young heroines and storybook lyrics inspired by the fairy tales lead singer Ben Nichols’ reads with his four year old daughter at bedtime. Throughout When You Found Me, true stories are turned into fantasy and folktales are reimagined into pummeling rock songs. Available in limited edition clear and green and black vinyl.

CLUTCH – Weathermaker Vault Series 1 (Weathermaker Music) LP
The 10-song release features nine previously released singles from their ongoing Weathermaker Vault Series. These songs revisit covers and old tracks from Clutch’s back catalog, re-imagining them with new studio recordings. Vol. 1 conveniently houses the singles together, with the addition of one previously unreleased track, a Spanish cover of “Algo Ha Cambiado” by Argentinean blues guitarist Norberto “Pappo” Napolitano. Available on white vinyl.

ANI DIFRANCO – Revolutionary Love (Righteous Babe) CD
The transcendent new album from Ani Di Franco, Revolutionary Love marks the latest proof of one of her most powerful gifts as an artist: a rare ability to give voice to our deepest frustrations and tensions, on both a personal and political level. “My songs have always reflected an acute connection between my personal life and the life of my society,” says the trailblazing musician and activist. “As I started to come out of years of dealing with marriage problems, I saw my entire country in the same situation; the complete breakdown of communication and loss of empathy and connection. But after what seems like unforgivable damage, then where do you go? You can’t kick each other off the planet, you can’t change the past, so what then?” Vinyl version available in April 2021.

BESNARD LAKES – The Besnard Lakes Are The Last Of The Great Thunderstorm Warnings (FatCat) LP
The Besnard Lakes have passed through death and they’re here to tell the tale. Nearly five years after their last lightning-tinted volley, the magisterial Montreal psych- rock band have sworn off compromise and completed a searing, 72-minute suite about the darkness of dying and the light on the other side. Ignited by their love for each other, for playing music together, the sextet found themselves unspooling the most uncompromising recording of their career. Despite all its grandeur,”… The Last of the Great Thunderstorm Warnings” honors the very essence of punk rock: the notion that a band need only be relevant to itself. At last the Besnard Lakes have crafted a continuous long-form suite: nine tracks that could be listened together as one, like Spiritualized’s “Lazer Guided Melodies” or even “Dark Side of the Moon,” overflowing with melody and harmony, drone and dazzle, the group’s own unique weather. CD out 2/5/2021.

LNZNDRF – II LP
Lnzndrf’s II is a mass hypnotism, somehow both thunderous and trance-inducing. Recorded in extensive, shamanistic jam sessions at Austin’s Public Hi-Fi in September 2019 and later edited down to give it shape, these songs feel like Right Now, with some toes testing the waters of the future. It’s incantations seem to beckon the dystopia of present day as much as they beckon the Big Mystery awaiting us when we finally bust through it’s barrier. It won’t be a utopia but it will at least be something different. As it goes on the lysergic post-punk standout “You Still Rip”: “We’ll live like fruitless trees towards endless breeze linked as we please, the burning bridges smolder in our wake.” Red rover, red rover, send Lnzndrf over. Clear White vinyl.

ARLO PARKS – Collapsed In Sunbeams (Transgressive) CD/LP
Twenty-year-old, London-based musician and poet Arlo Parks, has been very steadily climbing the ranks as an artist to watch since the release of her confessional debut single “Cola” in 2018. Arlo has received praise from artists such as Billie Eilish, Wyclef Jean, Clairo, Florence Welsh and Phoebe Bridgers during the past year while growing her fan base exponentially. Arlo’s debut album “is a series of vignettes and intimate portraits surrounding my adolescence and the people that shaped it. It is rooted in storytelling and nostalgia – I want it to feel both universal and hyper specific.” On a personal level, Parks struggled with her identity growing up; a self- confessed tom-boy who was super sensitive and “uncool,” she says it was like “I’m a black kid who can’t dance for shit, listens to emo music and currently has a crush on some girl in my Spanish class.” By the time she reached 17, she shaved her head, figured out she was bisexual and produced/wrote an album’s worth of material. Available in mustard yellow vinyl.

STRFKR – Ambient 1 LP
STRFKR’s sound has morphed over the years through variations of hyper catchy, danceable pop, but on Ambient 1 – the band’s first fully instrumental album – the band has achieved something very different. For a little shy of an hour, Ambient 1 drifts through softly glowing electronic instrumentals that extract the synth core from the group’s well established synth pop sound. It’s patient, playful, and calming music that travels through passageways of chaos and anxiety on a journey towards healing. Upon completing work on the lo-fi dreaminess of Future Past Life, STRFKR’s principal songwriter Josh Hodges found himself returning repeatedly to albums by his favorite ambient artists and minimal composers. This growing obsession with synthesis and the culture around it also concurred with the daily darkness of the pandemic and some personal disruptions. Without spending too much time thinking about what it meant, Hodges began recording ambient experiments almost daily as a way of processing these difficult emotions. Echoes of masters like Harold Budd and Brian Eno can be heard in the angelic floating of “Work Smoothly Lifetime Peace” while tracks like “Nexus” are stormy and frenetic. In some ways, Ambient 1 is unlike anything STRFKR has created before, but when completely absorbed, it makes sense why it’s included under the STRFKR banner. Even at his most drony and experimental, Hodges can’t escape his distinctive melodic approach. Ambient 1 strips away the familiar and the expected, exposing Hodges’ signature sonic personality at a granular level. Available on cream colored vinyl.

CLOUD NOTHINGS – Turning On (Carpark) LP
Vinyl LP pressing. Includes digital download. It’s been 10 years since the release of Turning On, Cloud Nothings’ debut album. Singer-songwriter Dylan Baldi was just 18 years old when he began recording the album in his parents’ basement in Cleveland, Ohio. Over one winter, Baldi produced an album of taut, lo-fi guitar-pop songs, playing each instrument himself. The band has accomplished a great deal since Turning On, signing to Carpark Records, releasing seven albums, and headlining numerous international tours, yet Turning On still remains the stripped-back core of Cloud Nothings’ style: raw and grungy, filled with catchy earworms that are surprisingly pop. To celebrate its 10th anniversary, Turning On is available on vinyl for the first time in 10 years via Carpark Records, with the album’s original track listing.

ANNA B SAVAGE – A Common Turn (City Slang) CD/LP
Anna B Savage’s first full-length record A Common Turn is question mark music. Her songs are heavy with unanswered queries, with dilemmas and insecurities, or often just with wondering. Savage’s voice is endlessly warm, but producer William Doyle’ (East India Youth) consistently finds the iron in it. Even the darkest moments in this music don’t stick in their devastation, though – Savage’s fire burns too brightly. Her voice can drop to a whisper, but then it will open all the way up in a flash flood of cavernous guitar, echoes, and swelling strings that expand and then vanish just as suddenly as they arrived. Savage’s music is deeply vulnerable, without being submissive. She lays claim to her own fragility, and the stories she tells are of taking up space, finding connections, and owning the power in not knowing all the answers. Hers are songs for anyone who thinks hard, feels deeply, and asks big questions. Produced by William Doyle (East India Youth), A Common Turn presents us a nest of fully-formed and room-filling artistry.

LUSH – Ciao! Best Of (4AD) LP
Ciao! Best of Lush is a greatest hits compilation. Formed in London in 1988 and centered around childhood friends Emma Anderson and Miki Berenyi, Lush expertly fused melody and guitars; a sound that was christened ‘shoegaze’ well after they released their first records, a scene they outlived by sharpening their pop sound as they went. Red Vinyl.

THE BODY – I’ve Seen All I Need To See (Thrill Jockey) LP
Over the course of two decades The Body, Lee Buford and Chip King, have consistently challenged assumptions and defied categorization, redefining what it means to be a heavy band. On I’ve Seen All I Need To See, they test the boundaries of the studio to explore the extremes and microtonality of distortion to find its maximal impact. Their most incisively bleak, a towering monolith of noise, album to date Buford’s booming, resolute drums paired with King’s obliterated guitar and howl. Course, bristling distortion contorts every instrument, with samples of spoken word, cymbals, toms and King’s already noxious tone emerging from layers of feedback. Metallic silver vinyl.

THE BUG – In Blue (Hyperdub) LP
The Bug aka Kevin Martin, and vocalist Dis Fig aka Felicia Chen, refer to their style on ‘In Blue’ as “Tunnel Sound”; a foggy, melancholic meltdown of narco-dancehall-soul and dread-drenched, electronic dub. The rhythms continue Martin’s ongoing quest for a futuristic dancehall mutation, but more sci-fi, aquatic and smokey than before. An obsessive search for the right sultry 2AM voice to ride his syncopated walls of sub, fuzzed out white noise and infinite echoes eventually led to Dis Fig’s torched soul-jazz glow, resulting in the deeply sensual pulsations and lyrical long shadows of ‘In Blue’ – an album that shares shades of King Midas Sound’s wrecked lovers rock, alongside the bass immersion that The Bug has become infamously known for. Mixed in lockdown, the sense of claustrofear, escapism and tension is palpable throughout. Carnality and violence merge under the turbulent, cinematic surface of an hypnotically addictive album. Blue colored vinyl.

RICHARD SWIFT – Even Your Drums Will Die: Live at Pendarvis Farm 2011 (Secretly Canadian) LP
Recorded in 2011 in a dusty, beloved barn, Even Your Drums Will Die is a time machine, a real one, to a moment packed thick with Richard Swift’s singular, crackling liveliness. Swift is known to many as a producer moreso than a songwriter, but these songs! This voice! They are machete-sharp here, his voice clear as a bell and slicing wry, expert wordplay on its blade. Where Swift’s studio recordings are marked by texture, tone and mood, Even Your Drums Will Die puts an indelible spotlight on Swift’s voice, his lyrics and his songwriting. It’s clearer than ever now, over two years after Swift’s passing, that he used his music to let a little pressure out of his tire, and nowhere is that truer than when it is about being alive and about being dead. In fact, Even Your Drums Will Die opens, unbelievably, with a harmonica — with the sound of Swift’s breath making music. He sings “I wish I was dead / most of the time / but I don’t really mean it” and your breath catches. He sings “I’m alive / I’m alive / I’m alive / so tell my daughters not to cry” and you want to grab the song or the air in your fists and shake it. It should be noted that the “Ballad of Milton Feher” nods to all this, its namesake coming from the professional dancer and director of the Milton Feher School of Dance and Relaxation, who taught his students to release their “habits of tension.” Swift named his Secretly Canadian debut ‘Walking Without Effort’ after one of Feher’s instructions and the song dedicated to him feels like skeleton key to Swift’s oeuvre, a clear look into the wild wheels spinning inside his big old artist noggin.

COMING NEXT WEEK!
FOO FIGHTERS – Medicine At Midnight CD/LP
COMMON – Beautiful Revolution pt 1 CD
TV PRIEST – Uppers CD/LP
WEATHER STATION – Ignorance CD/LP
SHARON JONES – Just Dropped In CD/LP
BLACK COUNTRY / NEW ROAD – For The First Time CD/LP
BESNARD LAKES – Are The Last Of LP
PSYCHEDELIC PORN CRUMPETS – Shyga! The Sunlight Mound CD/LP
BETHS – Future Hates Me CD/LP
DEAN AND BRITTA – Neon Lights LP
TYLER THE CREATOR – Peach Fuzz 12″
SLOWDIVE – 5 LP
STEVEN WILSON – Future Bites CD/LP
ST GERMAIN – Tourist LP