This Friday sees the release of the new Yo La Tengo album, " This Stupid World" on Matador Records.
Wide-ranging and full of thoughtful lyricism focused on the passage of time, life, and death, This Stupid World is exactly the album I’d hoped Yo La Tengo could and would release in 2023. Even if this record remains a step below the band’s defining releases, it’s a strong contender for their best outing in over two decades.
LISA O' NEILL. ALL OF THIS IS CHANCE. (Domino Records)
I (Harry) am very excited about this release, being a fan of Lisa for years. I genuinely believe she is a national treasure. All Of This Is Chance marks a further progression in the music and songwriting that saw 2018s "Heard a Long Song Gone" recieve wide acclaim. There's some gentle help here from much loved and respected artists like Myles O' Reilly, Colm Mac Con Iomaire and Kate Ellis.
All of This Is Chance a poetic album, and a cinematic one too, dramatic in vocal delivery, in orchestration and arrangements, and in the poetry of O’Neill’s lyrics, too, whose power stems from a unique sense of perspective as much as the language per se, although great poetry opens the set on the title song, which includes words by the Irish poet Patrick Kavanagh from his work The Great Hunger.
GIALLO POINT . BLUE KEYS.
UK based Giallo Point is a producer who has made a name on the underground scene over the last few years with an intricate style of Jazz & Latin through to library vibes & sounds. Making beats since the late 90s he has now found a niche in the market with a strong presence for a sound many know as the giallo point sound and vision. He has helmed and been known for providing that sound to numerous HipHop luminaries. His prolific output has covered a wide gamut. This time around he brings us a vintage jazz and library edge to solidify the full impact of what this latest release Blue Keys will bring to the table. While we take a trip down the jazz sound he keeps the sinister edge from start to finish. Prepare for a journey of instrumentals that will be the start of a series of musical moments for the instrumental heads.
MAPS. COUNTER MELODIES.MUTE RECORDS
https://youtu.be/JP1MFTj74Yk?list=PLOVXtjGAcrgIeQBVwDYNIpxa9FSXUN3DV
Maps, real name James Chapman, has shared details of his fifth studio album, Counter Melodies.
Out in February, the 10-track album nods towards the club culture that Chapman found himself turning to after finding himself DJing a lot in 2019 in the wake of last album Colours. Reflect. Time. Loss.'s release. To mark the new record's announcement, he's shared the opening five tracks, which you can listen to above.
"My early days of soaking up club culture obviously stayed with me," Chapman said in a statement about Counter Melodies. "I was enjoying making my own tracks and playing them in my DJ sets. It's like a comedian trying out new material. I really liked the idea of tracks flowing into one another, like a continuous DJ set. As soon as that idea was in my head, I just worked really hard to make it happen."
THE WAEVE. THE WAEVE. TRANSGRESSIVE RECORDS
On their eponymous debut, the WAEVE—aka Blur guitarist Graham Coxon and former Pipettes member Rose Elinor Dougall—become the latest act to dip into this disenchanted stream. Far from the urbane chatter of Blur’s greatest hits, The WAEVE reflects the turbulence beneath the soil of Great Britain: an album of pastoral disquiet and itchy post-punk edge.
It’s not the record you might imagine from the pen of a Britpop guitar hero and a onetime ’50s girl-group revivalist. For a start, the WAEVE don’t use much guitar, leaning heavily on saxophone, piano, drums, and synth. Coxon even breaks out the cittern (a medieval lute) on “All Along,” where it bumps up against Dougall’s piano and an ARP 2000 modular synth in what might be the catchiest piece of lute work since “Greensleeves.” When the guitar does arrive, as in the warped blues solo on “Over and Over,” it is used sparingly, to shift compositional gears rather than as the sine qua non of rock melody. The lyrics, too, lean on images of nature and antiquity: the “jagged shore” and “ancient tides” on “Undine,” or “silver moon” and “ecstatic, magic night” on “Kill Me Again.”
MOGWAI. YOUNG TEAM. (REISSUE)
One of the best from Mogwai. This is Mogwai's debut album, but it is also one of their best and helped to define what their sound is. It features many songs that have a development of quiet and loud, and most are instrumental (with the exception of R U Still In 2 It).
TUBEWAY ARMY. TUBEWAY ARMY. (REISSUE)
Tubeway Army was Gary Numan's pre-solo project, and this was their debut (later released in the States as First Album). To start with it was to be a punk-influenced album, but upon entering the studio, Numan found a minimoog synthesizer in the corner, played around with it for a bit, and an era was born. The album still retains the punk feel, but the synth is pushed to prominence on many tracks. Originally released on limited-edition blue vinyl, it was later released on black and took Numan to #14 on the British charts.
The album includes re-recordings of a few tracks from Tubeway Army's original demos plus new material, all of which hinting at Numan's near future as one of the premier new wave artists (the demo was later released as The Plan). "Everyday I Die" and "Jo the Waiter" are still favorites to this day. While the punk stylings are present on this album, the content and execution were paving the way for Numan's #1 follow-up, Replicas, and hit single "Are Friends Electric?".