New Music Friday!

11/30 of the way through my radar list and no stinkers yet!

Irreversible Entanglements just continue to get better with every album;
James Brandon Lewis & Red Lily Quintet deliver another tasty outing;
and Lalalar & Allison Russell's albums are both wild rides for different reasons!

Everything else has been some degree of good/enjoyable, but those are the highlights for me so far.
 
musicjunkiegreg said:
RBF ALERT ⚠️

Just discovered this band  Sprain today and their new album The Lamb As Effigy or Three Hundred And Fifty XOXOXOS For A Spark Union With My Darling Divine (which dropped on Sept 1st). The eight tracks on this album span a 96-minute run time, with half of the tracks being over 10 minutes (and two tracks approaching 25 minutes). This album is experimental, it's noise rock, post-hardcore,.poat-punk, and slowcore? I'm not sure if I've listed every deserving genre tag (I'm still recovering from and running this album through my mind..). What a first listen and initial experience! 🤯 It's terrifying and gorgeous, complicated and intelligent, unpleasant and jaw-dropping. This surely won't be for everyone (honestly, this is probably for hardly anyone, lol), but it definitely scratched at itch for me and checked many boxes for me.

FFO: the only two I can think of right right now are Swans and Squid, but I feel there are a few more.

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Just finished in full for the first time this morning. Absolutely in my top50 right now.
To amend your recommendation list, I would cross out Squid and instead:

RIYL: Swans, Glenn Branca, Scott Walker, D*****ers, This Heat, Xiu Xiu
 
Rip_City said:
Just finished in full for the first time this morning. Absolutely in my top50 right now.
To amend your recommendation list, I would cross out Squid and instead:

RIYL: Swans, Glenn Branca, Scott Walker, D*****ers, This Heat, Xiu Xiu
Click to expand...
Glad you enjoyed it! And, yes, definitely hear some Xiu Xiu and Scott Walker here.
 
Back on the original work schedule, which will allow for worktime listening (maybe?) and before waking up for the day. Getting caught up. One of the better weeks in recent memory...maybe Q3 won't be desolate as I thought.

🔥
  • Alabaster DePlume - Come With Fierce Grace [much needed rebound after the BNM blasphemy that is GOLD. I see myself returning to this often. Sad that I missed the live show, but that was literally the day before Julie Byrne and I don't want B2B concert nights if I can help it]
  • Fuensanta - Principio del Fuego (EP) [a welcome surprise! Middle track "Cuándo Te Voy a Decir" is wild. Listening on headphones was the way to go here. An innovative Mexican freak folk experiment, and it worked. Thanks, @avecigrec]
  • Sprain - The Lamb as Effigy [the major knock I have against this is that some of the spoken word segments can become a bit too indulgent. Other than that, it brings the house down. N-A-S-T-Y. Claustrophobic, uncomfortable, cataclysmic, totalistic, and bludgeoning]
👍
  • James Brandon Lewis / Red Lily Quintet - For Mahalia, With Love [while I likely won't return to this (Eye of I is far superior), it's an enjoyable effort]
  • Dying Fetus - Make Them Beg for Death [@musicjunkiegreg coming in the clutch with a solid death metal rec. Thanks again 👊]
  • Lawrence English & Lea Bertucci - Chthonic
  • Tinashe - BB/ANG3L [the short album length works in her favor. Not only does it start strong with "Treason" and bop "Talk To Me Nice," but "Gravity" had me feelin' on a Kelela/Rochelle Jordan type beat. It's funny that "Needs" and "Uh Huh" got music videos/tagged as singles when they are fairly ordinary. Overall, I dig the leftfield electronic direction and she should strongly consider continuing forward on this path. Apparently there will be a part II dropping late in the year or early '24...I will treat them together as one album when it is released, as the length of BB/ANGEL is that of an EP. I might move this up to "🔥" actually]
🤷‍♂️
  • Blank Banshee - 4D
  • Cryptopsy - As Gomorrah Burns
  • Irreversible Entanglements - Protect Your Light [the fun ends after the first two cuts. "Soundness" is a musical sledgehammer that never ends, and exemplifies the end of avant-garde/free jazz that I find impenetrable. The rest on had me wanting this to end. A downgrade from 2021's stellar Open the Gates]
  • Róisín Murphy - Hit Parade [ugh. Embroiled in controversy just a few weeks before drop day. As for the music, it starts off with a trio of understated bangers, but too much of a mixed bag across the entire tracklist to impress as the successor to Róisín Machine, a far more consistent outing. Only "You Knew" has much staying power of the long cuts. Could we please forward the cover art to whoever is archiving the worst album art from 2023?]
  • Olivia Rodrigo - GUTS [an improvement from SOUR. I even chuckled a bit at "get him back!" and found the social anxiety commentary of "ballad of a homeschooled girl" to be way too relevant lol. Outside of the still impressive "vampire," she still has too many ho-hum ballads that interrupt the pacing frequently. Not you too, melon. 😡 Also, get your fucking thumb out of your mouth]
  • Romy - Mid Air [it gets better at the halfway mark, but there's this unshakeable EDM aura about this that doesn't resonate well with me. I'm sure these tunes would hit wonderfully at a fest. But in a studio recording...]
  • Soda Blonde - Dream Big [not as good as their debut]
👎
  • Bethany Cosentino - Natural Disaster [🥱]
🤮
  • Teezo Touchdown - How Do You Sleep at Night? [not a talented singer/rapper. Production blows whale chunks. It didn't start awful, but the "WHEEEEE!" in the chorus of "Mood Swings" indicated the downslope this was headed on. Teezo even saves the worst for last with "The Original Was Better" somehow. Bottom 10 contender]
 
Rip_City said:
🔥
  • Sprain - The Lamb as Effigy [the major knock I have against this is that some of the spoken word segments can become a bit too indulgent. Other than that, it brings the house down. N-A-S-T-Y. Claustrophobic, uncomfortable, cataclysmic, totalistic, and bludgeoning]
👍
  • Dying Fetus - Make Them Beg for Death [@musicjunkiegreg coming in the clutch with a solid death metal rec. Thanks again 👊]
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Glad to see my two recs hitting well for you 👊
 
Radar List for 9.15.23


Vagabon – Sorry I Haven’t Called
Sarah Jane Scouten – Turned to Gold
Elisapie - Inuktitut
Buffalo Nichols – The Fatalist
Willie Nelson – Bluegrass
Matthew Shipp – The Intrinsic Nature of Shipp
Bombino – Sahel
Uma – Jai
Octo Octa – Dreams of a Dancefloor EP
Shakey Graves – Movie of the Week
Margo Cilker – Valley of Heart’s Delight
Explosions in the Sky – End
Fat Mike – Fat Mike Gets Strung Out
Carlos Niño & Friends – (I’m just) Chillin’, on Fire
S. Carey & John Raymond – Shadowlands
Worriers – Trust Your Gut
The Pretenders – Relentless
Sandy Bell – Entelechy
Jack Johnson – Songs For Maui
Haralabos [Harry] Stafylakis – Calibrating Friction
 
wokeupnew said:
Nation of Language, Explosions in the Sky, Mitski, Vagabon, and probably some others I’m forgetting
Click to expand...

Turbo said:
I've got the new Alan Palomo (Neon Indian) on the radar today too.
Click to expand...

I have all these, and then also:

Woods - Perennial
Bombino - Sahel
Margo Cilker - Valley of Heart's Delight (intrigued by Stereogum naming this album of the week)
 
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