30.01.2024-CAVE SINGERS Naomi (Jagjaguwar,2013)

 

INDIE ROCK

     What makes Naomi so intriguing is not so much that it takes guidance from a fictional muse, evidently of the same name, but that it highlights the interplay between Fudesco’s singable riffs and Quirk’s scratchy tenor. Fudesco takes these guitar lines and plays them repeatedly while Quick’s melodies mimic those phrases. What’s left is a sonic mirror that, while somewhat of a trademark for The Cave Singers, is exemplified on Naomi on tracks like “Northern Lights” and “Week to Week.”

https://www.sendspace.com/file/229eol

27.01.2024-HOUSSE DE RACKET Fprty Love (Discograph,2008)

 

ELECTRONIC

     The sheer power of the infectious melodies penned by this duo and the musical arrangements alone ensures that even those who are similarly language challenged to myself will enjoy the entirety of this record, despite not understanding a word. I think you’ll find that alone makes it game, set and match to Housse de Racket.

https://www.sendspace.com/file/oqqfrf

26.01.2024-ELLEN STARSKI The Days When Peonies Prayed For The Ants (Not On Label,2018)

 

FOLK

     On the collection, which was written over the course of 12 years, Starski explores both her homeland and herself, traveling from the coal country of rural Pennsylvania to the roots-music hotbed of Nashville, Tennessee, and creating a soundtrack to that period of self-discovery. The album is autobiographical and rooted in a lush mix of indie-folk, orchestral Americana, and organic pop.

https://www.sendspace.com/file/hx52ty

25.01.2024-FREE CAKE FOR EVERY CREATURE The Bluest Star (Double Double Whammy,2018)

 

INDIE FOLK

     The Bluest Star is a stunning album that will be sure to please her listeners. In Free Cake nature, the album deals with the trials and tribulations of being young. But this time around, listeners get to hear how much Bennett has grown. Her self-assuredness is a beautiful reminder to be nice to yourself, because at the end of the day, you’re all you’ve got.

https://www.sendspace.com/file/fdba0r

24.01.2024-GLISS Love The Virgins (Mountain Lo-Fi Recordings,2006)

 

INDIE ROCK

     These Los Angelenos approach their hometown’s timeless decadence with a bummed-out but exhilarating rigor: Digitized romantic obsession (“I Want You”), swaggering degradation (“Innocent Eyes”), country-rock erotica (“Falling to Pieces”), and suburban Anglophilia (“Off to Bed”, which drives the Cure’s pop-craft down My Bloody Valentine’s distortion freeway) are all adorned with a curtain of stylish guitar fuzz.Singer Martin Klingman, like the deeply textured music he creates with multi-instrumentalists David Reiss and Victoria Cecilia, voices everything with hot immediacy and sharp detail.Gliss sound wrecked – but awesomely so.

https://www.sendspace.com/file/14e2ik

23.01.2024-JONATHAN WILSON Eat The Worm (BMG,2023)

 

INDIE POP / FOLK 

     Eat the Worm feels like a celestial meeting point for Wilson, who has dipped a toe in jazz, country, psych rock, folk, roots, and pop. Following and honoring his own curiosity, he has landed on a collection of sonic eccentricities that are as groovy as they are hypnotic. Take tunes like “Bonnamossa” and “Hollywood Vape,” which play with percussion and noise in different but equally cacophonous ways to create wholly original sounds. The former contrasts the “boing” of a tight coil and almost gunshot-level drum machines with chanting harmonies and sweeping strings, while the latter morphs from something earthy and acoustic into a thrashing psych-prog finale. Both have the power to completely envelop you in their Wilson-built worlds.

https://www.sendspace.com/file/99k7sz

19.01.2024-AVA LUNA Histoire De Melody Nelson (Turntable Kitchen,2018)

 

INDIE POP / ROCK

   Ava Luna are the latest participants in the Turntable Kitchen’s Sounds Delicious series, in which current artists cover classic albums all the way through. For their part, Ava Luna are taking on Serge Gainsbourg’s Histoire De Melody Nelson, a Lolita-inspired 1971 concept album about Gainsbourg’s affair with a teenage girl. 

https://www.sendspace.com/file/1i1lpn

18.01.2024-MISTER HEAVENLY Boxing The Midnight (Polyvinyl,2017)

 

INDIE ROCK

     This is the wild, wonderful, and wacky world of Mister Heavenly. They have a knack for harnessing their whimsical energy while combining tight little nuggets of sound with various fragments from different styles and genres creating something entirely different that is exciting and fresh. Boxing the Moonlight is an exuberant journey through a hip musical funhouse proving that Mister Heavenly really is a super group.

https://www.sendspace.com/file/d5zde2

16.01.2024-ALI BARTER A Suitable Girl (Inertia,2017)

 

ROCK

     The album harks back to the 90s guitar pop era, with Barter's vocals a meeting of L7 and Veruca Salt, and the odd nod to Smashing Pumpkins in the music (she has cited Billy Corgan as an influence).

     Beware: the heavy guitars can be a bit of an onslaught for the ears, but like all good rock music, that's what we're here for.

https://www.sendspace.com/file/3yxdti

12.01.2024-LANTERNS ON THE LAKE Gracious Tide,Take Me Home (Bella Union,2011)

 

INDIE FOLK/INDIE ROCK

   As a debut, as a mark in the sand, Gracious Tide, Take Me Home is an endearing and beautifully drawn modern folk record: its wounded heart pinned to its lacy, windswept sleeve, watching atop the harbour walls and pining for a release from its sorrows.

https://www.sendspace.com/file/8xtbf0

11.01.2024-SCREAMING FEMALES Rose Mountain (Don Giovanni,2015)

 

INDIE ROCK

     The trio’s sixth album is a rocker’s delight, reviving the signature sludge of the Nineties on “Empty Head,” hightailing into thrash territory for “Ripe” and easing into groovy prog splendor on “Burning Car.” Boasting no-frills production by Matt Bayles (Pearl Jam, Mastodon), the album runs like a souped-up, punked-out station wagon, high on the fumes of nostalgia. As always, frontwoman Marissa Paternoster’s winding guitar solos and dogged vibrato vocals steal the show.            

https://www.sendspace.com/file/nqxedx

10.01.2024-ADA LEA One Hand On The Steering Wheel... (Saddle Creek,2021)

 

INDIE ROCK

     On her second album, the Montreal songwriter pens straightforward tales of escape but fares best when she’s retreating into fantasy.

https://www.sendspace.com/file/7f55e8

09.01.2024-JACK PENATE After You (XL,2020)

 

POP

     A lot has happened in the ten years that Jack Peñate has been away. Bowie is no longer with us, but his legacy of gender subversion lives on. Hip hop is outselling rock at a pace nobody could have predicted. And likely start-up Spotify has become, well…pretty popular. With all this and more, the boundaries of musical genre have melted away, leaving us free to flit wherever our ears desire, cherry-picking elements to create something of our very own. This lesson hasn’t been lost on Jack. ‘After You’ is something of a fever dream, an electric span of ideas that flit from one to the other.

https://www.sendspace.com/file/v8m5sp

07.01.2025-HOWLER World Of Joy (Rough Trade,2014)

 

INDIE ROCK

   Half of the tracks on World Of Joy don’t even crack three minutes. It certainly validates the album’s garage-punk ethos, but at the same time, it barely gives Howler enough time to prove itself on its second album.

https://www.sendspace.com/file/s5m6nt

05.01.2024-UNKNOWN MORTAL ORCHESTRA Sex & Food (Jagjaguwar,2018)

 

PSYCHEDELIC / GROOVE

     Sex & Food is best in this spaced-out zone, where alienation sounds genuinely alien. The record’s disembodiment is precisely what makes it intriguing and, occasionally, unlistenable. The songs often sound reluctant to be heard at all and have none of the lysergic flair that makes gear-driven rock music indulgent. Sex & Food goes the opposite way, draining away all empathy and worldly color until you are cocooned, for better or worse, in Ruban Nielson’s tiny, claustrophobic psyche.

https://www.sendspace.com/file/0c48ht

03.01.2024-LYDIA ANSWORTH Sparkles & Debris (Zombie Cat,2021)

 

INDIE POP / SYNTHPOP

     The continued evolution of Lydia Ainsworth is something to behold. Fresh off her most accessible work to date on 2019’s nocturnal Phantom Forest, her fourth album, Sparkles & Debris, provides the clearest canvas yet for Ainsworth’s spectral voice to paint in bold, impressionistic strokes. Living up to its title, songs like the twinkling “Forever” and yearning “Cosmic Dust” vividly explore the ‘90s R&B undertones hinted at in past work to inspired effect, while the absolutely show-stopping “Cake” is a wildly impressive taste of ethereal glam that serves as a quieting sonic centerpiece.

https://www.sendspace.com/file/w6rdw8

02.01.2024-BLOODY KNIVES I Will Cut Your Heart Out Of This (Saint Marie,2016)

 

SHOEGAZE

     The album nods to the nihilistic abandon of the Birthday Party, the passionate desperation of The Sound, the dense filth of Merzbow, the electric disquiet of Christian Death, and the pummeling beauty of My Bloody Valentine. There are moments of intense beauty, of atmospheric filth, icy vocals, nasty synths, buzzing noise, pummeling drums and driving bass creating a feeling of moving at breakneck speed while standing still, of being comfortable lost in the chaos.

https://www.sendspace.com/file/objqcd