29.02.2024-LEONORE BOULANGER Practice Chanter (Le Saule,2019)

 

AVANT-FOLK

     On their fourth album of deconstructed chanson, Boulanger and Jean-Daniel Botta, assisted by drummer and percussionist Laurent Seriès, have taken a major step up. If previous album Feigen Feigen was, by the band’s own admission, something of a puzzle then Practice Chanter could be likened to a mosaic, due to the sheer quantity and variety of sonic fragments that is somehow made to cohere in these 16 wild, wonderful tracks. 

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

28.02.2024-CHROMATICS Closer To Grey (Italians Do It Better,2019)

 

ELECTRONIC

     Chromatics have completely left behind their original punk, lo-fi, noisy, chaotic sound and instead grown into their “Italo-Disco”-influenced sound of more recent times. However, you can arguably hear little gems of punk in the guitars of tracks like “Through the Looking Glass” but served in a way the kids of today who get off on ’80s nostalgia they weren’t even here for can get behind. Tracks like “Light as a Feather” boast layered harmonic vocals and utterly creepy piano melodies, which make for an undeniably interesting “Chromatics-gone-murderers” vibe.

https://www.sendspace.com/file/2iy8mw

27.02.2024-VONDELPARK Seabed (R&S,2013)

 

INDIE POP

     The UK R&B trio Vondelpark mix indie-pop vulnerability with sonic luxuriance. Arriving after a couple of EPs, their debut LP is the fullest realization of the project's immersive smoothness.

https://www.sendspace.com/file/xkwg98

26.02.2024-CHELSEA WOLFE Abyss (Sargent House,2016)

 

DARKWAVE

   Chelsea Wolfe is an L.A. singer-songwriter with a taste for black veils and other unabashed goth affectations. But her fifth LP shows she’s much more than a gimmick. Her voice is more confident than it’s ever been, whether it’s bathed in industrial noise on the opener, “Carrion Flowers,” or backed by ghostly fingerpicking on “Survive.” When she sings, “My heart is a tomb/My heart is an empty room,” on the loud-quiet-loud single “Iron Moon,” you can see a thousand teens lip-syncing dramatically in their bedrooms. There’s no mistaking the real hurt in these songs — throughout Abyss, Wolfe uses her pain as a powerful tool, revealing the beauty underneath it.

https://www.sendspace.com/file/voyj43

25.02.2024-DANZ CM The Absurdity Of Human Existence (Channel 9,2021)

 

ELECTRONIC

     ‘The Absurdity of Human Existence’ is the first album by DANZ CM, formally known as COMPUTER MAGIC.

     New York based Danz Johnson is the synth girl behind both vehicles with a passion for the development of the electronic music.

     “I outgrew COMPUTER MAGIC. I outgrew the shy bedroom pop girl a long time ago” said Danz Johnson when she announced the birth of DANZ CM and certainly the innocence of her previous work is certainly absent on ‘The Absurdity of Human Existence’.

     What is in its place is a more intense presence and a wider ambition exploring different music styles and timbres while still remaining at its core, the creation of a talented woman who has overcome her shyness and had the courage to engage with and learn from some of the biggest names in synth.

https://www.sendspace.com/file/l1r3nb

24.02.2024-FLORIST Emily Alone (Double Double Whammy,2019)

 

INDIE FOLK

     Emily Alone is a collection of songs made by Florist songwriter Emily Sprague during a time of great stillness and isolation with the self. An attempt to capture the dark spaces between change and acknowledge their beauty. It is a natural, isolated, and momentary tangent away from the otherwise collaborative project that is Florist, while still maintaining the documentary nature of the band that, like all things, is a mutable entity in this universe. 

https://www.sendspace.com/file/2d3qft

21.02.2024-LIGHT ASYLUM Light Asylum (Mexican Summer,2012)

 

ELECTRONIC

     Light Asylum as less of a breath of fresh air on the synth revival scene as there are a duo of badass bandits kicking down the door of staleness and screaming, shouting and doing whatever the fuck they like. That kind of tenacity and ferociousness is what a scene and its ‘sters’ need sometimes – a bloody good kick up the arse, and so far in 2012, no-one’s boots seem more suited to the task than those of Shannon Funchess and Bruno Coviello.

https://www.sendspace.com/file/s9k27j

20.02.2024-CAGED ANIMALS Escape Artist (Nocturne,2018)

 

INDIE ROCK

   On their forthcoming album, Escape Artist, Caged Animals have created a record reincarnated from a series of spiritually trying events.  On a go-for-broke US tour, the band’s van was robbed, and the only copy of the album’s original recordings vanished (along with the laptop it was recorded on).  Only days before, Vin had learned his wife was pregnant with their first child and days later he would turn 30, entering a new phase of adulthood, flat-broke, and without his band’s new music.  

    Escape Artists’ 13 songs are built from these events, but draw musically from the character-driven narratives of Folk Music and the sonic exploration of contemporary Indie.  The album offers a literate, layered sound that plays like a small-screen Arcade Fire got stuck in a Bushwick bedroom with a miraculously upbeat Father John Misty.  The result is artful, adult pop music that is both vulnerable and sonically detailed.  Its frame is timeless but its exterior is colorful and modern.

https://www.sendspace.com/file/ygamh5

19.02.2024-RIFFTIA Kneeling At The Feet Of Time (Not On Label,2018)

 

PROG / ETHNIC

     Open minded progressive and ethnic post rock band.

The project started in Madrid in 2017, but after several vital turns, it can now be considered a global project, because of its members location (Spain, UEA, Australia) and because its worldwide influences.

https://www.sendspace.com/file/r1an1c

17.02.2024-PAUL THOMAS SAUNDERS Beautiful Desolation (Atlantic,2014)

 

ETHEREAL

     With influences such as Joe Meek and Leonard Cohen, Paul Thomas Saunders encapsulates both the psychedelic soundscape and intellectual sentimentality that the sixties graced us with, then wraps it up in a spiraling contemporary shell.

https://www.sendspace.com/file/3f6c7t

16.02.2024-JOAN AS POLICE WOMAN Real Life (Reveal,2007)

 

INDIE POP

     With her classical training and background performing with the Boston University Symphony Orchestra, violinist Joan Wasser has a tight grip on the harmonies, rhythms, and ecstatic repetitions that conservatory types love. On her group's debut album (featuring guests Joseph Arthur and Antony Hegarty), the singer/songwriter composes chamber-pop tunes that burrow, sweep, and swing. Also playing piano and guitar, she rocks out ("Christobel"), detours into eccentric gospel ("Eternal Flame"), and offers soulful ballads about love and identity with a mix of skill and passion.

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

13.02.2024-PLUMES Oh Orwell (Not On Label,2019)

 

INDIE POP

    Veronica Charnley and Geof Holbrook have often walked a tightrope between pop and classical music in their work, incorporating classical elements into their indie pop or vice versa. But sometimes they prefer to keep the two streams separate, which is probably why the couple has sometimes operated as the neoclassical Plumes Ensemble and other times as the Plumes pop combo. Oh Orwell is definitely a pop record, if a sonically diverse and excitingly multicoloured one. But there’s a chance it might mark an end to the multi-Plumes concept, as Charnley, the group’s singer and principal songwriter, and Holbrook, its arranger and multi-instrumentalist, decided to separate after creating it. If so, it’s a beautiful parting gift for fans of their sweeping, shimmering sound. 

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

12.02.2024-BANKS The Altar (Harvest,2016)

 

ALTERNATIVE R&B

     "I FUCK WITH myself more than anybody else," Banks murmurs on the glassine "Fuck With Myself." This idea of sabotage from all sides – including within – defines the electro-pop diva's second LP, which pairs her whisper-to-a-scream vocal range with jangled-nerve electronics. The pinging "Trainwreck" combines rapid-fire lyrics about escaping a bad-news boyfriend, with hand claps, as if she's at the center of a supportive drum-machine circle, and the emancipation-minded "This Is Not About Us" recalls wistful Latin freestyle. Banks' list of grievances can get wearying, but the music's dour detail is alluring too. 

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

10.02.2024-GUSGUS Lies Are More Flexible (Croom,2018)

 

ELECTRONIC

     Icelandic veterans Gusgus make a welcome return to our stereos with their unique brand of melody rich pop and techno.

https://www.sendspace.com/file/4pop7i

07.02.2024-CHARLY BLISS Young Enough (Barsuk,2019)

 

INDIE ROCK

     "It's been a while since a new power-pop machine has operated at this pitch of tuneful intensity."

https://www.sendspace.com/file/g6w764

04.02.2024-ULTRAISTA Sister (Partisan,2020)

 

EXPERIMENTAL ROCK

     Much of Ultraísta’s new album Sister feels like a sibling to Thom Yorke’s solo output, particularly his 2019 album ANIMA. The reference points are everywhere: the warm, driving synth tones on “Tin King,” the euphoric, minor key chord progression on “Ordinary Boy,” the “Atoms for Peace”-esque sparse instrumentals and melody on “Bumblebees.”

      These similarities are to be expected: Nigel Godrich is a longtime producer for Radiohead and Thom Yorke (amongst a bevy of other major acts), and this is his own band. 

https://www.sendspace.com/file/9dpkdk

02.02.2024-SBTRKT Wonder Where We Land (Young Turks,2014)

 

ELECTRONICA

     SBTRKT's early releases were futuristic takes on British two-step garage and bass music, but the masked U.K. producer has moved farther away from those influences with each record. On his second full-length, he twists the bright synths and catchy vocals of his past work into hip-hop: A$AP Ferg contributes a manic, drug-fueled tale to ''Voices in My Head,'' and the instrumental ''Lantern'' is psychedelic trip-hop. The LP also touches on Afro-funk-flavored house (''New Dorp. New York,'' with Vampire Weekend’s Ezra Koenig) and ambient atmospherics. The eclectic sounds are impressive, even if a tighter focus might have hit harder.

https://www.sendspace.com/file/s0cn42

01.02.2024-LIVING THINGS Habeas Corpus (Jive,2009)

 

INDIE ROCK

     On Living Things' rock-solid 2005 debut, singer Lillian Berlin was Iggy Pop with a subscription to The Nation, delivering bracing rockers about how much rigged elections and the Iraq War sucked. Habeas Corpus, named after the legal right denied Gitmo prisoners, has a load of anger and a marginally broader pallet, with more synths per inch. Berlin warns that "the Constitution's goin' AWOL!" on the T. Rex-influenced "The Kingdom Will Fail." The end result isn't as gripping as the debut, but Berlin is still one of hard rock's more compelling politicos.

https://www.sendspace.com/file/zz4zfd