There’s an audacity to the way the Arctic Monkeys\' fifth album gathers disparate musical threads—West Coast hip-hop, heavy ’70s rock—into something that feels so assured, inevitable and outrageously enjoyable. From biker-gang stomp of “Do I Wanna Know?” to the bouncing G-funk of “Why’d You Only Call…”, they turn the sounds of their adopted Californian home into a set of can’t-miss instant classics. Seductive, slinky and brimming with nocturnal attitude, *AM* is the sound of a band locating a sonic sweet spot no one else thought to look for.
There is an early Daft Punk track named “Teachers” that, effectively, served as a roll call for the French duo’s influences: Paul Johnson, DJ Funk, DJ Sneak. Within the context of 1997’s *Homework*, “Teachers” presented the group as bright kids ready to absorb the lessons of those who came before them. But it also marked Daft Punk as a group with a strong, dynamic relationship to the past whose music served an almost dialogic function: They weren’t just expressing themselves, they were talking to their inspirations—a conversation that spanned countries, decades, styles and technological revolutions. So while the live-band-driven sound of 2013’s *Random Access Memories* was a curveball, it was also a logical next step. The theatricality that had always been part of their stage show and presentation found its musical outlet (“Giorgio by Moroder,” the Paul Williams feature “Touch”), and the soft-rock panache they started playing with on 2001’s *Discovery* got a fuller, more earnest treatment (“Within,” the Julian Casablancas feature “Instant Crush,” the I-can’t-believe-it’s-not-The-Doobie-Brothers moves of “Fragments of Time”). The concept, as much as the album had one, was to suggest that as great as our frictionless digital world may be, there was a sense of adventurousness and connection to the spirit of the ’70s that, if not lost, had at least been subdued. “Touch” was “All You Need Is Love” for the alienation of a post-*Space Odyssey* universe; “Give Life Back to Music” wasn’t just there to set the scene, it was a command—just think of all the joy music has brought *you*. “Get Lucky” and “Lose Yourself to Dance”—spotlights both for Pharrell and the pioneering work of Chic’s Nile Rodgers—recaptured the innocence of early disco and invited their audience to do the same. There was joy in it, but there was melancholy, too: Here was a world seen through the rearview, beautiful in part because you couldn’t quite go back to it. “As we look back at the Earth, it’s, uh, up at about 11 o’clock, about, uh, well, maybe 10 or 12 diameters,” the sampled voice of astronaut Eugene Cernan says on “Contact.” “I don\'t know whether that does you any good. But there\'s somethin’ out there.” This was the Apollo 17 mission, December 1972. It remains the last time humans have been on the moon.
With multi-instrumentalist Warren Ellis replacing Mick Harvey as his primary foil, Nick Cave finds his songs developing along the lines of his soundtrack work on *Push the Sky Away*. The mood is subdued, yet intense, as it forces Cave to sing from his deepest register and leads to some of his best work. Nowhere is it more effective than on the haunting “Wide Lovely Eyes,” where Cave and a Fender Rhodes keyboard provide the drama. The album is pure simmering genius, where life occurs in the shadows.
Laura Marling’s questing nature reaches its zenith on album four, the 16-song epic *Once I Was an Eagle*. It kicks off with a hypnotic four-track suite of songs tied together by a raga-like drone and hand percussion, sucking the listener into her existential headspace. Further in, there’s classical guitar (“Little Love Caster”), tender devotionals (“Love Be Brave”), and Dylan evocations (“It ain’t me, babe,” she affirms on “Master Hunter”), all stirred by her steely interrogations.
Compared to the organic folktronica of Jon Hopkins’ preceding strum ‘n’ bass album, *Diamond Mine*, 2013’s *Immunity* is a departure in both music style and sonic texture. The former built an imaginative balance from the contrasts of electronic soundscapes rubbing against the grain of wood and wire. But with *Immunity*, Hopkins’ yin and yang swirl sublimely. The opening song, “We Disappear,” somehow makes techno sound light and breezy. On paper, the stuttered beats, rusty percussion, and deep bass should sound angular and abrasive. But under Hopkins’ touch, the elements here combine to sooth the senses with a feel that’s similar to reclining in a leather seat in the first-class section of a 747. “Open Eye Signal” follows, with more downplayed rhythms and tones gently pulsing and droning alongside what sounds like brushes on a snare drum. “Breathe This Ear” returns us to a time in the mid-\'90s when British shoegazers like Slowdive were collaborating with the ambient electro backdrops of Seefeel. “Collider” brings some innovation to this marriage with cleverly collaged samples of singer Lisa Elle (Dark Horses).
A powerful, multi-faceted beast, packed with the most aggressively dancefloor-focussed music Hopkins has ever made, Immunity is about achieving euphoric states through music. Inspired by the arc of an epic night out, the album peaks with Collider, a huge, apocalyptic, techno monster and dissolves with the quiet, heartbreakingly beautiful closer, Immunity, a track featuring vocals from King Creosote which could sit comfortably alongside the gems of their Mercury-nominated collaboration, Diamond Mine. Immunity is a confident, dramatic record defined by an acute sense of physicality and place. It feels like the hypnotic accompaniment to a journey of creativity, a trip inside Hopkins’ mind, using analog synthesis alongside manipulations of physical, real-world sounds to make dance music that feels as natural and unforced as possible.
Drenge are two brothers from a small town in England; they started making music together in high school. Eoin Loveless’ grungy, fuzzy guitars roil and shudder with a Black Sabbath/Nirvana kind of intensity, and drummer Rory’s foundations are so solid you might think you hear a bassline in the mix. *Drenge* opens with “People in Love Make Me Feel Yuck”; Eoin’s sardonic delivery cuts through the thick guitar buzz with lines like “We have no redeeming features/Just a desperate streak,” riding atop a lazy, slightly boogie-rock–infused rhythm before the title is chanted at song’s end with a kind of weary recognition. Their youthful dissing of everyday life (“Dogmeat”) and their more solemn observances of same (“Backwaters”), their successful stab at a dirge-ballad (“Let’s Pretend”) and hilarious riposte of Willie Dixon’s classic “I Just Wanna Make Love to You” (“I Don’t Wanna…”) all show that the brothers Loveless have clearly done some rock ’n’ roll homework. Then they shredded it through their teenaged-id filters with the throttle wide open. There\'s excellent production here, especially on the refreshingly crisp and upfront vocals.
There are deftly wielded forces of darkness and light at work on Vampire Weekend’s third record. Elegiac, alive with ideas, and coproduced by Ariel Rechtshaid, *Modern Vampires of the City* moves beyond the grabby, backpacking indie of its predecessors. In fact, whether through the hiccuping, distorted storm of “Diane Young” or “Unbelievers”—a sprinting guitar-pop jewel about the notion of afterlife—this is nothing less than the sound of a band making a huge but sure-footed creative leap.
The debut from the Aussie duo Jagwar Ma, *Howlin*, is a satisfying slab of hazy neon-flavored pop goodness. Gabriel Winterfield’s youthful, inviting vocals are mixed high enough above the spirited electronic percussion, guitar jangle, and morphing synths to pull listeners in and get them on board with easy, sometimes-repetitive lyrics that take on new meaning the ninth or tenth time around. In fact, repetition is one of the duo’s strong points, from the looping, stuck-needle groove of the opening “What Love” to the house-derived “Exercise” and “Four” and the ‘60s soul beat of the Animal Collective–inflected “Come Save Me.” The duo builds song structures that are simple and clean, riding them until they change shape. “That Loneliness” is an infectious, driving vintage R&B tune inflected with a Beach Boys–style giddiness, and the “The Throw” builds with the kind of swirling psych energy that drove the late-‘80s “Madchester” scene (Happy Mondays, Stone Roses, et al). Jagwar Ma seems utterly sure of itself, carefully balancing disparate styles into a tasty, summery mix that\'ll work wonders on a winter day.
While Waxahatchee’s debut, *American Weekend*, is often described as “haunting” (for good reason), the artist’s sophomore release exudes a more pointed, aggressive sound. Waxahatchee is Katie Crutchfield, a singer/songwriter and Alabama native doing what should be impossible by now: giving new life to a well-worn musical genre. On *Cerulean Salt*, she swings from stabbing, grimy guitars on the first two tracks to a relaxed and almost sweet-seeming saunter featuring tambourines and acoustic guitar (“Lips and Limbs“). Then a thudding, spare bass and hollow snare paint a bleak picture on “Brother Bryan.” That song opens with the line “I said to you on the night we met, ‘I am not well,’” which tells you what to expect lyrically on this beguiling work. Crutchfield’s an honest, straightforward artist who emits the smart pop-flavored confidence of Liz Phair, the mystery of Cat Power, and the melodic playfulness of Pavement, though Waxahatchee’s sound is considerably simpler. Whether she’s slamming her electric guitar or strumming an acoustic, the emotional nakedness of *Cerulean Salt* is a beautiful thing.
On her second full-length record as Waxahatchee, former P.S. Eliot singer Katie Crutchfield’s compelling hyper-personal poetry is continuously crushing. Cerulean Salt follows last January’s American Weekend -- a collection of minimal acoustic-guitar pop written and recorded in a week at her family’s Birmingham home. On this new record, Crutchfield’s songs continue to be marked by her sharp, hooky songwriting; her striking voice and lyrics that simultaneously seem hyper-personal yet relentlessly relatable, teetering between endearingly nostaglic and depressingly dark. But whereas before the thematic focus of her songcraft was on break ups and passive-aggressive crushing, this record reflects on her family and Alabama upbringing. And whereas American Weekend was mostly just Crutchfield and her guitar, Cerulean Salt is occasionally amped up, with a full band and higher-fi production. At times, Cerulean Salt creeps closer to the sound of PS Eliot: moody, 90s-inspired rock backed by Keith Spencer and Swearin’ guitarist Kyle Gilbride on drums and bass. The full band means fleshed-out fuzzy lead guitars on “Coast to Coast”, its poppy hook almost masking its dark lyrics. Big distorted guitars and deep steady drums mark songs like “Misery over Dispute” and “Waiting”. There’s plenty of American Weekend‘s instrospection and minimalism to be found, though. “Blue Pt. II” is stripped down, Crutchfield and her sister Alison (of Swearin’) singing in harmony with deadpan vox. She’s still an open booking, musing on self-doubt versus self-reliance, transience versus permanence. “Peace and Quiet” ebbs and flows from moody, minimal verses to a sing-song chorus. “Swan Dive” tackles nostalgia, transience, indifference, regret — over the a minimal strum of an electric-guitar, the picking at a chirpy riff and the double-time tapping of a muted drum. The album closes with a haunting acoustic-guitar reflection on “You’re Damaged,” possibly the best Waxahatchee song to date.
Crisp drums, juicy chords, irresistible hooks—Disclosure’s debut album couldn\'t have sounded fresher. Brothers Guy and Howard Lawrence were just kids when their favorite styles were last in vogue, and they bring the right balance of innocence and insouciance to swinging drums and plunging organ basslines, while vocalists like Sam Smith and AlunaGeorge lend a soulful shine to the impeccably polished productions.
Since The National\'s 2001 debut, the world-weary baritone of frontman and songwriter Matt Berninger has become one of the most compelling voices in Brooklyn’s well-groomed indie scene, begging comparisons to darkly tempered rock outsiders like Nick Cave and Leonard Cohen. The follow-up to 2010’s celebrated *High Violet* is a set of beautifully produced contemplations on shadowy love, self-destruction, and urban ennui. Chipper? Hardly. But songs like “Demons,” “Heavenfaced,” and “I Need My Girl” are impossible to shake.
In January 2012, following a twenty-two month tour to promote the band’s previous record, High Violet, guitarist Aaron Dessner returned home to Brooklyn, where the fitfulness of his newborn daughter threw Aaron into a more or less sustained fugue state—“sleepless and up all the time,” as he puts it. Punch-drunk, he shuffled into the band’s studio (situated in Aaron’s backyard), where he amused himself writing musical fragments that he then sent over to vocalist Matt Berninger. Recalls Matt of Aaron, “He’d be so tired while he was playing his guitar and working on ideas that he wouldn’t intellectualize anything. In the past, he and Aaron’s twin brother, Bryce would be reluctant to send me things that weren’t in their opinion musically interesting—which I respected, but often those would be hard for me to connect to emotionally. This time around, they sent me sketch after sketch that immediately got me on a visceral level." From beginning to end, Trouble Will Find Me possesses the effortless and unself-conscious groove of a downstream swimmer. It’s at times lush and at others austere, suffused with insomniacal preoccupations that skirt despair without succumbing to it. There are alluring melodies, and the murderously deft undercurrent supplied by the Devendorfs. There are songs that seem (for Matt anyway) overtly sentimental—among them, the Simon & Garfunkel-esque 'Fireproof', 'I Need My Girl' (with Matt’s unforgettable if throwaway reference to a party “full of punks and cannonballers”) and 'I Should Live In Salt' (which Aaron composed as a send-up to the Kinks and which Matt wrote about his brother). While a recognition of mortality looms in these numbers, they’re buoyed by a kind of emotional resoluteness—“We’ll all arrive in heaven alive”—that will surprise devotees of Matt’s customary wry fatalism. Then there are the songs that Aaron describes as “songs you could dance to—more fun, or at least The National’s version of fun.” These include 'Demons'—a mordant romp in 7/4, proof that bleakness can actually be rousing—and the haunting 'Humiliation' in which the insistent locomotion of Bryan’s snarebeat is offset by Matt’s semi-detached gallows rumination: “If I die this instant/taken from a distance/they will probably list it down among other things around town.” Finally there are songs—like 'Pink Rabbits' and the lilting 'Slipped' (the latter termed by Aaron “the kind of song we’ve always wanted to write”)—that aspire to be classics, with Orbison-like melodic geometry. In these songs, as well as in 'Heavenfaced', Matt emerges from his self-described “comfort zone of chant-rock” and glides into a sonorous high register of unexpected gorgeousness. The results are simultaneously breakthrough and oddly familiar, the culmination of an artistic journey that has led The National both to a new crest and, somehow, back to their beginnings—when, says Aaron, “our ideas would immediately click with each other. It’s free-wheeling again. The songs on one level are our most complex, and on another they’re our most simple and human. It just feels like we’ve embraced the chemistry we have.”
Deerhunter’s 2010 opus *Halcyon Digest* captures the dream-pop savants at their most elegant and fragile, but on their follow-up album, *Monomania*, Bradford Cox and company rediscover their scuzzy punk roots. “Neon Junkyard” rattles out of its cage with inhuman vocal contortions while “Pensacola” straddles over a hooky cowpunk guitar riff. The noisy title track cranks up the volume further and further, drowning out Cox’s screeching vocals with a torrential downpour of twisted feedback.
Combining lean, spastic post-punk with the fractured charm of ‘90s indie-rock pinups Pavement, Parquet Courts’ debut is probably the only place you’ll ever hear anyone shout about Socrates in such close proximity to shouting about donuts. Opening with the whip-smart one-two punch of “Master of My Craft” and “Borrowed Time,” *Light Up Gold* reads like a poetry chapbook and sounds like an overheated garage, anchored by offhand beauty (“N Dakota”), jagged, surrealistic rants (“Donuts Only”), and the locomotive drone of “Stoned and Starving,” which turns a routine trip to the corner store into an odyssey of ancient-Grecian proportions.
Little was said about Parquet Courts' debut effort, American Specialties. Released exclusively on cassette tape, the quasi-album was an odd collection of 4 track recordings that left those who were paying attention wanting more. A year of woodshedding live sets passed before the Courts committed another song to tape. The band's first proper LP, Light Up Gold, is a dynamic and diverse foray into the back alleys of the American DIY underground. Bright guitars swirl serpentine over looping, groovy post-punk bass lines and drums that border on robotic precision. While the initial rawness of the band's early output remains, the songwriting has gracefully evolved. Primary wordsmiths A. Savage and Austin Brown combine for a dynamic lyrical experience, one part an erudite overflow of ideas, the other an exercise in laid-back observation. Lyrically dense, the poetry is in how it flows along with the melody, often times as locked-in as the rhythm section. “This record is for the over-socialized victims of the 1990's 'you can be anything you want', Nickelodeon-induced lethargy that ran away from home not out of any wide-eyed big city daydream, but just out of a subconscious return to America's scandalous origin," writes Savage in the album's scratched-out liner notes. Recorded over a few days in a ice-box practice space, Light Up Gold is equally indebted to Krautrock, The Fall, and a slew of contemporaries like Tyvek and Eddy Current Suppression Ring. Though made up of Texan transplants, Parquet Courts are a New York band. Throw out the countless shallow Brooklyn bands of the blasé 2000's: Light Up Gold is a conscious effort to draw from the rich culture of the city - the bands like Sonic Youth, Bob Dylan, and the Velvet Underground that are not from New York, but of it. A panoramic landscape of dilapidated corner-stores and crowded apartments is superimposed over bare-bones Americana, leaving little room for romance or sentiment. It's punk, it's American, it's New York... it's the color of something you were looking for. Austin Brown guitar A Savage guitar Max Savage drums Sean Yeaton bass
This talented three-sister act received what felt like years of hype with its advance EPs before finally releasing its debut album, *Days Are Gone*—which sports a title seemingly aware of how much time passed while fans were waiting. With such expectations, *Days Are Gone* delivers on the hype, with self-penned songs so perfectly performed that it feels unfair that Haim has received so many comparisons to Fleetwood Mac, no matter how kind and worthy. A catchy tune like “The Wire” is so immediately likable that it\'d throw the rest of an album by a lesser act off balance. Except Haim is the real deal, and even the very next songs—“If I Could Change Your Mind,” “Honey & I,” “Don’t Save Me”—exhibit fresh excitement of their own propulsion. Producer Ariel Rechtshaid (Usher, Vampire Weekend) helped these songs flow with their identities intact. The album features the best attributes of \'80s pop; while those who lived through that era might feel a sense of untraceable déjà vu, everyone should marvel at the catchy, unforced fun heard throughout this remarkable debut.
If you ask Nik Colk Void who was in the back of her head while she wrote \"Here Again,\" the earworm-iest song on Factory Floor\'s debut album, she\'ll say Michael Jackson. Which seems like a stretch, but listen to it again. The moonwalk melodies are there, lurking just under the surface. They\'re simply distorted and hammered into the ground by lots of other loopy elements, from the inhuman drum fills of Gabe Gurnsey to the criss-crossing keys of Dominic Butler. And then there\'s Void\'s own contributions: guitars that sound more like synths and vocals that somehow remind us of The Cocteau Twins. Only, you know, eminently danceable. All of Factory Floor\'s songs unfold like this—in a manner that strip-mines its influences (industrial, acid techno, the \'80s definition of electro) and then obscures them in squiggly, elasticized overtones that sound like nothing *but* Factory Floor. Years of buzz-building singles (including the album standouts \"Fall Back\" and \"Two Different Ways\") and rigorous closed-door rehearsals led to this, and it shows. The only thing left to do is listen. No wonder that the first song is called \"Turn It Up.\"
After kicking in the door as a 16-year-old rap phenomenon, Odd Future\'s Earl Sweatshirt, now 19, is unleashing *Doris*. His first full-length album further establishes him as a promising talent in hip-hop. With production from The Neptunes (\"Burgundy\"), drunken ad-libs from RZA (\"Molasses\"), rapping by Frank Ocean (\"Sunday\"), and energetic cameos from Tyler, The Creator (\"Whoa\", \"Sasquatch\"), Earl\'s introduction is assertive. Swerving among hard raps, smooth melodies, and jazz-infused chords, *Doris* is eclectic, elusive, and hard to pin down. By the time the record finishes with the sweeping soul samples of \"Knight,\" Earl\'s outing makes for an entertaining ride.
Defying expectations again, These New Puritans veer away from punk and electronica toward something more challenging on their third album, *Field of Reeds*. Band mastermind Jack Barnett builds these tracks out of diverse components, pairing the exotic textures of a magnetic resonator piano with austere brass lines, eerie chorale vocals, and sound effect samples. Barnett’s brother George plays a crucial role in holding the sometimes diffuse arrangements together with complex, jazz-tinged drumming. The result is a compelling song cycle. It can be jarring in its neoclassical contours, yet it\'s redeemed by an otherworldly grace. Between the disturbing atmospherics of “The Way I Do” and the darkly massed vocals of the title track is a musical journey that hints at extreme states of exaltation and despair without dispelling its air of pervasive mystery. The jittery syncopation of “Fragment 2” gives way to the dissonant art-song balladry of “V (Island Song)” and the rippling flow of “Organ Eternal.” Jack Barnett’s smoky murmur is enriched by the light, sweet tones of Portuguese singer Elisa Rodrigues.
The main feeling that Kevin Shields felt upon the release of *m b v* in 2013 was relief. The process of making his band’s third album—and first since 1991’s era-defining *Loveless*—had begun almost two decades before, and, after a last-minute race to complete it before a planned tour, it was done. “We had a six-month tour in front of us and we literally just finished it in time,” Shields tells Apple Music. Continuing a theme begun by *Loveless* and 1988’s *Isn’t Anything*, Shields compromised nothing on *m b v*. This time, though, it was a totally independent production, all on him. “I spent about £50,000 mastering it,” he says. “If we were with a record company, they would have been going absolutely crazy, but we paid for it ourselves and we put it out ourselves and we made a lot more money than we would’ve made if we’d put it out on a label.” *m b v* began back in 1996. The band’s classic lineup had started to disintegrate, with drummer Colm Ó Cíosóig and bassist Debbie Googe departing. Perhaps in a reflection of this unsettling period, Shields began to approach songwriting in a much more experimental manner. “I went on this process of recording a lot of ideas in a purposely abstract way,” he says. “I wasn’t trying to write a song with a beginning and an end. Instead of writing a part in a song, I’d record it and then record another part. I was doing the writing process and the recording process at the same time but in different ways. It might be weeks between a verse and a chorus…well, I don’t do choruses.” The idea was that eventually these ideas would form a coherent whole that would be a new my bloody valentine record, but the project stalled in 1997 when Shields ran out of money. “And then I started hanging out with Primal Scream and I kind of drifted into that world, which was fun for quite a while.” It wasn’t until Shields was remastering the band’s back catalog in 2006 that he listened back to the unfinished sessions. “I realized it was actually better and more relevant than I thought it was,” he recalls. “I’d kind of forgotten about the more melodic parts of it and realized they were quite strong. I thought, ‘I should finish this and make it into an album.’” It was a freeing process, Shields says, filled with lots of “crazy shit.” At one point, they paid to fly people from England to Japan with proofs of the artwork because they didn’t trust just seeing it on a computer. “We were literally throwing money at it to make sure it was as good as possible,” he says. “Every single penny was justified.” By the end, Shields felt vindicated. “We did it our way and it was perfectly good.” No my bloody valentine record ever sounds of its time—they all sound like the future. But there is something especially reinvigorating about listening to their third album, perhaps because of how unlikely its release seemed at points. To hear Shields still erecting signposts on where guitar music can go on the sensational closer “wonder 2,” which sounds like a rock band playing drum and bass from inside the engine of a 747, or the slo-mo sway of “if i am” is to be reminded that this is a visionary at work. One of the central themes of *m b v*, says Shields, was a strong sense of everything coming to an end. He thinks that’s why it still resonated when he listened back in 2006, the feeling growing as he recommenced work on it in 2011 and even more so now. “We’re in a cycle of the world of things coming to an end and moving into a new phase,” he says. “The record is more relevant as every decade goes by.”
Grab this debut from England\'s Palma Violets, and when the backlashing naysayers start their whining, just put your earbuds in and stomp-dance into the sunset. Palma Violets\' sound is rich with history (The Velvet Underground, The Doors, even Iggy) yet firmly modern (British Sea Power, Vaccines, Toy). It\'s a smart, riotous blend of then and now, carefully balancing somber and ecstatic, bombastic and brooding. With the pounding, essential single \"Best of Friends\" zipping up the British charts like a rat with its tail on fire, you might not expect the rest of the album to have the same oomph. But it does: \"Rattlesnake Highway\" and \"We Found Love\" soar on grimy, distorted pop pretensions; \"Tom the Drum\" thumps and swoops with a goofy menace. Tunes like \"Last of the Summer Wine\" and \"Step Up for the Cool Cats\" unfold with the swirling, slow build of a Galaxie 500 or Spiritualized tune, eventually blooming into psych-pop brilliance. Key to the Violets\' success are Chilli Jesson\'s throbbing bass lines and rich voice and the expressive, soulful organ work of Pete Mayhew.
With her second full-length album, Janelle Monáe continues the imaginative narrative of her futuristic alter-ego Cindi Mayweather. This storyline started on Monáe\'s debut EP, *Metropolis: The Chase Suite*, and continued though the acclaimed 2010 full-length *The ArchAndroid*. The richly detailed tunes on *The Electric Lady* continue the story of Mayweather—a femme android superhero—through a funk-infused power struggle in the city of Metropolis. And even though Monáe’s concept is elaborate, hard-grooving tunes like “Q.U.E.E.N.” (feat. Erykah Badu), “Electric Lady,” and “Dance Apocalyptic” are undeniably magnetic and stand on their own merits. Tracks like “We Were Rock n\' Roll” and “It\'s Code” demonstrate Monáe’s gift for weaving influences of classic soul and exploratory funk (think Funkadelic and Nona Hendryx) with crisp neo-soul production and rock guitar flourishes. Prince makes a guest vocal on an album highlight—“Givin Em What They Love”—while reflexive ballads like “PrimeTime” (feat. Miguel), “Can’t Live Without Your Love,” and “What an Experience” feature some of Monáe’s most personal songwriting to date.
*Dream River* is Bill Callahan’s 16th (or so) release, including those he recorded as Smog. His music is mysterious and intense. Even after 25 years, it remains filled with surprises. Where in the past Callahan has thrived on repetition, here nothing is static. *Dream River* is sublime in its subtlety; each word and pause feels essential. The instruments are in sync with Callahan’s drowsy and understated baritone, and the arrangements fully support the freeform lyrics and open song structures. The music is lush and the backing band inspired, particularly the remarkable guitar work of Matt Kinsey. His guitar tones play off Callahan’s vocals beautifully as keyboards, flute, congas, and percussion add texture and motion on standouts like “Javelin Unlanding” and “Spring.” Another highlight is the opening “The Sing,” a Callahan classic featuring pedal steel, electric guitar, country fiddle, and a hint of mariachi rhythm. *Dream River* is an affecting album that ranks among Callahan’s best work.
Ol' man Eagle is back, floatin' Apocalyptically on a Whaleheart down the Dream River. Eight gentle percolations fire the pressure-cooker of life, dialing us into the Callahanian mind- and soul-set. Deep like aqua, soulful like man and animal alike.
\"I much prefer the mundane,\" sings Melbourne\'s Courtney Barnett on the brilliant \"Avant Gardner.\" It\'s a loaded statement. In the context of that song, Barnett would have rather stayed in bed than wind up in an ambulance following an asthma attack. In the context of this album—a beguiling collection of earthy rock that plants itself in your heart and then grows and grows—you sense that Barnett prefers the seemingly mundane simply because she can do so much with it artistically. With a gift for turning the quotidian into the profound, Barnett writes about how nice it\'d be to plant tomatoes, and about the contents of her wallet. She couches her lyrics in rolling basslines, jaunty rhythms, and crunchy guitars. Even her voice is deceptively simple, a half-spoken drawl that strings together seemingly disparate syllables with perfectly detached cool. She may not be much of a gardener, but when it comes to harvesting nourishing hooks, Barnett has a green thumb.
Original Riot Grrrl and Bikini Kill leader Kathleen Hanna initially considered The Julie Ruin a one-off project that served as her alter ego back in 1998. Then her band Le Tigre took up her time and energy for the ensuing decade. But in 2010, Hanna began working with an interesting mix of musicians like filmmaker/actor/drummer Carmine Covelli, newcomer guitarist Sara Landeau, former Bikini Kill bassist Kathi Wilcox, and keyboardist Kenny Melman—and The Julie Ruin was back in a new formation. The sound here flows between guitar-based punk aggression and spunky dance-floor synths; it sounds like the emphasis was on capturing energy rather than finesse. Hanna isn\'t a traditional singer and shouldn’t be if the band is to succeed. She screams, yelps, pokes, laughs, and sings with an attitude that puts the songs over the top. “Ha Ha Ha” feels like a taunt. “Oh Come On” drives with aggression. “Just My Kind” slows things for nearly a reflective moment. “Girls Like Us,” “Cookie Road,\" and “Kids in NY” take a variety of points of view regarding the world around them.
The British duo F\*\*\* Buttons are probably suffering—to some degree—from the downside to having a name that requires asterisks for certain media outlets. *Slow Focus*, the duo’s third full-length release, shows again that the Buttons—what with all the permutations the name is subjected to—are incredibly good at what they do. Rhythmic machinations push and pull squealing, pinging, whooshing, humming synths and brittle, staccato percussion into a myriad of shapes and forms, and their instrumental prowess shows a keen awareness of how critical it is to put something fresh into each track. Two guys (Andrew Hung and Benjamin Power, who met in art school in England) use a bunch of electronic gear—and other odds and ends—to make some utterly entrancing music, all without lyrics or anything like a “hook.” You can headbang to “Brainfreeze,” zone to “Stalker,” and get robot funky on “Sentients.” You won’t sing along or hum a melody in the shower, but the Buttons have made sure you\'ll remember.
The RCA logo that dominates the album art of *Comedown Machine* sarcastically signifies The Strokes fulfilling their five-album contract obligation to the label. With similarly endearing cheekiness, the opening song is titled “Tap Out.” Inside jokes aside, *Comedown Machine* is a seriously approached indie-pop album that furthers the band’s hip cosmopolitan sound. “Tap Out” plays with striking similarities to Julian Casablancas’ solo album *Phrazes for the Young*, replete with falsetto vocals set to muted disco flourishes. But the following single “All The Time” properly sets the album’s tone with The Strokes\' familiar post-punk influences and driving guitar riffs chugging alongside Casablancas’ more recognizable tenor. It’s impossible not to recall A-ha’s 1985 synth-pop hit “Take On Me” when hearing the percolating keyboards in “One Way Trigger”—especially when Casablancas ramps up his glassy falsetto to Morten Harket’s range. But with help from producer Gus Oberg (who also mixed the band’s preceding album, *Angels*), The Strokes succeed at importing such \'80s influences without drowning in them.
Welsh singer/songwriter Cate Le Bon enlists the services of Devendra Banhart/Joanna Newsom producer Noah Georgeson to help find the right balance between minimalism and a musical breakdown. The best tracks on her third album, *Mug Museum*, are held together by a thumping electric bass guitar, a near-barren drum set, and her voice in one speaker; guitars or keyboards move in from the other. It creates the feel of a pop and folk singer from another era—likely the early ‘70s, when the U.K., especially, seemed to find these outliers on a regular basis (to potentially rule out their position as outliers). Though the album was recorded in her new home of Los Angeles, there’s nothing in these spooky songs (“No God,” “I Think I Knew”) to suggest she’s done anything differently. A full band comes a-crankin’ for “I Can’t Help You,” “Wild,\" and “Sisters,” and whatever lessons they learned from The Velvet Underground are put to good use.
Recorded and mixed by Justin Pizzoferrato at Sonelab, Easthampton, MA Mastered by Carl Saff, Chicago, IL Artwork by Sadie Dupuis July Was Hot Music (c) 2013 Carpark Records CAK97 Get IRL 12", cassette or CD here: store.carparkrecords.com/products/514163-cak97-speedy-ortiz-major-arcana
James Blake\'s second studio album, *Overgrown*, is a hypnotizing foray from an artist whose influences have grown from the subtle, futuristic textures of his eponymous 2011 debut to embrace everything from gospel choirs to post-dubstep. On *Overgrown*, Blake further expands his omnivorous influences and yields eclectic results—from a hip-hop track featuring RZA (\"Take a Fall for Me\") to a piano ballad that foregoes synths and electronics entirely (\"Dlm\"). *Overgrown* is challenging but accessible, confidently pacing through a multifaceted garden blooming with complex electronic layers, styles, and emotions.