Rough Trade's Albums of the Year 2018

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52.
by 
Album • Jun 08 / 2018
Neo-Psychedelia Indie Rock
Noteable
53.
Album • Mar 09 / 2018
Soul Pop Soul Contemporary R&B

Released on March 9th 2018, *Memories* is a bold collection of uninhibited songs inspired by Ady’s personal experiences. Drawing on touchstones of British adolescence, the album covers a broad range of themes - from love and relationships through to mental health issues. All the tracks on Memories are written by Ady, and co-produced by Ady alongside the likes of Ivor Novello winning Cassel The Beat Maker (Akala, Plan B), Richard Archer, Eric Appapolay (Neneh Cherry, Craig David, Lionel Ritchie) and Grades (Bastille, Dua Lipa, Khalid). Highlights include forthcoming single ‘Need Somebody To Love’ which sees Ady intertwine sprawling jazz with adolescent infatuation over a teardrop drumbeat and sparse choral samples.

54.
by 
Album • Apr 06 / 2018
Neo-Soul Jazz-Funk
Popular

An accomplished multi-instrumentalist, Tom Misch studied jazz guitar at a Conservatoire of Music. A single year, however, proved enough before his attention switched to his own bedroom productions. This debut album perfects a blueprint explored on early acclaimed EPs and singles: unhurried vocals complementing a cross-pollination of deeply attractive pop, jazz, and hip-hop. And the highlights come thick and fast. “Man Like You” and “You’re On My Mind” will illuminate candlelit bedrooms, while Loyle Carner pays tribute to the pair’s South London roots over a hypnotic sax loop on the funk-flecked “Water Baby”. The album’s warm and celebratory mood peaks, however, with De La Soul’s weightless “It Runs Through Me” verses.

55.
Album • Feb 09 / 2018
Indie Rock
Popular Highly Rated

Transangelic Exodus, Ezra Furman’s second album for Bella Union, is a new landmark for the American singer-songwriter: “not a concept record, but almost a novel, or a cluster of stories on a theme, a combination of fiction and a half-true memoir,” according to its author. “A personal companion for a paranoid road trip. A queer outlaw saga.” The music is as much of an intense, dramatic event, full of brilliant hooks, with an equally evolved approach to recorded sound to match Furman’s narrative vision. In honour of this shift, his backing band has been newly christened: The Boy-Friends are dead, long live The Visions. In other words, the man who embodies the title of his last album Perpetual Motion People is still on the move... Or in the vernacular of the new album, on the run. “The narrative thread,” Furman declares, “is I’m in love with an angel, and a government is after us, and we have to leave home because angels are illegal, as is harbouring angels. The term ‘transangelic’ refers to the fact people become angels because they grow wings. The have an operation, and they’re transformed. And it causes panic because some people think it’s contagious, or it should just be outlawed. “The album still works without the back story, though,” he vouches. “What’s essential is the mood - paranoid, authoritarian, the way certain people are stigmatised. It’s a theme in American life right now, and other so-called democracies.” After “Perpetual Motion People” was released in July 2015, Furman had moved back from California (Oakland) to his home town of Chicago. But after a year, he returned to the west coast (Berkeley this time). “I just seem to keep moving,” he sighs. Still, Transangelic Exodus was mostly recorded – as all Furman's records have been since 2011 - at his bandmate (saxophonist/producer) Tim Sandusky’s Ballistico Studios in Chicago, and with the other Visions - Jorgen Jorgensen (bass, and on this album, cello), Ben Joseph (keyboards, guitar) and Sam Durkes (drums/percussion). Just as Furman’s band hasn’t really changed, so his musical DNA remains intact – a thrilling, literate form of garage-punk rooted in The Velvet Underground, Jonathan Richman and ‘50s rock’n’roll. But Transangelic Exodus is noticeably different to its predecessors. “2016 was a hard year,” Furman recalls. “While the political and cultural conversation devolved in a very threatening way, we travelled and toured a lot. We saw ourselves coming to the end of what we were, and we wanted to become something new.” Furman cites Vampire Weekend’s “Modern Vampires Of The City”, Beck’s “Odelay”, Sparklehorse’s “It’s A Wonderful Life”, Kendrick Lamar’s “To Pimp A Butterfly”, Kayne West’s Yeezus, Angel Olsen’s Burn Your Fire For No Witness and Tune-Yards’ Who Kill – “artists making the most interesting music with the available resources” – as influences on Transangelic Exodus, plus Brian Wilson, Bruce Springsteen and James Baldwin’s ground-breaking, gay-themed 1956 novel Giovanni’s Room. “My previous records were original in their own way, but got classified as an off-kilter version of a retro band, and I wanted something that sounded more original,” he explains. “So we took time off touring, and made sure we took time with every song. I demoed with different band members, and then combined different demos – some parts even made the final album. So, the sound is more chopped up, edited, affected, rearranged.” One prime example is the album’s lead single ‘Driving Down To LA’, a sparse, but explosive, mix of doo-wop and digital crunch. Another is the haunting ‘Compulsive Liar’. “I wrote it as a ballad on a classical acoustic guitar, but we made it stranger, which brought out the emotion of the lyric more than it would have in its original form,” Furman says. “It’s less predictable; you don’t know where the song might go, and that makes me happy.” Furman once said, “The opening lines of my records tend to be summary statements.” So, what does, “I woke up bleeding in the crotch of a tree / TV blaring on the wall above the coffee machine” (from ‘Suck The Blood From My Wounds’) say about Transangelic Exodus? “I like the opening lines so much, I had to keep them even though they don’t make a lot of sense! You’re dropped into this story or situation, unsure where you are or what’s going on, and suddenly you’re moving. That’s what being alive feels like to me. Unknown and intense. It’s a big part of the record’s mood.” Checking Furman’s successive album covers will show his personal journey, coming out as queer and gender-fluid, which the jagged, agitated ‘Maraschino-Red Dress $8.99 at Goodwill’ meets head on, namely “the painful experience of being a closeted gender-non-conforming person. Having ‘trans’ in the album title has a lot to do with being queer, like [album finale] ‘I Lost My Innocence’ [“…to a boy named Vincent”). That early experience marks the narrator for life. From a young age, because of issues surrounding gender and sexuality, I felt fated to have an outsider perspective. It radicalises you.” Transangelic Exodus addresses another kind of coming out, as Furman addresses his Jewish faith on record much more openly than before, from the shivery ballad ‘God Lifts Up the Lowly’ (which includes a verse in Hebrew) to the exquisite ‘Psalm 151’ and the line “I believe in God but I don't believe we're getting out of this one” in ‘Come Here Get Away From Me’, a heady blend of rock’n’roll rumble and ghostly clarinet. “There is a lot of longing and anger in those songs,” Furman reckons. “A longing for God, and God’s help, wondering how long this can go on. It feels like we’re in exile – the innocent, persecuted, oppressed and threatened. But it’s hard in pop culture to make explicitly religious statements, as many people – including myself - have been hurt by religion.” Part of Furman’s motivation is the, “fear of fascist takeover,” expressed in the video to ‘Driving Down To L.A’ (filmed in Virginia, and uncannily storyboarded before the state’s infamous Charlottesville “Unite The Right” rally), as Ezra and his angel are pursued by modern-day Nazis. “At school, we learned all about the Holocaust, and were invited to imagine what would happen if the Nazis invaded again. As white supremacy has become more explicitly institutionalised in the US, my childhood nightmares have started to show up in songs.” Crossing between love, gender, sexuality and religion, and singing in solidarity with the innocent, persecuted, oppressed and threatened, Ezra Furman has soundtracked the current fear and loathing across America like no other, while pushing ahead with his own agenda, always on the move.

56.
Album • Apr 06 / 2018
Neo-Psychedelia Psychedelic Pop
Popular

Like fellow time travelers (and occasional tourmates) Tame Impala, Unknown Mortal Orchestra manage to update the mind-bending sounds of \'70s psychedelia in a way that doesn’t feel like a retread. Following the direction set out on 2015’s *Multi-Love*, *Sex & Food* dives further into soul and R&B, providing spaced-out takes on Prince (“Hunnybee”), Stevie Wonder (“Ministry of Alienation”), even straight-up disco-pop (“Everyone Acts Crazy Nowadays”). As strong as the hooks are, it’s the band’s sound that remains most immediate—a fascinating mix of hi-fi and lo-fi, slick and homespun, with everything crackling in the mix so warmly you feel like you can touch it.

Where are we headed? What are we consuming, how is it affecting us, and why does everything feel so bad and weird sometimes? These are some of the questions posed on Ruban Nielson’s fourth album as Unknown Mortal Orchestra, Sex & Food—a delightfully shapeshifting album that filters these real-deal serious themes through a vibrant sonic lens that spans battered drum-machine funk, doomy and thrashing rock, and pink-hued psychedelic disco. Recorded in a variety of locales from Seoul and Hanoi to Reykjavik, Mexico City, and Auckland, Sex & Food is a practical musical travelogue, with local musicians from the countries that Nielson and his band visited pitching in throughout. Over the last decade, Nielson’s established himself as one of the most inventive sonic traveler currently working, and Sex & Food is the most eclectic and expansive Unknown Mortal Orchestra release yet, from the light-footed R&B of “Hunnybee” to the stomping flange of “Major League Chemicals.” The adventurousness is all the more impressive considering that there’s a bit of DNA from the past UMO discography in Sex & Food: the soft-focus psych of the project’s 2011 debut LP, the lovely melancholia of 2013’s II, and the weirded-out funk of 2015’s virtuosic Multi-Love. But rather than living in the past, Nielson is firmly in the here and now, drawing from personal unrest and generational malaise while surveying a variety of societal ailments. “If You’re Going to Break Yourself” and “Not in Love We’re Just High” chronicle the effects of drugs and addiction on personal relationships, while the lyrics “Ministry of Alienation” drip with modern-day paranoia like the silvery guitar tones that jewel the song’s structure: “My thinking is done by your machine/ Can’t escape the 20th century.” It’s a scary world out there, and it’s been that way for a while—and Sex & Food finds Nielson surveying the damage while attempting to reckon with the magnitude of it all. Along with UMO bandmates and frequent collaborators Jacob Portrait and Kody Nielson, Ruban began work on Sex & Food in early 2016, initially intending to draw musical influence from post-punk luminaries of his youth—think Killing Joke or Public Image Limited’s singular Flowers of Romance. But as he toiled, Ruban began to realize the aesthetic limits of his aims. “Post-punk is so tasteful to my generation,” he states. “There’s no guilty pleasure to it—I just think it’s cool and good. When it comes to rock, I want to get into dodgier territory.” So Ruban exited his comfort zone, literally: even though some of Sex & Food was recorded in his Portland, Oregon home studio (the same one that adorns Multi-Love’s cover), his desire to “get out of there,” as he puts it with a chuckle, led to a quest for creative inspiration that literally spanned the globe—from Reykjavik to Mexico City, as well as the Vietnamese city of Hanoi, where Ruban was inspired to draw influence from the imagery of the Vietnam-based films of his youth, as well as the powerful images conjured by Jimi Hendrix’s recording of “All Along the Watchtower.” “It was just like I hoped it would be,” he gushes about the city. “It’s really hard to record there—everything is so humid—but it was a really inspiring place, too.” At one point in their travels, the recording process was interrupted while in Mexico City, as Ruban and bandmate Jacob Portrait were trapped in the city’s Chapultepec park following the devastating earthquake that hit Central Mexico this past year. “I was terrified,” he states about the experience, which cut off their access not only to the studio but to their lodgings. “I was so shaken up that I ended up getting a bunch of stuff done when I left,” Nielson explains on the effect that the experience had on Sex and Food’s creative genesis. And his journey eventually led him to a curious but fruitful fount of inspiration: his past work. “At first, I thought that this was going to be a sad record, like II,” he explains when discussing how reflection helped push Sex & Food forward. “I was influenced enough by my own early stuff that I went into it thinking, ‘If I was a fan, how would I want to bring some of that back into what I’m doing?’” That old-becomes-new approach is more than apparent on the lush, beautifully understated “Huneybee,” reminiscent of II’s “Swim and Sleep (Like a Shark)” and drawing lyrical inspiration from Ruban’s daughter whose middle name gave 'Hunnybee' its title. “I was trying to figure out how to write a love song about my daughter,” he states. “She’s seven now, but the song will still be there when she’s a woman, so I was thinking about encoded fatherly instructions. I thought it was cool to say, ‘There’s no such thing sweeter than a sting.’ It makes her the protagonist—she can kill you! I thought that was good. The other line was ‘Don’t be such a modern stranger,” because I was thinking about what if the world is more atomized and isolated as she gets older?” Indeed, the modern world—and all the thorny complications that come with living in it—loomed large on Ruban’s mind while making Sex & Food. But even though he’s not afraid to get topical throughout—as evidenced on the surprisingly boisterous “American Guilt” or the roomy-disco medication-meditation “Everyone Acts Crazy Nowadays”—Ruban was also careful not to get too political, and for good reason. “Everything is so soaked in politics, and it’s kind of depressing for everything to be political right now,” he explains. “I wanted to keep it light. I think everyone’s feeling angry, and there’s nothing particularly interesting about my anger.” A statement of selflessness, to be sure—but make no mistake: Sex & Food reaffirms the vitality of Ruban’s voice in today’s musical landscape, and when it comes to navigating the strange and often discouraging pathways our society’s taken, it makes for a damn fine compass, too.

57.
Album • Jun 01 / 2018
Garage Punk Art Punk

Welcome to Whale City. 2018. The second album from Warmduscher. Survival of the fittest: www.youtube.com/watch?v=DElqV4dQVnc

58.
Album • May 25 / 2018
Indie Pop Twee Pop
Noteable Highly Rated
59.
Album • Sep 07 / 2018
Downtempo Indietronica
Noteable

Maribou State announce their new album “Kingdoms In Colour”, via Ninja Tune’s Counter Records imprint, their first full-length since 2015’s breakthrough debut album “Portraits”. The record features new single ‘Feel Good’ - a collaboration born of their friendship with Houston-based trio Khruangbin and a shared love of breakbeats, vintage surf riffs and a common desire to explore worldwide music cultures. "Sometimes a chance meeting plants the seed for something bigger,” say Khruangbin. “Such was the case when we met Maribou State at KOKO a couple of years ago. We are very happy to be involved in this project. And we ‘feel good’ already.” The band continue their long standing relationship with Holly Walker who has previously vocalled fan favourites such as ‘Midas’, ‘Steal’ and ‘Tongue’. Also featured on the record is recent single ‘Turnmills’ - named after the legendary London club which closed its doors in 2008 - the release was accompanied by a sold-out ‘all-night’ DJ set at Corsica Studios raising money and awareness for the The Night Time Industries Association's #SaveNightlife campaign to protect the UK’s most vulnerable music venues from closure. Today they also announce a new headline UK tour this Autumn. Returning with a 5-piece band, they play at London’s iconic Roundhouse on the 18th October. Ahead of this they will also embark on a string of European festival dates which include a headline show at Sonar By Day, Parklife Festival, Roskilde, Pukkelpop Festival, Nova Batida and recently DJ’d after Flying Lotus at All Points East festival in London. Beginning life in 2011 as a project between Chris Davids and Liam Ivory, Maribou State had released a string of EP’s and singles before the arrival of debut album “Portraits” propelled them to the world stage. Spawning a live show that took them around the globe and included standout festival performances at Glastonbury, Bestival, a headline slot at Secret Garden party; a 32-date European tour with two sold-out London shows including the legendary KOKO; plus dates throughout Asia, Australia and America. They received radio support from the likes of Annie Mac, Zane Lowe and Gilles Peterson, addition to the BBC 6 Music A-list, a 5-show BBC Radio 1 Residency, a slot on the legendary BBC Radio 1 Essential Mix and performed a session Live from Maida Vale. Critical support came from the likes of The Guardian, I-D magazine and Vogue, with the album amassing over 80 million streams to date and drawing comparisons to acts such as The XX, James Blake & Mount Kimbie, as well earning them plaudits from the likes of DJ Koze and Bonobo. This incredible success that followed the release of “Portraits” took Chris and Liam quite by surprise, “It was like Christmas every day” laughs Liam, “stuff like doing a show in Bangalore and having a crowd come and see us who knew the music and would sing all the words. It was an incredible experience”. After more than a year of touring they returned to the UK to begin work on new material, but relocating their studio from The Shack - their home-built studio at the back of Liam’s garden in Hertfordshire - to a new base in London found them struggling to find their creative flow. The solution was to start looking outward and back over their journey of the past two years. They began making regular excursions out of the city, setting up a temporary studio space for weeks at a time, they started to piece together a “sonic collage” - drawing on ideas that were written while touring in places like India, and on field recordings from Asia, Australia, Morocco, America and beyond - the result of which is the stunning "Kingdoms In Colour”. “The first album felt quite insular for us” says Chris, "not just in sound, but literally that it was all written in The Shack. We always had a bigger idea of what we wanted it to be, we wanted to create something that was palpable, that could in some way transport you to another country or another place entirely in your mind”. “The idea with Maribou State was always to draw on influences from different parts of the world” continues Liam "by traveling, sampling, recording, we wanted to create this all encompassing thing. Which is what this second record has ended up being for us”.

60.
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Album • Sep 21 / 2018
Experimental Rock Electronic Post-Rock
Popular

Barrow/Fuller/Young

61.
Album • Mar 23 / 2018
Indie Pop Power Pop
Popular Highly Rated

Quite possibly the photo negative of the New York Trio\'s difficult second album, *Twentytwo in Blue* features Sunflower Bean opening up and luxuriating in their prodigious talent. Key to its success is the positioning of Julia Cumming. She’s front and center here, taking the vast majority of lead vocals and dusting the band’s imaginative dream-rock with an unmissable star quality. She’s light and mesmeric on the album’s poppier moments (“I Was a Fool,” “Twentytwo”) and an impassioned presence when the trio dart confidently towards punky, political edges (“Crisis Fest,” “Puppet Strings”).

62.
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Album • Jun 29 / 2018
Reggae

A MATTER OF TIME is the Grammy nominated follow-up to Protoje’s critically acclaimed 2015 full-length album, Ancient Future. A Matter Of Time features Chronixx and Mortimer, and contains the smash hit singles ‘Blood Money’, ’Truth & Rights’, ‘Bout Noon’ and ’No Guarantees. ‘A Matter Of Time’ was produced by Winta James (Damian Marley, Anthony B, The Mighty Diamonds) and recorded in Jamaica. Vinyl LP and CD versions include printed lyrics sheet.

63.
Album • Sep 21 / 2018
Synthpop Alt-Pop
Popular Highly Rated

“I wanted to write an album that could give justice to being someone complex in the pop world,” the surging French star sometimes known as Héloïse Letissier tells Apple Music. “Pop music is so much recently about trying to simplify narratives, and I was trying to complexify mine. Christine is really me taking your shirt and talking to you really up close. I just want to make sure you actually meet me.” If you have not yet made his acquaintance, you are about to: his second album under the name Christine and the Queens takes his alter ego a step further with a bolder iteration named Chris. “The first album was born out of the frustration of being an aberration in society, because I was a young queer woman,” says the singer (who announced in August 2022 that he was gendering himself in the masculine). “The second was really born out of the aberration I was becoming, which was a powerful woman—being lustful and horny and sometimes angry, and craving for this will to just own everything a bit more and apologize a bit less.” While the new album, also named *Chris*, undoubtedly works as an exploration of identity and sexuality and power—and as self-aware performance art worthy of touchstones like David Bowie and Laurie Anderson—it is also a supremely danceable collection of synth-pop confections that never gets overwhelmed by its messages. “Doesn’t matter” makes something as heavy as questioning the existence of God feel weightless; “Girlfriend,” featuring LA producer/DJ Dâm-Funk, likewise aims for both the hips and the head. “I don’t feel like a girlfriend, but I’ll be your lover,” he says. “The song is basically me trying to steal a bit from the patriarchy. It’s purely empowering out of defiance and wittiness.” That flair for the dramatic comes naturally to this artist. “I wanted to be a stage director before I became a pop performer, and writing a record is kind of like staging a huge play in my head,” he says. “This is a mysterious job I have.”

64.
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Album • Apr 13 / 2018
Americana Singer-Songwriter
Popular

You can do a lot of living in 70-plus years, and fortunately, country-folk great John Prine has been documenting what he sees for over 50 of them. The album title is redolent of its mood, approaching the twilight years with a sense of wonder and humor. “Knocking on Your Screen Door” counts the blessings of being humble, and “Caravan of Fools” is a not-so-disguised jab at political incompetence. His well-sharpened wit cuts deep across these 10 songs. “Crazy Bone” reminds us all to stay weird, and “When I Get to Heaven” describes a rollicking afterlife after-party: “I’m gonna get a guitar and start a rock ‘n’ roll band/Check into a swell hotel/Ain’t the afterlife grand?”

65.
Album • May 11 / 2018
Popular

In 2016, Alex Turner received a piano for his 30th birthday and started playing seriously for the first time in over 20 years. Songs for Arctic Monkeys’ sixth album eventually emerged—a collection of brooding, cosmic lounge-pop that’s typical of the band only in its disdain for playing it safe. Here, light-years from their previous riff-driven adventures, melodies unspool slowly but stick faster with every listen. A watering hole on the moon provides the conceptual framework for Turner to muse on life, pop culture, and technology with heavy-lidded introspection. “I need to spend less time stood around in bars/Waffling on to strangers about martial arts,” he sighs on “She Looks Like Fun.” He shouldn’t be hasty: Wherever he finds inspiration, it takes his band to daring new places.

66.
by 
Album • Aug 17 / 2018
Indie Rock
Noteable Highly Rated
67.
7
Album • May 11 / 2018
Dream Pop Neo-Psychedelia
Popular Highly Rated

Swapping producer Chris Coady for Spaceman 3\'s Pete \"Sonic Boom\" Kember, Alex Scally and Victoria Legrand fully embrace their bliss on *7*, their haziest, dreamiest album yet. They move seamlessly from meditative to trippy, adopting swelling, stately, Spector-swilling-martinis-with-Eno arrangements on \"Last Ride\" and entering a reverb-drenched citadel of synths on \"L\'Inconnue.” Seeming more unabashedly themselves than ever, this is the sound of Beach House doubling down on the aqueous dream-pop perfection that made them indie heroes in the first place.

7 is our 7th full-length record. At its release, we will have been a band for over 13 years. We have now written and released a total of 77 songs together. Last year, we released an album of b-sides and rarities. It felt like a good step for us. It helped us clean the creative closet, put the past to bed, and start anew. Throughout the process of recording 7, our goal was rebirth and rejuvenation. We wanted to rethink old methods and shed some self-imposed limitations. In the past, we often limited our writing to parts that we could perform live. On 7, we decided to follow whatever came naturally. As a result, there are some songs with no guitar, and some without keyboard. There are songs with layers and production that we could never recreate live, and that is exciting to us. Basically, we let our creative moods, instead of instrumentation, dictate the album’s feel. In the past, the economics of recording have dictated that we write for a year, go to the studio, and record the entire record as quickly as possible. We have always hated this because by the time the recording happens, a certain excitement about older songs has often been lost. This time, we built a "home" studio, and began all of the songs there. Whenever we had a group of 3-4 songs that we were excited about, we would go to a “proper” recording studio and finish recording them there. This way, the amount of time between the original idea and the finished song was pretty short (of the album’s 11 songs, 8 were finished at Carriage House in Stamford, CT and 2 at Palmetto Studio in Los Angeles). 7 didn’t have a producer in the traditional sense. We much preferred this, as it felt like the ideas drove the creativity, not any one person’s process. James Barone, who became our live drummer in 2016, played on the entire record. His tastes and the trust we have in him really helped us keep rhythm at the center of a lot of these songs. We also worked with Sonic Boom (Peter Kember). Peter became a great force on this record, in the shedding of conventions and in helping to keep the songs alive, fresh and protected from the destructive forces of recording studio over-production/over-perfection. The societal insanity of 2016-17 was also deeply influential, as it must be for most artists these days. Looking back, there is quite a bit of chaos happening in these songs, and a pervasive dark field that we had little control over. The discussions surrounding women’s issues were a constant source of inspiration and questioning. The energy, lyrics and moods of much of this record grew from ruminations on the roles, pressures and conditions that our society places on women, past and present. The twisted double edge of glamour, with its perils and perfect moments, was an endless source (see “L’Inconnue,” “Drunk in LA,” “Woo,” “Girl Of The Year,” “Last Ride”). In a more general sense, we are interested by the human mind's (and nature’s) tendency to create forces equal and opposite to those present. Thematically, this record often deals with the beauty that arises in dealing with darkness; the empathy and love that grows from collective trauma; the place one reaches when they accept rather than deny (see “Dark Spring,” “Pay No Mind,” “Lemon Glow,” “Dive,” “Black Car,” “Lose Your Smile”). The title, 7, itself is simply a number that represents our seventh record. We hoped its simplicity would encourage people to look inside. No title using words that we could find felt like an appropriate summation of the album. The number 7 does represent some interesting connections in numerology. 1 and 7 have always shared a common look, so 7 feels like the perfect step in the sequence to act as a restart or “semi-first.” Most early religions also had a fascination with 7 as being the highest level of spirituality, as in "Seventh Heaven.” At our best creative moments, we felt we were channeling some kind of heavy truth, and we sincerely hope the listeners will feel that. Much Love, Beach House

68.
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Album • Aug 17 / 2018
Garage Punk
Popular
69.
Album • Sep 14 / 2018
Indie Pop
Popular Highly Rated

***Customers in Australia and NZ - please purchase at thegoonsax.bandcamp.com/album/were-not-talking-aus-nz-customers-3 *** The Goon Sax are James Harrison, Louis Forster and Riley Jones from Brisbane, Australia. Still in high school when they made their first album Up To Anything in 2016, their brand of awkwardly transcendent teenage guitar pop took them into end of year lists for BBC 6Music, Billboard and Rough Trade, and earned them raves from the Guardian, Pitchfork, Spin, Uncut, Rolling Stone and elsewhere. According to Metacritic, Up To Anything was the 8th best-reviewed debut album anywhere in the world in 2016. The Goon Sax toured UK and Europe twice on that record, played shows with Whitney, US Girls, Twerps and Teenage Fanclub, graduated school, and then turned their focus to album number two. They flew to Melbourne to record with James Cecil and Cameron Bird, respectively former/current members of Architecture In Helsinki. New album We're Not Talking shows how much can change between the ages of 17 and 19. It's a record that takes the enthusiasms of youth and twists them into darker, more sophisticated shapes. Relationships are now laced with hesitation, remorse, misunderstanding and ultimately compassion. Lines like, "When the bus went past your house and past your stop my eyes filled with tears" (from “We Can’t Win”) and "I’ve got a few things above my bed but it feels so empty, I’ve got spaces to fill and we're not talking" (from “A Few Times Too Many”), are quite simply heartbreaking. Strings, horns, even castanets sneak their way onto the album, but We're Not Talking isn't glossy throwaway pop. Sounds stick out at surprising angles (on the frenetic “She Knows”), cowbells become lead instruments (in stunning album opener “Make Time For Love”), brief home-recorded fragments appear unexpectedly, and “Losing Myself” is like the Young Marble Giants go hip hop. Drummer Riley Jones really comes to the fore here, joining Louis and James in singing lead and writing songs for the first time – with songs such as the devastatingly beautiful “Strange Light” – making the band the musical equivalent of an equilateral triangle (the strongest shape in physics). After the album was recorded, Louis spent some time in a freezing Berlin apartment, but they are now all back in Australia, and keeping busy playing shows with Angel Olsen, Perfume Genius and Protomartyr. Delivering brilliantly human and brutally honest vignettes of adolescent angst, The Goon Sax brim with personality, charm and heart-wrenching honesty. We’re Not Talking is a record made by restless artists, defying expectations as if hardly noticing, and its complexity makes We're Not Talking even more of a marvel. "The Goon Sax have created a glorious pop album that perfectly captures those awkward confusions on the road to adulthood" 4/5 - MOJO "We're Not Talking manages to further embellish the adolescent brilliance of their debut. They experiment with pop's history while still continuing to grow into a sound that's undeniably their own." 9/10 - Loud and Quiet "This group of teenagers from Brisbane could be your favorite new band." - NPR Music "Chock full of frenetic energy, catchy rhythms and captivating melodies" 4/5 – DIY “The Brisbane trio is set to win the hearts and minds of lovesick kids around the world with the release of 'We're Not Talking'” - Noisey

70.
Album • May 04 / 2018
Tech House Microhouse
Popular

Building on his background as a classical pianist and composer, British producer Jon Hopkins uses vast electronic soundscapes to explore other worlds. Here, on his fifth album, he contemplates our own. Inspired by adventures with meditation and psychedelics, *Singularity* aims to evoke the magical awe of heightened consciousness. It’s a theme that could easily feel affected or clichéd, but Hopkins does it phenomenal justice with imaginative, mind-bending songs that feel both spontaneous and rigorously structured. Floating from industrial, polyrhythmic techno (“Emerald Rush\") to celestial, ambient atmospheres (“Feel First Life”), it’s a transcendent headphone vision quest you’ll want to go on again.

Please note: Digital files are 16bit. Singularity marks the fifth album from the UK electronic producer and composer and the follow up to 2013’s Mercury Prize nominated Immunity. Where Immunity charted the dark alternative reality of an epic night out, Singularity explores the dissonance between dystopian urbanity and the green forest. It is a journey that returns to where it began – from the opening note of foreboding to the final sound of acceptance. Shaped by his experiences with meditation and trance states, the album flows seamlessly from rugged techno to transcendent choral music, from solo acoustic piano to psychedelic ambient.

71.
Album • Oct 05 / 2018
Alternative Rock

Kristin Hersh’s prolific career has seen her heralded queen of the alternative release. Her tenth studio album, ‘Possible Dust Clouds’ is a highly personalised sociopathic gem delivered as a futuristic rewriting of how music works, a melodious breeze with a tail wind of venomous din. Enveloping the juxtaposition of the concept of ‘dark sunshine’, a brooding solo record created with friends to expand her off-kilter sonic vision; a squally, squeaky mix of discordant beauty. Feedback and phasing gyrate from simply strummed normality, imagine Dinosaur Jr and My Bloody Valentine cranking up a Dylan couplet. ‘Possible Dust Clouds’ is a glorious return to form for one of alternative rock’s true innovators. “She's still as powerful a presence as she ever was.” Pitchfork “The prodigious output and commitment to quality is pretty staggering, but then Kristin Hersh is a very, very special musician.” The Quietus “Throwing Muses became a byword for college-rock feminism in the late 80s, largely because of Hersh’s uncompromising impressionist poetry of emotional anguish, subjugated womanhood and mental illness.” The Guardian

72.
by 
Album • Apr 06 / 2018
Slacker Rock
Popular Highly Rated

Co-produced by Hinds, I Don't Run shows us a band fighting for their place, a band unwilling to rely upon their successes, a band who have just begun to prove themselves, and a band who plays hard but works even harder. With this second LP, they continue their quest to own their narrative – one of sisters doing it for themselves. “We loved making this album,” says guitarist and vocalist Ana Perrote. “We knew what we wanted and we have what we wanted. This is a new start for us and we're fucking ready." Leave Me Alone was an album of party anthems drenched in metaphors. With Hinds’ forthcoming sophomore record I Don’t Run, it’s time to cut straight to the chase. Some might expect them to write songs about being happy, young and carefree – “but we're not satisfied with that,” explains guitarist and vocalist Ana Perrote. “On this album the struggles are clear. We want to be brave.” I Don’t Run is Hinds’ return with an honest reflection on a period that changed their lives beyond their wildest imaginations.

74.
Album • Mar 30 / 2018
Afro-Jazz
Popular Highly Rated
75.
Album • Aug 24 / 2018
Neo-Psychedelia Indie Rock
Popular
76.
Album • Jun 15 / 2018
Indie Rock Alternative Rock
Popular Highly Rated
77.
Album • Jan 26 / 2018
Pop Reggae Lovers Rock
Noteable
78.
Album • Feb 23 / 2018
Neo-Psychedelia
Noteable

In many ways Insecure Men - the band led by the fiercely talented songwriter and musician Saul Adamczewski and his schoolmate and stabilising influence, Ben Romans-Hopcraft - are the polar opposite of the Fat White Family. Whereas sleaze-mired, country-influenced, drug-crazed garage punks the Fat Whites are a “celebration of everything that is wrong in life”, Insecure Men, who blend together exotica, easy listening, lounge and timeless pop music, are, by comparison at least, the last word in wholesomeness.

79.
by 
Album • Jun 08 / 2018
Indie Rock Indie Pop
Popular Highly Rated

Lindsey Jordan’s voice rises and falls with electricity throughout Lush, her debut album as Snail Mail, spinning with bold excitement and new beginnings at every turn. Throughout Lush, Jordan’s clear and powerful voice, acute sense of pacing, and razor-sharp writing cut through the chaos and messiness of growing up: the passing trends, the awkward house parties, the sick-to-your-stomach crushes and the heart wrenching breakups. Jordan’s most masterful skill is in crafting tension, working with muted melodrama that builds and never quite breaks, stretching out over moody rockers and soft-burning hooks, making for visceral slow-releases that stick under the skin. Lush feels at times like an emotional rollercoaster, only fitting for Jordan’s explosive, dynamic personality. Growing up in Baltimore suburb Ellicot City, Jordan began her classical guitar training at age five, and a decade later wrote her first audacious songs as Snail Mail. Around that time, Jordan started frequenting local shows in Baltimore, where she formed close friendships within the local scene, the impetus for her to form a band. By the time she was sixteen, she had already released her debut EP, Habit, on local punk label Sister Polygon Records. In the time that’s elapsed since Habit, Jordan has graduated high school, toured the country, opened for the likes of Girlpool and Waxahatchee as well as selling out her own headline shows, and participated in a round-table discussion for the New York Timesabout women in punk -- giving her time to reflect and refine her songwriting process by using tempered pacings and alternate tunings to create a jawdropping debut both thoughtful and cathartic. Recorded with producer Jake Aron and engineer Johnny Schenke, with contributions from touring bandmates drummer Ray Brown and bassist Alex Bass as well, Lush sounds cinematic, yet still perfectly homemade.

80.
Album • Jun 15 / 2018
Acid Rock Afrobeat
Noteable
81.
Album • Nov 09 / 2018
Noteable
82.
Album • Jun 08 / 2018
Noise Pop Dream Pop
83.
by 
Album • Feb 16 / 2018
Singer-Songwriter
84.
by 
Album • Aug 10 / 2018
Alternative R&B Art Pop
Popular Highly Rated

Domino are honoured to introduce Devotion; the hugely anticipated debut album from one of London's most exciting underground talents, Tirzah. Arriving on the back of a lauded run of releases on Greco Roman, Devotion shines a brilliant new light on Tirzah's unique experimental pop, exquisitely soulful voice and potent contemporary lyricism.

85.
Album • Feb 02 / 2018
Soft Rock Alt-Country
86.
Album • Feb 02 / 2018
Progressive Pop Chamber Pop
Popular Highly Rated

Field Music, Peter and David Brewis, have announced their sixth album “Open Here”. The brothers are just putting the finishing touches to the record and plan on releasing via Memphis Industries on 2 February 2018. The two years since Commontime have been strange and turbulent. If you thought the world made some kind of sense, you may have questioned yourself a few times in the past two years. And that questioning, that erosion of faith - in people, in institutions, in shared experience - runs through every song on the new Field Music album. The brother’s studio, on the banks of the river Wear, became a sanctuary away from everything political and personal, a cocoon of creativity. And conversely, making the album became an alternative way to connect to people, with a wide array of musicians invited to leave their mark, notably Sarah Hayes on flute and piccolo, Liz Corney on vocals, Pete Fraser on saxophone, Simon Dennis on trumpet and flugelhorn, a Cornshed Sisters choir and the regular string quartet of Ed Cross, Jo Montgomery, Chrissie Slater and Ele Leckie. The result is a record that is bigger in scale, grander than anything they've done before. David Brewis explains, “where Commontime felt like a distillation of all of the elements that make up Field Music, this feels like an expansion; as if we’re pushing in every direction at once to see how far we can go”. Field Music have also announced a string of UK shows in 2018. The dates include special shows at the Barbican in London and The Northern Stage in Newcastle with strings, horns, woodwind and assorted percussion provided by the Open Here Orchestra.

87.
Album • May 25 / 2018
Jazz-Funk Jazz Fusion
Popular

The Return is a natural evolution from the Yussef Kamaal project, mining the influence of visionary jazz but blended with all kinds of texture, sounds and signals from the over-saturated London streets. Notable tracks for old and new listeners are ‘Salaam', 'Situations', 'Medina', 'LDN Shuffle' which features Mansur Brown (of Mansur's Message) and for those die hard Yussef Kamaal fans - they should hear the interpolated roots of 'Strings of Light' in the title track 'The Return’. And that signature Wu Funk can be heard on 'Broken Theme', and 'High Roller'. The Return will be the debut album released on Wu's new label Black Focus Records.

88.
Album • Sep 07 / 2018
Modern Classical
Noteable Highly Rated
89.
Album • Aug 10 / 2018
Contemporary Country Folktronica
90.
by 
Album • Apr 06 / 2018
Psychedelic Rock Neo-Psychedelia
Noteable

Rocket Recordings are pleased to reveal the self-titled debut album by MIEN, the exciting new four piece band comprised of The Black Angels’ Alex Maas, The Horrors’ Tom Furse, Elephant Stone’s Rishi Dhir and The Earlies’ John-Mark Lapham. The seeds were sown for this collaboration as long ago as 2004, when Rishi Dhir (Elephant Stone) found himself in a chance encounter with Black Angels frontman Alex Maas whilst performing sitar with his former band on a bill at SXSW in Austin with The Brian Jonestown Massacre. Not long afterwards, he would also stumble across electronics guru and producer John Mark Lapham from Anglo-American band The Earlies, via a shared love for one song - the ‘classic sitar banger’ byThe Association, ‘Wantin’ Ain’t Gettin’. Some years later, another piece of the puzzle came into place, when Dhir was now playing bass with The Black Angels in 2012, and found the band sharing several bills with The Horrors. Thus he made the acquaintance of Tom Furse, and yet another pact was made to work together. Several traversals of the globe by both plane and audio- le later, the result is an album that sees this quartet transcending their origins whilst maintaining a cohesive unity borne of a desire for outward exploration. John Mark’s vision, as he puts it, was “imagine the Black Angels as Nico in her 80’s industrial phase mixed with George Harrison and Conny Plank.” - true to form,it’s an album that nds equal room for radiant groove-based propulsion and ambient dreamscapes alike - as comfortable with the murky hallucinogenic voyage of ‘You Dreamt’ as the powerful widescreen sweep of ‘(I’m Tired Of) Western Shouting’, yet with songwriting acumen as potent as the production values are expansive and exploratory. This may have been a record put together at a distance - yet the chemistry between these four gures is manifest amidst a kaleidoscopic series of atmospheres and excursions whereby the fertile songwriting of the golden age of ‘60s psychedelia is transmitted into a transcendental realm above and beyond the second decade of the 21st century. MIEN are: Alex Maas (vocals, samples, loops), Tom Furse (keyboards, programming), Rishi Dhir (bass, sitar, keyboards) and John-Mark Lapham (keyboards, samples, programming).

91.
Album • Mar 23 / 2018
Singer-Songwriter Americana Alt-Country
Popular Highly Rated

2016’s radiant *Honest Life* was a breakthrough for Courtney Marie Andrews. Here, the Arizona singer/songwriter’s pockmarked country finds broader, more reflective inspiration. There’s a hymn-like solidity to the album’s 10 songs, all telling stories of struggling people, as Andrews describes, “chasing that bigger life.” But she isn’t just in the business of chronicling sadness. The delicate piano on “Rough Around the Edges” belies its message of rugged self-acceptance, while the hearty “Kindness of Strangers” lets the sun pour through.

After breaking through with a batch of restless, itinerant songs on Honest Life in 2016, Courtney Marie Andrews longs for something more permanent on the follow-up. The Seattle singer spends much of May Your Kindness Remain exploring ideas of home and what it means to have roots, on 10 new tunes that are lusher and more expansive while leaving plenty of room to showcase her astonishing voice. Andrews and her band recorded May Your Kindness Remain with producer Mark Howard, whose voluminous credits include albums by Lucinda Williams, Tom Waits, Bob Dylan and Emmylou Harris. Howard’s understated aesthetic suits Andrews, who pushes herself toward bolder musical arrangements and a fuller, more soulful sound than the traveling-woman-with-guitar feel of Honest Life.- Eric R. Danton of Paste Magazine

92.
Album • May 04 / 2018
Dream Pop Synthpop
Noteable
93.
Album • May 04 / 2018
Art Rock Indie Rock
Popular

For some, Gaz Coombes is just the mutton-chopped likely lad who peaked with Supergrass mega-single “Alright”. Those people are missing out. The trio were perhaps Britpop’s most underrated band (the mature, but commercially modest, later releases deserve rediscovery) and their talisman’s solo career has continued to burnish a robust and quietly brilliant talent. *World’s Strongest Man* is Coombes’ most confident solo album yet—a satisfying coalition of *Here Come the Bombs*’ trippy chutzpah and Mercury Prize-nominated *Matador*’s melodic sure-footedness. Highlights abound (the Berlin electro shuffle of “Deep Pockets”; “In Waves” and its sinister groove), but this is a carefully layered record to play right through.

94.
Album • Sep 21 / 2018
Post-Industrial Art Pop
Popular Highly Rated

'PASTORAL' by Gazelle Twin.

95.
by 
Album • Sep 21 / 2018
Indie Pop Indie Folk
Popular Highly Rated

Always restless and inventive while always true to the power and glory of songwriting and melody, Conor O’Brien has made another great leap forward with Villagers’ fourth studio album, The Art Of Pretending To Swim, released by Domino on Friday 21st September. Following the exquisitely sparse, intimate aura of 2015’s Darling Arithmetic, O’Brien’s new record reconnects with the multi-faceted approach of Villagers’ 2010 album debut Becoming A Jackal and 2013’s {Awayland} while adding a new-found soulfulness, rhythmic nous and dazzling panoply of sonic detail, both analogue and digital, creating feverish moods while writing effortlessly accessible tunes. Balanced with subtle aspects and lyrical themes that embrace existential fears and hopes in this desperate, technologically-centred dystopian age, The Art Of Pretending To Swim is the most brilliantly realised Villagers album to date. The album was written, produced, mixed and primarily performed by Conor O’Brien in his Dublin studio.

96.
Album • Sep 28 / 2018
Stoner Metal Heavy Psych Stoner Rock
Noteable Highly Rated

Seven is the magic number. What’s more, this is about more than the number of days in the week or continents in the world - psychologists have theorised that the human memory’s ability to calibrate information on a short term basis is mostly limited to a sequence of this length. Thus, it seems strangely fitting that Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs - the Newcastle-based maximalists whose riffs, raw power and rancour have blazed a trail across the darker quarters of the underground in the last five years, have made a second album in King Of Cowards which does its damnedest to take consciousness to its very limits. Moreover, another notable seven is dealt with here - that of the deadly sins. As vocalist and synth player Matt Baty notes “In terms of how the theme came together I’d relate it to throwing paint at a canvas in a really physical and subconscious way, then stepping back to analyse it and seeing it all as one piece. It wasn’t until then that I saw there was this continual thread of sin and guilt in the lyrics throughout the album. For a long time I’ve questioned how and where guilt can be used as a form of oppression... When can guilt be converted into positive action? After typing all of the lyrics up I realised I’d unwittingly referenced every one of the seven deadly sins throughout the album. That’s the fire and brimstone Catholic teachings I picked up at school coming into play there!” The period since Pigs’ Rocket Recordings 2017 debut Feed The Rats - a mighty tsunami of rancorous riffage and unholy abjection that wowed critics and wreckheads alike - has seen the band build on their incendiary live reputation far and wide, from the sweatiest of UK fleapits to illustrious festivals like Roskilde. Perhaps the most relentlessly head-caving outfit of an alarmingly fertile scene operating in Newcastle at present, the band have all been busying themselves in a variety of activities, with Baty running Box Records (home of underground luminaries like Lower Slaughter, Casual Nun and Terminal Cheesecake) and both himself and bassist John-Michael Hedley playing in Richard Dawson’s band - indeed Dawson himself guests on King Of Cowards, both on synth and as part of a vocal ensemble on the opening “GNT” - moreover, guitarist Sam Grant has been working hard on a new incarnation of Blank Studios, which began its life with the recording of this very album. This opus sees the band entering a new phase as a sleeker yet still more dangerous swineherd, with ex-Gnod and Queer’d Science drummer Chris Morley joining the ranks and a new approach being taken to its creation. The Iggy-esque drive to dementia, Sabbath-esque squalor and Motörhead-style dirt may still be present and correct yet the songs are leaner, the longdrawn-out riff-fests sharpened into addictive hammer blows and the nihilistic dirges of yore alchemically transformed into an uplifting and inviting barrage of hedonistic abandon. Against all odds, the writing of this record entailed encounters with actual pigs. “We hired a remote, converted barn in the Italian countryside and spent a week there writing the bulk of the album and trying to make friends with wild boar.” notes Adam Ian Sykes. “The results are shorter, more concise songs with, I guess, a little more focus, especially thematically. We wanted to shift slightly from our old jam-based way of working. In places, the album gets darker than Feed the Rats, especially lyrically but we also tried to get a fair amount of levity in there.” “The creatures outside looked from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from pig to man again; but already it was impossible to say which was which.” So George Orwell noted at the end of a certain slim volume. King Of Cowards is nothing less than just such a metamorphosis, one in which - in a blur of primal urges and beastly physicality - this band shows us just which animalsare really in charge of the farm.

97.
Album • Jan 19 / 2018
Indie Pop
Popular

The Go! Team have always been cheerleaders for a better world – an outpouring of collective joy in the face of small-mindedness and dismal careerism. They rejoice in the unifying urges and the chance encounters between cultures that lead to something new. They’re a band who still have faith in the power of music to make things better. Now more than ever, we need The Go! Team. It’s no secret that The Go! Team is the brainchild of one man, Brighton-based melody obsessive Ian Parton. But its membership has never been exclusive: at one time or another, The Go! Team has included on its squad-sheet everyone from Deerhoof to Chuck D to a legion of undiscovered Soundcloud singers. Unlike the group’s previous album, 2015’s The Scene Between – which was essentially a solo project, following the dissolution of the previous Go! Team lineup – Ian began work on their fifth album SEMICIRCLE with the vital input of current live players Simone Odaranile (drums) and Angela ‘Maki’ Won-Yin Mak (vocals), plus original Team members Sam Dook (guitar) and Ninja (irrepressible rapping). In his head was the idea of a school marching band gone rogue, chucking away their sheet music to blast out Northern soul stompers or Japanese indie-pop swooners or old-school hip-hop jams. “I like the swing and the toughness of marching bands, the physicality of feeling a beater walloping a bass drum,” explains Ian, “but I wanted to reclaim them from patriotic or sporty associations. That was the kick-off for this record.” Yet his extensive sample library could only take him so far. In order to fully realise his vision he knew he had to reach out, to entice a group of unlikely new collaborators into The Go! Team fold. So Ian made a pilgrimage to Detroit – city of Motown and The Stooges, of musical (and actual) revolution – where he hooked up with The Detroit Youth Choir. Their age was key; he didn’t want kids (too twee) but nor he did he want adults, with all their emotional baggage and wariness and tendency to over-sing. Equally he wanted to avoid the religious connotations of a church or gospel choir. “I’ve always had a thing for gang vocals and group singing, particularly the roughness of community choirs,” says Ian. “Normally they might be singing showtunes or whatever, but I like the idea of getting people to do something they wouldn’t normally do. I like making things happen that wouldn’t otherwise happen. It’s always a gamble, but in this case it paid off.” The sessions were so inspiring that they came to define the album. The choir’s ebullient chanting is all over the opening track ‘Mayday’, a morse-code-inspired soul belter about a love emergency, in the proud lineage of ‘Rescue Me’ and ‘SOS’. They bring the album to a rousing, defiant conclusion on ‘Getting Back Up’. In between, they reveal a little more about themselves on the heartwarming ‘Semicircle Song’. When Ian needed a lo-fi R&B vocal for ‘Chain Link Fence’ – kooky and soulful but not slick or drenched in melisma – he approached a Detroit high school. “I love the idea of recording people who wouldn’t think of themselves as singers, who perhaps have never been recorded before.” But this being a Go! Team record, where routine is outlawed, there are a multitude of other voices to be heard, sometimes in the course of the same song. Best-known among them is probably Utrecht indie-rocker Annelotte de Graaf AKA Amber Arcades, whose Dutch-accented English lends a unique flavour to ‘Plans Are A Dream U Organise’. Previous collaborator Julie Margat AKA Lispector delivers ‘Hey!’’s breathy French interlude. And sassy girl group kiss-off ‘The Answer’s No – Now What’s The Question’ is fronted by Houston-based Darenda Weaver, a Texan Mod that Ian found on Bandcamp. The band’s own Maki helms ‘If There’s One Thing You Should Know’ with panache, and of course no Go! Team record would be complete without an appearance from Ninja, who unleashes a volley of verbal stingers on ‘She Got Guns’. Meanwhile, the charmingly unaffected rapping on ‘All The Way Live’ is sampled from a 1983 “after-school hip-hop project” Ian found on one of his epic crate-digging adventures. He considered asking a contemporary rapper to re-record it, but decided it would be impossible for anyone to unlearn 35 years of hip-hop history. Capturing those moments of authentic joy, unburdened by cynicism and ambition, is what SEMICIRCLE is all about. In keeping with the album’s “marching band” theme, Ian stacked up sousaphones, glockenspiels and steel drums, mic’ing them all from a distance to recreate that gymnasium sound. The effect is a kaleidoscopic cacophony, almost as if the sound itself is bent and refracted in the metallic curves of a trumpet, comforting and intoxicating at the same time. “It’s recognisable as a Go! Team record but it takes the sound to a new place.” Although SEMICIRCLE isn’t bogged down in polemical responses to the issues of the day, there are still some valuable life lessons to be gleaned. Ian is keen to emphasise that the vibrant utopia he and his cohorts have conjured up on their fifth album is not an escapist fantasy but a potentially achievable goal. “It’s about reminding yourself of the good things in life,” says Ian. “We don’t want to be dumbly optimistic and say, ‘Hey, isn’t everything great!’ but there’s something to be said for just getting on with it, for getting organised and not letting the fuckers get you down. Party for your right to fight!” As always, it’s good to know The Go! Team are on your side.

98.
by 
Album • Jun 08 / 2018
Singer-Songwriter Baroque Pop Indie Pop
Popular Highly Rated
100.
by 
Album • Mar 30 / 2018
Indie Pop

Fronted by singer/bassist Shannon Wise and guitarist/producer Max Shrager, The Shacks are already well on their way to becoming one of the year’s big breakouts, and their remarkable debut album, ‘Haze,’ solidifies their status as a band with ability to deliver on the well-deserved buzz. When Max and Shannon met in high school, a bond was created that has permeated their music since the Shacks first incarnation four years ago. That chemistry lies at the heart of ‘Haze,’ a record so hypnotic and seductive that it feels more like a whispered late-night secret than a young band’s debut. Produced together by Shrager and Big Crown co-founder Leon Michels (who’s played with Bradley, Sharon Jones, and Fields in addition to working with The Arcs, Lana Del Rey, and countless others), the album was recorded in bits and pieces between Shrager’s basement and Michels’ Diamond Mine studio, which the Observer dubbed “the Shangri La of Soul.” ‘Haze’ opens with the title track, which is, appropriately enough, the first song Shrager and Wise ever wrote together. It’s a spare, smoky tune that shimmers and sparkles as it shifts in and out of focus, and it’s an ideal gateway into the immersive world of The Shacks. On the breezy “Follow Me,” they channel the infectious charm of a 60’s girl group, while the soulful “My Name Is” grooves its way through a mesmerizing take on 70’s funk. Much like a dream, the songs often merge the familiar and the unfamiliar, constructing their own psychedelic reality full of beauty and yearning, all fueled by Wise’s breathy vocals and the unmistakable electricity of a wildly creative band truly inhabiting their music. “Birds” makes brilliant use of Daptone drum hero Homer Steinwess’s impeccable feel behind the kit, while the 50’s ballad-meets-baroque pop of “Cryin’” tips its cap to Roy Orbison and John Lennon as Shrager takes over lead vocals, and the soulful shuffle of “Texas” belies a dark and violent undercurrent ripped from the headlines. Through it all permeates an unshakable sense that this is a group performing just for you. “Nobody” finds the Shacks re-interpreting Phil Spector’s Wagnerian approach to rock & roll, complete with sweeping strings and darkly innocent lyrics. The 13 songs featured on Haze plays out like the soundtrack to some long lost 16mm film, beckoning you into their grainy, saturated world of analog beauty. In the short time that they’ve been together, The Shacks have already made an impressive mark. Their hypnotic cover of Ray Davies’ “This Strange Effect” soundtracked a global iPhone commercial, one which actually stars Wise herself, and their self-titled EP earned the band dates with St. Paul & The Broken Bones, Chicano Batman, and their Big Crown Records labelmates Lee Fields & The Expressions. The Shacks open.spotify.com/artist/6vqxTQz5ZOfRSQZWfes7mR www.instagram.com/shacksband/ www.facebook.com/The-Shacks-753959741367997/ twitter.com/shacksband Follow Big Crown Records: open.spotify.com/user/bigcrownrecords www.instagram.com/bigcrownrecords www.facebook.com/bigcrownrecords twitter.com/bigcrownrecords?lang=en soundcloud.com/bigcrownrecords www.mixcloud.com/BigCrownRecords Visit us at: bigcrownrecords.com