SPIN's 50 Best Albums of 2015 So Far

Following on the heels of *Dr. Lecter* and *Saaab Stories*, Queens rapper Action Bronson releases his sprawling major-label debut. Featuring glittering, stoned-soul productions from vets like The Alchemist and newcomers like Party Supplies, *Mr. Wonderful* careens through tall tales of global travel and gourmet food with style, imagination, and a dizzying sense of humor. “All I do is eat oysters/And I speak six languages in three voices,\" Bronson raps on “Actin’ Crazy,” a testament to both talent and appetite.

The backstory is a good one. Gary McClure, once of the Manchester, UK–based group Working for a Nuclear Free City, moves to the Midwestern United States for a woman; then, with the cheapest equipment available, he records this enjoyable guitar-pop album. \"Lo-fi\" hardly means anything here, since the songs sound fully fleshed-out. In other words, it doesn’t feel like a gimmick. The beauty of songs like \"I Can Do No Wrong,” “The Rest of You,” and “Kelly” is kept intact and made easier on the ears by a consistency of tone and approach. Numerous comparisons made to other lo-fi and even mainstream acts seem superfluous.

“Don’t remove my pain / It is my chance to heal.” Delivered in a wounded cry of desperation, this lyric—from standout track “Notget”—is emblematic of Björk’s profoundly vulnerable ninth studio album. Given sonic texture by her lush string arrangements and the skittering beats of co-producer Arca, *Vulnicura* was written in response to the dissolution of Björk’s longtime relationship with artist Matthew Barney. Following the cosmically conceptual *Biophilia* (2011), it’s disarming yet reassuring to hear the Icelandic icon’s stratospheric voice wailing bluntly about recognizable human emotions. In the vibrant album closer “Quicksand,” she sings of finding new life through heartache: “The steam from this pit / Will form a cloud / For her to live on.”

After a 12-year break between studio albums, Blur remain as intrepid and inventive as they’ve ever been. *The Magic Whip* finds the Britpop icons reuniting with a collection that\' s both wonderfully familiar and endlessly surprising. “Lonesome Street” kicks off with the ecstatic crunch of guitar and then takes on new colors and textures, with psychedelic synth flourishes and kooky harmonies. While the gleefully distorted “I Broadcast” buzzes and roars, the melancholy sway of “New World Towers” and the serpentine soul of “My Terracotta Heart” leave a haunting afterglow.

I Want to Grow Up, the latest collection of songs from LA songstress Colleen Green, follows a newly 30-year-old Green as she carefully navigates a minefield of emotion. Her firm belief in true love is challenged by the inner turmoil caused by entering modern adulthood, but that doesn't mean that her faith is defeated. This time, she's got a little help from her friends: the full band heard here includes JEFF the Brotherhood's Jake Orrall and Diarrhea Planet's Casey Weissbuch, who collaborated with Green over ten days at Sputnik Sound in Nashville, TN. First press of LPs available on clear wax with a blue/pink swirl. All LPs include a download code.

Courtney Barnett\'s 2015 full-length debut established her immediately as a force in independent rock—although she\'d bristle at any sort of hype, as she sneers on the noise-pop gem \"Pedestrian at Best\": \"Put me on a pedestal and I\'ll only disappoint you/Tell me I\'m exceptional, I promise to exploit you.\" Warnings aside, her brittle riffing and deadpan lyrics—not to mention indelible hooks and nagging sense of unease with the world—helped put *Sometimes I Sit and Think, and Sometimes I Just Sit* into the upper echelon of 2010s indie rock. The Melbourne-based singer-songwriter stares at stained ceilings and checks out open houses as she reflects on love, death, and the quality of supermarket produce, making *Sometimes* a crowd-pleaser almost in spite of itself. Propulsive tracks like the hip-shaking \"Elevator Operator\" and the squalling \"Dead Fox\" pair Barnett\'s talked-sung delivery with grungy, hooky rave-ups that sound beamed in from a college radio station\'s 1995 top-ten list. Her singing style isn\'t conversational as much as it is like a one-sided phone call from a friend who spends a lot of time in her own head, figuring out the meaning of life in real time while trying to answer the question \"How are you?\"—and sounding captivating every step of the way. But Barnett can also command blissed-out songs that bury pithy social commentary beneath their distorted guitars—\"Small Poppies\" hides notes about power and cruelty within its wobbly chords, while the marvelous \"Depreston\" rolls thoughts on twentysomething thriftiness, half-glimpsed lives, and shifting ideas of \"home\" across its sun-bleached landscape. While the topics of conversation can be heavy, Barnett\'s keen ear for what makes a potent pop song and her inability to be satisfied with herself make *Sometimes I Sit and Think, and Sometimes I Just Sit* a fierce opening salvo.

*Gliss Riffer* takes several directions. Some tracks slant toward EDM-inspired pop music (“Learning to Relax,” “Mind on Fire”) with conventional-like vocals. That is, even with a Vocoder and pitch shifts, it’s relatively easy to hear where Dan Deacon’s going with the tune. And then there are ambitious instrumental pieces (“Take It to the Max,” “Steely Blues”) that demonstrate beauty beyond basic minimalism into fields so dramatic that they do nearly take one’s breath away as a quarter-hour ticks away. Deacon underpins songs with anxiety-ridden rhythms, life-affirming harmonies, and vocal freakouts that only an inspired madman would dare assemble.

Gliss Riffer marks new territory for Deacon who, following up on the release of his large ensemble-based recordings - 2009's Bromst and 2012's America - decided to return to a simpler way of writing and recording, similar to that of 2007's Spiderman of the Rings, which resulted in this self-produced album. What Gliss Riffer shares with Spiderman of the Rings as a musical experience is a direct and ecstatic energy. It trades in exuberant, uncontained fun that is tempered by lyrics that yearn and are set in defiance of life's nagging anxiety. The bliss on this record is well-earned.

Drake surprised everyone at the beginning of 2015 when he dropped *If You’re Reading This It’s Too Late*, an impressive 17-track release that combines the contemplative and confrontational with plenty of cavernous production from longtime collaborator Noah “40” Shebib. While Drizzy joins mentor Lil Wayne in questioning the loyalty of old friends on the woozy, Wondagurl-produced “Used To,” “Energy” is the cold-blooded highlight—on which he snarls, “I got enemies.” Later, amid the electrifying barbs of “6PM in New York,” Drake considers his own mortality and legacy: “28 at midnight. I wonder what’s next for me.”

Rapper Earl Sweatshirt’s third album is a dark, fascinating trip to the bottom of the self. Lyrically, Earl is a singular talent, capable of dense, expressive lines that flip back and forth between humor and pain, despair and resolve. “My days numbered, I’m focused heavy on making the most of ’em/I feel like I’m the only one pressin’ to grow upwards,” he raps on “Faucet,” over beats as hazy and fragmented as the words themselves.

Following his scintillating debut under the Father John Misty moniker—2012’s *Fear Fun*—journeyman singer/songwriter Josh Tillman delivers his most inspired and candid album yet. Filled with gorgeous melodies and grandiose production, *I Love You, Honeybear* finds Tillman applying his immense lyrical gifts to questions of love and intimacy. “Chateau Lobby 4 (In C for Two Virgins)” is a radiant folk tune, burnished by gilded string arrangements and mariachi horn flourishes. Elsewhere, Tillman pushes his remarkable singing voice to new heights on the album’s powerful centerpiece, “When You’re Smiling and Astride Me,” a soulful serenade of epic proportions. “I’d never try to change you,” he sings, clearly moved. “As if I could, and if I were to, what’s the part that I’d miss most?”

*A word about the refurbished deluxe edition 2xLP* With the new repressing of the deluxe, tri-colored vinyl that is now available again for purchase, we ask just one favor that will also serve as your only and final warning: The deluxe, pop-up-art-displaying jacket WILL warp the new vinyl if said vinyl is inserted back into the jacket sleeves and inserted into your record shelf. To prevent this, we ask that you keep the new LPs outside the deluxe jacket, in the separate white jackets that they ship in. Think of these 2 parts of the same deluxe package as “neighbors, not roommates” on your shelf, and your records will remain unwarped for many years to come (assuming you don’t leave them out in extreme temperatures or expose them to other forces of nature that would normally cause a record to warp…)! *The LP is cut at 45 rpm. Please adjust your turntable speed accordingly!* “I Love You, Honeybear is a concept album about a guy named Josh Tillman who spends quite a bit of time banging his head against walls, cultivating weak ties with strangers and generally avoiding intimacy at all costs. This all serves to fuel a version of himself that his self-loathing narcissism can deal with. We see him engaging in all manner of regrettable behavior. “In a parking lot somewhere he meets Emma, who inspires in him a vision of a life wherein being truly seen is not synonymous with shame, but possibly true liberation and sublime, unfettered creativity. These ambitions are initially thwarted as jealousy, self-destruction and other charming human character traits emerge. Josh Tillman confesses as much all throughout. “The album progresses, sometimes chronologically, sometimes not, between two polarities: the first of which is the belief that the best love can be is finding someone who is miserable in the same way you are and the end point being that love isn’t for anyone who isn’t interested in finding a companion to undertake total transformation with. I won’t give away the ending, but sex, violence, profanity and excavations of the male psyche abound. “My ambition, aside from making an indulgent, soulful, and epic sound worthy of the subject matter, was to address the sensuality of fear, the terrifying force of love, the unutterable pleasures of true intimacy, and the destruction of emotional and intellectual prisons in my own voice. Blammo. “This material demanded a new way of being made, and it took a lot of time before the process revealed itself. The massive, deranged shmaltz I heard in my head, and knew had to be the sound of this record, originated a few years ago while Emma and I were hallucinating in Joshua Tree; the same week I wrote the title track. I chased that sound for the entire year and half we were recording. The means by which it was achieved bore a striking resemblance to the travails, abandon and transformation of learning how to love and be loved; see and be seen. There: I said it. Blammo.” -Josh Tillman (A.K.A. Father John Misty) All LP versions are 45 rpm. All purchases come with digital downloads.

This full-length debut is a colorful blast of attitude-packed R&B pop, spiced up with flirty rhymes (“Them Girls Be Like”), Mariah Carey samples (the ultra-catchy \"Like Mariah”), and guests including Kid Ink, Tyga, and Meghan Trainor. It’s the tunes when the distinct singers lean into lush vocal harmonies—“Reflection,” \"This Is How We Roll,” “We Know\"—where the album really shines.

Dance-floor kings Skrillex and Diplo show some sophisticated range on their debut album as Jack Ü. “Beats Knockin” turns a New Orleans-style “Triggerman” beat into a synth-heavy workout with MC Fly Boi Keno. Then they immediately flip it on “Take Ü There,” messing with skittering snares and pop melodies atop a juicy, soulful vocal from rave queen Kiesza. There\'s dark dancehall with Bunji Garlin, low-slung R&B on “Mind,” the tropical-flavored “Where Are Ü Now” with Justin Bieber—*Jack Ü* is a caffeinated, sensual, super-fun amalgam of everything club music should be.

Purchase physical LP/CD/Cassette via the label store www.omnianmusicgroup.com/collections/captured-tracks/products/who-me Juan Wauters presents, Who Me?, an album about the creation of new traditions and why things of quality have no fear of time.

Thanks to multiple hit singles—and no shortage of critical acclaim—2012’s *good kid, m.A.A.d city* propelled Kendrick Lamar into the hip-hop mainstream. His 2015 follow-up, *To Pimp a Butterfly*, served as a raised-fist rebuke to anyone who thought they had this Compton-born rapper figured out. Intertwining Afrocentric and Afrofuturist motifs with poetically personal themes and jazz-funk aesthetics, *To Pimp A Butterfly* expands beyond the gangsta rap preconceptions foisted upon Lamar’s earlier works. Even from the album’s first few seconds—which feature the sound of crackling vinyl and a faded Boris Gardiner soul sample—it’s clear *To Pimp a Butterfly* operates on an altogether different cosmic plane than its decidedly more commercial predecessor. The album’s Flying Lotus-produced opening track, “Wesley’s Theory,” includes a spoken-word invocation from musician Josef Leimberg and an appearance by Parliament-Funkadelic legend George Clinton—names that give *To Pimp a Butterfly* added atomic weight. Yet Lamar’s lustful and fantastical verses, which are as audacious as the squirmy Thundercat basslines underneath, never get lost in an album packed with huge names. Throughout *To Pimp a Butterfly*, Lamar goes beyond hip-hop success tropes: On “King Kunta,” he explores his newfound fame, alternating between anxiety and big-stepping braggadocio. On “The Blacker the Berry,” meanwhile, Lamar pointedly explores and expounds upon identity and racial dynamics, all the while reaching for a reckoning. And while “Alright” would become one of the rapper’s best-known tracks, it’s couched in harsh realities, and features an anthemic refrain delivered in a knowing, weary rasp that belies Lamar’s young age. He’s only 27, and yet he’s already seen too much. The cast assembled for this massive effort demonstrates not only Lamar’s reach, but also his vast vision. Producers Terrace Martin and Sounwave, both veterans of *good kid, m.A.A.d city*, are among the many names to work behind-the-boards here. But the album also includes turns from everyone from Snoop Dogg to SZA to Ambrose Akinmusire to Kamasi Washington—an intergenerational reunion of a musical diaspora. Their contributions—as well as the contributions of more than a dozen other players—give *To Pimp a Butterfly* a remarkable range: The contemplations of “Institutionalized” benefit greatly from guest vocalists Bilal and Anna Wise, as do the hood parables of “How Much A Dollar Cost,” which features James Fauntleroy and Ronald Isley. Meanwhile, Robert Glasper’s frenetic piano on “For Free? (Interlude)” and Pete Rock’s nimble scratches on “Complexion (A Zulu Love)” give *To Pimp a Butterfly* added energy.

After a run of four increasingly ambitious albums in just half a decade you’d perhaps forgive English singer/songwriter Laura Marling a dip in scope and upward trajectory on her fifth record. Not a bit of it. If anything *Short Movie* pushes further, with Marling unafraid to add blockbusting production to her exquisite bare-bones folk (witness the countryfied sass of “Strange” and the rumbling, stadium-ready thunder of “False Hope”). It’s the title track however—an existential epiphany reconfigured as a thrillingly profane call to arms—that stands shoulder-to-shoulder with her best work.

Liturgy is a Brooklyn-based, self-styled “Transcendental Black Metal” band whose yearning, energetic music exists in an uncanny space between avant rock, black metal, fine art and shamanic ritual.

Marina Diamandis has the kind of big, slinky voice that could easily silence a room. But Diamandis—the Welsh singer and instrumentalist behind Marina & The Diamonds—would prefer everyone up and dancing. *Froot*—her third full-length—is a giddy mix of new wave and propulsive electro-pop that feels both woozy and optimistic, like careening through a city at night in the rain. Lyrically, the album serves as an earnest ode to finding satisfaction in unlikely places. “I found what I\'d been looking for in myself,” she proudly announces amid the titanic hooks of “Happy.”

While it’s hard to imagine a band as punishing as METZ refining their sound without losing their drive, they manage to do just that on *II*. It’s not that the music is any friendlier or that the songs are any more “evolved,” but that the band is that much more powerful and precise in their attack, making the turn-on-a-dime dynamics of “The Swimmer” and “Nervous System” seem graceful, even beautiful—that is, as beautiful as a minefield of feedback and yelling can be.

When Panda Bear met the Grim Reaper, they jammed. Noah Lennox, a.k.a. Panda Bear, a.k.a. one-fourth of the founding members of Animal Collective, has had a far-from-quiet few years since the release of his fourth solo record, 2011’s Tomboy. Since the breakout success of 2007’s universally-adored Person Pitch, each new Panda Bear release is a highly anticipated event, and with a high-profile Daft Punk collaboration later, that’s more the case than ever. But if the title of his fifth solo album as Panda Bear seems to portend certain doom, think again. Taking his inspiration from ‘70s dub duo albums like King Tubbys Meets Rockers Uptown and Augustus Pablo Meets Lee Perry & the Wailers Band, Panda Bear prefers to frame his latest work as less of a battle and more a collaboration. “I see it [as] more comic-booky, a little more lighthearted,” he says. “Like Alien Vs. Predator.” Panda Bear Meets The Grim Reaper finds our hero leaving the airy minimalism of Tomboy and unpacking his sonic toolbox again, rearranging the multitude of his disparate influences into the ever-morphing concoction he refers to as “the soup.” Old school hip-hop textures and production techniques meld with the intuitive, cyclical melodies he has become known for, for a sound that is at once dense and playful. The slithering beat of “Boys Latin” is topped with a campfire-ready chant that wouldn’t be out of place on an early Animal Collective record; on album centerpiece “Mr. Noah”, a pulsing swamp of buzzes and squeals blossoms into a rousing, immediately infectious chorus. “Tropic of Cancer” punctuates the album with a head-turning horn intro and an ethereal harp sample taken from, of all places, Tchaikovsky’s The Nutcracker Suite. He experiments with balladry even further on “Lonely Wanderer,” a dreamy piano haze laced with a foreboding synth growl. Noah has taken the effortless pop sensibilities he showed the world he was uniquely adept with last year’s Daft Punk collaboration, and gone back to the laboratory with them, twisting them into something darker and more tactile. It’s a layered, at times wholly unidentifiable soundscape, and so it may come as a surprise that Panda Bear utilized readymade sample packs throughout almost the entire record. “I got into the idea of taking something that felt kind of common — the opposite of unique — and trying to translate that into something that felt impossible,” he says. Breaking with his previous practice of largely creating each album in a fixed environment, Noah says the recording process was “really disparate, I was all over the place.” The textures for the album came together everywhere from El Paso, Texas, to a garage by the beach near his home in Lisbon, Portugal, where he has lived with his family since 2004. In a relationship that already proved fruitful on Tomboy, Panda Bear partnered again with Pete “Sonic Boom” Kember, this time in a more top-to-bottom production role. “He brings stuff to the table that I wouldn’t think of,” says Noah. “You not only go to [new] places, but you figure out things about yourself that you wouldn’t have otherwise.” Ultimately its dynamism, not death, Panda Bear is tackling. “Some of the songs address a big change, or a big transformation,” he says. “Meeting the Grim Reaper in that context I liked a whole lot.” Panda Bear Meets The Grim Reaper signifies a pivotal point for an artist who has proven he can continue to evolve while remaining at the top of his game. “It’s sort of marking change — not necessarily an absolute death, but the ending of something, and hopefully the beginning of something else.” Over the last year, Panda Bear has been touring with what is his most developed live show yet, featuring eye-popping, candy-colored visuals by frequent Animal Collective collaborator Danny Perez, ever complimenting his vivid sonic palette. Panda Bear Meets The Grim Reaper comes to hyper-real life in this live context, melding the emotional melodicism of the album with the dizzyingly affective light and video show, creating a deeply connective fan experience. Panda Bear meets the Grim Reaper in these live shows, and we are all witness.

Drilling down on the extremes of the *Cassette* EP, the first full-length from Viet Cong (later to be known as Preoccupations) is an inspired mix of gritty and beautiful, pairing fractured blasts of noise with plush synths (“Newspaper Spoons”) and deadpan vocals with striking lattices of guitar (“Bunker Buster”)—a sound that shouldn’t make as much sense as it does. Best of all is “March of Progress,” which opens with nearly three minutes of industrial wheezing before ascending to a breathless (and surprisingly catchy) rave-up—a high point on an album full of them.

Recorded in a barn-turned-studio in rural Ontario, the seven songs that make up 'Viet Cong' were born largely on the road, when Flegel and bandmates Mike Wallace, Scott Munro and Daniel Christiansen embarked on a 50-date tour that stretched virtually every limit imaginable. Close quarters hastened their exhaustion but also honed them as a group. You can designate records as seasonal, and you can feel Preoccupations's bleakness and declare it wintry. But the only way you get a frost is when there's something warmer to freeze up. So yes, 'Viet Cong' is a winter album, but only until it is a spring record, then a summer scorcher, then an autumn burner, then it ices over again.

For their sixth album, Screaming Females work with producer Matt Bayles (Mastodon, Pearl Jam) in place of Steve Albini, who’d produced their previous two albums. The change means a fuller sound without a slick neutering of the band. “Broken Neck,” “Hopeless,” and the title track benefit from a powerful guitar tone and having Marissa Paternoster’s vocals securely in the mix. The harmonies, in particular, take on dramatic color. The New Jersey–based power trio succeed by never overdoing their parts, leaving just enough room for the sound to resonate beyond its initial station. *Rose Mountain* refines the trio’s attack to keep things interesting. 

The peerless indie trio’s first LP in a decade is 33 minutes of pure, lean, honest-to-goodness rock. Corin Tucker is in full command of her howitzer of a voice on standouts like “Surface Envy.” Carrie Brownstein’s haughty punk sneer leads the glorious “A New Wave.” Janet Weiss’ masterful drumming navigates the songwriting’s hairpin tonal shifts, from the glittering “Hey Darling” to the turbulent album closer, “Fade.\" *No Cities to Love* is an electrifying step forward for one of the great American rock bands.

“We sound possessed on these songs,” says guitarist/vocalist Carrie Brownstein about Sleater-Kinney’s eighth studio album, No Cities to Love. “Willing it all–the entire weight of the band and what it means to us–back into existence.” The new record is the first in 10 years from the acclaimed trio–Brownstein, vocalist/guitarist Corin Tucker, and drummer Janet Weiss–who came crashing out of the ’90s Pacific Northwest riot grrrl scene, setting a new bar for punk’s political insight and emotional impact. Formed in Olympia, WA in 1994, Sleater-Kinney were hailed as “America’s best rock band” by Greil Marcus in Time Magazine, and put out seven searing albums in 10 years before going on indefinite hiatus in 2006. But the new album isn’t about reminiscing, it’s about reinvention–the ignition of an unparalleled chemistry to create new sounds and tell new stories. “I always considered Corin and Carrie to be musical soulmates in the tradition of the greats,” says Weiss, whose drums fuel the fire of Tucker and Brownstein’s vocal and guitar interplay. “Something about taking a break brought them closer, desperate to reach together again for their true expression.” The result is a record that grapples with love, power and redemption without restraint. “The three of us want the same thing,” says Weiss. “We want the songs to be daunting.” Produced by long-time Sleater-Kinney collaborator John Goodmanson, who helmed many of the band’s earlier albums including 1997 breakout set Dig Me Out, No Cities to Love is indeed formidable from the first beat. Lead track “Price Tag” is a pounding anthem about greed and the human cost of capitalism, establishing both the album’s melodic drive and its themes of power and powerlessness–giving voice, as Tucker says, to those who “struggle to be heard against the dominant culture or status quo.” “Bury Our Friends” has Tucker and Brownstein joining vocal forces, locking arms to defeat a pressing fear of insignificance. It’s also emblematic of the band’s give and take, and commitment to working and reworking each song until it’s as strong as it can be. “‘Bury Our Friends’ was written in the 11th hour,” says Tucker. “Carrie had her great chime-y guitar riff, but we had gone around in circles with how to make that part into a cohesive song. I think Carrie finally cracked the chorus idea and yelled, ‘Sing with me!’” “A New Wave” similarly went through many iterations during the writing process, with five or six potential choruses, before crystallizing. It enters with an insistent guitar riff, and a battle between acceptance and defiance–“Every day I throw a little party,” howls Brownstein, “but a fit would be more fitting.” The album’s meditative title track was inspired by the trend of atomic tourism and its function as a metaphor for someone enthralled and impressed by power. “That form of power, that presence, is not only destructive it’s also hollowed-out, past its prime,” says Brownstein. “The character in that song has made a ritual out of seeking structures and people in which to find strength, yet they keep coming up empty.” Sleater-Kinney’s decade apart made room for family and other fruitful collaborations, as well as an understanding of what the band’s singular chemistry demands. “Creativity is about where you want your blood to flow, because in order to do something meaningful and powerful there has to be life inside of it,” says Brownstein. “Sleater-Kinney isn’t something you can do half-assed or half-heartedly. We have to really want it. This band requires a certain desperation, a direness. We have to be willing to push because the entity that is this band will push right back.” “The core of this record is our relationship to each other, to the music, and how all of us still felt strongly enough about those to sweat it out in the basement and to try and reinvent our band,” adds Tucker. With No Cities to Love, “we went for the jugular.” –Evie Nagy

Sufjan Stevens has taken creative detours into textured electro-pop, orchestral suites, and holiday music, but *Carrie & Lowell* returns to the feathery indie folk of his quietly brilliant early-’00s albums, like *Michigan* and *Seven Swans*. Using delicate fingerpicking and breathy vocals, songs like “Eugene,” “The Only Thing,” and the Simon & Garfunkel-influenced “No Shade in the Shadow of The Cross” are gorgeous reflections on childhood. When Stevens whispers in multi-tracked harmony over the album’s title track—an impressionistic portrait of his mother and stepfather that glows with nostalgic details—he delivers a haunting centerpiece.

Heavy rock titans TORCHE make their Relapse debut with the thunderous 'Restarter', a ten song triumph of an album. TORCHE rose to popularity merging huge infectious melodies with downtuned, crushing sludgey rock and on 'Restarter' they've perfected the marriage. This is a record that is simultaneously hum-able and heavy that will just as easily appeal to fans of Dinosaur Jr and Sonic Youth as it will Melvins and High On Fire-heads. But what truly sets TORCHE apart from their peers is their ability to use top-notch songwriting and soaring, harmonic vocals to create records that are heavier and louder and hookier than anyone else out there.

group for her debut album on the highly credible indie Merge Records and her third under the name Waxahatchee. Bred in Alabama and currently living in Philly to avoid the distracting rents of Brooklyn, Crutchfield sings with the unselfconscious joy that comes with succeeding on your own terms, even when she’s confessing to feelings of worthlessness (“The Dirt,” “<“). She’s part indie pop and part concise troubadour, with a band that supports and never gets in the way. Lyrics feel dreamlike and other times quite sincere and concerned, but the minimalist approach feels freeing.

“Don’t run away… don’t hesitate for a second”. Let’s get that title out of the way first: White Men Are Black men Too. Please read the accompanying words, straight from Alloysious’ mouth. And then the sticker on the vinyl and CD: ‘file under Rock and Pop’. You probably want to know what that’s doing there, right? Well… (breathes) when everything is post post post post something older and better where do the exceptions go? (Exhale). When the sci-fi 20’s ‘Urban’ might as well be the atomic 50’s ‘Race’, when R&B has no blues and hiphop is a boom bip with a shorty, a hoe, it’s off to the street corner we go… where does a group like Young Fathers, who ‘picknmix from the popular music sweety shop and fly no flags and swear allegiance to no country’ (© - 100 interviews with the group in 2014) - where do they go? They have to go to the place where Beck makes a sandwich with The Beach Boys and Captain Beefheart, where Faust and The Fall tango. In Rock and Pop you are allowed to pretty much be yourself. If you are a blue and green eyed boy from Brixton with the sallowest of white skin you can become the epitome of crystalised soul, itself. It swings both ways. So… Young Fathers are breaking out of the ghetto. Fuck these constrictive selling boxes. For the purposes of this mission, this album, this White Men Are Black Men Too, is rock and pop. And hiphop, too. (Woops, slipped out). No, you don’t box in the R&B Hits 2003 generation that easily. This sticker is only for the business. The listeners can decide for themselves. Microphone technique: orders from the sound engineer: “do NOT cup the mic!”. The sounds are closer on this album, closer to your ears. It sounds as if you are in the room during the recording, possibly experiencing a little existential trauma, but not enough that you don’t notice an earworm hook when you hear one. These hooks, they stay with you. ‘Is that what they mean by pop’? you ask yourself. Could be, Madonna, could be. There are less words than before. Why, for fuck’s sake? Where is the hiphop? It slides in, like a reverse version, a negative, of the hiphop blueprint of eight verses and a sweet, female wail of a hook (while comedy rapper number 6 mutters ‘uh huh, uh huh’, you know, keeping it real). But YFs lob raps into songs that morph into sung verses then back into the tune, with no respect, none! for the law. There’s nothing to lose. Don’t be afraid. 2014 was an interesting year for the group. Yep, awards etc and they played around 130 shows, from Paris to Sydney, via both Portlands and Paisley, too. The album found itself being recorded in a hotel room in Illinois, a rehearsal room in Melbourne, a freezing cellar in Berlin, a photographic studio in London and their normal hole in the ground basement in Edinburgh. It was easy - it’s always easy. You can hear the smiling. ‘Passionate pranksters, always entertaining’. These are grown men, battle fit and in their prime. There are no celebrations of dole queue theatre, no fake politics - there’s no need. YFs are right there in the middle of the question: what is your I.D.? Why claim to speak for a dispossessed white or black class or group or generation? When you can only ever speak for yourself. Someone buys a record - they’re not voting for you. A record isn’t a vote. A free download isn’t a spoilt ballot paper. Keep it real. When they chant ‘nigger nigger nigger’ the group are singing their enemy’s song (and you can all sing along) - it’s not a war cry, it’s the off switch, the left hand turn in the ignition, the pop-hiss of deflation. No more war, motherfucker. The tension is sexual, tuneful, it’s only fun about to kick off. Synesthesiastically, it’s a hue of a reddy blue with a touch of yellow, like most things. Which is, of course, the colour of the future. White Men Are Black Men Too. -------------------------------------------- The album title explained (sort of). This is an extract from an email exchange between members of the group and management. In this extract Alloysious passionately explains his reasoning against worries that the title of the album could be seen as offensive to black people and/or could be seen as negative or pretentious. 19 Jan 2015 “I still prefer the first title by far and stand by it. I'm aware of the points we've discussed but all that sounds like to me is, we are trying to cater to what other people might think, as if it's a negative thing, which it's not. We came at it from a different angle, a positive angle. it's got issues of race and so what? Why should alarm bells start ringing, even though in general conversations race, politics, sex and religion are always the subject matter? Why should it be discussed behind closed doors and never confronted head on? How do we help tackle one of the biggest hinderances in people's lives and the world… by not putting the question forward and not letting people debate positively or negatively about the statement? Motown music helped change the world, made it expectable for blacks to be on radio and seen on tv, MJ did it too. Martin Luther King wanted equality and achieved it to some degree. But, after all that, are things equal in this world? FUCK NO. I still want to ask for it (equality) backed with the best music we've ever recorded. A pop album, our interpretation of what a pop album should be. Weight with words, which is the title plus the pop sensibility of the songs (respectively). I wanna stand for something which I helped make. Folk will complain about absolutely anything… Even it's it from the purest of intentions you just can't win. We don't make music to please other people or write certain lyrics to do so, either. Why start now? When the title was first put forward everybody was excited and 100% there was no fear. That same commitment needs be carried on to make it work despite worries after it's been digested.” Ends.

From: Harry Winklebottom To: Social Media/Marketing/Sales Re: who is Young Guv and why is he ripe for love? Who's @youngguv? He's still underground, but everyone will know him soon. Right now, he only has 1500 followers, so we need to get this kid a checkmark as soon as possible. Here's the rundown: He's a white boy in a backwards snapback with fake Emoji neck tattoos. He's a ripped bald kid fronting one of the most important and successful hardcore bands in Toronto history. He's a ghostwriter eating pasta as he pens al dente tunes for the likes of Sum 41, Kelly Clarkson, Taylor Swift, a few Canadian Idols, Snow, a slew of hardcore bands, Maroon 5 and one or two OVO affiliates. He's a tortured artist turning down Katy Perry's edits to his tunes because she didn't like his babies as they were. He's a child actor playing Ryan Gosling's sexy little brother. Do I need to go on? @youngguv is Ben Cook, and he's putting out an album, Ripe 4 Luv, on one of the greatest labels ever, Slumberland Records. Having been around for a minute, Guv has decided to put together a set of pop tunes that shows off his range as a performer, singer, songwriter, style icon and retweet-worthy pop star. I've heard the album, and its ready to head to marketing. We don't need a billboard for this one, all we need to do is release a single and get it trending worldwide. We're going to break Nielsen SoundScan. We're going straight to #1 on iTunes! Guv got it right the first time with his band No Warning, one of the only Canadian hardcore acts to achieve recognition from major labels in the U.S. He parlayed this experience into a successful career as the creeper peaking through the curtain as better-looking people sing his songs to an appreciative audience. In addition to writing for pop royalty and no-name punk acts, Young Guv has spent the last 7 years playing guitar in fellow Toronto legends Fucked Up, selling 10's of 1000's of singles recorded in various bedrooms, and helping put the East End back on the GTA's music map with his Bad Actors imprint. Guv has been around for a while, and now he's helping new, young talent get around and release classic records. How could you not like this guy? He's got the bone structure to go viral at any moment. Ripe 4 Luv is a beautiful album for beautiful people. Plus, it really shows off his range. There's only one way to describe this record: Guv sings like Prince into expensive audio-nerd mics over power pop backing tracks that evoke Big Star after they got some nookie but before they became depressed about their failure to appeal to the right audience. If that's not good enough for you, then it sounds like Cheap Trick produced by Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis. Or how about Drake's producer 40 manning the boards for a Hall & Oates session? Any of those will help sell this record to the blogs, just pick one and run with it.  That's it, that's what you get when you stream Ripe 4 Luv on Spotify. I'm telling you, this album is just perfect for Billboard's Trending 140 chart. We're going to be rich!

*Barter 6* was billed first as Young Thug’s debut album, then a retail mixtape; either way, the 2015 release was the sharpest, clearest statement yet from Atlanta’s most enigmatic rapper. From the gently rippling intro, “Constantly Hating,” to the swirling, cathartic haze of “Just Might Be,” Thug contorts his voice into endless shapes and pulls previously unheard harmonies out of his back pocket. “Check” is a giddy celebration of success, and “Halftime” is rap as high-wire routine: a technical performance as reckless as it is graceful.