The A.V. Club's Best Albums of 2018 So Far

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

German electronic producer DJ Koze has always been a self-selecting outsider, the kind of artist who sits blissfully on the sidelines of the big picture while the world passes him by. His third proper studio album unfolds like a daydream: breezy, sunny, and strangely beautiful, filled with ideas that don’t make sense until they suddenly—thrillingly—do. As with 2013’s *Amygdala* (as well as his endlessly inventive DJ sets and remixes), the style here is curiously out of time, touching on house (“Pick Up”), hip-hop (“Colors of Autum”), and downtempo soul (“Scratch That”), all with a slightly psychedelic twist that keeps everything hovering an inch or two off the floor. Fashion is fine, but it’s no match for a muse.

After two concept albums and a string of roles in Hollywood blockbusters, one of music’s fiercest visionaries sheds her alter egos and steps out as herself. Buckle up: Human Monáe wields twice the power of any sci-fi character. In this confessional, far-reaching triumph, she dreams of a world in which love wins (“Pynk\") and women of color have agency (“Django Jane”). Featuring guest appearances from Brian Wilson, Grimes, and Pharrell—and bearing the clear influence of Prince, Monae’s late mentor—*Dirty Computer* is as uncompromising and mighty as it is graceful and fun. “I’m the venom and the antidote,” she wails in “I Like That,” a song about embracing these very contradictions. “Take a different type of girl to keep the whole world afloat.”

JOHN DEDOMENICI - BASS JEFF ROSENSTOCK - VOCALS, GUITAR, KEYS, ETC. MIKE HUGUENOR - GUITAR KEVIN HIGUCHI - DRUMS DAN POTTHAST - LAP STEEL CHRIS FARREN - VOCALS ON 2, 6 & 10 LAURA STEVENSON - VOCALS ON 2, 6, 9 & 10 INT’L VOX & CLAPCO: GILBERT ARMENDARIZ, ANGELINA BANDA, SIM CASTRO, LAURA HAMMOND, JULIA LOAN, PUP, NEAL SHARMA, SHANNON TOOMBS RECORDED, MIXED AND MASTERED BY JACK SHIRLEY PHOTOS BY HIRO TANAKA 10% of all proceeds will be donated to Defend Puerto Rico. I wrote the songs and the liner notes. And did the layout. This is Jeff. This record was recorded and mixed from November 28th - December 5th 2017 by Jack Shirley at the Atomic Garden in East Palo Alto, CA. a few days later, he MIXED IT SOME MORE AND mastered it. Jack makes great records, is affordable and you should make records with him. Thanks, Jack! We rehearsed from November 24th - 27th at District Recording in San Jose, CA. That studio is also affordable and Ryan Perras makes cool shit there too. Thanks Ryan and also Ace Kimura for letting us make the loud loud noises. Thanks Mikah at Starving Musician for helping us get our percussion stuff sorted. Thank you Dan Potthast, Shannon Toombs, and Skylar & Joa Suorez for giving me and John homes to sleep in while making this record. Thank you Lauren Brief for sending positive vibes at us all day long while recording. Additional recording happened at Quote Unquote Records, Brooklyn, NY in April 2017 and alone in the mountains of East Durham, NY in January 2017. THE LATTER is also where a significant amount of the record was written. Kara Zuaro and Pete D’Angelo, I can’t thank you enough for sharing your double wide trailer with me, it was snowy and magical. ADDITIONAL Additional recording by Nestor Chumak, Chris Farren and Laura Stevenson at their respective homes in December 2017. Thank you so much for being part of this record y’all. To the wonderful people at SideOneDummy, thank you for taking a chance on me when no one else would. Love you very very very very much. A lot of the best things our band experienced in the last two years would not have happened without the tireless work and guidance of Jamie Coletta. It’s hard to put it all into words, thanks for believin’ in me more than I do, bud. The photos in this record were taken while touring off our last record, WORRY. Over the last two and a half years, Hiro Tanaka often joined us on tour to hang out and take pictures. Thanks for being so much fun and keeping us smiling, Hiro! Gomena! Thanks to the usual batch of friends who help with things I am inept with - Tom Kelly setting up guitars, Rick Johnson, Jake Katz, Justin Yates for doing sound at the big scary things. To everyone I forgot, I suck, I'm sorry. To Katie Ellen, Hard Girls, Rozwell Kid, Menzingers Fam, Summers, Still Ill, Doe, Larbden Steenibted, Foley, Jess Locke Fam & Greg Bower, it was a pleasure to share the planet with you over the last year or so. Thanks Chris Farren & Gethard! Thank you Modern Baseball for lending us your van, and Sorority Noise for the trailer. To our friends in North America, thanks for spending your nights and breakfasts with us when we pass through town. Sara & Raph, Irene, Till, Iona Cairns & Nina & Allen as well, LouisE, Francis & Paul, Beeeeez, Matty Boo & Lanah too, Marnie & Gibbo and our wonderful giant Melbourne F A M I L Y that would take up three more lines - do you know what it feels like to be on the other side of the planet, sometimes where you can’t understand anything anyone is saying and feel like you’re at home and you can just kinda wander around like you live there ‘cause you’re with your buds? It feels awesome that’s how it feels!!! Thanks for the feeling!!! AJJ, Smithies Fam, PUP Fam, Camp Cope, Bennies, Sidekicks, Worriers, Tiny Moving Parts, Dan Andriano, Kitty Kat Fan Club - so proud to be your pals, you all make such killer music. Thanks Polyvinyl for taking on this record even though we didn’t really know each other and i wanted to release it for free with no announcement, on a holiday when no press people are working. And even though you couldn’t hear it until the day it was due to be sent to the record plant, for vinyl that would be released three months after the album was released digitally. for free. FYI at no point did POLYVINYL try to change my mind, say that what I was doing was stupid or a bad idea or any shit like that. That’s fucking tight. Andrew and Kay at Specialist Subject and Moorwoorks Records! THANKS FOR TAKING THIS SHIT WORLDWIDE BAYYYYYBEEEEEE yeahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!! Right before making this album I was lucky enough to go on a tour of Hawaii, Japan and Korea with The Bruce Lee Band. Thanks Mike Park for teaching me at a young age via Asian Man Records that making music does not have to mean financially exploiting anyone. For treating me like family and taking me to places I never thought I’d ever see playing in a ska band. GOCHI! Thanks BLB for being the best damn band of all time. Thanks to Johnny, Chris, Melaina, my new Hawaiian buds, Kemuri Fam, Skasucks and Jeff & Trash Yang Moses. Yo! Jason Klein at Fender and Tim Dove at Ernie Ball! it was super sick to swing by and peek behind the curtain that one time. Thanks for hooking us up with free & cheap stuff that we like a lot. Ben at Vic Firth, Shirlene and Christian at Sabian, John at Pearl, Alex at Orange, Peter at Quilter - same goes to you!!! It’s very nice of you to treat us so well!!! YES!!! Thanks to all of our families, our partners and our friends for being supportive of our transient lifestyle of trash snacks, garbage toilets and spontaneous beauty. Especially enormous thanks to everyone who has listened to and supported our music. Listeners? Audience? Fans? I never know the right word. We’re all just people doing our own shit hoping not to fuck it up, right? Anyway, vocabulary aside, thanks for giving us the opportunity to do the dreams we had when we were kids. this record and many others are available for free on quoteunquoterecords.com. Fuck the NRA. For Weezy, Tequila and Rocky. see ya in the giggle pit.

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.

Childqueen is something of a Hero's Quest. In the opening "Procession," above a muted drummer's march, an unseen oracle announces to you, the listener: "every morning is a chance to renew, a chance to renew." This is your first clue, setting you on a path to what Kadhja has christened the "childqueen," that innermost self that you were truthfully and instinctively before the weight of the world came crashing in. As with her 2016 debut The Visitor, the songs on Childqueen are never casual, never ditties. Instead, they invite us into a world not wholly our own, a half-mythical atmosphere where past and future meet in a parallel, yet faraway, present. Acting as a sort of diffuse chanteuse, Kadhja's achingly lovely voice achieves what can only be described as "ambient song." Particularly in songs like "Delphine" and "Nostalgia," we hear the jazzier intricacies of the vocal melodies brushed soft at the edges, at times so soft they vaporize into pure mood, or merge with other instruments or with backing vocals that seem to emanate from celestials bodies. And the instruments— played mostly by the polymathic Bonet herself— mix the cinematically and classically orchestral with the noticeably more synthetic. On tracks like "Thoughts Around Tea" or "Another Time Lover," flutes, violins, guitars, drums, and bells share or trade the stage with acousmatic warbles, whooshes, and lines, each gently couching the contours of the others. By combining softer enchantments with an ever-listenable experimentalism, Kadhja has created a soundscape the listener sinks into, unplaceable in genre and decade from beginning to end. Despite its soft tones, despite its listenability, Childqueen challenges us as much as Kadhja's self-description: "I don't like calling myself an artist. I don't like calling myself a singer— or even a musician." This isn’t just paradox. Kadhja came to music early through a maniacally rigorous classical training in her childhood, mastering the violin and viola, in addition to picking up the flute, guitar, and formal composition. But she abandoned classical music for wilder groves, and credits what she now creates as springing from a place of intuition and candid self-reflection rather than theory or her academic past. The Kadhja that leads us through Childqueen is unyielding, truth-seeking, and even mildly misanthropic, dismayed by humanity's talent for self-deception. She urges us to do better. These urges may come in rebuffs to our daily thoughtlessness, from the possible love sacrificed to business sense in "Thoughts Around Tea" to the caustic calls from the title track: "what's the matter, don't you got a man, to tell you what you're worth to him? Where you been at Childqueen?" At other points, her tone turns imploring, as in "Delphine," or encouraging as in "Second Wind" which serves to remind "sometimes I forget, moss grows from my lips. I am fertile. I am rich. I am moist and mineral." The lyrics and melodic lines nudge us along a path of self-discovery— or act as breadcrumbs along her own path. Everything that you hear on Childqueen was created by Kadhja, who has always produced all her own music, insisting on a total vision that is nearly as difficult to co-create as a dream. She does confess: "this record crushed my ego, and I'm surprised I'm still alive." Nevertheless, music remains for Kadhja Bonet a primarily solitary activity, one in which she can tender a connection with that innermost self, the childqueen. The rest of the world, if it pleases, is welcome to listen in, and join her quest.

It was worth the wait for Colombian-American songstress Kali Uchis’s first full-length. A romantic collage of artists and sounds she’s encountered along the way—Tyler, The Creator and Bootsy Collins on “After the Storm”, and Gorillaz’ Damon Albarn on the surfy “In My Dreams”—the album draws on Latin pop (“Nuestro Planeta”), hypnotic R&B (“Just a Stranger”), and high-flying psych-rock (“Tomorrow,” with production from Tame Impala’s Kevin Parker). It’s a sign of Uchis’ artistic vision that she pulled so many creative minds into a single body of work that sounds so distinctly her own.

Phil Elverum’s 2017 album as Mount Eerie (*A Crow Looked at Me*) broke new ground for confessionalism, detailing the sickness and death of his wife, Geneviève, with a directness and specificity that felt at once heartbreaking and borderline artless—the chaos of real life, arranged in simple folk song. *Now Only* dips further into Elverum’s stream of consciousness, reflecting on everything from Jack Kerouac and the weight of paternity (“Distortion”) to an evening on Skrillex’s tour bus (“Now Only”) and the triangulation of grief through art (“Two Paintings by Nikolai Astrup”).

WRITTEN AND RECORDED between March 14th and October 9th, 2017 at home in the same room ORDER A PHYSICAL COPY HERE: www.pwelverumandsun.com P.W. ELVERUM & SUN box 1561 Anacortes, Wash. U.S.A. 98221 PRESS RELEASE: Now Only, written shortly following the release of A Crow Looked At Me and the first live performances of those songs, is a deeper exploration of that style of candid, undisguised lyrical writing. It portrays Elverum’s continuing immersion in the strange reality of Geneviève’s death, chronicling the evolution of his relationship to her and her memory, and of the effect the artistic exploration of his grief has had on his own life. The scope of Now Only encompasses not only hospitals and deathbeds, but also a music festival, childhood memories of conversations with Elverum’s mother, profound paintings and affecting artworks he encounters, a documentary about Jack Kerouac, and most significantly, memories of his life with Geneviève. These moments and thoughts resonate with each other, creating a more complex and nuanced picture of mourning and healing. The power of these songs comes not from the small, sharp moments of cutting phrases or shocks, but the echoes that weave the songs together, the way a life is woven. The music, fully realized by Elverum alone at home, is fleshed out texturally and seems to react to the words in real time. In a moment of confusion, dissonance abruptly makes itself known; in a moment of clarity, gentle piano arises. On the title track, the blunt declaration of “people get cancer and die” is subverted by a melody that can only be described as pop. As Elverum reinvents his lyrical process, he is also refining his musical vocabulary. Elverum’s life during the period he wrote Now Only was defined by the duality of existing with the praise and attention garnered by A Crow Looked At Me and the difficult reality of maintaining a house with a small child by himself, as well as working to preserve Geneviève’s artistic legacy. Consumed with the day to day of raising his daughter, Elverum felt his musical self was so distant that it seemed fictional. Stepping into the role of Phil Elverum of Mount Eerie held the promise of positive empathy and praise, but also the difficulty of inhabiting the intense grief that produced the music. These moments, both public and domestic, are chronicled in these songs. They are songs of remembrance, and songs about the idea of remembrance, about living on the cusp of the past and present and reluctantly witnessing a beloved person’s history take shape. Time continues.

Neko Case’s ‘Hell-On,’ an indelible collection of colorful, enigmatic storytelling that features some of her most daring, through-composed arrangements to date, is available now. Produced by Neko Case, ‘Hell-On’ is simultaneously her most accessible and most challenging album, in a rich and varied career that’s offered plenty of both. ‘Hell-On’ is rife with withering self-critique, muted reflection, anthemic affirmation and Neko’s unique poetic sensibility. Neko enlisted Bjorn Yttling of (Peter Bjorn & John) to co-produce 6 tracks with her in Stockholm, Sweden where she mixed the 12 track album with Lasse Martin. ‘Hell-On’ features performances by Beth Ditto, Mark Lanegan, k.d. Lang, AC Newman, Eric Bachmann, Kelly Hogan, Doug Gillard, Laura Veirs, Joey Burns and many more.

To record *All Melody*, Frahm designed his dream studio inside Berlin’s historic Funkhaus complex, rewiring the cables, installing a pipe organ, and building a custom mixing desk. Then, like a kid in a candy store, he created one of his most meticulous and adventurous albums yet. A delicate mix of ambient meditations (\"The Whole Universe Wants to be Touched”), wandering piano melodies (“My Friend the Forest”), and staccato, Latin-leaning grooves (“A Place,” “Kaleidoscope\"), it’s an absorbing study of atmosphere that\'s full of surprises.

For the past two years, Nils Frahm has been building a brand new studio in Berlin to make his 7th studio album titled All Melody, which will be released on January 26th, 2018 via Erased Tapes, before Nils embarks on his first world tour since 2015. Since the day Nils first encountered the impressive studio of a family friend, he had envisioned to create one of his own at such a large scale. Fast forward to the present day and Nils is now the proud host of Saal 3, part of the historical 1950s East German Funkhaus building beside the River Spree. It is here where he has spent most of his time deconstructing and reconstructing the entire space from the cabling and electricity to the woodwork, before moving on to the finer elements; building a pipe organ and creating a mixing desk all from scratch with the help of his friends. This is somewhere music can be nurtured and not neglected, and where he can somewhat fulfil his pursuit of presenting music to the world as close to his imagination as possible. His previous albums have often been accompanied with a story, such as Felt (2011) where he placed felt upon the hammers of the piano out of courtesy to his neighbours when recording late at night in his old bedroom studio, and the following album Screws (2012) when injuring his thumb forced him to play with only nine fingers. His new album is born out of the freedom that his new environment provided, allowing Nils to explore without any restrictions and to keep it All about the Melody. Despite being confined within the majestic four walls of the Funkhaus, buried deep in its reverb chambers, or in an old dry well in Mallorca, All Melody is, in fact, proof that music is limitless, timeless, and reflects that of Nils’ own capabilities. From a boy’s dream to resetting the parameters of music itself. Words from Nils, October 2017: “In the process of completion, any album not only reveals what it has become but, maybe more importantly, what it hasn't become. All Melody was imagined to be so many things over time and it has been a whole lot, but never exactly what I planned it to be. I wanted to hear beautiful drums, drums I've never seen or heard before, accompanied by human voices, girls, and boys. They would sing a song from this very world and it would sound like it was from a different space. I heard a synthesiser which sounds like a harmonium playing the All Melody, melting together with a line of a harmonium sounding like a synthesiser. My pipe organ would turn into a drum machine, while my drum machine would sound like an orchestra of breathy flutes. I would turn my piano into my very voice, and any voice into a ringing string. The music I hear inside me will never end up on a record, as it seems I can only play it for myself. This record includes what I think sticks out and describes my recent musical discoveries in the best possible way I could imagine.” The cover art was taken by photographer Lia Darjes in Nils’ new studio and designed by Torsten Posselt at FELD. A series of these in-studio photos will be included in a booklet with a copy of All Melody.

From the time he broke in 2008, Nipsey Hussle was one of the West Coast’s brightest hopes for a post-Snoop Dogg superstar. Though he\'d go on to deliver numerous classic street-level projects in the time since, *Victory Lap* is officially billed as Hussle’s debut. The album is rife with the neo-G-funk sound that made his name (“Last Time That I Checc’d,” “Dedication”) as well as the platforms he\'s most proud of: turf-life activism and black business advocacy (“Young N\*\*\*a,” “Million While You Young”). The clout of guests like Puff Daddy, Kendrick Lamar, and Cee-Lo Green is not to be understated, but Hussle’s collaborators, no matter their own fame, understand his importance.

Rock and roll for the black hole - reimagined rippers, for the misfits that 2017 couldn't kill to blast under the shadow of the big boot and beyond the glow of the chemical horizon. This is driving music, and you're the designated shotgun rider - get in!

Back when he was still one-half of Clipse, Pusha-T dazzled listeners of the Virginia duo\'s mixtape series *We Got It 4 Cheap* by annihilating popular beats of the day. The project\'s sole criticism was that the production was already so good, it could carry anyone. *DAYTONA*, copiloted by hip-hop production genius Kanye West, upends that conceit, with contemporary boom-bap built from luscious soul samples that would swallow a lesser MC. With Pusha at the absolute top of his game, *DAYTONA* is somehow more than the sum of its parts, a fact the rapper acknowledges proudly on “The Games We Play”: “To all of my young n\*\*\*\*s/I am your Ghost and your Rae/This is my Purple Tape.”

Rhye’s exquisite sophomore album finds singer/songwriter Mike Milosh exploring band-oriented arrangements. Inspired by the tour following his first album, *Woman*—in which an organist, string players, and a brass and rhythm section joined him on stage—Milosh sought to bring some of that live energy to *Blood*. He tapped seasoned producers and songwriters (Thomas Bartlett, Justin Parker) and guest instrumentalists (Tamar Osborn, Nate Mercereau) to add subtle doses of warmth and texture (the punctuating horns on “Feel Your Weight,” the plucky strings on “Taste\"). Still, though, nothing can compete with Milosh’s soul-stirring soprano, which soars over the instrumentation like a bird above clouds.

Ryan Lee West aka Rival Consoles presents his expressive new album ‘Persona’, set for release on 13th April 2018 via Erased Tapes. The title ‘Persona’ was inspired by Ingmar Bergman’s film of the same name, specifically a shot in the opening credits of a child reaching out to touch a woman’s face on a screen, which is shifting between one face and another. This powerful image struck Ryan and it inspired the album’s main theme — an exploration of the persona, the difference between how we see ourselves and how others see us, the spaces in between; between states, people, light and dark, the inner persona and the outer persona. “My music is generally inward looking. I like finding something about the self within music, that doesn't have to be specific but maybe asks something or reveals something. This record is a continuation on the self through electronic sounds. Like Legowelt once said ‘a synthesiser is like a translator for unknown emotions’, which I think sums up what I am trying to do. I think all these emotions we have make up our persona. So in a way by finding new ones you alter or expand your persona. And that is what I want my music to try to do. I deliberately aimed to be more sonically diverse with this record. I wanted to experiment more. I wanted to create new sounds and new emotions.” Recorded at his studio in south-east London, ‘Persona’ benefits from Ryan’s exploration of a dynamic production process that combines analogue-heavy synthesisers, acoustic and electric instruments with a shoegaze-level obsession with effect pedals. A greater depth of emotion and confidence can be heard across the album. From the deconstructed movements on‘Unfolding’ that starts the album with a snap of delayed snares, the apocalyptic drones of the title track and thundering drums in ‘Phantom Grip’to more restrained ambient feels of ‘Dreamer’s Wake’, ‘Rest’ and ‘Untravel’. The latter transverses six beatless minutes of undulating melodies representing “a limbo space, a feeling of ennui, of not really ever being known to others and others not ever really being known to you”. ‘Be Kind’ reveals a musical connection with fellow Erased Tapes artist Nils Frahm, with its minimal approach and improvisational nature. On the more complex sounding ‘I Think So’ Ryan aims to replicate a colour collage with sound. Like a musical kaleidoscope, a flashing and convoluted mass. Written after he saw Slowdive perform live last year, ‘Hidden’ builds from whispers to landscapes of controlled noise. In an interview with XLR8R magazine, Ryan explains: “once you start trying to make a sound loud, then you turn your back on thousands and thousands of sonic possibilities. One of the best things to do is to start a track with a really quiet, weak sound.” Taking this idea to its ultimate conclusion, ‘Fragment’ closes the album as an innocent sounding ambient piece, almost nursery rhyme like, yielding time for reflection on how the persona has changed. ‘Persona’ follows the success of a series of releases — the ‘Odyssey’and ‘Sonne’ EPs, long player ‘Howl’, and 2016’s mini album ‘Night Melody’— that saw Ryan mature into what Pitchfork has called a “forward-thinking electronic musician with his own ideas about sound”. Atypical of instrumental-electronic music, Ryan has achieved a signature sound that’s unmistakably identifiable as Rival Consoles. Going beyond typical electronic music production, Ryan defines it as “songwriting with an electronic palette of sounds”. The increasingly dynamic live audio-visual show, born from bespoke performances at the Tate and for Boiler Room at the V&A Museum featuring self-programmed visuals in Max/MSP, has propelled him to play around the world. Ryan launches ‘Persona’at London’s XOYO on 12th April with further dates to be announced.

Formed in New Brunswick, NJ in 2005, Screaming Females are Marissa Paternoster (guitar, vox), Mike Abbate (bass), and Jarrett Dougherty (drums). Over six albums and more than a decade of music making, the band has remained deeply individual and steadfastly DIY. They have also grown into one of the most dynamic and devastating touring bands going today. Out February 23rd, All At Once, is the trio’s most expansive and imaginative work to date -- a double LP that swings between surreal miniatures and and solo-heavy sprawl. Concision takes a backseat to experimentation, with arrangements meant to evoke the energy and spontaneity of their live shows. It's music built across a timeline that's longer than our internet-enhanced moment typically tolerates and a testament to the band's dedication and perseverance.

SiR shares a boutique label with Kendrick Lamar and has worked with everyone from Jill Scott from Stevie Wonder, but none of that offers a clue to what occupies *November*. His second LP bears a hazy, heady vibe, brooding over relationship issues that seem set somewhere between the middle of the night and the morning after. Whether he\'s second-guessing himself in retrospect on the dreamy \"Better\" or putting up a tough front on the sultry, sinuous \"That\'s Alright,\" SiR offers up a kind of alternate-universe slow-jam album full of intoxicating atmosphere.

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.

Clean presents Sophie Allison as a singular artist, wise beyond her years, with an emotional authenticity all her own. “It feels like my first real record,” says Allison. “It’s my first real statement.” It’s an emotional album, heavy on themes of growth, isolation, and change, but balanced by a lightness of touch, and with hooks to spare. Clean is a true step forward, a mature, powerful album from an artist just coming into her power.

Some couples repair rifts in their relationships with expensive therapy. Beyoncé and JAY-Z tour stadiums together and surprise-release collaborative albums that mine their self-mythologized personal drama for big-ticket entertainment. Sonically closer to Beyoncé’s 2016 high-art airing of dirty laundry *Lemonade* than Jay’s 2017 response *4:44*, this isn’t just rubbernecking at the doings inside America’s royal family—it’s a challenging, tense, and thoroughly catchy summertime romp in its own right. When Beyoncé sings, “I can’t believe we made it,” in the appropriately aggressive “APES\*\*T,” she might be referring to the détente in their high-profile marriage; she might mean this very album. The fun is in decoding—but it’s hardly the only fun.