Weyes Blood – Titanic Rising
Fourth and best yet album by the American and mesmeric Natalie Mering, mixing the intimate with old-school electronica, string arrangements, avant-garde wobbliness. The subject matter touches on the modern relationship with technology and the connectedness contradiction, and climate crisis, all done with a breathtaking ethereal beauty, from the slow-build of Movies, the jaunty Everyday, and the otherworldly, folky Andromeda. Out on Sub Pop.
Weyes Blood - Andromeda
Jess Ribeiro – Love Hate
This third album by the Melbourne singer-songwriter is a development from the two previous fine blues folk LPs in 2012 and 2016, produced by Mick Harney into more pop territory, and should gain her greater exposure without losing any credibility or quality, from the dreamy, guitar-bright Stranger to Love Is The Score Of Nothing. from the repetitively lustful Chair Stare to the violin-shimmer of Lay Down With the Earth or the trip-hoppy Young Love. Like Courtney Barnett, she's gaining a stronger foothold into a wider audience with with a great ease and versatility. Out on Barely Dressed Records.
Jess Ribeiro – Love Is The Score Of Nothing
W.H. Lung – Incidental Music
A krautrock-rhythm synth-odyssey comes here from the Manchester trio, reminiscent of Hookworms, and a gentler dash of LCD Soundsystem, with added guitar riffs, and echoes of the recent, excellent album by Snapped Ankles, Stunning Luxury. Confident in its build and momentum with 10-minute opener, Simpatico People, the other seven tracks keep up a similar shape and speed, from Bring It Up next and onwards, that is, aside from the slower mid-album, fourth track Empty Room. Engaging, energised electro-psychedelia that grows on you. Out on Melodic.
W.H. Lung – Simpatico People
Pozi – PZ1
The London trio of violinist/vocalist Rosa Brook, bassist/vocalist Tom Jones and drummer/vocalist Toby Burroughs bring out a catchy, chunky, edgy postpunk songs that thrum and skim with a fabulous precision and deceptive simplicity. A wonderful fusion of acoustic and electric, wrought with wit. Check out KCTMO and Watching You Suffer. Out on Prah Recordings.
Pozi - Watching You Suffer
Ratso – Stubborn Heart
The New York author / writer / actor Larry "Ratso" Sloman has collaborated as lyricist with several big-hitters including Bob Dylan, Lou Reed, John Cale and Leonard Cohen, as well as writing best-selling memoirs for Howard Stern, Anthony Kiedis and Mike Tyson, as well as many Rolling Stone music features. A true renaissance type, this time he brings out an album with him singing on eight original songs, a Dylan cover, helped along by collaborators Nick Cave, Warren Ellis, Sharon Robinson (Leonard Cohen’s co-writer, producer and back-up singer), Yasmine Hamdan and Imani Coppolla. Like a fine whisky, and with the hue of Leonard Cohen, the result is gorgeously smooth and mature. Out on Lucky Number.
Ratso – Our Lady of Light (ft. Nick Cave)
Lee Fields & The Expressions – It Rains Love
The singer from North Carolina and based in New York is a veteran of classic soul, having now clocked up 50 years in the business and working with everyone from Kool and the Gang to BB King. Has has a passing resemblance to James Brown, but more particularly in delivery, those he's survived – fellow performers and friends Charles Bradley and also Sharon Jones, and offers up work of similar quality, with big horn and orchestral sounds and thudding bass lines. There's nothing very new about this, but why change the record when it just does the business, backed by The Expressions who also double up sometimes as the Daptones. Out on Big Crown.
Lee Fields & The Expressions - It Rains Love
Shana Cleveland – Night Of The Worm Moon
Longstanding frontwoman for surf rock band La Luz, Shana Cleveland now brings out a solo album of ethereal otherworldliness, channelling Sun Ra, pastoral folk, country and cosmic planet-gazing. Keep an eye out for UFO sightings, insect carcasses and a whole kaleidoscope of beauty. Out on Hardly Art.
Shana Cleveland – Face Of The Sun
Rozi Plain – What A Boost
A fifth record in a just over decade by the wonderfully agile, eccentric and elegant alt-folk artist, who again tip-toes along entertainingly with this mixture of acoustic instruments and electronica, and lovely vocal harmonies. The theme of this particular one is travelling, and as she says of it: "“I feel like you do a lot of looking back, looking forward, looking at your life, and looking out of the window." Out on Memphis Industries.
Rozi Plain - Symmetrical
Priests – The Seduction of Kansas
"I’m young and dumb and full of cum,” singer Katie Alice Greer exclaims on opener Jesus’ Son on this new album by the Washington DC postpunk-pop band, a follow-up to 2017's Nothing Feels Natural. It's awash with the current zeitgeist, the disturbing reality of the Trump era, drained through the fuzz of their sound and word-heavy caustic wit with songs ranging from YouTube Sartre To Control Freak. Out on Sister Polygon.
Priests – The Seduction of Kansas
David Bowie – Spying Through A Keyhole
Not so much an official album, but a collection of nine previously unreleased 7-inch singles to mark the 50th anniversary since Space Oddity. The title is a line from the unknown song, Love All Around, and while other six titles are better known, all are previously unheard versions that are variously acoustic, demo or vocal only, from In The Heat Of The Morning, and two versions each of Angel Angel Grubby Face and of course Space Oddity. A charming curiosity rather than a must, unless you're a fanatic of the early, croaky, strummy, eccentric Bowie. Out on Parlophone.
David Bowie - Spying Through A Keyhole
This week's selection is by The Landlord.
Also enjoy our voted selection of 50 or more favourite albums of 2018:
Anna Calvi to Idles: favourite albums of 2018 – part 1
Gazelle Twin to Villagers: favourite albums of 2018 – part 2
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