Mark Lanegan – Straight Songs of Sorrow
Accompanying his gripping and gritty memoir recently published, Sing Backwards And Weep, the ex-drug addict heavy drinker, debt collector, hardman and fanatical comic book collector with the gravelly voice releases 15 songs with particularly emphasis on the autobiographical, as much including his musical development as the ups and downs of his blood, sweat and tears of his life. Ketamine is pretty gritty: "If I had a razor, I would cut you everywhere, then I'd walk the whole wide Earth with a thousand-mile stare, while Bleed All Over opens up all kinds of wounds, and perhaps almost too much bleeding, Churchbells, Ghosts and Stockholm City Blues are rather beautiful, Skeleton Key is an immensely strong love song and Internal Hourglass Discussion is an arrhythmic piece of electronica experimentation. So musically it traces elements from early Lanegan albums with the synthesized constructs of later songs. The meditative acoustic guitar fingerpicking – provided by Lamb Of God’s Mark Morton – on Apples From A Tree and Hanging On (For DRC) echo 1994’s Whiskey For The Holy Ghost. And one particular influence, perhaps surprising to some, is Van Morrison's Astral Weeks, echoed in the new album’s opener I Wouldn’t Want To Say, where Lanegan extemporises "à la Ballerina over musique concrète wave patterns generated by his latest favourite compositional tool, a miniature computer-synth called the Organelle. Fancy that. Feverishly hot, dark, honest, tough tender work. Out on Heavenly Recordings.
Mark Lanegan – Skeleton Key
Moses Sumney – Græ Part Two
The second part of the album that was released in late February by the North Carolina-based singer soars just as spectacularly with a falsetto voice that recalls the heights of David McAlmont, a soulful tour de force of soul, pop, electronica, jazz and avant-garde. It's slightly less forceful than Part One, but that doesn't lessen its power. Highlights include the searingly heart-wrenchingly imaginative Me In 20 Years, where he wonders if he'll be alone, and Bless Me (Before You Go) and Cut Me with a telling hospital video, terrific trombones, and gorgeous overdubbed vocals. Out on Jagjaguwar.
Moses Sumney – Me In 20 Years
Hayley Williams – Petals for Armor
On the back of three EPs, this debut album for the frontwoman of Paramore, the mainstream Tennessee pop-punk band, is something of a shift into new territory for the 31-year-old. Lust, rage, femininity and suicidal thoughts colour these songs, seemingly drawn from her teenage years, with a flower-bloom metaphor threading through many such as Roses/Lotus/Violet/Iris, with added solidarity from Phoebe Bridgers, Julien Baker and Lucy Dacus on backing vocals. Then there's electronica infused, angry Simmer, the pop/R&B Dead Horse, or the acoustic guitar style Leave It Alone that toys with a suicidal noose. Or Watch Me While I Bloom, which echoes a seemingly incompatible mixture of Bjork and Janet Jackson. And eclectic mix, finding a new self, perhaps. Out on Atlantic.
Hayley Williams – Leave It Alone
Blake Mills – Mutable Set
The Californian producer and guitarist releases his fourth album, an avant-garde form of folk, with guitar, saxophone, and piano. It's conceived as "a soundtrack to the emotional dissonance of modern life”, but is soothing and at times balm, musically, such as on the soft, evolving Money Is the One True God, Summer All Over, Never Forever, or the title track. There are touches of John Martyn and the ethereal Nick Drake here, but also stranger edges with the Cass McCombs co-written Vanishing Twin. Sweet, strange sounds with dark subject matter. Out on New Deal.
Blake Mills - Money Is The One True God
I Break Horses – Warnings
Six years since the second album, Chiaroscuro, Swedens' s Maria Lindén, now going it alone, returns with a album of several long, quite ponderous but absorbing electronica songs that need to be caught in the right mood. Turn is an an echoey, slow pop break-up number pulls you to its gentle pace. Neon Lights is clearly influenced by Kraftwerk, while The Prophet echoes big influences Cocteau Twins and My Bloody Valentine. Baby You Have Travelled For Miles Without Love In Your Eyes is typical track - spaciously spun, reverb-rich and layered electro pop. Out on PIAS /Bella Union.
I Break Horses - I'll Be The Death Of You
Watkins Family Hour – Brother Sister
The Watkins siblings from the country band Nickel Creek strip things down to a delicate level with Sean’s intricate guitar picking and Sara’s fine fiddle playing with their vocal harmonies on this meticulous acoustic album From the ballad Fake Badge, Real Gun (that'll be aimed at a certain D. Trump) to the bluegrass instrumental Bella and Ivan, the catchy Just Another Reason, Lafayette and Miles of Desert Sand, this is clean, sharp, exemplary country folk at its most enjoyable. Out on Family Hour/Thirty Tigers.
Watkins Family Hour - Fake Badge, Real Gun
Modern Studies – The Weight of the Sun
Third album from the Scottish kosmiche folk-rock quartet of Emily Scott, Rob St John, Pete Harvey, Joe Smillie, described as something of a compendium of haunted disco hallelujahs, mercurial krautrock chorales, cosmic pop adagios and euphoric, resilient, anthems, and that just about sums it up nicely, from the delicate opener Photograph, to powerfully emotive Heavy Water, the beautifully atmospheric Run For Cover, and the gorgeous closer Shape of Light, guided throughout by the finely balanced deep and high voices of principal songwriters Scott and St John. Out on Fire Records.
Modern Studies – Heavy Water
Kavus Torabi – Hip To The Jag
The British Iranian multi-instrumentalist, composer, record label owner and broadcaster who has worked with everyone from Cardiacs to Gong, Mediæval Bæbes, Chrome Hoof to Knifeworld and The Monsoon Bassoon, releases a new solo album that has echoes of the acoustic, surreal psychedelia of post-Floyd Syd Barrett, particularly on Cemetary Light, with images of flightless angels and death, the delicate, Robert Wyatt-esque Silent The Rotor. Mortality in music, rendered beautifully. Available on Bandcamp.
Kavus Torabi - Cemetery Of Light
Various – Place: Ecuador
A compilation that is the fourth release in New York label Air Texture’s location-specific charity music and activism series (previous editions being Georgia, Colombia and the Netherlands), this time benefiting the indigenous Waorani people’s legal battles against the Ecuadorian government’s sale of their land for mineral rights. There's some gritty and groovy stuff here, capturing the country's music, from Riobamba’s talk-beat Sácalo, NTFL's dance-ambient Te Vas, Cruzloma’s Mestizo melodies on their shuffling polyrhythmic Supay, and Patamamba’s ambient, rich cacophony of field recordings. A fabulous mixture of the country across 19 tracks. Out on Air Texture.
Riobamba – Sácalo
This week's selection is by The Landlord.
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