The Latest
BaBa ZuLa announce new album, out 25 September via Glitterbeat — thirty years on and still untamed. Lead single “Kutsal Zeytin Halayı”, a sunbaked motorik trance arriving with a visualiser that celebrates the olive tree as a sacred symbol — “We see nature under constant pressure. We want to stand on the side of those who defend it.”
Myer U Clark’s “Tinderbox” is astonishingly accomplished for a debut, recalling the late-’60s Canterbury scene of Kevin Ayers, Robert Wyatt and Caravan. There’s a clarity of vision, matched by adroit musicianship and a singular conception of songwriting — a formidable first album on Broadside Hacks.
Johanna Samuels shares “Blue vs. Pinkerton”, the new single from “Sorry, Kid”. Built around a teenage debate over Weezer’s “Blue Album” and “Pinkerton”, the song grew from a prompt to capture a time and place; Samuels chose her high-school years. Recorded to tape with Jonathan Rado, the album lands August 14th.
@ [AT] have announced “Autosmile”, their second album and first for 4AD, out 16 October. The folk-pop duo of Victoria Rose and Stone Filipczak share the near seven-minute title track today as the lead single, turning a mysterious breakup into questions of demonology as harmonies and acoustic passages build against tambourine, guiro and blistering guitar leads.
On “Ten Signs”, Dan Haywood and Harvey Lord trade dizzyingly poetic lines across an album whose rhythm is particularly striking — both languorous and uptight. Spring birds twitter through the recordings; a casual charm runs throughout. Their guitar work is soulful and unpredictable, with instrumental breaks laddering between sections in a way that would have M.C. Escher shaking his head in baffled admiration.
Styrofoam Winos are the antidote to supergroups, and “Any River” is ragged but literate Americana, tall tales told in a drunken drawl, lo-fi sensibilities and high ideals. But what the Winos can also do, as Lenderman has said, is boogie. Influences are wide and subsumed with impressive ease, always underpinned by a rootedness in the traditions of country music. Everything seems to flow.
Jeffrey Silverstein has announced “Doggone”, his new album out 23rd October via Full Time Hobby, and shared lead single and video “Out of Tune” with guest vocals from Devendra Banhart. Loner-folk meets cosmic country and kraut-laden choogle, it finds the New Jersey native fully rooted in his Portland community — immovable, intentional, and most of all, at peace.
Family Stereo, the alias of singer-songwriter Blake Watt, has shared “DLR,” the propulsive third single from debut album “The Thread,” out 31st July via Bella Union. Led by lush piano, lap steel and xylophone, it wraps an upbeat melody around reflective lyrics about growing up, and arrives with a video in which Watt is kidnapped and taken on a personal odyssey.
Jules Reidy announces “Clerestory,” out September 25 via Thrill Jockey. The follow-up to “Ghost/Spirit” pairs two contrasting sides: “Shadow Symmetric,” a string quartet realised with the celebrated JACK Quartet, and “Clerestory Windows,” which refracts the same material through a solo lens. A harmonic world built from a tone and its shadow.
Jim James returns with Wowed Out, his first solo album in eight years, due 28th August via ATO Records. Built from a lost archive of film-scoring compositions made in the early 2010s with Brian Reitzell, the album channels soulful psychedelia and folk-leaning warmth. Lead single “Come Again” is out now with an official video — a meditation on finding joy in a world wired for constant noise.
Camille Camille’s “Enchanted Sea” begins with open wounds and ends with six minutes of humming — and the journey between those two points is one of the most quietly assured folk albums you’ll hear this year. Belgian singer-songwriter Camille Willemart has the remarkable ability to always remain in arm’s reach, never beyond you, aiding an intimate and personal listening experience.