Latest Releases Manufactured by Key Production Group_May Round-up
Laura Veirs The Lookout gold coloured vinyl LP and CD, [Bella Union]
This is Laura’s 10th solo album, a concept record about the fragility of precious things. Featuring contributions from Sufjan Stevens, Jim Jamesand produced by Tucker Martine.
Her aptly-named first album, produced by Scott Jacoby (Vampire Weekend, José James, Coldplay) along with newcomer Jarrett Wetherell. The title captures not only her estimable musical bloodline but the finely-hewn emotions that course through her songs. Deva plumbs her own emotional depths to explore issues of overcoming adversity.
Joey Alexander takes a giant step forward with his fourth album, Eclipse, unveiling six new compositions (in addition to five covers) that display Alexander’s immense evolution and originality. This sophisticated yet explorational recording features a stellar rhythm section of bassist Reuben Rogers and drummer Eric Harland with guest appearances on three tracks by saxophonist Joshua Redman.
Oly Ralfe’s debut solo album Notes From Another Sea casts a spell, enveloping listeners as it conjures its shifting moods. Oly says, “I think of this album as a pathway through mysterious places; I hope it can unlock the beauty and strangeness of what’s around you. I see emotions as pictures and pictures as music, and each of these tracks is a conjuring of an indistinct yet intense place, and my music is the soundtrack to that. When I am inspired I find myself gravitating towards the piano, and through it I’ve opened myself up more than I have before.”
Big Buddha Cheez Epicerie Coréenne vinyl, [Exepoq Organisation, URBAN]
Big Budha Cheez is back! The black & white duo of M.City (Montreuil) returns with a second album entitled "Korean groceries". Rich in storytelling, riddled with references to the Nineties, Prince Waly spreads his flow and his attitude the time of an album entirely produced by his binomial, Fiasko Proximo. With Oxmo Puccino as your only guest, immerse yourself in the heart of neo-retro hip-hop style.
Memphis Minnie Hoodoo Lady, Lonnie Johnson Best Jockey in Town, Lowell Fulson Everyday I Have the Blues, CD albums, [Le Chant du Monde]
Five Finger Death Punch And Justice For None limited edition fan box set with 2 limited edition red with black marble records, deluxe edition CD album, branded bag and cuff, [Eleven Seven Music]
From Ashes To New The Future vinyl album, [Better Noise Records/Pledge Music]
From Ashes To New announced their second full-length album, The Future, released via Better Noise Records. From Ashes To New, front man/rapper/programmer Matt Brandyberry, guitarist Lance Dowdle, vocalist Danny Case, and drummer Mat Madiro (Trivium), embark on their sophomore release, The Future available 4/20. The band’s chemistry lies at the core of The Future. An album that sees the band expanding their music palette and taking their blend of rock, hip/hop, pop, and metal to new heights.
“…Anxiety made it difficult to write at times but ultimately we came together and decided we were going to write the best music we possibly could and see where that took us” said frontman Matt Brandyberry.
Titled Dude, The Obscure, the album is a work that Morris says “flowed from a creative space I found at the intersection of dreams and reality.” In captivating songs, Morris sheds the traps of ambition and nostalgia and uncovers the strange satisfaction of living in the moment.
Within 11 powerful songs, the Athens rocker reveals scars and shares lessons from an indie-rock odyssey that has taken him around the world and back home to find himself a little older and closer to something like enlightenment. And just in time for a new journey to begin.
Jack DeJohnette, Larry Grenadier, John Medeski & John Scofield Hudson vinyl + CD, [Motéma Music]
Music giants Jack DeJohnette, Larry Grenadier, John Medeski, and John Scofield, join forces in the electrifying new jazz-meets-rock supergroup, Hudson. Inspired by the beauty and spirit of their home region, New York’s Hudson River Valley, these famed improvisers bring fresh dimensions to Woodstock associated classics by Bob Dylan, Joni Mitchell, Jimi Hendrix and The Band and as well as compelling original compositions. The music also celebrates NEA Jazzmaster Jack DeJonnette’s 75th birthday.
Alain Chamfort is celebrating his 50th anniversary this year with his fifteenth studio album, "Le désordre des choses". Having long since achieved the status of icon, the godfather of the French pop demonstrates once again his mastery of the art of melody, associated on this project to Pierre-Dominique Burgaud writing with whom he had already worked in 2010 for the soundtrack of "Une vie Saint-Laurent". From the piano-voice on "Les microsillons" to the resolutely modern production of "En attendant", this album is a hymn to pop by one of its best ambassadors.
As part of NCH’s inaugural For the Record event, Microdisney will perform their seminal album “The Clock Comes Down the Stairs” on June 2nd. This sold-out concert is also the first time that Microdisney will perform in 30 years. To mark the occasion, Microdisney will re-issue the album in a limited vinyl only pressing which is only available at the band’s NCH and Barbican concerts. Microdisney will also be presented with the IMRO | NCH Trailblazer Award 2018 on the night. For The Record: Microdisney “The Clock Comes Down The Stairs” is supported by Newstalk.
ATO Records released Okkervil River’s In The Rainbow Rain, the group’s most immediate – and meaningful – album to date. On it, bandleader Will Sheff makes a startling left turn from the their critically-lauded and inward-looking 2016 album Away, crafting an exuberant declaration of hope. In place of Away’s somber strings and acoustic textures, In the Rainbow Rain is full of dazzling colour, spattered with starbursts of electric guitar, big blooms of synth, and a chorus of backing vocals. It’s a buoyant and playful record, but also open and emotionally vulnerable. Sheff says, “I wanted to make a record where a sense of kindness felt encoded into the music.”
Simian Mobile Disco Murmurations vinyl album, [Wichita]
A thrilling 9-song set, Murmurations is as perfectly pitched for headphones as it is for clubs, named after giant cloud formations of starlings and themed around the stunning emergent behaviours that appear within them. To mirror these movements in the sonic landscape and visuals of Murmurations, SMD’s James Ford and Jas Shaw collaborated with the celebrated Hackney-based vocal collective The Deep Throat Choir, as well as creative directors Kazim Rashid of ENDLESSLOVESHOW (Aphex Twin, Flying Lotus, Hudson Mohawk) and Carri Munden.
Composer and filmmaker Anthony Tombling Jr, is set to release music from his experimental film ‘EXIST’ for the first time. This April’s dual release of EPs ‘EXIST 1’ & ‘EXIST 2’ on Village Green will precede a debut album on the label.“In 2012 I was involved in a car crash and the resulting shock manifested itself in experiencing sleep paralysis for the first time. I was inspired to try and recreate some of those experiences through music and film. It made me view my approach to music in a different way, Exist is a collection of those visions. With all CUTS material, I try to take influence from the non-musical, for instance an abandoned space. There is a stillness with places that are in slow decay. I try to imagine what that would sound like? In taking influence from things outside of music I feel my own music becomes less tied to comparison. As a composer working this way has been deeply cathartic.”
SLUG the nom de plume of North East merrymaker Ian Black, returns with new album HiggledyPiggledy via Memphis Industries.
HiggledyPiggledy begins with first single ‘No Heavy Petting’ (the title taken from the dos and don’ts at Blacks local swimming pool), consciously written to be an aggressive album opener with and which pokes fun at Blacks own Mary Whitehouseish response to the sexualisation of TV. ‘Lackadaisical Love’ is another album highlight, one big 4/4 drum beat, fuzzy guitars like Maggot Brain-era Funkadelic, steel drums and fat moog bass. “A song about sex funnily enough” says Black. Other noteworthy songs include “Dolly Dimple”, a song about the pornography of wealth, power and business all dressed up like a late 70s Bowie record and the Suicide meets Sliver Apples of “Arbitrary Lessons In Custom” about “how we lose touch with people and friends we love and the slow burn of how it happens”. The results whilst punchy and direct remain rich, strange and sometimes unsettling. HiggledyPiggledy, then is a perfect intro to the wonderfully weird world of SLUG.
Johnny Hallyday & Elvis Presley When We Were Kings vinyl + CD, [Le Chant du Monde]
Evelyn Morris will release their first self-titled album under ‘Evelyn Ida Morris’. The album represents a significant departure from the looping pop of Pikelet, for which Evelyn is best known. It builds on the structural complexity of that project, but focuses wholly on piano – huge, wild, racing, dexterous piano.
Arthur Buck is the new collaboration between legendary former R.E.M. guitarist Peter Buck and singer/songwriter Joseph Arthur who once had one of his songs used in an aftershave ad. This is polished rock ‘n’ roll, featuring Buck’s crunching guitar and Arthur’s gravel-scratched voice. Eponymous album available on limited edition indies only red and blue split colour vinyl, standard black vinyl and CD on New West.
Ben Chatwin Staccato Signalsvinyl + CD, [Village Green Recordings]
Ben Chatwin initially set out to make a purely electronic record with ‘Staccato Signals’, using primarily analogue and modular synthesisers, harnessing the unpredictability of hardware sequencers to write melodic lines rather than by hand with a keyboard. This was about giving up control to the machines – ultimately making them more of a collaborator than a tool. However, towards the end of its writing, not satisfied with the results, Ben was overcome with the feeling that he needed to push what he had created further into new territory, in order to invent entirely new sounds and textures. He decided to work with a string quartet, exploring innovative ways to fold, bury and combine both strings and brass into his industrial, noisy and chaotic electronic template. Again, this was about giving up control – working with other musicians, allowing them to improvise and arrange parts in order to find those special moments where something unexpected happens. The writing process became a search for those moments, the short, sharp flashes of inspiration – the staccato signals.
With admirers including Stevie Wonder and Robert Plant, the Niger guitarist Bombino clearly has some serious chops. His pioneering ‘Tuareggae’ sound remains in good nick on his latest LP, and his wide travels and range of influences lead to plenty of unusual songwriting choices on Deran. Case in point - lead single ‘Tehigren’, a track that turns on a sixpence from rock-reggae bounce to nimble desert-blues.
New album “Beginn” is a deft fusion of the talents of Claudia Brücken – famously the lead vocalist of revered German avant-pop 80s group Propaganda – and Jerome Froese – who, as son of electronic music pioneer and Tangerine Dream founder Edgar Froese, was himself a driving force and member of Tangerine Dream during one of their most successful and creative phases. Tangerine Dream, the German band widely credited as being the founding fathers of the whole ‘ambient’ genre.
Bad Wolves Disobeyvinyl + CD, [Eleven Seven Music]
American Aquarium Things Changevinyl + CD, [New West]
Following yet another personnel reshuffle, BJ Barnham and his latest American Aquarium bandmates have a new album Things Change. Once again, Barnham successfully got the record funded by fans through Pledge Music, which is nice. Set your phasers on Springsteencore, because “Tough times don’t last / Tough folks do”.
Good Charlotte Actual Pain flexi picture disc, [BMG]
