I've been getting away from the comprehensive breakdown to a more curated New Music Tuesday list. I'll still be including info for the majority of albums out this week, but have spolighted the ones that you (should) want to know about most with hyperlinks for your further perusal, and many with additional information and video or audio for your immediate consumption. Enjoy. And if you think I missed something, feel free to comment — I'm always ready to be turned on to something new...The Amazing, Picture You (Partisan) A Swedish quintet that makes quality down-tempo psych rock. The press release has a more flowery description: "The Amazing inhabits an aural landscape that's all its own: a panoramic, constantly evolving spectacle marked by layers of intertwining guitars, richly textured keyboards and a rhythm section adept at skewed tempos and a tendency to veer off in unexpected directions." One of the band's three guitar players is Reine Fiske, formerly of Dungen, and Granada former Christoffer Gunrup. The AV Club is streaming the full album now; video for the quietly expansive and pretty title track below.
A Place to Bury Strangers, Transfixiation (Dead Oceans) The fourth outing from the Brooklyn experimental group.
Carl Barât & The Jackals, Let It Reign (Grand Jury)
Chelan, Under Pressure (Echo Phono)
Steve Earle & the Dukes (& Duchesses), Terraplane (New West) In the Terraplane liner notes, the vet musician of twangy sounds wrote, "...the blues are anything but superficial. In fact, they run so deep and dark and close to the bone that folks walk around everyday with the blues as though it were perfectly natural for a human being to go on living with a broken heart (apologies to Tony Kushner) ... For my part, I've only ever believed two things about the blues: one, that they are very democratic, the commonest of human experience, perhaps the only thing that we all truly share and two, that one day, when it was time, I would make this record." His 16th studio album was written while he toured Europe on his own for five weeks with just a guitar, mandolin and backpack. Listen to the vintage country stomp of "Gamblin' Blues" below.
Estelle, True Romance (1980 Records/BMG)
Jose Gonzalez, Vestiges & Claws (Mute) The Swedish singer-songwriter and one-half of Junip crafts ambient yet buoyant and exquisitely melodic folk songs that are like a dose of musical xanax with a heavy measure of heart-squeezing tenderness. This is his first solo album in seven years, and he's said the subject matter revolves around ideas of civilization, humanism and solidarity: "...The amazing fact that we are here at all, an aim to encourage us to understand ourselves and to make the best of the one life we know we have — after birth and before death. And also, I've been okay with using rhymes ... In general I think that the lyrics are clearer this time. And a little less self-pitying." Video for "Leaf Off / The Cave" below.
The Juliana Hatfield Three, Whatever, My Love (American Laundromat) Juliana Hatfield's vocals are just as sugary, crystalline clear and youthful as her original '90s-era grungy alt rock days leading the trio that got her onto the Billboard charts with "My Sister" and "Spin the Bottle." They only released a few albums before disbanding, but two decades later, she's reunited with drummer Todd Philips and bassist Dean Fisher to record and release this LP, their third overall. "If Only We Were Dogs" video below.
Imagine Dragons, Smoke + Mirrors (Interscope)
Colin Hay, Next Year People (Compass Records)
Bob Marley, Easy Skanking in Boston '78 (Island)
The Mavericks, Mono (The Valery Music Co.)
Kate Pierson, Guitars And Microphones (Lazy Meadow Music/Kobalt Label Services) The solo debut full-length of the B-52s singer
Phosphorescent, Live at the Music Hall (Dead Oceans)
The Reverend Peyton's Big Damn Band, So Delicious (Shanachie)
Pops Staples, Don't Lose This (DPBM/Anti-)
Sonny & the Sunsets, Talent Night At The Ashram (Polyvinyl) You know how you hear something, and within 10 seconds, you know you're going to like it? Yeah, this band gets props. The kaleidoscopic collage of songs were apparently originally envisioned as part of a film project, each song a short film that, when strung together, formed a feature-length movie; the scripts written by visionary leader Sonny Smith ultimately morphed into songs. “Happy Carrot Health Food Store” is a super heady genre-jumper that soaks in its acid-washed sonic tones and flavors them with folk, jazz and Beach Boys vocal harmonies, the synth flotsam and warped guitar solos joined by electric sitars, flutes, lots of percussives, even a spoken word segment. Check it out below.
Nedelle Torrisi, Advice From Paradise (Ethereal Sequence/Drag City)
Twin River, Should The Light Go Out (Light Organ Records)
ALSO OUT THIS WEEK
36 Crazyfists, Time & Trauma
At the Hollow, What I Hold Most Dear
Brothers Of the Sonic Cloth, Brothers Of the Sonic Cloth
Cafeine, New Love
Chaser Eight, Chaser Eight
The Delta Routine, You and Your Lion
Grooms, Come the Feelings Through Your Hair
Hundred Waters, The Moon Rang Like a Bell [Remix Album]
Ibeyi, Ibeyi
In Tall Buildings, Drivers
Elle King, Love Stuff
King Woman, Doubt EP
Krill,A Distant Fist Unclenching
Terry Lane, Addiction
Letts, Hold Fast
Leviathan, Scar Sighted
Monarchy, Abnocto
Mourn, Mourn
Anthony Naples, Body Pill
Ntjam Rosie, The One
Programm, Like the Sun EP
Lawson Rollins, Traveler
Rye Pines, Dead Oceans EP
Six Organs of Admittance, Hexadic
Slutever, Almost Famous
Lyal Strickland, Balanced On Barbed Wire
SYLVAN, Free
Whitehorse, Leave No Bridge Unburned