Black Sea Dahu - Everything
Cinematic indie folk, chamber pop and art rock from Switzerland.
Ralph Heidel & Finn Ronsdorf - The Wings Of The Fly
Finn guested on Ralph’s album last year, and presumably they both enjoyed it enough to make an album together. Chamber folk, FFO Douglas Dare.
Viic Woods - Unravel Time
Swedish indie dreampop. Really liked a previous music project of hers called Mire Kay. Nice crisp voice and sound.
Sally Seltmann - Art School Reverie
Dreamy-indie-folk-pop from Australia. Co-writer of Feist’s 1234 apparently.
Manu Delago & Max ZT - Deuce
Max is apparently the “Jimmi Hendrix of Hammered Dulcimer”, and I guess Manu is the Hendrix of the steel pans. Instrumental collaboration.
Youn Sun Nah - Lost Pieces
South Korean jazz vocalist apparently. Not sure how jazzy it is, seems a bit darkly theatrical maybe, but think I quite like it. Sort of reminds me of Ute Lemper and her album with Neil Hannon ages ago.
Chloé Jara-Buto - om-om
Released a couple of weeks ago, but I just discovered it this week and played it a few times in a row.
Blown out noisy Belgian bass sculptures carved from dub and reggae raw materials. Sometimes close to the sources, sometimes clanging slabs of electronic debris. It’s an abstraction to be sure, but clearly treating the originals with reverence.
Ah this is gorgeous, haven’t payed attention to her since the early 00s and she’s morphed from twee indie lyricist to Wrecking Ball era Emmylou? I approve so damn hard.
I’m wary of posting too much dream pop lest it all blur together, but this one has some idiosyncrasies that help it stand out. They’re a Beijing band, and the whisper-sung Mandarin aligns nicely with an especially frothy version of the genre. It’s a varied approach, with some rough edges that thankfully haven’t been sanded down.
Very late entry after seeing a Pitchfork BNM and realising it hadn’t been picked up here yet. Fun Southern twangy garage country stomp FFO The Men, early Parquet Courts
Sorry for confusing folk by posting in last weeks New Release thread, just adding some gems found during the week:-
Bobo & Behaja - Aia Haja? - LP
An album from madagascar & French musicians “based on the new rhythms, structures, instrumental and vocal techniques of contemporary tsapiky, of which behaja [the guitarist] is one of the most emblematic musicians.” Loved this, high tempo drums, guitar & singing, just an all out overload of the senses, fantastic. Also the sax on parepare is so good. Fave Track: Parepare
Institute - Institute - EP
Texas punks with a three track EP for their Australian tour. Jagged everything, catchy melodies and intense lyrics, never heard of them until this week and thought they are great. Fave Track: The Shooter
we didn’t care - Live at the Low End - EP
Turkish singing from the Berlin based musician Engin Oeztuerk. Funky ethereal music for fans of Goat. Fave Track: Dostum
Completely agree, added to my top of the year list already. Sounds like they had a nightmare putting it together too, worth a read of their journey to record it on the Bandcamp description section, we are lucky to have got it at all.
Took me a little time to get into it as it is very much more traditional folk and less alt-y than Bonniesongs’ solo output. A few listens in and very good, ends very well.
