Quite a big week for me - I’ve posted 3 for starters below but could easily have posted 6.
What’s on your radar this week?
Djrum - Under Tangled Silence
First album for 6 years following loss of his previous recordings after a hard drive failure. Expect minimalist piano, jazz elements, vintage jungle, and ambient meditation.
Maria Somerville - Luster
Enjoyed the singles from this one on 4AD. Dream pop FFO Cocteau Twins, Mazzy Star.
Nazar - Demilitarize
Angolan-born / Manchester-based producer on Hyperdub. First album came out days after lockdown hit and featured Angolan beats; this one is much more introspective and features hushed, auto-tuned vocals.
London jazz star’s second album is a treatise on neurodivergence and the loss that followed the death of her partner last year, all of 19 tracks long, refracted through cosmic soul, P-funk, electronics, hip hop and all points odd. Reggie Watts is on one track.
Third album, Sheffield, womanhood, ageing, choir, Channel 4 love her, you know the drill. The Sue Tompkins feature is twenty seconds of free associating at the end of a completely tonally unrelated track. Well, at least she’s getting paid.
We are gathered here today to mourn everyone’s favourite dreamy indie synth-pop duo with the release of their final album. Thank you Alaina and Patrick for being the soundtrack to every bit of tedious housework I’ve had to do for the last decade, you will be missed.
Heith - Escape Lounge
Omnivorous Italian electronics with mangled vocoders, irregular beats, all sorts of textures and instruments fished out of the gutter, still dripping. A late night feel, possibly a menacing one.
MJ Lenderman’s sometime drummer with his second album. Featuring MJ Lenderman on drums and seemingly all of Wednesday contribute in some way. FFO of alt country, folk rock, MJ Lenderman. His debut, Haw Creek, was excellent, and the singles have this shaping up nicely.
Started in Cornwall as a solo project for multi-instrumentalist Ben Woods. Since then, the project has grown and grown, evolving into a 6-piece ensemble in based in London. Alt rock really. Think the Stranglers with Dave Berman or Smog singing
The Moonlandingz are back, the made up band made up of various other bands are back with added Iggy Pop and Nadine Shaw. They seem to have toned down the glam for more electro stomp on this one.