FEATURE:
One for the Record Collection!
Essential February Releases
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IT is always the way…
IN THIS PHOTO: Green Day
albums drop out of nowhere so, the albums I mention below might not be all we receive next month. Regardless, I am looking ahead to the standout releases from February; the ones you will want to put your pennies towards! 7th February is a Friday you will want to block out, as there are a few terrific albums due. Green Day’s much-anticipated Father of All… is arriving and, released through Reprise Records, it is an album I am looking forward to. Although the U.S. band are not as incendiary and thrilling as they were back at their peak, they have not lost all of their spark and innovation.
“In Kerrang!’s new world-exclusive interview with Green Day, frontman Billie Joe Armstrong, bassist Mike Dirnt and drummer Tré Cool unpack their new era, and how their mindset coming out of 2016’s Revolution Radio affected the sound of Father Of All…
“Do you want to go back and do the same old thing?” Tré muses. “We don’t want to do what everyone would expect us to do, so it was just kinda mischief and making it fun. That was the bottom line of it.”
“There’s a very fine line threading the needle for us, because we do want to try new things, but we always want to make sure it’s absolute Green Day, you know?” says Billie Joe. “It’s a very fine line – clever and stupid (laughs). But Green Day’s credo is mischief, no matter what. We’re always down for mischief and we want to fuck with people… to the point of it being abusive!” he jokes”.
It will be good to see what Green Day come up with and, as Donald Trump is still President, I am sure they will have a lot to say! Make sure you also investigate La Roux’s Supervision. It has been nearly six years since her second studio album, Trouble in Paradise, and many have been waiting a long time for one of music’s best artists to come back with an album. The album is available on a variety of formats, so make sure you get your copy! It is an album that will definitely be among the most-anticipated of this year:
“Grammy-winning and Brit and Mercury-Prize-nominated artist La Roux returns with her first new album since 2014’s Trouble In Paradise. From the cover to the contents, this is unequivocally the album Elly Jackson always wanted to make. A claim that with some artists might ring alarm bells, but in this instance simply means that Supervision sounds precisely, unmistakably, gloriously like La Roux. She has collaborated with the likes of Tyler The Creator, Skream, Kanye West, and Major Lazer”.
IN THIS PHOTO: La Roux
When speaking with The Evening Standard last year, she was asked about her time away. Elly Jackson (La Roux) has been working through some things:
“Elly Jackson has a lot to say. The musician, who trades as La Roux, talks for half an hour longer than our intended interview slot, then carries on for another 20 minutes after I’ve turned off the dictaphone. When we finally wrap up, she looks out of the window of her publicist’s Brixton office to see that she’s been up here for so long that she’s been given a parking ticket.
Well, she has a lot to get through. It’s been over five years since her last album — the tellingly titled Trouble in Paradise — four years since she last toured, and a full decade since she was the hottest thing in pop, hitting number one with her invincible single Bulletproof and making her self-titled debut album a platinum seller. Now 31, she’s back with a new single — the empowering disco strut International Woman of Leisure — has an even better one, Gullible Fool, coming next week, and her third album will arrive in February. It’s very much a fresh start.
“I was really ready for the last 10 years to just DIE,” she says with huge emphasis. “Please say I had a smile on my face when I said that. It’s not in an angry or bitter way, but that cycle has ended and it was a very welcome ending. I did a lot of things wrong. You have to practise to be good at something, and I don’t just mean being good at going on stage or writing songs. I mean good at being a human being”.
One album I advise you get on 7th February is All or Nothing by Shopping. You can pre-order here, and it is an album you will want. The London band are one of these acts that will rise through the ranks and headline festivals before long. Check out their music on Spotify and, if you need to know a little more about their forthcoming release, they had a chat with Aquarium Drunkard earlier this month:
“Taut, tense, and exhilarating, Shopping emerged from an East London DIY scene in the early teens, bringing together guitarist Rachel Aggs, bassist Billy Easter and drummer Andrew Milk together in jittery, angular conjunction, not unison. That is to say, their parts careened off one another in pinballing trajectories creating intricate, geometrical patterns of rhythm, riff, and melody. Since forming Shopping, the three have made four albums together, moved to different cities but stayed connected, while all the while juggling a mini-festival’s worth of other bands, Aggs in Trash Kit and Sacred Paws, Easter in Wet Dog, and Milk in Current Affairs.
For their latest, All Or Nothing, they worked with Godmode producer Nick Sylvester to amp up the hedonism and beef up Shopping’s often skeletal songs. In this interview with all three members, we talked about the band’s new sleeker, synth-augmented sound, the balance of individual autonomy and group voice and why nobody in Shopping wants to be compared to your standard “starter-pack” of post-punk bands. / j kelly
AD: So, you say that song sounds the most like you. Were you trying to do something different with this album? Can you articulate what that was?
Rachel Aggs: We wanted it to sound more poppy, I think. We’re not sure if it sounds poppy or if it’s ever going to sound poppy. We also wanted to make the songs sound good and not be too attached to our own individual parts and the way we wrote it, not being too precious about that. In the past, we were very faithful to the way things were written when we went to the studio. They didn’t change at all from when we wrote them to when we played them live. This time, we were just trying to experiment and be a bit freer with things.
Andrew Milk: I think it helped working with Nick, because he’s such an amazing producer. We had spent some time with him before and felt quite at ease working with him. He helped us feel a bit more free to experiment, just because we had spent some time with him just kind of jamming with him for a different project we were working on together. So, when we came in to work with him, we were totally at ease with his suggestions.
He’s the guy that did the Shamir record that was amazing. I love that record and the sound of it. It’s super pop. So, for us, it’s a really poppy sound. It still sounds like a Shopping record, but it’s got this really nice dance pop layer to it that Nick brought it.
Billy Easter: Because dancing has always been important in terms of our music. It’s really dance-y. And people in the press always describe this as a dance band, and I’m always a little bit confused. I find it too minimal for that. I think we did want to have a more expansive sound, I guess, to enhance that danceability”.
Moving onto Valentine’s Day and, if you want to buy something for the music-loving other in your life, there are some cracking albums around. There are two particular (very different) albums that I urge people to buy on 14th February. One is Cindy Lee’s What's Tonight to Eternity. You can pre-order the album here, and it is, as described on Cindy Lee’s Bandcamp page, as follows:
“For Patrick Flegel, Cindy Lee is more than just a recording music project. It is the culmination of a lifelong exploration of art, the electric guitar, queer identity and gender expression. "Singers like Patsy Cline and The Supremes carried me through the hardest times of my life," explains Flegel, "and also provided the soundtrack to the best times."
Following the dissolution of Canadian experimental indie band Women, Flegel would delve deeper into songwriting that bends further toward high atmospherics and bracing melodies – a unique space where splendor naturally collides with experimentation. Delivering moments of sheer beauty through somber reflections on longing and loneliness, Cindy Lee is something to hold onto in a world of disorder.
What's Tonight To Eternity, Cindy Lee's fifth long-form offering, showcases the project's most entrancing strengths: ethereal snowdrift pop and sly nods toward classic girl-group motifs. Recorded at Flegel's Realistik Studios in Toronto and featuring younger brother Andrew Flegel on drums, the album travels hand in hand with a spectral guide.
Flegel found inspiration for Cindy Lee in the form of Karen Carpenter, drawing on the singer / drummer's early recordings as well as her look and style. "I found a deep interest and comfort in Karen's story, which is a cautionary tale about the monstrosity of show business, stardom at a young age and being a misfit looking for connection. The darkness and victimizing tabloid sensationalism she suffered is easily tempered and overwhelmed by her earnest output, her artistry, her tireless work ethic. Something utterly unique and magical takes shape in the negative space, out of exclusion. What I relate to in her has to do with what is hidden, what is unknown."
What's Tonight To Eternity remains a mix of pop culture indoctrination, pain and suffering, hopes and dreams, fierce confrontations and wide-open confessional blurs. Closing with the song "Heavy Metal" (dedicated to the memory of former Women bandmate Chris Reimer) and adorned by Andrea Lukic's Journal of Smack artwork, the album continues the bold and rewarding path on which Cindy Lee has embarked”.
Another great Valentine’s Day gift is The Slow Rush from Tame Impala. The Australian artist is one of the most amazing and consistent around, and it is the fourth studio album from Kevin Parker. Get your copy set:
“The Slow Rush was recorded between Los Angeles and Parker’s studio in his hometown of Fremantle, Australia. The twelve tracks were recorded, produced and mixed by Parker. The Slow Rush is Parker’s deep dive into the oceans of time, conjuring the feeling of a lifetime in a lightning bolt, of major milestones whizzing by while you’re looking at your phone, it’s a paean to creation and destruction and the unending cycle of life. The album cover was created in collaboration with photographer Neil Krug and features a symbol of humanity all but swallowed whole by the surrounding environment, as though in the blink of an eye”.
Following on from the magnificent Currents in 2015, there are lots of eyes and ears trained the way of Tame Impala. Parker is not one to give too much away about new albums, and there has been a distinct lack of conversation about The Slow Rush; he likes to release albums and let music do the talking. It is a little frustrating not knowing too much about the songs on the record, but we will have to get involved and see what The Slow Rush is all about. Tame Impala always bring the heat, so you just know it will be another remarkable album!
Stepping into 21st February, and there are a few albums worth investigation. Best Coast’s Always Tomorrow is upcoming, so do make sure you pre-order it. It seems like we are in for a treat:
“Always Tomorrow is the culmination of the last ten years of Best Coast front person Bethany Cosentino's life, seeing her stand back from the past decade of the band's existence and taking stock in where she's been and who she has become. It's an album full of intense personal discovery amidst a whirlwind backdrop of global tours, heartbreak, newfound sobriety, dark thoughts, immense joy, giving a f, not giving too many fs, substances, boredom, public personas, and gratitude”.
Again, there aren’t too many recent interviews with Best Coast, and very little to suggest what we will get from Always Tomorrow. Following from 2018’s Best Kids, I am intrigued to see what the Los Angeles duo come up with. The biggest album of February arrives from Grimes: Miss_Anthrop0cene is going to be hugely reviewed and exposed. It is her fifth album and one you can pre-order here. Grimes is sensational, and you just know her latest album will be masterful. In terms of themes and subjects explored, she is leaving some of her cards close to the chest. I want to bring in a piece from Interview Magazine where, interestingly, Lana Del Rey interviewed her about Miss_Anthrop0cene and her process:
“DEL REY: Yes, in the abstract. I was thinking about your new album. I don’t know if I’m saying it right—is it Miss_Anthropocene?
GRIMES: Yeah.
DEL REY: Do you feel like the songs are more personal, or do they have the overculture weighing on them?
GRIMES: A bit of both. I’m really obsessed with polytheism. I love how the ancient Greeks or the ancient Egyptians lived in this weird anime world where there were just tons of gods that could be anything. It’s like every form of suffering had a representation. I wonder if it almost has a positive psychological effect. If your kid dies in a war, you can literally go speak to War and be like, “Why did you do this?” Or, “I hope you did this for a reason.” There’s a weird philosophical justification for all pain, and there’s an anthropomorphization of every form of pain. In our current society, we don’t even know how to talk about things. So my album’s about a modern demonology or a modern pantheon where every song is about a different way to suffer or a different way to die. If you think about it, god-making or god-designing just seems so fun. The idea of making the Goddess of Plastic seems so fun to me.
DEL REY: It’s a very creative infrastructure to work within.
GRIMES: Yeah. Religion is like the best science fiction. I know a lot of people who are atheist or agnostic, and they just hate religion and can’t see anything good in it. Even if you don’t believe in god or anything, this is incredible art. It’s incredible storytelling, incredible character design, incredible visual art. I know we both love reverb. Imagine going into a church in medieval Europe, and you had only ever heard music as someone playing a lute. You enter a cathedral for the first time, and you hear someone singing through a super long reverb. What a mystical experience that would be.
DEL REY: What is mysticism to you, and is it important in your art?
GRIMES: Mysticism is an evolutionary byproduct. I think we’re inherently religious, even if we’re not explicitly religious. We get emotional about things that feel religious. Even the way people feel about you, it’s a form of idol worship. I don’t know what else you would call it. If there’s an artist I love, I see them live and I cry, and I’m like, “Man, I’m acting like some 14th-century farmer right now.” I feel like some pilgrim seeing a holy relic or something”.
The next album you need to get on 21st February is Lanterns on the Lake’s Spook the Herd. The Newcastle five-piece are a terrific band and, if you are searching for a great album in February, I can recommend Spook the Herd. Here is some information from Bella Union:
“Lanterns On The Lake have announced news of their new studio album, Spook The Herd, released 21st February via Bella Union and available to preorder here. Additionally, the band have announced an extensive UK tour including a headline show at London’s EartH, the dates of which are below, and shared a striking b/w video for lead track “Every Atom”. Of the track Lantern’s vocalist Hazel Wilde says: “This is a song about grief and how your subconscious takes a long time to accept when someone is dead and gone forever, even when the rational side of you understands it. I put that idea into a story where the narrator is my subconscious searching for someone in this dream-like fictional world. I go to the extremes to search for even just a trace of them… through all of space and time, splitting every atom, ‘until Andromeda and the Milky Way collide’. I won’t give up. I can’t let go.”
It’s strange – not to mention fundamentally disconcerting – to live through turbulent times. Yet as many feel like the world is slipping out of control, artists are enlivened as they seek to make sense of the shifting sands. Hazel Wilde of Lanterns on the Lake is now a songwriter necessarily emboldened. On Spook the Herd, the band’s fourth record, her voice and preoccupations rise to the fore like never before. In tandem, the band break new ground on a set of songs that are direct and crucial.
Wilde does nothing less than dive headlong into the existential crises of our times. Beginning with the record’s title – a pointed comment at the dangerously manipulative tactics of ideologues – its nine songs turn the microscope to issues including our hopelessly polarized politics, social media, addiction, grief and the climate crisis.
The world is brought into focus, but Wilde’s style is not declarative. She also proves herself a songwriter possessed of a rare talent for finding the personal contours to contemporary issues, fully inhabiting them to make them real. Recorded as live where possible, the band’s natural touchstones of gauzy dream-pop and monumental post rock still float in the air, but listening to Lanterns on the Lake now feels like actually sitting in the corner of the room as they play. As guitarist and producer Paul Gregory says of approaching their fourth album, “There was a sense of release in terms of what kind of music we felt we could make. The idea of what kind of band you’re supposed to be really disappeared. It was great; you felt you could do whatever you like.”
Musically, this is a leaner Lanterns on the Lake – at times unusually stark. Their sound has been beautifully winnowed into something more pared back, urgent and direct – in keeping with Wilde’s messages – on an album loaded with songs marked by an arresting intimacy. “Swimming Lessons”, first teased as an in-progress idea on Instagram, is writhing and supple as Gregory’s arpeggiated guitar dovetails with Ol Ketteringham’s pulsating drumming and Wilde’s keening vocal. “Every Atom” rides on insistent beats which lay a bed for a warped and playfully robotic guitar line, while “Secrets and Medicine” weaves and lopes achingly, weaving its atmosphere from Spartan means: piano, celestial guitars and diminished brass”.
As I say, there might be other albums coming in February that have not been announced – you never know with music! There are three albums from 28th February that I would recommend you check out. Real Estate’s The Main Thing is one of the trio. Released through Domino Recording Company, I think this is another album that will score big love:
“Over the last decade, Real Estate have crafted warm yet meticulous pop-minded music, specialising in soaring melodies that are sentimentally evocative and unmistakably their own. The Main Thing dives even further into the musical dichotomies they’re known for—lilting, bright guitar lines set against emotionally nuanced lyrics, complex arrangements conveyed breezily— and what emerges is a superlative collection of interrogative songs as full of depth, strangeness and contradictions as they are lifting hooks”.
Go and pre-order a copy, because this album is going to be a sizzler! Real Estate are another band who have not done many interviews lately, so one cannot really gauge what their album concerns and what inspired it. Like Tame Impala and other elusive artists, one needs to get the album and decide for themselves!
Soccer Mommy’s Color Theory is an album that I have been looking forward to for a long time, as I am a fan of her work. Here are some more details:
“Entitled color theory, the announcement comes with a video for the lead single circle the drain. Produced by Atiba Jefferson, the four-minute visual was shot in Palm Springs and features pro-skateboarders Sean Malto, Jake Anderson, Curren Caples, and Nicole Hause.
The LP will serve as the follow-up to her 2018 debut Clean. According to the press release, color theory sees Allison confront ongoing mental health and familial challenges she has faced since childhood. The album explores three central, interlinking themes: blue – a representation of sadness and depression; yellow, which symbolises physical and emotional illness; and the colour grey for darkness, depression and loss.
On the album, Allison said, “I wanted the experience of listening to color theory to feel like finding a dusty old cassette tape that has become messed up over time, because that’s what this album is: an expression of all the things that have slowly degraded me personally.”
“The production warps, the guitar solos occasionally glitch, the melodies can be poppy and deceptively cheerful. To me, it sounds like the music of my childhood distressed and, in some instances, decaying”.
I think there is one more album that you need to reserve some money for in February: The Orielles’ Disco Volador. Go pre-order the upcoming album from the Halifax band. It is going to be a smash:
“Defiant in the face of existential dread, The Orielles were always going to approach their second album with nothing but stellar levels of intent. Disco Volador sees the 4-piece push their sonic horizon to its outer limits as astral travellers, hitching a ride on the melodic skyway to evade the space-time continuum through a sharp collection of progressive strato-pop symphonies.
Voyaging through cinematic samba, 70s disco, deep funk boogies, danceable grooves and even tripping on 90s acid house, Disco Volador propels The Orielles spinning into a higher zero-gravity orbit. Written and recorded in just 12 months, it captures the warp-speed momentum of their post-Silver Dollar Moment debut album success; an unforgettable summer touring, playing festivals like Green Man and bluedot, and deepening their bond whilst witnessing the sets of their heroes Stereolab, Mogwai, and Four Tet. Disco Volador’s library catalogue vibes stem from a band lapping up and widening their pool of musical discovery whether nodding to Italian film score maestros Sandro Brugnolini and Piero Umiliani, or the Middle Eastern tones of Khruangbin and Altin Gün.
IN THIS PHOTO: The Orielles
Built from instrumentals around the concept of “boogie to space, space to boogie,” Disco Volador’s energy comes from the melodic fission of tension and release. Recurring motifs explore space, not only of earth’s celestial atmosphere, but also what happens within the gaps and how sound manipulation has the power to carry, or displace, its listener.
At times haunting and unsettling, Disco Volador’s film-like structure flows from fact to fiction. Its tales are culled from waking life as easily as they become a soundtrack for lucid dream sequences. Whilst the future of the world and its current cosmic wasteland might be up in the air, The Orielles’ new album has its feet beating out a much-needed four to the dancefloor. Welcome to Disco Volador; time really does fly when you’re having this much fun”.
It is a busy month ahead, and I have selected the albums I feel are worthy of purchase. You can see which other albums are out. I feel this year is going to be very strong and interesting. As the weather warms up, so too do the albums but, that said, there are some phenomenal albums due next month. All I know is that there is plenty to keep you occupied and amused so, if you need some guidance, I hope my recommendations above have helped. All you need to do now is wait for the albums to arrive and make sure to…
SET some money aside.