FEATURE:
One for the Record Collection!
IN THIS PHOTO: Adrianne Lenker/PHOTO CREDIT: Shervin Lainez
Essential October Releases
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I usually publish these features…
IN THIS IMAGE: The cover of Jónsi’s Shiver
before the start of the month but, as there is a batch of new albums due today (2nd October), I think I have snuck in on time! There are quite a few great albums that you will want to snap up this. Starting with albums out today, and Jónsi’s Shiver is one you will want to get hold of! You can find the album here. It has been a decade since he released Go, so there is a lot of anticipation regarding his new release. Here is some information:
“Shiver is the exciting and boundary pushing second record from LA-based Icelandic musician Jónsi, co-produced by A. G. Cook (PC Music, Charlie XCX) and comes a decade after his debut, Go, was released.
The new album features tracks with Liz Fraser (Cocteau Twins) and pop icon Robyn. It will be released on 2nd October 2020 and was recorded in Berlin, Reykjavik, London and Helsinki.
Not too long ago Jónsi was traveling through London, where he met up with iconoclastic producer A.G. Cook, who he admired for his boundary-breaking work with the PC music collective. He had no expectation for the meeting, but the more they talked, the more he realized they might be perfect collaborators. “I’ve been doing this for 30 years,” Jónsi says. “I get tired of everything really easily. I always want things to be fun and exciting and fresh, and doing another album...I just wanted to have a different approach.”
Jónsi had made a career on sweeping music that plumbed the depths of the human experience and our connection to the natural world. Cook’s production exists at the opposite end of the spectrum: synthetic, sometimes abrasive, and often on the cutting edge of experimentalism. On paper, their collaboration is surprising, but Shiver is a beautiful record that pushes Jónsi’s otherworldly voice into startling new territories”.
One album that I have been especially looking forward to is Róisín Murphy’s Róisín Machine. I would encourage everyone to get the album, as it is full of gems and it will infuse you with energy and motivation on a very windy and wet day! If you need some more information about the new album from one of music’s most amazing and original artists, then Rough Trade can help you out:
“Róisín Murphy releases her fifth album, titled Róisín Machine via Skint and BMG. The album, which was made with Murphy's regular collaborator Crooked Man, AKA DJ Parrot, follows 2015's Hairless Toys (which was nominated for a Mercury Prize) and 2016's Take Her Up To Monto, as well as her four-EP project with Maurice Fulton in 2018. Among its ten tracks are previously released singles like Narcissus and Murphy's Law”.
I think Róisín Machine is Murphy’s finest album to date, and I have been playing it a lot today. It is awash with songs that make the heart skip a beat and get the feet moving! It is an essential purchase that everyone will need to add to their vinyl collection!
There is a nice variety of albums out today, but I would recommend Melanie C’s album, Melanie C. The former Spice Girl (or should that be current?!). Following 2016’s Version of Me, you should check out the bundles available for Melanie C. The album features singles such as Blame It on Me, and Fearless, and I think the critical reviews will be pretty good (I am writing this on 28th September). Things are pretty crazy for Melanie C., but I think her latest solo album is one of her strongest. An artist who I am a big fan of is Ailbhe Reddy. Her album, Personal History, is out today, so make sure that you get a copy. Her music is so gorgeous and memorable, I can guarantee that you’ll be a fan as soon as you hear the album – if you are not one already! Personal History is going to be one of album you will not want to miss out on:
“Dublin alt-folk artist Ailbhe Reddy releases debut album Personal History via Friends of the Family. Three years in the making, her record finds Ailbhe ruminating on the rites of passage in life as a young, emerging, queer artist from Ireland. On Personal History, Ailbhe’s ability to write songs of earnest and honest self-appraisal see her autobiographically navigate through break-ups in the age of social media (Looking Happy), reflect on the duality of loneliness and independence while touring (Time Difference), and open-up about coming out as explained in her newest effort (Between Your Teeth).
“It’s about the frustration of being unable to communicate in a relationship”, detailed the gifted lyricist. “Both people hold things back because they either don’t want, or don’t know, how to express themselves. While travelling alone, I always spent a lot of time thinking too much about past conversations and wondering what words were being held back between another person’s teeth”. Produced by Erland Cooper and Tommy McLaughlin (producer and touring member of Soak)”.
Taking us to 9th October, and there are a couple of releases that are worth some money. I am looking forward to Dizzee Rascal’s seventh studio album, E3 AF. His last album, Raskit, of 2017 was a big return to form, and I think E3 AF will continue that hot streak. You can pre-order the album, and it seems like the man himself is in no short supply of confidence regarding the album’s quality! When he spoke with Dummy in August, Dizzee Rascal explained more about the time and effort he has put into E3 AF:
“Dizzee Rascal has shared news surrounding his upcoming ‘E3 AF’ record, the grime veteran’s seventh studio album to date. Dropping October 9th, the project’s name pays homage to the E3 post code district where he grew up in Bow, East London.
The rapper’s last full-length album ‘Raskit’ was released back in 2017, earning wide-spread critical acclaim with a stripped-back offering that showed off the extent of his lyrical potency.
Announcing the news on Instagram, the London MC seems confident that his latest offering will be a strong return to form.
“I’ve spent the last 3 years losing and finding myself in music and I’ve made something flawless”, Dizzee stated. “I made this album for YOU!
“I want you to play it at home, in your car or wherever you want but I want you to listen to it all the way through and you better have some BASS!! The link-ups are mad and I didn’t come to play! You’re welcome,” he added”.
Changing pace and direction entirely, and another gold record coming out on 9th October is SISTER, from Mina Tindle. I would encourage people to pre-order a simply beautiful album, as Tindle is one of the most original and incredible songwriters around! If you are new to her work and require a bit more information – about her and the album – then here are some details:
“The third full-length from Mina Tindle, SISTER is an album populated by mythic creatures of all kinds: lions on parade, lovers turned to cannibals, kings and Sirens and women with wings. Like any great fabulist, she threads her storytelling with a fragile wisdom, revealing essential truths about all the danger and wildness within the human heart. With each moment elevated by her spellbinding vocal work — a gift she’s shown in recording and touring as a singer for The National — SISTER ultimately makes for a transportive listen, at turns impossibly dreamlike and profoundly illuminating.
Mina Tindle is the project of Parisian singer/songwriter and multiinstrumentalist Pauline De Lassus. Mostly made in New York City with producer Thomas Bartlett (Yoko Ono, Florence + the Machine), the album’s elegant detail balances the odd magic of the songs with a fierce emotional realism. “Give a Little Love,” written and produced by Sufjan Stevens, channels intense longing, its soulful melancholy magnified by Stevens’s warm background vocals. On “Belle Pénitence,” she shares a tender love letter to her husband (The National’s Bryce Dessner), twisting the mood of lovely surrender with some fantastically brutal hunting imagery rendered in her native tongue. And on “Lions,” with its shimmering grooves, De Lassus offers up a bit of soft-hearted encouragement in the face of self-doubt: “If the roads are made for a parade/Go march with the lions.” She adds, “You need to keep going, even if sometimes you feel like you’re just pretending to be brave. It’s all about the march.”
After the gloriously sprawling “Triptyque”— partly written with Dessner — SISTER closes out with a stark rendition of “Is Anything Wrong” by Lhasa De Sela, the late artist whom De Lassus names among her most enduring influences. Mina Tindle’s version originally featured as part of a tribute to the late singer that she conceived and organized in 2019 with another of her longtime heroes Canadian singer Leslie Feist. They would later perform the tribute at London’s Barbican and the Cork Opera House.
De Lassus later appeared as a featured soloist on The National’s 2019 album I Am Easy to Find and toured extensively with the band. During the last few years as she was writing and recording SISTER, De Lassus has also been an integral part of the PEOPLE Festivals at the historic Berlin Funkhaus in 2016 and 2018, where she worked with a vast range of musicians and artists in the community.
SISTER achieves a potent complexity, arriving as her most imaginative selection of songs to date while wholly embracing the sometimespainful truth-telling she’s long treasured in her most beloved artists. “All the people I love the most have this beautiful way of singing their truth, and I hope these songs give that same kind of honesty”.
One great album from 16th October that I would urge people to snap up is Catherine Anne Davies and Bernard Butler’s In Memory of My Feelings. You can pre-order it here, and it is an album that I am very much looking forward to! Piccadilly Records provide more details:
“Needle Mythology, the label founded by music writer, author and broadcaster Pete Paphides, is proud to announce the very first release of brand new music on the label. ‘In Memory Of My Feelings’ is the result of a one-off collaboration between Catherine Anne Davies and Bernard Butler. The album was recorded over writing and recording sessions covering a four year period, but amounting to just fifteen days in total. Prior to the creation of the record, the two had never met. There are ten songs featured in total on ‘In Memory Of My Feelings’.
Key tracks include the unearthly end-of-days address The Breakdown, the triumphant four-to-the-floor excoriations of Sabotage (Looks So Easy) and the luxuriant glam ache of No More Tears To Cry. Work on In Memory Of My Feelings was completed in 2014, but extraneous commitments forced Catherine and Bernard to postpone its release indefinitely. Of the record Butler says: “I’d got used to the idea that the record might never emerge. Occasionally, I’d listen to it on my headphones if I was on the bus, I always had the same thought, “I wish I could go to a record shop and buy this.” Davies adds: “For me, the best thing is that we still don’t know each other that well. The songs were the conversation.” Catherine is best known for her work as The Anchoress. Her debut album Confessions Of A Romance Novelist was released to widespread critical acclaim in 2016 and was named amongst the Guardian critics’ Albums of the Year, earned her the Best Newcomer prize at the PROG Awards and was also named HMV’s Welsh Album of the Year.
Since then she has played in the touring line-ups of Manic Street Preachers and Simple Minds. The second Anchoress album is scheduled for release early next year. Bernard Butler is a founding member of Suede, with whom he co-wrote and performed two era-defining albums. He then went on to enjoy top ten success with McAlmont & Butler and as a solo artist before focusing on writing and production work with artists such as Bert Jansch, The Libertines, Duffy, Teleman and Texas”.
On 23rd October there is not one but two albums from Big Thief’s Adrianne Lenker! songs, and instrumentals come as one, but they are two distinct projects. I would encourage people to pre-order, as Lenker is an amazing songwriter and performer.
This Pitchfork article from last month provided details regarding Lenker’s latest release:
“Big Thief’s Adrianne Lenker has announced two new albums: songs and instrumentals are both out on October 23 via 4AD. Listen to the new single “anything” (from songs) below.
The albums were recorded in April after Big Thief’s tour was cut short by the COVID-19 pandemic. She recorded them entirely analog in a cabin with engineer Philip Weinrobe. “I grew really connected to the space itself,” Lenker said in a statement. “The one room cabin felt like the inside of an acoustic guitar—it was such a joy to hear the notes reverberate in the space.” She continued:
I had a handful of songs that I was planning on recording, but by the time Phil arrived I was on a whole new level of heartsick and the songs were flying through my ears. I was basically lying in the dirt half the time. We went with the flow. A lot of the focus was on getting nourishment from our meals. We cooked directly on the woodstove, and we went on walks to the creek every day to bathe. I’m grateful that this music has come into existence. These songs have helped me heal. I hope that at least in some small way this music can be a friend to you”.
Two more albums to own on 23rd are Bruce Springsteen’s Letter to You, and Laura Veirs’ My Echo. The former, from The Boss, is his twentieth studio album, and I always look forward when he has an album out! This GQ article from last month gives some more information:
“The 12-track Letter To You is Springsteen's 20th studio album and was recorded at his home studio in New Jersey. It includes nine recently written Springsteen songs as well as new recordings of three of his legendary, but previously unreleased 1970s compositions, “Janey Needs A Shooter”, “If I Was The Priest” and “Song For Orphans”. Springsteen is joined on Letter To You by Roy Bittan, Nils Lofgren, Patti Scialfa, Garry Tallent, Steven Van Zandt, Max Weinberg, Charlie Giordano and Jake Clemons (so at least there is some saxophone elsewhere on the album). “I love the emotional nature of Letter To You,” says Springsteen. “And I love the sound of the E Street Band playing completely live in the studio, in a way we’ve never done before and with no overdubs. We made the album in only five days and it turned out to be one of the greatest recording experiences I’ve ever had”.
Go and pre-order the album, as Letter to You will be among 2020’s very best and celebrated.
Laura Veirs is another iconic songwriter, and My Echo is an album that you should definitely add to your collection! Rough Trade provide more information about a very special record:
“Laura Veirs releases her eleventh solo album My Echo via Bella Union. The album features guest appearances from Jim James, Bill Frisell, Karl Blau, Matt Ward and others.
“My Echo is my 11th solo album. It’s my ‘my songs knew I was getting divorced before I did’ album. My conscious mind was trying as hard as I could to keep my family together but my subconscious mind was working on the difficult struggles in my marital life. I was part of a “Secret Poetry Group” that met and wrote poems monthly for a year during the writing of this record. Many of my poems turned into songs for this album. By the time the album was being mixed last fall, my ex-husband / producer Tucker Martine and I had decided to go our separate ways. We were a great musical team for many years but we struggled to be compatible in our marriage and family life and that struggle is reflected in this album. In this new batch of songs I imagine escaping from some sort of prison or cage. Advancing age, the confines of domesticity, our oppressive government and the threat of the apocalypse permeate these songs.
In these songs my heart craves certainty and permanence but none is to be found. It’s an album about disintegration. It reveals my artist’s intuition at work. Although these songs were written before quarantine they are strangely relevant to times in which we find ourselves currently. You will find me staring at the walls (Turquoise Walls). You will find me feeling grateful to be alive (Memaloose Island). You will find me accepting the ephemeral nature of life (Vapor Trails and All the Things). You will find me searching for personal freedom while feeling trapped (Freedom Feeling). You will find me trying to accept that sometimes the best thing to do is to sit still and do nothing at all (Another Space and Time). Produced by Tucker Martine in the summer and fall of 2019 in Portland, OR. Includes appearances from Jim James, Bill Frisell, Karl Blau, Matt Ward”.
Two albums out on 30th October that you should pre-order are from two artists whose names begin with e: Elvis Costello, and Eels. Costello’s Hey Clockface is his thirty-first studio album and, even if you are not a huge fan of his, I would encourage people to buy the album, as the songs he has released from it sound incredible. Drift Records have provided some details about the album:
“Hey Clockface was recorded in Helsinki, Paris and New York and mixed by Sebastian Krys in Los Angeles. Following the solo recording of, “No Flag”, “Hetty O’Hara Confidential” and “We Are All Cowards Now” at Suomenlinnan Studio, Helsinki by Eetü Seppälä in February 2020, Costello immediately traveled to Paris for a weekend session at Les Studios Saint Germain. Costello tells us, “I sang live on the studio floor, directing from the vocal booth.
We cut nine songs in two days. We spoke very little. Almost everything the musicians played was a spontaneous response to the song I was singing. I’d had a dream of recording in Paris like this, one day.” The assembled album, “Hey Clockface” is “An Elvis Costello & Sebastian Krys Production” following on from their work together on Elvis Costello and The Imposters Grammy-winning album “Look Now.” The motion picture of “We Are All Cowards Now” by Eamon Singer & Arlo Mc Furlow features images of flowers & pistols, smoke & mirrors, tombstones & monuments, courage & cowardice, peace love and misunderstanding”.
Eels’ Earth to Dora is another great October release that you should pre-order, because Mark Oliver Everett always brings something special and enormously interesting to each Eels album! Here are some details from Rough Trade:
“Eels release their highly anticipated new album Earth to Dora via E Works. The album was produced by band leader Mark Oliver Everett a.k.a. E, and performed by E, Koool G Murder, The Chet and P-Boo. Just one song was done in the thick of the early pandemic days, Are We Alright Again, which is kind of a quarantine daydream. It includes the surprise single releases Baby Let’s Make It Real and Who You Say You Are. Earth to Dora marks the 13th full length Eels album, and first since 2018’s The Deconstruction, their first in four years”.
Those are the October albums that I would recommend people buy and, with a few gems out today, spare no time or delay! I think it is a really strong and varied month, and there are some real crackers due. If you need some awesome music to get you through a potentially tough month, then the above albums…
WILL surely not disappoint!