FEATURE:
One for the Record Collection!
Essential March Releases
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ALTHOUGH the first couple of months…
IN THIS PHOTO: Arab Strap/PHOTO CREDIT: Kat Gollock
of 2021 have been a little quiet regarding new albums, things are picking up. That is not to say there has been a lack of great albums so far this year; it is just that there have been ups and downs regarding the consistency of albums coming out. As we look ahead to March, I wanted to highlight great albums arriving that you will want to own. I will start by suggesting albums worth owning that are released on 5th March. I would suggest people pre-order Arab Strap’s As Days Get Dark, as the songs that have been released from it so far are terrific. The Scotsman sat down and reviewed the album:
“For evidence that Arab Strap are older, wiser and utterly unrepentant, listen no further than opening track The Turning of Our Bones, with its stealthy, gothic guitar, squalling saxophone, ominously circling strings and synth handclaps forming a seductive backdrop to Moffat’s narrative “about resurrection and shagging.”
The dynamic created by Moffat’s eye-watering poetry and Middleton’s atmospheric soundtracks is more expertly wrought than ever. Heady disco strings soundtrack Fable of the Urban Fox’s parable on racism. Another Clockwork Day’s catalogue of online porn (“wearing nothing but a new postcode”) is teamed with pastoral picking and mournful melodica (is there any other kind?) Tears on Tour ponders the triggers for teardrops from raw, uncomprehending bereavement to “the Muppet movie, Frozen, Frozen 2” over some surprising Mark Knopfler-style burnished blues guitar.
One album that I am really excited about is Jane Weaver’s Flock. I think everyone should pre-order a copy, as Weaver’s music is among the most interesting and memorable out there. It is shaping up to be one of 2021’as finest albums:
“Flock is the record that Jane Weaver always wanted to make, the most genuine version of herself, complete with unpretentious Day-Glo pop sensibilities, wit, kindness, humour and glamour. A consciously positive vision for negative times, a brooding and ethereal creation.
The album features an untested new fusion of seemingly unrelated compounds fused into an eco-friendly hum; pop music for post-new-normal times. Created from elements that should never date, its pop music reinvented. Still prevalent are the cosmic sounds, but Flock is a natural rebellion to the recent releases which sees her decidedly move away from conceptual roots in favour of writing pop music. Produced on a complicated diet of bygone Lebanese torch songs, 1980's Russian Aerobics records and Australian Punk.
Amongst this broadcast of glistening sounds is The Revolution Of Super Visions, an untelevised Mothership connection, with Prince floating by as he plays scratchy guitar; it also features a funky whack-a-mole bass line and synth worms. It underlines the discordant pop vibe that permeates Flock and concludes on Solarised, a super-catchy, totally infectious apocalypse, a radio-friendly groove for last dance lovers clinging together in an effort to save themselves before the end of the night.
The musician’s exposure to an abundance of lost records served as a reminder that you still feel like an outsider in this world and that by overcoming fears you can achieve artistic freedom. Jane Weaver continues to metamorphise.
Bonus CD features new and exclusive versions from Jane Weaver’s studio. It comes with CD and Rough Trade exclusive LP Version only”.
Another big release that is coming out on 5th March is Kings of Leon’s When You See Yourself. If you are a fan of the band, go and pre-order their upcoming eighth album. As the band explained in an interview with NME from last month, they wanted to make sure they got the album right and were not rushed:
“Kings Of Leon frontman Caleb Followill has suggested that the band’s forthcoming new album ‘When You See Yourself’ will be their most “personal” record yet in terms of its lyrics.
The Tennessee four-piece will release their latest LP on March 5, nearly four-and-a-half years on from 2016’s ‘Walls’.
Followill and his drummer brother Nathan have now previewed ‘When You See Yourself’, which had its original release date delayed last year due to the coronavirus pandemic, in a new interview with The Sun.
“The decision to put it out now was our answer to the fact we aren’t able to tour right now. Hopefully by summer we can make the shows we are booked to play,” Nathan said.
“People can’t see live shows right now, so the next best thing is new music for them to listen to. Putting it out was our way of saying ‘thank you’ to our fans for their patience.”
Speaking about the album, Caleb said that he and his bandmates made use of the extra time to put the finishing touches to the record, saying “we weren’t rushing it out”.
“We got to make sure we were happy with everything and go back to critique little things we wanted to hear in there,” he said.
In terms of the lyrics, Caleb suggested that ‘When You See Yourself’ is the band’s most “personal” album yet, saying: “I try to write and convince myself that I’m writing about something else but a vein of my personal life flows through these songs”.
Jumping to 19th March, and Loretta Lynn’s Still Woman Enough arrives. The Country legend is preparing to release her fiftieth album. As this Pitchfork article explains, it is a hugely important album:
“Loretta Lynn has announced the new album Still Woman Enough, which arrives on March 19 via Legacy. Marking her 50th studio album, the 13-song collection celebrates women in country music and includes new compositions along with reinterpretations of songs from throughout Lynn’s catalog. The album also features appearances from Margo Price, Tanya Tucker, Reba McEntire, and Carrie Underwood. Check out the music video for “Coal Miner’s Daughter Recitation” below and scroll down for the cover art and tracklist.
“I am just so thankful to have some of my friends join me on my new album. We girl singers gotta stick together," Loretta Lynn said in a statement. “It’s amazing how much has happened in the 50 years since ‘Coal Miner’s Daughter’ first came out and I’m extremely grateful to be given a part to play in the history of American music”.
Make sure you pre-order the album, because it is primed to be full of gold and wonderful collaboration. Rough Trade provide more details:
“The American music icon's 50th studio album (excluding her 10 studio duet collaborations with Conway Twitty), Still Woman Enough celebrates women in country music. From her homage to the originators, Mother Maybelle Carter and the Carter Family (via her cover of "Keep On The Sunny Side") through a new interpretation of her very first single, "I'm A Honky Tonk Girl," Loretta Lynn acknowledges her role in the continuum of American country music with a special collaboration with Reba McEntire and Carrie Underwood ("Still Woman Enough"), and duets with Margo Price ("One's On The Way") and Tanya Tucker ("You Ain't Woman Enough"), sharing the musical torch with some of the brightest lights and biggest stars in contemporary country music. The album premieres 13 new Loretta Lynn recordings, intimate and electrifying performances of a career-spanning selection of songs illuminating different aspects of her repertoire. The collection is centred around Loretta's original compositions - from new songs like "Still Woman Enough" (which shares its title and attitude with her 2002 autobiography and was cowritten with her daughter, Patsy Lynn Russell) through fresh interpretations of classics including "I'm a Honky Tonk Girl" (her first single, originally released March 1960), "You Ain't Woman Enough" (the title track for her first #1 Billboard Hot Country Album in 1966), "My Love" (from 1968's Here's Loretta Lynn), "I Wanna Be Free" (1971) and a deeply emotional "Coal Miner's Daughter Recitation," commemorating the 50th anniversary of the release of her signature song (October 5, 1970) and album (January 4, 1971)”.
Finishing off with albums from 26th March, and there are a few that are well worth some pennies. I am looking ahead to the release of Evanescence’s The Bitter Truth. I want to bring in an interesting interview from Rolling Stone where the band’s lead, Amy Lee, discussed her life and her band’s new record:
“I’m not going to rush,” says Lee, 38. “I’m just trying to live in the moment, feeding my soul with the music.”
When the band began making a concerted effort to work on new material last year, their one rule was that there would be no rules. They began with a wealth of material and inspiration, along with a couple decade-old songs that finally feel ripe for release. Since August, when her U.S.-based bandmates took tour buses to join her in Nashville (guitarist Jen Majura has remained in Germany), they’ve been powering through the rest of the album.
“The energy was just amped,” Lee says. “We were in there on fire. Now, the guys are back at their homes, and I am wading through the aftermath of all the music, piecing it together and finalizing the record.” In some ways, she says, lockdown has been a blessing: “The upside of this time is that I’ve had to buckle down and focus. Even on the days that I don’t want to, I come out here and I go, ‘Let’s do this. Let’s finish the album.’ ”
Every rock era has been defined by how few women have been able to break through to the mainstream, and Lee felt isolated even as her operatic mezzo-soprano became one of rock’s definitive voices. At one radio show, a DJ introduced the band by admitting that he had “jacked off” to the Fallen album cover, a close-up of Lee’s face. After the first song and a few minutes of simmering rage, Lee called him out. At another show, she interrupted her performance to confront a few members of the mostly male audience who were chanting “Show your tits.”
It took until this year for Lee to feel comfortable expressing her opinion on politics, speaking out in interviews against Donald Trump and the police killing of George Floyd. On “Use My Voice,” released as a single this summer, she makes it clear she’s no longer willing to stay quiet: “Drown every truth in an ocean of lies,” she sings. “Label me bitch because I dare to draw my own line/Burn every bridge and build a wall in my way/But I will use my voice”.
One of the smaller bands releasing a new album in March is The Antlers. Green to Gold is an album that I am thinking about pre-ordering the album. It is sounding like it’s going to be magnificent:
“Highly anticipated record from New York's act The Antlers, their first new music in seven music. Perhaps what distinguishes Green to Gold from the rest of The Antlers’ canon is its arrival at a kind of quiet normalcy after a number of rather anxious records. Conceived and written almost entirely in the morning hours, Green to Gold is the easily their most luminous record to date.
Following 2014’s Familiars,it looked unsure as to whether there would even be another Antlers album, after the onset of singer and primary songwriter Peter Silberman’s auditory problems. Affecting his left ear, it was a condition that left him struggling to cope with commonplace noises. He was subsequently diagnosed with lesions on one of his vocal cords, requiring surgery for their removal and vocal therapy to retrain his voice to sing. Following a relocation to upstate New York and the 10th anniversary tour of 2009's 'Hospice', Silberman was rejuvenated and rediscovered the impulse to create new Antlers music. Of Silberman’s unique vocals, The Guardian wrote “His multi-octave voice is as intense as Jeff Buckley’s or Anohni’s, but it’s vulnerable without being precious or cloying”.
PHOTO CREDIT: Pooneh Ghana
I am going to finish up by recommending people pre-order tUnE-yArDs’ sketchy. If you do not know about tUnE-yArDs, they are an American, Oakland, California–based music project of musician Merrill Garbus, with long-time collaborator, bassist Nate Brenner. Make sure you pre-order sketchy:
“Tune-Yards’ last release I can feel you creep into my private life, was a self-reflexive question mark at the end of a decade of outspoken, polyphonic indie music. From 2009 to 2018, Tune-Yards (both Merrill and her partner and collaborator Nate Brenner) released four critically acclaimed albums, travelled the world relentlessly to play live shows, and composed the psychedelic score to Boots Riley's surrealist cinematic masterpiece Sorry To Bother You. "We had really been non-stop hustling," Merrill reflects. "And when we're hustling, we're complicit in all of the systems that I really don't believe in."
Interrogating these systems and her role within them had left Merrill feeling heavy with grief and lost about how to move forward. The duo pressed on, inspired by the Beastie Boys Book and Questlove’s Creative Quest, and began jamming daily for hours in their home rehearsal studio “like athletes”. They ditched computer screens for live instruments (Merrill on drums, Nate on bass) and before long full songs started to emerge.
Unlike the lyrical introspection of previous outing I can feel you..., on sketchy. Merrill balances self-inspection and reflection with bombastic rallying cries, reminiscent of the furious tones of early days Tune-Yards. The result is a colourful and joyous record with lyrics that cut to the bone. "I started remembering that people come to us to be entertained, to move, to feel joy. And together, I think, we can wake up”.
Although the rate of album releases will increase as we go into spring and summer, there are some really good ones due in March! I think that there may be some new additions and changes, as one cannot predict whether all of the albums announced will be released on the date published. They are correct as of the time of writing this feature (23rd February). If you were unsure which albums are worth snapping up next month, then I hope that the guide above will…
POINT you in the right direction.