FEATURE:
One for the Record Collection!
IN THIS PHOTO: The cover for Harry Styles’ forthcoming album, Harry’s House
Essential May Releases
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MAY is fast approaching…
IN THIS PHOTO: Zola Jesus
so I wanted to look ahead to albums due for release then. As I always say, these albums are confirmed as of the time of writing this feature (11th April), so things could change between now and then. That said, I am keen to explore those slated for release. The week ending 6th May has quite a few golden albums worth pre-ordering. The first is Arcade Fire’ WE. The legendary Canadian band follow up 2017’s Everything Now with their sixth studio album. This is one that you definitely need to pre-order:
“Produced by Nigel Godrich, Win and Régine, and recorded in multiple locales including New Orleans, El Paso and Mount Desert Island, WE paradoxically distills “the longest we’ve ever spent writing, uninterrupted, probably ever" (per the band’s Win Butler) into a concise 40 minute epic – one as much about the forces that threaten to pull us away from the people we love, as it is inspired by the urgent need to overcome them. WE’s cathartic journey follows a definable arc from darkness into light over the course of seven songs divided into two distinct sides - Side “I” channeling the fear and loneliness of isolation, and Side “WE” expressing the joy and power of reconnection. On the album’s cover, a photograph of a human eye by the artist JR evokes Sagittarius A*, the supermassive black hole at the center of the galaxy. This stunning image - embellished by the distinctive airbrush color tinting of Terry Pastor (utilizing the same physical technique he employed on David Bowie’s iconic Hunky Dory and Ziggy Stardust covers) – is the visual expression of WE”.
Another marvellous album due on 6th May is Rolling Blackouts Coastal Fever’s Endless Rooms. An album that I would urge everyone to pre-order, it is shaping up to be among this year’s most promising albums:
“Rolling Blackouts Coastal Fever return in 2022 with Endless Rooms, the Melbourne quintet's third album proper. Described by the band – comprised of Fran Keaney, Joe White, Marcel Tussie and brothers Tom Russo and Joe Russo – as them “Doing what we do best: chasing down songs in a room together”, Endless Rooms stands as a testament to the collaborative spirit and live power of RBCF.
While initial ideas were traded online during long spells spent separated by lockdowns, the album was truly born during small windows of freedom in which the band would decamp to a mud-brick house in the bush around 2hrs north of Melbourne built by the extended Russo family in the 1970s.
There, its 12 tracks took shape, informed to such an extent by the acoustics and ambience of the rambling lakeside house that they decided to record the album there. The house also features on the album cover. For the first time, the band self-produced the record (alongside engineer, collaborator and old friend, Matt Duffy), creating their most naturalistic and expansive document yet. The result is a collection of songs permeated by the spirit of the place; punctuated by field recordings of rain, fire, birds, and wind.
“It's almost an anti-concept album,” say the band. “The ‘endless rooms’ of the title reflects our love of creating worlds in our songs. We treat each of them as a bare room to be built up with infinite possibilities”.
There are another three albums due on 6th May that you need to order. Sharon Van Etten’s We've Been Going About This All Wrong is an essential purchase. Available on a range of physical formats, Sharon Van Etten is one of the greatest songwriters and artists in the world:
“Sharon Van Etten has always been the kind of artist who helps people make sense of the world around them, and her sixth album, We’ve Been Going About This All Wrong, concerns itself with how we feel, mourn, and reclaim our agency when we think the world - or at least, our world - might be falling apart. How do we protect the things most precious to us from destructive forces beyond our control? How do we salvage something worthwhile when it seems all is lost? And if we can’t, or we don’t, have we loved as well as we could in the meantime? Did we try hard enough? In considering these questions and her own vulnerability in the face of them, Van Etten creates a stunning meditation on how life’s changes can be both terrifying and transformative. We’ve Been Going About This All Wrong articulates the beauty and power that can be rescued from our wreckages.
We’ve Been Going About This All Wrong is as much a reflection on how we manage the ending of metaphorical worlds as we do the ending of actual ones: the twin flames of terror and unrelenting love that light up with motherhood; navigating the demands of partnership when your responsibilities have changed; the loss of center and safety that can come with leaving home; how the ghosts of our past can appear without warning in our present; feeling helpless with the violence and racism in the world; and yes, what it means when a global viral outbreak forces us to relinquish control of the things that have always made us feel so human, and seek new forms of connection to replace them.
PHOTO CREDIT: Michael Schmelling
We’ve Been Going About This All Wrong is intensely personal, exploring themes like motherhood, love, fear, what we can and can’t control, and what it means to be human in a world that is wracked by so much trauma. The track “Home To Me,” written about Van Etten’s son, uses the trademark “dark drums” of her previous work to invoke the sonic impression of a heartbeat. Synths grow in intensity, evoking the passing of time and the terror of what it means to have your child move inevitably toward independence, wanting to hold on to them tightly enough to protect them forever. In contrast, “Come Back” reflects on the desire to reconnect with a partner. Recalling all the optimism of love felt in its infancy, Van Etten begins with the plain beauty of just her voice and a guitar, building the arrangement alongside the call to “come back” to anyone who has lost their way, be it from another person or from themselves. Hovering between darkness and light, “Born” is an exploration of the self that exists when all other labels - mother, partner, friend - are stripped back.
The ten tracks on We’ve Been Going About This All Wrong are designed to be listened to in order, all at once, so that a much larger story of hope, loss, longing and resilience can be told. This is, in itself, a subtle act of control, but in sharing these songs it remains an optimistic and generous one. There is darkness here but there is light too, and all of it is held together by Van Etten’s uncanny ability to both pierce the hearts of her listeners and make them whole again. Things are not dark, she reminds us, only darkish”.
The penultimate album from 6th May you want to snap up is Sunflower Bean’s Headful of Sugar. Again, available on a range of formats, the New York band are putting out an album that everyone should get a copy of:
“New York trio Sunflower Bean - vocalist and bassist Julia Cumming (she/her), guitarist and vocalist Nick Kivlen (he/him), and drummer Olive Faber (she/they) – release their long-awaited third album Headful of Sugar via Lucky Number.
A psychedelic headrush, fuelled by the agony and ecstasy of contemporary American life, Headful of Sugar is about outsiders disillusioned with the modern world who, despite their alienation, refuse to be subdued; buoyed by the relief found in interpersonal relationships that counteract the daily barrage of cheap entertainment and convenience.
If their acclaimed second album Twentytwo in Blue, released in 2018, was a self-described “ode to the fleeting innocence of youth,” then Headful of Sugar shoves the listener into a new, dangerous world, one that is less safe but also less suffocating. “Tomorrow is not promised, no tour is promised, no popularity is promised, no health or money is promised,” bassist/vocalist Julia Cumming says. “Why not make what you want to make on your own terms? Why not make a record that makes you want to dance? Why not make a record that makes you want to scream?”
Headful of Sugar was produced and mixed by UMO’s Jacob Portrait, co-engineered by Olive Faber and Portrait, and recorded between Electric Lady and Sunflower Bean Studios”.
The final album due on 6th May you need to invest in is Warpaint’s Radiate Like This. This is an album that I am very excited about and will be checking out. If you have some spare pennies, then go and pre-order a copy:
“Radiate Like This - Warpaint’s much anticipated new record, not to mention their first in almost 6 years - arrives with its own very modern mythology intact, continuing the strange, brilliant, beautiful story of the band and quite neatly picking up where Heads Up left off. If the previous album was the coming of age, Radiate Like This presents Warpaint mk II in all their glory, a luminous coalescence of sound and vision which stubbornly belies its genesis, with the quartet of Kokal, Theresa Wayman, Stella Mozgawa and Jenny Lee Lindberg all recording their parts separately in various cities. “It’s the first time we’ve ever made an album like that, but in a weird way, it made us take our time with everything”, muses Kokal. “The process felt more meditative, less rushed”. This new sense of quiet confidence can be heard all through the album, in the hushed, slow build of first single “Champion” the beguiling push pull of “Proof”, the delicate intricacy and complexity of tracks like “Melting” and the winking “Send Nudes”. It’s an album that pulsates with ideas, energy and- most crucially – gorgeous melodies. Listen on in wonder”.
Florence and the Machine’s fifth studio album, Dance Fever, is out on 13th May. An artist (Florence Welch) who is always supernatural and otherworldly, the new album is going to be one you will need to pre-order:
“Florence releases her 5th studio album Dance Fever via Polydor Records.
Dance Fever was recorded predominately in London over the course of the pandemic in anticipation of the world’s reopening. It conjures up what Florence missed most in the midst of lockdown -clubs, dancing at festivals, being in the whirl of movement and togetherness -and the hope of reunions to come. It’s the album that brings back the very best of Florence – the festival headlining Boudicca, wielding anthems like a flaming sword.
Just before the pandemic Florence had become fascinated by choreomania, a Renaissance phenomenon in which groups of people - sometimes thousands - danced wildly to the point of exhaustion, collapse and death. The imagery resonated with Florence, who had been touring nonstop for more than a decade, and in lockdown felt oddly prescient.
The image and concept of dance, and choreomania, remained central as Florence wove her own experiences of dance - a discipline she turned to in the early days of sobriety - with the folkloric elements of a moral panic from the Middle Ages. In recent times of torpor and confinement, dance offered propulsion, energy and a way of looking at music more choreographically.
PHOTO CREDIT: Autumn De Wilde
Starting, as ever, armed with a notebook of poems and ideas, Florence had just arrived in New York in March 2020 to begin recording the record with Jack Antonoff when Covid-19 forced a retreat to London. Holed up at home, the songs began to transform, with nods to dance, folk, ‘70s Iggy Pop, longing-for-the-road folk tracks a la Lucinda Williams or Emmylou Harris and more.
Once back in London, ‘My Love’ was one particular track that shapeshifted from one entity to another with the help of Dave Bayley from Glass Animals. Welch had written the song in her kitchen as a “sad little poem”, and when she recorded it acoustically it just didn’t seem to work. Bayley suggested using synths and it soon expanded with floor-filling, chest-thumping energy.
With Dave’s love of synths and Florence’s fascination with all things gothic and creepy a kind of “Nick Cave at the club” sound started to emerge to shape the record. Lyrically, she took inspiration from the tragic heroines of pre-Raphaelite art, the gothic fiction of Carmen Maria Machado and Julia Armfield, the visceral wave of folk horror film from The Wicker Man and The Witch to Midsommar.
Dance Fever is an album that sees Florence at the peak of her powers, coming into a fully realised self-knowledge, poking sly fun at her own self-created persona, playing with ideas of identity, masculine and feminine, redemptive, celebratory, stepping fully into her place in the iconic pantheon”.
I would also advise people to pre-order Mandy Moore’s In Real Life. Due on 13th May, it is a great album that you will want to investigate further:
“On her new album In Real Life, Mandy Moore shares a window into her world and all that illuminates it: the quiet heartaches and ineffable joys, crushing setbacks and life-changing leaps of faith. The Los Angeles-based artist’s seventh full-length brings a new level of self-possession to her songwriting, imbuing each track with both detailed storytelling and lucid self-reflection”.
Although there are not a lot of other details online about it, the title track alone proves that In Real Life is going to be fantastic. Mandy Moore is one of the more underrated artists around. I hope that her new album will change that.
Let’s skip ahead to the albums out on 20th May that are definitely worth your money. The first, Everything Everything’s Raw Data Feel is going to be sensational! The Manchester band always release such original and captivating music. They are promising something special and must-listen with Raw Data Feel. Make sure you pre-order the album:
“Twice Mercury Prize nominated, 5 time Ivor Novello nominated and critically acclaimed, Everything Everything release their new studio album Raw Data Feel.
On Raw Data Feel, Everything Everything set about revolutionising modern pop music, with Higgs abandoning his own brain and letting technology do at least some of the thinking: feeding LinkedIn T&Cs, Beowulf, 4Chan forum text and the teachings of Confucius into A.I. automation processes and using its responses as a basis for the record's lyrics, song titles and artworking.
Produced by Everything Everything guitarist Alex Robertshaw and production partner Tom Fuller (aka Kaines and Tom A.D). This new phase is a rapturous return and - staying true to form - sees the band continue to push the ribbon on melody and rhythm with a heavy helping of electronic exploration”.
One of the most anticipated and hyped albums of this year is Harry Styles’ Harry's House. Although I am not a massive fan, there is no doubt that this album is one that should be checked out. From the album’s excellent cover to the fact there are some excellent collaborators in the mix. Styles’ album is one I want to point people in the direction of. I am looking forward to hearing what he has to offer:
“Harry’s House is the third solo studio album from Grammy award-winning global superstar Harry Styles. The 13-track full-length album was recorded in multiple locations across the UK, Los Angeles and Tokyo from 2020 to 2021. It was written by Harry alongside frequent collaborators Kid Harpoon, Tyler Johnson, and Mitch Rowland”.
Porridge Radio’s Waterslide, Diving Board, Ladder to the Sky is going to be huge! A truly tremendous band, make sure you do not miss out on an album that is guaranteed to stay in your head long after you have heard it!
“When Porridge Radio’s Dana Margolin, one of the most vital new voices in rock, began to consider the themes of her new album, three vivid words began to emerge: joy, fear and endlessness. The artwork of the band’s third full-length, Waterslide, Diving Board, Ladder To The Sky, is a surreal image that evokes the ducks and dives, slippery slopes and existential angst of life in recent times. “To me, the feelings of joy, fear and endlesses coexist together,” says Dana. “You’re never just happy or unhappy.” Following Every Bad’s release in 2020, Margolin was quickly becoming regarded as one of the most magnetic band leaders around. But if Every Bad established Dana’s bravery in laying herself bare, her band’s third record takes that to anthemic new heights. While there are moments of guttural release, she also finds soft power on songs. “I used to think I had to be loud to be heard,” she admits, “but now I’m definitely less afraid of being gentle.”
The band’s first new single, Back To The Radio, sets out their stall, a lurching call to arms that contrasts Dana’s lyrics of panic and closing herself off. This song is just one of example in WDBLTTS that explores something that has long been an important part of Porridge Radio’s process: playfulness. “I think the album needed to have that balance,” Dana explains. Balance: that’s the word the album seems to be eternally striving for – joy, fear and endlessness in harmony but also self-acceptance. Dana is more aware of how she’s creating a persona as her star continues to rise, and how she’s singing personal songs that now belong to other people which gives her purpose. She says, “I wrote these songs for myself, but I think everyone wants to feel like what they’re doing is useful in some way. I’m ready to embrace it all now, whatever happens”.
SOAK’s If I never know you like this again is going to be truly awesome and must-buy. Their album is one I am pumped for and would urge people to pre-order and add to their May collection:
“With their new album, If I Never Know You Like This Again, Soak has finally shaken the hangover of their starry debut Before We Forgot How To Dream, and the pressures that came with it, hiding in the wings of their ambitious follow up album, Grim Town. Having come up through BBC introducing at the tender age of 15 before signing to Rough Trade Records as well as winning the RTE Choice Music Prize, The Northern Irish Music Prize and the youngest ever Mercury Prize nominee, Soak has again and again been described as ‘the voice of a generation.’
Showing from a young age an intensely artistic awareness of the poetry of memory, Bridie Monds-Watson, aka SOAK, would incessantly photograph and video everything, documenting and organising the material so it was always there for them to revisit. ”I always want to remember exactly how I felt at a certain moment.” Now, at 25, Soak’s third album If I Never Know You Like This Again, is naturally made up of what Bridie intimately calls “song-memories”.
Working closely with Tommy McLaughlin (Villagers), with whom Bridie has been collaborating with since the age of 15, and armed with influences from Pavement, to Radiohead to Broken Social Scene, they wrote most of the album together before recording it with the rest of the band in Attica Studios, Donegal. Throughout the album Soak pushes and pulls at melodies, but never milks their brilliance. Bridie masterfully glides their vocal melody slightly off-kilter above excitable compressed high hats and flourishing guitar lines. With the new direction of a grungier, more lo-fi production the swooning guitars are given a contemporary pop-edge, reflected in the rich and robust musicality of songs like ‘Bleach’, ‘Last July’ and ‘Pretzel’. There’s a constant pulsating beat at the album’s centre, propelling it towards a kind of dewy happiness, like the end credits of a 90s coming-of-age film. Bridie’s lyrics move through the songs almost as effortlessly and they sing them, and the songs when read, read like poetry. With this album Bridie is, as the title suggests, freezing time in the pursuit of truth: capturing their life into existence.
In the world of If I Never Know You Like This Again, a life is lived only because it's remembered”.
Prior to moving onto 27th May, there is one more from 20th May you need to reserve some money for. Zola Jesus’ ARKHON is one to pre-order, as it is a wonderful release that will entrance and enrapture you. Here is an artist like no other; creating music of the highest order:
“There is a way a voice can cut through the fascia of reality, cleaving through habit into the raw nerve of experience. Nika Roza Danilova, the singer, songwriter, and producer who since 2009 has released music as Zola Jesus, wields a voice that does that. When you hear it, it is like you are being summoned to a place that’s already wrapped inside you but obscured from conscious experience. This place has been buried because it tends to hold pain, but it’s also a gift, because once it’s opened, once you’re inside of it, it can show you the truth. Zola Jesus’s new album, Arkhon, finds new ways of loosing this submerged, stalled pain.
On previous albums, Danilova had largely played the role of auteur, meticulously crafting every aspect of Zola Jesus’s sound and look. This time, she realized that her habitual need for control was sealing her out of her art. Arkhon sees Zola Jesus’s first collaboration with producer Randall Dunn (Sunn O))), Earth, Mandy soundtrack, Candyman soundtrack) and with drummer and percussionist Matt Chamberlain, whose prior work appears on albums by Fiona Apple, Bob Dylan, and David Bowie
Arkhon runs the spectrum from songs whose weight lies in their bare simplicity, like “Desire,” an elegiac piano composition about the end of a relationship that was recorded acoustically in a single take, to towering, groove-oriented tracks like “The Fall” and the tight, interlocking percussion and samples of a Slovenian folk choir in “Lost,” which propel narratives of collective despair and mutual comfort in kind. Through these turns, Arkhon reveals itself as an album whose power derives from abandon. Both its turmoils and its pleasures take root in the body, letting individual consciousness dissolve into the thick of the beat. Despite the darkness curled inside reality, there is power, too, in surrendering to what can’t be pinned down, to the wild unfurling of the world in all its unforeseeable motion. That letting go is the crux of Arkhon, which marks a new way of moving and making for Zola Jesus”.
I will end with a few albums from 27th May that you need to look out for. Miraa May’s Tales of a Miracle is an incredible album from one of this country’s greatest talents. You absolutely need to pre-order an album from a sensational songwriter who is going to go very far:
“One of the most prodigiously talented artists in the UK, Miraa May releases her much-anticipated debut album Tales of a Miracle. Already having co-written for the likes of Jorja Smith on her single ‘Be Honest’, Mahalia on her single ‘Jealous’ and Little Simz for her short film ‘I Love You, I Hate You’, the Algerian born singer has enlisted a female dominated team to deliver this exquisite body of work. The project is a personal ode to her childhood adversities, and intimately describes her survival as the miracle that rose from them. 'Wild Things' embodies all that Miraa has to offer as an artist: honesty, strength, vulnerability, humour and passion. Much like the three singles before it ('Go Girl' with pop heavyweight RAYE, 'In My Feelings' and 'Big Woman' featuring powerhouse Stefflon Don); 'Wild Things' appears to have the makings of an instant smash hit and parades the magic of Miraa May effortlessly. In a career first for Miraa the track has secured a first play as Radio 1’s Hottest Record In The World. The unstoppable graft of the young singer has enabled her to capture the hearts and ears of over 920k monthly listeners. A noticeable feat by Spotify, who have made her the current face of their flagship female playlist 'EQUAL'. With love, integrity and energetic female energy woven into each track - This compelling debut is sure to make long lasting impressions within the industry, cementing Miraa May as one of the best singer/songwriters to come out of the UK”.
Wallis Bird is an artist that I really admire. Her forthcoming album, Hands, should not be ignored. Make sure that you pre-order this album from a remarkable and incredibly impressive artist. I cannot wait to discover what Hands holds in store, as Bird is a sensation:
“If 2019’s exceptional Woman represented an ambitious state of the world address, Hands – also known as Nine and a Half Songs For Nine and a Half Fingers – finds Bird turning the spotlight onto herself, raising issues that are sometimes far harder to confront, only to emerge optimistic and whole. Among these are issues of trust, alcohol abuse, stagnation, self-censorship and self-improvement, some addressed through personal recollections of crucial moments accumulated over the last two years. Each, however, is delivered by a voice uncommonly blessed with joy, ingenuity and empathy.
Where its predecesor was bathed in soul music, Hands adapts sounds from Birds’s early childhood. Barring the intimately confessional ‘I’ll Never Hide My Love Away’, its songs are flushed with bright colours, many familiar from the 1980s and ‘90s. Its bookends are ‘Go’, whose smooth R&B inflections provide a neat bridge from the album’s forerunner, and ‘Pretty Lies’, its euphoric conclusion powered by forty chunky chord progressions. In-between, Hands rarely pauses. The jubilant ‘What’s Wrong With Changing’ appropriates the rhythmic discipline of Janet Jackson’s Control, Rhythm Nation 1814 and janet., and ‘I Lose Myself Completely’ revels in Trevor Horn’s work, while the grinning ‘No Pants Dance’, written after witnessing neighbours celebrating lockdown’s end, would have delighted Prince, and ‘Dreamwriting’ – “a reminder to myself of one of my most favourite memories in recent years” – is full of warmth, lyrically and musically. ‘Aquarius’ dreamy chord changes and unexpected pedal steel, meanwhile, help unleash some of the prettiest instrumental sections 2022’s likely to enjoy, and there are pensive moments, too, not least ‘The Dive’, which describes a gesture Bird treasures as “one of the most brave and romantic memories I own” and which wields a muted trumpet and Mediterranean guitars while its melody skips along dreamily as though through a summer meadow. If the sonic palette is different, then, Hands is still defiantly, happily Wallis Bird”.
I will finish up by recommending Alfie Templeman’s Mellow Moon. Pre-order this gem. This is the debut album from an artist who has been building traction since 2018. This is an album that you definitely will want to investigate:
“Mellow Moon is the debut album from Alfie Templeman - an album that "feels like something of a miracle, landing somewhere between an otherworldly trip and a joy-filled ode to life back on earth". Like all journeys, the change in mood is palpable throughout Mellow Moon, with songs like the nostalgic '3D Feelings' or 'Broken', which is about "all the little wobbles of being a teen and figuring yourself out,” that bristle with the energy of a life being lived again.
There’s nuance in there, too. Candyfloss suggests that life can sometimes appear too good to be true, something Alfie has felt since was a kid. “There’s always a downside to the cool shit,” he says. “Candyfloss is what it all appears to be until you get deeper into it.”
The result is an easily accessible comfort place. Across 14 tracks Alfie closes his eyes and imagines another world, one where he’s at ease and not distracted by life’s many challenges. Inspired by modern influences like Steve Lacy, Khruangbin and Leon Bridges, as well as Alfie’s constant cosmic guide Todd Rundgren, Mellow Moon flows with an ease that belies its difficult creation. "It’s a moment in my life that I want to remember forever. I’ve put so much effort into this and it’s a real experience to listen to.”
Acting as both an intimate diary entry and a communal call to arms, Mellow Moon is Alfie’s most complete work to date and a platform from which he will surely use to propel himself further into the stratosphere. If ever proof were needed that music is a salvation or a transportative force, this is it”.
If you need guidance as to which albums to save some money for next month, I hope that my suggestions were of some assistance. There are many other great ones that you could look out for but, to me, the above are the very best. It is a busy and diverse month that promises something for everyone. There are plenty of brilliant albums that you can…
ADD to your list.