Releases from March–April 2015
Great albums from around the world
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Find releases from 2016.
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The hottest pre-sale releases
Pre-sale of the week is Hurry Up Tomorrow by The Weeknd, out on 24 January.
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Releases for 27 April 2015
Dont miss Magic Whip by Blur this week, their first studio album for 16(!) years – where did those years go! It’s also worth mentioning The Brian Jonestown Massacre’s Musique de Film Imaginé, a musical score created by the inimitable Anton Newcombe for a film that doesn’t exist; the listener’s task is to listen to the soundtrack and imagine the film!! There are also new albums from Olivia Chaney, Great Lake Swimmers and Drake.
- 16 years since their last album as a four-piece, next week sees the release of a brand-new album from Blur. The recordings, which began during a five-day break from touring in Spring 2013 – at Avon Studios in Kowloon, Hong Kong – were put aside when the group finished touring and returned to their respective lives. Last November Graham Coxon revisited the tracks and, drafting in Blur’s early producer Stephen Street, he worked with the band on the material. Albarn then added lyrics and the 12 tracks of The Magic Whip are the result.
- The most extensive reissue of the Emerson Lake & Palmer masterpiece to date. This deluxe 2-CD+DVDA digipack format includes fully remastered audio, new high-resolution stereo mixes, 5.1 mixes by Jakko Jakszyk, a previously unheard version of ‘From The Beginning’, digitally restored artwork, a 16-page booklet with new liner notes and photos.
- Olivia Chaney is a singer, songwriter and multi-instrumentalist. Her debut album, The Longest River, runs the gamut from jazz to classical to folk. Her voice holds a purity and tension during songs about loss, love and the cruelties of fate.
- The next release in the continuing series of reissues of the entire catalogue by legendary classical rock band Sky. The album’s success followed a highly memorable concert by the band at Westminster Abbey in London on 24 February 1981, which was recorded and broadcast by BBC Television.
- Canadian indie darlings Great Lake Swimmers release their sixth album, A Forest of Arms. With surging rhythm section, razor-sharp violin and flourishing banjo and guitars, Tony Dekker and his band mates have created some of their most dynamic songs to date. A number of the vocal and acoustic guitar tracks were recorded amid the haunting acoustics, stalactites, and circling bats in the caves.
- Musique de film imaginé is a soundtrack that pays homage to the great European film directors of the late 50s and 60s – such as François Truffaut and Jean-Luc Godard to name but two – created by Anton Newcombe on behalf of The Brian Jonestown Massacre for an imaginary French film.
- If You’re Reading This It’s Too Late is the fourth album from Canadian rapper Drake. Includes the single ‘Preach’ featuring PARTYNEXTDOOR as well as guest appearances from Lil Wayne and Travi$ Scott.
Releases for 20 April 2015
While Record Store Day dominated this week, there were still a few crackers among new albums, including the release of the week from Alabama Shakes, plus new albums from Mark Kozelek, Built To Spill and They Might Be Giants.
- Alabama Shakes return after their breakthrough album, Boys & Girls, with Sound & Color, an album that highlights their further maturing into a proper rock’n’roll band. This latest is surely the first staging post on the route to arena stardom.
- Live At Biko’s was recorded during a gig from 6 April 2014 in Milan, Italy. The release features more than half of the songs on Benji plus other favourites like ‘Admiral Fell Promises’, "Ålesund" and a trio of tracks from Perils from the Sea, Mark Kozelek’s collaboration with the Album Leaf’s Jimmy Lavalle.
- Built To Spill is one of the most endearing and enduring rock bands of its generation, and Untethered Moon is their eighth studio album. However, it is the first to be recorded with new band members Steve Gere (drums) and Jason Albertini (bass), who join vocalist/guitarist Doug Martsch plus guitarists Brett Netson and Jim Roth. Martsch’s strong work ethic combined with each band member’s rich experience creates a fascinating aural topography, with Martsch setting course and navigating and each member coming to the music with a different set of expectations and ideals. With the complexity and variety of music they have created, Built To Spill endeavours to make songs interesting for both themselves and their audience.
- They Might Be Giants release their new album, Glean, on 20 April on their own Idlewild imprint. The range of these recordings is truly staggering. From the manic violin-driven ‘Music Jail, Pt. 1 & 2’ to the bluesy grinding of ‘Underwater Woman’, Glean comprises some of the most vital work of They Might Be Giants’ 30-year career. With this album, TMBG’s sound is in equal turns as rocking, surprising, effervescent, and truly original as they have ever been.
Releases for 13 April 2015
Release of the week is the slightly delayed, but well worth the wait, live album from Eels. We also have a live unplugged set from Status Quo and new albums from Beth Hart, Halestorm, Stornaway, Calexico, Villagers and The Wombats.
- In May 2014 Eels embarked on an ambitious 53-show world tour. Starting in Phoenix, Arizona and crossing the USA and Canada before rolling through mainland Europe to Great Britain, the band performed spine-tingling shows at New York’s Apollo, Chicago’s Vic Theater, Los Angeles’ Orpheum Theater, The Montreux Jazz Festival and The Amsterdam Concert Hall, among many others. On the night of 30 June Eels returned to London’s legendary Royal Albert Hall for the first time in nine years to play a stunning show that was filmed and recorded. This is the result.
- The First Lady of the Blues, Beth Hart, releases her seventh solo record. She has worked alongside Jeff Beck and Slash – not a bad recommendation!
- With their new album, Halestorm reach deep within and conjure their most engaging and eclectic songs to date. On this album they push their musical boundaries further than we’ve heard thus far in their catalogue, crafting songs that rise from a whisper to a scream and back again.
- A recording of the concert given at the Roundhouse last year by the mighty Quo. Hear all the hits unplugged, as they were written!
- Stornoway return in 2015 with their third album, Bonxie. For the first time the band enlisted a producer: none other than Gil Norton, noted for his work with Pixies, Foo Fighters, Twin Atlantic, etc. Gil certainly rocked Stornoway’s world and shook them out of their comfort zones; helping them cut to the chase, sizing up the new songs and shaping them with raptor precision. While Stornoway’s second album, Tales From Terra Firma, was concerned with very personal stories, Bonxie is far more outward looking. It is infused with a humanistic ideal, a sense of humility and wonderment for the forces of nature, a desire and need for mutual regard and for a respect towards each other and the environment.
- Calexico is no stranger to negotiating borders. For the better part of two decades, eight albums and countless trips around the globe, Joey Burns and John Convertino have crossed musical barriers with their band, embracing a multitude of diverse styles, variety in instrumentation and well-cultivated signature sounds.
- Darling Arithmetic is the third album from Villagers. The follow-up to Conor O’Brien’s debut, Becoming a Jackal, and its successor, Awayland – both hugely acclaimed and Mercury-nominated – this is a breathtakingly beautiful, intimate album entirely about love and relationships.
- Darling Arithmetic was written, recorded, produced and mixed by O’Brien at home – the loft of a converted farmhouse that he shares in the coastal town of Malahide to the north of Dublin – revealing a single-minded artist at the peak of his already considerable songwriting powers. It encompasses the various shades of feeling – desire, obsession, lust, loneliness and confusion, and deeper into philosophical and existential territory, across a cast of lovers, friends, family and even strangers. On this album, O’Brien doesn’t only pare back his use of language but looks deep into his own heart and motives.
- This new batch of songs finds Murph’s lyrics developing a depth and personal confessional slant that’s rare in modern song-writing: take the blunt and startling theme of ‘Anti-D’ for starters, in which Murph likens himself to an anti-depressant. But fans of his more story-based writing will find much to enjoy in the synth-rock, disco-destroying brilliance of ‘I Never Knew I Was A Techno Fan’ – the tune where ‘Mr Brightside’ chats up La Roux in a drug-swamped Hoxton dive bar. Key line: “I’m in debt to you / But don’t feed me plant food.”
Releases for 7 April 2015
Release of the week is Nadine Shah’s Fast Food, and there are also new albums from All Time Low, Brian Wilson, Josh Rouse, Duke Special, Turbowolf, The Lilac Time and Waxahatchee.
- Born from a fervid two-month writing session, Fast Food exists on a knife-edge every bit as dramatic as we’ve come to expect from Nadine Shah, but with a sharpened eye for all things hook-laden. Building on the bruised honesty and charm of its predecessor, Fast Food rings with the confidence of an artist completing their most coherent musical chapter to date. Fast Food is a more concentrated effort: it is the sound of Nadine as she is now – stepping out from behind the piano and growing with immeasurable confidence. ‘It is a reflection upon a world obsessed with instant gratification and a life full of complicated relationships. It’s the sudden realisation that you’re never going to be anybody’s first love ever again.’
- The new album, Future Hearts, features All Time Low’s trademark sound, and you can see the band’s continued growth. This is a truly remarkable new album. All Time Low will continue to please fans old and new with guest features from Mark Hoppus (blink-182) and Joel Madden (Good Charlotte).
- Brian Wilson is one of popular music’s most deeply revered figures: a legendary writer, producer, arranger and performer of some of the most cherished music in pop music history.
- The Embers of Time is one of the finest collections in a celebrated career that’s earned Josh Rouse plaudits everywhere.
- Ulster born singer-songwriter and gramophone impresario Duke Special returns with Look Out Machines!, a superbly crafted collection of catchy, rousing and lyrically poignant tracks. A most welcome and long-overdue return from an artist back at the very top of his game.
- Since their formation in 2008, Bristolian riff-ragers Turbowolf have melted minds with their signature brand of patchouli-drenched punk rock fury. Their live rituals are the stuff of legend: a trapdoor into the cosmic beyond via the uncharted depths of your mind, sound-tracked by the red-hot fuzz of crackling speakers and overloaded channels.
- It took a long time before one became the other. When viewed from space, Stephen Duffy’s path may well appear labyrinthine, filled with loopholes and trapdoors. Yet a sober perspective reveals path of a musician and poet who is independent in the very best sense of the word.
- Katie Crutchfield is a natural writer of hyper-personal, heart-wrenching songs. Since picking up a guitar as a teenager, with an assortment of melodic punk bands and solo songwriting projects, she’s demonstrated a gift for eloquently articulating the sorts of complex emotions that typically seem too confusing for words.
Releases for 30 March 2015
Release of the week is Carrie & Lowell by Sufjan Stevens: an elegant, heartfelt depiction of how his relationship with his mother changed as she died. There are also new studio albums from The Prodigy, Godspeed You! Black Emperor, Ryley Walker, Death Cab for Cutie, Ron Sexsmith and Robben Ford, and a live performance from Eels.
- Carrie & Lowell is an album named after Sufjan Stevens’ mother and stepfather, and marks a return to Stevens’ folk roots. Thematically the 11 songs address life and death, love and loss, and the artist’s struggle to make sense of the beauty and ugliness of love.
- Uncompromising first single ‘Nasty’ fires out of the cannons like a ferocious statement of intent and finds Keith Flint at his snarling best. The Prodigy have always cut a solitary path through the noise-scapes of electronic dance music. They’ve dropped five epoch-defining studio albums and delivered unforgettable live performances that have taken electronic beats into unchartered territories. Throughout this time they’ve remained resolutely focused on their own vision, inspiring legions of artists along the way. The Day Is My Enemy is probably the most British-sounding album you’ll hear this year. Not British in the flag-waving jingoistic sense, but in a way that understands that the night-time spaces of urban Britain are a multi-hued cacophony of cultures.
- Ryley Walker is the reincarnation of the True American Guitar Player. That’s as much a testament to his roving, rambling ways as to the fact that his Guild D-35 guitar has endured a few stints in the pawnshop!
- Asunder, Sweet And Other Distress clocks in at a succinct 40 minutes and is arguably the most focused and best-sounding recording of the band’s career. The Godspeed ethos of wordlessly eliciting universal truths remains as devastatingly effective as ever.
- In May 2014 Eels embarked on an ambitious 53-show world tour. Starting in Phoenix, Arizona and crossing the USA and Canada before rolling through mainland Europe to Great Britain, the band performed spine-tingling shows at New York’s Apollo, Chicago’s Vic Theater, Los Angeles’ Orpheum Theater, The Montreux Jazz Festival and The Amsterdam Concert Hall, among many others. On the night of 30 June Eels returned to London’s legendary Royal Albert Hall for the first time in nine years to play a stunning show that was filmed and recorded. This is the result.
- Delayed until 13 April.
- The mighty Death Cab for Cutie return with Kintsugi. Do your ears a favour and buy it! The vinyl version will be released on 5 May.
- The album takes its name from the luggage retrieval belt at Los Angeles airport where bags off Toronto inbound flights are delivered. 2014 was an incredible year for Ron Sexsmith. In March, his 2013 album Forever Endeavour won the Juno award for best adult alternative album, the third Juno win in Ron’s career.
- Robben Ford is one of the premier electric guitarists today, particularly known for his blues playing, but also for his ability to be comfortable in a variety of musical contexts. A five-time Grammy nominee, he has played with artists as diverse as Joni Mitchell, Jimmy Witherspoon, Miles Davis, George Harrison, Phil Lesh, Bonnie Raitt, Michael McDonald, Bob Dylan, John Mayall, & Greg Allman.
Releases for 23 March 2015
Album of the week for 23 March is the fabulous debut album from Australian indie songstress Courtney Barnett, plus new releases from Seasick Steve and Laura Marling, along with James Bay, The Staves, The Cribs, Michael Shenker Group and Gun.
- Following the runaway success of her EP collection, A Sea of Split Peas, Courtney Barnett returns with her debut album. Recorded in the Autumn of 2014 in an intense ten-day session at Head Gap studios in Melbourne, the album finally brings Barnett’s incisive vision into stark, unflinching focus; her wit sharpened to a knife-edge, her melodies more infectious and addictive than ever.
- Sometimes I Sit And Think, And Sometimes I Just Sit cements Barnett’s standing as one of the most distinctive voices in indie rock. Mixing witty, often hilarious observations with devastating self-assessment over a beguiling collection of songs that reveals her as an ambitious songwriter with an ear for clever turns of phrase and an eye for story-song details that are literate without being pretentious.
- Produced and written by Seasick Steve and recorded in the front room at the little farm where he lives, his seventh studio record, Sonic Soul Surfer, is most ambitious work yet.
- Moving towards a much bigger and more electric feel than in her previous albums, Short Movie is the fifth album from Brit Award-winning Laura Marling. In the space of only seven years since her debut, Laura has been a constant presence in end-of-year lists and award nominations and has already been shortlisted for the Mercury Music Prize three times.
- Big dreams are often born in small towns, and James Bay is one such dreamer who dared to make his come true. The Hitchin-born troubadour is on course to captivate the world with his guitar. His debut album, recorded in Nashville’s prestigious Blackbird Studios, is set to further cement James as one of the British talents to pay attention to.
- If I Was is a record that takes the initial blueprint of 2012’s Dead & Born & Grown debut album and gives it a real sense of muscle, darkness and depth to those already untouchable harmonies. What The Staves have produced is a genuinely beautiful, soaring and powerful album that firmly positions them as one of Britain’s most treasured young bands.
- The Cribs mark a welcome return with their new album, For All My Sisters. The band’s sixth studio album, it follows 2013’s career spanning Payola collection and 2012’s Top 10 album In The Belly Of The Brazen Bull. For All My Sisters marks the start of the next chapter in a decade-long existence that has seen the band continually evolve and thrill, ever advancing while stockpiling an enviable arsenal of songs.
- The deluxe version also contains a live DVD.
- Spirit On A Mission is a rapturous, explosive collection of brand-new songs steeped in shades of dark and light. Musically and lyrically, the new album shows a re-energised guitarist at the top of his game, surrounded by some of the best musicians in rock.
- Frantic channels all the different styles of their previous records to create a brand new sound and direction for the band. Gun’s contemporary take on authentic rock gave them an edge over their peers.
Releases for 16 March 2015
Massive new albums from Mark Knopfler and Björk, plus new releases from Modest Mouse, Allison Moorer, Sleeping With Sirens, Will Butler, Tobias Jesso and Sam Lee.
- Mark Knopfler releases his eighth solo album. The new album features 11 new Knopfler songs inspired by a wide range of subjects including Beryl Bainbridge and Basil Bunting. The songs contain Mark’s usual wryly but accurately observed vignettes of real life wrapped up in a musical accompaniment of distinctive subtlety.
- There is also a deluxe CD edition at £14.99
- Eighth studio album by the Icelandic musician. This is a relationship breakup album, infused with heartache. This record is extremely emotional at its high points, to the extent where it seems both thrilling and draining at times. Musically, strings and all sorts of electronics provide a riveting backdrop for Björk’s entrancing voice.
- The first album for eight years by the American rock outfit. The follow-up is already being recorded, according to Isaac Brook, so it should be a eight-year wait for the next!
- In February 2010, when Allison Moorer released her last album, Crows, she was married (to fellow musician Steve Earle) and was just two months away from the birth of the couple’s son. Now, nearly five years later, as she prepares for the release of her next LP, the brilliant – and extraordinarily candid – Down to Believing, she is separated from Earle and navigating the bewildering diagnosis of her son’s autism.
- Will Butler has been a member of the band Arcade Fire for over 10 years. This is his first release under his own name.
- Debut 2015 album! Heart-wrecking piano-pop ‘n’ velvety crooning from the Vancouver songsmith.
- London Folk artist Sam Lee returns with The Fade In Time, a follow-up to 2012’s Ground Of Its Own, which was nominated for the Mercury Music Prize. Sam takes a 21st-Century view of folk traditions from the UK and around the world, re-imagining the British folk tradition through the eyes of the wider world.
Releases for 9 March 2015
Brand new albums from pop legends Madonna, Marc Almond, Jimmy Somerville and Robin Trower, along with new releases from Matthew E. White, Enslaved and Bethel Music, and a reissue of Deep Purple live from 1971.
- Once stars reach a certain point, it’s easy to forget what they became famous for and concentrate solely on their personas. Madonna is such a star. Arguably, she was the first female pop star to gain complete control of her music and image.
- Fresh Blood is a bracing, beguiling record and a bold advance for White.
- Continuing the official release of live sets by the classic Deep Purple line-up.
- In Times, the 13th studio album from Norwegian extreme progressive metallers Enslaved, is once again self-produced in their home country.
- On a mountain top North of Redding, CA, the Bethel Music community gathered for an unforgettable evening of worship. The resulting live album and film portrays breathtaking visuals and resounds with hope. We Will Not Be Shaken presents 11 new songs led by Bethel Music’s artist collective, including several debut artists.
- Released on Robin’s 70th birthday, Something’s About To Change shows a world-class musician at the top of his game.
- Some of the songs on this album have a more personal melancholy, reflective and evocative feel. The title track, ‘The Velvet Trail’, is a song about memories, nostalgia, childhood and death. So it is too with ‘The Pain of Never’. This could be the ultimate Marc Almond record: electric, lush, emotional, dark and sexy.
- Jimmy Sommerville says of this album: ‘Happy days indeed. I’ve finally made the disco album I always wanted to and never thought could. If I was 15 again I’d buy it, sit on my bed, slowly open the gate fold, slide out the vinyl, place it on the turntable then jump off the bed and imagine someone just passed me a tambourine I’d be in heaven!’
Releases for 2 March 2015
Release of the week is the debut album by British country act The Shires, plus brand new releases from Steven Wilson, Fairport Convention, Jon Hopkins, Ghostpoet, Purity Ring, Swervedriver and Gang of Four
- The Shires’s debut, Brave, paves the way for a British country music movement. With their hearts in the home counties and their heads in Nashville, USA, The Shires combine the best of both musical worlds. The album boasts both lyrically and vocally powerful ballads as well as pop-tinged dance-floor tunes and love songs, taking the listener through 360 degrees of emotion. Other tracks on the album combine the classic pop-rock drive of Fleetwood Mac with the uplifting singalong anthems of The Lumineers. The Shires have literally found a piece of country to call their own.
- Steven Wilson, four-time Grammy nominee, multi-instrumentalist, producer, and founder member of Porcupine Tree, returns in 2015 with his highly anticipated fourth solo album, Hand.Cannot.Erase.
- Myths and Heroes is the latest album from Britain’s best-known folk-rock band, Fairport Convention. Featuring thirteen new songs, this eagerly awaited release is Fairport’s first new studio album for four years.
- The story arc with which Jon Hopkins succeeded on Immunity makes another appearance on Late Night Tales, with a perfectly sculpted excursion over this widescreen mix. Opening with the unreleased ‘Sleepers Beat Theme’ by composer Ben Lukas Boysen, ghostly pianos skip elegantly hither and thither, among rising strings, as on Darkstar’s ‘Hold Me Down’. Nils Frahm is here, his sonic palette perfect for the job, while labelmate A Winged Victory For The Sullen contribute ‘Requiem For The Static King Part I’. Sigur Rós offshoot Jónsi & Alex’s heroic ‘Daniell In The Sea’ sends us forth towards the Baltic with tears streaming.
- Shedding Skin is the manifestation of a new challenge, of fresh thinking, and a brave confident stride into previously uncharted waters. Ten songs that embrace, unite and narrate observations that are designed to sit beside each other through bright peaks and dark valleys.
- Purity Ring is a Halifax/Montreal-based duo comprising Corin Roddick and Megan James who make lullabies for the club, drawing equally from airy 90s R&B, lush dream pop, and the powerful, bone-rattling immediacy of modern hip-hop. Megan’s remarkable voice is at once ecstatic and ethereal.
- Swervedriver were formed in Oxford in 1989 around core members Adam Franklin and Jim Hartridge. The band’s mix of guitar-fuelled energy and forlorn melodies echoes American acts like Dinosaur Jr. and Sonic Youth.
- What Happens Next is Gang of Four’s thrilling and unsettling ninth album, the successor to 2011’s acclaimed Content. Founding guitarist and songwriter Andy Gill has constructed a new Gang of Four.
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