The Albums You Need to Know About Every Week
We know it’s all of a sudden winter, but instead of getting upset that it’s literally freezing at night and gets dark before 6pm, rejoice! There are a ton of great new albums coming out this week to make you warm, make you nostalgic and perhaps most importantly…make you dance. First and foremost, there’s the much buzzed-about Connan Mockasin, New Zealand’s freshest export (fans of Lorde, sit tight, his sound is completely different). Connan’s ”psych pop” is the love child of Ariel Pink and David Bowie.
Speaking of David Bowie, this week is a big one for new albums from older artists. David Bowie himself is proving how much he still rules with the release of the The Next Day Expanded Edition, a more detailed, and yep, you guessed it, expanded version of The Next Day, his 24th (!) studio album originally released on March 8th (his 66th birthday) of this year. This deluxe version has some additional tracks on it, including a James Murphy ten-minute remix of “Love is Lost”.
Also here to make you dance, we’ve got Cut Copy‘s new album out this week, Free Your Mind. The band’s fourth studio album has a decidedly more psychedelic and funky feel to it, thanks to Dave Fridmann’s masterful production (he’s also behind artists like Tame Impala, MGMT and The Flaming Lips. What we like the most about this album, though, is how 90′s trance it is, reminding us a bit of those songs from long-lost Jock Jams albums layered over a really solid pop/rock band.
Next up, there’s M.I.A., whose world, rap and electronic fusion is something we never get tired of. The artist’s fourth studio album, Matangi, is out officially on Tuesday, but you can stream the whole thing via the video playlist below. The album’s name is taken directly from M.I.A.’s inspiration from the Hindu goddess Matangi she found while making it, and like all of her releases, it’s really something to behold — a little goes a long way, but we’re glad it’s here. While there’s no one out there making music quite like M.I.A., there’s another big release this week in the rap space – Eminem is seemingly back from the grave with MMLP2, his eighth studio album and a continuation of his most acclaimed album, The Marshall Mathers LP. Nobody can quite make us feel like it’s 2003 like Eminem, but instead of getting caught up in the past, he’s using the same ambition, fast rhyming and personality that made us love him back then and updating the sound with new producers and guest performers, like fun. frontman Nate Ruess.
Last but not least, we’ve got some killer rock releases for you this week. Bryce Dessner, the man probably most well-known for being The National’s guitarist, is putting out his first album as a composer this week, collaborating with Kronos Quarter on Aheym. After seeing him perform as part of the Planetarium performance alongside composer Nico Muhly and Sufjan Stevens at BAM this past spring, we saw just how talented he is, no matter with, who or in which style he’s performing. Also in the indie rock royalty world, Yo La Tengo are releasing a 7″ album Super Kiwi, a single that didn’t make the cut on Fade, the band’s thirteenth studio album that came out earlier this year. Super Kiwi also features a cover of The Beach Boys’ “A Day In The Life of a Tree” on the B-side, making even the dreariest winter week a bit brighter.
