Another week, another load of music recommendations for your delectation!
Bursting into action this week with Aussie band Wet Blankets who are releasing their debut album, “Rise of the Wet Blankets”. These guys do not mess around – the album is 11 songs but only 18 minutes’ long! It’s being released on vinyl only, & has no cover art – all about the music, it seems! That’s no bad thing. The music itself is rowdy and feral, but there is also a certain warmth – this band engage their audience & bring a humor to their music within the delivery of it. Listen now, jump up & down like a mad thing, shout about it, but most of all buy the record – it’s limited to 500 copies worldwide, so get on with it!!
Next up this week is the 13th album from Nebraskan singer Simon Joyner, “Green, Branch & Bone“. This is a man who has been an inspiration to Bright Eyes (Conor Oberst has nothing but lovely words to say about him), and has worked with the likes of The Mountain Goats and Smog. Indeed, he is frequently likened to Bill Callahan in style. Joyner is a melancholic poet. His vocals are imperfect. His music is dark, fragile and mellow. If you like Leonard Cohen, you’ll like him. Check it out…
Inventions is a collaboration between Mark T Smith of Explosions in the Sky and Matthew Cooper, who is more commonly known as Eluvium. The melding of ambience and experimental prog-rock could easily have gone horribly wrong, but they proved they could make it work in 2013 when they released their eponymous debut as part of the Inventions project. Now they’re due to release “Maze of Woods“, and they set out with “Escapers” by stating “I wanted to do something that I don’t know how to do”. I LOVE that. Now I have something to say which you’ve no doubt heard before: “Where words fail, music speaks.” Listen…
Other new music releases this week are…
Nic Hessler – Soft Connections
Sam Lee – The Fade in Time
Tobias Jesso Jr. – Goon
Olafur Arnalds & Alice Sara Ott – The Chopin Project
Will Butler – Policy
Twin Shadow – Eclipse
Glen Hansard – It Was Triumph We Once Proposed (EP)
Modest Mouse – Strangers to Ourselves
