by Dan Goldin (@post_trash_)

Welcome to FUZZY MEADOWS, our weekly recap of this week's new music. We're sharing our favorite releases of the week in the form of albums, singles, and music videos along with the "further listening" section of new and notable releases from around the web. It's generally written in the early hours of the morning and semi-unedited... but full of love and heart. The list is in alphabetical order and we sincerely recommend checking out all the music we've included. There's a lot of great new music being released. Support the bands you love. Spread the word and buy some new music.

*Disclaimer: We are making a conscious effort not to include any artist in our countdown on back-to-back weeks in order to diversify the feature, so be sure to check the "further listening" as well because it's often of top-notch quality too.

ARMAND HAMMER & THE ALCHEMIST | “Haram” LP

Armand Hammer, the duo of ELUCID and Billy Woods, have proven themselves to be two of the brightest MCs hip-hop has to offer. Last year they absolutely dominated with their album Shrines in addition to ELUCID’s Small Bills collaboration and Billy Woods’ Brass collaboration with Moor Mother. Their linguistics and insight are matched by careful beat selection, always forward thinking, with loops and beats that work together with their rhyme schemes and gritty delivery. The duo linked up with veteran producer The Alchemist for Haram, their first LP to be produced entirely by one producer. Like many classic hip-hop albums, that singular vision goes a long way to create a cohesive structure for the pair to run lyrical loops around, with enough profound sentiment to have you listening on repeat for weeks to come. This is rap at its artistic pinnacle.

BLACK MIDI | “John L”

London’s Black Midi truly are the most unlikely of buzz bands. The quartet play a borderline inaccessible blend of prog and post-punk with a graceful technicality and a penchant for off-kilter melodic sensibilities. The praise is well deserved though and it’s always impressive when a band this strange is accepted into mass culture. Set to release their sophomore album, Cavalcade, on May 28th, the band’s first single “John L” remains every bit as freaked out and progressive as the best moments of Schlagenheim. From the stuttering stop and start pounding of the intro, this one is complex and well-constructed, with a composers attention to the structure and sweeping movements. The video is pretty amazing too with a big psych cult dance number that works better than you’d imagine it should.

FLOATIE | “Castleman”

Voyage Out may be the most infinitely repeatable album of the year. Floatie’s debut has a seamless flow, with each idea moving flawlessly to the next, a barrage of interesting constructions that fuse together as smooth as eggs. It’s a natural grace to make music as jarringly structured sound so damn easy on the ears and otherworldly. The dreamy nature of the record is captured to perfection on “Castleman,” a song that packs so much tangled brilliance together but settles everything with a cool charm and a wistful vocal melody. There are earworms in constant flux, moments that burst like spots in your eyes from looking at the sun for too long. It’s weird and wiggly in the best of ways and we could listen to it forever. The band’s debut album as a classic as they come.

L’ORANGE & NAMIR BLADE | “Corner Store Scandal”

A new record from L’Orange is always a reason for excitement, as the producer has given us modern staples like Marlowe (with Solemn Brigham), his work with Jeremiah Jae, and collaborations with vets like Kool Keith and Mr. Lif. Imaginary Everything finds L’Orange teaming up with Nashville’s Namir Blade, an MC and producer that has a colorful spectrum that was explored on last year’s spaced out Aphelion's Traveling Circus. Together they seem to bring the best out in one another on lead single “Corner Store Scandal,” with a beat that crackles open and hits hard on the boom-bap vibes and funky wah-wah soaked guitars. It’s the perfect psychedelic beat for Namir Blade to cruise over, kicking out rhymes with a playful style that tramples the beat but never comes across self-serious.

LAUNDROMAT | “Milky”

On “Milky,” the latest single from Laundromat’s upcoming Red EP, Toby Hayes takes an opportunity to slow things to a near crawl, dipping into a downer grooves that strays from the band’s usual sound. It’s still plenty entrancing and dreamy but this one gives up a bit of the retro futurism for a hazy and bent starry eyed vocal performance. Hayes remains one of the top songwriters, slinking around in the blinking lights of the guitars warbling tape manipulated sound. Things run in reverse, there’s slightly buried samples, and feedback that becomes silky, all as Hayes looks to stay on the lighter said, softly demanding “don’t darken my door.”

M.A.Z.E. | “311”

At some point between the release of their debut album and it’s follow-up it would seem that M.A.Z.E.’s band name into an acronym, but other than that, little has changed (in the best of ways). Set to release II via Lumpy Records (The Mind, Fried e/M, Natural Man Band), the Japanese punk band have collected several exceptional tour tapes together for a blistering LP of rattled intensity that, above all else, is so damn fun. The guitar tone is straight rust, absolutely buzzing around sharp riffs that shred at all times, the perfect chaos for the sweetly yelped vocals and the frantic rhythms. “311” is one of the album’s highlight, a certified ripper that only relents for one slight respite before grinding back into the band’s sugary and discordant punk. The entire record is beyond infectious, consider it essential listening.

RENÉE REED | “Renée Reed” LP

We’ve featured several singles from Renée Reed’s self-titled debut album, released this past week via Keeled Scales (Buck Meek, Sun June, Tenci) but we just can’t say enough great things about this record. Most of the songs are built on patterns that feel almost looping, a simple framework of finger picked guitar, eerie synths, or bayou jangle, Reed lays framework for her stunning and occasionally haunting vocals. The songs mix folk with the sound of Reed’s Lafayette surroundings, adding a Cajun touch to her sparse structures, each song its own cosmic blend of the earthy and alien. There’s a lot to get lost in between tracks like “Out Loud,” “Fast One,” and the jaw dropping swoon of “Your Seventh Moon”.

SNAPPED ANKLES | “Rhythm Is Our Business”

From out the trees, Snapped Ankles have returned, still fully committed to making the best and most hypnotic dance punk and krautrock infused post-punk of the era. Drawing influences somewhere between The B52s and Can, the London band announced their third album, Forest of Your Problems, due out July 2nd, continuing to sharpen their madness into electronic beats and mesmerizing sonic density. “Rhythm Is Our Business” is a full of motorik boogie, with spoken word vocals and lyrics that are both hilarious and true, “rhythm is my business… and it’s time to get down to business.”

WENDY EISENBERG | “A Line”

As a preface, (and I hope no one will hold it against me), I’m not really one that anyone would describe as “an intellectual,” so my thoughts on improvisational music are probably pretty “basic.” However, I am always excited to hear new music from the brilliant Wendy Eisenberg, whether it be freaky noise-prog-pop or experimental acoustic records. Eisenberg is sharing Cellini’s Halo, a new improvised guitar album via Garden Portal’s latest collection of releases (which also includes an awesome meditative album from Headroom’s Stefan Christensen), and the results are both inventive and engaging, but notes plucked, bent, and picked in all shapes and forms, the space surrounding them giving atmosphere and a sense of intimacy to the performance. “A Line” is one of the highlights, a song that feels direct while also a million miles away. It’s disorienting, raw, and occasionally detached, but each note resonates as Eisenberg creates new shapes and forms.

Wendy Eisenberg - "a line" from Garden Portal on Vimeo.

YAUTJA | “Tethered”

Yautja may just be the world’s greatest experimental metal band, at least we sure believe they are. The Nashville based trio are set to release their long-awaited and highly anticipated third album, The Lurch, via their new home at Relapse Records (Gatecreeper, Full of Hell, Pig Destroyer) and their inevitable takeover is well underway with the album’s lead single “Tethered.” From the colossal earthquake of Tyler Coburn’s drums on the intro to the ever shifting pummel of the riffs and rhythms, Yautja keep you constantly off-guard, tearing back and forth in an avalanche is dissonance and unbelievable musicianship (seriously, these three are all on another level), it’s a constant churn, sludgy and thrashing, defying all odds.

Further Listening:

MARCH 15 - MARCH 21:

MARCH 22 - MARCH 28:

Fuzzy Meadows: The Week's Best New Music (March 15th - March 28th)