by Dan Goldin (@post_trash_)
As we all head into the weekend, we’re happy to share a few of our favorite new releases, out this week (in splendid alphabetical order). The write-ups are all kept brief and bite sized, snippets to catch your interest. There’s a lot of great music out every week and these are just some of the many we think you should check out.
We missed last week (so much music, so little time… life, etc), but there were some real “heavy hitters” so we included them this week for your potential enjoyment.
THIS WEEK:
Drumwork Music Group
Spotify | Apple
Death of Deuce has been a long time coming and 7xvethegenius has crafted a modern hip-hop classic. The Buffalo based MC blends elegance and grit, her bars both hard and intricate, her delivery brilliant and blinding, rapping over eclectic beats that play to her many strengths, whether it's soul laced rap or skull cracking loops, 7xve’s truths shine on the mic throughout one of the year’s undeniable best hip-hops records.
Lower Grand Tapes
Bandcamp | Spotify | Apple
Blue Zero, Chris Natividad’s (Marbled Eye, Public Interest) new solo project, eschews the angularity of his other bands, opting instead for fuzzy beauty and muscular density, pop songs with blistering shoegaze strength and slow dripped melodies. His debut album, Colder Shade Blue, is a collection of sure footed songs that rely on earnest songwriting over glitchy aesthetics or pounding rhythms.
Fat Possum Records
Bandcamp | Spotify | Apple
Never a stranger to hip-hop's more experimental reaches, ELUCID returns with REVELATOR, a clamoring record that's equal parts psychedelic and electronic, free in form, but hard in statement. His lyrics retain an acidic sharpness, direct and taking aim at disproportionate class systems and inequality while drifting in and out of abstract focus and poetic detachment.
Highly Contagious / AWAL Recordings
Bandcamp | Spotify | Apple
Following a pair of great EPs, Melbourne's Gut Health release Stiletto, their first full length, expanding on the chaos of their danceable post-punk without losing any of their punchy bouncing pop core. Like a mix of B-52s and Television, Gut Health's mesmerizing approach sparks and splinters, providing an unglued energy as they warp disco and art rock into opposing shapes.
Self Released
Bandcamp | Spotify | Apple
If the music of Blessed is tightly wound to the point of snapping under pressure, Ritchot Textiles, a new trio featuring the three of the aforementioned band's four members, is elated to explore, locking into dissonant repetition and wandering into fried and hypnotic art rock minimalism. I, the band's debut, is a circular beast, a textural landscape of swirling melodic abrasion, continuously looping into oblivion.
Moon Glyph
Bandcamp | Spotify | Apple
It seems as though Baltimore’s Smoke Bellow are unfortunately calling it a day, but not before the trio released one more album, Structurally Sound, a new locked-in psych odyssey from the visionary experimental pop band. The band continue to dive deeper in a tangled web of motorik rhythms and resonant art punk, bouncing around in your headphones like celestial ping-pong.
Self Released
Bandcamp | Spotify
It's been nearly four months since Tha God Fahim released an album, which is to say he's overdue (by his standards). The Atlanta based MC returns today with Machine Gun Vocabulary, produced in full by Cartune Beatz, a signature mix of Fahim's off-the-cuff bars and the occasional track of authentic sentiment. Either way, it's always great to hear Fahim control the mic.
FURTHER LISTENING:
Black & White Cat / Black & White Cake - Black & White Cat / Black & White Cake
Black Ends - Psychotic Spew
Chat Pile - Cool World
Chimers - Through Today
Envy - Eunoia
Hemlock - 444
Jamison Field Murphy - It Has To End
The Lipschitz - Plinth
Lust Online - Go Outside
Mutant Academy - Keep Holly Alive
Oranssi Pazuzu - Muuntautuja
Picture That - Strum
LAST WEEK:
Century Media Records
Bandcamp | Spotify | Apple
Morbid Angel, Pink Floyd, Gorguts, and Tangerine Dream walk into a bar… it's not the set-up of a niche joke, but the touchstones behind Blood Incantation's cosmic death metal prog adventure, Absolute Elsewhere. The band play both galactic 70's psych and grizzled death metal with equal admiration, creating something that feels like a shift in the vacuum of space. It could be your gateway into death metal... or you may find yourself on the strangest acid trip of your life.
Feel It Records
Bandcamp | Spotify | Apple
CLASS, the perennially great Tucson punk band, are back with A Healthy Alternative, their third full length album in as many years (not to mention EPs and singles). An exceptionally dynamic band, their new album darts between SST styled rippers, howling UK indebted street punk tunes, and rattled and ragged power-pop. CLASS are pulling from a deep well of exceptional influences.
Matador Records
Bandcamp | Spotify | Apple
No one likes a dang ol’ supergroup… except when they do. The Hard Quartet is an exceptional pairing of veteran musicians that understand each other. They know when to shine and when to give space to one another. Throughout their self-titled debut each of the members - Jim White (Dirty Three), Stephen Malkmus (Pavement), Emmett Kelly (The Cairo Gang), and Matt Sweeney (Chavez), prove to be pieces of the puzzle, the camaraderie and mutual admiration the glue that seems to hold them together.
Too Pure Records
Bandcamp | Spotify | Apple
mclusky's The Difference Between Me and You Is That I'm Not On Fire gets a 20th anniversary reissue together with a welcome remastering from Bob Weston. It sounds phenomenal, bringing new life to a record that really pushes the dynamic range. A classic effort that seemed to have dismantled the band at the time (they're baaaack), it feels vibrant and fresh all over again.
Fire Records
Bandcamp | Spotify | Apple
The magic of MEMORIALS' early releases is ever apparent throughout Memorial Waterslides, stretching between a reckless but brilliant strain of pop and visionary yet fractured sound collage. There’s a lot going on at the core of Verity Susman and Matthew Simms' music, their songs deconstructing and swirling, layered with mesmerizing rhythms aiding and abetting melodic synth permeation.
The Influenyce Enterprise
Spotify | Apple
Rome Streetz is one of underground hip-hop’s coldest MC’s, his lyrics eloquently grimy, dexterous in delivery but always hard. Likewise, Daringer is one of underground hip-hop’s rawest producers, his beats built on no frills ultra-tough loops and neck snapping drums. Hatton Garden Holdup, their collaborative album, is a solid gold pairing that crackles with rewind-worthy bars and boom-bap dirt.
XL Recordings
Bandcamp | Spotify | Apple
The Smile, comprised of Thom Yorke and Jonny Greenwood (of Radiohead) and Tom Skinner (of Sons of Kemet) really need no introduction at this point. Cutouts is their third album in two years (the second this year), and it might be their best effort yet. The trio lean into explosive motorik boogies and krautrock influences as they squirm and groove with unprecedented urgency.
Prosthetic Records
Bandcamp | Spotify | Apple
Undeath are sort of the champions of "fun" death metal. Their sound is still brutally heavy, cavernous, and oozing with gore and dread, but there's big hooks, enormous riffs, and well... it sounds joyous (in terms of blistering death metal). More Insane is an amped up beast of thrashing old school death metal with a modern disgust, and it's ready to crush a few skulls.
Further Listening:
A Place To Bury Strangers - Synthesizer
Adam McGrath - Methuen's Lot
All Feels - This Place Is A Message
Assisted Living - Is Coming
The Blood Brothers - Crimes (reissue)
Chubby And The Gang - And Then There Was…
Closetalkers - Path To Peace
Converge - Live in Orlando, FL 03.14.22
Das Nest - The Nest
Disintegration - Shiver in a Weak Light
Fan Club - Another Demonstration 2024
Geordie Greep - The New Sound
Godspeed You! Black Emporer - NO TITLE AS OF 13 FEBRUARY 2024 28,340 DEAD
Hex Records - Hex 25 Year Comp: Ripped
Hitmen - Rock To Forget
Human Impact - Gone Dark
Joyer - I See Forward and Back
Maul - In the Jaws of Bereavement
Nolan Potter - A Cupboard Full of Noise - Live at Stateside Theatre
Poise - Hell Or High Water
Pressure Pin - Polyurethane
Sharp Pins - Mod Mayday 23
Sleater-Kinney - Little Rope (Deluxe)
Thee Sacred Souls - Got A Story To Tell
Thine Retail Simps - Strike Gold, Strike Back, Strike Out
The Wickies - The Wickies