Out This Week | Post-Trash Highlights

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.

Featured

ARMAND HAMMER & THE ALCHEMIST | "Mercy"

Backwoodz Studioz
Bandcamp | Spotify | Apple

Armand Hammer are the vanguard of modern hip-hop, the duo of billy woods and ELUCID forever pushing the envelope further. While We Buy Diabetic Test Strips took them into more alien territory, Mercy, the group's second collaboration with The Alchemist handling production duties, finds them firmly back in the pocket, their creative spirit still ascending toward its apex. ALC's beats are hazy and immersive, both jazzy and trunk rattling, the perfect framework for Armand Hammer's tangled bars and visionary tales. Mercy is another monumental record, capable of both anything and everything.

JUANA MOLINA | "DOGA"

Sonamos
Bandcamp | Spotify | Apple

Juana Molina's DOGA, a record six years in the making, is astounding, a masterpiece of contrary ideas - beauty and dissonance, haunting landscapes and lively rhythms, minimalistic but bursting with texture - all coming together to create something otherworldly yet familiar. It's an utterly mesmerizing album from an artist that mastered her craft long ago but continues to push experimental pop forward with complete sonic immersion and devout attention to detail. Cheap hype and expensive press cycles be damned, DOGA is one of the year's best albums.

THE LENTILS | "Takin' It Easy The Hard Way"

Anxiety Blanket Records
Bandcamp | Spotify | Apple

If you find yourself saying "damn, this is the best album from The Lentils yet" after each of Luke Csehak's releases, you're not alone in that sentiment. Takin' It Easy The Hard Way, the latest from the LA based experimental folk project, is world weary and relatable, a gorgeously designed record with brilliant lyrics, intricate but stripped back homemade compositions, and a steely focus. There's a deeply personal sensibility to it and an unshakeable sense of struggle, but Csehak always seems able to find the beauty in it all.

TOTAL SHAM | "Redline"

Self Released
Bandcamp

Kansas City hardcore band Total Sham return with Redline, an absolutely reckless EP of unbridled energy and scorched earth riffs. To call it a ripper would be the understatement of a lifetime, as this one is unglued at every level, hurtling from one track to the next in a frenzy of blistering distortion and pummeling rhythms, but Total Sham are also a dynamic band, darting into deranged yet catchy garage punk and noise rock at times to keep us on our toes.

WHELPWISHER | "Greatest Hits"

Self Released
Bandcamp | Spotify | Apple

Celebrate ten years of whelpwishin' with Greatest Hits, a new retrospective collection from Ben Grigg's (Babe Report, FCKR JR, Geronimo!) solo project Whelpwisher. If the project began as an excuse to learn various instruments and recording techniques, you'd hardly know it. Grigg writes music with an ever present glow, a depth, and a warmth that coats the raw fuzz and strength of his swarming hooks. An essential collection of FM gold-tinged alternative rock basement recordings.

WICCANS | "Phase IV"

Unlawful Assembly / Drunken Sailor Records
Bandcamp | Spotify | Apple

It's hard to believe it's been eight years since Sailing A Crazy Ship but a new WICCANS albums is always worth the wait. The Austin hardcore band return with PHASE IV, once again proving themselves to be one of hardcore's most adventurous and dexterous bands as they decimate a wide range of influences. PHASE IV is forward thinking hardcore, hammering with menace and velocity, but built on touches of psych punk and southern fried rock 'n' roll riffs. WICCANS are never afraid to get weird, and they do it without losing an ounce of their core aggression.

Further Listening:

Brian Wilson - Live at The Roxy (25th Anniversary Edition)
Buddie - Glass
Bun B & Cory Mo - Way Mo Trill
Dan Francia - There Is A Way
Dari Bay - Longest Day of the Year (reissue)
Deerhoof - Friend Opportunity (reissue)
Domo Genesis & Graymatter - Scram
EarthBall - Outside Over There
Havana Syndrome - Kill Your Brain
Hüsker Dü - 1985: The Miracle Year (box set)
Julia Blair - All Of My Important Things
Little Mazarn - Election Results
Obits - L.E.G.I.T. (reissue)
Rigorous Institution - Tormentor
Sayon - Demo
Shungu - Faith in the Unknown
Sorry - Cosplay
Streets of Separation - Faux Fur
Tha God Fahim & Nicholas Craven - Dump Gawd: Hyperbolic Time Chamber Rap 20
William Basinski - The Disintegration Loops - Arcadia Archive Edition (reissue)

Further Listening:

by: dan goldin