[metalsonata]

 
Stetson's trick is sort of an old one by this point, but with no imitators to speak of it's nonetheless continually impressive. Stetson's technical mastery of the saxophone and physical endurance is simply stunning on all levels, and he's at the peak of his considerable powers here. Of special note is the 15 minute title track--it boggles my mind that this much noise is being made by just one man and his horn. The best thing about what Stetson does however is how he makes single-horn, almost-avant-garde 'jazz' so accessible. This album is downright poppy at moments, and several vocal contributions by Justin Vernon of Bon Iver don't hurt, either. I think that most people would really enjoy this, once they understand what it is that they're actually listening to. One of the finest albums of the year, thus far.

 

[tattare]

 
 
The Cat Empire - Steal the Light 
May 17th looks like its Digital only though    
 

 

[StratocasterMan]

 
Little Wings - Last (2013)
 
From pitchfork.com:
 
On a recent episode of Portlandia, there was a sketch that made fun of overly quiet folk music. Fred Armisen got on a stage in a field with a banjo, the band got ready, played a few hushed notes, and he sang "I had a dream, of my grandfather and his wooden chair." That was it. By the end of the sketch, a woman lightly blew on some feathers. She'd made the quietest music and had "won" the competition. The prize? Tickets to a race involving a pickup truck driving loudly through a dusty field. It was a funny moment, but it also illustrated something deeper: to make music that is obsessed with intimacy in our current world, you have to willfully disassociate yourself from the internet, from cities, and largely, from reality. 
As Little Wings, Kyle Field has made a practice out of hiding out from the world while continuing to try and understand it. He's kicked around in M Ward's backing band, he played with Devendra Banhart for awhile. Mostly, he became known as a staple of the wide-eyed post Beat Happening K Records scene-- appearing on a few Microphones records while also collaborating with Calvin Johnson. What he shares with that scene is a reverent approach to nature and an appealingly amateur vocal style. You get the feeling that he'd prefer to walk around in the moss with no shoes on than check his email.
Musically, he isn't going so much for innovation as he is for a constant exploration of themes across an entire discography: loneliness, growing older, singing about his own music as a means of self-discovery in an infinite feedback loop that creates an entire world. Because of that, it's difficult to know where to start with the Little Wings catalog. It's all generally good, with moments of greatness peppered throughout.
There's a sepia flatness to the songs on LAST. Heavy moments are portrayed at exactly the same tempo and lyrical level. Field might be singing about death, life, or sitting around his house, but it's all going to touch on the same idea that the quietest moments are also the most transcendent ones...you just have to notice they exist. At his best, Field positions himself as an observer of nature and of himself. When he sings "there goes my light feeling," on "Light Feeling" his voice cracks and strains against his own constraints. He doesn't sound sad to lose happiness, instead he sings from outside himself, like it's maybe a bummer worth noting later. It's a neat effect, but can become exhausting over the course of an album. You want him to experience some sort of catharsis-- and maybe he is, but if that's the case, we're only feeling it with him about half the time.  
Not too long ago, British author Zadie Smith spoke at the New York Public Library. As an aside, she half-joked that if a book involves a character staring out an ocean, it's probably not very good. Her point being that everyone is in awe of an ocean and everyone is in awe of nature, so staring out at a vast expanse of water and not being able to see a horizon is now emotional shorthand for poignancy. Maybe it's worth finding other ways to be deep. There are, of course, always exceptions to this rule. Field is able to transform the mundane into a quietly shared experience-- it works as a sort of Introspective Depressives Anonymous. His songs are for people fiending for the next transcendent moment to jumpstart their lives. He knows these moments can exist, but is never sure where he'll next find them. On "Wide Daylight" he wonders if he can "manage to turn the corner again." The implication being that the song itself could be that corner for at least a few listeners somewhere.
By the time "You Know Who" starts, it feels like a turning point. A break from Field's shaky-voiced uncertainty comes in the form of murky keys that give way to an unexpectedly strong moment, when Field sings "barely old enough to fade now, and young enough to be strong," he's illustrating a particular kind of purgatory-- the space between full blown responsible adulthood and the last remnants of youthful brashness. With over a decade's worth of music under his belt, he seems content to stay there forever.

 

[beyondthepale35]

A couple that I havent seen on here:
 
The Speed of Sound In Seawater - First Contact
 

 
Just some math pop from California, its their first full album and Ive enjoyed all their EPs. Comes out at the end of July.
 
http://thespeedofsoundinseawater.bandcamp.com/track/apples-to-apples-dust-to-dust If you wanna check them out.
 
 
 
Also, surprised I havent seen Tesseract's new album Altered State be discussed in here, these guys are fantastic if youre into Djent or Progressive Metal in general. Album comes out in a couple weeks but seen only positive reviews so far.
 

 

[tmugt]

The Great Gatsy soundtrack is well done.

 

[Jyoof]

Yeah...Solid contributions from The xx, Gotye, Sia, Lana Del Rey and Florence & the Machine. And Emeli Sande`s cover of Crazy in Love is really good.

 

[jonnyhambone]

^ hope you've heard Antony's cover of that too...just gorgeous.
Picked up the debut from Savages, Silence Yourself. It's pretty hyped right now but rightfully so, plus it's great to see people finally loving this kind of music. Kind of atmospheric post-punk sound, 4 women, some obvious nods towards Siouxsie and The Raincoats - which just reinforces that its a great album.
Also the new Mark Lanegan/Duke Garwood is really excellent. Funny to notice that Duke G. also plays Clarinet on a song from the Savages lp...

 

[Barry S]

 
 
Still Corners is the London dream-pop duo of Greg Hughes and Tessa Murray. Strange Pleasures is their second album.  Despite the fact they're not breaking a lot of new ground, Strange Pleasures is an accomplished work and makes for some nice floaty late night listening.  If you enjoy their Sub Pop label mates, Beach House--you'll probably like Still Corners.
 
 

 
Nocturnes is Victoria Christina Hesketh's, aka Little Boots, latest release.  This is straight up danceable electro-pop.  I'd consider this a guilty pleasure, except there are no guilty pleasures in music. Like her last release, Hands--Nocturnes has some fun insanely catchy songs and a few cuts so sugary, you may go into momentary insulin shock.  Cherry pick the singles and enjoy.

 

[OJNeg]

Quote:

Spoiler: Warning%3A%20Spoiler!

Originally Posted by metalsonata /img/forum/go_quote.gif
 

 

 
 
Stetson's trick is sort of an old one by this point, but with no imitators to speak of it's nonetheless continually impressive. Stetson's technical mastery of the saxophone and physical endurance is simply stunning on all levels, and he's at the peak of his considerable powers here. Of special note is the 15 minute title track--it boggles my mind that this much noise is being made by just one man and his horn. The best thing about what Stetson does however is how he makes single-horn, almost-avant-garde 'jazz' so accessible. This album is downright poppy at moments, and several vocal contributions by Justin Vernon of Bon Iver don't hurt, either. I think that most people would really enjoy this, once they understand what it is that they're actually listening to. One of the finest albums of the year, thus far.

 
I'm exciting to listen to this one myself. Vol 2 was one of my favorite albums of all time.

 

[Jupiterknight]

 
The National - Trouble Will Find Me
 
Just released yesterday. Dark and neurotic as usual, but in a bright way. I like it very much and I may consider it their best album and just after a few spins. This album will most certainly push it way to the top of my own and very personal 2013 collection.  I will even go out of my way to try and catch them live in a small venue here in the US before they hit the major European summer festivals. 

 

[freeeekyyy]

Autechre - Exai

 

20 year IDM and experimental techno producers release a new album. Personally, I find it to be one of their best ever, even ahead of LP5. Check out the song "1 1 is" for an example of what to expect:

 

 

[StratocasterMan]

 
Phosphorescent - Muchacho (2013)
 
From allmusic.com:
 
Under the name Phosphorescent, indie country songwriter Matthew Houck has walked a drunken path, wobbling closer to the indie side on some records and slumping more toward the country side on others, with the best example being his 2009 collection of Willie Nelson covers, To Willie. With sixth album Muchacho, Houck returns to some of the experimental textures that marked his early breakthrough album Pride, weaving ambient tones and feral whoops throughout his sometimes shiny, sometimes grizzled Americana. The album is bookended by tracks "Sun, Arise!" and "Sun's Arising," meditative drones with multi-tracked layers of Houck harmonizing with himself, ushering the listener into and out of the record over arpeggiated synth tones and far-off-sounding instrumentation. There's more implementation of electronic instruments here than most Phosphorescent material that came before, with 808 drum patterns and dubby echoes in the forefront on some songs, but at no point does the songwriting surrender the starring role. Whether the tunes are piling on pedal steel and mariachi trumpet in the vein of Dylan's soundtrack work for Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid, as on the honky tonk hoedown of "A Charm/A Blade," or finding some dreamy Will Oldham/early Animal Collective hybrid, as with the ghostly "The Quotidian Beasts," Houck's use of simplistic but haunting chord progressions and world-weary melodies always overrides any other sonic surroundings. The songs here are so strong, in fact, they're sometimes cluttered by excessive instrumentation or detail-burying production. While the atmospheric string loops and delay-doused bass plucks of "Song for Zula" help make it one of the best tracks on the album, one can't help but wonder what the effect would be if it were stripped down to Houck's damaged vocals and a simple guitar or piano figure. Throughout the album, lyrics peek through the waves like "I will not open myself up this way again" and "Hey can this kill me? I don't know, but I've sure been finding out," hinting at heartache and the possibility that Muchacho is some drunken-hearted breakup record, but it's never made abundantly clear. What is clear, even through the sometimes heavier-than-necessary arrangements, is that Muchacho has some of Houck's best songwriting since his early days, seemingly tapped into the grainy pain, hard-living tendencies, and wandering muse of his subconscious with the most listenable results Phosphorescent has produced in years.

 

[metalsonata]

 
Two new albums that I've been getting a lot of mileage out of.

 

[TexasBuck]

Quote:

 
The National - Trouble Will Find Me
 
Just released yesterday. Dark and neurotic as usual, but in a bright way. I like it very much and I may consider it their best album and just after a few spins. This album will most certainly push it way to the top of my own and very personal 2013 collection.  I will even go out of my way to try and catch them live in a small venue here in the US before they hit the major European summer festivals. 

Agree.  I liked it after the first listen and it keeps getting better every time.  I had huge expectations for this album and I'm not disappointed.  I'm also not ready to call it their best, but I suspect it will be in the conversation with time.  I'm also hoping to catch them live this year, preferably in a smallish venue.

 

[Jupiterknight]

Quote:

Agree.  I liked it after the first listen and it keeps getting better every time.  I had huge expectations for this album and I'm not disappointed.  I'm also not ready to call it their best, but I suspect it will be in the conversation with time.  I'm also hoping to catch them live this year, preferably in a smallish venue.

 
I'm still discussing with myself where to rank this album. It certainly keeps growing on me which to me at least often is a sign of quality.  I will be able to catch them live in a few weeks playing at a smaller venue together with Local Natives and Matthew E.White. All artists that also relative recently have released some very good albums, or at least albums that I like..