New Music Friday - March 3, 2023

Be sure to view a list of upcoming releases here!

Essential Full-Length Releases

	Kali Uchis - Red Moon in Venus Watch: "I Wish You Roses" Watch: "Moonlight"
	Xiu Xiu - Ignore Grief Watch: "Maybae Baeby" Watch: "Esquerita, Little Richard"

Other Full-Length Releases

Full of Hell & Primitive Man - Suffocating Hallucination Listen: "Rubble Home" Listen: "Tunnels to God"

slowthai - Ugly Watch: "Selfish" Watch: "Feel Good"

Singles, EPs, Soundtracks, etc.

Aurora Watch: Daisy Jones & The Six - "Look at Us Now (Honeycomb)" Listen: Daisy Jones & The Six - "Aurora"

Dry Cleaning - Swampy Watch: "Swampy" Watch: "Sombre Two"

Storefront Church - The Covers Watch: "Words" (featuring Phoebe Bridgers) Listen: "Your Sweet Love"

Willie Nelson - I Don’t Know a Thing About Love Watch: "Busted" Watch: "I Don’t Know a Thing About Love"

New Music Friday - May 20, 2016

Be sure to view a list of upcoming releases here!

Essential Full-Length Releases

Adult Jazz - Earrings Off! While I appreciate when bands take some time between albums, I do love it when there's a quick return on a great record. Adult Jazz's debut, Gist Is, was one of my favorites of 2014, and they are back in almost no time with this new album. They haven't lost any bit of their strange, jazz-inflected brand of indie rock. It's a short album at just seven songs, but still a sweet listen. Watch: "Earrings Off!" Watch: "Eggshell"

Ariana Grande - Dangerous Woman Maybe it's my tastes that are changing, but I think pop music is better now than it has been in 20 years and miss Ariana herself is one of the bright points. She's attempting a "bad girl" re-branding on her third album. It's not very convincing, but that doesn't mean the music's not good, or that she doesn't sound the best she ever has. Watch: "Dangerous Woman" Watch: "Into You"

Car Seat Headrest - Teens of Denial Car Seat Headrest's Will Toledo may be young, but he's been incredibly prolific in his six-year career. At 23 years old, he'd already self-released 11 albums on his Bandcamp before his debut, Teens of Style, for Matador last year. While he doesn't regard his earliest releases as representative of his musical approach now, he does not shy away from their existence and they remain available for fans. While similar in name to his previous record, this album is not a sequel or outtakes record, but a new album in its own right. Watch: "Vincent" Watch: "Drunk Drivers/Killer Whales"

Marissa Nadler - Strangers Marissa Nadler employs a dreamy, doomed-sounding style of folk that makes her one of my favorite female folk singers. Her previous record, July, was a favorite of mine a couple of years ago. On her follow-up, she departs from telling her own personal stories of love and heartbreak, and focuses on stories of other characters, losing the first-person perspective. Watch: "All the Colors of the Dark" Watch: "Janie in Love"

Yuna - Chapters Yuna is a Malaysian pop singer who first started writing and performing songs as a creative outlet while she was in law school. Obviously, it has since become her career. She released her first album in 2008 in her native country. Over the past eight years, she has alternated between native and international releases. Chapters is her third international album, following the Malaysian release of Material, last year. Watch: "Crush" (featuring Usher) Watch: "Places to Go"

Other Full-Length Releases

Bob Dylan - Fallen Angels Listen: "Melancholy Mood" Listen: "All the Way"

Eric Clapton - I Still Do Watch: "Can’t Let You Do It" Watch: "Spiral"

Richard Ashcroft - These People Watch: "This Is How It Feels" Watch: "Hold On"

William Ryan Fritch - New Words for Old Wounds Listen: "Vantage Point" Listen: "Conflicted"

Xiu Xiu - Plays the Music of Twin Peaks Watch: "Into the Night" Listen: "Falling"

Singles, EPs, Soundtracks, etc.

Boys - Love on Tour EP Listen: "Happy Hour" Listen: "All My Friends"

Braids - Companion Watch: "Companion" Watch: "Joni"

Day of the Dead Watch: Perfume Genius, Sharon van Etten, & Friends - "To Lay Me Down" Watch: Phosphorescent, Jenny Lewis & Friends - "Sugaree"

The Highwaymen - Live: American Outlaws Watch: "Desperados Waiting for a Train" Listen: "I Still Miss Someone"

The Highwaymen - The Very Best Of Watch: "Highwayman" Listen: "Big River"

MF DOOM - Live from Planet X Reissue

Songs from Lahore

Wolf Parade - EP 4 Listen: "Automatic" Listen: "Mr. Startup"

New Music Tuesday - February 04, 2014

New Full-Length Albums

Bombay Bicycle Club - So Long, See You Tomorrow Bombay Bicycle Club has been a prolific and fairly diverse band. They've released four albums in the past five years, each with a different sound. They've explored folk rock, indie and acoustic. For they're latest release, they are injecting some electronic into their sound. Watch: "Luna" Watch: "It's Alright Now"

Broken Bells - After the Disco When James Mercer released his first album, Broken Bells, as Broken Bells (with producer Danger Mouse), it came at a time when it seemed like he was stepping away from his main band, The Shins. Then, The Shins released an amazing album, Port of Morrow, in 2012, which made me think that, perhaps, Broken Bells would be done. He's going to keep up both bands, though, giving us twice the pleasure! Watch: "Holding on for Life" Watch: "Leave It Alone"

Marissa Nadler - July Nadler has established herself as one of the greatest young singer-songwriters of the past few years. She's become known for her haunting voice and storytelling lyrics (and amazing, choreography-driven videos). Her latest album sees her continuing in her amazing-ness and is one of my early favorites! Watch: "Dead City Emily" Watch: "Was It a Dream"

Maxïmo Park - Too Much Information While Maxïmo Park rode in on the British indie rock boom of the early-to-mid-2000s, they've never considered themselves the "cool" band. In discussing the title of this latest release with NME, Paul Smith said that the band's music was emotional and that they tended to share "Too Much Information." Watch: "Leave This Island" Watch: "Brain Cells"

Nicole Atkins - Slow Phaser I learned something interesting in a recent NPR interview with Nicole Atkins. She was considered to have a "small" voice as a child, not good for singing. Compared to the deep, rich vocals she presents now, she's made some considerable strides in her singing. This is her third album and she just seems to get better with each release. Listen: "Cool People" Listen: "Girl You Look Amazing"

Snowbird - Moon Snowbird is the project of the Cocteau Twins' Simon Raymonde and singer Stephanie Dosen. The project may not be much of a departure for Raymonde, he has stated that the band's sound is very similar to the Cocteau Twins, which should be good news for fans still upset at the band's demise almost 20 years ago. The debut album comes with a second disc consisting of a remix of each track. Watch: "All Wishes Are Ghosts" Listen: "Porcelain"

Solander - Monochromatic Memories I started listening to this little Swedish band about three years ago, even posted about them on this blog! Three years and three albums later, I'm starting to see even more written about them on many of the music sites that I read daily, which is always exciting! The band is developing some outside of the fairly straightforward folk that I first heard and making some great music! Watch: "The Woods Are Gone" Listen: "All Opportunities"

Xiu Xiu - Angel Guts: Red Classroom Xiu Xiu have become the go-to purveyors of weird sounds in modern indie rock. This may be their weirdest record yet, if you don't count their album of Nina Simone covers released late last year. The title of the record comes from a late-70s Japanese erotic film and features similar themes in the music. By the way, the second video below is very, VERY, not safe for work. Watch: "Stupid in the Dark" Watch: "Black Dick"

Other New Releases

Sweetheart 2014 Starbucks released this compilation just in time for Valentine's Day. The album features covers of classic love songs from a variety of modern musicians; including, Phosphorescent, Sharon Jones and Vampire Weekend. Listen: Vampire Weekend - "Time to Say Goodbye (Con te Partirò)" Listen: Fiona Apple - "I'm in the Middle of a Riddle"

This Is the Town: A Tribute to Nilsson, Volume 1 Harry Nilsson was an influential pop and rock musician who achieved the bulk of his success in the late 1960s and 1970s. This is the first volume in a new tribute series to the musician, which features tracks from Langhorne Slim, Jenny O and Annie Nilsson (one of his daughters). Listen: Langhorne Slim - "Early in the Morning" Listen: Jenny O - "1941"