With so much good music coming through thick and fast, it’s easy for albums to drop online and go overlooked. To help prevent this, we’ve picked ten releases you may have missed but need to hear — stream music from Arp, Sam Wilkes, PBDY, Moor Mother, WaqWaq Kingdom, YĪN YĪN, Gaijin Blues, Anne Muller, PAT and Kallista Kult. If you like what you hear, hit the links and support the artists.
Arp – ENSEMBLE – LIVE
A unique one-off album LIVE recording featuring a five-piece ensemble performing music from Arp’s most recent album, ZEBRA, plus four new compositions including “Eos,” “Kalimboid,” “Voices,” and “Autumn Piece (for Jiri Kovanda)”. Close your eyes and feel the energy of each song. Flawless from start to end.
Sam Wilkes – Live on The Green
Another new live album this time from Sam Wilkes. The experimental live LP was recorded late last year at the Highland Park Ebell Club and includes two new songs alongside three tracks from his debut. It also features a cover of Alice Coltrane’s ‘Sivaya’ and Joe Henderson’s ‘Inner Urge’. The Coltrane cover and the closing track ‘Descending (Alternate Mix)’ were recorded at the Nest Recorders studios. Joining Wilkes for the performance was frequent collaborator Sam Gendel on alto saxophone, Jacob Mann on Roland Juno 106 and Korg Kronos, Christian Euman on drums, and Adam Ratner and Brian Green on electric guitars. Amazing album!
PBDY – Careworn
Written after the death of his mother ‘Careworn’ is the first in a trilogy of records by PBDY exploring the human condition: specifically love, loss and death. The album’s title is defined as “tired and unhappy because of prolonged worry”. Throughout the album’s ten songs, PBDY creates highly evocative music that is both introspective and carefully crafted. ‘Careworn’ is eerily beautiful and defies easy categorisation, floating between highly textured ambient soundscapes and widescreen electronica, drawing inspiration from experimental doom/sludge metal act The Body, Massive Attack and film scores such as “Moonlight” by Nicholas Britell. Overall this album has so much feeling to it, and the dark atmospherics are absolutely perfect for the subject matter.
Moor Mother – Analog Fluids Of Sonic Black Holes
Philadelphia-based artist, poet, and musician Moor Mother recently returned with a new album, Analog Fluids of Sonic Black Holes. Using elements of rap, free jazz, punk, and industrial music, she venomously documents issues of police brutality, enslavement, black culture and more. There are also several stellar contributions from the likes of rapper Reef the Lost Cauze, Justin Broadrick, as well as the acclaimed New York-based verbal stylist Saul Williams. Over its relatively short 34 minute run time, Moor Mother weaves her way through a brutal and inspiring musical stream of consciousness. Tough and aggressive and lyrically on point – essential but not always easy listening.
WaqWaq Kingdom – Essaka Hoisa
WaqWaq Kingdom consists of Japanese musicians Shigeru Ishihara of and Kiki Hitomi. On their debut release, they conjure up an exciting collection of their self styled “minyo footwork”. Their wildly adventurous sound takes cues from afro-beat, contemporary electronica, techno and Jamaican dancehall. Thrilling from start to finish,’ Essaka Hoisa’s endless range of stylistic adventures has a way of pulling you in. It’s one to play, and play, and play again.
YĪN YĪN – The Rabbit That Hunts Tigers
After two killer singles on Les Disques Bongo Joe, The Maastricht-based band known as YĪN YĪN returns with ‘The Rabbit That Hunts Tigers’. Packed full of South-East Asian psych-pop, funk, disco grooves and electronic music the quartet create an unmistakably unique sound of their own. If you like Khruangbin, you’ll love this.
Gaijin Blues – Gaijin Blues II
Gaijin Blues return with their debut album, Gaijin Blues II. Released via Shapes of Rhythm, the LP consists of eight tracks, and once again the duo finds inspiration from Japenese Role Playing Games, Super Nintendo and Japanese pop culture. The pair of Polish-based musician Naphta and his bandmate Playstation Yoga Music expand on the sound of their earlier work. On Gaijin Blues II they mix live performance mixes MPC’s, drum machines, strings and synths with loopers, live flutes and percussion. Effortless in their skills at times it’s hard to tell where the live instrumentation starts and the electronics end such is the genius of their music. Among the many standouts cuts, we love ‘Bahamut (The Town Provider)’, ‘Puff-Puff’, ‘Professor Tatsuro Kensu’ and ‘Mementos (Prison)’. This comes highly recommended!
PAT – Love Will Find A Way Home
PAT is a collaboration between visual artist Jacolby Satterwhite and musician Nick Weiss (Teengirl Fantasy). The album takes its name from Satterwhite’s mother Patricia, who was schizophrenic and sadly passed away in 2016. She left behind hundreds of a cappella recordings on cassette tapes, and the music on the LP incorporates those recordings. Alongside the emotive voice recordings, the album also features contributions from the likes of Lafawndah, Alissa Brianna, Brody Blomqvist, Patrick Belaga and more. Love Will Find A Way Home holds fourteen deep and propulsive, electronic dance tracks, that conceivably act as a requiem. A masterfully crafted journey and quite frankly one of the most epic concept albums of the year
Anne Müller – Heliopause
Berlin-based cellist and composer Anne Müller has finally released her long-awaited debut solo album Heliopause via Erased Tapes. The ten-song album marks a new beginning for Müller as she moves away from collaborative work to branch out alone for the first time. “‘Heliopause’ marks the end of a long journey but also the start of voyages to explore strange new worlds”, she says. Written, recorded, performed and produced by Müller, this brilliant set of haunting, solo cello centred music is an absolute gem.
EP
Kallista Kult – Kallista Kult
A Colourful Storm welcomes elusive outfit Kallista Kult to their diverse label. Dark, passionately experimental, but also highly enjoyable, the four sprawling, deeply evocative tracks on this self-titled mini-album make for some of the most compelling and unsettling listenings we’ve heard in a while. There is a dark and dense dub feel to opener ‘From The Earth Did A Line’ which comes complete with ethereal vocals. The mind-bending and wickedly enchanting atmospherics of ‘When I Splice Into You’ is sultry yet foreboding. ‘Creature Feature Spinoza Version’ is bleak jazz meets woozy psychedelia and neoclassical. ‘Closer ‘Who Do I Tell’ is built on layers of dubby reverb, eerie electronics and hushed vocals that hint at something more sinister beneath the surface.
