SINGLES
ANNA BUTTERSS - Doo Wop (Colorfield Records)
by Ancient Champion
This is one of my fave collections of notes and sounds and swooping and looping, lopping and erm, singing only a bit, since that Donnie Trumpet and the Social Experiment LP years back and you know how that blew up. Since Keyboard Money Mark's Keyboard Repair Shop. Sometimes I think, I actually know things. I am a long time listener, no time caller. Doo Wop is deliciously and effortlessly, economically spare. Taken from the Anna's Activities LP (Colorfield), is it because Anna is Australian that this all sounds so perfect for afternoons spent in meandering heatwave chit chat around the garden? This is a lawn, this is nature pond, this is where we sit. This is how we move around a little. A world renowned bass player, Anna has worked with Jeff Parker and Aimee Mann and way more besides. Soothes me through my day supremely well.
PUSSY RIOT - Plastic ft. iLoveMakonnen (Neon Gold)
by Tim London
KAIL BAXLEY - Coyote (Battle Master records)
by Ancient Champion
from the vocal factory that brought you (Samuel T. Herring, Ray LaMontagne, and Damian Rice - if you can remember any of them). Really serious young man. "I am a coyote and you are a house cat..." Is that a paean to the crazy patriots patrolling the border? KaiL Baxley - you know that capital L on the end of KaiL is going to make things difficult for filesharers, so hmmm. might want to rethink that. But despite everything, this is really quite great once the fear that he's going to sing over Pachelbel's Canon, for a pure new wool TV ad.
RICO NASTY - Skullflower (Atlantic Records)
by Tim London
Made up like a horror dolly created too early in the morning and galloping through a sunflower field like a more self-conscious Theresa May… ditch the video and you have helium chatting like a Bladerunner advert over a second-hand Vangelis out-take. Which sounds quite good when you put it like that.
Four second-year fashion student points.
DEXYS MIDNIGHT RUNNERS - Old - Radio Edit (As It Should Have Sounded Remix 2022) (Mercury Records)
by Katherine Pargeter
It really doesn't matter if you cannot hear the difference between this remixed version of a song from Dexys Midnight Runners 'Too-Rye-Ay' album, it doesn't matter because, well, you are not Kevin Rowland. Only Kevin Rowland is Kevin Rowland and if he wants to tweak with an album that we thought sounded perfectly fine 40 years ago, who are we to object? So, here is drama, passion, the aching beautiful strings of the Emerald Express, those mournful horns, and Rowland turning his anger into a soul-searching lament. The album 'Too-Rye-Ay - As It Should Have Sounded' arrives in October.
WILCO - Kamera-The Unified Theory (Nonesuch)
by Lee Paul
Generally, when I see Wilco's name on the label these days I am wondering which Gram Parsons record I should put on. Don't you? I mean, I thought everyone did that. Kamera-The Unified Theory though is nicely primitive though. Admirable...
FOAMBOY - Not A Go (N.I.T.A.)
by Lee Paul
This makes me rue my stolen car, since this is perfect for motoring nowhere at night. Roof down so people can hop in and out at will. Contemporary, jazzy, breezy - redolent of a digital Manhattan Transfer in their pomp. If they were indie and very now.
THE CULT - Give Me Mercy (Black Hill Records)
by Toon Traveller
SNAIL MAIL - Feeling Like I Do (Spotify)
by Lee Paul
Sulky old Snail Mail. Something to feel relatively hopeful about.
THE BERRIES - Down That Road Again (Run For Cover)
by Toon Traveller
A good slice of mid-paced, relaxed, narrative-driven, heading for the country sounds of sunshine, sunstroke, and beers. This is making a daisy chain groove. Not watched the video, (I'm a bit old school, I listen to music, not MTV for me). Love the middle eight and the bridge, this is Americana, country blues with a twist of summer style that hits the right notes in a sunny afternoon in Britain.
THE MOUNTAIN GOATS - Wage Wars Get Rich Die Handsome (Merge Records)
by Tim London
Makes me laugh listening to this squeaky clean production pretending that there’s some kind of rocknroll heart beating beneath it. Can’t they hear? I ask myself, isn’t it obvious that what they think they’re doing and what they’re actually doing is milkshake to whisky? Beyond being nominally wet there’s no comparison. For fucks sake, I thought we’d sorted all this out in 1977 but, no, there’s the fucking Download Festival, existing on the edges of my consciousness, forcing me to consider the huge necks and baseball caps of men young enough to legitimately say, ‘no, not this time, we will not carry a guitar for our country.’ But still they wage war. On people like me. Well, just me, really. But still!
Zero second-year fashion student points.
JOEL JEROME - We Made It Home (Dangerbird)
by Ancient Champion
Recorded live at Dangerbird Records' international hq in Silverlake, CA... From the LP, Super Flower Blood Moon. which was released this past May. We Made It Home is a superior guitar, mild meandering guitar mind you, rocker. In that you may rock gently to it should that be your disposition. So, probably possibly sub-rock if I were to be more exacting in my language. There's plaintive lyrical genius, there's a subtext of ghostly pedal steel. There's a wily choice of hat and guitar. I am fond of that small guitar on a big man look. I can't enthuse enough about that. This is all together one of the Good ones. It's on repeat in my heart.
JEREMY GLUCK AND PAUL HAZEL - Love (SWND)
by LamontPaul
Jeremy Gluck and Pazel - ha, that's a typo I am hoping to leave in! JG and Paul Hazel combine to create metonyms of atmosphere. They are the perfect couple really. Questioning coupling. There are two versions of Love here. Love is the opening track. But I Left the Left Page Blank... Depending on your school run situation I can only recommend the less sweary Love. Paul Hazel builds a big love fire and burns it down in the background but never in the background... As Jeremy dismantles the tropes clung too by split personality lovers. I Left the Left Page Blank oh... the guys let loose and care should be taken as that's for the grown ups. Barracudas fans may be in for a surprise but Jeremy Gluck is one of the authentic ones, always true to his own voice and own eyes and ears in visual art, music and lit stuff, like a David Gedge or a Mark Stewart, and like so few others. This is one of the good ones.
MYKKI BLANCO - French Lessons (Official Video) ft. Kelsey Lu (Transgressive)
by Tim London
A drum machine puffing along, and then that unique, very early 1980s synth horn circling around a simple phrase on top. Then Mykki’s almost casual, unfiltered semi-sung grown-up voice juxtaposed against Kelsey Lu’s sweetly sung commentary on, what? A love affair? A stoned moment? Lovely, anyway.
Nine second-year fashion student points for the video which I would avoid if I was you.
SHRIMPNOSE - Sundials (Chillhop)
by Lee Paul
OMG So brilliant, luvverly laying back stuff... Can get on the Heatwave playlist with Anna Butterss above. I listen and I am alive with these sounds in a way that I am at few other times. Swooning. Wow! As great as hearing my kid tinkling out tunes from her Pride and Prejudice songbook on the piano. Which she is doing while I am listening to Sundials. A great mash-up. That luvverly.
EPs
MIKI RATSULA - Made For Them (Nettwork)
by Toon Traveller
Mike Ratsula's gender-neutral covers project, featuring the songs of Dodie, Phoebe Bridgers, Harry Styles, Angus & Julia Stone, and One Direction, Made For Them is what, a piece of didacticism at heart? Here's my verse for you... Love the intro easy, then, well think, walking down the street, sidewalk, a car passes windows down, stops at traffic lights, great new song swirls out of the windows, what's the song? lights change, car moves, the song dies in the memory.
TOMAGA - Oisiris' Theme ()
by Ancient Champion
Epic. Included on the LP Extended Play 1&2 due for release in September. Tomaga were Tom Relleen and Valentina Magaletti. Tom is no longer here, but his work is and it must be explored and enjoyed still. It is wholly exceptional after all.
LPs
MOOR MOTHER - Jazz Codes (Anti Records)
by LamontPaul
Moor Mother's entirely hypnotic record, Jazz Codes, investigates histories of Black music, Black culture, melodically, experimentally, breezily, jazzily in parts. Leaning heavily on an all star cast but never ever for a moment losing sight of the artist at the centre. That's a pretty amazing accomplishment given the galactic sound structures availed of here on a record that has everything and so here I am munching my branflakes awestruck. 'Woody Shaw Elevator Outta Town...' Oh man, I want to be alive.
BEABADOOBEE - Beatopia (Dirty Hit) ZERO
by Lee Paul
There's a reason why beabadoobee has millions of social media followers and they are all at least half your age. Lack of cynicism. Joy. Love of dressing up. Pretty cool tunes. When the optimism of youth is still genuine and unsullied. And there's something about how her interests chime with the concerns of her generation. One senses beabadoobee would probably not make the business decision to take a private jet from the west coast to perform on the Green stage at a Britpop festival - like Wolf Alice did to wholly uncritical media reports. At some point, something has to matter.
ALHAJI WAZIRI OSHOMAH - The Muslim Highlife of Alhaji Waziri Oshomah (Luaka Bop)
by Toon Traveller
I've always been an admirer of the work Luaka Bop puts in, as they seek out highly individual and idiosyncratic artists. Sometimes it's straight down the line, between the eyes pop, other times it's a slice of music you'd have to search the deep deep web to hear and sift through a lotta pebbles to get the diamonds. Sadly, Alhaji Waziri Oshomah's, Jealousy is not for me one of the diamonds. Taken from the LP, The Muslim Highlife of Alhaji Waziri Oshomah, which is the third volume of Luaka Bop's World Spirituality Classics series, out in September. For me a jog on a warm day. Not something I love even if I might want to.
Essential Info
Main Image Anna Butterss by Robbie Jeffers
