This week’s list of new releases is full of challenges. As you head out, you’ll find yourself testing the limits of your strength as you lug around your shopping cart full of all the great new albums on record store shelves today and the endurance of your ears as you listen to it all. But never fear: with great challenges come great rewards!
Perhaps most anticipated this week, and most likely to challenge your expectations, is the latest from Iron & Wine. Sam Beam has taken his formerly indie project to the majors -- from Sub Pop to Warner Bros. -- and with it he has expanded his typically spare, rustic sound for lush production and musical styles reminiscent of 70′s FM radio. It’s a bold artistic leap that will confound some and please many others. Perhaps several steps ahead of Beam already is Dan Bejar, a member of The New Pornographers, whose long-running project Destroyer has been confounding and pleasing listeners for over a decade. Appropriately, Kaputt (which we certainly hope the band is not) is being touted by many critics as Destroyer’s best yet even as they malign Bejar’s source music as “cheesy” disco, smooth jazz, and new wave. Perhaps more easily accessible, though by no means less likable, is the energetic jangle pop debut from Apex Manor, a project born after the demise of The Broken West by its former frontman, Ross Flournoy.
There are too many other excellent new releases out this week to describe them all here, but you’ll find each of these and more already in regular rotation on KEXP: Deerhoof, Gang of Four, Grouplove, John Vanderslice, The Veils, Fujiya & Miyagi, Los Chicharonns, The Radio Dept., Say Hi, Woodsman, Cloud Nothings, and the Jack White-produced new album from the Queen of Rockabilly, Wanda Jackson.
So you had better get started now. Check Largehearted Boy’s list and the many samples below... and be sure to hydrate!
Acrylics - Nightwatch (MP3)
from Lives and Treasure on Hot Sand Records
Apex Manor - Under the Gun (MP3)
from Year of Magical Drinking on Merge Records
Ben + Vesper - An Honest Bluff (MP3)
from Honors on Sounds Familyre
David Berkeley - George Square (MP3)
from Some Kind of Cure on Tijuana Gift Shop
Chikita Violenta - All I Need’s a Little More (MP3)
from TRE3S on Arts & Crafts
Cloud Nothings - Understand At All (MP3)
from Cloud Nothings on Carpark Records
Cold War Kids - Louder Than Ever
from Mine Is Yours on Downtown Records
Com Truise - Slow Peels (MP3)
from Cyanide Sisters EP on Ghostly International
Deerhoof - The Merry Barracks (MP3)
from Deerhoof vs. Evil on Polyvinyl Records
Delicate Steve - Butterfly (MP3)
from Wondervisions on Luaka Bop
Destroyer - Chinatown (MP3)
from Kaputt on Merge Records
Duchess Leo - Bloom (MP3)
from Golden Gray on Whale Heart Records
The Ex - Cold Weather Is Back (MP3)
from Catch My Shoe on Fishtank/Carrot Top
Exray’s - You Forgot (MP3)
from Exray’s on Howells Transmitter
Fujiya & Miyagi - Sixteen Shades Of Black & Blue (MP3)
from Ventriloquizzing on Yep Roc
Gang Of Four - You’ll Never Pay For The Farm (MP3)
from Content on Yep Roc
Duke Garwood - Jesus Got a Gun (MP3)
from dreamboatsafari on Fire Records
Greater Pacific - The Distance (MP3)
from Rainfall EP on Yer Bird Records
Grouplove - Colours
from Grouplove EP on Atlantic
I Was a King - Nightwalking (MP3)
from Old Friends on Sounds Familyre
Lia Ices - Grown Unknown (MP3)
from Grown Unknown on Jagjaguwar
Iron & Wine - Tree By The River (download)
from Kiss Each Other Clean on Warner Bros.
Wanda Jackson (feat. Jack White) - Thunder On The Mountain
from The Party Ain’t Over on Nonesuch
Los Chicharrons - Ma Do Nar (MP3)
from Roots of Life on Tummy Touch
Phil Manley - Life Coach (MP3)
from Life Coach on Thrill Jockey
James Vincent McMorrow - If I Had a Boat (MP3)
from Early In The Morning on Vagrant
Metal Mountains - Structures in the Sun (MP3)
from Golden Trees on Amish Records
Monotonix - Give Me More (MP3)
from Not Yet on Drag City
Paper Diamond - From Now Till... (MP3)
from The Levitate EP on Pretty Lights Music
The Radio Dept. - The One (MP3)
from Passive Aggressive: The Singles 2002-2010 on Labrador Records
Say Hi - Devils (MP3)
from Um, Uh Oh on Barsuk Records
Sidi Touré - Bon Kum (MP3)
from Sahei Folk on Thrill Jockey
Stripmall Architecture - Lemoncholic (MP3)
from Albino Peacock EP (self-released)
Thank You - 1-2-3 Bad (MP3)
from Golden Worry on Thrill Jockey
U.S. Royalty - Equestrian (MP3)
from Mirrors (self-released)
John Vanderslice - The Piano Lesson (MP3)
from White Wilderness on Dead Oceans
The Veils - Bloom (MP3)
from Troubles Of The Brain EP on Pitch Beast
Woodsman - Insects (MP3)
from Rare Forms on Lefse Records
