Out This Week 2/19

It’s a big week for new releases, so let’s get right into it. First thing on your shopping list: Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds‘ latest, Push The Sky Away. Fifteen albums in and Cave & Co. still create unique stunners. As our Music Director, Don Yates, says, it’s “a masterful set of brooding, minimalist rock comprised of mostly slow-burning songs with rumbling guitars, mournful keyboards, eerie violin loops, stately rhythms and dark, evocative lyrics.” So not so much the heavy rock of his Grinderman project, but if you’re a fan if his ballads (and the man knows how to write them), then you might think this his best work since The Boatman’s Call. While Nick’s found plenty of inspiration in the past from America’s southern lands, British musician Jamie Lidell is living there now. The warmer clime is a better fit for the sunny sounds of his fifth album, “a bright, colorful affair that filters ’80s-inspired funk through more modern electronic production, with a bold blend of loud, squelchy synths and monster bass accompanying Lidell’s Wonderesque vocals.” Brooklyn group Beach Fossils go for more bang on their second release, produced by The Men’s Ben Greenberg, who adds “a punchier, more detailed sound for their jangly dream-pop, combining shimmering, surf-influenced guitars, driving rhythms, hazy vocals and melancholy lyrics.” And NYC label Mom + Pop give a well deserved U.S. release to Flume, a.k.a. 20-year-old Australian producer Harley Streten, whose self-titled debut has been in rotation on KEXP since its Future Classics release last year and is “an eclectic, consistently high-quality set of melodic, bass-heavy grooves ranging from soulful and moody electro-pop and house to hip hop, dubstep and more experimental bass-music sounds that still deliver plenty of memorable song hooks.”

Other new releases you’ll want to pick up today come from young Danish band Iceage, who on their second album “inject their bleak, aggressive post-punk with an even bigger dose of raucous hardcore punk on fierce, uncompromising songs with lots of breakneck tempos, noisy guitar riffs, pummeling drums and raw, declamatory vocals”; from LA brother duo inc., whose un-Googleable name is forgiven for their “intoxicating, seductive” debut featuring “lush, smoky, cinematic beats and emotive, falsetto vocals, distinctly enhanced by nuanced, expressive guitar work”; from Seattle producer Jeff McIlwain, a.k.a. Lusine, whose latest “finds him continuing to seamlessly blend cerebral electronic sounds with warm, melodic electro-pop on smartly constructed songs with bubbly synths, glitchy, atmospheric textures and a variety of house, techno and other electronic grooves”; and Seattle duo Pony Time, whose debut offers “a promising set of New Waveish garage-punk with fuzzy bass and baritone guitar lines, bashing drums, nasal vocals and bright pop hooks.”

We’re incredibly excited for the U.S. release of our Icelandic friend Sindri Mar Sigfusson’s third album with his band Sin Fang. While his Seabear project sits aside indefinitely, Flowers blossoms as his “brightest, most polished and assured release to date.” Jónsi’s parter, Alex Somers, produces this “intricately constructed and richly textured” album of “adventurous yet hook-filled electro-pop, orchestral folk-pop and psychedelia.” When you pick that up, be sure to also check out the debut from Lady Lamb The Beekeeper, the project of Brooklyn-via-Brunswick, ME singer-songwriter Aly Spaltro, who impresses with her “stormy indie-pop, highlighted by hard-hitting, shape-shifting songs featuring a raw, dynamic sound combining a variety of electric and acoustic instrumentation with Spaltro’s impassioned, soulful vocals and searing, emotive lyrics”, and the Everly Brothers-loving album of covers by Dawn McCarthy & Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy, who “tackle material from throughout the Everlys’ lengthy career, while mostly skipping the Everlys’ more well-known songs” with a sound that’s “warm, intimate and mostly acoustic-oriented, allowing their luminous harmonies plenty of space to shine.”

And if you think your basket is already full, you’re going to want to make room for the latest from Portland artists Sallie Ford and the Sound Outside, Natasha Kmeto and STRFKR, inventive electronic production duo Matmos, bluesy psych rock group Psychic Ills, sunny Aussie disco pop outfit Mitzi, and Tall Dwarfs/Bats precursors Toy Love, whose original Flying Nun debut is being rereleased in partnership with Captured Tracks.

There’s a lot more besides, including the second Hall Willner-produced collection of pirate ballads, sea songs and chanteys Son of Rogues Gallery, featuring “a more diverse and adventurous assortment of artists ranging from ringers like Shane MacGowan and Tom Waits to more surprising choices like Marc Almond and Big Freedia” -- so be sure to sample every song gathered here before heading out to your local record shop: