Out This Week 5/26

Everyone's recovering from the long Memorial Day weekend, including the music industry, but there are still some excellent new releases awake today. One of the highlights is the third full-length from Portland band Unknown Mortal Orchestra. KEXP Music Director Don Yates calls it "an adventurous, impressive blend of prog-rock, psych-pop, funk and R&B, with a variety of densely textured songs featuring spacy synths, atmospheric guitars, jagged rhythms, magnetic song hooks and oblique lyrics about a complicated relationship." Another local artist, Shana Cleveland & the Sandcastles, leads this week's batch with their debut full-length. Yates notes, "this Seattle project spearheaded by La Luz frontwoman Shana Cleveland is an often-mesmerizing set of psych-tinged folk-pop with an acoustic-oriented sound featuring gentle finger-picked guitar, occasional cello, piano and clarinet, hypnotic, shuffling rhythms and delicate vocals."

Other highlights this week include Saved and Sanctified: Songs of the Jade Label, the latest resurrected collection from the Numero Group, featuring raw DIY gospel from the West Side of Chicago. West coast artist Little Wings (aka singer/songwriter Kyle Field) team up with the Woodsist label for their eleventh full-length Explains. Captured Tracks releases a 2-LP set from Martin Newell, formerly of Cleaners from Venus. And longtime KEXP fave Joseph Arthur releases Days of Surrender, available on a USB drive with limited edition art prints from the Days of Surrender Series, or you can get the very (very) limited-edition edition with comes with Joseph's touring van (for the price of $14,999). Joseph Arthur will be LIVE on KEXP on Tuesday, June 2nd at 9:30 AM PT, and playing the Triple Door later that night.

• [Various Artists] Rev. Solomon King and the Glory Bound Singers – “Didn't It Rain”
• from Saved and Sanctified: Songs of the Jade Label on Numero Group
• Aviador Dro – “Nuclear Sí (1981 - Versión Alternativa)”
• from Otros Mundos, Otras Estrellas (1979-1982) on Elefant / Lost
• The Bad Plus Joshua Redman – “Dirty Blonde”
• from The Bad Plus Joshua Redman on Nonesuch
• The Chocolate Watchband – “I'm Not Like Everybody Else”
• from I'm Not Like Everybody Else reissue on Cleopatra / Purple Pyramid
• Eilen Jewell – “Hallelujah Band”
• from Sundown Over Ghost Town on Signature Sounds Recording Company
• Exploding Star Orchestra / Rob Mazurek – “The Arc of Slavery #72”
• from Galactic Parables, Vol. 1 on Cuneiform Records
• Joseph Arthur – “If I Could I'd Get Out”
• from Days of Surrender on Lonely Astronaut Records
• Little Wings – “Where”
• from Explains on Woodsist
• Los Hijos de la Montaña
• from Los Hijos de la Montaña on Cosmica Records
• Martin Newell – “Liverpool Judy”
• from Teatime Assortment on Captured Tracks
• Maysa – “Back 2 Love”
• from Back 2 Love on Shanachie
• Metropole Orkest / Snarky Puppy – “Gretel”
• from Sylva on Impulse
• Modestep – “Machines”
• from London Road on INgrooves
• Nneka – “Book of Job”
• from My Fairy Tales on Bushqueen Music
• Rachel Grimes – “The Herald”
• from The Clearing on Temporary Residence
• Shana Cleveland & the Sandcastles – “Holy Rollers”
• from Oh Man, Cover the Ground on Suicide Squeeze
• Shopping – “In Other Words”
• from Consumer Complaints on Fat Cat
• So Stressed – “Merv King & The Phantoms”
• from The Unlawful Trade of Greco-Roman Art on Honor Press
• Summer Camp – “Bad Love”
• from Bad Love on Moshi Moshi
• Terence Blanchard – “Breathless”
• from Breathless on Blue Note
• Two Sheds – “You Get To Me”
• from Assembling on Crossbill
• Unknown Mortal Orchestra – “Multi-Love”
• from Multi-Love on Jagjaguwar
• The Vaccines – “Dream Lover”
• from English Graffiti on Columbia
• Valet – “Nature”
• from Nature on Kranky