Did you manage to find everything on your Record Store Day wish list? Congratulations — or condolences, depending on how it went. Either way, that was yesterday. Today it’s time to look ahead to all the essential new releases on the way. Here are your plays of the week:
Tunde Adebimpe
Thee Black Boltz
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “For the last 24 years, Tunde Adebimpe has largely been known as the co-founder, co-vocalist and principal songwriter for TV On The Radio. Tunde’s personal story exists on a parallel path, as a sort of creative polymath. He is a musician but also an illustrator and painter. He’s a former animator and one-time stop-motion filmmaker. He is a television and film actor. And now he is also a solo artist, with his first formal release, Thee Black Boltz. It is not a TV On The Radio album. But in a lot of ways, the excitement of doing something on his own for the first time ignited a similar spark in him as the band’s days. The songwriting process is the same, he says, but with his bandmates, Tunde knows he doesn’t always have to complete his ideas. “I’ve been doing this thing with this group of people for so long, that I can just have a vague sketch of a concept and I know Jaleel or Kyp will have five brilliant ideas on where it can go. But for Thee Black Boltz, I didn’t have that scaffolding to hang on. That was both terrifying and exhilarating.”
Julien Baker & Torres
Send A Prayer My Way
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “Julien Baker & Torres’ Send A Prayer My Way was written and sung in the best the outlaw tradition — defiant, subversive, working class, and determined to wrestle not only with addiction, regret and bad decisions, but also with oppressive systems of power. Mercifully, this is only the beginning of the stories Torres and Baker are determined to tell. Because these are also songs about radical empathy and second chances, and third chances, and while there’s plenty of struggle and regret in here, there’s also humor and defiance. Send A Prayer My Way has been in the works for years. Imagine two young musicians playing their first show together at Lincoln Hall, a much-loved venue in Chicago. It’s Jan. 15, 2016, and bone-chillingly cold outside, especially for a couple of southerners. When the show is over and they’re shooting the shit, one singer says to the other, “We should make a country album.”
Beirut
A Study Of Losses
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “A Study Of Losses is the largest and most unexpected Beirut album to date. Out on bandleader Zach Condon’s own Pompeii Records, it is an 18-track odyssey commissioned by Swedish circus Kompani Giraff, for an acrobatic stage show of the same name. As a free interpretation of Verzeichnis Einiger Verluste, the novel by German author Judith Schalansky, A Study Of Losses journeys through 11 songs and seven extended instrumental themes, named after the lunar seas and inspired by the chilling tale of a man obsessed with archiving all of humanity’s lost thoughts and creations. Like Verzeichnis Einiger Verluste, A Study Of Losses finds Condon writing about disappearance, preservation and the impermanence of everything known to us — extinct animal species, lost architectural and literary treasures, the process of aging and other abstract concepts. But musically, he is re-immersed in choir, renaissance and other early styles that have inspired his work, as well as variations of sounds and ideas that draw upon one of his all-time favorite records, The Magnetic Fields’ 69 Love Songs.”
Chime Oblivion
Chime Oblivion
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “Chime Oblivion is a new project from Osees mastermind John Dwyer, featuring Dave Barbarossa (Adam & The Ants, Bow Wow Wow, Fine Young Cannibals), Weasel Walter (Flying Luttenbachers, Lydia Lunch’s Retrovirus), Tom Dolas (Osees, Mr Elevator), H.L. Nelly (Naked Lights, FKA SMILEY) and Brad Caulkins (Bent Arcana, With Egg). Chime Oblivion began out of the blue. Barbarossa reached out to Dwyer because was a fan of Osees, and was invited to a show in London. The two hung out and hit it off, “then I rabbitholed on Bow Wow Wow too,” Dwyer recalls. “I reached out to David and suggested that we try and write some songs together… I flew David out, we met at my studio and spent five days writing bass-and-drums ideas.” The two got to know each other and had a lot of laughs. Dwyer then brought in Weasel Walter, knowing that he would be perfect “to add all that legitimate old-school weird proto-punk no-wave guitar scratch to it, which of course he did masterfully.” Next came Dolas to play fuzzy marimba, and the fabulous Nelly, “as I knew her from a record I’d put out back in the day for a band called Naked Lights from Oakland. I knew that she could pull off the vocal style I had in mind.”
The Convenience
Like Cartoon Vampires
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “On their second record as The Convenience, New Orleans multi-instrumentalists Nick Corson and Duncan Troast embrace a hypnotic physicality and collage-y, spur-of-the-moment approach to composition. The result is an avant-rock soundworld, peppered with spidery, atonal guitar work, pointy rhythms, and strident feedback, which may strike as a total reinvention following the sugary funk-pop of their 2021 debut album Accelerator. With their second LP, following their inspiration meant creating with their hands much more than buttons or switches. Sessions were characterized by gnarly, improvisational jams as they tinkered with everything from cassette loops, found sounds, and 808s. Some tracks quake with ear-splitting guitar feedback, while others eschew their groove worship in favor of haunting minimalism. Song after song, Accelerator’s pop influences are traded in for more eccentric frontiers, with the clear common denominators of their first two records being the duo’s spellbinding, funky instincts and a mastery of texture. Lyrically, Like Cartoon Vampires collects dispatches from a dying empire — characters are devoured by alienation and vanity, though society doesn’t bat an eye. But make no mistake, these songs are not merely disaffected ennui — music-making and collaboration are intensely emotional practices for The Convenience, and they reflect a shrieking lust for life.”
Divide & Dissole
Insatiable
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “The title for Divide & Dissolve’s new LP, Insatiable, came to Takiaya Reed in a dream. The multi-instrumentalist and composer had a vision of a better world, one that gelled seamlessly with the optimism of her take on doom metal: “I saw people committing great acts of harm never being happy, and people committing great acts of love, always being happy,” she says. “People are constantly feeding into this genocidal energy, depleting all of these resources in the name of so-called power, just to end up powerless. Whereas people feeding into pathways of love and decolonial energy, honouring loving and benevolent ancestors, experience such a deep sense of fulfilment.” For Takiaya, this is what it means to be “insatiable;” it’s the way we choose either a path of destruction or one of compassion, and experience it to its fullest. “The album’s title hits on so many levels,” she continues. “It’s an album about love, and it feels important to tap into that, now more than ever.” If all of this sounds a bit heavy, wait until you hear Divide & Dissolve’s music. Already legends on the international doom metal scene, they are able to build upon the genre’s trademark sludgy guitars and thundering drums with Takaiya’s deft and wondrous saxophone, adding a layer of intricacy rarely seen in doom. Over Insatiable’s 10 tracks, Divide & Dissolve run the gamut of doom metal. They are a band that have honed their sound to a fine point, and yet continue to find new ways to evolve, both musically and conceptually. Like all of their music, Insatiable is almost entirely instrumental, but is able to convey deep resonance and complexity.”
Rhiannon Giddens & Justin Robinson
What Did The Blackbird Say To The Crow
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “Rhiannon Giddens reunites with her former Carolina Chocolate Drops bandmate Justin Robinson on What Did The Blackbird Say To The Crow, an album of North Carolina fiddle and banjo music. Produced by Giddens and Joseph “joebass” DeJarnette, the album features Giddens on banjo and Robinson on fiddle, with the duo playing 18 of their favorite North Carolina tunes: A mix of instrumentals and tunes with words. Many were learned from their late mentor, the legendary North Carolina Piedmont musician Joe Thompson; one is from another musical hero, the late Etta Baker, from whom they also learned by listening to recordings of her playing. Giddens and Robinson recorded outdoors at Thompson’s and Baker’s North Carolina homes, as well as the former plantation Mill Prong House. They were accompanied by the sounds of nature, including two different broods of cicadas, which had not emerged simultaneously since 1803, creating a true once-in-a-lifetime soundscape. “With the assaults on reality going on in the world today, we wanted to offer another kind of record, like walking back onto a gravel or dirt road while a stampede goes the other way,” Giddens says. “With the cicada choir, this record could’ve only happened at a certain time in the last 120 years. We doubled down on place, time, realness, and old-fashioned front porch music. It’s a reminder that another way exists, with music made for your community’s enjoyment and for dancing — not solely for commercial purposes.”
Hawkwind
There Is No Space For Us
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “Legendary space-rock pioneers Hawkwind return with their latest studio album, There Is No Space For Us. Following 2024’s critically acclaimed Stories From Time And Space and recent triple disc live album Live At The Royal Albert Hall, this new release develops the dystopian themes of recent albums and the cosmic, almost metaphysical perspective on humanity’s place in the universe through expansive soundscapes and electrifying psychedelic rock. Blending hypnotic rhythms, immersive synths, and driving guitar riffs, There Is No Space For Us takes listeners on an interstellar voyage from the synth laden thunderous opening track There Is Still Danger There to the eerie, atmospheric depths and outstanding heights of Space Continues (Lifeform). Tracks like the acoustic-led The Co-Pilot (a song which transforms multiple times across eight minutes) and the title track (the definition of what a “space western” should sound like) showcase the band’s signature fusion of chugging guitars, electronic rhythms, and grand science fiction vision of human destiny. Another standout moment is the frenzied, Theremin-laced freakout of Neutron Stars, while A Long Long Way From Home delivers a melancholic yet powerful crescendo, reflecting on the fragile nature of existence in an ever-expanding universe.”
Heavy Lungs
Caviar
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “Heavy Lungs serve up a mouth-watering buffet of 11 spicy tunes, with a replayability flavour so rich, you will want to loosen your belt and go back for seconds. Forget the small plates, this is Caviar. This sub-30 minute offering to the indifferent gods of rock was crafted in dark and dingy church rehearsals and overpriced house shares. Shrouded in cigarette smoke and lit only by candlelight and the judgemental glow of the open fridge, the four piece put the function into their charming dysfunction. Tracking everything live to capture the raw intensity of their infamous, sweaty and cathartic live performances, the band have boisterously filled their trolley to the brim with the Beluga high grade ready to triumphantly administer to the world once more. This is, without a doubt, as Danny states: “The most Heavy Lungs record there is.”
