Voids, the sophomore album by Old Fire, employs the vocal talents of Bill Callahan, Emily Cross, Adam Torres, and Julia Holter across twelve genre-fluid, yet impressively cohesive tracks that span baroque dream-pop, filmic ambient, raga-like drones, avant-country, and even spiritual jazz, all imbued with poetic heft and seared by the West Texas sun. Lead single “Don’t You Go ft. Bill Callahan,” is a cover written by John Martyn, which also features Thomas Bartlett on piano, Semay Wu on cello, and Robin Allender on keys/guitars.
“Don't You Go”
A Mold For The Bell, by Colorado-based Logan Farmer a collection of stark and ambient folk songs, tethered solely by Farmer’s unadorned vocals, acoustic guitar, and moving embellishments from contributors, including saxophonist Joseph Shabason (who also mixed the album) and renowned harpist Mary Lattimore. Click below to listen to lead single "Silence or Swell"
“Silence or Swell”
Lean Year–the Richmond, VA-based duo of Emilie Rex and Rick Alverson–have announced their sophomore album Sides. They’ve also shared the elegant, slow burning lead single “The Trouble With Being Warm” alongside a video, directed by Alverson (who is also known for his work as the director of films including The Mountain, Entertainment, and The Comedy). “Late at night, after practice, we kept returning to this Mellotron drone Emilie had been playing. I added piano and we fleshed out the lyrics using a ‘ghost’ writing method we developed for some songs on the first record. I’d listen to Emilie singing through the wall and hear things, variations, words neither of us wrote. We’d develop from there, responding to this ‘third writer,’” explains Alverson. “The song and video became about the editorial process of memory, the effort and insistence to remember, to be heard, the scanning and looking for something predetermined to justify the narrative of a life.”
“The Trouble With Being Warm”
Wilder Maker’s WV debut Male Models succeeds in capturing the energy of a crowded party and its accompanying playlist without losing the philosophical underpinnings of its concept, which deals with how male identity plays out through money, power, sex, violence, winning and losing via electrified soul, heartfelt folk songs, indie rock, and searing barn burners.
“Letter of Apology”
Moonshine combines immaculate-yet-dense vocal stacks and billowy clouds of effected keyboards with classic songcraft, revealing previously unseen acreage in the unfurling dreamscape that is Nightlands. As Dave Hartley aka Nightlands explains, “Lush music with dark lyrics--this recipe has always made my heart and ears tingle. Brian Wilson was of course a master of this. Smokey Robinson, too. Moonshine is an exploration of that tension. I wanted to pair the serene textures that I've always gravitated towards with lyrics that express the anger and sadness inherent to being an American human.” +
Inspired by Myst and Studio Ghibli, synthesist Sean Hellfritsch creates dawn-of-digital cinematic textures on this soundtrack for an imagined video game wherein the player embodies a tree frog with the power to hop through geological epochs in order to deeply explore— in Hellfritsch’s words— “the incomprehensibly vast energetic expression and mystery that is Earth. +
Co-produced by Nate Mendelsohn and frequent collaborator Katie Von Schleicher, The Consistent Brutal Bullshit Gong was recorded between Brooklyn, New York’s Figure 8 and Monterey, Massachusetts’ Gravel Mountain studios, with mixing by Sam Owens (Sam Evian). The album showcases Mendelsohn and his core band of collaborators (Von Schleicher, Natasha Thweatt, Stephen Becker, and Duncan Standish) as they create a dynamic musical world that is at once uneasy, energetic, and beautiful, and one in which its bandleader’s lyrics cut through with humor and intensity. +
Since the release of his last album – a collaboration with Brian Eno – pianist and composer Tom Rogerson’s life has undergone a number of dramatic transformations. The first release to feature his singing voice, Rogerson’s debut solo album uses masterful piano playing and subtle electronics to produce a collection that’s both profound and intensely personal. “Oath”, the gorgeous first single, elegantly unveils the composer’s earnest vocals amid a wave of masterful piano playing that conjures sonic images of rainfall on glass. +
Via tape loops and synth vignettes sent from Los Angeles to New York City, sound artist and This Will Destroy You co-founder Christopher Royal King teams with violinist and composer Christopher Tignor toward richly timbral, emotionally gripping works of spontaneity that unfurl immense sonic details with each replay while marrying West Coast outboard-ambient to studied East Coast modern classical, respectively. The resulting debut LP, A Wave From A Shore, exhibits both artists’ sonic identities binding into a new entity distinct from either’s solitary palettes. While the record breathes with a sense of yearning easily identified with life in their respective cities, it also conveys a unique resonance between these artist’s distinct musical approaches. +
Rob Burger’s keyboard work can be heard in everything from Guggenheim showcases to the blockbuster film Ocean’s 8 -- in addition to albums by John Zorn, Laurie Anderson, and Iron & Wine -- but the moonlit compositions he spins up on his own may be his most compelling work. His latest solo venture, Marching With Feathers, departs from the controlled exotica and kosmische of 2019’s The Grid towards a genreless seesaw of electrified apprehension and capacious piano rumination. Piano-based tracks like “Figurine” and “Still” draw the listener into a realm of quiet contemplation, while arid psyche vignettes like “Library Science” and “Hotel For Saints” imbue the collection with a vital groove, conjuring images of a searing, high desert plain. +