Weekly Music Roundup: 2/14

Gone are the days of slogging through reviews to find out what new music is worth your precious time.  

Album of the Week

Man Alive!

by King Krule

Man Alive! Is an absorbing consolidation of Archy Marshall’s inimitable sound. Marshall’s distinctive voice is front and center over chaotic atmospheres that meld together a powerful concoction of garage rock, hip-hop, and dark jazz. Man Alive! Is King Krule’s most anguished album yet, in which impending fatherhood collides with his habitual torments.

Favorite tracks: Stoned Again, Comet Face, Alone Omen 3, Please Complete This

Other releases

Grimes - Miss Anthropocene 

[art pop]

Grimes’ first project as a bona fide pop star is more morose than her previous work, but no less camp. Her genuineness shines through the album’s convoluted narrative, and the songs are among her finest. [Anupa Mistry]

Favorite Tracks: 4ÆM, Darkseid

Similar Artists: FKA Twigs, Poppy, Crystal Castles, iamamiwhoami,

Moses Sumney - græ: Part 1

[art pop, psychedelic soul]

It feels wrong to try to encapsulate græ: Part 1 in so few words. The first half of the forthcoming double album is an intense reflection and critique of the normative structures that pervade discussions of gender and sexuality. Sumney trades the acoustic arpeggios and strings of Aromanticism for a more synthesized ambiance on græ, but his signature vocal harmonies and introspective lyrics remain the undeniable centerpiece.

Favorite Tracks: Cut Me, Colouour, Conveyor

Similar Artists: serpentwithfeet, kadhja Bonet, Kelsey lu, Nick Hakim

Schacke - There's Something Inside Me

[techno]

Schacke’s key characteristic might be his knack for turning what purist listeners may consider trash into dance floor gold. The most obvious example of this was last year's Kisloty Forever EP, which boldly reconfigured Russian pop songs as modern techno [His track "Kisloty People," was named Resident Advisors Track of the year] His new EP, There's Something Inside Me, for SPFDJ's Intrepid Skin imprint, might be the best example yet of his willingness to borrow from different, more maximalist dance music styles while remaining true to his techno and gabber/trance roots.

Sightless Pit -  Grave of a Dog

[experimental metal]

Sightless Pit, the collaboration between avant-garde Metal titans The Body, Lingua Ignota and Full of Hell, represents the limitless potential of its members and styles. Frightening synth blasts, hymnal vocals and ear splitting screams all blend together in a thick black soup, resulting in a record that is riveting and challenging in equal measure.

Favorite Tracks: Drunk on Marrow, Immersion Dispersal, Miles of Chain

Similar Artists: The Body, Lingua Ignota, Full of Hell, Pharmakon

Medhane - Full Circle

[experimental east coast hip hop]

With nodding flows reminiscent of Earl Sweatshirt Full Circle is an album of quick spurts and blips. Despite being just 15 minutes and 8 tracks Full Circle manages to be Medhane’s most accessible and cohesive project to date.

Similar Artists: MIKE, Milo, Chester Watson, Standing on the Corner

Akai Solo - Ride Alone, Fly Together

[abstract hip hop]

Ride Alone, Fly Together marks Akai Solo’s 5th full-length album in about 14 months. Akai Solo is a Brooklyn MC and a self-proclaimed “Neo New York Captain”.

Ride Alone, Fly Together is “The progression of enduring struggle and pursuing a pure freedom has led us here. This one is the culmination of everything awkward within the world and people that I have observed. Death to naïveté. The ideal does not always align in reality.”

Similar Artists: Navy Blue, Pink Siifu, Medhane, Ade Hakim

Agnes Obel - Myopia

[chamber pop]

Agnes Obel creates a comforting ecosystem on Myopia, her first release of all new songs since 2016’s Citizen of Glass.  Plucked strings, a warm cello, and a rolling piano complement the varied uses of Obel’s voice.  Ghostly down-pitchings of her vocals are used as embellishment and even rhythmically.  Her vocal quality is softly powerful.  At her best it seems she could cut through anything with it.

Favorite tracks: Camera’s Rolling, Won’t You Call Me

Similar artists: Half Waif, Villagers, Sóley

Banoffee - Look At Us Now Dad

[electropop]

It’s impressive how on an album produced mostly by herself, Banoffee is able to create such a hi-fi, big budget electropop sound. SOPHIE assists in the production of tracks “Count on You” and the album version of “Ripe”, which now boasts a CupcakKe verse. “Permission” is a poignant and stunning ballad about consent sounds like it could be a Hannah Diamond track. Banoffee wears her influences on her sleeve (she assisted Charli XCX on tour) and picks collaborators who help her achieve her futuristic hyperpop vision that is beautifully executed on this record.

Favourite Tracks: Count on You, Ripe, Permission

Similar Artists: Hannah Diamond, SOPHIE, Empress Of

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