James Spearing
This album is a super exciting blend of heritage and home. And while this has of course been done before, Alewya brings an up to date and uniquely diverse mix of sounds from Africa and Arabia through the clubs and streets of home in the UK, helped in no small part with production from Shy FX. Don’t be fooled into thinking it’s all high energy rap and dance music though, there are plenty of refreshing changes of pace and mood throughout. Zero has been heavily soundtracking my July after first hearing lead single ‘Maktoub’ where London meets the Red Sea. If you’re a fan of Sudan Archives or M.I.A. then this album is definitely for you.
Rick Larson
There have not been many new releases rocking my world this summer, so let’s highlight something live and something old.
The annual Mosswood Meltdown in Oakland saw Friday headliners of Pavement and Wednesday, basically a bill handpicked to appeal to me: My favorite American band of all time and perhaps my favorite band of this decade playing before a rapturous and rambunctious crowd, a cannabis fog refracting the East Bay twilight. I skipped Saturday, with headliner Iggy Pop because if I want to watch an ugly old man with his shirt off contort himself, I can just look in the mirror in the morning. But, Sunday’s headliner Bikini Kill pushed all the right buttons and when Sleater-Kinney’s Corin Tucker and Carrie Brownstein (who had played solely Ramones covers earlier) joined for ‘Rebel Girl,’ well, that’s like Buddy the Elf in the elevator pushing all the buttons at once.
I went to Amoeba Records in Berkeley for an occasional reminder of how expensive used vinyl is these days and had to ask a store worker the name of the album playing, which sounded like some strange mashup of Dry Cleaning and Rickie Lee Jones. It was The Perfect Release (1979) by Annette Peacock, a fascinating artist completely unknown to me. She dropped out of Juilliard, hung out with Timothy Leary and was an early adopter of the first Moog synthesizer. If this album were released today, the indie intelligentsia would be smitten. You thought Aldous Harding was cool and weird.
Joe Hoare
All Tied Together by Ye Vagabbonds – released in January – has been a fairly constant feature of my summer since seeing their live show in June. For the unacquainted, Ye Vagabonds are an Irish folk band with strong trad influences. They are often known for a collaboration they did with boygenius to commemorate the passing of Sinead O’Connor (although that is perhaps a reductive way to look at a career that now spans four studio albums). This latest album follows off the back of high acclaim for their third offering.
In many ways, this is a fairly typical folk album: it is full of rich harmonies, layered traditional instruments, and lyrics often centred around a narrative or a metaphor. What sets this album apart, however, is the nuance with which each of these is delivered. Take the vocals of brothers Diarmud and Brian – so subtle, emotive, and complimentary that it sometimes feels like their harmonies are chords played on the same instrument. They take it in turns to lead and back-up on different songs and there is a beauty in this equality and perhaps a shared understanding that one voice will carry the emotion of one song better than the other.
The album similarly carries emotional nuance through its lyrics. In true folk style, there are heart-wrenching narratives – “Danny”, the fastest boy in the county who falls on hard times and “Cuckoo Storm” a nostalgic song about a time before his friend had a child. Overall, there is a hopeful feeling to the album despite some moments of darkness. A run of songs about love and home towards the end of the album – “Young Again”, “Four Walls”, and “Long Grass” – leave an overall comforting feel.
The vocals and lyricism are all carried by nuanced instrumentation. Whether it’s the gentle guitar of “On Sitric Road”, the keys and bass of “I’ll Keep Singing”, or the full trad band of “The Flood”, there is a lot to get lost in. There’s the occasional electronic ambient sound – which isn’t my favourite thing on a folk album – but it’s not often or distracting enough to detract from some exceptional musical talent.
The main downside to the album? It’s not quite as mesmerising as the live show.
Tom Burrows
In the last week or so, I’ve caught up on Kelsey Lu’s June release, So Help Me God. The first 3 songs might be the strongest opening to an album I’ve heard this year – a quite beautiful set of classically backed epic pop songs, stunningly realised. But the second half of the album doesn’t come close to living up to the opening section, despite the obligatory Sampha feature. Still, what a lovely opening, and great to hear from an artist who hasn’t released a record since 2019’s really promising Blood.
Elsewhere, I was ready to finally step off the Charli XCX train after my first listen to Music, Fashion, Film, as songs like ‘Yeah’ and ‘Wink Wink’ felt a bit too full of knowingly ironic affectations. But at only 30 minutes long, it’s easy to replay, and the repetition helped it grow on me. It feels not long enough since the whole Brat thing for another album cycle, but ‘Camera’, ‘Card Declined’ and ‘No One Lasts Forever’ (with an admittedly cool David Cronenberg) sample are earworms that cut through. I’m still on the journey.
Will Collins
My picks for best of the month are both slightly hazy, ambient numbers, probably a reflection of the slightly hallucinatory state I’ve been in as I have dragged myself to the end of the school year! First up is the re-issue of Visions, the 1977 album by Mar-Vista. It’s a trippy slice of proggy electronica, full of wonky synths, spectral guitar and ominous percussion, shot through with lo-fi production. A dystopian, science fiction aesthetic runs through the tracks and the album is filled with a sense of dread and doom. It’s a hugely engaging record that drops you into a fully realised world and maintains this throughout.
The other record I’ve been enjoying, despite having only just been released, is the new Durutti Column album, Renascence. 40 odd years into his career, Vini Reilly continues to push guitar music away from its rockist tropes and the resulting music is breathtakingly beautiful. The tracks here range from shimmering ambient guitar workouts to piano-led torch songs to fully orchestrated pieces that wouldn’t sound out of place on a film soundtrack. It’s been on rotation all weekend for me and will continue to be so for some time.
Fat Roland
On first listen, the Passion EP from Gothenburg producer Ebende seems super laid back, like a hammock, or like a hammock salesman in a hammock showroom who sells hammocks while lounging in a hammock. You’re never going to sell any if you don’t get off your arse, Terry. Where was I? Oh yes. Ebende’s new EP has all the trappings of 1990s downtempo chillout, but his drum programming sparks with his trademark tricksy intelligence, and this sets him apart from all the other, er, hammocks. So good. He sounds like DJ Shadow on a sleepover with Bicep. (Bicep are in a double hammock – the lads always go top to tail – while Shadow’s got a futon because he’s nobody’s fool.)
The British electronic music outfit Fluke is less revered than contemporaneous bleepers like The Prodigy or Chemical Brothers. But they deserve their flowers. From their classic anthem ‘Groovy Feeling’ to their iconic work on the era-defining Playstation game Wipeout 2097 to their later experiments in found sound, Fluke were no, er, fluke. See what I did there? Clever writing. Ahem. They’ve released a spit-polished collection of greatest hits called The Second Bite. To accompany this new release, Daniel Avery has put out a remix of Atom Bomb – his Nuclear Summer Remix is low-slung, sultry and volatile, a bit like me when I’m trapped in a hammock. Stupid hammocks.
Fran Slater
It’s a large slice of live music from me this month, as all my June highlights have come while watching someone excel on the stage. Seeing Kevin Morby play on the night I finally secured a job after six months of looking was an absolute joy. His mix of chilled vibes, amazing musicianship, and occasional moments of cathartic release were exactly what I needed that night.
And at Deer Shed Festival, I was lucky enough to catch amazing sets from Dominie Hooper and The Twilight Sad. Because my love for these acts is already established, though, it was perhaps Boko Yout on the Friday night that were the absolute standouts. Coming on stage in scout outfits before ripping into half an hour of furious post-punk fused with hip-hop and many other things, it was a captivating show from start to finish.
Picky Bastards 