FEATURE:
One for the Record Collection!
IN THIS PHOTO: The cover for Chari XCX’s forthcoming album, CRASH
Essential March Releases
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NEXT month is a busy one for albums…
IN THIS PHOTO: Mattiel
and, as I always say, I am publishing this quite a bit in advance, so some release dates might change – and some new albums might come out of nowhere and surprise us. I shall start with 4th March, as there are two albums particularly that I would recommend people pre-order. The first is Nilüfer Yanya’s Painless. I am a big fan of her 2019 album, Miss Universe. I would urge everyone to get their copy of Painless:
“Mercurial London artist Nilüfer Yanya releases her hugely anticipated second album Painless. It's the follow-up to Nilüfer Yanya’s renowned 2019 debut album Miss Universe, which fully established her as a singular artist and a distinctive voice that simply has to be heard.
As the daughter of two visual artists (her Irish-Barbadian mother is a textile designer and her Turkish-born father’s work is exhibited at the British Museum) creativity was always destined for Nilüfer Yanya’s future. Now she enters the next stage of her creative journey, Yanya is running head first into the depths of emotional vulnerability on her sophomore record Painless. The album was recorded between a basement studio in Stoke Newington and Riverfish Music in Penzance with Miss Universe collaborator and producer Wilma Archer, Deek Recordings founder Bullion, Big Thief producer Andrew Sarlo, and musician Jazzi Bobbi.
Where Miss Universe stretched musical boundaries to include a litany of styles from smooth jazz melodies to radio ready pop, Painless takes a more direct sonic approach. By narrowing down her previously broad palette to a handful of robust ideas that revolve around melancholy harmonies and looped industrial beats to mimic the insular focus of the lyrics, Yanya has smoothed out the idiosyncrasies of previous releases without losing what is essential to her.
Painless is a record that forces the listener to sit with the discomfort that accompanies so many of life’s biggest challenges whether it be relationship breakdowns, coping with loneliness, or the search for our inner self. “It's a record about emotion,” Yanya explains. “I think it's more open about that in a way that Miss Universe wasn't because there's so many cloaks and sleeves with the concept I built around it.” She adds, summing up the ethos of the new album, “I'm not as scared to admit my feelings”.
The other album due out on 4th March I would point people in the direction of is The Weather Station’s How Is It That I Should Look At the Stars. Go and pre-order your copy. This album is shaping up to be among this year’s very best. I love the Tamara Lindeman-fronted band. This new album is going to be one you will not want to miss out on:
“One year after the release of Ignorance, The Weather Station returns with How Is It That I Should Look At The Stars. The album is intended to be heard as a companion piece to Ignorance; songs written at the same time that connect thematically and emotionally, songs that reveal the vulnerability at the heart of the body of work. Recorded live in just three days, How Is It That I Should Look At The Stars is achingly intimate; full of breath, silence, and detail.
How Is It That I Should Look At The Stars was written in the same fruitful winter of songwriting that gave rise to Ignorance, but were songs that Lindeman felt were too internal, too soft to fit on the album she had envisioned.
Not long after completing Ignorance, Lindeman decided to make this album on her own terms, fronting the money herself and not notifying the labels. She assembled a new band, and communicated a new ethos; the music should feel ungrounded, with space, silence, and sensitivity above all else.
On this record, there are no drums, no percussion; in the absence of rhythm, time stretches and becomes elastic. Lyrically, many of the songs return to what has often been a hallmark of Lindeman’s writing; a description of a single moment and all the meaning it might encompass. And this dilation of the moment occurs musically too; as the band moves through music so ephemeral it often incorporates stretches of near silence, and breaths, single notes, and brief solos take on greater importance in the absence of other sound. Whereas the recordings on Ignorance leaned towards ambition and grandeur, here the band reaches towards a different goal; grace perhaps.
How Is It That I Should Look At The Stars was recorded from March 10 - 12, 2020. When the band entered the studio, Covid-19 was a news item, not front of mind, but by the time they left, just three days later, everything had changed. Somehow, the music captures that instability; it is ungrounded and diaphanous, it floats and drifts. It is an album of immense sensitivity, a recording of a band and a person daring to reach towards softness without apology”.
Actually, there is one more album that I want to recommend from 4th March that slipped my mind! Kojey Radical’s Reason to Smile is an album that I am looking forward to. One of our very finest talents, Reason to Smile is an album that people should get! If you have not heard his music before, I think that this L.P. might be a good introduction:
“Having already made such an indelible mark on British music it's hard to believe that Kojey Radical has never released an album. Over four previous EPs, Kojey Radical has given people greatness but on Reason To Smile he's striving for perfection. Defined by a sound he describes as "space and bass" and featuring the singles War Outside (ft Lex Amor) and Gangsta, Reason To Smile is without doubt Kojey Radical's most ambitious and complete work to date and an emphatic statement of the levels at which he operates”.
Skipping to 11th March, there are a few that I want to cover and include. The first is Bodega’a Broken Equipment. The U.S. group are an act who keep growing and getting better. Pre-order their album and see what I mean. They are an amazing group that have a sound of their own:
“The follow-up to the band's acclaimed debut album, Endless Scroll (2018), and 2019's Shiny New Model EP, Broken Equipment was inspired by a book club. In the early months of 2020, the Brooklyn art-punk incendiaries gathered together with close friends to study the works of a wide range of philosophers. Passionate debates lasting long into the night became a regular occurrence, motivating the band to become as ideologically unified as the weighty tomes they were reading. Broken Equipment is Bodega’s attempt to interrogate the external factors that make them who they are, propelling existential quandaries with tongue-in-cheek humour, highly personal lyrics, and irresistible grooves.
The album’s 12 songs are set in present day New York City, packing in references to contemporary issues of algorithmic targeting, media gentrification, and the band itself. On 'NYC (disambiguation)', they break down how the Big Apple was “founded by a corporation” and history remains alive in the present. The poetic 'Pillar on the Bridge of You' is the first love song Ben ever wrote for Nikki, while 'All Past Lovers' gazes back to the “southern belle” and “chat room suitor” who still live inside him today. To accompany the propulsive pace of 'Statuette on the Console' and its lyrics about switching perspectives, Nikki recorded alternate versions in eight different languages. “I used God in that song as this arch overlord character, but it could also be a real estate developer,” she explains. “It’s about anyone who puts their reality on your back and forces you to carry it around.” In that song, Nikki also wryly states that although she doesn’t have faith in this particular “God,” she is still “living life with (my) platitudes.” On 'Territorial Call of the Female', Nikki playfully quips that “when the man is around that’s when I’m putting you down,” highlighting how in the past she unknowingly reinforced patriarchal values by turning against other women to attract men. It’s moments like these where Bodega most exemplifies their self-professed motto that “the best critique is self critique”.
Another great album due on 11th March comes in the form of Jenny Hval‘s Classic Objects. The Norwegian artist is someone so consistent and astonishing. This is an album that, again, people should know about and pre-order:
“Norwegian musician and novelist Jenny Hval releases her new album Classic Objects. Classic Objects is a map of places; past places, like the old empty Melbourne pubs Hval’s band used to play in, public places Hval missed throughout lockdown, imagined, future places, and impossible places where dreams, hallucinations, death and art can take you. It is interested in combining heavenly things and plain things.
Classic Objects is Hval’s version of a pop album. Every song has a verse and a chorus. There are interchangeable moments of complexity, interesting melodies throughout, and a feeling of elevation and clarity in the choruses. Heba Kadry mixed it to sound as though it’s played through “a stereo in a mysterious room”.
There are two more albums from 11th March that I want to bring in. One is from a duo I have been following for years now. Superhuman by Ferris & Sylvester is an album I can confidently recommend to everyone. Do ensure that you pre-order this incredible album from the English duo if you can, as they are going to be a big act very soon:
“Ferris and Sylvester release their debut album Superhuman via [Integral] / PIAS, a body of work highlighting the very best of the duo’s timeless songwriting. The twelve track album holds ten never before heard songs and takes the listener on a journey through the duo’s world where genres intertwine and emotions are stripped down to the core.
The album was recorded at Bear Creek Studios, Seattle USA with Grammy nominated producer Ryan Hadlock (The Lumineers, Brandi Carlile, The Strokes) and at Sawmills Studio, Cornwall UK with producer Michael Rendall (Pink Floyd, The Jesus and Mary Chain, Youth). Combining influences from Folk, Blues and Americana music from both sides of the Atlantic, the duo’s debut sits in a new and distinct territory”.
Prior to moving to 18th March, there is another album from 11th that is worth your pennies. Widowspeak’s The Jacket is an album that will rank alongside the best from next month. Go and pre-order an album that is going to be terrific:
“Written in the months before and after the release of their critically acclaimed fifth album Plum, The Jacket feels like a full-circle moment for the duo of singer-songwriter Molly Hamilton and guitarist Robert Earl Thomas. Thematically, it considers Plum’s broader questions about the values ascribed to one’s time and labor through the more refined lens of performance and music-making. This is due in part to the band’s recent return to New York City, the site of their own origin story, where they recorded The Jacket at the Diamond Mine with co- producer and noted Daptone Records affiliate Homer Steinweiss.
Reunions always breed reflection, and Hamilton admits that much of the album’s themes are tied to formative experiences in the band’s own early years. Some songs speak to the process of moving on (“Unwind”, “Salt”), while others muse about regret (“True Blue”, “Forget It”). The album’s namesake track considers the literal and figurative costumes we dress our personalities in: imbued with meaning and sense of time and place, becoming so representative of who we think we are before they’re ultimately left behind. The symbolic spaces of work, music, nightlife are seen through the haze of recalling one’s own unknown legends.
Sonically, The Jacket finds the band at their usual and best: dynamics shift seamlessly between gentle, drifting ballads and twangy jams, built up from layered guitars, dusty percussion and ambling bass lines. Elsewhere: whimsical flutes, choral textures, and basement organs. Thomas’s guitar playing is as lyrical and emotive as it’s ever been, and Hamilton’s voice: comfortable and effortless. This seamless dynamic is amplified perfectly in the mix by Chris Coady (Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Beach House) . Widowspeak expertly pepper in slow-core, dream-pop, pacific northwest indie, and outlaw country, resulting in a 60s-meets-90s aesthetic. This sense of sonic nostalgia adds another layer to lyrics that reflect on old selves, invented and true. The Jacket is a wizened meditation on performance and past lives from a band who’ve seen their fair share, hitting their stride now over a decade in”.
Let’s move to 18th February. The iconic Cypress Hill are releasing Back in Black that week. It is one that everyone needs and should pre-order. They are sounding as potent and incredible as ever:
“Cypress Hill shifts culture. Since releasing its eponymous debut album in 1991, the California rap group has regularly revolutionized rap. B-Real and Sen Dog’s innovative lyrics, distinctive voices and poignant street-centered subject matter catapulted the group to superstar status. Its first LP sold more than 2 million units and its second album, 1993’s Black Sunday, pushed another 3 million units thanks to the Grammy-nominated singles “Insane In The Brain” and “I Ain’t Goin’ Out Like That”. Along the way, Cypress Hill earned a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, sold more than 9 million albums, and were nominated for three Grammy Awards. During a time increasingly defined by singles of the moment, rappers B-Real and Sen Dog wanted to make a statement by releasing an album. Back in Black, the group’s tenth studio project, finds the group flexing its musical muscles and pushing itself creatively. With a mesmerizing mix of celebratory, confrontational, inspirational, reflective, and rugged songs, Cypress Hill shines throughout Back in Black. Entirely produced by Black Milk (Slum Village, Lloyd Banks, Pharoahe Monch), the LP is an homage to Cypress Hill’s return and its collaboration with Black Milk”.
The remarkable Mattiel are releasing the much-anticipated Georgia Gothic on 18th February. Go and pre-order the album a remarkable album from a terrific group. It goes to show that March is gifting us with so many great albums that are worth getting on vinyl:
“Georgia Gothic, a magic third in Mattiel’s run of full-length albums, was shaped in the quiet seclusion of a woodland cabin in the north of the Atlanta duo’s mother-state. Cultivated by time spent together on the road touring the first two albums, it is this newfound sense of intimacy between Mattiel’s members that enabled the writing of Georgia Gothic not as two separate musicians, but rather as one creative entity. The album remained within the four walls of Brown and Swilley’s private world for much of its evolution — with recording taking place in a simple studio set up by the pair in the borrowed room of a dialysis centre, Swilley in the producer’s seat — until, nearing completion, it was transferred into the trusted hands of the Grammy-award-winning John Congleton (whose extensive list of credits includes artists as diverse as Angel Olsen, Earl Sweatshirt, Erykah Badu and Sleater Kinney) for mixing. Not only does the affinity between its creators translate into an electric synergy between Georgia Gothic’s words and music — the brine-shock of Brown’s taut lyricism cut against the bourbon-smoothness of Swilley’s instrumentation — but here too are the palpable spoils of experimentation, each party trustful enough of the other to trial and error their practices into new geometries”.
On 25th March, there are some seriously good albums you need to own. Before getting there, there are two more from 18th March. Charli XCX’s CRASH is one you must order, as it is going to one of the biggest albums of this year. As the British Pop pioneer said last year, CRASH is going to be an album of contrasting emotions and styles:
“Charli XCX has discussed her forthcoming LP in a new interview with InStyle. The singer is gearing up to release her fifth album – the follow-up to 2020’s how i’m feeling now – next year.
Speaking on the new album, which is inspired by the 80s, XCX told InStyle: “It’s kind of all about sex and sexuality”.
“It can make people dance and cry at the same time,” she added. “It’s a vibe.”
The album’s title is yet to be announced, however XCX has teased what appears to be a release date over on Instagram, sharing a picture of a headstone with the date March 18 2022 on it.
Last month, XCX released her first solo single of 2021, and the lead single for the upcoming LP, Good Ones. The song landed alongside a Hannah Lux Davis-directed music video, with XCX explaining in a statement that the track and visual aesthetic marked a “new era” for her. The previously teased headstone also featured in the video.
Her Best Song Ever podcast also launched earlier this summer, featuring conversations with Caroline Polachek, Christine and the Queens, Beabadoobee and more. Both projects follow collaborative musical efforts such as her Drama remix with Bladee and Mechatok, alongside her Xcxoplex remix with A.G. Cook. Earlier this year, XCX also formed a “supergroup” with The 1975 and No Rome.
The artist also worked on a quarantine documentary which premiered at this year’s SXSW film festival. The project, Alone Together, documented the recording process behind how i’m feeling now”.
The last album I want to recommend from 18th March is Little Boots’ Tomorrow’s Yesterdays. This is another terrific artist I can wholeheartedly suggest you follow. The album is one you need to pre-order. Before moving on, last year, More Music spoke with Little Boots (they discussed “a nationwide project, A Song for Us commissions leading music creators across genres to write new songs inspired by the people of their county. Sound UK and More Music were delighted to co-commission talented singer-songwriter and DJ, Little Boots to create a new song, working with Lancashire Youth Vocal Ensemble and other local singers and inspired by the people of Lancashire”.). She was asked how lockdown was for her and how she coped during such a tough time:
“I’ve learnt that my fans are incredible, they way they have supported me through lockdown and helped fund a new album via Patreon in the absence of gigs was amazing. I also found it to be a new set of rules for creativity, certain things were taken way such as being able to work with other people in the studio, but on the flip side we had a lot more time, this encouraged me to step up my production skills and produce my new album mylsef, something I probably wouldn’t have done otherwise”.
Coming to 25th March, there are three big albums that I will end with. The first one is Aldous Harding’s Warm Chris. Harding is one of the greatest voices and finest artists in the world. I love everything she does. Warm Chris is an album that is going to be among her very best:
“Aldous Harding releases a new studio album, the follow-up to 2019’s acclaimed Designer. For Warm Chris, the New Zealand musician reunited with producer John Parish, continuing a professional partnership that began in 2017 and has forged pivotal bodies of work (2017’s Party and the aforementioned Designer). All ten tracks were recorded at Rockfield Studios and includes contributions from H. Hawkline, Seb Rochford, Gavin Fitzjohn, John and Hopey Parish and Jason Williamson (Sleaford Mods)”.
There are two more albums that I want to highlight. Ibibio Sound Machine’s Electricity is going to be an awesome album. One you should pre-order, it is fascinating reading about what the album is going to deliver. You certainly need to get involved:
“Even in trying times, “there is no love without electricity.” Electricity is the fourth and most progressive album from Ibibio Sound Machine, and like all good Afrofuturist stories, it begins with an existential crisis. “It’s darker than anything we’ve done previously,” says Eno Williams, the group’s singer. “That’s because it grew out of the turbulence of the past year. It inhabits an edgier world.”
Electricity was produced by the Grammy Award and Mercury Prize nominated British synthpop group Hot Chip, a collaboration born out of mutual admiration watching each other on festival stages, as well as a shared love of Francis Bebey and Giorgio Moroder. The fruits of their labor reveal a gleaming, supercharged, Afrofuturist blinder. Electricity is the first album Ibibio Sound Machine have made with external producers since the group’s formation in London in 2013 by Williams and saxophonist Max Grunhard. True, 2017’s Uyai featured mixdown guests including Dan Leavers, aka Danalogue, the keyboard jedi in future-jazz trio The Comet Is Coming, but Hot Chip and Ibibio Sound Machine worked together more deeply throughout the process, collaborating fully. Along the way, the team conjured a kaleidoscope of delights that include resonances of Jonzun Crew, Grace Jones, William Onyeabor, Tom Tom Club, Kae Tempest, Keith LeBlanc, The J.B.’s, Jon Hassell’s “Fourth World,” and Bootsy Collins.
The hook of opener “Protection From Evil” has Williams wielding a massive synth line from Hot Chip’s Al Doyle like a spiritual shield against unspecified, malign forces unspecified because Williams is speaking in tongues. Her lyrics are onomatopoeic: their meaning is defined in her energetic delivery. As Electricity takes off, so do Williams’ words towards a brighter future, alternating between English and Ibibio, sometimes within verses, and propelled by Joseph Amoako’s unabating afrobeat. She digs into this sentiment further on single “All That You Want,” coolly assuring her romantic interest while also requesting reciprocity. Meanwhile, Scott Baylis’ playful Juno synth guides the listener’s feet along the dancefloor.
Electricity is a deep and seamless realization of Williams’ and Grunhard’s ambitious founding manifesto to combine the singularly rhythmic character of the Ibibio language which Williams spoke growing up in Nigeria with a range of traditional West African music and more modern electronic sounds. While the band enjoys veering further into electronic territory with the help of mutuals like Hot Chip, Grunhard emphasizes, “For us, it’s not just a matter of embracing new technology. What’s key is to keep the music grounded in African roots.” Ibibio Sound Machine best exemplify this on Electricity’s “Freedom.” That track was inspired by the water-drumming rhythms of Cameroon’s Baka women, which in turn fueled its lyrics, which in turn prompted Hot Chip and Ibibio Sound Machine to layer joyfully kinetic electronic counterparts on top in the studio. As the track culminates with the mantra of “rage, hope, cope, soul,” it’s clear that Ibibio Sound Machine have channeled, harnessed, and distilled these words as guiding principles, both for the album and for the turbulent world that awaits it”.
I will finish off with the legendary Placebo. Never Let Me Go is an album that is one you should think about pre-ordering. Following the somewhat patchy 2013 album, Loud Like Love, Never Let Me Go looks like it is a bit of a return to form for Placebo:
“In September, Placebo resurfaced from a long hibernation to release their first single in five years – and first from the new album - 'Beautiful James'. A joyous and celebratory song, it came quietly loaded with antagonism for the increasingly prominent, ignorant, factions that have come to litter modern conversation.
As great masters in cataloguing the human condition, Placebo’s unique way of examining both its flaws and beauty finds fertile ground in 2021. Crawling out of the pandemic into a landscape of intolerance, division, tech-saturation and imminent eco-catastrophe, theirs is a voice that has rarely felt more significant to contemporary discourse, and more appropriate to sing these stories to the world. Within the magnetic slow-burn of new track ‘Surrounded By Spies’ no punches are pulled in confronting the erosion of civil liberties, as Brian Molko’s deft lyrical delivery is married to a creeping sense of claustrophobia that fittingly makes the walls feel as though they are closing in from all around”.
If you need suggestions about which albums to get next month, I hope that the list above helps out. There are some seriously great releases in March! From huge Pop artists such as Charli XCX to a smaller act like Mattiel, it s a busy and exciting month for music. Whilst you might not be able to afford all of them, I hope there are some albums that you can…
SET some money aside for.