pilole 2024 aprile/maggio

APRILE 2024	MAGGIO 2024
JOE ARMON-JONES "Wrong side of town" Wrong Side Of Town is the first in a series of releases on Aquarii dedicated to a tradition of ‘dub’ music. Now recognised as an intrinsic part of the UK musical landscape, dub music evolved from the music brought to the country by the first wave of Caribbean immigrants in the 1950s and 60s, a continuum that also takes in more contemporary genres of British music such such as jungle, drum & bass, dubstep, grime, and more. [ file under: dub sounds ]		AMEN DUNES "Death jokes" Amen Dunes has always worked with an outsider’s verve, but as he approached his seventh album in fall 2019, it was clear to Damon McMahon that he needed to become an outsider to his own history. “I was tired of the music I’d become convinced I had to limit myself to.” Instead of embarking on a familiar project, he decided to become a beginner again, immersing himself in the fundamentals of both piano and the electronic music he’d grown up with at raves and clubs but never imagined himself able to make. [ file under: sub poop ]
CLARISSA CONNELLY "World of work" Scottish and Danish composer Clarissa Connelly’s debut album on Warp Records, World of Work. Over the years Clarissa has explored sacred sites and mythology, finding inspiration in Celtic and Nordic culture. For her most recent album, The Voyager, Clarissa walked the Scandinavian landscape, channelling melodies from ancient pre-Christian sites. The album received global acclaim and was awarded the prestigious Nordic Music Prize. On World of Work, Clarissa explores themes of acceptance and growth, by creating a sonic embroidery, a powerful testimony of her production and composition abilities. [ file under: folktronica ]		YAYA BEY "Ten fold" New York's Yaya Bey announces her forthcoming album Ten Fold due May 10th via Big Dada. Picking up where she left off with the powerful one-two punch of her 2022 album Remember Your North Star and 2023’s followup EP Exodus the North Star, Yaya’s new album is a free-spoken and flowing self-portrait defined by in-the-moment reflections on the past, present and future. Brimming with the nuances of Yaya’s identity and the various facets of her creative endeavors, Ten Fold turns her focus inward and meditates on her inner being while carving out spaces for the humor and cutting social commentary that’s been a defining characteristic of her work. [ file under: soul r.&b. ]
KHRUANGBING "A la sala" The title makes it clear. A La Sala (“To the Room” in Spanish), the fourth studio album by Khruangbin, is an exercise in returning in order to go further, and do so on your own terms. It extends the air of mystery and sanctity that’s key to how bassist Laura Lee Ochoa, drummer Donald “DJ” Johnson, Jr. and guitarist Mark “Marko” Speer approach music. [ file under: psychexotic ]		BETH GIBBONS "Lives outgrown" Lives Outgrown is the debut album by Beth Gibbons featuring 10 beautiful new songs recorded over a period of 10 years, the album was produced by James Ford & Beth Gibbons with additional production by Lee Harris (Talk Talk). Lives Outgrown is, by some measure, Beth’s most personal work to date, the result of a period of sustained reflection and change — “lots of goodbyes,” in Beth’s words. Farewells to family, to friends, even to her former self. These are songs from the mid-course of life, when looking ahead no longer yields what it used to, and looking back has a sudden, sharper focus. [ file under: post trip hop ]
DENT MAY "What's for breakfast?" Every morning when Dent May wakes up, the first thing he says is, “What’s for breakfast?” For the Los Angeles-based songwriter and pop auteur, this question is part inside joke with his girlfriend, part sitcom-style catchphrase, and part mantra about getting up every day and persevering in the face of good or bad is happening around you in your life. It’s also the title of his sixth album, which is out on Carpark Records. What’s For Breakfast? is May’s most immediate, nostalgic, and rollicking LP yet, one that’s concerned with breaking daily routines and rediscovering the joys of songwriting. [ file under: twilight pop ]		MICHAEL HEAD & THE RED ELASTIC BAND "Loophole" 62 years of music, loves, losses, long summer days and longer, darker nights are vividly recalled by ‘our greatest living songwriter’, Michael Head and The Red Elastic Band as he plays out flickering scenes from his life on new album, Loophole, set for release on Fri 3 May 2024 on Modern Sky. 12 evocative and autobiographical songs to be accompanied by the written word as Michael Head prepares his memoirs for release with an autobiography with Nine Eight Books. UK Tour dates announced for May and December, ending the year with a career-spanning, home city set at Liverpool Philharmonic. [ file under: indie pop ]
KELLY MORAN "Moves in the filed" For over a decade classical pianist and composer Kelly Moran has been making a name for herself. It has seen her release five albums – some mini, some full length – and work with artists like Oneohtrix Point Never, FKA twigs, Margaret Leng Tan, Kelsey Lu and Yves Tumor. Now Moran has returned with her new album, ‘Moves In The Field’, and she’s brought a friend along. The fried in question might not be who you expect. It isn’t any of the above, for instance. Instead, Kelly Moran has chosen to work with a Yamaha Disklavier. This is a fancy version of a player piano. [ file under: modern classical ]		IBIBIO SOUND MACHINE "Pull the rope" Pull the Rope, the new record by Ibibio Sound Machine, casts the Eno Williams and Max Grunhard–led outfit in a new light. The hope, joy, and sexiness of their music remain, but, further honing the edge of their acclaimed 2022 album Electricity, the connection they aim to foster has shifted venues from the sunny buoyancy of a sunlit festival to a sweat-soaked, all-night dance club. The atmosphere has changed, but you’re still having the time of your life. [ file under: world disco ]
FABIANA PALLADINO "S/t" Made in the wake of the end of a long relationship, the album is an intimate record that sees Fabiana Palladino confront complex questions about love, loneliness, and normativity in relationships. The result is a 10-track full-length of shapeshifting sonics that draws inspiration from the big R&B, Soul, Pop and Disco studio productions of the 80s and 90s and filters them through a modern lens. [ file under: pop & soul ]		MARY LATTIMORE AND WALT MCCLEMENTS "Rain on the road" Mary Lattimore and Walt McClements are two of contemporary music's most renowned innovators. Each has managed to expand the perception of their instrument’s capabilities. Lattimore inventive harp processing and looping has brought the instrument to a new audience. Her prolific run of celestial solo albums and evocative film scores have redefined the instrument in the modern consciousness. Her genre-agnostic collaborations include work with Kurt Vile, Steve Gunn, Jeff Zeigler, Meg Baird, Bill Fay and Thurston Moore. [ file under: harp ambient ]
PYE CORNER AUDIO "Endless echo" Martin Jenkins returns with his latest Pye Corner Audio album The Endless Echo. It’s been a minute since we heard The Head Technician in that introspective, esoteric mood; his most recent ventures have found him mixing acid solutions for Emotional Response and creating resplendent psychedelia for Sonic Cathedral. The Endless Echo, however, is a marked difference from the Sun worshipping warmth of 2022’s Let’s Emerge!, returning to the sci fi indebted hauntology of his Ghost Box works. As he reaches into the sonic library once more, he taps into anachronistic anxieties by exploring the intersections between past, present, and future. [ file under: electronic ambient ]		JASMINE MYRA "Rising" Elevating, uplifting and beautifully arranged. Jasmine Myra's sophomore album Rising builds on the success of her breakthrough album Horizons to deliver a major statement from one of UK Jazz's rising stars. Produced by Matthew Halsall and mixed by Greg Freeman (Hania Rani, Matthew Halsall, Portico Quartet), Rising delivers a confident and vibrant follow up that joins the musical dots between Myra’s influences Kenny Wheeler, Bonobo and Shabaka Hutchings while delivering something unique, beautiful and profound. [ file under: gondwana sounds ]
CLAIRE ROUSAY "Sentiment" Claire Rousay’s vocals and guitar take center stage on sentiment. Her intimate, diaristic lyrics contrast with her mechanical-inflected vocal effects, emphasizing a powerful desire for connection, a deep yearning and a lingering sense of separation. “I want to belong to the worlds and communities I look up to. Same as someone using a Fender guitar or dressing like Kurt Cobain. Emulate your heroes,” says Rousay. [ file under: experimental pop ]		JESSICA PRATT "Here in the pitch" On her fourth album, west coast artist Jessica Pratt expands the scope of her artistry, placing her sharpest songs to date within an ever-broadening pool of influences including spectral '60s pop, Hollywood psychedelia and bossa nova. Whereas Pratt's 2019 record, Quiet Signs, floated elegantly in the ether, Here in the Pitch is entrenched in more earthen characteristics, as the title suggests, and her craft is emboldened with a newfound gravitas. [ file under: twilight pop ]
SHABAKA "Perceive its beauty, acknowledge its grace" Shabaka Hutchings’ tenor saxophone shows up exactly once on this album. Around 10 minutes before the LP ends, he summons the fierce momentum and sandpapery grit that have powered beloved bands like Sons of Kemet, the Comet Is Coming, and Shabaka and the Ancestors, and helped to make him one of the most celebrated jazz musicians of the past decade. As is usually the case when Shabaka—now billed by first name only—picks up what he has called the “big, loud, shiny horn,” the solo is thrilling. [ file under: son of kemet ]		VILLAGERS "That golden time" Following the kaleidoscopic adventure of Villagers’ fifth album Fever Dreams, award-winning Dublin singer-songwriter-instrumentalist-dramatist Conor O’Brien returns with the intimate inventory that he has named That Golden Time. No less intense than its more feverish predecessor, the exquisite new album un-furls O’Brien’s trademark melodic flair, his gift for simultaneously vivid and subtle arrangements and lyrics that couch his hopes, fears and dreams in richly absorbing poetry. [ file under: alt pop ]
JANE WEAVER "Love in constance spectacle" Recalibrating her singular journey in the British musical landscape with her most open-hearted, direct and intimate collection of material yet. Love In Constant Spectacle evokes spectacular imagery and distills the artists’ vision in its purest form, elevating her inimitable sound and poetic vision to new heights. Recapturing the melancholy of her early work whilst propelling it forward, she sketches scenes as we watch new colours, shapes and languages emerge and fill the frame. Love In Constant Spectacle sees her take measured steps towards a vivid, dreamlike record, that offers resolve in the face of life’s inevitability. [ file under: alternative pop ]		KAMASI WASHINGTON "Fearless movement" Turning his attention to dance for his latest album, Fearless Movement out this May on Young, Kamasi Washington resumes his ongoing study of music as a means of connection. His 2015 album The Epic, as well as 2018’s Heaven and Earth were received by critics and audiences as a reimagination of modern jazz showcasing Washington’s larger-than-lift compositions full of celestial grandeur and his distinct blend of jazz, Latin, funk, classical, hip-hop and soul. [ file under: nu fusion jazz ]