pilole 2020 febbraio/marzo

FEBBRAIO 2020	MARZO 2020
ALGIERS "There is no year" There Is No Year encompasses future-minded post-punk R&B from the trapped heart of ATL, where they began; to industrial soundscapes à la 4AD-era Scott Walker or Iggy & Bowie’s Berlin period; to something like the synthetic son of Marvin Gaye and Fever Ray. [ file under: post-punk ]		ANNA CALVI "Hunted" Anna Calvi releases Hunted, a reworking of seven tracks from 2018’s Hunter that features collaborations with Courtney Barnett, Joe Talbot (IDLES), Charlotte Gainsbourg and Julia Holter. Rawer sounding than their original incarnations, the tracks on Hunted shine under the light of a different lens, one that brings the innate fragility of the compositions to the forefront and exquisitely melds together the dichotomy of the hunter and the hunted, the primal and the beautiful, the vulnerable and the strong. [ file under: indie ]
MOSES BOYD "Dark matter" Since its emergence in the mid ’60s, free jazz has maintained a reputation as not so much a musical style. Drummer Moses Boyd argues the exact opposite: free jazz isn’t esoteric; it’s a free-flowing exchange of ideas between artist and audience that’s accessible to all. His debut LP, Dark Matter, is just as unpredictable. A tempestuous blend of MIDI sequencing, warm acoustics, and curated vocal features, it’s an album aimed squarely at the dancefloor, built to evoke feelings of joy and liberation. [ file under: nu jazz ]		CARIBOU "Suddenly" In 2014 Dan Snaith aka Caribou released Our Love to overwhelming critical acclaim and top 5 ‘Album of the Year’ positions for the likes of The Guardian, Mixmag, Loud & Quiet and NME. Now, five years later, Caribou returns with his seventh studio album Suddenly, a warm, untameable and constantly surprising album about family and the changes we go though as those relationships evolve. [ file under: electronica ]
COLLOCUTOR "Continuation" Collocutor is the brainchild of saxophonist Tamar Osborn. Now a 5-piece ensemble, the project grew from her wish to simply write the music that wanted to be written, rather than focus on a particular audience or context. As such the compositions draw inspiration from the many genres encountered over the course of a varied career, ranging from jazz, afrobeat, Indian classical and Ethiopian roots to polyphonic choral music and minimalism. [ file under: spiritual jazz ]		THOMAS DYBDAHL "Fever" "Our setup and goal was simple enough: we wanted to make a soulful guitar record that didn't feel like a guitar record and that sounded both old and fresh at the same time. With good writing and a beat that would make you dance, preferably. We would listen to everything that gave us a kick. Anything from classic artists like Nina Simone, Sam Cooke, Bill Withers, Serge Gainsbourgh, Aretha Franklin, Ray Charles, Bobby Gentry and Sly to newer soul artists like D'Angelo, Raphael Saadiq and Michael Kiwanuka was blasted to get the creative juices flowing." [ file under: retro-soul ]
FIELD MUSIC "Making a new world" Field Music’s new release is a 19 track song cycle about the after-effects of the First World War. But this is not an album about war and it is not, in any traditional sense, an album about remembrance. There are songs here about air traffic control and gender reassignment surgery. There are songs about Tiananmen Square and about ultrasound. There are even songs about Becontree Housing Estate and about sanitary towels. [ file under: concept album ]		GIGI MASIN "Calypso" Apollo Records present a masterpiece of ambience and soundscaèes beyond Calypso, the stunning new album by Venetian maestro Gigi Masin. The LP is inspired by the mythical Greek island of Ogygia and its alleged real life counterpart Gavdos, also known unofficially as Calypso, a place of extreme beauty, which upon visiting had a profound effect on the musician. Climbing in incremental steps to the pantheon’s summit, Masin now is close to reaching his rightful place alongside giants like Brian Eno, Laurie Spiegel, Ryuichi Sakamoto, Tangerine Dream and Midori Takada. [ file under: soundscapes ]
REBECCA FOON "Waxing moon" Rebecca Foon, the composer and musician behind Saltland and Esmerine (and former longstanding member of Silver Mt. Zion) presents a new album entitled Waxing Moon. While best known as an incomparable cellist, this collection of songs finds Foon emphasizing piano and voice with striking intimacy and elegance, showcasing a profoundly captivating evolution in her always resplendent songwriting. [ file under: experimental ]		PANTHA DU PRINCE "Conference of trees" In his latest musical experiment "Conference of Trees" Hendrik Weber aka Pantha Du Prince translates the communication of trees into an impressive sound journey. He is supported by a percussion ensemble consisting of Håkon Stene and Bendik Hovik Kjeldsberg, who already participated in his last ensemble project The Bell Laboratory, and Manuel Chittka, drummer of the German artist Jungstötter. [ file under: electronica ]
NICHOLAS GODIN "Concrete and glass" When Air’s Nicolas Godin released his debut solo album, Contrepoint (2015), he channelled the influence of Bach into a rich, resonant and hugely rewarding spread of musical explorations. Released on 24th January, Concrete and Glass is an exquisitely crafted set of variations on architectural reference points: mounted with minimalist precision and delivered with an abundance of pop warmth, it finds Godin in his element, working seductive wonders with poise and style to spare. [ file under: air is the place ]		RUSTIN MAN "Clockdust" Having waited 17 years for Drift Code, some may be surprised at Clockdust’s swift arrival, but the album’s roots can be found in the same extended sessions. Realizing that Webb had two albums worth of material he took great pains to ensure that each album would stand alone. Idiosyncratic and quietly haunting, Clockdust is seeped in sepia-tinted nostalgia, “a powerful force of nature,” Webb states, “up there with love and desire”. [ file under: o'rang man ]
KING KRULE "Man alive!" Like all of Archy Marshall’s music as King Krule, Man Alive! was recorded at night. It might explain the album’s dreamlike quality, some songs sound like writhing nightmares, while others loll about in an unsettled, half-asleep daze. Marshall’s last record The Ooz was criticised for being too long. Man Alive! is leaner, 40 minutes, it’s his shortest album but it could be trimmed further still, leaving fewer ambles and more of that sullen intensity. [ file under: alt pop ]		SOCCER MOMMY "Color theory" Confronting the ongoing mental health and familial trials that have plagued Allison since pre-pubescence, color theory explores three central themes: blue, representing sadness and depression; yellow, symbolizing physical and emotional illness; and, finally, gray, representing darkness, emptiness and loss. [ file under: bedroom pop ]
MHYSA "Nevaeh" NEVAEH is MHYSA’s intimate reflection on the black femme experience from multiple vantage points ranging from sex and sexuality, self-love and self-discovery, black empowerment and lineage, pleasure and lack of it. She describe the album as “a prayer for Black women and femmes to be taken to or find a new and better world away from the apocalypse. [ file under: neo soul ]		TREES SPEAK "Ohms" Soul Jazz Records rarely release new music but found the music of Tress Speak’s album OHMS so stunning and to have so many elements of music that they admired that they felt compelled to release it. The group Trees Speak are from Tucson, Arizona and create new music that sounds like German Krautorock meets No wave/Post-punk and Psych rock, music for fans of Cluster, Tangerine Dream, Can, Neu!, Silver Apples and early Kraftwerk. [ file under: american krautrock ]
REJOICER "Spiritual sleaze" Spiritual Sleaze is dense with lush textures, laid-back beats and complex instrumentation that could equally be described as jazz, hip-hop, and ambient without ever being one of those things. The tension between melodic, easy-listening sounds and Rejoicer’s tendency towards improvisation inspired the album’s sound. Where Energy Dreams was floaty, Spiritual Sleaze is more“dirty and bouncy while holding on to the earlier album’s dreamy, psychedelic vibe. [ file under: ambient break & beat ]		U.S. GIRLS "Heavy light" 10 years ago Meg Remy released Red Ford Radio, a haunted AM radio transmission taken from her sophomore album as U.S. Girls. It’s little surprise then, that Remy has returned to this early mastery of form, capping a decade of U.S. Girls and closing Heavy Light, her latest album for 4AD, with a newly captured version of Red Ford Radio. [ file under: indie ]
ANDY SHAUF "Neon skyline" Few artists are storytellers as deft and disarmingly observational as Andy Shauf. The Canadian musician's songs unfold like short fiction: they're densely layered with colorful characters and a rich emotional depth. On his new album The Neon Skyline, he sets a familiar scene of inviting a friend for beers on the opening title track: "I said, 'Come to the Skyline, I’ll be washing my sins away.' He just laughed, said 'I’ll be late, you know how I can be.'" [ file under: kitchenware ]		JONATHAN WILSON "Dixie blurt" Flirting with country-rock as he does here on his fourth album Dixie Blur, it's an unsurprising move for an artist so fascinated with Americana. Undoubtedly his most explicit journey into this world; be it the drivetime rock of Tom Petty, the story-telling of Springsteen, or the ambitious whimsy of Van Dyke-Parks. [ file under: folk-singer ]
TAME IMPALA "Slow rush" Tame Impala (Kevin Parker) will release his fourth studio album, The Slow Rush. Recorded between Los Angeles and his studio in his hometown of Fremantle, Australia, the twelve tracks were produced and mixed by Parker. The Slow Rush is Parker's deep dive into the oceans of time, conjuring the feeling of a lifetime in a lightning bolt, of major milestones whizzing by while you're looking at your phone. [ file under: art pop ]
BEN WATT "Storm damage" Across four decades Ben Watt has maintained a committed forward-looking course, from the ardent echo-drenched folk of his early solo work with Robert Wyatt, through seventeen years as musical mainspring and co-lyricist in the best-selling Everything But the Girl with Tracey Thorn to his more recent moving non-fiction and mid-life solo albums, the award-winning Hendra (2014) and Fever Dream (2016), Storm Damage is Watt's fourth solo LP. [ file under: folktronika ]