Our selection of the best new music across a range of genres from the week ending 2 September 2022.
Melbourne-based psych outfit The Baudelaires have released their sophomore album TiLT. Recorded in Venice, Italy and in their hometown of Melbourne, TiLT is released through Cheersquad in Australia/New Zealand, Kozmik Artifactz in Europe and Little Cloud Records in the US. The Baudelaires’ hypnotic contact high psych-rock sounds combine rich analog fuzz and reverb drenched licks with an occasional single-minded motorik drive. The group has been compared to other modern-day dandies like the Brian Jonestown Massacre, The Warlocks, The Black Angels and Thee Oh Sees as well as earlier custodians like Spaceman 3 and The Jesus and Mary Chain, and originators like Texan psych pioneers The Thirteenth Floor Elevators and The Red Crayola and the trance-inducing whips and furs clamour of Plastic Exploding Inevitable-era Velvet Underground and like-minded ’60s New York radical minimalists The Godz.
“This music is inspired by the history of the American continent: not only before European colonization, but also by what’s happened since—cause and effect,” says Miguel Zenón of his latest album of all original works, Música de Las Américas. The music grew out of Zenón’s passion for the history of the American continent, and the resulting album pays tribute to its diverse cultures while also challenging modern assumptions about who and what “America” is. Featuring his longstanding quartet of pianist Luis Perdomo, bassist Hans Glawischnig, and drummer Henry Cole, Música de Las Américas represents a broadening of scope and ambition for Zenón, who is best known for combining cutting-edge modernism with the folkloric and traditional music of Puerto Rico.
For those unfamiliar with The Orchids’ work, their music is bright pop music, crystal clear, but in no way could it be described as featherweight pop. The enigmatic five piece band formed in Glasgow, and have released some of the finest pop songs of their generation since humble beginnings in the suburbs, where the three founder members grew up and started the band in 1986. Their first six singles and three albums were met with widespread critical acclaim, much of this from outside the UK. Ahead of their time in the early 90’s, it is only now that many have realised how fascinating and mature those earlier releases were. Their new album, Dreaming Kind, is out now.
If you reach Appalachian singer, songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Martha Spencer, it’ll be from the top of her mountain in Virginia, likely when she’s out walking in the woods. Spencer grew up nestled into hills as old as time. Raised in mountain music (she grew up in the famed Whitetop Mountain Band, which dates back to the 1940s), Spencer channels the old sounds, but she can just as easily create new sounds from her worldly travels. Half of the songs on her new album, Wonderland, coming September 2, 2022, are newly written, showcasing songwriting influences from classic icons like Dolly Parton and Hazel Dickens & Alice Gerrard to modern underground Nashville songwriters like Lillie Mae. Her second solo album, Wonderland comes on the heels of Spencer’s acclaimed self-titled 2018 album.
Beethoven: The Symphonies is the third composer-themed collaboration between Yannick Nézet-Séguin and the Chamber Orchestra of Europe, and also the first recorded cycle to follow the New Beethoven Complete Edition text of Symphony No.9, including an only recently rediscovered contrabassoon part. Nézet-Séguin says, “I am interested in how Beethoven’s music can surprise us today. Our interpretation should feel to the audience as if they are hearing this music for the first time. That is my goal.”
The Pink Album is dawn and dusk, the epic and the intimate. This 22-track double album, its title inspired by the artwork of Julian House, sees Unloved (Jade Vincent, Keefus Ciancia, David Holmes) in collaborations with Jarvis Cocker, Étienne Daho, Raven Violet and Jon Spencer. Pink has its modulations: shocking at times but signifying also tenderness, intimacy, the carnal. The Pink Album knows the shades of love, its nuances, and how it can be delicious – and frightening. Marvellous – and aching. Rather than be the silver lining to the cloud, The Pink Album mines deeper, to a precious ore, dark and glittering.
Arguably the greatest Jamaican record producer of all time, Lee ‘Scratch’ Perry was instrumental in transforming the island’s national sound throughout the Sixties and Seventies, with his unique approach to music making pushing the music beyond previously perceived boundaries. To mark the first anniversary of his passing, Trojan Records has released King Scratch showcasing the very best of his work. The LP focuses on the legendary music-maker’s best known productions from the Sixties and Seventies, performed by some of the giants of Jamaican music, with both extensive notes on the man whose talent and imagination took reggae to new heights of excellence.
Other reviews you might enjoy:
- New music round-up (for w/e 21 January 2022)
- Spencer Sings the Hits (Jon Spencer) – music review
- New music round-up (for w/e 24 February 2023)
David Edwards is the editor of The Blurb and a contributor on film and television