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Jessy Lanza
Oh No
Second album from Jessy Lanza. Made in her hometown of Hamilton, Ontario, with production partner Jeremy Greenspan from Junior Boys, the plaintive, reverb drizzled mood of the first album has all but given away to a more direct, self-assured and joyful album. As with many artists whose hometown lie off the usual network of cultural hotspots, 'Oh No' is driven positively by the idea of making music that isn't inspired by where she lives. Instead, the album resonates more with the philosophy of experimental pop of Japanese 80s electro outfit Yellow Magic Orchestra and Jessy's breathless, pitched vocals are reminiscent of YMO collaborator Miharu Koshi. Playfully laced with cascading arpeggios, crispy drum machines and breezy songs, 'Oh No' has an infectious energy that has been brewing in her live shows since her first album. As Jessy says ‘I want to make people feel good and I want to make myself feel good’. The album oscillates between the languid, coiled, arpeggiated slow jams of ‘New Ogi’, 'Going Somewhere', 'Begins', 'Could Be U', 'I Talk BB' and the low slung 808 groove of 'Vivica', where Jessy’s vocal gymnastics run wild over minimal drums and synths, and the catchy upbeat boogie of ‘VV Violence’, ‘Never Enough’, 'Oh No' and the high point of 'It Means I Love You’ which has a sparse addictive bounce with a pitched up vocal refrain and a nod to Shangaan electro. The trials of dealing with nervousness are also encrypted into the artwork, such as the plants that recur in the sleeve and videos. As Jessy remarked, "I became obsessed with surrounding myself with tropical plants. I've been convinced that the air quality in our house is slowly killing us. It might sound crazy but the plants have made a huge difference." Anxiety and botanical remedies or not, 'Oh No' is a bold second album from Jessy and a marked step forward for her sound.
Hyperdub
CD | LP
Swim Deep
There's A Big Star Outside
If one thing is clear from the offset of revelatory fourth album ‘There’s A Big Star Outside...’, it’s that Swim Deep is no longer the same band you’ve always known.In some ways, Swim Deep’s fourth album – full of acoustic guitars and floral notes courtesy of a Mellotron keyboard (one of the finest musical exports from their native Birmingham) – has no business being as luscious and evolved as it is. But ‘There’s A Big Star Outside...’ could only have surfaced as a result of such testing years. It takes the youthful dreaming of their debut, and the excitable experimentalism of its follow-ups, and leads it to a more assured space, aided hugely by the input of producer Bill Ryder-Jones, who became a mentor throughout the journey. “A lot of the album, Bill’s drawn out of me,” Ozzy nods. “That sense of boldness and not hiding behind the music that he’s instilled in me has really made the album flourish, and be what I want it to be. It’s a cliché to say, but I feel I’ve been writing towards this record my whole life.”It’s fitting that this is the message Swim Deep have arrived at, because ‘There’s A Big Star Outside...’ genuinely does feel like a golden moment for the band. Across more than a decade in the industry, they’ve revelled in the highs and weathered the lows – but their fourth feels like an album that exists outside of all that. It’s one that’s less about chasing the next rungs of success and more about really nailing their flag to the mast as artists, as adults, and as a group who were always in it for more than just fleeting scenes and early buzz.
Submarine Cat
CD | LP
Girls Names
Stains on Silence
The new full length album from post-punkers Girls Names.
Marked by the presence of drum machines and programming throughout, these eight masterfully-woven tales are once again commandeered by founder Cully, whose words, understated yet defiant, mine purpose and meaning from the mire ("I want to bathe again, I want to swim again / In a pool of twisting bodies, blackened gold." - ‘25’). But while Stains on Silence came critically close to never being made, having lived with it, reconfigured it, and guided its metamorphosis from flickers of inspiration and half-formed schemes, it’s both a statement of pure perseverance, and a head-on confrontation with ambivalence that couldn’t be more assured. - Brian Coney, March 2018
Tough Love
CD | LP
Damien Jurado
What's New, Tomboy?
What’s New, Tomboy? is an album that seeks respite in bare minimums and barren revelations: sometimes frail, sometimes affirming, sometimes wry, and usually a threadbare mix of all those sentiments. It could be considered Damien Jurado’s finest collection of music to date, with songs exuding the inviting warmth of a lone porch light gleaming amidst the disorienting darkness. Though more stripped and grounded in their execution, songs like “Sandra”, “Ochoa” and “Alice Hyatt” are generous and candid in their vocabulary, eschewing the sometimes abstruse imagery of Jurado’s previous releases. “There is no hiding on these tracks.” Though What’s New, Tomboy? is the first Damien Jurado record that ends with a question mark, he has never sounded more assured and content in giving up his ghosts: “I’m only living sentences // That were long before I got here.”
Loose
CD | LP
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