Essential Tracks This Week: Titanic, Blood Orange, and more
Did we miss a week? Hmmm, well, no matter, there’s always more great music just around the corner, and this week makes up for that. Among our picks for the best new songs of the week are the latest from Titanic, Blood Orange, The Armed and more.
Titanic – “Gotera”
Titanic—the duo of Mabe Fratti and I la católica—captured a gorgeously haunting blend of folk, jazz and experimental music on their debut album Vidrio, one of that year’s best albums. Yet the first single from its follow-up finds them in the presence of something more intense, with a torrent of industrial percussion provided by Eli Keszler. Strip that away and, in part, you get something closer to Fratti’s own beautifully abstract solo lullabies—until a noisy eruption of cello and guitar take over, meeting Keszler’s stormy drumming with plenty of noise and volume of their own. It’s a masterful showcase of controlled chaos. – Jeff Terich
From Hagen, out Sept. 5 via Unheard of Hope.
Blood Orange – “The Field” (feat. The Durutti Column, Caroline Polachek, Eva Tolkin, Tariq Al-Sabir, and Daniel Caesar)
A new Blood Orange track featuring The Durutti Column? Didn’t see that one coming. It’s a little misleading, I’ll grant you—”The Field” centers on a sample of that group’s “Sing to Me.” Nonetheless, the song is absolutely gorgeous, centered around Vini Reilly’s pastoral guitar plucks and a fluid drum and bass beat, while Dev Hynes’ cast of guest vocalists—including Caroline Polachek and Tariq Al-Sabir—each add a layer of sublime harmony to a dense yet somehow weightless set of gorgeous sounds. – Jeff Terich
Out now via RCA
The Armed – “Kingbreaker”
Did they? Naaah. I mean, would they? Sure, but … nah. Even if they could have, given what we know about provocateurs the Armed, gasp, oh wait, dude. They really could have! Even though The Armed announced their newest album, its title (The Future Is Here and Everything Needs to Be Destroyed) and release date of Aug 1. roughly a month ago, surely they couldn’t have known about the biggest ever protests to transpire in the US, during nationwide actions nicknamed “No Kings” that occurred less than two weeks ago. Alright, scraping off the sarcasm and giving The Armed an early and earnest round of applause, these captivating crusaders have already demonstrated with this cacophonous chaser to its much tighter preceding single “Well-Made Play.” Maybe this isn’t the place to speculate that, if The Armed continue to soar and the mobilizations we’ve already seen are just a precursor to larger scale and more intense actions to come, this band might be more capable of becoming a galvanizing force with broad populist appeal with a willingness to speak their minds ferociously, consequences be fucked. Instead, let’s just play it safe and declare The Armed have clearly grown into their own selves. That and … did you see this on BoingBoing back in September 2019? No, we didn’t either. – Kurt Orzeck
From The Future Is Here and Everything Needs to Be Destroyed, out Aug. 1 via Sargent House
Just Mustard – “Pollyanna”
The latest from Irish group Just Mustard finds them taking a deeper dive into the experimental ambiance of shoegaze. A minimalist drone of sound anchors the vocals, holding the song together. Katie Ball’s voice has just enough of a piercing quality to make this work. If you were hoping for a more guitar-oriented track, this is not it, but it does work well at creating the dreamy vibes that keep the band from being boxed into a singular aspect of the genre they are associated with.
Out now
Orcutt Shelley Miller – “A Star is Born”
While we’re talking about surprises, here’s another thrilling collision of sounds that caught me off guard. Nothing about “A Star Is Born,” on its face, is radically out of bounds; the trio of experimental guitarist Bill Orcutt, former Sonic Youth drummer Steve Shelley and Comets on Fire/Howlin Rain’s Ethan Miller on bass sounds, frankly, like a logical combo. But there’s so much more easy-going groove in this live-recorded ripper than that combination of ringers might suggest. Is it climactic, noisy psychedelia? Absolutely! But man, does it ever feel good. – Jeff Terich
From Orcutt Shelley Miller, out Sept. 5 via Silver Current
