Best New Releases, July 28: The Clientele, Aphex Twin and more
We’ve hit the dead center of summer—the time of year when we stop checking their inboxes as diligently, the heat index is off the charts and summer tours and festivals outpace new releases. Or so it would seem, but here we are with another batch of new albums to hear today, including the return of an IDM legend, a more sprawling new album from some UK indie faves, a set of pop outtakes that might even eclipse the A-sides, and more.
The Clientele – I Am Not There Anymore
The latest album from British band The Clientele is among their longest and most packed set of songs yet, comprising 19 tracks that include a number of segues and interludes (or “radials”). But there’s an eclectic and dreamy sensibility throughout the album that makes its sprawl fascinating to follow and richly rewarding in spite of the sheer volume. In our review of the album, Ben Easton said, “after repeat listens—the album is a grower—I Am Not There Anymore’s stark moves start to feel cathartic and thoughtfully interwoven, The Clientele drawing from deeper and darker wells than ever before.”
Listen/Buy: Bandcamp | Merchbar (vinyl)
Aphex Twin – Blackbox Life Recorder 21f/In a room7 F760
The first new set of music from Richard D. James since 2018’s Collapse is brief, perhaps, but the Cornish IDM legend somehow makes that 15 minutes feel as rich and nourishing as possible. The four pieces on Blackbox Life Recorder have a vintage, analog sensibility about them that nods to some of his earliest productions in acid techno and his groundbreaking Selected Ambient Works 85-92. Not nearly as bonkers or avant garde as Aphex Twin gets, but satisfyingly accessible with more than a little weird to go around. We’ll have more on this one soon.
Oh, and while you’re at it, read our recent Treble 100 piece on Richard D. James Album.
Listen/Buy: Bandcamp | Turntable Lab (vinyl)
Mutoid Man – Mutants
The return of Mutoid Man after 2017’s War Moans is just the explosive application of intense guitar-driven mayhem we’ve come to expect from this trio, comprising members of Cave In, Converge and High on Fire. In fact, it’s currently our Album of the Week. In our review of the album, Langdon Hickman said, “This world of music is meant to break you open like a geode, to use speed and heaviness and wild acrobatics and time signatures to tap the cavities in your body, to let out what’s trapped up inside, the things our calluses and scales lock in us.” Well, damn.
Listen/Buy: Bandcamp | Merchbar (vinyl)
Carly Rae Jepsen – The Loveliest Time
Carly Rae Jepsen has a pattern of releasing an album and then following it up with a set of outtakes or b-sides—kind of like HEALTH, who she definitely should collaborate with—and she’s done it for the third time on The Loveliest Time. Continuing to explore deeper club sounds like those heard on last year’s The Loneliest Time, Jepsen doubles down on her pattern of making more definitively grown-up pop music, steeped in house, jungle, funk and the lush R&B of Janet Jackson’s The Velvet Rope. Perhaps these aren’t among her most explicitly commercial songs, but on moments like “Shy Boy,” “Aeroplanes” and “Kollage,” they often feel like her best.
Listen: Spotify
Gunn Truscinski Nace – Glass Band
The Gunn-Truscinski Duo already make pretty wonderful improvisational music together, psychedelic and open-ended, voluminous yet given to wide expanses of space. So when you add Body/Head’s Bill Nace to that equation, only good things can happen. Glass Band finds the trio approaching music as a guitar-guitar-drums trio from various different angles, from raga-like drones, lilting and gentle acoustic pieces, even a lengthy and noisy exercise in rumbling distortion. Glass Band is a stellar set of shape-shifting instrumentals, and we’ll have more on this one soon.
Listen/Buy: Bandcamp | Merchbar (vinyl)
Jessy Lanza – Love Hallucination
Canadian artist Jessy Lanza has always explored the more ethereal aspects of electronic music, but with Love Hallucination she made a dance album, full stop. It’s immediate, catchy, fun and consistently bright, as if she sought out to make a perfect summertime album. In our review of the album, Adam P. Newton said, “It’s the most upbeat and kinetic release of Jessy Lanza’s career—and I’m here for it.” Me too, and while you’re at it, make it a double feature with Carly’s latest.
Listen/Buy: Bandcamp | Amazon (vinyl)
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