Best New Releases, May 9: Mark Pritchard & Thom Yorke, billy woods, and more
Another new music Friday is upon us, which brings with it a whole spectrum of sounds to dive into over the weekend and beyond. Among this week’s highlights is the full-length return of a stellar collaborative duo that first came together nine years ago, a rapper with one of the most unstoppable track records out there, the long-awaited return of a legendary noise rock group, and more. These are the week’s best new releases.
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Mark Pritchard and Thom Yorke – Tall Tales
Producer Mark Pritchard and Radiohead/The Smile frontman Thom Yorke first worked together back in 2016 on the track “Beautiful People” from Pritchard’s Under the Sun. And a little under a decade later, the two have reconvened for a full-length, the hypnotic Tall Tales. It’s a nuanced and dark affair, steeped in electronics, not unlike Yorke’s other solo outings, but while it often finds fertile ground in slower, more subtly evolving pieces, it comes alive elsewhere on the IDM-pop of “This Conversation Is Missing Your Voice,” the bright bit-twinkle of “Gangsters” and the sputtering misfit-toys goth of “Happy Days.” We’ll have more to say about this one soon. – Jeff Terich
Listen/Buy: Bandcamp | Turntable Lab (vinyl)
billy woods – GOLLIWOG
Two years after Maps, billy woods’ standout 2023 collaboration with Kenny Segal, the Armand Hammer emcee returns with his first new album in two years and first album since 2019 made with a rotating cast of production talent. Among his partners this time around are past collaborators such as The Alchemist, Preservation and El-P, along with guest rappers such as Bruiser Wolf, Cavalier and his longtime musical partner ELUCID. It’s also one of the most chilling works he’s ever delivered, rife with horror imagery and sounds, and various permutations of real-life horrors coming out of the woodwork, whether taking the form of childhood trauma or the violence of war. It’s as breathtaking a listen as it is a gallery of atrocities. We’ll have more on this one soon. – Jeff Terich
Listen/Buy: Bandcamp | Turntable Lab (vinyl)
Mclusky — The World Is Still Here and So Are We
As the leader of both post-hardcore band Mclusky and alt-rockers Future of the Left, vocalist/guitarist Andy “Falco” Falkous has made no secret of his firm political stances and sharp criticisms of government figures in his British homeland and beyond. Given that politics permeate everyday life more so than they have in decades, and tyrannies and far-right groups are ascendant, one would be right to assume Falco would be more singularly focused on those subjects, and humorless given the dire threat democracies face across the world. But with age comes wisdom, perspective—and, in the case of the iconoclastic vet—a practically equal balance between focusing on what’s at stake and the absurdity of what the West has become. The World Is Still Here isn’t a Nero-esque downfall soundtrack; it’s a clarion call to salvage what remains, and the punk-fueled tenacity required in order to do so. – Kurt Orzeck
Listen/Buy: Bandcamp | Rough Trade (vinyl)
Deradoorian – Ready for Heaven
The first thing that comes to mind when hearing Angel Deradoorian’s latest album is Material, the avant-funk group led by Bill Laswell whose 1982 single “Memories” was also the recording debut of one Whitney Houston. Like that material, this record likewise sits at the crossroads of seemingly unrelated musical traditions, with an avant-punk arthouse veneer applied to stripped down funk and disco workouts. Another connection might be the very early PiL records or perhaps the first few by A Certain Ratio. It’s shocking how time seems to fall away as this plays; it feels like it’s been part of my life forever already. – Langdon Hickman
Listen/Buy: Bandcamp | Rough Trade (vinyl)
Cole Pulice – Land’s End Eternal
Composer and saxophonist Cole Pulice has a long list of collaborations to their name, including Bon Iver, Fire-Toolz and Circuit des Yeux. On their latest solo record, however, they embark on a journey of more stark ambient pieces built on gentle, serene movements and an interplay between electronics and acoustic instruments—including, naturally, the saxophone. Everything here is beautiful and meditative, akin to recent ambient-jazz forays from the likes of Spencer Zahn and Shabaka Hutchings, and reaches a breathtaking climax in its final piece, “After the Rain”. We’ll have more on this one soon. – Jeff Terich
Listen/Buy: Bandcamp
History Dog – Root Systems
History Dog is a collective in the truest sense of the word. The ultra-limber quartet, made up of Brooklyn avant-garde underground powerhouses Shara Lunon (voice, electronics), Chris Williams (trumpet, electronics), Luke Stewart (electric bass, electronics) and Lesley Mok (drums, percussion) deftly compose, improvise and rattle off an explosive din collectively as a locked-in group guided by a singular ethos and a telepathic chemistry. History Dog’s Root Systems is all that and more, a remarkable debut that is on a whole other level of sonic and spiritual depth. The effortless hurtling from dreamy electronics-fueled spatterings, sheer punk-jazz fury, spoken-word stream of consciousness and skronky no wave-esque noisescapes found on Root Systems reveals a band whose interplay is off the psychic scale. A must for fans of Irreversible Entanglements and Black Myths (both which feature Stewart as a member), Elder Ones, Moor Mother and that experimental-minded ilk. – Brad Cohan
Listen/Buy: Bandcamp
Shearling – Motherfucker, I Am Both: “Amen” And “Hallelujah”…
This technically released last week, but, as the first piece of music to come after Sprain disbanded abruptly in 2023, the first release by Shearling—the offshoot of Sprain featuring key members Alex Kent and Sylvie Simmons—as well as making everything Sprain released look tame in comparison, in addition to being a single song that runs for more than an hour, and, finally, featuring a horse’s asshole on the album cover, Motherfucker, I Am Both: “Amen” And “Hallelujah”… qualifies as both essential track and best new release. It’s delightfully unhinged, lacking the frameworks that held together longer Sprain tracks and, instead, acting as a stream-of-consciousness passage through drone, post-rock, noise rock, and avant-garde music. Yet, even that undersells how bonkers it is. It barely scratches the surface of the numerous allusions to genitals and animals, the nonsensical transitions, and the rippers buried within. Cut an hour out of your day to rewire your brain with Motherfucker, I Am Both: “Amen” And “Hallelujah”… – Colin Dempsey
Listen/Buy: Bandcamp
