Came across a couple glowing reviews for SOPHIE - "Oil Of Every Pearl’s Un-Insides". Currently on my 5th listen this morning and loving it (electronic/dance/idk); it's pretty damn varied.
My favorites for the first half of the year, both great: Golden Hour by Kacey Musgraves Part of the Light by Ray LaMontagne I'm looking forward to the new Florence + the Machine album, High as Hope, at the end of June. I'm hoping for some announcements for Q3 and Q4 releases soon because the second half of the year is looking a bit thin for me.
Lord Huron's Vide Noir is still my favorite album of 2018. I'm also really enjoying All India Radio's Space and Horse Feathers' Appreciation.
Half the year gone already, and so far my top choices are by two great Welsh artists... Gwenno Le Kov Gruff Rhys Babelsberg Edit: Both were bought on vinyl, if that information is needed! Also enjoying Beach House, Gaz Coombes, Kamaal Williams, Ryley Walker, and several others which I can't recall right now.
Dave Matthews Band newie has a nice laid back feel and even on first few listens the songs are much more straightforward and accessible. Nice.
This local (Philly/NJ) band, Hurry, released their third album, Every Little Thought, this year, and it's really an excellent record. Very summery/poppy, reminiscent of R.E.M. and some Yo La Tengo thrown in for good measure.
They should have called this David Bowie We Love You, but Arthur's usually desperate lyrical sensibility gets lightened by Bucks melodic gifts, the songs are uniformly excellent and engrossing. Another happy surprise.
This is like a good vibe bath. What a fun cleanse. Album of the year contender, I gotta admit, and I ain’t even that funky.
Cabin Life - Fantastic pop rock album from Linus of Hollywood. Catchy, perfect pop songs. He usually writes/produces for others but his solo albums he puts out himself are perfect slices of rock/baroque pop. He may do hip hop/heavy metal writing and producing for a lot of bigger artists and bands, but he loves Gilbert O'Sullivan and of course, McCartney and The Beach Boys. It's all over his self-made produced albums - fans of Jellyfish already likely know of him and the album (he's in that circle, worked with Manning, Jr., toured/tours with him, etc.), but here's Linus totally solo. He puts out perfect little records every couple of years, almost as a creative outpouring of songs that may be too catchy if anything else, so he puts those out himself - and they are always a pure delight! Check out Cabin Life! Jeff
Just bumping this as it’s so good...I think I like Sons Of Kemerovo a little more but this is not far behind. This has a “bob your head and get lost in the groove” feel.
It is, really. But I am looking at a huge stack of $25 vinyl that are new releases that I just couldn’t get into. And they’ll sell here for far less if I ever get around to listing them. I try hard to “like” new music but little of it resonates with me. On the other hand, I love buying new vinyl. With all the reissues coming out, and the fact that so much of it can be had used if you put in a bit of effort, tells me the people you describe are an awful large bunch. You can’t force yourself to like a group or artist. I can’t stand Dylan. I have tried repeatedly, and I own quite a few of his albums from different eras. Just can’t get into it, though I know I’m “suppose to” like him.
I can't imagine trying to follow new music through purchases of physical media. That's why it took my full embrace of streaming before I experienced this explosion. I wish someone would tell me how to use rateyourmusic.com to find stuff from the past month or couple of months. I've tried to get into it, but it seems like the same few albums at the top all the time because the most granular I've been able to get with it has been YTD. I look at pauseandplay.com, which has a list of notable upcoming releases for each week, several weeks in advance. I make a playlist of previously released singles for upcoming albums that seem interesting to me and then know what to look out for when release day comes. I also use Featured New Album Releases | AllMusic . They post notable new releases, most with full reviews and track highlights, each week starting Thursday night. The most valuable resource has been Spotify's Release Radar and Discover Weekly, though, now that I have them trained. I don't listen on Spotify (I export the playlist and import it to Google Play where we have a family account and then go back and add things I like to my Spotify library to "train" it on what I like). That's like the new music firehose for me.
I'm really enjoying Shannon Shaw's solo debut In Nashville. Producer Dan Auerbach (The Black Keys) layers on loads of 50's-60's schmaltz and it really works.
You gotta go through the whole year thrice or so a year. Every album with a cursory glance and see what titles, descriptions, and such catch your eye. It takes a good half hour or hour to go through, but I tend to find a dozen or more promising totally underground releases on rate...
Yes, I feel the same way about Shannon Shaw's debut album. Very accomplished and quite soulful. Strong from start to finish.
I spend at least a half hour each week on each of Bleep, Boomkat, eclassical, Qobuz and prestoclassical. I spend over an hour a week checking out Bandcamp. That does count streaming. For example, I’m streaming the Olivia Cheney album posted by Ironclaw right now.
New one from Chihei Hatakeyama called Void XVI that is sounding very nice during the lazy hours of the day ... one of my favorite ambient artists working now ... Any ambient recommendations?