Laura Marling and Mike Lindsay’s second album as LUMP is our recommendation of the week. It can be easy to dismiss these songs as scraps from whatever doesn’t find their way into Marling’s “main” albums. But those ideas, coupled with Lindsay’s marvellous synth work, come to have a life of their own here, and “Animal” has some of the best tracks we’ve heard from both musicians in a while.
Guitar prodigy Julian Lage‘s debut on Blue Note, “Squint”, is our album of the week. Produced by Margaret Glaspy and Armand Hirsch, Lage enlists bassist Jorge Roeder and drummer Dave King in this eleven-song voyage.
After featuring Julia Jacklin’s Crushing as our record of the week in the same day she was announced in our beloved Festival Vodafone Paredes de Coura, we wanted the same thing to happen to The Cactus Blossoms… we hope they’re listening. Their second album, “Easy Way”, is just as catchy as their debut, which landed them a spot in the last Twin Peaks season. But there’s so much more than cult TV show appearances to the coolest band coming out of the US in the last couple of years. If you haven’t found it all by yourself yet, feel free to start here.
Plus: one and a half hour of new songs by the Mountain Goats, Hand Habits, Anna Burch, Big Thief, Kevin Morby, Sam Cohen, Sebadoh, Jess Ribeiro, Alex Lahey, Royal Trux, Jackie Cohen, Stella Donnelly, Solange, Sensible Soccers, Cavalheiro, Living Hour, Jacob Faurholt, Robert Forster, Matthew Logan Vasquez, Hiss Golden Messenger, Quaker City Night Hawks, Murray A. Lightburn, and The Tallest Man On Earth.
Conor Oberst and Phoebe Bridgers have just dropped a surprise in the form of a collaborative LP, Better Oblivion Community Center. It ended up being, of course, our album of the week. Plus: brand new songs by Heather Woods Broderick, Sharon Van Etten, Lambchop, Lady Lamb, Vampire Weekend, Jenny Lewis, Ryan Adams, Robert Ellis, Michaela Anne, I’m With Her, Sallim, Hand Habits, White Fence, Julia Jacklin, the Mountain Goats, Michael Chapman, and Twain.
Bolachas Now Playing, 27/2017 (#112):
Son Little – Demon to the Dark
Hand Habits – yr heart
Destroyer – Sky’s Grey
Randall Bramblett – Mali Katra
Protomartyr – My Children
Jacob Faurholt – A Lake of Distortion
Gill Landry – Berlin
Lilly Hiatt – Everything I Had
Kacy & Clayton – The Light of Day
Kacy & Clayton – This World Has Seven Wonders
Lucinda Williams – Six Blocks Away
Courtney Marie Andrews – Near You
Julien Baker – Appointments
Jen Cloher – Waiting in the Wings
The Dodos – Mirror Fake
The National – Carin at the Liquor Store
Josh Ritter – Thunderbolt’s Goodnight
Richard Thompson – Bathsheba Smiles
Noah Gundersen – Bad Desire