The first batch of new releases in February, 2014! Info and links for the ones you want to know about most below, plus some other ones you may not have heard of (but should know), with audio & video for your listening and viewing pleasure. Click here to check out releases that dropped over the past few months.
+/- (Plus/Minus), Jumping the Tracks (Teen Beat)
Augustines, Augustines (Oxcart Records)
Behemoth, The Satanist (Metal Blade)
Big Head Todd & the Monsters, Black Beehive (Shout! Factory)
The Colorado blues band led by namesake musician Todd Park Mohr hits State Theatre this Thurs., Feb. 6.
Scott H. Biram, Nothin’ But Blood (Bloodshot Records)
Bombay Bicycle Club, So Long, See You Tomorrow (Island)
Actual release date 2/3.
Toni Braxton & Babyface, Love, Marriage & Divorce (10 SPOT)
John Butler Trio, Flesh & Blood (Vanguard)
Ceo, WONDERLAND (Mute)
Les Claypool’s Duo de Twang, Four Foot Shack (ATO)
CYMBALS, The Age of Fracture (Tough Love Records)
The eagerly anticipated sophomore full-length from CYMBALS which, according to the press release, is named after a book by Princeton academic Daniel T. Rodgers that "addresses the fragmentation of ideas towards the end of the last century and how collective meanings have become uncertain. Singer/guitarist Jack Cleverly wrote: "It hit me that I often feel paralyzed by the feeling that everything is 'too complicated', and that many people I know feel that paralysis. I realized that this way of thinking can be traced through these songs." Check out "Erosion" after the jump along with the rest of this week's new releases...
Exmortus, Slave To The Sword (Prosthetic)
The Haden Triplets, The Haden Triplets (Third Man Records)
Gardens & Villa, Dunes (Secretly Canadian)
Have A Nice Life, Unnatural World (Enemies List Home Recordings/The Flenser)
Maximo Park, Too Much Information (Daylighting Records)
The British alt rock quintet presents a fifth studio LP. The film short for first single "Brain Cells" (produced with help from video artist Matt Stokes) follows a real life 'urban hermit' living in the outer reaches of East London.
Mark McGuire, Along the Way (Dead Oceans)
Mas Ysa, Worth EP (Downtown Records)
Pat Metheny, Kin (<-->) (Nonesuch)
Marissa Nadler, July (Sacred Bones/Bella Union)
Secret Colours, Positive Distractions Part I (self-release)
Snowbird, moon (Bella Union/PIAS America)
Cocteau Twins’ Simon Raymonde and Massive Attack’s Stephanie Dosen composed the 11-track collab between two continents; Raymonde was in London while Dosen was in North Carolina. Among the guests, Radiohead drummer Philip Selway and guitarist Ed O’Brien, Midlake guitarist Eric Pulido and drummer McKenzie Smith. Check out the video for "Porcelain" below.
Snowmine, Dialects (Mystery Buildings)
Sun Kil Moon, Benji (Caldo Verde)
A sixth album from as Sun Kil Moon from singer-songwriter and guitarist Mark Kozelek (Red House Painters) earned a super high (9.2) rating on Pitchfork.com, which means it's either really really good or super artsy and potentially unfathomable. I tend to lean towards the latter just based on past high-quality releases from Kozelek, but you never know. "Porcelain" below.
Sunn O))) and Ulver, Terrestrials (self-release)
The Tower of Light, The Tower of Light (Felte)
Various Artists, This Is the Town: A Tribute to Harry Nilsson, Vol. 1 (Royal Potato Family)
A 20-track collection celebrating the late singer-songwriter. Among the tributees: Langhorne Slim, Low Cut Connie, Tracy Bonham, Marco Benevento, Willy Mason, Rasputina, Dawn Landes, Yellowbirds, Jenny O and Annie Nilsson. Check out Bonham's cover of Everybody's Talkin'" at American Songwriter.
Various Artists, Sweetheart 2014 (Starbucks' Hear Music/Concord Music Group)
A Valentine's Day-inspired covers comp and the fifth in the Starbucks-helmed series; hard copies available only at Starbucks locations. This edition includes tracks re-imagined by Jim James ("Turn Your Lights Down Low," Bob Marley), Thao and the Get Down Stay Down ("If You Were Mine" by Ray Charles), Ben Harper ("Fade into You" by Mazzy Star), Fiona Apple ("I'm in the Middle of a Riddle" by Anton Karas), and Sharon Jones ("Signed, Sealed, Delivered I'm Yours" by Stevie Wonder). Listen in full at NPR; John Lennon's "Love" as done by Beck below.
Water Liars, Water Liars (Misra Recordings)
Juan Wauters, N.A.P. North American Poetry (Captured Tracks)
Wild Moccasins, 88 92 (New West)
Xiu Xiu, Angel Guts: Red Classroom (Polyvinyl Records)
Young Fathers, Dead (Anticon)
