Highlights for this sleepy summer week include the debut from Toronto-based band Alvvays (pronounced "always," if you were wonderin'). KEXP Music Director Don Yates describes the release as "a promising set of hazy, surf-inflected dream-pop. Produced by Chad VanGaalen, the album features a reverb-drenched sound with fuzzy guitars, energetic rhythms, wistful melodies, melancholy lyrics and Molly Rankin’s soaring vocals."
Los Angeles artist Tim Presley, aka White Fence, is back with his sixth full-length, but his first to be recorded in an actual studio with a live drummer. Produced by Ty Segall, Yates notes the new one "the album is a more focused, polished and melodic take on Presley’s jangly, ‘60s-steeped blend of garage-rock, psych-pop and folk-rock." Ontario duo PS I Love You bring "a more dynamic, diverse and slightly more polished approach to their visceral blend of energetic post-punk and anthemic garage-rock." Dan "The Automator" Nakamura and actress Mary Elizabeth Winstead team up as the duo Got a Girl, whose debut of retro, lounge-y pop has one of the best album titles of the year: I Love You But I Must Drive Off This Cliff Now.If you missed out on The Black Angels' Clear Lake Forest EP on Record Store Day, you'll be glad to know the Austin psych-troupe are re-releasing the mini-album on 12” clear vinyl, CD, and digitally today. Australian dance-masters Cut Copy are also reissuing last year's album, Free Your Mind, in a deluxe edition including five new songs taken from that album’s recording sessions. And Drag City Records reissues Matthew Young's 1981 experimental electronic debut, Recurring Dreams.
It's been six long years, but the latest solo album from Rilo Kiley frontwoman Jenny Lewis is out today. KEXP Music Director Don Yates describes the album, The Voyager, as "a strong return to form steeped in classic West Coast ‘70s and ‘80s pop-rock with smartly crafted songs juxtaposing breezy mel…
The UK dominates this week of new releases with standout albums from two British duos. The mysterious twosome known as Jungle release their self-titled debut with XL Recordings, which KEXP's Music Director Don Yates describes as "an excellent set of retro-futuristic electro-funk with shimmering key…