KEXP Music Director Don Yates has declared the debut release from Ibeyi as his "Pick of the Week." He notes, "the debut album from the young Paris-based French-Cuban twin-sister duo of Naomi and Lisa-Kainde Diaz (who are also both daughters of the acclaimed Cuban percussionist Miguel “Anga” Diaz) is a mesmerizing blend of electro-pop, soul, hip hop, jazz and traditional Yoruban chants, with a spacious, minimalist sound combining somber piano, atmospheric synths, Cuban percussion and electronic beats accompanying the sisters’ heavenly harmonies and poignant lyrics of love, family and loss (sung in English, French and Yoruban)."
Other highlights this week include the latest from Brooklyn noisemakers A Place To Bury Strangers, whose "fourth album is another intense blend of shoegazer psych-rock, edgy post-punk and goth-tinged industrial, with a dark, often dissonant sound featuring noisy, effects-drenched guitars, often-motorik rhythms and sinister vocals." Swedish singer-songwriter Jose Gonzalez returns with his third solo album (and first in seven years), "a typically well-crafted set of stripped-down folk-pop with hypnotic guitar lines inspired by West African desert blues and elemental percussion accompanying his gentle, layered vocals and philosophical lyrics."
Carl Barat & The Jackals release their debut, and the former Libertines frontman "sounds reinvigorated with his new band on this impressive debut album, which charges ahead with some raging, Clash-influenced rockers while also making room for a couple of sweeping ballads." West coast troubadour and band Sonny & The Sunsets share a "fine, diverse set of quirky psych-pop with cinematic, narrative-driven songs ranging from sci-fi beach-pop and motorik psych-rock to jangly ‘60s pop-rock and more eccentric fare." Brooklyn-via-Alabama artist Matthew Houck (aka Phosphorescent) releases "a 3LP/2CD live album recorded over four nights in December 2013 at the Music Hall of Williamsburg in Brooklyn. The material spans his career, though there’s an emphasis on his most recent album Muchacho."
Following yesterday's hypnotic in-studio session on The Midday Show on KEXP, local ladies THEESatisfaction release their sophomore album EarthEE today via Sub Pop. KEXP Music Director Don Yates describes it as an "entrancing blend of Afro-futurist hip hop, cosmic R&B, psychedelic funk and astra…
This Valentine's Day week, it's appropriate that Father John Misty releases his sophomore full-length, I Love You, Honeybear. KEXP Music Director Don Yates calls the release, "a masterful, more fully realized set of sophisticated ‘70s-steeped pop. With Jonathan Wilson again enlisted as producer, th…