There's some pretty great releases for a holiday weekend, like the third LP from Dev Hynes — a.k.a. Blood Orange. KEXP Music Director Don Yates calls the album "another masterful set of expansive, moody R&B blended with funk, synth-pop and other styles, combining a diverse sound and a variety of live and sampled voices (including a stellar lineup of female singers) with his sharp, often-politically charged lyrics exploring issues of identity, race, sexuality and religion."
Bat for Lashes shares her latest, "an ambitious concept album about a would-be bride whose groom is killed in a car accident on the way to the wedding." Yates notes, "like her previous full-length (2012's The Haunted Man), the album is moody, lushly produced art-pop, though it's also more bleak and downcast, befitting its somber subject matter."
Ty Segall is in yet another band: punkish power trio GØGGS, also featuring Chris Shaw of Ex-Cult and Charles Moothart (the other half of the duo Fuzz with Segall). "Their debut album under that name is fierce set of hard-driving post-punk with rumbling guitars, occasional distorted synths, pounding rhythms and gruff vocals." Speaking of Ty and Fuzz, Castle Face Records continues their live series (which previously included those two) with a hometown show from Thee Oh Sees. The first double album in the series, Live in San Francisco was recorded over three nights at The Chapel, and includes a DVD of the performances filmed by Brian Lee Hughes.
Australian band Terry (comprised of members of Total Control and Deep Diver) release their debut, "a fine set of biting, minimalist post-punk with angular guitars, driving rhythms, deadpan vocals and sardonic lyrics." And UK electropoptimists Metronomy share their fifth full-length, their first since their debut recorded solely by founding member Joseph Mount.
It's been almost two decades, but it's finally here: the latest from Australian band The Avalanches! KEXP Music Director Don Yates describes the album as "another impressive full-length of cut-and-paste collage-pop incorporating a dizzying multitude of samples, field recordings and guests vocalists…
A new album from DJ Shadow dropped last Friday, his first since 2011's The Less You Know, the Better. The LP -- the fifth from the west coast DJ/producer -- features guest appearances from Run the Jewels, Nils Frahm, and several others.