FEATURE:
One for the Record Collection!
IN THIS IMAGE: The cover for Alicia Keys’ upcoming album, ALICIA
Essential March Releases
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MARCH is a fantastic month for new albums…
IN THIS PHOTO: Anna Calvi/PHOTO CREDIT: Eva Pentel
so you might want to save some pennies and get on it! On 6th March, Anna Calvi releases Hunted. Make sure you pre-order a copy, as it is an album that adds new elements to her 2018 release, Hunter. It is, as Domino describe, going to be interesting:
“18 months after the release of Hunter, which explored sexuality and breaking the laws of gender conformity, Anna Calvi revisited her initial, more intimate recordings of those songs. The versions on Hunted find her masterful guitar playing and formidable vocals distilled to their bare essence, in the company of collaborators Courtney Barnett, Joe Talbot (IDLES), Charlotte Gainsbourg and Julia Holter. The tracks on Hunted shine under the light of a different lens, one that brings the innate fragility of the compositions to the forefront and exquisitely melds together the dichotomy of the hunter and the hunted, the primal and the beautiful, the vulnerable and the strong”.
I am a big fan of Anna Calvi, so I cannot wait to see what we get. The recent single, Eden (ft. Charlotte Gainsbourg), is tremendous, and it is interesting hearing Calvi take the original song and bring it in a new direction. Not only has Anna Calvi got big plans for 6th March; a few other artists are worth your attention. Released through Ample Play, Cornershop release the long-awaited England Is a Garden. Make sure you get a copy, as it is great to have Cornershop back – their last album, Hold On It's Easy, was released in 2015.
Here are a few more details regarding their forthcoming album:
“In the latest of a series of albums that have mirrored the exceptional story of the band itself, Cornershop return with a new album England Is A Garden on Ample Play Records. It is an album that strides in an upbeat fashion, to deliver a full listening experience, bringing songs of experience, empire, protest and humour, steeped in the way only Tjinder Singh would come with. Listen to a first taste of the album now, No Rock: Save In Roll, that is to say that there is not one without the other, that rock, for all its focus on death is the saviour of life. The anvil here is music itself, and a celebration of Tjinder’s birth place - The Black Country, which also gave birth to heavy metal that has gone on to influence the world to dirty rock, whether the streets are lined with pylons or palm trees, the Black Country has allowed us to see things differently. So the sound here goes back to Englands’ Midlands with two thumbs up to the feeling of hearing heavy metal from the back of a stage, as we all ride on and await the female backing vocals of our song to come in”.
Make sure you get Moby’s latest, All Visible Objects. This is how Pitchfork announced the album’s release back in January:
“Moby has announced his new album, All Visible Objects. It’s out March 6 via Mute. Moby also shared a new track, “Power Is Taken,” which features Dead Kennedys drummer D. H. Peligro.
The proceeds from All Visible Objects will go to charity, with each individual track benefiting a different outlet. They include environmentally focused organizations (Brighter Green, the Rainforest Action Network, Extinction Rebellion) and animal welfare groups (Mercy for Animals, Animal Equality, the Humane League, the International Anti-Poaching). The ACLU, the Physicians Committee, the Good Food Institute, and the Indivisible Project are also named as beneficiaries.
Moby’s last album, Everything Was Beautiful and Nothing Hurt, came out in March 2018”.
I am going to get my copy because, as Rough Trade write, it is definitely an interesting record:
“Recorded in the legendary EastWest studios, Moby created this album in Studio 3 where Pet Sounds was recorded, using the same board that was used in the making of Ziggy Stardust and the same piano that Sinatra used to record some of his most notable hits. Keeping with Moby’s history of donating to charity (in 2018, he started selling off his records and collection of synthesizers and drum machines, donating the proceeds to charity), he is using this album as a sounding board to bring attention to a long list of charities dedicated to preserving our planet and all its inhabitants”.
U.S. Girls’ Heavy Light is one you should purchase, as this is an artist who everybody needs to know. In this extract, 4AD provide more details:
“The highly anticipated seventh album by U.S. Girls, the protean musical enterprise of multi-disciplinary artist Meg Remy, will be released on 6th March entitled Heavy Light.
While Remy has been widely acclaimed for a panoply of closely observed character studies, on Heavy Light she turns inward, recounting personal narratives to create a deeply introspective about-face. The songs are an inquest into the melancholy flavour of hindsight, both personal and cultural. Remy makes this notion formally explicit with the inclusion of three re-worked, previously released songs: ‘Statehouse (It’s A Man’s World)’, ‘Red Ford Radio’, and ‘Overtime’, the latter of which is released today as Heavy Light’s lead single.
Heavy Light follows 2018’s internationally critically-acclaimed breakout album In A Poem Unlimited. Recently named one of the best albums of the decade by Pitchfork, it was lauded by the likes of The Guardian, The Sunday Times, Crack and Q Magazine for being Remy’s most accessible record in her then decade-long career”.
Circa Waves bring us the dichotomy that is Sad Happy. You can pre-order your copy, and it is interesting to see how the band approached this two-part album. They have released the ‘happy’ part of the album: the ‘sad’ part arrives on 13th March:
“Continuing the theme of double-albums being the new “thing”, Circa Waves have announced that their forthcoming fourth studio album will also be split into two-parts.
Called ‘Sad Happy’, the “sad” part will be available on 10th January with the “happy” follow-up available from 13th March, and the group are sharing first track ‘Jacqueline’ to give a little glimpse into what we can expect.
“We live in a world split into two extreme halves,” Kieran Shudall explains. “One moment you’re filled with the existential crisis of climate doom and the next you’re distracted by another piece of inconsequential content that has you laughing aloud. I find this close proximity of immense sadness and happiness so jarring, bizarre and fascinating. Our brains rattle back and forth through emotions at such a rate that happiness and sadness no longer feel mutually exclusive. This idea was the blueprint for ‘Sad Happy’ and is the theme that underpins the album. Sad / Happy is written in my Liverpool home, it’s also hugely inspired by my surroundings and the love I have for the city. It runs through thoughts on mortality, love and observations of people”.
The upcoming band spoke to NME about their new concept and the first, optimistic, half of the record:
“Liverpool guitar pop firebrands Circa Waves own take on the double header album comes with ‘Happy’ at the start of 2020, side one of their new album which will combine with its more sullen sister-piece ‘Sad’ to make a full album a few months later. But the two halves aren’t as easily defined as the titles suggest; there’s plenty of upbeat sounds on both, only the tone is different. “It’s more the vibe of the lyrics,” frontman Kieran Shudall explains. “I’ve always been a fan of sad euphoria…”.
Is the ‘Happy’ side of the album going to be relentless joyous, just smashing us full in the face with positivity?
Kieran: “Potentially, yeah! You might feel too happy at the end of listening to it! It’s positive but if there’s anything the world needs now it’s positivity. I think the job of a band is to entertain and pull people out of living the everyday 9-to-5. The ‘Happy’ side is the antidote to the terrible things going on today.”
What was the thinking behind releasing the album in two distinct halves?
“We were inspired by how quickly pop and hip-hop move and didn’t want to be left behind. We felt like alternative music needed a quicker turnaround. People tend to consume music at such a high rate now. An album, as soon as it’s released, it’s kind of done with and people expect the next thing”.
Two more albums to look out for are from Porridge Radio and The Districts. The former release Every Bad on 13th March, and you can pre-order it here. If you are new to the band/album, here is a bit more information:
“About the album Porridge Radio grew out of Dana Margolin’s bedroom, where she started making music in private. Living in the seaside town of Brighton, she recorded songs and slowly started playing them at open mic nights to rooms of old men who stared at her quietly as she screamed in their faces.
Though she eventually grew out of them, for Margolin these open mic nights unlocked a love of performing and songwriting, as well as a new way to express herself. She decided to form a band through which to channel it all, and be noisier while she was at it – so Porridge Radio was born.
Inspired by interpersonal relationships, her environment - in particular the sea - and her growing friendships with her new bandmates (bassist Maddie Ryall, keyboardist Georgie Stott, and drummer Sam Yardley) Margolin’s distinctive, indie-pop-but make-it-existentialist style soon started to crystallise. Quickly, the band self-released a load of demos and a garden-shed-recorded collection on Memorials of Distinction, while tireless touring cemented their firm reputation as one of UK DIY’s most beloved and compelling live bands.
As the band’s sound – bright pop-rock instrumentation blended with Margolin’s tender, open-ended lyrics – has developed and refined, Porridge Radio have also received enthusiastic radio airplay on the BBC, Radio X and more. Now, they are taking that development a step further, as they put out their label debut, Every Bad”.
I have been familiar with the band for a little while now, and I am excited to see what we will get from their second album. I think Porridge Radio are a band who have a big future and will be playing some very big festivals soon. Porridge Radio’s Dana Margolin spoke to the guys ar Stereogum about the band’s new album:
“Though Every Bad is the band’s second album, everything points to it feeling like a debut: It features a few songs dating back to the beginning of the project, and its booming production gives it the feeling of a significant breakthrough after five years of toil. Today, they’ve officially announced the album will arrive on 3/13 via Secretly Canadian. The announcement comes with a new single, “Sweet.” Following superb recent tracks like “Give Take” and “Lilac,” “Sweet” is another leap forward for the band, Margolin’s lyrical adaptability coming to the fore.
“You will like me when you meet me/ You might even fall in love,” she sings over indie rock that swells and retreats like the ever-present sea. You can’t quite work out whether it’s an honest, endearing statement or a slightly creepy one. This intriguing middle ground continues throughout the album, with a lot of second guessing required on the listener’s part. Margolin says she wrote the song trying to imitate Lorde’s nimble, playful “Loveless,” from 2017’s Melodrama — and though musically the pair don’t have too many ties, they both possess a similar emotional dexterity.
Margolin has described Every Bad as “an unfinished sentence,” and the spaces in between are as vital to the album as its color and shape. “I love that it doesn’t hold all the answers,” she affirms. “The title, Every Bad, feels like it’s full of potential as a part of a sentence that could go any way. It could fit into so many sentences that could mean so many things, and I think a lot of my lyrics are like that as well, the way that they can change shape over time depending on who you are or where you hear it. It’s unfinished because everything has the potential to be reimagined and re-understood and re-misunderstood”.
The Districts’ upcoming album, You Know I’m Not Going Anywhere, is also out on 13th March, and I advise people to check it out. If you can see the band touring in the U.S., then do so.
Their upcoming album is going to be very special:
“A deeply personal album for bandleader Rob Grote - all of the songs were written in his bedroom as a means of coping with struggles he was facing at the time with no intention of them putting them on a record. He wound up with 32 songs during that writing session, of which he and the band chose the 11 featured on the new record. The new album was produced by the band and frequent collaborator Keith Abrams, and mixed by Dave Fridmann (The Flaming Lips, Spoon, MGMT, Tame Impala)”.
There are five more albums out next month that are worth your pennies. If you want a list of what other albums are out in March, you can check here. I am excited by Alicia Keys’ ALICIA. You can pre-order the album here, and it is the seventh studio album from the American superstar. Although this interview is not linked to ALICIA, I wanted to bring it in (the interview is from last year), as Keys was asked about her success and image in modern music:
“12 Grammy Awards, 11 Billboard Music Awards and 5 American Music Awards... hasn’t success become something of a routine?
No way! You must be kidding! The minute I start looking at things that way, I’m in big trouble. I’ve genuinely, honestly enjoyed every step of it. The creative process is so fascinating, so magical that I’m forever dumbfounded by it. It’s like, ‘Wow!’ So when things like that come of it, it’s always the biggest blessing. The awards don’t make me feel cocky, quite the contrary: I always accept any form of recognition with the greatest humility. And when people rattle off numbers like that, I’m in shock.
IN THIS PHOTO: Alicia Keys
You seem like quite a gentle soul for a bona fide r’n’b diva... don’t you ever hurl cellphones or demand that your assistants never look you in the eye?
People actually want you to act like a diva. People are always telling me: “Oh! Alicia! You’re so normal!” Well, aren’t I supposed to be? People come to expect you to be totally unreasonable, capricious and completely off your rocker. I’ve met ‘em. There are artists that I love, and I’ve met them, and I’m like: “Wow! I don’t ever want to meet you again! You’re acting so damn ridiculous that I’m going to end up hating you!”
How can you possibly have sold thirty-five million records in an age of free downloading on the net?
The problem arose when there was a lack of good, complete albums. People got sick and tired of liking a particular song, and then buying the album, only to discover that it sounded like someone had thrown a bunch of crap songs together on it. When you produce an album that’s a journey, an experience that moves you from beginning to end, then folk will buy it. Music-lovers want to be treated with respect and not just messed around.
To what extent is image a deal-breaker for an accomplished singer, songwriter, composer and producer such as yourself?
Image carries way too much importance in the music industry today. You can completely suck and yet run a successful career as a recording artist on the sole strength of your image. I’ve never played around with my image to sell records: what you see is what you get. It takes too much time and energy to pretend, and it distracts from what ultimately matters: the music”.
There are some other gems that you will want to investigate next month. One of my favourite modern artists, Baxter Dury, releases The Night Chancers on 20th March. You ca pre-order the album here, and I would encourage people to do so. Dury’s lyrics are poetic and unique; he brings together these fabulous images and beautifully uneasy scenes together:
“Baxter Dury releases his brand new album The Night Chancers through Heavenly Recordings. The album was co - produced by long time collaborator Craig Silvey (Arcade Fire, John Grant, Artic Monkeys)a nd Baxter, and was recorded at Hoxa studios West Hampstead in May 2019.
From thrilling affairs that dissolve into sweaty desperation (Night Chancers) to the absurd bloggers, fruitlessly clinging to the fag ends of the fashion set (Sleep People), via soiled real life (Slum Lord) social media – enabled stalkers (I’m not Your Dog) and new day, sleep – deprived optimism (Daylight), the record’s finely drawn vignettes, are all based on the corners of world Dury has visited.
Baxter says “Night Chancers is about being caught out in your attempt at being free”, it’s about someone leaving a hotel room at three in the morning. You’re in a posh room with big Roman taps and all that, but after they go suddenly all you can hear is the taps dripping, and all you can see the debris of the night is around you. Then suddenly a massive party erupts, in the room next door. This happened to me and all I Could hear was the night chancer, the hotel ravers”.
On 27th March, there are a few albums that are worthy of attention. Little Dragon’s New Me, Same Us is going to be a corker. If you needs a few more details about the album, this is what Rolling Stone wrote about the Swedish four-piece’s upcoming album:
“New Me, Same Us will arrive March 27th via Ninja Tune. The album was entirely self-produced and recorded at the four-piece Swedish band’s home-built studio in Gothenburg.
The band said in a statement: “This album has been the most collaborative for us yet, which might sound weird considering we’ve been making music together for all these years, but we worked hard at being honest, finding the courage to let go of our egos and be pieces of something bigger. We are all on our own personal journeys, full of change, yet still we stand united with stories we believe in, that make us who we are.”
Little Dragon will kickoff their 2020 tour in Europe this March, and will tour the U.S. starting in April. They previously shared the single “Tongue Kissing” in October, and released their Love Chanting EP in 2018”.
The last two albums I want to mention are from very different artists. The iconic Pearl Jam give us the mighty Gigaton on 27th March. You can pre-order the album. In an interview with Rolling Stone earlier this year, the band’s guitarist Stone Gossard talked more about the album:
“Pearl Jam guitarist Stone Gossard explained how the group’s upcoming album, Gigaton, captures “the spirit of the band” in a new interview with Zane Lowe on Beats 1 radio.
The first single from Gigaton, “Dance of the Clairvoyants,” found the band exploring funkier and more experimental sonic territories, with Gossard saying the track exemplifies “the outer edge of something that we haven’t tried before, a new way of configuring our sort of collaborative talents.” But he went on to note that “Dance of the Clairvoyants” is just one of several flavors on the record.
“There’s definitely some really straight-ahead rock songs,” he said. “There’s some very spare and very simple ballads. It’s got it all, I think. And it’s really us. We really did it by ourselves. [Eddie Vedder] did a great job. There was a pile of songs, and he sort of took and really, really, in the last two months, mixed and sort of selected the tracks that really were going to be special. And he did such a great job of bringing everybody’s personalities out. It was probably different than any of us would’ve made individually, but it really captures, I think, the spirit of the band.”
Gossard also touched on Vedder’s lyrics, which he called “stunning” and said grapple with the weight of the world in clever and abstract ways. “He’s not going to come out and say exactly in sort of very plain language maybe what you might think after reading the newspaper,” Gossard said. “But I think that his mysticism and his way of using words and art and music is a powerful sort of tonic. I think that underlying it all is going to continue to be a hopeful and beautiful but at times tragic message.”
Gigaton will be released March 27th, and it marks Pearl Jam’s first album since 2013’s Lightning Bolt. The band is set to embark on a 16-date North American tour March 18th in Toronto”.
IN THIS PHOTO: The cover of Waxahatchee’s forthcoming album, Saint Cloud
The last album that is an essential purchase next month is Waxahatchee’s Saint Cloud. Released through Merge Records, go and get your copy of what will be one of this year’s best albums. If you want to know more about Saint Cloud, here are some details:
“What do we hold on to from our past? What must we let go of to truly move forward? Waxahatchee’s Katie Crutchfield spent much of 2018 reckoning with these questions and revisiting her roots for answers. The result is Saint Cloud, an intimate journey through the places she’s been, filled with the people she’s loved.
Written immediately in the period following her decision to get sober, the album is an unflinching self-examination. This raw, exposed narrative terrain is aided by a shift in sonic arrangements as well. While her last two records featured the kind of big guitars, well-honed noise, and battering sounds that characterized her Philadelphia scene and strongly influenced a burgeoning new class of singer-songwriters, Saint Cloud strips back those layers to create space for Crutchfield’s voice and lyrics. The result is a classic Americana sound with modern touches befitting an artist who has emerged as one of the signature storytellers of her time. Many of the narratives on Saint Cloud concern addiction and the havoc it wreaks on ourselves and our loved ones, as Crutchfield comes to a deeper understanding of love not only for those around her but for herself. This coalesces most clearly on Fire, which she says was literally written in transit, during a drive over the Mississippi River into West Memphis, and serves as a love song to herself, a paean to moving past shame into a place of unconditional self-acceptance.
Over the course of Saint Cloud, which was recorded the summer of 2019 and produced by Brad Cook (Bon Iver), Crutchfield peels back the distortion of electric guitars to create a wider sonic palette than on any previous Waxahatchee album. It is a record filled with nods to classic country, folk-inspired tones, and distinctly modern touches. To bolster her vision, Crutchfield enlisted Bobby Colombo and Bill Lennox, both of the Detroit band Bonny Doon, to serve as backing band on the record, along with Josh Kaufman (Hiss Golden Messenger, Bon Iver) on guitar and keyboards and Nick Kinsey (Kevin Morby) on drums and percussion. Saint Cloud marks the beginning of a journey for Crutchfield, one that sees her leaving behind past vices and the comfortable environs of her Philadelphia scene to head south in search of something new. If on her previous work Crutchfield was out in the storm, she’s now firmly in the eye of it, taking stock of her past with a clear perspective and gathering the strength to carry onward”.
This month is a busy and eclectic one for new music, and I have pointed you in the direction of some of the best on offer. Of course, one can stream the albums, but do try and purchase where you can. Also, there are some other big albums out in March, so go and have an investigation if you get a moment. We are still in February, but it is clear that 2020 is going to be...
IN THIS PHOTO: Circa Waves
ANOTHER year packed with gold.