FEATURE:
One for the Record Collection!
IN THIS PHOTO: Rhiannon Giddens
Essential August Releases
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NEXT month…
IN THIS PHOTO: Renee Rapp/PHOTO CREDIT: Erica Hernandez (Courtesy of Interscope Records)
is quite busy for new albums. There are a few that I want to recommend, so I shall plough straight on! The first date I want to focus on is 4th August. There are a few great albums out from that week that I would urge people to investigate. Art School Girlfriend’s Soft Landing is one that you need to pre-order, as it is going to be among this year’s best albums. If you need a bit more information around this album, then Rough Trade are on call for assistance:
“Art School Girlfriend, Aka Polly Mackey, releases her second album Soft Landing, via Fiction Records. The album is self-described as a series of “small euphorias”, it is an album that finds Mackey shifting her sound towards tactile electronics whilst retaining the floating melodies of her debut.
Lead track "Close To The Clouds”, follows the success of standalone single “A Place To Lie” earlier this year. “Close To The Clouds” is an integral part of Soft Landing, with the central refrain providing the album with its title, and the song unfurling into climbing, arpeggiated synths amidst acid-house indebted drums.
Soft Landing follows Mackey’s 2020 debut album, Is It Light Where You Are? an album made in the wake of a tumultuous time and released during one. Soft Landing feels like Mackey’s true debut, a record of curiosity and playfulness with songs that sound like they are falling effortlessly into place”.
A terrific trio, Girl Ray, prepare to release Prestige on 4th August. An album that you need to pre-order, it looks set to take some of the elements of their first two albums and add in something new. If you are not familiar with Girl Ray, then the new album is one that you need to get. They are a wonderful force. I think that they will release one of the most rewarding and exciting albums of the year. Among the most interesting and finest groups around, Girl Ray are phenomenal:
“The essential album for summer 2023. Girl Ray, the three-piece comprising Poppy Hankin, Iris McConnell and Sophie Moss, release their much anticipated third album, Prestige via Moshi Moshi.
Co-produced by Grammy Award-winning producer, Ben H. Allen (M.I.A, Gnarls Barkley, Christina Aguilera, Deerhunter) along with the band’s singer and songwriter Poppy Hankin, Prestige takes the shambolic charm of their debut, Earl Grey (2017), and the indiefied R&B of 2019’s Girl, and injects it with a booster shot of Hi-NRG eighties disco pop”.
There is one more album due on 4th August that I want to bring to people’s attention. Miles Kane’s One Man Band is shaping up to be a terrific album that you’ll want to get behind. Even though he has been in the industry for a while now, Kane never rests on his laurels or repats himself. He is an artist always looking ahead and doing something new. Go and pre-order the brilliant One Man Band:
“Miles Kane returns with a blistering new album One Man Band, out on Modern Sky Records. The album’s first offering is the exuberant indie banger ‘Troubled Son’.
Opening the record, ‘Troubled Son’ is raw, pop-driven indie, made for festival stages. “It’s about the struggle we all have in life,” Miles said of the track. “Sometimes we have our shit together and sometimes we don’t. This is me acknowledging my faults and my fears and showing the journey I’m taking as I try to figure it all out.
Miles returns to his guitar hero best on One Man Band as he focuses on big hooks and even bigger anthems. Sharp, infectious, urgent and packed to the brim with singalong moments, it’s Miles on the top of his game. A deeply personal record, Miles returned to Liverpool to work on the album, finding himself reflecting on his journey.
“Making the album back in Liverpool with my family really helped to bring this out of me,” Miles said of the writing process. “We left no stone unturned. Sometimes you have to go backwards to go forwards, and this album helped me rediscover why I picked up a guitar in the first place. This album is like a brand new, yet somehow familiar leather jacket. A comforting melting pot of all the music that has inspired and continues to inspire me every day”.
Before moving onto a busy 18th and 25th August, there is one due on 11th August that is well worth seeking out. Laura Groves releases Radio Red then. It is an album that I think people need to pre-order. It sounds like a really interesting album that will offer up plenty for the listener. Groves is an amazing artist that needs to be on everybody’s radar for sure:
“Much of Radio Red, the first full length album Laura Groves has released under her own name, was written, produced and recorded by Groves in her studio, watched over by two radio transmitting towers. “I became very drawn to them and they became like symbols to me; they were always awake, sending their messages, the red lights always came on at night and watched over whatever was going on in my life.” The album deals with themes of communication - missed and intercepted signals, chance meetings, synchronicities, the channels through which we try to express our true feelings, the outside interference that can get in the way and the joy of letting go and allowing the messages to flow freely.
Self-recording and production is a core part of Laura’s songwriting process. “I remember years ago getting hold of some basic recording software and being instantly drawn in. The idea of being able to layer up my voice was a dream, like building an orchestra out of what I had at home.” The passion for home-recording, using the resources available at the time, working through limitations and capturing textures through layering, forms the foundation of Groves’ experimental and off-centre pop music and electrified folk music. The sound world of Radio Red is made up of echoes and snapshots of half-remembered pop songs, piano ballads, chopped up TV theme tunes, ambient synthesised sounds and electronic music; tuning in between channels without fully belonging to any one of them, with the comfort, familiarity and strangeness that can come with hearing voices on the radio”.
Let’s flip to 18th August. The superb Iraina Mancini releases her debut album, Undo the Blue. She is someone I have been a fan of for a while. I adore her music and everything she puts out. I have heard the album, so I can assuredly say that it is going to be among the best of this year - though it might well be the absolute best. Go and pre-order (this might be a better link to use, as you get the option of cool bundles) a sensational and rich album from one of the U.K.’s greatest and most talented artists. I am so excited to see how people react to Undo the Blue:
“Needle Mythology, the label founded by music writer, author and broadcaster Pete Paphides, release the eagerly anticipated debut album by London singer-songwriter and renowned DJ Iraina Mancini. Iraina’s singular pop vision will be known to regular listeners of 6 Music, where her singles ‘Undo The Blue’, ‘Deep End’, ‘Shotgun’ and ‘Do It (You Stole The Rhythm)’ have all been enthusiastically embraced. Iraina's obsession with music stretches back into her early childhood, much of which was spent absorbing her parents’ collection of old 45s, in particular her dad’s Northern Soul records – an alternative education which meant that, by her early 20s, she was a familiar presence in the DJ booth at many discerning London club nights. Her love of French ye-ye, British freakbeat, Brazilian bossa nova, soul, and Turkish psych will be well-known to regular listeners of her Soho Radio show. Having always sung from a young age, Iraina embarked on a string of collaborators such as Jagz Kooner (Sabres Of Paradise), Sunglasses For Jaws (Miles Kane) and Simon Dine (Paul Weller, Noonday Underground) which truly saw her find her metier as a songwriter, conjuring melodies that stand shoulder to shoulder alongside her impeccable influences. Iraina describes her first single for Needle Mythology ‘Cannonball’ as “a celebration of that moment when you meet someone you really fall for and it knocks you for six. It can be a bit scary, but you’ve just got to go with what your intuition is telling you.” Written with Simon Dine, the vertiginous heart-in-mouth abandon of the song perfectly mirrors the circumstances that brought it into being. Iraina cites Jacqueline Taïeb’s 1967 single 7h du Matin as an early inspiration for the song: “There’s such a great energy about that song. Her vocal is amazing and all those stops and starts that grab your attention.” “This is an artist I absolutely love, one of our rising stars at 6Music.“ Lauren Laverne BBC 6Music”.
There are three more albums from 18th August well worth saving some pennies for. The first is Margaret Glaspy’s Echo the Diamond. Glaspy is a brilliant artist with a unique voice. This is an album that you will definitely want to pre-order and experience. It seems like the making of Echo the Diamond was a very important and impactful for Glaspy:
“The third full-length from Margaret Glaspy, Echo The Diamond emerged from a deliberate stripping-away of artifice to reveal life for all its harsh truths and ineffable beauty. Like the precious gem of its title, the result is an object of startling luminosity, one capable of cutting through the most elaborately constructed façades. “This record came from trying to meet life on life’s terms, instead of looking for a happy ending in everything,” says the New York-based musician. “The whole experience of creating it felt like effortless catharsis.”
Produced by Glaspy with co-production from her partner, guitarist / composer Julian Lage, Echo The Diamond expands on the frenetic vitality of her widely acclaimed debut Emotions and Math—a 2016 release The New Yorker hailed as an album “in which pretty songs often turn prickly, enriched by carefully measured infusions of dissonance and grit.” This time around, Glaspy worked with drummer/percussionist David King of The Bad Plus and bassist Chris Morrissey (Andrew Bird, Lucius, Ben Kweller), recording at Reservoir Studios in Manhattan and embracing an intentionally unfussy process that left plenty of room for spontaneity.
For fans of Liz Phair, Speedy Ortiz, Juliana Hatefield and The Lemonheads”.
Even though I cannot see a vinyl release for the album, Renee Rap’s Snow Angel is available on CD on 18th August. This year has already seen some magnificent debut albums. The American actress and songwriter is going to release a terrific debut album into the world. I would say that it is well worth pre-ordering, as she is an artist getting a lot of attention and buzz. There is this sense that she will go a very long way indeed. Make sure that you get on board early:
“Reneé Rapp’s debut album Snow Angel kicks off her new era of music by putting her heart in full display as she continues to round out her already-multidimensional artistry. Executive produced by Alexander 23, the album captures Rapp’s ability to unabashedly speak her truth, whether it’s through emotional ballads or infectious pop hits. In just a year, Reneé has already sold out shows nationwide while netting hundreds of millions of streams, making Snow Angel one of the most anticipated albums of year”.
One album I am particular excited to hear is Rhiannon Giddens’ You're the One. She is an extraordinary artist with one of the most powerful voices I have heard. This time around, Giddens has put together an album of all originals. Go and pre-order your copy. Someone who is great at interpreting older songs, it will be interesting hearing what she offers on You’re the One. Her most recent album, They're Calling Me Home with Francesco Turrisi, was superb. She has collaborated with other musicians a lot. Although this is a solo album, there are some terrific musicians in the mix:
“Rhiannon Giddens’ You’re the One is the Grammy - and MacArthur - winning singer, composer, and instrumentalist’s third solo studio album and her first of all original songs; her last solo album was 2017’s critically acclaimed Freedom Highway. This collection of 12 songs written over the course of Giddens’ career bursts with life-affirming energy, drawing from the folk music that she knows so deeply, as well as its pop descendants. The album was produced by Jack Splash (Kendrick Lamar, Solange, Alicia Keys, Valerie June, Tank and the Bangas) and recorded at Criteria Recording Studios in Miami with a band composed of Giddens’s closest musical collaborators from the past decade alongside musicians from Splash’s own Rolodex, topped off with a horn section, making an impressive ten to twelve-person ensemble”.
Let’s move things into 25th August. There are a few albums from newer artists that are coming out on this date. One, Be Your Own Pet’s Mommy, sounds really interesting. I am going to check it out. This may be a band that you are not aware of. They should be in your sights, as I think that they are going to go a long way and be in the industry for years to come. You can pre-order their album here. Mommy is shaping up to a stunning release that you will want to check out:
“The Nashville, Tennessee, garage rock group were signed as teenagers to the prestigious XL in the UK and Thurston Moore's Ecstatic Peace label in the US, with whom they released two widely acclaimed albums. They went on to tour with the likes of Arctic Monkeys, Sonic Youth, Le Tigre etc and have been cited as influences for groups such as Paramore and Big Joanie.
Now they return with their first album in 15 years on Third Man. It explosive, scuzzy and full of fireballs of energetic nuggets. Welcome back!!”.
An album where we have much more information for, Becca Mancari’s Left Hand has an intriguing backstory. I do like the learn the history of an album and what its story is. Following 2020’s The Greatest Part, it seems like they are going to gift us with one of the most arresting albums of the year with Left Hand. Here is some detail regarding Becca Mancari’s third studio album:
“Since moving to Nashville to start their music career in 2012, Becca Mancari has been lauded for their dextrous songwriting and prodigious guitar playing. Their sophomore album The Greatest Part, released in 2020, was an indie rock opus that garnered acclaim from The New York Times, NPR, and more. After its release, however, Mancari was despairing. An illness in their family, coupled with a realization that their alcohol dependency had become untenable, led Mancari to begin the hard work of taking ownership of their existence by mending broken relationships and investing in their mental health. “I didn’t realize it then, but looking back, I was a passenger in my own life,” Mancari says. The transformative period of self-reckoning was the catalyst that ultimately steered Mancari to write and produce their triumphant new album, Left Hand. After a disheartening studio session with an outside producer, Becca became convinced that they were capable of rendering their vision independently. Close friend and musical ally Juan Solorzano, who has played on all of Mancari’s albums since the debut of Good Woman in 2017, joined them in the studio to co-produce the majority of the record. In addition, Daniel Tashian (Kacey Musgraves, Demi Lovato) co-wrote and co-produced the song “Don’t Close Your Eyes,” encouraging Mancari to track every instrument on the initial demos.
As much as self-producing this album was an act of resilience and growth in one’s own craft, Mancari brought trusted friends like Brittany Howard, who they play with in Bermuda Triangle, Julien Baker and Zac Farro into the process. Insecurities that had dogged Mancari since childhood couldn’t weather the force of energy in that studio, where they executed decisions with newfound certainty. The title track, “Left Hand,” is named for the Mancari family crest. After a lifetime spent feeling like they didn’t belong, Mancari unlocked a perfect metaphor in the crest: “In many cultures children born with a dominant left hand were taught not to use that hand, and were told that using the right hand was ‘normal’ and ‘correct.’ Similarly, queer children are often times told that it’s not ‘normal’ for them to love who they love and that they need to ‘change.’” On Left Hand, Mancari offers the listener a collection of songs that should be played in moments when we are in need of reassurance and encouragement. No song exemplifies this better than the ebullient track “Over and Over,” which is a reminder to friends that happiness doesn’t need to be fleeting. “I wanted to write a queer pop song that has meat on its bones,” they say. Inspired by one of many reckless and joyful hangs with dear friends in Nashville, the enlivening pop song makes a promise to them, and to the greater community Mancari embraces on this album. “There is something to the feeling/ Head hanging out of the window/ Being ok that we don’t know,” sung on the chorus over a beat replete with congas and shakers. What follows is a promise to anyone who ever feels like the greatest moments of their life are disappearing in the rearview: “We can have it like we used to, over and over and over and over again”.
There is a final album that I want to mention. Not a new artist on the scene, the legendary Cindy Wilson (The B-52’s) always produces incredible music. Realms is out on 25th August, and I think that it is going to get some great reviews. Maybe you do not know about her solo music. Rough Trade give us some useful information that should convince you to pre-order this amazing album from one of the music industry’s greats:
“Cindy Wilson has always been on the forefront of music's cutting-edge: As a founding member of The B-52's, she was a pioneer of the New Wave sound that redefined music in the 1970s and '80s - Cindy is known for her distinctly melodic voice and her remarkable ability to deliver powerful emotions in her music.
She has made a fresh name for herself that extends beyond her band's legacy, establishing herself as a singular force in her own right. Nowhere is this more readily apparent than on Realms, Wilson's spirited sophomore studio album and her most ambitious effort to date. Once again working with Suny Lyons (with Sterling Campbell contributing drums and Maria Kindt on strings), Wilson invites her audience on an immersive, enchanting ten-track journey that peels back the layers of our common humanity. Realms demands our undivided attention as Wilson takes us on a kaleidoscopic journey through our own minds and souls. Through a series of colorful, dramatic outpourings and dynamic, finessed upheavals, it's a carefully crafted record proving beyond a shadow of a doubt that Cindy Wilson continues to have her fingers on the pulse of modern music. Pop in style and indie at heart, Realms is the next new wave of Wilson's already storied legacy”.
You should have plenty of choice there when it comes to albums out next month well worth some money. Of course, most people can’t afford them all – but you may be able to get one. There are no huge releases from mainstream artists. Instead, it is a chance to discover brilliant new music from artists that are just as worthy and talented. I hope that my recommendations…
HAVE been of some use.