The best album releases of the month, August 2013 edition

As July saw only a few decent releases, I've made up for it in August by expanding this list back to the regular ten. It's almost a straight split between talented female performers and noise bands this month. I'm also not feeling like writing a lot, so I've grabbed official videos to illustrate each album.

Julianna Barwick 'Nepenthe'

The more I listen to this the better it gets. My review is here (the 405).
"So much music gets described as ethereal, but there is no better adjective for this.
After a while you get lost in Nepenthe and forget that this is mostly voices, it manages to transcend its constituent parts and make a beautiful noise from start to finish."

Braids 'Flourish // Perish'

Their debut 'Native Speaker' had some stellar moments and this builds on it. A slightly more electronic feel and the ambitious songwriting that first brought them to attention is still there.

Julia Holter 'Loud City Song'

Often confused with Julianna Barwick (and to compound this their albums came out on the same day!) I reckon Holter's new one is her best work to date. Built around voices that are as clear as a bell, this is another beautiful album.

Mark Kozelek & Desertshore

There's no stopping Kozelek now that he has his own label. When you count live recordings he will have released six albums during 2013. This one with Desertshore, who include Red House Painters guitarist Phil Carney, should please long-standing fans ('You Are Not My Blood' and 'Sometimes I Can't Stop' are the most RHP thing MK has done for a while). The lyrics focus on similar areas to his recent albums - the loss of family and friends (Jason Molina and American Music Club's Tim Mooney in particular), watching boxing matches, the endless cycle of touring, etc. It either comes across as hugely self-indulgent or a revealing peek into his personal diary.

LISTEN to 'Katowice or Cologne'

Medicine 'To The Happy Few'

Another shoe-gaze comeback, although Medicine always seemed to mean more in the US than UK.
my review is here (the 405)

No Age 'An Object'

This still sounds like No Age, but this time it seems the main influence is post-punk not post-hardcore. Wire rather than Husker Du if you like. Just 29 minutes in duration, this rewards repeated listens. They are doing interesting things with noise that set them apart from run-of-the-mill punk duos. There are even a couple of catchy anthems hiding close to the surface.

Superchunk 'I Hate Music'

They don't REALLY hate music of course, I mean two of them run Merge records after all. This is as joyous and as catchy and you would expect from Superchunk.
my review is here

Laura Veirs 'Warp and Weft'

Nine albums down the line, Laura Veirs is still remarkably consistent, although this new release is her most varied to date. Perhaps furthest from her folk roots, embracing occasionally noisy guitars and a tribute to jazz legend Alice Coltrane, and featuring guests such as Neko Case, kd Lang and Jim James, it's a very welcome return.

White Hills 'So You Are.. So You'll Be'

This is their seventh full album and by now White Hills have convinced that they aren't just a psych/ garage band, they fully embrace the hard rock and space rock made by the like of Hawkwind. Another impressive outing with some gloriously loud synth parts as well.

White Hills - In Your Room from Thrill Jockey Records on Vimeo.

Zola Jesus 'Versions'

Apparently some quarters have received this collaboration with less than enthusiasm. Here we have the songs and voice of Zola Jesus working with Jim Thirlwell (aka any project with the word Foetus in it) and the Mivos Quartet. The end result is stripped back versions of material that has graced the ZJ albums to date. It certainly works for me.

Listen: 10 of the best releases of the month, March edition

I'm enjoying wading through albums to try and pick ten or so for this page every month. March wasn't as strong a month as January or February in my opinion, and it's the first month I've been unable to pick ten albums with Spotify links. Happily, the three non-Spotify albums that I have included are fantastic and well worth seeking out.

Chromatics 'Kill for Love'
*no UK spotify available* but the album is still streaming via soundcloud, click here for more. This long awaited, highly anticipated album from the Portland based synth act is well worth the five year wait. Over the 91 minute running time it manages to sound cinematic and epic whilst retaining the thrill of well crafted synth-pop songs. It's early days but I've already heard the word "masterpiece" applied to this by a few people.

Andrew Bird 'Break it Yourself'
listen via Spotify
My review
'Break it Yourself' sits together very well as a set of songs. It's not a concept album but there is a sense that it is loosely about the passage of time, the ageing process and our own personal memories.
This time around he has recorded it mostly himself in his barn outside Chicago and at the heart of it, like most of his albums, is his deceptively simple song writing which gets constructed into something complex and clever because of his work with loops and his interweaving melodies.

Lee Ranaldo 'Between the Times and Tides'
listen via Spotify
my review (the 405)

This is a strong solid rock album that warrants repeated listens. It has enough familiarity for Sonic Youth fans to latch on to, but it also has plenty of surprises. If you were expecting an angry, experimental record in the aftermath of that group's demise you will be disappointed, because Lee Ranaldo has produced something that embraces his new solo status with an exuberance few would have predicted.

Julia Holter 'Exstasis'
*no UK spotify available*
An album which gathered such over-the-top gushing reviews that I couldn't bring myself to add to them! It is a beautiful album, a collection of experimental, ambient pop apparently inspired by Greek mythology. It would sit nicely between Joanna Newsom and Mary Margaret O'Hara, whilst not really sounding like either of them.

THEEsatisfaction 'awE naturalE'
*no UK spotify available*
Stasia Irons and Catherine Harris-White made their presence felt on the best hip-hop record of 2011 (Shabazz Palaces 'Black Up') and now they have come into their own on this brief but very impressive debut. With 13 tracks in just 30 minutes, it's a jazzier, more fun, flipside to the Shabazz Palaces album.

Grimes 'Visions'
listen via Spotify
Still only 21, this is Clare Boucher's third record as Grimes, and the first to get a major release (on 4AD). It's an impressive, genre-defying album, which manages to combine the sound and feel of left-field indie bands (Cocteau Twins in particular) with commercial RnB and underground lo-fi dance music. This is another one that is going to be around all year.

Fanuelle (re-issue)
listen via Spotify
I wouldn't normally include re-issues in this, but as this is a re-issue of an album from 2005 hardly anyone ever heard I reckon I'm allowed. This was the debut album by Matthew Fanuelle which disappeared soon after release, and it has been found and remastered by Swedish label Emotion. It's a mix of great songwriting, lo-fi production, movie samples and a wall of Casio keyboards. Imagine Daniel Johnson, Momus and the Magnetic Fields as a starting point, then go and investigate this lost gem.

Lost in the Trees 'A Church That Fits Our Needs'
listen via Spotify
A haunted but stirring album, written as a cathartic experience after the suicide of frontman Ari Picker's mother - that is her face staring out from the cover. It's a very beautiful, musically complex album. As you might expect given the subject matter, the lyrics are personal and very impressive.

White Hills 'Frying on this Rock'
listen via Spotify
my review (the 405)
I didn't rate this as highly as their last couple of albums, but there are enough highlights to warrant its inclusion here.
"Some of the song structures remind me of the likes of Loop, Hawkwind and Monster Magnet, although it is on the extended pieces that White Hills become something more distinctive and start to forge their own identity. "

The Bowerbirds 'The Clearing'
listen via Spotify
This is a more expansive and more strange than previous Bowerbirds releases, and none the worse for that. Apparently the couple behind the band, Beth and Phil, separated and got back together during this album's gestation period and Beth also suffered a mystery illness which nearly killed her. THey have been able to turn those hardships into something pretty beautiful.

live review: White Hills, London The Lexington 24th March 2012

White Hills are notorious for their prolific output and hectic release schedule, but they have a new 'proper' album out on Thrill Jockey, Frying on this Rock, and tonight is being promoted by the Quietus as its launch night.
Special guests are Norway's Årabrot, who have added a bass player to their usual guitar and drums set up. Maybe I was just distracted by their lack of clothes, as each member stripped to the waist at the start of the gig, but I found their first few tunes a bit underwhelming. I was expecting them to be a bit unhinged but what I got was Melvins-style metal, which is fine, but I enjoyed them a lot more when they got looser and they hinted at Jesus Lizard and the Birthday Party influences. The bassist added some extra drums to a couple of songs and the two core members traded vocals towards the end too. They were loud though, and I think that fact plus the unfamiliarity with their material drove some of the crowd downstairs.
The sold out audience soon file back and by the time White Hills take the stage there is a sense of anticipation in the air. Tonight they are a trio, with drummer Nick Name joining up with the core duo of Dave W. and Ego Sensation.

They have a bizarre recorded intro tape which is a pitch-shifted voice formally welcoming us to the show, before they launch into a blistering 'Paths of Light' with its single line repeated over and over again. It's track one, side one of the new album, but if anyone thought it was going to be a case of the new album in order, they immediately confound this by playing 'Radiate' from the early LP Heads on Fire. This gives Dave W his first chance to shine with the first of many wigged out, lengthy guitar solos, and Nick Name is already in danger of overdoing it on the drums. They go even further back into their past for 'Under Skin or by Name', before focusing on most of the new record in the middle section.

'Song of Everything' and 'You Dream You See' are two powerful pieces of space-rock, and just when it was getting a bit too similar, 'You Dream' reveals a mid-section that's full of surprises and takes the song somewhere else. 'Robot Stomp' is a monotonous slab of repetition on the album but it comes alive here and makes more sense. The doomy trance of 'Condition of Nothing' is a perfect way to follow it, connecting the twin influences of Hawkwind and Mudhoney to great effect.
Although billed as an album launch, this turned out to be a long set featuring lots of old and new material. I know the band are in the middle of an epic tour but it seemed that tonight was a high point for them and for the audience. They played a blinder and left a lot of people stunned, in that post-gig trance you can only get from this kind of immersive, psychedelic music. Top night.