Plenty to choose from this week as Silent Radio surveys the latest releases.
Sarah Jane Morris The Sisterhood
An artist best known for her contribution to one of the all-time classic sad yet euphoric sounding hits, The Communards’ version of ‘Don’t Leave Me This Way, offers a well-thought out and realised project celebrating ten female artists who’ve inspired and shaped Sarah Jane’s life. It contains songs written about each of the following ground-breaking women: Bessie Smith, Billie Holiday, Nina Simone, Miriam Makeba, Aretha Franklin, Janis Joplin, Joni Mitchell, Rickie Lee Jones, Annie Lennox, and Kate Bush. It is released to coincide with International Women’s Day.
Moor Mother The Great Bailout
A record that contains multitudes of instruments, voices and cacophony that take on themes of Afrofuturism and collective memory with the forebearers of jazz, hip hop and beat poetry in mind. It focuses on the 1833 and 1835 Slavery Abolition Acts and features contributions from Lonnie Holley, Mary Lattimore, Vijay Ayer and Angel Bat Dawid.
Kim Gordon The Collective
Her second solo album on which she works with producer Justin Raisin whose damaged, blown out dub and trap constructions playing the foil to Gordon’s intuitive word collages and hooky mantras.
Susanna The Harmony of Evening EP
On which she is joined by Oslo’s incredible, forward thinking KORK orchestra. The radio orchestra of NRK (Norway’s national broadcaster) is known for its progressive approach, diversity and willingness to tackle challenging and contemporary music of all types.
Drunk Mums Beer Baby
The record delivers thrashing guitar riffs and ten relentless, no-holds-barred party anthems that leave no room for sadness, emotions, or rational thinking.
Purest Form Purest Form EP
Trio embodying a quest to bolt together heavy metal and EBM (electronic body music) for a modern industrial sound that combines the cathartic freedom found both on club dance floors and in sweaty mosh pits.
Bananarama Glorious: The Ultimate Collection
40 track compilation from their earlier days accompanying Fun Boy Three through all their hits to more recent songs.
Oisin Leech Cold Sea
Recorded in Co. Donegal, in an old sea-facing schoolhouse that the pair transformed into a working studio, the album features contributions from M. Ward and Tony Garnier, a long-time member of Bob Dylan’s touring band, alongside Irish folk legend Dónal Lunny, and Róisín McGrory.
Before The Dawn Archaic Flame EP
A dose of melodic death metal. Galloping guitar rhythms interfere with calmer parts while the intense clean vocals of Paavo Laapotti and a guitar solo create a melodic atmosphere.
The Rhythm Method Peachy
Their second album marks a departure with influences on the new sound ranging from The Band and Kris Kristofferson to The Waterboys and Deacon Blue..
Gost Prophecy
Texas-based multi-instrumentalist, producer, and main-brain James Lollar with an aggressive and sinister take on synthwave.
Charles Moothart Black Holes Don’t Choke
Member of Ty Segall/Fuzz with what he calls “apocalyptic pop”, catchy, fuzz-drenched psychedelia.
Meatbodies Flora Ocean Tiger Bloom
A melodic, hook filled rock epic in which frontman and lead guitarist Chad Ubovich faces the trials of sobriety, redemption, reinvention while literally, learning to walk and play again.
Skeletal Remains Fragments of the Ageless
Metal band aiming to be ever more brutal and extreme.
Observers The Age of Machine Entities
An instrumental heavy metal reimagining of Stanley Kubrick and Arthur C Clarke’s 2001 A Space Odyssey.
The Mezz The Mezz EP
Indie pop band issue a manifesto for courage, exploration, and embracing life’s full spectrum.
The Blamers Class Living
Sydney four-piece who utilise the latest equipment while being fuelled by a fascination with the early garage greats and a determination to return music to its proto-punk form.
C Turtle Expensive Thrills
A record with influences spanning the epochs of grunge, alternative rock and indie – from Pixies, Pavement and some of the bands that came through the iconic New Zealand label Flying Nun Records in the 80s/90s like 3Ds and The Clean – yet with a modern zeal.
Xmal Deutschland Early Singles 1981-1982
Early tracks from German post-punk band who went to release four albums on 4AD.
Anja Huwe Codes
Debut solo album from Xmal Deutschland vocalist. It was initially inspired by the diary entries of Moshe Shnitzki, who, at the age of 17, left his home in 1942 to live in the cavernous White Russian forests as a partisan, ‘Codes’ is about the human experience and what extremes can do to an individual.
Erika Angell The Obsession with her Voice
An eloquent work of exploration and feminist power (featuring string arrangements by Jonathan Cayer and acoustic percussion by Mili Hong on select tracks).
Astrel K The Foreign Department
Rhys Edwards of Ulrika Spacek’s project with mini symphonies influenced by string and brass arrangements of records like Mercury Rev’s Deserters’ Songs and Death of A Ladies Man by Leonard Cohen.
Coley Park Devil Tree
Reissue of a soulful country psych recorded between 2002-2006, a mash-up of fuzzy wah-wah guitar with banjo, slide, the odd trumpet.
Mining Chimet
Chimet was created using weather data collected from Chichester West Pole Beacon (in the Solent) during a storm sequence in October 2017. Through a process of sonification, the data was used to create 74 minutes of music that maps the course of the storms over a full week. Matthew Bourne then added piano and cello in one take, reacting to the ebb and flow of the piece.
Norah Jones Visions
A vibrant and joyous 12-song set that finds Jones singing about feeling free, wanting to dance, making it right, and acceptance of what life brings.
Judas Priest Invincible Shield
Latest album from the metal band who were inducted into the Rock &’ Roll Hall of Fame in 2022.
Pixies Pixies at the BBC, 1988-91
Six sessions, 24 songs from their prime era.
Muzozoic Fuzock
A band on the border between jazz and rock, and the sound is complemented by wind instruments, vibraphone, and guitar synthesizers.
Plush More You Becomes You
Reissue of debut that drew comparisons with artists such as Jimmy Webb, Brian Wilson, Laura Nyro and Harry Nilsson.
Dan Boeckner Boeckner!
Debut album from Wolf Parade artist that is an autobiographical record told through a weave of emotional sci-fi imagism and more grounded storytelling touching on personal turmoil. It’s full of heavily layered, almost orchestral, cathartic indie-rock, which toys and experiments with a newfound off-kilter darkness via glitchy, subtly intricate electronics, and dashes of vibraphone and synth.
Bayonne Temporary Time (Orchestrated)
It emerges from the shared experiences of Bayonne and Nathaniel Earl, both coping with the loss of their fathers. This collaborative project weaves Bayonne’s visceral songwriting with Nathaniel Earl’s lush orchestral composition.
Marta Forsberg Sjunger for Varandra
A new work from the Swedish composer is a characteristic composition positioned somewhere between choral music, contemporary minimalism and electronic music.
New Corroded Pass Lightly
A record that was composed remotely and documents an abstract, almost architectural process of sound collage that relies as much on system, balance and careful engineering as it does on chaos and chance.
Midnight Hellish Expectations
Cleveland cult that has been slaying the metal/punk underground with their own brand of lust, filth, and sleaze dating back to the band’s inception in 2003.
