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Music

GENA – This Is So Crazy

GENA (short for “God Energy, Naturally Amazing,”) is a new collaborative project from drummer and producer Karriem Riggins and singer-songwriter, rapper, and producer Liv.e. Their debut The Pleasure Is Yours is informed by jazz, soul, and hip-hop, with enough electronic weirdness to keep me happy. There’s definitely something about this that feels special, I’m just not entirely sure I love it yet. What I do know however is that This Is So Crazy is insanely good, coming in like Prince’s I Could Die For You as seen through a spectral haze.

https://genagenagena.bandcamp.com/album/the-pleasure-is-yours

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Music

Caterina Barbieri & Bendik Giske – Impatience, Magma

Caterina Barbieri and Bendik Giske’s collaborative project started during an artistic residency in Milan’s ICA in 2021, by invitation of Swiss artist and curator Jan Vorisek. This meeting, and the preceding closure of sites for cultural exchange, made their work together “feel like springtime” according to Barbieri. Throughout the tour, they continued to develop material live, and their album, At Source, feels true to that ever-evolving process of creation. Impatience, Magma feels like the centrepiece of this extraordinary EP, glowing and languorous, with Giske’s saxophone at its most affecting.

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Maria BC – May this rain

Written and recorded throughout the US West Coast, Maria BC’s new album Marathon is both expansive and intimate, ranging from aerial acoustic songs, to glitchy distorted tracks channeling chaos and disillusionment, all while maintaining a strong lyrical through line. “For this record I decided to spend less time on production and recording and more time on songwriting” she says. “The result, I think, is more thematically consistent, lyrically speaking, and more concise”. On first couple of listens, I agree.

https://mariabc.bandcamp.com/album/marathon

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Music

Niko Demus, Merely, MFM – Oscillate

Dreaaaaaaaamyyyy….

https://nikodemus1.bandcamp.com/album/wade-1

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Music

Choker – Geppetto

Choker put out two excellent albums close to a decade ago – 2017’s Peak and 2018’s Honeybloom – and then disappeared, so it was excellent to see Heaven Ain’t Sold appear last week. Often compared to Frank Ocean (for good reason), the latest LP sees him pick back up where he left off, with deeply reflective and beautifully restrained r&b. The story of his rise and disappearance is a sad and interesting one, and his music has lost none of its promise and power in the intervening years.

https://chokerchokerchoker.bandcamp.com/album/heaven-aint-sold

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Music

Isabel Pine – Sun Dog

Loads of interesting stuff out today including albums from Choker, Altin Gun and perennial TPW favourite 36, but I’m choosing to highlight Isabel Pine’s new album Fables as it’s been the perfect, chill start to the day I needed.

https://isabelpine.bandcamp.com/album/fables

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Music

Placid Angles – Sainte Anne

With over 20 LPs under his belt, John Beltran returns to his much loved ambient / IDM / electronica alias Placid Angles with one of his strongest albums to date. Canada has properly blown me away and I’ve listened to it twice this morning already. Inspired by “everything from the scenery to the people … I decided to dedicate this record to them and that beautiful country”, Sainte Anne is a beautiful opening track and definitely gives you a sense of the musical world he inhabits, but I urge you in the very strongest terms to go listen in its entirety, ideally right now.

https://oathcreations.bandcamp.com/album/canada

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Music

Sun Kil Moon – Oh My Mother

My immediate thought on seeing that Sun Kil Moon had put out a 9+ minute track called Oh My Mother was that she had died. The fact that I dove in with relish says more about me than perhaps I’d like. To be clear: I don’t wish people dead, and I’m glad she isn’t. But as a longtime source of inspiration for some of Mark Kozelek’s most transcendently melancholy music, and I hold some macabre fascination for what the kind of stuff he’ll write when she’s not here anymore. Anyway, this is lovely. And I’m glad she’s still around.

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Music

Mandy, Indiana – Life Hex

I really didn’t get on with Mandy, Indiana” celebrated debut i’ve seen a way, at all, despite multiple listens and various people telling me how brilliant it was. Their new album URGH, however, has definitely got me. Written during a residency outside Leeds and completed between Berlin and Manchester – with the band working through ongoing some pretty significant health issues at the time – URGH moves between industrial pressure, fractured club textures and metal (probably?), creating moments that feel both at times deeply claustrophobic, at others spacious yet still uneasy. But most prominently of all, it’s ragey – in a very satisfying way.

https://mandyindiana.bandcamp.com/album/urgh

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Music

Hannah Cohen – Wasting My Time

This was released seven years ago, but I’ve only just found it and I can’t get over how much I love it. Hannah Cohen put out the brilliant Earthstar Mountain LP last year, but this is taken from 2019’s Welcome Home, which is probably my favourite album of the year so far, if that counts. I just can’t handle the melodies, and yes, of course I’m crying.

https://hannahcohen.bandcamp.com/album/welcome-home