pilole 2017 giugno/agosto

GIUGNO 2017	AGOSTO 2017
BEI BEI & SHAWN LEE "Year of the funky" Year Of The Funky is the second album from Bei Bei (???) & Shawn Lee. After their debut collaborative album Into The Wind (Ubiquity Records, 2010), the Chinese guzheng virtuoso / composer and the prolific multi-instrumentalist / producer join forces again on 12 new tracks. Year Of The Funky marries a unique blend of ancient tradition with studio trickery. [ file under: afro-harping ]		NICOLE ATKINS "Goodnight Rhonda Lee" Internationally acclaimed American musician Nicole Atkins is a rare artist whose timeless songwriting and raw, emotional voice spans the ages - a miasma of faded glamour and nostalgic pop noir. Goodnight Rhonda Lee, the 4th studio album from Nicole Atkins, was produced by the team at Niles City Sound in Fort Worth, Texas and mixed by Ben Tanner (Alabama Shakes) in Muscle Shoals, Alabama. Co-writers on the record include Chris Isaak and Jim Sclavunos (Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds). [[ file under: retro-soul
BOLA "D.E.G." Skam Records’ most elusive artist Bola returns with an enticing new album D.E.G. the first movement from Darrell Fitton over a decade. Every element within D.E.G. sounds perfectly placed. This nothing less than perfect engineering makes D.E.G. a beautifully crafted album of sci-fi shapes that sound and feel like little else coming out of the post-late ‘90s/ early ‘00s electronica cannon. [ file under: electronica ]		MATTHEW BOURNE "Isotach" Skeletal piano motifs, an aching use of space and sparing cello arrangements are deployed to devastating effect. Recorded in his rural Yorkshire home, Bourne’s piano placed to overlook the moors while he works, the album title is a nod to the weather, which played a part in its creation. The recordings took place during what Bourne describes as “extreme weather”. If you listen carefully you can hear the wind and rain picked up on the microphones, the sparse instrumentation providing the calm in the eye of the storm. [ file under: erased tapes ]
JEFRE CANTU-LEDESMA "On the echoing green" On the Echoing Green is an elegant work of lush, shimmering sound, rendered with a singular touch by eternal electric romantic Jefre Cantu-Ledesma. This is music of growth and grandeur, of ascent and exploration, played with purpose and passion by a craftsman in tune with the beauty of sound and the harmony of light. In his words: “[This album] feels like spring, things coming alive, blooming, emerging from winter.” [ file under: ambient 'gaze ]		EVERYTHING EVERYTHING "A fever dream" The fourth studio album from Everything Everything, following up from 2015's Get To Heaven. Alternative synth-pop indie anthems. If you're into Foster The People, Wild Beasts or Glass Animals then check this out. [ file under: madchester ]
CODY CHESNUTT "My love divine degree" Cody ChesnuTT, the legendary soul troubadour known for his frank and raw storytelling, is set to release his first album in four years, the RnB and gospel-flecked ‘My Love Divine Degree’. The album will be released via Cody’s longtime record label One Little Indian. [ file under: rhythm & soul ]		FLOATING POINTS "Reflections: Mojave desert" The first in a planned series of environmental recordings by Floating Points to be filmed and recorded at different locations around the world; the recording was made last year, as Floating Points travelled to the Mojave to rehearse in between US touring. Immediately struck by the distinct sonic tapestry created by the rock formations and valleys, Sam and the band set up a recording operation and filmed this new work at the base of the natural sculptures they encountered. Thie CD or LP come complete with a 30 minute film made with the Floating Points band in the desert of California. [ file under: ambient world ]
GAUDI "Magnetic" Magnetic is the exciting new album by italian native but London based music producer / musician Gaudi, which features a choice selection of sounds from the catalogue of internationally respected experimental label RareNoiseRecords, as well as direct contributions by several top caliber musicians from the worlds of rock, jazz and electronica. [ file under: dub sounds ]		FOCUS GROUP "Stop-motion happening" The Focus Group return with a dreamlike kaleidoscope. Like the zonked soundtrack to a disorientating Saturday morning kid’s show with strange animations, fun facts, your poetry and all the latest popsike sounds. [ file under: space-age bachelor pad music ]
ALDOUS HARDING "Party" An artist of rare calibre, Aldous Harding does more than sing; she conjures a singular intensity. Her debut release with 4AD, Party (produced with the award-winning John Parish; PJ Harvey, Sparklehorse) introduces a new pulse to the stark and unpopulated dramatic realm where the likes of Kate Bush and Scott Walker reside. [ file under: alternative pop ]		GRIZZLY BEAR "Painted ruins" Grizzly Bear release their highly anticipated fifth full-length album "Painted Ruins" following up their 2012 commercial breakthrough "Shields." The band spent the better part of two years writing and recording the eleven new compositions featured on "Painted Ruins" with the entire album produced by Grizzly Bear's own, Chris Taylor. [ file under: indie wave ]
ARVE HENRIKSEN "Towards language" Arve Henriksen is a major representative of a golden generation of Norwegian jazz musicians. This is his ninth solo album (eight on Rune Grammfon and one on ECM), he has also released a dozen albums as a founder member of Supersilent and appears on well over a hundred records by artists like David Sylvian, Jon Balke, Trygve Seim, Imogen Heap, Arild Andersen and many more. With Towards Language trumpeter Arve Henriksen is back with his trusted long time musical partners Jan Bang and Erik Honoré. [ file under: scando-jazz ]		KOMMODE "Analog dance music" Commonly when one thinks of dance music sequencers, arpeggiators, patterned bass lines and looping software are all major forces that help shape our conception. Analog Dance Music, a solo project from Eirik Glambek Bøe of Kings of Convenience, relies on pure musicianship to achieve something that sounds polished, well produced and gorgeously, subtly imperfect. [ file under: norwegian wood ]
PEVERELIST "Tessellations" There are plenty of surprises dotted throughout Tesselations, Peverelist's third full-length. For starters, it's a largely positive and melodious affair, with the Bristol producer's usual weighty bass and punchy machine drums - this time veering from clandestine Teutonic techno to sprightly IDM style electro, [ file under: techno-city ]		DENT MAY "Across the multiverse" Mississippi native Dent May writes, performs, and produces homemade pop music from his home in Los Angeles. A stylistic chameleon, Dent's recordings echo folk, disco, R&B, psychedelia, country-western, soul, and funk sounds of the past, present, and future. He has released three albums on Animal Collective's Paw Tracks imprint with a fourth Across the Mulitverse via Carpark Records. [ file under: beach pop ]
POPULOUS "Azulejos" Populous is Andrea Mangia, a producer hailing from Lecce, Italy. His previous releases were widely received by international critics, earning him a spot on the global music map. Azulejos has a South American tinge to it (and is even partly in Spanish.) Features collaborations with Nina Miranda (Smoke City) and Ela Minus. [ file under: ethno world ]		TRAILER TRASH TRACYS "Althaea" With Althaea, Trailer Trash Tracys follow-up to 2012’s critically acclaimed debut album Ester, the band continue their investigations into the farther flung reaches of pop music, with stunning results. Spanning 10 deeply esoteric tracks, Althaea sees the band drift further afield from traditional song structures to create a new aural lexicon of their own, one as influenced by Filipino carnival music and Latin rhythms as it was by Japanese tropical music from the 80s. [ file under: stereo-labs ]
RIDE "Weather diaries" Weather diaries is Ride's first album in over twenty years, released via Wichita Recordings. The album was produced by legendary DJ, producer and remixer Erol Alkan, and is packed with all the classic elements that made Ride one of the defining bands of the early ‘90s. It also brings the band back together with mixer Alan Moulder who mixed their seminal 1990 album Nowhere and produced its follow up Going Blank Again. [ file under: shoegaze ]		WASHED OUT "Mister mellow" The chillwave sound he had helped popularize had seeped into the mainstream and both Washed Out albums had been variations on that sound; Within and Without looked to smooth R&B for inspiration, Paracosm to soft rock and shoegaze. By the time Mister Mellow, the third Washed Out album it appeared that Greene had decided to go back to his roots to create something that sounded like a pumped-up version of the early Washed Out sound. [ file under: chilliwave ]
SUFJAN STEVENS "Planetarium" Planetarium is an album co-composed by four musicians: Bryce Dessner, James McAlister, Nico Muhly, and Sufjan Stevens. Flanked by a string quartet and a consort of seven trombones, this unique collaborative ensemble has assembled an expansive song cycle that explores the Sun, the Moon, the planets and other celestial bodies of our solar system (and beyond) through soundscape, song, science and myth. [ file under: concept indie ]		WAXAHATCHEE "Out in the storm" Out in the Storm, Katie Crutchfield’s fourth album as Waxahatchee and the follow-up to her Merge debut Ivy Tripp, is the blazing result of a woman reawakened. Her most autobiographical and honest album to date, Out in the Storm is a self-reflective anchor in the story of both her songwriting and her life. [ file under: indie rock ]
SZA "CTRL" 2017 debut album from the neo-soul singer/songwriter. SZA's music is described as alternative R&B, with elements of soul, hip-hop, minimalist R&B, cloud rap, ethereal R&B, witch house and chillwave. Rowe cites a variety of artists as influences including Billie Holiday, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Björk, Jamiroquai, and Wu-Tang Clan. [ file under: neo-soul ]		STEVEN WILSON "To the bone" “My fifth record is in many ways inspired by the hugely ambitious progressive pop records that I loved in my youth (think Peter Gabriel’s So, Kate Bush’s Hounds of Love, Talk Talk’s Colour of Spring and Tears for Fears’ Seeds of Love). Lyrically, the album’s eleven tracks veer from the paranoid chaos of the current era in which truth can apparently be a flexible notion, observations of the everyday lives of refugees, terrorists and religious fundamentalists, and a welcome shot of some of the most joyous wide-eyed escapism I’ve created in my career so far. Something for all the family!”– Steven Wilson [ file under: modern pop ]