Madeline Kenney – Semitones

We kick off with some emotive and sonic intensity this week as Madeline Kenney makes unflinching eye contact with the viewer through the camera lens leaving you in no doubt as to the conviction in her song. ‘Semitones’ addresses, in Madeline’s words, the moment when you “start to dread someone instead of love them”. This is so much more than a looking through you moment though, Madeline is in equal parts playful, mocking and savage in her assessments and absolutely revelling in the sonic palettes she uses to paint her vivid audio pictures with. This is taken from her fifth album, ‘Kiss From The Balcony’ set to be released on July 18th on her long-time label home Carpark Records but for now, get a taste for the main course with the intense ‘Semitones’.

Tombstones In Their Eyes – I Am Cold

Atop that crunching psych-rock bedrock, the insistent pounding rhythm and the slow smoky rise of the layered vocals there is something actually quite gorgeous going on here. There is a yearning to this song, an ache in the turbulence of the lyric that resolves with the chilling statement of the song title. As much as all psych influenced music can be traced back to the sixties, I am equally reminded of echoes from twenty-five years ago and a song like ‘Winterlight’ by Clearlake, something in the icy melodicism and sense of air and weightlessness leads me there. Either way, this is a quietly wonderous tune from these LA psychedelicists that is available now on Kitten Robot Records

Cochemea – Ancestros Futuros

Were Sun Ra still around today he would probably be making music that sounded something like this. This is both futuristic jazz and traditional in its respect of melodic patterns and tropicalia rhythms but whatever references one might be inclined to pin to this music, it is absolutely essential. It moves, it shifts, it rises, it falls, it bangs! This is sensational (I’m writing as I listen by the way, that’s probably obvious). Cochemea is a multi-instrumentalist and composer and this is the third and final part of a trilogy to be released in September on Daptone Records. It has been recorded with an octet of NYC percussionists along with Daptone alumni and is anchored in the cultural fabric that has nurtured him from the beginning through his Yaqui ancestry.

Allo Darlin’ – My Love Will Bring You Home

Here we have a cool recent live rendition of a rather Springsteen-like rocking ballad from Allo Darlin’s newly released album ‘Bright Nights’. This is a welcome return from Allo Darlin’ being the first new music released since 2014 after which they went on a decade long hiatus. Originally a London based outfit evolving out of a solo project built around the songs of singer Elizabeth Morris, their full band sound became a delightful amalgamation of lo-fi indie aesthetics and warm tune heavy guitar-pop writing. Happily, it is this that they appear to be tapping back into upon their return.

Big Thief – Incomprehensible

And here is another old favourite making a return, although on this occasion it is a band who have been rather prolific over the past ten years. Now listed as a three piece consisting of Adrianne Lenker, Buck Meek & James Krivchenia, Big Thief are set to release a new album called ‘Double Infinity’ on 5th September, via 4AD and if this teaser is anything to go by, their hot streak is showing no sign of letting up yet.

Lael Neale – All Good Things Will Come To Pass

I will finish this week with a live performance of a track from one of the best albums of the year so far, Lael Neale’s ‘Altogether Stranger’. At the time of release I wrote of this track specifically that it enters with some steam train chugging guitar as the repeatedly sung title line makes for a pure fairground delight of a chorus hook. The juxtaposition of celebration and loss is central to the magic at play in Lael Neale’s music and those elements of light and shade are set to the foreground here to stunning effect. If you are not onto this album yet, or the music of Lael in general then I would suggest that these oversights are rectified at your earliest convenience, why you could even start now with this.