Florida-natives Beach Day will release their debut record Trip Track Attack on 6/18 via Kanine Records. The 60s girl-group inspired trio are appropriately releasing their record in the throws of summer, and on the track “Little Red Shoes” its all too easy to see this record on repeat for some time during the ensuing months. Listen below:
9. Young Fathers - TAPE TWO
Young Fathers will follow-up their excellent TAPE ONE EP released earlier this year with TAPE TWO set for official release on 6/11. You can hear the ambitious 9-track EP in-full now over at Dazed Digital’s Soundcloud. 8. Spectrals - Sob Story
Spectrals are back with their sophomore record Sob Story, which was released yesterday via Wichita Recordings. The Record was produced by Girls' JR White and can be slightly likened to the recently disbanded duo with sprawling slide guitar and catchy classic rock melodies. Listen to the title track below:
7. Camera Obscura - Desire Lines
On the Glasgow quintet’s latest single off the forthcoming record Desire Lines (out today via 4AD) “Do It Again” lead singer Tracyanne Campbell is straightforward: “Turn down the lights now / let’s do it again.” The upbeat little number doesn’t seem to stray far from the band’s previous releases in 2006’s Let’s Get Out Of this Country and 2009’s My Maudlin Career, but no one’s complaining. Camera Obscura have made a career out of crafting their perfectly twee-lilted indie pop, but they’ve done it consistently. Listen to “Do It Again” below:
6. Smith Westerns - Soft Will
Smith Westerns impressed a lot of people with their debut self-titled record and 2011’s Dye It Blonde, and with their latest singles “3am Spiritual” and “Varsity” the group looks to complete their glam-rock trifecta with Soft Will, which is out June 25 via Mom+Pop. Check out the video for “Varsity” below:
5. Portugal. The Man - Evil Friends
The first track and video, “Atomic Man,” released from Portugal. The Man’s eighth studio album, has a white-washed sound that Censored Colors and American Ghetto songs don’t. Produced by Danger Mouse, it has a witty likeness to fellow Danger Mouse artists, but the synthetic-beats and metallic quality of John Baldwin Gourley’s vocals lack the rawness they’re known for. The album is streaming now, and will be an excellent alternative to less stimulating pop-rock tracks that can clog the radiowaves of the season.
4. Sigur Ros - Kveikor
Sigur Ros’ seventh studio album, Kveikur(put out by XL Records), returns the Icelandic band to a sound more reminiscent of their native landscape: beautiful, barren, and rocky. The first single and video released, “Isjaki,” retains some of the watery electronics prevalent on Valtari, their 2012 release, but harkens back to the chimes, post-rock guitar, and traditional beats on Takk and ( ). As usual, this album will be released to excited praise; because there’s always someone who will love it more than the last, and probably more than anything else. That’s one of the greatest qualities of Sigur Ros’ music: it never fails to touch a heart. Check out the lyric video to "Isjaki" below:
3. Eleanor Friedberger - Personal Record
Eleanor Friedberger, who’s playing at The Ninth Ward at Babeville tonight, released her sophomore LP Personal Record today on Merge. Anyone who likes the Fiery Furnaces will like this release, it’s full of quirky rhythms and sun-drenched folk-pop sincerity. Watch the video for "Stare At The Sun" below:
2. Disclosure - Settle
UK dance-pop duo Disclosure are brothers Howard and Guy Lawrence. At just 18 and 21, the brothers are crafting some supremely excellent music on their latest record Settle which was released yesterday on PMR. “Latch” is a palpable and airy track featuring Sam Smith that drips with boiling texture, flaunting itself this way and that via bubbling percussion and synth lines. Listen to “Latch” below: 1. Boards of Canada - Tomorrow's Harvest
Tomorrow’s Harvest, Boards of Canada’s first studio album in eight years, streamed over YouTube yesterday, and was reviewed with a special kind of dystopian-fervor reserved for musicians who have stood the test of time—and come back from its brink. Like Godspeed You! Black Emperor, Boards of Canada have managed to meld their former sound into something cuter and oddly current-sounding. The single and video, “Reach for the Dead,” is rhythmic, simplistic, and aerial in a way that might at first strike you as surface, but could actually be deeply beautiful.
As the year comes to a close and we all conjure up our increasingly self-aware spouts of Top 50 this and that, the record labels get to follow suit and play along, relishing in end-of-year clout and strategically posing coveted reissues and holiday box set to the Cyber Monday crowd, who are somehow bigger suckers than the Friday lifers. Releasing an album mid-December might not be the most strategic idea in theory, but it takes some courage, and the few artists who are putting out an album in the ensuing weeks deserve some respect, if not a small stroke of promotion. True, we've only gathered five releases to anticipate this month, but that only doubles the potential of each of these albums to become one of your favorites of the year!
5. Young Fathers - Tape One Hip hop trio Young Fathers have a most interesting history as each bandmember met at the age of 14 in Edinburgh, hailing from different parts of the world. Alloysious Massaquoi was born in Liberia and Kayus Bankhole resided in Nigeria and Maryland before meeting up with 'G' Hastings in the UK. They’ve labeled themselves as a “psychedelic hip hop boy band” and the brand surprisingly fits as the group thrives on trip hop and raggae influence as well as instrumental and vocal experimentation. Yough Fathers’ style of hip hop is certainly off the beaten path, but apparently far enough for Anticon, who stumbled upon their Bandcamp page and subsequently signed the group to re-release their debut record Tape One.
4. Hortlax Cobra - 1984
Just so you are aware John Eriksson, better known as the drummer for the Swedish indie rock group Peter Bjorn and John has a side project. It’s called Hortlax Cobra and he released his debut album Night Shift under the moniker earlier this year. Come December 18, Eriksson will have released his second collection of original music with 1984 which is essentially a tribute to Val Halen’s seminal record of the same name and the first album Eriksson owned. While it keeps the same song titles, lengths, keys, and tempos of the original 1984, somehow Eriksson has created all original songs via an orchestral and electronic infused soundscape. The record will be released through Ingrid, a label created by Eriksson, Peter Bjorn, Lykke Li, and Miike Snow and probably a few other Swedish artists as well. When asked about the influence of 80’s music on Eriksson in a recent interview he responded, “I get goose bombs every time I hear the Miami Vice theme and for me 1984 is when the magic happened. There is no ‘80s retro trend. It's just a part of the music history and a LinnDrum machine is as classic as a Fender Stratocaster.”
3. Memory Tapes - Grace/Confusion On December 4 via Carpark, Memory Tapes aka Dayve Hawk will release his follow-up to last year’s excellent full-length Player Piano with the six-track LP entitled Grace/Confusion. In an interview with Hawk by MTV (where the new record is available to stream in-full) the New Jersey native expounds on how the record revels in “longer, messier songs” and tosses out the brevity of “three-minute singles that didn’t seem appropriate.” The lengthiest track on the album is the sprawling and varied “Sheila”, which makes for an epic dance track littered with fluttering piano and synth progressions amid reverb-detonated guitar and bass riffs. Listen to “Sheila” below:
2. Heathered Pearls - Loyal
"I wanted to find a world that was built on repetition, erosion and melody because making these songs was about recreating soothing environments,” is how Jakub Alexander begins to describe his debut record, Loyal, released under the moniker Heathered Pearls. As co-founder of the electronic label Moodgadget and a veteran DJ, having played parties around Ann Arbor, MI with Matthew Dear and Ryan Elliott, it’s no secret that the Polish-born Brooklynite has an affinity for electronic music. Alexander has presented the 9-track collection as a tribute to his mother, who first introduced him to ambient music ten years ago. “Beach Shelter” is the first single off the new record, and plays to Alexander’s description as it lends repetitive languid coos that hazily bring natural textures into focus. Listen to “Beach Shelter” below:
1. Majical Cloudz - Turns Turns Turns Majical Cloudz is the electro-pop project comprised of singer/songwriter Devon Welsh and bandmate Matthew Otto. The Canadian duo formed last year and put out their first track “Dream World”, a short, but catchy pop song featuring Grimes. Their debut EP, Turns Turns Turns, which comes out on December 3, is a four track gem prefacing what looks to be a promising future. The two A-side singles, “What That Was” and the title track, which have been released on the group’s Soundcloud page, are impressively gorgeous as they utilize a down-tempoed wash of breezy synth and sparse percussion rising from Welsh’s hushed vocals. Watch the music video for “Turns Turns Turns” below:
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Young Fathers will follow-up their excellent TAPE ONE EP released earlier this year with TAPE TWO set for official release on 6/11. You can hear the ambitious 9-track EP in-full now over at Dazed Digital’s Soundcloud.
Spectrals are back with their sophomore record Sob Story, which was released yesterday via Wichita Recordings. The Record was produced by Girls' JR White and can be slightly likened to the recently disbanded duo with sprawling slide guitar and catchy classic rock melodies. Listen to the title track below:
On the Glasgow quintet’s latest single off the forthcoming record Desire Lines (out today via 4AD) “Do It Again” lead singer Tracyanne Campbell is straightforward: “Turn down the lights now / let’s do it again.” The upbeat little number doesn’t seem to stray far from the band’s previous releases in 2006’s Let’s Get Out Of this Country and 2009’s My Maudlin Career, but no one’s complaining. Camera Obscura have made a career out of crafting their perfectly twee-lilted indie pop, but they’ve done it consistently. Listen to “Do It Again” below:
Smith Westerns impressed a lot of people with their debut self-titled record and 2011’s Dye It Blonde, and with their latest singles “3am Spiritual” and “Varsity” the group looks to complete their glam-rock trifecta with Soft Will, which is out June 25 via Mom+Pop. Check out the video for “Varsity” below:
The first track and video, “Atomic Man,” released from Portugal. The Man’s eighth studio album, has a white-washed sound that Censored Colors and American Ghetto songs don’t. Produced by Danger Mouse, it has a witty likeness to fellow Danger Mouse artists, but the synthetic-beats and metallic quality of John Baldwin Gourley’s vocals lack the rawness they’re known for. The album is streaming now, and will be an excellent alternative to less stimulating pop-rock tracks that can clog the radiowaves of the season. 
Sigur Ros’ seventh studio album, Kveikur (put out by XL Records), returns the Icelandic band to a sound more reminiscent of their native landscape: beautiful, barren, and rocky. The first single and video released, “Isjaki,” retains some of the watery electronics prevalent on Valtari, their 2012 release, but harkens back to the chimes, post-rock guitar, and traditional beats on Takk and ( ). As usual, this album will be released to excited praise; because there’s always someone who will love it more than the last, and probably more than anything else. That’s one of the greatest qualities of Sigur Ros’ music: it never fails to touch a heart. Check out the lyric video to "Isjaki" below:
Eleanor Friedberger, who’s playing at The Ninth Ward at Babeville tonight, released her sophomore LP Personal Record today on Merge. Anyone who likes the Fiery Furnaces will like this release, it’s full of quirky rhythms and sun-drenched folk-pop sincerity. Watch the video for "Stare At The Sun" below:
UK dance-pop duo Disclosure are brothers Howard and Guy Lawrence. At just 18 and 21, the brothers are crafting some supremely excellent music on their latest record Settle which was released yesterday on PMR. “Latch” is a palpable and airy track featuring Sam Smith that drips with boiling texture, flaunting itself this way and that via bubbling percussion and synth lines. Listen to “Latch” below:
