Friday marks the first day of meteorological summer (the solstice is June 20). School is out (or almost out). Memorial Day festivities have been had. It’s been in the 70s and 80s all week. The living is particularly easy. If you’ve ever spent a summer in Buffalo you know full well that this city doesn’t mess around when it comes to great weather. If there’s a sunny day, we’re taking full advantage by either cooking out or going for a bike ride. And that’s the attitude I’ve taken with this list of June releases to be psyched about. Each one of these albums has the potential to be that perfect summer day, equipped with headphones and ice cream cone. So lather on that SPF 45 and turn these beats up loud.
10. The Welcome Wagon - Precious Remedies Against Satan’s Devices
Imagine you’re walking through Brooklyn and you stumble upon a quaint little church tucked away in Williamsburg, the doors are open, and there’s a faint acoustic lull of folk hymnals being sung. Now imagine you’re brave enough to leave all the sunday school baggage you’ve acquired over the years at the door, and you walk in to see the thirty-something-year-old Reverend
Vito Aiuto playing guitar, his wife Monique harmonizing,
Sufjan Stevens on banjo, and a small chamber singing and hand-clapping along to these lovely songs. Now imagine they go from playing a Puritan hymn like “I Know That My Redeemer Lives” to a cover of
“High” by The Cure. Still with me? No? That’s because The Welcome Wagon take the boring old church songs of your youth (along with some others) and make them surprisingly fun to listen to. I know it’s hard to believe, but even if you have no faith in the God they sing about, it’s hard to doubt their ability to render a catchy folk tune. Still skeptical? Read more about the record
here. It’s called
Precious Remedies Against Satan’s Devices and it’s due out June 12 via Sufjan’s label,
Asthmatic Kitty.
9. Peaking Lights - Lucifer
In keeping with the theme of husband and wife duos and Biblical imagery,
Peaking Lights are next on the list with their new album,
Lucifer, which is to be released on june 18 via
Weird World. While you wont find this couple singing child-like folk tunes, you will experience them rocking a style of lo-fi dub-pop that pleasantly bleeds out through narcoleptic speakers. A good example is their first single off the record called “Lo Hi”, which features spattered drum processions blanketed with the soft cooing vocals and unitelligable baby talk. Trippy.
8. Neil Young and Crazy Horse - Americana
Together for the first time since 1996’s
Broken Arrow, Neil Young and
Crazy Horse will release a concoction of old and new folk songs, fittingly entitled
Americana, on June 5. The record will feature covers of traditional folk tunes like, “Oh Susannah” and “This Land Is Your Land”. In what sounds like a seemingly unnecessary explanation for the album, Neil Young likes to set the record strait saying, "What ties these songs together is the fact that while they may represent an America that may no longer exist, the emotions and scenarios behind these songs still resonate with what’s going on in the country today with equal, if not greater impact nearly 200 years later.”
Liars will release their sixth LP
WIXIW (apparently pronounced “wish you”) on June 5 via
Mute. Coming off their strom-cloud shrouded 2010 release
Sisterworld, the New York art-rockers you’ve come to know and love haven’t changed much sonically. Have a listen to the first single "No 1. Against The Rush" below.
Dntel is the nonsensical self-given sobriquet of electronic artist Jimmy Taberello, better known as the other half of
The Postal Service, although he has released more titles under the former moniker (7 LPs, 2 EPs). On his newest project
Aimlessness, Taberello has gotten some help from fellow electro-maniacs
Baths and
Nite Jewel. The first cut from the record, “Still”, features spoken word vocals fused with pulsating vocal samples, which all meld together with a foot-stomping metronome and soft cymbal crashes.
Aimlessness is out June 5 via
Pampa.
Formerly known as
The Morning Benders,
POP ETC know how to write a great indie pop record. Having toured with the likes of
Broken Bells and
Grizzly Bear, the Berkeley trio had found a way to combine their influences to produce a sort of hazed-out, retro Cali-pop album. Their new self-titled endeavor may look to go in another direction with the lead single, “Live It Up”, sounding more R&B influenced with a thick hip hop beat layout and auto-tuned lead vocals galore. It seems that The Morning Benders have dropped their all-too obvious name for a more ambiguous alias, but all pseudonyms aside, these beats sound pretty dope and are due out June 12. Check out the video for “Live It Up” below.
4. Hot Chip - In Our Heads
Electro-pop darlings,
Hot Chip, were due for an album. Although it’s only been 2 short years since the acclaimed
One Life Stand, 2012 has been waiting for that awesomely dance-tastic album to hit, and Hot Chip’s latest
In Our Heads has potential to be that summer doozy we've been waiting for. With groovy tracks like “Night and Day” blowing bubbles of whismsical bass and keys there’s a high chance that this album could be a party time success. The record is out June 12.
I recently saw the video for the new
DIIV track, “How Long Have You Known?” and I thought it was pretty brilliant. It’s basically some dude throwing all these different elements of civilization (a light bulb, a compass, a piece of a clock, a crucifix, lava lamp) into a blender, mixing it, and stuffing it into a capsule at the end to take as a metaphoric dose of sorts. Yes, the symbolism is a bit heavy-handed. Yes, it’s sort of like a
“Will It Blend?” video. Yes, it’s an awesome song. Formally known as Dive, the side project of
Beach Fossils' Zachary Cole Smith will release
Oshin on June 26 via
Captured Tracks.
2. Japandroids - Celebration Rock
Vancouver rockers
Japandroids are back with their second studio album after releasing the teen-pop favorite
Post-Nothing in 2009. The group follows the same guidelines that made
Post-Nothing so popular, with tracks like “Fire’s Highway” and “The House That Heaven Built” wrought in glorious summer-guilded, road-tripping, keg-tipping fashion with just a tinge of maturity in the songwriting department, which only makes this record that much better than its predecessor. The album is officially out June 5 via
Polyvinyl.
1. Tallest Man On Earth - There’s No Leaving Now
Swedish folkie Kristian Matsson’s style of songwriting has left a lasting impression on me. As a Dylan devotee, it’s tempting to make comparisons, especially with The Tallest Man On Earth’s signature grunt and astute fingerpicking, but there is something still so much more innovative and interpretive about Matsson’s ability to lead even the staunchest of urbanites to the Scandinavian field and stream, that it would be an act in futility to place him prematurely beside
the folk legend who has not stopped making music since 1962. Instead we need to evaluate tracks like
“Troubles Will Be Gone” and
“A Lion’s Heart” from 2010’s
The Wild Hunt and realize that they both transcend and instill everything about folk music in the way that they take particular images and span them across an ethereal landscape. The music is sonically organic as the ideas are alive and kicking and The Tallest Man on Earth does this by sifting his ideas through a barbaric yawp-colored filter. But there’s no doubt that there would be no Tallest Man without Bob Dylan, and there would be no Dylan without Woody Guthrie, and so on and so forth; so goes the family tree of musical influence. “1904” off his latest
There’s No Leaving Now is entirely prepossessing and entrancing. The record comes out June 12 via
Dead Oceans. And even though you can't hear all of the music just yet, you can still check out a complete track listing accompanied with lyrics to every song
here.
