Listening Habits 05-06.2016

At the top of the list of our favorite albums for May - June 2016 we have Parquet Courts' "Human Performance", perhaps the best effort yet for the New York-based indie rockers who have had an excellent run in the last 4 years, offering us a string of outstanding releases starting with 2012' "Light Up Gold".

The same can be said for Woods, also from the Big Apple, who recently released their 9th album "City Sun Eater in the River of Light". Woods have been supplying us with an awesome blend of folk and psych rock for several years now and their latest effort finds them in top form, picking up right where they left off with 2014's excellent "With Light and with Love".

It's no alarm and no surprise that Radiohead's return is also among the best releases of the last couple of months, and the same is true for Bob Mould and Kristin Hersh's 50 Foot Wave, who both add terrific new chapters to an outstanding legacy that goes all the way back to the '80s and two of our all-time favorite bands, Hüsker Dü and Throwing Muses respectively.

We did have a few surprises lately though and perhaps the best one came from The Coral whose "Distance Inbetween" is not only their best job since resurfacing a few years ago, but also a record that can compete with their mid '00s output for the honor of being named their best effort yet.

White Lung have given us evidence in the past that they can rock as inspiredly hard as their '90s indie rock heroes and "Paradise" adds more fuel to their fire, while Frankie Cosmos, aka singer-songwriter Greta Simone Kline, excels at the two-minute pop song, singing elaborate tales that you simply cannot believe how they all have fitted in the brief but wonderful 28 minutes of her new album "Next Thing".

Lots more great staff on offer recently as you can see in our Top 15 Albums list below. Have a listen and make sure to pay us a visit next week to see what will make it in our Top 30 list for the first half of 2016.

Top 15 Albums

 1.  Human Performance - PARQUET COURTS
2.  City Sun Eater In The River Of Light - WOODS
3.  A Moon Shaped Pool - RADIOHEAD
4.  Distance Inbetween - THE CORAL
5.  Next Thing - FRANKIE COSMOS
6.  Paradise - WHITE LUNG
7.  Bath White EP - 50 FOOT WAVE
8.  Patch The Sky - BOB MOULD
9.  Strangers - MARISSA NADLER
10. Funs Cool - THE PRETTIOTS
11. Chaosmosis - PRIMAL SCREAM
12. Kin - THE DUKE SPIRIT
13. Hold/Still - SUUNS
14. Stiff - WHITE DENIM
15. Punk 45: Chaos in the City of Angels and Devils. Hollywood From X To Zero & Hardcore On The Beaches: Punk In Los Angeles 1977-81 - VARIOUS ARTISTS

Top 15 Tracks

1.  Sun City Creeps - WOODS
2.  Burn The Witch - RADIOHEAD
3.  Chasing The Tail Of A Dream - THE CORAL
4.  Dust - PARQUET COURTS
5.  Bath White - 50 FOOT WAVE
6.  Dead Weight - WHITE LUNG
7.  The End Of Things - BOB MOULD
8.  Sinister - FRANKIE COSMOS
9.  Janie In Love - MARISSA NADLER
10. Where The Light Gets In - PRIMAL SCREAM
11. Hands - THE DUKE SPIRIT
12. Stabler - THE PRETTIOTS
13. Real Deal Momma - WHITE DENIM
14. Translate - SUUNS
15. Female Vampire - JENNY HVAL

 Parquet Courts - Dust

Listening Habits 03-04.2016

The five years we had to wait from 2011's masterpiece "Let England Shake" to this year's "The Hope Six Demolition Project" is the longest between-albums period in PJ Harvey's astounding  24-year trajectory. It was certainly worth the wait as the new album may not achieve the impossible, which would be to surpass a record that stands among the best of this decade and is certainly one of Harvey's finest hours, but it does accomplish the next best thing; to be its worthy successor and another fascinating chapter in Harvey's ever-changing, constantly evolving musical career.

As on her previous album, PJ Harvey once again structures her songs as musical documentaries. The focus this time has shifted from the devastation of war and the tragedies it has caused in the last hundred or so years of English history and turns to the harsh social and political realities of today's world. Travels to far and wide places, from Washington, to Kosovo, to Afghanistan, provide the themes for her rock reportage, while the lyrics try to describe the hard facts adopting a journalistic approach. With a body of songs with such a difficult subject matter, the challenging task of the music is not only to convey the sentiments of its creator about the societal ills described in the lyrics, but also to give the artistic strength to the songs to become powerful, moving experiences. PJ Harvey and her stellar cast of musical accomplices have once again succeeded in taking on this challenge and as a result you'll probably find yourself humming along to lyrics like "Here's the highway to death and destruction, South Capitol is its name" or "They're gonna put a Walmart here" like it's the most natural thing in the world.

Our list of favorite albums for Spring 2016 also includes the mighty fourth full-length by psychedelic heavy rockers Black Mountain (another welcome return after a six year period), the third and best effort so far by Boston psych-rockers Quilt, the experimental electro-folk concocted by Thao & The Get Down Stay Down with the help of Tune-Yards' Merrill Garbus who produced their fourth LP, Poliça's politically charged "United Crushers", the third LP by the Minneapolis synthpop group led by Ryan Olson and Channy Leaneagh, the return of Animal Collective and The Last Shadow Puppets, as well as the fine debuts by New York-based indie-rockers Sunflower Bean and Mass Gothic (the new group led by Noel Heroux, formerly of Hooray For Earth). Here's the complete list of our favorite albums and songs for March - April 2016:

Top 12 Albums

1.  The Hope Six Demolition Project - PJ HARVEY
2.  IV - BLACK MOUNTAIN
3.  Plaza - QUILT
4.  A Man Alive - THAO & THE GET DOWN STAY DOWN
5.  United Crushers - POLIÇA

6.  Painting With - ANIMAL COLLECTIVE
7.  Mass Gothic - MASS GOTHIC
8.  Human Ceremony - SUNFLOWER BEAN
9.  Everything You've Come To Expect - THE LAST SHADOW PUPPETS
10. Life Of Pause - WILD NOTHING
11. SVIIB - SCHOOL OF SEVEN BELLS
12. Pool - PORCHES

Top 15 Tracks

1.  Florian Saucer Attack - BLACK MOUNTAIN
2.  Roller - QUILT
3.  Wedding - POLIÇA
4.  The Community Of Hope - PJ HARVEY
5.  Nobody Dies - THAO & THE GET DOWN STAY DOWN
6.  Every Night You’ve Got To Save Me - MASS GOTHIC
7.  Wall Watcher - SUNFLOWER BEAN
8.  Aviation - THE LAST SHADOW PUPPETS
9.  TV Queen - WILD NOTHING
10. Be Apart - PORCHES
11. Confusion - SCHOOL OF SEVEN BELLS
12. Vertical - ANIMAL COLLECTIVE
13. I Serve The Base - FUTURE
14. Psykick Espionage - JOANNA GRUESOME
15. Late 20s - BEST COAST

Listen to our Spring '16 playlist on Spotify:

Black Mountain - Florian Saucer Attack

Nothing compares to Prince, though, so here's a little something from his untouchable '80s period - R.I.P:

Prince And The Revolution - Let's Go Crazy

Listening Habits 02.2016

Our February list of favorite albums is the first one to feature mostly 2016 releases and among them at least two that already have earned a place in our shortlist for "Album of the Year"!

DIIV’s sophomore album "Is The Is Are" comes almost four years after their debut "Oshin", a record with strong moments, like the excellent single "Doused", that despite its ups and downs left the promise of greater things to come from Zachary Cole Smith and his band. After a period of turmoil for the DIIV front man, his band resurfaced last year with a handful of exciting new songs and some very promising live shows indicating that DIIV were back on track again. 

Indeed the new, incomprehensibly titled, 63-minute long double album "Is The Is Are" is nothing less than a triumph for DIIV, featuring 17 equally strong tracks, buzzing with melodic guitars and powerful rhythms. Dream pop meets krautrock influences, '80s new wave melodies clash with grunge-era raw energy and the end result is fresh, intoxicating 21st century rock’n’roll.

Two more sophomore albums complete our Top 3 for this month. Savages’ perfectly formed debut "Silence Yourself" took 2013 by storm, ending up among the top positions of many year-end lists (no. 3 in ours). The equally strong "Adore Life", bristling with life-affirming new rock anthems like "The Answer", "T.I.W.Y.G." or "I Need Something New", showcases a more mature and confident band that looks certain to repeat the triumph this year. It is so far the album we have played the most during the first couple of months of 2016, with the more recent DIIV release gaining momentum and closing the gap lately.

The third sophomore release that completes the month's Top 3 was certainly more of a surprise to me. Daughter’s atmospheric 4AD debut "If You Leave" didn’t raise too much the profile of the band and it was actually Warpaint’s remix of "Winter" that made me notice them. The two excellent singles that came at the end of 2015, "Numbers" and "Doing the Right Thing", showed the band’s true potential and now their second album "Not to Disappear" comes to prove that Daughter can create majestic, sad and beautiful music that fits right in with the great, dark pop tradition of their label.

Here are the lists of our favorite albums and tracks for February 2016:

Top 10 Albums

1.  Is The Is Are - DIIV
2.  Adore Life - SAVAGES
3.  Not To Disappear - DAUGHTER
4.  New View - ELEANOR FRIEDBERGER
5.  Emotional Mugger - TY SEGALL
6.  Jet Plane And Oxbow - SHEARWATER
7.  Blackstar - DAVID BOWIE
8.  The Waiting Room - TINDERSTICKS
9.  Distractions - SAUNA YOUTH
10. Art Angels - GRIMES

Top 10 Tracks

1.  The Wheel - PJ HARVEY
2.  T.I.W.Y.G. - SAVAGES
3.  Is The Is Are - DIIV
4.  Cathy With The Curly Hair - ELEANOR FRIEDBERGER
5.  Doing The Right Thing - DAUGHTER
6.  Were We Once Lovers? - TINDERSTICKS
7.  Lazarus - DAVID BOWIE
8.  Filaments - SHEARWATER
9.  Emotional Mugger / Leopard Priestess - TY SEGALL
10. The Bridge - SAUNA YOUTH

Diiv - Bent (Roi's Song)

Listening Habits 01.2016

January's new releases schedule was pretty strong (as you can see here), but for our first Listening Habits post of 2016 we are going to focus on albums and tracks from 2015 that we have come by between December and January: the late discoveries of 2015, some of which made it in our Albums of the Year list at the very last minute, while some were left out only because they came in our possession slightly late. But, of course, it's never too late to discover and enjoy good music, regardless of release date or inclusion in any year-end list.

The album we've enjoyed the most over the last couple of months was "Half Free", the 4AD debut by U.S. Girls, the recording project of Illinois-born, Toronto-based artist Meghan Remy. She has been releasing experimental, lo-fi electronic music for several years, for various smaller indie labels, but it is 2015's "Half Free" the record that finally gives her the wider acclaim she deserves. 60's soul and girl-group influences mix with dub-pop and hip-hop inspired beats, while Remy sings about the everyday struggles of characters whose stories were inspired by the work of director John Cassavetes and Bruce Springsteen. It's a captivating listen from start to finish, shifting musical shapes and styles and creating some of the most fascinating pop we've listened to in 2015, with highlights including "Damn That Valley", "Window Shades" and "Woman's Work".

Here's what else we've been listening to lately from the tail end of 2015:

Top 12 Albums

1.  Half Free - U.S. GIRLS
2.  Fading Frontier - DEERHUNTER
3.  Silver Bullets - THE CHILLS
4.  Return To The Moon - EL VY
5.  Divers - JOANNA NEWSOM
6.  Holding Hands With Jamie - GIRL BAND
7.  Why Choose - SHOPPING
8.  Abyss - CHELSEA WOLFE
9.  Cranekiss - TAMARYN
10. Feels Like - BULLY
11. Rough Trade Shops Counter Culture 15 - VARIOUS ARTISTS
12. Why Pay More? - THE SOFT PINK TRUTH (download here)

Top 12 Tracks

1.  Snakeskin - DEERHUNTER
2.  Damn That Valley - U.S. GIRLS
3.  America Says Hello - THE CHILLS
4.  Return to the Moon (Political Song for Didi Bloome to Sing, with Crescendo) - EL VY
5.  Pears For Lunch - GIRL BAND
6.  Straight Lines - SHOPPING
7.  Leaving the City - JOANNA NEWSOM
8.  Carrion Flowers - CHELSEA WOLFE
9.  Cranekiss - TAMARYN
10. Trying - BULLY
11. Patchwork - DEMDIKE STARE
12. What's A Computer? - THE SOFT PINK TRUTH

U.S. Girls - Damn That Valley