New Releases: April 2015

Round-up of the most interesting albums, singles and EPs released in April 2015:

Albums

WAXAHATCHEE - Ivy Tripp
SPEEDY ORTIZ - Foil Deer
BUILT TO SPILL - Untethered Moon
WIRE - Wire
BLUR - The Magic Whip
NADINE SHAH - Fast Food
THE LOVELY EGGS - This Is Our Nowhere
CALEXICO - Edge of the Sun
STEALING SHEEP - Not Real
DRENGE - Undertow
JLIN - Dark Energy
RAEKWON - Fly International Luxurious Art
EARL SWEATSHIRT - I Don't Like Shit, I Don't Go Outside
TYLER, THE CREATOR - Cherry Bomb
SQUAREPUSHER - Damogen Furies
EAST INDIA YOUTH - Culture Of Volume
DOLDRUMS - The Air Conditioned Nightmare
SUUNS AND JERUSALEM IN MY HEART - Suuns and Jerusalem in my Heart
WHITE HILLS - Walks For Motorists
ALABAMA SHAKES - Sound & Color
THE MOUNTAIN GOATS - Beat The Champ
BIG BUSINESS - Battlefields Forever
SONIC JESUS - Neither Virtue Nor Anger
BRAIDS - Deep In The Iris
FRED THOMAS - All Are Saved
THE NAMES - Stranger Than You
MOMUS - Turpsycore
TORO Y MOI - What For?
PASSION PIT - Kindred
SAY LOU LOU - Lucid Dreaming
VILLAGERS - Darling Arithmetic
WARMDÜSCHER - Khaki Tears
MEW - +-
THE CAVE CHILDREN - Quasiland
BRIAN JONESTOWN MASSACRE - Musique De Film Imagine
LOOPER - These Things

Singles & EPs

LAURA MARLING - False Hope
COURTNEY BARNETT - Kim's Caravan / Close Watch
DAUGHTER / WARPAINT - Winter / Feeling Alright
WARPAINT - No Way Out / I'll Start Believing
PINS - Too Little Too Late
THE LOVELY EGGS - Magic Onion
DJANGO DJANGO - Beginning to Fade
THE GO! TEAM - Ye Ye Yamaha / 'Till We Do It Together
!!! - All U Writers / Gonna Guetta Stomp
RUN THE JEWELS - Bust No Moves EP
INTERPOL - Everything is Wrong / What Is What
TV ON THE RADIO - Trouble / Dubble
DEATH CAB FOR CUTIE / FREEDY JOHNSTON - Bad Reputation
JACCO GARDNER - Find Yourself
THE LIMINANAS - Time Will Tell / Alicante
TESS PARKS AND ANTON NEWCOMBE - Cocaine Cat
THE MEMBRANES - Do the Supernova
THE BLACK TAMBOURINES - No Action / A Lot Of Friends
HONEYBLOOD - No Big Deal / The Black Cloud
FLORENCE AND THE MACHINE - What Kind of Man
CHVRCHES - Get Away / Dead Air
A PLACE TO BURY STRANGERS / THE TELESCOPES - Fuzz Club Split Single No. 6 (Down The Stairs / I Wanna Be Your Dog)
MARK LANEGAN / DUKE GARWOOD - Needle of Death / Fresh as a Sweet Sunday Morning
TOY AND JANE WEAVER / H HAWKLINE - Fell From the Sun / It's a Drag
TEMPLES / FEVER THE GHOST - Calico / Keep in the Dark
STEALING SHEEP / THE VOYEURS - Murmur Earth / Rhubarb Rhubarb (Third Webb Rhubarb and Custard Mix)
BONNIE PRINCE BILLY AND BROEDER DIELEMAN - Gloria / Drie Vragen
CAITLIN ROSE / KID WAVE FEATURING BEN ROMANS HOPCRAFT - Been Thinking About You All the Time / Listen to Her Heart
HANNI EL KHATIB - Devil's Pie
FATHER JOHN MISTY - I Loved You, Honeybee
VAMPIRE WEEKEND - Step
JOHNNY MARR - I Feel You
JAMIE T - Magnolia Melancholia EP
GIRL BAND - The Early Years EP
WEED - Thousand Pounds / Turret
WESTKUST - Summer 3D / Weekends
WEIRDS - Off the Hook
MAKTHAVERSKAN - Witness
REVEREND HORTON HEAT - It's a Rave Up! / Beer, Write This Song
SIGMATROPIC - Every Soul Is A Boat

Laura Marling - False Hope (Short Movie Sessions)

Live: Toy @ An Club (Athens, April 29, 2015)

Admittedly Wednesday is not the best day of the week for a night out at a rock club, but the few of us who decided to brave the midweek blues and head downtown at An Club for the Athens live debut of Toy enjoyed a fine night of psychedelic rock.

 

The Cave Children, live @ An Club (April 29th, 2015)

The night's entertainment started with a 40-minute performance by Athens-based psychedelic pop quartet The Cave Children. The band gave us a taste of their brand new debut album "Quasiland" which combines successfully '60s psychedelia with '90s Brit-pop influences. They obviously need to work on their stage performance, but their material is quite good, with memorable melodies and strong beats, so with a bit more work and experience they can make their presence felt at the local scene.

A little after eleven o'clock the small stage of An Club was filled by the five members of Brighton's Toy who kicked off their 70-minute set with the instrumental "Conductor", the lead track off their sophomore album "Join The Dots". The band started building up its momentum with loud guitar sound (actually a bit too loud, not allowing too much room for the vocals), distinct synth melodies and a motorik rhythm section which was adding krautrock touches to the psychedelic mix.

Actually the strongest and most memorable songs of the band are those which successfully blend psychpop guitar fuzz with krautrocking rhythms, so, at the end of the night when we were leaving the venue with our ears buzzing, it was tracks like "Motoring", "Kopter", "Join The Dots" and "It's Been So Long" that were still stuck in our brain, while some of the more meandering, down-tempo trips didn't leave a lasting impression. The intense finale, though, with an electrified version of "Join The Dots" was exactly what was needed to end this psychedelic night out on a high note.

Check out below Toy performing "It's Been So Long" from their Athens gig at An Club:

Toy, live @ An Club (Athens, April 29th, 2015)