An album rollout can sometimes seem like a yellow brick road, thoroughfare to some magical land, beacon of hope and conveyor belt of dreams, full of pitfalls and detours and broken-down sidemen. Sometimes the journey sparkles more than the destination, but there’s no fear of that this week, as Sufjan Stevens and Angelo De Augustine go ‘Back To Oz’, Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith and Emile Mosseri keep the hiking trail alight, and Armand Hammer and The Alchemist persevere through iridescent blackness.
For most bands however the road is something more tangible, a hardy slog whose glamour is skewered on the latest by the Portland group MAITA. The indie shapeshifter Indigo De Souza uses crowdsourced screams to push through ‘Real Pain’, the juke veteran Jana Rush rides an emotional rollercoaster and finds Painful Enlightenment, and from London the elusive Klein barters hope as she unveils the upcoming Harmattan. New albums arrive from the Los Angeles accordionist Walt McClements, the Montreal producer d’Eon, and the Copenhagen duo of Sofie Birch and Johan Carøe.
Drawing from the 1962 book String Figures & How to Make Them: A Study of Cat’s Cradle in Many Lands, the media theorist and curator Kristen Gallerneaux incorporates samples from the Teufelsberg Domes in Berlin to her Dearborn backyard on her evocative debut album. The bassist and composer Devin Hoff interprets the folk songs of Anne Briggs in the company of Julia Holter. Leon Duncan blends lurching beats and brainwave electronics to offer a unique take on the Rosetta Stone, Big Thief celebrate the little things on their latest split single, and tracks by Toosii, Boldy James, MIKE, and Rắn Cạp Đuôi round out the best of the week’s music.
Playlists: Spotify · Apple Music · YouTube
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Toosii – ‘5’5′ (feat. Latto)
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Kristen Gallerneaux – ‘White Noise’
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Armand Hammer & The Alchemist – ‘Black Sunlight’ (feat. KAYANA)
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Sufjan Stevens & Angelo De Augustine – ‘Back To Oz’
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Sofie Birch & Johan Carøe – ‘Connotes Beauty’
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Devin Hoff with Julia Holter – ‘Let No Man Steal Your Thyme’
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Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith & Emile Mosseri – ‘Log In Your Fire’
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Boldy James & The Alchemist – ‘Double Hockey Sticks’
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MIKE – ‘Aww (Zaza)’ and ‘ghoulish’
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