Shorn of her musical companion, the bassist Elizabeth Hart hunkered down with the remaining members of Psychic Ills to pay tribute to Tres Warren, their lead vocalist and guitarist who died last year at the tender age of 41 years old. Wrapping their recording session in the Catskill Mountains at the end of a long weekend, Hart together with Adam Amram, Brent Cordero, and John Catfish DeLorme suffused their usual blend of psychedelic rock with all the poignancy of a torch song, finding ample room for the vocal talents of the Mazzy Star frontwoman and former Psychic Ills collaborator Hope Sandoval.
Named after the desert which now inhabits the sunken remnants of what was once the Aral Sea, the violinist Galya Bisengalieva expands her sense of ecological keening with the remix album Aralkum Aralas, featuring scorching contributions from Moor Mother, Jlin, and Coby Sey. The Montreal folk singer Le Ren stitches together a patchwork of platonic friendships, maternal instincts, and still-raw heartbreaks on her debut album for Secretly Canadian. And the composer Daniel Martin-McCormick, formerly known as Ital, makes his return under the name Relaxer to Planet Mu.
There are new records from the Manchester producer Anz and the Brooklyn saxophonist Charlotte Greve, whose four-piece band Wood River are joined by the Berlin choir Cantus Domus. Attacca Quartet tackle a famous ayre by the lutenist John Dowland, Kaye Loggins takes a kosmische trip as Time Wharp, and the scabrous Chicago experimenter Angel Marcloid finds an eternal home on Hausu Mountain as Fire-Toolz. PinkPantheress drops her debut mixtape, Laura Cannell and Kate Ellis are lit by Scandinavian water spirits, and Portico Quartet, Love Object, Brigid Mae Power, Lotic, Land of Talk, Perila, Ulla, and Yeong Die complete the tracks of the week.
Playlists: Spotify · Apple Music · YouTube
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Perila & Ulla – ‘Every Something is an Echo of Nothing’
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Le Ren – ‘May Hard Times Pass Us By’
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Galya Bisengalieva – ‘Barsa-Kelmes’ (Jlin Remix)
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Charlotte Greve, Wood River, and Cantus Domus – ‘Part II’
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Relaxer – ‘Narcissus By The Pool’
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Portico Quartet – ‘Ultraviolet’
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Attacca Quartet – ‘Flow My Tears (Lachrimae)’
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Laura Cannell, Kate Ellis, and Milène Larsson – ‘Näcken’
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Brigid Mae Power – ‘Mother In The Sky’
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Love Object – ‘The Kill’
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Elizabeth Hart – ‘I’ll Walk With You’ (feat. Hope Sandoval)
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PinkPantheress – ‘Nineteen’
