LB - Stress & Progress

"I'm from the home of the hardknocks, wassup uce? Wassup toks?”

There is a certain comfort level that Aotearoa hip-hop provides which embraces the listener like a warm korowai. Auckland's LB provides exactly that with his opening line to 'Stress & Progress' and through wordplay LB lays out immense kiwi references that help him paint his picture. LB will take you back to the shed, the dairy and the days of plotting with the local homies upon the backdrop of opening up to the wide world. You'll get the hearty hip-hop bars that provide fabulous replay value and LB is also in tune with feelings and emotions, processing his childhood and love encounters.

Tightly packed with eight tracks, S&P still flows through and you'll be left with the hopeful, uplifting taste of the last two tracks 'Mission' and 'Niece's Hero'. Personally, I love how the slower tempo/avant-gardey hip-hop that I always jam into this monthly jukebox has spread its tentacles to LB and his unique style.

Steve Gunn – Other You

This guy is a master of breezy folk rock tunes that feel like one part Nick Drake and one part his old mate Kurt Vile. His virtuosic guitar playing is the star of the show but his wispy voice, which sounds like it’s being carried along by a gust of wind, is what turns his songs into such dreamy gold. This is music that sounds like those beams of sunlight that sneak through a crack in the door. It’s audio lens flare. His disciplined fretwork is always tasteful but Gunn’s never in a hurry so he still gets plenty of room to shred. Other You fits nicely in the trajectory of his last couple (superb) albums, Eyes on the Lines from 2016 and The Unseen In Between from 2019. But there’s maybe just a little more focus on the hooks here which is what gives this one its own identity. Crank it up on the headphones for those summer naps in the sun.

Kacey Musgraves – Star-Crossed

Kacey got divorced and made an album about it, heavily referencing Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet in the process. Rightio then. Musically we’re still in a similar place to Golden Hour with that country tinge added to pop productions but thematically this one obviously tends towards sadness and grief a lil more than ecstasy. There are times where Musgraves’ country-aphorism way of writing doesn’t quite fit the concept, particularly when she’s aiming for The Bard territory... but when she’s keeping it personal and honest she’s as emotionally incisive as ever (“if this was a movie, love would be enough”). Musically not as groundbreaking as Golden Hour though it does have its moments. And while it can be a bit messy – “healing doesn’t happen in a straight line” - in the end Star-Crossed is an album full of memorable tunes that ends on an empowering tone of finding strength from within to overcome fateful tragedy.

Flee Lord & Roc Marciano - Delgado

This was my introduction to Flee Lord and while I’ve been tuned into Roc Marciano’s underground presence, ‘Delgado’ serves as an introduction to Marciano the producer. Both are part of the New York hip-hop revolution and if you’re into grimey street rhymes on top of exquisite production that feels straight out of an orchestra, then Delgado is for you. Flee Lord has a slow flow that pierces and Marciano’s production is perfectly aligned for a haunting sound, yet Flee flexes with his change in tempo and structure of rhymes to keep things fresh and funky. This is evident on ‘Delgado Intro’ where Flee raps over simple keys and minimal drums but finds nifty pockets to switch the flow and expand. Guest features come from Conway The Machine, Ransom and Stove God Cooks for 10 crisp tracks.

Colleen Green – Cool

It’s been way too long since we last heard from Colleen Green. Her 2015 album I Want To Grow Up was an awesome slice of Ramones inspired millennial slackerism – slick tunes built with drum machine beats and electric guitar chords, deliciously rudimentary. Then Cool was six years in coming (though tbf it was completed in early 2020). But here we are finally, with 10 fresh tracks which keep things simple as always but still expand upon the formula. Like the Iggy and the Stooges referencing I Wanna Be A Dog. Or Natural Chorus which initially sounds like something Alan Vega might’ve left behind. Green keeps it funny in a wry way. Her voice sounds great, especially with the layered production. The whole thing’s a vibe, dude.

The Garrys – Get Thee To A Nunnery

According to their Bandcamp, The Garrys make “dreamy blood harmony surf rock doom-wop on morphine” music and there doesn’t seem much point in trying to come up with a better classification than that. Think the Allah-Las after dark. This is the fourth album that the Canadian sister-trio have offered up. Definitely a bit of that ominous energy involved here – in 2019 they did a live score for the 1922 Swedish horror film Haxan. Plus true heads will recognise the album title as a line form Shakespeare’s Hamlet. So that’s that covered, otherwise it’s pretty harmonies and twangy guitar lines delivering a very enjoyable listening experience that is one hundred percent going to get some repeats over the summer nights to come. Good tunes.

Low – Hey What

Low have been at this thing since 1993 and they’re still serving up the goods. It doesn’t take very long in White Horses, the opening track of their thirteenth album, before you hear that chaotic guitar rambling give way to darkly beautiful vocal melody like a lamplight through the fog and you’re hooked. This record is intense and it’s deep and it’s gorgeous. You do need a few goes through to get the full hang of it because they have a tendency to let things fall and shatter lest they get too shiny. William Basinski has been mentioned in a couple reviews as a touchstone and it’s hard not to hear that comparison. The distortion on this bad boy, phwoar. Just make sure you’re emotionally ready for this because a song such as Days Like These could leave you huddled in the foetal position for hours upon end if it catches you wrong.

Boldy James & The Alchemist - Bo Jackson

Every month seems to come with a fresh project from The Alchemist and Boldy James sprinkled in every few months. ‘Bo Jackson’ is the second collaborative project between these two, coming after the wonderful ‘The Price Of Tea In China’. Both have been busy churning out collabs with other artists but have definitely found a partnership that will hopefully stay productive. No matter how heavy Al's drums are or how funky his sample is, Boldy finds something to work with. Bo Jackson feels like a genuine story book of drug dealing, business and street dramas which is as much about Boldy's story telling as it Alchemist's all encompassing soundscape. Generally Bo Jackson feels a bit slower and darker than TPOTIC, while doubling down on a tandem that is as effective as the Madlib/Freddie Gibbs duo.

Jordan Rakei - What We Call Life

There is a healing vibe to Jordan Rakei’s latest offering ‘What We Call Life’ and that’s partly via Rakei’s journey through this project as well as the musical nature. 10 tracks of a sound that feels far too complicated for a musical pleb like myself to explain, although Rakei combines a variety of sounds that genuinely feel like like the journey towards a positive outpouring of love on the final track ‘The Flood’. WWCL is perfect for setting the vibe on a Sunday or making traffic sound really nice. The manner in which Rakei expresses emotion and builds suspense through his production makes this project one to also sit with and delve into as deeply as you wish.

Nathan Salsburg – Psalms

One for the spiritual seekers out there. Pedigreed folkster Nathan Salsburg has offered up this collection of nine tunes built around the Book of Psalms. Some in English, most in Hebrew. All deeply meditative and ruminant thanks to his profound acoustic fingerpicking work and that deep resonant voice of his. The arrangements are more expansive than you’d think, this is clearly not an off the cuff project. Something he’s been working on for a while now (the likes of Joan Shelley, Will Oldham & James Elkington all feature along the way). Especially rewarding are the elements of traditional Jewish folk music, like the sprinklings of flute, something Salsburg knows plenty about as his day job is taking care of the Alan Lomax archives. This is one to listen to by candlelight on those long dark nights of the soul.

Noveller – Aphantasia

Aphantasia is a cognitive disorder where a person is unable to form a mental picture in their head. The mind’s eye, so to speak. Sarah Lipstate’s latest, crafted while stuck at home after the pandemic caused a tour in Iggy Pop’s band to get canned, is an attempt to recreate those mental pictures through sound. 22 songs, all short and sharp, each feeling like (as the press release states) “a collection of divergent poems”. Lipstate’s distinctive guitar swoons and slices across synthetic soundscapes. It’s no coincidence that a month after this album dropped, a cover of the Twin Peaks theme was released by Noveller – although the album also plays a lot like a Flying Lotus record with lots of ideas, not all of them fully formed, but each touching upon something fascinating.

Goat - Headsoup

Not a new album but a collection of B-sides and rarities from the last several years which plays as well as a new album, an indication of how damn good this Swedish psych collective is. This is brain-frying music, pure and simple. This group has always had a penchant for its own mythology and hearing a career-spanning collection like this only reinforces that – it’s like the film Midsommar in real-life. Still awaiting a new album after their modern classic Requiem in 2016 but there are two new songs here recorded last year: Fill My Mouth and Queen of the Underground. FMM is absolutely delightful filth with a killer flute solo, while QOTU hits more of a Black Sabbath groove before exploding into tripped out guitar territory. Glad to see Let It Burn get a proper release too because that tune is legendary.

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