Album of the Week – 05/04/24

This week brings us new music from bands and artists such as Mount Kimbie (The Sunset Violent), Khruangbin (A La Sala) and many others.

We’ve gone for the ambient sounds of Adam Wiltzie, one-half of the wonderful Stars of the Lid. We will miss the sounds of Brian (McBride) for many years to come….

Album of the Week — Adam Wiltzie – eleven fugues for sodium pentothal 

Our review by Killian Laher is here – “it’s as fine an ambient album as you’ll hear this year.”

The latest suite by composer (and Stars Of The Lid co-founder) Adam Wiltzie took shape following a move north from Brussels into the Flemish countryside, although it was initially inspired by a recurring dream wherein “if someone listened to the music I created, then they would die.” The album uniquely evokes and evades the allure of oblivion, keening between beauty and ruin, forever unresolved. Wiltzie cites the barbiturate of the title as both muse and sacred escape: “When you are sitting face forward on the daily emotional meat grinder of life, I always wished I could have some, so I could just fall asleep automatically and the feeling would not be there anymore.”

Recorded at Wilzie’s home studio, with strings added in Budapest at the old Hungarian National radio facility (Magyar Radio), the tracks feel simultaneously intimate and infinite, unfolding vistas glimpsed in an inner space. Robert Hampson of English drone rock icons Loop mixed the album, further lending the music a sense of cinematic expanse and oblique hypnosis. These are fugue states as much as fugues in a literal classical music sense – smeared epiphanies of uncertain memory and spatial dislocation, coaxed from the unconscious and set aloft.

Albums of Note:

— Cosmo Pyke – Low EP

— DREAMCAR (feat. Tony Dumont, Tony Kanal, Adrian Young, and Davey Havok) – Dream EP

— Kojaque –Phantom of the Afters, The Ballad of Jackie Dandelion (Directors Cut)

— Khruangbin – A La Sala

— Mount Kimbie – The Sunset Violent

April 5th:

— A Lily – Saru l-Qamar

— Alpha Wolf – Half Living Things

— Annie-Claude Deschênes – LES MANIÈRES DE TABLE

— Azalia Snail – POWERLOVER

— bad tuner – look at me through me EP

— Babebee – whatislove2u? EP

— Beatenberg – The Great Fire of Beatenberg

— Benson Boone – Fireworks & Rollerblades

— The Black Keys – Ohio Players

— Bnny – One Million Love Songs

— BONNIE X CLYDE – There’s No Tomorrow

— Caleb Landry Jones – Hey Gary, Hey Dawn

— Carl Palmer – Fanfare for the Common Man

— Cedric Burnside – Hill Country Love

— Cock Sparrer – Hand on Heart

— Conan Gray – Found Heaven

— Cuffed Up – All You Got

— Dana Gavanski – Late Slap

— Drahla – angeltape

— The Drums – Jonny (Deluxe Version)

— Dustin Kensrue – Desert Dreaming

— Einstürzende Neubauten – Rampen (apm: alien pop music)

— ERRA – CURE

— Fabiana Palladino – Fabiana Palladino

— Flung – All Heartbeat

— Five Finger Death Punch – Afterlife (Deluxe Edition)

— Foghat – Slow Ride: Live in Concert

— Friends of Hell – God Damned You to Hell

— Garbage – Bleed Like Me (Expanded Reissue)

— Grace Cummings – Ramona

— Guests – I Wish I Was Special

— Gustaf – Package Pt. 2

— I Ya Toyah – I AM THE FIRE EP

— Jane Penny (of TOPS) – Surfacing EP

— John Coltrane – Olé Coltrane (Vinyl Reissue)

— José James – 1978

— Joseph Shabason, Nicholas Krgovich and M. Sage – Shabason, Krgovich, Sage

— Josh Jackson – Unusual Objects

— Kate Clover – The Apocalypse Dream

— Katie Pruitt – Mantras

— Khruangbin – A La Sala

— Kobra Paige (of Kobra and the Lotus) – Like No Other

— The KVB – Tremors

— Last Dinosaurs – KYO

— Lizzy McAlpine – Older

— The Libertines – All Quiet On The Eastern Esplanade

— Lo Moon – I Wish You Way More Than Luck

— Lola Brooke – Dennis Daughter (Deluxe Edition)

— Maggie Rose – No One Gets Out Alive

— MAQUINA. – PRATA

— Marcus King – Mood Swings

— Marv Won – I’m Fine Thanks For Asking

— Matthew Shipp Trio – New Concepts in Piano Trio Jazz

— Maxband – Maxband On Ice

— Melanie Baker – Burnout Baby EP

— Mi von Ahn – everything is until it’s not EP

— Miles Davis – Tutu (Vinyl Reissue)

— Modest Mouse – Good News For People Who Love Bad News (20th Anniversary Edition) (Digital Release)

— Motel Breakfast – I Promise I’m Having Fun

— Novo Amor – Collapse List

— Ohio Players – Observations In Time: The Johnny Brantley/Vidalia Production

— Old 97’s – American Primitive

— Palace – Ultrasound

— The Pernice Brothers – Who Will You Believe

— Phosphorescent – Revelator

— RiTchie (of Injury Reserve) – Triple Digits [112]

— Sam Hunt – Locked Up EP

— Sea Urchin – Destroy!

— Sinkane – We Belong

— Still Corners – Dream Talk

— Temperance – Hermitage – Daruma’s Eyes Pt. 2 – Orchestral Edition

— Temple of the Fuzz Witch – Apotheosis

— Tori Kelly – TORI.

— Um, Jennifer? – The Girl Class EP

— Valebol – Valebol

— Vampire Weekend – Only God Was Above Us

— Various Artists – Rebel Moon – Songs of the Rebellion EP

— Vegyn – The Road To Hell Is Paved With Good Intentions

— Wisp – Pandora EP

— X Ambassadors – Townie

— Yellow Days – Hotel Heaven