Album of the Week – 05/07/24

This week, the best of the Irish is a lazarus soul with their new album ‘No Flowers Grow in Cement Gardens‘. I suspect they mean concrete, but they can probably blame Ian McEwan for that one! Still, another collection of impressive sounds that is worth checking out.

In an unusually slow week for mid-summer, we’ve gone for Cassandra Jenkins with her new album My Light, My Destroyer. Will this be the album that finally launches her career? I suspect you should pick up the tickets for November in Whelans quickly before they sell out…

Album of the Week – Cassandra Jenkins – My Light, My Destroyer 

“Like the night sky itself, the world of My Light, My Destroyer is always expanding. Cassandra Jenkins’ third full-length cracks open the promise of reaching the edge of the new, with a wider sonic palette than ever before—encompassing guitar-driven indie rock, new age, sophistipop, and jazz. At the center of it all is Jenkins’ curiosity towards the quarks and quasars that make up her universe, as she blends field recordings with poetic lyricism that is at turns allusive, humorous, devastating and confessional—an alchemical gesture that further deepens the richness of My Light, My Destroyer’s 13 songs.

Jenkins suffuses My Light, My Destroyer with an easy confidence, which betrays the simple truth that the road here was not without difficulty. Referring to the 2021 breakout An Overview on Phenomenal Nature as her “intended swan song,” she explains that she was prepared to hang it up when it came to touring and releasing her own music. “I was channeling what I knew in that moment– feeling lost,” Jenkins recalls. “When that record came out, and people started to respond to what I had written, my plans to quit were foiled in the most unexpected, heartening, and generous way. Ready or not, it reinvigorated me.”

Cassandra Jenkins – Whelan’s Dublin, Wednesday 20th November 2024

Albums of Note:

a lazarus soul – No Flowers Grow in Cement Gardens

KOKOKO! – BUTU

July 5th:

— Art Brut – A Record Collection, Reduced To A Mixtape

— Bacchae – Next Time

— The Dreaded Laramie – Princess Feedback

— The Ergs! – dorkrockcorkrod (20th Anniversary Edition)

— Eves Karydas – Burnt Tapes

— Fallujah – The Flesh Prevails (10th Anniversary Edition)

— FINK – Beauty in Your Wake

— Ghost Fan Club – Ghost Fan Club EP

— HNNY – Light Shines Through

— Jack Garratt – At PizzaExpress Live In London

— Jasper Tygner – Things To Come EP

— Kasabian – Happenings

— Kiasmos (Ólafur Arnalds and Janus Rasmussen) – II

— KOKOKO! – BUTU

— Mark Sims – Take Me Faster

— Melissa Etheridge – I’m Not Broken (Live From Topeka Correctional Facility)

— oreglo – Not Real People EP

— Piah Mater – Under the Shadow of a Foreign Sun

— REO Speedwagon –  Live At Rockpalast 1979

— Rhinestone Pickup Truck – Self Deprecation

— The Rifles – Love Your Neighbour

— SUMAC – The Keeper’s Tongue EP

— Tendertwin – Ship Argo EP

— Truck Violence – Violence

— Visions of Atlantis – Pirates II

— Wild Powwers – Pop Hits & Total Bummers Vol. 5

— Yusuf / Cat Stevens – Mona Blue Jakon (Reissue)

— Yusuf / Cat Stevens – Tea for the Tilerman (Vinyl Reissue)

— Yusuf / Cat Stevens – Teaser and the Firecat (Vinyl Reissue)