Album of the Week – 12/07/24

This week sees a new release from Cigarettes After Sex (X’s) along with Julia Holter (Never Rarely Sometimes Always – Original Motion Picture Soundtrack). There’s also a nice album of chilled-out guitar music from Jake Xerxes Fussell called… When I’m Called. For the Pavement nerds amongst us, there is a chunky-looking boxset (Cautionary Tales: Jukebox Classiques).

For our album of the week, we’ve gone for Chris Cohen with his new album Paint a Room. You might know Chris from Deerhoof or Natural Dreamers or even The Curtains. You might just know him from his four solo albums. We’re enjoying his new release and you can check it out below…

Album of the Week – Chris Cohen – Paint a Room

“Chris Cohen was always a quiet kid. In fact, this introversion was one reason he began playing music as a toddler—to communicate without speaking to identify with others without the direct representation of words. It has worked, too, with Cohen’s terrific stint in the mighty Deerhoof and his own captivating art-rock act The Curtains, preceding production and session work for the likes of Weyes Blood, Kurt Vile, Le Ren, and Marina Allen. Somewhere along that long way, Cohen started writing lyrics. He found that, though it didn’t come naturally, the process offered a new sense of self-discovery and reckoning, a way to see himself and the world from unexpected angles. His three twilit albums of casually complicated pop during the last decade radiated these epiphanies: handling family strife, navigating advancing age, and understanding social woes.

But Cohen has never had as much to sing so directly as he does on Paint a Room, his first album in five years and his debut for Hardly Art. If Cohen’s meanings have previously lurked inside the tessellated musical layers he built alone, they are newly clear and resonant here, animated and underscored for the first time by a band playing in real time. There is the endless miasma of state violence on the subversively melodious opener “Damage,” the existential exhaustion of modernity on the horn-traced jangle “Laughing”: this is Cohen communicating with friends not only through his deep understanding of groove, harmony, and hook but also with his listeners through songs that croon of our uneasy little era.”

Albums of Note:

— Cassandra Jenkins – My Light, My Destroyer

— Cigarettes After Sex – X’s

— Jake Xerxes Fussell – When I’m Called

— Julia Holter – Never Rarely Sometimes Always (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack)

— Pavement – Cautionary Tales: Jukebox Classiques (Physical Release)

July 12th:

— Armlock – Seashell Angel Lucky Charm

— Bette Smith – Goodthing

— Billy Strings – Live Vol. 1

— Bones Owens – Love Out of Lemons

— Casper Caan – Last Chance

— Cassadee Pope – Hereditary

— Cassandra Jenkins – My Light, My Destroyer

— Cassandra Lewis – Lost in a Dream

— Cat Burns – Early Twenties

— Chris Cohen – Paint a Room

— Cigarettes After Sex – X’s

— Clairo – Charm

— Clown Sounds – Par For The Curse

— Color Green – Fool’s Parade

— Common & Pete Rock –  The Auditorium, Vol. 1

— Crazy Town – The Gift of Game (Vinyl Reissue)

— Deer Tick – Contractual Obligations EP

— The Dip – Love Direction

— DJ Boring – DJ-Kicks

— The Donnas – Spend the Night (Vinyl Reissue)

— Donovan Woods – Things Were Never Good If They’re Not Good Now

— Eminem – The Death of Slim Shady (Coup de Grâce)

— ENHYPEN – ROMANCE : UNTOLD

— Frank Zappa and The Mothers of Invention – Whisky a Go Go, 1968

— Future Utopia – Django’s High

— Girl Ultra – blush EP

— Gurriers – Come and See

— Hak Baker – Nostalgia Death EP Act I

— HARDY – Quit!!

— In the Valley Below – The Black Moon

— ira glass – compound turbulence flexing for the heat EP

— Jay Worthy and Dām-Funk – Magic Hour

— Jewel – The Portal: A Meditative Journey EP

— Jimmy Buffett – A White Sport Coat and a Pink Crustacean (Vinyl Reissue)

— Jimmy Buffett – Banana Wind (Vinyl Reissue)

— Jimmy Buffett – Havana Daydreamin’ (Vinyl Reissue)

— Joe Goddard (of Hot Chip) – Harmonics

— John Lennon –  Mind Games – The Ultimate Collection

— John Summit – Comfort in Chaos

— Johnny Blue Skies (Sturgill Simpson) – Passage Du Desir

— JoJo Siwa – Guilty Pleasure EP

— Julia Holter – Never Rarely Sometimes Always (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack)

— Katy Kirby – Blue Raspberry (Deluxe)

— KUČKA – Can You Hear Me Dreaming?

— Land of Talk –  Applause Cheer Boo Hiss: The Definitive Edition

— Linda Sikhakhane – Iladi

— Lonnie Walker – Easy Easy Easy Easy

— Lord Buffalo – Holus Bolus

— Lou Phelps – Top Z EP

— Louis Armstrong – Louis in London

— Macseal – Permanent Repeat

— Marvin Gaye and Mary Wells – Together (Vinyl Reissue)

— Megan Moroney – Am I Okay?

— Meridian Brothers – Mi Latinoamérica Sufre

— Metronomy – Posse EP Volume 2

— Northbound – Juniper

— Odie Leigh – Carrier Pigeon

— OneRepublic – Artificial Paradise

— ORB – Tailem Bend

— Orquesta Akokán – Caracoles

— 潘 PAN (fka Aristophanes) – Pan the Pansexual

— Patrick Higgins – Versus

— Pavement – Cautionary Tales: Jukebox Classiques (Physical Release)

— Peni Candra Rini – Wulansih

— Phish – Evolve

— Randy Rogers and Wade Bowen – Hold My Beer, Vol. 4 EP

— Remi Wolf – Big Ideas

— salute – TRUE MAGIC

— Sophie Powers and Baby Tate – Glitch: Lvl 1 EP

— SOTE – Sound System Persepolis

— SPEED – Only One Mode

— Steve Earle – Alone Again (Live)

— Styx and Foreigner – Renegades & Juke Box Heroes

— Sueco – Attempted Lover

— The Supremes – I Hear A Symphony (Vinyl Reissue)

— Susan James – Time Is Now

— Sydney Sherrill – Luckiest Girl Alive EP

— Tech N9ne –  COSM (CLASS OF STRANGE MUSIC)

— The Temptations – Cloud Nine (Vinyl Reissue)

— Testament – The Legacy (Remastered 2024)

— Testament – The New Order (Remastered 2024)

— Tim Montana – Savage

— Tom Verlaine (of Television) – Around (Vinyl Reissue)

— Travis – L.A. Times

— Trousdale – Out Of My Mind Deluxe

— Uncle Kracker – Coffee & Beer

— Van Halen – For Unlawful Carnal Knowledge (Expanded Edition)

— Water From Your Eyes – MP3 Player 1 EP

— Webbed Wing – Vol. III

— Zacari – Bliss