• Jenny Hval – The Long Sleep

    June 3, 2018 - By 

    What can one expect from Jenny Hval? To date, her career is comparable to one big game of whack-a-mole. At any one moment, the Norwegian artist could pop up in collaborations, most recently with Håvard Volden for the Lost Girls EP, or perhaps as the author of a novel (Paradise Rot, arriving October). Her solo work can largely be categorised under avant-garde, but flits between a range of electronic, jazz, pop, ambient and folk influences, making Hval one of the most freely creative artists of this generation. For someone so strikingly studious, it’s hard to imagine where the inspiration comes…

  • Father John Misty – God’s Favorite Customer

    June 5, 2018 - By 

    Nine years ago, Nardwuar The Human Serviette interviewed Robin Pecknold of Fleet Foxes and then drummer, Josh Tillman. The exuberant Canadian musician-turned-journalist acknowledged Pecknold’s penchant for performing in a seated position and commented that he had revived this style. Tillman, dissatisfied with the lack of attention, interjected, “I kind of resent being overlooked in this category because I also [perform] on a chair.” This casual exchange, small though it may seem, provided us with an early indication of someone unwilling to relinquish the spotlight. Nine years later, Josh Tillman’s ego abides. He’s transformed from the fabled “horny, man-child, Mamma’s boy”…

  • Aidan Moffat & RM Hubbert – Here Lies the Body

    May 31, 2018 - By 

    Aidan Moffat has a knack for a musical partnership. Having first come to attention as one half of Arab Strap alongside Malcolm Middleton from the mid-90s to the mid-00s – as well as a recent triumphant run of reunion shows – his later pairing with jazz musician and fellow Falkirk native Bill Wells saw the pair bag the inaugural Scottish Album of the Year Award for their 2011 debut Everything’s Getting Older. Now it’s the turn of guitar virtuoso RM Hubbert, perhaps best known to Irish audiences for regular stints supporting Mogwai on these shores. The pair already teamed up…

  • Courtney Barnett – Tell Me How You Really Feel

    May 25, 2018 - By 

    The Melbourne-based singer-songwriter Courtney Barnett came to international attention in 2014 with the release of A Sea Of Split Peas, a combination of her two previous EPs. Barnett’s lyrics, which detailed the most mundane aspects of her life in a manner that was confessional, witty and biting in equal measure, were the real standouts in that opening gambit, lending a song like ‘Avant Gardener’ (inspired by an ill-fated spot of gardening that resulted in her being rushed into an ambulance) the feeling of a miniature epic. Her debut studio album Sometimes I Sit and Think, Sometimes I Just Sit subsequently arrived…

  • Parquet Courts – Wide Awake!

    May 24, 2018 - By 

    Parquet Courts’ latest is a petrochemical explosion of fiery politics and sprawling creativity. Building upon their established art-punk sound, the Texan outfit’s experimentation with technicolour keyboard textures, funk grooves and Latin rhythms makes for their most immediate and stylistically diverse release to date. Aptly titled Wide Awake!,  the album is an unapologetically political outing, showcasing A. Savage’s lyrics which seethe with rage and indignation, his thoughts seemingly drawn into sharper focus by the U.S.A’s ongoing political calamity. Crunchy garage rock opener ‘Total Football’ indulges the bands more mercurial instincts with elastic time signatures and a jerkily danceable bassline, providing the…

  • The Sea and Cake – Any Day

    May 22, 2018 - By 

    Chicagoan supergroup, The Sea and Cake sprang from the mid-western city’s post-rock hotbed during the early ’90s, bringing together members of bands such as Shrimp Boat and Tortoise to create a singularly sophisticated sound. Over the course of 11 albums The Sea and Cake have plied an increasingly finessed trade, melding a love of jazz, bossa nova and ’70s Krautrock with their own breezy indie rock instincts, tearing an unlikely wormhole between the parallel universes of Astrud Gilberto, Neu! and Guided by Voices.  The band’s latest effort Any day, which arrives after a lengthy six year break, flashes to life…

  • Delorentos – True Surrender

    May 20, 2018 - By 

    Delorentos fifth studio album, True Surrender, boils down to one simple message: Cut the bullshit. Through intricate metaphors of escapism, bold images of desolate extradition from society and elusive references to the current, global political state, the Dublin outfit beg us to take a step back and ask ourselves: Is this the world we want to be living in? From observations of panic to eventual acceptance, the 2012 Choice Music Prize winners take us on a journey through some manner of existential crisis, leading us ultimately to a state of acceptance. The album opens with a recurring, focal image of an…

  • Eleanor Friedberger – Rebound

    May 19, 2018 - By 

    In the aftermath of the US elections, Eleanor Friedberger spent some time in Athens with the intention of writing an album. Somewhat side-tracked by the city’s allure, she ended up forming a Greek band,  leaving the demos for what would become her fourth solo record until her return home. The remnants of her transitory escape from the reality of a Trump regime are found in the title of the album, Rebound, named after a Goth club in the Greek capital whose music and character informs these ten tracks. Friedberger’s previous band project with her brother Matthew yielded some wildly imaginative…

  • Beach House – 7

    May 15, 2018 - By 

    Fewer bands have so aggressively etched their niche as deeply as Beach House. Whilst aggression certainly isn’t a term usually associated with this century’s finest purveyors of lofty, emotionally-charged dream pop, the Baltimore based two-piece have certainly found their comfort zone and busied themselves deep within it. over the past 14 years. Typified by Victoria Legrand’s omnipresent keyboards and Julee Cruise-esque vocals, Scally’s reverbed guitar and a handful of simplistic drum loops, the band have been stuck in a beautiful, glorious rut creatively almost since their inception back in 2004. Fewer ruts have bought so much glory and critical acclaim,…

  • Arctic Monkeys – Tranquility Base Hotel & Casino

    May 11, 2018 - By 

    Of all the shade that can be thrown against the Arctic Monkeys, you couldn’t say they’ve rested on their laurels. At the peak of their popularity, they pivoted from the comfortable rut of their indie roots into the muddier, murky world of Josh Homme-inspired desert rock. With 2013’s AM, they wholehearted embraced sounds from 1990s R&B and throwback blues. The thing with these genre excursions though is that they’ve always retained a thread of being just four Northern boys chancing their arms. With their latest LP, Tranquility Base Hotel & Casino, there’s not a shred of any previous incarnation of…