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10 Albums You Can Hear Now: Phoenix, Christopher Owens, Meat Puppets, Junip, and More

phoenix, bankrupt!

It’s Wednesday — that means we’ve got another cluster of albums ready for streaming. Strap on a pair of headphones and dive in: 

1) Phoenix, Bankrupt!. “The band concocted a delightfully varied collection of dizzy synth swirls and bubbling hooks… From the soothing and uncomplicated ‘Chloroform’ to the bustling, uptempo dance anthem ‘Entertainment,’ Phoenix effortlessly glides between time signatures and tempos… with synth-heavy hooks and charm that made them an instant sensation in 2009.” (via iTunes)

2) Christopher Owens, Lysandre (Acoustic). “With his first solo endeavor Lysandre, Owens established an on-album persona capable of looking back on the moment, rather than living firmly within it at all times. ‘A summer sun, a perfect / A perfect night, it ended in the morning,’ he sings on ‘Part of Me (Lysandre’s Epilogue),’ a lovely little bittersweet ode to losing love. Considering the wistful vibes of the song, it almost seems meant to be heard in acoustic form — thankfully, Owens has re-recorded not only ‘Part of Me’… but the rest of Lysandre as well for an acoustic version of the album.” — SPIN (via Christopher Owens’ website)

3) Meat Puppets, Rat Farm. “[T]racks like ‘Sometimes Blue’ and Waiting’… amble forward with ramshackle melodies and the lithe, dry simmer of [Curt] Kirkwood’s vocals, while the sun-drenched ‘You Don’t Know’ is laced with the crackle of electric guitars. Throughout the album, the band shows their knack for melding styles and sounds to fit their liking, like on the opening title-track, which flips between a dub-y verse and wide open, alt-rock chorus, and the delightful ‘Time and Money,’ which sounds like a lost Allman Brothers rambler channeled through a Superfuzz pedal.” (via Rolling Stone)

4) Junip, Junip. “Our first taste of Junip is ‘Line of Fire,’ a lushly produced and pumped-up jangler that doesn’t so much reinvent the band as reaffirm their warm, emotive mastery of studio songcraft. These three men are able to sound like an entire orchestra and convincingly so… Said González: ‘We’re somewhere between a German jazz band and an African pop band.'” — SPIN (via Pitchfork)

5) The Boy Least Likely To, The Great Perhaps. “The Boy Least Likely To’s ‘Climbing Out of Love’ [off upcoming LP The Great Perhaps] is a delightful bit of compact, sprightly pop, a whirlwind of synth and guitar melodies wrapped around an all-world lyrical hook: “‘Nothing feels as lonely as climbing out of love.’ It’s the sort of hyper-emotive, relatable sentiment that could easily slot in beside something like ‘Now you’re just somebody that I used to know.'” — Pitchfork (via Pitchfork)

6) Laura MvulaSing to the Moon. “Laura Mvula[‘s] mix of classic soul and modern breeziness can be difficult to locate on a calendar, let alone a map. Just one of her songs… might mix an agelessly soulful vocal, girl-group handclaps, and a heavily Vocoder-enhanced chorus a la Imogen Heap. There’s a string-swept, horn-infused Technicolor brightness to her full-length debut, Sing to the Moon, that evokes visions of 75-year-old movie scores, and yet the album never feels as if it’s trying to re-create anything.” (via NPR)

7) Rainbow Arabia, FM Sushi. “[FM Sushi] finds [Danny and Tiffany Preston] adding a third member Dylan Ryan, a drummer and writer who plays with Cursive, Icy Demons and more… although it’s definitely cut from the same cloth as Rainbow Arabia’s past albums — hippie drums, spellbinding melodies that seem to endlessly circle and oddball disco — it also features some of the group’s best songs to date. In fact, the comparison might seem odd on the surface, but fans of Bat for Lashes could easily fall in love with it.” (via FACT)

8) Moon King, Obsession II EP. “Moon King’s Obsession II EP comes out on Record Store Day, April 20, via Fucked Up guitarist Mike Haliechuk’s One Big Silence label. The Toronto band’s six songs here are dream-pop with fangs, packing their reverb-layered surfaces with punchy playing and swooning melodies.” (via SPIN)

9) Team Ghost, Temazepam. “To celebrate [the release of Team Ghost’s debut LP, Rituals], [Nicolas] Fromageau has crafted Temazepam, a dramatic hour-plus mix that collages together tracks by Sonic Youth, Brian Eno, Clams Casino, Boards of Canada, Fennesz, Talk Talk, Julianna Barwick, Cliff Martinez, and more.” (via SPIN)

10) Various Artists, Sub Pop 1000. “Sub Pop 1000 — the title’s a reference to 1986’s Sub Pop 100 collection — … features previously unreleased songs by Peaking Lights, My Disco, Iron Lung, [Starred], and more. The mix [serves as a prelude to] Sub Pop’s 25th anniversary party.” — SPIN (via Pitchfork)