Another week delivers another batch of ready-to-stream albums. Cozy up with the ten below.
1) Le1f, Fly Zone. “[Fly Zone‘s] ‘Coins’ finds our hero warping his words until they’re barely recognizable in a strangely weightless atmosphere provided by producers Drippin & Souldrop. While trappy drums click, pop, and boom… Le1f sounds clearer than ever before, at times recalling vintage Weezy or channeling Danny Brown.” — SPIN (via Fader)
2) Feeding People, Island Universe. “[Frontwoman Jessie Jones] is as in touch with her home’s acid-splashed history (and its heroes) as fellow Orange County native Ty Segall… [Island Universe is] a hypnotic, similarly concussive sprint through the late ’60s that’s been punched up in all the right places by producers Hanni El Khatib and Jonny Bell of Crystal Antlers.” (via SPIN)
3) Jim James, Regions of Light and Sound of God. “Inspired by an 80-year-old book of woodcut art called A God’s Man — which tells the dark story of an artist’s redemption and lingering demons — James takes a similarly lonely journey on Regions of Light, on which he plays every instrument himself. [The album] doesn’t want for thematic ambition: It finds James unselfconsciously name-dropping both God and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.” (via NPR)
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4) Thao & The Get Down Stay Down, We the Common. “[We the Common] is full of tense, clattering folk-rock… finds room for a fellow iconoclast in Joanna Newsom… the two find middle ground between Nguyen’s hookiness and Newsom’s eccentricity. But there’s always been room for both of those qualities in any given Thao Nguyen song, where playful punches to the upper arm so often turn into body blows at a moment’s notice.” (via NPR)
5) The Bronx, The Bronx (IV). “Kicking off with the pummeling ‘The Unholy Hand,’ the Bronx refuses to relent, unleashing hook after earworm hook on tracks like adolescent anthem ‘Youth Wasted,’ the powerfully subdued ‘Torches’ and scorched-earth closer ‘Last Revelation.'” (via Rolling Stone)
6) Veronica Falls, Waiting for Something to Happen. “The winsome, lightly fuzzy dream-pop of ‘Teenage,’ sheds the band’s self-applied “horror rock” description entirely. With songwriting approaching the emotion-rich tunefulness of Slumberland labelmates Allo Darlin’, and painstakingly ’60s-soaked atmospherics… promises to expose Veronica Falls to a whole new audience.” — SPIN (via Pitchfork)
7) Eels, Wonderful, Glorious. “[Mark Oliver Everett’s] rasp has always had the homely tone of a half burnt log, his guitars yelp and baritone like the brass he has employed in other lives, and throughout all a sense of gritty wonderment pervades. He’s obviously picked up a great deal from Waits, particularly in the percussion department.” (via 405)
8) Pusha T, Wrath of Caine.Wrath of Caine is a seriously star-studded affair, boasting production from Kanye West, Renegades, the Neptunes, Jake-One and B!nk. He’s also drafted [guest appearances from] Rick Ross… French Montana, Troy Ave, Andrea Martin, Kevin Gates and Wale.” — Contactmusic (via LiveMixtapes)
9) Night Beds, Country Sleep. ” [Country Sleep‘s] ‘Ramona’… is a warm and spacious piece of confessional, falsetto-laden country-rock, about halfway on the aesthetic spectrum between Bon Iver and Kathleen Edwards.” — Stereogum (via Pitchfork)
10) Kitty, D.A.I.S.Y. Rage EP. “Kitty has augmented her new name with more sweetly hypnotic rhymes that dispel the idea that she’s just some sort of cyberspace stoop kid.” (via Rolling Stone)
