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15 Albums You Can Hear Now: Ty Segall, No Age, A$AP Ferg, Superchunk, and More

ty segall, sleeper, album stream

It’s Wednesday! That means we’ve got a whole slew of fresh, streamable albums. Scroll down to hear the latest LP from SPIN cover star Ty Segall, No Age’s “uncomfortable” new full-length, A$AP Ferg‘s proper studio debut, new tunes by Best New Artist alums Braids, the sophomore effort from This Is Happening princes Diarrhea Planet, and more.

1) Ty Segall, Sleeper. “Segall wrote the 10 mostly acoustic tracks for Sleeper after losing his father to cancer last year and relocating to Los Angeles to be closer to his younger sister. He’s since had a falling-out with his mother, with whom he says he’s no longer on speaking terms. Segall works through this emotional upheaval on Sleeper, and while he trades his normally scorched electric noise for gently strummed acoustic guitars, he doesn’t indulge in mopey confessionals. The songs are introspective, but more curious and comforting than the teary poetry the themes might suggest.” (via NPR)

2) No Age, An Object. “Its fourth full-length album, An Object, finds No Age withholding bruising rushes of power and blistering payoffs as often as it doles them out. In their place is a compact but searching 30 minutes of music that seethes stubbornly when it could have far more easily opened up at full blast and stayed there…  Its fussy, jagged, periodically droning noise-rock often forgoes both halves of that equation — which is to say: not always noisy, not always rocking — in favor of a vaguely disagreeable and disquieting rumble.” (via NPR)

3) Superchunk, I Hate Music. “I Hate Music follows 2010’s more appropriately titled Majesty Shredding, which itself followed an agonizing nine-year hiatus — and, like its predecessor, it finds the band bleating and blaring with giddy vitality… Infused with winning, strident energy, I Hate Music still fits in darker ruminations on age and aging — Superchunk’s sound remains versatile enough to accommodate both a 75-second whiff of brash punk (‘Staying Home’) and a six-minute album-closer (‘What Can We Do’) in which McCaughan reflects on nearly 30 years of adulthood with shrugging wisdom.” (via NPR)

4) A$AP Ferg, Trap Lord. “[Trap Lord] is a punishing and aggressive album made for the streets and clubs, classic New York fight music with a Southern tempo trickled down from Waka Flocka Flame’s sonic revolution. One track, ‘Fuck Out My Face,’ even features the three surviving members of Onyx, the Queens-bred group whose hardcore sound presaged Ferg a generation ago. But there is a distinct melodicism at play, even if Ferg’s flow trends toward jagged and jumpy. It’s part of what gives Trap Lord an unmistakably modern flare — and it also helps infuse a bit of levity.” — SPIN (via A$AP Ferg’s website)

5) Diarrhea Planet, I’m Rich Beyond Your Wildest Dreams. “[Diarrhea Planet have] developed a reputation for raucous live performances and a name that makes Butt Trumpet look like Belle and Sebastian, but second album I’m Rich Beyond Your Wildest Dreams is a hook-crammed explosion that draws from deep wells of loss and disillusionment. ‘Kids’ is a slow-burning torch song that touches on the poignancy of growing up too fast; the late-’80s jukebox rock of ‘Babyhead’ underpins a tongue-in-cheek confession of a love that can never be.” (via SPIN)

6) Julia Holter, Loud City Song. “Julia Holter has always had a flair for not only drama, but also the dramatic. She’s loosely based albums on Greek tragedies and the classic New Wave French film Last Year at Marienbad. And on Loud City Song, due out August 20, Holter looks to the 1958 musical film Gigi for her third album in as many years. Holter doesn’t abandon her high-concept chamber-pop for sweeping Lerner-Loewe strings, but Loud City Song often plays out like a small-stage cabaret raised on washed-out ’80s synths and Joni Mitchell.” (via NPR) 

7) Ski Lodge, Big Heart. “Ski Lodge have already dropped two shimmering jewels from their upcoming debut album — ‘Just to Be Like You’ and ‘Boy,’ both of which received surprisingly grim, psychedelic visual treatments earlier this year — and now the Brooklynites treat us to the entire 11-track LP… Big Heart delivers precise, pogo-ing melodies enhanced by frontman Andrew Marr’s soaring croon. Still, despite its Shins-ian sense of adventure, Ski Lodge’s first full-length is lined with a bleak sense of humor. To wit, on the aforementioned ‘Just to Be Like You,’ Marr offers these (discomfiting) words of comfort: ‘Don’t be scared / It will only be this way forever.'” (via SPIN)

8) Porcelain Raft, Permanent Signal. “Permanent Signal [is] an 11-track effort that’s ‘far more organic’ than Porcelain Raft’s previous output… [composer Mauro Remiddi] reportedly wanted to ‘start with a new color palette’ for the upcoming LP, so he sold almost all of the instruments used to craft the dreamy Strange Weekend. Synths still populate the project’s sound, but now the songs have more room to breathe. ‘Think of the Ocean,’ the record’s first single, feeds off an electro pulse, but it’s filled out with a blend of cello, piano, and drums. — SPIN (via Pitchfork)

9) Braids, Flourish // Perish. “Braids hail from the same Montreal DIY scene that’s gifted us Grimes, Majical Cloudz and Mac DeMarco, and the influence can be heard in the group’s singular approach to songcraft… ‘In Kind’ [is] an eight-minute song that evolves slowly while never losing the listener’s interest. Opening with crystalline tones and choral vocals… a live drum kit sputters in and out of the mix, hinting at a coming synchronicity. As Raphaelle Standell-Preston’s vocals go from furtive to powerful, the music also goes wide. ‘Left my conscience in quotations,’ she sings near the end. May we suggest you hit play and do the same?” — SPIN (via Pitchfork)

10) John Mayer, Paradise Valley. “[Katy Perry] goes head to head with Frank Ocean among other high-profile guests on John Mayer’s [Paradise Valley]… Ocean sings on ‘Wildfire,’ a mellow, roughly 90-second tone poem. It’s inventive and evocative, with lovely outdoor ambience, but it’s also slight and a bit strained: ‘It’s not a vacation if I lose you to the Eiffel,’ Ocean croons, but people don’t talk that way unless they, say, need a Paris-based rhyme for ‘suicidal.’ By contrast, Perry’s Mayer collaboration ‘Who You Love’ is a percolating ballad that evokes Van Morrison’s ‘Crazy Love’ as channeled through Mayer’s tautology-as-truth ‘Say’… Gentle horns hark back to one of Mayer’s best singles, ?uestlove-backed ‘Clarity,’ while Perry puts on a full-throated performance the likes of which one rarely hears on her more electronic-based fare.” — SPIN (via iTunes) 

11) Crocodiles, Crimes of Passion. “Crimes of Passion… is the fourth album from the California noise-pop band, and it continues an impressive streak of hazy, druggy, bittersweet songs. In Crocodiles’ sexy, sardonic music, feelings of sadness and alienation are conveyed with a beautiful and life-affirming wall of noise.” (via NPR)

12) King Krule, 6 Feet Beneath the Moon. “On August 24, True Panther and XL Recordings will drop 6 Feet Beneath the Moon, the proper follow-up to [King] Krule’s self-titled 2011 EP. The London-based songwriter produced the upcoming record alongside Savages and the xx collaborator Rodaidh McDonald… As True Panther puts it, Marshall’s next effort ‘[oscillates] gently between the classic ’50s soul of Gene Vincent and Elvis Presley to the minimal, avant-garde experimentation of Penguin Café Orchestra, to the electronic smog and dub textures of [English radio station] Rinse FM.'” — SPIN (via King Krule’s website)

13) Laura Veirs, Warp & Weft. “Singer-songwriter Laura Veirs has long garnered critical acclaim for her captivating sound… Now, Veirs is set to release her ninth full-length album, Warp & Weft. [The album] was produced by Veirs’ husband and long-time musical collaborator Tucker Martine, and fans will be delighted to know that it features appearances from the likes of Jim James, Neko Case and more. (via Paste) 

14) Pure Bathing Culture, Moon Tides. “[Previously heard singles] ‘Pendulum’ and ‘Dream The Dare’ make a gorgeously breezy one-two punch opening, and the prom-slow dance perfection of ‘Scotty’ feels like it’s right where it should be as the centerpiece to the record. Meanwhile the (until now unreleased) ‘Temple Of The Moon’ brings things to a chilly, dramatic close.'” — Stereogum (via Pitchfork)

15) Sarah Neufeld, Hero Brother. “Arcade Fire violinist Sarah Neufeld is stepping away from the band setting this month to deliver her solo set Hero Brother… The 11-song LP was recorded in Berlin with Nils Frahm, with sessions taking place in an abandoned geodesic dome, an underground parking lot and Studio P4’s orchestral recording hall… Neufeld was influenced by the likes of Bela Bartok, Steve Reich, Iva Bittova and Arthur Russell, and that the album flows ‘between restrained, stately ambience, emotive études, and raw kinetic energy.'” — Exclaim! (via The Quietus)