Kite Party

The weekend is almost upon us. Celebrate with fresh releases from the likes of Lykke Li, Lily Allen, Kishi Bashi, Dolly Parton, PAWS, and more. They're waiting for you below.1) Lykke Li, I Never Learn. "Instead of belting her way onto empowering mix CDs, Li sings breakup songs as if she's actually just lived through a devastating breakup. Her emotions are far from flattened, though she might sound one-dimensional to Top 40 listeners who've grown to only believe sadness when it's accompanied by vocal runs. A fully expressive singer, she works within the range of earnest melancholy. It's hard to summon a high E above middle C when all you want to do is curl up under the covers." (via NPR)2) Lily Allen, Sheezus. "Allen can still be prickly — she's suspicious of celebrity and Internet culture, and unapologetic when it comes to her privileged background — but Sheezus is no castle-storming, culture-bombing return. She sings of domestic contentment and wanting to float off into the clouds, and musically, she's slightly out of touch, taking cues from 2010 M.I.A. and Vampire Weekend records instead of the fierce, cutting-edge Kanye West album referenced by the title." — Billboard (via iTunes)3) Brian Eno & Karl Hyde, Someday World. "In a standout track like 'Daddy's Car,' both men draw on a lifetime love of African highlife. Over an ebullient and skittering polyrhythmic backbeat worthy of Remain in Light, Eno adds sun-bright horn lines, bubbling synths and piano, clearing just enough room for Hyde's New Romantic vocals. Elsewhere, Hyde's soft delivery evokes memories of Talk Talk's Mark Hollis, and when the music gets jazzy and slippery (as in 'When I Built This World'), Eno and Hyde bring to mind the U.K. band Level 42." (via NPR)4) PAWS, Youth Culture Forever. "Indeed, the Glaswegian garage-pop trio's soon-to-be-released sophomore LP, Youth Culture Forever, is a bolder, more dynamic beast than its predecessor, 2012's sweetly scruffy Cokefloat! LP. Yawning cello lines weave in and out of several of the upcoming album's 12 tracks; drummer Josh Swinney's thrashy percussion packs a heftier punch; and the vocals, courtesy of singer-guitarist Phillip Taylor, carry a new level of confidence. Whether he's howling about funerals and shallow graves (see the swooning, moonlit 'Alone') or barking about a breakup as if it's just cause for a generational uprising (see, well, most of the other songs), Taylor sounds like he's singing through an intercom system — all the better to incite a teenage riot." (via SPIN)5) Kishi Bashi, Lighght. "K. Ishibashi opens his second solo album, Lighght, by taking a tone-setting 48-second violin solo. Titled 'Début - Impromptu,' it skids and squeaks with accelerating abandon until the notes distort and smash together chaotically; by the end, the instrument has become largely indistinguishable from the machines he so often uses to loop and manipulate it. It's equal parts introduction and mission statement for Lighght, in which technique and experimentation collide in high-spirited, even disorienting ways." (via NPR)6) Kite Party, Come On Wandering. "Due May 6 via Animal Style Records, the new, 11-track LP retains the cosmic, reverberating guitar licks of its predecessor, but the tempo has — for the most part — slowed to a mellow lull. Come On Wandering offers a grand mish-mash of dreamy indie-punk that throws a nod to the Kinsellas and salutes the Smashing Pumpkins." (via SPIN)7) Anímic, Hannibal. "There's nothing anemic about Anímic, a Catalan quintet hailing from Collbató, a village outside Barcelona. Quite the opposite: Their fifth album, Hannibal, comes on in a full-blooded rush, with songs like 'Shoot 'Em' scaling Swans-high peaks of intensity and atmospheric slow-burners like 'El Crani I La Serp' approximating Mogwai's soft-loud smolder. Along with shoegaze, post-rock, and stripped-to-the-bone post-punk, there's also a twinge of Americana in their twangier moments; if there's ever a Catalan version of True Detective, Anímic's 'Oració' wouldn't make a bad replacement for the Handsome Family's 'Far from Any Road.'" (via SPIN)8) Motions, All Gone EP. "On All Gone, due on Samo Sound Boy and Jerome LOL's Body High imprint on April 29, Motions appears to have absorbed the ribosomal funk of British dance music. This is a four-song collection of deep and melodic dance tunes bears an elemental understanding of the emotional saturation needed to keep bodies writhing and stepping in the club." (via SPIN)9) Dolly Parton, Blue Smoke. "Parton opens with the bluegrass train song 'Blue Smoke,' whose color is meant to evoke the feeling of heartache and the tint of her native mountains. Just shy of halfway through the set, she extols the virtues of getting back to her pastoral neck of the woods during 'Home.' A bright, buoyant number, it celebrates the bucolic lifestyle boosted by country's current generation of hitmakers, but with an important difference: Parton acknowledges the distance she's traveled from her humble beginnings, and describes a temporary, soul-centering retreat in an otherwise enterprising life. 'I left home / I was 17 / I had a lot of ambitious dreams,' she sings. 'Seen a lot of those dreams come true / I've had good luck.'" (via NPR)10) Young Magic, Breathing Statues "Don’t let the name fool you, New York duo Young Magic's new album Breathing Statues was made on the move. In Morocco, France, the Czech Republic, Australia and Iceland to be specific. The duo recorded wherever they could while on tour, finishing up in their New York studio. That sense of motion runs throughout the album: whether they’re doing persuasive, percussive ambience ('Waiting For The Ground To Open') or moody electronic pop ('Something In The Water')." (via Fader)

Kite Party

10 Albums to Stream: Lykke Li, Brian Eno & Karl Hyde, Kishi Bashi, Lily Allen, and More

Stream Kite Party’s Shimmering ‘Come On Wandering’ LP

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