Je Suis France "Back To The Basics Of Love (Ernest Jenning Record Co.)"
Je Suis France doesn’t have an off switch. Back to the Basics of Love, which comes out this November from the Ernest Jenning Record Co., will be their seventh official full-length album, but they’ve also released dozens of digital releases and CD-Rs stretching back to the early ‘00s. The band, which first came together in Athens, Georgia, in the ‘90s, has prepared a new release for almost every show they’ve played since 2004. Despite that long history of experimentation, Back to the Basics of Love has all the energy and urgency of a debut from a band that’s 20 years younger. It’s a record that sounds like it could’ve come out in the 1990s, the 2000s, or the 2010s, but that couldn’t have existed at any point other than now.
Check out the ramshackle wonder of “Shapeshifter.”
Shifts (Fat Cat) "Shifts (Fat Cat)"
From Fat Cat:
A wonderfully immersive suite of five stunning new tracks, ‘Shifts’ expands upon Swedish-Iranian pianist / composer Shida Shahabi’s debut album and confirms her as a genuine new force in contemporary piano music.
Check out the stunningly intimate “Futo.”
Xylouris White "The Sisypheans (Drag City)"
From Drag City:
Xylouris White’s fourth installment of progressive Cretan lute compositions present the sounds of the lute, George Xylouris’ vocals and Jim White’s drums in an open, spacious sound-field. With the philosophical bent that suits their music’s ancient headwaters, Jim and George are meditating on the life of a traveling musician, Sisyphyan in its repetition, but inspired in an eternal recurrence of themes and techniques that allow them to climb ever-further into their experience as players.
Check out the haunting, pastoral “Tree Song.”
Kae Astra "Fortune EP (Modern Outsider)"
Apropos of nothing-but I must talk about kale an awful lot because my auto-correct refuses to allow me to type Kae Astra’s first name without changing it to a cerian leafy green vegetable that Misfit Market LOVES to send me in every box. So anyway, I had to “teach” my computer Kae as a spelling before writing this. Otherwise, it would have been a comedy of errors. Anyway… back to the music! Fortune (Modern Outsider), the new EP from Kae Astra is as artful a collection of pop-leaning music as your bound to hear. Her hushed, haunting vocals mixing with a swirl of synths, Eno-esque sound design, soaring melodies, minimal percussion tracks, and occasional choral arrangements. Full of dramatic turns and dreaminess, the whole thing sounds like if someone was recreating Spandau Ballet from memory. I hope you think that sounds as good as I mean it to. Give the lead-off track “Howl” a listen and see what I mean!