Torres & Fruit Bat "A Decoration"
A Decoration is a six-song collaboration between Mackenzie Scott of TORRES and Eric D. Johnson of Fruit Bats. In working together, Scott and Johnson neither changed TORRES or Fruit Bats at their core to suit their collaborator’s ideas, nor did they merely look for places in each other’s music where they could fit themselves in. A Decoration is something else entirely, something new and vibrant and vital to the catalogs of two songwriters whose most recent albums, Fruit Bats’ A River Running to Your Heart and TORRES’ What an enormous room, found them at the peak of their creative powers, at a perfect moment to begin a new conversation through song.
Quivers "Oyster Cuts"
Oyster Cuts, the Merge debut of Quivers, finds the Melbourne, Australia–based outfit awash in the kind of emotions people tend to fear losing themselves in. Finding love after grief, the outsized guitar pop of Quivers gleams like the surface of an ocean, beneath which lies a reef that is at turns beautiful and painful, its features alien and sharp enough to wound. Propelled by melodies that at times recall Galaxie 500 and The Pretenders, Quivers make music that is tender and tough, compelling the listener to dive in again and again, each song a new angle on all of your feelings.
The losses and loves that have informed Quivers’ music since their inception—the sudden loss of a brother in the cracked optimism of We’ll Go Riding on the Hearses (2018) and the life in and after grief of Golden Doubt (2021)—ripple into Oyster Cuts, which is committed to moving forward while accepting that some feelings, like grief, are a cycle. Crucially, Quivers committed to moving forward with each other. Paring away the choir and strings of its predecessor, Oyster Cuts is a showcase for what’s still possible when four people—Sam Nicholson (guitars), Bella Quinlan (bass), Michael Panton (guitars), and Holly Thomas (drums)—make music together.
JakoJako "Segmente EP"
From Mute Records:
Koçer’s passion for electronics began with an urge to play with sound, and a desire to learn more about the world of modular systems and patch cables. Her meticulous studies soon progressed into performing regular live sets in Berlin, a Berghain Residency and a position at Berlin electronic music institution, SchneidersLaden.
In recent years, her success as a performer has grown steadily, and she has also been involved in several motion sensor dance projects with dancers at Superbooth and Kraftwerk Berlin, has performed at the Royal Albert Hall with Bonobo, and at the Barbican in London with an improvised ‘Circle Of Live’ performance that featured dance and a specially commissioned art installation.
JakoJako’s unmissable live performance has fed directly into the new EP – all four tracks originated in her live show – giving the EP a propulsive urgency imbued with her distinct take, described by RA as “fragile techno written in the key of wonder”.
The new EP follows the Verve EP, her debut for Mute, a full length album, Metamorphos (2022, Bigamo) and her collaboration with Rødhåd, In Vere (2022, WSNWG), both of which came hot on the heels of two blistering remixes for Mute – New Order’s Be A Rebel and Martin Gore’s Vervet.
Slowey and the Boats "Slowey Goes West"
From Hi-Tide/Nu-Tone Records:
A sunset cruise to where the wild west meets the Pacific breeze”
On their 4th LP, Slowey and The Boats take a sharp turn from the tropical influences that have been the band’s North Star for over a decade. To set Slowey’s new course, the band has tacked toward the land of mesas, rattlesnakes, cowboy tall tales, and Stetson hats. Maybe it was inevitable that the band would head west. After all – starting in 1865, Stetson Hats were made in Philadelphia, the home city of Slowey and the Boats.
The concept album features classics of the western songbook by songwriters such as Cole Porter and Roy Rogers. “This album pays tribute to some of our favorite songs of the American West” according to Boats captain Isaac “Slowey” Stanford.
“This collection of tunes will take our listeners on a musical journey across the western deserts and beyond,” continues Stanford. “There are classic cowboy songs like “Tumbling Tumbleweeds” and “Don’t Fence Me In”, and also a few surprise selections such as Duke Ellington’s “Warm Valley.”
“We think our fans are really going to love this album,” concludes Stanford. “So saddle up and get ready to head west!”