Fever Ray "Plunge (Mute)"
Could a new Fever Ray record have surprised the world at any better a time? There we were, the Friday before Halloween, depressed as everyone else is in 2017 when we got word that the new Fever Ray record had just dropped (people still say records dropped, right?). Before we even had time to fully digest this experimental piece of pop mastery, Pitchfork had named the record “Best New Music.” Best new music indeed! On Plunge (Mute), her second album as Fever Ray, the Knife’s Karin Dreijer is as experimental, frank, and more transparent than ever. Gone is the vocal pitch-shifting of her first release, as her Bjork meets Annie Lennox vocals mix with the most modern of beats and heady, atmospheric soundscapes. Check out the first single from the album, the bubbly “To The Moon And Back.”
Double Ferrari "Double Ferrari (Ernest Jenning)"
If you’re like me, and you love classic video game music, then you’ve likely come across Bit Brigade. If you haven’t, let me explain. They are a band that plays classic video game music (Mega Man, Castlevania, Super Mario Bros. etc) on stage in a heavy metal style as someone plays the game on a screen behind them. Their live performances and videos are multimedia explosions of fun. Well, Bit Brigade also has a band to release their original instrumental heavy metal music. And man oh man, this debut from Double Ferrari is a fun one. If you like instrumental heavy metal, you aren’t gonna love a record this year more than this one. Produced by Tim Green (The Fucking Champs, Joana Newsom) this is blistering, relentless dual guitar gymnastics. Technical and soulful at the same time, it’s an absolute blast. Check out the self titled tune “Double Ferrari.”
Godspeed You! Black Emperor "Luciferian Towers (Constellation)"
It’s not easy to be a political, revolutionary band while also being an instrumental post-rock orchestra. Somehow, Godspeed You! Black Emperor have figured out how to do just that with their latest, Luciferian Towers (Constellation). Full of their “most melodic and powerfully positive-sounding music to date” (Pitchfork) LT also includes political screeds via liner notes and press releases demanding “An end to foreign invasions. An end to borders. The total dismantling of the prison-industrial complex. Healthcare, housing, food and water acknowledged as an inalienable human right.” Not an easy trick to be hauntingly beautiful and mad as hell, is it? Well GY!BE certainly pull it off here on their latest majestic, atmospheric release. Check out the first single from the album, the sprawling “Undoing A Luciferian Towers.”
And So I Watch You From Afar "The Endless Shimmering (Sargent House)"
Belfast post-rockers And So I Watch You From Afar are back! 2 years out from their last collection of instrumental rock mayhem, they have gifted the world with The Endless Shimmering (Sargent House). Recorded over 9 days while they were snowed in at Machines with Magnets in Rhode Island, the band emerged with a completed album just as the snow had begun to melt. Now that album, with a sound that is a combination of The Fucking Champs, Grails, and Yes, is here to melt your face, and your ears, and your stereo. Don’t worry, not in a real way–although don’t turn it up TOO loud, after all I did see Jimi Hendrix’s “Machine Gun” once turn a speakers tweeters into a black viscous goo when turned up too loud, and this is just as punishing as that… Anyway, let the heavy metal triumph of “A Slow Unfolding Of Wings” get you to where you need to go. Enjoy!