King Khan "Murderburgers (Ernest Jenning)"
Roz & the Rice Cakes "Devotion (Team Love)"
Let’s all thank Team Love Records for two things. 1) for releasing a new LP from Roz and the Rice Cakes, and 2) for making this blurb very easy to write. After all the press for Devotion, their newest art-pop gem describes their sound as succinctly as it gets when they say “a cross roads where Fleetwood Mac and Henry Cow mingle with Bettie Serveert and Gwen Stefani… equal parts experimental and catchy, energetic and bookish, daring and sugarcoated.” Sure, I could spend hours trying to describe RATRC’s sound, but someone in New Paltz did all the work for me already. Thanks! Check out the first single, the angular “Do You.”
Blis. "No One Loves You (Sargent House)"
Are you as excited for the full-length debut from Blis. as NPR’s All Songs Considered host Robin Hilton is? Well you should be. After all, they are one of his “favorite new discoveries” (good taste Robin!) So here is Blis. fulfilling the rock ’n’ roll promise they made to us all on their 2015 EP. No One Loves You (Sargent House) is “an ambitious rock record about love, religion, and surviving life’s most painful hardships.” (NPR) Check out the Pixies meets A Place To Bury Strangers sounds of “Old Man.”
Canon Blue "Lasso Yo (Temporary Residence)"
Recorded over the last 6 years, during Daniel Johnson’s increasing bouts of isolation as brought on by deepening anxiety and depression, Lasso Yo (Temporary Residence), the new one from Canon Blue, betrays its weighty back story with it’s transcendent, ethereal sound that falls somewhere between ‘80s art-synth-pop a la The Eurythmics, solo Peter Gabriel, late ‘80s Beach Boys, and modern indie sultriness a la CANT (you know, Chris Taylor from Grizzly Bear’s solo project). I know, that’s a weird combination, but when a record gets as personal as this one, some strange bedfellows are bound to turn up. Check out the anxious build of “Beholden.”