The phrase “I need you, need something new,” is interwoven through the entirety of BRAT, the latest album from Chicago multi-instrumentalist NNAMDÏ. It is a mantra that signifies the central tension explored through the album’s colorful 42 minutes—the question of what was and what will be and the difficult decision of accepting change and growth.
What’s Tonight To Eternity, the third full-length project under the name, maybe Cindy Lee’s most fulfilled and fulfilling record yet, with moments 1950s and ’60s-tinged pop fighting their way to the surface of feedback and abstracted noise, poignantly investigating the intertwining nature of love and hurt, beauty and horror.
On her fourth album and fourth great evolution, Angel Olsen accompanies an instantly classic outpouring of artistic expression with gothic-synthesizers, some horns, and a colossal assembly of strings. An immense, dramatic, and shattering retrospective on feeling, All Mirrors is massive in both its presentation and statement.
There are few groups currently making music that can capture the feeling of absolute insanity of living in the current moment and watching the final stages of pretty much everything—Tropical Fuck Storm is absolutely one of those groups, and with the experience of an album under their belt, they are back more confident than before.
The technical prowess of Trash Kit, displayed in their ability to remain tight and clean throughout their most chaotic compositions, is enough to make Horizon an album worth praising. But Horizon accomplishes the difficult task of being an album that is immediately accessible, requiring no intense mental focus to appreciate and enjoy.
Returning not only to their incredibly long-winded album and track titles, but also to their improvisational, doom-steeped metal, Keiji Haino & SUMAC return with Even for just the briefest moment, an album split into four tracks, capturing the collaborators' behemothic live performance from Tokyo in 2017.
