The Weather Station – “How Is It That I Should Look At The Stars”
The folk musician Tamara Lindemann alias shows that the world situation (war, climate crisis, etc.) does not necessarily have to lead to being overwhelmed The Weather Station on her new album How Is It That I Should Look At The Stars (Fat Possum). The Canadian then combines her climate sorrow with the everyday neuroses of a woman in her mid-thirties in disordered circumstances: love, separation, unanswered messages. The ten songs are as fragile as the ecosystem of a coral reef. Accompanied by piano, clarinet, guitar and double bass, Lindemann sings in a groping voice and you can feel it straight away: despite the world-weariness, she doesn’t have to prove anything to anyone. This is particularly therapeutic at the moment. Timo Posselt
Band of Horses – “Things Are Great”
On the other hand, it proves that one can easily miss the mark with the overturning mood at the moment Band of Horses: “Things Are Great” (BMG) is the trumpet of the title of their new album and one would like to agree with that. The evidence to the contrary is just so overwhelming. But maybe that’s what the Seattle rock band means less as a global box-office slump and more as a small-scale promise? Unfortunately, after listening to the ten new songs, you have to say: Even if everything is supposed to be great, a lot is still the same. Despite a change of members and a musical detoxification cure, only the legs are a little wider behind very potent guitars. Otherwise it will be scratched as before. Timo Posselt
diplo – “diplo”
Strange: of all things diploma. And of all things on the self-titled album (Warner Music). The producer, who otherwise brings something like a signature sound to electro, an unmistakable style. So far, a few bars were enough for you to know (whether you liked it or not) that it could only be him. That was at Major Lazer so, and even more so with the truly brilliant all-star formation LSD (along with the absolutely grandiose Sia and the singer Labrinth). Most recently as Thomas Wesley, the alias under which he brings country and dance music together, fantastically, coherently – almost compellingly. And now it suddenly sounds very confusingly interchangeable. Surprisingly obvious production and songwriting ideas. Insanely expected drama in the arrangements. Very ordinary sounds. You may be wrong and there are depths to this album that you will only fathom with time. That would be great. And until then, for example, “Heaven” from the LSD album would be an urgent check-in tip. Jacob Biazza
Anouchka Gwen – “Utopia”
The Swiss musician’s debut album “Utopia” (Irascible) promises not just emotional relief, but an alternative world Anouchka Gwen. The impetus for the nine song miniatures on it are Gwen’s experiences as a person-of-color in her home country. But instead of pouring out the powerlessness and anger about racism in the small state into songs, Gwen and Basel producer Alexia Thomas have made an intimate album that sounds less like a barricade and more like a grounded retreat. DIY bedroom beats, dubby bass and the soulful radiant heater warmth of Gwen’s voice. You want to move in there immediately. Timo Posselt
Nilufer Yanya – “Painless”
Less familiar with that of planetary importance, but with personal pain Nilufer Yanya the end. Already in an EP from 2018 she asked unabashedly: “Do you like pain?” Now she gives her new album the defiant title “Painless” (ATO Records). It was clear that the 26-year-old daughter of a British-Turkish-Barbadian-Irish artist couple is anything but pain-free, but that this album will be that good is not necessarily so. Yanya is always both: a post-migrant Joan of Arc with a guitar and an emotional wreck. “Good luck human if that’s your choice,” she sings over an unwashed riff. Does the millennial panic sound somewhere between states of anxiety and the threat of nuclear war? Regardless, that helps. Timo Posselt
Stromae – “Multitudes”
stromae has a new album. It’s called “Multitudes” (Universal Music). The Belgian was inspired by folk music from all over the world and combined the most diverse influences into something new. To hear all the styles, one would need to be as familiar with music from the Western Sahara as with Colombian cumbia or reggaeton, which developed in Puerto Rico in the mid-1990s from reggae, hip-hop, electronic music and Latin American influences. The liner notes indicate that the album features a charango, an Andean plucked string instrument, and the Persian ney flute. And an erhu, a two-stringed Chinese lute played with a bow. There is also a Bulgarian women’s choir, Latin American rhythms and and and. Sounds terrible in theory, of course. Doesn’t really sound like anything that could be played on panpipes in a pedestrian zone. It’s way too much Stromae for that. Johanna Adorjan
Kaina – “It Was a Home”
The singer Kaina hails from Chicago, “It Was a Home” (City Slang) is her second album. It somehow sounds timeless, like something out of the 90s, a dream leftover from soul, R’n’B and music television. Anyone remember music television? You couldn’t skip. You had to endure every single song until the end, unless you switched or switched off. What that did for character building! But Kaina would not have been skipped anyway. Kaina sings about apples and mirrors. Soft vocals, warm sounds. “I used to live in a little room in a little house with a crooked view,” she evokes old memories on the title track, “It Was a Home.” The home she sings about is as universal and unspecific as when she hums a song later that she has a good feeling from time to time. no lie. We also. Just not at the moment. Juliana Liebert
Vitalic – “Dissidænce Episode 2”
So it’s reassuring that it Vitalic still. The French techno producer released “Dissidænce Episode 1” in October last year, now follows “Episode 2” (Clivage Music), and it’s even darker and angrier than its predecessor. The kind of techno that was played around 2010 in Berlin clubs like the Mikz at the “Robot Army” party series. You can smell the sweat and the steam from the fog machines, the streets are dirty, the sun is rising over the Warsaw Bridge, the rent for a five-room apartment (old building) is 250 euros warm, somewhere Paul Kalkbrenner is crying softly. what happened Where did we take a wrong turn? In Vitalic’s “The Void” a monotonous voice repeats “I belong to the void”, I belong entirely to the void, over and over again, but this void is of course animated, a cacophony of dozens of voices, drums and noises carrying it. Music like this doesn’t belong on laptop speakers, it belongs in the dim light of clubs. It’s good that Vitalic is going on tour soon. Let’s hope he brings the void to soothe all those overwhelmed hearts and minds. Juliana Liebert
RZA & DJ Scratch – “Saturday Afternoon Kung Fu Theater”
If Wu Tang Clan Legend RZA and DJ Scratch announcing an album, you better listen carefully. The much-postponed “Saturday Afternoon Kung Fu Theater” (36 Chambers / MNRK Records) is finally coming out this Friday. The tracks were created during the pandemic, they are based on unfinished sketches that were created as part of the production for the Wu-Tang documentary “Wu-Tang Clan: Of Mics and Men”. RZA and DJ Scratch worked it out together. In the video for the titular single, a young boy is seen playing war with toy figures until he’s distracted by the TV – where a robotic variant of RZA fights with himself. RZA describes the album as a love letter to the kung fu movies that aired on local TV channels every Saturday “when there were only five channels to choose from.” TV nostalgia is omnipresent. You could turn off the TV. That was nice. Oh, and the sound on “Saturday Afternoon Kung Fu Theater” is solid, unsurprisingly – for better or for worse. One wonders briefly what year it is, but nobody expected hyperpop from RZA anyway. Juliana Liebert
Blue J – “A Sign of Good Luck”
It’s just always, always very dangerous to put a guitar in the hands of men. There should be guitar licenses like there are gun licenses to prevent greater evil. You think so too Blue Js Debut album “A Sign of Good Luck” (Nettwerk Music Group). Blue J don’t do anything wrong per se. The guitar solos are spot on and everything is in place. Your bad luck is rather that we just already have the Els have and weezerif we want to hear some kind of irrelevant indie from people that even our mothers would find boring the first time they met (although they’d be too kind to say anything, after all “the young man is very polite and brought flowers”.) Juliana Liebert