{"id":7869,"date":"2019-09-03T08:40:14","date_gmt":"2019-09-03T12:40:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/?p=7869"},"modified":"2019-09-03T08:40:17","modified_gmt":"2019-09-03T12:40:17","slug":"music-update-august-2019","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/2019\/09\/03\/music-update-august-2019\/","title":{"rendered":"Music update, August 2019."},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Some of it might be the presence of five Fridays in the month, but August was exceptionally strong for new music &#8211; I had over 30 tracks on the first draft of this list and ended up with 25 songs on a playlist that runs over 90 minutes. As always, if you can&#8217;t see the widget below, you <a href=\"https:\/\/open.spotify.com\/user\/keithlaw1\/playlist\/0q4H7jPhrBYgPTYq7otPeV?si=mOnTAENPRjuhJHo8ms8jtg\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">can access the playlist directly here<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/open.spotify.com\/embed\/playlist\/0q4H7jPhrBYgPTYq7otPeV\" width=\"300\" height=\"380\" frameborder=\"0\" allowtransparency=\"true\" allow=\"encrypted-media\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><strong>Ceremony &#8211; Further I Was<\/strong>. The punk-turned-new wave band&#8217;s latest album, <em>In the Spirit World Now<\/em>, dropped this month and is one of my top ten albums of the year, with this, the title track, and &#8220;Presaging the End&#8221; among the standout tracks.<\/p>\n<p><strong>The New Pornographers &#8211; The Surprise Knock<\/strong>. Two good new songs from TNP, with this and &#8220;Falling Down the Stairs of Your Smile,&#8221; ahead of their upcoming album <em>In the Morse Code of Brake Lights<\/em>, due out September 27th.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Ride &#8211; Jump Jet<\/strong>. The shoegaze pioneers&#8217; second album in three years, <em>This is Not a Safe Place<\/em>, also came out last month, with this, &#8220;Future Love,&#8221; and &#8220;Repetition my favorite tracks from a solid if somewhat inconsistent record<\/p>\n<p><strong>Good Fuck &#8211; Flow Flow<\/strong>. If the goal was to create a band name that was both ungoogleable and something you couldn&#8217;t say on the radio, well, this is it &#8230; but damn is this song, a rec from reader and musician Andrew M., catchy as hell, between the guitar riff and the pulsing beat.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Vivian Girls &#8211; Something to Do<\/strong>. I never got into the Vivs or even heard much of their music before their breakup, but I&#8217;m enjoying their reunion so far, with loud and fast guitar tracks like this.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Artificial Pleasure\/JYLDA &#8211; Boys Grow Up<\/strong>. An homage to classic New Wave with a strong dash of Britpop, here boosted by backup vocals by JYLDA. They&#8217;re quickly becoming one of my favorite bands.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Dry Cleaning &#8211; Magic of Meghan<\/strong>. I can&#8217;t decide if this band name is ridiculous, funny, obnoxious, or some combination thereof. Their sing-talking style is not really my thing, but this was the one track on their <em>Sweet Princess<\/em> EP that muted that aspect and let the music come through.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Declan McKenna &#8211; British Bombs<\/strong>. I did not like &#8220;Brazil&#8221; but I&#8217;m into this angry protest track over the UK&#8217;s role in the ongoing genocide in the Yemen.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Miss June &#8211; Anomaly<\/strong>. Power-pop from New Zealand who made a modest splash with &#8220;Best Girl&#8221; earlier this year and have followed it with <em>Bad Luck Party<\/em>, including this very mid-90s alternative radio kind of track.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Death Cab for Cutie &#8211; To the Ground<\/strong>. A slow-building, tense track from DCFC ahead of the release of <em>The Blue EP<\/em> on Saturday.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Sleater-Kinney &#8211; LOVE<\/strong>. Sleater-Kinney came back from a lengthy hiatus in 2015 with <em>No Cities to Love<\/em>, a rock album that was more polished than their previous efforts but still clearly their sound. Their new record <em>The Center Won&#8217;t Hold<\/em> was produced by St. Vincent, and it&#8217;s a departure, particularly in their use of electronic elements for the percussion; I&#8217;m not surprised Janet Weiss decided to leave the band after their &#8220;new direction.&#8221; Weiss was in a serious car accident in early August; <a href=\"https:\/\/news.avclub.com\/janet-weiss-thanks-fans-for-life-changing-support-aft-1837749649\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">fans donated over $60,000 to a GoFundMe<\/a> to help pay her medical bills.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Two Door Cinema Club &#8211; Once<\/strong>. This might be my favorite 2DCC track ever; it certainly is the most immediately catchy of theirs.<\/p>\n<p><strong>John Coltrane &#8211; Blue World<\/strong>. This is the title track from a lost Coltrane album, recorded in 1964 for a French art film. I&#8217;m not a jazz aficionado by any means but if you asked me to put on a jazz album, it&#8217;d be <em>Giant Steps<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Jorja Smith feat. Burna Boy &#8211; Be Honest<\/strong>. Smith&#8217;s <em>Lost and Found<\/em> was one of my favorite albums last year; this single, featuring the Nigerian rapper Burna Boy, might be a one-off but has already hit the top 20 in the UK, once again showing off the R&amp;B singer&#8217;s strong, highly expressive voice.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Mike Epps with Big Boi and Sleepy Brown &#8211; We Goin&#8217; Out<\/strong>. I only knew of Mike Epps as a comedian, but he&#8217;s released a few singles and even an album of rap songs; this song is just fun, bouncy like some mid-80s funk tracks, with the always-worthwhile Big Boi contributing a verse.<\/p>\n<p><strong>BROCKHAMPTON &#8211; BOY BYE<\/strong>. I haven&#8217;t checked out the whole album, <em>Ginger<\/em>, yet, but I&#8217;ve liked the two singles I&#8217;ve heard so far.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Floating Points &#8211; Last Bloom<\/strong>. More compelling, hypnotic, intelligent instrumental EDM from Floating Points ahead of his second album, <em>Crush<\/em>, due out in October.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Sleeper &#8211; More than I Do<\/strong>. I liked Sleeper quite a bit during their Britpop heyday, especially &#8220;Nice Guy Eddie&#8221; and &#8220;Statuesque,&#8221; and included the lead single from this album on my January playlist, but missed their comeback album <em>The Modern Age<\/em>, their first in 22 years. This track and that prior single both sound shockingly like their old stuff &#8211; amazing after a hiatus of that length.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Bat for Lashes &#8211; Jasmine<\/strong>. The always-compelling Natasha Khan releases her new album <em>Lost Girls<\/em> on September 6th.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Chelsea Wolfe &#8211; Be All Things<\/strong>. Wolfe&#8217;s weird blend of folk and metal caught my attention a few years ago with <em>Hiss Spun<\/em>, but the two lead singles ahead of <em>Birth of Violence<\/em>, due out September 13th, have eschewed the extreme metal aspects in favor of highly atmospheric vocals and slow-picked guitars.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Here Lies Man &#8211; Long Legs (Look Away)<\/strong>. I generally like HLM&#8217;s style of blues-rock anyway, but this is very funky to the point that it feels like a dance track.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Sacred Reich &#8211; Salvation<\/strong>. Sacred Reich were always in the second tier of American thrash acts, never breaking through even to the extent of a Testament or Vio-lence. They reunited a few years ago, but their just-released <em>Awakening<\/em> is their first new album in 23 years, and first since the death of founding guitarist Jeff Martinek. It also won&#8217;t include their other founding guitarist Jason Rainey, who stepped down due to health reasons in February.<\/p>\n<p><strong>King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard &#8211; Mars for the Rich<\/strong>. King Gizzard just released their second album of the year, this one full of old-school metal tracks ranging from bluesy, tracks like this to some outright thrash paeans.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Alcest &#8211; Protection<\/strong>. Alcest&#8217;s <em>Kodama<\/em> was my top metal album of 2016 for its blend of death metal and shoegaze; this first track from the French duo&#8217;s upcoming LP seems to drift further back into the metal direction after they veered harder into shoegaze with their previous two releases.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Insomnium &#8211; Valediction<\/strong>. The Finnish melodic death metallers return with a track that is highly melodic, almost catchy, while also bringing their trademark melancholic lyrics and strong guitar work.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Some of it might be the presence of five Fridays in the month, but August was exceptionally strong for new music &#8211; I had over 30 tracks on the first draft of this list and ended up with 25 songs on a playlist that runs over 90 minutes. As always, if you can&#8217;t see the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[1085,979,757,852,261,919],"class_list":["post-7869","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-2019-in-music","tag-melodic-death-metal","tag-metal","tag-music","tag-rap","tag-shoegaze","entry"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7869","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7869"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7869\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7873,"href":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7869\/revisions\/7873"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7869"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7869"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7869"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}