{"id":8637,"date":"2020-09-02T08:00:00","date_gmt":"2020-09-02T12:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/?p=8637"},"modified":"2020-09-01T22:23:26","modified_gmt":"2020-09-02T02:23:26","slug":"music-update-august-2020","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/2020\/09\/02\/music-update-august-2020\/","title":{"rendered":"Music update, August 2020."},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>August rallied late to produce enough good new tracks that I ended up cutting a few from the final playlist. There were also some fairly high-profile and\/or well-reviewed albums, including the Killers&#8217; <em>Imploding the Mirage<\/em>, Samia&#8217;s <em>The Baby<\/em>, Bully&#8217;s <em>SUGAREGG<\/em>, Young Jesus&#8217; experimental jazz\/rock <em>Welcome to Conceptual Beach<\/em>, Angel Olsen&#8217;s <em>Whole New Mess<\/em>, Bright Eyes&#8217; <em>oh I don&#8217;t care what it&#8217;s called<\/em>. I liked the Killers album, and sort of like the Young Jesus album even if I don&#8217;t fully appreciate what they&#8217;re doing, and could do without the others. Anyway, here&#8217;s my playlist for August; you <a href=\"https:\/\/open.spotify.com\/playlist\/7yIGZRnad8d5EYPKmIggee?si=wEmLi1aUQWWhWC43kwGASQ\">can access it here<\/a> if you can&#8217;t see the Spotify widget below.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed-spotify wp-block-embed is-type-rich is-provider-spotify wp-embed-aspect-9-16 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<iframe title=\"Spotify Embed: Klaw&amp;apos;s August 2020 new music update\" style=\"border-radius: 12px\" width=\"100%\" height=\"352\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen allow=\"autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; fullscreen; picture-in-picture\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/open.spotify.com\/embed\/playlist\/7yIGZRnad8d5EYPKmIggee?si=7_c0FQ1lSIu5jbbAGBlcBA&#038;utm_source=oembed\"><\/iframe>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Anderson .Paak \u2013 Lockdown. <\/strong>Therehave beenway too many songs about the lockdown, and most of them suck. This one doesn\u2019t.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>clipping. \u2013 Say the Name. <\/strong>That&#8217;s Daveed Diggs of <em>Hamilton<\/em> and <em>Blindspotting<\/em>, along with a pair of producers, and I&#8217;m a bit ashamed to admit that I didn&#8217;t know of this trio&#8217;s existence until a few months ago. Diggs is a clever wordsmith whose laconic style calls back to Guru and Kool G Rap. clipping.&#8217;s fourth full-length album, <em>Visions of Bodies Being Burned<\/em>, which takes its title from the sample that opens this song, is due out on October 23<sup>rd<\/sup>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Lupin \u2013 May.<\/strong> Lupin is Jake Luppen of the inoffensive alternative band Hippo Campus, but apparently he&#8217;s been hiding his inner Neon Indian, at least based on this single from his forthcoming debut solo album, which has an incredibly funky drum machine loop and a bass line to match. No word on whether he&#8217;ll hold any concerts during a full moon.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>The Naked &amp; Famous \u2013 Monument. <\/strong>TNAF&#8217;s new album <em>Recover<\/em> dropped on August 8<sup>th<\/sup> and it&#8217;s their best and most complete LP yet, with several standout tracks including this one (which showcases Alisa Xayalith&#8217;s vocals particularly well), &#8220;Death,&#8221; &#8220;Recover,&#8221; &#8220;Easy,&#8221; and &#8220;Sunseeker.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Space Above featuring Alisa Xayalith \u2013 Stolen Days<\/strong>. Xayalith also lends her vocals to her former bandmate Aaron Short, who records as Space Above and just put out a new 7-song EP <em>Glow<\/em> the same day TNAF released their own record. Maddie North, who records as So Below and has recorded with Space Above, even put out a new single, &#8220;Fear,&#8221; that same week.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Arlo Parks \u2013 Hurt.<\/strong> Parks just turned 20 last month but she&#8217;s the most interesting, dynamic new voice I&#8217;ve heard all year. This new single combines distinct soul and funk elements with her hypnotic vocals, the gentle nature of which belies the depth of emotion beneath them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Killers \u2013 Dying Breed. <\/strong>Brandon Flowers and company returned with <em>Imploding the Mirage<\/em>, which took me by surprise as someone who was never a huge fan of their work. The record doesn&#8217;t take any huge risks, but also has quite a few strong pop melodies and immaculate production, led by this, the fourth single off the record, as well as &#8220;Caution&#8221; (with a guitar solo from Lindsey Buckingham!) and &#8220;Blowback.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Doves \u2013 Cathedrals of the Mind.<\/strong> A new Doves song is pretty much an automatic inclusion on my playlists, but this isn&#8217;t quite what I was hoping to hear from the trio for a single from their comeback album <em>The Universal Want<\/em>, due out on September 20<sup>th<\/sup>, lacking the immediacy or the strong melodies that marked their peak output.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>London Grammar \u2013 Baby It&#8217;s You.<\/strong> I was reasonably sure I&#8217;d listed another London Grammar song on a past playlist, but I seem to have made that up. They&#8217;re quite popular in the UK, with a #1 album in 2017&#8217;s <em>Truth is a Beautiful Thing<\/em>; I&#8217;m surprised how often commercial or critical success in other Anglophone countries can fail to translate into any notice here in the U.S. We can be xenophobic in music, too.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Lucius \u2013 Man in My Radio. <\/strong>This Brooklyn indie quartet can be strange, and pretentious, but Lucius seems good for one absolute banger a year, and this one-off single definitely qualifies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>BLOXX \u2013 Coming Up Short.<\/strong> This Uxbridge quartet have toured with the Wombats and just released their debut album <em>Lie Out Loud<\/em>, featuring this very hooky indie-pop track.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Yard Act \u2013 Fixer Upper.<\/strong> These guys are post-punk in the Gang of Four\/Wire sense, and take it a step further with spoken-word lyrics about suburban real estate. I swear it&#8217;s not deliberate that this month&#8217;s playlist skews so heavily towards the UK.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Fontaines D.C. \u2013 I Was Not Born. <\/strong>These heralded Irish punks made my top 100 of last year with &#8220;Too Real,&#8221; but their singles prior to this one had missed that song&#8217;s hook, lacking something to counter the abrasiveness of their music. They&#8217;ve found the balance again here with a more melodic guitar line without sacrificing any of their signature sneering.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Ihsahn &amp; Einar Solberg \u2013 Manhattan Skyline.<\/strong> So, this is the lead singer\/guitarist of the infamous black metal band Emperor, perhaps better known for their support of arsons of old churches in Norway in the 1990s and their drummer&#8217;s conviction for murdering a gay man who he thought made a pass at him than for their actual music; and the lead singer and keyboardist for Norwegian prog metal band Leprous. And they&#8217;re covering a minor single from a-ha&#8217;s second album.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Gojira \u2013 Another World. <\/strong>This French heavy metal outfit&#8217;s 2016 release <em>Magma <\/em>was named the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.metalsucks.net\/2019\/10\/14\/the-25-best-metal-albums-of-2010-2019-1-gojira-magma\/\">best metal album of the decade<\/a> in a poll of musicians by MetalSucks.net and even earned two Grammy nominations. They&#8217;re often called &#8220;death metal&#8221; but they don&#8217;t have that genre&#8217;s blast beats, and the vocals here are more shouted than growled or screamed, although if you think this is a distinction without a difference I won&#8217;t press the point. Anyway, the guitar riff here is outstanding, rivaling the riff that opens &#8220;Stranded&#8221; from <em>Magma<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Carcass \u2013 The Living Dead at the Manchester Morgue. <\/strong>The greatest death-metal band in history will release an EP of new material, <em>Despicable<\/em>, on October 30<sup>th<\/sup>, featuring this brutal six-minute track that goes through what feels like a half-dozen different movements, some of which I could do without but others feature some of the incredible guitar work that has made me a fan of theirs since <em>Heartwork<\/em>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>August rallied late to produce enough good new tracks that I ended up cutting a few from the final playlist. There were also some fairly high-profile and\/or well-reviewed albums, including the Killers&#8217; Imploding the Mirage, Samia&#8217;s The Baby, Bully&#8217;s SUGAREGG, Young Jesus&#8217; experimental jazz\/rock Welcome to Conceptual Beach, Angel Olsen&#8217;s Whole New Mess, Bright Eyes&#8217; [&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":[1177,359,1191,167,979,757,852,261],"class_list":["post-8637","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-1177","tag-alternative","tag-hip-hop-2","tag-indie","tag-melodic-death-metal","tag-metal","tag-music","tag-rap","entry"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8637","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=8637"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8637\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8638,"href":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8637\/revisions\/8638"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8637"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8637"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8637"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}