In No Particular Order: 4 Of the Week’s Best LPs (May 7, 2021)
Happy #NewMusicFriday AND Bandcamp Friday.
I hope you were able to find a way to support your favourite artists on this monthly holiday. It’s not too late to discover a few more new albums for your collection courtesy of the latest edition of In No Particular Order. Four stand-out albums that made their way onto my radar and hopefully onto yours!
Just like From The Inbox, I’ve created a In No Particular Order Spotify playlist to match my weekly album picks! Featuring the three ‘notable tracks’ from each release, check by every Friday to find something new in your music library.
As always, you can find Dusty Organ on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Spotify to stay up to date on new releases. Also, you can find tracks from these albums and more on our Monthly Spotify playlist.
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Sophia Kennedy – Monsters
City Slang
Alternative
Baltimore-born, Hamburg-based artist Sophia Kennedy continues to push boundaries with her dynamic sound on her sophomore release Monsters. Her quilted cultural influences mesh together on her sound, after being heavily involved in the Hamburg underground electronic scene for a number of years. Comfortably sitting outside of the box, Kennedy is at her best when flexing her eccentric multi-dimensional songwriting on the new release. Alternating between a dark, haunting stance to a light, airiness, Monsters is introspective about the “monsters” that lie within artists and creative types, waiting to be released.
While it’s not directly tied into the world of electronic music, her beginnings still shine through in hypnotic loops and layers, and unsuspecting bass lines, synthesizers, and droning effects. The unpredictability of the record gives it an appealing feature, keeping things interesting and flowing in multiple directions. Equal parts unsettling and captivating, Monsters lead by an alternating parade of melody and experimentation.
Notable tracks: “Orange Tic Toc” // “Seventeen” // “Cat On My Tongue”
Squid – Bright Green Field
Warp Records
Post-punk/Experimental Rock
40 something years later and UK post-punk continues to dominate over any other demographic. As a new generation takes over the revivalist scene, leading the pack are British millennial bands coming from the suburban upbringing. Being caught in between the exponentially changing world of the past and the future has lead to a healthy amount of jaded cynicism, carried forward from the ’70s tradition. On their debut full-length, UK five-piece Squid have settled into their sound as they rip into right-wing propaganda, 24-hour news watch, government corruption, and capitalism (just to name a few).
And more impressively so, the group have strayed away from indie pop rock tendencies and instead opted for a more sophisticated and cerebral musicality, bringing in touches of jazz, avant-garde, experimental rock, and post-hardcore to create the sensation of delusion and chaos. The majority of the track list clocks in at at least five minutes, as they stretch out their tracks with grandiose guitar and bass solo and arrangements, meshed in with hypnotic percussion, Splint-era effects for 50 something minutes, and Viagra Boys micro-aggressions in the vocals. Which is a slight show of distancing from their debut singles, considering none of which made the final track list, as if to push forward into a more mature display of musicianship.
Bright Green Field is one of the most exciting debut releases of the year.
Notable tracks: “Narrator” // “2010” // “Pamphlets”
McKinley Dixon – For My Mama And Anyone Who Look Like Her
Spacebomb Records
Hip-hop
Onto his third and final instalment of his trilogy: Spanning the course of five years, McKinley Dixon’s introductory albums tie in his experiences as a Black man in the United States. Building off his 2018 releases Who Taught You To Hate Yourself? and The Importance of Self-Belief, For My Mama And Anyone Who Look Like Her connects Dixon to his community through his poetic lyrics and articulate instrumentation, with a seemingly unbroken flow of rap and spoken word verses. Blending together powerful gospel, jazz-infused arrangements, his relentless flow and the occasional collaborative feature, Dixon channels the likes of Kendrick Lamar and The Roots for a beast of a record. Topics such as grief, community, mortality, and the healing powers of time scatter across the track list, as the Richmond, Virginia native demands your attention track after track.
He escapes coming off as preachy, instead roping in listeners into a personal space that can perhaps be applied to a wider mass. The stories the shares is directly tied to his life, talking about people within his immediate circle – strengthening the intensity rather than diluting it with a mass appeal.
Notable tracks: “Chain Sooo Heavy” // “make a poet Black” // “Swangin'”
Sam Tudor – Two Half Words
Independent
Singer-songwriter/Indie art-pop
Vancouver-based songwriter Sam Tudor and his backing band have a knack for creating music that resembles the old military tactic of moving single file to seem like a smaller army on the battle field. Tudor’s melancholic and whispered vocals seem timid and light, but they are really the gateway to robust and detailed musicality, courtesy of jazz-tinged instrumentation and mix-matching sonic textures. On his latest effort Two Half Words, Tudor explores concepts of trust, communication, and most notably growth, as the 30 minute album spans a period of three years in the making. His tame and brooding vocals occupy the forefront of the record, allowing his poetic lyrics to float across effortlessly, ready for interpretation. Sitting amongst other Canadian singer-songwriters, such as Andy Shauf, and Jordan Klassen, best known for their swelling and moving style, the second half of Two Half Words especially carries a similar weight and uniquely Canadiana-spirit.
