Notable Releases of the Week (2/7)

Last weekend was the Grammys, and this weekend is the Super Bowl, which will also be another major televised moment for Kendrick Lamar and SZA, who are playing the Halftime Show together after Kendrick’s Drake diss track “Not Like Us” took home all five Grammys it was nominated for and SZA took home Best R&B Song for “Saturn.” Probably goes without saying, but I think it’s safe to assume that this year’s halftime show will be one that’s very worth watching. This week also had another livestreamed LA wildfires benefit concert, G*VE A F*CK LA, which had a surprise mini Rilo Kiley reunion (with help from Hayley Williams and MUNA’s Katie Gavin) ahead of the band’s proper reunion tour, which was also announced this week.

On top of all that, it’s another great week for new albums. I highlight seven below, and Bill tackles more in Indie Basement, including Drop Nineteens, Guided by Voices, Heartworms, Horsebath, FACS, Adwaith, and The Moles. In addition to those, this week’s honorable mentions include Oklou, Caroline Rose, Matt Pond PA, Open Kasket, Phrenelith, Traxman, Skeleten, ameokama, The Rumjacks, Michigander, Biig Piig, Krept & Konan, Lina Tullgren, Wafia, Dream Theater, Obscura, Jinjer, Inhaler, The Vices, Joe Ely, The Bird Calls, Rats On Rafts, Krept & Konan, Johnnyswim, Bjarki, Sleeper’s Bell, Olly Alexander, Sam Moss, Sarah Klang, Kiran Kai, New Orthodox, Majestica, Marko Hietala, Morast, Unreqvited, Fabiano Do Nascimento, Low Roar, Sean Thompson’s Weird Ears, the Ben Seretan drone album, the Final Resting Place EP, the Celebrity (Militarie Gun, Lurk, etc) EP, the Terra Twin EP, the Captive EP, the star-studded Good Music To Lift Los Angeles benefit comp, the Pains of Being Pure at Heart comp, the 20th anniversary edition of Vashti Bunyan’s Lookaftering, and the 20th anniversary edition of Wilco’s A Ghost Is Born.

Read on for my picks. What’s your favorite release of the week?

Sharon Van Etten & The Attachment Theory – Sharon Van Etten & The Attachment Theory (Jagjaguwar)
After forming a fully collaborative band, Sharon Van Etten goes down the post-punk rabbithole on her loudest, hardest album to date

Over 15 years and six albums into her career, Sharon Van Etten has started a band. The seeds for The Attachment Theory were planted within the synth-fueled songs of Sharon’s 2019 album Remind Me Tomorrow, and the band’s rhythm section (drummer Jorge Balbi and bassist Devra Hoff) entered her musical orbit when she was putting a backing band together for the year-long tour behind that album. Then came COVID, Sharon’s darker 2022 album We’ve Been Going About This All Wrong, and a new touring member–Teeny Lieberson of Here We Go Magic, TEEN, and Lou Tides–and when the band finished rehearsing for their 2022 tour, Sharon did something she’d never done before: she asked the band to jam. There was no intention behind it at the time, but after they quickly ended up writing two songs together, Sharon started to see her next musical chapter unfolding before her eyes.

Those songs, “I Can’t Imagine (Why You Feel This Way)” and “Southern Life (What It Must Be Like),” are now two of the 10 songs on The Attachment Theory’s self-titled debut album. And “Sharon Van Etten & The Attachment Theory” isn’t just a campy name; it’s a truly collaborative album, recorded live by four people with a ton of chemistry who all brought their unique voices to the table. Even the production process was collaborative, with producer Marta Salogni (Björk, Depeche Mode, FKA twigs, etc) setting up in the room with the band and co-producing it with all four members. Coming off the written-in-isolation We’ve Been Going About This All Wrong, the difference is immediately clear. Sharon Van Etten & The Attachment Theory reflects the release of all the pent-up, post-lockdown energy, the anger directed at a world that’s still full of apocalyptic doom, and just a glimmer of hope. It goes further down the synth-fueled rabbithole, and the songs are powered by a propulsive post-punk backdrop that moves from the Cure-ish layers of “Idiot Box” to the proto-shoegaze of “Indio” to the hard-edged funk-punk of “I Can’t Imagine (Why You Feel This Way),” all delivered with a kind of telepathic momentum that only comes from a group of people feeding off of each other. (As with so many great post-punk bands, the secret weapon is Devra Hoff and her gut-punching basslines.) It’s the loudest, hardest Sharon Van Etten album yet, and her trademark singing and songwriting never gets lost in all the noise. If anything, the power of the band only elevates Sharon’s songs even more.

Sharon Van Etten & The Attachment Theory by Sharon Van Etten

James Brandon Lewis Trio – Apple Cores (ANTI-)
Fresh off an album with Fugazi’s rhythm section, the jazz saxophonist’s own new LP provides more of those expressive melodies and hard grooves

I don’t know how much of a household name the prolific jazz saxophonist James Brandon Lewis was in the alternative rock world at the beginning of 2024, but he was definitely more of one by the end of the year, after releasing a highly-acclaimed collaborative album with The Messthetics, the instrumental trio featuring Fugazi’s rhythm section. It’s one of the most interesting punk/jazz fusions in recent memory, and even if you mostly came into it because of the Fugazi connection, you probably came out of it a James Brandon Lewis fan. His sax playing is a commanding force throughout all of that album, and he brings a lot of that same flavor to his new solo album Apple Cores, his sixteenth album and second for ANTI-. His playing style is distinct and expressive, the kind of thing that after you’ve heard it once you keep craving more of it. And Apple Cores scratches the itch. He made this one with longtime collaborators Chad Taylor (drums, mbira) and Josh Werner (bass, guitar), and like the album with The Messthetics, Apple Cores finds Lewis backed by hard, locked-in grooves that blur the lines between rock, funk, bebop, and hip hop. The album’s 10 original compositions are accompanied by a rendition of legendary saxophonist and free jazz pioneer Ornette Coleman’s “Broken Shadows,” and James says the album as a whole is a nod to trumpeter Don Cherry, who accompanied Coleman on several of his most classic records before becoming a pioneering bandleader in his own right amid the spiritual jazz movement of the late 1960s and ’70s. (“It’s not a tribute in the sense that we’re playing Don Cherry compositions, but that the music is commenting on his musical curiosity,” he says.) The exploratory work of both Cherry and Coleman live on through James Brandon Lewis’ sax-fueled excursions, and to go back to the alternative rock thing, if you notice some similarities between “D.C. Got Pocket” and Vampire Weekend and Steve Lacy’s “Sunflower,” you’re not alone. Intentional or not, it’s a fine example of how Lewis speaks a musical language that defies musical barriers, and keeps the crowd moving in the process.

Apple Cores by James Brandon Lewis

Zelooperz & Real Bad Man – Dear Psilocybin (Real Bad Man)
Detroit rap eccentric Zelooperz and LA boom bap producer Real Bad Man are a delightfully odd couple on this ode to mushrooms

Detroit rapper Zelooperz is probably best known as a member of Danny Brown’s Bruiser Brigade crew with an erratic flow that has some undeniable similarities to Danny’s own approach to rapping, while Real Bad Man is an LA producer (and visual artist/designer) who has collaborative albums with Boldy James, Smoke DZA, Blu, Kool Keith, Pink Siifu, and others and tends to favor a hazy boom bap production style. It’s not the kind of thing that Zelooperz usually raps over, but Dear Psilocybin proves that he’s an absolute chameleon. The crazed, freaky delivery that he’s usually known for is hardly present on this album at all; instead, he’s calm, cool, and collected, and he still sounds one of one. As you’d probably hope from an album called Dear Psilocybin, the production is psychedelic throughout, and Zelooperz’s lyrical workouts are fittingly trippy. On top of their own synergy, they get the dream blunt rotation of MAVI on the funk-infused “Past Life,” Boldy James on the sinister “Hansel And Gretel,” and a tough verse from The Alchemist to ground things on “In The Wind.”

Larry June, 2 Chainz & The Alchemist – Life Is Beautiful (Freeminded/2 Chainz/ALC/EMPIRE)
Two years after their last collaborative album, Larry June and The Alchemist welcome 2 Chainz’s Georgia drawl into their smoky, laid-back universe

Not to get all “when 2 Chainz gets into his introspective bag, turns to jazz and makes a collab album with The Alchemist,” but if you still don’t think he could or would do that, then you probably haven’t heard Rap or Go to the League. The signs were already there, and now, he has literally made a collab album with The Alchemist. It’s also a collab album with Larry June, the West Coast ’90s-style devotee who already has a collab album with The Alchemist, and it’s a treat to hear these three together. If you’ve heard the singles or any of the other zillion albums The Alchemist has produced in the past five years, you can probably picture the smoky, jazzy, laid-back production of this album before you even click play. That doesn’t make the album any less gripping, nor does it fully prepare you for the unique combination of hearing 2 Chainz’s Georgia drawl, Larry’s husky voice, and Alc’s hypnotic soundscapes all at once. For trio that some might call “unpredictable,” it’s pretty amazing how effortlessly natural it all sounds.

Squid – Cowards (Warp)
The UK art rock band get just a little more accessible (and embrace harpsichords) on their immersive third album

Squid hail from a London scene that tends to pride itself on musical complexity, but for their third album Cowards, guitarist Louis Borlase says “we were thinking of an album of great songwriting. Simple ideas that resonate in a very different way to O Monolith, which was dense and complex.” Right from the kaleidoscopic harpsichords that open the album, you can hear the difference. In trademark Squid fashion, Cowards still often sounds like a jam session between the Talking Heads, Slint, and King Crimson, but with a sweeter, lusher baroque pop side that suggests maybe some Zombies records were on their mood board this time too. It’s more accessible but still a twisty-turny journey, and it’s best moment is its eight-minute closing track, which builds and builds to the album’s most towering climax and then fades away.

Cowards by Squid

Nadia Reid – Enter Now Brightness (Chrysalis)
The singer/songwriter’s first album in five years comes after some drastic life changes, including the birth of her first two children, and it sounds like a new beginning

Nadia Reid released her last album, Out of My Province, less than two weeks before COVID lockdown started, and that wasn’t the only reason that her life and career were altered. In the time since then, she gave birth to her first two children, Elliotte and Goldie, and moved from New Zealand to the UK. She was pregnant and suffering from morning sickness during the making of Enter Now Brightness, but she says motherhood only pushed her harder as an artist. “The stakes feel really high right now,” she said in press materials for the new album, “because someone else matters.” Nadia also decided she was tired of being pigeonholed as a “folk singer,” and Enter Now Brightness sees her breaking past the confines of singer/songwriter guitar music without abandoning it completely. There are loud rock songs, piano ballads, Bon Iver/Sufjan-style orchestral arrangements, and still moments that remind you how great Nadia sounds with just an acoustic guitar. Regardless of how maximal or minimal the musical backing in, Nadia’s voice sounds as strong and soaring as ever. And given the circumstances that surrounded the album’s creation–motherhood, drastic change, new beginnings–it comes as no surprise that Enter Now Brightness finds Nadia with so much to say.

Enter Now Brightness by Nadia Reid

-(16)- – Guides For The Misguided (Relapse)
The San Diego sludge metal veterans do it again

-(16)- have been making top-notch sludge metal for over 30 years, and Guides For The Misguided is no exception. “There’s no grander meaning behind it than simply following that primal urge to create,” singer/guitarist Bobby Ferry says, “put your head down and just make something.” He adds that the band is “not afraid to lean into the stuff we love: noise, classic rock, hardcore, doom metal, and thrash. We are well aware we are not reinventing the wheel but lovingly fashioning something from us and basically for us, first and foremost.” That’s exactly what they did on this LP, and they came out with a ton of kickass riffs in the process (and Bad Brains and Superchunk covers). What more do you need?

Guides For The Misguided by 16

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Read Indie Basement for more new album reviews, including Drop Nineteens, Guided by Voices, Heartworms, Horsebath, FACS, Adwaith, and The Moles.

Looking for more recent releases? Browse the Notable Releases archive.

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