Dirty Projectors - “Swing Lo Magellan”: As ever, frontman David Longstreth follows his own muse on Dirty Projectors’ latest, “Swing Lo Magellan.” But what you might not expect is that Longstreth does so by reining in and harnessing his restless talent this time around, channeling it into well-proportioned avant-rock chestnuts. On “Magellan,” it’s as if Longstreth has outgrown that stage where he could get by on the sheer novelty and inspiration of his brainstorms, finally learning how to self-edit and add focus to his vision. Even though “Magellan” may not have the transcendent peaks of “Bitte Orca,” the new album, on the whole, is a more consistent and coherent effort. - Arnold Pan
The English Beat - “The Complete Beat”: In America they were known as the English Beat from the start. Though they released only one single on the 2 Tone label, the band belonged to the same British ska revival that gave us the Specials, Madness, black and white checkerboard patterns, and that little “Rude Boy” button Prince wore on the cover of “Controversy.” The English Beat stood apart, though, thanks mostly to Dave Wakeling’s first-rate songwriting. He was a sharp observer and turner of phrases in the Elvis Costello mold, and he wrote to his band’s particular strengths as precisely as Pete Townshend did for the Who. Two new compilations, the five-disc box set “The Complete Beat” and the 16-track “Keep the Beat: The Very Best of the English Beat,” document the Beat’s career transformation. They started off a ska band with pop instincts, and ended up a pop band with reggae cred. - Josh Langhoff
Twin Shadow - “Confess”: George Lewis Jr. is an honest man. He’s been refreshingly upfront about his adoration for his much-maligned home state of Florida, the superiority of Puerto Rican hairdressers, and his voracious appetite for drugs and women while on tour. His 2010 debut as Twin Shadow, “Forget,” followed a very real breakup with a breakup record, and was as personal as it was polished. His much-anticipated follow-up, “Confess,” pushes his candor further. Like “Forget,” it forges an amicable compromise between INXS, Don Henley, and the Cure, but Lewis has foregone that album’s collaborations and extensive revision this time around in the interest of expressing himself exactly how he wants. The outcome is looser, flakier, and more grandiose; Lewis sings every anthemic chorus to the cheap seats with aching abandon. Maybe it’s inevitable that “Confess” wants for the discipline of its predecessor, and yet Lewis’s ultra-confident, high-gloss sincerity is pretty hard to resist, anyway. - Benjamin Aspray
Woody Guthrie - “Woody at 100: Woody Guthrie Centennial Collection”: July 14, 2012 marks the hundredth anniversary of Woody Guthrie’s birth - a date that seems remarkable not because it’s so distant, but because it’s so recent. Listening to “Woody at 100: The Woody Guthrie Centennial Collection,” the new box set from Smithsonian Folkways, you can hear the distance between Guthrie’s time and ours in the sound of the needle moving through the grooves of the records that serve as its source material. But beneath the pops and crackles you can also hear words and music that might have been written this morning. Amazingly, given how many Guthrie sets there have been to date, the folks at Smithsonian Folkways have found some new songs that make their first appearance here. - Jeff Schwager
Other notable releases this week:
- Aesop Rock - “Skelethon”
- Beak - “Beak II”
- Zac Brown Band - “Uncaged”
- Duran Duran - “A Diamond in the Mind: Live 2011”
- Jimi Hendrix - “Jimi Hendrix Experience Live at Berkeley”
- Husky - “Forever So”
- Eleni Mandell - “I Can See the Future”
- Marina and the Diamonds - “Electra Heart”
- Mission of Burma - “Unsound”
- P.O.D. - “Murdered Love”
- Serj Tankian - “Harakiri”
- Rhonda Vincent - “Sunday Mornin Singin”
- Hank Williams Jr. - “Old School New Rules”
NOW HEAR THIS
Blur is back with two new tunes ...
This past week, Blur premiered two new songs, “Under the Westway” and “The Puritan,” via a London rooftop performance. You can catch both over at the band’s website (www.blur.co.uk). They will be officially released as digital singles Aug. 6, but you can watch the live performances all you want until then. Blur has also just released a new video of a live studio performance of “Under the Westway.” - Sarah Zupko
EAGERLY AWAITING
Green Day tease their forthcoming trilogy of albums
Green Day just released the last trailer for their ambitious triple album project. Three new albums from the band will be coming out this year. “!Uno!” is expected to be out Sept. 25 with first single “Oh Love” available July 16. Meanwhile, “!Dos!” will be released on Nov. 13 and “!Tre!” will arrive early next year, on Jan. 15. Rolling Stone magazine recently spoke with Green Day frontman Billie Joe Armstrong to discuss working with producer Rob Cavallo and the sound of the album trilogy. “The first one is power pop. The second is more garage-y, Nuggets-type rock. And the third is supposed to be epic. In the first album, you’re getting in the mood to party. On !Dos!, you’re at the party, and on the third album, you’re cleaning up the mess.” - Sachyn Mital
Bloc Party to release new album “Four” late this summer
Britain’s Bloc Party will release their new album this August in the midst of a U.S. tour that includes three sold-out dates at NYC’s Terminal 5. It’s been a long time gone, as the Darrell Scott song says, for the band with their last full-length being 2008’s “Intimacy.” - Sarah Zupko
ON SCREEN
Jazzanova - “Let It Go” / “I Human” (Funkhaus Sessions) (videos)
Germany’s Jazzanova bring the funk and soul on their latest album “Funkhaus Studio Sessions” out now on Sonar Kollektiv. The Jazzanova producers, Stefan Leisering & Axel Reinemer, took their seven-piece band into the studio and asked Paul Randolph to provide the vocals. The result is an album full of deep grooves. - Sarah Zupko
L.A. buzz band Raw Geronimo emerges with new video
Raw Geronimo is a young band out of Los Angeles known for their mesmerizing live shows in southern California. Their sound is an interesting mix of ’50s and ’60s surf, ’60s girl groups, ’70s glam, with a dash of post-punk. LA Weekly said of the group, “If you remember the B-sides of ’80s punk comps, where “art” bands like the Nuns, Los Microwaves and Suburban Lawns matched playful technique with a sense of humor and the sheer force of personality, then you’ll recognize Raw Geronimo instantly: new wave in the best and weirdest way.” Raw Geronimo have released a couple of 7-inch singles so far via Neurotic Yell Records with the recent “Roll Play” (below the fold) being the latest. Today we bring you the premiere of a new song “Shot on the Spot” by way of this brand new video directed by Aliethea D’Angelo. - Sarah Zupko
DOWNLOAD
Cosmo Jarvis - “Love This” (Acoustic) MP3
Cosmo Jarvis is still quite young at 22, but he’s already made a substantive impact in the pop world with his story-filled songs that take unexpected twists. He’s made a fan out of Stephen Fry and I can barely think of a better endorsement that being beloved by the Noel Coward of our age. It was that “Gay Pirates” tune that broke things wide open for Jarvis and resulted in heaps of praise from leading lights in the UK press such as “The Guardian” and “Mojo.” Now Jarvis is back with his third album, “Think Bigger,” releasing 17 July via 25th Frame/The End. Today we bring you Jarvis’ acoustic take on his new single, “Love This.” - Sarah Zupko
Man Without Country - “Closet Addicts Anonymous” (Van Rivers Remix) MP3
There was already something darkly foreboding and mysterious about Man Without Country’s recent excellent single, “Closet Addicts Anonymous,” but Van Rivers focuses more on the latter than the former of those two by stripping it down to a Gorillaz-esque pop dirge that manages to have bounce to spare. It’s a strange angle yet it works wonderfully with the context of the song itself, accentuating the light/dark dichotomy that the original only hinted at, choosing to emphasize the dark and bury the light.
In “Closet Addicts Anonymous” there’s an odd sort of resigned acceptance that things aren’t that great but the track manages to stay away from being completely defeatist. This is what the remix expertly hones in on and exploits. It’s a thrilling transition from an intensely aggressive piece to something that barely resembles its former self yet retains part of what made the song so great to begin with, which is exactly what a great remix should do. - Steven Spoerl
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