Here are the Top 5 Albums added to the new music rack at 89.1 FM KHOL for the week of August 12th,
2014. Tune into 89.1FM KHOL to hear tracks from these artists and dozens of other albums added to our new music rack every week.
Cory Branan
The No-Hit Wonder
Listen if you like: John Prone, Ryan Adams, Rocky Votolato, Lucero
Throughout his decade-and-a-half-long career, Cory Branan has been too punk for country, too country for punk, too Memphis for Nashville, and probably a little too Cory Branan for anyone’s damn good. He has proven himself as a top-notch songwriter (Chuck Ragan recently called him “the greatest songwriter of our generation”), fierce lyricist (in Lucero’s “Tears Don’t Matter Much” they sing that Cory has, “a way with words that’ll bring you to your knees”), and a hyperdynamic performer with the ability to fingerpick finer than ‘60s Greenwich Village folkies and brutally strum like a proto punk shredder. Across three albums, he’s made collective struggles poetic and breakthroughs into sympathetic acts of populist heroism. A praise-filled pitch is nearly irrelevant, though, because the songs do all the convincing on his new album The No-Hit Wonder. There’s a timeless craftsmanship in these deceptively simple songs about love and home, losses and dreams. – Blood Shot
David Kilgour & The Heavy Eights
End Times Undone
Listen if you like: The Clean, Yo La Tengo, Guided By Voices, The Chills, The Bats, Say Hi
Over just ten songs, End Times Undone offers a robust sampling of all the various styles Kilgour has mastered over the last three decades. For an album that comes so late in one’s career, it’s a surprisingly convenient entry point into Kilgour’s body of work. After a psychedelic intro, opener “Like Rain” immediately identifies itself as vintage Kilgour, with shimmering guitars that gracefully swell and secede. “Lose Myself in Sound” will appeal to fans of The Clean who favor songs where the band chugs along on a blissful straight-line path. While the album has its share of abstract lyrics, this title is one to take seriously. And like many songs here, it draws to a close with an extended instrumental passage, the sound of four people finding their own rhythm together. – Merge Records
FKA Twigs
LP1
Listen if you like: Massive Attack, Grimes, SZA, The XX, James Blake
This British artist’s debut full-length is a knockout set of futuristic R&B with a spacious, slow-burning sound combing glitchy electronic textures and eerie narcotic beats with her breathy vocals and intimate lyrics of longing and vulnerability. – Don Yates, KEXP
Rubblebucket
Survival Sounds
Listen if you like: Superhumanoids, Tennis, Thumpers, CSS & San Fermin
Rubblebucket could have remained trapped among the morass of Brooklyn dance-rock acts, but the five-piece has won notoriety by coalescing bright hooks with a complete disregard for genre convention. The band seamlessly incorporates funky horns, catchy synth loops, and tUnE-yArDs-esque percussion to craft their own brand of forward-thinking pop. Rubblebucket have added a third full-length to their catalog: Survival Sounds, the group’s first LP for Communion Records, the label founded in part by Mumford & Sons’ Ben Lovett. Produced and mixed by John Congleton (St. Vincent, Angel Olsen, Cloud Nothings)
Various Artists
Hyperdub 10.2
Listen if you like: Burial, DJ Rashad, DVA
Hyperdub 10.2 is the second of four compilation albums to be released celebrating Hyperdub’s 10th anniversary. Following 10.1’s showcase of energetic club music, Hyperdub 10.2 is a compilation of electronic R&B-tinged tracks offering medium tempo jams with spacious production and sultry smooth vocals. 10.2 features new offerings from Morgan Zarat, DVA, and Jessy Lanza, alongside previously released tracks from beloved Hyperdub producers Burial and DJ Rashad. The compilation is bound by an overarching focus on female vocals, mixed with the brooding production for which Hyperdub known. 10.2 is a testament to the diversity and quality of the label’s offerings throughout its first 10 years. – Terrorbird
