While many people are compiling their year-end lists and shopping for gift-worthy deluxe reissues for the upcoming holidays, some bands are still releasing excellent new albums that you'll want to hear before you make any final decisions. A few of this week's releases see some KEXP favorites making interesting choices, like Austin band Shearwater, a long time listener and DJ favorite, whose latest album gathers covers they've made of songs written by bands they've toured with, including a surprisingly wide range of artists like Sharon Van Etten, Coldplay and Xiu Xiu. Vancouver Dan Bejar, a.k.a. Destroyer, has repeatedly surprised his fans with different styles, so his decision to record Five Spanish Songs shouldn't come as a huge shock. Our Music Director, Don Yates, praises the new EP as "a consistently strong set featuring five songs written by Spanish musician Antonio Luque of the band Sr. Chinarro, with the songs ranging from smooth folk pop and flamenco-tinged disco-rock to jaunty, jazzy pop and riff-heavy glam-rock". And Alt-J, a band we've championed from the early days of their career, have assembled some of the best remixes that others have done of their songs into a new EP, which should appease fans eager for more new material.
Other new releases you'll want to check out in stores today include the second album from Southern Cal-via-Cleveland artist Gabriel Fulvimar , a.k.a Gap Dream, which Don Yates calls "a promising set of psych-tinged synth-rock with warm, gauzy synths, occasional fuzzy guitar, simple drum-machine rhythms and hypnotic melodies"; a new release of older songs from LA band Beachwood Sparks, whose roots-tinged psych-pop was a strong before they signed to Sub Pop in the late 1990s as it is now; and the third album by moody, atmospheric UK band The KVB, who were not only picked by Brian Jonestown Massacre’s Anton Newcombe to support BJM on their upcoming Australian tour but were also signed to his own record label, A Recordings.
You'll find these and other great records, including a beautiful multi-disc collection of Lee Hazlewood songs, presented by Light In The Attic, a new singles collection from Thee Oh Sees, a reissue of Soundgarden's Sub Pop-released EPs Screaming Life/Fopp, a vintage live recording of The Gories, and much more. Check out the songs gathered here before heading out to your favorite record store.
Alt-J - Fitzpleasure (Jim James Apple C Remix)
Beachwood Sparks - Watery Moonlight
As the days get shorter, so do our lists of new releases, but don't give up on 2013 just yet. You may need to revise your own Top Ten list of 2013 after you consider some of the new releases hitting record store shelves today. A definite contender: Purgatory/Paradise by Throwing Muses, their first …
As far as new releases go, it's a bit of a slower week than in the past hectic month, but 2013 still holds many terrific new albums yet to be released, including quite a few just hitting stores today. Among them, is the excellent new mini-album, Fade Away, from LA duo Best Coast, which at seven son…
