4/27 best of new arrivals

Here’s a somewhat arbitrary list of the ten best records to arrive at eMusic this week. Fred Anderson and Hamid Drake top the list.

01 Fred Anderson & Hamid Drake, From the River to the Ocean: With rave reviews across the board — from AMG to All About Jazz to Pop Matters — this is shaping up to be the prohibitive favorite for jazz record of the year. This is free-jazz played lustily and passionately, more about a tone and tenor than noise. A must-have.

02 American Music Club, Everclear: One of the biggest Eitzel records, released in 1991, AMG calling it a “masterpiece.” In terms of gloomy singer-songwriter stuff, this is pretty much the benchmark.

03 Kathy Diamond, Miss Diamond to You: Todd raved about this record a month ago, and today it arrives. Todd calls it “a collection of spectral slo-mo disco tunes flecked with touches of dub by her producer, the incomparable Maurice Fulton.” And after listening to it a couple of times today, I can’t dispute a single word. So hot.

04 Mavis Staples, We’ll Never Turn Back: The Mavis Staples comeback record — rejoice! Anti is turning this soul revival thing into a minor cottage industry, with Bettye Lavette’s I’ve Got My Own Hell to Raise in 2005, and now this one. (Also sorta related, that Marianne Faithfull disc Anti released.) Staples’ voice has been deepened and worn by time, and the arrangements here are a bit menacing. Clearly Staples isn’t back for vanity — she has something to say.

05 Seefeel, Quique (Redux Edition): Reissued version with bonus tracks of the London electronic dream-poppers’ 1993 debut. Great vintage live performance of “Industrious:”

06 Joanna Newsom, Joanna Newsom and the YS Street Band EP: Not yet in my rotation, but YS Street Band EP garnered an enthusiastic Pitchfork review — and from our own Douglas Wolk, no less — and it’s been getting praise across the board. You don’t need me to tell you to download this one.

07 Stars, Set Yourself on Fire & Heart: These are the two big Stars albums, and of the two, I much prefer Heart, possibly because it was the first that I heard. Most of you have these already, I would wager, but for those who don’t, this is very good indie rock along the lines of Arcade Fire.

08 Bill Callahan, Woke on a Whaleheart: This record has been getting all kinds of hype despite the fact that it is simply just another Smog record — no muss, no fuss — an artist that has been pretty much uniformly ignored up until now (unless yr Magnet). So was it the Smog name that was keeping Callahan down? You’ve got me. Whaleheart is just okay to these ears, not as good as Red Apple Falls or Knock Knock, but still with its moments, “Honeymoon Child” being my favorite.

09 O.C., Word… Life: A classic ’90s NYC hip-hop album that I somehow missed in Friday’s mega-haul. Smart and breezy with a loose, feel-good vibe, this is an extremely accessible hip-hop record. Originally released in 1994, here’s AMG’s apt description: “The album is drenched in classic, hard-core East Coast B-boyism, but O.C. puts the boasts on the shelf to take up more existential subject matter… Word…Life saw little commercial success due, in part, to the drained coffers of the failed endeavor that was Wild Pitch Records, but one would be hard-pressed to find a hard-core hip-hop fan without this recording somewhere in their collection.”

10 Pela, Anytown Graffiti: This is not a record that I should like, but for the past week or two I’ve been near-obsessed with this debut album from the Brooklyn-based Pela. Here are the big name-checks, all of them very apt: U2, the Killers and Wedding Present. It’s indie-rock in widescreen, big emotions, big ideas and a big sound. The first two songs are the best — it gets a bit murky in the middle — but picks up again at the end. “Waiting on the Stairs,” the opener, is real barky with a shrugged-off chorus — so effortless — and a repetitious, chiming guitar riff that’s very Edge. “Lost to the Lonesome” is the real doozy, though. Basically it sounds a lot like the Killers retroactively writing a song for The Breakfast Club. It has that “of a moment” feel about it, a song that somehow transfers poignancy to its surroundings. Anytown Graffiti is very plain about its aspirations and influences, and it more than does them justice.