na: UK round-up!

Via Lisa Kereszi

Because there are way too many new records this week! As I write, Sean is over in a corner rolling in a pile of them, laughing maniacally and hurling copies of Titus Andronicus’ The Monitor high into the air. Note: This is mostly a UK-only NA post, so apologies when/where not available elsewhere.

Shane McGowan and Friends – I Put A Spell On You – Shane’s friends are not your friends — Johnny Depp, Nick Cave, Chrissie Hynde, Mick Jones, and others join in a cover of “I Put A Spell On You” to benefit victims of the Haiti earthquake.

Goldheart Assembly, Wolves and Thieves – Warm, winsome, pastoral country-rock from a fresh-faced bunch of newcomers.

Seabear, We Built A Fire – Cuddly, quizzical, gently skewed indie-folk from Reykjavik. James Mcnair writes:

Reykjavik’s Seabear are a beguiling septet whose leader Sindri Mar Sigfusson has the kind of pleasantly soporific voice that paid considerable dividends for Jose Gonsalez. He and his bandmates make orchestrated, agreeably quirky music that melds elements of Iceland’s pagan-folk past with a more contemporary indie sound that makes room for the occasional sample. The results should resonate nicely with fans of Sufjan Stevens and/or Gorky’s Zygotic Mynci.

Various Artists, Gilles Peterson Presents Brownswood Bubblers Five – The latest in Gilles Peterson’s reliably satisfying compilations offers more funky, lush soulful electronic music from all corners of the universe — hey there, Dam-Funk!

Crookers, Tons of Friends – Crookers, another dude with a lot of friends cooler than yours, gathers them all together for a star-studded techno party — Kelis, Drop the Lime, The Very Best, Spank Rock, Roisin Murphy, and Kid CuDi are just a few of the more prominent names I see leaping out at me from the guest roster.

The Bear That Wasn’t, And So It Is Morning Dew – Lovely, lilting folk, recorded with lots of inviting, warm-barn acoustic space overhead. If you dug last year’s Ah Holly Fam’ly, then heads up on this one.

Milt Matthews Inc., For The People – HOLY FUCKING SHIT, PEOPLE.

Are you paying attention?!!?! Download this. Gutbucket soul meets wailing, skuzzy psychedelic rock. A genuine, genius lost psych-soul classic, full of slabs of gorgeous fuzz-guitar and clarion horn charts, all overlaid with Milt Matthews’ grit-and-grain Philly soul-preacher vocals. The the kind of missing-link record that subtly reconfigures your conception of the pop-music map when you hear it. Came out in 1971, disappeared, now here it is. Get this right now.

Various Artists, Cold Waves and Minimal Electronics – The dead-eyed, black-clothed, coked-out Philip Glass disco party continues with the latest compilation to gather together the icy-toned minimal dance tracks of the late 1970s and 1980s. Them waves are indeed, pretty cold.

Pantha Du Prince, Stick To My Side – Worth the price of admission for the gorgeous Four Tet remix alone.

Arnault Cuisinier, Fervent – Moody, hauntingly chromatic jazz piano, inflected subtly with avant-garde overtones, like the chirping cycle of high woodwinds on “Ardent” that feel like a Steve Reich-ian loop. Intelligent and lovely.

AND THEN THE ODDITIES:

I.e. stuff I don’t know anything at all about, stuff I just pulled on a whime from the soup of Freshly Ripped and sampled, blind of all context.

Mischief, Boiling Breakfast Early: A Demo Collection – The fact that this band has a “demo collection” probably means that I should have heard of, but I haven’t, so from my highly subjective, ignorant viewpoint, they are oddities. I’m not sure what to call this: Siltbreeze-style lo-fi meets ramshackle alt-country. Cow-fi? Done.

Doc Scott, Reinforced Presents Doc Scott – The Early Plates – Seminal early drum ‘n’ bass releases on Reinforced Records. Not my thing, but plenty of other people’s thing, and there is an abundance of batshit, pummeling drum programming and barked commands to be found here, as expected.

Matt A, The Lost EP – Hammering, disjointed dubstep stuff, with punishingly loud drums and bursts of synth and a sense of ever-encroaching chaos threatening to completely overwhelm the pulse. If you are turned on by the similarly entropic sounds of James Blake, take a listen.

And that’s all for now. Happy listening!