The Lowdown - Week 37

🗞️ The Lowdown; 𝐴 𝑞𝑢𝑖𝑐𝑘-𝑓𝑖𝑟𝑒, 𝑏𝑎𝑟𝑒𝑙𝑦 𝑠𝑝𝑒𝑙𝑙-𝑐ℎ𝑒𝑐𝑘𝑒𝑑, 𝑟𝑒𝑎𝑙-𝑡𝑖𝑚𝑒 𝑖𝑛-𝑠𝑡𝑜𝑟𝑒 𝑠𝑘𝑖𝑛𝑛𝑦 𝑜𝑛 𝑠𝑜𝑚𝑒 𝑜𝑓 𝑜𝑢𝑟 𝑓𝑎𝑣𝑜𝑢𝑟𝑖𝑡𝑒 𝑟𝑒𝑙𝑒𝑎𝑠𝑒𝑠 𝑜𝑓 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑝𝑎𝑠𝑡 𝑤𝑒𝑒𝑘 𝑡ℎ𝑎𝑡 𝑦𝑜𝑢 𝑚𝑎𝑦 ℎ𝑎𝑣𝑒 𝑚𝑖𝑠𝑠𝑒𝑑, 𝑎𝑙𝑙 𝑡𝑜𝑙𝑑 𝑖𝑛 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑝𝑙𝑎𝑖𝑛-𝑠𝑝𝑒𝑎𝑘𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑚𝑎𝑛𝑛𝑒𝑟 𝑦𝑜𝑢'𝑑 𝑒𝑥𝑝𝑒𝑐𝑡 𝑡𝑜 𝑓𝑖𝑛𝑑 𝑓𝑟𝑜𝑚 𝑏𝑒ℎ𝑖𝑛𝑑 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑐𝑜𝑢𝑛𝑡𝑒𝑟!

1️⃣ Bar Italia - Tracey Denim

[𝘞𝘰𝘳𝘥𝘴 𝘣𝘺 𝐼𝑚𝑜𝑔𝑒𝑛 𝑩𝒂𝒌𝒆𝒓] Bar Italia’s latest release Tracey Denim is an album that sounds like an obscure find in an alternative 90’s crate dig. Heavy basslines meet shoegaze-reminiscient guitar loops on tracks such as ‘Nurse!’, ‘Missus Morality’ and ‘my kiss era’, with the echoes of Sonic Youth prominent on ‘Friends’ and ‘punkt.’ Like Lush meets The Cure, and is vocally, in a more contemporary sense, Sorry’s gloomy goth twin. It’s an album with its own sound, but one that feels, in a way, nostalgically familiar.

🛒 https://recordculture.com/collections/new-releases/products/bar-italia-tracey-denim

2️⃣ Genesis Owusu - Struggler

Genesis Owusu falls into similar territory as Young Fathers. Genres aplenty and hard to nail down. From the bouncy punk hip-hop of Bob Vylan to the laid-bare melodies of Prince and funky disco-rhythms of Thundercat or Daft Punk, it’s a right old buffet. I’m struggling (no pun intended) to think of a better opening 1-2-3 as this album in 2023, with the opening three tracks in particular demonstrating perfectly the bit-of-everything that this album has to offer. It isn’t a perfect ten but when ‘Struggler’ is good, it is incredibly good. Be sure to jump on this one before the Albums of 2023 voting starts in December!

🛒 https://recordculture.com/collections/new-releases/products/genesis-owusu-struggler

3️⃣ Kevin Fingier Collective - Not Strictly Soul

On this record’s rear sleeve in huge lettering it says, “This album has 1,000 tons of Soul, R&B, Funk and Jazz” and for many of our regular visitors that’s probably as much as you need to know to get involved. But just in case, Kevin Fingier is an Argentine producer and this is his new record released on Acid Jazz. It is absolutely swimming in classic Northern Soul, Latin, and mod jazz and, with one track floating effortlessly into the next, has all the feels of a DJ set at the coolest soul club you can imagine. Absolutely not to be missed, this one.

4️⃣ Deeper - Careful!

[𝘞𝘰𝘳𝘥𝘴 𝘣𝘺 𝐼𝑚𝑜𝑔𝑒𝑛 𝑩𝒂𝒌𝒆𝒓] Deeper’s latest album Careful! gives us the classic post-punk sound of the late ‘70s, proving the timelessness of the genre. The use of synthesizers on some of the songs gives a nod to very early Simple Minds, whilst retaining the classic Gang of Four-esque post-punk minimalism throughout the album. Does the album offer anything original to the world of post-punk? Not particularly, but if, in a genre scene currently dominated by the quirky Black Country New Road and Squid post-punks, a classic sound is more your thing, then Deeper do it well.

🛒 https://recordculture.com/collections/new-releases/products/deeper-careful


5️⃣ Anjimile - The King

An Album of the Week in Paste Magazine, a 7.5 score from Pitchfork, and a 4/5 Guardian review all with good reason, alternative indie-folk artist Anjimile releases ‘The King’ to much acclaim. It’s at times calamitous in its arrangements (in a good way) and gently unnerving at others and truly defines the art of alt folk/songwriter, in ways that fans of Sufjan Stevens will enjoy. We also saw it described as “as if conjuring a vision of what folk music would sound like if it was delivered by Philip Glass”, which is a spot-on take. A bold, interesting, odd at times record that we reckon is only going to grow in stature this year.

🛒 https://recordculture.com/collections/new-releases/products/anjimile-the-king-1


6️⃣ Romy - Mid-Air

We really like Romy’s debut solo album for one reason above all others – it reminds us of our olden days. Some of this album is pure late nineties/early noughties Ibiza Cream Classics and we’re absolutely here for it. Outside of the europhic trance vibes however there are plenty of moments of blissfully crystalline electro-pop ala Everything but the Girl or Alison Goldfrapp. There is certainly no getting away from the ‘club night’ feel across this record though and if you’ve enjoyed in recent years the work of HAAi, Fred Again, or Overmono, then ‘Mid-Air’ may well get you in all the right ways.

🛒 https://recordculture.com/collections/new-releases/products/romy-mid-air

It's been an insane week for new releases (not to mention reissues) - literally the biggest for new releases we've ever known. Here are some releases we've enjoyed or that you may have missed but there are of course many more and you can check them all out here: