Editor's Pick of New Releases, April 2011
Post categories: 1Xtra, 6 Music, Radio 1, Rock & Indie, album reviews, experimental, pop & chart
| 10:50 UK time, Wednesday, 4 May 2011
What a month. Let's not waste too much time getting into what I think are the very best new albums of April 2011 - all are of an alarmingly high quality. Mercury Prize judges, get your ears around some of these...
(It should be stressed that I have restricted myself to 10 selections here. The fact that there are many more great LPs to have emerged recently - The Wombats, The King Blues, Dennis Coffey, About Group, Daedelus, Panda Bear, Instra:mental, to name just a few - goes to show what an amazing month for new albums April has been.)
Editor's Album of the Month
Dutch Uncles - Cadenza
(Memphis Industries, released 25 April)
Recommended by: Nick Grimshaw, Marc Riley
"Highlights come quickly, striking with immediate effect and retaining their charm numerous listens later (much like the band's debut, this will hang around the stereo for many weeks). 'It's alright,' says singer Duncan Wallis on one song, just before bellowing like a bungee-jumping John Lydon, but he's wrong. Cadenza is so much better than alright: it's more than a little brilliant."
Read the full review and listen to previews
The Best of the Rest
Cold Cave - Cherish the Light Years
(Matador, released 4 April)
Recommended by: Rob da Bank
"It's the song Underworld USA that claims the most telling lyric, frontman Wesley Eisold imploring somebody - anybody - to 'Take me to the future / I'm ready'. No need, Cold Cave; you're already outrunning most the competition in that particular direction, with one eye cast approvingly to the past."
Read the full review and listen to previews
Watch the official video to Villains of the Moon on YouTube (external link)
Katy B - On a Mission
(Rinse, released 4 April)
Recommended by: MistaJam, Annie Mac
"Katy B is a new breed of singer, adding a vibrant gloss to a new combination of sounds with a charm and personality all of her own. She's shining bright and crying out to be taken on as Britain's new favourite pop star - and if this album is anything to go by, it looks like the stage is set."
Read the full review
Watch the official video to Lights On (feat. Ms Dynamite) on YouTube (external link)
Cat's Eyes - Cat's Eyes
(Polydor, released 11 April)
Recommended by: Jarvis Cocker
"Cat's Eyes is simply remarkable. Sounding like all the spectral and slightly 'woooh' music of yore, its makers throw in additional elements of Nick Cave gothery, Julee Cruise, early 4AD spook, Italian horror soundtracks and the more otherworldly elements of prime 1960s pop such as Scott Walker and Bobbie Gentry. The result is a hazy, somnambulant treat."
Read the full review and listen to previews
Watch the official video to I Knew It Was Over (Performed live at the Vatican) on YouTube (external link)
letlive. - Fake History
(Epitaph, released 11 April)
Recommended by: Mike Davies
"Rather than acting as an indictment of modern society and all its ills, Fake History simply asks the listener to take stock of the world around them and to form their own opinions about it. Far from didactic or preachy, it's a lesson in the pure power of music. Listen to letlive., and your mind - as well as your eyes and your heart - will be held wide open."
Read the full review and listen to previews
Watch the official video to The Sick, Sick, 6.8 Billion on YouTube (external link - contains flashing lights and language which may offend)
Metronomy - The English Riviera
(Because, released 11 April)
Recommended by: Lauren Laverne, 6 Music Album of the Day, Marc Riley
"If their last album, Nights Out, was the soundtrack to an all-hours party that threatened to blow the speakers, The English Riviera is the music in the ears of a restless insomniac. The type of punch Metronomy now pack is differently varied, and instead of relying on catchy melodies, its excitement and originality is now more broadly sourced."
Read the full review and listen to previews
Watch the official video to The Look on YouTube (external link)
Low - C'Mon
(Sub Pop, released 11 April)
Recommended by: Marc Riley
"Variable as they may be on this strong collection, the elements that bind are the clarity of the performance and the simplicity of the songs - emotionally the band is staring the listener in the eye. 'Slowcore' might be what people call them, but Low have grown beautifully beyond that, and will grow more still."
Read the full review and listen to previews
Watch the official video to Try to Sleep on YouTube (external link)
Kode9 & The Spaceape - Black Sun
(Hyperdub, released 18 April)
Recommended by: Benji B
"As Black Sun's evocative mantle screams, the record hums with a menacing darkness. Yet it's not paranoid urban dread, more an unknown extraterrestrial force stalking your moods. When a lunar time capsule next needs a musical artefact of almost indeterminable age, Kode9 & The Spaceape are your men."
Read the full review
(No official videos available)
tUnE-YaRdS - w h o k i l l
(4AD, released 18 April)
Recommended by: Zane Lowe, Gideon Coe, 6 Music Album of the Day
"This second tUnE-yArDs album advances the concept of rampant collision, hiking the extremities up to a further level. Lo-fi meets hi-fi, as big drum thunder under-booms sometime dictaphone-style scratchiness in the vocal department. It's like we'd imagine music made by a dangerously bright child, perfectly in touch with its razor-sharp instincts."
Read the full review and listen to previews
Watch the official video to Bizness on YouTube (external link)
Jamie Woon - Mirrorwriting
(Interscope, released 18 April)
Recommended by: Gilles Peterson, MistaJam
"As the stately pace of Mirrorwriting attests, Jamie Woon is not one to rush. And when the four years between his debut single, Wayfaring Stranger, and this first album have produced something so beguiling, it's clearly been time well spent."
Read the full review and listen to previews
Watch the official video to Lady Luck on YouTube (external link)
Dark Dark Dark - Wild Go
(Melodic, released 25 April)
Recommended by: Tom Ravenscroft
"Frequently capable of rendering the listener struck dumb by its beguiling beauty, and played by musicians in perfect harmony with each other, Wild Go is easily among the frontrunners for album of the year (so far). Its makers are an exquisite outfit exploring a soundworld that's entirely theirs."
Read the full review and listen to previews
Watch the official video to Daydreaming on YouTube (external link)
© 2011
Cadenza is my favourite record of this year so far, with Anna Calvi and Clare Maguire's Light After Dark. Cadenza though is great because it's fearless alternative pop, and great fun. Like an indier Everything Everything. Really great the BBC are supporting a relatively quiet band like Dutch Uncles.
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