Our favorite vinyl releases this week

Published on

March 8, 2024

Category

Features

Essential weekend listening.

This week’s rundown is by VF’s Kelly Doherty, and contributors Annabelle Van Dort, Emily Hill and James Hammond.

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Moor Mother

The Great Bailout

(Anti-)

Buy

VF artist and poet/musician Moor Mother is on distinctive kind with the breathtaking The Great Bailout. A dense and suave interrogation of the British slave commerce and colonial challenge, The Great Bailout is a heavy fog of echoey, darkish vocals and minimalist, deconstructed productions. The challenge is spearheaded by defiant spoken phrase–refrains comparable to “Where they get all the cash?” (“ALL THE MONEY”) and “God save the Queen as a result of who else life has worth” (“GOD SAVE THE QUEEN”) pack a uncooked punch, staying with the listener lengthy after the document stops spinning. Boasting an distinctive checklist of collaborators together with Lonnie Holley and Kyle Kidd, The Great Bailout is Moor Mother at her greatest.–KD

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Jessica Ekomane / Laurel Halo

Manifolds / Octavia

(Portraits GRM)

Buy

Portraits GRM continues its break up collection vinyl releases with this formidable pairing of Jessica Ekomane’s computer-generated polyphonies and a piece of questing atmosphere from Laurel Halo. Manifolds finds Ekomane working up all method of intriguing timbres inside a ‘particle accelerator’ of a number of voices that push at dissonant thresholds. On the flipside, Halo’s Octavia brings in a gauzy community of electronics and shadowy piano as she seems to the titular ‘spiderweb metropolis’ from Italo Calvino’s Invisible Cities, conjuring sensations of elevation and unease inside an alluring combine.–JH

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Kahil El’Zabar’s Ethnic Heritage Ensemble

Open Me, A Higher Consciousness of Sound and Spirit

(Spiritmuse Records)

Buy

At 70 years outdated and eighteen albums deep alongside his Ethnic Heritage Ensemble, Kahil El’Zabar reveals no indicators of slowing down. Open Me, A Higher Consciousness of Sound and Spirit, the Ethnic Heritage Ensemble’s sixth collaboration with Spiritmuse Records, positions El’Zabar’s legacy inside the storied lineage of Great Black Music—a well timed celebration of EHE’s fiftieth anniversary as a gaggle. Featuring unorthodox re-imaginings of basic Miles Davis and Eugene McDaniels compositions alongside a collection of El’Zabar authentic items, Open Me, A Higher Consciousness reverberates with a deep, hovering spirituality that channels ancestral traditions while sustaining an urge for discovery.–AVD

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Roy Montgomery

Temple IV

(Kranky)

Buy

Made with a pawnshop guitar and a Tascam 4 monitor, Roy Montgomery’s Temple IV travels far and large with sparing means. An oft-overlooked marvel of his expansive discography, Temple IV takes within the ache of shedding a associate and a “targeted private trial” on the Guatemalan Tikal temple IV because it ventures out into transfixing works of insistence and digital overspill. Layering rhythm guitar strums and interwoven guitar and synth traces, it’s Montgomery’s flare for gradual and hypnotic saturation of parts and results that make this a particular one. A primary time on vinyl following its CD launch on Kranky in 1995.–JH

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Gherkin Jerks

1990 EP

(Alleviated Records)

Buy

Gherkin Jerks’ 1990, produced in 1989 by the Chicago legend Larry Heard, aka Mr Fingers, is a extremely sought-after document having been lengthy out of print for a few years. A departure from the Mr Fingers moniker we have now come to know and love, it sees him diving headfirst as Gherkins Jerks right into a extra experimental realm with a sprinkling of techno flavours. Every listener has their favorite, however 1990 is arguably a major stepping stone in musical historical past that paved the way in which for the musical realm we exist inside now.–EH

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Bleachers

Bleachers

(Dirty Hit)

Buy

Pop music’s most in-demand producer, Jack Antonoff, returns with the fourth album from his band Bleachers. Bleachers is rammed with Americana-tinged earworms primed for stadium sing-alongs, crafted within the spirit of Springsteen and rising someplace between Sam’s Town period The Killers and The National of their most anthemic moments. Antonoff’s emotive baritone shines within the album’s quieter moments, however it’s within the prospers of saxophones and jubilant choruses that Bleachers actually shines.–AVD

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Kim Gordon

The Collective

(Matador)

Buy

Sonic Youth’s Kim Gordon returns for her second solo album and it’s one more thrilling left-turn. The Collective sees Gordon do battle with the eye financial system in opposition to a backdrop of blown-out rap beats and grinding industrial sounds. Her informal deadpan supply presents a stream-of-consciousness perspective of the world through Gordon’s eyes and it’s totally exhilarating. Kim Gordon has all the time been the epitome of cool and The Collective‘s chilly textures and easy vocals function much more affirmation.–KD

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Vanessa Bedoret

Eyes

(Scenic Route Records)

Buy

South London imprint Scenic Route, run by half of 404 Eros’ Theo Fabumi Stone and Jon Phonics (Astral Black), delivers a sensational debut album from experimental vocal violinist Vanessa Bedoret. Eyes is a contemporary classical marvel swirling in electronica fantasies between deconstructed percussion. On “Ballad”, we’re immersed in additional ethereal moments that transcend to a blissful state with solely the subtlest glitches on the periphery. The document’s narrative sometimes adjustments with abrupt forceful kicks that create a refined pressure, however overwhelmingly, Bedoret opens the listener’s creativeness to widen their emotional response.–EH