Albums of 2021

[LetMeSleep]

4 songs in and really enjoying the new Julien Baker album.

It's good. I like that she's pushing herself a bit. The last 2 albums were a touch samey throughout.

[Norah]

The last 2 albums were a touch samey throughout.

Yeah I thought the same thing, they never really grabbed me the way the other boygeniuses did.

[Brett]

Incoming new music dump over my next few posts:

The second of at least nine(!) new releases from Constellation this year is Frontera by Fly Pan Am, their second release since returning from their 15-year hiatus in 2019. After releasing their comeback, C'est ça, the band partnered with the Animals of Distinction dance troupe to create the piece entitled Frontera in which the band and dancers toured and performed together. The album of the same name is quite obviously the soundtrack to that multimedia work and apparently sees the band delving deep into an anxious hybrid of electronics and minimalist motrik rock, a possibly temporary shift away from the denser elctro shoegaze/post-rock form they were in before.

One can stream "Scanner" currently on Bandcamp and elsewhere, while the full album is slated for release May 21:

[Brett]

Sarah Neufeld looks to have a busy year in 2021 with the already announced return of her chamber-rock band Bell Orchestre and now the announcement of her third solo album on Paper Bag Records, Detritus. Similar to the previous Fly Pan Am album, Detritus also evolved out of a collaboration with dance and theater, this one with choreographer Peggy Baker. According to Paper Bag's press junket, the album simultaneously tries to focus inward and outward with healing music that touches on pastoral ambiance and kinetic movement. Neufeld's violin, vocals, and synth are joined by contributions from some of her collaborators in Arcade Fire and Bell Orchestre (Jeremy Gara on drums and synth and Pietro Amato on French horn) and flute and saxophone from Stuart Bogie.

Opener "Stories" is the lead "single":

[Brett]

Berlin/Toronto-based trumpeter/composer/wicked improviser Lina Allemano dropped two debuts last year, her first solo trumpet album and her first record with her Ohrenschmaus band. She's back again with two more releases on her own Lumo label, both out April 11, Vegetables, the sixth album by her chamber-jazz outfit Lina Allemano Four, and Proof, the debut of her Bloop project which features her on trumpet, percussion, and whistling alongside Mike Smith providing live-processing and effects manipulation. Both albums can be pre-ordered on Bandcamp and each have two tracks currently streaming. Personally, I'm stoked for the Bloop release as I'm a big fan of Mike Smith's work in various ensembles and I've been steadily working my way into a greater appreciation of Allemano's catalog.

Lina Allemano Four:


Bloop:

[Brett]

It's likely that a new Animal Collective album will be out later this year, but before that there's Crestone a soundtrack credited to the collective for the documentary of the same name. While carrying the Animal Collective brand, the music on this album is actually the first to be without the group's main vocalist and songwriter Avey Tare, and is also absent Panda Bear, featuring only Deakin and Geologist and is all instrumental minus some vocal samples scattered throughout. It's rather different from anything else the group has done, having it's closest analog with their recent forays into more acoustic and ambient soundscapes.

Here it is on Bandcamp:

[bodysnatcher]

Brett — new GYBE? I’m seeing rumors.

[Brett]

Brett — new GYBE? I’m seeing rumors.

Might be? I responded to the message that you sent me. I've seen some speculation on Reddit that the teaser that Constellation sent to their newsletter subscribers is for new GY!BE as the EXIF data on the video mentions CST156 as a catalog number and has "GYBE" in it as well as some stuff that look like it might correspond to track names.

[Brett]

Five years ago at the Ratio concert space in Toronto, Nick Storring (a musician, composer, and champion of other Toronto creatives) curated an event called "Nick Fraser plays Justin Haynes plays Rob Clutton plays Nick Fraser." As it sounds, the event featured drummer Fraser playing pieces composed by guitarist/pianist Haynes who then performed pieces composed by bassist Clutton who then performed pieces composed by Fraser.

In the intervening time since then, two albums have been released inspired by those performances, one of Fraser performing twelve of Haynes compositions with various arrangements of drums, percussion, keyboards, etc., and one of Haynes doing some radical electronic reworkings of a handful of Clutton-penned pieces.

Now, on March 19, Clutton will finally close the circle with Music of Nick Fraser, Volume 1 released by All-Set! Editions. Curiously, Clutton is adopting the pseudonym Troublemaker for this release, probably to distinguish the fact that it is primarily solo electric bass performances whereas work under his own name is primarily performed on acoustic upright bass.

Anyway, as with all other All-Set! releases, it can be obtained on Bandcamp where "Blues for the Blues" can be listened to at this time:

[VinylGuy]

4 songs in and really enjoying the new Julien Baker album.

It's good. I like that she's pushing herself a bit. The last 2 albums were a touch samey throughout.

Ill listen to the new one..i remember liking the first one and then being super bored with her other releases.

[Higgs]

4 songs in and really enjoying the new Julien Baker album.

It's good. I like that she's pushing herself a bit. The last 2 albums were a touch samey throughout.

Ill listen to the new one..i remember liking the first one and then being super bored with her other releases.

The singles more enjoyable than a lot of her recent stuff. The added band elements work for her sound, make it a little more interesting.

[Brett]

Brett — new GYBE? I’m seeing rumors.

Might be? I responded to the message that you sent me. I've seen some speculation on Reddit that the teaser that Constellation sent to their newsletter subscribers is for new GY!BE as the EXIF data on the video mentions CST156 as a catalog number and has "GYBE" in it as well as some stuff that look like it might correspond to track names.

Well, here we go: G_d's Pee AT STATE'S END! is the new Godspeed You! Black Emperor album and it's out on April 2 on Constellation, as always. There's a one-minute teaser video that's apparently a snippet of the opening piece "A Military Alphabet (five eyes all blind)," seemingly the opening segment (segments are titled again on this release as in days of old, I think, and this one appears to be titled "4521.0kHz 6730.0kHz 4109.09kHz").

Here's the teaser video:


Bandcamp link:
https://godspeedyoublackemperor.bandcam ... tate-s-end

[bodysnatcher]

baller AF

This is exactly what I needed in 2021 to push me over the edge of sanity.

[chewm]

new julien baker is great, better than turn out the lights, not as good as sprained ankle but very few things are

[ghost]

new Lord Huron coming. gimme.

[psychobain]

[epilogue]

New Valerie June coming.

The Fallin' single/EP is fantastic. High hopes for the new record.

[LetMeSleep]

New Valerie June coming.

The Fallin' single/EP is fantastic. High hopes for the new record.

Yep. It's on my radar.

Also, new LUMP album coming.

[epilogue]

New Valerie June coming.

The Fallin' single/EP is fantastic. High hopes for the new record.

Yep. It's on my radar.

Also, new LUMP album coming.

[epilogue]

Listened to 3 2021 albums today and I enjoyed all of them for very differentt reasons.

New Weezer, Julien Baker, and Still Corners.