The last significant week for releases prior to Christmas, here is Silent Radio’s guide.
Peter Gabriel i/o
His first album in 20 years, its songs tackling life and the universe, our connection to the world around us, but also the passing of time, mortality and grief, alongside such themes as injustice, surveillance and the roots of terrorism. Guest musicians include Brian Eno, guitarist David Rhodes, bassist Tony Levin and drummer Manu Katché, Richard Russell, Ríoghnach Connolly of The Breath, the Soweto Gospel Choir and Swedish all-male choir Oprhei Drängar and the New Blood Orchestra led by John Metcalfe.
Fela Kuti Boxset 6
The boxset features the classic records Open & Close (1972), Music of Many Colours (1980), Stalemate (1977), I Go Shout Plenty!!! (1977), Live in Amsterdam (1983) and Opposite People (1977) together with a 24-page booklet containing lyrics and essays plus a poster.
Animal Shithouse Who Taught You To Hate?
Tunbridge Wells band who take inspiration in the likes of Soft Play and Ladybird from their hometown, alongside alternative legends like Rage Against the Machine and the Sex Pistols.
Black Sabbath Hand of Doom
A release that features eight of the band’s classic albums, released from 1970 to 1978, on picture disc vinyl.
Full of Hell and Nothing When No Birds Sang
Collaborative album building a new “wall of sound” in the middle out of Full of Hell’s abstract and harsh ambience and Nothing’s searing shoegaze tendencies.
Various Moping in Style: A Tribute to Adam Green
A double album featuring a cast including Regina Spektor, Father John Misty, Devendra Banhart, The Libertines, Jenny Lewis, Frankie Cosmos, and The Lemonheads pay tribute to the Moldy Peaches songwriter.
We Owe Major Inconvenience
The solo project of Chris Pravdica of Swans is genre-bending, musically elusive and lyrically confounding; an inventive strand of electronic music bordering anti-pop, synthpunk and post-rock.
The Goa Express The Goa Express
A debut album on which they create a wall of sound, riven with infectious harmonies, waves of psych laden guitars and playful rhythms.
Haiku Hands Pleasure Beast
The album serves as a sonic exploration into the minds of Haiku Hands from a four-on-the-floor sweaty moshpit to a tropical island dream bath.
Beans on Toast The Toothpaste and the Tube
The cult folk artist delivers unfiltered takes on the environment’s dire straits, the UK political landscape, the ominous rhythm of war drums, and the impending AI revolution while also delving into the lighter side of life, with reflections on parenthood, whimsical creatures, and the sheer bliss of a sea dip.
Lea Bertucci Of Shadows and Substance
NYC composer, producer and saxophonist Lea Bertucci explores dissonance, drone and dynamics with two new longform compositions for strings, electronics, harp and percussion.
Get Wrong Get Wrong EP
Indie synth pop from members of Martha and The Spook School produced and engineered by the Brewis brothers.
Arone Dyer & Stargaze Arone x Stargaze
A genre-hopping triple crossover ranging from indie to avant-garde pop to modern classical.
Mark Eric A Midsummer’s Day Dream
Reissued 1969 album featuring several Wrecking Crew musicians who also played on Pet Sounds, MARK ERIC’s A Midsummer’s Day Dream is a unique blend of Beach Boys/Four Freshmen sensibilities coupled with wistful, lush surf psychedelia.
AshTreJinkins It’s Trash Now
LA beatmaker, producer, rapper with a screed, a manifesto, a series of abstracted diary entries, and/or a catalog of feelings experienced in half-remembered dreams.
Miss Chain & The Broken Heels Storms
Their sound is a mixture of Sixties Beatles-esque melodies, sunshine-pop atmospheres, punk attitude, country, rhythm and blues, surrounded by dreamy landscapes, folk-revival lyricism and sometimes even bordering on psychedelia.
Augustus Muller My Animal
The score to a genre-bending horror movie, composed using primarily hardware and analog synthesisers.
Bitw Rehearse
Gruff ab Arwel (aka Bitw) makes sci-fi mountain music and high end psych-pop in the great tradition of fellow Welsh folk. Gruff played in Snowdonian surf lot Y Niwl and has backed Gruff Rhys, Cate Le Bon and H. Hawkline.
Taylor Pearlstein Perfect Blue EP
Achy watery indie folk pop telling a disorienting story of self delusion, reality weaving, and over-romanticizing to the edge of our own destruction and misery
Cobra Spell 666
International sleaze rock quintet that twists typical lyrical themes of 80s sleaze metal and musically throws synths and saxophones into the mix.
Visions of Atlantis A Pirate’s Symphony
An orchestral version of the metal band’s album, Pirates, without vocals, drums or guitars.
Allman Brown Second Son EP
A collection of stripped-back songs with synthesiser flourishes, they touch on weighty topics including his father’s passing, his relationship with his mother, anxieties and regrets, childhood and legacy as he attempts a make peace with the past.
Alex Nicol Been a Long Year – Vol 1 & Vol 2
A combination of sparse and spectral alternative/folk arrangements to poetic songs laced with Orwellian imagery.
Fat Tony Smart Ass Black Boy Redux
One of the most acclaimed hip-hop records of the 2010’s, released in a special 10th Anniversary ‘Redux’ edition, featuring contributions from Shawn Neon, Kool A.D., Old Money, Despot, Jahlil Nzinga, Shan, and GLDNEYE.
Oxygen Thief Instrumentals Do Not Happen, They Are Caused
Marking the 10th anniversary of their debut album with a special instrumental reissue.
