Five Springtime Releases: Girl Band, Godspeed, Skelton, Braxton and Copeland
Girl Band - The Early Years
Dublin four piece Girl Band will soon be dropping their latest slice of panic-attack inducing, alternative noise rock. The Early Years, released through Rough Trade, is restricted to a 500, 12” run predominantly available on their North American tour. If the stickle-brick adorning artwork and teaser song ‘Why They Hide Their Bodies Under My Garage’, a cover of Blawan’s “terror techno” masterpiece, are adequate barometers, The Early Years will capture the same mechanistic krautgrunge that has been unbalancing sensibilities since 2011.
Godspeed You! Black Emperor - Asunder, Sweet and Other Distress
Godspeed You! Black Emperor are releasing their fifth studio album Asunder, Sweet and Other Distress in March. Clocking in at 40 minutes, it is their first average length album since their 1997 debut F#A#∞; a record that introduced the world to a shifting, mysterious Canadian collective with touches of political anarchism. Asunder’s opening track 'Peasantry or 'Light! Inside of Light!’ is available to stream and suggests both an immediate return to form and re-entrance back into the world of metal-flecked minimalism that surrounds their cult following.
Richard Skelton - Belated Movements For An Unsanctioned Exhumation August 1st 1984
Artist, musician and author Richard Skelton has just announced a new record, titled Belated Movements For An Unsanctioned Exhumation August 1st 1984. With over 30 EPs to date Skelton’s music is hard to define. In the broadest of senses it is a contemporary form of classical. In terms of effect however, it feels closer to a Brian Eno landscape; piercing violins dart above weighty, layered down cellos in works of haunting melancholy, anxiety and dreaminess. With a title referring to the Lindow Man, a bog body found in Cheshire, Skelton’s latest offering appears as a aural follow on from his written studies of rural Lancaster and the mythology of rivers.
Tyondai Braxton - HIVE1
Former frontman of Battles Tyondai Braxton has just announced his first new release in six years, HIVE1. The album is the end product of his work on a performance piece premiered at the NY Guggenheim and described as “a live multimedia work that was part architectural installation and part ensemble performance.” With the visual side stripped away, an oily texture of discordant synths and 70s Sci-Fi effects rises to the surface of Scout1. If this initial release and the mounds of frantic percussion are anything to go by, Tyondai has retained the brilliance of Battles whilst veering off into slightly spacier pastures.
Inga Copeland - RELAXIN’ with Lolina
Noise maker, former vocalist of Hype Williams and Estonian Inga Copeland may or may not be releasing new album RELAXIN’ with Lolina. The argument for? She has recently debuted new tracks whilst playing at Dalston’s Café OTO. The argument against? The release date is set for the non-existent February 29th. If the calendar does allow for its manifestation, a full return to the texturally chunky, sometimes humorous, often bazaar feel of last year’s Because I’m Worth It can be expected.
