Vinylradar has selected this week new releases for you. Enjoy!

Body/Head: The Switch
Matador

Their debut album together as Body/Head, Coming Apart, from 2013, was more of a rock record—heavy, emotional, cathartic, spellwork in shades of black and grey. The Switch is their second studio full-length, and it finds the duo working with a more subtle palette, refining their ideas and identity. Some of it was sketched out live (if you’ve not had the fortune of seeing them in that natural environment yet, see 2016’s improvisational document No Waves), but much of it happened purely in the moment.

Working in
 the same studio and with the same producer as Coming Apart, here Body/Head stretch out, making spacious pieces that build shivering drones, dissonant interplay, Gordon’s manipulated vocals, and scraping, haunting textures into something that feels both delicate and dangerous. Less discrete songs than one composition broken up into thematic movements, a slow-moving narrative that requires as much attention and care from the listener as it did from everyone involved in its creation, it is a record that sticks around after it’s done playing.

Luluc: Sculptor
Sub Pop

Luluc’s third album can be consumed loud; because while the Australian folk duo’s music is at times masterful in it’s minimalism, it is anything but quiet in impact. There’s a before you hear Luluc’s music, and an after—a turning point that affects people with rare force. Janet Weiss of Sleater-Kinney says “it’s music that once you hear it, you can’t live without it”.

Sculptor features contributions from several friends including Dessner (shreds on “Kids” and programmed drums on “Heist”) and Jim White of Dirty Three (drums on “Genius”) as well as musicians Matt Eccles on drums and Dave Nelson on horns. Recording took place in Luluc’s new Brooklyn studio, which they built themselves.

TRACKS:
-Spring
-Heist
-Play
-Kids
-Controversy
-Cambridge
-Me and Jasper
-Genius
-Moon Girl
-Needn’t Be
-Sculptor

Rayland Baxter: Wide Awake
ATO

Rayland Baxter’s third album is a dream realized. Since he first started writing music, this roving rock ‘n’ roll philosopher dreamed of a space where he could devote every waking hour to creating. The hard-touring musician finally found it in the form of an abandoned rubber band factory in Franklin, KY, where he covered the windows, threw a mattress on the floor, and with guitar and piano in tow, spent three straight months writing. At night he would sit and listen to the sounds around him: coyotes, the howling wind, the faint prattle of the nightly TV news. The result of this isolation quest is Wide Awake, a ten-song collection that celebrates the best aspects of humanity and grasps at understanding the worst.

TRACKS:

-Strange American Dream
-Casanova
-Angeline
-79 Shiny Revolvers
-Amelia Baker
-Without Me
-Hey Larocco
-Sandra Monica
-Everything to Me
-Let It All Go Man

Chastity: Death Lust
Captured Tracks

Chastity is a world of its own from the mind of Brandon Williams. Reflecting the working class background of Whitby, Ontario, Chastity’s songs are charged with the ethos of archetypal youth on the fringe. Since signing with Brooklyn label Captured Tracks, Chastity has re-released his initial demos, along with 2 new singles and an EP, stoking the anticipation of the debut full length record, Death Lust.

Death Lust follows the plot of suffering to survival. The album begins on a tortured note with Come and builds toward the plummeting finale of Chains, evolving from start to finish in a crescendo of severity. Chastity explains, “Death Lust is about growing up death obsessed. It’s about the pain that it takes but the capacity that we have to overcome.”

TRACKS:

-Children
-Choke
-Scary
-Negative With Reason To Be
-Heaven Hell Anywhere Else
-Suffer
-Chains
-Anoxia
-Come
-Innocence
-Heaven Hell Anywhere Else (Single Edit)

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