Today is Friday, the most wonderful day of the week for music lovers because it’s the day when new albums are released. Let’s celebrate by highlighting some of today’s new records.
Tune-Yards
I can feel you creep into my private life (4AD)
Merrill Garbus is a one-woman tour de force. A funky, colorful brand of indie pop has flowed naturally out of the Tune-Yards frontwoman since her DIY AF debut BiRd-BrAiNs, which she recorded on a handheld voice recorder. But for her latest release, her fifth, Garbus decided to make some changes. With bassist and frequent collaborator Nate Brenner now an official member of the band, it’s reasonable to assume that I can feel you creep into my private life might have a more fleshed out sound than her earlier material’s more low-fi feel. But singles like “Heart Attack” suggest the norm from Garbus: swirling tape loops, her own multi-tracked vocals, and huge global beats resounding throughout. The imperative language of “Look at Your Hands” demands attention be paid to basic yet profound concepts for adults and kindergartners alike. (I mean, just look at your hands. Aren’t they crazy?) Tune-Yards plays Chicago’s Thalia Hall on March 3.
Listen on: Apple Music | Spotify | Tidal
Shopping
The Official Body (Fat Cat)
For a group frequently labeled as post-punk, the London-based act Shopping is far more upbeat than others in the genre. Their understated, utilitarian vocals coupled with nervous, jerky string-plucking has them whipping through 2½-minute songs over and over again, but without the paranoiac angst of their contemporaries. Add modern synth work and tongue-in-cheek songwriting and suddenly you’ve got a typically sullen audience animated and moving to the beat. Shopping doesn’t skirt issues, though; they are very matter-of-fact in addressing politics, discrimination and sexuality. They just seem to be advocates of dancing the bullshit away, and there is certainly nothing wrong with that. Shopping visits Chicago’s Beat Kitchen on March 28.
Listen on: Apple Music | Spotify | Tidal
They Might Be Giants
I Like Fun (Idlewild)
People have an unfortunate tendency to reduce They Might Be Giants to complete ’90s novelty. Their guitar-forward alternative instrumentation never left the 20th century, and their lyrics tow the line between being zany and (gasp) educational. But while much of their music sounds as if someone soundtracked a Bill Nye special with a Weezer album, I Like Fun offers something almost unheard of from a typically complacent band: a dark side. The new album runs rampant with cynicism and is just riddled with morbid smirks and dry jabs. The prolific Brooklynites offer up their response to living in the Trump Era, and it’s actually dark as hell. Stories of suspect elections and post-apocalyptic wastelands culminate with the lead single and closing track, “Last Wave,” the chorus of which is the stuff of a goth kid’s dreams: “We die alone, we die afraid, we live in terror, naked and alone and the grave is the loneliest place.” How is THAT for novelty? They Might Be Giants play Milwaukee’s Pabst Theater on March 16 and Chicago’s Vic Theatre on March 17.
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