Juno Recommends Rock / Indie / Folk / Metal / Punk / 50s / 60s: September 2022

Review: Ashtray wasps, venetian blinds, monochrome static shots and squinty eyes are the images conjured by the music of Cigarettes After Sex, the melancholic dream pop project by Greg Gonzales. Here their debut album gets a clear vinyl reissue by Partisan Records, charting the smooth voices and mournful guitar twangs contained on the band's earliest ten tracks.

Review: Yo La Tengo had already been going more than 10 years when they released I Can Hear The Heart Beating As One in 1997, but this perennial cult band certainly achieved something of a breakthrough on their seventh studio album. Fusing elements of shoegaze, Americana, punk and indie-electronica into an idiosyncratic whole, Yo La Tengo became a truly individual force showered with praise from the critics and with a modest but devoted fanbase. The art of the record lies in folding disparate elements into an incredibly cohesive whole, creating the perfect nuanced listening experience. Given it's 25 years since the album's release, Matador returns to one of its crowning glories and gives it a proper reissue, lovingly pressed on yellow wax for a new generation to fall in love with.

Review: If only we knew then what we do now. Few times does the phrase feel more appropriate than when discussing R.E.M.'s debut EP - you didn't buy it in 1982, and now original pressings are likely to fetch a sum. Still, we can't all be winners, although any astute ears should have quickly picked up on the potential of these then-unknowns.

Following first single Radio Free Europe, Chronic Town, which comprises five tracks of ever-so-slightly-weird, jangling, up-tempo alternative indie rock 'n' roll packing post punk sentiments, set the stage for the band's most glorious days that ensued. Landing in 1982 on I.R.S. Records, the troupe would stay with the label for some of their most critically acclaimed landmark albums, and for many it's this era and sound that best explain the greatness of a crew known for reinvention and listlessness.

Review: Best known as the front man for The Blue Nile, Scottish singer-songwriter Paul Buchanan's debut solo album was a resounding success when it came out in 2012. Mid Air places him front and centre, with only the most plaintive of adornments from gossamer-light piano to barely-there strings. Such a fragile record demands a proper pressing, not least given how expensive second hand copies of the original limited release was. Now it's being pressed on 180 gram vinyl with an additional disc of bonus versions, instrumentals and outtakes, all the better to marvel at the beauty of these gentle soliloquies.

Review: 30 years on, Slanted & Enchanted hasn't lost any of its power and potency. Stephen Malkmus formed Pavement in 1989 but it took a few years to get their debut album down. It marked their move from Drag City to Matador, and its wide circulation ahead of release built up the anticipation and ensured Pavement arrived with a splash. Comparisons and the The Fall and Swell Maps aren't without merit, but with the passing of time they become stretched given how influential Malkmus and co. wound up being on the explosion of indie rock in the 90s. Quite simply a perfect record, lovingly repressed for your listening pleasure.

Review: The past two years have been tumultuous for every band on the planet - the old you-know-what rendering all except the biggest streaming stars and those still holding up on the sales front commercially unviable. Kasabian likely faired better in those stakes than many, but nevertheless the past 24 months or so have been northing short of challenging, with leading figure Tom Meighan's 2020 departure swiftly followed by a conviction for assaulting his partner.

Enter the new and improved incarnation of an outfit that has always straddled a line many falter on - one foot in lad rock for the Stella crew, another dipping its toes into higher concept, more daring and experimental waters. Main man Serge Pizzorno, largely responsible for the more out there moments in the back catalogue, no longer has to compromise with Meighan and it shows. The Alchemist's Euphoria is packed with plenty of ideas, from Latin-ish opener to the grand overdue of 'Scriptvure'.

Review: Also known as Angus Stone, also known as Lady of the Sunshine, Dope Lemon's second set of studio recordings under the moniker were unveiled in 2017 and rightly blew then minds of those who managed to track the release down back then. That lack of mainstream exposure indicative of true greatness, as is often the case in the 21st Century.

Laidback stoner beach rock with hints of psychedelia definitely audible, five tracks comprise this EP, which is remarkably easy to fall in love with. Like a summer holiday romance that captures heart and mind and has you head over heels before you realise, leaving you staring at the cliff edge of a return flight home alone once the inevitable conclusion arrives, this is infinitely listenable and achingly cool stuff we implore you to sample, and guarantee you'll savour.

Review: Melbourne-via-Blue Mountains singer/songwriter Julia Jacklin's new album Pre Pleasure was recorded in Montreal with co-producer Marcus Paquin, who has worked with the likes of The Weather Station and The National. Her reputation as a fine - and direct - lyricist is cemented now and together with bassist Ben Whiteley and guitarist Will Kidman, she's made an album that further enhances it. Having been penned after getting back from her latest giant tour, it perhaps understandably addresses relationships and work-life balance. both featureing. Plenty of new terrain is explored making this another fine record.

Review: Freakout/Release is the eighth album from UK dance-pop-indie innovators Owen Clarke, Al Doyle, Joe Goddard, Felix Martin and Alexis Taylor, better known as Hot Chip. Now much love favs on record and in the live area for many years, the band still manages to reach new heights with this latest offering. It is a rich and resonating work that marks a new chapter for the group with flesh-and-blood songs that look to the future in all new ways. The album was written on the band's all-new Relax & Enjoy studio in East London and plenty of inspiration for it is said to have come from their own cover of Beastie Boys' 'Sabotage'.

Review: Top up your Oasis CD collection with this new rerelease of 'Be Here Now', the band's third and "most colossal" sounding LP, in the words of one Noel Gallagher. Being one of the few major rock albums in history for which its PR persons actually feared overexposure, and sought to control its release, gag orders were signed by journalists to quell its premature hype. Far from the heyday of 'Wonderwall' or 'Definitely Maybe', the album went triple platinum, owing to lead single 'Do You Know What I Mean?', and the band's relentless, cocaine-fuelled pursuit of commercial success at the time.

Review: 'Pearl' is the headsier shoegaze fan's classic of choice, and it's all thanks to Chapterhouse's lack of fear in incorporating hard industrial elements to their squeeze-waxen, sunsoaked dream pop sound. The original single-EP for 'Pearl' consisted of three hip-hop-tempo electronic shoegaze songs, and had a brightness to them that could only be rivalled by their contemporaries Lush or Ride. This reissue comes to translucent yellow vinyl, much like the colour of refracted light off moths' wings or duneside beach water.

Review: Speedy Wunderground breaks away from its usual Mellotron-tinged singles format for a focus on yet another LP. The Lounge Society - the band formed and based in Hebden Bridge, and a SW mainstay - here present 'Tired Of Liberty' (Albert Camus would be spinning in his grave, lest he heard of any artist decrying liberty itself). TLS have no core leader, with everything handled collaboratively; the sound is anarchic and authoritarian, tightening the rope of societal control through the lens of cutting-edge, raucous rock.

Review: A b-sides and rarities album turned-gem, 'The Amber Light' is Jane Weaver's sequel to the 'The Silver Globe', and contains more heartfelt takes on her classic synth and indie folk style. Featuring contributions from Tom Furse and Suzanne Ciani, this album proves that even in extremely active careers, there can remain fossilised pockets of emotionality; a rawer take on the artist's practise, it was miraculously recorded between tours.