Jagjaguwar Us Vinyl & CDs

Review: Unsurprisingly, Aromanticism - meaning to have little or no romantic attraction to others - is exactly the idea Moses Sumney explores on this stunning debut. Having written the majority of this album's lyrics in the solitude of remote north American cabins, Sumney's songs about loneliness and distance feel natural and sincere. Throughout 'Aromanticism' Sumney shows off his affinity with vocal acrobatics, leaping from his rasping lower register to achingly dulcet falsetto. Both in his instrumentation and as a vocalist, Sumney strikes a pitch-perfect balance between acoustic and digital, exhibiting his ability to blend the two. Sumney blends passages of spoken word, neo-soul, broken-beat, and the vocal harmonies and movements, cascading with gospel precision, that shone on his 2016 EP 'Lamentations'. 'Aromanticism' is a powerful and heartfelt opening statement from an artist well worth keeping an eye on in the future.

Review: The New Zealand-born, Portland-based Ruban Nielson initially made a name for himself by marrying psych rock and lo-fi styles in a messy, Beefheartian manner, with jam-band wig-outs vying for attention with expressive songcraft. On 'Multi Love', however, he's both reined in the excesses of yore and sharpened up his songwriting, and the result is a veritable tour de force. Pop-tinged melody and emotional candour make for impressive bedfellows on these nine expansive and inventive ditties, which take as much inspiration from Prince or Janelle Monae as they do The Grateful Dead or Zappa. 'Multi Love' marks the place where Nielson genuinely makes his presence felt as a modern-day psychedelic visionary.

Review: New Zealand psychedelic rock band Unknown Mortal Orchestra received plenty of acclaim for their second album, II, originally released in February 2013. Fusing lo-fi, indie rock, psychedelic sounds and plenty of trippy ideas, it take sin funky as you like guitar jams, drawn out and sun worshipping odes to a higher presence and raw, psyched out soul tracks. Tunes are packed with great detail and manage to strike a balance between light and dark, beauty and hostility. The often inward lyrics add another alluring element to this album, which won Best Alternative Album in the 2013 New Zealand Music Awards.

Review: Logic runs through the Unknown Mortal Orchestra back catalogue, even if that's just in terms of what the records are actually called. V, then, is album number five, a double-sized and long-awaited package that represents the first long form outing from Ruban Nielson and Co since 2018. In modern music, that's a hell of a long time. Rest assured, though, it seems like time was well spent honing crafts, polishing ideas, and coming out with 14 incredibly interesting and compelling songs.

In many ways V isn't a huge departure from IV, but - maybe because of that extended gap - you still can't shake the feeling this is you meeting the Orchestra for the first time. Packed full of surprises, running the gamut between blissed out, stargazing stuff, lo-fi funk steppers, and a kind of stoner pop-blues, it's love at first play. Again.

Review: New Zealand-born, Portland-based Ruban Nielson is well known for mixing up lo-fi, indie rock, psychedelic sounds and plenty of trippiness into unique and beguiling sound worlds. V is said to be the band's most definitive album yet and it was written between the dry freeways of Palm Springs in California and the much more lush coastlines of Hawai'i. As such it is drawn from a world of West Coast AOR, classic hits, weirdo pop and Hawaiian Hapa-haole music. This is the first double album in the artist's discography and it is well worth the extra playtime.

Review: Sharon Van Etten is in a philosophical mood on her sixth album, We've Been Going About This All Wrong, offering up a series of songs concerned with considering "how we feel, mourn and reclaim our agency when we think the world may be falling apart". While her lyrical inspirations may be weighty, the American singer-songwriter has a knack of cloaking her deeply personal words - delivered emotively, as you'd expect - in beautiful arrangements. Some of these bristle with her trademark "dark drums" and breath-takingly poignant synth sounds, while others are sparse and stripped-back, with just an acoustic guitar backing Van Etten's voice. She's kept the album under wraps - refusing, surprisingly, to release any teaser singles - but it's definitely been worth the wait.

Review: Sharon Van Etten is an American singer-songwriter who dropped her sixth studio album We've Been Going About This All Wrong last year and captured plenty of the wrought emotions we all had during Covid. It showed she is very much on top of her game and the tenth anniversary edition of Tramp reminds us she has been for decades. This special version comes on limited edition heavyweight crimson splash vinyl and includes a new unreleased track. There is a reason this record was critically acclaimed at the time and has remained a fan favourite.

Review: On her new album Across Water Made Us, Jamila heads into all new musical territory. 2017's HEAVN album was one that found the artist connecting with the lineage of Black feminist movements, then in 2019 Legacy! reframed her own experiences through iconic Black and brown artists. Now she cross new genre borders, sharpness up her hypnotic wordplay and lats down plenty of playful melodies that all help make for one of her most personal albums to date. It is fun and intimate as it tackles veracious subjects from new romances to endless love with features from Chicago natives such as Saba and Peter CottonTale.