Best New Releases, May 23: Stereolab, These New Puritans, and more
Another New Release Friday is here, and it’s loaded with must-hear records, including the return of a group of UK indie legends, the most consistent and prolific American art-rock brother duo of all time, synth-punk, psychedelic dub, and more. Check out our picks for this week’s Best New Releases.
Note: When you buy something through our affiliate links, Treble receives a commission. All albums we cover are chosen by our editors and contributors.
Stereolab – Instant Holograms on Metal Film
Stereolab has been reunited since before the 2020 pandemic, and in that time they’ve embarked on a few tours and reissued their catalog, along with releasing a couple of compilations of previously unreleased and rare material. But after all this time, they finally make a proper return with their first new set of new music since 2008. Instant Holograms on Metal Film is both a contemporary update of the group’s (excuse me: the groop‘s) eclectic midcentury mashups as well as a familiar return to everything they’ve done so splendidly in the past, merging post-rock, exotica, krautrock, French yé-yé pop, Moog soundscapes and simply perfect, melodic indie pop. It’s everything you’d want in a Stereolab record, and I never realized how much I wanted more of it. We’ll have more on this soon. – Jeff Terich
Listen/Buy: Bandcamp | Turntable Lab (vinyl)
These New Puritans – Crooked Wing
The last time this post-everything British group coughed up an LP, May 2019’s Inside the Rose, us Treble–rs so thoroughly enjoyed the experimentalists’ beautiful remodeling of their previous sound, we named it Album of the Week. Sure enough, nearly six years to the day of Rose’s release, These New Puritans have literally changed their tune once again—and, again, to sterling results—with Crooked Wing. To be clear, the band’s reinvention isn’t in the same culturally game-changing league as Dylan’s or Bowie’s. (Whose is?) But These New Puritans sound sharper and more adept than ever before, as evidenced by their focus on a tighter and less abstract (and sometimes aimless) approach to their songwriting. Regardless of whether the brothers Barnett (Jack and George) draw upon their abilities to make lush songs like “Bells” as well as darker fare such as “Wild Fields,” they are now in the running as one of the most experimental groups that are still, contradictory as it may sound, palatable for the masses. Roping in Caroline Polachek and jazz bassist Chris Laurence might seem like a recipe for hodgepodge. But the fact that These New Puritans pull it off, and that Crooked Wing sounds so fluid from start to finish, necessitates use of the dreaded M-word: maturity. – Kurt Orzeck
Listen/Buy: Bandcamp | Amazon (vinyl)
Sparks – MAD!
After five decades, the brothers Mael continue to build on their already impressive legacy with an eclectic album showcasing their musical breadth and songwriting wit. Following up 2023’s The Girl Is Crying in Her Latte, the art-rock legends run through an eclectic series of songs that range from new wave to jangle pop to sample-laden psychedelia, with all the sardonic wordplay you could ask for. In other words: It’s a new album from Sparks, and that’s a thing worth celebrating. As Russell sings in opening track “Do Things My Own Way,” “gonna run, gonna fly, gonna do things my own way.” We wouldn’t have it any other way. – Jeff Terich
Listen/Buy: Spotify | Rough Trade (vinyl)
Pachyman – Another Place
Puerto Rican dub artist Pachy Garcia has a unique knack for merging the echo-laden space boom of Jamaican dubplates with playful, contemporary melodies and grooves. On his latest, Another Place, the L.A.-based producer and songwriter retains the spacious effects and heavy dose of delay from dub while layering other elements on top, taking an eclectic approach to his arrangements while keeping its foundation rooted in riddim. Cinematic space-age funk drives “SJU,” while “Calor Ahora” lights up with synth-laden psychedelia, and “Hard to Part” pays tribute to the skeletal post-punk-funk of ESG. It’s all designed to make bodies move, and it succeeds wildly. More on this one soon. – Jeff Terich
Listen/Buy: Bandcamp | Turntable Lab (vinyl)
MSPAINT – No Separation
Following up their best-of-2023 album Post-American, Mississippi synth punks MSPAINT return with five songs that showcase even more depth and songwriting breadth in their idiosyncratically heavy sound. Though their immediacy and intensity remains a crucial element of their approach, particularly on songs like the bruising “Wildfire,” the group add more layers and shades of nuance to what they do, as evident in the leadoff track, “Drift.” And with closer “Angel,” they find an unexpected connection between nu-metal barks and surprisingly dreamy synth twinkle. We’ll have more to say on this one soon. – Jeff Terich
Listen/Buy: Bandcamp
Earth – WEM Dominator (Live in London NW1, 2016)
Earth—the perennially crucial PacWest pillar whose thunderous and contorted amalgam of doom, drone, metal and blues has been the stuff of legend while influencing countless bands—continue their improbable run into their third decade. The brainchild of guitar riff overlord Dylan Carlson, Earth is a genre unto itself at this juncture in their pioneering arc. This slow-boiling live document further solidifies Earth’s royalty as outré noisemakers. Recorded live in London in 2016, WEM Dominator, featuring a trio lineup of Carlson with baritone guitarist Jodie Cox and drummer Adrienne Davis, finds Earth at the pinnacle of their epically wasted bludgeon. Envision the two Youngs: “Cortez the Killer”-era guitar solo-rattling godhead Neil Young under the influence of La Monte Young’s minimalism and you get the idea. From the roaring feedback of opener “Bees Made Honey In The Lion’s Skull” to the head-banger of a finale “High Command,” you’ll be on a high from its mighty licks and the smell of weed that must have been wafting inside the London club that evening. A monumental live album not to be missed. – Brad Cohan
Listen/Buy: Bandcamp
Koenjihyakkei – Live at Club Goodman
The Japanese avant-garde has produced its fair share of trailblazers from Melt-Banana and Boredoms to Keiji Haino and Merzbow, all blowing minds with their across-the-spectrum sounds. Add Koenjihyakkei to that list of legends. The Japanese ensemble, led by multi-dimensional extraordinaire Tatsuya Yoshida (also of the equally renowned Ruins) are the quintessential virtuosi of monumentally freaked-out wizardry. After a handful of bananas records over the last few decades, Koenjihyakkei are offering up their debut live album, recorded during covid times before an empty theater and live-streamed to the masses. The result, Live at Club Goodman, manifests Koenjihyakkei in all its brain-scrambling abandon, unleashing its kaleidoscopic maelstrom of prog, hardcore, Japanoise, theatrical rock and absurdist pop with pinpoint precision. It’s difficult to fathom pulling off such a frenzy with this compositional attention to detail but Koenjihyakkei does it with flying colors. Prepare for heads to explode—in a fun way. – Brad Cohan
Listen/Buy: Bandcamp
