Father John Misty Writes Civilization's Obituary with 'Pure Comedy'

There will be no casual audience for Father John Misty’s latest studio album Pure Comedy. Any time appropriate for listening to the album will not be spontaneous, brief, or passive. The headiness associated with any Father John Misty release is multiplied here by an unverifiable amount of times over and any recommendation of Pure Comedy for listening should be accompanied by an obligatory warning: this album is not a comforting experience. It would be nice to have the romantic jest and the lush sounds of I Love You, Honeybear (Sub Pop, 2015) rehashed as a therapeutic remedy to 2016. But that is not what we need and that is not what Father John Misty is interested in. As we toil with the consequences of an election year gone awry and ready ourselves for the consequences of upcoming developments, how can we approach art, life, or anything with leisure?

On Pure Comedy, Father John Misty (née Josh Tillman) tackles everything between political antichrists, the digital human experience, heavy-handed religiosity, and warring ideologies. The album is simultaneously a self-interrogation and an interrogation of the broader public’s role in enabling the current state of the union. But the questions that Tillman dares to ask are amorphously oblique and daunting. “Has commentary been more lucid than anybody else?” the protagonist asks on single “Ballad of the Dying Man.” Tillman’s choice of subject matter is certainly ambitious, but it is appropriate and well-deserved for him to take on. He dares to confront the most difficult questions looming over the nation, forgoing an altruistic or omnipotent approach for one that is genuinely vulnerable, concerned, and ultimately limited by his humanity.

Tillman’s signature backhanded humor is almost exclusively sarcastic on Pure Comedy, in contrast to I Love You, Honeybear’s facetious moments. Pure Comedy focuses a critical lens on modern society’s cultural practice, socio-political choices, and value set. “Bedding Taylor Swift / Every night inside the Oculus Rift / After mister and the missus finish dinner and the dishes” goes the opening lines to “Total Entertainment Forever.” Tillman’s criticisms are unsparing and pessimistic, a fitting match to the balladic tone of the album’s instrumentals. Melancholic pianos form the foundations of nearly every song on Pure Comedy, achieving a quality comparable to any Carole King-James Taylor collaboration on “Ballad of the Dying Man” and a Billie Joel theatricality on “Total Entertainment Forever.”

The album becomes a manifesto at its longest and most epic moments. “Leaving LA” and “So I’m Growing Old on Magic Mountain” clock in at 14 and 10 minutes respectively. The songs take listeners on a real-time tour of Tillman’s disgruntled headspace as he commutes from his home to the highway and convey the unsatisfactory and fleeting experiences of life in Los Angeles. In these songs, listeners will find themselves introspectively protracted. They are the negative spaces to an album densely packed with lyrics that offer more questions than answers concerning humanity's current condition, but not for a lack of trying to ascertain resolution. 

Through Pure Comedy's satire, Tillman does his best to offer solutions to the world’s problems, but he does not pretend to know the answers to all of them. He has no qualms about identifying societal shortcomings and challenging listeners to question whether or not they have been complicit with the regression of society’s development. He laments the ways in which our aspirations have incurred woeful externalities, telling Zane Lowe “When the internet came out it was like, this is the truest form of democracy that human beings have ever invented, this is gonna be the utopia. And you fast forward and it’s pornography.” Pure Comedy is a sobering experience and a memorandum outlining the faults in our current condition as a society and species. For some, this album will reek of an artist taking himself too seriously, but this is a gravitas that deserves applause. When was the last time you put yourself on the line by voicing your complaints? Did you try to solve them afterwards too?

San Fermin's 'Belong' is Chamber Pop Excellence

As far as bands are concerned, San Fermin is arguably one of the most unintentionally musical projects on the active circuit. If you’re unfamiliar with the group (perhaps “collective” is a better term) San Fermin, you may find your subconscious asking “well, why are they famous?” If such is the case, I’ll bury the lede.

San Fermin is the vehicle for auteur composer Ellis Ludwig-Leone (an exceptional composer name, by the way) to get his proverbial chamber pop “rocks” off. While has Ludwig-Leone handled most to all of the composition and songwriting for San Fermin’s three LP releases, the recording process as a whole is by committee.

Vocalists Charlene Kaye and Allen Tate provide melodies and additional lyrical input, while John Brandon, Stephen Chen, Tyler McDiarmid, Rebekah Durham and Michael Hanf provide the grit and structure of San Fermin. Over the course of four years, San Fermin released two exceptional explorations of the baroque and chamber pop realms – San Fermin (2013) and Jackrabbit (2015) – which culminated in the production of the band’s newest full-length effort, Belong.

Between the three albums, Belong feels slightly more akin to the band's eponymous debut. The prevailing sensibilities of earnestness and simultaneous trepidation are as strong in Belong as any instance on San Fermin. Not to place Jackrabbit on the comparative backburner, but Belong serves as a current (in this instance meaning, “musically topical”) return to form.

There are classic tenants of San Fermin-dom such as visceral horn sections composed by Ludwig-Leone and performed by John Brandon (trumpet) and Stephen Chen (saxophone). If I may have a moment of personal expression and highlight one of my favorite instances of exceptional horn-i-ness (sorry) – “Better Form” has one of the strongest baritone sax basslines I can recall (I suppose that phrase isn’t uttered all that often in modern music criticism, but I digress).

Led by Allen Tate’s own baritone timbre, “Better Form” struts around like a modern wistful club anthem, but Ludwig-Leone’s brilliance places horns and strings where the familiar womps of a Deadmau5 or Flume might place some bright shimmery electronica. The song ebbs and flows with club sensibilities – drops, dramatic musical breaks – but maintains that strong baroque methodology San Fermin has nestled itself into. The song itself is one giant crescendo into the album’s second third, and by far and away one of it most dynamic.

Speaking of dynamism, such a descriptor is necessary when referencing any and all songs of which feature both vocalists Allen Tate and Charlene Kaye performing in unison. While both have their exceptional merits – Kaye being more airy and affirmative, Tate serving as the more despondent and doleful narrator – their “duets” offer up the purest sense of San Fermin. Title track “Belong” serves as an excellent example – Tate leads the song in his historically crestfallen croon, but Kaye and violinist Rebekah Durham provide a ray of light that veils Tate’s eventual growth into contentment.

While there may be no obvious stalwart track like “Sonsick” (off of San Fermin) or saccharine sweet single like “Emily” (off Jackrabbit), Belong as a whole stands to wind up being the most complete record in San Fermin’s early discography. Songs like “Dead” feel unique to current purviews amongst the new-age bourgeoisies and their individual (and potentially dwindling) freedoms as Kaye caterwauls in front of a frenzied composition only Ludwig-Leone could conceive.

Belong itself is a bit of a marvel, considering the extensive songlisting of San Fermin’s three record discography. Ludwig-Leone has composed 55 songs in the past four years. Mind you, that was composed, not “wrote.” The complex and concerted efforts of Ludwig-Leone have always benefitted San Fermin throughout the band’s existence, but never more so than on Belong. After half a decade of touring and playing alongside each other, Belong makes it apparent that Ludwig-Leone and his associates have reached their most intimate understanding of each other, culminating in a masterful crescendo.

Future Islands' 'The Far Field' is Both Journey and Destination for a Restless Heart

When describing Future Islands their recently retired, tongue-in-cheek Twitter bio put it best: “Too noisy for new wave, too pussy for punk.” Their distinctive formula has changed relatively little over the years, and The Far Field continues to weave Gerrit Welmer’s deft synth atmospheres and William Cashion’s bass groove spine into the perfect backdrop for Samuel T. Herring’s ever-exhilarating rants and raves.

An ode to the road, restless nomadism permeates their fifth full-length, the title of which even implies a promised land beyond. You can hear the drone of a jet engine, the pound of footsteps, and the angst of a heart beating all twisted into The Far Field's melodic pulse and swirl. Over 1000 shows deep into relentless touring and coming off of the peak of their popularity, Future Islands are exhausted, but they maintain a spritely rhythm despite this.

If anything The Far Field is guilty only of leaving the rougher edges on the cutting room floor. Perhaps the awareness of now larger audiences or even weary self-preservation softened the throaty metal growls found in past songs like “Fall From Grace” (At a gig I attended post-Singles Herring joked he had just begun to see a vocal coach for the first time and that said coach was concerned), though they are of course still sprinkled throughout the live show. In fact, though you won’t find quite a “Long Flight” or “Tin Man” level climax recorded here, you get the feeling these songs were almost made as teasers for their now famous performances; You can practically feel the vein-bursting screams in “Aladdin,” visualize the sultry hip swaying in delicious slow jam “Candles,” and taste the sweat in “Cave.”

The passion and drive is still there, but the “Spirit”-esque hooks are left behind as well; Future Islands have earned your attention, now here is what they have to say. Perhaps the most vulnerable moment of The Far Field is “Through The Roses,” with Herring juxtaposing internal anxiety with the rose-colored perception of the star on a stage who is, after all, still human, though not easily so. “And you see me through the roses / Through the lights and the smoke and the screen / I’m no one better / I’m no better than you / And I’m scared,“ he reveals. Despite the chest-beating confidence he can exude and the success that it's found, you believe him.

Though “It’s not easy just being human” seems obvious, many do lose sight of the delicate humanity in entertainers, especially one whose stocky frame and soulful evocations can at times seem larger than life. There is a selfish voyeurism afforded the listener - one can marvel at Herring as he mimes ripping his own heart out or tearing a mask off his melting face, but when the lights come on you go home. For Herring and Future Islands home still remains just that, a Far Field somewhere down the line.

Restlessness electrifies this album in a way deeper than to simply say the grass is always greener. “The fear that keeps me going and going and going / Is the same fear that brings me to my knees,” Herring grinds out at The Far Field’ intensest on “Cave.” How do you deal with the paradox that your art is driven by the same pain of love that the touring artist’s lifestyle unforgivingly impedes? By using it as the fuel to carry on.

“North Star” could be read as a prequel to canon staple “Long Flight” as a weather delay keeps Herring from fulfilling a promise to be home soon, and in a record written about a sort of unrequited search for a self-actualized peace any respite is fleeting. “Oh, at last! / You’re here in my arms again / And I don’t know how long / So I won’t waste a bit,” he sings on “The Beauty of the Road.”

Still, to the casual listener, the Letterman meme viewer, much of this might be glided over. It is, after all, a pop structure built on an undeniable throb and grab. Sentiment aside, it’s just damn catchy. And though this is a record review, as is already apparent it is nearly impossible to separate the theatrical dimension of the live embodiment of these tracks from the spinning wax that seems tantalizingly lifeless by comparison.

To fully internalize The Far Field it helps to have witnessed the shocking ease with which Herring seamlessly transitions between the emotional convulsions of his stage prowl to the wide, disarming smile he flashes the second the songs end. “We’re just fucking around,” he often small talks in between, but one glimpse of the way his face contorts as he pounds the side of his head with his fist before collapsing to the ground gives you the feeling he is extremely not fucking around. Despite this, whereas most artists this deep into character are impenetrably impersonal, the down-to-earth accessibility Herring maintains throughout it all is truly a thing of beauty. The balance between tortured artist and man you could comfortably share a drink with is rarely struck with real quality, and it’s this fine line of flexible authenticity that make Future Islands’ music paradoxically familiar yet otherworldly, oscillating between primal and candor and doing both better than most bands can do even one.

This record benefits from this self-aware duality in more ways than one. “And what’s a song without you? / When every song I write is about you,“ Herring pines in single “Ran.” As he first penned a decade ago, “The Heart Grows Old,” and Herring has come to terms with much since then, avoiding hardening too much or burning out in the process. The Far Field is a matured and knowing hunger, one “ran ‘round the wailing world.”

Listen to All We Are's Dark, Howling New Single "Burn It All Out"

All We Are are following up their impeccably chill self-titled debut with a new taste of their as-of-yet unannounced sophomore effort, and it boldly roars in a darker direction.

"Burn It All Out" is the Liverpool-based Brazilian/Irish/Norwegian trio's first track since 2015 and the lead single of an LP due out via Domino imprint Double Six later this year, appropriately crying out “It's going to happen to you anyway, anyway / So you better believe.”

Listen and check tour dates below.

All We Are - Burn It All Out (Official Audio) Stream 'Burn It All Out' now: http://smarturl.it/BurnListen Video by All We Are Concept and Lighting design by Venya Krutikov Filmed at the Invisible Wind Factory For more information visit: http://www.thisisallweare.co.uk https://twitter.com/thisisallweare https://www.facebook.com/thisisallweare http://vevo.ly/ub1QbY

Listen to Future Islands' Aggressive Mourning on New Single "Cave"

Future Islands' forthcoming 5th full-length The Far Field is one of 2017's most anticipated releases, and, following "Ran," we now have a second single to hold us over until April 7.

"Cave" prowls the deeper, darker side to Future Islands' pulsing synthscapes as Sam Herring growls "I don't believe anymore" with increasing severity. Those lucky enough to have seen the track performed live in recent weeks can attest that it's already a deserving set staple, with its vein-popping SXSW displays readily proving its place alongside "Tin Man" and "Seasons (Waiting On You)."

The accompanying lyric video is unique in that it's conveyed solely through ASL via New York City mayor Bill De Blasio’s fittingly expressive sign language interpreter Jonathan Lamberton. Though not quite to the level of a certain Letterman performance, Lamberton's signing has had its own viral fame.

Listen and watch "Cave" and check out the band's newly expanded touring itinerary below.

The official video for 'Cave' by Future Islands, from new album "The Far Field", out April 7th 2017 on 4AD: http://smarturl.it/The_Far_Field Starring: Jonathan Lamberton Directed by Jay Buim DP - Kyle Repka Editor - Captain & the Fox Producer - Marisa Gesualdi Special thanks to Andria Alefhi Lyrics: CAVE In

Drake Sets Masterfully Curated Ambience on 'More Life'

Early talk of Drake’s More Life project offered the public no refuge from the nuisance of semantics, which confronts us daily with such annoyances as “alternative facts” where matters of legitimate constitutional and socio-economic interpretations didn’t already have us preoccupied. The predicament: if an artist assembles a compilation of new music, does it constitute an album? Drake disagrees, categorizing More Life as a “playlist” as opposed to a mixtape or LP. But More Life bears more of the eschewed categories’ qualities than Drake gives credit. Like an album, More Life consists completely of new material and establishes a tone and ambience in the ways of a mixtape (at least as those of the Reagan-era understood mixtapes). But granting Drake his agency to categorize his work, More Life still falls short of his grandiose promise to “provide a soundtrack to your life.” He provides us instead with a calculatedly mood-setting compilation bookended by shows of his mastery.

More Life suggests itself to be a platform for Drake to further exercise his fascination with dancehall and trap, as well as his longstanding love of Timbaland and Aaliyah. At its worst, it comes off as a collection of Views’ B-sides, but it succeeds in its moments of strong likeness to Drake’s OVO Sound Radio show (Apple Music). The collection is masterfully curated with consistent tone and easy transitions, while DJ monologues between various songs fortify the radio show aesthetic. As always, Drake’s rapping is tight and well-paced, but with such a lengthy release (clocking in at one hour and 22 minutes), he runs the risk of exhausting his limited but profitable subject matter.

On many songs on More Life, including “Get It Together,” “Madiba Riddim,” and “Blem,” Drake conveys his tried and true sentiment that love is hard without expanding upon that sentiment in new ways. The repurposed Stevie Wonder harmonica solo previously featured of “Doing It Wrong” (Take Care, 2011) deals a near fatal blow in regards to giving the album a recycled and unthoughtful feel. But More Life navigates past this with the single “Passionfruit,” a delicate dancehall-inspired R&B song built upon bouncy steel drums and synths. The sequence speaks to overall dynamic of More Life, passé at times but not for periods long enough to make us forget how Drake ascended into a position that would grant him the agency to release a “playlist.”

The most memorable moments of More Life are Drake’s skillful collaborative plays and his returns to his vintage introspection. Closing song “Do Not Disturb” evokes Drake’s mixtape heyday and his Thank Me Later/Take Care “tough-guy-feels-too” persona. The raps on the track are genuinely retrospective, lacing sentimentally provocative tales of fake Chanel gift-giving over a percussion-incessant R&B instrumental. Drake demonstrates a newly expanded music worldview with contributions from South African producer/DJ Black Coffee and British grime artist Giggs. He and Kanye’s interlocking verse on “Glow” yield hip-hop braggadocio gold and Young Thug delivers a flow-perfect verse on “Sacrifices” and radio-ready chorus and ad libs on “Ice Melts.”

Taken as a work intended for establishing ambience, both casual listeners and dedicated fans of Drake will find More Life as more than enough to sustain them until his next release. Though Drake’s classification of More Life as a playlist forces us to consider it separately from the studio albums comprising his catalog, it is hard to deny that Drake has logged another win for himself in releasing a compilation that meets his purpose of providing listeners an experience that pairs well with the many swings of life, from the mundane to the exceedingly hyped. 

'Raw' Is Worth Losing Your Appetite

Warning: this film is not for the faint of heart. Raw has garnered attention from rumors of audience members fainting and puking during screenings, and while I found myself gagging during some of the most graphic scenes, Raw is much more than blood and gore. It doesn’t rely on carnage for shock value, but instead tells an important story in the process. The 33-year-old French native, Julia Ducournau, steps into the feature film world with this sensational horror film that disturbingly represents a girl’s transition into adulthood.

Justine, a shy and naïve girl played by Garance Marillier, arrives at veterinary school plagued with self-doubt and anxieties. She falsely assumes that her older sister Alexia, played by Ella Rumpf, will help her stay off the upperclassmen’s radar and avoid humiliation, but that hope is quickly destroyed when Alexia forces her to eat a rabbit’s kidney as part of a hazing ritual. While her body first rejects it by breaking out in hives, a need for meat possesses her. Little by little her cravings for animal meat turn into cravings for human flesh, and few things stop her from going into a full feeding frenzy.

There are clear parallels between Justine’s emerging cannibalism and her sexual exploration. At the start of the film Justine is a virgin who is overwhelmed by the debauchery of her first college party, and by the end of the film she scans the party perched up on a countertop, legs spread in search of her next prey. The veterinary students pack into these parties in a way that resembles a slaughterhouse, which is how Justine views them. Her sexual desire, her need for human flesh, and alcohol intertwine for some disastrous consequences.

Her sexual awakening and her evolution from vegetarianism to cannibalism come with a rise in self-confidence and self-awareness without regard for social norms or consequences. The first half of the movie she comes off shy, soft spoken, and doing everything possible to avoid humiliation with little success. At one point she is forced to wear an adult diaper over her jeans for looking at an upperclassman. Later she becomes aware that other people find her attractive and the power she can harness from that. She even seduces herself by dancing in front of a mirror while getting ready for a party. However, she is never truly free from the judgment of other people and the fear of humiliation she carries with her is only ever gone when she is entranced by human flesh. Once she’s done feeding, Justine typically feels guilty mainly because she worries what others would think, but that remorse is never enough to make her stop.

Ducournau and cinematographer Ruben Impens shoot this in a way that allows viewers to sympathize with Justine. She may be doing things that most people would find vile and immoral, but we see her fear, her anxiety, her evolution, and her growth. However, viewers are never truly at ease watching “Raw.” The score sends unnerving chills up and down your spine if the scenes drenched in blood and guts weren’t enough to make you want to hurl. There seems to always be a low hum of buzzing or alarms to make the hairs on your arms stand up.

Raw portrays womanhood in a gruesome way, much like Nicolas Winding Refn’s Neon Demon, but with a much stronger focus and effect. Refn’s film feels pretty superficial in comparison, relying heavily on visuals to mask the many plot holes and unnecessary length. In contrast, everything in Ducournau’s film feels purposeful from the more artistic, dreamlike sequences to the balance between wide shots and close ups. Raw is not an easy watch, but the well-balanced, well-paced horror film leaves you satisfied.

Tame Impala's Cameron Avery Drops Psych Rock for Art Pop on 'Ripe Dreams, Pipe Dreams'

Remember how Andy Shauf kind of “came out of nowhere” with one of the best albums of 2016 (The Party)? It was beguiling, challenging, and met with rapturous acclaim. Everyone loves a dark horse (for the most part).

That being said, music most certainly is not a competition in which one artist challenges an incumbent band for some intangible trophy; It's been hammered home as being wholly subjective. Then again, it's hard to deny when there’s a debut that’s so moving, mighty, and majestic you can’t help but think it’s a cut above the rest.

Point and case – Cameron Avery and his debut solo LP, Ripe Dreams, Pipe Dreams.

The record is an absolute and unequivocal triumph (yes, I know – “Yeah, well, that’s just, like, your opinion, man.”), as Avery all but abandon’s the trappings of his more publicized musical associations.

For the uninitiated, a quick Wikipedia dive will inform you of Avery’s involvements with psych dynamos Tame Impala and POND, as well as some auxiliary work with The Last Shadow Puppets, and fronting his own band, The Growl. Let’s take a moment for the fan boys to settle themselves after writhing with elation at the sumptuous smorgasbord of indie music that is Avery’s resume-to-date. But that’s neither here nor there – we’re focusing on Avery’s newest (and arguably, his finest) project, Ripe Dreams, Pipe Dreams.

In a word, Ripe Dreams, Pipe Dreams is sublime. Avery’s departure from psych rock and subsequent re-orienting toward spaghetti-western-meets-cinematic-lounge-music is a thing of beauty; It's a near master class level of seamless transition.

Where the majority of Avery’s musical projects rest soundly within the realm of neo-psychedelia, Ripe Dreams, Pipe Dreams is about as nebulous in genre as one could hope for. Granted, there’s a distinctive (albeit indeterminate at times) emotion to each song that serves as the thru line to the album as a whole; well, that, and Avery’s dramatic baritone. Everything else on the record seems to take its own liberties of expression, in turn making for a magnificently mercurial sounding work of art.

Take the opening pair of tracks on Ripe Dreams, Pipe Dreams – “A Time and Place” and “Do You Know Me By Heart” – the former of the two has a romantic lullaby feel, with Avery crooning over a smile and display amongst loaded words and passing slurs. Meanwhile, “Do You Know Me By Heart” sounds like cross between '50s/'60s era pop, a la Nancy Sinatra meets modern day lounge pop of Michael Bublé (but a thousand times better).

After flexing his pop prowess muscles, Avery sends the record in a different direction on “Dance with Me,” the would-be Nick Cave-meets-Leonard Cohen spoken singing single that toes the line between sinister and endearing. Meandering baritone guitar and horn blasts ebb and flow with each bemused line of the track – “I’m just a call away / I’m just a plane by day / if you’ll just dance with me.”

Slowly but surely, Avery begins to identify his definitive sound, somewhere between cosmic pop and the aforementioned spaghetti western. “Wasted On Fidelity” touches on "shows to stop / and pills to pop," offering Avery’s most apparent confidence in his narrative, while “Big Town Girl” commences the cementing of Avery’s pop presence. It’s a romantic swerve of cynicism and solicitude that places Jane (aka “Big Town Girl”) at the forefront of Avery’s mind and tongue.

The motifs and themes of Ripe Dreams, Pipe Dreams are suggestive in a way, as the majority of songs center on placing unidentified lovers on somewhat beguiled, somewhat sordid pedestals of existence, which in a way create this gritty realism to the album’s overall narrative. In a way, the songs feel familiar and extraordinary all the same, similar to a Raymond Carver story.

That being said, the heavy baritone in Avery’s voice and his guitar do conjure up imagines of Cormac McCarthy minus the blood and guts. For instance, “Disposable” takes the concept of romantic shelf life and the reality of life’s inconceivable (and mostly inevitable) shortcomings influencing relationships.

So while Ripe Dreams, Pipe Dreams reaches it full form somewhere in the middle of its run, the album still challenges the listener to experience the record on Avery’s terms. “Watch Me Take it Away” is a musical despot’s dream, running from aggressive avant-gardism to 60s power pop to the slightest hint of Impala-esque psych rock, only to be undermined (and ultimately, superseded) by Ripe Dreams, Pipe Dreams’ sublime final third.

Ripe Dreams, Pipe Dreams ends on a run of cinema level of “long songs,” allowing Avery to express his fullest scope of feeling and imbue his ultimate musings in their most effective fashions. There’s “An Ever Jarring Moment,” which serves as just that, following “Watch Me Take it Away,” a near tonal opposite. Then, there’s “C’est Toi,” which out of all the songs on the record, seems to have the longest half-life. In terms of versatility, “C’est Toi” is the warmest of the bunch, all the while maintaining the cynical despondency of the album as a whole. Also, its just a damn good love song.

In maintaining the beautifully mercurial nature of Ripe Dreams, Pipe Dreams, the album ends on the hyperbolic yarn that is “Whoever Said Gambling’s For Suckers.” Its somewhat akin to a Bowie-meets-Cave satirical expansion on the song’s namesake take on the Motorhead lyric. There’s talk of Dale the Dog Trainer and splattering cerebellum on the back wall, a desperado’s tale of bounty hunting noir. Its something wholly unique to the album and Avery’s music itself.

All in all, Ripe Dreams, Pipe Dreams is an intrepid album to say the least. It runs the gamut of genre and challenges any and all conceptions of what an album’s structure should look like. I’d be lying if I didn’t say that Ripe Dreams, Pipe Dreams was a total an unequivocal surprise in its sonic excellence – half because a psych rock album was expected, and secondly, the overall superiority of the record is astonishing. While we may only be a wee three months into 2017, don’t be surprised when you see Avery’s name cropping up here and there come year end list season; I know it will certainly have a place on mine.

Fleet Foxes Announce New Album 'Crack-Up' After Six Year Hiatus, Share Nine Minute Single

After six long years of teasing hints, their frontman going back to school, and their former drummer reaching peak prominence on his own, Fleet Foxes have finally put a date on their long-awaited return. Crack-Up is due out June 16 via new label Nonesuch, with a first taste being provided through the nine minute epic, "Third of May / Ōdaigahara."

Combining Fleet Foxes' signature soaring vocals with an extended harp outro, "Third of May / Ōdaigahara" finds Robin Pecknold confidently indulging in a sprawling exploration of both his most aggressive folk and minimalist tendencies.

Pecknold wrote all 11 tracks, sharing production duties with bandmate Skyler Skjelset. Skjelset and the band's previous record, 2011's Helplessness Blues, were both born on May 3, lending inspiration to the title of the single, while the album title draws from F. Scott Fitzgerald's essay of the same name. The accompanying visual, which features water color paintings being blown across the page, was created by Pecknold's brother Sean and Adi Goodrich.

In an interview with Pitchfork Pecknold explains, "I feel like Crack-Up begins in pure conflicted solitude and ends in a bright clearing, one of closeness, like the top right hand corner of the photograph on the album cover." Though arriving at the release of their third record has been anything but, well, fleet, it seems the result will be well worth the wait.

Listen, and find album art, tracklisting, and tour dates below.

Fleet Foxes' "Third of May / Ōdaigahara" from the 2017 album Crack-Up. Video by Sean Pecknold & Adi Goodrich. Get the track now when you pre-order the album: http://smarturl.it/CrackUp.all See Fleet Foxes on tour: http://fleetfoxes.co/ /// https://www.facebook.com/fleetfoxes https://www.instagram.com/robinpecknold/

Crack-Up

1. I Am All That I Need / Arroyo Seco / Thumbprint Scar
2. Cassius, -
3. – Naiads, Cassadies
4. Kept Woman
5. Third of May / Ōdaigahara
6. If You Need To, Keep Time on Me
7. Mearcstapa
8. On Another Ocean (January / June)
9. Fool’s Errand
10. I Should See Memphis
11. Crack-Up

alt-J Announces New Album 'RELAXER,' Drops "3WW" Single and Music Video, Tour Dates

Three years after releasing their sophomore record This Is All Yours, alt-J have returned, with a forthcoming release titled RELAXER due out June 9 via Canvasback. The announcement is accompanied by lead single "3WW" as well as cover art, tracklisting, and international tour dates, all of which you can find below.

"3WW"'s soft acoustic tones and long intro result in what is a relatively gentle and straightforward single by alt-J standards, and whereas last cycle saw the band joined by an off-the-wall Miley Cyrus sample on "Hunger of the Pine," the Ellie Rowsell (Wolf Alice) feature here makes more sense, seamlessly adding subtle dynamism and harmony to the understated track. The accompanying visual depicts a glitchy medley of scenes from the bizarre Playstation game LSD: Dream Emulator, from which the LP's art direction appears to also be derived.

In addition to drummer Thom Green's 2016 solo release High Anxiety, a statement from the band notes during their break "Gus [Unger-Hamilton] opened a restaurant; Joe [Newman] has been watching a lot of films."

Listen below.

Caution: Contains Flashing Images Stream on Spotify or Apple Music: https://alt-j.lnk.to/3wwID From the forthcoming album RELAXER out June 9th. Pre-order here: https://alt-j.lnk.to/RelaxerID THIS IS NOT THE OFFICIAL VIDEO Animation by Mario Epsley / Keepitvisual

RELAXER:

1. 3WW 
2. In Cold Blood 
3. House of the Rising Sun 
4. Hit Me Like That Snare 
5. Deadcrush 
6. Adeline 
7. Last Year 
8. Pleader