VA - World Spirituality Classics 2: The Time For Peace Is Now (Luaka Bop)

Gospel music that is not about God or Jesus, but instead how we deal with each other. Sourced from small label gospel singles from the 70s from fairly obscure groups. These songs are resplendent with love and yet are not love songs, not in the sense of man-addressing-woman, or woman-addressing-man. The material here speaks of life and death, care and disrepair, exultation and release, sorrow and pain, and exhort the listener to hold on, seek peace, let light shine, know joy, recognize the love in one's fellows- nearly every ecstasy excluding the erotic variants is on offer here.

Belle & Sebastian - Days of the Bagnold Summer OST (Matador)

Is releasing a soundtrack a different prospect from releasing a regular album? "Everything we do that becomes an album is a big deal for us," says Murdoch. "We're quietly pleased with how the collaboration went, but the truth is that you don't know what's going to happen when it goes out into the world, and people hear it." Martin thinks it is slightly different from other records they've put out. "It's more consistent, probably, than most of our albums. Soundtracks are a deeper cut. They're not a big pop statement."

Chelsea Wolfe - Birth of Violence (Sargent House)

Wolfe has always been a conduit for a powerful energy, and while she has demonstrated a capacity to channel that somber beauty into a variety of forms, her gift as a songwriter is never more apparent than when she strips her songs down to a few key components. As a result, her solemn majesty and ominous elegance are more potent than ever here. Her longtime musical collaborator Ben Chisholm recorded the songs in their own studio and helped fill them out with his modern production treatments and auxiliary flourishes. The result yields Wolfes most devastating work to date.

The Lumineers - III (Dualtone)

The Lumineers' new album is a cinematic piece presented as a narrative in three chapters, with each one centering on one main character. III's concept began while the band was writing in the Catskill mountains, where producer Simone Felice works. Decidedly darker than their previous work in concept, but replete with their trademark expressive vocals and dynamic arrangements, III boldly and expertly goes in an artistic direction not yet traveled by the band.

(Sandy) Alex G - House of Sugar (Domino)

Whereas with earlier efforts, such as 2011's Winner or the landmark 2014 release DSU, he'd write numerous songs fairly quickly, with House of Sugar Alex Giannascoli worked at a steadier pace, concentrating on fewer songs and laboring over each one more than before. Throughout the process Giannascoli worked closely with Jacob Portrait, who mixed both Rocket and 2015's Beach Music, and here helped to balance each of the dense, multi-faceted tracks. His most meticulous, cohesive album yet: a statement of artistic purpose, showing off his ear for both persistent earworms and shifting textures.

Twin Peaks - Lookout Low (Grand Jury)

With their 4th album, the sonic and creative leap they take feels like a total revolution in their youthful and rambunctious sound. Recorded and cut totally live over 3 weeks in Wales with legendary producer Ethan Johns (Paul McCartney, Kings of Leon, U2). Armed with four excellent and collaborative songwriters, each member upped their game. Their new album proves that Chicago's Twin Peaks is less a band and more a brotherhood, one that's endured for almost a decade.

The Highwomen - s/t (Elektra)

A collaborative movement formed by Brandi Carlie, Natalie Hemby, Maren Morris and Amanda Shires. "Anyone can be a Highwoman," Carlile notes. "It's about banding together, abandoning as much ego as humanly possible, holding one another up and amplifying other women every chance we get." Continually demonstrating the importance of inclusion and collaboration, they are joined by guest musicians, vocalists and songwriters across the album. The project features Sheryl Crow, Yola, Dave Cobb, Jason Isbell, and many more- with songs written by Carlile, Hemby, Morris, Shires, Isbell, the Hanseroth twins, Rodney Clawson, Lori McKenna, Miranda Lambert and Ray LaMontagne among many others.

Chastity - Home Made Satan (Captured Tracks)

An emotional and political concept album, the 2ns installment of his I Love trilogy, from the perspective of a young man who's spent too much time alone, inside, isolated from the world. It's about fear, and radicalization; an intense meditation on youth and extremism in an increasingly irrational and violent Western World. Williams, who produces all his own music, set out to create something with a strong cinematic nature, a record that sounds somewhere between My Chemical Romance and The Smiths. "The new songs are gothier and poppier than ever, recalling 80s goth staples like The Cure and Siouxsie & the Banshees."

Jenny Hval - The Practice of Love (Sacred Bones)

Jenny's 7th album unspools with an almost deceptive ease. Filled with arpeggiated synth washes and the kind of lilting beats that might have drifted, loose and unmoored, from some forgotten mid-'90s trance single, it first and foremost, compellingly humane. Given the horror and viscera of her previous album, 2016's Blood Bitch, The Practice of Love is almost subversive in it's gentleness- a deep dive into what it means to grow older, to question one's relationship to the earth and one's self, and to hold a magnifying glass over the notion of what intimacy can mean.

Alex Cameron - Miami Memory (Secretly Canadian)

Cameron's flair for narrative and character are still on full display; yet Miami Memory's most frequent narrator is, for the first time, Cameron himself— singing with stunning candor of his relationship with his girlfriend. Though remnants of his synth-driven earlier work sneak in to unsettle the tone, the bulk of the Jonathan Rado produced album revels in the emotional overdrive of classic dad rock, its warm, anthemic songs driven by bass, guitar, sax, and layers of Vegas wedding chapel-ish organ. Cameron's dad rock funhouse of an album ultimately twists and subverts the genre: it recalls classics the white male ego has historically visited for its regular adrenaline injection, and morphs them into a singular "stepdad" rock that largely turns its lens away from the dads, celebrating the demise of old norms of gender and power.

Devendra Banhart - Ma (Nonesuch)

Ma is a dedication to motherhood. The title of the album comes from the realization that the word 'Ma' is a very good candidate for our first utterance and our very last whisper. The record contains 3 parallel narratives all pointing back to motherhood. The first is one of loss and helplessness, the narrative of a mother who reluctantly had to put up her child for adoption, still loving them, but unable to be with them. The second narrative is everything I would ever say to the children I may or may not have. The third narrative is one of celebration, of recognizing the Mother in each being, and of gratitude for music and its mothering qualities. Features appearances by many, including Cate Le Bon and Vashti Bunyan, the archetype of a mother.

Wonderhills - Someday You'll Be Waiting (self)

The Wonderhills are Ryan Heimlich on vocals / banjo, Nick Harley on vocals, guitar and dobro, Peter Doyle on mandolin, Diederik van Wassenaer on fiddle and viola, and Connor Grimm on bass. Inspired by the wooded hills of southern Indiana, this five-piece acoustic outfit writes pop songs using intricate string arrangements and rich vocal harmonies to create a sound that is uniquely their own. Recorded at Blockhouse Studios.

Also New This Week

Jarvis Cocker - Must I Evolve 12" (Rough Trade)
The Cult - Sonic Temple [30th Annv] (Beggars)
Eye Flys - Context (Thrill Jockey)
Sam Fender - Hypersonic Missiles (Polydor)
Rhiannon Giddens - There Is No Other LP (Nonesuch)
Guided By Voices - Half Smiles Of The Decomposed LP (Matador)
Indian Summer - Giving Birth to Thunder (Numero)
Jeremy Ivey - The Dream and The Dreamer (Anti)
Ahmad Jamal - Ballades (Jazz Village)
Joseph - Good Luck Kid (ATO)
Lower Dens - The Competition (Ribbon)
Corb Lund - Cover Your Tracks (New West)
Melanie Martinez - K-12 (Atlantic)
Brad Mehldau - Solo Piano: Live in Tokyo (Nonesuch)
Miss June - Bad Luck Party (Frenchkiss)
Sequoyah Murray - Before You Begin (Thrill Jockey)
The Paranoyds - Carnage Bargain (Suicide Squeeze)
Mike Patton & Jean-Claude Vannier - Corpse Flower (Ipecac)
Art Pepper - Promise Kept: The Complete Artists House Recordings 5CD (Omnivore)
Pixies - Beneath the Eyrie (Infectious)
Prince - Emancipation / Chaos & Disorder / Versace Experience LP (Sony)
Rain Parade - Emergency Third Rail Power Trip LP (Real Gone)
Michael Rault - I'll Be There 7" (Wick)
Gruff Rhys - Pang! (Rough Trade)
Tad Robinson - Real Street (Severn)
Emeli Sande - Real Life (Virgin)
Snail Mail - Habit EP [reissue] (Matador)
Stereolab - Dots / Emperor / Cobra DLX LP reissues (Duophonic)
Jonah Tolchin - Fires for the Cold (Yep Roc)
Velvet Negroni - Neon Brown (4AD)
The Vulcans - Star Trek LP (Real Gone)
Wolfram - Amadeus (DFA)