New Music Fridays

Cafe Society
#1

Music is a constantly evolving and updating art form. The way we can access it has changed so much from when I would go to a record store and buy tapes at 12:01am on a Tuesday. Now, we can listen to whole albums on phones and computers with streaming apps and services. It’s easier to find new music, except now we’re almost spoilt for choice.

So how about a thread for discussing the new music getting released on Fridays?

Here’s what’s out 28 April, 2017 (album-artist)

Humanz -Gorillaz
More Life -Drake
Pleasure -Feist
God’s Problem Child -Willie Nelson
Sad Clowns & Hillbillies -John Mellencamp
50 Years of Blonde on Blonde -Old Crow Medicine Show
Volume 1 -BNQT
Let the Dancers Inherit the Party -British Sea Power
Parking Lot Symphony -Troy “Trombone Shorty” Andrews
The Dreamer is the Dream -Chris Potter
Form of Play: A Retrospective -The Sneetches
Gargoyle -Mark Lanegan
All This I Do for Glory -Colin Stetson
Here on Earth -Jenny Scheinman
Flowers: Beautiful Life, Vol. 2 -Jimmy Greene
Robert Cray & Hi Rhythm -Robert Cray / Hi Rhythm Band
async -Ryuichi Sakamoto
Everything So Far -Pinegrove
New Trick -Skating Polly
Places -Lea Michele
Still Life -Little Cub
Los Angeles Police Department -Los Angeles Police Department
Modern Plagues -The Whistles & the Bells
Untitled -WALL
Rímur -Arve Henriksen / Trio Mediæval
Liszt & Wagner -Imogen Cooper
Lucrezia Borgia’s Daughter: Princess, nun and musician -Celestial Sirens / Musica Secreta / Deborah Roberts / Laurie Stras
British Tone Poems, Vol. 1 -Rumon Gamba / BBC National Orchestra of Wales
Rachmaninov: Solo Piano Works -Sandro Russo

#2

Gorillaz’s new collection Humanz is typically something I would skip. Their previous albums never really did much for me. There just never seemed to connect with me and I’m not sure why. It’s got the ingredients that could appeal, but it’s baked at the wrong temperature or there’s too much salt. “Halfway to the Halfway House” is a perfect example of that. The vocals are great, it’s got a good beat, but then there’s the repeated sound of someone playing a saw with a bow on a theremin that is sonically displeasing.
The one stand out track for me is "Let Me Out (feat Mavis Staples & Pusha T). Lyrics are topical and political without being heavy handed. The soulful pleading of Mavis Staples really rounds out the emotion that is lacking on some of the other tracks.
A second track, “We Got the Power (feat Jehnny Beth)” could have been another good track, a more upbeat track but it ends too soon and makes it feel like almost a throw away.