Album premiere: Alex Izenberg, Harlequin

Alex Izenberg’s debut LP comes to light after more than five years recording under a variety of pseudonyms. The reclusive Los Angeles-based songwriter has a knack for melody, able to twist notions of romance, fantasy and mischief into charming, off-kilter pop music. Across Harlequin—a collection first written to an old Yamaha piano, then arranged with the help of friend Ari Balouzian, and mixed by Chet “JR” White (Girls, Tobias Jesso Jr.)—Izenberg deploys strings, horns, and found sound to confront love and loss. The result is an altered reality of a record indebted to past eras of baroque psychedelia and suggestive of some other timeless, fever-dreamt one altogether.

Album premiere: DIANA, Familiar Touch

In 2012, the success of DIANA’s first single—which drew comparisons to the soft-focus pop of Roxy Music and Cocteau Twins—came as a surprise. Initially a one-off project, the Toronto-based trio quickly recorded more. Within a year they were touring internationally, remixed by Four Tet, and longlisted for Canada’s prestigious Polaris Music Prize. Ahead of Familiar Touch, their eagerly-anticipated sophomore LP, the band took extended time to reflect and consider what’s next, eventually finding their way over sessions at a rented cottage in rural Québec. “Well worth the wait,” says THUMP, who note the album’s more rhythmically driven sound. This from newfound inspiration: early ‘90s dance music and the rich, ambitious studio production that defined in the '70s and '80s. 

Album premiere: Wildhart, Shine

The full-length debut from Gothenburg, Sweden-based trio Wildhart arrives to considerable anticipation generated from just a handful of singles since 2014. Across the album—recorded entirely in synth-player Kiwi Berg’s basement—they continue this sonic shape-shifting, all guided by the vocal performance of Ylva Holmdahl, whose lyrics strike with defiance, pointed at patriarchy and heartbreak. A powerful record that, as the lead track declares, turns hardships “into gold.“

Album premiere: Surface To Air Missive, A V

On the third Surface To Air Missive album, Tallahassee-raised songwriter Taylor Ross again plays all instruments (guitar, bass, organ, tambourine, recorder, etc) and furthers his project’s melodic and unorthodox retro sound. Recently-relocated to Athens, GA—also home to former tour mates and kindred spirits in the art of weird pop, Of Montreal—Ross sets out to “destroy ‘The Rock Band’ in order to build a 'New Rock Band’ sourced from a Fake Classical / Neo-Baroque style.” Stereogum finds the work “wonderfully bouncy and inventive, with throwback sensibilities and irresistible grooves.”

Album premiere: Ricky Eat Acid, Talk To You Soon

Ricky Eat Acid began as a collection of subdued bedroom sketches on bandcamp, first connecting with a devoted corner of the internet music community. Now Talk To You Soon arrives, via Brooklyn-based imprint Terrible Records, “at times cooing and ambient, other times Burially danceable,” says The Fader. A highly ambitious record, it communicates an electronica that’s both euphoric and discordant—built with everything from strings (courtesy of Owen Pallett) to black metal (Wreck & Reference)—in a language fully its own.

Album premiere: Kero Kero Bonito, Bonito Generation

London trio Kero Kero Bonito seemed to bounce onto the scene fully-formed with their effervescent DIY mixtape, Intro Bonito, in 2014. They’d created a technicolor world all their own—one wherein J-pop, K-pop, video games, art, club and electronic music all danced together—and everyone was invited. On this “official” debut full-length, their diverse musical influences blend as seamlessly as Sarah’s combination Anglo-Japanese lyrics. Beneath the shiny surface, however, lies a genuinely sophisticated brand of pop, complete with clever arrangements and knowing winks to music eras past.

Album premiere: Kadhja Bonet, The Visitor

The full length debut from LA’s Kadhja Bonet is at once current and of a lost era; its author both a DIY wonder and classically trained old soul. Bonet wrote and produced the entirety of The Visitor, playing guitar, flute, violin, and further arranging its rich instrumentation (harp, synth, bass, etc). Yet it’s perhaps her voice that shines the brightest, painting vibrant scenes around each melody, sounding familiar yet eerily unplaceable in the pantheon of greats. First pressed as a small-run EP last Spring in the UK, and now released with a more robust tracklisting through Fat Possum/Fresh Selects, Gorilla Vs. Bear calls it an “utterly timeless and intoxicating soul/psych/jazz/folk opus.”