New Release Friday

It’s the beginning of spring and it is about time to refresh everyone’s music collections with the latest single picks from new albums and upcoming releases.


First of all, La Luz have released “Strange World”, the first single off of the upcoming fifth studio album. The Single opens with the coolest bad ass surf riff, leading into a new bed of hypnotic synthesizers and their infectious group vocals. This new La Luz sound makes me very excited for „News of the Universe“ – out May 24th on Sub Pop.

Another all-time favorite, Khruangbin also have a new studio album on the horizon: LP no. 4 called “A LA SALA” is coming to your records stores April 5th via Dead Oceans / Night Time Stories Ltd. After two other preliminary tastes, the Texan trio presents “Pon Pón”, inviting us once again to go on a sound vacation to a tropical destination where everything is very easy-going, with a bopping groove and whispered Spanish vocals. The album also contains a song named „Todavía Viva” – a musical reference their beloved song “People Everywhere (Still Alive)”?! We will find out very soon.

Next up is the really cool new song by Habibi, the Brooklyn-based band around Rahill Jamalifard and Lenny Lynch. Their sound evolved from the sweet surf rock on their self titled debut into a darker, edgier post punk infused style that is very welcome these days – and Rahill’s sound became even sweeter on her first solo record “Flowers At Your Feet”. Habibi’s new album “Dreamachine” will be released on May 31st via Kill Rock Stars. The single is called “On The Road”: a super catchy post punk track with a gloomy bassline, interloped by a cool guitar riff and piano accents, leaving you wanting more.

Jessica Pratt is back with a new album announcement and the single “Life Is“ sounds so cohesive to her previous album, even though there has been a big production makeover from sparse to full instrumentation, and as graceful as her vocals leading them. “Here in the Pitch” will come out May 3rd on Mexican Summer/City Slang –  a long wait since “Quiet Signs” in 2019.

The next ones are two projects that embrace a pleasant 90s revival sound as of late:

Peter Sagar’s Homeshake made the shift from their signature sound of relaxed bedroom R’n’B to a refreshing and unexpected early 90s alternative and neo grunge sound, with pleasantly dissonant guitars.

DIIV have “Frog In Boiling Water” coming out May 24th and here is what they say about my favorite single s far, “Brown Paper Bag”:
“it’s both a pop song and a sludgy song, a country song and a shoegaze song, a dreamy song and a decidedly 90’s ‘rock’ song. we built it around tape samples that loop just underneath the surface and what is probably the weirdest guitar tuning we’ve ever used. recording it, we talked about mojave 3, built to spill, and the melvins”.
Here is to a 90s shoegaze revival:

Apropos 90s and grunge: Kim Gordon released her new album “The Collective” on March 8th and the video to the single “Bye Bye” is starring her daughter Coco Gordon Moore.

Finally, I’m not surprised that sometimes there are great discoveries right in my inbox. Today I found Dreamwave, a band from Brighton who recently relocated to Bristol and have an EP coming out on Velvet Echos Records. Their sound ranges from frantic uptempo tracks like “Mindcave“ to dreamy ethereal ones like “Hidden Sun”, so they fit right into our playlists.