Top Indie Album Picks of the Week [June 5, 2022]

Fresh grief, like fresh love, has a way of sharpening our vision and bringing on painful clarifications. No matter how temporary we know these states to be, the vulnerability and transformation they demand can overpower the strongest among us. Then there are the rare, fertile moments when both occur, when mourning and limerence heighten, complicate and explain each other; the songs that comprise Angel Olsen’s Big Time were forged in such a whiplash. Big Time is an album about the expansive power of new love, but this brightness and optimism is tempered by a profound and layered sense of loss. During Olsen’s process of coming to terms with her queerness and confronting the traumas that had been keeping her from fully accepting herself, she felt it was time to come out to her parents, a hurdle she’d been avoiding for some time. “Finally, at the ripe age of 34, I was free to be me,” she said. Three days later, her father died and shortly after her mother passed away. The shards of this grief—the shortening of her chance to finally be seen more fully by her parents—are scattered throughout the album. Three weeks after her mother’s funeral she was on a plane to Los Angeles to spend a month in Topanga Canyon, recording this incredibly wise and tender new album. Loss has long been a subject of Olsen’s elegiac songs, but few can write elegies with quite the reckless energy as she. If that bursting-at-the-seams, running downhill energy has come to seem intractable to her work, this album proves Olsen is now writing from a more rooted place of clarity. She’s working with an elastic, expansive mastery of her voice—both sonically and artistically. These are songs not just about transformational mourning, but of finding freedom and joy in the privations as they come. To stream the album visit, Spotify, Tidal, Apple Music, or purchase on Bandcamp.

Source: Jagjaguwar

Imagine Sun Ra time-traveling to the techno-dystopia in Blade Runner, Marty McFly piloting the DeLorean through the cyberpunk cityscape in Akira. Now you’re in the headspace to digest Metropolis, the latest album of time-traveling dispatches from Nashville multi-instrumentalist, producer, and rapper Namir Blade. Inspired by and named after the 2001 anime Metropolis and its 1927 predecessor, these 16 tracks are chapters of a speculative memoir unstuck in time, a quest for joy as late-stage capitalism crumbles looking wearily to a near-future dominated by tech oligarchs. In his most vulnerable writing yet, Namir shirks wallowing in loneliness and algorithm-induced self-doubt by going to therapy, making art on his terms, and learning to cherish his hooptie. Namir’s first entirely self-produced album and third on Mello Music Group, Metropolis was recorded in his living room and mixed at home. His digital and live instrumentation hybrids are as unbound as his subject matter. The ominous yet beautiful synths Vangelis used to score Harrison Ford chasing homicidal Tyrell Co. replicants (“Hypercar”), the cavernous drums and auto-tuned croons of 808s & Heartbreak-era Kanye (“BoA”), anime samples, rays of warm gospel and soul (“Memphisto”), and ethereal trap (“Monday Michuru”) coexist and ram into one another. Namir often switches the beat mid-track, the purposeful disorientation becoming more rewarding with each listen. With features from several Nashville artists who inspire him, he brings the future to us. The ride isn’t linear or always pleasant, but as Namir challenges himself and the listener, both get closer to finding their place in the unsettling now and uncertain tomorrow. To stream the album visit, Spotify, Tidal, Apple Music, or purchase on Bandcamp.

Source: Mello Music Group

Los Angeles-based recording artist Love Keyyz returns with her sophomore project I Could Be Dreaming. The songwriter has created a strong following due to her soft and hypnotizing vocals. The album features 11 tracks including breakout songs “Never Thought” and “P.A.N.” While the pianist’s project explores the standard R&B tropes of love and heartbreak, Love Keyyz manages to provide a fresh take on love. To stream the album visit, Spotify, Tidal, Apple Music, or Soundcloud.

Source: Love Keyyz

Jasmyn is the new solo project of former singer-songwriter and frontwoman of the critically acclaimed Toronto band weaves, and In The Wild is a clean slate of a debut album which breaks away from old patterns and begins a new. For the project, Jasmyn worked with Grammy Award-winning producer John Congleton to create a sonic universe that reflected the ebbs and flows of a transitional chapter, where she could be free to create whatever felt right in that moment. To stream the album visit, Spotify, Tidal, Apple Music, or purchase on Bandcamp.

Source: ANTI- Records

Horsegirl [Penelope Lowenstein (guitar, vocals), Nora Cheng (guitar, vocals), and Gigi Reece (drums)] are best friends and that shows in the trio’s vocal performance. Their warmth and strength of their bond, which crackles through every second of their debut full-length, Versions of Modern Performance. Horsegirl does everything collectively, from songwriting to trading vocal duties and swapping instruments to sound and visual art design. “We made [this album] knowing so fully what we were trying to do,” the band says. “We would never pursue something if one person wasn’t feeling good about it. But also, if someone thought something was good, chances are we all thought it was good. Horsegirl expertly play with texture, shape, and shade across the record, showcasing their fondness for improvisation and experimentation. To stream the album visit, Spotify, Tidal, Apple Music, or purchase on Bandcamp.

Source: Matador Records

Along your path, you have been led astray but jazz duo H A U N T E R (producers Sander Bryce and Jonah Levine) wants you to choose to focus. Their new album Dream The Day Away is a sample-based approach to jazz music blending samples and live instrumentation as a duo while featuring many different artists. Dream the Day Away is the sequence of a daydream turning into a nightmare. Inspired by experimental hip hop, neo-soul, jazz, and rock, this record sits between multiple genres in a lane that is defined by odd grooves and catchy leads. As it pays homage to artists like Flying Lotus, Thundercat, Hiatus Kaiyote, and The Sound Of Animals Fighting, it actively strives to create ambient textures with more pop sensibilities. To stream the album visit, Spotify, Tidal, Apple Music, or purchase on Bandcamp.

Source: Bolt Records