Dirty Beaches, Drifters / Love is the Devil

2013 | Label: Zoo Music / Revolver

By Ilya Zinger eMusic Contributor

05.22.13 Sometime in the winter of 2012, while traveling between Berlin and his hometown of Montreal, Alex Zhang Hungtai recorded Drifters and Love is the Devil under his Dirty Beaches moniker. This double-LP, Hungtai’s follow up to 2011′s Badlands, is an emotional exorcism and an intensely personal foray into loneliness and isolation. Badlands, which coated rockabilly-affectation in a lo-fi aesthetic, aspired to sound like lost music falling between the sound waves of a shifting AM dial, but the double album Drifters/Love Is the Devil patiently redefines how a Dirty Beaches album… more »

Nancy Elizabeth, Dancing

2013 | Label: The Leaf Label / state51

By Victoria Segal eMusic Contributor

05.22.13 Recorded at night and at home amid a comforting tangle of instruments, Nancy Elizabeth Cunliffe’s third album can be both uncomfortably intimate and coldly distancing. It might have taken shape in her icy Manchester flat, but it feels like the work of somebody wandering wet-haired and wild-eyed around the village perimeter, uncertain whether to throw herself into the pond or curdle the milk with a curse. For all the meticulous layering of vocals, piano, synthesizers and percussion, tracks “Shimmering Song” or “Simon Says Dance” suggest something untrammeled and unpredictable.

If her… more »

Dead Gaze, Dead Gaze

2013 | Label: FatCat

By Marc Hogan eMusic Contributor

05.22.13 Thick, candied fuzz cloaks the songs Cole Furlow makes as Dead Gaze, but the Oxford, Mississippi-based musician (a member of the so-called “Cats Purring” collective, which also includes Dent May and Bass Drum of Death) has too much pop in his heart to be confused for just another shrugging lo-fi bro. Dead Gaze’s proper self-titled debut, which mostly cherry-picks the best of Furlow’s various cassette and vinyl releases since 2009, is a great chance to get caught up on his skewed, blown-out brand of angsty tunefulness. Standouts like Nirvana-fueled bummer… more »

G&D, The Lighthouse

2013 | Label: Someothaship / Entertainment One Distribution

By Nate Patrin eMusic Contributor

05.21.13 Georgia Anne Muldrow and Dudley Perkins have been making their spaced-out, meditative brand of astral soul so steadily — individually, together, in guest spots and as compilation curators — that they’re worth recognizing as important fixtures in the current Los Angeles beat scene. Like Erykah Badu with the cadence and resonance of Alice Coltrane’s harp, Muldrow’s got a voice that you can soak in — at which point it starts soaking in to you — and Perkins raps like a chilled-out, off-kilter West Coast version of Redman, connecting the dots… more »