Every day we’re faced with an onslaught of album announcements so we thought we’d start sharing the soon-to-be-released love by putting together a list of the most notable and exciting album announcements on a weekly basis. This week’s features everyone’s favourite Tame Impala offshoot Pond, the smooth stylings of hip hop group Bliss N Eso, a 90s flashback in the form of live albums from Jane’s Addiction and Ben Folds Five, and much more.
Pond
Hobo Rocket
Following on from the release of Cretaceous-era space-rock jam ‘Giant Tortoise‘, the lead single from the Perth-based rock freaks’ self-described “manic, acid” LP, Pond have announced the release of their fifth album, Hobo Rocket, for this August. Hobo Rocket is the fifth LP from the five-piece, made up Nick Allbrook, Jay Watson, Cam Avery, Joseph Ryan, and Jamie Terry, who set out to make a record that captures a portion of rock music’s great, decadent history through a personal lens.
Known for their brutally raucous live shows, Pond have captured that intensity on record, cramming as much loose, live emotion into a 40 minute album as possible. Bassist Joe Ryan also revealed in an interview with Tone Deaf last year that the band recorded their latest LP at Fremantle’s Wastleand Studios, “owned by the guys from Eskimo Joe and we did it in three nights,” explains Ryan, describing it as “a pretty sonic album with a lot of feedback and crazy shit.” The sound of Hobo Rocket is “heavier; more like Earth or one of those kinds of bands.
Meanwhile Jay Watson (also of Perth cosmonauts Tame Impala) revealed that Hobo Rocket is in fact the first of many new releases from the members of Pond, with each member releasing solo albums in the coming months. Until then, we have Hobo Rocket – the follow-up to the critically acclaimed 2012 LP Beard, Wives, Denim. Strap in, it’ll be quite the lift-off.
Out August 2nd through Modular Recordings
Tracklisting:
- Whatever Happened To The Million Head Collide
- Xan Man
- Odarma
- Alone A Flame A Flower
- Giant Tortoise
- Hobo Rocket
- Midnight Mass
Bliss ‘N’ Eso
Circus In The Sky
Solidifying their reputation as artists that love to pack as much value as possible into each release, Bliss N Eso deliver another 17-track epic with a running time of an hour. As rumoured, it features a guest appearance from New York hip-hop icon Nas on ‘I Am Somebody’ – arguably their biggest feature to date. Further down the tracklisting are appearances from nomadic Melbourne soul export Daniel Merriweather on ‘Can’t Get Rid of This Feeling’ and rising American singer-songwriterCeekay Jones, whom the boys befriended on their most recent US headline tour. Possibly the most interesting inclusion on the tracklist comes via posse cut ‘Reservoir Dogs’, which features a who’s who of contemporary Australian hip-hop – seeing them joined by 360, Pez, Seth Sentry and Drapht.
The mysterious winged character that has inhabited the band’s two previous album covers has made its third appearance on the newly revealed Circus In The Sky’ artwork, albeit in an unexpected form. Following from Steve Cross’ illustrated covers on Flying Colours and Running on Air, the band have teamed up with world-renowned digital artist Justin Maller to create a spectacularly vivid piece which sees the character looking towards Earth from afar.
Circus In The Sky is now available for pre-order from www.blissneso.com/preorder, including a digital version (with instant ‘Home is Where the Heart is’ single download); signed CDs accompanied by t-shirts, iPhone covers and stubby holders, alongside bundled packs including the album and House of Dreams Tour tickets.
Out June 28th through Ilusive
Tracklisting:
01. Unite (2:40)
02. Pale Blue Dot (3:32)
03. I Am Somebody (feat. Nas) (5:24)
04. Home is Where the Heart is (3:25)
05. Animal Kingdom (2:42)
06. Can’t Get Rid of This Feeling (feat. Daniel Merriweather) (4:24)
07. Act Your Age (2:39)
08. Life’s Midnight (4:02)
09. Reservoir Dogs (feat. 360, Pez, Seth Sentry & Drapht) (4:12)
10. Next Frontier (3:02)
11. My Life (feat. Ceekay Jones) (3:37)
12. Jungle (3:02)
13. Cialis Cuts (1:22)
14. Bomb Like Banksy (3:24)
15. Sunshine (3:28)
16. I Feel Free (3:45)
17. House of Dreams (4:26)
Jane’s Addiction
Live In NYC
“Expect an orgy of musical and visual delights. We like orgies, and hope you do too,” says Jane’s Addiction frontman Perry Farrell. Indeed the rock veterans have always thrown the most provocative and extravagant parties in rock, mixing a fierce musicality and streetwise lyrics with a theatrical flair. 2011 and 2012 saw the band return to the stage in support of their acclaimed album The Great Escape Artist on Capitol Records. Filmed at New York City’s Terminal 5 on July 25, 2011 at a free show for the album’s launch, LIVE IN NYC will be released on CD, DVD, Blu-ray, and double-LP vinyl on Friday July 5, 2013 through Universal Music Enterprises.
LIVE IN NYC encapsulates the true essence of Jane’s Addiction in concert, mixing music with performance art. With the band as the ringleaders, they take you, along with a diverse cast of vagabonds, through an extravagant world of flying burlesque dancers, trapeze artists and carnival sideshow antics, offering stunning visuals enhanced with a visual masterpiece of lasers, capturing the incredible mood of this spectacular night. Amidst it all, Jane’s Addiction, featuring frontman Perry Farrell, guitarist Dave Navarro, drummer Stephen Perkins and bassist Chris Chaney, gives astonishing performances of one classic after another including their 1988 Top 10 hit “Jane Says,” and live staples such as “Whores” and “Up The Beach,” and crushing versions of “Ocean Size” and “Mountain Song,” as well as major hits “Been Caught Stealing” and “Stop!”
Out July 5th through Universal
Tracklisting:
1. Whores
2. Ain’t No Right
3. Just Because
4. Ted, Just Admit It…
5. Been Caught Stealing
6. Irresistible Force (Met The Immovable Object)
7. Up The Beach
8. Ocean Size
9. Three Days
10. Mountain Song
11. Stop!
12. Jane Says
Smith Westerns
Soft Will
Chicago melodic-indie-rock trio Smith Westerns are back, enhancing their garage-glam pop sound on new album Soft Will, due for release this 28th June via Pod | Inertia. Singer-guitarist Cullen Omori, bassist-brother Cameron Omori and guitarist Max Kakacek culminated their third full-length after a period of success and post-tour unrest. Produced by Chris Coady (Beach House, Yeah Yeah Yeahs) and featuring new drummer Julien Ehrlich, formerly of Unknown Mortal Orchestra, Soft Will was recorded at Sonic Ranch, a live-in recording studio located 30 minutes outside of El Paso, Texas. The band loved the isolation. “We pretty much stayed on the ranch and cranked them out,” says Cameron Omori.
It all starts with “3AM Spiritual,” the album’s dreamy opener. Bummed out, Cullen Omori penned the song during the spring of 2012 on a mini-keyboard in the most mundane of places: his parent’s kitchen. “The lyrics came right away. It was supposed to be this uplifting ballad, to make myself feel better,” he says. The song likewise marked a turning point for the group. “We decided to challenge ourselves with making songs that we hadn’t really done before,” explains Max Kakacek.
There’s a cool metamorphosis that pervades Soft Will. For instance its first single, the shimmering, lovesick “Varsity” actually began as an acoustic track. It doubles as a tongue-and-cheek reference to being referred to as a high-school band by the press. Soft Will, in kind, is an album of frontiers: mellifluous guitars, confident restraint, and pensive songwriting. However to Smith Westerns, recording an album about dreading their homestead feels almost like an interlude—because they can’t wait to play these songs on the road.
Out June 28 through Pod
Tracklisting:
01 3am Spiritual
02 Idol
03 Glossed
04 XXIII
05 Fool Proof
06 White Oath
07 Only Natural
08 Best Friend
09 Cheer Up
10 Varsity
Ben Folds Five
Ben Folds Five Live
Groundbreaking pop trio Ben Folds Five have a long and storied history for thrilling, uplifting, and engaging live shows, but aside from a handful of recordings and video releases, it took the band’s much touted reunion last year to trigger the release of the band’s first-ever live album, Ben Folds Five Live, out through ImaVeePee Records/Sony Music Entertainment on June 7.
Recorded in 2012-2013 on their first tour in more than a decade, this new set – available on CD, vinyl, and digital formats – is comprised of high-energy live versions of some of the band’s most beloved classics, including ‘Brick’, ‘One Angry Dwarf’, and ‘Song For The Dumped’. The live album also features cuts from the trio’s reunion album, 2012’s Life Of The Sound Of The Mind.
Released in September and debuting in the Top 10 of the Billboard Top 200, marking the highest debut of the band’s career and their fourth record was the first Ben Folds Five album in 13 years. Cuts from Life Of The Sound Of The Mind appear on Ben Folds Five Live showing their new synergy, namely the stomping ‘Erase Me’, the classic sing-along stylings of ‘Draw A Crowd’, and a stunning version of ‘Do It Anyway’ performed at Brixton Academy.
Soon after the release of the album, Ben Folds Five, along with Barenaked Ladies and Guster will embark on the “Last Summer on Earth 2013” tour of the U.S.
June 7 through ImaVeePee Records
Tracklisting:
1. Jackson Cannery (The Warfield, San Francisco CA, 1/31/13)
2. Erase Me (The Warfield, San Francisco CA, 1/31/13)
3. Selfless, Cold and Composed (House of Blues, Boston MA, 10/13/12)
4. Uncle Walter (Kool Haus, Toronto, Ontario, Canada, 10/5/12)
5. Landed (The Warfield, San Francisco CA, 1/31/13)
6. Sky High (Thebarton Theatre, Adelaide AU, 11/16/12)
7. One Chord Blues/Billie’s Bounce (The Wiltern, Los Angeles CA 1/26/13)
8. Do It Anyway/Overture-Heaven on Their Minds (O2 Academy, Brixton UK, 12/4/12)
9. Brick (The Warfield, San Francisco CA, 1/31/13)
10. Draw A Crowd (Capitol, Port Chester NY, 10/9/12)
11. Narcolepsy (Hitomi Kinen Hall, Tokyo JP, 2/16/13)
12. Underground (Mielparque Hall, Osaka JP, 2/22/13)
13. Tom and Mary (O2 Academy, Brixton UK, 12/4/12)
14. One Angry Dwarf and 200 Solemn Faces (The Warfield, San Francisco CA, 1/31/13)
15. Song for the Dumped (Thebarton Theatre, Adelaide AU, 11/16/12)
David Bridie
Wake
Wake is classic solo Bridie – 11 original songs (and one Hank Williams cover, yes really) of shifting moods, textures and sound oddities, harnessed into perfect finality by Bridie’s unfailing knack for an infectious melody, evidenced in the album’s first single already gaining wide airplay, ‘The Shortest Day of the Year’ (listen here).
The Australian songwriter, producer, film composer, and musician of Not Drowning, Waving and My Friend The Chocolate Cake has announced an extensive tour to support his latest album. Wake‘s recording was a tour in itself, across Victoria, New South Wales and New Zealand, with musical contributions from a plethora of guest artists representing a full spectrum of genres and styles.
Guests include former Powderfinger guitarist Ian Haug, NZ artist Eden Mulholland, Ashley Naylor (Even, Paul Kelly Band), leading lady of The Bamboos Kylie Auldist, PNG-born singer Ngaiire, drummers Dave Folley and Michael Barker, long-time collaborator Helen Mountfort on cello, and guitarist wunderkind John Phillips. This is one of Bridie’s greatest records. Up there with NDW’s Claim, Cake’s Good Luck and his first solo album Act of Free Choice.
Out June 7 through Footstomp Music via MGM
Tracklisting:
1. Dr. Seuss Is Painting In The Sky
2. You’re No Flower
3. Delegate
4. The Shortest Day of the Year
5. Stoned in Kabul
6. Black Islands
7. Chatter
8. Old Lovers
9. Port Resolution
10. Treason
11. The Flatlands
12. I’m So Lonesome I Could Cry
Seja
All Our Wires
If you heard Seja’s latest single, “C’mon”, and its dreamy three-minute stroll through a garden of cheerful pop delights then you’ll be ready for the new album, All Our Wires. Her sophomore album is a collection of pop gems that looks to be a sunnier, more pastoral take on the spacey synth-scaping that she first brought to the world back in 2009 on her debut, We Have Secrets But Nobody Cares. “C’mon” specifically sees the blonde balladeer looking back to earnest pop icons of the ‘60s and ‘70s, influences of which can be heard in the shimmering acoustic guitar work, the enchanting “ow woaw woaw’s”, and the sweetly crafted rhythm section, all recorded by Seja and her brother Mirko.
While the single is the singular product of the Vogel siblings, All Our Wires features work from Robert Forster of The Go-Betweens, electronica guitarist Tim Hoey of Cut Copy and former bandmate Ben Ely, from her period playing keys for Regurgitator – who lends his bass action to new single ‘Like Fireflies‘. All Our Wires is basically a who’s who of Australian indie music since the early ‘70s.
Out June 21st through Rice Is Nice
Tracklisting:
1. Like Fireflies
2. C’mon
3. When You Said You Were Mine
4. I Killed A Day
5. Imaginations In Hyperspace
6. Call Me Wrong
7. Hearts Beat In Time
8. All Our Wires
9. I’d Do It Over
10. Die Wolken
Eden Mulholland
Feed The Beast
Feed the Beast is Eden Mulholland’s debut solo album, in part inspired by his compositions for theatre and dance, in part his overall genre defiance as a musician, and recorded and mixed by Neil Baldock (Crowded House, Sarah Blasko) at Roundhead Studios. The album traverses a complex musical landscape where you can expect the unexpected. One moment the journey is urgent and driving, the next it is coolly understated and sculpted, and throughout it is Eden’s signature fearless vocals that show the way.
Feed the Beast is the follow up to Eden’s acclaimed Jesus don’t you get my jokes EP, summarized by one reviewer as being “enough to give you major goosebumps”. His music has been variously described as “expansive and epic”, “haunting” and “fantastical”, and his style has been compared to Brian Eno, Cloud Control, Losing Myself and Atlas Genius.
Eden’s take on the pop music of the future comes complete with strange voices, ripped apart rhythms, momentary flashes from ethereal orchestras, and all with a complete disregard for genre boundaries. It may well be that Eden’s less conventional path in music – he formerly was a contemporary dancer – has helped shape his experimental approach to composition.
Out Independtly June 7th
Tracklisting:
- Cry Cry Cry
- Mekong Delta
- Where Is My Jealousy
- Supermarket Blues
- I Will Echo
- Body Double
- Feed The Beast
- I Read All Of The Books
- Blueprint
- Such A Shame You Must Die
- Lighthouse
Buffalo Tales
Roadtrip Confessions
The debut album for Buffalo Tales, Roadtrip Confessions is a heartfelt body of work, delivered with startling honesty by singer-songwriter Wes Carr, the new identity allowing Carr to push the boundaries of his craft. The result is a haunting collection of songs, which as Carr himself says, “represent the stripping back of all things.”
Set for release on June 24th, Roadtrip Confessions is shaped by thirteen acoustic songs loosely based around the soundtrack to a fictional road trip, where interludes punctuate stops along the way. The result is a series of confessions, stories and reflections that together make for a sublime journey. Produced by Stu Hunter (Sia, Julia Stone, Katalyst, Passenger) at The Habitat in Sydney, the album unfolds with lead single ‘Amsterdam’, a powerful, folk-tinged tale that sets the tone for the album perfectly. Sydney artists Sam Buckingham and The Falls feature, and adding a global feel is Scottish folk star Rachel Sermanni, alongside Swedish all-female roots trio, Baskery. Carr has also paid homage to two much-admired artists, covering Leonard Cohen’s ‘Take This Waltz’ and Rihanna’s ‘Diamonds’.
Out June 24th
Tracklisting:
- Intro
- Whispering Willow
- Amsterdam
- Interlude 1
- Crazy Heart (featuring Rachel Sermanni)
- Puppet Strings
- Please
- OH! My Kingdom
- Interlude 2
- The Flame
- Take This Waltz
- Tricks To Magik (featuring Sam Buckingham)
- Interlude 3
- In My Time of Dying (featuring Baskery)
- Waiting For You
- Diamonds
- Blood & Bone
Shapeshifter
Delta
Shapeshifter is P Digsss (vocals), Devin Abrams (sax/keys/synths), Sam Trevethick (guitar/synths/sampler), Nick Robinson (bass/synths/MPC) and Darren Mathiassen (drums), and by name and by nature, this elemental, electronic soul outfit has morphed time and time again with seismic shifts in genre – from depth-charge bass music, elastic electronic textures and barrelling breakbeats to bedrocks of soul, jazz and rave that ground their experimentation. But never has the well-earned name been more apt than on album number five, Delta, their most fearless release yet.
Delta is the embodiment of this spirit of exploration. The sublime opening chords of ‘Arcadia’ and junglist jabs of ‘Shadowboxer’ neighbour elevated trance progressions in ‘Diamond Trade’ and jagged guitar riffs on ‘Giving Up the Ghost’. Delta builds on Shapeshifter’s bass heritage while barrelling forward into the future, unhindered by BPM counts or genre boxes.
Like the mighty Twelve Mile Delta in the South Island of New Zealand, the album’s namesake, Delta marks a confluence of Shapeshifter’s influences – past and present.
Out May 31st through Truetone Recordings
Tracklisting:
- Monarch
- Gravity
- Taste Of Memory
- Giving Up The Ghost
- In Colour
- Diamond Trade
- Arcadia
- Stadia
- Shadow Boxer
- Little Flame
- Endless
- 141
