• Are you familiar with Shamir Bailey? If not, get ready. His debut album Ratchet will be released next week on Tuesday May 19, and the season of features is already upon us.
The 20-year-old has become well known for his colorful, eclectic style, and his preference for clashing patterns is mirrored in the perfectly compact electro-pop hits he keeps churning out. (A far cry from his original desire to be a country singer. I've had his cover of Linda Ortega's "Lived and Died Alone" on repeat as well.) What I like best is the way the songs manage to be part-warning, part break-up anthem, part call-to-action, but never without a slight indication of boredom and an inherent eye roll.
The entire album is streaming now on iTunes Radio in advance of the release, so get over there.
• To continue in a similar vein, Hot Chip will also be releasing their sixth LP Why Make Sense? next week as well. In a recent interview with The Independent, Joe Goddard said:
When we were making the last album we had this track "Look at Where We Are," which was very stripped down in terms of instrumentation. It was very few layers of things: there was a very simple beat and a simple kind of sub-y hip-hop bass line. I thought that production and sonically that was really amazing, so I wanted to carry it through into this record, and make more tracks that had that feel to them.
Most of the tracks are scattered with Hot Chip's usual synchs and samples, skittering across one another, and occasionally coming to a brief rest for ballads such as "White Wine and Fried Chicken." (Let me know if you also heard a striking resemblance to Daft Punk's "Get Lucky" in the opening of "Dark Night.") The group created a special website to stream the album a week in advance. Feel free to mess around with the color hue test and submit your score to win tickets and a signed deluxe edition of the album. They'll also be playing Sasquatch Festival over Memorial Day Weekend.
• I cannot stress enough how into Holly Herndon's new album I am. Platform sounds like the inside of my bonkers brain after scrolling through Twitter feeds all day. (For of those you involved in the PC Music debate, put it aside for a second and listen to this instead.) Herndon's patchwork quilt of collected sound is full of dynamic swerves and a compelling kinetic energy that can be positively disturbing at times. Take "Lonely at the Top," in which a presumed massage therapist cajoles a client with the recurring sentiment, "I don't know how you do it," while the sound of hands on skin creates a rhythmic whisper. The repetition is soothing at first, but ultimately turns out to be hollow and uncomfortably eerie. Also recommended: opening track "Interference" and closing track "New Ways to Love."
It's currently streaming in its entirety over at NPR's First Listen.
