‘Sgt. Pepper’ Reissue, Lil Yachty and 18 More Albums to Hear Now
Rolling Stone Recommends:
The Beatles, Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band (Anniversary Edition)
The rock legends’ milestone album gets a splashy 50th anniversary reissue and a mix closer to the mono sound it was originally intended to have. “The mono version of the title track jolted full-force, particularly in the collusion of Paul McCartney’s bass and Ringo Starr’s storming drums,” writes Mikal Gilmore. “Martin has said that in attending to the new album’s mix he was aiming for a ‘3-D mono’ rendition – and he has achieved it. The titular opening track finally jumps out of the speakers in a more centralized stereo: It’s sharp, vivid, forward leaning – the sound of a big band doing very big things and not fucking around about it one bit. Indeed, everything here is more vibrant and forceful; it’s for the ears of today.”
Read Our Review: The Beatles’ ‘Sgt. Pepper’s’ Anniversary Editions Reveal Wonders
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Flor de Toloache, Las Caras Lindas
In 1986 Linda Ronstadt released the hit Canciones De Mi Padre, turning a huge new audience onto mariachi’s deep Mexican soul, and re-affirming women could sing it as potently as dudes. Recently, Flor de Toloache has been doing the same – in part by touring and recording with Dan Auerbach’s side project the Arcs, a step up from the New York group’s early days busking on subways. Their latest LP mixes a handful of English lyrics and marvelously unconventional harmonies into traditional arrangements for violin, trumpet, guitarron and vihuela. One listen to Mireya Ramos’ slaying vocals on “Regresa Yá,” and you’ll never think of mariachi as tame tableside entertainment again. Will Hermes
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Lil Yachty, Teenage Emotions
Nineteen-year-old “bubblegum trap” sensation Lil Yachty brags that he’s “never took a sip of beer.” But he has an intoxicating flow, crooning notes he can’t hit and enthusiastically rapping beyond the beat as he happily disregards traditional ideas of rhythm and melody. Rapping gleefully about looking at the stars, going back to high school to stunt on his teachers and having sex with people’s moms, he opens hip-hop to the giddy and childlike – more like the naïf rock of Beat Happening than his Atlanta peers. Christopher R. Weingarten
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Justin Townes Earle, Kids in the Street
J.T. Earle’s latest teams him with Omaha indie-rock don Mike Mogis (Bright Eyes) for his rangiest set yet. “What’s She Crying For” is a moaning honky-tonk weeper with pedal steel and roadhouse piano, “What’s Goin’ Wrong” is clarinet-spiked Texas swing impressionism,” writes Will Hermes, “and “Same Old Stagolee” revives American folk music’s original gangsta to an unlikely vibraphone melody.”
Read Our Review: Review: Justin Townes Earle Refracts Roots Music on ‘Kids in the Street’
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Martin Rev, Demolition 9
Martin Rev’s partner in the groundbreaking proto-punk duo Suicide, Alan Vega, died last year, so Rev’s solo work might come off as reflective purely by context. But his new LP was in fact conceived as abstract autobiography, covering an astonishing array of music in 34 tracks, most under two minutes long, many under 60 seconds: Gorgeous cathedral choral fragments, heavy metal Roy Orbison conjuring, warped Eighties electro-funk, string pizzicato flashes, synth flickers, brass bleats, tympani thuds, harp and woodwind flourishes, clattering percussion and the sort of raging, overmodulated noise he pioneered with Vega. “In Our Name” is maybe the most explicit tribute to their radical partnership. But the refusal to be limited by it is the greater tribute. Will Hermes
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Also of Note:
Axwell /\ Ingrosso, More Than You Know
The Swedish House Mafia alums bring the bangers on this EP.
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The Charlatans, Different Days
The long-running Brit-pop act’s 13th album is full of shaggy, danceable rock.
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Danzig, Black Laden Crown
The 11th album by Glenn Danzig’s eponymous band is, as to be expected, a fairly dark affair – minor keys abound, song titles invoke skulls and devils, choirs moan underneath the bandleader’s yawps and yelps. The guitars in particular sound like they’ve been lifted from a late-Eighties episode of Headbanger’s Ball, but that only adds to the eerie, doomy feel of songs like the snarling “Blackness Falls” and the black hymn “The Witching Hour.” Danzig’s voice sounds a bit rougher at the edges, but when he summons its full power, as he does on the grinding “Last Ride,” the effect is hellacious. Maura Johnston
Read Our Feature: Glenn Danzig on Dark New LP, Misfits Plans, Why He Hates Recent Presidents
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Gucci Mane, DropTopWop
The hyper-prolific Atlanta MC caps his whirlwind year since being released from prison with a mixtape produced by Metro Boomin and featuring cameos from Rick Ross and 2 Chainz.
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The Heliocentrics, A World of Masks
A British collective who excel at smashing boundaries between genres bring in Slovakian singer Barbora Patkova for album Number Four
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ItsTheReal, Teddy Bear Fresh
The fraternal duo of rapper-comedians release their punchline-heavy, guest-laden debut.
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Kite Base, Latent Whispers
The spiky first full-length from the double-bass duo of Kendra Frost and Savages’ Ayse Hassan.
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Mabel, Bedroom
The daughter of genre-melding vocalist Neneh Cherry and storied producer Cameron McVey (Massive Attack, Portishead) lays down forward-thinking R&B with just a hint of New Jill Swing attitude.
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Making Movies, I Am Another You
Politically charged Latin fusion out of Kansas City that touches on salsa, psychedelia, cumbia and a slew of other sounds.
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Maysa, Love Is A Battlefield
The former member of Stevie Wonder’s backing group Wonderlove and the British funk outfit Incognito makes over Luther Vandross, the Isley Brothers and other pop standard-bearers.
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James Vincent McMorrow, True Care
The Irish troubadour’s surprise-released fourth album has a loose, intimate feel.
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Serena Ryder, Electric Love
The soulful Canadian singer follows up her 2012 album Harmony with a collection of slick pop.
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Shakira, El Dorado
Shakira’s best moments have come when she’s been allowed to cast of-the-moment pop conventions aside and be herself, and her 11th album, which splits the difference between songs in Spanish and English, is full of songs that let her shine. The album opener “Me Enamore” revels in giddy first-love feelings with stuttering synths (in postcards to select fans around its single release, she wrote, “This song narrates a moment in my life when I was so in love that I was literally climbing trees”); “Amarillo” is a laid-back ballad highlighted by her voice’s velvety richness; “Perro Fiel,” her duet with reggaeton giant Nicky Jam, is gently sexy, its pulsing rhythm adding to the song’s heat. While guests – including bachata superstar Prince Royce and French-Guinean MC Black M – abound on El Dorado, Shakira is a strong, yet sultry presence at its center. Maura Johnston
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Skye Steele, All That Light
An alum of New York’s busking scene, this singer-songwriter (and frequent Vanessa Carlton collaborator) reels off dreamy, folk-tinged power-pop on his second album.
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Bryson Tiller, True to Self
“I’ve got a lot of upbeat production on this one,” the Trapsoul hitmaker said of his second album, which he surprise-released early Friday. “I feel like R&B is getting back to where it should be.”
Read Our Feature: Trap-Soul Hitmaker Bryson Tiller Talks ‘Upbeat’ Second LP ‘True to Self’
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