Don’t Miss A Beat is here to recommend five tracks a week. Rather than being a standard ‘five new tracks you must hear’ it will comprise a selection of music that fall into five categories.
There will be a new track and older track in some way related to the new track, a track from a recently released album, a track somewhat related to the week just past, and a track by an artist playing in Manchester in the coming week.
New Track: L.A. Takedown – L.A. Takedown
L.A. Takedown’s eponymous one-track, 40 minute album is due out on Ribbon Music on November 20. It’s best described as a cinematic sound-scape. Composer and musician Aaron M. Olson started the project in 2010 as a way to soundtrack his friends’ short films. This piece ebbs and flows like you would expect of any classical piece of music, combining Krafterk-esque synths with the occasional dash of surfy guitars, evocative of the eponymous city. Worth the time, if you have it.
Old Track: Lower Dens – Non Grata
Also on Ribbon Music, Lower Dens is the project of primary songwriter Jana Hunter. Based out of Baltimore, Maryland, Lower Dens have released three LPs since formation in 2010. Escape From Evil, released in March 2015, is album number three, and is their best to date. It is hard to pick a standout moment, but Non Grata is a good example of the band’s grand-yet-subtle music that underpins Hunter’s vocal delivery. The songwriting is always interesting, and the album has a great amount of variety across its length. For fans of fellow Baltimore residents Future Islands.
Album out this week: Bill Ryder Jones – Two to Birkenhead
The ex-Coral guitarist’s third album West Kirby County Primary comes out on Domino on November 6, and proves to be a continuation of the West Kirby singer-songwriter’s habit of releasing something completely different each time. Debut solo-effort If… saw him provide an orchestral soundtrack to Italo Calvino’s 1979 post-modern novel If on a Winter’s Night a Traveller. This was followed by the mellow, folksier songwriting of A Bad Wind Blows in my Heart in 2013. West Kirby… is harder hitting, with squalling guitars accompanying Jones’ usual drawled vocals. This is just one of the good singles from what looks to be a blindingly good record. It is also worth mentioning that he plays Gulliver’s this week on November 13.
Track relevant to this week: Metronomy – Back on the Motorway
This week a lorry-load of lard fell onto a slip road off the M11, causing delays. Exciting stuff. What it does allow us to do is listen to this excellent track from Metronomy’s outstanding 2008 second album, Nights Out. Probably one of the best albums you can see performed live; it’s well worth a listen all the way through. Joe Mount is at his idiosyncratic best here.
Gig to see: Money – Cold Water
The second recommended gig this week. Manchester band Money released their debut LP on Bella Union in 2012, from which the above Cold Water is taken. They have a second, Suicide Songs, due out in 2016. A band involved in things far beyond their music, singer Jamie Lee also co-founded Manchester publishing house Pariah Press, and is involved with those behind Salford Label Sways. Money always have something to say that is worth listening to.. They play the White Hotel in Salford on November 11.
Tickets available by clicking here.
Picture courtesy of Sascha Kohlmann, with thanks.
