In this segment, we showcase the most notable albums out each week. Here are the albums out on January 14, 2022:
Earl Sweatshirt, SICK!
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- TIDAL
Earl Sweatshirt is back with a new album titled SICK!. Out now via Tan Cressida/Warner Records, the follow-up to 2019’s FEET OF CLAY was preceded by the singles ‘Tabula Rasa’, ‘Titanic’, and ‘2010’ and includes guest appearances from Armand Hammer and Bruiser Brigade’s Zelooperz. “SICK! is my humble offering of 10 songs recorded in the wake of the worldwide coronavirus pandemic and its subsequent lockdowns,” the rapper said in a statement. “Before the virus I had been working on an album I named after a book I used to read with my mother (‘The People Could Fly’). Once the lockdowns hit, people couldn’t fly anymore. A wise man said art imitates life. People were sick. The People were angry and isolated and restless. I leaned into the chaos cause it was apparent that it wasn’t going anywhere. these songs are what happened when I would come up for air.”
FKA twigs, CAPRISONGS
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- TIDAL
FKA twigs has dropped her new mixtape, CAPRISONGS, via Young/Atlantic. Arriving three years after MAGDALENE, the 17-track effort features the artist’s recent Weeknd collaboration ‘Tears in the Club’ as well as contributions from Shygirl, Rema, Pa Salieu, Koreless, Tobias Jesso Jr., Fred again.., Jorja Smith, Mike Dean, Warren Ellis, and more. “if you are lonely or feel isolated or void of encouragement by your immediate circle you can borrow my friends on the mixtape,” twigs wrote on Twitter. “i think it’s my response to where the world has been at in recent times the humm of the background podcast acting as the soundtrack to our lives as we desperately try not to be alone pablo had so much belief in me it gave me a lot of confidence to want more for myself as an artist. also to reach out and collaborate with other artists and also to push myself to channel my pain and anxiety into work that felt more inclusive and dare i say joyful this is something i have never been able to do before in my art.”
Cat Power, Covers
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Cat Power has released a new covers album, simply titled Covers, which is out now via Domino. Produced entirely by Chan Marshall, the LP includes her versions of songs by Frank Ocean, Billie Holiday, Bob Seger, Lana Del Rey, Jackson Browne, Iggy Pop, Nick Cave, The Replacements, The Pogues, and more. It also features a new take on her own song ‘Hate’, from 2006’s The Greatest, retitled ‘Unhate’. Completing a trilogy of sorts, Covers follows Cat Power’s previous mostly-covers collections Jukebox (2008) and The Covers Record (2000).
Grace Cummings, Storm Queen
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Storm Queen is the sophomore album by Melbourne singer-songwriter Grace Cummings. Out now via ATO Records, the follow-up to 2019’s Refuge Cove was produced by Cummings herself and includes the previously released singles ‘Heaven’, ‘Up In Flames’, and the title track. “In the past there were times when I’ve let other people’s opinions affect me too much,” she explained in a statement. “But with this record I learned that I’m allowed to influence myself instead of taking in anyone else’s ideas. I learned to completely trust what I see and hear in my head, and I stuck with that and just focused on creating what I love the most: something real and raw and ugly and beautiful.”
Elvis Costello & The Imposters, The Boy Named If
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Elvis Costello has issued a new album with his band the Imposters. The Boy Named If, out today via EMI/Capitol, includes the advance tracks ‘Farewell, OK’, ‘Paint the Red Rose Blue’, and ‘Magnificent Hurt’. ”The full title of this record is ‘The Boy Named If (And Other Children’s Stories)’,” Costello said in press materials. “‘IF,’ is a nickname for your imaginary friend; your secret self, the one who knows everything you deny, the one you blame for the shattered crockery and the hearts you break, even your own.” Co-produced with Sebastian Krys, the album is a collection of songs that “take us from the last days of a bewildered boyhood to that mortifying moment when you are told to stop acting like a child – which for most men (and perhaps a few gals too) can be any time in the next fifty years,” Costello added.
The Wombats, Fix Yourself, Not the World
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The Wombats have returned with a new album called Fix Yourself, Not the World. Out today via AWAL, the LP was recorded remotely during various COVID-19 lockdowns and was produced by Jacknife Lee (U2, The Killers), Gabe Simon (Dua Lipa, Lana Del Rey), Paul Meaney (Twenty One Pilots, Nothing But Thieves), Mark Crew (Bastille, Rag‘n’Bone Man) and Mike Crossey (The 1975, The War on Drugs, Yungblud). The band members were never in the same room during the process of making the album; Matthew “Murph” Murphy is based in Los Angeles, bassist Tord Øverland Knudsen in Oslo, and drummer Dan Haggis in London.
Other albums out today:
Cordae, From a Bird’s Eye View; Bonobo, Fragments; Fuss, We’re Not Alone; Sea Girls, Homesick; Fickle Friends, Are We Gonna Be Alright?; The Lumineers, Brightside; Anna Von Hausswolff, Live at Montreal Jazz Festival; Underoath, Voyeurist; Blood Red Shoes, Ghosts on Tape.
