In this segment, we showcase the most notable albums out each week. Here are the albums out on March 4, 2022:
Nilüfer Yanya, PAINLESS
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Nilüfer Yanya’s new album PAINLESS is out now via ATO Records. The follow-up to the London artist’s 2019 debut Miss Universe includes the advance singles ‘stabilise’, ‘midnight sun’, ‘anotherlife’, and ‘the dealer’. Yanya recorded the album between a basement studio in Stoke Newington and Riverfish Music in Penzance with Miss Universe collaborator and producer Wilma Archer, DEEK Recordings founder Bullion, Big Thief producer Andrew Sarlo, and musician Jazzi Bobbi. “It’s a record about emotion,” she said in press materials. “I think it’s more open about that in a way that Miss Universe wasn’t because there’s so many cloaks and sleeves with the concept I built around it.”
The Weather Station, How Is It That I Should Look at the Stars
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The Weather Station has released How Is It That I Should Look at the Stars, a companion piece to 2021’s Ignorance, via Fat Possum. Co-produced with Jean Martin, the album was recorded live in only three days just before the pandemic in March 2020 and features no percussion. “When I wrote Ignorance, it was a time of intense creativity, and I wrote more songs than I ever had in my life,” Tamara Lindeman explained in a statement. “The songs destined to be on the album were clear from the beginning, but as I continued down my writing path, songs kept appearing that had no place on the album I envisioned. Songs that were simple, pure; almost naive. Songs that spoke to many of the same questions and realities as Ignorance, but in a more internal, thoughtful way. So I began to envision How Is It That I Should Look At The Stars, a quiet, strange album of ballads. I imagined it not as a follow-up to Ignorance, but rather as a companion piece; the moon to its sun.”
Band of Horses, Things Are Great
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Band of Horses have returned with a new LP, their first since 2016’s Why Are You OK. It’s called Things Are Great and it features the previously unveiled songs ‘Crutch’, ‘In Need of Repair’, and ‘Lights’. A few years ago, frontman Ben Bridwell decided to scrap an entire album, going as far as to switch producers halfway through the process. “We recorded it with Jason Lytle again and mixed it with Dave Fridmann again,” Bridwell told Uproxx. “I was just like, ‘I don’t think this is good enough.’ I was at that breaking point, where I’m like, ‘I want to take back control of my band.'”
Luna Li, Duality
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Luna Li – the project of Korean-Canadian multi-instrumentalist, songwriter, and producer Hannah Bussiere – has today shared her debut album, Duality, via In Real Life. Blending indie pop and psychedelia, the album follows Luna Li’s self-titled 2021 EP and features guest appearances from Jay Som, Dreamer Isioma, and beabadoobee (on ‘Silver Into Rain’). “The songs never quite have only one feeling,” she said in press materials. “Each song had some element of light and dark — where there’s happiness there’s still uncertainty; where there’s anxiety there’s also beauty; and where there’s tension there’s freedom.”
KAINA, It Was a Home
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Venezuelan/Guatemalan-American singer-songwriter KAINA has dropped her new album, It Was a Home, via City Slang. The follow-up to KAINA’s 2019 debut Next to the Sun features contributions from Sleater-Kinney, Helado Negro, and Sen Morimoto and was previewed with the tracks ‘Apple’, ‘Anybody Can Be in Love’, ‘Casita’, and ‘Come Back as a Flower’. The album delves into the different meanings of “home,” a symbol that KAINA explored on ‘Home’, the lead single off her debut. “Who am I outside of that?” she said in an interview with the Chicago Sun-Times. “Who am I once I have a pulse on my position and my identity in the world?”
Vein.fm, This World Is Going to Ruin You
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Vein.fm, the Boston hardcore band formerly known as Vein, have put out their latest album, This World Is Going to Ruin You, via Closed Casket Activities. The 12-track collection, which follows Vein.fm’s 2018 debut Errorzone, was produced by Will Putney of Graphic Nature Audio in April 2020 and features guest spots from Thursday’s Geoff Rickly, Jeromes Dream’s Jeff Smith, and BONES. “Errorzone, as introspective as it is, it’s very bright and futuristic, and you’re exposed,” vocalist Anthony DiDio told Stereogum. “Whereas this one is a boarded-up house that’s much more expansive than you thought – this nightmarish world inside of a house.” The LP was preceded by the singles ‘The Killing Womb’, ‘Fear in Non Fiction’, and ‘Wavery’.
Kristine Leschper, The Opening, or Closing of a Door
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Kristine Leschper, formerly known as the leader of Mothers, has issued her debut solo album, The Opening, or Closing of a Door, via Anti-. Featuring the singles ‘All That You Never Wanted’, ‘Figure and I’, ‘Ribbon‘, and ‘Picture Window’, the LP finds Leschper embracing the process of home recording and sound exploration. “With these songs, I wanted to explore themes of longing, encouragement, connectedness, these things that are both straightforward and complex, ubiquitous and vital,” she explained in press materials. “It is the foundation of our personal lives that extends broadly into our political lives. I wondered, what might a love song to my friends look like? What might a love song to myself look like?”
CMAT, If My Wife New I’d Be Dead
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CMAT, the moniker of Ciara Mary-Alice Thompson, has released her debut album, If My Wife New I’d Be Dead, via AWAL Recordings. The record includes the promotional singles ‘I Don’t Really Care For You’ and ‘I Wanna Be A Cowboy, Baby!’. Describing her sound in press materials, Thompson said: “All the former versions of myself have Play-Doh-balled themselves into one big lump.” She added, “I learned how to sing through country music: it’s the number one influence on how I sing. So while I’m not a country musician, I do think I’m a country singer. It’s glam. It’s tacky. It’s beautiful. It’s fun. It’s vibrant.”
Other albums out today:
supernowhere, Skinless Takes a Flight; Michelle, AFTER DINNER WE TALK DREAMS; Guided By Voices, Crystal Nuns Cathedral; Charlotte Adigéry & Bolis Pupul, Topical Dancer; RZA, Saturday Afternoon Kung Fu Theater; Stromae, Multitude; The Cool Kids, Before Shit Got Weird: Episode 1; Peach Pit, From 2 to 3; Scott Hardware, Ballad of a Tryhard.
