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    Albums Out Today: Alex G, Beth Orton, Maya Hawke, Makaya McCraven, and More

    by Konstantinos Pappis

    In this segment, we showcase the most notable albums out each week. Here are the albums out on September 23, 2022:

    Alex G, God Save the Animals

    Alex G is back with his ninth album, God Save the Animals, out today on Domino. The Philadelphia musician wrote and demoed the songs on the new LP alone at home, before enlisting multiple engineers at several studios in greater Philadelphia in search of new sounds and “a routine that was outside of my apartment,” according to press materials. Following 2019’s House of Sugar as well as his recent score for Jane Schoenbrun’s horror film We’re All Going to the World’s Fair, the record includes the early singles ‘Runner’, ‘Blessing’, ‘Cross the Sea’, and ‘Miracles’. Read our review of God Save the Animals.

    Beth Orton, Weather Alive

    Beth Orton has released her first album in six years, Weather Alive, via Partisan. The British artist wrote the follow-up to Kidsticks on an old piano she saved from Camden Market after returning home to England. “Through the writing of these songs and the making of this music, I found my way back to the world around me, a way to reach nature and the people I love and care about,” Orton explained in a statement. “This record is a sensory exploration that allowed for a connection to a consciousness that I was searching for. Through the resonance of sound and a beaten up old piano I bought in Camden Market while living in a city I had no intention of staying in, I found acceptance and a way of healing.”

    Maya Hawke, Moss

    Moss, the sophomore album from Maya Hawke, is out now via Mom+Pop. The follow-up to 2020’s Blush was made in collaboration with Benjamin Lazar Davis, Christian Lee Hutson, and Will Graefe, among others, and was mixed by Jonathan Low at Long Pond. “This record is called Moss because I’ve been gathering a lot in the last few years,” Hawke said in a statement about the album, which was preceded by the singles ‘Thérèse’, ‘Sweet Tooth’, and ‘Luna Moth’. “Sitting still and collecting a green blanket of memories and feelings. Making this record was me trying to get up and shake it off and look at all of it. It was the first step in untangling myself and really trying to look at the rock under the moss.” Read our review of Moss.

    Makaya McCraven, In These Times

    Makaya McCraven has issued his latest full-length, In These Times, via International Anthem/Nonesuch/XL. The Chicago-based percussionist, composer, and producer enlisted a host of collaborators for the follow-up to 2021’s Deciphering the Message, including guitarist Jeff Parker, harpist Brandee Younger, Macie Stewart, Junius Paul, Lia Kohl, and Marquis Hill. Featuring the singles ‘Seventh String’, ‘Dream Another’, and ‘The Fours’, the album was recorded in five different studios and four live performance spaces, with McCraven working from home during the post-production process.

    TOLEDO, How It Ends

    How It Ends is the debut album from TOLEDO, the Brooklyn-based duo of Dan Álvarez de Toledo and Jordan Dunn-Pilz. The LP finds the pair looking back on their family histories to examine how divorce and trauma have influenced their relationships in the present. “We want it to be pretty clear that it’s about that, because as a kid I felt like, I don’t know if many albums were about that overtly,” Dunn-Pilz said in our Artist Spotlight interview. “I have a lot of friends that I was talking to during the process, too – feelings about your self-worth, how you engage in other relationships because of watching what your parents were like. It was just coming to a head in our personal lives, so it felt like a good time to address these patterns and experiences.”

    Jackie Cohen, Pratfall

    Jackie Cohen has returned with her third record, Pratfall, out now via Earth Libraries. She recorded the album, which follows 2019’s Zagg, with her musical collaborator and husband Jonatha Rado. It was preceded by the singles ‘Moonstruck’ and ‘The Valley’, which features Weyes Blood’s Natalie Mering and Diane Coffee’s Shaun Fleming. “When you see it, you gasp and hold your breath because it’s so violent that you worry it’s real,” Cohen said of the album’s title in press materials, referring to Meryl Streep’s pratfall skills. “You want to look away but you can’t, not until she gets up. And when she does finally jump up and say ‘tah-da,’ you’re so relieved that it was all just a bit that you burst out laughing.”

    The Comet Is Coming, Hyper-Dimensional Expansion Beam

    The Comet Is Coming – the London-based jazz rave trio consisting of Danalogue (Dan Leavers), Shabaka (Shabaka Hutchings), and Betamax (Max Hallett) — have come out with a new LP on Impulse! Records. Hyper-Dimensional Expansion Beam is the follow-up to 2019’s The Afterlife, and it was recorded at Peter Gabriel’s Real World Studio, with assistance from the group’s longtime engineer Kristian Craig. After the four-day long recording process, Danalogue and Betamax then sampled, distilled, and arranged the material into a “musical message about the future of technology, humankind, spirituality, and the connectivity of the universe,” according to press materials. The singles ‘Technicolour’, ‘Code’ and ‘Lucid Dreamer’ are included on the record.

    The Wonder Years, The Hum Goes on Forever

    The Wonder Years are back with a new album titled The Hum Goes on Forever, out now via Hopeless Records. Arriving four years after their last studio effort, Sister Sister, it marks the band’s first LP since vocalist Dan Campbell became a father. “The low hum of sadness will never leave me,” Campbell said of the album, which deals with postpartum depression and fatherhood anxieties, in a Pitchfork interview. “What matters is the understanding that no matter how loud it is, my kids will need me. How do you take care of another person when you don’t want to take care of yourself?”

    Lande Hekt, House Without a View

    Lande Hekt has put out her sophomore album, House Without a View, today via Get Better Records/Prize Sunflower Records. Following her 2021 solo debut Going to Hell, the album includes the previously released tracks ‘Gay Space Cadets’, ‘Backstreet Snow’, and ‘Cut My Hair’. “I do feel more confident than I did when Going To Hell was coming out,” Hekt told Guitar.com. “That first record was supposed to go straight onto Bandcamp before Get Better Records offered to put it out. I was so shocked when I saw how many people bought or listened to it. This time I spent a bit longer writing and I demoed all the songs from House Without A View in a studio before recording it.

    Altopalo, frenemy

    Brooklyn experimental outfit Altopalo have dropped a new album, frenemy, via Nettwerk. Following their 2018 debut frozenthere and this year’s farawayfromeveryoneyouknow, the LP includes the band’s first outside feature from Bartees Strange, who guests on the previously shared single ‘love that 4 u’. The group wanted frenemy to reflect their relationship to each other; “the least dishonest thing we could do is just make music about us,” guitarist Mike Haldeman remarked. “The source material is literally the fabric of our friendship.”

    Other albums out today:

    Future Teens, Self Help; Editors, EBM;Marisa Anderson, Still, Here; The Soft Moon, Exister; WILLOW, COPINGMECHANISM; Khruangbin & Vieux Farka Touré, Ali; Nikki Lane, Denim & Diamonds; Nils Frahm, Music for Animals; Dr. John, Things Happen That Way; Sofie Royer, Harlequin; Yumi and the Weather, It’s All In My Head; Sorcha Richardson, Smiling Like an Idiot; Cam’ron & A-Trak, U Wasn’t There; The Tallest Man on Earth, Too Late For Edelweiss; The Smithereens, The Lost Album; Sports Team, Gulp!; Courting, Guitar Music; Tim Burgess, Typical Music; Siavash Amini and Eugene Thacker, Songs for Sad Poets; Razor, Cycle of Contempt; Albert van Abbe & Jochem Paap, General Audio; Eerie Wanda, Internet Radio; KEN Mode, NULL; Divino Niño, Last Spa on Earth; Thme, A Grasp of Wonder.

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