In this segment, we showcase the most notable albums out each week. Here are the albums out on December 1, 2023:
Peter Gabriel, i/o
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Peter Gabriel has returned with his first album in over 20 years, i/o. All 12 of the LP’s tracks have two stereo mixes: the Bright-Side Mix handled by Mark ‘Spike’ Stent, and the Dark-Side Mix courtest of Tchad Blake. “We have two of the greatest mixers in the world in Tchad and Spike and they definitely bring different characters to the songs,” Gabriel said in a statement. “Tchad is very much a sculptor building a journey with sound and drama, Spike loves sound and assembling these pictures, so he’s more of a painter.” i/o features contributions from Brian Eno, regular collaborators Richard Chappell, Oli Jacobs, Katie May and Richard Evans, as well as the Soweto Gospel Choir, Oprhei Drängar, the New Blood Orchestra led by John Metcalfe, Richard Russell, Tom Cawley, Josh Shpak, Paolo Fresu, Linnea Olsson, Melanie Peter, and Ríoghnach Connolly (The Breath).
Full of Hell & Nothing, When No Birds Sang
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Full of Hell and Nothing have shared their new collaborative album, When No Birds Sang, via Closed Casket Activities. “Both Full of Hell and Nothing deal with the same genre-phobia,” Nothing’s Domenic ‘Nicky’ Palermo said in a press release. “We’ve been called any style you can think of, but we’re both simply intent on making soul crushers.” Dylan Walker of Full Of Hell added: “We’re beyond limiting ourselves to a genre. There aren’t any rules, but there’s clearly an identity. No matter what Nothing does, I can tell it’s them. We’re meeting in the middle where it’s lush and beautiful, but also sad and ugly if you look closely at it. Out of mutual respect, we just decided to go for it.”
Thy Slaughter, Soft Rock
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Soft Rock is the debut full-length from Thy Slaughter, the collaborative project of A. G. Cook and EASYFUN. Out now via PC Music, the album includes the previously shared songs ‘Sentence’, ‘If I Knew’, ‘Lost Everything’, and ‘Reign’. ‘Lost Everything’ was co-written with SOPHIE and features vocals from Wolf Alice’s Ellie Rowsell, while PC Music associates Charli XCX, Caroline Polachek, and Alaska Reid also guest on the project.
Gabby’s World, GABBY SWORD
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Gabby Smith has released a new LP under the moniker Gabby’s World titled GABBY SWORD. Out now via Carrot All Records, the follow-up to 2018’s Beast on Beast was written, recorded, and co-produced with Smith’s wife and frequent collaborator Barrie Lindsay (aka Barrie) in makeshift studios during Smith and Lindsay’s final months in Brooklyn before they moved to Southern France. “There was an itchy, uncomfortable feeling that I couldn’t escape that led me to take a step back to get a good look at it all,” Smith said, reflecting on the circumstances leading up to the making of the album. “I discovered that I was queer and was not being true to myself. I had to pull the plug on everything and start over. It resulted in a lot of loss, and a kind of ‘career death.’”
Clark, Cave Dog
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Christopher Clark, the British producer who records music as Clark, has released Cave Dog via Throttle Records. It’s a companion album to this year’s Sus Dog, which was executive produced by Thom Yorke. “I felt like I was coming to the end game of a very specific palette of synth / Sus Dog music,” Clark explained in a statement. “I was searching for intense, rich detail that sometimes only reveals itself on the thirtieth listen, but also flow, simplicity and memorable melodies that just can’t be any other way otherwise they’re wrong. Making it really cohere was fun but fackin ‘ell, I’m done. Happy and time to call it quits. I sussed it. The dog needs to leave the house now, go and play with new friends.”
Jonathan Rado, For Who The Bell Tolls For
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Jonathan Rado, the singer-songwriter and producer known as one half of the indie rock duo Foxygen, has released his first solo LP in over a decade. Out today via Western Vinyl, For Who The Bell Tolls For was written as a way of processing the loss of two close friends and mentors, producer Richard Swift and illustrator/animator Danny Lacy, who passed away the same year. “I didn’t know I was even making an album. And I guess I couldn’t even express anything into words then,” Rado said in a statement. “Just expressing whatever with production and a musical language.”
Harp, Albion
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Harp, the project of former Midlake singer Tim Smith and his wife Kathi Zung, have released their debut LP, Albion, via Bella Union. While he’d been working on a set of new tracks for years, Smith’s approach shifted when he started drawing inspiration from ’80s music. “I knew of bands and I had heard the odd song, but I had never dug deep into Joy Division, Cocteau Twins, The Smiths, Tears For Fears before,” he explained. “The major album for me though was The Cure’s Faith, which I listened to non-stop for three years. That music really resonated with me, so I was led in a different direction, which took a long time to figure out, because I was on my own, learning how to record better, mix better, write better.”
Other albums out today:
Love Minus Zero, L’Ecstasy; Dowsing, No One Said This Would Be Easy; Trevor Horn, Echoes – Ancient & Modern; Codeseven, Go Let It In; Static Cleaner Lost Reward, Breathing Under Honey.
