Juno Recommends Rock / Indie / Folk / Metal / Punk / 50s / 60s July 2019

Review: Time marches relentlessly on as does the immortal sound of iconic Manchester band Joy Division. At the heart of Unknown Pleasures was the alarming vocal talent of Ian Curtis. His alien wails, echoed expressionistic vistas of urban alienation over No Wave tribal beats and Gothic guitar impressions. And despite the breathtaking intensity of the angular acid comedown "She's Lost Control", the soaringly depraved detachment of "New Dawn Fades" and the proto-slowcore "Candidate", opening track "Disorder" remained the piece years ahead of its time and most immediately enduring. This anniversary record arrives almost forty years to the day after it was originally released, splashed out on 180g ruby red vinyl with an alternative white sleeve to resemble the original and legendary cover design. Unquestionably authentic, Unknown Pleasures was a vision so uncompromising and haunting that each track was worth its length. This commemorative reissue, then, continues the celebration of one of the most important albums of our time as well as highlighting the record as a landmark in music-design crossover history.

Review: The best thing since the Klaxons or Bloc Party have arrived. black midi! The student art rock band are bringing a new youthful energy and slight of malice back to the arena of post-indie inspired alternative guitar and synth music. They make this overtly known from the start with the supercharged opener that is "953", introducing an album that is said to have laid down eight of the record's nine tracks in just five days. Drums are fast and skittering, rhythms are dancey and guitars keep it Madchester jangley. "Speedway" (is that a wry Prodigy reference?) is among the album's highlights alongside the punk-funky "bmbmbm" and the short but trippy "Years Ago". With a 100 per cent backing by UK music institution Rough Trade: meet this generation's newest sensation.

Review: It's been a solid five years since the epic sounds of America's best plugged-in rock duo last electrified our ears. And be it a reference to the Rolling Stones or even Scorsese, the album turns it up from the start with "Shine A Little Light". Big time rhodes and bluesy folk mentalities are then wrapped up in a low-slung ballad that is "Walk Across The Water". Some fans may still be yearning for the raw energy that catapulted the duo into the limelight with Magic Potion, however high voltage sounds can still be found on tracks like "Under The Gun" and "Lo/Hi" - with gospel elements in this case edging to the fore. Overall there's a slight dance element protruding from this LP in comparison to previous records, begging the question: Can you dig it!

Review: Singer-songwriting wrapped up in the dusty acid wash denim of Americana doesn't really get more authentic than what Bill Callahan of Silver Spring, Maryland, can deliver. His latest LP, a mass saunter through 20 tracks of smokey spoken word and lightly sung lyrics, falls upon a picturesque bevvy of humble and acoustic instrumentation. Callahan's songs croon with romance, metaphor, and folky yarns that find their place among fingerpicked guitars and light melodies that enjoy a contrast with the darker musings of Callahan's own world of experience and storytelling. It presents the artist with his first studio in some five years, and a sound that is looser than a typical Bill Callahan missive but full of melodrama that centres around life and death. Our pick, Callahan's cover of the Carter Family's "Lonesome Valley".

Review: After years of what has seemingly been live record after live record - (not to mention their debut Broken Boy Soldiers album haunting our Juno offices for nearly a decade) Jack White's inspired troupe are back with a bang - exploding with Help Us Stranger. Think the amplified epicness of The Who. The album twists and turns through telephone amplified blues ("Help Me Stranger"), the dandy piano ballads in "Shine The Light On Me" to the rolling, western, country drums of "Hey Gyp (Dig The Slowness)". Regardless of the tracks, this album teems with an energy that rock music has not felt for some time and there's no denying the future classic that this will become. Rock on The Raconteurs!

Review: For Sufjan Stevens, "With My Whole Heart", is said to be a self-described attempt to "write an upbeat and sincere love song without conflict, anxiety, or self-deprecation." This single arrives as a most prominent work since his album for 4AD in 2017, and the title track sees rolling toms and keys glitter alongside call-and-response choruses, and a commanding guitar solo. The 1996 demo, done entirely on acoustic guitar, carries even more melancholy and like a lot of his work from this early period, it feels fragmented, even vulnerable, but never without touch of hope and sentimentality. A voice for a new generation.

Review: Hot Chip are back! The coolest dudes since Devo return like a monkey with a miniature cymbal with their seventh full length album. With vocoding effects layered over the sweet tone of Alexis Taylor's voice referencing all matter of contemporary and retro-active pop and trance sensibilities, this album once again sees Hot Chip at the front of pioneering, friendly and avant garde pop music. Produced by the late Philippe Zdar (one half of Cassius) - also responsible for applying award winning touches to albums by Phoenix and Cat Power, Domino is calling the record "a celebration of joy but recognises the struggle it can take to get to that point of happiness". Our tips: album opener "Melody Of Love" and the '80s trance-pop that is "Hungry Child".

Review: Atina 'Mattiel' Brown is a 60s psyche-pop inspiration from Atlanta, Georgia, giving the ears of a modern age a new way to appreciate a lo-fi, garage rock style of storytelling. Satis Factory presents the band with its second album since debuting in 2017 with a self-titled LP, and Brown's voice for Mattiel still reigns supreme in its bluesy, telephone filtered manner. Co-produced by Randy Michael and Jonah Swilley and recorded in their native Atlanta, the vintage touches applied to the band's music sees an authentic blend of deadpan vocals, jangly guitars meet with a touch of spaghetti western, subtle touches of folk and rockabilly, with that perfect smattering of dusty sundown blues.

Review: The Vanishing Twins first surfaced in 2016 with their Choose Your Own Adventure LP before taking some years away to magically re-appear like ghosts can do with The Age Of Immunology. The album brings together space pop with African spoken word and poetry, odd-ball percussion and strangely inspired UK synth pop made to fit a world of other exotic musical styles. There's no denying the unique sound that the band have conjured and it's something for those Broadcast, Pram and Stereolab fans out there in need of new, inspired material. At 10 tracks long it's a magical carpet ride for the ears and you'll never know what part of the world you'll end up.

Review: Righteously rare recordings from the annals of UK-US music culture makes its way to disc via the legendary John Peel and the inimitable Steve Albini (and his Shellac band). Containing cuts from the late radio-jock's worshipped Peel Sessions broadcast in 2004, this archival release features a stream of previously unreleased recordings of the Chicago group's live & studio sessions for the legendary radio spot. The CDs deliver raw and seldom heard versions of "Crow" (from 1998's Terraform LP) alongside "Canada," "Disgrace" and "Spoke" from the Excellent Italian Greyhound LP (2007). Filled with stories of the BBC's "live From Maida Vale" sessions and the studio's famous 24-track console, these exhumed artifacts all make it out at a time when Albini has been quoted saying of Shellac: ""There will be more new material in the future."

Review: Tumbling drums and guitars to invoke that classic Madchester feeling are a shining sensation in this Irish band's limited one-sided 12". Something of an extravagant release, The Murder Capital have rightly stood behind a moody number of post-punk charm that deserves its own piece of 12" real estate. "Green & Blue" is The Murder Capital's second single and it's a sound that falls somewhere between the post-punk of The Happy Mondays and Joy Division, and the more contemporarily strands of Oxford band Foals. Atmospheric, moody post-punk with soul.

Review: The seriously cool Jane Weaver returns with a remarkable 10th album! Following her Modern Kosmology LP in 2017 - Loops In The Secret Society - presents a re-imagined journey through that album and 2014's The Silver Globe. The result delivers a smattering of atmospheric fragments and remakes of previous tracks that never made it to her album past and it sees Weaver venture further down the rabbit hole of abstract and ambient electronics; with tracks like "H>A>K (Loops Variation)" (named after Hilma af Klint, a pioneering Swedish abstract painter) and "Battle Ropes" instantly affecting on first listen. There's no denying the original approach that the British singer-songwriter has gone for here - single-handedly embracing techno and folk - in a look and sound that's arrives like a cosmic curveball of electronic pop from tomorrow.

Review: Harriette "Hatchie" Pilbeam has been in the incubator of London label Heavenly for roughly two years now, with the label slowly establishing the artist before this debut with a slick run of 7" singles and promo material. Colliding breathy synth pop with reverb-drench folk, a touch of trip hop and good old-fashioned indie, Keepsake presents the debut opus from an emerging talent that's helping define what Shoegaze can be for 2019. Highlights include the Enya-like "Secret" and the melancholic two step beats of "Stay With Me". With touches of Boards Of Canada to be found in Hatchie's music too, there's a deep musical brain behind these beats and it should not be slept on. Check. It. Out.

Review: From humble beginnings for Parisian label Kitsune back in 2010, the sub-pop of Two Door Cinema Club has reached great heights thanks to their albums Beacon, Gameshow and most of all, their debut, Tourist History. Now with False Alarm, Alex Trimble's vocals continue to collide in sweet harmony with the band's contemporary arrangement of synths, acoustic drums and undertones of tropical instrumentation - bear in mind that TDCC never stray too far from the poppy realms of disco either. Highlights include the radical '80s charm of "Satisfaction Guaranteed" (think Sting or Hall & Oates) to "Satellite" and the oddly, stylisticly French ballad that is "Break". Good times roll!

Review: Although an outstanding pop artist, Hannah Rodger's music as Pixx sits well and truly in the alt-pop realm. Since surfacing in 2015 with Fall In - that was later followed up by her 2017 debut album Age Of Anxiety - she's continues her relationship with 4AD once more thanks to Small Mercies. This second LP sees the English artist collide future electronic pop and R&B genres with the grungy guitars and synth rock styles of yesteryear. And for this record, Pixx assumes a different persona than before, her label says, to introspectively examine the damage done by religion, gender-based power hierarchies and stereotypes. Our picks, "Disgrace" and the oh-so-grungey "Mary Magdalene".

Review: Shoegaze dream pop duo Molly - out of Innsbruck, Austria - deliver a deluxe alpine coloured vinyl to compliment the elemental themes of their debut album. It follows two previous singles in 2016-17, respectively, suggesting that last year was spent entirely in the studio. As it turns out their studio sits atop their native alps and laced throughout this LP are field recordings of their chosen summit which only offers more space to an already expansive, glacial and epic sound. With the 15-minute album opener "Coming Of Age" a mountain of production in itself, Molly right now are hitting their peak.