Scarlet Rae – No Heavy Goodbyes (Bayonet) (13th Floor EP Review)
Every so often an artist emerges who feels both familiar and utterly distinct. Scarlet Rae, born in Los Angeles and now based in New York, is one of those.
album review
Dead Famous People – Wild Young Ways (Tiny Global) (13th Floor Album Review)
Dead Famous People… their story is a pop parable. Formed in Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland in the mid-1980s by the singularly gifted Dons Savage, they quickly shone with two Flying Nun EPs and Savage’s backing vocals graced The Chills’ Heavenly Pop Hit.
BB & The Bullets – High Tide (Dixiefrog Records) (13th Floor Album Review)
It’s no mean feat to put out a debut long player, but to do so through a well-respected overseas indie label has to be viewed as a triumph.
Sydney Minsky Sargeant – Lunga (Domino) (13th Floor Album Review)
Sydney Minsky Sargeant, his debut solo album, Lunga, represents a sharp departure from the taut, electronic bite of his previous work as Working Men’s Club. Recorded over several years, it drifts between pastoral folk, ambient interludes, and occasional bursts of intensity. At its best, it offers a glimpse of Minsky Sargeant stripped back and vulnerable; […]
Rhian Sheehan & Arli Liberman -Traces (Loop) (13th Floor Album Review)
Sweeping, layered sound panoramas prevail on Traces, a collaboration between Rhian Sheehan and Arli Liberman. It’s all a wonderfully other-worldly journey: music to take us places beyond the usual.
IVY – Hush (Velvet The Label) (13th Floor Album Review)
Ivy is one of those bands whose beginnings may sound humble and ordinary, but whose debut album Hush, surges with scale and ambition.
Grant-Lee Phillips – In the Hour of Dust (Yep Roc) (13th Floor Album Review)
Grant-Lee Phillips is a songwriter who moves between the intimate and the expansive. From the widescreen alt-rock of Grant Lee Buffalo to the quieter folk of his solo records, he places private anxieties within a larger frame of history, myth and politics. In the Hour of Dust, his twelfth solo album, continues in that spirit.
El Michels Affair – 24 Hr Sports (Big Crown) (13th Floor Album Review)
Leon Michels and his El Michels Affair are about to release 24 Hr Sports featuring appearances from Norah Jones, Shintaro Sakamoto, Florence Adooni, Rogê, and Dave Guy, as well as a prominent sample of the late Rahsaan Roland Kirk. Is it worth waiting for? Here is The 13th Floor’s Jeff Neems with an advance listen.
Blood Orange – Essex Honey (Domino) (13th Floor Album Review)
Dev Hynes, otherwise known as Blood Orange, has made an impressive comeback with his freshest album, Essex Honey. His fifth studio album, this might be one of his most moving releases yet – from a sonic and lyrical standpoint, it’s for the most part a chill, contemplative masterpiece that seduces listeners.
Adam Hattaway & The Haunters – Hot Variety (13th Floor Album Review)
Adam Hattaway and the Haunters return with Hot Variety, a stripped-back, emotionally resonant collection that distills their genre-hopping journey from indie rock to country soul into one of their most immediate records yet.