Every Friday, On Vinyl features 88Nine music director Erin Wolf and Lilliput Records co-owner Tanner Musgrove delivering their top picks and a list of this week’s other releases, so the can’t-miss new albums don’t pass you by.
Caroline Rose, Gentling the Horse at the Walt Whitman Mall
Rose has always found the surreal embedded within the banal, and her new album pushes that instinct to its furthest edge, constructing a hyperreal Americana fantasy where everyday life is asked to reveal its underbelly (as she describes it).
Working with producer John Congleton, Rose built the album through instinct rather than polish. It pairs observational, memoiristic songwriting with big guitar sounds and synths that explain everyday life with clarity on a more epic-sized scale. Beneath Rose’s signature hooks runs a sinewy current of violence and the dissolve of the American Dream.
As the press materials put it, the album is “Ennio Morricone with an AR15: surf guitars, spaghetti westerns, and suburban dread colliding until they become their own sharp vernacular.”
Fenne Lily, Win Win
The English singer-songwriter uses poetry and a down-to-earth, conversational approach to her version of folk, leaning personal while tapping into universal themes of growth and grieving; it’s an examination of who we were and who we could be.
Lily’s voice is luminescent but never chases perfection. She shapes her songs with acoustic guitar, banjo, slide, soft percussion and piano, creating a soft cradle for a voice that’s full of deeply emotional observations that are still oftentimes humorous, soothing the processing of big life stuff, using structural simplicity for emphasis.
Ahead of the release of her fourth album, Lily shared that the song “Sleeping” felt like a blueprint for the full album: “I say what I mean and am a little bit mean in the process … it’s a thoughtful rage.” Yet this also feels like thoughtful resolve — finding the light and keeping her eyes on it.
Ahead of these new songs, Fenne moved from the U.K. to New York for a relationship that eventually ended. She ultimately stayed in NYC, inviting musical friends from both sides of the pond to join her on the album, which lent a feeling of intimacy, comfort and transformation to her newest batch of songs.
Fine, Jazz Dreams
Copenhagen’s Fine Glindvad Jensen is part of a burgeoning Danish music scene that explores the viby-er sides of folk, electronic, jazz and alternative.
A member of an Escho Records family that includes likeminded artists Erika de Casier, ML Buch, Astrid Sonne, Clarissa Connelly and Elias Rønnenfelt, Jensen has previously played in alt-leaning projects, yet her solo stuff is more magnetic in a cinematically raw way. As a producer, she’s not bent on perfection; there are vocal wobbles and quirky song endings that remove the polish. What’s left is a natural luminescence that feels earthly and unearthly all at once.
On Jazz Dreams, Jensen adds a heavy atmosphere to pastoral jangle, dappled with torch-y, trip-hoppy and colder synth elements. Early followers have often name-dropped Hope Sandoval and Mazzy Star as a sonic touchpoint, and that’s truly a great reference for her vocal delivery and everything that binds her songs together.
This is her second full-length, and those Sandoval-esque moments from her debut are still present. But Jensen’s sound has evolved as if Sneaker Pimps had jumped on the soundtrack for classic TV show Twin Peaks. Compositionally, there are so many things to love: slinky guitars, orchestral and jazz-y elements, intrigue, effervescence, thick bass lines and that drawl-y, vapourous voice.
Lilliput pick: The Cat's Miaow, When You Smiled and Turned Away
The Australian indie legends’ string of gentle, melancholic indie pop singles and tapes are some of the 1990s best and most sought-after. Following a pair of recent and very well-received compilations on World of Echo, The Cat’s Miaow was recently inspired to regroup, play some shows and work on new material. The result is this album — remarkably, their debut studio effort and, according to early press, some of their finest work yet.
Lead single “If You’re Lost, You Can Follow Me Home” was described as a combo of post-Velvets chug and Buzzcocks-inspired backing vocals. With the particular song (and the full album’s material) aiming to pay tribute to all the kind-hearted souls who look out for the world’s lost kittens, both literally and metaphorically, we can bet this record will speak to all the softies who are looking for a little solace from the day-to-day.
More of our picks
- Anderson .Paak & Corday, Heavy Is the Crown
- Art d’Ecco, Scheele's Green
- Claud, Me and the Music
- John Legend, Muse
- Josh Rouse, Museums and Women
- Michael Kiwanuka, FUDGE
- Sen Morimoto, Time Is on Your Side
- Shabazz Palaces, It’s a Style Sport
- Strawberry Guy, Give Me a Dream
- Surprise Chef, Frogs in a Pond
- The Olivia Tremor Control, The Same Place
