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.
THAO, Show Me
Longtime indie-pop artist Thao’s personal life recently underwent a reckoning in the form of a divorce and the upending of a home. “I learned that the point of life is not to emerge unscathed,” the San Franciscan recently shared on the album’s main themes. “Show Me is a real-time record-keeping of my life evolving into a different relationship with love and desire over the last few years.”
Self-produced alongside Nate Brenner (also a co-writer) and Merrill Garbus of Tune-Yards, the album features special guests The Linda Lindas, Adrian Quesada and Neko Case, one of Thao’s all-time favorite songwriters and singers. “Her career trajectory and how she operates in this industry has always inspired me,” Thao shared. “When I first heard her majestic voice on this song I teared up.” This one just has that heartful, special feeling from the get-go.
Sampa the Great, Nu Zamrock
While recently reconnecting with family back home in Zambia, Sampa unearthed an amazing musical discovery: Her uncle George Kunda (Groovy Joe) was a founding member of Zambia’s legendary psychedelic rock band WITCH, one of the pioneers of Zamrock — a 1970s-born fusion of rock, funk and African rhythms.
Sampa’s newest full-length, produced by GRAMMY-award winning producer Cadenze, shows off these roots and starts a new era for the musician and rapper, using her inheritance to create a heartbeat for her album. Throughout it, she reimagines Zamrock through new eyes, layering hip-hop, poetry and soul while touching her roots and reaching out to the future. “Zamrock is part of my family legacy. It’s my voice,” she shared. “Being Zambian, being loud, being defiant — that’s what Zamrock is.”
DIIV, ZIRP!
Brooklyn band DIIV’s stratospheric rise seems to underline the popularity of shoegaze sounds and their particular capability to create a sound that’s both glossy and hard to create a satisfyingly real brand of rock. It also speaks to their keen eyes and ears during the past decade's global politics.
The band’s newest album sees them working with producer A.G. Cook, giving a more alt-pop gloss to things. As for the album’s title? “When [band leader] Zachary Cole Smith was 24, the Federal Reserve had just implemented a zero interest-rate policy — aka ‘ZIRP’ — to encourage business expansion and venture capital growth after the 2008 financial crisis.” Dive (pun intended) into the heavy and heady new album yourself.
Lilliput pick: Clinic, Wild in the Streets
Liverpool weirdo rockers Clinic issue their 10th collection of songs that, as always, carry their trademark urgency, surreal wordplay and humor. As longtime charters of their own course, the band continue to ride the wave they initiated nearly 30 years ago, with electronics and drum machines serving as the base for multi-pronged rhythms like reggae and funk.
“We’ve always had this absolute faith in what we do,” the band’s Ade Blackburn recently shared. “It’s relatively outsider-ish music, but that’s something that’s motivated us to keep going, because it’s good to have things that are a little out on the fringes.” If you want to get out there with them, float this album into your ears.
More of our picks
- 2nd Grade, Girls and Boys
- Andy Stott, Late Loop
- Lydia Loveless, Accolades
- MorMor, No One Alive Will Listen
- Queens of the Stone Age, Perfecth
- RIP Magic, 1,2,3
- WHY?, Oh Golly / Yes Lord
