New Album Releases: May - Gaz Coombes, Courtney Barnett, Ash, Parquet Courts, Jon Hopkins and more

Info: REMY's monthly new album releases round-up returns for May, featuring singles already released from albums coming out over the next two weeks (and the week just past) in the above playlist, with a video or two to boot! Truth be told I've felt that 2018 has gotten off to a bit of a slow start in terms of ear-watering (yes) albums, ones I'd classify that upon hearing them I get the gut urge to purchase the physical copy as soon as possible. But May, oh my, it's brimming, and there are even more albums than the 11 here that I am keen to spend more time with. Essentially there is probably at least one, if not two or three of your own albums of the year on this playlist from just a single month.

It's a hard push, and I'll be a little bit torn, because you always like what's new best, at least for a while, but I'm thinking Gaz Coombes' World's Strongest Man might surpass the love I had for Matador. I'm still in right in the thick of enjoying the shit out of Irish band Just Mustard's debut LP Wednesday which was our Album of the Month for May, including their track 'Deaf'. Sydney's Courtney Barnett makes big leaps and bounds with new album Tell Me How You Really Feel, it sounds like a record from someone with a far larger back catalogue (on this playlist, easily an album I'll be running to buy on wax).

Parquet Courts - Almost Had to Start a Fight / In and Out of Patience (Live on KEXP)

Parquet Courts' seventh studio album since 2012's American Specialities also looks set to be their piéce de resistance, Wide Awake! is a hook-heavy modern day punk banger, these are the songs that people who don't like The Ramones felt like they should like. Alongside a most welcome return from the mighty Ash and their latest album Islands, where we have single 'Annabel', I'm (again) falling in love with Damien Jurado, it's been 10 and 8 years since I was smitten by Caught in the Trees and Saint Bartlett, and now The Horizon Just Laughed feels like his Carrie & Lowell from Sufjan Stevens.

There's also seriously good albums from a hopping Jon Hopkins in Singualarity (wow, electronic orgasm), Beach House's 7, a gorgeous return from Ray LaMontagne with Part of the Light and super electro-pop magnifique sounds via Chad Valley on Imaginary Music, an artist who never fails to bring an involuntary smile to my face. I reiterate that this is a monster month for album releases and there is loads to check out so get out there and find even more.

Jon Hopkins - Emerald Rush

Release Dates:

Out Now:

Just Mustard - Wednesday

Damien Jurado - The Horizon Just Laughed

Gaz Coombes - World's Strongest Man

Jon Hopkins - Singularity

May 11th:

Beach House - 7

May 18th:

Ash - Islands

Courtney Barnett - Tell Me How You Really Feel

Parquet Courts - Wide Awake! 

Ray LaMontagne - Part Of The Light 

May 25th:

Chad Valley - Imaginary Music

EP: Bellew - Bang!

Info: Last month Bellew released his debut E.P. 'Bang!' in the Spirit Store. Along with recording, mixing and mastering the blues rock E.P, Bellew played and programmed every instrument on Bang! bar the keyboards which were played by David Burke (Swords based keyboard wizard).

The 24 year old bluesman from Dundalk played with 3 different bands on the night of his E.P. launch. First accompanying Tara Tíne (Author Songstress and Hallion) on electric guitar, followed by lead guitar duties with Harry Hoban and the Brothers Kane and then with his own band (Shane Byrne of Pizza Pizza records on Drums, Kieran O'Surfer on double bass and electric bass, David Burke on piano, organ and ambient guitar and Tara Tíne on Bodhrán and vocals).

No other Irish EP will shoot an arrow straight onto the bullseye of my blues heart this year, that's for sure. Bellew's Bang! captures all of the old blues albums and 45's I've managed to accumulate over the years on vinyl. From John Mayall (and by association then teenager Eric Clapton), Albert Collins, early-Stones and even some Neil Young and Bert Jansch. A wide and wild spread.

The EP's title track begins proceedings and I admit I was a little shocked at what I heard, I wasn't expecting such proficiency, and mostly because I just haven't heard it apart from on said records, especially from an Irish act. This one is all Mayall & The Bluesbreakers with Clapton for me, think 'Steppin' Out', at 3:33 the fire is lit, this solo is fucking heaven to me.

'Diary of a Night Owl' has that Jansch acoustic intro á la 'Angie', but also tips its hat rhythm-wise to London trio America's classic 'A Horse With No Name' but without the morose slow tempo. Then comes 'Lu Blues', again Bellew displaying he can play some fine blues on acoustic just as well as on electric. There's a very slight swamp-blues tinge and he pings those harmonic notes off the fret-board like a cowboy whose bossin' it.

Wham! or Bang! even, a wave of rip-roaring and rolling guitar riffs come in rapid succession one after the other on '53', it's slightly outrageous and I love it. An expertly dropped break at 1:20 lasts less than 9 seconds and the electric guitar is off scorching again. It's quite chaotic and difficult at first listen to take in exactly how much Bellew is throwing at us here, and we're all the better for it. His vocal very much in the mid-60's cross-over zone when rock music was first dipping its toes in psych and garage.

Final track 'Black Sea' reminds me undoubtedly of my biggest hero on its opening bars, Rory Gallagher, it's like a submerged version of 'A Million Miles Away' on the Irish Tour album. Then it starts mixing psychedelic tones, before moving into James Gang territory. I love this, it's very care-free and free-flowing and genuinely feels like the artist is having fun, whilst sharing it around generously. 

An EP like Bang! provides me with a lot of excitement, there just aren't that many Irish blues-rock acts right now when you consider the swell of other genres which would have been unheard of 10 years ago in the greater music scene, but are now blooming such as hip-hop and electronic. In some ways this may work against Bellew, is it a reflection of a lack of appetite? I don't think so, more a lack of exposure to a very-skilled  (nowadays) sub-genre of rock music. If he keeps building it like this, they will come.

Look / Like / Listen & Follow:

Website: https://davidbellewmusic.wordpress.com/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/davidbellewmusic/

Bandcamp: https://bellew.bandcamp.com/

Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/artist/3PY7VPjTHKhsRDMD4jPAzp?si=Ejwz4k66QNCehvwrjUTRUQ

Twitter: https://twitter.com/dbellewmusic

Single: Jon Dots - Kamera

Jon Dots - Kamera

Info: Dublin alternative-pop act Jon Dots has shared a brand new single in the shape of 'Kamera'. It's quite a shift in sound in many ways from what we've heard on Dots' previous (and quite voluminous) output such as last summer's Impossibly EP. The upbeat pop characteristic is still there but that's about it, his previous dalliance with varying hybrids of classic pop stemming from a mix of Elton John / Beach Boys / Roy Orbison sounds make way for a 90's dance-pop sound with electric guitar thrown in for good measure. 

The first few seconds of the intro have a 'Born Slippy' feel, but that only lasts 6 seconds when we are shuffled into a lovely mix of indie / dance and pop. Thematically I'm guessing Dots is alluding to a voyeuristic obsession with a muse who is a stranger, who is unaware of the protagonists existence, who falls in love through the screen on their phone. A modern take on 'watching you from afar', not in a creepy way mind, but an observation on 'knowing' people purely via devices. Of course it could have an entirely different meaning altogether. I loved it, he makes it all sound so easy, an idea comes into his head and he puts it down with little fuss, another 'window down and play it loud' zinger from the pop supremo.

Like / Listen & Follow:

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/jondotsmusic/

Bandcamp: https://jondots.bandcamp.com/

Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/artist/3ic5vBwVe1Oxig5MM1K8XG?si=vBmvNcdWQD-nKzZSbGZpBA

Twitter: https://twitter.com/jondotsmusic