pop that rocks

all pop that rocks. all rock that pops. and everything in between. I'm a blog about music and stuff. Tracks and recommendations are welcome. Contact me at [email protected] Archive at popthatrocks.wordpress.com

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Hear this devastatingly beautiful first taste of the forthcoming album from Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith.

The Kid will drop this October on Western Vinyl.

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Zola Jesus continues to plot her resurgence with another towering tease of her forthcoming album Okovi, out September 8 via Sacred Bones.

This album is shaping up to be Nika’s most personal and poignant statement yet. Color me excited.

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So excited that Laurel Halo is back to releasing vocal music again. Also seriously digging the avant Arthur Russell vibes on a lot of these tracks.

Dust is out this Friday on Hyperdub. Get excited.

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Mesmerizing new video for one of many highlights from the best debut album of 2017, co-starring French gay porn star François Sagat. ISON is out now.

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Zola Jesus is back on Sacred Bones and I couldn’t be happier. This sounds like the expansion on her Stridulum sound that we’ve been waiting 7 years for. 

Okovi is our September 8. It’ll be promptly followed by a tour, the dates of which can be pulled below...

09/16 - Hudson, NY - Basilica Soundscape 09/21 - San Diego, CA - Casbah 09/22 - Phoenix, AZ - Valley Bar 09/23 - Santa Fe, NM - Meow Wolf 09/25 - Dallas, TX - Kessler Theater 09/26 - Austin, TX - North Door 09/27 - New Orleans, LA - Siberia 09/28 - Atlanta, GA - Aisle 5 09/29 - Asheville, NC - The Mothlight 09/30 - Washington, DC - U Street 10/01 - Boston, MA - ICA Boston 10/03 - Philadelphia, PA - PhilaMOCA 10/04 - Brooklyn, NY - Rough Trade 10/06 - Toronto, ON - Longboat Hall 10/07 - Detroit, MI - Assemble Sound Church 10/08 - Chicago, IL - Thalia Hall 10/09 - Madison, WI - Majestic Theatre 10/10 - St. Paul, MN - Amsterdam Bar & Hall 10/11 - Omaha, NE - Waiting Room 10/14 - Salt Lake City, UT - Amsterdam Bar & Hall 10/16 - Oakland, CA - Starline Social Club 10/17 - San Francisco, CA - Independent 10/19 - Seattle, WA - Crocodile 10/20 - Portland, OR - The Old Church 10/21 - Vancouver, BC - Venue 11/07 - London, UK - Village Underground

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I’m back(ish)

What can I say? Sometimes you turn around and it’s been TWO YEARS since the last time you posted anything. Not that I’ve strayed far from my music journalism roots. I still regularly host my weekly online radio show (the recordings of which can now be heard here), and regularly contribute freelance interviews to The Key on WXPN.  Now that I’m semi-securely employed again in addition to those gigs, I feel tanned, rested, and ready to get back into plugging all of the cool shit I don’t always get to talk about elsewhere, beginning today with this sublime new cut from Briana Marela. She’s set to release her new album Call It Love on August 4th via Jagjaguwar and "Give Me Your Love” is the second taste of it so far. She worked with the great synthpop duo Small Black this time around and you can hear it in this song’s lush, looping melody. Can’t wait to hear the rest.

Hear for yourself below...

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Another alluring taste of Deradoorian’s forthcoming debut. Very Julia Holter, this one.

The Expanding Flower Planet drops August 21 on Anticon.

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Tamaryn releases her gorgeous new album Cranekiss at the end of August through Mexican Summer. To continue teasing it out, she’s unveiled a video for the title track, directed by Brian DeGraw of Gang Gang Dance.

It’s fitting how much this video reminds me of this one, because I can’t stop thinking about classic Curve when I listen to this album, which is a VERY good thing.

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After the Fall

Gothic goddess Chelsea Wolfe will release her fifth studio album Abyss through Sargent House on August 7. This is the latest and possibly greatest taste of it yet, a stunner that simultaneously slinks and sludges. No easy feat.

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Dirty Projectors alum (Angel) Deradoorian will finally release her debut album The Exploding Flower Planet next month on Anticon. Above you can view a mesmerizing live performance of the opening track “A Beautiful Woman,” featuring her sister Arlene. She’ll also be hitting the road with Stereolab’s Laetitia Sadier later this fall. Based on this, that’s going to be a can’t miss show.

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Tamaryn has gone full blown synth pop to match her cross-country move to the Big Apple, and the shift in sound suits her like WHOA. Her new album Cranekiss is out next month on Mexican Summer and is her first with new collaborator Shaun Durkan and producer Jorge Elbrecht (Violens). Every single so far has been hotter than the next so we should be in for a swooning, sweltering treat.

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Jenny Hval’s 2013 album Innocence Is Kinky was a subtly sinster masterstroke. Recently signed to Sacred Bones, she’s set to follow it up with Apocalypse, ggirl in June. This is the new single, and it ranks as one of her most haunting yet accessible pieces of music yet.

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After 6 years of top-notch production creds and transcendent singles, Jamie xx will finally release his debut solo LP, In Colour, this June on Young Turks. It features collaborations with Four Tet, Young Thug, and of course, his xx bandmates Oliver and Romy, the latter of which guests on the moving, mesmerizing lead single above. Take a listen and pre-order the album here. FYI, the limited deluxe coloured vinyl looks as gorgeous as this song sounds.

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Exploitation

Róisín Murphy has let loose with the latest single taken from her resurgent new album Hairless Toys, out May 12 on Play It Again Sam. On record, “Exploitation” will be a nearly ten minute epic that vaguely echoes the minimalist grooves that Trent Reznor mined on his own 2013 comeback album Hesitation Marks. Even in this radio edit, the song manages to scorch and slink in equal measure. Take a listen below...

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More Marriages

Hear the massive, majestic title track from Marriages’ forthcoming LP Salome, out in just under a month via Sargent House. 

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Young Fathers do a better job of explaining their great new single better than I or anyone could...

"Yes, you are on your way to work. Yes, you are late but you don’t give a fuck. That’s not why you’re flat-footing it up the concrete steps, feeling that rough corner burn on the palm of your hand. That’s not why you’re sweating (on the inside!  The inside!) or why tendons are twitching and flicking the ends of your toes while you wait, tapping, for the gap in the revolving door to swing too slowly your way. It’s not because you did something wrong and now there are people, the police, sending sirens, howling like dogs after your heels. They won’t catch you, not worried. Fuck ‘em. It’s not because you’re running from school, from the sight of your face in the steamy glass as you arrive for another day of drear, running towards unknown fields. It’s because... this prodding, insistent (move it!  Pick up!  Come on!) this audio whip, this escalator gone mad in your ears and then that slow down and the choir (The Leith Congregational Choir no less) and what does it take to feel better? When will you be happy again? Who cares. Keep moving and then, a moment and you realise, hey I’m happy, just now, right now and it comes home and you feel no shame. No. Shame."

White Men Are Black Men Too drops April 7 on Big Dada.

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I kind of love how this song manages to sound like a logical progression from Visions and a lost Annie demo at the same time. More please.