This Friday, July 10, we also find in stores the records by Panda Bear & Sonic Boom, as well as Ellen Allien.
Ellen Allien New Life (BPitch Control/PIAS)
The Berlin electro icon delivers a splendid new album, dense and vibrant. From its title and from start to finish, the album communicates a burning desire for (new) life at a tempo of techno that is firmly aimed at the future. Hyper-organic, traversed by human voices and sounds of nature, the ten tracks – special mention for Lights Off, Steh Auf and Mein Herz – form a world that is powerfully moving, one that invites endless revisits to explore.
By Jérôme Provençal. Read the review of New Life.
Kelela New Avatar (Warp/Kuroneko)
The most innovative voice in contemporary R&B enriches her reflective journey, infused with Afro-feminist references, on an album with ghostly outlines. After a five-year hiatus, Kelela released in 2023 Raven, merging dance music and ambient to articulate the tremors of her experience as a racialized and queer individual. Infused with Afro-feminist references (from bell hooks to Octavia E. Butler), the album offered through the dancefloor a space both to think and celebrate her lived experience. Three years later, she returns to her roots (those of the progressive metal of the Dizzy Spells group, where she made her debut) to deepen her message.
By Briac Julliand. Read the review of New Avatar.
Panda Bear & Sonic Boom A ? of When (Domino/Sony Music)
The duo of color breaks with the era’s absurdity on “A ? of When,” a second album of remarkable delicacy. To propose something different, to free oneself from spatial-temporal constraints and to explore elsewhere by opening up new paths. This is the transcendence quest that Peter Kember, aka Sonic Boom, has pursued since the initial sonic perturbations of Spacemen 3. The same goes for Noah Lennox, aka Panda Bear, already seeking the intangible that evaporates at the origins of Animal Collective.
By Valentin Gény. Read the review of A ? of When.
The Rolling Stones Foreign Tongues (Universal)
The fourteenth and final track on this 25th album is also the best. One of the few worth listening to. It is a Chuck Berry cover whose very first merit is to offer the listener a respite. And a moment when one finds themselves hoping, perhaps in vain, that the train will finally pull into the station. Because it’s high time to let the bogies cool down (and the boogie as well). Terminus. Everyone gets off. End of the story.
By Francis Dordor. Read the review of Foreign Tongues.
Jack White Frozen Charlotte (Third Man Records/Modulor)
Guided by the energy of his current live shows, the American musician in his fifties makes his guitars roar on “Frozen Charlotte,” his seventh solo album. One of the new tracks by Jack White is titled She’s in a Frenzy, and this description could well apply to him, frenzied and unleashed throughout the seventh solo album of his career. Those who were fortunate enough to see him on stage in June, during his two gigs at the Olympia or at the Nuits de Fourvière, will find here the same thunderous energy that electrifies his current tour, as well as the same lineup of seasoned musicians: the eclectic Dominic Davis on bass, the subtle Bobby Emmett on keyboards, and the explosive Patrick Keeler from the Raconteurs on drums.
By Noémie Lecoq. Read the review of Frozen Charlotte.
