Every week, John collects a trio of new releases to help you get lifted. This week features a Gorgon City remix of London Grammar and new music from Aero Flynn and Angel Olsen.

#SwiftSZN aside, we’re edging closer to the holidays with all this new music, which tends to be a pretty quiet time. If Ed Sheeran rap verses aren’t your thing, though, there’s still plenty to keep you warm among the batch of new releases this week.

London Grammar – Hell to the Liars (Gorgon City Remix)

While London Grammar’s 2014 album If You Wait had a lovely draw — Hannah Reid’s soaring voice belting melodies over quiet, precise xx-style electronic — I found way more joy in the album’s remixes that followed it. Arty’s punchier remix of “Hey Now” and Isaac Tichauer’s deep house take on “Nightcall” come to mind. So it makes sense that the somewhat disappointing Truth Is A Beautiful Thing, the band’s 2017 outing, is getting a fresh dose of life from the remix singles trickling out. North London’s Gorgon City is the latest, with their proggy take on “Hell to the Liars”. Building off a techno bottom end, the remix gets it right in giving Reid’s voice plenty of room to breathe. No repeating vocals, no unnecessary mixing — this is a remix that respects and builds on its source material.

Angel Olsen – Fly on Your Wall

After last year’s critically acclaimed My Woman, where she went from folk to full-blown rock, Angel Olsen has taken on new shape. Still, it’s incredible to hear her songwriting in quieter settings — that’s the idea behind Phases, a collection of B-sides out this week. A highlight is “Fly on Your Wall”, which shuffles along without melody until the outro, when Olsen concludes her fly on the wall metaphor with “A love never made is still mine / If only real in my mind”. The guitar work gives this a lovely November sound, perfect for cold, cloudy mornings.

Aero Flynn – You Care

Emerging from the Bon Iver family tree, singer-songwriter Josh Scott — a.k.a. Aero Flynn — has had a quiet existence releasing minimalist indie from the American Midwest, while being touted by Justin Vernon himself. While Aero Flynn’s self-titled album in 2015 sounded more like a Radiohead knock-off, “You Care” sheds all the angst for a more carefree, dance-y sound. There’s still those Jonny Greenwood-style touches here that take the song to a new level — those shuffling stutters in the background, the unexpected melodies — and it signals a coming-out for an artist long kept quiet near that famous cabin in the Wisconsin woods.

Categories: CULTURE MUSIC