Top 5 Albums of the Week
Culture Calling's Top 5 albums of the week, an eclectic mix of records from across genres and decades. Come discover weekly albums to bulk out your collection.
By Charlie Walker | Updated Sep 10 2024
Sun Kil Moon – April (2008)
The seasons changed, the leaves are covering more ground, and shorts are a distant memory. Time to pull up one of our favourite seasonal albums from a man whose sound has always been drenched in autumnal tones.
Softly reverberated guitars, murky mids, slow, anticipating drums, gorgeous finger-picking techniques, and reflective, tender, and nostalgic-driven lyrics, it’s a sound so well suited to the post-summer mellowing-out of life. Sleepy, drowsy, but comfortable, contented.
‘Moorestown’ embodies this especially, dreary and descending yet softly uplifting, dealing with the joy and pain and reminiscing over a former lover. His voice has never been particularly operatic, but its wavering quality makes his tunes all the more touching and personal.
Various Artists – Crown Ruler Sound (Compiled by Jeremy Spellacey) (2017)
When your listening habits have grown stale and you find yourself looking for more, there’s nothing like a compilation album to show you which way to go. Crown Ruler Sound draws from the best of boogie-era disco and dance records from Africa and the Caribbean.
There are too many gems to talk about concisely. How about Devon Russell’s superb reggae cover of ‘Move On Up’, or the infectiously dancy, Talking Heads Speaking in Tongues era-esque ‘Funk Around’, or how about the politically conscious yet party friendly ‘Can I Get a Witness’, or the follow-up track ‘Monday Blues’, which will no doubt have you shaking them off.
It’s a pure delight. Most of these artists have no other tracks on Spotify. Spellacey has done us all a solid here, putting in the hard graft of cratedigging so we don’t have to.
The J.B.’s – Hustle With Speed (1975)
James Brown’s boys with all of their well-drilled, disgracefully funky talent, just without the signature wails and cathartic screeches of James Brown. And as much as I admire the man, sometimes, without him is better. Just straight up, mostly instrumental funk licks for your headtop. Better be wearing a helmet.
The three hornmen of Maceo Parker, Pee Wee Ellis, and Fred Wesley, all which had successful careers in funk and soul, each try to out-smart each other in a competition of who can have the baddest solo. All of them win in the end. It really doesn’t get much better than this. Even Parliament Funkadelic will all of their talent struggle to come close to this sort of musicianship.
Some tunes you’ll recognise, some you won’t, but all of them will get your shoulders moving. Exactly what you need in these dreary September days.
Toro y Moi – Anything in Return (2013)
For a while he was the posterboy of the chillwave movement, arguably playing the biggest role in shaping its development, but here was where he proved he was more than just a fad-pandering artist. Not chillwave, but not EDM, but electronic, sort of more in line with what was happening in London’s broken house scene a decade prior, but uniquely sort of indie in its composition. ‘Unique’ would be an overstatement, but it’s definitely adventurous, sonically captivating, and a hell of a listen.
The records stand-out track, ‘So Many Details’, is probably the closest you can get to Flying Lotus’ sound without being accused of copying him, but its development, the phases the song travels through, are all so well paced and fantastically orchestrated that it may temporarily reprogram your musical brain. Sparkly, thumpy, and full of life, it’s only further elevated by some gorgeous vocal melodies, highly personal lyrics, and crescended by that seriously brain-tingly drum pattern. After 11 years it still sounds remarkably fresh.
1tbsp – Mosquito Love (2023)
Something interesting and exciting is happening in international dance music. Of course genres have been largely done away with as far as artists are concerned, so now the challenge is drawing up your own distinctive sound despite there being no distinct genre to find your place in.
1tbsp, a project led by Australian, Grammy-nominated Maxwell Byrne, on Mosquito Love found influence from Latin music, specifically from the Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico, as a way to diverge from trends in European dance music, as well as using it as a new means of understanding rhythm, flow, and tone.
Spanish-language vocal samples rule the realm, reggaeton-esque drums play freely with your standard four-on-the-floor, and the lack of English lyrics leads monolingual listeners into treating the voice like an instrument, far from a foreign concept in dance but here used so effectively that it doesn’t matter.
Club-friendly but also chill enough to do your morning commute to, Mosquito Love is a fantastic introduction to the modern world of dance. Nothing too scary here. We keep it PG at Culture Calling.