Alice Sara Ott goes to Reykjavík to play Jóhannsson on his producer's upright. Thirty of them. DailyDrops Vol.021 ｜Apr 23 ｜八張新碟速報

Alice Sara Ott — Jóhann Jóhannsson: Piano Works

Genre類型

Classical / Contemporary Classical / Piano Transcription

Label廠牌

Deutsche Grammophon

Format介質

CD / Streaming / 2×LP

Released發行

2026-04-24

The premise here is unusual enough to be worth stating plainly: thirty Jóhannsson pieces, from the early work of Englabörn through the Golden-Globe-winning Theory of Everything score, transcribed for solo piano. Ott traveled to Reykjavík in July 2024 and recorded all of them on producer Bergur Þórisson's old upright — not a concert Steinway, not a polished instrument. That choice tells you almost everything you need to know. The recording is muffled by intention, worn-sounding, and treats Jóhannsson's compositions less as scores to be rendered than as rooms to be re-entered. The restrained, slightly out-of-tune sound gives the film themes in particular a convalescent quality. It's one of the most honest tributes of the year so far.

Chiaroscuro Quartet — Beethoven: String Quartets, Op. 59 Nos. 1 & 2

Genre類型

Classical / String Quartet

Label廠牌

BIS (BIS-2688, Hybrid SACD)

Format介質

SACD / Streaming

Released發行

2026-04-24（Presto Music 新碟週一覽）

The fourth volume in Chiaroscuro's ongoing Beethoven survey. Alina Ibragimova's ensemble plays on gut strings with period-appropriate bows, which means these "Rasumovsky" quartets lose a certain monumental gloss and gain, instead, a peculiar intimacy — what were once stone edifices now sound like conversations held across a candlelit room. The F-major first quartet runs warm without running grand; the E-minor second keeps its gravity but trades granite for something more threadbare and human. The Strad, not given to hyperbole, called it recommended; the entry is more than earned. Chiaroscuro 貝多芬全集第四輯。Alina Ibragimova 領銜的這個組合用腸弦、古典弓法演奏，意味著這兩首"Rasumovsky"失去了某種紀念碑般的光澤，換來的是一種怪異的親密——原本像石雕的東西，現在聽起來像在燭光房間裡的對話。

The Leaving — Ultimate Buzz

Genre類型

Electronic / Indie Rock / Rave

Label廠牌

Avenue A / Futures / Virgin Records

Format介質

LP / CD / Streaming

Released發行

2026-04-24

CHVRCHES' Martin Doherty and long-time collaborator Jonny Scott (who has also drummed with The Twilight Sad and Mogwai) decamped to Los Angeles and made a record shaped by the unavailability of their usual band and the death of Doherty's father. The result is forty minutes of what they call "rave-indebted" pop, and what might more precisely be called synth-pop with the optimism sanded off — a vocabulary of acid bass, four-on-the-floor kicks, and a chorus architecture that insists on being singable even as the lyrics work through grief. The first singles — "Fluoxetine," "Pray," "Saved" — suggest a project more interested in processing than in reinvention. That's a compliment. CHVRCHES 的 Martin Doherty 和長期搭檔 Jonny Scott（他也給 The Twilight Sad 和 Mogwai 打過鼓）搬到洛杉磯做了這張專輯。9 首，不是 CHVRCHES 式的明亮合成器流行，而是更沉、更厚、更吵。他們自己管這叫 "rave-indebted pop"。

The Saddest Landscape — Alone With Heaven

Genre類型

Post-Hardcore / Screamo / Emo

Label廠牌

Iodine Recordings / Deathwish Inc

Format介質

2×LP Gatefold（16 頁冊） / CD / Streaming

Released發行

2026-04-24

Ten years since After the Lights, and much of the reason this record exists at all in its present form is that Steve Albini tracked part of it before he died. Jack Shirley finished the mixing at Atomic Garden in Oakland. So you get a recording with two engineering fingerprints on it, and a band — still led by Andy Maddox — working through the space between grief and hope that screamo at its best has always occupied. The guest list reads like a reunion of the 2010s emo diaspora: Julien Baker, Jeremy Bolm of Touché Amoré, Evan Weiss of Into It. Over It. A double LP with a sixteen-page booklet; the kind of object that still takes itself seriously. 十年。這是他們十年來第一張長專，也是 Steve Albini 去世前錄過的最後幾張之一——他只錄到一部分，其餘由 Jack Shirley 在 Atomic Garden 接完。這張唱片因此帶著一種無意的遺作氣質：兩套工程指紋、一支仍由 Andy Maddox 領銜的老樂隊，在 screamo 最擅長的那塊地帶——悲慟與希望之間——繼續耕作。

Helen Ripley-Marshall — Green Chaos

Genre類型

Ambient / Electronic / Private Press Reissue

Label廠牌

Elations Recordings / Fresh Hold Releases

Format介質

LP（首次黑膠） / Streaming

Released發行

2026-04-24

Mahatmos — Aurora Spectralis

Genre類型

Ambient / Modular Electronics / Experimental

Label廠牌

Superonda

Format介質

12" LP / Digital

Released發行

2026-04-24

A duo from Rome — Gianluca Meloni and Maurizio Loffredo — opening the catalogue of a new label called Superonda with a four-track EP of modular synthesis that never quite commits to being beatless. Slow, insistent pulses surface inside what is otherwise a fairly classical approach to ambient music, giving the whole thing a sense of low-grade momentum. The pieces don't blur into each other; each is its own small, self-contained weather system. Short, cleanly made, and attractive in the way newer European ambient can be when it isn't chasing a Lorenzo Senni impression. 羅馬二人組 Mahatmos——Gianluca Meloni 和 Maurizio Loffredo——的首秀，同時也是 Superonda 這個新廠牌的首發。4 軌模塊合成；不是純 drone——時不時漏出一點節拍，但不把你推向舞池。

BCUC — The Road Is Never Easy

Genre類型

Afro-Funk / Afro-Punk / Spiritual Soul

Label廠牌

Out Here Records

Format介質

LP / CD / Streaming

Released發行

2026-04-24

The fifth album from the Soweto seven-piece — and their first for Out Here, the Munich label that has worked with Konono N°1 and Ebo Taylor, among others. The cover is a blown-up matchbox, the point being that South Africans once scribbled phone numbers on the backs of these things, and sometimes used them to set government buildings on fire. The music matches the image — ten tracks that move between sermon and street, percussion and chant, the band's hybrid of indigenous funk, hip-hop and post-punk energy still sounding unmediated by any producer's hand. It is a live act captured on record, and happier for it. Soweto 7 人組 BCUC 的第五張，也是和德國 Out Here（曾合作過 Konono N°1 和 Ebo Taylor）簽約後的首發。專輯封面是一隻放大的家用火柴盒——在南非抗爭年代，這種火柴盒被寫上聯絡電話，也被用來點燃政府建築。

Gay Meat — Blue Water

Genre類型

Indie Rock / Emo / Power Pop

Label廠牌

Skeletal Lightning

Format介質

LP / CD / Streaming

Released發行

2026-04-24

Karl Kuehn — late of the North Carolina indie band Museum Mouth, more recently of Say Anything — has spent six years on this record, which is his first full-length under the Gay Meat name. It's a thirteen-song elegy to his mother; the guests (Jeff Rosenstock, Chris Farren, Sarah Tudzin of illuminati hotties) come from exactly the corner of bedroom-to-Bandcamp emo you'd expect. The songs are unfancy and direct. If you've ever loved the way Rosenstock can turn grief into a shoutable chorus, you will recognize the move. Karl Kuehn（北卡 Museum Mouth 出身，後加入 Say Anything）以 Gay Meat 名義做了六年的首張長專。13 首，悼念亡母。