Daily Drops · Vol.032每日唱片 · Vol.032
The Boos return to grief, and three British classical labels stage their own May Day Monday 通常沒有真正意義的「今日新發」。本期所有入選都是 5/1 NMF 大潮中、過去三日 raw_list 沒有覆蓋到的遺珠，加上 Apr 29-30 後未報的少量項目。重點是英國壓力之下的 Boo Radleys 第九張、兩張被 Pitchfork/Stereogum 略過但 Presto Music 頭條推薦的古典首發，以及 Goner / Dirtnap / Memphis Industries 三家小廠同日上架的三張極不一樣的「不安分」搖滾。
Paul Watkins / Alessio Bax — Beethoven: The Sonatas for Piano and Cello
- Genre類型
- Classical / Cello Sonatas / Chamber
- Label廠牌
- Signum Classics（雙 CD）
- Format介質
- SACD / Hi-Res / Streaming
The cellist of the recently disbanded Emerson Quartet writes a fan letter to a pianist he heard play the Moonlight, and a few years later we get this — a quiet, conversational, two-disc traversal of the five Beethoven sonatas, recorded over four December days at Cedars Hall in Wells. The Op. 5 pair from Beethoven's 1796 Berlin trip still bristles with the young composer trying to make the piano and the cello argue. The Op. 102 sonatas, written nearly two decades later, are practically interior monologues — the late Beethoven of the Hammerklavier, dressed down. Watkins and Bax don't reach for grand statements; they keep the door open, let the music walk in, and let it talk. Signum's recording leaves them air to breathe. It is the rare cycle that makes you forget the cycle and listen to one sonata at a time. [封面圖佔位 — 見 covers.html]
De Profundis (Robert Hollingworth) — Morales: L'homme armé Masses & Magnificat secundi toni
- Genre類型
- Classical / Renaissance Sacred / A Cappella
- Label廠牌
- CORO（CORO 25 週年廠牌紀念年）
- Format介質
- CD / Streaming / Hi-Res
[封面圖佔位 — 見 covers.html]
Sinfonia of London / John Wilson — French Orchestral Favourites
- Genre類型
- Classical / French Orchestral / Symphonic Tone Poem
- Label廠牌
- Chandos（CHSA5379，SACD + Dolby Atmos）
- Format介質
- SACD / Hi-Res / Spatial Audio
Wilson's hand-picked orchestra, relaunched in 2018 and now twenty-six recordings deep, has settled into a recognizable house style: hyper-detailed, athletically precise, recorded in the kind of multichannel sound that audio retailers use to demonstrate equipment. The program is exactly what the title says — Dukas's Sorcerer's Apprentice, Debussy's Clair de lune in Wilson's own orchestration, Chabrier, Ravel, Saint-Saëns's Danse macabre, and the two Bizet Carmen suites in the conductor's preferred running order. None of it is news; all of it is played with a clarity that occasionally borders on the surgical. Whether you find that thrilling or chilly will depend on how much weight you put on French orchestral music's older, hazier traditions. The Atmos mix, for what it's worth, is genuinely spectacular. [封面圖佔位 — 見 covers.html]
The Boo Radleys — In Spite of Everything
- Genre類型
- Indie / Psych Pop / Shoegaze
- Label廠牌
- Boostr（自廠）
- Format介質
- 2CD / LP / Streaming
It would have been easy for the Boos' ninth album, made in the wake of bassist Tim Brown's losing his eldest son, to collapse into either grief-tourism or its opposite, the willed brightness of denial. The record refuses both. "Living Is Easy," the lead single, names the loss without sentimentalizing it; "Do Better, Know Better" leans into a 1970s art-rock idiom the band used to flirt with on C'mon Kids; "Bring Them Back Again" is, of all things, a funk-leaning groove with the chorus the title suggests. Sice Rowbottom's voice has settled into a less-pretty register that suits the material. This is the band's third album since their 2021 reformation and almost certainly the strongest — not because it tries to be the album they couldn't make in 1995, but because it's the album they couldn't have made then. [封面圖佔位 — 見 covers.html]
Pigeon — OUTTANATIONAL
- Genre類型
- Krautrock / Post-Punk / Punk-Funk（首張）
- Label廠牌
- Memphis Industries
- Format介質
- LP（橙膠 / 藍膠 / 黑膠）/ CD / Streaming
A debut, finally, from the Margate five-piece whose members between them have backed Little Simz, Michael Kiwanuka, SAULT, and Saul Williams — a session-musician pedigree that often produces lifelessly competent records. OUTTANATIONAL is the opposite. Recorded live across two Kent studios, it sets motorik rhythms against Afro-disco basslines, threads punk-funk basslines through krautrock spirals, and lets Falle Nioke's vocals carry songs that are, in subject matter, all about identity and migration. The party-record framing is genuine — these tracks would work in a dancehall — but every groove is doing political work underneath. Compare it, if you must, to early Hot Chip, William Onyeabor, or LCD Soundsystem in their first incarnation; the comparisons all undersell the specifics. [封面圖佔位 — 見 covers.html]
Drakulas — Midnight City
- Genre類型
- Synth-Punk / New Wave / Garage
- Label廠牌
- Dirtnap Records（北美）/ Wild Honey（歐洲）
- Format介質
- LP / CD / Streaming
Drakulas — the side band started by members of Riverboat Gamblers and Rise Against — return to Dirtnap, their original label, with a third album that reads like a love letter to a city that doesn't quite exist: late-1970s neon, garage grit, synth ghosts, the cold detachment of New Wave. Where their first record was a punk band trying on synthesizers, Midnight City is a synth band that remembers it used to be a punk band. The twelve tracks are interconnected without being a concept album; "Singin' With My Tongue Cut Out" and "Going Going Gone Gone" are the singles, but the album-as-artifact rewards going from start to finish. [封面圖佔位 — 見 covers.html]
The Sleeveens — National Anthem
- Genre類型
- Punk / Power Pop / Post-Punk
- Label廠牌
- Goner Records（GONE.212LP，限量白膠）
- Format介質
- LP（黑膠 + 限量白膠）/ Streaming
Goner Records — the Memphis garage-and-punk label whose taste has aged like leather — releases the second album from this Nashville-based, Dublin-fronted band. The first record was a tight, melodic punch in the chest; this one widens the lens without losing the punch. "If I Was A Casual" opens proceedings with what is essentially a Ramones song that knows it's a Ramones song; further in, Stefan Murphy lets a Stiff Little Fingers political anger creep through the power-pop chassis. Late in the record, a minimalist krautrock track appears like a guest the album didn't quite invite. It earns its place. Twelve songs, no padding. [封面圖佔位 — 見 covers.html]