Lav's Music Corner

5.  TURN YOUR HEART AROUND  - SBTRKT The strange phenomenon of new SBTRKT singles being lightyears better than anything on the project's new album from last year continues. This is a short but sweet track that really puts its head down and grinds out a pummeling pseudo-industrial little dance track with tight loops and fuzzed-out vocals for a mostly pretty irresistible result.  Listen 4.  PHANTOM BRICKWORKS VII  - Bibio Another helping of the familiar solemn piano and isolating ambient compositions of Bibio's  PHANTOM BRICKWORKS  series feels perfect right now. It also feels in line with the trio of singles released so far from the upcoming ambient-focused project. This may be my favorite of the bunch offering up another bulky runtime that manages to impressively weave together a beautiful, gentle series of piano passages effortlessly.  Listen 3.  PLAY DEAD! PLAY DEAD!  - Vylet Pony Color me surprised as someone who has always had mixed ...

5.  Have Nots - The Underachievers Welcome back Underachievers. For the record this isn't the first thing they've dropped in ages or anything they had a new single just last month. The point is that I haven't even been doing this segment long enough to have talked about them before and I've been doing it for YEARS. In what sounds like a Griselda song of all things AK and Issa split chilling and calculating verses that remind me of how much I liked them both in the first place.  Listen 4.  DINORWIC  - Bibio Bibio is back with a sequel to his surprisingly beloved turn for ambient music Phantom Brickworks . This bulky lead single is a perfect introduction to the record delivering a serenity that feels in line with the naturalistic sounds and styles his music has always dabbled in. It's a song that creeps along but never feels eerie or ominous, instead more than welcoming you to engage in the nuance and details of its delicate core.  Listen 3.  A Fragile Thing ...

the rest  EP - boygenius Earlier this year Phoebe Bridgers, Lucy Dacus, and Julien Baker released their long-awaited debut album as Boygenius. The album itself was, fine. It features some big highlights like Not Strong Enough  but I definitely had my issues with the album which I talked about in my full review. That's why I wasn't particularly thrilled to dive into the leftovers from the album, but given the pure talent of everyone involved it felt worthwhile.  The project leads off with Black Hole  a song whose instrumentation is roughly assembled in a pretty compelling way that I didn't anticipate the band experimenting with. While I think it fits Julien's fragile vocals on the first verse more than the harmonizing on the second I was still surprised to enjoy the song every time. Voyager  is a pretty solid Phoebe Bridgers-led ballad that reminds me of deep-cut Punisher  highlights like Halloween . Yes, it does fall victim to some of her songwriting "quirk...

Stephen Wilkinson AKA Bibio is a British singer songwriter who developed a devoted indie fanbase while releasing numerous genre bending albums across the second half of the 2000's and into the 2010's. He has dabbled in folk, electronica, indie, pop and even ambient all the while developing a sharp and recognizable style that helped him stand out from his contemporaries.  Review By Lavender: I will be the first to admit I have never been a die-hard Bibio fan. He definitely has his moments especially early in his career experimenting with folk-tronica and some very abstract indie sounds but with the exception of 2009's Ambivalence Avenue I was never really thrilled by any of his projects. This was until 2017 when he dropped a project that initially flew under my radar but I very thankfully caught onto. Phantom Brickworks  was unlike most of Bibio's other projects, it was a venture into true to form ambient music and after being a month or so late to the party...