MUSIC

Bill Fay's 1970 debut album ‘Bill Fay’ exists within the folk-rock and baroque pop traditions, yet casts a distinctly different shadow. Backed by Mike Gibbs' arrangements featuring rich strings and brass, it occasionally evokes the opulent orchestral pop of The Beatles' Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band and beyond. Yet beneath that splendor lies a poetic sensibility that contemplates societal unease and the transience of human existence, creating a constant tension between light and shadow. Though it received little commercial attention at the time, revisiting it reveals a sound that resonates with Nick Drake and the Scudder Scene, yet possesses a darker, more solitary quality. This is an album woven in the sunless corners of its era, where Bill Fay's quiet prayers and shadows intertwine.

'87 KAD 3:4:5:6 ~ Newly Discovered MaterialMichio Kadotani (1959–1990) was a legendary figure in Japan’s 1980s underground punk and psychedelic rock scenes. Living with schizophrenia, he inspired characters in Ramo Nakajima’s novels and is presumed to have died young from a drug-related illness. His only known release was Kusatteiku Telepathies (‘腐っていくテレパシーズ,’ or Rotting Telepathies in English), a posthumous 1991 album on P.S.F. Records—until now.Newly uncovered tapes from Nakajima’s archive, including ‘87 KAD 3:4:5:6, a fully restored studio demo, reveal Kadotani’s original vision. Unlike the P.S.F. release, this work features his handwritten cover and tracklist, reflecting his meticulous design. His sensitivity to voice and meaning shines through in detailed notes correcting perceived lyric errors, even though the vocals remain largely unintelligible.The music, multitracked solo, blends raw acid punk energy with echoes of the Velvet Underground and the Sex Pistols/P.I.L. Outdated drum machines and multiple takes add texture, while songs like “Telepathy” foreshadow later work. Track 9, an uncredited bonus piece, was identified through interviews with Sô-si Suzuki, showcasing Kadotani’s ability to lead collaborative sessions.Long dismissed as an outsider, Kadotani was deeply attuned to sound and structure. His work is intense, vivid, and uncompromising—a rare example of someone transforming inner chaos into a coherent sonic world. He didn’t explain it. He lived it.

Glass Beams have announced their highly anticipated EP ‘Mahal’, out on March 22nd on their new label home Ninja Tune. Released alongside the news is the EP’s titular track “Mahal”.

The genesis for the Melbourne-based trio, which formed around founding member Rajan Silva, was through the rekindling of childhood memories relating to his father, who emigrated to Melbourne from India in the late 1970's. Silva recalled watching a DVD on repeat with his father; ‘Concert for George’, a star-studded tribute to late Beatles member George Harrison performed at London's Royal Albert Hall in 2002, featuring legendary Indian sitar player Ravi Shankar with daughter Anoushka, alongside Western icons Eric Clapton, Paul McCartney and ELO’s Jeff Lynne. This intersection of musical styles was reflected in the record collection of Silva's father, where the sounds of iconic Bollywood vocalists Asha Bhosle and the Mangeshkar lineage sat alongside music from blues legends like B.B. King and Muddy Waters. In particular, Silva was drawn to the fusion of Western musical styles and traditional Indian music; a concept pioneered by Indian artists like R.D. Burman, Ananda Shankar, and fraternal duo Kalyanji-Anandji.

This cross-pollination of East and West, of old and new, is a sentiment that the band have sought to capture in their self produced works. Across their output, Glass Beams presents a timeless fusion of cultures and sounds beamed through a prism of live instrumentation and DIY electronica, all wrapped up inside a mesmerizing and mystical visual world of their own making.

Their debut EP ‘Mirage’, released in 2021 catapulted them into the collective consciousness of new followers who came to discover their serpentine, psychedelic-tinged tracks through social media, streaming services and word of mouth, with the vinyl copies selling-out as quickly as it could be pressed via grassroots record store support.

In the wake of the unexpected success of their debut release and an abundance of festival invitations, Glass Beams were amplified around the globe performing hypnotic renditions of the 'Mirage' EP alongside an additional 20 minutes of unreleased music. Early clips of these “unreleased tracks” quickly began circulating online garnering millions of views and a fast-growing and ever-hungry following. As 2023 drew to a close and the dust settled after a whirlwind of touring, Glass Beams retreated to their home studio to record this much anticipated 20 minutes of music. They have named the record 'Mahal'. 

Songs for Nothing was written upon Olan Monk’s return to the west coast of Ireland. The album is imbued with the influence of sean-nós singing, Irish language songs in the “old style” that often proclaim tales of love, loss and landscape; and also heavily indebted to the late Sinéad O’Connor’s confessional songwriting. Reconstructing these influences through their unique perspective has resulted in a fragmentary album veering between collaged pop, machinic rock and slow airs, “dedicated to Conamara and all who have called it home”. The western, Atlantic-facing edge of Ireland has a particular feeling and energy, one that permeates the release: the granite pulsates, the ocean and sky reflect intensities, seaweed rots on shingle shores, plants bloom, ancient trees come up for air from the drowned forest in Galway Bay, the sun splinters through the low clouds.

Psychotropic’s seminal 1990 12” Only for the Headstrong is reissued, reconnecting us with the raw energy of the early UK rave era. Emerging at the height of acid house, the track fused house, breakbeat and psych-pop into a euphoric anthem that still captivates today.

The duo of DJ Gavin Mills and cult psych-pop experimentalist Nick Nicely created the record in a single inspired South London studio session, using little more than an Akai S900 sampler, a Fostex 8-track and a Casio CZ-101. Its hypnotic loops, soaring keys and infectious groove captured both the chaos and innocence of the scene, while B-side ‘Out of Your Head’ added a funk-driven, Prince-style twist.

Beloved by DJs, collectors and ravers alike, Only for the Headstrong became an underground hit, topping London’s indie shop charts and cementing Psychotropic’s reputation for marrying psychedelic textures with club-ready beats. This reissue arrives with liner notes by Nicely, offering fresh context for a track that embodies the open-minded DIY spirit of late-80s warehouse culture.

French-Algerian writer and composer LÉO LA NUIT presents a work of psychedelic folk devotion with Le Don Des Larmes, released on vinyl by Amsterdam’s forward-thinking label Knekelhuis. Dedicated to his newborn child, the album retraces memories of Kabyle lullabies and the popular chaâbi songs of his youth, weaving them into a sound where intimacy and folkloric spirituality converge. Minimal guitar and spectral vocals form textures that envelop the listener as if revealing hidden layers of time, resonating like a prayer reborn in the present. A rare and solemn masterpiece, born from the overlap of distant traditions and deeply personal memory.

Forthcoming 7" from Tokyo's TAMTAM.. Including a favorite of Kuro's, "花を一輪 - Hana Wo Ichirin" which was featured on Dublab Japan's -resilience- A Charity Compilation in Aid of the 2025 LA Wildfires. Also available at Dublab.jp digitally. Flip for the Magic Hour DUB version.

Strut are proud to announce the first ever internationally released new studio album by one of the all-time legends of Nigerian music, Orlando Julius, in a mouth-watering new collaboration with London super-group The Heliocentrics. At his club residency in Ibadan, Orlando Julius was one of the very first to begin fusing US R&B with traditional highlife during the mid-‘60s with his Modern Aces band. His ‘Super Afro Soul’ album from ’66 set the blueprint for a whole generation of Afrobeat and Afro funk stars and, in an illustrious career, Julius met and played with Louis Armstrong, The Crusaders, Hugh Masekela and Lamont Dozier among others, famously co-composing the classic ‘Going Back To My Roots’ in 1979 whilst based in the USA. For ‘Jaiyede Afro’, Julius takes us back to his own roots, revisiting several compositions from his early years which have never previously been recorded. The title track recalls his experiences as a boy: “My mother would go to group meetings with other women. They would sing together and play drums, I would play along with them and we would sing this song together.” Infectious chant ‘Omo Oba Blues’ is a traditional song sung at Julius’ school which he re-arranged in 1965 for his Modern Aces band. The epic Afrobeat jam ‘Be Counted’ stems from his years in the USA: "This was written around 1976 while I was living on the Westcoast. I did start recording it for the ‘Sisi Sade’ album around 1985 but it was never finished." Other tracks include ‘Buje Buje’ and ‘Aseni’, both re-worked arrangements from his rare ‘Orlando Julius and The Afro Sounders’ album from 1973. Recorded at the Heliocentrics’ fully analogue HQ in North London, the band follow their memorable collaborations with Mulatu Astatke and Lloyd Miller by taking Orlando’s sound into new, progressive directions, retaining the raw grit of his early work and adding psychedelic touches and adventurous new arrangements. They also contribute live favourite, the James Brown cover ‘In The Middle’ and a series of memorable shorter interludes.

Globetrotting Texan trio Khruangbin are set to release ‘Hasta El Cielo’, the band’s glorious dub version of their second album ‘Con Todo El Mundo’. The full album has been processed anew along with two bonus dubs by renowned Jamaican producer Scientist.

The band’s exotic, spacious, psychedelic funk aligns with the dub treatment particularly well. Indeed, keen fans won’t find this a surprising release. Dubs of tracks from their first album ‘The Universe Smiles Upon You’ appeared on limited vinyl releases of ‘People Everywhere’ for Record Store Day 2016 and ‘Zionsville’ on the BoogieFuturo remix 12”. The especially eagle-eared will have caught a dub of ‘Two Fish And An Elephant’ playing over the credits of the track’s celebrated video.

“For us, Dub has always felt like a prayer. Spacious, meditative, able to transport the listener to another realm. The first dub albums we listened to were records mixed by Scientist featuring the music of the Roots Radics. Laura Lee learned to play bass by listening to Scientist Wins the World Cup. His unique mixing style, with the emphasis on space and texture, creates the feeling of frozen time; it was hugely influential to us as a band. To be able to work alongside Scientist, a legend in the history of dub, is an honor. This is our dub version of Con Todo El Mundo.”

- Khruangbin

Formed of Laura Lee on bass, Mark Speer on guitar, and Donald “DJ” Johnson on drums; Khruangbin’s sounds are rooted in the deepest waters of music from around the world, infused with classic soul, dub and psychedelia. Their 2015 debut album ‘The Universe Smiles Upon You’ was heavily influenced by 60’s and 70’s Thai cassettes the band listened to on their long car journeys to rehearsal in the Texan countryside. 2018’s follow up ‘Con Todo El Mundo’, which received hugely positive critical reactions and radio play around the world, took inspiration not just from South East Asia but similarly underdiscovered funk and soul of the Mediterranean and the Middle East, particularly Iran.

Since the album’s release, the band have continued their almost non-stop approach to touring, playing over 130 dates in 2018 alone. They return to the UK this summer for festival shows at Green Man, Latitude, Mostly Jazz, Funk & Soul Festival and Barclaycard British Summer Time.

Press for ‘Con Todo El Mundo’

Chicago-based composer, improviser, multi-media artist and underground legend, Rob Mazurek, joins forces with modular-synth maestro and light magician, Alberto Novello for a blacklight invocation that hurls us out into new and uncharted sound-dimensions.Born of a chance encounter, Alberto Novello and Rob Mazurek's improvised collaboration, Sun Eaters, was recorded in a single afternoon at Dobialab, an experimental artist run space in Northern Italy. Alberto provided a loose rhythmic and timbral bedrock over which Rob Mazurek sketched and weaved delicate harmonies with trumpets, adding atmosphere with bells and sampler.Sun Eaters is a dizzying space ritual, a totally out exercise in telepathic collaboration and psychedelic sound.

Free Jazz band with a psychedelic touch, Phardah, is set to release their debut album Humans and Beings on the 2nd of May, 2025. The band features veterans of the Finnish experimental music and Free Jazz scene: saxophonist Sami Pekkola, double bassist Eero Tikkanen, and electric guitarist Topias Tiheäsalo, along with the younger generation drummer Veeti Hietala. The album was recorded and mixed by Teemu Markkula, known from the band Death Hawks.

The album consists of two long pieces. Village of Skulls on the side A is built on a vigorous bass riff, eventually accelerating into a wild collective gallop. On the side B Touch of the Spheres transcends the gravity we know, guided by Tiheäsalo's magnificent guitar work. The powerful energy assembled by the band ultimately releases into a gentle groove.

Phardah successfully balances between abstraction and clarity, shaping and coloring the collective soundscape while staying true to the themes of the tracks. The music is given ample space to ignite, burn and smolder. Markkula's bold mixing makes the listening experience exceptionally rich.

The band was formed in the summer of 2023 when they played their first gig at the Odysseus Festivalon Lonna Island in Helsinki. Phardah's performance received an enthusiastic reception and was mentioned in the English magazine The Wireas one of the highlights of the festival. In the liner notes of Humans and Beings, the band thanks past and present masters of Free Jazz.

The album is released jointly by the Finnish record labels Ultraääni and Dream Wobble.

"Misha Panfilov, the Estonian composer whose name has become synonymous with space-age exotica, withdraws once more into the solitude of his studio and emerges with “To Blue From Grey In May.” Recorded amid the ever-changing light and shadows of Tallinn between March and May 2025, the album stands as a testament to immersion. Here, Panfilov threads himself into the fabric of sound, enveloped by the mystical awe of Mellotron, organs, upright piano, harmonium, electric bass, percussion, synthesizers, and, at times, the faintest echo of his own voice.

He abandons melody almost entirely. What remains is the ritual of repetition, each phrase shaped by hand, without loops or sequencers. The instruments thrum and drift, unmoored. Four long compositions unfold, unlocking something ancient, something that seems to draw from the wellspring of those ancestral architects of sound."

Sababa 5 return to their roots on Ça Va Ça Va - a melting pot of Middle Eastern and Mediterranean sounds, layered with psych-soaked guitars, cosmic synths and heavy, driving grooves. A pure dose of party energy and nostalgia from Batov Records’ finest.

With four albums already behind them, Sababa 5 have earned global support, from Songlines magazine and BBC Radio 6 Music tastemakers including Gilles Peterson, Jamz Supernova and Iggy Pop to France’s FIP Radio and Radio Nova, for their unique blend of traditional Middle Eastern celebration music with psychedelic grooves, funk, jazz, rock, and international vocal collaborations spanning Japan to India. The Paris-based group have taken this sound to stages across Europe, including Reeperbahn Festival and Dresden’s Super Fest.

Ça Va Ça Va is the band’s hafla album – a return to the wedding and event celebration music that first shaped Sababa 5. Recorded in Paris, it draws directly from the sounds of hafla – the joyful, communal music heard at Middle Eastern weddings, parties and festive gatherings – with a sprinkling of influences from the wider Mediterranean. The group utilise their classic combination of electric guitar, bass, drums, organ, and synths to transform these ideas into vibrant melodies, dance-ready rhythms, and a spirit of abundance and togetherness.

Opening track “Bienvenue” sets the tone with a mysterious, longing guitar solo before bursting into an irresistible rhythm and jubilant guitar motif. It flows seamlessly into “Allô”, straight into wedding-riot territory – a fast-rising instrumental that showers the dancefloor with energy as it builds around a hypnotic, arpeggio-driven riff.

The album is almost entirely original material, with two key exceptions: “Ypárcho” (I Exist), a beautiful instrumental journey inspired by a classic Greek song traditionally performed by Stelios Kazantzidis, and “Asunsan”, an instrumental flip of the much-loved Sababa 5 collaboration “Nasnusa” with Yurika Hanashima.

Another impressive step in the Sababa 5 story, Ça Va Ça Va captures both joy and longing – the unmistakable warmth of Eastern Mediterranean celebration and the band’s surf-rock edge – sounding more confident, spirited and deeply rooted than ever.

Bassist, composer and producer Shay Hazan returns with his third solo album, ‘When It Rains It Pours’, on Batov Records. Following the critical success of ‘Reclusive Ritual’ and ‘Wusul’ وصول, Hazan takes a bold step forward, shifting from the guimbri-led sound that established his reputation to a broader palette of bass, guitar, and synth-driven compositions.

Where his earlier work foregrounded the raw, earthy textures of Gnawa tradition, ‘When It Rains It Pours’ reflects Hazan’s evolution as a producer and multi-instrumentalist. Across eleven tracks, Hazan deepens his exploration of layered grooves, spiritual melodies, and experimental textures, resulting in his most expansive and personal statement to date.

The album’s title embodies Hazan’s experience of being tested by life when multiple challenges arrived at once - musically, personally, and physically. A painful period in which he was unable to play double bass or guimbri due to joint issues became the spark for rediscovering the electric bass, reconnecting him with an instrument he had set aside on personal projects for years. The record documents this transition, capturing the tension between struggle and renewal.

The opening track,“Kolot”, was born from a half-forgotten session with Ethiopian saxophonist and vocalist Abate Berihune, re-emerging years later as something entirely new. Originally intended as a quintet jazz piece, Hazan uncovered Berihune’s extraordinary vocal take, wordless but deeply resonant, and built the track around it. “Kolot” means voices, and here Berihune’s voice transcends language, channeling pure expression.

“4-8” is a classic Afrobeat framework twisted with Middle Eastern inflections. Hazan plays nearly every instrument, except for live drums and saxophone, crafting a propulsive, hypnotic piece that nods to Fela Kuti while expanding the tradition into new terrain.

“Embrace” is perhaps Hazan’s most vulnerable composition to date, featuring his own vocals alongside guimbri and keyboards. The piece speaks to embracing pain, fear, and anxiety rather than pushing them aside, a mantra woven into its circular, meditative groove.

“It Pours” is an uptempo, electronically-charged piece that blurs the line between organic and synthetic. Hazan recorded percussion, then sampled and re-layered it, creating a sound that is simultaneously tactile and machine-like. The result is a restless, dance-driven track that pushes Hazan’s sound into new territory.

Unlike his previous guimbri-focused albums, Hazan’s approach here highlights his growth as a studio craftsman. Sampling, layering, and textural exploration sit at the core, without losing the immediacy of live musicianship. Longtime collaborators including saxophonist Eyal Netzer, trumpeter Roy Zuzovsky, and drummer Shahar Haziza, help ground the record in ensemble interplay, even as it pushes further into electronic and producer-led territory.

The album’s gestation was shaped by encounters and inspirations stretching far beyond Tel Aviv. Hazan draws influence from Malawian one-man-band Gasper Nali, the spiritual openness of his recording sessions with legendary drummer Hamid Drake, and years of improvisational collaborations across jazz and global traditions.

‘When It Rains It Pours’ captures Shay Hazan at a turning point: confronting physical and personal limitations, yet finding new creative channels in response. By leaning into bass, guitar, and studio experimentation, Hazan has crafted an album that feels at once urgent, meditative, and transformative, a body of work that situates him firmly among today’s most adventurous voices in spiritual jazz and beyond.

Madlib's original Bad Character emerges again. Yessir Whatever is 12-tracks recorded over roughly 12 years, produced entirely by Madlib.

Jeff Jank, designer of the original album and “Gold Chains” edition:

The first time I heard The Further Adventures of Lord Quas, it struck me as a hip-hop equivalent of Frank Zappa & The Mothers of Invention’s We’re Only in It for the Money (1968). Zappa’s crazy, chaotic record also happened to feature the first-ever knock-off cover of The Beatles Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, a tradition in graphic arts that continues to this day. The ‘Gold Chains’ collage is my own spin on the tradition, also taking its inspiration from Madlib’s track “Rappcats Pt. 3.”

This alternate cover for Further Adventures was designed Fall 2020. In just a year between then and now we lost three of the heroes in the collage: DOOM, Biz Markie, and Melvin Van Peebles.

Side A
1. 夢は今日も / Dream Again Today
2. 造花の原野_1976 / Wilderness of False Flowers_1976
3. 白い目覚め / White Awakening
4. Guitar Solo 1（ボーナス・トラック *Vinyl Only）

Side B
1. カーニバル / Carnival
2. 氷の炎 / Flame of Ice

Side C
1. Guitar Solo 2（ボーナス・トラック *Vinyl Only）
2, 夜、暗殺者の夜 / The Night, Assassin’s Night
3. お前の眼に夜を見た / Saw the Night in Your Eyes

Side D
1. イビスキュスの花　或いは満ち足りた死 / Hibiscus Flower otherwise Dying Satisfied
2.  Enter the Mirror

Six years have passed since Swiss-based duo Klaus Johann Grobe’s last long player “Du bist so symmetrisch” (2018) and you’ll hear they’ve come a long way. “Io tu il loro”, their fourth album for Chicago-based Trouble In Mind Records was written over two weeks in a cabin at the very end of a remote Swiss valley, where - pretty much at the same place - Klaus Johann Grobe came up with their whole debut full-length “Im Sinne der Zeit” album in 2014. What started out as simply making music again quickly turned into seriously making a new album. Once decided, the whole thing was finished rather quickly and recorded once again at David Langhard’s Dala Studio at the end of 2022. “Io tu il loro” is a record that cannot be done by endlessly fiddling around with hundreds of ideas and sounds. All it needed was a real break (Dani and Sevi didn’t work on any Grobe-related stuff until they met up in the mountains in 2022). It’s an album with a blurry vision and soft limitations. You can somehow feel them looking back on all their work forgivingly and then moving on to what felt right. So here we are with nine tracks full of embracing warmth, so melancholicly welcoming you don’t know if you want to smile or cry. Some might call it timeless, some might call it dad-rock... well, it certainly isn’t disco for the masses, it’s more like, “If I can’t make myself dance after four beers, I can as well go home.” So, no disco? No syncopated synths? No German? No reverb? Where’s The Grobe? Take your time, you’ll notice Klaus Johann Grobe aren’t gone, they just took a turn before driving yet into another unknown.

The temptation to mythologize Bill Fay can be overwhelming; Fay was, for decades, as prolific as he was under-appreciated. Fay’s unsung-hero status has changed slowly, steadily, on the order of almost twenty-five years. With each new album comes new hosannas and evangelizers — Jeff Tweedy, Kevin Morby, Adam Granduciel and Julia Jacklin, to name just a few. The Bill Fay Group, in particular, is Fay’s most significant collaborative work; he records as a member of a larger group here, and the result summons a grander sonic scale, an elegant counterweight to Fay’s instincts for the understated. Tomorrow Tomorrow and Tomorrow brings to bear the galactic qualities of early rock, the intricacy of jazz improv, and Fay’s earthy folk magic. Tomorrow Tomorrow and Tomorrow has a patchy release history: recorded between 1978 and 1981, it was not released until 2005, when it appeared on CD with limited streaming and no vinyl companion. A 2006 reissue brought the album onto vinyl but with a truncated sequence and nine songs missing. Now, finally, Tomorrow Tomorrow and Tomorrow arrives in full worldwide. Available on streaming services worldwide and pressed to a double-album vinyl edition, it features the album’s original 22 songs and includes rare and previously unseen photographs from Tomorrow Tomorrow and Tomorrow’s original recording session. In the words of Gary Smith and Rauf Galip, missing Bill Stratton, and abbreviated from the forthcoming album notes: We chose five songs to record as finished pieces: Life, Spiritual Mansions, Cosmic Boxer, Strange Stairway, Isles of Sleep, all recorded in two studio sessions. We sent them out to try and get a record deal. There were few really independent labels back then and Punk was in the record labels’ ears. No deal. And now, Dead Oceans who have a lot of faith in Bill’s music wants to re- release the ‘Tomorrow’ album. A double vinyl package. Is there any more unreleased music for the fourth side? Of course. So, we’ve been opening old boxes, finding CDRs, cassettes, a musical archaeological dig. This is our choice from all the music we found. Fly Like a Bird.

Stan Hubbs’ privately recorded psych statement Crystal emerged from a secluded cabin in the California redwoods, where he conjured a woozy, smoked-out haze that sits somewhere between Iron Butterfly’s tranced-out heaviness and a more DIY, hallucinatory strain of outsider folk-rock. Middle-aged and working far from any scene or industry, Hubbs captured a blurred, dream-logic world of guitar leads, burnt tape ambience, spectral keys and narcotised vocals that feel both intimate and otherworldly. This edition from Numero Group restores his original 16-page poetry and doodle booklet, a handmade inner map to the record’s private universe.

Before you ancients out there turn your heads and scoff at the premise of a twenty-something rock-and-roll goofball calling himself an old-anything, consider this: said perpetrator, he who answers to the name Mac DeMarco, has spent the better part of his time thus far writing, recording, and releasing an album of his own music pretty much every calendar flip, and pretty much on his own. This Old Dog makes for his fifth in just over half a decade - bringing the total to 3 LPs and 2 EPs. According to the DMV, MacBriare Samuel Lanyon DeMarco is 26. But in working-dog years, ol' Mac here could easily qualify for social security. To stay gold, turns out all he needed was some new tricks.

Before you ancients out there turn your heads and scoff at the premise of a twenty-something rock-and-roll goofball calling himself an old-anything, consider this: said perpetrator, he who answers to the name Mac DeMarco, has spent the better part of his time thus far writing, recording, and releasing an album of his own music pretty much every calendar flip, and pretty much on his own. This Old Dog makes for his fifth in just over half a decade - bringing the total to 3 LPs and 2 EPs. According to the DMV, MacBriare Samuel Lanyon DeMarco is 26. But in working-dog years, ol' Mac here could easily qualify for social security. To stay gold, turns out all he needed was some new tricks.

“As I’m getting older, chip up on my shoulder…” is the opening line from Mac DeMarco’s second full-length LP ‘Salad Days,’ the follow up to 2012’s lauded ‘Mac DeMarco 2.’ Amongst that familiar croon and lilting guitar, that initial line from the title track sets the tone for an LP of a maturing singer/songwriter/producer. Someone strangely self-aware of the positives and negatives of their current situation at the ripe old age of 23. Written and recorded around a relentless tour schedule (which picked up all over again as soon as the LP was done), ‘Salad Days’ gives the listener a very personal insight into what it’s all about to be Mac amidst the craziness of a rising career in a very public format. The lead single, “Passing Out Pieces,” set to huge overdriven organ chords, contains lines like “…never been reluctant to share, passing out pieces of me…” Clearly, Salad Days isn’t the same record that breezily gave us “Dreamin,” and “Ode to Viceroy,” but the result of what comes from their success. “Chamber of Reflection,” a track featuring icy synth stabs and soulful crooning, wouldn’t be out of place on a fantasy Shuggie Otis and Prince collaboration. Standout tracks like these show Mac’s widening sound, whether insights into future directions or even just welcome one-off forays into new territory. Still, this is musically, lyrically and melodically good old Mac DeMarco, through and through. The same crisp John Lennon / Phil Spector era homegrown lush production that could have walked out of Geoff Emerick’s mixing board in 1972, but with that peculiar Mac touch that’s completely of right now. “Brother,” a complete future classic, is Mac at his most soulful and easygoing but with that distinct weirdness and bite that can only come from Mr. DeMarco.“Treat Her Better” is rife with “Mac-isms,” heavily chorused slinky lead guitar, swooning vocal melodies, effortless chords that come along only after years of effort, and the other elements seriously lacking in independent music: sentiment and heartfelt sincerity.

Mac DeMarco’s debut full length, 2, released in 2012, cleaned up the songwriter’s warped take on soft rock and brought it to a broader audience. Given DeMarco’s affinity for keeping things lo-fi — 2 was the first time he’d bothered to record demos — it’s revealing to hear these songs in their most embryonic form. The performances here are a little looser and the sound a little hazier than on the actual LP, lending an atmosphere of dreamy vulnerability, especially to ballads like “Annie” and the Lennon-esque “Sherrill.”