Welcome back to another edition of our regular Monday stream-a-thon, wherein we hunt down the best and/or most notable records to preview for free over the Internet. This week we’ve been absolutely hammering the new Lower Dens album, which we’re happy to report is now streaming for your listening pleasure. There’s also the recording of Animal Collective’s experimental performance at the Guggenheim last year, a somewhat reflective return from Rufus Wainwright, Damon Albarn “doing” opera, and a new album from Santigold, just the four years after her debut. Click through and listen to your heart’s content!
Animal Collective — Transverse Temporal Gyrus
We discussed the live recording of Animal Collective’s randomized Guggenheim experiment Transverse Temporal Gyrus last week in the context of our Record Store Day roundup — it was released on limited-edition vinyl as a RSD exclusive, and is presumably all sold out by now. But if you missed out, then never fear — you can still hear an approximation of what happens when a heap of tracks are fed into a computer and unleashed in random order up and down the Guggenheim, because the album is streaming via Stereogum.
Rufus Wainwright — Out of the Game
Apart from the Animal Collective action, it’s the folk at NPR who have all the streaming action this week — their regular First Listen section is overflowing with goodness. Let’s start with the new Rufus Wainwright record, which is out on May 1 but streaming nice and early. Wainwright’s voice is, as ever, something of an acquired taste, but if you’re a fan of his hyper-theatrical brand of pop music, you’ll most definitely enjoy Out of the Game — even if Rufus does seem to have mellowed just a wee bit these days. Listen here.
Lower Dens — Nootropics
We’ve been thoroughly enjoying the new album from Baltimore’s Lower Dens since a promo copy landed in our lap a couple of weeks back, so it’s a pleasure to be able to let you know that it’s also streaming well ahead of its May 1 release. Nootropics has been one of the year’s unexpected pleasures thus far, sounding something like a secret winter summit between Beach House and a somewhat gentler, female-fronted version of Neu! It’s really, really good, in other words, and you should check it out right now by clicking here.
Santigold — Master of My Make-Believe
“Long-awaited” is a compound adjective that’s thrown around rather too much in the music industry, but there’s no denying that if you were a fan of Santi White’s first album, you’ll have been hanging out for quite a while to hear new music. In many respects, Master of My Make-Believe sounds like the last four years never happened — Diplo and Switch are among the producers featured, Karen O and Nick Zinner make guest appearances. Why, anyone’d think the Lower East Side was still the place to be! Listen here.
Damon Albarn — Dr Dee
And finally, here’s Damon Albarn’s opera. We’ll just let that sentence sink in for a bit — even for a man whose musical interests are as prolific and wide-ranging as Albarn, the world of opera is a bit of a stretch. We’re not exactly big opera fans here at Flavorpill, and as such, we don’t feel especially well-qualified to evaluate the quality of Albarn’s operatic endeavors — but if you’re interested, check the album out for yourself here.