Welcome to another edition of our regular Monday stream-a-thon, wherein we hunt down the best and/or most notable records streaming for free over the Internet. This week, there’s the arrival of the new Abba-inspired Gossip album (but wait, it’s better than that description might suggest). There’s also a new record from Flavorpill faves Cornershop, a surprisingly deep and interesting new album from Simian Mobile Disco, reflective melancholia from Mount Eerie and Cold Specks, and a proper stream for the Garbage album. Click through and listen to your heart’s content!
Gossip — A Joyful Noise
Apparently Beth Ditto has been listening almost exclusively to Abba for the last year in the lead-up to making this record, which as far as we’re concerned gives “suffering for your art” a whole new dimension. But still, the idea seems to have paid off, because Joyful Noise lives up to its title — it’s a thoroughly enjoyable listen. It’s streaming via AOL’s Spinner blog — click here to check it out.
Cornershop — Urban Turban
We’ve long been fans of Tjinder Singh and Ben Ayres, and as such we’re delighted to see them back with a new album, the giggle-inducingly-titled Urban Turban. It’s their third record in four years, marking a purple patch after the seven-year wait between Handcream for a Generation and Judy Sucks a Lemon for Breakfast. It’s as idiosyncratic and fascinating listen as you might expect, starting with a tale about a hippie with a bag that allows some sort of inter-dimensional time travel, and finishing with a spaced-out slow disco number called “First Wog on the Moon.” Listen here.
Simian Mobile Disco — Unpatterns
Meanwhile, here’s a pre-release stream of the new Simian Mobile Disco album. At first listen, it’s more reflective and less dance floor-friendly than the band’s previous work — there’s nothing as immediately party-centric as “We Are Your Friends,” for instance. But as a whole, the music on Unpatterns is far more interesting and immersive than that on its predecessors, and if you give the album time to grow on you, we reckon you’ll find plenty here to like. Listen via the band’s Soundcloud page.
Mount Eerie — Clear Moon
If you’re after something a little more sedate for your Monday morning, we humbly suggest you head to NPR to stream the new Mount Eerie record, which is understated and vaguely ominous psych folk par excellence. You can keep your Bon Iver — this is what staying in a deserted forest cabin in winter would really sound like. Listen right here.
Cold Specks — I Predict a Graceful Expulsion
In a similar vein is the debut album from Canadian singer/songwriter Al Spx (presumably not her real name), aka Cold Specks. According to the Guardian, where this album is streaming, Spx describes her sound as “doom folk,” which sounds exactly like our sort of thing (especially after a pretty long and strange weekend). We weren’t familiar with Spx’s work before now, but on first listen, I Predict a Graceful Expulsion is excellent. See what you think right here.
Bonus link:
Garbage — Not Your Kind of People
There’s now a proper link to the Garbage album, not just the short previews we shared last week. Click here to listen.