Welcome to another edition of our regular Monday stream-a-thon, wherein we scour the Internet for good and/or noteworthy releases that you can stream for absolutely nothing. This week, we get in on the action with Purity Ring’s long-awaited debut record, and also rejoice in Laetitia Sadier getting all angry and political again after all these years. Elsewhere, there’s inscrutable sub-aquatic disco from Gatekeeper, a fine album from gravel-voiced antipodean Jack Ladder and, um, that new Passion Pit album. Click through and get in on the action!
Purity Ring — Shrines
We’ve had a promo copy of this for a while, so we’ve had plenty of time to digest its contents. Anyone who’s been entranced by killer single “Belispeak” may be a little disappointed to learn that that song is by far the strongest track here — it’s not that the rest of Shrines is bad, it’s just that it struggles to live up to such a high standard. Still, it’s nevertheless an excellent debut, and you can hear it now at NPR.
Laetitia Sadier — Silencio
Also at NPR, the thoroughly gratifying return of ex-Stereolab singer Laetitia Sadier for her second solo album. As the good folk at NPR note, this album is pretty forthright in its politics — indeed, it harks back to her earliest days with Stereolab collaborator and former partner Tim Gane in left-wing indie band McCarthy. It’s good to see Sadier working again, and equally good to see her angry again. Listen here.
Gatekeeper — EXO
Go on, see if you can make any sense of this page. The album’s pretty fine, mind you.
Jack Ladder and the Dreamlanders — Hurtsville
Deep-voiced and remarkably tall singer/songwriter Jack Ladder has been quietly building a fine reputation in his native Australia for the last few years, and it’s a pleasure to see his third record get a release on this side of the Pacific. To the uninitiated, he does sound more than a little like compatriot Nick Cave — as he told Australian online mag Mess+Noise wearily last year, “The Nick Cave thing always gets brought up” — but he’s a fine artist in his own right. Listen here.
Passion Pit — Gossamer
You can file us with those who never quite understood the fuss about Passion Pit’s sub-Animal Collective shtick, but still, plenty of people clearly did like Manners, and they will no doubt be excited about the release of the band’s follow-up to that album. It’s entitled Gossamer and it’s out next week, but it’s streaming right now at NPR.