In this segment, we showcase the most notable albums out each week. Here are the albums out on January 5, 2024:
Sprints, Letter to Self
Sprints have released their debut album, Letter to Self, via City Slang. The follow-up to the Dublin four-piece’s 2022 EP A Modern Job includes the previously shared singles ‘Adore Adore Adore’, ‘Shadow of a Doubt’, ‘Literary Mind’, ‘Up and Comer’, and ‘Heavy’. In a press release, vocalist Karla Chubb described the record as “a deeply personally and autobiographical album lyrically and in its key themes, while sonically it explores a space inspired by our love of early 80s gothic, 90s noise rock and more modern influences. It revisits our most vulnerable moments and imbues them with visceral garage-punk. It aims to take the things that are considered inherently negative – feelings of anxiety, anger and rage, and turning them into a positive. Using our experiences to fuel us and pouring them into a positive outlet. It’s cathartic, it’s honest, it’s raw.”
Rejoice, All of Heaven’s Luck
All of Heaven’s Luck is the debut LP from Columbus metallic hardcore band Rejoice. Out now via Delayed Gratification Records, the 8-track record delves into “capitalism’s destruction of the Earth as we know it, the uber-wealthy’s parasitic tendencies that are changing the Earth, & the common person’s demise due to those aforementioned uber-wealthy,” according to press materials. The album artwork was done by Italian artist Simona Cheli.
Yikii, Chorion
Chorion is the latest LP by the Chinese experimental artist Yikii, following 2021’s Crimson Poem 深紅之詩. Blending avant-garde contemporary classical with videogame composition, the record is named after the membrane that eventually forms part of the placenta. Conceptually, it draws from science-fiction writer Andy Weir’s short story The Egg, which follows the experience of a man on the threshold of reincarnation. On Chorion, which features material Yikii collected between 2018 and 2021, “the idea of whether we are ‘every human being who ever lived’ is presented less as a question and more an inarguable fact,” according to the album’s bio.
Kory Reeder, Snow
Kory Reeder, a composer and performer based out of Denton, Texas, has issued a new album, Snow, via Sawyer Editions, a label specializing in contemporary, experimental, and improvised music. Alongside Reeder on piano, the record features Marijn Meijer on violin, Colin Stokes on cello, and Benjamin Damann on percussion. Its Bandcamp description quotes Louise Glück’s ‘Winter Journey’: “here is the line between,/ resembling/ this line from which our words emerge;/ moonlight breaks through./ Shadows on the snow/ cast by pine trees.”
Other albums out today:
DXR & Vale-Smith, 11 Nights; bergsonist, Avant; Move It, Football Head, Want to Come Over and Not Exist Together?; GRAY STATE, Under the Wheels of Progress.