Fleet Foxes

Shore

The critically-acclaimed fourth album by the Seattle folk outfit finally gets its first vinyl release, after coming out digitally on the autumnal equinox last year.

Creative driving force Robin Pecknold put the album together without the rest of the band, but it still retains many of the elements which have made them so popular over the last decade-plus.

Expect soaring harmonies, lush arrangements and a greater sense of optimism and hope running through the very fine fifteen songs on offer here.

Pecknold says ’Shore’ ’...feels like a relief, like you’d feel when your feet finally hit sand after getting caught in a riptide.

’It’s a celebration of life in the face of death, honouring our lost musical heroes, from David Berman to John Prine to Judee Sill to Bill Withers, embracing the joy and solace they brought to our lives and honouring their memory’.

Sault

Untitled (Rise)

Coming out in October last year, this was the fourth album to be released by the mysterious UK collective in just 16 months.

Masterminded by producer Inflo (who’s worked with the likes of Michael Kiwanuka and Little Simz), it also features the vocal talents of up-and-coming R&B singer Cleo Sol.

Once again it’s a stunning piece of work, with disco, R&B, house, punk funk, boogie and Brazilian batucada all in the mix.

Though it’s musically a more celebratory counterpoint to June 2020’s defiant ’Untitled (Black Is)’, ’Rise’ remains lyrically unflinching nonetheless; themes of anger, resistance and protest sit along others which, for example, celebrate the joy to be had from dancing.

It was met with near universal acclaim upon its release and featured high up, if not at the top of, many ’Best of 2020’ lists from magazines, blogs and record stores alike.

by Ed oldham

Sound Records

www.soundrecords.im/