A Week in Records: Alessandro Cortini, Gunship, Seven Davis Jr...

ALBUM OF THE WEEK: Alessandro Cortini – Currents [Hospital Productions]
A sound that pulls at unnerving soundtrack textures, implies a dislocation from home and wears its analogue chops as if there’s no possible alternative. Risveglio arrives exactly as advertised. The fourth album under Alessandro Cortini’s own moniker was written during the downtime whilst touring, recorded on a triptych of analogue synths, and pivots across sonic motifs vaguely suggestive of that Trent Reznor ambience (amongst many other endeavours, Cortini has been a steady member of Nine Inch Nails for some years). <<read more>>

Seven Davis Jr  – Universes [Ninja Tune]
Universes’ lead single is called Sunday Morning, but like most of the debut record from long term limelight shirker Seven Davis Jr., its overriding feeling is more akin to saturday morning cartoons: exceedingly playful, deliriously upbeat and bursting with energy and colour. <<read more>>

Strange Wilds – Subjective Concepts [Sub Pop]
More echoes of grunge from the label that started it all – between the squalling noise of METZ and this selection of jagged rifferama, you wonder where Jonathan Poneman gets off releasing photocopies of Sub Pop’s baby photos. But just like their Canadian labelmates, Strange Wilds’ best moments feel so primally urgent that they’ll steal your enraptured focus from right under your nose. <<read more>>

Gunship – Gunship [Horsie in the Hedge]
A collage in grit and neon, machine grease, nostalgia, synth arpeggios and unintelligibly harmonised moans; a weird marriage of 8-bit and HD; good fun. Gunship’s album teaser promised a contemporary paean to the age when digital entertainment was in its late-twentieth century metastasis: the 80s apogee of cinematic spectacle, the birth of videogames and skin on TV. A synthwave side project of Dan Haigh and guitarist Alex Westaway, with drummer Alex Gingell and other collaborators, Gunship’s eponymous debut delivers exactly this. <<read more>>

Eleventh Day Dream – Works for Tomorrow [Thrill Jockey]
"I’ll take you everywhere I go … I’ll take you everywhere I know," C Duncan sings on Here To There. By the time we get to this track, on the middle of his debut, he has already taken us far, through dreampop, vast choral harmonies, ethereal rock, and shimmering folk meditations, drawing on influences as disparate as Fleet Foxes and Mozart. <<read more>>