Soundscape is a weekly look at local and international releases making an impression on our musical radar. The list offers a cross section of EPs and albums arriving at the station.

We have been busily scouring the Soundscape! Check out some of our favourite finds for this week 30 September 2019.

Brittany Howard - Jaime (Sony Music Australia)**Album of the Week

Brittany Howard’s solo debut - named for her sister who died when they were teenagers - is an emotionally fluid exploration of the ways in which trauma affects persona psyche and identity. It’s also an incredibly accomplished collage of genre-defying sonic terrain, with the Alabama Shakes frontwoman building on her acclaimed blues heritage with layers of hip-hop breakbeats, synth-rock, psych, funk, and D’angelo inspired jazz freak-outs.

Wilco - Ode to Joy (dBpm/Diamond Creative Services)

After a brief hiatus to explore solo opportunities, Wilco return with their 11th studio album. The alt-country veterans strip back their sound to emphasise the lyrical and percussive synergy between drummer Glenn Kotche and frontman Jeff Tweedy.

Chastity Belt - Chastity Belt (Milk! Records / Remote Control Records

The Washington State quartet take their tried and tested folk-rock sounds, but layer increased harmonies and instrumentation on top of it, resulting in their most sonically developed and nuanced record yet.

Automatic - Signals (Stones Throw)

Signal is the debut album from the LA three-piece, each graduates of the Los Angeles DIY and Punk scenes. Uninspired by the masculine energy of the rock scene, they ditched guitars for synths and formed Automatic named after a song by the Go-Go’s - the only all-female rock band to have written and played instruments on album to reach #1 in the US.

Saul - Murmurations (Rhythm Section)

Saul is a new UK duo who have spent the last two years working on material for their debut EP. Paying homage to the UK sounds of Garage, Junk, Broken Beat, Murmations is a deeply collaborative project at the forefront of the new wave of London Jazz.

Moon Duo - Stars are the Light (Sacred Bones Records/Rocket)

The seventh album by the American psych duo, moves from a preoccupation with occult into taking on the terrestrial - and the abstract and metaphysical baggage that comes with that - as their subject matter, embracing dance and disco to explore this new terrain.

Thigh Master - Now For Example (GONER RECORDS/Brain Drain)

Recorded in various share-houses in Melbourne and Brisbane, the Australian quartet have created twelve tracks of hook-laden exertion, with propulsive guitar hooks framing the witty and lethargic social observations of band leader Matthew Ford.

Francis Plagne - Rural Objects (Hobbies Galore)

The Melbourne based musician Francis Plagne recorded Rural Objects, at home, on tape. Featuring Joe Talia on drums and mastered by Melbourne music mainstay Mikey Young, Rural Objects is a mesmerizing lofi approach to instrumental abstraction and improvisation.

Emel Mathlouthi - Everywhere We Looked Was Burning (Partisan Records/Inertia)

The Tunisian songwriter and experimental artist, best known for her protest song ‘Kelmti Horra’, which became an anthem for the Tunisian revolution, takes nature as the subject of her third album, and utilizes it as a parable for the “beauty and struggle of these times”

Deakin - Sleep Cycle (Domino)

British independent record label Domino reissues the Animal Collective member’s much-loved 2016 release on CD and vinyl for the first time. The album is about the human cycles of being shut down by fear and doubt, and how to return back to being awake to life.