Recent favorites from Los Angeles, Melbourne, Munich, Dublin, and Algeria.

Each week the global listening community gets bombarded with new releases, reissues and restocks. As music freaks who read these missives and are attuned to the bounty regularly arriving, we love sharing great sounds. Below are some particularly crucial new arrivals, a number of which will soon be available in the In Sheep’s Clothing shop.

Troth – Oak Corridor

If you missed this Knekelhuis standout last November, don’t sleep on the third album from the Newcastle, Australian duo (including the Altered states head Cooper Bowman), which is a cover-to-cover winner. Expanding their earlier ambient experiments into more song-based territory, the duo effortlessly oscillate between a wide range of styles. They operate with ease in a modern bedroom synth-pop zone, dancefloor 80s minimal wave, and beautiful, lullaby-like ambient musings. An intimate explorative pop album, Troth describes it as a collaborative and elemental “sound-diary.” Oak Corridor is a collective ISC favorite, one that could’ve easily taken one of last year’s AOTYs. (DM)

Majid Soula – Chant Amazigh

This sublime survey of Algerian artist Majid Soula’s work in the ‘80’s the perfect record to put on during a road trip – and so much more. Even when Soula attempted to write love songs, they’d somehow always turn into songs about liberation and freedom. Soula himself belongs to an ethnic minority of about 50-70 million people, Berber, who are spread across North Africa and have ceaselessly fought to protect their language and culture over hundreds of years. Weaving in traditional chord progressions and instrumentation, Soula seamlessly fuses his music with a range of contemporary genres, including disco on the dancefloor-ready track Tarfat. The most unexpected song on this compilation is Lgira, which opens with a heartfelt poem accompanied by a lone guitar in the typical Berber style; it bleeds into a chugging beat that’s joined by an enchanting flute. Many of these selections by Berlin-based Habibi Funk come from self-released tapes, making this the first re-release of many of these tracks in decades. (Tana)

Matthias Lindermayr – Triptych

With a breathiness to his tone that suggests Chet Baker’s quiet West Coast jazz, Munich-based trumpeter Matthias Lindermayr is in no hurry to impress you with his chops or overwhelm you with power. Rather, on Triptych the player, who is best known for his work with German jazz band Fazer, gathers acoustic guitarist Philipp Schiepek and percussionist Simon Popp to create a subtle, patient 3 a.m. jazz record filled with gorgeous guitar runs, a bounty and variety of percussion instruments and Lindermayr’s trumpet tone and quiet compositions. The result is the kind of record that will perk the ears of your smartest jazz fan (who you can then impress with the depth of your holdings). This is Lindermayr’s first solo album for Squama, the Munich imprint devoted to, in its own words, “releasing music not confined to, but with a focus on contemporary forms of jazz.”  (E. Little)

A.R. Wilson – Old Gold

Step into Andrew Wilson’s wonderfully strange time capsule on Old Gold, where synthesizers and samplers attempt to recreate period-perfect “campfire folk and medieval mining music” from the Victorian Gold Rush of the 1850s. Fans of “Rebecca’s Theme (Water)” and “House In The Garden” from the Melbourne-based producer’s now classic Overworld will love the imperfect charm of his acoustic-not-acoustic interpretations of songs from the “Australian songbook.” Listen for bits of environmental trickery as well as Wilson generates the sounds of crickets chirping, dogs barking, horses galloping, and bombs dropping using electronic instruments from MESS aka Melbourne Electronic Sound Studio. To fall even deeper into this world, we highly recommend checking out Wilson’s Old Gold series on NTS. (Phil)

Available in store here.

Damon Eliza Palermo – Promise

Damon Eliza Palermo’s latest offering, a 7-inch single, comes by way of budding LA label Zen2000. Promise is a dreamy 2-step cruiser featuring vocals by Japan’s Sapphire Slows that bobs and sways along to a jittery drum beat and slinky 303 line. The piano sample anchors the song in a melodically vulnerable place, allowing the pads and vocals to drift into angsty regions. Samo DJ takes on remix duties with a dub version of “Promise” on side B. With added icy percussion, a thick gliding dancehall bassline drops in to congeal all. Another version of the remix is available digitally alongside Palermo’s “Bonjuk”, an ethereal downtempo track that shares some of the same cinematic, lush and emotionally disconcerting elements as “Promise.” There’s something distinctively familiar yet otherworldly about this release, which makes it all the more versatile. (John)

Odd Ned – Long Mile Works

Deep dubstep and dub techno heads listen up! Don’t let genre descriptors deter you from previewing this late-2021 under-the-radar electronica via our favorite multimedia Irish record label wherethetimegoes. Long Mile Works is the second release on the label from low-key producer Odd Ned, and the label’s second CD exclusive release. In what could be a response to the current pressing plant catastrophe the vinyl industry is facing, Odd Ned’s follow-up feels completely fitting for the CD format, as they’ve stepped up their production value since their first release, which came out on cassette. Bringing with them the dubbed-out and deep bass music explored on 2019’s “Rushes” and leaving behind the more lo-fi house sound, Long Mile Works is an expertly crafted and sonically pristine album. On the less straightforward ambient tracks, melodies break up the seriousness of the intricate and textural production. Meeting somewhere in the middle of killer club music and deep meditative sounds, wherethetimegoes strikes again with a miraculously mystifying release that lets the music do the talking. (Jonny)