Our favorite new music from CS + Kreme, urika’s bedroom, Barry Archie Johnson, Fine, and more!

New music continues to be a major focus for us here at In Sheep’s Clothing… 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.

CS + Kreme – The Butterfly Drinks The Tears of The Tortoise

( Experimental / Electronic / Folk )

CS + Kreme, the Australian duo of Conrad Standish and Sam Karmel, creates mesmerizing instrumental work they’ve dubbed “horizontal music,” blending heavy dub, post-punk, and chamber influences. Their partnership, sparked at a Melbourne day-party, found a home with DIY labels like Total Stasis and The Trilogy Tapes. In 2020, their Snoopy arrived just in time for the pandemic, and word spread through text chains and commiseration sessions. Someone called the album “quietly seductive,” which is apt, and by the end of that year Resident Advisor and Boomkat had included the record on their best of lists. A gorgeous, essential record. – Randall

Jabu – A Soft and Gatherable Star

( Indie Rock / Dream Pop / Ambient )

Bristol-based trio Jabu (producer Amos Childs and vocalists Jasmine Butt and Alex Randall) reach deep into teenage memories and dream pop nostalgia on their latest album A Soft and Gatherable Star. Expanding further away from their Bristol-bass beginnings, the trio strip back the hip-hop sampling and sub-heavy production of their previous efforts for a more traditional band approach with guitar, drums, and bass, all processed through a thick haze of reverb and tape distortion. Guest contributions include violinist Rakhi Singh, composer Sebastian Gainsborough, and multi-instrumentalist wonderkind Will Memotone, but above all, it remains the delicate songwriting and ethereal R&B-tinged vocals of Jasmine Butt and Alex Randall that gives these songs their quiet magic. – Phil

Reymour – NoLand

( Post-punk / Chanson / Deviant Pop )

Reymour return with their second full length on Knekelhuis NoLand, a collection of post-punk dunked chanson pop. The record’s quite varied in its delivery, with some tracks seeming best suited for a haunted carousel ride and others taking a more direct rock approach with concise bass and guitar lines. “He’s Changing” stands out, with its infectious vocal delivery, gooey dub effects, and gradual melodic build. “Sleepy time” also shines with its swaying leather jacket angst. – John

Milan W. – Leave Another Day

( Experimental / Freak Folk / Indie Rock )

It’s easy to get lost in former Flying Horseman leader Milan Warmoeskerken’s fifth solo album. “I wait,” he sings in the opening track, and he sounds like he’s been sitting patiently among his expansive band, biding his time until you finally decided to hit play. The album is filled with three- and four-minute songs driven by undistorted guitar, echoed vocals, and a lackadaisical vibe that recalls David Roback’s work with Opal and Mazzy Star. These are pretty songs, but not gratuitously so. Milan understands how to evoke without overstating, crafting moments that linger, subtle yet profoundly delivered. – Randall

Various Artists – The Voice Of Love

( Jazz-funk / Sophisti-Pop )

Northern California archival imprint Smiling C continues unearthing our favorite lost gems (the kind of tracks you never knew you needed, but end up playing endlessly after you hear them). This time, the focus is on British sophisti-pop and jazz-funk from the 1980s; a collection of upbeat love songs blending the local grit of Factory Records era post-punk with sun-tinged Ibiza grooves and Sade quiet storm smoothness. Jangly guitars, Fender Rhodes, snappy slap bass, digital synthesizers, and drum machines set the stage here for a set that’s both dance-floor friendly and a perfect vibe-setter for your next home party! – Phil

Pelican Daughters – It’s time my friend…

( Industrial / Ambient / Dub )

Justin Brandis and Andy Rantzen mark 40 years of collaboration with the release of It’s time my friend… The Australian duo stay close to their well-established, dub-tinged industrial sound, which often veers into more spatially ambiguous zones. The seven tracks here allow parallels to be drawn with their previous work across four decades, as well as with newer artists like Static Cleaner Lost Reward or Mister Water Wet, who share a similar use of off-kilter rhythms and unconventional sounds. Whether a direct influence or not, it’s intriguing when shared sensibilities connect across generations. Releases like this help congeal a sonic world that’s often floating far beyond orbit. – John

IS – Zero Key

( Ambient / Dub Techno / Microhouse )

The first of a double debut drop from new Los Angeles experimental electronic imprint False Aralia, ‘Zero Key’ compiles 4 tracks from the several year solo studio practice of Bay Area digital synthesist Izaak Schlossman. Known for his detailed production work as one half of the synth pop duo Loveshadow (vocalist Anya Prisk’s voice is modulated here), the music of ‘Zero Key’ and it’s second part ‘Selfsame’ showcase a deeper side of Schlossman’s already vast and genre spanning discography. The EP’s 4 tracks organically evolve as they sequence, starting with a hallucinated dub techno workout and ending somewhere in the mid-2000’s microhouse realm. Highly tipped drifters landing somewhere in the sweet spot between Burial, Villalobos and Purelink. – Jonny

urika’s bedroom – Big Smile, Black Mire

( Indie Rock / Alternative / Trip-hop )

Los Angeles transplant urika’s bedroom has got something special brewing… A frequent collaborator of local rising stars untitled (halo) and previously a touring member of Youth Lagoon, the songwriter presents his first ever solo material featuring hushed vocals (something like heavily processed Smashing Pumpkins’ “1979”), hard-hitting breakbeats, acoustic guitar, and lo-fi distortion. 90s-laced alternative indie rock for the modern age, the songs stick around like well-tuned pop music. Recommended for fans of Hysterical Love Project, Alex G, Yves Tumor, Oneohtrix Point Never. – Phil

V.A. – Virtual Dreams II: Ambient Explorations In The House & Techno Age, Japan 1993​-​1999

( Ambient / Techno / House )

Listening to Virtual Dreams II – Ambient Explorations in the House and Techno Age, Japan 1993-1999 is a bittersweet experience, marking the final project of Jamie Tiller, founder of Music From Memory, before his untimely passing. Tiller, with co-compiler Eiji Taniguchi, had long envisioned highlighting Japan’s distinctive ’90s ambient techno scene, believing it held a singular place within the global electronic landscape.

While Virtual Dreams I explored Europe’s chill-out rooms and ambient club edges, part two narrows in on Japan, where ambient music and “listening techno” formed a core part of early club culture. The compilation dives into pioneering labels like Sublime and Transonic, entities that understood the worldwide techno scene and dared to suggest that Japan had an equally thrilling and inventive scene. Palomatic’s “Flutter” is a cavernous, reverb-laced instrumental with pillowy rhythms and a magnetic three-note melody. Yukihiro Fukutomi’s stellar “5 Blind Boys” skitters with bell-tones, a midrange synth drone that steers the track, and what sounds like a sampled marimba. Multiply that energy by a dozen. Virtual Dreams II serves as both a tribute to this unique era and a testament to Tiller’s passion for unearthing hidden sonic worlds. – Randall

Barry Archie Johnson – Fortune’s Mirror

( Folk / Ambient / Instrumental )

Barry has quickly become one of our favorite figures in the Los Angeles experimental music scene. During a recent performance at our West Hollywood headquarters, Hayden Pedigo asked Barry to perform with him “Sun-Like Star” from Fortune’s Mirror as the last song of his set. An already bewitched audience erupted in cheers of gratitude once the song was finished, seemingly touched by the brief songs earnest vulnerability. The whole of Fortunes Mirror possess this quality. It’s as though you’re peering into a very personal place, but one with balmy lighting and a friendly face waving you in. This feeling is further accentuated by Patrick Shiroshi’s contributions on saxophone as well as the general warmth of the recording. Fans of artists as varied as Daniel Bachman, Steve Tibbetts, and the Kinsella brothers should give this one a listen. — John

Fine – Rocky Top Ballads

( Indie Pop / Slacker Rock / Folk )

Highly recommended for fans of those recent experimental indie pop records from Astrid Sonne, ML Buch, Mk.gee, Rocky Top Ballads is the brilliant debut album from Copenhagen-based singer-songwriter Fine. “Remember the Heart,” in particular, really gets us with its slacker rock energy. Something wonderfully strange is going on with that off-kilter verse chord progression, which leads oh so satisfyingly into the woozy chorus. From the liner notes: “the album visits both country and folk moods but with an underlying electronic world counter weighing,” which is a fitting summation of this new sound bubbling up, but we’re not quite over it just yet and very much still here for these moments of outsider pop bliss. – Phil

mark william lewis – Pleasure is Everything

( Indie Rock / Pop / Country )

Not technically a new release but recently issued on vinyl by Scenic Route (who are credited with discovering Baltimore’s Nourished by Time), Pleasure Is Everything / God Complex compiles two cult favorite releases from London-based left-field pop artist mark william lewis. There’s some connection to the world of dean blunt here with lewis’ cowboy-like vocal delivery and doomed songwriting (both artists have collaborated with Italian musician Nina Cristante). Lewis brings an instrumentalist’s edge here though with some immensely satisfying harmonica playing and crispy country-blues guitar. – Phil

Gi Gi – Dreamliner

Perfectly described in release notes as sounding like “a heat-warped meditation cassette unearthed from a Goodwill located in a black hole,” Texas musician Gi Gi’s new Dreamliner feels tailor-made for the In Sheep’s Clothing community: gorgeous, drifting, rhythmically dynamic, psychedelic — all the adjectives. Recalling the 1990s ambient electronic music of Future Sound of London and Mixmaster Morris, Dreamliner seems to glide as it moves, untethered from gravity, but just barely. Three years after Gi Gi released Lumino Placo, a blissful ambient record made entirely from samples of Prince, Vangelis, Erykah Badu, and Miles Davis recordings “warped, blended and smoothed over beyond recognition,” per the liner notes, Dreamliner approaches organized sound from a different, more rhythmic, angle, resulting in a record that blossoms with each volume increase and focused listen. – Randall