As the summer festivals and gigs schedule continues to be bulldozed by cancellations and bleak news stories speculate that live music may not be allowed to return proper until well into 2021, you could be forgiving for wondering if, much less when, you might again enjoy the privilege of standing in a crowd crammed backside-to-crotch with strangers, being occasionally pelted with showers of what you hope is warm beer. Ah, memories. But if there is cause for cautious optimism then it’s to be found in the continued release of new albums, whether in defiance of the current state of things, or to actively give us some respite from it.
As someone who looks after two small kids by day and works nights and weekends, listening to music is about the one escapist pleasure I have left. Records are my chance to decompress at the end of another long day in lockdown; they’re a soundtrack to elevate me above another mundane trudge around a branch of Tesco which I have literally begun to visit in my sleep (the other night I had a dream in which I did an entire big shop in excruciatingly dull detail).
With that in mind, it’s encouraging to look ahead over the next number of months and see a load of great albums scheduled for release. Comfort listening for what may prove one of the strangest, not to mention most uneventful, summers of our lives. Just add warm beer.
Phoebe Bridgers Punisher
A flaming bin fire of messy emotions deceptively sweetly sung, Bridgers’ 2017 album Stranger In the Alps was one of the best debuts of the decade, if not the century (don’t @ me). After a couple of supergroup side-projects – Boygenius with Lucy Dacus and Julien Baker and Better Oblivion Community Center with Conor Oberst – the LA alt-rock singer-songwriter gets down to business proper with a second solo record. It’s all you could hope for: tender, lacerating, intimate and anthemic in all the right proportions. Bridgers is the voice of her generation.
Dead Oceans, June 19; phoebefuckingbridgers.com