New albums out this week: Sprints, Laurie Shaw, Skee Mask & more

Here’s a rundown of new releases on DSPs and physical releases in record shops this week.

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New Albums

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Sprints – Letter To Self

Dublin alt-rock band lead by Karla Chubb release their debut album on City Slang Records, ahead of a big year of activity.

Songwriter Karla Chubb says “is a deeply personally and autobiographical album lyrically and in its key themes, while sonically it explores a space inspired by our love of early 80s gothic, 90s noise rock and more modern influences. It revisits our most vulnerable moments and imbues them with visceral garage-punk. It aims to take the things that are considered inherently negative – feelings of anxiety, anger and rage, and turning them into a positive. Using our experiences to fuel us and pouring them into a positive outlet. It’s cathartic, it’s honest, it’s raw.“

“The band set about transforming so-called “negative energy” into an opportunity for communal catharsis and healing. Karla Chubb sums up the message that lies at the very heart of the album: “No matter what you’re born into, or have experienced, there’s a way to emerge from this and be happy within yourself.”

‘Heavy’

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Laurie Shaw – Dove From Above

The ultra-prolific Kenmare-based Wirral-born songwriter releases the first of what is usually a dozen albums in a year.

In some ways, Dove From Above is an arrangement of model kit parts from doomed releases. As in, it’s definitely not carved out of one block of clay labelled “Dark Wood Honky Tonk” or “Small Town Misadventure” or “Perspex 50s Future”. However, the glue used hopefully enforces a different kind of cohesion.

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Seven Davis Jr. – Stranger Than Fiction

American DJ and producer’s latest is “loosely inspired by the atmospheres of my favorite albums Voodoo by D’Angelo, St Elsewhere by Gnarls Barkley, Dummy by Portishead, Breath From Another by Esthero, and The Love Below by Andre 3000, to name a few. All blended together with my love for Indie electronic music, done in my own authentic ways.”

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Skee Mask – C

Third batch of previously unreleased Skee Mask tracks that were made between 2016 and 2020, all unmastered.

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Also released today:

• mpeg – Seaweed

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