It’s Monday, which means it’s time to gulp down gallons of coffee and also time for another edition of our regular start-of-the-week stream-a-thon, wherein we scour the Internet for worthy and/or noteworthy albums that are streaming this week at absolutely no cost. Today there’s the arrival of the new Fiona Apple record, which may well be all you need to head straight for the jump and get listening. If not, however, there’s also the new album by Future of the Left, which (despite what Pitchfork might say) is quality, along with beautiful Monday melancholia from Emily Jane White, SpaceGhostPurrp’s 4AD debut, and Neneh Cherry’s collaboration with Swedish jazz types The Thing. Click through and get listening.
Fiona Apple — The Idler Wheel…
It almost feels redundant to mention this, simply because if you’re a big Fiona Apple fan you’re almost certainly all over this stream like the measles, and if you’re not then, well, you’re not. But even so, let it be said for posterity that NPR is streaming the new Fiona Apple album, which goes by the title The Idler Wheel Is Wiser Than The Driver of The Screw And Whipping Cords Will Serve You More Than Ropes Will Ever Do. It’s Apple’s first album in seven years, and is thoroughly, thoroughly excellent. Click here to hear it. And then click here to see Apple with an octopus on her head.
Future of the Left — The Plot Against Common Sense
On the offest of off chances that you haven’t noticed, we’re big Future of the Left fans here at Flavorpill — and even if we weren’t, we wouldn’t dare to say anything nasty about this record after the pasting Andy Falkous gave Pitchfork last week. But happily, no such ethical conundrums confront us, because to our ears The Plot Against Common Sense sounds very fine indeed. Click here to listen.
SpaceGhostPurrp — Mysterious Phonk: The Chronicles of SpaceGhostPurrp
We’ve been waiting with metaphorically baited breath for this action — the proper full stream of the debut album by 4AD-approved Florida rapper/producer SpaceGhostPurrp. On first listen, the wait has been entirely worth it — while SpaceGhostPurrp’s rhymes don’t necessarily push boundaries, there’s something compelling about the downtempo, spacey production that characterizes this record. It’s perfect for a slightly hazy Monday morning, so click here to hear the record.
Neneh Cherry and the Thing — The Cherry Thing
We mentioned last week in our post on albums you should hear in June that we were very much looking forward to hearing this collaboration between Neneh Cherry and Scandinavian jazz band The Thing, particularly since their unlikely cover of Suicide’s “Dream Baby Dream” was so darn good. The rest of the album is similarly intriguing, particularly the suitably dramatic cover of “Dirt,” our all-time favorite Stooges song. Listen here.
Emily Jane White — Ode to Sentience
And finally, some restrained and pretty acoustic music from California folk singer Emily Jane White, who we heard a couple of days back collaborating with Marissa Nadler on a cover version of Townes Van Zandt’s “Close Your Eyes I’ll Be Here In The Morning.” This is her third studio album, and it’s a thoroughly enthralling piece of work, melancholy country-inflected balladry that falls somewhere between Iron and Wine and Nina Nastasia, which is a thoroughly fine place to be as far as we’re concerned. Listen here.