Hello there! It’s another big week of music and here on 2SER’s new music review, we compile some of the best from around the world for your enjoyment. So click play on the Spotify playlist, take a read and discover some new favourite albums.

SERvin’ Up! – w/c March 12, 2018

Young Fathers – Cocoa Sugar (Feature Album)
Setec – Atrial Flutters (Or Raise Yr Hand If Yr Afraid)
Basa Basa – Homowo
The Breeders – All Nerve
Jonathan Wilson – Rare Birds
Nap Eyes – I’m Bad Now
Various Artists – Quare Groove Vol. 1
George FitzGerald – All That Must Be
Liza Anne – Fine But Dying

Let’s start with a new compilation of Irish groove, punk-funk and electro from the 70s + 80s! Released by Dublin’s All City Records and curated by Cork based music collector John Byrne, Quare Groove Vol. 1 highlights a time in Ireland not synonymous with those genres, but teases out some rare underground and lost finds. An upbeat and eclectic mix of 808 beats, cut-up synths, slick disco rhythms and breakdancing sounds – disc one showcases more traditional groove and funk sounds and disc two brings together a collection of angular new wave cuts. “Quare” is an Irish variant of “queer,” or “odd,”, though in Northern Ireland, it also has the additional meaning of “remarkable” or “excellent” – all adjectives are applicable to this compilation!

Looking locally, we have Sydney singer and multi-instrumentalist Setec. Joshua Gibbs is the man behind the experimental pop project and his sophomore record Atrial Flutters (Or Raise Yr Hand If Yr Afraid) is filled with cut and paste sampling, looped instrumentation and vocal layering. There’s a lot going on here at times, but Setec possesses the ability to make everything work together perfectly. Setec has talked openly about his struggles with anxiety and depression, which the album “is both in spite of and indebted to”.

Lastly, off we go to Nova Scotia with Nap Eyes. Their third album I’m Bad Now is a collection of jangly rock songs with tongue-in-cheek and self-deprecating lyrics, juxtaposed with sunny guitar riffs and rolling bass lines that move around frontman Nigel Chapman’s hypnotic Lou Reed-esque vocals. The band wrote the album via a two-step process. Nigel Chapman developed and arranged bones into a convincing skeleton at his home in Nova Scotia; then, lead guitarist Brad Loughead, bassist Josh Salter and drummer Seamus Dalton — who all live about 12 hours away in Montreal — teased it out.

Plus new singles from Flowertruck, Wye Oak, Traceyanne & Danny, Jack Ladder, Boys, Damien Jurado and Courtney Marie Andrews.

Until next week,
Steph