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New Music Releases Compiled by Billboard
GAMES
Sam Amidon
Lily-O
Duck Hunt 2
6 Bugs
The Vermont-based folk singer-songwriter follows 2013’s Bright Sunny South
with this second album for label Nonesuch. Valgeir Sigurðsson (Björk, Feist)
serves as producer for Lily-O, which was
recorded in Iceland and also features
contributions from jazz guitarist Bill
Frisell.
Electric Youth
Innerworld
3D MissileGame
84
Mini Putt
Newly signed to Secretly Canadian, the
not-so-secretly Canadian electro-pop duo
Electric Youth are best known (to the
extent they are known at all) for their
memorable Drive soundtrack contribution “A Real Hero,” a collaboration with
College. That track joins 11 other new and
old songs—many with that same cinematic sweep—on their SC debut Innerworld,
which was recorded in both Toronto and
Los Angeles.
Lady Antebellum
747
Country trio Lady Antebellum has
won seven Grammy awards in the past
five years, though none for their most
recent album, Golden, which also sold
fewer copies than past LPs. That album,
though, was one of the group’s best-reviewed releases to date, and they hope
to combine both commercial and critical
success with album #5 this week. 747
was co-produced by Nathan Chapman,
working with the band for the first time.
Christopher Owens
Prince
Art Official Age
Over 35 years into his recording career,
Prince doesn’t seem to be slowing down,
and he returns this week with not one
but two new releases. Art Official Age,
the first, is his first solo album in four
years, and marks a return to his old label
home of Warner Bros. for the first time
since the mid-1990s. And the early word
is that this is the better of the pair, with
its focus on modern R&B, funk, rap, and
ballads.
Prince & 3RDEYEGIRL
A New Testament PLECTRUMELECTRUM
Former Girls frontman Christopher Owens
returns with his second solo album this
week, following 2013’s Lysandre. A New
Testament actually features some of his former Girls bandmates.The Doug Boehm-produced set was intended to be a major step
up in sound from the previous album,
while being “inspired by the fundamentals
of American music — Gospel, Country,
R&B.”
PLECTRUMELECTRUM, Prince’s second
release of the week, is a rock album. And
it finds him backed by his new three-piece,
all-female band 3RDEYEGIRL. Both
albums share a song (in different versions):
“Funk n Roll.” Take the best tracks from
both albums, and you pro &&ǒ