Soundscape is a weekly look at local and international releases making an impression on our musical radar. The list offers a cross section of EPs and albums arriving at the station.

We have been busily scouring the Soundscape! Check out some of our favourite finds for this week 18 November 2019.

Leonard Cohen - Thanks for the Dance (Sony)**Album of the Week

Thanks for the Dance is Leonard Cohen’s fifteenth and final album, released posthumously following his death in 2015. Cohen’s signature gravelled drawl - increasingly profound here for his proximity to the end - is cradled by delicate gospel, folk and blues-infused arrangements produced by his son Adam Cohen. The record features contributions from the likes of Beck, Leslie Feist, Daniel Lanois, Jennifer Warnes, the Shaar Hashomayim Synagogue Choir and the Berlin-based Cantus Domus choir.

Grace Cummings - Refuge Cove (Flightless Records)

The Melbourne singer-songwriter releases her debut full length on Australian label Flightless Records. Refuge Cove is driven largely by the interplay between Cummings’ powerful, smokey vocals and confident, complex acoustic guitar work. The album creates a sense of foreboding and unease; a clear eyed expression that we need to prepare ourselves to live in a very different world.

Ausecuma Beats - 'Ausecuma Beats' EP (Music in Exile)

Ausecuma Beats explore the concept of place and movement, with members of the band coming from far flung areas of the globe to record and play together in Melbourne. The EP presents the various musical heritage of the 9 piece band, from Mali, Cuba, the Senegambia region and Australia.

Various Artists - Over Under Away - Volume I (Hopestreet Recordings)

Over Under Way is a compilation LP celebrating Melbourne label Hopestreet Recordings for their 10th anniversary. The collection features 10 tracks from the first generation of bands from the label: the likes of The Bombay Royale, The Cactus Channel and Emma Donnavon.

YL Hooi - Untitled (Altered States Tapes)

YL Hooi creates a complex sound mosaic on Untitled representing the sonic diversity of contemporary Australian electronic music. Pulling the listener through the darkest of dub sinkholes, layering and stretching repeated vocal melodies and propelling the whole thing forward with 80s UK basslines, the Melbourne producer has composed a dark and atmospheric album that is uniquely her own.

Various Artists - HyperSwim (by Hyperdub/Adult Swim)

Adult Swim present a compilation marking the 15th anniversary of the trailblazing London electronic label Hyperdub. With all tracks created expressly for the purpose of the compilation, HyperSwim exhibits the enormous influence Hyperdub has had on 21st century UK electronic music. Contributions from Burial, Dean Blunt, DJ Haram and Fatima Al Qadiri are featured.

Radio On - Sounds of Objects (Shame File Music)

Radio On is the project of students from the Cayley's Road campus at Warringa Park School, mentored by their teacher and musician Ben Butcher. Over a year’s work at the Carley’s Road campus, the group composed and recorded their debut number, a deeply experimental and curious EP of sonic explorations, created using found sounds, drones, microphones and solar power.

Devonté Hynes - Queen & Slim (Original Motion Picture Score) (Domino)

The artist best known as Blood Orange shares his second theatrical soundtrack for the upcoming Melina Matsoukas directed ‘protest art’ rom-drama Queen and Slim, having previously composed and performed the score for James Franco’s 2014 Palo Alto. On Queen and Slim Hynes favours lush and striking orchestral instrumentation and foreboding electronics over his signature R&B falsetto, instilling the modern day Bonnie and Clyde tale with a stark, sad and reflective emotional accompaniment.

Galcher Lustwerk  -  Information (Ghostly International)

The Cleveland-raised, New York-based producer and record-label head follows up his sprawling 2017 debut 200% Galcher with the more economical and acutely designed Information. Lustwerms’s sophomore traffics in half-dreamt night-scapes, faded memories and the daily dead-ends and puzzles of the urban landscape.

Col Nolan & The Soul Syndicate - Whatever It's Worth (Pacific Theatre Records)

Pacific Theatre Encore debuts with the reissue of the rare breakbeat laden, soul and jazz masterpiece Whatever it’s Worth. In 1968, the jazz organist and pianist Col Nolan fronted the all-star inhouse band of the legendary nightclub Whiskey A Go Go in peak swinging sixties Kings Cross.