Stephen Malkmus / Jicks Sparkle Hard Camo Nasty Sweet Mess A2

Sweet Mess A2

The Crawling Hand A5

and Tyondai Braxton

Restless 03

James Ford and Jas Shaw have switched things up this time by choosing to collaborate with London's all-female

Stephen Malkmus / Jicks Sparkle Hard Camo Nasty Sweet Mess A2Sparkle Hard comes into focus slowly and stately, coalescing around crawling piano chords that soon get blown to bits by guitars thereby offering a neat encapsulation of how this, the seventh album Stephen Malkmus has made since disbanding Pavement in 1999, walks a fine line between the familiar and the unexpected. Upon the first spin, Sparkle Hard seems to veer all over the place, bouncing from the finely etched pop of "Future Suite" to the Teutonic