Dig into this week’s Saturday Alternative playlist! The Fitting Room album was Merrie Land by The Good, The Bad & The Queen – out now on Studio 13.

Who knows how Damon Albarn is able to find the time to create as much interesting music as he does, but the Blur and Gorillaz mastermind has now returned with the long awaited reunion of The Good, The Bad & The Queen. Albarn first assembled the supergroup around 2006 with Danger Mouse in the producer’s seat. He enlisted Paul Simonon of The Clash to play bass, Simon Tong of The Verve on guitars and keys, and afrobeat drumming great Tony Allen was brought on to complete the lineup. Together they released one album called The Good, The Bad and The Queen and for over a decade we’ve wondered if there would ever be another.

Today we have that sophomore effort, a very British concept album called Merrie Land, with a socio-political focus on life in the UK. This time around, legendary producer and longtime David Bowie friend and collaborator Tony Visconti has produced, and the album – as one might expect with both Visconti and Albarn on board – takes us on a masterfully crafted sonic adventure.


 

–hour1—

Venus – Twist – Distancing

Freelance – Toro Y Moi – Outer Peace

In Your Beat – Django Django – Marble Skies

Clad in Skin – Trevor Powers – Mulberry Violence

Broken (feat. Jessie Reyez) – THEY. – Fireside EP

Look at My Soul (ft. Black Pumas & Kam Franklin) – Adrian Quesada – Look At My Soul: The Latin Shade of Texas Soul

Moonshine Freeze – This Is The Kit – Moonshine Freeze

ABOP – Tunng – Songs You Make At Night

Gallipoli – Beirut – Gallipoli

We R In Control – Parquet Courts

Standing on the Edge of Tomorrow – The Damned

Balm of Gilead – Iceage

Born in Black – Laura Jane Grace & The Devouring Mothers – Bought to Rot

Side Tracked – Born Ruffians

–hour 2—

Golden Wings – Gabriel Garzon-Montano

Sleeping Volcanoes – Cass McCombs – Tip of the Sphere

Burial – Baby FuzZ

Quarrel – Moses Sumney – Aromanticism

Icicle Tusk ­– Fleet Foxes – Fleet Foxes – First Collection 2006-2009

Here We Go – Sean McConnell – Secondhand Smoke

Voices in the Field – Calexico – The Thread That Keeps Us

Oom Sha La La – Haley Heynderickx – I Need to Start a Garden

Swamp Song – Dramarama

Bloodless – Andrew Bird

Get Gone – Mikaela Davis – Delivery

Anxious – Holy Ghost!

Starstruck – Sorry

Something for Your M.I.N.D. – Superorganism

–hour 3—

Soft Spoken – Naia Izumi

Death in Midsummer – Deerhunter – Why Hasn’t Everything Already Disappeared?

Puzzled & Amused – Night Marcher – Us & Them

Can’t Hold On – Black Lips – Satan’s Graffiti or God’s Art?

Plastic Skeletons – Jealous of the Birds

Daddi – Cherry Glazerr –  Stuffed & Ready

—-FITTING ROOM—-

Merrie Land – The Good, The Bad & The Queen – Merrie Land

Nineteen Seventeen – The Good, The Bad & The Queen – Merrie Land

The Truce of Twilight – The Good, The Bad & The Queen – Merrie Land

–35

Witching Hour – Spirit Award – Muted Crowd

Water – Ohmme – Parts

Head Alone – Julia Jacklin

–50

Fail Safe – William Tyler – Goes West