Your to-do list for the week: Go doomscrolling with Dawes; maintain your bloodline with Ben; wade into the steam with The Sadies; say hi to Ty; and fly high with Jack. Let’s get busy:
Dawes
Misadventures Of Doomscroller
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “We’ve always prided ourselves on being minimalists. With this record we set out on being MAXIMALISTS,” says Dawes’ Taylor Goldsmith. “Still a quartet. Still not letting these songs hide behind any tricks or effects. But really letting the songs breathe and stretch and live however they want to. We decided to stop having any regard for short attention spans. Our ambitions go beyond the musical with this one. We also wanted to honor the traditional length of a vinyl record – 40-45 minutes — but disregard any concern for numbers of tracks. The way Miles or Herbie often did. Documenting the songs is only half of the picture. For this record, they’re also the platform for us to jump off from and get lost in. I think the best way I can say it is — we wanted this record to be less a collection of songs and more a collection of music.”
Ben Harper
Bloodline Maintenance
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “This whole album is really soul music reinterpreted with a lap steel,” Ben Harper says of Bloodline Maintenance. “I believe strongly that music has this great capacity for communication like a sonic newsprint. And I’ve always believed that the music I write has a place in the choir.” The new album is a work largely inspired by the loss of a long-time friend and the lingering influence of a mercurial and charismatic father, Bloodline Maintenance sees Harper performing the majority of the instruments on his own, spanning guitar, bass, drums and an eclectic assortment of percussions including a plastic toy snare. His 17th studio LP — and first since 2020’s instrumental Winter Is For Lovers — and the first non-instrumental solo album of new songs since 2016. The new album is further fuelled by Harper’s signature lap steel, supercharged through a powerful Dumble amplifier creating a truly unruly tone that Harper describes as “a sort of a merging of Robert Johnson and Jimi Hendrix. It was like I was moving forward and venturing into places I had never been before,” he says. “Taking everything I’ve learned from every other record and kind of setting fire to it all and starting over. And I knew the sounds I was hearing in my head were so unorthodox that I had to do most of it myself.”
The Sadies
Colder Streams
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “The release of Colder Streams will mark The Sadies’ final studio recording with founding member Dallas Good, who unexpectedly passed away in February. In preparation for the release, in October of 2021, Dallas penned what he coined the band’s “anti-bio” and seemingly said all there is to say about the new album, first noting, “Colder Streams is, by far, the best record that has ever been made by anyone. Ever.” Produced by Arcade Fire’s Richard Reed Parry and recorded between 2019 and 2021 at Skybarn in Montreal, The Sadies’ 11th album features 11 original compositions, with guest appearances by Jon Spencer, Michael Dubue, Parry, Margaret Good and Bruce Good. With a deep fondness and reverence for the best of CBGB — country, bluegrass and blues — The Sadies are equally informed and influenced by everything from ‘60s garage and psychedelic rock to surf instrumentals and punk rock. Since they first arrived on the North American scene 28 years ago, the Toronto-based roots-rockers have developed, even perfected, a style of music uniquely their own.”
Ty Segall
Hello, Hi
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “Tossing down straight acoustic shots with electric guitar back, Hello, Hi rides through the valley of yer ol’ Canyon legends, finding an isolated place to unspool Ty Segall’s copious reserves of nervous energy beneath an open sky. Swarms of harmony vocals caper among the clouds, but there’s a rider on the horizon, crossbow trained upon his very heart: the engine driving all the relationships of life, whether down Broadway or over the cliffs at night! Whatever doesn’t get killed is getting stronger all the time. A lean, mean deal, baked in saltwater and sunlight, compassion pouring out its beautiful blue eyes.”
Jack White
Entering Heaven Alive
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “Entering Heaven Alive is the fifth studio album from Jack White, founding member of The White Stripes, The Raconteurs and The Dead Weather. True to his DIY roots, this record was recorded at White’s Third Man Studio throughout 2021, mastered by Third Man Mastering, and released by Third Man Records. White has been writing and recording music throughout the entirety of the past several years, creating two entirely distinctive albums in Fear Of The Dawn and its followup, Entering Heaven Alive — each defined by different inspirations, different themes, different moods.”
