Some people believe the number 13 is unlucky. Those people are wrong — at least when it comes to next week’s lineup of new music. In fact, if you’re a fan of Gary Clark Jr., Gossip, Elbow, Waxahatchee or any of the other artists dropping albums, it seems fair to say you’re in luck. Here’s the rundown:
Les Big Byrd
Diamonds, Rhinestones & Hard Rain
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “Exactly where the title of Les Big Byrd’s fourth studio album came from remains mysterious even to the band’s frontman, Jocke Åhlund. You might speculate, though, that it’s a neat encapsulation of a record that is unafraid to deal in contradictions, that finds room both for glittering pop and for stormy atmosphere, and that doesn’t just showcase the thrillingly ambitious psych-rock sound that we’ve come to expect from the group by now; it pushes it forward, into new and more daring territory. After their third album, Eternal Light Brigade, took four years to follow on from 2018’s mission statement Iran Iraq Ikea, Åhlund was determined that this time, the Stockholm rockers would hit the ground running, swiftly returning to the studio for another album that maintains the momentum and energy of Eternal Light Brigade whilst finding room to wander down sonic avenues all its own.”
Gary Clark Jr.
JPEG Raw
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “Anyone who has listened to a Gary Clark Jr. album or watched the four-time Grammy winner perform live knows that he’s a gifted multi-instrumentalist, songwriter and performer. And never more so than on his last album, 2019’s illuminating This Land. But while This Land signaled a breakthrough in displaying his musical versatility beyond the blues, his latest album, JPEG Raw, represents a quantum leap. “Blues will always be my foundation,” says Clark. “But that’s just scratching the surface. I’m also a beat maker and an impressionist who likes to do different voices. I’ve always loved theater and being able to tell a story. At home when I play the trumpet, I think Lee Morgan, or John Coltrane when I play the sax. I’ve even got bagpipes just in case I need them. So while this is my most honest and vulnerable album about relating to the human condition, it’s also the most freeing.”
Alice Coltrane
The Carnegie Hall Concert
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “In 1971, Alice Coltrane performed at Carnegie Hall for a special gala benefiting the Integral Yoga Institute. Backed by an all-star group of musicians, Coltrane delivered a captivating set which will now be available in full for the very first time. The captivating performance, held four years after John Coltrane’s untimely passing and recorded by Impulse! for eventual release, marks Alice’s first performance as a leader at Carnegie Hall. The concert arrived at a pivotal moment in both Coltrane’s career and her spiritual journey: She had just released her fourth solo album, Journey in Satchidananda, and had deepened her spiritual quest over a five-week trip to India. Her band that night added two members of Satchidananda”s circle — Kumar Kramer and Tulsi Reynolds, playing harmonium and tamboura, respectively — to a large jazz ensemble comprising two saxophonists (Pharoah Sanders and Archie Shepp), two bassists (Jimmy Garrison and Cecil McBee) and two drummers (Ed Blackwell and Clifford Jarvis).”.
Elbow
Audio Vertigo
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “Elbow return with their 10th album Audio Vertigo. Recorded throughout 2023 at the band’s individual studios, along with Migration in Gloucestershire, and finalised at the band’s facility at Blueprint Studios, Salford, the album marks a significant step change for the group following 2021’s Flying Dream 1. In the words of singer and lyricist Guy Garvey, Audio Vertigo was built from ‘gnarly, seedy grooves created by us playing together in garagey rooms’ and is both more direct and sonically varied by purpose that its predecessor. Characterised by the band as an album heavy on stomp, swing, and infectious oil-can funk beats, Audio Vertigo sees Elbow on the front foot, fusing their love of varied and various styles on a collection that ranges from the Beastie Boys-meets-Bonham breaks of opener Things I’ve Been Telling Myself For Years, through the ‘theme for a futuristic cop show’, (Guy again) of lead single Lover’s Leap to the infectiously funky Balu.”
Sam Evian
Plunge
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “It was New Years Eve 2022, the night before Sam Evian started recording Plunge, his fourth LP. He invited his friends and fellow musicians to his property in the Catskills, where he’d just painstakingly relocated and revamped his Flying Clouds Studios into a new barn, restoring a vintage console and tape deck from 1974. Adrianne Lenker brought a jug of maple syrup from Vermont, Sufjan Stevens set off fireworks in the meadow, and at midnight, the group of friends cold-plunged into a nearby creek as it started snowing. The next day, sessions began, and the album was tracked in the early winter months of 2023 over a 10-day period. Joined by a group of his closest friends and collaborators (including Liam Kazar, Sean Mullins, El Kempner of Palehound and Big Thief’s Lenker), the young artist / producer set out with a wide-open approach. “No one knew the songs or what the plan was. We kept it loose and fun. This was the spirit of the sessions. No headphones, no playback, minimal overdubs, or bleed. Fast and loose.”
Gossip
Real Power
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “Beloved, pop/indie-rock trio Gossip return with Real Power, their first album in 11 years. The album marks a reunion with acclaimed producer Rick Rubin, who helmed the band’s pivotal 2009 album Music For Men. At the coaxing of Rubin, the band started recording in 2019 after completing a tour for the 10-year anniversary of Music For Men. Recorded at Rubin’s home studio in Kauai, the process was temporarily halted by the pandemic and resumed when restrictions lifted. The result is an 11-track celebration of creative expression, and the power of chosen family in the aftermath of collective and personal trauma. The timing is ripe for a Gossip reunion, and Real Power heralds a new era and renewed sense of purpose for the trio. “When we began, so much about Gossip was about running away — that was always in the music,” says Ditto. “We survived. We came from nothing, and we got the fuck out of there. And to be here 20 years later and still making music together is just incredible.”
Pearl Harbour
Don’t Follow Me, I’m Lost Too Expanded
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “Patricia Gilbert began her career in San Francisco’s music scene in the 1970s, dancing on stage with The Tubes in 1976 before joining Leila & The Snakes. In 1978, she adopted the name Pearl Harbor and formed Pearl Harbor & The Explosions. They recorded a well-received, self-titled album and toured extensively. When it came time for a second LP, the band split over musical direction. At the time, Pearl was dating Clash associate and sometime-manager Kosmo Vinyl, and the couple relocated to London. Pearl wanted to go in a rockabilly direction for Don’t Follow Me, I’m Lost Too, so Kosmo went about assembling a band which included Paul Simonon, Topper Headon and Mick Jones from The Clash; Wilko Johnson from Dr. Feelgood and Ian Dury & The Blockheads; Nigel Dixon from Whirlwind; Steve New from the Rich Kids; and Steve Goulding from Graham Parker & The Rumour. Produced by Blockheads keyboardist Mickey Gallagher, Don’t Follow Me, I’m Lost Too was released in December 1980, but her label failed to get behind the album. This new expanded edition includes six bonus tracks and demos.”
Odetta Hartman
Swansongs
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “Following her debut mini-LP 222 and 2018’s Old Rockhounds Never Die, which saw her touring her unique performance style — part Jack White rock ’n’ roll and folk blues, part electronic experimentations — Odetta Harman returns with her strongest set of songs to date. Swansongs is another fever dream of a record including the experimental pop of Goldilocks, the dramatic string lead single Dr No and her radical re-working of the traditional Motherless Child first made famous by her namesake Odetta. Equally inspired by AG Cook’s Apple & New Orleans trad jazz, the musical mixology of these songs cycle spans various genres of folk, Americana, pop, punk, soul, ambient and spiritual. Lyrically, it tenders the tension of two truths in opposition, through its inquisition of the interplay between fear and desire. Dichotomy is at the heart of this deep exploration into shadow work, mythological musings, healing frequencies, eclectic expressions, and the art of sculpted sound.”
Julia Holter
Something In The Room She Moves
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “My heart is loud,” Julia Holter sings on her sixth album Something In The Room She Moves, following an inner pulse. The Los Angeles songwriter’s past work has often explored memory and dreamlike future, but her latest album resides more in presence: “There’s a corporeal focus, inspired by the complexity and transformability of our bodies,” Holter says. Her production choices and arrangements form a continuum of fretless electric bass pitches in counterpoint with gliding vocal melodies, while glissing Yamaha CS-60 lines entwine warm winds and reeds. “I was trying to create a world that’s fluid-sounding, waterlike, evoking the body’s internal sound world,” Holter says of her flowing harmonic universe.”
The Jesus And Mary Chain
Glasgow Eyes
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “Marking 40 years of The Jesus And Mary Chain, Glasgow Eyes was recorded at Mogwai’s Castle of Doom studio in Glasgow, where Jim and William Reid continued the creative process that resulted in their previous album, 2017’s Damage and Joy, becoming their highest charting album in over 20 years. What emerged is a record that finds one of the UK’s most influential groups embracing a productive second chapter, their maelstrom of melody, feedback and controlled chaos now informed more audibly by their love for Suicide and Kraftwerk and a fresh appreciation of the less disciplined attitudes found in jazz. “But don’t expect ‘the Mary Chain goes jazz,’ ” Jim Reid says. “People should expect a Jesus And Mary Chain record, and that’s certainly what Glasgow Eyes is. Our creative approach is remarkably the same as it was in 1984, just hit the studio and see what happens. We went in with a bunch of songs and let it take its course. There are no rules, you just do whatever it takes. And there’s a telepathy there — we are those weird not-quite twins that finish each other’s sentences.”
Adrianne Lenker
Bright Future
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “Adrianne Lenker announces her new solo album Bright Future, her first album since 2020’s Songs and Instrumentals, featuring co-production from Philip Weinrobe alongside contributions from Nick Hakim, Mat Davidson and Josefin Runsteen. On Bright Future, Lenker, a songwriter known for turns of phrase and currents of rhyme, says it plainly: “You have my heart / I want it back.” Documented with analogue precision, what began as an experiment in collaboration became proof Adrianne’s heart did return, full to the brim, daring her into the unknown. During the autumn 2022, the Big Thief band member got lucky. Everyone could come. Three musical friends — “Some of my favourite people” — had space in their busy touring schedules to join her at forest-hidden analog studio Double Infinity. The musicians — Hakim, Davidson and Runsteen — were known to Adrianne but newer to each other. “I had no idea what the outcome would be,” she recalls. The result? “It was magical,” she says. Adrianne’s musical risk became Bright Future, the studio’s first album, a 12-track telling of a journeyed heart.”
The Staves
All Now
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “The Staves’ new album All Now, produced by John Congleton (Sharon Van Etten, Angel Olsen), is the first recording without the duo’s sister, Emily Staveley-Taylor, who wasn’t present for touring on the last run, stepping back from the road with the birth of her first baby (since followed by a second). All Now emerges, bold and bright, from a period of chaos, followed by a period of enforced quiet, for the band. Struggling after two years of deep solitude and pain following the release of Good Woman, The Staves did what they know how to do best and got back to writing. The idea was to go against most of what they’d been doing for the last few years by going back to basics and focusing almost solely on each other and their guitars as a starting point. The result? An album as rich and honest as all the most profound music by The Staves scattered across albums for the last decade, calcified here into something special.”
Waxahatchee
Tigers Blood
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “One of the hardest-working singer-songwriters in the game is named Katie Crutchfield. She was born in Alabama, grew up near Waxahatchee Creek. Skipped town and struck out on her own as Waxahatchee. That was over a decade ago. Crutchfield says she never knew the road would lead her here, but after six critically acclaimed albums, she’s never felt more confident in herself as an artist. While her sound has evolved from lo-fi folk to lush alt-tinged country, her voice has always remained the same. Honest and close, poetic with Southern lilting. And after years of being sober and stable in Kansas City – after years of sacrificing herself to her work and the road – Crutchfield has arrived at her most potent songwriting yet. On her new album Tigers Blood, Crutchfield emerges as a powerhouse — an ethnologist of the self–forever dedicated to revisiting her wins and losses. But now she’s arriving at revelations and she ain’t holding them back.”
