Joe Ely is back in the driver’s seat, X make their final stand, Ween break out some leftover Chocolate & Cheese, Los Lonely Boys rise again, Meshell Ndegeocello worships at the altar of James Baldwin, Swami John and co. nail it and more. Here are your plays of the week:
Brigitte Calls Me Baby
The Future Is Our Way Out
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “The music of Brigitte Calls Me Baby is equal parts elegant time warp and up-close exploration of our modern-day neuroses. The Chicago-based five-piece emerged in early 2023. Now, with their debut LP The Future Is Our Way Out, Brigitte Calls Me Baby share a body of work that ingeniously spans genres and eras, merging the lavish romanticism of mid-century pop with the frenetic energy and spiky intensity of early-millennium indie-rock. Centered on hypnotically crooning vocals, the result is a rare convergence of sophistication, style and unabashed sincerity. Partly recorded live at the legendary RCA Studio A in Nashville with Grammy-winning producer Dave Cobb (Jason Isbell, Sturgill Simpson, Chris Stapleton), The Future Is Our Way Out also features a selection of songs self-produced by singer Wes Leavins and his bandmates: Guitarists Jack Fluegel and Trevor Lynch, bassist Devin Wessels and drummer Jeremy Benshish. With its poetic meditations on desire, anxiety, and the complexities of impermanence, the album arrives as a potent evolution of Brigitte Calls Me Baby’s debut EP This House Is Made Of Corners.”.
Joe Ely
Driven to Drive
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “Nearly two dozen albums and several million miles after he first hit the road, Joe Ely presents his first road album Driven to Drive. The collection of songs about and inspired by motorized travel was curated by Ely, who in the mid-1970s swept off the flat plains of the Llano Estacado of West Texas like a whirling tornado, fronting a legendary band that was too rock for country, and too country for rock. The wild, wide-open honky-tonk roadhouse sound of the Joe Ely Band gave their hometown of Lubbock its first music hero since Buddy Holly. The project stitches together recordings made at Spur Studios, his home recording facility outside of Austin, over several decades, assisted by musician/neighbors Joel Guzman on accordion, keyboardist Bill Guinn, singer Eddie Beethoven, and fiddler Richard Bowden. Last year at The Zone in Dripping Springs, Texas, Jeff Plankenhorn added his guitar to three tracks and engineer Pat Manske, who mastered Driven to Drive, added percussion. Movement in these songs is measured in many ways: cars, 16-wheelers, motorcycle, Greyhound bus. There are pedal-to-the-metal anthems ginning down a straight strip of two-lane blacktop; a lazy meander on the Gulf blues highway; a tale of going on the lam on the interstate; stories of getting from here to there, and songs about going nowhere at all. The lord of the highway is calling: Joe Ely wants to take you for a ride.”
J.R.C.G.
Grim Iconic...(Sadistic Mantra)
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “To experience Justin R. Cruz Gallego’s pulverizing new debut is to get burned down to ashes and burst forth, born anew. Grim Iconic…(Sadistic Mantra), the Tacoma-based artist’s second full-length, is driven by opposing forces: Noisy abstractions and tightly structured beats, anguish and dissolution at the outside world and empowerment within, apathy and catharsis. Grim Iconic…(Sadistic Mantra) weds scouring electronics to hooky songs and Gallego’s powerful drumming in a way that feels visceral and new. It’s his most personal statement to date, at once playful and intent, driven and combustible, total fucking chaos mixed into glints of broken-glass beauty. “I see this record as first and foremost a musical statement,” Gallego says. “I grew up in punk and DIY subcultures, but before that I had Latin music playing in the background through my childhood and every phase of adolescence. It was surprisingly natural to incorporate. I realized I wanted to go deeper into these rhythms. I wanted to make a record that felt as experimental as much as it felt from the perspective of a Latino. When I got a glimmer of that possibility, it felt exciting.”
Los Lonely Boys
Resurrection
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “Leveraging the power of their connection, brothers communicate in their own vernacular understood by one another, yet alien to the rest of the world. Los Lonely Boys speak the typically unspoken language of brotherhood out loud in their music. The Grammy-winning, multiplatinum Texas trio — Henry Garza (vocals, guitar), Jojo Garza (bass, vocals) and Ringo Garza (drums) — have welcomed audiences into their family with open arms since emerging back in 1996. Scaling one mountain at a time, they have summited unprecedented heights. And the light at the heart of their brotherhood shines as brightly as ever on their latest album. “These are the only guys I’ve played with my whole life,” laughs Jojo. “So, there’s nothing like it. We do have a language without words. It’s built through vibrations and sound.” Adds Ringo: “It happens on stage and when we’re in the studio,” agrees Ringo. “We all feel it. We can look at each other and not say anything, because we instinctively know where we’re going. It’s hard to explain. Real blood is thicker than music.”
Meshell Ndegeocello
No More Water: The Gospel of James Baldwin
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “Meshell Ndegeocello’s second Blue Note album No More Water: The Gospel Of James Baldwin is a striking homage to the eminent writer and activist being released on his Centennial. The visionary work is at once a musical experience, a church service, a celebration, a testimonial, and a call to action. With No More Water, Ndegeocello embarks on a prophetic musical odyssey that transcends boundaries and genres, delving headfirst into race, sexuality, religion, and other recurring themes explored in Baldwin’s canon. Following 2023’s The Omnichord Real Book, her acclaimed Blue Note debut which won the inaugural Grammy for Best Alternative Jazz Album, the multi-instrumentalist, singer, songwriter, and producer renders an immersive and palpable document that is as sagacious, unabashed, and introspective as Baldwin was in life.”
Orville Peck
Stampede
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “Orville Peck has long dreamed of making a Stampede, a duets album with singers, songwriters, and fellow musicians he’s long admired. And now, music icons, rebels and newcomers join hand-in-hand with Orville on his third full-length body of work to help create a two-part record that tips its hat to music’s past, present, and future. Stampede found its spark in a request from Willie Nelson. Nearly two years ago, the legend reached out to ask Orville to join him on a new version of Cowboys Are Frequently Secretly Fond of Each Other. Their cover served as the first single from Stampede, a two-part duets and collaborations album that unites Peck with some of the most singular voices in country, rock, alternative, and pop music from around the world. Icons like Elton John (who joins Orville for a rousing rendition of the classic Saturday Night’s Alright (For Fighting)) and Willie stand side by side on the track list, joined by artists like Midland, Noah Cyrus and more. Says Orville: “This project has always been something I’ve fantasized about, so to see it finally come to fruition really is a dream come true.”
Swami & The Bed of Nails
All Of This Awaits You
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “Swami & the Bed of Nails stars Swami John Reis (Hot Snakes, Drive Like Jehu, Rocket From The Crypt). Their debut album All Of This Awaits You was born out of the final Hot Snakes writing sessions in 2023. Transforming into what Reis describes as “a growing tributary” after the passing of his longtime friend and bandmate Rick Froberg, the songs on the nine-song album presented here come from this challenging time of reflection and redirection. All Of This Awaits You is an immediate blast of joy intended to celebrate our time on Earth. It is nostalgia for a past that probably never happened. It is the hope that the future will consider embracing the innocence of rock ‘n’ roll. It is an idealized pursuit intended to elevate the status of the simplest pleasures and ridicule the unattractive lust of the unhindered ambitious. The music is a reenactment of the past lives of elderly teenagers returning once again to sustain their echo. All Of This Awaits You is punk rock music, but your guess is as good as ours when it comes to the meaning of that.”
Ween
Chocolate And Cheese 30th Anniversary Edition
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “This 30th Anniversary Deluxe Edition of Ween’s fourth studio album finds the original 1994 album recut from the original master tapes by Bernie Grundman, alongside a special bonus disc curated by Dean and Gene Ween that includes 15 previously unreleased demos of classic and soon-to-be classic tracks from their personal archives. A brilliant fusion of gonzo pop, Chocolate And Cheese is arguably Ween‘s finest moment. The album proved once and for all that along with their twisted sense of humor and wide musical vocabulary, Dean and Gene Ween are impressive songwriters. Over the course of Chocolate And Cheese, Ween explore virtually every permutation of pop, rock, soul, and funk in their own unique (and very “brown”) way.”
Why?
The Well I Fell Into
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “For nearly three decades, Why? have thrived in subverting expectations. Across seven unpredictable and adventurous studio albums, the band led by Cincinnati songwriter Yoni Wolf has stretched the fringes of psychedelic pop, hip-hop, and electronic music. No matter the genre experiments and thematic departures, their discography is remarkably consistent, anchored by Wolf’s disarming lyrical transparency. His writing is provocative, self-lacerating, and always considered, coming from a place of blunt emotional openness. The Well I Fell Into, the eighth full-length from Why?, is Wolf at his most cohesive and poignant. An autopsy of heartbreak, the album charts the ups and downs of a devastating breakup while trading bitterness for healing. Self-released on Wolf’s new label, its 14 tracks stand as the band’s prettiest and most immediate work yet.”
X
Smoke & Fiction
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “Being great is one thing, but staying great for a long time is another. X have been great for 47 years, building their legend as one of America’s most original punk bands with seven albums between 1980 and 1993. Get ready to witness the culmination of an extraordinary journey as X unveil their ninth and final studio album Smoke & Fiction, produced by Rob Schnapf (Beck, Foo Fighters). Yes, you read that right — it’s their last hurrah. The poignant first single Big Black X reflects on the early history of X, their life in Hollywood, and the events unfolding in the world during those formative years. As Exene reflects on the band’s unique choice of their moniker, “X is a great band name; also a bad idea sometimes when it gets lost in print or on the marquee. Gotta have a sense of humor. We all did in the early days. Los Angeles was a carnival of weirdness back then, with leftover traces of silent movie stars, long-haired hippies, bikers, and brand new self-defined punks doing anything we wanted. When we started touring the country we found like-minded people everywhere, and somehow they all found us. Even if the X was lost on the old marquee.”
