Canadian icons. Minneapolis veterans. British rockers. New York legends. Australian weirdos. Irish popsters. Danish garage-punks. Texas troubadours. And they’re just the first leg of this multi-stage musical travelogue. Fasten your seatbelt, put your chair and table in the upright position, sit back and enjoy the flight:
Being Dead
Eels
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “Being Dead know how to make an entrance — within the first several seconds of Eels, the duo’s new record, the bright, hard-strummed guitar line on Godzilla Rises conjures cinematic immediacy, a creature emerging from the depths of the ocean in campy, freaky stop motion, fittingly so. Being Dead’s records are mosaics, technicolor incantations, each song its own self-contained little universe. And while the dreamlike Eels probes further into the depths of the duo Being Dead’s psyche, it is, most importantly, in the year of our lord 2024, a 16-track record that is genuinely unpredictable from one track to the next: A joyous and unexpected trip helmed by two true-blue freak bitch besties holed up in a lil’ house in the heart of Austin. They decamped to Los Angeles for two weeks to record with Grammy-winning producer John Congleton, writing songs for the record until days before they left. The radical shift in process was welcome — a good balance and a challenge, Congleton helping them find new ways to work and helping peel back the layers on the core of their songwriting. Being Dead have grown from a duo to a trio live, including bassist Nicole Roman-Johnston. The resulting Eels is a darker record, tapped more into the devilishness within, but it’s also a more raucous, rougher ride sonically.”
Chicago
At The John. F. Kennedy Center For The Performing Arts, Washington D.C., 9/16/1971
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “Chicago were one of the first groups to perform at the Kennedy Center after it opened in September 1971. That historic concert has been newly re-mixed from the original multi-track tapes by founding member and trumpeter Lee Loughnane and engineer Tim Jessup. The Kennedy Center performance includes more than two hours of live music by Robert Lamm (keyboard, vocals), Terry Kath (guitar, vocals), Peter Cetera (vocals, bass), Danny Seraphine (drums), Lee Loughnane (trumpet, vocals), James Pankow (trombone) and Walt Parazaider (woodwinds, vocals). The show explores all three studio albums that Chicago released since their 1969 debut. The songs span a range of styles, underscoring the band’s ability to blend genres seamlessly. There are rockers (25 Or 6 To 4 and I’m A Man), ballads (Colour My World and Beginnings), jazz-influenced tracks (Does Anybody Really Know What Time It Is?), and extended song suites (Ballet For A Girl In Buchannon and It Better End Soon.)”
The Courettes
The Soul Of… The Fabulous Courettes
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “A rock ’n’ roll sensation from the word go, Danish-Brazilian duo The Courettes are back with their fourth and best album to date: The Soul Of… The Fabulous Courettes. And this time, they’re bigger, wider and deeper than ever before as they add more to the blistering ramalama that’s seen them cause pandemonium across the venues, festivals and airwaves of the U.K., Europe, U.S.A. and Japan. Hitting the sweet spot that straddles garage rock, girl groups, doo-wop harmonies, heartache and all points in between, here The Courettes build on the momentum of predecessor Back In Mono with a collection of songs that opens up their sonic scope while confronting dark, emotional matter to reveal The Soul Of… The Fabulous Courettes. “We didn’t want to do Back In Mono 2,” stresses drummer Martin Couri. “We always try to put ourselves into a zone of discomfort, which I think is where exciting things happen rather than just doing the same thing over again,” agrees singer, guitarist and multi-instrumentalist Flavia Couri. “I mean, I know some bands can do that but we don’t see ourselves making the same album for the next 20 years. We thought Back In Mono was our best album until this one!” She’s not wrong. Having evolved with each album release, The Soul Of… draws inspiration from many of the duo’s numerous idols that have only previously been hinted at. “We wanted to show our love of the Spector Wall Of Sound and Motown,” reveals Flavia. “It was a clear mission and we’ve absolutely nailed it.”
Burton Cummings
A Few Good Moments
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “After over a decade, Burton Cummings is back with a brand-new solo album, A Few Good Moments. Produced by Cummings, A Few Good Moments sees the renowned artist and lead singer and principal songwriter of The Guess Who backed by his longtime band. Highlights include Up To The Minute, which was co-written with Jim Vallance (co-writer of some of Bryan Adams’ biggest hits), a pair of songs co-written with guitarist Michael Zweig, Magic Town and Speak To Me, as well as a cover rendition of Shape I’m In, written by Marc Benno, Doyle Bramhall and Doyle Bramhall II and originally performed by blues-rock supergroup Arc Angels. “The songs on this album took a while to become the proper collection,” says Cummings. “I believe in these songs because they are the result of having lived more years. At this point I have no interest in writing teenage love songs. Aging has changed the writing and that’s natural. I believe in these songs and I hope that the people who have followed my material enjoy them. I want this album to stand up when it’s listened to years from now.”
John Davis
Jinx
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “Jinx was supposed to be a Superdrag album. It even started tracking as one. But the exercise of recording in fits and starts ultimately found the endeavor sputtering to a stop. Superdrag ran out of patience, time and energy. But John Davis, heart-on-the-sleeve songwriter that he is, knew that these songs needed to be saved. “Stewart Pack has been a hero of mine for about 30 years,” John says. “He was the guitarist and the singer in my favorite Knoxville band ever, Pegclimber.” John had collaborated with Stewart on past projects like skate-punk revival band Epic Ditch, but what John was really looking for was to be put in touch with Stewart’s son, Henry, who was fast becoming one of the most sought-after engineers in town. Not to mention a monster drummer. What John got from that call was a twofer — Henry agreed to engineer, and Stewart signed up to produce. The father-son combo also quickly slotted in as John’s rhythm section. Suddenly — and, yes, heroically — there was a brand-new John Davis band. They took their cues from Minutemen, Meat Puppets, Hüsker Dü and Dinosaur Jr. (all, not incidentally, SST Records stalwarts) and used the spartan, no frills rock sensibility of the Ramones as inspiration. But they weren’t looking to go punk on John’s songs as much as go lean. “We weren’t gonna be bound by any of the earlier arrangements or earlier decisions about the songs and what we wanted to do was eliminate all the fat.”
Efterklang
Things We Have In Common
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “We all have witnesses to our journey through life. Family, friends, partners, colleagues who have followed us. Many of them do not want us to change. They want us to maintain the familiar position in the community. That’s not the case in Efterklang. The Danish trio has proven to be an open family with room for new ideas, radical shifts, and varying collaborators. A band in flux. With their seventh studio album Things We Have In Common, a circle closes. It began with Altid Sammen and continued with Windflowers. For Efterklang, these albums have been an opening towards a simpler, more inclusive expression. It feels like the band has let go. The harmonic tensions are gentler, the tonal language more straightforward. Altid Sammen explored human community. Windflowers explored the relationship between humans and nature. And Things We Have In Common is about collective spirituality and belonging. There is a generosity at play. It’s music open to longing souls and aching beings. With the possibility of both enlightenment and relief. It’s the music of arms reaching out and healing hands. The sound of giving, receiving, and accepting that everything changes.”
Andre Ethier
Cold Spaghetti
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “There’s a sense of nostalgia for the lost freedom of making art that permeates the Cold Spaghetti, but Andre Ethier‘s writing also indicates an awareness of how one’s stubborn desire to create can impact the people closest to them. These more inward tendencies are tempered by the inescapable freshness ushered in by the unorthodox methods in which Andre conceived the songs. This quality imbues the album with a certain intangible feeling of hope. Cold Spaghetti offers a new vantage point on Ethier’s deeply personal approach to songcraft. In fully digesting and ultimately breaking down the separation between “mundane” and “artistic” life, he’s discovered new evocative channels.”
Christian Lee Hutson
Paradise Pop. 10
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “Paradise Pop. 10 feels a lot like finding an unpublished collection of short stories, scrawled hastily on the sides of airsickness bags and cocktail napkins, each one detailing the life of the unwitting passenger fortunate enough to be seated next to Christian Lee Hutson on their flight to Fort Worth. From the first line of the first song on this new album — “Tonight your name is Charlotte / In a play within a play” — he reminds the listener that he is again weaving a web of autobiographical fiction. However, this time he has somehow both simplified and sharpened his style. On Paradise Pop. 10 you will visit the CC Club in Minneapolis, a San Francisco stage production of a Tom Stoppard play, a bowling alley at the Jersey Shore, and a 2003 Subaru where two dads consider kissing each other after a game of pickup basketball. A captivating, breezy charm permeates every track, with each song hooked around Hutson’s warm, earthy vocals and dexterous story-telling. Whether fragile, finger-picking folk or rousing, beachy, power pop, these songs are informed by a sense of creeping melancholy about the place Hutson had spent most of his life; the sprawling, inscrutable city of Los Angeles had become haunted in his mind. A move to the East Coast, and the “eyes up” city of New York, was required to refresh his memory banks. “I wanted to make an eyes-up record,” he says. “A looking forward record.”
Holly Macve
Wonderland
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “Having been declared by Lana Del Rey as “one of the most beautiful singing voices in the world,” Holly Macve returns with her third album Wonderland. Released on her own imprint, Wonderland is Macve’s most opulent, cinematic, luxurious album yet and confirms Macve’s status as one of the U.K.’s most exciting songwriters. When singer-songwriter Holly Macve wrote her third albumWonderland, it coincided with a period of profound transformation — but not in any way she could have imagined. “It’s been a time of real change in my life,” she shares. “Moments of extreme highs and extreme lows, it’s just kind of been chaos.” Now taking ownership of her journey in every possible way, optimistic that the future is finally looking a lot brighter. “I think that Wonderland is meant to represent the next chapter in my life, which is me being unashamedly myself,” she says,”and just appreciating being alive.”
Maxïmo Park
Stream Of Life
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “The road to Maxïmo Park’s eighth studio album Stream Of Life saw the band link up once again with Ben Allen (Gnarls Barkley, Animal Collective), Grammy-winning producer of 2021’s near-chart-topping, pandemic-era tour de force Nature Always Wins, and as a result it marks the first time they have all been together in a studio to make an album since 2016. It finds the band in perhaps the most reflective state they’ve been in. Lead singer Paul Smith, this most lit-pop of lyric writers, took the album title from a short story by Ukrainian-born Brazilian writer Clarice Lispector, inspired by both its stream of consciousness style and the way it prompts reflection on the inner mechanisms of people’s minds. It begs the question of why they do the things that they do, even when they can seem counterintuitive to the outsider. There’s an inner flow to every individual — a stream of life.”
JD McPherson
Nite Owls
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “JD McPherson has created something unique and amazing with his latest album Nite Owls, his first album release since 2018’s critically acclaimed Christmas classic Socks. Over the past five-plus years, McPherson has stayed consistently busy writing new songs while at the same time touring with Alison Krauss and Robert Plant. Being a touring musician offers the chance to see the sights, tour the town and pick up some inspiration from the local record shop. With Nite Owls, JD wanted to try something new and different. He wanted to take the inspiration from multiple decades and styles and incorporate them into his own sound. “The initial idea for the record was: It’s like if the late-’60s Ventures were the session band on the first New Order record.” Says, McPherson. Idea achieved.”
Neva Dinova
Canary
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “It’s a new chapter in the history of Neva Dinova. Although the band are beloved by many, they’ve never had the same name recognition as their Omaha-bred peers and collaborators like Bright Eyes and Cursive. However that’s likely to change with the band’s reinvigorating new full-length Canary, which features a new lineup, fresh perspective and a sound that’s more urgent than anything they’ve created in the past. Neva Dinova frontman Jake Bellows has been making music since the band’s self-titled debut was released 22 years ago — and has released music under his own name, including 2013’s excellent New Ocean — but he’s always stayed out of the spotlight. While there was talk of reactivating Neva Dinova pre-pandemic, the catalyst ended up being an offer from Cursive to support them on tour last year. “Initially I said no because we didn’t have a band at that point,” Bellows explains. “Tim (Kasher of Cursive) asked what I needed and I said, ‘A bass player, two guitar players and a van.’ ” Kasher suggested Cursive’s cello player Megan Siebe could play bass and volunteered himself and Ted Stevens to play guitar. All of a sudden, he had a band. “Basically he removed all my barriers of entry and so I was like, ‘All right, let’s do it’ and immediately I wanted to play new songs.”
