Today is the biggest album release day of the year (so far, at least) with what seems like a wonderfully overwhelming amount of new music to check out, a lot of which is sure to wind up on a bunch of end of year best-of lists. This week also saw the return of Joni Mitchell and Neil Young to Spotify. The seasons changed as well. It’s an exciting time for new music!
Up first we have the latest album from Waxahatchee. Following her career-best and breakthrough album Saint Cloud, Crutchfield teamed-up with Jess Williamson to form the excellent duo Plains and now she’s back with her proper follow-up under her main project. Tigers Blood is led by the song-of-the-year contender “Right Back to It” as well as the other excellent singles “Bored” and “365” and positions itself as the album Waxahatchee was born to make, a fully realized work to rank amongst the all-time best.
Today also sees the new solo album from Big Thief vocalist Adrianne Lenker. After a plethora of fantastic releases from her band, Lenker shared the wonderful songs and instrumentals and now is back with another glowing solo album that seems simple on paper, but is full of boundless music that’s expertly crafted from one of music’s most gifted songwriters of the moment.
Footwork and experimental electronic artist Jlin has made some of the most forward-thinking and genre-pushing music for a few years now and she’s back with another release of complex, twitching beats that will leave your head spinning in the best way possible as you navigate the dizzying rhythms and abstract sonics.
For over a decade, Julia Holter has made grand, sweeping musical statements that swirl with ambient bliss while not reaching too far into the cosmos. Her adept songwriting showcases her striking spirit and offers up ethereal charm like no other. Noise-pop originators The Jesus and Mary Chain are back this week as well with their second post-reunion record which they say is yet another entry into their well-established sound of blown-out walls of sound with bubblegum-pop inspired melodies.
After dropping the stellar single “Do Dat Baby” with Dawn Richard, the new album from Cakes da Killa has been a highly-anticipated drop and today we get to enjoy the rest of the album from one of rap’s most intriguing and risk-taking artists who has prepared one of their boldest statements yet. Following last year’s excellent Erotic Probiotic 2, Nourished by Time is back with a new EP that continues to push the ‘90s R&B vibes he supremely locked down on his last album and further pushes the nostalgia into his comfort zone.
On the ambient side of things, Pan-American and Kramer have dropped their surreal and moving new album Reverberations of Non-Stop Traffic On Redding Road which will surely put you in the zone as you succumb to the audio bliss and refined movements of pure pleasures. After signing with Fire Talk Records earlier in the year, Wild Pink surprised released a new EP full of richly textured guitar anthems that create bleary-eyes swells of emotional and towering anthemic tunes.
A previously unreleased live recording of Alice Coltrane at Carnegie Hall in 1971 has finally been released thanks to Impulse! Records dubbing this “the year of Alice,” and now we’re treated to a wonderful reissue of this astounding performance that also includes legends like Pharoah Sanders, Archie Shepp, and Jimmy Garrison joining Coltrane onstage and affirms her place as a spiritual jazz innovator and one of the best to ever do it.
Last year, Bill Orcutt took a quartet on tour to play the music from his album Music for Four Guitars live and now he’s released a live recording from one of the shows. Catching them in Brooklyn last March was one of the highlights of my live shows from last year and to hear these songs brought to life again will undoubtedly be special.
Olivia Rodrigo was a dominant force in pop music last year with the release of her sophomore record GUTS. She’s on tour in support of the album now and this week she announced that today she’d be sharing five additional bonus songs from the album that were previously exclusive to her vinyl releases.
For his latest track, Shabaka called in a murderer’s row of guests from the likes of Floating Points, Laraaji, André 3000, Esperanza Spalding, Carlos Niño, and more to help create his latest hypnotic, spiritual jam that ascends to a new astral plane. The track is a sprawling, nearly eight-minute journey through ambient and new age jazz with wordless vocals giving it extra texture towards the end on its quest towards a new spiritual plane.
On the second single from her upcoming third album, Maggie Rogers embraces the idea of being better off without an ex and adds some country twang to her pop/rock profile, giving us a golden hour tune that radiates with a sunlit haze.
Noise rockers METZ are known for big, blown-out walls of sound, but on their new single, they take inspiration from the likes of Jesu and Low for something that pushes their sound into a slightly new territory, which is a refreshing move after several albums of endless punk assault.
Ever-prolific, The Reds, Pinks and Purples will deliver yet another new album next month and on their new single “What’s Going on with Ordinary People,” the gloomy jangle-poppers settle into their breezy aesthetics for some of their most refined work yet.
In the late aughts, Justice began to rev-up the EDM engine that would soon become a major force in the music scene across America. Now, the French duo are gearing up to drop their first album in seven years and the latest single adds yet another guest into the mix (this time R&B singer Miguel), but doesn’t do much else to add new depth to their already boisterous and pounding sounds.
Toxic sludge metal greats Pallbearer announced their new album and shared the lead single, “Where the Light Fades.” Psych-rock guitars build towards heavy doom influences before the fuzz accelerates and the band kicks into high gear. Grunge-pop band Cloud Nothings know how to consistently make solid rock tracks with filling beats and big riffs and they do it once again on “I’d Get Along.”
Albums:
Waxahatchee | Tigers Blood
Adrianne Lenker | Bright Future
Future / Metro Boomin | We Don’t Trust You
Jlin | Akoma
Julia Holter | Something In The Room She Moves
The Jesus And Mary Chain | Glasgow Eyes
Gossip | REAL POWER
Cakes da Killa | Black Sheep
Pan American & Kramer | Reverberations of Non-Stop Traffic On Redding Road
Nourished By Time | Catching Chickens EP
Wild Pink | Strawberry Eraser EP
Alice Coltrane | The Carnegie Hall Concert [live album]
Bill Orcutt Guitar Quartet | Four Guitars Live [live album]
Olivia Rodrigo | GUTS (spilled) [Deluxe edition]
Songs:
Shabaka | “I’ll Do Whatever You Want” (ft Floating Points and Laraaji)
Maggie Rogers | “So Sick of Dreaming”
METZ | “Light Your Way Home”
Two Shell | “Talk to Me” (ft FKA twigs)
Cloud Nothings | “I’d Get Along”
The Reds, Pinks and Purples | “What’s Going on with Ordinary People”
Pearl Jam | “Running”
Pallbearer | “Where the Light Fades”
Khruangbin | “Pon Pón”
Justice | “Saturnine” (ft Miguel)
Tei Shi | “No Falta”
Joe Armon-Jones | “Nubya’s Side of Town” (ft Nubya Garcia)
Bat for Lashes | “Letter to My Daughter”
If you’re a Spotify user, you can listen to these songs (and more from 2024) here!