New music round-up

Our selection of the best new music across a range of genres from the week ending 9 October 2020.

Future Islands have released their sixth album As Long As You Are via 4AD.As Long As You Are looks to the past as well as the future, confronting old ghosts and embracing a new hope. It is an album about trust, full of honesty, redemption and “letting go”, allowing old wounds to heal and bringing painful chapters to a close. The album features singles ‘Born In A War’, ‘Moonlight’, ‘Thrill’ and ‘For Sure’. Signalling a new era for Future Islands, touring drummer Mike Lowry officially joins as a fully-fledged member and songwriter bolstering the founding trio of William Cashion, Samuel T. Herring and Gerrit Welmers.

Following her debut album Rise, which reached No.1 in the UK Classical chart, saxophonist Jess Gillam has released TIME on Decca Classics. The album mirrors the arc of energy in a passing day and the constant orbit of our existence. With a huge range of styles, moods and influences, the music offers the listener a space to immerse themselves in an oasis of sound and reflection. Gillam carefully curated the recording to be experienced as a whole, accompanying the listener through the unrelenting cycles of life itself – it will make you want to dance, pause, soar with the melodies or simply just smile.

Fleet Foxes have released their fourth studio album Shore via Anti-, and it’s available to stream now. Shore was recorded before and during quarantine in Hudson (NY), Paris, Los Angeles, Long Island City and New York City from September 2018 until September 2020 with the help of recording and production engineer Beatriz Artola.The fifteen song, fifty-five minute Shore was initially inspired by frontman Robin Pecknold’s musical heroes such as Arthur Russell, Nina Simone, Sam Cooke, Emahoy Tsegué-Maryam Guebrou and more who, in his experience, celebrated life in the face of death.

Ron Miles wrote most of his new album, Rainbow Sign, as his father was passing away. It was the summer of 2018, and as Miles puts it, his relationship with his dad was transitioning as well. “I became more of a caregiver to him,” says the prominent jazz cornetist and bandleader. “I was so happy that we made it all the way around, and that he was able to know before he passed just how much he was loved.” That’s why Rainbow Sign feels so endearing: it scores the journey from Earth to eternal peace. Rainbow Sign, which marks Miles’ debut for Blue Note Records, is an outpouring of all the music Miles would listen to as a young boy growing up in Indiana. He’d spend countless hours listening to the radio; throughout his home, his parents listened to everything from Billie Holiday, Ray Charles, and Curtis Mayfield, to Stevie Wonder, Hank Williams, and Max Roach.

Harpist Mary Lattimore returns with Silver Ladders, the full-length follow-up to acclaimed album Hundreds of Days. Since 2018, Lattimore has toured internationally, released collaborative albums with artists such as Meg Baird and Mac McCaughan, and shared a friends-based remix album featuring artists such as Jónsi and Julianna Barwick. At one of her festival appearances, Lattimore met Slowdive’s Neil Halstead. Recorded over nine days at Halstead’s studio stationed on an old airfield, Silver Ladders finds Lattimore exercising command and restraint. Her signature style is refined, the sprawling layers of harp reigned in and accented by flourishes of low-end synth and Halstead’s guitar.

Curtis Waters has released his genre-defying debut album Pity Party; a record written, produced, performed and mixed by the Nepal-born, North Carolina based artist. Made entirely in his bedroom at the home he shares with his family in North Carolina, Pity Party features his debut hit single ‘Stunnin’’ Ft. Harm Franklin, which has now surpassed more than 350 combined global streams, and has entered the Top 40 US Radio charts. Pity Party also features fan favorites ‘SYSTEM,’, ‘The Feelings Tend To Stay The Same’ [Official Video] and ‘Freckles,’ [Official Video] alongside 8 additional tracks.