Our selection of the best new music across a range of genres from the week ending 1 September 2023.
Acclaimed psych indie rocker Karina Rykman has dropped her debut album, JOYRIDE, available everywhere now via AWAL. JOYRIDE expertly captures Rykman’s jubilant brand of sonic exploration, bridging an array of genres to arrive at her own compelling and original take on psychedelic indie rock. Written and recorded with childhood friend, and producer Gabe Monro, the album serves as a vivid canvas for Rykman’s vibrant expression and chameleonic songcraft. JOYRIDE features Trey Anastasio as co-producer and featured musician, contributing guitar on five of the album’s nine tracks.
Max Ionata, one of the leading saxophonists of the contemporary jazz scene, released his 14th album Like via Mingus Music label. Ionata, who has achieved a flawless tone and harmonic success in all his albums, including the albums he played as a sideman, has worked wonders in this album. He is accompanied by two Danish master musicians, Jesper Bodilsen on double bass and Martin Maretti Andersen on drums.
Alt-pop artist Birthh has shared her kaleidoscopic third studio album Moonlanded, out everywhere now. Moonlanded was written, recorded, and produced alongside collaborator London O’Connor in Birthh’s apartment studio, appropriately named The Moonbase. Never one to shy away from emotions, Birthh proudly wears her heart on her sleeve throughout the project, discovering what it means to truly be alive today.
While the concept of the programmatic and autobiographical quartet seems to have been introduced by Beethoven, nowhere has it been taken up more forcefully than in the Czech lands, as the works presented by the Escher String Quartet on Janáček & Haas attest. Leoš Janáček’s first quartet, subtitled ‘Kreutzer Sonata’, is based on a novella by Leo Tolstoy, which deals with such subjects as marriage, adultery and murder, all of which are evoked here by highly expressive music. The second quartet, the last major work he completed, is subtitled ‘Intimate Letters’. The special feature of this unique and miraculous quartet, full of love songs and eruptions, is the intense and euphoric expression of the composer’s inspirational and unrequited passion for a young woman. Pavel Haas, who studied with Janáček in Brno in the 1920s, composed his second string quartet subtitled ‘From the Monkey Mountains’ in 1925. Although the composer claims that he intended to evoke ‘pleasant summer holidays in the country’, it seems that the work also evokes a love story. A surprise is in store for us in the final movement, entitled ‘A Wild Night’: percussion is added to the string quartet and contributes to the jazzy atmosphere. It is played here by the Scottish virtuoso Colin Currie.
Over the past decade Frankie and the Witch Fingers have operated as an outright force of nature, offering up a revelatory form of psych-rock that hits on both a primal and ecstatically mind-bending level. In the making of their new album Data Doom, the Los Angeles-based four-piece forged a sublimely galvanizing sound informed by their love of Afrobeat and proto-punk—a potent vessel for their frenetic meditations on technological change run rampant, encroaching fascism, and corrosive systems of power. Animated by the explosive energy they’ve brought to the stage in sharing bills with such eclectic acts as Ty Segall and ZZ Top, the result is a major leap forward for one of the most adventurous and forward-thinking bands working today.
Writing on the Wall is a career-defining album bursting with Coco Montoya’s fierce guitar and passion-laden vocals, and the first to feature his long-time road band. Thirteen tracks of searing blues, soulful R&B and high-energy rock & roll include ten originals, five co-written by Coco, and include guest appearances by Ronnie Baker Brooks and Lee Roy Parnell. Co-produced by Grammy Award-winner Tony Braunagel (Bonnie Raitt, Taj Mahal) and Jeff Paris (Keb’ Mo’, Bill Withers).
With his new album, Let All Who Will, acclaimed singer and songwriter Chris Pierce delivers a powerful set of songs that amplify unheralded voices and aim to bring us together across the bitter trenches that divide us. Pierce’s new album is a follow-up to his critically acclaimed 2021 acoustic album, American Silence. Co-produced by Niko Bolas (Neil Young, The Mavericks) and Dave Resnik (Sonia Dada, Mavis Staples), Let All Who Will was recorded in Hollywood, CA at the legendary Sunset Sound. The new album is packed with intense storytelling, intuitive spontaneity, and powerful performances that capture a vivid snapshot of the kinship at the sessions, all supporting Pierce’s unmistakable and soulfully dynamic vocals. It’s clear from his songwriting that Chris Pierce holds a strong belief that songs can cut through the isolated and static feelings of individuals worn down by the uncertainty of everyday life.
Other reviews you might enjoy:
- New music round-up (for w/e 4 October 2024)
- New music round-up (for w/e 24 March 2023)
- New music round-up (for w/e 3 November 2023)
David Edwards is the editor of The Blurb and a contributor on film and television
