Our selection of the best new music across a range of genres from the week ending 10 February 2023.
Barefoot On Diamond Road is the third album from Dutch singer/songwriter Amber Arcades (a.k.a Annelotte de Graaf). A record of engaging maturity, filled with slow motion builds and epic lifts that elevate it to dizzying heights. Immersed in an all-consuming wall of sound, Barefoot On Diamond Road is like My Bloody Valentine gone acoustic, it shouldn’t work but it does; it’s a juxtaposition of textures, from skittery, uneasy dance-floor beats to symphonic kosmische, a baroque pop tapestry side-stitched with cellos and harps with a plaintive steel guitar echoing in the distance.
Bandleader, composer, educator and saxophonist extraordinaire Diego Rivera aspires to greater heights and unleashes the transcendent power of “Love and Peace” on his fourth release for Posi-Tone Records. With a program of exciting original compositions and a few heart-felt covers, the session swings swiftly into action and shines with bright moments from the get go. Also on the date is an all-star rhythm section of pianist Art Hirahara, bassist Boris Kozlov, and drummer Rudy Royston. With the deep emotionality of this musical offering, Rivera has noticeably advanced his intention and expression up onto another level and the poignancy of these performances will entreat jazz enthusiasts everywhere to dig deeper into his message of “Love and Peace” with amazement and delight.
Raven is the long-anticipated sequel to Kelela’s impeccable studio debut and is slated for release February 10, 2023. Kelela emerges from the tides of her higher self’s oceanic orbit with a fifteen-track, continuous play LP exploring autonomy, belonging and self-renewal as healing. With all the sonic, visual, and physical sensualism that magnetized her early core fanbase, Kelela’s new album finds her more certain and at ease with her creative fluidity’s exceptionality, no matter how high or wide its waves.
On Vertigo Days, the first album in seven years for The Notwist – one of Germany’s most iconic independent groups – are alive to the possibilities of the moment. Their music has long been open-minded and exploratory, but from its engrossing structure, through its combination of melancholy pop, clangorous electronics, hypnotic Krautrock and driftwork ballads, to its international musical guests, Vertigo Days is both a new step for The Notwist, and a reminder of just how singular they’ve always been. Most importantly, the core trio of Markus and Micha Acher and Cico Beck are reaching out: as Markus reflects, “we wanted to question the concept of a band by adding other voices and ideas, other languages, and also question or blur the idea of national identity.”
Arabella Steinbacher presents works for violin and orchestra by Johann Sebastian Bach and Arvo Pärt, together with violinist Christoph Koncz and the Stuttgarter Kammerorchester. Bach’s violin concertos have had a very special significance for Steinbacher ever since hearing the A Minor Concerto at the age of four, an experience that made her decide to become a musician. This seminal work is performed here alongside the E Major Violin Concerto and the Double Concerto in D Minor, on which she is joined by violinist Christoph Koncz. The Bach concertos are framed by two of Arvo Pärt’s most profound and enigmatic pieces: Fratres and Spiegel im Spiegel; the former in the version for violin, string orchestra and percussion, the latter rendered in a version for violin and piano, together with Peter von Wienhardt. Bach and Pärt may be centuries apart, but for Steinbacher, they have a spiritual and sacred origin in common, and their music resonates deeply with her.
Off the heels of her widely acclaimed debut album Still Water, Bailey Miller returns with eleven new songs of stripped back and hushed folk music. ‘love is a dying’ features Miller’s most intense gutiar work and lyrical content heard from the young multi-instrumentalist. Recorded as mostly one-take recordings, the songs have an emotional weight to them that sounds perfectly unadorned. While Bailey’s debut album took four years to create and process, ‘love is a dying’, is the multi-instrumentalist singer-songwriter at her most vulnerable and bare.
Naarm/Melbourne based electronic, drum & bass phenomenon NERVE have just released their debut long-form release Meridian Blaze, out now on Heavy Machinery Records. Meridian Blaze is comprised of four extreme rhythm workouts exploring notions of drum and bass, noise, electro, dark ambient, and industrial techno. Meridian Blaze expands upon the brutal hardware electronic sound of NERVE’s previous output to deftly incorporate the spine-tingling melodic sonorities of Melbourne’s extraordinary public sound sculpture: the Federation Bells. The result is an icily compelling collection of groundbreaking hybrid electro-acoustic sound works.
Other reviews you might enjoy:
- New music round-up
- New music round-up (for w/e 24 February 2023)
- New music round-up (for w/e 30 April 2021)
David Edwards is the editor of The Blurb and a contributor on film and television
