New music round-up (for w/e 11 October 2024)

Our selection of the best new music across a range of genres from the week ending 11 October 2024.

Pressing play on the self-produced Backbone will take listeners on a journey through not only where Kasey Chambers has been over the years, but where she’s at right now. Chambers enlisted some of the usual suspects to play on Backbone – her dad and guitarist Bill Chambers, her guitarist Brandon Dodd and longtime bassist Jeff McCormack. In a surprise twist, however, two first-timers also joined the fold in the studio: guitarist Sam Teskey, of The Teskey Brothers, and American drummer Brady Blade – who has drummed for Emmylou Harris, Steve Earle and the Dave Matthews to name only a few.

Office Dog is a rock band from New Zealand / Aotearoa. Doggerland is a collection of songs about loss and the journey to surfacing again. which is why it’s named after a piece of land that was once inhabited by people and then submerged by the sea. Sonically, the band wanted to take a moment to experiment before beginning to work on their upcoming sophomore album. With Doggerland, Office Dog leaves behind the more straightforward rock sound of their debut, Spiel, and bridges a gap between the soon to be released follow up.

Saxophonist and composer Immanuel Wilkins’ third studio album, Blues Blood, is a meditative offering partially inspired by his childhood, a multimedia performance about the legacies of our ancestors and the bloodlines connecting us. Co-produced by Meshell Ndegeocello, and featuring Micah Thomas on piano, Rick Rosato on bass, Kweku Sumbryon drums, and vocalists Ganavya, June McDoom and Yaw Agyeman—as well as special guest appearances by vocalist Cécile McLorin Salvant, guitarist Marvin Sewell, and drummer Chris Dave—it’s Wilkins’ most ambitious album to date. Blues Blood marks the first time Wilkins has included vocalists on an album, with each of the distinctive voices tapping into different aspects of heritage. Blues Blood feels airy and celestial, meant to be a soothing balm for anyone searching for peace, and for Black people trying to reconcile history in a country that tries to erase it. The album explores ‘blues’ as a symbol of radical optimism in the face of adversity and ‘blood’ as a symbol of all things ancestral and generational.

The Ouroboros – the icon of the snake or dragon eating its own tail – appears to some a statement of the brutality of nature. To others of a Gnostic disposition it symbolises the duality of the divine and earthly in mankind. But most commonly, it’s taken simply to mean the endless cycles of death and rebirth that characterise life on this planet. As such, it’s an image that looms large in the world of Goat, the ever-mysterious and endlessly revivifying collective whose latest album (self-titled) marks another adventure above and beyond this particular plane of reality.

Acclaimed band Tank and the Bangas are back with a three-part spoken word collection – The Heart, The Mind, The Soul (out now). The album features new poems from Tank and are selections from working with producer notables James Poyser, Robert Glasper, Iman Omari, Brian London and Austin Brown.

Warner Classics and Erato have released Nathalie Stutzmann’s album debut conducting the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra & Chorus. Beginning her studies with legendary Finnish teacher Jorma Panula, Stutzmann was later mentored by renowned conductors, Sir Simon Rattle the late Seiji Ozawa. This recording includes Dvorak’s Symphony No. 9 – From the New World – which has become ingrained in the American musical landscape and the lesser known American Suite which although was written around the same time is the New World symphony, was only premiered 6 years after his death.

Across Tucker Zimmerman’s over 50-year career, the Belgium-based/US-born octogenarian folk singer-songwriter has maintained a level of obscurity, earning a reputation as one of American folk music’s most underrated talents. 2024 finds Zimmerman finally resurfacing with Dance of Love, his 11th studio album and 4AD debut, on which Big Thief (and collaborators Mat Davidson and Zach Burba) served as his backing band. With the outcome of their efforts, listeners will find a multi-genre, heartfelt tracklisting of boot-stomping melodies and transportive meditations from a songwriter who’s had a full and exciting life decorated with meaningful friendships, hard but valuable lessons, worldly experience, and ultimately, lots of love.

Other reviews you might enjoy:

• New music round-up (for w/e 4 February 2022)
• New music round-up (for w/e 4 October 2024)
• New music round-up (for w/e 17 May 2024)