New music round-up (for w/e 14 April 2023)
Our selection of the best new music across a range of genres from the week ending 14 April 2023.
Kristian Matsson – a.k.a. The Tallest Man On Earth – returns with Henry St., his sixth studio album. Henry St. notably marks the first time he recorded an album in a band setting. “My entire career I’ve been a DIY person––mostly fueled by the feeling that I didn’t know what I was doing, so I’d just do everything myself.” But now, longing for the energy that’s only released when creating together with others, Matsson invited his friends to come and play. Nick Sanborn (of Sylvan Esso) produced Henry St., which includes contributions from Ryan Gustafson (of The Dead Tongues) on guitar, lap steel and ukulele, TJ Maiani on drums, CJ Camerieri (of Bon Iver) on trumpet and French horn, Phil Cook on piano and organ, Rob Moose (of Bon Iver) on strings and Adam Schatz on saxophone.
Three decades into an unparalleled career, Kid Koala continues to grow his immersive this-dimensional real-life cartoon musical universe with each orbit around the sun. The world renowned DJ, composer, and lifelong visual storyteller also known as Eric San today announces his latest foray into the depths of “creating things to joyfully connect people.” Entitled Creatures Of The Late Afternoon, the new double album is the soundtrack to an accompanying board game centered around a cast of creatures who band together through the power of music to save their habitat from destruction. Built integrally into the vinyl gatefold jacket, the board game is set at a communal hub of DIY recording studios where various bands of creatures collaborate to explore different ways of expressing and enjoying music.
Saxophonist/composer Wayne Escoffery celebrates the chemistry shared by his closest musical collaborators on Like Minds featuring special guests Gregory Porter, Tom Harrell, Mike Moreno, and Daniel Sadownick who join Escoffery’s acclaimed quartet with David Kikoski, Ugonna Okegwo, and Mark Whitfield, Jr. These musicians may approach music with a similar mindset, but all arrived from very different places. Escoffery grew up in London, England, moving often throughout his adolescence before settling in Connecticut, where he studied with the legendary saxophonist Jackie McLean. He teaches there now at Yale University, where his mother worked in an administrative position, as well as at NJPAC in New Jersey. A Grammy Award and DownBeat Critics’ Poll winner, he is one of the musical directors of The Mingus Big Band and has performed with a who’s who of jazz including Herbie Hancock, Tom Harrell, Ron Carter, Ben Riley, Al Foster, Monty Alexander, Eddie Henderson, Wallace Roney, and others.
The Czech composer Antonín Dvořák was gaining international fame during the latter part of the 19th century for a string of highly successful and popular works across many genres. His Cello Concerto was premiered in London in 1896 – its symphonic character and wonderful melodic invention made the concerto one of his most beloved and frequently performed works. The Rondo, Op. 94 owes its Slavic nature to the popular melody on which it is based, while the enchanting Silent Woods and soulful Laßt mich allein! are both arrangements from previous works. These pieces are performed by the award-winning cellist Enrico Dindo – praised by Rostropovich for an extraordinary sound that ‘flows as a splendid Italian voice’ – on his new album, out now on Dynamic.
Petite Noir is the architect of Noirwave – a musical and cultural movement that draws creative energy from punk aesthetics and the fragmented identity of today’s African diaspora. The Congolese artist was born in Belgium, raised in South Africa, and is now based between London and Paris. MotherFather is his long-awaited second album, and it has a subtitle: ‘The darkness is comforting sometimes’. As Petite Noir explains: “It’s about going through the darkness. But it’s also about rebirth. Because the dark times are needed for us to grow.”
More in tune now with the rhythm of the sun and moon, Xylouris White speak to each other across great distances with the intuition and fellowship that can only be found over years in each other’s company. With fewer distractions, appreciative of the freedom to play with new sounds and spaces, they carve The Forest In Me from unbelievably thin air.
The new album, Exotico, by British psychedelic band Temples is out now via ATO Records. Exotico marks the band’s most far-reaching collection thus far, a 16-track panoramic musical travelogue set beyond the horizon on an impossibly utopic island where every song serves as a different stop along the atoll, from beaches with azure blue waters to forest canopies enveloped in rare birdsong. Recorded in studios in London, Brighton, and Worcestershire, songs like “Afterlife” and “Oval Stones” see Temples – with additional multi-instrumental and vocal accompaniment from Lennon as well as extra vocals from Charlotte Kemp Muhl (The Ghost of a Saber Tooth Tiger) – painting visionary new vistas with cascading melodic waterfalls, contemplative lyrical exploration, and an imaginative creative wanderlust unlike anything previously heard in the band’s already ambitious body of work.
Other reviews you might enjoy:
- New music round-up (for w/e 12 January 2024)
- Exotico (Temples) – music review
- New music round-up (for w/e 5 April 2024)
David Edwards is the editor of The Blurb and a contributor on film and television