Our selection of the best new music across a range of genres from the week ending 18 October 2024.
The 23-year-old, Maryland-raised songwriter Jordana (Jordana Nye) (photo above by Kacey Makal) arrived on the music scene with 2020’s Classical Notions of Happiness, an album of lo-fi pop and hushed folk songs recorded in her bedroom. She’d be back by the end of that same year with Something To Say To You, a compilation of two EPs featuring craggy indie rock and brokenhearted acoustic fare recorded in NYC apartment studios with friends. By 2022 she was swinging for the fences with the pristine pop of Face The Wall, all while shuttling back and forth between Brooklyn and her soon-to-be home of Eagle Rock in Los Angeles collaborating on a wide array of projects with a who’s who of Gen Z artists: Magdalena Bay, TV Girl, Yot Club, Paul Cherry, Dent May, Inner Wave. So her vibrant fourth LP, Lively Premonition, which is equal parts Laurel Canyon folk and shimmering yacht rock, should surprise no one.
While their name may conjure images of avian origami, rolled cannabis, or cut-up 10th letters, Paper Jays are an instrumental music body from Rhode Island that became fully formed during the session for their new eponymous release on ESP-disk. Prior, Jesse Cohen and Justin Hubbard’s guitar duo (a trio, only if counting the unmanned feedback drone of a hollow-bodied Gibson) had been contentedly performing and apartment taping for a solid five years. But after witnessing drummer and percussionist Matt Crane back Linda Sharrock at the local House of Pizza their vision for Paper Jays widened. The ensuing recording date with Crane yielded results that greatly pleased all three gentlemen, and a new Paper Jays began.
In April of 1998, fresh off their Grammy win for Best Latin Jazz Performance for their debut effort, Habana, Roy Hargrove’s Crisol went into a studio in Guadalupe to record their follow-up album. Until now, that album, Grande-Terre, has never been heard. Featuring an all-star band of Roy’s long-time collaborators, including trombonist Frank Lacy, pianist Larry Willis and drummer Willie Jones III, Grande-Terre showcases Hargrove’s fiery playing, his exquisite writing and the band’s incredible power and unique sound. Roy’s untimely passing in 2018 makes you wonder what this band could have achieved if they’d had the chance to continue developing their original approach to Latin Jazz.
Following his world tour with Bach’s Goldberg Variations, pianist and acclaimed interpreter of Bach’s works Víkingur Ólafsson has released his new record entitled Continuum. The work features six new interpretations of the iconic composer’s works, four of which Ólafsson arranged himself and two arrangements by other composers. He recorded the piano arrangements of Bach’s sacred music in Reykjavík’s Harpa concert hall in January 2024.
With Abracadabra, Klô Pelgag has fun whilst interrogating her own certainties and anxieties, in a powerful manifesto in search of meaning. An album that reaffirms her phenomenal abilities as a composer, arranger, producer and instrumentalist, and makes her one of the outstanding creative forces of her generation.
Dreamstate is Kelly Lee Owens’ fourth studio album. There’s a feeling of freedom and escapism found throughout the album Dreamstate. It’s the sound of a person letting loose and letting go while encouraging everyone else to do the same. Dreamstate is built on the foundations of collaboration, with producer-writer credits from Bicep, Tom Rowlands from The Chemical Brothers and George Daniel.
Skegss present Pacific Highway Music, their most masterful and fully realised work to date, out now via Loma Vista Recordings. The Byron Bay-bred band’s third full-length — and follow-up to their acclaimed sophomore album Rehearsal — brings a newly heightened creative energy to every aspect of their explosive yet introspective form of rock. Centered on Reed’s frenetic and playful lyricism, Pacific Highway Music ultimately finds Skegss exploring the more complicated elements of the human experience with sincerity, soul, and unabashed joie de vivre.
Other reviews you might enjoy:
- New music round-up (for w/e 15 December 2023)
- New music round-up (for w/e 1 December 2023)
- New music round-up (for w/e 1 November 2024)
David Edwards is the editor of The Blurb and a contributor on film and television