Our selection of the best new music across a range of genres from the week ending 22 November 2024.
Kim Deal (above: photo by Alex de Cortehas) has shared her debut solo album Nobody Loves You More. In keeping with Deal’s meticulous approach to her art, the album was refined over several years; its oldest songs were written and originally recorded in 2011 shortly after Deal came off the Pixies’ Lost Cities Tour and relocated to Los Angeles. Deal enlisted a variety of collaborators from Breeders past and present (Mando Lopez, twin sister Kelley Deal, Jim Macpherson, Britt Walford), to Raymond McGinley, Jack Lawrence, Savages’ Fay Milton and Ayse Hassan, and Steve Albini, who recorded much of the record. Nobody Loves You More was mixed by Marta Salogni and mastered by Heba Kadry.
Heavy Moss have released their genre-defying debut album, Dead Slow via p(doom) records. Formed in 2022 by Lucas Harwood (King Gizzard) & Sam Ingles, their debut album blends psychedelic pop with dreamy, melodic grooves & jangly guitar-driven tracks. Produced by King Gizzard’s Stu Mackenzie, they offer a fresh yet familiar & nostalgic take on modern psych.
Blue Note Records has released Forces of Nature: Live at Slugs’, a never-before-issued live recording of jazz legends McCoy Tyner and Joe Henderson leading a stellar quartet with bassist Henry Grimes and drummer Jack DeJohnette at the hallowed lost NYC jazz shrine, Slugs’ Saloon, in 1966. The release was produced by Zev Feldman with Jack and Lydia DeJohnette, and is available now. Tyner and Henderson had been forging a strong musical bond on Blue Note through the mid-60s with Tyner appearing on Henderson’s 1963 debut Page One as well as his 1964 albums In ‘N Out and Inner Urge, while Henderson would appear on Tyner’s own Blue Note debut The Real McCoy in 1967. The Slugs set list included two Henderson compositions that were originally recorded on his Blue Note albums: a blistering half-hour exploration of “In ‘N Out” and a joyous romp through “Isotope.”
After sweeping at the Grammy’s earlier this year with his album MICHAEL (winning Best Rap Album), and ending the night with being arrested, Killer Mike returned to the studio with a new sense of inspiration and creativity. What was born was the epilogue to the MICHAEL era with his new album, Michael & The Mighty Midnight Revival, Songs for Sinners and Saints.
Rimsky-Korsakov: Scheherazade, A Tale offers a new approach to the character of Scheherazade, with Rimsky-Korsakov’s musical masterpiece transcribed for the forces of Ensemble K and a previously unpublished text, freely adapted from the Thousand and One Nights and ancient love poems, which tells the story of Scheherazade. The Franco-Iranian actress Golshifteh Farahani plays Scheherazade, while Kristin Winters is her sister, Dinarzad.
Coyote Butterfly is the first album of new songs in two years from singer-songwriter Simon Joyner, following the death of his son, Owen, in August of 2022. Drawing on the kaleidoscopic nature of grief, Joyner explores his loss through a series of imagined dialogues and raw confessions. The album is a tribute to Owen, but what Joyner generously delivers is an intimate glimpse at his attempt to comprehend the incomprehensible.
‘we will be wherever the fires are lit’, a sort of sequel to Tashi Dorji’s first DC release Stateless, takes the torch and storms forward, with ten improvised acoustic guitar anthems. These musical thoughts are torn from the fabric of Tashi’s life and music. “Strumming in opposition to the towers” (as he puts it) is part of an existence that is always political, even in its most abstract iterations – a truth laid bare in these deep, raw performances.
Other reviews you might enjoy:
- New music round-up (for w/e 15 November 2024)
- New music round-up (for w/e 11 November 2022)
- New music round-up (for w/e 6 December 2024)
David Edwards is the editor of The Blurb and a contributor on film and television