Our selection of the best new music across a range of genres from the week ending 27 August 2021.
“Everything has to be said.” This is the conviction guiding Indigo De Souza’s sophomore album, Any Shape You Take. This dynamic record successfully creates a container for the full spectrum—pushing through and against every emotion: “I wanted this album to give a feeling of shifting with and embracing change. These songs came from a turbulent time when I was coming to self-love through many existential crises and shifts in perspective.” Faithful to its name, Any Shape You Take changes form to match the tenor of each story it tells.
Founded in 2007 at the Yehudi Menuhin School, the Sitkovetsky Trio has now emerged as one of the outstanding young trios of today, in high demand throughout Europe. Praised by The Strad for unbounded, tireless energy , and by Classical Source for formidable technique with a mature understanding of the music, the ensemble has been supported by the Wigmore Hall Emerging Talent scheme. The Sitkovetsky Trio s recital at Wigmore Hall in September 2013 is now available on CD, and features two great works of the genre. Brahms s Piano Trio No. 3 in C minor, arguably one of the composer s most concentrated and intense scores, precedes Schubert s Piano Trio No. 2 in E flat, first performed in 1828 in a concert consisting entirely of Schubert s own music the only event of its kind to take place in his lifetime.
Rage, confusion, despair, self-deception, and introspection — Madi Diaz cycles through the full spectrum of emotions on History Of A Feeling, her debut on ANTI- Records. It’s an album that undeniably marks Diaz’s status as a first-rate songwriter, a craft she’s spent years refining, and one wherein Diaz establishes herself as an artist capable of distilling profound feelings with ease. On History Of A Feeling, Diaz comes to terms with the dissolution of a meaningful relationship. By the end of it, she wills herself into a self-reflective state where she doesn’t hate herself for being so heartbroken. She plays the line between the personal and the general with dexterity: in Diaz’s hands, quiet moments of self-pity are transformed into grand meditations on heartbreak, and unwieldy knots of big existential feelings are smoothed out with a sense of clear-eyed precision.
Tenor saxophonist Timo Lassy, one of Finland’s leading jazz artists, is back with a new album release: Trio on We Jazz Records. The album introduces Lassy’s new combo with bassist Ville Herrala and drummer Jaska Lukkarinen – both We Jazz Records roster artists on their own right. The new Lassy sound is tight, swinging and funky, led by the strong and riff-ready sax of the tenorman. That being said, the album’s sound is not limited to that of the swinging trio. Lassy’s new vision also brings in some subtle electronics (played by Lassy, Dalindèo frontman Valtteri Laurell Pöyhönen and Ilmiliekki Quartet pianist Tuomo Prättälä) and lush strings performed by Budapest Art Orchestra as arranged by Finnish artist Marzi Nyman. It’s a new sound for Lassy, but one which keeps true to his no-nonsense cookin’ on the tenor.
Sydney born and bred alt-rock band With Confidence have released their new self-titled album, alongside the brand new single, “What You Make It”. With Confidence are known for their catchy riffs and insanely energetic live show. Their debut with Hopeless Records, Better Weather, and the follow up, Love and Loathing, are available to stream on all platforms now.
Marisa Anderson and William Tyler distill deeply rooted and varied traditions into distinctive voices all their own. Anderson and Tyler are unyielding in their desire to extend through those traditions and the confines of “guitar music” to craft music at once intimate and expansive, conversational and transcendent. The duo’s debut collaborative album, Lost Futures, tethers together their singular voices into unified narratives that glisten, drive, and sway. Across the record, Anderson and Tyler mould their instruments into breathtaking panoramas of blight and bliss. Each movement contains a dense biome of transportive sound. The duo’s music together reckons with mounting pressures as well as the joy of newfound friendship and gratitude for being able to play together. In tandem, Marisa Anderson and William Tyler have composed a work of remarkable breadth, brimming with resplendent odes of solace.
Recorded by Loren Humphrey at Diamond Mine & Stockholm Syndrome in New York City, Time Itself is Children Collide’s long-awaited fourth studio album. The album features the snarling, Nirvana-esque Return to Femmes, the fuzzed-out charge of opener Man of the People and the twirling, acid-tinged Trampoline to contend with – the latter of which frontman Johnny Mackay proudly describes as “one of my favourite songs I’ve ever written.” The sprawling six-and-a-half-minute wig-out of Mind Spider too, serves as a strange bedfellow to the bouncy, mosh-ready Uh Oh – and yet, all of them make perfect sense as Children Collide songs. Time Itself is available now in digital formats as well as limited edition white 12” vinyl.
Other reviews you might enjoy:
- History of a Feeling (Madi Diaz) – music review
- New music round-up (for w/e 13 January 2023)
- New music round-up (for w/e 17 June 2022)
David Edwards is the editor of The Blurb and a contributor on film and television