Our selection of the best new music across a range of genres from the week ending 28 July 2023.
On the debut solo album from Best Coast’s Bethany Cosentino, the Los-Angeles based singer/songwriter takes close account of the endless catastrophes and upheavals of modern life, offering a high-minded and open-hearted response that makes room for compassion, imagination, and a radical sense of possibility.
Consolations is Saskia Giorgini’s second Liszt album, after her critically-acclaimed rendition of the composer’s Harmonies poétiques et religieuses. Named after Liszt’s six Consolations, the album also contains the Caprices-Valses, Valse Impromptu, Légendes and the world-famous Liebesträume. These introspective pieces shed light on love in all its forms and manifestations, showing us human nature in all its different aspects, as well as a different side of Liszt’s colourful musical persona.
Ghost Hounds’ new album First Last Time is a tribute to rock ‘n’ roll, highlighting the band’s determination to keep the genre alive and thriving. Inspired by old Western cinema, the album follows a central character struggling to find his place in the world. He’s spent the last several decades wandering aimlessly through life with no family, no meaningful connections, no real purpose. Now, he finds himself at a crossroads, where he must make the arduous choice to either stake out a new path or resign himself to the empty life set out before him.
Norwegian singer songwriter Susanna continues to explore her fascination with the poetry and persona of Charles Baudelaire, with a new album that scales up her distinctive settings of the French poet/bohemian’s classic texts to the size of an orchestra. On Baudelaire & Orchestra, Susanna is joined by Oslo’s incredible, forward thinking KORK orchestra. The Radio Orchestra of NRK (Norway’s national broadcaster) is known for its progressive approach, diversity and willingness to tackle challenging and contemporary music of all types.
Frontier’s Edge is the new EP by the fiery, energetic and genre-defying group The Budos Band. After a two-decade run with the legendary Daptone Records, Frontier’s Edge is the first new music from the group on the new label, Diamond West Records – run by The Budos’ saxophonist Jared Tankel and guitarist Tom Brenneck. The Budos Band’s departure from Daptone was on good terms; the split from their long-time home base was an organic result of the band’s evolution. Frontier’s Edge contains their musical universe – Afrobeat, Ethiopian music, proto-metal, any number of other streams – in microcosm.
From California forest fires to cash cabs, the stuff of American nostalgia and horror adorns a personal reckoning on Christina Schneider’s triumphant third album as Locate S,1. With a name culled from a Daschel Hammitt noir novel, Wicked Jaw pulls from wildly disparate references and textures to survey the history of American pop music. Like Carly Simon soundtracking an Adam Curtis documentary, the album trades in dramatic juxtapositions across its kaleidoscopic ten tracks.
A New Reality Mind is Madeline Kenney’s most expansive work to date, while also her most solitary. Produced and recorded alone in her basement, these songs are manifestations of what it feels like to be transformed by pain. Textures collide and collude; sonic ornaments emerge and dissipate capriciously; saxophones soar untamed, as on the 80s pop elegy to self-sacrifice, “Reality Mind”. These songs beg you to dance, then pull the rug out from under you once you’ve caught the beat, leaving you dizzy like the whiplash of love’s end.
Other reviews you might enjoy:
- Frontier’s Edge (The Budos Band) – music review
- New music round-up (for w/e 11 August 2023)
- New music round-up (for w/e 4 October 2024)
David Edwards is the editor of The Blurb and a contributor on film and television