New music round-up (for w/e 3 February 2023)
Our selection of the best new music across a range of genres from the week ending 3 February 2023.
Acclaimed Australian singer–songwriter and founding member of The Go-Betweens, Robert Forster has released his 8th solo album, The Candle and the Flame. Featuring the first single ‘She’s A Fighter’, The Candle And The Flame consists of 9 songs written and produced by Robert and co-produced by Karin Bäumler and Louis Forster (The Goon Sax). The album was mixed by Victor Van Vugt (Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds, PJ Harvey) and features former Go-Betweens and Warm Nights bass player Adele Pickvance as well as Scott Bromiley and Luke McDonald (The John Steele Singers), who worked on Robert’s ‘Inferno’ and ‘Songs To Play’ albums.
In 2019, after months of touring, Larry Campbell & Teresa Williams, celebrated with a jubilant live recording at Levon Helm Studios in Woodstock, NY and big plans for the following year. The pandemic changed everything, globally and close to home. Larry, after performing at New York’s Beacon Theatre woke up on March 16th in Woodstock coughing and feverish. After a diagnosis of Covid, he was left to quarantine alone in Woodstock while Teresa was stuck quarantined and worrying in New York City. After a harrowing couple of weeks Larry’s fever broke. “For the past two weeks, I’ve been struggling to stay alive,” Larry told Rolling Stone magazine. Fast forward to Autumn 2022: Larry and Teresa rejoin their audience “live and in person,” planning the rollout of Live at Levon’s! The album is a souvenir for fans of the duo’s powerful live shows, featuring unreleased new songs, old favorites that allow the band to stretch out, plus some unexpected cover tunes.
In 2021, the saxophonist and composer James Brandon Lewis had a career breakthrough with his tenth album, The Jesup Wagon. Inspired by the mobile agricultural education efforts of inventor George Washington Carver, the song cycle was hailed by critics for its dreamlike mosaic of gospel, folk-blues and catcalling brass bands. Along the way, Lewis drew the attention of many improvising artists, most notably the saxophonist and jazz deity Sonny Rollins, who doesn’t offer effusive praise very often. After the praise chorus quieted down, Lewis inevitably began to think about next moves. He swapped the aesthetic manifestos he’d attached to previous albums (see An Unruly Manifesto) for a simple punk-band-in-the-basement credo: Chasing energy. Above all else. This process of stripping away led directly to Eye of I, Lewis’ bracing, sometimes haunting, arrestingly diverse Anti Records debut. It’s a record alive with the messy contrasts of life in the United States circa 2022 – dissonant one minute and graceful/prayerful the next; animated by anger and contention as well as the possibility of resolution; holding equal space for expressions of steadfast faith and wild spontaneous skronkage.
The WAEVE – composed of Graham Coxon and Rose Elinor Dougall – have released their eponymous debut album on Transgressive Records. Produced by The WAEVE and James Ford (Arctic Monkeys, Florence & The Machine, Foals, HAIM) and recorded in London earlier this year, ‘The WAEVE’ is a collection of 10 new tracks from songwriters Graham Coxon and Rose Elinor Dougall. Joining creative forces in The WAEVE gave the duo the opportunity to push past their instrumental comfort zones. Many tracks feature Graham on saxophone, one of the first instruments he played as a young musician back in the 80s. First single ‘Can I Call You’ starts as a ballad then morphs into a krautrock-style motorik number with a sprawling Coxon guitar solo. ‘All Along’ features Graham on cittern, a medieval folk lute. Rose plays piano and an ARP 2000 modular synth. The heavy weather all over ‘The WAEVE’ recalls the blustery folk rock of Sandy Denny or John & Beverly Martyn, while tracks such as ‘Kill Me Again‘ and ‘Over and Over’ recall the 70s rock of Kevin Ayers or Van der Graaf Generator, almost industrial in places.
Smithsonian Folkways Recordings has just released the groundbreaking new album Ears of the People: Ekonting Songs from Senegal and The Gambia that represents the first full length representation of the West African ekonting. Considered the key ancestor of the American banjo, the ekonting is alive and well in West Africa, telling the stories of the artists who love it today. And yet it still exhibits some of the same or similar playing techniques as the American banjo, separated by centuries and some of the worst history in the world.
Gianandrea Noseda chose Antonín Dvořák’s Symphony No. 8 for his first Philharmonia concert as General Music Director of the Opernhaus Zürich. This performance is now being released as a live recording, together with Dvořák’s Symphony No. 7, which was recorded at a later date. Slavic repertoire is very close to Noseda’s heart, and in both concerts, he succeeded in conveying this passion to the musicians of the Philharmonia Zürich. The Neue Zürcher Zeitung praised the performance, calling Noseda a “live wire”, whose musical direction «demanded the last reserves from his musicians,» transforming Dvořák’s Eighth Symphony into “a highly dramatic work”. The “sombre” Seventh and the “buoyant” Eighth form a study in contrasts in Dvořák’s oeuvre. Along with the Ninth («From the New World»), they are his most popular symphonies.
Australian country singer-songwriter Henry Wagons has unveiled his new solo album South of Everywhere, out now via Cheatin’ Hearts Records / Spunk Records. The album is Henry’s first solo record in over six years and features stand-out single ‘Don’t Be Down And Out’ which was added to high rotation on Double J and ABC Country. To celebrate the release, Henry will be playing two in-stores this Saturday at Greville Records in Melbourne, and Bendigo Vinyl in Bendigo.
Other reviews you might enjoy:
- New music round-up (for w/e 24 February 2023)
- New music round-up (for w/e 21 January 2022)
- Radio Songs (Dave Rowntree) – music review
David Edwards is the editor of The Blurb and a contributor on film and television