Our selection of the best new music across a range of genres from the week ending 30 August 2024.
If Los Bitchos’ electrifying 2022 debut album Let the Festivities Begin! was the rowdy build up to the big night out, then Talkie Talkie is the Technicolor explosion of the dancefloor. From dynamic guitar riffs to infectious beats, it represents a bold step forward in their unique blend of global rock’n’roll influences. It was produced by the band with Oli Barton-Wood (Wet Leg, Nilüfer Yanya) and engineer Giles Barrett.
Speak to Enumclaw singer Aramis Johnson for just a second about his band’s sweeping second album, Home in Another Life, and he’ll tell you how he doesn’t want to be seen—just another millennial-pilled musician, someone too deep into therapy-speak and ceaseless vulnerability to tell you just how fun it can be to play in a rock band. But keep talking to Johnson about Home in Another Life for very long at all, and that formidable façade steadily collapses, a stone wall slowly being pulled apart. As breathless and alluring as these songs sound, they are powered both by Johnson’s abiding self-doubt and a drive for self-improvement, the desire to be more than he is right now. It is written into each of these 11 tracks, Johnson’s heart tucked just beneath the sleeve of these pulsing tunes.
In the summer of 2023, saxophonist and composer Wayne Escoffery found himself alone in a way that he’d never quite experienced before. He was away from home, on sabbatical in Europe with a month to himself between tours. A long-term relationship had just ended, and he was confronted with the loss of friendships that he’d once valued. Worst of all, he’d suffered a broken finger that left him unable to play the saxophone for the first time since he’d picked up the horn in high school. He made good use of this alone time, conceptualizing the music that makes up his striking and singular new album, ALONE. What emerged from that solitude was an extended mood piece, an album unique in Escoffery’s typically wide-ranging catalogue for its sustained atmosphere of stark melancholy and searching introspection. The music is breathtakingly interpreted by an all-star quartet featuring iconic bassist Ron Carter, drummer Carl Allen, and pianist Gerald Clayton.
Atlanta-based DJ and producer Divine Interface (AKA Drew Briggs / Wi-Fi_daddy) has returned with a long-awaited follow-up to his 2020 2MR debut Seeking Arrangements. The Last Rendezvous is a series of after-hours dispatches about romantic encounters of all kinds, to the tune of Briggs’ signature lived-in sound, which he likens to “Frankie Knuckles meets Frank Ocean”. On The Last Rendezvous, we join Briggs in his natural habitat: somewhere between the DJ booth and the afterparty.
Canadian-Italian singer Emily D’Angelo has released her second solo album – freezing. The record features 17 songs drawn from folk tradition, art song and beyond. The mezzo-soprano offers a personal take on music that spans five centuries, ranging from songs by John Dowland and Henry Purcell; Rebecca Clarke, Zoltán Kodály, W.C. Handy and Philip Glass; to recent works by Randy Newman, Jeanine Tesori, Cecilia Livingston, “Adrian Ira” Kramer and US band Ween. D’Angelo is joined by Sophia Muñoz (piano), Bruno Helstroffer (electric guitar) and Jonas Niederstadt (bass guitar, synth, percussion) on thirteen of the album tracks.
Blame It On Eve is another exhilarating Shemekia Copeland showcase, as her rousing vocals bring the heat to an infectious array of muscular rockers, stomping blues, swampy soul, and heartbreaking ballads. Ten new originals plus soul-soaked versions of songs by Stevie Wonder and her father, Johnny Copeland.
As Valley reach a decade of releasing and performing music, they have had to re-learn how to be a band together. The JUNO Award-nominated band’s third album Water the Flowers, Pray for a Garden (out now) proves just how adaptable and unbreakable the trio can be. Over the course of the album, you will hear the true pain and true joy Valley experienced while making it. In hitting rock bottom, they found new stones to turn over in their garden, leading to the band’s “most intimate and personal and special record,” lead singer Rob Laska says, to enthusiastic nods from Karah and Alex. “This is the record we’ve always dreamed of making.”
Other reviews you might enjoy:
- New music round-up (for w/e 3 December 2021)
- New music round-up (for w/e 23 June 2023)
- New music round-up (for w/e 11 August 2023)
David Edwards is the editor of The Blurb and a contributor on film and television