Our selection of the best new music across a range of genres from the week ending 30 June 2023.
Dream From The Deep Well is the new album from celebrated Irish singer songwriter Brigid Mae Power. Recognised as a purveyor of dreamier pop with folky leanings, this new album is a departure; a unique marriage of traditional stylings and very modern melodies; a breath-taking soundtrack which underpins her gorgeous vocal. Filled with personal tales of offspring and grandparents, the lovelorn and the lost, it’s the essence of re-imagined folk music, from the traditional intro and outro that act as bookends. It’s folk music, but not as we know it. In these ever-confusing and often annoying times, Brigid brings us modern folk for modern folk, with her evocative vocal, doubling back on itself with strings, steel guitar, horns and mellotron adding to its baroque loveliness. It’s waving back at her rootsy past, daubing new colours on a much-loved canvas. ‘Dream From The Deep Well’ is a new visionary beginning from a gifted songwriter.
The Happiest Times I Ever Ignored is Hayden Pedigo’s sixth studio album (and second for Mexican Summer). It’s a record sure to find its way into the cinema of your ear; its script written in steel-string, its starring director a 28-year-old performance artist, politician, model, and finger-styling maestro whose talent is as irrepressible as it is undeniable.
Born in 2000, Simon Bürki has won many international competitions. Currently studying at the Juilliard School, New York, with Sergei Babayan. His début recording features works by Rachmaninov – 2023 marks the 150th anniversary of the composer’s birth – and Scriabin, Tchaikovsky, Liszt and Schumann. The programme confirms Simon Bürki’s affinities, with some of Rachmaninov’s sombre Études-Tableaux and Préludes, together with two Études by Scriabin, and a selection of transcriptions and short pieces. In these (post-)Romantic miniatures, the young pianist demonstrates his outstanding virtuosity and sober elegance, as well as the exciting flamboyancy and intensity of his playing.
Continuing is drummer Tyshawn Sorey’s highly-anticipated follow-up to Mesmerism and The Off-Off Broadway Guide to Synergism, his two critically-acclaimed 2022 release that feature this avowed avant-gardist’s surprising forays into classic, swinging jazz. Though Continuing features the same musicians as on Mesmerism – Sorey on drums, pianist Aaron Diehl and bassist Matt Brewer – the result could not be more different. While the performances on the earlier release are mostly neatly-contained, Continuing is expansive, with its four long tracks given room to breathe deeply, allowing the musicians to explore crevices and possibilities while maintaining the performances’ attention to melody, groove, swing, and the blues.
Over the course of four years, James Jackson Toth and long-time collaborator Jarvis Taveniere paired newly written songs with ones drawn from decades ago and brought together musicians from across the various eras of his time recording as Wooden Wand — in the end creating an accidental self-imposed This Is Your Life. “I was bringing people together from my history and writing songs that reckon with my past.” Now the duo have revived as James & The Giants. The resulting self-titled album picks at the seams of the memories borne of that experience and finds new footing in reframing memory.
Brighton (UK) based rock ‘n’ roll trio Tigercub return with their highly anticipated new album The Perfume Of Decay via Loosegroove Records (the label co-founded by Pearl Jam guitarist Stone Gossard). With The Perfume of Decay — Tigercub’s third record of nocturnal, hard-hitting rock, as well as their first full-length release for Loosegroove Records — frontman Jamie Hall draws the curtains shut and embraces a moody, melancholic sound that’s every bit as cinematic as Hollywood itself. It’s an album about counterpoint and opposites, stacked with songs that contrast overdriven guitars with whispered vocals, tight grooves with shoegazing swells of noise, sonic experimentation with sharp songwriting.
Heralded by the Ivor Novello Academy and Apple Music as one of the next rising stars of songwriting, Ashaine White is back and defining her own “grunge soul” sound with her new project Ash. Following on from her debut release Fairytales, Ash is a picture of Ashaine at her most authentic, writing songs that feel honest and true to her experiences with a no-frills writing style. “I want my listeners to hear my lyrics as if the words came from my mouth in conversation, a conversation about life.” The five-track EP echoes the likes of Ella Fitzgerald, Nina Simone, Lianne La Havas, Jeff Buckley, and Kurt Cobian placing Ashaine’s sound firmly within its own lane.
Other reviews you might enjoy:
- New music round-up (for w/e 8 July 2022)
- New music round-up (for w/e 31 March 2023)
- New music round-up (for w/e 25 October 2024)
David Edwards is the editor of The Blurb and a contributor on film and television
