Our selection of the best new music across a range of genres from the week ending 5 April 2024.
Melissa Aldana’s second Blue Note album Echoes of the Inner Prophet is a musical voyage to explore the depth of the spiritual journey. Co-produced by Aldana and Lage Lund, the album features the tenor saxophonist with Lund on guitar, Fabian Almazan on piano, Pablo Menares on bass, and Kush Abadey on drums.The 8-track set of original compositions includes 6 new pieces by Aldana that seek profound truths through introspection, intuition, and self-reflection including the opening title track which is dedicated to Wayne Shorter.
Since forming in 2008, Chicano Batman have followed their own visionary impulses to tremendous heights — a journey that began at local dive bars and recently saw them co-headlining the legendary Hollywood Bowl. In the making of Notebook Fantasy, Chicano Batman worked with producer John Congleton (Erykah Badu, Death Cab For Cutie, St. Vincent) to double down on their hyper-creative tendencies, discovering new dimensions of their prismatic music while infusing the lyrics with an unflinching honesty.
Mother is an ambitious and irresistibly melodic 12-track album from Logic1000. Inspired by the artist (also known as Samantha Poulter) entering motherhood, the album features a spattering of emerging artists and DJs reflecting mission to new female talent. The album fuses the love of 90s pop and R&B with harder club music. She refines her innovative and multi-genre style there, making an essential contribution not only to dance music but also to works inspired by parenthood. She herself says, somewhat surprised, ‘I never would have thought I could create something so powerful.’
Dustin O’Halloran contemplates ideas of technology and humanity entering the age of artificial intelligence on his visionary next album 1 0 0 1. The Grammy-nominated composer and pianist has written the electronic-forward album in four movements, based on a collaborative and dynamic dance work first premiered in 2019 with dancer Fukiko Takase. Together with an eight-voice choir, Paul Corley on electronic production and the Budapest Art Orchestra, O’Halloran explores a sonic space in which to slow down and reflect about our ever-more-rapidly evolving world.
Prepare to have your faith in rock music restored as Parisian power trio Howlin’ Jaws have released their second album, Half Asleep Half Awake. Following the success of their debut album, Strange Effect, the band is back with a fresh batch of overpowered hits, luminous melodies, and diabolical finger-burning jams that will leave audiences craving for more. Comprised of Djivan Abkarian on vocals and bass, Lucas Humbert on guitar, and Baptiste Leon on drums, Howlin’ Jaws draws inspiration from the golden era of fifties and sixties rock. Influenced by legendary acts such as Cochran, Small Faces, Beatles, Kinks, and Slade among others.
Unlocking her own unapologetic ennui helped gglum (the alter ego of London musician Ella Smoker) to realise just how much more she had to say. Moving in something of a whirlwind ever since, her 2021 and 2022 EPs ‘once the edge has worn off’ and Weak Teeth allowed her to figure out her sound in real-time. But having given herself just a few months off before embarking on the process of writing her debut album, The Garden Dream feels like a significantly deeper moment of realisation, opening up space for Smoker to reach out to her past self and confront the ill ease that still lingers there. Though she wouldn’t call it a concept album per se, she describes the narrative as a kind of fever dream, toeing the line between potent memory and repressed imagination.
No one has really ever been able to define themselves and their music like singer-songwriter Alejandro Escovedo does. His life in music of all kinds sometimes feels like a swirl through the sky, where his songs point out all the majesty and mystery of how he sees the world. The sounds he makes take him places that he might not even predict, but once there, greatness always follows. It’s just the way Escovedo is. On this new album, he has taken a road rarely travelled, which is totally in keeping with how he has lived his life in music. Echo Dancing is an experiment in how to use the past to shape the future. By recording completely new and repurposed versions of songs from his past, Escovedo actually gets a chance to rewrite his own history. It’s also an idea that pushes growth into the present, and asks an artist to see themselves anew.
Other reviews you might enjoy:
- New music round-up (for w/e 21 July 2023)
- New music round-up (for w/e 13 October 2023)
- New music round-up (for w/e 26 July 2024)
David Edwards is the editor of The Blurb and a contributor on film and television