Best of What’s New

I can’t believe it’s Saturday again. It was a busy week that hardly left any opportunity for blogging, both writing and reading. I’m glad the time has come for another installment of Best of What’s New. I also look forward to catching up on the latest posts from my fellow bloggers soon! I’m quite happy with my picks this week and hope you’ll find something you like. Unless noted otherwise, all tunes are included on albums that were released yesterday (March 4).

Melissa Aldana/12 Stars

I’d like to kick off this week’s new music review with relaxing jazz music by Melissa Aldana, a tenor saxophonist from Chile. According to her Apple Music profile, she is known for her fluid harmonic lines and strong sense for the acoustic post-bop tradition. Discovered by pianist Danilo Pérez while still a teenager, Aldana debuted with Free Fall in 2010. She then earned wider acclaim winning the 2013 Thelonious Monk International Jazz Saxophone Competition. Busy as a leader and sideman, she has recorded with Terri Lyne Carrington and Cécile McLorin Salvant, and issued her own albums including 2014’s Melissa Aldana & Crash Trio and 2016’s Back Home. Aldana, the daughter of renowned tenor saxophonist Marcos Aldana, began formal saxophone instruction at the age of six. By the time she was 16, she already headlined jazz clubs in Santiago. With the help of Panamanian pianist Danilo Pérez, Aldana auditioned at Berklee College of Music and the New England Conservatory and subsequently won a scholarship to Berklee. Following her above-noted debut in 2010, Aldana has released five additional albums including her latest 12 Stars. Here’s the title track.

Johnny Burke/Hold On

It’s always great to see when a musician you personally know is releasing new music you dig – and when they have no idea (yet) you’re writing about them. 🙂 Such is the case with Johnny Burke, the drummer of New Jersey jam rock band Resurrextion aka ResX. It turns out Burke isn’t only talented manning the skins, but also is a capable guitarist and singer-songwriter who on February 13 released his first solo album, Johnny. He had a little help from some friends, including ResX bandmates Joey Herr (guitar), Billy Gutch (guitar) and Phil Ippolito (keyboards), as well as Mike Flynn (guitar), Sandy Mack (harmonica) and Lou Perillo (bass). And let’s not forget Johnny’s wife MaryBeth Burke who supports vocals on some of the songs. Hold On is a nice, warm-sounding Americana-style rock tune with a neat guitar solo.

Guided By Voices/Eye City

And on we go with more rock by indie rock group Guided By Voices. Initially, they were founded in 1983 in Dayton, Ohio. After releasing 15 albums between 1987 and 2004, the band broke up in December 2004. Six years later, they reunited and over a two-year span released an impressive five albums. In September 2014, they disbanded for the second time only to come together again in February 2016. Since that second reunion, 13 additional records have appeared including the band’s latest, Crystal Nuns Cathedral. Guided By Voices’ line-up has changed many times over their long history. The one constant member has been lead vocalist and guitarist Robert Pollard, who is the group’s principal songwriter. The current line-up also features Doug Gillard (guitar, backing vocals), Bobby Bare Jr. (guitar, backing vocals), Mark Shue (bass, backing vocals) and Kevin March (drums, backing vocals). Here’s the opener Eye City. Based on this and listening to some of the other tunes on the album, they remind me a bit of Son Volt.

The Weather Station/Marsh

The Weather Station is the project of Canadian singer-songwriter Tamara Lindeman. According to her Apple Music profile, her songs are too musically and emotionally nimble to be easily classified. On Lindeman’s earliest albums, like 2011’s All of It Was Mine, she cultivated a down-to-earth style informed by her time in Toronto’s folk scene and driven by her guitar, banjo, and confessional lyrics. By the time she released 2015’s Loyalty, however, her music had grown more abstract. Later, Lindeman matched the intricacy of her words with equally ambitious music, pairing her version of rock & roll with feminist insights on 2017’s The Weather Station, and combining musings on climate change with luxurious jazz and soft rock on 2021’s Ignorance. Amidst the Weather Station’s changes, Lindeman’s silvery voice and clear-eyed songwriting remained consistently compelling, proving the comparisons to forebears like Joni Mitchell and Leonard Cohen and contemporaries such as Weyes Blood and Bill Callahan were more than warranted. This brings me to Marsh, a tune from The Weather Station’s new album How Is It That I Should Look at the Stars. I find this pretty relaxing.

Mike Campbell & The Dirty Knobs/Wicked Man

Mike Campbell’s band The Dirty Knobs, now officially Mike Campbell & The Dirty Knobs, are back with a new album. External Combustion comes only 16 months after the release of their debut Wreckless Abandon, which I reviewed here at the time. Campbell formed the group in the early 2000s as a side project to Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, where he played guitar at the time. The Dirty Knobs were active in-between Heartbreakers tours and studio projects. They played small venues and did some recordings but weren’t looking for a record deal. After Tom Petty had passed away in 2017, Campbell decided to focus on The Dirty Knobs. The current line-up of the band also includes Jason Sinay (guitar), Lance Morrison (bass) and Matt Laug (drums). “About half of the songs are new songs,” Campbell told American Songwriter about the new record. “I went back through my whole analog tape vault and found a few songs from maybe even twenty years ago that I’d forgotten about that were pretty good, so I included them on the album.” Based on my initial impression, External Combustion is a solid record. I could definitely see some of the tunes on Tom Petty albums. Check out Wicked Mind!

Last but not least, here’s a Spotify list featuring the above and a few other songs.

Sources: Wikipedia; Apple Music; American Songwriter; YouTube; Spotify

Best of What’s New

It’s hard to believe another week has flown by. I’m happy to present my latest picks of newly released music. This time, the collection features red dirt country (yes, apparently that’s a music genre), a beautiful melodic acoustic tune by a New York rock band, an indie rock artist from New Zealand, a longtime singer-songwriter taking on an iconic Steely Dan tune, as well as an artist who has been associated with various genres like new wave, post-punk, R&B, rap and indie rock – or is it perhaps music folks trying to slap a label on him? Let’s get to it!

Zach Bryan/Quiet, Heavy Dreams

Zach Bryan is a young singer-songwriter hailing from Oklahoma. An artist profile on Apple Music calls him a plaintive, quivering country troubadour indebted to the literary side of Red Dirt Country. According to Wikipedia, red dirt is a music genre named after the color of soil found in Oklahoma, which includes elements of Americana, folk, alt-country and a few other genres. Soon after receiving his first guitar as a 14-year-old, Bryan learned how to play and started writing songs. Later he followed in the footsteps of his family and enlisted in the Navy. But he didn’t give up music, and during a break in Jacksonville, Fla., Bryan and his friends spontaneously decided to record some tunes that would become his 2019 debut album DeAnn. Encouraged by a favorable reception among red dirt fans, he recorded his follow-on Elisabeth that appeared in May this year. Quiet, Heavy Dreams is the title track of Bryan’s new EP released today (November 27). His voice and the bare bones approach drew me in.

Bayside/Light Me Up

Bayside are a rock band named after the neighborhood in Queens, New York, where they were founded in October 2000 by lead vocalist Anthony Raneri and his childhood friend Mike Kozak (drums). Kozak left the following year to form his own group. Bayside released their debut album Sirens and Condolences in January 2004. The eponymous sophomore album from August 2005 was the band’s first to chart in the U.S., peaking at no. 153 on the Billboard 200. They have since released six additional full-length albums. Their catalog also features a live album and 10 EPs. The band’s line-up has changed various times over the years and currently includes Jack O’Shea (lead guitar, backing vocals), Nick Ghanbarian (bass, backing vocals) and Chris Guglielmo (drums, percussion), along with Raneri, the only remaining original member. Light Me Up is a single credited to all members of the band, released on November 20. It’s from Bayside’s upcoming 11th EP Acoustic Volume Three, which is scheduled for December 11. Check out the melodic sound of this tune and the harmony singing – love it!

KennyHoopla/Estella (feat. Travis Barker)

KennyHoopla is a 23-year-old Milwaukee-based singer-songwriter who was born as Kenneth La’ron in Cleveland. According to his Apple Music artist profile, he emerged out of the midwestern underground in the latter years of the 2010s with a series of buzz-worthy singles that merged aspects of new wave, post-punk, and R&B...Hoopla began making music at a young age, influenced by acts like Funeral Suits, Passion Pit, and the Drums…His early tracks were loosely labeled rap, though his dark-toned, guitar-based songs and aching contemplative vocals had more in common with indie rock and alt-R&B. He gained traction both regionally and online with 2017’s “Waves//” single and its 2018 follow-up, “Sickness.” Admittedly, I had never of heard of these tunes or KennyHoopla before. With so many genres flying around in the above profile, it also appears to be tricky to characterize his music. I’ve said it before and say it again: It all comes down to whether music speaks to you, not the genre. And there’s something about Hoopla’s new single Estella, which came out on November 20, featuring Travis Barker, drummer of American pop rock band Blink-182. At just under two minutes, it could almost be a contemporary version of a Ramones tune.

Emily Edrosa/Drinking During the Day

Emily Edrosa is a singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist from Auckland, New Zealand. According to a bio on the website of her record label Park The Van, Edrosa had fronted New Zealand indie rock band Street Chant for 10 years before she decided to relocate to Los Angeles in 2016 and start over. While living there, she continued to work on songs that ended up on her new solo record Another Wave Is Coming released November 20. Edrosa wrote the parts for all instruments. Except for the drums, which were provided by Bosh Rothman (U.S.) and New Zealand peers Alex Freer and Liz Stokes, she also played all instruments by herself. A review of the album in No Depression notes Edrosa recently returned to New Zealand. Here’s Drinking During the Day. Check out the neat transition from mid tempo to a slower pace starting at around 2:24 minutes with a somewhat Beatle-esque guitar part – pretty cool!

Bill Callahan/Deacon Blues (feat. Bill Mackay)

Let me preface this last clip by saying that Steely Dan are one of my all-time favorite bands and their album Aja from September 1977 is music perfection to my ears. As such, I think covering Deacon Blues, one of the album’s tracks that also happens to be my favorite Dan tune, does take a good deal of self-confidence. American singer-songwriter and guitarist Bill Callahan, who has been around for three decades, not only decided to take on the challenge but turn the jazz pop-oriented original co-written by Donald Fagen and Walter Becker into a stripped back acoustic version. In addition to Callahan, this cover only features composer and guitarist Bill MacKay and Bonnie “Prince” Billy, the adopted artist name of American singer-songwriter Joseph Will Oldham. With no horns and most other instruments that are on Steely Dan’s original and Callahan’s voice sounding much closer to Yusuf/Cat Stevens than Donald Fagen, this is quite different. I imagine not all Dan fans may be with me here, but I think Callahan did an amazing job, making an iconic tune truly his own.

Sources: Wikipedia; Apple Music; Park The Van website; No Depression; YouTube