Best of What’s New

Is it really Saturday again? Yep, the calendar doesn’t lie. I also can’t believe we’re already in April. March seemingly just flew by. Yesterday may have been April Fools’ Day, but it certainly was no joke when it came to newly released music. Following are my picks for this week, which are all on albums that came out on April 1st.

Eric Roberson/Start All Over Again

Kicking us off today is some smooth R&B and soul by Eric Roberson who hails from Rahway, N.J., about 20 miles from my house! From his website: As a GRAMMY Award-nominee, Singer, Songwriter, Producer and Howard University alum, Eric Roberson continues to break boundaries as an independent artist in an industry dominated by major labels, manufactured sounds and mainstream radio. Described as the original pioneer of the independent movement in R&B/Soul music, Eric has achieved major milestones in his career, from being a successful songwriter and producer for notable artists such as Jill Scott, Musiq Soulchild, Dwele, Vivian Green and countless others, to headlining sold out tours across the country. While I’m not familiar with any of the aforementioned artists, what I do know is I dig Start All Over Again, the opener of Roberson’s 13th and latest studio album Lessons. The tune was co-written by producer Daniel Crawford and Roberson who in addition to writing songs for others has been releasing his own music since 2001. Check out that neat smooth sound and groove!

Red Hot Chili Peppers/Aquatic Mouth Dance

Aquatic Mouth Dance is the second track in Best of What’s New from Unlimited Love, the now-released new album by Red Hot Chili Peppers, following the lead single Black Summer I had previously featured in this installment. The current members of the group, which has been around since 1983, include co-founders Anthony Kiedis (lead vocals) and Michael Peter Balzary, known as Flea (bass, trumpet, piano, backing vocals), along with John Frusciante (guitars, keyboards, backing vocals) and Chad Smith (drums, percussion). Unlimited Love is the Chili Peppers’ 12th studio album. It was produced by Rick Rubin, who previously had served as their producer for six albums in a row, released between 1991 and 2011. I’ve yet to hear a bad album this man touches! Credited to all members of the band, Aquatic Mouth Dance has an infectious funky groove driven by Flea’s great bass work.

Molly Tuttle & Golden Highway/Dooley’s Farm (feat. Billy Strings)

Molly Tuttle impressed me from the very first moment I came across her in July 2020. The now 29-year-old singer-songwriter, banjo player and guitarist is focused on bluegrass and Americana. Tuttle, who grew up in the San Francisco Bay area in a musical family, is noted for her outstanding guitar skills. Her father Jack Tuttle is a bluegrass multi-instrumentalist and teacher. Her siblings Sullivan and Michael play guitar and mandolin, respectively. Molly started playing guitar as an 8-year-old and three years later already performed on stage with her dad. At age 13, she recorded her first album with Jack. In 2015, she joined the family band The Tuttles with AJ Lee, featuring her father and siblings, along with mandolist AJ Lee. Her debut EP Rise appeared in October 2017, followed by her first full-fledged album When You’re Ready in April 2019. Dooley’s Farm, co-written by Ketch Secor and Tuttle, is a track from Tuttle’s new album Crooked Tree, which was recorded live at Oceanway Studios in Nashville. It appears as Molly Tuttle & Golden Highway, her band. In addition to guitarist Billy Strings, Dooley’s Farm, among others, features Dobro maestro Jerry Douglas who also served as the album’s co-producer.

The Hellacopters/Eyes of Oblivion

Wrapping up this week’s new music revue are The Hellacopters, a Swedish hard rock band that first came together in 1994. After releasing seven albums between June 1996 and April 2008, they split. In 2016, the group’s original lineup reunited for the 20th anniversary of their debut album Supershitty to the Max!, which had won a Grammis music award in Sweden. A performance at the 2016 Sweden Rock Festival led to other gigs that year and in 2017. “As we started playing more and more shows, we felt we needed a new album because we’re not old enough to be a nostalgia band,” Hellacopters co-founder, guitarist and vocalist Nicke Andersson told Apple Music. And the result is Eyes of Oblivion, the group’s first new album in 14 years. Here’s the title track, written by Andersson. Apparently, the tune first came out as an upfront single on December 17. Nice melodic hard rock!

Last but not least, following is a Spotify playlist featuring the above and some additional tunes. Hope there’s something you like!

Sources: Wikipedia; Eric Roberson website; Apple Music; YouTube; Spotify

What I’ve Been Listening to: Michael Jaskewicz/Crooked Tree

Crooked Tree is the debut solo album by Michael Jaskewicz, a singer-songwriter from New Jersey. I met him sometime in 2019 while he was performing at a bar with Cosmic Jerry Band (now called Cosmic), which then mainly was a tribute to the Grateful Dead that has since evolved into focusing on original music. In fact, they just came out with their own debut album Bloom on December 27. I finally got to listen to Crooked Tree and really dig the warm, bare bones acoustic sound.

As Jaskewicz notes in a blog post on his website, in addition to Jerry Garcia and the Dead, his influences include Warren Haynes, Bob Dylan, The Allman Brothers Band, Pink Floyd, Jimi Hendrix, Jimmy Page and Trey Anastasio. In an interview with Music Life Now, he also noted Joni Mitchell and James Taylor, among others. Listening to the album before I had seen that interview Taylor came to my mind as well, as did Yusuf/Cat Stevens and Marc Cohn, who is best known for his 1991 signature tune Walking in Memphis. Jaskewicz’s voice occasionally reminds me a bit of Cohn.

Under normal circumstances, Crooked Tree could have appeared last April. But as Jaskewicz pointed out in the above blog post, COVID-19 and his struggle with depression and anxiety delayed things. “I spent a lot of time wrestling with the demons in my head trying to figure out why it seemed every imaginable roadblock to my success in music was being placed before me,” he explains. “Getting ready to step out into the world with songs, only to have the world hold a giant red stop sign in front of my face was pretty much a surefire way to send my mind straight into the darkness. And boy did it ever.”

Time for some music. Here’s the opener and title song, which was inspired by Jaskewicz’s infatuation with oddly shaped trees, as well as the terminal cancer of a close friend. “As I thought of his pain and suffering aligned with the intense light of a human being he was, he became the Crooked Tree in my mind and the words started flowing, ” he told Music Life Now. “I wanted to paint a picture of how beautiful he was, how life had taken its toll on him, and how in reality we are all Crooked Trees. Our flaws make us beautiful. We should not bear shame for the mental and physical scars we have from enduring life.”

In What Is a Life Jaskewiciz muses about the factors that oftentimes limit life. In a separate blog post on his website, he explained, “The absurdity of the verses in What Is A Life are an homage to imagination. Wishes on a feather, bury the clouds and sow seeds of whim, windows of time on a golden swing…. All just random musings of the mind eventually pushed into some corner of your mind to die. Without opening your imagination, you never can truly see the beauty of things, you can’t paint the canvas of your life.”

War That Can’t be Won is a dark, powerful tune. Here’s an excerpt from the lyrics: …Future’s falling from a poison sky/Future’s calling with a look in her eyes/Blood is flowing over government gold/Seeds of vengeance will grow no more…

I’d like to call out one more track: Falling in Your Eyes, the album’s beautiful closer.

“I am so proud to have released Crooked Tree,” Jaskewicz stated. “In a past life I would have been so content with just that, but the truth is I’m already working on the follow up and my goal is to have it completed by the end of the year.”Jaskewicz appears to be on a roll. At the time of his aforementioned statement, he already had 46 completed songs. On November 30, he released a new single titled Stars In Our Eyes.

I think Jaskewicz is off to a great start and I look forward to his sophomore album.

Sources: Michael Jaskewicz website; Music Life Now; YouTube