FEATURE:
One for the Record Collection!
IN THIS PHOTO: Kelela/PHOTO CREDIT: Jai Lennard for Billboard
Essential January and February Releases
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2023 is starting out pretty hot…
and there are two particularly huge albums due in the next couple of months. I have selected the albums due out this month and next that you will want to own. I am going to start with a great album due out on 13th January. Margot Price’s Strays is an album that I would urge people to pre-order on vinyl. It follows her brilliant third studio album, That's How Rumors Get Started:
“Produced by Margo Price and Jonathan Wilson, Strays was primarily recorded in the summer of 2021, during a week spent at Fivestar Studio in California’s Topanga Canyon. While most of the songwriting took place the summer prior – during a six-day, mushroom-filled trip that Price and her husband Jeremy Ivey took to South Carolina – it was amongst the hallucinatory hills of western Los Angeles that Price experienced the best recording sessions of her career. Instilled with a newfound confidence and comfortability to experiment and explore like never before, Margo Price and her longtime band of Pricetags channelled their telepathic abilities into songs that span rock n roll, psychedelic country, rhythm & blues, and glistening, iridescent pop.
Having been together since the days before Midwest Farmer’s Daughter, her 2016 debut that Rolling Stone named one of the Greatest Country Albums of All Time, Price and her band tracked live in the same room, simultaneously expanding upon and completely exploding the notions of every other album they have made together. With additional vocals from Sharon Van Etten, Mike Campbell and Lucius, plus strings, synthesizers and a breadth of previously untapped sounds, Strays is also Price’s most collaborative record yet. “I feel this urgency to keep moving, keep creating,” says Margo Price. “You get stuck in the same patterns of thinking, the same loops of addiction. But there comes a point where you just have to say, ‘I'm going to be here, I'm going to enjoy it, and I'm not going to put so much stock into checking the boxes for everyone else.’ I feel more mature in the way that I write now, I’m on more than just a search for large crowds and accolades. I’m trying to find what my soul needs”.
I will focus on a few great albums due on 24th January. It is always a bit strange when a member of a mega band releases a solo album. We have seen it with the members of Radiohead. Blur’s members have also released their own work, and now their drummer Dave Rowntree is bringing us the superb Radio Songs. Maybe doing what it says on the cover, this is an essential pre-order that Blur and non-Blur fans alike need to get behind. From what I have heard so far, the album is going to be tremendous. A natural lead, Dave Rowntree is ensuring that a potentially cold January will be made warmer and better with his debut solo studio album! Ensure that you do not miss out on it:
“Blur drummer Dave Rowntree releases his debut album Radio Songs on Cooking Vinyl. Standout track London Bridge was produced with Leo Abrahams (Wild Beasts / Brian Eno / Ghostpoet). It heralds the start of an exciting new project for Rowntree, over three decades since Blur formed back in 1989. London Bridge is an enticing opening statement. Deceptively bright and upbeat, with its staccato ‘la-la-la-la’ hook line, the music belies a lyrical sense of dread. As proficient with a synth or guitar as he is behind the drum-kit, Rowntree’s innate ear for a melody is given free-reign on this scuzzy but impactful, lo-fi number”.
I have been looking forward to Låpsley’s new album, Cautionary Tales of Youth. One of my favourite artists around, I really love her music. The York-born artist follows 2020’s Through Water. That was an amazing album, but I think that Cautionary Tales of Youth is going to top that very high bar. Go and buy the album on vinyl if you can, but there are also cassette and C.D. options. It is going to be a truly magnificent album that I cannot recommend highly enough. Låpsley is one of our greatest treasures. Go and pre-order her new release that is out on 20th January:
“Produced in collaboration with Jessy Lanza, Paul White, Greg Abrahams and regular collaborator Joe Brown, Lapsley’s third album is an intimate but universal exploration of those Cautionary Tales that - eventually - may also prove the making of you.
As eclectic as it is unguarded, the album is a form of therapy in the truest sense: a talking cure and a hauntingly beautiful confession, resulting in a thrilling yet soulful work of love, loss and growth”.
One of the biggest albums due this month is Måneskin’s Rush! The former Eurovision winners are a remarkable band in their own right, and their album is definitely going to court plenty of positive reviews. Out on 20th January, go and pre-order this must-hear album from the Italian legends. There is not a lot of information available about the album, so I wanted to source from an NME interview published last year:
“That spirit to defy expectations is what has driven their hotly-anticipated upcoming third album ‘RUSH!’. After their Eurovision 2021 win introduced the band to the wider world, singles like ‘I Wanna Be Your Slave’, ‘MAMMAMIA’ and ‘Supermodel’ have showcased their more raucous edges. The tender and epic balladry of recent single ‘The Loneliest’ surprised many, and is a tasty morsel of what to expect from the upcoming LP. As David puts it, “People have got our aesthetic – now we’ve got to show the inside.”
“It’s a new side for our new audience, but we’ve always been playing ballads,” says De Angelis of the single. “That’s always been a big part of our music, so with this one we tried to experiment a bit more with the sound. We listened to a lot of Radiohead where they work a lot with pedals.”
Guitarist Thomas Raggi agrees: “It’s cool to give another taste of our kind of ballad. Each one of us has different tastes, so we mixed them all together.”
The band tell us how they’re currently listening to the final mixes of the next record, with David revealing how “it’s stepped out of its comfort zone and is trying to do new things”, showcasing “a lot of variety and music skills.”
Elaborating on the Radiohead influences on the project, David explains: “I think that the inspiration we got from Radiohead was to be very focussed on creating a very specific world for each song.”
“It’s something they do very, very well so we tried to create these amazing atmospheres. They really create an image of what you’re listening to, and that gave us inspiration.”
The band reveal that they’re hoping to attend Eurovision 2023 if they’re “free”. Not only have they never been to Liverpool, but the Song Contest will always hold a special place in their hearts that they’re not looking to forget.
“We’ve never been scared of the Eurovision label,” David admits. “For us, Eurovision was never the goal – it was just a way to reach our goals. Many artists make huge mistakes when they go to these TV shows with just one song. They create a whole image for the TV show so when it’s over, they have basically nothing to share with fans. We were lucky because we already had two albums and one EP. Once the show was over, people could listen to something and see that we already had five years of a career and touring. That was the sliding door for us.”
He adds: “We’ve never been afraid of being ‘a Eurovision artist’ forever. We knew that it was going to change our lives. We’re happy, and we will always remember Eurovision as one of the main steps of our career.”
De Angelis hopes that Eurovision will prove to be more of a platform for discovering legitimate new artists, which doesn’t seem unreasonable anymore. How would they respond to the idea that Måneskin finally made Eurovision cool? “I’m not complaining about that!” the bassist laughs, before David coolly adds: “I’ll take the credit”.
There are a couple of albums from 27th January I want to highlight, before I move to essential February-due albums. The first 27th January album is Samia’s Honey. One of the promising young artists coming through, everyone needs to pre-order a copy of this wonderful album:
“There’s a line on Honey, the latest album from Nashville-via-NYC songwriter Samia, about Aspen Grove, a collection of 40,000 trees in the plains of North America, all connected by a single expansive root system. There’s no stronger metaphor for the audience the 25-year-old empathy engine has been generating since she began releasing music seven years ago. Her songs, her fans, her friends: one enormous, interconnected ecosystem.
Honey, comprised of eleven new moments of catharsis, is by and for that organism. The album was recorded at North Carolina studio Betty’s - owned and operated by Sylvan Esso’s Nick Sandborn and Amelia Meath, frequent touring partners of Samia’s. It was produced by Caleb Wright, part of the team that helmed Samia’s breakthrough 2020 debut The Baby, and a founding member of one of Samia’s favourite bands, The Happy Children. It features some of her nearest and dearest friends: Christian Lee Hutson, Briston Maroney, Jake Luppen, Raffaella. Its songs were surreptitiously road tested for her devotees while opening for Lucy Dacus, Courtney Barnett, and more.
The end result is what Samia calls simply “a real community record.” Samia calls her music “pathologically confessional,” and though she doesn’t mind being the latest addition to the “sad girl” indie rock canon, Honey finds her less concerned with being a “sad girl” than fascinated by the things that keep us together. Memories. Friendship. Small things and big things like Aspen Grove. On this stylish and vulnerable new record, Samia holds the mirror up to herself and allows us to see ourselves in the reflection”.
Before getting to February, there is another great January album you need to own. Meg Baird is a phenomenal American musician based in California. In addition to her solo career, she is known as a founding member, lead vocalist, and drummer for Heron Oblivion. Baird was also a guitarist and the lead female vocalist in Philadelphia psychedelic Folk Rock band, Espers. She has played in a number of projects. This solo album is going to be amazing. I am curious to hear it, and Furling is going to be assuredly nuanced and wonderful. I would urge people to listen back to Meg Baird’s previous worth and her solo albums. She is an artist who has been on the scene a while, but I feel her most affecting and striking music is from her solo albums. Go and pre-order Furling if you can:
“Furling moves through the breadth of Meg’s musical fascinations and the environments around them - edges of memory, daydreams spanning years, loose ends, divergent paths, secret conversations under stars - all led by a stirring, singular voice calling experience and enlightenment, elation, and ecstasy into bloom”.
There are a few albums due out on 3rd February that are going to be worthy of your pennies. I would encourage people to pre-order Ellie Goulding’s Higher Than Heaven. The Pop megastar is about to be release what I think is her strongest album to date. Having been in the industry for years, she has lost none of her power and magic. Higher Than Heaven is another album shaping up to be a superb work. Goulding is a very prolific artist, so there are high hopes for her fifth studio album. It follows the strong and acclaimed Brightest Blue of 2020:
“Pop megastar Ellie Goulding releases her highly anticipated fifth studio album, Higher Than Heaven. Some of pop music’s finest were enlisted to craft the album with her including Greg Kurstin (Sia, Maggie Rogers, Elton John), Jessie Shatkin (Charli XCX, Years and Years), Koz (Sam Ryder, Madonna, Dua Lipa) and Andrew Wells (Halsey, Yungblud). The record sees Ellie put her own spin on modern pop music. Higher Than Heaven is jam packed with infectious hits that see Goulding’s signature vocals take center stage, with top notch production, stomping basslines, soaring synths and euphoric melodies”.
Before getting to the middle of February, an earlier treat comes in the former of Shania Twain’s new album, Queen of Me. Go and pre-order a new treat from the Canadian legend. Twain is one of those artists who does something different with every album. I cannot find much information about the themes and tones that define Queen of Me. It does seem, as we read here, that she is more confident in her skin and herself as she is now in her fifties:
“Shania Twain is getting ready to release her new album, "Queen of Me," in 2023 and said she's feeling more comfortable and confident in her skin than ever before.
"I am a woman in my late 50s, and I don't need to hide behind the clothes," Twain told People in a new interview.
Self-confidence is a theme on the new album "Queen of Me," and the song's lead single, "Waking Up Dreaming," is a celebration of learning to love who you are.
In September, Shania posed topless for the cover art of "Waking Up Dreaming," a move that she told People was all about underscoring the comfort she feels in her own skin, especially as she ages.
"I can't even tell you how good it felt to do nude shooting. I was just so unashamed of my new body, you know, as a woman that is well into my menopause. I'm not even emotional about it; I just feel okay about it. It's really liberating," said the singer, who is 57.
"I am not regressing. I am embracing my body as it changes, as I should have from my childhood to my teens, as I should be from my taut, 20s and 30-year-old self, to my menopausal body," said added. "I'm not going to be shy about it. I want to be courageous about it, and I want to share that courage in the artwork that I am directing”.
This is an album that comes from one of the most successful female artists ever. Let us hope that we get music from the iconic Shania Twain for years to come. Even though her sound has changed since the 1990s, the quality of her music is still extraordinary! She is definitely a legend whose music will be played and remembered for decades to come. Go and ensure you pre-order a copy of Queen of Me.
There are eight more albums that I want to get to soon. Before that, here is another one from 3rd February. Young Fathers’ Heavy Heavy is going to be another golden release from the Scottish band. They always give the world such exceptional albums, so there is no excuse to miss out on their new one:
“Mercury Prize winning Edinburgh trio Young Fathers are back following 2018’s standout Cocoa Sugar. Made up of Alloysious Massaquoi, Graham ‘G’ Hastings and Kayus Bankole, Young Fathers have long been recognised as one of Britain’s most vital and distinguished bands - merging incendiary and thought provoking lyrics with cutting edge visuals and an undeniable propulsive live show.
Written and recorded over the course of three years, the longest time taken on a Young Fathers album, Heavy Heavy is a tour de force from the Edinburgh trio. An overarching theme of being human can be felt throughout the ten track album, exploring the feelings of euphoria and rush of emotion experienced at the end of a struggle, a sense of fulfilment as a result of the toil and hard graft that life throws at everyone. An unashamedly soulful and heartfelt album, where the drums set the scene throughout to transport the listener to a place of celebration and awakening”.
Let’s come to 10th February. There are a series of wonderful albums due that week. The brilliant Amber Arcades is releasing her new album, Barefoot on Diamond Road. This is another I would urge people to pre-order. She is an artist I love a lot. Maybe not as known as some of the other artists I will name in this feature, let’s hope Barefoot on Diamond Road changes that:
“Barefoot On Diamond Road is the third album from Dutch singer / songwriter Amber Arcades. A record of engaging maturity, filled with slow motion builds and epic lifts that elevate it to dizzying heights.
Immersed in an all-consuming wall of sound, Barefoot On Diamond Road is like My Bloody Valentine gone acoustic, it shouldn’t work but it does; it’s a juxtaposition of textures, from skittery, uneasy dancefloor beats to symphonic kosmische, a baroque pop tapestry side-stitched with cellos and harps with a plaintive steel guitar echoing in the distance.
Conceived remotely with original sparring partner Ben Greenberg (Danny Elfman, Depeche, Ryley Walker) in New York and Annelotte in Amsterdam. It’s a coming of age set in a new town with a new positivity underpinning her, as ever, beautifully crafted and highly personal observations on life, love and how it all should or could work.
“This record really reveals parts of me and my relationship with being a musician and making music. It’s like a reckoning, more in the moment, realizing how important it is to do things for the right reasons and how that can change your process into one that embraces what exists, including yourself.”
Amber Arcades’ new album Barefoot On Diamond Road marks a new phase for a highly respected musician”.
One of the most-anticipated albums of this year comes from the magnificent Kelela. Her 2017 debut, Take Me Apart, is a masterpiece. Her second studio album, Raven, is going to get so much press and love. I predict this will be another year-defining album from the Washington-born genius. Go and pre-order Raven if you can:
“Kelela’s next chapter, Raven, promises a sonically beautiful and lustrous experience. On Raven, Kelela emerges from the tides of her higher self’s oceanic orbit to explore autonomy, belonging and self-renewal as healing across the fifteen-track LP. “Washed Away” and “Happy Ending” have already both been regaled with critical acclaim: Pitchfork called “Washed Away” a “showcase for her swooping soprano” and “Happy Ending” also demonstrative of her “breathy, decorous vocals.”
“I started this process from the feeling of isolation and alienation I’ve always had as a black femme in dance music, despite its black origins. Raven is my first breath taken in the dark, an affirmation of black femme perspective in the midst of systemic erasure and the sound of our vulnerability turned to power,” Kelela says about the project.
Skillfully straddling the frequencies of R&B and Dance music, Kelela has established herself as an artistic interpolator of music, art and fashion. Her early works Cut 4 Me (2013) and Hallucinogen (2015) were momentous examples of her singular spirit, and cemented her artistry as a leading force in the alternative, underground R&B and electronic worlds. She has since collaborated with fellow visionary artists like Solange, Gorillaz, Andrew Thomas Huang and Danny Brown. Thoughtfully intermixing elegance, futurism, divinity and sensuality, Kelela’s unique perspective has carved a lane that demonstrates style as both a component of art, and art in and of itself”.
One of the biggest albums of the year arrives on 10th February. Paramore’s This Is Why is a welcomed new album from the band. It follows their 2017 album, After Laughter. I am excited to hear the latest release from the Tennessee band fronted by the remarkable Hayley Williams. Go and pre-order This Is Why now:
“This Is Why was the very last song we wrote for the album. To be honest, I was so tired of writing lyrics but Taylor convinced Zac and I both that we should work on this last idea. What came out of it was the title track for the whole album. It summarizes the plethora of ridiculous emotions, the rollercoaster of being alive in 2022, having survived even just the last 3 or 4 years. You’d think after a global pandemic of fucking biblical proportions and the impending doom of a dying planet, that humans would have found it deep within themselves to be kinder or more empathetic or something. The public sphere we find ourselves re-entering after 4 years at home, in our comfort zones, is an entirely different thing than the one we knew. The restlessness, the anxiety, and the compulsion to take action— it all feels like a contradiction. On one hand, we have a legitimate platform to use which makes me want to march at every protest for social justice and devote every waking second to every single cause I believe in. On the other, I just want to go home, plant a garden, and become a distant memory to the outside world”.
I think I can include five more albums. This takes us to 17th February. The magnificent Anna B Savage releases in|FLUX then. Another music treasure that is making music of the highest order, you need to ensure that you pre-order this album. Savage is a remarkable artist whose music I have been a fan of for a while now. I feel that in|FLUX is going to be her biggest statement to date. From what we have heard so far, in|FLUX is shaping up to be a work of brilliance:
“Anna B Savage has always asked questions in her music, but on new album in|FLUX answers are no longer her quest. Vulnerability and curiosity have consistently been operative words to describe her work and on her second album she ruminates on the complexities and variables of humanity, the pain or pleasure of love, loss and earthly connection, capturing it all in devastating, elating and powerful ways. The key difference between this and previous releases: she’s not anxious about what’s on the other side. She’s come to appreciate staying afloat - basking even - in the open ended, uncertainty of the grey area”.
Before rounding things up with 24th February albums, there is one more from 17th that I want to highlight. P!nk’s TRUSTFALL is one I am interested in. P!nk is a legend and icon, so anything she releases needs to be met with respect and anticipation. I have been following P!nk since the ‘90s. Such an enduring and special artist, I am going to urge people to pre-order TRUSTFALL. Again, I cannot find too much information online about the album, but this interview reveals the fact P!nk feels TRUSTFALL is her best album yet:
“The Doylestown, Pennsylvania native's forthcoming album is personal to her for many reasons, she said.
One of the main reasons she feels it's one of her best to date is due to the time she spent making it.
"I took time. I had time and I had a lot of really devastating things happen," she said. "My son and I got really sick with COVID. That sort of distilled down for me what actually matters. And it takes a crisis to do that."
She continued, "It takes your kids getting sick to be like, 'Okay, none of this matters. I wanna see my kids grow up. That's what I want.' I want to only put truth into the world. I want to only be authentic. And I want to be kinder and a better person.
Along with fighting COVID in early 2020 alongside her son Jameson, who is now 5-years-old, the singer also experienced the tragic loss of her father Jim Moore in 2021.
She said the loss reminded her that we all have "a certain amount of time left," which she channeled into her album.
"I just started making music and making -- speaking in melody," she said. "And it came together."
Pink said she's seen how her music has the ability to bring people together and she hopes to do the same with the new album.
"My album is a piece of me, and I think that I am an example of how you can live authentically and fearlessly, in ways," she shared. "And if you look at my show ... I'm a touring artist, that's what I do. We're a traveling city, we're diverse, inclusive, we are a model of what can work."
"We pray to different Gods, we have different skin colors, we believe in all kinds of different things -- you name it, go down the list of differences," she continued. "We love each other, we disagree, we stay together and we show each other our different cultures”.
An album that might pass some by, I think people should be aware of Gina Birch’s I Play My Bass Loud. Out on 24th February, I am really intrigued by it. I would recommend people go ahead and pre-order an album that is going to be pretty amazing. If you have some pennies set aside for albums in February, make sure that Birch’s album is near the top of your list:
“As one-half of the Raincoats’ core duo since 1977, Gina Birch is a punk icon with a pop sensibility, an art-schooled adventurer who has painted, filmed, and performed by her own rules for over 45 years—using her visual art to tell stories, charging raw recordings with concepts. Her history converges onto her first solo album, I Play My Bass Loud, its title evoking her singular approach to her instrument as well as an ethos. She won’t hang back, or play a supporting role. She is now taking centre stage.
In September of 2021, Gina released her first ever solo single, Feminist Song, on Third Man Records in celebration of the opening of their brand new London location. In February of 2023, Third Man release Gina’s brand new and first ever solo full length album, I Play My Bass Loud, recorded by Martin “Youth” Glover from Killing Joke and featuring Thurston Moore from Sonic Youth.
The songs of I Play My Bass Loudwere largely finished before Birch brought them to co-producer Youth, of Killing Joke, who has developed an impressive pedigree collaborating with legendary punk women like Poly Styrene and Viv Albertine, and brought in things like middle eights and choruses. But there were also some moments of spontaneity in assembling a handful of tracks from almost-scratch. In the studio, Birch and Youth built “I Am Rage” into a pop song from its beginning as “a whispered poem.” Together, they wrote a bonafide alt-rock anthem, “Wish I Was You,” and its preceding tone poem, “And Then It Happened,” which Birch called “a letter to myself.” The pair of songs collectively narrate a shift in perception—a woman stepping ever-further into her power and thriving—propelled by a much-deserved wind. Birch said “Wish I Was You” was a joke at first—“I used to wish I was you,” she sings, “But now you wish you were me”—though she also admits, “in every joke, there’s some truth”.
A group that needs no introduction, Gorillaz are releasing their eight studio album, Cracker Island, on 24th February. If you have not heard anything from Cracker Island, then go and get onto it now. It is going to be a brilliant album. You can pre-order it here. There is not a lot of background or any real detail available about the album, but Rough Trade do provide us with a few details. I love the fact that both Stevie Nicks and Beck are among the collaborators that are going to feature on Cracker Island:
“Cracker Island is the eight studio album from Gorillaz, an energetic, upbeat, genre-expansive collection of 10 tracks featuring yet another stellar line-up of artist collaborators: Thundercat, Tame Impala, Bad Bunny, Stevie Nicks, Adeleye Omotayo, Bootie Brown and Beck. Recorded in London and LA earlier this year, it is produced by Gorillaz, Remi Kabaka jr. and eight-time Grammy Award-winning producer / multi-instrumentalist / songwriter extraordinaire Greg Kurstin”.
I mentioned earlier, when writing about Dave Rowntree’s solo album, that Radiohead members have released solo work. Rowntree is the drummer for Blur, and Philip Selway is the drummer for Radiohead. His album, Strange Dance, is out on 24th February. Although it will sound different to Rowntree’s album, both are stellar works from musicians in giant and hugely influential bands. It is an album that fans of Selway will want to pre-order:
“When Philip Selway approached some of his favourite musicians to play on his third solo record he said he imagined it as a Carole King record if she collaborated with the pioneering electronic composer Daphne Oram and invited him to drum on it. Unsurprisingly they were all sold, and so began the bringing together of an extraordinary number of gifted people, including Hannah Peel, Adrian Utley, Quinta, Marta Salogni, Valentina Magaletti and Laura Moody.
Foregrounding this remarkable union of musical voices was 10 songs written by Selway at home on piano and guitar that show him at the height of his songwriting powers. As Strange Dance unfurls, it takes the listener through different weathers and seasons. Each song carries varied and diverse shades and textures of emotion. Lyrically, it is artful. Selway has a gift at writing heartfelt lyrics which could relate to any number of human experiences”.
There are other amazing albums out this month and next, but I have highlighted the ones that I think are particularly important and worthy. From huge albums by Kelela, Gorillaz, and Paramore, through to those that might not get the same focus, there is a great selection to be found. If you are looking around for great albums to pre-order, then I hope that the suggestions above…
POINT you in the right direction!