Best New Records I Heard in August, 2024

Good music keeps on coming my way, and I'm telling you about it as fast as I can

One Adam One – Monday Morning. St. Louis has had more than its share of fine singer/songwriters working at the nexus of Americana / lush pop / country / indie rock. One of the best is Adam Reichmann, known both here and in parts of the rest of the world as the singer of Nadine, a band that existed for about ten years around the turn of the century, always on the verge of bigger success. This new project, in which Reichmann works with his old Nadine friend Todd Schnitzer, features gorgeously evocative songwriting and production. They focus most of their energy on the title track to this five-song EP, a richly decorative melody and lovely string arrangements giving Reichmann’s beautiful voice a chance to convince us waking up at the start of the week is a good thing. The other songs here are almost as strong, giving us 18 minutes of delight on their second EP under this project name.

Steve Dawson – Ghosts. In some respects, Steve Dawson, though he resides in Chicago, is an honorary St. Louisian when it comes to music. He has spent years writing and recording songs which fit neatly in the above-mentioned singer/songwriter at the nexus. Whether in Dolly Varden or as a solo artist, Dawson brings carefully detailed precise lyrics, delicately meticulous melodies, and a penchant for arrangements which allow musicians to breathe with their instruments. This new album is another winner. I’ve long loved Dawson’s voice, a deep tenor (if that makes any sense) that rings easily in the ears. He’s in great voice here, and shifts to a tougher tone on “Leadville” and a passable T Bone Burnett impersonation on “A Mile South of Town.” The latter song is a sad tale sung from the point of view of a man dying in the middle of a road with the deer he hit on his motorcycle – somehow it’s compelling every time I hear it.

Dave Dougas – Gifts. I haven’t heard nearly enough Dave Douglas in my life, but whenever I encounter this trumpeter/composer, I find myself entranced by his music. This album features a quartet including Douglas on trumpet, Rafiq Bhatia on guitar, James Brandon Lewis on saxophone, and Ian Chang on drums. There’s no mistake – ain’t nobody playing bass. The group fills up the low end well enough that I didn’t even notice the lack of a bottom instrument until the second time I played this. Bhatia in particular plays some lower string riffs that take up that role on some tracks. Six Douglas compositions are included, wrapped around four classics from Billy Strayhorn. I’m especially enamored of their funky approach to “Take the A Train,” and their wild sonics on “Blood Count.” Every member of the ensemble shines throughout the record, often playing in unison or counterpoint or as a response instrument. This is sharp-edged modern jazz played at a high level.

Oded Tzur – My Prophet. Apparently, the six compositions here are considered to work as a suite. I’ll buy that, since the album is a coherent listening experience, with moods and tones shifting subtly from track to track. Tzur is a tenor saxophonist, and his band here includes Nitai Hershkovits on piano, Petros Kiampanis on bass, and Cyrano Almeida on drums. I haven’t encountered any of them before, but each is a terrific player. Tzur provides distinctive compositions, and Hershkovits gets as much and sometimes even more solo space as the saxophonist gives himself. The record begins with an “Epilogue” and ends with a riveting tune called “Last Bike Ride in Paris.” In between, there are heavy quartet spaces, some light dancing piano, some eloquent and then roaring saxophone, and a whole lot of rhythmic improvisation.

X – Smoke & Fiction. I’m not sure how many years these four people have played together. Maybe six or seven years originally before Billy Zoom left the classic line-up. Maybe twenty years of reunion tours since they got back together. They made five albums in the first incarnation, the first four of which are masterpieces in my mind. They released their first album together since 1985 in the pandemic year of 2020, and showed that they could still write new material that fit their classic sound. Now, they have one more record in them – this is to be the finale of their career, apparently. It feels to me the same way those first four albums did. John Doe and Exene Cervenka sing with passionate abandon – though Exene is now better able to hit the “right” pitches, their harmonies remain thrilling. Billy Zoom’s guitar is brilliant, shiny, and nasty, with an overdriven approach to fifties rockabilly inspirations over furious punk riffing. DJ Bonebrake still has that marching band approach to the drums, sending the rhythms into a shuffling intensity that nobody else ever does. The songs are great, the sound is better. If this is it, they’re going out on top.

Johnny Blue Skies – Passage du Desir. Sturgill Simpson likes to keep us guessing. After establishing himself as a solid outlaw country mainstay, he veered and re-recorded many of his songs in a bluegrass style. Now, he seems to have moved on from that, and has released this new record under a new name altogether. You’ll recognize his voice, but he’s not aping Waylon Jennings so much any more, and even better, he’s enunciating the words so you don’t have to strain to understand him. There’s sort of a mix between late 70s yacht rock tendencies and country signifiers like steel guitar. The songs are weary meditations on loss and leaving and even death. The music is lovely, especially the last few minutes of the last song, when the band just gets to make its own plea for a happier day.

Linda Sikhakhane – iLadi. This South African tenor saxophonist offers richly evocative spiritual jazz that relies heavy on the gorgeously rumbling piano of Nduduzo Mahkhathini. Bassist Zwelakhe-Duma Bell le Pere and drummer Kweku Sumbry are also perfect companions on this musical journey. Like many South African jazz players before him, including the most famous Abdullah Ibrahim, Sikhakhane merges Western influences with the cultural resources of his native land. The mixture here is stunningly beautiful. Mahkhatini carries the lion’s load of improvisations on the record, with Sikhakhane’s saxophone playing mostly short melodic ritualistic parts with plenty of repetition. If you want a fair comparison to something more familiar, McCoy Tyner’s early 70s records were in a similar vein, albeit without the South African folk elements that ground Sikhakhane’s writing.

Orquesta Akokán – Caracoles. These guys have been recreating and reinvigorating the 1950s Cuban mambo and other styles for several years now. I don’t have the knowledge to fairly compare them to the originators – I know a little Perez Prado and Tito Puente, but not enough to understand what’s going on. But I do know great music when I hear it, and I’d kick myself if I didn’t point you to this non-stop dance party. Great singing, great playing, great tunes, and so much rhythm!

Remi Wolf – Big Ideas. This is one heck of a new pop record. Wolf co-writes all these songs with an army of assistants, and she co-produces it as well. So, it’s her vision with a lot of polish to make it sound good. And sound good it does. The rhythms are hitting hard, and there are lots of great touches, from horns to twisted almost avant-garde passages to basic instrumental bits making this record stand out from the pack of her contemporaries. She has a good voice that has an interesting strain when she goes up high – she’s always belting out whatever she sings, so that strain has power behind it. She also has an oddball lyrical thing happening. Take my fave song, “Cinderella,” which is partly about sex, and partly about her ability to adapt to whatever she needs. No matter what it’s about, it contains the line “Like Cinderella making babies on the company’s dime” which alludes to a fairy tale version I never knew. But I’m down with the whole highly individualistic attempt to hit the big time.

Advancing on a Wild Pitch – Disasters, Vol. 2. I’m not exactly a marketing genius, but I do question where the audience might be situated for a jazz band named after a baseball play that doesn’t even happen in every game that names all its catchy tunes after long-gone disasters in small Pennsylvania towns. I mean, I know that there are way more jazz records released every week than any human could possibly hear, and that breaking through the clutter isn’t easy for a group of youngish players who don’t seem to hang out with the big names in the field. So, I guess I should take the fact that I’m listening and talking about them as proof that they know what they’re doing. They certainly know how to write tunes and play them. Sam Kulk plays trombone, Charles Evans baritone saxophone, Danny Fox piano, Moppa Elliott bass, and Christian Coleman drums. The music has a sort of Mingus feel to it, without as much heft. The unusual trombone / baritone front line works very well both in harmony and bouncing off each other. All the tunes last for roughly five minutes – one goes all the way to six, so there’s no wasted space (and no bass or drum solos, either). Very enjoyable record in a way that shouldn’t alienate casual listeners but will hook those with more jazz experience as well.

Simon Hanes – Tsons of Tsunami. Hanes is a guitarist I haven’t encountered before. This record is sort of avant-garde jazz, sort of surf rock, sort of uncategorizable, plenty of good. The band consists of guitar, vibraphones, trombone, bass, and drums. “This One’s For You, Old Timer” has a throbbing intense sound at the beginning before introducing a catchy tune that almost sounds like it could have come from a 70s Pat Metheny session. Said tune gets teased out a bit, the groove settles in, and then, as happens often throughout this album, the band slams into a wall wherein everybody starts pounding their way out of complacency. But that doesn’t last, as the theme gets played around with a little more, and things suddenly end without any resolution. It makes me happy. Then, a couple tracks later, we get “DR20,” which sounds like that great lost Ventures tribute with a vibraphone paying homage to the Munsters Theme we didn’t know we were hoping to hear. This is followed by a similar cut, “Zest for Crest,” which makes sure we have no cavities by adding trombone to the sound. And the “Zest for Crest” impales on another crash-up half way through. Difficult to categorize but highly enjoyable music here.

AJ Lee & Blue Summit – City of Glass. There’s a world of bluegrass adjacent string bands out there making some terrific music. Thanks to the attentive ears of John Wendland, former host of Memphis to Manchester and all around great music fan, I learned about this relatively new group only recently. I think this is the third album they’ve released. The basic instrumentation is guitar / fiddle / mandolin / bass, though they’ll drop in drums or pedal steel if they think it will help the song. These guys remind me of a cross between what Molly Tuttle  (who guests on one track here) does with her band Golden Highway and the way Punch Brothers work with harmonic sophistication. The songs are catchy but a little bit knotty at the same time. AJ Lee sings the bulk of the songs with a lovely high alto or low soprano voice. I can’t find the name of the male singer, but he’s got nice soulful pipes himself. This album is a real grower, too, sounding exponentially better each time I’ve played it.

Baby Rose – Slow Burn. I hadn’t encountered this talented young singer before, but when I heard BADBADNOTGOOD were backing up a soul artist, I figured it had to be interesting. It’s more than that. The band’s jazz chops are perfectly adaptable to a retro soul style, and Baby Rose slots comfortably in with her powerhouse vocals kept often on simmer. Because the title of this EP is not just the name of one of its songs. It’s an apt description for what she’s doing here, fanning the flames without letting them burst. Her voice is reminiscent of Mavis Staples, a rich, heavy alto. But she does not sing like Staples – her approach is nowhere near as fervent. Instead, it’s evocative, heavy on the reverb, inviting and comfortable. Six songs, and they’re all keepers.

All the Days – Gardener of My Heart. Danny Kathriner is another St. Louis musician who’s worked in the nexus mentioned way back in the first review of this column. You may remember him from Wagon back in the 90s, an Americana band that came close to breaking big. He’s been in lots of other projects, most notably Cave States, before this one. Here he and Stephanie Stewart trade songs and lead vocals, with each harmonizing beautifully when called for. Kathriner also plays drums, with Chuck Lindo and Tony Estrada doing some combination of guitar and bass. This particular band goes for a much bigger and more expansive sound than many of the groups in this field. Kathriner’s drums get loud, and the guitar parts are full of ginger. Both singers get really passionate. The melodies are sharp and memorable, too.

Roberto Ottaviano – Lacy in the Sky With Diamonds. I couldn’t resist checking out an album made in homage of the late great soprano saxophonist Steve Lacy with such a wonderful title. Ottaviano is an Italian saxophonist who also loves the straight horn. Here, he works with bassist (and occasional guitarist) Danilo Gallo and drummer Fernando Farab. The music is light and breezy free jazz, with a short version of “These Foolish Things” just to remind you these guys are rooted. One short track is just sax, and there are one apiece with one of the other two players sitting out. I love the way this group keeps a dance feel in its playing even when the rhythms are all over the place.

Nikka Costa – Dirty Disco. Way back around the turn of the century, I used to trumpet the pleasures of Nikka Costa’s sort-of-debut album Everybody Got Their Something to anybody who had even a modicum of interest in the world of funk. She also turned out to be an explosive live performer. Then, she did only a handful of records, some of which I never heard, in the last 20 or so years. But, man, this one has everything I loved about her, all the energy, the dance fury, the mixture of happy and sad versions of ecstatic release. Hovering over this record which mostly traffics in the early 80s synth-heavy sonics of the late career of funkmeisters like Cameo or Midnight Star, is a heavy influence of Prince. The title track, which celebrates pansexuality in a completely safe imaginary world of the dirty disco, is practically a pastiche of his 1999 album. Many have been influenced by Prince, few have been able to make music worthy of his weight. I don’t understand why she tacks on two minutes of ambient sound at the end of the last track, but everything up to that point is great.

William Parker – Heart Trio. I realize that despite devoting thousands of hours every year to listening to music, I have great holes in my experience. I’ve heard William Parker occasionally, but never sat down to listen to an album with his name above the title. This couldn’t be more atypical, as the great bassist never touches the giant instrument with four stings. The Heart Trio of the title includes Parker on a variety of instruments from flutes to African stringed varieties; a guy named Cooper-More on a couple instruments he built himself, one percussive with tonal qualities akin to a zylophone, and the other a harp; and Hamid Drake on drums. The record is exuberant, lively, percussive heavy, and constantly shape-shifting. Four of the tunes are between three and six minutes long; the other three range from eight to nearly fifteen minutes. There are melodies to hum here and there, but mostly this is about the energy created by three people opening themselves up to musical possibilities at all times.

John Escreet – The Epicenter of Your Dreams. This 40-year-old British pianist now lives in L.A. I can’t get enough of this very fine quartet album featuring Eric Revis on bass, Damion Reid on drums, and the very talented tenor saxophonist Mark Turner. Escreet’s compositions show lots of 60s influences but the playing is all modern, whether in the pocket or outside the harmonic parameters. I love the forcefulness of Escreet’s piano, the way he makes the low notes rumble and the high notes sparkle. He can also play lyrically when he wants to. He and Turner have a magic connection the way they play melody lines together and then soar off in opposite directions. This album has passion and power to spare.

Joe Ely – Driven to Drive. Joe Ely has never been shy about putting out records but this one is a little different. Rather than getting a band together and working out new arrangements in a studio, Ely culled from decades of his home recordings and came up with a thematic collection of songs loosely connected to travel. This includes what I assume might be demos of two classics. “Drivin’ Man” and “For Your Love” from his great Dig All Night album back in 1988. I’m not sure when Bruce Springsteen stopped by to duet on “Odds of the Blues” but that’s a pretty cool song, too. As you might expect, the lyrics might relate to each other, but the sonics don’t. Sometimes it’s just Ely and an accordion player, maybe a bassist. Sometimes it’s a full rockin’ band. Either way, though, I’m always ready to go on a journey with this great country and assorted other genres performer I’ve been following for nearly 45 years.

Norman Blake – Pilgrimage to Rising Fawn. Every once in a while, I get to wondering – Whatever happened to Jamey Johnson? He was one of the most impressive country singers for a few years there back in the late 00’s, then he just stopped putting out records. Every once in a while, you’d find him on a tribute album or something, but mostly it’s been crickets. Here he is, though, singing three cuts on this wonderful new record from the folkie Norman Blake (as opposed to the Teenage Fanclub member of the same name). I’ve always been fine with Blake’s home-spun singing voice, but mostly he lets others handle vocals while he does that exquisite flat-picking on the acoustic (and occasional dobro playing). Johnson sings a jaunty “Alabama Jubilee,” an impressive “Shady Grove” (and how many lyrics does this song have in the world? I barely knew any of these), and a chilling “Georgia.” Of all the versions of Hoagy Carmichael’s classic I’ve heard, this might be second only to that of Ray Charles, as Johnson’s quietly thoughtful singing is matched by Nancy Blake’s fiddle and Norman Blake’s guitar in emotional resonance. Carlene Carter stops by to sing a fun duet with her step brother John Carter Cash, and Jamie Hartford handles a couple nice songs, too. Two short impromptu performances by Blake are thrown in, as well. It’s a short record, but I love every second of it.

Charley Crockett – Visions of Dallas. When you put out an average of 1.5 records a year every year since 2015, you have to expect some ups and downs in quality. So, when his $10 Cowboy album appeared a few months back, I was a mite disappointed for the first time in a while with this distinctive country singer/songwriter. But, man, did he make it up with this second album of 2024 – this one ranks up there with the best things he’s ever done. Crockett sings like nobody else in country. His idiosyncratic phrasing shapes his melodies in a way that makes him stand out even on a lesser song. This time, though, he hits the bullseye twelve out of twelve shots. These songs are memorable, inventive, and entertaining tales of love both good and bad, hardships, traveling, and war. The band rises to the occasion, too, filling all the open spaces with solid guitar or pedal steel phrases. If you liked him before, you should love this one. If you haven’t heard him yet, this is a great place to start.