Best New Records I Heard in March, 2025

The music keeps on comin' at me

Gyasi – Here Comes the Good Part. This guy is from West Virginia and lives in Nashville but his musical heart resides in early 70s London. He’s absorbed all the lessons of glam rock, especially David Bowie and T. Rex. There are nods to Led Zeppelin and even the Stones here, too. I can’t figure out how many records he’s released to date but I think this might be his fourth full-length album. Gyasi – pronounced “Jossy” – doesn’t have anything original to offer but he sells his revised take on classic styles with panache and soul. Part of it is he knows how to make his songs stick to the ribs – solid guitar riffs, lithe melodies, and, as the title phrase implies when it’s spoken before the catchy chorus of “Lightning,” indelible hooks. I think you could drop any of these songs into a mix tape of glam from back in the day, and nobody would know it was new.

Brother Ali & Ant – Satisfied Soul. I know I’m constantly discovering artists who have been around for a long time – my musical mind has opened up a lot in recent years, and I’ve found many more sources for pointing me in the right directions. So Brother Ali has been rapping for a couple decades, and Ant has been producing, especially in his duo Atmosphere, for almost as long. But here I am being blown away by this team. My gosh, the beats and the samples and the subtle arrangement touches – Ant is a spectacular hip hop producer. Meanwhile, Ali knocks me out again and again with his songs about things like the reasons his first marriage failed or the need to wipe away the problems in his relationship with his father. There’s also “Two Dudes,” a song about the time Justin Timberlake surprised him on stage, and the time Ali tried to thank KRS-One for bringing Ali on a stage when he was just a kid – so many levels to this track. I also spend time wondering about the great track “Cast Aside” when Ali raps the hook “Avoiding the eyes of passersby” but I keep hearing “A void in the eyes of passersby.” All this and he ends the record with a track on which he sings – credibly if not good enough to carry a whole album – and we hear his dog barking and child laughing in the background.

Anthony Joseph – Rowing Up River to Get Our Names Back. “In our music, everything happens above the knees and below the waist.” He’s talking about black music in general, but it’s a specific connection to this record. Of course, Joseph is a poet, and his words matter as things to think about. But he’s a poet who works with music, and the funk, Afro-funk, reggae, and other assorted deep grooves are vital to the way his words matter. I’ve got to look into more of his records – and maybe even his novel about the life of Lord Kitchener, who gets mentioned in the song “Churches of Sound (The Benitez-Rojo)” I quoted above. This song covers the entire diaspora of African-influenced music which he describes as using “the 1 and 2 in which the “and” is actually the groove, the beat between each breath.” Every time I play this record I feel those beats, and I feel the meaning of the words as much as I understand them intellectually. Powerful album here.

Trio Glossia – Trio Glossia. I’d listened to this three times before I decided to research it on Bandcamp. First surprise is they are from North Texas. Not that there shouldn’t be any North Texas intense jazz being made, but that I had no idea it was a thing. Second surprise is that though I noted that some tracks have saxophone, bass, and drums, while others have vibraphone, bass, and drums, I had no idea that the sax player switched to drums so the drummer could switch to vibes. These three guys – Matthew Frerck on bass, Joshua Cañate on tenor sax and drums, and Stefan Gonzalez on vibes and drums – have got something heavy and fun going on here. There are real tunes, or at least memorable riffs, being taken all over the place. They sound like they are having a blast, clattering rhythmically and blasting into the occasional sax squall or slinking along with catchy vibraphone melodies.

Jesse Welles – Middle. Who is this guy? He’s apparently been around for a dozen or so years, though only using this name for three albums now – he used to call himself Jeh Sea Welles, and I’m glad he doesn’t do that anymore. Also according to things I’ve read on the internet, this is his first album with a full band on most of the tracks. I love it. It kicks off with “Horses,” a song which resembles “Isis” by Bob Dylan, mostly because of the violin. Dylan’s voice is a key influence on Welles’ singing, though he mixes it in with some John Lennon and Jeff Tweedy at different points. Welles likes to spit out lots of words at a rapid clip, but always with melodic invention. And the band kicks him into faster gear all the time – none of this record relaxes, even when it slows down now and then. He’s known for writing protest songs, but that tendency is a little restrained here. I appreciate “You have heard it said “Make it great again” / Make your own self great / That’s a good place to begin” from the title track. Now let’s make this guy more famous, because this is a young man’s rock music that respects what’s gone before without ever seeming overly reverent towards it.

The Young Mothers – Better If You Let It. I’m not sure about the history of this band, which was formed in Austin, TX but seems to now exist in Norway, where at least some of the members were born. I am sure this is one heck of a cool record, existing sort of in the jazz genre, but incorporating a little hip hop, a little funk, a little electronic experimentation, a little spooky vocal noodling, and a whole lot of beauty. The band includes Jawwaad Taylor who plays trumpet, raps, and handles electronics and programming; Jason Jackson who plays tenor and baritone sax; Stefan Gonzalez who plays vibraphones, drums, percussion, and contributes vocals; Jonathan F. Horne, who plays (sometimes wildly frenetic) guitar; Ingebright Håker Flaten who plays acoustic and electric bass; and Frank Rosaly who plays drums and also handles electronics and programming. That instrumentation should give you some idea of the possibilities here, and you’ll just have to take my word that these guys go far beyond any ideas most people might have for mixing these sounds.

Black Flower – Kinetic. The title of this record is apt, because this music is all about movement. Obviously, a lot of these rhythms are danceable, but they don’t always stay in one pocket – the drums and other percussion is often moving around stylistically. The instruments are chasing each other – it might be flute (or something similar in sound) and cornet on one track, a baritone sax and cornet on another, and there’s a wild sounding keyboard that pops up now and again. Also, the influences move from one place to another – the band started out playing Ethiopian jazz, and that still is in effect now and again. But they’ve added all sorts of influences from other countries with styles I haven’t encountered before. I’m definitely happy to move along with them, as this record perks me up whenever I hear it.

Yazz Ahmed – A Paradise in the Hold. We move now to a major influence north and east from the previous record to the country of Bahrain in the Persian Gulf. Ahmed was born in London, raised in Bahrain, and then back to the UK where she’s built her career. She takes a lot of musical inspiration from the melodies and scales of her father’s homeland, and she mixes this in with the contemporary British jazz approach of groove first, improvisation when you feel like it. Apparently, her previous three albums were all instrumental, featuring her trumpet playing which is still a major factor on this record. But several songs here include vocals, some in English, some in Bahraini, all based on Bahraini legends and stories. It’s all rather intoxicating and exotic to my Western ears. I know nothing about the source material, but I know what I like, and this is it.

Lady Gaga – Mayhem. I embraced Lady Gaga late – I think I caught on to her dance floor skills about two months before she started singing Great American Song Book material with Tony Bennett. So I never spent hours in real time enjoying those albums of the 00s that yielded all the hit singles I eventually embraced. This year, though, I’m ready to party. I’ve never done molly, but this record – especially if I remember to turn it off before the fine but buzz-killing duet with Bruno Mars at the end – feels like the kind of thing that would pair well with how it’s been described to me. Loud, thumping disco grooves with melodies and several hooks per song – yes please! Gaga is a magnificent singer who has proven she can handle whatever she tries. She joked on Saturday Night Live that 38 is the perfect age for a pop singer, and while I’m not sure she’s interested in adapting to styles younger fans embrace, she might just remind people her age and older of how much fun this sort of music can be. (P.S. - I don’t remember why I didn’t remember if I heard Chromatica a couple years back.)

Atrtemis – Arboresque. It’s hard enough for any jazz musician to make a name for themselves today, let alone women players who have to deal on an even larger scale with the sexism inherent in our society. That’s why whoever came up with the idea of assembling five women jazz musicians as the group Artemis deserves a marketing medal as well as a musical award. Being “that woman jazz band” is at least a tag people can remember. This is the third album Artemis has released, and it’s another gem of contemporary mainstream jazz. I knew pianist Renee Rosnes from her releases in the 90s, but I have not yet encountered trumpeter Ingrid Jensen, tenor saxophonist Nicole Glover, bassist Noriko Ueda, or drummer Allison Miller outside this band context. The record kicks off with “The Smile of the Snake,” written by Donald Brown, a pianist I also haven’t heard before. It’s such a ridiculously catchy and evocative tune handled with aplomb here. Each member of the band contributes one tune, and there are takes on Wayne Shorter’s “Footprints” and Burt Bacharach’s “What the World Needs Now Is Love.” Every cut is neatly arranged to allow interaction between each instrument while leaving room for strong solos. I especially love album closer “Little Cranberry” written by Miller, who obviously loves counterpoint as much as I do.

The Loft – Everything Changes Everything Stays the Same. I must have heard of the Loft back in the mid 80s, as I was reading every music magazine I could get my hands on, and rumors of hot new bands were always making the columns in those days. But the Loft, despite a couple promising records in their native Britain, broke up before they could put out an album. Now they’ve finally gotten around to releasing something 40 years after they started, and it’s pretty dang good guitar-based rock’n’pop. Catchy melodies, clever lyrics, ringing arpeggios and slashing chords on guitars, solid rock rhythms. The singer reminds me at times of Robyn Hitchcock, but the songs veer away from his sort of thing. I never heard the Weather Prophets, which grew out of the Loft’s break-up and featured leader Peter Astor, but I don’t think they lasted long, either. This sort of attention to songwriting classicism was falling out of favor around the time they broke up.

Mike Schrand – Things Have Changed. It’s been four years since we’ve heard music from this familiar voice from St. Louis Public Radio. Schrand has played in bands, most notably Salt of the Earth, but when it comes time to put down his personal original songs, he does the whole project himself. Guitar, bass, keyboard sounds imitating other instruments, percussion, and multiple vocals dominate the mix on these seven pop gems. Schrand comes up with melodies worthy of sticking in your head, but he also plays around with song structure and arrangements. I can’t count the time changes in “Jackknife” but I feel them so I know they’re there. And Schrand’s harmonies in songs like “Back From the Dead” are exquisite. Every time the title track starts I think it’s going to be “Julia” by the Beatles, even though I know I’m listening to a Mike Schrand record. The reality doesn’t disappoint – there’s an e-bow solo in this song that makes it even better. As far as I know, it’s only available on Bandcamp.

Jason Isbell – Foxes in the Snow. Songwriters have been mining their personal lives for material as long as there have been singers with guitars. But still, I wonder what it’s like to be Isbell’s new girlfriend, celebrated in several songs here, who has to hear the mixed emotions he expresses for his ex-wife in many of the other songs. It sounds like he’s wrestled with his own faults which helped lead to the divorce from Amanda Shires; when he wrote the songs about her, there were lots of details about regrets. It also sounds like he’s moving on, and in a happy place with the woman he loves now. While this record mixes all the stages of this life history, I figure he probably wrote them in the order he experienced them. As a listening experience, it’s full of wisdom and pain, hopes and dashed expectations, strength and innocence. Isbell’s acoustic guitar is the only accompaniment to his expressive vocals; unlike almost every solo singer with an acoustic guitar album I can think of, he varies his approach to the instrument in every single song. That combined with the widest variety of melodies he’s provided yet makes this a strong contender for my favorite Jason Isbell record to date.

The Tubs – Cotton Crown. These four young men from Wales are obviously students of much rock that has gone before – you’ll hear the Smiths, Orange Juice, Public Image, Ltd., Hüsker Dü, and (I swear) Counting Crows references. The delightful thing about them, though, is that they knead their influences until they have produced something that sounds uniquely like themselves. These nine songs go by in a blur of jangling guitar arpeggios, rippling bass and drums, and bitingly melodic vocals. Word is the lyrics are funny – I keep getting lost in the pure sound of the record, and so far only a couple lines have stood out, most notably opening a song with the words, “I know I’ve been an asshole, baby.” An album of pure rock’n’roll pleasures.

Olivia Wolf – Silver Round. One of my favorite things on satellite radio is The Buddy and Jim show hosted by Buddy Miller and Jim Lauderdale on the Outlaw Country station. A few weeks back, they had Olivia Wolf and Sean McConnell (he has his own decent new record, but more importantly, he produced this one) as guests. I was captivated when I heard Wolf’s song “The Veil.” It’s such a mysterious song, with gentle plucked guitar chords and a shimmering keyboard sound beneath Wolf’s evocative lyrics about a last dance set to an incandescent melody. And then the reverb comes on hot and heavy for the chorus, and it all seems like a dream, so of course there’s a dreamy steel guitar on the next verse. This isn’t even a typical song on this very fine album – Wolf is a singer songwriter who likes to get a little raucous from time to time, so there are full band workouts and songs with just solo piano accompaniment. She’s got a great voice and an even better approach as a singer, too. Singer songwriter fans should not sleep on this gem.

Bob Mould – Here We Go Crazy. Bob Mould’s guitar and vocals have been ringing in my ears for more than 40 years now on a regular basis. It’s hard to describe something I take so much for granted. Mould pushes his guitar to the limits of sonic power, where the overtones are as loud as the notes, and where it feels like an intense workout as much as music. He overdubs little melodic riffs here and there, but mostly lets the guitars reveal the chords, and has the bass throb on the beats while the drums go wild. As a singer, Mould has multiple options – he can growl and scream with a patented approach that fits nicely with his guitar, but he can also do his own version of crooning here and there. His songs are built from the chords, and can have a sing song thing happening when he’s not wandering around melodic possibilities. More often than not, he likes to end his songs with no musical resolution – it’s just time to stop. The thing is, I never get tired of hearing him mix and match these tricks. This new record is one of his best, I think, at least on the basis of hooks and earworms.

The Chills – Spring Board: The Early Unrecorded Songs. Back in his early 20s, Martin Phillipps started writing songs for his nascent rock band, but presumably decided he had better ones available when the Chills made their first album in 1987. A couple years ago, he decided to revisit the work of his younger days, and the latest incarnation of the Chills went to work recording them. It probably seemed like nothing when he wrote it, but the decision to end this project with “I Don’t Want to Live Forever,” considering Phillipps died unexpectedly last summer just as the recording was nearing it’s end, is, well, chilling. In the 80s and 90s, I didn’t appreciate the Chills, with the powerful exception of their masterpiece, “Heavenly Pop Hit.” But I finally connected with them a few years back with their previous release, Scatterbrain. Now, I listen to these wonderful melodies and inventive, exhilarating arrangements, and I can’t figure out what there wasn’t to like when I was younger. This album has 20 songs, and it lasts a long time, but I wouldn’t cut a single track. It’s a great final document from a man who had a distinctive and gorgeous approach to rock.

Hamilton Leithauser – This Side of the Island. I’ve tended to enjoy Leithauser’s solo work more than I did his records as frontman of the Walkmen. But there’s a through line with this guy – he’s always pushing his vocals into surprising yelps and yawls with words. And I think the songs might be stronger than usual this time around. At any rate, “Fist of Flowers” and “Knockin’ Heart” hit pretty strong on a nine-track record that doesn’t have any filler. “Knockin’ Heart” is a sublime love-for-life song I particularly adore. A very solid rock’n’roll gem.

Nels Cline – Consentrik Quartet. I’m one of those people who listen to recent Wilco albums and say, “Not enough Nels Cline.” Don’t ask me why I haven’t just grabbed his own records before this one. Sometimes I don’t understand my own musical decisions. Anyway, this double album is chock full of Cline’s guitar, as well as Ingrid Laubrock’s tenor and soprano saxophones, Chris Lightcap’s bass, and Tom Rainey’s drums. The quartet digs into twelve meaty Cline compositions, and their interplay is organically fantastic. Sometimes you’ll hear Cline and Laubrock playing the same melody lines at the same time, sometimes they’ll bounce ideas off each other, and sometimes they’ll just go ahead and solo. Meanwhile Lightcap is rumbling all over that acoustic bass, and Rainey handles all the swing, thump, and propulsion the group needs. I can’t say that these tunes are catchy, but they are inventive, brilliantly arranged, and clearly lead to inspired playing by the four musicians.

Clipping – Dead Channel Sky. Hey, look at that, here’s Nels Cline again. He stopped by to show off his ability to make weird-ass sounds with his guitar that echo the electronic craziness these guys like to use as both parts of the tracks for rapping over, and as interludes just to sound weird and enjoyably obnoxious. If you’d told me back in the 90s that one day I’d love a record that features long and often repeated interpolations of the sounds we used to endure whenever we used a dial-up modem, I’d have said you were nuts. But dagnabbit, this is one excellent uncommercial hip hop record. Daveed Diggs does the bulk of the rapping here, while William Hutson and Jonathan Snipes pull sounds from all sorts of technological music sources. The grooves are palpable even when they’re just made of sounds you wouldn’t normally want to hear by themselves. Diggs has a command of language and a speed of delivery that is jaw-dropping. (Note to Nels Cline fans: he’s only on an instrumental track that lasts less than two minutes – not his most essential recording, but a perfect fit within the context of the album.)