Each week Release Day Picks profiles new LPs and EPs Team JamBase will be checking out on release day Friday. This week we highlight new albums by George Harrison, Khruangbin, Liam Kazar, Liars and Vasudo. Read on for more insight into the records we have all queued up to spin.
George Harrison – All Things Must Pass 50th Anniversary Deluxe Edition
The Scoop: In 1970, George Harrison released the landmark triple album All Things Must Pass. The late musician’s son, Dhani Harrison, served as executive producer for a reissue in honor of the set’s 50th anniversary that came out today via Capitol/UMe. Seven different versions are available including a Super Deluxe Edition and Uber Deluxe Edition. Each contains the original album completely remixed from the original tapes along with 47 demos and outtakes, 42 of which were previously unreleased. The limited-edition Uber Deluxe Edition features the album on 8LP and 5CD + 1 Blu-Ray audio disc fit into a wooden crate designed specifically for the set. Olivia Harrison, George’s widow, curated a 96-page scrapbook with a 44-page book detailing the history of All Things Must Pass also included.
“Since the 50th-anniversary stereo mix release of the title track to my father’s legendary All Things Must Pass album in 2020, my dear pal Paul Hicks and I have continued to dig through mountains of tapes to restore and present the rest of this newly remixed and expanded edition of the album you now see and hear before you,” Dhani Harrison stated. “Bringing greater sonic clarity to this record was always one of my father’s wishes and it was something we were working on together right up until he passed in 2001. Now, 20 years later, with the help of new technology and the extensive work of Paul Hicks we have realized this wish and present to you this very special 50th Anniversary release of perhaps his greatest work of art. Every wish will be fulfilled.”
Khruangbin – Mordechai Remixes
The Scoop: Mordechai Remixes is a full reimagining of Khruangbin’s 2020 album, Mordechi. Curated by the Texas-based trio of bassist Laura Lee, guitarist Mark Speer and drummer Donald “DJ” Johnson, among those recruited for the remix project were Kadhja Bonet, Ron Trent, Natasha Diggs, Quantic Soul Clap, Anderson .Paak collaborator Knxwledge and previous Khruangbin tour companions Ginger Roots and Harvey Sutherland. Others include Mang Dynasty whose Bill Brewster is a longtime friend of Lee’s and Felix Dickinson who asked Lee to be the godmother to one of his children.
“We’ve been around the remix thing for a long time,” Speer said on The JamBase Podcast. “It’s expected. You gotta do it — ever since people were starting to mess around with this stuff in the late-1960s, early-1970s with dub music [which is] essentially what remixing came from. As a record collector, I like getting the remixes of stuff. I want to put out remixes of everything we do and recontextualize it. It gets our music into the hands of other people that may or may not be aware. Our very first audience was house-heads in the U.K. that used to play our music at the end of the night, coming down. So this is almost a love letter to that scene.”
Liam Kazar – Due North
The Scoop: Chicago-raised, Kansas City-based singer-songwriter, musician and chef Liam Kazar released his debut album, Due North, on Kevin Morby’s Woodsist imprint Mare Records. Kazar’s credits include performing alongside Wilco’s Jeff Tweedy, Steve Gunn, Daniel Johnston and others, as well being the chef/founder of the Armenian pop-up restaurant Isfahan in Kansas City. Kazar co-produced the 10-tracK LP with James Elkington, who also played pedal steel guitar. Kazar’s former classmate (Jeff’s son) Spencer Tweedy played drums and Lane Beckstrom played bass. Additional contributions came from keyboardist Dave Curtin and backing vocalists Ohmme and Andrew Sa.
“This record kind of all stemmed from a conversation I had with Jeff [Tweedy],” Kazar stated. “I showed him some of my earliest songs I was working on and he told me, ‘It sounds like you’re writing for the people in your bands, you’re not writing for yourself.’ He was completely right. I was not writing songs for myself.”
“I love everything about Liam,” Jeff Tweedy stated. “His voice, his songs, the way he plays instruments, his smile, his cooking… Everything. Whenever I hear one of his songs for the first time I almost immediately start thinking to myself, ‘oh yeah! This song! I love this song.’ It’s a magic trick very few people can pull off: making something brand new sound like a cherished memory.”
Liars – The Apple Drop
The Scoop: Enigmatic rockers Liars return with their 10th studio album, The Apple Drop. While 2017’s TFCF and 2018’s Titles with the Word Fountain were largley solo efforts led by Angus Andrew, on The Apple Drop the Liars mastermind worked closely with multi-instrumentalist Cameron Deyell, avant-garde jazz drummer Laurence Pike and lyricist Mary Pearson Andrew. The 11-track album was recorded in Andrew’s native Australia. Describing the collaborative approach to The Apple Drop, Angus stated:
My goal was to create beyond my abilities – something bigger than myself. For the first time, I embraced collaboration from an early stage, allowing the work of others to influence the work of my own. Momentum and revolution were themes I wanted to explore, to give the listener this sense of transformation and to feel like you were being transported through the wormhole.
Throughout Liars’ history I have consistently tried to develop new methods of creating music. On each project, I’ve essentially abandoned previous methods and attempted to instead learn different ways of writing and producing songs. Where once I perceived this journey as a straight line, I’m increasingly realizing my trajectory is more akin to a spiral. As new ideas are generated, older ones take on new meaning and evolve further.
Vasudo – Call It Louis
The Scoop: Before there was Goose there was Vasudo. The quintet featuring keyboardist Matt Campbell, along with Goose’s Rick Mitarotonda (guitar), Peter Anspach (keyboards), Jeff Arevalo (drums) and Trevor Weekz (bass), return after an eight-year hiatus with Call It Louis. The band’s debut album, out today, contains six tracks recorded last year at Dreamland Recording Studios in Woodstock, New York. Ariel Shafir recorded and mixed the LP with Steven Fallone mastering Call It Louis at Sterling Sound. Vasudo will perform live for the first time since 2013 later this month at Goose’s FRED The Festival in Arrington, Virginia.
Compiled by Scott Bernstein and Andy Kahn.
