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 Eddie Vedder, Spoon, Big Thief, Amos Lee, alt-J and Delvon Lamarr Organ Trio. Read on for more insight into the records we have all queued up to spin.
Eddie Vedder – Earthling
Pearl Jam frontman Eddie Vedder is back with his first solo album since 2011’s Ukulele Songs. Vedder’s Earthling is out today and includes 13 new tracks. Andrew Watt produced and contributed to the LP which features collaborations with rock royalty Elton John, Stevie Wonder, Benmont Tench and Ringo Starr. Vedder also tapped members of his new Earthlings band, notably Red Hot Chili Peppers drummer Chad Smith and former RHCP and current Pearl Jam touring member Josh Klinghoffer, to participate in some of the sessions. Eddie Vedder and Andrew Watt described the Earthling ethos to Variety as, “let us write the music that we want to hear, and that we need to hear. Sometimes it’s few and far between, so let’s write a whole record of those songs.”
Spoon – Lucifer On The Sofa
Influential Austin, Texas-based band Spoon unveiled a new album entitled Lucifer On The Sofa today through Matador Records. The 10-track LP marks the group’s first album since 2017’s Hot Thoughts and was recorded at drummer Jim Eno’s Public Hi-Fi facility in Austin with producer Mark Rankin (Adele, Queens of the Stone Age). Lucifer On The Sofa, which also includes production contributions from Dave Fridmann and Justin Raisen, is described as “the real Spoon for right now” by frontman Britt Daniel.
Work started on Lucifer On The Sofa shortly after Spoon completed an extensive tour in support of Hot Thoughts. The quintet was mostly finished when the pandemic began but amassed more material while forced off the road. While 30 songs were developed, Spoon focused on tracks that best meshed together when they reunited in September of 2020 for the album’s last sessions. “I just want that type of record that’s no filler,” Daniel explained in an interview with Austin Monthly.
Big Thief – Dragon New Warm Mountain I Believe In You
Dragon New Warm Mountain I Believe In You is Big Thief’s new studio album, out today on 4AD. Adrianne Lenker, Max Oleartchik, Buck Meek and James Krivchenia wrote and recorded the album over four separate recording facilities, starting at Sam Evian’s Flying Cloud Recordings in upstate New York. Shawn Everett then engineered sessions held at Jonathan Wilson’s studio in California’s Topanga Canyon. Additional tracking was done with engineer Dom Monks at a studio located “high in the Colorado Rockies.” The final session took place at engineer Scott McMicken’s home studio in Tucson, Arizona. The results saw the band with 45 new tracks, of which 20 made the LP. Lenker shared the below statement regarding the newly-released album:
“One of the things that bonds us together as a band is pure magic. I think we all have the same guide and none of us have ever spoken what it is because we couldn’t name it, but somehow, we are all going for the same thing, and when we hit it… we all know it’s it, but none of us to this day, or maybe ever, will be able to articulate in words what the ‘it’ is. Something about it is magic to me.”
https://bigthief.bandcamp.com/album/dragon-new-warm-mountain-i-believe-in-you
Amos Lee – Dreamland
Singer-songwriter Amos Lee released his album, Dreamland today. The 11-track LP serves as the follow-up to Lee’s 2018 album, My New Moon. Press materials described the inspiration behind Dreamland as Lee, “Turning inward to share his own mental health struggles for the first time, the songwriter has opened up about his earliest experiences with anxiety disorder – as a 9-year-old in a family without much understanding of the situation – as well as the height of battling near-daily panic attacks in college, and how the pandemic’s isolation and loss, including the loss of Amos’ close mentors John Prine and Bill Withers in 2020 – retrigged much of that trauma.
“I’ve had a lot of episodes with anxiety in my life and now I feel much more equipped to handle them, partly because my family and friends have always been so supportive of me…thinking about healing in terms of our personal relationship to the people and the world around us,” Lee said. “Over the course of my life, I’ve come to understand that music is my bridge to other people. I have no idea what the waters are like below that bridge—it might be lava for all I know—but music allows me to float over the whole thing and connect.”
alt-J – The Dream
alt-J returns with their first album since 2017’s RELAXER. The Dream is out now via Canvasback/Infectious Music. The new record from the U.K.-based trio is “an album where true-crime-inspired stories and tales of Hollywood and the Chateau Marmont rub shoulders with some of the band’s more personal moments to date. Both beauty and darkness lay side-by-side – often seamlessly merging on the same track, a purposeful choice that pays dividends across the record. The band’s dazzling instrumentation has matured; there are still far-out moments, but now they are deployed with artful precision.” alt-j previewed the record with the singles “U&ME,” followed with “Get Better,” and “The Actor.”
Delvon Lamarr Organ Trio – Cold As Weiss
Seattle-based Delvon Lamarr Organ Trio released their third studio album, Cold As Weiss, today through Colemine Records. The follow-up to last year’s I Told You So is the first to feature new drummer Dan Weiss (The Sextones) who recently joined the group’s namesake organist Delvon Lamarr and guitarist Jimmy James. Among the nine tracks on Cold As Weiss are the singles, “Pull Your Pants Up” and “Don’t Worry ‘Bout What I Do,” both of which were inspired by James’ inability to keep his pants properly secured.
“On every DLO3 tour, at some point, we have to tell Jimmy James to pull his pants up,” Lamarr said. “After being blinded by his backside over and over and over again, we decided to write a song [ “Pull Your Pants Up”] about it!
“‘Don’t Worry ‘Bout What I Do’ is a famous quote by the great guitarist Jimmy James,” Lamarr added. “No matter what you say to this cat: ‘Yo bro your butt crack is showing,’ he always says the same thing: ‘Man… don’t worry ‘bout what I do.’”
https://delvonlamarrorgantrio.bandcamp.com/album/cold-as-weiss-2
Compiled by Scott Bernstein, Nate Todd and Andy Kahn.
