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 Wilco, Lindsay Lou, Animal Collective, Grateful Dead, lespecial and Polyrhythmics. Read on for more insight into the records we have ready to spin.
Wilco – Cousin
Wilco tried something they hadn’t done in nearly two decades for Cousin, an album out today on the band’s dBpm Records imprint. The 10-song collection was produced by Cate Le Bon, the first time they’ve ceded control to a collaborator outside their immediate circle since 2004’s Sky Blue Sky. Wilco did keep a sense of familiarity as they recorded the follow-up to 2022’s Cruel Country at The Loft, their studio in Chicago.
“Cate came in knowing every lyric and every chord. She knew how to play the songs, and she had very clear-cut ideas,” drummer Glenn Kotche told SPIN of Le Bon. “Even when she didn’t know what she wanted, she knew how to get there. I’ve never really worked with a producer who was that hands-on and knew the material inside and out. She really was instrumental in sculpting these songs into what they are.”
“The amazing thing about Wilco is they can be anything,” Le Bon explained in a press release of a band that has now kept the same lineup intact since early 2004. “They’re so mercurial, and there’s this thread of authenticity that flows through everything they do, whatever the genre, whatever the feel of the record. There aren’t many bands who are able to, this deep into a successful career, successfully change things up.”
Lindsay Lou – Queen Of Time
Nashville-based singer-songwriter Lindsay Lou released her album, Queen Of Time, today. Dave O’Donnell (James Taylor, Sheryl Crow, Heart) produced Lindsay Lou’s Kill Rock Stars debut which also sees guest turns from Grammy-winners Jerry Douglas and Billy Strings. Billy plays on his co-write with Lindsay, “Nothing’s Working,” originally appearing on Strings’ 2021 album Renewal. Dobro legend Jerry Douglas guests on the album’s opening track, “Nothing Else Matters.” The period around the creation of Queen Of Time saw Lindsay Lou processing the loss of her grandmother, the end of her marriage and the COVID-19 pandemic. She sought out a hallucinogenic ritual that led her to an epiphany. “I saw a literal manifestation of the sacred feminine, and had this profound sense that I was meant to embody it,” she recalled. Lindsay also spoke about how her grandmother inspried Queen Of Time:
“It started with my grandma. She was the unattainable woman in a way. She had 12 kids and ran homeless shelters and was always taking people in. She felt that her calling was to be a mother to everyone – this communal caregiver – but it also meant that in belonging to everyone, she also belonged to no one. I realized that this is the catch-22 of anyone who is a woman unto herself. Women, first and foremost, belong to themselves, so nobody can really have them; but, there’s also this element of self-sacrificing and giving to the idea of the feminine.”
Animal Collective – Isn’t It Now?
In 2019, the members of Animal Collective convened together at a rented cabin in Leiper’s Fork, Tennessee, during which time they came up with 20 new songs. When the pandemic hit the following year, the band set out to make an album out of the songs they felt could most easily be finished remotely, resulting in 2022’s Time Skiffs. Returning to the remaining 10 songs, Animal Collective recruited accomplished producer Russell Elevado (D’Angelo, The Roots, Kamasi Washington). Sessions with Elevado, a “steadfast analog champion,” took place over 12 days at New York’s The Bunker in late 2021 “using at most 24 channels.” Comprising seven songs, Isn’t It Now? has a total running time of 64 minutes, making it Animal Collective’s lengthiest album. The track “Defeat” takes up nearly a third of the album.
Grateful Dead – Wake Of The Flood (50th Anniversary Deluxe Edition)
The Grateful Dead’s 1973 release, Wake Of The Flood, is the latest of the legendary band’s studio album’s to receive an expanded reissue for its 50th anniversary. The deluxe edition of Wake Of The Flood features guitarist Jerry Garcia’s “Eyes Of The World” demo, a previously-unreleased demo of “Here Comes Sunshine” — the song from which the album gets its title — and a recording of the last show of the Dead’s short tour immediately following the release of Wake Of The Flood held on November 1, 1973, in Evanston, Illinois at Northwestern University’s McGaw Memorial Hall. Recorded after the untimely death of Ron “Pigpen” McKernan and during drummer Mickey Hart’s sabbatical from the band, Wake Of The Flood was the first Grateful Dead album featuring keyboardist Keith Godchaux and vocalist Donna Jean Godchaux. The album, which also featured Garcia, guitarist Bob Weir, drummer Bill Kreutzmann and bassist Phil Lesh, was the first released on the band’s new-at-the-time record label, Grateful Dead Records.Held over just nine days in August 1973, Wake Of The Flood sessions took place at the Record Plant in Sausalito, California. The seven-song LP was made up of “Eyes Of The World” and “Here Comes Sunshine” as well as “Stella Blue,” “Row Jimmy,” “Let Me Sing Your Blues Away,” “Weather Report Suite” and “Mississippi Half-Step Uptown Toodeloo.”
Former UC Santa Cruz Grateful Dead archivist Nicholas G. Meriwether wrote an essay for the Wake Of The Flood (50th Anniversary Deluxe Edition). Available in a variety of physical and digital formats, “All pressings of Wake Of The Flood (50th Anniversary Deluxe Edition) feature Plangent Processes tape restoration and speed correction and are newly mastered by Grammy Award-winning engineer, David Glasser, and produced for release by Grateful Dead Legacy Manager and Audio Archivist, David Lemieux.”
lespecial – Odd Times
lespecial — the Connecticut-born, self-described “prog-tronic power trio” — today released their fourth full-length studio album, Odd Times. The trio of Luke Bemand (bass, synth, percussion, vocals), Jonathan Grusauskas (guitar, synth, sampler, percussion, vocals) and Rory Dolan (drums, sampler, percussion, vocals) enlisted David Sanchez, frontman of the thrash metal band Havok, to produce Odd Times. Here’s how lespecial described the 10-track album:
“Odd Times is our darkest, heaviest record to date. Yet, within that darkness there is light and levity to be found. Much of the music was written during quarantine, and while some of it reflects the isolation and catastrophobia of that period, the themes on this album pertain more to the constant changing of time. That could mean end times, with a doomsday clock ticking towards the expiration date on our planet, or the beginning of something new.
“Working with Havok frontman David Sanchez in a producing role, we challenged ourselves to come up with our heaviest riffs and instrumental interlocking yet. The album is loaded with old school metal, and modern djent-inspired riffage, heavy tribal drumming, crunchy thumping bass with glitched out guitar, math rock sections, horror movie samples, moments of levity and…Odd Times.”
Polyrhythmics – Filter System
Seattle-based, eight-piece instrumental funk outfit Polyrhythmics today released their new album, Filter System. The new LP is the follow-up to Polyrhythmics’ 2020 album Man From The Future and its companion EP, Fondue Party. The 10-track Filter System takes its name from the band’s democratic approach to songwriting and arranging. The group consisting of guitarist Ben Bloom, drummer Grant Schroff, keyboardist Nathan Spicer, bassist Jason Gray, percussionist Karl Olsen, trumpeter Scott Morning, trombonist Elijah Clark, and saxophonist/flute player Art Brown employed the “Filter System” when creating the songs on the new album.
“When I listen to this music I feel comforted and excited at the same time,” said Brown. “I really feel like we’ve created some beautiful musical spaces that can transport you. And in that way I think it can provide a source of inspiration, and maybe revitalize the hearts and minds of folks who listen.”
Compiled by Scott Bernstein, Nate Todd and Andy Kahn.
