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Saturday, August 28, 2021

New music from Sheryl Crow, Taylor Scott Band, Joan Armatrading, Amelia Meath and Blake Mills, The Wombats


Sheryl Crow: Everything Is Broken [feat. Jason Isbell]


The new live album is a 27-track collection of stellar live performances from 2019, mostly at Nashville's famed Ryman Auditorium. Spin calls it "a thrilling document filled with searing and emotive takes on her most beloved material, along with a wide range of guest appearances from the likes of Stevie Nicks, Brandi Carlile, Jason Isbell, Maren Morris, Lucius, and Emmylou Harris to name just a few. ... The full gamut of Crow’s impressive songwriting and impeccable musicianship on full display in this two-and-a-half-hour set." We put this Dylan cover in our New Music bin because it's a good stand-alone track, but recommend the whole LP and will be adding much more to our big mix.

Taylor Scott Band: Bleeding Out


Photo by Scott Lukes
The Denver-based guitar-rocker tells Grateful Web his new single is "an angry funk song about getting left high and dry. Musically, I wanted the heavy backbeat to get occasionally broken up by riffs and breaks that sound kind of wild and unhinged. The idea being when the backbeat drops in again, it’s that much heavier. I think the band slayed that feel on the recording. The song kicks especially hard live so we’ve been having a lot of fun with it on the road.” 

Joan Armatrading: Natural Rhythm


We've been spinning the single "Already There," and now feature the opening track from Consequences. It's the 20th album by the singer-songwriter-multi-instrumentalist whose self-titled 1976 release still stands as a classic. "Armatrading recorded Consequences at her home studio, multi-tracking all the vocal and instrumental parts herself," AllMusic reports, going on to say: "The production and arrangements lean to a clean and streamlined electronic sound, using the elements of dance music without the insistent pulse, and the contrast between the emotional warmth of the lyrics and the clean surfaces of the music is surprisingly effective."

Amelia Meath and Blake Mills: Neon Blue


This is the inaugural release from Psychic Hotline Records, launched by singer-songwriter Amelia Meath and producer Nick Sanborn, the North Carolina duo who perform as Sylvan Esso. This song was born on a cross-country flight Meath took in 2019, watching night fall across North America as she flew to Los Angeles. Pitchfork tells us: "Meath recorded it in L.A. with Southern California guitar virtuoso Blake Mills. ... [They] tracked the song in a single session, then proceeded to tinker with the project on their computers, little by little, over the next two years."

The Wombats: If You Ever Leave, I'm Coming With You


The story of many pandemic-era releases: This indie-rock band of Liverpool origin recorded its upcoming fifth album remotely, with frontman Matthew Murphy in Los Angeles, Tord Ă˜verland Knudsen in Oslo and Dan Haggis in London. They'd meet daily on Zoom, record their parts separately and send sound files to their producers. “It was pure madness, to be honest,” Murphy said in a statement. Fix Yourself, Not The World is due in January. Murphy says this song developed as he saw the public health crisis "put some serious strain on interpersonal relationships." The title, of course, reminds us of Mental As Anything's 1981 single "If You Leave Me Can I Come Too?" We'll definitely play the two songs back-to-back now and then.

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