Dear listeners,
Fall is a perennially busy season for new music releases, and the deluge can be a bit overwhelming. Fear not: Today I’m here to help.
For the Times’s annual Fall Preview, out in print on Sunday, I listened to a bunch of upcoming releases, and this playlist is a brief collection of my recommendations — five albums that, I can now confirm, are worth getting excited about. Some of these LPs showcase familiar names pushing themselves in new directions (Kim Deal is finally releasing her first solo album!) while others (from the English folk singer Laura Marling and the New York post-hardcore group Drug Church) find artists finally coming into the peaks of their powers, perfecting unique sounds they’ve established across previous albums.
We’ve also got a power duo (the R&B auteur Dawn Richard and the experimental composer Spencer Zahn) and a power quartet (a new coalition of indie-rock lifers who have named themselves, fittingly, the Hard Quartet). There’s a little something for everyone on this playlist. Check it out and spring forward into fall.
You call it superstitions, I call it traditions,
Lindsay
Listen along while you read.
1. Kim Deal: “Crystal Breath”
Since her earliest days in Pixies and her long-running alt-rock group the Breeders, Kim Deal’s hazy, cotton-candy voice has been a one-of-a-kind mainstay in underground rock, but she’s never released a full solo album until now. At turns abrasive and achingly sweet, “Nobody Loves You More” is pure Deal, whether she’s offering her own off-kilter version of yacht rock on the lead single “Coast” (which I shared in a previous Amplifier) or turning more experimental on the angular, staticky “Crystal Breath.” Even at its most infectious, a misty melancholy hangs over the album; it marks Deal’s last collaboration with her friend and longtime engineer Steve Albini, who died suddenly in May. The lilting, pedal-steel-kissed standout “Are You Mine” sounds like a simple, doo-wop-inspired love song but turns out to be an ode to Deal’s late mother, who struggled with dementia. Even in the midst of all that loss, “Nobody Loves You More” heralds, for the 63-year-old Deal, a fruitful new beginning. (Nov. 22; 4AD)
2. Dawn Richard and Spencer Zahn: “Traditions”
Dawn Richard’s musical career hasn’t preceded in a straight line — and thank goodness. After initially rising to fame as a member of the girl group Danity Kane, Richard has spent the past decade moving away from polished pop, releasing a series of artful and ambitious albums that draw upon traditions of Afrofuturism and progressive R&B while always repping the sonic history of her native New Orleans. (Earlier this week, she sued Sean Combs, who assembled Danity Kane on his TV show “Making the Band,” alleging that he groped and threatened her; his lawyer said the claims are false.) In 2022, Richard collaborated with the ambient, neo-Classical composer Spencer Zahn for one of her most striking records yet, the meditative but soulful song cycle “Pigments.” Richard and Zahn have linked up again for “Quiet in a World Full of Noise,” an album even more emotionally powerful than its predecessor. Drawing upon her own familial trauma — including a beloved cousin’s killing and her father’s cancer diagnosis — Richard melds the stylings of jazz, R&B and spoken-word poetry to deliver some of her most arresting lyricism yet. The single “Traditions,” though, is warm, simple and heartfelt: a loving ode to Richard’s family history. Zahn’s glacial piano and undulating ribbons of synthesizer complement Richard’s words beautifully, never overwhelming their quiet grace but instead allowing them to reverberate and echo across haunting soundscapes. (Merge; Oct. 4)
3. The Hard Quartet: “Rio’s Song”
The journeyman guitarist Matt Sweeney has plenty of rock ’n’ roll bona fides, including the fact that he used to live in the East Village apartment building immortalized on the cover of Led Zeppelin’s “Physical Graffiti” as well as in the Rolling Stones’ iconically laid-back 1981 music video for “Waiting on a Friend.” His new indie-rock supergroup, the Hard Quartet, pays loving homage to that Stones video with its clip for the warm, lived-in “Rio’s Song,” filmed on its hallowed stoop. The band features Stephen Malkmus (of the slacker-rock heroes Pavement), Emmett Kelly (of the Will Oldham-adjacent Cairo Gang) and Jim White (the drummer for the underground legends the Dirty Three). Across a loose, satisfyingly noodly 15 tracks — including the squalling “Renegade” and the plaintive ballad “Killed by Death” — the quartet pass around lead vocal duties like a communal spliff and emanate the uncomplicated but electric chemistry of four dudes who really like jamming with one another. (Oct. 4; Matador)
4. Drug Church: “Chow”
The Albany-based hard rock band Drug Church’s music beats with a persistent and defiantly empathetic heart. Many of the songs on its pummeling fifth album, “Prude,” tell harrowing stories about people on society’s fringes: a young runaway on a missing person poster (“Hey Listen”), a drug addict who fakes his own kidnapping (“Business Ethics”). The vocalist and songwriter Patrick Kindlon sketches these characters with compassion and a sharp eye for the absurdity of modern life: “No deep dives into shallow minds,” he intones on the single “Chow.” “Don’t break your neck jumping into people’s lives.” All the while, the lead guitarist Nick Cogan provides loud, chunky riffs that match the intensity of Kindlon’s cathartic shouts. (Oct. 4; Pure Noise Records)
5. Laura Marling: “Patterns”
In April 2020, the consistently excellent English folk singer-songwriter Laura Marling released an album called “Song for Our Daughter,” a collection of material written to an imaginary child. If she was manifesting, it worked: Last year Marling gave birth to a daughter, and her forthcoming eighth album, “Patterns in Repeat,” teems with the everyday revelations of new motherhood, as captured by an expert songwriter at the top of her game. “Last night in your sleep you started crying,” she sings on the sweetly stirring opening track, “Child of Mine.” “I can’t protect you there, though I keep trying.” On the sparsely arranged and incisively written “Patterns,” Marling muses on her own identity as a daughter, while the quietly moving “Looking Back” imagines her future as an elder in the family line. These perspective shifts make “Patterns in Repeat” a rich, multilayered meditation on family, time and life itself. Rebutting the sexist assumptions that motherhood somehow diminishes creative energy, Marling here proves firsthand that the experience can be profoundly generative and endlessly inspiring. (Oct. 25; Partisan/Chyrsalis)
The Amplifier Playlist
“5 of My Most Anticipated Albums of the Fall” track list
Track 1: Kim Deal, “Crystal Breath”
Track 2: Dawn Richard and Spencer Zahn, “Traditions”
Track 3: The Hard Quartet, “Rio’s Song”
Track 4: Drug Church, “Chow”
Track 5: Laura Marling, “Patterns”
Bonus Tracks
Nilüfer Yanya, who simply does not miss, has another fabulous new album out today called “My Method Actor.” I’m especially obsessed with the smoldering “Mutations.”
A few more highlights from our Fall Preview: Joe Coscarelli profiled the enigmatic guitarist and producer Mk.gee; Jon Pareles interviewed the eclectic English musician Michael Kiwanuka; and Hank Shteamer spoke with the freewheeling Chicago saxophonist Isaiah Collier. Plus, here’s a list of 20 more upcoming albums and tours to get excited about.
And finally, today’s Friday Playlist features tracks from some more upcoming and highly anticipated releases, including songs by the Weeknd, FKA twigs, Soccer Mommy and more. Listen here.
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