Release Day Picks: July 31st New Album Highlights

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 Trey Anastasio, Alanis Morissette, Kitchen Dwellers, Charley Crockett, Makaya McCraven and Dave Matthews Band. Read on for more insight into the records we have all queued up to spin.

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Trey Anastasio – Lonely Trip

The Scoop: Phish frontman Trey Anastasio wasted little time getting creative once the coronavirus COVID-19 pandemic began and he locked down at his home in New York City. Anastasio wrote and recorded a number of new tunes over the past four months and today releases Lonely Trip, a collection of 15 “quarantine songs.” Trey originally shared the songs via Instagram. He then tapped longtime collaborator Bryce Goggin to remix the tracks for inclusion on the Rubber Jungle Records LP. Lonely Trip includes songs written with old pals Tom Marshall and Scott Herman and utilizes recordings of drumbeats by Phish drummer Jon Fishman as “building blocks” to many of the songs on the album. “Lonely Trip was my message in a bottle during this time, and I wish I knew how to properly thank all of you in our community for listening and responding,” Anastasio wrote in a note announcing the record, which he dedicated “to the heroism of our healthcare and essential workers.”

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Alanis Morissette – Such Pretty Forks In The Road

The Scoop: Like most everyone else, Alanis Morissette had different plans for 2020. A tour in honor of the 25th anniversary of her breakout album Jagged Little Pill was canceled due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Morissette was also forced to postpone the release of her new album, Such Pretty Forks In The Road, which is out today following an original May 1 release date. The follow-up to 2012’s Havoc and Bright Lights was informed in part by Morissette’s multiple miscarriages as well as the births of two of her three children and dealing with postpartum depression. Morissette recorded Such Pretty Forks In The Road in Malibu, California and at her new home in the Bay Area. The album’s title comes from a line in “Smiling,” a song that originated as part of the 2018 Broadway musical inspired by Jagged Little Pill. “Everything that I was feeling is in the songs,” Morissette told Apple Music. “Anytime something is that life-changing and hard, I want to chronicle it. Some of the more challenging turning points in my life have yielded the greatest evolution in my own consciousness.”

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Kitchen Dwellers – Reheated, Vol. 2

The Scoop: Montana jamgrass quartet Kitchen Dwellers released their Reheated, Vol. 2 EP today. The second installment in their covers EP series — recorded at Denver’s Mighty Fine Productions with Colin Bricker — follows Reheated, Vol. 1’s look at music from The Band and this time takes aim at Pink Floyd, whose prog-rock leanings presented a challenge for the string band. “We tried to recreate some of the iconic sounds that Pink Floyd managed to produce in the studio, this time, with acoustic instruments,” guitarist/vocalist Max Davies explained in a statement. “Every single instrument track was recorded on one of our four instruments except for one, so we really had to work on getting it right.” Reheated, Vol. 2 contains a song from each of Floyd’s amazing run of albums in the mid to late 1970s with “Welcome To The Machine” from 1975’s Wish You Were Here, the EP’s preview “Pigs (Three Different Ones)” from 1977’s Animals and “Hey You” from 1979’s The Wall.

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Charley Crockett – Welcome To Hard Times

The Scoop: The title of Charley Crockett’s new album, Welcome To The Hard Times, describes a rough period the musician made it through before beginning work on the 13-track Thirty Tigers release. Charley went to a routine doctor’s appointment in January 2019, where he was diagnosed with a congential heart condition as well as Aortic Valve disease. Crockett immediately had to go through life saving heart surgery and came through the experience inspired to make his ideal album. Mark Neill produced the LP, which features songwriting contributions from Pat McLaughlin and Dan Auerbach. “This record is for the folks who feel like everything’s fixed. If you think you’re playing a rigged game, you’re right,” Crockett explained in a statement. “If it seems like all the cards are marked in advance, they are. But you still gotta roll the dice, even when you know they’re loaded.”

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Makaya McCraven – Universal Beings E&F Sides

The Scoop: Makaya McCraven released a new album, Universal Beings E&F Sides, as a companion to the jazz drummer’s 2018 album Universal Beings. The new companion album also serves as the the soundtrack to the documentary film, Universal Beings, which is avialable today as well. Directed by Mark Pallman, the Universal Beings documentary traces the recording of the album across sessions held at studios in New York City, Chicago and London, and at Parker’s house in Altadena, California. Made up of 14 tracks built from “new pieces of organic beat music cut from the original [Universal Beings] sessions, prepared and produced by Makaya,” Universal Beings E&F Sides features contributions from Jeff Parker, Shabaka Hutchings, Miguel-Atwood Ferguson, Carlos Niño, and several others.

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Dave Matthews Band – Live Trax Vol. 52

The Scoop: The latest in Dave Matthews Band’s Live Trax series has arrived. Live Trax, Vol. 52 documents DMB’s June 6, 2014 concert at Darling’s Waterfront Pavilion in Bangor, Maine. The 2014 Summer Tour saw the band delivering an acoustic first set followed by an electric second. Dave Matthews and Tim Reynolds kicked off the acoustic set with “Oh” and “Bartender” before the rest of the band joined in for “unplugged” versions of vintage DMB like “Two Step,” “What Would You Say” and “Tripping Billies” along with the relatively new tune “Stolen Away On 55th & 3rd.” The electric portion contained classics like “Crush” and “Jimi Thing” as well as the tour debut of “The Song That Jane Likes.” Live Trax, Vol. 52 concludes with “The Space Between” and “Ants Marching.”

[Purchase here.]

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Compiled by Scott Bernstein, Nate Todd and Andy Kahn.