Don’t Miss New Albums From BEATrio, Tune-Yards, Pelican & More

BEATrio — banjo player Béla Fleck, harpist Edmar Castañeda and drummer Antonio Sánchez — issued their self-titled debut album. While the group formed in 2024, the band was forged during a run of shows at New York City’s storied Blue Note Jazz Club. Before the Blue Note stand, the duo of Fleck and Castañeda wrote the material for BEATrio’s premiere record out of necessity.

“Each night felt like an adventure,” Castañeda said, “and it was special to see the audience experience the music’s evolution.”

“We were hanging on for dear life,” Fleck added. “Things were going right, things were going wrong — everything was happening. After playing a duo concert with Edmar, it became clear that we needed to write together, in order to accommodate the needs of harp and banjo. This is our first attempt — sometimes you get lucky, before you think too much about it!”

“I play the groove with my left hand with Antonio,” Castañeda said, “while at the same time I play melodies and harmonies with my right hand and with Béla — a very fun challenge that makes a unique and powerful trio.”

“Edmar has quite a bit of responsibility in this particular case,” Sánchez said, “because he functions as the harmony and the bass.” Castañeda is “the glue between the banjo and the drums,” Sánchez added.

“This project kind of reminds me of the early days of the Flecktones, when audiences would go, ‘How is this supposed to work?’” Fleck said.

Tune-Yards — Merrill Garbus and Nate Brenner — released their sixth album, Better Dreaming, through 4AD. In the interim since their last album, 2021’s sketchy, Garbus and Brenner worked on various film and television projects. The couple also welcomed a child together and the 3-year-old can be heard on the “Limelight” single. Described as “proudly waving an anti-fascist, liberation, freak flag,” the 11-track Better Dreaming was recorded as a duo, with Garbus’ drum loops setting the rhythm for all but one song, recalling the approach of initial albums, Bird-Brains and W H O K I L L. Phish guitarist Trey Anastasio appears on the track “Sanctuary.”

“Making art in this day and age for me is a battle for focus; we’re in an age of interruption,” Garbus said.

Post-rock stalwarts Pelican return with a new album, Flickering Resonance, released today through Run For Cover Records. The band was formed in Chicago in 2000 by guitarists Trevor Shelley de Brauw and Laurent Schroeder-Lebec, and brothers Bryan Herweg on bass and Larry Herweg on drums. Flickering Resonance is the first Pelican album since Schroeder-Lebec (who left in 2012) rejoined the band after Dallas Thomas’ exit in 2022. Flickering Resonance was recorded with Sanford Parker, who recorded Pelican’s first EP.

“There was more room for openness and critique with the understanding that we’re all trying to craft the best song possible and that every suggestion is valid until it’s proven invalid,” Shelley de Brauw said. “When Laurent left and we were able to carry it through, there became a real sense of gratitude for the fact we still have this artistic outlet and a community of people who want to be a part of it.”

“We didn’t move forward unless we all wanted to move forward, and that felt like real community building,” Schroeder-Lebec added. “I went from seeing it as my art and my craft to our craft that we were shaping together.”

Rico Nasty issued Lethal, her third album and first for Fueled By Ramen. The persona created by a teenage Maria Kelly, the now 27-year-old Rico Nasty’s previous albums include her 2020 debut, Nightmare Vacation and 2022 sophomore LP, Las Ruinas. The 15-track Lethal was executive produced by Imad Royal.

“I’m putting my flag on the moon: This is my shit. This is what I do,” Rico Nasty stated. “It’s not an act. It’s not a phase. It’s not something I’m doing to promote my album. This been the vibe … This album is about being confident and saying fuck everybody else. It’s about getting doors slammed in your face and people telling you to try it their way again and again, and you stay true to yourself and it works. That’s what this project is. It’s an ode to yourself.”

Time In Love is the debut solo album released today by guitarist/pedal steel guitarist Nicole Lawrence. Lawrence is an in-demand musician whose credits include collaborating with Bruce Springsteen, Jenny Lewis, Coldplay, Devendra Banhart, King Tuff, Angel Olsen, Sharon Van Etten, and many others. The 12-track Time In Love was recorded at Studio 606 in Los Angeles on the 80-series Neve console that Nirvana’s Nevermind was tracked on. The album was produced by Mary Timony (Helium, Ex Hex) and finds Lawrence joined by Jack Graddis on bass and guitar.

“A lot of themes in rock and country music are really about self-sufficient, individualistic, loner bootstrapism,” Lawrence explained. “Though I’m influenced by that, I quickly noticed that was not the message I wanted to put out there. I wanted to cultivate more themes of community and collectivism, and how relationships can be constructive, in contrast to ‘I can do it on my own’ attitudes.”

Ezra Furman released a new album, Goodbye Small Head, today through Bella Union. Furman reunited with producer Brian Deck who also produced Furman’s 2007 album Banging Down the Doors and 2008 album Inside the Human Body (by Ezra Furman & the Harpoons). Furman and Deck recorded Goodbye Small Head in Chicago, where Furman was born. A portion of Furman’s statement accompanying the album, whose title comes from a Sleater-Kinney song, follows:

“Goodbye Small Head is the name of this record. Twelve songs, 12 variations on the experience of completely losing control, whether by weakness, illness, mysticism, BDSM, drugs, heartbreak or just living in a sick society with one’s eyes open. These songs are vivid with overwhelm. They’re not about someone going off the rails, they are inside that person’s heart. The songwriting here is a revision to William Wordsworth’s famous proclamation that ‘Poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings: it takes its origin from emotion recollected in tranquillity.’ I can agree with that, except for the tranquillity part. This poetry, my poetry, arrived in the midst of the storm. It was written as I teetered toward the edge. (I did the edits once I was safe again.)

“The band and I had had a run of records that were very communal, very first person plural. We, us, ours. I was trying to exist in and create a shared space with my audience, make anthems for taking care of one another in dark times. But there does come a time when a woman is left alone in a room to unravel. And you need music for those times too.”