Don’t Miss New Albums Out Today From Béla Fleck + Chick Corea, Orville Peck, Rainbow Kitten Surprise & More

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 Béla Fleck & Chick Corea, Orville Peck, Rainbow Kitten Surprise, Les Savy Fav, Amen Dunes, Kelsey Waldon, Ghostface Killah, Greensky Bluegrass, Jim White & Marisa Anderson, Fruit Bats and Kings of Leon. Read on for more insight into the records we have ready to spin.

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Béla Fleck & Chick Corea – Remembrance

A final Béla Fleck and Chick Corea album, Remembrance, is available now through Thirty Tigers. The posthumous album for Corea, who died in 2021, is one of the last pieces of music the legendary jazz keyboardist recorded. The two masterful musicians released their first full-length album together in 2007. The duo went on to release a live album in 2015 and embarked on their final tour together in 2019, material from which appears on Remembrance. Produced by Fleck, the record also features “three previously unreleased Corea compositions as well as five short free improvisations, or impromptus, that Fleck has infused with written music.”

“I know it sounds unlikely. But it really happened. Once upon a time, I played banjo in a duo with Chick Corea,” Fleck said. “We pushed this duo to a new place before we ran out of time,” Fleck said. “We have here another cool look at Chick Corea, at the different ways that he can play that we wouldn’t have had. There’s a lot of great Chick Corea out there, and this is different. It was one of the special relationships in my life. He was just so kind to me, and so helpful, and I learned so much from him.”

“With Béla, our duet has become so simpatico, and comfortable–comfortable spiritually,” Corea said in 2015. “And not meaning that we’re not adventuring musically, but I know that whatever we’re going to do is going to be musical.”

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Orville Peck – Stampede Vol. 1

Masked country singer-songwriter Orville Peck released Stampede Vol. 1 today through Warner Records. Consisting of eight duets, the project grew from Peck’s performance of “Cowboys Are Frequently Secretly Fond Of Each Other” at outlaw country legend Willie Nelson’s 90th birthday celebration concerts at the Hollywood Bowl last year. Originally released in 1981 by Ned Sublette, “Cowboys Are Frequently Secretly Fond Of Each Other” was later covered by Nelson, whose version was issued in 2006. Peck sought Nelson to record a version of “Cowboys Are Frequently Secretly Fond Of Each Other,” which grew into the larger Stampede project. Along with Nelson, Peck is accompanied the first volume by Elton John, Allison Russell, Nathaniel Rateliff, Noah Cyrus, Midland and Bu Cuaron.

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Rainbow Kitten Surprise – Love Hate Music Box

Rainbow Kitten Surprise released their first album in six years, Love Hate Music Box, today via Elektra. Rainbow Kitten Surprise recently embarked on their first tour in more than a year after canceling over 40 dates last year so that frontperson Ela Melo could work on her mental wellness. After Melo was properly diagnosed and received the treatment she needed, the singer-songwriter experienced a creative renaissance — leading to the 22 tracks on Love Hate Music Box. Melo co-produced the album with renowned producers Daniel Tashian (Kacey Musgraves) and Konrad Snyder (Noah Kahan). The album’s single, “Overtime,” features vocals from Kacey Musgraves.

“I really believe in serendipity,” Melo said. “I wrote ‘Overtime’ on a Saturday, met Kacey the following Monday, and got up the nerve to ask if she’d be down to lay down some vocals for it on Tuesday. It’s the first time we’ve had a feature on an RKS song and we’re still pinching ourselves that it’s her.”

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Les Savy Fav – OUI, LSF

After 14 years, Les Savy Fav are back with a new album, OUI, LSF, which came out today on bassist Syd Butler’s Frenchkiss Records. The long-awaited follow-up to 2010’s Root For Ruin features 14 songs recorded by Butler, Tim Harrington, Seth Jabour, Harrison Haynes and Andrew Reuland, who came together to form the band in 1995 while students Rhode Island School of Design. Since the last release, the members of the band have stayed active:

“[G]rowing their families, taking and losing jobs, and living through the various ecstatic and hideous aspects of growing older. Harrington wrote and illustrated children’s books (like 2015’s Noes to Toes You are Yummy), ran out of money, built his attic studio, wrestled with mental health issues, and got a job-job as a creative director. Butler continued to run his label, Frenchkiss (which released the majority of the band’s albums, including this one), and, along with Jabour, honed his writing skills as a member of Seth Meyers’ 8G band. Haynes left his career teaching to focus on fine art, while Reuland built a reputation as a film/commercial editor and writer on Adult Swim’s cult show Ballmastrz: 9009.”

“When we finished our last record, there was a sense that if we were going to do more, we wanted to do something more ambitious,” Harrington said. “I think it took us a while to even get in a space where that was possible. The band was never a job, so we can’t get fired and don’t have to quit. We had the time to figure out how to bring the people we’ve become and the people we are as artists together authentically. There’s a chaotic, untethered ecstasy at the centre of the band’s universe. Squaring that with the desire to create stability and the need to endure some grind isn’t easy.”

“The last record was a lot about holding on. OUI, LSF is the sound of release — no map, no preconceptions, no self-righteous certainty,” Butler stated. “There’s nothing like hitting 50 to slap the cocksure vanity off your face.”

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Amen Dunes – Death Jokes

Death Jokes is the new album from Amen Dunes (singer-songwriter Damon McMahon), marking his first full length on Sub Pop Records. Since the release of his 2018 album Freedom, McMahon learned to play piano, suffered debilitating illness due to COVID, became a father for the first time and moved cross-country to relocate in Woodstock, New York. Contributions across the 14 tracks making up Death Jokes came from Sam Wilkes, Christoffer Berg (Fever Ray) and Kwake Bass (Tirzah & Dean Blunt). Sessions with Panoram and Money Mark also made it onto the album. A description accompanying Death Jokes stated:

“Though the eerie, modern blend of folk and blues that Amen Dunes is best known for is very much present here, Death Jokes is a major departure, an ambitious electronic album that reveals new artistic abilities and concerns. On most songs Damon incorporated sounds, talking, and music pilfered from Youtube, and the vast collage of samples include Nadia Boulanger giving advice in French, an ancient music scholar’s lyre performance of the oldest written song in human history, protest chants, a grunting powerlifter, and bits of stand-up from Lenny Bruce, and others, included as ‘thought provocation and irritant.’”

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Kelsey Waldon – There’s Always A Song

There’s Always A Song is country singer-songwriter Kelsey Waldon‘s new album, out now through the late John Prine’s Oh Boy Records and Thirty Tigers. The eight-song There’s Always A Song sees Waldon dipping into “the earliest pages of the country and bluegrass music songbooks” with the assistance of several special guests. Appearing alongside Waldon includes Amanda Shires, S.G. Goodman, Margo Price and Isaac Gibson from 49 Winchester. Waldon’s take on Bill Monroe’s bluegrass classic “Uncle Pen” contains backing vocals from all the guests.

“I kind of was able to find my voice through these voices, you know?” Waldon stated. “A part of me doing this album is expressing so much gratitude for the music that I love, for music that has meant a lot to me and helped me. There’s a lot of bullshit out there, and sometimes our goals and dreams get clouded by competition, or we become jaded. These songs are like something tapping into me and being like, ‘That’s why you love this.’ It feels like home to me; it feels like the truth. It just brought me so much joy to work with my peers, my friends, people I really admire.”

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Ghostface Killah – Set The Tone

Wu-Tang Clan’s Ghostface Killah‘s new solo album, Set The Tone, dropped today, (a day after his birthday) via Mass Appeal. The hip-hop artist’s first album on the label was previewed by the single, “Scar Tissue,” featuring Nas. The 19-track Set The Tone also sees guest turns from Ghost’s fellow Wu-Tang members Raekwon and Method Man along with Busta Rhymes, Ye, Remy Ma, Fat Joe, Ja Rule, Sheek Louch, Jim Jones, Trevor Jackson, October London, Bee-B and more. While Set The Tone is GFK’s first LP since 2019’s Ghostface Killahs, he has recently made prominent appearances on Kendrick Lamar’s Mr. Morale & the Big Steppers as well as Westside Gunn’s 10.

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Greensky Bluegrass – The Iceland Sessions

Greensky Bluegrass issued a new studio EP, The Iceland Sessions, featuring keyboardist Holly Bowling, via Thirty Tigers. The collaboration dubbed “6reensky” captured the record when GSBG held a Camp Greensky destination event in Iceland last year at Eldborg Hall in Reykjavik. Just ahead of the Reykjavik run, Greensky Bluegrass – mandolinist Paul Hoffman, guitarist Dave Bruzza, banjo player Michael Arlen Bont, bassist Mike Devol and dobro player Anders Beck — plus Bowling decamped to Flóki Studios in the wilds of Northern Iceland to capture some magic. Hoffman detailed the sessions:

“We invited some of our favorite friends and musicians to play with us, including Holly Bowling, and we set out to make memories in the twilight sun with a bunch of fans who joined us from all over the world. We embraced the disorienting inspiration and played late into the night as the sun never left us, all the while still developing lyrics and figuring out harmonies and arrangements. We swam in the cold water. We saw more sheep than people for days. We listened to the birds sing through the night while we charged through each song. A recording project that felt like a whirlwind at times turned into something calm and peaceful that felt more creative and raw than anything we’ve done before. Fully aware that we could continue to work on this later, we decided to commit to what we created in Iceland and have the recording be truly a moment in time.”

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Jim White & Marisa Anderson – Swallowtail

Swallowtail is the latest artifact capturing the ongoing collaboration between a pair of masters of their instruments, guitarist Marisa Anderson and drummer Jim White. The follow-up their first joint record, 2020’s The Quickening, is a six-song set recorded in Australia in Point Lonsdale, Victoria at Resting Bell Studio with engineer Nick Huggins. The remote coastal setting proved a pivotal component of the album. Anderson described the experience and collaborative instincts with White:

“It was a big change of vibe and scenery to be out of the city and on the coast with no distraction and to be working with an engineer (and avid surfer) who is attuned to the cycles of tides and sunrises and sunsets and ocean rhythms. I think all of that got into the music as we were making it.

“When we play live we don’t stop, there are no breaks in between ‘songs,’ we segue naturally between movements and ideas. Sometimes we are together, and sometimes we are apart, sometimes the segues become the pieces. The ideas aren’t the music, they are the pathway into the musical possibilities.”

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Fruit Bats – Starry-eyed, in Stereo

Eric D. Johnson-led band Fruit Bats released a live compilation, Starry-eyed, in Stereo, today as tour exclusive cassette and digitally via Merge Records. Fruit Bats document their past two years of touring with the release of Starry-eyed, in Stereo. The compilation boasts 20 tracks pulled from Fruit Bats excursions around the compilation Sometimes a Cloud Is Just a Cloud and 2023 studio LP A River Running to Your Heart. Johnson detailed the new live compilation:

“In early 2022, when we embarked on a national tour in support of the Sometimes a Cloud… compilation, our longtime sound guy/best bud/spiritual advisor Nathan Vanderpool thought it might be a cool idea to run some proverbial ‘tape’ at any venue that could provide such a thing. In the scattered opportunities when we could, we did …and that directive then ran over into the A River Running to Your Heart tour last year, too. These songs are from a random assortment of shows in a wide spectrum of cities. A different vibe with each song and each night—very much how tour kinda feels… It’s a nice little memento of a couple of crazy and often magical years of live shows.

“Also, quite surprisingly, I’ve never released any music on cassette before, so this seemed like the time. So get your tape decks ready to go.

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Kings Of Leon – Can We Please Have Fun

Kings of Leon returned with their first studio album in three years, Can We Please Have Fun, out today on the band’s new label Capitol Records. The quartet’s ninth studio album and follow up to their 2021 LP, When You See Yourself, was captured at Dark Horse studio in Nashville with new collaborator and producer Kid Harpoon (Harry Styles, Florence + the Machine).

“It was the most enjoyable record I’ve ever been a part of,” Kings of Leon’s Caleb Followill said of making Can We Please Have Fun.

“It’s like we allowed ourselves to be musically vulnerable,” Caleb’s brother and bandmate Nathan Followill added. “I love it when a rock band is not embarrassed to admit that every song doesn’t have to be on 11.”

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