Don’t Miss New Albums From Billy Strings, The Mother Hips, Alan Sparhawk, Lady Gaga & More

Billy Strings‘ long-in-the-making new studio album, Highway Prayers, has finally arrived via Reprise Records. The the follow up to 2021’s Renewal was produced by Strings and the famed Jon Brion (Fiona Apple, Mac Miller, Aimee Mann). Highway Prayers, which also follows Strings’ Me/And/Dad 2022 collaborative album with his dad, Terry Barber, was recorded in Nashville and Los Angeles. Strings was joined by his bandmates — fiddler Alex Hargreaves, bassist Royal Masat, banjo player Billy Failing and mandolinist Jarrod Walker — as well as Brion (bass, drums, percussion), Matt Chamberlain (drums), Jerry Douglas (dobro), Jason Carter (fiddle), Lindsay Lou (backing vocals), Nathaniel Smith (cello), Taneka Samone (backing vocals), Cory Henry (piano), Peter “Madcat” Ruth (harmonica, jaw harp) and Victor Furtado (clawhammer banjo).

Veteran Northern California-based rock band The Mother Hips issued new album entitled California Current through Blue Rose Music. Co-founding members Tim Bluhm and Greg Loiacono decamped with rhythm section John Hofer (drums) and Brian Rashap (bass) to Oakland’s 25th Street Recording earlier this year to record the follow-up to 2023’s When We Disappear. Additional sessions were held at Bluhm’s Forrest Power studio. Longtime friend and collaborator Jason Crosby (Jackson Browne, Phil Lesh) contributed electric piano to California Current. The 11-song collection, which features a fan-favorite cover of The Kinks’ “This Is Where I Belong,” continues a prolific streak for the quartet. A string of three new albums in three years began with the release of Glowing Lantern in December of 2021.

“Starting three years ago, Joe Poletto, the founder of Blue Rose Music, and The Hips set a goal to record and release one album per year,” explained Bluhm. “Of course, it’s not unusual for any record to include songs and ideas collected from years past, but this frequency of releases exhausts stored-up ideas and requires a steady stream of fresh material.”

“Reflecting on what is most important to us as a band, we agree that writing and recording music as much as possible is our top priority,” added Loiacono. “California Current, as the title suggests, is a fine representation of the state of our art. It’s a distinctly Mother Hips record that bursts with the love, energy, and beauty that California brings to us all.”

Low’s Alan Sparhawk released his debut solo album, White Roses, My God, through Sub Pop Records. The sonically expansive 11-track solo effort comes in the wake of the death of Mimi Parker, Sparhawk’s wife and longtime Low bandmate, who died in 2022 after years of cancer treatment. Sparhawk’s resulting grief helped inform the lyrical and contextual nature of White Roses, My God, as well an eclectic array of cited influences ranging from Childish Gambino to 100 Gecs to Prince to Neil Young (whose experimental album Trans was compared to White Roses, My God). The album was written and recorded entirely by Sparhawk, who shared a statement regarding his process:

“The kids had the drum machine and a microphone set up in the studio. They’d have their friends over sometimes, and they’d record themselves taking turns free-styling. I brought them a synth and a voice pitch affect to have more options to mess with but before long, my curiosity won, and I found myself secretly stabbing around at possibilities with the unfamiliar tools, improvising, turning knobs until something would hit and a song would form. In hindsight, I can see now that it must have been what needed to come out of me, but at the time it felt like chaos and naïveté-even a little desperate. It kept tapping into a part of me that I’ve come to trust, so I kept recording.

“I found that the sounds and the rigidity demanded a certain structure, a framework, and I was trying to improvise songs within that framework. Which meant that the things that were organic had this freedom to be even more non-regimented. I really respect the moment when the music instigates transcendence. The vocals ended up being this very spontaneous, visceral engine. There’s a moment when something comes out of your mouth that you didn’t know was going to come out, and then it turns into something else. And something else. And it shakes you. Because what just came out was more precise and accurate and organized than anything you could have come up with. There’s magic in it because it is from the moment that it was created.”

Announced as a “surprise” new album on Monday, pop superstar Lady Gaga today released Harlequin, an album inspired by the character Harley Quinn that Gaga portrays in the upcoming feature film, Joker: Folie à Deux. The musical co-starring Joaquin Phoenix reprising his titular role and directed by Todd Phillips, Joker: Folie à Deux will be released on October 4. An announcement heralding Harlequin stated:

“Taking listeners on a genre-defying journey capturing the essence of one of pop culture’s most iconic and chaotic figures, the album is as diverse and complex as the character and woman that inspired it. Harlequin is an album that celebrates a figure who thrives on danger, who lives for the undefinable, and who embraces the beautiful chaos of her own dreams. This is Gaga like you’ve never heard her before.”

JD McPherson returns with his first studio album of original music in six years, Nite Owls, out now via New West Records. Nite Owls follows McPherson’s 2017 record, Undivided Heart & Soul and his 2018 holiday collection SOCKS. McPherson released a covers EP, Warm Covers 2, in 2023. Recorded at Reliable Recorders in Chicago, McPherson produced the 10-song LP Nite Owls, which was took time to develop.

“I actually recorded a version of Nite Owls several years ago in L.A., but the environment within my band just wasn’t working at all,” McPherson stated. “It was a painful time. And then the pandemic hit, and I went pretty dark. I went back to where I made my first record, and it was a wonderful experience. There’s no saxophone this time, there’s no r&b piano, but it’s a rock ‘n’ roll record. To me, it’s the next logical step from my last one, Undivided Heart & Soul.”

Adjust Brightness is neo-soul/R&B singer Bilal’s first solo studio album in eight years, available now on the ONErpm label. The 11-song effort follows Bilal’s 2024 collaborative live album, Live at Glasshaus, featuring Questlove, Common, Burniss Travis and Robert Glasper. Glasper is featured on the Adjust Brightness track “The Story.” Regarding his sixth album and follow-up to 2015’s In Another Life, Bilal stated:

“I realized a long time ago that, with the specter of AI and streaming, we risk losing our humanity,” Bilal said. “With Adjust Brightness, it was like: let’s make some shit that is going to confuse the damn computer. We’re bringing a love frequency — emphasizing the warmth, the love. It’s an intimate record.”

Rahim Redcar (FKA Christine and the Queens) released his new album, Hopecore, through Because Music. The seven-song album was entirely created by Redcar who wrote, produced and mixed the record. Hopecore is said to be the start of a new era following the 2023 release of the 20-track rock opera and its 2022 accompanying prequel Redcar les adorables étoiles. Speaking about Hopecore Rahim stated:

“Hopecore was made with tears, blood, and mostly an unwavering faith in the raw, pure expression of the soul. Music took here its full prophetic vastness, got wilder, and called for an absolute quest where no one else came in to tamper with intentions. A call of the flesh, a prayer for justice and freedom.”

Country singer-songwriter Mickey Guyton released her highly-anticipated sophomore album, House On Fire, today through Capitol Records Nashville. Guyton earned a co-writing credit on each of the 12 tracks recorded for the follow-up to her acclaimed 2021 debut LP, Remember Her Name. That record earned the Texas-native an unprecedented Grammy Award nomination for Best Country Album, making her the first Black artist nominated in the category. Fellow singer-songwriter Kane Brown can be heard guesting on the House On Fire track “Nothing Compares To You.”

Esteemed singer-songwriter Randall Bramblett issued a new album, Paradise Breakdown, via Strolling Bones Records. Paradise Breakdown is Bramblett’s first album in four years following 2020’s Pine Needle Fire. Splitting recording time between East Nashville and his adopted hometown of Athens, Georgia, Randall Bramblett tapped a team of crack players to record Paradise Breakdown including Tom Bukovac, Steve Mackey, Nick Johnson, Seth Hendershot, A.J. Adams, Tom Ryan and producer/drummer Gerry Hansen. The album’s lead single, “Throw Away My Cane,” inspired by a friend’s story involving the late Dr. John. Press materials for Paradise Breakdown expanded on Bramblett and his new record:

For decades, Bramblett explored the deep corners and outer orbits of American roots music, creating a southern sound that’s every bit as eclectic as its maker. That sound reaches a new milestone with Paradise Breakdown, the thirteenth record from a musician hailed as “one of the South’s most lyrical and literate songwriters” by Rolling Stone. The album finds Bramblett taking stock of past and present, embracing all the contradictory elements — love and loss; joy and disappointment; nostalgia and mortality — of a career dedicated to creation.

Sociologist of sound Dr. Whitney Johnson and her alter-ego Matchess released parallel albums, Hav and Stena, via Drag City. The idea for Hav and Stena began in 2021 when Johnson traveled through Greece and Cyprus researching the cult of Hermaphroditus, a Greek divinity symbolizing the unity of male and female, and collecting field recordings. During this time she also read Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein for the first time, which influenced the new works. Paramount to Hav and Stena are how their sounds resonate in the body. The Solfeggio Frequencies are referenced throughout the record.

“I am living a double life,” is how Johnson described the coexistence of her alter egos. “Sound is so amazing and insane the way it is just pressure on air that ripples onto your body, [into] your ears, and then it becomes this entire meaningful system that defines our lives.”

Sociologist of sound Dr. Whitney Johnson and her alter-ego Matchess released parallel albums, Hav and Stena, via Drag City. The idea for Hav and Stena began in 2021 when Johnson traveled through Greece and Cyprus researching the cult of Hermaphroditus, a Greek divinity symbolizing the unity of male and female, and collecting field recordings. During this time she also read Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein for the first time, which influenced the new works. Paramount to Hav and Stena are how their sounds resonate in the body. The Solfeggio Frequencies are referenced throughout the record.

“I am living a double life,” is how Johnson described the coexistence of her alter egos. “Sound is so amazing and insane the way it is just pressure on air that ripples onto your body, [into] your ears, and then it becomes this entire meaningful system that defines our lives.”

California-native singer-songwriter Christian Lee Hutson released a new album, Paradise Pop. 10, today through the ANTI- label. The 11-song album follows Hutson’s prior LPs, 2020’s Beginners and 2022’s Quitters. The Los Angeles native decamped to Brooklyn in the middle of the winter to record Paradise Pop. 10 at Figure 8 Studio with co-producing frequent collaborators Phoebe Bridgers and Marshall Vore, and engineer and multi-instrumentalist Joseph Lorge. Singer-songwriter/actress Maya Hawke (whose latest album was produced by Hutson) appears on and co-wrote the Paradise Pop. 10 song “Carousel Horses.” Named after a rural area of Parke County, Indiana, Hutson explained his decision behind the new album’s title:

“When I was a kid, my dad used to take me up there, mostly because of the novelty of the town limits sign, but also because it was so quiet and peaceful. For years, he would say that if life ever got too crazy, we could go up there and start living our real lives; be the people we were always meant to be. It occurred to me while making this record, that most of our lives we spend waiting to ‘be the people we were always meant to be.’ I wanted to name this record after that town because it always symbolized an arrival to me. It was the ‘when’ that I looked forward to as a child. ‘When’ it all made sense and I was finally who I was meant to be.”

Singer-songwriter Alexa Wildish released her new EP, After Love, consisting of six covers. Based in Lyons, Colorado, Wildish released her self-titled debut EP of original music in 2020. Wildish had a successful run on NBC’s The Voice, appearing on the network’s singing contest series in 2023. Consisting of Wildish’s interpretations of six cover songs, After Love has several ties to her The Voice experience. The tracklist includes a cover of “Songbird” by Fleetwood Mac, which she successfully auditioned with to make The Voice. Fellow The Voice contestant Lennon VanderDoes contributed to the cover of Brandi Carlile’s “This Time Tomorrow.” A cover of Billie Eilish’s “everything i wanted” was often requested during Wildish’s The Voice stint.

Rounding out the After Love tracklist are Wildish’s takes on Tom Petty’s “You Don’t Know How It Feels,” Cher’s “Believe” and the Keith Whitley-popularized “I’m No Stranger to the Rain.” Recorded with producer Russell Durham in Los Angeles, After Love sees Wildish supported by bassist Benjamin Lazar Davis, guitarist Harrison Whitford and drummer John Fatum.