Don’t Miss New Albums From Bon Iver, Valerie June, Galactic & Irma Thomas + Others

Bon Iver follows the release of last year’s SABLE EP with the expanded new album entitled SABLE, fABLE. Founder Justin Vernon issued the sixth Bon Iver album through Jagjaguwar. The three songs making up SABLE are the first three tracks of the 12-track SABLE, fABLE. The album was co-produced by Vernon and Jim-E Stack and recorded at Vernon’s April Base recording facility in Wisconsin. The first Bon Iver album since since 2019’s i,i was also the first project recorded at April Base after years of incapacity during renovation. Danielle Haim of HAIM appears on the song “If Only I Could Wait.” Dijon and Flock of Dimes contributed to the track “Day One.” According to the album announcement:

“Where SABLE, is a sparse and solitary reckoning with a pain that long-defined the past, fABLE looks towards a vibrant future filled with light, purpose and possibility: a partner, new memories, perhaps a family …

“If SABLE, was the prologue, then fABLE is the book – but together, SABLE, fABLE is the album, and for that reason it is no fairy tale …

“Like fables, each track instills a lesson, and fABLE is about the selfless rhythm required when one is enmeshed with another person or lover – a patient commitment to finding the pace for betterness, and togetherness.

“Gone are the evasive and dense layers of sound that guarded Justin Vernon’s voice on i,i and 22, A Million. The previous four albums were a cycle of seasons that is now complete; SABLE, fABLE is a canvas for truth laid bare.”

Valerie June issued a new album, Owls, Omens, And Oracles, through Concord Records. The 14-track effort is the fourth studio album released by the multi-instrumentalist, singer-songwriter, whose last full-length of original material was 2021’s The Moon and Stars: Prescriptions for Dreamers. Norah Jones and The Blind Boys of Alabama are among the contributors to Owls, Omens, And Oracles, along with the album’s producer, M. Ward.

“One of the things I enjoy about listening to M. Ward’s music is that he’s an incredibly amazing guitar player,” June said. “While he can shred and rock, he also ‘gets’ the blues. After sitting in with him for those live sets [at Newport Folk and Hardly Strictly Bluegrass], we vowed to work together one day on a record. String instruments (guitar, banjo, banjolele) are the only instruments I play, but I suppose if there’s an instrument in the room that speaks to me, then I can write a song on anything. I adore Daniel Johnston’s songs. His songwriting is so simple, yet powerful.”

New Orleans musical icons Galactic and Irma Thomas released their highly-anticipated collaborative album Audience With The Queen, through Galactic’s own Tchoup-zilla Records. While most of Galactic’s 10 previous LPs were based of the band’s core instrumentalists — Ben Ellman (saxophones, harmonica), Robert Mercurio (bass), Stanton Moore (drums), Jeff Raines (guitar) and Rich Vogel (keyboards) — joined by a mix of vocalists, Thomas is the lone featured singer on Audience With The Queen. Each of the new songs was written specifically for the 83-year-old to sing. The recording process started in New Orleans in December 2022 and continued through 2024. Galactic and Irma Thomas teamed up for select dates last year as they put the finishing touches on Audience With The Queen.

“We were just going through a wish list and we thought, ‘Oh, we should do an Irma Thomas record,’” Ellman said. “I feel incredibly fortunate that we’re able to work with somebody like Irma Thomas. I mean, we’ve worked with Walter ‘Wolfman’ Washington, Cyril Neville, Corey Glover – just incredible lead singers, who have really contributed to the fabric of contemporary American music. I just feel like a kid in a candy store.”

“I won’t ever retire from singing,” Thomas stated. “I’m having too much fun.”

Daughter of Swords, the project of singer-songwriter Alex Sauser-Monnig (Mountain Man, The A’s), released a new album, Alex, today via Sylvan Esso’s imprint Psychic Hotline. Alex follows Sauser-Monnig’s Daughter of Swords debut album, Dawnbreaker. The singer-songwriter has since been busy collaborating with Sylvan Esso’s Amelia Meath in both Mountain Man — also featuring Molly Sarlé — and The A’s.

Sauser-Monnig tapped Meath and Sylvan Esso’s Nick Sanborn to contribute to Alex, which was captured at SE’s Chapel Hill, North Carolina studio, Betty’s. Additional contributors include Jenn Wasner (Wye Oak), TJ Maiani (Weyes Blood) and Caleb Wright (Hippo Campus).

The posthumous debut solo album from The Flaming Lips collaborator Nell Smith, Anxious, came out today via Bella Union. Smith tragically died in a car accident last October at the age of 17. Anxious was stewarded by Jack and Lily Wolter of Penelope Isles, worked with material captured by Smith during a recording session at Bella Union’s Brighton studio. Three of the songs were collaborations with Canadian band Shred Kelly, writing from Nell’s native Fernie, British Columbia. Nell worked with The Flaming Lips on the 2021 album, Where The Viaduct Looms, a reimagining of songs by Nick Cave.

“It is still very painful when I realize Nell is gone,” Flaming Lips frontman Wayne Coyne stated. “I keep thinking I’ll check my text messages from her. I’m sure she has a new drawing or new piece of a song or a new photo of her cat… and then I remember she is gone. Now when I’m listening to her singing these songs there is a brief fantastical joy. Her voice hits the ear, the ear tells brain this is the sound of love, the brain lets the mind fly through the billions of connections it has with Nell’s life… but as it flies it also flies to her death… there is something holy that happens now.”

The Mars Volta’s new studio album, Lucro Sucio; Los Ojos Del Vacio, was issued today through Clouds Hill. The third album since the 2022 reunion of principal members Omar Rodríguez-López and Cedric Bixler-Zavala, Lucro Sucio; Los Ojos Del Vacio is the ninth The Mars Volta overall. The new record’s 17-song tracklist has served as the basis of recent The Mars Volta performances opening for Deftones.

Announced earlier this week, The Price of Admission is the newly released Turnpike Troubadours album out today through Bossier City Records/Thirty Tigers. Formed in Tahlequah, Oklahoma, Turnpike Troubadours consists of guitarist Evan Felker, fiddler Kyle Nix, electric guitarist Ryan Engleman, bassist RC Edwards, drummer Gabe Pearson and pedal steel guitarist/accordian player Hank Early. Shooter Jennings produced The Price Of Admission, which follows the band’s 2023 album, A Cat in the Rain.

Growing Pains is the Trousdale’s second album, released today through Independent Co. The group — Quinn D’Andrea, Lauren Jones and Georgia Greene — co-produced Growing Pains with John Mark Nelson. Songwriting collaborations took place with the likes of Nelson, Mags Duval and Lawrence Rothman.

“We can acknowledge the strides we’ve made and be grateful, but we’ve talked a lot about how tired we are,” Jones jokingly stated. “We’ve been thinking a lot about the tension that comes with change, wanting it, fighting it, embracing it, but learning to thrive in that moment.”

“We’re all adding to each other’s ideas, drawing from personal experiences and then expanding them into something more people can connect with,” D’Andrea added. “It’s a reminder that even in the coldest moments, renewal is always possible.”