Don’t Miss New Albums From Car Seat Headrest, Lucius, James Krivchenia, Mihali & More

Car Seat Headrest shared a new concept album, The Scholars, via Matador Records. The band founded by frontman Will Toledo said the album, et at the fictional college campus Parnassus University [and] the songs on The Scholars are populated with students and staff whose travails illuminate a loose narrative of life, death, and rebirth.” Produced by Toledo and recorded with his bandmates – lead guitarist Ethan Ives, drummer Andrew Katz and bassist Seth Dalby – The Scholars follows the band’s last album, 2020’s more experimentally beat-driven Making a Door Less Open. Challenges arising from the COVID pandemic and Toledo’s personal spiritual journey helped inform the pending record.

“One thing that can be a struggle with rock operas is that the individual songs kind of get sacrificed for the flow of the plot,” Toledo said. “I didn’t want to sacrifice that to make a very fluid narrative. And so this is sort of a middle ground where each song can be a character and it’s like each one is coming out on center stage and they have their song and dance.”

Lucius released their self-titled new album through Wildewoman Music/Fantasy Records. Lucius – Holly Laessig, Jess Wolfe, Peter Lalish and Dan Molad – recorded Lucius during sessions held at Los Angeles’ Altamira Sound and at Molad’s home studio, Sounds Like A Fire, which was left inoperable by the recent Los Angeles wildfires. Molad produced the 11-track Lucius. Dawes’ Taylor Goldsmith, whose home was also damaged by the L.A. wildfires, appears on the track “Stranger Danger.” Others featured on the album include The War On Drugs’ Adam Granduciel on “Old Tape” and Ethan Gruska and Madison Cunningham appear on “Impressions.” Additional contributions came from Luke Temple, Rob Moose and Evan Smith.

Lucius put out a statement regarding their self-titled effort:

“Our fourth studio album is the four of us, just as we first started recording together as a band. It’s raw and honest and feels like coming home; something that resonates deeply in this moment of our lives.

“We are home in so many senses of the word; in the last couple of years we’ve started setting roots, finding life partners, building families, growing gardens. We got dogs, (you can hear them in the background if you listen close). We wrote songs about life and relationships. We recorded them in our home studios. We saw the beginnings and endings of life cycles while making this record, the beauty and fragility of the human experience.

“So it’s only fitting that this album is self-titled, it’s our story, who we are now and how we got here. Welcome to our living room.”

Big Thief drummer/producer James Krivchenia issued a new solo album, Performing Belief, via Planet Mu. The new record sees James working with bassist Sam Wilkes and double bassist/multi-instrumentalist Joshua Abrams. Performing Belief is the follow-up to James Krivchenia’s 2022 LP, Blood Karaoke. While Blood Karaoke saw Krivchenia scouring the internet to create the album with hundreds of tiny samples of unwatched YouTube videos, the fabric of Performing Belief is woven from sound of the natural world. Press materials elaborated on the record:

For years, Krivchenia would record his musical encounters with natural objects: performing on a particularly resonant log on a hike, throwing rocks into a pristine pond, tap dancing in the mud. This archive of sounds became the fertile soil out of which the tracks on Performing Belief grew. Having built these rhythmic nests, Wilkes and Abrams bring the presence of a grounding human witness to the undergrowth, providing a centering and even at times melodic voice to the gathering.

This rhythmic language, set in Krivchenia’s long-fermenting electronic musical palate, feels like a revelation — it calls back not only to his wonderfully elastic timekeeping behind the kit, but also to his prior work in computer music as well as his deep study of the vast human archive of drumming.

Singer-songwriter Mihali released his third solo album, Before The Dream, through Ineffable Records. The Vermont-based guitarist who co-founded Twiddle, recruited a bunch of special guests across the new record’s 14 tracks. Mihali worked with Moon Taxi guitarist Spencer Thomson, who produced 12 of the album’s 14 tracks. Moon Taxi appears track “King Of The Low.” “Cool Runnin’” features Tropidelic and Lily Fangz. “Circus” features Andy Frasco & The U.N.. “Easy” features G. Love and Brett Dennen. “Past Life” features Satsang.

“Sunshine” featuring Seven Suns was produced by Iya Terra’s Nathan Feinstein. “We Are” featuring Little Stranger was produced by DENM.

Real Estate mined their archives for the compilation album, The Wee Small Hours: B-Sides And Other Detritus 2011-2025, which arrived today through Domino Recording Co. The album presents 12 tracks composed of rarities and b-sides from the band’s 14 years at Domino. The earliest track on The Wee Small Hour is the 2011 recording of a cover of The Strokes’ “Barely Legal.” Additional covers include The Nerves’ “Paper Dolls” from 2014, Television’s “Days” from 2021, and Elton John’s “Daniel” from 2024. The recording of “In My Car” comes from a Record Store Day flexi-disc from 2012.

“This is something we’ve talked about doing for a while now: a compilation of non-album tracks with a title, subtitle, and maybe throw a span of years in there to make it official-sounding,” Real Estate’s Martin Courtney explained. “The title comes from the lyrics to an unreleased song we recorded during the Atlas sessions at Wilco’s loft in Chicago back in 2013, which in turn references a great Frank Sinatra record. This feels to us like a worthy addition to the catalog and we hope you all love it.”

Dropped earlier this week, The Groove Session is the ninth album from the Joe Marcinek Band. The outfit led by guitarist Joe Marcinek has employed a rotating lineup of talented musical all-stars for his project over the years. On The Groove Session, Marcinek is joined by pianist Jesús Molina, drummer Manny Sanchez and bassist Ronnie Sanchez. The follow-up to 2024’s 1 River Band also features guest appearances from keyboardist Greg Spero, violinist Tracy Silverman and legendary Flecktones co-founder Howard Levy. The Groove Session was recorded at L.A.’s Tiny Room Studios. Vintage League Music’s Alan Evans (Soulive) mixed and mastered the album, while artist Aaron Schwartz created its cover art.