Don’t Miss New Albums From King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard, Grace Bowers, LA LOM, Amos Lee & More

King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard released their 26th studio album, Flight b741, on their newly established record label (p)doom records. Pulling influences from The Band and Steve Miller, KGLW approached recording Flight b741 in a workmanlike manner. Over two weeks, the album was tracked during sessions held Monday through Friday as the band clocked in “like factory workers.” The 10-song LP follows the band’s 2023 album, The Silver Cord. While past albums have taken on eccentric concepts and strategies, Flight b741 captures the “intimacy of six good friends enjoying each other’s company and collaborating on perhaps the warmest, most bonhomie-laden set the group [has] yet committed to wax.” Regarding the no-concept concept, guitarist Stu Mackenzie stated:

“We wanted to make something that was primal, instinctual, more ‘from the gut,’ just people in a room, doing what feels right. We wanted to make something fun. We came in with the roughest skeletons for songs and tried to keep the arrangements simple, free and easy. The best takes were always the ones where we were winging it pretty significantly.

“This is our most collaborative record – the collaboration was occurring in the room, it was free, and everyone was bringing in songs and ideas. And we wanted to have as many lead vocalists as we could, and to pass the mic, like, ‘This is my part, my idea, I’m gonna sing it and then I’m gonna pass the mic along to you and you can do your thing’. The whole record is built around that. We ended up doing a lot of backing vocals and extra recording, everyone in a room around a couple of microphones, just to give it that feel.

“We had broad themes for every song, and for the bigger picture of the album as a whole, but once the mic was passed it was all up to the person who was singing. These songs weren’t written in isolation – someone would write their verse, sing it for the demo, and that would inspire the next person’s part. So we were riffing off each other. Lyrically, it’s all pretty introspective – we’re having a lot of fun, but we’re often singing about some pretty heavy shit, and probably hitting on some deeper, more universal themes than usual. It’s not a sci-fi record, it’s about life and stuff.

“The record is like a really fun weekend with your mates, you know? Like, proper fun.”

Up-and-coming 18-year-old guitarist Grace Bowers released her highly-anticipated debut album, Wine On Venus. Bowers was joined on Wine On Venus by her backing band The Hodge Podge, which consists of keyboardist Joshua Blaylock, drummer Brandon Combs, guitarist Prince Parker, vocalist Esther Okai-Tetteh and bassist Eric Fortaleza. Produced by Brothers Osborne‘s John Osborne, the nine-track effort features songwriting collaborations with such artists as Maggie Rose, Ben Chapman, Meg McRee and Lucie Silvas.

“I’m so excited to share my first album with the world in August!,” Bowers said. “It’s been a long time coming, and I’m proud of what was created with the incredible Hodge Podge and John Osborne producing. We recorded everything live, as it should be, for this sonic journey. I hope you love it as much as I do.”

LA LOM released their self-titled debut album through Verve Records. The Los Angeles-based trio’s band name, LA LOM, stands for The Los Angeles League of Musicians. The trio consists of L.A. natives, guitarist Zac Sokolow, bassist Jake Faulkner and drummer Nicholas Baker. Sokolow and Faulkner met at age 16 and initially began performing together in Southern California-based rockabilly bands. Baker, who studied Latin percussion with Nuyorican bassist/percussionist Roberto Miranda, joined the pair in forming LA LOM. The trio honed their collective chops playing five nights a week at the storied Roosevelt Hotel on Hollywood Boulevard. The trio recorded LA LOM mostly at producer Elliot Bergman’s Figueroa Studio in L.A. Bosting 13 new songs, the latest effort follows their self-titled EP that arrived in 2022.

Amos Lee’s new album, Transmissions, arrived today via Hoagiemouth Records/Thirty Tigers. The LP is the acclaimed singer-songwriter’s first album of original music in two years following Dreamland and after sharing two tribute albums to Chet Baker and Lucinda Williams in 2022 and 2023 respectively. Captured with his longtime band at drummer Lee Falco’s studio in Marlboro, New York, Transmissions also saw Amos self-producing for just the second time in his career. Lee detailed the album’s subject matter.

“There’s a lot of existential stuff in these songs,” Lee said. “If you really listen to what’s in between the lines, there’s a lot of grappling with your place in the world, grappling with loss. There’s a lot of grappling with the balance between bailing out the boat and rowing at the same time – the experience of writing music and playing songs while trying, as we all are right now, to make sense of a world that feels like it’s changing really quickly.”

Producer and composer Louis Cole issued a new live album, nothing, captured with The Netherlands’ Metropole Orkest conducted by Jules Buckley. Culled from Cole and Metropole Orkest’s live performances with minimal overdubs, nothing “fuses breath-taking classical orchestration with dance music, pop, and jazz sensibilities.” A description of the live recordings follows:

Many still see Louis Cole foremost as a drummer. nothing, Cole’s fifth album and his third on Brainfeeder, is bound to change that impression. Collaborating with the Metropole Orkest and Jules Buckley, he rejected the well-trodden path to orchestral renditions of his greatest hits and instead opted to compose a suite of brand new music for this project – bigger, bolder, and more expansive than ever. Yes, there are nods to his Grammy-nominated 2022 album Quality Over Opinion, but 15 of the 17 tracks included here are brand new. This is jazz. This is classical music. It’s got that funk. You’ll hear synths and loops. You’ll hear a band and live drumming. There’s a world class orchestra playing. Some pieces are ultra concise, whereas the sprawling ‘Doesn’t Matter’ surpasses the ten minute mark. To Cole, jazz has always been the one place where you can really let go of all expectations – on nothing, he is putting the music where his mouth is.

Renowned jazz musician Esperanza Spalding and famed Brazilian vocalist Milton Nascimento issued their new collaborative album, Milton + Esperanza, through Concord. The pair’s friendship dates back nearly 15 years. The duo finally recorded their first full-length collaboration together throughout 2023 in Brazil. The 16-track effort includes five reworked takes on Nascimento-penned gems, new original songs composed by Spalding and choice covers such as Michael Jackson’s “Earth Song” and The Beatles’ “A Day In The Life.” Paul Simon, Dianne Reeves, Lianne La Havas, Maria Gadú, Tim Bernardes, Carolina Shorter, Shabaka Hutchings and Guinga are among the artists that make cameos on the LP.

Produced, arranged and executive produced by Spalding, Esperanza called in her core band of Matthew Stevens (guitar), Justin Tyson and Eric Doob (drums), Leo Genovese (piano) and Corey D. King (vocals, synths) for the project. Fittingly, the main ensemble was rounded out by several Brazilian musicians such as Orquestra Ouro Preto, percussionists Kainã Do Jêje and Ronaldinho Silva as well as Lula Galvão and Guinga on guitar.

British musician beabadoobee (Beatrice Laus) released her third studio album, This Is How Tomorrow Moves. The 14-track follow-up to 2022’s Beatopia was produced by Rick Rubin at his famed Shangri-La studio in Malibu. Described as a love letter to her younger self, beabadoobee shared the statement below regarding This Is How Tomorrow Moves

“I love this album. I feel like it’s helped me so much more than anything else has in navigating this new era, this new understanding of where I’m at. I guess it’s about becoming a woman … I think I’m more aware of my actions in these songs. In my previous records, I would consistently sing about my reaction towards other people’s doings, like a blame game. But in this record, it’s accepting that there’s an inevitability of my fault in there too. Whether it’s childhood trauma or relationship issues, it takes two to tango in everything.”

Futurebirds released a new studio album, Easy Company, today through Dualtone. The band worked with acclaimed producer Brad Cook on the follow-up to 2020’s Teamwork and a pair of collaborative albums Carl Broemel. The band recorded the 12-song Easy Company at Sonic Ranch in Tornillo, Texas. Additional tracking was done at Stadium Heights in Durham, North Carolina and Eat/Pray/Record in Nashville. Futurebirds — Brannen Miles, Carter King, Daniel Womack, Thomas Johnson, Kiffy Myers, Thomas Myers and Spencer Thomas — recruited to contribute to the title track. Drive-By Truckers’ frontman Patterson Hood appears on the song “Soft Drugs.”

“People sometimes see us live and say, ‘It sounds so energetic, big, and full onstage, but some of your earlier records don’t really capture that,’” King stated. “That was something we talked to Brad Cook about. We wanted to find that live magic in the recording studio. We wanted to move fast and stay in the moment.”

New West Records released ALL IN: Unreleased & Rarities (The New West Years), a collection of recordings by late singer-songwriter Justin Townes Earle. The posthumous compilation consists of 12 previously unreleased recordings and six never-before-heard songs written and recorded during Earle’s final years, before his untimely death in August 2020 at age 38. Earle signed to New West Records in 2017 and issued his first album for the label that year, Kids In The Street. His final album, The Saint Of Lost Causes, was released by New West in 2019. ALL IN consists of The Saint Of Lost Causes and Kids In The Street demos and outtakes, as well as live recordings from his 2017 appearance on the SiriusXM radio show Hardcore Troubadour, hosted by his father Steve Earle, and covers of songs popularized by Bruce Springsteen, Paul Simon, John Prine, Jackie Brenston & Ike Turner, Mance Lipscomb and Fleetwood Mac.

“Justin wanted to be known for his writing,” JTE’s widow Jenn Marie Earle stated. “He began two books that all of us wish he’d had the time to finish. What we are left with is nothing short of extraordinary. He took his time, he poured his pain and heart into his writing, into his human experience. Justin left a mark on many thousands of people worldwide. We will forever be able to delve into and learn so much from what he created, how he held himself in this world, how he soared, and how he fell. There are so many deeply profound aspects of Justin Townes Earle for his loved ones and fans alike to embrace for all time.”