Don’t Miss New Albums From Melody’s Echo Chamber, Zac Brown Band, Natalie Cressman & Ian Faquini + More

Melody’s Echo Chamber, French musician Melody Prochet, shared her fourth album, Unclouded, through Domino. Prochet recorded the follow-up to 2022’s Emotional Eternal with co-producer/co-writer Sven Wunder. Sessions also included contributions from drummer Malcolm Catto, Dungen guitarist Reine Fiske and Dina Ögon’s Daniel Ögen on guitar and Love Orsan on bass. Additionally, Josefin Runsteen provided strings and Leon Michels worked on the album’s closing track, “Daisy.”

The album takes its title from a quote by Japanese animator Hayao Miyazaki, who said, “You must see with eyes unclouded by hate. See the good in that which is evil, and the evil in that which is good. Pledge yourself to neither side.”

“The music I create unusually inhabits the liminal zone between realism and fables,” Prochet stated. “But the more experience I have of living, the deeper I love life and the less I need to escape. If my heart still belongs to the blue hour, it also feels like I’ve gathered up all the pieces of myself that were scattered everywhere and glued them together with gold like Japanese kintsugi.”

Zac Brown Band today released their new album, Love & Fear, ahead of their debut tonight at the Las Vegas Sphere. The 13-track record, the group’s seventh full-length studio album, features guest appearances from Snoop Dogg, Dolly Parton and Marcus King.

“Bringing our new album Love & Fear to Sphere Las Vegas is a dream come true,” Zac Brown stated. “It’s my masterpiece so far. This show is the story of my life that I have never shared, a journey through my imagination, music and stories that have defined who I am. All of this brought to life in the incredible immersive environment of Sphere. It will be a unique experience where you can really feel every note, every word, right there with us.”

Natalie Cressman & Ian Faquini issued their second holiday EP, Brazilian Nutcracker, via 12/23 Records/GroundUp Music. Once again the pair are honoring Cressman’s late Trey Anastasio Band bandmate James Casey by donating all proceeds from the follow-up to An Old Fashioned Christmas to provide free colon cancer screenings to the underserved through the Association of Black Gastroenterologists and Hepatologists and Eastern Virginia Medical School’s Hope’s Clinic.

The TAB trombonist/vocalist and her partner reworked select songs from Tchaikovsky’s famed Nutcracker Suite with a Brazilian flare for the new six-track EP. 12/23 Records is the record issuing arm of The Nancy Langhorne Foundation. The organization is a Virginia and Brooklyn-based nonprofit that raises money for cancer research and free cancer screenings for the underserved.

Australian DJ/producer Alison Wonderland’s new album, GHOST WORLD, dropped today through Republic Records/EMI Australia. Guests appearing across the album’s 14 tracks include MEMBA, Erick the Architect, Quix and DJ_Dave, as well as Wonderland’s Whyte Fang alias. In a statement regarding the follow-up to 2022’s Loner, Alison Wonderland shared:

“I often feel like I’m wandering this earth trying to find my home, both artistically and personally. Sometimes it feels like the search will never end. I want people to know that while you’re on that search, there is a place of refuge here for you, with us, in Ghost World. I am forever grateful for the people who listen to my music and allow me to continue to create, to exorcise complicated feelings and emotions through my art and – yes – my ego death haha. I am only here because you are.“

Former múm member, Olof Arnalds returns with Spira, her first solo album in 11 years. The Icelandic singer-songwriter’s husband Skúli Sverrisson produced and recorded the album. The couple was joined by Davíð Þór Jónsson on piano and guitar.

Blizzard storms in today as the debut full-length release from Dove Ellis. The Irish singer-songwriter self-produced and recorded the album in England with sessions held in London and Liverpool. Sophie Ellis and Andrew Sarlo mixed the 10-song effort.

Actor Jeremy Allen White’s audio portrayal of Bruce Springsteen in the biopic Springsteen: Deliver Me from Nowhere is captured in the newly available soundtrack to the feature film. Recorded with esteemed Nashville-based producer Dave Cobb, the album includes songs from Springsteen’s 1982 album, Nebraska, along with White’s takes on “I’m on Fire” and the title track the Nebraska follow-up, Born in the U.S.A.. Other contributors to the Springsteen: Deliver Me From Nowhere soundtrack include Jake Kiszka and Sam F. Kiszka of Greta Van Fleet, Jay Buchanan, Aksel Coe and Bobby Emmett.

Daniel Lopatin (Oneohtrix Point Never), Dirty Projectors, Benjamin Booker, Alan Sparhawk, Bonnie “Prince” Billy, Y La Bamba, William Tyler, Lambchop, Lonnie Holley and St. Panther are among the contributors to the Passages: Artists In Solidarity With Immigrants, Refugees, and Asylum Seekers charity benefit album. Proceeds from the release will go to Texas-based organizations, American Gateways and Casa Marianella. Participants were encouraged to write and record their songs in locations that felt like home, resulting in home-studio made tracks, some captured on setups as simple as their phones.

“Home, as we know it, is under threat,” said Passages producers and organizers Emilie Rex and Rick Alverson. “When immigrants, refugees, and asylum seekers exercise their human right to safe passage, they defend our ability to do so—and our right to be and feel at home.”