Don’t Miss New Albums From Post Malone, Delicate Steve, Tinashe, Ray LaMontagne & More

Post Malone’s highly anticipated country album, F-1 Trillion, arrived today via Mercury Records/Republic. The 18-song follow-up to 2023’s Austin sees Posty joined by an impressive roster of special guests. Among those contributing to F-1 Trillion includes Billy Strings, Dolly Parton, Blake Shelton, Sierra Ferrell, Chris Stapleton, Jelly Roll, Luke Combs, Brad Paisley, HARDY, Tim McGraw, Lainey Wilson, ERNEST and others.

“You used to get trapped in one thing and you’re like, ‘Oh, well, this is all I listen to,’” Malone said regarding his relationship with country music. “And that’s what I think has made my career so interesting, just being able to f*cking take what I like and mix it in a way that is authentic to me.”

Delicate Steve (guitarist Steve Marion) issued his new album, Delicate Steve Sings, today via ANTI-. Delicate Steve’s band for the new instrumental LP includes Jonathan Rado on bass, Kosta Galanopoulos on drums and Renata Zeiguer providing strings. Marion collaborated with co-writer Elliot Bergman to round out the material on Delicate Steve Sings, which features some covers but is not a straightforward standards record. Inspiration is all over Delicate Steve Sings. Press materials detailed the eureka moment for Marion.

One night while on a trip to Greece, Marion looked out over the sea while listening to Willie Nelson’s pop standards record Stardust, a cosmic epiphany washing over him about what his next record could be. Delicate Steve Sings is a record centered on channeling iconic voices with his guitar. In doing so, Marion is casting himself in the role of iconic singers like Willie who make standards their own. In the process, he reveals just how singular (dare we say iconic) that voice is. The guitar sings these songs—smoothly, sweetly, boldly, and on its own terms.

Quantum Baby is the middle album of a trilogy of releases by Tinashe. The vocalist’s seventh studio album follows her 2023 record that introduced the three-album series, BB/Ang3l. Among the 10 tracks making up Quantum Baby is the single, “Getting No Sleep,” which Tinashe co-wrote with Nosaj Thing and Billy Lemos, who also produced the track. Detailing Quantum Baby, which Tinashe released independently, the singer stated:

“Quantum Baby is about getting to know me on a deeper level. It’s about exploring who I am as a person and who I am as an artist. I’ve never been one to be put into a box, so the name Quantum Baby encompasses all the different parts that make up who I am as a creative.”

Ray LaMontagne released a new album, Long Way Home, through his new independent label Liula Records. LaMontagne co-produced the follow-up to 2020’s MONOVISION with Seth Kauffman at LaMontagne’s home studio. The first three songs on Long Way Home feature backing vocals by The Secret Sisters. The nine-song album was influenced by LaMontagne’s experience at age 21 seeing Townes Van Zandt perform at an intimate venue in Minneapolis. Van Zandt’s song “To Live Is To Fly,” particularly its lyric “When here you been is good an gone, all you keep is the getting there,” made a lasting impression on LaMontagne.

“Thirty years later it occurs to me that every song on Long Way Home is in one way or another honoring the journey,” LaMontagne stated. “The languorous days of youth and innocence. The countless battles of adulthood, some won, more often lost. It’s been a long hard road, and I wouldn’t change a minute. It took me nine songs to express what Townes managed to say in one line. I guess I still got a lot to learn.”

Singer-songwriter Devon Allman released Miami Moon, his first solo album since 2016. The nine-track collection arrived today via Allman’s Create Records imprint. Allman is accompanied on the follow-up to 2016’s Ride Or Die by bassist George Porter Jr., keyboardist Ivan Neville, drummer Adam Deitch, Karl Denson on saxophone and guitarist Jackson Stokes. Produced by Tom Hambridge, Miami Moon was tracked to tape at the famed Criteria Studios in Miami. Devon Allman has a special connection to the facility as his father Gregg Allman and The Allman Brothers Band recorded the studio portions of their iconic 1972 album Eat A Peach at Criteria. Additionally, Devon’s uncle Duane Allman helped create the Layla and Other Assorted Love Songs LP at Criteria as a member of the Eric Clapton-led Derek & The Dominos. Devon Allman shared the following in regards to Miami Moon:

“Making the Miami Moon record with these legendary musicians has been a high point of my career. They brought these songs to life with their masterful playing and timeless feels. As for the approach, a couple things were different this time: First, writing the songs on bass guitar was a first for me and allowed the grooves to be the main focus. Also, letting go of some previous, limiting thought processes allowed some of my other influences to enter the chat for the first time such as Curtis Mayfield, Sade, The Cure, Steely Dan…among others. I believe you can hear some flourishes of those true loves on this album. Additionally, recording in the same hallowed halls where Dad made the Eat a Peach record and where Uncle Duane and Eric Clapton recorded the Layla record, made for a very special setting for us all to work in. We kept it fun and we kept it funky…..we ordered Cuban food, watched the NBA and jammed in a circle for days. In a world where you can make records in the basement or your bedroom, I’m so grateful to have done this record in a classic manner.”

Charly Bliss — New York-based pop quartet consisting of Eva Hendricks, Sam Hendricks, Spencer Fox and Dan Shure — released their third studio album, Forever, today through Lucky Number Music. The follow-up to 2019’s Young Enough was co-produced by Sam Hendricks with Jake Luppen and Caleb Wright. The Forever single, “Nineteen” features Luppen’s Hippo Campus bandmate Nathan Stocker on guitar. “Nineteen” also features saxophonist Lee Tran who played on the track “Last First Kiss” as well. Charly Bliss described Forever, stating:

When we began writing Forever, Sam had just discovered he was going to be a father and Eva didn’t know she was about to relocate her entire life to Australia. Since then, all of our lives have been rearranged a thousand times over. We’ve fallen in and out of love, moved apartments, swapped coasts and continents, planned weddings, welcomed babies, applied for visas, and filled many antidepressant prescriptions.

All this nonstop change has made it profoundly clear what is permanent; and for all four of us, the through line is Charly Bliss. This album is head over heels, overflowing with romantic love and friend love and crushes and hurricanes of big feeling. We fell back in love with making music while making this record, and you can hear it. We were giddy, thrilled, wide open, and overwhelmed the whole way through. Charly Bliss Forever.

Foster The People mark a new chapter with the release of their fourth studio album, Paradise State Of Mind. The follow-up to 2017’s Sacred Hearts Club is the band’s first to be recorded after the departure of co-founding drummer Mark Pontius, the final album with guitarist Sean Cimino who recently left the group, and the first album produced by co-founding frontman Mark Foster. Recording sessions were held at Foster’s longtime friend and collaborator Paul Epworth’s studio in North London and at the historic East West Studios in Los Angeles with Foster and Cimino joined by multi-instrumentalist Isom Innis.

“I think the trickiest part about this record was trying to be authentic about what had been going on with me, without writing something super dark and without glossing over it, either,” Foster stated. “Because, to me, it was really important that hope remain at the core of this whole thing. People need hope. I need hope. And when I think about what hope is – it’s having the courage to walk towards something that you think can be better, while fully acknowledging the darkness and reality around you. That was the goal, walking into this album, which was actually really tricky – to make something that rang true to what was on my mind, but that had this much groove and that would be fun to dance to. You know, to me, they’re like Trojan Horses, the message is hiding in the melody.”