7 Albums Out Today: The Arcs, Mother Hips, Punkadelick, Phish, Joe Henry, Aoife O’Donovan & Bob Dylan
Don’t miss these new releases out today, Friday, January 27!
By Team JamBase Jan 27, 2023 • 6:31 am PST
Each week Release Day Picks profiles new LPs and EPs Team JamBase will be checking out on release day Friday. This week we highlight new albums by The Arcs, The Mother Hips, Mike Dillon & Punkadelick, Phish, Joe Henry, Aoife O’Donovan and Bob Dylan. Read on for more insight into the records we have all queued up to spin.
The Arcs – Electrophonic Chronic
“This new record is all about honoring Swift. It’s a way for us to say goodbye to him, by revisiting him playing and laughing, singing. It was heavy at times, but I think it was really helpful to do it.
“There’s a lot of mystery to most people. You can work with someone for years and there will be things about them that you never know. Everyone has parts of their story they might not want written.”
The above statement was made by The Black Keys‘ guitarist/vocalist Dan Auerbach regarding the late Richard Swift, who along with Auerbach was one of the members of The Arcs. Released today on Auerbach’s Easy Eye Sound record label, Electrophonic Chronic is The Arcs’ sophomore album, following their 2015 debut, Yours, Dreamily. The bulk of Electrophonic Chronic was recorded by Auerbach, Swift, Leon Michels, Nick Movshon and Homer Steinweiss prior to Swift’s untimely passing in 2018. “There are probably between 80 and 100 tracks that we laid down because we just constantly recorded after we put out Yours, Dreamily,” Michels, who co-produced the new LP with Auerbach, stated. “It was so much fun to be in the studio once again, so we were just making music all the time. I think there was always a plan to make a follow-up record.”
The Mother Hips – When We Disappear
Northern California-based rockers The Mother Hips are back with When We Disappear, a new studio album out today through Blue Rose Music. The quartet consisting of co-founders Tim Bluhm and Greg Loiacono on guitar and vocals along with bassist Brian Rashap and drummer John Hofer recorded the 10-song set in November of 2021 at Jono Manson’s Kitchen Sink studio in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Included within are nine songs co-written by Bluhm and Loiacono inspired by psychology and literature plus a cover of Buffy St. Marie’s “Codine.” When We Disappear marks The Mother Hips’ 12th studio album and follows 2021’s Glowing Lantern.
“It was pretty much just us and Jono working closely for the week,” Loiacono said of the self-produced new album in press materials. “We had one drop-in from our friend, Jon Graboff who lives in town. We were lucky enough to get him to put some pedal steel guitar on a song. We had a fine and productive time in Santa Fe.”
Mike Dillon & Punkadelick – Inflorescence
Vibraphonist Mike Dillon, drummer Nikki Glaspie and keyboardist Brian Haas released their first album under the Matt Dillon & Punkadelick moniker. The 10-track Inflorescence arrived today via Royal Potato Family. Coming off a tour in 2021 with a collection of road-tested songs, Dillon, Glaspie and Haas decided to hit the studio to document the chemistry they had achieved as a trio in a live setting. Dillon detailed some of the influences on the record:
“It became obvious to let this become a collaboration. This is really something all three of us are doing because we have so much love for one another and a love for the music that we started creating.
“We’re students of the titans of music. We grew up listening to punk and rock ’n’ roll but we also love instrumental music—particularly the forefathers of Black American Music. In our minds, Led Zeppelin and Milt Jackson, Parliament-Funkadelic and The Minutemen, The Bad Brains and Frank Zappa are interconnected influences. All that comes together in how we approach instrumental creative music. Both punk rock and jazz are not prefab things, they’re about freedom. We have no genre restriction in this band, and people who get it really respect that.”
Phish – The Gorge ’98
Among the storied venues Phish has performed at over the past 40 years, The Gorge in Washington State remains among the most scenic and fan-favored. Tand released from their archives The Gorge ’98 chronicling the two shows the band played at the outdoor amphitheater on their Summer Tour 1998. Issued last December as a 5-CD box set, The Gorge ’98 arrives today on streaming platforms featuring official audio of Phish’s two-night stand on July 16 and July 17, 1998. Paul Languedoc’s original multitrack recordings were mixed by Jon Altschiller and masted by Fred Kevorkian for the release streaming now via JEMP Records. The 30-track archival release includes an 11-minute jam and “Dog Log” from the group’s July 16 soundcheck.
Joe Henry – All The Eye Can See
Acclaimed singer-songwriter and accomplished producer Joe Henry issued his new album, All The Eye Can See, today through earMUSIC. Comprised of 14 new songs, All The Eye Can See is the follow-up to 2019’s The Gospel According To Water. The new LP features Henry backed by +20 musicians including longtime collaborators like his son Levon Henry on saxophone/clarinet as well as David Piltch on bass, Patrick Warren on keyboards and John Smith on acoustic guitar. Largely self-recorded by Joe Henry during the height of the pandemic, All The Eye Can See was informed by the uncertainty of the period, which he described:
“I assumed as I began this process that, owing to circumstances, I would be making the most skeletal album of my career; when in fact, I have in many ways made my most expansive record to date.
“As for the songs themselves, I hear them in part as springing out of our shared and traumatic experiences of the recent past, sure, as well as our present-day responses to them; but if I am honest, I know that I have never allowed myself to write and release songs as personal as these now feel to me.”
Aoife O’Donovan – The Apathy Sessions
Singer-songwriter Aoife O’Donovan presents an deluxe edition of her Gammy-nominated 2022 album The Age Of Apthy with today’s release of The Apathy Sessions. O’Donovan recorded The Age Of Apathy during a residency at Full Sail University in Winter Park, Florida that saw her writing and recording on-site at the school’s studio with engineer Darren Schneider while working entirely remotely with producer Joe Henry (see above). O’Dononvan earned current Grammy Award nominations for Best Folk Album as well as Best American Roots Performance and Best American Roots Song for the Age Of Apathy standout featuring Allison Russell, “Prodigal Daughter.” Expanding with additional new tracks, The Apathy Sessions includes O’Donovan’s covers of songs by Sharon Van Etten, Joan Baez and Bill Callahan; previously shared singles “Captain’s Clock,” “More Than We Know” featuring The Milk Carton Kids, “Transatlantic” featuring Kris Drever and “IOWA” featuring Donovan Woods; prior released cover of “What Else Can I Do?” from Encanto and a live recording of “Prodigal Daughter” featuring The Age of Apathy Band — Isa Burke, Ethan Jodziewicz and Robin MacMillan.
Bob Dylan – Fragments – Time Out of Mind Sessions (1996-1997): The Bootleg Series Vol.17
The latest in Bob Dylan’s Bootleg Series arrived today via Columbia Records and Legacy Recordings. Fragments – Time Out of Mind Sessions (1996-1997): The Bootleg Series Vol.17 documents the sessions for Dylan’s Grammy-winning mid-career masterpiece, Time Out Of Mind. Released on September 30, 1997, Bob began his Time Out Of Mind recording journey in 1996 when he rounded up Oh Mercy producer Daniel Lanois along with Tony Garnier and Tony Mangurian to demo a new collection of songs in Oxnard, California. In early 1997, Dylan set up shop in Criteria Studios in Miami with additional contributors Bucky Baxter, Duke Robillard, Robert Britt, Cindy Cashdollar, Augie Meyers, Jim Dickinson Jim Keltner, Brian Blade and David Kemper to cut the record. The collection also boasts live cuts of Time Out Of Mind era songs along with the remix, outtake and alternative versions. The five-disc Fragments collection features outtakes and alternative versions from both the Oxnard and Miami sessions and a 2022 remix of the original album by Michael H. Brauer. Here’s what Steven Hyden wrote in his liner notes about the 2022 Time Out Of Mind remix:
“The album itself has been remixed to sound more like how the songs came across when the musicians originally played them in the room, without the effects and processing that Lanois applied later. It’s not meant to replace the Time Out of Mind that won all of those Grammys a quarter-century ago; it’s a reimagining, an alternate view of a great work of art. If the original album remains mythic and enigmatic, this Time Out of Mind puts you in close proximity to the players.”
Compiled by Scott Bernstein, Nate Todd and Andy Kahn.
