Don’t Miss New Albums From Tim Heidecker, Joy Oladokun, Bon Iver, Japandroids & More

Multi-hyphenate Tim Heidecker released a new album entitled Slipping Away today via Bloodshot Records. The comedian/actor/singer-songwriter enlisted his ensemble, The Very Good Band, to back him on the follow-up to 2022’s High School. The group features Eliana Athayde on bass, vocals and additional production; Josh Adams on drums; Vic Berger on keys and Connor “Catfish” Gallaher on guitar and pedal steel. Additionally, Tim’s daughter Amelia contributed to Slipping Away. While High School was more of a solo effort the new LP was a “true group project,” which was crucial to developing its songs.

“My favorite records are the ones that were just recorded in a room with a band playing,” Heidecker said in noting albums from Bob Dylan, The Beatles, and The Band. “And that’s what we did. Having been doing quote-unquote ‘entertainment’ for 20 years now in different forms, it was a revitalizing experience to be out of my comfort zone a little bit. It was a learning opportunity.”

Joy Oladokun issued OBSERVATIONS FROM A CROWDED ROOM, her new album arriving today via Amigo Records/Verve Forecast/Republic Records. The 15-track OBSERVATIONS FROM A CROWDED ROOM was written, produced and largely performed solely by Oladokun. The follow-up to the Nashville-based singer-songwriter’s 2023 LP Proof Of Life features 12 songs and three spoken word interludes. The album is said to find “Oladokun reflecting on her place in the world, both as a person and an artist, while blending her pop-folk roots with electronic and psychedelic elements.” Oladokun reflected on OBSERVATIONS FROM A CROWDED ROOM, stating:

“This album became a way for me to write things, feel things, process things. Because, as the producer, I just had to sit with these songs for so long. It became really healing in a sense of, ‘I made this. I’m listening to an album that I genuinely love. All the sounds and bits and bobs came from me with the help of just an engineer.’ It was transformative. So, it started out as, ‘I quit,’ and it has ended up as a fresh start.”

SABLE, is the new three-song EP released today by Bon Iver through Jagjaguwar. Described by a press release as “a reset and reintroduction” that “[strips] the project down to the primary elements on which it was originally founded,” SABLE, is first new music from the project led by Justin Vernon since 2019’s i,i. Co-produced by Vernon and Jim-E Stack, the three songs were built around guitar and voice. The EP, whose title means near-blackness, was recorded at Vernon’s April Base recording facility near Eau Claire, Wisconsin. Several longtime contributors and bandmates perform on the EP, including Rob Moose providing viola on the single “S P E Y S I D E.” Vernon wrote the songs over the last four years “in places like Key West and the Isles of Minneapolis.” The lyrical content contains “direct projections of guilt, anguish and turmoil, but also unfinished business.”

Japandroids end an era with today’s release of their final album, Fate & Alcohol, via ANTI- Records. Japandroids’ fourth and final album, Fate & Alcohol, follows guitarist Brian King and drummer Dave Prowse’s 2009 debut Post-Nothing, 2012’s Celebration Rock and 2017’s Near to the Wild Heart of Life. The band recorded the 10-track LP in Vancouver with longtime collaborator Jesse Gander. Some of Japandroids’ influences seem to be baked into Fate & Alcohol song titles such as “A Gaslight Anthem” and “Positively 34th Street.”

“On our last record we wanted to broaden the definition of a Japandroids song,” King said, “and purposely left our demos quite open and malleable so that we had more flexibility to experiment in the studio. At the time, this approach was new and exciting, and inspired us to be bolder, to take more chances. We were aiming for a more cinematic take on our signature sound. This time, we made certain that every song ripped in our jam space before Jesse ever heard it. If you listen to our first demo of ‘Chicago,’ it’s obviously much rougher than what you hear on record, but it’s all there. Even on a blown-out iPhone recording, the energy was obvious, and the feeling cut through loud and clear.”

“I don’t think we’re the most technically proficient band in the world,” Prowse added. “And we’re not the most original-sounding or challenging band in the world. But we’ve always put a lot of passion into what we do, and I think that’s resonated with a lot of people. And I’m really grateful that we could be that band for people, in the same way that so many bands were for us.”

I Wanna Run Barefoot Through Your Hair is the first new album from singer-songwriter Christopher Owens in seven years. The album, which marks his return to True Panther Records, is the follow-up to Owens’ 2015 full-length, Chrissybaby Forever. True Panther, which issued albums by Owens’ former band Girls, provided background about the new solo album, stating:

“Not long after the release of Girls’ second album Father, Son, Holy Ghost, singer and frontman Christopher Owens announced that he was leaving the formative indie duo in pursuit of a solo career. Following the solo releases of 2011’s Lysandre, 2014’s A New Testament, and 2015’s Chrissybaby Forever, he eventually went on to release more music in 2017 with Curls. Since then, he’s continued to lead a life marked by both extraordinary highs and profound lows.

“In 2024, he left a bittersweet San Francisco and moved to New York, also reuniting with home label True Panther Records (who released the original Girls records). This October 18th, he releases his fourth solo album, I Wanna Run Barefoot Through Your Hair, a record “about a journey back to the center of myself.”

Following 2023’s Light Places, her debut solo album of original material, LP Giobbi (Leah Chisholm) returns today with a new album, Dotr, out now via Ninja Tune/Counter Records. Consisting of 17 new tracks, Dotr includes guest spots from Portugal. The Man, Brittany Howard, Panama, Danielle Ponder and Holly Bowling. While Dotr is ultimately a joyous record, it sees Chisholm processing the loss of three highly influential people in her life: her mother-in-law Patricia Lynn, her longtime piano teacher Carolyn Horn and family friend Suse Millemann. Dotr is also a nod to LP Giobbi’s parents, as she explained:

“When I was young I used to write my parents little notes and leave them under their pillow or around the house and I would sign them ‘love, Dotr’ as I was (and still am) the world’s worst speller. To this day when they write me a birthday card or whatever, they start it ‘Dear Dotr.’ This album is a lot about what it is to be a daughter, have a daughter and love a daughter, as well as a way of honoring some of the most important women in my life. There are also a lot of themes tied to home (the ones we create or the ones we were born into) which, for me, are reflected through my identity as a daughter.”

Ukulele virtuoso Jake Shimabukuro and legendary Fleetwood Mac drummer Mick Fleetwood teamed for a new album, Blues Experience, which arrived today via Forty Below Records. Shimabukuro met Fleetwood at the Na Hoku Hanohano Awards (Hawaiian Music Awards) in the late 1990s performing alongside Kenny Logins. The pair rekindled their relationship at a Fleetwood Mac reunion concert where they began conceptualizing a collaborative project leading to recording sessions. The pair tracked nine songs for Blues Experience over the course of two, three-day recording sessions with bassist Jackson Waldhoff and keyboard player Michael Grande. Guest turns on the record include keyboardist Mark Johnstone of The Mick Fleetwood Blues Band and slide guitar great Sonny Landreth. Also of note on Blues Experience is the LP’s sole original, Shimabukuro’s “Kula Blues,” written about the area in Maui where Fleetwood lives. The album concludes with “Songbird,” written by Mick’s late Fleetwood Mac bandmate Christine McVie.

“I’ve always wanted to do a blues album,” Shimabukuro revealed. “And when Mick and I started talking about working together, I thought who better to work with than Mick Fleetwood? Mick’s energy when he plays is so infectious. He’s such an intense musician. He pushes everyone around him, and it’s inspiring to see his facial expressions and watch his movement and the way he hits the drums.”

Madison Cunningham and Andrew Bird teamed up for Cunningham Bird, a new covers album reimagining Stevie Nicks and Lindsey Buckingham’s 1973 debut LP. Available today via Loma Vista Recordings/Verve Forecast, Cunningham Bird was produced by Mike Viola. Cunningham and Bird were joined on the collaborative LP by Viola on wurlitzer, drums and bass as well as Dawes’ drummer Griffin Goldsmith. Bird and Cunningham performed Cunningham Bird this past summer at multiple festivals including Newport Folk. Stevie Nicks and Lindsey Buckingham recorded and released Buckingham Nicks shortly before the duo joined Fleetwood Mac and achieved massive success. Bird and Cunningham bonded over their love of the severely underrated album and proceeded to learn more about the LP and make it their own. Read statements from Andrew Bird and Madison Cunningham about Cunningham Bird:

Andrew Bird

“It’s hard to listen to Buckingham Nicks’ 1973 debut album without trying to imagine it as a prequel to Fleetwood Mac’s legend. It’s hard to listen to this album period, as it’s out-of-print and not available on any streaming services. Yet it’s that youthful ambition and overindulgence that make it fascinating. The best reason to cover anyone is that little part of you that thinks you might do it better. This album epitomizes excess and confidence, and it only made sense to embody that spirit ourselves. The confidence, that is, to mess with an iconic, if underrated gem. Madison is the most talented musician I’ve encountered. She has a restless ear, always looking for a new sound or harmonic twist. Her voice is goosebump inducing, nimble and emotive at any volume. I just had to find the right project for us to go deep on and this is it.”

Madison Cunningham

“Ever since knowing and playing with Andrew, I’ve wanted to join forces with him independently of our own projects. He’s one of my favorite artists alive and one of the deepest musical collaborators I’ve been lucky enough to have. This buried Stevie Nicks and Lindsey Buckingham record found us in a place where we were trying to figure out what we could do together. Unfamiliar with it, but excited by its scarcity on streaming platforms, we decided to take it on from front to back, in our own way. It was unsurprising to me how it ended up becoming one of the most creatively satisfying record-making experiences I’ve had, but the unforeseen bonus was how relevant some of those lyrics would be to my own life in the time of making it. It became a lifeline for me, and I hope we’ve done it justice.”

Porridge Radio shared their new album, Clouds In The Sky They Will Always Be There For Me, through Secretly Canadian. The British rockers — frontwoman and guitarist Dana Margolin, keyboardist Georgie Scott, drummer/keyboardist Sam Yardley and bassist Dan Hutchins — recorded the follow-up to 2022’s Waterslide, Diving Board, Latter To The Sky earlier this year in Frome, England with producer Dom Monks. Margolin was at her wits end when the conclusion of both the relentless touring cycle behind the band’s last album and an intense relationship came during the same period. Margolin poured her emotions into lyrics as part of the compositions developed for Clouds In The Sky They Will Always Be There For Me.

“We’ve always been known as a band who do something very particular and very emotionally intense live, and Dom (Monks) knew how to get that feeling across,” stated the quartet of the first album they were able to record in the same room as the producer.

Pop-rock duo Rubblebucket return with a new album, Year Of The Banana, out now via Egghunt Records. The project co-led by Kalmia Traver and Alex Toth previewed the new record by sharing five of its nine tracks as singles, including “Go All The Way With Me,” “Stella The Begonia,” “Moving Without Touching,” “The Sorrow That Comes With Loving You” and “Rattlesnake.” Rubblebucket shared a note explaining the roots of the new album:

“Following a string of life-altering changes, series of self-reflection, and non-linear journey of healing, Kalmia wrote and self-published a poetry zine in 2016.
What became of these poems has evolved and mutated into a world beyond their pages, and into musical, sonic form: the new Rubblebucket album.”

Phantogram’s fifth album, Memory Of A Day, was released today through Neon Gold Records/Avenue A Records. The duo made up of Sarah Barthel and Josh Carter once again worked with producer John Hill, who handled Phantogram’s second album, Voices. Guests appearing on the record include Mikky Ekko and Dan Wilson. Regarding the follow-up to 2020’s Ceremony, Phantogram stated:

“The new album feels like an awakening … We were able to go back to creating music and capturing magic like we did on the first album. The sounds found throughout are also very colorful, which reflects our headspace while recording and is represented in the album artwork … We put these songs together as a capsule, thinking about how a certain sound or melody can bring you back instantly to a memory of a day.”

Nashville-native singer-songwriter Benjamin Tod shared his new solo album, Shooting Star, today through Thirty Tigers. The 10-song effort was written in roughly two weeks and recorded in Nashville and features a guest appearance by Sierra Ferrell. Bringing the past into the present, Tod explained the decision-making process behind Shooting Star, stating:

“The original idea for this album was for each song to be placed in a different production period in country music history. Obviously, there’s no way to cover everything so my preference shines through. A tune goes as far back as the mid-50s and spans up to the early 90s. It spilled out seamlessly. I wanted to prove to myself and the industry that I could write an elite country record with ease. If I didn’t accomplish that goal, I sure as hell came closer than anyone on pop country radio either way.”