Release Day Picks: October 18th New Album Highlights

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 Circles Around the Sun & Joe Russo, The Magpie Salute, Garcia Peoples, Battles and Jim James & Louisville Orchestra. Read on for more insight into the records we have all queued up to spin.

Circles Around The Sun & Joe Russo – Meets Joe Russo

The Scoop: Earlier this year, instrumental quartet Circles Around The Sun teamed with drummer Joe Russo for a session at Joe’s studio in Brooklyn. Highlights from the session are out today on Royal Potato Family as the four-track Circles Around The Sun Meets Joe Russo EP. Sadly, CATS founder and guitarist Neal Casal died in August but expressed wishes for the group to continue and for the EP and a full-length album recorded just before he passed to be released. “All of the members of CATS have been friends with Joe Russo for years between our collaborations with Phil Lesh, Cass McCombs and others. We thought it would be a great idea to do a project with him, so we met up in a studio in Brooklyn and wound up creating four songs in one day,” explained Casal when the album was first announced in July. “The session had a true CATS in the moment vibe with explosive improvisation, double drums between Joe and our drummer Mark Levy, conversational guitars with me and [CATS bassist] Dan [Horne], and plenty of Adam MacDougall keyboard wizardry.” The EP was mixed by Horne and Grammy-winning recording engineer Jim Scott.

The Magpie Salute – High Water II

The Scoop: The Magpie Salute — consisting of The Black Crowes band mates guitarists Rich Robinson and Marc Ford and bassist as well as keyboardist Matt Slocum, vocalist John Hogg and drummer — are back with the final installment in their two-album High Water project. Produced by Robinson and recorded simultaneously with High Water I at Dark Horse Studios in Nashville, High Water II follows the band’s September EP release, In Here, and features the title track from the EP. Alison Krauss makes a guest appearance on the track “Lost Boy.”

Garcia Peoples – One Step Behind

The Scoop: Psychedelic rockers Garcia Peoples continue their prolific ways by issuing their third album in the last year-and-a-half. Beyond Beyond is Beyond release One Step Behind was recorded with Jason Meagher at Black Dirt Studio and features just two songs – the 32-minute title track and “Heart & Soul.” One Step Behind marks the studio debut of bassist Andy Kush and includes a guest appearance from saxophonist Bob Malach (guitarist Tom Malach’s father). “Whether or not you thought you knew Garcia Peoples’ music, One Step Behind is something new and beautiful, for new heads and old,” explained journalist Jesse Jarnow in a press release heralding the follow-up to Natural Facts. “No matter where you stand–behind, beyond, or another plane altogether–One Step Behind is ready. For those about to get on the Bus, we salute you.”

Battles – Juice B Crypts

The Scoop: For their fourth full-length, Battles enlisted a number of special guests across the 11 tracks that make up Juice B Crypts. The follow-up to 2015’s La Di Da Di includes contributions from Tune-Yards, Shabazz Palaces, Xenia Rubinos, Jon Anderson, Prairie WWWW and Sal Principato. The new album is the first released by guitarist/keyboaridist Ian Williams and drummer John Stanier following the departure of guitarist/bassist Dave Konopka that occurred in 2018. The new lineup and album are said to offer “a sensory overload of information that throws everything you thought you knew about Battles into flux once again” via “marrying synthesizer loops, cut-throat drum patterns and cyclical riffs.” Juice B Crypts “flirts with new technology, questions of authenticity and the technicalities of reinventing the wheel at the eleventh hour.”

Jim James with Teddy Abrams & the Louisville Orchestra – The Order Of Nature

The Scoop: My Morning Jacket frontman Jim James returns with the release of a live album documenting his groundbreaking work with conductor Teddy Abrams and the Louisville Orchestra. Abrams and James, friends since 2014, began the project in 2017 when James sent Abrams demos of a thematically linked group of songs that lyrically addressed the absence of hate in nature. Abrams then worked his magic and fleshed out the songs with classical music motifs that reflected James’ subject matter. James and Abrams debuted the sweeping project April 6 and 7 during the Louisville Orchestra’s annual Festival Of American Music. Capturing the performances on tape, the result was The Order Of Nature.

Compiled by Scott Bernstein, Nate Todd and Andy Kahn.