Release Day Picks: June 29th 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 Gorillaz, Ray Davies, Jim James, Florence + The Machine, The Milk Carton Kids and John Coltrane. Read on for more insight into the records we have all queued up to spin.

Gorillaz – The Now Now

The Scoop: It took seven years for Gorillaz to follow-up The Fall with 2017’s Humanz. The lengthy period was par for the course between albums from the band masterminded by Damon Albarn and Jamie Hewlett. However the group is back just over one year later with The Now Now. Gorillaz started to record and gather the material for The Now Now during last year’s North American Tour in support of Humanz. Albarn tracked the bulk of the new LP this past February at Studio 13 in London. The short time period didn’t leave much opportunity for the vast amount of collaborations found on past Gorillaz records, but the group did recruit famed jazz guitarist George Benson, hip-hop icon Snoop Dogg and house music artist Jamie Principle to contribute to The Now Now. Check out the visualizer for “Hollywood” featuring Snoop and Principle:

Label: Capitol Records

Producer: Gorillaz with James Ford & Remi Kabaka

Number Of Tracks: 11

Running Time: 40:42

Guest Musicians: James Ford, Karl Vanden Bossche, Abra, Junior Dan, Graham Coxon, Snoop Dogg, Jamie Principle and George Benson

Tracklist:

1. Humility – feat George Benson
2. Tranz
3. Hollywood – feat Snoop Dogg + Jamie Principle
4. Kansas
5. Sorcererz
6. Idaho
7. Lake Zurich
8. Magic City
9. Fire Flies
10. One Percent
11. Souk Eye

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Ray Davies – Our Country: Americana Act II



The Scoop: Legendary The Kinks frontman Ray Davies returns with Our Country: Americana Act II, which is a sequel to his 2017 album Americana. Like last year’s release, Davies once again was backed by guitarist Bill Shanley and The Jayhawks during sessions at Konk Studios in London. The 19-track collection of new originals and reinterpretaions of classics from throughout Davies’ career is said to be “borne from Davies’ vision of America — how it shaped him and evolved through the years. His reflections on his experiences in America instigate personal reformation, and eventually rediscovery and celebration of his own origins.” Here’s “The Big Guy”:

Label: Sony Legacy

Producer: Ray Davies, Guy Massey, John Jackson

Number Of Tracks: 19

Running Time: 1:01:04

Guest Musicians: The Jayhawks, Bill Shanley

Tracklist:

1. Our Country
2. The Invaders (spoken word)
3. Back In The Day
4. Oklahoma U.S.A.
5. Bringing Up Baby
6. The Getaway
7. The Take
8. We Will Get There
9. The Real World
10. A Street Called Hope
11. The Empty Room
12. Calling Home
13. Louisiana Sky
14. March Of The Zombies
15. The Big Weird
16. Tony And Bob
17. The Big Guy
18. Epilogue
19. Muswell Kills

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Jim James – Uniform Distortion



The Scoop: My Morning Jacket frontman Jim James isn’t shying away from how he feels about what’s happening in the world right now and the way we gather news with his latest solo release. Inspired by a photo titled “Illuminated Man,” Uniform Distortation sees James delivering a more straight-forward rock record than his previous releases that tended to color outside of the lines of his full-time band. The 11-track effort finds the singer-songwriter joined by bassist Seth Kauffman (Floating Action), drummer Dave Givan and Americana trio Dear Lemon Trees on backing vocals. James offered some insight on the release saying, “I feel like there is this blanket distortion on society/media and the way we gather our ‘news and important information. More and more of us are feeling lost and looking for new ways out of this distortion and back to the truth…finding hope in the land and in the water and in old books offering new ideas and most importantly in each other and love.” Check out the music video for “Just A Fool”:

Label: ATO Records

Producer: Jim James, Kevin Ratterman

Number Of Tracks: 11

Running Time: 40:07

Guest Musicians: Seth Kauffman, Dave Givan, Kathleen Grace, Jamie Drake, Leslie Stevens

Tracklist:

1. Just A Fool
2. You Get To Rome
3. Out Of Time
4. Throwback
5. No Secrets
6. Yes To Everything
7. No Use Waiting
8. All In Your Head
9. Better Late Than Never
10. Over And Over
11. Too Good To Be True

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Florence + the Machine – High As Hope



The Scoop: Frontwoman Florence Welch co-produced the 10-tracks making up High As Hope. The British singer-songwriter composed songs that examined her teenage years and 20s spent growing up in South London. Welch worked with co-producers Emile Haynie, Brett Shaw, Thomas Bartlett (Doveman) and Tobias Jesso Jr. on the band’s fourth LP and follow-up to 2015’s How Big, How Blue, How Beautiful. Here’s the video for the single “Big God”:

Label: Republic Records

Producer: Emile Haynie, Florence Welch, Brett Shaw, Thomas Bartlett, Tobias Jesso Jr.

Number Of Tracks: 10

Running Time: 39:57

Tracklist:

1. June
2. Hunger
3. South London Forever
4. Big God
5. Sky Full of Song
6. Grace
7. Patricia
8. 100 Years
9. The End of Love
10. No Choir

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The Milk Carton Kids – All The Things That I Did And All The Things That I Didn’t Do



The Scoop: While it may not shock the world as much as Bob Dylan going electric, acclaimed folk duo The Milk Carton Kids decided it was time to ditch the two-person format and expand to a full multi-piece band. The change came in the wake of a number of big life changes for the pair as Kenneth Pattengale successfully beat cancer and had a long-term relationship come to an end, while his musical longtime partner Joey Ryan welcomed his second child into the world. The results of all that can be heard throughout All The Things I Did And All The Things That I Didn’t Do. The 12-track record, whose centerpiece is the sprawling 10-plus minute “One More For The Road,” channels elements of Nick Drake, Astral Weeks-era Van Morrison and Gillian Welch and David Rawlings’ two most recent albums as touchpoints, while still not straying from what they do best — sublime harmonies and contemplative songwriting. Give a listen to “Younger Years”:

Label: Anti- Records

Producer: Joe Henry

Number Of Tracks: 12

Running Time: 51:29

Guest Musicians: Jay Bellerose, Russ Pahl, Dennis Crouch, Levon Henry

Tracklist:

1. Just Look At Us Now
2. Nothing Is Real
3. Younger Years
4. Mourning In America
5. You Break My Heart
6. Blindness
7. On More For The Road
8. Big Time
9. A Sea Of Roses
10. Unwinnable War
11. I’ve Been Loving You
12. All The Things…

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John Coltrane – Both Directions At Once: The Lost Album



The Scoop: A session recorded on March 6, 1963 by legendary saxophonist John Coltrane and his Classic Quartet was thought to be lost forever when workers at Impulse! Records destroyed the master tape to save storage space. However, Trane made a copy of the master and shared it with his wife Juanita Naima. Juanita’s family recently came across the tape and today the world finally gets to hear Both Directions At One: The Lost Album. Coltrane laid down the session with pianist McCoy Tyner, drummer Elvin Jones and bassist Jimmy Garrison at the Rudy Van Gelder Studio in Englewood, New Jersey in the midst of a two-week run at the famed Birdland club in New York City. “In 1963, all these musicians are reaching some of the heights of their musical powers,” Coltrane’s son Ravi Coltrane, a co-producer of the album, told the New York Times. “On this record, you do get a sense of John with one foot in the past and one foot headed toward his future.” Check out the visualizer for “Untitled Original 11383”:

Label: Impulse! Records

Producer: Ravi Coltrane with Ken Druker

Number Of Tracks: 7 / 14 (Deluxe)

Running Time: 47:07

Guest Musicians: McCoy Tyner, Elvin Jones, Jimmy Garrison

Tracklist:

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1. Untitled Original 11383
2. Nature Boy
3. Untitled Original 11386
4. Vilia
5. Impressions
6. Slow Blues
7. One Up, One Down

Both Directions At Once: The Lost Album Deluxe Tracklist

1. Untitled Original 11383 (Take 1)
2. Nature Boy
3. Untitled Original 11386 (Take 1)
4. Vilia (Take 3)
5. Impressions (Take 3)
6. Slow Blues
7. One Up, One Down (Take 1)
8. Vilia (Take 5)
9. Impressions (Take 1)
10. Impressions (Take 2)
11. Impressions (Take 4)
12. Untitled Original 11386 (Take 2)
13. Untitled Original 11386 (Take 5)
14. One Up, One Down (Take 6)

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Compiled by Jeffrey Greenblatt, Andy Kahn and Scott Bernstein.

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