Release Day Picks: May 29th New Album Highlights
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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 Raconteurs, Nicole Atkins, Shira Elias and Flying Lotus. Read on for more insight into the records we have all queued up to spin.
The Raconteurs – Live At Electric Lady
The Scoop: As if The Raconteurs reuniting after a decade-long hiatus and gifting the world with a new studio album, 2019’s Help Us Stranger, wasn’t enough, Jack White, Brendan Benson, Jack Lawrence and Patrick Keeler have dropped a new live EP recorded at the legendary Electric Lady Studios in New York City. Jimi Hendrix founded Electric Lady in 1970 and the Raconteurs EP is part of the celebrations around the studio’s 50th anniversary. The new live record came as something of a surprise with the band announcing it just days before its release. The EP also arrived with an accompanying documentary, both presented by Spotify, tracing the explosive live performance and featuring an interview with famed filmmaker Jim Jarmusch.
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Nicole Atkins – Italian Ice
The Scoop: While Nicole Atkins recorded her new studio album in Alabama, Italian Ice is inspired by a treat sold at many establishments on the Jersey Shore boardwalks where the singer-songwriter spent many of her formative days. Italian Ice is the 11-track follow-up to 2017’s Goodnight Rhonda Lee that is out today on Single Lock Records. Atkins and a band consisting of the Muscle Shoals Rhythm Section’s Spooner Oldham and David Hood as well as Jim Sclavunos, David “Moose” Sherman, Binky Gripite and McKenzie Smith at the legendary Muscle Shoals Sound Studio. “Musically, it doesn’t make any sense,” Atkins explained of her decision to bring together members of Bad Seeds and The Dap-Kings with the Muscle Shoals Rhythm Section. “But I’m a superfan of all of them, and we ended up with the weirdest, craziest band ever. It just became this awesome misfit party.”
The album, described by Nicole as “an acid trip through my record collection,” was co-produced by Atkins and Ben Tanner and includes a number of special guests including Britt Daniel, Seth Avett, John Paul White and Erin Rae. The Neptune, New Jersey native collaborated with Daniel, Hamilton Leithauser and My Morning Jacket’s Carl Broemel for some of the songs featured on Italian Ice.
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Shira Elias – Goods
The Scoop: The six-song Goods EP is the debut solo release from Turkuaz vocalist Shira Elias. Produced by MEGA, the content on Goods was influenced by Elias’ decade living in New York City. She stated:
My whole life was waiting to get to New York. Once I got there I knew I was in the right place to become the artist I wanted to be. The City of New York is the other central character of Goods. It is such a part of me and who I am that it inevitably showed its relentless, colorful heart on each track of the EP. The process of writing Goods was like expressing years of emotions and experiences that were bubbling inside of me and needed to be released. Sharing my own uninhibited ideas and music with the world has been as equally an integral part of my growth as a human, as has living the actual experiences. I’ve always figured out which piece of the puzzle I am in every creative endeavor I’ve been a part of. With this solo endeavor, now I get to design the entire puzzle and decide how I want all the pieces to fit together.
Elias recorded Goods in advance of move to Los Angeles. A companion EP, Services, which was recorded in L.A. is expected later this year.
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Flying Lotus – Flamagra (Instrumentals)
The Scoop: Last year, Flying Lotus (Stephen Ellison) released the critically acclaimed studio album Flamagra featuring a diverse group of guests that included David Lynch, Toro y Moi, Solange, Anderson .Paak and George Clinton. Ellison today unveils his instrumental version of the LP as Flamagra (Instrumentals) via Warp Records. Press materials announcing the instrumental version of Flying Lotus’ sixth studio album noted, “Whereas the original album featured a dream cast of vocal collaborators, this project places the masterful arrangements, electronics and musicianship at the forefront.” Thundercat (Stephen Bruner), Miguel Atwood-Ferguson, Brandon Coleman, Justin Brown, Dennis Hamm, Taylor Graves, Ronald Bruner, Herbie Hancock, Deantoni Parks and Robert Glasper are among the musicians who contributed to Flamagra (Instrumentals).
Compiled by Scott Bernstein, Nate Todd and Andy Kahn.
