We've headed into another late month of 2024, which means we have another crop of new albums from the last to discuss. Choosing these albums is a labor of love, and definitely not a simplistic or easy task, but regardless, here are five new releases from October that remain close to my heart and strong on my personal rotation.
Jonah Yano - Jonah Yano & The Heavy Loop
Innovative Leisure
October 4, 2024
Jonah Yano's unique blend of jazz, R&B, and experimental soundscapes continue to entrance and lure me to continue seeking out his latest efforts. Each project feels less straightforward and continually more improvisational. While last year's, portrait of a dog, felt like a true jazz album with clean and direct production, Jonah Yano & The Heavy Loop, feels more interested in diverting from that feeling, rooting itself in elements of ambient and folk music. It has a vintage quality that's prevailed over the feelings of albums like Clairo's 70's tinged album from this year, Charm. It's only fitting that she appears on the soft ballad, "Snowpath." It almost feels like a sister album to Charm, echoing those subdued jazz elements while never failing to showcase personality and an intricate sense of musicality and awareness. Another notable feature on this album comes from fellow Canadian musicians, Helena Deland and Ouri, who together make up the duo Hildegard. Despite the album's short track list, Yano makes up for this with the impressive final track, "The Heavy Loop," clocking in at almost 30 minutes exactly with several musical movements with notable drum and string performances throughout. The light, airy vocals of Yano and his collaborators shine bright through these mellow arrangements that make up his latest endeavor.
Favorite Tracks: Concentrate, No Petty Magic, Snowpath, The Language of Coincidence
Molina - When you wake up
Escho
October 11, 2024
It's safe to say that a majority of those reading have heard Molina's music and may not even be aware of it. The Danish-Chilean musician and composer's first full-length album released this month, but her presence has been collectively felt across the internet since 2018 with her viral track, "Hey Kids," which to me, remains an instantly recognizable and nostalgic reminder of the pre-COVID internet landscape. Her sound has grown and certainly evolved since her early works, but the hypnotic and surrealist feelings that arise from it have remained, if not become more heightened. Switch out her heavy synths and drum machine for more organic instrumentation and meandering, droning guitars, and you have Molina's excellent debut effort, When you wake up. It's hard not to draw parallels to Molina's other fellow Danish contemporaries, some contributing to the Copenhagen-based label, Escho, like Astrid Sonne or ML Buch, but it feels like a justifiable comparison knowing these artists are so closely tied as collaborators. Molina contributed to Sonne's remix album, Great Doubt EDITS, alongside Buch, while Molina serves as Buch's primary percussion player. Buch also appears on the album's excellent closing track, "Organs." Molina's biggest strength is her fluidity. Each track feels so malleable as a listener, with low humming vocals perfectly meshing alongside the guitars and supporting harmonies. On "Organs," it's often entrancing enough to forget where Molina's voice ends and Buch's begins. The songs, while muted at times, feel bright, commanding of your attention, and are at times, hopeful.
Favorite Tracks: Navel, Scorpio, Flowers, Neverland, Organs
Christopher Owens - I Wanna Run Barefoot Through Your Hair
True Panther Sounds
October 18, 2024
There have been quite a few handful of moments over the years where I wondered, "What ever happened to Christopher Owens?" His former band, Girls, was a formative band in my personal music discovery. Hearing tracks like "Lust For Life" and "Lauren Marie," bring me back to my early teenage years, discovering these tracks on platforms like Tumblr. The short lifespan of the band urges me to remember their music in sort of a time capsule, encased in glass unable to enjoy it in a way that feels present, only reflective. That was until the release of I Wanna Run Barefoot Through Your Hair, Owens' first solo effort since 2015. A potential Girls reunion prompted Owens to return to his musical drawing board, but when the other half of the duo, Chet "JR" White, passed away in 2020, these songs didn't necessarily have a home any longer. This was the case until the formation of this record. While some of the tracks keep the spirit of Girls alive, many are pure, solo efforts of Owens. There's a sense of heavy emotional weight within these songs, lyrically relaying the process of grief, loss, and in a sense, building your life back together. Even love songs like "Beautiful Horses," demonstrate the haze and hesitation that come with trying to meet another's expectations. If not the lyricism, the most standout aspect of this album is the guitar. The riffs swirl around the verses and create almost a second voice within these songs. It's not a battle of whether the music or the lyrics are more prominent or command more focus; both equally do. Not always does a singer-songwriter album feel so pure and raw in it's intentions like this album does. All in all, I'm glad Christopher Owens is back.
Favorite Tracks: Beautiful Horses, I Think About Heaven, This Is My Guitar, Do You Need A Friend
Hildegard - Jour 1596
Chivi Chivi
October 18, 2024
The work of Hildegard is pure proof that good things truly do take time. The working duo of Montreal-based musicians, Helena Deland and Ouri, named their sophomore album after the aspect that the album took 1,596 days to create. Listening to the album, with all its light and breezy production, you really would never know it. The duo's debut self-titled collaborative album, while more industrial leaning and dense in production, took the duo a mere eight days to make. Jour 1596 showcases how sometimes the catchiest hooks and most natural pathways of creation sometimes take extra meditation and intention. It's like how crafting the perfect pop song is a science and not always done in a mere instant. In it's lightest moments, songs like "Bach in Town" display pop-like sensibilities and at it's most experimental, songs like "Remember Me," combine Deland's honey-sweet vocals with Ouri's haunting whispers with harps, bass, and sputtering percussion. It's plain to see how each respective member brings out the best in the other. Ouri's eerie and hauntingly light production compliments Deland's soprano tone, but also their differences in sound bring out the opposite in the other. The contrasts are more obvious when the other's antithesis is represented. You can't have Hildegard without Deland's sweet vocals and Ouri's dark orchestral production. Both must be present to understand and see the full scope.
Favorite Tracks: Bach in Town, Cruel, Remember Me, Pour Your Heart Out
Fashion Club - A Love You Cannot Shake
Felte
October 25, 2024
The best music is often rooted in identity and how our self perception shifts as that identity takes shape. This is especially true for the sophomore effort from Los Angeles-based producer and musician, Fashion Club. Her debut album from 2022, Scrutiny, was filled with glamorous rock and synths that echoed back to the music of the 80's. Even before the release of the album, Fashion Club's Pascal Stevenson's life had already immensely shifted through her gender transition and getting sober. It's easy to see how swiftly an artist's music can shift when such monumental changes occur. For Fashion Club, these changes are completely for the best, heightening both her voice and presence. If Scrutiny harkened to the nostalgic past, A Love You Cannot Shake transports us expeditiously to the future. It's opening track beginning with sputtering glitched-out production that feels as though the listener is being shot into the light. Even when lyrically the album showcases self doubt, the music sounds nothing less than confident, ethereal, and self assured. In ways, I feel it showcases the ways in which we project the way we'd like to feel, even if beneath the surface, our feelings don't match the way we portray ourselves. This is not to say the album lacks lyrical confidence, if anything, the nuance of the highs and lows makes the experimental-pop tracks feel all the more honest. On one of the album's highlights, "Forget" with Perfume Genius, the lyrical narrative serves as a conversation between her past and present self, singing, "If I get close to honest, the life I’ve fabricated feels too brittle not to break." With collaborations from the aforementioned Perfume Genius, Jay Som, and Julie Byrne, there's so much to absorb and so much light to bask in.
Favorite Tracks: Faith, Forget, Ghost, Deify
Comments