Harry Nilsson "Losst And Founnd (Omnivore)"
What’s this? Oh nothing. No big deal… just the NEW HARRY NILSSON RECORD!!! Ok, I’ll calm down now. When the music world (and the world in general) unexpectedly lost Harry Nilsson in 1994 it had been nearly 15 years since he had gifted the world with a new album. Well, it turns out that at the time of his death he was deep into the work on a new album, and now 25 years later that album has been completed by his friends and family. Produced by Mark Hudson and featuring contributions from Van Dyke Parks, Jim Keltner, Jimmy Webb, and Harry’s son Kiefo as well as the songcraft and melodies Nilsson is known for, this is a wonderful post script to the man’s already amazing legacy. If you were worried that Harry was going to get with the times in the 90s, well fear not. This is his classic sound. Check out the title track “Lost And Found.”
Blood Warrior "Animal Hides (Ernest Jenning Record Co.)"
From Ernest Jenning Record Co.:
Animal Hides is the third album by Blood Warrior. It’s a collection of songs affected by the anxieties and securities of these times, documented by two friends in their late thirties, Joey Weiss and Greg Jamie (O’Death). Recorded onto tape at Joey Weiss’ studio in the Hudson Valley, Animal Hides was mixed and mastered by Kevin McMahon (Swans, The Walkman, Real Estate) and is being released by Ernest Jenning Record Co. (who also released the band’s 2010 debut) on November 15th, 2019.
The band always describes Blood Warrior as a project that “exists so two old friends can continue to make music and check in on each other”. Weiss and Jamie first met at summer camp in 1994 and have remained friends and music collaborators ever since. They have been continuously recording and releasing as Blood Warrior for over a decade, their albums existing as snapshots of different points in their lives. If Letter Ghost—the band’s second album, released in 2015— was an introspective affair, dealing with the dissolution of Greg’s marriage, Animal Hides instead chooses to focus on the cultivation of community and family. The importance of finding a home, no matter how small, inside this strange, evolving world.
Check out the haunting “Animal Shades.”
Juliana Hatfield "Juliana Hatfield Sings The Police (American Laundromat)"
Sometimes albums are steeped in mystery, with a heady concept that’s beyond difficult to describe. Other times, Juliana Hatfield records and releases an album called Juliana Hatfield Sings The Police (American Laundromat), making life for music describers and listeners very, very easy. Juliana adds her singular talents to the Gordon Sumner songbook. Check out the rocking, rollicking take on “Murder By Numbers.”
Je Suis France "Back To The Basics Of Love (Ernest Jenning Record Co.)"
Je Suis France doesn’t have an off switch. Back to the Basics of Love, which comes out this November from the Ernest Jenning Record Co., will be their seventh official full-length album, but they’ve also released dozens of digital releases and CD-Rs stretching back to the early ‘00s. The band, which first came together in Athens, Georgia, in the ‘90s, has prepared a new release for almost every show they’ve played since 2004. Despite that long history of experimentation, Back to the Basics of Love has all the energy and urgency of a debut from a band that’s 20 years younger. It’s a record that sounds like it could’ve come out in the 1990s, the 2000s, or the 2010s, but that couldn’t have existed at any point other than now.
Check out the ramshackle wonder of “Shapeshifter.”