PRESS PLAY: 9 New Albums out October 8th!

Familiar favorites and celebrated songwriters highlight this week’s batch of newly released albums. Recent XPNFest headliners (and even more recent World Cafe guests) The Record Company make their return with the glam-blues stomper Play Loud. We got a preview of Natalie Hemby‘s Pins and Needles when the Nashville musician (and member of The Highwomen) played a virtual Free at Noon earlier this year. Our October Artist to Watch Cimafunk brings boundless energy (and a roster of heavy-hitting collaborators) to his latest album, El Alimento. Toronto’s unclassifiable titans BADBADNOTGOOD offer up their latest jazz/hip-hop collision, Talk Memory. Collecting new songs alongside a series of standalone singles, LP‘s Churches is a stellar set from the pop virtuoso.

James Blake follows his GRAMMY-winning collaboration from the Black Panther soundtrack (and his own nomination for 2019’s Assume Form) with his fifth solo LP, Friends That Break Your Heart. Dreamy Copenhagen combo Efterklang‘s Windflowers is a sweeping companion to bandleader Casper Clausen’s solo album Better Way, released earlier this year. Shannon Lay conjures an intimate set of impressionistic folk songs on the masterful Geist. John Prine acolytes like Brandi Carlile, Sturgill Simpson, and Valerie June pay tribute to the late songwriter on Broken Hearts and Dirty Windows: Songs of John Prine, Vol. 2. PRESS PLAY on these new releases (and more) below…

The Record Company – Play Loud
WE LOVE: “How High” “Gotta Be Movin'” “Out of My Head’

Natalie Hemby – Pins and Needles
WE LOVE: “Heroes” “Pins and Needles”

Cimafunk – El Alimento
WE LOVE: “Funk Aspirin (feat. George Clinton)” “Esto Es Cuba”

BADBADNOTGOOD – Talk Memory
WE LOVE: “Signal from the Noise” “Beside April”

LP – Churches
WE LOVE: “How Low Can You Go” “Goodbye”

James Blake – Friends That Break Your Heart
WE LOVE: “Say What You Will” “Famous Last Words”

Efterklang – Windflowers
WE LOVE: “Dragonfly” “Living Other Lives”

Shannon Lay – Geist
WE LOVE: “Awaken and Allow” “A Thread to Find”

Various Artists – Broken Hearts and Dirty Windows: Songs of John Prine, Vol. 2
WE LOVE: Brandi Carlile – “I Remember Everything” Sturgill Simpson – “Paradise”

Atmosphere – WORD?, Bahamas – Live to Tape, Volume I EP, Bardo Pond – Amanita (25th Anniversary Edition), Birdtalker – Birdtalker, J.D. Wilkes and the Legendary Shack Shakers – Cockadoodledeux, John Coltrane – A Love Supreme: Live in Seattle, Karen Peris – A Song is Way Above the Lawn, Katie Frank – Small Town Minds EP, Kevin Morby – A Night at the Little Los Angeles (Sundowner 4-Track Demos), Kurt Elling – SuperBlue, Ladyhawke – Time Flies, Lala Lala – I Want the Door to Open, Low Hum – Nonfiction, Magdalena Bay – Mercurial World, Nothing – The Great Dismal B-Sides, Porches – All Day Gentle Hold !, S. Raekwon – Where I’m at Now, Sam Fender – Seventeen Going Under, Sam Teskey – Cycles, Scott Hirsch – Windless Day, Sean Rowe – The Darkness Dressed in Colored Lights, Taraka – Welcome to Paradise Lost, The High 70s – Glitter Box, The Wild Feathers – Alvarado, The World is a Beautiful Place and I Am No Longer Afraid to Die – Illusory Walls, Violent Femmes – Why Do Birds Sing? (Deluxe Edition), We Are Scientists – Huffy