32 New Albums & Artists to Know About — Made in NYC, LA, and Nashville
As new records by Savages, The National, Vampire Weekend, The Flaming Lips and Daft Punk spin on high rotation chez SonicScoop, we’re hearing about so many new projects coming down the pipeline that we thought we’d share in a new column.
Get ready for the details of some buzz-worthy new and upcoming record projects in production (or recently wrapped) all over the country. Read up on what’s happening, and hear some new music below!
Higgins Waterproof Black Magic Band, the new project from TV On The Radio’s Tunde Adebimpe with [Tall Firs drummer] Ryan Sawyer, Josh Werner and Alex Holden, have a new EP – mixed out of Strange Weather Recording in Brooklyn by Daniel James Schlett (DIIV, Janka Nabay). Adebimpe told Spin, “If you like Can or This Heat, you’ll probably be into it.” A couple of the tracks on the EP were produced by Bill Laswell. Coming soon!
Meanwhile, TVOTR has been working on new material as well, out of band-member and producer Dave Sitek’s LA studio. They’re reportedly not in full album mode quite yet, but we can expect a single to come out on Sitek’s Federal Prism label this year. The band recently split with Interscope.
Also produced by Dave Sitek, Brazilian dance-rock troupe CSS has a new album, Planta, coming out June 11 on SQE Music. Listen to an advance track “Hangover” below…
Back to Brooklyn, songwriter Damon McMahon has been making a new Amen Dunes record with Schlett out of Strange Weather Recording as well. “It’s one of the things I’m most excited about right now,” says Schlett of the album. When we spoke to him, Schlett had also just finished Luke Temple’s (Here We Go Magic) new solo record and was about to start a new Heavenly Beat record for Captured Tracks.
Switching gears a bit, pop singer Brenda Radney (aka Bren) has a new single coming out on Justin Timberlake’s RCA imprint, Tennman Records in July. The song, “Ain’t You”, was produced by Vel Songs founder/producer Camus Celli out of his studios in DUMBO. Next door, another Vel songwriter/producer, Josh Grant, has been remixing under the moniker DJ Chuck Buckett, and has new remixes coming out on DFA for Joy Wave, Allies for Everyone and The Crystal Ark.
Australian electro-pop band Architecture in Helsinki has just finished mixing their new record with Damian Taylor (Bjork, The Killers) and “Somebody I Used to Know” engineer/mixer Francois Tetaz (Gotye, Kimbra) at Taylor’s studio in Montreal.
Also in Montreal, BRAIDS made a new record – recorded and produced by the band in their studio, and mastered by Harris Newman at Grey Market Mastering. Listen to a new track “In Kind” at Pitchfork. The full-length LP Flourish // Perish will come out August 20 on Arbutus Records.
Killer Mike and El-P have a new album coming out this summer on Fools Gold. Production on the album, Run The Jewels, was handled by El-P and features co-production from Little Shalamar and Wilder Zoby. The album was mixed by Joey Raia at his //231 Studios, with additional vocal recording done by Nick Hook at The Space Pit – both located in Greenpoint – and was mastered by Joe LaPorta from his new studio at Sterling Sound. Listen to a track off the album here:
Dum Dum Girls have an album in the works that’s due out on Sub Pop later this year. As on previous albums, Richard Gottehrer and Sune Rose Wagner of The Raveonettes are producing, with Alonzo Vargas recording and mixing. Basics for the album were tracked at EastWest Studios in L.A., and vocals were recorded in NYC. LaPorta will also master this record, which reportedly evolves from Dum Dum Girls’ lo-fi roots with modern textures.
Sune Rose Wagner also produced the new LP for San Diego rock band, Crocodiles, Crimes of Passion. Album influences include the Soft Boys, Street Hassle-era Lou Reed, the Jackson 5 and no wave guitar guru Glenn Branca. Click to listen to the first single, “Cockroach” via Stereogum.
A promising new NYC artist named Sean Wood released his debut album Sudden Love independently a few months back, when we were tipped off by the album’s producer/engineer, Mario McNulty. A folk and R&B-inflected modern pop album, Sudden Love has moments that will recall Prince, Frank Ocean, R. Kelly and even experimental folk a la Dirty Projectors. Wood recorded the album between The Magic Shop, Headgear and Studio G; McNulty mixed the release out of his own Incognito Studios. Listen to Sudden Love on Bandcamp.
NYC indie rock band Born Cages will release The Sidelines EP on June 18 via Razor & Tie. The EP was produced by Jon Kaplan (Walk The Moon, Augustana) and Oliver Straus at Mission Sound in Brooklyn. Listen to the Born Cages song “Don’t Look Back” at Vice Noisey. The song is available on iTunes HERE.
Seattle indie-folk band The Head and the Heart have been making a new album with Peter Katis up at his Tarquin Studio in Bridgeport, CT. Katis also has just wrapped a record with Brooklyn-based anthemic indie rockers We Are Augustines, and mixed the new National single, “Sea of Love”, off their new album Trouble Will Find Me. Watch the video below…
Talented NYC-based French jazz singer Cyrille Aimée has a new album coming soon, produced and mixed by Fab Dupont at Flux Studios, and mastered by Greg Calbi at Sterling Sound. The concept of the record, says Dupont, was “to marry Cyrille’s voice with the sound of different kinds of guitars – gypsy guitar by Adrien Moignard, electric guitar by Michael Valeanu and nylon guitar by Guillerme Monteiro. The three virtuosos blend styles and eras into a new sound that marries the old with the new.”
Speaking of amazing voices, Swedish singer and songwriter Nina Persson, of The Cardigans and A Camp, is making a solo album! Working with bandmate and husband Nathan Larson (Shudder To Think) and Eric D. Johnson (of Fruit Bats), Persson has recorded new songs at Vinegar Hill Sound in DUMBO – with Geoff Sanoff engineering.
Jeff Tweedy and Mavis Staples. Photo by Spencer Tweedy.
And a national treasure, Mavis Staples has another Jeff Tweedy-produced album, One True Vine, coming out next month via Anti- Records. Music on the album was reportedly performed almost entirely by Tweedy and his son Spencer, and recorded at Wilco’s Loft in Chicago by Tom Schick.
Jimmy Eat World will release their new album, Damage, on June 11. The album was produced and recorded at Alain Johannes’ (Queens of the Stone Age, Them Crooked Vultures) studio and mixed by James Brown at his home studio in Park Slope.
We Are Scientists will have a new album out soon – produced and recorded by Chris Coady and mixed by James Brown at Germano Studios.
Speaking of Coady, he’s been working on a new album with a reunited Yuck (sans lead vocalist Daniel Blumberg) – at the converted-church studio, Dreamland, just outside Woodstock. See this Spin article for more on that.
Sam Hillmer of Zs has just released a new album of his solo sax/electronic project, Diamond Terrifier, via Chris Taylor’s Terrible Records. The album, The Subtle Body Wears A Shadow, was mixed by Taylor (Grizzly Bear) and mastered by Heba Kadry at Timeless Mastering in Greenpoint. Listen to a track off the record via Spin.
HAERTS – a new Brooklyn band led by Nini Fabi with Ben Gebert (of Nini & Ben), Garrett Ienner, Derek McWilliams, and Jonathan Schmidt – have two new singles out via Columbia Records, produced by Jean Phillip Grobler of St. Lucia. “Wings” was mixed by Michael Brauer and “All The Days” was mixed by Tom Elmhirst – both out of Electric Lady Studios. And both songs were also mastered by Kadry at Timeless Mastering.
Listen to “All The Days” here:
Down Nashville way, Kings of Leon just wrapped up work on their soon-to-be-released new album, The Collection Box – produced by Angelo Petraglia and recorded by James Brown at the band’s new headquarters, Neon Leon, in Nashville. Brown mixed the album in Blackbird Studio A.
A new Atlantic band, Saints of Valory, is recording their debut album at Blackbird as well. Saints of Valory hail from Rio de Janeiro and were signed following the success of their debut EP, The Bright Lights. They’re recording their debut with producer Joe Chiccarelli and engineer Ernesto Olivera.
Another Atlantic band, modern rock trio NEEDTOBREATHE, has also been making an album at Blackbird with Chiccarelli producing. Lowell Reynolds is the engineer.
Obits
Tam Lin – an inspiring singer/songwriter we profiled awhile back – has a new recording coming out soon. Paul Weinfeld aka Tam Lin recorded his latest, Medicine For A Ghost between Electric Lady Studios and Marc Plati’s studio, Alice’s Restaurant, with producer/engineer Mario McNulty.
Brooklyn via Washington D.C. punk band Obits have a new record in the works – the band recorded at Upstairs in Arlington, VA to 8-track (with engineer Nikhil Ranade), and then brought the recordings to co-producer/mixers Geoff Sanoff and Eli Janney, who each mixed five songs on the album. Coming soon on Sub Pop Records.
Production on the anticipated new Maxwell album, Summers, continues with Mike Pela (Sade, Maxwell) mixing several tracks.
Psych-folk band Horse Thief is making a new record at Sunset Sound in LA, with Thom Monahan producing. Monahan also just produced/mixed an album with heavy blues rockers The Chris Robinson Brotherhood.
Urban folk singer Jen Chapin has a new album out this week, called Reckoning, which was produced and mixed by the great Kevin Killen and recorded in part at Mission Sound in Brooklyn.
Singer/actress Rebecca Pidgeon has a new album coming out, which she recorded and mixed with S. Husky Hoskulds in L.A. and producer Tim Young. Hoskulds also recently made an album with Adam Levy and Shelly Segal, Little March.
The Spanish indie-folk singer known as Russian Red (Sony Music) is making a new album in Los Angeles, at Sunset Sound, with producer Joe Chiccarelli and engineer Ken Sluiter. Chiccarelli has also been at Sunset working on the new album for Britt Daniel’s other band, Divine Fits, for Merge. Look out for that, and a new soul-ful Spoon album. Says Spin.
And hopefully you’ve made it to the end, so we can tell you about UK/Spanish electro-pop/rock band Crystal Fighters who have a new album out this week on Atlantic, Cave Rave, produced by Justin Meldal-Johnson and mixed by Manny Marroquin in L.A. On our recent visit with Marroquin, he’d just finished mixing the record, and described the band as “MGMT-meets-M83” – check out the transporting “Wave” below and get ready for summer!
Producers, engineers, publicists, managers, artists…Fill us in on cool records we should know about by emailing names, links and production details to submissions@sonicscoop.com!
Please note: When you buy products through links on this page, we may earn an affiliate commission.