DC September 11 New Release Recap

Labor Day is just the fleeting smell of hamburgers grilling as we go headlong into what is the busy fall season for new releases. Witness, if you will, the drop of new albums by Bob Dylan and Dave Matthews Band as well as the return of ZZ Top, the pairing of David Byrne and St. Vincent and new stuff from Amanda Palmer, The XX, Pet Shop Boys, The Raveonettes, Kathy Mattea, Helio Sequence and Patterson Hood of Drive By Truckers. And, as you can expect, we're going to tug on your sleeve about a few other equally worthy if less known selections out today: the fab art/pop of Snowblink, sharp Americana of Avett Brothers, former Bon Iver cohort Field Report and the latest solo project from Slowdive's Neil Halstead. We also want you to peruse the fine new albums from Danish songwriter Tina Dico,  Sea Wolf (aka Alex Brown Church), roots/folk duo Calexico and Brooklyn songstress Kelly McRae. Whew. Capsule overviews with links and a full listing of releases below...

In many respects the longawaited second album from Toronto-based indie alt-pop duo Snowblink -- Daniela Gesundheit (best name ever) and Dan Goldman -- isn't a quantum leap from their 2008 debut Long Live (belated release in the U.S. last year). But the differences in both tone and production are striking. The airy and ethereal folk-driven dreamscapes that are the gently beating heart of the Snowblink sound are still on full display and better than ever. This time, however, an amped up Feist-ian sound is full and ripe, the debut's spare acoustic sound (with just a hint of electronic padding) giving way to a meat-on-the-bones density that gives the already gorgeous melodies -- and Gesundheit's delicious singing -- a significant studio heft...more DC

Avett Brothers have teamed up once again with legendary producer and label exec Rick Rubin for The Carpenter, an album that Scott Avett says represents a "much purer approach" to the band's Americana and folk roots than their 2009 breakout album I and Love and You. The Carpenter is also both broader and deeper in sound and vision, tackling themes of life and death (bassist Bob Crawford's daughter, was diagnosed with brain cancer last year) while balancing the heavy ("Through My Prayers"), with a nimble playfulness on "Pretty Girl From Michigan" and boisterous, blink-and-you-missed-it "Geraldine". No wonder Scott refers to the album as "joyful and more painful in some ways"...more DC

In the early part of the 21st century, Chris Porterfield was a member of DeYarmond Edison, the Wisconsin band that also included Bon Iver’s Justin Vernon and the musicians who would one day become Megafaun. When DeYarmond Edison moved to North Carolina, Chris stayed in Wisconsin and started writing his own songs, honing and crafting them for years before entering Vernon’s April Base Studio last December to record. "He made me think that someone not living in a major city, who writes stuff that he believes in about stuff he went through, that people want to hear that," says Porterfield of Vernon. The resulting recordings make up Field Report’s eponymous debut (September 11, Partisan), an album respected tastemaker Bruce Warren of WXPN anoints “the best debut of the year"...more DC

Neil Halstead - Palindrome Hunches (Brushfire/Universal) - Best known as a founding member of Brit shoegaze pioneers Slowdive -- and then the band's folk/pop focused spin-off Mojave 3 -- Halstead's solo output, most notably 2008's excellent Oh! Mighty Engine, has reshaped his skill as a songwriter and drawn equally ecstatic critical praise...for his third solo project -- self-described as "a little darker" -- Halstead recruited producer Nick Holton and the Wallingford, Oxfordshire musical collective Band of Hope as his backing band, a like-minded outfit of rustic English folk/rockers...more DC

Following the success of the second Sea Wolf album, White Water, White Bloom, singer/songwriter/guitarist/main man Alex Brown Church found he wanted to get back to where he started: California. “I just felt I needed to bring Sea Wolf back to me, to my world,” he says. “After the last record, which was written and recorded far from home and was more of a group experience, I really wanted to stay close to home, be in my own space and give myself room to explore and write and record on my own schedule.” True to Church's desire to make an album that "draws you in rather than punches you in the face", his Romance has personal and bittersweet quality in both attitude and production style...more DC

Tina Dico - Where Do You Go To Disappear? (Finest Gramophone) - Danish songstress has been something of a DIY trailblazer over the last ten years, releasing one fine independent album after another (our fave: 2005's In The Red) and crisscrossing Europe, The U.K. and America with what has become a live show of confidence and charisma -- and, of course, some great songs...Relocating from London to Copenhagen and recently to Iceland, Dico and partner Helgi Jonsson produced her new songs in their new basement studio...While Dico has often used electronica as sweetening to her folk/rock production -- a trait she developed early from her work with Zero 7 -- Where Do You Go leans heavily on synthesized sounds to flesh out the new songs...more DC

A little more than a year ago, New York songwriter Kelly McRae and husband/guitarist Matt Castlelein sold any possessions they couldn't pack in a VW camper, walked away from their Brooklyn apartment and hit the road. A couple of hundred shows and 35,000 miles later, the pair encamped at an old stone house in Knoxville, Tennessee and after stringing microphones in the great room recorded what was to become McRae's third album Brighter Than The Blues (September 15). “We tried to keep it simple," reflects McRae. "Live, we have two guitars, two voices and some stomping, and that’s about it. I really wanted to capture the spirit of the live show"...more DC

Calexico's first album in four years -- Algiers (September 11, ANTI-) -- finds Joey Burns and John Convertino transplanted in Louisiana and soaking up the rich New Orleans musical gumbo as they wrote new songs and collaborated with co-producer Craig Schumacher. Holed up in a converted church in the Crescent City neighborhood that gives the album its title, the duo found inspiration for the new songs in a place Burns, noting the area's Haitian, Cuban and African influences, calls "strong and bold, soulful to the core, but surrounded by a sea of darkness. There's something creepy and old on the edge of town and written throughout the town's histories"...more DC

More September 11 Releases:

Amanda Palmer & Grand Theft Orchestra - Theater Is Evil
Bell Gardens - Full Sundown Assembly (UK)
Ben Arthur - If You Look For My Heart
Bob Dylan - Tempest
Brendan Hines - Small Mistakes
Chris Isaak - Beyond The Sun (Super Deluxe Version)
Chris Knight - Little Victories
Chris Robinson Brotherhood - The Magic Door
Clare Bowditch - The Winter I Chose Happiness (9/14 Aus)
Dave Matthews Band - Away From The World
David Byrne/St. Vincent - Love This Giant
Get Well Soon - Scarlet Beast O' Seven Heads
Guy Forsyth - The Freedom to Fail
Helio Sequence - Negotiations
Joanne Shaw Taylor - Almost Always Never
Jon Brooks - Delicate Cages (CD)
Kathy Mattea - Calling Me Home
Marco Benevento - TigerFace
Miggs - 15th and Hope
Patterson Hood (Drive By Truckers) - Heat Lightning Rumbles In The Distance
Pet Shop Boys - Elysium
Poema - Remembering You
Seapony - Falling
Sean Hayes - Before We Turn To Dust
Sophie Madeleine - The Rhythm You Started
Steve Forbert - Over With You
The Dandelion War - We Were Alway Loyal...
The Helio Sequence - Nogotiations
The Raveonettes - Observator
The Script - #3 (UK; US 10/9)
The Time Jumpers - S/T
The XX - Co-Exist
Toy - S/T
Various - Spirit of Talk Talk (Tribute)
ZZ Top - La Futura