KXT’s New Music Monday picks for August 29 feature the new one from Florence + The Machine, a touch of rocksteady and a Seattle storyteller:
Making peace with the past is the underlying theme of Florida native and Seattle-based singer-songwriter Chris Staples’ new album, Golden Age, whose songs were inspired by the implosion of a five-year relationship; a bike accident resulting in painful surgery and crippling medical debt; and undiagnosed Type 1 diabetes that almost claimed his eyesight. Not one to let these inconveniences sidetrack his raison d’etre, the songs that ended up on Golden Age are gentle reminders that the impermanence and imperfections of life are ultimately the things we should be celebrating. And speaking of reasons to celebrate, the Live Oak in Fort Worth hosts a can’t-miss evening with Chris Staples on September 23.
The ten-mile-long list of noteworthy artists hailing from the Land Down Under just grew to eleven, thanks to this week’s World Café Next Artist Julia Jacklin. When she was 10, all it took was a Britney Spears documentary to stoke her blossoming desire to make music. Fifteen years later, with inspiration from Anna Calvi, Fiona Apple and Angel Olsen, Jacklin’s fuzzy-buzzy aesthetic found its way onto her debut album, Don’t Let The Kids Win, out on October 7 via Polyvinyl Records. Lead single “Coming Of Age” caught our ear immediately, with its stylized grunge aesthetic and booming hooks.
You’d be hard pressed to find a more perfect pairing than filmmaker Tim Burton and the otherworldly Florence Welch, and with the September 30 release of Miss Peregrine’s Home For Peculiar Children, expect to be wowed. The mutual admiration between Welch and Burton led to their collaboration and creation of “Wish That You Were Here,” a song speaking to the whimsicality of both the child and adult in all of us.
While the back-story of The Frightnrs reads like a tragedy, their softly buoyant rock-steady sound will make you forget for a moment that their shelf-life as a band was cut short due to the passing of lead singer Dan Klein. Klein succumbed to ALS back in June, but not before the Brooklyn four-piece completed their early dancehall-flavored Daptone release, Nothing More To Say. The title track has a wistful, optimistic vibe, and this week you can try the album on before you buy it, courtesy of NPR’s First Listen.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RZktkSqIRuU
Happy listening!
XOXO
Gini.
