Less than a year after its debut, the improvisational trio Heavy MakeUp, which counts among its ranks Grammy-winning Oak Cliff native Edie Brickell, is back with a new record, Here It Comes.
Brickell, who collaborates with brass player CJ Camerieri and trumpeter Trever Hagen, is the luminous vocal anchor for the light, faintly jazzy interplay between percussion and brass. The sound unfurls across these 11 tracks, flowing like a carefully curated playlist.
According to press materials, Here It Comes was pared down from over 100 compositions generated by the three musicians.
“This project combines all these different skills that we’ve worked on for years, as jazz musicians, as sidemen, as songwriters, as producers,” Camerieri said in a statement. “It’s the ultimate musician’s job.”
Here It Comes is a gorgeous splash of sound, weaving around mostly mid-tempo compositions — “Let Them Lie” is a stunner, as is the album opener “Shoe in the Air,” with its pitch-perfect blend of weirdness and melancholy — which marks this effort as more evidence of what Brickell told me when we spoke last year: Heavy MakeUp is, ultimately, in the ear of the beholder.
“I hope they think it’s fresh and feels good and has a nice mix of playfulness and soulfulness, which has always appealed to me,” Brickell told me last year. “I’m often looking for new music, and new sounds. … I just want something new and fresh. So I’m hoping that our band will offer that, while not being so out [there] that you can’t easily sing along or enjoy what the band is doing. I think it hits a sweet spot.”
Preston Jones is a North Texas freelance writer and regular contributor to KXT. Email him at [email protected] or find him on X (@prestonjones). Our work is made possible by our generous, music-loving members. If you like how we lift up local music, consider becoming a KXT sustaining member right here.
