Music Releases 06-24-22

Ella Fitzgerald's "Songbook" records - with her peerless renditions of the best songs from iconic composers from Irving Berlin to Rogers & Hart to Cole Porter to George & Ira Gershwin - are the cornerstone of the Verve catalog and the standard for jazz vocal recordings. Ella never released a live version of these Songbooks. This record, discovered in the private collection of Norman Granz, will make the first time a live Songbook has been released from the First Lady of Song.

Live at The Roxy was recorded on May 3, 1991, originally for the Westwood One Radio Network. Prior to its inclusion on the 2021 'Road Apples' Deluxe package, the full concert had never been officially available and was a much sought-after show for the bootleggers and die-hard Hip fans. The 15-song set includes the legendary "Killer Whale Tank" version of "New Orleans is Sinking" and "She Didn’t Know". 2 LP black vinyl.

2022 release, the third album from the multi-platinum singer/songwriter. The album is the follow up to 2013's Head or Heart. Christina Perri is an American singer-songwriter and musician from Philadelphia. The singer's first album, lovestrong., grappled with the aftermath of a breakup, signaling Perri as an honest, genuine artist ready to share her emotional journey with her fans. That disc, released in 2011, was bolstered by the success of Perri's single "Jar of Hearts" and led the musician into nine tours over 27 months. Her final show supporting lovestrong. Took place on October 9, 2012 at Los Angeles's iconic Hollywood Bowl with Jason Mraz. Two weeks later, Perri penned the first song for head or heart, her second album.

Never before on vinyl - original cover art by the legendary Mear One. Featuring Oddisee (4 tracks), Apollo Brown (2 tracks), Roc Marciano, Black Milk, Georgia Anne Muldrow, !llmind and more.

Lately, if you blink you may miss Goose fly by. Attributing much of their success to a dedicated and exponentially expanding fan base, steady creative output, and a collective commitment to improvement, the band is now universally recognized as a premier musical act nationwide. Dripfield, Goose’s forthcoming studio offering, is a tale of introspection, carefully dissecting the details of the journey.

Produced and engineered by D. James Goodwin at The ISOKON in Woodstock, NY, Dripfield is the band’s first full-length project completed exclusively with an executive producer. Known for his unconventional recording style and eclectic equipment collection, Goodwin guided Goose through an entirely new process of album creation.

Undoubtedly the product of multiple sold out concerts and consistent recording and songwriting, Dripfield is anchored by the theme of balance. Fittingly, the project features a mix of unheard originals and re-imagined catalog staples.

MUNA is magic. What other band could have stamped the forsaken year of 2021 with spangles and pom-poms, could have made you sing (and maybe even believe) that “Life’s so fun, life’s so fun,” during what may well have been the most uneasy stretch of your life? “SilkChiffon,” MUNA’s instant-classic cult smash, featuring the band’s new label head Phoebe Bridgers, hit the gray skies of the pandemic’s year-and-a-half mark like a double rainbow. Since MUNA — lead singer/songwriter Katie Gavin, guitarist/producer Naomi McPherson, guitarist Josette Maskin — began making music together in college, at USC, they’d always embraced pain as a bedrock of longing, a part of growing up, and an inherent factor of marginalized experience: the band’s members belong to queer and minority communities, and play for these fellow-travelers above all. But sometimes, for MUNA, after nearly a decade of friendship and a long stretch of pandemic-induced self-reckoning, the most radical note possible is that of bliss.

MUNA, the band’s self-titled third album, is a landmark — the forceful, deliberate, dimensional output of a band who has nothing to prove to anyone except themselves.The synth on “What I Want” scintillates like a Robyn dance-floor anthem; “Anything But Me,” galloping in 12/8, gives off Shania Twain in eighties neon; “Kind of Girl,” wit hits soaring, plaintive The Chicks chorus, begs to be sung at max volume with your best friends. It’s marked by a newfound creative assurance and technical ability, both in terms of McPherson and Maskin’s arrangements and production as well as Gavin’s songwriting, which is as propulsive as ever, but here opens up into new moments of perspective and grace. Here, more than ever, MUNA musters their unique powers to break through the existential muck and transport you, suddenly, into a room where everything is possible — a place where the disco ball’s never stopped throwing sparkles on the walls, where you can sweat and cry and lie down on the floor and make out with whoever, where vulnerability in the presence of those who love you can make you feel momentarily bulletproof, and self-consciousness only sharpens the swell of joy.

Home, before and after is ReginaSpektor's eighth studio album and most quintessentially “New York” in years. Recorded in upstate New York, produced by John Congleton and coproduced by Spektor, the album is Spektor at her most inspired, heralded by "Becoming All Alone," a surrealist ballad that swells with arrangements and comes alive in your head. During the summer of 2019, Spektor completed a successful five-night Broadway residency at the Lunt-Fontanne Theatre, marking her debut on the Great White Way. The Daily Beast called the run “both whimsical and thunderous,” with Gothamist saying Spektor “delights on Broadway with a fun, zany show.” Spektor’s most recent album, 2016’sRemember Us To Life, has been the subject of extensive critical praise from the likes of NPR, Entertainment Weekly, New York Magazine,Peopleand many more. ReginaSpektor is synonymous with New York City. The Russian-Jewish-American singer, songwriter and pianist got her own Sign on the Bronx Walk of Fame,as well as “Regina Spektor Day,” (June 11, 2019) proclaimed by Mayor Bill DeBlasio. The Grammy Award nominee first saw commercial success with the RIAA Gold-certified LPBegin to Hopewhich includes singles “On the Radio,” “Better,” “Samson,” as well as “Fidelity” which climbed the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart. Spektor’s fifth album,Far(2009), and sixth album,What We Saw From the Cheap Seats(2012), both debuted at number three on the Billboard 200 albums chart. Spektor has performed at The White House as well as on Broadway, Saturday Night Live and contributed to many projects spanning film, television, and music includingThe Hamilton Mixtape.

With Happy Hour, her ravishing new LP, Hollie Cook matures into the queen of modern-day "lovers rock"-the lush girly harmony reggae style beloved in Britain since the 1970s. Evolution rings from the bittersweet opening title track; tender yet assertive, Hollie's voice caresses evocative lyrics through the arrangement's tumbling changes.

Multiplatinum-selling duo Surfaces release their fourth studio album, Pacifico, via TenThousand Projects. The highly anticipated project arrives after the success of singles “Wave of You,” “Next Thing (Loverboy),” and “So Far Away.” Recorded by Forrest Frank and Colin Padalecki at a home studio in Malibu, Pacifico is a sunny pop album arriving just in time for the summer. LP pressed on clear vinyl.