New Music Friday: 13th Floor New Album Picks: April 14, 2023

New Music Friday is here once more. There’s some good stuff out there today so spend some time with these new albums.

Some groovy new tunes from some groovy old friends. The 13th Floor’s Marty Duda presents these 5 new albums for your consideration released today.

1. Natalie Merchant – Keep Your Courage (Nonesuch) Natalie’s ninth solo album! Merchant writes in her album’s liner notes, “The songs contained within this album were written and recorded during the global pandemic that began in the winter of 2019 and is in its fifth wave as I write, in the autumn of 2022. It has been, and continues to be, a period of great flux and fear on every level: global, national, communal, familial, personal. But this is not an album about the coronavirus or the chaos it caused. For the most part, this is an album about the human heart.”

2. Temples – Exotico (ATO) Produced by Sean Ono Lennon. . “This record is essentially something we made for ourselves to find joy in at the time we were making it,” says lead singer James Bagshaw. “There are songs to dance to, songs to reflect with, and through that we ended up delving into every aspect of our musical vocabulary.” Bassist Thomas Walmsley adds: “There are so many different influences across the songs, which goes back to having free rein in the studio and being as spontaneous as we could be.”

3. Feist – Multitudes (Interscope) Feist wrote most of the songs for her new album during her tour. “The last few years were such a period of confrontation for me, and it feels like it was at least to some degree for everyone,” she said in a press statement. “We confronted ourselves as much as our relationships confronted us. It felt like our relational ecosystems were clearer than ever and so whatever was normally obscured—like a certain way of avoiding conflict or a certain way of talking around the subject—were all of a sudden thrust into the light. And in all that reassessment, the chance to find footing on healthier, more honest ground became possible, and the effort to maintain avoidance actually felt like it took more effort than just handing ourselves over to the truth.”

4. Fruit Bats – A River Running To Your Heart (Merge) The new album from Eric D. Johnson’s long-running folk rock outfit Fruit Bats represents the fullest realization of his creative vision to date. It’s a sonically diverse effort that largely explores the importance of what it means to be home, both physically and spiritually. And while that might seem like a peculiar focus for an artist who’s constantly in motion, for Fruit Bats, home can take many forms—from the obvious to the obscure.

5. Julie Christensen – The Price We Pay For Love (Wirebird) Recorded with Terry Lee Burns. “The Price We Pay For Love,” the title being a phrase often used to describe grief. “At this point in our lives, we both have experienced plenty,” Terry says, having lost his mother and catalyst to his life in music in 2019.

The songs they loved in common began to reveal themselves and they were arranged and recorded starting in 2020 upon Julie’s move from Nashville to the Jemez Mountains in New Mexico. Terry lives just an hour away, with a studio in his home, but Julie would still record vocals in her own home studio and upload them to him, since the pandemic was still in full force before vaccine availability. As the tracks took shape the grief-and-love theme became apparent in the many forms of sorrow and joy that can mean. Watch for a 13th Floor interview with Julie very soon!