New Music Friday: 13th Floor New Album Picks: August 16, 2024

Another Friday and another batch of new music to recommend. Today, on New Music Friday we bring you three new albums by Kiwi artists and two international acts for good measure.

The 13th Floor’s Marty Duda picks these five new releases for your consideration:

1. Al Park – MONKEY (Self) Otherwise known as One For The Dog, One For The Cat and One For The People With A Monkey On Their Back, this is the third album by the Lyttelton musician and its produced by Adam Hattaway ‘s bandmate Elmore Jones. This new record ‘Monkey’ follows on from the surprise success of 2020’s ‘Pony’ and sounds not just as energised and engaged as anything else you might hear from any younger artist, but it also marks a deep and reflective vein in the way in which a man who has survived and felt more years than most might need to show you.

2. Mike Hall – Nothing Stands Still (1157 Records) Pluto’s bass player goes solo. Mike resume as a bass player is impresing. He’s backed Anna Coddington, SJD, Mulholland, Tami Neilson, Dimmer, Finn Andrews, The Bads, Tim Finn and more. Now he takes centre stage with his solo debut. Produced by Jol Mulholland and helped by drummer Alistair Deverick, keyboard player Matthias Jordan, guitarist Brett Adams. Check out the 13th Floor album review here and give this beauty a spin.

3. Rob Joass – Faultlines (Self) This is Rob’s 4th solo album after releasing 7 albums with Hobnail, 1 with Too Many Chiefs and 1 album and 2 EP’s with The Shot Band. According to Rob, Faultlines contains 8 beautifully crafted originals plus a glorious cover of the Go-Betweens classic Bye Bye Pride, and is easily the best album of his long career.

4. Devon Allman – Miami Moon (Create) Greg Allman’s son releases his latest featuring featuring George Porter Jr. (The Meters) on bass, Ivan Neville on keyboards. Says Devon, “Making the Miami Moon record with these legendary musicians has been a high point of my career. They brought these songs to life with their masterful playing and timeless feels. As for the approach, a couple things were different this time: First, writing the songs on bass guitar was a first for me and allowed the grooves to be the main focus. Also, letting go of some previous, limiting thought processes allowed some of my other influences to enter the chat for the first time such as Curtis Mayfield, Sade, The Cure, Steely Dan…among others.” Watch for the 13th Floor MusicTalk interview with Devon Allman coming soon.

5. Hamish Hawk – A Firmer Hand (Fierce Panda) And last, but certainly not least, we bring to your attention this new album by Hamish Hawk. Hamish is from Scotland but he’s got a Kiwi dad. A Firmer Hand is the third in a run of superlative Hamish Hawk albums which began in 2021 with Heavy Elevator, and continued last year with Angel Numbers. Says Hamish, “Writing this album, I opened up my closet, and a skeleton came out. The thing that links all of the songs is a sense of the unsaid, whether out of guilt, shame, repression, embarrassment, coyness, whatever it might have been. I realised: I am going to say these things, and not all of them are going to make me look good. The album made so many demands, and I just gave myself over to it.” Standby by for the 13th Floor MusicTalk interview with this extraordinary artist.