New Music Friday: 13th Floor New Album Picks: August 18, 2023

New Music Friday is with us once more! Its a mixed bag this week. Here are our picks for the 5 new releases you should check out today.

As chosen by The 13th Floor’s Marty Duda:

1. Grace Potter – Mother Road (Fantasy/Concord) This is Grace’s 5th solo album and it’s a winner, featuring 10 cuts of swaggering rock & soul. Here’s what Grace has to say about it: “In Grapes of Wrath, John Steinbeck called Route 66 the ‘The Mother of all roads…the road of flight.’ As I zeroed out my odometer and started west on my road trip across the U.S., I hoped that driving the road of flight would give me a bird’s eye view of my life. But it didn’t take long to realize that I was not flying; I was running away.”

2. Hozier – Unreal Unearth (Rubyworks/Columbia) Clocking in at just over an hour, this 16-track album was inspired byDante’s Inferno. Says Hozier: “The album is quite eclectic and there’s something of a retrospective in what the sounds lean into. There’s some moments that are a bit more old school and stuff that’s Nineties grunge sounding too. For other moments we were leaning into playing with a lot of synthesisers.”

3. Teddy Thompson – My Love Of Country (Chalky Sounds) Teddy reaffirms his love of Country Music with 10 covers including those best known by Patsy Cline, Dolly Parton, Ray Charles, Eddie Arnold and his parents, Richard & Linda Thompson. Watch for the 13th Floor MusicTalk interview with Teddy later today.

4. Cautious Clay – KARPEH (Blue Note) KARPEH is Clay’s surname, Joshua Karpeh – offers 15 tracks of riveting autobiography. “I wanted it to be musical for the sake of telling a story,” he explains. “Throughout this album, I am equating my life’s journey to an amalgamation of my family’s past life experiences, an exploration of my present, and how those pieces will influence by future.”

5. Jill Andrews – Modern Age (Vulture Vulture) Nashville-based singer songwriter ruminates and the past and contemplates the future: “I feel like I am an observer from the future. In the period of time that I have been alive, so much about human behavior has changed, my own included. This album for me is about looking back. It’s about all the gains and losses. It’s a juxtaposition of childhood and adulthood. It’s the simplicities and complexities that surround both. And figuring out where I belong within it all.” Click here to watch the 13th Floor MusicTalk interview with Jill Andrews.