New Music Friday: 13th Floor New Album Picks: January 12, 2024

Its the first New Music Friday of 2024! And we’ve got some excellent new releases to highlight for you to sample today beginning with Amanda Palmer’s NZ EP.

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

1. Amanda Palmer – New Zealand Survival Songs (Cooking Vinyl) The Dresden Doll spent lockdown in New Zealand and wound up living there for two years. Here are five songs written and recorded during that time about that time. Amanda says, “I’m usually a prolific songwriter, but this period that I spent during lockdown and pandemic-times – ten months in Havelock North, a year and a half on Waiheke – was anything but prolific. I was a solo mother for much of the stay, and most of my days were spent simply scared and disoriented, figuring out how to navigate normal Kiwi life, and trying to figure out my – and my son’s – place in the world.” The E.P. also features guest appearances from Julia Deans and Aura Torkington. Amanda has returned to New Zealand for a short tour commencing January 21st. Tickets are available at https://amandapalmer.net/events/

2. The Vaccines – Pick-Up Full Of Pink Carnations (Super Easy/Thirty Tigers) It’s the band’s long-awaited 6th album, with a title ‘inspired’ by Don McLean. Here’s lead singer Justin Young, “It’s about loss,” Young says. “And coming to terms with that loss – not necessarily grieving for it, but trying to get a new understanding of it.” The album’s title comes from a misremembered lyric in Don McLean’s “American Pie,” a song that for Young fittingly evokes the death of innocence and the American Dream.

3. Chris O’Leary – The Hard Line (Alligator) Newly-signed to Alligator Records Chris has put his heart and soul into his latest album. “I’ve lived a life,” says the former Marine, “Going to war, playing with Levon (Helm), getting to know (James) Cotton.” Find out more about that life when The 13th Floor’s posts an interview with Chris. In the mean time, get into The Hard Line.

4. Nailah Hunter – Lovegaze (Fat Possum) This is the LA-based harpist/multi-instrumentalist and composer’s debut album, and its a stunner. Says Hunter, “I was crying when I recorded those vocals. While I was writing Lovegaze, I was thinking about humanity’s propensity to destroy the things we love. I was thinking about ancient ruins and structures that once provided shelter but no longer do. There’s beauty to be found in ruins, too.”

5. Harrison Storm – Wonder, Won’t You (Nettwerk) Another debut album, this time from Melbourne singer/songwriter Harrison Storm. He reveals, “This collection of songs feels like it sums up the past few years for me as best I could. There’s a sprinkle of everything I’ve been through. Falling in love, facing and getting through mental health issues and ultimately striving to connect more with myself and the world. It’s been really healing to sit with these songs before I’ve shared them to the world as well, but I can’t wait for people to discover something through this album.”