New Music Friday: 13th Floor New Album Picks: July 26, 2024

It’s New Music Friday and we’re closing out July with some excellent new releases. One of our Fave Americana bands, American Aquarium returns along with two Kiwi gals.

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

1. American Aquarium – The Fear Of Standing Still (LosingSide/Thirty Tigers) Another winner from our favourite band from North Caroline. This the group’s 10th studio album and bandleader BJ Barham is sober, married and a dad, but he’s still rocking and still has plenty to say. Together they tackle toxic masculinity, reboot their Southern heritage and ‘the curse of growing old’. Click here for the 13th Floor album review and watch for an interview with BJ soon…

2. Holly Arrowsmith – Blue Dreams (Leather Jacket) It’s Holly’s long-awaited third album. Recorded and produced at Auckland’s Lab over a three-year span, Blue Dreams was mostly written before and during the early stages of the pandemic, evolving into a sublime rotation around birth and death, faith and doubt, and hoping for better from life from a self-professed ‘disillusioned dreamer’. Click here to read the 13th Floor album review and catch Holly on tour later this year.

3. Miranda Easten – Concrete & Honey (Self) Its the second album from this Kiwi Country singer who  just completed a national tour with fellow country artist Steffany Beck, wowing fans old and new across the motu. Her talent for writing polished modern country tunes that extend across the country-folk-pop genre has garnered her a growing fan base, and over the past few years she has refined and crafted a unique sonic identity to call her own. Recorded at Roundhead Studios and produced by Greg Haver, Easten blends her heartfelt observations, honest storytelling and memorable melodies together, to invoke that special connection only music can achieve.

4. Crack Cloud – Red Mile (Jagjaguwar) More a collective than a band, Crack Cloud first emerged from a rehab outlet on the fringes of Calgary, Canada. Now, their third full-length studio album, Red Mile, acts as both a tribute and a homecoming. Recorded predominantly between the outskirts of Joshua Tree, California, and Calgary, Alberta, the resulting album is informed by a bittersweet mélange of new beginnings and familiar places. Crack Cloud have learned to concentrate their multi-hyphenate energy, re-emerging as a lean, focused rock outfit producing their most mature and vital work yet. Watch for a 13th Floor MusicTalk interview soon. 

5. Nathan Bowles Trio – Are Possible (Drag City) Nathan, Casey Toll and Rex McMurry met up on Nathan’s 2018 watershed record, Plainly Mistaken. Are Possible captures Nathan on the banjo, keys, percussion, and a custom mellowtone, with Rex seated on the kit and Casey handling double bass and guitar; after all, music is time in redux, and Are Possible’s many moments in time carry details from all over the place. Watch this space for an interview with Nathan Bowles and co…