New Music Friday: 13th Floor New Album Picks: March 31, 2023

New Music Friday is here again! Holy moly! The 13th Floor’s Marty Duda presents 5 new albums for your consideration released today with our own Vera Ellen topping the bill.

1.  Vera Ellen – Ideal Home Noise (Flying Nun Records) Ideal Home Noise follows the critical success of Vera’s 2021 album, It’s Your Birthday which earned the artist both the ‘Best Alternative Artist’ award at the 2022 AMA’s as well as a 2022 Taite Award nomination. Vera’s momentum is unstoppable with her new 13 track album raring to go.  Vera says of the album: “If It’s Your Birthday was about relationships and love and strife between myself and others; then Ideal Home Noise is about love and strife between myself and myself.“ Look for the 13th Floor interview with Vera later today!

2. The New Pornographers – Continue As A Guest (Merge Records) This is the 9th studio album from The New Pornographers. The album tackles themes of isolation and collapse, following the ambivalence of day-to-day life during the pandemic and the endless pitfalls of living online. But frontman A.C. Newman says that Continue as a Guest’s title track also addresses the continually rolling concerns that come with being in a band for so long. “The idea of continuing as a guest felt very apropos to the times,” he explains. “Feeling out of place in culture, in society—not feeling like a part of any zeitgeist, but happy to be separate and living your simple life, your long fade-out.  Find your own little nowhere, find some space to fall apart, continue as a guest.” Click here to watch the 13th Floor interview with A.C. Newman. 

3. A Certain Ratio – 1982 (Mute) Classic post-punk funk from a band who has been at it since the beginning. Recorded by the core ACR line up of Jez Kerr, Martin Moscrop and Donald Johnson, looking backwards and forwards all at once, drawing on influences from across every spectrum, 1982 is an unpredictable record that will reward a dedicated listener dozens of times over. And, yes, there is a 13th Floor interview in the works. Watch this space!

4. Lauren Morrow – People Talk (Big Kitty) People Talk finds Morrow exploring her beyond-country influences like 90s Alternative, Britpop, and 80s New Wave bands with moody, brutally honest lyrical content and rock n roll attitudes; all with Morrow’s signature soprano and vulnerable vibrato and a host of atypically-Americana vibes and tones. The release is a collection of ten songs that Morrow says “truly reflect who I am as a person and the sounds I’ve been waiting to explore for my entire career.” Yep, a 13th Floor interview is on the way!

5. Soft Plastics – Saturn Return (self) Saturn Return is the hotly anticipated debut album from Te Whanganui-a-Tara three piece Soft Plastics. The garage darlings have hit the studio to capture the full texture of their fuzzed-out sound.  Ranging from sun-bleached surf pop to swelling shoegaze, the songs are arranged with an investigative eye and a throughline of dry wit. Soft Plastics will be taking their debut album on a nationwide tour in May.