Festival season and summer tours are an alarmingly few weeks away, and Nashville musicians have been releasing excellent music by the shedload. Our writers have eight more recent releases to recommend, so add ’em to your streaming queue or get a physical copy from your favorite record store. Or put them on your wish list for #BandcampFriday, the promotion in which the platform waives its artist fees on the first Friday of the month — the next installment of which is April 1. It’s worth noting that a few weeks ago, Bandcamp announced it had been bought by Epic Games, which publishes online titles like Fortnite. There’s at least one more #BandcampFriday scheduled for May 6, but there’s been no word whether the promotion will continue after that.
Negro Justice, Chosen Family (Six One Tribe)
Negro Justice introduces himself in a powerful way on Chosen Family. It’s his first full-length, which comes in the wake of EPs from 2018 and 2020, and it’s his first release as a member of the Six One Tribe collective. Over a diverse assortment of soul-kissed beats peppered with voicemail shout-outs from friends and collaborators, Justice opens up about his life story and how the deaths of both his parents and other pressures like gentrification have shaped his goals and his philosophy. Both the story and the production — which features tons of guests like Amber Woodhouse, Corduroy Clemens, Blvck Wizzle and Gee Slab — showcase the strength that comes from finding your people and standing by them. STEPHEN TRAGESER
Kenny Mullins, Holiday Time: In Remembrance of Lady Day (self-released)
Singer-songwriter and guitarist Kenny Mullins has been performing both original and vintage country, folk and blues tunes since the early ’70s. At the same time, he’s penned topical pieces and worked with a host of philanthropic and political organizations on issues ranging from homelessness and veterans’ rights to racial and gender equality. A Nashville resident since the early ’90s, Mullins took on a very special and challenging project: a Billie Holiday tribute album. Mullins brings an evocative, poignant quality to his renditions, covering both familiar (“Strange Fruit,” “Fine and Mellow”) and lesser-known material (“Back in Your Own Backyard,” “I’m a Fool to Want You”). He’s accompanied by pianist Will Barrow, who is delightfully expressive in solo moments while expertly handling the primary task of ably buttressing Mullins’ vocals. Nicely mixed and recorded by Dane Bryant at his home studio, this is an ideal tribute to a distinctive and powerful icon. Numbers she popularized are given a fresh, personal touch and sung with passion, conviction and individuality. RON WYNN
Holiday Time will soon be available via Mullins' website and on his CD Baby profile. You can also order a CD by mail by sending $20 directly to Mullins at P.O. Box 68229, Nashville, TN, 37206.
Lauryn Peacock, I Know a Place (self-released)
There’s a line at the end of “On This Ground,” a song near the middle of Lauryn Peacock’s I Know a Place, that sums up an important truth about her work: “The drama of existence is art.” Peacock has fine-tuned her ability to communicate complex experiences in ways that words alone can’t quite convey, and her literate lyricism draws you in as if by magic. Like Peacock’s other 2021 releases Theology and Quarantine Love EP, I Know a Place features skilled Nashville musicians like drummer Megan Coleman and bassist “Little Jack” Lawrence. The group conveys the sense of delight in exploration that runs like a golden thread through the narratives, whether they’re about joy or heartbreak. STEPHEN TRAGESER
Tim Gartland, Truth (Taste Good Music)
On “The Thing About the Truth,” the almost-titular track of his excellent new album Truth, bluesman Tim Gartland reminds us that “Facts are facts, there’s no spinning that.” Here’s a fact: If you’re a fan of the blues, you’re gonna want to spin Gartland’s new record — repeatedly. Produced by keyboardist Kevin McKendree at his studio The Rock House, Gartland’s fifth solo album features a dozen swinging cuts that range from barroom blues and roadhouse R&B to sophisticated blues-rock. At every stop on the journey, Gartland shows he is a clever and talented songwriter, a skilled harp player and a soulful vocalist. And that’s the truth. DARYL SANDERS
Find Truth on your favorite streaming service or order directly from Gartland's website.
Sidd and the Finches, Count Your Blessings (self-released)
Paying tribute to the fictitious Mets pitching phenom at the center of baseball’s all-time greatest April Fool’s hoax — look up Sports Illustrated scribe George Plimpton’s 1985 piece “The Curious Case of Sidd Finch” — Sidd and the Finches is the pen name of 34-year-old Nathan Badley. Listening to Count Your Blessings’ baker’s dozen of breathlessly wordy, aggressively strummed exercises in fed-up folk-punk, I imagine Badley has a Mountain Goats record or four in his collection, and likely some They Might Be Giants too. Though the lack of instrumental variety will wear thin if you haven’t recalibrated your ears for lo-fi recordings, Count Your Blessings saves its best for last, rewarding those willing to stick it out with “John Wayne,” a forceful missive railing against blind patriotism, and the tender yet bittersweet “Lullaby,” which imagines a world so far removed from reality — “No signs of war / No death to speak of” — that it’s hard to interpret it as anything other than a meditation on the afterlife. CHARLIE ZAILLIAN
ADSR, ADSR (Trance//Furnace)
If you seek works of oscillator mayhem, local imprint Trance//Furnace has your back. The cover of ADSR’s 10-track self-titled album, available digitally and on cassette, includes the text “ambient flavored” and an extraordinarily minimal graphic design. It’s an accurate if not complete appraisal of the music, described in the credits as sounds useful for inducing a trance or doing deeply focused listening. The one-person synth project of E. Elias seems to be informed by the way rock bands use synthesizers to create an atmosphere. “Surveillance” has a mechanical pulse reminiscent of “On the Run” from The Dark Side of the Moon, while the uneasy industrial soundscape of “Factory Life” has a feel like Einstürzende Neubauten. P.J. KINZER
The Angels of Death, Winter 2022 Demos (self-released)
In an email to the Scene, Angels of Death songsmith and home recordist Sam Petschulat cited Sparklehorse, Nico and Southern Baptist hymns as influences on his project’s debut release. Listening to these five sparse yet intense song skeletons, that all tracks. These are demos, but don’t be deterred by the scratchy boombox-style recording. The 32-year-old Petschulat — one-half of leftist grindcore power duo Long Con — is channeling the greats here. Case in point: the intricate, dark-to-light “Build an Altar,” on which Petschulat’s vocals evoke Jeff Mangum doing his best Thom Yorke. Also intriguing are the between-song interstitials. Are they incidental sounds culled from original field recordings? Or maybe remnants of an old cassette Petschulat recorded over? Whatever the source, this is powerful stuff that translates fine as-is, but could truly soar with full-band arrangements. CHARLIE ZAILLIAN
Skin Tension, Omni (xom)
Josh Byrd and Edward Longo, aka experimental music duo Skin Tension, had what they describe as a “creative explosion” between October 2020 and December 2021. They recorded voraciously, combining field recordings, group improvisation with friends in their home studio, a live set recorded at Betty’s and more. The pair combed through some 200 hours of material for tracks that would lend themselves to a cohesive experience, and the resulting release is still massive. Omni is made up of 131 tracks arranged in 36 segments of about 45 minutes each — modeled on the sides of a 90-minute cassette — for 27 total hours of music. It’s a beast, but luckily the duo doesn’t expect you to consume it in one sitting. Close your eyes and pick a track, and Omni might reward you with a free-jazz expression, a black-metal howl into the void, a gorgeous keyboard meditation on nature or one of many, many other things. STEPHEN TRAGESER
