Marketing Program/ Banner/ Listening Station Titles Promoted This Week:
Beirut – Artifacts CD/2xLP (Pompeii)
Artifacts began humbly as a means of compiling a few early Beirut EPs for a proper physical release. However, as Zach Condon explains in the album’s excellent liner notes, reconnecting with old recordings through fresh ears turned a simple re-issue project into something much more expansive. “When the decision came to re-release this collection, I found myself digging through hard drives looking for something extra to add to the compilation,” he notes. “What started as a few extra unreleased tracks from my formative recording years quickly grew into an entire extra records-worth of music from my past, and a larger project of remixing and remastering everything I found for good measure.” Artifacts is a phylogenetic tree. A double-LP’s worth music that traces the evolution of Beirut from a 14-year-old Condon’s first attempts at bringing the music he heard in his mind to life, to the fully formed Beirut we know today.
Gerald Clayton – Bells On Sand CD/LP (Blue Note)
Pianist/composer Gerald Clayton explores the impact and abstraction of time on his ravishing second Blue Note album Bells On Sand, which features contributions from mentor Charles Lloyd on saxophone, father John Clayton on bass, longtime friend and peer Justin Brown on drums, and new collaborator Maro on vocals. “Each musician on the record represents a different aspect of the axis of time and its shifting sands,” says Clayton. “My father and Charles Lloyd, who has been a mentor figure to me, reflect new permutations of my past, and the lineage of elders who have shaped my development; Justin Brown, being my contemporary and musical brother, represents my present; and Maro represents the future – she is part of the next generation, and points to a brand-new collaboration.”
Christian Lee Hutson – Quitters CD/LP+MP3 (ANTI-)
Christian Lee Hutson starts his new album Quitters with a laugh. In this follow up to his 2020 album, Beginners, Hutson moves away from the focus on growing up to the dread and complications of growing older. The laugh that announces Quitters is the kind you’ll find at the end of John Huston films, one of resignation and release, and somehow a cosmic laugh that says “California”, a place where lonely people gather like birds. Across Quitters’ 13 tracks, Hutson crafts this portrait of the place he’s from. In these short story-like songs, Hutson presents characters who carry this golden light and sinister geography inside them. It’s a place where everything in the end gets blown away and paved over with something new, where even the ocean and fires are always whispering, “One day we’ll take it all back.” This is a Los Angeles in constant transition, where childhood is lost, where home is gone and can never be visited again. [An indie store exclusive translucent purple color vinyl pressing is due April 22.]
