September Program Titles Released This Week:
Natasha Bedingfield – Roll With Me CD (We Hear Music)
Pop stardom can warp a performer’s sense of perspective. But singer-songwriter Natasha Bedingfield, who broke through in 2004 with the international smash “Unwritten”, has maintained a healthy set of priorities. “You can easily lose touch,” Bedingfield says. “Being in the real world is part of being a good songwriter.” She recently sang at the 18th Annual Chrysalis Butterfly Ball to support the organization which works to help individuals out of poverty and homelessness by providing the tools necessary to gain employment. Now she returns with Roll With Me, her fourth studio album and her first in nine years, following 2010’s Strip Me. Roll With Me was produced by multiplatinum producer Linda Perry (Christina Aguilera, P!nk, and Alicia Keys). “I wanted to make music that moves people and makes them move, says Natasha of the album. It’s bright and bold but in a way that is also raw and honest. Linda Perry says of Natasha and the album, “I wanted to work with Natasha because she is one of the best live performers I have ever seen and has one of the most versatile voices I have ever heard. It was important to both of us to capture the true spirit of who Natasha Bedingfield is and we nailed it.”
Black Belt Eagle Scout – At The Party With My Brown Friends CD/LP (Saddle Creek)
Where Black Belt Eagle Scout’s 2017 debut Mother Of My Children was a snapshot of loss and landscape and of principle singer-songwriter Katherine Paul’s standing as a radical indigenous queer feminist, this new chapter finds its power in love, desire and friendship. At the Party With My Brown Friends is a profound and understated forward step. The squalling guitar anthems that shaped its predecessor are replaced by delicate vocals and soft keys, sentiments spoken and unspoken, presenting something shadowy and unsettling; a stirring of the waters. The end result presents a captivating about-face that redefines Black Belt Eagle Scout’s beautifully singular artistic vision. [Limited maroon colored vinyl pressing also available.]
Bon Iver – i,i CD/LP (Jagjaguwar)
“Bon Iver has always been Justin Vernon’s escape route. After retreating to the woods of Wisconsin to record For Emma, Forever Ago, he drew a surrealist roadmap of the United States on Bon Iver, depicting a fantastical world where the lived, the dreamed, and desired coexisted. When this invented land felt oppressive and the anxiety of facing it too overwhelming, Vernon retreated again and burrowed within himself, pulverizing his voice with machines to create 22, A Million, a record that dramatized the fracturing of the self. There’s no more hiding on i,i. Justin Vernon takes the Bon Iver sound and reassembles it like a cubist collage, with his voice right out front. All the familiar elements are here—impressionist swells of sound, impenetrable-yet-tender lyrics, mesmerizing studio tricks—and they are buoyed by Vernon’s supple baritone, the instrument he knows how to manipulate best. Acoustic guitar, horns, and piano return to prominence alongside the jittery electronics and synths that Vernon has lately favored. But the mood he conjures with these elements feels new. These songs don’t swallow you whole with grandeur; they look outward, leaving some room for the rest of the world.” – Pitchfork
