David Byrne, photo by Shervin Lainez

David Byrne – “The Truth”
Who Is The Sky? (Matador Records)

Today, David Byrne has finally released Who Is The Sky?, his ninth solo studio album and first since 2018’s massively acclaimed American Utopia. With his first dispatch in seven years, the iconic Talking Heads frontman finds new eye-popping shades in his idiosyncratic brand of art pop, swirling hints of such diverse sounds as worldbeat, post-rock, baroque pop and much more into a mesmerizing musical kaleidoscope. The record’s bright, richly textural and unpredictable arrangements, supported by producer Kid Harpoon and the Ghost Train Orchestra, perfectly complement Byrne’s personal philosophy. Each track shares a new perspective on his inner world, with enlightening introspection and curious, sharp and often downright funny musings that cohere in total oddball sincerity. “Music can do that – hold opposites simultaneously,” he remarked in a release.

“At my age, at least for me, there’s a ‘don’t give a shit about what people think’ attitude that kicks in,” Byrne reflected in June. “I can step outside my comfort zone with the knowledge that I kind of know who I am by now and sort of know what I’m doing. That said, every new set of songs, every song even, is a new adventure.”

It’s tough to pull favorites from an album that will doubtlessly keep revealing itself, but I’m partial to “When We Are Singing,” ”The Avant Garde,” “Don’t Be Like That,” “The Truth,” “Moisturizing Thing” and “I Met The Buddha at a Downtown Party,” on which Byrne summarizes, “Now I don’t exist/ And neither do you/ So it’s damned if you don’t/ And damned if you do/ Well all this suffering’s/ Just a temporary thing/ Right here is nirvana/ Where the crawdads sing.”

El Michels Affair and Rahsaan Roland Kirk – “Take My Hand” 
24 Hr Sports (Big Crown Records)

24 Hr Sports, Leon Michels’ eighth album with the El Michels Affair ensemble, continues to build on the booked and busy producer, multi-instrumentalist and general New York prime mover’s catalog of lush retro R&B with a star-studded team of guests. Michels’ latest takes a notable step away from his previous faithful interpretations of golden-age hip hop and cinematic soul influences to stake out a sound all his own. Across 16 tracks, the bandleader and his collaborators deftly meld disparate styles with nuance and vision, drawing on odd guides like MF DOOM’s Special Herbs series, the gospel of Pastor T.L. Barrett and ‘80s and ‘90s Sports Illustrated back issues. “The graphic design, the look, the pictures, and the way people dressed… that kind of super colorful but very two-dimensional design,” Michels detailed. “I wanted to make music that sounds like that.”

As 24 Hr Sports bobs and weaves between novelty and nostalgia, some of its finest moments can be heard in its references to vintage sports themes, both on the two “24 Hr Sports Theme” interludes and subtle production cues throughout. Over this cool and compelling atmosphere, Michels and company welcome features from Clairo, Norah Jones, Shintaro Sakamoto, Florence Adooni, Rôge, Dave Guy and the late legendary avant-garde saxophonist Rahsaan Roland Kirk. Kirk’s contribution is an affecting solo, reverently centered in a mix of glorious gospel harmonies and electrifying stadium drum fills. When the Relix intramural kickball team is resurrected, it’s a lock for our walk-out song.

Jerry Garcia Band – “Waiting for a Miracle (Live – February 28th, 1991)”
Live at The Warfield (Jerry Garcia Family LLC)

If religion is the belief in superhuman powers, then I’m a practitioner of the Jerry Garcia Band. Let the “Miracle” move you… This is a prime example of the band being totally locked; it’s a spiritual awakening of sounds that bursts at the 2:50 marker with a lively guitar ramble from the bandleader, which lasts more than a minute before giving way to his poetics of hope.

– Hana Gustafson

Bruce Springsteen – “Born in the U.S.A. (Electric Nebraska)”
Nebraska ’82: Expanded Edition (Columbia Records)

Bruce Springsteen’s legendary 1982 album Nebraska represented a seismic shift in his artistic perspective, seeking true and unguarded creative expression as the pressures of new fame forced the singer-songwriter to look inwards. The immortal record that resulted is an audibly intimate, raw document of his soul-searching, set to tape on a four-track recorder and left unfinished, foregoing plans for re-recording with his E-Street band to preserve the energy of his stripped-back acoustic sessions. Since its unforgettable release, rumors of what could have been have circulated among Springsteen’s passionate fan base.

Yesterday, The Boss finally answered long-lingering questions with the official unveiling of Electric Nebraska, part of the upcoming Nebraska ’82: Expanded Edition. Set to release on Oct. 17, Nebraska ’82: Expanded Edition is a five-disc retrospective on Springsteen’s groundbreaking album featuring unheard artefacts of the mythicized era alongside new recordings. To preview the project, he shared a roaring early version of “Born in the U.S.A.,” drawn from the long-lost full-band session at New York’s Power Station and featuring a stripped-down trio of Springsteen, Max Weinberg and Garry Tallent.

“We threw out the keyboards and played basically as a three-piece,” Springsteen reflected on the vaulted version of one of his signature songs. “It was kinda like punk rockabilly. We were trying to bring Nebraska into the electric world.”

Big Thief – “How Could I Have Known”
Double Infinity (4AD)

Big Thief’s sixth studio album, Double Infinity, is a testament to the band’s versatility and sustained pursuit of new perspectives on both their music and the world that informs it. For the follow-up to 2022’s Grammy-nominated Dragon New Warm Mountain I Believe In You, Adrianne Lenker, Buck Meek and James Krivchenia welcomed a vast field of friends and peers to capture the energy of spur-of-the-moment collaboration. Together, the collective engaged an overarching theme of subtle wonders and undefinable experiences, communicated in wide-eyed and full-hearted songwriting and compositions that evoke life’s mystical dimension in a haze of spectral new age accents and deep-rooted folk rock.

“Incomprehensible” is a trancelike embrace of aging and its mysteries under a canopy of zither and chimes. “Los Angeles” and “All Night All Day” celebrate the powerful bonds formed in romantic relationships, even as those fade into a new kind of love in friendship. “Grandmother” is the first track written by all three of Big Thief’s members, who together turned their focus to the universal experience of generationally inherited joy and pain, with backing vocals and instrumentals from New York experimental icon Laraaji. On “How Could I Have Known,” Lenker sings, “And they say time’s the fourth dimension/ They say everything lives and dies/ But our love will live forever/ Though today we said goodbye/ How could I have known?”

The Meters – “Cissy Strut”
The Meters (Warner Records Inc.)

The “Cissy Strut” is the ultimate instrumental; it has a deep and distinct groove that always makes me dance, and it just so happens to be an excellent song for rolling spliffs while still boogieing. It’s damn sexy!

– Hana Gustafson

Friendship – “Hard to Love a Man”
I Will Swim to You: A Tribute to Jason Molina (Run for Cover Records)

Jason Molina passed away too soon in 2013, but his influence has been profound and far-reaching in the decade since. At the helm of Songs: Ohia and Magnolia Electric Co., Molina imbued his cutting and intimate indie rock with the tender pastoralism of Americana and embodied his soul-baring storytelling with his warm, worn tenor, clearing a path for manifold artists walking the line between heavier rock and alt-country.

Today, Run for Cover Records released I Will Swim to You: A Tribute to Jason Molina, a new compilation of covers from the devotees he left behind. Across the project, today’s standard-bearing bands and songwriters breathe their own styles into the standards, charting Molina’s vast and varied imprint on the voice of a new generation. Standout selections from the collection include M.J. Lenderman’s treatment of “Just Be Simple” from Song: Ohia’s The Magnolia Electric Co., Sun June’s take on “Leave the City” from Magnolia Electric Co.’s debut, What Comes After the Blues, and Friendship’s tense, insistent, intimate and percussive take on the title track from Magnolia Electric Co.’s 2005 E.P. The latter arrives as the Philadelphia-based indie quartet’s first release since Caveman Wakes Up, which landed in May and remains on heavy rotation in the office.

The Doobie Brothers – “Walk This Road (feat. Mavis Staples)”
Walk This Road (Doobie Doobie Doo Music)

The Doobie Brothers released their latest record, Walk This Road, in early June. The band’s 16th studio effort represents the beginning of a new chapter in their storied career: For the first time ever, founding vocalists Tom Johnston and Patrick Simmons are joined by Michael McDonald for an entire album. The landmark project opens with the title track, an explosive gospel blues anthem featuring guest vocals from the great Mavis Staples.

“Mavis and I were given honorary doctorates at Berklee College of Music in Boston at the same event.” McDonald reflected on the songs origins in a feature from the latest issue of Relix. “I’ve always been a huge fan of the Staple Singers—Mavis and her father and the family. When John Shanks and I wrote the song, we started out writing about the band. It was really John’s idea. He suggested the title ‘Walk This Road’ because we have been together for so long and we’re still doing it. So we set about the task of doing that but, as we worked on the song, the lyric idea morphed into a more universal message of how, as a humanity being hurled out into the night by a higher power that exists on this little planet, we better learn to get along with each other.

“It seemed to want to go that way and then, somewhere in that process, a few of us agreed that Mavis would be great on it. I had just done a gig with her a couple weeks before that. I’ve always marveled at her energy and her spirit as a musician and performer. So when the song kind of evolved, we thought, ‘Wow, who is a better ambassador for this message than Mavis?’ That’s what the Staple Singers have been saying from their inception—it was always about how we can treat each other better. She seemed like a natural, and when we approached her, she was very gracious and was willing to do it with us. So we lucked out.”

– Dean Budnick

Read The Doobie Brothers article from the latest issue of Relix here.

Sparks – “Do Things My Own Way”
MAD! (Transgressive Records)

When Sparks co-founders Ron and Russell Mael were mulling over what to title their long-running art-rock project’s latest studio release, they managed to sum up the current state of affairs, both politically and culturally, with a single word and a pronounced exclamation mark—MAD!

“There was an aggressive nature to quite a few songs on the album, and there are songs that aren’t in that area in an obvious way but lyrically are. We try not to make direct political statements, but you’re affected by things,” says Russell, who sports a Beatles approved mop top and plays keyboards in the group. “Even the title of the album is a reflection of the general feeling now, both the madness and the craziness—people being irate about a lot of things to a degree that we haven’t seen in a really long time.”

– Mike Greenhaus

Read Spotlight: Sparks from the latest issue of Relix here.

This week’s Relix Staff Picks dispatch also features tracks from Widespread Panic, Joni Mitchell, Grant-Lee Phillips, Cha Wa, Theo Croker, The Lemonheads, Portugal. The Man, Fruit Bats, Lou Reed and many more. Tune in here.