Eight New Albums for Later in Spring
A new installment of Listening Sessions' regular series of new-music recommendations
Below is my latest go-round this year of new albums that I think you will enjoy (read my previous installments for 2026 here and here).
As usual, there is a mix of genres and most of the albums featured are fairly well under the radar, and as always, I hope you’ll share which recordings captured your ears by leaving a comment.
Eight New Albums for Later in Spring
By: Robert C. Gilbert
My system for keeping track of my listening of new music is rudimentary. I keep a list in the composition books I use to draft my essays. I number the albums in sequence, noting the artist and album title—not always as legibly as I would like—and then add an asterisk if an album grabbed my attention. Then, after six or seven weeks of listening, I look at what was asterisked and whittle the albums down to a list of about eight or so, offering what I hope is the cream of the crop and trying to favour, as much as may be possible, albums that have received scant attention if any attention at all.
The new album by Sam Beam, who records under the name Iron & Wine, would not be considered one that has fallen under the radar but after seeing it mentioned several times, I was curious to check it out. Hen’s Teeth (Sub Pop Records) has been out since the end of February and is the kind of indie rock I like. It’s meditative and atmospheric, not chasing the easy hooks yet still grounded enough to engage with melody and movement that it lingers after listening.
I think of the descending motion of ‘Singing Saw’ which mirrors a similar cadence on the preceding ‘Robin’s Egg,’ one of two tracks on which I’m With Her guest. The presence of Sarah Jarosz, Aoife O’Donovan and Sara Watkins provided the welcome to appreciate the album even more, lover that I am of harmony. Their new live album, Sing Me Alive (Rounder Records), is also well worth checking out. And then there’s also the use of fuzz on Hen’s Teeth’s opener, ‘Roses,’ a sound one doesn’t hear much these days.
It also makes an appearance on ‘Centerfold’ the exciting ending of Leah Blevins’ All Dressed Up (Concord), released at the start of spring. Here, the fuzz is prominent as if legendary Nashville picker Grady Martin has been resurrected. It’s the kind of touch that is easily seen as vintage while also being new because, again, it just isn’t something that’s heard a lot these days.
It’s also what makes All Dressed Up a very listenable, not to mention enjoyable, an example of what I would call contemporary nostalgia. There is a sheen that suggests seventies studio slickness and Blevins’ voice is a merger of California cool and Tennessee twang. It’s all ear-pleasing whether it’s heard navigating the dynamics of ‘Leave It Up to Me’ or pondering the philosophical ‘Hey God’ that mulls over the choice between “Jezebel or Jericho.”
Another adventure in contemporary nostalgia comes from Haylie Davis, whose debut album Wandering Star (Fire Records) is being released tomorrow (June 5). Teaser tracks for it have been coming out since last September—six in total—firmly establishing her evocation of the spaciousness of the Laurel Canyon scene. Well, that’s only part of her sound, best heard on the striking, laid-back refrains of ‘Golden Age’ and ‘I Was Wrong.’ These dig into the listener’s ribs. Davis’ voice is light but also lands assuredly on the beat—a kind of laconic sigh that if one is in the right frame of mind, one may surely echo.
There’s also a country-rock feel, with the emphasis on steel guitar on ‘Give Me a Rainbow’ (it’s sing-song quality reminds me of the spiritual ‘I’ll Fly Away’) and punctuating the road rhythm of ‘Lily of the Valley’ (the harmonic motion on this one is something special). A piano-based, decorative singer-songwriter vibe distinguishes ‘Born to Be Blue.’ Wandering Star is a prodigious introduction to a prodigious talent. Haylie Davis is someone to watch. This is one of my favourite albums so far this year.
Just out this past Friday (May 29) is Dwelling (Apple Slices Records) by Tomorrow Tomorrow, the name that musician and engineer Nico L-S has given to her project in which she plays all the instruments as well as writes all the material as well as producing, recording and mixing it—an encapsulation of today’s do-it-yourself, self-production era.
The music is low-fi indie rock but not to such an extent that it is almost deadened inside. A murky psychedelia pervades gems like ‘Giant Steps’ and ‘Indelible.’ Tomorrow Tomorrow’s frequent use of a glockenspiel is a most distinctive element throughout. ‘Obseguy’ is a dalliance with progressive rock and one I enjoyed despite a general aversion to all things prog signifying, I think, that Dwelling is a notable album deserving of a wide audience.
Looking over the track list for jazz guitarist Vladimir Redzic’s First Time Around (self-released), out tomorrow (June 5), there’s a sense of been there, done that, comprised as it is of eight standards, one by Charlie Parker and a blues composition by Redzic. Will it all just be treading the well-worn and deeply creviced path? In other words, why bother with this?
Well, let me tell you, after pianist Steve Ash takes the opening A sections of ‘I’ve Got a Crush On You,’ Redzic takes the B and the effect is startling. His tone is crisp and metallic with minimal decay. It sounds, at least to me, very, very fresh. His favouring of single lines befits someone who cites Grant Green as a primary influence and who has studied with Peter Bernstein. The mood on the album is unhurried, building a kind of sanctuary to luxuriate in rich material like ‘Blue Gardenia’ and ‘I Didn’t Know What Time It Is.’
The first half of the album has Redzic in a quartet with Ash, Jonathan Meyer on bass and Ellingtonian Steve Little on drums. Vocalist Ale Nuñez joins for a smokey yet spritely reading of ‘These Foolish Things.’ The second half of the album has Redzic and Ash in a trio with Neal Miner on bass.
While relying on streaming is a necessity for a deep sampling of new music, I am always appreciative when I can receive review copies of albums. The contrast from the passivity that streams can inculcate—I fight against it as hard as I can—to the immersion that playing a recording on a decent sound system creates was recently reiterated when sampling tenor saxophonist John Sweenie’s new album, Mysticism for Intellectuals (Bent River Records), released in early April.
I first streamed it and it just floated right by me. When Sweenie kindly mailed me a CD copy and I gave it a listen, I wondered if I was listening to something entirely different than what I had streamed. It was the same. It was just that I was hearing the music the way it was intended to be heard and it made all the difference. Recorded live at the Yardbird Suite in Edmonton, Alberta, the album cycles through different feels.
It starts in an avant-funk kind of mood; Sweenie being joined by Rémi-Jean Leblanc on electric bass and Richard Irwin on drums. Of special note here is the 15-minute ‘Additive’ which flows from a boogaloo to something far more ethereal, eventually arriving back to the opening rhythm. It’s exhilarating, stream-of-consciousness jazz.
Mysticism for Intellectuals then shifts to a (mostly) acoustic quartet. Jean-Michel Pilc joins in on piano, Leblanc moves to upright bass (he returns to the electric for ‘Darling, We’ve Grown Apart’ and ‘The Heartford Line’) and Irwin remaining on drums for a series of explorations that retains the same searching style as the beginning of the album. One can feel the collective openness that Sweenie is instilling. This is live jazz as in-the-moment wonder.
Investigating live jazz from another angle is trumpeter Ted Chubb’s Live at the Statuary (Circle 9 Records), released in mid-May. The Statuary is a century-plus-old building in Jersey City, New Jersey, and was initially a sculpture-artist studio. It is now owned by Chubb and his wife, Rachel Ryll, furthering the work of Walter and Margo Parks with the couple making a significant investment in doing so to turn the Statuary into a small venue where musicians and their audiences can almost touch each other.
This sense of mission plus recalling the nights I have spent hearing jazz in clubs that I think cultivate this sense of closeness, deeply resonates, especially as the music on Chubb’s new album, recorded over four nights at the Statuary at the end of winter 2025, is perfectly suited to draw an audience in. This is jazz with memorable lines, concise soloing and some well-chosen pieces from the canon. I especially dig that Chubb covers John Lewis’ ‘Django’ with a nod to Grant Green’s swinging version from his classic Idle Moments.
Chubb is teamed with Bruce Williams on alto saxophone, Oscar Perez on acoustic piano and the Fender Rhodes, Tim DiCarlo on bass and Jerome Jennings on drums. This album is not only about good playing and listening, it’s also about hopeful playing and listening. That’s much needed these days.
Another recording that has caught my ear is trumpeter Jacques Kuba Séguin’s La trilogie des odeurs (Odd Sound), to be released on June 12. The scope of this work is breathtaking. Three suites over three CDs, each exploring different flavours. The first has Séguin with a quintet evoking a very Nordic air. The second is urban and features Séguin with a big band, L'Orchestre national de jazz de Montréal. The third is the grandest and pairs Séguin with a quartet plus the Orchestre symphonique de Trois-Rivières.
There’s a lot to take in and indeed, the press materials that accompanies the recording recommend to “let each work resonate, then allow space for silence. Like a fragrance, the music reveals itself over time.” I can’t imagine a better way to slow down this spring.