Best New Music from Local Natives, PJ Harvey, Hannah Diamond
Thanks for reading Toronto Star’s Weekend Music Digest, a roundup of new music, concert listings and more.
We’ve been taking a little break, so this week’s recap features new music from the past few weeks, including songs from Local Natives, PJ Harvey, Joanna Sternberg, and Hannah Diamond.
Click here to listen to the Spotify playlist.
Album of the week
Local natives: Time will not wait for anyone
In 2013, Local Natives released ‘Hummingbird’, an emotionally resonant sophomore album that cemented the group in the pantheon of Serious Indie Bands™ alongside other studious critical darlings like The National, Grizzly Bear and Fleet Foxes. Over the next decade, that pantheon began to crumble as seriousness wavered into self-indulgence, and fans began to look for more diverse voices and sounds to spice up their indie rock.
But on Local Natives’ fifth studio album, “Time Will Wait for No One,” the So-Cal quintet doesn’t seem interested in reinventing, but instead reviving the rich harmonies, post-punk rhythms, and vibrant hooks that made them a festival favorite in the early years. 2010s. The album, their first in four years, feels less like a relic and more like donning a loved-but-forgotten hoodie when visiting your hometown: it fits just right and reminds you that the old days weren’t so bad.
During the pandemic, the band was forced into a long hiatus. Between dark periods of isolation and identity crisis, some members got married; others became fathers.
“We’ve been intertwined for so long — I’ve known some of the guys since I was 13,” Ryan Hahn, a singer and multi-instrumentalist, said on the phone. “(The pandemic) was the longest we’ve ever been apart. Making the record felt less about the music and more about us as friends and as brothers.
A sense of brotherhood permeates the album – especially in the vocal interplay of Hahn, Kelcey Ayer and Taylor Rice, who grew up listening to the harmonies of Crosby, Stills and Nash – of the lush folk rock of “Just Before the Morning.” to the more giggly offerings like ‘Ava’ and ‘Paradise’.
“Time Will Wait For No One / But I Will Wait For You” they sing on the album’s title track, performed in the band’s signature three-part harmony over a gently strummed acoustic guitar.
“In the cosmic whirl of everything, there’s so little you can control,” Hahn said. “That line was almost a mantra for us: We’re going to choose to stay connected and be together.”
“This feels like a new version of our band,” he adds. “There’s a newfound gratitude and appreciation to be able to make music with each other and have these deep friendships.”
Star Tracks: More of the best new (and fairly new) music
PJ Harvey: ‘Lwonesome Tonight’
“Lwonesome Tonight” – the sleep highlight of PJ Harvey’s 10th studio album, “I Inside the Old Year Dying” – goes in like an exotic spirit, an initially bitter taste giving way to a slightly morbid warmth that slowly spreads through the body. “Listen to the greening of the earth / Curly ferns that have yet to uncurl, the alt-rock luminary coos in icy falsetto, her voice fluttering over sparse guitar and padded percussion. Harvey’s lyrics, despite being compact and very telling (Genius notes several references to Elvis Presley and Jesus Christ), hold the listener tight as the melody swings in gratifyingly unexpected directions.“‘Love Me Tender’ are his words / As I’ve loved you, so you must,” she concludes, finding some nice common ground between the two kings.
Joanna Sternberg: ‘People are toys to you’
At first glance, Joanna Sternberg’s new album “I’ve Got Me” might seem a little innocent: another New York singer-songwriter writing self-effacing folk tunes. But Sternberg’s messy sophomore project is packed with snappy hooks, caustic humor, and intimate storytelling, making it one of the most satisfying and addictive albums of the year. Take the album’s title track, on which Sternberg channels Elliott Smith for a painfully funny meditation on uncertainty: “Why is it so hard to be kind and gentle to myself?” they ask.“Take the self-deprecating box / Lock it and put it on the shelf.” But the album’s stickiest earworm is “People Are Toys to You,” a boot-pounding breakup song that could land in the middle of a Venn chart of Tom Petty, Big Thief, and early Joanna Newsom. “You said you stayed because you felt sorry for me / How sweet of you to call me charity,” they sing about crunchy electric guitar, and you can almost feel the sting.
Hannah Diamond: Affirmations
Last month, PC Music – a London-based record label and arts collective founded by producer AG Cook – announced that 2023 would be the last year of new releases. The news was bittersweet to fans of the collective, which pioneered a form of over-the-top pop music that eventually laid the groundwork for the polarizing microgenre known as hyperpop. A decade after PC Music’s founding, hyperpop as a counterculture genre has largely run its course, and its defining sounds and styles – pitch-shifted vocals, bubblegums-synths-saws, frantic percussion – have slowly been twisted and incorporated into mainstream pop (to mixed Results). In addition, several producers associated with PC Music have gone on to work with major conceptual pop stars (AG Cook regularly collaborates with Charli XCX and produced a song on Beyoncé’s “Renaissance”, while Danny Harle was a key writer and producer on the new Caroline Polachek- album).
Anyway, on Thursday, PC Music released a new single from one of its signature artists, Hannah Diamond, whose unique “post-ringtone” aesthetic explores, with some irony, the rosy sincerity of the teenage years. Produced by David Gamson, “Affirmations” is pure, undiluted hyperpop bliss.“I’ll always be enough / I mean a lot to all my friends and I’ll never give up,” Diamond declares with unflinching earnestness as shimmering synths twist and turn around a massive four-on-four beat. And yet, hidden beneath the gum production is a hint of nostalgia; or perhaps a note of melancholy that accompanies the fleeting joy of youth.
Newer releases
- Toronto rapper and former Polaris Prize winner Haviah Mighty released a new studio album on Friday titled ‘Crying Crystals’. Mighty says the new album is partly inspired by South African house music: “The amapiano sound has taken hold in the city because of the fusion of dance and afro sounds that have been fused together,” she said. “I wanted to explore producing in that world.”
- Disclosure, the English electronic duo consisting of brother Howard and Guy Lawrence, released their fourth studio album “Alchemy” on Friday. It is the first reveal album without features or samples. “This record is a celebration of our sense of liberation now,” the band said in a statement. “We are no longer signed to a major record label. We’re not going on tour with this record. We can do whatever we want and be super creative.”
- In-demand guitarist Blake Mills, who has worked with the likes of Fiona Apple, Bob Dylan and Phoebe Bridgers, released “Jelly Road” on Friday, which was co-written with jazz musician Chris Weisman.
Various from all over the music world
- If, like me, you can’t stop listening to the new album from Anohni and the Johnsonsdo yourself a favor and check out this fascinating discussion between Anohni and fellow art-pop genius Björk, where they talk about soul music, Kate Bush, Lou Reed, and of course the climate crisis: “We have evolved from a society willing to accept the disinformation that encouraged climate denial to one that has largely resigned itself to its inevitability.” says Anohni.
- The Polaris Prize Shortlist is here! Feist! Alvvays! Begonia! The Sadies! The award will be announced in September at a gala at Massey Hall. Here’s a little playlist of the nominees:
- I highly recommend reading or bookmarking this brilliant (and cutting) book deep dive on Jack Antonoff – the super producer for artists like Taylor Swift, Lana Del Rey, Lorde and many more – and his impact on pop music in the age of streaming.
“If there was a producer who fully belonged to this moment, he would have to be something like a brandless brand, paradoxically recognizable by his ability to produce stylishly forgettable content. In the preferred euphemistic terms of the ruling class, he would be less an innovator than a curator: a bricoleur of cultural delights, endowed with impeccable taste in both kitsch and classics. His personality would be humble or sincere or exuberant in a muted way, like someone yelling while retreating down a hallway. He would be impossibly versatile: a wearer of all hats, able to work in seemingly any style. He would be wildly successful by the standards of the trade – views, streams, dollars – and by that of professional tastemaker – rave reviews from critics, flattering profiles by journalists. Ubiquitous and unremarkable, widely acclaimed and terminally unhip, memeable but unflinchingly serious, such a figure would fully express the essence of a seemingly essenceless moment.
- Earlier this week, Live Nation announced it has acquired Toronto’s historic Opera House, a Queen Street East theater that first opened in 1901. The purchase is “the latest addition to Venue Nation, the company’s global venue portfolio.” Call out! reports. This means that many shows booked at the Opera House in the future will be Live Nation events – tickets for which will be sold on Ticketmaster. Get ready for some service fees!
Newly announced concerts
- Country and blues legend Lucinda Williams plays at the Queen Elizabeth Theater on October 18. She recently released the critically acclaimed ‘Stories from a Rock n Roll Heart’. Tickets on sale now.
- Gen X rock dudes rejoice! The Tea Party and I Mother Earth announced a co-headlining tour with a November 4 date at The Concert Hall. Tickets on sale now.
- Singaporean post-pop songwriter yuele will drop by the Axis Club on October 12. yuele’s second album “softscars” arrives in September via Ninja Tune. Tickets are on sale now.
- One for the metalheads: Swedish extreme metal titans Meshuggah play History with In Flames and Whitechapel on December 15th. Maps here.
Concert schedule Toronto: a selection of upcoming shows in the city
Friday, July 14
The American singer-songwriter and pianist swings through Toronto on her ‘Keys To The Summer Tour’, with support from Afrobeats singer Libianca.
Saturday July 15
The Nigerian Afropop giant returns to the Bud Stage this weekend as part of its ‘Timeless Tour’.
Wednesday July 19
The American singer and rapper (?) plays back-to-back shows on the Bud Stage on Wednesdays and Thursdays, with support from indie rock band Beach Fossils.
