New Music Friday: The best albums out Sept. 11

NPR Music

NPR Music's New Music Friday features a deep dive into the best albums released on September 11, spotlighting Sylvan Esso's experimental new

Key takeaways

• Sylvan Esso's 'Ow' showcases their evolution from electropop to a more layered, experimental sound with punk influences and atmospheric sampling.
• Ezra Collective's 'Here Because of Hope' blends genres like afrobeat, reggae, and soul to explore the African diaspora's journey through pain and joy.

Main topics

• New music releases
• Sylvan Esso's experimental evolution

Notable quotes

"It's only love. It's only, only love." – Ezra Collective, 'Here Because of Hope'

Conclusion

The episode celebrates the emotional depth, genre innovation, and cultural

Transcript preview

Speaker 5 (0:00) This week on Consider This, the researcher who just resigned from Anthropic, why he believes AI is a threat to humanity. Speaker 8 (0:08) Very soon, these things are going to be so capable that if they decide to go rogue, it's not going to be good. Speaker 5 (0:14) Plus, his view of what guardrails could look like. This week on Consider This from NPR. Speaker 1 (0:27) Happy Friday, everyone, from NPR Music. It's New Music Friday. Each week on New Music Friday, we talk about the best albums out that week with members of the NPR Music Network. And today, we are welcoming three fantastic guests to the show. Brian Burns from WUNC in North Carolina, Celia Gregory from WNXP in Nashville, and John Morrison of WXPN in Philadelphia. And we're going to kick things off with Mr. Brian Burns. Welcome to the show, Brian. Thanks for having me, Stephen. Happy to be here. It's a pleasure to have you back. I think we should just kick things off right away with Sylvan Esso. Sylvan Esso's new album is called Ow, Infinity. Speaker 1 (1:55) So Sylvan Esso, for those who aren't familiar, an electropop duo from Durham, North Carolina. It's Amelia Meath, who used to be in Mountain Man, as well as Nick Sanborn, who was in Megafon. They've worked with many, many musicians over the years. And Sylvan Esso, you know, kind of started out, kind of broke through with a few kind of electropop hits, songs like Coffee, and over time have kind of grown a little bit more experimental, a little bit more, you know, kind of constantly surprising in the way they do things. They're now self-releasing their own music. They have their own recording studio. And they are very much doing things their way. And I have to say, this is so corny, this is going to sound like I'm name-dropping. But I do have to say, when this happens, that in the interest of full disclosure, Amelia Meath and Nick Sanborn are friends of mine. So it's weird to have to say that, but you should take everything that I say about Sylvan Esso with a grain of salt. They are such an important part of our Speaker 5 (2:52) community here in the Triangle. I'm in Durham right now. But yeah, they're just lovely people and they make lovely music. And this record, the first time I listened to it, I thought, this sounds like Sylvan Esso Deluxe. Their sound has bumped up so much over the years. And this one, they're experimenting with a lot of new sounds, bringing in a lot more musicians, and it just works. It's Speaker 1 (3:09) great. Absolutely. And like... It's interesting. Their last record was called No Rules Sandy. And Sandy is like their nicknames for each other are Randy and Sandy. It kind of plays on their names. And the whole idea is that it's kind of based on this ethos of like we are going to do what works and we're going to try a million different things. Amelia Meath has talked in interviews about like... She really likes to have an idea and then subtract a third of it. You know, they're constantly kind of killing their darlings and trying new things. And this record kind of captures that idea really well. Some of these songs are very spare, kind of dark and interior. But at the same time, the closer you listen, the more you hear going on, the more layered this record sounds. Speaker 5 (3:51) Absolutely. The first song that we heard from this record was Hot Slob. And that comes out with some really loud guitars played by Jen Wozner of Flock of Dime. in White Oak. Genius. And I think that just shocked a lot of people because they're like, this is not Sylvanessa, but it so is. So the record does contain all the vibes you want. Speaker 1 (4:28) Hot Slob's a great example of kind of a little bit more of a punk aesthetic. Elsewhere, you get kind of something quieter, more spare, a song like Concrete Glen, which is sampling. At first, I thought it was interpolating, but apparently it's sampling a little bit of Sigur Rós. And that kind of atmospheric spareness comes through really beautifully. Speaker 5 (4:48) Absolutely. And I love that. That sample made me smile so hard. Oh, me too. Me too. I love Speaker 1 (4:53) that song so much. Speaker 1 (5:16) But also if you came to Sylvanesso kind of for their earlier records, these kind of moody pop records, there's still moody pop songs here. A song like On and On is just a masterful little piece of electropop. Speaker 5 (5:45) And the final song on the record is called Plastic Sword. And you mentioned Mountain Man earlier. This seems like Speaker 1 (5:49) something along Speaker 5 (5:50) those lines. It's almost like a jig. It sounds like an Irish jig. It's very fun to sing and very minimal. It really showcases Amelia's amazing vocal range. Speaker 8 (6:09) Plastic sword swinging in, gonna cut you to the quick. Plastic sword hitting things, gonna break most everything. Speaker 1 (6:17) Yeah, that song for me really does feel like it's meeting at the midpoint between Amelia Meath's past and her present. The blending of voices is something that she's always done so, so well. You can go back into the NPR Music archives and find a recording of Mountain Man that we did at the Newport Folk Festival, where it's just the three of them gathered in these ruins, and it's just this perfect blending of their voices. And that's something that she's always worked with so effectively. But here you have Nick Sanborn, who's kind of more of an electronic producer. He's really good at kind of scuffing up. what she does and kind of finding ways to amplify the beauty of what those voices are doing. Speaker 8 (7:11) That Speaker 1 (7:14) is Sylvan Esso. Their new album is called Ow, and then the little infinity sign. Next up, another band that does things their own way, Ezra Collective, is back with a new album called Here Because of Hope. Speaker 6 (7:39) I will never feel and if I never feel I will never grow I know about the sirens but we got away I'm coming from a poverty, but we still make a way. They had me leave a bell and then they sent me jail. Now I'm feeling like a sailor trying to navigate. I'm on a second landing, puffing 88. We were sleeping on free flow, we puffed in vape. I don't like pride, I stay away from ego. I know about respect, disrespect get handled. I know about pain, I felt a million times. People I love die while I'm locked up in a cage. I be feeling heartbreak, yeah, I can't escape. But my soul getting stronger, the mind can't break. It's only love. It's only, only love. Speaker 5 (8:34) So Ezra Collective is a band from the UK. They formed about a decade ago and have made a big mark on the UK jazz scene. It's five of the tightest players in London. Started off very young, and it's been really cool to watch their career grow over the years. And the London jazz scene, and yeah, on this record, they kind of experiment with Speaker 1 (8:50) some Speaker 5 (8:50) new sounds. Speaker 1 (8:51) Yeah, I mean, it's interesting because Ezra Collective, they're not just playing jazz, right? They play a swirl of genres, everything from... hip-hop to afrobeat to reggae, calypso and soul. You really get a Caribbean influence on this record. And they're extremely, like several of the artists we're talking about this week, they're very prolific collaborators. And this record kind of conceptually is supposed to function as a sort of travelogue. It's tracking the diaspora from Africa to the Caribbean to London and kind of working through phases of how the music has spread. You know, it's interesting, like thematically, you know, so much of this music is instrumental, but they use a lot of guest vocalists. And Letitia Wright does several spoken word pieces over the course of this record to kind of give you a sense of what they're going for thematically. And part of the idea here is trying to answer this question of how does, you know, the African diaspora has involved a lot of pain. and a lot of sorrow, and yet the music that has come out of it is so joyful, and trying to get at why. And I think listening to this record in that context really deepens the power of these songs. Speaker 6 (10:07) It is written that on the other side of this pain there will be a renewal, beauty for ashes, joy for mourning. Speaker 6 (10:20) Praise for heaviness. Speaker 5 (10:22) Absolutely. It really makes you feel alive