On the Stereo: Kim Deal, The Coward Brothers, Father John Misty, Joe Henderson & McCoy Tyner
Kim Deal finally goes solo, Elvis Costello and T Bone Burnett revive their alter egos for a "True History" podcast and album, plus an astonishing unreleased 1966 performance from Henderson & Tyner.
Kim Deal—Nobody Loves You More [2024]
Kim Deal broke away from the Pixies without leaving the band in 1990, releasing the Breeders's debut album Pod the same year as the group issued Bossanova. Over the years, she cycled through departures and reunions with the Pixies, fronting a second band called the Amps, keeping the Breeders running all the while. It's enough activity to disguise the fact that Nobody Loves You More is her first-ever solo album, appearing nearly four decades after she first appeared on record with the Pixies. That's a lifetime and it's felt throughout Nobody Loves You More, an album that adds unexpected depth and dimensions to a proudly idiosyncratic style. The shift is evident from the start, when the ballad "Nobody Loves You More" gets buoyed by an orchestra deployed without a trace of irony. Deal paints with an expanded palette throughout Nobody Loves You More, countering the MOR sophistication of "Coast" with the barbed beats of "Crystal Breath" and dreamy sway of "Are You Mine?," still finding time for the gnarled noise of "Disobedience" and "Big Ben Beat." Despite the seemingly contradictory range, Nobody Loves You More is coherent, a portrait of an indie-rocker coming to terms with the slow creep of time. Deal pushes her introspection and uncertainty to the forefront, choosing not to disguise her vulnerability underneath an over-amplified roar. The airy vocals and moments of guitar skronk and airy vocals provide a sense of continuity, particularly on the closing "A Good Time Pushed." The last thing Deal recorded with longtime friend and colleague Steve Albini, who died unexpectedly earlier this year at the age of 61, "A Good Thing Pushed" is a soft, sweet echo of their previous work, a song where she's willing herself to finally get what she wants, if she could only figure out what that is. It's a song of bruised, earned optimism that now carries a sense of poignancy due to Albini's death. Maybe it's a bittersweet way to end a record but it does suit how Nobody Loves You More finds Deal embracing a life where joy and loss are constantly, continually intertwined.
The Coward Brothers—The Coward Brothers [2024]
A companion piece of sorts to the recent King of America and Other Realms box set, The Coward Brothers finds Elvis Costello and T-Bone Burnett reviving the alter-egos they developed while on tour in the mid-1980s. Then, they dashed off a single—the uproarious original "The People's Limousine,"