Flea

Honora

Though renowned for the rubbery, funk-rock style he employs as bass player with Red Hot Chili Peppers, Michael Balzary’s early musical education came via his stepfather, a jazz player, and at 11 he started learning the trumpet. His career as Flea has taken a long and winding road, via the Peppers’ globe-conquering Californication, recordings with Johnny Cash, Patti Smith and many others, but with his first solo album in a sense he’s come home. 

Together with established stars including improv guitar don Jeff Parker, double bassist Anna Butterss, Josh Johnson (saxophone) and Deantoni Parks (drums), jazz boundary-pushers all, trumpeter Flea has delivered a musically compelling and emotionally convincing set that mixes original compositions and covers. The latter include a moody, vibes-splashed version of Funkadelic’s “Maggot Brain”, with Flea taking a solo in place of the original’s guitar and Glen Campbell’s peerless “Wichita Lineman”, reworked as a spare, Southern-soul number with Nick Cave on vocals. Of the originals, standouts are the gently bustling, percussion- and bass-driven “Traffic Lights” (a co-write with Johnson and Thom Yorke, who also sings and plays synth), and psych-funk slow jam “Free As I Want To Be”.

Label: Nonesuch

Charlotte Cornfield

Hurts Like Hell

Even given the widespread enthusiasm of artists for sharing every facet of their personal lives on record, this Canadian country-folk singer/songwriter stands out. Not due to the drama of her delivery or the self-consciously revealing nature of her lyrics, but the opposite: her softly grazed voice and her songs’ warm, matter-of-fact directness compel the listener to lean in close.

Hurts Like Hell is Cornfield’s sixth album and sees her ramping up those qualities several notches, with a full band. There’s more than a clue to its content in that title and though unfussy, these 10 short stories pay great attention to detail in their exploration of self-doubt, loss, shyness and the emotional shifts motherhood brings (Cornfield had a daughter in 2023). Still, not everything is autobiographical – in both the sweetly swinging title track and languorous “Lost Leader”, Cornfield sings from a character’s point of view. A BFA in jazz drumming has no doubt informed her use of space and the way her songs unspool as if at their own pace but It’s not all slow-mo restraint – “Lucky” suggests Big Thief joining Neil Young to kick up some dust. Guest singers including Feist and Buck Meek are the icing on an impressive cake.  

Label: Merge

Murkage Dave

Brut Thoughts

Londoner David Lewis’s career took off with a Manchester club night focused on grime, UK bass and hip hop, which he started in 2007; around its success he built the broad-spectrum arts platform Murkage Cartel. Though both grew from his feelings of outsiderism, he was soon turning influential heads – The Streets, Stormzy and Pharrell’s included. 

For all that, Lewis is an indie-soul singer/songwriter at heart, drawn to introspective yet relatable stories told with sly wit. His third solo LP continues in a mellow vein, glancing off UK garage while edging toward R&B-pop as he sets his sights on everything from modern life’s exhausting grind to lost love and questions of identity. Guest vocalists expanding that expression include Kayus Bankole of Young Fathers and Yard Act’s James Smith (as KONOPINSKY), as well as the Bournemouth Hope Youth Choir, whose sweet-voiced contribution to “Swordfight In A Chicken Shop” is a neat foil for its snapshot of experiential overwhelm. Also notable are “RNA”, with its strings, boom-bap beats and ruthless honesty (“I cannot be a dad when I’m selfish/Like I’d ever quit music/Can you imagine?”), and the perky “One 4 Me & U”, which rides on kwassa kwassa guitar lines.

Label: The Outlet

The Delines

The Set Up

This Portland, Oregon quintet have pretty much a monopoly when it comes to unsparing, ’70s-styled country-soul songs with a widescreen feel, depicting America’s dispossessed, eternally disappointed and plain hard done by. Written with deep empathy by Willy Vlautin, who’s also an acclaimed novelist, such characters have been made real across six albums to date.

Their latest grew out of studio sessions for last year’s Mr. Luck & Ms. Doom. Toward the end Vlautin brought in a tune called “Walking With His Sleeves Down”, which they recorded live, yet somehow it didn’t fit. Similarly, two other songs were keepers but out of place. The Set Up, then, emerged as what Vlautin calls “the wayward, misguided and lonely sister to Mr. Luck & Ms. Doom”. There’s nothing wayward or misguided musically or emotionally here, though: superbly soulful instrumentals (“Jumping Off In Madras”, “The Last time I Saw Her”) with keyboards to the fore and forlorn trumpet, spoken-word pieces (“The Set Up”, in three brief parts) and Amy Boone’s voice throughout – that of a world-weary angel – work their magic, whether honouring Diane, “with a bad tooth and a black eye”, Brenda the embezzler or the unnamed man out walking, who looks “like a breeze could just take him away”.

Label: Decor