💽 » Big Red Machine - How Long Do You Think It's Gonna Last?

Big Red Machine is a band that serves as a side project from musicians Aaron Dessner (The National) and Justin Vernon (Bon Iver).

But what started as a collaborative experiment in the debut album Big Red Machine (2018), grew into something much bigger that none of them could have anticipated. How Long Do You Think It's Gonna Last? (2021) is not only a more extensive work in terms of duration but also a much more expansive one, since it features no less than 11 artists along with the tracklist. The lineup goes from huge names like Taylor Swift, who had both Dessner and Vernon collaborating in her pair of recent albums folklore and evermore, to some artists that were new to me and equally great, like Anaïs Mitchell. The best thing about the album though is that, with so many people involved and so many ways that everything could have gone wrong, the tracklist actually feels pretty tight and cohesive, instead of sounding just like a random collection of songs.

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💽 » Fleet Foxes - Shore

Shore is the 4th studio album of Seattle-based indie-folk band Fleet Foxes, which also may be their most accessible one, being the perfect choice for someone to start listening to them.

Even Robin Pecknold (vocals, guitar) describes the album as (2017’s) Crack-Up’s friendly brother. Shore is definitely a “sunny” record, but it also works perfectly on a cloudy day. “I’m trying to celebrate life in a time of death, trying to find something to hold on to that exists outside of time, something that feels solid or stable”, Pecknold says. In my personal opinion, the album delivers all of that and much more. It was one of my favorites of last year, with Going-to-the-Sun Roadbeing the cherry on top, featuring beautiful vocals of O Terno’s Tim Bernardes.

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💽 » Leon Bridges - Gold-Diggers Sound

In Gold-Diggers Sound, Leon Bridges continues the path he created in his debut album Coming Home (2015).

But while getting inspiration from the same ‘50s and ‘60s sounds that brought him recognition, his third full-length record comes with a much more modern finish, bringing Bridges much closer to his contemporaries.

I had extremely high expectations for this album since I listened to the first single ‘Motorbike’ (shared on SS #21) a couple of months ago, and not only Gold-Diggers Sound is better than I was expecting, but it’s now one of my favorite albums of 2021.

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💽 » Rodrigo Amarante - Drama

8 years after releasing his debut solo album, Rodrigo Amarante is finally back with another full-length release.

While Cavalo (2013) was heavily influenced by Amarante’s immigrant life in Los Angeles, where he moved to after the massive success with his band Los Hermanos, Drama (2021), sounds like a much more cohesive effort to finding his own identity as a solo artist. The self-titled opening track serves as a prelude to what we’ll experience throughout the record, which sees Amarante switching back and forth in between English and Portuguese (his native language), with extreme naturality.

My favorite track (so far) is Tara, a lovely old-school samba that is both minimal and grandiose at the same time.

Listen on Spotify | Apple Music | YouTube