Every week, 88Nine music director Erin Wolf shares a sonic gem she found using her nearly 20 years of new-music exploration experience. You can hear all her discoveries live on 88Nine at 10 p.m. every Monday on What’s All This: Adventures in New Music.
Brooklyn electro-pop artist Chris Stewart is getting set to release a new album under his Black Marble project. “Jim Carol New Year” is the lead single for Life in Small Spaces, which revolves around Stewart’s shifting view on the music industry and his role in it, trying to make ends meet and taking stock of reality vs. illusory.
“[Life in Small Spaces] is what I want to talk about as an artist,” he said. “It's where I am at this exact moment, and I know I'm not alone in how I feel.”
Sonically, the album trades walls of synths for more guitar, and Stewart explains the reason for the change as a way to “create this chime-y hypnotic quality, like a radio dial that is between two stations.” You’ll be able to hear that when Live in Small Spaces drops Aug. 21, with a tour following that stops at Chicago’s Thalia Hall on Sept. 5.
Best new indie music this week
- Wishy, “Lovesick”
- Starcleaner Reunion, “Weather Instrument”
- Bellows, “Venetian Glass”
- Fenne Lily, “Uh Huh”
- Bella White, “Stuff”
- Emma Ruth Rundle, “Powerless”
- zzzahara, “Gardens”
- Helado Tropical, “Sensación”
- Spacemoth, “Telepathic Butterflies”
- Black Marble, “Jim Carol New Year”
- Nia Archives, “Vertical”
- Dahi, “Find Me (ft. Moses Sumney & Mez)”
