NEW MUSIC FROM NEW ORLEANS
Reviews of new musical releases, across all genres, april-may 2025
New Music from New Orleans: May 2025
Reviews by Paul Oswell
A dizzyingly good live album, trip hop, Americana, low-fi indie and a touch of zydeco grace the new music releases from New Orleans artists this month.
Click here to listen to our Spotify playlist - a compilation of New Orleans bands and musicians that we've reviewed over the last twelve months - featuring the artists below and more!
Corey Henry & The Treme Funktet
Live At Vaughns
Right from the opening bars, the crowd already alive with anticipation, this recording grabs you by the collar and demands you pay attention. Corey Henry is a near-legendary local trombone maestro, having cut his teeth with names such as Rebirth Brass Band, Galactic, and the Lil Rascals Brass Band. Every song is a sheer damn delight, with horns blaring, guitars wailing and drums just tearing the place up. Opener ‘Keep That Dream Alive’, ‘Got Fire’ and ‘Trumpets Not Guns’ are among my favorites. Hard to believe that this is a weekly gig at Vaughns - if this doesn’t make you want to get down there tout suite, I don’t know what will. Listen on Spotify
loucey
Illusions (from the album ‘participation trophy wife’)
This kind of trip hop takes me back to the dog days of Portishead, Tricky and Massive Attack, but this sounds bang up to date. There’s added melodics, more confidently tuneful vocals and a much more upbeat M.O. than their 90s counterparts. Singer songwriter Cherie McCabe’s voice is soulfully bouncy and coolly charismatic, like the sound of the first days of summer and long sunny evenings creeping up on us. They’ve been around since 2017, but this is their first - incredibly named, might I add - album. Well worth your time. Listen on Spotify
Hurray For The Riff Raff
Pyramid Scheme
As HFTRR hit the road this summer, they signal their intentions with yet another alt-country banger, as is their wont. It’s catchy as all get out, but Alynda Segarra is warning us, and perhaps herself, about the darker side of online life and the music industry (“This is not a scene/It’s a pyramid scheme…”). As always, it’s poetic and beguiling, and the lead guitar takes us firmly by the hand throughout the whole, harmonious three mellifluous minutes. If you missed their 2024 album, The Past Is Still Alive, then do yourself a favour and look it up. Listen on Spotify
Sarah Quintana
Baby Don't
Quintana is a New Orleanian, but stretches out her musical reach to the Frenchiest edges of Louisiana in this, a lively and eminently danceable self-release. She sets up a party atmosphere from the off with a Gallic ‘Laisse le Bon Temps Rouler’, an adventure that’s revisited in the moodier ‘Tout mon Coeur’ later in the album. The songs are threaded together with insistently lively banjo, fiddle and accordion, and its Cajun-zydeco-tinged stylings are panoramically infectious. Listen on Spotify
Sleep Habits
Antique Mall
There’s a charming, sincere lo-fi feel to this release from Alan Howard, the talent behind Sleep Habits. You might stray into daydreaming about Elliot Smith, Sparklehorse, or Mercury Rev, something along those dreamy, four-track sounding lines. The song, which starts like you’re tumbling out of bed but onto an even softer mattress on the floor ( to be clear, this is a good thing), is part of a an EP called ‘Mourning Doves’, and if you like your music acoustic and with a lovely, deft touch of melancholy, then take a wistful, slow walk around Howard’s antique mall. Listen on Spotify
Reviews by Paul Oswell
A dizzyingly good live album, trip hop, Americana, low-fi indie and a touch of zydeco grace the new music releases from New Orleans artists this month.
Click here to listen to our Spotify playlist - a compilation of New Orleans bands and musicians that we've reviewed over the last twelve months - featuring the artists below and more!
Corey Henry & The Treme Funktet
Live At Vaughns
Right from the opening bars, the crowd already alive with anticipation, this recording grabs you by the collar and demands you pay attention. Corey Henry is a near-legendary local trombone maestro, having cut his teeth with names such as Rebirth Brass Band, Galactic, and the Lil Rascals Brass Band. Every song is a sheer damn delight, with horns blaring, guitars wailing and drums just tearing the place up. Opener ‘Keep That Dream Alive’, ‘Got Fire’ and ‘Trumpets Not Guns’ are among my favorites. Hard to believe that this is a weekly gig at Vaughns - if this doesn’t make you want to get down there tout suite, I don’t know what will. Listen on Spotify
loucey
Illusions (from the album ‘participation trophy wife’)
This kind of trip hop takes me back to the dog days of Portishead, Tricky and Massive Attack, but this sounds bang up to date. There’s added melodics, more confidently tuneful vocals and a much more upbeat M.O. than their 90s counterparts. Singer songwriter Cherie McCabe’s voice is soulfully bouncy and coolly charismatic, like the sound of the first days of summer and long sunny evenings creeping up on us. They’ve been around since 2017, but this is their first - incredibly named, might I add - album. Well worth your time. Listen on Spotify
Hurray For The Riff Raff
Pyramid Scheme
As HFTRR hit the road this summer, they signal their intentions with yet another alt-country banger, as is their wont. It’s catchy as all get out, but Alynda Segarra is warning us, and perhaps herself, about the darker side of online life and the music industry (“This is not a scene/It’s a pyramid scheme…”). As always, it’s poetic and beguiling, and the lead guitar takes us firmly by the hand throughout the whole, harmonious three mellifluous minutes. If you missed their 2024 album, The Past Is Still Alive, then do yourself a favour and look it up. Listen on Spotify
Sarah Quintana
Baby Don't
Quintana is a New Orleanian, but stretches out her musical reach to the Frenchiest edges of Louisiana in this, a lively and eminently danceable self-release. She sets up a party atmosphere from the off with a Gallic ‘Laisse le Bon Temps Rouler’, an adventure that’s revisited in the moodier ‘Tout mon Coeur’ later in the album. The songs are threaded together with insistently lively banjo, fiddle and accordion, and its Cajun-zydeco-tinged stylings are panoramically infectious. Listen on Spotify
Sleep Habits
Antique Mall
There’s a charming, sincere lo-fi feel to this release from Alan Howard, the talent behind Sleep Habits. You might stray into daydreaming about Elliot Smith, Sparklehorse, or Mercury Rev, something along those dreamy, four-track sounding lines. The song, which starts like you’re tumbling out of bed but onto an even softer mattress on the floor ( to be clear, this is a good thing), is part of a an EP called ‘Mourning Doves’, and if you like your music acoustic and with a lovely, deft touch of melancholy, then take a wistful, slow walk around Howard’s antique mall. Listen on Spotify