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Stories   >   Brandee Younger's 'Brand New Life' makes YARDBARKER's 'best albums from the 2020s that you (probably) haven't heard'

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Brandee Younger's 'Brand New Life' makes YARDBARKER's 'best albums from the 2020s that you (probably) haven't heard'

Posted: August 5, 2024

YARDBARKER's Evan Sawdey writes….Every year sees the release of thousands of albums, and only a select few manage to break through the noise to reach your ears eventually. During the pandemic lockdown, several music heads played catch up with a backlog of releases, but during this time, musicians ended up releasing a barrage of quarantine albums, choking up vinyl pressing plants and oversaturating the world's playlists even further. While it's fascinating to see the way critics try to find some kind of Album of the Year consensus across multiple publications, the truth of the matter is that some true masterpieces fall through the cracks. Today, we highlight those early 2020s records that deserve a wider audience because even if it's not topping anyone's year-end list doesn't mean it isn't incredible music.

Brandee Younger has never been shy about tracing her muses back to their source. Specifically, as one of the most dynamic harpists working in both jazz and R&B circles today, she finds inspiration in the incredible work of Dorothy Ashby, a jazz harpist who rose to prominence in the late '50s and early '60s. Younger incorporates three Ashby compositions into her 2023 record, "Brand New Life", but infuses them with her fresh contemporary perspective. Even with deep respect for her musical lineage, she knows what year she's recording in, and Younger smartly mixes her harp work with outside collaborators like hip-hop producer Pete Rock and a more-than-game Meshell N'degeocello. Younger's harp sings, glides, and sometimes even approaches levels of mania like on the cascading instrumental climax during "Dust", the N'degeocello duet. By the time she covers Stevie Wonder's "If It's Magic" as a closer, it feels as if she's fully communicating with the idols she had growing up, and, in turn, they're giving their blessing to one of the most exciting musicians working today. A stellar record.

From PR…..The GRAMMY®-nominated harpist and composer  Brandee Younger announced the release of ‘Brand New Life’ (Impulse! Records), on April 7th of 2023. Out now, the first single off of the Dorothy Ashby inspired album is the previously unrecorded and evocative Ashby composition, “You’re A Girl For One Man Only.” Listen to Younger’s mesmerizing take on the track and preorder the album HERE.

Produced by multi-hyphenate drummer and composer Makaya Mccraven, on Brand New Life, Younger celebrates one of her greatest inspirations, iconic jazz harpist and composer Dorothy Ashby. Ashby is widely credited with having asserted the harp’s place in contemporary music, showcasing the traditionally-classical instrument on groundbreaking albums such as Afro-Harping and Dorothy’s Harp. Her unparalleled body of work has continued to be influential for decades and has been heavily sampled and transposed across jazz, hip-hop, and R&B, by artists including Jay-Z, J. Dilla, Pete Rock and Flying Lotus.

Brand New Life is a stunning amalgamation of past and present, combining original works from Younger, select reinterpretations of Ashby’s work, and previously-unrecorded compositions by Ashby. Younger was initially introduced to Ashby’s work through the many hip-hop artists who sampled her music, and now collaborates with some of those very artists on Brand New Life, including the legendary Pete Rock and 9th Wonder. Brand New Life also includes features by Meshell N’degeocello, Mumu Fresh, and production by drummer and composer  Makaya McCraven.

Younger says of the album, “Creating this album has been a longtime dream of mine. I really had a lot of living to do before being able to execute it, genuinely. The finished product is truly representative of where I am now and it is an honor to convey that through the compositions of one of my heroes.”

The first single from the album, “You’re A Girl For One Man Only,” is a composition by Ashby that had never before been recorded, the charts of which were only unearthed through Brandee’s lifelong commitment to Ashby’s history. What may have become a jazz standard of 1960s - had it been recorded at the time of it’s conception - now emerges as timeless as ever and is colored with the vibrance of the 21st Century via Makaya’s trademark cultural synthesizer. The single is accompanied by a visualizer that further immerses listeners in the ethereal world of Brand New Life. Watch here: LINK

Celebrated as the premier harpist of her generation, Brandee Younger has broken new ground for harpists over the entirety of her career. Younger made history as the first Black female solo artist to be GRAMMY®-nominated for Best Instrumental Composition, for “Beautiful is Black” from her genre-busting 2021 major-label debut album, Somewhere Different. That same year the album also garnered an NAACP Image Award nomination for Outstanding Jazz Album – Instrumental. Along with the release of Brand New Life, Younger will be embarking on a series of headlining shows across the U.S. this spring, and will follow her whirlwind 2023 with a residency as SFJazz’s Resident Artistic Director in early 2024.

PHOTO: Louis Walker lll via Imagn Content Services, LLC

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