16 February 15 - 21, 2024 dallasobserver.com DALLAS OBSERVER Classified | MusiC | dish | Culture | unfair Park | Contents Future Sounds The North Texas music releases we’re looking forward to in 2024. BY PRESTON JONES A s 2024 gets underway in earnest, the calendar is starting to fill up with new music releases from locally based and grown artists, some of whom have gone on to success beyond the state’s borders. We recently looked into the Dallas pop artists we’re ex- cited about this year, the 24 hip-hop artists and rappers to watch in 2024 and the North Texas metal bands who we predict will make big, crashing waves this year, all of which you can find online. But some of our most established artists also have big plans for this year. Here’s a look at some notable North Texas-tied albums on the horizon. Chris J. Norwood Call it one of the more fascinating pivots in North Texas music recently: Acoustic troubadour Chris J. Norwood is getting funky on his new LP The Knockdown Dragout, dropped Feb. 9. It’s a bold, Stax-inspired set, presenting Norwood in the role of bandleader and soulful shouter — a departure from his more contemplative earlier material. “I’m disillusioned with the ‘sad bastard’ scene of singer-songwriters that I found my- self part of,” he said in press materials. “I wanted to write some songs that I could actually sing to [wife] Carrie and dance in the kitchen to.” Larry Gee Song by song, Dallas-based singer-songwriter Larry Gee has been working his way back from a recent health scare. Dusting off tracks “Find Your Way to My Heart” and “Got to Have It,” which he’d recorded a few years back with producer Beau Bed- ford, Gee is readying the release of The Get Back, the first EP un- der his own name in a dozen years, and has been performing locally. Vanessa Peters Dallas-born singer-songwriter Vanessa Peters is returning to her roots, literally and figuratively, with Flying on Instru- ments, her forthcoming studio LP, arriving Feb. 23. Now based in Italy, Peters brought her European-bred band to Dallas in the spring of 2022, where the collective focused on more folk and pop-flavored songs Peters had written for an earlier project, 2021’s Modern Age. “For this record, we wanted to really hear the band playing to- gether,” Peters said in press materials. “We’re really happy with the way every- thing turned out. Ev- erything feels very direct and honest.” Brigitte Mena While studying at Southern Methodist University, Dallas singer-songwriter Brigitte Mena fo- cused on music and psychology. Those dual interests would later manifest in her gripping pop-rock songs, first found on her 2018 debut Maslow and its follow-up, 2020’s Element. Now Mena is back with her third album, After the Storm, which arrives Feb. 23. “I create a story that is relatable to a wide range of listeners,” Mena said in press materials. “These are songs I think we can all resonate with in one way or another.” Norah Jones North Texas-bred Grammy winner Norah Jones (who stud- ied at Grapevine High School, Booker T. Washington High School for the Performing and Visual Arts and the Univer- sity of North Texas) is back with her first studio album in four years (and her ninth overall), following 2020’s Pick Me Up Off the Floor. In a press release, Jones describes the forthcoming Visions, dropping March 8, as “a vibrant and joyous 12-song set ... about feeling free, wanting to dance, making it right, and acceptance of what life brings.” Thomas Csorba Dallas-based singer-songwriter Thomas Csorba is readying a new LP, Windchimes, for release on April 19. “This record represents the intimacy and heaviness of new beginnings — of the ups and downs in life as a husband, a father, and as someone trying to make a life in music,” Csorba wrote on Facebook. A follow-up to his 2020 self-titled LP, Windchimes was recorded at Fort Worth’s venerable Niles City Sound, with assistance from Robert Ellis and Josh Block. Charley Crockett Keeping pace with the river of material singer-songwriter Charley Crockett unleashes in any given year has been a challenge since his 2015 debut, A Stolen Jewel. “Prolific” al- most seems too modest a descriptor of his output. The Dal- las-reared Crockett kicked off 2024 by announcing the April 26 release of $10 Cowboy, the follow-up to a pair of 2022 efforts (Lil G.L. Presents: Jukebox Charley and The Man from Waco), and his 11th studio album to date. Toadies It’s been a minute since Fort Worth’s Toadies last dropped a studio album — 2017’s The Lower Side of Uptown, to be exact — but that seven-year drought ends in 2024, when Vaden Todd Lewis and his bandmates release The Charmer, which was recorded last summer with renowned producer and en- gineer Steve Albini at his Electrical Audio studio in Chicago. “His recordings of bands are honest; there’s not much in the way of Pro Tools fixing (he records to tape) or studio trick- ery (no Auto-Tune in sight!),” guitarist Clark Vogeler told American Songwriter recently. “It’s mostly just a band in a room with microphones, playing the songs, and that appeals to us at this point.” St. Vincent Whether the Dallas-raised musician known as St. Vincent (aka Annie Clark) musters up a new studio album this year remains to be seen — but Clark is definitely working on ma- terial. It’s been three years since her smartly sleazy record Daddy’s Home, produced in part by Jack Antonoff, was re- leased, and reports surfaced last year that she was collabo- rating in Los Angeles with guitar god Niles Rodgers, who called their session “so real deal f-ing wonderful I’m trying to not lose my mind.” Rachel Parker St. Vincent is one of many North Texas artists working on new music this year. ▼ Music
