Fresh Picks just keeps gettin' fresher.
New this week: a local favorite releases a long-awaited sophomore album, and a longtime KAXE artist looks to Bruce Springsteen's Nebraska to meet today's moment.
For albums, we have the return of Wild Horses with The In Between, another Blue Note banger in Meshell Ndegeocello's Synonym, Mary Gauthier's Nebraska-inspired Reckoning and Greg Freeman's anxious All Set the Bone.
There are three new singles we want you to check out: Zoe's Shanghai's R&B ballad "Big Big Picture," African supergroup Les Amazones d'Afrique's "Ifé," and a jazzy cover of Tia Blake's "I Wish I Was a Single Girl Again" from Dida Pelled.
Then DJ Dang goes into the early days of Patti Smith with Radio Ethiopia in this week's Pick from '76.
Check out this week's suggestions from Music Director Kari Hedlund, Assistant Music Director Malachy Koons and Volunteer Coordinator Dan Gannon.
Albums
Album of the Week: Wild Horses - The In Between
The Wild Horses has spent the last five years on the road. That consistent movement and push became part of the inspiration and muse for The In Between, the second album from the Grand Rapids trio of Jed LaPlant, Ariana LaPlant and Landon Pahl.
The album explores what it means to live in between the highest of highs and the lowest of lows, all wrapped up to make one life.
For the three band members, a lot of life is lived in The In Between, from playing an incredible venue like Red Rocks to coming home to real-life struggles and sacrifices.
The songs reflect that same wide range of experiences. "When I Was Young" and "Sioux Falls" are more reflective and familiar, while "Liar" rips with some gnarly and emotive fiddle work from Ariana.
"Blurried Lines" considers being at a crossroads in life with deep vocals from Jed that feel like a new exploration of sound. "Canyon Song," written and sung by Ariana, is reminiscent of an old cowboy tune, while "Six White Horses" is the tie that binds this collection of songs together. The album closes on a love song, "Worn and Weary Kind," bringing The In Between to a tender finish.
Overall, this second record from the trio shows growth in all ways: their songwriting, their musicianship and their bond as a trio.
Tune into KAXE at 7 p.m. on Tuesday, October 6, to hear The In Between played in its entirety, along with an interview with the band recorded at the KAXE Wild Horses Listening Party at CoHaus in Grand Rapids. Set a reminder, tune in and turn it up as we experience Wild Horses and The In Between together. -KH
Meshell Ndegeocello - Synonym
According to the force of nature that is Ndegeocello, music, like words, can carry the same meaning despite different arrangements.
In the case of her third Blue Note album, Synonym, it means heavily reinterpreted covers of songs from Ja Rule and Ashanti, Bob Dylan, Roberta Flack and Donny Hathaway, The Human League and more.
The genre-spanning selection should give you a good idea of the range.
Even though it might take you until the chorus to recognize the cover, these songs largely deal with love. They carry the same feelings of yearning, tenderness, heartbreak and joy as the originals.
But similar to pulling out the thesaurus to make a sentence pop and truly capture your feelings and personality, the radical interpretations and an all-star guest list make this an album explicitly about queer love, and one that only an artist as uniquely talented as Ndegeocello could make. -MK
Mary Gauthier - Reckoning
Prepare to be crushed. An already soul-crushing songwriter drawing inspiration from Springsteen's Nebraska? It's a fitting template for Gauthier, to the point where if you asked yourself, "Has she not been doing that already?"
At least in the heavy weight of her songs, I'd have to agree with you. Where Bruce reckoned with blue-collar despair in the face of late '70s deindustrialization, Gauthier's Reckoning is intensely modern, painting a bleak picture of masked ICE agents, corrupted Christianity and a world hurtling towards hate. -MK
Greg Freeman - All Set the Bone
The Burlington, Vermont, singer-songwriter is a master at translating 21st-century anxiety into music, through distorted guitars, haunted melodies and verbose cynicism, like "Turn on the radio / The service here is crap / Hear the Christian hearts clank around / Like lobsters in a trap."
All of this is wrapped together into a ramshackle sound that draws from alt-country, hardcore, '90s indie and Neil Young's rambling rock. It works because Freeman's wit and humor, plus the surprising horns and twinkling keys, are enough to counter some of the ever-present unease. -MK
Singles
Zoe's Shanghai - "Big big picture"
From a band that is going to be big big comes this jazzy and soulful R&B ballad, the first taste of an upcoming EP due out December 2026.
Zoe's Shanghai is based in Paris, France. The group is clearly not afraid to take risks, like retiring a groove this good with more than half the song remaining. The band focuses fully on lead singer Zoé Renié Harris as she sings about a love that's lost but could still be found again. -MK
Les Amazones d'Afrique - "Ifé"
From the second the bass and claps start on this one, I am in. The music from the African supergroup changes as the lineup of powerhouse women involved constantly evolves, but the band always makes music that has a pulse and a soul. The bass bookends the song, giving us a push-and-pull tension under layers of electronic and organic instruments. -KH
Dida Pelled - "I Wish I Was a Single Girl Again"
Pelled is a Brooklyn, New York, jazz singer and guitarist whose next album is due Oct. 23, 2026.
Alongside covers of Bob Dylan and Lou Reed, it will also include a large selection of artists Pelled calls "the lost women of song."
Fittingly, the title track and early single comes from elusive cult folk singer Tia Blake. Pelled transforms the delicate and spidery folk song into a Sunday morning coffee cup of jazz-pop. I'm immediately looking forward to what other nuggets she draws attention to on the rest of the album. -MK
Pick From '76
Patti Smith Group - Radio Ethiopia
In her fantastic book Just Kids, Patti Smith describes scraping together enough money to see The Doors and immediately wondering to herself, "Why can't I do that?"
The thought came, despite a lack of musical experience as she watched Jim Morrison writhe and prowl around the stage. Coincidentally, this is how every punk band from then on began!
Radio Ethiopia was the Patti Smith Group's second record, although her debut Horses was credited to only the singer.
Smith recorded with Jack Douglass, a more mainstream producer who had produced albums for Aerosmith and John Lennon. The sound remained crunchy and ecstatic, as heard on tunes like "Ask the Angels" and "Pumping (My Heart)," with Lenny Kaye's guitar riffs screaming into the New York City night.
When your influences are surrealist French poet Arthur Rimbaud, Detroit rockers The MC5 and, of course, the wildly innovative scene popping off at CBGB's back then, things were never going to be "normal".
Smith co-wrote much of the album with bass player Ivan Král as they attempted to craft a more commercial sound. It is safe to say that while the band's attempts at commercial success failed, they continued to build a legacy of Smith's streetwise fever poetry and innovative rock 'n' roll songs, leaving no doubt as to the massive influence the Patti Smith Group has left on artists, musicians and fans worldwide. -DG
