Scott Strickland makes a big leap forward, plus more new Austin records

The video for “L.A.,” the opening track on Scott Strickland’s new self-titled album, is a work of art unto itself. Shot largely on the Pacific coastline alongside the song’s namesake city, the video features dramatic, sweeping images of Strickland strolling the beach and looking out over the waves.

The images underscore the loneliness and longing of the lyrics, which Strickland sings with passion atop an exquisitely spacious piano-based arrangement. It might be the best video, and song, to come out of Austin in the first half of 2022.

Filmed by Strickland and Justin Borja, one of Strickland’s students when he was teaching video and photography classes, the music video was shot during the pandemic. “Airbnb was super cheap because nobody was traveling,” Strickland recalls. They used a drone for wide-view footage, timing their shoots carefully to capture sunset light and mostly empty beaches.

The song makes a statement right from the start about Strickland’s impressive growth. He released back-to-back EPs in 2015 and 2016 shortly after moving here from Nacogdoches, where he’d gone to undergraduate and graduate school at Stephen F. Austin State University. He studied film there while playing in bands on the side, but his move to the Live Music Capital wasn’t motivated by a desire to become a professional musician.

Soon enough, though, he’d formed the Scott Strickland Band and was playing a residency gig at the Four Seasons hotel downtown. They played songs from the EPs, concentrating on material that had a band-oriented vibe. In the meantime, Strickland did some duo recordings with fellow guitarist Eddie Schmidt. But he’d also begun writing more singer-songwriter-oriented material that would become the basis of the self-titled album.

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A turning point came when he hooked up with drummer Michael Ingber and Eric Harrison, co-owners of Studio 601 in South Austin. After recording a demo of his song “Drive All Night” with them, he was sold.

“I was like, ‘This feels amazing, this is exactly what I wanted,’” Strickland recalls. “I really needed some people that I could trust to see my vision through. And it kind of became our vision."

Ingber and Harrison also brought in a ringer in Andrew Nolte, who’s worked on many of their studio projects. A talented string composer and arranger in addition to playing piano, Nolte helped give the album a cinematic feel.

“He came in totally prepared, but he was also receptive” to ideas from the songwriter and producer, Strickland says. “This would not have been a record without him. The way that he feels music, I've never seen anyone do that. And I've never seen his level of dedication, either.”

More:Our Austin360 Artist of the Month feature on Andrew Nolte

The results are apparent throughout the new album, from the strings that swell up on the chorus of “Drawbridge” to the subtle keyboard touches that grace the gorgeous “Skyback” to soulful blues-funk grooves of “Get Out.” It’s a big leap forward for Strickland, and that was by design.

“It’s definitely something where I wanted to push myself, to see what I could do,” he said. “There was something about needing to have this thing be as perfect as it could be, to where I could stand on a platform and say that this is my life's work.”

Due out April 29. Release show April 30 at Stateside at the Paramount. Here’s the video for “L.A.”:

MORE NEW AUSTIN MUSIC

Here’s a look at more local records out this month.

Willie Nelson, 'A Beautiful Time'

The latest from the Austin legend mixes new songs written with producer Buddy Cannon with smartly chosen tunes by other writers (including the Rodney Crowell/Chris Stapleton opener “I’ll Love You Till the Day I Die”), plus a couple of classic covers (Leonard Cohen’s “Tower of Song,” the Beatles’ “With a Little Help From My Friends”).

Due out April 29. Playing April 29-30 at Moody Center and May 1 at Luck TX. Here’s the lyric video for “I’ll Love You Till the Day I Die”:

Buffalo Hunt, 'Ambitions of Ambiguity'

You might know Stephanie Hunt from her circa-2010 roles in the TV shows “Friday Night Lights” and “Californication.” You might be familiar with Nancy & Beth, her musical collaboration with “Will & Grace” actress Megan Mullally. And you might have heard her sister, Phoebe Hunt, a Nashville singer-songwriter who arose from Austin with the Belleville Outfit more than a decade ago.

Now it’s time to get to know Buffalo Hunt, her latest musical project and essentially her solo debut. Not that there aren’t talented contributors: The backing crew on “Ambitions of Ambiguity” includes Shakey Graves (her fiancé) and versatile band the Texas Gentlemen. But the songs are Hunt’s own creations and visions, and her captivating voice carries the emotion through songs that range from artfully angular songcraft (the opening “Life Not on My Terms”) to lushly arranged melodic pop (“Play the Fool”) to psych-tinged surrealism (“Walkin’ in a TV”).

Hunt still has acting projects on the horizon — she has a role in writer-director Joanna Gleason’s upcoming film “The Grotto” — but her increasing focus on music, and specifically her own songs, is a welcome development.

Due out April 29. Release show April 30 at Parish. Here’s the video for “Life Not on My Terms”:

Good Looks, 'Bummer Year'

Press materials distributed by local label Keeled Scales, which released “Bummer Year,” describe Good Looks as a “blue-collar political indie-rock band,” while noting that the quartet’s debut album is “a folk record with genuine Texas twang, built out with the engine of a rock band churning hot, willing to be delicate.” That’s a pretty good description of what you’ll hear on this seven-song release from guitarist-singer Tyler Jordan, guitarist Jake Ames, bassist Robert Cherry and drummer Phillip Dunne.

The “political” side of Good Looks is perhaps most evident in the title track. “I couldn't reconcile how these people I knew to be kind, caring, and good could be swept up in the neo-fascist movement of Donald Trump,” Jordan explains. But he wrote the song not excoriate anyone; “the task at hand is actually about meeting folks where they're at,” he says.

A harrowing update: After the band’s April 8 record release show at Hotel Vegas, Ames was hit by a car and hospitalized with multiple injuries, including a fractured skull and fractured tailbone. He’s since been released from the hospital and is recuperating at home. A crowdfunding page is accepting donations on his behalf, with nearly $60,000 of a $75,000 goal already collected.

Released April 8. Here’s the video for “Almost Automatic”:

Giulia Millanta, 'Woman on the Moon'

On her eighth album, the Austin-via-Italy singer-songwriter worked for the third time with co-producer Gabe Rhodes. The two musicians everything on the album but drums (covered by local aces John Chipman and Rick Richards), weaving together arrangements of acoustic, electric and nylon-string guitars plus piano and bass behind Millanta’s passionate vocals. As on 2020’s “Tomorrow Is a Bird,” the new album supplements Millanta originals with three songs co-written by Rhodes; this time, they add one cover, longtime Austin singer-songwriter Eliza Gilkyson’s “The Way That You Are.”

Released April 8. Playing May 28 at Hyatt Regency. Here’s the opening track, “Mad Man on the Moon”:

Jonny Burke, 'Behind the Pine Curtain'

Burke is quite up-front about his brushes with the law in the chorus of the title track to his new album: “Six months in county and six years in prison,” he sings. Those experiences inform other songs as well, notably “I Cut Off My Ankle Monitor to Be Here” and a cover of the Sonny Curtis classic “I Fought the Law” with Alejandro Escovedo on duet vocals. In press materials accompanying the album, Burke explains that he sought to “explore all the events and circumstances surrounding that time and the people I was around while incarcerated.” Produced by Don Cento, the acoustic-oriented country-folk album includes backing from multi-instrumentalist Scott Davis, upright bassist Will Dupuy, fiddler Cody Braun (of Reckless Kelly) and drummer Josh Blue.

Due out April 26. Here’s the track “Pipe Bomb Dream”:

Freddie Steady Krc, 'Dandy'

A longtime local drummer and singer-songwriter, Krc says he calls these roots-rock/pop tunes primarily written during the time of COVID-10 “prose from the pandemic” or “sonnets from the shutdown.” Three times are newly recorded versions of tunes that previously surfaced with his bands Shakin’ Apostles and Wild Country. Guitarists on “Dandy” include his former Explosives bandmate Cam King, the Lost Gonzo Band’s John Inmon and Commander Cody ace Bill Kirchen; other well-traveled local contributors include keyboardist Floyd Domino, saxophonist John Mills and trumpeter Adrian Ruiz.

Released April 15. Here’s the track “A Place for Me”:

Russel Taine Jr., 'Tales'

It’s a band, not a person, which makes sense once you hear the music, because “Tales” bristles with the kind of rock & roll energy common to classic guitars-bass-drums quartets. This one features frontman Aaron Winston, lead guitarist/backing vocalist Dylan Hill, bassist Justin Winslow and drummer Wes Armstrong. Recorded at Austin studios Orb and Test Tube, “Tales” is the group’s first full-length release, following the 2019 EP “American Dream.” Oh, and about that band name – it does come from a noble place: Russel Taine Jr. was the alias of Winston's journalist grandfather when he covered the cold war from Moscow in the 20th century.

Release date April 29. Release show April 29 at Swan Dive. Here’s the track “Something You Said”:

Also out this month

APRIL 1: Rachel Reese, “Motherland”; Aadm Our Hatley, “Prix Winning Ideas”; Darkbird, “Ballad of a Junebug” EP

APRIL 8: Roxi Copland, “I Come From Crazy” EP

APRIL 15: Robin Mordecai, “Portraits” EP

APRIL 22: Lynn Crossett, “In the Company of a Song”; Joel Mullins, “Mid-Life Crisis”

APRIL 29: Anna Larson, “Dark Bird” EP

Coming soon

MAY 6: Midland, “The Last Resort: Greetings From”

MAY 7: Caleb De Casper, “Femme Boy”

MAY 13: Lyle Lovett, “12th of June”

MAY 20: John Doe, “Fables in a Foreign Land”

MAY 20: Everett Wren, “Porchlight”

MAY 27: Tosca, “Osam”

JUNE 3: Adrian Quesada, “Boleros Psicodélicos”

JUNE 24: Ralph E. White, “It’s More in My Body Than in My Mind”

JULY 29: Eric Johnson, “The Book of Making” and “Yesterday Meets Today”