Day: November 1, 2021

Sam Weber announces new album Get Free

Sam Weber’s new album Get Free will be out February 4, 2022. Courtesy photo, used with permission.

Sam Weber has already logged more miles as a gigging musician than most of his peers will in a lifetime, earning enviable accolades along the way. He first picked up the guitar at age 12 to form a rock ’n’ roll band with his father and brother in the living room of their family home. Sixteen years later, having collaborated with Grammy winners and with extensive international tours under his belt, the Canadian-born Los Angeleno goes forth with the same intention and mantra as when he began: “Music is an emotional conduit between people and allows us the opportunity to share moments of truth and unity. In an age where the ritual of music-making can be a solitary exercise, I want to live my life to remind everyone that playing music as a communal and spontaneous practice can be healing and powerful.” His new album Get Free will be out February 4, 2022 via Sonic Unyon Records. (Sam Weber, 2021)

Sam Weber’s storied exodus from his homeland of Canada to find new footing and opportunity in America resonates like a classic story of pain, loss, and rebirth. That narrative thread is woven throughout his new record, Get Free, offering a warm, intimate, and multidimensional portrait of the 28-year-old singer-songwriter. With this new collection of material, Weber reaches fresh emotional depths, commanding more expressive personal moments than ever before—at times within the margins of a single verse. Weber gave fans an early look into Get Free ahead of its February 4 release with “Money,” a breezy, piano-meets-fuzz bass rocker seemingly about what it means to grow up and be faced with the need to leave Neverland—or at least the non-fictional equivalent of it. Fans can hear “Money” now at this link and pre-order or pre-save Get Free ahead of its release right here. Weber also recently shared with his fans a lyric video for album track “Here’s To The Future.”

Following the success of 2019’s Everything Comes True—which was recorded live-off-the-floor in the iconic B room at Hollywood’s Ocean Way Studios—Weber ended up taking a necessarily-different route with Get Free. “I wrote most of this music before the lockdown happened,” he says. “We wanted to go into another beautiful L.A. studio with another super band to record these new songs, but when all the plugs got pulled, we were sort of left holding nothing but the material. My partner Mallory Hauser was keen to rally and share production duties with me to make the most of what we had, which was liberating somehow: to have this logistical ceiling on how we could record or approach these songs in our living room. We were forced to be as creative as possible with what we had. I think it was the best thing that could have happened to us.” Mallory Hauser is a solo artist in her own right, performing and releasing music under the name Mal. The two met in Los Angeles in 2018.

Weber and Hauser tapped Grammy-nominated engineer Robbie Lackritz (Feist, Bahamas) to mix the album, having collaborated with him on the Juno-nominated Bahamas album Sad Hunk. “I really love [Get Free], don’t get me wrong…but it sort of sounds janky…in a good way! Because our only option was to make it in our house, it gave us permission to let it be what was going to be and not get wrapped up in the details, and in turn, I think that allowed the veil between the performances and the hearts of each song to be very thin. Robbie sort of saved the record fidelity-wise; we gave him some questionable rough mixes with the room mics cranked up so loud. What we got back sounded way rad.”

Certain songs contain a particular sense of grandness across Weber’s recorded catalog. Moments that feel lofty, yet devoid of pretentiousness. With more of these moments present and tangible on Get Free than any other of his releases, the listener can effectively observe Sam’s emancipation. With this record, he assumes a creative identity unique to himself.

2022-02-04T13:38:00

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Get Free release date

Book review: ‘The Decarbonization Imperative’ by Michael Lenox and Rebecca Duff

Michael Lenox, co-author of ‘The Decarbonization Imperative.’ Photo:google

Michael Lenox is the Tayloe Murphy Professor of Business Administration at the University of Virginia’s Darden School of Business. He is the coauthor of “Can Business Save the Earth? Innovating Our Way to Sustainability” and “The Strategist’s Toolkit.” Rebecca Duff is Senior Research Associate with the Batten Institute at the University of Virginia’s Darden School of Business. She also serves as the managing director for Darden’s Business Innovation and Climate Change Initiative. They are co-authors of the new book “The Decarbonization Imperative: Transforming the Global Economy by 2050,” where they offer readers ways to effectively “decarbonize” the global economy by 2050 if we are going to avoid the worst effects of climate change.

Photo: amazon

“The Decarbonization Imperative” begins with the Preface where the authors state that the objective of the book is to examine what needs to be done to lessen the worst impacts of climate change by radically reducing our carbon footprint. One way to accomplish this is by requiring innovations across a wide number of industrial sectors that will result in cleaner industries that do not emit greenhouse gases. The main challenge lies in radically reducing net greenhouse gas emissions to zero by 2050. They analyze emerging clean technologies in five major sectors: energy, transportation, industrials, buildings, and agriculture and end by providing technology policy to get the world to this goal. The process of achieving this goal is referred to as “decarbonization.” This book is divided into chapters that individually examine each sector and what can be done to pave the way to cleaner industries. These chapters are The Path to 2050, The Energy Sector, The Transportation Sector, The Industrials Sector, The Buildings Sector, The Agriculture Sector, and The Path Forward. The Notes section at the end has notes on each individual chapter.

Over the years, climate change has become a deeper subject of conversation as we see each summer get hotter than the last. Michael Lenox and Rebecca Duff do not waste time trying to convince readers about the validity of climate change and only briefly address it in the section ‘The Looming Crisis’ in Chapter 1: “Since the beginning of the industrial age, human activity-in particular, the burning of fossil fuels-has increased the concentration of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.” According to them, climate change is “a malignant force that will reshape our economy and society for generations to come.” With this said, the rest of the book is concentrated on finding ways to achieve the all-elusive and radical decarbonization necessary to make a difference. Highlights include Chapter 7 The Path Forward where it states that we need all hands on board to get this done and Figure 7.3 Summary of Sector-Based Technology Policy which summarizes how each industry can make a difference. The subject matter can get complicated and the language is more advanced than usual, but Lenox and Duff manage to make it accessible to the average reader. With extensive research and knowledge of the environment and the various sectors, they provide possible solutions to what is rapidly become a major issue. “The Decarbonization Imperative” is a must-read for readers who are genuinely concerned about climate change as well as heads of industry who understand that changes must be implemented but are unsure where to start.

*The author received a copy of this book for an honest review. The views and opinions expressed here belong solely to her.

Rating: 4 out of 5.

Upcoming new book releases: November

‘The Sentence’ by Louise Erdirch. Photo: amazon

A new month means new books on the horizon. These are some notable new releases for the month of November in my favorite categories: Fiction, Young Adult, History & Biography, Mystery & Thriller, Science fiction, Fantasy, and Historical Fiction. My pick for this month is “The Sentence” by Louise Erdrich because I enjoy reading anything to do with books and bookstores. (amazon, Goodreads, 2021)

Fiction:
“The Sentence” by Louise Erdrich
Release date: November 9, 2021
Louise Erdrich’s latest novel, “The Sentence,” asks what we owe to the living, the dead, to the reader and to the book. A small independent bookstore in Minneapolis is haunted from November 2019 to November 2020 by the store’s most annoying customer. Flora dies on All Souls’ Day, but she will not leave the store. Tookie, who has landed a job selling books after years of incarceration that she survived by reading with murderous attention, must solve the mystery of this haunting while at the same time trying to understand all that occurs in Minneapolis during a year of grief, astonishment, isolation, and furious reckoning.

Young Adult:
“Gilded” by Marissa Meyer
Release date: November 2, 2021
Long ago cursed by the god of lies, a poor miller’s daughter has developed a talent for spinning stories that are fantastical and spellbinding and entirely untrue. Or so everyone believes. When one of Serilda’s outlandish tales draws the attention of the sinister Erlking and his undead hunters, she finds herself swept away into a grim world where ghouls and phantoms prowl the earth and hollow-eyed ravens track her every move. The king orders Serilda to complete the impossible task of spinning straw into gold, or be killed for telling falsehoods. In her desperation, Serilda unwittingly summons a mysterious boy to her aid. He agrees to help her, for a price. Love is not meant to be part of the bargain.

History & Biography:
“The 1619 Project: A New Origin Story” by Nikole Hannah-Jones (Editor)
Release date: November 16, 2021
A dramatic expansion of a groundbreaking work of journalism, “The 1619 Project: A New Origin Story” offers a profoundly revealing vision of the American past and present. In late August 1619, a ship arrived in the British colony of Virginia bearing a cargo of twenty to thirty enslaved people from Africa. Their arrival led to the barbaric and unprecedented system of American chattel slavery that would last for the next 250 years. This is sometimes referred to as the country’s original sin, but it is more than that: It is the source of so much that still defines the United States. This new book substantially expands on the original 1619 Project, weaving together eighteen essays that explore the legacy of slavery in present-day America with thirty-six poems and works of fiction that illuminate key moments of oppression, struggle, and resistance.

Mystery & Thriller:
“Never” by Ken Follett
Release date: November 9, 2021
In the Sahara Desert, two elite intelligence agents are on the trail of a powerful group of drug-smuggling terrorists, risking their lives–and, when they fall desperately in love, their careers–at every turn. Nearby, a beautiful young widow fights against human traffickers while traveling illegally to Europe with the help of a mysterious man who may not be who he says he is.

Science Fiction:
“Leviathan Falls” by James S.A. Corey
Release date: November 30, 2021
The Laconian Empire has fallen, setting the thirteen hundred solar systems free from the rule of Winston Duarte. But the ancient enemy that killed the gate builders is awake, and the war against our universe has begun again. In the dead system of Adro, Elvi Okoye leads a desperate scientific mission to understand what the gate builders were and what destroyed them, even if it means compromising herself and the half-alien children who bear the weight of her investigation. Through the wide-flung systems of humanity, Colonel Aliana Tanaka hunts for Duarte’s missing daughter and the shattered emperor himself. And on the Rocinante, James Holden and his crew struggle to build a future for humanity out of the shards and ruins of all that has come before.

Fantasy:
“Star Mother” by Charlie N. Holmberg
Release date: November 1, 2021
When a star dies, a new one must be born. The Sun God chooses the village of Endwever to provide a mortal womb. The birthing of a star is always fatal for the mother, and Ceris Wenden, who considers herself an outsider, sacrifices herself to secure her family’s honor and take control of her legacy. But after her star child is born, Ceris does what no other star mother has: she survives. When Ceris returns to Endwever, however, it is not nine months later—it is seven hundred years later. Inexplicably displaced in time, Ceris is determined to seek out her descendants.

Historical Fiction:
“The London House” by Katherine Reay
Release date: November 2, 2021
Uncovering a dark family secret sends one woman through the history of Britain’s World War II spy network and glamorous 1930s Paris to save her family’s reputation. Caroline Payne thinks it is just another day of work until she receives a call from Mat Hammond, an old college friend and historian. But pleasantries are cut short. Mat has uncovered a scandalous secret kept buried for decades: In World War II, Caroline’s British great-aunt betrayed family and country to marry her German lover. Determined to find answers and save her family’s reputation, Caroline flies to her family’s ancestral home in London. But Caroline must choose whether to embrace a love of her own and proceed with caution if her family’s decades-old wounds are to heal without tearing them even further apart.