Best new music: Westerman pines for a big move on ‘Adriatic’

Every week, 88Nine music director Erin Wolf shares a sonic gem she found using her nearly 20 years of new-music exploration experience. You can hear all her discoveries on What’s All This: Adventures in New Music. 

Will Westerman, the U.K.-based synth-y singer-songwriter with the deep voice and penchant for polyrhythms, is back with a single to announce his new album, A Jackal’s Wedding.

“Adriatic” is a delightfully misty-sounding song inspired by Westerman’s recent creative workshopping time in Athens, Greece. The full album was mostly written there, and the lead single covers his disappointment in trying to move to Greece permanently.

“I was trying to break outside of the confines of my immediate physical reality,” he explained before going on to point out that “life is full of practical limitations in terms of having a body, or what you can afford in terms of money. But you can always go to a place in your head where everything is possible, and the song is a celebration of that.”

Even though Greece didn’t work out quite how Westerman imagined, A Jackal’s Wedding should be a good testament to his time spent there and of all the ways a place can get into the cracks and layers of the art one creates. His first new full batch of music since 2023 comes out Nov. 7 on Partisan Records, and you can find him touring on select dates for like-sounded dreamsters Nation of Language (although not the Milwaukee date Sept. 27).

Hear “Adriatic” from Westerman on the latest episode of What’s All This, which you can check out via the player at the top of the page.

Best new indie music this week

• Hand Habits, “Bluebird of Happiness”
• Cut Worms, “Evil Twin”
• good flying birds, “fall away”
• Jobber, “Clothesline From Hell”
• Automatic, “Lazy”
• Westerman, “Adriatic”
• C.Y.M., “Give Me One Night (ft. Cherry Glazerr)”
• bar italia, “Fundraiser”
• Double Wish, “Riptide”
• Delicate Steve, “Light of the World”