Ruby Friedman Orchestra's Latest Album, Chimes After Midnight, Featured in Goldmine
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Ruby Friedman Orchestra’s Latest Album, Chimes After Midnight, Featured in Goldmine
Groundbreaking Artist Ruby Friedman Debuts 10 New Studio Performances On RFO’s Evocative New Album From Label 51 Recordings
Set for Portland Residency At The Showdown Every Thursday Night In January 2026
Tech-House DJ Isaac Wright’s
“Flower Whore” Remix
Rises Up The Charts
Portland, Ore. – Singer, songwriter, composer, producer Ruby Friedman has returned with the long-awaited second album by her Ruby Friedman Orchestra, Chimes After Midnight, an electrifying collection of 10 new songs combining cinematic lyricism with uncanny melodies and Ruby’s unique brand of magical realism.
Tickets are available now at ticketweb.com
Currently, one of the songs on Chimes After Midnight, “Flower Whore,” was released as a remixed single by Tech-House DJ Isaac Wright. Friedman wrote the song, which is a melding of observation and autobiography about “opium, flowers, money, and sex work.” The remix dropped and immediately hit Beatport’s charts, reaching #7 on their Hype Chart and landed in their Top 100 Chart. Wright said, I’m so happy with how it’s turned out!! …Hope you’re ready to cut a rug.”
Listen to
“Flower Whore” (Isaac Wright Radio Edit)
Listen to
Chimes After Midnight
In case you missed it, read on Goldmine.com HERE
Eclectic Discoveries
By TONE Scott
December 10, 2025
RUBY FRIEDMAN ORCHESTRA | Chimes After Midnight
2025, Label 51 Recordings
Genre: Rock / Country / Folk / Pop Style: Americana, Alt-Country, Alt-Pop, Folk Rock, Psychedelic
Futuristic, retrospective, mainstream, underground, pop appeal, punk rock frame of mind, eclectic though undiscriminating is the overall outlook of the musical ideologies of Ruby Friedman and her ensemble, The Ruby Friedman Orchestra. Friedman’s musical blossoms are a bouquet of sounds combined and grown from seeding herself in, and surrounding herself with various musical cultures and habitats. From the musical stomping grounds of New York City, to the deeply rooted sonic geography of New Orleans, to the music capital of the world, Los Angeles, to music-rich Portland, Oregon, Friedman has garnered her unique sound from unique life experiences. From as early as 2011, the artist has been creating and seeding her sound into the musical ethers, when she began recording and releasing various singles just two years after forming the Ruby Friedman Orchestra. When the artist was asked to describe the RFO’s core doctrine, she would respond, “The concept was: What would it sound like if a band from 200 years in the future wanted to do music from the 20th century? What would that sound like? So that’s what it sounds like: It’s an orchestra from the future, doing the past,” exclaimed Ruby.
The band built up its reputation for incendiary live performances, cutting their teeth at some of Los Angeles’ most notable performance venues. From the Troubadour to the Viper Room; from the House of Blues to The Federal; from Hotel Cafe to The Echoplex, the RFO’s reputation grew rapidly amongst L.A. music goers and helped to create a perpetually greater demand for their music outside of just a live music setting. A 2015 EP, Song of the Demimonde, would kick off their studio album journey, with the band’s first full-length, GEM (2016, Pulchrum) in tow, released just a year later. Between that first album and now, various additional single releases would lace the band’s discography; however, it is now, having fatefully collided with the powers that be at Label 51 Recordings, that the band’s current and official sophomore release, Chimes After Midnight, has landed to the pleasure of an uncountable amount of fans, Goldmine being one.
Chimes After Midnight is chock-full of 10 original full-length compositions of impressively unique-sounding material, ready to expand your musical palate. To keep the review thorough yet concise for the sake of the read, Goldmine, as usual, has chosen four selections from the record that will collectively present a general overview of what to expect when diving deep into this insanely cutting-edge album.
“From the Storm” — Get ready for a sonic ride with the album’s third song in the sequence. Take the best of southern rock, Americana, alt-country & alt-pop, with a psychedelic undertone; put it in a blender, and there you go. Above all of this, put Friedman’s vocal delivery and absolutely divine tonality above it like a cherry on top, and you have a song that will absolutely blow you away (at least it did for us). The orchestration is over-the-top and the production, immaculate; and though the two preceding tracks are out of this world, this is where the album really begins to show the depth of the artist’s capabilities and her tendency to scorn the norm. This may be Goldmine’s favorite RFO track, ever.
“Four Day Muse” — This undeniably gorgeous ballad provides a much-needed shift in the sonic path of the album. Friedman’s vocals, her tone, her delivery, and her emotive contribution are massive elements that are the catalysts for fully conveying the song’s core message. Nevertheless, the injection of her orchestra’s insanely perfect sonic contributions solidifies the reason that this song is so monumental. It is difficult to express just how unbelievably impactful this selection is to the absolute brilliance of the album as a whole. It seems like they only wrote songs with this much depth back in times that precede most of the new millennium garbage that inundates us today. And for that, we thank the artist for being … well, an artist, in every sense of the word. She is an incredibly profound songwriter, as well as co-writer, Nicholas Allan Johns, and this proves it.
“The Book Woman’s Daughter” — With a minimalistic approach to production and orchestration, this is a brilliant, rudimentary songwriting and production when you juxtapose it against the rest of the album’s offerings. Putting all that aside, it was immaculately arranged in just a way to convey the song as planned (or so it seems). It is, in part, archaic, exemplifying an iconic foundational Appalachian-styled country song that will attract any Baby Boomer, yet infusing it with enough pop appeal for any Gen-Z’er who dares to experience real American-born music. This just goes to fortify why Goldmine holds the Ruby Friedman Orchestra in such high esteem.
Label 51 Recordings has not just released one of the best albums of 2025 (in our most humble and experienced opinions), but it has conveyed the fact that they understand what the world needs with regard to music, period. They have made Chimes After Midnight available in two ways: First, on a beautifully pressed red & black marbled vinyl LP, housed in a stout gatefold album cover that resounds with absolute divinity. Second, for those fanatics of digital physical media, the compact disc variant will satisfy your physical and digital cravings to the hilt. We can’t get enough of this record … neither will you. Take the plunge.
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