It’s a good bet lately that when I initially scoff at the news of a new release, you should place your bets against me. Cases in point:
Me, scoffing: “Dave Alvin’s doing a psych-rock album? Smells desperate. Reality: I can’t believe I’ve played this five times in three days. (Note: it’s also a covers album, which is something that always both intrigues me and smells funny, but Alvin and his Campers knock all but the 13th Floor Elevators tune out of the box.)
Me, scoffing: “A Moses Sumney double-album? I couldn’t get through one last time–too sensitive for me. Reality: He’s on some serious new shit.
Me, scoffing: “Two Princess Nokia albums at once? She couldn’t quite sell an EP last time, and who does she think she is, Axl Rose? Bruce Springsteen? Reality: Dude, do you even remember 1992?
Me, scoffing: “Do we really need another complaining grrrrl punk outfit that didn’t check that other acts are called Mr. Wrong? Reality: YES.
I could end up having been correct on my first impulse, but I doubt it. Nothing below’s been FULLY road-tested but the top seven.
Gil Scott-Heron and Makaya McCraven: Weâre New AgainâA Reimagining
Kesha: High Road
Grimes: Miss Anthropocene
Fat Tony and Taydex:Wake Up
Various Artists: New Improvised Music from Buenos Aires
Princess Nokia: Everything Sucks
The Good Ones: RWANDA, you should be loved
K Michelle: All Monsters are Human
The Third Mind: The Third Mind
Mr. Wrong: Create a Place
Princess Nokia: Everything is Beautiful
Moses Sumney: grae
Mythic Sunshine: Changing ShapesâLive at Roadburn
Denzel Curry & Kenny Beats: UNLOCKED
Jennifer Curtis & Tyshawn Sorey: Invisible Ritual
Shopping: All for Nothing
Natural Child: California Hotel
Etran de LâAir: Music from Saharan WhatsApp, Volume 1 (EP)
MONO: Before The Past
Swamp Dogg: Sorry You Couldnât Make It
Colin Stetson: Color Out of Space (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack)
Various Artists: Soul Jazz Records Presents Black RiotâEarly Jungle, Rave, and Hardcore
Wayne Phoenix: Soaring Wayne Phoenix Story The Earth
Moses Boyd: Dark Matter
Oumou Diabate et Kara Show Koumba Frifri: Music from Saharan WhatsApp, Volume 2 (EP)
Shoulda waited a day to post last time: turns out Friday was a pretty good one for new music, good enough for me to cobble together a 2020 Top 10 list! You can all breathe a sigh of relief for me! And maybe for the year, because 2019 was a hard act to follow.
I’m not saying these are all just freakin’ stellar, not just yet–I have simply actively enjoyed these to the tune of at least two reps. I am Halsey novice and am frankly under the influence of Hannah Ewen’s FANGIRLS chapter on her. Apparently, Kesha’s on some throwback shit, but that album makes me happy. The new album by crafty Texan Terry Allen isn’t enough like Moby Dick to avoid slightly disappoint me, but–a lot like Michael Hurley–Allen zings you several times right as you’re about to nod off. This is the third iteration of GSH’s final recordings–it’s already been reimagined once–but McCraven’s magic makes it the best. The Buenos Aires recordings were released in late 2019, so I’m cheating–but dang they’re good! Chris Kirkley has 11 more Saharan WhatsApp EPs, one per month, coming our way. I think Fat Tony is the most underrated rapper in America, but I lean more toward words and concept than beats and flow. Shopping’s other albums didn’t really move me completely, but their Pylon-cum-Gang of Four actually has me wanting to (wanting to) dance this time–dance in the dumpster fire. Full disclosure: my history of personal interactions with Natural Child, newly emerged from a chastening that led to a hiatus and that I trust they took seriously, probably causes me to overrate them, but their return is much less bland and much more weird than their previous two records. The mercurial music scribe Phil Freeman’s morning tweet about previously-unknown-to-me Mythic Sunship delivered a tenth item…and Bob Xgau’s your uncle:
Gil Scott-Heron and Makaya McCraven: We’re New Again–A Reimagining
Kesha: High Road
Fat Tony and Taydex: Wake Up
Various Artists: New Improvised Music from Buenos Aires
Shopping: All for Nothing
Mythic Sunship: Changing Shapes–Live at Roadburn
Natural Child: California Hotel
Etran de L’Air: Music from Saharan WhatsApp, Volume 1 (EP) (hear the whole thing above)
MONO: Before The Past
(Tie) Terry Allen and The Panhandle Mystery Band: Just Like Moby Dick / Halsey: Manic
I’ve been pickin’ at my “Best Records of 2019” list like an itchy scab. Just can’t leave the damn thing alone. If you click on that link, you’ll see I’ve added some items (bold-faced), including a few that are fairly high up the list. For many of the augmentations, I have the indefatigable Glenn Boothe and Keith Artin to thank: their “Village Voice Pazz & Jop Rip-Off Poll”–1,122 members strong just a second ago–opened everyone’s eyes up to excellent slabs they hadn’t heard before, and I hope they make it a tradition. Also–this happens when you’re a long-lister–I forgot to list two albums that I respectively loved and really liked and played many times: 75 Dollar Bill’s I Was Real and 86-going-on-16 folkfunk originator Bobby Rush’s Sitting on Top of The Blues.
But. That ain’t what this is about! To grease the reader’s wheels for test-driving some of this stuff, I’ve created two YouTube playlists. The first highlights great tracks from my favorite 25 releases, with one exception: since Joe McPhee and the DKV Trio’s explosive box set of live recordings doesn’t currently have a reasonable video available on YouTube, I replaced it by a great single that wasn’t attached to an album–I’ll let you figure that out. The second gathers a track a piece from 10 albums that just got on the list at the last minute (that’s almost literal). Enjoy!
185 really good-to-really great albums of new music. 60 laudable issuings of music recorded in another time. That, my friends, is an embarrassment of riches. Now: if that will rub off on general citizenship, good cheer, charming self-effacement, and energized civic action, we’ll be cooking with gas here.
My Album-Loverâs Honor Roll for 2019 â The Final Unscrolling
(bolded items are new additions to the list)
The Straight and Bent Aâs:
Little Simz: Grey Area
Purple Mountains: Purple Mountains
Jamila Woods: Legacy! Legacy!
Junius Paul: Ism
Rapsody: Eve
Billie Eilish: WHEN WE ALL FALL ASLEEP, WHERE DO WE GO?
Chance The Rapper: The Big Day
Byron Asher: Byron Asherâs Skrontch Music
Freddie Gibbs & Madlib: Bandana
Snotty Nose Rez Kids: Trapline
Royal Trux: White Stuff
Ezra Furman: Twelve Nudes
Laurie Anderson, Tenzin Choegyal, Jesse Paris Smith: Songs from The Bardo
Peter Perrett: Humanworld
Yugen Blakrok: Anima Mysterium
Mexstep: Resistir
Mdou Moctar: Ilana (The Creator)
Danny Brown: uknowwhutimsayin
Tomeka Reid Quartet: Old New
J Balvin & Bad Bunny: OASIS
DKV and Joe McPhee: The Fire Each Time
Lightning Bolt: Sonic Citadel
Tanya Tucker: While Iâm Livinâ
Billy Woods & Kenny Segal: Hiding Places
EARTHGANG: Mirrorland
The Tragically Flawed A- Team:
75 Dollar Bill: I Was Real
Sheer Mag: A Distant Call
Dumb: Club Nites
Jeffrey Lewis: Bad Wiring
Raphael Saadiq: Jimmy Lee
Young Thug: So Much Fun
Kel Assouf: Black Tenere
James Brandon Lewis: An Unruly Manifesto
Gard Nilssen Acoustic Unity: To Whom Who Buys A Record
Teodross Avery: After the RainâA Night for Coltrane
Various Artists: Total Solidarity
Lana Del Rey: Norman F***ing Rockwell
Zonal (featuring Moor Mother): Wrecked
Control Top: Covert Contracts
Lizzo: Cuz I Love You
Ifriqiyya Electrique: Laylet El Boore
Elza Soares: Planeta Fome
Abdullah Ibrahim: The Balance
Damon Locks / Black Monument Ensemble: Where Future Unfolds
Andres: Andres IV
Denzel Curry: Zuu
Pere Ubu: The Long Goodbye
Rod Wave: Ghetto Gospel
Eddy Current Suppression Ring: All in Good Time
Dave: PSYCHODRAMA
Moor Mother: Analog Fluids of Sonic Black Holes
Various Artists: The Final BattleâSly & Robbie vs. Roots Radics
Rocket 808: Rocket 808
2 Chainz: Rap or Go to the League
Planchettes: The Truth
Joel Ross: Kingmaker
JME: Grime MC
I Jahbar: Inna Duppy SKRS Soundclash
Lee Scratch Perry: Rainford
Bill Orcutt: Odds Against Tomorrow
Joe McPhee / John Butcher: At the Hill of James Magee
Tyler Childers: Country Squire
Pat Thomas, Dominic Lash, and Tony Orrell: Bleyschool
Seems like every music blog, website, and critic’s doing one of these, so I might as well, too. I dove into it expecting results much different than I came up with. These are the records from this decade I’ve played the most often with the most delight, simple as that.
2010
Pierced Arrows: Descending Shadows
Elizabeth Cook: Welder
M.I.A.: Maya
2011
Polystyrene: Generation Indigo
Wussy: Strawberry
2013
Live from Festival au Desert Timbuktu
Martha Redbone Roots Project: The Garden of Love: Songs of William Blake
Mariem Hassan: El AaiĂșn Egdat
Bassekou Kouyate & Ngoni ba: Jama Ko
Jason Isbell: SoutheasternÂ
2014
Wussy: Attica!
Withered Hand: New Gods
Young Thug and Bloody Jay: Black Portland
Willie Nelson and Sister Bobbie: December Day
Chris Butler: Easy Life
2015
Joe McPhee and Paal Nilssen-Love: Candy
Kendrick Lamar: To Pimp a Butterfly
Jeffrey Lewis & Los Bolts: Manhattan
Jinx Lennon: 30 Beacons of Light for a Land Full of Spite, Thugs, Drug Slugs, and Energy Vampires
John Kruth: The Drunken Wind of Life: The Poem/Songs of Tin Ujevic
Miguel: Wildheart
79rs Gang: Fire on the Bayou
Africa Express: Terry Rileyâs In C â Mali
2016
A Tribe Called Quest: We Got It From Here
Jinx Lennon: Past Pupil Stay Sane
Rihanna: Anti
Beyonce: Lemonade
Elza Soares: Woman at the End of the World
Saul Williams: Martyr Loser King
Solange: A Seat at the Table
2017
Mount Eerie: A Crow Looked at Me
Princess Nokia: 1992
Orchestra Baobab: Tribute to Ndiouga Dieng
Zeal & Ardor: Devil is Fine
JLin: Black Origami
Preservation Hall Jazz Band: So It Is
Various Artists: Miracle Steps (Music from The Fourth World 1983-2017)
I’m making no bones about it: we did not do a good job living as humans with other humans this year. Not. At. All. I really didn’t expect to turn 57 and come to the conclusion that, despite reading, enjoying, and occasionally subscribing to the viewpoint of many cynics and curmudgeons, I have been naive. A lot of us dig fascism as a possible salve on our fear. It’s hard to know how many, but even a big little is a lot.
I ain’t going into the nooks and crannies of that now, though. 2019’s music-makers responded with some very convincing aural evidence that we can actually do a very transcendent job working, playing, speaking, and listening to each other, and–especially–calling on us to be our best possible selves, rather than wallow in self-pity and misguided resentment. If the music that was produced this year is a real representation of who we are, how we feel, and what we want, then the hate-wave is operating on borrowed time.
Remember: naive at 57.
Anyway, I endorse all the albums below as interesting. Also, please note my somewhat half-hearted grading scale. And think about sending the artists the most money you can and just buying physical media to defy Marie Kondo. You know she’s marketing a bunch of worthless shit to fill your houses with, don’t you? Seriously: we’re not all grifters, especially the folks that made this stuff…
My Album-Loverâs Honor Roll for 2019 — THE FINAL COUNTDOWN
(bolded items are new additions to the ongoing list)
For those that need a harness on this burgeoning list:
1-10: Straight A (no A+ record this year)
11-66: A-
67-118: B+
119-170: B (and a B is still a good record)
Little Simz: Grey Area
Purple Mountains: Purple Mountains
Jamila Woods: Legacy! Legacy!
Junius Paul: Ism
Rapsody: Eve
Billie Eilish: WHEN WE ALL FALL ASLEEP, WHERE DO WE GO?
Chance The Rapper: The Big Day
Byron Asher: Byron Asherâs Skrontch Music
Freddie Gibbs & Madlib: Bandana
Snotty Nose Rez Kids: Trapline
Royal Trux: White Stuff
EARTHGANG: Mirrorland
Ezra Furman: Twelve Nudes
Laurie Anderson, Tenzin Choegyal, Jesse Paris Smith: Songs from The Bardo
Peter Perrett: Humanworld
Yugen Blakrok: Anima Mysterium
Mexstep: Resistir
Mdou Moctar: Ilana (The Creator)
Danny Brown: uknowwhutimsayin
Pere Ubu: The Long Goodbye
J Balvin & Bad Bunny: OASIS
DKV and Joe McPhee: The Fire Each Time
Lightning Bolt: Sonic Citadel
MARK LOMAX, II: Afrika United (one part of a box setâif itâs all this good, woah!)
Sheer Mag: A Distant Call
Dumb: Club Nites
Billy Woods & Kenny Segal: Hiding Places
Jeffrey Lewis: Bad Wiring
Raphael Saadiq: Jimmy Lee
Young Thug: So Much Fun
Kel Assouf: Black Tenere
James Brandon Lewis: An Unruly Manifesto
Gard Nilssen Acoustic Unity: To Whom Who Buys A Record
Teodross Avery: After the RainâA Night for Coltrane
Various Artists: Total Solidarity
Lana Del Rey: Norman F***ing Rockwell
Zonal: Wrecked
Control Top: Covert Contracts
Lizzo: Cuz I Love You
Tanya Tucker: While Iâm Livinâ
Ifriqiyya Electrique: Laylet El Boore
Elza Soares: Planeta Fome
Abdullah Ibrahim: The Balance
Damon Locks / Black Monument Ensemble: Where Future Unfolds
Andres: Andres IV
Denzel Curry: Zuu
Rod Wave: Ghetto Gospel
Eddy Current Suppression Ring:All in Good Time
Dave: PSYCHODRAMA
Moor Mother: Analog Fluids of Sonic Black Holes
Various Artists: The Final BattleâSly & Robbie vs. Roots Radics
Rocket 808: Rocket 808
2 Chainz: Rap or Go to the League
Joel Ross: Kingmaker
JME: Grime MC
I Jahbar: Inna Duppy SKRS Soundclash
Lee Scratch Perry: Rainford
Bill Orcutt: Odds Against Tomorrow
Joe McPhee / John Butcher: At the Hill of James Magee
Tyler Childers: Country Squire
Pat Thomas, Dominic Lash, and Tony Orrell: Bleyschool
*Saw a warm, witty, and wise “Wussy Duo” house show here in Columbia, Missouri, at Botts Manor. All I asked was that they sing three of their several incandescent songs (“Beautiful,” “Maglite,” and “Acetylene”–I got all those plus a t-shirt) and just be as perfectly imperfect as they are at their best. We’d seen the Bottle Rockets earlier this fall at another house show, and really dug it, so keep your eyes open for such things.
*Read several terrific music books, but experiencing Beastie Boys Book for the second time when my wife downloaded its audiobook equivalent sent us both on a Beastie Boys / Run DMC / ATCQ / Biz Markie jam-out when we made about 65 tamales for Thanksgiving.
Also, Will Ashon’s Chamber Music: Wu-Tang and America (in 36 Pieces) broke my mind into 36 pieces as he took me on a deep dive into The Clan’s debut album, a plunge which features incisive commentary from a former teacher of mine (Sundiata Cha-Jua), a primer on Shaw Brothers kung-fu flicks and their specific influence on The Wu that has me drooling (many are available on Amazon “You Fucking Bastards” Prime), and several heroic attempts to reinterpret the least savory aspects of that release (torture, anyone?). One of my favorite chapters simply capsule-summarizes 36 Shaw Brothers (and related) flicks to tear-inducingly comedic effect. Wait! Isn’t Ashon a white dude? A white dude writing a 300-plus-page disquisition (even though it’s not a 33 & 1/3 publication, it’s one of the best in doing what those usually try and fail to do) on THE WU-TANG CLAN???? Yep, and he’s well aware of the thin ice, doesn’t quite fall through it, and straightforwardly acknowledges it. RECOMMENDED, actually.
*”Are you still hooked on Will ‘Dr. Evil’ Friedwald‘s pop singing criticism,” I hear you asking. Why yes I am–so glad you inquired! I’ve previously blathered about Friedwald’s The Great Jazz and Pop Vocal Albums, which I’m actually not even finished with, and this month I tipped on in to his pretty mammoth A Biographical Guide to the Great Jazz and Pop Singers, which set me on a quest to more deeply acquaint myself with the recorded works of three eccentrics: the Ellingtonian Al Hibbler, the quirky and multi-talented seductress Eartha Kitt, and the “is-he-a-POC-or-isn’t he?” (see the seldom-seen documentary of his life) Herb Jeffries. Twenty years ago, I probably would have thought aficionados of such singers were perhaps a bit uptight, when in actuality it was me who needed to get loose. That being said, I was wise enough about ten years ago to become a rabid fan of Jeffries’ twilight-time release The Bronze Buckaroo (Rides Again), and if I hadn’t become enough of a fan of Friedwald’s already, his Biographical Guide passage about this record clinched it. I’d never read anything about it that matched my passion for it, and Friedwald might as well have been taking dictation from my heart:
*Oh, and for shits and giggles and because I feel I’m blog-cheating by just listing records I like without commentary, I decided to break down my list and GRADE THEM like a real teacher should(n’t). I’m not gonna belabor this, but an A is an album I’ve played over and over in a short period of time with great pleasure, and that, as a whole, works; an A- I’ve also played several times, may feature a couple bum tracks, but will stay in my collection in physical form and ride with me in the cab of my truck; a B+ is damn good–at least 66.6% of its tracks are–but I don’t need to hold, study, and fondle it; and a B is something that is GOOD–just GOOD–but has a couple dynamite cuts on it or projects a personality I want to stay at least electronically acquainted with.
Will anyone unseat Little Simz? And didn’t I keep Tracey Thorn on the throne almost all year last year, too? Am I an Anglophile? A gynophile (izzat even a word)? Well. If something out there doesn’t get a little better soon, a dead dude’s gonna top my chart. ‘Nuff said on that.
My Album-Loverâs Honor Roll for 2019 (as of November 30, 2019)
(bolded items are new additions to the ongoing list)
(âAâs or 9.5-10/10s)
Little Simz: Grey Area
Purple Mountains: Purple Mountains
Various Artists: A Day in the LifeâImpressions of Pepper*
Jamila Woods: Legacy! Legacy!
Junius Paul: Ism
Rapsody: Eve
Billie Eilish: WHEN WE ALL FALL ASLEEP, WHERE DO WE GO?
Chance The Rapper: The Big Day
Byron Asher: Byron Asherâs Skrontch Music
Freddie Gibbs & Madlib: Bandana
(âA-âs or 9.0-9.4999/10s)
Royal Trux: White Stuff
Laurie Anderson, Tenzin Choegyal, Jesse Paris Smith: Songs from The Bardo
Peter Perrett: Humanworld
Yugen Blakrok: Anima Mysterium
Mexstep: Resistir
Mdou Moctar: Ilana (The Creator)
Danny Brown: uknowwhutimsayin
Pere Ubu: The Long Goodbye
J Balvin & Bad Bunny: OASIS
DKV and Joe McPhee: The Fire Each Time
Lightning Bolt: Sonic Citadel
Sheer Mag: A Distant Call
Billy Woods & Kenny Segal: Hiding Places
Jeffrey Lewis: Bad Wiring
Raphael Saadiq: Jimmy Lee
Young Thug: So Much Fun
Kel Assouf: Black Tenere
James Brandon Lewis: An Unruly Manifesto
Teodross Avery: After the RainâA Night for Coltrane
Various Artists: Total Solidarity
Lana Del Rey: Norman F***ing Rockwell
Control Top: Covert Contracts
Lizzo: Cuz I Love You
Elza Soares: Planeta Fome
Abdullah Ibrahim: The Balance
Damon Locks / Black Monument Ensemble: Where Future Unfolds
Denzel Curry: Zuu
Dave: PSYCHODRAMA
Moor Mother: Analog Fluids of Sonic Black Holes
Various Artists: The Final BattleâSly & Robbie vs. Roots Radics
Rocket 808: Rocket 808
2 Chainz: Rap or Go to the League
Joel Ross: Kingmaker
I Jahbar: Inna Duppy SKRS Soundclash
Lee Scratch Perry: Rainford
Joe McPhee / John Butcher: At the Hill of James Magee
Tyler Childers: Country Squire
Pat Thomas, Dominic Lash, and Tony Orrell: Bleyschool
This has been a pretty great year for music tomes. Simply at present, three are battling for my attention and holding it why they get it: John Doe, Tom DeSavia, and friends’ sequel to the LA punk kinda-oral-history Under the Big Black Sun, titled More Fun in the New World: The Unmaking and Legacy [key subtitular words] of LA Punk; Vivien Goldman’s Revenge of the She-Punks: A Feminist Music History from Poly Styrene to Pussy Riot [oh, those subtitles!], which is passing my first rule of excellent music books by costing me money in buying CDs (yes, I know I could download or stream, but fuck it); and Will Ashon’s inventive and surprising Chamber Music: Wu-Tang and America 9in 36 Pieces, which keeps Jeff Chang’s streak alive of never blurbing a bad book. In the recent past, I’ve devoured Hannah Ewens‘ groundbreaking FANGIRLS, due out in the States next year and possibly landing in my freshman comp/pop music womens’ college class as an assigned text next semester (Ewens’ book passed my second rule of excellent books in that it forced me to read another book, in this case Sady Doyle’s Trainwreck, which in turn led me to the aforementioned Goldman book), and luxuriated in Celeste Bell and Zoe Howe’s Day Glo! The Poly Styrene Story, an oral history of the life, times, vision, and work of Ms. Bell’s influential punk mom. Again, that’s just the last three weeks or so. Get your ass to the library.
Speaking of books, Will Friedwald’s The Great Jazz & Pop Vocal Albums is finally letting go its grip on me. However, thinking about the eccentricity of some of his choices, I began to wonder why the distinctive Al Hibbler, a fellow Missouri native (from the metropolis of Tyro!) and maker of terrific albums with the likes of both Ellington and Kirk, didn’t make the cut. Hibbler had a resonant, rich-coffee voice as well as quirky, almost-Cockney articulation on some words (such his pronunciation of “I” as “Oy”). The resulting weird sound matched perfectly with those produced by Rahsaan, as can be sampled on their splendid A Meeting of the Times, on the short list of the best albums ever made by two blind men teaming up:
I’ve played that album many times, but lately I moved on to Hibbler’s two Classics label entries (featuring much of his work with Duke) as well as his romantic, passionately sung, but little-heard mid-Fifties releases (most of them piquantly-titled, such as Torchy & Blue and Al Hibbler Sings the Blues Monday Every Day).
Black Sabbath is really good peace-making music. My wife and I were having a mild dispute Saturday evening as she attempted to prepare some pulled pork sandwiches and I tried to convince her I was correct about several non-pork-related points. It had been her turn for stereo control about a half-hour prior to this discussion, and she asked for some Sabbaf. I pulled the two-CD compendium Symptom of the Universe, loaded, and cranked it up, and headed back into the kitchen. Did you know it is fairly impossible to keep a straight face while arguing about anything with a Black Sabbath song as a backdrop? “God knows as your dog nose,bog blast all of you / Sabbath, bloody sabbath, nothing more to do / Living just for dying, dying just for you, yeah”?” Well, OK, then! (I can’t resist sharing the below, which is kind of how I feel about this set):
I have to put in a strong word for New Orleans’ Sinking City Records and its new release, Byron Asher’s Skrontch Music. This label’s put out precious few records, and it doesn’t knock itself out in getting them distributed, but they are always very interesting and usually really damn good on top of that (try their 79rs Gang or Michot’s Melody Makers or Stooges Brass Band records–or their reissues of Ricky B and Danny Barker singles). Take it from me; I think I’ve bought them all, and I never wait for a review or stream samples to cut my losses. Asher’s only-in-NOLA experiment, which–and this doesn’t capture it–reaches both forwards and backwards through Crescent City music history and features some very bracing ghost appearances, is likely to inch into my Top 10 by the end of next month. Think about giving it a shot. Also, SCR’s pretty much vinyl-only, and I like that.
Many of my friends consider me at least somewhat of a music expert, but I regularly demonstrate I couldn’t possibly be. Just f’rinstance: last week, I screened Asif Kapadia’s harrowing documentary Amy for my Stephens College students. They’d been working on writing reviews, we’d Zoomed in some very excellent thinkers and writers to give advice, and they’d sampled several divergent models. For our final piece in the unit, I thought the film (which is more than a little complicated, and that’s a compliment) would make excellent substance for our final Socratic seminar. I’d seen it thrice before, still wasn’t sure it didn’t exploit what it seemed to want to criticize, and–most important to this blather–found myself still pretty resistant to Winehouse’s wiles. Something about her delivery (even after she’d really perfected it) seemed affected to me, without Dap Band bolstering I questioned whether her work would stand up as straight and strong, and I didn’t trust the throwback bouffant, which played to my taste (I love me some girl groups, as well as some bad girls). While watching the film two more times (I have two classes), performance clips of “You Know I’m No Good” and “Love is a Losing Game” finally perforated my shell of ignorance, and I spent a good chunk of the weekend listening to Back to Black. You know what? That sucker is a classic! Eureka–it only took me a decade to figure that out. The thing is, pop music’s so deep and rich that, even if you’re an occasional lunkhead in perceiving it (like me), at least (we hope) you’ll catch up to it later when you need something durable, powerful, and wonderful.
My Album-Loverâs Honor Roll for 2019 (as of November 3, 2019)
(bolded items are new additions to the ongoing list)
Little Simz: Grey Area
Various Artists: A Day in the LifeâImpressions of Pepper*
Jamila Woods: Legacy! Legacy!
Peter Perrett: Humanworld
Rapsody: Eve
Mexstep: Resistir
Billie Eilish: WHEN WE ALL FALL ASLEEP, WHERE DO WE GO?
Laurie Anderson, Tenzin Choegyal, Jesse Paris Smith: Songs from The Bardo
Chance The Rapper: The Big Day
Freddie Gibbs & Madlib: Bandana
Royal Trux: White Stuff
Yugen Blakrok: Anima Mysterium
Mdou Moctar: Ilana (The Creator)
Purple Mountains: Purple Mountains
Danny Brown: uknowwhutimsayin
Pere Ubu: The Long Goodbye
J Balvin & Bad Bunny: OASIS
Lightning Bolt: Sonic Citadel
Sheer Mag: A Distant Call
Billy Woods & Kenny Segal: Hiding Places
Damon Locks / Black Monument Ensemble: Where Future Unfolds
Jeffrey Lewis: Bad Wiring
Raphael Saadiq: Jimmy Lee
Byron Asher: Byron Asherâs Skrontch Music
Young Thug: So Much Fun
Kel Assouf: Black Tenere
James Brandon Lewis: An Unruly Manifesto
Teodross Avery: After the RainâA Night for Coltrane
My freshman comp/pop music class engages in a Socratic seminar every month focused on a new release by an artist of reasonable significance. This month, they discussed Lana Del Rey’s Norman Fucking Rockwell. Funny how different two classes of 18-to-20-year-old women can be. My first class was fascinated by the contradictions created in Del Rey’s work: soothing sounds concealing horror and danger, nostalgia presaging dystopia, “Is this a dream or is it wreckage?”, sexual assertiveness vs. sexual passivity. My second class just hated it: the songs are too long, repetition and filler create boredom, too few dynamics. My take, via Wilde: when the critics are in disagreement, it’s a sign the artist is in harmony with herself.
Nicole and I attended Columbia’s annual Dismal Niche Experimental Music Festival (October 3-6) and were blown away. Thursday night we witnessed Makaya McCraven’s shape-shifting jazz improv unit (left-hand pic), augmented by the mesmerizing young vibraphonist Joel Ross, Blacks’ Myths’ thundering and throbbing bassist Luke Stewart, and Jeff Parker of Tortoise fame. At times, I find McCraven’s recorded music sounding perilously close to chill-lounge fare, but witnessing him live, conducting master musicians in the moment, I became a believer. Locked into a groove, the group would fixate on a figure developed by one player, and McCraven would lead them into a new movement built around it–when, in the blink of an ear, they sidestepped into Latin land, I almost felt dizzy. On Saturday night, we came prepared for Mdou Moctar’s Tuareg guitar assault (right-hand pic), having deeply indulged in so-called desert blues for the better part of the last decade, but Moctar elevated beyond even that level. Conjuring Sharrock and Hendrix, sending crackling beams of electricity through his band’s Saharan dance grooves, and just LOSING IT on the final number, exploiting every inch of his axe’s strings from every angle he could reach them, he left more than a few of us younger folks (I’m 57) wondering if we’d ever heard the like. A Top Five concert for us, and great praise is due Columbian Matt Crook, the fulcrum beneath the fest ($50 for four nights plus workshops and assorted other fun stuff??? You’ve got to be kidding me!).
I have always liked Laurie Anderson at arm’s length (is that possible?). I have no problem with pretentiousness as long as its properly put in service, but I’ve often detected a light scent of bullshit hovering over her work. However, Heart of a Dog moved me, and her new readings from The Tibetan Book of the Dead are relatively free from self-consciousness and–honestly speaking–just what the doctor ordered for me (and perhaps you?) inna this ya time. Sometimes I think I can’t take another day of this furor and flapdoodle, but one listen to this record set my feet firmly on the ground. Not an easy thing for art to do right now.
Old Stuff News:
Leave it to me to be so far behind in my music study that the old seems new. True, American music is a deep, deep well, but–really–I should not just now be luxuriating in the music of Kay Starr, Peggy Lee, Bobby Troup, and (especially) Shirley Horn. I’ve been daily dipped in Will Friedwald’s The Great Jazz and Pop Vocal Albums, in which the author explores in considerable depth 50-plus records one would think I’d (and likely you) would have already been familiar with. I’d tried to read one of Friedwald’s Sinatra books and found it too gushy, but I bought this one used for a pittance, and, skimming it and noticing the likes of Tiny Tim, Bobby Short, Steve & Eydie, and Robert Goulet in the table of contents, perversity overcame me and I just had to read it, and listen along. Not every one of Friedwald’s choices enraptured me, but Kay Starr (the white Dinah Washington!), Peggy Lee (no fucking joke), Barb Jungr (few better Dylan interpreters, and she actually fomented a mini-revolution), and Maxine Sullivan (didn’t she disco?) sent me straight to Discogs. Also: Carmen McRae’s ultra-rare Live at The Dug? A sheer A+ that I will be playing regularly til i croak. The chief discovery I made, though, was of an artist who didn’t even make the list of albums, but who was referred to peripherally in a few other artists’ entries: Shirley Horn. An early influence on Miles, a musical double-threat via vocals and 88s, almost obsessively proceeding at a very unhurried and hypnotic pace, and flawlessly choosing songs, she sounds to me like a MAJOR voice in jazz. Her early Embers andAshes? Pour a drink and just let her flow over you.
On with the show…
My Album-Loverâs Honor Roll for 2019 (as of October 5, 2019)
(bolded items are new additions to the ongoing list)
Little Simz: Grey Area
Various Artists: A Day in the LifeâImpressions of Pepper*
Jamila Woods: Legacy! Legacy!
Peter Perrett: Humanworld
Rapsody: Eve
Mexstep: Resistir
Billie Eilish: WHEN WE ALL FALL ASLEEP, WHERE DO WE GO?
Laurie Anderson, Tenzin Choegyal, Jesse Paris Smith: Songs from The Bardo
Chance The Rapper: The Big Day
Freddie Gibbs & Madlib: Bandana
Royal Trux: White Stuff
Yugen Blakrok: Anima Mysterium
Mdou Moctar: Ilana (The Creator)
Purple Mountains: Purple Mountains
Pere Ubu: The Long Goodbye
J Balvin & Bad Bunny: OASIS
Sheer Mag: A Distant Call
Billy Woods & Kenny Segal: Hiding Places
Damon Locks / Black Monument Ensemble: Where Future Unfolds
Raphael Saadiq: Jimmy Lee
Young Thug: So Much Fun
Kel Assouf: Black Tenere
James Brandon Lewis: An Unruly Manifesto
Teodross Avery: After the RainâA Night for Coltrane
I originally did not buy Lana Del Rey‘s set-up. The nostalgia, iconography, and icon-checks (I liked the dark tinge, but I just didn’t trust it); the tempos; the (somewhat) whispery delivery and sexy presentation (what’s wrong with sexy? I don’t truss it!); the desperation and decadence: the machine seemed built to manipulate. However, friends encouraged me to keep listening, and eventually her strange combination of deviance, sincerity, and trap-springing won me over last year as I consumed her oeuvre up to that point at very close listening range. The new one? She seems to have perfected that combo, the record just sounds magnificent, and the times have further lent themselves to draining one of fucks to give (and that’s scary, actually). Big winner for me–might just move up.
There may not be a better-named MC in rap than Rapsody. Her Eve is a tour de force of checklist skillz, and the tribute concept make the album an excellent pairing with Jamila Woods’ r & b version of the same.
Sheer Mag? Rock and FUCKING roll! Fresh and energetic at that! A friend joked that it was a Judas Priest album but that is a compliment right now.
No long-term observer of Raphael Saadiq would deny that the fellow is criminally talented. But from the Tonies through his collaborations and two solo joints, he’s never seemed to me to really get it all together–his career reminds me a bit of Bobby Womack. But the more personal nature of Jimmy Lee‘s songs and its consistent and dynamic flow may mean he’s finally really nailed it. I think he has.
I trust if you’re reading this, you are aware of Poland’s swing to the right, especially in its attitude toward its LGBTQIA population. If you have $50 to donate as the calendar flips, think about trying the 122-track electronic pig-out compilation Total Solidarity. It’s angry, the artists mean it, man, the quality’s hella consistent–and you can dance to it.
And now…
My Album-Loverâs Honor Roll for 2019 (as of August 31, 2019)
(bolded items are new additions to the ongoing list)
Little Simz: Grey Area
Various Artists: A Day in the LifeâImpressions of Pepper*
Freddie Gibbs & Madlib: Bandana
Jamila Woods: Legacy! Legacy!
Lana Del Rey: Norman F***ing Rockwell
Peter Perrett: Humanworld
Rapsody: Eve
Mexstep: Resistir
Billie Eilish: WHEN WE ALL FALL ASLEEP, WHERE DO WE GO?
Royal Trux: White Stuff
Yugen Blakrok: Anima Mysterium
Pere Ubu: The Long Goodbye
J Balvin & Bad Bunny: OASIS
Control Top: Covert Contracts
Sheer Mag: A Distant Call
Billy Woods & Kenny Segal: Hiding Places
Damon Locks / Black Monument Ensemble: Where Future Unfolds
Raphael Saadiq: Jimmy Lee
Kel Assouf: Black Tenere
James Brandon Lewis: An Unruly Manifesto
Teodross Avery: After the RainâA Night for Coltrane
