I’ve got a cold Huey Piano Smith could write another song about, my new block-style teaching assignment is intense (but I like it), and I’ve been traveling throughout the month, so I’m scrambling to get this out on the first. You don’t want to hear me yammer anyway, even if I got to witness both Hailu Mergia and Nicole Mitchell live since last time. Thus:

Albums below in bold font strike me as possible Top Tenners in their respective categories.

NEW WORKS I DUG (in alphabetical order)

1. Isaiah Collier & The Chosen Few: The World is on Fire (Division 81)—Collier and band are in a serious Trane mode, and the media clips make it sound like the record was made in 2020–but isn’t it really still, and might it possibly eternally stay, 2020?
2. Jazz Sabbath: The 1968 Tapes (Blacklake)—Yes: early Sabbath jazzed impressively and with a wry sense of humor.
3. Kenneth Jimenez: Sonnet to Silence (We Jazz)—It’s a musical sonnet to silence, not of silence, and bassist Jimenez’s quartet’s noise is splendid.
4. Ava Mendoza: The Circular Train (Palilalia)—Is this a Year of the Guitar?
5. Kendrick Lamar: GNX (pgLang/Interscope)—Sounds great to me, I guess because the music I’m loving most is his cadences and the production is brightly…defiant.
6. Oaagaada: Music of Ogaadaa (We Jazz)—Finnish free quartet augmented by shruti box and log drum and generating serious energy that’s just contained enough for a dabbler.
7. Kelly Lee Owens: Dreamstate (dh2)—My friend Kevin suggested this to somebody else when I was in a low mood, I stole the suggestion, and quickly added her to (a bit lesser light, but not by much) Jessie Ware as a mood shifter.
8. Jeff Parker ETA IVtet: The Way Out of Easy (International Anthem)—Is this a Year of the Guitar?
9. Paper Jays: Paper Jays (ESP-Disk)—Rhode Island instro-combo combines the spaciness of very early Meat Puppets with the weird, itchy vibe of Penguin Café and a touch of…the Middle East?
10. Pascal & Baya Rays: Sonic Joy (Ultraani)—Freaky and fun Finnish funk.
11. claire rousay: The Bloody Lady (Viernulvier)—Ambient master writes a mysterious score for Viktor Kubal’s 1980 film The Bloody Lady doesn’t require you to watch the film to be hypnotized.
12. Various Artists: TRANSA (Red Hot Org)—Eight “chapters,” 46 songs, a dazzling array of performers (Larraji, Tweedy, Julien Baker, Sumney + ANOHNI, JLin + Moor Mother), consistent quality, surprising musical coherence, and good reason to worry made it easy for me to listen to this beginning to end.
13. Wussy: Cincinnati Ohio (Shake It)—I really like the lyrics, I’m not too sure about the music, and I can’t hear Lisa well enough.
14. Charli xcx: Brat and it’s completely different but also still brat (Atlantic)—This irresistibly trashy brat dragged me kicking and screaming and grinning ear to ear through this version.
15. Dwight Yoakam: Brighter Days (Via/Thirty Tigers)—Dude really cannot make a bad album (always reminds me of Tom Petty that way) and this one (despite a very corny and terrible song and thanks to my favorite-ever cover of “Keep On the Sunny Side”) is no exception: sings great, surrounds himself with a crack band, and writes solidly—and, weirdly, often BRIGHTLY.
16. Tucker Zimmerman: Dance of Love (4AD)—I was telling a friend the other day that, for a reason I can’t pin down that has to do with the way things are, I am tired of Americana even when it’s good…but I have a feeling I’m (and possibly you’re) gonna need this one, knocked out by a resurfaced legend who has his finger on the pulse o’things, Big Thief behind him, and his arms around a few friends.

EXCELLENT EXCAVATIONS

1. Black Artists Group: For Peace & Liberty, in Paris, December 1972 (We Want Sound)—Too few recordings are available from a St. Louis, Missouri, gang of players who would later help fire up the NYC loft jazz movement, and this has never before been released.
2. Emily Remler: Cookin’ at Queens (Resonance)—This short-lived, Wes Montgomery-influenced guitarist had already raised the eyebrows of her fellow players and was poised for bigger things when she stepped on a narcotic rainbow; she is flying on these live recordings.
3. B. B. King: B. B. King in France (Elemental)—The most famous of the several “King”s of the blues is in exceptional form on this unearthed ‘70s set.
4. Sister Rosetta Tharpe: Live in France—The 1966 Limoges Concert (Elemental)—Her guitar is shorter on beautifully ugly noise than on other available live recordings, but otherwise, 51 and just seven years from passing on, she’s all the way on.
5. Various Artists: Super Disco Pirata—De Tepito Para El Mundo 1965-1980 (Analog Africa)—Don’t we all need even more cumbia (and related contagious rhythms) in our lives right now?

Check the shit out aurally–though I wish I had a better option than Squatify.