YOU WANT 5-STAR, A-GRADE, 9- or 10-OUTTA-10 REKKIDS?We got SIX of ‘em?
YOU WANT THAT GOOD ‘OL (NEW) HIP-HOP AND R&B?We got it!
YOUWANT SOME WICKED, DIRECT, TRUE, SPECIFIC LYRICS THAT AREN’T WHISPERED? We got ‘em!
YOU NEED SOME MORE GARY STEWART & MA RAINEY?We got it!
YOU GOTTA HAVE YOU SOME MORE OF THAT GOOD OL’ INTERNATIONAL FREE JAZZ LIKE WE ALWAYS BRING?We got it?
YOU DEMAND SOME MUSIC THAT MAY CONTAIN HOPE? We got…some!
YOU COULD USE A MUSICAL HOMEWORK ASSIGNMENT?Track down acopy of #42 down there (helllloooooo Brooklyn!!), enjoy the heck out of the various artists, then hunt down and sample the albums and EPs of your favorites!You will be rewarded. Not by me.
I fell behind in June but revved up to as close to the front of the line as can be expected, I suppose. I still have much business swirling around my head—every time I’ve dealt with the last piece of post-mortem paperwork, something new arrives in the mail, and there’s always grief—so I’m not going to say much other than what a rush of recorded matter has there been into this deity-forsaken world, and I’m thankful.
I have provided album cover images to stimulate you (above) and links in the items’ titles to lead you to purchase (please buy musicians’ music—please?). Later, I will add an updated Spitify playlist with a track a piece from everything on the list if you want to have a…song tasting. If an item is bolded, it is new to the list; if an item is italicized, it is a newly released record that contains older music (there are a few late-’24 entries that might have flown under your radar); if an item is asterisked, it’s very good up to the everlovin’ shit, depending on the number of *s; if an item you think is dandy isn’t on the list, I might not have caught up to it yet (or it didn’t move me, so it got real gone for a change). A truckload of new thangs have been loosed as I hunt and peck this morning; I’m just gonna have to wait until September 1st for the best of those. I hope you find something that can distract you beatifically (but temporarily) from the destruction at large. And…try the Red Hot Org EP that mixes the Kronos Quartet, Dylan’s most surrealistic protest song, and Terry Riley. It ain’t a spinach ice cream cone—it’s brilliant, and necessary.
AND OH YEAH! Do not overlook two shining 5-asterisk discs: jazz guitarist Mary Halvorson’s most mesmerizing recording in a career of them (special assistance from Patricia Brennan) and Irish folk giant Christy Moore’s powerful take on the troubles nouveux in his country (and the world).
MY LIST OF RECENT AURAL PLEASURE– SAMPLER PLAYLIST BELOW BOLD = New to the List ASTERISKED* = Damn good! to Holy SHIT! (one day, I will organize them) ITALICIZED: Excavations from the Past / Reissues
Natural Information Society and Bitchin’ Bahas: Totality (Drag City) Louis Nevins: The Fumes (Cavetone Records) NOBRO: Set Your Pussy Free (Dine Alone) ***
I am restless. As a teacher, I cannot teach the same lesson twice the same way (nor should anyone, but maybe I’m wrong). Last year, I tried to write more about the albums I loved on this blog but ended up very unsatisfied, plus it was a pain when it came to assembling a complete year-end list. So…I think this year, I’ll go back to my cumulative listing and let y’all follow the links and divine from those whether the records are worthy of your time…unless you just trust me. I wouldn’t. I am going to stick with closing with a Spotify playlist sampler, though I hate Spotify and, since I receive some review copies, songs from those might not yet be available–especially on this one.
New Releases:
Ale Hop & Titi Bakorta: Mapambazuko (Nyege Nyege Tapes)
Marek Pospieszalski Octet & Zoh Amba (see below): NOW! (Project financed by a scholarship from the Minister of Culture and National Heritage “Młoda Polska” & Katowice City of Music UNESCO) Note: release date = November 29, 2024
Serengeti: Palookaville(serengetiraps / self-released) Note: release date = December 25, 2024
Zoh Amba: Every album she’s released and appeared on. We saw her play live and it was a chicken-skin experience! Blazing and dynamically moody free jazz plus surprise acoustic guitar versions of new songs that both rended and expanded one’s heart. Check out the way she finishes out Myriam Gendron’s track on the playlist below!
Bob Dylan’s folk stuff: I was subbing the other day shortly after A Complete Unknown was released and I’d seen it—it sent be back to my favorites of his early period, especially the first album (what writer recently said he was electric from the first, because the electricity was in the way he sang those songs?) and “Only a Pawn in Their Game,” which I’ve always loved and repeat played to the point it was worming my ear all day)—and I casually sidled up to a table of 10th grade “advanced placement” dudes. Me: “Hey, have you guys heard of Bob Dylan?” Them (in tandem): “He’s dead, right?” I have some issues with the movie but it was entertaining and has a reason for being.
Culture and Burning Spear in the schools: Sometimes if I’m subbing for an old English-teaching comrade, they’ll let me write my own lesson and teach. A recent job was for a guy who teaches classical ideas and world religions and his students are currently studying Judaism; he asked if I could talk about Rastafarian reggae’s connections with Judaism and play some examples. They didn’t know dick about Rastafarianism or reggae, so it was a good call. We studied The Melodians’ “Rivers of Babylon,” sections of Culture’s Two Sevens Clash and aspects of Burning Spear’s Marcus Garvey. I also pushed Safiya Sinclair’s memoir of wrasslin’ to liberate herself from the clutches of her Rasta dad, How to Say Babylon. I’ve listened to reggae every day since.
Sinead O’Connor: Nicole and I watched the SNL Music special ?Love put together (apparently he was ordered by Lorne to exclude any evidence of The Replacements’ TRANSCENDENT appearance, the petty bastard) and got chills revisiting Sinead’s appearance. Listened to her all of the next day (yesterday, as it were) and kept getting chills, though I found myself wondering how much more she could have accomplished without the after-effects of the backlash (as Al Franken said, “She was kind of right,” though I’d say “She was right.”).
Living To Listen 