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)
Bad Bunny: DeBI TiRAR MaS FOToS (Rimas Entertainment)
Booker T* & The Plasmic Bleeds: Ode To BC/LY… And Eye Know BO…. da Prez (Mahakala Music)
Benjamin Booker: Lower (Fire Next Time)
doseone & Steel Tipped Dove: All Portrait, No Chorus (BackwoodzStudios)
Ex-Void: In Love Again (Tapete Records)
Satoko Fujii GEN: Altitude 1100 Meters (Libra)*
Keiji Haino and Natsuki Tamura: what happened there? (Libra)
LOLO: LOLO (Black Sweat)
Mac Miller: Baloonerism (Warner Records)
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
Omar Thomas: Griot Songs (Omar Thomas Music)
Simon Willson: Bet (Endectomorph Records) @
Jeong Lim Yang: Synchronicity (Fully Altered Media)
@Features Neta Raanan, a terrific young saxophonist whose debut last year was SHARP.
*Fujii can’t stop, won’t stop–first album out of considerably over 100 (!!) with a string section.
*A terrific free jazz tenor last heard from about 40+ years ago who’s resurfaced.
Old Stuff I Happily Listened To:
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.”).
Black Female Gospel Warriors All Day on January 20th. Folks? Put the whole of the armour on.
Living To Listen 