Tag: Pi Recordings

Amerikkkan Top 40: Some New (and Relatively New) Albums That May Help Get You Through the Morning News If You Can Stand to Read It

Hi! I’m early with my 2025 blog update, but I ain’t buying anything Friday anyway (I hope it isn’t Bandcamp Friday). If you happen to be a new reader, what I try to do at the end of each month is highlight the new albums–or recently excavated older works–that I’ve truly enjoyed, that have kept me sane, that have moved me, that have challenged me, etc. etc. etc. A thing about me: I’m the kind of person who always tries to order something different on the menu every time he goes to a restaurant, and I’m even more that way with music. I love a lot of it, I don’t think in genres, I am fascinated as much by pure sound and mood as I am by conventionally structured songs and lyrics, and I see myself as a scout, a finder, a tout (albeit a somewhat inexpressive one, as I’d rather you sample some of this stuff than me try to tell you why it is so attractive to me zzzzzzzzzz). Maybe you should start with the album covers, the album titles, the label names–and recently I’ve been including a boo-hiss Spotify playlist that includes tracks from each work (if possible–I get review copies ahead of time, which I will try to note and which aren’t yet represented in “the stream”–and not everything is on Spotify, in case you didn’t know). Finally, IRL (I’ve always wanted to use that!), I am an English teacher of 41 years’ vintage (a lightly sweet grape Boone’s Farm ’84), and because of my love for reading and teaching novels, I prefer albums to singles–I want to experience an act’s whole world, not just a moment where maybe they got hit by lightning inspiration or just got lucky.

Each month I’ll add to the previous month’s existing list, and bold-face those entries so you know they’re new. Some items may disappear if they fade for me or I just glitch. I’m starting by listing them alphabetically until order of love begins to establish itself, which it hasn’t quite, yet. This month, FOUR asterisks (****) will indicate a few discs I’m really enchanted by, and FIVE asterisks a few discs I’m really really enchanted by. Eventually, too, I’ll separate the list into really new stuff and those excavations I mentioned.

I hope you find something below that makes your day and creates the illusion that we aren’t necessarily facing a barbarian takeover. Take a chance, why doncha?

THE LIST (January 1 – February 26, 2025)

Ale Hop & Titi Bakorta: Mapambazuko (Nyege Nyege Tapes)*****

The Ancients: The Ancients (Eremite)

Bad Bunny: DeBI TiRAR MaS FOToS (Rimas Entertainment)****

Black Milk & Fat Ray: Food from the Gods (Computer Ugly / Fat Beats)

Booker T & The Plasmic Bleeds: Ode To BC/LY… And Eye Know BO…. da Prez (Mahakala Music)

Benjamin Booker: Lower(Fire Next Time)

Brother Ali & Ant: Satisfied Soul (Mello Music)

Sylvie Courvoisier & Mary Halvorson: Bone Bells (Pyroclastic) Note: release date = March 14, 2025

doseone & Steel Tipped Dove: All Portrait, No Chorus (BackwoodzStudios) ****

Ex-Void: In Love Again(Tapete Records)

FKA twigs: Eusexua (Young Recordings Limited)

Satoko Fujii GEN: Altitude 1100 Meters (Libra)

Satoko Fujii Trio: Dream a Dream (Libra)****

Keiji Haino and Natsuki Tamura: what happened there? (Libra)

The Hemphill Stringtet: Plays the Music of Julius Hemphill (Out of Your Head Records) Note: release date = April 4, 2025****

William Hooker: Jubilation (Org Music)*****

Horsegirl: Phonetics On and On (Matador)

Michael Gregory Jackson: Frequency Equilibrium Koan (moved-by-sound)

Anthony Joseph: Rowing Up the River to Get Our Names Back (Heavenly Sweetness)****

JPEG Mafia: I Lay Down My Life for You (Director’s Cut) (self-released)*****

Kelela: In the Blue Light (Warp)***

Steve Lehman: The Music of Anthony Braxton (Pi Recordings)*****

James Brandon Lewis: Apple Cores (Anti-)

LOLO: LOLO (Black Sweat)

Mean Mistreater: Do or Die (self-released)

Mac Miller: Baloonerism (Warner Records)

Jako Maron: Mahavelouz (Nyege Nyege Tapes)****

Isabelle Olivier: Impressions (Rewound Echoes)

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

R.A.P. Ferreira: Outstanding Understanding (Ruby Yacht)

Serengeti: Palookaville (serengetiraps / self-released) Note: release date = December 25, 2024

Ebo Taylor, Adrain Younge, and Ali Shaheed Muhammad: Jazz Is Dead 22 (Jazz is Dead)

Trio Glossia: Trio Glossia (Sonic Transmissions)****

Sharon Van Etten & The Attachment Theory: Sharon Van Etten & The Attachment Theory (Jagjaguwar)

The War & Treaty: Plus One (Mercury Nashville)

Jesse Welles: Middle (Jesse Welles Music)

Alfred White: The Definitive Alfred White (Music Makers Recordings)

Simon Willson: Bet (Endectomorph Records)

Jeong Lim Yang: Synchronicity (Fully Altered Media)

The Young Mothers: Better If You Let It (Sonic Transmissions)****

Breath of Air–The Best Records of 2022, January 1 – August 1

As I mentioned last post, I am enjoying fewer free hours to just blast new stuff. My sweetie’s home for the summer, and I feel like I’ve been taking two rigorous classes from Will Friedwald in the history of pop-jazz vocals and music that’s moved from the stage to the American Songbook. Thus, while I’m taking a deep dive into post-Trio Nat King Cole, I feel like I’ve been ignoring many explosions happening in the (not to say pop) music world. Funnily, however, it was while 98.7% engaged in the story of “Mack the Knife” (from Friedwald’s fab Stardust Memories) that I happened to try to be also listening to black midi’s Hellfire and its surging, stop-and-go, nattering power that I heard a kinship between the song, Brecht-Weill’s Threepenny Opera, and that herky-jerky, angry and complicated new album. More amusing, I am currently spending some time with my mom in her senior apartment (my brother and I just sold our parents’ house–my dad died suddenly in June 2020), and, as I am trying to get down to my teaching weight (210ish) and as I arise three hours before she does, I’ve been taking long (3.5 mile) walks and catching up with the new things. Since during the day I have been trying to finish Friedwald’s excellent but FUCKING METICULOUS Straighten Up and Fly Right: The Life and Music of Nat King Cole, and one can only listen to certain (i.e., not NEW) music while plowing through it, and since I have company and won’t put headphones on as a result, the walks are the only time I can really blast some stuff. I know you’ve been waiting for what’s that amusing: though I had intended to wait until stellar songwriting vet Tommy Womack’s new album I Thought I Was Fine arrived in CD form so I could enjoy it that way, I decided to queue it up on my first walk. Well…not only is it really damn great (especially if you’re an old, aching, regretful rock and roll filled with longing), but…yes…wait some more for it…Womack closes down the album with a couple of AMERICAN SONGBOOK NUGGETS (!!!!), “That Lucky Old Sun” and “Miss Otis Regrets”! Friedwald would approve, and Womack does not trip over his effects boxes interpreting them. It seems like a vast world, but one keeps being reminded it’s pretty small.

Couple more things:

Beyonce’s Renaissance just kicked my ass on the same walk as the Womack, and 2/3rds of the way through I thought it her best, but then it kinda lost momentum. What she’s trying to do is no easy thing: a tribute to straight-up dance music that bangs top to bottom. That’s a lot of tracks, Bey.

If you’re receptive to free jazz, you need your ears on Kentuckian Zoh Amba, who can blow and wail to bring Ayler’s ghost a smile.

I am very susceptible to jazz violin. Billy Bang, Leroy Jenkins, Claude Fiddler Williams, Ray Nance–the GREAT Stuff Smith? I listen to at least one of them heavily every month, especially Stuff. Charlie Burnham fiddled on Blood Ulmer’s Odyssey records, and he’s doing some pretty amazing things in his new band, Breath of Air.

I bet some of you have bought multiple mixes of Johnny Thunders and The Heartbreakers’ LAMF. Is this new “found mixes” yet another stab? No, it’s the thing.

Can a dude make music with a curled-up leaf? Don’t trust me when I say, “Oh yeah”–check out Biluka’s Leaf-Playing in Quito (1960-1965) and find yourself marveling, “That’s a leaf?”

Bolded items are new to the list

New Music 

  1. 75 Dollar Bill: Social Music at Troost, Volume 3–Other People’s Music (Black Editions Group)
  2. Rosalia: MOTOMAMI (Columbia)
  3. Billy Woods: Aethiopes (Backwoodz Studios)
  4. Tanya Tagaq: Tongues (Six Shooter) 
  5. Ricky Ford: The Wailing Sounds of Ricky Ford—Paul’s Scene (Whaling City Sounds)
  6. Stro Elliot & James Brown: Black & Loud—James Brown Reimagined (Polydor)
  7. Miranda Lambert: Palomino (Vanner)
  8. Willie Nelson: A Beautiful Time (Sony)
  9. Tommy Womack: I Thought I Was Fine (Schoolkids Records)
  10. Wadada Leo Smith: The Emerald Duets (TUM)
  11. Superchunk: Wild Loneliness (Merge)
  12. Gonora Sounds: Hard Times Never Kill (Phantom Limb)
  13. Wet Leg: Wet Leg (Domino)
  14. Beyoncé: Renaissance (Parkwood Entertainment)
  15. Amber Mark:Three Dimensions Deep (PMR / Interscope) 
  16. Etran de L’Air: Agadez (Sahel Sounds)
  17. Morgan Wade: Reckless (Deluxe) (Ladylike) 
  18. Lady Wray: Piece of Me (Big Crown)
  19. Bob Vylan: Bob Vylan Presents The Price of Life (Ghost Theatre)
  20. Moor Mother: Jazz Codes (Anti-)
  21. Mark Lomax II: Prismatic Refractions, Volume I (self-released)
  22. Horace Andy: Midnight Rocker (On-U Sound)
  23. black midi: Hellfire (Rough Trade)
  24. ensemble 0: Music Nuvulosa (Sub Rosa)
  25. Anna von Hausswoolff: Live at Montreaux Jazz Festival (Southern Lord) 
  26. Various Artists: Lespri Ka—New Directions in Gwoka Music from Guadeloupe (Time Capsule Sounds) 
  27. Ches Smith: Interpret It Well (Pyroclastic)
  28. Mark Lomax Trio: Plays Mingus (CFG Multimedia)
  29. 700 Bliss: Nothing to Declare (Hyperdub)
  30. Heroes Are Gang Leaders: LeAutoRoiGraphy (577 Records)
  31. Jinx Lennon: Pet Rent (Septic Tiger)
  32. Freakons: Freakons (Fluff & Gravy)
  33. Daniel Villareal: Panama ’77 (International Anthem)
  34. Mary Gauthier: Dark Enough to See the Stars (Thirty Tigers)
  35. Ama Gogela: Phelimuncasi (Nyege Nyege Tapes)
  36. Joy Guidry:Radical Acceptance (Whited Sepulchre)
  37. Kehlani: blue water road (TSNMI/Atlantic)
  38. Zoh Amba: O, Sun (Tzadik)
  39. Felipe Salles: Tiyo’s Songs of Life (Tapestry)
  40. Nancy Mounir: Nozhet El Nofous (Terrorbird)
  41. Javon Jackson & Nikki Giovanni: The Gospel According to Nikki Giovanni (Solid Jackson) 
  42. Oumou Sangare: Timbuktu (World Circuit Limited)
  43. Various Artists: Hidden Waters—Strange and Sublime Sounds from Rio de Janiero (Sounds and Colours)
  44. Nduduzo Makhathini: In the Spirit of Ntu (Universal)
  45. Gard Nilssen Acoustic Unity: Elastic Wave (ECM)
  46. Miguel Zeñon: Musica de las Americas (Miel Music)
  47. Isaiah Collier & The Chosen Few: Lift Every Voice (Division 81 Records)
  48. Priscilla Block: Welcome to the Block Party (InDent)
  49. Anitta: Versions of Me (Warner)
  50. Serengeti: Kaleidoscope III (Audiocon)
  51. Kendrick Lamar: Mr. Morale & The Big Steppers(pgLang/Top Dawg Entertainment/Aftermath/Interscope)
  52. OGJB: Ode to O (TUM) (Note: Band name – O = Oliver Lake, G = Graham Haynes, J = Joe Fonda, B = Barry Altschul / Title – O = Ornette) 
  53. Andrew Cyrille, William Parker, and Enrico Rava: Two Blues for Cecil (TUM) 
  54. Luke Stewart’s Silt Trio: The Bottom(Cuneiform) 
  55. Tyler Mitchell: Dancing Shadows (featuring Marshall Allen) (Mahakala Music)
  56. Wild Up: Julius Eastman, Volume 2—Joy Boy (New Amsterdam)
  57. Carl Stone: Wat Dong Moon Lek (Unseen Worlds)
  58. Mitski: Laurel Hell (Dead Oceans)
  59. Breath of Air: Breath of Air (Burning Ambulance Music)
  60. Immanuel Wilkins: The 7th Hand (Blue Note) 
  61. David Murray Brave New World Trio: Seriana Promethea (Intakt)
  62. Fulu Miziki: Ngbaka (EP)
  63. David Virelles: Nuna (Pi / El Tivoli)
  64. Steve Lehman: Xaybu—The Unseen (Pi Recordings)
  65. Tom Zé: Lingua Brasiliera (Selo Sesc)
  66. Leikeli47: Shape Up (Hardcover/RCA)
  67. Hurray for The Riff Raff: Life on Earth (Nonesuch)
  68. Rokia Koné and Jacknife Lee: Bamanan (3DFamily)
  69. Tomas Fujiwara: Triple Double (Firehouse 12)
  70. DJ Black Low: Uwami (Awesome Tapes from Africa)
  71. Ibibio Sound Machine: Electricity (Merge)
  72. Zoh Amba: O Life, O Light, Volume 1 (577 Records)
  73. Burton/McPherson Trio: The Summit Rock Session at Seneca Village (Giant Step Arts)
  74. Kahil El’Zabar Quartet: A Time for Healing (Spirit Muse)
  75. Pastor Champion: I Just Want to Be a Good Man (Luaka Bop)
  76. Nduduzo Makhathini: In the Spirit of Ntu (Blue Note)
  77. Pusha T: It’s Almost Dry (G.O.O.D. Music/Def Jam)
  78. Elza Soares: Elza Ao Vivo No Municipal (Deck)
  79. Nilufer Yanya: Painless (ATO)
  80. Satoko Fujii and Joe Fonda: Thread of Light (Fundacja Słuchaj)
  81. Charli XCX: Crash (Atlantic)
  82. Pete Malinverni: On the Town—Pete Malinverni Plays Leonard Bernstein(Planet Arts) 
  83. David Friend & Jerome Begin: Post- (New Amsterdam)
  84. Dedicated Men of Zion: The Devil Don’t Like It (Bible & Tire)
  85. Tyshawn Sorey Trio: Mesmerism (Pi Recordings)
  86. Space Afrika: Honest Labour (Dais)
  87. Charlotte Adigery & Bolis Pupul: Topical Dancer (DeeWee)
  88. Earl Sweatshirt: Sick! (Tan Cressida / Warner) 
  89. Belle & Sebastian: A Bit of Previous (Matador)
  90. Big Thief: Dragon New Warm Mountain I Believe in You (4AD)
  91. Jeff Arnal and Curt Cloninger: Drum Major Instinct (Mahakala Music)
  92. Tee Grizzley: Half Tee Half Beast (self-released)
  93. Hoodoo Gurus: Chariot of The Gods (Big Time Photographic Recordings)
  94. Natsuki Tamura: Summer Tree (Libra)
  95. (D)ivo: Perelman, Berne, Malaby, Carter (Mahakala Music)
  96. Daniel Carter et al.: Telepatica (577 Records)
  97. Ghais Guevara: There Will Be No Super-Slave (self-released)
  98. Spoon:Lucifer on the Sofa (Matador)
  99. Pierre Kwenders: Jose Louis and the Paradox of Love (Arts & Crafts)
  100. Manel Fortia: Despertar (Segell Microscopi/Altafonte)
  101. Ray Wylie Hubbard: Co-Starring Too (Big Machine)
  102. Various Artists: if you fart make it sound good (WA Records)
  103. Marta Sanchez: SAAM (Spanish American Art Museum) (Whirlwind)
  104. Earthgang: Ghetto Gods (Dreamville/Interscope)
  105. Mavis Staples & Levon Helm: Carry Me Home (Anti-)

Archival Digs:

  1. Los Golden Boys: Cumbia de Juventud (Mississippi Records)
  2. Albert Ayler: Revelations—The Complete ORTF 1970 Fondation Maeght Recordings(Elemental)
  3. Cecil Taylor:The Complete Legendary Live Return Concert at the Town Hall (Oblivion)
  4. Various Artists: Lovers Rock—The Soulful Sound of Romantic Reggae (Trojan)
  5. The Heartbreakers: LAMF—The ’77 Found Mixes (Jungle)
  6. Albert Ayler: La Cave Live 1966 (Ezz-Thetics) 
  7. Various Artists: Cumbia Sabrosa—Tropical Sound System Bangers From The Discos Fuentes Vaults 1961-1981 (Rocafort Records)
  8. Biluka y Los Canibales: Leaf-Playing in Quito (1960-1965) (Honest Jon’s)
  9. Various Artists: A Chat About the Beauty of the Moon at Night–Hawaiian Steel Guitar Masters 1913-1921 (Magnificent Sounds)
  10. The Rolling Stones: Live at the El Mocambo (Interscope)
  11. Son House: Forever on My Mind (Easy Eye Sound)
  12. Lavender Country:Blackberry Rose and Other Songs & Sorrows (Don Giovanni)
  13. Horace Tapscott Quintet: Legacies for Our Grandchildren (Dark Tree)
  14. Various Artists: The D-Vine Spirituals—Sacred Soul (Bible & Tire)
  15. Kabaka International Guitar Band: Kabaka International Guitar Band (Palenque Records)
  16. The Pyramids: AOMAWA—The 1970s Recordings (Strut)
  17. Hermeto Pascoal: Hermeto (Far Out Recordings)
  18. Sun Ra: Sun Ra Arkestra Meets Salah Ragab in Egypt (Strut)
  19. Asha Puthi: The Essential Asha Puthi (Mr. Bongo)
  20. Malik’s Emerging Force Art Trio: Time and Condition (moved-by-sound)
  21. Volta Jazz: Air Volta (Numero)
  22. Various Artists: From Lion Mountain—Traditional Music of Yeha, Ethiopia (Dust-to-Digital)
  23. Ronnie Boykins: The Will Come is Now (ESP-Disk)
  24. Cecil Taylor: Respiration (Fundacja Stuchaj)
  25. Norma Tanega: Studio and Demo Recordings, 1964-1971 (Anthology)
  26. Irma Thomas: New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival 1976 (Good Time)
  27. Afrika Negra: Antologia, Volume 1 (Bongo Joe)
  28. Various Artists: Summer of Soul (Legacy)
  29. Ann Peebles and the Hi Rhythm Section: Live in Memphis (Memphis International)
  30. Neil Young: Carnegie Hall 1970 (Reprise)