No shortage of new music: album recommendations, March '22.
New and new/old titles from Cécile McLorin Salvant, Jenny Hval, Kee Avil, Irma Thomas, A. Billi Free & The Lasso, HO99O9, Blanck Mass, Ornette Coleman, The Monochrome Set, and more.
One problem the world doesn’t have right now is a shortage of new music, so here’s a stack of titles from this month that I’d recommend looking into...
3/4
Cécile McLorin Salvant
Ghost Song
Nonesuch
Some artists break the mold so assuredly that I’m at a loss for words to do their sound justice. The first comparison that immediately came to mind for me on hitting play was Diamanda Galás, a one-of-a-kind artist if there ever was one, but I’m not even sure how well that comparison applies. And even though almost half of Ghost Song consists of covers, the material (described by the label as “a diverse mix of seven originals and five interpretations on the themes of ghosts, nostalgia, and yearning”) oozes with Salvant's vision. As she says on the official Nonesuch page for the album, “It’s unlike anything I’ve done before—it’s getting closer to reflecting my personality as an eclectic curator. I’m embracing my weirdness!”
3/9
Yukihiro Takahashi
WHAT, ME WORRY? (1982) and Tomorrow’s Just Another Day (1983) reissues
ALFA Music
I wish the ‘80s-synth aesthetic weren’t so heavily referenced in modern pop culture, but if you’re looking for an artifact of the genuine article that both epitomizes the period and takes you off the beaten path, look no further than these two albums, the second and third in a reissue campaign that started late last year with a new edition of the Yellow Magic Orchestra drummer/vocalist’s third solo effort, 1981’s Neuromantic.
3/11
Jenny Hval
Classic Objects
4AD
Officially described as “Hval’s version of a pop album” where “every song has a verse and a chorus,” there’s still no question that Jenny Hval is one of the most uncompromising artists to emerge in a long time. On Classic Objects (her 4AD debut), the Norwegian musician/novelist confronts existential questions about self-hood when an artist, unable to perform, feels reduced to seeing themselves as “just me,” a person stripped of the raft they propped themselves up on by identifying as an artist. As always, Hval cuts deep into the subject and manages to plumb depths of emotion with the tenacity of an underwater cave diver.
Kee Avil
Crease
Constellation
The third artist on this list that I’d describe as “so unique as to defy description,” luckily Montréal-based producer Vicky Mettler does a rather adequate job of nailing her work down herself, offering:
”Songwriting, to me, is like sculpting. It stems from an initial word, emotion or sound, which I then build on, molding it into a more refined shape, glued into an artificial structure. Other times, my role is to peel it, scrape at its exterior, to reveal its natural state and its part within the whole. I’m led by these initial ideas; not to polish but to translate abstraction into sound and imagery. This process of decoding can be tedious; other times it’s immediate, each idea giving birth to another, together building their own cohesion. I like raw, tumbling sculptures, sometimes held together by nothing more than intent.”
Usually, I’d consider it lazy to copy/paste from a press release, but this really nails it:
“Kee Avil combines guitar, voice, electroacoustics and electronic production to create song assemblages that teeter on the edge of collapse while oozing forward, like sticky resin picking up and shedding disparate elements along the way. Kee Avil evolved from playing guitar with broken cymbals and drumsticks to forging askew tempos and templates glued together by samples of screws dropped into crystal bowls.”
A. Billi Free & The Lasso
Holy Body Roll
Mello Music Group
Mello Music Group is like a factory churning-out album after album where two formidable talents do more than simply collaborate, but create a world of sound that’s made all the more vivid, fascinating, and engaging by the contrasts between them. This pairing of vocalist A. Billi Free and producer The Lasso is no exception.
Irma Thomas
Full Time Woman: The Lost Cotillion Album (2014) vinyl reissue
Real Gone
From Real Gone’s official album page: "[Known as the] 'Soul Queen of New Orleans,' Irma Thomas enjoyed a run of national success in the U.S. in the mid-'60s with classics like 'Wish Someone Would Care,' 'Anyone Who Knows What Love Is (Will Understand)' along with the original vocal version of 'Time Is on My Side' (later a massive hit for the Rolling Stones), recorded for Imperial Records. Following a short stint at Chess Records, Irma recorded for Canyon before being signed to Atlantic Records by the label's much renowned executive, Jerry Wexler. A first session in 1971 yielded one single, 'Full Time Woman' (produced by noted New Orleans music legend Wardell Quezergue), which failed to chart but was singled out by Wexler in a 2007 interview as one of his all-time favorite recordings. Undaunted, Atlantic arranged further sessions for Irma in Detroit, Miami and Philadelphia throughout 1972 ' yet none of the material was ever issued until a 2014 CD collection."
I think it’s interesting how this song verges on country music, and it makes me imagine an alternate universe where soul/R&B artists in the ‘60s and ‘70s routinely made attempts at crossing over to a country audience:
Nequient
Darker Than Death Or Night
Nefarious Industries
Just when you thought every possible combination of death metal, hardcore, grindcore, crust punk, black metal had been done to, um, death… well, the truth is you’d be absolutely right to think that! But Darker Than Death Or Night stands out for the infectious energy it exudes. It takes a ton of physical stamina to play this music in the first place — so much so, in fact, that bands typically sound like they’re trying to conserve energy to prevent burnout. For Nequient to make themselves heard above the din on sweat equity alone is a true marvel to behold. (The quirky, Voivod-inspired chords don’t hurt either.)
The Monochrome Set
Allhallowtide
Tapete
The 16th album from London post-punk outfit The Monochrome Set reflects the maturity one would expect from a veteran band, its edge largely supplanted by seasoning. But better than anything I could say about the music, here are some lines from a poem posted on Tapete’s official page for the album:
After an aeon spent in infinitely old cities of the body and mind,
a magical creature glides back into its bedroom.
It has been changed forever - what once was human is now a
higher being, an unnatural force, the new perfect.
It can still feel the exulting gaze of The Eye upon its back —
thousands of years of brooding, planning, in deep, dark, secret
places, waiting for the stars to align, the ideal body to infuse.
It stands before the full length mirror, its reflection now clouded with dust.
A lifetime of waiting; my poor mirror, here I am, I will clean you!
It picks up a cloth and wipes across the glass triumphantly!
Strange.
It looks the same as before it left, all that time ago.
Interesting Times Gang
Are We OK
Pax Aeternum
The solo electronic project of Kownloon Walled City / Less Art / Strangelight bassist Ian Miller allows him to showcase a completely different side of his muse than he gets to explore in his bands. By his own description, this EP runs the gamut from “2000s chillwave, golden age hip-hop meets chiptune, baroque country crossed with downtempo electronica, and unclassifiable club bangers.”
HO99O9
Skin
DTA
If you had any doubts as to whether music still had the capacity to be provocative in a climate where there’s no shortage of real-life horror, look no further than the sophomore album from the hybrid hip hop/punk duo Yeti Bones and theOGM. Joined this time by Blink-182 drummer Travis Barker (who produced the whole album), Yeti Bones and theOGM (obviously) do their best to push the envelope. The video for “Battery Not Included” pays homage to the NIN classic “Closer,” but while it shows just how far we’ve come since 1994, it also shows that a little cleverness mixed with the power of suggestion goes a really long way. As unsettling as the imagery in the video is supposed to be, clearly the band and director Tyler Bradberry know how to create a mystique that’s so intriguing you can’t resist going down the rabbit hole.
3/18
Blanck Mass
Ted K Original Soundtrack
Sacred Bones
In order to get a proper sense for electronic artist Benjamin John Power’s soundtrack to this film based on the story of “Unabomber” Ted Kaczynski — and the emotional pitch that Power was going for (“I wanted it to feel like an epic") — I think it’s best to watch the trailer for the film first:
3/25
Aldous Harding
Warm Chris
4AD
On her fourth album (her third for 4AD and third with producer John Parish, known for his work with PJ Harvey and Sparklehorse), the New Zealand singer-songwriter takes a leap from the folk-inspired intimacy of her earlier work and lands somewhere between piano jazz, lounge music, and adult-contemporary pop — and I use those terms here in the most flattering, non-stereotypical ways that I’ve ever known them to be used. Harding has made use of piano in her music before, but on Warm Chris the piano provides anchors sublime chord changes fleshed-out into rich arrangements.
Ornette Coleman
Genesis Of Genius: The Contemporary Albums
double-reissue of Something Else!!! (1958) and Tomorrow Is The Question! (1959)
Contemporary Records / Craft Recordings
This single-package reissue Ornette Coleman’s first two albums as a leader captures the late jazz giant and free-jazz innovator in a much more more straightahead mode than the mind-bending stuff he would come to be known for. (Even the press release says so.) You’ll have to turn the clock back on 60-plus years of innovation in order to imagine this music in its proper context, when it was still cutting-edge. That said, Coleman elicited a pretty intense reaction from critics and peers pretty much from the start (see image below). If you’re looking for a launching-off point into understanding how Coleman blew the doors off convention — starting at the point where he was still rooted in 12-bar blues, bepop, and standard AABA song structures is actually ideal.
Selah Sue
Persona
Because Music
Belgian disco-pop star Selah Sue’s rapid rise to popularity in 2011 sparked collaborations with Childish Gambino and J. Cole — along with a deep depression she’s grappled with for years. On Persona, she juxtaposes the buoyant, dancey tone of her music with lyrics that address mental illness, the highs and lows of motherhood, and the after-effects of psychedelics. On “Pills,” for example, Sue bluntly describes the loss of emotional range she feels as a result of being on antidepressants since the age of 16 — over a frothy beat that recalls ‘90s-era French house music.
And a February title you don’t wanna sleep on:
Blinker & Moses
Feeding The Machine
Gearbox
Boy, if only coffeehouses routinely featured music like this when there was a sign out front that said “Live Jazz Tonight!” Airy, abstract, grooving, and powerful in equal measure, this music radiates with a sense of individuality that I wish more musicians would allow themselves to embody. Recorded by legendary producer Hugh Padgham, the freeform-instrumental sax/drums/electronics format of Feeding The Machine is certainly a far cry from Padgham’s most well-known work with ‘80s pop artists like The Police, XTC, Phil Collins, Genesis, and Howard Jones but, strangely enough, Blinker & Moses know how to appeal to the gut and the brain at the same time. Saxophonist Blinker Golding, drummer Moses Boyd, and “honorary third member” Max Luthert build atmospheres as if they all shared a dance-music sensibility but challenged themselves to stick mostly to the raw materials of jazz. Extra credit goes to their use of the Streetcleaner-style font made iconic by the late-’80s/early-’90s industrial metal outfit Godflesh.
HO99OR says:
“Who gives a f*** if an album’s release date has already passed — music is always new on the day you discover it!”
Eat your, um, ears out?
Ha, enjoy.
<3 S^RK