Playlist – March 2021

Spring feels good as it comes in fits and starts. Optimism leavened with more loss – most recently one of the best, kindest, most enthusiastic music fans I ever had the opportunity to know (and not know as well as I wish I had), Matt Bush. It’s hard to think of going back out to shows again and not seeing Matt’s face. Continue reading for notes on these songs.

Courtesy of the Hype Machine’s merch table function, links to Bandcamp for much of this: https://hypem.com/merch-table/57zbpIN0jYPAPewlwQJBE5

• Dawn Richard, “Bussifame” – One of my favorite records of the last decade is Sean Combs’ Euro club music with the group Diddy-Dirty Money. Dawn Richard made that record glow and her later work continues to impress and intrigue me. This lead single from her upcoming Second Line explodes with Springtime anticipation, an exhortation over a simmering track with moaned, distorted vocals and synth stabs pouring over hot, stuttered kick drums. 
• Moor Mother featuring billy woods and Wolf Weston, “The Blues Remembers Everything The Country Forgot” – Camae Ayewa, as Moor Mother, makes some of the most invigorating music I’ve found, combining a bone-deep understanding of history and society with a perspective that can’t be anyone other than her. This collaboration with billy woods (from rap duo Armand Hammer) and Wolf Weston (vocalist for Saint Mela) is a perfect example of everything she does so well: connecting with community and making something immediately arresting and head-knocking but that doesn’t give all its secrets away, not just rewarding but demanding multiple listens. 
• Don Bryant, “A World Like That” – I raved over the last couple months about Don Bryant’s 2020 barn burner You Make Me Feel and John Paul Keith’s breath of fresh air Rhythm of the City. These two friends come together on this non-album single with Bryant giving a swaying, finger-snapping, deeply emotive reading of Keith’s protest song. It makes sense Bryant and producer Scott Bomar left this off the hard-charging album. This is more couples skate northern soul, but it’s a masterful performance of a great song for our times and I’m overjoyed to have it. 
• Dale Watson, “Agent Elvis” – One of the finest singing voices of the neo-honkytonk strain of Americana, Dale Watson made the most out of his new home in Memphis both reopening classic roadhouse Hernando’s Hideaway and diving deep into the wide pool of excellent players available. An instrumental album seemed like an odd choice for such an identifiable voice…until I heard it. Swinging, loose-and-tight-in-all-the-right-places tunes suitable for a cocktail party or a dance party. This slinky spy fantasy is a brilliant showcase for drummer Danny Banks (also all over the John Paul Keith record I wrote up last time but I accidentally wrote his name as Danny Barnes), sax player Jim Spake (who first grabbed my attention on John Hiatt’s Master of Disaster record), and the guitar interplay between Watson and Mario Monterosso. 
• Chris Pierce, “It’s Been Burning For A While” – Pierce’s thick, percussive acoustic playing and rich, rumbling voice drive this taking the temperature of the world. Sometimes it’s bracing to hear direct protest music that doesn’t pull punches or try to hang the problem statement on elaborate metaphorical language. As fresh as cold, vital water in my face. “You say it’s in the eye of the beholder; well, I’ll just go and check. Nah, that ain’t no chip up on my shoulder, that’s your boot upon my neck.” 
• Garrison Starr, “Make Peace With It” – One of those songs that made my blood run cold the minute I heard it and I had to play it again as soon as it ended. A beautiful, glowing look at all facets of the necessary work of having to meet the world and ourselves where it stands, not where we’d like it to be before any improvement can start. For those times when you “Lost the silver lining in a wasteland.” 
• Lydia Luce, “Leave Me Empty” – I featured at least one of the early singles from this Lydia Luce solo record in earlier months of these playlists, and the whole record more than lived up to the promise of those first couple songs. One of my favorite front-to-back records now that we’re a quarter of the way through 2021 and this song is a highlight. She draws a line in the sand with fire here, a propulsive twanged guitar and shuddering, seductive beat provide the perfect backdrop for some sharp lyrics – the serrated knife stabbing up into the ribcage way she sings “Patiently” thrills me and makes me shudder every time. 
• The Harlem Gospel Travelers, “God’s Gonna Move His Hand” – This revitalized take on the classic gospel quartet tradition features young men – Asher Bethune, George Marage, Stephen Pedley, Ifedayo Thomas Gatling – who cut their teeth in Vy Higginsen and Eli “Paperboy” Reed’s Harlem workshops. It’s a thrilling example of one of the great, purely American musical forms, produced by Reed with smoky organ and guitar fills underneath a soaring, transcendent lead from Bethune. 
• Damon Locks and Black Monument Ensemble, “Now” – More evidence of the fertile cross-pollination in the Chicago scene. Last summer, Locks pulled together his friends (who are also some of the finest players anywhere) to work on some new songs speaking to this moment. The various vocalists melt into one another and splinter like individual bolts of light. The interlocking percussion of Arif Smith and drums of Dana Hall paint a backdrop for Angel Bat Dawid’s searching clarinet and Ben LaMar Gay’s dancing melodica, shot through with Locks’ intriguing electronics and samples. 
• Samantha Ege, “Fantasie Nègre No. 4 in B Minor” – The last couple of years brought a needed and crucial revival of the works of composer Florence Price, the first black American to have her work performed by a major symphony orchestra. This full-length investigation by pianist Samantha Ege is a gorgeous, vital piece of the overall picture of Price’s devastating music and this crisp, deep reading of her piece from the early ‘30s is an example of why this record is so necessary. 
• WitchTit, “Intoxicating Lethargy” – My favorite new band with the worst name in a long time (maybe since Puffy Areolas, maybe since Slave Labia), this doomy Raleigh band pairs the meditative, rumbling crawl of Patrick Cotter’s drums and Justin HIll’s bass between roiling waves of Daniel Brown and Nate Stokes’ guitars and Reign’s coiled flame vocals. Anne said this reminded her of much-missed Columbus band Night Family and that’s about spot on; I’m still holding out hope for a Night Family reunion but my collection can always use a couple of these bands, especially done so well. 
• Soul Glo, “ROLLING LOUD, HEAR MY CRY” – This Philly quartet is exactly the kind of explosive, unashamed fury I got out of the best of hardcore. That breakdown about 1:30 makes me want to thrash around like I’m 20 years younger and in less danger of blowing my ankle out. 
• Electric Jalaba, “Fulan” – This London-based groove machine sextet starts from Gnawa music, led by Moroccan-born Simo Lagnawi, and stretches out in every direction. Sexy, rippling trance-like energy, bursting with hooks. 
• The Sueves, “Dance Dance Whatever” – I loved the way that interlocking structure around a swinging, bouncing bass line of the previous track felt when it faded into the big, streamlined bass of this Sueves tune. This track is classic Sueves, with that snotty, endearing bounce and deep hooks embedded behind that shredded voice like landmines. Anne and I saw then in their native Chicago a few years ago and this new one makes me thirsty to get back to Chicago and see this band in a small room with the walls sweating and the floor shaking. 
• Jane Rose and the Deadend Boys, “Don’t Let Go” – A heartland rock spin on classic Pretenders with enough snarling punk energy to shoot into the stratosphere. One of my favorite new-to-me voices with a Stiff records tendency to cram so many words in a line I’m fist-pumping, rooting for the rhyme to resolve. 
• Claire Rousay and More Eaze, “kyle” – I knew Rousay as an avant-garde percussionist and this collaboration with More Eaze (Mari Maurice) was an unexpected delight. A slab of glitchy, jittery electro pop with hooks that embedded in my skull almost immediately. The kind of thing I’d want to throw in the middle of a set of dance classics, partly because I think it’s undeniable but also because I couldn’t wait to see what the dancers would do 
• Eli Njuchi, “Honest” – Malawi singer-songwriter Njuchi is exploding these days and this song is like drinking sunshine. The melody is so pure and light and the rhythmic inflections are infectious. 
• Gabe ‘Nandez, “Ronin” – This rising star of the New York rap scene works hard, intricate rhymes over a deceptively light beat, a mix of taunts, self-incrimination and boasts, frequently embedded in the same lines like “You ain’t never OD’ed on a track, boy.” 
• Lynda Dawn, “Fonk Street (Mndsgn Remix) – This remix combines classic keyboard-bass and handclaps discos as a setting for one of the rising UK soul stars and immediately made me embarrassed I hadn’t checked out enough Lynda Dawn or Mndsgn. 
• Laura Mvula, “Church Girl” – Another great UK R&B singer, Mvula also paints with some classic retro colors on this infectious head-nodder with one of the stickiest, most alluring choruses I’ve heard in a long time – “How can you dance with the devil on your back?” 
• Liesl featuring Booker Stardrum, “In The Dome” – I love this record full-stop, but I especially love it here. It feels like using the same palette of the previous few songs and cutting it up then laying it over a different light. 
• Jane Weaver, “Solarized” – I studied photography in High School, around the same time I got deep into poetry and solarization struck me, even then, as a marvelous metaphor. Jane Weaver has collaborated with the brightest lights of krautrock and britpop, and this funky, off-kilter dance number ties those threads together into a marvelous spun-sugar confection. 
• Huntertones featuring Louis Cato, “Love’s In Need of Love Today” – Beloved Columbus ex-pats Huntertones team up with singer-songwriter Louis Cato for this soulful throwback that accentuates the strength of both acts. The ability of the Huntertones to conjure interwoven, anthemic lines from Dan White’s sax, Jon Lampley’s sousaphone, and Chris Ott’s trombone was a marvel in their days as the Dan White Sextet but this highlights how much sharper and more natural it’s gotten. The strutting rhythm of Adam DeAscentis’s bass, John Hubbell’s drums, and Josh Hill’s wah-drenched guitar add to the sun-dappled ready-for-something feel off Cato’s dancing melody. 
• Israel Nash, “Stay” – Drawing on similar ‘70s influences to that Huntertones songs, Israel Nash conjures the intersection of wistful soul and muscular southern rock in a way that doesn’t let either side go slack. A soaring ode to finding some stability in a storm of impermanence wrapped in glowing horns and strings. 
• Kacey Johansing, “I Try” – From the first moments of that big, dry drum beat and circular, ingratiating guitar lick on this song I was floored. The little touches here – a burst of hand percussion, a slick smear of horns – support and push her voice without drowning it. A hook that’s simultaneously big enough to level buildings and as intimate as whispers in your ear is the cherry on top of this terrific number. 
• Brent Faiyaz, “Show U Off” – One of my favorite new R&B singers works similar crossroads between the deep intimacy and crowd-moving as the last two but approaches it from a different direction. The seductive, slinky melodies here don’t resolve exactly where you expect, giving it an element of attractive uneasiness, without going so far out it wouldn’t feel great at last call in the club when those drums and polyphony of backing vocals rise up ⅔ of the way in. 
• Lake Street Dive, “Know That I Know” – Lake Street Dive continue to sharpen their Motown riffing and bring additional influences into the light on this bright, delightful barefoot on concrete dance. Those horns wrapping around and buffeting the buttery hook “Don’t you know that I know that you know that I know that you want me? And don’t I know that you know that I know that I want you,” is summertime perfection. 
• Audrey Ochoa, “Benchwarming” – I don’t know how this Canadian trombone player avoided my radar for so long but I aim to correct my error because her record Frankenhorn is magnificent. This instrumental pop piece fuses a blue flame of a melody to a low-key, swaggering rhythm highlighting Luis Tovar’s congas, Chris Andrew’s piano, and the swirling strings of Kate Svrcek, Shannon Johnson, and Ian Woodman along with Ochoa’s rapturous horn. 
• Lara Downes featuring Nicole Cabell, “What Lips My Lips Have Kissed” – I love some Edna St Vincent Millay. One of those poets I found in college who never left me; I remember talking with Ed Mann on his porch watching the sunrise, and a loft party in some warehouse at 2am with other friends I miss, repeating some version of the refrain “When you write ‘What lips my lips have kissed and where and when’ you get to break your fucking pencil.” I wasn’t familiar with this setting of that classic poem by black American composer Margaret Bonds but I was blown away by this sensitive, nuanced reading from pianist Lara Downes and soprano Nicole Cabell. 
• Aoife O’Donovan and Kris Dever, “Transatlantic” – Beyond following a setting of one of my favorite poets with one of my favorite contemporary lyricists, this song and the last share a clear-eyed, refreshing spring breeze sensibility. A crystalline melody shared by two voices that fit together perfectly and many of O’Donovan’s stiletto-in-the-gut lines she does better than anyone, like “I fell asleep saying please.” As good for a cigar on the porch as long walks or drives trying to piece together whatever’s nagging at you. 
• Genesis Owusu, “A Song About Fishing” – The debut album from this Ghanian-Australian singer-songwriter knocked the air out of my lungs. This song is emblematic of his approach that feels like he’s bringing songs that always existed right out of the ether and singing them in a conversation way that recalls favorites of mine like Bonnie “Prince” Billy. That sea shanty chorus, “Rise and shine! To dawn, I wake, to cast my net in a fishless lake” makes me want to sing along and weep at the same time. 
• City Band, “N’golo Kanté” – This jangling slice of post-punk from a Parisian band centered around the eponymous soccer star is another facet of what I want in Spring. Hip shaking as you walk down the street, excited to run into anyone you might see in the neighborhood. 
• Sibusile Xaba with Naftali, Fakazile Nikosi, and AshK; “Umdali” – This searching, meditative song was one of the standouts for me from the excellent compilation of contemporary South African jazz, Indaba Is put out by Gilles Peterson’s irreplacable Brownswood Recordings. I knew only a name or two on the entire comp and those I didn’t know as well as I should so this was the best kind of wakeup call. 
• Pino Palladino and Blake Mills, “Ekuté” – Long one of my favorite bass players, Palladino was at the front of my mind as I delved back into so many of the records he played on that drove me wild as a college kid – D’Angelo, Nikka Costa, Erykah Badu – and this collaborative record with multi-instrumentalist Mills is a stuffed box of delights. This, my favorite song of the batch, takes afrobeat as a launching pad, and stirs in a variety of other influences into an infectious, driving-too-fast jam. 
• The City Champs, “Freddie King For Now” – Another band where my eyebrows shot above my hair line to hear they were back, this rock-focused B-3 trio from Memphis put out a full-length that even improves on that first impression and feels as limber, as muscular, and as swinging as where they left off. This tune turns up the distortion on Al Gamble’s organ to almost playfully recall Deep Purple. They never let the throttle up on this juke joint flamethrower. 
• Sofia Kourtesis, “La Perla” – Kourtesis, born in Peru and based in Berlin, makes the kind of club music that reminds me of the potential and complicated dancefloor catharsis I fell in love with in the early ‘00s but without ever feeling derivative or retro. Building from minimal elements into a kaleidoscopic glimpse at a better world we just might be lucky enough to earn our way into, and so infectious I literally got up from my seat to dance a little while writing this blurb. 
• AZITA, “If U Die” – Azita, formerly of Scissor Girls, made a platonic ideal of a post-punk record with her masterful Glen Echo. One of the albums I had the hardest time choosing a song for (at one point I had three tunes, just trying to see which felt right among other songs here). A deep groove with a guitar line I can’t shake and a searching, hungry vocal. This is everything I want in rock and roll. 
• Midnite Snaxxx, “Contact Contamination” – Speaking of every goddam thing I want in rock and roll: the triumphant return of Oakland’s Midnite Snaxxx, one of my favorite discoveries from Gonerfest (which is saying something). Bouncing, crunchy, exuberance. A band that loves the world and music enough to get pissed off. 
• Teen Mortgage, “Such Is Life” – Pummeling, straightforward rock from a DC two piece that makes me want to throw myself against the wall. The kind of music that makes me miss mosh pits even when that particular nostalgia makes my shoulder hurt. 
• GG King, “Firdaous” – Few people churn out better heavy, punk-tinged riffs than Atlanta’s GG King. Their new one Remain Intact doesn’t try to reinvent the wheel but it’s a potent dose of what keeps people like me coming back to thrash around and shout along. 
• Ghetts featuring Aida Lee, “Good Hearts” – I don’t keep track of the UK grime scene like I probably should but once in a while I catch a glimpse and I’m very glad I did. Case in point, this marvelous standout from Ghetts’ new record Conflict of Interest featuring Aida Lee. A questioning, devastating lyric and hook with the tonal quality of their two voices providing the best kind of friction over a staggering beat. 
• Eladio Carrión featuring Yandel and Cazzu, “Discoteca” – Rising Puerto Rican trap star Carrión wasn’t on my radar, I’m ashamed to say, until a recent New Yorker article. This is exactly what pop music needs, a mix of elements in a fresh, surprising way but streamlined for maximum effect. Just enough three am melancholy on a rising dancefloor tide. 
• Dave Stryker featuring Mayra Casales, “El Camino” – One of the finest soul jazz guitarists going back to Stanley Turrentine, Stryker reconvenes his smoking organ trio of Jared Gold on keys and McClenty Hunter on drums for this perfect new record, augmenting with tenor player Walter Smith III throughout and Cuban percussionist Mayra Casales on a few tracks including this driving, sleek tune. 
• Molly Burman, “Fool Me With Flattery” – A delicious, poison-tipped accusation over a lush, ‘60s-recalling backdrop from London-based singer-songwriter Molly Burman. “You can’t fool me with flattery but you can make a fool of yourself.” 
• Lucinda Williams, “Save Yourself” – I gushed about Sharon Van Etten’s Epic when it came out, a second album that was a broadening and restatement of attack after her perfect cut-glass miniatures on Because I Was In Love. A deluxe reissue of Epic, still probably my favorite of her albums, includes covers of each song, confirming how well they hold up to other interpretations. This is my favorite, pairing the deep empathy and accusation of “Save Yourself” with Lucinda Williams in her torchiest, most restrained mode. 
• New Bums, “Cover Band” – Over the years I’ve followed Ben Chasny (Six Organs of Admittance) through any path he’s charged down and always been rewarded, but even I was surprised how delightful I found this late-night acoustic jangle collaboration with Donovan Quinn (Skygreen Leopards). Reminiscent of Peter Laughner and full of great, off-handed lyrics in an almost deceptively sleepy delivery, “Lost our background singer to the avant-garde after Mick told her she played the tambourine too hard.” 
• Jimbo Mathus and Andrew Bird, “Three White Horses and a Golden Chain” – I loved the last few Jimbo Mathus records plumbing an edgy corner of southern rock with comrades like T-Money (RL Burnside, River City Tanlines) and Eric Ambel, and this reunion with his old Squirrel Nut Zippers bandmate Bird is wrapped in a dusky magic. This ambling pastoral ripples with Bird’s violin and Mathus’s history-of-the-world voice and chiming guitar. “It’s not desperation that we’re breeding,” they harmonize together, “Just a need we’re feeding,” and I choke up every time. 
• Melissa Carper, “Many Moons Ago” – Another fiddle-soaked tune with singer-songwriter Carper in deep country Blossom Dearie mode with Rebecca Patek’s violin and harmonies dancing around Chris Scruggs’ perfectly weathered, smoky guitar lines and Dennis Crouch’s unflappable bass. As good a contemporary Western Swing take as I’ve heard since Hot Club of Cowtown. 
• US Girls, “Junkyard” – My jaw almost dropped to the ground the first time I saw US Girls, Toronto musician Meghan Remy, in 2013 playing a great little short lived festival called 4^th and 4^th and her records continue to astound me. Since signing to 4AD her international profile grew and I’ve loved every record since. This was an immediate highlight for me from the 4AD anniversary compilation as she covers one of my favorite bands ever, Birthday Party, and turns up the swing and sense of both fun and dread as she reworks Nick Cave’s dramatic vocal like silly putty. “Two marines stand in a row – drink to me, my heavenly body.” 
• Logan Richardson featuring Laura Taglialatela and Corey Fonville, “Sunrays” – One of the finest alto saxophonists in any context, Richardson’s own records get deeper and stranger as he delves into collage and the friction between disparate elements. This album, Afrofuturism was an astonishing work I had a very hard time pulling a single song out of and I’m still trying to unpack and absorb. 
• Floating Points and Pharaoh Sanders, “Movement 1” – Electronic artist Floating Points wrote this extended mood piece for the great tenor player Pharaoh Sanders and the London Symphony and if at times it’s more static than I want, it makes up for that lack of vertical motion with moments of utterly sublime, gob-smacking beauty. 
• Tin/Bag, “One Of Us Cannot Be Wrong” – This collaboration between trumpeter Kris Tiner and guitarist Mike Baggetta hit my radar when Columbus’s indefatigable promoter Gerard Cox booked them in his vital space Filament and I interviewed Baggetta for a JazzColumbus preview. This Leonard Cohen cover highlights the intense, telepathic connection between these two players and the gorgeous melody of this song as well as even capturing some of the lyric’s humor (“I lit a thin, green candle to make you jealous of me. But the room just filled up with mosquitos, they heard that my body was free”) in this instrumental version. 
• Jane Monheit, “Let’s Face The Music and Dance” – Phenomenal jazz singer Jane Monheit put out another gorgeous collection of standards Come What May and this skyrocketed to the upper tier of versions of this I’ve ever heard. As we get closer to seeing the light at the end of this tunnel, this Irving Berlin classic has been in the front of my mind and it’s hard to picture a better version: “There may be trouble ahead but while there’s moonlight and music and love and romance, let’s face the music and dance.” 
• Phoebe Bridgers, “Summer’s End” – Bookending with another song starting with a sample of a spoken voice, this time the songwriter John Prine, and another example of a great singer taking a song I already love and treating it kindly while giving me a version it’s hard to ever imagine bettered. As the weather gets warmer it’s always a good time to remember the outstretched hand of the chorus here – “Come on home. You don’t have to be alone.”