Playlist – April 2022

This month was hard – competing obligations, day job stuff and other writing gigs, also some difficult headspace that mirrored the shifts between chilly damp gray and sweltering humidity. So, this may be a little shorter and the writeups are probably a little shorter, by this homestretch getting it done was paramount. But fuck, there was a lot of music I was happy to have in my life. 

https://tidal.com/browse/playlist/6c9b58f0-fd02-4a22-8eeb-85bf392c0c64

• Kaitlin Butts, “She’s Using” – Everyone who’s even glancingly looked through one of these knows how much I love a story song, how much I love the structures of country music. Kaitlin Butts’ What Else Can She Do is a perfect example of how strong that genre can be, how tight its grip is on me. And most of you who read these – I don’t kid myself there are a lot of you who aren’t my friend – know my struggles with drinking and being an idiot, and that my stepsister succumbed to a heroin problem. So this particular song hit me extra hard, but even if I didn’t relate to it, that mix of honeyed-sunset instrumentation, a weathered and searching voice, and a lyric that still lands on loving the person it’s not letting get away with her shit anymore, makes exactly the kind of blessing – the kind of invocation – I wanted to open this message in a bottle to my friends, near and far. “She’s using anyone that’s hurt her to blame for what she’s done wrong. Darkness is her twilight, and sadness is her song. And if you ask her what she’s using, she’d say ‘Anything I can get my hands on.’” 
• Cory Henry, “The Fool” – On a roll of the same dice, most of you have been bored to tears by my proselytizing over Cory Henry, from a couple killer Snarky Puppy sets to a magical evening accompanied only by a drummer Andrew Patton and I were lucky to be in the room for, to him tearing the roof off at Le Trianon in Paris where Anne and I cancelled our most prime dinner reservation because we couldn’t tear ourselves away, and we were rewarded – after a night of gorgeous extended jams taking us through the history of American R&B like Professor Aronnax from 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea – with a blistering four-minute romp through Prince’s “Controversy.” This prime example of the fusion-soul terrain he’s carved out for himself merges chicken scratch guitar, a rubbery and infectious bass line, tightly woven vocals, and an undulating keyboard solo like waves of candy fire pouring over a thirsty dance floor. I love this song, but I can’t wait to hear it live. 
• Alabaster DePlume, “Fucking Let Them” – You’ll hear me say this a lot as records come out, but at this moment, the set I most regret missing at Big Ears is Alabaster DePlume backed by Jaimie Branch’s Fly or Die. This poet and saxophonist from the boiling London scene, with razor-blade-dance accompaniment from the very best of the Chicago expats, is everything I want in a spoken word record and almost never get. Every song unafraid of its anger and a little afraid, but willing to walk into the goddam fire, of its love. His vocal and sax bouncing off Branch’s acid trumpet and funky landscapes of Ajemian/St Louis/Taylor, is that big hearted love for the world, love enough to be pissed off, that I always want and don’t always get. “I recognize you and celebrate; I am brazen like a baby. Like the stupid sun, And I go forward in the courage of my love.” 
• Molly Tuttle and Golden Highway, “Grass Valley” – Another record full of that same love for the world but through a unique and specific lens. Molly Tuttle was an artist I admired more than enjoyed, one of the finest guitarists working today, but it didn’t click for me until her covers record, But I’d Rather Be With You, which soundtracked long afternoons or nights on the lawn with friends during the nadir (so far – things can always get worse) of the pandemic. Crooked Tree made her songwriting come into that same kind of focus for me, with tight arrangements and warm co-production from dobro master Jerry Douglas. This sunshine-in-a-box track, an origin story of sorts, with a swooping, sweeping melody and that glinting guitar, shimmering with the delight of surprise, epitomizes many of the pleasures of the album for me. “Deadheads in tie-dye array, dawg music devotees, like nothing I’d ever heard or seen. It was jamgrass for the hippies, old stuff from the fifties, just about nothing in between.” 
• Kieran Kane and Rayna Gellert, “Back Where We Belong” – Steeped in the same roots as the previous record but with a longer history, Kieran Kane from the neo-trad hit machine the O’Kanes when I was a kid – I just heard one of their songs driving to dinner with my Mom the other night and it still sounded great – and a long-running duo with Kevin Welch that Alec Wightman booked in Columbus on a regular basis for many years. Rayna Gellert, I learned from my buddy Dave turning me onto her band Uncle Earl then saw myself when she did a couple duets in the same year that Anne and I caught, with one of my favorite songwriters Scott Miller and also with archivist-guitarist Nathan Salsburg, her violin indescribably elevating both shows. The Flowers That Bloom in Spring, this third duet record of these partners in music and life, is classic roots music perfection and this song exemplifies the charms throughout the record, close harmonies wrapped around a melody both simple and surprising. “Start a lazy fire, enough to calm the chill. Sweep away the cobwebs. Flowers on the sill. I’m gonna meet you back where we belong.” 
• Sadie Gustafson-Zook, “Keep Myself” – Sadie Gustafson-Zook got my attention with the very title of her marvelous, shadowy, sharp enough to draw blood record Sin of Certainty, about trying to find the grace of uncertainty and realizing how that certainty closes all of us off from possibility and wonder. And the finely crafted songs, with intricate arrangements that illuminate their subjects but always from a slant, backed up and deepened that initial perception. This slow burn, highlighted by Michelle Willis’ piano and harmonies and the subtle rhythm section of Zoe Guigueno and Sean Trischka, is everything I want from a singer-songwriter, with a hook that comes unbidden into my head and won’t let me go. “I’d like to keep my independence, how can I keep myself when I’m with her?” 
• Leyla McCalla, “Vini Wè” – This advance single from cellist-singer-songwriter Leyla McCalla’s deep dive into the history of Haiti and its relationship to the US, heralded one of my favorite cellists – going back to her time in Carolina Chocolate Drops – making her masterpiece, hopefully the first of many. This track takes a look at the story of Radio Haiti founder Jean Dominique and the love story of he and his wife and fellow journalist Michéle Montas. The languid melody shows off every nuance of her voice and the arrangements including Shawn Myers’ percussion and the crisp heartbeat of McCalla’s pizzicato cello, open the song up to the world. “They wonder why I love you – they wonder how can this be?” 
• Pastor Champion, “Storm of Life (Stand by Me)” – The debut album from Oakland pastor, and former gang member, Wiley Champion, who passed away in late 2021, feels like it could have been a rediscovered ‘60s gospel blues album and has all the electricity of the connections between different worlds of music that drew me to its label Luaka Bop originally. Champion makes this song feel like an almost uncomfortably direct address, like we’re eavesdropping on a necessary plea to god, but our hearing it gives it power for us and for him, underpinned by his circular guitar riffs and the minimal throb of a rhythm section. 
• Aldous Harding, “Ennui” – This lead-off track from New Zealand singer-songwriter Harding’s beguiling Warm Chris debut album for 4AD felt like it shared some DNA with Champion, the minimal, rotating backing and the specific, keening beseechment in the lyrics like I shouldn’t even be listening. “Come back and leave it in the right place.” 
• SFJAZZ Collective, “Mutuality” – The SFJAZZ house band put out an utterly necessary record, New Works Reflecting the Moment, and for me this track, written by leader Chris Potter who starts it off with a snaking, giving, tenor line that powers the tune even as other instruments filter in. Kendrick Scott’s drums keep the heat at a frothy simmer and Gretch Parlato’s floating vocal sends it to outer space. “We are bound together.” 
• Cat Power, “Here Comes a Regular” – It might seem like sacrilege for someone like me to say, who was 20 when The Covers Record came out and who that record meant everything to, but I think Covers is probably her finest collection of other people’s writing. This gauzy fresh-eyes look at the Replacements classic look at the warmth of possibility in, the true joy and devastating loneliness in the found family of other bar regulars, struck me as an interesting companion to the SFJAZZ tune, about the places we show up for and supply aid to each other, where we’re bound to one another – and where we let ourselves, our friends, and our best intentions down.  
• Syd, “Control” – Syd’s work, since branching out from Odd Future, through her duo project The Internet, impresses me more and more with every release, and Broken Hearts Club is a seductive breakup record for the ages. The even tone of the main vocal, and her voice shifted to more emotional pleading, reminded me of the Cat Power a little, and the bursts of drama in the drums, throwing the listener off and forcing us to contend with the rhythm, never be complacent, couldn’t be anyone by Syd. “Give me what you want, babe; you tell me you don’t need nothing from me. I know that’s a lie, but keep it up, babe.” 
• Paul Cauthen, “Country Clubbin’” – Cauthen synthesizes his influences and delivers on the promise of his earlier records with the technicolor Country Coming Down where he gives us the hardcore funk record Waylon hinted at but never pulled the trigger on. The deep commitment of the vocal and the sticky, catchy quality of the keyboard bass keeps this from being a novelty song (though Anne does not agree with me on the latter). 
• Primer, “Feel the Way I Do” – I heard a commonality in the main riff of this killer track from LA based Alyssa Midcalf’s Primer project with the Cauthen and the Syd. It has all the coiled tension and tight ropes on the wrists contained-joy of the best disco and house, with the catharsis undercut a little by the lyric in a really delicious way. I want to be on a dance floor in an ocean of bodies and see people, blissed out on whatever trip, singing along to that elastic chorus, “I want you to feel the way I do.” 
• Christian Blunda, “I’m An Alien” – Taking up the mantle of the mutant strains of the same early ‘80s late-disco as Primer, this track sums up everything I love about the delightful weirdo record Christian Blunda’s Funky Punks in Space with echoey, snappy drums, a keyboard part I can’t get out of my head, and classic vocoder vocals. 
• DJ Travella, “21212” – This 19-year old’s first full-length updates the traditional Tanzanian dance style of Singeli with all the world’s flavors and textures and gives us one of the most exciting and purely joyful dance music tracks I’ve heard in a long while. 
• Scratcha DVA featuring DemiMa, “ Siyobonga” – One of the most fascinating figures in the contemporary iteration of the London dance music scene I’ve been in love with since I first discovered dance music, Scratcha DVA turns out another classic with a slightly lighter touch and the majestic, airy vocals of DemiMa, the grand-niece of South African jazz maestro Bheki Mseleku, 
• Soul Glo, “Thumbsucker” – I like a smooth-ish translation but sometimes I like being shocked awake, and this was the latter. Philly hardcore band Soul Glo made their most expansive and explosive record this year, with Disaspora Problems, even adding a horn section on this flamethrower of a track with bulletproof hook. 
• Romero, “Crossing Lines” – My addiction to the current Melbourne scene grew out of Gonerfest and I got turned onto this grooving power-pop band through one of their weekly mailers. Alanna Oliver’s warm vocals dance over Adam Johnstone and Fergus Sinclair’s serrated guitars in a way that reminds me a little of Sugar Stems and heavily of much-missed New York favorites The Prissteens, without copping either of those bands too directly. “I’m not living in the past anymore, no, and the mothership is full of adolescent sounds: walking forward, looking back, young hearts under attack.” 
• Jack White featuring Q-Tip, “Hi De Ho” – I haven’t done a very good job keeping up with Jack White’s work as an artist, but I was incredibly glad I checked out Fear of the Dawn, exactly the kind of messy, overstuffed with ideas but always down to the ground rock record I grew up loving. This collaboration with Q-Tip, moving from stretchy modal guitars to choppy funk riffs, around a classic Cab Calloway sample, is my favorite track on the record (which I didn’t find a bad song on). 
• Becca Stevens and the Attacca Quartet, “45 Bucks” – Vocalist-songwriter Becca Stevens revisited some of her older material with one of the most exciting string quartets working today, Attacca, on a record I can’t get enough of. Her father, WIlliam Stevens, arranges this 2017 kiss-off in a way that accentuates every jab, every twist of the knife. “It must be hard for you in the morning, to face another day.” 
• Walter Martin, “New Green” – In a lot of ways, The Walkmen were the band from that late ‘90s/early ‘00s NYC scene I connected to most immediately and deeply. Standing on the West Oval on Ohio State, a couple of years after college (2004? 2005?), watching this band in suits, leaning into very Pogues-y rhythms and playing songs off their first two records took my head off. After they broke up, I remained a fan of Hamilton Leithauser’s work but kind of lost track of Walter Martin. I’m glad I redressed that error because his last two records are spectacular, and this is a standout from the new one, The Bear, in lackadaisical Randy Newman mode, with the same assured sense of tone and place as the best of those records. “Just don’t tell no one my heart is broken too, I just hide it in my shoe a little better than you.” 
• Pillow Queens, “My Body Moves” – A similar sense of melancholy in looking back, and melancholy about the act of looking back pervades this song from this Irish rock band whose record Leave the Light On soundtracks a weird up and down spring better than anything I can think of. For me, the primary texture I land on for this band is Cathy McGuinness’s lead guitar, slicing and flashing around the intertwined lead vocals of Sarah Corcoran and Pamela Connolly, especially the gushing-blood outpouring on the last repetitions of the bridge and chorus. Perfection. 
• Antonie Fatout, “Bittersuite” – One of my favorite drummers in town who didn’t hit my radar until a few years ago when he started playing with my pal Brett Burleson, Antoine Fatout put out a spectacular debut album featuring his Fa2 Trio. Roger Hines (who played with Ray Charles and Diane Schuur for years, among so many other greats) lends his sympathetic, melodic bass to this, along with Columbus guitar legend Stan Smith. 
• Warehouse 11, “Moonlight” – My friendship with Ellen Kiley goes back to my gaming days, particularly a chat server originally built around Robin D. Laws’ Hong Kong action movie RPG Feng Shui that then morphed into a friend group, spanning states and countries, some of my dearest friends to this day 25+ years later. She’s rediscovered her love of singing around the Pittsburgh area in the last few years and this record with her primary band, Warehouse 11, is a terrific showcase for the kind of overheated drama her vocals put across so well, and the subtlety she finds in it, holding every line (and every fragment of a line) up to the light like a poet, and also boasts some searing guitar from Brian Blake and Dennis Turocy. “Everything changes in the moonlight.” 
• Saajtak, “There’s a Leak in the Shielding” – Detroit/Brooklyn art-rock quartet use more esoteric arrangements, dragging percussion and toffee synths, grinding textures, but I felt a similarity in tone and feeling to the Warehouse 11, on this standout track from their terrific record For the Makers. 
• Devin Gray featuring Wendy Eisenberg and Jessica Pavone, “Death by Audio” – Drummer Devin Gray teams with guitarist Wendy Eisenberg and violist Jessica Pavone for this burned-into-my-spine miniature I have to assume is named after the much lamented Brooklyn venue. 
• Binker and Moses featuring Max Luthert, “Active-Multiple-Fetish-Overlord” – The sax and drums duo of Binker Golding and Moses Boyd, augmented on Feeding the Machine by Max Luthert on tape loops and electronics, stretch and twist into exactly the shapes each song needs. 
• Blue Moods, “Orange Was the Color of Her Dress, Then Blue Silk” – Blue Moods, led by the piano of Smalls-staple David Kikoski, burn through this favorite Mingus ballad, with exactly the kind of sweet and loose reverence it requires. For someone like me, who thinks Mingus was one of the handful of greatest composers of the 20^th century, there can’t be enough centennial tributes. 
• Ord, “April och tystnad” – Pianist-composer Karin Johansson built gorgeous settings around Tomas Transtromer poems for her band Ord, with the mysterious whispered vocals of Jenny Willén, the woozy, intoxicating horn section of Niclas Rydh and Gunnel Samuelsson, and dark-river bass of Hasse Westling. A marvelous slice of chamber jazz I was turned onto, as I am for something at least every month, by Phil Freeman’s marvelous Stereogum column. 
• Sweet Teeth, “Hypertense” – A favorite Columbus band and a much-needed breath of fresh air in my town, Sweet Teeth finally made a record as evocative as the best times I’ve seen them live with Body Weather, brothers Stew Johnson (on guitar, drum machine, and lead vocals) and Sam (cello and additional vocals) build whole worlds I want to dance myself sick inside of. 
• Brian Damage, “Davy Rubberhead” – One of my favorite up-and-coming bands, Brian Damage, an offshoot of Brat Curse, who I also loved, delivered a record as good as their incendiary live show. The interlocking choppy guitar and keys create a powerful hook that goes alongside the snotty, snarled vocal. 
• Anitta, “Turn It Up” – I was not terribly familiar with Brazilian star Anitta when her new record Versions of Me hit my radar but that was clearly my loss. This is a perfect slice of dancefloor sunshine. 
• Dirty Bird, “The Question” – This track by Virginia-based producer is exactly the kind of house I love, dirty and scuffed up around the edges but always coming back to that crisp tug-your-lapels snap of a stare, and a blurred vocal sample, “Is it real? I just need to feel.” 
• El Khat, “Ala Al Ma” – This Tel Aviv-based band leans into leader Eyal el Wahab’s compositions that dissect his heritage and the Yemeni Jewish diaspora with deep grooves and surprising, delightful melodies, often played on instruments el Wayab built. 
• Taj Mahal and Ry Cooder, “Packing Up Getting Ready To Go” – Two elder statemen of American music team up to dig into a particular corner of their heritage, the decades-long collaboration of Sonny Terry and Brownie McGhee, on an exuberant, nuanced record that rightly refuses to treat that still-vibrant music as a museum exhibit. 
• Spiritualized, “Let It Bleed (For Iggy)” – I’m not sure there’s a band I grew up with – Ladies and Gentlemen came out when I was in high school – that’s nearly as consistent as Jason Pierce’s Spiritualized, and Everything Is Beautiful is another perfectly crafted gem, great, brooding and mysterious lyrics with gleaming melodies and shifting arrangements that all feel inevitable in the best ways. “I wanted it to go straight to your heart, darlin, I was wrong. I wanted it to say something so special and true. I wanted it to cut deeper and darker for you,” over roiling drums and surging horns, gets me every time. 
• Gerald Clayton, “Water’s Edge” – Among my favorite pianists, Gerald Clayton’s Blue Note debut Bells On Sand took me a minute, but this was among the songs I loved immediately and whole-heartedly. In trio with his father, John Clayton, on bass, and Justin Brown on drums, this sets up a mood, has mood, but never languishes in that mood or settles for being a mood piece. The stillness and motion are inexorably linked, and that’s where the magic happens. 
• Eubanks Evans Experience, “Dreams of Loving You” – Another meditative jazz piece, in duo between guitarist Kevin Eubanks and pianist Orrin Evans, reaches every color and texture of this gorgeous Tom Browne ballad. 
• Gaby Moreno, “Til Waking Light” – I discovered Moreno through Chris Thile’s much-missed Live From Here and her Alegoria is another stunning gut-punch of a record. This track, a lament in the form of a seduction – or vice versa – uses her rhythm section of Kimon Kirk on bass and Sebastian Aymanns on drums to excellent effect, around Moreno’s guitar and vocal, with verses in English and Spanish. 
• Jeremy Pelt, “Be The Light” – Another song dealing with light but on the other side, Jeremy Pelt’s series of beautiful mood pieces, Soundtrack, sets up Pelt’s liquid trumpet tone with gorgeous backing from Chien Chien Lu’s vibes, Victor Gould’s piano, Vicente Archer’s bass, and Allen Mednard’s drums. One of the most satisfying jazz records I heard in a month jammed full with them. 
• Dedicated Men of Zion, “Rock My Soul” – North Carolina sacred soul group Dedicated Men of Zion’s sophomore record The Devil Don’t Like It pairs them with a world-class Memphis backing band: Will Sexton and Matt Ross-Spang on guitars, Al Gamble on organ, Mark Edgar Stuart on bass, and George Sluppick on drums, for the kind of music that reminds me how sweet living is, and I want to end it on that note.