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Playlist – July 2023

Finishing this up as I recover from my fourth round with COVID – right before a new booster is ready – so not a big summation except to say it’s been an excellent summer (even this included). Excellent for seeing people here in my town and in theirs, beautiful culturally and culinarily, and as I’ve got my and Anne’s traditional marking of the end of the summer, Gonerfest, and my first work travel for the new job both in my sights, plus the 13th anniversary of the Pink Elephant, all coming in the next weeks, I’m very grateful. I don’t think this is as dark as June’s churning of emotions – more sunshine grooves and dancefloor bangers; but, as always, I could be full of shit. Thanks for reading and listening – love you all.

https://tidal.com/browse/playlist/c84759f9-3338-415d-b1b3-d242fdd27748

  • Dom Deshawn, “09 Nostalgia” – Columbus rapper-songwriter Dom Deshawn has been on my radar for a while, but I was reminded how much I enjoy his work catching him at the Goodale Park Music Series last week. This benediction and wish for the world is a perfect wave of dancing sunlight that reminds me of Dead Prez’s “Happiness” in the best way. “Built my own lane, don’t care about gatekeeping. You know I’m trying to make it, giving you every reason. Tell me, are you feeling good? Maybe yes, no, I don’t even know.”
  • 79.5, “Club Level” – At the forefront of NYC’s neo-disco scene, 79.5 made one of my favorite summertime albums this year with their self-titled sophomore full-length, produced by retro soul superstar Aaron Frazer. Mike Dillon’s percussion and co-vocalist Kate Mattison’s Rhodes set the sound world of this sticky lead-off track in seconds, and the wild, sexy ride never lets up. Ben Campbell’s thick synth bass, a sizzling horn solo from Izaak Mills, and the union vocals of co-vocalist Aisha Mills send this into outer space. The rest of the album keeps up this pace. “Cruel games. Hot flames. Say you wanna play.”
  • Nubya Garcia, “Lean In” – I’ve written about the great London saxophonist Nubya Garcia many times, and this new single plays with 2-step garage in a really delightful, joyful way that feels like summer in the same way as the previous two tracks but filtered through a different cityscape.
  • Sexmob featuring DJ Olive, “Dominion” – One of jazz’s most indefatigable, questing, and cohesive groups, the quartet Sexmob – trumpeter Steven Bernstein, saxophonist Briggan Krauss, bassist Tony Scherr, and drummer Kenny Wollensen – resume their collaboration with producer Scotty Hard, bringing his contributions of beats, synth bass, and soundscapes to the fore on their invigorating new record The Hard Way. This track adds the great DJ Olive, who helped me down the road of reshaping how I thought about turntables when I was 20 with SYR 5 with Ikue Mori and Kim Gordon. A spiky, shifting mood piece.
  • Gil Scott-Heron and Kek’star, “Whitey On the Moon (Deep Mix)” – South African producer Kek’Star reconfigures one of my favorite Gil Scott-Heron tracks, one I heard on the very first Best Of I bought in early college that sparked the need to have everything he’d touched, including his two novels. Kek’star’s deep house treatment layers an additional throbbing insistence to the coolly reported snapshots of desperation in the original poem that sadly gets more and more relevant. “With all the money I made last year, how come I ain’t got no money here? Hmm, whitey’s on the moon.”
  • BJ The Chicago Kid featuring Freddie Gibbs, “The Liquor Store in the Sky” – Contemporary soul singer BJ The Chicago Kid teams up with fellow Chicago rapper/representative Freddie Gibbs on this gorgeous, honeyed elegy for old friends built around intertwining guitar and organ parts and a loping drum beat. “We was raised blocks from each other; we grew up like brothers. That was my dawg, swear to God, would’ve gave him what I had.”
  • Lucas de Mulder and the New Mastersounds, “Underground Dance” – To my ears, there’s a similar warmth and depth connecting this beautiful collaboration between Spanish jazz guitarist and British funk band The New Mastersounds – hat tip to Andrew Patton for turning me onto them in the first place and nudging a merrry band of us to duck out of Pink Elephant early one month and head down to see them tear the roof off of the Park Street Saloon – also produced by Mastersounds’ guitarist Eddie Roberts. It’s a great track from a remarkably cohesive, empathetic record.
  • Misha Panfilov, “Dr. Juvenal’s Solution” – This Estonian composer based in Portugal flitted around the periphery of my notice for the last few years, but this slab of easy-going instrumental soul is the first time I really sat with one of his releases – I assume he played everything based on the Bandcamp – and it hooked me. Every time I play it, I have a hard time getting that guitar riff out of my head.
  • Dark Colors, “Memories” – I couldn’t find anything about this slice of melodic minimal techno, so I’m guessing this was an algorithm suggestion, but I love it. I love the controlled swoops and the splashes of color seeping through the cracks – the hints of a Bob James/Roy Ayers color palette that vanish almost as quickly as they arise – and it shivers the same parts of my spine as the more direct connections to soul music of the previous two tracks.
  • Annika Socolofsky and Latitude 49, “Loves don’t / go” – Composer-vocalist Annika Socolofsky drills deep into the substrata of her own history and psychology and the whole of the world on her strongest album yet, Don’t say a word, with chamber music sextet Latitude 49. This track sets a Molly Moses poem to riveting, crushing music – the building rumble of the piano and Socolofsky’s voice surfing over it is one of my favorite musical moments of the year.
  • Josh Ritter and Aoife O’Donovan, “Strong Swimmer” – Josh Ritter got my attention with “Golden Age of Radio,” particularly an acoustic version I think I found on AudioGalaxy in 2002, and every time he hits my radar, I think I should delve deeper into his work. This duet with Aoife O’Donovan (who anyone with even a passing glance at this blog knows my love for) is early August morning perfection, fog over the grass, and hints of the oncoming chill threaded through the warmth. “On the night that you were born, your Mama, who had many friends, took you down across the reach to meet the tide come in.”
  • Amanda Shires and Bobbie Nelson, “Angel Flying Too Close to the Ground” – This collaboration record between violinist-singer-songwriter Shires and longtime keystone of Willie Nelson’s Family (musical and otherwise), pianist Bobbie Nelson, Loving You, is a stunning, intimate thing, with minimal accompaniment from bass and drums, and this reading of long one of my favorites of brother Willie’s songs devastates me every time, letting me hear a song I’ve known my whole life with new eyes. “I patched up your broken wing and hung around for a while, trying to keep your spirits up and your fever down.”
  • Jess Williamson, “God in Everything” – Last year’s collaboration with Waxahatchee as Plains put singer-songwriter Jess Williamson on my radar, and her new album Time Ain’t Accidental knocked the wind out of my lungs. This song gorgeously captures a time and place, putting her acoustic at the forefront, with Dashawn Hickman’s pedal steel almost serving as a Greek Chorus, flowing over and around the minimal backing and subtle, perfect production from Brad Cook. “Did you see or appreciate the wisdom in me? Was I something for you to play with? Did you notice how I serve my tea?”
  • Madison Cunningham, “Inventing the Wheel” – This new song on the deluxe version got me to go back and check out Cunningham’s Revealer record from last year, and it highlighted what a great piece of work and what a fascinating songwriting voice I missed. The surprising twists in the melody and the unsettling, harmonium-driven atmospheres keep me engaged in this fascinating look at the peril inherent in the hunger of trying to both live as much of life as you can and synthesize it into something that lasts. “Waking up to a heavy cup: ambition drinking me. Helpless, as I watch another death lay out on TV. I render it down to size and sound, ’til it comes as no surprise, to sleep all through the night and still wish to open my eyes. Life and all her fragility, the midwife of this urgency: a moment I may never get again.”
  • Javier Nero Jazz Orchestra, “Kemet (The Black Land)” – I knew very little about trombonist-composer Javier Nero before I think I got tipped to the excellent record this is the title track of through, I suspect, Phil Freeman’s always great monthly column. Trumpeter Sean Jones is the main foil for Nero here; check the fiery solo around the four-minute mark, rising out of but without losing touch with the lushness around him, and the rhythm section of drummer Kyle Swan, pianist Josh Richman, and bassist William Ledbetter provide a richly textured landscape for these intertwining, glowing melodies.
  • Killer Mike featuring Andre 3000, Future, Eryn Allen Kane, “Scientists and Engineers” – I love the Run the Jewels stuff, but it’s an utter joy to get to hear Atlanta’s Killer Mike play in a variety of different sound worlds again on his excellent record Michael. This track is overstuffed with ideas – opening with lush orchestrations and Kane’s vocals that reminded me of the previous track, then powering through a series of hairpin turns – and powered by a fire at its heart, a love for the world – or at least his world, his community – that needs to speak the truth (and, as Hotspur reminded us, shame the devil), with all the collaborators here bringing their A game. “It ain’t enough that I hit my opp and his block: we burned down his whole fucking village. Did it with a smile, not a grimace.”
  • Monica Rocha and Malik Malo featuring The Intuitions, “I Love You For All Seasons (Live)” – Picking up the thread of vintage West Coast soul guitar that was part of the mix on the previous track, this instant classic sweet soul duet between California natives Monica Rocha and Malik Malo, is quintessential wandering through sunny streets or driving slow music, with the rich harmonies of The Intuitions pushing it over the top. “I love you for so many reasons.”
  • Captain Fathands, “The Great Flood” – I remember a conversation at the St James tavern almost two decades ago where childhood friend, bassist/composer Captain Fathands (probably best known musically for his time in the nu-metal comers Groundwar but also the rap-rock fusion The Wick and a series of cover bands) about his desire to put out soundtracks. His music for the wildly popular podcast True Crime Garage the Captain hosts with his brother is frequently my favorite part of the episodes, and I’m delighted to see him expanding and releasing full tracks in this mode like this shadow-splashed, surging piece.
  • Buscrates, “Early Morning” – Pittsburgh-based Orlando “Buscrates” Marshall gives us a sun-drenched, loping, utterly infectious instrumental that nods to Dam-Funk and a history of classic roller skating jams and hints at early Detroit techno in the best way. That rhythm somewhere between a hip dip and a finger snap falls squarely in my sweet spot.
  • Amy Douglas and JKriv, “Freak at Night” – The bouncing, fluid bass line on this courtesy of JKriv doesn’t just set up a backdrop for Amy Douglas’s knock-you-against-the-back-wall sharp disco vocal; the two things joust with one another. The dance floor as seduction and cage match, teetering over the edge but always pulling itself back. “She’s a freak at night. She’s got to satisfy her appetite.”
  • The Crystal Furs, “Gay Bar” – One of my guilty pleasures of all time – and I can do 1,000 words on the problematic concept of a guilty pleasure just like the next blowhard, but you should find me in a bar to go in on that – is that first Electric Six album; as much as I love this song, I wondered how it’s aged. Portland-based queer three-piece Crystal Furs find the pure joy that’s still in this track and give it a contemporary updating that maybe improves on the original’s infectiousness. Kara Buchanan’s Farfisa organ is a particular delight for me on this track.
  • Mightmare, “Can’t Get What I Want” – One of my favorite singer-songwriters working, Sarah Shook, stretches their wings to go different places stylistically with the indie rock project Mightmare. Their voice is right up front over ominous, decay-laden guitars and a crunching postpunk beat. “Anger makes a lonely man. I got things to say I don’t think I can.”
  • Ivan Julian, “Cut Me Loose” – Ivan Julian’s guitar is the blood through the veins of a particular swath of New York music I’ve loved since the moment I heard Blank Generation, and beyond his long association with Richard Hell, he’s lit up records  I’ve loved by Matthew Sweet, Sandra Bernhard, Drivin’ N’ Cryin’, King Missile, and Hunx. The solo record Swing Your Lanterns, and this barbed punk-funk lead-off track is an excellent example of what he’s given to American music and, with a cast of underground music lifers like Florent Barbier and Nicholas Tremulis, still sounds incredibly vital. “I know you brought a whole new bag of hurt from Tennessee and a brand new box of pain that you just found. I kissed you, and I put you on a train; you bit me, and you said we’d meet again.”
  • Kalle Hygien, “Dope Him Up” – This dose of synth-and-drum-machine Swedish punk is adrenaline right into my veins. “His mouth looks like an enema, we’re going to the cinema.”
  • Cerified Trapper, “Trapper of the Year” – The liquid synths and dry, crackling drums are a perfect jumping off point for the furious braggadocio from this rising Milwaukee star, who produced as well. “Tweak out in the store, get hit with this fuckin’ switchy.”
  • Izzaldin, “Spike” – This advance single off the third record – Futura in Retrograde – from rising New York rapper-producer Izzaldin rides a subway-under-not-well-maintained-streets rumble of synth bass and boom bap drums refracted through some contemporary damage with a baritone voice that feels both familiar and fresh. This checked all my boxes. “Took a shot from the three-point arc, took a seat next to Spike just to see the star. I thought it started off as friendly banter: and then he started really disrespecting Indiana, talking ’bout ‘There ain’t gonna be no Pacers shit in here.'”
  • Jay Vega featuring King Ezz and OG VERN, “Smackdown Vs. Raw” – This miniature uses a deceptively easy swagger for a perfect showcase for Columbus producer and rapper Jay Vega, who worked on this with King Ezz and features a verse from OG Vern. Distilled to around two minutes and with no room for filigree. “”No bad business, that ain’t on my name: what they say ’bout you?”
  • System Exclusive, “Party All the TIme” – Pasadena synth-pop duo System Exclusive hit my radar with this surging post-punk take on one of my favorite ’80s guilty pleasures, this Rick James/Eddie Murphy collaboration. “You never come home at night because you’re out romancing. I wish you’d bring some of your love home to me.”
  • King Vision Ultra featuring DJ Haram, Marcus, Dis Fig, “Tragic World Weapon” – I’m not sure how I’ve slept on King Vision Ultra so long but the Algiers connection put this on my radar and it’s exactly the kind of record I love. King Vision Ultra worked with the original stems from Algiers’ record Shook and intertwined them with his own archive to create Shook World (Hosted By Algiers), an investigation of histories, his hometown of New York, his relationships with people, and of the ways we hurt ourselves and one another. DJ Haram from the Discwoman crew supplies the lacerating poetry here, with Berlin-based producer Dis Fig on the sung vocals and a turntablist I wasn’t familiar with, Marcus, adding a perfectly unbalancing layer. “You can’t affirm this madness but I like to imagine it.”
  • The OG Players, “Third Eye Vibe” – Columbus hip-hop/soul super group OG Players consists of trombonist Elaine Mylius (Waves de Ache, Derek DiCenzo), MC/Producer Eric Rollin (Mistar Anderson), Producer Kito Denham, keyboardist Brandon “Bjazz” Scott (Liquid Crystal Project),  and drummer Robert Riley aka Dezoul1 (Talisha Holmes). I had high expectations having seen all – I think, I couldn’t swear I’ve heard Denham’s other work – of their earlier projects and this first single hit it over the fences for me, the loping finger-snap rhythm and that infectious, squelching long, slow drive on a sunny day keyboard part. “Let me tell you about a secret to see us through.”
  • Marquis Hill featuring Joel Ross, “Stretch (The Body)” – The first time I saw Chicago’s Marquis HIll play the trumpet – at Winter Jazzfest – it cut through everything else that night, burning both his name and that tone into my brain. Hill aligns a tight rhythm section anchored by Junius Paul on bass with Micheal King on keys, and new-to-me Indie Buz on drums, and special guests (the great vibes player Joel Ross on this track) to make something that stretches genres. This track bridges lighter flavors of drum ‘n’ and spiritual jazz, riding waves of small percussion instruments and wrapping a wordless chorus around a clattering beat from Buz pinballing back and forth between King’s Rhodes and Ross’s vibes, lit up by Hill’s searing trumpet and a sampled lackadaisical vocal that nods at Ken Nordine.
  • Chris Abrahams, Oren Ambarchi, and Robbie Avenaim, “Placelessness – Side B Excerpt” – Chris Abrahams, pianist from longstanding Aussie avant-garde trio The Necks teams up with guitarist/electronics player Oren Ambarchi (who I got into via SUNN O))) and a gorgeous eai record Cloud with Keith Rowe, Toshimaru Nakamura, and Christian Fennesz in the same year) and drummer Robbie Avenaim who’d done other work with Ambarchi I loved. This excerpt from the upcoming full-side piece is full of the powerfully understated drama and righteous mystery I want from these players and left me hungry for the whole thing.
  • Marisa Anderson and Tara Jane O’Neil, “Wishing Well” – This stunning collaboration on a Bert Jansch classic (written with Anne Briggs) features an OG of the kind of guitar that fuses the accessible and the avant-garde, sometimes disparate histories of the instrument and the future, Tara Jane O’Neil (also on vocals) from the great Louisville band Rodan (who I finally saw live at Terrastock 15-ish years ago) and someone carrying that torch high, Marisa Anderson. Clarity and clatter in exactly the right measures. “Wishing well, wilt thou waters hide my burden until I return, return this way again?”
  • Nora Stanley and Benny Bock, “Into the Flats” – Saxophonist Nora Stanley and keyboardist Benny Bock teamed up for a luminous collaborative record (they co-wrote all compositions and play almost everything heared) Distance of the Moon that reminds me of classic ECM but still has its arms around what’s come since. That splash of sparks from the keys washed over by a saxophone figure around 3:30 exemplifies what I love so much about this album. Drummer Myles Martin, a rising star on the LA scene I wasn’t familiar with and the only guest on this track, adds some fascinating color, less driving forward propulsion of the track and more presenting other options.
  • Emily King featuring Lukas Nelson, “Bad Memory” – Singer-songwriter Emily King has always been at the periphery of my awareness but this single from Special Occasion, a burnished, ’60s-vintage slow dance duet with Lukas Nelson landed squarely between my ribs. Their matched low-key vocals and that aching, echoing guitar, the clatter of castanets skipping across the languid melody like a polished stone, it’s all perfect. “Used to dream about my past, now I’m running from it fast.”
  • Melenas, “Bang” – The sense of similar tones getting stretched out and the pulsing krautrock beat gave me the sense of taking off from the last couple of songs in placing this lilting slice of pop-rock perfection from Pamploma-based band Melenas right here.
  • M. Ward featuring first aid kit, “Too Young To Die” – M. Ward’s Supernatural Thing reaffirms his status as one of the great melodists of my generation, full of examples of that rare gift of playing with retro sounds without seeming stuck in some other era. And this perfect example, aided by the sparkling harmonies of first aid kit, is one of the songs on the new one I go back to the most often. “Sailing, sometimes failing, that’s the only way, the only way to fly. Crying, sometimes wailing, that’s the only way that we learn how to try.”
  • Tommy Prine, “Mirror and a Kitchen Sink” – Tommy Prine’s This Far South, produced with Rushton Kelly and Gena Johnson, plants a flag in territory that’s clearly his own, using contemporary colors and rhythms alongside the kind of sharply defined characters and witty wordplay that defined his legendary father. This, like the M. Ward, was a hard call to make – I think at one point I had three songs from this record on the nascent version of this month’s playlist – but I kept coming back to the jaunty bounce of this track, that impossibly catchy acoustic guitar riff underpinning the gimlet gaze of the lyrics. “So what’s the difference between you and me? I’ll tell you right now, it’s a couple teeth. And then I decide whether or not to be crueler than I already am.”
  • Tanya Tucker featuring Brandi Carlile, “The List” – Sweet Texas Sound builds on the momentum and power of Tanya Tucker’s great comeback record While I’m Still Livin’, pairing her again with producers Shooter Jennings and Brandi Carlile. This track is one of several Tucker co-wrote with Carlile and it’s a brilliantly clear-eyed taking stock and kiss off, with a classic sawdust-spattered two-step backing highlighting Jennings’ piano and John Schreffler’s pedal steel. “I ain’t here to make excuses and I’ve since lost all track of my demons and their muses. But if you’re still keeping score, then you can keep your heart attack.”
  • Dale Watson, “I Ain’t Been Living Right” – Dale Watson leans into his spending more time in Texas after some fruitful years in Memphis with the lean and mean Starvation Box, inspired by the example of Marshall, Texas’s legendary son Leadbelly (the title is what Ledbetter’s father called the guitar). This acoustic-driven shuffle is exactly the slow twisting of a knife in the gut that I think Watson does better than any country artist and what drew me to him 25 years ago, making the most of every crevice and scar in that magnificent baritone. “Now, the older I get, I’m finding more regrets: regrets that have been lurking in my mind. Maybe I’ll find solace in my old age and forget I ain’t been living right.”
  • Brian Thornton and Iranian Female Composers Association featuring Katherine Bormann, Alicia Koelz, Eliesha Nelson, “And the Moses Drowned” – I’m ashamed to say I wasn’t familiar with the IFCA before this beautiful record Sirventès but I was a little more familiar with cellist Brian Thornton of the Cleveland Orchestra. The quartet he assembled for this evocative piece by Mahdis Golzar Kashani finds every bit of nuance and mystery, it’s a stunning lead-off to a marvelous record.
  • Tyshawn Sorey Trio, “Seleritus” – Tyshawn Sorey continues to dig into standards with surprising, breathtaking results on Continuing, his new record with Aaron Diehl on piano and Matt Brewer on bass. This gorgeous Ahmad Jamal piece gets to the heart of the fragility and power Jamal conjured simultaneously in a way few piano trios have been able to live up to since; it’s a magical reminder how much life still pumps through the veins of this music and also a stunning tribute to a generational artist who opened up an entirely new pathway in American music.
  • Greg Ward presents Rogue Parade, “Noir Nouveau” – Chicago-based saxophone player and composer Greg Ward’s quintet Rogue Parade’s follow up Dion’s Quest expounds on everything great from their debut Stomping Off From Greenwood. This appropriately smoky, hard-shadows track flanks a blue flame of a saxophone line with the sparkling guitars of Matt Gold and Dave Miller, and the rich, subtle rhythm section of Matt Ulery on bass and Quin Kirchner on drums.
  • Olivia Dean, “The Hardest Part” – British R&B singer-writer Olivia Dean’s debut full length Messy is a remarkable record, consistent and smooth – mostly cowritten with Bastian Langebæk and Max Wolfgang – but knowing exactly when and where to cut and how much of a mark to leave. This smoky slow-drag number exemplifies the mood I come back to this record for, reminding me of early Erykah Badu, and I can’t wait to see what else Dean turns into. “Call me up to meet you: static on the phone. Normally I need you; this time I don’t wanna go. Lately, I’ve been growing into someone you don’t know. You had the chance to love her, but apparently you don’t.”
  • Kris Gruen featuring Anaïs Mitchell “Anchors” – I’ve been hearing the name Kris Gruen – singer-songwriter son of famed photographer Bob – but it took seeing this luminous duet with one of my favorites, Anaïs Mitchell, to finally check his work out. It’s soaring and wistful, like a sunrise over the Hudson. “I forgive you, circle broken, by and by.”
  • Miranda Lambert and Leon Bridges, “If You Were Mine” – Two of my favorite Texas singer-songwriters of relatively (I still had roommates when I first heard Lambert so it’s been at least 20 years) recent vintage team up on a perfect example of finding middle ground, and that space where their voices meet on this perfect piece of longing, this moment frozen in amber, hits exactly right. “‘I’d drink you down like fine wine, till there was nothing left.”
  • Gus Dapperton featuring BENEE, “Don’t Let Me Down” – Another duet shot through with longing and promise but set to more of an insistent clubby rhythm, this duet between New York-based Guy Dapperton and New Zealand-centered BENEE has an extremely appealing groove; I especially love the way their voices melt around one another. “I’m just gonna burn out and fall out of my head.”
  • Ingebrigt Håker Flaten and Paal Nilssen-Love, “Part 2” – One insistent rhythm gives way to another. Nyemiah SThis classic Norwegian rhythm section who’ve lit me up so many times, live and on record, team up to pay tribute to the Trondheim Conservatory of Music where they met, on its 40th anniversary, with Guts & Skins. They assembled a killing octet featuring players whose work I know well like pianist/organist Alexander Hawkins and completely new to me like baritone saxophonist Hanne deBacker, and delivered a record that walks the line between post-bop and free jazz that doesn’t sell out the pleasures or core of either.
  • Nyemiah Supreme, “Last Day” – The stabbing cymbals and rumbling bass on the track for this electrifying song from rising Queens rapper Nyemiah Supreme seemed to call on the previous tracks and I was stunned by the crackle of her pavement-mosaic-dry delivery and the flashing wit of the wordplay. “There’s nowhere to get – all of that paper, you only enrich.”
  • Wireheads, “Detective” – The bluesy post-punk chug – Fall-ish vocals laid against a mournful harmonica like the smokestack of a passing train – of this Adelaide-based band made me immediately sorry I hadn’t heard their earlier work; Potentially Venus is a terrific rock record. “‘I’m merely scratched,’ he hollered. I am bothered less than Donna; she’s like a fire burning carefree in biosolids.”
  • Smug Brothers, “Let Me Know When It’s You” – I got turned onto the Smug Brothers through friend and Columbus locus Kyle Sowash’s involvement. This song is a lovely slice of middle-American powerpop, jangle poured over a crunching rhythm section like syrup, and it’s on a record The Book of Bad Ideas spilling over with these big hooks and sparkling harmonies. “When you think you’ve heard about a situation and you’re trying to tune into the conversation, you know I won’t pass the test and maybe that’s for the best.”
  • Byron Messia, “Talibans” – St Kitts-based dancehall artist Byron Messia is having a moment with this bolt-from-the-blue (at least to those of us outside the genre) smash hit. While I love dancehall, I don’t pretend my knowledge goes deep; this infectious, menacing watch-yourself tune with a smooth quaver in the vocal over clipped drums, caught my ear immediately. “Make unruh sleep inna yard in four months.”
  • Vox Sambou, “Libète (remix) – Montreal-based singer-bandleader Vox Sambou draws on the various music of the African disapora and mixes it in a way that never feels random or scattered. This single in advance of We Must Unite starts with the Haitian Creole word for freedom and builds to a powerful crescendo, rippling guitars and a thicket of percussion rising behind a powerful, ragged voice.
  • Ken Ishii, “Liver Blow (Ken Ishii 2023 Remix One)” – I got into Ken Ishii a little late – the Nonesuch compilation Reich Remixed came out when I was 18 or 19 and drew a connection between the electronic music I loved getting down to with my friends in clubs and at parties and the avant-garde classical I’d recently discovered. One of my favorite tracks was Ishii’s so I started grabbing anything of his I could find. When I finally got to see him spin in person with my old roommate and friend Jon Rood a couple of years later, in a club I don’t think lasted 9 months called Pulse, it was every bit as revelatory as I hoped. I haven’t done the best job of keeping track but this rework of a 2022 track hit my radar and it gives me the same jolts of experimentation and sensuality his work did when I first discovered it, without feeling like he’s been static.
  • Jorja Smith and Nia Archives, “Little Things (Nia Archives Remix)” – I don’t think it’s any surprise I think London’s Jorja Smith is one of the great soul singers to emerge in the last 10 years, and I’ve loved everything I’ve heard from Nia Archives. Their collab on this remix delivered on those high expectations and then some – the speeding up and layering it over post-jungle drums actually enhances the cold menace in Smith’s original; snippets of vocal dance in the air  between the verses, like slivers of shattered mirror in an image I always remember from a poem of old pal Dave Gibbs. “It’s the little things that get me high. Won’t you come with me and spend the night?”
  • Tego Calderón, “La Receta” – One of the voices that helped define reggaeton to the world, Puerto Rican superstar Tego Calderón returns eight years after his last record, and over 20 since he first appeared, with this dance floor smash of the perreo variety, produced by DJ Urba & Rome. If this doesn’t make your hips move, I’m not sure what to tell you.
  • Tyson, “Promises” – Like the warm breeze coming in from a door opening on a cool dark bar just before the late-evening sunset of Jul while watching a carved ice cube tumble into a rocks glass that fits just so in your hand, this single by Tyson, the daughter of Neneh Cherry and Cameron McVey (Massive Attack, Groove Armada, Yossou N’Dour), is the perfect mix of sensations and architecture. The spaces and the echo around the sparse, crisp beats slit the skin to make space for that melody. “How do I read you when you’re giving me nothing?”
  • Miles Miller, “Passed Midnight” – Another perfectly constructed song keyed for the sweltering middle of summer, from Miles Miller, better known as Sturgill Simpson’s drummer, and exemplary of his stellar Solid Gold. “The shape I’m in doesn’t make me want to give you a call. You’re probably holding on so tight to somebody else tonight. Well, I’m holding on to nothing but the twilight; ain’t it a pretty sight?”
  • Jerry Joseph, “The War I Finally Won” – Singer-songwriter Jerry Joseph’s been making great records since the mid-’90s that completely flew under my radar until 2020’s breathtaking The Beautiful Madness and even that I heard late, so I’m still playing catch up. If this evocative barn burner, with a fiery tambourine so far up in the mix it feels like it might break the fourth wall and slap me in the face, is any indication, the follow-up Baby, You’re the Man Who Would Be King, is a record to watch out for coming up. “I see the enemy is still right here. Let me sleep till the morning; the indecision weighs a ton. I hear the trumpets blow, and I know it’s the war I finally won.”
  • PJ Harvey, “I Inside The Old Year Dying” – Like most old cranks who loved something so much at a formative time, it took me a while to get on board with the differently abstract, spacious music PJ Harvey’s making now. I kept holding her work to a yardstick based on the four-album run almost no one has ever come close to she put out in my youth. It finally opened up for me, cracking wide and letting me lose that chrysalis of bullshit, with the last record so I was ready for her excellent new one, of which this is the title track. Soaring and searing, an indictment and a call to arms. I’m not sure exactly where I think the “ending prayer” portion of this month’s playlist starts – the Miller or the Joseph – but this is where it hits critical mass. “Slip from my childhood skin; / I zing through the forest / I hover in the holway / And laugh into the leaves”
  • Spencer Zahn, Dave Harrington, Jeremy Gustin, “Daylight” – I’ve been a big fan of Spencer Zahn since our mutual friend Mike Gamble introduced us and turned me onto his band Father Figures – and he’s shown up in these playlists several times. I like the music of Harry Styles but I don’t know it all that well, and from the liner notes, neither did this trio when they decided to take it on, but this is the opposite of a piss take. This track, and the rest of A Visit to Harry’s House, treat the song forms with love and generosity but leave enough room to bring their own life to it, their own light, and leave us all smiling. Like you always want a visitor to leave.
  • Joni Mitchell and the Joni Jam, “Amelia” – As soon as I heard Joni Mitchell was singing again at Newport I watched those Youtube videos for the next week almost to the exclusion of everything else. This official recording – backed by a collection of musicians with Brandi Carlile and her band as the nucleus – makes me tear up every time. This version of a song from Hejira that’s not only given me comfort since I was a teenager but has changed with me, featuring a lovely vocal from Dawes’ Taylor Goldsmith, is a stunning example of the kind of love and compassion this kind of tribute/celebration needs. “A ghost of aviation: she was swallowed by the sky, or by the sea. Like me, she had a dream to fly. Like Icarus ascending on beautiful, foolish arms – Amelia, it was just a false alarm.”
Categories
Playlist record reviews

Playlist – June 2023

Active participant in a lot of great stuff this month – as always in Anne’s birthday month – but also did a lot of struggling, feeling like I was mired in my own muck. Shorter blurbs and extremely late this time. I thought about taking my once or twice-a-year mulligan and just putting the playlist out, but when I looked back at it, there were several things I really wanted to give the handshake for. Thanks for reading and listening; I love and appreciate you all.

https://tidal.com/browse/playlist/e4dd0206-e2c0-4113-9e6e-7eff22c9e0ad

  • Jaimie Branch, “take over the world” – I don’t think I have words for how happy I am the new music Jaimie Branch spoke about when I interviewed her, at least a slice of it, is coming out on the posthumous album Fly or Die Fly or Die Fly or Die (world war). This first taste is a spiky anthem, a fireball; Chad Taylor’s roiling drums lead us on this journey that makes tears spring to my eyes and also pump my fist: the best and rarest of combos. “Gonna, gonna, gonna, take over the world… take it back to the love.”
  • Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit, “When We Were Close” – Jason Isbell pivots slightly on this one. As I talked about to old friend and mentor Rich Dansky, Weathervanes (as a whole) feels less like the strobe-and-neon gut punches of Reunions and The Nashville Sound and more like a widescreen version of the interiority he sharpened to a fine point on Something More than Free. I don’t think there’s a weak song on the album, but this song about his friendship with Justin Townes Earle hit me at a moment I was primed to think about dead friends and relationships I didn’t care for like I should have – particularly someone who I wasn’t very close to, but I always liked, and we’d been in the same circles for years; RIP Blair Hook, and so many other pals, comrades, and acquaintances. “Got a picture of you dying in your mind, with some ghosts you couldn’t bear to leave behind – but I can hear your voice ring as you snap another B string and finish out the set with only five. And for a minute there, you’re still alive.”
  • MeShell Ndegeocello featuring Jeff Parker, “ASR” – I put an early single on this playlist a couple of months ago but having lived with The Omnichord Real Book in its entirety for a little while, it might be her finest record – saying something, from one of the finest singers/songwriters/bandleaders of my lifetime. I saw her perform this track live at the Blue Note in January, with featured guest Jeff Parker sitting in, and it was a highlight in a set bulging at the seams with highlights. The hypnotic, trance-like groove, the backing vocals curling like smoke, the subtle, beckoning, judging lead vocal, and the shattered-glass ribbons of Parker’s guitar… everything here is perfect. “Can’t get back the time you wasted, you wasted.”
  • Kassi Valazza, “Room in the City” – Another facet in the prism of that feeling I’m grappling with, a sense of loneliness but also gratitude for making it to the other side, from a Portland singer-songwriter I wasn’t familiar with before this terrific record Knows Nothing. Her voice reminds me of British folk and the New Weird America scene I loved so much, and subtle touches on the arrangement – a mournful moan that could be a harmonica or a harmonium, shards of piano, a soaring steel guitar toward the end of the track – reinforce and subvert the buttery closeness of the vocal. “Shadow mountains and the pale green rivers drifting in and out of windy highway sounds. Copper colors and some lonely search for meaning keep me coming back and turning right around.”
  • Loraine James, “2003” – I got into London-based composer Loraine James with last year’s breathtaking Julius Eastman homage Building Something Beautiful For Me and this advance taste of her upcoming record for Hyperdub points me in the direction of another of my top albums of the year. Hazy, humid, and rich, speckled with rough, acerbic textures and an aching vocal bobbing up and down in the beautiful haze. “So much confusion, came up with many conclusions.”
  • Monophonics featuring Kendra Morris, “Untitled Visions” – I still miss those days Monophonics came through town regularly (a powerful dance party at Brothers Drake Meadery sticks out), but I’m overjoyed to see them getting bigger success with some slight tweaks to the formula. The crisp drums and trademark horn stabs sound gorgeous on this track around Kendra Morris’ warm breeze of a vocal. “I close my eyes and turn up my dreams.”
  • Don Toliver featuring Lil Durk and GloRilla, “Leave the Club” – Houston-based soul singer Don Toliver teams up with rappers Lil Durk and GloRilla for this instant-classic ode to finding something to go home with at closing time (or earlier). The shifts in tempo and intensity keep the song from getting monochromatic, along with the varying tonal qualities of their voices – when GloRilla appears with the best one-liners in the song, it feels like the lights in the club shifted right after a perfect but ill-advised shot of tequila – but these points of interest don’t disrupt the innate, butterscotchy smoothness. “Bet up on my Rosé, and I’m ’bout to leave the section. See me after hours; I left the club with extras. Speedin’ down that highway, it’s lookin’ kinda reckless.”
  • Slighter, “Have No Fear (Dark Rave Mix) – This is very much the kind of music I’d have been dancing to back in the days I identified with the subject matter of the previous song, a thick layer of industrial sounds and lugubrious, squelchy bass welded to a pumping dancefloor groove. I wasn’t familiar with this LA artist, but somehow the algorithm knew this would scratch an itch in my brain, light up some neurons I hadn’t given credit to in maybe too long. The original mix is great but hearing this dark rave mix brought up a purging of sweet nostalgia with light and gratitude.
  • Kassa Overall featuring Laura Mvula and Francis and the Lights, “So Happy” – I first encountered Kassa Overall in his jazz drummer guise, playing in a trio with John Hebert and Peter Evans at the Jazz Gallery, and was immediately a fan, but I love the way his records get harder to classify and more all-encompassing, widening the scope of his subject material while sharpening his own idiosyncratic viewpoint. This standout from his excellent Animals links him up with the great British R&B singer Laura Mvula and synthpop mastermind Francis and the Lights for an infectious, bouncing, cracked hip-hop track that might be my song of the summer. “What if you were chosen but, full of fear, you were frozen? My life almost brought to a close in the fight to get open.”
  • The Freedom Affair, “Make Me Surrender (Instrumental)” – I got to Twangfest too late to catch Kansas City’s The Freedom Affair, but so many of my friends raved so hard about this soul band I had to check out 2021’s Freedom is Love, and immediately fell hard for it. This year’s instrumental version has been one of my prime soundtracks for this sticky, muggy season and keeps paying dividends.
  • Kieran Hebden and William Tyler, “Darkness, Darkness” – I saw Kieran Hebden a few times over the years, mostly in his Four Tet guise in the early 2000s, and a couple of those performances blew my mind the same way his first three records cracked it open, and this pastoral collaboration with searching guitarist William Tyler is just gorgeous, one of my favorite recent records to smoke a cigar on the porch or free write to. The loping groove organically appears here like a sunrise over a Kandinsky landscape, like an aubade.
  • Wolf Eyes, “Engaged Withdrawal” – Wolf Eyes, being from Michigan and getting more mainstream media traction, cast a huge shadow on the scene here in Columbus, playing shows and collaborating with friends of mine. For a few years, I lost track, they were mostly self-releasing, not touring as much, but everything I’ve heard since they popped back on my radar has been excellent, and this new record, Dreams in Splattered Lines, is another high point. This heaving miniature, using overlapping repetition, working these tiny cells and nuances to evoke coiled dread  but also a sense of being present, is a prime example of the pleasures within.
  • Sam Butler, “I. At Night, And Then Upon Waking” – Indiana-based trumpeter/composer Sam Butler made a remarkably assured debut album with Folklore and I think this is a cinematic highlight. It makes excellent use of a tight band comprised of people I was already a fan of, like Greg Ward on alto (Mike Reed, Ernest Dawkins, Hamid Drake) and Kenny Phelps (Pharez Whited) on drums, and names new to me like tenor player Garrett Fasig.
  • Ben Wendel featuring Elena Pinderhughes, “Speak Joy” – Ben Wendel from Kneebody and so much else has released one record after another that document expanding ambition and deeper clarity at the same time, and All One is another step forward. Lush layering of Wendel’s saxophone on this original is contrasted by the warm breeze of Elena Pinderhughes’ flute and alto flute.
  • David Garland, “String Flow 1, Part 2 The Fourth” – I first became a David Garland fan through his richly orchestrated, idiosyncratic songs that used their esoteric qualities to drive a knife deep into my chest (that run from Togetherness through my favorite Noise in You is well overdue for a re-evaluation). I didn’t know his “pure” chamber music until more recently. This track from his rapturous new one, Flowering Flows, pours harmony over drones like honey.
  • Gia Margaret, “City Song” – Songwriter-singer-pianist Gia Margaret’s Romantic Piano fuses her songwriter impulses and “pure” composition tendencies as well as any record I can think of in recent memory. The chords and the field recording atmospherics flow into one another and illuminate the soft, dramatic power of her voice. “In flashback, I saw you with so much to tell; the revolving doors hit in a tentative spell, and the birds still fly. I stay up all night.”
  • Henry Threadgill Ensemble, “Movement II” – I didn’t think I could love a Henry Threadgill album without his inimitable saxophone sound on it. But The Other One, a long-form piece Of Valence inspired by Milford Graves, gives me most of the pleasures I’m expecting and also lets me hear facets of his compositional voice in a way that’s so beautifully surprising. Many of his longtime collaborators – including Jose Davila on tuba, David Virelles on piano – do beautiful justice to this thorny, nuanced work.
  • Curtis J. Stewart, “Adagio from Johannes Brahms Violin Sonata No 1 Op 78 (We are going to be OK)” – Violinist-singer Curtis Stewart’s, founder of PUBLIQuartet, Of Love, is intended as a requiem/tribute to his mother and it’s as wrenching and beautiful as that can imply, a record that I sank into immediately and I’m still swimming inside it, as full of love as it is of mystery. Here, Stewart slips the mantra “We are going to be OK” between the lines of this gorgeous Brahms adagio, his violin raining down over clattering synthesized drum beats. A highlight in a record without any weak links.
  • Maisie Peters, “Lost the Breakup” – This song from English singer-songwriter Maisie Peters (whose first record completely blew past me) opens with a shimmering, slicing violin (or a keyboard I’m mistaking for strings) that links it to the sound world of the last few tracks before blooming into an infectious pop kiss-off. “But for now, I’m out in the dust. Oh, is she just like me? Yeah, I reckon you’ve got two types: Country and Western.”
  • Flo featuring Missy Elliott, “Fly Girl” – This boisterous, finely tuned summer smash takes Missy Elliott’s “Work It” – “If you a fly girl, get your nails done, get a pedicure, get your hair did” – and applies a chromed-out, hyper-modern singing-rapping cadence that winks at Elliott’s groundbreaking fusion of the two in her own writing and singing style while bringing it up today, wtih the great Miss.E rocking a verse that proves she’s still paying attention and can keep up with anyone.”Oh babe, might leave you waiting all day, cause these material things are not enough to make me stay.”
  • Lunchbox, “Feel Things” – This standout from New York rapper Lunchbox’s new record New Jazz, with an ominous, lurching beat from Amir.pr0d, is one of the best musical representations I’ve ever heard of the simultaneous desire to feel as much as we can, soak up as much of life, but numb it at the same time, so many of us struggle with. “All this codeine, I can’t feel shit; shit ain’t real; it’s deceiving. We be on top of the building – what the fuck is a ceiling?”
  • Ari LaShell, “Get Down” – Singer-songwriter Ari LaShell’s debut album AWH is a fountain of ideas and power. This track combines her vintage neo-soul vocal delivery with a big post-disco bass line and hard club drums, using repetition as an invitation and a distancing mechanism. “Can you rock with me now?”
  • YoungBoy Never Broke Again, “Dirty Thug” – Baton Rouge rapper YoungBoy Never Broke Again puts out so much material I can’t even hope to keep track, but every time I check in, I’m glad I did. This skin-flaying confessional rides on one of his signature gorgeous melodies with a thumping, insistent beat. “On the dance floor with the devil, can you come take over for him, please? I said, ‘Can you come step in and dance with me?’ Off-white, money coming in left and right, you the last thing that make me complete. I take these drugs with no party. I told that girl I was sorry. I’ m on my shit, oh, now, pardon me. I saw some shit, sad, and it scarred me.”
  • Rodeo Boys, “Tidal Wave” – The fusion of twang and grunge this terrific Lansing quartet brings reminded me of Columbus in the ’90s in all the best ways but the out-in-front queer lyrical perspective and the wide net they cast for sounds and influences plants them firmly in the moment. Had a hard time picking a track, Home Movies is so consistent and so beautifully relentless.
  • Gut Health, “The Recipe” – I’m an unabashed fan of the current wave of rock coming from Melbourne, and this invigorating five piece led by Anhina Uh Oh sums up so much of what I love about that scene: barbed hooks, punchy rhythms, stinging guitars. “Delta of faux! Iridescent! No enemies, real energy.”
  • Nia Archives, “Off Wiv Ya Headz” – London-based producer Nia Archives takes the A-Trak remix of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs rager “Off With Your Head” – already a track that I still put on more party playlists than not, and have on my gym mix – as raw material for this expansive, pounding post-jungle rework. Reminds me of everything I loved about jungle and drum ‘n’ bass and the pure catharsis of dancing.
  • Godflesh, “You Are the Judge, the Jury, and the Executioner” – Godflesh was my entryway into Justin Broadrick’s musical world as a young teenager – and I’ve had my brain melted by live sets by The Bug and Zonal over the years – so I’ve been overjoyed that the comeback Godflesh records since 2014 have lived up to the quality of that impeccable original run, each one getting better. This closing track on the excellent Purge is volcanic, cathartic, and introspective at the same time. As good a fiery riff as I’ve heard in many years and a crunching, unstoppable groove. “The sane, the just, the righteous. We fall. Again.”
  • Boris, “Heavy Friends” – The repetition underpinning the righteous ZZ Top worthy riff from this newest salvo from Japanese power trio Boris, for me, ties together some of the last several items, connectiing Decisive Pink to Godflesh, but even if those connections don’t work for you, this fucking smokes.
  • Serroge, “Damascus” – I believe I found out about this St Louis-based rapper from a random post-Twangfest conversation with someone at the Irish bar down the street from Off-Broadway, and it’s been one of my favorite finds of the year. “I’ve been serving two masters. “I just got multiple packs ’cause I’ve been serving two masters. The truth of the situation: I was blind. Paul on the road to Damascus.”
  • Statik Selektah featuring Posdnous, “Round Trip (For Dave)” – Producer Statik Selektah’s sprawling Round Trip album is packed with pleasures but my immediate favorite was this collaboration with Posdnous in tribute to Pos’s longtime De La Soul compatriot Dave “Trugoy the Dove” Jollicoeur, rippling with horns and piano stabs. “Bittersweet blessings, condolences and congrats in the same sentence while my life learns the lesson. I cry quiet so the knot in my chest is hard to untie, but thankfully the heart keeps pressing.”
  • Vada Azeem, “ABUELA” – Columbus-based Vada Azeem caught my ear with early work as L.e. for the Uncool he continues to impress me. This gorgeous track remembering his grandmother and also a friend who died too young is a horn-drenched standout on his consistently strong We Forgot God Was Working. “I remember what my Grandma told a little me, my eyes full of glee: ‘Stay focused, child, always tie your camel to a tree.'”
  • Lorqa and Synead, “Mirrors” – New York based producer Lorqa and vocalist Synead teamed up for this subtle, icy tune that feels like a perfect tonic for the muggy, suffocating air at the moment and I bet will sound just as good to leaves and snow falling through streetlamps. “Out of bed; muddy boots and I’m still hungover. Clocks are useless, where the time go? Now I see why floating mirrors whisper. All these mirrors are telling you ‘Come on, flow right over.'”
  • Decisive Pink, “Cosmic Dancer” – This collaboration between Angel Deradoorian and Kate NV uses shiny textures to complicate its message, to enhance the mystery, instead of glossing over it – the synth textures tied it in my mind to the previous few tracks but the repetition and the sense of interlocking cells also ties it to Philip Glass but with a heavy dollop of dancefloor charm. “The archer’s bow points out the way to my newest escapade. What lies beyond in the unknown charade?”
  • Gerald Cleaver, “A Marcha Para Baixo” – Long one of my favorite drummers in jazz – a title he handily defended when Anne and I saw him playing with the poet Fred Moten on my last trip to New York – Cleaver’s also been putting out really interesting electronic music, and his new record in that vein 22/23 brings in everything he’s interested in, like the nod to Brazilian music here with sounds that bear faint traces of classic Deodato and David Axelrod, while still flexing his Detroit roots.
  • Wild Up, “If You’re So Smart, Why Aren’t You Rich?” – One of my favorite Julius Eastman pieces gets a luminous reading from the collective Wild Up. who also did the astonishing rediscovery of his piece Feminine. The sledgehammer to the chest of those massed horns and ice knife-wielding indictment of the vocals have never been clearer or more powerful.
  • Orrin Evans, “The Red Door” – This title track to another can’t-miss record by one of my favorite pianists and composers finds Evans assembling a world-beating quintet of Nicholas Payton on trumpet, Gary Thomas on tenor, Robert Hurst on bass, and Marvin “Smitty” Smitt on drums. The empathy on those pulsing, enticing sunlight heads and the intriguing everything-pulling-apart sections shine. Jazz you can snap your fingers to and get lost in.
  • Adeem the Artist, “Fervent For the Hunger” – Still hoping Adeem the Artist rides the wave of more-than-deserved hype to tour somewhere near here as I missed their (by all accounts, excellent) hometown shows during Big Ears. This new song continues the volcanic, ferocious compassion they brought to White Trash Revelry and makes it a natural singalong. “And I’m a holy ghost, lamp post, poet of sorts. A rain drop, machine shop, radio source surtured with lip gloss and hot sauce, indian summers. Just a kid with mixed up head, fervent for the hunger.”
  • Eilen Jewell, “Could You Would You” – I’ve been a fan of Eilen Jewell since Alec Wightman first brought her to town for one of his Zeppelin shows, and every record reveals new layers, new reasons to be enraptured. This standout from her excellent Get Behind the Wheel works in that Roy Orbison/Chrissy Hynde swinging stop mode she does better than anyone else right now, making the chorus “Could you love me like I love you?” a flirtatious, poison-dipped dagger of a challenge.
  • Ashley Ray featuring Ruston Kelly, “Break My Heart” – From the first swoop of pedal steel, Ashley Ray plants her flag in a deep river of trad country balladry, every line perfectly enunciated and stretched out juuuust enough, with Ruston Kelly as a devastating foil. “I just thought that you should know I’ve got a little ways to go. I’m a wild horse at the rodeo, but I think you could take her. If you don’t break my heart, honey, somebody else will. You’ve got a deadly charm, I’ve got nothing but time to kill.”
  • Brennen Leigh, “The Bar Should Say Thanks” – A less smooth, honky-tonk brand of country gets an ideal champion in Brennen Leigh, maybe the artist I kick myself most for missing this year when she played Natalie’s with Kelly Willis. The defiance and longing in her voice recalls vintage crying in your beer Merle Haggard and the fiddle-driven blurry waltz paints an entire world. “Don’t they remember each closing time, whose tab is always open? Who can they count on to hold the hand of a friend who’s barely coping? Who’s the queen of rehashing her hard knocks? Who drops all of their cash in the jukebox when I could have been putting it in the bank? The bar should say thanks.”
  • Madison McFerrin, “(Please Don’t) Leave Me Now” – A slightly different stripe of instant last call classic with this highlight off Madison McFerrin’s excellent debut album I Hope You Can Forgive Me. Subtle, introspective disco that makes me regret even more missing her when she came through Rambling House; I’m damn sure the next time will be someplace much larger. “What is all forgiven when it’s said and done? Could it be we’re livin’ all wrong?”
  • New Twenty Saints, “Ghosting” – I was turned onto this Detroit band by my fellow Pencilstorm contributor Jeremy Porter, and they’re exactly the kind of bar room midwestern/Great Lakes region rock I have a soft spot for, done really well. They’re high on my list to check for next time I’m up north. “I’m always doing time. You show your cards when you can’t show signs.”
  • Bettye LaVette featuring Ray Parker Jr. and Jon Batiste, “Mess About It” – If soul legend Bettye LaVette had just made the same record over and over, I’d probably still lap them up: she’s got one of the signature voices of her generation, and it just gets richer and more fascinating with time. But it’s to her credit she keeps searching, keeps working in different modes with different concepts, trusting whatever she takes on will always be her. The new one, LaVette! teams her with southern rock songwriter Randall Bramblett who came up in similar ’70s trenches, and it’s front-to-back magic. This track in particular, with the great Ray Parker Jr. adding his signature guitar alongside fellow guest, keyboardist Jon Batiste, is a classic slice of funky urban soul. “When you’re burning daylight, and you’re almost home, little things can wind their way inside of you. And your smile gets stolen by the fading sun; got a strange hold on the steering wheel.”
  • Joy Oladokun, “Changes” – With every record, singer-songwriter Joy Oladokun’s work gets stronger, deeper, and more herself. Proof of Life, her second for Verve Forecast, might be her first masterpiece. This burnished, ingratiating tune with a vocal that’s immediate but unfolds with attention is co-written and produced with Dan Wilson and features Wilson on harmonium, with Oladokun adding that pulsing bass line and ukulele part and a warm breeze of a saxophone part from Alex Budman (Clare Fischer, Mavis Staples, D’Angelo). “Was a baby during the LA riots, and I’ve seen cities burn again. Cried for the innocent a thousand times, and people still don’t understand what it’s like to hope again and again, knowing the heartache’s gonna be there till the end.”
  • Keturah, “Nchiwewe (Ode to Willie Nelson)” – The eponymous debut album from Malawian singer-songwriter Keturah stunned me the minute I heard it and is still revealing pleasures and secrets to me. This tribute to Willie Nelson stands alongside Miles Davis’, showing the reach and power of Nelson’s work and the connections between a global artistic community.
  • Jerry David DeCicca, “New Shadows” – Even in the Black Swans, who I loved, Jerry DeCicca was always finding new facets, new contexts for his voice without ever chasing trends or doing anything cavalierly. This first single and title track of DeCicca’s forthcoming record expands the palette of his sonic world further than anything other than his collaboration with Mike Shiflet (which I love) and uses guest stars like guitarist Jeff Parker and baritone sax player Steve Berlin beautifully. As with the last several of these playlists, I like to end with a prayer, and DeCicca’s music has always had meditative, medicinal qualities for me, never more than the holy house of mirrors he builds here. I always look forward to a new record from him, but this taste made this my most anticipated record of the year. Thank you all for listening and reading. “The sun went down and the night got big, so I crawl into the hole I dig.”