Tag: Playlist

Playlist – May 2023

After a couple of months that felt like watching for a flower to bloom, but with the physical sensation of pulling teeth, I felt really energized and enthusiastic digging into stuff this time. That sensation carried over through a delightful return to Twangfest, full of not just my friends but some of my mentors and inspirations for loving music the way I do; where I wrote some of the later blurbs in the morning with coffee or in the airport waiting for my (delayed) flight, and now still riding that high a few days later. Thank you for listening, reading, or both. I love you all.

https://tidal.com/browse/playlist/3ebe3157-0377-4c01-b0cd-c0232238f508

Fred Davis, “Wine Hop” – Eli “Paperboy” Reed learned to play guitar with his father Howard Husock showing him tricks he’d learned from legendary Cleveland blues singer-guitarist Fred Davis (tragically murdered in 1988). Finding a tape of what are thought to be the only recordings Davis ever made, mostly with his band Dave and the Blues Express, Reed and his father cleaned up and released this stirring document (and also provided a marker for Davis’s grave). This grinding, growling jump blues is a perfect example of its type and a reminder to treasure the heroes in your town – and record what you can – because it may leave only memories.
Janelle Monae featuring Seun Kuti and Egypt 80, “Float” – This opening salvo from Janelle Monae’s The Age of Pleasure is a rich, powerful statement of intent, using the massed horns and power of Seun Kuti’s Egypt 80 – who my pal Andrew and I saw at the Alrosa Villa (RIP) – in a restrained, sensuous way. One of my favorite grooves of the year so far in a field with stiff competition. “I don’t dance; I just float.”
Amanda Shires and Bobbie Nelson featuring Willie Nelson, “Summertime” – The heads always knew, but it feels like it was only in the last 10 or so years of her life that pianist Bobbie Nelson received more of the just acclaim she deserved as brother Willie Nelson’s right hand/the key instrumental voice in The Family through so many changes. That reputation was helped by some duo records – and a heart-breaking joint memoir – and I think this collaborative record with fellow Texan, singer-fiddle player Amanda Shires, is going to help keep that reevaluation rolling. This gorgeous romp through the Gershwins’ “Summertime” stands up against any of the hundreds I’ve heard over the years. “Hush, little baby, don’t you cry.”
Valerie June featuring Bill Frisell, “Handsome Molly” – Tribute albums used to be kind of cast-off/throwaways, but the last year has given us some really stunning examples of the form, and I Am a Pilgrim: Doc Watson at 100 is another shining example. It’s full of beautiful performances that honor the thick, intricate rhythm and keening emotional content Doc Watson gave to roots music while also applying everything the artists know about the songs and themselves. This read on “Handsome Molly” with Valerie June’s intriguing, powerful vocal and Bill Frisell’s shadowy, echo-drenched guitar is a stellar example. “While sailing around the ocean, while sailing around the sea, I’ll dream of handsome Molly, wherever she might be.”
Shirley Collins, “Hares on the Mountain” – I’ve been a fan of Shirley Collins since my early Current 93 fandom, with David Tibet issuing a compilation of her work that sent me on a long and merry chase. And she’s still putting out astonishing work. Here, she revisits a mournful traditional she first recorded with legendary British folk guitarist Davey Graham, with subtle production from Ian Kearney, highlighting a haunting slide guitar. “If all you young men were fish in the water, how many young girls would undress and dive after?”
Peter Brotzmann, Majid Bekkas, Hamid Drake, “Balini” – Multi-reed player Peter Brotzmann injected a palpable energy into the European free jazz scene in the ’60s, and conjured a similar ferocity in the ’90s/early ’00s Chicago scene I first fell in love with. There have always been other textures and other passions in his sound – I remember being stunned by the solo record 14 Love Songs as a teenager – but he’s gone deeper into those in recent years, in his ’80s. The live record Catching Ghosts, captured at the 2022 Berlin Jazzfest, continues his investigations into Gnaouan music, teaming Brotzmann and longtime collaborator Hamid Drake with singer-guembri player Majid Bekkas.
Baby Rose featuring Smino, “I Won’t Tell” – This highlight from Baby Rose’s sophomore album Through and Through is one of my favorite examples of playing with classic disco tropes in a while. The clipped rhythm and throaty singing that at times recalls Nina Simone and early Macy Gray send me. “Some need emotion; I’ll take the thrill.”
Holy Tongue, “Saeta” – The debut full-length from London-based collaboration between percussionist Valentina Magaletti, multi-instrumentalist Al Wooton, and bassist Susumi Makai, layers on additional textures to the earlier dark ambient work. This opening track surges with ecstatic brass courtesy of David Wootton before shifting into a more contained intensity.
Fred again… and Brian Eno, “Secret” – I was vaguely aware of Fred again as a songwriter on those Brian Eno/Karl Hyde records, but I completely missed his Actual Life records until hearing Jon Caramanica talk about them on the New York Times’ Popcast. Of course, I loved them, they were right in my wheelhouse, and so I was primed for this full collaboration with Eno. I love the magpie energy, the way Fred strings together influences in ways that honor them but don’t feel handcuffed to history. I found the record as a whole to be hit and miss, but I loved this repurposing of some lyrics from Leonard Cohen’s “In My Secret Life” into immaculately carved and broken soundscapes for a long night of the soul. “Hold on, hold on, my brother. My sister, hold on tight. Finally found my whole life, so I’ve been marchin’ through the morning, marchin’ through the night. Moving ‘cross the borders of my secret life.”
Morgan Peros, “Last Straw” – Violinist-arranger Morgan Peros steps in front with this irresistible single highlighting her gifts as a singer-songwriter. I love the sudden flurry of drums toward the end before the strings and synths break the track open. “People talk about last straws: forgiveness, belonging, and betrayal. They load up their weapons, hide their loneliness, cling to a portrayal. I’ll be looking for beauty in the broken.”
The Baseball Project, “Journeyman” – This indie rock super group, Peter Buck and Mike Mills of R.E.M, Scott McCaughey from the Minus Five (and longtime touring member of R.E.M.), Steve Wynn from the Dream Syndicate, Linda Pitmon from ZuZu’s Petals and Golden Smog (and for many years, in Wynn’s Miracle 3), has extended into four records and this advance single from Grand Salami Time, co-written by Buck and Wynn, has a beautiful desert-sky melancholy running through it. “Always keep my bags packed. Never get too close to anyone. Long as there’s someone who needs me, down the road I go.”
The Gaslight Anthem, “Positive Charge” – It’s no secret to anyone reading this I’ve got a massive soft-spot for wordy anthemic rock, and that weakness most obviously manifests itself in my unabashed (mostly) love for the Gaslight Anthem. This early single from their reunion period, produced by Peter Katis, plants Brian Fallon’s voice in the thick of the other sounds instead of dragging it in front. and highlights the shadowy spaces between the bright slashes of guitar, while also playing up the deep undertow of the drums. It feels thick, it feels heavy with life in a way I find really appealing. “I need a positive charge. Plug it into my veins, make me love this life again.”
Who Parked the Car, “Sunburns” – Parisian collective Who Parked The Car made a terrific album of low-key R&B that feels like sliding down those streets in the dark. The deep hookup between Thomas Salvatore’s keys and Alejandro Dixon’s drums reminds me of the best of Cory Henry’s ballads and Laura Wamble’s vocal drives the mood deep. “Stay one more day.”
Mark Chang, “Turning Pages” – For me, this strikes a similar mood as the last song. I couldn’t find much about this Hong Kong-based singer-songwriter but it feels like he’s merging a more direct emo singing influence with the emo textures that have been prevalent in R&B for the last decade. “There’s no point in trying to change what no one can control.”
Naya Baaz, “Charm” – Naya Baaz, roughly translated as New Falcon, teams sitar player Josh Feinberg with jazz guitarist Rez Abbasi and a rhythm section of Jennifer Vincent on five-string cello and drummer Satoshi Takeishi, for a keening record fully of melodies that are hard to shake and explorations that always have a narrative propulsion. This title track is a beautiful blending of their styles I keep coming back to.
Fat Tony and Blockhead, “I’m Thinking ‘Bout Moving” – Like a lot of people my age, I fell in love with Blockhead’s beats on those early Aesop Rock records, and very shortly after a few of my favorite tracks on Columbus rapper Illogic’s Got Lyrics. I haven’t kept up very closely, but anytime something he’s worked on hits my radar, I’m happy to hear it and it’s always of interest. This pairing with Houston rapper Fat Tony is a hand-in-glove fit, humid and languid, perfect for this narrative I’m overjoyed I’m years away from being relatable. “When my girl over, one roommate look at her strange. He always wanna small talk and mispronounce her name. The living room littered with beer, cassette tapes and weed – all are his.”
Rocket 808, “House of Jackpots” – Rocket 808, John Schooley’s solo electric guitar and vocals with drum machine project, are one of my favorite bands from recent Gonerfests, and this instrumental title track off the new record finds him dipping more into texture and expanse than the sharp jabs of songs he first wowed me with.
Rich the Kid featuring Rema, Arya Starr, and KDDO, “Yeh Yeh” – This new single from Atlanta rapper Rich the Kid felt like it fit with the heat-mirage distorted landscapes of the previous few songs. The choice of collaborators here – Nigerian singers Rema, Arya Starr, and producer KDDO – helps this soar: the blending of their different voices and effects moves me every time. “We come alive in the night time and won’t let it die. And all the drinks I pour in, is it more that we dance?”
Gotopo featuring Don Elektron, “Piña pa la Niña” – Berlin-based and South American-raised singer-songwriter Gotopop crafted a phenomenal, mysterious, multifaceted groove of a record with Sacúdete and this collaboration with Latin electronic music superstar Don Elektron is high on that list of songs I can never stay in a bad mood after hearing.
Cyril Cyril and the Meridian Brothers, “Diablos de Chuao” – The duo of Cyril Yeterian, formerly of Swiss-Cajun band Mama Rosin, and Swiss experimental music maven Cyril Bondi, team up with Eblis Álvarez in his Meridian Brothers guise (and if you haven’t had your ear bent by me about the Meridian Brothers’ live incarnation at Big Ears recently, trust that it’s coming) for this infectious slab of heaving, accordion-driven Latin soul.
Black Market Brass, “Rat Trap” – I believe it was my pal Andrew who tipped me off to this single, on the can’t-miss Colemine label, from recent favorites Black Market Brass. The serrated horn stabs and choppy guitar sum up everything I’m looking for from this great Minneapolis band, and this should be part of the mix at any party for the forseeable future, while also getting me excited for their next full-length in the fall.
The Whiffs, “I Didn’t Need You to Know” – This sunrise-bright slice of powerpop from the Kansas City band The Whiffs is a prime example of what that genre does so well. A cry in the dark and a catchiness that can’t be denied, one of many highlights on their terrific record Scratch ‘N’ Sniff.
Rodney Crowell, “You’re Supposed to be Feeling Good” – Since his career rebirth with The Houston Kid – and make no mistake, I love a whole lot of Crowell songs before then – Rodney Crowell has refined his work into a new plane of clarity and consistency. His new one, The Chicago Sessions, with Jeff Tweedy, like recent Tweedy productions for Mavis Staples and Richard Thompson, puts his voice front and center and finds the perfect, stripped-down textures for another great collection of Crowell work. This lilting apology/admonition originally (I think) recorded by Emmylou Harris on her landmark Luxury Liner album gets a lived-in treatment like a worn leather jacket you finally know every crease in, with some lovely frayed-around-the-edges soul falsetto from Crowell and some great guitar from Jeff Tweedy. “Soulmate, the blues are deceiving. It keeps us believing we’re on the wrong road.”
ANHONI, “It Must Change” – ANHONI harkens back to her early soul/orchestral pop influences on this beautiful new single, coming in advance of a new record My Back Was a Bridge For You To Cross, her first work billed as “And the Johnsons” since 2010. That soaring bridge, repeating the lines “That’s why this is so sad,” breaks me every time.
ARTEMIS, “Bow and Arrow” – Contemporary jazz supergroup ARTEMIS return with a second album, In Real Time, that maybe even betters their stunning debut. This track written by drummer Allison Miller and arranged by pianist Renee Rosnes boasts a stunning alto solo from Alexa Tarantino and sizzling trumpet work from Ingrid Jensen in an almost-telepathic ensemble.
Oval, “Ohno” – Seeing Oval (Markus Popp) in a tiny gallery space next to one of Columbus’s only (at the time) vegan restaurants, Dragonfly, was a mind-melting experience for me. I couldn’t believe “art music”, much less laptop music, could be that powerful and that almighty loud. He moved around and shaped broken sound – much of his early work came from a program that mirrored skipping CDs – in a way that tied back to an entire history to musique concrete and Fluxus but still felt like it was speaking to now. It blew my 20 (21?) year old mind. But while I was a big fan for a few years, I didn’t keep up. A notice of this new record Romantiq caught my eye and he’s added in lusher harmonies and deliberate tempos into that sense of the artfully broken for something truly beautiful.
Khanate, “It Wants to Fly” – Another act I saw around the same time I saw Oval, but in a more traditional dive bar venue, the much-missed High Five (it’s a “fancy” taco place now in the tradition of all things Columbus, at least Dragonfly and Neo are still good restaurants). The pulverizing slowness of drone/doom metal supergroup Khanate (featuring favorites of mine Tim Wyskida and Stephen O’Malley) didn’t quite connect with me in that club, that night, with a cold beer in my hand – or at least they had a hard time competing with OGs of the genre working a new pastoral set of turf, Earth, who they were on the bill with. But I kept going back to those records, and their out-of-nowhere resurgence album To Be Cruel blew my hair back in the best way. “We’re going down.”
Saint Harison, “ego talkin'” – UK singer-songwriter Saint Harison caught my attention with this stunning single – finding beauty in devastation in a way that’s certainly at an angle from the last couple of songs but felt like it shares emotional space with them. “Admittance is the key to start the healing right, but I didn’t want to eat that humble pie.”
Sunny Sweeney, Miko Marks, Rissi Palmer, and Tami Neilson, “Don’t Think Twice, It’s All Right” – This Mount Rushmore-style collection of some of the best singers and songwriters in contemporary country music teams up for a ferocious, slow-burn, soul-infused read on the Bob Dylan classic. “We never did too much talking, anyway.”
Jordyn Shellhart, “On a Piano Bench Getting Wasted” – This song by Nashville writer-singer Jordyn Shellhart had me hook, line and sinker with its first line of “With a loneliness that’s pervasive, on a piano bench getting wasted,” piano-driven with subtle flashes of handclaps and string bass for the first third before a fuller arrangement blooms, Shellhart’s questioning voice hangs in the center like a single film noir bolt of light.
Bob Martin, “Stella” – I learned about Bob Martin’s landmark 1972 album Midwest Farm Disaster from my pal Jerry DeCicca and a few years later I remember being on the patio of a club talking about the work he was doing to produce a new record of Martin’s material. The results of that, a beautiful record called Seabrook, finally came out this year in the wake of Martin’s passing, his first record in something like a decade. It’s a beautiful, wistful piece conjuring and dancing with ghosts; every curve and crack in Martin’s voice up front with Sven Kahns’ pedal steel curling around it like smoke. Get well, soon, Jerry; the world needs your wit and empathy, and we can use as many more records like this (and of your own material) as you have time for. “She said, ‘God, you should have seen him then, before the money and the fame. His face was like sweet Jesus and his hide was like a flame. But his life was all on fire and there was nothing you could say to hold him down in this small down and try to make him stay.”
Morgan Wade, “Psychopath” – I liked Nashville songwriter Morgan Wade’s last record, Reckless, but if this first single is any indication her new record in August (also named Psychopath) is going to be a world-beater. Swirling keyboards and pedal steel highlighting a slow, menacing stomp around a lyric full of declarations with a question stuck through them like the pin in a voodoo doll and questions that aren’t really questions. “You might be the death of me. Throw my ashes out into the sea; get drunk and give your eulogy. You might be the death of me.”
Layng Martine Jr., ” Try Me Again” – I grew up with Layng Martine Jr’s songs for Reba McEntire and Trisha Yearwood, but I have to confess I was more familiar with his son, the producer Tucker Martine’s, work. So this collaboration, Music Man, was a beautiful surprise. This easy swinging barroom slow dance plea for another chance exemplifies what keeps me going back to the record. “Well, I never understood just what you needed, ’til you were gone and I was all alone. Now I know the ways I’d love to touch you are just what you had wanted all along.”
Wally B. Seck, “Waka Waka” – I became a fan of Wally Seck through a conversation in a Lyft with a driver about his father Thione Seck, and the younger Seck continues to come into his own with one great single after another. The easy, sun-on-a-brook groove of this tune provides the perfect propulsion for Seck’s light, dancing tenor. “Baby say me deep in, I deep in.”
Summer Walker, “Mind Yo Mouth” – Summer Walker got my attention with her last record, Still Over It, and this new EP Clear 2: Soft Life is one classic after another. This miniature, with a silky arrangements, updates the slacker boy genre with an unsparing specficity delivered in a sweet and spiked tone. “They say, ‘Hush girl, mind your mouth; you don’t wanna turn him off.’ Well he might have to deal with it. See I pay my own bills, get it? Why I gotta be so soft? Charmin. I find it quite alarming ’cause I ain’t ya mama. Wanna be with me then you gon’ get up off your bottom.”
Ian Hunter, “Pavlov’s Dog” – Another easy-going groove and a perfect example of how a midtempo rock tune can still pack such a powerful emotional punch. This standout track from Ian Hunter’s solid front-to-back Defiance Part 1 teams him with Stone Temple Pilots’ core Robert and Dean DeLeo and Eric Kretz, and longtime vocal foils Andy York and Dennis Dibrizzi. “I’ve got a job to do.”
Scar Lip, “This is New York” – The creep of the groove, the ominous strings, and the tone of defiance on this felt like an expansion and escalation of the sound worlds of the last couple tracks Scar Lip’s bitten-off vocal delivery makes a meal out of this track with lines I’ve been quoting for weeks since hearing it. “Don’t come to Queens with that shit because we ain’t fuckin’ with that shit. Get the fuck out, go to PA with that shit.”
Alvorada, “Decadência” – I couldn’t find much about this Brazilian band, whose name refers to the palace the president lives in, except that I don’t believe they’re the UK-based band of the same name who specialize in the instrumental form of choro music. This takes a Beatles-y vocal including harmonies and adds some sheets of shearing, acidic guitar.
Peso Pluma featuring Jasiel Nuñez, “Rosa Pastel” – Peso Pluma is one of the Mexican artists getting a large international office with updatings of the narcocorrido form; he emphasizes an aggressive rhythm that belies some rap and reggaeton influence but the songs also recall the classic genre tropes, like the smeared trumpets and the mournful guitar break on this gorgeous song.
The Ironsides, “Violet Vanished” – Great friend Andrew Patton turned me onto California’s cinematic soul band The Ironsides’s new record Changing Light over lunch a few weeks ago; we’d both been fans of their earlier singles and EPs. Taken as a whole, it’s a little plodding for me, but once I put it on, I have a hard time being made because they’re such gorgeous, lush landscapes to sink into. For pouring yourself a glass of something sweet and smooth, lighting a smoke, and luxuriating.
Brent Cordero and Peter Kerlin, “Affordable For Who” – This collaboration from the Psychic Ill’s Brent Cordero and Sunwatchers’ Peter Kerlin, also feels like it deals in landscapes but of a more psychedelic bent, rich with non-Euclidean geometry; meditative passages suddenly rupture into fields of soft beauty that is then beset upon with spikes. This track adds Aaron Siegel on vibes and drummer Ryan Jewell to flesh out the smooth corners and rough edges.
Lesley Mok, “again, all” – Continuing the trend of music made for contemplation that works equally well but very differently in practice, in smoky rooms and long walks through wooded passages, drummer-composer Lesley Mok’s made one of my favorite records of chamber jazz in a long time with The Living Collection. The murderer’s row of players she’s assembled doesn’t hurt either, with Adam O’Farrill’s menacing but vulnerable trumpet leading the charge, Cory Smythe’s piano like falling leaves and like the lightning around the thunderstom of Mok’s drums, Leon and Uesaka’s interlacing, battling reeds. Every part of this ensemble and record is magic.
Billy Woods and Kenny Segal, “The Layover” – I’ve talked plenty about New York rapper Billy Woods, but Maps, reinvigorating his collaboration with LA-based producer Kenny Segal (Abstract Rude, Freestyle Fellowship), is my favorite thing of his since the collaboration with Moor Mother a year or two ago. This track combines crunching drums with ice-knife piano, and a whisper of a horn section. “Before history, I made fire in the cave – midwifery, delivery a ball of rage. Hide and go seek: some never find a hiding place, some kids hid so well they never found a trace. It’s too late, but they came all the same; eyes begging for something for the pain.”
Califone, “comedy” – A new record from Tim Rutili’s shifting collective Califone is always a cause for celebration in my world, and Villagers is another home run. This woozy, cracked confession/indictment, drunk on horns and emboldened with sweet harmony vocals, is a perfect example of what I love about the album and their work in general. “Are you my enemy? Made to make you a little less alone?”
Whitney Rose, “Tell Me A Story, Babe” – At a similar nothing-to-prove tempo, Canadian singer-songwriter Whitney Rose, who I mostly knew from her work with Raul Malo, affirms the beauty and power of a straight-forward country record. Almost no one writes classic honky tonk ballads like this album opener anymore, and we’re all the richer for her example. “Tell me something from when you were a child. Just bring something up, babe, we have got all night.”
Marty Stuart and his Fabulous Superlatives, “Nightriding” – Marty Stuart is a shining example of following your own tastes, your own intuition, and especially your own curiosity. For someone who literally knows everyone in Nashville – and there are some judicious guest stars – he loves and honors this stable lineup of his Fabulous Superlatives (Chris Scruggs, Harry Stinson, Kenny Vaughan) not only by letting them stretch out on the various genres he dips into on Altitude but by crediting them as co-producers alongside the engineer Mick Conley. This song is a seductive slab of last call ’60s country-soul, done as well as anyone’s doing it these days. “Everywhere you look, read ’em like a book. Nightriding.”
Brandy Clark, “Up Above the Clouds (Cecilia’s Song)” – Brandy Clark’s 12 Stories knocked me off my chair when it came out about 10 years ago. I remember distinctly bending Ed Mann’s ear about it in a bar, and telling my other pal Brian Galensky at the bar he owned it contained the best Kris Kristofferson-style songs anyone was writing. Since then, she’s made great record after great record (“Pawn Shop” off the last one kills me” but this new eponymous album, produced by Brandi Carlile, comes the closest to matching that debut pound for pound without just working over that same ground. This mosaic of shattered heart-glass welded together with hope and a keen understanding of human nature, was the first song on the album to make me stop everything else I was doing and give it my full attention, but it’s not alone. “When your blue eyes are cryin’ ’cause love’s let you down; when a fool’s dream is dyin’ and the sunshine’s all run out, remember there’s a blue sky up above the clouds.”
Leyla McCalla, Joy Clark, Lilli Lewis, Sabine McCalla, Sula Spirit, and Cassie Watson Francillon, “Freedom is a Constant Struggle” – As usual, I end the playlist with a couple of songs worth of benediction or prayer. This Roberta Slavitt song, popularized by the Freedom Singers, gets a stirring read led by singer Leyla McCalla and a stellar collection of other voices. “They say that freedom is a constant dying. Oh Lord, we’ve died so long that we must be free. We must be free.”

Tags Alvorada, Amanda Shires, ANHONI, ARTEMIS, Arya Starr, Baby Rose, Baseball Project, Bill Frisell, Billy Woods, Black Market Brass, Blockhead, Bob Martin, Bobbie Nelson, Brandy Clark, Brent Cordero, Brian Eno, Califone, Cassie Watson Francillon, Cyril Cyril, Don Elektron, Fat Tony, Fred again..., Fred Davis, Gaslight Anthem, Gotopo, Hamid Drake, Holy Tongue, Ian Hunter, Janelle Monae, Jasiel Nunez, Jordyn Shellhart, Joy Clark, KDDO, Kenny Segal, Khanate, Layng Martine Jr., Lesley Mok, Leyla McCalla, Lilli Lewis, Majid Bekkas, Mark Chang, Marty Stuart and his Fabulous Superlatives, Meridian Brothers, Miko Marks, Morgan Peros, Morgan Wade, music, Naya Baaz, Oval, Peso Pluma, Peter Brotzmann, Peter Cordero, Peter Kerlin, Playlist, recorded music, Rema, Rissi Palmer, Rocket 808, Rodney Crowell, Sabina McCalla, Saint Harison, Scar Lip, Seun Kuti, Shirley Collins, Smino, Sula Spirit, Summer Walker, Sunny Sweeney, Tami Neilson, The Ironsides, The Whiffs, Valerie June, Wally B. Seck, Whitney Rose, Who Parked the Car, Willie Nelson

Playlist record reviews

Playlist – April 2023

Not early, but better. Let’s see if we can keep this momentum up. Thanks to any of you who are still out there.

https://tidal.com/browse/playlist/c48a8b75-386f-49e4-887a-4c19e9aee87a

Natural Information Society, “Moontide Chorus” – I’ve gone on at length about the Chicago improvised music scene as my gateway to so much of my tastes up to now. Bassist-composer Joshua Abrams is one of the main players I gravitated toward early and every new document of his Natural Information Society project is a cause for celebration. The new one, Since Time is Gravity, assembles a larger group, anchored by Mikel Patrick Avery on drums and the great Hamid Drake on percussion, and from the opening guimbri riff from Abrams that melts into the horn fanfare (with Josh Berman and Ben Lamar Gay on cornets, Ari Brown on tenor, Nick Mazzarella and Mai Sugimoto on alto, and Jason Stein on bass clarinet) and propelled by Lisa Alvarado’s harmonium and Kara Bershad’s harp, it paints a tapestry that moves like a rolling river.
Lucinda Williams, “New York Comeback” – I devoured Lucinda Williams’ riveting memoir Don’t Tell Anybody The Secrets I Told You in a couple of days and it sent me down the rabbit hole of her work. While it didn’t alter my overall opinion (love the self-titled through Car Wheels, like Essence, lose interest through Down Where the Spirit Meets the Bone, come back with Ghosts of Highway 20 and Good Souls Better Angels) and the first couple of singles of Stories from a Rock and Roll Heart stoke my revitalized interest. This co-write with Jesse Malin (who Williams and her husband Tom Overby produced his best record with), is the kind of sly indictment and even slyer seduction – a tribute to the show’s manifest ability to still surprise and a plea for the chance to do just that, in a world full of distractions – that she writes and sings better than anyone, painted in three dimensions and spattered in just the right amount of grime. “No one’s brought the curtain down; maybe you should stick around until the stage goes black. Maybe there’s one last twist: two outs, nobody on base, we’re down to the last strike. You could hear a pin drop in this place, hoping for a miracle tonight.”
Caroline Spence featuring Lori McKenna, “The Next Good Time” – I’ve liked Nashville singer-songwriter Caroline Spence for a while but I completely missed her last record True North, so I was extremely glad this single featuring Lori McKenna came out to redress that failing on my part. A slow-burn slice of beautiful quiet desperation and the things we find to keep going. “Most things gonna lose their shine. Some things string up party lights.”
Hydrone, “Heart Explode” – Latest up-and-comer in the always fertile Columbus garage rock scene, Hydrone brings an appealingly frayed, grooving quality to the genre of yelp and jerk. In less than two minutes, they get their hooks in and leave me wanting more, with special attention to that perfect guitar break.
yMusic, “The Wolf” – NYC’s yMusic – Alex Sopp (flute), Hideaki Aomori (clarinet), CJ Camerieri (trumpet), Rob Moose (violin), Nadia Sirota (viola), Gabriel Cabezas (cello), all names you’ve seen show up regularly here for good reason – have turned me onto more new composers and pieces than just about any new music ensemble. They were my first inkling my generation was breaking out in the world of chamber music without pandering or bullshitting (I think Wordless and ACME maybe predated them but I hadn’t heard them yet). This opening salvo from their hotly anticipated eponymous album is a marvel of shifting, sweating, glowing texture, and intensity.
Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith, “Clear Sky” – I mostly know Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith for her synthesizer pieces, so this beautiful, fresh-air miniature from the great compilation Piano Day Vol 2 highlighting acoustic piano at its heart was a balm and a surprise. The kind of piece I grasped and loved immediately but still enjoy wrestling with, convinced I won’t exhaust its power.
Abby Anderson, “Heart on Fire in Mexico” – The luminous guitar chords kicking off this song, my introduction to singer-songwriter Abby Anderson, felt like it belonged in the same open and distorted window into the Americas as the last couple of instrumentals. The wry vocal and sharply-sliced detail of the lyric had me rapt the minute I heard this, and still do. “One cigarette smoke break by the back door turned into a pack on the hood of his Ford; where he is now, the Devil knows.”
Tiwa Savage featuring Arya Starr and Young John, “Stamina” – This rippling song from Nigerian singer-songwriter Tiwa Savage pairs her with Arya Starr and Young John. I love the way their voices intersect, the panoply of percussion and strings surfing the border of melancholy and hope, and the infectious melody. Sleeper contender for song of the summer. “So many things I can do to you if only you give me the permission to.”
GoGo Penguin, “Everything is Going to Be OK” – I was slow coming to GoGo Penguin, not-entirely-fairly dismissing them as Bad Plus clones. While there’s still definitely that DNA, their beautiful new one, of which this is the title track, turns up the electronic music influences, the throbbing propulsion of this track has a cotton-candy-addictive quality but also laced with enough acid to not let the listener get too comfortable.
Arthur Russell, “The Boy With a Smile” – I remain stunned that the Arthur Russell estate continues finding unreleased gems, especially when they’re of this quality. This is classic Russell in the low-key, seductive, and disconcerting mode of “This is How We Walk on the Moon” or “A Little Lost” with what sounds like scratching building shifting textures underneath his fragile voice, wrapped in velvety echo, and cello, buffeted by a burst of mournful harmonica. “Find a move that goes with what you’re thinking now. Find a vow that goes with the things you’re doing now.”
Joeboy, “Body & Soul” – This title track from Nigerian singer-songwriter Joeboy’s upcoming record has – to my ears – a similar laid-back, mournful but seductive quality as the Arthur Russell despite being separated by an ocean and over 40 years. The snap of the percussion and those synthetic horns in the back mesh so beautifully with his voice – and the choral vocal arrangement around the light tenor of his lead vocals – that I keep revisiting this track and can’t wait for the album. “If I could, I would love you in my next life. I don’t really care about tomorrow.”
Taichu & Álvaro Díaz, “PRESIÓN” – Argentine singer Taichu teams up with Puerto Rican rapper Álvaro Díaz for this infectious, throbbing slice of trap-inflected pop, a highlight from Taichu’s great record Rawr. If this doesn’t make you want to hit the dance floor, I’d check for a pulse.
Shania Twain featuring Malibu Babie, “Giddy Up! (Malibu Babie Remix)” – I’ve always had a soft spot for Shania Twain, even when she ruled the world and my disaffected teenage ass didn’t have time for anything that wasn’t on a scuffed-up CDR or marked “(demo)” on Audiogalaxy. Her embrace of dance remixes toward the time I stopped paying attention was interesting – and she still owns a unique space in pop artists I grew up with as I heard a bass-enhanced version of one of her classics when I stopped at a gay bar for Anne’s niece’s birthday a few weeks ago – and her resurgence makes me smile as wide as anything in popular culture I can think of. This neon-bright rework of Twain’s Queen of Me single pairs her with superproducer Malibu Babie (Nicki Minaj, Megan Thee Stallion), and it’s a fucking barn burner, just the right amount of distortion on her voice and a clattering, woozy rhythm swathed in angelic acid-trail synthesizers. “Drunk in the city, got a litty in the cup.”
P2K DaDiddy, “Full Tank of Gas” – Current torchbearer of the southern soul genre, Shreveport’s P2k DaDiddy works the borderline between the history of roots music and the democratizing tools of contemporary production and created another instant-classic summer song that would work for every bar or party I’d ever want to walk into. “I got a pocketful of money and don’t tell them where I get it. I got my baby right beside me, and she’s looking real sexy. I got a full tank of gas, I’m not worried ’bout a thing. We gonna keep on rolling till the early morning.”
Melissa Pipe Sextet, “In Due Time” – I was turned onto this fantastic record, Of What Remains, by my great friend Andrew Patton, my introduction to Montreal-based baritone sax player Melissa Pipe. It’s a marvelous, kaleidoscopic chamber-jazz record with Pipe’s earthy, catchy baritone playing and compositions keeping it from getting too ethereal or cerebral. Her growling riff that kicks the song in gear and the thorny storm of horns with Lex French and Philippe Côté about 2/3 of the way through are favorite moments in this favorite track of mine from the record.
Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit, “They Wait” – Just saw another spectacular show by Isbell and his band a few weeks ago – in a weekend where I also got to see the last August Wilson play of the cycle I’d never seen live – and not only did he do three new songs, as Anne said, “Something a band playing this big a place wouldn’t normally have the balls to do,” they were all highlights. This coiled story song with a heavy foot on the gas is a prime example of Isbell at his best, drilling into a story anyone in the room can relate to with the kind of specifics that throw those feelings into relief. “And ain’t it something how the night can shine while you stand in line behind a velvet rope? And ain’t it something when the morning comes and desire becomes a little speck of hope.”
Esther Rose, “Chet Baker” – I think my first exposure to Esther Rose was her stunning “Don’t Blame it On the Moon,” but I missed the intervening record. Safe to Run is one of my favorite singer-songwriter records of the year, sharply told stories with jaw-dropping, perfect arrangements. Johnny “Up” Shahid’s pedal steel in conversation with Rose’s voice and rhythm guitar and Meredith Stoner’s liquid bass line make this song for me, or at least makes the tarnished nostalgia sink even deeper in my blood. “Welcome to the end of your rope. Well, you know, rock bottom shouldn’t feel this good. We could go down swinging, arm in arm, or we could just go out drinking at the 8 Ball. Two bucks, press play, baby, bully the juke. Outside the ladies’ restroom, there starts to form a queue. Six bucks, starlight special: a shot and a beer; we’re not doing great.”
Shannon McNally, “Magnolia” – Seeing Shannon McNally as part of Terry Allen’s band this past Big Ears Festival sent me on a merry chase revisiting her terrific work. She works with producer Mike McCarthy (Spoon, Patty Griffin, The Sun) on this gorgeous, definitive read of a slow-burn J. J. Cale classic. “Magnolia, you sweet thing. You’re driving me mad.”
Jessie Ware, “Begin Again” – British singer-songwriter Jessie Ware brings her soul influences to the fore on her infectious new record That! Feels Good! and I think this single is a shining example of everything I love about it. Her bobbing and weaving vocal, from an easy croon into a soaring swoop – co-written with Shungudzo, James Ford from Simian Mobile Disco, and Daniel Parker – benefits from the muscle and subtle power of Afrobeat band Kokoro. “Why do my realities take over all my dreams? Why does all the purest love get filtered through machines?”
Mya Byrne, “Come On” – Mya Byrne’s debut for Kill Rock Stars, Rhinestone Tomboy, retains the Americana grit of her earlier work but, especially on this track, adds a glitter-dusted classic T. Rex/Iggy stomp. It’s an infectious, invigorating, throw-yourself-around-the-room rock record and a look into a specific world. “I can’t take it no more, stuck inside, come on,” delivered as a shout that knocks a hole in the wall – maybe not forever, but at least for tonight.
Billy Valentine and the Universal Truth, “Home is Where the Hatred Is” – I hadn’t thought about Columbus natives The Valentine Brothers in so long I’m ashamed to admit it, though their ’80s R&B hits were as big a part of my understanding and pride in my town growing up as Hank Marr, Nancy Wilson, or the New Bomb Turks. So when this solo record from Billy Valentine covering classic socially conscious ballads with a crack band including Pino Palladino and Immanuel Wilkins came out on UK stalwart of my early musical awakenings Acid Jazz, I had to hear it. Every song on here is a stunning version that stands up to the original (saying something when these are some of my favorite songs ever) and this smooth-but-never-simple ride through the harrowing Gil Scott-Heron classic is next-level good. “Home is where the needle marks tried to heal my broken heart.”
DJ Finale featuring Deboul, “Pitschu Debou” – Congolese producer-songwriter DJ Finale crafted a stunning dance record with Mille Morceau, here featruing his Fulu Miziki bandmate Deboul on a piercing vocal as the track interweaves crisp, shiny guitar licks with tar-thick bass and the high-pitched snare and hi-hat strikes of trap.
Scowl, “Psychic Dance Routine” – One of my favorite guitar riffs of the year so far, and a song that backs up that immediately powerful burst of guitar, this title track off Santa Cruz’s Scowl’s new EP is a bracing reminder of everything I loved about punk rock when it first entered my life, and feels like exactly the kind of band that’s getting kids to see every damn show they can. “No spirits, no spirits in my dreams.”
Kiko El Crazy featuring El Alfa, “Pichirry” – Dominican rapper Kiko El Crazy released an international breakthrough this year with Pila’e Teteo. It’s a wild sugar-rush rollercoaster ride of an album, shining light on various facets of the dembow rhythm with his immediately identifiable gruff laugh-bark of a vocal style mixed right up in the listener’s face. This track with fellow Dominican star El Alfa is a prime example of what makes his work so infectious.
Gael Stone featuring Trinidad Cardona, “Left & Right (Fantasy)” – French electronic music producer Gael Stone crafted this exquisite slice of slow-burn R&B, given a perfect vocal from Arizona-based crooner Trinidad Cardona. “Let me know what you want, girl, you get whatever you need.”
Roots Magic, “Amber” – Italian ecstatic jazz ensemble Roots Magic created a bursting-at-the-seams record, joyous even in its grief, led by reeds player Eugenio Colombo and vibraphonist Francesco lo Cascio. The slippery, elastic rhythm on this original, dedicated to great avant-garde cellist and Cleveland native Abdul Wadud, is first among equals for me, on a record with no dull tracks. I know it’s not likely but, hey, Winter Jazz Fest or Big Ears representatives….
Dan Rosenboom, “War Money” – This standout track from trumpeter-composer Dan Rosenboom’s great Polarity album plays with a similar groove and a similar dance of joy and darkness that feels a lot like life in the way the best jazz always has to me. With a killer band of saxophonist Gavin Templeton (that solo about a third of the way in crushes me), pianist John Escreet, bassist Billy Mohler, and drummer Damon Reid, is a prime temperature-taking of where small group improvisation stands.
Fire! Orchestra, “ECHOES: I see your eye, part 1” – I was a big fan of Mats Gustaffson the first time I heard that thick, rounded but spiky tone, originally on record through my Dusty Groove Records habit but also many ecstatic live experiences from seeing The Thing at Milo Arts here in Columbus and at the Standard as part of Big Ears, his trio Sonore with Ken Vandermark and Peter Brotzmann, several times in Chicago at various places. Originally his big band, Fire! Orchestra was an exercise in muscle, free blowing guided and shaped by the river of the personalities chosen, a lot like the Brotzmann Chicago Tentet. It’s evolved into a more open thing with a keen interest in texture and mood, with various players writing for it and records that feel like a journey. Echoes is another high water mark for the band, and this opening track written by drummer Andreas Werlin makes excellent use of the strings arranged by Josefin Runsteen and features a wrenching solo by (I think) Gustaffson.
Kara Jackson, “no fun/party” – I knew Kara Jackson’s work as a poet, but I was unprepared for the dazzling, unsettling soundscapes, and her subtle voice, orbiting around a few notes but owning them with authority, of her debut singer-songwriter album Why Does the Earth Give Us People to Love? One of the finest early morning/with your thoughts records I’ve ever heard. This single is a repeated stab in the heart in the best way, those slurred strings (from Macie Stewart, if I’m reading right) coming in feel like coming off a sluggish, just-trying-to-maintain high, the shaky banjo, and the track is filled with sonic touches that keep me coming back, intrigued. “I wanna be as dangerous as a dancing dragon or a steam engine, a loaded gun. Be loved for my hazard and a will to destruct. And isn’t that just love? A will to destruct.”
Planet Giza, “Quiet on the Set” – I’m late to Montreal hip-hop trio Planet Giza but their new record Ready When You Are got its hook in me easily. Vocalist Tony Stone’s easygoing delivery over textured beats from RamiB and DoomX gets an astonishing showcase on this early single from the record, it reminds me of those major label Blackalicious records without feeling like a pastiche. “You just need someone to listen. We pour a li’l some’ to feel some; fill my cup. The street’s cold.”
Black Thought and El Michels Affair featuring Kirby, “Glorious Game” – Instrumental soul band El Michels Affair are exactly the kind of perfect match for Black Thought’s expansive but classicist tendencies on their joint album Glorious Game, and this title track featuring R&B singer Kirby is a delightful slice of sunshine soul. “If we clash, I’ll haul the trash off, then haul the cash off and ball in Nassau.”
Be Your Own Pet, “Hand Grenade” – I loved Be Your Own Pet, and I really liked the things they did after the band dissolved – Jemima Pearl’s terrific solo album, JEFF the Brotherhood – but when I heard they were getting back together it was one of the few reunion announcements that actually got me excited. This new single, celebrating their return, stands alongside their best work. A drum part as catchy as the guitars, jagged backing vocals, and a powerful lead vocal and lyric. “I’m no survivor, I’m no survivor – another lit match on the pyre. When you can’t sleep – and you can’t sleep – I’ll be the reason in the middle of the night.”
Unchipped, “Systematic Deletion” – This Columbus band fuses metalcore and industrial textures with a pummeling rhythm section and always leavens it with a sense of joy, a sense of play, for some of my favorite no-bullshit rock and roll being made in this town. Every time I put on this four song EP I find myself playing the whole thing. “Reducing all that we love to ash.”
Drive-By Truckers, “Puttin’ People on the Moon (Vocal Recut)” – I’ve gushed about DBT over the years, including very recently after seeing a blistering show with Anne, but to this day my favorite record of theirs is The Dirty South, a sprawling testament to the power of their lineup that included Jason Isbell and Shonna Tucker, so believe I’m looking forward to the reissue coming soon. One of my favorite songs on that record has always been “Puttin’ People on the Moon” but I remember several of my friends who were big fans like I was griping about the lessened affect of the vocal. Clearly Patterson Hood agreed, so he took the chance to recut that over a remastered and remixed version of the original track, and he’s right. The new vocal keeps that sense of coiled menace and desperation but shades it with a nuance the original didn’t have. It’s a fucking masterpiece. “If I could solve the world’s problems, I’d probably start with hers and mine. But they can put a man on the moon and I’m stuck down here just scraping by. Mary Alice got a cancer, just like everybody here; seems like everyone I know is getting cancer every year.”
Kid Koala featuring Crayfish, “When U Say Love” – I loved Kid Koala twenty-five or so years ago when I was a fanatic for anything Ninja Tune. I didn’t keep up on his work in the intervening years but Creatures of the Late Afternoon hit me exactly right, especially this track with quavering girl-group vocals from Crayfish riding on top of Koala’s signature mix of texture and groove. “My life keeps moving faster; my world is such a blur. The work I’m chasing after keeps me so unsure.”
Kenny Reichert, “Balance” – Shifting Paradigm records has been documenting an exciting scene in the midwest with beautiful sounding albums by players I knew well before and those I’m just learning about. Chicago guitarist Kenny Reichert teams up with a great band, including my old friend Tony Barba (Barbarians, Youngblood Brass Band, Brooklyn Qawwali Party) on reeds, John Christensen on bass, and Devin Drobka on drums for a record that’s beautiful all the way through. This gorgeous tone poem just glows, everyone’s tone is perfect.
Nickel Creek, “Stone’s Throw” – As big a fan of the later work as I am of the three, Nickel Creek didn’t land for me in the same way – I liked them as a breath of fresh air but I never made it through a whole album. Celebrants changed that. This song, starting from a dissection of the harmony of Radiohead’s “Kid A” and fusing some identifiable lyrics, is a favorite of mine off a record I don’t think has dull moments, with Sean Watkins’ lead vocal perfectly buoyed and punctured by Chris Thile and Sara Watkins’ harmonies. “Went out for a drink with a friend from a while back, her trials and triumphs ringing clearer than my phone. And that drink turned into three, happy hour into bedtime. You were drowning in your head when I came floating home.”
Laura Cantrell, “Push the Swing” – A shining light of New York’s country music scene for longer than I’ve loved that scene, Laura Cantrell is returning with her first new record in 9 years, and this single is everything I could have hoped, with a swinging organ part and a loping guitar line that flows around her laidback vocal just right. “I can’t be your confidant. I can’t be your long-lost pal. But if I’m not the one you want, just tell me so right now.”
Lisa O’Neill, “All Of This is Chance” – As usual, I end the playlist with a string of songs that work – for me – as prayers or benedictions. As with so much, I was turned onto Lisa O’Neill’s work from great friend John Wendland’s fantastic radio show Memphis to Manchester; as soon as I heard the song he played, I had to hear the whole record and loved it immediately. A rich drone – I’m guessing a mix of Kate Ellis’ cello and Cormac Begley’s concertina, but it could be O’Neill’s harmonium – underpins this song and sets up its shadowy, mysterious world. “Are you frightened of dying? Are you frightened of the dead? Are you frightened of living, so you don’t live instead?”

Playlist record reviews

Playlist – March 2023

Crawling back from a crazy couple of months of frenzied activity and trying to find a little more of a balance. Have a couple of plans to get next month’s out earlier; we’ll see how successful I am. The month off did remind me how much I enjoy doing these, not only compiling the songs but finding something to say about them, and made me recommit to doing it every month.

https://tidal.com/browse/playlist/d5351ad0-81d4-4716-89d1-74feacef26d6

Willie Nelson, “Excuse Me (I Think I’ve Got a Heartache)” – Willie Nelson’s record-length dives into the catalog of specific songwriters are among my favorite items in his wide-ranging oeuvre – I still play his songs of Cindy Walker more than any other record he’s put out in the 20+ years since – and I Don’t Know a Thing About Love, his look at the songs of the great Harlan Howard, is another winner. I grew up with the original Buck Owens version of this but I had fewer loving associations than most of the songs Nelson does here, this one didn’t live in my blood the same way as “Busted” or “Life Turned Her That Way” do, and it let me sink into this arrangement, trading in sly barstool wisdom for the punchy churn of Owens and his Buckaroos, like getting into a bubble bath, especially the interweaving of Mike Johnson’s steel and Jim “Moose” Brown’s keys.
Les Mamans du Congo & Rrobin, “Dia” – Mama Glad (Gladys Samba), Bantu singer/songwriter/rapper teams up again with beatmaker and label owner Rrobin for an infectious song that swirls like light as the the golden hour starts to fade. The call and response dancing over minimal keyboard bass and arrangements that are exactly the right kind of busy keep me coming back to this over and over.
Kali Uchis, “Happy Now” – Kali Uchis’ Red Moon in Venus is my favorite R&B record so far this year, a kaleidoscope of moods, featuring songwriting that alternately dazzles me with its intricate, beautiful structures, and slaps me in the face at the right time. This final track, co-written with and produced by Sounwave, DJ Khalil, and Mndsgn, was an early contender for favorite song and while that feeling shifts almost daily – the sign of a record I love – it’s still high in the running. “Cosmic conditions conspired against us. ‘Cause you and me, we got chemistry, but what’s with our timing? Guess it’s better we never rushed; our spark turned to flames.”
Ari Joshua, “Fresh” – Guitarist Ari Joshua convenes a fantastic Pacific Northwester soul-jazz/funk collective for this killing single, with Skerik (everybody from Mark Eitzel to Bobby Previte to Charlie Hunter to Wayne Horvitz) on tenor and 2/3 of the Delvon Lamarr Organ Trio, Lamarr on organ and Grant Schroff (Polyrhythmics). Not an ounce of fat here but all indications point to them taking it into outer space when they do it live.
Daddy Long Legs, “Silver Satin” – I loved Daddy Long Legs from those first couple of singles – and I was already pre-disposed since I’d been a big fan of drummer Josh Styles’ DJ sets so knew how good his taste in grooves was – and they cemented that love the first time I saw them open for and back cracked-perspective R&B great T. Valentine at the (RIP) Lakeside Lounge. The last time I saw them, at Rumba right before the pandemic, they had turned up the ’60s Stones/Northern Soul colors in their palette, and that technicolor finger-snapping gets more vibrant and greasy on their front-to-back great Street Sermons. “At the bottom of a bottle of Jack o’ Diamonds, I lost my head and woke up in Coney Island.”
Gina Birch, “I Play My Bass Loud” – The solo debut of Raincoats bassist Gina Birch was everything I wanted it to be, and this title track exemplifies everything I love about it. An oozing rhythm with a bass line I couldn’t shake if I wanted to and a vocal bulging with elastic declamations. “Turn up the volume. I raise my window high. I paint the sky red: it’s getting darker, it’s getting deeper. Red streaks across the sky. Are you ready for this?”
Gee Tee, “Cell Damage” – Goner Records (and their live arm, Gonerfest) has always had a particularly good line on great new rock music from Australiza and New Zealand, and this NZ band followed a stunning Gonerfest set last year with one of my favorite noisy garage-punk records in a long time, Goodnight, Neanderthal. This under-two-minutes blast is representative of a record I don’t skip anything on, with vocals drowning in heat mirage lines, washes of fuzzed-out guitar and riding a wave of acid trip synth, steering around the cymbals.
Tee Vee Repairman, “Drownin'” – Ishka Edmeades, Gee Tee member, steps out on his own with the soulful freakouts of stellar full-lenght What’s On TV?. Wearing his Devo influence on his sleeve, this struck me as a heartache-drenched sweet spot between Gentleman Jesse’s powerpop and Hunx and his Punx doo-wop stomps. “I’ve been waiting at the station, just don’t know what to do. I was drowning in you.”
Yaeji, “Done (Let’s Get It)” – Brooklyn-based Yaeji’s With a Hammer is the first example in years of the kind of warm dance music I was so drawn to – but rarely admitted, openly embracing the harder-edged drum and bass and jungle – in my early 20s. Influenced by classic house, riding on waves of squelching bass and drums full of a writhing-on-the-floor clack but with subtly R&B-flavored vocals in both English and Korean.
OkoNski, “Song For My Sister’s Son” – Steve Okonski, who started as a classically trained pianist then became known to the wider world through his affiliation with soul acts Durand Jones and the Indications and Aaron Frazer, stepped into his own with a gorgeous piano trio album (featuring Frazer on drums and Michael Isvara “Ish” Montgomery on bass) that feels to me like it occupies a similar warm, hazy sunrise sonic space as the Yaeji that immediately preceded it.
Ingrid Laubrock, “Delusions” – A little more abrasive than the tracks but with a similar internal landscape writ large intensity. One of my favorite saxophone players, Ingrid Laubrock assembles a stunning sextet on her new record The Last Quiet Place of partner Tom Rainey on drums, Michael Formanek on bass, Brandon Seabrook on guitar, Tomeka Reid on cello, and Mazz Swift on violin.
Liv.e, “RESET!” – Dallas’s Liv.e plays with moods in a similar way – to my ears – as the previous couple of tracks, digging into R&B history as much as it feels like she’s excavating her own past, her own history of victories and trauma. “Chop my head off, I wanna roll my eyes back. Don’t wanna see what time sent. Don’t wanna know what’s coming next.”
Chlöe, “Make it Look Easy” – Chlöe, best known as part of Chloe x Halle, delivered a remarkable, stripped-down record with In Pieces, and while it’s still revealing itself to me, this is an early front runner for my favorite song from the album. From the opening invocation “No matter how many times I break, I pull myself together. Every damn time,” I’m enraptured, and the slow-drag groove with samples around the fingersnaps that feel like dancing ghosts being beckoned, never disappoints me.
6LACK, “Inwood HIll Park” – I got turned onto 6LACK from old friend and co-worker Cassie Schutt and I was immediately a sucker for his laid back, almost deceptively not-giving-a-fuck conversation cadence and low rumble. Since I Have a Lover is another peak, another refinement, a polishing of exactly what he does so well, the space he’s carved out in contemporary hip-hop. “Can’t you see that I’ve been hostile for weeks? Don’t you know you change the patterns of my sleep?”
Superviolet, “Overrater” – I was a big fan of Columbus band Sidekicks, one of my favorite pop-punk bands finding new textures and voices in a genre I’d long since lost interest in. But it was a pleasant surprise to hear leader Steven Ciolek emerge with this project, sun-dappled bursting-at-the-seams folk rock produced by Saintseneca’s Zac Little. The similar sense of “Man, I’m just telling you a story ,” and the subtle but right arrangement felt like it created a commonality with the earlier two songs on the playlist. “Well, in a van in headphones is the last way I want to die; just because we’re losers doesn’t mean that we won’t try. So call up Felicia, call up Matt, tell them to craft the plan: surprise release the sixth album as the greatest rock and roll band.
boygenius, “Not Strong Enough” – I like the work of Phoebe Bridgers, Lucy Dacus, and Julien Baker, a great deal individually but the boygenius collaboration took until this full length, The Record, to hit me as strongly. The guitar stabs and swirling harmonies in this record send me into space and back into myself at the same time, balancing the intimate and high drama with assured hands. “The way I am not strong enough to be your man – I lied, I am just lowering your expectations.”
Kendrick Scott, “A Voice Through the Door” – Drummer-composer Kendrick Scott strips down the approach of his last couple of records to a tight trio with saxophonist Walter Smith III and bassist Reuben Rogers for Corridors. This mesmerizing track opens with a solo smith improvisation before a wash of cymbals announces the rest of the trio. One of the great mood pieces being written today, played by musicians with a careful and rare empathy.
Meshell Ndegeocello featuring Brandee Younger and Julius Rodriguez, “Virgo” – I’d been a fan of singer-songwriter Meshell Ndegeocello since first hearing her work as a kid, but a breathtaking set at Manhattan’s Blue Note with a stacked cast of collaborators including Tortoise’s Jeff Parker and Rodriguez who also features on this track, brought that love back to the forefront of my brain. This first taste of The Omnichord Real Book has me hungry for more, with a cut-by-a-razor funk drum pattern and guitar riff dancing between the deep groove of moog bass and the exquisite tinsel-rain of Brandee Younger’s harp. “I’m ascending faster than the speed of light to sweet nothingness.”
Connections, “Bird Has Flown” – Columbus’s supergroup of rock-and-roll lifers Connections came out of a few years of uncertainty with their strongest album yet, Cool Change, and this is among my favorite tracks from it, with an anthemic shouting call-and-response vocal and soaring guitar and keyboard solos over the kind of choppy groove they do better than any Columbus rock band in years – maybe since leader Andy Hempel and guitarist Kevin Elliott’s last band, 84 Nash.
The New Pornographers, “Pontius Pilate’s Home Movies” – Canadian collective New Pornographers return with a rock-solid collection of their cracked songs and infectious melodies. AC Newman and Neko Case’s sly back and forth on this lovely admonition and the pulse of the band remind me exactly what I always loved about this band. “Now you’re clearing the room, like Pontius Pilate, when he showed all his home movies. All his friends yelling, ‘Pilate, too soon!'”
The Necks, “Imprinting” – Australian piano trio The Necks have never made a bad album. Every time they come together, they dig deeper into their shared language, into the space they’ve carved at the intersection of post-minimalism chamber music and contemporary improvisation, and this is another winner.
Missy Mazzoli, “Dark With Excessive Bright” – I’ve been a fan of Missy Mazzoli’s compositions since first hearing her ensemble Victoire, through a series of great new chamber records from people like Nadia Sirota, yMusic, Now Ensemble, where she almost always penned my favorite tracks, on through an excellent series of operas where she drags that form into the 21st century by the scruff of its neck. This new record of which this is the title track, is an ideal introduction to her work and this concerto for violin and string orchestra featuring soloist Peter Herresthal might be my favorite piece of hers yet.
Josephine Foster, “Haunted House” – A new Josephine Foster record is always a cause for celebration in my corner of the world and her new coiled, mysterious Domestic Sphere is everything I could have hoped, with this devastating seismic read on the heartbeat of a character and the world, as one of many chilling salvos. “I am a haunted house. There is no light in me. Your candle is gone out; my windows, they are empty. There is nothing on earth that isn’t poison to me.”
Dave Douglas and Elan Mehler, “We Saw You Off” – Trumpeter Dave Douglas’s ranging curiosity, lit by a love for the world, is a perpetual inspiration to me. This collaboration with pianist Elan Mehler sets haiku to new musical settings, sung by Dominique Eade. This setting of a Saigyō piece grabbed me early and hasn’t let go since. “We saw you off / And returning through the fields / I thought morning dew / Had wet my sleeves / But it was tears.”
Mark Lomax II featuring Scott Woods, “Ho’oponopono” – I’ve raved about Lomax often enough I don’t think it’s a secret I think he’s Columbus’s finest composer. His collaboration with poet Scott Woods, Black Odes, was the single event I was sorriest to miss last year (I was out of town and sure I saw something great) and this first taste of the recording reminds me exactly why. It’s a return to black love – the first subject I saw Woods tackle more than 20 years ago, he even used to have a poem called “Why Do You Always Talk About Black Love,” I think – but with all the skills of the last 20 years of life, on both of their parts, with delicate and surging arrangements and Lomax’s quintessential taste for harmony given a remarkable showcase. “And so I love you / And so I am sorry / And so I beg forgiveness”
Lucero, “Should’ve Learned By Now” – Lucero – who I think I originally heard within a year or two of first seeing Scott Woods read and hearing Lomax play with his group Blacklist – also find ways to apply all the life singer-songwriter Ben Nichols has had in decades leading the band as he and the band learn to relax a little more and open up the arrangements to find new colors to paint these feelings. This sinewy title track off their latest album finds them in fine form, the kind of raging, muscular melancholy they do as well as any band working and better than most – that piano line snaps my heart in two every time. “Well, half of what runs through my head is bullshit I sell to myself. And the other half ain’t well thought out; I really should’ve learned by now.”
Kelela, “Missed Call” – The textures are different but this standout track from DC-based Kelela’s terrific album Raven struck a similar chord in me of resiliency and self-admonition, with a neon-splashed groove. “I’m in a dream. I wake up until the moment that we make up.”
Gama Bomb, “If I Should Fall From Grace With God” – This metal (check that double-time drumming and the lacerating guitar solo) read on one of my favorite Pogues anthems to rising above and stumbling in the muck on a perpetual cycle, made me grin like an idiot. “Bury me at sea where no murdered ghost can haunt me if I rock upon the waves, and no corpse can lie upon me.”
Burna Boy featuring J Balvin, “Rollercoaster” – A more easy-going groove animates this collaboration between these superstars, Nigerian Burna Boy and Colombian Latin trap/reggaeton king J Balvin, and their voices blend together beautifully. If songs of the summer are still a thing, this is high on my list of contenders. “I no wanna wait till it’s all over – this life is a gift from Most High, Jah.”
Huntertones, “Biff” – Beloved Columbus expatriates now doing big things in New York and elsewhere, Huntertones use their nearly unquenchable thirst to take the world in and reflect it back with a heavy taste for a variety of rhythms but also a brilliantly strong taste for melody. This delirious pop-funk carnival ride makes exceptional use of the front line of Dan White on tenor, Jon Lampley on trumpet, and Chris Ott on trombone, while leaving space for their longtime rhythm section of guitarist Josh Hill, bassist Adam DeAscentis, and drummer John Hubbell to breathe. That repeated riff has been stuck in my head since I first heard it.
MEM_MODS, “Midtown Miscommunication” – This killing instrumental funk-rock project from Steve Selvidge (Hold Steady, Big Ass Truck), Luther Dickinson (North Mississippi All Stars, Black Crowes), and Paul Taylor (New Memphis Colorways, Amy LaVere) more than lived up to my high expectations, with the added seasoning of Marc Franklin’s horn arrangements, played by Franklin and Art Edmaison.
DJ Quik, “Class” – In what I realize is an unintentional theme of this month’s playlist, producer-rapper DJ Quik continues to dig into his language. His signature, the smoothed out, warm funk he’s been doing brilliantly for at least 30 years, still sounds like a summer night in the offing. “Sometimes rhyme, then I sing.”
Dydy Yeman, “S’envolvement” – I couldn’t find much about this Ivorian Afrobeats artists but this song captured me immediately. The intermingling textures of voices and the scratchy beat put me in a space I wanted to come back to again and again.
Tsa manyalo, “Petula patjana” – I got turned onto the South African genre of Tsa manyalo this year – maybe through ILX? Maybe a blog? I should keep better notes – and this version of this Solly Selema song is like capturing sunlight in a bottle.
Lucinda Chua, “You” – London-based cellist-singer Lucinda Chua blew my mind with her full-length debut YIAN. This is an excellent example of the way she builds an entire world for her listeners, the inside of a heart recast as a house of mirrors, and the way the sentences she builds in the lyrics resist resolution, hanging in a state of hazy suspension I found intoxicating. “I want you to know that all of your kindness is all of your kindness.”
James & The Giants, “Hall of Mirrors” – One of my favorite American songwriters of the last 20 years, James Toth (I treasure every time I’ve gotten to see his Wooden Wand project) brings a more lush take, in tandem with long-time collaborator Jarvis Taveniere, to this new James & the Giants project. The emphasized hooks and glowing arrangement amplifies the mystery in these songs at the same time they bolster their accessibility. Maybe my favorite song so far this year. “We won’t let the tide or starlight rule us. We’ll toast the dark for the way it cools us. ‘Cause the night is a hall of mirrors.”
Rudy Royston, “Morning” – I resisted the easy pairing of morning with night of this track and the one immediately before it, but the similar palette of colors in this perfect drummer-composer Rudy Royston track, glowing with a similar promise of light and life as the Toth right before, and with a marvelous band of John Ellis on bass clarinet, Hank Roberts on cello, Gary Versace on accordion, and Joe Martin on bass, kept calling to me. It’s a marvelous, catchy, piece and it just felt right here.
Caroline Rose, “Stockholm Syndrome” – This early highlight of Caroline Rose’s new The Art of Forgetting is an abject lesson in restraint, in paring down, and a reminder of how much menace and heartbreak can live in less than two minutes. “I know that you need air, but I can’t let you out.”
Muscadine Bloodline, “Life Itself” – This new-ish country duo lean into one of my favorite radio-ready singles to come out of the genre in quite a while. Burnished sunlight power and an easy, open-hearted appeal with a hook I can’t get enough of. “Can’t think of anyone else. Can’t get you out of my mind.”
Cecile McLorin Salvant, “Le temps est assassin” – With Mélusine, our finest jazz singer of her generation continues to resist resting on the supple power of her voice and on what she’s done before. She digs into the French and Haitian heritage of her parents with dazzling results, there isn’t a bad track on this record, even for someone like me whose understanding of French is schoolboy at best.
Nakhane, “You’ve Got Me (Living Again)” – A powerful, surging statement of purpose, a rising-up beautifully echoed by the melody, especially that keyboard line, and the lyrics, from this South African singer. “I’ve tried to change for you.”
Wadada Leo Smith and the Orange Wave Ensemble, “Nzotake Shange” – Keeping with my usual stylistic marker of ending with something meditative, something like a prayer, this tribute to the poet and playwright Nzotake Shange from one of my favorite composers and trumpet players Wadada Leo Smith, takes on a serpentine groove with a band of astonishing players – guitarists Nels Cline, Lamar Smith, and Brandon Ross, bassists Melvin Gibbss and Bill Laswell, drummer Pheeroan akLaff, percussionist Mauro Refosco, and electronics artist Hardedge – an opening salvo and highlight of Fire Illuminations.

Tags 6LACK, Ari Joshua, boygenius, Brandee Younger, Burna Boy, Caroline Rose, Cecile McLorin Salvant, Chloe, Connections, Daddy Long Legs, Dave Douglas, DJ Quik, Dydy Yeman, Elan Mehler, Gama Bomb, Gee Tee, Gina Birch, Huntertones, ingrid laubrock, J Balvin, James and the Giants, James Toth, Josephine Foster, Julius Rodriguez, Kali Uchis, Kelela, Kendrick Scott, Les Mamans du Congo, Liv.e, Lucero, Lucinda Chua, Luther Dickinson, Mark Lomax II, MEM_MODs, Meshell Ndegeocello, Missy Mazzoli, Muscadine Bloodline, music, Nakhane, OkoNski, Paul Taylor, Playlist, recorded music, Rrobin, Rudy Royston, scott woods, Steve Selvidge, Superviolet, Tee Vee Repairman, The Necks, The New Pornographers, Tsa manyalo, Wadada Leo Smith, Willie Nelson

Playlist record reviews

Playlist – January 2023

Took a couple of weeks off and didn’t worry as much about trying to include all the great stuff I found on other’s year-end lists but also didn’t worry as much about some late-2022 stuff working its way onto this list. It feels good to get writing again. This took longer than usual because I reviewed or previewed seven events between the last week of January and the first week of February. As always, thank you for reading, listening, or both.

https://tidal.com/browse/playlist/f6b0a965-8dd5-46e6-87dc-6535d2aea92c

Tags Adeem the Artist, Alabaster DePlume, Algiers, All Powerful Sungoddess, Andy Milne, Angela Perley, Anitta, boygenuis, Carliane Tamara, Chad Fowler, Chiiild, Chris Jones and the Night Drivers, CLC Trio, Danny Arakaki, Deiquisitor, Djunah, Ebban Dorsey, Ernie Vincent, Esperanza Spalding, FAMEYE, Fred Hersch, Future, Future Utopia, Gabriels, GoGo Penguin, Ibex Clone, Iggy Pop, ingrid laubrock, Iris Dement, Jacquees, Jae Matthews, JC Sanford, John Cale, John Pizzarelli, Jose James, Julien Baker, Kae Tempest, Kaery Ann, Kali Malone, Larry Campbell, Le Coco, Ledisi, Lee Tucker, Lucky Daye, Lucy Dacus, Lucy Railton, Margo Price, Married FM, Melanie Dalibert, Mez, Mick Harvey, Mike Campbell, Mr. Bow, music, Nick Waterhouse, Obituary, Ocen Jeames, oddisee, Peter, Phoebe Bridgers, Playlist, Rachel and Vilray, Rebecca Bakken, recorded music, Rian Treanor, Rosa Passos, Rozi Plain, Samuel T. Herring, Scratcha DVA, Skream, Stephen O'Malley, Teresa Williams, Valesca Popozuda, Wally Seck, Yazmin Lacey

Best Of Playlist record reviews

Playlist 2022 – Parting Gifts

Post author By rsanford614
Post date January 2, 2023
No Comments on Playlist 2022 – Parting Gifts

Probably the most popular or “popular” of the playlists I’ve done in the last few years, this is an acknowledgment of gratitude for people who made an impact on how I think about music, how I listen to music, contributed in a tangible way to songs and situations that gave me comfort or uplifted me. I’m sure there are people whose deaths I missed – and people I’m sure were important, but I didn’t have something to say about them.

And I want to take a moment to underscore that streaming is only a subset of what exists – Johnny Rebel (Sean Groves), who fronted Columbus mainstay Th’ Flyin’ Saucers, didn’t have anything available on Tidal but he’s one of the two of three people who meant the most to me in this category who passed this year. Similarly, Todd Flegle, who I knew best as a Taco Ninja founder but also did some excellent work behind the kit for several Columbus bands. A lot of people important to me died – musically, but also otherwise – this year, so let’s get down to it.

https://tidal.com/browse/playlist/bc999668-041a-4001-ba76-d0b33b32b2a8

Jaimie Branch, “Prayer for Amerikkka Pt 1 and 2 (Live)” (Jaimie Branch) – As I said on the earlier lists, each of them this year starts with Jaimie Branch. In the month after her death, I reached for this instant classic, this raging hymn, this unstoppable groove, this cri de coeur so potent you could see it from the moon. I reached out for comfort and catharsis. Just as I did when it came out. Just as I’m doing right now. We’ll miss you, breezy; I wish I’d gotten to know you better, and I’m grateful for that little time and for your work. “This is a warning, honey.”
The Spinners, “Rubberband Man” (Thom Bell) – I came late to the Philly soul stuff – my Mom grew up as mostly an R&B (with country a close second) fan, but it was mostly Motown and Stax around my house as a kid. But in interviews with Elvis Costello and other people, my young self was a big fan of talking about the Spinners and Harold Melvin and the Blue Notes, and especially on David Byrne’s Look Into the Eyeball that came out when I was 21, and my favorite songs were by the arranger I didn’t know well, Thom Bell, I went down a rabbit hole. Bell – with co-writers like the great Linda Creed on this song – created a whole sound world that feels familiar but also beautifully strange, and this extended track is a perfect example. The soaring melody and percussion fit together like silk cut into shapes that defy easy description.
Quincy Jones and his Orchestra, “Mohair Sam” (Dallas Frazier) – The great country songwriter Dallas Frazier was a constant presence through radio and my Grandmother’s record collection when I was a kid, especially the tribute to the funny pages’ time-traveling caveman “Alley Oop” and Oak Ridge Boys’ earworm “Elvira” but I always had an especially soft spot for the playboy anthem “Mohair Sam,” in its original recording by Charlie Rich, seeing the Texas band The Derailers do it at Little Brothers in my early 20s and a dozen other versions over the years. But this swinging instrumental adaptation from Quincy Jones might be the perfect distillation of the winking swagger and interesting twists and turns of the song.
The Supremes, “Love Child” (R. Dean Taylor) – I mentioned growing up with a lot of Motown as a kid, and then and now, some of my favorite stuff is the late ’60s and on, when they started venturing down new paths and fragmenting. This social justice tune from The Supremes was one of the songs I kept returning to on the Best Of, trying to make sense of it, and one of my perennial jukebox plays, written and produced by The Clan, including Taylor. (“Indiana Wants Me” damn near took this spot on the playlist)
Dean Martin, “Sleep Warm” (Marilyn Bergman) – After hearing Sinatra would sign off phone conversations with the exhortation to “Sleep warm,” I started doing the same in my late teens. I could have picked any of a dozen Marilyn Bergman songs written with her husband Alan and a variety of musical collaborators (Lew Spence here), but this original (I think) Dean Martin version is a template for smooth ballads, of which few people ever came within striking distance.
Ronnie Spector, “You Can’t Put Your Arms Around a Memory” (Ronnie Spector) – Someone else whose voice defined American music for generations, and one of my most treasured memories was seeing her make a surprise appearance at Ponderosa Stomp for two of those classics. But when I think of her, my mind goes early to this Joey Ramone/Daniel Rey-produced EP that came out in the 80s and blew me away. For me, this is the definitive version of one of my all-time favorite Johnny Thunders songs, finding depths of heartbreak and swagger that no one else quite has.
Mtume, “So You Wanna Be a Star (12″ mix)” (James Mtume) – Someone who defined large swaths of music closer to my growing up, James Mtume. First from rippling percussion work on the ’70s Miles Davis records I love, then with his eponymous band doing some of the best disco and post-disco R&B work of anyone, and through sampling, into the hip-hop records I was buying as a young teen, most prominently the Notorious BIG’s “Juicy”‘s use of “Juicy Fruit.” I love everything on that Mtume best of what I picked up used as a kid, but this song was always my favorite from a career that gave me a lot to choose from. That bass/synth/drums breakdown toward the end excites me every time.
Stanley Turrentine with Milt Jackson, “Sister Sanctified” (Creed Taylor) – I’m not overstating things when I say we lost some heavyweights this year. Producer/label head Creed Taylor signed John Coltrane to Impulse, introduced bossa nova to America with the Getz/Gilberto collaboration in his time with Verve, and reoriented jazz toward funk without selling out either impulse in his brilliant ’70s run of CTI records. I hit up pally and funk whisperer Andrew Patton to suggest some of those funky CTI selections to choose from, as he knows the catalog better than I do, and he came back with a tight ten-song playlist that included this smoking version of a Weldon Irvine tune, led by soul jazz sax virtuoso Turrentine and vibes player Jackson over a fiery rhythm section of Bob James on piano, Cornell Dupree on guitar, Ron Carter on bass, and Billy Cobham on drums. The perfect example of its genre and still a dance floor filler.
Roland Shannon Jackson’s Decoding Society, “Dancers of Joy” (Charles Brackeen) – Leaning a little more toward the rocking/noisy side of the spectrum but another case of a jazz group pushing against the boundaries of genre at every turn. I’m sorry I never got to see drummer-leader Roland Shannon Jackson, or the stunning sax player we’re highlighting here, Charles Brackeen, but these records hit me like a bomb and brought together so many artists I did go onto see and follow like Melvin Gibbs, Billy Bang, and Vernon Reid.
Funkadelic, “Standing on the Verge of Getting it On” (Calvin Simon) – The early, anarchic Funkadelic was the part of George Clinton’s catalog I gravitated toward first, and the unhinged wildness with silky smooth vocals was the principal animating element for me. One of the key vocalists on these wild early records was the great Calvin Simon.
Sounds of Liberation, “New Horizons (Back Streets of Heaven)” (Khan Jamal) – Vibraphonist Khan Jamal walked a similar line between fiery free jazz and an unshakable sense of melody, exemplified by this spiritual jazz/R&B classic with the collective Sounds of Liberation.
Bloodstone, “Never Let You Go” (Charles McCormack) – On the smoother side of the early black rock movement, these Bloodstone singles are still some of the freshest R&B, led by singer Charles McCormack. The crunch under the sweetness of this song epitomizes what I love so much about this band.
Force MDs, “Tender Love” (Jessie Lee Daniels) – This super-soft R&B ballad written by Jam and Lewis with doo-wop style throwback harmonies felt out of place on the Krush Groove soundtrack, but it still holds up as does, for me at least, the first few Force MDs records. I’m delighted whenever I hear them on a jukebox or the radio.
Detroit Cobras, “Baby, Let Me Hold Your Hand” (Rachel Nagy) – Rachel Nagy was a force of nature, one of those lead singers you couldn’t take your eyes off; you couldn’t forget from the first moment you saw her. And her band, the Detroit Cobras, with guitarist Mary Ramirez and a rotating cast around the two-woman core, hit a particular sweet spot for me with roughed-up rock and roll versions of classic R&B you weren’t likely to hear anywhere else live. This take on a Hoagy Lands chestnut written by Bert Russell and Wes Farrell immediately became my definitive version.
Ohio Players, “Funky Worm” (Greg Webster) – From the Dayton soul and funk axis, the Ohio Players made the biggest and most long-lasting impact. Original drummer Greg Webster left before the band’s biggest chart successes, but this early classic shows off the humorous irreverence of the band fused to tight interplay and the rhythmic template, the shifting, and supple drums, that launched them into the collective musical consciousness.
Meat Loaf, “Two Out of Three Ain’t Bad (Hot Summer Night)” (Meat Loaf) – Bat Out of Hell was – may still be – one of my Mom’s favorite records and I remember driving in her car listening to this cassette a lot when I was young. The Jim Steinman songs and Todd Rundgren production created a dazzling Las Vegas revue of a Springsteen burlesque and my favorite songs off it are the most overheated, the most audacious in their heart-on-my-sleeve gushing and boldness; this one, with the hilarious spoken word intro, is probably first among equals on this record that does exactly what it’s trying to do and provides a perfect showcase for Meat’s inimitable voice at the crossroads of musical theater and ’70s arena rock.
Little Willie John, “I’m Shakin'” (Philip Paul) – Cincinnati’s King Records produced some of the definitive statements of R&B and country music on the cusp of the two giving birth to rock and roll, and after, and it doesn’t get much more definitive than this Little Willie John lust anthem that still leaves 90% of records on this subject matter back in the dust. A big reason for that energy and staying power is drummer Philip Park who provides the engine behind so many classics out of the King studios, like Hank Ballard’s “Sexy Ways” and Freddie King’s “Hide Away.” He set the standard for drums, making it almost impossible to stay in your seat.
The Lilybandits, “(Oblige Me) Mrs. Wilson” (Keith Smith) – Another drummer who moved the world for me personally and in my localized scene is Keith Smith. The Lilybandits galvanized a growing alt.country/Americana movement when Columbus had a load of those bands and provided a key conduit connecting the scenes of various towns; the Drive-By Truckers still name-check this band. The great songs of Jason “Jose” Gonzales and Todd May, May’s wrenching lead vocals, and Bob Hite’s history-of-all-music piano all sat on top of one of our finest rhythm sections, with Trent Arnold on bass and Keith Smith on drums. I’m still proud to call Todd and Trent my friends and the great sounding reissue of their perfect first record Shifty’s Tavern (which I couldn’t find for years, only the damn fine second album 33 1/3 until I stumbled upon a used CD in St Louis) hit sadly just in time for Smith’s untimely death. This track is rich with his idiosyncratic but rocking approach with surprising fills and left turns.
Roy Hargrove Big Band, “Mambo for Roy” (Montez Coleman) – Continuing the playlist’s drummer streak, St Louis-born drummer Montez Coleman held down the drum chair for Roy Hargrove during some of the trumpeter’s most thrilling work as well as providing exquisite drumming on great records by Rufus Reid, Russell Malone, Bruce Barth, and others. This big band record felt like a revelation to me when I heard it in the late 2000s, and a big part of the reason is Coleman’s intense rhythmic footprint.
The Five Satins, “A Night Like This” (Fred Parris) – As lead singer, high tenor, and writer of most of their big hits, Fred Parris made the Five Satins superstars in the late 50s doo-wop scene, and these records still sound so beautiful.
Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five featuring Melle Mel, “The Message” (Duke Bootee) – Songwriter Duke Bootee crafted this song that, in Melle Mel, is one of those all-time perfect pairings of vocalist and composer, and created a towering classic and one of the first hip-hop social commentary records, broadening the perceptions of the then-nascent genre.
Miles Davis, “Ife” (Badal Roy) – Badal Roy helped bring the tablas into jazz with his work on the Miles Davis sessions that produced On the Corner, Big Fun, and Get Up With It. This track off Big Fun, a personal favorite of mine, shows the melodic drums used as a color and as key syncopation, a foil for Michael Henderson’s bass in particular and the two drummers as well as James Mtume’s percussion.
John Cale, “Dying on the Vine” (Bob Neuwirth) – Bob Neuwirth’s Zelig-like career is begging for a full biography, connecting Bob Dylan, the Warhol crowd, later inheritors like Patti Smith and John Cale, co-writing the Janis Joplin classic “Mercedes Benz.” My favorite piece of his recorded work is this collaboration with Cale, which I first heard on a similar solo tour that gave us the beautiful Fragments of a Rainy Season and went back to check out Last Day on Earth. This song landed hooks in me as a teenager, and with every phase of my life, it speaks to me.
Bosq Y Candela All Stars, “Balancea” (Hector “Tito” Matos) – The great percussionist Tito Matos isn’t as well recorded as you might suspect, but everything I’ve heard of him is fantastic. This Matos co-write with producer Ben Woods from this supergroup comp is a highlight to set any party off with Matos’ various percussion as the beating heart of a horn-drenched rager.
Theotis Taylor, “Something Within Me” (Theotis Taylor) – Georgia-based preacher, pianist, and singer Brother Theotis Taylor started recording in the ’70s, but I wasn’t aware of his work until the beautiful record on Big Legal Mess this stands as the title track of, sensitively produced by Bruce Watson with playing from Jimbo Mathus, Will Sexton, and Liz Brashear among others, it’s a shining example of deep gospel.
Syl Johnson, “One Way Ticket to Nowhere” (Syl Johnson) – It’s almost impossible to pick a single song from one of the 20th century’s greatest soul singers, Chicago’s Syl Johnson. As much as I love classics like “Different Strokes” and “Is It Because I’m Black”, I knew I had to choose something from his own Twinight records because the Numero box set exposing me to more of that material took me from being a fan to a superfan, and the Numero revue the Wexner Center brought to the Lincoln with JC Brooks and the Uptown Sound as the backing band is still one of my most treasured live musical experiences.
Elza Soares, “Saltei De Banda” (Elza Soares) – I found Brazilian samba legend Elza Soares a little later than Caetano Veloso, Gilberto Gil, Gal Costa (also sadly on this list) but as soon as I heard her funky samba fusion records and her punchy, conversational vocal delivery I understood the BBC calling her one of the two female singers of the millenium. A singer and bandleader for all times, with a plethora of great songs like this party starter.
To Live and Shave in LA, “Song of Roland and A Single Thumbscrew Curl” (Tom Smith) – Through my college years and a little after, the noise scene was really popping off in Columbus, and Tom Smith’s wide-ranging collective To Live and Shave in LA were seen as spiritual forefathers by several people I talked to in that scene. Records that still feel as vibrant and exciting to me as they did then and I treasure the one time I was able to see a lineup of them live.
Fred Van Hove, “Suite 1.2.3/2 Het Steven om niet vertrapt te worden” (Fred Van Hove) – I believe I first heard about the Belgian pianist and free jazz pioneer Fred Van Hove through the Chicago writer John Corbett’s Extended Play, maybe my musical bible for a number of years, and once I found the work I fell in love with it instantly. A touch and an approach to organizing ideas not quite like any piano player I’ve ever heard and just as fresh as the first time I heard him and he blew my mind.
George Crumb, “Variazioni” (George Crumb) – I wanted to include Crumb’s landmark string quartet “Black Angels” which I saw a few years ago at the VIVO festival and it still retained its power to shock and stun as it had in the ’70s, but every streaming version I could find was broken into such small chunks I didn’t think it gave the right picture. So in digging, I fell in love with this recording of Variazioni by the Louisville Symphony and I think it’s a magical, mysterious work, using dynamics to really lead the listener on a journey.
The Ventures, “Walk Don’t Run” (Don Wilson) – Another marvel in dynamics and the power of using limited elements to maximum effect, the indelible riff of this standard-bearer for instrumental rock and the swinging, loose rhythm still rocks as hard as anything I can think of, propelled by co-founder Don Wilson’s perfect rhythm guitar.
Bob Dylan, “Maggie’s Farm (Live)” (Sam Lay) – Drummer Sam Lay was among a handful of musicians who established what I think of as the rhythmic conception of Chicago blues. I love his Howlin’ Wolf singles and his long relationship with Muddy Waters but I really wanted to draw from the Magic Sam Live record on Delmark which I heartily recommend and applaud the label’s decision to only have a couple of tracks available for streaming but I don’t love either of those two songs – then it hit me, this righteous live read of “Maggie’s Farm” from the soundtrack to Scorsese’s Dylan documentary No Direction Home. That beat, between a train beat and a shuffle, is iconic and gives this song I love in most of its forms a raw, raucous energy not found in most of the other occurrences.
John Patton, “Memphis” (Leroy Williams) – I love soul jazz, particuarly the work of organist John Patton who always had killer bands and let everyone playing with him shine. Drummer Williams also enlivened great records by Junior Cook, Barry Harris, the underrated ’70s Andrew Hill albums, but this session weirdly not released until the ’90s is a brilliant showcase as he locks in behind Patton’s B3, James “Blood” Ulmer’s guitar, and Marvin Cabell’s sublimely greasy tenor.
Tom T. Hall, “Mama Bake a Pie, Daddy Kill a Chicken” (Hargus “Pig” Robbins) – Another player whose piano work defines the sound of so much American music I love it’s impossible to imagine the landscape of music without it, Pig Robbins features in popular music to a deserved but surprising degree from great digressions from Bonnie “Prince” Billy in the Alan Licht book (and I probably would have drawn from Sings Greatest Palace Music if it were on this streaming service). His work on Tom T. Hall’s 100 Children album is a high water mark for music serving the song and his delicate background piano work accentuates the heartbreak on this quintessential Vietnam protest song.
Susan Graham, “For Poulenc” (Ned Rorem) – I knew Ned Rorem’s commentary and published diaries before I heard any of his prolific output as a composer, but once I redressed that error I knew why he was considered one of the greatest practitioners of the art song in American history. This piece, with a lyric written specifically for Rorem by his friend Frank O’Hara for another friend of his, Francis Poulenc, is interesting in how it sidesteps a lot of obvious French tropes and its bone-deep intimacy, given a magical reading by Susan Graham from what’s still my favorite collection of Rorem songs.
Norma Waterson, “Strange Weather” (Norma Waterson) – I’m as big a fan of Norma Waterson’s, of the first family of British folk music, interpretations of traditional music as anyone. One of my favorite musical moments of all time was seeing her as part of Waterson:Carthy which included her husband Martin Carthy and their daughter Eliza at the old Thirsty Ear club. But I have a special love for those cases where she finds a contemporary song she loves as much as those classics and really digs her teeth into it, and this duende-drenched take on Tom Waits’ “Strange Weather” from her duo record with daughter Eliza is a favorite example of her working in that mode.
Mark Lanegan, “Methamphetamine Blues” (Mark Lanegan) – Using a little more machine colors to dig into a similar tempo and a variation on the same existential melancholy as the last couple of tunes, this was one of my two or three favorite songs off my favorite Lanegan solo album, Bubblegum.
Betty Davis, “If I’m in Luck I Might Get Picked Up” (Betty Davis) – Betty Davis’ off-kilter, hard as nails funk records are always good for revving up a party and for marveling that the major label system let such a strong, individual voice break through even if it didn’t know what to do with her.
The Sadies featuring Kelly Hogan, “1,000,002 Songs” (Dallas Good) – The Sadies were one of the greatest live bands I ever saw, in venues from New York’s Mercury Lounge to Cleveland’s Beachland to Columbus’s Rumba they never phoned a damn note in. Singer-guitarist Dallas good shines on this charming, bitter duet with the great Kelly Hogan on a record that set a benchmark for live rock albums, In Concert.
Missing Monuments, “Another Girl” (King Louie Bankston) – King Louie got most of his acclaim in supporting roles – the band Bad Times with Jay Reatard and Eric Oblivian, drumming in the rockingest version of Nola institution the Royal Pendletons, co-writing most of the Exploding Hearts’ classic Guitar Romantic, and sitting in with countless people (I fondly remember a terrific set by Greg Cartwright in the Cooper-Young Gazebo with Louie on drums for most of it). And any of us in or around the garage punk scene have a great Louie story: he showed up for other bands, he showed up for the party, he always had a kind word for you. I always loved the projects where he came out front and center, especially the Missing Monuments of the last decade. This single on Hozac, with their core lineup of Aaron Hall from EyeHateGod and Julien Fried from Detonations, is a particular favorite of mine (though my favorite of their records, Painted White, is not on this streaming service – go find that if you don’t already know it), his pop sensibility coming to the fore with enough punk roughness to make it move.
Bobby Rydell, “The Joker” (Bobby Rydell) – I have an enormous soft spot for overly dramatic early ’60s pop – another holdover from my Grandmother who probably would have said “Volare” was her favorite Rydell but I definitely heard this song as a kid around her house – and no one did it better than Bobby Rydell.
The Temptations, “Ain’t Too Proud to Beg” (Joe Messina) – Anne’s favorite Motown song and definitely in my top five. I remember the year it felt like everyone I knew saw Standing in the Shadows of Motown in the theater and came back talking about the Funk Brothers, with good reason. Obviously, the James Jamerson bass line is the star of this production – neck and neck with David Ruffin’s scorching vocal – but it’s a perfect case study in how important every single element is, if you took away Messina’s tight rhythm guitar, everything would fall apart, and he did that on more songs than I even know about.
Timmy Thomas, “I’ve Got to See You Tonight” (Timmy Thomas) – One of the templates for the southern soul subgenre, going from playing keys with Donald Byrd and Cannonball Adderly to writing and producing ’90s R&B classics for LaFace and writing and singing one classic after another over the years. This is a prime example of his flexible, dipping and surging voice using the tension with the straight-time drum machine in a really interesting way.
Traci Braxton, “Last Call” (Traci Braxton) – I grew up knowing Traci Braxton as a backing vocalist on her singer Toni’s record, singles I loved, but it didn’t know her own work until I heard this and it blew me away. The way her voice plays with that rhythm, working toward a perfectly calibrated effect, is like watching a beautiful magic trick with heartbreak at its center. “So baby, how we gonna do this? Why you got me so elusive?”
Dennis Gonzalez and New Dallas Sextet, “Hymn for Mbizo” (Dennis Gonzalez) – Trumpeter-composer Gonzalez coaxed some giants out of the woodwork for this 1987 album, including saxophonist Charles Brackeen. With an all time rhythm section of Malachi Favors and Alvin Fielder, this is one of the strongest counterarguments to the received wisdom that the young lions, the burgeoning downtown scene, and the last gasps of fusion were the entirety of jazz in the ’80s. And beyond that counternarrative, it’s stil stirring, remarkable music.
Ron Miles, “Darken My Door” (Ron Miles) – I first knew trumpeter Ron Miles through his work with the Bill Frisell Quartet when I was in High School and every record he every put out – as a leader or a sideman – was something to treasure, and I was extremely lucky to see him several times over the years, including a jaw-dropping set at the Wexner Center with Still Dreaming alongside Joshua Redman, Scott Colley, and Brian Blade; and a dazzling trio Bangs with Jason Moran and Mary Halvorson at Big Ears (and was sorry to miss the impromptu tribute set at Big Ears this year though I was glad it was because every seat in that theater was filled). This 2016 record, I Am A Man is a personal favorite of his later work, with a quintet of players he knew extremely well – Frisell, Moran, Blade, and Thomas Morgan – sinking into these rich, heartbreaking compositions.
Mira Calix, “Le Jardin De Barbican” (Mira Calix) – In my early 20s I went deep into the rabbit hole of electronic music, especially almost anything the Warp label released. Early in that rabid fandom I saw Mira Calix open for Plaid at the Wex and her set was so breathtaking I barely remember Plaid playing; I already had the one record of hers that was out at the time but I kept watching for anything she did going forward. She was also one of the early examples I was aware of, of artists working in multiple media, picking up the torch of a lot of examples I grew up reading about but with a contemporary slant. This piece – from the 2004 record 3 Commissions – was commissioned for the reopening of the gallery space in the Barbican and when I finally visited London some 14 years later – thank you to Anne for that final push – walking up to the Barbican stirred up some nascent memories of this beautiful piece, and I was down the rabbit hole again.
Philip Jeck, “Pilot/Dark Blue Night” (Philip Jeck) – Another composer who mainly worked with electronics and turntables, and who did much of his work with dance pieces, installations, galleries, those Philip Jeck records in my late teens and early twenties opened up whole possibilities of music for me, and he kept making dark, intriguing, sui generis records the rest of his life.
Radu Lupu, “Brahms: Op. 119 – Intermezzo In B Minor” (Radu Lupu) – Classical music was a later in life thing for me, I spent too much of my life being intimidated by it, feeling like I had to know something. Once I started to get past that, one of the first piano players I gravitated toward was Radu Lupu. This Brahms recording has – for me – some of the same mystery as the Calix and the Jeck I placed it after, though I’ll never know enough to say if it was an influence.
Kenny Garrett, “Night and Day” (Charnett Moffett) – Growing up, Kenny Garrett was one of my favorite alto players, discovering him in the ’90s and working backwards – these late ’80s record always seemed to be in various used record stores – and this Triology blew me away. I want to saw I got it at the same time as Ornette Coleman’s At The Golden Circle Vol. 1, not realizing the bassist on most of the Garrett, including this beautiful take on one of my favorite Cole Porter songs, was the son of Charles Moffett who played drums on the Coleman. I never heard a bad Charnett Moffett bass line – ever – but the melodic groove he kicks up on this, and the hookup with Garret’s alto and Brian Blade’s drums is so gorgeously heavy, it still blows me away.
Alarm Will Sound, “Carmen Arcadiae Mechanicae Perpetuum” (Harrison Birtwistle) – I got into 20th century classical/new music far before the canonical greats; the use of dissonance and rhythms that sounded like life when I walked outside were easier for me to grasp at first. Almost no group did more to turn me onto some of my favorite composers than Alarm Will Sound and their take on this 1977 piece by the great Harrison Birtwistle is a masterclass in repetition and transformation.
Klaus Schulze, “Minority Report” (Klaus Schulze) – The early German electronic music was always intoxicating and perplexing – it evokes an emotional response, a sense of dread and also hope – that I don’t get out of the new age music it shares a lot of tonal commonality with, and high on that list for me was always Klaus Schulze. Part of the appeal was the science fiction references he played with; I found his work while reading a lot of that stuff, like the Philip K. Dick story this title references but the music still holds up in a way most of the work that signifies those childhood heroes of mine does not.
Kid and Khan and Julee Cruise, “Say Good Bye (Losoul Mix)” (Julee Cruise) – Kid Congo Powers is a constant inspiration for the way he keeps moving from project to project, guided by working with people he loves and his enthusiasms. I love these electronic collaborations with Khan but this has a special place in my heart because the one time I got to see the great Julee Cruise live was at a Kid Congo release show at Tonic where he played taffy-like slide guitar pieces behind her (and another accompanist with a laptop); not only did I get to hear a voice I’d loved since getting turned onto David Lynch as a kid but I got to understand something about camaraderie just a little bit better.
NG la Banda, “La Bruja” (José Luis “El Tosco” Cortés) – Continuing the uphill slide into dance music, flutist Cortés led this Cuban group after leaving international sensations Irakere and invented an entire genre, timba music.
Earth Wind and Fire, “Africano” (Andrew Woolfolk) – I love the EWF hits (I’ve said repeatedly that jukebox staple single disc Greatest Hits is probably single greatest Greatest Hits comp of the 1970s, among stiff competition) but I love an excuse to go into the albums and find some deeper cuts. This groove monster from That’s The Way of the World is a brilliant showcase for sax player Andrew Woolfolk, crucial on almost all of their records from the classic period but particular featured here, check that solo.
The Judds, “Mama He’s Crazy” (Naomi Judd) – Nobody cast a longer shadow over country music when I was a kid than the mother and daughter duo of Naomi and Wynonna, The Judds. This Kenny O’Dell-penned molasses-slow ballad seemed like it was on the radio constantly as a child (it came out when I was 4, on their first record) and set a standard for one massive hit after another that I love and still remembered every lyric to when I went looking for a song for this playlist.
The Saints, “Swing For The Crime” (Chris Bailey) – The Saints are among the million bands my friend Blue turned me onto over the years. I already had and liked Stranded but the more expansive Eternally Yours and especially the horn-soaked Prehistoric Sounds this swinging rager leads off, blew my mind. I could probably count the number of party mixes that didn’t include this or the same album’s “Every Day’s a Holiday” and Bailey’s sneering punk lounge lizard voice retained its power through my seeing him front a later version of The Saints in the early 2000s.
Mickey Gilley, “Don’t the Girls All Get Prettier at Closing Time” (Mickey Gilley) – Gilley didn’t cast quite as large a shadow on music as his cousin Jerry Lee Lewis but he brought a kind of citified sophistication in his records, his stage show, and the club that bears his name kicking off the Urban Cowboy movement, and made a slew of phenomenal neo-honky tonk records that still sound good when the lights are coming up and the bartender’s ready for you to be gone.
2Pac featuring the Outlawz and Jewell, “Thug Passion” (Jewell) – Jewell was one of the unsung weapons of Death Row Records and a key voice on a much of the chart-topping rap of my youth. She was never quite used to her fullest extent on the label but hooks like this, over a smooth Johnny J beat built around a Zapp sample, are indelible.
D Generation, “No Lunch” (Howie Pyro) – It took me a minue for D Generation, the production didn’t sit right when I first heard these records; when I finally came back I realized just how much I missed. One of the great fun-focused rock bands of the late ’90s/early ’00s, with every element clicking. Howie Pyro’s thick punk bass lines and co-writing, as well as his aesthetic inspiration, are key to this potent stew, and I knew him more as a DJ but anything he touched is worth hearing.
The Locust, “Wet Dream War Machine” (Gabe Serbian) – The first time I saw The Locust, I was in love – the conciseness and deep-drilled intensity of early Napalm Death with the punchiness of classic hardcore and an extra serving of noise, and I couldn’t take my eyes off them the half a dozen times I was lucky to see them. Gabe Serbian’s drums were key to that effect and he was always exciting to watch.
Bernard Wright, “Master Rocker” (Bernard Wright) – This opening salvo off Wright’s debut record ‘Nard still holds up with a crisp, flexible groove highlighting Wright’s subtle and decisive keyboards (that solo toward the end, good lord) and half-whispered vocals.
Ronnie Hawkins, “One More Night” (Ronnie Hawkins) – I grew up knowing Ronnie Hawkins as the big Canadian star who gave The Band their start as the Hawks, but years later I found a post-Band breaking off records at a record fair and realized there was more to dig into. This lovely read on a Bob Dylan ballad is a damn fine example of his country rock tendencies.
Grachan Moncur III, “When” (Grachan Moncur III) – Trombonist Grachan Moncur III helped define hard bop and push at its edges with two immaculate Blue Note records, and great work on records by label mates like Larry Young, Jackie McLean, and Wayne Shorter, but my favorite period, where he started to embrace noise and messiness, started to fully flower with this BYG Actuel record New Africa, that finds his horn in concert with Roscoe Mitchell (and, on this track, Archie Shepp) over a sizzling rhythm section of Dave Burrell, Alan Silva, and Andrew Cyrille.
The McCrary Sisters, “Hum and Moan (Live)” (Deborah McCrary) – The McCrary sisters are one of the finest examples of second generation gospel royalty, descended from a founding member of the Fairfield Four, and I was first turned onto them through their appearances on secular records like Margo Price but I go back to this live record regularly. Just beautiful.
George Cables, “Quiet Fire” (John Heard) – Bassist John Heard added magic to records by Cal Tjader, Count Basie, BB King, but my favorite work was his hookup with the great New York pianist George Cables and this live 1980 date with Sherman Ferguson and Eddie Henderson is a beautifully recorded example of that telepathy the two of them had.
Gran Combo, “El Problema Esta En El Coco” (Willie Sotelo) – Every iteration of Gran Combo is worth hearing but for me, Willie Sotelo’s introduction on piano re-energized them in the mid ’00s and this from, I think, the first record featuring him, crackles with warmth and energy.
Phreek, “Weekend (12″ Version)” (Patrick Adams) – Producer Patrick Adams provided a bridge between classic hard New York disco like Inner Life and early-mid period hip-hop like Salt-N-Pepa. This production from studio creation Phreek has always been one of my favorites and exemplifies what I love about this slice of disco before it got all the edges scrubbed off.
Depeche Mode, “I Feel You” (Andy Fletcher) – Depeche Mode is a band I love that shares traits with huge swaths of music I actively dislike. Songs of Faith and Devotion was the first of their records I bought myself, when I was 13, and I still remember how the ominous, sexy stomp of this opening track made me feel. And I always have a lot of love for Andy Fletcher’s ambiguous role in this period of the band – additional keyboards? – but he’s clearly adding something to that special vibration.
Goblin, “Suspiria” (Massimo Morante) – As a movie nerd, soundtrack music was my gateway to a lot of genres and artists I wouldn’t have stumbled on myself, and as a kid who had a subscription to Fangoria at 12 I clearly loved Dario Argento movies which meant being blown away by those Goblin soundtracks. I think a Goblin best of was the second “score music but not a specific movie’s soundtrack” release I ever bought, after a two disc Ennio Morricone. Morante’s guitar and writing are key to the constructions of all of these, and his empathy and listening helps set them apart from other proggy bands of the era.
Miles Davis, “Sivad” (Michael Henderson) – I mentioned my love for Miles Davis’ ’70s work above and Live-Evil might be the record I reach for the most. This rocking workout from Washington’s Cellar Door club (heavily edited I suspect) is an amazing showcase for Michael Henderson’s liquid bass, anchoring a rhythm section with Keith Jarrett on electric piano, Jack Dejohnette on drums, and Airto Moreira on percussion.
Charles Mingus, “The Shoes of the Fisherman’s Wife Are Some Jive Ass Slippers” (Sy Johnson) – Growing up as kind of a jazz head, it seems shameful I only know a handful of jazz arrangers without having to break out books or liner notes: Bob Brookmeyer, Gil Evans, Overton Hall.. and Sy Johnson. The sad news of his death gave me a reason to break out Johnson’s gorgeous arrangements for one of the great jazz composers, Charles Mingus, on Let My Children Hear Music and the live At Philharmonic Hall, and the twists and turns of this piece, the sense of dynamics and space, are as riveting as ever.
The Delfonics, “La La Means I Love You” (William “Poogie” Hart) – A different kind of lushness, courtesy of Thom Bell mentioned above, evnelopes this slow dance classic for the ages, cowritten by Bell and the Delfonics’ lead singer William Hart. That falsetto marks it as timeless and exactly of its time, the moment where he moans “The things that I’m saying are true, and the way I explained it to you,” before the other voices rejoin him, shatters me every time.
The Mar-Keys, “After the Affair” (Sidney Kirk) – Memphis’s Sidney Kirk is best known for his long association on keys with Isaac Hayes but I have a special love this Mar-Keys record with that snaking, vibrating keyboard solo.
Ramsey Lewis, “The ‘In’ Crowd” (Ramsey Lewis) – There aren’t really words for a lot of people on this list but that’s especially true for Ramsey Lewis who brought jazz to millions of people who’d have no interest otherwise – my friend Darryl said a Ramsey Lewis 45 was the first record he ever bought as a child – and continued playing with vigor and charm until the end of his life. This spirited, catchy take on the Billy Page song, with Eldee Young on bass and Redd Holt on drums, still sounds like a party, bottled up at prime excitement.
The Impressions, “It’s All Right” (Sam Gooden) – Sam Gooden was one of the original Impressions, before the addition of Curtis Mayfield and Jerry Butler who both went onto significantly more fame. While Gooden didn’t do a lot of leads in the classic Impressions’s golden years he and Curtis Mayfield toss lines back and forth on this stone classic of laid-back soul.
Teenage Head, “Let’s Shake” (Gord Lewis) – The first two records by Ontario band Teenage Head are about as pure and perfect an example of classic punk as I can imagine, fast, snotty, full of youthful energy and angst, and still catchy and swinging. This single off Frantic City might be what I’d give the aliens if they landed and asked “What’s punk rock sound like?”
Buddy Holly, “That’ll Be The Day” (Jerry Allison) – And shifting from that early-second generation punk to the late first generation of rock and roll, as Buddy Holly and the Crickets added the Texas shuffle to the burgeoning rock of The Clovers, Louis Jordan, and Ike Turner to create a rhythm that’s still reverberating. Drummer Jerry Allison co-wrote several of the big hits, including this one, and helped make that rhythm sing, and kept the Crickets going after Holly’s death including success backing the Everly Brothers and Waylon Jennings.
The Pogues, “Thousands are Sailing” (Darryl Hunt) – One of my favorite bands since Tun Kai Poh loaned me the Best Of when I was 16, The Pogues are song-oriented but always a dance band, and that relies on a great bass player, especially live as I confirmed when Anne and I finally got to see them in 2008. After the first couple of records steered by the great Cait O’Riordan, they got the perfect replacement with Darryl Hunt who stayed with them for the rest of the run. His melodic but propulsive playing on anthems like this – hands down, probably my favorite song about New York – is always the biggest thing getting my to lift my glass and sing along.
Olivia Newton-John, “Soul Kiss” (Olivia Newton-John) – There are few singers my Mom loves like Olivia Newton-John, Grease is probably her favorite movie, but my favorite work of hers is the later, lower-to-the-ground R&B inflected material like this.
Four Tops, “Standing in the Shadows of Love” (Lamont Dozier) – It’s almost impossible to pick just one Holland-Dozier-Holland song, I could have almost filled a playlist this long with my favorite songs by the writing team. The drama in this, the perfect crafting for the vocals of Levi Stubbs and his Tops companions, I don’t think another writing team could have come close to.
Idris Muhammad, “Hard to Face the Music” (Ronnie Cuber) – This is another of those funky CTI jazz records I mentioned earlier and another I found through Andrew Patton. Ronnie Cuber owned every style of music he graced with his baritone saxophone and while most of my favorite examples of him as a leader weren’t found on the streaming service, he tears up this excellent version of an Ashford and Simpson R&B classic on this session led by drummer Idris Muhammad.
Julius Hemphill and Abdul Wadud, “Pensive” (Abdul Wadud) – Cleveland jazz cellist Abdul Wadud made great records as a leader and with other players like Frank Lowe and Arthur Blythe, but made arguably the biggest mark through his affiliation with composer and reeds player Julius Hemphill. I bow to no one in my estimation for Dogon AD, one of the finest jazz (or anything else) records ever made, but my personal favorite work of the two of them is this unvarnished, vulnerable duets record Live in New York.
Slobberbone, “Meltdown” (Jess Barr) – [Full disclosure, I accidentally left this off the first posting, there won’t be any more additions to the playlist] Slobberbone were one of my favorite alt.country bands, who always seemed to deliver even when the other bands on the bill were having a rough night. Beyond Brent Best writing some of the finest, most sharply observed songs of anyone, Jess Barr’s guitar (in your face when it needed to be but subtle here) was a key component of that magic.
Peggy Lee, “I Wanna Be Around” (Bill Pitman) – Bill Pitman was such a legendary LA session guitarist Phil Spector named a record after him, but it’s frustratingly hard to find which of the Wrecking Crew sessions he’s actually on instead of the handful of other guitarists in the rotation. I hope I’ve got this right, the subtle comping on this song from a record he’s listed as appearing on sure sounds fantastic.
Monette Sudler, “All Blues” (Monette Sudler) – Another influential guitarist from the always rich Philadelphia scene, Sudler played with a who’s who, mostly live, and cut a handful of classic records in the ’70s for SteepleChase (not on this streaming service) and some excellent revival records in the ’00s. This standard has never sounded better; her solo manages to surprise while enhancing but not throwing out anything essential about the tune.
Windbreakers, “All That Stuff” (Bobby Sutliff) – The ’80s jangling underground has been getting more of a fair shake lately, especially with the 2020 compilation Strum and Thrum which also included my friends in Great Plains, one of whom Mark Wyatt, introduced me to Tim Lee and Bobby Sutliff, and their former (by that time) band the Windbreakers. Bobby relocated to Delaware Ohio and I think I saw him play only once though I met him a couple of times, and these records (and the later solo work) still sound as good as ever.
Dirtball, “3 Am” (Wes Freed) – Another artist who made a profound impact on me but I only met a couple of times and probably knew less well than 100 of my friends. Wes Freed first made the impression on me with his art defining the universe of the Drive By Truckers, and he booked, did shows with, created original art for, many of my friends’ bands over the years while also running on a parallel track with his and his wife Jyl’s own great dark-Americana band Dirtball.
Classie Ballou, “Classie’s Whip” (Classie Ballou) – One of the great early rock and roll instrumentals, low, and mean, and sexy, with an infectious guitar hook that’s almost impossible to shake. One of my most treasured memories from Ponderosa Stomp – in a festival specifically built for those kinds of memories – was getting to see Ballou, sitting down and in his ’70s, playing this with the same uncanny, deep power.
Loretta Lynn, “Rated ‘X'” (Loretta Lynn) – One of the greatest songwriters of the 20th century, inarguably, full stop, and an artist who did more to modernize country music than literally anyone else, without every sacrificing what made her fans fall in love with her. I regret that I was in the Philippines for work and missed Loretta Lynn’s live appearance at Nelsonville Music Festival and never worked hard enough to see her elsewhere.
Jerry Lee Lewis, “Your Cheating Heart” (Jerry Lee Lewis) – A classic example of separating the art from the artist; I’m not sure if I’d have patience of Jerry Lee Lewis if he appeared today, I’m not sure the music could have penetrated through what I know about the biography. But he helped define rock and roll, gave it a persona of unhinged wildness, and then put out some of the most heartbreaking hard country records and in between gave us this, one of the great live records of all time, Live from the Star Club.
Mable John, “Your Good Thing (Is About to End)” (Mable John) – Another slow creeping ballad delivered as though by a hammer. Blues goddess Mable John didn’t spend much time on Stax but this reading on a classic David Porter-Isaac Hayes song is as good as it gets, a perfect marriage of singer and song, of delivery and material. Her other records are damn good also, I’ve never heard a bad one – but this makes time stop.
Pharaoh Sanders, “Upper Egypt and Lower Egypt” (Pharaoh Sanders) – Another legend who came out of John Coltrane’s orbit with a questing spirit and helped redefine how we think about the tenor saxophone. Any spiritual jazz and almost any free jazz you hear owes an unpayable debt to Sanders, and his handful of Impulse records are just bottled magic.
Golden Palominos, “Boy (Go)” (Anton Fier) – I was lucky to see Anton Fier – one of the finest exports from Cleveland and that’s a stacked list – a couple of times, and we had a few friends in common. He’s someone else it’s impossible to choose one track that sums up a career that careened from the Lounge Lizards to the Feelies to Herbie Hancock, but the first best of I got of the Golden Palominos had this perfect, cracked pop song with vocals by Michael Stipe, and written by Fier and Stipe with guitarist Jody Harris who I knew best as a member of the Contortions, and it still makes me want to pump my fist and dance around the room.
Coolio, “Fantastic Voyage” (Coolio) – It’s difficult to remember now but I grew up when it still common to hear people in the school hallways say they liked ‘everything but rap.’ Coolio was one of the few exceptions for those people of my acquaintance in High School. This was my first exposure to one of my favorite Dayton funk bands, Lakeside, through the big sample on the chorus, so it opened up that world to me but I also still love it as its own piece of work.
Robert Gordon and Chris Spedding, “I’m Left, You’re Right, She’s Gone” (Robert Gordon) – By bringing contemporary New York attitude and a punk-approriate snarl, and one of the great voices, to classic early rock and roll, Robert Gordon helped make classics like this ’55 Elvis single feel fresh and alive to an entire generation. These live records with he and Chris Spedding – I kick myself for not only getting to see him once – are my favorite artifacts of that powerful combination.
Ego Summit, “Novacaine” (Tommy Jay) – Tommy Jay was one of the guiding lights for every bit of underground music I’ve grown up loving here in Columbus, using his barn in Harrisburg just outside of town to record bands, playing drums most notably with Mike Rep and the Quotas, and his own idiosyncratic, moving songwriting. Growing up, the only often available evidence of that was this Columbus supergroup Ego Summit – Jim Shepard, Ron House, Don Howland, Mike Rep, and Tommy Jay – and this mysterious Jay original was one of my immediate favorites on a record stacked with other songwriters whose work I already knew and loved.
Dead Kennedys, “This Could Be Anywhere” (DH Peligro) – As much as I love the first two records, the Dead Kennedys material that really clicked for me came with DH Peligro’s appointment to the drum chair, Frankenchrist might be my favorite of their records and his pummeling but swinging assault driving this song is a big part of why.
Redman featuring Hurricane G, “We Run NY” (Hurricane G) – Puerto Rican New Yorker rapper Hurricane G didn’t get nearly the credit she was due – I loved this duet with Redman immediately when I heard his classic album Dare Iz a Darkside but didn’t even know she had a solo record a few years later – but she made an impression all around.
Dr Feelgood, “All Through the City” (Wilko Johnson) – A similar swaggering look at a different city almost 20 years earlier, that first Dr Feelgood record didn’t just set a template for pub rock, it created a path for all the rough around the edges rock and roll my friends and I grew up loving, in large part due to those huge riffs by writer and founding guitarist Wilko Johnson.
Gal Costa, “Divinio Mavarvilhoso” (Gal Costa) – One of my favorite voices. I’m not sure how many times I’ve said that writing this, but it’s been true every single time. One of my favorite memories is taking Anne to the Blue Note in New York to see Costa with Romero Lubambo on guitar and those songs worked just as well for just voice and guitar as they do with the lush arrangements of her classic ’60s and ’70s records (you can’t go wrong with any of them); one of the very few times that tourist trap of a venue felt like church (in the best way).
Roland Johnson, “Can’t Get Enough” (Roland Johnson) – I came to Roland Johnson just this year when pal Roy Kasten booked him for dear friend John Wendland’s bachelor party, and when John said “He has a lot of great originals,” coupled with the few he did in that set, I knew I had to dig into the records and, as usual, John didn’t steer me wrong. A killer soul singer still making fantastic records into the last decade.
Fleetwood Mac, “Say You Love Me” (Christine McVie) – Fleetwood Mac is a band I almost never put on just because I heard them so often as a kid, but there’s a reason they were still ubiquitous on the radio into the ’80s and ’90s, it’s unassailable. And my favorite songs of theirs are all Christine McVie compositions, the piano bounce and the gleaming chorus on this never fail to make me smile.
Roddy Jackson, “Moose on the Loose” (Roddy Jackson) – Another piano-driven rocker from Roddy Jackson, a rare rockabilly artist on one of the labels that charted the changing course of R&B starting in the ’50s, and his best work, including this, has the same power and vibrancy of all the Specialy Records I knew better. I’d also like to take this opportunity to remember label head Art Rupe who also passed away this year.
The Clean, “Anything Could Happen” (Hamish Kilgour) – My love of the Clean is mostly owed to Mark Wyatt and Shirley Tobias – and I should mention my friend Kellie Morgan who worked with Ace of Cups to bring them here for a (no one’s fault but the weather) insanely packed show a number of years ago. This early song has a bounce that makes the best use of Hamish Kilgour’s drumming.
Fatal Hussein and Tame One, “Ghetto Star” (Tame One) – I got into Tame One in the early ’00s when I would buy just about anything by Eastern Conference Records (and never really got steered wrong) but this crackling collaboration with his fellow New Jersey MC Fatal didn’t hit my radar until, well, my pal Andrew Patton told me he’d passed away.
3rd Bass, “The Gas Face” (Don Newkirk) – Don Newkirk made a huge impact, mostly appearing in the background, collaborating with Prince Paul on film scores, beats, and other collaborative records. He makes a mic appearance as the host on this classic; I still occasionally use the phrase “That gets the gas face.”
The Stranglers, “Death and Night and Blood (Yukio)” (Jet Black) – That first lineup of The Stranglers, especially the first three records, still hold up as prime examples of the post-punk and first wave punk coincided at precisely the same time in London – the cooler, meancing drumming of Jet Black and the swirling keyboards of Dave Greenfield fly in the face of any loud-and-fast purist.
The Specials, “Ghost Town” (Terry Hall) – The Specials cut this loose, swinging, sensual poison pen letter of a song (written by keyboardist Jerry Dammers) in tribute to the struggling English towns they toured through and, behind Terry Hall’s low-key and venomous vocal, it’s still one of the finest protest songs of the ’80s.
Combustible Edison, “Bluebird (Buddy Mikro Mix by Sait Etienne)” (Brother Cleve) – Brother Cleve made an impression on me visiting Boston during my college years, especially when I hit 21, as someone who was helping revive a bygone cocktail culture with the same sense of irreverence and wit he brought to bands like the Del Fuegos and especially Combustible Edison, and everyone of those cocktail bars he had a hand in, up through Manhattan’s Lullaby, that I’ve visited had that same easy charm coupled with a deep dedication to the craft of the drink. He produced and wrote – at least I hope those credits are true – this song from the period when he was the keyboard player and it’s a reminder that you can move people in multiple ways throughout your life.
Ichirou Mizuki, “Mazinger Z [Infinity Version, Opening Edit]” (Ichiro Mizuki) – As a child I grew up loving the anime that was translated for these shores, my favorite not-seen-very-often was Tranzor Z, a translation of Mazinger Z, which kick started a lifelong love of artist Go Nagai and, years later, when I got into more subtitled and sophisticated anime – and friends of mine did a parody subtitle of the crossover Mazinger Z Vs. Devilman, I also started getting into soundtracks. And the voice of the opening credits of Mazinger Z, heard here, Ichirou Mizuki, did around 1,200 of these openings, setting the standard for the big, brassy vocalist that let you know something exciting was about to happen – and he still sounds like that.
Ash Ra Tempel, “Daydream” (Manuel Göttsching) -Göttsching and his Ash Ra Tempel band mates – sometimes including Klaus Schulze who shows up elsewhere on this list – helped birth a scene of gentle but deceptively barbed psychedelia that created scenes reverberating through bands I found and loved in my 20s and beyond, like Acid Mothers Temple, Harsh Jar Tempo, and most of the Terrastock scene.
Angelo Badalamenti, “Akron Meets the Blues” (Angelo Badalamenti) – As soon as I saw Twin Peaks – and I suspect it was within that same year I (too young) saw Blue Velvet on video – the music spoke to me just as strongly as the images (and the narrative took a few years before I learned to love its disjunctions and dream logic as much as those elements) and went crazy for Badalamenti when I started buying soundtracks. This chunk of the Blue Velvet soundtrack showcases his mastery of blues idioms and his signature, woozy string writing.
Peter Cooper, “Much Better Now” (Peter Cooper) – Peter Cooper’s long been one of my inspirations as someone writing about music and especially writing about the scene he lives in. The impact Cooper made on the artists he wrote about – sometimes pissing them off but also lots of declarations of love – through his time at the Tennessean and transitioning to the Country Music Hall of Fame – is a guiding light for me. And his music, which I knew about but it took me too long to actually get around to, is written and played with that same care, balancing his own damn fine songs, like this one, with songs by the greatest songwriters that leave him something to say about them.
Jesse Winchester, “Sham-a-Lam-Dong-Ding” (Bill VornDick) – Another limitation of streaming, I really wanted to pay tribute to the legendary bluegrass producer Bill VornDick with his crystalline work on my favorite record from one of my all-time favorite Columbus bands, One Riot One Ranger, Side Tracks. And if you don’t already have it, seek it out: that version of Great Plains’ “Long and Slow Decline” is worth the price of admission alone and there are at least ten performances that good on it. But when that wasn’t available, I immediately wanted to use this final, gorgeous Jesse Winchester record, Love Filling Station. This record focuses on every nuance of Winchester’s voice provides the right, warm accompaniment, especially on this song, both a swan song and a benediction about what keeps all of us who love music coming back again and again.
Low, “When I Go Deaf” (Mimi Parker) – I saw Low half a dozen times, probably, over the years, and they were never less than excellent. But the tour at the Wexner Center’s performance space for this record The Great Destroyer just broke me. On this song, which I think I called “like an inside out George and Tammy duet,” with its sweet, low harmonies that explode into a whirling, fiery mass of guitar I just started sobbing. I’m still kicking myself for not seeing Low at Big Ears because I thought there’d be time. But I think about that beautiful moment every time I’m debating going out to a show, about how fleeting all of this is. And, as usual, I end with a prayer. Thank any of you who read through this. I love you.

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Best Of Playlist record reviews

Playlist – 2022 Songs

As with the last few years, the songs on this playlist are a combination of selections from my favorite records of the year, songs on records that might not have worked for me all the way through but I couldn’t get out of my head, and a smattering from some favorite revivals. “Songs” vs. “Spaces” mean the pieces are mostly – not always – more concise, and mostly, but not always, have vocals. It’s obviously subjective, and if I did the same exercise three months from now, probably 25% of each would fall on the other side of the fence.

https://tidal.com/browse/playlist/6c921c1c-caa0-41a3-82a8-10407b1ecb8c

Anteloper, “Earthlings” – Not even bothering with a spoiler warning: each of the playlists starts with Jaimie Branch. Even only interacting with her in those small bursts, I was really shaken by her death, and the work she put out this year makes that loss hurt even more because she was hitting her stride. This project with drummer Jason Nazary, produced and with extra instrumentation from the great Jeff Parker, was one of the most beguiling anything I heard all year. The stuttered, light drum ‘n’ bass drumming and infectious, overlapping synth and guitar hooks create a perfect background for Branch’s laid-back, mysterious vocal that’s somewhere between ’70s proto-rap, ’50s jazz poetry, and ’90s underground hip-hop, 100% breezy. “We are not the earthlings that you know. It really makes you think, though. Really makes me think. Really makes me drink, yo.”
Florence and the Machine, “Free” – There isn’t a song I don’t love on Florence and the Machine’s most fully realized record, Dance Fever, but this one has my favorite opening line of any song this year: “Sometimes I wonder if I should be medicated,” and a line toward the end that kept me going and gave me hope throughout the year: “Is this how it is? Is this how it’s always been? To exist in the face of suffering and death and somehow still keep singing?” With a groove that works as well for dancing alone in your bedroom or in the crush of strangers and a vocal that reminds me of my favorite dramatic Nick Cave moments but doesn’t sound like anyone else.
Eli “Paperboy” Reed, “I”m Bringing Home Good News” – I’ve enjoyed Eli “Paperboy” Reed’s detours of the last couple of albums a lot but hearing him back with a gutbucket rhythm section and a raging torrent of horns felt like coming home in the best way. And grappling with the catalog of one of the great American songwriters, Merle Haggard, throughout Down Every Road is a perfect mix. This ironic kiss-off hits exactly the right tones of righteous anger and righteous exuberance at freedom. “I was sitting downtown in a tavern when I made up my mind to go. And I knew you would be so glad to be free; I just thought to call to let you know.”
Soul Glo, “Gold Chain Punk (whogonbeatmyass?)” – Philly’s Soul Glo made their strongest, most expansive record yet without sacrificing any of the intensity or fury that hardcore’s always been known for. Not just an adrenaline shot – though it’s damn sure that too – this song is a journey, with some of the most impassioned, empathetic singing I’ve heard all year, from Pierce Jordan. “Giving so littlе takes so much, putting in work to look like he don’t givе a fuck. It’s worth it to pretend you never get wound up and shrug it off and put half on the Sag’ cusp. Just kidding, I’m’a hold it forever.”
Steven Bernstein’s Millennial Territory Orchestra with Catherine Russell, “River’s Invitation” – One of the last shows I saw in 2020, at LPR for Winter Jazzfest, was the MTO with Cat Russell singing, and it exceeded my high expectations for those two titans of not only American music but specifically for interpretations. So I was overjoyed when a record came out documenting that collaboration, Good Time Music. Their take on one of my favorite Percy Mayfield compositions balances a boisterous swing, a keen wit, and a dark heart. The arrangement highlights the longtime camaraderie of this band, giving everyone space to stretch out without losing the path, and Bernstein’s greasy trumpet solo and Russell’s loose, wry vocal send it to outer space. “Well, I don’t want to leave him, because I know he’s still alive. Someday I’m gonna find him and I’ll take him for a ride. And we’ll spend our days together in our home beneath the tide.”
Say She She, “Fortune Teller” – Dropping back into a more laid-back gear with Say She She, a newish Colemine signing who reminds me more of Philly roller rink sweetness and sun-dappled Cali soul than the harder funk and soul the label first hooked me with. The infectious harmonies of Nya Parker Gazelle, Piya Malik & Sabrina Cunningham, and the rich organ lines kept this in rotation for me all year, and I can’t wait to see this Brooklyn band live. “When you look up to the sky, and you can’t tell how high it is when you’re spinning into space, and you’re starting to lose faith, be safe. With me.”
Lady Wray, “Through It All” – I’d been a fan of Nicole Wray’s work as a featured artist and harmony singer through most of my adult life, from her work on Missy Elliott’s Supa Dupa Fly, with Lee Fields, the Black Keys, the duo Lady. But somehow her solo work missed me until Piece of Me knocked me out of my damn seat. A perfect slice of soul music, calling on all eras of the music’s history and making it all feel brand new. “Through it all, I can’t complain; it feels so good. I don’t know what I would do without you.”
Maya de Vitry, “How Bad I Wanna Live” – Someone else I was late coming to, but violinist and singer de Vitry’s Violet Light gave me quite a bit of comfort this year, and I thought this song fit between these two in the sense of a sun-and-shadow cocktail painting the reasons to go on, the reasons to keep living and loving, even when it doesn’t make sense or when the reasons on the other side are stacked so tall. “Here on my knees on the wet, red clay, Death sings below in the ocean. All you goats and angels, I’m not dying today. I’m not dying today.”
Gabriel Kahane, “Sit Shiva” – Gabriel Kahane’s maybe my favorite orchestral pop singer-songwriter, but trying to put him in that box doesn’t quite do him justice. His arrangements perpetually surprise me but in a way that feels perfect, and his ability to capture the pieces of life we want to look away from or would brush past in concise, carved lyrics that always project a love for the world makes me want to work harder. This closing track from his Magnificent Bird, with Casey Foubert and Joseph Lorge on guitars and Elizabeth Zinman on backing vocals around Kahane, talks about how our rituals have transformed with technology in unsparing, gorgeous detail. “And the photographs of great-grandchildren multiplied, these two ancient lovers walking side by side— his body ravaged, and hers turned to light—He raised his hand to speak at last, and everyone held their breath or gasped as he said, ‘Goodbye, my darling, goodbye.'”
Leyla McCalla, “Memory Song” – I deeply regret not seeing the mixed media performance of Leyla McCalla’s song cycle that accompanies the album when I was at Big Ears, but the record that resulted, Breaking the Thermometer, had my heart almost immediately, Cellist-singer-songwriter McCalla weaves great covers of songwriters like Caetano Veloso and Frantz Casseus with astonishing originals like this one, for this travelogue/reckoning with her family’s history and the wider histories of Haiti and the US. “How much does a memory weigh?”
Beth Orton, “Arms Around a Memory” – A similarly slinky, mysterious groove – in this case from Shazad Ismaily and Tom Skinner – powers this standout from one of my favorite records from a songwriter I’ve been besotted with for over 20 years. A tribute to New York, sometimes obliquely and sometimes in your face, and to sorting through those memories that define us around the edges. “Well, I put my arms around a memory though you always told me not to try. Didn’t we make a beautiful life in your eight-floor walk-up that night?”
SG Goodman, “All My Love is Coming Back to Me” – Grittier but also working with a cyclical, hypnotic groove, this song kept nudging me, nagging at me, in the face of the almost impossible call to choose a single song off Goodman’s punch in the gut collection Teeth Marks. “I’ve seen the light of kingdoms coming, answered the call to rock and roll. Chased down the night that someone’s holding onto, and I kept the fight within my soul.”
Earthgang featuring Ari Lennox, “Run Too” – This standout from the terrific 2022 album Ghetto Gods from Atlanta rap duo Earthgang features a slashing chorus from Ari Lennox and introspective lyrics over a thrumming, insistent beat featuring gauzy synth chords and sparkling piano with plenty of space. “So who can I open up to? Probably this bottle; this sack of weed, it talks to me. We see eye to eye. We knee to knee, praying for some shit, ain’t sure if it exists.”
Terence Etc., “Terence’s — Love” – Terence Nance’s record VORTEX is one of the most mind-expanding pop/R&B records I’ve heard in years. The way he leans into the hairpin turns, the surprising harmony, the doubled sax and keys solo that feels like it’s melting in front of me, and makes it all sing like classic basement jams is a magic trick of the highest order. “Feeding on each other and loving every minute. I’m not grown. Tasted like right at first, but all wrong.”
Sick Thoughts, “Someone I Can Talk To” – New Orleans’ raw garage-punk band Sick Thoughts, for a long time held down by singer and only permanent member Drew Owen, has always been a live act you miss at your own peril if you’re lucky enough they come through your town. But – whether influenced by a more stable lineup or just woodshedding on his own – with Heaven is No Fun, they finally made a great album. This song takes up on some of the questioning/figuring out what keeps us going themes of the last few tracks, but with snarling guitars and a hard-edged bounce. “There are sometimes when I don’t know where I am. And there are somethings that I’ll never, never understand. Oh, no.”
Big Joanie, “What Are You Waiting For” – To my ears, London trio Big Joanie took a big step up on their second record Back Home. That huge, slashing riff and the spiky leads from Stephanie Phillips play perfectly with Estella Adeyeri’s big bass lines and the dry, crisp drumming of Chardine Taylor-Stone. “You couldn’t make it back. You wore the weight that you earned. It’s all yours; she’s not the only one living without a million rituals from a time forgotten.”
Scrunchies, “New What” – With their own sophomore record, Scrunchies also felt to me like they went further toward defining themselves. I love Feral Beach front to back, they were my favorite set at Dirtnap Records’ anniversary and that almost martial drumming and melodic bass groove the song sets up always catches my ear. That moment when Laura Larson’s guitar explodes through those textures is always exciting. “Elevate to get translucent – tape your feelings to the wall. Emerge from below fully formed. Put me away when I destroy because I’m bored. Tear apart is not enough when I want more more more.”
Billy Woods featuring Mike Ladd, “Christine” – Rapper-songwriter Billy Woods’ Aethiopes brought him to another level of recognition, and for good reason. With tracks all produced by his co-writer Preservation and judiciously chosen guests, it evokes a mood of dread and possibility without feeling monochromatic. This track with Mike Ladd, one of my gateway drugs to this sort of underground hip-hop, is a favorite in an album I couldn’t find a bad song on anywhere. “Lulled by streetlamps and the blackness between, my parents’ argument picking up speed. In and out of bad dreams. That’s what they said when they saw him dead in the road. Now I know it was the shadow of them black wings. Unmarked followed us for ten blocks.”
Lucky Daye, “Fever” – I knew Lucky Daye’s songwriting but I missed his debut album. Candydrip caught my ear immediately, one of the best contemporary R&B records I’ve heard in a while, those slashing, static-y cymbals and the echoing backing vocals on the track enhance the sweaty, breathless quality of the love-as-disease metaphor he slinks through. “All night chase you, no lime; another round to help me pass the time. Maybe this mary will help get it out my mind. Feels so right, yeah, ooh, and these pills don’t cut the passion.”
Brian Damage, “You’ve Got Friends” – I loved Brian Baker’s earlier band Brat Curse but his project/band (sometimes featuring five or six people live but mostly recorded entirely by Baker with some judicious guests) Brian Damage encompasses more influences, more of the world, and makes more space for his idiosyncratic look at the world; one of my favorite Columbus bands in a while. Tis lead-off track to their delightful Shit For Brains is co-written by Alissa Paynick and plays with ’90s lo-fi textures – starting with the modem sound – and a disaffected vocal couching a phenomenal, mean hook. “I live my life online. I don’t have one any other time.”
Sweet Knives, “Oh Danny” – A more direct but just as specific and powerful look at infatuation by one of my favorite songwriters of the last 20+ years, Memphis’ Alicja Trout, in what’s grown into her most flexible band, Sweet Knives. This song has a riff worthy of every guitarist I’ve loved since Johnny Thunders and a hook as good as the Shangri-Las, it’s a pop masterpiece from someone who writes more of them than anybody and a keystone of a record Spritzeria which Anne and I saw them do most of live that confirms the songs are as good as they’ve ever done. “Oh, Danny, did you come back for more? I’m hearing growling, squealing, scratching down on the cellar door. Oh, Danny, don’t you know I believe you – in what you say and what you do. Oh, Danny, don’t you know I could never be through with you.”
Aoife O’Donovan, “Age of Apathy” – The first record I fully loved this year, O’Donovan’s collaboration with producer Joe Henry had a slower build for me than her earlier solo records. I love it, but I had to grapple with it a little more – this title track, though, caught me immediately with the sense of drama and atmospherics sharpened to a fine point and one of my favorite combinations of lyric and melody she’s written, leading up to a beautiful Joni Mitchell quote/nod that avoids the way that kind of trope usually feels tacked on. “Under the shade of a quaking aspen tree; we came for New England’s party, but the colors haven’t started, so it’s just you and me.”
Keb’ Mo’, “Good to Be (Home Again)” – Keb’ Mo’ was one of a million artists I got turned onto by our NPR station WCBE when I was in high school and saw him not long after at the Southern Theater. I haven’t kept up on everything he’s done since, but his blend of smooth Americana and country blues still has a place in my heart, and once in a while, he still bowls me over. This title track off his 2022 record, co-written with Beastie Boys collaborator and fellow LA native Money Mark, and co-produced with Vince Gill, is probably my favorite example of that formula. The honeyed melody feels like the warmth of old streets you had some issues with but comes back in the fondness of your memory and the joy of having made it, of being able to tell the tale. “It’s good to be here. It’s good to be anywhere. Good to be back, good to be home again.”
John Moreland, “Neon Middle June” – I’ve been a fan for a while, but John Moreland’s Birds in the Ceiling stunned me, the kind of not-quite-departure that reminded me a little of Fred Eaglesmith’s Dusty. When I was lucky enough to see him at Skully’s, these songs translated just as well solo with an acoustic guitar, keeping their intensity and atmosphere, but the perfect production and subtle arrangements – the electronics on this slow creep of a relationship on the brink – co-produced with Matt Pence from Centro-Matic who also plays drums and accompanied by the great Bonnie Whitmore and John Calvin Abney on everything else really make this record indelible. “When you were a child, your faith was automatic; asleep in steady traffic, navigating western static. And what if who I am is who I used to be? Darling, you know that’s the thought that paralyzes me.”
Anaïs Mitchell, “On Your Way (Felix Song)” – Probably the new song I played the most this year and it was always there for me. Seeing her do it live with Anne, Heather, and Adam at Brooklyn Made was stunning – it had been six or seven years since I’d seen Mitchell live – but I also have specific memories of this in my headphones, walking out of the subway into the streets she’s talking about in New York, or an early morning stroll through the Pushkin Gardens in Mexico City, or downtown Columbus looking for some coffee and a hangover-killing lunch. Thinking about the people I miss in the same way she pays tribute to her old friend, and thinking about how perfectly crafted this easy-rolling, questioning shuffle is; and the whole self-titled record is packed with songs this good. “I remember when you were a seeker staring into a stereo speaker. Kick drum and someone singing made you one with everything. I remember when the tape was rolling, you were going where the take was going. No regrets and no mistakes.”
Amanda Shires, “Fault Lines” – Amanda Shires’ songs and records get better and better. I remember seeing her with Anne at Rumba supporting My Piece of Land and feeling like she’d broken through. But even being a fan didn’t prepare me for the textures and power on Take It Like a Man, produced by Lawrence Rothman. Another record I had an extremely hard time finding a song off of, but this solo written song, with its dramatic strings lighting up the room that recall Orbison but also Charles Stepney and crushing guitar solo, I probably played three times before I moved onto the next song. “I cried, I asked, and I bawled, curled up on the floor with it all: all the time, the want, the overwhelming volume of breathing.”
Here It Is Band featuring Luciana Souza, “Hey, That’s No Way to Say Goodbye” – This year brought with it a surfeit of strong, consistent tribute records , including Here It Is, the Blue Note Records tribute to singer-songwriter Leonard Cohen. A core group of jazz musicians, including Bill Frisell, Immanuel Wilkins, Larry Goldings, Scott Colley, and Nate Smith, provide intimate, sympathetic backings that use all of their skills, no one feels like they’re slumming on material that’s not interesting, backing a series of expertly chosen vocalists. My first exposure to Luciana Souza was on her record of musical settings of one of Cohen’s influences, Neruda, and I’ve been a huge fan ever since. Her reading on this, one of my favorite Cohen songs and a guidepost for finding equanimity and grace in art (even if we fall short of it in life), might be the new standard I hold all others to. “I’m not looking for another as I wander in my time. Walk me to the corner now, our steps will always rhyme. You know my love goes with you, as your love stays with me. It’s just the way it changes, like the shoreline and the sea.”
The Delines, “Little Earl” – This torchy collaboration between Willy Vlautin and Amy Boone just gets better and deeper. Hard-luck narratives are rarely as sharply carved, and the arrangements have touches of lounge jazz but understand the sense of dread in those little rooms that cure the walls like generations of cigarette smoke and spilled tequila in the low-pile carpet. The strings and Hi Records-y horns come in at exactly the right moment around Cory Gray’s organ, and those little backing vocals stabs add up to a song that makes me want to write another short story, want to try harder. “Little Earl’s brother is bleeding in the backseat. It’s been twenty miles, and he can’t stop crying. Passing the houses on stilts on Holly Beach; the A/C don’t work, and Earl’s sick in the Gulf Coast heat.”
Ashley McBryde, “Straight Tequila Night” – The Dan Auerbach-produced John Anderson tribute was a chance to get reacquainted with a whole catalog of songs I grew up loving. This one probably most of all, I adored the melody as a kid before I had any idea about the meat of the song, that sense of trying to keep it together and knowing, like clockwork, it’s going to explode in messy ways and hoping the people nearby will tolerate you even if they don’t put you back together because they’re hoping you’ll be better next time all told from the remove of the bartender. And Ashley McBryde, one of my favorite contemporary country singer-songwriters knocks it out of the park. “If you really want to know, she comes here a lot. She loves to hear the music and dance. K-13 is her favorite song. If you play it, you might have a chance.”
Rose Gold, “Addicted” – A song without the remove of the last couple, written from the perspective of someone in the middle of that struggle with themselves. Rose Gold’s vocal, tightly coiled but glowing red, and the big drums around a keyboard line and cinematic synth strings, add up to a new favorite use of the perennial love-as-addiction metaphor. “I know I said I didn’t need your help but I do. Why am I not fucking perfect? Why can’t I kick this shit?”
Craig Finn, “Messing With the Settings” – Legacy of Rentals didn’t move me as much as the last few Craig Finn records but this song was a sledgehammer in the gut, a flawless example of what he does better than anyone working. The narrative gives largely equal weight and care to both the characters, and it rings true for any of us who’ve had those immediately intense friendships in one bar or another, with a well-calibrated, sweeping arrangement driven by keys and strings around spoken verses and sung choruses. “She had a dwindling grace and a faith in the industry that never really made sense to me.”
Cardiac Poet featuring Baba zora, Masufuria, Nate Speaks, Mbokani – I don’t speak any of the Kenyan languages, so I can’t comment on the narrative from this riveting track from spoken word artist turned rapper Cardiac Poet, with collaborators, but it also uses prominent strings and keys, and it feels like it has the same urgency; like it’s coming from the same place as the last few songs.
Horsegirl, “Anti-glory” – One of my favorite new bands, pal Steve Kirsch turned me onto this Chicago trio, and I was lucky enough to see them on their first headlining tour this year. The clatter and stretched-out guitar remind me of a less noisy mid-period Sonic Youth, and it’s been a joy watching them grow into their power (everyone I know who saw them open for Yo La Tengo this Hanukkah raved about what a different band they seemed from earlier in the year), so the thought that their terrific debut record Versions of Modern Performance is a harbinger of even better things is very exciting. “Turning away, can’t make it out, out loud. Now, feel a fever flow through the town.”
The Weeknd, “Out of Time” – The Weeknd’s newer one, Dawn FM, better synthesizes his earlier portraits of painful, cracked interiority with his pop sensibility than his earlier records, and this track with its swooping synthesized woodwinds and hand claps, is existential loneliness in the heart of couples skate perfection. “Say ‘I love you, girl’, but I’m out of time. Say, ‘I’m there for you,’ but I’m out of time.”
Charli XCX, “Every Rule” – I knew Charli XCX for the big dancefloor smashes but on Crash I was increasingly drawn to the ballads, especially this conflicted, paranoid spray of colors and lust, that keyboard solo toward the end of the song is a stiletto stab in the solar plexus. “Met up late night by the Bowery and in the morning we got coffee. Acted like strangers and told no friends, it wasn’t easy to pretend.”
Punch Brothers, “The Last Thing on my Mind” – This highlight from the Punch Brothers’ Tony Rice re-imagining, Hell on Church Street, felt like it went with the previous couple of songs because it takes the warmth of the Tom Paxton original and squeezes it like trying to turn coal into a diamond, like trying to cram the intensity of the feelings of regret into the pit of your stomach. Hearing this band of virtuosos play with this much clenched restraint is incredibly moving to me. “Are you going away with no word of farewell? Will there be not a trace left behind? Well, I could have loved you better; I didn’t mean to be unkind. You know that was the last thing on my mind.”
George Strait, “Willy the Wandering Gypsy and Me” – Another of those hyperfocused, high quality tribute records with a greatly deserving focus was Live Forever: A Tribute to Billy Joe Shaver. As expected, it feels like every great who had a few years with a Texas address shows up on this, digging into one of the greatest catalogs from a state that’s given us so many indisputable great songwriters. George Strait came up in the lone star state a few years after Shaver broke through and he brings the appropriate gravitas and twinkle in his eye that made him probably the pre-eminent country start of my lifetime, laying way back on this quintessential neo-honky tonk tune and giving it possibly its definitive reading. “Three fingers whiskey pleasures the drinkers; moving does more than the same thing for me. Willy, he tells me that doers and thinkers say moving’s the closest thing to being free.”
Sarah Borges, “Lucky Day” – Continuing her fruitful collaboration with producer Eric Ambel, Borges’ Together Alone is another series of rock-solid songs that draw on every aspect of the American roots tradition with hooks I can’t get out of my head, and killer playing (in this case featuring Borges’ partner and former Bottle Rockets’ bassist Keith Voegele, John Perrin on drums, and Ambel on lead guitar around her rhythm guitar). The soaring quality of this one reminds me of the first song of hers I gravitated toward, “The Day We Met,” without feeling like a retread. “I get better at playing the numbers: take my chances and wait. I’ve been waiting forever.”
Combo Chimbita, “La Perla” – This New York band helped bring Colombian Chimbita music to prominence for white American music fans like me, while working with other elements of the music they’re around and dealing with the contemporary world through the lens of the music they love. Their record this year IRE is their most diverse, focused, and potent, big grooves fused to a righteous anger around Carolina Oliveros’ flamethrower vocals.
Ice Spice, “Munch (Feelin’ U)” – One of my favorite new rappers and a pulsing, hard-edged example of the new wave of drill. This was easily my favorite of the all-great singles Ice Spice put out this year. “Saying you love me but what do you mean? Pretty as fuck and he like that I’m mean.”
Black Thought and Danger Mouse featuring Michael Kiwanuka, “Aquamarine” – I fell for the Roots early, high school I think, and Black Thought finally has a solo record as good as his best work with the home team. The dusty, left-turn-riddled beats from Danger Mouse get a perfect showcase between Black Thought’s and Kiwanuka’s vocals. “Ever patiently waiting with the demons we deserve. Better be willing to pay with every dream that you deferred.”
Garbage Greek, “Here We Go” – Garbage Greek grew into one of my favorite Columbus bands over the last couple of years and they solidified that standing with their best album Quality Garbage, with lead vocalist and guitarist Lee Mason leading the charge, the melodic bass lines and harmonies of Patrick Koch, Jason Winner’s driving but also nuanced drumming and the secret sauce of Adam Scoppa’s additional percussion and backing vocals, it’s a nigh perfect rock band, in the ’60s mode but not beholden to it. “Am I right? Is this the one?”
Sarah Shook and the Disarmers, “Talkin’ To Myself” – One of my favorite singers added some additional textures to their work and made their best record, Nightroamer, with the production assistance of Pete Anderson. This organ-laced stomper, tinged with acid guitar, is a favorite example that killed me live before the album came out and was an instant favorite when I finally got the record. “Lookin’ at cats on the corner. Pills in the kitchen for my cough. Bad shit going down on the border. Bad brain don’t ever turn off.”
Wesley Bright, “Oh, Think About It” – Cleveland’s finest soul singer, Wesley Bright, continues to broaden his palette without leaving everything that made us love him behind, bringing the horns and organ back on this killer track with a sprightly northern soul beat and doubled backing vocals that send this piece of longing into the stars. “Look in the mirror, you’ll see things much clearer. Then you’ll believe and see why she wanted you to leave.”
Call Me Rita, “Measure Twice, Cut Once” – Another of my favorite Columbus bands, Call Me Rita takes poet-visual artist Vanessa Jean Speckman and teams her with a band of heavy hitters, including her partner Micah Schnabel from Two Cow Garage on guitar and backing vocals, Jay Gasper (best known for his work with Lydia Loveless) on guitar and keys, Todd May (who Anne has called the best songwriter in Columbus and has exquisite taste in other songwriters he accompanies) on bass and backing vocals, and Jason Winner who I mentioned earlier with Garbage Greek on drums. This is a perfect, furious response to the world on fire that I went back to over and over again. “The creditors keep calling me. How much more can I bleed?”
The Sparklers, “Late Great Saturday Night” – One of my favorite newer bands in the vein of the Replacements. The Sparklers hit my radar when pal Steve Kirsch joined them on drums, leading up to 2022’s sparkling Miss Philadelphia record and it’s jam packed with witty lyrics, sharp playing, and hooks on top of hooks. “What blasphemies come alive? Still learning the language of loss.”
Hurray for the Riff Raff, “PIERCED ARROWS” – My love of Hurray for the Riff Raff has always been about Alynda Segarra’s songs and their Life on Earth is full of excellent examples. The electronic throb and echoing drums of this song create the perfect atmosphere for a vocal that goes from the edge of broken to profound declamations from the rooftops. “This was the place that fell apart; you were the one to break it. I don’t believe in anything. This whole fucking world is changing.”
Swamp Dogg, “I Need a Job” – Jerry Williams has been making raw, perfect records in his Swamp Dogg persona since 1970 and the renaissance of recent years has been an amazing pleasure to witness. His new one, I Need a Job… So I can Buy More Autotune finds him in fine witty, acerbic form, riding a classic, horn-and-harmonica laden groove. “Food is so high, it would be cheaper if we ate the morning.”
Pillbox Patti, “Good People” – Songwriter Nicolette Hayford’s Pillbox Patti alter-ego/debut album is a collection of unflinching portraits of people she has affection for without letting them off the hook. This song pairs a sinister groove with an entrancing, elevated conversational vocal. “They say the good die young; well, I don’t believe it. ‘Cause look at us: a little fucked up, but we’re still breathing.”
Lyle Lovett, “The Mocking Ones” – This original on Lyle Lovett’s stunning 12th of June finds him in the mode of many of his best songs, picking up a conversation seemingly in the middle and finding the same affection and gratitude for the people in his life and his songs that characterized mentors of his like Guy Clark and Nanci Griffith. “I said before, and now the long time’s come, to wait, forget, and still remember some. To hold our heads above the laughing tongues falling from the faces of the mocking ones.”
Joan Shelley, “Bolt” – Louisville singer-songwriter Joan Shelley put out one of her best records – and that’s a high bar – with this year’s The Spur. Full of songs that gave me something to chew on, with melodies and images I couldn’t shake. This one breaks my heart every time, an example of having the metaphor right in the title and still being surprising. “Haven’t you grown enough? Aren’t you old enough? Can’t you carry more than your heavy self? There’s no hiding, no lies, having two eyes to watch you all the time; see right through you.”
Alabaster dePlume, “Fucking Let Them” – Spoken word artist and saxophonest Alabaster dePlume found the perfect backing band in Jaimie Branch’s Fly or Die (Branch with Chad Taylor, Jason Ajemian, and Lester St Louis) and they provide a ferocious accompaniment throughout Gold – Go Forward in the Courage of Your Love. “I am brazen like a baby. Like the stupid sun. And I go forward in the courage of your love.”
Cory Henry, “Something New” – I was lucky enough to see Henry and his Funk Apostles this summer touring his newest, extremely strong collection, Operation Funk. This is another dancefloor smash with a gorgeous, soaring vocal and his majestic keyboards. “‘We may not be young anymore, but the night is,’ this is what she said when she looked in my eyes. ‘Follow me, take my hand, let’s go up to a higher ground.'”
Molly Tuttle and Golden Highway, “Nashville Mess Around” – Another instant classic dance song of a different stripe by another virtuoso who’s breaking out with better and better songwriting on every outing. Guitarist and songwriter Molly Tuttle killed me on her new one, Crooked Tree, featuring musical snapshots of different points in her life and career. The tune and interlaced guitar, fiddle, and banjo here are killer but I also live the sardonic smile she paints the lyrics with. “So all you pals and pilgrims and in-from-out-of-towners, we had a boom, now there’s no room, so don’t you hang around here. You’re out of luck, so don’t pick up when Nashville comes a-calling. You’d best go back to Fond du Lac and quit your honky tonking.”
SYD featuring Smino, “Right Track” – I didn’t love Syd’s Broken Hearts Club quite as much as I wanted to but there were a handful of undeniable songs that give me hope the rest of it will grow on me. A marvelous, seductive vocal and a finger snapping backing track with a charming feature verse from Smino. “Seems like we’re on the right track; keep it up, you keep me coming right back. You know I’m trying to wife that.”
Primer, “Feel The Way I Do” – Alyssa Midcalf’s Primer project released Incubator, a record of electronic pop using a lot of ’80s textures that normally turn me off but she doesn’t use them in a too-precious throwback way, she roughs them up and brings in other elements. I found the songs entrancing and the vocal delivery mesmerizing. The expansion toward the end of the song feels like earned catharsis, like the first sunny day after an endless gray week. “I’ve been living inside me my whole life. I can’t seem to fight it, I don’t know why. I tremble as it grows.”
Illogic, “Play to Win” – Illogic was the first rapper in Columbus I loved, that felt like he was part of a scene I knew and understood. I still pull out Celestial Clockwork regularly. His last couple of records find him going deeper into making his own beats and The Transition is an excellent, mature record where the tracks live up to the excellent producers he was working with when I first heard him and the songs gel, the record he only could have made with his wisdom and experience. I keep going back to it and finding something – or some things – new. “He wasn’t sorry for the moves made, just try’n’a get home, sliding shoots and climbing ladders was the strategy.”
Becca Stevens and Attacca Quartet, “45 Bucks” – Jazz singer and composer Becca Stevens has been expanding her sonic universe on the last few records, with her expansive breakthrough Wonderbloom, last year’s collaboration with the Secret Trio, and this year’s fantastic work with the Attacca Quartet who Anne and I were lucky enough to see at Big Ears this year. This revisiting of an older song of Stevens is a perfect example of their powers combining. The strings chasing and jousting her defiant vocals in a lyric that uses the same lines over and over, juxtaposing in a way that evokes a pantoum. “It must be hard for you to get up in the morning.”
Dedicated Men of Zion, “Rock My Soul” – I’ve always been a sucker for deep gospel, and North Carolina quartet Dedicated Men of Zion produced an example that blows me away with The Devil Don’t Like It. Adding to the power of those voices in concert is a band filled with Memphis all-stars including Al Gamble on organ, Will Sexton and Matt Ross-Spang on guitars, and a swinging, crunching rhythm section of Mark Edgar Stuart and George Sluppick. “If I get to Heaven, I’m gonna swing and shout. There’s gonna be nobody up there who’s going to turn me out.”
Amanda Anne Platt and the Honeycutters, “Eurydice” – Asheville roots rock band Amanda Anne Platt and the Honeycutters released their best album with this year’s sprawling The Devil and the Deep Blue Sea and this ballad, brimming with slow-boil intensity, is a prime example of what they do so well – the steel guitar and accordion or harmonium running through the track like a river without undercutting the vocal. “Is that darkness in your dreams? My darling, I believe, it’s not loneliness you fear. It’s your own heart that keeps you here.”
Spiritualized, “Let It Bleed (For Iggy)” – Any new Spiritualized record is cause for rejoicing in my corner of the world. This song rising from a slow-burn ballad into a majestic explosion is a prime example of what Jason Pierce and his shifting collection of musicians do better than anyone in my lifetime. “I labored over this life for too long: there’s nothing to behold. I wanted it to be better for you. A minute down the road, I wanted it to go straight to your heart and say, ‘Darling, I was wrong.'”
Golomb, “Western Threshold” – I’ve watched Xenia Bleveans Holm (vocals and bass) and Hawken Holm (drums) grow up. Their parents, Dave and Melanie, are great friends and, between them, have given me some of my favorite musical experiences in this town, in bands like Ugly Stick, The Townsmen, Bigfoot, and Total Foxx. I was a big fan of Xenia’s earlier band, Cherry Chrome, but I adore this new power trio featuring Mickey Shuman (vocals and guitar). Their fantastic eponymous debut album reminds me of everything I loved about ’90s indie rock but with a fresh, contemporary spin, buried hooks I want to dig and uncover. “Hey, baby, it’s somewhere between late morning and early night. I’m in the western threshold, not another soul in sight. And I write to you.”
Rose Mercie, “Un château” – Paris-based band Rose Mercie’s record Kieres Agua got its hooks in me and hasn’t let go. This song is a nighttime rainstorm in the middle of a city, neon-splashed puddles and shadows like a Will Eisner comic strip in that intoxicating keyboard part and those guitar stabs.
Jenny Hval, “Cemetery of Splendour” – I’ve been a big fan of Jenny Hval for many years, anyone who’s ever read one of these lists has probably seen her name. Her last records have been growing in accessibility and ease without sacrificing any of the mystery, the sharp edges that drew me to her work in the first place. This almost torturously slow ballad with its suspended keyboard chords and rotating vocal, drums as subtle as a heartbeat before building to a complicated climax, is a key example of what I love so much about her work. “Now you go to the afterlife; you’ve heard good things about it but the embers are cooling and the spirits are just names plus one.”
Robert Glasper featuring Q-Tip and Esperanza Spalding, “Why We Speak” – I’ve liked all of keyboardist Robert Glasper’s Black Radio records, drawing the various streams of contemporary black music together and staking out a claim for the jazz he came up playing and still plays well. This song sets up a sinuous, sensual groove around Spalding and Q-Tip’s vocals in English, French and Spanish for something that would sound good in any lounge at 2 am. “To remember after all their sage disasters are done, se souvenir.”
Leikeli47, “LL Cool J” – Someone else I was slow to, but Leikeli47’s third record Shape Up got me immediately, especially this seductive, sparse single. “Boy, you got the type of shine you only find in a mine – I dug deep and worked hard just to make you mine.”
Bad Bunny, “Yo No Soy Celoso” – I liked the earlier Bad Bunny records but Un Verano Sin Ti hit me at exactly the right time, and its blend of other music in with the reggaeton and Latin trap that made his name feels perfectly calibrated. The hard acoustic guitar strum underpinning this track and the whistling give a lightness to it that rubs up against his weathered vocal in just the right way.
Rosalía, “MOTOMAMI” – I checked out Rosalía when I mentioned the singer-songwriter Roasli to my pal Mary at work and she thought I had the name wrong. So I was already primed for her best, most sprawling record to come out and it’s delightfully weird and diverse. I need more unabashed pop records taking these kinds of big swings in my life.
Nikki Lane, “Try Harder” – I liked Nikki Lane from her first record on – and still rave about seeing her at Twangfest six or seven years ago – but her collaboration with producer Josh Homme, Denim and Diamonds, makes the songs snap into sharper relief with the rhythm section amped up just slightly and her vocal nudged to the front of the mix. “One of these days you’re gonna wake up and find yourself wondering if you done right or should’ve done something else. It gets hard to believe you’re gonna find a way, but that’s the price you pay.”
Ceclie McLorin Salvant, “Moon Song” – Cecile McLorin Salvant has long been at the front of the pack of current jazz singers, with a keen interpretive gift. The last few records, she’s proving she’s also one of our best songwriters, and Ghost Song is another leap in that direction, with stunning accompaniment by Aaron Diehl on piano. “Let me write you a song and long to belong to you; write you a song from a distance. Let me love you like I love the moon.”
Ralph White, “Something About Dreaming” – Bad Livers helped redefine what I thought about roots music, but I hadn’t kept up with Ralph White’s music since leaving the band. This title track from one of the two terrific albums old friend Jerry David DeCicca produced on White this year holds that voice and banjo playing up to the light and makes every crack, every bit of weathering – every surprising stretch of a vowel – not only apparent but beautiful. “Things ain’t never gonna be the same and I just listen to the wind, the stars, and the rain. I listen to falling rain.”
Sharon Van Etten, “Home to Me” – Sharon Van Etten’s records keep getting richer, a reminder of how much life has to give you at every turn as long as you’re willing to put in the attention and you have the craft to express it. The rapturous slow crawl of this song and the intensity of its act of love makes it a standout for me on the great We’ve Been Going About This All Wrong. “I take my time so you can say to me, ‘What makes it right is an unknown thing.'”
Earl Vallie, “A Beautiful Creature” – Earl Vallie was a good friend of mine back when he lived in Columbus. Then, I knew him mostly as a visual/installation artist. So it’s a beautiful thing to hear my old pal’s voice on this fully formed, stirring music. His record Ghost Approaches merges finely-observed workaday detail with high drama, given exquisite production from Deerhoof’s Greg Saunier who also plays drums with Joel T. Crocco rounding out the rhythm section. “Spending all my gold just painting palm trees red, then I spread my wings again. Grabbing what I seek to find from massive swarms of things I’ve left behind.”
Maisie Kappler, “Fit for a Queen” – A Columbus singer-songwriter I just stumbled onto this year, Kappler’s mix of the dramatic and the ephemeral is a rare gift, paired with cut-crystal melodies that keep me coming back. This memory of the artist’s grandmother struck me as soon as I heard it and I’m still drawn back, finding new things that resonate with my own memories of the grandmother I miss very much and things so specific to her experience I’m glad to be given that window into their relationship. “When I was younger, I asked my grandmother how she held onto her youth. She stared at her whiskey, then she answered ‘Vanity.’ Surely it must have been true.”
BAYLI, “Think of Drugs” – Brooklyn R&B singer BAYLI was one of my favorite discoveries this year, this glittering cri de coeur uses the creaminess of the production and the silky, stretching melody to enhance the pain of longing in the lyrics in a way I’m always a sucker for. “Breathe before I delete your number from my phone. Do you ever think of me like you think of drugs? Like you think when you think of drugs?”
Weyes Blood, “The Worst Is Done” – Weyes Blood has been broadening their approach and writing more accessible melodies for the last few years – I remember seeing a great show with David Banbury at Cafe Bourbon Street a few years ago that felt like a breakthrough – and the records keep getting stronger and more expansive, more about reckoning with the world. “Got kinda old; it happened to me quickly. Burned down the house waiting for someone to save me.”
Vieux Farka Touré and Khruangbin, “Savanne” – Farka Touré teamed up with rising instrumental lounge-rock band Khurangbin for a kaleidoscopic tribute to his father Ali, one of the true giants of Malian music that keeps everything good about his father’s work, every memorable part, without shackling it to an era or a style.
Willie Nelson, “Tower of Song” – Willie Nelson’s grappled with the Leonard Cohen songbook a few times over the years but there’s something beautiful about him taking on this mythopoetic look back now with sparse accompaniment and longtime foil Mickey Raphael’s harmonica right up front next to him. As I did with the monthly playlists, I tried to end this with a prayer. Thank you for listening or reading. “All the bridges are burning that we might have crossed, but I feel so close to everything that we lost. We’ll never have to lose it again.”

Tags Alabaster DePlume, Amanda Anne Platt and the Honeycutters, Amanda Shires, Anais Mitchell, Anteloper, Aoife O'Donovan, Ari Lennox, ashley mcbryde, Attacca Quartet, Baba zora, Bad Bunny, BAYLI, Becca Stevens, best of, Best Of 2022, Beth Orton, Big Joanie, Billy Joe Shaver, Billy Woods, Black Thought, Brian Damage, Call Me Rita, Cardiac Poet, Catherine Russell, Cecile McLorin Salvant, Charli XCX, Combo Chimbita, cory henry, Craig Finn, Danger Mouse, Dedicated Men of Zion, Earl Vallie, Earthgang, Eli Paperboy Reed, Eric Ambel, Esperanza Spalding, Florence and the Machine, Gabriel Kahane, Garbage Greek, George Strait, Golomb, Here It Is, Horsegirl, Hurray for the Riff Raff, Ice Spice, Illogic, jaimie branch, Jason Nazary, Jeff Parker, Jenny Hval, Joan Shelley, John Anderson, John Moreland, Keb' Mo, Khruangbin, Lady Wray, Leikeli47, Leonard Cohen, Leyla McCalla, Luciana Souza, Lucky Daye, Lyle Lovett, Maisie Kappler, Masufuria, Maya de Vitry, Mbokani, Michael Kiwanuka, Mike Ladd, Molly Tuttle, music, Nate Speaks, Nikki Lane, Pillbox Patti, Playlist, Primer, Punch Brothers, Q-Tip, Ralph White, recorded music, Robert Glasper, Rosalia, Rose Gold, Rose Mercie, Sarah Borges, Sarah Shook and the Disarmers, Say She She, Scrunchies, SG Goodman, Sharon Van Etten, Sick Thoughts, Soul Glo, Spiritualized, Steven Bernstein's Millennial Territory Orchestra, Swamp Dogg, Sweet Knives, Syd, Terence Etc, The Delines, The Sparklers, The Weeknd, Tony Rice, Vieux Farka, Vieux Farka Toure, Wesley Bright, Weyes Blood, Willie Nelson

Playlist record reviews

Playlist – October 2022

Last monthly playlist since December I’ll dedicate to my three best-of playlists (also glad there’s less paid writing in Dec because I churn out a lot of year-end words in those bloated gratitude exercises). Between working on this and writing it, I went to New York for the best trip – and the one that felt the most like a “real” NYC trip – since COVID first struck and my and Anne’s first trip to Mexico City (which I loved), but also got to enjoy my favorite season in town. It’s been a particularly good autumn at the end of a roller coaster year. To a holiday season filled with more joy than guilt. Onward, my friends.

https://tidal.com/browse/playlist/1174690c-c1f0-4ebb-aa95-02bb2d8e6343

Vieux Farka Touré and Khruangbin, “Diarabi” – I’ve really enjoyed all Khruangbin’s collaborations lately but Ali, their collaboration with Touré on a collection of his father’s classic songs, takes that love to another level. I’ve talked about seeing the elder Touré early in college and that being a huge gateway for me to other sounds and other connections across the world of music, and in a similar way, this re-imagining always keeps the vital core of the song but doesn’t treat it like a museum piece. Every track here is perfect, and we’ve got a reminder here of the covers album as an act of love.
Monophonics featuring Kelly Finnigan, “The Shape of My Teardrops” – Long one of my favorite psych-soul bands, San Francisco’s Monophonics, team up with vocalist/lyricist Kelly Finnigan for a concept album built around the artfully crumbling Sage Motel. This track puts them in that silky, saloon tempo they ride so well, drenched in strings and echoing background vocals. “Somebody’s crying over you.”
Brian Harnetty, “Thinking Out Loud in a Hermitage” – One of the brightest lights of Columbus composers, Harnetty has done some of his best work interacting with archives. I was sorry Anne and I were out of town for the live debut of this work. His new one, Words and Silences, takes on the American monk and scholar Thomas Merton, using recordings of his own voice. Not “takes on” in terms of grappling with but trying to understand, trying to see Merton as he is and as he presented himself. The arrangements around the vocals often have a cycling, hypnotic feeling, not getting lost in the details but letting them shine just like the diary entries, but those details are all massively important; the clarinet on this track breaks my heart open to let the light in. It’s the best, most fully realized work yet from someone I don’t think has ever made a bad record.
Gustav Lundgren Trio, “My Dear Country” – This bucolic title track off Swedish jazz guitarist Lundgren’s latest record teams him with drummer Karl-Henrik Ousbäck (who’s worked with Lage Lund and Ambrose Akinmusire, among others) and bassist Pär-Ola Landin whose melodic lines add some additional gravity and nuance to the gorgeous subtlety of the tune and Ousbäck’s textured drumming (those dancing cymbals around the three-minute mark) changes the complexion of the song’s atmosphere as well as adding propulsion.
Bruce Barth Trio, “In Memoriam – for George Floyd & so many others” – Pianist Bruce Barth’s gorgeous new record Dedication features bassist Vicente Archer (a key component of the last couple of great Jeremy Pelt and Orrin Evans records) and drummer Montez Coleman who I think I first heard with Roy Hargrove and it’s a perfect meshing between piano and rhythm section. Befitting the title, the record features beautiful tributes to fellow pianists McCoy Tyner and Tommy Flanagan but I kept coming back to this heartbreaking elegy to black men killed by police brutality.
Oren Ambarchi, “IV” – I’ve been a fan of Oren Ambarchi since finding his work with the eai crowd like Otomo Yoshihide and Sachiko M in the early ’00s and, not long after, his crucial contributions to several Sunn O))) records and side projects. His new one, Shebang, is his most immediately accessible and overall satisfying album to date. The four numbered tracks add layers and textures, climaxing in this burst of shimmering color, featuring Jim O’Rourke’s synths, BJ Cole’s pedal steel, Chris Abrahams’ piano, and Julia Reidy’s 12-string.
Tigran Hamasyan featuring Mark Turner, “All The Things You Are” – Pianist Hamasyan delivered his first record of standards with the stunning StandArt, and this take on one of the quintessential standards gave me chills all the way down. At times pulsing, floating in space, like the square in a Rothko painting or a Steve Reich piece, always coming back to that perfect melody, dancing with tenor saxophonist Mark Turner.
Meg Baird, “Will You Follow Me Home?” – I got into Meg Baird through her time in the Philly free-folk band Espers and have remained a rabid fan through multiple solo records, her time in Heron Oblivion (who were my absolute favorite part of the little Columbus psych fest Melted a few years ago), and various other collaborations. This advance track off her upcoming solo disc Furling is everything I love about her work, that stunning, pure-water voice front and center with backings that have a warm-light ’70s quality but with enough weirdness, enough gaps around the edges to keep it interesting.
Melissa Stylianou featuring Gene Bertoncini and Ike Sturm, “It Might As Well Be Spring” – One of my favorite contemporary jazz singers, I got into Stylianou through her work in the vocal trio Duchess (seeing them at the 55 Bar at a happy hour show, sitting down the bar from half a dozen big-name band leaders, is still a memory I treasure). She tears into one of my favorite standards – in a more straight-ahead take than the Hamayasan earlier – with a legend of jazz guitar, Gene Bertoncini, and the warm, swinging bass of Ike Strum.
George Strait, “Willy the Wandering Gypsy and Me” – This song was one of my gateway drugs to Billy Joe Shaver, in the version by Tom T. Hall, and so it’s no surprise that this take on it by one of the great gods of the Olympus of Texas Music on the stacked-front-to-back-with-gold tribute album Live Forever would have been one of my standouts. The layers of George Strait in his Lion in Winter phase covering a song by one of his influences and doing a song that influence wrote as a young man trying to place himself in that great lineage of Texas singer-songwriters give this some additional juice for me, but it’s also just a stellar read on one of the great ballads. “Well, I reckon we’re gonna ramble till hell freezes over.”
Terence Etc, “In Contemplation of Clair’s Scent” – The hurtling, echoing but tightly controlled drums on this infectious track tied it together with the Andy/Sherwood collab of the previous track. I knew Terence Nance as a filmmaker, but this supernova of an album, VORTEX, was my first exposure to him as a singer and songwriter. The grooves are refreshing and surprising, the lyrics finely chiseled but also elliptical. I have no idea what this will be like live – if there are even any plans for it – but if it comes within 200 miles of me, I’ll have a ticket and be in the front.
Electric Shit featuring Walter Daniels, “La Bondad Y La Maldad” – This dovetails to help sum up a year of great but expensive and exhausting travel. While researching the fantastic Mexico trip Anne did most of the planning for, I discovered a show Electric Shit was headlining. Looking into them, I found their release from this year teamed the Ecatepec band with gnarled Austin harmonica master Walter Daniels (who co-led those South Filthy records I love and was so glad to finally see them live this year in Memphis) on a tribute record to the Atlanta band The Subsonics for this raging Spanish cover of “Good Half – Bad Half.”
Bad Manor, “Hallowed Ground” – This closing track from the black metal band Bad Manor’s delightful debut full-length The Haunting welds a sinister groove to lacerating guitars and a barbed howl, and hits a similar throw-on-your-old-leather-jacket-and-thrash-in-a-dark-room sweet spot for me as the last track.
Horace Andy, “Come After Midnight” – I liked reggae legend Horace Andy’s earlier record this year, Midnight Rocker, but I love producer Adrian Sherwood’s rework of Midnight Scorchers, especially this moody, seductive lead-off track. Summoning up a late-night dispatch with the loneliness and urgency of a broadcast from a dying star.
Lustre, “Faith” – I’m late to the party on this ambient/atmospheric black metal band, but sole member Henrik Sunding was in a band I liked quite a bit, Hypothermia. And their new record, A Thirst for Summer Rain enraptured me from the first few notes, especially this lovely instrumental that sprays acidic guitars over beds of synths.
The Delines, “My Blood Bleeds The Darkest Blue” – I love the Delines just as much as I loved lead singer Amy Boone’s (Damnations TX) and principal songwriter Willy Vlautin’s (Richmond Fontaine) previous bands, which I didn’t think was possible, my ardor for those earlier groups was so strong. But every record has grown that passion for this band, and the new single The Lost Duets actually has their voices directly interacting with one another, so it took me to the moon. The splashes of trumpet and organ stabs like dust swirling in the afternoon sunlight are among the details that make this tune feel like a hand-chiseled window into a world we shouldn’t see.
Oakwalker, “Future Lover” – This Memphis band features the lush multi-tracked vocals of Victoria Dowdy (who also plays rhythm guitar) and co-writer/co-leader Ethan Baker’s violin with a swinging rhythm section of Graham Winchester on drums (who’s the secret weapon of what feels like most of Memphis these days, including Jack Oblivian and the Sheiks, The Turnstyles, Devil Train, and the stellar reunited Compulsive Gamblers Anne and I saw this year) and Tyler Marberry. This walked a similar line through the landscape of the bloodied but unbowed as the previous track, tipping a bit more toward hope for the future.
Plains, “Problem With It” – I’ve been a big fan of Katie Crutchfield’s Waxahatchee since Cerulean Salt but this collaboration, I Walked With You a Ways, was my first exposure to Jess Williamson. Another almost impossible choice of a song, but this loping rootsy tune about holding the people in our lives – and ourselves – to the right standard, scratched an itch down deep in me. That electric guitar solo – not sure if it’s Brad Cook or Alex Farrar – is in my personal hall of fame for concise solos that sum up the complicated emotions of the melody and lyric. “I drive fast on high alert past the Jet Pep and the Baptist church. On the county line, I’ll be a songbird softly heard, my loose change falling out. Got a heartbreak burn, take the quickest route on this four-lane highway. I’ll trace it in the clouds.”
First Aid Kit, “Out of My Head” – This second single from the Swedish folk duo’s stellar record Palomino weaves hints of shadowy drone through a nimble dance beat and sticky harmonies. “All my dreaming, all my trials – where they’ll lead, does it matter now?”
Dawn Richard and Spencer Zahn, “Umber” – I’m still getting over Second Line, last year’s record that helped cement Dawn Richard among my favorite current R&B singers (and the incendiary set at Big Ears this year), so this collaboration with friendly acquaintance Spencer Zahn (his band Father Figure crashed on my floor but I didn’t formally meet him until the next year’s Winter Jazzfest) was right up my alley. Zahn’s textured chamber jazz arrangements meld with Richard’s dynamic, nuanced voice and lyrics in a way that makes almost too much sense. Every track on Pigments is winning, but the shifting of foreground and background on this one kept calling to me when I tried to choose one.
Urban Elegance, “Midnight Flowers” – This homegrown collaboration unites Columbus heavyweights producer/electronic musician Storm9000 with bassist/former guitar maker to the stars Phil Maneri and harpist Trista Hill. It’s not only a great example of community in my town; I believe this collab was sparked by a meeting at my friend Scott Woods’ invaluable Streetlight Guild space.
Batts, “All That I Need” – Nightline, her sophomore record with project Batts was my first exposure to Melbourne singer-songwriter Tanya Batts, and it took my breath away. The crunching rhythm section, Brendan Tsui and Lachlan O’Kane augmented by slipper synths, rubs against the soft-focus light around the powerful vocal. “How you feeling, babe? Has it hit you yet? I can see the whole wide world. Let’s never forget how we feel right now.”
Illogic, “Passion Fruit” – Illogic was the first rapper in Columbus I was a big fan of, seeing him on stages around campus and making great records with killing producers like Blueprint, DJ PRZM, and Blockhead in the early ’00s. I lost track of his work for a few years but his new record The Transition not only finds him growing into maturity without being boring, it also finds him coming into his own as a beatmaker with warm, classic tracks that speak to today as much as they conjure nostalgia.
Scratcha DVA with Tribal Brothers, DJ Polo, and Nasty Jack, “Pull Up – Rhubarb and Custard Vocal” – I’ve been a big fan of British electronic musician Scratcha DVA since I first heard his work a few years ago and I’m pretty sure the person lending some excellent rhymes to this is Nasty Jack but I couldn’t find any additional information about this track. The sliding clatter of the beat and those low tones speaks to me, a Saturday night rager but also with some wistfulness shot through it.
Micah Schnabel, “Dirtbag” – Schnabel’s solo work has gotten deeper and knottier, more complex but lit by a brilliant blue flame. He plants a flag against the encroaching wave of homogenization and for the pleasures of community, of being there for the people you love and letting that include yourself. And he ties that to a pulsating groove (anchored here by Jason Winner on drums and Micah on bass) and a singalong chorus that reminds me of my pal Angela saying “Everything of theirs is an anthem,” over a decade ago. “You can ridicule my resume. I did not ask how you get paid. So tell me, how do you get paid?”
Labretta Suede and the Motel 6, “Teenagers Gettin’ High” – This New Zealand-bred but Dallas-based retro rock group are putting out one fizzy, swinging stomp after another, and this burst of greasy energy might be my favorite yet.
Los Carnash, “Borracho” – Another band I discovered doing research for the Mexico City trip and I think they were the one band we managed to see at the Sonido Necrotico show. A pummeling drummer and a charismatic screamer of a frontman power these short bursts of metal-flecked punk (but on the opposite end of the spectrum from metalcore) power.
Damjonboi, “Top Shelf” – Rising Detroit rapper and producer Damjonboi works an appealingly easy going flow, sliding between and around a menacing beat that laces electronic handclaps and stuttered hi-hats with piano stabs and slashing strings.
Mali Obomsawin, “Blood Quantum (Nəwewəčəskawikαpáwihtawα)” – Bassist, percussionist, and vocalist Mali Obomsawin, of the First Nation at Odanak, made a powerful statement of purpose, using jazz, the chants of her people (those she grew up with and the contemporary chants like the one underpinning this piece, co-written with Lokotah Sanborn and Carol Dana of the Penobscot Nation, and every other form available). A paean to the beauty and hopefulness in defiance, with a crushing rhythm section that finds Obomsawin partnered with drummer Savannah Harris and guitarist Miriam Elhaji and a brilliant horn section of Allison Burik on alto sax and bass clarinet, Noah Campbell on saxophones, and co-producer Taylor Ho Bynum on cornet and flugelhorn.
Jake Blount featuring Demeanor, “Give Up The World” – Jake Blount’s at the fore of the much-needed corrective movement of artists reclaiming the banjo and old time music, tying it to its African roots and telling stories that speak to the here and now in a way that’s both beautiful and refreshing. This year’s The New Faith, is his finest statement yet. On this track, Blount teams with rapper Demeanor (Rhiannon Giddens’ nephew), bassist Mali Oobomsawin, and guitarist/violinist/coproducer Brian Slattery for a record that’s as catchy as it is sharp. “We must leave this world behind.”
Julianna Riolino, “Isn’t It a Pity” – Toronto-based singer-songwriter Riolino works with more contemporary roots forms, ’70s Laurel Canyon and ’60s pop soul (that marvelous carnival/cocktail party organ from Thomas Hammerton, Anthony Ronaldi’s bari sax and the shattering, rising guitar solo from I suspect Daniel Romano but could be producer Aaron Goldstein) around her voice like that first bolt of light coming onto the frost-covered window with a great cup of coffee, and witty lyrics with a strong point of view but room for everything else in the world. “A wily old cadaver, a velvet swinging hammer, a windmill of a force is what keeps us both apart.”
Rhianna, “Lift Me Up” – Generally I’m on record as preferring the dance numbers – even, or especially, the minor key tension-filled ones – of Rhianna’s catalog, but she his this breathtaking ballad so far out of the park I keep playing it over and over again, slack-jawed. “Burning in a hopeless dream. Hold me when you go to sleep.”
Shy Martin, “Wish I Didn’t Know You” – Swedish singer-songwriter Shy Martin splits the difference of the last couple tracks in this spiderweb of a track, seemingly fragile but detailed and incredibly strong.
Sunny War, “No Reason” – Bringing the tempo up a little with this more direct anthem – that still doesn’t skimp on the complications of the world singer-songwriter Sunny War aims to reflect. One of the acts I was sorriest to miss at this year’s Nelsonville Music Festival and I’m kicking myself even harder with every song she puts out. “Don’t know you well but I can bet you did some things that you regret.”
Nora O’Connor, “Follow Me” – Nora O’Connor’s one of those voices I think of whenever I think of the Chicago country scene, one of the not-in-my-town scenes I gravitated toward first, from her work with The Blacks, Neko Case, Kelly Hogan, the Flat Five, Robbie Fulks, and Mavis Staples. But I get even more excited when there’s new solo work under her own name. “Follow Me” doesn’t disappoint; it’s an easygoing stroll through a sunset when you don’t necessarily know where you’re headed.
Seth Avett, “The Poet Game” – Another stroll through memories and an understanding of the way they point toward the future, as Avett brother Seth takes on one of my all time favorite songs as part of a tribute EP to one of the great songwriters, Seth Avett sings Greg Brown. It doesn’t reveal anything new about the song but the little pauses, the way he finds a middle ground between the phrasing of the original and his style of singing, works for me on every level. “I had a friend who drank too much and played too much guitar, and we sure got along. Reel-to-reels rolled across the country near and far, with letters, poems, and songs. But these days he don’t talk to me and he won’t tell me why; I miss him every time I hear his name. I don’t know what he’s doing or why our friendship died while we play the poet game.”
Alela Diane, “Dream a River” – From that first line, “I just returned to say goodbye,” over the circling acoustic guitar riff, this song stood out to be on Alela Diane’s consistently excellent Looking Glass album and when those strings come in, I’m transported. “I hear her silver bracelets down the hall. That, and the lingering cry of a song. Everything’s exactly as we left it but where’s the sun come through?”
Loraine James, “The Perception of Me (Crazy Nigger)” – The surge in interest in Julius Eastman, a tragically overlooked composer of the downtown scene in ’70s and ’80s New York, has been a blessing to chamber music lovers and to me personally. Phantom Limb’s stellar work assembling and releasing his work also extends into projects like this where electronic composer/producer Loraine James uses some of his most iconic pieces as a jumping off point. This revisioning takes the original piece, which I first heard on Unjust Malaise for four pianos, and removes the percussive part of the hypnotic movements, stretching it out, pulling it back, and working it for different types of keyboard while retaining both its beautiful and its raging, powerful defiance.
Mavis Staples, “If It Be Your Will” – I always end with something that feels to me like a prayer and this is both one of the best examples of that form in a pop song, Leonard Cohen’s original closer from Various Positions, given a definitive reading by one of the great American voices. Blue Note’s stellar all-around tribute record to Cohen, Here It Is finds Larry Klein assembling an all-star core band of Bill Frisell (whose chiming guitar comping is crucial to the atmosphere throughout), the rhythm section of Kevin Hays on piano, Scott Colley on bass, and Nate Smith on drums (who fit together so perfectly, especially the drifting clouds of Smith’s brushwork here), longtime Frisell collaborator Greg Leisz on pedal steel, and Immanuel Wilkins on saxophone (following, teasing out the textures in Staples’ read on the song). It’s a perfect track on one of the few great-all-the-way-through tribute albums. Thank you all, as always, for taking this trip with me.

Tags Alela Diane, Bad Manor, Batts, Brian Harnetty, Bruce Barth, Damjonboi, Dawn Richard, Demeanor, DJ Polo, Electric Shit, First Aid Kit, Gene Bertoncini, George Strait, Gustav Lundgren, Horace Andy, Illogic, Jake Blount, Jess Williamson, Julianna Riolino, Kelly Finnigan, Khruangbin, Labretta Suede and the Motel 6, Loraine James, Lustre, Mali Obomsawin, Mark Turner, Mavis Staples, Meg Baird, Melissa Stylianou, Micah Schnabel, Monophonics, music, Nasty Jack, Nora O'Connor, Oren Ambarchi, Phil Maneri, Plains, Playlist, recorded music, Rhianna, Scratcha DVA, Seth Avett, Shy Martin, Spencer Zahn, Storm 9000, Sunny War, Terence Etc, The Delines, Tigran Hamasyan, Tribal Brothers, Trista Hill, Vieux Farka Toure, Walter Daniels, Waxahatchee

Playlist record reviews

Playlist – September 2022

Post author By rsanford614
Post date October 20, 2022
No Comments on Playlist – September 2022

Once again – as befits my favorite cultural season – a lot of writing for other outlets, so I’m racing to get this one done and out before New York this week. But also as befitting my favorite season in general, so much great work. A little more meditative maybe but also some hard partying tracks. Hope you’re all doing well, whether you inherently love fall as much as I do or not. Love to anyone who takes the time to listen to and/or reads these.

https://tidal.com/browse/playlist/94d5c558-a938-471d-a46a-1bb7945a4eed

Beth Orton, “Arms Around a Memory” – I was one of the many people who got my head split open by Beth Orton’s Trailer Park when I was 16 and every record through Sugaring Season blew me away, with 2002’s Jim O’Rourke-produced Comfort of Strangers as a personal high water mark. Her new one, Weather Alive, after a six-year wait, brings me back to the best parts of all of those records while stirring in new colors. This track, with a combination of English (including drummer Tom Skinner who knocked my face in this spring playing with Sons of Kemet) and NYC (bassist Shazad Ismaily who shows up here with so much regularity I should send him something, Antibalas’s Stuart Bogie on sax, Winged Victory for the Sullen’s Dustin O’Halloran, and guitarist Greg McMurray whose guitar is a key voice of the current chamber music scene) band centered around Orton’s piano and voice, became an immediate front runner in a record I have a hard time picking favorites from. The subtle, insistent rhythms and repetition and the expansiveness of the synths, backing vocals, and reeds feel like walking through streets you know almost too well, while Orton’s murmured vocal wrestles with ghosts and finds exactly the place to put that memory in a way I still struggle with more often than not. For me, this feels like walking through New York in the morning – helped by the specific reference in the first verse and the Johnny Thunders nod in the title – but I know it works just as well for those memories in the long shadows of London or Kansas City. “And I got to questioning my credibility like you’re the reliable witness to what I feel, though I can still taste the sweetness of what we had, and there’s no one will kiss me as deep as you know you have. Once that I saw how to see all of your love was looking back at me, it was hard not to fulfill the prophecy we could have been.”
Afghan Whigs, “Domino and Jimmy” – The new Afghan Whigs record is still sinking in for me; it’s a slower build than the last few post-reunion albums. But I loved this expansive, cracked ballad immediately, and not just because it reunites them with my pal and Scrawl co-leader Marcy Mays, reviving her character from “My Curse” and putting her in direct dialogue with the male half, voiced, of course, by Dulli. It’s a prime example of their rocket ride to the bottom songs, land they plow better than anyone else I can think of, giving glory to people in their worst moments. “You are lost in sight and lost inside my head. You seem to insinuate that I leave. I know it’s been a while. But, baby, if you were waiting for me, we’re going out in style.”
Terri Lyne Carrington, “Circling” – One of the great drummers, composers, and bandleaders of our time, Terri Lyne Carrington, turned her attention to a much-needed project to start redressing the place of women in the jazz composition canon with her editing of The New Standards Vol. 1, 100 pieces by women and including many of the best composers working now. This beautiful Gretchen Parlato song augments Carrington’s killer core group of rhythm section mates Kris Davis on piano and Linda May Han Oh on bass, Nicholas Payton on trumpet, and Matthew Stevens on guitar (who co-produces with Carrington), with guitarist Julian Lage, vocalist Michael Mayo, and percussionist Negah Santos – someone please correct me if I’ve gotten the vocalist wrong, I tried to piece this together from partial credits I could find googling. The warm, swirling melody and the perfect empathy of the group – Carrington’s cymbals on the verses, cutting through the dancing guitars, Davis’ piano at precisely the right moments; Payton’s trumpet solo that feels like liquid light – made this an immediate standout on another record that has so many highlights for me, and a song that hit me at a moment I really needed it. “Stop wishing on so many stars above. All that you’ve done has come from wanting love. What if we met at some other place in time? There’d still be rain. There’d still be sun to shine. Your happiness to give away is so much more than all the games they play. So be done.”
Garbage Greek, “Bad Habit” – I can’t believe I haven’t put something from this record – one of my favorites of the year and one of my favorite Columbus rock records in a very long time – on a previous playlist. I’ve long liked Garbage Greek, the harder garage project of guitarist/lead vocalist Lee Mason and bassist/vocalist Patrick Koch when schedules stopped their previous (also great) band Comrade Question, but hearing it stripped to a three-piece from five, those two with powerhouse drummer Jason Winner, occasionally augmented live (and on this record) with percussion and backing vocals from Adam Scoppa after the pandemic, shot up to favorite band status. And that added potency is distilled into their finest record, Quality Garbage, which is everything I want from garage rock: muscular hooks, grooves that work as well for a dance party as a fist fight, lyrics that stick but aren’t showy. This song hit me early, but there isn’t a bad track to be found. “I have a nasty habit of forgiving you.”
Black Thought and Danger Mouse, featuring Michael Kiwanuka, “Aquamarine” – Roots frontman Black Thought stretches in different directions on Cheat Codes, a stunning collaborative record with producer Danger Mouse. This track, featuring Michael Kiwanuka on the hook, combines dusty samples with gleaming synths and chopped guitar stings as the perfect backdrop for his laid back, layered rhymes. “Trying to find soul again, but my thoughts corrupt the vials and contaminate the console again. It’s a shame, but I cannot complain though I am not the same.”
Cory Branan featuring Brian Fallon and Jason Isbell, “When In Rome, When in Memphis” – Memphis Americana singer-songwriter Branan was the first small club show I saw in Columbus after getting vaccinated, and it was a wake-up call to just how good his songs are and his rich coffee after a long night voice just seems to get stronger and more interesting. His new record When I Go I Ghost is a similar reminder of the power of his work, full of interesting arrangements and, while it’s early in my listening, the equal of instant classics The No-Hit Wonder and Adios. This single, with Fallon and Isbell lending backing vocals, is a classic on-the-road rocker with a huge riff and big drums, but wrapped in a little more abstraction, leaning into the mystery that the genre tends to strip out.
Danielle Ponder, “Only The Lonely” – My first trip to Nelsonville Music Festival in many years had some frustrations, but it did my heart good to see how much so many of my dearest friends loved it, and it had a few sets that blew me away, including my first exposure to the torchy R&B of Danielle Ponder. Seeing her create such a degree of intimacy in a huge field from the main stage, then digging into her records, has me dying to see her in a club. The crisp crack of the drums under a phantom smoke choir and suspended electric piano chords underpins a vocal as rich and potent as any of the great soul singers of history. “There’s a truth in the dark. It’s gonna break you down, so steel your heart. ‘You don’t love me, you just lonely,’ that’s what my mind say. Your daddy left you guilty, that’s what you don’t see.”
The McCrary Sisters featuring Allen McCrary, “Run On” – I’m a sucker for classic gospel quartet music and I’ve been a big fan of the McCrary Sisters for about a decade; I think I came to them through their connections to the Fairfield Four. Coming on the heels of the sad news of Deborah McCrary’s passing, they released this stormy version of the gospel standard “Run On” I heard on one of my Grandmother’s records but snapped into my attention on the Blind Boys of Alabama 2001 record Spirit of the Century. The McCrarys give us a definitive version of a song done so well by so many.
Dr. John featuring Aaron Neville and Katie Pruitt, “End of the Line” – Dr. John’s posthumous album Things Happen That Way also features moving versions of “Old Time Religion” featuring Willie Nelson, “Funny How Time Slips Away,” and the Cowboy Jack Clement-penned title track, but I kept coming back to this laid-back swinging take on the Traveling Wilburys song, with fellow New Orleans icon Aaron Neville and Nashville singer Katie Pruitt. Wreathed in second-line horns like smoke, with subtle church-steeped grooves from the great drummer Herlin Riley (powering the best of the post-“Tain” Watts era of Wynton Marsalis) and Jon Cleary’s B3. Hearing those three voices come together on “I’m satisfied” touches me every single time.
Tedeschi Trucks Band, “Soul Sweet Song” – Sometimes the undeniably strong Tedeschi Trucks Band gets a little too jammy for me – hearing this as I was playing with the order of the playlist, Anne said, “What are you some kind of a hippie?” – but there’s a warmth and a love for the world their best work has that resonates with me and this is a prime example of them firing on all cylinders. Band members Gabe Dixon and Mike Mattison wrote this in tribute to the late multi-instrumentalist Kofi Burbridge and Susan Tedeschi gives it a vocal like a bonfire, the only sign of life for miles, in the darkness, the promise of warmth and the sun rising again. “In the memory of your melody, when the dawn breaks out, the birds all sing. And I feel your rhythm moving me, ’cause your soul’s sweet song’s still singing.”
Late Night Cardigan, “B-Movie” – I hear a similar play of sunlight and shadow to the previous couple of tracks on this tune by Memphis four-piece Late Night Cardigan from their terrific record Life is Bleak and It’s My Cheat Day. Vocalist Kacee Russell sells the loneliness of trying to make someone suddenly being gone make sense, as her and Stephen Turner’s guitars intertwine over the crunching rhythm section of Jesse Mansfield and Zach Mitchell’s steadily turning up the flames.
Rich Ruth, “Desensitization and Reprocessing” – For me, this centerpiece of Rich Ruth’s (Nashville musician Michael Ruth) simultaneously mournful and majestic record I Survived, It’s Over is one of the keystones of instrumental music as a way of processing trauma, especially of processing the pandemic we’re still in but I don’t want to make it sound like therapy. The compositional rigor, the delicate layering, the building to fiery free jazz horns and clicking back into the more placid textures of synth and pedal steel, all make it a piece that can stand up to whatever previous associations a listener brings to it.
Madison Cunningham, “My Rebellion” – I was a fan of Madison Cunningham’s work on Chris Thile’s Live From Here but never caught one of her own records until this year’s spectacular Revealer. This song’s staccato, repetitive pattern on Cunningham’s guitar ties it to the previous songs as it brings up the emotional intensity and forward motion of the playlist with a supple vocal that takes the melody into surprising places and leaves the lyrics rattling in the listener’s skull. “What is wrong? Have you forgot I’m not a stranger? You’re lead-footed and headstrong and the quiet turns me into a rambler.”
Sick Thoughts, “Someone I Can Talk To” – I’ve been a fan of New Orleans Sick Thoughts since first seeing them a number of years ago in Memphis when they were kind of the ur-Gonerfest band, punchy rhythm section in the intense undertow of frontman Drew Owen’s powerful presence and energy. But their new record Heaven is No Fun, and the drop-to-my-knees reminder of everything I love about rock and roll set Anne and I got to see at this year’s Gonerfest took them to another level, the songs are sharper, taking the ear candy riffs that would be tossed off on a bridge on earlier records and allowed to develop into whole songs. A heaping dose of Thin Lizzy in a stew of classic ’77 punk and early ’00s garage but done as well as anyone’s doing it, with more hooks in that scene than anything I’ve heard since Gentleman Jesse’s Leaving Atlanta. My rock record for the end of summer and my favorite record loaded in the barrel for next summer. “Well, there are sometimes that I don’t know where I am. And there are some things that I’ll never understand. There must be someone I can talk to about this. I never realized how much friendship can be missed. But it’s no good now, there’s no one but we two. And I’m alone in the city with you.”
Laura Benitez and the Heartache, “Let the Chips Fall” – San Francisco’s Laura Benitez and her crack band crafted one of my favorite sets of classic Bakersfield country/rockabilly in a while with California Centuries. Dave Zirbel’s pedal steel stands out on this track amid a tight rhythm section and Benitez’s clipped, punky vocal on the verses and soaring notes on the choruses. “It took me too many years to start to be brave, and I gotta move now while there’s still a part of me that’s left to save. I know that failing ain’t worse than doing nothing at all, so let the dice roll and let the chips fall.”
Snakehips featuring Tinashe, “Who’s Gonna Love You Tonight” – British electronic duo Snakehips reteam with one of my favorite current R&B singers, Tinashe, on this slinky sun-drenched beckoning/indictment rising to a powerful gospel-seared climax. “Who’s gonna tell you that you ain’t just high? Show you that you love this life.”
Makaya McCraven, “This Place, That Place” – I’ve been a fan of Makaya McCraven since the very first time I heard him – drawn to that first record because my old friend Tony Barba played on a track or two. And that fandom increased exponentially when I finally saw him life; he merges the repetitive, cell-based constructions of hip-hop, electronic dance music, and modern composition with the strengths of classic free jazz, a nimbleness on his kit, and a Mingus-esque talent for bringing out exactly the strengths of his players. When I interviewed him earlier this year to preview a (stunning) Wexner Center show Anne and I took her Mom to, he talked about the upcoming record, and how great it was that each of the labels he’d worked with recently, free jazz standard bearers International Anthem, British electronic stars XL, and legendary new music label Nonesuch, were teaming up to release In These Times. Hearing it, that almost feels like a metaphor. This record takes everything he’s learned and worked with up to now, especially in the larger band shows like the mind-blowing Webster Hall hit I saw at Winter Jazz Fest a few years ago and ties it all together while also moving forward. Brandee Younger’s harp is a key component of this track, tying the strings together with the horns and Joel Ross’ vibraphone.
Julian Lage, “Let Every Room Sing” – Julian Lage’s View With a Room reunites him with the crackling, empathetic rhythm section bassist Jorge Roeder, who I’ve been a fan of since hearing him with trombonist Ryan Keberle’s Catharsis, and Bad Plus/Happy Apple founder Dave King on drums, and adds the additional element of guitarist Bill Frisell who also has an extensive history with King. Their two lines snake and crack around one another in a way that always is surprising and invigorating. There’s enough crunchy noise on this Lage original to remind old heads of Frisell’s early work but without forsaking the Americana leanings and gorgeous melodies of both their more recent outings.
Nikki Lane, “Live/Love” – I was a fan of Nikki Lane’s songs and voice the second I heard All or Nothin’, and each record has deepened and broadened that appreciation, but Denim & Diamonds feels like the purest distillation of her magic yet. Whether it’s extra time on the songs, an affinity for Josh Homme’s sympathetic production – he also plays piano, percussion, and mellotron on this track – that works as well on gentle, west coast lopes like this one as the stomping dance numbers, or just a magic confluence of a number of factors, this is one of the most addictive albums I’ve sank into all year.
Ice Spice, “Munch (Feelin’ U)” – This Bronx-based rapper’s breakthrough single was all over this summer and coming to it a little late made me very nostalgic for the days I would have heard this in a club or coming out of a car rolling down the street. In less than two minutes, with a creeping track by Riot, it’s a perfect shot in the arm of low-key and well-earned braggadocio. “Sayin’ you love me but what do that mean? Pretty as fuck, and he like that I’m mean.”
Snarky Puppy, “Honiara” – Instrumental jazz-funk band Snarky Puppy returned this year with Empire Central, continuing the snarling crime-movie jazz tendency I loved so much on Culcha Vulcha (and the barn-burning live set Andrew Patton and I caught on that tour) but, true to form, bringing in elements from their various side projects and never staying still for too long. The woozy horns and bursting-at-the-seams production keep any part of this from getting too tidy, too clean, and it’s deep enough for the listeners but it’ll get a party out of their chairs.
Dmo!, “Save Your Soul” – I found this through one of my favorite local musicians, writer-keyboardist Brandon “BJazz” Scott who co-wrote and co-produced this with Aaron Hardin. I got to know BJazz’s work through his accompanying Talisha Holmes on some of her best thorny R&B and Hardin has a resume including Raheem DeVaughn and Eric Roberson, and this smooth and smoky cry into the darkness is squarely in both of those sweet spots. I couldn’t find much about the singer here but believe I’ll be checking for him going forward.
Madi Task, “Quitter” – A newer (or at least newer to me) Columbus singer-songwriter, with some similar gospel tendencies in the piano line and the way she leans way back behind the beat and the lunges at it. It’s raw and vibrant, powerful and a little unformed. “I fill up my cup but it tastes mediocre. The conversations are relying on me. There’s nothing to sip on and nothing to say; I’ll save my wit for a better day. Can’t take the silence? Go back to sleep, ’cause I don’t owe you a goddam thing.”
My Idea, “Cry Mfer” – I loved Palberta so I’m obviously interested in whatever else Lily Konigsberg is working on, and this collaboration with Nate Amos didn’t disappoint. The repetition and mix of warmth and chill groove feels like a cold breeze walking through a city and her voice cuts through it like streetlight daggers. “In all my life, I can hardly say I’ve been a light-caster. Found that talking to God was a lot faster.”
Courtney Marie Andrews, “These Are The Good Old Days” – The shimmering, mysterious keyboard riff that opens this track sets the tone of questioning memory even while the memory’s happening, interrogating motives, and is a magic springboard (along with other subtle touches on the arrangment: an acid trail guitar, brushed drums) for her candle-in-the-dark vocals in this standout from Andrews’ Loose Future album. “People like me think feelings are facts; falling in love gives us a heart attack.”
John Thayer featuring Tara Shupe, “I Couldn’t Find It In the Dark” – John Thayer from the SF band Monkey Lizards made a perfect slightly-bent Americana record with The Hottest Record Of The Year and this song, collaborating with Tara Shupe as co-writer and playing mandolin, piano, and bass along with adding magnetic harmony vocals to Thayer’s holy quaver and guitar and Brian Surano’s subtle, sauntering drums. “I been up every trail, down every road. I’d ask anyone, wherever I would go. Look for it in their faces, and I could see a spark. But I couldn’t find it in the dark.”
James Brandon Lewis Quartet, “Molecular” – Saxophonist James Brandon Lewis is killing it lately, from tracks with artists like Moor Mother, William Parker, and Alan Braufman, to one of the greatest contemporary jazz masterpieces Jesup Wagon. I was already sorry I hadn’t gotten to see him live yet, but this new live record with his stunning quartet MSM Molecular Systematic Music – Live rubs salt in that wound. Perfect, empathetic group playing with the insanely tight but never airless rhythm section of Brad Jones and Chad Taylor alongside pianist Aruán Ortiz who fully redirects gravity with that solo about four minutes in, playing killer compositions.
Wayne Shorter, Terri Lyne Carrington, Leo Genovese, Esperanza Spalding, “Endangered Species” – One of the great saxophone players of the 20th century, Wayne Shorter has never rested on his laurels or stopped searching, stopped question. This crack quartet of drummer Terri Lyne Carrington, bassist/vocalist Esperanza Spalding, and pianist Leo Genovese (who all get front-of-record billing), tear into this Shorter composition originally heard on his oft-maligned ’80s record Atlantis with a fire that can make any of us who couldn’t hear past the shiny textures of that record feel like an idiot (I may be projecting). Every piece of this – recorded live at the Detroit Jazz Festival – is perfection.
The Paranoid Style, “Steve Cropper Plays Femme Fatale” – I was extremely late to this killer indie pop band from DC led by Elizabeth Nelson and Timothy Bracy, but John Wendland’s playing songs from For Executive Meeting including this one won me over. This jumble of images tying Memphis and New York, the past and the present together, over jangling, barbed guitars, makes my heart sing. “In the final estimation, in the final accounting, God have mercy on the man who believes what he’s been doubting. God have mercy on the man who sees her walking down the street. Before you start you know you are already beat.”
Giuda, “Medley (Get it over / Space Walk / Watch Your Step)” – One of my favorite contemporary pub-rock examples, this Italian band picks up where Slade left off and Dave Wallingford and I still talk about that one perfect time they came through Ace of Cups. While I’m still hungry for their next visit, Giuda’s raging Live at Punk Rock Raduno captures some of that power and the vibrating enthusiasm of a band and crowd playing one of the first shows after lockdown.
Off!, “Free LSD” – Anne turned me onto Off! in the days of their first EPs, drawn from her love of Burning Brides (another band I wouldn’t know without her) from which guitarist Dimitri Coates came, uniting with Black Flag/Circle Jerks singer Keith Morris, and new rhythm section of Autry Fulbright II (from …And You Will Know Us By The Trail of Dead) and Justin Brown (if the Discogs is to be believed, the same drummer who blew me away on Flying Lotus, Gerald Clayton, and Ambrose Akinmusire records). This is another slab of powerful, surging rock.
Cam’ron and A-Trak, “All I Really Wanted” – Even hearing about this collaboration with Dipset founder Cam’ron and downtown DJ A-Trak made the nostalgia molecules in my blood boil. Cam’ron’s mainstream rap hits were the soundtrack of my immediately-post-college years and around that time I started working at Chase and friends there said, “You need to check out the Diplomats double CD.” Around that time, A-Trak was getting a lot of buzz as a club DJ leading to touring with Kanye West and then founding Fool’s Gold records and exploding. This reunion doesn’t try to reinvent the wheel but is a magic example of how that music made so many of us feel, and still does. “By the time I turned thirty, I completed my bucket list. I don’t take threats likely, careful who you’re fucking with; dying’ll make you way more famous than your publicist.”
EST Gee, “Bow And Say Grace” – This standout track from Louisville rapper EST Gee’s debut full length I Never Felt Nun pairs a smooth rumble of a vocal delivery with a menacing, almost gothic beat that reminds me of the more underground stuff I was listening to around the time I first got into the music I mentioned in the previous blurb. “Roll over, play dead, wreck for the ‘gram – some of they other tricks. I sit back and watch all the rumors they be running with. All who been involved won’t call it off but it’ll never quit. Broke my Granny’s heart, she say her boy done let the devil in.”
Mary Bragg, “The Lonely Persistence of Time” – Singer-songwriter Mary Bragg drills down into an existential loneliness on her self-titled fourth record and it’s exactly the record I want in my headphones as I walk through streets covered in wet leaves. Soulful and sumptuous, with her voice and guitar perfectly set up by the rhythm section of Jordan Perlson (who also killed me on Becca Stevens and Joel Harrison’s records) and Ryan Madora, and Rich Hinman’s electric and steel guitars (who’s enhanced great records by everyone from Amythyst Kiah to Sara Watkins to k.d. lang). “It’s a quarter to you as I wait for the blue. How do you find another love that defies and colors the lonely persistence of time? I wanna know. Don’t you wanna know?”
Angelica Sanchez Trio, “Before Sleep / The Sleeping Lady and the Giant that Watches Over Her” – Talk about a record that punched me in the gut, especially by artists I already loved. Sanchez is one of the most consistently inventive pianists working in and expanding the jazz tradition and this record, Sparkle Beings pairs her with the astonishing rhythm section of Michael Formanek on bass and Billy Hart on drums, to attack a series of surprising selections from the canon and make them wholly their own. Here, Sanchez wrote an interlude to lead into the Duke Ellington classic for the record closer and, together, they capture the majesty, power, and delicateness of the original while shining powerful new light through it.
Redman/Mehldau/McBride/Blade, “Ship to Shore” – Anybody within 5-10 years of my age with even a passing interest in jazz got turned around by the quartet of tenor saxophonist Joshua Redman, pianist Brad Mehldau, bassist Christian McBride, and drummer Brian Blade. Those records blew my mind in High School and I can only imagine the punch they would have packed for someone seeing that band live. I still check for each of their records 25 years later – the first time Anne and I took her Mom to New York, maybe my favorite memory was taking her to see Redman at the Vanguard. I’m happy to report that the second reunion album, LongGone maybe even improves on Round Again. This sumptuous slow blues is everything I’m looking for from a certain kind of jazz and, like the last few, I think these three tracks in conjunction form kind of a prayer for a new day. Thank you all for reading this; I love you.

Tags A-Trak, Aaron Neville, Afghan Whigs, Allen McCrary, Angelica Sanchez, Beth Orton, Black Thought, Brad Mehldau, Brian Blade, Brian Fallon, Cam'ron, Christian McBride, Cory Branan, Courtney Marie Andrews, Danger Mouse, Danielle Ponder, Dmo!, Dr. John, Esperanza Spalding, EST Gee, Garbage Greek, Giuda, Ice Spice, james brandon lewis, Jason Isbell, John Thayer, Joshua Redman, Julian Lage, Katie Pruitt, Late Night Cardigan, Laura Benitez and the Heartache, Leo Genovese, Madison Cunningham, Makaya McCraven, Marcy Mays, Mary Bragg, McCrary Sisters, Michael Kiwanuka, music, My Idea, Nikki Lane, Off!, Playlist, recorded music, Rich Ruth, Sick Thoughts, Snakehips, Snarky Puppy, Tara Shupe, Tedeschi Trucks Band, Terri Lyne Carrington, The Paranoid Style, tinashe, Wayne Shorter

Playlist record reviews

Playlist – August 2022

Almost as late as last month with some internet issues and work travel, but happy to finally be submitting this in Memphis as I also compile some notes at the midway point of a really stellar Gonerfest. Love to you all, and thank you all for listening and reading. Enjoy these first days of fall as we all dance on the cusp.

https://tidal.com/browse/playlist/d01499fd-af20-41e5-b09d-03e48f0dc74a

Call Me Rita, “Measure Twice, Cut Once” – This barn burner is my favorite track yet out of artist Vanessa Jean Speckman’s rock and roll project Call Me Rita, assembling a who’s who of Columbus rootsy rock superheroes in the service of a ferocious, all out rocker. Drummer Jason Winner and Todd May on bass and backing vocals power this train with Jay Gasper’s lead guitar and surprising, delightful bursts of synth skidding over Micah Schnabel’s slashing rhythm and backing vocals. “The creditors keep calling me. How much more can I bleed? I’m taking my autonomy.”
Lee Bains + The Glory Fires, “Post-Life” – I liked the Dexateens and I was really impressed with Lee Bains’ solo band when I saw them at Woodlands a couple years before the pandemic but it didn’t prepare me for how much I love their new record Old-Time Folks and how utterly blown away I was seeing them at Rumba a few weeks ago. An electrifying dance through the fire that reminded me of everything I love about a four piece rock and roll band: controlled fury, deep grooves, and more than a little hip shaking, with shout outs to the SCLC and the incisive puncturing of old lies and snake oil pitches as the icing on the cake. “It’ll rip your soul from your cooking, the home place from your voice, and the thunder from your songs. It’ll sell you back the bootlegs, stare at you with dead, flickering eyes, like it didn’t do nothing wrong.”
Bobby Previte, “HUNTER (remix)” – Drummer/composer Bobby Previte is riding a new wave of creativity and productivity lately and my favorite of the recent records is Nine Tributes (For Electric Band) with each track paying tribute to a guitarist he’s played with over the years. The centerpiece of this band, taking on the daunting challenge of inhabiting/paying tribute to these guitarists without doing an impression and exceeding my wildest expectations, is my friend since childhood, guitarist Mike Gamble, with the quartet filled out by Akron native Kurt Kotheimer who sounds like he was born to play with Previte, an extremely simpatico hookup; and interesting textures from keyboardist/reeds player Michael Kammers. I had a hard time picking a track off this, but I kept coming back to this loving take on Charlie Hunter’s approach. The band captures the ebuillance and greasy swing that’s made Hunter so beloved without giving up any of themselves in that take.
shark, “Torpedos in Leather” – My pal Ginny Riot is as good a barometer as quality as I’ve found in Columbus and we all know I have a few. While I was first introduced to her through her acoustic work, when I heard she was playing drums in a new outfit, shark, it shot to the top of my list to checkout. Within a song and a half of Anne and I seeing them at Rumba, they were my new favorite Columbus band and looking around the room I knew enough people dancing that I wasn’t alone. This track, with Ginny’s drumming and vocals in a sea of surging, grinding guitars from Hugh Man and Professor Zac Glickman is a snarling reminder of everything I come to rock and roll for, reminding me of The Cramps and the Gun Club and Twin Guns and Daddy Long Legs, but it’s own thing.
Ibibio Sound Machine, “Protection From Evil” – London’s Ibibio Sound Machine gripped me by the collar immediately and they’ve only gotten better. Eno Williams’ voice and powerhouse seven-piece band get an added assist from Hot Chip’s Joe Goddard and Al Doyle on additional keyboards and NYC techno legend Peter Matson on drum programming on this party track for the ages. I’m looking forward to finally seeing them live with Anne in New York in October.
Bad Bunny, “Tití Me Preguntó” – My pal (and former coworker) Mary turned me onto the new Bad Bunny record. His work before Un Verano Sin Ti I enjoyed select singles from but didn’t delve into a whole album but this hit at exactly the right time. The way he slides over the dembow rhythm on this track, the synthetic handclaps and sewing-machine drums sparking against the quavering synth, and his voice sliding from singing to rapping. It’s collared shirt dance club music, late enough on a hot night the breeze is reminding you this season won’t last forever.
Tonton Pal, “Furu” – A similar dance club track that makes me want to sweat but in a full suit. The flow of this Senegalese rapper has a give and take that makes everything feel alive, just a little improvisational.
Amber Mark, “On & On” – Another artst who’s earlier work didn’t grab me but either my ears got a little more open or the songs got a little sharper or both, because when I finally sat down with Amber Mark’s Three Dimensions Deep, she rose to the ranks of my favorite R&B singers. This song works an unhurried rhythm that’s part cat and mouse and part liquid anticipation, draped in sharp, glittering strings; the perfect showcase for the laser-precise longing she captures in her voice. A new 3 a.m. classic. “I’ve never been more confused; my confidence won’t come through. Lost so much it’s hard to tell what’s fake and what’s myself.”
Allison Russell featuring Brandi Carlile, “You’re Not Alone” – The creator of one of my favorite records of last year returns with this dazzling rework from a song Russell originally brought to the underappreciated (sadly, including by me) Our Native Daughters supergroup recast as a duet with Brandi Carlile. The kind of reminder we all need that we’re interconnected and we’re more than our pain and our damage. Those voices alone would put my heart in a vice grip, the surprising, tumbling arrangement for strings by Sista Strings, sends it into outer space. “Wish that I could keep you from sorrow and harm; none of us is here for long, but you’re not alone.”
Cole Swindell, “She Had me at Heads Carolina” – As contemporary country music has appropriated recent-past hip-hop and R&B tropes with greater and lesser degrees of artfulness, we’re seeing more sophisticated blending. This caught my eye on a bar jukebox on a sunny afternoon – and I loved everything about it. In a sober light the next day, I was still delighted. First, I love those first couple of Jo Dee Messina records, those songs felt like a cool breeze off coming over a frequently arid landscape – especially “Heads Carolina, Tails California,” her first single, written by Tim Nichols and Mark Sanders – so it hit the nostalgia bullseye it seems like Swindell’s aiming for with the end of his chorus, “She’s a ’90s country fan, like I am.” But the interpolation of the original melody – with the clever use of autotune’s uncanny sheen – and the sampling of Messina’s original as a harmony and texture underlines the way memory and nostalgia draw a lot of us like moths to that flame and the transitory, ephemeral nature of it. “I bought her a round and we talked till the lights came on. I still see that girl every time I hear that song.”
Country Rio featuring Tony Grvis, Dusty & Stones, Ervis Guerrero, Daniel Estampida, Orozco, Hunter Leite, and Chisum Cattle, “Neon Life” – The Mexican band Country Rio brings in an international supporting cast for this posse cut soaked in grim determination, including African country duo Dusty & Stones, Texas compatriots Chisum Cattle, and Argentinian Daniel Estampida Orozco. The steady march, led by a rolling banjo line, underlines the underlying grief and loneliness of the life they’re singing about but the mix of voices reminds us of the community and warmth that are found there if you’re willing to open yourself up to it.
Ruby Amanfu, “Make It Better” – Shining light on another facet of Nashville, Ghana-born Ruby Amanfu gets deeper and more interesting on every record I hear. This song feels like the end of summer for me, that search for comfort in someone but with an edge, a chill seeping in around the edges.
Ashley Paul featuring Otto Wilberg and Yoni Silver, “Shivers” – I met Ashley Paul through the above-mentioned Mike Gamble when we were all in college and, even then, her approach to the saxophone caught me off guard. That appreciation has deepened over the years, as she’s dug deeper into interests in installations and the human voice. There’s a rich, velvety melancholy throughout her stunning new record, I Am Fog, featuring Paul on voice, percussion, sax, and clarinet, backed by Wilberg’s bass and voice and Yoni Silver’s bass clarinet and viola. Had a hard time choosing a track from this, but I kept being drawn to “Shivers” like a moth to a flame.
Tarbaby featuring Oliver Lake, “House of Leaves” – I think I first saw the great reeds player Oliver Lake a few years before the meeting I describe in the previous blurb, in High School at our Jazz and Rib Fest, and when I was 21 with the World Saxophone Quartet. Both sets took the top of my head off and I started buying records just based on Lake’s presence, which, of course, introduced me to more artists than I could name. I think I found the collective trio Tarbaby because I’d already been turned around by drummer Nasheet Waits’ volcanic work with Jason Moran and was tentatively getting into pianist Orrin Evans and bassist Eric Revis (both of whom I’m a massive fan of), but my favorite work of the trio adds the voice of Oliver Lake. Dance of the Evil Toys is an extension and expansion of their beautiful collaboration. This sinewy track exemplifies the joys of the record, Lake’s snaking saxophone line cracking and scorching the delicate color fields of the rest of the group.
Mark Turner Quartet, “Return From The Stars” – Another favorite saxophonist who hit my radar more recently, Mark Turner has been setting my world – at least – on fire. His newest ECM record, inspired by the writing of Stanislaw Lem (another favorite of mine going back to high school), of which this is the title track, features remarkable interplay with his melodic foil, trumpeter Jason Palmer (those gleaming, braided lines in the introduction knock me all the way out) and the subtle, empathetic rhythm section of bassist Joe Martin and drummer Jonathan Pinson.
Jacob Garchik, “Collage” – One of my favorite trombone players, Garchik’s writing caught my attention with his work with the Kronos Quartet and especially his trombone choir The Heavens. The new record, Assembly, pairs him with soprano sax master Sam Newsome and rhythm section of pianist Jacob Sacks, bassist Thomas Morgan, and drummer Dan Weiss. The collisions and disjunctions in these tunes, especially the one I chose, are as important as the beauty of the melodies and the moments of sublime synchronicity. It almost amplifies Garchik’s leanings toward the cinematic – check out his recent Guy Madden film scores – with a depth of field in the way the instruments fall together.
Thick, “Tell Myself” – This grimy trio out of the New York diy scene straddles the line between class of 77 punk and shimmery powerpop in exactly the right amounts. An irrepressible rhythm section meant to cause a riot in the middle of a dance party or vice versa with Shari Page on drums (that break at the end makes me want to leap out of my skin) and Kate Black on bass, buoying and jostling Nikki Sisti’s guitar with everyone singing. It doesn’t get much better than this, one of the bands I’m most looking forward to seeing live. “Used to talk about getting old; can’t believe all the lies we told then.”
Dead Horses, “Days Grow Longer” – This gorgeous, frayed lament speckled with faith and hope that things can get better, is one of the highlights from Brady Street, the new full length from Milwaukee’s Dead Horses, principally a partnership between Sarah Vos and Daniel Wolff. “I miss LA and the twin cities and the open road laid bare in front of me. East and west across the continent, baptized by dissidents. Days grow longer now, we’ll move on, move on somehow.”
Rachel Sumner, “Strangers Again” – I spent a lot of time in Boston for a few years when my pal Mike Gamble was going to college then and fell in love with the singer-songwriter scene, at the time hovering around the pillars of Dar Williams and Bill Morrissey. Rachel Sumner carries that torch – or at least what I thought that torch looked like as a kid – on the beautiful Rachel Sumner and Traveling Light. This Gillian Welch/David Rawlings cover gets a bone-deep, empathetic, full-throated read, highlighted by Alex Formento’s pedal steel and Kate Wallace’s fiddle.
Matt Nathanson, “Beginners” – Another song that hit my radar because of Lori McKenna, who co-wrote it with Hilary Lindsey and Nathanson. The name was familiar to me because of a long-ago friend, Ann Dotzauer, who was a huge fan of Matt Nathanson in college or right after (she called him Matty Nay but I’m not sure if that was an accepted fan umbrella or something she coined). I had a record that didn’t completely click with me but it was nice revisiting those memories as I dug into his new one, Boston Accent. Butch Walker continues to prove himself the ideal producer for this kind of laid back singer-songwriter, giving the sound world enough definition and teeth, but (as a great songwriter himself) without changing the fundamental character of the song. That sliding, “Walk on the Wild Side”-ish bass caught my ears immediately and the rest of this burnished, acoustic slow jam about the seductive charms of memory and how close it is to death, reminded me of Kim Richey songs I loved in my 20s and burrowed right under my skin. “Used to get lost in the songs that I used to sing, used to get caught in the rush. Used to burn bright, used to fill the sky. I used to never get enough.”
Deejay Telio, “Bon Appétit” – This track from Angolan rapper Deejay Telio feels to me like it’s dancing on the same sensual remembering axis as the Sumner and the Nathanson and that’s a mood that feels explicitly tailored for the end of the summer. The little guitar hooks and slippery mix of synthetic and organic percussion layer up to build that mood without every distracting from Telio’s voice.
Jesse Baylin, “That’s the Way” – I hear a little of that same twang of hope and desire in this perfectly crafted neo-honky tonk side from Jesse Baylin that could have fit perfectly in the early ’80s tug of war between sparkling shirts and fritzy neon signs with a rollicking piano lick getting it rolling and a whirlwind of hand claps and tambourine, around a stellar vocal, smooth but with an undeniable kick you’ll be finding flavors in for days. “Blows a kiss and it knocks me down – my heart skips a beat when it comes around. It tastes like freedom in a cherry crush. Gives me a reason, gives me all that stuff.”
Keith Jarrett, “Part III” – I never want to make too much of someone’s work immediately prior to a health crisis and understood in retrospect. But I will say, the examples of Keith Jarrett’s last tour before the massive strokes that have stopped his piano playing (maybe for good) show what an astonishing level he was performing at. I’m just starting to live with it but I might love Bordeaux Concert more than the earlier two, Budapest Concert and Munich 2016. This excerpt – thank you, ECM – drives home one of my favorite parts of a Jarrett show, especially solo: the sense of going along with the current, being bounced by the waves, then finding yourself in this space where you notice every note, you see melodies formed out of air into perfect crystals, that form into a structure within the structure and then disappear again. This is a lovely reminder of what a keen melodist Jarrett is, without sacrificing any of the more complex, intricate harmonies, what a lifetime of love for the piano and the history of piano music can drive you to if you’re lucky enough to stay engaged (and have a lot of other luck besides).
Harlan T. Bobo, “Must Be in Memphis” – Another beautiful look back, soaked in love for music and the world, though that’s about as far as I’m going to go with my comparison between Harlan T. Bobo, crown prince of the Memphis garage-rock scene currently living in France, and one of the great virtuosos of my lifetime. After hearing Bobo’s left hand had damage from lupus, I doubted I’d ever get another of his great, wry records bursting with big arrangements that were the result of deep friendships. And when I heard the new one, Porch Songs, was an intimate solo acoustic venture, my outsized joy at new Harlan T. Bobo songs was tempered with “Well, it’s what he had to do…” But Porch Songs undid all those biases with 13 of the best songs he’s ever written, reminding me he’s still the champion of seeing all the sides of frequently fucked up life and finding a way to make that picture beautiful without hiding or obscuring any of it. I hope I get to see one of his less frequent shows – Anne and I still talk about that Gonerfest set that calmed a rowdy crowd into attentiveness. “We crashed a big party, we drank all their whiskey, we wrote most of this song in the pool. I stripped off my breeches and I sat on the hostess; hell, no one around here cares what you do. I learned that this guitar could float but my guitarist, he don’t. We could drink underwater, it’s true. I’m feeling my best but acting my worst. Lord, I must be in Memphis tonight.”
Duke Deuce featuring Quavo and GloRilla, “Just Say That (Remix)” – Rising Memphis rapper Duke Deuce teams up with fellow Bluff City native GloRilla and Quavo from Migos for this piano driven adrenaline journey ready to burn the liars and imitators out of the system.
The Comet is Coming, “Code” – I saw The Comet is Coming a few years ago at a Winter Jazzfest and it was my first taste of Shabaka Hutchings live. A fireball of a power trio – Hutching’s saxophone backed with Betamax Killer (Maxwell Hawlett) on drums and Danalogue the Conquerying (Dan Leavens) on keys – this advance single from their upcoming Hyper-Dimensional Expansion Beam is another powerful groove, loaded with nuance and surprise.
Kokoroko, “Soul Searching” – Great friend Andrew Patton turned me onto Could We Be More, the debut full length by this London-based afrobeat and highlife band and it’s another example of him never steering me wrong. The eight piece band takes a lighter touch and incorporates some breezier textures into this four minute instrumental, with Ayo Salawu’s drums and Onome Edgeworth’s percussion dancing like light on the river of Duane Atherley’s bass line, lifted toward the sky on the intertwining lines of Sheila Maurice-Grey’s trumpet, Cassie Kinoshi’s sax, and Richie Seivwright’s trombone.
Meridian Brothers and El Grupo Renacimiento, “Poema del salsero resentido” – Bogota-based Eblis Álvarez’s Meridian Brothers project, known for fusions of electronic music and rock, collaborates with an imaginary salsa band for this eponymous record. He uses a New York-based form from the past to cast a light on very contemporary concerns and preoccupations in a way that honors the groove and subverts it at the same time, in a way that reminds me of a lot of Quantic’s best work.
Pillow Boy, “Once I Became One of Those” – Brad Swiniarski’s long been a stealth – or at least “in the know” – candidate for best songwriter in Columbus. Working in bands and, often, behind the drum kit live, he never got the immediate accolades of more self-aggrandizing candidates, but his songs for acts like Bob City and The Means have given me as much joy as anyone to walk the streets of the town I love so much (even when it pisses me off). This record I think (because I couldn’t find a lot of detail) is a frayed disco tune, its undeniable groove riddled with scorch marks and dents, and an excoriating dissection of the interior life of a character.
Closet Mix, “My Appeal to Heaven” – Another of my favorite songwriters in Columbus, Paul Nini, though he’s better known than Brad with years of leading the great band Log, putting out records under his own name, and getting the “Ladies and Gentlemen, Mr. Paul Nini” shout out on Great Plains’ enduring classic “Letter to a Fanzine.” His newest project Closet Mix, with his brother Chris Nini on keys, Keith Novicki on guitar, and Dan Della Flora on drums, doesn’t record much but everything they’ve put out so far is a gem. This mix of jangle and mystery is aided by some excellent horn work from my pal Fred Gablick (long of Honk Wail and Moan) on reeds and New Basics Brass Band leader Tim Perdue on trumpet and writing the arrangement.
Julia Wolfe & Sō Percussion, “Forbidden Love” – Julia Wolfe might be my favorite current composer working in classical forms. Her triumvirate – with David Lang and Michael Gordon – Bang on a Can, was hugely influential on dilettante me in college when I was finding all this new chamber music that didn’t make sense but deeply resonated with me. And a New Amsterdam records showcase during CMJ at Le Poisson Rouge where I got to see one of her pieces in person, fully aware it was her, Lad for nine bagpipes (in this case, one live and the rest on tracks) was one of those physically almost overpower moments where I said “I’ve never heard anything like this” at the same time it’s making all these connections in my head – to Rothko, to Ayler, to Richard Serra – and I went looking for any record with her name on it. For the decade since that show, the strategy has continued to pay dividends, with Anthracite Fields, Steel Hammer, Fire in My Mouth. And this new, beguiling piece, pairs her with one fo my favorite percussion groups but assigns them the traditional string quartet format of two violins, viola, and cello, for an expansive meditation on an American mythology that humanizes it in a way I find incredibly moving.
Bonnie Raitt, “Down The Hall” – That flurry of warm strings and tones that end the Wolfe seemed to relate – at least in my head – to this striking closing track from Bonnie Raitt’s terrific record Just Like That… This song tells the story of an inmate trying to be with his fellow prisoners as they’re dying in a sort of atonement, with a power, understated vocal by Raitt backed only by her crystalline acoustic guitar and Glenn Patscha’s B-3. “I sit and wait outside his stall, to help him when he’s done. Whatever shame we might have felt, well, that’s all come undone.”
Armen Donelian, “Fresh Start” – This gorgeous title track from a new trio record matching pianist Donelian with bassist Jay Anderson and drummer Dennis Mackrel had a similar sense of story telling to me as the previous two tracks, and a warmth that seemed to resonate against its predecessors and here and the couple of songs that come after it. Donelian’s touch alone is breathtaking but the sympathy of the trio together is what keeps me coming back.
Gillian Welch and David Rawlings, “I Just Came Home to Count the Memories” – And talking about “gorgeous,” John Anderson’s early ’80s recording of this Glenn Ray tune set a bar for that when I was a child and, expectedly, Welch and Rawlings find every nuance in the loneliness of the text and the implicit hope in the way the character is still breathing and still choosing to stop by, the unspoken confirmation that they’ve got a future ahead along with the painful past they’re staring down right now. “That little Johnson boy from down the road was asking if the kids could come and play. Lord, I wish I could have told them yes, but I just said ‘I guess, son, not today.'”
Jim Lauderdale, “Lightning Love” – I like everything Jim Lauderdale does but most of my favorite work of his finds him playing with classic country music tone and texture and his new record Game Changer is rich with exactly that sweet spot of his writing and supple vocals. Tommy Detamore’s pedal steel provides almost orchestral accompaniment around a tight rhythm section. “Holding on to what we’ve got that’s sent from up above. Sunshine, wild skies, deep in your eyes – lightning love struck us.”
Nicki Bluhm, “Feel” – Nicki Bluhm, best known for her work with the mostly-acoustic Grumblers, opens up her sound and reminds me of her alacrity for singing all kinds of material on her new one Avondale Drive. The horn (courtesy of the great Karl Denson)-and-organ dappled subtle groove on this soul song, and her transitions from clipped, rhythm phrasing into an open-hearted croon, made it an immediate favorite of mine. “Sometimes I wonder can I ever change?”
Julia Jacklin, “Love, Try Not to Let Go” – Another track in a subtle soul vein that also fits my macro-tendency to end with a song I can think of as a benediction or a prayer. Laurie Torres’ drums and the piano line (either Jacklin herself or Ben Whiteley) encompass a whole world of hope and drifting, and the low-key vocal on the verses to the hyper-controlled burst of the chorus, keep me coming back. “The echo of that party the night I lost my voice; the silence that surrounds it no longer feels like a choice. I need you to believe me, when I say I find it hard to keep myself from floating away.”

Playlist record reviews

Playlist – July 2022

Probably the latest I’ve ever been on one of these, due to two extensive projects in August, which should both be hitting the same week (one’s been scheduled, one I need to take some photos/get some art for). September’s mostly put together, just needs to be arranged and written about. I love you all; thank you for reading or listening.

https://tidal.com/browse/playlist/dbe2d48e-4fe1-413c-8794-935eba8e01a9

Moor Mother featuring Aquiles Navarro and Alya Al Sultani, “Meditation Rag” – Jazz has always been an integral part of Moor Mother’s sound world and that influence comes to the fore in her breathtaking new record Jazz Codes. A tribute to influences and ancestors, she and her collaborators approach this history with the warmth, generosity of spirit, and intensity that stamps all of her work. Maybe my favorite album of hers yet. This track features trumpeter Aquiles Navarro, whose duet record with Tcheser Holmes is still in nigh-constant rotation for me, bringing his creamy, smoky tone and sense of melodic surprise, and British-Iraqi soprano Alya Al Sultani whose crystalline voice and sense of drama shines a different light through the layered beat and restrained Moor Mother vocal. “Maple Leaf Rag, Original Rag, Mississippi Rag, too much Jelly Roll. Too much Memphis blues. Bolden, Armstrong, cakewalk, Havana conga, hot jazz, Betsy and Duke. Dust jazz, musty Lester new ark, screams of justice.”
Earl Vallie, “Prom” – I knew Earl Vallie what feels like a lifetime ago, as a bartender at my local scene hub, Café Bourbon Street, as a wildly inventive visual artist, and as one of my favorite conversation partners. Since moving to the west coast, he’s made a series of beautiful, artfully askew singer-songwriter records under this name, and this new one, Ghost Approaches, made in collaboration with drummer-producer Greg Saunier from Deerhoof and bassist Joel Crocco, feels like a breakthrough. This track, rich with drama and texture, pairs Vallie’s rippling Roy Orbison vocal and that throbbing rhythm section with Heidi Alexander’s lilting backing vocals and Josh Theroux’s stinging electric guitar for a cracked look at an idealized past that never quite was, embroidered with vintage hipster slang.
John Scofield, “You Win Again” – From the first time I heard John Scofield in high school – on our NPR affiliate WCBE’s locally programmed music shows, I believe the one hosted by Maggie Brennan – his sound resonated with me. And seeing him live, from that first time at one of the Bump release shows with longtime pal Mike Gamble, through many other visits, that impression’s never changed. He’s taken a couple turns I wasn’t as interested in, but his ability to bring in and synthesize everything he loves without his playing feeling overstuffed or rococo, filtering everything through his love of the blues, his clarity, and his flow of ideas, continues to astound and delight me. For such a long and varied career, this eponymous record on ECM is his first solo album, and this delighted investigation of one of the greatest songs of the 20th century, Hank Williams’ “You Win Again,” sums up everything I love about Scofield as an interpreter. The bluesy slurs and unhurried nature, the deep understanding of the lyrics, and the refusal to use the song as a showcase for the technique are all wonders to behold.
Charles Ruggiero, “Altered States” – Drummer-bandleader Ruggiero’s seventh album, Roo Gee Air Oh!!! Is his first album of strictly his own compositions, and it’s a clear sign he should be writing more; each one of these tunes is catchy and enticing, with real meat for the players and listeners to sink our teeth into. Ruggiero’s drumming is perfect on tracks like this, laying back and hitting hard when the moment demands. Bassist Ugonna Okegwo’s warmth and depth are a highlight, exemplified by his melodic solo around five minutes into this tune. I didn’t know Jeremy Manasia’s piano playing very well, but it’s like slipping into a bubble bath here. And Stacy Dillard’s tenor feels custom-made for these songs, melting right into this one and leading us on a journey.
Bad Bunny featuring Tony Dize, “La Corriente” – My pal and former coworker Mary McCarroll turned me onto the new Bad Bunny record, Un Verano Sin Ti, and this quickly became one of my favorite songs on a record full of songs I love. The high moan of the synths and thudding bass around flattened drums adds up to a record I can’t get enough of.
El Alfa, “Chu Chu Pamela” – Dominican rapper El Alfa (Emanuel Herrera Batista), the reigning king of dembow, built an enduring and immediate dancefloor smash with “Chu Chu Pamela.” The undulating rhythm buffets and raises his snapping vocal, with interesting little touches as accents.
David Nance, “Amethyst” – Coming out of a more standard rock and roll background but featuring a similarly twisting, slinky rhythm, Nebraska’s David Nance’s 20-minute epic closer to his Pulverized and Slightly Peaced, featuring Nance playing all the instruments, is everything I want and too seldom get out of this kind of guitar jamming. Like my favorite Magnolia Electric Company or Oneida excursions, this jets through space but never feels formless, every digression leads to something else, and every shift has a sense of dramatic importance. This made me even more excited to see him with Anne at Gonerfest.
Vladislav Delay, “Isosusi” – Sasu Rupatti’s music has been a key part of my understanding of the world for so long that I’m not sure I can put my finger down on what I heard first, but I think it was his work under the Vladislav Delay name. The newest album under that guise, Isoviha, is a bursting picture of the overheated world we’re all facing. Taking the strains of techno, improvisation, and 20th-century composition, especially musique concrete, Delay places them together but leaves the seams, like a Julian Schnabel broken-plate portrait. With synthesized textures instead of Nance’s guitars, he paints a similar quest for a world that might never be.
Wormrot, “Seizures” – This Wormrot track, a standout from the Singaporean grindcore band’s fourth record Hiss, to my ears, plays with similarly abrasive and similarly searching textures as the Nance but makes them the fuel in the tank for a furious, raging vocal, vintage blast beat drums and wraps it all in a concise under-three-minute package.
Water Damage, “Reel 2” – This expansive track rides a taut, crisp groove featuring three drummers – Swans’ depth charge Thor Harris, visual artist Greg Piwonka, and Mike Kanin (Magic People, Expensive Shit) – two bassists – Marriage’s Jeff Piwonka and USA/Mexico’s Nate Cross – Spray Paint and Tuxedo Killer’s George Dishner on oily, grinding synth, and Travis Austin on bowed guitar. It kicks up the right amount of noise in the right proportions.
Winged Wheel, “Passive Jag” – We come into clearer but still complicated light with this track from a Detroit supergroup full of bands/artists I’ve loved for a long time, including recent Columbus ex-pat Mathew Rolin, Expensive Shit’s Cory Plump, Matchess’ Whitney Johnson, and Tyvek’s Fred Thomas (who Anne and I were just talking about recently in Detroit and are very much looking forward to finally seeing again at Gonerfest next month). In a lot of ways, it reminds me of one of my favorite Chicago bands, Disappears, but it’s without question its own thing, flecked with krautrock and shuddering post-punk, addictive, down-in-the-mix (maybe wordless) vocals and that gleaming guitar sound.
Maisie Kappler, “Fit for a Queen” – I’m a recent convert to Columbus singer-songwriter Maisie Kappler, but after she played an outdoor show recently, friends came back raving about her performance and her songs on a bill of some of our sharpest and most innovative bands of the moment. This perfect song weaves finely etched portraits of a grandmother into a thick, shimmering fog of drone and a melody that keeps me chasing it. “When I was younger, I asked my grandmother how she held on to her youth. She stared at her whiskey, then she answered, ‘vanity.’ Surely, it must have been true; and if so, I’ve nothing to lose.”
Johnny Gandelsman, “New to the Session” for Violin – Violinist Johnny Gandelsman’s magnum opus This Is America is part of a wave of classical/new music/whatever you want to call it records that have given me a lot of hope this month, engaging with the present moment in all its fucked-up-itude and still finding beauty in all of it. This Rhiannon Giddens composition is a standout, but I’ve gone back to the well of this album over and over again.
Kirk Knuffke, “The Sun Is Always Shining” – I think I fell for Kirk Knuffke’s cornet work when I was lucky enough to see my first Butch Morris conduction at the Bowery Poetry Club in the mid-’00s. That impression was cemented with the Steve Lacy tribute collective Ideal Bread (which also turned me onto Josh Stinton), and it’s grown deeper with every record since. His new trio, Gravity Without Airs, links him with two titans of the NYC improvisation scene from the previous generation, Matthew Shipp on piano and Michael Bisio on bass, and it’s every bit as good as you’d hope with those players. A marvel of coiled control and explosive joy, often at the same time, it moves and shakes, what feels like tossed-off fragments recur in surprising ways, and the ball is tossed from one player to the other in a way that only works with deep empathy and deep listening.
Ches Smith, “Mixed Metaphor” – Ches Smith is one of my favorite percussionists and drummers going way back, I think I first heard him with Mary Halvorson, but in recent years he’s blown me away time after time holding down the drum chair in Tim Berne’s Snakeoil (which took Anne and her Mom by surprise when we saw them in Chicago) and Marc Ribot’s Ceramic Dog as well as last year’s mind-blowing deep dive into Haitian music We All Break. His Interpret It Well takes the fascinating trio of violist Mat Maneri, keyboard player Craig Taborn, and Smith and brings in the melodic mystery of guitarist Bill Frisell. It’s a quarter that has all the mysteries of life in it and understands the beauty of quietness but can conjure a fiery meteor shower as easily as rain on the roof, then make you really see the smoldering ash in the aftermath.
Carole Nelson Trio, “Chrysalis” – Irish pianist Carole Nelson, with longtime foils bassist Cormac O’Brien and drummer Dominic Mullan, works with slightly sharper edges but conjures a sound world that reminds me a lot of the Knuffke and Smith with her terrific Night Visions album. This leadoff track highlights delirious, melting arco work from O’Brian and a rhythmic assurance in Nelson’s touch that never wavers no matter how much space she leaves her partners.
Kali Malone, “Living Torch I” – Stockholm-based composer Kali Malone trades the organic textures of a pipe organ for a bank of synthesizers and brings in the voices of Mats Äleklint on trombone and Isak Hedtjärn on bass clarinet. The textures in this, the evolution, takes my breath away.
John Moreland, “Claim Your Prize” – Tulsa singer-songwriter John Moreland expands his palette and view of the world on every record, and his sweeping and ferociously intimate Birds in the Ceiling hits buttons in my story-song-loving chest I don’t think have been pushed so hard since Fred Eaglesmith’s Dusty 18 years ago. Producer Matt Pence – who got my attention with Slobberbone offshoot The Drams’ Jubilee Drive, still one of my favorite summer-coming-on records and a couple of the best Glossary albums – adds sparse, unsettling drums to three tracks, including this one. John Calvin Abney’s keyboard textures and Bonnie Whitmore’s atmospheric, empathetic bass (and cello) work help put these dark songs that couldn’t help but draw you in inside an entire world of pain and reward. “I wasn’t sleeping. The moon was high this morning when your certain kind of sorrow came and touched me without warning. And the lies you tell yourself to try and feel okay, well, they all come at a price that somebody has to pay.”
Kimberly Kelly, “Person That You Marry” – Songwriter Lori McKenna is about as close as I have to a sure thing these days, and I think I found Kimberly Kelly through McKenna (who co-wrote this with Kelly and Brett Tyler) posting something on her Instagram. This finely chiseled high point of her rock-solid debut album, I’ll Tell You What’s Gonna Happen is an excellent showcase of the warmth of her voice and a stellar example of the power of country music to pay tribute and memorialize the moments we might all let slip past, given their proper beauty and weight through attention. “He didn’t drink that much. He didn’t just give up. He didn’t yell that loud; we would’ve worked it out, somehow. I knew you in love, but this is war: nothing’s fair, nothing’s sure.”
Vieux Farka Touré, “Les Racines” – One of my landmark musical moments – even still – was catching the Malian master Ali Farka Touré at the Southern Theater the summer between my first and sophomore years of college. I’d only recently discovered his records, but seeing it live in one of the best-sounding theaters I’ve still ever seen, made me feel like I was floating. His son Vieux Farka Touré has carried on and expanded upon that hallowed tradition with one great record after another, and Les Racines (French for “Roots”) is no exception. This title track centers on Touré’s lilting, thoughtful guitar melody and sets it amidst subtle percussion from Moussa Dembele and Madou Sidiki Diabate’s kora.
Isaiah Collier and the Chosen Few featuring Osunlade, “Guidance (Yoruba Soul Remix)” – Chicago saxophonist Isaiah Collier and his band the Chosen Few grapple with the pervasive spiritual and seeking influence of John Coltrane on last year’s Cosmic Transitions, which I’m sorry to say I missed until this remix by St Louis producer Osunlade hit my radar. It uses melody to get at a deeper truth, and it uses smoothness to create a backdrop for its searching; Collier’s solo around the five-minute mark feels like gold bubbling up through a stretch of desert no one’s walked upon in many years.
Feli Colina, “Diabla” – The sharp, hard-hitting piano driving this infectious dance smash from Argentinian Colina felt like it tied together with the tones of the previous couple of songs even though it operates on a different level of rhythmic intensity.
Tumi Mogorosi, “Walk with Me” – I don’t know a lot about the South African jazz scene. I assume I found this through Phil Freeman’s essential Stereogum column, but Tumi Mogorosi, a drummer and composer’s Group Theory: Black Music album, grabbed me and didn’t let go. The chorus mingles with some juicy horn writing for Mthunzi Mvubu on alto (who also gets an unhurried solo but with teeth here) and Tumi Pheko’s trumpet. Reza Khota’s guitar strings perfect diamond-bright-and-hard notes with a sense of melodic surprise and well-timed snarled warmth, all on the foundation of a stellar rhythm section of Mogorosi and Dalisu Ndlazi on bass.
Laura Veirs, “Signal” – I’ve been a fan of Veirs for a long time, probably starting when she was coming to the Wexner Center in 2007, but – as I was telling her occasional collaborator, video and film director Devin Febboriello when Anne and I had dinner with her and her husband Mike Gamble last week her new one, Found Light co-produced by Veirs and Shazad Ismaily, feels like a new statement of purpose, another level of feeling and clarity. The saunter of this track with drums that sound like they’re sneaking up on everything from around the corner and the flickering organ set up one of my favorite melodies and lyrics on an album I couldn’t find a bad track from. “I know you’re somewhere turning into your best self. I’m over here yearning, passing time best as I know how.”
Tyshawn Sorey Trio, “Enchantment” – Drummer Tyshawn Sorey has made waves in the last several years with his compositions, for his own groups, and for chamber ensembles, and I’m as big a fan of that as anybody. But his new album, Mesmerism, finds him assembling a record of standards, firmly in the jazz piano tradition with two of the finest exemplars of the form working today, Columbus native Aaron Diehl on piano and bassist Matt Brewer. Their take on this Horace Silver composition retains the beauty of its melody and pushes the groove a little, a similar rhythmic intensity but at a right angle to Silver’s always right-on-time funkiness. Hearing Diehl go slightly outside of his comfort zone (and I’ve been a big fan of his last several records) and experiencing Sorey applying his signature drumming to a series of classics is an unalloyed delight.
Quiet Sonia, “No Weeping Melts the Armor” – I fell for the expansiveness of this seven-piece Danish folk-rock band; I like the crescendoing beginning, the swells, the ebbs and flows of this 15-minute track that at times reminds me of The National and Destroyer around songs by Nikolaj Bruus that almost dare you to make a linear narrative out of them. “Now salvage your last scraps of dignity, show some guts, soul, and presence. ‘Cause I’ve seen the last of the human cities, and tears welled up in my eyes.”
Wade Bowen featuring Vince Gill, “A Guitar, A Singer, and A Song” – Wade Bowen carries the torch of various strains of Texas country, and his lovely, lived-in tenor gets a damn fine showcase in this Lori McKenna co-write, a standout from his new one Somewhere Between the Secret and the Truth, with a gorgeous assist on the bridge from one of the genre’s finest modern harmony singers and guitarists, Vince Gill. “So, I’ll write you a thousand songs, and I’ll play you a thousand shows. It’ll feel like a thousand years. Some will remember me, and some won’t.”
Alessandro Napolitano, “I’ll Remember Jimmy” – Italian jazz drummer Alessandro Napolitano assembles a quartet of Columbus B-3 titan Tony Monaco, guitarist Fabio Zeppetella, and vibes player Mark Sherman for a swinging eponymous record NZMS including this romp through a Monaco composition in tribute to the great Jimmy Smith.
Nicky Egan, “This Life” – This title track from Brooklyn singer-songwriter Nicky Egan’s debut album on Colemine Records, who can seem to do no wrong lately, plays with similar themes of memory and acceptance, and similar tone worlds, bathed in the August light that spills in the windows of a bar or coffee shop in mid-afternoon.
Bree Runway, “Somebody Like You” – Racing headlong into the yearning the last few songs hinted at, and following it straight up to the stars, Bree Runway crafts a tribute to the person she hopes to meet, wrapped in blankets of liquid synths and a cracking drum machine part under a soaring melody. “Don’t wanna wait till morning hours. Don’t wanna wait too long; let’s dive in.”
Claudia Valentina, “Extra Agenda” – A more up-tempo R&B track, this infectious Claudia Valentina tune feels like youthful infatuation and makes me miss those days you could find me in the club as often as at a show. That layered autotune at the very edge of the uncanny valley, and the flattened, synthetic drums drive that catchy melody to the back of the stands. “When I need your taste, don’t walk; run it.”
Brooklyn Queen, “Mentions” – Turning up the intensity, this track from Detroit-based rapper Brooklyn Queen recalls the wider social aspects, glee, and frustration of youth, at a barreling pace. “Why you in my mentions with the bullshit?”
BAYLI, “think of drugs” – I’m a sucker for a good love-as-drugs metaphor, and this powerful, intimate track by Brooklyn’s BAYLI is the best take on that I’ve heard in years. BAYLI balances heaviness and joy in this perfect three-minute pop song, piecing together her own Queer identity, facing childhood trauma, and building her identity, with a melody that sneaks up on and surprises you. “I don’t care, truth or dare – I was never really scared. I’m not sad, I’m not sad, I’m just letting go of tears. Caught the bag in my lap for the cold, hard pill, it don’t matter how I feel, ‘cause the pain is really real.”
Esthesis Quartet, “Cricket” – This leadoff track from the exciting debut album of Esthesis Quartet, written and rehearsed over Zoom during the lockdown and recorded in Los Angeles, exemplifies the sense of joy and tactile play inherent in creation I get throughout their eponymous record. The fluid melody from flute player Elsa Nilsson in the intro returns in more of the mode of flute on the classic James Brown records after some raucous barrelhouse piano from Dawn Clement, held together by the melodic power of Emma Dayhuff’s bass work and Tina Raymond’s surprising, funky clatter on the drums.
Mariel Buckley, “Shooting At The Moon” – Mariel Buckley commands a more straightforward groove with the same sense of reckless abandon as the last couple of songs. I enjoyed her previous two records, but the new one, Everywhere I Used To Be, really knocks me over. The smears of pedal steel and swinging bounce of the bass against the straighter time of the drums feels like a sniper’s sight being narrowed at memory the character just can’t shake. “I hear the echo bouncing off the walls; it sounds a lot like me. All the other voices sound so sweet, but honey, they don’t know who I used to be.”
Rose Gold, “Addicted” – Baltimore R&B singer Rose Gold gives us a torch song for the ages, with crisp, subtle drumming, sweeping strings, and a sweeping melody sung with finesse and control. She doesn’t bite off lyrics like “I hear my mama, like, ‘Why am I not fucking perfect?’ Why can’t I kick this shit? I think I’m addicted,” she drizzles them over you, letting the pain sink in over time.
Lera Lynn, “Eye in the Sky” – Lera Lynn’s Something More Than Love zooms between the wide angle and the close-up. Co-written and produced with her partner Todd Lombardo, this closing track takes advantage of every crevice and nuance of her voice, with a subtle, sympathetic backing as the record leaves questions hanging in the air, telling an elliptical story that’s always colored with a sense of hope and promise and burdened with expectations. “High on pride, you thought you were flying, but you might be wrong. Eye in the sky like someone was watching you all along. Mmm-hmm. But you might be wrong.”
Tami Neilson, “The Grudge” – The lacerating strings arranged by Victoria Kelly and oily banjo-led creep of the tempo on this sleek narrative from her excellent fifth album, The Kingmaker, part warning and part beckoning, and the coiled restraint of Tami Neilson’s muscular voice recalls Bobbie Gentry, murder-ballad Dolly Parton, and a slew of artists who came out of that still-beguiling swamp after, like Neko Case, Arum Rae, and Grey DeLisle, but she threads the needle of nodding to that rich history without being too beholden to it.
MELD, “Eye on the Road” – Nashville’s MELD’s new single has enough sunshine bounce to appeal to the jam band crowd, but her background in both Americana and vintage soul gives the tune enough ballast and grit to keep it grounded. That chorus, a cry in the dark, playing with the classic metaphor of the road as life – ending in the same “final destination” and paying tribute to someone gone, with a horn arrangement I can’t get enough of, pushing and supporting her golden voice. “Now it’s time I find my way away from the hands that shelter me.”
Dylan Triplett, “All Blues” – I’m pretty sure I have John Wendland’s excellent KDHX radio show – Memphis to Manchester – to thank for turning me on to St Louis’ 21-year-old R&B phenom Dylan Triplett. Somehow, I’d missed the Oscar Brown Jr lyrics at some point grafted onto this Miles Davis classic off Kind of Blue, but I love the jaunty, swinging Friday night take Triplett gives this tune I’ve played a thousand times.
Anna Butterss featuring Josh Johnson, “Number One” – This first solo album from LA bassist Anna Butterss who’s logged time with Makaya McCraven and Phoebe Bridgers, is a perfect example of music that encompasses the entire world as she sees it. Her flowing, twisting bass lines and synth stabs build whole landscapes out of light with Johnson’s (Chicago Underground Quartet, Jeff Parker and the New Breed, Leon Bridges) alto sax.
Lyle Lovett, “The Mocking Ones” – Someone else with one foot in jazz and one in lyric-oriented songwriting, Lyle Lovett’s never made a bad record, but his new one, 12^th of July, was even more of a boon than usual. With a mix of great takes on standards and some of his sharp and warm originals, I wrestled with which song to put on this list. I kept coming back to this tribute to friendship and the pleasures of continuing to live. “I said before, and now the long time’s come to wait, forget, and still remember some. To hold our heads above the laughing tongues falling from the faces of the mocking ones.”
Horace Andy, “Try Love” – Another of my favorite voices – of an earlier vintage though I probably discovered the great roots reggae singer-songwriter Horace Andy around the same time I found Lovett’s work. This highlight off his new record, Midnight Rocker, pairs him with Adrian Sherwood of On-U Sound, and the arrangements make his voice pop without obscuring any of the wear or wisdom age has bestowed on that great instrument.
Omah lay, “Bend You” – This low-key but neon splashed seduction from Nigerian singer recalls the Andy to me in senses of timbre and control. A three am classic when the lights are about to come on too soon.
Sampa the Great featuring Denzel Curry, “Lane” – Zambian-born, Botswana-raised rapper-singer Sampa the Great teams up with Florida rapper Denzel Curry on this defiant, potent track about not staying in your lane, over smoky production from Power Pleasant (those suspended organ chords toward the middle get me every time). “Look at that now. You were staying in your lane. You was thinking that I had one. Thinking you’re Geppetto, pulling strings. You ain’t get the memo.”
Theo Croker featuring Jill Scott, “TO BE WE” – I came to know trumpeter-bandleader Theo Croker through late-night sets at Winter Jazzfest, often leading stellar, star-studded jam sessions with simultaneous confidence. He brings that same unshowy ethos and gorgeous tone that can slice through any barroom conversation or anxious monologue to his new record Love Quantum. Featured vocalist Jill Scott I’ve been a fan of since her first record in 2000, which I bought the week it was released, only knowing she co-wrote the Roots single “You Got Me.” Her mix of slow-burn singing and spoken word still punches me right in the solar plexus, and she adds the right flavors to this expansive slow jam “Freedom is my favorite position.”
Ruger featuring Harlem Richard$ and Jace, “Possession (Remix) – I couldn’t find much about this track by Nigerian singer-rapper Ruger, but I love it. The repeated, melting piano chords in the background, the stuttered typewriter drums, and the warbly, distorted backing vocals are like shadows on a brick wall.
Ronnie Foster, “Swingin’” – I owe thanks to dear friend Andrew Patton for turning me onto organist Ronnie Foster’s return to Blue Note with the delightful Reboot. Best known for an appearance on Songs in the Key of Life and a long association with George Benson, this track brings Foster back to his organ trio roots with the simpatico camaraderie of Michael O’Neill on guitar and Jimmy Branly on drums.
Binker Golding, “Howling and drinking in God’s own country” – Sax player Binker Golding is another light from that London jazz scene you all know I’m crazy about. His new record, Dream Like a Dogwood Wild Boy, is jam-packed with interesting melodies and intense playing. Guitarist Billy Adamson adds some unsettling accents and twangy texture that ties the previous song and the one after together, as does Sarah Tandy’s jaunty, running forward but always grounded piano (check that solo around the 4-minute mark) and the crisp rhythm section of Daniel Casimir and Sam Jones.
Dan Tyminski with Dailey and Vincent, “Ten Degrees and Getting Colder” – Dan Tyminski, who I became familiar with as Allison Krauss’s baritone vocal foil, contributes an excellent addition to the canon of Tony Rice tribute albums with his EP One More Time Before You Go, pairing with bluegrass band Dailey and Vincent on this lovely read of a Gordon Lightfoot classic Rice sang on the eponymous JD Crowe and the New South album.
Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith, “Have You Felt Lately” – Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith uses the stretched-taffy tones, and bright, sharp colors of synthesizers and the stuttered drums and percussion of EDM and runs it through a filter of experience. The pitched-up vocals and the low, rumbling horn sounds collide against each other, painting a larger picture in the time span of a pop song.
Amanda Shires, “Bad Behavior” – I’ve liked every Amanda Shires record more than the last, but the new one, Take It Like a Man, blew every expectation I had out of the water in the best possible way. Working with producer Lawrence Rothman, she found the most sympathetic collaborator I think she’s ever had for every element of her interests and curiosity. This swirling series of faded photographs of giving into our worst impulses, with an arrangement full of echoing synths, hard drums, and a come hither vocal for the ages, has kept me coming back again and again. “Call it bad behavior. Maybe I like strangers. So what if I do? Maybe I only think about you.”

Tags Alessandro Napolitano, Alya Al Sultani, Amanda Shires, Anna Butterss, Aquiles Navarro, Bad Bunny, BAYLI, Binker Golding, Bree Runway, Brooklyn Queen, Carole Nelson, Charles Ruggiero, Ches Smith, Claudia Valentina, Dailey and Vincent, Dan Tyminski, David Nance, Denzel Curry, Dylan Triplett, Earl Vallie, El Alfa, Esthesis Quartet, Feli Colina, Harlem Richard$, Horace Andy, Isaiah Collier, Jace, Jill Scott, John Moreland, John Scofield, Johnny Gandelsman, Josh Johnson, Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith, Kali Malone, Kimberly Kelly, kirk knuffke, Laura Veirs, Lera Lynn, Lyle Lovett, Maisie Kappler, Mariel Buckley, MELD, moor mother, music, Nicky Egan, Omah lay, Osunlade, Playlist, Quiet Sonia, recorded music, Ronnie Foster, Rose Gold, Ruger, Sampa the Great, Theo Croker, Tony Dize, Tony Monaco, Tumi Mogorosi, Tyshawn Sorey, Vieux Farka Toure, Vince Gill, Vladislav Delay, Wade Bowen, Water Damage, Winged Wheel, Wormrot