Slow getting going this month between Big Ears and a front-loaded slate of contracted writing for other outlets, but it was good revisiting and chipping away at this over a period of weeks. I’ve always loved Spring and there’s a bounty of music to celebrate it with. Hat tip to Andrew Patton for letting me know the embed in the preview that worked fine last time didn’t work on all browsers so this time I’m separately placing the embed and the link as a separate link. Fingers crossed. Thank you all for listening, reading, or both.
Finally moved off Spotify to Tidal, I doubt this is the final stop but at least it has Joni Mitchell who I listen to just about weekly, and the interface didn’t suck – tried a couple that handled playlists really badly. And, of course, there are more important things to think about, and I make donations and try to stay informed, but nobody’s looking for my ill-informed take on the horrific invasion of Ukraine, so I try to stay in touch with beauty where I find it and tell people “Hey, this is great – it made my day or week or month better.” Thanks for reading and listening.
Once again, this was a boon to me personally, it did my heart and brain good to be reminded of and repeatedly engaged by the sheer amount of music there to love even in the coldest, grayest time of the year. And while I’ve said repeatedly that Spotify is awful – and I’ve never used it for the podcasts I indulge in – the number of artists pulling their work from it, particularly Joni Mitchell who I listen to nigh-weekly, is finally nudging me to shift.
This was already half-done and written but it’ll be the last playlist using Spotify unless something changes down the road. Long term plan is probably SoundCloud or Mixcloud, a transitional period of the next couple of months will be another streaming service (I know they’re all terrible). Continue reading for my rambling descriptions.
After the reactions to last year’s more formal (as opposed to background for a Pink Elephant) playlist honoring people who passed away that made an impression on me. I tried to keep better, more methodical track, and good lord. So many people who changed how I heard things or turned me around on a genre, who deepened my connection with a kind of music or got me interested in a genre, who connected me with people. The person the track stands for who passed away is in parentheses.
On that same note, there are people who aren’t musicians or producers who have as great an impact on my understanding and love of music who should be acknowledged. Lane Campbell, who I probably knew less well than 50 people on my friends list, but who I met at Twangfest many years ago and still remembered me well enough to see me on my front lawn during the pandemic when he and his partner were visiting Columbus and stop to say hello. I thought about him a lot after that chance meeting, and more after he passed away, often revisiting music I loved that I hadn’t gone back to as often in recent years.
George Wein, who created the contemporary music festival, and certainly helped create the versions of it I still love even as I grumble about the ubiquity and encroachment of the festival as a thing: it’s easy to draw a line that there’s no Big Ears without Newport Folk and Jazz Festivals, no Nelsonville without New Orleans’s jazz fest. I finally read the great autobiography co-written by Nate Chinen this year and it made an impression on me.
Wrapping this up on January 3nd, with a second case of COVID, and grateful to meet another day. Thankful for anyone reading this, anyone who turned me onto any of these artists, and anyone I might talk about them with. I’m sure I’ve missed some, I always do. That impossibility is one of the things that keeps me going. Continue reading if you’re interested in my rambling.
The other half of things I found and loved over the course of this year. These are the tunes that stabbed me in the heart or colored the world in a different way. The songs/spaces distinction is obviously porous and often ambiguous, but in general, I think of stuff that hits this list as landscapes or sculptures, atmospheres, not as much telling a linear story. Frequently instrumental. But there’s probably 20% if you asked me in a week, I’d put it on the other list. Continue reading for my rambling notes.
For a year that vacillated wildly between jubilation at seeing people I hadn’t seen in contexts I hadn’t seen for over a year and utter despair that so much of the world is still a garbage fire, one of the consistent comforts came from the flood of music I loved.
Like last year, I loosely grouped these into “Songs” and “Spaces.” There are a number of items that could have fit on either list, this is definitely based on feel. In general, songs have lyrics and deal with a more direct emotion. Spaces should be posted tomorrow, Parting Gifts, a tribute to the (many) musicians who died this year who meant something or everything to me, will hopefully go out by the end of the weekend.
As per the last couple years, my comments will be with more wide-ranging playlists going up in a week or so, this is a place holder because I do like to look back at a snapshot of what records spoke to me as I looked back on the year. Bandcamp links where available.
New Material
Allison Russell, Outside Child
Tyshawn Sorey and Alarm Will Sound, For George Lewis/Autoschediasms
John Paul Keith, The Rhythm of The City
Moor Mother, Black Encyclopedia of the Air
Genesis Owusu, Smiling With No Teeth
(Could not find Bandcamp)
Marisa Anderson and William Tyler, Lost Futures
Reigning Sound, A Little More Time With The Reigning Sound
Sons of Kemet, Black To The Future
Powers/Rolin Duo, Strange Fortune
William Parker, Migration of Silence Into and Out of the Tone World
Adia Victoria, A Southern Gothic
Moviola, Broken Rainbows
Arooj Aftab, Vulture Prince
Gentleman Jesse, Lose Everything
James Brandon Lewis’s Red Lily Quartet, Jesup Wagon
Yasmin Williams, Urban Driftwood
Jojra Smith, Be Right Back
(Couldn’t Find Bandcamp)
James McMurtry, The Horses and The Hounds
Elizabeth King, Living in the Last Days
Sylvie Courvoisier and Mary Halvorson, Searching For the Disappeared Hour
Reissue and/or Archival
Various Artists, It’s a Good, Good Feeling: The Latin Soul of Fania Records
(Couldn’t Find Bandcamp)
PJ Harvey, Stories From The City, Stories From the Sea – Demos
(Couldn’t Find Bandcamp)
Various Artists, The Daptone Super Soul Revue LIVE at the Apollo
The Long Blondes, Someone To Drive You Home: 15th Anniversary Edition
It feels like Fall, my favorite season, in more than one sense. And this marks a full year since I’ve been doing these – they helped keep me tethered to some sense of loving music and art and wanting to share that with people even as other outlets dried up in the depths of last year, and I’m grateful for anyone who pressed play, who said something kind or told me they found a song or an artist they didn’t hear before, or who read any of these notes. Thanks, as always.
Stumbled hard a few times this month but righted the ship. Still struggling with some levels of burnout but I see the light, and I’ve started some habits that are showing some positive signs. And had some remarkable feelings of normality, in all the best ways – the first weekend I had to review three shows. First writing for a new outlet run by good friends.
Seeing other friends for the first time in person since before the pandemic and good lord, it’s amazing how much energy I’ve missed from those people it never would have occurred to see every week or anything but who bring something ineffable to my life. First Pink Elephant in 18 months, coupled with returning from Gonerfest and a full week of theater reviews led to this being a little more delayed than I’d like; back to the first week of the month next month.
And this, the year anniversary of these playlists which give me more joy than I expected when I started and I’ve gotten remarkably positive feedback about. Thanks for listening. Thanks for letting me know what you think. Thanks for being here. I love you.
Had a hard time getting going, a hard time connecting for the first half of this month: to music, to relationships, to writing. Some of that was the lingering fallout from my COVID breakthrough case, part was in response to the overwhelming, oppressive heat beyond what Ohio’s used to in August, and some was just ennui, the wall I hit after rushing too hard to get things close to a normal we might not see again without making the proper allowances for stamina and change.
But I made it through, some interactions with old and new friends, a couple astonishing shows, some mind-blowing theatre as local troupes come back, and a handful of those moments where I was playing a new record while I’m on the treadmill at the gym or walking to the bus to work and a song felt like a lightning bolt going up and down my spine. They all reminded me why I do this and what I want to be. Thanks for listening and checking in. I hope you find something to enjoy here.
As usual, keep reading below for notes on the songs.
Screen of Distance 