Tag: Tony Monaco

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.”