Music Notes
By 
I’ve had a lot going on these last few weeks and have somewhat lost the thread on keeping track of musical issues. But here’s a brief discussion just to clear the deck and start anew.
This has been a live music heavy period for me. But I don’t want to do all of this at once, so I will split it up over the next few weeks. Let’s start with two recent shows. First, I saw Sleaford Mods play at the Paradise in Boston. That’s an interesting show. I love the band–electropunk with great beats and just utter and complete ranting over the top of it in a pisstaking political way. It works live too, but it is somewhat funny to see because the guy with the beats really has nothing to do but key up the computer between songs. So he sort of dances around like a goofball while the vocalist unleashes his titanic, unquenchable, brilliant anger about life.
Second, I saw U.S. Girls play at The Bowery in Boston. I love Meg Remy’s project and she puts on a great show. Lefty dance rock music works for me. You feel when watching this like she and the band could just really turn it up to a delirious state whenever they want, but they mostly keep it all at a simmer, keeping you moving while also making sure the lyrics are crystal clear. I haven’t heard her new album yet, much of which I know is about motherhood and she closed with her breastfeeding song, so I can’t speak too much to the new work yet, but it certainly sounded good live and she played a liberal set of songs from her previous few albums, including “Four American Dollars,” though sadly not “M.A.H.” or “Age of Plastics.”
We lost Ahmad Jamal recently. I confess to not really being that deeply knowledgeable about his music. What I do know, and everyone went here, is his influence on Miles Davis and one thing I always appreciate about people like Jamal, Miles, and much later, Bill Frisell, is the ability to play the silences, limiting the notes and creating space. But I need to explore this huge gap in my knowledge.
I don’t know The Pop Group at all, but Mark Stewart, its lead singer, died.
I really have nothing to offer about Gordon Lightfoot. He never did a lot for me, but I have nothing against him either. So if you all are needing to talk more about him in the comments, go for it.
Ranking of REM’s top 40 songs.
Can’t as say I had noticed this really, but the overall mixing of vocals in music has quieted down a lot in the last couple of decades. I guess I had noticed this in indie rock, but I figured it just a stylistic choice.
The AV Club has really tailed off in the last couple of years in my opinion and one example of this is that the site no longer reviews albums, the last being Taylor Swift in October 2022.
I don’t know Erin Gee, but I do know Linda May Han Oh, mostly from Vijay Iyer’s trio, and she is awesome and so I am glad she won a Herb Alpert Award in the Arts, which comes with $75,000 among other benefits. A lot for a jazz artist. Will have to check out Gee’s work.
Dolly Parton has decided to make a Rawk album and has a bunch of collaborators and I am disappointed that Kid Rock is one of them. Dolly is a lot less of a saint than a lot of people want to think and so I am more bummed by this than surprised.
Playlist for the last four weeks. You’d think that over a four week span I’d listen to a bunch of albums repeatedly, but no, the answer is two in a month. I guess that’s probably typical. Good thing I have a good memory for these sorts of things.
- Johnny Paycheck, On His Way
- John Coltrane, Blue Train
- Tom Russell, Borderland
- Laura Veirs, Warp and Weft
- Old 97s, Too Far to Care
- Father John Misty, I Love You Honeybear
- Neko Case/k.d. lang/Laura Veirs, Case/lang/Veirs
- Margo Price, Midwest Farmer’s Daughter
- Jim Lauderdale, Time Flies
- Adia Victoria, A Southern Gothic
- Tom T. Hall, 100 Children
- Doc Watson, Elementary Doctor Watson
- Ray Price, Sweetheart of the Year
- Richard Thompson, Rumor and Sigh
- Alejandro Escovedo, A Man Under the Influence
- Father John Misty, Fear Fun
- Bob Wills & The Texas Playboys, The Tiffany Transcriptions, Vol. 4
- Terry Allen, Lubbock (On Everything)
- Rilo Kiley, Under the Blacklight
- William Parker, Voices from the Sky, disc 1
- Ennio Morricone, The Legendary Italian Westerns
- Tom Russell, Poor Man’s Dream
- Sly & The Family Stone, There’s a Riot Goin’ On
- Paul Simon, Graceland
- Hacienda Brothers, Arizona Motel
- Richard Buckner, Dents and Shells
- Stevie Wonder, Songs in the Key of Life, disc 1
- Empress Of, Us
- Millie Jackson, Still Caught Up
- Allman Brothers, Eat a Peach
- Warren Zevon, Excitable Boy
- Eels, Blinking Lights and Other Revelations, disc 1
- Dolly Parton, Just Because I’m a Woman
- Christopher Paul Stelling, Itinerant Arias
- The Steeldrivers, self-titled
- Sleater Kinney, All Hands on the Bad One
- Sault, Today & Tomorrow
- Camper Van Beethoven, New Roman Times
- Yo La Tengo, I Can Hear the Heart Beating as One x2
- The Louvin Brothers, Tragic Songs of Life
- Waxahatchee, Saint Cloud
- Ron Miles, Woman’s Day
- Pucho & The Latin Soul Brothers, Jungle Fire
- Bill Callahan, Dream River
- Art Blakey, The Witch Doctor
- Guy Clark, Boats to Build
- Tammy Wynette, 20 Greatest Hits
- Billy Bang, Outline No. 12
- Billy Bang, Vietnam: Reflections
- Torres, Thirstier
- Flaco Jimenez, Squeeze Box King
- Richard Thompson, You? Me? Us? disc 1
- Richard & Linda Thompson, Shoot Out the Lights
- Robbie Fulks, Georgia Hard
- Lydia Loveless, Real
- 2 Chainz, The Play Don’t Care Who Makes It
- Miles Davis, Bitches Brew Live
- Lorelle Meets the Obsolete, De Facto
- Talking Heads, Remain in Light
- Conway Twitty, Twenty-Five Number Ones
- Algiers, There Is No Year
- Sunny Sweeney, Heartbreakers Hall of Fame
- Parquet Courts, Sunbathing Animal
- Smog, Dongs of Sevotion
- U.S. Girls, In a Poem Unlimited x2
- REM, Document
- Patterson Hood, Killers and Stars
- Mitski, Puberty 2
- Old & In the Way, That High Lonesome Sound
- Richard Buckner, Our Blood
- Gary Stewart, Out of Hand
- Merle Haggard, Down Every Road, disc 2
- Suzy Bogguss, Aces
- Buddy Tabor, Edge of Despair
- Willie Nelson, Phases and Stages
- Laura Veirs, The Lookout
- Ray Price, I Fall to Pieces
- Clyde Moody, A Country Tribute to Fred Rose
- Tracy Nelson, Mother Earth Presents Tracy Nelson Country
- Wussy, self-titled
- The Who, Who’s Next
- The Paranoid Style, A Goddamn Impossible Way of Life
- Guy Clark, The South Coast of Texas
- Daddy Issues, Deep Dream
- Sleater-Kinney, Call the Doctor
- Tom Russell, Love & Fear
- Tropical Fuck Storm, A Laughing Death in Meatspace
- Imrahan, Temet
- Ornette Coleman, Crisis
- Herbie Hancock, Live Aarhus, Denmark 1971
- Sonny Sharrock, Seize the Rainbow
- Johnny Cash, With His Hot and Blue Guitar
- Tom T. Hall, In Search of a Song
- Pink Floyd, Wish You Were Here
- Leonard Cohen, I’m Your Man
- John Moreland, In the Throes
- Merle Haggard, A Portrait of Merle Haggard
- Herbie Hancock, Live Boston 1973
- Patterson Hood, Murdering Oscar (And Other Love Songs)
- Blood Orange, Freetown Sound
- Darius Jones, Man’ish Boy
- The White Stripes, Elephant
- Richard Thompson, The Life and Music of Richard Thompson, disc 2
- Led Zeppelin, Led Zeppelin I
- Traffic, John Barleycorn Must Die
- Chris Gaffney, Loser’s Paradise
- King Crimson, The Great Deceiver, disc 2
- Waylon Jennings, Dreaming My Dreams
- The Rolling Stones, Exile on Main Street
- Si Para Usted: The Funky Beats of Revolutionary Cuba, vol. 2
- Built to Spill, There’s Nothing Wrong with Love
- Bobby Bare, Cowboys and Daddys
- Miles Davis, Live Europe 67, disc 2
- Joe Ely, Honky Tonk Masquerade
- Miles Davis, In a Silent Way
- LCD Soundsystem, Sound of Silver
- The Beatles, The White Album
- Living Colour, Stain
- Sonny Sharrock, Ask the Ages
- Marika Hackman, Any Human Friend
- Marty Robbins, R.F.D. Marty Robbins
- William Parker & The Little Huey Creative Music Orchestra, Sunrise in the Town World
- Grateful Dead, Dick’s Picks, Vol. 4, disc 1
- The Coathangers, The Devil You Know
- Gillian Welch, Hell Among the Yearlings
- McCoy Tyner, Sahara
- Eddie Hinton, Very Extremely Dangerous
- John Coltrane, Coltrane Jazz
- Byron Berline & John Hickman, Double Trouble
- Cari Lee & the Saddle-ites, Red Barn Baby
- Old 97s, Hitchhike to Rhome
- Lucinda Williams, self-titled
- Willie Nelson, God’s Problem Child
- Miles Davis, Birth of the Cool
- Sun Ra, Purple Night
- Al Green, Call Me
- V/A, ¡Conjunto! Tex-Mex Border Music, Vol. 3
- Kris Kristofferson, The Essential, disc 1
- V/A, Top Country Hits of the 1960s
- Carolina Chocolate Drops, Dona Got a Ramblin’ Mind
- V/A, The Man of Somebody’s Dreams: A Tribute to Chris Gaffney
- Tom T. Hall, All Time Favorite Country Songwriter
- Ashley Monroe, Like a Rose
- Bill Frisell, Quartet
- Lucinda Williams, Sweet Old World
- Cuong Vu Trio, Meets Pat Metheny
- Led Zeppelin, IV
- Buddy Tabor, Earth & the Sky
- Merle Haggard, Down Every Road, disc 1
- William Parker, Double Sunrise Over Neptune
- Robbie Fulks, Georgia Hard
- Richard Thompson, Rock City, Live in Nottingham, 1986
- Vijay Iyer, Break Stuff
- Stevie Wonder, Signed, Sealed, and Delivered
Album Reviews:
Mabe Fratti, Se Ve Desde AquĂ
Fascinating set of compositions from this Guatemalan cellist who sings and uses a lot of electronics in her work as well. This is tremendously popular with the taste-making and critical crowd. It has an interesting construction, with a lot of guests from the fertile Mexico City scene, where Fratti lives. I would probably like to hear more traditional song structures here with more prominence to the voice, though I guess there is more of that here than in in her earlier works. Minimum, this is a worthy listen.
B
Saba, Few Good Things
I thought Care for Me was a pretty fantastic album, so figured I’d better check out Saba’s latest, from last year. Don’t know that it moved me as much as that album, but that might also be a mood related thing. Also, the other issue is that Care for Me was Saba dealing with the murder of his cousin and the intensity of this can’t be repeated here and who would want him to? He is still focused on loss, but he is also focused on the role of money in his life and how his money ends up supporting a lot of people. It’s hard to be a successful person in a poor community.
B+
Saadet Turkoz and Beat Keller, We Are Strong
Turkoz is a Turkish jazz musician who decided to go full experimental here, recording an album with a guitarist for Chinabot that eschewed anything from her usual career and instead focused on voice, effects, traditional music stylings, and electronic experimentation. It’s…..quite a listen. This is challenging music, no question and whether anyone could all these vocal stylings pleasant exactly, I don’t know. But for people who might love John Zorn or Marc Ribot’s more outre stuff, not to mention those into Middle Eastern music, this is a must hear. I am also imagining my wife’s reaction to this and let’s just say…..it would not be positive.
B–
Vieux Farka Toure & Khruangbin, Ali
Ever since I first heard Khurangbin, I thought that this was not nearly as interesting a band as everyone said but that they would be a great backing band, which is exactly how I have always thought about Calexico. So they went and proved it by backing Vieux Farka TourĂ© last year. This is fantastic. So often, when you see cross-cultural collaborations in so-called “world music,” it ends up being a boring combination that takes away from the strengths of both of them. But not here. TourĂ© sounds basically as transformative as he always does, but then you have Khurangbin doing super fascinating stuff underneath that both appeals to their strengths and adds to TourĂ©. Very cool.
A
Lucinda Chua, Yian
Thoughtful and tasteful discussion on what it means to be a member of the Chinese diaspora. Maybe not so exciting though as what is essentially a soundscape project. I have a real hard time seeing this be riveting in a live performance. The ephemeral has never been my root.
B
Ada Rave/Aaron Lumley/Onno Govaert, Bioluminus
Really good set from this Dutch trio. Rave is on sax, Govaert on drums, Lumley on bass. I hadn’t heard any of these people before and I liked it a bit more than I often do with European jazz groups that are do disconnected from the Black musical tradition and Black history that it feels like something coming out of the conservatories. But in this case, this is some impressive interaction between these three musicians that really push the envelope. This is pretty aggressive music and as such keeps one’s attention riveted to the next action. Maybe some of it is that Rave is Argentine and Lumley is Canadian and the international influences are also coming through in this quite worthy project.
A-
Cemento, Killing Life
Good rocking unhappy post-punk. Big choruses. Super pulsating bass, reverby guitar. I don’t think this is great exactly–it’s definitely breaking new ground. But within the genre, it’s a fun one.
B
Paramore, This is Why
At their best, Paramore kind of rules and This is Why explains the reason. The band has shifted so many times over the years and does again here. more indie rock and post punk than in the past. Lots of songs about the hell of the last few years and dealing with it as an individual. If you are a fan of bands never changing their sound, this might not be for you. But I thought it was mostly pretty excellent. A couple of weaker songs on the second half, “Liar” especially, does diminish the overall impact to an extent. But it’s solid work.
B+
Ixachitlan, Eagle, Quetzal, and Condor
Indigenous metal. I can’t find a lot out about the band and where the members are from. I can’t say I’ve ever heard anything quite like this–the indigenous influences are front and center here, but I still hate metal, no matter how many times I try to listen to it. So I can’t say I like this, but I can say that I respect the idea and I can say that you metal fans out there should at least hear it. Plus it’s only about 20 minutes and even I can handle 20 minutes of metal. I may however stop my metal experiment. It’s clear after many albums that I just hate metal and I’m not sure I am using my time effectively trying to find a way into it.
C
Dendrons, 5-3-8
Pretty decent propulsive rock and roll. Not sure we are talking about the level of Parquet Courts here, but we are talking about a good album in this sub-genre. More complex playing here than one might expect, especially in the rhythms. More than a little Talking Heads here. Fun.
B
Kehlani, Blue Water Road
Excellent R&B album from last year. This covers the kind of romantic world one expects from the genre, but it can range from beautiful to nasty depending on the song. This is also an openly queer album, as Kehlani came out as a lesbian not long ago. That never hurts, not these days in a world where one wants artists to represent the full range of human expression, especially that which is oppressed. Kehlani also manages to expand the sonic palette a lot more than in the past. Sure, this is still a hip hop infused album, but it also has lush sounds coming out of the studio and older pop forms. Good stuff.
A-
Ravyn Lenae, HYPNOS
Perfectly fine R&B record from last year, though if we are comparing it to the Kehlani album, one can see where it isn’t quite great. But as a debut, this shows an artist with a ton of promise. She’s been floating around for nearly a decade, mostly working the clubs of Chicago and appearing on other people’s work and dropping a couple of EPs. But 2022 was the time to finally release the full length album. She’s a great pure singer, which means that we can wait for the full range of production to work with this tool. She”s definitely borrowing from a whole history of music here, maybe a little bit too much. Maybe a bit too much geared toward the slow jam too. But again this is good work.
B
Matthew Shipp/Bobby Kapp, Cactus
One of what I assume was about 54 albums Matthew Shipp released in 2016, this is a duet with the drummer Bobby Kapp, who I don’t know well. It’s a very solid piece, as one would expect. Kapp seems great, but Shipp steals the show with another hour of amazing work. I don’t think it’s the most dynamic album in the Shipp catalog by any stretch, but it’s certainly a worth enough recording.
B+
Oded Tzur, Isabella
A nice enough though not very exciting set of jazz from this Israeli saxophonist. It’s the kind of classic subdued ECM release (do they have a rule over there or something?) that places a greater focus on introspection than jamming it out. Perhaps the most interesting part of this is the raga influences, which are more structural than musical, but still, it’s not something you are going to hear every day. With Nitai Hershkovits on piano, Petros Klampanis on bass, and Johnathan Blake on drums.
B
Willow, Coping Mechanism
I suppose I shouldn’t care that this classic nepo baby comes out of one of the most ridiculous and dysfunctional public relationships in Hollywood, but the daughter of Will Smith and Jada Pinkett is only here because of her parents. Her somewhat bratty brash pro-sex pop is….OK? It sounds to me something like The Regrettes if they weren’t very good. Functional enough voice, lyrics are about as whatever as they come. But she says fuck a lot so I guess there’s that.
C
Beabadoobee, Beatopia
Beabadoobee is the silly named project of Beatrice Laus, a Filipino-British musician. She’s very young and very nostalgic for the 90s. But she’s also pretty talented. This is 90s style indie, influenced by grunge, by The Moldy Peaches, by the child-like stylings of the massively overrated Daniel Johnston. As such, I think this is limited in its scope and power, but this is also a pretty skilled album for someone this young. She’s getting pretty big and I can see why. She’s a good songwriter and more than good singer, with a knack for the simple tunes that appeal to emotional younger people. And I certainly do not say that in a negative way. There’s a big and always regenerating market there!
B
As always, this is an open thread for all things music and art and none things politics.