Music Notes

It’s time to talk some tunes.

Cool piece on the 40th anniversary of the B-52s releasing “Rock Lobster.”

I reviewed Jaimie Branch’s incredible Fly or Die album awhile back. It’s great. She wrote a piece about its surprising success and she sums up the whole era in which we live at the end:

I guess at the end of the day, it’s about finding your people. It doesn’t matter if it’s in Chicago, or New York, or L.A.—it’s about finding the people you want to make music with, and then fighting like hell to keep it going. ‘Cause it may be a stupid fucking world we’re living in right now, but it still needs a soundtrack.

Truer words, etc.

Great article on Janelle Monae. Like everyone else, I can’t wait to hear the new album.

Charles Hughes’ excellent recap of the albums of 1968 continues by inviting David Cantwell to talk about Merle Haggard’s 3 1968 releases–all legendary albums–and the amazing numbers of Haggard covers released by other artists in that year.

Yvonne Staples died. If anything, the Staples family is still underrated.

Charles Neville, saxophonist for The Neville Brothers, died as well.

Here’s a good little interview with the wonderful Margo Price from a couple months ago. I saw her in November 2016, just a few days after the election. It was a giant therapy session, including for her. And I just saw her last night in Pittsburgh at the Stage AE. She’s just great–so much fun. There’s not a lot of chances to see a great country artist perform in a small venue these days. Between so much mainstream country music being garbage and the festivalization of country music (a plague on live music generally), even a big fan of the good stuff like me hasn’t had many chances to see this, at least since I left Austin in 2010. She’s not really playing the super personal songs from her first album, and who can blame her, as it must get tiring relieving all the worst parts of your life night after night, even if doing so did make you famous. But she’s playing many of the best songs off of it, such as “Four Years of Chances” and “Tennessee Song.” She’s of course playing quite a few songs off the new album, although not “Pay Gap,” which is too bad but I can see that song not being a great live show cut. But what I really love about her is her sense of covers. She played a good half-dozen last night–“I Think I’ll Stay Here and Drink,” “Whiskey River,” “Proud Mary,” the deep cut Guy Clark tune “New Cut Road.” And then she called up her opening act–Aaron Lee Tasjan, who is fine but who is straight out of the Jack White Nashville Weirdo Americana casting room–for a cover of “Stop Draggin’ My Heart Around” that they worked up that afternoon and which of course Margo sang the hell out of. Wasn’t a big fan of the venue–they cut the back off to make it quite intimate, but it was super corporate and the beer selections were abysmal. But despite that minor critique, great show.

Album Reviews:

PRhyme, PRhyme 2

PHryme 2 is the duo of Royce da 5’9″ and DJ Premier, who produces the albums. A couple of middle-aged guys, this is a more than credible album covering a wide range of topics with great deliveries. Not every song is gold by any means, but this is a worthy album. One big topic here are debates within hip-hop, which I confess to having only a passing familiarity with, although I’m working on it. These guys take a big tent approach helping to connect old and new school styles. So it seems a worthy cause in itself. Anyway, solid material here.

B

Superchunk, What a Time to Be Alive

The new Superchunk basically kicks a lot of rock and roll ass. This is a band pissed off at Donald Trump, at old white men who suck, at the world. This is an attitude often taken by people in their 20s, but of course Superchunk has now been around for approximately forever, often not making albums as great as it seems they should be. Well, this is one is pretty great. And any album with song called “Reagan Youth” is bound to have at least one highlight. Possibly the best 2018 album I’ve heard thus far.

A

Tal National, Tantabara

When I saw this wonderful band from Niger last month, I knew I was honored to be in the company of such amazing musicians and this album just reinforces it. Tal National is more a collective than a band–this album has 8 vocalists on its 8 songs (some have more than one of course) and there was only one vocalist on the tour, for instance. But the overall effect is the same because this is desert guitar rock with amazing percussion that just rolls over you in waves. Enjoy the ride.

A

Sabrina Malheiros, Clareia

Malheiros is a very popular Brazilian singer who she combines good vocals and a variety of Brazilian styles with some pretty poppy and accessible sounds. However, for me, this album is a little blah, more of an easy listen than something that I found anything interesting to grab onto. Given the amount of really great and forward-thinking Brazilian music out there, I can do better listening to others. For those of you who like Brazilian music and want something pretty accessible you can have on in the background, you may well get a lot more out of this than I did.

B-

2 Chainz, The Play Don’t Care Who Makes It

This 4-song EP is the first thing I’ve heard from the Atlanta rapper 2 Chainz, even though he’s 40 years old and been around for relatively forever. I found it mostly pretty great. He’s got a really good sound and voice. It’s certainly true that he doesn’t deviate from the misogyny at the heart of too much hip hop, but you either deal with that or don’t listen to most of the genre. This is more lighthearted party music than anything political, but there’s nothing wrong with that. The last song may be the highlight, a sort of history of Atlanta rappers, many of whom are forgotten or unknown. Will have to check out more of his work.

B+

Field Music, Open Here

The late 70s and early 80s synths influences are on full display in the latest Field Music album. Another band who has a lot of albums but which is new to me. These guys have some talent but I really hate the production. British art-pop bands seem almost destined to sound something like this. Lyrically, they are dealing with Brexit and there’s value in it. And they have a pop sensibility that can be nice; sometimes this reminds me of the poppiest of songs by The Who. But as a whole, I don’t care for the sound and I can’t really get over it. Others may well disagree. Certainly the critics do.

C+

Tõnu Kõrvits, Moorland Elegies (Estonian Philharmonic Chamber Choir, Tallinn Chamber Orchestra)

This I thought lovely. This Estonian composer adapted Emily Brontë poems to a large choir performance and the effect is pretty haunting. The vocals are powerful and the strings act beautifully in conjunction with the voices. A real success for Körvits.

A-

Steve Reich, Pulse/Quartet

I have long enjoyed Reich’s compositions and I thought this was a solid addition to his canon. Perhaps he’s not breaking a lot of new ground in his late life, but I felt that “Pulse” especially, performed by the International Contemporary Ensemble, was an enjoyable listen with its big swooping strings and constant motion forward, even if it eventually settles around a single theme. Quartet, written for and performed by the Colin Currie Group, mines some familiar territory with its minimalist repetition, but is also a very good performance. Overall, a solid late entry.

B+

And here’s a couple older albums:

Quincy Jones, The Dude

In the hubbub over Quincy Jones’ recent no-fucks-to-give interviews, I realized that while I was obviously familiar with many of his productions, I had never actually heard a Quincy Jones album. So I thought I would check out this 1981 album, which was his biggest seller and incredibly influential on R&B in the 80s. It’s in its way a very good album and one can see why it touched so many musicians. There are some great songs. On the other hand, early 80s production really drives me nuts. I just don’t like the overly synthetic and often brittle sound. Jones didn’t invent it of course, but influencing so many people with it is a demerit I can’t quite get over. The extent to which one likes The Dude basically resides on that point. It’s hard to see disliking it though–the performances and songs are too good.

B

Bert Jansch, Moonshine

This 1973 release by the legendary British folk guitarist was finally released on CD in 2015. Somewhat like the Jones album above, one’s feeling on this is going to depend largely on whether said person likes Jansch’s style. His singing method was very British and very non-pop oriented. Of course, he was a foundational member of the British folk rock movement so he wasn’t totally out of touch with pop sensibilities but he also wasn’t Richard Thompson, taking this music and reaching a point of semi-rock stardom with it. This is old-timey British music, even though Jansch wrote many of the songs, performed in a somewhat old-timey way, or at least in a way that was very much Jansch. I respect all of this very much, love the guitar, and like the songs well enough.

B+

I will also note that in the last month or so, I’ve had a couple of books show up at my house, purchased by readers from my wish list. As always, this is incredibly appreciated by any of us when this happens. So many thanks.

As always, this is an open thread for all things music and none things politics.