Best New Records I Heard in April

25 albums filled with musical treasures and pleasures abundant

Cécile McLorin Salvant – Mélusine. An album calculated to drive Gomez Adams into paroxysms of lust, this record is, save for the title song, entirely sung in French. This American jazz singer has parents who were French and Haitian respectively, so the language comes naturally to her. Now, I studied French back in college, but, especially when hearing it sung, I don’t pick up much of the lingo any more. Oh, sure, there’s a “Listen to me” here and a “Window” there, but don’t look to me for insight into the lyrics. Musically, however, this does the job. Salvant sings songs from a variety of French (and possibly Haitian) sources – art songs, pop songs, rhythmic songs, simple songs, complex songs. It’s powerful stuff.

Billy Valentine – Billy Valentine & the Universal Truth. In 1982, the Valentine Brothers had a hit in England with “Money’s Too Tight (To Mention,” later covered and spread to the US by Simply Red. Then, as far as I can tell, neither brother did anything of note until the release of this new record on the revived Flying Dutchman label. Now 73, Billy Valentine delivers powerful jazz versions of classic Black protest and spiritual songs from the likes of Curtis Mayfield, Gil Scott-Heron, Eddie Kendricks, Stevie Wonder, Pharoah Sanders, Prince, and War. And, he gets Larry Goldings, Jeff Parker, Joel Ross, and Immanuel Wilkins among other big names to play behind him. Valentine’s vocals are passionate and on point, the arrangements are uniformly creative and determined, and there are plenty of places on this record where the hair on your arms will stand up.

The Shootouts – Stampede. You will know them by the company they keep. Marty Stuart, Buddy Miller, Ray Benson & Asleep at the Wheel, Raul Malo, and Jim Lauderdale all lend voices and guitars to the good times on display here. It’s freewheelin’ country music, with hot guitar picking, catchy songs, and dancing that doesn’t need to form a line. Imagine if the Skeletons or the Morells had been a country band – yep, this is good enough to come from Springfield, MO though it’s actually from Akron, OH.

Nickel Creek – Celebrants. This band broke up eighteen years ago apparently with the plan to release a reunion record every nine years. While there was nothing wrong with 2014’s A Dotted Line, this time around they may have made the best record of their careers together, and a candidate for the best record any of them have had anything to do with in any capacity. There are 18 tracks on the album, 16 distinct songs, and every one is a winner. It’s the permutation of 7 parts that makes this work – Chris Thile’s mandolin and vocals; Sean Watkins’ acoustic guitar and vocals; Sara Watkins’ fiddle and vocals, and hip hop producer guest star Mike Elzondo’s acoustic bass. Unexpected chord changes and melodic leaps, passionate singing and playing, intricately knotty song constructions, explosive dynamics – these are elements I find completely enchanting.

Lankum – False Lankum. This Irish folk group knows all the ins and outs of murder ballads and Morris dances, jigs and reels and ships across the ocean. But they also love to make noise, to devote half of an eight minute cut to clangs and clunks, or the last good chunk of a twelve minute peaceful anthem to the sounds you might hear in an MRI or on a subway train. I’m always on board with anybody trying to pull music from rural life in the 19^th century into the city of the 21^st. These guys can sound as pretty as they want to be, and as full of danger and mischief as their lyrics.

Jen Cloher – I Am the River, the River Is Me. Cloher hangs their hat in a part of Australia that was never ceded by the indigenous people. Despite frequently dipping into the language of the people they live with, Cloher is not afraid to call out their privilege in songs, acknowledging that everything they’ve achieved has been built on genocide. Songs are built around political issues, personal desires, and the plain old experience of being alive, which can be simultaneously guilty and joyful. They have a powerful voice, a great ear for catchy melodies, and a pretty hot backing band to make the record worth hearing over and over.

Rodrigo Campos – Pagode Novo. I don’t read (or speak) Portugese, so I can’t find any biographical info on this guy who has records out going back at least to 2009. But I can tell you that this album, with lots of guest appearances by other Brazilian singers, is delightful. That wispy Brazilian melodic sense merged with a mélange of sounds – distorted guitar here, harp there, wild saxophone elsewhere – is very welcome. I think I checked this out when I saw it had Juçara Marçal singing one cut – I fell in love with her music last year. But she’s just one element among many making this record so intoxicating.

Romulo Fróes & Tiago Rosas – Na Goela. For the same reason, I don’t know anything to speak of about the background of Fróes, who has records dating back at least to 2001 or Rosas, whose discography only started in 2018. But this is a Brazilian rock record, or at least it’s Brazilian rhythms applied to rock. Both vocalists are capable of gliding between a gentle lilt and a powerful bash. The guitars do the typical syncopated Brazilian thing, then slash and twist in electric melodies. And the drummer – well there is some complicated and deceptively simple stuff going on in these beats.

Black Country, New Road – Live at Bush Hall. What do you do when your charismatic lead singer leaves the band the same week that your very successful second album was released early last year? Well, if you’re Black Country, New Road, you carry on, write a whole bunch of brand new songs and divide vocal chores among three of the six band members left. Like Isaac Wood, who went away to focus on his mental health, Tyler Hyde, Lewis Evans, and May Kershaw have tentative relationships to pitch. But while none of these three are as compelling as Wood, they do share his ability to connect with the listener, and to ride the shifting dynamics of the guitar/keys/flute or sax/violin/bass/drums chamber orchestra behind them. I like that they now have two women and a man splitting the lead vocals, bringing new variety to their already diverse musical approach.

The New Pornographers – Continue As a Guest. There is still some life left in the formula A.C. Newman established for this side project that became his full-time band. It’s important to remember that the formula is what it is – big ol’ pop/rock hooks hammered home by repetition over thick slabs of peppy instrumental backing, all done with melodies that stay within a small range of possibility. It’s amazing that Newman and co-vocalist Neko Case have been able to keep this stuff at all fresh. I think there might be a slide downward in quality this time around, but it’s not so far away from their best records some fifteen years in the rear view now. Hooks will conquer.

The Zombies – Different Game. Rod Argent and Colin Blunstone have been leading a revamped version of the Zombies for quite a few years now, mostly for the lucrative and reportedly artistically successful live shows. Back in 2015, they put out a spotty album that occasionally shined bright enough to make me think they still had it in them. And now – holy cow! This record is stellar from start to finish. There is a lot of variety on this album, but my short take on this is think a combination of Argent’s early 70s band Argent with Steely Dan but with an older and deeper but still profoundly talented Blunstone on vocals. Some beautiful songs are on here, and some great keyboard solos from Argent and hot guitar parts from Tom Toomey. At 77 years of age, Argent and Blunstone have released their best record together in 55 years.

Rob Mazurek & Exploding Star Orchestra – Lightning Dreamers. I wish I was more familiar with this Mazurek guy, who has been a fixture on, I think, the Chicago jazz scene for quite a while now. Here, he has two versions of his ever changing Exploding Star Orchestra, one featuring familiar names such as Craig Taborn  and Angelica Sanchez on electric piano, Jeff Parker on guitar, and Gerald Cleaver on drums. These players offer some exceptional contributions to the dense mix of Mazurek’s vision. Think a combination of early Weather Report and full throttle Sun Ra, and you might be in the ballpark. The back half mixes the group from the first half with live recordings of a different group from a year ago. It’s all a glorious pulsating thickly textured soup of music, with bursts of Mazurek’s trumpet along with the aforementioned instrumentalists, and occasional vocals, most spoken, some maybe sampled.

London Brew – London Brew. At the end of 2019, a bunch of British jazz musicians decided to do a tour in Europe celebrating the 50^th anniversary of Bitches Brew by Miles Davis. The coronavirus scrapped that idea. Instead, immediately after the UK ended its second lockdown in December of 2020, they got the gang together and spent three days recording music inspired by, and in one case only derived from the Miles classic. There were 13 players involved, with saxophonists Nubya Garcia and Shabaka Hutchings the most famous to my ears. But never mind knowing the work of these people individually – this collective improvisation, whittled down from 12 hours to a manageable 90 minutes, is a powerhouse thing of its own. I especially like the 25 minute title track, which explodes in a dozen different directions, with two full drum kits driving, two keyboards, two guitars, two saxes, some electronics, and both bass and tuba. Nothing else lives up to that intensity, as the other cuts tend to have more open spaces. The whole thing makes for a lively experience that can’t blow minds the way Miles did, but isn’t exactly like anything else out there right now, either.

Kip Loui – Cold Out There. Full disclosure – I’ve known Kip for better than 35 years now and I didn’t have to buy his recent complete works issued on Bandcamp because I’ve owned every cassette or CD he’s released under his own name or in any bands over all that time. So, to me, this record is like a familiar sweater on a cool day. Or, maybe, it’s like a brand new sweater made out old comfortable material. Kip has played with great musicians in the St. Louis area, and a lot of them show up here – Brian Henneman, Mark Ortmann, and John Horton (who I actually first saw in one of Kip’s bands more than 30 years ago) of the Bottle Rockets; Mark Spencer of the Blood Oranges, Kevin Buckley of Grace Basement, and several others I’ve enjoyed hearing for decades. Even Eric Ambel of New York fame plays on a few cuts. Some strong songs here – the best include one about a school teacher trying to connect with youth about events over 100 years ago, and one about Kip’s son being an only child. Good solid Americana-based rock music.

Waco Brothers – The Men That God Forgot. I’ve never been fanatical about Jon Langford projects, which probably saved me a lot of money over the decades he’s been making records with several different bands. I first heard the Mekons years before they discovered country music, though I didn’t pay attention until Fear and Whiskey came along. The ramshackle nature of even their best recordings keeps me at arm’s length from them, though I remember seeing a pretty hot live show sometime in the 90s. All of this is to lead up to the fact I’ve never listened to Waco Brothers before, and to say how marvelous it is to discover I like this record quite a bit. Here Langford shares vocal duties with Dean Schlabowske, a name I otherwise have never heard. The band rocks their own take on Americana, and writes catchy songs. There’s even a cover of “Teenage Kicks” which Langford probably thought was too commercial when the Mekons and the Undertones were competing for space in the British press back in 1978.

Peter Case – Doctor Moan. I wonder what the 22-year-old bass playing Peter Case would have thought while he was recording the original version of “Hanging on the Telephone” by his rock band the Nerves in 1976 if he could have heard this new record from his 68-year-old self with its largely acoustic piano backing supporting his impassioned singing of basically folk song structures. I mean, I followed most of the journey from the Plimsouls to his solo pop/folk/rock records to his troubadour period to whatever amalgamation of genres you want to call this record. I can tell it’s the same guy, but the man has gone through changes. The new record has him playing more piano than guitar, with occasional organ sweetenings, and a solid acoustic bass in the mix. He still has a way with a melody, making even the hoariest forms sound invigorated.

The Hold Steady – The Price of Progress. At this point, it almost seems enough to just say it’s a new Hold Steady album, and you ought to know what you think about that. Yeah, the characters in Craig Finn’s spoken storylines have grown older, but they’re not any wiser, and they’re certainly not any more settled. The music is majestic rock, though I’m more impressed by the way the band follows Finn’s approach to telling his stories – the music comes in waves that match his cadences, and small touches of guitar comments that seem to finish sentences or drums imitating a broken field football runner are constant reminders that the Hold Steady is a band. There is a difference between Finn’s solo albums, which are very good, and the best Hold Steady work, which is frikkin’ great. This album, by the way, is probably among their finest since the near-perfection off their first two.

Andy White & Tim Finn – AT. White’s first album was a $1 bin staple almost as soon as it was released back in 1985, and I don’t remember running into any of the many records he’s made in all the years since. Finn was a founding member of Split Enz, an occasional member of Crowded House, and has released quite a few solo albums and other projects for as long as I can remember, many of which I love. He did collaborate with White and another guy back in the 80s, but again, I never saw that one. Anyway, this combination is full of wondrous melodic content, sometimes with lovely strings wrapping around the vocals, sometimes a little more rock inflected. Finn’s voice is a mite strained with age, but he and White sound great together, and I’m thinking I need to dig into some back catalog I’ve missed.

Susanna Hoffs – The Deep End. Hoffs has proven many times that she’s a terrific songwriter, but she has proven even more often that she’s a fantastic song interpreter. Whether in the Bangles, as part of the collective Rainy Day, partnering with Matthew Sweet, or as a solo artist, Hoffs has brought her impeccable taste and tack for getting straight to the emotional core, to dozens of songs from the last 60 years of pop music. This new one includes material by the Rolling Stones, Ed Sheeran, Leslie Gore, Billie Eilish, Coconut Records, Phantom Planet, Brandy Clark, Joy Oladokun, and more. My first time listening, I was a little underwhelmed, but this is Susanna Hoffs, who does not know how to let my ears down. So, I gave it another listen, and I can’t remember what I thought could have been wrong with this.

Walter Smith III – Return to Casual. Smith’s name is above the title, and he did compose all the cuts here except the surprising Kate Bush number. But this album is really much more an ensemble work than that implies. Smith on tenor sax, Taylor Eigsti on piano, Harish Raghavan on bass, Matthew Stevens on guitar, and Kendrick Scott on drums have all played together before, and you can tell. They have a solid interaction that goes beyond the notes on the page or the normal comping behind improvisations of a lot of jazz. The trumpeter with the greatest name in music, Ambrose Akinmusire stops by for a few cuts, too, and he fits right in. Mainstream enough to be on Blue Note, but eclectic enough to make “Mother Stands For Comfort” into a jazz ballad, Smith and company have made an excellent modern jazz record. Also, “Amelia Earhart Ghosted Me” is one heck of a title for a tune.

Nick Waterhouse – The Fooler. I’ve always been keen to listen to Nick Waterhouse, a man under 40 whose musical sensibility seems to be entirely derived from records over 60 years old. Mostly, I’ve thought of him as a soul revivalist, though he’s pulled from quite a few styles originated in the first half of the 1960s. This album shifts gears a little bit, going for a more dramatic approach here and there which comes closer in spirit to what Lee Hazlewood came up with for Nancy Sinatra. Or maybe cross that with what JD McPherson does, and you might get closer. It’s all good, disposable (in the best sense) fun.

JPEGMafia & Danny Brown – Scaring the Hoes. This has to be the most speaker-blowing over-the-top production I’ve ever heard. JPEGMafia produced it with a commitment to working the way hip hop was made back before they had Pro Tools. I heard hip hop in those days, and it never sounded this insane. But, don’t get me wrong. I love this record. JPEGMafia and Danny Brown rap fast and furious, so much so that I still have about 75% of the lyrics to decipher. As a result, their voices – JPEG’s deep rumble and Brown’s upper register scramble – are just two more elements in a sonic mix that’s full of samples from elements of gospel, jazz, soul, and rock that don’t get pulled into hip hop very often. It’s dense, it’s exciting, it’s intense.

Wadada Leo Smith & Orange Wave Electric – Fire Illuminations. At the age of 80, Wadada Leo Smith continues to make exhilarating improvised music. This particular record gathers a series of recordings made over several years with all or many of the ridiculously talented group he’s named Orange Wave Electric - guitarists Nels Cline, Brandon Ross and Lamar Smith; bassists Bill Laswell and Melvin Gibbs; electronic musician Hardedge; percussionist Mauro Refosco; and drummer Pheeroan akLaff. But, in the manner of Bitches Brew – that record comes up again – he mixed and merged different sessions into each cut. There are some dramatic stops and shifts, but not so much that it doesn’t sound organic. The first cut, “Ntozake Shange,” is the funkiest thing I’ve heard from Smith, though it should be said that there are far more Smith recordings than I’ve had a chance to encounter. Throughout, his tone is as pure and forceful as that of any trumpeter. Cline, Ross, and Smith tear it up on guitars, too.

Wayne Escoffery – Like Minds. This British tenor and soprano sax player has been making records this entire century, but I only just discovered him with his terrific record three years ago, The Humble Warrior. Unlike most of the notable Brits of recent years, Escoffery is firmly in the mainstream jazz camp – this record sounds like it could have come out on Blue Note or Milestone back in the late sixties. In fact, the title track reminds me of a cross between Wayne Shorter and McCoy Tyner. There’s also a great track, “Sincerely Yours,” built on the chord changes of Freddie Hubbard’s “Dear John” which was built on the changes of John Coltrane’s “Giant Steps.” The band, including David Kikoski on piano, Ugonna Okewgwo on bass, and Mark Whitfield, Jr. on drums, is extremely sympathetic to each member’s playing. Tom Harrell guests on trumpet a couple times, and the incomparable Gregory Porter sings two cuts – Escoffery’s “My Truth” and a lovely version of the Melodians classic “Rivers of Babylon.”

Everything But the Girl – Fuse. I fell in love with the music of Everything But the Girl with their 1994 release, Amplified Heart. Here were exquisite songs of heartache sung by an alto vocalist with heart and skill. As a bonus, on that album Dave Mattacks and Richard Thompson leant their instrumental talents. And then they remixed “Missing” for the dance floor, which took away all the intimacy of that song, and then they leaned into the dance beats for the rest of their career. I wasn’t ready to embrace that sort of thing back then, but this reunion record of Tracy Thorn and Ben Watt is a lovely organic combination of elegantly designed songs with contemporary dance beats that play with the music rather than in spite of it. It’s really quite gorgeous and moving, especially on the album closer “Karaoke,” when Thorn answers questions such as “Do you sing to heal the broken-hearted” and “Do you sing to get the party started” with affirmations of her life’s work.