Best new Records I heard in August
The Fernweh – Torschlusspanik! Don’t panic about the German album title – it translates into something akin to fear of achieving your goals. But the Fernweh make such deliciously intoxicating pop/rock music that I don’t see how they could be suffering from anything of that sort. First and foremost, these guys know how to write melodies with depth. Then, they know how to put these tunes into firmly constructed arrangements full of vocal harmonies, chiming guitars, and contrapuntal passages. They like to pay tribute to rock that came before them – one song has a line “I found a new place to dwell” before ending with chants of “There ain’t no cure for the summertime blues.” Another includes a snippet of Pink Floyd’s tune only with “We don’t need no procrastination” as the lyric, and then later sings like U2, “I still haven’t found what this part is for.” So, clever, knowledgeable, talented, and one of my favorite records this year.
Ben Harper – Bloodline Maintenance. I’ve never really paid attention to Harper all these years, aside from the album he did with Charlie Musselwhite that I really liked. Something made me check this one out, though, and I’m very glad I did. “We Need to Talk About It” is the most perfect Black Lives Matter song I’ve heard – it doesn’t flinch from the issue of slavery and its continued reverberations in our society, and it’s catchy enough that Harper’s fan-base might find themselves singing along asking all the questions. The rest of the album is musically just as solid, as Harper digs into blues and some r&b foundations and churning it all into something hard-hitting and personal.
Naima Bock – Giant Palm. Bock was a member of Goat Girl, a band I probably should have checked out but which I didn’t because the name didn’t sound promising. Here, she records a bunch of songs in a variety of styles with about a million musicians and singers. (I think the credits total 35, actually.) She has an intoxicating alto voice which reminds me at times of June Tabor, though that’s more a matter of tone than phrasing. Whether backed by swirling horn lines, swelling choir, or synthesizer drones, Bock works these fine songs into wonders of concision and expression. There’s also a catchy instrumental with what sounds like all the musicians not playing on the track chattering in the background, and a sweet Antonio Carlos-Jobim cover to close out the record.
Phelimuncasi – Ama Gogela. South Africa has an electronic music sub-genre called gqom, and I don’t know how this fits within it, as this is the only example I’ve heard. But, man, what an example it is. There are three vocalists – two men, one woman - who chant, call, and respond to each other at a very intense clip. The beats are hard and propulsive, with a mixture of drum machines and African percussion instruments. There is usually a dark, foreboding synthesizer drone in the bass register. Time becomes quite elastic while listening to this – songs can seem to go on for a long time, and you don’t want them to end. But then you look up and you’ve spent almost an hour listening to this powerhouse of an album in a tradition you don’t know anything about.
Buck 65 and Tachichi – Flash Grenade. Two veteran Canadian rappers team up for a brief but highly infectious record filled with baseball references, odes to fallen hip hop heroes, clever braggadocio, and even a mea culpa about a failed relationship. I hadn’t encountered these guys before, but the cool flow of Buck 65 contrasts nicely with the intensity and occasional rapidity of Tachichi’s. Whoever produced it is steeped in old school hip hop – these beats are sharp, and the record is built on samples and scratches just like they did 30-plus years ago. In fact, every time I get to the song “Bravo” on here, I have to convince myself I didn’t hear this over and over again on MTV back in the day.
Amanda Shires – Take It Like a Man. Shires has been reinventing herself as a songwriter for a few years now, but this is the first one of her albums that’s demanded multiple plays. With the great subject of the near-dissolution of her marriage to Jason Isbell, she places her quavery vocal chops into a maelstrom of feeling – anger, hurt, fear, desire, love, all battling for first place in most of these songs. Somehow Isbell has the guts to play some truly anxious guitar solos here and there, too. Shires’ fiddle eruption in the ultra-sexual “Hawk For the Dove” takes first place in the instrumental ranks, though. She really isn’t a very good singer, but the rawness of emotion combined with the sharpness of the arrangements and the urgency of the lyrics makes for one powerful record.
Harish Raghavan – In Tense. One thing I’ve learned quite clearly in the last two or three years that I’ve been paying closer attention to contemporary jazz is that the presence of Joel Ross on vibes is pretty much a guarantee of a good record. And here he is, alongside bassist Raghavan, guitarist Charles Altura, bass clarinet/tenor sax/electronic wind instrumentalist Morgan Guerin, and drummer Eric Harland, proving the point. Raghavan comes up with six strong tunes, and the band works beautiful ensemble passages filled with unison and counterpoint and short bursts of solo delight. Ross shines, as always, but Altura is a powerhouse on guitar, while Guerin is probably the most valuable player, contributing the most variety to the sound of the band. I suspect all these guys will turn up on many other excellent jazz albums I’ll discover.
Gard Nilssen Acoustic Unity – Elastic Wave. It’s always a challenge to review a jazz record when the drummer’s name is on the cover. Acoustic Unity consists of three players – Nilssen on drums, Petter Eldh on bass, and André Roligheten on tenor, soprano, and bass saxophone, as well as clarinet. All three members of the trio contribute tunes. They’ve played together off and on for some 17 years, thus achieving an almost superhuman ability to hear and support any ideas that come from each instrument. By all accounts, this album is a less frantic one than what they’ve done before. You can blame that on it’s being released on ECM, but I’m fine with the open spaces in this version of the trio. There is a feeling similar to early Ornette Coleman, though Roligheten has a more varied if less catchy melodic sense. And it ends with a lovely Albert Ayler-esque tune featuring the rarely heard bass sax and the only drum solo on the record.
Steven Feifke – The Role of the Rhythm Section. Since Feifke is, apparently, best known for his work in big bands, it makes sense from his point of view to refer to this piano trio record as one by the rhythm section. But, really, it’s just a great piano trio record. Feifke calls off jazz standards by Benny Golson, Herbie Hancock, and Thelonious Monk, not to mention the ever-popular “Softly As in a Morning Sunrise” taken at anything but a soft clip. Dan Chmielinski is on bass, and Bryan Carter is the drummer. All three are having what sounds like a great time running through these tunes, improvising in a sharp, spirited manner. There are a couple solo piano cuts, too – a “Tea For Two” with some Monk-styled dissonance, and an original, “Sunrise in Harlem,” which is as delightful as the classics on the rest of the record.
Teddy and the Rough Riders – Teddy and the Rough Riders. This Nashville quartet has possibly the worst sense of album cover design combined with an unpromising band name I’ve seen in years. But damned if they don’t deliver the goods. It helps if you don’t think of them as a modern alternative country rock band, but try imagining them playing in the London pubs opening for Brinsley Schwarz or Ducks Deluxe back in the early 70s. There’s also a bit of an American Beauty vibe going on here and there. This isn’t earth-shattering music by any means, but it’s twelve consistently enjoyable songs leavened with the occasional scintillating guitar solo. I’m always up for that.
C Duncan – Alluvium. I assume Christopher Duncan, born and raised in Scotland, choose to use only his first initial to avoid any confusion with the former St. Louis Cardinals outfielder Chris Duncan who died quite young around the same time C Duncan was nominated for the Mercury Prize for his debut album in 2015. This third record continues Duncan’s penchant for overdubbing all the instruments and vocals himself, creating lush and gorgeous soundscapes for his remarkable sense of melody. Unless he’s capable of playing several stringed instruments, the likelihood is that he’s got some really great synthesizer programs, though he’s not afraid to use the occasional old 80s standbys in proper circumstances. This guy reminds me of the Blue Nile or Prefab Sprout, not because Duncan sounds anything like them, but because he’s every bit as ambitious as they were back in the day.
Deborah Allen – The Art of Dreaming. Forty-two years after he debut album,, and 39 years after she became a big country star, this pro’s pro knows how to make a good record. The twelve songs pull from blues, rock’n’roll, 80s country, and more. My fave cut here is “Patsy Cline Crazy,” which puts a catchy new tune to the titles of a couple dozen classic country songs. “He stopped loving me today,” she sings, “Even though I stood by my man.” Apparently, Allen has taken the last ten years off from recording. It’s nice to have her back.
Various Artists – Something Borrowed, Something New: A Tribute to John Anderson. I dig tribute albums – I’ve been a fan of the concept since That’s The Way I Feel Now paid tribute to Thelonious Monk back in 1984. John Anderson was one of the first artists I discovered exclusively from Robert Christgau reviews – the rest of the rock press ignored him back in the 80s. I think I even had an album or two before I heard the Mekons cover “Wild and Blue.” Dan Auerbach brought in an eclectic crew of country and associated folks to sing songs Anderson did originally, and everybody here sounds great. My faves are Brent Cobb’s take on “Wild and Blue,” Jamey Johnson’s “I’m Just An Old Chunk of Coal (But I’m Gonna Be A Diamond Some Day,” Sierra Ferrell’s “Years,” and the Brothers Osborne’s reinvention of Anderson’s reinvention of Bo Diddley’s “You Can’t Judge a Book (By the Cover).” All in all, a highly listenable, consistently enjoyable record.
Sonny Singh – Chardi Kala. Singh is the offspring of immigrant parents from Punjab in India, and he grew up singing Sikh devotional music. He’s a member of the bhangra brass band Red Baraat, but I’ve never heard that stuff. This album takes Sikh devotional songs from the last few hundred years and sets them to modern Indian fusion music that reads to my Western ears as pop. Instrumentation mixes harmonium, sarangi, and traditional percussion with trumpet, guitar, bass, and drums. It’s as catchy as anything I’ve heard this year, even though I can’t sing along with any of it. This is definitely feel good music.
The Paranoid Style – For Executive Meeting. I’ve been reading Elizabeth Nelson’s music reviews and tweets for several years, but this is the first time I’ve gotten around to hearing her own music. There was a paranoid (I guess) fear of disliking one aspect of somebody I respected so much. But, I shouldn’t have worried, because this record is loads of fun. It’s possible it might be more fun if you’re fond of songs with lots of allusions to literary and musical reference points, but hey, that’s me. How about this sample lyric: “Tornados and mosh pits / Kant and Hegel / All the things they do to the young and able”? Her singing took me a couple passes to appreciate. Nelson doesn’t worry much about meter when she has words she wants to sing – she’ll make them fit no matter how many syllables. This, combined with an almost fanatical opposition to melisma makes her sound remarkably distinct. But, as she shows in a cover of Rosanne Cash’s “Seven Year Ache,” complete with art-bomb guitar parts, she can also handle a classic melody far removed from her normal style.
Willi Carlisle – Peculiar, Missouri. A folky singer-songwriter of extreme intelligence, wit, perception, and flair, Carlisle reminds me of just what attracts me to this sort of thing in the first place. Funny, though, that it didn’t register with me the first time I heard it, and yet it’s grown by leaps and bounds each time I listen again. Carlisle is an effective singer with an oddball glitch in his voice that makes him sound more distinctive. His tunes are pretty bare-bones, often practically public domain. But his lyrics – check out “Tulsa’s Last Magician” for an extended metaphor stretched over a lifetime of under achievement. Or maybe “Life on the Fence” for a sad look inside the mind of a closeted gay man. And, of course, there is the title track, sort of a talking blues about visiting a Wal-Mart in any town, USA, but then again, it’s also about what to do with a life.
Sonic Liberation Front – Justice: The Vocal Works of Oliver Lake. You hear Oliver Lake read two poems over musical accompaniment here, but otherwise, he’s on hand just to deliver his compositions. Yes, they are vocal works, in the sense that they are works with vocals, but the singers contribute chorded “Do”’s rather than words. They are accompanists to the ensemble which traverses Lake’s knotty but delightful tunes. Not a ton of improvisation here, but there are some nice sax solos that would probably have been more exciting if Lake were playing. I must admit, I’ve never thought about Lake as a composer before – he’s such a great soloist and I don’t think I’ve heard much stuff by him as a leader. It does stand to reason, though, that he’s good at this, too.
Shemekia Copeland – Done Come Too Far. School children and concert goers fall victim to random acts of gun violence. A mother has the talk with her African-American son concerning how to curb his emotions if he’s pulled over by the police. A young girl is molested by some man she should have trusted. Shemekia Copeland is not afraid to sing of the harshest experiences in American life. She stares in the face of evil and shouts it down, knowing that this is only one small step towards a better world. Two songs here, the title track and the similarly titled “Too Far To Be Gone,” find her firmly on the road of Civil Rights which has been traveled for decades, and which still hasn’t reached the end. Meanwhile, there are parties to be found, one in zydeco style, and one in a honky tonk. (“I Fell In Love With a Honky” ‘in a honky tonk bar” is a hoot and a holler.) There are men who have disappointed her and men who have lifted her up. There’s a great version of a Ray Wylie Hubbard gospel song. Copeland has been at the top of her game these past several years, and seems to keep on getting better. She is currently the best blues singer I know, and blues is only one part of what she does.
Watkins Family Hour – Vol. II. Singer/fiddler Sara Watkins and her brother singer/guitarist Sean were in Nickel Creek back in the day with Chris Thile. While they don’t share his penchant for zooming wildly past constraints of genre and song construction, they do have eclectic musical spirits and they’ve made a lot of great friends. On this album alone, they get guest appearances by Lucius, Madison Cunningham, Jon Brion, Jackson Browne, Benmont Tench, Gaby Moreno, and Fiona Apple, all stalwarts in my musical world. They pick songs by the Zombies, Elliott Smith, Charlie Rich, Jackson Browne, Pee Wee King, and many more talents whose names I don’t recognize. Every cut is beautifully arranged, with impeccable musicianship from even more friends whose names are probably buried in the credits of lots of records I know. A little folk, a little country, a lot of love.
And a few I liked but ran out of time to cover in depth:
Ty Segall - Hi, Hello
Rizomagic - Voltaje Raizal
Various - Jem Records Celebrates Pete Townshend
Meridian Brothers & El Grupo Renacimiento - Meridian Brothers & El Grupo Renacimiento
The Jazz Butcher - The Highest In the Land
Penza Penza - Neanderthal Rock
Early James - Strange Time To Be Alive
Calvin Keys - Blue Keys
Loudon Wainwright III - Lifetime Achievement
Megan Thee Stallion - Traumazine