Best New Records I Heard in June

I'm beginning to be overwhelmed by the number of records worth hearing - A lot of pleasure is waiting for your ears!

Brian Andrew Marek – anythingotherthan. Marek is perhaps the most prolific St. Louis musician I’ve ever encountered. I can’t even count up the number of self-released CDs he’s passed my way in the more than two decades I’ve known him, but it’s got to be upwards of two dozen. He works in bands – he’s got a brand new Vertigo Swirl album called Sometymes Synesthesia that’s got some cool psychedelia on it – but I think his one-man-band projects under his own name are my faves. This new one is chock full of strong melodies, singable hooks, and rock solid arrangements that bring to mind his love of 70s deep cuts. He’s got a song called “In the Land of the Ampersand” which should give you an idea of where his mind takes his music. But a simple garage rocker called “That’s It,” with the most basic rhymes under the sun, is the hit for me this time on an album that has no clunkers.

Dave Matthews Band – Walk Around the Moon. Twenty-nine years and who knows how many records into his career, Dave Matthews has finally gotten under my skin. I don’t suppose I ever gave him a chance before, though surely I must have heard some of those monster hits back in the 90s. At any rate, this record keeps satisfying me. A mixed bag of rockers and ballads, horn-driven crazed sounds and gentle acoustic guitar strumming, but always anchored by Matthews’ cool way with a melody and insistent way of making a single word into a hook. (I’m terrible at remembering which song is which, but whichever one has him sing the word “alien” at the end of a line with a neat little growl, that’s my perfect example.) There’s even a cut with the same middle eastern influences Robert Plant likes to prowl in; “Madman’s Eyes” sounds like something from the Band of Joy. So it turns out this superstar has a lot more interesting things going for him than I was led to expect.

Paul Simon – Seven Psalms. “Heaven is beautiful,” Edie Brickell sings sweetly. “It’s almost like home.” “The Covid virus is the Lord,” Paul Simon sings at least twice earlier in this uninterrupted flow of music. “The Lord is a terrible swift sword.” Like most of us, Paul Simon isn’t getting any younger; in fact, he’s been not getting any younger longer than most of his audience. He apparently had a dream that he should write seven psalms (and anybody who ever read the Bible knows seven is a significant number). So, he being Paul Simon and not just a normal dream interpreter, much research into the forms later, he comes up with this set of meditations on mortality and pain. It’s actually a lot more beautiful a thing to experience than you might think. Most of the record is just Simon finger picking gorgeous guitar bits while he sings/intones his thoughts on a variety of subjects. Occasional light backing instrumentation is barely noticeable, and just past the 2/3 mark, his wife joins him to add variety. The radio programmer in me doesn’t like the fact that he’s made this album into one track, though the album listener in me applauds the way it all fits together so neatly.

Taj Mahal – Savoy. This was a completely unexpected treat. Taj Mahal returns to the music he heard as a pre-teen, the records that reminded his parents of their nights dancing at the Savoy Ballroom back in the late 30s and early 40s. Leading an impeccably tight big band, Mahal’s croaky voice finds a way to inhabit each of these chestnuts from the likes of Duke Ellington, Fats Waller, and Louis Jordan. There’s a ringer in there, 1961’s Benny Golson composition, “Killer Joe,” to allow Mahal to blow a little harp, but the rest are certifiably old and familiar numbers. Now, the one caveat – I don’t subscribe to the theory that “Baby, It’s Cold Outside” is a song with a rapey subtext, but when that idea is in the air, and when Taj Mahal and Maria Muldaur bring so little chemistry to their duet, the song’s inclusion here doesn’t sit as well as they probably think it does. Everything else is completely delightful, though.

Crashing Plaids – Mach 1. Doug Hagen, who I’ve known for more than four decades, has a band in the Pacific Northwest called the Tonic Brothers. They released a fine debut album a couple years back. Hagen had a lot more songs lying around, some of which didn’t fit his regular band, and lots of time as his retirement combined with the pandemic days. So, he reached out to musicians he’s worked with over the years, and put together this strong set of odds and sods under a new spare band name he’s been sitting on for a while. Several different singers take the lead across these thirteen cuts totaling twelve songs (one number gets two distinct versions). But Hagen’s crackerjack melodic sense and wordplay is the throughline. Some great guitar players and drummers sit in, too, with especial nods to a scintillating solo by Tim Reynolds of the Dave Matthews Band, and to lap steel player Bobby Ingano of Taj Mahal’s touring band. Nobody else is as famous as these guys, except those St. Louis players Hagen worked with way back when we were all much younger. Also, the song “Rutabaga,” which Hagen learned from a friend, is a work of folk genius.

Marty Stuart & His Fabulous Superlatives – Altitude. Marty Stuart has always been a guaranteed force for good in country music, but he moved into the upper echelons once he assembled these Fabulous Superlatives some number of years back. With Stuart and Kenny Vaughan trading guitar licks, and the rest of the band providing powerful propulsion to the rockers, and sweet country comfort to the slow ones, these guys are ridiculously good. So, here we have a new record, with some weird concept around the songs played out on a series of short instrumentals entitled “Lost Byrd Space Train.” Only the first of these, each labeled a different scene, is long enough to worry about. Instead, concentrate on the passion and the power of the delightful songs Stuart has given us this time around.

Raul Malo – Say Less. One of the greatest singers in the world has now released an all-instrumentals album. He’s a good guitar player, but this isn’t a record displaying heavy chops. (Though Eddie Perez of Malo’s day job the Mavericks whips off one head-turner of a solo on “Peach Bottom Blues.”) Instead, this record is all about feel. Malo knows and loves all sorts of Latin grooves, and if they are ripe for a guitar band, he’s gonna play them right here. It’s an album for dancers, just like they used to make back in the fifties, but with a couple blues cuts thrown in amongst the cumbia and Cuban make-out tunes. If you only buy one record with Raul Malo on it, this probably shouldn’t be it, but if you already know him as a singer, it’s great to connect with him as a member of the band.

Tinariwen – Amatssou. I’ve become used to hearing new music from Tinariwen on a regular basis. They remain the gold standard of the Tuareg “desert blues” sound, as far as I can tell, though I’ve heard enough by now to know how many different variations there can be under that umbrella. This time, Tinariwen reaches out to the West, and works with producer Daniel Lanois. He brings in banjo player Wes Corbett, and multi-instrumentalist but primarily used here on violin Fats Kaplin (last seen in this column last month playing on the new Eilen Jewell record). Lanois adds his trademark languid chording to a couple cuts, too. The guest musicians blend in so smoothly you don’t even notice they’re there at first, though I quickly began picking out their parts as something new to find in the ever-repetitive pulses of Tinariwen’s call and response standards. Is this a better Tinariwen record than any other? Nope, but it’s not worse, either.

Whitney Rose – Rosie. It can get confusing, all these women singers with the last name Rose running around. I reviewed Esther Rose last month, and you never know when Eileen Rose will come out with something new. But it’s Whitney Rose we’re talking about today. She’s a country singer with the ability to subtly shift gears into a more rockin’ pop approach. Her songs are catchy, and lyrically sharp. She can sit in a bar minding her own pain while listening to the stories of others. She can subject herself to harsh scrutiny, recognizing she’s built her own jail, or insisting she needs a little shame. She also recognizes the need to reach out and seek love, because otherwise you’re gonna get lonely. Surrounded by a crack band given the space to play guitar and steel guitar solos with bite, this Rose deserves attention.

Tanya Tucker – Sweet Western Sound. Tanya Tucker was born just about five weeks before I was. When we were both 13, she had a gigantic country music hit record, and I was singing in the grade school choir just a few months shy of my big stage role as a boy soprano Fagin in Oliver. Neither one of us can quite hit the high notes any more, though she had a deeper voice than I did at 13. But she still has exquisite phrasing, that delightful southern twang, and has added a grit to her voice that makes anything she sings sound as though she’s lived within the song itself. This second comeback record, once again produced by Brandi Carlile and Shooter Jennings, may not be as consistently great as While I’m Living was four years ago, but it's still got songs worthy of her talent. There’s no way she won’t be singing “Kindness” for the rest of her life, and I wouldn’t be surprised if “City of Gold” and maybe “Breakfast in Birmingham” don’t stick around her repertoire, too.

Ben Wendel – All One. I had not encountered this excellent saxophone player before, but when I saw the concept of this record was to be duets with the likes of vocalist Cécile Mclorin Salvant, trumpeter Terence Blanchard, guitarist Bill Frisell, and vocalist José James, along with flautist Elena Pinderhughes and pianist Tigran Hamasyan who I didn’t know, I figured it would be worth checking out. It’s much more than that. Wendel’s presence is there on every track, but it’s not just one saxophone – he plays a range of reed instruments, creating an empathetic bed of interaction with each guest star. Salvant sings “I Loves You Porgy” and James goes for “Tenderly,” with each singer possibly sounding better than they do on their fine new releases these past few months. Blanchard’s cut is probably my favorite, a chamber jazz masterpiece with each instrument or group of instruments pushing hard against the rest. I love the whole album, though; it’s immensely creative music.

Sparks – The Girl Is Crying in Her Latte. Ron and Russell Mael always seem just out of phase with the world in which they live, leading pretty much every song they’ve ever written to contain an ironic distance hovering on the edge of emotionally connected. Take “Nothing Is As Good As They Say It Is,” off this new record in the 52^nd anniversary year of their existence. Here, a baby is born, and after 22 hours decides life isn’t living up to the way it was advertised (and seems particularly sad not to have been born in the south of France). Of course, life isn’t perfect, and 22 hours into it, that womb might seem pretty cushy, but we all know baby won’t fit there very much longer, either. And all this is set to a typically delightful Sparks-ian synth-pop with Philip Glass overtones recording. People cry in their lattes, people assume the party will get better once they leave, people buy drugs for their girlfriend because it’s her thing, not theirs. And we at home sing along and occasionally dance (but not to the DJ who is better than Diplo or Skrillex – we don’t get to know that person the way Sparks does).

David Wax Museum – You Must Change Your Life. Record sequencing can be tricky. Assuming you’re an artist that understands not every song you create is equal, you have to decide whether to front-load an album or build it up to a big finish. This husband and wife duo have been leading David Wax Museum for about fifteen years, so they have the hang of it by now. Here, they decide to put their four catchiest, most ecstatic songs right at the git-go. On first listen, I was so enthralled by these indie-pop-rock with a dash of Mexican folk songs that I carried my enthusiasm all the way through the less consistent vibe of the next nine cuts. After awhile, I was able to determine peaks and valleys with the rest of it – in fact, “That Night In Richmond,” smack dab in the middle, has become my favorite on the record, though that’s as much to do with the lyrics as the music. This band has had tons of breaks on TV and radio and as a politician’s wedding band – Pete Buttigieg and his husband Chasten -  but is far from being the household name it deserves to be.

Sleepy Kitty – Blessing/Curse. It may have taken a move from St. Louis to New York but the inimitable duo of Paige Brubeck and Evan Sult have finally released a new album. It’s been nine years since their maxi-EP Flux, and seven since their last single. I’m happy to report that they are still the same merry noisemaking rockers they always were, augmented now by a bass guitar that makes them sound even more exciting. Brubeck continues to come up with propulsive guitar riffs and winds her melodically intriguing solos and multiple vocal tracks around them while Sult pounds the bejesus out of the drums. Brubeck is inspired by Broadway musicals of all stripes, which she then rocks up tremendously. This is probably their best record.

Pere Ubu – Trouble on Big Beat Street. It’s been a long time since I’ve checked in on this 48-year-old avant-rock band. It’s also been a long time since I’ve recognized members of the band other than David Thomas, though former Henry Cow drummer Chris Cutler is familiar to me. Musically, things haven’t changed much since they abandoned their brief (and glorious) foray into pop/rock back in the early 90s. It’s skronky guitars, crazy-quilt rhythms, oddball synthesizer bits, and Thomas’ unique approach to vocals – think Captain Beefheart without any blues or really southern influences. There is a version of the southern folk classic “Worried Man Blues,” complete with a spoken word intro about visiting the crossroads down in Mississippi and ordering Popeye’s fried chicken from Howlin’ Wolf. And a completely surprising cover of the Osmonds classic “Crazy Horses,” a song that was new just a couple years before the first incarnation of Pere Ubu was formed. This album has made me wonder why I’ve been missing out for so many years.

Shirley Collins – Archangel Hill. This is the third release in the last seven years for Collins, who had gone 38 years without making a record before 2016. At 87, her voice is nowhere near as pure a soprano as it had once been – for evidence, she drops in an old and lovely live recording of “Hand and Heart” in the back half of this record. Her spirit, however, is fully intact, and she sells these mostly ancient mostly British folk songs. Death by drowning, dancing with the right boy, setting up a Cinderella scheme with a glove instead of a slipper, a series of metaphorical revenges on men and boys – these are the themes encountered here. The melodies are simple and elegant, the arrangements delightful – try to resist the urge to start hopping around the room during the two instrumental dance numbers. Collins is a giant of the English folk world, and I hope she gets to make even more records as enchanting as this one.

Jason Isbell & the 400 Unit – Weathervanes. Isbell is a words first songwriter, and I’m a music-first listener, so it surprises me when we can meet in the middle often enough for me to consider him an important artist. Partially, that’s because Isbell at his best pours his heart and soul into the way he sings, and his band backs him up with the kind of sympathy to the front person that only a lucky few can count on – Springsteen and Petty come to mind. This album slots right in there with his best material, and his words and music work together well enough for me to even notice what some of the songs are about. My favorites come from a place I’ll never know – parenthood. His rage at the state of the world his child inhabits (“Save the World”) or the complex regrets and happy memories for a daughter moving on (“Miles”) reveal depths I’ve never considered. I can’t ignore the power of the opening line to the whole album – “Have you ever loved a woman with a death wish?” – as it compels attention every time I hear it, and sets the tone for the close listening this record requires.

Chuck D – We Wreck Stadiums. Chuck D is almost two years younger than me though his baseball fandom seems to date from just about one year before I got hooked. Through the magic of youTube, though, I was able to watch the other day the game that made Chuck D fall in love with the game, the 1971 All-Star Game. He celebrates this game with “Towers of Power,” because Reggie Jackson hit the light tower on the roof of Tiger Stadium with his pinch-hit home run. Listening to this song the day after watching the game itself locked me into a triple decker nostalgia spot, wherein I remembered my own youth, the players I idolized back then, and the excitement of discovering this wonderful sport. Chuck D is rapping as well as he ever has on this solid record, even if ninety per cent of the references might go over the heads of anybody outside our age range and baseball fandom. He’s fixated on who is in and who is out of the Hall of Fame – I agree with him that players like Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens deserve to be in, but disagree with him on Pete Rose.

Jealous of the Birds – Hinterland. Naomi Hamilton is from Northern Ireland, and for some reason chooses to sing and perform under the name Jealous of the Birds. She’s got a few records out over the last seven years, but this is the first time I’ve encountered her. Hamilton has a compelling voice as a writer, melding melodic craftsmanship to evocative, sometimes brash images. I can’t pin her down to a simple description – one song might be delicate acoustic guitar picking under a simple vocal line; another might build complex melodic turns over light dance grooves; still another could throw in some densely packed rhythmic declarations over harsh-sounding synths and guitars. This album is short, but powerful from start to finish.

Jeremy Facknitz – Smilin’ at the Future. Facknitz comes from Detroit, but doesn’t share any of the garage or punk DNA of most rockers from that town. Instead, he reminds me a bit of the Finn Brothers Tim and Neil out of New Zealand, with hints of Steely Dan in some of his arrangements. Not that he can’t sound harsh when he feels like it, but when he does he likes to temper the aggressive sounds with quieter bits. He’s got a penchant for melodic twists and turns that all make sense together. I was intrigued by his song “Ste. Genevieve” as that’s a place I’ve actually been a time or two, a small tourist town south of my home city of St. Louis. It did recover from a severe flood back in 1993, and Facknitz tries to use this as hope we can survive climate change in general. I don’t share his optimism, but I will spread my arms and belt out the song’s hook with a lump in my throat anyway.

Rufus Wainwright – Folkocracy. Since Rufus Wainwright grew up around folk music royalty, he picked up a different feel for the legacy than most. His parents and aunt wrote their own songs more often than they peformed those of others, but I think in the down time between concerts and recordings, the family would sing whatever came to mind. Thus, when Rufus finally got around to assembling a folk-oriented record, it made sense to call in favors from family and friends and legends (both capitalized and not), and it made just as much sense to sing songs by the Mamas & the Papas, Neil Young, Franz Schubert, and Moondog as it did to sing “Shenandoah” and “Wild Mountain Thyme.” Heck, he even does a new version of one of his best originals, “Going to a Town.” Guest vocalists include Madison Cunningham, Susanna Hoffs, John Legend, Andrew Bird, Brandi Carlile, Anohni, Martha Wainwright, Lucy Wainwright Roche, and Anna McGarrigle (who I haven’t heard on record since the year after her sister, Rufus’s mom Kate, passed away). Oh, and somebody had the great idea to create a new Rufus and Chaka Khan, bringing her in to sing a stentorian churchified “Cotton Eyed Joe.”

Bob Dylan – Shadow Kingdom. I haven’t seen the film that this record soundtracks (though Wikipedia tells me the record was recorded before the film performance was shot). So, for me, I’m just enjoying Bob Dylan with an intimate band (mostly a couple guitars, bass, and accordion, though there’s a lovely harpsichord bit on “Forever Young”) singing new arrangements of songs mostly more than 50 years old (though “What Was It You Wanted” is a spry 34-year-old). I know people who can’t stand Dylan’s voice, but I’ve been down with it since I fell in love with “Watching the River Flow” during it’s brief time on the Top 40 back in 1971. Tonal qualities notwithstanding, I don’t know how anybody can dismiss Dylan’s phrasing, something he’s continually messed with his whole career. On this record, he’s relaxed, letting himself enjoy the images and puns and rhythmic twists he infused in the words, allowing them to fit so many different melodic changes. And, hey, there’s a new version of “Watching the River Flow” bringing it back into his canon where it belongs.

Son Volt – Day of the Doug. A Record Store Day release that got wider distribution two months after the fact, this is the most comfortably rocking record Jay Farrar has been involved in since the very first Uncle Tupelo album. In the years before that came out back in 1989, Uncle Tupelo and Chicken Truck were two prominent St. Louis bands in a group of bands that were exploring country roots and mixing it with punk and rock’n’roll. I’m fairly sure that Doug Sahm’s name was dropped in conversation in the old Cicero’s Basement Bar back in those days. At any rate, Chicken Truck, after breaking up, morphed into the Bottle Rockets, who delivered an excellent tribute to Sahm back in 2001. Now, Son Volt has picked out twelve songs that weren’t included on that record and delivered further proof that Sahm has to be one of the most under-rated recording artists of his time. With ex-Blood Orange Mark Spencer playing Augie Meyers-styled keyboards and ex-Bottle Rocket (but not from the time of the previous Sahm tribute) John Horton tearing it up on guitar, Jay Farrar leans hard into the persona of the energetic country/blues/Tex Mex/Americana-before-its-time giant Sahm. Just plain fun stuff.

Janelle Monae – The Age of Pleasure. What’s the age of pleasure, you might ask. Well, in my experience, it’s the age of 35 years old, which is what Monae is. Never mind the seven-year-itch, there’s something about the mid-thirties that makes a lot of people focus intently on sex as a purely delightful thing. Monae has abandoned her high concept sci-fi futurism songs, and has dived straight into the deep end of sensual abandon. She hasn’t lost her sense of groove, of tune, of vocal and instrumental arrangement from funk to reggae and r&b. She’s just put them in the service of feeling good. “If I could fuck me right here right now, I would do that.” That’s the kind of confidence that comes with achieving the age of pleasure.

Laura Cantrell – Just Like a Rose – The Anniversary Sessions. Cantrell’s 20^th anniversary as a recording artist hit in 2020, which means there was a delay in celebrating it. Now, with her first album in nine years, Cantrell could have just dropped the anniversary idea entirely, but she’s obviously one who holds on to ideas once they are formed. She also has made a lot of friends who drop by to add to the vibe – guitarists Rosie Flores, Kenny Vaughan (of Marty Stuart’s Fabulous Superlatives), and Buddy Miller; pedal steel player David Mansfield (who I first saw when he was a teenager playing violin with Bob Dylan), and singer Steve Earle among them. This record has more oomph to it than I remember from Cantrell, but she hasn’t lost at all her ability to fit observational lyrics and impressive melodies to classic forms.

Tracy Nelson – Life Don’t Miss Nobody. At 78, Tracy Nelson still has a powerful deep alto voice that could probably project without a microphone to the cheap seats in any theater. As she’s been showing us for some 55 years since her first band, Mother Earth, Nelson is also a meticulous song interpreter. She uses that vocal gift in an array of ways, phrasing lightly, emphasizing emotions, bellowing when needed. Here, on her first album in a decade or so, she is singing mostly songs of concern – political, social, romantic. It doesn’t matter that some of these songs are indelibly imprinted on American music – “No Matter What“ by Les McCann and Eddie Harris; “Strange Things Happening Every Day” by Sister Rosetta Tharp; ‘Brown Eyed Handsome Man” by Chuck Berry; “Honky Tonkin’” by Hank Williams; “Hard Times” by Stephen Foster.. My favorite is one that should be as well known as all those, but probably isn’t – “There Is Always One More Time” by Johnny Adams. In every case, Nelson makes the song her own, makes it feel completely of the moment, urgent, moving, connected. (I will say that, despite the fun of hearing a bunch of talented women take verses on the Berry song, Fontella Bass still owns the best cover of this one.) Great guest stars include Willie Nelson, Mickey Raphael, Charlie Musselwhite, Irma Thomas, Jontavious Willis, and Marcia Ball.