RSSConsumer Guide: October, 2024
Guitar rock verging on the philosophical, boom-bap from an alt-rapper here to stay like that shit in your panties, a titanic work of art from 1956, & East African dance records from a DJ on a mission.
Bad Moves: Wearing Out the Refrain (Don Giovanni) Already around for almost a decade, this very mixed D.C.-based female-male pop-rock g-g-b-d quartet's fourth album is easily their most finished—devoting an entire line to the single six-syllable word "unambiguously" bespeaks discipline, brains, and a sense of humor. Indeed, many of these songs verge on the philosophical, and if you think I'm jiving, how about "Every single thing that you ever did is a lapse in the emptiness"? And "When you do your hallelujah I see through ya" is enough to make a fella prefer it to the Leonard Cohen one. A MINUS
The Dare: What's Wrong With New York? (Republic) Unintentional but all too revealing evidence that playing it loud and hard is unlikely to impress the ladies no matter how indomitably you rock ("Open Up," "Girls") *
Guy Davis: The Legend of Sugarbelly (M.C.) Now 72, Ossie and Ruby's inheritor has long been classified a blues singer, but on this album I'd make him more what in his youth was called a folksinger, and one who showcases his own material at that. Up front, where he's mostly getting laid, he's less a dog than a rounder and less a rounder than a deeply affectionate male human being: "I know you love another man but that's all right/Every now and then I get to wonder/Who's gonna love you tonight." And though I couldn't swear how new most of these lyrics are (two Leadbelly copyrights, for one thing), one of their several charms is that many of his own feel like they could go either way. "I dream the same dream every night/I dream the same dream every night/Darkness comes and tries to steal my light," for instance. Or "Had a special pair of shoes that he kept in a sack/Had a heel in the front and a heel in the back/Riley took off when he heard the hounds coming/Couldn't tell which way Riley was running." Or "10,000 biscuits in each hand/He sopped his way to the promised land." Or "Musta been a bedbug/Cause a chinch can't bite that hard." Or even "He ran across the water like Jesus Christ." A MINUS
Doechii: Alligator Bites Never Heal (TDE/Capitol) Taken up by Top Dawg Entertainment, the church-raised 23-year-old Tampa alt-rapper born Jaylah Hickmon actually inserts a Biblical reference or two into one of the filthiest and silliest star-time moves you could hope to hear or can't believe you're hearing as the case may be. "Scatter-minded, manic, borderline addict," she's "here to stay like that shit in your panties" as she contemplates "how'd it ever get to be like this," and believe it or not I do mean contemplate. As the sweat drips down her tits, she lives for one truth: "Boom-bap it's everything." Except maybe for that breathing exercise she's compelled to join by an interviewer or therapist or maybe even spiritual advisor and in any case collaborator. For sure it's its own boom-bap, and if it doesn't make you laugh watch out or she'll "delete your call log and clear your agenda." A MINUS
Ekko Astral: Pink Balloons (Topshelf) Trans-oriented D.C. noise-punks find tunes either beneath or beyond them as they let their cacophony do the talking ("Head Empty Blues," "On Brand," "Sticks and Stones") **
Ella Fitzgerald & Louis Armstrong: Ella & Louis (Ober Entertainment/20th Century Masterworks) Now 68 years old in the latest and probably last of this legendary masterpiece's several manifestations, this 78-minute 2021 release differs from Verve's vinyl original by comprising not a mere 11 selections but 16 like a good little CD should. Hence the original song sequence is reprised in order from "Can't We Be Friends" to "April in Paris" only to be followed by "Autumn in New York," "I've Got My Love to Keep Me Warm," "Let's Call the Whole Thing Off," "Love Is Here to Stay," and the irresistibly explosive, historically undeniable closer "Stompin' at the Savoy"—all five, I'll note for what it's worth, far more classic than "Under a Blanket of Blue," the only obscurity and the nearest thing to a duff song here, which of course is perfectly OK even so for those of us who can always make room for another forgotten treasure. Both these great artists' voices are by now so familiar that I'll do no more than mention what a nice contrast Armstrong's gravel-strewn humor makes to Fitzgerald's warm precision—which complements his trumpet exactly as it should. And both of their reputations are so stellar that I'm assuming that anybody who doesn't own one version or another of this titanic work of art will rectify this oversight posthaste—and that many could happily do with another. A PLUS
Adekunle Gold: Tequila Ever After (Def Jam) Nigerian Afrobeats bigshot-turned-import croons his way to international name recognition, he hopes ("Chasing Peace of Mind," "Soro," "Falling Up") ***
Kampire Presents: A Dancefloor in Ndola (Strut) Hard to resist though these mostly woman-fronted late 20th century East African dance records are—at least as fetching as, for instance, the Shikamoo Jazz and Africa Negra comps I've kvelled about recently—it's distressing to learn that they hail from Uganda, one of the most arrantly homophobic nations in all of Africa and maybe even the world. Only how about that—it turns out Kampire, the Zambia-born albeit Ugandan by both heritage and current residence muso who compiled them is not only a woman but a gay woman and not only a gay woman but one who's made it a mission to combat all manifestations of sexism in her nation of origin. Topping the album's Spotify plays by plenty as it does, you can hear why "O Wine Tienge" isn't just the opener. But the music does keep on keeping on, I promise. A
Miranda Lambert: Postcards From Texas (Republic/Big Loud/Vanner) Due to turn 41 next month, Lambert has slimmed her vocal affect down slightly, so that at times she sounds almost girlish on a 14-track album with her usual quota of duds, which is zero. True, the surefire winners have tailed off a tad, though it is my belief that no one else ever thought of "If you're gonna leave me in San Antone/Remember the Alamo . . . ny" because giving a gal a punch line that hard on the teeth sticks in Nashville's craw. In short, the Texas lawman's daughter who married a New York City cop remains both a sharp cookie and a force to be reckoned with. A MINUS
Jenny Lewis: Joy'All (Blue Note) "My forties are kicking my ass/And handing them to me like a margarita glass/I was infatuated with an older man/And then I dated a psychopath" ("Puppy and a Truck," "Psychos") ***
Mannequin Pussy: I Got Heaven (Epitaph) "What if one day I don't love you anymore?" you wonder? Could be because you're abrasive at all costs. ("I Don't Know You," "Softly") *
El Michels Affair & Black Thought: Glorious Game (Big Crown) It's been well over a decade since How I Got Over established the Roots' canonical place in the hip-hop pantheon, and hey, 2011's Undun and 2014's . . . And Then You Shoot You Cousin are proudly thematic as well. But then some version of Jimmy Fallon Syndrome, which may merely mean fame or even overwork, got in the way of their thematic ambitions, so frontman Black Thought turned out two excellent concept EPs well before undertaking this collab with keyboardist Leon Michels's New York-based soul quintet. Unlike Undun, say, it isn't plotted—from "The protocol is overhaul/I am not a know-it-all" to "haters'll shoot their shot at you out of a moving car," it's more memoiristic, and it has its limitations as such. But not so's it doesn't fit just fine into the Roots' canon. A MINUS
Gurf Morlix: In Love at Zero Degrees (Rootball) As I've been pointing out since 2011, the 73-year-old onetime Lucinda Williams guitarist has been a phenomenally consistent solo artist. In fact, this is the sixth consecutive year in which he's released an album featuring his "grizzled handshake of a voice," his acoustic guitar, and 10 or so listenable self-penned songs, every one in this case about love even if it's almost always impermanent. My copy is signed with the hand-written inscription "For you, Robert, cuz nothin' beats passion," and has proven even more playable than the others, although as a love fan myself I wish there were more happy endings, like for instance one. "I'll take you on your terms" and "Your broken tooth, your crooked nose" I'm down with, while "What I heard on the street stung me through and through," "Sad songs sung in a small room by someone who loved and lost it all," and "Half a million shitty songs about what I'm going through" sadden me. Nonetheless, there's not a shitty song here. Root for him—I do. B PLUS
Serengeti: KDIV (Othar) Decades after he got started, the "noticeably Negro" Chicago rapper born David Cohn continues to chronicle the life saga of the nearest he comes to an alter ago or is it just a special friend, Kenny Dennis, and if you're hoping I'll parse the plot, fuggetaboutit. Serengeti newbies may be best off dipping their toes in elsewhere. But if you know your way around a little, be hereby forewarned that Kenny's beloved Jueles seems to have passed away, although note that I only said "seems." And if you're already a fan rest assured that it's the unassuming musicality of Serengeti's relaxed, conversational flow as opposed to the OK beats that will keep you listening. In my house, in fact, we love the way he talks out of something that feels like friendship. Inspirational Verse: "I know a guy that knows a guy that knows a guy that knows a fella/Lou Canela." (Not, I'm sad to report, Piniella.) A MINUS
And It Don't Stop, October 9, 2024
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