More than ever, we’re treating pop music functionally—we choose and use tunes to get us going in the morning; to set the right vibes for cooking; to get amped for a night out. But creating a functional playlist for others can be perilous. Consider the wedding DJ, who takes responsibility for the entertainment of everyone […]
MC Yallah X Debmaster Kubali (Hakuna Kulala) The most frenetic moment of Kubali comes right at the top, like an intimidating bouncer. Once you get past the brief jabbery pattern of vocables, percussion, synthesizers, and unidentified sonic objects, Kubali just swaggers and bumps. Uganda’s MC Yallah spits in Kiswahili and Luganda, reveling in the stinkface […]
Green-House Six Songs for Invisible Gardens (Leaving) Beginning an album with pooling water sounds is a risky venture. But at the start of the instrumental Invisible Gardens, Green-House combines those liquidy murmurs with some malletophone, and for nearly 30 minutes, casts a spell that’s all the more remarkable for the attendant new age clichés (yes […]
Throughout the year, I reviewed some reissues (notably Gene Clark’s magisterial No Other and Prince’s colossal 1999). Here’s a few I missed along the way—more to come next time. James Brown Live at Home With His Bad Self (UMG) James Brown returned to play his hometown of Augusta, GA, in 1969, [...]
Not sure why, but in 2019 I spent a lot of time with a relatively few new albums, so apologies to the stuff I didn’t listen to enough. Here’s an idiosyncratic best-of, the albums I listened to all year (in more or less chronological order), with a “rest-of”—albums I liked almost as much, or [...]
Leonard Cohen Thanks for the Dance (Sony) Recorded during the same sessions as You Want It Darker, which was released three weeks before Cohen’s death in 2016, Thanks For the Dance continues Cohen’s meditations on decay and mortality, though the first half is also deliciously carnal—the Lorca [...]
Miranda Lambert Wildcard (Sony) Glowing with sanitized professionalism, performed hot messiness, and branded shout outs from Patron to Tide sticks, Wildcard is textbook pop country. And after “divorce album” The Weight of These Wings, it’s party time, as Jay Joyce’s production insists–Wildcard [...]
Allah-Las Las (Mexican Summer) On their fourth LP, L.A.’s Allah-Las don’t seem in any hurry to alter their psychedelic slacker twang. In fact, they don’t seem in any particular hurry at all; the baker’s dozen of songs lopes along with nary a hitch, everything a pleasant if slightly dulled blend [...]
Lana Del Rey Norman Fucking Rockwell! (Universal) Lana Del Rey takes a turn at pillow- soft rock on NFR, the product of a partnership with Jack Antonoff—late of the annoyingly-named fun., and an erstwhile Taylor Swift and Lorde collaborator. The songs here are slow and subdued, dominated by [...]
Heron & Crane Firesides (Hibernator Gigs) Denizens of Charlottesville’s indie scene know Dave Gibson from power-pop exponents Borrowed Beams of Light and Weird Mob, plus synth soundscapers Personal Bandana. Here, Gibson and Columbus, Ohio, buddy Travis Kokas split the difference, with sweet [...]
Flying Lotus Flamagra (Warp) One of the most compelling post-Dilla beatmakers, Flying Lotus has collaborated with Kendrick Lamar and Kamasi Washington, among others, as his amorphous funk has spread throughout left-field R&B, hip-hop, and jazz. On Flamagra, FlyLo is abetted by fellow [...]
Various artists Lullabies for Catatonics (Grapefruit) The U.K. rock scene’s initial response to LSD tended more towards pastoral reverie than paranoid fever dream (not having a Vietnam War helped). But psychic unraveling quickly followed, as chronicled on Lullabies for Catatonics, a [...]
Craig Leon Anthology of Interplanetary Folk Music Vol. 2: The Canon (RVNG Intl.) Craig Leon produced the classic debuts of the Ramones and Blondie before covering some classical stuff himself (key title: Bach to Moog). On his ’80s new age albums Nommos and Visiting, Leon imagined the vernacular [...]
Boogarins Sombrou Dúvida (LAB 344) Brazilian band Boogarins is back with more heady psychedelia, adding a little bap to the mix this time. If the Google translations are on point, Dinho Almeida is repeatedly counseling us to eschew tradition, explore life, embrace fear, etc. Ironically, his [...]
Lizzo Cuz I Love You (Atlantic) When Lizzo sends the title character of “Jerome” packing even though he “looks good on paper,” it summed up my feeling of listening to the sassy, up-with-me R&B of Cuz I Love You, as Lizzo’s righteous body positivity saturates the album and becomes didactic [...]
Budos Band V (Daptone) Pseudos Band? As part of the Daptone stable, Budos Band excels at dialing in various flavors—the collective has helped supply spot-on retro soul tracks for Sharon Jones and Lee Fields, and their own instrumentals have shown up on commercials, video games, and soundtracks [...]
Marvin Gaye You’re the Man (Universal) The follow-up that never was is finally here—and honestly probably sounds better now than it would have in 1972. You’re the Man could hardly have matched the gorgeously sighing melodies, elegant textures, and memorable aphorisms of What’s Going On, and [...]
Mary Lattimore & Mac McCaughan New Rain Duets (Three Lobed) Essentially a 40-minute jam divided into four segments, New Rain Duets brings more exquisite atmosphere from Mary Lattimore, and, in a somewhat surprising role, Mac McCaughan. Best known for cofounding Merge Records and fronting [...]
Cass McCombs Tip of the Sphere (ANTI-) The opener of Tip of the Sphere is an interesting mongrel—half Irish folk mantra, half space rock, and ending with three minutes of Jerry-Garcia-circa-1972 wah guitar. All of which sort of sets the tone for Cass McCombs’ latest. There’s easy loping folk on [...]
DAWN New Breed (Young Action) Danity Kane veteran Dawn Richard has forged a reputation as an R&B iconoclast, collaborating with Dirty Projectors and working on Adult Swim. Here she puts forth her NOLA roots with wizened old- people’s voices at the start of several songs—though New Breed [...]
Tallies S/T (Kanine) Tallies kicks off with a frosty amalgam of ‘80s and ‘90s atmospheric alt rock—the Bunnymen and The Cran- berries come to mind—and when “Mother” follows up somewhere halfway between The Smiths and The Go-Go’s, it becomes clear that the past is where Tallies live. Sarah [...]
As always, there are too many albums I didn’t hear in 2018, but here are 10 favorites in roughly chronological order. Khruangbin Con Todo El Mundo (Dead Oceans) This was the runaway crowd pleaser of the winter, spring, and summer. Though they’re from Texas, Khruangbin’s hybridized funk invokes [...]
Ella Mai Ella Mai (10 Summers) Ella Mai declares emotion “a roller coaster” in a brief introductory snippet, spoken in a fetching British accent. And if her full-length debut feels kinda samey on the slow-to- midtempo tip, her lyrics do, as implied, dwell on romantic turmoil— mindfucks swirl [...]