Semipop Life: Everything summer

Eirik Hegdal, David Murray, Red Velvet, Ayra Starr, and more!

Eirik Hegdal Eklektisk Samband: Turnchest

All the big Nordijazz names are here—Ole Morten Vågan! Hans Hulbækmo! Per “Texas” Johansson!—and so are all the big ideas; it’s like they’re trying to cram all the songs they’ve ever heard into forty minutes. “Vibrato Chess” is a goof on “Wuthering Heights”—down to Vågan’s electric bass and Anja Lauvdal’s synth taking turns parodying the guitar solo—though with Cathy optimistic, having made a happy posthumous marriage to Casper the Friendly Ghost or someone, hoping one day Heathcliff too will be boneless. What’s truly supernatural is that both featured vocalists are fine. Violinist Josefin Runsteen gets in some reckless wails on “Lea!” before the song liquefies. Thea Grant sings the rest, and far exceeds my usual avant-vocal bar of “not insufferable”: she’s capable of deadpanning the hipster poetry as well as weirding it up. Oh yeah, there’s jazz too, with Hegdal and Texas J blowing all manner of blowables in all manner of moods, whether embracing the contrabass honking/sopranino squealing dichotomy on “Groundsky” or taking a conventional tenor solo on “Turnchest in Candle Wax” as Runsteen’s violin gets up to multitracked trickery. The whole enterprise teeters right on the Annoying Line; while your placement may differ, it miraculously never tips over for me. A singular record.

Grade: A (“Vibrato Chess”, “Lea! (En hyllning till vänskapen)”, “Turnchest in Candle Wax”)

The Zawose Queens: Maisha

Hukwe’s daughter Pendo and granddaughter or great-niece (the press is inconsistent) Leah modernize one of Tanzania’s more successful musical family businesses, and not just by having women on the cover (which looks as if it Real World took twenty minutes to make, so that’s at least one tradition they’re keeping up.) To the drums and ilimba—more or less an mbira with a crapload more keys—they add instrumental variety and a little tech, and replace grandpa’s multi-octave vocals with more palatable harmonies. This isn’t to imply the singing isn’t skilled. When the higher-voiced Queen goes at it on “Dunia Hii”, she speed-hits each note precisely. Producer/accompanists Tom Excell and Oli Barton-Wood (English, yes, how did you guess) are content to be shadows; while they dub things up agreeably on “Mapendo”, I wouldn’t have minded one or two more blatant attempts at a sell-out. Pride of place among the guests goes to another Zawose, Leah’s dad Ndahani Bwani, who adds chizeze-fiddle and the sense of the inevitable passage of time on a couple of tracks. On the non-LP closer the Wamwiduka Band bring their homemade instruments for a party that stretches across the country. Tanzania, not England.

Grade: A MINUS (“Dunia Hii”, “Mapendo”, “Chidodo”)

David Murray Quartet: Francesca

The title track, named for Murray’s wife, is a classic, with his opening solo a model of grace and economy. Bassist Luke Stewart and pianist Marta Sanchez keep things swimming until the leader returns to finish with unaccompanied sax at a level that maybe ten tenors in recorded history have hit. It’s too much to say the rest of the album is nearly as good: it’s merely nearly nearly as good. “Ninno”—a Parisian dog, according to Francesca Murray’s animated video—swings hard and gives Sanchez and drummer Russell Carter show-off room. Over uneven rhythms, Murray displays about six different kinds of virtuosity on “Come and Go” and “Am Gone Get Some”. He takes well-judged excursions on bass clarinet, like his moving cover of the Don Pullen ballad “Richard’s Tune”. The rest of the quartet defaults to support mode, such that sometimes they seem almost surprised to be getting a solo. Perhaps Murray doesn’t push his collaborators as hard as he did on his great 2016 trio work with Geri Allen and Terri Lyne Carrington, but that’s his only record of the last decade that comes to my mind as better.

Grade: A MINUS (“Francesca”, “Richard’s Tune”, “Am Gone Get Some”)

Red Velvet: Cosmic EP

When the title track started with a slinky bass-heavy beat, I was worried this would be one of their dancey releases, which have never been entirely convincing. Then the gigantic chorus hits, then the post-chorus that probes the major I-to-major III deeper still, and yeah, it’s a tunes one too, at tempo. “Sunflower” fixes a high group “ooh” as a reference point before the subsequent groove spins ’em round. On “Bubble”, the group makes sharp turns through city-pop changes in unison while Wendy and Seulgi add ethereal harmonies that flash by like so much scenery. Those and “Last Drop” and “Love Arcade” and “Night Drive” satisfy their titles’ evocations thanks to an army of melodic engineers, from industry backbone Kenzie to the de rigueur Nordics with funny nicknames (Moa “Cazzi Opeia” Carlebecker!), and five reliable singers with perfect trust in one another. There’s even a aegyo Baroque one at the end for those of us who regard them as pop’s main defenders of the Western Canon (in E.) It’s not all you could want from pop, or even from Red Velvet. But summer endures: drink something with an umbrella in it.

Grade: A MINUS (“Cosmic”, “Sunflower”, “Last Drop”)

Ayra Starr: The Year I Turned 21

A smidgeon beatier than Tems’s album, which makes a substantial difference. London (the guy who co-produced “Calm Down”) crafts a few tracks, and most of the rest is in a similar smoothed down style, ready for American radio play should a miracle occur. There’s not much outside the Afro/Ama range except a reggaeton one (“Santa”, a Rvssian/Rauw Alejandro collab that’s her biggest international hit) and a little highlife (on “Orun”, one of the least streamed tracks; well, the globopop audience can’t always be right.) The songs foreground wealth signifiers I recognize—luxury alcohol brands, numbers with multiple commas—and no doubt many I don’t, as Starr evokes a sense of complete ease in her skin in a nice hotel pool. The guest list has a couple of surprises: Anitta’s median Brazilianness is an effective contrast, and Giveon’s expressive singing on “Last Heartbreak Song” helps to imply his duet partner has a similar breadth of feelings within a narrow range of notes. Starr doesn’t emote much, even on the dead dad song; however, utter comfort amidst one’s objectively mid surroundings is valuable to express too.

Grade: B PLUS (“Last Heartbreak Song”, “Woman Commando”, “Orun”)

Alan Braufman: Infinite Love Infinite Tears

I’d never heard Braufman, a central figure and David S. Ware loftmate in the ’70s NYC jazz scene who following the NBA’s lead moved to Utah, until he resurfaced a few years ago on his nephew Nabil Ayers’s label. His six compositions run through many modes, including ersatz Ornette and various world music-isms (sometimes a touch touristy), though their default, shaped by Chad Taylor’s drum presence, is to avant-rock out. The all-star lineup also includes James Brandon Lewis, who plays second banana until the leader lets him commit arson on the closer. Patricia Brennan’s vibes are prominent, and there’s enough in the heads to give her room for substantial melodic embellishment as well as pitch-bending electrotrickery, while Braufman sometimes switches from alto to flute to keep the airiness going. His phrasing on either instrument shows a lifetime of practice, and he can pull the “is he going forwards or backwards” trick I associate with JBL, but who knows who learned it from whom? Worth studying, worth playing for fun.

Grade: A MINUS (“Infinite Love Infinite Tears”, “Edge of Time”, “Liberation”)

IVE: IVE Switch EP

Having debuted in late 2021 with no firm ideological commitments, IVE’ve been in an ideal position to capitalize on the NewJeans reset. After a lead single that reshapes the Korean folk tale of the Tiger Who Loved the Sun as light rap, lead producer Ryan Jhun keeps the breaks tamed and the electro shuffling as if it’s Brat summer in Seoul too, while ensuring that girl group fundamentals like hooks up the wazoo are well-satisfied. “Accendio” (title in Italian and/or Latin for extra Catholicism) plays IVE’s now familiar trick of a chorus that doesn’t do much so that the post-chorus sounds bigger. “Blue Heart” makes its two-and-a-bit note chorus interesting with robo tone color and a faint backing harmony to toughen it. “Wow” bops along with such indifference to scientific rigor that Myers-Briggs gets namechecked. “Reset” is, no shit, Afropiano at pace, and I wouldn’t have minded if Tyla had one and Ayra Starr five of those. Eighteen minutes of real sugar: no high-fructose substitutes here.

Grade: A MINUS (“Blue Heart”, “WOW”, “Reset”)

Matthew Shipp Trio: New Concepts in Piano Trio Jazz

From the title down, as third-streamy as I’ve heard from Shipp. After a couple of low-key starters, Michael Bisio gets his bass turned way up on “The Function”, and Shipp responds with little pretense at virtuosity: sometimes doodling on one or two notes, sometimes crashing chords hard and soft. The trio gets much more complex with the closing racket of “Non Circle”, Bisio’s arco on “Brain System”, and the abstract opening of “Brain Work”, yet there’s always a sense of intent even as the tracks disintegrate into improv that I dare you to try to write down. Drummer Newman Taylor Baker finds ways to accent all this without drawing undue attention to himself. It all comes together best on the closing “Coherent System”; that the adventures in dynamics and interlocking rhythms do in time return to some kind of linear thread makes the title at least plausible. What more could you ask for—swing?

Grade: B PLUS (“Coherent System”, “The Function”, “Brain Work”)

Aespa: Armageddon

They’ve dropped their inscrutable metaverse concept (“NAEVIS[2] is an AI system that helps the aes of aespa appear in the real world, allowing them to be seen by the real aespa members”, thank you Aespa wiki) while keeping their sound intact. They’ve been fusing hyperpop with poppity-pop long before it became a chart trend, choosing to emphasize the poppity, and if nudged I’d lean that way as well. Kicks may stutter and subwoofers may rumble; their sophisticated harmonies remain centered except on the rappy track, and even that one sets a tone, or “tawn” as they say. Get through their played-out screwed downtuning and plodding guitar hero moves and it’s time to have fun again, with waltz-time and the least punk pop-punk you’ve heard and lyrics like “Ba-Ba-Bahama-hama”. If their genre play isn’t cohesive, the tunes create an identity: the artful flattened third on the fittingly titled closer “Melody” tells you who they are.

Grade: B PLUS (“Long Chat”, “Supernova”, “Prologue”)

Josyara: Mandinga Multiplicação: Josyara Canta Timbalada EP

Six covers of songs from percussionist and sometime Tribalista Carlinhos Brown’s Afro-Brazilian project, and if you were wondering if the material has contemporary relevance, the first line is “Jesus, desde menino, é palestino”. (Note that Brazil’s the country outside of the Middle East with the most Arabs.) Josyara accompanies herself on various acoustic guitars, sometimes with an extra guitar and mandolin as backup. She brings out the melodicism of the songs: compare the drum party “Mimar Você” on Timbalada’s Tribal Bahia to the way she caresses the chord changes here. Yet groove isn’t neglected: declining to cram ten or one timbales player into her studio, she uses multitracking to make the rhythm tricky on “Tá Na Mulher”. Only thirteen minutes, but you can pad it out in a playlist with a few Brown originals.

Grade: B PLUS (“Mimar Você”, “Margarida Perfumada”, “Tá Na Mulher”)

Tomeka Reid Quartet: 3+3

Same Halvorson/Roebke/Fujiwara lineup as 2019’s excellent Old New, with lots of new. The three tracks go very long one, long one, very long one. Album and track titles give the impression of compositions stapled together, and nothing in the sound is inconsistent with this. Reid goes heavier on pedals than I’ve heard from her before, extending the range of her instrument and creating a chorus of cellos; it comes across as something of a novelty compared to Halvorson’s more seasoned deployment of electronics, but as you should know by now this is a pro-novelty newsletter. The openings of the very long ones allow room for free improv. Though they don’t cut loose like on some other projects featuring two or more of them, they blend expertly and their avant-to-tune moves are very smooth. A transitional record with its share of beauty.

Grade: B PLUS (“Turning Inward/Sometimes You Just Have to Run with It”, “Sauntering with Mr. Brown”)