Odds and Ends 097
Sam Hunt: Southside
Pulling back on the rap beats, this isn’t as sonically distinctive as Montevallo, the one coup the “There Stands the Glass” interpolation, and his two-beer motivational speaking might not be as effective as handing her a Bud-stained copy of Why Does He Do That?, yet I bet the sex is good (“Hard to Forget”, “Breaking Up Was Easy in the 90’s”, “Kinfolks”)
Baco Exu do Blues: Não Tem Bacanal na Quarentena
Guy with a way with titles (“stuck at home, horny”; “I love Cardi B and hate Bo[l]z[onar]o”) and his who-are-these-people guests express the anger, wounded pride, and yes we did mention horniness that most any twentysomething in a failing country should feel right now (“Amo Cardi B e Odeio Bozo”, “Preso em Casa Cheio de Tesão”, “Jovem Preto Rico”)
Wussy: Ghosts
Calibrate one’s expectations appropriately and be rewarded with a well above average odds-and/or-ends collection: the masochistic Dusty cover is revelatory, the songs not on other albums deserve to be here, and the songs on other albums deserve to be there (“Breakfast in Bed”, “Mountain in Our Backyard”, “Days and Hours”)
Boldy James: The Price of Tea in China
Smart if undemonstrative rapper leaves it up to The Alchemist to deliver quasi-string to quasi-throat singing color, while extending the currently fashionable “Porsche”/”horse” rhyme to “trunk full of corpse” (“Giant Slide”, “Surf & Turf”, “Pinto”)
Princess Nokia: Everything Is Beautiful
Youth-is-beautiful beats growing-up-sucks, though it would do so my more if the rappity-rapping to sing-rapping ratio were higher (“Sugar Honey Iced Tea (S.H.I.T.)”, “Sunday Best”)
Shabaka and the Ancestors: We Are Sent Here by History
I personally prefer Hutchings without vocals or Fender Rhodes, but the ten-minute lead cut earns its length and incendiary interjections (“They Who Must Die”, “’Til the Freedom Comes Home”)
Ballaké Sissoko & Baba Sissoko: Sissoko & Sissoko
The kora and talking drum duets are pretty and groovy, the kora and ngoni duets merely pretty, and not quite as pretty as Ballaké's Musique de Nuit from a few years back (“Bi Djeliya”, “Sewa”)
Mac Miller: Circles
On this posthumous soft rock album, Miller is attractively open—he gets across that the trivial Arthur Lee composition he covers means something to him (“I Can See”, “Everybody”)