Odds & Ends 123
Girl group reformulations and avant-curious hum-alongs (separately)
Viviz: Beam of Prism mini-album
Half of GFriend, for those of you who keep track of such things, find new ways to explicate onomatopoeias with descending sighs, real chorus melodies, and yeah sure a key change, showing that busy doesn’t exclude pretty (“Love You Like”, “Tweet Tweet”, “Bop Bop!”)
Dave Rempis & Avreeayl Ra: Bennu
Two musicians from two generations spend three songs going pretty far out in a late Trane mode, with Sun’s drummer Avreeayl’s cool percussion tones propelling Rempis’s speed blurts into the heavens while keeping an eye on the other place (“Fire and Ash”, “Persea”)
Dan Ex Machina: All Is Ours, Nothing Is Theirs
Excellent critic illustrates tales of functioning with dysfunction and vice versa with a history of alt-rock guitar, a pretty solid rhythm section, better singers than himself, and much better singers than himself (“Drinking and Driving (Separately)”, “Staring Problem”, “At Least I’m in Love”)
The Mountain Goats: Getting into Knives (2020)
The main sonic development is the increased prominence of Matt Douglas on sax/keybs/whatever’s lying around: the difference between the keepers and the divertissements is more correlated with the strength of his contribution than with Darnielle’s songwriting, a tell that it’s not a tip-top MGs album (“Get Famous”, “Picture of My Dress”, “Tidal Wave”)
Kehlani: Blue Water Road
Reigning monarch of honorably mentionable R&B includes a major hippie bop/elegy that’ll help me remember which album this is in five years time, as well as a horny lesbian cheating song complete with feminized “Pony” blurps; the third best song only has Justin Bieber for a little bit (“Altar”, “More Than I Should”, “Up at Night”)
Genial quartet album with long time Tim Berne tenor Chris Speed in a bluesier mode than usual, and trumpeter Shane Endsley mainly following in his wake but stretching out on “Perseverance”, the freest and longest track, while bassist Mohler and drummer Nate Wood keeping things swinging along at a reasonable clip (“Fight Song”, “Night Fall”, “Perseverance”)
Apink: Horn
Veteran girl group restricts unexpected melodic tricks to the lead single, instead demonstrating their comfort in their distinct vocal roles, especially when leaning soulful; if they’re still doing this in their forties, it’ll be groundbreaking (“Dilemma”, “Nothing”, “Just Like This”)
Girls’ Generation: Forever 1
The top K-pop girl group of the ancient early 2010s reunites with little need to be cutting edge—just make the harmonies tight, let the good singers handle any tricky bits, keep the mood vaguely inspirational, leave the adult emotions to the solo albums, and maybe run wild with the synths once (“You Better Run”, “Forever 1”, “Lucky Like That”)
75 Dollar Bill: Social Music at Troost Vol. 3: (Other) People’s Music
The others covered include big names in avant/avant-curious/noise music, Toussaint, the inevitable Dylan, a Ron Padgett poem, and a mashup of MC5 with “9 to 5” that doesn’t quite come off because pop is hard; unsurprising, then, that the funnest songs are by Yoko, who’s already done the popularization work (“We’re All Water”, “Don't Worry, Kyoko (Mummy’s Only Looking for Her Hand in the Snow)”)
Brisbane EDM band who can’t make up their minds whether they’re serious retro-house artists or they’re taking the piss: it shouldn’t be a hard choice, you’re Australian (“Angry Girl”, “Toy Boy”)
Future: I Never Liked You
Still doing barely enough as a vocalist to remain of some sonic interest, as long as the more dramatic beats don’t tempt you into listening to what he has to say (“Wait for U”, “Holy Ghost”)