Odds & Ends 124
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Odds & Ends 124
Nice guys and gals finish in the middle, comedians are all over the place
You know, it’s possible to be too much of a smartass, he says as the camera zooms in on his reflection in the mirror (“We Need a Bigger Dumpster”, “You Always Want to Bomb the Middle East”, “I Feel So Weird!”)
Whether this is very good or great is a bit beside the point—solidarity and all that—but I vote for very good: the inclusivity is right on, the default to rocking out is a relief, “The Era of the End of Eras” is a slogan worthy of their classic era, and a majority of the others don’t sound like outtakes to a 2017 album I don’t remember if I listened to (“The Era of the End of Eras”, “Focus Coin”, “Shot of Solidaritine”)
Gabon’s top military band of the ’70s is summarized through two tracks helmed by local pop star and Congolese music fan Mack-Joss, and two in support of Guinean veteran Amara Touré, whose style owed more to Senegalese trends; wouldn’t mind a bit more of the Joss era, though maybe not too much more (“Boungoumoune”, “Gnekelhe Mohi”)
Patricia Kopatchinskaja, Gustavo Gimeno, Luxembourg Philharmonic Orchestra: Francisco Coll: Orchestral Works
Having mastered the dramatic arts of mainstream modernism, rising Spaniard Coll has begun to add his own idiosyncrasies, like weirdo violin tone colors faithfully reproduced by Kopatchinskaja; the folk-decon Iberian Miniatures in particular are strange and delightful, and also small (“4 Iberian Miniatures”)
Malian band comfortable in both trad and rock modes that the world music establishment loves and I kind of like: the complementary donso and djeli ngonis are fascinating if blunted by contemporary reverby production, the token French drummer is pretty adept, main vocalist Fassara Sacko gets to illustrate the donso guy’s theft of “I Will Follow Him” and is highly effective, the other vocalists get the less fun ones and are less so (“Bamako”, “Toumaro”, “Tounga”)
Harry Styles: Harry’s House
One of the few current radio-pop artists who (a) is allowed to sing clearly and quite sweetly without having to demonstrate any special lung capacity, and (b) doesn’t come across as a slimeball, a faker, or a goober while doing so—in short, a nice young man who serves his songs well, and in 2022 maybe that is remarkable, but I kind of wish he did spit on Chris Pine, uh, metaphorically (“As It Was”, “Matilda”, “Late Night Talking”)
Twenty-two easy-going minutes complicated modestly by singer Salma from Carne Doce, still an off-kilter singer even though she’s no longer doing krayzee declamation, while Mac from Carne Doce shows off his knowledge the progression of mainstream MPB acoustic guitar (“Marquinha”, “Cetapensâno”)
Santigold: Spirituals
Fifteen years of slightly unfavorable comparisons to M.I.A. may have reversed thanks to Maya’s Twitter, but Santi still sings like her, using rising notes and girlishness to turn the thinness of her voice into a statement of identity over beats whose occasional thinness reflects that all those 2000s NYC scenester-producers are starting to get on a bit (“Ushers of the New World”, “My Horror”, “No Paradise”)
Ca7riel: El Disko
Argentinian serio-comic persona-playing rapper starts off with “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds” being consumed by a starving dubstep-powered lawnmower, then Stevie’s “I Wish” gets more respect on “Bad Bitch”, which to be clear refers to his once-a-boy now-a-bard self; the rock riffs and trap snares remain hooky and funny throughout, though the vocals are less reliable (“Muy Bien”, “Bad Bitch”)
DJ Black Low: Monate Wa Piano EP
Normie amapiano, still with some weird bits because the genre’s the most avant-garde chillout music ever invented, but foregrounding prettiness with a domestic market rather than globalist intellectuals in mind (“Imali Iphelile”, “Shee”, “Survival of the Fittest”)
Spiritualized: Everything Was Beautiful
Not the galactic cluster of the indieverse I find coziest, yet proficient and graspable, plus I have to admire their/his integrity and determination to keep doing his thing through years of personal travails (“The Mainline Song”, “Best Thing You Never Had (The D Song)”)
Michael Spyres: Baritenor
He’s a tenor! but he’s singing baritone repertoire! but also tenor repertoire as well!: for canary fanciers mostly, though even non-birders may enjoy hearing him get the Big D in Adam’s “Mes amis”, and he pulls off the funniest Figaro since Michigan J. Frog (“Largo al factotum”, “Mes amis, écoutez l’histoire”)