Odds & Ends 145
Locals drip, globetrotters let rip
Zee Nxumalo: Inja Ye Game
52-minute “EP” from 2024’s best singles artist shows only some of what one of South Africa’s most interesting voices can do, but it’s engaging and would be more than that if you cut the pro-forma amapiano in favor of “Ama Gear” and “The Grimace Shake” (“Thula Mabota”, “Drip Juluka”, “Ngisakuthanda”)
Jon Langford & the Men of Gwent: The Legend of LL (2015)
Uniformly well-formed songs, a little pleasant unruliness, some positive-sum nationalism (still possible in Wales, apparently), and if I don’t know if this is my favorite Men of Gwent album just because it starts with a pro wrestling song, I don’t need a better reason (“Adrian Street”, “Llamas in Llanyrafon”, “Ballad of Soloman Jones”)
You might already know about the commonalities between soukous-and-derivatives and Colombian champeta, so what if you throw Arabic music in there as well—maybe on the dancefloor that’s culturally flattening, but realistically that’s not how I’m going to experience this (“Jafra”, “Walter”)
Amaka Jaji: Tidet
Libya-to-Tunisia son of a Sufi sheikh colors praisesongs with 808s and pitch correction, getting beyond “this is interesting” when he gives the songs a little more space or dubbiness, or when he sings, with some difficulty, in Tuareg (“Shin Ne9dar Ndeer”, “Taranin”, “Wen”)
Porridge Radio: Clouds in the Sky They Will Always Be There for Me
They’re finally borrowing widely enough to achieve their own sound, so of course they’re breaking up; Dana Margolin can alternative between a solo career and Substacking, and the other members can alternate between taking pride in their work and wondering why a Mercury Prize nom didn’t get them better Arts Council support (“Sick of the Blues”, “Wednesday”, “A Hole in the Ground”)
Franco-Italian globetrotter moves to Berlin and would never say the techno there is boring, heavens no, why would you infer that from these energetic oscillations that even allow a stray clap every now and then (“Lucid Dreaming”, “Awakening the World’s Heart”, “Gabriella”)
Zach Top: Cold Beer & Country Music
Sweet-voiced bluegrass guy becomes Nashville’s TikTok-era neotrad hope; the results feel secondhand but not in a terrible way, as if he might grow into the hat by the time he’s 40 (“Cowboys Like Me Do”, “I Never Lie”, “Dirt Turns to Gold”)
Nationally renowned dance nerd slow-cooks artisanal disco, with titles implying the fourth dimension is as relative for throwback funk aficionados as it is for Timelords (“Time Is Running Out”, “Times Are Changing”)
Sisso & Maiko: Singeli Ya Maajabu
Programmer Sisso is boss of Sisso Records, one of the top labels in Tanzania’s singeli scene, famous for tempos that make drum and bass seem like slow jams; Maiko owns a keyboard (“Chuma”, “Rusha”)
The jazzbos and the hip-hoppers don’t mesh perfectly, though when the latter is Billy Woods that doesn’t matter much, and drummer Savannah Harris works overtime to ensure each track has some kind of coherence: a decent record that’s hopefully a warmup for much better than decent records (“Amager”, “Fragrance (Some Days Dosn’t Have Fragrance)”)
Jax: Dear Joe,
Reasonably funny and sometimes even clever, though if none of your songs have more than one idea, you should remember that it’s the 2020s and you can just keep everything under two minutes, fluke Hot AC radio hit notwithstanding (“Barbara, Your Husband Is Gay”, “The Babysitter Song”)
Post-bereavement comeback from Indianapolis doom metal stalwarts sounds thick as hell, with drums flammed and the singer turning into a werewolf, which somehow is a tribute to Tom Petty (“Full Moon Fever”, “Embrace the Lie”)
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I’m currently participating in Bluesky’s 31 Great Women Musicians challenge by selecting women from 31 different countries—have gone through Africa and Asia, am currently briefly in Oceania before heading to Europe and the Americas. Follow along or belatedly join! It’s been educational!