Semipop Life: Adventures in space and time signatures
Aly Keïta, Mark Lomax, II, Young M.A, Envy, Lil Uzi Vert, and more!
ALBUM OF THE MONTH: Aly Keïta/Jan Galega Brönnimann/Lucas Niggli: Kalan Teban
Better than Kalo-Yele: the two melodists have more experience again at playing together, each nudging the other toward patches of sunlight. Compare the hushed version of “Bafut” on the previous album to the lush version here: Brönnimann states the head with more force, while Keïta then takes the tune in a less predictable direction. Drummer Niggli might’ve stepped up the most: he gives a subtle-not-boring performance, ensuring continuous progression through changes in rhythm while taking care not to overwhelm the percussive effects of Keïta’s balofon. The leader hammers out solos shaped by decades of fusioning, while his occasional vocals plus kalimba from both him and Brönnimann (who composed three-quarters of the tracks) add textural variety without compromising the unity of the sound-world. More often, they’re just pretty, with extended melodic stretches eschewing any sense of finality, having no particular place to go but going nevertheless.
Grade: A (“Bafut”, “Douga”, “Djafa-Nema”)
Mark Lomax, II & the Urban Art Ensemble: 400 Years Suite
I recommend reading the notes on Lomax’s website, though the arc is clear without them—the suite shifts from Africa to American slavery to some kind of future, with “Lift Every Voice and Sing” thrown in for kicks. Connecting it all is a hell of a lot of drumming. Lomax is primarily interested in rhythms and the way they evolve, so that even when the piano’s goofing on Steve Reich, he’s doing some complex shit underneath that nevertheless feels completely in sync with sax guy Edwin Bayard’s feats of derring-do. Perhaps the only narrative flaw, if you are following along with the notes, is the sad stuff doesn’t seem so sad: the group’s exuberance is difficult to suppress. When it’s time to lift every voice and sing, however, they elevate.
Grade: A MINUS (“Village Celebration”, “Ancestral Walk, Pt. 2”, “Uhuru: Freedom”)
Young M.A: Herstory in the Making
Is it any kind of progress in gender relations when it's a woman rapping about bitches and pussy? Whether it is or not, it’s more fun. “Fuckin’ with the same sex, it’s a synonym/But I’m a dyke and she a fem, it’s a synonym” sets the tone in the opening “No Mercy”, and her penetrating gaze remains unrelentingly female throughout. She delivers smart quatrains with so little fuss, exclaiming “fuck being humble” without sounding too pleased with herself, that one could easily overlook the range of tones she uses over the album. While nothing here is as immediate as “OOOUUU”, this has a unity of persona and purpose that prove some kind of artistic integrity.
Grade: A MINUS (“Big”, “No Love”, “The Lyfestyle”)
The two readers I have who take an interest in metallic post-hardcore/hardcore post-metal should check this out, bearing in mind that it's in Japanese and the band has much less interest in disguising its emo roots than the likes of Converge or Deafheaven. Despite Envy falling on the “not on Encyclopaedia Metallum” side of the divide, Deafheaven (tourmates whom Envy predate by two decades) is the closer comparison, with dynamics, reverb, and studied melodicism the means of achieving wall-of-guitar grandeur, except I don’t like Deafheaven nearly as much. Must be the emo: Envy are pleasantly messier, thanks in large part to prodigal-son vocalist Tetsuya Fukagawa, who sings, talks, and screams lyrics which from limited available translations seem High Romantic in content and amiable loud drunk friend at a party in form. Byron mighta loved this.
Grade: A MINUS (“Dawn and Gaze”, “A Step in the Morning Glow”, “Swaying Leaves and Scattering Breath”)
Lil Uzi Vert: Eternal Atake
He’s the only one of emo rap’s popularizers to make it to 25, so if anything it’s a surprise it takes half a dozen tracks for survivor’s guilt to kick in. After a bunch of bragging, “I’m Sorry” introduces the much more emotionally complex remainder of the album. Which isn’t to say he’s emotionally consistent—he can swing from contrition to petulance on a dime; when he repeats “messing with your head,” you don’t know if that’s what he’s doing right now. His big kicks and pitch-bent synths continue to sound better than those of his mumblier peers, more audiophile than Soundcloud, thanks allegedly to longtime engineer Kesha Lee and concretely to Atlantic’s legal department, capable of clearing “I Want It That Way” for a mere bonus track. Be assured that Lil Uzi is capable of sustaining the Backstreet Boys’ ambiguity.
Grade: B PLUS (“That Way”, “I’m Sorry”, “Bust Me”)
Jealous of the Birds: Wisdom Teeth EP
Another smart, somewhat stagey singer-songwriter, but Naomi Hamilton really is full of good lines, rhymes, and figures. The pastoral scene-setting on “New York Has a Lump in Her Throat”, while not very 2020, is outstanding, although the Mozart vs. Beatles spoken word bit she veers off into is merely an honors thesis. The varied and detailed arrangements are well-recorded, if a little familiar: at her most high-atmospheric she sounds like a cello-free Sudan Archives, while Wussy should try to recoup their “Funeral Dress” settlement by suing over “Blue Eyes”. “Clementina”’s comforting “curled like an apostrophe” shows you why reviews include so many of her lyrics in, uh, smart quotes.
Grade: B PLUS (“Marrow”, “Kosikelu”, “New York Has a Lump in Her Throat”)
Sada Baby: Skuba Sada 2 (Deluxe)
Perhaps the most skilled of the YouTube rappers, he has a range of memorable flows, from ominous grumble to feverish Lil Wayne/Richard id release, and an uncanny knack for seamlessly transitioning from one to another. Subject matter is… well, he’s a YouTube rapper, so your mileage may (or may not) vary depending on how much you think the technical achievement of getting “slut bucket” to rhyme with “cum guzzler” overrides other issues. The constant gun violence, which finds the second part of Wu-Tang’s “handle your bid and kill no kids” too restrictive, is kayfabe of course, but just reality-adjacent enough to be disconcerting. Then again, disconcerting is something art’s allowed to be.
Grade: B PLUS (“Off White Whoop”, “2K20”, “Slide”)
Bad Bunny: YHLQMDLG
I always thought initialisms were supposed to make things easier to remember, but I guess that’s just my 20th century ass. Fellow old people may better appreciate the big reggaeton beats to fit every mood, colored with late-capitalist noises, like the digital self-harmonizing adding false consensus to the dubious relationship advice on “Solía”. His pop sense means that even when he descends into self-pitying I-never-wanted-you-anyway, a musical strength remains, only dissipating when we get to the endless guest spots stage of the album. The difference between him and Drake is that when he says “Solo comparto memes, ya yo no escribo nada,” one suspects the memes are moderately amusing.
Grade: B PLUS “Vete”, “Solía”, “Si Veo a Tu Mamá”
Eminem: Music to Be Murdered By
The best cases I’ve seen for latter-day Marshall: (1)—his fastball still has some heat, (2)—he’s still unusually capable of getting into the psychology of a kind of undereducated white male who knows how to change his situation only through violence, (3)—he can parlay (2) into something meaningful to say about, like, society. (1) is true but he’s always known it’s not enough to sustain an hour. (3) isn’t as ludicrous as I’ve made it sound—at his peak he did this all the time, almost incidentally. But he doesn’t go deep here: playing newscasts of mass shootings over “The Sound of Silence” in lieu of analysis or explicitly taking a side is a cop-out. (2) is true, kinda, but its value here is limited compared to when he used to be able to connect it to (1) or (3). Okay, so you beat your stepdad to death with a baseball bat—that don’t impress me much. A little, sure.
Grade: B (“Godzilla”, “Stepdad”)