Semipop Life: Exactly what nobody wanted

ALBUM OF THE MOMENT: Jeffrey Lewis & the Voltage: Bad Wiring

Finally, he lives up to his intellectual potential by feinting toward meta while going autobiographical. In “My Girlfriend Doesn’t Worry”, he’s free to raise questions he can’t hope to answer; more often he pursues his niche interests, from cheap vinyl to Other People’s Pooches, guiltlessly. Yet content is only one reason this is his best album. The tracks here move with a higher average intensity than those of Manhattan, and his logorrheic vocals, always good for momentum, have a modulation to them that’s almost musical. Roger Moutenout’s production makes the high and low ends plenty tactile, and Mem Pahl and Brent Cole, called the Voltage this time, help out with classic ’90s-collegiate rhythms. Together they create a work of high craft and unfashionable integrity worthy of his ignored or fallen heroes. So awesome.

Grade: A (“My Girlfriend Doesn’t Worry”, “Exactly What Nobody Wanted”, “Not Supposed to Be Wise”)

THE A-LIST

Kefaya + Elaha Sahoor: Songs of Our Mothers

A veteran of reality show Afghan Star, Farsi-speaking Hazara singer Sahoor released a song against stoning women and, after a bunch of death threats, sought asylum in the U.K. There she met Giuliano Modarelli and Al MacSween; this is their second album as a trio. Their approach varies by song: sometimes they take Sahoor’s songs and put them into recognizable groove-rock settings, a la Dengue Fever, other times they lean trad or even dubby. Sahoor provides unity to the album simply by being a singer worthy of winning a TV talent show. Whether adorning the melodies with microtonal decoration or falling under the spell of light Auto-Tune, she does her mothers proud by sounding like herself.

Grade: A MINUS (“Jama Narenji”, “Charsi”, “Arose Jane Madar”)

Constantinople & Ablaye Cissoko: Traversées

Montreal-based period music nerds join with a kora-playing Mandikan griot descendant for a stately fusion. At first I found this a little soft, especially in the singing; now, yeah, who fjucking cares about that. Cissoko is one of the more expressive kora players I can think of, maintaining evenness through his dynamic range. The setar, viol, and percussion backing doesn’t put itself out too much, often just doubling, though there are some fine contrapuntal lines evoking Persian roots. The intercontinental material is a reminder there’s still a nonline world more than six feet from us. Balm.

Grade: A MINUS (“Serigne/Bi Signare”, “Denkilo”, “Alkalo”)

Stephan Thelen: Fractal Guitar

The gimmick, as math Ph.D. Thelen describes it, is “a rhythmic delay with a very high feedback level that creates cascading delay patterns in odd time signatures such as 3/8, 5/8 or 7/8.” To my philistine ears it just sounds like he’s mashing his Boss pedal, which is cool enough. Fellow proggy guitar dudes David Torn and Henry Kaiser contribute to the dissonance, and if the sound worlds they help construct aren’t unprecedented, they’re detailed at every level of attention, which I guess is as good a justification of the “fractal” as anything. The long opening and closing tracks are the highlights.

Grade: A MINUS (“Urban Nightscape”, “Briefing for a Descent into Hell”, “Fractal Guitar”)

Julia Jacklin: Crushing

Though it’s been said elsewhere and might seem reductive, it really is primarily the writing that makes this the best break-up album of recent years not made by a Crutchfield. She finds all kinds of tricky entry points (listening to his favorite band and finding out they’re actually good), burrows into them, and stops when we’ve got the idea. She has the vocal range to vary the downbeat ones, grumbling or cooing melodically as she imagines an awkward encounter at the supermarket (appropriately socially distanced I hope, Julia.) The Crutchfields have bigger and better sounds, but that’s nothing a bigger budget wouldn’t fix.

Grade: A MINUS (“You Were Right”, “Pressure to Party”, “Head Alone”)

Kris Davis: Diatom Ribbons

After a decade of appearing on every NY jazz recording that could fit a piano into the studio, 2019 was her breakout under her own name (won the NPR poll, best artist at El Intruso, got a job at Berklee, probably has to teach online now), in no part thanks to this album. And it’s good! She can play with force or serve the groove, or do both at once, punching along with Terri Lyne Carrington and Trevor Dunn while adding harmonic shape to her compositions. The guests, including Marc Ribot, Nels Cline, and JD Allen, deliver what you’d want from them, and the light usages of turntables and electronic trickery add dramatic flourish. Even when Esperanza Spalding is reciting, the music sings.

Grade: A MINUS (“Gogli Complex (The Sequel)”, “Rhizomes”, “Reflections”)

HONORABLE MENTIONS

That Dog: Old LP

I must say I miss their youthful… not exactly energy, they never pogoed or anything, maybe tension? The “Bird on a Wire” on this one is going to fly off, good for her, probably to land on a different wire. In compensation, it’s a mature record, with Uncle Randy doing an orchestral arrangement and hard-won wisdom that may help listeners negotiate relationships with current and former lovers, not to mention band members. Admirable and sometimes moving, though it wouldn’t have helped her when he was kissing Christian.

Grade: B PLUS (“Old LP”, “Drip Drops”, “Least I Could Do”)

Big Thief: Two Hands

Great guitar band, end of story — I wish. For all the acclaim Lenker’s “Not” solo has rightfully received, it feels like it’s imposed on the song after the fact, unlike the way her acoustic picking seems to spontaneously grow out of the body of the subsequent “Wolf.” Her writing has its vague moments, but when she commits to formalism (“Not” again) meaning accumulates quickly, and the band plays tight to prevent it from dissipating. Near-great guitar band; the story continues.

Grade: B PLUS (“Not”, “Wolf”, “Shoulders”)

Eleni Mandell: Wake Up Again

The writing gets a bit hippy-dippy at times, but her experience teaching songwriting to prisoners has let her find some out-of-fashion angles, and her long time bass player Ryan Feves deserves a raise (“What’s Your Handle (Radio Waves)”, “Ghost of a Girl”, “Empty Locket”)

Aziza Brahim: Sahari

Fine singer and hand-drummer with a fetching sense of melody, a sympathetic band, and not too much Eurosoup; get to Abbar el Hamada first though (“Leil”, “Mujayam”)

Bill Frisell & Thomas Morgan: Epistrophy

It might just be me who doesn’t need to hear another Monk cover until Thelonious’s 200th birthday, but this also has “Lush Life”, “Red River Valley”. and “In the Wee Small Hours of the Morning” — melodic! (“You Only Live Twice”, “Wildwood Flower/Save the Last Dance for Me”)

Diabel Cissokho: Rhythm of the Griot

While a few fusiony production florishes near the beginning might make you demand a “no gathering of more than one person” regulation specifically for Damon Albarn, for the most part this is a very good kora/guitar album, on musicianship competitive with last year’s Bassekou Kouyate (“Badinya (Family)”, “Fasso (Home Town)”, “Nayya (Come On)”)

Pernice Brothers: Spread the Feeling

Upper echelon sad old bastard music, with a couple of songs with the twist and pace to thrive on a playlist, with or without the lyrics and some downers (“Always in All Ways”, “Throw Me to the Lions”, “The Devil and the Jinn”)

Junius Paul: Ism

AACM bassist gets his name on the cover and everybody in Chicago to help out; the post-recording cut-and-paste doesn’t muffle the party too much (“The One Who Endures”, “Collant Denier”)

Tiny Ruins: Olympic Girls

A folkie, but she’s friends with the Clean so she pays attention to her acoustic playing and her arrangements, and each song has a point (“Olympic Girls”, “One Million Flowers”)

Burna Boy: African Giant

Africa’s current hottest star is Drake with patois and Afrobeats, down to the phoned-in Future cameo. His Auto-Tuned almost-singing of some charisma and no special dexterity or melodicism usually concerns not much, excepting an anti-colonial one with a spoken bit recounting British deals with the Niger Company (now part of Unilever.) The “and Afrobeats” does make this more listenable than… what was the last Drake album I bothered with?

Grade: B (“Another Story”, “Destiny”)