Semipop Life: Deal or New Deal

[Ahmed], Les Savy Fav, Margaret Glaspy, Serengeti, and more!

[Ahmed]: African Bossa Nova

The most impressive result of the 2024 Francis Davis Jazz Poll was the top ten finish of Giant Beauty, a five disc collection of live recordings of the quartet أحمد [Ahmed], named for Ahmed Abdul-Malik, bassist on Monk’s Misterioso who championed the introduction of Arabic and African modes and sonics to American jazz. The box is a major work, but four hours of repetitive-on-principle music is a lot, and after playing the whole thing (plus the standalone release Wood Blues) I focused on this third disc because it has the coolest name and concept. “African Bossa Nova” was a breezy six-minute track on Abdul-Malik’s 1963 Sounds of Africa; here, it’s hammered out to nearly fifty. Seymour Wright leads with the four note riff on alto, goes into variations, then abandons that in favor of making up new motifs, some too strange to annotate, some picking a tone and reducing it to pure rhythm, which means it’s time to go back to the riff again. Pianist Pat Thomas starts out fulfilling the Brazilian promise of the title, alternating straight and syncopated bars, then turns to avant-banging; the most thrilling moments are when he and Wright are in evident sync. Antonin Gerbal’s drumming controls the intensity, as he picks spots to step up the polyrhythmic clatter above the usual elevated heartrate. Bassist Joel Grip is reactive, which absolutely isn’t faint praise because timing the changes of repeated units is what holds the music together. There are four more discs if you want.

Grade: A

Les Savy Fav: Oui, LSF

Their first album in fourteen years, though they’ve kept playing live shows whenever, to quote a title, “Somebody Needs a Hug”. After they get the siren-dirge “Guzzle Blood” (how prophetic) out of the way, they show that while sitting around at their day jobs or playing for Seth Myers at their night ones, they’ve squirreled away a lode of guitar licks, which they stitch into a roar that bassist Syd Butler demonstratively holds together, as he should, since it’s his label. Still, your feelings on this will be your feelings on Tim Harrington’s vocal performance. As indifferent to notatable pitch as ever, there’ll be some instance where he annoys the hell out of you (mine is single “Legendary Tippers”), outweighed, one hopes, by several where he sounds like the middle-aged eccentric/visionary you wanted to grow up into. “Limo Scene” starts as your average graveyard casual car sex song and ends up rhyming “papa oom mow mow” with “I don’t got no doubts now”. “World Got Great” starts with dissonant noise, resolves into an optimistic future, and, most heroically, offers, if not a plan, then at least a chord progression to get there.

Grade: A MINUS (“World Got Great”, “Limo Scene”, “Nihilists”)

Margaret Glaspy: The Sun Doesn’t Think EP

It’s no surprise that indie’s current most interesting electric guitarist turns out to be an excellent acoustic guitarist, with artful accents to remind you she knows how to do those. The focus, however, is on her writing and singing, with the latter the major revelation: there’s a delicacy to her lower notes that doesn’t exclude accuracy, and in conjunction with her total control over guitar dynamics, she ensures you hear the important words. Her imagery can be goofy—“If all of my failures were dimes, I could fill up a bathtub”—but it’s as effective as any piggy bank. In the atypical “Would You Be My Man?” she plays a character with “a knife by the door”; the other songs concern the way youthful epiphanies and disappointments shape hubrises and neuroses that some high-functioning adults have learned to repress. Most memorable is the title tribute to siblings: one with inspirational No Doubt posters, another with an eidetic memory for music. “Isn’t that more than enough?”, she asks. And of course it isn’t, except as a basis for a love so unconditional it doesn’t need a basis. It just loves you.

Grade: A MINUS (“The Sun Doesn’t Think”, “24/7”, “Bathtub”)

Serengeti: Kenny Dennis IV

The opener panders to those with an appreciation of Italian condiments and violent ’80s cartoons—hey, that’s me! The rest requires you to somewhat follow the narrative, which briefly: late middle-aged Kenny is in Minnesota, his sanity and mustache have returned for now, and he’s in a happy relationship with Elaine, who looks a lot like Jueles in the right light. How Ajai fits into the web becomes clearer here, though now I’m uncertain how much of Dennis 6e was “real”; some continuity dork please start a Wiki to clarify the timeline and the streetwear references. (Thank Sufjan for keeping the noise down on the interludes that render all this semi-comprehensible, including the cliffhanger ending.) Producers headlined by Kenny Segal give protagonist Kenny shifty beds to flow over, with presumed-younger beatmaker Open I adding sometimes quite moving piano parts on tracks like, well, “Piano”. And Geti-Kenny’s stilted, emphatic Index of Midwestern Popular Culture rhyming is the same as it ever was, even if changing legendary Chicago sports anchor Lou Cannelis’s name to rhyme with “fella” is cheating.

Grade: A MINUS (“Aint Touched the G”, “Lou Canela”, “Heat Not Hot”)

Tarbaby: You Think This America

Title’s on the nose; feel free to add a comma for extra meanings. This piano trio—Orris Evans, Eric Revis, Nasheet Waits—plays a few originals and some choice cuts from African-American traditions. Evans’s “Red Door", dating to his Bad Plus stint, stands out among the former: it’s a pretty tune, and the rhythm duo is willing to lay back a bit to help Evans’s decoration. Ornette gets covered at his most catchy, with the melody of “Dee Dee” stated straightforwardly, then with groove emphasized as an older Coleman might’ve funked it. Other composers include simpatico free titans (Andrew Hill, D. and S. Murray) and two surprises. They have a subtler understanding of “Betcha by Golly Wow” than Prince, playing it with a kind of hush all over the world tonight. Revis starts “Nobody Knows You When You’re Down and Out” with a chunky bass sound, then Evans plays staccato-heavy phrases, with Waits’s accents sometimes favoring one, then the other. There’s a mix of ease and unease it’d take a New Deal to resolve.

Grade: A MINUS (“Red Door”, “Nobody Knows When You’re Down and Out”, “Dee Dee”)

Ka: The Thief Next to Jesus

The most I’ve gotten out of one of his albums, and I can’t rule out that’s just because his death has made me more patient with his low-key delivery over drum-phobic beats. After the obligatory scolding of materialist rappers (fine, I do that too), the subject is, as the title suggests, religion. Ka’s no fan of Christianity as practiced, and he and his samples point out its historical connections to slavery, segregation, and more subtle forms of subjugation. And yet the music pushes back against him even when it isn’t straight-out gospel: of course much of Black music draws from the church, and at least part of the reason Black music has been an effective soundtrack for social change is the moral authority it implicitly draws upon. Ka doesn’t resolve this tension, and I’m sad he didn’t get a chance to try. I can only hope some other DIY intellectual takes up his baton; getting another Civil Rights Movement out of it would be a bonus.

Grade: A MINUS (“Collection Plate”, “Beautiful”, “Cross You Bear”)

Ruby Bell: Greatest Hits EP

Hyperpop riser signed by Dylan Brady, who helps out while withholding his most annoying innovations save for the lightest of skanks on “Wanted to Go Home”. So this is 500 Gecs: a near-optimal number of gecs, tbh. The focus remains on the songs, which have helpful self-explanatory titles. “Trust Me” goes heaviest on annoying repetition of the artist tag; stick with it for the rumbling trap kicks at the end. “We Were at the Club” proceeds with pace and big claps, saving the wubstep breakdown for the closing stretch. “Internet bf” is airy, making said relationship seem barely existent beyond the odd emoji. In “Love Song” she says “I don’t want to sound corny”, so she quantizes her vocals, and if that isn’t as meta a move as a true avant-gardist like Natasha Bedingfield might make, it does enough to make the subject fresh: love may be ecstasy, but it’s also a way to regulate one’s emotions. Sixteen minutes in all, not one lacking tune.

Grade: A MINUS (“Love Song”, “We Were at the Club”, “Internet bf”)

Amy Rigby: Hang in There with Me

She joins the small collection of artists who have written about personal experience with senior citizenship with insight, wit, and, please note, Loudon, humanity. A simple stylish haircut repays a little maintenance all life long; other things one appreciates more with age, like Mike Leigh movies or one’s body ten years ago (not sure what late middle age has in store for me; according to Amy’s Substack it might have something to do with eyebrows.) Coloring all this is her perspective as someone who’s had a fulfilling career despite several tracks on Mod Housewife earning her zero Spotify dollars: she sings with the toughness of somebody who long stopped giving a shit about being overlooked, which doesn’t mean that a Sabrina Carpenter cover of “Bangs” wouldn’t do both parties a favor. Overall, not as magical as her first decade of solo albums, especially thanks to the limited drummer budget, but still an excellent bunch of songs.

Grade: B PLUS (“Hell-Oh Sixty”, “Bangs”, “Dylan in Dubuque”)

Peter Evans: Extra

Piccolo trumpeter Evans leads a trio record that doesn’t shy from electronics or production tricks, starting with a duet with himself on the opening “Freaks”. He gives off the cool jazz vibe of always being in control, despite doing some stuff that’s wild if you try to write it down. Bassist Petter Eldh doesn’t seem to be doing anything that would shock Milt Hinton, but he does it with such consistent pace that he brings you to the future before you know it. Drummer Jim Black is the most conspicuously progressive, playing what almost amounts to oops-all-breakbeats on “Boom”, yet even he does this with a sense of reserve. After the initial burst, the rest of the tracks let things spread out, with some blurping, some atmospherics, some stuff you can dance to, showing that while free jazz can be harnessed, it’ll take you where it wants to go.

Grade: B PLUS (“In See”, “Freaks”, “Boom”)

Manu Chao: Viva Tu

A new Manu Chao album in the spirit of the old ones, meaning everyone who was or wanted to be a countercultural late ’90s/early ’00s Franco-Ibero-Italo-Latino (which includes Willie Nelson) will enjoy it. And Chao gives them plenty to work with, though his pet sounds now connote nostalgia for past substance use as much as substance use itself. I’m sure some political references go over my Americentric head, but I’d wager the rise of the far right in every country he loves (except Mexico, which is at least theoretically willing to let him into the country again) is what’s transformed his blues from merry to weary—along with, right, aging. On average, the French songs turn out the strongest, which maybe isn’t surprising for a language with traditions of ephemeral affairs and fatigued optimism. No matter how dark things get, there’s always hope. And drugs, there’s also always drugs.

Grade: B PLUS (“Tom et Lola”, “Cuatro Calles”, “La Couleur de Temps”)