Semipop Life: Sustainable pace

Diblo Dibala, Skee Mask, Crypt Sermon, Carsie Blanton, and more!

Champeta with Edna Martinez: Diblo Dibala Special

This hour of Cartagena-Berlin DJ Martinez’s radio show mixes great songs and the good bits of lesser ones from Machine Gun Diblo, one of the major guitarists of the “fjuck it, we’re all moving to Europe” late 20th century era of speed soukous. Christgavians and whoever has Ezra Koenig’s old hard drive might recognize plenty, like Loketo material including the all-timer “Extra Ball”. But there’s plenty I didn’t know. The journey starts in 1981 with Kanda Bongo Man’s “Iyole”, which shows Diblo’s approach fully-formed, replacing the old slow-fast with fast-fast to the delight of the African diaspora in France, who called it “TGV Soukous” (some countries had high speed rail in the ’80s, nota bene Amtrak.) There’s a generous selection of his work with Zitany Neil circa 1990; he deftly dodges oncoming synths until the seben hits and he goes as high on the neck as ever. There are highlights from his post-Loketo group Matchatcha, showing in these moments he could still go. And eight minutes in, there’s his statesmanlike contribution to 2007’s Colombiafrica: The Mystic Orchestra, evidence he’s a hero on yet another continent. Antarctica, hurry up.

Grade: A (“Extra Ball”, “Iyole”, “Doudou En Moin”)

Skee Mask: Resort

Serious Electronic Albums often turn out to be for-specialists-only when they’re narrow in a “my microgenre is purer than your microgenre” sense. On the other hand, eclecticism is hard. German producer Bryan “Skee Mask” Müller made the excellent breakbeat-heavy Shred in 2016 before branching out on the subsequent Compro, which Pitchfork loved and which I found scattershot. 2024’s Resort starts with some ambient meandering; it isn’t boring and it’s out of the way within two tracks. When the drums show up, they’re at first stuttering and accompanied by gentle synth flushes. The beats and bloops then grow more insistent, with “Waldmeister” deigning to have four-on-the-floor kicks. The record peaks with 6-7-8 in the middle: breaks with melody, breaks for breaks’ sake, breaks to make you a superstar, with cute shuffling and virtual-bird mating calls over the top. The drums then drift out and in, the memory of their hardness lingering, and on the way out we get a straight-up house banger and what’s technically a 3-stepper for our patience. The sequencing makes this a real album-ass album; I don’t even skip the opening tracks anymore.

Grade: A MINUS (“Schneiders Paradox”, “BB Care”, “Daytime Gamer”)

Dieuf-Dieul de Thiès

The recordings from this semilegendary band’s 1979–83 first life were unreleased until Teranga Beat dredged them up a decade ago on two acclaimed comps that, to set the most unreasonable standard, paled in comparison to Orchestra Baobab’s contemporary work. However, the pride of Thiès, Senegal’s third-largest city, drummed up the interest for a festival circuit reunion, followed by this very belated debut. By now the sole remaining original member is Bassirou Sarr, who still sings with strength and emotion and can keep up on the fast ones. The standout player is Wilfried Zinsou, billed as “Senegal’s only trombonist” (he’s also in Baobab), who contributes a fetching hook on that instrument on “Djirim”, and might also be the current best sax player in his country as well. The rhythms are more Afro than Latino, with sabar drummer Pape M’Baye happy to show off the evolution of mbalax in the interim. The album concludes with two 2017 live songs, of which “Alin Na Djibé” foregrounds contributions from Sarr’s old colleagues vocalist/congaist Assane Camara and the late guitarist Pape Seck. Though it took decades, their band might’ve finally become Senegal’s finest.

Grade:A MINUS (“Djirim”, “Dieuf-Dieul Ca Kanam”, “Alin Na Djibé”)

Crypt Sermon: The Stygian Rose

Metal Archives classifies the makers of Decibel’s reasonable choice for top album of 2024 as “Epic Doom Metal”, and the order of importance of those words is one, three, two. The eight-minute opener “Glimmers in the Underground” is faster than average as well as being structurally sound, with logical progressions underlying the twin guitar fireworks. The more progressive tracks, on which Enrique Sagarnaga gets in a pre-emptive advertisement for his drum school in case his career in PR doesn’t pan out, alternate with classicist downtuned doom with decorative keyboard and pentatonics; the strands come together in a tick-all-the-boxes solo on “Heavy Is the Crown of Bone”. The storyline—yes, there’s a storyline—concerns some kind of magical or magikal cult. Whatever, Brooks Wilson’s vocals become quite moving in the back half, with the fragility of love and finality (question mark) of death apparent in his performance. They return to the epic for the eleven-minute closer: a bit much, but if you’re going to build to an ambiguous ending where somebody’s soul gets enveloped in darkness, I guess it’s appropriate.

Grade: A MINUS (“Glimmers in the Underworld”, “Heavy Is the Crown of Bone”, “Scrying Orb”)

Carsie Blanton: After the Revolution

Despite being a major fan of Buck Up and Love & Rage, last year I skipped this, fatigued by rhetorical revolutions. It didn’t take much of the current administration to send me scurrying back, and, uncharacteristic plodding widescreen opener aside, the tunes and arrangements and charming jazzy chromatic bits are as strong as usual. None of that attempts to solve the problem the title implies: how to get to her particular after-the-revolution, where a small number of super-rich perverts are made an example of and a united pan-racial working class joins hands and dances around the guillotine. Which is not to say that science-fiction can’t nudge us towards a better future. In the meantime, there’s love, and the knowledge that no matter no bleak things get, there’ll always be people who love you. There’s work, which no matter how much love goes into it is still work. And there’s fun, which if you have it with the right people can be a basis for solidarity.

Grade: A MINUS (“Caroline”, “Labour of Love”, “Cool Kids”)

Zanzibara 11: Congo in Dar: Dance No Sweat 1982-1986

A Buda Musique compilation shuffling two major bands with Congolese origins who headed to Dar es Salaam and were willing to play in tune to earn Tanzanian shillings and evolve their music into muziki wa dansi; the “No Sweat” of the title reflects the manageable pace. While differences are modest, Orchestre Maquis du Zaire, who emigrated way back in 1972, sound closer to classic soukous—more Afrisa International than OK Jazz. Their brass line, led by Chinyama Chianza until his 1985 death, is very bright, and if none of the singers is Rochereau, their harmonies and their point come across well enough. Orchestre Safari Sound had more Tanzanian members and are more localized. They’d fit snugly on the back half of Guitar Paradise of East Africa thanks to leader and six-stringer Ndala Kasheba and whoever the bass player is locking in tight below the gang vocals. Orchestre Maquis diversified by buying a farm; Orchestre Safari Sound were dissolved by the guy who owned their instruments and replaced by International Orchestra Safari Sound, but that’s another comp, I hope.

Grade: A MINUS (“Mwanakwetu”, “Seya”, “Buhrani Mlanzi”)

Flo: Access All Areas

On Bluesky I asked why Britain was able to support a successful girl group while the USA wasn’t, only for my foreign correspondents to inform me that this album’s UK number 3 status was worth about an order of fish and chips. So a more relevant question is why, pace Fifth Harmaniacs, there hasn’t been an American girl group this good in well over a decade? Jorja Douglas tends to get the prime bits, but Stella and Renée are no slouches, and as a trio they can do the solo part/collective part alternation on a dime. MNEK and his hired help produce a spectrum of beats for them to work over, from light breaks to medium-slow jams that do inexorably move. The standard edition has two features: Cynthia Erivo calling them baddies, which I hope didn’t come out of their royalties, and, on “In My Bag”, GloRilla, a role model in that she’s famous enough to not have to namecheck fashion brands unless Rihanna's paying her. That one was a hit in New Zealand; if they’re considering immigration, the fish and chips are tasty there too.

Grade: A MINUS (“Caught Up”, “In My Bag”, “Check”)

Adeem the Artist: Anniversary

I delayed getting to this because I thought it’d be the same ultra-earnestness as White Trash Revelry. Well, it is, except rockier and better. Butch Walker optimizes the sound for turn-of-the-millennium guitar-driven country radio, albeit with points of difference such as the lynching song taking the anti side. Adeem uses his modest baritone note-bending as a calm center, only turning to loud and sloppy drunk-singing when the horns show up. What their writing lacks in Nashville clever-clever—though I like “she’s got a vitamin casе of vitamin-shaped capsules”—it more than makes up for in mise-en-scene and spiritual correctness; all I’ll complain about is a little too much self-flagellation (it’s a fetish for someone.) There are affairs involving at least three genders, most doomed, yet the possibility that a one night stand could become “a life full of nights with him” keeps them going. There’s politics, often, yes, earnest, but that’s a human thing to be when the corpses keep piling up. Also human: splitting a cheap cabernet and singing along to Etta Baker, not worrying about knowing the tune.

Grade: B PLUS (“One Night Stand”, “Nightmare”, “Socialite Blues”)

Dummy: Free Energy

Psychedelic dance rock, except they’re from L.A. and not from the ’90s. They’re unafraid to wear their influences on their sleeves—their MBV guitar wall song is called “Soonish…”—yet the resulting grab-bag feels personalized; no two shoes are identical when gazed at for long enough. The B-52’s attempt lacks hairspray, and there isn’t the consistent release with abandon that would get them to the top of a Flying Nun bill, though the transition from “Dip in the Lake” to “Sudden Flutes” is regal. But they have two nearly good singers who don’t make me want to look up the lyrics, the drummer and/or his vintage machine can rock out for up to a few minutes, and whichever one of them owns the Korg even manages to sneak a few hooks in. If the future of independent rock is as art music for nerds, these are nerds convince me they know what a “Nullspace” is.

Grade: B PLUS (“Nullspace”, “Soonish…”, “Dip in the Lake”)

Fake Fruit: Mucho Mistrust

Yet more somewhat sprechgesangy post-punk—Pitchfork sez Bush Tetras, which is reasonable—only (i) Ham D’Amato is an excellent post-punk name, and (ii) she’s far from a monotonous vocalist, with all kinds of warbles and wobbles: when she’s “emotionally digging to the other side of the world with only a spoon”, you can hear her scraping at the ground. The trio can do straight-head rock-outs, best on the sarcasticish “Más o Menos”: “I hope you had a good time on your sympathy tour/Hope you found everything that you were looking for.” That’s typical of the songs’ attitude towards romantic partners, which is that they suck, except maybe the imaginary ones. More useful are the back half’s twin-guitar intricacies, like on “Venetian Blinds”, sung by Alex Post (half an excellent post-punk name); in the end, even the relationships pick up a little. Jack Shirley’s production is enlivening, and the sax honking and I mean honkin’ on “Gotta Meet You” is a highlight.

Grade: B PLUS (“Más o Menos”, “Gotta Meet You”, “Venetian Blinds”)

Chapel of Disease: Echoes of Light

Köln band dominated by singer-guitarist Laurent Teubl, who started out death metal but have turned towards heavy prog while still growling a lot. Sounds like the worst of all worlds, and yet, after taking a few minutes of the title track to settle, the parts often come together. “A Death Though No Loss” has fast riffing before a slow, almost classic-rock midsection and a classic-metal outro. “Shallow Nights” is dark Goth-rock, functioning as light relief. “Selenophile”, about Teubl’s fascination with mid-’90s Tejano music presumably, sees the rest of the band (David Dankert and Laurent’s brother Cedric) earn their keep with energetic drumming and synchro guitar. With such a rigorous backing, growling is the most enjoyable way to deliver “moon”/“soon” rhymes. “Gold / Dust”, about Teubl’s fascination with mid-’90s gender troubling pro wrestlers, is clean and unmetallic until the closing solo reminds you there are guitars in space. The finale is mere classic rock; can’t win ’em all.

Grade: B PLUS (“Selenophile”, “A Death Though No Loss”, “Gold / Dust”)