Semipop Life: Make me lonesome when you go

Jeffrey Lewis, Isaiah Collier, The Ex, Mekons, and more!

Jeffrey Lewis: The Even More Freewheelin’ Jeffrey Lewis

The joke is this is his least freewheelin’ record; you know you’re in for a rough time when the funnest lyric is his tribute to David C. Berman. Runner-up is “ow, fuck, that hurt”. Contra the title, this is his Blood on the Tracks: a woman who for the purpose of this review we’ll call Inger left him, and he’s not over it to an extent that I’d worry about if some of this material didn’t have pre-pandemic provenance. Though “Movie Date” may be an anti-“Idiot Wind” in its lack of cruelty, romantics might find it even more dispiriting: she keeps falling asleep whether watching Hitchcock or Bergman and you can smell the break-up looming, caused not by inherent character flaws but by out-of-sync body clocks. After a dosage of Tylenol that’ll make his liver doctor cringe, he’s ready to tell Inger’s story, only in a deftly heartbreaking decision, he snips out almost the entirety of their time together. Also a coup is making the list song “100 Good Things” a live recording in shit quality, to show he knows there’s no shortage of reasons to live and that this might not feel true at all. Yet for those lucky enough to have a stupid brain with functional chemistry, that intellectual knowledge can keep you going. Maybe we all die alone, maybe we’re fortunate and find someone to spend some of our time with. If you see her, say hello.

Grade: A (“Inger”, “Movie Date”, “100 Good Things”)

Isaiah Collier, William Hooker, William Parker: The Ancients

I’d played Downbeat-recognized new sax hope/hype Collier’s solid The Almighty, and that did nothing to prepare me for this. The Ancients doesn’t, I presume, refer to Hooker (78 this year) and Parker (73), but it’s their combined experience and wisdom that let Collier go all the way out. The four main cuts are excerpted from 2023 performances in California (you can watch a chunk of one on YouTube); each is faded out discreetly after around 23 minutes. The second and fourth are more creative: the Korean-inspired former playing off scales that sometimes seem to have too many notes and sometimes too few, the Parker-propelled latter centering some fractal tenor work before Collier gives up and goes off to play with his siren. The first and third cuts are easy to enjoy, thanks to Collier activating his blues roots, on track 1 building intensity up to upper register squealing, on track 3 playing more cerebrally before building intensity up to upper register squealing. In their quiet moments, the trio builds a potential energy that must be dispersed, whether through controlled release or an Aztec death whistle. The digital version ends with Parker leading a singalong of the Incredible String Band’s yoga anthem “Long Time Sun” as “long gone sun”; well, jazzbos are creatures of the night.

Grade: A (“2023-05-12 LA set II”, “2023-05-13 LA set II”, “2023-05-13 LA set I”)

Tsapiky! Modern Music from Southwest Madagascar

A wild compilation, which, as discussed in last month’s singles, isn’t necessarily the sound the kids of Toliara are getting from these artists; we have YouTube for that. Mamehy’s opening “Je mitsiko ro mokotse”—“Those who talk dirty behind your back tire themselves out for nothing”—has super-speed drumming underlying unrestrained vocals (by a woman, but most of the gender is squeezed out by the recording approach) and electric guitar work that’s free and melodic. On the faster-still second track, when the synthbass shows up, it’s all over the place, indifferent to decorum. Older school Malagasy instruments like the sodina flute and the accordion get their spotlights too. What’s almost constant is percussion: whether the beat’s on the one or in 12/8, whether by a trap or hand drummer or someone who sounds like they have an extra limb to keep time on their acoustic guitar while playing it, they keep at it until the real-or-imagined audience at the festival or circumcision reaches a trance state. If you’ve craved the rush you experienced the first time you heard benga or Congotronics, here’s your drug.

Grade: A MINUS (“Je mitsiko ro mokotse”, “Fanoigna”, “Marolinta”)

The Ex: If Your Mirror Breaks

Seven years and a Dutch turn to the far right (join the club, we know) after 27 Passports, not much has changed besides a slight reduction in average song length. Main singer Arnold de Boer acknowledges ominous times—“our friends will be vanished, that’s what we’re expecting”—then the band proceeds to use their standard toolkit to resist them: dense guitar riffs, Katherina Bornefeld’s polyrhythmic tom-crash drumming, words that interpolate the space between J.G. Ballard and the ranting guy on the street corner, or maybe that’s Thom Yorke. Bornefeld’s “Wheel” is as circular as its title; if they were American modernists I’d assume they were making a reference to Dharma or a beatnik approximation thereof; instead, it’s just a wheel. de Boer’s pre-nirvana ambitions are modest. “When I grow up I want to be an apartment block”, he sings (referencing a viral piece of Hackney graffiti), ending up, unbalanced, between old school structuralism and folk anarchism. Apartments, preferably cubic, are great, it’s the gentrifiers that a band with origins in squatting must scorn. This doesn’t make for as coherent a political project as the Mekons’ below, but it’s a marginally better album.

Grade: A MINUS (“The Apartment Block”, “Monday Song”, “In the Rain”)

Ibex Band: Stereo Instrumental Music

Addis Ababa’s Ibex Band made their first appearance on disc on Mahmoud Ahmed’s 1975 classic Ere Mela Mela. This reissue of a vocal-free recording from the following year sounds like what you’d think “1970s instrumental Ethiopian album” would, and if that alone doesn’t send you to Bandcamp, it’s a fine example of its type. Opener “Kemd’layey” sets the template: a laid back vibe, filled out with smooth saxes and Dereje Mekonen’s very ’70s keyboard. It’s guitarist Selam Woldemariam and bassist Giovanni Rico who define the sound of the band and era, creating a groove that’s respectful of the nation’s music history while reflecting 4/4 rock trends in the rest of the continent and beyond. “Zerafewa” might be the standout, with guitar and flutes working in tandem to develop the tune, under which Rico drops an extremely pleasing bass line. Ibex morphed into the even more successful Roha Band before Selam decamped to the U.S., where you might find him covering “Still D.R.E.” at a restaurant or bar near you.

Grade: A MINUS (“Zerafewa”, “Kemd’layey”, “Asa’belashalehu”)

Mekons: Horror

Good title. The sources are of course nothing new—the first track gives an overview of the 17th century origins of English imperialism over a reggae-lite groove. Eleven more songs that waltz and New Wave and music-hall their way through History of Capitalist Extraction: A Very Short Introduction follow; perhaps it’s not their deepest work, but it’s a vital primer or refresher. Tom Greenhalgh is the angriest, droning about how financialization is a pillar of the war economy while Langford shouts acronyms in the background. Not to be outdone, Jonboy fulfills what must be a decades-long ambition to turn “Private Defense Contractor” into a chorus. Rico gets his Celtic one on “Fallen Leaves”, and Sally has the existentially depressing lyrics (“there is a lack of tomorrows”) as usual. The token 1980s college radio crowdpleaser “Mudcrawlers” is about how the parts of American prosperity not funded by slavery are built on “the bones of Irish families”. “You’re Not Singing Anymore”, about the forgetting of heroes and martyrs of the Spanish resistance to Franco, is the most inspirational moment, because Franco fucking died.

Grade: A MINUS (“You’re Not Singing Anymore”, “War Economy”, “Mudcrawlers”)

BaianaSystem: O Mundo Dá Voltas

All collaborations, and even the one with the airhorn works, apart from the airhorn. Uncle Gilberto is the biggest name, niece Anitta the biggest draw, and Antônio Carlos & Jocáfi show up most often—they’re on the three of the first four tracks, including the horn-heavy “Praia do Futuro”, on which Seu “the guy from City of God” Jorge runs so far he wears out his shoes. The overall feel, however, is closer to OxeAxeExu than Alto da Maravilha (it’s all on Brazil Beat Blog, look it up.) Singer Melly sets an optimistic tone on “A Laje” noting the blue-once-more post-Bolsonaro sky, then rapper Emicida runs through an impressive string of “–eta” rhymes to preach eternal vigilance against those who “deflected the ball and want to ask for a goal kick”. OxeAxeExo vet Claudia Manzo’s vocal on “Agulha” is delicious, easy-going while stressing her Mewtwo-like uncatchability. As for Anitta, she doesn’t have to do much, and Russo could use the streams.

Grade: A MINUS (“A Laje”, “Agulha”, “Praia do Futuro”)

Chung Ha: Alivio EP

One of Korea’s more grown-up stars attempts her most sophisticated project yet, in the veins of guest Sunmi and Taylor’s Reputation (which, in the K-pop tradition, the straightforward floor-filling single “Stress” steals from), with lots of English lyrics and not too many final consonants (a couple of years late on that.) She succeeds—not on the charts, this is one for us art fans—some odd English-language lyrics notwithstanding: “my diamonds are cold but I’m not made of ice”: actually that’s clever now I’ve typed it out. The trend-hopping second-half is the stronger: “Beat of My Heart” plays with post-Pantheress garage-in-the-bedroom, “Thanks for the Memories” tests how little punk a song can have and still be recognizable as punk-pop, “Even Steven” crams in syllables and uses “psychopath” in its chorus, so I guess it’s her take on emo. Closer “Still a Rose” goes all the way back to Vivaldi for its theft; now there’s a guy who could write a hook.

Grade: B PLUS (“Beat of My Heart”, “Still a Rose”, “Even Steven (Happy Ending)”)

Wild Up: Julius Eastman Vol. 4: The Holy Presence

The only sign here that the Eastman barrel might be finite is a lengthy, rather pro forma piano work. Two more striking pieces feature singer Davóne Tines, who put out a Robeson album last year and sounds like it. On “Our Father”, one of Eastman’s last compositions, Tines duets with himself, aided by some mild electronic treatment. On “Prelude to the Holy Presence of Joan d’Arc” it’s just him and his stentorian bass-baritone, recounting the words of the saints to young Joan with the clear and scary authority of a vision (are you gonna do other than what St. Michael tells you?) This leads to the 20-minute “The Holy Presence of Joan d’Arc”, on which Seth Parker Woods painstakingly overdubs cello on cello like a classical Billy Corgan. It’s an interesting arrangement and the work never lacks momentum; whether you find it holy might depend on how much you’re worried about theocrats burning you at the stake.

Grade: B PLUS (“Prelude to the Holy Presence of Joan d’Arc”, “The Holy Presence of Joan d’Arc”, “Our Father”)

Memie: Rae Thoma Rae Fetsa EP

Shapha Memie, from Limpopo Province, is the singer; for the genre, let’s roll with usage and settle on lekompo. While I don’t know enough to pick out regional elements, I hear lots of bits lifted from recent decades of South African house and amapiano—insistent drum programming, warped low-end noises. A defining characteristic is that it’s fast. The beats, by producers led by Dr Skaro (presumed Dalek) and Mr Diego (what, no PhD) are trickier than you might expect—the donk rears its head sometimes, but “Pele Pele” has a sneakier if not exactly subtle bass underpinning. “O tshephile eng” has both avant-clatter worthy of Awesome Tapes from Africa as well as midrange synths that could be straight outta ’90s Eurodance. Yet it’s genial, with Memie above it all: she’s gonna roll up to the club broke with no doubt that the partying’s gonna happen.

Grade: B PLUS (“O tshephile eng”, “Taken”, “Setla”)

The Chills: Spring Board: The Early Unrecorded Songs

Firstly and obviously we’re lucky to have one more Chills album. The songs, dredged up from Martin Phillipps’s youth and cleaned up a bit, are unsophisticated, but “Pink Frost”, which he wrote at eighteen or so, was unsophisticated and remains the defining representation of the Dunedin Sound in the New Zealand imagination. The aim isn’t to replicate the magic of that particular place and time, it’s to attempt a reconstitution with ingredients available in the 2020s and an insane-to-Kiwis guest list—Neil Finn! Tami Neilson! Shona Laing!? The result isn’t magic, just beautiful. Phillipps grew up in the right ways, shown not least in his letting his bandmates contribute their strengths. His voice didn’t, however, which creates some pleasant ironies. Where “I’ll Protect You” might’ve once been borderline creepy, it’s chivalrous now. “I Don’t Want to Live Forever” he sings without irony at all.

GRADES ARE FAKE (“I Don’t Want to Live Forever”, “I’ll Protect You”, “If This World Was Made for Me”)