Semipop Life: Old schools into new bottles

Kimberly Kelly, Montparnasse Musique, Ashley McBryde, Fulu Miziki(s), and more!

Kimberly Kelly: I’ll Tell You What’s Gonna Happen

More than a decade after two ignored independent albums, this Texas-to-Nashville singer got support from Show Dog, Toby Keith’s Unimoth fiefdom, to quit her speech therapy job and take a second shot at a country career. This is old school stuff, and by old school I mean the Nineties—the lead track is a jovial “Chattahoochee” rip, while “Strawberry Wine” acts as a madeleine on “Summers Like That”—though a link to the late Billy Joe Shaver, who gets the closing voicemail after she covers “Black Rose”, ensures some connection to the dirt. Her pretty normie range is no impediment: a plethora of hypercompetent session pros enable her to honky-tonk with ease, and she delivers the slower and more harmonically sophisticated ones (the unusual progression to the chorus of “Forget the Alamo” is like a plea to be remembered) with sure-footedness. She’s most moving when she gets to claim experience: on “I Remember That Woman”, in which she understands the best way to help a bawling youngster in a bar bathroom is to stay several arms’ lengths away, and on the no-fault divorce song “Person That You Marry”, co-written with Brett Tyler, her husband, and Lori McKenna, not her husband.

Grade: A MINUS (“Person That You Marry”, “I Remember That Woman”, “No Thanks (I Just Had One)”)

Montparnasse Musique: Archeology

Neither of the primary creators of what I think is the finest of recent attempts to bring Congolese music into the 2020s is Congolese. I can’t say how much the backgrounds of French-Algerian DJ Nadjib Ben Bella and South African Aero Manyelo, who met-cute in a Left Bank train station after a show by Manyelo’s and Spoek Mathambo’s project Batuk, informed their approach, but they both know their Afropop history well and are willing to mess around with traditions with a little irreverence. Building off ideas from and sometimes actual members of 2000s and 2010s revitalization efforts like Konono No. 1 and Mbongwana Star, they unify diverse pleasures of melody, voice, and guitar with rhythms and synth textures from recent strains of Afrotronica. Likembe hooks and house beats repeat while all manner of drums dip in and out in uncommonly well-organized patterns. Key collaborators include guitarist Cubain Kabeya and Kasai Allstar Mopero Mupemba, contributing hot licks and tales of legendary culture heroes. The result is something rooted in central African traditions that also reflects progress across the continent. The dance is endless.

Grade: A MINUS (“Malele”, “Makonda”, “Chibinda Ilunga”)

Joyce with Mauricio Maestro: Natureza

Recorded in Manhattan in 1977 then shelved for being in Portuguese, this is the rare long-unreleased that doesn’t just not suck, it deepens the artist’s overall body of work. The eleven-minute “Feminina” is the most ambitious thing that Joyce—in six words, Rio’s Joni but nice about it—ever attempted, and though fusion-pop arranger/conductor Claus Ogerman doesn’t hurt matters, it’s her voice and guitar that get it over the line. “Moreno” is a remarkably fresh love song to a drummer whose name she hadn’t yet taken, and on “Pega Leve” the crew shows they can do upbeat well when they choose to. Prog guy/Joyce’s regular collaborator Maestro, whose “Coração Sonhador” is the closest the album gets to fluty schlock, more than redeems himself with his “Ciclo De Vida”, which in its inexorability is more, uh, circular than Elton John’s. Brazilian music bloggers putting Joyce’s Seventies up with Zé/Veloso/Gil’s (not with Jorge Ben’s, Rod’s realistic) now have a much stronger case.

Grade: A MINUS (“Feminina”, “Ciclo Da Vida”, “Moreno”)

Ashley McBryde Presents: Lindeville

A loose concept album, which is good—it’s not like the Kinks never strayed from the Village Green. A collective album, which is less good—the only time the rest of the group matches the host’s singing is when they echo her merger of “bra on” into one word, though if some of the men’s voices in particular would fit better in a writers’ round than on a major label country release, that’s part of the point. As usual it comes down to the writing, which does enough. “Gospel Night at the Strip Club” isn’t as well-constructed as the most artful Prinean country Jesus fables, but its punchline is heightened by the dirt-cheap one in the subsequent funeral home ad. The totality paints a small Southern town that, despite drama and endless busybodiness, is a beacon of tolerance where the demimonde can get by. You don’t have to compare Luckenbach’s voting history to Austin’s to know it’s a fantasy, and since the jokes are the key to sustaining disbelief, it’s wise that Ashley gets all the best ones.

Grade: A MINUS (“Brenda Put Your Bra On”, “If These Dogs Could Talk”, “Forkem Family Funeral Home”)

Let’s Eat Grandma: Two Ribbons

English pop duo whom, the odd inelegant construction and pro-forma synth notwithstanding, I find hard not to admire for how much of themselves they put out there. While the death of a boyfriend haunts the album, the bulk of it is about what best-friendship means once your inseparable phase is over and you’re into the uncharted territory of your twenties. Part of the answer is your standard we’ll-always-have-Norwich, but Rosa Walton and Jenny Hollingsworth express a determination to do the work required to remain BFFs and bandmates while pursuing entwined yet distinct paths. If this is never clearer than on the opening “Happy New Year”, which at first I thought slight and is now a song of the year contender that deserves the fireworks it lights for itself, the closing stretch—a wordless walk through a cemetery, some cryptic “Strange Conversations”, the near-Crutchfieldian “Two Ribbons”—almost has the same impact.

Grade: A MINUS (“Happy New Year”, “Two Ribbons”, “Strange Conversations”)

Khaligraph Jones: Invisible Currency

With little left to prove to the Kenyan audience—“that good for nothing fake accent rapper finally make it” (where “fake” signifies American), Jones states as fact on the title track—he makes a bid for “all of Africa [to] be shouting my name”. Capable of ultra-fast rhymes in three languages (beef-feeders allege his Luo is dodgy, but how would I know), he picks his spots for speed record attempts, instead defaulting to a classical-if-formal flow so old school he says “it’s the joint” once, with producer Vinc on the Beat’s modern Afro-beats understated enough to avoid dissonance. Jones’s major subjects are his past hardships (hard) and present triumphs (good), as well as God (also good). He’s most fluent when he has a guest who can challenge him, like Nigerian-Canadian motormouth Dax or his longtime sparring partner Scar. Promisingly, though, when he pads out his autobiography with narrative detail, as on the closing “The Khali Chronicles”, or just makes stuff up, as on “Bad Dreams”, his storytelling might make a whole region break out their tiny violins, or orutus as the case may be.

Grade: A MINUS (“Hiroshima”, “Tsunami”, “Flee”)

Hikaru Utada: Bad Mode

One of Japan’s biggest stars since 1999, when ardent otaku said she was better than Britney; they might be close to correct now. Still not 40, her eighth album (and first after going she/they) brings a mood of cool introspection more than introspection itself. Her self-restraint drives zealous producers like A.G. Cook and Skrillex to formal excellence; conversely she galvanizes Floating Points into being interesting for almost half of the twelve-minute one. It’s her co-productions with protege Nariaki Obukuro, however, that give the most lucid expression of the record’s mise en scene. Reticent about her melancholy, her vocals and beats create an atmosphere that’s just a little uncanny, not least because the autobiographical songs and the ones commissioned to sell RPGs are hard to tell apart from each other. In this context, that the violin on the title track is credited to “The Artist’s Son” (b. 2015) is like a shout, and rather sweet.

Grade: B PLUS (“Face My Fears” (English version), “Dare ni mo Iwa Nai”, “Time”)

Fulu Miziki: Ngbaka EP
Lady Aicha & Pisko Crane’s Original Fulu Miziki of Kinshasa: N’Djila Wa Mudujimu

As far as I can make out, this is a Platters-like situation with multiple offshoots sharing the group name—continuing the Congolese tradition of all those African Fiestas—and the group gimmick of making your instruments out of junked tubes and boxes. Some musicians show up on both records, I think (London label Moshi Moshi leaves it vague who’s playing what on Ngbaka.) The EP is the more electronic of the two releases, and while whoever’s doing the programming has a knack for an exciting beat, it doesn’t sound that different for any number of current Afrobleep releases or reflect their DIY ethos, which I assume doesn’t extend to coding their software from scratch. In contrast, the album by the group led by alleged Fulu Miziki originator Pisko Crane makes more use of all those drums they made, and has more distinctive vocals by costume designer/performance artist Lady Aicha, among others, as well as a star turn by DJ Final(e) on a percussive homemade bass (though I think he’s in the other Fulu Miziki now; it’s hard to keep track.) Despite being a little less consistent than Ngbaka—Aicha and Pisko aren’t always enthralling when they veer toward the Congolese mainline—their record is comparably rewarding.

Grades:

Ngbaka: B PLUS (“OK Seke Bien”, “Vivada”, “Beta Ndule”)

N’Djila Wa Mudjimu: B PLUS (“Mutangila”, “Sebe”, “Tikanga”)

Black Sherif: The Villain I Never Was

I’ve probably missed some E.T. Mensah masterpiece or something, but to me “Kwaku the Traveller” sounds like the greatest single to ever emerge from Ghana, as authoritative a portrait of the fallible, defiant outsider as the very best of Johnny Cash. Only “Second Sermon”, which closes the album in a Burna Boy remix/bid for pan-regional streaming income is anywhere near as good, and maybe only the ragga-rapping “Wasteman” is almost as good as “Second Sermon”—the more introspective material in particular feels received. Yet it still beats its New York drill inspirations on just about every level—lyrics, delivery, variety of beats, general recognition of humanity. Far from the greatest album to ever emerge from Ghana, but he might have it in him.

Grade: B PLUS (“Kwaku the Traveller”, “Second Sermon”, “Wasteman”)