Semipop Life: The big fundamental

Lori McKenna, Billy Nomates, Charli XCX, Halsey, and more!

Lori McKenna: The Balladeer

Praise of this as her most consistent album may seem faint, but consistency is what you go to her for, and this is 2003 Tim Duncan-level sound. Telling story after story about real women and imagined women and every woman, she’s unafraid to take sentimentality as a subject—in the best song, a picture of a baby angel shows up three verses and a generation later just to get personified as a familiar of a dead mom. Even at her most MFA-like, as in the drawn-out contrast-then-unification of “Two Birds”, her endings leave a little for the imagination to feed on. Her improved efficiency is in large part due to her singing: lacking the natural resonance for Dave Cobb to make too big a deal of, she’s grown into a hell of an interpreter of her own work. I guess if I wrote a lyric where every subsequent line delivers on the opening “I’d be the first to admit I’m a little stuck in high school,” I’d want to give each word its ideal weight too.

Grade: A (“Marie”, “This Town Is a Woman”, “Stuck in High School”)

Guiss Guiss Bou Bess: Set Sela

Though I’ve recently hit middle age, meaning that the only thing stopping me from constantly posting that music was better in my day is that my day was the late ’90s, I’m glad to report I can still be heartened by something that sounds genuinely new. This Senegalese-based group builds their sound around sabar drumming with chanted vocals and electronic crayoning that for the first time in Afropop, as far as I know, pushes beyond Congotronics. Crucially, Grenoblois bleeps guy Stéphane Costantini used to be a percussion guy, so he and bandleader Mara Seck are simpatico, with the electroclaps and the hand-and-stick drumming distinct from each other, but mutually reinforcing. Snatches of West African guitar and swathes of synths energize the rhythms as much as their dance crew must do their live performances. Hopefully their plan to take over the festival world this year is only delayed.

Grade: A (“Majorettes #1”, “Majorettes #2”, “Dieuleul Lii”)

Peter Stampfel and the Bottle Caps: Demo ’84

Perhaps the Surfaris-with-Hendrix-cameo joke and “Impossible Groove” are no longer as amusing for those of you who were Village Voice readers when these songs came out the first time, but it’s not like I was collecting Rounder LPs in the Eighties. To this kid, the date and the “Lonely Junkie” sax solo set this up as a counterpoint to Springsteenian blockbusting, with the factoid that this was recorded on the same console as Born to Run providing confirmation bias. Stampfel had been around long enough to see how the inherent ridiculousness of the Reagan era was fertilized by the inherent ridiculousness of preceding American decades, with the farce inextricable from the tragedy, as one never knows when one’ll be a victim of random violence or a hunk of coral. But when a senile old bastard is running the country, you’ve gotta laugh. The first time.

Grade: A (“Surfer Angel”, “Funny the First Time”, “When It’s Springtime in Alaska (It’s Forty Below)”)

Billy Nomates

I wondered if “Sleaford Mods, but with music” was that much of an improvement over the original until Jason Williamson showed up to clarify that it is. Tor Maries finds no shortage of wrong sides of the bed to get out of, clipping and stretching syllables, picking surprise consonants to emphasize, and providing that most frightening of 2020 noises: a cough. Her vintage software evokes the stagnant decades half the population has endured in measures more crucial to continued human existence than audio bitrate is. Still, it takes human drummer Bill Maries to whip her sarcasm up into transcendence on “Hippy Elite”. The rest of the time, antipathy to capitalism doesn’t spare us from its miseries, but it can at least make them more entertaining.

Grade: A MINUS (“Hippy Elite”, “Happy Misery”, “FNP”)

Jinx Lennon: Border Schizo FFFolk Songs for the Fuc**d

The most problematic word is the one omitted from the title: “cosmic,” which signifies a certain reduction of clarity relative to his best work and too much doting on a pet echo effect. Still, it’s a Jinx album, juxtaposing as usual singalong melodies with tunes that nobody without his hot-and-cold relationship to writable notes could deliver unashamedly, which doesn’t stop him from making his backing crew try. Topics of current interest in border country include homelessness, toxic masculinity, non-toxic masculinity, the potential for total ecological collapse in our lifetimes, and believing in yourself despite the above. Make sure the surviving humans bring a box of Jinx records when they move to the moon, if you live that long.

Grade: A MINUS (“Got More Chance of Getting to the Moon”, “Exes and Oh’s”, “The Most Dangerous Place for a Woman Is at Home”)

Charli XCX: How I’m Feeling Now

Probably her best, even as she’s given up on producing anything that might plausibly be a globohit in favor of… weird shit, sure, but recognizably pop weird shit. Peer underneath the Gecoration and you’ll find songs about the recognizable feelings of a normalish, well-adjusted person, in a decent place with her relationship and able to defer her self-loathing until after all of *this* is over. Her singing is a major selling point: with a decade of experience, she can use Auto-Tune as expressively as any vocalist since, uh, Kanye. And she maintains a sense of intimacy: her “Party 4 U” may not literally be 4 u, but it might inspire you to throw your own party for somebody you have the fortune to not to have to socially distance from.

Grade: A MINUS (“Forever”, “Party 4 U”, “Visions”)

Edikanfo: The Pace Setters

Reissue of a 1981 Ghanian Afrobeat-but-they’ve-heard-disco album produced by one Brian Eno. Not sure how much he contributed during his Accran working holiday, but given the date and circumstances you might not be surprised to learn it’s one of the cheesier things he ever put his name on, at least until he met Coldplay. But the fromage merely adds to the aroma of the fairly amazing trap and conga drumming, as do the Space Invader synths that remind one of a time that, while not more innocent, at least had more straightforward video games. The unusual precision of the horn section suggests they set a few high scores.

Grade: B PLUS (“Gbenta”, “Nka Bom”, “Moonlight Africa”)

Halsey: Manic

Given that her incentive to make pretty good albums is so low she waited a year after “Without Me” hit number one to put this out, this is surprisingly strong. More vivid than the hit are “You Should Be Sad”, which celebrates strokes of good fortune or decision-making, such as not having G-Eazy’s kid, among the bad, such as G-Eazy; and “I Hate Everybody”, in which she can’t sustain misanthropy to the end of the chorus, which speaks well for her. (She’s much more committed to the metaphorical concept of “Killing Boys”.) Long time collaborator/ex Lido gets the most production credits besides herself, but the three Greg Kurstins disproportionately determine the tone. The hooks-from-everywhere approach hangs well on her, and if you find it too opportunistic, cry her a river.

Grade: B PLUS (“You Should Be Sad”, “I Hate Everybody”, “Alanis’ Interlude”)