The Bullpen 011

Distant readers, close writers

Avenida Paulista, da Consolação ao Paraíso

You’d have to know much more about Brazil and its music than I do (or have seen the play this is the soundtrack to) to judge the coherence of this as a picture of life on São Paulo’s most famous avenue. As it is, to me it’s like speed dating old friends: pleasant enough and maybe efficient for catching up with DJ K, whose genre’s whole thing is reaching climax in a couple of minutes; other times it feels like someone’s yelling “NEXT” while you’re still in foreplay. A few artists get extra time and avoid penalties: Thalin’s crew crams in a two-movement mini-epic, while Romulo Fróes leads a posse cut near the end that evokes the cooperative, as if Avenida Paulista is just like Sesame Street, albeit with more iPhone theft. (“São para poucos”, “Velhos piratas, novos tupis”, “Artigos de São Paulo!”)

Cheikh Lô: Maame

All over the place, yet he always returns to West Africa. The opener “Baba Moussa BP 120”, supposedly written in the ’70s, flits between Afro-rumba and Afro-salsa: I wanted to compliment the sax player for his Baobab imitation before realizing it was one of their current members. I prefer the next couple of tracks, which are close to the mbalax mainline, if not the fieriest kind; with Lô having just turned 70, I’m happy to let him select an age-appropriate vocal intensity. He can make up for it on percussion; how much I like a given song is correlated with how prominent Lô’s Latin drums and his team’s sabars and tamas are. An exception: the surprisingly credible reggae “African Development” (wouldn’t mind getting his advice on American development.) Best is the penultimate and straight Senegalese “Koura”, but I’m glad he’s still keeping his view of the horizon wide. (“Koura”, “Bamba Moofi Djouli Guedj”, “Jikko”)

The Close Readers: Trees of Lower Hutt

Possibly the first writer-musician to sell more novels than albums since the Rock Bottom Remainders, linchpin of New Zealand letters Damien Wilkins shows his vast knowledge of Kiwi music with a title that contrasts his work with seminal NZ rap crew Upper Hutt Posse’s, or actually it might just because he’s from there. The sound is guitar-and-synth Flying Nun after it became an aesthetic and before it became a cliche. The writing is well, literary, but not in the usual bookish American songwriter way. Wilkins knows how to be artfully sloppy—when to deploy repetition, to use or break a rhyme scheme, to drop something dumb-smart (“We didn’t rehearse/Could’ve been better/Could’ve been better/Or a whole lot worse”). The pieces hint at a sprawling intergenerational saga, with old ones mourned and four-year-olds headbutting as high as they can reach. Damien’s never going to be a guest instructor for Victoria University’s voice program, so first cousin once removed Lucy’s singing provides welcome contrast. The elder Wilkins taxing his upper register to keep up the harmonies has an honor to it, or at least could be a whole lot worse. (“Stupid Face”, “Two Heads”, “Eydie Gormé”)

DJ Bedbugs: 13eats - A MixTaype

My version of Dave Moore’s thesis is that since the turn of the decade, Taylor Swift’s immense productivity has been made possible by her simplifying her tunes, often just riffing around a root note in a way that’s functionally the same as your favorite emo rapper. One might thus want to see what happens if you isolate her vocals and place them over cloud beats. The result sounds like, well, a 2020s Taylor album; turns out that timbre matters after all. The surprise is that it sounds like an above-average 2020s Taylor album. Starting with “So Long London” making Juice WLRD’s dream lucider, several songs from the minimum-viable-music Tortured Poets Department are improved. Meanwhile A Boogie Wit da Hoodie’s classic (check the stream count, old people) “Drowning” gets rescued from Kodak Black and tended to with an old cardigan. By the time “High Infidelity” gets Myaaped, the concept’s been watered down, but nothing overstays its welcome. The point made, we get treats to finish: “Ride Wit Me”’s major-minor ambiguity reconsidered as the fount of 21st century modality! “I Knew You Were Trouble” going (more) obnoxious electro-house! Also available and somewhat less of a treat is The Tortured Poets Mixtape; if you are the generation who bought more Swift, you get what you deserve. (“So Long, Lucid”, “Drowning in Cardigans”, “Belong Wit Me”)

Dylan Hicks & Small Screens: Avian Field Recordings

A band record, this is looser than Modern Flora, with more room for improv. I could listen to Christopher Thompson’s wind lines, Hicks’s piano fingerplay, and the rest of the thoughtful band forever, or at least until it’s time to hit the feeder. Even as a song guy, I don’t obviously prefer the vocal tracks to the instrumentals, but of course there are clever words starting with the opener “Moth and Rust” (check your NRSV.) “I’m a discontinued penny in a world of Krugerrands” is even timely. One hopes this catches the attention and maybe pennies of the well-funded Birdsong Project. (“Moth and Rust”, “Corvid Tattoo”, “Avian Field Recordings”)

Grupo Frontera: Lo Que Me Falta Por Llorar

After a backlash from Mexican fans who went “Sabado” on the Grupo’s voting histories—the primary evidence being that they and one of their abuelas danced to “Y.M.C.A.”, the circumstantial being they’re recently wealthy guys from the RGV and, lacking a direct statement to the contrary, there are probabilities at play—they’ve tried to press on as if nothing’s changed. Well, musically, nothing has: they’re still super-competent, with singer Paco Solís and accordionist Juan Javier Cantú better than that, and they’re still dependent on Edgar Barrera serving something up for them on a tee for a chance of a hit. Since this is Edgar, he does so multiple times, and they get to first base often enough, maybe second on cancelling-travel-plans-early-enough-for-a-refund ballad “Monterrey”. Their last home run (“Ángel”, with Romeo Santos) was in the ancient summer of 2024; it may be time for them to commit one way or the other. (“Monterrey”, “Triste Pero Bien Cabrón”, “Quien la Manda”)

Juana Molina: Doga

In the eight years since her last all-new set, she hasn’t got any less weird. “Uno es árbol” reminds us of the pattern: loops and words are repeated to help the dissonances go down. There are shifts in intensity that you feel more than observe, like someone cranked your treadmill incline a degree while you were checking the time. Single “Siestas ahí”, some kinda love song, either includes a bunch of nonsense or my bad Spanish is worse than I thought (or both) before it self-organizes into a bridge that begins “me disolví”. Other highlights inlcude “Caravanas” and its slow build into blippery, and “Indignan a un zorzál”, which is fast. Only a couple of the long tracks reveal she can’t, in fact, do this forever. All the more reason not to take eight years for the next one. (“Siestas Ahí”, “La Paradoja”, “Caravanas”)

Karol G: Tropicoqueta

A lot, as is her fashion. Most of the 20 tracks have input from simpatico Ovy on the Drums or superproducer Edgar Barrera, so the median beat quality is high. The stumbles are when she tries too hard to meet the US market—when she sings in English, when she tries to get the most out of paying off George Michael’s estate by including three different songs that sound like “Careless Whisper”, and when she resorts to the more overbearing EDM-y kind of reggaeton, which could be fun if she wasn’t so well-mannered. She’s much more convincing showing her agile independence over the minimal silliness of “Un Gatito Me Llamó”. The album improves once the obvious streaming ploys are out of the way and she opens up to the world. I only wish there were songs that sounded like mambos numbers six through eight. (“Un Gatito Me Llamó”, “Viajando Por El Mundo”, “Tropicoqueta”)

Makaya McCraven: PopUp Shop EP

I appreciate McCraven splitting Off the Record into four minis so that I can leave the post-rock one to those into that sort of thing. Edging out the genially funky The People’s Mixtape, this 2015 live recording is my fave: guitar, bass, drums, and vibes get into a groove and stay there. McCraven plays like contemporaneous Questlove, which is to say a human imitating a Dilla loop (with post-hoc tinkering for extra quasi-mechanicalness), while Benjamin J. Shepherd’s low-end moves fluidly between trying to be part of the sample and non-showoffy melodic soloing. Jeff Parker and Justefan have more latitude but stay disciplined. The final track has more obvious overdubbed sweet stuff; by that point we deserve dessert. (“Imafan”, “Venice”, “Sweet Stuff”)

Rhett Miller: A Lifetime of Riding by Night

Recorded pre-vocal surgery, which gives an excuse to indulge in shameless sentimentality. There’s plenty of fiction to provide distance, so he can confidently declare his fidelity to “Ellie on the Wharf”, conditional on his survival. “Be Mine” starts at the Charlotte Performing Arts Center and adds layers of specifics just to get away with “I had never felt this way before, I never would again”. Without having to write passé Wife Guy songs, he gets maybe the most moving Wife Guy romanticism of his career. Things do get soft in the back half when he wishes everybody was there for each other and starts musing about middle age a little too autobiographically, but a little softness isn’t the greatest sin in this of all times. (“Be Mine”, “Ellie on the Wharf”, “Time Again”)

Vumbi Dekula Band: Slavery Is Crime EP

Congolese guitarist Maestro Dekula spent time in Tanzania’s Orchestra Maquis before re-resettling in Sweden. The opening “Nzenze Ya Kwetu” has him play shapely figures over a light conga beat; it’s an effective warm-up. Then the full band of expats and Scandinavians enters for two long songs that revel in the glories of classic soukous/dansi, the title track’s subject notwithstanding. Dekula’s playing is clean-toned and fleet, while sax player Henrik Westerberg could’ve got work in ’70s Kinshasa. The finale, “Chakacha”, is in 6/8 and harder for most non-Tanzanians to dance to, but the music may inspire some to make the effort. (“Slavery Is Crime”, “Pingu La Maisha”)