March-April
March 10. Andrew Bird. Break
It Yourself. Overlong because repetitive and repetitive because overlong.
March 16. BBU: bell
hooks. Das Racist magpies who make sort of clever, sort of political
rhymes. I mostly listened because of the bell hooks namecheck.
March 16. Matthewdavid: Jewelry.
A solid, 20-minute download-only release from the Outmind guy. Like the weird Stones flip that opens.
March 24. Lambchop: Mr.
M. I’ve never listened to a Lambchop album before this one, despite that
fact that they formed, apparently, in the Reagan years and released their first
official album in the Clinton years, but I dig the songwriter’s mellow, Cat
Stevens-ish voice and his subdued, ironic vision of life and death just as much
as I dig the soft musical accompaniment and clever string accentuations
throughout the album. “Gone Tomorrow” is a great song.
March 28. Del the Funky Homosapien: West Coast Avengers [WCA D-Funk Limited] Mixtape. Del’s rapping
with what seems to me to be more verve than he’s shown in years over some not
bad flipped P-Funk samples, which bodes well for the second Deltron album, if
it does end up coming out this year (I’d laugh, but I think the joke is
actually on us).
April 3. s/s/s: Beak
and Claw. An interesting experiment but the three artists—the rapper
Serengeti, the indie symphonist Sufjan Stevens, and anticon. producer Son
Lux—don’t quite pull off the synthesis they’re going for.
April 3. Grimes: Visions. This music—the first I’ve ever
heard from this slinky Canadian with a poorly chosen moniker and a kinda wimpy
voice, even though Visions is, by all
accounts, her third album—exists in the sleepy netherworld between electronica
and Cocteau Twins-inspired dream pop. Even though much of it seems slight, the
songs still wrap themselves around you like a scarf around an exposed neck on a
cold day. [EXCURSUS, Aug. 6: Where the hell did that sentence come from?]
April 4. Dirty Three: Toward the Low Sun. Even when they
aren’t obsessively searching for new ground, the Dirty Three are as good as or
better than pretty much everyone else. So it goes without saying that this
album, which is shorter and tighter than the band’s last two with a greater
focus on interplay and movement, features several stunning compositions, of
which my personal favorite is an unrepentantly beautiful ballad called “Ashen
Snow.”
April 4. The Shins: Port
of Morrow. Vanilla indie pop about vanilla sex domestic life.
April 5. Mirel Wagner: Mirel
Wagner. So this 23-year-old singer/guitarist (born in Ethiopia, raised in
Finland) is sort of like a (lyrically) morbid and (musically and vocally)
moribund version of the Tallest Man on Earth, drawing freely and equally from
American folk and blues music and her own (seriously twisted) imagination. I
wouldn’t want to be alone with her on an elevator, but jeepers! this album is
intense—even the sort of cute song about riding a bicycle with her mother
watching ends on a dark note, perhaps the darkest note.
April 5. THEEsatisfaction: awE naturalE. “Queens of the Stoned Age.” It was THEEsatisfaction
that brought that seriously spaced-out, funked-up, jazzy soul/rap to the Shabazz
Palaces album last year; they continue in the same vein on their first major
album (various mixtapes and possibly worthwhile experiments are available on
the duo’s bandcamp page). Just as blissfully weird (and wired) as Monae but
earthier and perhaps too concise for its own good.
April 6. Homeboy Sandman: Subject: Matter. The first that struck me about this EP, released on
Stones Throw, is that Homeboy Sandman—whether he’s spinning silly or abstract
verses rife with wordplay to make Aceyalone blush or unloading serious social
commentary infused with way more nuance than, say, EL-P—has both technical
proficiency and range on his side, exuding more passion and vigor than most
rappers five or ten years younger than him can muster (turns out he’s in his
early 30s); and, after taking the trouble to dig up his first albums, the
second thing that struck me is that he’s only getting quicker, brighter, leaner.
April 9. Serengeti: Kenny
Dennis EP. What would it be like for the uninitiated to listen to this? I
made up my mind to love it upon hearing the hook of the first cut (“Rib tips /
rib sandwiches / and chicken wiiiings!”), but I imagine there are those who
will struggle through its sixteen glorious minutes, squinting as if hearing an
inside joke from which they are excluded. [EXCURSUS, August 6: Those who
identify with the latter category would be well advised to start with Serengeti’s
masterful Dennehy and work their way
simultaneously forward and backward from there.] Serengeti includes
some new biographical tidbits and Kenny’s sympathetic take on the Steve Bartman
fiasco.
April 9. Del the Funky Homosapien: West Coast Avengers [WCA Limited II Fela] Mixtape. Second mixtape
of the year has Del doing to Fela Kuti horns what he did to the P-Funk samples
earlier this year; the lyrical well is noticeably drier on this one.
April 21. Willis Earl Beal. Acousmatic Sorcery. A guy lucky to have anyone hyping him; he has a strong voice but is musically and
lyrically inept.
