ALTER.NATION #96
Protomartyr, Coriky, Pretenders, Samantha Crain, Jonathan Bree, Lianne La Havas, Zara McFarlane, The Texas Gentlemen, Nir Felder, Pantayo, Bing & Ruth, Jimmy Heath
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"Day Without End"
ALTER.NATION #96 on deezer
Protomartyr - Ultimate Success Today / Day Without End
If the guy stumbling out of a bar at 1:30 a.m. carrying a placard reading "THE END IS NEAR" decided to go into a recording studio and make an album, he'd probably sound a little like Protomartyr frontman Joe Casey. And if that man were very lucky, he'd have a band as good as Protomartyr backing him up; Casey's measured, articulate rage and disgust may fuel their music, but the echoey fury of Greg Ahee's guitars, the primordial throb of Scott Davidson's bass, and the artfully implacable drumming of Alex Leonard communicate with a strength that matches Casey for thoughtful bad karma. Protomartyr create soundtracks for an apocalypse that's hovering just over the horizon, and while 2020's Ultimate Success Today was written and recorded before the multiple calamities of that year made themselves known, it's a brilliant encapsulation -- even more than 2017's Relatives in Descent -- of a time of dashed hopes and entropy as our culture goes into what feels like its final state of implosion... Ultimate Success Today sounds timely in 2020, but this music would be a smart, compelling accompaniment for staring into the abyss as it begins to look back, no matter what the year.
Coriky - Coriky / Say Yes
Ian MacKaye and Amy Farina have a new band with an old friend—Fugazi bassist Joe Lally. Their debut is a shrewd distillation of some of the United States’ most insidious issues... and the start-stop funk and frenzied guitar scraping of “Say Yes.” But as the vocal interplay on the latter song illustrates, Farina’s presence lends Coriky a personality all their own...
Pretenders - Hate for Sale / Hate for Sale
Anyone who thought any album with Pretenders founder, songwriter, frontwoman and only consistent member Chrissie Hynde’s name on it would sound like the band needed to reassess that after 2019’s fascinating — if somewhat alienating — solo experimental jazz of Valve Bone Woe.
Those who couldn’t warm up to that side trip will be thrilled to learn that Hynde is back in full-throttle, rockstar form for the first Pretenders album since 2016’s Dan Auerbach assisted Alone. To sweeten the pot, original drummer Martin Chambers is also on board. Chambers injects his propulsive personality, especially in the opening title track — a tough, chugging rocker that could have come from the band’s fertile ’80s heyday. Hynde hasn’t lost a step either, vocally or in her songwriting...
Samantha Crain - A Small Death / Garden Dove
Soon after the release of her fifth album, 2017's You Had Me at Goodbye, some of Samantha Crain's touring plans were sidelined by injuries and other conditions exacerbated by not just one but a series of car accidents. At times bedridden with chronic pain, the Oklahoma singer/songwriter eventually found some relief in various therapies, both physical and mental in nature, as the experience dredged up some unhealed emotional wounds. As her condition improved, she began writing songs again, and the resulting album, A Small Death, carries the weight of certain life lessons and reckonings...
Jonathan Bree - After the Curtains Close / Happy Daze
Since the dissolution of the Brunettes, Jonathan Bree has quietly put together a string of albums that are as inventive, emotionally complex and sonically pleasing as anything done by anyone treading the same orchestral pop meets indie singer-songwriter boards that he does. After the Curtains Close follows in the footsteps of his previous work as it combines heavy strings, deeply melancholy lyrics, melodies that sound familiar and strange at once, and through it all, Bree's knack for delivering a subtle punch of a hook...
Lianne La Havas - Lianne La Havas / Weird Fishes (Radiohead cover)
As La Havas’ career progressed – and the neo-soul movement emerged – it was easy enough for media outlets to shunt her over into that camp, playing up her jazz elements, mixed-race ethnicity and friendship with Prince as symbols of authenticity... Gladly, the risk pays off. ‘Lianne La Havas’ is a far more cohesive record than any of its predecessors, focused around a primary nucleus of intimate vocals, nimble guitar-work and driving percussion... these new songs are languid and spacious, roaming from song to song in a way that suits their creator’s natural approach to storytelling... In conversations with her peer Denai Moore, Lianne La Havas has spoken about her desire to escape the tethers of genre, tired of its racially-policed connotations. Without going too far in new directions for the hell of it, this self-titled record shows a definite sense of musical bricolage, undercurrents of soul always pulled back before they can define her. A mid-record cover of Radiohead’s ‘Weird Fishes’ may not quite replicate the driving pace of the original, but it suits the record’s theme of love as an overwhelming force, and resists the urge to deliver a straightforward pastiche...
Zara McFarlane - Songs of an Unknown Tongue / Everything Is Connected
... Zara’s fourth studio album pushes the boundaries of jazz adjacent music via an exploration into the folk and spiritual traditions of her ancestral motherland, Jamaica. The album is a rumination on the piecing together of black heritage, where painful and proud histories are uncovered and connected to the present.
Partnering with cult South London based producers Kwake Bass and Wu-lu, Zara has created a futuristic sound palate, electronically recreating the pulsing, hypnotic rhythms Kumina and Nyabinghi – and the music played at African rooted rituals like the emancipation celebration Bruckins Party, and the lively death rites of Dinki Minki and Gerreh. These richly patterned electronic rhythms are balanced throughout by McFarlane’s distinctive, clear vocal tones, and vivid song writing...
The Texas Gentlemen - Floor It!!! / Bare Maximum
Listening to the Texas Gentlemen is like listening to a survey of American music in the 20th century; there are scraps of soft rock, outlaw country, organ jazz, gutbucket soul, Willie Nelson, surf rock, Electric Light Orchestra. It's all there, and it's all the Gents, who formed when playing backup to Kris Kristofferson, George Strait and a number of other country luminaries, before becoming their own enterprise when they had studio time in Muscle Shoals and no one to back up at it. Their first album, TX Jelly, was one of our favorites of 2017, and their sophomore album, Floor It!!!, is like that album in a multiverse; there are horn lines, deft songwriting, instrumentals that sound like car chases, and an album that is begging to blow out the shitty speakers of a Caprice. For our money, this is the country album to beat in 2020.
Nir Felder - II / Interregnum
...He also honed his writing and live work with a live trio comprised of upright bassist Matt Penman and drummer Jimmy Macbride. For II, Felder and trio recorded these tracks live in studio; he added loads of overdubs including electric and acoustic guitars, banjo, mandolin, Rhodes piano, theremin, synth, and samplers (all used tastefully)... The full trio gets into the act on "Interregnum," a knotty fusion jam with a gloriously assonant chorus. The trio's syncopation and rhythmic invention push it onto the ledge, but Felder reins it in with gorgeous, spacy synth and theremin adding textural depth and dimension. In the tune's second half, propelled by Penman, the guitarist moves across swing and post-bop without losing the fusion thread...
Pantayo are a group of Filipina-Canadian women whose unique merging of kulintang music with lo-fi punk, electronic, R&B, and other facets of pop creates a powerful and truly original sound. In the Southern Philippines, indigenous Maguindanaon and T'boli peoples -- particularly women -- have traditionally played in kulintang ensembles, named for the primary instrument that consists of a series of knobbed gong-chimes laid out in a manner similar to a marimba or xylophone. There are other instruments involved as well, including different types of metallophones like the sarunay and a drum called a dabak...
Bing & Ruth - Species / Body in a Room
With each successive release, Brooklyn post-minimalist ensemble Bing & Ruth have both refined their approach and reduced their line-up... On 2020's Species, composer and leader David Moore switches from piano, his usual instrument, to Farfisa organ, recalling the hypnotic keyboard compositions of minimalist icons like Philip Glass and Terry Riley. Double bassist Jeff Ratner and clarinettist Jeremy Viner subtly underscore Moore's wavering, cascading organ pulsations, helping to flesh out an instrument beyond its apparent limitations -- Moore has even admitted that he considered the Farfisa to be one-dimensional. Like other Bing & Ruth albums, Species was thoroughly conceived before the musicians began recording it, yet it has such a river-like flow that it can seem as if it spontaneously poured out of Moore and his cohorts...
Jimmy Heath - Love Letter / Con Alma
Jimmy Heath made one of his first appearances on record as a member of Dizzy Gillespie's band, late in 1949. Released on Capitol under the title Dizzy Gillespie And His Orchestra, it featured Heath on alto saxophone alongside his fellow Philadelphian, an up-and-comer named John Coltrane.
Almost precisely 70 years later, Heath went into the studio to record a ballads album titled Love Letter — a career capstone of sorts, featuring an all-star assemblage of talent. Among the songs featured on the album is a new version of Gillespie's "Con Alma," featuring Heath on tenor saxophone alongside Monte Croft's warmly resonant vibraphone and Russell Malone's chiming guitar.
Protomartyr, Coriky, Pretenders, Samantha Crain, Jonathan Bree, Lianne La Havas, Zara McFarlane, The Texas Gentlemen, Nir Felder, Pantayo, Bing & Ruth, Jimmy Heath
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