"The Same Old Rock (One Must Imagine Sisyphus Happy)" #100 ALTER.NATION.MiX - weekly favtraX 12-09-2020

ALTER.NATION #100

Motorpsycho, Walter Trout, Sevdaliza, Bettye LaVette, Widowspeak, Moon Attendant, Daniel Blumberg, Kelly Lee Owens, Freeez, John Rocca, Billy Childs, Nubya Garcia, Meridian Brothers

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"The Same Old Rock (One Must Imagine Sisyphus Happy)"

Norwegian power trio influenced by psychedelia and heavy acid rock.
Motorpsycho - The All Is One / The Same Old Rock (One Must Imagine Sisyphus Happy)
Over 30 years, Norway's Motorpsycho have hammered at the limits of possibility in rock. Without intending to, they've become an atypical prog band thanks to conceptual outings, soundtracks, theatrical scores, collaborations with classical orchestras, etc.
 There is no other album in Motorpsycho's vast catalog -- including its two companions -- that reaches these exploratory heights. For all of their ambition and excess, Motorpsycho never surrender their focus, their musicality, nor their powerful emotive directness.

Tough rockin' blues guitarist who worked with John Lee Hooker, Joe Tex, Canned Heat and John Mayall before striking out on his own.

Walter Trout - Ordinary Madness / Ordinary Madness
The life of a traveling blues musician isn't easy. The vocation is rife with loneliness, bad food, cheap hotels, and lack of sleep. Walter Trout is a survivor of that life (just barely). During the late 1960s and '70s, he worked the road with Big Mama Thorton, Joe Tex, and John Lee Hooker... Ordinary Madness was produced by longtime collaborator Eric Corne and cut in analog at guitarist Robby Krieger's studio. Its many surprises reveal it to be unlike any other record in his large catalog. Its 11 songs detail with brutal honesty incidents of childhood and adult trauma, struggles with mental, emotional, and physical health issues, personal shortcomings, and more, all without grousing. The title track is introduced with ambient electronics before emerging a slow, intense guitar blues, appended by organ, electric piano, and rhythm section...

Iran-born, Netherlands-based singer and songwriter who debuted her artful left-field pop in 2014.
Sevdaliza - Shabrang / Darkest Hour
From the beginning, Sevdaliza's emotive singing and songwriting and cutting-edge productions were fully realized. Nevertheless, she's found room for artistic growth with every release. On her debut album, Ison, she expressed its concept of past and present incarnations with tracks that layered upon each other into a transcendent whole... As always, her use of textures is stunningly expressive, particularly on "Darkest Hour," which transforms from piano-driven heartbreak into dark, propulsive, dancefloor-ready grooves that distill the album's mission to turn pain into strength. At once dazzling and heartfelt, Shabrang is an epic journey, and Sevdaliza is brilliantly in control throughout it.

Stirring soul singer who began recording in the 1960s, finally reached a deserved mass audience in the '00s.
Bettye LaVette - Blackbirds / I Hold No Grudge
Bettye LaVette took a long time to achieve the success she deserved (and one could reasonably argue she still deserves to be much more famous than she is), in large part because she's hard to pin down stylistically. She's a performer in the tradition of the great Southern soul singers of the '60s, she sings with the fearless emotional depth of a blues artist, and she's willing to linger over a song, investigating its musical and lyrical peaks and valleys, with the thoughtful curiosity of a jazz artist...

The project of Molly Hamilton and Robert Earl Thomas blends dream pop, country, classic rock, and indie pop into hazy, haunting songs.
Widowspeak - Plum /  Plum
When it comes to making music that seems breezy but sinks deep into listeners' ears and minds, few acts are as skillful as Widowspeak. Molly Hamilton and Robert Earl Thomas' fifth album, Plum, reflects just how much their music has ripened over the years. Much like they did before making 2015's All Yours, prior to recording this album Hamilton and Thomas worked steady jobs and tended to other projects, including Thomas' debut album, Another Age. Once again, spending time away from Widowspeak paid off: Plum is a beautifully crafted set of songs that are as dreamy as they are grounded in reality. The album's title track is pure Widowspeak, with a golden hour glow that showcases Thomas' eloquent yet understated guitars, the delicacy of Hamilton's songwriting and vocals, and the inspired ways they play off each other...

Loose and rambling indie pop with elements of shoegaze and psych from members of Black Hearted Brother.
Moon Attendant - One Last Summer / Hot POwer
One Last Summer might be Moon Attendant's debut album, but the players involved (Neil Halstead, Ian McCutcheon, Nick Holton, Paul Blewett) have spent years collaborating in one way or another on a variety of projects dating all the way back to the '90s with Slowdive. More recently, they worked together in Black Hearted Brother and HOO, forming a sort of loose collective that has each member getting a turn in the spotlight. Here the songs and voice out front belong to Paul Blewett, and he makes the most of his chance. Like many of the bands mentioned above, Moon Attendant deals in fuzzily psychedelic pop that ropes in elements of dream pop, shoegaze, vintage indie pop, and laid-back mid-'60s L.A. vibes and builds arrangements out of overloaded guitars, burbling synths, and enough reverb to fill a small auditorium...

Former member of Cajun Dance Party and Yuck who established himself as an adventurous singer/songwriter.
Daniel Blumberg - On&On / Bound
Daniel Blumberg's two devastating 2018 releases, Minus and the earlier-recorded Hebronix album Liv, were harsh, challenging efforts that bore no resemblance to the work of his earlier indie rock groups such as Cajun Dance Party and Yuck. On&On features the same musicians who played on Minus, all regulars at London's famed avant/improv club Cafe OTO: cellist Ute Kanngiesser, violinist Billy Steiger, double bassist Tom Wheatley, and drummer Jim White (Dirty Three)...  Aside from the recurring title track, "Bound" is one of the album's more optimistic moments, starting out with an almost breezy guitar melody and switching up halfway through, as Blumberg expresses a desire "to be offline together."...

Intimate techno-pop from a singer, songwriter, and producer who surfaced in 2012 as a Daniel Avery collaborator.
Kelly Lee Owens -  Inner Song / Re-Wild
Kelly Lee Owens' second album switches styles and moods as much as her acclaimed 2017 debut did, flipping from downtempo dream pop to spacy techno with ease. None of her clubby solo singles (or her starry Jon Hopkins collaboration) released between 2017 and 2019 are present, and while they could potentially fit on the album, the tracks that are present feel more introspective... Like her debut, Inner Song covers a lot of emotional ground, and her exploratory spirit is just as captivating as the messages she expresses.

Few acts transitioned in the early 1980s from jazz-funk to electro. Herbie Hancock excepted, none did it with as much creative and commercial success as Freeez. 
John Rocca was born 23 September 1960 in London, England and first became known/famous as a dance music/disco performer, remixer and record producer. In the early eighties, John Rocca formed, played with, wrote for, produced and managed his first musical vehicle Freeez to various successes.
Freeez, John Rocca - Southern Freeez / Variations on a Theeem / Feeel the Music
Potentially confusing going by the cover, this is a two-album set: a reissue of Freeez's first album and a set of new recordings from founding leader John Rocca (helped by musicians including a couple of his nephews)... The second half of the package leads with a lively version of "Southern Freeez." Rocca's voice has deepened somewhat since it was last heard but still has a boyishly sweet quality. Like that update, the originals that follow integrate some organic house and sunny downtempo stylings with Freeez's roots... It's gratifying to hear Rocca back at it, if only in a temporary fashion, 40 years after his debut and almost three decades since he left the biz for more lucrative work in telecommunications.

An immensely gifted jazz pianist and soloist, best known for his sympathetic accompaniment with other artists.
Billy Childs - Acceptance / Leimert Park
Jazz pianist and composer Billy Childs follows up 2017's Rebirth, his Grammy-winning Mack Avenue outing, with the same core quartet: saxophonist Steve Wilson, bassist Hans Glawischnig, and drummer Eric Harland. Childs grew up in a music-loving household; in addition to his parents' prodigious record collection of jazz, blues, classical, and Brazilian volumes, his older sister, playwright Kirsten J. Childs, brought home the latest pop and soul sides...  The biggest surprise is "Leimert Park." Co-composed by Childs, bassist Paul Jackson, and drummer Mike Clark (the rhythm section of Herbie Hancock & Headhunters), it's a fusion jam that weaves trancelike synth and Rhodes vamps and rhythmic cadences as they crisscross musical terrain that touches on mid-period Weather Report, dancefloor funk, and hip-hop...

London-based saxophonist, composer, bandleader, and DJ who is one of the progenitors of 21st century British jazz.
Nubya Garcia - Source / Inner Game
After releasing two renowned EPs, London-based saxophonist, composer, and radio host Nubya Garcia makes her American debut with Source for Concord. She joins London peers Yazz Ahmed, Shabaka Hutchings, Moses Boyd, and Theon Cross in exporting the scene's kaleidoscopic approach to jazz overseas. Garcia is accompanied by her working quartet -- pianist Joe Armon-Jones, double bassist Daniel Casmir, and drummer Sam Jones -- in a program of nine striking originals. When assembled, they reflect the music and culture of her Afro-Caribbean upbringing, and her artistic community in a deeply intuitive, disciplined, and personal take on modern jazz. Garcia co-produced Source with Kwes... "Inner Game," introduced by Rhodes piano and snare breaks, recalls the celebratory spirt of Sonny Rollins' Don't Stop the Carnival in an exploratory post-bop approach to Caribbean music...  Source, with its adventurous, kinetic, and sophisticated approach in wedding modern composition, improvisation, and production to rhythmic and harmonic traditions, is one of the very best.

The creation of Eblis Alvarez, this Bogota unit weds vanguard electronic music to pan-Latin traditional sounds, Latin rock, surf, and psychedelia.
Meridian Brothers - Cumbia Siglo XXI / Cumbia del Pichamán
Bogota's Meridian Brothers are a futurist, electro-rock act at the forefront of experimental Latin rhythms and styles. Founder and multi-instrumentalist Eblis Álvarez writes, plays, arranges, and records the band's albums solo. These explore Latin folk and popular styles including vallenato and currulao, woven through electronica, neo-psych, prog, and cartoon soundtrack music. Cumbia Siglo XXI is titled after a defunct Colombian group who played a sci-fi version of discofied cumbia during the 1980s. The songs here readily reference that as a lift-off point to explore cumbia as a genre. Álvarez melds folkloric and pop Colombian, Argentinian, and Mexican cumbias to vintage rock, neo-electro, spidery funk, and tropical styles...  "Cumbia del Pichamán" is a cover of Dusty Springfield's soul classic "Son of a Preacher Man," filtered through the Barranquilla rhythms of Anibal Velasquez prismatically under and alongside reggae guitars, perverse singing, and Caribbean harmonies. Cumbia Siglo XXI is easily Meridian Brothers' most satisfying outing to date. While no less insane than its predecessors, its musicality is as abundant as it is adventuresome. Further, it pays tribute to cumbia even as it exaggerates and satirizes it with almost familial warmth and affection.

Motorpsycho, Walter Trout, Sevdaliza, Bettye LaVette, Widowspeak, Moon Attendant, Daniel Blumberg, Kelly Lee Owens, Freeez, John Rocca, Billy Childs, Nubya Garcia, Meridian Brothers