PnM:MiX dozen bestofs > 2020's blues songs so far

Sass Jordan, G. Love & Special Sauce, Marcus King, The Wood Brothers, Son Little, Thorbjørn Risager & The Black Tornado, Tinsley Ellis, Christopher Paul Stelling, The Third Mind, Sonny Landreth, Robert Cray, Ryan Perry

"Am I Wrong"

PnM.MiX dozen bestofs 2020's blues songs so far

A British-born, Canadian pop/rock singer who also appeared as a judge on the TV talent competition Canadian Idol. Sass Jordan joined her first band, the News, after she learned to play bass at the age of 17. Four years later, she left the band and, by 1985, had begun a solo career.
Sass Jordan - Rebel Moon Blues / Am I Wrong
...More crucially, it’s also a watershed that charts a new course in Jordan’s musical voyage while tracing her love of the blues back to its source. The album features eight songs, freshly interpreted and given the Sass Jordan treatment with her band the Champagne Hookers: guitarists Chris Caddell and Jimmy Reid, bassist Derrick Brady and drummer Cassius Pereira, augmented by blues harp master Steve Marriner and keyboardist Jesse O’Brien.

Philadelphia singer-songwriter and crew seamlessly bled old-school blues and jazz into modern-alterna-hip-hop.
G. Love & Special Sauce - The Juice / Fix Your Face
Now that they're over a quarter-century into their career, it's time to come to terms with a simple fact: G. Love & Special Sauce are no longer youthful upstarts, they're veterans. Fittingly, their 2020 album The Juice is the kind of record that could only be made by musicians who've been around the block a time or two. It's not that The Juice is the work of untrammeled virtuosos -- it is most decidedly a vibe record -- but rather that it's an album that's casually confident that also happens to have an offhand sense of community...

Ace guitarist who won a following with blues and jam band fans before honing his talents as a vocalist on his first solo album.
Marcus King - El Dorado / The Well
There's nothing at all wrong with being a guitar hero, but sometimes a musician wants to show folks they can do more than spin off dazzling solos. The Marcus King Band has won a loyal following among guitar mavens, blues heads, and jam band enthusiasts for their agile blend of boogie rock and blues that gives King plenty of opportunity to express himself on guitar. But for his first solo effort, King has opted to try something different. 2020's El Dorado was produced by Dan Auerbach of the Black Keys, and he's helped King craft a change-of-pace effort that should appeal to folks unaware of his work with his band...

A roots music trio featuring brothers Chris (upright bass, vocals) and Oliver Wood (guitars, vocals) along with multi-instrumentalist Jano Rix, the Wood Brothers bring a distinctive flair to their union of folk, blues, gospel, and jazz.
The Wood Brothers - Kingdom in My Mind / Little Blues
...The band didn't enter the studio with the intent of recording a new album, but they were taken with the results of their recording, so brothers Chris and Oliver Wood shaped the improvisations into songs. Starting with a collection of funky rustic recordings wound up being a boon to the Wood Brothers, letting Kingdom in My Mind establish a vibe that's cozy, homespun, and just slightly slick. Chalk the polish up to how the group are veterans with a good sense of space and feel, a knack that they're pushing on Kingdom in My Mind over tasteful songcraft...

Blending elements of acoustic blues, vintage soul, and conscious hip-hop into a mixture that's expressive yet deeply personal, Son Little is the alias of Aaron Livingston, a singer, instrumentalist, and songwriter who divides his time between his own music and collaborations with others.
Son Little - Aloha / That's The Way
In the press materials for Son Little's third album, 2020's Aloha, Little (known to his mom and the tax people as Aaron Livingston) says he had written a big batch of songs for his next project and recorded elaborate demos working out the arrangements. Then the hard drive in his recording setup went wonky on him, and suddenly all that hard work vanished and Little had to rewrite the album from the ground up in a few weeks. The moral to this story is that Son Little apparently responds well to pressure: despite the drama leading up to the album's recording, he sounds as confident, assured, and intelligent on Aloha as he did on 2015's Son Little and 2017's New Magic...

Thorbjørn Risager is a hard-swinging Danish blues musician and songwriter whose singing voice sounds cobbled from one-part Ray Charles, one-part Bob Seger, and one-part Joe Cocker.
The Black Tornado is the supporting band of Thorbjørn Risager, a Danish blues musician who first came onto the scene early in the 2000s. A fan of Southern soul and Chicago blues, he fused the two sounds, something that was evident his 2004 debut,
Thorbjørn Risager & The Black Tornado - Come on In / Last Train
Since 2003, Danish guitarist, singer, and songwriter Thorbjørn Risager has been delivering his own mutant brand of blues. His Black Tornado band is comprised of two guitars, bass, drums, a pair of saxophones, trumpet, and keyboards. Come on In is their fourth album for Germany's Ruf label and 12th overall. Risager's rich, resonant, gravelly baritone singing voice is equal parts Ray Charles, Billy Gibbons, J.J. Cale, and Leon Redbone. Black Tornado are like no other band. They are capable of simmering, brooding, noir-ish jazz, swampy rock, sultry R&B, uptown funk, and house-rocking blues derived from the entwined lineages of Chicago, Texas, and the Delta...

A fiery guitarist and talented songwriter who plays a unique blend of Memphis R&B, southwest blues, and urban funk. A hard-rocking, high-voltage blues guitarist most often compared to Stevie Ray Vaughan, Tinsley Ellis is hardly one of the legions of imitators that comparison might imply. Schooled in a variety of Southern musical styles as evidenced by his.
Tinsley Ellis - Ice Cream in Hell / Hole in My Heart
...In 2018 he returned home to Alligator Records after delivering four albums on his own Heartfixer label. The chart-topping set was met with Blues Music Association nominations for album of the year and artist of the year. Ice Cream in Hell was recorded in Nashville and co-produced by Ellis and longtime co-producer/keyboardist Kevin McKendree...  "Hole in My Heart" is a 21st century update of the sound that B.B. King explored with Bobby "Blue" Bland. Ellis' fingerpicked fills enunciate the emotion expressed in the lyrics, while McKendree's piano runs add depth and dimension.

Singer, songwriter, and virtuosic fingerpicker who crafts timeless-sounding acoustic confections that draw from all corners of American roots music.
Christopher Paul Stelling - Best Of Luck / Hear Me Calling
The fifth studio album from songwriter and skilled fingerpicker Christopher Paul Stelling, Best of Luck reflects a few changes in approach for the musician. Following years of near constant touring, Stelling stayed put for (effectively) the first time since his 2012 debut, putting down roots in Asheville, North Carolina and taking up a residency at the Stetson Kennedy estate in Florida while he worked on writing the album. It's his first with an outside producer, none other than Ben Harper, who expressed interest in working with Stelling after they toured together. Harper has stressed Stelling's soulful vocals as an underrated part of his charismatic style, one that fuses folk, blues, and more with his intricate playing and impassioned lyrics...

Experimental improvisational project founded by Dave Alvin featuring members of Counting Crows, Cracker, Camper Van Beethoven, and more.
The Third Mind - The Third Mind / East West
As a musician who has passionately advocated for American roots music since the Blasters released their first album in 1980, Dave Alvin is widely regarded as a traditionalist, which is not as accurate as it would seem at first glance. Alvin grew up on free jazz, psychedelia, and hard rock along with the blues, rockabilly, country, and jump jazz sounds that inform his best-known work, and his project the Third Mind is a step outside his usual boundaries that lets him explore ideas he hasn't approached in the past...  and the Paul Butterfield Blues Band's "East/West," the communication between the players is smart and exciting. (Whether you actually need three different versions of "East/West," the shortest of which is 14 minutes, is an open question, but each one here is honestly engaging.) Alvin's roots in the blues certainly play a big role in The Third Mind, but so does hard rock, psychedelia, jazz, and improvisational music, and this context -- essentially a jam band without audibly hippie-like tendencies -- shows that his willingness to take a risk pays off handsomely.

An award-winning, in-demand blues guitar prodigy, singer, and songwriter with an inimitable slide technique. Southwest Louisiana-based guitarist, songwriter, and singer Sonny Landreth is an award-winning musician's musician.
Sonny Landreth - Blacktop Run / Beyond Bolders
Louisiana guitar slinger Sonny Landreth returns to the studio with his quartet two years after 2017's Grammy-nominated Recorded Live in Lafayette. Blacktop Run is more than just a new studio outing, however... He is a studio empath and extends artists full faith and credit. Landreth possesses a distinct sound to be sure, direct, resonant, and simple, but he's restless when it comes to experimenting with styles. He juxtaposes, combines, and balances them with alarming regularity and reckless abandon...Landreth's band includes keyboardist Steve Conn, drummer Brian Brignac, and bassist David Ranson. The guitarist wrote eight of these ten tunes; Conn penned the other two, which include the stellar instrumental "Beyond Borders," a jam that melds hard Southern swamp rock, electric slide blues, and Latin cumbia...

The guitarist who brought blues back to the charts in the '80s via songs that defined blues themes but added modern and personal twists.
Robert Cray - That's What I Heard / Hot
Robert Cray was hailed as the man who saved the blues from commercial extinction when his album Strong Persuader became a breakout hit in 1986, and blues fans are still the bedrock of his following. But anyone who has been paying attention can tell you that vintage soul and R&B have always had more to do with his best music than standard-issue 12-bar blues... Something else that doesn't change is how comfortable Cray sounds with this material, and how well his unfussy but passionate vocal style, narrative lyrical stance, and exciting but never overdone guitar features blend with the soul grooves generated by Cray's band and the guests brought in for the occasion... "Hot" is an uptempo workout that pulls out the stops...

Towering over his guitar, Ryan’s soulful music thrills his audience with electrifying head-popping, toe-tapping, and neck-jerking chops. But, to truly know Ryan Perry, a walk-down-memory lane is enough to see why, only in his twenties, still not afraid to rip up stinging and soulful guitar licks with his gruff and gritty vocals. 
Ryan Perry - High Risk, Low Reward / Evil is Going On
 Some people, with no effort, are preternaturally cool. Many bluesmen share this trait, making it unsurprising that it belongs to Ryan Perry. On the other hand, his voice is surprising. It has the unique quality of sounding young and old at the same time; whether he’s in his 20s or 40’s is difficult to ascertain from timbre alone. The writing also belies the age of the writer. High Risk, Low Reward is a mix of original blues, blues-rock twists and rave-ups, and thoughtful introspective musings... With buzzy lead fills and a rhythm guitar overdriven to the point of constant crackling, he sings with a voice so filled with gravel that Howlin’ Wolf would be proud of these numbers, not to mention the cover of his own “Evil Is Going On.”

071 ALTER.NATION.MiX weekly favtraX 01-02-2020

ALTER.NATION #71

Chastity Belt, Loose Tooth, Gorillaz, Wild Nothing, Smoke Fairies, Son Little, Drive-By Truckers, Tinsley Ellis, The Psychedelic Furs, Against All Logic, Elon EDM Musk

weekly favtraX 

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"The Process"

Seattle area band takes cues from the riot grrrl scene as well as angular early-'90s guitar-based indie rock.
Chastity Belt - The Process
Swept together from the ashes of your finest night on the tiles, Loose Tooth are a Melbourne three-piece who craft sweet guitar pop with frayed edges.
Loose Tooth - Lonely
Chastity Belt will soon head out on a tour of the Western US with Loose Tooth — the Loose Tooth from Melbourne, recently covered by Courtney Barnett, not the the Loose Tooth from Philadelphia who we haven’t heard from since 2017. Ahead of the upcoming dates, the two groups have released a digital split single today.

Chastity Belt’s “The Process” and Loose Tooth’s “Lonely” go well together in that both are powered by a gleaming churn of reverby guitars. The former taps into that drowsy yet propulsive post-Sonic Youth vibe Chastity Belt do so well. The latter is more of a jangly indie-pop track in keeping with the legacy of Loose Tooth’s native Oceania.

Conceived as the first "virtual hip-hop group," Gorillaz blended the musical talents of Dan "The Automator" Nakamura, Blur's Damon Albarn, Cibo Matto's Miho Hatori, and Tom Tom Club's Tina Weymouth and Chris Frantz with the arresting visuals of Jamie Hewlett, best known as the creator of the cult comic Tank Girl.
Gorillaz - Momentary Bliss feat. slowthai & Slaves
Two days ago, Gorillaz started teasing the first “season” of a new project called Song Machine. Yesterday, we found out what it actually is — a series of collaborative singles, aka “episodes,” that will be released throughout the year. And today, the first installment has already arrived. “Momentary Bliss” is a collaboration with the politically charged British rapper slowthai and the UK punk duo Slaves.

Reverb-heavy and layered indie pop that harkens back to the slick sound of the '80s, but on a tighter budget.
Wild Nothing - Laughing Gas / The World Is A Hungry Place
Somehow it’s been nearly 10 years since Jack Tatum of Wild Nothing shared his lo-fi dream-pop debut with the world. ‘Gemini’ arrived during a period of transition between late noughties chillwave and surf-rock indie... The songs on ‘Laughing Gas’ were originally written and recorded alongside last year’s ‘Indigo’ before Tatum isolated the songs for a separate release. It was a smart move; ‘Laughing Gas’ is a lush paean to ‘80s precision pop, all snaking funk basslines, synth claps and reverb-addled drums... Tatum rounds the record off with a meticulous, downbeat piece of yacht rock. ‘The World Is A Hungry Place’ sees him play with metaphors about the planet’s perils, ironically soundtracking the sense of doom with sensual sax notes and cocksure beats. It sounds like Tears For Fears – no bad thing.

U.K. duo whose strong but ethereal sound combines elements of British folk, blues, and indie pop.
Smoke Fairies - Darkness Brings the Wonders Home / On the Wing
"Dirty blues-rock" is about the last thing that comes to mind when thinking about Smoke Fairies, whose music is most strongly rooted in ethereal indie folk. But it seems someone in their circle has been listening to something featuring gritty guitar textures with a side of slide, since that's the unexpected yet prominent new flavor on Smoke Fairies' fifth album, 2020's Darkness Brings the Wonders Home. The opening track, "On the Wing," is built around a faintly ominous folky melody with the graceful harmonies of Katherine Blamire and Jessica Davies hovering overhead, while in the middle distance there's a buzzy electric guitar playing bluesy licks and slide riffs...

Potent and deeply personal soul/R&B from Roots and Rjd2 collaborator Aaron Livingston.
Son Little - Aloha / that's the way
In the press materials for Son Little's third album, 2020's Aloha, Little (known to his mom and the tax people as Aaron Livingston) says he had written a big batch of songs for his next project and recorded elaborate demos working out the arrangements. Then the hard drive in his recording setup went wonky on him, and suddenly all that hard work vanished and Little had to rewrite the album from the ground up in a few weeks...  It also marks the first time Little has worked with an outside producer, in this case Renaud Letang, and the record's approach suggests a compromise between the styles of his first two albums, combining the hip-hop-informed one-man-band recording techniques of his debut with the more open and organic tone of New Magic. At the same time, it's a quiet and introspective set, rarely working up to the heat of the vintage soul-funk grooves of the first two LPs. Little is in great voice here, as usual, but his arrangements (where he plays most of the instruments himself) are leaner and more efficient, with open space and atmosphere playing a larger role than before...  The more subdued affect of Aloha makes it a less immediately satisfying listen than New Magic, but that does nothing to change that this is a rewarding effort from an exciting and engaging talent.

Acclaimed alt-country rockers that skew Southern stereotypes with rowdy yet high-concept work.
Drive-By Truckers - The Unraveling / Heroin Again
As Joe Strummer once told us, anger can be power, but what Joe didn't mention is that it tends to burn hot and fast. Once it's gone, what's left? At what point do you run out of productive rage and find yourself weighed down by the ashes of hopelessness and defeat? When the Drive-By Truckers wrote and recorded 2016's American Band, the United States was a nation ankle-deep in the rising waters of racism and division, with the presidential campaign of Donald Trump just a troubling roadside curiosity. In the truest sense, 2020's The Unraveling is the companion piece to American Band, an update where tragically little has gotten better four years on, and our national malaise is greater than ever...

A fiery guitarist and talented songwriter who plays a unique blend of Memphis R&B, southwest blues, and urban funk.
Tinsley Ellis - Ice Cream in Hell / Your Love's Like Heroin
Eighteen albums into nearly a four-decade career finds blues-rocking guitar slinger Tinsley Ellis still growing as a recording artist, singer, and songwriter. In 2018 he returned home to Alligator Records after delivering four albums on his own Heartfixer label. The chart-topping set was met with Blues Music Association nominations for album of the year and artist of the year. Ice Cream in Hell was recorded in Nashville and co-produced by Ellis and longtime co-producer/keyboardist Kevin McKendree. .. The set closes with the most dramatic tune in the bunch: "Your Love Is Like Heroin." Its 12-bar tension is enabled with lyrical guitar fills that evoke the twin six-string spirits of both Green and Albert King. Ellis' vocal on this crawling seven-minute jam is arguably the most soulful of his career. His playing underscores the emotional depth in the lyrics. Ellis' meaty solo digs so deep it's party to the protagonist's revelation of grief and pain. Unlike most bluesmen, each of his recordings over the last seven decades or so is stronger, more confident, and unabashedly more musical than its predecessor. On Ice Cream in Hell, Ellis' songwriting and singing finally match the prowess in his playing, and we are all richer for it.

British alternative rockers of the '80s, with several international hits, whose regal sound grew out of Bowie-style art rock and gloomy post-punk.
The Psychedelic Furs - Don’t Believe
...If lead single “Don’t Believe” is anything to go by, the answer is: They will sound like those 29 years didn’t even happen. This is a good thing! “Don’t Believe” is a churning, nocturnal track that harkens back to a kind of darker, heavier sound some of the ’80s greats adopted as they transitioned into the ’90s. More importantly, “Don’t Believe” is the kind of gratifying reintroduction that comes right from the Furs’ wheelhouse: gloomy guitar swirls, sax wails, Butler’s voice sounding like he hasn’t aged at all, a big desperate chorus...

More dancefloor-friendly than abstract, this alias for boundary-pushing electronic producer Nicolas Jaar still relies on colorfully warped sampling and beatmaking.

Against All Logic - Illusions of Shameless Abundance feat. Lydia Lunch
Against All Logic - Alucinao feat. Estado Unido, FKA twigs
Nicolas Jaar’s Against All Logic project released a new album, 2012-2017, back in 2018... and he’s releasing two brand new songs.
The first, “Illusions … Of Shameless Abundance” features the avant-garde artist Lydia Lunch. (Jaar’s label Other People Records reissued her 1990 spoken word piece Conspiracy Of Women a few years ago.) And the second track is called “Alucinao” and features Jaar’s recent collaborator FKA twigs and Estado Unido...

Elon Reeve Musk (born June 28, 1971) is an engineer and technology entrepreneur. He is a citizen of South Africa, Canada, and the United States (where he resides permanently) and is the founder, CEO, and chief engineer/designer of SpaceX; CEO and product architect of Tesla, Inc.; founder of The Boring Company; co-founder of Neuralink; and co-founder and initial co-chairman of OpenAI... In December 2016, he was ranked 21st on the Forbes list of The World's Most Powerful People, and was ranked (co-)first on the Forbes list of the Most Innovative Leaders of 2019...
Elon "EDM" Musk - Don't Doubt ur Vibe
...“Don’t Doubt Ur Vibe” definitely sounds like a song that a 48-year-old billionaire might make if he was dating Grimes. On Twitter, Musk has shared some truly ghastly photos of himself in the studio and claimed that he “wrote the lyrics & performed the vocals” himself. Those lyrics are: “Don’t doubt your vibe/ Because it’s true/ Don’t doubt your vibe/ Because it’s you.” He wrote that himself! The cover art is a Tesla Cybertruk orbiting Mars. Take a deep breath, steel yourself, and give it a listen...

Chastity Belt, Loose Tooth, Gorillaz, Wild Nothing, Smoke Fairies, Son Little, Drive-By Truckers, Tinsley Ellis, The Psychedelic Furs, Against All Logic, Elon EDM Musk