No, not me. Image borrowed from the Vintage Everyday blog.
Dec. 24, 2021
As I said last year, I’m not so good at making Top 10 lists, or even Top 50 lists. But here, in no particular order, are fourteen releases that made an impression on me in 2021 and that I expect to spend more time with in 2022. If you’re one of those older cranks who believes “no one is making good music anymore,” I suggest you open your ears. There is no shortage of great, interesting music in all styles being made right now. Just listen.
–––_ _ ––_ _ _ : The Heart Pumps Kool-Aid
By far one of the most unusual and beguiling releases I’ve heard in recent years, from the duo of Mari Maurice (aka More Eaze) from Austin, TX and Seth Graham from Dayton, OH, joined by a small group of collaborators. I wasn’t familiar with them before, and I don’t even know how to say their collective name let alone adequately describe their music. But here goes: A mashup of hushed and often radically auto-tuned vocals set to sparse electro/acoustic chamber music framed with plenty of negative space, punctuated by flurries of free improv splutter, occasional spoken text, and one brief fit of metallic shrieking. As beautiful as it is inscrutable. Points of reference might be Steve Roden, Mark Hollis’ solo album, or some of David Sylvian’s more experimental work. Not that this sounds at all like those, but it shares something along the lines of re-imagining what a “song” can be. I can’t really begin to do this justice; for more in-depth analysis, try Foxy Digitalis or Pitchfork. (CD + DOWNLOAD)
Nina Dante & Bethany Younge: Lizard Tongue
Two women using only their voices, a few small acoustic instruments, and some natural objects. Delicate, intimate, mysterious, organic. I suspect improvisation plays some part in this, but it also sounds very much organized if perhaps not actually “composed” in the usual sense. Likely to appeal to fans of Inuit throat singing and Jeph Jerman’s animist orchestra. (CD + DOWNLOAD)
kn: ça bon bleux
Another artist I’ve never heard of and about whom I know nothing. You could call this “ambient” or “electronica”, but it doesn’t fit easily into those niches. The overall vibe is dreamy and drifty, sometimes burbling, with whispery vocals that recall Arthur Russell, though they also occasionally nod in the direction of hip-hop. I mainly appreciate it because it confounds me. I’m not sure where to put it, and that’s typically a good sign. (DOWNLOAD)
L’Rain: Fatigue
Speaking of music that is impossible to pigeonhole… I have no idea where to begin with describing this, and that is a compliment. I suppose we can call this popular music, but not really. I mean, there are songs with beats and melodies, but this music is far from simple. It can turn on a dime from minimal to massive pop bombast, sometimes within the same song. It feels meticulously constructed, yet often sounds like it’s about to explode into pieces. Try imagining for a moment what Kate Bush might sound like if she were raised on hip hop and New Amerykah-vintage Erykah Badu. No? Fine, you try. Or maybe just listen. (LP + DOWNLOAD)
Jerome Ellis: The Clearing
You may have heard about Jerome Ellis through a piece on This American Life, as did I. He’s a seriously smart artist with a serious speech impediment. Yet rather than trying to erase it with digital hocus-pocus, or worse yet, letting it stop him, he incorporates it as a major structural element of his work. It’s a brave and confrontational move, but also a surprisingly musical one that builds in plenty of open space in which the listener can contemplate just what one is hearing. As in, “wait for it…” Like Robert Ashley, idiosyncratic speech is centered, framed with mostly electronic music referencing both popular forms (in this case hip-hop) and more experimental approaches. (LP + BOOK + DOWNLOAD)
Jürg Frey: I Listened to the Wind Again
Very sparse, delicate, spacious, patient, and lovely chamber music for strings, clarinet, soprano, and percussion. To me, the feeling is like Morton Feldman if he had been influenced by Early Music. (CD + DOWNLOAD)
Olivia Block: October, 1984
This isn’t an album proper, but a long stand-alone track by my friend Olivia Block, a wonderful composer originally from Texas but for many years now based in Chicago. She bought a batch of old micro-cassettes on eBay, one of which contained a recording of a man reflecting on his father’s impending death. Having recently lost her own father, Olivia found herself resonating with the anonymous voice on the tape. Although the source recording is largely masked in this collage of field recordings of wind, water, and an original piece of orchestral music, the elegiac feeling tone of it comes through strongly. A moving meditation on loss and grieving. (DOWNLOAD)
Chas Smith: Three
To say that Chas Smith plays the pedal steel guitar misses the point entirely. Chas builds his own steel guitars, along with a menagerie of other metallic instruments, and what he does with them has nothing to do with pedal steel as we know it. He creates big, shimmering, glacial slabs of deeply resonant three-dimensional tones that you can get lost in. So get lost. (CD + DOWNLOAD)
Jordan O’Jordan & Lori Goldston: Very Old Songs
I reviewed this in detail when it was released at the beginning of this year, so you can read that if you want a more thorough report, but here’s the gist of it: Jordan O’Jordan was born to sing this music, growing up with it in his family in the Appalachian foothills of eastern Ohio. He knows the material intimately, delivering these songs at a leisurely pace in his lovely, soulful tenor. Lori Goldston is a Seattle treasure, gracing everything she touches, from Bach to punk to free improvisation, with her rich and instantly recognizable tone. The duo approaches these four haunting (and haunted) ballads in a spirit of gentle experimentation, pushing them into unusual territory while remaining absolutely respectful of the source material. (LP + DOWNLOAD)
Moor Mother: Black Encyclopedia of the Air
Philadelphia-based Camae Ayewa (aka Moor Mother) continues to push at the boundaries of what we think of as hip-hop. If this one isn’t quite as in-your-face radical as some of her previous releases, it still goes well beyond standard issue beats and rhymes. The soundscapes aren’t quite as dense and chaotic, and she’s joined here by a few guest rappers, but it’s her own singularly ferocious voice and ace production chops that make it all cohere. (DOWNLOAD)
U Tin: Burmese Guitar
OK, so what if this was released in 2017, not 2021? It was new to me this year. Not sure how much I have to say about it, but there is plenty to like. Echoes of Delta blues, old time country, the jagged melodicism of Beefheart’s solo guitar pieces. All of which are of course irrelevant to U Tin, who I’m sure has never heard any of it. But this does share some aspects with other music from Myanmar/Burma – the herky-jerky rhythm, odd pauses, percussive and (to foreign ears) disjointed approach to melody. If you aren’t familiar with Burmese hsaing waing percussion ensemble music, check it out. (DOWNLOAD)
Floating Points/Pharoah Sanders/London Symphony Orchestra: Promises
I’m not sure how it happened, but this unexpected collaboration between ambient musician Sam Shepherd (Floating Points) and the great octogenarian free jazz saxophonist Pharoah Sanders is a wonderful surprise. Stunning, in fact. No idea how the jazz fans will feel about it, but I’m smitten. Built around elaborations on a simple motif, it develops slowly over nine movements. Sanders’ playing (and a bit of vocalizing) is appropriately restrained and not featured in every movement. Neither are the LSO strings, which maintain a fairly low profile throughout. The closest precedent I can think of might be Bismillahi 'Rrahman 'Rrahim, Harold Budd’s 1974 collaboration with saxophonist Marion Brown. Unabashedly gorgeous. (CD + LP + DOWNLOAD)
Arooj Aftab: Vulture Prince
Fantastic Pakistani vocalist working in the margins between traditional ghazal, jazz, folk, and minimal/ambient electronics. Contemplative, spiritual, beautiful. Someone might call this New Age (she calls it neo-Sufi), but whatever. I can listen to this for a long time, and hope to catch her Seattle show in February (if we aren’t shut down again by then). And special props to her amazing violinist, Darian Donovan Thomas (LP + DOWNLOAD)
Lady Blackbird: Black Acid Soul
A new soulful diva emerges singing new torch songs for our torturous times. Do you enjoy Nina Simone or Cassandra Wilson? Then feast your ears on this Lady’s dusky contralto voice. But don’t let the title lead you to expect psychedelia. Accompanied by a solid piano trio, this is firmly rooted in classic jazz and soul. Most of it hovers in the ballad zone, which is fine by me. My favorite track here is Fix It, which is shamelessly constructed around the first few bars of Miles Davis' Flamenco Sketches. Is that a problem? No it is not. Not at all. (LP + DOWNLOAD)