#her songwriting is so wonderful so real so tender so powerful

[giverofempathy]

tears in. my eyes i love music so much

#salisha speaks #RAHAHHHRJEEKKEEKWJ THE SONG IS SO GOOD #her songwriting is so wonderful so real so tender so powerful #AND IM GONNA SEE HER LIVE AGAINNNNNN :)

[adevotedappraisal]

“Magical,” by Laura Mvula from Pink Noise

 

A curious millennial once asked me what the 1980s really was like, and  immediately I opened my mouth to prattle on about the magic of Michael Jackson and Prince, or about the kaleidoscopic glare of bright jackets caught in the neon lights, or the movie and television screens inflating entertainment personalities into immortal superstars.  However, the more I truly contemplated the question, the more I realised that the eighties only resembled those moments in palpable bursts during electric peaks, and I realised furthermore that my bronzed memories from then were couched in far more peaceful, pastoral years and sounds than the garish swash in the background of marketed 1980s iconography lets on nowadays.

 

Compared to the non-stop pace of today's internet age, life in those days was slower, the rush towards new technology allayed by a clash against long-standing values, I mean the whole place was just imbued with religious commands, symbols, or sayings.

 

And across that slow tension, your eyesight was just more tessellated with the textures of decades prior. 

Everywhere you looked there were people, still wearing clothing from the seventies, getting into Datsuns from the sixties where their AM radio stations played Sam Cooke songs from the fifties. Memes and dances from commercials and sitcoms stuck around for years not weeks and, because of the lack of constant connectivity, the very real fear of nuclear annihilation wasn't even as pervasive as our modern concerns about terrorism or pandemics. 

 

Artists nowadays have tried to capture the feel of the cultural memory of that aesthetic-rich decade in their albums, to just slip it on them sleek like a jacket, most notably Taylor Swift with 1989 from 2014, The Weeknd’s After Hours, from last year, and Coldplay’s Peter Gabriel-esque pep on their recent Music of the Spheres album. Overall, they leaned heavily on the industrial neon glare and synths of the decade, and less on the spaces in between, where we all would take a collective breather.

 

Each of those albums accomplished the aesthetic goals they attempted, and they draped their best songs in that approach. Looking back now, through the narrow yet fertile valley of memory, I can see that the context, or the width of a culture, is as important as it’s heights. And so, for a more catholic representation of that storied decade, I'd point towards Birmingham, UK singer-songwriter Laura Mvula's latest album Pink Noise.

 

Mvula's 2013 debut Sing to the Moon, (reviewed here) was a tender beauty of an album, floating on a cloud of choral harmonies, horns and solemn pianos.  Her songs there dealt with self-determination, the searching for purpose, and the gentle embrace of love.  Her follow-up, 2016s The Dreaming Room, while less focused, continued her musical back-drop of floating harmonies, nocturnal chord changes punctuated by danceable songs of encouragement and heartbreak, helped along in that regard by legendary producer Nile Rodgers on "Phenomenal Woman." With Pink Noise, Mvula changes this approach, tempering her wistful, searching harmonies, and buttoning down the lyrics of her wandering songs of love into punchy, clear-eyed synth pop and r&b.  This risk is rewarding for the most part.

 

“Church Girl” grooves with a stinging snare, harmonies that sway with and against each other, garnished with synth sparkles on the chorus.  It’s a swaying, entertaining update of Who’s Zooming Who-era Aretha Franklin, with Laura ensconced in wonderment and concern in the middle of the dance floor, asking, about a love or maybe the music industry itself, "how can you dance, with the devil on your back?/ how can you move? Caught up in a picture perfect that will never last?” Meanwhile, closer “Before the Dawn" is an encouraging anthem that switches between two tempos and moods of electric pop, at one point recalling the high-powered synths of Lionel Richie and Cameo, and then gearing down into the strutting encouragement of a Chaka Khan ballad, all in four or so minutes.

 

Producers Dann Hume and Troy Miller excel at transitioning Mvula’s songs and swirling lines into these nostalgic textures.  The song most reminiscent of her debut, “Golden Ashes,” is layered in sparkled synth notes attempting to balance the Mvulian minor chords. The song would have brightened up The Dreaming Room, but here it is a sleeping album track, indicating true growth is taking place instead of plastic cosplay. The song softens the middle section of the album, along with "Remedy," with its percussive synth lines, and soft chorus in the middle. 

 

Notably though, these songs do not distract, because the interesting and socially conscious lyrics are caught in the type of synth romp that, upon reflection, typified most songs of the eighties.  You see, what plays on digital stream playlists nowadays are the starting lineup of that decade, but the vast musical soundscape of the eighties consisted of songs like these.  The album tracks on Wham!, New Edition albums or the myriad movie soundtracks of the era will produce the same musical template.

 

Meaning, what the sound of the eighties really sounded like, was a menage of late seventies disco hits, Pop vocal power ballads, Reggae lover's rock, Rock hits, and these new wave synth pop dancing songs.  There were a bunch of songs that didn’t need to knock it into the stands every time, they just took their time, and found their rhythm.

 

While there was less neon exuberance playing than the present-day nostalgia of the eighties leads you to believe, there still was an aesthetic of ‘new' in a lot of the media, packaging designs and culture, so I believe that the true feeling of that strange, singular decade was mostly expressed in the synth-laden ballads of Luther Vandross, Atlantic Starr, or Evelyn “Champagne” King that replaced the lush, dense quiet storm staples from seventies soul singers Smokey Robinson and Teddy Pendergrass.  That electric sentimentality that came from the throats of everyone's sisters, younger aunties and girlfriends.

 

It is for that reason that Pink Noise's true highlight is not only the high powered swing of the impressive single "Got Me," but also the towering ballad "Magical." The song finds Mvula trying to mend a frayed romance by utilising the best motifs of the eighties -chucking rhythm guitars, timpanis rolling into the chorus, ponderous synth squats, and a chorus billowed by naked sentimentality, with bright trumpets appearing at the end, played with pomp and alacrity. The song brightens the back end of the album with a steady glow, flourishing character into Pink Noise, the hot midday sister to the furtive, nocturnal Sing to the Moon.

 

So then the eighties, the eighties.  The truth is that thankfully there was less self-aware irony and branded sophistication of the self. Less emphasis on being seen and more on what you were seeing.  So much so that you didn’t know the eighties was a thing until the moonwalk. You didn’t know it was over until the Cosby Show was winding down and NWA burst through from someplace called Compton. Mvula easily reminds me though, that there once really was this electric groove snaking high and low amongst the church bells and birdsong and the silence. It was coming out of our cars and homes all hot and new, just out there softly couching our memories.

#laura mvula #rnb #pop #pink noise #black music #80s music #new music

[luvneedsnosyt]

My Favorite Albums of 2019

Here is my list of my personal top albums of 2019 You can find my separate list for top EPs of 2019 here.

My Previous monthly lists from 2019: January, February, March, April, May, June, July, August, September, October, November, December

My list last year for my top albums of 2018 can be found here.

*Indicates someone I saw live in 2019

Honorable Mentions:

Anderson .Paak - Ventura Genre: Hip Hop / R&B/ Soul

Recorded at the same time as last year’s Oxnard, Ventura is the more tender and unassuming brother of the two. Despite the vulnerability this seems to be Anderson’s more comfortable persona. Focusing on love and feelings and other mushy stuff. The experimenting on this album between R&B, jazz, electronic music creates a glossy and elaborate form of hip hop. At times Anderson’s versatility can get a bit in the way on long form projects, here that creativity is perhaps the most channeled of his career.

Proof: Reachin’ 2 Much (Feat. Lelah Hathaway) / Chosen One (Feat. Sonyae)

Anna of the North - Dream Girl Genre: Synth-Pop

The tender and delicate music of Oslo singer Anna of the North is back following up her touching 2017 debut album. Anna’s music is not totally unassuming but is very subtle and reserved. You can take a moment to stop and feel the soothing vibes or you can pass it by and not notice. The synth based production is meant to provide a basis to get hips moving but also not to reach out and demand your attention in a needy way. Anna’s vocals are always warm and bouncy even when singing about sad subject matters.

Proof: My Love / Playing Games

Billie Eilish - WHEN WE ALL FALL ASLEEP, WHERE DO WE GO? Genre: Synth-Pop

I stumbled on Billie Eilish’s “ocean eyes” single early on and instantly became a fan of her dark and brooding sound. It reminded me of the first time I heard The Weeknd. Even being an early subscriber it did surprise me a bit the vice grip the 18 year old would put on 2019. I knew she would find an audience with the undeniable talent for songwriting and impacting voice beyond her years. I did not foresee this low lit and frankly weird music hitting the mainstream with such a force, but I sure am glad it did. This is where I would say I can’t wait to see how she follows up this monster of debut album, but honestly she deserves to revel in the influence it is having and enjoy this moment. She will be around for however long she wishes to in the industry; that I am certain of.

Proof: bad guy / you should see me in a crown

BJ The Chicago Kid - 1123 Genre: R&B / Soul

It was a long time coming for hook provider BJ The Chicago Kid’s 2016 debut album In My Mind. He showed he can carry a solo project just fine. Now in 2019 he’s back for his victory lap with another soulful and sexy album that follows up his debut quite nicely. BJ is a bit of a throw back to the late 90’s/early 2000’s soul music which is right up my alley so you already know I ride for it with no qualms.

Proof: Rather Be With You / Reach (Feat. Afrojack)

Bon Iver - i,i Genre: Indie Pop / Folk

Justin Vernon’s band Bon Iver has created quite a robust cult following that’s very impressive off of four albums spanning over 12 years and in non-uniform song structures and themes. i,i might be the band’s most straightforward record, but that doesn’t mean there’s any downgrade in creativity and innovation. As always the case with Bon Iver albums your senses are confronted with multiple instruments and production tools used in traditional ways and used in ways you wouldn’t think of. Grooves are created then shifted and the only real constant is you don’t know what direction the music will go next. But that’s part of the joy and you know Justin Vernon is a trustworthy navigator on this expansive journey.

Proof: Hey, Ma / U (Man Like)

Bring Me the Horizon - amo Genre: Rock / Alternative

On their sixth album, the English rock group took experimentation and expansion seriously broadening their rock sound to new horizons (ok, that was bad). amo isn’t as much a departure for the alt-Metal group but more increasing their pallet to include more cross genre influences dipping into punk, pop, electronic and hip hop. There’s definitely risk with lofty exploration so suddenly in a band’s discography but BMTH pull it off rather elegantly here creating a unique blend that sounds a bit like a harder hitting Muse record. I am one to applaud audacious creative efforts to expand on ones sound if the motives seem pure; even when those attempts don’t quite work (Mumford & Sons - Babel, Jack White - Boarding House Reach, Coldplay - Everyday Life this year for instance). When they do stick the landing you can bet I am in awe.

Proof: in the dark / medicine

Circa Waves - What’s It Like Over There? Genre: Alternative / Rock

I will admit the English band hasn’t really been on my radar before this album, so I can’t ascribe how this album is different than their previous two albums (from what I've read it is very different though). What I do know if this is some of the best rock music to come out of 2019 in a year that wasn’t too kind to the genre. There are many emotional moments of this record that really bring levity to the glossy and cinematic music backdrops. There are two albums already announced in early 2020 from the group; they are definitely on my radar now.

Proof: Sorry, I’m Yours / Be Somebody Good

Chance The Rapper - Big Day Genre: Hip Hop / R&B

With how long he’s been around and how many Mixtapes and side projects Chance has dropped it’s pretty surprising this is his first ever official LP. When you wait that long and build (to his credit) the anticipation he has, a lot of weight gets put on that first album; unfortunately I feel that weight affected the product and swallowed it up a bit once released. Chance, I think, felt a responsibility to speak to his vast diversity we’ve seen over the years in sounds and flows. That resulted in a bit of a bloated and disjointed project. Something Chance projects always seem to have is a continuity despite their variety that seems to be absent here. Once the short coming are acknowledged there is some really great songs here with few missteps (although there are a few). Some more quality control, restraint and a concept to follow there are the makings of a possible top 10 of the year album here. My favorite moments are the nostalgic and 90’s R&B influences moments that sprinkle the album, a whole project with those as more a driving force could really be something special.

Proof: All Day Long (Feat. John Legend) / Zanies and Fools (Feat. Darius Scott & Nicki Minaj)

Dabin* - Wild Youth // Wild Youth (The Remixes) Genre: Electronic / Future Bass / Dance

Toronto multi-instrumentalist and electronic DJ Dabin returns with a sophomore album of more emotional and evocative electronic soundscapes. The melodic album flows smoothly through inspirational tracks of finding oneself coming to a climactic crescendo with the cinematic closer “Alive”. 

Proof: In Flames (Feat. Lexi Norton) / Alive (Feat. RUNN) // Part-Time Lover (Crystal Skies Remix) Feat. Claire Ridgely / Alive (Trvecta Remix) Feat. RUNN

Dermot Kennedy* - Without Fear Genre: Pop / Soul

Irish singer Dermot Kennedy’s voice comes in like a freight train straight for your ear drum. He sings with such evocative passion and force it is quite a sound to behold. That’s not to say Without Fear is all potent bellowing. Dermot on his soulful debut here has plenty of softer, tender moments as well.

Proof: Moment’s Passed / Redemption

Foals - Part 2: Everything Not Saved Will Be Lost Genre: Rock / Alternative

The second part of the English Rock bands 2-part album project this year is the louder and more aggressive sibling. The music is a bit less glossy and more gritty then it predecessor but still is quite refined in its ferociousness. I do prefer the more melodic first offering of the two but that doesn’t need to take away from how exhilarating this album is as well. 

Proof: The Runner / Neptune

GoldLink - Diaspora Genre: Hip Hop / R&B

With his second album, DMV rapper GoldLink dove deeper into his African roots with increased Afro-inspired production and themes. Diaspora is a fusion dish of of East coast Hip Hop base, with 90’s R&B notes, a sprinkle of Jazz, a dash of DC house and intermixing of traditional African qualities. It’s quite a vibrant and varied plateful!

Proof: Zulu Screams (Feat. Feat. Maleek Berry & Babi Bourelly) / More (Feat. Lola Rae)

Goldroom - Plunge /\ Surface Genre: Electronic / House / Dance

Returning from a brief hiatus after his debut album, 2016’s West of the West, Goldroom sneaked in at the end of November with one of the years most fun house records. The wait was definitely worth it for Goldroom fans. Plunge /\ Surface has a sense of wonder, discovery and joy that I think was quite well timed.

Proof: Do You Feel It Now (Feat. Love & Alexa) / Just Like A Dream (Feat. Nikki Segal)

Georgia Maq - Pleaser Genre: Synth-Pop / Alternative

My late addition to my already completed list is this surprising and electrifying debut solo project from the lead singer of Melbourne punk/Alternative group Camp Cope. Just slipping in with an early release right before my cut off date (for my own sanity). This album is nothing like the sound of her band though. Instead Georgia Maq looked to artists like Robyn, LCD Soundsystem and Cut Copy for her solo venture with some delightfully delicious 80′s synth vibes. Pleaser is dark and atmospheric but not devoid of brittle emotion and angst. 

Proof: Pleaser / Big Embarrassing Heart

Hozier* - Wasteland, Baby! Genre: Indie Pop / Soul / Folk

Years later, when looking back on Hozier’s career, we may look back at this album as a sort of turning point. The Irish singer through early EP’s and his debut album has always had a powerful form of soulful Folk music that moves people to many emotional states. But on this sophomore album Hozier seemed to figure something out. Incorporating a Motown feel into his music has unleashed it and his strong voice to a new level. Wasteland, Baby! Is a sentimental excursion through love, empowerment and hope.

Proof: Movement / Would That I

James Blake - Assume Form Genre: Progressive Pop / Electronic / Indie Pop

English producer and singer James Blake returns with his artful progressive form of pop music that only he can produce. Assume Form continues in his tradition of bending song structure and genres to his will to create powerful evocative landscapes to explore. The experimental artist keeps finding ways to push the boundaries while still making beautiful lush music to get lost in.

Proof: Barefoot in the Park (Feat. ROSALÍA) / Where’s The Catch? (Feat. Andre 3000)

Kevin Abstract - ARIZONA BABY Genre: Hip Hop

BROCKHAMPTON founding member drops off his third solo album which is a tender and impacting affair through the life of a figure in hip hop with a lot of hate sent to him, but a lot of love to send out. The openly gay rapper using this as a form of empowerment to let others who may be struggling know they have the power within themselves to make their life something of fulfillment.

Proof: Joyride / Mississippi

Kim Petras - TURN OFF THE LIGHT [Mixtape] Genre: Synth-Pop / House / Dance

Only a few months after dropping her debut album the new, exciting singer wants to keep us all guessing and elaborated on her Halloween EP from last year with this full mixtape. Her debut album is more Synth-Pop with some targeted EDM moments. This is a burst of haunting house music meant to get your heart rate pulsating and feet moving.

Proof: There Will Be Blood / Close Your Eyes

Mabel - High Expectations Genre: R&B / neo-Soul

British female R&B artists are having quite a moment right now. With the success of Jorja Smith, Ella Mai and RAYE last year to Sinead Harnett, Mahalia (it was seriously hard to take her off my list) and Mabel this year. Mabel has already had some hits from her 2017 mixtape Ivy to Roses, so this debute is quite a confident strut with tales of love, love lost and overcoming. The glossy production establishes a bouncy, beach vibe, probably influenced from her origins on the Mediterranean coast of Spain. Her stellar song writing is really what takes the attention throughout as every track has an ability to establish a connection with the listener quite effortlessly. 

Proof: Don’t Call Me Up / Mad Love

Maverick Sabre - When I Wake Up Genre: Pop / Soul

English/Irish singer Maverick Sabre returns with his third album that’s a unique and soulful jaunt. The 29 year old’s deep voice has a commanding and captivating effect on the listener throughout. The somewhat minimalist backing lets the potent voice and piercing song lyrics be the emotional driving force to great effect.

Proof: Slow Down (Feat. Jorja Smith) / Weakness

Rapsody - Eve Genre: Hip Hop

For her third album, Grammy nominated rapper Rapsody drops off quite a Tour de force of inspiration and empowerment. Every track is named after a black female icon that has influenced Rapsody. The North Carolina rapper’s lyrics flow and dense lyrics are top notch as always. The production has an increased levity to match the themes. Rapsody has gotten where she is from sheer will and strength within, now she's looking outward to inspirations to find her next step up the ladder.

Proof: Nina / Iman (Feat. SiR & JID)

The List:

Last One Out: Kim Petras - Clarity Genre: Synth-Pop / Electronic

The debut album from German singer Kim Petras was a long time coming and the build up was quite a slow burn. Since 2017 the 27 year old singer started one by one dropping pretty exciting one-off singles (none of which show up here). To our surprise her first official project was a surprised-dropped Halloween themed EP in 2018 (that, as seen in my Honorable Mentions above, was released this year as a full mixtape). Finally in early 2019 we get Kim’s first full length album and the wait was well worth it. Clarity is an electric and glossy affair of lust, self love and female empowerment. Kim is on quite a tear right now from this to her features on other artists projects that I don’t see slowing down anytime soon.

Proof: Icy / Got My Number / Do Me / Another One

35. 88rising - Head in the Clouds II Genre: R&B / Hip Hop

LA based collective 88rising began as mostly Asian-American rap artists. As they went in a more serious direction with their music and label they began acquiring production and R&B talent that has elevated the output to something to really admire. In the early stages I was a bit dismissive of the artists but the last three years I have increasingly been won over. With the success of Joji’s 2018 solo album the collective chose to lean heavier into the electro-R&B sound on their second compilation album that is paying great dividends here. Head in the Clouds II is filled with spacey tender songs that inspire and captivate. The lessons and progressions everyone in the collective are making adds to my excitement with each release. 

Proof: Joji & GENERATIONS from EXILE TRIBE - Need Your Love / Jackson Wang & Higher Brother’s - Tequila Sunrise (Feat. AUGUST 08 & GoldLink) / RHYME SO - Just Used Music Again / NIKI - La La Lost You

34. Karen O* & Danger Mouse - Lux Prima Genre: Alternative / Indie Rock

Two of today’s icons collide on this collaboration album that probably should have happened years ago. Yeah Yeah Yeahs front singer Karen O has influenced so many of today’s alternative artists (especially women led ones), and it’s always a solid veteran karaoke bar move to put in “MAPS”. Meanwhile Danger Mouse has been a go-to producer in both hip hop and alternative and formed a few emblematic pairings on albums with MF Doom (as Danger Mask), CeeLo (as Gnarles Barkley) and James Mercer of The Shins (as Broken Bells). Together Karen and DM are a perfect pair. Karen is as potent as ever singing over a lush and intricate backdrops by the paws of Danger Mouse. 

Proof: Lux Prima / Turn the Light / Woman / Redeemer

33. Little Simz - GREY Area Genre: Hip Hop

London rapper comes in swinging with her powerful third full length album. Her flow is so measured and confident and firing on all cylinders here with no wasted syllables or breaths on any verse along the project. The song subject matters dive into some pretty personal and touching territory letting the listener into some intimate thoughts. At 25, we are witnessing an artist really come into their own and it is an inspirational and beautiful thing.

Proof: Offense / Boss / Venom / Pressure (Feat. Little Dragon)

32. Shura* - forevher Genre: Synth-Pop

For her second album, Shura used the same 80’s nostalgic electronic pallet of her debut but this time a bit more slowed tempo with a layer of added sensuality. While her marvelous 2016 debut, Nothing’s Real, focused on the angst of growing into young adulthood, finding ones self and feeling comfortable in your own skin (as she initially struggled coming out publicly as a lesbian artist). On forevher, Shura focuses more intimately on her own relationship. Many of the songs being inspired by precise moments in the relationship with her current girlfriend, there is a noticeable narrowing of the scope. The result is an incredibly tender offering that allows us a glimpse into the UK Singer’s warm heart. 

Proof: religion (u can lay your hands on me) / the stage / flyin’ / forever

31. A R I Z O N A - ASYLUM Genre: Synth-Pop

The New Jersey electro-pop band A R I Z O N A follows up their 2017 debut album nicely here. Maintaining their knack for writing catchy as hell hooks along enticing dance inducing electronic production. With features on both Don Diablo’s 2018 album Future and Avicii’s posthumous release, TIM, this year, the band’s notoriety seems to be on a steady incline. 

Proof: Nostalgic / Find Someone / Freaking Out / Still Alive

30. VÉRITÉ - new skin Genre: Pop

Brooklyn based singer VÉRITÉ returns with her sophomore album aimed right for all of your feels at once. VÉRITÉ’s sound is understated and delicate, yet packed with raw and identifiable emotions. There is a progression as well from Somewhere in Between with a noticeable bit more comfort in moments where she can let loose. new skin, doesn’t reach out and scream for your attention, but it is a rewarding and sentimental ride for those that give it.

Proof: good for it / body in my bed / think of me / gone

29. Vampire Weekend - Father of the Bride Genre: Indie Rock / Alternative

Ezra Koenig and Vampire Weekend took their sweet time for their fifth album. Six years to be exact from 2013’s Modern Vampires of the City. Also in that time founding member Rostam left the group as a full time member (though still contributing to this album on a few songs). The time lapse and shifting of collaborators led to their most sprawling and experimental album to date. There are some swings that don’t quite connect but for the most part this is an exhilarating and unpredictable exploration by the band that is definitely worth the journey. 

Proof: Harmony Hall / This Life / How Long? / Sympathy

28. LÉON - LÉON Genre: Pop / Soul

When I saw this was Swedish singer LÉON’s debut I had to google to make sure. It’s been awhile since LÉON first popped on my radar with her beautiful and sultry tunes, but those have been from three EPs. The wait was well worth it for this angelic record of pleasant pop bops, one after another. These tracks make themselves right at home in your subconscious; taking their shoes off and checking what’s in your fridge. LÉON’s voice itself has a gentle nature to it coupled with a raspy, sensuality that is enduring and soothing. 

Proof: Lost Time / Falling / Hope Is A Heartache / You and I

27. MUNA - Save The World Genre: Synth-Pop

No sophomore slump for the American trio, MUNA here. Save The World is quite a refreshing progression from their tender 2017 debut. There’s a little more of a free feeling on this album that comes with increased confidence in their craft. The tracks are all incredibly catchy and easily stick with you well after first listen. “Stayway” is the shining jewel on the album and one of my most favorite tracks of 2019. 

Proof: Number One Fan / Stayaway / Never / Hands Off

26. Foals - Part 1: Everything Not Saved Will Be Lost / Part 1: Everything Not Saved Will Be Lost (Remixes) Genre: Rock / Alternative

The 1st part of English rock band’s 2-album project comes in like a Indy Car full speed for subconcious. The unique melding if Synth based beats and guitar driven grooves creates an enticing energetic sound you can get lost in. Part 2 was a big more reaching and aggressive, where Part 1 had more of a basis track to track that I felt made it the stronger outputting of the two. 

Proof: Exits / White Onions / In Degrees / On The Luna // In Degrees (Purple Disco Machine Remix) / Syrups (Vincent Taurelle Remix) / Exits (Lawrence Hart and Little Clubs Remix) / Exits (George FitzGerald Remix)

25. Denzel Curry - ZUU Genre: Hip Hop

Denzel Curry has always had promise to me with his frantic delivery. There were meaningful lyrics there and more focused passion than most of his peers his age in hip hop. The trick was channeling that boiling emotion for the rapper, that he struggled with early. Last year’s TA13OO was the first hint the 24 year old was starting to get this balance in his music. Only ten months later we see a fully formed Denzel with the directed missile that is ZUU. There aren’t many wasted moments here as Denzel focuses on what he needs to say and the most effective way to say it. All the while also making track after track meant to be played at the loudest decibel possible; that all smack the concrete with aggression and no remorse. 

Proof: ZUU / RICKY / BIRDZ (Feat. Rick Ross) / CAROLMART (Feat. Ice Billion Berg)

24. Tei Shi - La Linda Genre: R&B / Soul

For those of us following Tei Shi’s career since her early EP days there is a definite increase in her confidence as an artist on this sophomore album. The Argentina-born Colombian artist’s beautiful melodies flow at their own pace with a delicate precision and grace. Tei Shi’s low lit sounds lives in a mellow and assured range making the pockets where she lifts her voice that much more impacting. There’s both a layer of innocence and care as well as a level of empowerment and self-assured sex appeal in her vocals that are impossible to not get enthralled with.

Proof: Alone in the Universe / Even If It Hurts (Feat. Blood Orange) / When He’s Done / A Kiss Goodbye

23. Sigrid - Sucker Punch Genre: Pop

23 year old Norwegian singer Sigrid burst on the scene with her successful debut EP in 2017, and it’s been an effective upward trajectory since. Another EP came out in 2018 before this marvelous debut album. Sucker Punch packs quite a punch of delightfully infectious and identifiable jams. There is an ease to the charismatic mood of this album that shows how genuine Sigrid is with every song written. This young singer has some definite longevity ahead of her in the pop world.

Proof: Basic / Strangers / Don’t Feel Like Crying / Don’t Kill My Vibe

22. Charli XCX - Charli Genre: Synth-Pop / Electronic

After her sophomore album, 2014’s Sucker, English singer Charli XCX stated she felt a bit restricted in her solo career and decided to break out of the standard production method. A whole album was made but leaked online and Charli decided to scrap the project and began tinkering with her music more. During this period first came the 2016 collaboration EP with the producer SOPHIE, Vroom Vroom. Then in 2017 came two mixtapes. It was these two mixtapes Charli started realizing how she can warp and bend music to her will. Her production became more of a unique melding of dancey Synth-Pop with abrasive Electronic sounds. Her hooks were still top notch but the song structure began to become more of a free flowing organism then a structured framework. Taking what she learned from SOPHIE, and the two mixtapes into her third album, Charli is a project of abundance and unfiltered passion. The feelings are real and human but are focused into a diamond and refracted out into numerous directions. The description sounds chaotic but there still is a very controlled nature to the chaos of this vibrant pop. Charli has found a way to manipulate pop music to contort like a complicated yoga stance. She's Neo from The Matrix. I suggest just plugging in and letting the complex machine she built take you away.

Proof: Gone (w/ Christine and the Queens) / Blame It On Your Love (Feat. Lizzo) / Silver Cross / February 2017 (Feat. Clairo & Yaeji)

21. Bishop Briggs - CHAMPION Genre: R&B / Pop / Soul

Less than 18 months after her roaring debut album, British singer Bishop Briggs is back with her sophomore effort. CHAMPION is a bit more subdued than last year’s Church of Scars, but still the centerpiece is the powerful vocals. My only critique is that I feel the short timeline of this project when I listen. I don’t know the reason for such a short turn around, but some of the songs don’t feel as fleshed out as its predecessor that was years in the making. Despite that critique, this is still a beautiful and authoritative collection of power ballads meant to inspire and embolden.

Proof: CAN YOU HEAR ME NOW? / CHAMPION (Feat. Tom Morello)  / LONELY / WILD

20. Lizzo - Cuz I Love You Genre: R&B / Hip Hop

Detroit singer/rapper Lizzo has been around a few years now, but her third album was definitely her break out to insurmountable success and admiration. Songs like “Coconut Oil”, “Good As Hell” and “Water Me” (added on the deluxe version of this album) would get some attention, especially after featured on television shows. But in 2019 the stars aligned for Lizzo’s take over. Despite the increase in notoriety (to now include the backlash from people tired of her) let’s not overshadow that this music and its message is worthy of the attention. Lizzo’s dramatic and vibrant mixture of R&B, Hip Hop, Soul, Jazz, Funk and Gospel wrapped in a fast paced train with the breaks cut is quite the exhilarating experience. This coupled with her unapologetic message of self love and respect created quite the energetic Molotov cocktail for her to throw in our ears and get our bodies up and moving. Those that may be tired of her, well either learn to ignore or deal with it, because Lizzo is not going anywhere anytime soon.

Proof: Cuz I Love You / Jerome / Tempo (Feat. Missy Elliott) / Water Me

19. Tory Lanez - Chixtape 5 [Mixtape] Genre: R&B / Hip Hop

Having now established himself in the industry with three albums. Tory decided to take a trip back to his beginnings with this album/mixtape drop. Early in his career, Tory had four Chixtape mixtapes that were all influenced by the late 90’s/early 2000’s R&B Tory was raised on. For the fifth entry, and first since he has become established, Tory took this to a whole new level not only directly sampling classics from that timeline but also featuring the artists themselves. The result is a blast of nostalgia and sexy-ass grooves that I dare your hips to stay still the whole hour. I haven’t heard a lot of Tory’s early catalog but since his debut album this is solidly my favorite project by the Canadian Singer. The nostalgia is a bit of a crutch but that doesn’t make this project any less successful or enjoyable. I am squarely in the wheelhouse of who this is made for so there is a bias here but this was probably my most fun first listening experience of the year. 

Proof: The Trade (Feat. Jagged Edge & Jermaine Dupri) / Beauty in the Benz (Feat. Snoop Dogg) / Still Waiting (Feat. Trey Songz) / If You Gotta… (Feat. Fabolous)

18. Mark Ronson - Late Night Feelings Genre: R&B / Pop

2015’s Uptown Special with the mega-hit “Uptown Funk” was a whirlwind for Mark Ronson’s career as a solo artist. Already a prolific producer behind the boards of some of the most important albums over the last 15 years, Ronson’s solo career has been a bit under the radar until 2015. Which is why the about-face from glitz and abundance to a tender collection of songs about heartbreak is a bit of a surprise. But not a surprise I am mad about. The infectious, dancey funk we know from Ronson is still very much present on Late Night Feelings, but wrapped in a blanket of anguish only broken love can bring. Despite it’s more subtle and depressing themes, Ronson has stated this is the solo album he has spent the most time creating and that level of care is very apparent. 

Proof: Late Night Feelings (Feat Lykke Li) / Find U Again (Feat. Camila Cabello) / Pieces Of Us (Feat. King Princess) / Why Hide (Feat. Diana Gordon)

17. Lana Del Rey - Norman Fucking Rockwell! Genre: Pop / Soul

My long time admiration for Lana’s artistry and craft are well documented on here. Happening on her homemade “Video Games” video on YouTube was one of the catalysts to creating this blog. A memory I will always cherish is seeing her in 2011 at the Troubadour in Hollywood when she only had about 6 songs on YouTube to sing. Now, six albums later her music still is some of the most moving and affecting out there for me. Norman Fucking Rockwell! Is probably Lana’s most consistent and assured record since Ultraviolence. Lyrics wise this may be her most crisp ever. 

Proof: Venice Bitch / Fuck it I love you / The greatest / Hope is a dangerous thing for a woman like me to have - but I have it

16. Seven Lions* - Ophelia Volume 1 Genre: Electronic / Trance / Dance

Prolific electronic producer Seven Lions has long been one of my favorite artists. 2018 and 2019 have been excitingly very busy years for the Californian DJ/Producer. Starting his own label Ophelia Records in 2018, 7L has used it as an opportunity to seek out great up and coming electronic artists like Crystal Skies, Jason Ross, MitiS, Trivecta, Wooli and others as well as collaborate with other greats in the game such as Above and Beyond, Dabin, SLANDER, NGHTMRE and Gryffin. Ophelia Volume 1 is a collection of many of the singles released by 7L over the last two years and is quite the gripping burst of excitement and emotions. This compilation album shows off what is 7L’s best musical attributes. His diversity in sound, effortlessly switching between many subgenres, including Trance, Future Bass, Dubstep, Drum and Bass, from song to song, sometimes making a switch within a single song. The other aspect is 7L’s deliberate and effective use of dead space to create a moment of floating before a bellowing drops knocks your ass back down to earth. His pockets of tranquility make these tracks more living and breathing forms of passion and sentiment than normally associated with the mechanical genre.

Proof: Start Again (Feat. Fiora) / Ocean (w/ Jason Foss Feat. Jonathan Mendelsohn) / First Time (w/ SLANDER & Dabin Feat. Dylan Matthew) / Dreamin’ (Feat. Fiora) // Bonus: See The End (w/ Above & Beyond Feat. Opposite The Other)

15. Gallant - Sweet Insomnia Genre: alt-R&B / Soul

The soulful and sultry vocals of Gallant return with another steamy alt-R&B soiree. The overall vibe is a bit more mellow than his thunderous 2016 debut Ology. The main driving force is still the forceful emotion driven vocals from the American singer. R&B has been a genre pulled into various directions over the last 8 or so years, sometimes for good, sometimes at it’s detriment. Gallant and his potent falsetto is a nostalgic artist in 2019 pointing to the late 90’s, early 2000’s neo-soul movement. Fans of artists like Musiq Soulchild, Maxwell, Raheem Devaughn and of course D’Angelo will get some warm feelings from Gallant’s seductive grooves. 

Proof: Crimes / Hurt / Compromise (Feat. Sabrina Claudio) / Céline

14. G Flip - About Us Genre: Pop

Melbourne multi-instrumentalist and singer Georgia Flipo, or G-Flip, introduces herself with this tender and moving debut. About Us is sort of an autobiographical story about Georgia and her girlfriend over a five year span that includes a break up and eventually make up. Georgia’s vocals are both commanding and approachable. The song writing is effortlessly relatable and potent in the life of love. Georgia would write most of the instrument riffs and have others play it during recording but the most unsung hero is her command of the instrument she first learn and played herself; the drums. The emotional impact and intensity of these songs all get magnified in the later stages when Georgia grabs the sticks and begins going to town. About Us is both a subtle piece of pop yet also a cinematic and emotionally captivating one. 

Proof: Lover / I Am Not Afraid / Morning / About You

13. Becky Hill - Get To Know Genre: Synth-Pop / Electronic / Dance

After being a semi-finalist on The Voice UK, the potent and soulful vocals of UK singer Becky Hill has become a go-to feature in the European house world. Becky’s commanding voice is a perfect compliment to house production to not be overpowered and bring a level of vivacity and vitality to the composition. Get To Know is a compilation of those features and one-off singles from the last three years to get more people familiar with Becky as she takes more creative control of her solo career. I’m expecting much more to come from the singer in 2020; so keep an eye and both ears out.

Proof: I Could Get Used To This (w/ Weiss) / Piece of Me (w/ MK) / Sunrise in the East / False Alarm (w/ Matoma)

12. BANKS - III Genre: alt-R&B / Pop

On her third album, singer BANKS is showing off an impressive increase in prowess and courage in her music. Although, I still really enjoyed BANKS sophomore album The Altar, there were some growing pains visible in it. III on the other hand comes out much more competent, coherent and confident. The noticeable addition of Hudson Mohawke’s production and influence is one of the most noticeable additions. His powerful distorted synthed-out drums gives quite a thunderous backdrop for BANKS sultry vocals to sway back and forth through. The song writing has notably continued to get even better for someone that already had quite the skill at. I’ve followed BANKS since she only had a couple songs out on SoundCloud and the journey has been quite a rewarding one for us fans. 

Proof: Gimme / Look What You’re Doing To Me (Feat. Francis & The Lights) / Propaganda / The Fall

11. Gryffin* - Gravity Genre: Electronic / Dance

Success has come rapidly for Gryffin, releasing his first original song only four years ago. Despite that short time, there is a level of sophistication to Gryffin’s blending of house and pop music that feels like the work of a veteran. It helps he has really filled up his phone contacts with some of today’s top Electronic producers and rising pop singers to collaborate with. Gryffin’s debut is quite a reflective and illuminating galaxy of deep emotions and expression. Every song on Gravity has identifiable passion and sentiments while enclosed in a glitzy exterior; feelings with strobe lights. It’s been over two years since the first song from this album “Nobody Compares to You” was released showing Gryffin has the ability to make us really feel emotions while also bust out dancing. Now if you excuse me, I'm going to go have a good cry in the club.

Proof: All You Need To Know (w/ SLANDER Feat. Calle Lehmann) / Baggage (w/ Gorgon City & AlunaGeorge) / Hurt People (w/ Aloe Blacc) / Nothing Compares To You (Feat. Katie Pearlman)

10. Maggie Rogers - Heard It In A Past Life Genre: Pop

A chance encounter with Pharrell that went viral was what started Maggie’s career, but she took her time with this debut to make sure that one video wasn’t all that defines it. Heard It In A Past Life is a subtle flex of the new singer’s musical dexterity. On the surface the tracks all flow at a mellow cohesive pace. Maggie’s soft and sensual vocals are the first thing you appreciate when listening. When you give a little deeper of a dive you realize the strong themes Maggie is conveying as well as a sophisticated diversity in her sound that’s more than originally meets the ear.

Proof: Give A Little / The Knife / Alaska / Say It / On + Off // Bonus: Love You For A Long Time

9. Nick Murphy - Run Fast Sleep Naked Genre: Indie Pop / Electronic

On his second release (first full length album) since changing his name from Chet Faker to his real name Nick Murphy, the Australian artist has some new tricks up his sleeve. Run Fast Sleep Naked is a more expansive sound then his Chet Faker beginnings and we are all quite rewarded by it. The subtle Synth-Indie pop melding is still present. But there always was a form of restraint in his early work that Nick has seemed to let go more of here allowing his emotion to burst out at key moments a bit unfiltered and untethered. 

Proof: Harry Takes Drugs On The Weekend / Sanity / Yeah I Care / Never No / Dangerous

8. Madeon - Good Faith Genre: Electronic / Synth-Pop / Dance

2019 has been an interesting year of growth for EDM. With artists like Big Wild, ILLENIUM, Goldroom, GRiZ, Flux Pavilion and others showing some added depth, discovery and diversity in their sounds. That is continued here with Madeon’s four years in the making follow up to his 2015 debut album Adventure. His first album was quite a glorious introduction but very steeped in the bold and at times lumbering mechanical nature of Electronic music, but with this follow up there is a dramatic divergence. Good Faith is quite a romp through R&B, Gospel and Funk influenced synth wonderlands meant to inspire souls and entice movement. The French producer created a lush world to wonder around, despite being Electronic music, that is devoid of any plasticity for organic and visual expression. The closing two minutes are completely devoid of vocals, yet still packs a powerful emotional punch, leaving you wanting to instantly hit replay.

Proof: Dreams Dreams Dreams / All My Friends / Nirvana / No Fear No More / Borealis

7. Tyler, The Creator - IGOR Genre: alt-R&B / Hip Hop

After a frustrating start to his career I saw some of the promise in Tyler, The Creator come to life on his 2015 third album Cherry Bomb. By 2017 Tyler had found his sweet spot with the marvelous Flower Boy. Being someone always eager to learn and grow on his craft, Tyler didn’t remain in that sweet spot, instead abruptly left it in his rearview mirror for his follow up in the daring IGOR. Long gone are the low-fi, abrasive hip hop vernacular of Bastard, Goblin and Wolf here. Instead, Tyler created a unique and colliding world of R&B, Hip Hop, Funk and Synth-Pop. Further showing his evolution Tyler tells a heartfelt story across the album of a man, Tyler, dating another man, who’s also dating his ex-girlfriend. When Tyler tells his feelings for his lover,  which results in him starting to drift back to his ex-girlfriend, leading to heartbreak for Tyler. The character Igor represents the negative tendencies of Tyler, as his heart is broken and begins to take over throughout the album’s duration. Coming out the other side the album ends with sadness, but still with a level of hope that I’m sure anybody can relate to who’s had their heart broken.

Proof: IGOR’S THEME (Feat. Lil Uzi Vert) / EARFQUAKE (Feat. Playboy Carti & Charli Wilson) / I THINK (Feat. Solange & Ryan Betty) / A BOY IS A GUN* / WHAT’S GOOD (Feat. Slowthai)

6. SebastiAn - Thirst Genre: Electronic / Synth-Pop

8 years after his debut album, the French producer is ready to step out from the background again with this thrilling collection of bold electronic pop. Known best to the general for working with Frank Ocean on his Endless album (and being the voice on “Facebook Story” on Blonde), SebastiAn has also worked extensively with Daft Punk, Kavinsky, Charlotte Gainsbourg, Beastie Boys, Block Party and others over the years. Thirst is a wild ride in a dark dystopian pop landscape that has a tough exterior but a tender interior. The features from pop and R&B are expertly placed among the distorted and thunderous production. The industrial feel may seem a bit artificial at first, but there is an organic heartbeat under the mechanical exoskeleton worth exploring.

Proof: Doorman (Feat. Syd) / Better Now (Feat. Mayer Hawthorne) / Pleasant (Feat. Charlotte Gainsbourg) / Sober (Feat. Bakar) / Run for Me (Feat. Gallant)

5. Khalid - Free Spirit Genre: Pop / R&B / Soul

I gushed on both my last two year lists about Khalid with his debut album and last year’s EP; all that is still very much relevant in 2019. Khalid is one of today’s top young talents. His evocative voice can fit into so many different environments. Straight Pop, R&B, Hip Hop, Country, EDM, Rock, Khalid’s voice is quite the emotive chameleon. His own albums are a bit more straightforward pop and R&B that with every release keeps getting more polished and evolved with his songwriting. Already at 21 the singer has become a go-to for album features and movie soundtracks; I don’t expect this to change for quite some time.

Proof: Better / Talk / Right Back / Outta My Head (w/ John Mayer) / Twenty One

4. Big Wild - Superdream Genre: Synth-Pop / Electronic / Dance

To many fans of the EDM scene Big Wild has been well known before his debut album dropped. The producer was one the first signees to ODESZA’s label after dropping multiple great remixes. His debut EP last year only increased his notoriety. What we didn’t know if he had a different plan for his sound that would be introduced to the world on this sneaky debut full length. Superdream still has plenty of his EDM beginnings throughout but interwoven in a much more complex package then we anticipated. Notes of 70’s/80’s pop to 90’s R&B make a surprisingly profound presence dancing through the intersecting synths and drums. Big Wild sings more than he ever has in a soft hushed tone that glides his bold production so smoothly. The Electronic genre is in the middle of quite a renaissance currently and yet more creative artists like Big Wild keep showing up and taking the sound to new directions we haven’t seen before.

Proof: Joypunks / 6’s to 9’s (Feat. Rationale) / No Words / Maker / She Makes Magic

3. ILLENIUM* - ASCEND Genre: Electronic / Future Bass / Dance

Denver DJ ILLENIUM found quite a sweet spot on his 2017 sophomore album, Awake, with his euphoric electronic music. Anybody who claims EDM is all plasticity without emotion that other music genres can evoke, I dare you to listen to Awake and not feel the raw human emotion bursting with every dramatic drop. However, Nicolas Miller was not complacent and has expanded his sound in 2019. Taking some inspiration no doubt from the late great Avicii, there’s plenty of experimenting with genres both externally and internally to the EDM landscape. With great ease, effort care and skill the tracks maneuver from Pop/Future Bass to House to Trance, to R&B to Country/Rock to Dubstep. The emotions continue to be the driver with tracks about love, heartbreak, feeling lost and even Miller’s opening up about his past issues with drug abuse. The Jon Bellion assisted “Good Things Fall Apart” and Chainsmokers partnered “Takeaway” are the tracks most people go in knowing, but powerful tracks like the lightning bolt opener “Hold On” to the Rock/Dubstep powerhouse of “Pray” to the R&B Ear drum slapper that's “Gorgeous” steal the listeners attention through this whirlwind of melodic feels.

Proof: Hold On (w/ Georgia Ku) / Good Things Fall Apart (w/ Jon Bellion) / Pray (Feat. Kameron Alexander) / Gorgeous (w/ Bipolar Sunshine & Blanke) / Lonely (w/ Chandler Leighton) // Bonus: Ekali & ILLENIUM - Hard To Say Goodbye (Feat. Chloe Angelides)

2. Nilüfer Yanya* - Miss Universe Genre: Indie Rock / Alternative / R&B

It could be too easy to take Nilüfer Yanya’s sensual music for granted, but those that pay close attention are very much rewarded. Her subtle and mellow melodies can slip into the background but by the time her infectious choruses hit you may find your shoulders swaying and feet tapping without thinking about it. The UK Born new artist has such an effortless feel to her genre melding sound of soul and indie pop. Her unique, raspy voice among the groovy, plucky guitar riffs has an ability to relay emotions while also keeping a veil of mystery. Miss Universe is probably 2019’s most consistent record, no song is out of place in this whole strong debut album. 

Proof: In Your Head / Paralysed / Angels / Tears / Heavyweight Champion of the Year

1. Labrinth - Imagination & the Misfit Kid Genre: Pop / alt-R&B

Sometimes it takes some time to find your comfortably and inspiration. English singer Labrinth’s debut album was released over seven years ago. In the time since the powerful voice, proficient productions or potent pen of the singer would pop up here and there with one-off singles, song features ("Losers” with The Weeknd off Beauty Behind The Madness was one great one), production or writer credits. 2019 though was quite the change in pace. The marathon of a year started with forming the supergroup and dropping the debut album of LSD with Sia and Diplo. Labrinth then was the lead composer on the music score for one of the year's best new shows on HBO’s “Euphoria”. This all was cultivated with this magnificent and expressive sophomore effort. Imagination & the Misfit Kid is a layered project of the many influences Labrinth has picked up over his lifetime packaged together in something innovative yet also familiar. On the surface the music is pretty crowd pleasing pop but when dissected more there's rich notes of music genres colliding including R&B, Gospel, Blues, UK Hip Hop and Electronic ingredients. The production is its own cunning beast, at times it is muted and let’s the great voice of Labrinth take the reins, only to come thundering in to smack you in the temple. There’s an obvious cinematic theme carried through in the songs that is driven home with the song titles and short skits. Labrinth is tapping into your ears while making a visual art piece. One you’re meant to close your eyes and let the melodies and lyrics help you visualize. “Can’t tell me the world don’t mind, a miracle.”

Proof: Miracle / Dotted Line / All For Us (w/ Zendaya) / Something’s Got To Give / Where The Wild Things Are / Oblivion (Feat. Sia) // Bonus: Don’t Fence Me In

Others:

Good: Aaron Aye - F.E.A.R., Ada Lea - what we say in private, Africa Express - EGOL, AJ Tracey - AJ Tracey, AKON - Akonda, The Alchemist - Yacht Rock 2, Aldous Harding - Designer, Alex Cameron - Miami Memory, Algee Smith - atl, Alice Merton - Mint, Allen Stone - Building Balance, Allie X - Super Sunset (Analog), The Amazons - Future Dust, Andrew Combs - Ideal Man, Angel Olsen - All Mirrors, Angie Stone - Full Circle, Ann Marie - Pretty Psycho, Anna Wise - As If It Were Forever, Ardalan - Mr. Good, Ari Lennox - Shea Butter Baby, Ariana Grande - thank u, next, Armin van Buuren - Balance, A$AP Ferg - Floor Seats, Asiahn - Love Train 2, Audien - Escapism, AURORA - A Different Kind of Human, avery r. young - tubman., Avicii - TIM, A1 - Turbulence, Baby Rose - To Myself, Bad Bunny - X 100PRE, Barrie - Happy to Be Here, Bastille - Doom Days, Bat For Lashes - Lost Girls, Bazzi - Soul Searching, Beast Coast - Escape from New York, Beck - Hyperspace, Becky G. - MALA SANTA, Beirut - Gallipoli, Berhana - HAN, Better Oblivion Community Center - Better Oblivion Community Center, Betty Who - Betty, Beyoncé - The Lion King: The Gift [Music Inspired by the Motion Picture], Big K.R.I.T. - K.R.I.T. IZ HERE, Big K.R.I.T. - TDT, Big Thief - Two Hands, Big Thief - U.F.O.F., Black Belt Eagle Scout - At The Party With My Brown Friends, The Black Keys - “Let’s Rock”, Black Milk - DiVE, bLAck pARty - Endless Summer, blackbear - ANONYMOUS, Blaq Tuxedo - Blaq Tuxedo, Blaqk Audio - Only Things We Love, Blasterjaxx - Perspective, Bleached - Don’t You Think You’ve Had Enough?, Blood Orange - Angel’s Pulse [Mixtape], Blu & Oh No - A Long Red Hot Los Angeles Summer Night, Boogie - Everything’s for Sale, Boy Harsher - Careful, Boy Harsher - Country Girl Uncut, Boy Scouts - Free Company, Brittany Howard - Jaime, BROCKHAMPTON - GINGER, Broods - Don’t Feed The Pop Monster, Brother Ali - Secrets & Escape, Bun B & Statik Selektah - TrillStatik [Mixtape], Burna Boy - African Giant, Busy Signal - Parts of the Puzzle, Caamp - By and By, Cage The Elephant - Social Cues, Camila Cabello - Romance, Carly Rae Jepsen - Dedicated, Caroline Polacheck - PANG, Casey Veggies - Organic, Casey Veggies & Rockie Fresh - Fresh Veggies [Mixtape], Cashmere Cat - PRINCESS CATGIRL, Cassius - Dreems, Catching Flies - Silver Linings, Cehryl - Slow Motion, The Chainsmokers - World War Joy, Charly Bliss - Young Enough, Chase & Status - RTRN II JUNGLE, Chelsea Wolfe - Birth of Violence, The Chemical Brothers - No Geography, Cherry Glazer - Stuffed & Ready, Childish Major - Dirt Road Diamond, Chinatown Slalom - Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?, Choosey & Exile - Black Beans, Chris Brown - Indigo, Chris Lorenzo - Late Checkout, Chris Staples - Holy Moly, Chromatics - Closer To Grey, Ciara - Beauty Marks, Cigarettes After Sex - Cry, City and Colour - A Pill for Loneliness, Citizen Cope - Heroin and Helicopters, Clairmont The Second - The Second’s Do You Drive?, Clairo - Immunity, clipping. - There Existed an Addiction to Blood, Cold War Kids - New Age Norms 1, Coldplay - Everyday Life, Collie Buddz - Hybrid, Common - Let Love, Cross Record - Cross Record, Crumb - Jinx, Crystal Fighters - Gaia & Friends, Cuco - Para Mi, Curren$y & Statik Selektah - Gran Turismo, CZARFACE & Ghostface Killa - Czarface Meets Ghostface, DaBaby - KIRK, Damar Jackson - U2, Dame D.O.L.L.A. - Big D.O.L.L.A., Danny Brown - uknowhatimsaying¿, Dave East - Survival, David B - BLEU, Dawn Richard - New Breed, Deadmau5 - here’s the drop, Deadmau5 - Polar (Music from the Netflix Film), Deaton Chris Anthony - BO Y, Deerhunter - Why Hasn’t Everything Already Disappeared?, Delta Heavy - Only In My Dreams, Dermot Kennedy* - Dermot Kennedy, Devin Morrison - Bussin’, DIIV - Deceiver, Dillon Francis - Magic Is Real [Mixtape], Dizzy Fae - NO GMO [Mixtape], DJ Khaled - Father of Asahd, DJ Shadow - Our Pathetic Age, DJ Snake - Carte Blanche, Doja Cat - Hot Pink, Dope Lemon - Smooth Big Cat, Dounia - THE SCANDAL, Drake - Care Package, Drax Project - Drax Project, Dreamville & J. Cole - Return of the Dreamers III, Dreezy - Big Dreez, DROELOE* - A Promise Is Made, The Drums - Brutalism, DUCKWRTH - THE FALLING MAN, Earl Sweatshirt - FEET OF CLAY, EARTHGANG - Mirrorland, Ed Sheeran - No. 6 Collaborations Project, Electric Guest - KIN, Electric Youth - Memory Emotion, ELHAE - Trouble In Paradise, Elle Varner - Ellevation, Emeli Sandé - REAL LIFE, Emmavie - Honeymoon, Emily Wells - The World Is Too ___ For You, Eric Bellinger - Cuffing Season 3, Eric Bellinger - Saved by the Bellinger [Mixtape], Eric Bellinger - The Rebirth 2, E-40 - Practice Makes Paper, Fabolous - Summertime Shoot 3: Coldest Summer Ever [Mixtape], The Faint - Egowerk, Fantasia - Sketchbook, FEELS - Post Earth, FIDLAR - Almost Free, Fitz & The Tantrums - All The Feels, FKA twigs - MAGDALENE, The Flaming Lips - The King’s Mouth: Music and Songs, Flume - Hi This Is Flume [Mixtape], Flying Lotus - Flamagra, Frances Cone - Late Riser, Frankie Cosmos - Close It Quietly, Freddie Gibbs & Madlib - Bandana, FRENSHIP* - Vacation, Freya Ridings - Freya Ridings, Friendly Fires - Inflorescent, Froth - Duress, The Game - Born 2 Rap, Gang Starr - One of the Best Yet, GASHI - GASHI, Gary Clark Jr. - This Land, Gena Rose Bruce - Can’t Make You Love Me, Gesaffelstein - Hyperion, The Get Up Kids - Problems, Giggs - BIG BAD…, girlpool - What Chaos Is Imaginary, The Glorious Sons - A War on Everything, gnash - we, Goo Goo Dolls - Miracle Pill, grandson - a modern tragedy vol. 3, GRiZ - Ride Waves, GTA - La Nueva Clásica (Remixes), Gus Dapperton - Where Polly People Go to Read, HÆLOS - Any Random Kindness, half●alive - Now, Not Yet, , Hatchie - Keepsake, Hayden James - Between Us, Hayden James - Between Us (Remixes), The Head and the Heart - Living Mirage, Headie One - Music x Road [Mixtape], Helado Negro - This Is How You Smile, Hermitude - Pollyanarchy, Hibou - Haive, Higher Brothers - Five Stars, Hobo Johnson - The Fall of Hobo Johnson, Holly Herndon - PROTO, Hoodie Allen - Whatever USA, Hot Chip - A Bath Full of Ecstasy, Ida Mae - Chasing Light, IDER - Emotional Education, IDK - Is He Real?, Iggy Azalea - In My Defense, India.Arie - Worthy, Ingrid Michaelson - Stranger Songs, Injury Reserve - Injury Reserve, Intellexual - Intellexual, Isaac Dunbar - balloons don’t float here, Isabella - 12 Angels, J Balvin & Bad Bunny - OASIS, Jack & Jack - A Good Friend Is Nice, JackLNDN - Thoughts, Jacob Latimore - Connection2, Jacquees - King of R&B, Jacques Greene - Dawn Chorus, Jade Bird - Jade Bird, Jai Wolf - The Cure To Loneliness, Jamie Cullum - Taller, James Blunt - Once Upon A Mind, Jamila Woods - LEGACY! LEGACY!, The Japanese House - Good At Falling, Jax Jones - Snacks, Jay Som - Anak Ko, Jayda G - Significant Changes, Jaden - ERYS, JAY1 - One Wave, Jenny Hval - The Practice of Love, Jenny Lewis - On The Line, J-E-T-S - Zoospa, Jidenna - 85 to Africa, Joell Ortiz - Monday, Johnny Gill - Game Changer II, JOHNNYSWIM - Moonlight, JOHKOY - 404, Jonas Brothers - Happiness Begins, Jordan Rakei - Origin, Joseph - Good Luck, Kid, Josephine Wiggs - We Fall, JPEGMAFIA - All My Heroes Are Cornballs, The Juan MacLean - The Brighter Light, Judah & The Lion - Pep Talks, Juice WRLD - Death Race for Love, Julian - Sydney, Juls - Colour, KAINA - Next to the Sun, Kanye West - JESUS IS KING, Karnaval Blues - You Come With the Rain, Kash Doll - Stacked, Kaskade - Redux 003, KÁRYYN - The Quanta Series, Kayzo - Unleashed, Keane - Cause and Effect, Kelsey Lu - Blood, Kemba - Gilda, Kembe X - I Was Depressed Until I Made This, Kerli - Shadow Works, Kevin Gates - I’m Him, Kevin George - My Darlings a Demon, Kevin Morby - Oh My God, K.Flay - Solutions, Kindness* - Something Like a War, King Princess - Cheap Queen, Kishi Bashi - Omoiyari, Ladytron - Ladytron, Lafawndah - Ancestor Boy, Larry June - Out the Trunk [Mixtape], The Lemonheads - Varshons 2, Lexie Liu - 2030, Liam Gallagher - Why Me? Why Not, LICK - Dark Vibe Order, Lil Skies - Shelby, Lissie - When I’m Alone: The Piano Retrospective, Little Brother - May The Lord Watch, Local Natives - Violet Street, Logic - Confessions of a Dangerous Mind, Lolo Zouaï - High Highs to Low Lows, Lost Frequencies - Alive and Feeling Fine, Louis Futon - Way Back When, Loyle Carner - Not Waving, But Drowning, LSD - Labrinth, Sia & Diplo Presents… LSD, Lucky Daye - Painted, Lucy Rose - No Words Left, Luh Kel - Mixed Emotions, The Lumineers - III, LV - Xcited, Lyfe Jennings - 777, Mac Ayers - Juicebox, Mac DeMarco - Here Comes the Cowboy, Mahalia - Love and Compromise, Malibu Ken (Aesop Rock & TOBACCO) - Malibu Ken, Manatee Commune* - PDA, Mansionair - Shadowboxer, Marc E. Bassy - PMD, Maren Morris - GIRL, Maribou State - Kingdoms in Color Remixed, Marika Hackman - Any Human Friend, MARINA - LOVE + FEAR, MarMar Oso - Oso Different, Marshmello - Joytime III, Matt Maeson - Bank on the Funeral, MED & Guilty Simpson - Child of the Jungle, Meg Mac - Hope, Megan Thee Stallion - Fever, Melii - phAses, Men I Trust - Oncle Jazz, Mereba - The Jungle Is The Only Way Out, Mermaidens - Look Me in the Eye, Michael Kiwanuka - KIWANUKA, MIKA  - My Name Is Michael Holbrook, MIKE - Tears of Joy, Mike Posner - Keep Going [Mixtape], Mike Posner - A Real Good Kid, Milky Chance - Mind the Moon, Mr. Carmack - Demolish [Mixtape], Mr. Carmack - Viista, Mr Hudson - WHEN THE MACHINE STOP, Mndsgn - Snaxx, Moksi - The Return of House Music, Montell Jordan - Masterpiece, Moon Boots - Bimini Road, Moon Duo - Stars Are the Light, Moonchild - Little Ghost, Murs & 9th Wonder - Brighter Daze, Murs, 9th Wonder & The Soul Collective - The Iliad is Dead and the Odyssey is Over, Mustard - Perfect Ten, Nao Yoshioka - Undeniable, Nas - The Lost Tapes 2, Nathan Bajar - playroom, The National - I Am Easy to Find, Necking - Cut Your Teeth, The New Pornographers - In the Morse Code of Brake Lights, NF - The Search, Nick Catchdubs - Ufo, Nicole Bus - Kairos, Nina Nesbitt - The Sun Will Come Up, The Seasons Will Change, Noah Kahan - Busyhead, Norah Jones - Begin Again, Obie Trice - The Fifth, Octavian - Endorphins, Of Monsters and Men - FEVER DREAM, Offset -  Father of Four, Oliver Dion - Exposed, Olivia O’Brien - Was It Even Real?, Panda Bear - Buoys, Patoranking - Wilmer, Pete Tong & HERO - Chilled Classics, Pete Yorn - Caretakers, Petit Biscuit* - We Were Young (The Playlist), P!nk - Hurts 2B Human, Pixies - Beneath the Eyrie, PJ Morton - PAUL, Plaid - Polymer, P-LO - SHINE, PnB Rock - TrapStar Turnt PopStar, Pond - Tasmania, Post Malone - Hollywood’s Bleeding, Priests - The Seduction of Kansas, Prince - Originals, PUP - Morbid Stuff, Quelled Chris - Guns, R.LUM.R. - Surfacing, Ra Ra Riot - Superbloom, The Raconteurs - Help Us Stranger, Raphael Saadiq - Jimmy Lee, Ras Kass - Soul on Ice 2, Rat Boy - International Unknown, Raveena - Lucid, Reese LaFlare - Final Fantasy, The Regrettes - How Do You Love?, Reptaliens - VALIS, Rex Orange County - Pony, Rich Brian - The Sailor, Rich The Kid - The World Is Yours 2, Rico Nasty & Kenny Beats - Anger Management, Rhi - The Pale Queen, Rhye - Spirit, Rockie Fresh - Destination, Rudimental - Test Our Differences, RÜFÜS DU SOL - Solace Remixes, RY X - Unfurl, Sabrina Carpenter - Singular Act II, SAFE - STAY, Said The Whale - Cascadia, SAINt JHN - Ghetto Lenny’s Love Songs, St. Lucia - Remixed, Sammie - Everlasting, Sampa The Great - The Return, San Fermin - The Cormorant I, (Sandy) Alex G - House of Sugar, Santana - Africa Speaks, Santi - Mandy & The Jungle, Sara Bareilles - Amidst the Chaos, SASAMI - SASAMI, ScHoolboy Q - CrasH Talk, Seasons - American Authors, Set It Off - Midnight, Set Mo - Surrender, Shafiq Husayn - The Loop, Shari Marie - Reflection LP, Sharon Van Etten - Remind Me Tomorrow, Sheer Mag - A Distant Call, Shlohmo - The End, Shy Girls - Bird on the Wing, Silversun Pickups - Widow’s Weeds, Sinead Harnett - Lessons in Love, SiR - Chasing Summer, sir Was - Holding On To A Dream, Skepta - Ignorance Is Bliss, The Script - Sunset & Full Moons, Sleater-Kinney - The Center Won’t Hold, Sleeping With Sirens - How It Feels to Be Lost, slowthai - Nothing Great About Britain, Slum Village - The Source, Smif-N-Wessun - The All, Snail Mail - Habit, Snake City - Hurts, SNBRN - Solé, Snoh Aalgra - Ugh, those feels again, Snoop Dogg - I Wanna Thank Me, Snow Patrol - Reworked, SOAK - Grim Town, SOB X RBE & Hit-Boy - Family Not a Group, Solange - When I Get Home, Somos - Prison On A Hill, SonReal - The Aaron LP, StayLoose - The City, Stef Chura - Midnight, Steve Lacy - Apollo XXI, Stirgull Simpson - SOUND & FURY, Styles P - S.P. The Goat: Ghost of All Time, Sudan Archives - Athena, Sui Zhen - Losing Linda, Summer Walker - Over It, SYML - SYML, The Tallest Man On Earth - I Love You, Talos - Far Out Dust, Tank - ELEVATION, Tank and the Bangas - Green Balloon, Tayla Parx - We Need To Talk, Taylor Swift - Lover, Tech N9ne - N9na, Tegan and Sara - Hey, I’m Just Like You, TENDER - Fear of Falling Asleep, Terri Lyne Carrington & Social Science - Waiting Game, Terror Jr - Unfortunately, Terror Jr, Tiësto - Together, Tinashe - Songs For You, Tink - Voicemails, The-Dream - Menage a Trois: Sextape Vol. 1,2&3, Thees Handz (The Grouch & Murs) - Thees Handz, Thom Yorke - ANIMA, T-Pain - 1UP, TOBi - STILL, Tom Walker - What A Time To Be Alive, Tora - Can’t Buy the Mood, Toro y Moi - Outer Peace, Tory Lanez - International Fargo [Mixtape], Tourist - Wild, Tove Lo - Sunshine Kitty, Trae tha Truth - Exhale, Travis Thompson - Reckless Endangerment, Trevor Jackson - Rough Draft 2, Trina - The One, Tritonal - U & Me, Tropical Fuck Storm - Braindrops, Tuxedo - Tuxedo III, Two Door Cinema Club - False Alarm, Tycho - Weather, Tyla Yaweh - Heart Full of Rage, Vagabon - Vagabon, Vancouver Sleep Clinic - Onward to Zion, Various Artists - DEATH STRANDING: Timefall (Original Music from the World of Death Stranding), Various Artists - For The Throne (Music Inspired by the HBO Series Game of Thrones), Various Artists - Music Inspired by the Film Roma, Various Artists - 13 Reasons Why (Season 3) [Music Inspired by the Netflix Series], Velvet Negroni - NEON BROWN, Wale - Wow... That’s Crazy, Walk Off The Earth - HERE WE GO!, Wallows - Nothing Happens, Walshy Fire - Walshy Fire Presents: ABENG, Wand - Laughing Matter, Weezer - Weezer (The Teal Album), Weyes Blood - Titanic Rising, Wilco - Ode to Joy, Wild Belle - Everybody One of a Kind, William Black* - Pages, Willow - Willow, Whitney - Forever Turned Around, Wretch 32 - Upon Reflection, X Ambassadors - ORION, Xavier Omär & Sango - Moments Spent Loving You, YACHT - Chain Tipping, YBN Cordae - The Lost Boy, Yeasayer - Erotic Reruns, Yeek - IDK WHERE, YG - 4REAL 4REAL, Yhung T.O. - On My Momma 2, Yuna - Rouge, Zilo - Gorgeous, Zo! - FourFront, 2 Chainz - Rap or Go to the League, 93PUNX - 93PUNX, !!! - Wallop

Meh: A Boogie wit da Hoodie - Hoodie SZN, Above & Beyond - Flow State, The Avett Brothers - Closer Than Together, Belle & Sebatian - Days of the Bangold, Berner - El Chivo, Birdman & Juvenile - Just Another Gangsta, Blank Mass - Animated Violence Mild, Calboy - Wildboy, Casanova - Behind These Scars, Conway The Machine - Look What I Became, Cousin Stizz - Trying to Find My Next Thrill, DREAMERS - LAUNCH FLY LAND, DJ Muggs & Mach - Hommy: Tuez-Les Tous, Future - Future Hndrexx Presents: The WZRD, G&D - Black Love & War, Ghostface Killah - Ghostface Killahs, Gucci Mane - Delusions of Grandeur, HTRK - Venus in Leo, Jezzy - TM104: The Legend of the Snowman, Kenny Garrett - Hoax, Lighthouse Family - Blue Sky in Your Head, Lil Peep - EVERYBODY’S EVERYTHING, Lillie Mae - Other Girls, Logic - Supermarket, Lower Dens - The Competition, Machine Gun Kelly - Hotel Diablo, Night Lovell - GOODNIGHT LOVELL, Pi’erre Bourne & Cardo Got Wings - Pi’erre & Cardo’s WIld Adventure [Mixtape], Quality Control - Control The Streets Volume 2, Rick Ross - Port of Miami 2, Rod Wave - PTSD, Shy Glizzy - Covered N Blood, Spellling - Mazy Fly, Tee Grizzley - Scriptures, Twin Peaks - Lookout Low, Tyga - Legendary, Wifisfuneral - Ethernet 2, Wiz Khalifa & Curren$y - 2009, 03 Greedo - Still Summer in the Projects

Naw: Black midi - Schlagenheim, KEY! - SO EMOTIONAL, Microwave - Death is a Warm Blanket, Nef The Pharaoh - Mushrooms & Coloring Books, Scarlxrd - INFINITY, Ugly God - Bumps & Bruises, Weezer - Weezer (The Black Album), Westside Gunn - Flygod is an Awesome God, Yung Gravy - Sensational, Zheani - The Line Censored

#Best Albums #Top Albums #2019 #Album List #Labrinth #Nilufer Yanya #ILLENIUM #Big Wild #Khalid #SebastiAn #Tyler The Cretor #Madeon #Nick Murphy #Maggie Roger #Gryffin #BANKS #Becky Hill #G Flip #Gallant #Seven Lions #Lana Del Rey #Mark Ronson #Tory Lanez #Lizzo #Bishop Briggs #Charli XCX #Sigrid #Tei Shi #Denzel Curry #Foals

[thesuper17]

Nostalgia, the kind fomented unnaturally early in a generation forced to confront its imminent end, soaks Titanic Rising, Natalie Mering’s fourth and finest album as Weyes Blood. The record’s warm, luxurious 70s pop arrangements and brief glimpses into Mering’s tender and empathetic interior life serve to underscore the value of what will be lost, and the necessity of treasuring it while it lasts.

Despite its eschatological subject matter, Titanic Rising isn’t a morose, or even explicitly didactic, experience. The 31-year-old was raised in a religious household (albeit subsequently denouncing Christianity), and a fundamental search for belonging and meaning feels as close to the center of Titanic Rising as its clear-eyed recognition of the coming ecological catastrophe. 

It could easily sound glib to claim, as Mering did in an interview with Pitchfork, that one should “have a smile during the apocalypse and be grateful for whatever conditions exist, because life is a beautiful thing,” but on Titanic Rising, she dispels cynicism with full-hearted commitment to all the beauty left to salvage.

Mering has pointed to religious music as a particular influence on her output, not in terms of content, but staging. Grand cathedrals, at once meticulously ornate and cavernously open, these vast, high-ceilinged chambers feel like a natural arena for the compositions on Titanic Rising. 

Opener “A Lot’s Gonna Change”, for instance, begins in humble simplicity but soon blossoms into a lush orchestral arrangement, all swooping strings and long-held ascending vocal harmonies. The song is an overture to Mering’s approach on the rest of the album, demonstrating her penchant for broad, melancholic melodies and stark but tragically optimistic lyricism.

These tendencies coalesce on the stunning centrepiece, “Movies”, a stirring and poignant lament that real life could approach the deliberate meaning of cinema. On a meta-level, within the self-contained world of the record, Mering achieves her wish. 

"Movies" unfolds in distinct sections, not unlike the separate acts of a film. Its stage-setting, submerged synth arpeggios move subtly as the singer enters: ‘This is how it feels/ to be in love,’ (alluding to the function of art in not only reflecting emotional dynamics but producing them). Again, there is a near-religious sense of ceremony, of slow-moving bodies gradually aligning, led by Mering’s multi-tracked voice.

After building to a sustained perfect cadence, the track is interrupted by a flurry of strings, dry and staccato in contrast to the dreamy build-up that preceded them. A single bass drum pulse corrals the flock into formation and the high-drama second act takes shape. Guided by singular desire, Mering repeats ‘I wanna be/ the star of my own movie,’ her falsetto climbing intervals in a crystalline timbre. The intensity of this movement gathers and crests with a final high ‘my own’, before sloping to a mellow denouement, peaceful but not satisfied.

The filmic quality of “Movies” is clearly indebted to composers like Brian Eno and – as astutely observed by Alex Denning for Dazed – Gavin Bryars’ minimalist opus “The Sinking of the Titanic”, from which Mering’s title is inverted. Her broader palette however, is drawn from the soft-rock and pop of artists like The Carpenters, Harry Nilsson and even The Beach Boys.

The attention to detail with which Titanic Rising reconstructs these profiles is both technically stunning and wholly aligned to the record’s thematic intent. Describing that intent, Mering carefully distinguishes her desire to make something “sorrowful” rather than depressing, illuminating the world’s majesty and leaving context to shape the atmosphere around it. 

That the artists she venerates are so often given to an intimate conception of that duality of love and melancholy (as in Close To You), only contributes further to the record’s synchronicity of theme and construction. 

On “Wild Time” Mering addresses ‘the rising tide’ - both a direct reference to the climate catastrophe and a more general allusion to the instability gripping our cultural, economic and technological institutions. Here, as in “A Lot’s Gonna Change”, her nostalgic yearning targets the neatness of childhood, before the world’s contradictions laid themselves bare. In this way, “Wild Time” addresses a personal loss of innocence as directly as it does the re-configuring of social structures under late Capitalism and global warming.

Constantly shifting tonality between major and minor (reminiscent of a Joni Mitchell composition), the song eludes simple categorisation, refusing to signpost the listener a one-dimensional response. Its overall sonic character is analogue and warm, with thick bass guitar confidently underpinning Mering’s modulating melodies. 

A gliding and pensive wordless middle 8 section gently floats the song to its final chorus, whereupon the singer locks on to a steady note for the word ‘time’ rather than the shifting pattern she adopts prior. The note holds fast while all around her, strings, drums and keys forcefully ascend, again suggesting Mering’s hopeful resolve against total uncertainty.  

More contemporary reference points for Weyes Blood like Father John Misty (lampshaded by Phil Elverum in “Now Only”, where he talks to the two of them about songwriting ‘in the backstage bungalows’) and Lana Del Rey differ from Mering in their elevation of wry cynicism over sincerity. Sincerity is one of Titanic Rising's most commendable traits, but should Mering have immersed the album in earnest sentiment entirely, it would’ve risked buckling under the weight of self-seriousness. 

In discussion with Mark Kermode on Ari Aster's Hereditary, film critic Robbie Collin brings up the idea that brief winking moments of humour can act as a 'steam valve' for the audience, allowing intense experiences to avoid tipping over into overwhelming ones, where they become parody.

On Titanic Rising, "Everyday" functions in precisely this way. Accompanied in video by a whimsical send-up of vintage slasher films, the track is a relentlessly bouncy and upbeat exploration of the re-organisation of love in a digital age. Without ever explicitly breaking character, "Everyday" lets in a small current of air that actually imbues the parts of the album played straight with more power. 

Instructively, Mering has said "I'm actually really sincere. But I feel like humour is a part of the great cosmic question." Rather than morbidly drilling down on a singular theme, she successfully evokes a kaleidoscope of experience and emotion. Humour, just as misery or elation, is part of what comprises a full life: 'It all just overlaps.' 

"Everyday" strikes this intersection most cleanly with a line in its third verse: 'True love, is making a comeback/ for only half of us the rest of us feel bad.' The heartbreaking purity and tenacity of its first half is so immediately deflated in the second, it's almost impossible not to crack a smile. A gorgeous and kitsch electric piano flourish cascades beneath Mering's voice to drive home the absurdity.  

It is these smaller, intimate moments on the record, as it is in life, that invoke real wonder. The drum fill before the second chorus of “A Lot’s Gonna Change” or the duelling slide guitar motif in "Andromeda". The deeply personal ode to a friend who passed on "Picture Me Better", where Mering offers only kindness and understanding 'We finally found a winter for your sweater/ got a brand new big suit of armour'. 

Titanic Rising is replete with pockets of surprising beauty, weaved carefully through its construction, its homage, its themes, its heart. In this delicately manufactured capsule, filled both with artefacts from a collective cultural memory and thoughtful preparation for a stormy future, Mering makes her case for hope; that both the past and present contain splendour worth holding onto.

#titanic rising #weyes blood #review #father john misty #carpenters #pop #carole king #harry nilsson #music

[thesinglesjukebox]

AMERICAN FOOTBALL FT. HAYLEY WILLIAMS - UNCOMFORTABLY NUMB

[6.17]

thesingl esjukebox

Vikram Joseph: On American Football's 1999 debut album (and, for some 17 years thereafter, their only album), laconic, meandering guitar lines intertwined and diverged, set against a pillowy backdrop of woozy horns and jazz-tinged percussion; Mike Kinsella's vocals drifted in and out like conversation through patches of broken sleep, feeling more like another instrument than a driving force for the song. The songs were rarely streamlined, but in their soft drift they captured, with heart-stopping precision, something ephemeral and intangible -- sunlit fields and slow dusks, an essence of youth and summer. "Uncomfortably Numb" is the Before Midnight to the Before Sunrise of their early songs: older, harder, burdened with regrets and worn down by disappointment. It's more conventionally structured than any other American Football song, borne on a crisp, clean, cyclical Plans-era Death Cab guitar line, and some of Kinsella's lyrics (not always his strongest suit, and better as hazy evocation rather than narrative) are a little on-the-nose ("I blamed my father in my youth/now as a father, I blame the booze"). But it builds a melancholy beauty all the same, Kinsella's voice interweaving with that of Hayley Williams in the flickering chorus; "The lessons are so much less obvious the further you get from home," rings awfully true. The solutions don't present themselves so easily when the issues get this hard to unravel. [7]

Iris Xie: How does one capture the sadness and tenderness at inevitable breakdowns, and the connected hope and sorrow that ties together such tragedy? Through a production that imitates the warmth of moving amongst muted pastel clouds, for muddled psyches and safe spaces. The creation of the space, which facilitates and echoes the depth of the relationship and their connected interiorities, is conveyed through the glowing guitars, patient drums, soft harmonizing, and evocative but hazy lyrics, and sets the environment for a simultaneous warmth and distancing, with endless compassion. There is this beautiful sound in the background where I can't tell whether it's one of the singers slowly humming in the back, or it is a gently played horn, but it is chilling in conveying their not telepathic, but almost as connected, thoughts, even from a distance. When their voices overlap, they glimmer. As Williams sings over his monologue, it results in an incredibly succinct expression of their struggles: "Now I'm used to struggling (tied to a contortionist)/for two"; his last two words are swallowed, giving an impression that he may only be starting to come to terms with how he is hurting for both him and his inner child, while she understands too well what is occurring as an outsider. This conveys clarity in what level of disaster is occurring, as he continues to turn away from home. Unfortunately, there lies the familiar tale to many womxn-identified folks, because Williams's POV remains at home, frustrated and exhausted after her sacrifice. They echo as they distance: "I just want you home/I'll make new friends/In the ambulance." The instrumentals empty out to a lingering, uncertain optimism, and complete this quiet hush of family tragedy. There are no harsh disasters here -- just the slow, ebbing progression towards the rock bottom, from which up is the only way to go. [10]

Joshua Minsoo Kim: As I get older, I find myself far more attuned to the melancholic music of singer-songwriters written in adulthood than in youth. That's partially because so many of these earlier albums -- from Down Colorful Hill to Songs About Leaving to American Football's debut -- defined my teenage years, but also because they featured incredibly overt depictions of angst and malaise. American Football's music post-reunion is far less insular, and with their aging band members comes a more precise portrait of my current life: one characterized by the ability to function in the real world despite persistent, unceasing depression. In other words, the emotions here are palpable because they're less flashy -- after all, histrionic melodrama will only draw attention to one's own childishness, and we're all trying to avoid that, right? With "Uncomfortably Numb," Mike Kinsella finally makes the song I've always wanted him to make. On "Bad News" and "Ugly on the Inside," he delivered harrowing diatribes against friends that I personally read as songs written for himself (this line of thinking being an obvious projection of my own self-hatred). But here, he enlists Paramore's Hayley Williams to take on the role of a wife who's hurt by his decisions. Her topline is unmistakably Kinsella's (the "clear"/"see-through" line being a dead ringer for his lyrical style), so this track does give the semblance of Kinsella addressing himself, but I'm mostly reminded of conversations I've had with my sister; my parents never quite understood or acknowledged my depression, so my sister was the only family member who was evidently concerned about my mental health. But after years of my sister dealing with me, I understand that if she ever caught me in the worst of states again, there would be this mix of pain and compassion and tiredness that Hayley so effortlessly captures here. Her feature is doubly affecting because she represents a generation of emo bands that came after American Football's, highlighting how Kinsella is still succumbing to these habits and mindsets perpetuated by depression. The twinkling guitars and winding drums act to remind listeners of why it can be so hard to break free; the instrumentation is as pretty as anything on the 1999 debut, but it's also incredibly familiar, incredibly safe. When depressive thoughts and actions feel like the warp and weft of your being -- the typical non-solution to dealing with hardship or success or anything at all -- it's easy to default to such a mode of living, even when the numbness is uncomfortable. [9]

Iain Mew: As a dad who just lost my dad, I'm doing the mental equivalent of holding my hand in front of my face to avoid looking at this directly. Except it's all so gentle, nothing but chiming charm, that it's more like the recent time that the sunlight through my office window was perfectly lined up with the corner of my eye but I couldn't even see it there, just notice that my eyes kept watering. [6]

Thomas Inskeep: Never have heard them before, this is American Football, the supposedly legendary emo band? Because "Uncomfortably Numb" sounds uncomfortably like a soft Jason Mraz song. Emo as Adult Contemporary in 2019: who knew? [3]

Jonathan Bradley: The first time I heard the word "emo" was from the tracklist of Blink-182's Dude Ranch; they had named one of their songs this because it sounded a bit like Jimmy Eat World. I didn't know that then, so I got on to a search engine through my high school's computer lab -- school had internet, unlike home -- and AltaVista or Ask Jeeves wondered if I might be looking for Emo Philips. Or maybe an emu? Blink's intentions remained occluded for a few more years until I caught a chance airing of a Get Up Kids song on the radio, which led me to SongMeanings' deconstructions of Sunny Day Real Estate and early Pitchfork pans of The Promise Ring. Then the girl in my drama class with the cool hair who changed her name told me I had to listen to Death Cab because "Photo Booth" was "the most emo song ever." At a time when music gleamed with such bright intention -- even the "alternative" acts of the time, like Korn or Green Day, performed in spit-polished block capitals -- these foreign bands I glimpsed through newly connected dial-up sounded like nothing else: they could be muted, they could be unhewn, they could be obtuse. They were American, but a model of Americanness that was unknowable in Australia then. They were always, in a way mass culture seemed to discourage, unfailingly and embarrassingly earnest. I never heard American Football in 1999; we had the internet at home, but my precious download quota was spent, by chance, on Braid and Texas is the Reason. Hearing the shivering guitar tendrils of "Uncomfortably Numb" now, with its calm and studied drum figures, drops me vividly back into those days. Mike Kinsella's plain voice arcs modestly over the fussiness, melding at times indistinguishably with that of his stylistic successor Hayley Williams, and maybe its only beautiful in the context of the late 20th century. But no; it is beautiful now, too. [8]

Will Rivitz: "I'll never forget the first time I heard American Football because, like, you don't forget the halcyon summer before you depart your home city and go to university," begins a review of the band's reunion LP three years ago, and I think that's pretty on the mark for how people about my age consume and relate to this kind of emo. So much of its appeal is a nostalgia for times we were too young to know when they were happening and, a few years after that, a nostalgia for that nostalgia, the age at which this was the music punching our collective gut. It's weird and a little difficult to articulate: there's something comforting about looking back at other young adults when you yourself were one, understanding that, despite differences in musical diets and environments and technology and what have you, a college-aged guitar virtuoso is probably going to have the same sorts of fears you do. That, I think, is what makes emo's particular nostalgia so powerful; as late-teenaged walking and talking existential crises, we found solace in looking back. We learned that the late-teenaged walking and talking existential crises of a few decades back both captured how we felt with stunning accuracy and, often, made it through alive, helping us feel both less alone and less desolate. Even nostalgia has its limits, though, and though there's no obvious line to demarcate absolutely everything that can be contained in emo's resonant power, it seems reasonable to conclude that Hoobastank is not one of those things. [3]

Will Adams: Wisely restrained, dreamy but devastating, and generally pleasant to hear. At least during the moments it doesn't remind me of "The Reason." [6]

Tim de Reuse: The only good things about American Football's post-reunion material have been the parts that kinda sound like they could've been written back in the nineties, when their crisp, angst-driven debut wormed its way into the hearts of many a disaffected suburbanite. Judging by this single, it looks like their 2019 album is gonna be gaudy, covered in sparkly reverb and dramatic electric guitar tremolos -- and I'm not thrilled about that -- but while I sharply disagree with their sound engineer, I can't fault the composition itself, or the gorgeous (as always) showing by drummer Steve Lamos, or the choice of subject matter. Teenage stress gives way to directionless middle-aged depression: "How will I exist," he says, and there's a weird pang in my chest I didn't expect to get from a band that spent 14 years broken up. [6]

Alfred Soto: I hope these guys gave their engineer a bonus: boy, do those arpeggios sparkle. "Uncomfortably Numb" sparkles to muddled effect, for what they recorded is a valentine to anomie disguised as a depiction. [5]

Ian Mathers: I'm not sure what I expected (having not paid much attention back in the day) when I finally got around to hearing all these reunited or still going post-emo acts, but it sure wasn't for it all to be so determinedly, shapelessly... pleasant. I feel like I enjoyed it, but 10 seconds after it stops it's already vanished from memory. [6]

Alex Clifton: There are a lot of lovely quiet moments in this song with the rolling guitar in the background and some gorgeous harmonies between Hayley Williams and Mike Kinsella; this is more of the music I always wanted to hear Williams do. But something about it doesn't punch me the way it should. A song called "Uncomfortably Numb" should at minimum wedge itself under my skin with some hard truths about life I'd rather not acknowledge; if it wants to go harder, it should leave me devastated. But there's a lot to be said for the numbness here; try as I might to feel for these people, I can't conjure the feeling. [5]

[Read, comment and vote on The Singles Jukebox]

#American Football #Hayley Williams #indie rock #emo #music #music writing #review

[gotakuofficial-blog]

Kyo - Impressionist Vignettes: OFFICIAL REVIEW

Written by Kisai The Spooniest Bard

[Foreword]:

To begin, Mike Faris AKA Kyo (FKA Demon Eyes Kyo) is an artist I respect immensely. He is also a dear friend and someone I consider a kindred soul. I take every verse he writes, sings and/or raps as a chance to understand more of his worldview and thought process. That said, I'm extremely honoured (so much so I just spelled honored with a FARKING letter U) to have been chosen as one of the trusted to review this, his debut album. I am Darris Marcell Kisai Parker, and this is Impressionist Vignettes by Kyo.

[Track 1ne] - Yasiin (prod. by kaptain planet): So from the start we get a gritty, dark boom bap jawn produced by the impeccable kaptain planet. It's always lit when planet links up with Kyo because Kyo starts to slip into his particular brand of what he calls "sophisticated ignorance", a glorious combination of swagger, hyperbole, and good old-fashioned dark humor. In this instance, however, Kyo's lyrics are more sober, less grandiose. He chooses to lampshade how basic and one-note some artists tend to be in their portrayals. He even pays homage to one of his fellow CPC member's songs (Views by Savior Monroe). And most of all, Kyo just makes it plain how serious he is in this outing. This one is less about stellar bars and schemes and more about the human experience as interpreted by Mike Faris. I'm here for it. Quotable: "Ain't my fault if the truth hurtin' ya feelin's. You ain't puttin' work with writtens murkin' the rhythm. You just jerkin' the listeners like jamaican chicken."

[Track 2wo] - Highland (prod. by Lé Real): An autobiographical stroll over a jazzy lofi road paved by a Castle In The Sky faithful, the uber-talented Lé Real. Here, Kyo talks about his old stomping ground, a place in Michigan called Highland. He highlights the rough yet sensitive nature of the milieu, the roaming opinions of passive observers looking in from the outside, the desperate grab for tough guy points by those who probably can't get into the Salty Spittoon otherwise, the ones who live in nicer areas, who don't really HAVE TO be in such an area. Kyo warns these folks about greenness of grass, and tells them in no plain terms to get a life of their own. This is the stuff I was looking for. And he delivered. Quotable: "A double-wide was like a luxury home! Havin' both parents there the rarest of luxuries tho and I know; I'm one of the lucky ones when it comes to that, Most of my homies wasn't tho, that's just the facts..."

[Track 3hree] - Flowers From The Old Vic Stage (prod. by Medical Nindo, guitars by Kyo):  Kyo sings, by the way! I feel like typically when artists try to be multi-layered it's an attempt to appeal to a public all too swayed by gimmicky shallow bullshit. But in Kyo's case, he really carries all the musicianship and artistry necessary to sustain the various mantles he's borne over the years. That said, on the singer/songwriter tip, Kyo is something to witness. But if you've followed his work at all, you've probably heard this on display on his previous work, "The Imposter's Muse". His poet's soul is on display here in track three, a somber, romantic ballad produced by the smooth/savage master himself, Medical Ninjutsu aka Medical Nindo. Some of y'all might know him as Diggz Da Prophecy. Kyo accompanies our resident "Hood Nerd Sage" on the guitar, providing weepy, melancholy-yet nostalgic licks that carry the heady tone of his musings. A song from the perspective of a tragic lover of a former star of the stage and screen, a person with whom our hero was enraptured, with whom he was close, a flame that perhaps burned too bright and sputtered into dying embers. "I wonder..." The words pass his lips several times over, each time a different thread carried on their doleful, mournful wind. Quotable: I'm not giving you one. Listen to the song.

[Track 4our] - Summer '09 (prod. by River Sanzu):  So, ironically, Summer '09 is a time of major importance to me because it was a time when I was ambivalent towards life. I was holding down a job I truly loved, but not seeing much of the money I was getting paid due to familial obligations, I was dating one of my current best friends, a relationship I look back on fondly even now. But it seemed like everything in the world conspired to keep us apart and as such I felt like I was failing her. I was writing some of the best bars of my life, but I had no way to record and couldn't afford to hit anyone's studio. I was dependent on music to keep me going and every month I had an issue with my mp3 player. I was finally seeing some measure of freedom, but at the same time I was constantly being appraised by family members as an adult acting like a child. As if they alone held the yardstick by which adulthood is measured and everyone's lived experiences were supposed to be uniform with the same milestones at the same times as if life worked that way. And to top it off, my father's genes were kicking in and I started to lose hair, just when I was getting ready to pimp my afro to the max! (RIP afro dreams). I just felt like I was languishing in some sort of middleground hell where everything was awesome but terrible at the same time. I constantly questioned whether I even wanted to be alive. Looking back, I always tell myself it wasn't that bad. It was just growing pains and every adult has them. But you couldn't tell me shit in the moment. I'd've said "Life is iffy af for me right now." On another side of the country, here is Kyo, driving drunk on his way to kick it with his friends. The same ambilavence towards the idea of continuing life present in his thoughts and actions. Instead leaving it to the "Most High" to determine his fate, he arrives unscathed at the function, has a rowdy old time with his buddies, the sort of things youths get into when together. "Freestyling and clowning", card games, even more drinking, some squabbles-nothing that really matters between friends however, and just being in the moment, then Kyo drives (possibly even more drunk) back home. Again he tosses the dice and leaves it up to higher powers to determine if he will make it home. And there you have it, a square out of the quilted tapestry that is Kyo's life. River Sanzu aka Lit Yagami AKA Ish1da creates a city pop-infused backdrop that perfectly encompasses the nostalgic feel of Kyo's ride through memory lane. One of my favorite songs on the album honestly. Also I'm really mad I didn't produce this because it's amazing. Not quite as mad as Ethos made me that one time but I may still turn into a dog for 3 seconds... GRRRRRRR (DAWG MODE) Quotable: "They say seeing is believing, these demons I'm seeing in my rearview mirror keep chasing, I stay weaving through lanes and I'm.... still thuggin' it, drunk in public and unequpped to handle the mental stresses I struggle with but it's just... One mo' night in Summer '09!"

[Track 5ive] - You Go To My Head (prod. by RealVenom):  Kyo’s strongest quality as an artist is his ability to depict the various aspects of his point of view without sacrificing impact. In “You Go To My Head”, he croons, raps and waxes poetic to the subject of his affection. It’s tender, but in a truly relatable fashion. I consider myself strongly in the romantic camp, so endeavors like these speak to me. I blame my soft heart. The warm lofi provided by RealVenom just makes you feel like you’re by a warm fireplace, keeping warm inside from the harsh winter. A glass of wine, a bag of marshmallows for roasting and some good-looking company and you’ve got a night. Kudos to both Kyo and Venom for making such a dope jam. Quotable: “And if you got me seein’ double... That’s twice as many chances to say I love you...”

[Track 6ix] - Moving To Detroit (prod. by Camp Phire Connection, guitars by Kyo): Here is a fully acoustic affair. Just Kyo, his trusty guitar, and us, the listener. In “Moving To Detroit”, he intimates the lonely predicament of a single man deciding to move to what is considered the saddest city in the country according to a study. He mulls over dating the local women hoping for a shot at love, relates his hopes that any local toughs don’t harass or assault him, and mentions his prior OWI (An incident he explained in detail to me in a conversation we had.) and the consequences thereof. “Moving to Detroit” is a somber, reflective look at both himself and his environment, and rather than feeling like a fly on the wall, we are put right there in the passenger seat as he takes us along for this ride. It’s an eye-opener, for sure. Quotable: “It’s not as bad as everyone says in the city, but every time I head home I feel such relief when I hit the freeway. If I move down there and my friends come visit me, they’ll also get to know how good that feels. I guess you’re welcome...” [Track 7even] - Vignettes feat. Savior Monroe (prod. by Camp Phire Connection): The only vocal guest feature on this album comes from fellow Camp Phire Connection artist and founder Savior Monroe. “Vignettes” is gorgeously produced, a shoegaze-y blues waltz number by Kyo and Savior. Both artists give amazingly heartfelt accounts of grace. of friendship and of humanity. The feeling is just abstract enough, just specific enough. Truly these are just vignettes. But that’s all we needed. Quotable: “But for now I can still paint you with an impressionist’s view. I might not remember the facts, but I still remember the truth.” [Track 8ight] - French Lessons (prod. by Camp Phire Connection, guitars by Kyo): Kyo’s trusty guitar returns once more, fair accompaniment for a sultry number about SEX. Yep. Sex. Who among us doesn’t simply long for the next chance to be intimate with a special someone. There’s something magical about when two souls connect, REALLY CONNECT, for those precious moments. Even sometimes when it’s empty, it’s still grand. Here, Kyo says it all. Quotable: “Sex is empty, sex is death, so baby please kill me then hold me in your arms until I resurrect. Sex is endless, sex is French, le petit mort, the little death, and rebirth and first breath and back again.” Track 9ine] - Snow (prod. by Lé Real): Snow, to put it plain an simply, is hard. Hard as pavement. Once more, we’re right there in the room with Kyo as he relates some tales from his life. I don’t even wanna talk too much about this one. It’s something that just needs to be heard. It’s too real for me to adequately put into words.  Quotable: None, just peep the song. [Track 10en] - Philip Seymour Hoffman (prod. by Kisai The Spooniest Bard): Iono who the hell this Kisai The Spooniest bard dude thinks he is, but we gonna fight because this beat is fire. He could have at least let me rap on this. Not that I’m salty because Kyo did his thing. But seriously this is a great closer. Something about that japanese jazz sample makes such a great backdrop for Kyo to compare himself to Vincent Van Gogh and Philip Seymour Hoffman (RIP to two of the greats). As artists our art is what we use to combat the negative feelings that dwell in our mortal minds. Not everyone can win this fight, but Kyo is dead set on winning. If I hadn’t heard this song before judging, I’d have told you that the beat used doesn’t fit the theme of the album, but I’d have been wrong. Kyo made it work like only he could and the result is a track that both producer and artist could be proud of. Quotable: “In a world of visigoths and vandals I’m Vincent Van Gogh, battle depression with insufficient ammo.” [Afterword]: Impressionist Vignettes is a ride, friends. Tonally, It starts low and ends high, moodwise it’s as human as we are. And from an artistic standpoint, it’s probably Kyo’s strongest work to date. I recommend you give it a spin. I learned something and so might you. One final note. Big ups to Savior Monroe on the engineering end. This album sounds great beginning to end. Kisai out. Ja ne~ Peep Impressionist Vignettes here!: https://campphireconnection.bandcamp.com/album/impressionist-vignettes

#gotakuofficial #GOTAKU #GO-TA-KU #music #music review #music link #album review #camp phire connection #kyo #savior monroe #medical nindo #le real #river sanzu #kisai the spooniest bard #realvenom #kaptain planet #january 12 2019

[lovetheplayers]

Concert Review: A spectacular Taylor Swift at Mercedes-Benz Stadium

Last year, shortly after the release of the “Reputation” album, Taylor Swift posted an Instagram video with paper cutouts of the stage she had designed for her stadium tour. Seeing that stage brought to towering, flamethrowing, fireworking, gargantuan snake-hissing life inside Mercedes-Benz Stadium was truly a spectacular thing to behold. And that was just the main stage; there were two smaller ones at the opposite end of the field also put to dramatic use. Swift said she wanted to get as close to the fans as possible for the  “Reputation Stadium Tour” and she succeeded, making even the massive MBS seem, at times, intimate.

Before we get to Swift’s hit-filled headliner, let’s start with the night’s two opening acts: Brit electro-pop queen Charli XCX and Camila Cabello, the former member of Fifth Harmony whose ubiquitous “Havana” includes a shout-out to East Atlanta. Charli XCX surely deserves MVP for getting the still-arriving audience fired up with a set of danceable hits like “Boom Clap,” “Boys,” “I Don’t Care” and a sing-along solo version of “Fancy” without Iggy Azalea. Cabello infused her opening slot with some agile dance moves and nods to dancehall favorite Sean Paul and icon Prince. Our favorite: “Never Be the Same,” a proper power pop ballad that showcases Cabello’s soaring vocals.

But the night was really all about Taylor Swift and her wall of sound and vision. The entire stage – including the floor – was made up of seamless video monitors that projected not only closeups of Swift and her troupe of backing vocalists and dancers, but eye-popping, crystal clear imagery. It’s truly a wonder. When jets of flame – hot enough to be felt on the floor midfield – and fireworks burst from the set, we thought for sure MBS’s newly-completed roof would, literally, be toast. And what about the sound? Garth Brooks had an audio debacle when he performed an inaugural concert at MBS, but those troubles are long gone. Swift’s sound was impeccable – from the pounding opener “Ready For It?” to the tender “Delicate,” which she crooned drifting over the audience in a lighted gondola.

Another way Swift connects with fans on this tour is by giving every concert-goer a bracelet switched on just before the show and synchronized to pulse and glow in time with the music. MBS was a constant sea of moving light, which helped add the aforementioned intimacy. The lights also helped propel the narrative of the show, which tells of Swift earning her “bad reputation” after intrusive tabloid coverage of her love life and a nasty social media war with Kanye West and his wife Kim Kardashian, who described Swift as a snake. Swift laid claim to the reptile and has made it a centerpiece of the show. Snakes slither across the monitors, coil around microphones and tower over the stages. “Look What You Made Me Do” and boisterous show-closer “This Is Why We Can’t Have Nice Things” are a big middle finger to West/Kardashian wrapped in power pop sophistication. Swift went silent for a few years in a self-imposed exile where she obviously licked a few wounds, found real love and discovered a much more powerful version of herself.

After arriving at the second stage on her gondola, Swift was rejoined by Charli XCX and Camila Cabello for a rousing version of “Shake It Off” before she picked up her guitar for “This Love” from her previous album, “1989,” and an effective acoustic version of the moody “Dancing With Our Hands Tied” from the new one. Swift then walked through the audience shaking hands on her way to the other small stage for a trio of tunes including “Dress” and fan-favorite “Bad Blood,” which was sung as she crossed back to the main stage inside the chest of a floating python. Swift certainly knows how to work a theme.

What Swift gets so right is the pacing of the show, easily transitioning from the choreographed dance numbers to strapping on her guitar to sitting down at the piano for a moving medley of “Long Live” and “New Year’s Day.” While this tour primarily draws on the “Reputation” album, there were enough past hits like “Style,” “Blank Space” and “You Belong With Me” thrown in to keep the fans happy. Swift excels at deftly blending and reimagining her early catalogue so that it fits seamlessly with the new, edgier tunes. Massive tribal drums and crunchy power guitars also helped give much of the evening a true rock ‘n roll feel. Swift has come along way since her innocent, country music days. This is a woman in full command of her stage and the audience – many dressed in Swift’s various music video incarnations – were loud and proud in their adoration. She, in turn, was chatty, funny and had some nice things to say about Atlanta and the new stadium.

The bottom line is this (and other artists should take note): Swift has set the bar sky high for what a stadium tour can do. It’s no small feat to bring 60,000 people together and make them forget they are in a sports arena. The “Reputation Stadium Tour” is a fabulous spectacle from a top-notch showman, who also happens to be a damn good singer/songwriter. If you can pick up a ticket for Saturday night’s show, it’s worth every single penny.

Link

#taylor swift #rep tour #atlanta 1 #atlanta 1 reviews

[shemakesmusic-uk]

Liverpool based artist and new name to the music scene - Amber Jay ended 2020 by giving us the first teaser of her debut EP with her single ‘Pencilled Brims’ - a futuristic synth fueled bedroom-pop adventure. Now, Amber Jay is delighted to be able to share the stunning visuals for ‘Pencilled Brims’ with her new 80s themed sci-fi video:  "It all begins at a dinner table. We see the image of a 'nuclear' family tucking into stacks of waffles with syrup but it is clear that something is not quite right. After stumbling across a ‘how to know if you're an alien' quiz in a magazine, hiding under the kitchen table at night I take the quiz searching for answers. Everything starts to make sense as matters appear to take an extraterrestrial turn."

London-born Dublin-based singer-songwriter Anna B Savage is sharing new track, 'Baby Grand,' the final single from her debut album A Common Turn, to be released Jan 29 via City Slang. 'Baby Grand' is both the title of Anna B Savage’s latest single from her debut LP and the title of a short film she has been working on with ex-boyfriend and filmmaker, Jem Talbot, to be released later this year. The pair have co-directed the 'Baby Grand' music video, which reworks a scene from the film and blurs the lines of reality where art imitates life imitating art imitating life. The cross-discipline, cross-genre piece seamlessly blends real life footage with actors portraying the pair’s younger selves. Savage says of the music video: “Jem was my first love. For three years we’ve been working on a film together about our past relationship. This song is written about a night Jem and I had, just after we’d started work on the film. This night was – like much of the filmmaking process – very confusing. Taut with unexpressed emotions, vulnerability, and miscommunication. 'Baby Grand' (the film) and A Common Turn (album) are companion pieces: woven together in subject, inspiration and time. Jem was, for want of a better word, a muse for A Common Turn. Expressing ourselves through our different mediums (mine: music, his: film) became a way for our disciplines to talk, perhaps in place of us.” Talbot says, “Having not spoken to me in seven years, Anna sent me a text out of the blue saying she’d had a dream about me. Perhaps by chance, or by cosmic serendipity, I’d been listening to her EP and already dreaming up a film idea the two of us could collaborate on. Three years later, she’s releasing her debut album and I’ve finished that film. In that time, both our mediums have been in a constantly shifting dialogue with each other, a dialogue that has mirrored the ebbs and flows of our connectedness in the present day."

Anna Leone releases a new single ‘Once’, produced by Paul Butler (Michael Kiwanuka, Hurray For The Riff Raff) and released via AllPoints/Half Awake. Released alongside a stunning video shot on The Azores, the new single follows 2020’s ‘Wondering’ - also produced by Butler - which arrived close on the tail of Stockholm native Anna’s win at the 2020 Music Moves Talent Awards (alongside Flohio, girl in red and Pongo). Rueful but unmistakably hopeful, ‘Once’ considers naivety, regret and efforts to break certain patterns of behaviour with Leone’s disarming candor and the bell-like clarity of her voice. The track’s quietly insistent urging to move past impulses to close off from the world is brought to life in Savannah Setten’s startlingly surreal video, created with Anna on The Azores. With the changeable weather systems of the Portuguese archipelago mirroring the tender, dream-like sequence, Anna notes; "The narrative loop comes from the idea of being stuck in your ways, going through the same patterns, but then choosing to break out of that and do things differently. Towards the end I reconcile with the past, symbolised by the little girl. I choose to embrace what once was in order to move forward. It was incredible getting to shoot the video in that beautiful environment. The weather was really unpredictable - we went through almost all four seasons in one day."

London-based Danish-born singer-songwriter Amalie Bryde has revealed her powerful new single ‘Lay Down’. A bold commentary on gender inequality, ‘Lay Down’ confronts what it means to be a woman in the 21st century and sees Amalie refuse to surrender to stereotypes. With a catchy jazz sound at its core, Amalie’s elegant vocals are layered with playful whistles that create a vibrant track with bags of confidence. It’s video - directed by Luke Logan - is equally striking, and sees many different versions of Amalie joined together by a rope that restricts their movement before they’re finally able to break free and stand up. It’s an empowering representation of the song's message, and perfectly demonstrates Amalie’s promise as an artist - she’s original, driven and not afraid to express herself. Speaking of the release, Amalie explains: “In ‘Lay Down’ I sing about a man only wanting to have sex with me, but it’s so much more than that. ‘Lay Down’ is a commentary on gender inequality and what it means to be a woman in the 21st century; religiously, politically, professionally etc. In the music video we see hundreds of versions of me all lying in a field, linked together with rope to represent the universal nature of the issues addressed in the song. The video starts with me lying down in the field revealing all the different Amalie's (all the different situations where I had to lay down) and ends with all of the versions standing up and walking away at the end, representing Woman’s refusal to accept the gender disparity in society.”

Yawn has unveiled the video to her latest single ‘Wasting Time’. The video features incredibly lush and moody visuals, coupled with a dancing flower monster. Bordering the realm between art and pop, it reflects the song’s message about carrying on against the odds, accepting who we are as artists, and persevering in spite of everything.

Belgian-Bolivian artist IMAINA presents new track 'Glass Box', as the lead single from her upcoming debut EP. Using her signature melancholic sounds and lyrics, 'Glass Box' uncovers the hidden symbolism behind the toxic ideal of love. This electropop track confronts you with the violence and the dynamics of a suffocating relationship, characterised by layered and lush instrumentation, elegant moments and engaging percussion, setting the tone for her debut EP Wounds, which will be released on February 19. True to her cinematic style and passion of storytelling, IMAINA reveals a thrilling music video that tackles the ‘Madonna-Whore Complex' and explores the idea that women are expected to be many things. Inspired by the intimate confidences of a close friend, IMAINA has transformed herself into a vessel to translate experiences into a strong haunting song and video. “I feel like we all have a tendency to worship an unrealistic idea of love. We search for love and have high expectations but we don’t always accept, and really want to know the person in front of us. We end up projecting our desires, wants and wishes onto the person, locking them up in this glass box where they can be admired but never truly loved or known,” she says.

In the music video for Anna Akana’s ‘Run,’ Akana appears as an opulent demon. She dances alone in the shadows, donning golden headdresses and draped fabrics. “Why meet my demons when I know you’re gonna run?” she sings over an eerie pop beat. ‘Run’ is featured on Akana’s upcoming EP, slated to release February 19. [via Forbes]

Celeste has treated fans by releasing the official video for her single ‘Love is Back'. The video features a quirky 1960s office theme based around a newspaper headline stating that ‘Love is Back,’ and featuring Celeste herself in an office singing the lyrics of the song into a bright red telephone in a montage with some stylish animation which echoes the live action scenes in a stylised fashion. The video’s retro styling which takes us back to the dusty days of paper, desks and telephones are a breath of fresh air in a music industry saturated with hypermodern cliches or equally gadget laden 80s throwbacks and gives us something to really think about. The gentle nostalgia evoked by the video combines perfectly with the simple yet emotive song which tugs at the heart strings in both its musicality and its lyrical content and marks Celeste once again as a master of combining music with the moving image, a skill she first demonstrated with her incredible song composed for the Waitrose & John Lewis Partnership’s Christmas advert 2020 ‘A Little Love.’ While the John Lewis Christmas ad showed Celeste’s talent for writing to a brief, the work she has done on ‘Love Is Back,’ is very much her own, with the laid back R&B style fitting perfectly to her dusty, emotive vocal style which is in all ways unique and incredibly powerful. The video comes just over a week before Celeste’s debut album Not Your Muse, is due to be released a month earlier than planned. [via mxdwn]

Ayra Starr is the afro-pop princess up-ending expectations. Signed to the taste-maker imprint Mavin Records, her emphatically creative, hugely soulful blend comes straight from the heart. At times, it seems like the entire world is listening. Her new EP is out now, a five track statement that illustrates her depth, and her incredible potential. Take 'Away'. Mellifluous, potent, and dynamic, the vocal touches on R&B while retaining elements of that alté sound. It's cool as hell, in other words, a song that affords Ayra space to truly connect with her audience. Discussing the track, she says: “I freestyled half of ‘Away’ at a time I was feeling down. It was like therapy. Singing the song out loud was like freeing myself from my burden. ‘Away’ is not just a heartbreak song, it’s a song that empowers you to stand up to that thing or person that is causing you sadness.” We're able to share the sensational 'Away' video, a depiction of a star coming into being. Ambitious, stylish, and incredibly well shot, it's the perfect platform from which to launch Ayra Starr into the cosmos. [via Clash]

#videos of the week #amber jay #anna b savage #anna leone #amalie bryde #yawn #imaina #anna akana #ayra starr #celeste

[myrecordcollections]

Randy Newman

Trouble in Paradise

@ 1983 Germany Pressing

****

Here we are, living in paradise," sang Elvis Costello a few albums ago, and while Randy Newman probably would agree with that statement, he'd be more interested in its underlying frustration: if this is paradise, why aren't we happy? On his ninth album, Newman has chosen to explore the ambivalences of paradise, not only sundrenched climes, but ostensibly ideal situations as well: parties, self-confidence, true love. Observing these paradoxical states of affairs, Newman's eye is as keen and pungent as ever; what makes Trouble in Paradise special is that he's infused his acute perception with an almost startling compassion.

Newman's characters may still spout sexual crudities and ethnic slurs, but Trouble in Paradise eschews the smarmy, gimcrack gimmickry that cheapened Born Again and Little Criminals. While his mordant wit is delightfully abundant here, this album is anchored on two genuinely soul-stirring ballads, "Same Girl" and "Real Emotional Girl." It is their power and some fiery arrangements that make Trouble in Paradiserank right up there with Sail Away as the apotheosis of Newman's art.

No purported utopia is closer to Newman's heart, or his funny bone, than his native Los Angeles. "Look at that mountain/Look at those trees," exclaims the freeway-cruising character in the raveup "I Love L.A." "Look at that bum over there He's down on his knees." In thankfulness or – more likely – agony? Newman conceals that ambiguity beneath the flash of Waddy Wachtel's guitar and the sun-bleached huzzahs ("We love it!") of backup singers Lindsey Buckingham and Christine McVie.

Newman's skewer is even sharper on "My Life Is Good." in which a nouveau riche El Lay songwriter engages in a feisty bout of one-upmanship and name-dropping with his kid's schoolteacher, culminating in a gut-busting Hollywood encounter with Bruce Springsteen: "He said, Rand, I'm tired How would you like to be the Boss for a while?'" So Newman yelps, "Blow, Big Man," and Ernie Watts lets out an unearthly sax squawk. It's enough to spin you off your Barcalounger.

Newman's rummations on two other paradises. Florida and South Africa, are not nearly so sangume. "Miami" fairly bristles off its grooves, with its tractions instrumentation atop a defiantly unperky calypso beat. "Gee, I love Miami," he deadpans. "It's so nice and hot And every building's so pretty and white And I always get into so much trouble there." Even sympathetic Newman listeners may have trouble with the racial obscenities in "Christmas in Capetown," wherein a South African roughly excoriates the horrified British woman who's visiting him. Newman makes impressive use of a dissonant backup chorus and again imbues a hateful character with a bizarre dignity. "Just take a look around," the Afrikaner protests. "What are we gonna do, blow up the whole damn country?" Well. Newman seems to say, somebody's gonna.

Nowhere on Trouble in Paradise is Newman more gleeful than when he's demolishing the bliss of unchecked egotism that characterizes, in many minds, the Seventies rock musician. And on "The Blues" and "I'm Different," Newman employs musicians at whom that charge has been hurled in the past: Paul Simon and Linda Ronstadt, among them. Not only their talents emerge, but a sense of humor as well. "The Blues" is as poppy a melody as Newman has written. "A year ago. I met a girl I thought we'd hit a massive groove," croons Simon. "But she dumped me And all we'd hit were the blues." Also faring well are Jennifer Warnes and Wendy Waldman, who combine with Ronstadt to contribute some seamless backup singing to the album's funniest track, "I'm Different." "I ain't savin' I'm better than you are," struts Newman, as the Trio Grande oohs in assent, "but maybe I am." The high-gloss polish of Lenny Waronker and Russ Titelman's production adds an additional hilarity to the song's ersatz breast-beating: "I ain't gonna play your gosh-darn game."

Wit is what we've come to expect from Newman, and though his insights are especially trenchant, his subjects could be said to be easy marks. That's not the case with the record's strongest cuts. "Same Girl" and "Real Emotional Girl." Here, a subdued Newman spins a more subtle tale. True, faithful, mutual love, Newman realizes, can be as filled with sadness as its more commonly lamented imperfect forms. Lake Springsteen. Newman understands that even a superficially happy sentence like "You're still the same girl that I love" can be fraught with disappointment. On "Same Girl," he sets that sentiment in a wan, almost Kurt Weill-like melody, and sings the song in an achingly world-weary voice.

In suspended piano chords whose stark beauty suggests a Lenten hymn, "Real Emotional Girl" tells of a woman so emotional, "every little thing you tell her She'll believe She really will." The mood is a plangent mix of tenderness and melancholy, wonder and affection. "I never had a girl who loved me Half as much as this girl loves me," he intones. But Newman casts new light on that hoary pop cliché with a delicate touch of self-deprecation: "She's real emotional." This is the ardently nonconfessional Newman stripping himself of his props: the klutzy characters, the goofy jokes. "She turns on easy It's like a hurricane," he marvels. "You would not believe it," he whispers, "gotta hold on tight to her." I can hardly recall a song as full of love as this one; it may well be the finest performance of Newman's career.

Too bad that Trouble in Paradise ends with its weakest cut, a Vietnam elegy, "Song for the Dead." that sorely lacks the fresh perspective of the album's other tracks. But that failure can't blunt the considerable achievement of this album. Newman has taken the notion of paradise and flung it open, across the world, across our culture and into our emotions. His facility and wit are no surprise; it is his newfound (or newly expressed) perceptivity, steeped in human emotion, that makes Trouble in Paradise both humorous and heartfelt. (RS 389)

#Randy Newman #Trouble in Paradise #Pop #singer-songwriter #RS 389

[nookishposts]

Identity in Words

When we meet people, when we are reintroduced to those we haven’t seen in many years, when we draft a cover letter, one question that must be answered repeatedly is: “What do you do?”

I am discovering that for me, it’s a question increasingly more difficult to answer with any accuracy. And I am too old to answer with a shrug and “I don’t know.”

A recent series of changes have caused me to think more deeply about the whole idea of identity; we define ourselves so much by the company we keep and how we make our living. Usually there’s a certain amount of crossover between the two; the after-work drink of a Friday evening, the birthday celebrations over lunch hour, the common themes of cheering babies and mourning parents, as we travel together proscribed hours per week, cover one another’s sick leaves, and nod in general understanding at both the news and the gossip.

Sudden employment dismissal felt like somebody whopped me across the face hard with a large cold fish (deliberate melodrama for the sake of the point here). The accompanying tang of salt sea air was bracing, but my jaw remains tender. Amid addressing the resultant practical matters, I find myself thinking about how to tell the story. Which is where I am going with this.

My Mum instilled a love of stories in me; she read to me constantly and encouraged me to ask people about themselves, watch classic films with her, and wonder always about the ‘why’ of things. Her parents and siblings, if you wound them up just right, could tell stories for days. They were not people who read classics or attended live theater (grandchildren’s school plays notwithstanding), but I grew to do those things myself.

I have written  for as long as I can remember, pretty much as soon as I could form letters with a pencil. I recall understanding I had hit the jackpot in Family Brownie Points when I answered a primary school fill-in-the-blank question: “Happiness Is_______?” with: “When Grandma comes to visit.” I meant it. Grandma was no-nonsense but made it plain she loved me, and she had a deep, dirty laugh that was totally at odds with her otherwise very lady-like demeanor. I could get lost in her cornflower eyes and the powdered wrinkles that framed them when she smiled at me. It was hard to remember sometimes that her life had taken her to the rim of Hell and back multiple times, such was her open tenderness. She had her flaws of course, but I could always get her telling stories. She laughed hardest at herself. She died when I was 31; we spoke by phone several times per week until then no matter where I was; how I wish now that I had stuck a voice recorder next to her teacup.

I wrote a Remembrance Day skit when I was in Grade 4. Later, reams of dreadful poetry full of adolescent angst and self-righteous scorn. Tried songwriting with interesting results. As many teenagers do. In my 20s I wrote a novel just to see if I could. In long-hand, on foolscap. Pure crap, but I still have it somewhere…because of the feelings I had when I was working on it; shutting the world out and letting my imagination fly. Frustrated at not finding the right combinations of words to say what I thought I meant.  Just hating to not be able to be clear, to risk the possibility of being misunderstood. I didn’t know then that I was simply trying to be heard, by my own self. (Therapy eventually took care of that.)

Highschool, College, and University English courses were fun. I loved the exchange of ideas in class, enjoyed Shakespeare, mangling Middle-English, deliberately chewing the scenery in recitation. Spent lots of time with little theatre companies, onstage and backstage, wrote scenes and articles, newsletters, and reviews. Then grown-up life got in the way, making a living took priority, and for many years I didn’t write anything more than the odd cranky Letter to The Editor.

Those 25 years took me through various types of recreation and social service jobs, a couple of relationships, lots of soul-searching. My creative urges found  other outlets in body therapies, gardening, home renovations, volunteering. I made the mistake of showing that first fledgling novel to someone, who read it and pronounced: “Well, it doesn’t suck.” It hasn’t seen the light of day since. I am such a coward sometimes.

When we moved to Winnipeg in 2009, I began a new novel, sent a few chapters to a friend in Ontario, who liked it, a lot. She regularly threatens to beat me to death with those pages if I don’t finish the thing. I have left her hanging for 9 years. Because the story began to ring a little too true, and I ran away. Again. Some of us are slow learners.

Becoming 50 started an interesting series of awakenings; like a cascade of pebbles loosened by a casual slip at the top of a mountain path. They skitter and bounce, gathering momentum, altering the landscape in subtle ways as gravity wins. I’ve spent 56 years carving that path up the mountain, resting along the way in shallow caves, on sunny crags, occasionally knocked on my ass by storms. The view from here is quite something, but I look at those tumbling pebbles and realize they are knocking loose some inhibitions and falsehoods as the debris they have become. On my way up, I’ve taken things out of my survival kit; lightened the load by leaving worn out shields and masks on the side of the track. I’ve shed any number of illusions, and it’s such a liberating feeling. I lack the time or the patience for things that used to take up too much space in my consciousness; if I am clean and presentable, who cares if I remain forever in blue jeans? If I come from a place of kindness, who cares what others think of my opinions? They are still subject to change after all. Life will do that, right up until the final moment.

The last couple of years have involved carefully calculated risks. I’ve been blogging steadily, and become involved with a local story-telling series. Both have been incredibly gratifying, and I am delighted to discover that while constructive feedback and compliments are wonderful and sometimes surprising, the real surprise is discovering that I have been doing it all for the pure joy of writing. Didn’t see that gift coming, even if it may have been obvious to people who know me. They shake their heads a lot, with good reason.

I’ve been tentatively promoting a small business in personal biographies for 5 months, and its growing, thanks to the cheerleading of key friends and mentors. It is to be my retirement income, and I can do it from anywhere, including the middle of nowhere if we find the right acreage at the right price. Simple sustainable living, mortgage-free, and writing down the stories that other people tell me, for a basic remuneration. Paradise found. That big hard fish-slap means I have been set as free as I am ever going to be, to make those words pay.

I don’t have it in me to be an innovative journalist. I’m not particularly good at fiction, unless its under a tree or by a campfire with little kids begging for a whopper; a different kind of fish-story. I have two strengths: to listen and to observe, then put those things into written words. Softening the edges of the world around me allows pictures to form in my head, brings the taste of delicious, playful prose to my mouth, sends my fingers skittering over the keyboard like those pebbles down the mountainside path; revealing stuff I never knew that I knew. It’s humbling, and also cautiously exciting. Full-circle. Happiness is: ________.

I’m not sure what makes someone a writer. Is it when they have been published (yes, in small ways), won awards (yes, a couple)? Or is it when we realize we have done it all our lives in some way or another and aren’t likely to stop any time soon? Is it a professional designation or a personal one, or shifting degrees of both?

From this place two-thirds of my way up my mountain, I am hereby kicking a big rock in the direction of letting others dictate my job description. I release myself to the joy of just doing, hoping my words might also give others some pleasure and make it easier for them to tell their own stories about whatever the heck they choose. We meet one another in the shared experiences; the public embarrassment, the secret fear, the unavoidable loss, the happy surprise.  #MeToo is the most poignant and powerful example of this collective tapestry-weaving I have seen in my lifetime. Our stories can change the world. One  word at a time until the ground swells beneath our feet and false mountains are shaken till they crumble into dust. I have decided that what I “do” is write. Which makes me a writer.

Well, that was easy.

[myhahnestopinion]

THE AARONS 2017 - BEST TV EPISODE

My consumption of serialized TV seems to be inversely correlated to the amount of bing-watching I do. I love the more complex storylines and engaging characters of serialized TV, but I also like having time to reflect on how each episode works as a piece of the whole. That’s why I designed this award to look at the exemplary singular efforts in TV this year. Here are The Aarons for Best TV Episode:

#10. “The Ricklantis Mix-Up” (Rick and Morty, Season 3, Episode 7)

The promise of Rick and Morty taking their absurd antics to the realm of Atlantis was enticing… but it was not meant to be. Instead, the show flipped the script, transporting us into a trio of trope-blasting adventures with some unexpected, but amazing, dark social satire. In a miniscule fraction of the time and budget, Rick and Morty create a high-concept buddy cop examination of systemic racism far more enjoyable and insightful than Netflix’s Bright could ever have hoped to be, along with a surprisingly affecting coming-of-age tale, and a sublime political thriller. A lot of Rick and Morty episodes had a chance at making this list, but “The Ricklantis Mix-Up” ultimately got it for delivering a holy trinity of the show’s brilliant meta-narratives.

#9. “Stupid Piece of Sh*t” (BoJack Horseman, Season 4, Episode 6)

Since its inception, BoJack Horseman has been a blistering portrayal of the depths of depression, but “Stupid Piece of Sh*t” (Netflix’s censorship there) found a way to be even more cutting than usual by finally giving us a glimpse inside BoJack’s head, narrated by Will Arnet’s haunting voice work. Taking advantage of the cartoon format, the episode’s innovative departure from the show’s traditional animation style brought mental illness to life in painfully real fashion, and made it clear that the show’s honest look at these struggles is indeed a story best told through the animated format. Well, that, and because the episode also delivered plenty of wonderful animal puns and sight gags, as always.

#8. “New York, I Love You” (Master of None, Season 2, Episode 6)

Similar to “The Ricklantis Mix-Up,” a large number of Master of None’s second season could have made this list, including its wonderful send-up of Bicycle Thieves and the touching “Thanksgiving” episode, but “New York, I Love You” stood out for its narrative swerve and its triad of empathetic stories. Departing from our regular cast to follow the stories of unique New Yorkers by way of camera pan, the episode showcased Master of None’s knack for finding compelling stories and wise commentary in the simplest of stories. Stories about the characters that make up the character of New York City may be rote material for TV, but Master of None’s unique viewpoints and celebration of diversity, from a Burundian cab driver to a deaf couple, made it one of 2017’s most powerful and important stories to watch.

#7. “Duet” (The Flash, Season 3, Episode 3)

Like Barry Allen with Singin’ in the Rain, I’m a sucker for a good musical, and The Flash’s celebration of the talented cast of Broadway stars and Glee-alumni amassed by it and its crossover show Supergirl was just way too much fun to not include on this list, despite a confusing direction for the episode’s central villain. The stars were all clearly having a grand time getting to put a superhero spin on a classical musical style, and while the show’s covers of existing song were stirring enough, it’s really the two original numbers that made this episode such a delight, including the tender “Running Home to You” from La La Land’s songwriters, and the clever wit of “Superfriends” from Rachel Bloom of Crazy Ex-Girlfriend fame.

#6. “Chicanery” (Better Call Saul, Season 3, Episode 5)

If Better Call Saul indeed ends up lasting as long as its predecessor, than “Chicanery” will sit as the exact middle of the show, and is appropriately a game-changing episode and the height of emotional drama thus far. The entire show has been building towards watching Jimmy McGill and his estranged brother Chuck going head-to-head in the courtroom, and the resulting conflict was one of the most intense watches of the year. The sharp plotting and rich characterization provided the perfect framework for a show-stopping performance by Michael McKean, whose vitriolic courtroom meltdown was absolutely shattering for viewers. Honestly though, the real reason this episode was guaranteed a spot on this list is because, of course, it also marked the return of Huell to the Breaking Bad world.

#5. “The Law of Non-Contradictions” (Fargo, Season 3, Episode 3)

“The Law of Non-Contradictions” was an outlier in the already peculiar early episodes of Fargo’s third season, moving the location of the show outside of frozen Minnesota for the first time, and transplanting Carrie Coon’s Officer Burgle to sunny California. While the pieces all falling into place in its final moments made Fargo my favorite show of the year, “The Law of Non-Contradictions” is one of my favorite episodes precisely because it doesn’t fit into the show’s larger narrative. Burgle’s investigation of her murdered stepfather’s past as a pulp science-fiction novelist ended up irrelevant to the case at hand, but its examination of the role of stories in our lives and the frequent failures of good intentions, themes that are enhanced by a beautiful animated story within its story, made the episode a key piece of the lingering power of Season 3.  

#4. “USS Callister” (Black Mirror, Season 4, Episode 1)

While Black Mirror’s terrifying Twilight Zone-like looks at technological trepidation made it into such an addictive show, it’s the episodes that break this mold that become some of my favorite episodes of television ever. “USS Callister” is the most visual effects heavy episode of the show ever, and, given it also runs at a full 80 minutes, could very well be considered a movie, but, like “San Junipero” before it, the true power of the episode comes from its place within the show’s loose anthology structure. The episode certainly gives a haunting look at the dangers of potential technology through its scathing indictment of the toxic masculinity festering in certain sects of fandoms, given form in Jesse Plemons’ perfect parody of William Shatner’s Kirk. However, what makes it one of 2017’s best episodes is its fulfillment of the intentions of its parody subject, Star Trek, with its thrilling adventure of a diverse crew working in harmony to overcome insurmountable odds. 

#3. “Hero or Hate Crime” (Always Sunny, Season 12, Episode 6)

It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia continues to show it deserves to become television’s longest running live-action sitcom, because every year it manages to put out at least a handful of great new episodes. Season 12 had a couple highlights, including a wickedly fun Always Sunny take on The Wiz, but “Hero or Hate Crime” understands that the greatest moments of the show come from just letting the cast bounce off one another. The gang’s debate over whether Frank’s use of a slur to warn Mac of a danger to his life constitutes as a hate crime is a fantastic source for the show’s riotous and outlandish, though never truly offensive, brand of dark humor. It’s all great fun, but it’s the episode’s unexpectedly moving ending, perhaps the first time Always Sunny can be considered an emotional experience, that cements “Hero or Hate Crime” as one of the finest episodes of the long-running series.

#2. “Dance, Dance, Resolution” (The Good Place, Season 2, Episode 3)

In what I like to consider the unofficial spiritual mascot of the Reboot Already Underway podcast, “Dance, Dance, Resolution” was the most madcap episode of a very madcap sitcom, an episode so intent on tearing down its status quo that watching it made one extremely nervous that the show had pulled yet another bait-and-switch and its finale was going to come unexpectedly in only the third episode of the season. Thankfully, the show didn’t end, finding a way to subvert all expectations yet again at the end of this extraordinary, joke-a-millisecond entry directed by Cabin in the Woods’ Drew Goddard. “Dance, Dance, Resolution” suggested that The Good Place truly does have an eternal source of cleverness to draw from for its twisted afterlife, made even clearer by the lengthy list of unused punny restaurant names that episode writer Megan Amram released on Twitter the following day.

AND THE BEST TV EPISODE OF 2017 IS....

#1. “Cryogenics, Lightning, Last Review” (Review, Season 3, Episode 3)

“Dance, Dance, Resolution” may have been such a clever deconstruction of its show’s premise that it seemed like The Good Place’s finale would come in just the season’s third episode, but Review actually did it. Review is perhaps the most underappreciated show of the decade, and, had the viewership justified it, I’m sure it would have never stopped being entertaining to watch Forrest McNeil’s absurd quest to review everything in life, no matter the cost to his health or personal relationships. While it’s sad to see such an ingenious show end, I couldn’t imagine a more perfect note for Review to go out on, an episode that saw the show’s cringe-inducing absurdism and glorious dark comedy in peak form. The tragedy of Forrest McNeil truly deserves a place alongside the great works of the Greek poets and Shakespeare, a downfall that simply must be experienced in its entirety for yourself. So, I’ll say no more than: I give this episode… all the stars.

NEXT UP: THE 2017 AARON FOR BEST TV PERFORMANCE!

#tv #TheAarons #TheAarons2017 #TheAaronsTV #bestof #bestof2017 #reviewcc #BoJack horseman #the good place #master of none #the flash #better call saul #black mirror #uss callister #always sunny #rick and morty

[neglectedrainbow]

I’ve heard some questionable things recently, so, in response, I’ve compiled a list of some of the actual, professional reviews of the critically-acclaimed musical Dear Evan Hansen!

amNewYork wrote... On the show: “a smart, deeply felt and altogether extraordinary new musical” On Pasek and Paul: “a young and extremely promising songwriting duo, have crafted a haunting soft rock score that is neatly integrated into Steven Levenson’s captivating book” On Ben Platt: “[he] is giving one of the most vulnerable and shaded performances you’ve ever seen. He is terrified, enigmatic and completely believable.”

The Chicago Tribune wrote... On the show: “For everyone, it will offer at least fleetingly renewed motivation to power down, disengage and look up and out, searching for the real.”On Ben Platt: “the astonishing star of the extraordinary new Broadway musical” “[he] is as profound and heart-breaking a portrayal of a 17-year-old as one might ever hope to see.” 

Daily Beast wrote... “Dear Evan Hansen is beautiful to look at it, slickly directed, and moving, but also biting and subversive—and so may have more to say about teen suicide, parenting, and internet lunacy than the most finely worded op-ed column.”

Deadline wrote... On the show: “exquisite new musical” and “an intimate show with a gigantic heart” with “beautifully integrated musical supervision” and “spot-on costumes” with a score that “soars”. On Ben Platt: “Platt seems more to inhabit Evan than to merely portray him. The halting delivery of soulful lines, the arms that flutter out in birdlike spasms as if grasping for logic or reason and, most of all, with a voice that rises from assured tenor to plaintive falsetto all conspire to bring this character to life.” 

Entertainment Weekly wrote... “Leaving a new musical with a great song or two running through your head is a rare but exciting thing. Leaving with about 10 great songs running through your head is pretty much unheard of. But that’s the power of Dear Evan Hansen.” On the music: “It’s not simply that the songs are tuneful. It’s that they have a way of instantly piercing your heart and burrowing into your consciousness, while also illuminating character and propelling the plot (no small achievement!).” On Ben Platt: “It also doesn’t hurt that Platt possesses, on top of a powerhouse voice, a seemingly limitless reserve of charm.” Also: “And don’t be surprised if, to one degree or another, you see yourself in Evan.”

The Hollywood Reporter wrote... “A smart, soulful depiction of teen solitude graced by both gentle humor and raw feeling, this original musical graduates to Broadway after being honed in two earlier productions, scaling up its physical dimensions without sacrificing its piercing intimacy.” On Ben Platt: “Platt's periodic flights in the number into the lightest of falsettos make it almost unbearably tender, and the actor's vocal technique is as noteworthy as his wrenching honesty in the role.” On the music: “beautifully it captures the peaks and valleys of adolescence, in the thoughtful lyrics and in the music itself, given expressive orchestrations by Tony winner Alex Lacamoire” On the book: “Playwright Steven Levenson matches the musical components beat for beat in his terrific book, which sets up with persuasive conviction what could easily have been a contrived premise.” On the ensemble: “Across the board, the ensemble is superb, each of them registering rich moments of emotional complexity.” On Rachel Bay Jones: “the show's secret weapon, matching Platt all the way, is the wonderful Jones as Evan's frayed but loving mother. Her mortification when she discovers the degree to which her role has been usurped by the Murphys is devastating, as is her recognition of her own failure to see the depths of Evan's unhappiness.”

Huffington Post wrote... “Don’t ask questions, just go see Dear Evan Hansen.” “[It] is absorbing, wrenching, heart-breaking, and at the same time exhilarating.” “This is a show that captures your attention immediately, enchants you with its characters and its songs, pulls you through emotional turbulence, and leaves you cheering and wanting to go back for more.” On the ensemble: “extraordinary acting company’s continued refinements and their apparent love and respect for the characters they inhabit.” On the music: “The songs are not merely tuneful and funny and touching; Pasek and Paul can plumb the inner depths of their characters and rip through emotions in words and music.” On the book: “[There’s] impressive book which tackles a difficult subject with warmth and consistent humor.” On Ben Platt: “[he] is altogether extraordinary in what is one of the most unconventionally difficult characters we’ve seen in a Broadway musical.“ The ensemble: “are universally excellent.”

Newsday wrote... “The show is superb — original, sensitive, provocative, endearing...[it’s an] important and seriously delightful addition to the 21st century musical.” On Ben Platt: “multilayered, genuine, star-making performance” The set “takes asymmetrical screens with internet projections far beyond cliche into something new and elegant.”

NY Daily News wrote... On the show: “thrilling and unforgettable” “original and up-to-the-minute” “The show's so satisfying it deserves a thank you note.”

The New York Times wrote... “The rare Broadway musical not derived from or inspired by some other source, which is refreshing in itself.” On the show: “gorgeous heartbreaker of a musical” “never have I heard so many stifled sobs and sniffles in the theater”. On Ben Platt: “[he gives] a performance that’s not likely to be bettered on Broadway this season” “remarkable performance”. On the score: “haunting” On the direction: “superb” On Rachel Bay Jones: “immensely touching”. On the Michael Park and Jennifer Laura Thompson: “likewise excellent”. On Laura Dreyfuss: “sensitive, altogether lovely performance”.

NJ.com wrote... “[a show] with a critically-acclaimed run at Washington's Arena Stage, followed by an equally acclaimed run off-Broadway last spring”

The Stage wrote... “How thrilling it is that Broadway, a place largely turned into a destination to make money not art, is still capable of producing shows that are genuinely bold, daring and confrontational.” “It’s a powerful, intimate, original, and redemptive story...[a] must-see”. On the book: “darkly textured and deeply nuanced”. On the music: “provocative...drenched in feeling and fearless commitment”.

Vulture wrote... On the show: “Indefinable”. On Ben Platt: “His sentences seem to die of embarrassment on their way out. His right hand operates independently from his body, as if it were the only confident part of him. (He sometimes talks into it, too, as if it were an ear.) Plucking at a cast where it touches his skin, he echoes the cringe induced when his mother tries to buck him up with an optimistic catchphrase or a chuck on the shoulder. That he does all this while also tracing the enormous arc of the character’s through-line, and singing beautifully through many ugly tears, makes the achievement even more astonishing. I would think it would be impossible not to care deeply about his Evan, or at least not to want to give him a hankie. “

#there we go #deh positivity #it's critically acclaimed #deh #dearevanhansen #dear evan hansen #broadway #bway #theatre #theater #musicals #musical #evan hansen #ben platt #pasek and paul #justin paul #benj pasek #steven levenson #long post #long #text #txt #there it is! #rachel bay jones #alana beck #mike faist #jennifer laura thomspon #will roland #kristolyn lloyd #michael park

[hetmusic]

Dot to Dot: Stand Together | HumanHuman

This week the music industry has been rocked to its core. The attack on innocent audience members during Ariana Grande’s concert at the Manchester Arena was a senseless tragedy and the city of Manchester are still very much feeling the effects. Many bands and artists across the UK and beyond have postponed shows out of respect for the victims and many more have come together, united by music, hope and love, to carry out gigs as planned and even spontaneously announcing fundraising events in support of the victims and their families.

One such event that will proceed is Dot to Dot Festival, who gave the following statement:

“We are shocked and saddened by the terrible tragedy in Manchester. Our thoughts go out to all those affected. From ongoing discussions with venues and relevant authorities, and in solidarity with the resilience of the amazing people of Manchester and the power of live music, Dot to Dot Festival will be going ahead this Friday. Dot to Dot is a festival about bringing people together and enjoying a day out watching live music. We have taken stock and thought deeply about whether it’s appropriate for us to go ahead in the light of what’s happened – and we have decided we will hold the event. We can’t forget what’s happened, but we don’t want to let fear and hate stop us.”— Dot to Dot

This Friday, this highly regarded new music festival will commence. More than a platform for the best who’s who on the emerging industry radar, Dot to Dot has become a show of solidarity, a way to say that we are not a defeated and we will not forget either.

Whether you’ll be heading to Manchester on May 26th, Bristol on May 27th or Nottingham on May 28th, we would like to recommend a few of our favourite acts.

Bad Sea

Night And Day, Manchester on May 26th, 5:45pm

Thekla Top Deck, Bristol on May 27th, 2:30pm

Red Room, Nottingham on May 28th, 7:45pm

Who are they? Dublin-based duo Ciara Thompson and Alan Farrel met through a popular dating app and although they abandoned any chance of romance, they did pursue a creative partnership.

Why should you see them? Bad Sea’s refreshingly classic approach can be heard in their precious trio of singles, “Solid Air”, “Tell Me What (I Mean)” and “Over My Head”. Each one is breath-taking and the pair must also be commended for their bare-faced sound on latest single “Over My Head”, but as we hear on “Tell Me What (I Mean)” Farrel and Thompson are also partial to those fuller, Americana rock sounds.

Cosmo Pyke

Band On The Wall, Manchester on May 26th, 6:15pm

02 Academy 2, Bristol on May 27th, 3:15pm

The Bodega, Nottingham on May 28th, 6:00pm

Who are they? Hailing from Peckham, this 18-year-old is a songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, skater and model.

Why should you see them? While Cosmo Pyke was raise on an enviable diet of blues, jazz, hip-hop and neo-soul, his own fuzzy, relaxed songs are less about following genre lines and more about going with the natural flow. Tracks like “Great Dane” paint with “spacey, beautiful, and lazy” strokes that produces a realist image of everyday life in East London.

Honeyblood

The Albert Hall, Manchester on May 26th, 5:00pm

02 Academy, Bristol on May 27th, 5:45pm

Rock City, Nottingham on May 28th, 5:00pm

Who are they? Noisy garage rock duo from Glasgow with a pinch of shoegaze.

Why should you see them? Over the years, the band’s line-up has taken a few different forms, but these days it’s all about the wild guitar playing of Stina Marie Claire Tweeddale and the ferocious drumming of Cat Myers, plus that wonderful middle ground where the pair’s vocals meet. Honeyblood have also been on an extensive tour across Scotland, Ireland and England over the past two months, so you can be sure on one tight set this weekend.

Kudu Blue

The Peer Hat, Manchester on May 26th, 8pm

HY Brasil Music-Club, Bristol on May 27th, 8:45pm

Stealth Live Room, Nottingham on May 28th, 3:45pm

Who are they? Eclectic sounding band from Brighton with four members Clementine Douglas, Owen Crouch, Tom Peterson and Creeda Kirkman.

Why should you see them? Over the past two years, Kudu Blue have had regular spots at hometown festival The Great Escape and this year their heading out to Dot to Dot to deliver their unique combination of electronics, alternative-pop, R&B and dance to new audiences. If you after an energy boost this weekend, get down to Kudu Blue’s show for dynamic tracks like “NGFM” and “Sugar Lemz”.

Liv Dawson

Band On The Wall, Manchester on May 26th, 7:15pm

Thekla, Bristol on May 27th, 3:00pm

Rock City, Nottingham on May 28th, 3:00pm

Who are they? At just 18-years-old, Liv Dawson is one of the most promising, emerging R&B talents on the circuit right now.

Why should you see them? Don’t be fooled by this singer-songwriter’s young years, as this artist has displayed a sophisticated self-awareness through her increasingly noted R&B-pop singles and live sessions. Dawson’s super power has to be that voice, it’s every bit Destiny’s Child in its youthful tone and wise aura. She’s also fresh from a performance at The Great Escape’s Vevo dscvr stage, which always seems to be on point with picking up the year’s rising acts.

Matt Maltese

Band On The Wall, Manchester on May 26th, 8:15pm

The Louisiana, Bristol on May 27th, 4:30pm

The Bodega, Nottingham on May 28th, 7:00pm

Who are they? London-based musician Matt Maltese with a notable gift for writing timeless, piano-led, blues ballads.

Why should you see them? As one of three artists selected for HumanHuman’s Showcase last year in Antwerp, we can guarantee that Maltese is truly a talented performer. His voice beckons from an era of golden age jazz fingers, while his songs themselves are sparsely lit and question meaning in everything and anything. Do not miss.

Miya Folick

SWX Room 2, Bristol on May 27th, 5:15pm

Rescue Rooms, Nottingham on May 28th, 3:15pm

Who are they? The Oakland-based artist whose music spans riot grrl, punk and indie-rock.

Why should you see them? “Trouble Adjusting” is a real gift from Miya Folick, as it was written and recorded to capture the magic of her live shows. Safe to say we wouldn’t be disappointed if any gig contains as much energy, fantastically fun melodies and full-blooded drums and guitars as this single does.

Nilüfer Yanya

Soup Kitchen, Manchester on May 26th, 5:45pm

Thekla, Bristol on May 27th, 2:00pm

The Bodega, Nottingham on May 28th, 3:00pm

Who are they? London singer-songwriter in her own groove of indie acoustica, jazzy blues and new wave shimmer.

Why should you see them? This twice featured artist has managed to rise from a handful of demo songs to the blogosphere’s indie music sweetheart with recent releases like “Golden Cage” and “The Florist” being highly praised across the Internet. In the live realm, Yanya performs with the same intimate sense of delicacy that comes across on the recording, just check out this out take of this 21-year-old musician playing her cover of Pixies’ “Hey” for NTS Radio.

Parcels

Soup Kitchen, Manchester on May 26th, 9:45pm

Thekla, Bristol on May 27th, 9:00pm

Rescue Rooms, Nottingham on May 28th, 12:30am

Who are they? Purveyors of disco for the modern age.

Why should you see them? This Berlin-based Australian band are a pretty rare find. Not only do they look like they took a Delorean from the height of ‘70s glam-rock, but their sound also takes many cues from a past where disco grooves were essential to any good night out. While, watching their set, it will be absolutely impossible not to dance (or bop or foot tap or ever so subtly nod your head) to “the slick musicianship, the rapturously rhythmic, Nile Rodgers-worshipping guitar,” as The Guardian put it.

Pinegrove

Old Granada Studios, Manchester on May 26th, 8:15pm

SWX, Bristol on May 27th, 7:45pm

Nottingham Trent University, Nottingham on May 28th, 8:15pm

Who are they? With a various combination of musicians, this New Jersey band creates uncomparable and emotional left-field Americana.

Why should you see them? This isn’t the first time we’ve recommended Pinegrove as a must-see act. Last year, the Brooklyn-via-New Jersey outfit built around two central figures Evan Stephens Hall and Zack Levine was on our list for the new music extravaganza SXSW and now the American alt-rock band are hopping the water to give UK fans a taste of their singularly brilliant live renditions. There’s an abundance of live sessions out there (such as NPR’s Tiny Desk Concert) to wet your appetite over the next few days.

Pixx

Gullivers, Manchester on May 26th, 6:30pm

The Louisiana, Bristol on May 27th, 6:30pm

Stealth Live Room, Nottingham on May 28th, 10:45pm

Who are they? Pixx is the moniker of Surrey musician Hannah Rodgers.

Why should you see them? Pixx first popped up on our radar around the time of her debut EP, Fall In, which was accompanied by a string of eerie, elemental music videos perfectly suited to her modern New Romantics style. Since then, the artist has become bolder in her style, songwriting and seemingly her live shows too. One thing to listen out for would be her cover of Joe Jackson’s 1979 single “It’s Different For Girls”.

Tender

Ruby Lounge, Manchester on May 26th, 6:15pm

Thekla, Bristol on May 27th, 8:00pm

Rescue Rooms, Nottingham on May 28th, 4:15pm

Who are they? Self-described as “dark grooves with room to breathe,” pair Dan and James create everything at home in their North London basement.

Why should you see them? Two years after Tender’s first appearance on HumanHuman and the initially anonymous project are beginning to drop the veil further as they approach the release of their debut album, coming this summer. On first LP single “Erode”, the self-sufficient deliver that R&B vibe, minimalist guitar work and luscious electronics that we’ve loved all along. Hopefully more album tracks to be heard at their festival sets.

Tom Grennan

Ruby Lounge, Manchester on May 26th, 9:15pm

02 Academy, Bristol on May 27th, 4:45pm

Rocky City, Nottingham on May 28th, 6:00pm

Who are they? Solo artist Tom Grennan strikes the balance between acoustic songwriting, bluesy lyricism and indie-rock frontmanship.

Why should you see them? The charismatic songwriter possesses a mighty blues vocal and knack for lyrics that permeate your soul and stay there. It’s something that translates wonderfully into his live versions of “Sweet Hallelujah” and “Something In The Water” and if the word of The Independent is anything to go by, the backing of a full band adds “more weight to his music but [doesn’t] distract from his great charisma or that astonishing voice.”

Vagabon

Gullivers, Manchester on May 26th, 5:30pm

Thekla, Bristol on May 27th, 4:00pm

The Bodega, Nottingham on May 28th, 4:00pm

Who are they? Finding her feet in New York’s underground rock scene, Lætitia Tamko, continues to wow with her anthems for weird girls.

Why should you see them? You only need to listen to Vagabon’s “The Embers” to be convinced that this indie-rock heroine is well worth going to see this weekend. Her songs vibrate with indignation and ferocity. Throughout all of them, Tamko unleashes biting lyrics with that sweet, unassuming vocal which contrasts against the punk-rock instrumentation.

Yellow Days

Soup Kitchen, Manchester on May 26th, 6:45pm

Thekla, Bristol on May 27th, 6:00pm

Rescue Rooms, Nottingham on May 28th, 6:15pm

Who are they? George van den Broek is the young songwriter-producer featured in our 20 Under 20 list for his incredible debut EP, Harmless Melodies.

Why should you see them? Reminiscent of King Krule and Only Real, Yellow Days is a relative newcomer and yet since the release of debut “You Are Nothing That I Can’t Get Over”, this 17-year-old has punctuated the new music consciousness. The turning point came with “Your Hand Holding Mine” when listeners woke up to van den Broek’s wonky, lo-fi strings and synths with a gravelled, left-field soulful vocal rich in mature emotion. Surely not one to miss out on.

https://humanhuman.com/articles/dot-to-dot-2017

[tpaigeme]

Being West Virginia What People Are Saying About The Art of T. Paige “Some people are born to translate life's struggles and beauty into art with every ounce of their being.  T. Paige Dalporto is one such person.  He brings the heart and soul of West Virginia to life through his music, poetry, acting, and impressionistic photography. He is West Virginia."  Annie Lindstrom, Talkupy on Blogtalkradio.com “I loved-loved-loved your song (“Hawks Nest: Tunnel of Death”) for The Hawks' Nest Tunnel film. There is no way that song will NOT be in the film. It is incredible and so are you. Just want you to know how I appreciate you. You rock!” Mari-Lynn Evans Producer of The Appalachians on PBS (6 million viewers) “Just reading the lyrics in your song makes me cry. Dear God, this song is great and you are a genius.” Judy Bonds, Coal River Mountain Watch, winner of the Goldman Prize, “The Nobel Prizefor Environmentalists” “This song says what I have tried so hard to put into words. I love it. You have outdone yourself again.” Maria Gunnoe, Coal River Mountain Watch, winner of the Goldman Prize, “The Nobel for Environmentalists” “One of the top 3 songwriters in WV”....John Blissard, Founder of Allegheny Echoes Old Time Music Festival and Camp "T. Paige, ‘The Soundtrack of our Movement’ (to save Appalachia’s mountains). One of the most eloquent songwriters around. There’s a real soul to what he sings.” Paul Corbit Brown, President, Keeper of The Mountains Foundation "This is a great song." Denise Giardina, environmentalist, West Virginia gubenatorial candidate, author, “Storming Heaven”, “Saints and Villains” “You’re a poet. And not a bad one.” Don Marsh, the late Senior Editor-in-Chief, The Charleston Gazette "This song makes me proud to know you"....Sandy Wells, Columnist, Innerviews, The Charleston Gazette. "I love your music."...Kate Long, veteran Singer/songwriter, Writer for The Charleston Gazette, WV Public Radio Producer “Keep doing what you’re doing”...Kathy Matea, Nashville Recording Artist “You rock hard for one cat." Todd Burge, singer/songwriter “I listened to your CD till 2 am last night. The first time I heard you play, I couldn’t wait to hear more. You were different, and I was struck by your uniqueness, passion, and the edginess in your playing and songs you weren’t like the rest. I really believe in your talent and I’ve listened to a lot of music and you rank up near the top.” Marcia Flannnery Griffith, Nashville Recording Artist, Singer Songwriter “T. Paige is a folk hero around here. He represents a LOT of music.” Louis Argento, Music Impresario, Charleston W.Va. “The most talented artist in WV.” Bob Henry Baber, Mountain Party candidate for U.S. Senate, Governor “Your music is cool, real...”Dylan meets the Luminaires” Wayne Killius, Nashville record producer, Session Drummer appearing on many hits “A Voice who speaks up for the common folk”...Rebecca Park, Actress, Educator “Dalporto's CD is a real gem...That sound is what makes him stand out among the ranks of West Virginia musicians. Dalporto is well on his way to making a big name for himself in the West Virginia music scene. Gripping lyrics, a classic."Matt Burdette, Editor, Graffiti Magazine “A piece that is at once both a song of defiance and tribute, T. Paige has found his voice. He reminds us that we cannot allow the continuation of the destruction of our beautiful pearl (WV) by out-of-state conglomerates. I think Pete Seeger would be very proud of the ‘passion to the people’ spirit of ‘The Pearl’”. Ross Ballard II, author, audio CD and compilation music CD. “Here is the song that captures so much emotion, so much pain, and so much of the tragic story of what happened on that terrible day when 12 loving, hardworking miners were treated as “items” in a WV coal mine. That day the world got a glimpse of West Virginia’s epic fight against corporate greed.” For Church Bells at Sago...Ross Ballard “Mr. Dalporto is a many-talented artist, writing original songs for the just released audio book of ‘When Miners March’, along with publishing a very nice book that collects some of his poems and photographs. He loaned me a copy of his excellent paperback book, “It’s Still a Wonder Just Being Here” that includes poems written between 1981 to 1999. He took most of the photographs around his home in the upper Kanawha Valley between 1989 to 1999. All of the photos are beautiful, simple, and sincere. I particularly enjoyed the two color photographs of Smithers and Alloy. His poems are likewise beautiful. Dalporto has traveled around the United States, living in Alaska, Nashville and other locations before returning home to Charlton Heights. He is active in the anti-MTR movement. He just received word that two of his works, “The Pearl” and “Railroad” have been accepted for publication in Blair Mountain Press' new book, due out this October---‘Coal: A Poetry Anthology.’” Steve Fesenmaier, former head of the West Virginia Library Commission Film Services “T. Paige is one of southern WV’s most creative artists. He is a great musician, recently writing and playing several songs for the soundtrack of the audio movie of When Miners March. Dalporto has traveled around the United States, living in Alaska, Nashville and other locations before returning home to Charlton Heights. He is active in the anti-MTR movement.” Steve Fesenmaier, former head of the West Virginia Library Commission Film Services FOR: The Ballad of Shirley Jones “This song is about my Uncle Shirley. He died at the age of 18 from working in Hawks Nest." Rita Jones Hanshaw "Horrible tragedy, this song is amazing and totally captures how most of the people who worked in that tunnel must of felt." Tessa Colyer 8 months ago “My grandmother is the daughter of Cecil Jones. She never knew her father as he died along with his brothers before she was born. Until yesterday, her daughters and grandchildren were not really aware of this massive tragedy. Thank you to the people making the songs and films so we have more information about our past. This story MUST be told.” Patricia Daniels "Wow, that's a great job on the song. I have been around the tunnel and I know of 4 locations where victims were buried, so I know what you are singing about. When does the film come out? This should be the theme song for the film." rickietube1 Shiny Shine 2 years ago "My grandfather was Charles Jones. I am so proud that this tragedy is finally coming to light". Cary Curlee "Awesome song! I have my students read Hawk's Nest (a novel about the tunnel) in Intro to Appalachian Studies. I believe this story story needs to be told!" FOR “When You Go” “This song makes me proud to know you"....Sandy Wells, The Charleston Gazette. "I try and not cry at work. Beautiful!" Linda Petry Hospice of WV "I love that song." Mike @ [email protected] “I love this song. It is powerful. Anyone that truly cares about people will be affected by this song. You have stayed true to yourself a long long time Paige. It's time your work is recognized. Hopefully this song will be the beginning of something really good for you. You are a wonderful beautiful person Paige. I am so proud to know you and call you my friend...." Bo Webb CRMW "Heartbreaking".. “Oh my, Paige, this will touch everyone who hears it. What a beautiful tribute!” Mary Caputi, MD “Very moving and tender tribute to the fallen Massey miners.” Tony Oppegard, Attorney for Miners’ Rights Very, very, great song!!! Couldn’t take my eyes off if it! You got a winner there. Thank you for sharing. Loved it.”....Joe Youtube musician, viewer “My friends Carrie & MIchael Kline sent me the link to your YouTube video "Buffalo Creek" yesterday. I'm an attorney in Kentucky who has long represented coal miners and their families in safety-related matters. I am also a collector of coal mining songs. I have quite an extensive collection, so I already had your songs "Church Bells at Sago", "The Pearl", "The Ballad of Ma Blizzard" and "Kiss the Hills Goodbye". No offense, but "Buffalo Creek" blows them all away...! What a great song! I love the lyrics, as well as the passion in your voice and picking! Then, I checked out your other videos and found the clever "Massey's Farm" (I've always loved Dylan) and the great "Who Did This?" I love the raw power and emotion of all three of those songs!! You are certainly one of the most talented performers that I have seen on YouTube, and I appreciate you sharing.” Tony Oppegard, Attorney for Miners’ Rights "Standing on my chair applauding. This is perfect. Had to subscribe after watching a bunch of your videos. Cheers." MisterNoHead For: It’s Still a Wonder Just Being Here: Photographs and Poems “Thank you for your lovely book. Both the poems and photographs are haunting and beautiful. I was very touched by your story.” Sylvia Nasar, author of, A Beautiful Mind, Columbia University, New York “This is one for the Mountain State to be proud of...beautifully printed.” Ken Sullivan, Ph.D., Executive Director, W.Va. Humanities Council, Charleston, W.Va. “The delicate way the images inform the writing and vice versa...and the relationship between the two is both personal and striking.” Meredith Coeyman, Aperture Foundation, New York “From big black coal cars that travel to heaven and ride among the stars, to his vivid descriptions of trees and West Virginia landscapes, this is one true example of turning coal dust into a real diamond of a book. The pictures are priceless, as well. Wait till you see where the Raven is sitting. I loved it. A real slice of Appalachia.” Patricia Syner, Educator, Fayette County, W.Va. “Every page is a gem.”..Gail Twigger, Twigger Shaw Design Source, Charleston, W.Va. “This book makes me proud to be a West Virginian. The author demonstrates a true understanding of Appalachian life through his photography and a desire to live life to its fullest through his poetry. An Appalachian Prize”...Amazon.com customer, from Montgomery, W.Va. For the film, Moving Mountains, by Penny Loeb The film, by Pulitzer finalist Penny Loeb, premiered August 21, 2014, to an excited and appreciative audience of 250 in Charleston WV, at the old Capital Theater. “T. Paige was brilliant. An extremely talented actor and artist. I really enjoyed working with him.” Michael Alban actor, Moving Mountains “T. Paige! This is unheard of!  A first time actor holding his own alongside an accomplished  star like Theresa Russell!” Michelle Farrell, Chief Cinematographer, Moving Mountains Awards WV Press Association---Photojournalism WV Writers---Poetry Billboard Magazine---Songwriting Soundtracks Moving Mountains When Miners March with Hazel Dickens Rise Up West Virginia Blood On The Mountain contributor Albums Pearl  2006 T. Paige: Collection due out in late 2019

[listenbang]

TO THE KINDNESS OF GOD

It was with high expectation and emotion that I began my first listen-through of Michael Card’s latest record, To the Kindness of God…

I discovered the music of Michael Card when I was six years old. It was on my father’s CD rack, a compilation album called Joy in the Journey. I remember listening through that CD and being enchanted by the songs. It was the beginning of my adventure with this awestruck troubadour, encountering with him the wonders of God’s Word. Michael has a gift for songwriting: a unique way of weaving the truth and beauty of Scripture into a song. But Michael has given us more than individual songs. He has given us albums; a discography covering nearly the entire Bible, Old and New Testaments. Concept albums, in which the songs are able to tell a greater story collectively, than each could on its own. The beauty of a concept album is that it can approach the subject organically, from multiple angles, taking time to explore and develop an idea.

So why was this particular concept album such a big deal for me? Word has it that To the Kindness of God may be Michael Card’s last album. Listening through it felt like a goodbye of sorts. But if this is Michael’s last album, it definitely makes for a grand end to an era. There is grandness in its soft yet sweeping musical landscape, and in its lyrical theme, hesed: an untranslatable word denoting the inexpressible kindness of God. A theme that spans all of Scripture and in fact, all of history.

A word on hesed (kheh'·sed): it appears in the Hebrew Scriptures nearly 250 times, mostly in the Psalms. In English it’s often translated mercy or lovingkindness, yet these words fall short. King David, in Psalm 23, described hesed as a mercy that would follow him all the days of his life. A mercy that would never let go. Hesed is used in Psalm 136 in the recounting of Israel’s exodus. The phrase “His love endures forever” is chanted over and over again. The Christian Standard Bible translates hesed in that passage as faithful love. Elsewhere, I’ve also seen loyal love.

In To the Kindness of God, the listener is drawn, song by song, into the glorious story of hesed: how God’s matchless might has been revealed in his transformative, covenant love toward his broken creation. Can there be a more epic theme on which to write an album?

Come as You Are

Hymn to the Kindness of God

The Shelter of the Shadow

That Kind of Love

When Dinah Held My Hand / Jesus Is on the Mainline

Gomer’s Song

This Is My Father’s World

I Will Be Kind

Why Not Change the World

The album opens with ascending piano chords, and an invitation: “Come, come as you are, Broken and scarred…” There’s a quiet boldness in Michael’s voice. “…Surrender your fear, It is safe, there is comfort here.” The instrumentation embodies the call. The refrain gives the purpose in the call: “For the LORD is good, And his love is everlasting… Won’t you come?”

A simple message, yet deeply profound. This is what Michael has been approaching in his songwriting for all these years. Hesed is the heart of “El Shaddai.” The power behind the prayer, “Jesus Let Us Come to Know You.” The object of “Joy in the Journey.” This album is the culmination of decades of study in Scripture.

 * * *

 "Come as You Are" is followed by "Hymn to the Kindness of God." In this delicate piece, Michael seeks to express the inexpressible. Attribute after luminous attribute is named, filling out the nature of hesed. The nature of God. "Relentless tenderness, Hope of humankind."

There's a graceful wind and string arrangement (real instruments!) blending with voice and piano. It hearkens back to orchestration on early work such as The Final Word and The Beginning. Beautiful and, for me, nostalgic.

“Who you truly are, we hardly can believe; You know what we are, yet you refuse to leave.” Read the Scriptures and you will be confronted by a God whose goodness and love are so much purer than ours that he may seem, at times, too good to be true. Or maybe as Andrew Peterson says, “too good not to be true.”

* * *

“LORD, please show me your glory.” What a request! What was Moses thinking when he asked it? But there’s a desperation in his plea. To know God in a closer way, he disregards the danger. “The Shelter of the Shadow” recalls the history of hesed, starting before history: “From before the beginning Was a Word that was living…” Next is recounted the event portrayed in the book of Exodus; God revealing his glory to Moses on the mountain in the wilderness. A grand and soaring orchestral and chamber choir arrangement accompanies. Fitting for the events being portrayed…

“The LORD descended in the cloud and stood with Moses there, and proclaimed the name of the LORD. The LORD passed before him and proclaimed, ‘The LORD, the LORD, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in hesed—steadfast love and faithfulness.’” (Exodus 34:5-6, ESV)

That shadowy cleft: what peril, and yet, what safety. For God’s glory was shown through his kindness. And that was just the beginning of God’s revelation…

“And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth… For from his fullness we have all received, grace upon grace. For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.” (John 1:14, 16-17, ESV)

* * *

“That Kind of Love” is by singer-songwriter Pierce Pettis. It’s a beautiful song, musically and lyrically, and a natural fit among the other songs on the album. The lyrics are capturing. Michael’s voice is clear and bright.

“It can’t be kept unto itself, It spreads its joy, it casts its spell, Till no one’s safe this side of Hell—That kind of love." The last lines of the song brought the message close to home for me: “So how can anyone deny That kind of love, Knowing every heart is measured by That kind of love…”

“He has told you, O man, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love hesed—mercy, and to walk humbly with your God?” (Micah 6:8, ESV) “…O may we be remembered by That kind of love.”

* * *

Not often will Michael share a personal story in one of his songs, but “When Dinah Held My Hand” is quite personal. Listening to it, I felt like I was right there. It’s an important song because it addresses the issues of pain and evil. It does so looking through the lens of God’s kindness. The God who showed kindness to Moses and the people of Israel is still in the business of kindness. A banjo and a fiddle start out this simple story-in-song: “She was haloed ‘round in kindness, I was nervous and alone…”

Here, hesed takes on flesh and bone, and the kindness of God is seen on a common face. I’ve known people who shine that way. When with them, I felt safe. Ofttimes, the sweetest and kindest people are those who have gone through deep suffering. Instead of the hurt hardening them, by God’s grace, it makes them kinder, more able to comfort and help others who are hurting. Here we see the art of God’s providence: it will take what evil intends for a destructive end, and make something beautiful.

“She reached across three hundred years of suffering and pain, She reached across the great divide of the color of our skins; When she reached across that empty pew, then I understood, That all the hate that meant to harm, The Lord had used for good.”

At the close of the book of Genesis, Joseph says to his brothers, “You meant evil against me, but God meant it for good” (Genesis 50:20, ESV; emphasis added). What a comfort it is, that the Lord is working all things for the good of those who love him. Whether Joseph’s slavery, or the slavery of African Americans, no evil or injustice of man can thwart God’s good intentions.

“Life is made of moments we don’t always understand, Sometimes the meaning isn’t clear, there’s no specific plan; Each moment has been set in place before the world began, Like the time that Sunday morning, when Dinah held my hand.”

“Jesus Is on the Mainline” makes for a perfect outro to Michael’s story. Three instruments—a bluesy piano, a bass guitar and a tambourine — back up the vivacious singing of an African American choir! I love the diversity in the choirs featured in the album; international, like God’s hesed which reaches out to all mankind.

* * *

“Gomer’s Song” is from Michael’s Ancient Faith Trilogy, but it’s found a new and fitting home on this record. Gomer is graceless. Even her name sounds unattractive. But is this not the story of every Christian? Where would any of us be if not for the love that called us out of our shame and darkness? Hosea’s love for his unlovable wife is one of the clearest illustrations of God’s love for his rebellious people. Gomer’s story is my story. “Gomer’s Song” is my song.

* * *

“This Is My Father’s World” highlights yet another important facet of God’s hesed. Look around you. The trees, the animals, the blood in your veins—all creation tells of a sovereign, loving and faithful Father. “This is my Father’s world: He shines in all that’s fair; In the rustling grass I hear Him pass; He speaks to me everywhere.”

Those beautiful words are by Maltbie D. Babcock. Many who love this hymn have never heard of the hymn writer. Still fewer know of his tragic end by suicide. I don’t know what darkness brought Maltbie Babcock to take his life, but this I know: No dark demonic power can overshadow the covenant kindness God has for his children.

Michael introduces a couple small yet meaningful changes to this classic hymn text. I first heard Michael sing his version of “This Is My Father’s World” at a concert a few years ago. I was moved by the profound tenderness he had brought to the song. “This is my Father’s world, Why should my heart be sad? He is just and kind, he’s love defined, His grace all the hope that I have.”

This album arrived on the heels of a profound event in my life. In January of this year, my wife gave birth to our first child, a girl. Almost overnight, my understanding of God as Father—as my Father—was transformed. I now see how little I understood dependence, and how far I have to go to be broken of my pride and self-reliance. I see more clearly the pure joy it is to be a child of God, and to rest in his love. The other day we were going for a walk—my wife, our daughter and I. As I was looking up at the sky and the trees overhead, all at once, a thought entered my mind: “this is my Father’s world. My Father.” And it astounded me.

Again I must mention orchestration: the strings on this song are breathtakingly beautiful, like a towering cathedral forest of fir trees. I sense dedication and passion behind its arrangement.

 * * *

 “I can’t explain the mystery, Before I called, you answered me, And showed so great a love That set me free.”

As the album comes to a close, the mood becomes one of reflection. God has shown me kindness. Given his own precious Son, for me. What now? In the stillness, this kindness compels a response. “I Will Be Kind” is that response.

“So now I come and ask of you, To speak the word, to tell me true: In light of all you’ve done, what should I do?” The question is asked, and the response is given. It comes from Jesus’ sermon on the mount, and specifically his instruction to God’s children, on how they are to react to evil.

“You have heard that it was said, ‘An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.’ But I say to you, Do not resist the one who is evil. But if anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also. And if anyone would sue you and take your tunic, let him have your cloak as well. And if anyone forces you to go one mile, go with him two miles. Give to the one who begs from you, and do not refuse the one who would borrow from you.” (Matthew 5:38-42, ESV)

My first reaction to Jesus’ words is to recoil. To give up all my rights, to basically let my enemy run all over me—it seems too much to ask. But this song, “I Will Be Kind,” has helped me better understand the heart behind Jesus’ words.

“I’ll forgive as I’ve been forgiven, I will love my enemies, I’ll be gracious to the ungrateful, That’s the grace you gave to me.”

Christ has set the example for loving my enemies, in loving me while I was his enemy. He loved the unlovable. He died for the unlovable. The greatest act of kindness. This is what it all comes down to. This is hesed. How can I not love as I've been loved? I must love my enemies.

To the proud and selfish heart, Jesus’ way is utterly abhorrent. But when that heart is broken by the love of Jesus, it gladly lays down all its rights. It becomes a conduit of his love. I will “turn the other cheek.” Jesus did first, and he did it for me.

“I gave my back to those who strike, and my cheeks to those who pull out the beard; I hid not my face from disgrace and spitting.” (Isaiah 50:6, ESV)

* * *

To the Kindness of God goes out with a paradox of a song. A light and cheerful melody carries these weighty words: “Why not change the world? Why not set it free? Why not let the change Begin with you and me?”

And so the album ends like it began: with an invitation. We’ve come full circle, and the one invited is now extending the invitation to those around him. A chord modulation, then a choir picks up where Michael left off—a Korean choir! Their voices are warm and so beautiful. “…Why not change the world, Why not make a start?”

* * *

To the Kindness of God is a joy to listen to; lyrically and musically, it’s insightful and refreshing. Just over 30 minutes, this album is short yet so rich in meaning. Truly, if not for the kindness of God, I do not know that I could bear to live. How I long to know it more!

“Who is a God like you, pardoning iniquity and passing over transgression for the remnant of his inheritance? He does not retain his anger forever, because he delights in steadfast love. He will again have compassion on us; he will tread our iniquities underfoot. You will cast all our sins into the depths of the sea. You will show faithfulness to Jacob and steadfast love to Abraham, as you have sworn to our fathers from the days of old.” (Micah 7:18-20, ESV)

* * *

Michael Card's new record, To the Kindness of God, can be found here: http://store.michaelcard.com/preorderhesedcd.aspx 

And here’s where you can find Michael’s accompanying book, Inexpressible: Hesed and the Mystery of God's Lovingkindness (which I have now begun reading!): http://store.michaelcard.com/preorderhesedbook.aspx

And Michael, thank you. Here’s hoping for more music…

#christiany #hesed #bible #music #folk #orchestral

[jazzworldquest-blog]

USA/INDIA: Dual Musicianship: Pianist and Hindustani Vocalist Anita Aysola Cross-Pollinates and Cultivates Personal Hybrids on Beyond Our Dreams

Dual Musicianship: Pianist and Hindustani Vocalist Anita Aysola Cross-Pollinates and Cultivates Personal Hybrids on Beyond Our Dreams

Years ago, the Indian-born, Michigan-raised, Atlanta-based singer-songwriter Anita Aysola was weighing a career as a concert pianist. One afternoon, however, she played a piece for her sister’s music professor. The professor listened carefully and asked one unforgettable question: “What if you brought your Indian classical training into this?” she wondered, pointing at the piano.

That moment stuck with Aysola for decades. Then, in 2008, she dived into a favorite raga and wrote “Long Way Home,” one of her first songs that bridged her two lifelong loves, Western classical and jazz, and Hindustani classical. Highly trained in both disciplines, Aysola uncovered how beautifully they could blossom together, once cross pollinated.

Aysola’s exploration and discovery are intimately American, a theme she unpacks musically, lyrically, and emotionally on her latest album, Beyond Our Dreams. Produced by a polymath actor and composer of Indian heritage, Samrat Chakrabarti, in collaboration with musical polyglots from the Brooklyn Raga Massive circle, Aysola’s songs fold radiant flights of Indian-style improvisation and rhythm into solid storytelling and piano chops. Think Anoushka Shankar meets Randy Newman.

“For a long time, I felt I had to be one or the other, Indian or American, in both my music and my life,” reflects Aysola. “Once I broke through that assumption, I realized the power of being both, of creating my own personal hybrid.” That hybrid speaks poignantly to our time of either/or, to divisive political and cultural rhetoric, with a tender but unforgiving tension, a heartfelt and incisive ambiguity.

Aysola never set out to be a professional musician, though she took both Indian and Western classical music seriously from an early age, studying piano and Hindustani classical vocals, singing in the school chorus and at Hindu religious gatherings, and playing in orchestra and band. She even took sitar lessons for a while. “I would play other music by ear,” recalls Aysola. “In Hindustani classical music, you learn how to play harmonium by ear, whatever you hear. So I’d listen to Tori Amos. She was the first person I heard growing up who was a female piano player who also sang and wrote at the same time.”

However, like many daughters of immigrant families, she resolved to find a more predictable professional career, and her formal education spans everything from engineering to international education policy. Yet music became increasingly important to the young artist, and she found herself longing to write songs, not simply perform other’s creations.

She began to study more Western styles involving improvisation, especially jazz and blues. While living in Chicago, she connected with master boogie-woogie blues pianist Erwin Helfer. There and while in grad school in Boston, she played everything from trip hop to jam-based rock to Indian fusion, before focusing more intensively on her own material. Then after a move to Houston, she met Gary Norian, who became her jazz piano mentor and frequent co-writer. Norian’s influence can be felt strongly on tracks like “Bet on Us,” with its rollicking, uplifting New Orleans meets gospel feel.

Her songwriting sprouted from all these seemingly disparate experiences, connected by her love of piano and Indian vocal approaches. “I felt this real need to bring all my passions into my music. To make it a home for both cultures,” Aysola recalls. “I’m one person in all these things, and my music could speak to all these things.” How this would work became a matter of experimentation. “I thought it would be the goofiest thing, sargam [solfege] improvisation over piano. I thought people would laugh,” she recalls. “People loved it. They wanted more.”

Inspiration can run in both directions for Aysola. For “Long Way Home,” she used a raga (raag desh) as a springboard for the song’s melody. “Beyond our Dreams,” written for her youngest child, “toggles between raag jog and jazz and the blues, especially in the piano solo” thanks to the role thirds play in the raga. For “America,” a love song for a country striving for universal ideals despite recent rancour, Aysola found the chords first, then began to play with Indian elements on top. “As I was finishing this song, I was jamming out with my new Hindustani vocal teacher,” says Aysola. “I realized the sargam felt really good with the chords I already had in mind.”

Aysola, with help from Chakrabarti, unites with musical kindred spirits on Beyond Our Dreams, artists who can move fluidly between Indian and Western styles. “Sameer [Gupta] plays the drum kit like a mridangam and the tabla like a drum kit. Everyone on the album,” including Arun Ramamurthy on violin and Jay Gandhi on bansuri flute, “brought that fusion sensibility. Samrat would suggest, ‘Hey try some alaaps [extended improvisions] here, that might work.’ Everyone got what I’m doing and could even encourage it, to help me find that sound.”

The lyrics in Aysola’s songs have a similar--and similarly complementary--dual nature, dwelling in two realities at once, be it as a person of two cultures, or of several callings, as a musician and a mother and wife. “Beyond Our Dreams” captures that tension and the hope and inspiration it brings, as Aysola sings to her newborn son and reminds herself that her journey continues, even though her life has been joyfully upended by her children’s arrival.

One thread runs through all her reflections, however: “You have to blend it and unify it. It’s hard to bring things together, but it’s essential.”

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Ron Kadish

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