We got a lot of good new music in May. Pokey LaFarge’s Rhumba Country is a fun listen; Willie Nelson’s The Border is characteristically great; and Finom’s Not God is probably my favorite album from the duo (formerly known as Ohmme). All of these should get some of your attention, and they’ll be getting plenty of airtime in our house, too.
The real standout release for me this month, though, is Night Reign from Arooj Aftab. There’s a lot of exploration going on here, as well as some collaboration with guest artists. All of which enhances –never compromising– Aftab’s singular (signature?) musical vocabulary. Arooj Aftab’s music got into my bones from the moment I heard the first notes of her Vulture Prince album, and has stayed there ever since. This record is no exception.
This month I’m calling attention to three distinctly different new releases, either one of which could have been my pick for the month. It’s tough to choose one over the others; splitting hairs, to coin a phrase.
If anyone is reading these little write-ups regularly, they will already know how smitten I’ve been with Arooj Aftab since discovering her last summer. This month she has released a new collaboration, Love in Exile, with pianist Vijay Iyer and bassist/mutli-instrumentalist Shahzad Ismaily. Recorded live in the studio and with little editing after the fact, it is a true document of the interplay between the three. The results are lush and lovely, bordering (but just short of) the line into ambient music. Perfect for Sunday morning or a rainy afternoon, for sure, but for everyday listening I’m still going to be spinning up her previous records, Bird Under Water and Vulture Prince,
Moving toward the decidedly not-ambient end of the spectrum, March brought us the new boygenius release, The Record. This is one of the most lyrically interesting albums in my recent memory, and the variety of songs here span the gamut from hymn-like a cappella tunes to hardscrabble power pop. And while I applaud that range, and there’s certainly not a bad song to be found here, ultimately there are two or three that seem far enough afield from the others that they make the record seem less cohesive than it might have been.
So it is that I arrive at this month’s pick, Common Nation Of Sorrow from Rachel Baiman. I briefly mentioned Baiman’s previous record, Cycles, back in June of 2021. At the time I remember thinking she sounded like Gillian Welch singing pop music. Well, this time the album steps further into country-flavored sounds and, in the case of one particular song, Bitter, squarely into the Gillian Welch vibe. Fiddles & banjos figure prominently throughout the record, on unflinchingly clear-eyed songs addressing subjects like oppression, depression, broken dreams, and other not-exactly-cheerful aspects of modern life. But they never become maudlin, and there’s no self-pity here. As I said in my few comments about Cycles, Baiman has a real gift for infusing hope and light into the despair and darkness she sings about.
First up, I want to reiterate my recommendation that everyone check out Arooj Aftab‘s whole body of work. I mentioned her in my July post after having discovered her at Newport. She didn’t release a record in 2022, but I love her work so much I had to say something. I’m pleased to have noticed that one of her songs — “Last Night,” from her 2021 album Vulture Prince — has been getting some play on at least one SiriusXM channel. Understandably, it’s the one song on the record with lyrics in (mostly) English, but I hope it opens the door to more exposure for her overall. She certainly does deserve it.
One of the year’s coolest surprises was getting two new releases from Sarah Shook. First we got the Nightroamer album with The Disarmers in February, and then just eight months later came Cruel Liars from new Shook incarnation, Mightmare. The more I listen, the bigger Sarah Shook fan I become. Cruel Liars gets a little too synth-y and dance beat-y for me in a few spots, but I still keep dialing it up right along with Nightroamer and the rest of the Disarmers records. I can’t get enough.
I loved Wilco‘s latest, Cruel Country, right off the bat when it was released in May (and a week early for Solid Sound ticket-holders). I mentioned in my comments at the time that it was Wilco’s clearest acceptance of the “alt-country” sound they’d been labeled with from their beginning, but repeated listens over the next months have somewhat changed my perspective. What I hear now is more of the genre-bending that has long been the band’s hallmark. Without a doubt, the country elements and influences are there, front and center. But that’s just the framework on which the record is built. There’s so much more here than just Wilco’s “country album.” Stellar.
Finally, The Beths. There’s nothing quite like falling in love with a new song, or a new band, and both happened for me with The Beths. Their September release, Expert In A Dying Field, didn’t get my overall pick that month because Tyler Childers hit us with his triple-album experiment. But man oh man, I’m absolutely 100% smitten with The Beths. I’m guessing they’re the band I’ve listened to most since I discovered them. As I said in September, I think their previous record, Jump Rope Gazers(and especially the title song), is my favorite, but that’s splitting hairs. Every song on every record has something to offer. I don’t know if I’ve heard a power pop / indie rock band that I’ve loved this much this quickly since my friend and former bandmate Frank introduced me to Fountains Of Wayne sometime in the…’90s? Like Arooj Aftab’s “Last Night,” I’m hearing the title song “Expert In A Dying Field” pretty regularly on SiriusXM lately, so I’m hoping The Beths are better known than I think they are. I wish I had lots of readers so I could better spread the word about them. If you haven’t heard them, go seek them out.
Happy New Year, and get some music in your ears, everybody!
I’m getting to this a little later than usual this month, but here we are:
Right off the bat, it must be said that the best thing that happened in popular music during the month of July has to be the surprise return of Joni Mitchell to the Newport Folk Festival. Those of us in attendance had already been treated to the unannounced appearance of Paul Simon on the previous night. Even so, we all expected Brandi Carlile to have an ace up her sleeve to close things out on Sunday, and there was rampant speculation that it might be Joni. But I don’t think any of us realized just how powerful the moment would be when she actually walked onto the stage. Read about it here, and seek out all the videos on YouTube.
Before leaving the subject of Newport, let me point you toward Arooj Aftab, who came to my attention when she was announced as part of this year’s Friday lineup. Aftab is a Pakistani vocalist, producer, and composer, and I am now completely in love with her work. Do yourself a favor and give her a listen.
Another thing that hit my radar in the month of July was the album Good Woman by Becca Mancari. The song “Summertime Mama” popped up on the radio (The Loft, on SiriusXM) on my way to work one morning, and as soon as I got to my desk I searched for the album. If I had been writing these little monthly reviews in October 2017, this would have been my pick of the month without a doubt. I love every note of every song on the record; can’t stop playing it.
So now onto this month’s new releases:
The Deslondes put out a great new album this month called Ways & Means. Apparently the band had been on hiatus for five years, and I would say if this is the result of taking such a refresher, it was well worth it. Not a bad song on it. For most of the month I was expecting this record to be my July pick, and it would have been perfectly deserving of the honors.
But then, along came Kingmaker, from Tami Neilson. As far as I know I’ve never heard of Neilson before, but I can assure you I will hear more of her from now on. What a voice! If I had to describe this particular record in only one word, that word would have to be “cinematic.” Listening to it for the first time, I was convinced (mistakenly) that Neilson was the lounge singer from the casino in the third season of Amazon Prime’s legal drama, Goliath. It also strikes me that almost any song on the record would be right at home in almost any David Lynch project. And there are several passages throughout where the string arrangements seem like they may have been lifted directly out of the Sean Connery era James Bond movies. All that said, I think it’s really a rockabilly record at heart. But whatever it is, everybody needs to hear it.
