Nearly every Friday I begin my day by looking at the new releases on Apple Music and the featured new albums listed on AllMusic.com. I then add albums to my Apple Music library that I’m even remotely curious about or interested in. Some of those additions are removed from my library after a couple of songs and some stick around for a few days or weeks before I decide that I’m not likely to listen to them again. Today, I’m going to write briefly about what I listen to and my initial reactions as I go through my day of exploring new music.
Marseille by Ahmad Jamal
Though I’m really looking forward to listening to the new Lindsey Buckingham/Christie McVie duets album as well as the new one by Ani Difranco, I prefer my mornings to be quiet and more instrumental in nature as I drink my coffee. I’m not familiar with Jamal’s music, but this was a perfect choice. Steady, measured, not overtly flashy even when technically challenging, Jamal’s playing may not set your heart aflame, but his music here is like a warm and inviting smile from a dear friend. An absolutely lovely way to start a morning.
Hudson by Jack DeJohnette, Larry Grenadier, John Medeski, John Scofield
My knowledge of jazz is haphazard and limited, so I’m only slightly familiar with Medeski and Scofield and not at all with DeJohnette or Grenadier. Following on from Jamal’s music, this feels a bit more aggressive, as the first track lays down a suggestive and at times funky bass line that gets wrapped up in spare drums, tightly wound guitar, and Medeski’s darkly fluid and, at times, alien sounding keyboard playing. This music demands more from you, insisting on your attention, but in a good way. The energy is more active than reflective, even on laid back tracks like their smooth and smiling version of “Lay Lady Lay”.
Chuck by Chuck Berry
Walking up to the laundromat this seemed an appropriate choice. Berry’s final album, his first since the 70s, is loose and jaunty rock and roll. It won’t set the world on fire…but that’s because Berry already set the world on fire with his music decades ago. There are moments of silliness (“all of my life there’s one thing I’ve been hoping to find/a woman like you honey whose software/matches this hard drive of mine”), poetry (“you go to my head with that smile that makes my temperature rise/it’s like a summer with a thousand Julys”), and reflection (“darlin’, your father’s growing older each year/strands of grey are showing bolder/come here and lay your head on my shoulder, my dear/the time is passing fast away”). The guitar playing is, of course, brilliant throughout, and the album is a fitting end to the career and life of one of the most influential and important musicians in the 20th century and whose work still forms the basis of much contemporary rock and pop music.
Lindsey Buckingham & Christine McVie by Lindsey Buckingham & Christine McVie
I love McVie’s voice and Buckingham’s guitar playing, but this album feels very “adult contemporary rock” to me. There’s nothing inherently bad or wrong with it, and some of the songs are engaging—”Too Far Gone” and “Carnival Begin” in particular—it just feels…inconsequential. As much as I like and respect the musicians involved, it’s not something I’ll keep in my library or listen to much in the future.
American Gods Soundtrack by Brian Reitzell
Dark, reverby, and brooding incidental music with occasional breaks for dark and brooding Americana brought to you by velvet-and-whiskey voice of Mark Lanegan. Plus two new songs featuring spooky Blondie (“Tehran 1979”) and fierce Shirley Manson (“Queen of the Bored”). Reitzell’s score is evocative of an Americana with hints of the carnival and world-music influences, but the songs with Langegan, Blondie, and Manson are the real standout tracks.
Binary by Ani DiFranco
I’m going to have to live with this one for a while, I think. The opening funky, hip-hop influenced track is a surprise and one that actually made me hear the lineage of funk in her guitar style in ways that I hadn’t really considered before. My initial thoughts are that everything feels somewhat over-produced, but I think that’s partially a matter of my own relationship to her music, since I mostly listen to her early albums like her self-titled album from 1989, Imperfectly (1992), Dilate (1996), and Little Plastic Castle (1998).
There’s a whole lot going on here, which is not unusual for DiFranco these days. All of her recent albums have revealed a wide-ranging musical eclecticism that makes for rich and heady fare. If Binary doesn’t quite capture my heart like her earlier work, it certainly deserves time and repeated listens in order to uncover some of its riches.
Truth is a Beautiful Thing by London Grammar
The truth is that as I get older I find it more and more difficult to connect strongly with music by young rock or pop artists, even those whose artistry I completely respect. But Hannah Reid’s singing reaches right past my jaded sensibility and middle-aged weariness and wraps itself around my amygdala, filling me with a sense of longing and melancholy. Yes, there’s a rather typical dream-pop sensibility to the musical structures and production, and the album absolutely wears its heart on its sleeve in some seemingly unsophisticated ways. It makes no difference: Reid’s voice pulls it all together in gorgeous warmth that has completely captured me.