Anyone who reads Yakety Yak knows I’m obsessed with music. All kinds of music. Although I understand how I might give off an impression of only liking stuff that was recorded when dinosaurs walked the earth (“I found a 78 by Mildred Bailey & Her Alley Cats from 1932 – I just have to tell you about it!” I know…), I do actually spend a lot of time listening to new music.
As I often get asked “what I’m listening to” I thought I’d start an occasional post where I list new releases (which will include reissues when the music is ‘new’ to me) that have chewed my ears. There’s so much music being made available, but how do you become aware of it? We’re all aware when Beyonce, Taylor Swift or the Stones drop a new album – even if we don’t want to hear it – but the vast ocean of music beyond those gilded elite entertainers? Not so easy.
The UK music press was once notorious for hyperbole (alongside poisonous takedowns) so rarely reliable – US publications tended to employ more measured reviewers – yet these days, with the collapse of print media, there’s few places to go for guidance as to what’s out there and worth listening to. Only The FT of the daily newspapers runs regular in-depth album reviews while Jazzwise, Songlines, Rock & Reel, Blues In Britain, The Wire and Blues & Rhythm are amongst the last of the UK’s specialist music press worth checking (and all struggle to survive with declining subscriptions/advertising). Which ensures a lot of fine (or oddly engaging) music gets overlooked (music review websites like Pitchfork and The Quietus have always struck me as indie rock zealots, while free mags like Crack exist as little more than promo for hip rappers/DJs alongside marketing campaigns).
The latest issue of Blues & Rhythm has an in-depth interview with the magnificent Irma Thomas - worth the cover price alone!
When I was growing up - when dinosaurs roamed the earth - getting to hear new music was an expensive and risky task: too many times I’d read a rave review of an album and, feeling compelled to hear it (“groundbreaking”, “seminal” – yes, I’ve learnt to avoid anything garlanded with those kind of adjectives), fork out my paper round money (or building site, once in London) and then, back home and listening, feel royally ripped off.
Paradoxically, with streaming services and Youtube, its extremely easy (and inexpensive) to sample new music – which also means there can be a glut of releases you aim to listen to (but get exhausted after chomping your way through a musical smorgasbord). And where do you start? The gatekeepers have lost their position as influencers but, with that loss, we’ve discarded the guidance of those with (sometimes) knowledge who could (on occasion) offer precise, illuminating insights. Good writing on the arts is, to my mind, something worth treasuring. I know, you’re thinking “he says that only ‘cos he’s a hack!” Yes… but its more than that. In this world of ideas that we all share, illuminating writing adds understanding and encourages engagement. The opposite of scrolling through tweets/headlines, which often aim for misinformation.
The best of times, the worst of times? Something like that.
Anyway, seeing I get sent a lot of links to new releases I do spend time, almost every day, listening and seeing if I can discover sonic gems. Here’s a selection I’ve chosen to share – do let me know if any of them engage you (or repel: you can state how thankful you are that it didn’t involve purchasing a £15 CD to hear “absolute pants”).
Akwaeke – Stop Dying, You Were Very Expensive
Akwaeke Emezi is a celebrated Nigerian novelist (US based) whose books (especially The Death Of Vivek Oji- soon to be a Netflix series) have won awards and seen her upset various apple carts now they identify as non-binary. Anyway, Akaweke has released an EP (at 7 tunes it strikes me as long enough to be an album but I’m not gonna argue with the author) and its not just the title that demands attention – the word play is sharp (as you’d expect) and the elemental beats keep things moving along at a rapid pulse. Akwaeke’s delivery is intense, almost unhinged - is this avant afrobeat? I dunno. I do know that Stop Dying’s fresh.
Errol Linton – Break The Seal
Errol Linton’s new album also makes for a wonderful summer soundtrack, so warm and dynamic is the music. Linton, as regular readers will know, leads a Brixton based blues band who incorporate elements of Jamaican music (ska, reggae, dub) into their sound, along with hints of jazz, the quintet being very tasty players. Break The Seal is easily Linton’s best album yet – his songwriting continues to develop, the band play with great unity, Errol’s voice is warm and expressive, there’s a real confidence here. Linton’s original songs are outstanding: the title track involves love and its challenges, there’s a deep blues about the mean streets – Man Shot Down – and the cost they charge. While Country Girl sparkles, a loving tribute to Errol’s mother (and every other young woman who has left their rural home for urban living), that possesses a snapping rhythmic pulse. Country Girl is my song of the summer – if it won wide radio play I’m sure a huge hit would ensure - and Break The Seal is a gem of an album, fresh blues and just delicious.
Jake Xeres Fussell – When I’m Called
Fussell is a 43 year old, American folk singer who still goes out as a “song catcher” (the name given to those folklorists, a century or so ago, who went out looking for songs then being sung in local communities). Fussell takes these songs – or bits of songs, sometimes he just has a few lines to work with – and shapes them into songs he will sing. When I’m Called is his fifth album, of which he says of the songs “some of them traditional [and] some not so tradition”. He keeps things simple, largely voice and guitar, then letting producer James Elkington add ambient piano, strings and other instrumentation to make the music more epic. This is an often wistful, politely offbeat, quietly charming album, one that reminds me of what Bob Dylan did as a young man (without sounding like a Dylan copyist). The perfect accompaniment for dreamy summer days.
Beyza Yazgan – Human Cocoon
Beyza Yazgan is an artist I came across via reading – yes! – a review of Human Cocoon, her sophomore album that dropped in July. From the little I’ve learnt on her she is Turkish, a classically trained pianist, lives in the US (at least part of the year) and composes instrumental piano music that could bear comparison with Keith Jarrett’s quieter moments or Chopin’s Nocturnes. Yazgan is unaccompanied here, her piano almost ambient in the sense that each note hovers, is given space to breathe. On a hot day when I’m weary I have listened to Human Cocoon and felt the temperature drop and a sense of melancholy peace take hold.
Jihye Lee Orchestra – Infinite Connections
Korea is about as chic as a nation can be right now – food, TV, movies, K-pop, massive anti-depressant addiction – and, while I have caught Korean jazz musicians at London’s annual K-Music festival (every October, various venues, several musical genres but no K-pop), Jihye Lee is a new name to me. Seemingly she started out singing in Korean indie bands but, studying at Berklee School of Music, developed a passion for jazz. Unlike most jazz musicians, she’s not a celebrated instrumentalist, instead she writes impressionist orchestrations for an 18-piece band. The sound is fat and phat – Lee has studied the likes of Duke Ellington and Charlie Mingus carefully, building patterns of atmospheric sounds before instrumentalists solo. Her music is both lush and eerie – You Are My Universe could be employed effectively in the next series of Squid Games.
Willie Nelson – The Border
Willie Nelson recently turned 91 and has had to cancel several US concerts due to “health concerns”. Oh no… Willie’s a true American master and likely the most zen superstar the world’s known, so gracious and compassionate is his music and persona, one of those rare artists who has continued to mature, never ended up behaving like a parody of their younger self. The Border is Nelson’s 2024 album and I hope its not his last but, if it is, then he’s going out on a high point – the title track is a meditation on working the Texas-Mexico border as told by a border guard. Its a Rodney Crowell composition and Willie handles it with requisite gruff grace. The rest of the album is not quite so dramatic but beautiful in execution, never over-egged, such songs as Many A Long And Lonesome Highway and Hank’s Guitar being reflections on a life well lived. When Willie sings “what we know of love and truth” he’s describing his own artistry, and one we should all aspire to.
Lijadu Sisters – Horizon Unlimited
You don’t know of the Lijadu Sisters?!? Admittedly, neither did I until I recently received a press release and streaming link. Now that I’ve listened to them I wonder why I didn’t previously know of them as the Nigerian sisters began making music in the 1960s and released five acclaimed albums, none more so than Horizon Unlimited in 1979. Identical twin sisters Yeye Taiwo Lijadu and the late Kehinde Lijadu wrote songs and sang together from childhood, developing wide popularity in post-independence Nigeria, their music mixing hi-life, ju-ju and afrobeat with elements of jazz and R&B + other popular western musical genres. They certainly commanded a fine band as the playing here is supple. This, their most celebrated album, is reissued by Numero Group, the Chicago label who are leaders in reissuing lost treasure. Superb remastering means Horizon Unlimited likely sounds even better today than when first issued.
Swamp Dogg – Blackgrass: From West Virginia To 125th St
Jerry “Swamp Dogg” Williams is an American maverick, a brilliant songwriter who has penned songs for and produced many artists – largely black female US singers (Doris Duke, Dee Dee Warwick, Patti LaBelle, Irma Thomas etc) – while releasing his own resolutely offbeat solo albums (his 1971 debut Total Destruction Of Your Mind is Southern soul with acid/Zappa touches). Now, aged 81, he has cut a country album in Nashville – it’d be fun to think this was a rejoinder to Beyonce’s faux country Cowboy Carter but, as the music industry rarely moves that quickly (and Blackgrass demonstrates considerable thought having gone into it) I doubt this is the case. Anyway, Swamp Dogg won’t match Beyonce’s sales but his albums a lot more fun and a lot more listenable than her overblown marketing exercise. Being raised in the South means Williams grew up with country music on the radio and his best songs have previously been recorded both by country and R&B artists – which demonstrates how well written they are. Here he reinterprets two of his well known R&B tunes as country, the Doris Duke hit To The Other Woman and Count The Days (Jenny Lewis is great here). The snappy opening track Mess Under That Dress is the Dogg being funny and lusty with turbo-charged banjo and fiddle chasing things along. But its the more serious numbers like Songs To Sing that hold the attention and remind how the original D-O-G-G is never to be written off.
Staples Jr Singers – Searching
The arrival of Mississippi gospel family Staples Jr Singers in 2022 was a revelation – as teenagers in the 1970s they’d self-released an album When Do We Get Paid that they sold at church meets. It was never sent for review or distributed to shops, it was – as is often the case with US gospel outfits – made both to document the music being made and to help raise gas and motel money (gospel singers perform across a network of churches). Decades later a crate digger found a copy of When Do We Get Paid and was so impressed he set off on a mission to track down the singers. This done, Luaka Bop reissued the album and the enthusiastic response saw brothers Edward and RC and sister Annie (and their family band – Annie and her daughters were regularly singing in church) playing across the US and Europe. Now they’ve made a new album. Often when this happens with lost soul singers, its no match for the music that gained them attention. Searching bucks that rule, it being potent soul gospel with a handful of session players adding to the album’s ambience (but not trying to make the family sound “contemporary”). Oh, if you’re wondering if the family are related to Mavis and co’ the answer is no – their surname is Brown. But the Staple Singers were their heroes as teenagers so they named themselves in honour of such. These days, well, I think Mavis will be honoured.
Charles Lloyd – The Sky Will Still Be There Tomorrow
I know, this column is beginning to seem a celebration of octo and nonagenarian artists – Willie’s 91, Swamp’s 81 and Charles Lloyd’s 86. Not so much ‘down with the kids’ as ‘down with the pensioners’… I could try and convince you that I’m digging Ice Spice’s Y2K! – yes, I did have a listen – and while anyone who can write a rap titled Think U the Shit (Fart) has merit, I’m not gonna lie and claim it lit up my summer. On the other hand, Charles Lloyd has long been one of my favourite musicians and The Sky Will Still Be There Tomorrow is a masterpiece (yes, I know, I’m supposed to avoid such hyperbole but Lloyd is one of those artists whose oeuvre I’m very familiar with and this album is one of his finest). Which means its very fine indeed. Lloyd is a saxophonist and flautist and with a superb ensemble – Jason Moran (piano), Larry Grenadier (double bass), Brian Blade (drums, percussion) – he’s made some of the best music of his long, creative life. The sixteen pieces here spread across two albums and work as a complete listening experience, so strong are the compositions and the ensemble playing. With our world being so turbulent and destructive, suffering and hostility so evident, I listen to The Sky Will Still Be There Tomorrow and feel a sense of peace, beauty and grace. Hope? I’m unsure I’d go that far…
OK, I hope something from my Top Ten lights up your summer. If it does then write and describe your listening joy! And if nothing does then, well, maybe next time?
I listened to all the tracks with interest . Loved Willie Nelson track but not the rest of the album.