Björk's fifth post-Sugarcubes solo studio album is constructed almost entirely from vocals, including multitracked voices (courtesy Björk herself, Mike Patton, and singer/songwriter Robert Wyatt), plenty of beatboxing (from Rahzel and Dokaka), and various other mouth-sounds. It's an outrageous conceit from Iceland's most notorious experimental export, and a huge risk for her career after the relatively conventional, diehard-pleasing Vespertine.

Medulla

The Artist takes her point of view for granted, to the extent that she annoys or confounds anyone caught up in chasing the "truth." Or, she fascinates us in the same way we're drawn to religious and other mystical figures. Yet, despite the cultural roles of artists as spiritual alchemists and conduits to where all of our trials and errors are given spectacular treatments and endearing portraits, we balk when they appear to have indulged themselves. Why is this? I understand that indulgence is supposed to be a sin, a crime against humanity and nature, but artists are among the very few whose responsibility for discovery supercedes an obligation to personal restraint. After all, don't they usually pay for this by existing in a perpetually tortured state? Most artists toil in obscurity, driven by nothing more than a vague compulsion to "create," so self-indulgence is the least I can grant them in exchange for a few bits of divinity.
And then there's Björk. She seems pretty indulgent, and despite the enigmatic, moderately antisocial persona, I've never quite understood why I called her an artist. As artistic qualifiers go, eccentricity is beyond superficial; it's downright misleading in most cases, and no matter the number of interesting musical concepts with which she aligns herself, I always figured "real" artists had to deliver a few concrete answers now and then. Answers, if not about my world, then about Björk's. I watched her sing "Oceania" (the first single from Medulla, though don’t try buying it, it's not for sale-- the artist strikes again!) at the Olympics, and it occurred to me that beyond the usual promotional gears at work, somebody must really feel she's important. They could have had anyone-- say, a reassuring Celine Dion or a physically ideal Beyonce-- but they chose a prickly, decidedly uncomfortable Icelandic woman. On aesthetic grounds, I can't argue with their choice, but I continue to wonder about Björk's significance.
Medulla suggests that if she is artistically important-- and I should preface all of this by stating I don't normally evaluate music or musicians based on my perception of their "importance"; Björk simply makes it difficult to do otherwise-- it's as a small scale model of the same individualist, mundane obsessions that dominate popular culture. Just as television networks bank on our interest in reality, Björk's emotional impact seems dependent on one's fascination with her. Medulla (her fifth album, and first since 2001's imperfect, introspective Vespertine) presents no set of ideas more compelling than those concerning its creator, her whims and impressions. That it's her a cappella record is just an interesting bonus, as it's no more or less "her" than any of her records.
Ironically, the sound of Björk "getting to the essence" of herself is more dependent on outside musicians than usual. In addition to producing collaborators Mark Bell, Matmos and Mark "Spike" Stent, Björk enlists the vocal talents of The Roots' Rahzel, Japanese beat-boxing wonder Dokaka, American freak-patron Mike Patton and English progressive pop icon Robert Wyatt, among others. Medulla is the result of concentrated efforts on behalf of the best and brightest Björk could round up, and in the spirit of her symbolic godfather Miles Davis, betrays her knack for using talent to her best advantage. Use of the human voice on this album will get the headlines, but the bulk of the story is rote Björk.
That said, Medulla is her most musically adventurous record since Post. "Where Is the Line?", featuring Patton's growl, an eerie choral arrangement and ingenious, jackhammer rhythm track powered by Rahzel and edited by Bell. Björk's melody doesn't seem particularly interesting until you try to follow along amidst the cut-up beats and falling, wailing choral voices. The machine-gun-precise percussive hits, accentuated by Patton's bullfrog squelch, hit harder than anything she's done since "Army of Me". "Pleasure Is All Mine" begins as seductive, wordless call and panting, before melting into lush, gorgeously arranged harmonies and Björk's dream-noir melody. She uses Patton's lower register to flesh out the arrangement, and her own singing is as powerfully resonant as anything I've heard from her. Throughout the album, Björk's commitment to bringing out the strength of her melodies, despite considerable opportunity to get lost in the wall of sound, is admirable and the mark of someone who understands the importance of serving her songs.
"Oceania" has been marketed as the "radio single," though with its bizarre, swooping soprano lines and cyclical chord progression outlined by a chorus of Wyatt vocal samples, is hardly the most obvious choice to sell Medulla. I'd have chosen the considerably more upbeat "Who Is It", which reminds me of "Alarm Call" from Homogenic in the way it applies Björk's idiosyncratic performances to a traditionally pleasant sounding template-- though "Who Is It" features a much more interesting chord progression during the verses, and an altogether incredible rhythm track, again provided by Rahzel. The only other song on the record that might conceivably work on the radio (sans remix) is the house-y closer "Triumph of a Heart", featuring Dokaka's mouth percussion.
The more atmospheric songs on Medulla are arguably its most evocative and powerful. "Vokuro" (or "Vigil") is one of two songs sung in Björk's native Icelandic, and is in fact an adaptation of a piano piece by Jorunn Vidar. Björk sings its plaintive strains accompanied by a solemn choir, and brings out its inherently hymn-like qualities. Wyatt overwhelms "Submarine" with his ghostly, striking vocals, thickly layered and overdubbed. Björk doesn't even enter with the melody for almost a minute-and-a-half, by which time Wyatt has already made his redoubtable mark. Not to be outdone, Björk's collage of sighs, whispers, cries and otherwise indescribable sounds on "Ancestors" might scare fans accustomed to a steady diet of actual songs. It reminds me of the work of American experimental vocalist and composer Meredith Monk (Björk has performed her "Gotham Lullaby" in concert several times), though some folks may just hear it as the "unlistenable" song on Medulla.
Medulla is an interesting record. It continues Björk's run of releases that sound nothing like their predecessors, yet is, as ever, particular to her. Furthermore, she's found a way to bathe her immediately distinctive melodies and vocal nuances in a solutions that cause me to reevaluate her voice and her craft. I shouldn't be surprised: She's made a career of making me interested in her world of sound. And that she doesn't appear to be short on ideas 25 years into her professional career should end all speculation.


On their latest EP, the misanthropic British duo Sleaford Mods allow some air into their sound and frontman Jason Williamson turns some of his acrid tirades towards himself.

T.C.R. EP

Like Britain's answer to the late Wesley Willis, Sleaford Mods essentially adhere to one single-minded aesthetic and wring it for every last drop. In fact, frontman Jason Williamson's rants, torrential profanity, and insistent use of song titles as choruses all echo Willis. Ditto for Andrew Fearn's skeletal loops, which recall Willis' trademark use of crude Casiotone presets as background music.
However, Willis's mental illness tinged his music with uncomfortable hints of exploitation, where you can laugh at the Mods guilt-free: When they perform live, Fearn resigns himself to the role of stageprop, affecting stony nonchalance as he bops awkwardly, beer in hand, barely touching his laptop, almost as if to communicate that his presence isn't necessary. That couldn't be further from the truth, evinced perhaps more than ever on the new five-song EP T.C.R..
Since Fearn joined in time to construct the backing tracks for Sleaford Mods' fifth album, 2012's Wank, he's structured the songs so that each has but one part. Fearn throws in extra touches here and there to accent certain lyrics and create buildup, but the songs don't actually change. Williamson, meanwhile, has basically relied on one phrasing method all along: rapid-fire tirades depicting the most drearily mundane aspects of English life. The combined effect can give the impression that Sleaford Mods are little more than boneheaded street-corner provocateurs relying on shock, vulgarity, and name-calling.
Sleaford Mods actually stretch a bit for the first four of the five songs on T.C.R. After eight full-lengths and a handful of EPs, they are finally allowing their music to breathe somewhat. Not that Fearn has radically altered his formula, but the surprisingly upbeat synth figure and (relative) fullness of the arrangement on opening track “TCR” suggest that they are at least searching for new ways to color their songs. Throughout the EP, in fact, Fearn wears his new wave and post-punk influences on his sleeve, echoing the likes of Devo, the Fall, and others while managing to sound startlingly contemporary. Williamson once again comes to the table with a parade of people he deems worthy of hurling obscenities at. "Go and listen to some fuckin' garage punk, you pointy little tit!" he shouts at some poor soul on title track “TCR.” We've heard this before from Williamson, but he's still adept at balancing bite with humor and genuine observation.
Most shockingly, though, Williamson allows naked self-doubt to creep into the picture right off the bat, dedicating the very first verse to the twin pressures of parenthood and aging. His depiction of a father who feels harried at home and wants to go out, only to feel out of place once he gets there, verges on touching. “The wails of ya offspring behind ya cracking window,” he says, his spoken word delivery significantly slowed down, more weary than agitated. “It's hard, innit? When you plan to do something but at that moment you realize it's not quite right, not really something you should be doing tonight.” (The title “T.C.R.” is a reference to Total Control Racing, a failed brand of 1970s toy-car track sets, a reference Williamson makes as a metaphor for spinning one's wheels.)
As usual, Williamson contorts rapping and Beat poetry just enough to fit into neither category. And, like before, hearing him take-in huge gulps of air between verses in a dizzying flow of disconnected images and references is thrilling whether you understand the social context for them or not. And the gag still hasn't worn thin when Williamson double-tracks incredulous lines like “You're taking the fuckin' piss out of me, man?” In spots, Williamson even nods to his past life as a quote-unquote singer. But after directors Paul Sng and Nathan Hannawin positioned Sleaford Mods as the most vital voice of Brexit-bound England in their 2015 film Invisible Britain, T.C.R.'s lack of discernible commentary on the street-level impact of the Brexit vote is puzzling (especially now that Morrissey has weighed in).
Nevertheless, Williamson's shift towards looking at his own life rescues him from becoming the type of self-righteous caricature he might himself have railed on. When you slag on everything and view the world with nothing but disdain, it's inevitable that you're going to back yourself into a corner. As a result, it’s a welcome change even when Williamson resorts to the well-trodden path of bitching about touring life on “Dad's Corner.” And, though hearing him attack other people is still delicious fun—especially when he's got figures like Oasis in his crosshairs—it was only a matter of time before someone came along and pointed the finger back at him. On T.C.R., Williamson beats everyone to the punch.
A teaser of sorts for a full-length the band has planned for next year, T.C.R. doesn't contain anything as infectiously catchy—or even irreverent—as “Jobseeker,” “Mr. Jolly Fucker,” or “14 Day Court.” Still, the gurgling dark funk of “Dad's Corner,” the speedy dub groove of “Britain Thirst,” and other subtle signs of progress bode well for the future. And while T.C.R. raises questions about the energy level Fearn and Williamson will be able to sustain over a full-length album with a more tentative attack, even more than previous work it makes their artfulness hard to overlook.

CORRECTION: An earlier version of this review misidentified Jason Williamson  as James Williamson in one instance.


In Colour, Jamie xx’s full-length solo debut, is the dazzling culmination of his last six years. On it, he gathers up elements of everything he’s done—moody ballads, floor-filling bangers, expansive and off-kilter collaborations with vocalists—and packs them tightly in a glittering ball that reflects fragments of feeling back at us.

In Colour

The sampler is a memory machine. This is true in both the literal sense—memory is one of the device’s key specs, measuring how much sonic information it can hold in its “mind” at once—but also as a metaphor. When you capture and play back a sound, transposing it to a new context, you are “playing” the memories that have attached themselves to the original piece of music as much as you are playing a particular piece of sound. The producer Jamie Smith, better known to the world as Jamie xx, is a sampling artist and a memory artist. He does things with the music he’s absorbed and with the associations that are embedded within it. So when we listen to his music, we aren’t just listening to music played by people in a room. We’re listening to his listening and hearing his hearing; he senses memories in certain sounds—some of which he was there to experience the first time, some of which have been handed down to him—and transforms them into something new and personal.
In Colour, Jamie xx’s full-length solo debut, has been a rumor for a few years now. In 2011, he followed his remix collaboration with Gil Scott-Heron, We’re New Here, with his debut single, “Far Nearer.” It was strikingly different from his work with the xx and, hearing it, it was possible to triangulate and imagine the broader and more varied sensibility that served as an umbrella over both. The emergence of Jamie xx as a producer’s voice is part of what made the xx’s follow-up, Coexist, disappointing. It’s a decent record, but once we had a better sense of Jamie xx’s range, it was hard to square that knowledge with the narrow aesthetic parameters of his main band, lovely as their music could be. All along, this one was coming together. One of the great things about him is he works slow and gets everything just so, treating each project as the one chance to get it right. In Colour gets there: It’s the dazzling culmination of Jamie xx’s last six years of work, gathering up elements of everything he’s done—moody ballads, floor-filling bangers, expansive and off-kilter collaborations with vocalists—and packing them tightly into a glittering ball that reflects spinning fragments of feeling back at us.
A key idea embedded in the notion of rave is it had something for everyone. Though rave was at one point very fashionable, it was also, early on and at its best, egalitarian. The platonic ideal of the dancefloor, which is obviously never quite fulfilled, is that the dancers meet as equals. Everyone is on their own journey and there is no judgement, and the right drugs at the right time have helped to bring this starry-eyed vision to life. Jamie xx’s music captures some of this spirit by being terribly hip and of-the-moment but also deeply emotional. It’s “cool” music designed to make you feel, and the mechanism is vulnerability.
There are passages on In Colour where the music is huge and anthemic while being simultaneously open and intimate. Opening track “Gosh” is the table-setter. It builds, one loop upon the next, each new brick of groove slotting into place, until it becomes a sky-scraping edifice whose call-to-motion is impossible to resist. And then, just as the last tightly-bound fixture is put into place, there comes a squelchy, slightly awkward synthesizer solo that sounds like it was knocked off in one hurried take by someone who approaches the instrument with the excitement of a newcomer. When the keyboard falls in, which is still exciting and surprising after many dozens of plays, it’s as if our tower of sound is suddenly crowned by a massive cluster of balloons that lifts it into the sky, Up style.
The view from this vantage point never flags. “Sleep Sound” takes a sample of the Four Freshmen’s “It’s a Blue World” and gently cuts it into pieces, the voice tumbling through time in a manner not unlike what the Field’s Axel Willner did to the Flamingos’ “I Only Have Eyes for You,” but the whole thing is filtered and submerged, a dream of water that’s soothing even as it hints of drowning. “I Know There’s Gonna Be (Good Times)” features rapper Young Thug and dancehall vocalist Popcaan and while the combination of the three was iffy on paper, they wind up clicking. Thug is bursting with joy as he delivers profane couplets in his sing-song cadence, and Popcaan grounds the music and forms a bridge to the ragga of Jamie xx’s jungle heroes. As the album moves on, Jamie xx moves through styles and textures, everything unified by his highly attuned ear.
Three tunes find Jamie xx collaborating with his bandmates, and, like “Good Times,” they show how well he straddles the line between “song” and “track.” “Stranger in a Room,” featuring Oliver Sim, could be a (very good) xx song and is the only thing here that seems like it could have come from the band. Romy’s melody on “SeeSaw” is all hushed confession mixed with longing, but instead of spare guitar and drums, Jamie xx surrounds it with breakbeats and a pulsing synth that suggests the cosmos, merging the closest possible feelings with the vastness of the infinite. “Loud Places,” making brilliant use of a sample of jazz drummer Idris Muhammad’s “Could Heaven Ever Be Like This,” is a song of contrast in the manner of “SeeSaw.” But the sample on “Loud Places” is warmer and more inclusive, and it’s followed by a brilliantly simple lyric about club-going loneliness and desire that might make Morrissey jealous: “I go to loud places/To search for someone/To be quiet with.”
That clash of feeling, of being overwhelmed by everything at once while also wanting to zoom in on and live inside the tiniest detail, is the animating force of In Colour. Late in the album, the rush comes to a head on “The Rest Is Noise,” a track that functions as the flipside to “Gosh,” the party turned inside out, as shouting abandon gives way to a huge wash of yearning. There’s even a small nod to “Gosh”’s synth break as the album seems to return from where it started. It makes me think of a comment from Jamie xx regarding one of the record’s most modest tracks, “Obvs,” which is is driven by a steel drum lead. Jamie xx is fascinated by the instrument and has returned to it regularly, describing its appeal like this: “You can make it sound quite melancholy… but at the same time, it reminds me of paradise.” It’s not a bad description of how In Colour works. It’s the album as raucous party where the thrill of the moment never quite obliterates the wistful sadness that comes from knowing it will all end too soon.


Ash & Ice is The Kills’ first album in five years and they encompass everything they’ve done before, as well as bringing in boombox beats with Brazilian and Afro-pop influences.

Ash & Ice

When the Kills first emerged, Alison Mosshart and Jamie Hince had a fire-and-water dynamic. Pitting her howls against his dead-cool guitar damage, the duo were like elemental forces locked in a symbiotic relationship of mutually assured destruction. Now, 15 years and five albums later, they’ve become Ash & Ice—refined byproducts of their original state, sapped of their frisson. When water hits fire, there’s sizzle and struggle and wreckage. When ash hits ice… well, you just wind up with a somewhat dirty piece of ice. And so it goes with this monolithic record, whose surface soot can’t disguise the fact it’s a little too chilled for its own good.
Since their delightfully deviant debut Keep on Your Mean Side, The Kills have managed to squeeze a lot of juice from their bare-bones blues roots. Sophomore album No Wow delivered a pop punch, Midnight Boom saw them go electro, Blood Pressures dabbled in dub and pastoral balladry. Ash & Ice is The Kills’ first album in five years—a delay partly attributed to chronic tendon problems Hince experienced after breaking a finger. And, as if making up for lost time, they’ve returned with an ambitious record that encompasses everything they’ve done before and further embellishes their boombox beats with Brazilian and Afro-pop influences. Clocking in at 50 minutes, it is by far the longest Kills album to date. But while Ash & Ice has the girth of a big statement record, it lacks the focus and purposeful sequencing of one.
The issue with Ash & Ice isn’t that The Kills are slowing down or going soft—the quietest tracks here actually resonate the most soundly. “Hum for Your Buzz” is a stripped-down gospelized serenade complete with organ drones and a steeple-shaking lead vocal from Mosshart—that’s destined to become a crowd-pleasing encore standard in the band’s setlist. By contrast, “That Love” is an affectingly unvarnished piano confessional that evokes the raw simplicity and bald lyricism of Plastic Ono Band-era John Lennon, while “Echo Home” is a gorgeously sullen duet whose slow-percolating dream-pop atmospherics and tick-tock beat mirror the doomed, dissolving romance playing out in the lyrics. For a band that once carefully cultivated its mystique through mugshot-style photos, mysterious aliases and sunglassed aloofness, The Kills have become remarkably adept at telegraphing intimacy and vulnerability. And with Hince's finger injury forcing him to rethink his slash-and-scrape guitar technique, his playing on these downcast songs displays a heretofore-untapped delicacy and sensitivity.
However, Ash & Ice is an album of quality comedown tracks surrounded by run-of-the-mill rockers that plateau instead of peak. It’s curious, since that the album actually boasts some of the band’s most candid and crushing lyrics to date—from the leash-fastening commitment pledge of “Heart of a Dog” (“I want strings attached/unnatural as that feels/I’m loyal!”) to the tawdry teases on “Siberian Nights” (“I could make you cum in threes/I’m halfway to my knees”) that are soon revealed to be the desperate entreaties of someone scared of enduring another night alone. (And according to Hince, that someone could very well be Vladimir Putin.) But the music rarely matches the feverish energy of those words, with the opening mid-tempo march of “Doing It to Death” setting a sluggish pace for the record that’s only compounded by the serviceable Stonesy struts (“Bitter Fruit,” “Black Tar”), drum-machined dirges (“Days of Why and How”), and deconstructed, broken-beat pop (“Let It Drop”). And the precious few shots of momentum—like the gritty glam of “Impossible Tracks” and the Primal Scream-like motorik throb of “Whirling Eye”—slam on the brakes just as they’re about achieve lift-off, or rein in Hince’s ray-gunned guitar blasts right when he’s on the verge of entering berserker mode (“Hard Habit to Break”).
The Kills enjoy a rarefied status in 2016. As one of the few active acts from the early-'00s garage-rock explosion, they’ve transcended their early standing as an MTV2-friendly version of Royal Trux to become icons in their own right for a new generation of transgressive rockers. But Ash & Ice betrays the challenge of sustaining fresh inspiration deep into your second decade. The blues may have brought Mosshart and Hince together, but Ash & Ice too readily embodies one of the genre’s favored tropes—the struggle to keep on keepin’ on.


The Downtown NYC fixture's first album in a decade is an exquisite state-of-the-union dispatch from a darkly comic conscience.

Homeland

Laurie Anderson's 40-year career bucks classification, incorporating performance art, music, spoken word, video, and more. To mention John Zorn, Lou Reed, and Philip Glass only glosses her collaborations with the American avant-garde. She's also crossed over in interesting and unexpected ways, whether voicing a singing tot in The Rugrats Movie*,* or hitting #2 on the 1981 UK Singles Chart with "O Superman (For Massenet)", a doomsday anthem combining the vocoder with an aria from Le Cid. That angelic, robotic voice is often reprised on Homeland, her first new album in a decade, which fans will welcome as an heir to her definitive performance piece, United States. It's also a perfect starting point; an exquisite state-of-the-union dispatch as only Anderson, America's darkly comic conscience, can provide.
A songful yet distressed Neo-Romantic mode anchors forays into techno, jazz, drone, and minimal electronics. Top-notch guests like Zorn, Antony, and Kieran Hebden add their unique perspectives to Anderson's probing keyboards and violins. The music is spacious, mercurial, and thoroughly conceived. Anderson's vocals hover between speech and song, polemics and poetry, apocalyptic and redemptive fervors. And that's as far as generalizations will go. Homeland teems with the same variety and sprit as the U.S. itself.
These songs have been developing live for years, so naturally, Iraq and Wall Street loom large. The persistence of those quandaries makes the material feel timely, even oracular, a quality for which Anderson is known. "O Superman" gained fresh attention after 9-11 for its images of American planes drawing ominously nearer. (On a lighter note, its vocals predicted everything from Imogen Heap's "Hide and Seek" to the ongoing Auto-Tune craze.) She's still broadcasting from the day after tomorrow. The organic house track "Only an Expert" schematically details the hubris of authorities who consolidate power by creating problems only they can solve. Had the album been delayed a little longer, a verse about the BP oil leak would have fit perfectly alongside the global warming controversy and the banking bailout.
"Only an Expert" makes a pervasive, subtle theme momentarily explicit: How shared illusions about security and plenitude perpetuate a predictable cycle of cultural, environmental, and existential crises. But this threatens to make the album sound punitive, when somehow, Anderson's wrath feels compassionate. As "Falling" would have it, "Americans, unrooted, blow with the wind/ But they feel the truth if it touches them." It's confrontational and beautiful, the grim tidings leavened with empathetic portraiture. "Transitory Life" is haunting and cunningly crafted. When Anderson sings that her dead grandmother "made herself a bed inside my ear/ Every night I hear," the Tuvan throat singer from the song's intro reappears, the formless cries suddenly given a narrative role.
But the epic "Another Day in America" is the album's huge, dark heart. Anderson's voice is pitched down and slowed-- she becomes her character on the cover, a slapstick figure of male authority-- over lingering strings and keyboards. The oration is a vortex of visionary proclamations, pointed fables, downbeat jokes. It makes palpable not only all the pathos and superstition of the American psyche, but the weight of time passing away-- another diminishing resource. Every malfunction of the status quo, Anderson implies, is a chance to start over, instead of rushing to rebuild what always breaks down. Her pessimism might not be comforting, but as oil continues to poison the Gulf of Mexico, it feels awfully prescient.


The experimental ambient musician's latest work is his most beatific and generous yet. It features a rotating cast of musicians, and feels like it is hovering off of the ground.

Jefre Cantu-Ledesma: Tracing Back the Radiance

Tracing Back the Radiance

In the current gig economy, the job of “musician” feels more transitory and short-lived than ever. So it should come as no surprise that an experimental artist like Jefre Cantu-Ledesma returned to school a few years ago to further his education. He emerged with a Masters in Divinity in Buddhism and Interreligious Engagement, which seems less like a new path than a deeply empathetic shift in approach. At a time when some ambient music can feel like it’s drafted solely for inclusion on a “chill” playlist to anesthetize the overworked, Cantu-Ledesma’s explorations have been steering towards deeper waters. On Tracing Back the Radiance, his most profound work to date, he finds them.
Spiritual seeking was always at the root of Cantu-Ledesma’s work. His very first release was named after a breathing technique in yoga, and here he name-checks the writings of Chinul, a Korean Buddhist monk from the 12th century. It’s also the album in which his presence is hardest to place. His signature guitar work is nowhere to be found; he is instead credited with vibraphone and effects processing. Multiple players appear across the album’s three long compositions, with contributions from a veritable all-star cast: Bing & Ruth’s David Moore, harpist Mary Lattimore, pedal steel guitarist Chuck Johnson, Godspeed You! Black Emperor and Fly Pan Am member Roger Tellier Craig, Forma’s John Also Bennett, and others. But even the deepest listen makes individuation nearly impossible, so skillfully does Cantu-Ledesma erase distinct instrumentation and egos. Instead, everyone and everything moves as one deep breath, and the music feels like it’s hovering inches off the ground.
The quietly glowing “Palace of Time” features flute, piano, synth, and violin and credits five performers. Not much happens, but not much needs to; its serene sound world is established from the hushed opening moments and you want nothing more than to reside within it. Ledesma has cited the works of ’70s Italian composers like Giusto Pio and Lino Capra Vaccina, but what first springs to mind is “He Loved Him Madly,” Miles Davis’ epic ambient piece from Get Up With It. That piece was a brooding, funereal meditation, almost nihilistic in its composition, never building upwards, but instead hovering in the void, a brushed snare drum fluttering about the sonic space like a bat. A similarly spare, rustling percussion appears here, but if anything, “Palace” is the photonegative of that iconic work, less Mark Rothko more like Agnes Martin, a nearly empty space suffused with gentle light.
“Tracing Back the Radiance” is similarly slow moving. Simply put, it’s ineffable, seemingly capable of lowering your heart rate and instilling calmness with every listen. Even on playback during a crowded commute, not always discernible amid the din, it seems to lessen tensions. Violin, synthesizer, voice, and Johnson’s drifting pedal steel are all listed, but attempting to trace the origins of such sounds feels futile, akin to painting a landscape while standing in a white mist. A previous review of Cantu-Ledesma’s work noted a fragility, suffering, and “anxiety-tinged optimism.” On Radiance, Cantu-Ledesma pushes beyond such dualities towards a space that unifies it all.

Buy: Rough Trade
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The new album from Oakland rapper G-Eazy is a boozy, minor-key, 74-minute slog, where he wonders if it’s possible to survive the corrupting influence of celebrity.

The Beautiful & Damned

F. Scott Fitzgerald’s 1922 novel The Beautiful and Damned follows socialite Anthony Patch, the heir to a large fortune, through his courtship with aspiring actress Gloria Gilbert. As his prosperity leads to alcoholism, the book explores how hard it is to love selfishly, how partying and drug abuse become escapes from grappling with one’s own flaws. “Here’s to alcohol, the rose-colored glasses of life,” the story famously posits. G-Eazy’s The Beautiful & Damned has a nearly identical arc, with Eazy playing the same type of sad, rich playboy. He’s constantly searching for meaning in luxury. In intent and tone, G-Eazy’s self-indulgent downer raps about depravity and excess seem to embody another Fitzgerald line: “I shall go on shining as a brilliantly meaningless figure in a meaningless world.”
G-Eazy is a career hedonist flirting dangerously close to nihilism. As a wannabe greaser sampling doo-wop, he ascended quickly through the rap ranks, and now he doesn't quite know what to make of his newfound fame. His last album, 2015’s When It’s Dark Out, was humorless and self-serious, trying desperately to find purpose in stardom but coming up empty. The new one is even darker and more cynical. On the cover, his jet-black hair is disheveled, his shirt bloodied, his face bruised and half-covered in shadow. This is the reckoning of a Bad Boy. It becomes “Sad Boy”: The Album, where G-Eazy is his own worst enemy. “Gerald what the fuck is wrong, man?” he asks himself on that song. “Cheer the fuck up, you asshole.”
The Beautiful & Damned is a boozy, minor-key, 74-minute slog, where he wonders if it’s possible to survive the corrupting influence of celebrity. When everything is easy to get, does it all mean less? And does becoming numb to it all make you a bad person? The title track suggests yes: “This is everything that comes with celebrity/Criticism, ridicule and the scrutiny… And it’s none of y’alls business, truthfully/You don’t know ‘bout the fame, what it do to me/I’m talking to myself like every night: ‘You could try to be a better guy.’” It’s meant as a cautionary tale: Being famous isn’t all it seems, kids. But it’s hard to take G-Eazy as seriously as he takes himself when he’s earnestly rehashing every Hollywood cliché in the most basic way possible. His raps sound forced; the production is gloomy and monotonous. There are no insights to be found here about prestige, depression, or dependency. The whole thing is unbelievably dour and boring.
G-Eazy typically raps the simplest version of any given idea and he rarely looks beyond himself. All of his stories have the same destination: trashed hotel rooms mid come-down, women identified only as groupies strewn across unmade beds, silence his only companion. These are tales seeking sympathy for a lonely drunken womanizer. By the time Charlie Puth arrives for his turn on the carousel, on a song literally called “Sober,” the Oakland rapper has worn out every possible variation of his affectless shtick.
As the title implies, The Beautiful & Damned is supposed to explore a duality, G-Eazy’s status as a Gemini, “Angel, Devil, it's both him and I,” as he sees it. But in the process of painting himself as a conflicted man tortured by the same fame he craves, Eazy somehow only sees things as binary. Every thrill inevitably brings pain and nothing else. There are only saints and sinners, good girls and bad boys (“Mama Always Told Me”). On “Summer in December,” he associates winter with melancholy, rendering Los Angeles as a sunny year-round paradise where (surprise!) he can’t be sad: “The girls are pretty, the sun will shine 360 days/But I don’t always feel that way, today I need some gray.” Raging alcoholism, drug addiction, and lechery are cast against a Hollywood backdrop in a rap noir drama, where every moment of pleasure comes with an immediate consequence. But the only real tragedy is how flavorless his raps are and how lifeless and monochrome his perspective is. His writing is crude, and his lack of nuance makes the album sound short-sighted and self-absorbed.
A rambling monologist, G-Eazy uses his fame as an excuse to be selfish and thoughtless across The Beautiful & Damned. His characters are faceless and one-dimensional (“And I just broke up with my female/On tour, had to do it by email”), set pieces in an isolating relational crisis. Even on his Halsey duet, “Him & I,” he only thinks about his girlfriend as an extension of himself—the Bonnie to his Clyde, the only person that gets him, his soldier, willing to stand by him no matter what. There is no depth to his relations with the people around him. It isn’t just that he sounds so miserable rapping about flying women out and watching them do coke; he doesn’t even really know why he’s miserable, and he never tries to find out. Everything happens without purpose, as he puts it on “The Plan,” “I do this shit ‘cause I can.” His reaches are painful, obvious, and usually obnoxious. Only A$AP Rocky and Cardi B can save him, on the hit “No Limit.” He has so little to say about what it means to be famous and overwhelmed, or worse, famous and still hurting. And he knows even less about suffering from success than DJ Khaled. His is an extremely pessimistic outlook. Amid the myopia, the constant navel-gazing, and the show biz boilerplates, his contemptuous takes on stardom ultimately prove to be hollow.


Beach Slang's earnest angst still makes for an excellent group therapy session.

Beach Slang: A Loud Bash of Teenage Feelings

A Loud Bash of Teenage Feelings

If you're familiar with any Beach Slang song, you've pretty much already heard A Loud Bash of Teenage Feelings. That's kind of the point of Beach Slang. James Alex speaks almost exclusively of being young, loud, and wild to reacquaint listeners with the dormant emotions they once felt were inextricable from formative moments: discovering the Replacements, playing in a high school band, making out on the filthy couch at your first punk rock show. He yells lyrics like, "The radio is loud and wild, but I'm too drunk to spin the dial,” one of the more *subtle *nods to the ’Mats. Meanwhile, the main riff of “Spin the Dial” is an almost verbatim recall of their own song “Punk or Lust.” It too has a glorious, defiant chorus that shouts down every impulse to think critically about a record called *A Loud Bash of Teenage Feelings. *
This balance between my brain and my heart has been ongoing since Beach Slang’s debut single, “Filthy Luck.” It was one of modern indie rock’s most impressive declarations of intent and the resulting 2014 EP Who Would Ever Want Anything So Broken? was so fully-formed, it threatened to make any subsequent Beach Slang music redundant. They quickly turned out a darker, more diverse rendering of their pub-rock sound later that year with Cheap Thrills on a Dead End Street*, *and the exact same pattern is playing out with Beach Slang’s LPs. A Loud Bash of Teenage Feelings follows the urgency and coherence of The Things We Do to Find People Who Feel Like Us by pushing Beach Slang towards opposite extremes: “Atom Bomb” and “Wasted Daze of Youth” are frenetic and chaotic ragers that stop short of expressing the actual rage that may have went into them. “All Fuzzed Out” is the template for the best songs here, the ones that are slower, longer and surprisingly autumnal. It taps into shoegaze and New Romantic influences that seem unexpected but were nonetheless telegraphed on their mixtape of cover songs.
But for all of their attempts to slightly expand their reach, Beach Slang’s blinkered perspective continues to draw a thick line around those who love this kind of rock‘n’roll and those who have no interest whatsoever. While Alex’s unyielding earnestness is a major part of their appeal, it’s also the most divisive aspect of Beach Slang and the mere decision to call this album *A Loud Bash of Teenage Feelings—*even if it is earned—calls into question whether he’s truly operating without pretense. And if there’s even a sliver of doubt about it, Beach Slang are basically unlistenable.
Though Alex claims he’s telling the stories of his fans on *A Loud Bash, *the ones from “Young Hearts,” “Wasted Daze of Youth” and “Future Mixtape for the Art Kids” sure sound like his own stories told on “Young & Alive,” “Ride the Wild Haze” and “Bad Art and Weirdo Ideas.” Alex recently opened up about the deep adolescent trauma and abandonment issues at the root of “Punks in a Disco Bar,” but the lyrics barely hint at it. Despite Alex’s claims that his shoot-first songwriting style holds nothing back, it may actually have the opposite effect.
Yet, the impulse to question Alex’s sincerity is necessary to create an environment in which Beach Slang can thrive. Similar over-the-top acts like PUP and Pkew Pkew Pkew contrast their anthemic punk rock with an abject lyrical misery that makes it clear their shitty circumstances are a direct result of loving anthemic punk rock too much. But Beach Slang are incurable romantics and when their best songs hit their mark, as many of them do here, other forms of music seem woefully non-committal. This stuff isn’t just on the nose; the effect is more like what Prodigy described on “Shook Ones, Pt. 2”: “Rock you in ya’ face/Stab your brain with your nose bone.” Of course, that can only happen so much before you become numb to it. For all of its subtle improvements, the choruses don’t quite soar as high on A Loud Bash as before. And while their triumphant debut ended with “Dirty Lights,” perhaps the best song Beach Slang has ever written, this album’s closer “Warpaint” is almost certainly their worst, a “Save Your Generation” pastiche that confirms the wisdom of keeping Alex’s vocals lower in the mix throughout the record.
After all, it's difficult to resist the impulse to be embarrassed on Alex's behalf. In recent interviews, Alex name-checked John Hughes, Kerouac, and Bukowski as writing influences—a 42-year old man completely unaware that those three are often used as fodder for jokes about try-hard high school boyfriends. And yet, none of them really loom over A Loud Bash: there are none of the *Pretty in Pink *tropes that have sustained syncable faux-indie pop for decades, none of the misanthropic navel-gazing of Kerouac—and Alex certainly doesn’t share Bukowski’s attitudes towards women. Yes, there’s a song called “Hot Tramps,” but it’s likely a Guided By Voices homage. It contains one of Alex’s most genius lines: “Your arms are like a car crash I want to die in.”
For all of their punk rock advocacy, Beach Slang are really just an atypical twee band—how else to describe their glorification of clumsy, endearing adolescence? Everything about them should make a cynical music consumer wince: Alex getting onstage looking like Angus Young on prom night and yelling, “We’re here to punch you right in the heart!” and reading fan poetry and covering the most well-known songs of his most obvious influences. It’s certainly curative for Alex, being able to relive the best parts of his teen years without having to endure the abuse and loneliness. And there’s a poignancy to Beach Slang that courses through every second of A Loud Bash of Teenage Feelings that explains why they might even be necessary: It works best as group therapy, a 30-minute reprieve from the pervasive judgment of adulthood. Is that lifestyle really sustainable or really any way to truly live? Here’s the first chorus on the album: “I hope I never die.” Simply believe that James Alex believes it and you might, too.


This fine album of early synthesizer music, originally released in 1980, is now reissued with a companion disc of reworkings by OPN, Arp, and more.

Synthesist

In summer 1979, Harald Grosskopf-- a drummer who lived in Berlin and had appeared on recordings by Klaus Schulze, Ash Ra Tempel, Cosmic Jokers, and others-- holed up in the apartment of a friend in Krefeld, Germany, to record his debut solo album. In the flat he had a Minimoog, a primitive sequencer, an 8-track reel-to-reel recorder, and a lot of time alone. Over the course of several weeks, Grosskopf wrote and recorded the material that wound up on Synthesist, which was eventually released on the venerable Hamburg-based kosmische imprint Sky. RVNG has reissued the album, which is held in high esteem among early synth enthusiasts but is not widely known, along with an additional disc of re-workings by some of the record's admirers (Oneohtrix Point Never, James Ferraro, Arp, etc.) Between the original record and the new versions, Synthesist offers an endlessly listenable introduction to Grosskopf's music that also serves a fascinating window into the sound of a specific time and place.
In the liner notes to the set, Grosskopf writes of how maintaining the Minimoog in the apartment was a nightmare, and that the pitch would go flat or sharp depending on warm and cold it was in the space. He eventually figured out that if he placed a 60-watt light bulb near the synth, he could regulate the temperature enough to keep the instrument sounding good. This image-- of new breakthroughs in sound-making technology having difficulty being used because of the of their surroundings-- is a nice snapshot of where music technology was in the days of analog electronics. These were the sounds of the future, but they still existed in the physical world, where things like air temperature mattered. Sounds hadn't yet been broken down into 1s and 0s, where they could be endlessly manipulated without degradation. So Grosskopf's future music was confronting the same problems that had vexed instrumentalists for centuries-- how to keep the damn things in tune.
The music on Synthesist hovers in an intriguing middle ground between instrumental synth-pop in the vein of early Kraftwerk and more free-form space-drone explorations popularized by Schulze and Tangerine Dream. The tracks are mostly compact and tend to hum along to a pop-friendly electronic pulse, but they aren't tied into any sort of verse/chorus structure. Because of this, the music has a floating, airy quality, always in motion but untethered by song, which puts even more focus on the glorious analog textures.
The record is divided neatly into two distinct halves. On the first side are the more tuneful tracks. "So Weit, So Gut" hovers in a space between Giorgio Moroder's theme from "Midnight Express" and a Jan Hammer interlude for a montage on "Miami Vice"-- there's a dark undercurrent pulling the bubbly keyboard percolations into some kind of nocturnal dread. "B. Aldrian" in contrast twinkles with nostalgia, with gently shifting keyboard drones that seem designed to soundtrack a narrative about the benevolent wonder of outer space. The title track, with its "Popcorn" bass sequence and overlapping melodies, overwhelms with its simple beauty and naive charm. There's a sense of lightness and optimism permeating the tracks on the first side, which forms a sort of argument that the electronic future was going to be a wonderful place.
The second side shades that outlook and delves more in the realm of dystopian sci-fi. "1847 - Earth" is built around a metallic drone that establishes a sense of anxiety that is furthered when percussive keyboard sequences come in signaling something tense, almost frantic, while "Trauma" sounds like something fizzing up from an underground cavern, the reverb on the synths bringing to mind the dark ambient spaces Robert Rich and Steve Roach would explore a couple of years later. Between the two halves of the record, Synthesist offers a complex array of feelings and settings, but it flows together and feels complete. Throughout, is a sense of joy, wonder, and playful exploration, even when the music leans dark, as it often does on side two.
The various versions on Re-Synthesist ask a simple question-- what happens when we translate these textures and ideas into the present? The biggest differences have to do with the presence of steady 4/4 kicks and a tendency to favor his moodier material. So Brooklyn duo Blondes take "Synthesist", give it a steady beat, and add a harsh alloy to the keyboards. Oneohtrix Point Never's "Trauma 2010" has a dramatic drone encircled by orbiting clusters of static and noise. JD Twitch from Optimo locks the synths into tight little phrases that border on the techno that would come a few years after Synthesist's release. And James Ferraro's hypnotic "Wishmaster (Transcendental Overdrive Zone)" strikes an imaginative balance between repetition and small, incremental change.
For the most part these versions are reverent, which gives the record a nice flow for a disc from various artists set. It's almost hard to imagine a more coherent and logical remix/re-work companion, since nearly all of these artists are already drawing heavily from the world Grosskopf inhabited in 1979. And while I can't imagine reaching for Re-Synthesist very often when Synthesist is handy (Grosskopf's drumming is especially missed), I am glad it exists. It's a bunch of artists celebrating a fantastic record that was a direct precursor of where they are now. They should be celebrating the original record, given how much their music now owes to it and work like it, and so should anyone else interested in the sound of the electronic music that ushered in the 80s.


The Parisian rapper, born to Senegalese and Guinean immigrants, is determined to do with music what Kylian Mbappé did with soccer: change the national perception of who and what a Frenchman can be.

19

A person researching the best places to stay in Paris might come away from a Google search with a mixed impression of the city’s 19th arrondissement. The 19th has one of the city’s largest concentrations of North African immigrants, including one of Paris’ fastest-rising musical stars. The rapper MHD, born to Senegalese and Guinean immigrants, has become a platinum-selling artist over the last several years, thanks to an ear for infectious, melodic beats and a talent for branding. On his second album, 19, the rapper born Mohamed Sylla attempts to demystify his home and proclaim his pride in it, joining the soccer player Kylian Mbappé as a young star hoping to change the national perception of what a Frenchman looks like.
MHD has cannily labeled his music Afro-trap, linking it to the dominant strain of hip-hop in the world’s cultural superpower, but for the most part it bears little resemblance to the Atlanta sound. The songs on 19 rarely convey menace or even ennui; they are joyous, accessible, and highly melodic, making use of analog instruments, including more guitar than I’ve heard on a rap album in quite some time. The opening track features a lovely passage from Mali’s Salif Keita, a legend of Afropop—a sound that MHD raps over on the next song, “Encore,” claiming all the city’s neighborhood for himself and his crew.
“Encore” is the first of many highlights, but it leads into a somewhat generic set of songs. 19 truly hits its stride on its sixth track, “Papalé,” which kicks off a series of infectious melodies that runs all the way through to “Bella,” another five tracks later. (The record is 19 tracks long; MHD is somewhat overcommitted to the concept.) He’s a more than competent rapper but what sets his songs apart is the same pleasurable eclecticism that made the fusion group the Very Best so exciting when they first emerged in 2008. MHD’s music has a similar rough, happy energy, as if cheer is a natural byproduct when two cultural styles speak on equal terms. He doesn’t always match his raps to the the beat—on “Papalé,” for instance, he’s in double time, ignoring the more moderate tempo of the drums—but his excellent ear for original, highly engaging instrumental work saves him any serious criticism on that front.
He is at his strongest when displaying his softer side, often in collaboration with singers. “Bébé,” which features the Congolese-French singer Dadju, is filled with sweet nothings, but the breezy clicking beat comes alive during the hook, with a flute backing a powerful earworm of a hook. “Bella,” the song that features Wizkid, is similarly catchy, and MHD displays some narrative strength on the first verse, telling the story of a forbidden love. That Wizkid’s verse, delivered in English, is no more compelling than MHD’s underscores the charisma of the young Frenchman, who only uses a few English cognates, ones that generally belie his abilities on the mic. (“One two three for the money”; “Artist, businessman.”) Even when MHD adopts a tougher posture, some element of the music always betrays him as the fun-loving 20-something that he is. “Afro Trap Pt. 10,” part of a long-running series, may sound a touch more aggy, but a playful beat and hook make it clear that the track just represents a slightly different flavor of party music.
Production on the record was mostly handled by Parisian producers including DSK on the Beat, Dany Synthé, and S2Keyz. But Diplo, who helped market MHD to an international audience with a series of Mad Decent remixes, steps in to Diplo things up on “Fuego.” It’s a strong song that nonetheless does a disservice to MHD, its jaded professionalism lacking the spirit that characterizes the best tracks on 19. The way MHD’s raps are grafted onto Malian, Nigerian, and other North African sounds on other tracks speaks to something more original than Diplo can offer at this point in his career: a specificity of place and taste. It’s what’s refreshing about 19 more generally. Though many may slot it under the meaningless term “world music,” the lyrics and the beats have a character that evokes not a world but a locale. The sound is not trap as we know it. But as the writer and academic Jesse McCarthy recently argued, “Trap is the only music that sounds like what living in contemporary America feels like.” 19 has that same truth in representation: It’s the sound of MHD’s life as lived—the perspective of a young man eager to take his story into his own hands.
Correction: A previous version of this article included a misleading aside about the 19th arrondissement.


On their latter-day emo classic Home, Like NoPlace Is There, the Hotelier took excruciating stock of the darkness. On their newest, the band is pushing with white-hot intensity toward the light.

Goodness

Christian Holden is fighting like hell to stand in the sun. The Hotelier singer is coming off a dramatized retelling of a tragedy-ridden early adulthood, in the form of the fourth-wave emo classic Home, Like NoPlace Is There, and now it’s time to really start rebuilding. That’s a lot to expect of a record, but it’s not like the Hotelier can’t handle the pressure. The Massachusetts trio are angling for that rare genre-rock to general-rock crossover space, and Goodness is their most concerted bid yet. Home, Like NoPlace Is There—the Hotelier’s second album, released in 2014—suggested their appeal to listeners outside of emo revival’s grasp (alongside the likes of the World Is a Beautiful Place & I Am Not Afraid to Die and Modern Baseball), and it’s hype that’s only reaffirmed by Goodness. At this point, however, it might not even be accurate to call them emo, so let’s just have it out now: The Hotelier is a great rock band, however you classify them.
This is not to say Goodness doesn't have its share of histrionics, though to be fair they are more like affirmations. The album flirts with transcendentalism, the 19th-century philosophical movement favored by Emerson and Thoreau, which recognized the inherent goodness of humanity and the natural world while also placing a high value on fierce individuality. And so Goodness finds itself out in the fields of New England, stripping back to the essentials—trying to love and trust again, and finally moving the fuck on. Anyone who has attempted these things understands that they can rank among the most difficult emotional tasks, depending on how bad other humans have messed you up. Home, Like NoPlace Is There took often-excruciating stock of that damage: It opened with a suicide, lingered uncomfortably on a funeral scene, and reckoned with the psychological ravages of a lifetime of abuse. At times Goodness pushes towards positivity with this same level of intensity, but it’s fraught with its own kind of tension: You can really hear the trying.
Sometimes it’s grating, how hard Goodness tries to find the light. The album is broken up with campfire-y interludes of peaceful chants atop acoustic guitar, which were “sung under a total lunar eclipse in Plymouth, Vermont” according to official credits. We are also treated to a recitation of the lullaby “I See the Moon,” Holden’s spoken-word introduction to the album, and “a sound collage recorded of morning birds in Charlton, Massachusetts.”
Other times, it’s the trying that draws you in. The percussion is so relentless, the guitars so urgent, the voice so direct, that songs like “Goodness Pt. 2” and “Piano Player” feel like something that could get you out of bed in the morning. For much of the latter, Holden can be heard—in either the foreground or in the background amid utter sonic chaos—screaming what may be the most realistic mantra ever chanted: the word “sustain.” That said, this same sort of trick is not as profound the second time Holden pulls it, spending a fair chunk of “Sun” simply repeating its title. At least that underwhelming passage results in Holden’s most indelible punk vocal on the entire album, and it's a throaty blow that stands in stark contrast to the calmer, Stipe-like tone Holden employs here more than ever.
For as riotous as it can sound, Goodness is remarkably precise in how it plays with dynamics and layers. This manifests in myriad ways: the music cutting out to emphasize Holden’s poetic pleas to feel alive, the disregard for traditional song structures, the way the two guitars have a near-constant interplay that adds dimensions (and hooks), and the slow and tense introduction of more instruments over the course of a song, like on the mortality-obsessed standout “Opening Mail for My Grandmother.”
Simply put, the playing is more ambitious and varied on Goodness than on Home, Like NoPlace Is There, an album where the narrative drama manifests into some of the rawest anthems of unhinged youth and crippling self-loathing recorded this decade. But Goodness’ judicious sense editing clips the band’s wings just a little, keeping the music from feeling as boundless as Holden’s emotions. Still, it’s admirable, all this searching for the good and appreciating the simple. At the end of Home highlight “The Scope of All This Rebuilding,” the singer had found himself defeated, admitting, “I can’t find my way around this.” Goodness is proof that somehow, Christian Holden did.


Already more than a quarter-century into his career, guitarist Sir Richard Bishop issues his first record on Drag City and it's his widest-ranging one yet, a joyful trip through his many styles, influences, and obsessions.

Sir Richard Bishop: Polytheistic Fragments

Polytheistic Fragments

He played around the world with the Sun City Girls for 26 years, and has released six solo albums in the last decade, but Polytheistic Fragments still feels like guitarist Sir Richard Bishop's international debut. It's his first record on Drag City, but more importantly, it's his widest-ranging one yet, a joyful trip through his many styles, influences, and obsessions. Most of Bishop's previous albums have had a stricter range, be it the improvised acoustics of Improvika, the electronic atmospheres of Elektronika Demonika, or the long-form experiments of While My Guitar Gently Bleeds, released earlier this year.
But Fragments is a spectacular showcase of Bishop's multi-dimensional talents. Here we get fast-picked folk, Django Reinhardt-worthy gypsy tunes, Chet Atkins-style ditties, Hindi-influenced melodies, and a lode of other, less classifiable stuff. Interestingly, this catholic approach is closest in tone to Bishop's actual solo debut, 1998's Salvador Kali, which also freely rolled his polygonal sonic dice. But even compared to that stellar release, Fragments is remarkably kaleidoscopic.
It's also Bishop's most ear-catching work so far. His playing is still open and exploratory, but nearly every track is also hummable. Opener "Cross My Palm With Silver" begins with typical Reinhardt-ish sketches, but halfway in coalesces into a sneaky rolling hook. "Elysium Number Five" matches that with a snake-like lead line, and "Free Masonic Guitar", made almost solely of ringing strums, builds melody from sheer momentum. Bishop has always been a stunning player, picking through blinding runs in a flash. But here his ability to think fast and play even faster is employed solely in service of songcraft. The album's centerpiece, the ten-minute piano meditation "Saraswati", might seem like an exception to Fragments' melodicism, with its searching tones and chilly drone. But as writer Grayson Currin recently pointed out, listen closely and the track seems to nick the melody from the Beatles' "Tomorrow Never Knows", stretching it into revelatory slow motion.
One would imagine that "Saraswati" would be too daunting an achievement to follow, but in fact, Polytheistic Fragments' three final tracks  are the album's best. "Tennessee Porch Swing" is an unabashed country-road stroll, while "Canned Goods & Firearms" channels the bounce of Chet Atkins. And "Ecstasies in the Open Air" is the record's ultimate charmer, a denouement whose halting acoustics melt perfectly into a soaring flute line. It's probably the softest, dreamiest thing you'll ever hear Bishop play, but like the rest of Polytheistic Fragments, its gentle bliss fits perfectly inside this sound-painter's rainbow palette.


Newly reissued and remastered, the group’s first two albums find Jeff Tweedy and his Chicago band transforming themselves from alt-country also-rans into a formidable rock‘n’roll outfit.

A.M./Being There

The nuclear detonation of Uncle Tupelo launched an alt-country arms race, with the band’s two chief singer-songwriters mutating from old friends into bitter enemies trying to outdo each other with their follow-up records. Jay Farrar started Son Volt with Tupelo’s drummer, Mike Heidorn, and released Trace, which yielded the radio hit “Drown” and found him greeted as a visionary. Jeff Tweedy, on the other hand, rushed into the studio to record a set of demos with his new band, Wilco, barely a couple months after his old band had played its final show. Nearly a year later they released their first album, A.M., which was greeted with a big shrug from critics and fans alike.
Tweedy had managed to retain almost every member of Uncle Tupelo’s expanded line-up: multi-instrumentalist Max Johnston, guitarist John Stirratt, drummer Ken Coomer, even guitarist Brian Henneman, of the Bottle Rockets. In fact, the group briefly flirted with the idea of keeping the Uncle Tupelo name, although wiser heads prevailed and they rechristened themselves after trucker lingo for “will comply.” Still, despite their familiarity and camaraderie, Wilco were still trying to figure out who they were when they wrote and recorded A.M.—a necessary step for any band, but especially for one whose de facto frontman had spent the last decade-plus in the shadow of the more forceful Farrar.
The original mix of A.M. was, reportedly, much grittier and more akin to Uncle Tupelo’s early material than to the cleaner, more polished version that finally made its way into CD stores in March 1995. The final version is fine, although A.M. is the very definition of 1990s alt-country: as conservative as punk rock, with flourishes of pedal steel and a gentle twang to frame Tweedy’s hard-luck tales of casino losing streaks, suspended licenses, and custody battles over record collections. “I Must Be High” nods toward the sunny pop of Summerteeth and beyond, and “Box Full of Letters” and “Passenger Side” hint at the melancholy melodicism that would become Tweedy’s stock in trade.
He wanted Wilco to be a collaborative and democratic unit rather than a glorified solo project, though only one of his bandmates’ songs made the final cut: the gently loping “It’s Just That Simple,” courtesy of Stirratt (who pens the new liner notes for this expanded edition). Otherwise, the MVP of the album is Henneman, who was a fine foil for Tweedy. There’s real wit and warmth in his guitar riffs, even if he was merely a rental rather than a full band member. According to Learning How to Die, Greg Kot’s 2004 biography of the band, Henneman recorded his part for the raucous throwaway “Casino Queen” while nursing a broken heart; he downed two bottles of gin before the tape started rolling, and he plays like he’s holding on for dear life.
A.M. is an album persistently defined by unfavorable comparisons, first to Son Volt’s Trace and later to every other Wilco album. And certainly there’s a timidity here that must have been discouraging after Tweedy’s strong contributions to Uncle Tupelo’s final pair of albums. But there’s also a lot of humor and sadness to these songs, which are circumscribed and local in their scope. That’s the charm of this modest reissue, which includes only a handful of bonus tracks (including the final Uncle Tupelo recording and a Blue Mountain cover) but treats A.M. as something more than a footnote to Wilco’s long career. In 2017, the album plays like a band setting its terms, striving to keep everything perfectly human-size. As much as the band was compared to that other Uncle Tupelo offshoot, Wilco’s biggest rivals were themselves.
Tweedy, meanwhile, was struggling to grow up. Then in his late 20s, he quit smoking pot, a vice he’d adopted after quitting drinking a few years before. He married his girlfriend and prepared to become a father. And he made some painful adjustments to his expectations once A.M. floundered and ticket sales cratered. If he hadn’t turned those setbacks into songs, you probably wouldn’t be reading a review of any Wilco reissues. Being There is every bit as confident as their debut was shaky: a double album tied together by a loose theme of what it means to be in a rock‘n’roll band. It opens with a big blast of lurching, serrating guitar distortion, sinewy and visceral and violent, which sounds like they’re tearing up A.M. so they can start over again.
What’s amazing is how well it works. After the grinding din that begins and ends opener “Misunderstood,” Tweedy’s songs have a brand new context. “Far, Far Away” and “I Got You (At the End of the Century)” aren’t actually that different from A.M., but they sound heavier, riskier, the stakes so much greater that it could be a different band altogether. There are some country flourishes, specifically the pedal steel courtesy of Freakwater’s Bob Egan, but Wilco had managed to transform itself from an alt-country also-ran into a real rock band: noise rock, classic rock, folk rock, heartland rock, every kind of rock.
A conceptually knotty record, Being There contains barely veiled references to a breakup, but most listeners at the time would have understood them as references to Uncle Tupelo rather than a romantic partner. “Monday,” with its Stonesy brass stomp, is about a guy in “a plenty good band” who can only watch as others get all the glory, and you can guess what might have inspired Tweedy’s wry observations about fame and futility.  There are a few pulled punches (“I know you’re just a mama’s boy” doesn’t have much sting), but thankfully, these aren’t dis tracks or bitter recriminations. Jay Farrar’s only a minor concern; these songs are first and foremost about Jeff Tweedy and his misgivings about his own talent. That had been a detriment on A.M.; on Being There it’s the band’s greatest strength and truest subject.
Rock‘n’roll is a sucker’s bet on these songs, something you pour your heart and soul and money and labor and dreams into and for what? Creative and financial frustration? “We’ve got solid-state technology,” Tweedy sings on “Red-Eyed and Blue”; “Tapes on the floor/Some songs we can’t afford to play.” So, why were they even doing it? That’s what Wilco are trying to figure out on Being There, and they need your help. It’s useful to imagine each of these songs being sung from the stage directly and explicitly to the audience who has paid to see Wilco. As Tweedy sings on “I Got You (At the End of the Century),” “I got you and I still believe that you’re all that I will ever need/It’s you.” That “you” means us. Are we enough for them? Is our applause really that valuable?
Being There flirts with cynicism, but really the mood is sober, world-weary, adult. “There is no sunken treasure/Rumored to be wrapped inside my ribs,” Tweedy sings on “Sunken Treasure,” the slow-burn epic that anchors the second disc of this double album. “Music is my savior/I was maimed by rock and roll.” If rock had once been a liberating medium, after Nirvana it had become an albatross around the neck of every dreamer with a guitar. But Tweedy finds his way in the end: Closer “Dreamer in My Dreams” may be the most unflinchingly personal song on the record, but it’s also the wildest, the wooliest, maybe the most raucous Wilco have ever sounded. “Well I know I’ve made mistakes,” he sings; “I’m passing them on.” Just when you think the song is ending, the band kicks it up again, as though reluctant to stop playing. Only when the song ends do they have to face real life again.
At the heart of this bruised and tender record is the frazzled relationship between artist and audience, which makes this reissue more powerful and essential than your typical album repackaging. Digital media means we as an audience have less and less to give an artist, and rock‘n’roll may be even more of a fool’s errand now than it was in 1996, when people bought CDs by the handful and even a mid-level band like pre-Foxtrot Wilco could make a comfortable living driving around the country in a van. Being There sounds even direr and more desperate than it once did, and the bonus material expands upon its themes. The “Party Horn” mix of “Monday” actually sounds richer and more excitable than the studio version, especially with its screeching sax solo. Most of the outtakes and alternate takes still have studio chatter attached to them, showing the band goofing around in the studio or half-assing the demos. “I think that was good enough,” Tweedy deadpans after a beautifully understated version of “Dynamite My Soul.”
All of Tweedy’s big ideas about his vocation sound even more volatile on the two full live sets included on the 5xCD version, with “Sunken Treasure” and “Hotel Arizona” making the most of Tweedy’s rapport with the audience (“This is a true story. Sorta.”) and the noise of the crowd. Maybe that’s where the album’s title comes from. It is, of course, a reference to the 1979 Peter Sellers film, but it’s also a twist on the old adage about concerts and concert films: I guess you had to be there. We’ve always been a crucial part of Being There, always an unseen force motivating Wilco from one show to the next, but these live cuts make it explicit. It’s as though Tweedy played the long game on this sucker’s bet, waiting 21 years to make the ultimate version of Being There.


The debut EP from the rising hyperpop artist is exhilarating and unabashedly silly but falters when adhering to genre conventions and trends.

Alice Longyu Gao: High Dragon and Universe

High Dragon and Universe

Before 2019, Alice Longyu Gao was known in downtown Manhattan clubs for her Harajuku-inspired fashion sense, energetic DJ sets, and, occasionally, releasing music that sought to translate her jester-like personality into well-written pop songs. Then, her song “Rich Bitch Juice,” produced by 100 gecs’ Dylan Brady, raised the stakes. Its menacing synths sounded like a demented nursery toy. Gao’s delivery, like an irritated heiress—“Some people say I look very sad/I’m just having my resting bitch face”—was comically relatable. Most importantly, its chanted hook was hypnotically catchy.
Suddenly, Gao’s absurdist take on pop music was in line with a freshly popular hyperpop scene, characterized by heavily autotuned vocals, trap beats, mechanical clanks, and an electro-maximalist production. But after the initial sugar rush, things quickly became more angsty, and the next generation of artists like Glaive and ericdoa doubled down on moody subject matter and emotive singing, far from the campy rapping and simple melodic hooks of Gao’s early material. Her first standalone EP, High Dragon and Universe, including none of her early singles, reintroduces Gao as a chaotic party starter. In a scene mostly built by teenagers holed up in bedroom studios, she  made her name yelling on top of the DJ booth in an assless rococo dress, which is the same attitude she brings to her music. It is exhilarating and unabashedly silly. Highlights like “DTM” and “Bleeding in the Studio”—the latter co-produced by Gao, who normally outsources beats—smooth out her rougher edges without sacrificing her eccentric personality.
“Kanpai,” which means cheers in Japanese, is her strongest song yet. Sugary to the point of being grating, its childlike chorus brings to mind SOPHIE’s “Bipp.” But “Kanpai” sets a benchmark the rest of the release can’t live up to.  For the first time, Gao sounds like she is glomming onto trends: Chugging guitars lifted from the 2000s pop-punk bands like Sum 41? Straight from the 100 gecs playbook. Trap hi-hats and bass? Check. High BPMs borrowed from nightcore edits? Textbook.
What saves Gao’s music from being formulaic is her confidence and humor. “I’m your teacher, you’re suspended!” she yells on “100 Boyfriends.” She raps and sings with a madcap twinkle in her eyes as she takes aim at her peers at the Soho House or at the rave: “Pretty white boy got hella issues,” she mocks in a baby voice on “Never Coming Back.” Before the dubstep-esque breakdown on “DTM,” she shouts, “Skrillex!”
High Dragon and Universe is a good translation of Gao’s personality but falters when it tampers her star power and hooks with the angst of the moment. “Underrated Popstar” is Gao’s entry in the time-honored tradition of songs about internet trolls. “Shut up! Keep streaming my song,” Gao barks before spiraling on the bridge: “What do I do if I never pop off? Fold tacky sock at the local Walmart?” It’s a jokey send up of stan culture and the pressure on young artists. But even as she mocks these expectations and genre conventions, Gao still hasn’t quite found a way to move beyond them.

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The 40th installment of the prolific producer and composer’s Steamroom series is a highlight, one long, meditative piece of synth overtones, slowly rising arpeggios, and pure drift.

Steamroom 40

Most of Jim O’Rourke’s music is not made for you or me. Some of it is: the Wilco and Sonic Youth records he’s played on or produced were certainly meant to have an audience. His collaborative output—scores of releases, many improvised, alongside players like Oren Ambarchi, Keiji Haino, Fennesz—is part of a greater conversation encompassing both players and listeners. And his “rock” albums for Drag City, a loose series stretching from 1997’s Bad Timing through 2015’s Simple Songs: No matter what the Chicago native, long a resident of Japan, may say, those are surely meant for ears beyond his own. They’re too meticulous—and too joyous—not to be. But then there are the Steamroom releases, and those truly are a private, paging-through-his-journals affair. Not because they’re particularly unguarded or revealing; it’s simply that he would be making those recordings whether anybody listened or not. “I just have to make them,” he told Bandcamp, the artist-to-fan retail platform where he hosts the series. “It’s like my oxygen.”
Named after his studio, the Steamroom series amounts to a curated archive of his daily practice. Since 2013, when the series launched, it has included reissued early work, film soundtracks, and tour-only releases, but the bulk of it comprises previously unreleased recordings made in his Tokyo workspace. O’Rourke spends a good chunk of his day holed up with a Serge synthesizer and a drawer full of field recordings, massaging sounds into a shape that feels right to him. It’s less about composition or songwriting—there’s nothing approaching a song on these albums—and more like painting or throwing pots, only with duration itself in place of pigment or clay. “I like longform music that isn’t necessarily about structure,” he says. “It’s just a long period of something happening.” The Steamroom releases amount to a kind sculpted air.
For the most part, that means drones. Steamroom 20’s “Silent Night” is an inky hour colored the semi-matte black of a fogged-up window on a moonless night. Steamroom 27’s “Long Night Part One,” 47 minutes long, brandishes tight clusters of needling tones that feel like they’re trying to crowd their way into your ear canal. Not all the material is so shapeless; Steamroom 29’s “from here to there” sets playful, almost circus-like synth chords against insect chirps and shortwave chatter. Whether sinister or bucolic, what all the releases share in common is an almost total absence of discernable structure in favor of pure drift.
But if the austerity of many Steamroom releases means they’re likely to appeal mainly to confirmed fans of dark ambient music, Steamroom 40 stands out, even though it clearly occupies the same continuum as its predecessors. For one thing, as drones go, it captures a brighter, airier mood, and its consonant tonal field is instantly recognizable. Plenty of this kind of music can sound largely interchangeable even to its fans, but Steamroom 40’s lone, 41-minute track, “Improper Release,” can’t easily be mistaken for anything else in the series—or anyone else’s work, either. Its gentleness is reminiscent of Kevin Drumm’s 2009 album Imperial Horizon, but O’Rourke’s materials are less muted, more clear-cut. It’s hard to say how he made it, but it feels like all the notes in a major scale are fading softly (and perhaps randomly) in and out of earshot, overlapping in such a way that creates a perpetually shifting moiré of cottony harmonies.
The bulk of its frequencies occupy a moderate range, smack in the center of the spectrum—you imagine a cat curled up in the middle of the keyboard—and slowly cycling arpeggios gradually conduct the energy upward in waves. There’s almost no dissonance; the rare off note flashes like a blade of grass showing its underside before the wind whips it around again. It’s easily among the most placid, peaceful music O’Rourke has ever made—perhaps the only thing in Steamroom’s catalog you could conceivably call “pretty.”
But despite its outward simplicity, there’s more going on here than meets the ear: frequencies cascading just out of earshot, microtones extending like a hall of mirrors. Funny things start to happen the longer you listen; you may begin hearing melodies that aren’t there. I tend to hear echoes of New Order’s “Procession,” which shares its key, and its palette of smeared analog synthesizers, with O’Rourke’s piece. And if you listen loud and on good speakers, the occasional rumble of bass will feel like there’s a truck idling outside your house. This is not music for laptop speakers or lossy compression. O’Rourke entreats his fans to download his music in the “best possible quality,” and like everything in the series, Steamroom 40 both wants and deserves a high-fidelity experience. That’s not just an issue of audio fetishism; it’s almost a philosophical question. This is music that proceeds according to its own logic and its own time scale, music that offers a stern rebuke to the anthropocentrism of the old tree-falling-in-a-forest maxim. Whether or not there’s anyone there to hear it is irrelevant, this music seems to say. The sound itself is self-sufficient, self-sustaining, and maybe even self-aware. It does not need us, which makes us all the luckier to have it.


On their sophomore effort, Art Brut have wisely managed to incrementally expand their sonic palette while singer Eddie Argos evinces a slightly more grown-up perspective-- and yet, the group never strays too far from its original M.O.

It's a Bit Complicated

If ever there was a group sensitive to the dreaded sophomore slump, it'd be Art Brut. For a group who made their entrance with the autobiographical origin story "Formed a Band", the pledge that "it's not irony, it's not rock'n'roll," and a humble and brash sound meant more to buttress singer Eddie Argos' wry observations than draw attention, landmines for a "mature" follow-up are everywhere. Change the lyrical approach to sober up the honest and clever self-indulgence, and you forfeit the angle that makes Art Brut unique and lovable. Pretty up the music too much, and you distract from and compromise Argos' regular-dude frontman bit. Merely remake Bang Bang Rock N' Roll, and risk the accusation that the band's concept was only good for one 30-minute shot, sentencing the group to the cult-band one-and-done footnotes. No wonder the second album is called It's a Bit Complicated.
Perhaps aware of this foreboding obstacle course, Art Brut have wisely managed to somehow make all of these mistakes and none of them, incrementally expanding their sonic palette while Argos evinces a slightly more grown-up perspective, yet never straying too far from the band's original M.O. Sure, there's a more muscular lead-guitar on most tracks here, they've discovered the joys of audible backing vocals, and a horn section even turns up on "Late Sunday Evening", but there aren't any ill-advised dalliances with laptop beats or orchestration or even, god forbid, ballads. Meanwhile, Argos' muse has perceptibly changed from "gee-golly, I'm in a band!" and bedroom performance anxiety to domestic living and the simple joy of music-listening without blunting his wit or giving in to the temptation to talk about fame and touring.
The subtle shift is apparent from the very start, as "Pump Up the Volume" hangs on a lead riff and an almost-solo more upfront than anything on Bang Bang, albeit far too slowly played to register as overly flashy. Meanwhile, the vocal is classic Argos, amplifying the dilemma of mid-makeout radio adjustment to epic proportions, interrupting a kiss to tentatively ask "have you heard this song before?" Sexxing is, in fact, on Argos' mind throughout the record, from the courtship drama of "Direct Hit" to stay-in-bed-baby pleadings of "Blame It on the Trains". "Jealous Guy" is even the polar opposite of the last record's slightly uncomfortable impotence trilogy, finding the singer pleading with his sleepy girlfriend to stay up and frolic while torturing himself with paranoia about her exes.
But more effective than these romantic ruminations are the tracks where Art Brut switches up their meta-aware music-about-music tendencies for the better, progressing from songs about making songs to songs about the irresistible urge to build a soundtrack to one's own life. In a way, "Pump Up the Volume" fits this category as well; if nothing else, it's about wanting to enhance an already, er, stimulating experience with the proper audio accompaniment. "Sound of Summer" is even more direct, fetishizing the process of creating the perfect mixtape in painstaking detail, right down to breaking the tabs "so you can't tape over it ever." The zenith of this subject is clearly reached on "Nag Nag Nag Nag", the band's between-albums single that amps up the central riff and sun-bleached backing vocals to make the song's dead-on coming-of-age headphones drama properly triumphant.
The upgrades in production values aren't always an improvement, however, as it occasionally comes at the sacrifice of the band's scrupulous spontaneity. Argos' self-aware humor is still present-- pronouncing "here comes the really good bit!" in the breakdown of "Direct Hit" or apologizing for his Germ-glish ("punk rock is nicht tot") in "St. Pauli"-- but doesn't produce as many banner-waving one-liners. Moments like "People in Love" and "Post Soothing Out" are more demure than anything found on the group's debut, and embellishments like the horn breakdown of "Late Sunday Evening" are a poor substitute for the homegrown fist-pump peaks of older tracks like "Emily Kane" and "Modern Art".
These missteps are testament to Art Brut's hidden element: the band itself. While Argos draws the spotlight of most reviews (this one included), the rest of the band quietly adds its own crucial element, which at its best is a simple, raucous sound perfect for underscoring melodramatic tales of sex and rock. As "St. Pauli" nervously reflects, Art Brut are at heart a throwback punk band-- albeit one with a frontman that is far more charming, thoughtful, and witty than your typical three-chord bashers-- and two albums down, they're already bumping up against the constraints of that genre. By only gently nudging the musical formula on It's a Bit Complicated, Art Brut have succeeded in crafting a satisfying half-mature sequel, but may have only delayed, rather than thwarted, the sophomore jinx.


On her marvelous second album, Phoebe Bridgers defines her songwriting: candid, multi-dimensional, slyly psychedelic, and full of heart. Her music has become a world unto itself.

Punisher

Phoebe Bridgers is a master of collapse. The 25-year-old California native writes songs for those moments when things fall apart, when language fails, when you long for so much distance that you need a spaceship to reach it. From there, she is able to find a sense of purpose, or at least make a plan. “When I get back I’ll lay around/Then I’ll get up and lay back down,” goes a couplet in “I Know the End,” the closing track of her stunning new album Punisher. Across the song’s two halves, she tethers the anxiety of leaving home to a vivid depiction of an actual apocalypse: lightning crashes, fire rises, people scream. “Yeah, I guess the end is here,” she deadpans. Her delivery is light, insistent—the casual tone you use to convey passing thoughts to the closest person in the room.
While Punisher is only her second full-length collection as a solo artist, Bridgers has already established a distinct worldview. Her songs can be autobiographical—2017’s “Motion Sickness” bluntly described an emotionally abusive relationship with a since-spurned, one-time mentor—but her writing is too self-aware and wide-ranging to feel confessional. It can be sad, but she is also the first to call bullshit on letting one emotion consume her. It’s why she will infuse a track like this album’s “Moon Song,” an otherwise wistful ballad that takes place at a birthday party, with a banal detail (“It’s nautical themed”) or an outright dismissal of art born from tragedy. “We hate ‘Tears in Heaven,’” she sings of Eric Clapton’s autobiographical, once-inescapable ballad. Then she concedes, “But it’s sad that his baby died.”
This impulse toward the candid, the multi-dimensional, has also come to define the sound of Bridgers’ music. Self-produced with Tony Berg and Ethan Gruska, these songs are starkly drawn and colorfully embellished, produced in service of each individual story. Punisher’s first single, “Garden Song,” is a marvel not only for how seamlessly its lyrics bind fantasies and nightmares, burning houses and blooming flowers, but also for how each element of its slyly psychedelic arrangement travels along with her words. The fingerpicked riff is played on a guitar that seems to be dissolving; a low, male voice comes in like a record playing at the wrong speed; a steady pulse seems to rise from somewhere deep in your headphones.
Bridgers also writes about this very sensation: the way we hear music, how we devote ourselves to it and form identities around it. On Punisher, these relationships are mostly fraught, from a fan being murdered outside Dodger Stadium to a couple channeling deeper issues through a fight about John Lennon. If music was a pathway toward spiritual catharsis in earlier songs like “Smoke Signals” and “Me & My Dog,” the same drugs don’t work here. Ironically, the most upbeat songs house her bleakest thoughts. “Chinese Satellite,” buoyed by a rushing string arrangement, finds her adrift, desperate for a sign, singing the “same three songs over and over.” And in “Kyoto,” she undercuts a breezy horn section and her most festival-ready chorus by refusing to play along: “I’m a liar,” she sings in its closing line, holding out the syllables so she can’t be misunderstood.
Along with her double-tracked vocals and graceful, winding melodies, these conversational refrains bring to mind the work of Elliott Smith, one of Bridgers’ clearest influences. He also happens to be the subject of this album’s heartbreaking title track. Like his classic “St. Ides Heaven,” “Punisher” begins with its narrator wandering around the city after dark: “When the speed kicks in,” she sings, “I go to the store for nothing.” Backed by piano and occasional waves of digital vocal harmony, she contemplates the facts of Smith’s life: the house where he died, his kindness toward fans, the way his songs still bring people together. “If someone doesn’t like his music, I actually feel like I’m not going to agree with them about anything,” she mentioned earlier this year. “It informs everything I like.” It makes sense that she sees in Smith not just a kindred spirit but also an ideology.
You can sense Bridgers building a community through her work, and it’s evident in Punisher’s credits list, featuring her tour manager (Jeroen Vrijhoef, the deep voice in “Garden Song”) and her bandmates in other projects (Conor Oberst from Better Oblivion Community Center, Lucy Dacus and Julien Baker from Boygenius). She also worked with Blake Mills, Christian Lee Hutson, whose album she produced earlier this year, and Marshall Vore, her drummer and frequent writing partner. Hers is the rare voice that grows more singular through each collaboration, lending her discography the feeling of a continuous narrative—one with increasing depth and a growing cast. While the songs on Punisher might detail the lonesome drudgery of touring (“Why would somebody do this on purpose?”) or the awkwardness of being approached by strangers at bars (“I swear I’m not angry/That’s just my face”), her music never sounds alone.
The record glows with this strange self-sufficiency, an instinct to push forward against bad odds. It’s what brings together the depressive homebodies in “Halloween,” the dreamworld romance of “Garden Song,” and the country travelogue of “Graceland Too,” one of her greatest songs yet. Accompanied by banjo and fiddle and her Boygenius bandmates, Bridgers sings about a woman re-entering a world that feels unfamiliar, full of horror and possibility. As she gets in the car and turns on the radio, the thought hits her: “She can do anything she wants to.” It’s a daunting proposition, and before she knows where she’s going, she’s on her way.


Versatile producer infuses his tricky beats with in-vogue vocal samples, which turns out to be both good and bad.

Room(s)

Rarely does a moment pass on Machinedrum's Room(s) during which a human voice isn't present. This wouldn't be noteworthy save for the fact that Room(s) is an electronic album, one (presumably) devoid of its creators voice. Instead, it is stuffed to the gills with harping, distended vocal samples deployed in hypnotic, overlapping curlicues. This style of sample, popularized by UK bass music, at this point has become prevalent enough that it represents modernity-- the sound of contemporary electronic music-- more than any one genre. Still, Machinedrum's Travis Stewart approaches this trend like a glutton. Where peers like Four Tet and Jacques Greene apply these samples in precise, painterly strokes, Stewart gloms them onto the canvas with abandon. In doing so, he seems to suggest that their accumulation, more than their placement or timbre, provides the necessary weight and mysticism.
Stewart enjoys these kind of tactful reactions. He's spent 10 years releasing music under the Machinedrum moniker, much of it worthwhile, much of it in widely varying styles of electronic composition, from IDM to deep house and back. Bass music is Stewart's current muse: Earlier this year he released the excellent Fleur 12" as half of Sepalcure (whose other half, Praveen Sharma, released one of the better bass singles of the year, "The Year 3000", as Braille). On Room(s) he takes bass music's vocal samples and strips them of their candor, the sense that they are disassociated from the tech-y fray. They become globs of sound, the primary element around which these tracks are constructed.
A collection of active, grazing drum patterns and warm keyboards holds these gobs together. Stewart manages a fair range of styles-- from the pounding, piano-house of "Come1" to the opiate shadows of "Youniverse"-- though nothing escapes those contorted yelps. Those samples-- ululating, detuned, hypnotic-- normalize everything on Room(s), to the point where vastly different tracks are tonally similar. Sometimes, such as on "GBYE", he succeeds using short, eager samples, colliding two or three voices together dozens of times in quick succession. The tracks that stray furthest from dance music fare the best: "Sacred Frequency" (itself a single, with excellent B-sides, for the record) veers into the gleaming psychedelia of Caribou, while "Now U Know the Deal 4 Real" touches on cold, assertive R&B.
I want to stress how many listens it takes to suss out even these differences. It's not that they're not real, it's that the shivering vocal timbres dominate the mix to the point where large shifts in tempo and style are obscured. It's during these moments when I think that Room(s) and its elevation of the vocal sample was perhaps a better idea than an album. Still, if you're the type of person who feel hard for Greene's "Another Girl" or Burial's shaky ghosts, there's enough hyper-melodic, mush-mouthed whir on Room(s) to reward your time.


The duo offers a tight, cohesive project that binds Gud’s experienced pop precision with Papi’s uncontrolled intensity.

Foreign Exchange

When baby-faced Swedish rappers like Yung Lean and Bladee first started racking up views in the United States, their viral success was owed as much to the beats as it was the bars. The cooing vocal samples, angelic synths, and crystal shards of sound synonymous with Sad Boys and Drain Gang were and are frequently the product of producer Micke Berlander, better known as Gud. Despite the now substantial influence and imitation of his sound, Gud has been relatively selective in the artists he works with: a beat on Halsey’s debut album here, a co-production credit on Travis Scott and Quavo’s Huncho Jack there. It’s especially noteworthy, then, that the aptly named Foreign Exchange came about not because of A&R or a phoned-in business negotiation, but because Gud was so taken with Rx Papi’s work that he reached out to the New York rapper directly about collaborating.
It’s a partnership that, at first glance, seems unexpected—the Swedish rap universe flirts with hyper-pop, and it’s hard to imagine Rx Papi ever working with Charli XCX—but it also makes a strange kind of sense. Sad Boys and the loose Rx collective alike conjure very specific stylistic universes with devoted cult followings, each group re-interpreting familiar trap beats and lyrical tropes into new languages of rap, uncanny but also familiar. Though the delivery might differ, both scenes have pushed the envelope in terms of vulnerability in rap, one with a kind of sensitive poetry and the other with unsparing detail.
The collective Rx discography is a veritable torrent that not even Noah could tread. Unlike the projects of the galaxy-brained Rxk Nephew, whose treatises still function best as YouTube loosies more than full-length records, Foreign Exchange is tight and cohesive, benefiting from Gud’s experienced pop precision. The Sad Boys affect was undoubtedly genuine—the lives of Lean and his collaborators have been marked by a number of tragedies since their explosion of success—but being an “emotional boy” is as much an aesthetic as it is a sincere expression, the Arizona-sipping, athleisure-wearing equivalent of goths from bygone eras. There is humor to Papi’s bars: a track like “Still in Da Hood” drops pop culture references from cartoons to wrestling (“Drako sound like Boomhauer,” “Spike Dudley with the leg drop”) with no irony or quotation marks, just small comforts in a world marked by the ever-present expectations of looming death or heat around the corner.
It’s not just the lack of accent or language barrier that makes this collaboration even more direct than Gud’s work with Sad Boys, but also Papi’s flow itself. Where the voices of Gud’s usual muses are ethereal and distant, sometimes verging on dissociative, Papi is immediate and unrestrained from the opening bars of “12 Stout Street.”’ His tone is somewhere between howling at the moon and crying out for help, a jagged blade sharpened by a lifetime of heartbreak: imagine “Dreams and Nightmares” filtered through Michigan rap, Lil B, and a thousand blunts. Like his comrade-in-arms Rx Nephew, Papi’s lyricism gives a swift middle finger to the concept of hooks, verses, or conventional structure—what he gives us instead is a relentless direct address, unsparing in its breathless stream of consciousness, the very definition of no holds barred.
Though the pair might make for dissonant bedfellows, it’s not hard to see why a rapper who’s flipped Pet Shop Boys would be attracted to synthesizer-driven melodies like “Split Decision.” Gud’s smoothest beats only accentuate the painfulness of Papi’s lived experience: as a piano line that could belong to a New Edition or Ready for the World ballad glistens on “N.L.M.B,” Papi screams: “I grew up around fucking dead bodies!” The Swedish producer’s work is often compared to trance, but his composition here is somewhere between neoclassical and quiet storm, grounded in piano and ambient textures more than bass drum and hi-hat. Where the bass in previous Papi recordings was so fat as to almost capsize the beat, here it can be conspicuously absent, merely a beating pulse within a body of sound. When Papi’s lyrics aren’t transparently emotional, Gud’s production enhances and emphasizes the grit and pain inherent in his voice.
That tension between voice and instrumentation magnifies both the unique beauty of Gud’s beats and Papi’s uncontrolled intensity. The more times you hear Papi say who he feels like when he walks into a room, the more it seems less like a boast and more like a coping mechanism, an ironic armor to fend off life’s daggers. The album’s final line, on “Liar,” reveals what he’s been keeping inside the whole time: “I walked in this bitch, I don’t want to.” When drums and bass are decentralized, as they so often are in Gud’s beats, there’s no steel or strength left to defend, just the raw skin of Rx Papi’s emotions.

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