sing a hit song

A few fantastic titles turned up on the site over the weekend, so I wanted to take a few minutes to point ‘em out. Before I do, though: your day will not be complete until you download tracks 17 & 18 from Life Goes in Circles. I re-discovered these two over the weekend. Holy cow, man.

Various Artists, A Number of Small Things: If you haven’t yet discovered the charms of the Morr label, this compilation is your perfect intro. This is pure, perfect pop, whether it’s the sweet, strummy songs by Butcher the Bar, the hushed folk of sometime Jens Lekman collaborator Benni Hemm Hemm or the quirky Magnetic Fields cover courtesy of the stupidly-named John Yoko. I came of indie age during the era when people were mailing mixtapes of cutesy C86 pop back and forth across the country, and this compilation rides that same aesthetic to victory. Bookworms and bashful twerps, your time has come again.

Delroy Wilson, The Very Best Of… and Delroy Wilson, The Delroy Wilson Collection: I didn’t get to weigh in on the massive and amazing VP stash that showed up last week (but fear not — Jeff Chang is preparing not one, but two Dozens on the catalog), but I didn’t want to overlook the great reggae that showed up on Sunday. At the top of the list are these two titles from Delroy Wilson. This is the good stuff: that great roots sound topped with sweet soul vocals. Wilson is an R&B singer at heart, like Donny Hathaway or Bobby Patterson, and these songs showcase his flair for the deep groove. A pair of ‘must’s!

Tappa Zukie, Cork Tar and U-Roy, The Greatest Hits See above, kinda. Unlike Wilson, U-Roy and Tappa Zukie are DJs, so these albums consist mostly of toasting over dubs of hit reggae singles. Don’t underestimate their worth, though: Zukie and U-Roy are both top-of-their-game, and their top-of-head ramblings bring a freewheeling spirit to these tunes. Check out U-Roy gabbing and babbling on top of Cornell Campbell’s “Gorgon” or Zukie’s holy fire in “Righetous Anger.” These two are the perfect choices for unwinding on a Sunday afternoon.

Larry Norman, Only Visiting This Planet: Just pointing out another Norman disc for interested parties — I grew up around these records, so I always get a little charge when I see them on the site (see also, Charlie Peacock’s West Coast Diaries Vol. 2, which I’m going to guess has aged very badly). I am likewise wondering if the presence of Solid Rock records means we’ll be getting Daniel Amos’s monster concept album Horrendous Disc.

Alexander Turnquist, Apneic, Peter Broderick, Docile, Library Tapes, Fragment: I don’t really know much about the Kning Disk label, but all of these records are bound together by a similar aesthetic: long, moody sound collages, atmospheric and more than a little ominous. The songs don’t go anywhere, they just hang around, like that creepy guy in the hat and black coat that keeps turning up everywhere — sad, slow piano phrases looping over and over amid a cloud of static. I love stuff like this: I find it as dark and dreamlike as a David Lynch movie, so every one of these titles is working for me on the massive.

Bassekou Kouyate, Segu Blue: This isn’t your typical world music: Bassekou Kouyate will appeal to fans of Etran Finatawa and Amadou et Mariam; Kouyate is a master of the West African instrument known as the ngoni (it’s similar to a kora), and he braids together long strands of sound to make music that feels decidedly experimental. This is a bright, gorgeous record, one sure to appeal to fans of Malian music and the slightly more outré strands of (for lack of a better term) “world music.”