new arrivals: r.e.m., drake and more

We’re getting ready to close the gate on another year and, as such, the New Arrivals onslaught is slowing to a trickle. However! We’ve still got a smattering of new albums from trusted favorites — along with a few below-the-radar gems — to keep things interesting until we all hit the holiday madness. So! Here we go!

Drake, Take Care: I don’t know if this is an alienating statement or not (I can never tell anymore) but I really, really love this record. Emotionally candid, alternately boastful and fretful, Drake traffics in complexity and contradiction, following his impulses but then feeling conflicted about it afterward. Much has been written about his candor and sensitivity, but you can feel it even more on Take Care, and the fact that he flips from tough, conversational rapping to pained R&B croon just highlights the duality. I’m going to proudly give this a RECOMMENDED and let Nate Patrin do the rest:

Sophomore album Take Care actively doubles down on the things that make [Drake] so contentious among traditionalists — the emotional exposure, the singsong delivery (now manifested more often as straight-up R&B singing), the lyrical focus on relationships — but infuses them with a subtle dose of self-aware ambivalence. He still acknowledges success — the first line on the album is “I think I killed everybody in the game last year, man” — while “Underground Kings” and “Crew Love” are human-scale acknowledgments that he can afford nice cars and expensive vacations. Yet he carries himself as though his main concern is connecting with other people without letting status obscure his intent.

R.E.M., Part Lies Part Heart Part Truth Part Garbage 1982-2011: I don’t think anyone needs to hear me say anything more about R.E.M. at this point. So all I’ll say is, play the :30 sample of “Gardening at Night” and tell me it sounds much different from any of today’s garden variety (see what I did there?) indie bands. YOU CAN’T. Oh, R.E.M. Not everyone can carry the weight of the world. I miss you already. Comp has three new songs; “We All Go Back to Where We Belong” is R.E.M.’s official goodbye song recorded specifically for this comp (It’s lovely); “Hallelujah” and “A Month of Saturdays” were demos recorded for Collapse Into Now. The former is lovely and not a Leonard Cohen cover (thankfully). The latter can get ptomane poisioning.

Since I figured you guys were done hearing me jaw on about this band, I had Karen Schoemer give you the deets:

For all their conventionality — the endless midtempo four-four rhythms, the predictable chord changes, the seeming inability to be even mildly offensive — R.E.M. was truly weird and revolutionary. They did more than just pioneer the delivery of indie rock to the masses; in nearly 30 years of rock ‘n’ roll hugeness and importance, they never wrote a song demanding satisfaction or a moronic paean to a girl walking down the street. In the land of macho, they were relentlessly un-so, preferring instead to highlight the awkwardness of our stance in the world, and our perennial failed attempts to act delicately within its indelicacy. Buck, Mills and Stipe (and, until 1998, drummer Bill Berry) never spelled this out for us; instead they wrote loopy, indirect songs about sidewinders, nightswimming, anxious train conductors and gardening in the dark. Some of us knew it all along; the rest of us can figure it out looking back.

Los Campesinos!, Hello Sadness: New one from Los Campesinos finds the band back on their feet, kicking out bright and rollicking pop music topped by Gareth Campesinos’ wry, smartass delivery. Laura has the 411:

The name of Los Campesinos!’s new album, Hello Sadness, comes from a line in its title track: Frontman Gareth (all the bandmembers have adopted the surname Campesinos!) sings, “Goodbye, courage/ Hello, sadness, again,” which kicks off a raucous party of Arcade Fire-level bombast, with a searing violin intertwined with a guitar solo over “ooh oooohs.” In that song’s chorus they all sing, “This dripping from my broken heart is never running dry.” It’s a perfect example of what this group from Cardiff, Wales, does best: pair self-deprecating verses over chaotic explosions of guitars, horns, strings and glockenspiel.

Childish Gambino, Camp: Yesterday, NBC announced that they were benching the excellent hyper-meta sitcom Community, which is a crushing blow for fans of Thursday night television — and aren’t we all fans of Thursday night television? — but should on the other hand give Donald Glover more time to devote to the records he makes as Childish Gambino. Here’s the latest. Glover, as you might guess, has a rapier-sharp sense of humor and a disarming, little-boy flow for an album that manages to be funny without being ironic. He also shouts out NYC club Piano’s, which is weird. eMusic’s Dan Hyman agrees:

“Why does every black actor gotta rap some?” Donald Glover ponders on “Bonfire,” the most aggressive, forthright cut from his largely self-produced debut. The Community actor, performing under the moniker Childish Gambino, is quick to point out his own misgivings — he’s not “black enough” to be hood and has been called “gay” by his detractors. But rather than pout, Glover uses his seething wit and hyperventilating rhyme patterns as critical silencers.

The Who, Quadrophenia Reissue: FOUR DISCS. FOUR DISCS. If you know anything about classic rock, you know the story here: the Who follow up Tommy with an even bigger gambit, this one about teen angst and multiple personality disorder. It’s also got some straight-up Who classics, including the towering “Love Reign O’er Me.”

Randy Newman, Live in London: Randy is best known these days for his soundtracks to Pixar films, an issue we aim to correct with an upcoming Icon piece on the man (stay tuned). In the meantime, you can get an introduction to his brand of literate, occasionally smartass songwriting with this live set from his 2008 tour of the UK.

Tegan & Sara, Get Along: Speaking of live records! An acoustic (mostly) record from Tegan & Sara presents their songs in a more minimal musical environment and offers an inadvertent nod toward their suuuuuper-early days as a folk duo. T&S write lovely melodies, and if the acoustic arrangements bleed out a lot of the tension that makes their music work, the sturdy hooks ensure that they never become boring. Also, they kind of sound like Cyndi Lauper on a lot of these songs, which I have absolutely no issue with.

The Twilight Singers, Live in New York: LIVE ALBUMS. They’re just like the studio albums, but with clapping. Greg Dulli & co turn out a typically incendiary set of Twilight songs in NYC, fusing scabrous rock with smoldering R&B for a combo that cannot be beat.

The Fall, Ersatz GB: The Fall are still going! I was really on top of them back when they put out that first record for Narnack a while back, and I felt like they were heading into a vital new era. But then MES, as he is wont to do, sacked the band, and I haven’t been tuned in since. This one at first pass seems to lack the brute force of those Narnack records, but there’s a rickitiness to the proceedings that reminds me of some of the Brix-era stuff. I will probably give this a listen, just for old time’s sake.

Frank Sinatra, Sinatra: The Best of the Best: There are so many Frank Sinatra hits compilations in the world, all of them with different adjectives for “best” in the title, so it can often be hard to tell one from the other. At 23 songs, and with some of his most identifiable hits, I’d say you probably could do worse than this one. NOTED FRANK SINATRA EXPERT THAT I AM.

Phil Spector, The Essential Phil Spector: See above! I’m partial to the epic Wall of Sound box set that came out years ago, but those looking for just a quick overview of the man’s work just before he lost his goddamned mind, this is a great place to start. Thirty-five songs, all of them classic.

The Canyons, Keep Your Dreams: Aussie duo deliver a delightfully obstinate record; throbbing tribal rhythms, punch-drunk synths, heavy atmospherics and the occasional jagged guitar make this one for the more adventurous. Things change from one song to the next — one minute it’s low-light Italo disco, the next it’s sleek synthpop, the next it’s quasi industrial. Basically, prepare to be surprised. RECOMMENDED

Maria Minerva, Sacred & Profane Love: God bless Maria Minerva. 22-year old student makes spooky, witchy synth music on a dollar-store budget, using only the power of her mysterious voice to anchor these strange incantations. Too late for Halloween, but right on time for your every day fright needs.

Betty Wright, Betty Wright: The Movie: ’70s R&B singer pairs with the Roots for this surprisingly low-buzz comeback record. The album mostly sticks to the kind of hazy, strutting R&B that characterized Wright’s records back in the day, albeit with a few modern touches. “In the Middle of the Game” feels like the kind of song Curtis Mayfield might write if he were still with us today.

Blackout Beach, Fuck Death: Stark concept record from Carey Mercer pits his emotive, yelping voice against chintzy synths for a combined effect that’s appropriately unsettling. Mercer wouldn’t sound out of place fronting the kind of throbbing synthpop that, say, Erasure or Yeasayer put out, but in this context the peaks and valleys in his voice feel that much more arresting. Ian Cohen has more:

Mercer took the [album's] title from a Leon Golub painting and the inspiration from both the Book Of Job and “the awesomeness of Platoon to the 10-year-old mind”; the 12-minute centerpiece is called “Drowning Pigs.” As a pure sonic experience, Fuck Death is every bit as absorbing or laughable as that all sounds, depending on whether you’re in the “take it” or “leave it” camp.

Pterodactyl, Spills Out: Trivia: there is an ad for Bushmills whiskey in Brooklyn, and one of the guys depicted in the painting is wearing a Jagjaguwar T-Shirt. So, that! Here’s the latest from the great Jagjag, also from Brooklyn — ramshackle indie rock with a twinkle in its eye and reverb slathered across everything else. Sturdy melodies lie beneath a veneer of noise-rock chaos, making this both intriguing and tough to pin down.

Cappadonna, The Pilgrimage: Probably does not contain a cover of the REM song. Question: is Cappadonna a full-fledged Wu member at this point? I always thought it was a shame that he came in just under the wire back in the ’90s, and it seemed to make him ineligible for life. Cappadonna: hip-hop’s asterisk. Cappa! I feel for you! This is a collection of just-fine hip-hop that keeps the focus where it should be — on Cappa’s snarl, not his rhymes (“I study real hard/ like I got a disease”?)

Chin Yi, Wo: “Wo” is right! What the hell is this?? Super weird post-punk/experimental stuff from Grenada at times is kind of like a less-intense version of what Michael Gira was doing with Swans, and at times is so skewed and cockeyed it refuses easy categorization. You can watch some videos here to decide if it’s your thing.

Has-Lo, Conversation B: I fully loved Has-Lo’s In Case I Don’t Make It, also released this year, so I’m intrigued to give this disc of remixes from that record a shot. The production here feels a bit more obstinate compared to ICIDM’s gritty, scuffed-up soul — this is more Def Jux where the original was more vintage RZA. How’s that for a comparison? Bad? OK! If you haven’t already, you definitely should read Christina Lee‘s profile of Mello Music, the label that is home to Has-Lo, and take a spin through the radio station the label curated for us.

The Jigsaw Seen, Winterland: One of our writers, Dan Epstein, called this to my attention, and I’m glad he did: rock-solid power-pop, longing melodies and guitars the glitter like snowfall. And since Dan called it out, I’m going to let him fill in the rest:

With Winterland, the L.A.-based psychedelic pop craftsmen have come up with the perfect Christmas album for those who have serious misgivings about “The Most Wonderful Time of the Year.” Instead of benevolent snowmen, the Jigsaw Seen pay tribute to the “Snow Angels of Pigtown”; instead of jolly instrumentals, they present the meditative guitar raga “December”; instead of campy covers of Christmas classics, they turn in a lovely rendition of Gordon Lightfoot’s “Circle of Steel,” complete with harmony vocals from Dave Davies of The Kinks.

Korallreven, An Album By Korallreven: Really lovely, slow, synthy record from this Swedish outfit puts a premium on atmosphere over directness. The songs here are gauzy and slow-moving, woozy and evocative. Synths pool up slowly and vocals sigh and glide over top.

Various Artists, British Teen Rarities 1960 – 1965: Fun little hodgepodge of UK teenybopper stuff, popcorn melodies and candy-covered choruses. Goes down sweet and easy, warm as a day at the beach.

–>Jonah’s Jazz Picks
Hey, again.

Well, it was probably unreasonable to hope that the avalanche of new jazz releases would continue for a fourth week in a row. After joyously being greeted by over twenty five pages of new jazz releases each of the last handful of weeks, this week’s Freshly Ripped didn’t bury me alive. Of course, the flip side to a smaller offering is the time in which to savor the new discoveries. Case in point…

Arun Ghosh, Primal Odyssey: Very happy to be able to lead off with a new Indo-jazz release, and a strong one at that. Generally speaking, Indo-jazz is Indian music when the seed of the song is planted, but which sprouts from the ground in the form of jazz improvisation. What often results is a joyous music that is right at home in dark smoky jazz clubs. In addition to Ghosh’s clarinet, other instruments making an appearance include bass clarinet, sax, double-bass, and drums, and they layer atop one another in wondrous long sonorous drifts of sound, propulsed by a rhythm section that takes command of the listener’s foot. If you only buy one jazz album this week, this should be it. Highly recommended.

Tito Carrillo, Opening Statement: It’s a story line that jazz fans encounter from time to time… long-time session player finally records an album under his or her own name. I can’t help but cheer that effort and hope it works out. Being a team player is a noble calling in any field, but in jazz where the performance of the various pieces in the ensemble can create a whole so much greater than the sum of its individual parts, I can’t help but want to cheer on the underdog who steps out from the bandstand and into the spotlight for the first time themselves. Of course, when the result is an extraordinarily strong album like Carrillo’s Opening Statement, cheering takes a backseat to listening. This is straight-ahead jazz, though it might be misrepresentative to describe the development of the tunes as linear. Each song takes a round-about path from first note to last, giving the songs a sense of adventure even when Carrillo’s trumpet is giving sound to a standard series of notes. This was an album that had me already looking forward to his next. Recommended.

Corey Wilkes, Kind of Miles: Live at the Velvet Lounge: A nice live set from trumpet player Corey Wilkes covering a set of Miles Davis tunes. Wilkes has a strong position in the Chicago jazz community, being a member of the AACM as well as receiving the honor of sitting in with the Art Ensemble of Chicago following the passing of long-time member Lester Bowie. Performed at the historic Velvet Lounge, Wilkes does more than just run a standard cover set, though. With four tunes running between 15 and 26 minutes each, he gives his group time to explore and expand on Davis’s original themes. Especially rewarding is their take on “Yesterdays”, which builds on Davis’s take (of, originally, a Jerome Kern song), building oh so slowly and drawing out every drop of emotion from the notes. Equally intriguing is the ensemble’s mash-up of Davis’s “So What” and Radiohead’s “Everything In Its Right Place.” This is definitely a live album; you can hear the sounds of the Velvet Lounge throughout the album. Fortunately, it adds to the ambiance of the album experience rather than detracts. This album won’t be for everybody, but there is a large contingent of jazz fans who need to buy this. Me, the samples compelled me to buy it.

Hal Galper Trio, Trip the Light Fantastic: Jazz piano vet and highly regarded educator, Hal Galper offers another solid recording to his lengthy discography. Galper has a very identifiable sound, not sure I can adequately compare him to anyone. The way in which he strings notes together, it always leaves me with the impression of falling down a flight of stairs without ever leaving my feet… a controlled cohesive randomness that’s just a wee bit dangerous and could prove fatal. With Jeff Johnson and John Bishop on bass and drums, Galper’s trio puts out a strong recording, and the Origin label continues to impress with their selection of talent.

The always reliable MaxJazz label gives session vet David Budway a platform for his debut A New Kiss. Accompanied by a strong line-up that includes (among others) Marcus Strickland, Jeff “Tain” Watts, Eric Revis, and a guest performance by Branford Marsalis, Budway delivers a warm set of contemporary numbers. Well, except for the final track on the album that brings guitar and keyboards into the mix for a nifty tune with Arabic stylings. Neat end to a very enjoyable album.

Mataroa, Kaimaki: Ridiculously pretty album. A French quintet of sax, piano, drums, bass, and vocals. Shimmering melodies sway gently in place as sax flutters just overhead, entwined with intermittent vocals. Engaging, yet uncomplicated. Just a series of beautiful songs. A promising debut recording.

We look to have a new label drop this week for Video Arts Music. Several recordings from the 90’s (and later) of well known jazz musicians like McCoy Tyner, Niels-Henning Ørsted Pedersen, and Duke Jordan. At first blush, it appears to be standard jazz fare, solid music, clean recordings. If I had to choose just one, I’d probably go with Duke Jordan, Beauty of Scandinavia, a nice trio date with Jesper Lundgaard on bass and Ed Thigpen on drums. I’ve always liked Jordan’s sound, both understated and evocative, and in my experience, tougher to find recordings of his than it is my second choice, McCoy Tyner, Prelude and Sonata, a quartet date in which the piano legend is accompanied by Joshua Redman, Marvin “Smitty” Smith, and Christian McBride. I wasn’t going to rave about this recording, but then I heard their cover of Tyner’s “Contemplation”, perhaps my favorite Tyner blues composition and a standout on the excellent classic album The Real McCoy, and now here I am looking at adding yet one more Tyner album to a shelf buckling under the weight of all my previous purchases of his music.

Putting out recording number eighty with Take Another Look, Ramsey Lewis , a jazz icon, revisits some of his favorite compositions with his Electric Band. Ramsey’s music these days is pretty mainstream, perhaps lacking the sound that beboppers and modern jazzers alike prefer, but, for me, Ramsey’s immense talent has always transcended that. Some of his early jazz-R&B fusion albums, like the fun Sun Goddess, in which he collaborates with members of Earth, Wind, & Fire, fit into that personal category of “Albums With A Sound That I’m Not Into But Listen To All The Time Anyway” (my personal categories have always been especially verbose). I highly recommend poking around his discography, since there’s something there for everybody to like.

I think that’s where I’ll call it a wrap for this week. I hope you find some cool new music.

Cheers.

–>Singles & EPs
Lucho Bermudez y Su Orchestra, Soundway presents Lucho Bermúdez y Su Orquesta: This is EXCELLENT. I have the 2×45 and play it every time I DJ. Joyous, swooping Latin music, with horns that dip and bend and tempos that bend and sashay like dirty-minded Lotharios. I love this so much. You will, too. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED

Crocodiles & Dum Dum Girls, “Merry Christmas, Baby (Please Don’t Die)”: It’s about goddamn time! Dee Dee and her hubby Brandon Welchez team up for this Christmas single. Dum Dum Girls made one of my favorite records of 2011, so hearing Dee Dee sing on this holiday weeper is like getting a box full of icing for Christmas. Which, by the way, if you have kids to buy for, is the greatest Christmas gift ever.

Beth Jeans Houghton & the Hooves of Destiny, “Liliputt”: We first got wise to the BJH a few years back and had Elisa Bray get the scoop in this revealing Who Is piece. She took a brief hiatus, but is back with this single, which is both delicate and mystic — kind of a faberge egg version of Florence & the Machine, if you will.

Crystal Stilts, Radiant Door EP: 2011 was the year that I finally “got” Crystal Stilts, so I’m more than ready to have a few more songs with them before the year is out. And so here comes the great Sacred Bones label to help me fulfill that mission! The Stilts used to write songs based purely on ambiance, but over the last few years they’ve found their way around a bunch of delightfully dour melodies. Ian Cohen is down:

On their previous LPs, Brooklyn’s Crystal Stilts came off like a band of good ol’ fashioned record nerds that spent years of apprenticeship studying what made their favorites click — the caustic reverberations of early Jesus & Mary Chain, Joy Divison’s morbid reveries, lots and lots of Velvet Underground. But things can get a bit stifling when you’re stuck in your attic with all that vinyl, and when “Dark Eyes” kicks off Radiant Door with stereo-panned block percussion and acoustic strumming, you can hear the claustrophobic, musty production being split wide open. Though only 20 minutes long, it’s Crystal Stilts at their most expansive.

Factory Floor, “Two Different Ways”: Blipping minimal dancefloor music from DFA with pinpoint synthesizers and cooing female vocals. This is one for an Antarctic dance party, frigid and stern, but commanding. RECOMMENDED

The Raveonettes, “Let Me on Out”: Chiming new ballad from the Raveonettes slows their hyperactive roll in favor of sheets of sound that radiate like the Northern lights.

Rebecca Black, “Person of Interest”: Are you guys watching this show? I thought it was going to at least be interesting because I love Michael Emerson, but it’s kind of directionless and implausible. This new Rebecca Black single has nothing to do with that.

Kap Bambino, “Resistance Alpha”: Woozy, synth-heavy single with ferocious vocals from Ms. Bambino, unexpectedly fierce and confrontational. Kap Bambino should collaborate with Childish Gambino. They can call it Bambino Gambino.

Races, Big Broom EP: Pretty solid synth-based stuff on Frenchkiss; vocals are coy and tiny, and the music is spacious, but allows plenty of room for big, blurting synths.

–>Metal Box
Blaze of Perdition, The Hierophant: Another gem for all you infernal ones out here. Polish black metal band balances the usual fury and screaming with a few moments of turbulent melodicism, making the perfect soundtrack for you to sacrifice a turkey to this week. Not exactly reinventing the goat’s head, if you will, but sometimes a little pitch-black familiarity suits just fine. We’re gonna call this RECOMMENDED.

Feidi Defensor, Cognosceti: Band’s name means ‘Defender of the Faith,’ which seems crazy to me. This is moody, atmospheric metal — slow, elegiac passages situated between black metal with distinct symphonic elements.