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An occasional blog about populist politics and popular music, not necessarily at the same time. LinksLocal Links Social Media My Other Websites Music Politics Others Networking Music DatabaseArtist Search: Website SearchGoogle: Recent Reading
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Music Week [410 - 419]Monday, June 11, 2018 Music Week
Music: current count 29818 [29786] rated (+32), 344 [339] unrated (+5). Not much to say about music this week. Just sort of feeling my way around the new computer. One thing I noticed is that it's much easier to go straight to a download/stream from email now that I'm doing both on the same machine. In particular, I used to get a lot of CDs from the world music publicist Rock Paper Scissors, but for the last few years all they've sent was email, which I almost never dealt with. But a couple records below (Diali Cissokho, Ginkgoa, Parliament) came out of their mail. I also made a point of thumbing through the July issue of Downbeat and looking up most of the reviewed records I didn't receive. Neither of those strategies led to great discoveries, but they did turn up some pretty good records. Overall count for the week was solid. Most likely it will fall off next week, as we're expecting company for a big event on Wednesday, 4:30-7:00 PM, at McKnight Art Center on the campus of Wichita State University: Sacred Space Exhibition Reception. This is a set of seven large portals: doorways opening to views of the world through various prisms of religion. The artwork was originally constructed and painted back in 2002, under the direction of the late Diane Thomas Lincoln, with my sister, Kathy Hull, taking a major role. I have write ups and some pictures from the original development and exhibit here. The artwork has been in storage for much of the intervening time. Before her fatal accident this spring, my sister had campaigned to remount the exhibit, and she conspired with my nephew Mike Hull to produce a documentary on the work. This project won't come off quite as originally intended, but Mike will be here to film what he can, and we'll try to be helpful. The exhibit will be on view, free to the public, 9 A.M.-5 P.M. at the Clayton Staples Gallery, second floor of McKnight Art Center West, through August 31, 2018. Coincidentally, I just heard this week that another of Kathy's major projects -- a mural based on the Mexican Day of the Dead celebration on the south side of a laundromat at Arkansas and 25th St N here in Wichita -- is going to be painted over sometime soon. I only found one Google image search picture, here, as it was being painted (Linda Jordan left, Kathy right). I also have a finished photo in my archives, as well as a picture of Kathy holding her sketch in front of the work-in-progress which at the time appeared in the Wichita Eagle. Ram Lama Hull posted a couple more recent photos on Facebook: here and here. Ram commented:
Mike has already photographed a lot of Kathy's art, and I expect he will be doing more this week, including some "last shots" of the mural. Actually, I guess I do have a couple of brief notes on music. Michael Tatum has been doing one of those "10 records in 10 days" things on Facebook. His first three picks recapitulate my own evolving tastes in the years just before I started writing rock crit: The Byrds, Sweetheart of the Rodeo; Rhino's disco compilation, Turn the Beat Around (1974-1978); and Roxy Music, Siren. I would have picked Stranded, and tried to work in Al Green, I'm Still in Love With You, and Brinsley Schwarz's New Favourites, but Michael is definitely onto something. Given that I've archived his work in the past, I've started to squirrel away these new posts. I'll also note that Robert Christgau's latest Expert Witness has two A records that I gave very solid A- grades to some time back: Parquet Courts: Wide Awaaaaake!, and No Age: Snares Like a Haircut. I see now that I screwed up the news roll notice for that post -- sorry about that. I've been making slow progress fixing my local copy of the website, but I'm still a long ways away from being able to do a general update. (Same, really, for my own websites.) I'll also note that I played the new Lily Allen album (No Shame) a half-dozen times today without being able to grade it A-. May still happen: I've decided to back off and give it some time, but it's clearly not going to be my album of the year, as her last two were. Not that I don't still adore her, but only a few songs reinforce that (like "Waste"). On the other hand, a couple songs are very bland, and "Cake" is way too much of a cliché. And only on the last play did it sink in that "Three" is meant to be in the voice of her daughter. Sure, makes sense that way, but doesn't sound right. New records rated this week:
Recent reissues, compilations, and vault discoveries rated this week:
Old music rated this week:
Unpacking: Found in the mail last week:
Daily LogMiscellaneous Album Notes:
Ask a question, or send a comment. Monday, June 4, 2018 Music Week
Music: current count 29786 [29759] rated (+27), 339 [344] unrated (-5). Rated count better than expected, but mostly due to listening to old (often familiar) music -- only 11 new releases below. Could be that I listened to/rated/reviewed a few albums between last Monday's update and my catastrophic computer crash. If so, I'll have to go back and redo. But I did find a couple of bookkeeping discrepancies that added to the rated count. Current computer status:
As some point I may push a few of the more volatile music files onto the server. (Maybe I should try writing an explicit pathname archival tool today, since that would be useful now and again in the near future? OK, that's done.) A couple of notes on this week's music. Back in December, Cuneiform announced that they wouldn't be releasing any new music -- you can still buy their back catalog, and they've put it up on Bandcamp so you can actually listen to it. (They've always been a holdout from streaming services.) So I was surprised when the two new Thumbscrew releases showed up in the mail. Looks like they have some more digital-only releases, but these are (or soon will be) physical. And they're so good I went back and tried to play Mary Halvorson's other new record this year, Code Girl. I still don't like it, the problem a singer who grates on my nerves. Vocals also undermine the Phil Haynes double, but his No Fast Food album is possibly the best showcase in recent memory for Dave Liebman. The unpacking queue has thinned out considerably in the last month, and not having time to do much research, I've resorted to using Napster's very limited "featured" offerings. That got me to Chvrches, Gift of Gab, Pusha T, and Kanye West. I wound up giving West's 7-track "album" an extra play after a Facebook friend raved about it, and another stressed how much better it got after multiple plays. I also followed links to reviews by Rob Harvilla. Meaghan Garvey, and Lindsay Zoladz, none of which turned out to be all that positive. I looked the album up on Metacritic, where its average score is 67 for 20 reviews (user score is 7.4 on 397 ratings). I wound up bumping the album one slot, but was already regretting that before "Ghost Town" finished. I'm counting the 7-cut (21-23 minute) West productions as EPs. In the past I've often lowballed EPs, not because I think they lack value but because usually a record takes some time to make itself felt. Still, two of my A- grades this week are EPs (both six cuts, one a mere 21:16, the other a near-LP 28:40). Both are terrific, but also feel pretty substantial to me. Between the vinyl revival and the dominance of digital formats, that sort of length range is becoming common, making labels awkward. As for my "old music," one of the scripts I tested was the one that prints out my grade database for a given artist. I used the Rolling Stones as my test case, and noticed the ungraded Black and Blue and a few albums I've never heard. Most were available on Napster, so I figured they'd make for easy listening while I was working on the website. Once I caught up with the missing items, I decided to go back and pick up the UK versions of early albums I knew from US editions. (One thing that inspired me here was Michael Tatum's review of Out of Our Heads -- US edition, although I had to look that detail up. By and large, the UK editions turned out not to be as good -- or maybe they just sounded a bit thin (on the computer) and dated? I didn't do any rechecking. I also didn't prepare cover images, even when they rose to A- or even A. I imagine I'll follow similar strategies in coming weeks, and see where it all leads me. But I'll also take a look at Phil Overeem's latest list and see what else pops up. Played the new Sidi Touré album while writing this, realizing (again) there are old ones I should catch up with. New records rated this week:
Recent reissues, compilations, and vault discoveries rated this week:
Old music rated this week:
Unpacking: Found in the mail last week:
Ask a question, or send a comment. Monday, May 28, 2018 Music WeekMusic: current count 29759 [29733] rated (+26), 344 [351] unrated (-7). Rated count down a bit. I spent most of Monday and Tuesday cooking a fairly large Indian dinner to mark my late sister's birthday, so I took the time to enjoy old favorites. After that, I made a small dent in my CD queue, which had partly been impoverished by my picking out the most promising titles earlier this month. Still, I expected good things from François Carrier's latest -- largely delivered, although I detected a bit of unsteadiness compared to recent efforts -- and a 3-CD William Parker collection. The latter samples Parker's 1991-93 Song Cycle (with Ellen Christie and Lisa Sokolov), adds some later vocal pieces, and throws in two discs of new recordings. I find most of them hard to take -- an aversion to opera, art song, and avant warble I've long held. I also sought out some recent Clean Feed releases -- long my favorite label but less so since they stopped servicing me. I also found a few recent HighNote/Savant releases on Napster -- back catalog isn't there yet, but one hopes -- and took a look at Chicago pianist Matt Piet's Bandcamp pages (but didn't bite on the 3-hour Live in Chicago). Also checked out Robert Christgau's latest picks (Frankie Cosmos and Speed Ortiz; I had already played his HMs), and Prefuse 73 (a friend was curious). Still, none of those struck me as A- records: Carrier came closest, and Piet impressed me as someone worth keeping an ear open for. Expect a Streamnotes compilation by the end of the month. I currently have 19 new A/A- releases (plus one new compilation), which is actually well above average for a month. The 2018 A-list only totals 40 so far, so nearly half of them have come in May. Ignoring January (usually just previous year catch-up) that comes to 10/month, or 120/year. That's actually a bit down from 2017, which totals 144 new A-list records (including 5 added since the Jan. 31, 2018 freeze date). I have 320 new records rated so far this year, so an average of 80/month, projected to 960 for the year. For 2017 the current total is 1177 (42 added since freeze date), so I'm down a bit this year. No real surprise given how the year has gone. The May Streamnotes draft file currently has 128 new records (including compilations), well above my average this (or practically any) year. Not much unpacking this week, but after reports that Cuneiform had closed down back in January, I was very pleasantly surprised to see two new Thumbscrew (Mary Halvorson) records show up in my mail box. New records rated this week:
Recent reissues, compilations, and vault discoveries rated this week:
Unpacking: Found in the mail last week:
Ask a question, or send a comment. Monday, May 21, 2018 Music Week
Music: current count 29733 [29697] rated (+36), 351 [349] unrated (+2). Got a rude shock from Twitter this afternoon when I went to announce that I had finally posted my Sunday Weekend Roundup column. After the initial shock wore off, I figured out that they didn't like my browser so decided to force me to use their "mobile" interface. It is, necessarily, more compact, dispensing with stats like how many followers I have, how many notifications I haven't looked at, and other features -- not least the form to enter a new tweet. When I found the icon, it threw away the rest of the screen. I imagine a lot of you interact with Twitter through your phones, so you're used to this, but after an experiment I stripped their ap from my phone. I'm no Luddite, but did find that the value added was far less than the nuisance received. Turns out that my secondary computer still gets the regular user interface, so I can go there (as I've had to do for Facebook for several years now). I have 298 followers. Been stuck there for a few weeks, and thought of making a pitch here to push me over the 300 number. (Would be nice to break 300 followers before I break through 30,000 records rated, no?) Link is under Networking to the left, or here. One other thing I noticed on Twitter today is that the proportion of advertisements in the feed has exploded -- as it did in Facebook maybe a year ago. It looks like they've taken a big step on the curve from enticing people with a free service to turning it into a major public nuisance. Of course, that's happening all over the Internet these days -- as if everyday life wasn't troubling enough. I reckon I'll have to stop being so offended if/when I start pulling shit like that myself, but for now I entitled to complain. I've been reading Michael Ruhlman's Grocery: The Buying and Selling of Food in America, which follows a brief history of how grocery stores developed with a much longer investigation into the current business of one local chain Ruhlman is particularly fond of: Heinen's, in and around Cleveland (and Chicago). I've read a number of Ruhlman's books, going back to The Soul of a Chef (2000), most recently The Elements of Cooking (from 2007, but I read it, along with Judith Jones' The Tenth Muse: My Life in Food, to take a break from something in 2016). The thing that Ruhlman reminded me of is how much the technology and business of good has changed during my lifetime, and that it's mostly been for the better -- despite many other metrics that have been in more or less constant decline since I was born in 1950. Ruhlman attributes this to customer demand, and paints a picture of a vibrantly functioning capitalism constantly adapting to meet demands for broader and more exotic selection, fresher and less contaminated produce and meats, and (most of all) more convenient ways of obtaining tastier meals. Sure, his favored grocery chain seems to be working harder than most to satisfy those desires, but I can see faint echoes of that in the two chains that dominate my home town (Kroger and WalMart, so probably yours too). And it is true that when capital, competitive markets, innovation, and real personal demand come together capitalism can be a wondrous thing. I'm often haunted by the question of why, if business (especially finance) is so rotten and government so corrupt, so many people think their lives are better than ever. Good food helps explain that. But Ruhlman also notes that profit margins in groceries are exceptionally thin -- something which has probably spared chains like Heinen's from the devastation of private equity firms. But I'd like to single out one more factor: taste. As Adam Smith knew, markets only work when they are transparent, which is to say when the buyer knows exactly what she is buying. As MBA students soon learn, the trick to increasing profits is to make products opaque, so people can never really understand just what they are buying. (This is why medicine has been such a long-term profit engine.) But everyone has a taste for good food, and that's what keeps the industry at least relatively honest. (Not that big processed food companies haven't exploited our weak spots for salt, sugar, and fat, but even that is relatively easy to see around.) Moreover, most of the workers and businessfolk throughout the food chain take pride in their products and services, in marked distinction to the widget-counters who dominate other industries. Speaking of food, my late sister's birthday is tomorrow, so I'll be cooking for her son and some friends tomorrow. Last year she requested Indian for her birthday, so I figured I'd reprise that menu (with a couple of minor changes) this year: lamb and fish curries, several vegetable dishes (cabbage, greens, eggplant, green beans), cucumber raita, a simple rice pilaf, some warmed-up frozen paratha (I've made scratch, but hardly seems worth the trouble). Thought I'd go with Mom's legendary coconut cake for dessert this time. (Last year was a flourless chocolate cake with ice cream.) Need to wrap this up and go shopping -- such dinners usually take 3-5 grocery store stops, but this one should actually be relatively easy. And I'll miss a couple days of searching out new music. However, this past week offers a pretty broad selection, so enjoy. [PS: Back from shopping, which proved not so easy. Took me four hours, four stores: Sprouts (most of the vegetables), Dillons (lamb, halibut, yogurt), Whole Foods (bulk rice, cabbage), and Asia Bazaar (ghee, bread, urad dal, a coconut). I expected to get by with just the first two, as I have almost all of the more esoteric Indian ingredients already in stock (maybe not urad dal, but I could have skipped it). However, Dillons disappointed me, among other things getting rid of their bulk goods section, and I didn't feel like buying a 5 lb. package of rice there. Also, no coconut, and when I got to Whole Foods I remembered I forgot the cabbage. I had enough ghee and bread, but by then I thought I might as well stop at Asia Bazaar to make sure I don't run out. Also found some nice okra there, which I hadn't planned on. Not sure how much cooking I'll get done tonight, so I may wind up having to cut dishes tomorrow.] A couple of very brief notes on the music. I went into some Otis Redding back catalogue after noticing the new compilations. All of the B+(***) albums could have come in higher had I not recalled the other records I've heard so well. I had a couple of Redding's early LPs, but really fell for him again with the 3-CD The Otis Redding Story, which came out in 1989 and still remains definitive. Needless to say, it's pretty remarkable for a guy who only recorded six years to have amassed that much great music. I also have three of the four 1968-70 posthumous albums at A- (The Dock of the Bay and Love Man are the ones omitted below). LaVette, of course, is relatively minor, but the new record made me want to dig deeper. Her best previous record remains A Woman Like Me (2003). Christgau gave a full A to the new record here, as well as reviewing two Wussy albums (one EP, one LP) that he likes much more than I do. I previously gave the EP, Getting Better, a B+(*) a while back. I like the album a bit more, but I'm more suspicious I've overrated it than under. New records rated this week:
Recent reissues, compilations, and vault discoveries rated this week:
Old music rated this week:
Unpacking: Found in the mail last week:
Ask a question, or send a comment. Monday, May 14, 2018 Music Week
Music: current count 29697 [29660] rated (+37), 349 [356] unrated (-7). Once again, counted the list below and found my rated count short, so checked everything, adding four grades. Also noticed one item missing from the list. Still two short, but harder to check that direction, and will soon be forgotten anyway. Presumably the Year 2018 list is accurate. I've been adding quite a few records to the Music Tracking list, mostly based on various AOTY lists -- up to 772 records at the moment (OK, vs. 3690 for 2017, but 1742 for 2016; by the way, rated counts are: 279, 1179, 1167; if you figure we're 25% into 2018 -- counting January in the previous year as we're always playing catch up -- the track this year is for 1116 albums, down a bit but not much). Confidence Man and Kali Uchis are currently ranked 1st and 5th on AOTY, and I might not have noticed them otherwise. (Not that their picks are a lock, as shown by 3rd-ranked Black Foxxes and number ten Hot Snakes -- I was also pointed toward the latter by Phil Overeem, and I've followed most of his tips.) I also noticed Kate Nash on AOTY's lists, but nowhere near the top. Top record I haven't heard yet is Saba's Care for Me (2), followed by the Xcerts' Hold on to Your Heart (6), and many more from 13th down. The Ry Cooder record was reviewed by Robert Christgau here -- also Mount Eerie's Now Only, 14th on AOTY's list, which I'll get to in due course. As of this writing, Christgau's website is still down. This has been reported to the hosting company, who are reportedly working on it. We had another outage a few months ago, but they've generally been rare. One thing that I should note is the confusing product choices surrounding the 25th anniversary of Liz Phair's Exile in Guyville. I gave the preferred grade to the 3-CD box, but actually only listened to the MP3-only The Girly-Sound Tapes -- effectively solo demos for the album and the leading edge of Phair's career. The box combines a remaster of the classic album with the Tapes, and as best I can tell, the 3CD set (although not the 7LP box) is actually cheaper than the MP3 Tapes alone. I can say that I was seriously considering an A- for Tapes, but consumer guidance (and the desire just to picture one cover) steered me the other way. A couple of links to recommend: I was particularly pleased to see the mention of Nick Mason's Fictitious Sports ("a Carla Bley album in all but name"). I should also note that avant-guitarist Glenn Branca has died (1948-2018), but can't really say much about him. Legendary, but I never got around to listening to his records -- possibly because too many had "Symphony" in the title. New records rated this week:
Recent reissues, compilations, and vault discoveries rated this week:
Old music rated this week:
Unpacking: Found in the mail last week:
Ask a question, or send a comment. Monday, May 7, 2018 Music Week
Music: current count 29660 [29628] rated (+32), 356 [372] unrated (-16). When I unpack an album, I record it in five separate files: my Year 2018 file, my Music Tracking 2018 file, a scratch file which gets folded into my next Music Week post, another scratch file which has review stubs for all of the unrated jazz records in my queue, and what I call my database: actually a set of 20-some text files that get run through a program I wrote to generate a big big table, my Music Database intro file, and the bunch of genre/period-specific files linked to from there. It's not that I don't understand the principle of normalization, but this system evolved over time from something much simpler, and it still works (for the most part). In fact, I usually do a pretty good job of logging those new records in all of those places. Where I often fall down is when I grade an album. Not only to I usually have to update all of those files (as well as doing nearly all of the unpacking work for streamed albums), I also write a review in working Streamnotes draft file. And, of course, it gets more complicated around EOY time, when I'm compiling my aggregate file and sorting out my jazz and non-jazz EOY lists. It turns out that I sometimes (on average 2-3 times per week) skip one or more of those, most commonly the database files, resulting in short rated counts. When I ran my program this week, I came up with 23 albums rated. I wasn't real real surprised. I didn't have any major disruptions last week, but came up with way more than a normal week's worth of A-list records, and they tend to take more time -- often 3-4 plays; in fact, the only one I see this week that only got two plays was Tommy Flanagan's Giant Steps. But I was a little surprised, so I counted the records listed below, and came up with 24. Clearly I had missed something, so I went back and rechecked my U-rated albums, and caught a couple from last week, a couple from the previous week, and a few more from further back. In fact, the list below is probably missing something, but that's harder to check and will soon be forgotten. Three of the A-list records were among the pile I pulled out as strong prospects when trying to wrap up April Streamnotes: Kira Kira, the two Henry Threadgill; the others in that pile scored high B+: Angelika Niescier and Samo Salamon B+. Cardi B and Janelle Monáe are perhaps the most anticipated pop/rap albums of the season. Cardi B won Pazz & Jop's singles category last year, and that single is on the album, where it doesn't even stand out like hit singles usually do. Monáe's album temporarily topped Album of the Year. (It's since slipped to 4th, but with 28 reviews, vs. an average of 10 for the three records above it. I haven't heard those three yet, but will look for them next week.) Good chance both records will place top ten in this year's EOY aggregates -- not that my grades have any sway or much correlation there. For whatever it's worth, I got to Cardi B (and to Princess Nokia) before Christgau published last week (both records were on Phil Overeem's list, as was Ceramic Dog's YRU Still Here? and a few other things I listened to but didn't like as much). Christgau reviewed Willie Nelson the week before, but the record didn't show up on Napster until some time last week. The old Tommy Flanagan record popped up as a "new featured" release, as did Van Morrison and the also-ran Blue Note jazz. I was reminded of Tune-Yards by Michael Tatum, who also has a new "Hall of Records" post on The Rolling Stones, Out of Our Heads (US edition). Playing this now on Napster, just because it was easier to dig out. I know I have the CD somewhere, graded A, but no note on whether it's US or UK edition, so my copy probably predates the reissue that made the distinction. I vividly remember buying "Satisfaction" as a single, thinking it was the greatest thing I had ever heard (and also loving the back side, "The Under Assistant West Coast Promo Man"), but I didn't buy a Stones LP until High Tide and Green Grass. Hard in those days to scrape together enough money to buy a record. Guess I made up for that later. I can't recall when the last time I had no new mail to unpack was. Nothing today either. Still getting links for downloads but most of them go into the trash immediately. (Exceptions today: a William Parker 3-CD box, Voices Fall From the Sky, and new work from Matt Lavelle. I also kept Posi-Tone's latest link, but can't say I've been very diligent about following them since I stopped getting CDs.) I suppose the good news is less filing, and less clutter. But I've already lost that battle. Looking forward to a week where there's virtually nothing I have to do. New records rated this week:
Recent reissues, compilations, and vault discoveries rated this week:
Old music rated this week:
Unpacking: Nothing in the mail last week.
Ask a question, or send a comment. Monday, April 30, 2018 Music Week
Music: current count 29628 [29604] rated (+24), 372 [362] unrated (+10). Not a huge rated count, but wrapping up April's Streamnotes I made a special effort to check out my best prospects, and after I hit my post deadline I kept working in that vein. The result is way more than the usual crop of A- records. Probably would have picked up Kira Kira's Bright Force but didn't get it written up in time, so I have to give it another spin. [Pictured right, to be listed next week, but make of that what you will.] My most important tip source this week was Michael Tatum's A Downloader's Diary (48) -- his first in a rough couple of years, but a complete return to form. Also helpful was Phil Overeem's My Favorite Records of 2018, a Third the Way Out, and Chris Monsen's 2018: favorites, which expanded from 10 to 18 records last week. Less useful was that I added the top 100 AOTY Highest Rated Albums of 2018 to my meta-list. That introduced me to a few records that showed up elsewhere (like Dream Wife), but I aside from the Nashville women (Ashley Monroe, Kacey Musgraves, Sarah Shook) I haven't explored this list much. (Couldn't find Saba; Janelle Monáe, Willie Nelson, and five others only showed up after my trawl.) I was pleased to see Overeem post a link to Streamnotes for the Expert Witness group at Facebook, not least because it generated a lot more discussion than my own Facebook posts. A couple points here:
I didn't bother with the White House Correspondents' Dinner when I was collecting yesterday's Weekend Roundup, but did take a look at Michelle Wolf's keynote sketch later on. Not as funny or as cutting as I would have liked -- she didn't have much flow, mostly knocking the jokes off like reading from a laundry list -- but the current administration (most of all its Leader) are so thin-skinned that glancing blows provoked howls of rage. I've always thought this was a bizarre ritual -- it's not like crime beat reporters host events with murderers and rapists to gently needle one another -- but the only time I ever paid much attention to it was Stephen Colbert's bravura 2006 performance. For a general review, see Emily Stewart: The Michelle Wolf White House Correspondents' Dinner controversy, explained, but for deeper issues look up Matt Taibbi: Michelle Wolf Slays Useless White House Correspondents' Dinner. For what it's worth, I think Trump's right not to attend, though I'm pretty sure it's not for the right reasons. New records rated this week:
Recent reissues, compilations, and vault discoveries rated this week:
Old music rated this week:
Unpacking: Found in the mail last week:
Ask a question, or send a comment. Monday, April 23, 2018 Music Week
Music: current count 29604 [29570] rated (+34), 362 [365] unrated (-3). Made a decent sized dent in the new jazz queue, especially over the weekend when I found it easier to just pull something out than try to figure out what to look up on Napster. I did, however, chase down a few recommendations from Chris Monsen, Phil Overeem, and Robert Christgau. Though not on his list yet, I think it was Monsen on Facebook who mentioned that the Ex have a new record out. Someone wondered who they were, so I pointed out I had rated 24 of their records (7 A-). Probably inappropriate for me to rate the new one as high as I did on a single Bandcamp play, but the grade was pretty clear by midway, and only got better from there out. For more, see Bandcamp Daily's A Guide to (Nearly) Four Decades of Dutch Punks The Ex). The Ex came out of a Expert Witness discussion on the best records of 2018 (so far). One name that popped up frequently and is both on Monsen's and Overeem's lists is JPEGMAFIA's Veteran. Hip-hop, very (as they say) experimental. I didn't get into it at all, but I had a somewhat easier time with his earlier Black Ben Carson. Also from that thread, Jeffrey Lewis' Works by Tuli Kupferberg. In some ways I think the older "A Loot-Beg Bootleg" sounds better -- just Lewis and two women who sometimes sing, versus the mass singalong on the new album -- but I've had a soft spot for Kupferberg, and even if he weren't dead he'd never be able to frame his work in better light. I continue to have problems with Christgau's picks. I don't think there's been one I've said "yeah!" to since Shopping's The Official Body (2/23), although I liked Laurie Anderson's Landfall more than he did, and already had Amy Rigby's The Old Guys at A-. Some I reviewed respectably earlier but haven't replayed: Taylor Childers' Purgatory, Alvvays' Antisocialites, Yo La Tengo's There's a Riot Going On, and Rapsody's Laila's Wisdom. But few have been as disappointing as Jinx Lennon's Grow a Pair. And while I wasn't much impressed with Superchunk's What a Time to Be Alive, it tops Monsen's list. I also noted that Milo Miles raved about Mast's Thelonious Sphere Monk last week. And Overeem wrote a rave review of Tracey Thorn's Record. He also likes the Lewis Kupferberg album, plus two of my recent favorites: John Prine's The Tree of Forgiveness and Sons of Kemet's Your Queen Is a Reptile. Of the B+(***) records below, one that stands out is William Parker's Lake of Light. It's a quartet of aquaphones, so sounds like harps and percussion under water -- a bit too weird for me, but maybe not for you. The Armstrongs are just some mop up after last week's not especially recommended Pops Is Tops box. The Nightclubs would make a nice time capsule entry as it tracks the evolution of Armstrong's 1950s All Stars, although there are better examples of live Armstrong from the era, including all four CDs in The California Concerts. Ambassador Satch strays from his usual live show, as if he worried that Europeans were still expecting ODJB dixieland, so he decided to show them how it's really done. Probably the best "Tiger Rag" ever. April ends next Monday, so it would seem a good idea to wrap up a Streamnotes post by Friday/Saturday. Despite my distractions earlier this month, the draft file currently holds 90 records (14 A- or A) so it's shaping up as a pretty solid month. I want to note that I received a couple dozen personal letters over recent weeks, and I was touched and comforted by those who wrote -- some with fond memories, other from people I've never met but who clearly appreciate my work and care. I have yet to respond to any of those letters, for which I apologize. Sometime sooner or later I hope to, but for now I want all of you to know how thankful I am for your friendship and concern. New records rated this week:
Recent reissues, compilations, and vault discoveries rated this week:
Old music rated this week:
Unpacking: Found in the mail last week:
Ask a question, or send a comment. Monday, April 16, 2018 Music Week
Music: current count 29570 [29549] rated (+21), 365 [371] unrated (-6). Looks like rated count tanked, but four of the albums listed below are 2-CD, one 3-CD, and one is 4-CD. Granted, I didn't give the multiple sets (aside from Ivo Perelman) extra spins. My two new A- records got at least four plays. The only question I had about the other -- a 2-CD reissue of the first half of Anthony Braxton's 4-CD Willisau (Quartet) 1991 -- was whether it would rise to a full A, but I noted a couple of off spots, and figured my original A- grade would hold (albeit a high one). On the other hand, I carved out three separate grades for original albums collected in Louis Armstrong's Pops Is Tops: The Complete Verve Studio Albums and More. Finally an Armstrong box you don't need, although to the extend you can isolate the leader's vocals and occasional trumpet from Russ Garcia's orchestra, you might beg to differ. The album with Oscar Peterson isn't so great either. If you want to hear Satch singing show tunes, try challenging him, as Ella Fitzgerald did: see Ella and Louis and, even better, Ella and Louis Again. The Arild Andersen album took a while because it never quite hit me as strong as Live at Belleville, his first album with tenor saxophonist Tommy Smith. The John Prine album was even more marginal. Touted as his first album of original songs since 2005's Fair and Square, one might have hoped that Trump raised up his political hackles like Bush did, but he chose to sing about something less depressing: death -- or at least it's less depressing given his spin on the afterlife. He looks bad, and sounds worse, but bears a message of forgiveness for damn near everyone. Feels a lot like You Want It Darker, which is about as much a decline from I'm Your Man as this is from The Missing Years. Folks get old and decrepit, and maybe you should appreciate them a little before they die. Two near misses. After seven volumes of The Art of Perelman-Shipp last year, I was feeling a little fatigue in facing three more duo CDs. I played the third disc enough to be impressed, but was glad I didn't have to sort them all separately. I was even more impressed by George Coleman on the Brian Charette disc. He's showing remarkable vigor for an 82-year-old, but was somewhat better served on 2016's A Master Speaks. The other B+(***) this week is a bass duo recovered from 1994 -- a rather self-limiting format, but really doesn't sound like a bass duo at all. More like an interesting but oblique soundtrack. Unpacking was very skimpy last week, but I folded Monday's mail in so it looks closer to normal below. Still, didn't factor those into the unrated count, so we're a bit out of sync. I have quite a bit of backlog. One significant addition to the website is that I've resurrected a set of pages on my late sister's Sacred Space project, from 2002. I had these pages tucked into a corner of my website before they got trashed by my ISP. I was able to salvage the text files, but had to scrounge through my stuff to locate a CD-ROM with the images. At this point I've done little more than update the HTML. I still need to annotate the images (I'll need help for that; even more help would be to find better images, as many of these are awful fuzzy), add image links to the portal pages, and add links from the Checklist to the portal pages. I probably need to transpose most of the images, and make thumbnails so they can be presented more sensibly (instead of just by name). I could also use some more historical details. The project was originally displayed at Wichita State University, and has had at least one other presentation, but has mostly been in storage. It was officially directed by Diane Thomas Lincoln (who died in 2012), but I recall Kathy talking about the portal concept much earlier, and I've always regarded her as the driving force behind the project. WSU had agreed to re-present the project this summer -- something Kathy was very much looking forward to. New records rated this week:
Recent reissues, compilations, and vault discoveries rated this week:
Old music rated this week:
Unpacking: Found in the mail last week:
Ask a question, or send a comment. Monday, April 9, 2018 Music Week
Music: current count 29549 [29517] rated (+32), 371 [367] unrated (+4). Fairly normal week in terms of overall rated count, but above average in A-list records. That's basically because I finally got a chance to pay some attention to some leads (e.g., Phil Overeem convinced me to listen to the Sonny Rollins reissue, and reminded me to take another look for No Age). Note that the Nik Bärtsch Ronin album doesn't drop until May 6. When I was trying to close March Streamnotes I was rather desperate to find a couple more A-list albums, and the Bärtsch download seemed like a prospect -- but I couldn't find time to dig it up. A few years ago I tried holding back reviews of albums I got to ahead of release date, but found that nobody much cared, so I gave up on the extra complication. Miles Davis/John Coltrane, Sonny Rollins, Sons of Kemet, and a few lesser items appeared on the album ballots for Downbeat's Critics Poll. I cast a ballot last week, while collecting usual notes. As it happens, I was feeling pretty miserable at the time, so after I got through the new/old album questions, I pretty much coasted, in most cases voting for whoever I voted for the previous year. Even more so, the sections in the notes where I list "first pass" picks from their offered ballot went unchecked and unchanged. On the other hand, it doesn't look like whoever at Downbeat put this year's ballot together put a lot of work into revision either. I'm not a big fan of trying to rank musicians, so I'm not bothered by my reduced diligence this year. (I have less objection to sorting them out into broad tiers, like the ones I've noted for their Hall of Fame nominees.) The one category I did give some serious thought to was Hall of Fame, where I voted for: Roswell Rudd (5), George Russell (3), and Anthony Braxton (2). I've voted for Russell every year since I started receiving invitations, and if you don't know why, take that as your homework assignment. I've voted for Braxton off-and-on, and would say that he's the most deserving living musician who hasn't been voted in yet (now that Lee Konitz finally got the nod). This year is the 50th anniversary of his first albums, Three Compositions of New Jazz and For Alto, and while those aren't personal favorites, I have him down for 20 A/A- albums, and that's just the tip of a very massive iceberg. As for Rudd, he died last year, and one thing I've noticed in past critics polls is how they tend to flock to whoever was the most famous musician who died in the past year. (Indeed, I think Konitz finished 2nd or 3rd to just-dead guys a half dozen times or more.) Rudd's long been a personal favorite -- I count 10 A+/A/A- records under his name, and he's played on close to ten more filed under other names -- so I figured I should join in on this expected wave. Problem is, Downbeat didn't list his name on their ballot, and winning on write-ins is probably impossible. I spent a lot of time thinking about the Baseball Hall of Fame back in the 1990s, and much of what I learned applies here too. The key questions you have to ask is how large a set of candidates from the past you wish to honor, and how many comparable newcomers appear each year. The Rock and Roll HOF grows at a rate of 5-or-6 per year (down from 10/year when founded in 1986), which is probably too much -- aside from the question of whether they're picking the best ones, which judging from the 11 2017-18 inductees I'd say they aren't (the most credible picks are Tupac Shakur and Nina Simone, not that I would have picked either. On the other hand, Downbeat's HOF grows at a rate of 2/year: one picked by the Critics Poll, the other by their Readers Poll. While the DBHOF started earlier (1952) and has recently added a few extras through a Veterans Committee, the current total is still just 150. That strikes me as both too few and falling well behind the rate at which new jazz musicians of that calibre are appearing. I explain this more in the notes file. Of course, one problem is that few of the DB critics are into avant-jazz. (Just one bit of proof there: Christian McBride regularly wins as best bassist, while William Parker regularly languishes down in the 7-10 spots.) Still, once in a blue moon someone on the cutting edge manages to get recognized there. One of the first died last week: pianist Cecil Taylor, 89. I'm afraid I'm not a huge fan, but he has done some amazing work. I saw him once, and left early, figuring he'd keep recycling stuff I've already heart for the rest of his second set. Still, I wasn't upset or disappointed. And I've heard a bunch of albums by him that I seriously recommend. From my database, all A- or above:
That a dozen records, out of forty I've heard, out of two or three times that many he released. I'm not sure you really need that many, but then I'm "not a big fan" -- those who are never seem to be able to get enough. The Penguin Guide, for instance, credits Taylor with more 4-star albums than any other jazz artist (including Duke Ellington, Miles Davis, and the even more prolific Anthony Braxton). Unlikely he'll ever be matched -- though it wouldn't hurt to look into some of his successors, especially Irène Schweizer and Satoko Fujii. New records rated this week:
Recent reissues, compilations, and vault discoveries rated this week:
Unpacking: Found in the mail last two weeks:
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