Music Notes
By 
If you have not read this New Yorker profile of Leonard Cohen, do so now.
Also, here’s a great profile of the wonderful guitarist Mary Halvorson. We all need to go to school for biology and then randomly meet Anthony Braxton.
Here’s an interview with the great Brazilian singer Caetano Veloso about politics and lyrics.
Oh yes, before I forget, giving Bob Dylan in the Nobel Prize for Literature was laughable. I mean, I like Dylan as much as anyone else, but c’mon. The fact that the committee is mad at him now for not speaking about it for a week is classic. Although now he has so I guess everyone is happy.
I saw Sturgill Simpson play a couple of weeks ago in Boston. He puts on a quality show. I still think the new album isn’t nearly as good as the last. The show didn’t really change my mind on this point. He played the whole album to close the show and most of the songs just don’t stir me much. But it’s certainly a quality show, complete with horn section and large band.
And now for my brief album reviews:
The hype around Frank Ocean’s release was intense and, of course, curated. The result is, well, pretty good. But it’s not as good as Nostalgia, Ultra and it’s not as good as Channel Orange. I could do without the Autotune and while the included message from Ocean’s mom about the dangers of marijuana is pretty great, in fact, the album is indeed the album of someone who probably does smoke entirely too much. Its every note sounds like it was produced stoned. That’s fine and all and he certainly has his artistic vision. But there’s also no “American Wedding” or “Novacane” or “Pyramids” here.
B+
Drive-By Truckers, American Band
In the end, it seems somewhat inevitable that DBT would turn into a full-fledged protest band. The roots of it were always there, even if their songs were more elliptical than directly political. Now that it’s happened, it’s pretty great. “What It Means” has captured the most attention and it is simple and singable so it makes sense. But “Ramon Casiano,” about how the guy who turned the NRA hard right in the 1970s had murdered a Mexican immigrant by that name in 1931, is a superb opening song. “The Guns of Umpqua” is a powerful story about an ex-soldier now caught up in a new war, school shootings, referring to the Umpqua Community College shooting in Oregon. And their non-political songs like “Filthy and Fried” and “Kinky Hypocrite” make sure the album isn’t too serious. Interesting, it’s the tightest and shortest album since A Blessing and a Curse. Yet where that attempt at a tight album was disastrous, this time the lyrics make it brilliant. One of the best albums of the year.
A
This Norwegian experimental jazz band seeks to combine free-form jazz with funk and jam music. It’s not particularly challenging music even while seeking to move the conversation on jazz, making it accessible to broader audiences. And I think this band would be pretty popular in jam band festivals. They’d be perfect for a Phish fan seeking something a little different. But there really isn’t that much interesting music going on here. It’s an entirely decent album but one that, like a lot of jam band music, really fades into the background. And if you’re stoned, that’s perfect. Quite a bit of potential here, would like to see a little more grabbing the music by the throat and doing something with it.
B
This is a reasonably decent set of songs from the art-pop singer with one remarkable track leading it off. The title track is also her given name, which is Sanskrit. She rejected that name as she grew up and the song is a really interesting meditation on identity. For me anyway, the hazy singing style generally prevents the lyrics from signifying all that much or the songs mostly being particularly memorable.
B
A solid, if not truly remarkable return, by this chestnut of a 90s alt-country band. Always welcome, this is just a good album.
B+
Gibson rode Amtrak across the country, moving to Portland to record and to escape a dead relationship. She then wrote an album about it, an album with a lot of songs of hope. Gibson has a great voice and the music holds up around it. Pretty good stuff.
A-
And now time to revisit some old albums:
Dement’s second album, from 1992, was dedicated to her recently deceased father. The songs reflect this, as this is a sad but great set of songs. It’s worth remembering what a revelation her voice was when she started recording. She grew up so deep in the traditions of southern music, even though her parents had left the South, and she brings all of that into her gorgeous, emotional recordings. I really enjoyed hearing this for the first time in seemingly forever.
A
Buck Owens, Buck ‘Em, Volume 2
By the late 1960s, Buck Owens was still making good music but he wasn’t really pushing country music forward. Merle Haggard and Kris Kristofferson were taking the lead there while Buck was starting to do a lot of TV and a lot of shows in Vegas. A lot of the songs off this collections comes out of those appearances Soon he would be featured in Hee Haw. But the music was still pretty good. This 50-song collection possibly could be better as a single disc, but there’s not really a bad song here. An interesting retrospective of the later career of a huge star.
B+
As always, this is your thread for all things music. Or really, anything but the election.