An Acute Case: 12 May 2023
Odyshapes that refuse to calcify, bleak vignettes of a struggling class, more late-stage capitalism, and two sampling showcases from a Pro Tools amateur and an outright abstainer
Kelsea Ballerina: SUBJECT TO CHANGE
Yes, she should find a better way to chronologise her life than "I've known you since Brad and Angelina", but given her current musings include “Hypothetically, if you ever kill your husband” such considerations can wait till later. ** (“IF YOU GO DOWN (I'M GOIN' DOWN TOO)” “YOU'RE DRUNK GO HOME” “WHAT I HAVE”)
Gina Birch: I Play My Bass Loud
Prior to the involvement of producer Martin Glover, the first solo album from this melodically disinclined former/current Raincoat existed only as “little electronic songs” she’d periodically revisit to add more footnote-vocals. His contribution was to bulk up her odyshapes with loose-fitting dub, extra guitar bits, and a full-ish complement of choruses, pre-choruses, and middle eights. Although those additions are welcome, I’m delighted to report that not only does the original spirit remain, it refuses to calcify into anything as rigid as pop. Her temperate rants about stilettoes (not practical for running away), being a feminist (why wouldn’t she be), and self-confidence (now 67 and on the other side of cancer, she’s finally got some) are delivered in refreshingly unambiguous sprech, which isn’t to deny the poetic qualities of "When you ask me if I’m angry I say I don't go ranting in post offices or point my gun out of my bedroom window at strangers I just walk along the street quietly imploding inside my own head." But for all the joy of her Logic Pro pissing about and artless lyricism, nothing defines her blithe spirit and agile mind like her vocals. Ragged and breathless, multi-tracked and reverbed, pitch-corrected and ad-libbed, but always girlish, they’re simply everywhere, completing the portrait of an elderly woman doing nothing less momentous than amusing herself in public. A
Che Noir: Noir Or Never
She’s “Illmatic’s daughter” so don’t be surprised that she’s taken to complaining that no one raps about real shit anymore while also stating "I'm sippin wine and telling the chef more salt." On the other hand, "Never stack your money without plans of losing it all" is prudent. * (“Veracruz” “Caps Lock” “Bad Apples”)
Ben de la Cour: Sweet Anhedonia
de la Cour is a London-born, Brooklyn-raised resident of gentrified East Nashville, though spiritually if not geographically his songs are situated deep in Nebraska. A lifelong transgressor now recovered as far as addiction and pugilism allow, he works with wayward teenage boys in between tours. Here, he draws on the same life experiences for 11 reliable—and reliably bleak—vignettes of struggling-classers, only half of whom are dead. While Maricopa County is one of the few locations named, all his stories happen in places where time sometimes forgets to heal all wounds, waking up in Palookaville is just a sleep away, and it’s customary for the police to declare corpses with their hands and feet bound suicides. Lacking the force of personality of his (uh-oh) “Americanoir” heroes, the usual limitations trouble his tempos and vocals. Sometimes he sounds more like a Donald Ray Pollock audiobook narrator than a rock star. But in the 10 years since he debuted, he’s developed a knack for differentiating his tunes. Sometimes a guest feature helps—like the Becky Warren duet where a couple play a “Numbers Game” that starts "Screen door's torn / Sky's turning grey / Four dirty little feet / Two more on the way.” Elsewhere, it’s with thoughtfully placed mariachi trumpets, c***matic strings, and pan pipes. Careful not to repeat himself, each arty and evocative soundscape boasts its own (bleak) personality. B PLUS
El Michels Affair & Black Thought: Glorious Game
Tariq Trotter is the pushing-50 South Philly emcee-savant currently in the fifth year of a campaign for the title of best rapper alive. Leon Michels is the 40-year-old New York-born-and-based analogue nut and sworn Pro-Tools amateur (no more than 16 tracks at once, please) whose nostalgia-rich soul has been requisitioned by hip-hop royalty including Ghostface Killah, Jay-Z, and Eminem. Less than a year after Trotter’s collaboration with Danger Mouse, you might find this short and slick offering sober by comparison. But notice that Trotter’s skills are, if anything, sharper: the flow that’s too declarative to be nimble but too fluent not be; the expert handling of the narrative, epigrammatic, and polysyllabic; the one-take breath control masterclasses—all testify to the kind of dedication you’d expect from an elite performer who might release an Audible Original on… oh, I don’t know… why he actively changes his mindset every 7 years. Then notice how the beats never stop cooking. Having recorded umpteen new songs expressly to chop them up into samples, Michels’ production is stuffed with a lifetime of ideas and a hundred moving parts, all falling into lockstep for a near-continuous groove that invites Trotter’s most personal remembrances. Those peak with his pristine memories of grandma Minnie’s house—from the front steps made of marble, to the entryway the family called “the vestibule”, to the furniture draped in thick transparent layers of vinyl. If you want peerless rhymes, they’re non-stop for 31 minutes. Just pick a spot at random and press play. A
The Hold Steady: The Price of Progress
Some stories tell themselves, some require you to believe what Craig Finn says in interviews, all are supposed to be about the alienating effects of late-stage capitalism, and wait a minute isn’t that what every song's supposed to be about nowadays. Inclined to believe him, I prefer the relatively uneventful ones (the almost-one-night-stand between a pill-crusher and a shift-worker who live in neighbouring apartments, or the drinking buddy who proves boys can cry even if their friend/narrator is a cumbersome comfort) to the far-fetched ones—by the time the birdwatching tourists end up in a civil war, or the actor and gaffer skip their performance of The Wizard of Oz to commit unnamed crimes with the local baker, it’s time to restart the song. Sticking with Josh Kaufman for the third album in a row, the band lean into an awkward groove that suits Finn’s stream of prattle that’s all elbows anyway, while their tried-and-true guitar squall squeezes out sparks more often than it catches light. Still a step or two away from finding their new groove, but close enough. B PLUS
JPEGMAFIA x Danny Brown: SCARING THE HOES
Recorded after the honourably discharged (Air Force) JPEGMAFIA spent a year solely making beats on a Roland SP-404, and released a week before the honourably abstemious (narcotics) Brown checked himself into rehab for the alcohol use that supplanted his former habit, this collaboration is rude, abrasive, and totally harmless. It’s also committed to a compositional ambition so wild it took me five or six listens to even begin considering whether I liked it. Which I do. Tremendously. For its unreconstructed morality and shitposting spirit. For its jagged dynamics and head-splitting noise mess. For its verging-on-seminal testing of the tensile strength of discordant sampling. But most of all, because for all that it’s still conceptually coherent from beginning to end—to the extent that the only practical purpose of retaining individual tracks is that the titles present another opportunity to flaunt bad manners. As for the rapping, what JPEG wants for in clipped flow and narrow vocal range he makes up for with the know-it-all wokeness and but-I-don’t-care ignorance becoming of a smark. Brown lacks for nothing. A self-professed degenerate and failed chemistry experiment, he’s more than capable of sustaining an album with his antic energy and rascal’s charm. Yet I find myself preferring him in this Beetlejuice role. Call it reduced screen time for maximum impact. A
Princess Nokia: i love you but this is the end
Able singer, passionate rapper, and genre fluid conceptualiser crosses another style off her bucket list by age 30, which is impressive even if it is one of her sillier ideas. * (“closure” “angels & demons” “happy”)