An Acute Case: 15 December 2023

End of year odds and sods: shelved recordings, live recordings, discarded promos, and unplanned assemblies

Bounaly: Dimanche à Bamako
Jihadi-fleeing exile from Niafounke stands out from the glut of raucous wedding party guitarists in Bamako due to more-than-usual abrasiveness and occasional atonality. At times it’s pretty trying, but always very rock ‘n’ roll. Apparently, it’s also danceable. *** (“Ma Chérie” “Chérie ye Bani”)

The Human Hearts: Viable
After a political candidate marks his independence by refusing to wear the “Flag Pin”, a ruling party pacifies its beloved “Loyal Opposition” with a lilting serenade, Seeger/Lowenfels’ folk ditty to profit motive is given the appropriate punk treatment, and “Art Books” appraises the value of its titular product while taking a musical cue from Warren Zevon’s visit to the Louvre and hurling itself against the wall—just four examples of Franklin Bruno’s gift for combining hyper-imaginative formalism and intellectual pursuit. Across all 14 of the 2011-15 odds and sods collected here for the first time, Tin Pan Alley is the touchstone, though among Bruno’s pop-rock contemporaries frequent collaborator John Darnielle and (surely) inevitable collaborator Elizabeth Nelson are his closest match for literary craft and political nous. Because his slightly stiff baritone isn’t as classic as his compositional chops, he’s wise enough to enlist the voices of music activist Jenny Toomey and sheet music archivist Bree Benton for tones sweeter and enunciation clearer than his own. The audio could be crisper, too, though worth noting that as the waltz-time finale is a plea to publicists not to discard his promos, high fidelity probably isn’t luxury available to him. A MINUS

MJ Lenderman: And The Wind (Live And Loose!)
In which we find the Wednesday axeman in his natural habitat: on stage and making the kind of primates-discover-fire guitar record that comes along once a year if you’re lucky. Among its 15 tracks are 9 of the 10 from last year’s Boat Songs, all bettered here by virtue of just being louder. Where that album lost dynamism to studio botheration, these live recordings shove Lenderman’s tremulous voice and rusted guitar (‘79 Neil Young allusions intended) way up front. The result is scintillating. Supporting him are Wednesday’s pedal steel warbler Xandy Chelmis and various musicians accumulated as his summer ’23 tour progressed. I don’t know if that’s reflected in the sequencing, but either way the bleary-eyed groove gets denser the deeper you go. While Lenderman doesn’t have the magnetism of girlfriend Kary Hartzman, his brittle, adorably tuneless voice is the perfect instrument for conveying the hobbled humanity of his sporting fascinations: Michael Jordan playing a hungover game; Dan Marino losing his place to Tom Brady; a broken pro wrestler who’s probably Kenny Omega contending with one stipulation too many. Throughout, he shows a peculiar slant on the quiddities of fate and fashion, plus a whole lotta love for Karly, which I guess makes this part two of the romance story started on Rat Saw God. Caps it off with a cover of “Long Black Veil” that could walk right onto Young’s Americana. A

David Murray, ?uestlove, Ray Angry: Plumb
I’m not saying you have to listen to 2h 15m of midtempo jazz. I’m not a bully. But if it’s not too much for you to stomach, you might find something to like in this entirely unplanned assembly of multi-media drummer, tenor sax great, and improbably named keyb guy. After an opening that’s squigglier than what follows, the funk starts at 6m 30s and locks in at 9m, after which the dominant tone is vibes. Murray supplies the colour, Quest plays timekeeper rather than innovator, and Angry contributes plenty to cosmology, less to groove. No one’ll be surprised to hear Murray wins the solo sketches in the middle, and if you’re like me you could do without them. But over the run-time, the payoffs are worth the waits. B PLUS

NewJeans: NewJeans 2nd EP 'Get Up'
”Teen group whose sound rehabilitates early-oughts UK garage and present as authentic, honest, and super shy but are in fact a label creation under the stewardship of a well-known industry seneschal” proves more compelling on paper than in practice. But only just. ** (“New Jeans” “ETA”)

A. Savage: Several Songs about Fire
After co-fronting the best rock band of the last decade, this Texan turned New Yorker turned Parisian strikes gold with the acoustic art song that’s apparently always been lurking behind his electric art song. And from title to track count to use of “master” for a higher power, it recalls no one as much as Leonard Cohen. Over 10 strummed tunes distinguished by John Parish’s shrewd percussion and concentric rhythms more absorbing than addictive, the mood is solitary though not necessarily melancholy. For one thing, Savage’s drone has never been this fetching. For another, his playing is downright pretty. As for the lyrics, they find him taking stock as he approaches 40 and coming out looking impressively well-adjusted: “I don't need dollars, pounds or pesos to know I am rich / I've got people who allow themselves to love me / and are insane enough to be loved.” A

Shabazz Palaces: Robed In Rareness
Hip hop abstractions not so enigmatic that you can’t discern the funk or fact that Ishmael Butler can still rhyme. * (“Woke Up In A Dream” “P Kicking G”)

Todd Snider: Crank It, We’re Doomed
Recorded in 2007 during the same fecund period as the ‘04 and ‘06 albums that cemented his status as an all-time fav, Snider shelved this for reasons sufficiently covered by the key line from “Mercer’s Folly” (lyrics and music later re-recorded on Agnostic Hymns and Stoner Fables as “Big Finish” and “Brenda” respectively): “it seemed like the right thing at the time.” 16 years later, it sounds exactly as you’d expect given its place in his chronology: smack bang between the finesse (no, really) of the previous two and the slacker folk of the following two. That makes it medium-grade Snider, and as such, totally reliant on solid tunes, sound recording, and originality of ideas. So I’m pleased to say they’re in check from a eulogy at the literal funeral of America, to a first-person lament from a discarded newspaper, to a working schmuck prepared to crash and burn just to prove to his boss you can’t drive off a cliff and call it flying. Every one of these 15 songs delivers the hippie humanism and stoner geniality he’d already made his own. None let cynicism cloud their ideals. All belong in the catalogue of one of America’s greatest songwriters. A MINUS