An Acute Case: 18 August 2023
Clean coochies, Congolese jerk, 90's dynamics for 00's TV, and hawk eye
Balka Sound: Balka Sound
From Congo-Brazzaville as literally opposed to Congo-Kinshasa (they face each other across the Congo River), Balka Sound’s heyday spanned three 80’s albums before their 90’s resurgence got derailed by civil war and a looted studio. Led by ngfoni maestro Nkibi “Lusialala” Albert (who allegedly wrote the earliest composition here, “Kidilu”, when he was 6, though that could just be Anglophones getting overly literal about one of the few titles that doesn’t come with a translation) their sound lives up to the first half of their name, which translates as “jerk”. Short twitch and inherently circular, the rhythms are unimpeachable—not as liquid as those cooked up by their contemporaries across the river, but with enough room for Nkibi and his plugged-in band mates to express themselves without getting what you might call lyrical. Over an hour and a quarter, attention-challenged listeners may find themselves drifting in and out, but they’ll be hard pressed to find a drifting-in point that doesn’t intrigue or enthral. Mine’s normally “Ha Ta Ba Betu Ku Bula”, where the drums spend six minutes beating back the guitar. Though as I write it’s “Ka Mu Wila Ko”—a free-form mass of hand drumming and fugitive guitars that plays with tempo unlike anything else on the collection. Go find yours. A MINUS
Blondshell: Blondshell
A graduate of the Liz Phair school of elocution and the boygenius academy of vocal mixing, Sabrina Teitelbaum’s debut is where she calls it quits on a pop persona she never really believed in and seeks deliverance from the burden of her flesh with a shotgun wedding between her impulse for emotional bloodletting and dream of being a guitar hero. Running the gamut from hissy-fit solo to boutique world-building and quiet verse to loud chorus, she’s glommed onto the trend commonly known as The Nineties—an increasingly well-trodden sonic palette, so good thing she has a personality to impress on it. After an opener where she recalls the New York apartment where she and her friends did weird things while addicted to substances more dangerous than 2000’s TV, she uncovers the hell that addiction has played on her relationships. Struggling to free herself from toxic guys either because she loves them or because “it should take a whole lot less to turn me off,” she finds catharsis in deadpanned jokes and a murder anthem called “Salad”, whose title increases her gag quotient by one. A MINUS
Militarie Gun: Life Under The Gun
Sensitive ragers with a gift for song shapes so economical they sometimes recall Sleater-Kinney but a weak spot for shedding insight into rage or sensitivity. *** (“Do It Faster” “Return Policy”)
Nas: Magic 2
Having concluded a series defined by song concepts and plush beats, this extension of a series defined by back-to-basics mic skills and lean beats holds up better than expected. But on this evidence the frequency of his output is taking its toll on his editorial choices. Exhibit A: if you have the most awkward laugh in hip hop, don’t invite the man with the most chilling laugh in hip hop onto the same song. ** (“Bokeem Woodbine” “What This All Really Means”)
Amanda Shires & Bobbie Nelson: Loving You
A tribute to and retrospective of Nelson’s trailblazing that starts fragile and sweet and turns schmaltzy and tolerable. More than one outing of Shire’s razorblade fiddle wouldn't solve every problem, but it also wouldn’t hurt. *** (“Old Fashioned Love” “Summertime”)
Sexyy Red: Hood Hottest Princess
Rapping in a playground jeer over cartoon synths and two-finger keyboards adorned with sound effects (only half of which are booty claps) and ad libs (only half of which are orgasms), 25-year-old Missourian Janae Wherry flaunts her assets (“All my niggas say my coochie firm that bitch got some grip”), her expectations (“Dig deep I can’t feel it in my liver”), and her bare necessities (“My coochie pink my booty hole brown.”) It took the wretched Juicy J feature for me to grasp just how wide the gulf is between her and the male rappers she says she prefers—where they peddle sex as dominance, her carnality is all pleasure—and a four-flow Nicki Minaj feature to underscore that, for all her amateur abandon, she’s got skills. By and large it's sex positive, though if you’re a ratchet bitch she might steal your man just because. But she’ll just as soon cheer you on. At one point, she even gives tips on how to do a sexyy walk: “Stick your hands out and walk with pigeon feet.” I’ll try it if you do first. A MINUS
It’s still tennis season somewhere, so in my best umpire voice: “Iszchak challenges. Originally called out.”
Wednesday: Rat Saw God
On the opener, they manage half a song before squealing off in a panic. After that, they make a whole song then triple it by screaming lines from Mortal Kombat while the world collapses. But though no song completely finds its feet, none falls over, and given time they’ll all seep into your psyche. Where fellow North Carolinian Adeem the Artist reckons with the grisly realities of life in the boonies by earnest over-analysis, 26-year-old Karly Hartzman is a chronicler who sees everything but explains nothing—a strategy that turns her into a kind of accidental mystagogue, inducting you into an underworld of pumped stomachs, oppressive Christianity, and vehicle-related death. Only then, in the middle of it all, comes a surefooted love song to Hartzman's boyfriend and the band's guitarist expressed with characteristic slant: “You’re the one that I was chosen to deserve.” But unquenchable as Hartzman’s lyrics are, what makes this such a lightning bolt to the heart of rock and roll is the way each imperfect element combines with the others in a bruising medley of blood and guts guitars, melancholic lap steel, and tragic drawl. A
Young Thug: BUSINESS IS BUSINESS
Compiled and released while Jeffrey Williams awaits trial for racketeering charges partially based on made-up rap lyrics, this isn’t a conceptually unified album. But as Williams isn’t a conceptually unified artist, that makes little difference. In some respects, it’s as businesslike as the title says. It’s slick, it’s robust, and it’s not inconceivable that in the history of boardrooms someone’s declared “These foreign shoes—fuck my bunions.” On the other hand, Metro Boomin isn’t minute taker yet, and Thug is still too freaky to assign actions people can understand. Whether slurping, slurring, squeaking, croaking, or cracking up, he remains hip-hop’s most idiosyncratic vocalist. And though he only occasionally resembles a person with relatable feelings (on “Jonesboro” he does actual narrative rap; on “Went Thru It” he sounds utterly ruined), assisted by Metro's gothic fascinations, he retains the beguiling menace of a rapper whose content frequently contradicts his tone. Perhaps not as beguiling as it once was, but yet to be bettered. B PLUS