An Acute Case: 20 October 2024

Don't call it a c*******

Ka: The Thief Next To Jesus
In the final act before his tragic death at 52, NYC firefighter and monastic rapper turns his gimlet eye and curt lyrics on the church, though nothing is as haunting as the archival voice that reports: “the Virginia Assembly in 1664 decreed that it was indeed possible for Africans to be both enslaved and Christians.” * (“Bread Wine Body Blood” “Collection Plate”)

Little Feat: Sam's Place
Willie Dixon and Muddy Waters take care of the writing, Sam Clayton takes care of the vocals, the blues boogie takes care of itself. ** (“Long Distance Call” “Why People Like That”)

LL Cool J: The FORCE
Shoo-in for prestige hip-hop album of the year, this unexpected pairing of 56-year-old rapper James Todd Smith aka LL Cool J (one of hip-hop’s first stars in the mid-‘80s but off the pace for my entire adult life) and 54-year-old producer Kamaal Ibn John Fareed aka Q-Tip (who had his own fleeting renaissance in 2016) is ultimately one of smooth on smooth, yet it’s still a delight to climb back inside Tip’s brain and get swept away by Cool J’s flow. There’s a sense of contentment that doesn’t bode well for ambition, with both men culpable for an absence of traditional catchiness. But Tip’s continuous groove—a dynamic fusion of dippy keybs and electrothump—more than compensates, while Cool J’s lyrical dexterity is enhanced by 40 years of luxury; he savours lines like “I'm the underground Harriet, the swing low chariot / backyard smoker, fried okra and asparagus” like a man who knows his way around oysters and Chablis. It’s curious that he’s so much less interested in asserting his relevance than fellow oldies Nas and Eminem, who show up at the end, yet I can’t help feeling that’s a big part of why this is a triumph. A

Old 97’s: American Primitive
Lying in bed at dawn in his “quiet house on this country road” that “goes tick tick tick but it don't explode,” Rhett Milles is wide awake “a half an hour before I freak,” still the nervous guy he declared himself 20 years ago. Back then, his love life was the source of his troubles. Married since then, it’s now his stabiliser against existential threats that never get named outright. But given he’s a middle-aged, liberal-leaning creative type, they’re not hard to guess. If you, too, are “rememberin how to live,” his advice is to “dance like the world is falling down around you / because it is, because it is.” And with his all-pro band having rediscovered their urgency with a nervy jangle to equal Miller’s whine, there’s no good reason not to comply. A MINUS

Post Malone: F-1 Trillion
It’s about absolutely nothing except geisting the zeit, but taken on those terms this is probably as good as it gets and rewarding for far longer than you’d expect. * (“I Had Some Help” “Have The Heart” “M-E-X-I-C-O”)

Shygirl: Nymph (’22)
South London shlut and nymph delivers the lasciviousness those epithets promise with further titles “Come For Me” and (my favourite) “Coochie (a bedtime story)”. Never copping to sex as power, she sticks to sex as pleasure over kinky electronics from big name producers who fold her come-hither voice into satin beats to the extent that it sometimes gets lost completely. Which doesn’t matter as much as you might think. In the world of artpop, a mumble is as good as a moan. B PLUS

Morgan Wade: Obsessed
When it comes to pithiness and punchlines, Wade isn’t the most quotable writer, so I’m only including these four lines to demonstrate how an absence of flair underlines her plainspoken intensity: “my entire life is wrapped up in your hazel eyes,” “I can't get close enough to you, I might crush your bones,” “if you should go it would be my dying day,” and “I lay down my life right here for you” (from “Obsessed”, “Total Control”, “Reality”, and “Moth To A Flame” respectively) prove that she doesn’t take her problematic title lightly. Now strumming as much as she’s rocking and still eschewing jokes and tropes, she’s essentially a singer-songwriter with a guitar-bass-drums aesthetic that has just enough twang to slot as americana. But if her sincerity is heavy and her sound is conservative, her melodies never fail, her voice is a quiet storm, and she has a keen eye for the small details that bring her big feelings to life. I find this one the most touching: “I won't forget you leaving work just to come lay in my bed.” A MINUS

Jamila Woods: Water Made Us
The bewitching sense of smallness that belies this album’s ranginess and run-time has something to do with Woods’s voice (playful, sweet, a little squeaky) and something to do with the unfussy way she pulls off a musical concept that blends beats, vibes, symphonics, everyday speech, and poetic speech. But mostly it’s down to the dramatic scale she works at on an album entirely about the ups and downs, ins and outs, and round and rounds of love. As one conciliatory refrain goes: “it’s not gonna be a big production / it’s gonna be a tiny garden / but I’ll feed it every day.” Or another: “we were just rehearsin baby / you know this ain’t the game / we’re talkin bout practice.” By her own admission she’s choosy, but pleads patience. And when she lovingly recalls what she misses about her exes, it’s clear she’s more attentive to pluses than minuses. “I never left any of them, not really,” she recalls. “I just went somewhere new.” Sounds to me like she’s got the love thing cracked. All that’s left is to answer this question: “like a razor in an apple, could a ring become a shackle?” A MINUS