@@@ Laura Marling – Song For Our Daughter (Chrysalis/Partisan) Today we listen off last week’s CFUV acoustic/folk/bluegrass section. I dig some styles and formulas within this umbrella of genres there are also formulas I don’t enjoy much. I’m on a low schmaltz, low sugar diet. This is a stripped down ballad-y thing, female singer, strummed acoustic guitar and the meaningful piano ringing, and now strings. I feel the schmaltz meter rising and oh I wish it wasn’t so. I dig pretty but there’s such a thing as a cookie that’s too sweet, no?. I was cool enough with the tune to accept the piano but the strings and the feels that emerge in the wake of them might be too much. This is for people with good paying jobs that eat with manners and take regular showers. So if you got a fat job and you have manners and wash your body along guidelines set by society this could work for you.
@@@ Joel Plaskett – 44 (Pheromone) This is a 2.5 hour effort which makes me a bit suspicious. I can barely listen to that even I was paid but to shit that much music out in one sitting is quite impressive and does make you wonder about quality control. It’s a lonesome country/folk formula we have here, Plaskett’s lower voice, a mandolin, another stringed instrument, so there might be more instrumentation on the horizon, oh there is! It’s a full band with slide guitar, a drum kit, and a tambourine to boot. I’m thinking this is just the tune crying out for a bucket of cowbell, I’m super pro cowbell. The drums sound a bit muffled, but I like his singing and the mandolin playing. I like this more than I expected.
@@@ Rose City Band: Summerlong (Thrill Jockey, 2020) Slotted as psychedelic on Apple Music, it comes on as mostly roots The Band, Lil Feet-esque business with just a schtickl of psych flavors mostly from the singer. I do think they hit the guitar riff/figure a bit too repetitively but that’s just me. There’s also some Grateful Dead feels up in here but not super first thing you hear. The tunes tend to weigh in on the plump side, many at 5+ minutes so there’s gonna be a jammy feel going on here. I do appreciate the dueling hippie shred that takes the tune out — it’s not exactly what I’m in the mood for but the homies can play.
@@@ Maya Rae: Can You See Me? (Black Hen, 2020) The lead off track on this coffee house — singer/songwriter — soft rock record. Rae has a sing song voice that she is showcasing to its fullest. After that I hear an electric guitar respectfully chugging in the back, electric bass and there’s a bunch of organ vamping going on. I love organ. Remove the mask, remove the mask and one, two, three, can you see me? That’s the hook here and while she’s singing metaphorically please where masks when you’re out in public during this pandemic. I know it’s very complicated, the messaging that is. You get a resonator guitar solo just past halfway and then a bunch of ornamental background vocal spirals to take you out. I think I’m far too hateful to be the demographic of this track — this is for the NPR crowd. No shame in that, it’s not my cup of sing song.
YTD recordings listened to: 410
Good music, not list worthy: 212
Not good music: 185
Best: 0
Honorable Mentions: 0
Possibles: Retox, Defeater, Jonwayne, Okkyung Lee, Slidhr, The Chewers, Susie Iberra/Roberto Rodriguez, The Coral, T.O.M.B., Lozen, Erase Errata, Mastery, Hartley C. White, Weed, Cold Water, Luther Dickinson, Graeme Barrett, Fast Asleep, Goldlink, Cavanaugh, Satoko Fuji, Moken, Juan Atkins, Lantern, Twin Peaks, Djelimady Tounkara, The Oh Sees, Denny Zeitlin, MILF, Unfun, De La Soul, Carl Sagan’s Skate Shoes, Noname, Klara Lewis, Krullur, The Lowest Form, Hard Proof, Yotoco, Jungle Fire, Sandoz, Oddisee, RAM, Fiver, Succumb Succumb, Gloom, Priests, Propaganda, This is the Kit, Roberto Gonzalez, Integrity, Tuba Skinny, The Expanders, Criolo, Billy Strings, Flowers of Sulphur, Portal, Lawaii, Etran De L’Air, Ruby Karinto, Elysia Crampton, Parquet Courts, Moskus, Kendl Winter, Tkay Maidza, Barro, Daniel Khan, Tallawit Timbouctou, Sumac, Tropical Fuck Storm, Harriet Tubman, Ammar 808, Anais Maviel, Chaka Khan, Pom Poko, Fried Egg, Tarek Atoui, Saicobab, General Purv, Shipping News, Big Thief, Mariachi El Bronx, Pour Me a Grog, Sudan Archives, Lakou Mizik, Moodymann, Pharmakon, Alefa Madagascar, Janjao, Luge, Wiki, Mick Jenkins, Jeremiah Jae, Fera, Gambian Griot Kora Duets, Drama, Beatrice Dillon, Mass Worship, mmmonika, Les Deuxluxes, Tony Allen, Fra Fra, Nihiloxica, Hailu Mergia, Pokey LaFarge, Nico Gomez, Nohe and Sus Santos, schroothoop, Tiny Bit of Giant’s Blood
Deep In the Music 