MELOMANIA has nine letters. And issues nine new releases reviews on the ninth of the ninth month! EEK!
check it! we are already thinking about Halloween too.
ALANNA ROYALE - “Fall In Love Again” [7”](Colemine/Secretly/AMPED)
Seventies Soul depends solely on the marriage of an emotional singer and an airtight arrangement. As much of the new breed of throwback R&B tends to try its hardest to match production styles and sounds, Kelly Finnegan’s work on “Fall In Love Again” chooses instead to aim for a steady rise throughout. The horn charts are solid and the last set of stops in the chorus being fused with the return to the verse is awesome. As for Royale, her understated performance leaves you hanging on her mixture of confident vibrato and hitting just the right long note without it. Most importantly, “Fall in Love Again” simmers throughout just like good Soul, and Royale smartly never lets it boil over.
SAULT - AIR [LP](Forever Living Originals UK)
The British Soul/R&B collective Sault will forever be a mystery. Say what you will about the novelty of making releases only available for six months (but forever when you buy the physical copy.) "AIR" is the farthest out that perhaps any cutting-edge Soul artist has taken us in a while. Largely choral and vocal, "AIR" is layers of sound that make it hard to separate what is human from the electronics they employ. Thank goodness they have strings and a symphony. "Air" is a score just wanting to be used. The heavenly voices, harps, and a French horn solo give it flight. "Heart" takes it even further adding a delicate harp, light bells, and warm brass. While "Time Is Precious" is like a vivid dream. Fresh from producing the best cuts on Adele's "30," Inflo and SAULT have now released six scintillating albums in just under three years. "AIR" is easily on the same level as Floating Points/Pharoah Sanders/London Symphony Orchestra last year with a dash of the daring of Marvin Gaye's "What's Going On."
SON LITTLE - Like Neptune [LP/CD](ANTI/Epitaph/AMPED)
Son Little has been one of those "Slacker Soul" artists that live outside of the regular realm and hope to catch a little glow from AAA Radio. However, honestly Little (or the more experimental Yves Jarvis for that matter) often merely imply their soulfulness - in opposition to leading with it. "Like Neptune" comes from that slinky, homemade Funk sound of Seventies artists like Shuggie Otis. "Inside Out" and the standout "6 AM" are actually written like Hip-Hop songs fusing rolling verses with hook-driven choruses. On "Inside Out," Little sounds as Blues-y as ever, while "6 AM" uses its stops and woozy backgrounds to a similar effect as Steve Lacy. Little's voice in tandem with his own background generates an odd warmth, that is even further emphasized when he hits a great line like "grinding gears into powder blues."
MARLON WILLIAMS - My Boy [LP/CD](Dead Oceans/Secretly/AMPED)
Under the slipstream of great voices in Americana (and Pop for that matter), you will find New Zealand’s Marlon Williams. “My Boy” is a huge departure from the beautiful 2020 record he made with favorites Kacy & Clayton. While his tracks have always had that lift, they have never been this effervescent. With his gentle voice, the bubbling near Eighties Synth-Pop touches is remaking (remodeling) Williams as Bryan Ferry this time out. “Thinking of Nina” is tender during the verses and confident as he finally wails “I believe in love “ in the choruses. While the breezy “Easy Does It” slides in with reverbed dreamy pedal steel slowly opening its aperture to capture him as a Sixties-meets-Eighties cosmic crooner. Finally, the title track goes even further building a simmering Pop song from Maori acoustic guitars and the conceit “nothing can touch my boy.” As in all excellent Pop music, Williams keeps his writing simple centering his ideas on hooks that never grow tiresome and phrases that beg for you to sing along.
CUB/CUB - Radiant Crush [LP](Subexotic UK)
On Josh Hughes' ambient cuts as Cub/Cub, he is finding a way as a synthesist to unite the tension-building of classic Seventies Electronic Music with the modern "wash" and beats of EDM. The epic "Sun Dome" and the quaint miniature "The Obligation to Endure" are reminiscent of the sound sculpting of Eno's pre-Ambient jump. Hughes also takes on the more modern ideas of EDM by adapting them to the opposite philosophy on the Portishead/Massive Attack-ish "Drift" (with whispery vocals from Louise Osborn.) Finally, "Radiant Crush" is environmentally ambient in places (think Cluster,) leading Hughes to find just the right balance.
MALCOLM JIYANE TREE-O - Umdali [LP/CD](Mushroom Hour Half Hour SA/New Soil/Marathon UK)
Beginning with its Noir-ish opener "Senzo SeNkosi," bandleader Jiyane leads his big band through some beautifully arranged Jazz with African textures and light rhythms. Aided mainly by the piano of Nkosinathi Mathunjwa, it is moderately paced to allow nearly everyone to push the undercurrent of the beat a little. Jiyane appears as a warm trombone accented by some very Miles-ian brass harmonies on "Umkhumbi kaMa" where the auxiliary percussion nicely predicts the tempo before the drum set subtly drives it more. The slow strut of "Ntate Gwangwa's Stroll" works out of its Bob James-ian core idea to develop into low-boiling Blues. Jiyane and his Tree-O work out their most dense parts, but never approach having so many instruments in motion that it distracts. Altogether, "Umdali" is quite like a more Africanized/Traditional (read: less Funk) Herbie Hancock circa "Mwandishi."
OHYDA - Pan bóg spełni wszystkie pragnienia lewaków ...i dojdzie do katastrofy! [7”](La Vida Es Un Mus UK)
This Polish Punk band rages with the best of the Hardcore bands, but their music is successful because it does not merely try to hit all the marks. “Pasozyt” opens the EP in a blazing fashion emerging from a hair-raising wave of incoming distortion. “Kompfuhrer” is like a more percussive Dead Kennedys with a fantastic effected howl at the beginning of nearly every line. As the band drives harder and harder (clearly resisting the urge to go into that Hardcore slowdown/wind-up,) you can hear them pushing with everything they have. “Drgawki” opens with a Bad Brains-ian flourish and then races into a breakneck almost NWOBHM gallop. The guitars sound menacing. The drums are pummelling. However, the throaty squall drenched in effects really makes Ohyda songs sound like barbaric yawps from the abyss.
NERVER - Cash [CS](Knife Hits)
With their AmRep-crashing-into-Chat Pile low-slung bass-wielding screaming festival, Kansas’ Nerver put some serious power into their power trio. “Cash” is brutal. Tracks pummel you with their attack (“Deepest Bluest” slices the album open like a wound.) When the rhythm section of bassist/vocalist Evan Little and drummer Mat Shananah fall into lockstep with each other there is peril at any speed. “Now It’s Dark” is not just appropriated titled but a slow-yet-muscular Rodan-esque descent into existential hell. Guitarist Jake Melech puts a lot of Duane Denison-ish spin on his riffs. When they all pound out “Full Dead,” they are blunt force trauma with a hint of harmony (is that a third?) While the fast songs (“Blood Boy” bludgeons) are fantastic, Nerver at half-speed is unstoppable. Listening to their cacophonous, rubbery strings ring out and then STOP on a dime (“Glowing Lake” especially its quiet, tense middle section) is just awesome. Another winner from Philadelphia’s Knife Hits.
TERRY LEE HALE - The Gristle & Bone Affair [LP](Glitterhouse)
As an expatriate American who has found a new home in France, Hale most immediately compares to Chet Baker (minus the trumpet.) However, Hale is not a crooner - but a sincere singer with a sonorous voice. Most of the album draws its power from the wealth of instruments being mixed with effects (those violins are literally crying on the deep-six-your-soul opener “Oh Life”) while Hale and his guitar are dry as a bone. When Hale writes in his narrative format on the harrowing “Alive Inside,” his sympathy for those with Alzheimer’s is poetic and as confessional in its details as Chocolate Genius’ “My Mom.” The atmospheric piano of Chris Cacavas counters the fading Beatnik dream of “Curve Away” as the whole album benefits from the imaginative production of Chris Eckman and mixer Matt Emerson Brown. Hale’s best song is the brilliant “Fish” where the ebb and flow of the lyrics and its cyclic chorus make it a jaw-dropper. “The Gristle & Bone Affair” is clearly a dream come true for Hale.
Well, another week, another list of several different styles and pursuits in music for you. Enjoy. Listen again. Share as you wish.
NEW RELEASES lovingly compiled for you from this very week!
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In close, MELOMANIA would like to welcome a couple of new SUBSTACK journalist/music bloggers to your view. As recommended by Robert Christgau and Ted Gioia, we hope you will check out:
and a shoutout to the minimalist master Spencer Scott Pugh