New May Music!
Paul Simon: So Beautiful or So What
It's doubtful many of those enamored by Paul Simon's seemingly flawless Graceland of 1986 have been waiting for more of the same mojo. Just as well hold your breath for Beggar's Banquet II. But depending on your perspective, Simon's So Beautiful or So What, released last month in his 69th year, is an unoriginal copying of Graceland or magical variations on a theme.
We go with the latter.
It's time to accept that because of that voice, a Paul Simon song is always going to sound like a Paul Simon song. The good news is that while the voice may be limited, he knows how to get the utmost from it. Let's go further: His voice may even be one-dimensional—but what a dimension!
Even Simon complains about it in a compelling Rolling Stone profile from May 12: "One of my deficiencies is my voice sounds sincere. Dylan, everything he sings has two meanings. I've tried to sound ironic. I don't. I can't."
On slow songs, Simon can lose all dramatic tension in his voice and just sound syrupy. There's more agility and allusiveness on mid-tempo and upbeat songs. That's partly why Graceland excels. Not the only reason though; you can't pinpoint magic.
So Beautiful or So What echoes Graceland in many ways: African instruments and playing that surprise and delight the Western ear, lyricism that focuses on spirituality or touches on Current Affairs, corn-free multiculturalism, rich backing vocals—an intoxicating pulse.
Even phrases and concepts in the lyrics—"bomb in the marketplace" and "talk show host" and "there are galaxies yet to born" and "I'm gong to make a chicken gumbo/toss some sausage in the pot"—could have flown off Graceland.
The online naysayers who only hear repetition on the new album are grim literalists.
And maybe even more than variations on a Graceland theme, these are ghost songs; thrown up to the skies for our engagement or absence. (Concord, 2011) —MAS
Hear This! "Getting Ready for Christmas Day" by Paul Simon
"Mississippi" Fred McDowell: The Bill Ferris Recordings
This 1967 collection of front-porch recordings of "Mississippi" Fred McDowell is an extension of Bill Ferris's striking book of oral histories: Give My Poor Heart Ease: Voices of the Mississippi Blues. (On various Mississippi excursions, Ferris recorded both speech and music—and shot photographs.)
The CD transports us to a world of one-take alchemy, a world where Fred McDowell was more than a one-man band; he was a one-man big band.
In the liner notes, Luther Dickinson, of the North Mississippi All Stars, writes that McDowell "made use of many more than the 12 notes in the Western chromatic scale. He played and sang beautiful microtonal melodies.... The syncopation is very advanced and technically difficult. As all master do, Fred made it look and sound easy."
Those of us who can't instantly hear all the details of this music can still get lost in it. There was no song McDowell couldn't make distinctive. The stream below offers proof in the form of McDowell's version of "John Henry," a very well-worn piece that suddenly feels, in McDowell's hands and voice, as if it's just been invented.
It was until his late twenties that "Mississippi" Fred McDowell, who was born in Rossville, Tennessee, touched ground in the Magnolia State and started living there. His neighbors, quickly enchanted by the newcomer's musical prowess, adopted him on the spot. (Devildown Records, 2010; originally recorded in 1967) —MAS
Hear This! "John Henry" by Mississippi Fred McDowell
Diana Jones: High Atmosphere
Quietly, slyly, Diana Jones keeps improving as an artist. Her new album, her third, showcases a keening, moody voice that sometimes feels like it has drifted or swept down from a cold mountainside. There have been (rare) moments in the past, where Jones has stumbled into sappiness. Here, Ketch Secor, a multi-instrumentalist and player for Old Crow Medicine Show, gives her the tight, serious production she's always needed. (Proper American, 2011) —MAS
Hear This! "High Atmosphere" by Diana Jones
Fleet Foxes: Helplessness Blues
So now I am older
than my mother and father
when they had their daughter
now what does that say about me?
Thus begins the opening track of Fleet Foxes' painfully zeitgeisty sophomore album. Whatever strained comparisons to Crosby, Stills & Nash this Seattle folk-pop group garnered during their 2008 debut have actually come to pass—no longer just orchestral harmonies and seven-minute-medley song structures—Fleet Foxes' songwriting now broadcasts smart cultural observation woven into baroque storytelling. Sure, the acoustic tinkerings are cloying at times, and the references to fields of heather and so many cries for "Innisfree" might feel too lit-nerdy—but listen to the title track and tell me it's not doing the pessimistic, post-aughts work of CSN's version of "Woodstock." (Sub Pop, 2011) —NE
Hear This! "Helplessness Blues" by Fleet Foxes
Kid Congo & the Pink Monkeybirds: Gorilla Rose
Kid Congo Powers (né Brian Tristan) has touched the hem of many musical outfits: his lead guitar supplemented Poison Ivy's vamping on the 1981 Cramps classic Psychedlic Jungle, ditto latter-day Gun Club (a band he actually co-founded) in efforts like The Las Vegas Story and Mother Juno, not to mention work with early Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds. He's been putting out solo albums for a few years now, but the timing of this release couldn't be better—with no discernable heir to the psychobilly throne, blistering summer sun just around the corner, and this generation of L.A. rock & roll sounding ever more new-agey and fatuously derivative—it's refreshing to hear creepy slide-guitar melodies beneath hilarious poetry recitations about transvestites shoplifting in Hollywood Boulevard record stores. Ah!—it seems those L.A. golden days are here to stay. (In the Red, 2011) —NE
Hear This! "Bo Bo Boogaloo" by Kid Congo & the Pink Monkey Birds
Explosions in the Sky: Take Care, Take Care, Take Care
The well-polished production of Explosions in the Sky's latest release captures their signatures: melodic and indecipherable human voices, djembe drums, and half-muted maracas tethering those familiar single-note swells, high-on-the-neck solos, and roll-heavy drumming. "Trembling Hands" reaches the high temp you might expect from a song by that name—while perfectly defying everything currently in the soundtrack-rockers' oeurvre. The tangled jam-sessionry fans know and love is saved for the last thirty seconds of tracks like "Be Comfortable Creature" and "Human Qualities," but EITS earns those dissonant climaxes through the expert instrumental control leading up to them. (Temporary Residence Limited, 2011) —MTP
Hear This! "Trembling Hands" by Explosions in the Sky
