Record Roundup: Envelope Pushers

Here are seven albums that work on many levels, each one of them seeking to take their chosen form - whether chamber music, folk rock, or electronic music - somewhere new. Their ultimate success, however, is the shifts they cause within me, either displaying future vistas or calling back to early memories I'd nearly forgotten. What will they do for you?

Ted Reichman - Dread Sea The tale Reichman tells in the liner notes and in a poem contained in the Tripticks cassette's j-card, of encountering a "heavily drugged juvenile sloth" attempting to swipe him with a "long, slow arc of its claw," has a certain lysergic flavor that matches these multi-layered audio collages perfectly. Assembled from electronically treated mbira and accordion combined with prepared piano, synth, and tape, the resulting tracks come to your ears fully formed, as if created from one instrument. Of course, there is no requirement to think about aggressive sloths (I prefer the cute ones I see on Instagram!) while you listen. The music will most likely transport you to realms related to your own experiences. Take the journey.

Greg Davis - New Primes As a recovering arithmophobe, reading that prime numbers form the basis of Davis's new album on Greyfade is enough for me to tune out to avoid past anxieties. But that stuff is all behind the scenes. You don't need to know that Davis is using "custom-written software to translate prime number sequences" into music, using only sine tones as his medium, to listen and respond to the sounds contained herein. And while all that sounds super-cerebral, there is definitely an emotional reaction to have to these throbs and drones as they rise and fall, thicken and attenuate. I can't help being taken into an alien space of almost pure loneliness, as if engaged in a space-walk between ships, hungry for the noise, clatter, and melodiousness of human existence. But I can just as equally let the hum of an air conditioner, laboriously beating back the heat, blend with Davis's music as I zone out to the play of leaves and sunlight just outside my window. My mind drifts, imagining the activities of tiny animals for whom a blade of grass might constitute their entire universe. Davis is surely on to something here, and you don't need to know any math for it to grab you.

Congregation Of Drones - Twenty Twenty That artists have their antennae up is well known, so the idea that violinist/composer Pauline Kim Harris and electronic musician Jesse Stiles came together to record the first two foreboding tracks here in February 2020, just days before COVID lockdown, makes perfect sense. After an interruption of some months, they reconvened virtually and continued the project. When complete, they named each track after a headline in the New York Times from the day it was recorded: Gesture Of Devotion, See What Happens, Experimental Treatment, and No Spinning. With that background, it is also no surprise that these richly evocative tracks could make for an excellent soundtrack for reflecting upon what we’ve all been through for last two - now almost three - years. 

But Twenty Twenty is so much more than a mirror to the past. This is stunning, nail-you-to-your-chair music, with Harris’ extraordinarily versatile sound-making abilities - from long, arcing lines to percussion, pizzicato, and beyond - fully matched and intertwined with Stiles’ starlit and multi-hued electronics. While some of it is spaced out and slow, it never lets up in intensity, occasionally exploding into segments that are near metallic. This landmark in electro-acoustic music is also available on vinyl, which should be a fantastic experience, although I do like losing myself in the full 71-minute sweep without having to change sides. I urge you to get to Twenty Twenty STAT, through whatever medium you prefer, and let it mold itself to your life.

Josh Modney - Near To Each I think I might have just found David Bowie's next band and it's a goddamned pity he's not around to take advantage. But knowing how Blackstar's collaboration with Danny McCaslin and Co. turned out, get your mind around Bowie working with Modney, a brilliant violinist here making his debut as a composer, Ingrid Laubrock, a saxophonist equally at home in jazz and new music, Cory Smythe, the genius pianist with the International Contemporary Ensemble, and Mariel Roberts, a fearless virtuoso cellist whose last album was a series of brutal improvisations. And they really play like a band, too, with Modney tailoring the compositions to each player's unique style and engaging in deep collaborations to arrive at the final product. 

The results are a series of gripping dynamic pieces of chamber music that incorporate drones, spiky duels between instruments, pounding ensemble work, and moments of crystalline beauty. Near To Each opens with a solo violin piece that casts back to Engage, Modney's triple-album from 2018, which included a series of improvised solos, but other than Tenor Solo for Laubrock, the rest is all about interaction, juxtaposition, and overlap. The pieces also take you through a series of emotional states, from angst to contemplation, and how you relate those to your own life will be very personal. A couple of my favorite passages in Whalefall and Crystallization I bring to life that sensation of lying back on grass on a hot summer's day, only to have the whine of a small airplane cross the sky - and your consciousness. It's a lonely, restless sound that brings the vastness of our planet into dramatic focus. 

Ballad contains yearning interplay, with Smythe's measured chords reminiscent of Messiaen's Quartet For The End Of Time, his custom software subtly enhancing the sound world. The last piece, Chorale, is a 23-minute tour-de-force and the track that put Bowie dreams in my head. Opening with Roberts' violent cello intertwining with Modney's squirrelly violin, the work gradually develops a narrative flow as searching piano from Smythe transitions it to a different mood. While Chorale doesn't echo anything specific from Bowie's world, it rhymes very nicely not only with Blackstar but the exploratory sides of Low and "Heroes" in the way it works with unexpected sounds and structures to create something as grabby as an avant garde pop song. I can imagine an adventurous listener and creator like Bowie being jazzed by this piece and the others, becoming eager to get involved. I know I am!

Steven Ricks - Assemblage Chamber Rather than questing into the future, Ricks bravely spelunks into the Baroque, pulling out modes and methods (and the occasional harpsichord, played by Jason Hardink) to inform his own bricolage approach. This gives the three acoustic pieces here a wonderful off-kilter feeling as past and present collide in lighthearted and inventive ways. The addition of guitar (Dan Lippell) and bass clarinet (Benjamin Fingland) creates ever more delightful anachronisms in Reconstructing The Lost Improvisations of Aldo Pilestri, while the title track eliminates instruments altogether, with Ricks cutting and pasting bits and pieces of the earlier works into a sound collage that both sums everything up and points in new directions. With great playing by members of Counter)Induction and the NOVA Chamber Music Players, among others, this is a satisfying feast of a collection suitable for gourmands of many genres.

Maya Bennardo - Four Strings Bennardo is one half of the redoubtable duo AndPlay, a core member of the Mivos Quartet, and has played on countless great records in recent years. Here, she finally steps out on her own and the results are captivating. Consisting of two long works for solo violin, Four Strings not only allows Bennardo to pursue her interests in stasis and simplicity, but premieres two important pieces by composers demanding wider attention. The first, Kristofer Svensson’s Duk med broderi och bordets kant, has a folk-like simplicity, with a repeating motif and overall warmth that will call you back home, wherever you're from. The title piece by Wandelweiser composer Eva-Maria Houben is a spacious meditation on individual tones and notes, like pick-up sticks where none of the sticks are touching. Bennardo's concentration and the care she gives every draw of the bow shine brightly here, making a nice contrast to Svensson's more gregarious work. Bennardo can do no wrong, apparently, and I will be glad to follow her to more fantastic music in the future. P.S. She and her AndPlay partner Hannah Levinson publish one of the best newsletters in the biz - in fact, it was they who led me to Twenty Twenty! Subscribe here.

Florist - Florist The permission granted by The Beatles on the so-called White Album to fill a double album with a wide variety of styles and approaches is often more of a curse than a blessing. See under: Sandinista by The Clash or that new goulash by Big Thief, which has some very good songs but makes you work to find them. Not so with Florist, sometimes the solo project of Emily Sprague, but presented here as a full band. Drawing together all of the threads cast out by a decade's worth of Florist releases, as well as those under Sprague's own name, Florist presents everything these musicians can do at the pinnacle of artistic success. From the gleaming chamber-folk perfection of a song like Red Bird No. 2 to the sketches like Duet For Guitar And Rain, the parts assemble into a whole that envelops and inspires. The use of field recordings or ambient sounds of nature only enhances that sense of environment, as if you've turned on one of those old lights with a paper cylinder that sends stars rotating around your room.

Like the sounds in the background, the lyrics are filled with references to nature, relating the night sky, fireflies, breezes, and so on, to various inner states. The results are pure poetry, as in these lines from Spring In Hours: "oh, the light inside you now oh, the wild inside you now/maybe there’s something that takes us beyond this/and flowers like spring in our arms." Among the shorter songs and fragments are several longer tracks that really show off the interplay between Sprague (vocals, guitars, synth), Jonnie Baker (guitars, synths, sampling, bowed guitars & bass, saxophone, vocals) Rick Spataro (bass, vocals, engineering, piano, synths), and Felix Walworth (percussion, vocals, synths, guitar), like 43, which extends into a jam reminiscent of Jonathan Wilson circa Gentle Spirit. And those player credits are a hint of what Florist means when they call themselves a "friendship project," also pointing out their gently radical reimagining of what a band can be when you break down silos between the individual roles in the group.

Whatever path Florist took, they arrived at a very special place and have given us a masterpiece of an album. I'm slightly despairing at the play counts on Spotify, which suggest people are picking and choosing between the songs.I strongly suggest that, if listening digitally, you entrust yourself to this whole album. I believe you'll find yourself richer for the experience.

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Best Of 2017: Rock, Folk, Etc. 

Ocean Music Surfaces

Richard Aufrichtig - Troubadour No. 1 I hate keeping secrets, so the fact that Richard Aufrichtig, the captain of Ocean Music, sent me most of these tracks in 2017 has been a source of tension in my life. It’s not that I have to share music to enjoy it - but it helps. I also understand that releasing art out into the world takes courage, especially if you think it’s not quite ready. No matter how many times I told Richard, “Put this out - it's one of the best albums of the year!” he held firm, guided by an internal compass. I should have trusted him, as its final version is better in ways both subtle and obvious. And it is definitely one of the best albums of the year.

I won’t bore you by comparing Troubador No. 1 with an unmastered album I had on repeat two years ago, but I will say that coming up with Blown Open to start the album is a credit to Aufrichtig’s tenacity. I can now hear that it was the missing piece. Starting with his unaccompanied voice, Blown Open arrests instantly with its imagery: “Cold - grass in the summer/Old - classical music/I - used to belong there/I - used to believe it.” Subliminal picked guitar is joined by clarinets, so unexpected and yet so inevitable. The album’s title falls into place: This is a troubadour, a “poet who sets words to music,” yes, but there’s also a connection to the word’s roots in the Medieval French for “to find.” Aufrichtig is on a journey of self-discovery and we are privileged to be invited along for the ride. 

By the end of the song, there’s a bed of electric guitars and a synth has been introduced and dismissed. Blown Open fades into meditative silence, shortly replaced by the wry flute and gentle disco of Paris, a sublime duet with Holly Miranda. Seeing them perform it live was a dream come true and you should count yourself lucky if you were there. There are witty horns and a wailing harmonica, which contains as much regret as the chorus: “Now, I’m going back to Paris.” Just as we rarely feel just one way about anything - especially if you’ve lived a little - Paris is a hybrid song, and a brilliant one at that. 

The title track also grooves, but hypnotically this time, guitars and sax coexisting peacefully as Aufrichtig casts his thoughts to half-remembered incidents, his voice full of warmth and compassion. Blue October Sky is also a retrospective glance: “I lost you in October, like I lost my minor key/And I wish I could remember all the songs you sang for me.” Somewhere, Leonard Cohen is tipping a stylish fedora in acknowledgment. 

One of the things I love about Ocean Music’s songs is that they take their sweet time. This has led to some clueless reactions from those who would pretend to be gatekeepers, i.e. people with popular playlists. One comment Richard shared still haunts me: “You have a beautiful voice but the song takes too long to develop.” Translation: “I am so uncomfortable with myself that I can’t sit within this gorgeous piece of music without constantly wondering when it will change.” It's like criticizing the weather for not dissolving the clouds quickly enough. Just as the clouds will roll out when they roll out, an Ocean Music song moves at its own pace. 

Take Telephone, the fifth song on the album, which follows its midtempo, strummy groove for a full three minutes before the horns come in. Then, after Richard sings, “You with your arms and your hands and your stories that can make me fly,” his guitar starts to squall in a biting, distorted tone, soon joined by a skronking sax that had me wondering if David Murray was on the track (it's actually Stuart Bogie of Antibalas, etc.). Another guitar joins (perhaps the great Josh Kaufman, who also co-produced the album) and everything begins to soar into consonance over vocal harmonies. It is absolutely glorious. Allow it to thrill you before you assume there’s a construct within which it should have existed. 

An Old Dream goes deeper into the mystic, with Aufrichtig accompanying himself on what sounds like an ancient piano. His steady voice calms the odd harmonies from the ailing instrument as he creates scenes both sensual and serene. He ends the album with another dazzling display of his arranging skills, with the finger-picked acoustic of Watchlight limned by organ and what sounds like a Jew’s harp. It also closes the record on an upbeat note, with the troubadour getting ready the hit the road again, sounding hopeful for what the future may hold: “After the show, we can walk around/Buy our tickets down in Chinatown/And we can leave this town, leave this town, leave this town.” But come back soon, Richard - we need to hear what treasures you find on the next leg of your journey. 

P.S. For another angle on Aufrichtig’s very musical mind, subscribe to Fresh Wind, his wonderful Spotify playlist, which he's updating every Monday. 

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Record Roundup: Cornucopia Of Folk And Americana

Catching Up With Holly And Richard

Record Roundup: American Tunes

Note: Troubadour No. 1 was originally released under the Ocean Music name. 

Record Roundup: Cornucopia Of Folk And Americana

I hate to feel that I’m keeping music from people, so before I start my Best Of 2018 series, here are quick takes on some excellent albums in the realms of folk and Americana. I think you’ll find some of them perfect for wintry nesting as the sun sets early and snow brushes the window panes. Others may be good for the family gatherings that can define this time of year.

Raoul Vignal - Oak Leaf It’s rare that you hear an album this assured and accomplished from a well-known artist. But when someone flying under the radar presents such an exquisite piece of work as Oak Leaf, it feels even more astonishing. On this second album by the French singer-songwriter, finger-picked guitars weave a spell alongside occasional shimmering vibes or a gentle sax. Drums tick away minimally in the background. Over it all is Vignal’s hushed voice delivering (in English) introspective confessions and musings. I see a danger of Vignal becoming a “musician’s musician” or a “best-kept secret.” It's up to you not to let that happen.

Olivia Chaney - Shelter Both the production (by Thomas Bartlett) and Chaney’s voice are so polished that I was at first turned off by this, her second album. But then it dawned on me that there was a flood of emotion being held back by a levee of glassy perfection. The key to this is her stunning version of O Solitude, a 300-year-old song by Henry Purcell. The feeling in it is baked into the lyrics and Purcell’s haunting melody, which is the standard she’s set for her own songs. Her lofty ambition is more than repaid, making for a special listening experience. I also wouldn’t complain if her next album was entirely Purcell, John Dowland, and other centuries-old British luminaries. 

Ocean Music - Jorge Marco Turino, Beach Captain, Etc. I’ve written before about the wondrous music of Richard Aufrichtig, which he usually puts out as Ocean Music. While he has been fairly prolific in 2018, I have it on good authority that the best is yet to come. The first of these is a five-song EP of originals, played solo with either piano or acoustic guitar. It’s a beautiful recording and his expansive songs are easy to get lost in. Beach Captain is mostly covers, some old, like Bird On A Wire, and some newer like Joanna Newsom’s Clam Crab Cockle Cowrie. He always goes deep, making them his own, no more so than in a mournful take on Someday by The Strokes. We’ve also been graced with a shimmering, powerful version of Aufrichtig’s Ghost Song with a full band, the closest any recording has yet come to the Ocean Music live experience. Finally, we have two songs from a recent concert at Baby’s All Right - I was there so you can trust me when I say this is just a hint of how great it was. But it’s par for the course for Aufrichtig to drop hints; here’s hoping we get the full story in 2019. 

Phil Cook - People Are My Drug Spending time with Cook’s music is like feeling the sun on your face after a week of rain. This is especially true in concert, as a recent show at Bowery Ballroom (with Andy Jenkins opening!) proved yet again. He draws you in with his smile and seals the deal with his killer guitar and sweet voice. Those last two elements are present on this follow-up to 2015’s  Southland Mission, as well as an increased interest in gospel fervor. That means the album is plenty inspiring, even if the songwriting is a little less sharp. My only other quibble has to do with the inclusion of Amelia Meath of Sylvan Esso on several songs - but that’s just because I don’t really like her voice or her band. I guess the divine Alexandra Sauser-Monnig wasn't available! If you feel differently, you will likely be thrilled with her contributions here. Either way, it’s a fine album and if you get a chance to see Cook on stage, don’t hesitate!

The Dead Tongues - Unsung Passage I first caught wind of Ryan Gustafson, who performs under this name, when he opened for and played with Phil Cook at Rough Trade. He quickly lodged in my mind as a master of all things stringed, as well as a fine singer and songwriter deep in the American vein. Now we have his most assured record yet, weaving a spell through a variety of country and folk-tinged textures and settings. To my ears he’s most effective when he pushes it furthest, as on the haunting Ebb And Flow or My Other, which, with its flutes and strings, is the first song that’s reminded me of Nico’s magisterial Chelsea Girl since I first heard that record. It’s fantastic, easily one of the most gorgeous songs of the year. But this whole record deserves your attention. If you give it that, you will likely become a fan of The Dead Tongues. 

John Calvin Abney - Coyote Go take a look at issue #116 of Off Your Radar for a kaleidoscopic look at Abney’s last album, Far Cries And Close Calls. Done? Good. Now, believe me when I say this one is even better. The production alone is worthy of note, burnished and warm, like an old oak table - and the songs are just as solid. Abney’s voice has a touch of Wings-era McCartney and he’s learned a few songwriting lessons from the former Fab as well. These aren't annoying earworms, though, but rather songs that employ sophisticated and unexpected chord changes in a relaxed and naturalistic fashion. This makes for songs that are memorable but also nourishing, repaying repeat and close listening. If Coyote doesn’t significantly expand Abney’s audience, I don’t know what will. 

Anna St. Louis - If Only There Was A River Every once in a while something in my Spotify Discover Weekly playlist will floor me, causing me to stop what I’m doing and make sure to find out all the W’s: who, what, when. Last week it was a song from St. Louis’s previous album, First Songs, something with hypnotic fingerpicking, beautiful singing, and a shapely melody. That came out in 2017 and just as I was cursing Spotify and the world for keeping it from me, I noticed she had a new album out. This is a more fully produced affair, but thankfully Kyle Thomas and Kevin Morby have nurtured St. Louis’s talents rather than blanketing them in their own ideas. The songs are exquisite enough on their own - the task is not to ruin them and at that Morby and Thomas more than succeed. Numerophiles who own Catherine Howe's What A Beautiful Place may find a point of reference. This is an album people will be talking about - don’t wait around for an algorithm to deliver it to you.

Billy Joseph & The Army Of Love - You Know Which Way To Go This is my first cousin, OK, but that's not the only reason I've had his latest record on repeat. This is just an excellent collection of soulful rock & folk - and sometimes just plain soul in the Al Green and Robert Cray stylings of Second Time Around. The production is expansive and well-tailored to every song, including a very original take on Suspicious Minds. Stinging guitar leads (either by Nick Kirgo or Billy himself) are lavished on the album with an almost gustatory pleasure and the horns on Holiday Song are sublime. The lyrics can cut to the quick, as on that last song, as honest a depiction of holiday loneliness as has ever been written. "Bing Crosby's on the TV set, I can see him through the window of a furniture store," Billy sings in a line worthy of a scene from a Douglas Sirk classic - just one of the gems to be found on this impressive record. If you live in L.A., he's probably playing somewhere tonight so go out and see him do his thing.

Jeff Tweedy - Warm For the last few years (maybe since the excellent Sukierae) it’s been a bit of a toss-up whether or not a Tweedy product is going to truly touch me or just be another expression of consummate competence to be admired and put away. While it’s early days yet with Warm, which is his first true solo album in a 25-year career, I’m pleased to report that I believe this is one of the former. As always, the songs are well-written, but the sense of intimacy, the feeling of someone hoping their hard-won truths will help get you through, is welcome. The musical settings are spare, sensitive - listen to the drumming on From Far Away - and lived-in, harkening back to John Wesley Harding or Plastic Ono Band. Tweedy’s mastery of the pithy lyric is also on full display, using a few words to carry heavy freight, like the chorus of the title track: “I don't believe in Heaven/I keep some heat inside/Like a red brick in the summer/Warm when the sun has died.” There’s enough wisdom on Warm to fill a book - and Tweedy has one of those, too! Listen, read, and celebrate one of our master artists hitting a new peak. 

Don’t these albums sound like they would be fodder for a great playlist? Gotcha covered (except for Oak Leaf)! See below or click here. What else would you add?

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Outliers, Part 1: Oracle Hysterical, Thomas Bartlett-Nico Muhly

This two-part miniseries will look at four albums that exist within similar Venn diagrams that overlap between contemporary classical, folk, and rock, which is a very interesting neighborhood indeed. 

Hecuba - Oracle Hysterical This group dubs itself “part band, part book club” so you can bet there’s a shelf-load of ideas behind their second album, which is based on the centuries-old Greek tragedy by Euripides. The basic plot, which has Hecuba, the Queen of Troy, descending into murderous madness to avenge the fall of her city and the slaughter of her children, has more than enough story to fill a few albums. This makes the concision of Oracle Hysterical’s nine songs even more impressive. 

The group consists of twin brothers Doug Balliett (double bass, viola da gamba) and Brad Balliett (bassoons), Majel Connery (vocals, keyboards), Elliot Cole (vocals, guitars, keyboards), and Dylan Greene (percussion) and for Hecuba they added Jason Treuting of So Percussion on drum kit. These modest forces are deployed remarkably well, leading to a variety of sounds from art song to folk-rock and from electronica to prog-rock. I even hear a bit of mid-century composed jazz in Bolero and elsewhere, always a welcome sound in my book. Connery wields her operatically-trained voice mostly with restraint so when she really unleashes it’s all the more powerful. Cole’s voice is more limited, almost conversational at times, providing another nice contrast. 

I really hope no one is turned off by the brainy background to Hecuba as the whole album flows and is filled with beauty and adventure. It’s no more challenging a listen than Home At Last, Steely Dan’s glossy take on the Odyssey. There is even a bit of wit, as in the deadpan refrain “Woe is me/woe for my children/Woe for my ancestors,” recited by Cole like a one-man Greek chorus in He Will Close Your Eyes. One analysis of the original by Euripides states that “there is almost no let up in the mood of suffering and anguish” in the play so its probably a good thing that Oracular Hysterical takes a lighter approach to the subject matter. There are certainly moments of darkness, like the spooky way Connery intones the lyrics of Letos Laurel or the fantastical 100 Tongues, which finds her voice chopped up in an aural impression of a shattered psyche. Cole’s mixing and Chris Botta’s electronics and post-production deserve special mention for that and much else on Hecuba. 

Hecuba, a mightily original work that finds Oracle Hysterical hitting their stride at least as much as a band as a book club, comes out on May 11th. Join them to celebrate at National Sawdust on Sunday, May 13th. No need to bear gifts - just buy a ticket. 

Peter Pears: Balinese Ceremonial Music - Thomas Bartlett And Nico Muhly This record also has a rich overlay of ideas that should lead the curious listener in all sorts of fascinating directions. First, there’s the title, which combines the name of one of the 20th century’s greatest vocal artists with a reference to Gamelan music, the Indonesian form that attracted the attention of Pears and his collaborator (and lover) Benjamin Britten. Britten first learned about Gamelan during a fascinating period in the 40’s, when he found himself living in a townhouse on Middagh Street in Brooklyn with the likes of W.H. Auden, Dashiell Hammett and Gypsy Rose Lee. Also in residence was Colin McPhee, a composer and ethnomusicologist who had studied the gamelan extensively while living in Bali. McPhee and Britten recorded his two-piano transcriptions, which made the music accessible to Western ears and performers. Thus Balinese music, which uses an orchestra primarily of bell-like percussion instruments to play repeating clusters of melodic rhythms, became one of the roots of minimalism. 

Whew. We haven’t even listened to the album yet and we’re already deep in the weeds of 20th Century classical music and literature along with one of the central forms of Asian music. But, aside from the three McPhee transcriptions included here this is all just the roadmap Bartlett and Muhly used, not the destination. And who are Bartlett and Muhly? The first, who also operates under the name Doveman, is a pianist, singer and composer who, in addition to his own records, has worked with a wide variety of artists from Sam Amidon and David Byrne to Chocolate Genius and Father John Misty. Muhly studied at Juilliard and worked with Philip Glass and has had a career that can easily be described as meteoric, having already had an opera produced at the Met (with another on the way), among other successes. 

All that doesn’t mean I like everything Bartlett and Muhly have done. Among the tracks I love on the playlist they conveniently assembled of their various activities is plenty of music that strikes me as insular, arch and even smug. But I was too intrigued by the background of Peter Pears to do anything but listen with an open mind. And I’m glad I did, because this is a collection of sounds and songs that envelop the listener in warmth and care, quickly becoming as familiar and comforting as an old blanket or a good friend. 

The McPhee pieces are busier and sharper-edged than the originals, which are gauzy wonders of piano, strings, percussion and electronics over which Bartlett sings in hushed tones lyrics that are full of poetic allusions, aphorisms, and compassionate advice. There is a seamless grace to this music, not doubt enabled by the excellent musicians Muhly and Bartlett have assembled, including Rob Moose and Yuki Numata Resnick (violins), Christina Courtin (viola), Clarice Jensen (cello), Hannah Cohen (harmony vocals), and Chris Thompson (percussion). But the end result is all Bartlett and Muhly, making a case for collaboration being the surest way to bring out individual strengths. By working together and drawing on music and history that fascinates them, they have created something uniquely beautiful that also feels genuinely new. And if this album leads some new listeners back to McPhee and the Gamelan or the marvelous music Britten and Pears created together, so much the better. The album comes out on May 18th and Bartlett and Muhly will be performing it at La Poisson Rouge on May 24th. 

In Part 2 I’ll be covering two more unique albums. But first, a trip to church with the Red Bull Music Academy. 

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Bob Dylan’s Bootleg Gospel

Father Bob Zimmy doesn’t so much enter the conference room as apparate there, black hoodie drawn Unabomber tight, opaque sunglasses banking the fire of his piercing blue eyes. He sits down at the long, mirror-polished mahogany table, conforming his lanky frame to the Italian leather ergonomics of the chair at the head. He flicks a lever somewhere underneath the seat with the confidence of a NASCAR driver shifting and accelerating into the winning position, the chair tilts back and in the same motion, Dylan’s immaculately worn cowboy boots rise up and find a home on the wooden surface. He sweeps off the hood, removes the sunglasses with a precise pincer grasp on the bridge, and looks up at the three people at the front of the room: “Whaddya got?” The question comes out more like a secret, but he’s got nothing more to say.

The first exec fiddles with his shirt collar and presses a button on the embedded console. A title slide appears on the screen to his left: “Bob Dylan Bootleg Series Vol 13: Proposal One.” He clears his throat but before the first word is emitted, there’s a creak from Dylan’s chair. He’s holding up his hand, sunglasses still within, like an extra appendage. “There’s no poetry in PowerPoint,” he rasps, “shut that thing off.” The exec flicks his eyes at his colleagues, complies without a word, and starts his pitch. 

“There’s a lot of social media buzz around performances from the Nineties, on YouTube and in various Facebook groups. There’s a consensus building that you had something special going on then, especially in the wake of Time Out Of Mind and all the new songs it put into the set.” Dylan moves his head almost imperceptibly, his way of telling the suit to continue. “So, here’s the cover art for Bootleg Series Vol. 13: Never Ending Nineties - The Baxter-Campbell-Jackson Years.” He slides a glossy printout down the table before resuming. It's a mock-up of a cover featuring photos of Dylan with Bucky Baxter, Larry Campbell and John Jackson. “We based it a little on this Duke Ellington package from a while ago, The Blanton-Webster Years. Won a Grammy, highly acclaimed, still mentioned as one of the best catalog releases of all time.”

Dylan contemplates the cover art for a few silent minutes before swinging his legs off the table and leaning in. “That might be good for the Duke,” he says, “having those other fellas names on the cover. But he was six feet under by that time, and I ain’t there yet. Nothing makes me happier than bootlegging those bootleggers on YouTube - that money doesn’t swear - it sings - but no.” He doesn’t even need to say “next” for the next victim to know she’s at the plate. 

“Thanks, Bob,” the woman says, looking a little overheated in expensive denim, and glancing at some bullet points in her binder, “Your Live at Budokan album is one of your most divisive, with some people claiming it was too glitzy, like Elvis in Vegas. What most people don’t know is that you rehearsed that band for over a month before going tour. It was one of your largest groups and you wanted them tight.” Dylan cocks his head, he’s interested. “You had them work up 150 songs in preparation, many of which were never performed outside of their original studio versions. And there are two previously unpublished songs that were only ever worked on during those rehearsals.” She stops talking, gets up, walks down to where Dylan is sitting and puts a piece of paper in front of him. 

The mock-up shows a photo of Dylan in a circle with all the Budokan musicians, standing in front of a stage dense with gear. The words on top say, Bob Dylan: The Bootleg Series Vol. 13: Budokan Or Bust. Dylan picks up the sheet, giving it a hard stare. The exec hands him another document, which shows the potential track listing. “We’re thinking eight CDs and a DVD for the deluxe version, with a two CD standard issue. We -“ Dylan holds up a hand. 

“This could almost work,” Dylan says slowly, “but there’s one problem. Ian Wallace was perhaps the worst drummer I ever worked with. Every building needs a floor,” he adds cryptically, “Or you got nowhere to stand.” He puts the pages down, pushes them away on the slick wood, and speaks volumes with his eyebrows as he looks at the third A&R person, a balding man with stringy hair and an unkempt beard, typical aging hippie. 

The man reaches under the table, picks up a small musical instrument case and places it on the surface. Looking directly at Dylan, he flicks open the two clasps and lifts the lid, revealing a tambourine nestled in black foam. With his eyes still on Dylan, he picks up the tambourine, shakes it high above his head and brings it dramatically down onto his other hand. There’s a second of silence that he fills with a deliberate rhythm, getting up from his chair, and stalking towards Dylan, making full eye contact and singing, in a thick New York accent: “You may be an ambassador to England or France/You may like to gamble, you may like to dance/You may be the heavyweight champion of the world/You may be a socialite with a long (it sounds like “lawnnnng”) string of pearls/But you’re going to have to serve somebody/Yes, you are, you’re going to have to serve somebody/Well, it may be the devil or it may be the lord, but you’re going to have to serve somebody!”

He’s timed it perfectly, so on the last word he stops right in front of Dylan, slapping the tambourine one last time on his hip. Maintaining eye contact, Dylan waves one hand in the air, a wry grin starting on his lined face. The old hippie reaches into the inside pocket of his jacket and pulls out a wrinkled sheet of paper with his mock-up, unfolds it, and places it in front of Dylan. It shows the singer onstage in a shamanic pose, arms outstretched, wearing a guitar, in full electric preacher mode. Above the picture are the words “Bob Dylan - Bootleg Series Vol. 13: Gospel Train (1979-1981).”

Dylan indicates the chair closest to him and the man sits down, the other two execs forgotten by both of them. “This I like,” Zimmy says, “because everybody hated and misunderstood that whole time. It was as if I really was Judas - but I had murdered Bob Dylan.” He makes air quotes when saying his name. “So what are we talking here? Live stuff? Rehearsals, outtakes, demos? Hell if I can remember how all those records happened. I DO know for sure that I wanted Saved to be a live album but Columbia said no," He looks pointedly at the other two execs in the room, who pretend to check their phones. "Can we do that?”

“Absolutely,” his new best friend says, pulling another document out of his pocket, “and more, much more.” He unfolds the paper, smoothing it down on the table. It’s an 11x14 spreadsheet, with song names and  recording dates and locations, color-coded to show which songs appear multiple times. “We’ve got all of Saved, except for A Satisfied Mind, in brilliant performances, and all of Slow Train and most of Shot of Love, too! We even dug up 14 unreleased songs. Now listen to this..." He pulls a phone out of his pocket, unlocks it with his face, and makes of couple of gestures. The familiar "bloop" sound is heard as a Google Audio device picks up the signal. He presses play and Slow Train starts playing, but in a completely different version from the one on the studio album. It has a stomping beat and an aggressive edge, with two extraordinary guitar solos that push it into the stratosphere. By the time it ends, Dylan is pounding his hand on the table with the rhythm.

"Hot damn!" Zimmy exclaims, "That was some hot shit band, huh? You know, I got Jim Keltner, the ultimate studio rat drummer to come on the road with me. He told me he cried after every song on Slow Train Coming. Little did he know we'd be out for almost three years! And Fred Tackett on guitar, he was at loose ends after Lowell George died, and Little Feat was in flux. Then I had Tim Drummond, a gut-punching bass player if there ever was one. Spooner Oldham on keys - name someone better." He shakes his head slowly, marveling in the memory of it. "Then I had a little gospel choir to lend some sweetening, as the old record men used to say. Talking about Clydie King, Carolyn Dennis, Regina McCrary...couple others. These women could make the phone book sound like hallelujah. I even married one of them," he finishes slyly. "Good as they were, though, I think we should leave their solo sets off-a this thing. We want to focus people on my songs, do a little hard-sell. Same goes for my sermons - who knows what the heck I was going on about, anyhow. I was in the moment. That moment has past, but the songs' time is still to come."

The stringy-haired man utters a near-silent "Amen," and plays a few more songs. Everything sounds sizzling. Ballads burn with quiet fire, rockers are super-charged, even in rehearsal, and abandoned songs hint at new directions and further possibilities. One standout is a rehearsal of Slow Train that seems to come out of the mist, horns and percussion giving it sonic equivalence to Bob Marley & The Wailers circa 1979. Another rehearsal take, of Caribbean Wind featuring a weeping pedal steel, is finally, maybe, a definitive take of a most elusive song. Zimmy listens carefully, then remarks, almost to himself, "That one I couldn't quite grasp what it was about when I finished it."* There's also a very different, searing version of the same song, from its only concert outing in 1980, and a never-before-heard song called Making A Liar Out Of Me that's nearly the equivalent of Blind Willie McTell's surprise appearance on the first Bootleg Series release.

After a couple more live tracks, Dylan puts up a finger: "You hear how good this stuff sounds? We wanted to make a live album, remember, or albums - Shot Of Love could've been better, too - so we took extra care with our stage set-up. Look at the pictures - in many of them you'll see a four foot by 12 foot piece of Plexiglas, in between the drums and the choir. We put that baffle in there to keep the vocal bleed out of the drum mics. S'gonna make it a hell of a lot easier to master the tracks, since most of them are from cassette, right?" Everyone else in the room nods in unison. They know they've just had a brief audience with expert producer Jack Frost.

Dylan picks up the spreadsheet, starts running his finger down the columns, nodding once in a while. "I like this. You've got the cream of the live crop up top, looks like - that can be a standard release, two CDs or four LPs, and then you've got some rehearsals and outtakes, plus two more complete shows for the deluxe set. Sweet." He takes a last look at the document, puts a finger on the title and says, "We might have a problem with this Gospel Train business. What about Trouble In Mind?" Zimmy thinks for a minute. "No - Trouble No More, 'cause no one will have a problem with my "gospel era" (air quotes again) when they hear this big ol'box of goodness!" He pushes the spreadsheet back over to the old hippie, who returns with it to his seat and packs it away with the tambourine. "Good. Let's get this out by fall, right?" Everyone makes agreeable noises as Father Bob Zimmy stands up, corrals his frizzy hair with the hoodie, drawing it tight, and slips the sunglasses over his eyes. Before anyone can say a goodbye, he's in the wind. And they've got work to do.

*This is the only real Dylan quote, from an interview with Cameron Crowe referenced in the liner notes. The story about Jim Keltner's tears is also factual, as related by him to Mojo Magazine, December 2017.

Note: I haven't seen the documentary that comes with the Deluxe Edition yet. I'm sure the live footage is scintillating, but the sermons, written by Luc Santé and performed by Michael Shannon have proven divisive among viewers. Plus ća change...

Pick your version of Bob Dylan – Trouble No More – The Bootleg Series Vol. 13 / 1979-1981 - every home should have one. Still among the unconverted? Check out the sampler on Spotify.

You may also enjoy:
Dylan-Lamar-Misty: An American Trilogy
Off Your Radar Issue #21: Slow Train Coming
Sail On Bob 

This will be my last regular review of the year - time to get on with detailing the Best Of 2017!

Autumn Albums, Part 1

It’s a rare year indeed when so many of my bedrock artists of recent years put out new material, especially so close together, but this fall's releases are redefining "embarrassment of riches." Let's get right to it!

Hiss Golden Messenger - Hallelujah Anyhow Every record by M.C. Taylor is a labor of love, but this may be the most loving music he’s released yet. It comes hard on the heels of last year’s Heart Like A Levee, a sprawling double album shaded by its fair share of self-doubt, with many songs guided in part by the philosophy “You can’t choose your blues but you might as well own them.” This batch of songs is all together sunnier, a reflection of Taylor’s remarkable ability to use music to turn things around when things look bleak. 

There’s a looser, more collective vibe here, too, as if Taylor and his road band knocked these songs together at soundchecks and in rehearsal studios, driven by his relentless desire to get some positivity into a world filled with dark currents. Of course, when your band includes Brad and Phil Cook (bass and guitar, respectively), Josh Kaufman (guitars), Darren Jessie (drums) and people like Tift Merritt and Alexandra Sauser-Monnig on backing vocals, you’re talking Americana royalty, people who can get into a heartfelt groove on a moment’s notice. The horns are a nice touch as well, filling out songs like the re-recorded John The Gun, originally a haunting bit of solo folksong on the deluxe edition of Levee. 

The themes, melodies, rhythms, and instrumental touches will all be familiar to fans of Dylan, Van Morrison, Creedence Clearwater Revival and Michael Chapman -  if you want to call this “dad rock,” I think Taylor would wear the badge proudly. And this father of three connects instantly with Hiss Golden Messenger, something I can’t say for The War On Drugs, which others have embraced under that label. Maybe if my dad listened to Don Henley and Dire Straits, that would be different! 

Taylor continues to be one of the best songwriters around, and if a line like “Step back, Jack, from the darkness,” (from When The Wall Comes Down) is a little more on the nose than usual for this supremely literary lyricist, that may be what the times demand. Just as his use of "patriotic" motifs in the marketing for the album seeks to reclaim something too often associated with repressive parts of our society, a radio-friendly “classic rock,” or even “southern rock” gesture like Domino (Time Will Tell) may be a point of unity among groups who have lost the ability to converse easily. 

That may be too much weight to place on an album that contains, overall, Hiss Golden Messenger’s most effervescent music. And I can't completely ignore the fact that Hallelujah Anyhow does not cut as deep as my favorite from him, Lateness Of Dancers. But when so many American verities seem on the verge of blowing away, there’s more than enough integrity here to stand on as you wait out the storm. Catch HGM on the road - it's always a great night.

Beck - Colors As long as we’re talking politics and music, I think it’s funny that many people have predicted a great punk revival in the Trump era, as if that was the only movement that pushed against the harsher inclinations of the 70s, and I’m like, “Remember disco?” Bringing people together on the dance floor was just as radical an act as igniting a mosh pit, and maybe ultimately more effective. So I don’t think it’s any accident that Beck released his “Fuck art, let’s dance” album in 2017, even though it’s been in the works for years. 

Nothing is simple, though, and this may be Beck’s most divisive record yet, with people turned off by everything from the hyper-compressed production to the relentless cheerfulness of the thing. But if you give yourself over to the bright, shiny candy-colored surface - and Colors is almost all surface, like a James Rosenquist painting - it’s hard to stop smiling as the songs whirl past. Beck and his producer-in-crime Greg Kurstin (who also gets songwriting credit on most of the record) cook up each song for maximum enjoyment, each track filled with as many surprise and delight features as a concept car at the auto show. 

I hear echoes of Breton, Stewart Copeland, Benji Hughes, and The Beatles, all absorbed into Beck’s pop smoothies, each song sounding, somehow, unmistakably like no one other than him. That’s partly due to his distinctive, vibrato-free tenor, which is still as versatile as it was 20 years ago - he even raps a little, for the first time in several albums. While a downcast sincerity has been a hallmark of his folk-based work (Sea Change, Morning Phase), ironic detachment is a common mode for his upbeat, chopped and screwed side. That’s not the case here, as an open-hearted happiness infuses most of the album. But if irony is absent, there’s still plenty of sly surrealism. I would pay good money for a video of the moment in the studio when he inserted all those “Giddyups” into Wow - I look forward to them every time I listen. 

Unlike the great Morning Phase, however, Colors is not a perfect album. Fix Me is a half-baked song, ending the record on an ellipse when it should have gone out with a bang. Even if that had been...er...fixed I'm not sure Colors ever would have been as good as his best work. Kurstin is just too white bread (if you can still say that) a collaborator. It's notable that Wow, which may be the best song here, is the one he is least involved in, with Beck getting a major assist from Cole M.G.N. But as I said to a friend, Colors is a party album - let's all have more parties! 

While it remains to be seen how he will integrate the new material in concert, there’s also no doubt that Beck will have a blast busting out all his best moves when he takes Colors on the road. Giddyup. 

Iron & Wine - Beast Epic I’m not one of those who greeted the eclecticism of the most recent albums by Sam Beam and Co. with a sigh, yearning for the bedroom intimacy of modern classics like The Creek That Drank The Cradle. Not only did I find his incorporation of funk, soul, jazz, and dub captivating, I listened in astonishment as Beam became one of the best singers alive. Hearing him sing Sade’s Bulletproof Soul On Sing Into My Mouth, his way underrated covers album with Ben Bridwell, sealed the deal. But I also became concerned about his songwriting inspiration, especially when he followed up with another collaborative project, this time with Jesca Hoop, which contained few memorable songs. 

Now, four years after the last I&W album of all original songs, Beam has given us a Beast Epic, not a return to his stripped-down indie folk, but a reclamation of some of that woodsy territory nonetheless. The production is no less complex than something like The Shepherd’s Dog, but every song has an acoustic center, whether big-chord strumming or hypnotic finger-picked patterns. Beam surrounds those guitars with strings, marimba, piano, reeds, brass, and percussion, creating the atmosphere of a sophisticated jam around the campfire that, varied as it is, feels as warm as an inherited Hudson’s Bay blanket. 

The songs are all solidly constructed, with melodies as natural as breathing. The lyrics have arresting koan-like nuggets of wisdom scattered throughout, such as “Nothing makes silence like experience/There’s a message in my eyes/You better love yourself/‘Cause I tried,” from Bitter Truth, and ”For all the love you left behind, you can have mine,” from Call It Dreaming, which is an instant Iron & Wine classic. There are also little bits of eccentricity that add tooth to the album, calling out to art song, the sardonic theater music of Brecht/Weill, or even the cracked Americana of Harry Partch. Hearts Walk Anywhere, one of two brief bonus songs available on vinyl only, pushes this even further, pointing in possible new directions. Theater? Chamber music? There are no limits to what Sam Beam can conjure when he's inspired and he is surely inspired on the gorgeous tapestry of Beast Epic. Let me know if you make it to one of the shows!

Coming in Part 2: The Clientele, Historian, and Michael Head & The Red Elastic Band

To find cuts from these albums and others in similar veins follow AnEarful: Of Note In 2017 (Rock, Folk, Etc.) on Spotify.

You may also enjoy:
Hiss Golden Messenger Holds Back The Flood
Beam & Bridwell's AOR Utopia
Beck's Next Phase

Dylan-Lamar-Misty: An American Trilogy

There's already been enough ink spilled - both pro and con - about the three albums discussed below for even a casual observer to recognize that they are among the most notable of the year. So, rather than review them all in a conventional fashion, I thought it might be more interesting to go a bit more meta in my analysis. 

PAST: Bob Dylan - Triplicate When last we met Bob Dylan, Nobel Prize-winning songwriter, he was inhabiting the role of the night watchman on the Titanic and singing bloody tales on the brave and beautiful Tempest, his last album of originals. In the five years since, he has embarked on a quixotic and intermittently rewarding journey through the heart of Tin Pan Alley and the Great American Songbook. When Shadows In The Night, the first of these albums, came out in 2015, Dylan gave interviews where he talked about how these were "uncover" versions, which he hoped would reveal the bones of these great songs free of obfuscating ornamentation. Even so, part of me wondered if "Dylan sings Sinatra" was to the side of his overall project, a diversion. 

But I also remembered Dylan writing in Chronicles: Volume One about how he had studied Brecht-Weill's Pirate Jenny, breaking it down and examining its mechanics in great detail as a way to progress in his own songwriting. So maybe Shadows and its follow up, Fallen Angels, were part of the same process, like when he presaged the purple patch that started with Time Out Of Mind with two albums of folk and blues covers (both remarkable albums, and ripe for rediscovery). This seemed to jibe with rumors I heard of new songs being recorded, including a duet with Mavis Staples they put together when they were on the road together. 

But then Triplicate dropped, 30 new cover songs, arranged in thematic groups only Dylan really understood. Like the other albums, it is a beautifully recorded and performed mixed bag, with the uptempo, horn-driven tunes the most effective to these ears. The packaging of the deluxe edition resembles the "record albums" I found in my grandmother's collection (and that Dylan likely grew up with), making an even more explicit nod to the past. 

Then it hit me: his Bobness isn't studying up for new songs (although those may be coming), he is immersing himself in yesteryear. Why? Because he saw it all coming. When Tempest came out, some people were baffled by the sanguinary escapades described in many of the songs, whether in the exploits of the Early Roman Kings, the residents of Scarlet Town, or the "brother killing brother" on the Titanic in the title track. What was all that bloodletting about? It only took five years for the other shoe to drop: "American carnage." Remember, Dylan was on the fiery front lines of the Civil Rights movement, he saw hatred directed at him - probably even getting called a "n****r lover" - he knew the reaction to the Obama presidency was going to be harsh. He tried to tell us on Tempest: there will be blood. This is America, born in British blood, baptized in Southern blood, confirmed in black blood...there gets to be a need for another vein to open. 

After I had lived with Triplicate for a week or so, all this hit me like a ton of bricks: Get. The. Message. I mean, could it get any more obvious? He tried to warn us, and now that his prediction is splashed across the headlines and our Twitter feeds - with the metaphorical blood of the "forgotten Americans" being drained by White House policies on a daily basis, and the literal blood of black men on the streets - he's out. And I'll be goddamned if he hasn't earned every right to be another septuagenarian finding comfort in the songs of old. But he's not time traveling because he wants to return to the past, rather he perhaps seeks to reintroduce us to the humane values from which Tin Pan Alley often took its lifeblood. The liner notes by Tom Piazza touch on this: "The angle of light is mostly autumnal; the songs address longing for something gone, or just out of reach, a past that can't be retrieved."

As Dylan sings in Why Was I Born, the Jerome Kern song that concludes Triplicate:

Why was I born
Why am I livin'
What do I get
What am I givin'

That these questions still matter to Dylan, and I don't think he does anything lightly, is deeply moving. Do they matter to you?

PRESENT: Kendrick Lamar - DAMN. "What happens on earth, stays on earth," is one refrain that pops up repeatedly on the follow-up to the staggering triumph of To Pimp A Butterfly. That's a literally grounded statement, as is the moment in BLOOD,  the introductory skit, when Lamar gets shot by a blind woman who likely represents American justice, just America, or both. The album that follows finds Lamar wrestling with our present moment in kaleidoscopic detail, constantly questioning how he and we got HERE and wondering what the next step is. 

While each song stands on its own, there is also a loose concept that is made clearer by the end when the album swallows its own tail with what may be the whole album run backwards at increasing speed, ending the album where it began: "So, I was taking a walk one day..." There are also a number of theories about listening to DAMN. in reverse order, traveling from Kendrick's origins in DUCKWORTH., the last song, to his death in BLOOD. Like the continuing "conversation" around police shootings and general issues of imbalance of power, the album is a circular argument.

Lamar's inability to reconcile his own individual talent and achievement with the perpetual underdog status of his race is not a failure but an acknowledgment of a recalcitrant issue that may be the central obstacle to this country living up to its potential. Naming the problem, so they say, is always the first step toward solving it and maybe "new Kung Fu Kenny" (a new nickname for Lamar, based on a Don Cheadle character, that appears several times) will be the one to break us out of the patterns that are holding back progress. 

But FEAR. is the landmark track on the album, its middle section describing in chilling detail over a dozen ways he could have died as a teenager in Compton, a personal truth for Lamar that is far too easy to tie into headlines from across the country. Can we get past this moment, shake loose of the prejudice and hatred, without blowing everything up along the way? 

FUTURE: Father John Misty - Pure Comedy Although it's couched in an enhanced and very modern take on Laurel Canyon almost-soft-rock, Pure Comedy may be the most futuristic album of the year so far. In song after song, in the grand tradition of speculative fiction, FJM takes human foibles to their natural conclusion, imagining a world where global warming has destroyed civilization, virtual reality has sapped the will to live, or the political divide has made it almost impossible to share the planet. 

One example is Things It Would Have Been Good To Know before The Revolution, which comes off as a sequel to the Talking Heads' Life During Wartime. After the high-tension thrills David Byrne so vividly describes, what comes next? Society rebuilt on its ashes, where we are no longer at the top of the food chain and the idea of "eating on the run" takes on new meaning. Twenty Years From Now is also an explicit peek into a crystal ball, and only slightly clouded by jaundice. 

Even in the most personal song on the record, the epic Leaving L.A., FJM can't help envisioning Los Angeles after "the big one," or relate how he's "beginning to begin to see the end," of his own career, with the aura of impending doom goosed by Gavin Bryars' spine-tingling string arrangement. The involvement of this 80-year-old legend of 20th century classical music, best known for his piece memorializing the sinking of the Titanic, was a catalyst to connecting Pure Comedy to Dylan's Tempest. Also, the sheer volume of words FJM spills on some of these essays in song is probably only equaled by the Bard of Hibbing himself - or a great rapper like Kendrick Lamar. 

While his need to convey so many ideas occasionally finds FJM shoehorning words into the bar line of a song, stretching a rhyme scheme to the breaking point, or reaching for an easy pun, these shortcomings are more than balanced out by quotable lines in every track. One great example is on When The God Of Love Returns There Will Be Hell To Pay, where he goes back to the Bible to get old-school apocalyptic and turns one of the Four Horsemen's steeds into a mordant observer of current affairs: "And the pale horse looks a little sick/Says, "Jesus, you didn't leave a whole lot for me/If this isn't hell already then tell me what the hell is?"

Despite the bleak, sarcastic, even bitter observations of Pure Comedy, FJM's viewpoint isn't completely fatalistic. His optimism can be located somewhere between the twin poles of The Beatles'  "Love is all you need," and Randy Newman's Political Science, offering a few variations on the theme of "each other's all we got," first stating it the title track, or "It's a miracle to be alive," which comes in the last song. 

Lamar's view is also not universally dark. He finds time to tweak other rappers, ("sit down, be humble"), and indulge in some LUST., in a Princely falsetto yet, and even LOVE. in the pretty, Frank Ocean-influenced collaboration with R&B up-and-comer Zacari. Even if the sentiments in these two songs are complex and nuanced, the lush sonic backdrops are a respite in their own right. In the end, the hope in DAMN. stems from the sheer humanity baked into every track, which is impossible to imagine even the most stone-cold racist ignoring. "Ain't nobody praying for me," Lamar claims several times, but I would like to think he's wrong. Our future may depend on it.

As for Dylan, wandering the labyrinth of the past, I found the glow at the end of the tunnel to reside in second of two photographs by John Shearer included in the collection. The first is a Hollywood-style portrait that, even with the heavy use of chiaroscuro, can't help but reveal the thousand shocks that Dylan's face has been heir to after 75 years of living. But the second shows him dressed with casual swagger and leaning against a vintage convertible, which contains a gorgeous, provocatively dressed young woman. You could read many meanings into this picture, even something unsavory. She's young enough to be his daughter, for one thing - maybe she is his daughter, we have no idea. But you could also see it as a picture of a guy who still has plenty to live for. 

As long as the Never Ending Tour continues and our most recognized prophet is still on the road looking for another joint, I think we're going to be OK.

P.S. Keep an eye out for Best of 2017 (So Far) to see where these albums fall - or don't - on my list of favorites.