Thank you, Omnivore Records, for reissuing JD Souther’s albums. The recent reissue of Souther’s debut, John David Souther, was like reading a blueprint for Americana music. Souther’s follow up album, Black Rose, shows an artist broadening his horizons, marrying jazz with rock and coming up with something unexpected but very effective.
Your Friend’s follow up to 2014’s self-recorded EP, Jekyll/Hyde, is richly textural and gorgeously produced. Gumption is enigmatic, with much to unpack. You can listen to the layers and loops, you can listen for Taryn Miller’s fascinating vocals, you can close your eyes and let the waves of sound wash over you. It’s an immersive, intriguing album.
Sonya Kitchell began her recording career in 2006 when she was 17 years old, which is impressive enough to note. Better yet, after her debut, Words Came Back To Me, Kitchell diversified by recording an EP of string quartets, collaborating with Herbie Hancock on The River: The Joni Letters, playing at Montreaux Jazz Festival, the Newport Folk Festival, and winning two Grammys (for The River: The Joni Letters, and Tedeschi Trucks Band’s Revelator). She’s a woman of many parts and a rich wellspring of talent.
It’s strange to hear a reissue of an album from 1972 that sounds as current as Omnivore’s reissue of JD Souther’s John David Souther. It’s not a difficult argument to make that Souther’s cult-classic albums were precursors to present day Americana. It’s all here: thoughtful lyrics and a high lonesome voice (on occasion); momentary fiddles and bottleneck guitar. JD Souther is a songwriter’s songwriter, known for writing for the Eagles (all of their good songs? Souther had a hand in those, like “New Kid In Town” and “Heartache Tonight”), and his songs have been covered by artists from Glen Campbell to India Irie to Linda Ronstadt.
As it is every year, my Top 10 is a mix of things: music, TV, movies and one experience that rises above all others. While 2015 isn’t quite over, and awesome things might still happen, these are things I keep coming back to.
There are a lot of cooks in the band End Of Love. The press release refers to them as a collective of musicians, and from the unevenness of their album Ghosts On The Radio, it certainly seems they’re more of a collective. The players on Ghosts On The Radio read like a who’s who of college radio: Lee Ranaldo from Sonic Youth, Chris Stamey from the dB’s, members of Wilco and Big Star. There’s a rotating cast of vocalists, most notably Django Haskins from Old Ceremony, but also Skylar Gudasz, Karlie Bruce, and Elisa Peimer.
Nat King Cole’s album The Christmas Song is a masterpiece. Year after year, Cole’s dulcet tones fill the airwaves, kindling warm feelings of nostalgia through his tracks. The songs on The Christmas Songs are (save one, the little-heard “A Cradle In Bethlehem”) classics, and Cole’s performances are easy, understated treasures.
When a band releases an all covers album, sometimes the things revealed by their choices are baffling (I’m looking at you still, Duran Duran). When a band like Shovels & Rope release an all covers album, their choices are illuminating.
Love’s 1974 album Reel To Real doesn’t sound how you might expect Love to sound. It lacks the psychedelia and heavy rock of their best known work Forever Changes, and instead could be considered an Arthur Lee solo record. It’s funky. Super funky. And it’s fascinating.
They Might Be Giants can’t help but be They Might Be Giants. Since 1982, TMBG have been doling out idiosyncratic melodies with unusual instrumentation and clever, visual lyrics. Their jump to making music for families (not kids, specifically, but families) was less a jump than a side step, and a logical move. Those of us who listened to TMBG as yoofs have been known to foist cassettes of their music on our own children (who, if they have any taste at all, loved them) and one day, those children will foist hologidgets of TMBG on their children and thus the cycle will be repeated forever and ever, etcetera.