This week, Raye wins the Mercury Prize; plus The Decemberists, Lake Street Dive, Josh Johnson, and Third Coast Percussion with Jlin.
This week, Raye wins the Mercury Prize; plus The Decemberists, Lake Street Dive, Josh Johnson, and Third Coast Percussion with Jlin.
Raye Wins This Year’s Mercury Prize
The annual Mercury Prize is a prestigious award in the UK – along the lines of an Album Of The Year Grammy. But the jury behind it has often defied expectations and made unusual choices. Last night, though, the award went to the most likely winner: the singer/songwriter Raye. Like Adele and Amy Winehouse before her, Raye ascended to the top of the pops with a throwback sound that blends big band jazz, mid-century orchestral pop, and her own bright and powerful voice. And like those other singers, and so many other stars of the British music scene, she came from the remarkable musical production line that is the BRIT School. Raye won for her current album, pointedly called This Music May Contain Hope. Her live performance of “I Hate The Way I Look Today” was effervescent fun, with the band pressed into vocal duties at one point; it was as good an introduction as any for listeners who might not have heard Raye before.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EZUJ2cS4a_I&list=RDEZUJ2cS4a_I&start_radio=1
Wildwood Soundtrack Includes New Song By The Decemberists
Today sees the release of the stop-motion animated film Wildwood, inspired by the series of teen/tween fantasy novels written by Colin Meloy. Music fans will know Colin Meloy better as the longtime frontman of The Decemberists, so while the movie’s soundtrack, also out today, is largely the work of a Hollywood favorite, Dario Marianelli, it’s no surprise that the film’s closing song is by Meloy and his band. “The Better Part Of Bravery” is a stomping piece of folk-rock, far less discursive and polysyllabic than most Decemberists fare, and the new video includes clips that give an idea of the world Meloy began creating over 15 years ago.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2dgSVUX-mqQ
Lake Street Dive Release Title Track From Their Next LP
“What about flamingos?” sings Rachael Price at the beginning of the band Lake Street Dive’s new single. It’s the title track from the upcoming album What About Flamingos? “What about ice cream?” she continues; “What about The Beatles?” (The song’s piano part seems like a musical cousin to John Lennon’s “Imagine.”) The song points out that as far as we know, in the vast, expanding universe, this planet is the only place with all of those things. Four of the five members of the Brooklyn-based band join in the vocals on this heartfelt ballad, and if there’s a raw, folky quality to those harmonies, that’s intentional: this song, and the whole new album, was recorded live in the studio. It’s something that suits this band, whose blend of vintage pop sounds from various parts of the last century has earned them a large, multi-generational audience.
What About Flamingos?, the full LP, comes out on February 19 on the band’s own cheekily-named Dive Not Drive label.
https://lakestreetdivemusic.bandcamp.com/album/what-about-flamingos
Josh Johnson (No, Not That One) Releases Solo Album
Josh Johnson is a sax player/keyboardist/producer based in LA (so, not the comedian and sometimes The Daily Show host). He’s just released his solo album Animative, though one wonders where he found the time. Johnson is part of the trio SML, The Openness Trio, and Jeff Parker’s ETA IVtet. He also produced Meshell Ndegeocello’s Grammy-winning album The Omnichord Realbook and the recent solo album of trumpet-based music by Flea, the bassist from Red Hot Chili Peppers. So Johnson works in many different styles, and seems most comfortable working outside genres rather than simply crossing them; and Animative gives a panoramic view of what he’ll do when finally left to his own devices. Threads of electronica, jazz, Minimalism, prog, and world music are all woven throughout the album. Opener “Idiofone” begins with the pulsing, interlocking rhythmic patterns of New York composer Steve Reich, who turned 90 three weeks ago and is being feted far and wide this month. And when Johnson introduces percussion in “Idiofone,” it recalls Reich’s pivotal early piece “Drumming.” But the piece is no Minimalist knockoff – Johnson tops it all with sax work that suggests be-bop as well as West African music.
Right now, Animative is only available as a physical LP or CD. It comes to streaming services on November 10.
https://intlanthem.bandcamp.com/album/animative
Third Coast Percussion and Jlin Collaborate Again on Vernacular
Jlin (Jerrilynn Patton) got her start as an electronic dance music producer, working in the fast, Chicago-based style known as footwork; but her music soon attracted the interest of contemporary classical ensembles who appreciated her unusual sense of rhythm and her fascination with strange and altered sounds. The chamber orchestra Alarm Will Sound has recently recorded a version of her “Black Origami,” and the Chicago-based percussion quartet known as Third Coast Percussion have become regular collaborators with her in the past few years. (One of their collaborative works was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in 2023.) Now, TCP has released a new album called Vernacular which includes seven of Jlin’s works, in addition to a suite of pieces written by David Longstreth, of the band Dirty Projectors, and an arrangement of a Philip Glass composition. Jlin actually joins the band on one of her pieces, but this title track, “Vernacular,” doesn’t require her participation. The four members of the ensemble go full speed ahead into a blur of Minimalism and some maximal rhythmic energy.