This week, Anne Hathaway is a pop star; Bruce Hornsby shows his range; and the Kronos Quartet salutes the great Mahalia Jackson. Also, returns for Adrian Quesada and Elizabeth & The Catapult.
This week, Anne Hathaway is a pop star; Bruce Hornsby shows his range; and the Kronos Quartet salutes the great Mahalia Jackson. Also, returns for Adrian Quesada and Elizabeth & The Catapult.
Anne Hathaway Sings FKA Twigs’ New Song From The Film Mother Mary
Oscar-winning actor Anne Hathaway will be starring as the pop star Mother Mary in the upcoming film of that name. The film and its soundtrack are scheduled for release on April 17, but this week the single “My Mouth Is Lonely For You” was released. Now, if you’re gonna make a film about a pop music icon, you better get the songs right, so the soundtrack will feature songs written by Charli XCX (who’s developing quite a second career as a writer for film after her work on Wuthering Heights) and the hit maker Jack Antonoff. This song, though, was written by FKA Twigs – who also features in the cast. It’s got a pulsating dance beat, and it takes no prisoners, as Hathaway has to soar up to the high register that FKA Twigs herself often sings in.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WbIaWNLUklY
Bruce Hornsby Releases Wide Ranging New Album
Indigo Park is the latest album by singer/pianist/songwriter Bruce Hornsby, and if you’re only familiar with his hit song “The Way It Is” (by Bruce Hornsby & The Range) or his years spent with the Grateful Dead, you might be surprised at the wide sonic net he casts. Hornsby has in recent years spent a fair amount of time with classical music, including the often challenging sounds of modern classical, and echoes of that can be heard in a track like “Silhouette Shadows”; he’s also clearly taken a page from hip hop on songs like “Entropy Here (Rust In Peace),” a title that points to the dry humor that streaks through many of his songs. This track, “Memory Palace,” is a collaboration with Ezra Koenig, of the band Vampire Weekend, and that group’s jangly guitar sound is very much in evidence here, while Hornsby indulges his inner math nerd with references to prime number and Fibonacci sequences.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-4cyyFiSmxk&list=RD-4cyyFiSmxk&start_radio=1
MLK’s Favorite Gospel Singer Sings Again
The Kronos Quartet has just released a new album called Glorious Mahalia, a tribute to the great (many would say the greatest) gospel singer of the 20th century. Duke Ellington was a fan and wrote a piece inspired by her, and Martin Luther King Jr famously departed from his prepared speech when his favorite singer, standing behind him, yelled out “tell them about the dream, Martin!” Now, Kronos have worked with composers Stacy Garrop, Jacob Garchik, and Zachary James Watkins on a series of works that feature Mahalia’s voice, mostly in old interviews, along with MLK’s speechwriter, Clarence B. Jones, set within the Kronos’s strings. It’s almost like a sonic portrait rather than a set of musical compositions, but the standout track sees Kronos accompanying Mahalia Jackson’s recording of the wonderful old spiritual “Sometimes I Feel Like A Motherless Child.” The string arrangement is restrained, but still wandering as if lost – an appropriate musical metaphor for the lyrics of the song. By the end, though, it feels like the singer and the strings have come together through the sheer magic of her voice.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OUl96HRwJKM&list=RDOUl96HRwJKM&start_radio=1
Elizabeth & The Catapult Release Responsible Friend
Elizabeth & The Catapult is an indie band led by Brooklyn singer and multi-instrumentalist Elizabeth Ziman. She’s classically trained, but her songs have a smart, pop accessibility, and her arrangements often include unexpected touches like layered clarinets or a whistled chorus. Her last record, sincerely, e, came out at the height of the pandemic, and was an interior album full of poignant, wry, affecting songs. Today, she’s released a new album called Responsible Friend, which takes a more wide-angled view of things. Even the F train gets a shout out in this track called “50/50.” Elizabeth & The Catapult may be responsible friends, but they know better than to lecture us, so this song is about acknowledging that as bad as things are, life is also full of beauty too.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w0lirIkWerQ&list=RDw0lirIkWerQ&start_radio=1,
Adrian Quesada Releases A Surprise LP
Adrian Quesada may still be best known as half of the multiple-Grammy-nominated psychedelic soul band Black Pumas. But he’s also made a strong impression with his Boleros Psicodelicos project, which features many of the leading singers in the contemporary Latin music scene. On the last such record, there was an instrumental track featuring the Ecuadorian-Swiss guitar duo Hermanos Gutierrez. That seems to have set something in motion, as Quesada has just put out an unexpected instrumental LP called Trio Asesino that features his guitar, doing his own twangy, trippy portrayal of the wide open spaces of the American southwest. Opening track “Infinito” has a particularly noirish, cinematic feel, created with just the trio of guitar, organ, and drums.