Nina Nastasia – Dogs: One of my favorite things about music is the way you sometimes find and fall in love with an artist who’s been around for ages. That’s this week with Nina Nastasia. Dogs is incredible. Her voice and music has echoes of so many other artists yet it combines to hit me like nothing else.
Bela Bartok – Music for Strings, Percussion and Celesta, Dorati, London Symphony Orchestra: The Houston Symphony has a nice writeup that describes elements of the composition that I’d never hear on my own, like the way the xylophone that opens the third movement follows the Fibonacci sequence and how Bartok references Charlie Chaplin’s Modern Times in the final movement. This is a powerful piece that reflects both the darkness of living in Europe as Hitler was ascending to power and the hope of a brighter day. It could easily be the foundation for a modern reflection by someone like Godspeed You! Black Emperor.
Aretha Franklin – I Never Loved a Man the Way I Love You: This is one of those ridiculous albums that is basically a greatest hits even though it’s just a plain old studio album, like Rumours and Thriller and Teenage Daydream.
Tara Clerkin Trio – Somewhere Good: Tim Sendra at Allmusic drew so many glowing parallels to the trio’s reinvention of trip-hop that I had to listen. I see where he’s going but this isn’t trip-hop any more than it’s acid jazz or IDM or psychedelic. Somewhere Good wildly succeeds by combining all those things into something I’ve never quite heard. At times, the band tries to capture what I assume is a fun and quirky vibe from their live jams, and it doesn’t translate all that well to the studio. Overall, though, this is a compelling record that builds on what came before it and turns it into something new.
Death Cab for Cutie – I Built You a Tower: Death Cab’s music covers a lot of ground within the constraints of indie rock, from jagged to melodic to experimental to arena-ready. I Built You a Tower has more jagged aggression and less of the melodic melancholy that defines my favorite songs (like “Transatlanticism” and their cover of “All Is Full of Love”). Ben Gibbard’s poignant lyrics are the glue that holds their best music together, but I can’t yet tell if he’s worked his lyrical magic here. If not, I Built You a Tower will have a very short shelf life for me.
Bedhead – Beheaded: I heard Ben Gibbard and Nick Harmer talk about the album on their episode of Amoeba’s “What’s in My Bag?” It’s a good album but mostly it makes me want to listen to “Transatlanticism” and “All Is Full of Love.”
Olivia Rodrigo – Live at Glastonbury (A BBC Recording): This is far, far better than I expected. It has good energy and it feels like a concert. I’m sure the producers overdubbed some flubs but the recording has enough warts to have the energy of a true live recording. She’s excited and the audience is excited. It’s everything a live album should be.
Jana Horn – Optimism: The arrangements and instrumentation don’t grab me the way her newest album did earlier this year, but the music is just compelling enough to keep my interest and the words hold stories that I can’t immediately understand.
Old friends who made it into rotation this week: Beastie Boys: Paul’s Boutique; Pulp: More; The Smiths: Singles; Laufey: A Matter of Time: Live at Madison Square Garden; Gracie Abrams: Good Riddance; Honey Dijon: DJ-kicks