Five Slow Burners

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What these records have in common is that I checked them out more than twice during 2017 and they finally snapped into place as pretty damn good after the year was over. (I mean, Top 40 maybes.)

  1. Reina del Cid, Rerun City (self-released). Unadorned music and careful songwriting that works on all but a couple tracks. Observations about love and behavior as well as fantasy and portraits. This is one do-it-yourself I’m more than glad came to be. “Beverly” (which contains the title phrase) is the best song about the redemptive power of movies in quite a while.
  2. The Domestics, Little Darkness (tktktktktk). The vigorous two voices and scattered strong lines became a more solid program in the last few days. Informed by personal anguish and hard times, no question. Then I found out they were victims of one of the most unbelievable promotional muck-ups ever. When this finds a home, seek it out.
  3. Jolie Holland & Samathan Parton, Wildflower Blues (Cinquefoil). The only Be Good Tanyas album that got to me was the debut, which features contributions by Jolie Holland even though she had already left the group. This reunites her with another ex-Be Good. Let’s start with three brilliantly realized covers: Townes Van Zandt’s “You Are Not Needed Now,” Michael Hurley’s “Jocko’s Lament” and Boob Dylan’s “Minstrel Boy” (with added lyrics by Holland). Then add that while the Van Zandt leads off the program, the original title number makes a perfect pairing. And the new-song writing doesn’t let up. Damn, this might be a Top 20.
  4. Roscoe Mitchell, Before There Was Sound (Nessa, 2011). This just sat (idiotically) on a listen-to-again shelf for five years or so. Includes Fred Berry, trumpet and flugelhorn, Malachi Favors, bass and Alvin Fiedler, drums. Recorded in mid-’65 and of course the parts are not in place, but a rich pleasure for me over the years is to follow the growth and flowering of the Art-Ensemble related Chicago soniverse. A must for fans. And who wouldn’t want the earliest version (I think) of Favors’s “Akhenaten”?
  5. Nick Photinos, Petits Artefacts (New Amsterdam). Not surprised this took a while to come into focus. Pretty eccentric. This saves me an all-too-wordy explanation. Let’s just say that after enough exposure, all the little pieces fit together.

 

 

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