Pearl Charles, Magic Mirror

I will acknowledge that I'm a pushover for music that has a '70's soft-rock vibe and ethos to it. Add a strong female singer with vocal leanings towards a Christine McVie or Karen Carpenter and it's just about over. I'm sold. The problem is that so often the new music that fits in this lane lacks originality or heart. It just seems to copy and mimic what has already been. So in the end, I am left feeling disappointed after my initial enthusiasm. This is not the case with Pearl Charles.

Charles came onto my radar a few years ago with her 2018 debut album, Sleepless Dreamer. It was an intriguing album and while it did not make it onto my favorites list for that year, I have come back to it a number of time. Now Charles is back with her follow up, Magic Mirror, and I have to say that this a significant leap forward for her in terms of songwriting, musical arrangements, and production. Most important, on it, Charles has nailed just the right that balance between the past and the present demonstrating that 'the old can still sound new and refreshing.' As The Revue wrote, 'Charles is a 21st century rarity - a modern artist creating timeless music.' 

The Weather Station, Ignorance

If you have never familiarized yourself with Tamara Lindeman, who records under the name The Weather Station, you should. Over the past ten years, Lindeman has established herself as being an exceptional singer-songwriter. But what has been truly exciting to hear and experience is the evolution of Lindeman's sound. From the fingerpicking folk songs on her early albums to the 'sonically adventurous and rhythmically dense (NRP) songs on Ignorance, it's been 'a breathtaking sonic shift' (Record Collector).  

Lyrically speaking, Lindeman's writing has never been stronger. On Ignorance, Lendeman's fifth album, she is consumed 'with and bewildered by a compulsion to care.' (NPR). Lindeman sings "There are many things you may ask of me, but don't ask me for indifference. Don't come to me for distance." It is all in response to the album's title. As Lendeman has explained in interviews, there are so many people who refused to hear each other and refuse to understand. "People destroying things before they know them, people not wanting to know, people pushing and wrecking and breaking, and unable to see. Not seeing. Not wanting to see."There's a lot of ignorance in the world and it's all over the record to." She says that the album is in part about the process of moving through denial into understanding.

From the opener 'Robber' to 'Subdivisions', which closes it out, Ignorance is an impressive album and one that I was glad to have experienced. 

Typhoon, Sympathetic Magic

One of the most haunting and mesmerizing songs that I have ever heard is Typhoon’s Summer Home. Since I first heard it back in 2011, I have been a fan of the art and artistry of this Portland, OR band. Lead by Kyle Morton, this very large at times band (11 members) has released some remarkable albums over the years. Now, this past week without any prior notice, the band released their fifth album, Sympathetic Magic. 

 

This is a much more gentle and intimate album than their last album, Offerings. And that’s just about right, right now. As Morton wrote on the band’s website, ‘Back to basics. Compelled to isolation by the global pandemic, I wrote most of these songs in the summer of 2020 while quietly sitting in the backyard, contemplating the strangeness of life….. As the title suggests, the songs have to do with that specifically human magic - the symbolic world that we co-create and inhabit just by being a person among other people, through our countless, complex, and beautifully, painfully ordinary interactions.’

 

I got lost in this album and I suspect that you will too. Sympathetic Magic is another outstanding and memorable album by a very special band.

Lice, What Ails Our People Is Clear

Every once in a while, an album comes along that defies my understanding of what music can and should be. Lice’s Wasteland: What Ails Our People Is Clear is one of these albums.

 

As DIY Magazine wrote, Lice’s debut albums feels like their ‘conscious uncoupling from the contemporary musical landscape. A conceptual commentary on the band’s perceived banality of the ‘satirical guitar music boom’, they lampoon the cliche across 11 barnstorming tracks. But for all the bridge burning, there is still a touch of the familiar. Deeply rooted in modern left field sensibilities, they combine their unique brand of artistic experimentation with the grounding influence of their peers. The result is a collection of biting, esoteric hymns that readily combine the earthly and the cosmic.’

 

This is an album not to be missed, but come ready to be challenged.

Matthew Sweet, Catspaw

Matthew Sweet’s third album, Girlfriend, is one of my favorite albums. It was release way back in 1991. Thirty years on, on his 15th studio album, Catspaw, Sweet revisits the guitar-driven, alternative-rock sound, with power-pop hooks that that made Girlfriend a classic. What is new is Sweet, for the first time, plays the lead guitar. In fact, he plays every instrument on every song except drums. 

This new taking control of every facet of his music, including mixing and production, has breathed new life and energy into Sweet’s songwriting and music. It’s an absolute joy to hear. From beginning to end, Sweet not only delivers one of his best albums, but one that feels as fresh and relevant today as he did back when.

Cerys Matthews, We Come From The Sun

DJ and musician Cerys Matthews along with Hidden Orchestra and ten renowned British poets have given us We Come From The Sun, the first great album of 2021. 

Matthews, who is an advocate of the spoken word, invited the poets noted below, to record pieces from their collections just before the Covid lockdown in London's Abby Road Studio. In lockdown, working remotely with field recordists and musicians across the globe, Matthews and Hidden Orchestra, created a 'sound journey' for these poems with the theme of 'Genesis: birth, heritage, a journey about to begin. 

About the album, Matthew says; “I’ve always been in awe of the power of a great turn of phrase; in poems, songs and prose. There are some exceptional poems being added to the world right now. So I invited poets whose work I admired for years to join me in this project. I wanted them to work across and with each other to become this journey, an aural adventure....with life on earth as inspiration. As Simple and complex as that."

Poets:

Ma.Moyo

Raymond Antrobus

Lemn Sissay

Cia Mangat

Anthony Anaxagorou

Kim Moore

Liz Berry

Adam Horovitz

Kayo Chingonyi

Imtiaz Dharker