Rescue your Tuesdays with our weekly roundup of music news, videos and
songs that just might help you get through the rest of the week. This
week, a Presidential Playlist, a Dean’s List of sorts, and an Aussie
trio ready for its closeup.
AN AUSTRALIAN MUSICAL POSTCARD FROM NEW YORK
One of my favorite discoveries of last year was the Australian trio
called Little May
[https://email.wnyc.org/owa/redir.aspx?C=mQ8VP9Spw0qDWEyxmm0mtj4pIYC3rNIIpjyCjQWXqEKVDhDrH-NJ6QaJfa4---I0a8Tst8CQkcQ.&URL=http%3A%2F%2Fsoundcheck.wnyc.org%2Fstory%2Flittle-may-in-studio%2F].
Their indie-folk/pop was lovely and catchy and poignant all at once,
and that 2014 EP promised more for 2015. The good news for Little May
fans is that they’re releasing their full-length debut, on October
9; the even better news is that they’ve teamed with Aaron Dessner,
one of the twin guitarists in the top-rank indie rockers The National
and the producer of Sharon Van Etten’s great album Tramp. They
recorded here in NY, and that distance from home may have played a
part in the sound of this bittersweet rocker called “Home.” It
certainly had an impact on this simple but affecting video.
HAIL TO THE CHIEF’S SUMMER PLAYLIST
In case you missed it, the Obama White House, long known for its
embrace of the power of social media, has released via Twitter
President Obama’s summer playlist. Actually, he released two
playlists – one for those long, lazy days of summer, when all he has
to do is sit back on the White House lawn and fix everything in the
world, and another for those wild and crazy summer nights, when
Chancellors and Prime Ministers come to play their own versions of
“mo money, mo problems
[https://email.wnyc.org/owa/redir.aspx?C=mQ8VP9Spw0qDWEyxmm0mtj4pIYC3rNIIpjyCjQWXqEKVDhDrH-NJ6QaJfa4---I0a8Tst8CQkcQ.&URL=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DgUhRKVIjJtw].”
The White House press release is here
[https://email.wnyc.org/owa/redir.aspx?C=mQ8VP9Spw0qDWEyxmm0mtj4pIYC3rNIIpjyCjQWXqEKVDhDrH-NJ6QaJfa4---I0a8Tst8CQkcQ.&URL=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.whitehouse.gov%2Fblog%2F2015%2F08%2F14%2Fwhite-house-just-joined-spotify-listen-presidents-summer-playlist],
and includes both sets of songs as Spotify playlists. You WILL be
surprised by some of his choices. I know I was: the day list included
Philly bar-rockers Low Cut Connie, whose frontman, Adam Weiner,
thought it was a joke at first, before stating, “I'm shocked and
humbled and confused.” And it included “Down the Deep River,” by
the Austin-to-Brooklyn band Okkervil River. A personal fave of mine,
it is also the title of songwriter Will Sheff’s forthcoming film
about the town and the people who populate that record.
A NEW DEAN'S LIST
Robert Christgau, the veteran rock critic from The Village Voice, is
the Dean of American Rock Critics – a title proclaimed by no less a
personage than Robert Christgau himself. Until 2006, Christgau was
most famous for his Consumer Guide: paragraph-long reviews with a
letter grade that told you whether you should splash your last five
bucks down on that new Lou Reed record or not. (Famously, Christgau
once said “not,” and Lou Reed responded by calling him various
unprintable things on his next live album.) Anyway, Christgau is back,
with a column called Expert Witness, online at Noisey. His first
reviews are of Sam Smith, Jason Derula, and Miguel, so he’s not
exactly ahead of the curve, but as he says in his first column, “I'd
rather be right than first. So I listen at my own pace until I know
what I think.” Read it here
[https://email.wnyc.org/owa/redir.aspx?C=mQ8VP9Spw0qDWEyxmm0mtj4pIYC3rNIIpjyCjQWXqEKVDhDrH-NJ6QaJfa4---I0a8Tst8CQkcQ.&URL=http%3A%2F%2Fnoisey.vice.com%2Fblog%2Fexpert-witness-with-robert-christgau-1].
FREEDOM FROM MUSICAL STEREOTYPES
Black Violin’s album comes out September 18, and it’ll be
called Stereotypes. Notice the plural there – this isn’t just two
young black men who play violin and viola exploding a racial
stereotype. They’re also out of smash musical stereotypes.
Classically trained but in love with pop and hip-hop, Kev Marcus and
Wil Baptiste blend the two in a way that somehow avoids being cheesy.
Last year they posted their hip-hop variation of Bach’s Brandenburg
Concerto
[https://email.wnyc.org/owa/redir.aspx?C=mQ8VP9Spw0qDWEyxmm0mtj4pIYC3rNIIpjyCjQWXqEKVDhDrH-NJ6QaJfa4---I0a8Tst8CQkcQ.&URL=https%3A%2F%2Fsoundcloud.com%2Fblack-violin%2F01-brandenburg] #3,
which sounded way better than it had any right to. (I think I hear a
sample of Kurtis Blow’s “The Breaks” in there – hip-hop’s
version of classical music, I guess.) Lately, they’ve been
“redefining” songs by Big Sean/Drake/Kanye, Wiz Khalifa, and, in
this video, Pharrell Williams’s “Freedom.” The guys are serious
about this, but they’re clearly having a blast too.
A MASSIVE ATTACK OF THAT '90S SOUND
Gems is a duo that, from its sound, you might think were from Bristol,
England. They’ve got that moody, groove-based thing going – you
know, feathery female vocals over throbbing electronics. But Gems is
from Washington, DC. Their first full-length LP, Kill the One You
Love, comes out October 30, but they’ve already released the single
“Living As A Ghost,” and it promises '80s gloss, a la The Cocteau
Twins, and '90s darkness, a la Massive Attack and the other Bristol
bands.