massive

It Feels So Good – Sonique

A DJ played this song at a party a few weeks ago, and it’s yet another one that I recognized but couldn’t place the name of. This sort of 90’s light drum and bass beat will always scratch an itch. And the chorus has such a lift to it! Perfect, angelique background vocals. Sonique’s voice belongs to the class of singers whose voices seem to struggle to come out of them, which I very much identify with. Sometimes it ends up creating a charming, distinctive beauty.

Sonique seems like she would be fun to hang out with:

The album, Hear Me Cry, is a wonderful 90’s time capsule. And it adds another example of how artists seemed more comfortable being overtly political in the 80’s and 90’s; “Can’t Get Enough” is an anti-capitalist anthem, and the next song, “Hear My Cry”, has some poignant and thoughtful lines like, “I wanna live on a happier planet/ Where a guilty conscience is a normal thing.”

American Tune – Paul Simon

I saw Cecile Mclorin Salvant at Carnegie Hall, and though it did not completely change me in the way I would like to be changed by seeing an artist I love, it was fantastic. There are few singers who can sing any song and imbue it with shimmering light, off-putting beauty, like an oil slick on a sunny day. She seems to relish the bright vowels, leaning into them and then biting them off with a perfectly annunciated consonant each time. 

I was most moved by her rendition of this Paul Simon song, and I wish I could hear that rendition again. A little cringe that every time Trump gets elected we trot out the songs written about Nixon, but still; it got me. It’s a good tune. These lines especially:

“And I don’t know a soul who’s not been battered

I don’t have a friend who feels at ease

I don’t know a dream that’s not been shattered

Or driven to its knees”

“Oh, but I’m alright, I’m alright

I’m just weary to my bones”

The melody (and seemingly a good chunk of harmony) is based on the hymn, “O Sacred Head, Now Wounded”, proving, once again, that I really just love me some hymns.

Cecile sang the version with altered lyrics that Paul has been singing the last few years with Rhiannon Giddens, where he replaces the lyric “We come on the ship they call The Mayflower/ We come on the ship that sailed the moon”, with “We didn’t come here on the Mayflower / We came on a ship in a blood red moon”.

Ambush – Fusilier

Fusilier is becoming frantic. The promotion and videos released in advance of this album were paranoid, glitched out.

Fusilier is interrogated and his eyes become mouths. Fusilier runs, almost escapes, is caught.

The way the toms sound on the opening song is one of the most striking things I’ve heard on a modern record. MASSIVE.

What I’ve been wanting to say about this album is that every song feels like it has its own personality, even though they all are very much kin, like a big family with a lot of siblings. The songs are short, flinging open the door to introduce themselves and then promptly exiting stage right. I was actively mad when the album ended and I incredulously looked at Spotify to verify that it was truly done. Only 26 minutes (and three seconds) long. I wish there was more!