Midway through another week of lockdown, here's a cross section of small good things to keep the eyes and ears entertained. There's some lively stuff here for the old grey matter to chew on. Take a look. Dive in!
Neil Young Fireside Sessions
One thing with this whole lockdown business is that we’re all trying to be as nice as possible to each other. At the moment, we music writers aim to recommend material people can enjoy while stuck at home. Our knives are staying sheathed. What, then, are we supposed to do when confronted with Twinnie’s debut album? The most positive thing that springs to mind is that the best of it sounds like Taylor Swift just before she went full pop. Which is hardly a glowing endorsement.
Welcome to the second of our lockdown specials. It’s a small but vital dip into what’s new on plastic. Other than that, theartsdesk on Vinyl wishes you well in these strange times. Stay at home, play records, turn up the volume.
Various Cadence Revolution 1973-1981: Disques International Vol. 2 (Strut)
Talk about a great big melting pot! The eighth studio album by the man born 36 ago as Andrew Heissler in Bloomington, Indiana, and known to the world as Pokey LaFarge digs deep into the bubbling cauldron of Americana, in its very broadest sense.
Netflix’s ReMastered series is one of the streaming channel’s undersung gems.
Waxahatchee’s fifth album wasn’t intended as an escapist fantasy. Written shortly after Katie Crutchfield decided to get sober, Saint Cloud documents a journey towards self-acceptance; one woman’s reckoning with her past and its impact on the people she loves.
“No Control” feels like an instant pop classic. It opens with a brief introduction where layers of instrumentation are added in waves. There’s a restraint. Then, three-quarters of minute into what initially seems like a reflective mid-tempo ballad, a soaring chorus with contrapuntal drums and piano hits home. Basia Bulat’s gospel-like incantations reach the stars. Even so, there’s an intimacy.
Welcome to the biggest plastic reviews party on earth. Now that vinyl is steadily successful as niche musical medium, some have rightly been considering its environmental impact. Perhaps the best overview is given by Kyle Devine’s feature in the Guardian, which is well worth checking (please come back if you do!).
Any knowledge of the Hank Williams narrative heavily influences how he is perceived. He died at age 29 on New Year’s Day 1953, in the back of a car while travelling to a show in Ohio. His schedule was punishing. A day earlier he had played in West Virginia but a storm meant he could not fly from one show to the next.