The Best Music of 2023 (thus far)
"If music be the food of love, play on; Give me excess of it..."-William Shakespeare
It really has been a great year for released music so far…new music….reissues. Much music has been making its way to me lately, even though I am living atop the mountains, no longer in the clubs.
There are many top-tens-of-the-half-year out there, but many of the records I have been loving aren’t represented on them. What struck me about most of lists, were the similar titles that showed up on the mainstream lists, the more independent-oriented blog lists, the niche-specific lists; they were homogeneous. It was so different when I was growing up. KUSF’s list would differ from KALX’s list which would differ from Rolling Stones list which would differ from Alternative Press’ list (and NMEs and Chemical Imbalance’s, anon). Over this past weekend, once the kids went to sleep (they are back from camp!), I opened up Qobuz and listened to a batch of these universally accepted releases, to try and unlock their code. Some were good (but that good?) and some stumped me: why is THIS record one that is causing such a big stir? What made some of these new releases cut so deeply into the cross-culture? And what happened to the different worlds that championed different music?
There is one record that is on every list…almost every one…one record that after listing to it, I understood the appeal. It is aptly titled: The Record and is by Boygenius, a supergroup of (modern) indie rock singer-songwriters featuring Phoebe Bridgers, Julien Baker and Lucy Dacus. Their recent release reminds me of the kind of record Crosby Stills and Nash made when in peak form, records that burst with fantastic harmonies, each member swapping out inspired songs that each had written, each swapping lead singing roles….it is a record packed to the gills with hooks, great playing and an infectious spirit (and yes…you told me so, Rebecca Popell).
Here are the new shiny audio objects I have been loving these first six months of 20231 (in no particular order):
Written In Their Soul: The Stax Songwriter Demos (various artists): Warning, this list is going to begin and end with Stax. But it’s gotta start here, with one of the greatest gifts to music lovers in a long while? Cheryl Pawelski’s decades long quest to dig up incredible after incredible unreleased recordings from one of the greatest labels of all time? Written In Their Soul comprises six CDs of demos and other unreleased recordings…demos of songs that ended up becoming the biggest hits for the label…demos of songs that never made it past demo form, songs that just got cut…some just a piano or tremolo-ed guitar and a singer…some with full arrangements. CD 1 contains some Carla Thomas gems (Another Night Without My Man!!) and a Staple Singers four-in-a-row soul power block that is worth the price of admission right there…but there is so much more on that CD, and so so much more on all the rest, featuring both famous and unknown musicians (check out Veda Brown’s True Love Don’t Grow On Trees, Come On Down by Mack Rice or I Got To Go For That by Rufus Thomas). The aspect of the box I like the most, is the raw, deep performances that are throughout, recorded by artists who were singing through their passion without ever thinking their performances would be released to the public. There is True beauty within. Read the New Yorker article to dig really deep into the release….but better than that: listen to the tracks and participate in the new chapter of Stax.
Plastic Eternity (Mudhoney): Mark Arm and I walked up Strawberry Hill when Mudhoney was last in the Bay Area, with him excitedly telling me about the band’s recent recording session. Bassist Guy Maddison was moving back to Australia with his family, and the band wanted to get some tracks down before he left. Maybe it was that tension of disconnection, but the session went incredibly well, with enough tracks for two records. Plastic Eternity is the best from those recordings, finding the band back in Tomorrow Hits Today territory with a thick, fuzzed out sound souped over groove after groove from the rhythm section of Maddison and trapper Dan Peters, with killer guitar licks a la Steve Turner and Arm’s powerful and biting voice as strong as ever. Classic (just check out the first single, Almost Everything or maybe Move Under, which culls back the Super Fuzz Big Muff flavor of the early days. So. Good.).
The early hours of the new year gave the gift of a musical nightingale known to us humans as Meg Baird. Although I am not convinced that the angelic voice of hers is truly that of the mortal kind, it is infused into a beautiful record of majestic songwriting and lush arrangements (including sweet interplay with her partner and collaborator Charlie Saufley). The groover Will You Follow Me Home is a great place to start digging into the record, although the opening track Ashes Ashes is a perfect intro into the Ivo-ish landscapes that Baird creates so well. And that last track…the raw field recording soul of Wreathing Days is no to be missed…
The Unguitarist : Complete Works, 1969-2022 (Rick Deitrick): While the Stax release above shed new light on a very well known label, Tompkins Square is giving a huge ray of sunshine onto an obscure guitarist and his years of recordings. Since including Rick Deitrick on one of the volumes of the great Imaginational Anthem series, the label has put out Deitrick’s self-released records from decades ago, and now has compiled all of his recordings to date, bringing him to public view, cementing this guitarist into the story that John Fahey began to pick-at in the 1960s. Deitrick would sit in nature with his guitar, playing for the trees and the creatures around him: that was his audience until now. Listen to Missy Christa for a peak into the talent of Deitrick. This release is a reminder of the great music out there that needs to be brought to the world…reminds us that some of the greatest music is that which we might not ever hear.
Love In Exile (Arooj Aftab, Vijay Iyer, Shahzad Ismaily)
The follow-up to her Grammy-nominated debut release, Arooj Aftab has combined with pianist Vijay Iyer and guitarist Shahzad Ismaily to create a fragile delicate mediation. Iver and Ismaily improvise seamlessly together, offering each other space to be slow on focused, filling the void with beautiful ambient melodies that include very quiet moments, as well as warming highs with Aftab singing atop the soundscapes. This record is a Vaughan Oliver cover away from being a new voyage for 4AD.
Arc of Day (Danny Paul Grody)
I first read about Danny Paul Grody in a recent Terrascopædia publication, heralding his psych guitar wizardry….which led me on to his record Between Two Worlds on Three Lobed Records (which also led me to a record swap with label-head Cory Reyborn, where I got turned onto many of his other great releases including the Sonic Youth curiosity In/Out/In he released a few years ago (with the long jamming of a Velvet’s boot) and Boerum Palace, an early Steve Gunn groover. A few weeks ago, he sent me this new Grody record, which was just coming out, featuring the guitar player picking beautiful, fragile worlds sometimes solo, sometimes with other musicians, all in lockstep with the mystical vibe he is creating. Along with Nathan Salsburg’s Landwerk series, Grody is expanding the guitar-player medium.
The Lips have been on a Yoshimi tare as of late, celebrating the 20th anniversary of their gold record with a comprehensive box set, a tour (that is ongoing) and several one-off LP releases featuring outtakes, live recordings and demos. The Hypnotist demo featured on this LP is over twenty minutes long, and weaves into strange environments that go from Zaireeka-era Lips sounds to 70s German Kraut-electro to pulsating weirdness that you have to hear in order to begin to conceptualize. Suddenly, presto: another essential release for the Flaming Lips library.
Ill-Fated Cusses (Cheater Slicks)
The godfathers of modern garage rock are back with a classic…and yes, even a bass guitar. There was a time in early 90s when only a select few old record collector nerds would venture to a club to hear raunchy back-from-the-grave chaotic rock n roll (Sub Pop used the phrase LOSER for a reason); that was when The Cheater Slicks walked the earth and blasted out their loner pissed-off fuzzed-out celebrations. The Shannon brothers, Tom the bastard son of David Johanson boasting a driving unpredictable rhythm guitar and his brother David, the most unheralded guitar hero ever to blow air through an amp, and Dana Hatch, the sunken-eyed singing/shouting drummer…touching the fire of Keith Moon every time their songs devolved into free form chaos: the Cheater Slicks are in a beer-soaked after-class of their own. They influenced a generation of garage rock hipsters, even though they never stuck to the orthodoxy of the movement, too busy evolving in their strange Cro-Magnon fashion. Which brings us to Ill-Fated Cusses, their latest record, back home on In The Red, the label that released all their previous classics. This new one finds the Cheater Slicks once again both blowing out some garage-punk insanity (Fear, Come Back To Me, #4) while taking time to expand their periphery with quieter numbers (Garden Of Memories) and even their take on the epic (Far Away Distantly). Be thankful there exists the Cheater Slicks.
Woah…a 4 LP set, each LP from a night of Albert Ayler’s 1966 European tour. With his brother Don is on trumpet, as well as his tried and true rhythm section William Folwell on bass and Beaver Harris on drums..and with this line-up the added violin from Michael Samson…Ayler conducts as sound that only he could attempt to corral. As would be assumed, each night features similar song, each time though jumping off into unknown blazing cacophonous explorations, bombastic…exciting. There are many musicians who attempt to explore the free jazz universe, and only few can do it well. With Ayler, with Europe 1966, the freedom is sooooo good.
Waves (Ben Chasny & Rick Tomlinson)
A sweet record between two wonderful guitarists, Six Organs Of Admittance’s Ben Chasney and Rick Tomlinson from Voice Of The Seven Woods. Five of the six tracks are the two playing off and with each other, expertly picking and weaving (supposedly playing off photos of themselves when children dressed up for Halloween). The other track is more of an ambient, lightly throbbing drone. A subtle record, but by no means less mighty than the rest here.
Soul’d Out: The Complete Wattstax Collection
The first half of 2023 has been tremendous for the already huge legacy of Stax Records. We started the list off with a box set of pirate’s treasure soul, and we end with even more booty. Produced by a friend, Mason Williams (who has really helped us out with the Specialty boxset we are finishing up—more soon) with sound aid coming from another friend (and Who keyboardist) Brian Kehew, this release presents the complete Stax concert held in Watts just over 50 years ago. Stax had opened up shop in Los Angeles: a new chapter in the label’s history. Soon after…marking their Southern territory and to remember the recent Watts riots, Stax held a concert with all of its biggest bands, and recorded everything. This is the first time these complete recordings have been released. Amazing performances from Stax legends The Staple Singers, Isaac Hayes, The Bar-Kays and the Temptations…as well as electric stylings of lesser known from the Stax roster like Lee Sain and The Rance Allen Group. There is a hell of a lot of up-tempo slamming grooves on this release.
~~
May the second half of the year yield as good a bounty. What are your favorite records of the year thus far?
Nothing I have personally released this year is on the list, but please make sure you check out the new Gate record, The Numbers, and the first and second Infinite River releases (the latter coming out end of summer).
It's hardcore punk, but these kids are the real deal. Soul Glo from Philly. Album came out last year, but i just discovered them this year.
Nico Georis "Cloud Suites" and Eddie Chacon "Sundown" are two other great new releases this year.