Homeboy Sandman – C-VILLE Weekly

Album reviews: Best-and-rest of 2019

Not sure why, but in 2019 I spent a lot of time with a relatively few new albums, so apologies to the stuff I didn’t listen to enough. Here’s an idiosyncratic best-of, the albums I listened to all year (in more or less chronological order), with a “rest-of”—albums I liked almost as much, or loved for a couple of weeks but left behind for whatever reason.

Best of

Park Hye Jin (above)

If U Want It (clipp.art)

In January I wrote that If U Want It “sounds like something I’ll be coming back to all winter.” South Korean DJ Park Hye Jin’s five pithy songs cover dub, tropical house, industrial electronica, and wistful minimalism. She’s a canny com-
poser and a charismatic vocalist, and hey, I’m still coming back.

Jessica Pratt

Quiet Signs (Kemado)

Jessica Pratt weaves another web of dusky psych-folk. The spirit of Arthur Lee pervades the modal chords and underlying spookiness, but Pratt’s got a voice of her own—a restrained but expressive sigh that floats above her songs like a halo of insects over a pond, and mesmerizes in the same way.

Shafiq Husayn

The Loop (Nature Sounds)

A secret weapon of L.A.’s hip-hop scene busts out this 75-minute monster that channels P-Funk and trots out a battalion of A-listers: Erykah Badu, Thundercat, Flying Lotus, Anderson .Paak, Robert Glasper—and Bilal, whose showcase “Between Us” is a louche charmer. The Loop is a giddy ramble, an all-day party.

Crumb

Jinx (Crumb)

Crumb’s bedroom indie comes off like a weird dream, slightly unsettling but ultimately unthreatening. Lila Ramani’s sad-ghost vocals manage to be dark and whimsical at the same time, and the Tufts grads find a variety of grooves, from the elongated “M.R.” to the funky, almost krauty “Nina.”

Tomeka Reid Quartet

Old New (Cuneiform)

Avant-jazz cellist Tomeka Reid has played with experimental pop duo Ohmme and folky guitar wizard James Elkington, so it shouldn’t surprise that melody cuts through on Old New. Her meticulous yet loose compositions are punctuated by the gnarly solos of mindbending guitarist Mary Halvorson, and the quartet’s interplay is wondrous.

Rest of

Yola

Walk Through Fire
(Nonesuch)

Stately soul with enough grace to counteract the potentially distracting retro flourishes of producer Dan Auerbach. Yola can belt, but it’s her sense of dynamics that leads to goosebumps, as on “Faraway Look,” rightly nominated for multiple Grammys.

Elephant9

Psychedelic Backfire I & II
(Rune Grammofon)

A pair of insane prog-jazz albums from this Norwegian trio, recorded live. Dungen guitarist Reine Fisk shows up on volume II, as the band fearlessly shifts from Eno to Mahavishnu to Deep Purple—and that’s just on “You Are the Sunshine Of My Life.”

Brittany Howard

Jaime (ATO)

This tour-de-force finds Howard an assured voice in settings from avant soul to country rock. She’s also a compelling songwriter and inventive guitarist, and has a knack for making big statements sound down-to-earth. Coming to the Pavilion on April 17.

Solange

When I Get Home (Columbia)

Prismatic soft-soul featuring “Stay Flo,” one of 2019’s best tracks. Classic Stevie vibes hang over the whole thing, but Solange rises to the pretension.

Ghost Funk
Orchestra

A Song for Paul (Colemine)

Blunted ’70s-ish soul-jazz that just wants to hang out, and earns its keep.

Homeboy Sandman, Dusty (Mello)
and Chali 2Na & Krafty Kutz

Adventures of a Reluctant Superhero (Manphibian)

A pair of vets from Queens and L.A. turn in joyous albums that are reminiscent of rap’s “golden age” but feel fresh and inspired.

Album reviews: Miranda Lambert, Andy Aylward, Gene Clark, and Homeboy Sandman

Miranda Lambert

Wildcard (Sony)

Glowing with sanitized professionalism, performed hot messiness, and branded shout outs from Patron to Tide sticks, Wildcard is textbook pop country. And after “divorce album” The Weight of These Wings, it’s party time, as Jay Joyce’s production insists–Wildcard is engineered for loudness, and even the acoustic passages are compressed to 11. Meantime, Lambert serves the songs well, holding back her twang on the ‘00s alternative-sounding “Mess With My Head” before unleashing it for the trainwreck slideshow “It All Comes Out in the Wash.” She stripmines country lyric tropes to the point of parody, but remember, she’s a pro, so “I got a track record, a past that’s checkered / As the floor at the diner on Main Street” is merely one of a hundred quotables. If Wildcard stumbles in spots—the bland “Bluebird,” the cheeseball “How Do You Love?”—it slots a couple gems on the back end: “Pretty Bitchin,’” which rewrites The Beatles’ “I’ve Got a Feeling” for suburban cool moms; and closer “Dark Bars,” a waltz which finds Lambert suddenly subdued and sincere, and ends with an instrumental fade that’s the prettiest minute on the record. [7.6]

Andy Aylward

Sometimes Rain (Andy Aylward)

Opener “Long Goodbye” sets the tone for Sometimes Rain, the debut full-length of NYC-based UVA alum Andy Aylward. Clear, dry guitars, spacious production, strolling tempos, and undeniable ’70s vibes hold sway throughout, and Aylward’s unprepossessing voice combines a mellow melancholy with a faint underlying tension that mirrors the way his melodies feel familiar even as they take unexpected turns. Befitting its title, Sometimes Rain carries muted echoes of the Velvets, Silver Jews, and early John Cale, and the house band adds stylish details, none tastier than the pedal steel by Dan Lead (Cass McCombs, Vetiver) on “Mockingbird.” [7.2]

Sometimes Rain by Andy Aylward

Gene Clark

No Other (4AD)

What kind of country-rock flop from 1974 would experimental pop label 4AD treat to a deluxe reissue? The same country-rock flop boasting a track that 4AD house band This Mortal Coil covered in 1986. Which is to say, a majestically gothic country-rock flop. The failure of No Other hung over ex-Byrd Gene Clark’s career until his death at 46, whereupon, in an instance of supremely rueful timing, rock crits upgraded No Other to a consensus masterpiece. It still sounds masterful, and prescient—sure, there are Byrds echoes, but Clark’s untethered, psychically damaged songs provide more than a foretaste of “Hotel California” and Tusk. Paradoxically, the gloom happens under the canopy of Tommy Kaye’s sumptuous produc-
tion. Lambasted at the time, Clark and Kaye’s instincts were sound—the celestial production beautifully heightens and refracts the hanging sense of dread. No Other isn’t just a psychedelic country-rock classic (and major props to the sparkling musicianship of studio aces Danny Kortchmar, Lee Sklar, and Russ Kunkel)—it’s an L.A. classic, and an indelible post- ’60s American lament. [9.5]

Homeboy Sandman

Dusty (Mello)

Queens rapper Homeboy Sandman has long been identified as one of underground hip-hop’s superstars, and Dusty deserves to change the “underground” part. Sandman’s rhymes are exuberant, adroit, and hilarious—he’s like Kool Keith, but without the abject depravity. Or maybe he just makes depravity sound wholesome, like on the no-really-it’s-a-love-song “Picture on the Wall.” Producer Mono En Stereo aptly undergirds Sandman with playful tracks of ’70s jazz and space funk, even some soft rock. Here’s hoping Homeboy Sandman will be name-checking Atreyu (from The Neverending Story) and cosmetics-magnate-turned-PBS-sponsor Helena Rubenstein when he brings his joyful prolixity to Richmond’s Wonderland on November 20. [8.5]

Dusty by Homeboy Sandman