The Spins

Because it took me a while to get to, I’ll lead with it. This week’s long post is about the cover album. Yes, the cover album, not the cover song. It’s a very different beast, and can end up with rather interesting results depending on how adventurous the band/artist is. This idea was inspired by researching something completely unrelated. In the process of looking up that topic, I came across the Dick Slessig Combo, an infrequent side project of Mark Lightcap of Acetone, a Southern California outfit that was wedged awkwardly into the slowcore movement. The band did a 43-minute cover of “Wichita Lineman,” a Jimmy Webb song made famous by Glen Campbell. Both are fantastic in different ways. I’ll put both below this paragraph so you can listen to the original and the cover.

So, with the introduction of the long post, let’s deal with the issue at hand: the records of note (for me at least) from the past seven days.

Bon Iver, SABLE, fABLE

While I want to kick him in the shin for that stylization, Justin Vernon has turned out an excellent album, and this is coming from someone who is not the biggest Bon Iver fan. He takes everything that made Bon Iver work, added a R&B/soft rock gloss, and made it horny. It really works. I hope that he continues making music in adjacent areas going forward.

RIYL: 80s R&B, yacht rock, previous Bon Iver recordings, the color Salmon

No I.D., Saba, From The Private Collection of Saba and No ID

A very solid collaboration between an excellent beatmaker and one of the best mc’s working in the conscious Chicago rap tradition. An extremely enjoyable listen in our most hectic of times.

RIYL: Early Chance (before he dropped the bag), Common Sense, lyrical hip-hop

Barker, Stochastic Drift

Electronic albums are a hard thing to crack. The music has to either be hard enough to rattle the dancefloor or complex enough to make it worthwhile to listen to on headphones. There are few albums that can accomplish both (Goldie’s Timeless and the recent Floating Points album spring to mind immediately). While the New DJ Koze album sits in the middle, making it an ultimately unsatisfying listen, Barker does not have this problem. This album will not make it into most DJ sets, but it is rich sonically with its complicated programming and composition, making it perfect for a headphone listen.

RIYL: Ambient house music, IDM, Tri Repetae++

Hannah Cohen, Earthstar Mountain

This is a very dreamy Americana album, full of nods to genres of yore. While this makes it sound like pastiche, Cohen, through her songwriting and her crack band of contributors, makes the sounds into her own. I’ll be revisiting this album quite a bit as the year goes along.

RIYL: Cassandra Jenkins, soft rock, Jessica Pratt

Lily Seabird, Trash Mountain

This is the harder-living sister to Hannah Cohen’s album. Seabird’s sound is more akin to the rougher-edged Americana artists like Lucinda Williams. Much like Williams, she writes interesting character studies and knows the power of dynamics in her music. I’m interested in hearing more from her in the future.

RIYL: Gillian Welch, Tift Merritt, folk ballads

Eiko Ishibashi, Antigone

Apparently, Drag City hacked into my Tidal account and has just started releasing albums that are meant to please me. As with the others (Edith Frost, Mess Esque,) this album was fantastic. It was playing with so many ideas and does so with the greatest of ease. It’s an extremely well-crafted left-of-center pop album.

RIYL: Julia Holter’s Have You in My Wilderness, Faye Wong, Nite Jewel, Nedelle Torrisi

Go forth and try not to let everything get you down. If all else fails, think about this: