This week, Miley Cyrus and Unknown Mortal Orchestra’s different responses to the state of the world; plus new releases from Alan Sparhawk, The Budos Band, and Keith Jarrett.
Miley Cyrus Wants To Heal Us With Music
Miley Cyrus has never lacked for ambition, and she has been promoting her new album, Something Beautiful, which came out today, as a record that would have “healing sound properties” as a response to our troubled times. Whether any of these songs will heal anyone of anything is an open question (The Guardian’s take: “about as ‘psychedelic’ as a baked potato”), but the album is full of serviceable pop, including a number of dance floor bangers, which I suppose could raise your endorphin levels. Several singles have been released, but “Walk Of Fame,” with a cameo by Brittany Howard, is not one of them. Some of her fans have expressed surprise online at this apparent oversight, but us older (or perhaps more cynical) listeners may have a possible explanation: the song is strongly reminiscent of the Bronski Beat single “Smalltown Boy” from 1984.
Unknown Mortal Orchestra Offers A Dark, Cinematic New Song
Unknown Mortal Orchestra, the New Zealand-born, Portland-based indie-jam-prog-rock band, is releasing an EP called Curse next month, and yes, that title is also a reaction to the state of affairs we hear on the nightly news. Unsurprisingly, then, the single “Boys With The Characteristics Of Wolves” is a doom-laden affair, despite verses with some lyrical fingerpicking guitar. The lyrics are as unsettling as the title, and the chorus, while catchy, is thrust against the wall by a roar of metal-adjacent guitars. Frontman Ruban Nielsen also created the video, which is even crazier, drawing on the psychedelic, often bloody Italian horror films of the 1970s and (somewhat controversially) using AI to make the characters in those scenes appear to be singing the lyrics.
Keith Jarrett Releases Another Concert LP From His Final Euro Tour
In 2018, pianist Keith Jarrett suffered two strokes which have left him unable to play anymore. In collaboration with his longtime record label, ECM, he’s instead been releasing some performances from what turned out to be his final European tour, in 2016, and today we got New Vienna. (To distinguish it from the 1991 Vienna Concert LP.) Jarrett became famous, in the wake of his bestselling solo piano album The Köln Concert in 1975, for his searching, evening-length piano improvisations, but by 2016 he was playing instead a series of shorter improvs, so that New Vienna features nine discrete pieces plus an encore (a Jarrett fave, “Somewhere Over The Rainbow”). The individual pieces range from knotty complexity to rollicking blues-based pieces to the kind of questing, almost hymn-like ballads that he would somehow come up with on the fly. The track “VII” is a lovely example of the latter, and ironically, given that it’s almost a decade old, might have more of Miley Cyrus’s “healing sound properties” – though of course that’s very much a matter of taste.
The Budos Band’s Whirlwind Musical Tour
In the 20 years since they formed in Brooklyn, The Budos Band have put out seven albums, including today’s release, simply called VII. Like their earlier efforts, it’s full of horn-heavy instrumentals that draw on the Ethiopian pop of the early 70s, the Nigerian Afrobeat of the late 70s/80s, and occasional touches of Latin music and some metal-inspired guitar. They were, until now, part of the stable of artists at Daptone Records, the soul/funk revivalist label that brought you Sharon Jones and Charles Bradley, so that sound is part of the mix as well. You can hear it all come together in the new album’s leadoff track, “Thrice Crowned,” which seems to somehow fit all those disparate parts into one, grooving three-minute song.
Alan Sparhawk Teams Up With Trampled By Turtles
Alan Sparhawk of the band Low has teamed up with the progressive bluegrass group Trampled By Turtles for a new album that features Sparhawk’s elliptical, poetic songwriting with the Turtles’ energetic take on Americana. (Both bands are from Duluth, MN.) Sparhawk released a solo album last year after the death of his wife and bandmate, Mimi Parker, but this new record, called Alan Sparhawk With Trampled By Turtles, is a vastly different affair. And perhaps the track that shows that best is this one, “Get Still.” This was on that solo record, where Sparhawk’s voice was processed until it was unrecognizable, and surrounded by hazy electronics. Here, it takes on a clarity and momentum as Trampled By Turtles bring out the harmonies that were merely implied in the original. And where the original could be heard as a man dealing with loss and isolation, this new version, especially with the band joining in on the chorus, seems to be very much about community.