MELODY'S ECHO CHAMBER
Released June 15, 2018
-"Bon Voyage," the second full length release by Melody's Echo Chamber, the musical brainchild of singer/songwriter/multi-instrumentalist Melody Prochet, arrived in the middle of the year and immediately, the album's transportive qualities dropped me into one rabbit hole only to have me emerge inside of another rabbit hole and then another still via 7 shapeshifting tracks that pack a universe into a compact 33 minutes.
Now the full gestation of "Bon Voyage" was lengthy to say the least as it has arrived six years after the 2012 self-titled debut album and even then, this new album had been delayed for one year as Prochet endured what has been written about as a "serious accident" where she suffered a brain aneurysm and broken vertebrae. And yet, with all of the extended time and personal turmoil, what Prochet has ultimately delivered is a undeniably playful yet defiantly fearless work that has taken the kaleidoscopic, psychedelic audio playground aesthetic and revitalized it tremendously.
As the opening nearly seven minute suite of "Cross My Heart" effortlessly blends late 1960's/ early 1970's prog rock soundscapes with hip-hop beats and French lyrics, "Breathe In, Breathe Out" takes its sugary dream world pop and turns its stunning melodies inside out suggesting some groovy dance club possibly located deep within a magical netherworld placed inside of a tree (trust me with that description--it makes sense once you hear the song).
"Desert Horse," complete with bizarre, brief screams and electronically altered vocals, feels precisely like a ride upon the titular animal as it heads towards the hazy ashram in the center of your mind where you are then greeted by the gentle, acoustic Swedish campfire song "Var Har du Vart?"
The seven minute plus centerpiece, and featuring superlative assistance from members of the band Dungen, arrives in the supremely enveloping whirlwind that is "Quand Les Larmes D'Un Ange Font Danser La Neige," a dynamic 21st century psychedelic powerhouse of Keith Moon styled drum heroics, cascades of guitars and mellotrons with Prochet's airy vocals swirling through everything like the wind through the trees. To serve as what felt to be a coda to my ears is the more meditative yet no less dazzling "Visions Of Someone Special, On A Wall Of Reflections," again featuring vocals in French augmented by all manner of warm synthetics and shuffling drums. "Bon Voyage" glides and grooves to its spectacular conclusion with "Shirim," a trip-funk workout featuring Prochet on every single instrument and vocal in full one-woman band glory.
Melody's Echo Chamber's "Bon Voyage" is a work that truly felt to serve absolutely no one else other than Melody Prochet's muse and artistic vision as it fully ignored every conceivable genre and trend surrounding her as she boldly crafted her own music universe with her own rules, boundaries and language, making it an album of a distinctly rarefied quality and character. Regarding Melody Prochet's health, I have no idea if she has fully healed or otherwise but I seriously hope that she has. For herself and those who love her, of course. Yet, as a fan, I am frothing at the mouth for a chance to discover where she can go from here.
But for now, we have "Bon Voyage," a musical journey I have been enraptured to undertake over and over again.
KAMASI WASHINGTON
Released June 22, 2018
-If "The Epic" (released May 5, 2015), was a perfectly titled triple album of astounding arrival and the follow-up EP "Harmony Of Difference" (released September 27, 2017) served as a blissfully, compelling interlude, then composer/saxophonist/bandleader Kamasi Washington's double album (complete with a hidden third disc tucked deeply inside of the CD jacket) "Heaven & Earth" is his most fulfilling, complete work to date as it is a celebratory ode to the human condition as well as proclaiming itself as a grand statement boldly bridging the worlds between past and present Black Excellence and Afro-Futurism beautifully together.
Again with the ghosts of John Coltrane, Charlies Mingus and Sun Ra as spectral guides, Washington and his cavalcade of musicians and vocalists through an existential journey through humanity and the the Black experience specifically through two album halves devoted to Earthly struggles and tribulations (Disc One: "Earth") and inner and even cosmic explorations (Disc Two: "Heaven") with a broadly sweeping musical canvas that has found Washington's compositions at their tightest yet commanding in their luxurious sprawl, demanding yet completely accessible, esoteric yet streetwise and the cumulative effect is enthralling from beginning to end.
It truly confounded me as I listen to this album of how all of these pieces, as elongated as they remain (songs typically run somewhere in the 8-9 minute range with some stretching even further or shorter), can all sound so refined when compared to Washington's past releases, as terrific as they are. For all of the ideas, the solos, the volume, the scope, the grandeur, Kamasi Washington has conceived of "Heaven And Earth" with a greater, sharper conceptual focus where not one selection ever overstays its welcome, feels to meander, loses the trajectory or slows the pace.
With "Heaven And Earth," what we have been given is an album that showcases an artist building a growing musical universe one dynamic song at a time and through selections, that are indeed mostly instrumental, where the tone and definition of resistance, conflict, uplift and ascension are explicitly paramount to the listening experience as a whole.
A superlative achievement.
ALBUM OF THE YEAR
JONATHAN WILSON
Released March 2, 2018
-To tell you the truth, making a final decision upon what would sit at the very top of my personal list was a most difficult one as I questioned whether Kamasi Washington's would earn my top prize or not, or should I declare a tie or not but in the end, there can be only one and for me, it is and remains Jonathan Wilson's majestic third solo release.
For those unfamiliar with Jonathan Wilson, just as I was until several years ago, he is a singer/songwriter/multi-instrumentalist/producer based in Laurel Canyon, Los Angeles. Most recently, he was a member of Roger Waters' touring band and had also performed upon Waters' most recent solo album, "Is This The Life We Really Want?" (released June 2, 2017). Yet, Wilson is possibly most known for his work collaborating with Father John Misty, as he co-produced Misty's "I Love You, Honeybear" (released February 9, 2015) and "Pure Comedy" (released April 7, 2017).
To my ears, the connection and collaborations between Wilson and Father John Misty are notable because in their own way, the two men suggest a certain Lennon-McCartney dynamic. Where Father John Misty often evokes the 1970's Plastic Ono Band, primal scream, brutally confessional Lennon, Jonathan Wilson feels to channel the concept album, the studio as instrument, melodic wonderland that has been McCartney's aesthetic. With "Rare Birds," Wilson's artistic vision has never felt to be more complete, all encompassing, audaciously ambitious, unapologetically expansive and astounding in its its resplendent sweep.
From the flowing opening track "Trafalgar Square" to the meditative closing number "Mulholland Queen" and everything in between during the album's nearly 79 minute running time, Jonathan Wilson concocts a deliriously enveloping and completely unpredictable musical universe where his influences are worn as openly as the heart upon his sleeve yet everything has been re-contextualized into a lavishly composed, arranged, produced and performed experience that is wholly original and unabashedly utopian.
Yes, you will hear soundscapes that do indeed evoke the likes of Pink Floyd by way of Crosby, Stills & Nash or better yet Gram Parsons, as Wilson does indeed seem to present himself as some sort of cosmic cowboy, flowing through an inexplicable and inter-dimensional musical time and space continuum commenting on matters of the heart and soul through a musical amalgamation of late '60's psychedelia, country and western, art/prog rock, '70's AM pop, '80's new wave/electronica, campfire folk, all made complete with lush orchestrations and fused through the supreme warmth of Wilson's songwriting, vocals and classic album-as-art era production.
And then there are the actual jigsaw puzzle arrangements of these songs, which are deeply immersive, challenging, elongated, joyously off-balance and undeniably perfect in their execution, during which a song's trajectory can switch on the proverbial dime, beginning here, magically ending there as if you had planned a trip to New York only to end up in Tunisia. If you ever wished for an album to feel like a journey upon a magic carpet, then "Rare Birds" is indeed the one to give you that extraordinary ride.
"I'm not leaving these walls/Without the prettiest song I can find," Wilson sings during the mid-album mood piece "49 Hair Flips." And indeed, Jonathan Wilson's "Rare Birds" represents the full results of this idiosyncratic artist's search, where his studies of all things pop music has unearthed a work of fearless invention, elegant realization and even gloriously ethereal spiritual deliverance.
In fact, I think Wilson himself has described his intent best within his own song "There's A Light," a fully inclusive swirl of euphoria, when he sings the following:
"There is a reason that we play among the stars
A reason that we are just who we are
A reason that we thrive
Belief to keep alive
A reason that we sing
Our song and everything...
...You are the sky
You are the sun
You are America and you are everyone
You are the miracle of love
With all your children at your feet
You are the ocean from above
So dear, so deep"
Beautiful. Absolutely beautiful.
Dear readers and listeners, trust me as I have the feeling that some of you may not have even heard of this album. Believe me, do seek out Jonathan Wilson's "Rare Birds" for it is precisely the kind of album one could describe as a masterpiece.
And this is why it is my number one favorite album of 2018.
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