"THESE TIMES"
THE DREAM SYNDICATE
Released May 3, 2019
-Hearing this album just felt so good! While I was never a fan of The Dream Syndicate (not for any reason at all), it was all due to a day when I stopped into B-Side Records for something different and I was overcome with what I was hearing over the store speakers. I immediately picked up this album as well and the entire experience lived up to the little I had heard in store.
The Dream Syndicate's "These Times," the band second album since their 2012 reunion, finds bandleader Steve Wynn and company again weaving a succulent spell filled with all manner of six string dreams and tapestries. It was yet another album released in 2019 that did not re-invent the wheel but was a work that featured superb songcraft, performance, production and the ability to inspire consistent, repetitive listening...especially in the Springtime.
KAINALU
Released June 19, 2019
-One of my biggest writing regrets from last year is the fact that I never had the opportunity to write a full length piece about the debut album from Madison, WI's singer/songwriter/multi-instrumentalist Trent Prall who records and performs under the moniker Kainalu.
My introduction to Kainalu began auspiciously three years ago with the release of his masterful debut EP entitled "Bloom Lagoon" (released June 20, 2017), which itself starred what I still feel was the BEST single of that year, the hypnotic dance floor sun-star "Love Nebula." That EP simply had it all, from its gorgeously produced and executed one-man-band aesthetic, which often recalled a taste of Tame Impala psychedelia as filtered through 1970's grooves a la Michael Jackson and Barry White merged with Prall's purposeful weaving of his Asian heritage and Hawaiian upbringing into a sumptuous whole.
With "Lotus Gate," Kainalu has made its unquestionably grand return which has taken everything from "Bloom Lagoon" and expanded the palate into a fully immersive album experience which feels like a luxurious deep dive into the Karmic pool, as evidenced the title track's opening words, "I can dig even deeper still/I can open the gate/The Lotus Gate is calling my name."
The rhythmic hand of Michael Jackson is evident from the arrival of the brilliantly titled and instantly captivating "Kamikaze Mushroom Palace," on which Kainalu delivers an opening blast of newfound confidence, as presented though Prall's exquisite bass guitar work and dazzling sunshine drenched keyboards, which is then juxtaposed through insightful, questioning interior musings ("I like to think that I got shit worked out better than I used to/But I let myself get mixed up living through the day by day").
That existential day by day is then presented through the remainder of the album as a beautiful struggle through the never ending pulls of heartbreak (the slow jam that is "How Do I Let Go Of You"), urgent uncertainly (the propulsive space odyssey hyperdrive of "In Need Of Reason") and crystalline odes of meditation and self-therapy (the dance floor wonderland of "Folds Like Origami" and the hip swaying dreamworld transportation of "Finding Peace Of Mind").
The album's most stunning song arrives at the conclusion in the seven minute "Talking Nonsense," which finds our album's narrator at a psychological crossroads that is soundtracked by a languid, percussive groove that oddly enough reminded me a little bit of Traffic in their more cerebral moments, with guest appearances from Aaron Gochberg's vibrant congas and Bradley Giroux's free flowing guitar solo. "My dreams are starting to take me away," Prall sings through a cloud of hazy vocals fading into the ether. "I fear that I'm losing touch"
For quite some time since first hearing the album, I always felt this to be an odd or even unsettling way to conclude "Lotus Gate." But having lived with it for nearly one year, something has occurred to me that makes this conclusion so purposeful. Albums are not designed to be heard just once and then shelved away. When good and great albums are created, they are always and forever designed to be revisited, re-heard, re-experienced, revealing itself continuously as we and the music get to know each other better.
With Kainalu's "Lotus Gate," we have a listening experience that is beautifully multi-layered and purposed. We are able to experience it as a sonic glory, which it most certainly is as Trent Prall, who composed, produced, and mastered the album entirely by himself and even performed the lion' s share of the instruments throughout, has undeniably delivered a meticulously conceived and beautifully sequenced work that is simultaneously limber and loose enough to make the always danceable rhythms elastic through the graceful force and melodicism of his bass guitar driven grooves and the ethereal qualities of his lush keyboards and those aforementioned hazy vocals that drift and glide through the atmosphere.
Even further, it is an album that presents itself as a rich internal journey, one that is personal and universal, one that is singular yet mirrors our own individual journeys and tribulations, day by day life experiences that often begins with optimism and end in disillusion, only to find a new reason to get up and move and try all over again. Kainalu's "Lotus Gate" is an exceedingly well crafted musical and artful expression of the very existential journey we are all undertaking in our lives, individually and collectively. One that is illustrated from one stunning song to the next, all the way to pressing "PLAY" the moment it ends to hear it all over again.
THOM YORKE
Released June 27, 2019
-With Radiohead still on its hiatus and following his eerie double album film score to Director Luco Guadagnino's "Suspiria" (released October 26, 2018), Thom Yorke returned with his latest solo album, which further continues to blur the lines between his solo material and both of his bands in Radiohead and Atoms For Peace. Again collaborating with Producer Nigel Godrich, Yorke's "ANIMA" weaves a lushly dark spell as its dystopian themes and emotions of anxiety are served by an electronic soundscape that is miraculously and simultaneously chilly and warm. Drum machines bubble with restless rhythms while the synths draw up a succulent bath of sound to soak inside of and throughout is the angelic, haunting voice of Thom Yorke swirling in and out of the darkness like a lost soul or lonely ghost.
"KING'S MOUTH"
THE FLAMING LIPS
THE FLAMING LIPS
Released July 19, 2019
-After several years and albums that ventured deeply into the darker, more disturbing realms of psychedelia, The Flaming Lips return to their prettier side with what is essentially a fairy tale. "Kings Mouth," tells the story of a giant King who is born, lives and dies and is beloved by his kingdom. Upon his death, the King's head is severed and transformed into a monument for all to walk inside of and experience the wonderment of the universe and existence itself. Warmly narrated by Mick Jones formerly of both The Clash and Big Audio Dynamite and based upon an art exhibit created by frontman Wayne Coyne, The Flaming Lips only continue to blaze ahead to their own fiercely idiosyncratic beat, unveiling their trademark strangeness with a gentler sonic ride.
"THE CENTER WON'T HOLD"
SLEATER-KINNEY
Released August 16, 2019
-I came extremely late to the Sleater-Kinney party and in doing so, I had no idea of what to expect...although I did know that some longtime fans were vehemently put off by this album. Yet, even so, I was extremely intrigued due to their collaboration with St. Vincent, who produced the album, as well as the behind-the scenes issues which made for the album's difficult gestation, a period which even found drummer Janet Weiss exiting the band, leaving Sleater-Kinney as the duo of Carrie Brownstein and Corin Tucker.
That very turbulence is evident from beginning to end on "The Center Won't Hold,"a work that feels tailor made to our exceedingly anxious, tension filled times. The work contains a monstrous sound, fills with heavy riffs and propulsive rhythms that serve what are essentially melodic pop songs..albeit unapologetically feminist pop songs. Real world anxieties merged with internal band difficulties have resulted in a risky, roaring firestorm.
"JIMMY LEE"
RAPHAEL SAADIQ
Released August 23, 2019
-Named after his brother who passed away from a heroin overdose after contracting HIV, Raphael Saadiq has released his darkest, most wrenching work to date. "Jimmy Lee" is an album of mourning and grief certainly but also of lives and souls lost and silenced made even more unnerving due to the aesthetic of not allowing any songs to flow into natural ending but always ceasing abruptly, urgently suggesting yet another life instantaneously snuffed out without warning.
Despite the grim themes and jarring presentation, the songs themselves are nonetheless overflowing with soul and melodicism, suggesting the classic R&B albums of the 1970's as created by the likes of Stevie Wonder, Marvin Gaye, and Eddie Kendricks for example. Finding light and salvation from the depths of darkness is indeed the crucial element of the core of soul music and Saadiq delivers much to be illuminated by.
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