This week, forget Halloween; ØXN and their doom-folk has the real scares. Also, flamenco-flavored pop from Maria Jose Llergo; serpentwithfeet hits the dance floor; and more.
The Stunning Dark Folk Music/Magic Of ØXN
ØXN is a new band that features some familiar names on the Irish indie music scene. We’ve met singer Radie Peat with the drone-folk band Lankum; John “Spud” Murphy is that band’s producer (and has produced Black Midi and many other bands); Katie Kim is a gifted singer/songwriter on her own; and Eleanor Myler is from the band Percolator. I had thought that you couldn’t find a darker, more chilling take on folk music than Lankum’s, but ØXN’s debut album, Cyrm (pronounced sigh-rim and meaning a spell, usually cast by a woman at the expense of a man), has moments that are genuinely spine-tingling. Part of it is the ominous creep of the background sounds as they gradually threaten to overwhelm the singing; part of it is also the choice of songs. Folk songs and murder ballads from the British Isles often boil down to women being ostracized or killed for what we might now term mental health issues, or for something as simple as becoming pregnant by a married man (the story of “Cruel Mother”). Contemporary songs by the late Scott Walker and the Irish singer Maija Sofia fit right in with the dark, eerie world that ØXN conjures here. The band’s version of “Love Henry,” a murder ballad full of supernatural elements (like the talking bird who refuses the murderess’s invitation at the end), is itself like a magic spell, cast over the course of five minutes as the menacing band sound grows and the story heads into Edgar Allen Poe territory. The video is full of ominous imagery that refuses to tell a straightforward tale but hits with the force of a horror movie.
New Spanish Pop With Old Roots From María José Llergo
María José Llergo is a Spanish singer with a background in flamenco. Like her fellow singer, the superstar Rosalia, she has moved from a sound that features obvious flamenco guitar and that crying, “torn throat” style of flamenco singing to something closer to global pop. Her debut album, Ultrabelleza, is largely a mix of R&B and electronica, but flamenco fans may hear hints of that style in some of the rhythms. A good example is the album’s closer, “Lucha,” which echoes the “palmas” – the handclaps and footsteps that accompany traditional flamenco – in its rhythm track and uses a typical flamenco harmonic progression in its catchy chorus. She plays as part of the 2024 Flamenco Festival at Le Poisson Rouge on March 15, 2024.
A Club Banger From serpentwithfeet, With Guests Ty Dolla $ign & Yanga YaYa
The alternative R&B/soul singer who goes by the name serpentwithfeet has made a lot of music that has an almost otherworldly quality to it, whether he’s engaged in seduction or… well, it’s mostly seduction. But his new single, “Damn Gloves,” is a bruising club banger, and a celebration of Black gay dance culture. On it serpentwithfeet welcomes R&B/hip hop star Ty Dolla Sign, who contributes a decidedly heterosexual verse, and the South African singer Yanga YaYa, whose verse is in Zulu so your guess is as good as mine. But the message is clear, whatever your preference: “if we keep on dancing we gon’ make love,” and the music makes that sound like a fait accompli.
Silvana Estrada Releases New Single
When the Mexican singer and songwriter Silvana Estrada won the Latin Grammy for Best New Artist last year, no one who’d heard her debut album, Marchita, was surprised. Her quietly emotive voice and obvious melodic gifts made even her solo performances memorable. But put her in a studio with other sounds and she shows her skill as an arranger as well. Estrada’s new single, “Que Problema,” is about two people who love each other, but only one is willing to work at it. It’s not the kind of song that needs or wants a huge orchestral palette, so instead Estrada gives us a delicate watercolor, with touches of flute and cello, spare drumming, and her own instrument, the four-string Venezuelan cuatro. The focus, of course, is on her voice, and on the almost consoling layers of vocals that end the track.
A Halloween Treat From Great American Canyon Band
The husband and wife team of Kris and Paul Masson perform as Great American Canyon Band. Their recent song “You Were The One” is a throbbing, slow-burning rocker about a relationship that has moved into the past tense. “You were the one,” they sing, “but it’s a long story now.” And it was Kris Masson who hit upon the idea of taking scenes from the Night Of The Living Dead and editing them into a video for this tale of two people who are trying to figure out where it all went wrong. There are no zombies, but in focusing on the film’s still-human characters, as Paul explains, they found that “just beneath the surface of this Zombie cult classic, there was a heart-led intensity that translated into the beauty and physical communication between two people finding and losing each other, all while not knowing what would lie ahead.” And like the almost mythic pairing of The Wizard Of Oz and Pink Floyd’s Dark Side Of The Moon, there are moments in the film that eerily match up with the lyrics of the song.
Loyal Lobos Spans North And South American Pop
Born in Colombia and now based in LA, singer and songwriter Andrea Silva records under the name Loyal Lobos, and she’s just released a new EP called Loba, Vol. 1. The six song collection includes several types of Latin pop, including a reggaeton-inflected track called “El Rio,” as well as songs that use the sounds of North American pop. (One track is sung in English.) This one, “Una Gata” (“a cat”), has echoes of 80s synth-pop and a sensual, breathy delivery that gets its suggestive message across, whether you speak the language or not.