This annual ritual makes me feel like I am leaving things out. Especially music that I've purchased that might be ahem...too heavy for New Sounds. [Like BLACKBRAID, an indigenous black metal band from the solitude of the Adirondack wilderness!] I'm sure that I've still much to discover from 2022 and will be playing catch-up for months, but here goes:
Kae Tempest: The Line Is A Curve (American Recordings / Republic Records)
Kae Tempest is a gifted wordsmith and performer...AND an award-winning poet, playwright and novelist. Their poetic flow has its own meter and meaning, with a built-in musicality to the words and their delivery, which ultimately makes way for the power of words. When turning in a year-end roundup, I first only thought of “Salt Coast,” a complex exploration of identity. "Grace" is gorgeous too.
Jake Blount: The New Faith
(Smithsonian Folkways)
This brilliant concept record is a dystopian take on AfroFuturism, and what the sounds of Black Spirituals might sound like after a climate catastrophe. In addition to his banjo and fiddle, Blount adds found sounds, looping, and an occasional electric guitar or guest rapper.
Al Qasar: Who Are We (Glitterbeat Records)
Middle Eastern psych-rock collective Al-Qasar combines heavy Arabian grooves, global psychedelia and North African trance music into what the band calls "Arabian fuzz." Plus, guest artists Alsarah, Jello Biafra and Lee Ranaldo? I was rocked. And I can’t stop playing my favorite banger (mostly) in fives, “Sham System”.
Sona Jobarteh: Badinyaa Kumoo (African Guild Records)
London-based Sona Jobarteh, the first female Kora virtuoso from a west African Griot family, is also a singer, producer, composer, activist, and educator. She plays at the 2023 Big Ears Festival in Knoxville, TN. Dig this duet with Ballaké Sissoko:
Bryan Senti: Manu (naïve)
So many cool samples and layers abound in this violin-centric music by L.A.-based Cuban-American multi-instrumentalist Bryan Senti, which perches between western classical music, systems music, and folkloric music of Colombia and Cuba. I enjoy the layers of "Mictlān" (which might sound like Andrew Bird. Busted.)
Shabaka Hutchings: Afrikan Culture (Impulse!)
Shabaka Hutchings (Sons Of Kemet, Shabaka & The Ancestors, The Comet Is Coming) using just his own name, offers meditations on roots music. Hutchings plays flutes, Japanese shakuhachi, clarinets, and various bells and other handheld percussion AND kora.
Go for: “Ital is vital” – because shakuhachi AND kora? Can’t be beat.
Mary Halvorson: Amaryllis / Belladonna (Nonesuch Records)
Halvorson’s singular compositional mind is showcased in two halves; Belladonna for guitar and string quartet and Amaryllis written for an expansive, unparalleled sextet of improvisers and string quartet. The most striking moments of this record feel like a yin/yang of motoric menace that is also an oasis. The closing tune/title track of the record, "Belladonna", sounds as if Halvorson's score calls for Mivos to go for their best Halvorson grounded lines, shreddy riffs, playful noises, and angular licks.
Arcomusical: Emigre and Exile (New Focus Recordings)
Berimbau awesomeness. A berimbau is an Afro-Brazilian musical bow (sometimes recognizable in capoeira), and Arcomusical (directed by percussionist Gregory Beyer), is an entire berimbau chamber ensemble, with new music written for said group by bassist Matt Ulery. There are intricate hockets, gorgeous melodies, and grooves and so much to love in the 6-part suite for which the record is titled. This is the first movement of Emigre and Exile: I. Mother Harp by Matt Ulery:
Marisa Anderson: Still, Here (Thrill Jockey)
Electric, acoustic, pedal steel guitar lines sing all kinds of songs: some folky, some lyrical, some longing. There is an expansive and considered understanding of emotions that comes through in her playing. My favorite tune is the one that closes the record, “Beat the Drum Slowly”:
François Robin & Mathias Delplanque: L'ombre de la bête (Parenthèses Records)
A dear friend and bandmate has been studying the Bulgarian kaba (large) gaida - [those ARE bagpipies, BRO], and when I found this record, I was just bowled over. On it are carefully arranged layers of bagpipes, violin, Armenian duduk, and mizmar (Arabic single or double reed wind instrument) for an drone-trance-ambient-pulse-slow-build get down!
Caryn Havlik is a real live Muppet and the Producer of New Sounds, also known as the New Sounds All-Purpose Assistant, NSAPA. For 2023, since she has all of the fancy bundt cake pans she needs and alllll of the heirloom beans, she hopes to share these with friends and family, make a lot more music in person, and deadlift at least her own body weight.
Year in Review 2022 Part 1 (Sr. Broadcast Engineer, Irene Trudel)