Weekly Music Roundup: Baracutanga, N.C. Sacred Soul, and FPA
Week of Sept. 6: This week, premieres of Latin folk-fusion from Baracutanga and Carolina soul, plus Kanye and Drake race to the bottom.
PREMIERE #1: Baracutanga’s Musical Trip Home, “El Regreso”
The Latin folk-pop group Baracutanga has a new album on the way: Volver Atras comes out on October 8. The title (“turn back”) refers to the album’s theme of looking at where we’ve come from, especially as a nation of immigrants, and where we’re going. Today we’re premiering their single “El Regreso” (“the return”), which features a guest turn from the Colombian accordion player Beto Jamaica, as well as the high-spirited blend of traditional rhythms and soulful horns that characterize much of Baracutanga’s music. “El Regreso” is about returning to your origins and tapping into your roots, so, an exercise in nostalgia; but it’s also about tapping your toes, which you might find hard to resist in the song’s catchy chorus.
PREMIERE #2: A Field Trip Yields Sacred Soul Treasures From North Carolina
A pair of producers made a field trip to the eastern part of North Carolina just before the country shut down last year, and there, in a small studio in the town of Fountain, they documented the area’s rich musical tradition called “sacred soul,” a musical style whose roots go back for generations. A film will be coming late this month and the compilation disc, Sacred Soul of North Carolina, in October, but today we premiere one of the tracks and its corresponding bit from the documentary.
The group is Big James Barrett and the Golden Jubilees; the band actually predates its lead singer, but Barrett, who started as an R&B singer, switched to sacred soul (even though he says the money was better in R&B) and eventually took over the group. As you’ll see in the clip, it’s hard to tell just how big Big James really is, since he’s seated the whole time – he’s also got tubing for supplemental oxygen so apparently there are some health issues. But you’d never know it from hearing him sing. And with the band kicking in behind him and the traditional backup singers engaging in some call and response, it’s got a classic soul vibe.
Drake Vs. Kanye Again: And The Winner Is… Tems
The Nigerian singer Tems continues a strong winning streak for the Afrobeats team coming from her homeland. Burna Boy, Yemi Alade, Mr Eazi, and a host of others have attracted global attention already, now it’s Tems’s turn. She ramps up the energy on Drake’s new song “Fountain,” from his otherwise disappointing new LP Certified Lover Boy. With both Drake and Kanye West finally releasing their respective long-delayed albums (Kanye’s is Donda), they probably thought they’d be renewing their old feud by racing to the top of the charts. Instead, both delivered frankly tiresome records that sound more like mixtapes. And despite a long roll call of A-list guests, the highlight for me is Tems’s appearance on this Drake song. It breaks out of the gate in full stride, with what sounds like an East African sample, and the production features a jagged use of the normally anodyne electric piano. Drake sounds relaxed here and Tems takes over in the middle of the song with some effortless singing.
Meilir’s “Music For Typewriter” Is Not A Typo
The Welsh musician Meilir is a classically trained musician who knows his way around a keyboard. But this track from his new album In Tune features a very different sort of keyboard. “Music For Typewriter” joins the small-but-not-quite-as-small-as-you’d-expect list of songs that use the typewriter as a musical instrument. (Leroy Anderson’s “The Typewriter” from 1950 is the best known, but a partial list of typing music would include works by Steve Reich, Cyro Baptista, Nico Muhly and Daniel Figgis.) Meilir’s piece has a steady sampled beat and moody electronics, a brief spoken word section in Welsh, and then what sounds like a backward-tracked vocal line and the titular “instrument.” It all builds to a dramatic, post-rock finale, in keeping with the rest of the album’s carefully constructed chamber/electronic/pop.
A New Kind of Bedroom Pop From FPA
Minneapolis-based FPA (Frances Priya Anczarski) has just released the first single from her upcoming album Princess Wiko. Recorded mostly in her bedroom during the lockdown, it trades the usual gritty DIY sound of most bedroom pop for something that is darker and subtler, with a polished, produced sound. The album is an ambitious tale of a princess in some quasi-medieval place who is married off to a man she hardly knows. But it’s really a story about self-discovery and perseverance. This track, “Baby,” is a good example of the album’s mix of R&B, hip hop, and indie rock; meanwhile the lyrics are a complex web of love, pride, betrayal, and rage. But the song also shows how FPA is rooted in the folk storytelling tradition.
