Weekly Music Roundup: Cloud Cult, Meshell's Prince Tribute, & Jack White

Week of Jan. 15: This week, a Cloud Cult premiere, a new song by Jack White, and a moving tribute to Prince.

PREMIERE: Cloud Cult’s Music For The Film The Great Alone

If you know the Minnesota band Cloud Cult, either from their appearances on Soundcheck or from their numerous recordings and tours, you know that singer/instrumentalist Craig Minowa and his crew are as visually attuned a group of musicians as you’re likely to find. They’ve made a series of short films, and their tours for many years included not only the players but two artists as well, who would do live paintings in response to that night’s set, so that each show resulted in two finished canvases. Their last project, The Seeker, was both a cycle of connected songs and a mostly silent (except for those songs) film. Cloud Cult’s emotive, orchestral brand of indie rock is perfectly suited to the movies, and today we premiere a track from Minowa’s score to the film The Great Alone, a documentary about the unlikely comeback story of Iditarod champion Lance Mackey. Set as it is in the Arctic, the soundtrack has stretches that evoke the vast expanse of the frozen North; but this piece, called “Don’t Tell Me I Can’t,” has a pulsating, determined rhythm that reflects Mackey’s determination to overcome the odds. 

Cloud Cult is performing at Lincoln Center’s Appel Room as part of the prestigious American Songbook series on January 26. 

Hear Meshell Ndegeocello’s Brilliant Prince Cover

The gifted polystylistic bassist, songwriter, and singer Meshell Ndegeocello is preparing to release an album of covers called Ventriloquism, and on Friday she unveiled her version of one of Prince’s most affecting and beautiful songs. “Sometimes It Snows In April” was never a hit for Prince, but it became a go-to song for his fans (including the New Sounds resident Prince obsessive) in the days after his sudden death in 2016. Ndegeocello’s voice easily inhabits the same androgynous range as Prince’s own; she replaces the piano with moody guitar; and fleeting wisps of processed sound suggest the singer is haunted by the ghost, or the memory, of the person who’s been lost. In a week when we marked the second anniversary of David Bowie’s unexpected passing, I wish someone could have done this fine a job with one of his songs. Here is a cover of a sad song that is delivered with total restraint – and is all the more poignant and moving because of it.
[Listen at Rolling Stone]

Ventriloquism is due for release on March 16; part of the proceeds will go to the ACLU.

Jack White’s Apocalyptic New Video

Singer and guitarist Jack White will release his third solo album, Boarding House Reach, on March 23, but the first single has just come out. It’s called “Connected By Love,” and it’s an ambitious blend of electronic music, classic rock, and great soul organ-and-choir effects.  The verses see White in tortured blues mode, and the chorus is basically one massive hook.  The video seems to have been inspired by the film Melancholia, as a large planet-like object appears in the sky and various characters, faced with the unknown, turn to family, and to religion (there’s a surprising amount of Catholic imagery).  Jack White himself is seen in what seems like a bare motel room, but even the cheapness of the setting can’t disguise the fact that the video, in its own way, is just as ambitious as the song.

A Rap Crew That’s Also A Choir

The Creek Boyz are a quartet of Baltimore rappers who are also singers – which in itself isn’t so unusual, but when you’re talking about the stripped-down, street-wise style of hip hop known as trap, you don’t expect to hear something that sounds like a choir. You also wouldn’t expect to hear a flute. But you get both in the new Creek Boyz single called “Trap Digits.” It features solo verses, full of lines about making money (best not to inquire too closely how) and then holding on to it; but when the four of them sing together in unison, they produce a striking sound that has echoes of the church. All this over a repeated flute sample that makes this a fun but almost surreal piece of trap-pop.  

Anna Meredith Is Still Ignoring Borders

Anna Meredith is an English composer who is also an electronic musician. It is certainly possible to pursue both of those styles separately, and she has – doing orchestral and chamber music on the one hand and electronica on the other. But what makes her work so interesting – what made her debut album Varmints so startling and impressive – is that she has put together a band that affords her the chance to write music that is both. Or neither. We’re still waiting for a followup to Varmints, which came out in 2016, but Meredith has just released a single via Adult Swim called “Calion,” and it presents itself as some kind of electronic dance music… until you start paying attention. Rhythms move and interweave in tricky ways; washes of synthesizer build and then disappear; and then a swooping electronic siren call, recalling mid-70s Tangerine Dream, leads to a multi-layered finale. 

Anna Meredith will be playing at Le Poisson Rouge on February 1.