Weekly Music Roundup: Balkan Brass Rap & "Loving Vincent"

This week, a film score premiere, a Balkan brass band collaborates with an underground rapper, and a report from Chicago’s South Side.

PREMIERE: Music From Astonishing New Film “Loving Vincent”

Clint Mansell has written the music for the first-of-its-kind movie, Loving Vincent. To call the film, based on the life and work of Vincent Van Gogh, an “animated” feature would be misleading: Loving Vincent is the first fully painted movie, made up of about 67,000 paintings – enough to cover all of London and Manhattan if laid on the ground.  You can watch the trailer here. Mansell, who began with the 90s UK rock band Pop Will Eat Itself, has become an important composer of film scores: he got a lot of acclaim for his work with Kronos Quartet and the post-rock band Mogwai for the film The Fountain; I particularly loved his score for Moon, by Duncan Jones (David Bowie’s son); and his Stoker score was also terrific. Today we offer a first glimpse at the soundtrack recording from Loving Vincent.  “The Yellow House” is full of pulsing strings, arpeggiated chords, and disquieting little moments that hint at the drama to come. (This appears early in the film.) The film is out now; the soundtrack will be released on Friday. 

G. Herbo’s Wide Angle, Technicolor Rap

Chicago rapper G. Herbo (formerly known as Lil Herb) is a product of the murder capital of the country, but he does more than just rail against the violence he grew up with; he tries to give back to his community through both music and personal involvement. His NLMB movement (the name means “never leave my brothers”) aims to give young Chicagoans, especially in the troubled areas of the South Side, a sense of hope and personal responsibility. G. Herbo’s full-length debut, Humble Beast, came out on Friday and features some lighter songs as well, but most of it deals with the reality on the streets.  Leading the way is the single “Red Snow,” a huge, dramatic number that couches its heartbreaking tale in what sounds like a fanfare to a James Bond movie. The video is essentially a 4-minute indictment not only of the rampant violence in his neighborhood, but of the casual acceptance of it as a fact of life.

Benjamin Clementine’s New Single, “One Awkward Fish”

In 2015, Benjamin Clementine’s songs began to attract attention (from people like Paul McCartney, David Byrne, and Damon Albarn, not to mention the jury of the Mercury Prize) for his striking voice, his lyrical but spare piano playing, and his elliptical tales of outsiders and misfits. Sounding like a combination of Nina Simone and Erik Satie, Clementine’s first LP, At Least For Now, was a challenge – to listeners, who had to stop asking “what kind of music is this?” and just listen – and to Clementine himself, because to follow it up with another record of similar material would simply have been “more of the same,” and that is not what you go to a Benjamin Clementine for. On October 2, he’ll release his sophomore album, I Tell A Fly, and we’ve now heard two songs, which together suggest a leap into something more dramatic, even theatrical, and an expanded sonic palette. The first, “Phantom of Aleppoville,” is a dark and twisted take on pop. The new one, called “One Awkward Fish,” is even stranger, with its relentless break-beats and its equally relentless harpsichord (when’s the last time those two words went together?) underpinning Clementine’s moody vocals. I’m gonna go out on a limb here and guess that it’s not really about a fish…

Benjamin Clementine plays the main stage at Carnegie Hall on October 5. 

Balkan Brass Rap From Mr Lif and Brass Menažeri

No one could have expected such a bizarre collaboration: the rapper Mr Lif and the San Francisco-based Balkan brass band called Brass Menažeri. At least, no one could have expected it back in 2010, when they first got together at the Seattle Folk Festival. Now, seven years later, it’s… well, it’s still totally surprising. And the most surprising thing might be how well the funky dance rhythms of Balkan brass band music fit with Mr Lif’s fun yet brainy wordplay. “Crypt Of Lost Styles” is the first single from a whole album they’re releasing in November, called Resilient. Will it all sound this good? Don’t be surprised if it does.

Belle & Sebastian: Older, Still Beautiful

The Scottish band Belle & Sebastian haven’t released an album since 2015’s Girls In Peacetime Want To Dance. They haven’t announced a new album, but they have released a new single and a set of European tour dates; and their record label has coyly suggested fans watch out for more news in early October. Today the band released the video for the single “We Were Beautiful,” a typically lovely, slightly downcast song full of nostalgia but also of appreciation for the little miracles of everyday life – which is the theme of this Glasgow-based video. Propelled by some off-kilter drumming and a wash of pedal steel guitar, the song builds to an anthemic chorus, and when Stuart Murdoch sings “we were beautiful/before this went down,” it somehow sounds full of both regret and joy. 

Charles Bradley, “The Screaming Eagle,” Dies at 68

If you’re familiar with the tale of the late great soul singer Sharon Jones, then Charles Bradley’s story will sound eerily familiar. After a lifetime working odd jobs, and occasionally performing covers of James Brown songs under the name Black Velvet, he was discovered by the guys at Brooklyn’s Daptone Records (Sharon Jones’s label), and in 2011, at age 62, he released his first album, called No Time For Dreaming. (He visited us and performed with his band, the Extraordinaires, later that year.) As with Sharon Jones, the late bloomer found himself playing to large and enthusiastic crowds, became the subject of a documentary film (his was called Soul of America), and was then diagnosed with cancer. Bradley died this weekend at 68. 

His final Soundcheck appearance was in 2014, when he did a set of songs from his album Victim of Love. The cameras were rolling: watch him in action and you’ll see a man who struggled mightily to achieve any kind of recognition and who was not going to take it for granted when it finally came.