Weekly Music Roundup: Durand Jones & The Indications and Sharon Van Etten
This week, new songs from Sharon Van Etten and Alessia Cara, and old songs made even older by Bryan Ferry.
Sharon Van Etten’s Eerie Love Song, “Jupiter 4”
Singer, songwriter, guitarist and occasional actor Sharon Van Etten is gearing up to release her first album in several years in January, and this past week she dropped the single called “Jupiter 4,” which seems like an odd title for what is essentially a love song. But then, this is a very odd love song. The lyrics are full of the usual imagery of “waiting my whole life for someone like you” and having “a love so real.” There’s even a bit of classic “baby baby baby.” But the music – well, it’s full of drones and deep bass notes, and the whole thing makes you wonder if this is really just a statement of passion… or of obsession. The video, shot in black and white, honors that knife’s edge between love and madness by offering a series of enigmatic images of Van Etten, without any hint of who the object of her affection/obsession might be.
Van Etten’s new album, Remind Me Tomorrow, comes out on January 18.
Alessia Cara’s “Not Today” Is One Of Today’s Top Singles
Canadian singer Alessia Cara has managed to crack the Top 10 several times already, with her alone-in-a-crowded-room song “Here” and her anthem of uplift “Scars To Your Beautiful,” both of which displayed a measure of maturity beyond her years. Now all of 22 and a seasoned pro, Cara has returned with an album called The Pains of Growing, and the single “Not Today” continues her string of songs that offer a kind of emotional truth – in this case, essentially, “I’m gonna get over this someday… but not today.” It’s an acknowledgement that uplift and empowerment doesn’t just happen, and that it’s okay to feel bad in the moment. The song also adds a welcome touch of indie-pop to the corporate gloss of so much Top 40 music.
Bryan Ferry And His Orchestra Remake His Earlier Songs
Even when his band Roxy Music was at its glam/lounge/art-rock peak, in the 70s and early 80s, it was evident that singer Bryan Ferry was a fan of much older styles of music. There were hints of 20s and 30s jazz, for example, or the cabaret songs of the Weimar Republic, in many of the band’s songs. Ferry is one of the many rock stars to have recorded albums of standards; he is one of the few to sound genuinely convincing in the role. Now Bryan Ferry And His Orchestra have released a new album called Bitter-Sweet that recasts some of Ferry’s solo music and a couple of Roxy Music songs as if they’d been written during the 1920s in Berlin. (Ferry has worked on the Netflix TV series Babylon Berlin, which is set in that time period.) One striking example is Roxy Music’s 1979 hit “Dance Away,” which here becomes a ragtime-influenced, sax-led instrumental. But Ferry fans will want to hear that evergreen, ultra-smooth, louche baritone of his, and the majority of tracks here are vocal ones. I like this version of “Alphaville,” a 2010 song from his solo album Olympia which trades in its uptempo electro-R&B sound for an arrangement that sounds like something straight out of Paris’s legendary Hot Club de France in the early 30s.
Classic Soul from Durand Jones & The Indications
If you’re a fan of Smokey Robinson, Curtis Mayfield, Sam Cooke, and other great voices of American soul music, you may think that’s the sound of a bygone era. Durand Jones & The Indications are here to suggest that that era may not be so far gone after all. They’ve just released a new single called “Don’t You Know” which is just a few clicks and crackles away from sounding like an overlooked song from fifty years ago. The band is tight and brassy, and the Indications actually have two singers – Durand Jones and the drummer, Aaron Frazer. They are yin and yang, and not because one is black and the other white: Jones has a husky tenor while Frazer has a pure falsetto. The combination of smoke and ether works really well. The combination of the song and the video’s demolition derby footage seems maybe a little more random, but it’s fun to watch.
UK Songwriter Michael Chapman Will Release His 578th Album
Okay, maybe I’m exaggerating with that headline, but not by much. Michael Chapman will be 78 years old when his next album, True North, comes out in February, and he has released well over fifty albums in his long career. If you read last week’s roundup, you saw that it included a new song from another British songwriter, James Yorkston. In that song, “My Mouth Ain’t No Bible,” Yorkston namechecks some of his musical heroes; among them is Michael Chapman. Chapman is a gifted guitarist as well as a singer and songwriter, and he’s just released the first single from the forthcoming album, a song called “It’s Too Late.” In addition to his own playing, he once again gets help from producer and fellow guitar-slinger Steve Gunn, and the legendary pedal steel player BJ Cole adds his magical touch to the proceedings as well. Haunting vocal support from Bridget St John, also a well-known figure on the British scene, adds subtle depth to a song that is tinged with regret and melancholy. Of course, regret rarely sounds this inviting…
True North comes out on February 8.
