Weekly Music Roundup: Joe Rainey, Gaye Su Akyol, and Neil Young
Week of Nov. 28: This week, industrial pow wow singing from Joe Rainey, Turkish psych-rock from Gaye Su Akyol, and Neil Young’s World Record.
Joe Rainey’s Industrial Pow Wow Song
The Ojibwe singer Joe Rainey blended the traditional vocals and drums of the Pow Wow with hip hop-inspired production by Andrew Broder on his fine album Niineta. But “hip hop-inspired” did not mean that Rainey’s singing was mixed to a boom-bap rhythm; the sounds of industrial rock, noise, and field recordings made by Rainey himself were all part of the seething, often defiant music. Now, Rainey has released a single called “Once The Reaper” that ventures even further into an industrial soundscape. Using his searing upper register, where every syllable seems to be a cry, Rainey and Broder create a song that rages against loss and grief. Eventually the drums pound out something like a steady rhythm as the electronics swirl, and as their thunder fades, the texture finally clears, and we end with a traditional healer’s instructions over a hymn-like electronic bed.
Mesmerizing New Sounds from Turkish Singer Gaye Su Akyol
In the 1970s, a distinctly Turkish form of psychedelic rock formed as singers rooted in Anatolian folk music came under the sonic spell of the late Beatles albums. More recently, the Turkish singer Gaye Su Akyol has taken that sound and added her own touches of 90s alternative rock and 60s surf rock. Her latest album is called Anadolu Ejderi, or Anatolian Dragon, and it’s full of serpentine vocal lines, exotic but danceable beats, and often intertwining guitars and keyboards. This song, “Vurgunum Ama Acelesi Yok,” sees Akyol’s narrator longing for someone, but she’s also quietly confident and willing to be patient…
Neil Young Releases World Record
The 77-year-old Neil Young has just released his 45th album. The cheekily-named World Record was done with his longtime band Crazy Horse and co-produced by that giant Yoda of music known as Rick Rubin. Much of the album is a response to the state of the world today, with a passionate yet vulnerable sound. But the album’s epic, 15-minute long “Chevrolet” stands apart, both for its length and its sense of reveling in the making of live music. The video suggests the entire thing was done live, in one take, and for fans of songs like “Hurricane” or “Cinnamon Girl,” this will be a welcome extension of that sound – featuring Young’s electric guitar playing, as wiry and imperfect as his singing, and some classic vocal harmonies from the band on the chorus, which is basically just the name “Chevrolet.”
