Weekly Music Roundup: Kelela, Black Belt Eagle Scout, and Grandbrothers

Week of Feb. 13: This week, Kelela’s return, Black Belt Eagle Scout’s musical Indigenous creation myth, and Grandbrothers’ collaboration with a 700-year old cathedral. 

After Six Years Kelela Returns With Raven

Kelela’s mix of smooth R&B and pulsing electronic dance music made her debut LP Take Me Apart one of 2017’s most critically-acclaimed albums. Six years can be an eternity in pop music, but interest in Kelela – and specifically, what she’d do for an encore – has apparently not waned, since her upcoming tour is already sold out. On Friday she finally released her sophomore LP, called Raven, and although she had described it earlier as a “15 track deep dive into dance music,” it casts a much wider sonic net. In addition to several dance tracks there are also washes of ambient electronics and moments of quiet balladry. Then there’s the title song, “Raven,” which begins with a dramatic, maybe even ominous cycle of electronic tones, over which Kelela sings of being a “raven reborn.” But as she gets closer to “what I need tonight,” the song acquires sultry keyboards, before finally spending its last 60 seconds in the release of the dance floor.  

Marimba-Led Craziness From Mexico’s Son Rompe Pera

The cumbia punk band Son Rompe Pera is a trio of Mexican brothers who grew up busking on the streets with their marimba-playing dad. This naturally led them to look for any kind of music that did not have marimbas in it, and as teens they played in local rock bands. But the pull of the traditional marimba music became too hard to resist, and they unveiled their unexpected, spicy blend of Mexican cumbia and punk attitude in 2020 with their album Batuco. Now they are about to release a followup, called Chimborazo, and have given us a taste of what’s in store. It’s a single called “Chucha,” a frantic, Ramones-like rush of marimbas, with a needling guitar and hectic cumbia rhythm. “Chucha” offers a tale of stage fright and space invaders, and an if-you-dare invitation to enter Son Rompe Pera’s world.

LA Sun Fails (Fortunately) To Pierce Irish Folk Gloom In Cinder Well’s Latest

Cinder Well is the work of Amelia Baker, an American singer and songwriter based in the west of Ireland. Her music has a gothic folk quality that’s been termed “doom folk,” and while her new album, made in California, has more sea and sky to it, there are still wonderfully haunted songs like this one, “Two Heads, Grey Mare.” Baker’s muted-horn vocals might recall a depressed Joanna Newsom, and she shares Newsom’s knack for imagistic storytelling. The string arrangement, by Cormac MacDiarmada of the Irish drone-folk band Lankum, enhances the song’s mournful beauty. 

Cinder Well’s new album will be called Cadence, and comes out on April 21. 

Black Belt Eagle Scout Sets An Indigenous Story To Song

Katherine Paul is an Indigenous singer and guitarist who records as Black Belt Eagle Scout. Part of the Swinomish people of the Pacific Northwest, she makes music that often marries walls of electric guitar with her own softly sung vocals, which can sound alternately fragile and comforting. Her new album is called The Land, The Water, The Sky, and the songs deliver on the album title’s promise: these are songs that celebrate a deep connection to the earth, and especially to the water so central to the lives and cultures of the Native Americans of that region. “Sedna,” for example, recounts the tale – a creation myth, actually – of a girl who is caught in a storm at sea with her father. When he throws her overboard to keep his canoe from capsizing, she grabs the side with her hands – only for her father to chop her fingers off. The fingers become the seals, walruses, and whales, and Sedna becomes the goddess of the sea. But Black Belt Eagle Scout recasts this dark myth as a song about the power of love and redemption, and transition. And, perhaps, the euphoric power of electric guitars. 

Grandbrothers’ Reflected Sounds From Cologne Cathedral

The German-Swiss duo known as Grandbrothers mixes classical Minimalist piano with live EDM-style production.  Last year, they were invited to perform in Cologne Cathedral, and ended up recording their next album there. Called Late Reflections, it features Erol Sarp playing his lyrical, rhythmic patterns on the piano, while Lukas Vogel processes and manipulates those sounds in real time to create the effect of drums, synthesizers, and anything else you think you hear.  But the cathedral is not a silent bystander. The early reflections of the sound come bouncing off the nearby walls as an echo effect, but a moment (or two) later, you get the late reflections (which is where the album title comes from), which have traveled farther and become cloudier, adding a kind of subtle halo to the sound. Although the full album won’t be out until April 14, you can get a sense of the sound the band created, in collaboration with this 700-year old cathedral, in this single, called “Infinite.” The video offers some stunning views of the cathedral as well. 

Django Django Go Off Planet In Search Of New Sounds

The British art-rock band Django Django has just released Off Planet, Part 1, from a collection of 20 new songs that they’ll be issuing over the next four months. While still invoking the psychedelia of old, these new songs are heavily impacted by the more recent sounds of house and techno, hip hop and grime. The hypnotic space hymn “Lunar Vibrations” (with guest singer Isabelle Woodhouse) is a standout track, but after much hemming and hawing I’m going here with “Hands High,” done with the British rapper Refound. Singer/guitarist Vincent Neff sings the chorus, and that part of the song sounds like something Django Django fans might have expected. But the rest of the song is new sonic terrain, and the collaborative nature of this Off Planet project is also an example of this successful band tearing up the formula and trying something different.