Weekly Music Roundup: Khruangbin with Leon Bridges and Marieme
Week of Dec. 9: This week, a death and a posthumous album in the rap world; big bright sounds from Marieme, and dark brooding ones from Bambara.
XXXTentacion’s Final Album Comes Out; His Mom Mourns Death of Juice WRLD
The big music news over the weekend was the death of rapper and singer Juice WRLD at the age of 21. Like Lil Peep, who died in 2017 at 21, and XXXTentacion, who was murdered last year at 20, Juice WRLD gained initial acclaim on SoundCloud, and like them, he was at least as much a singer as a rapper. All three wrote melancholy songs that owed a debt to emo rock and to earlier rock bands like Nirvana, and a good reminder of that came on Friday in the form of XXXTentacion’s fourth and final album, Bad Vibes Forever. The new album actually debuted on Thursday at an exhibition in Miami about X’s (as he was known) life that stretched the boundaries of good taste – in addition to handwritten notes and photos, it included the car that he was apparently shot in. On Sunday, XXXTentacion’s mother then tweeted her response to the news of Juice WRLD’s death by writing “I’m crushed” with a broken-heart emoji.
As for X’s new album, as often happens with posthumous releases, we get a mix of tracks, like the titular “Bad Vibes Forever,” that are fully fleshed-out songs, with a starry roster of guests, along with some that feel more like sketches. “Ugly” is one of the latter, but I find something quietly compelling about it, as X sings softly and sadly over a short guitar sample from the one-woman art-rock band Grouper.
Marieme’s New Single Hits The Small Screen With A Big Sound
Born in Senegal but raised here in the States, the singer/songwriter Marieme appeared in one of these roundups earlier this year when she teamed up with a pair of Senegalese producers. At the time I mentioned that she had an LP coming out next year, which is still the case, but she hasn’t been sitting around waiting for it to be released. This song called “Rogue” is one of several that she has placed in the new Apple+ television series Truth Be Told, and both song and TV series came out on Friday. The production is big, recalling perhaps the orchestral pop of the 60s, or perhaps Adele’s savvy recreation of that sound. The drums have an important role, especially at the start of the song, and the horns sound terrific, but it’s Marieme’s voice that takes center stage and holds it.
She’ll be releasing an acoustic EP in January, and then that long-promised debut LP sometime later in the year.
An Unexpected Collaboration: Leon Bridges and Khruangbin
Despite their Thai name, the instrumental trio known as Khruangbin (Thai for “airplane”) is actually from Texas, just like the popular young soul/R&B singer Leon Bridges. The trio plays a kind of global funk/pop, liberally spiced with bits of world music, but when they found themselves writing a song that seemed like it could use vocals, they sent it to Bridges, and thus was born a collaboration no one saw coming. Texas Sun is an EP coming out on February 7, but the four musicians have just released the title track. With its gently sighing pedal steel, easy ridin’ beat, and Bridges’ own nostalgic, retro-Golden Age vocals, the song “Texas Sun” is an effortless mix of soul, country, and ambient music.
Bambara Release A Gothic New Song
Like Khruangbin, New York-based Bambara has an exotic name (in this case, West African in origin), but they traffic in familiar Western sounds – lead singer Reid Bateh’s brooding baritone, guitars that have a country-noir edge, starlit synthesizers, ominous drums. Their new single, “Sing Me To The Street,” is a musical dark night of the soul, reminiscent perhaps of some of Mark Lanegan’s work, or Nick Cave’s. It’s a song that includes infanticide, a stolen cat, and the inevitability of death. Ghostly backing vocals offset the gloom – or at least, they try.
Bambara’s new album, Stray, comes out on February 14. They play the Music Hall of Williamsburg on March 21.
Flying Lotus and Denzel Curry Release Striking Video For “Black Balloons Reprise”
The producer Flying Lotus was born Steven Ellison, though most people just call him FlyLo. He is the grandson of songwriter Marilyn McLeod, who wrote the Diana Ross hit “Love Hangover,” and his great aunt was the great jazz harpist and pianist Alice Coltrane, John Coltrane’s widow. Over the course of the past 12 years, he’s proven to be a reliably inventive producer, and a savvy collaborator. Now, he and rapper Denzel Curry have released a new video for their song “Black Balloons Reprise,” which appears on FlyLo’s latest album Flamagra. The song completed a trilogy that Curry had started, with smart, heartfelt lyrics that deal with depression and a world of cynicism and greed. The video, by Jack Begert, features some striking, occasionally surreal, imagery, shot in beautiful black & white. And at the very end, Flying Lotus reveals a t-shirt bearing the name and likeness of the late Mac Miller, whose own wrestling with demons colored his songs and resulted in a dark end.
